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PARIS  A failed car bombing in the heart of Paris was hatched by a group of French women, including one once engaged to men who had already killed in the name of the Islamic State group, France's top anti-terrorism prosecutor said Friday.

The hunt to find the women, who authorities said were guided from Syria, had been "a race against time" before they could strike again, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, overseeing the fight against militant extremists who have killed more than 200 people in France in the past 10 months.

The Thursday night arrests linked three attacks  the failed car bomb near Notre Dame Cathedral, the killing of two police near Paris in June, and the stabbing death of a French priest during Mass in July  and marked a new phase in the Islamic State group's efforts to sow fear in Europe.

"There's a group that has been annihilated, but there are others," said President Francois Hollande. "Information we were able to get from our intelligence services allowed us to act before it was too late."

The raid left one of the women shot in the leg and two police officers stabbed, authorities said.

"In the last few days and hours, a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly Daesh ideology," said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group.

The group was "guided by individuals in Syria," which showed that IS "means to turn women into fighters," Molins said.

Police raced to find the suspects after the abandoned car was discovered before dawn Sunday. The Peugeot 607  its hazard lights flashing  contained gas canisters, a blanket with traces of fuel, and a burned-out cigarette. No detonators were found.

Among three women arrested together Thursday was Ines Madani, a 19-year-old whose father owned the Peugeot, Molina said. Her written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State was found by police, he added.

Also arrested in the raid was a 39-year-old woman, identified as Amel S., and her oldest daughter was detained in the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois, authorities said. Another woman, arrested earlier in the week, also remained in custody.

One fiance, Larossi Abballa, killed two police officials in Magnanville in June and filmed the aftermath on Facebook Live before dying in a police raid, he said.

The other was Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of the Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, during morning Mass in July in the northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, he added. Kermiche and another attacker were shot to death by police.

Molins didn't say when she was engaged to either man.

He said Sarah H., who was shot in the leg during the raid, had stabbed a police officer through the open window of a car, while Ines stabbed another officer as she tried to escape.

Also arrested in the raid was a 39-year-old woman, identified as Amel S., and her oldest daughter was detained in the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois, authorities said.

In video shot by a neighbor, a veiled woman whose face was uncovered is seen being carried away by police as she cried out in Arabic: "God is great!"

Madani's father flagged his daughter to police Sunday, 14 hours after his car was discovered. Since then, authorities have worked frantically to untangle the relationships among the group and thwart what they increasingly feared was another plot.

Ines Madani was one of five sisters and had already tried to leave for Syria before, Molins said.

More than a third of the nearly 700 French citizens who have reached Iraq and Syria are women, according to government figures. Officials have said for months that adolescent girls and young women are increasingly being recruited by IS in France.

Women in the Islamic State have not traditionally taken part in attacks, said Matthieu Suc, author of "Wives of Jihadis."

They are there "to ensure the longevity of the caliphate" by having children and providing moral support, Suc told France Info radio.

But he added that "there are often young girls, who are just as radicalized as the young men, and they also want the status of martyr, and they want to act."

Security around Paris was visibly higher Friday amid the investigation.

A bomb squad with dogs and a scanner was deployed when a gas canister with a timer but no detonator was found outside a police station Friday morning in the suburb town of La Plaine Saint Denis, just north of Paris, and one kilometer (a half-mile) from the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, a local police official said.

The possibility of car bombs increasingly worries French security officials. "We risk facing a new kind of attack: A terrorist campaign characterized by explosive devices in places where there are crowds," Hollande told lawmakers in May.

In a sign of fraying nerves, the son of a gas delivery driver was detained briefly because he had canisters in his car. Elsewhere in Paris, police used explosives to disable an illegally parked motorcycle.

Explosive gas canisters filled with nails were the weapon used in bomb attacks by Algerian extremists on Paris in the 1990s.
Under proposed state regulations, most grape growers in the Napa Valley and on its surrounding mountains would have a role helping the Chinook salmon and steelhead trout make a Napa River comeback.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board is writing the latest chapter in a saga that has gone on for years. It is continuing a quest to reduce human-created watershed sediment runoff that it says harms habitat for fish and other aquatic life.

I think this is something the folks in the watershed can do, said Mike Napolitano, an environmental scientist with the Regional Water Quality Control Board. They can make a difference for generations to come.

Meanwhile, local wine and grapegrower groups are keeping a close eye on the effort.

Were trying to help shape a regulation that achieves what the Regional Board is looking for without being unduly burdensome to landowners, said Michelle Novi of Napa Valley Vintners. Its a balancing act.

Napa Valley Grapegrowers has a long-standing commitment to restore and improve the health of the watershed, said Molly Moran of the group. But it has concerns with the Water Boards proposal.

We just want to work with the Water Board to develop something that is realistic and effective, she said.

State reports portray watersheds for the Napa River and Sonoma Creek that have been reshaped by humans since pioneer days. Dirt road, vineyards and other developments in Napa Valley and its adjacent mountains have led to more erosion.

But sediments running into creeks and into the Napa River threaten spawning and rearing habitat for endangered steelhead trout and locally rare Chinook salmon, the reports said. Estimated historic steelhead runs of up to 8,000 fish have shrunk to a few hundred.

The Water Board wants to reduce human-caused sediment washing from local farms and dirt roads into waterways by 50 percent. In wine country, that means looking at vineyards.

Draft regulations call for owners of vineyards five acres and larger in the Napa River and Sonoma Creek watersheds to be part of the sediment-reducing effort. Not only would the vineyards themselves be affected, but also any contiguous non-vineyard properties with the same owner.

That means about 109,000 acres  170 square miles  could be subject to the proposed regulations in Napa and Sonoma counties, the Water Board estimates. This includes 59,000 acres planted in grapes.

Property owners would have to address runoff from vineyards and unpaved roads that can carry sediment, nutrients and pesticides into waterways. They would develop a farm water quality protection plan, have the plan certified, implement the plan over time and report progress.

A Water Board report lists numerous best management practices that can be undertaken. They range from maintaining winter cover crops to reshaping the surface of dirt roads to adding detention basins.

Sediment is a significant stressor not just for steelhead but for a number of aquatic species, Napolitano said. The goal is to try to get back to something closer to the natural patterns and rate of sediment supply.

Novi said that vineyard owners have over the years already made efforts to improve waterway habitat. She pointed to the Napa River restoration project in the Rutherford and Oak Knoll areas that has seen owners give up vineyard land to create a wider, more natural Napa River.

The voluntary Fish Friendly Farming (Napa Green) program involves workshops and development of farm conservation plans. About 40,000 acres with almost 20,000 acres of vineyards are certified under the program.

Property owners who have already implemented such a plan may already be achieving the standards for a permit. They would need only to have their plan certified and continue working on it, a Water Board report said.

On a positive note, weve gotten more than a third of the total land area where people have developed farm plans over the last 10 years, Napolitano said. We still have as much as two-thirds who have not taken the first step. Weve got to get this done.

But Napa Valley Grapegrowers has concern over self-monitoring rules, timelines and other features of the proposed regulations.

As it currently stands, there are numerous elements of the proposed draft permit that require more discussion, Moran said. For now, its not in its final form.

Chris Malan of the Living Rivers Council also has concerns. The long-time local environmentalist said the farm plans would not be made public and the Water Board would audit only a small percentage of them.

Since most of the vineyard projects to control sediment runoff wont be visible from a public road, the public wont know if these projects are working or failing, Malan said.

Nor is she satisfied with the way the projects will be monitored. She suggested having farmers buy turbidity monitors and place them where waterways enter and leave their properties so they can show that their best management practices are working.

A draft Water Board report on the proposed regulations includes a section on economic considerations. It noted that some critics have speculated that costs may be so high that growers will sell their land or will be forced out of business, leading to the development of farmland.

But the Water Board concluded that costs will be reasonable. Many farmers are already implementing the best management practices in their vineyards. Administrative costs for such things as development of a farm plan and reporting fees would average less than $300 per acre of planted grapes annually.

A bigger expense could be controlling runoff from hillside dirt roads at a cost of about $23,000 per mile, the report said. But costs could be spread over a proposed 10-year compliance period for roads and in the long run would result in roads that are much cheaper to operate and maintain, it said.

An environmental report on the proposed regulations looked at what would happen if nothing is done. Sediment problems in the Napa River and Sonoma Creek watersheds would likely continue and degraded habitat for steelhead and salmon would persist, it said.

Napolitano didnt claim that working on the sediment issues alone will lead to a steelhead and salmon renaissance. Thats not a magic bullet, he said, but rather an essential ingredient that is under the Water Boards purview.

On another front, last year National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries released a draft report listing 170 possible steps to help steelhead thrive in the Napa River watershed.

One idea is to release water from Lake Hennessey  the key reservoir for the city of Napaat key times for fish. Another is to remove hindrances to fish going up creeks, such as small dams.

How all of the various proposals and ideas will crystallize is still in play.

The real positive thing about Napa is you have a population that is very passionate and connected to their watershed and natural resources, Napolitano said. They have demonstrated time and time again both the will and ability to make a difference.
The wine industry being the juggernaut that it is today, its hard to appreciate that the Napa Valley  the city of Napa, specifically  was once indirectly famous for another berry.

This wasnt an import from the vineyards of Europe. It was created here in Coombsville. When it received its first splash of publicity, it was touted as the sensation berry of the twentieth century.

In 1959, Californias governor, Edmund Pat Brown, declared a weeks celebration in its honor. In the southland, Los Angeles chose a young woman to represent this berry at festivals.

Were talking boysenberry!

No one thinks much about boysenberries these days unless youre the people at Knotts Berry Farm, which introduced the berry to the world in 1934 and made it famous.

For a brief time, America experienced boysenberry mania. The Los Angeles Times declared it the king of the bush.

These days, most people have never tasted a fresh boysen. It lacks the toughness to survive industrial farming and shipping and thus has disappeared from market shelves. Today youll find it in pies, ice creams and, of course, Knotts boysenberry jam.

The boysenberry is plumper and juicier than blackberries with a complex flavor that combined sweet and tart.

Its creator was Rudoph Boysen, a veteran of World War I who moved to Napa in the early 1920s to run an 18-acre chicken ranch and prune orchard on Third Avenue in Coombsville.

Like many men of his era, Boysen dabbled with hybridization of berries, mixing pollen from blackberries, dewberries, loganberries and raspberries in multitudinous ways to see what might result.

After more than 100 less-than-spectacular results, Boysen reported coming up with something unexpectedly tasty in 1923.

His new, improved berry did not win immediate acclaim. There was no acknowledgement in the pages of the Napa Register.

But for some unlikely developments, Napa is where the boysenberry might have been born and died anonymously, said Jeanette Boysen Fitzgerald, who came to Napa last month to research her grandfathers legacy to berry lovers.

A year or so after propagating his new berry, Boysen moved his wife and young son to Anaheim, taking with him a load of vines in coffee cans, Fitzgerald said.

He convinced a Southern California nursery to sell root cuttings, but there wasnt much of a market, she said. To support his family, her grandfather took a job with the Anaheim parks department, where he worked for the rest of his life as a much-beloved superintendent, she said.

Meanwhile, in 1932, hearing word of something special in the berry kingdom, a federal agriculture official from back East and a local berry grower, Walter Knott, visited Boysen who showed off some struggling vines from Napa.

The rest is history. By the mid-1930s, Knott had geared up production and marketing, then turned the boysenberry into a cultural sensation.

The Knotts Berry Farm website acknowledges Rudolph Boysens role in a backhanded way. When Boysen was in charge of fate of the berry, they kept dying on the vine, the site says.

But when Walter Knott took charge, he became the first successful person to produce the boysenberry fruit. All boysenberries in the world can trace their roots back to Knotts Berry Farm! How cool is that! says Knotts Berry Blog.

In fact, all boysenberries in the world can trace their roots back to Napa, said Fitzgerald, who was on a heritage tour to dig up all the information about her forebear that she could find.

In her swing through Napa, Fitzgerand and her husband, Tom, visited County Assessor John Tuteur to look at maps of where her grandfather did his botanical experimentation on Third Avenue

She met for lunch at the home of Bill and Julie Griggs who own an acre-and-a-third of the 18 acres where Boysen farmed back in the 1920s. The chicken coops and prune drying yard are long gone and so is Boysens farmhouse.

What Boysen would find familiar today is the creek in the Griggs backyard where a jungle of blackberries  the descendants of blackberries used by Boysen in his cross-pollinating experiments  continue to thrive.

These blackberries are so vigorous and aggressive that she and her husband have to fight to keep them from taking over their backyard, Julie Griggs said.

She wondered if perhaps a boysenberry vine or two had survived until today, hidden in the thicket.

Indeed, her grandfather did leave behind a few vines when he departed for Anaheim some 90 years ago, Fitzgerald said. But in 1955, her Uncle Leland came to Napa, found the left-behind stragglers, and dug them out.

Today, theyre growing at a relatives place in Merced, she said. Theyre direct descendants of her grandfathers backyard ag experiment.

After lunch with the Griggses, and photos of everyone posed in front of the wild blackberries, Fitzgerald headed over to Sebastopol to visit Kokopelli Farms, one of the rare commercial growers of boysenberries in the area.

I was overcome with emotion just seeing all those thriving boysenberry vines, she later reported.

Today, most of the worlds boysenberries are grown in New Zealand. In the U.S., Oregon grows some. Theyve practically disappeared as a commercial crop in California.

Fitzgerald said her grandfather died in 1950 at age 55, his life shortened by the injuries he received in 1928 when he fell 25 feet down a fire pole hole at a fire station.

To the citizens of Anaheim, he was best known for park development and overseeing community celebrations, she said. His fame as the creator of the berry that bears his name was secondary.

Boysen once tried to patent his discovery, Fitzgerald said, but his application was disqualified on a technicality. Knotts Berry Farm won the fame and the money. Boysen never made a dime.

Fitzgerald and her husband are now back in Las Vegas where they are hoping to raise more vines from cuttings taken from the Merced patch. If they succeed, theyre planning to come back to Napa and plant some on the Griggs property.

The boysenberry will have come home.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay

Guantanamo detainees health deteriorating

Activists and Uruguayan officials say the health of a former Guantanamo detainee resettled in the South American country is deteriorating as he continues a hunger strike at his home.

Syrian native Abu Wael Dhiab is demanding to leave Uruguay, which took him in with five other former Guantanamo prisoners in 2014.

Alejandra De Bittencourt is a spokeswoman for a support group holding a vigil outside Dhiabs Montevideo apartment. She spoke about his case Friday.

Dhiabs government liaison Christian Mirza characterized his health as delicate. A doctor visited Dhiab Friday but did not comment on his situation.

JAKARTA, Indonesia

Duterte: Indonesia can chase pirates into Philippines

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has given Indonesian forces the right to pursue pirates into Philippine waters, saying piracy is one of the main problems between the two countries.

Duterte, who is visiting Jakarta, discussed piracy and other security issues on Friday with Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

He said he was sorry that even shipments of coal from Indonesia to the Philippines are being affected by piracy.

Nine Indonesians are among 16 foreign hostages currently being held by the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, where Muslim separatist rebellions have raged for decades.

MADRID

Train derails in Spain, killing 4

and injuring 47

A passenger train derailed Friday in Spains northwestern Galicia region, killing four people and injuring 47 others who were taken to hospitals, authorities said.

The Galician regional government said the accident occurred at 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) in Porrino, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northwest of Madrid. It said emergency services dispatched doctors on helicopters to the scene.

The train was traveling from Vigo to Porto, in neighboring Portugal. It belonged to Portuguese rail company Comboios de Portugal.

Adif railway infrastructure company said it has opened an investigation. The derailment occurred on a straight stretch close to Porrino station.

Spanish media said the train was carrying around 60 passengers.

The train had three cars. The front one came completely off the track and hit a post next to the line, leaving it leaning to one side. The back two cars were partly off the tracks.

NEW DELHI

21 killed as bus plunges off bridge in India

A bus crashed off a bridge in eastern India on Friday, killing at least 21 people and injuring another 30.

Police officer Rajendra Das said the driver lost control of the vehicle while talking on his mobile phone.

The bus plunged nearly 19 meters (50 feet) into a ditch in Angul district in Orissa state, Das said. The area is 140 kilometers (about 90 miles) northwest of Bhubaneshwar, the state capital.

Driver fatigue, negligence, poor quality roads and vehicle maintenance are the usual causes of such accidents in India.

Police figures show India has the worlds highest road death toll, with more than 110,000 people dying each year in accidents.
This community is especially favored in the November election, because two very qualified women have come forward to be elected as Napa Valley College trustees. I am honored to have met Jennifer Baker and Debbie Alter-Starr, both of whom are highly educated and qualified professional women.

Our college, once the bright star of advanced learning in our community, has struggled over the past decade from, among other issues, negative publicity about massive cost overruns with the 2002 school bond and the loss of two school bond elections in a row in 2008 and 2014 -- something almost unheard of in California.

My hope is that this election will be the seed of a renaissance for Napa Valley College, returning it to its former position of educational excellence and respect in this community. I believe that Jennifer Baker and Debbie Alter-Starr have the right stuff to guide and advise the college administration in its work with the students, teachers and staff in this era of shared governance.

I have talked with Jennifer Baker and Debbie Alter-Starr, and I am impressed. They are energetic, involved professionals in their own right and highly qualified to guide our college in the future.

Leon Brauning

Napa
Nine students were injured when a Solano Community College staff member, who appears to have suffered a medical emergency, drove his vehicle into a portable classroom on the Fairfield campus where students were taking a math test Friday morning, a Solano County sheriff's deputy said.

Eight students suffered minor injuries and one student suffered moderate injuries when she was trapped in her desk seat after the crash around 9:15 a.m., Deputy Christine Castillo said.

The male staff member in his late 40s suffered moderate injuries and was taken to a hospital. Drugs or alcohol are not believed to be factors in the crash, Castillo said.

Many students had completed the test but 10-15 students remained when a black Acura SUV crashed into portable classroom 1101, Castillo said. A sheriff's deputy stationed on the campus was the first to respond.

"We're extremely thankful there were not more serious injuries," Castillo said.
President discusses latest foreign political developments around Artsakh

Azerbaijan officials considering opening embassy in Israel

Armenia PM, EU Special Representative for South Caucasus discuss regional security and peace

Nikol Pashinyan, Garo Paylan exchange views on Armenia-Turkey normalization process

Quake hits Armenia-Turkey border zone

Armenia ruling party adopting new vision regarding Karabakh conflict settlement

Russia MOD: Ukraine carried out terrorist attack on Black Sea Fleet ships, civilian ships in Sevastopol

Premier: CSTO should plan force operation, restore Armenias territorial integrity

Armenia PM: All countries consider Karabakh to be part of Azerbaijan

Armenias Pashinyan: CSTO does not exist

Kremlin responds to question on extending mandate of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh

Armenia premier: We need to know, ultimately, what Russian peacekeepers are doing in Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenia PM: Im ready to sign document, accept that Russian peacekeepers term in Karabakh be extended 10-20 years

Armenias Pashinyan: We are ready to delegate border guard service operation to Russian border guards

Finland, Sweden promise to join NATO together

European Parliament calls on Armenia to consider diversifying its security partnerships

Visiting Armenia MPs brief Canada lawmaker on recent Azerbaijan military aggression

Armenia PM at ruling party congress: We declared repairing states foundation our primary task

Karabakh President: Russia leaders statement inspires certain hopes

Armenia ruling party congress kicks off

Man breaks into US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home, demands to speak with her, beats husband with hammer

EU-Armenia Joint Committee on Research and Innovation first meeting to be held in November

Provincial governor of Armenias Gegharkunik: EU monitoring mission already started

US accuses Russia of disinformation regarding Washington intentions towards Armenia, Azerbaijan

Mexico fully legalizes gay marriage

Newspaper: Azerbaijan not inclined to sign anything with Armenia in Russias Sochi

Armenia ruling party convening closed convention

Italian prime minister demands that she be addressed as prime minister in masculine form

Pentagon to send Ukraine new aid package worth $275 million

Europe will ban sale of one type of car

European Commission head announces new aid and investments for Serbia

Biden calls Putin's rhetoric on nuclear weapons 'dangerous'

Lukashenko on Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: What are you fighting for in these mountains, where not even goats walk?

Swedish authorities offer to create united northern army

Lukashenko: Conflict issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan must be resolved now - with Ilham Aliyev

Lukashenko about situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border: Where are we racing horses, where are we rushing to?

Pashinyan: Armenia-Diaspora relations undergo profound substantive changes

Lukashenko to Pashinyan: Sit down with Aliyev and make a decision, if you don't make it today, it will be worse

Bulgarian interim government urges to speed up transition to euro zone

President of Karabakh: It is necessary to unite all national potential and efforts

IMF: China's sharp and uncharacteristic economic slowdown will stall growth in Asia by the end of 2023

Iran: Riots in country were planned by the intelligence services of the USA, England, Israel and the KSA

Steinmeier: Ukraine war caused 'epochal break' in Germany's relations with Russia

Gas prices in Europe remain high in coming years

Ararat Mirzoyan and Toivo Klaar stress importance of hosting EU civilian mission in Armenia

Armenia's ambassador-at-large: Daily false propaganda can't cover up Azerbaijani war crimes

Taiwan MFA outraged by Putin's speech on his status and Pelosi's visit

Armenia gives no response to peace treaty proposals, Bayramov says

Netanyahu expects return to power after 5th Israeli election in 4 years

Armenian gravestone found in Trabzon, Turkey neighborhood

Pashinyan: CSTO Secretary General's report mainly reflects existing realities

Azerbaijan talks possible deliveries of its gas to international Turkish hub

CSTO leaders to meet in late November: Situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border will be discussed

Dollar, euro continue falling in Armenia

Pelosi's house attacked, her husband injured

Russias Putin to have private talks with Armenias Pashinyan, Azerbaijans Aliyev

Mher Grigoryan: CIS needs a new scientific and technical agreement

Pentagon strategy doesn't rule out use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear threats

French National Assembly plans to pass resolution proposing certain sanctions against Azerbaijan

Mher Grigoryan: There are no other corridors in the trilateral statement other than Lachin's

Konstantin Zatulin: Russia should have made maximum efforts so that there would be no war in Karabakh

The Hill: The American people deserve to know how the war in Ukraine will end

Sochi to host trilateral talks of Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders on October 31

Poland receives first Turkish drones

Hungarian government may extend price limits on fuel and some basic foodstuffs

Armenias Simonyan attends meeting of heads of EEU countries parliaments

Polish general appointed as head of EU mission to train Ukrainian troops

Russia MP: Karabakh status decision is in fact its Armenians safety guarantee

Zatulin: West seeks to push Russia out of negotiation process at any cost

Legislature head proposes to organize, under CIS auspices, return of Armenians detained in Azerbaijan

Iran prevents bomb explosion in Shiraz crowded street

Iraqi parliament expresses vote of confidence in new cabinet

France lawmakers visit Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan

Putin: Moscow is doing everything possible to normalize relations between Yerevan and Baku

Annual shopping festival kicks off in Dubai on December 15

Lazarevsky Club: Minute of silence held in memory of fallen Russian and Armenian soldiers

Bayramov and US Assistant Secretary of State discuss Yerevan-Baku relations

Expansion of cooperation with Interpol is important, Armenia PM says

Armenia defense minister briefs Austria envoy on situation due to recent Azerbaijan military aggression (PHOTOS)

Australia can't rule out energy price caps

Armenia parliament speaker: Use, threat of force undermine processes aimed at establishing peace

Garo Paylan is in Yerevan

Barack Obama tries to help Democrats win midterm elections

Azerbaijan president, Russia first deputy PM discuss North-South transport corridor project

PM Pashinyan receives France-Armenia friendship group delegation from French parliament

Taiwan urges China to start talking

Armen Grigoryan and Toivo Klaar discuss Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process

Matviyenko: Russia will continue mediation for signing Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty

Politico: Scholz and Macron threaten U.S. trade retaliation

CIS premiers sign several agreements at Kazakhstan meeting

Konstantin Zatulin: Nagorno-Karabakh peoples right to self-determination must be respected

Armenia legislature head: Policy of threats, coercion is unacceptable to us

U.S. must strengthen its defense against growing threats from both China, Russia

Karabakh ex-President: Necessary to rule out mistakes, miscalculations which will have irreversible consequences

EU reaches agreement to ban new cars with internal combustion engine by 2035

Benny Gantz: Future of Israel and Turkey is promising

EU Special Representative for South Caucasus arrives in Armenia

Lazarevsky Club meeting underway in Yerevan, Moscow

Yellen sees no sign of recession in U.S. economy in near future

Cannes palm trees promenade named after Charles Aznavour
Russia and the U.S. agreed on the plan for settlement of the conflict in Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated on Saturday following the results of negotiations with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering, and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria.

First, we agreed on the steps through which the regime will come to a place where it will not fly combat missions anywhere where the opposition is present in an area that we have agreed on with very real specificity. Once this arrangement takes full effect, the regime would no longer be able to do in the future what it has been able to do so much in the past, which is go after Nusrah allegedly but hit moderate opposition and mask attacks against the legitimate opposition by claiming that its going after Nusrah.

Second, the United States and Russia have agreed on steps which we will take, providing there is a sustained period of reduced violence. And after that sustained period of violence, we have agreed that we will then work together  providing both access and reduced violence have been provided for the period of time  we would then work together to develop military strikes against Nusrah.

Now, third, in Moscow we also said before we could move forward with the steps that we have identified, we would need seven days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities in order to convince the people of Syria and the opposition that the actions of the regime and its supporters will be consistent with the words that we put on paper. And Ive talked to you previously about the words on paper not meaning anything unless the actions follow them up. Now, of course, the opposition will also be expected to adhere to the cessation of hostilities, and that is why today the United States and Russia together are calling on all sides to recommit to a nationwide cessation of hostilities and to honor its previous terms. This will be effective at sundown on September 12th.

Now, finally, beginning September 12th, we will then commence preparatory work for a Joint Implementation Center. And these preparations will include initial discussions and some sharing of information necessary for the delineation of territories controlled by Nusrah and opposition groups in the area of active hostilities. And then the more comprehensive process of delineation will be conducted by experts once the joint implementation group  the center, or so-called JIC  once the center is established. Now, once it is established after seven continuous days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities and increased humanitarian access, then U.S. and Russian experts will work together to defeat Daesh and Nusrah, Kerry said.
The agreement reached on the Armenian Electoral Code as a result of the 4+4+4 format discussions can be implemented later.

The head of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Armen Rustamyan, told the aforementioned to Armenian News  NEWS.am.

The abovementioned agreement, which provides for the introduction of the electronic identification system of voters, should have been implemented since September 1. However, the government representatives stated that the Polish organization refused to introduce this system, since the stipulated time proved to be insufficient.

Following this, the authorities and opposition began discussing the post-election publication of the voter lists, despite the fact that the authorities had been categorically against it before.

Armen Rustamyan is sure that the voter lists will be published. The main demands of the opposition members will be satisfied. The official publication of the voter lists is a serous opportunity to suppress falsifications during the elections. I think we havent lost anything because of the failure to introduce the electronic system.

Of course, there is a problem connected with the preliminary registration institution. The discussions related to that can continue, this not being connected with the process of providing identification cards. Now the issue of retaining the preliminary registration institution is being discussed. That is, people pass, leave their data and queue to get their ID cards. Therefore, there will be an opportunity for the preliminary registration. This is one of the key issues of the negotiations.

According to the leader of the ARF-D faction, although the process of introducing the control mechanisms will not take place at this stage, everything can be implemented in the future. The most important thing is the will to the struggle against electoral fraud, Rustamyan concluded.
Emory students, faculty and staff filled Asbury Circle on Friday for a block party welcoming President Claire E. Sterk into her new role.

As the lilting strains of a live jazz combo and the heady aroma of wood-fired pizza filled the air, well-wishers queued up for a chance to greet Sterk and her husband, Kirk Elifson, a research professor in behavioral sciences and health education at the Rollins School of Public Health.

For many, the moment also created an impromptu photo opportunity, as a steady stream of friends old and new snapped selfies with President Sterk throughout the event.

This is such a wonderful event, Sterk said. Kirk and I are so pleased that so many members of the Emory community braved the heat to say hello, snap a photo, and extend such a warm welcome to us. We really appreciate the outpouring of support and friendship.

Smiling and chatting with others in line waiting to meet Sterk, Jennifer Crabb Kyles 98OX 00C couldnt hide her feelings of happy anticipation at the chance to shake the hand of Emory Universitys 20th president.

I am excited on so many levels, said Crabb Kyles, who is senior director of operations for the Emory Alumni Association. Im excited that shes a woman, Im excited because shes brilliant, and Im excited because it just feels like a new day, a new chapter for Emory and a chance to take things to the next level.

For Mansi Maini, a junior in Emory College, the chance to enjoy a cool King of Pops treat on a warm day was overshadowed by the larger meaning of the event  an opportunity to come together to celebrate the new face of leadership at Emory.

I feel like gatherings like this are one of the few times that Emory gets together as a community, Maini said. And having the chance to see Emory get its first female president is just great, especially in light of whats happening on the national political scene this year.

"Dr. Sterk is more than qualified to be our president, she added. Im really looking forward to seeing the great things she does.

A current of excitement pulsed through the crowd, as the community lined up for free pizza (330 pies were served by S & Js Woodfired Pizza), hundreds of Coca-Cola beverages and King of Pops popsicles.

The mood is festive and fun, almost like a family reunion, observed Obse Ababiya, a program coordinator at the Emory Institute of Developing Nations in Laney Graduate School.

Emory and Oxford College alumnus Warren Brook 70OX 72B and his wife, honorary Oxford alumna Kathy Brook, joined the party for the chance to commemorate what Brook predicts will be an easy transition for Sterk, an academic leader and acclaimed researcher in public health and anthropology who most recently served as Emorys provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Sterk, who was unanimously chosen by the Emory University Board of Trustees to succeed former Emory President James Wagner following an intensive national and international search, officially assumed her new role on Sept. 1.

Brook said he was especially pleased that Sterk already knows the University well  shes been a member of the Emory community since 1995, when she was appointed to the faculty of the Rollins School of Public Health  and heartened to know that shes also a close friend of Oxford College.

Surveying the generous turnout, the Rev. Bridgette Young Ross, dean of the chapel and spiritual life, observed that it was good to have an opportunity to come together as a community with joy to celebrate Claire being our new president and to formally mark a historic moment in the life of the University.

Noting the many capacities in which Sterk has served the University, Philip Wainwright, vice provost for international affairs, said the event provided a chance to embrace a sense of community, excitement and new possibilities.

I reported to her when she was the provost and know all the strengths she brings to her new role, he said. Im very excited about the potential.
At a stakeholders meeting in Benin, the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said that the Commission would not postpone the Edo State Governorship election scheduled for Saturday; even though the West African Senior School Certificate Examination is also scheduled to hold on the same day.

A total of 1,742 candidates are expected to sit Mathematics 1 and 2 papers on September 10, a development which sparked a protest by some of the affected candidates and parents on Monday.

There had also been calls for the postponement of the poll to a later date to allow the students exercise their rights to vote.

However, speaking through the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Sam Olumekun, Yakubu said INEC had given adequate notification on the date for the election prior to the date fixed for the examinations.

He explained, "It is important to draw your attention to the fact that INEC gave notice of this election on March 2, 2016. There was no registration for WASSCE candidates as of that time."

The INEC boss noted that the commission had held a robust discussion with the examination body and security agencies on the issue, where it was agreed that the examination should be moved to Ondo and Delta states, as holding it simultaneously may create security challenges.

Yakubu said, "The issue is, basically, security. So, the security agencies advised WAEC accordingly that giving room for people to move around may pose some challenges because many people will cash in on the situation.

"Permit me to remind you also that there are about 1.9 million registered voters "in Edo State, whose interest also should be taken care of. At the end of that meeting, we agreed that the exams be shifted outside Edo State to places that are nearby."

"Indeed, WAEC had even concluded arrangements to do this. It suggested Ore, Agbor and one other place. Yes, there might be some inconveniences for the students to travel outside Edo State; but, of course, it is not too much pain to bear if you have your state at heart.

"I do not think we need to suspend an election because WAEC is going to conduct GCE. It is not SSCE but GCE for those who did not do well in the past exams"."
Whoever removed the payphone from this wall at the Times Square subway station seems to have done so with a sense of humor. The space once occupied by a functional working payphone is now taken by the grungy, muddy stains of the payphones remains. Crowning that payphone palimpsest is a unique calling card: a pair of 4 MINUTES FOR $1.00 WORLDWIDE plaques, deliberately left as if in memory of the payphone that used to be.

The New York City payphone observer of today would recognize these plaques as those which appear on public telephones in subways and other indoor locations throughout the city. They are also found across the United States on thousands of payphones owned by Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS), the nations largest payphone service provider.

The number of payphone companies still in business in the U.S. is said to be about 200. Some of these are one-person operations where the business of maintaining payphones has essentially become a hobby for the proprietor. In other cases larger telecom operations subsidize their payphones with revenue from other parts of the business, making public telephones available as a public service.

PTS, which acquired scores of payphones from the likes of Verizon and AT&T, has been the leader of the payphone industry in the U.S. for several years. The companys CEO has happily conceded that PTSs business model follows a buggy-whip strategy. Yet, as hard as it might be for the general population to believe, there really is money being made in payphones. Thats because it simply does not take much usage for a payphone to be profitable. A few calls a day and youre in business. According to PTS the companys revenue in 2012 totaled $100,000,000.

The payphone that used to hang here might be gone but its memory lives on with the placement of these phantom plaques. How long they will remain in this place will be of interest to the Payphone Observer, a species of New Yorker I think is more common than might be assumed. I have noticed numerous ghostly outlines on the walls at Times Square, such as the one seen in the photo above. These shadows of payphones past are found throughout the Times Square subway station. Dozens of payphones which used to inhabit that underground transit hub have been whittled down to maybe 5 or 6.

Im happy to say that of the few remaining payphones at the Times Square station one of them happens to be a favorite of mine. I hope its dial tone hums well into the future. I might be keeping that payphone in business as its most loyal customer. It is the payphone I have used most often to capture sounds of subway buskers and musicians who perform nearby. The most recent music I got from that payphone was of Maestro Moses Josiah on the Musical Saw.
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The government has not been able to make the Competition Commission of India (CCI) very effective, Union Law Secretary, Suresh Chandra said at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi today. "The original idea of having a Competition Commission of India (CCI) as a multi-member and an effective body to regulate and deal with all unfair trade practices and the cartels, mergers and acquisitions, to some extent perhaps we have not been able to make the CCI very effective," said Chandra while addressing an ASSOCHAM international conference on 'Competition Law: Opportunities and challenges in India.' "I do not know because the quasi-judicial functions though have been but again we have the appellate tribunal which is perhaps going against the principal of minimum government and maximum governance," he said. He said there is a need to see and understand what was the initial objective of bringing this law and as to whether we have been successful. "Initially, it was thought that the Competition Commission which is a mechanism to regulate the free level playing field, being a multi-member body will have a specialized person from the legal field, international trade, economics and those who understand how business functions," said Chandra. "This multi-member body was supposed to provide a level playing field and bring out fair play at the same time prohibiting or taking actions against anti-competitive agreements and also prohibiting/preventing any dominant player to prevent any new entrepreneur to enter into, and also the combinations, regulations i.e. mergers and acquisitions," he added. Apart from that it was also envisaged that the Competition Commission will also carry out the function of competition advocacy and at the same time will also give recommendations to the Central government either on their request or suo-moto to bring whatever necessary improvements in the field of competition law. "It was also not thought of that it will also have an appellate tribunal over and above this, while we had thought at that time if there is anything that will go to the court of law," he added. He said that in the last two decades Indian economy has undergone a huge transformation with gradual loosening controls over private sector participation and foreign investments as such it is necessary to have an effective Competition Law regime which accounts for the interest of various market players including the consumer and the government. "However, a stronger competition law regime is needed not only to protect interests of the smaller market players and consumers but also to attract investments in a particular sector," said Chandra. "An efficient and responsible regulator mechanism will definitely be required for prospective investors who may be planning to enter the marketplace," he said. With new atmosphere having been created with projects like Make in India, Startup India and also opening up FDI (foreign direct investment) in various sectors, the Union Law Secretary highlighted the various steps taken by Modi Government to provide a level playing field to both domestic and foreign players, which includes - Amendment in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, enactment of the commercial courts, commercial divisions, commercial appellate divisions in the high courts, Bankruptcy and Insolvency Acts and now the upcoming effort of GST (Goods and Services Tax). (ANI)
Digital Education platform TopRankers announced raising Rs. 4.5 crore funding from Careernet Consulting and Ideation Initiative Pvt. Ltd. The company plans to utilize the capital to upgrade its services by investing in innovative technology, and also expand its geographical presence in India. TopRankers is a Bengaluru-based online test preparation portal that enables students to prepare for competitive exams through an innovative platform. It offers comprehensive study materials, and elaborate tests for practice, which are carefully divided in to various chapters and topics. These can help students who are appearing for competitive exams to work on their weak areas and practice accordingly. Founded in 2014, the dynamic venture currently has offices in Bhopal and Delhi apart from Bengaluru, and has a team of around 40 team members working across centers along with 60 freelancers. The co-founders of the company are Gaurav Goel, Malay Sarkar, Mehbub Hussain, Harish Goswami and Himanshu Joshi. "At TopRankers, our vision is to transform the Indian Competitive Exam preparation space with judicious utilization of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and with such strong financial backup, we are confident of achieving the same within a short time. Since the ICT system has already begun to transform digital education in India, we are driven to provide quality education services to students from all walks of life through our comprehensive platform," said Co-founder TopRankers, Gaurav Goel. "The competitive education segment in India is estimated to be worth USD six billion and with more exam being held online, it is likely to grow exponentially in future. As an up-and-coming venture in this space, TopRankers certainly plays a vital role in transforming the way students prepare for such exams, and also introduce new and innovative technology in this space, which can completely revolutionize the learning process. Therefore, we felt it was the right decision to invest in this promising enterprise, and hope that this company reaches its full potential, transforming the overall perception of students by introducing them to a highly productive platform that acts as their personal tutor," said CEO CareerNet, Rishi Das. Moreover, the company also offers a SaaS product named 'TopRankers Edge', a unique software solution for educational institutions that wish to bring their content and modules online. In the next few months, TopRankers team plans to engage more than 150 clients on this product. TopRankers has more than 35 recognized names as its B2B client from 10 Indian cities, and is planning to expand its business in 50 more cities in the near future. On the B2C side, the company is planning to acquire another five lakh students within 12 to 18 months. (ANI)
XL Catlin today announced the appointment of Lauren Tennant Pollock as Vice President, Emerging Markets including India. She will be based in New York. "XL Catlin's Emerging Markets team is responsible for delivering on our commitment to providing (re)insurance solutions to developing regions across the world. Conceiving and building out these solutions requires innovative thought leadership. We simply cannot default to the products and models the industry has relied upon in mature markets but rather we need to build upon existing strategies in traditional (re)insurance and apply novel methods of product distribution," said XL Catlin's Head of Emerging Markets, Brendan Plessis. As we continue to play a critical role in expanding our global reach through disaster risk financing and micro-insurance, we believe that Lauren has exactly the right experience and expertise to ensure we are out in front and driving the industry forward." "As part of her new role, Lauren will also be involved in a number of our innovation projects, working closely with Sarah Street, EVP, Strategy and Innovation Initiatives," added Brendan. Tennant Pollock recently completed her MBA at Harvard Business School. While at Harvard, she worked as an advisor to Blue Marble Micro-insurance, a consortium of leading insurers committed to designing creative solutions to enhance insurance protection in underserved regions. Prior to business school, she worked at Argo Group International, where she was responsible for emerging market operation strategy and product design, working in both their New York and Sao Paulo offices. Prior to joining Argo, Tennant Pollock worked at guy carpenter and company in treaty brokerage. In addition to her MBA she holds a B.S. in Foreign Services from Georgetown University. (ANI)
Moving to France has likely given Natalie Portman enough privacy and quality time to garner for her second baby on the way. The Oscar winner was seen wearing all white, flashing her baby bump in Venice at a promotional circulation of her directorial debut, 'A Tale of Love and Darkness,' reports E! Online. The 35-year-old actress has been quite out of the news even since she moved to Paris with her French husband Benjamin Millepied in 2014. The 'Black Swan' star, who also left the 'Thor' franchise, is not on social media which is another reason why the hungry mass does not get to peek inside what she is up to. She is recorded to have said in 2006 that she get really bored "reading about myself." "It is interesting, just generationally, that you see that people are much more comfortable, and [social media is] part of life now for this next generation of actors and just people in the world," she told, adding, "but for those of us who were living when it didn't exist, it feels like the last thing you want to do. It's so much unwanted interest in your privacy that you don't want to invite anymore." Since then, she was seen in various Hollywood flicks like 'Knight of Cups', 'Jackie', and her very own, 'A Tale of Love and Darkness'. (ANI)
Wowing his fans around the world, the 50-year-old actor recently Instagrammed a picture of himself posing candidly beside a huge I'Am'sterdam!

"I am...like the Truth. Loving me is easy, if you see it for what it is. Terribly difficult if you want it to be what it isn't," hecaptioned the picture.

Anushka too has been sharing her pictures, posing at beautiful places in Prague during the shoot.

Directed by Imtiaz Ali, 'The Ring' features King Khan in the role of a guide and Anushka Sharma plays a Gujarati girl.

The drama flick will hit screens on August 11, next year. (ANI)
Clearing misunderstanding of how certain parts of the brain function in terms of fear and anxiety disorders, a recent study offers new insights into neurological processes with the aim of overcoming existing barriers to drug development. Professor Joseph LeDoux said, "Progress has stalled in treatment development for mental disorders. Promising new treatments either have not turned out to be useful when tested with patients or exhibit potential adverse effects that limit their applicability to severe disorders. We argue that this state of affairs reflects how fear and anxiety have been conceived, and we offer a new framework to address the problem." The researchers observed it has long been assumed that advances in neuroscience would revolutionize treatment of psychiatric disorders. Noting that discoveries about how the brain detects and responds to threats has guided research aimed at improving treatments for disorders that involve alerted threat processing, especially fear and anxiety disorders, the researchers added a misunderstanding of how the brain is wired with regard to both fear and anxiety has stymied the development of effective treatments. In short, these efforts have assumed that emotions such as fear give rise to both the experience of "fear" (the feeling of being afraid of being harmed) and to behavioral and physiological symptoms that also occur. LeDoux and Pine said that, contrary to existing views, the brain circuits that underlie conscious feelings are different from those that underlie behavioral and physiological responses. While both sets of symptoms, the conscious and the behavioral/psychological, must be understood and treated, they must be addressed differently. "Failure to recognize this difference has impeded understanding of fear and anxiety and their treatment. Going forward, recognition of this distinction should provide a more productive path for research and treatment," they said. They also put forth a framework aimed at creating such a route that theorizes there is differences between processes that give rise to conscious feelings of fear or anxiety and the non-conscious processes that generate behavior and physiological responses that often occur with these feelings. This two-track nature, the authors continue, means treatment must then move to a dual approach. "Behavioral and physiological symptoms may be treatable with either medications or certain psychotherapies, such as cognitive behavior therapy, while conscious feelings may have to be addressed with psychotherapeutic treatments that are specifically designed to change these," they said. Human research is essential for understanding conscious feelings in the brain while animal research is important for understanding the brain mechanisms that underlie the non-conscious processes that control behavioral and physiological responses. "Our ability to understand the brain is only as good as our understanding of the psychological processes involved. If we have misunderstood what fear and anxiety are, it is not surprising that efforts to use research based on this misunderstanding to treat problems with fear and anxiety would have produced disappointing results," they concluded. The study has been published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. (ANI)
India emphasised on the importance of maintaining peace, security and stability, unimpeded commerce, freedom of navigation and overflight above the disputed South China Sea at the recently-concluded Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Laos. A statement issued by Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, who chaired the 14th India-ASEAN Summit, said, "India also underscored the importance for the states concerned to resolve disputes through peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)." In this regard, India urged all parties to show utmost respect for the 1982 UNCLOS, which establishes the international legal order of seas and oceans, added the statement. ASEAN and its member countries also encouraged greater maritime cooperation between ASEAN and India, including but not limited to, the enhancement of maritime connectivity, which would provide lower logistic costs and motivate increased trade in goods and services between the two parties. At the Summit, the ASEAN leaders also appreciated India's commitment to the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) and agreed to further strengthen cooperation in other areas such as food and agriculture, trade facilitation, education, clean and renewable energy, tourism, health and well-being, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) development, and poverty alleviation. They also welcomed India's "Act East Policy" and "Make in India" and appreciated its continued support for the ASEAN Community and ASEAN's efforts in building a region that is politically cohesive, economically integrated, socially responsible and truly rules based, people oriented and people-centred. The ASEAN and India leaders agreed to continue enhancing the partnership that would bring about tangible benefits to both sides as well as contribute to the promotion of peace, stability, and prosperity in the region. Recognising that terrorism remains significant threat to peace and stability in our region, the leaders present at the Summit reiterated their commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms and agreed to take concrete measures to step up cooperation and coordination among law enforcement and security agencies. "We recognise the need to counter and prevent the spread of violent extremism and radicalism that leads to acts of terrorism. In addition, ASEAN and India support the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, currently under negotiation at the United Nations," said the statement. The countries agreed to cooperate towards addressing traditional and non-traditional security challenges, including in areas of de-radicalisation, prevention of violent extremism and cybercrime. ASEAN leaders also welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to establishing an ASEAN-India Innovation Platform and to build digital connectivity through the use of Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology. (ANI)
"It is a matter of grave concern that DPRK has again acted in violation of its international obligations and in contravention of the objective of the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula that the DPRK itself has endorsed," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

New Delhi also called upon the DPRK to refrain from such actions which adversely impact peace and stability in the region and beyond.

"India remains concerned about the proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies which has adversely impacted India's national security," the statement said.

DPRK's nuclear test, after which the country claimed to have the capabilities to mount a warhead on ballistic missiles, drew world-wide condemnation.

The test comes eight months after its previous such detonation, defies both tough international sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions.

It was immediately branded an act of "fanatic recklessness" by South Korea with Pyongyang saying it carried out in the face of growing US hostility. (ANI)
Former Big Boss contestant and actress Gauhar Khan who is also the brand ambassador of Alma Lasers was present to launch the technology.

Soprano Ice Platinum is a painless advanced technology in hair reduction.

Actress Gauhar Khan graced the event and was quite enthusiastic during the launch. While interacting with the journalists, she said, "Today everyone wants to look good and young without investing a lot of time. Launching Soprano Ice is a good initiative from Alma and ISAAC and will help a lot of people from all the walks of life."

Dr Geetika Mittal Gupta, Medical Director and Dermatologist at ISAAC, said, "Our centre provides personalized attention to all our patients where they can discuss and talk about their deepest aesthetic insecurities. This technology will help our patients to solve the stubborn problems related to laser hair reduction and other skin concerns."

Mrs Jharna Dhar, General Manager, ISAAC and Vikash Pandey, Marketing Head ISAAC also attended the event where they spoke about the different aspects of aesthetic healthcare and technologies. (ANI)
Showcasing intricate designs prepared by weavers through traditional methods, a five-day long production-cum-expo was recently organized by the Manipur Male Weavers and Transgender at the Brahmapur Nahabam Community Hall in Imphal. "In Manipur, male weavers have always been there. However, since the weaving is mostly done by females and we generally have a concept that female can only do the weaving works. That is why; male weavers were never exposed nor had a platform to showcase their designs. So today, we are promoting and creating a platform for male weavers to showcase their creations," said Ningthoujam Uma, Convener of the expo. Traditional wear and yarn, pure cotton and silk saris, blouse, shawl and other western outfits were on display at the expo. The expo gave a platform to craftsmen to showcase their designs, apart from creating opportunities for business outside the state. "I feel so proud and happy to be part of this show. Initially, I was not aware such expo that we can showcase our designs. Through some of my friends who are part of the organizers, I came to know and that way I participated in this show. I got good response from the visitors and they like our designs," said Thounaojam Romi, designer. "I am happy to be part of this show. And I am sure this particular show where the male weavers of Manipur are also participating and showcasing their designs, will definitely send out a message of equality across the country," said Inao Singh, a weaver. Such events not only help in promotion and development of handloom products, but also give exposure to weavers and craftsmen. The expo envisaged to further broaden and intensify the growth of the handloom industry in the state. (ANI)
A woman has been arrested for allegedly slitting her four-month-old daughter's throat and killing her in Rajasthan's Jaipur city. The incident took place on August 26 when the woman killed her daughter and hid the body in an air conditioner cabin. "We started a detailed investigation on the same day as it is a joint family of 35 members. After going through the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report, examining the CCTV footage and interrogating many family members besides neighbours, we have arrived to the conclusion that it was the mother who killed her own child. She has confessed to the crime as well," said Anshuman Bhomia, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North). The accused Neha Goyal, who hails from an affluent family, admitted to having killed her daughter and raising an alarm around two hours later, saying the baby had disappeared. The DCP said that the motive was quite clear to them. Although the accused had deleted all her mobile history, the cops were able to recover it with the help of a cyber expert. They discovered that the woman had visited a lot of websites pertaining to conceiving a male child as she already had an eight-year old daughter. She had also tried IVF, surrogacy and IUI as well as visited priests. "Another event which might have added on to the motive could be that the baby was having fits and the mother thought that she might be mentally disabled eventually. Although just like a seasoned criminal, she kept following up with the police to play the innocent card," Bhomia told ANI. The police have recovered the knife, which was used to commit the murder. They have also taken into evidence the traces of blood on the mother's hands even though she claimed to not having touched the body. Blood traces have also been recovered from the bathroom where the murder weapon was washed. There has been no evidence of the father's involvement in the murder or the involvement of anyone else from the family yet. (ANI)
Reacting to Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) dropping charges against an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attack case "for want of evidence", Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office (MoS-PMO) Jitendra Singh on Friday said the Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs and the Home Ministry "would take a call appropriately depending upon the inputs" available to them. "But as far as India is concerned, India is capable of meeting any eventuality," he added. Talking about Kashmir unrest, Singh said there is a need to educate the Valley youth against those working with vested interests to harm the country's integrity. "Firstly, there is no compromise on violence. In a civilised society, it has no space. Secondly, as the situation will normalise, the youth should be involved in the path to development. We have to encourage the youth that under Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi's leadership, they should not be kept away from this growth so that the Kashmiri youth are also give their contribution in development. Third is anti-India activism, and there should not be any premium on that," he added. When asked about Balochistan, Singh said it is also a "very important security concern for India". "Because you cannot allow your neighbourhood to be on fire, as sooner or later it is going to impact you. We cannot build a heaven inside and leave a hell outside," he added. (ANI)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to call a meeting of the state Chief Ministers to resolve the ongoing protest in the state over the Cauvery water dispute. "Permit me to invite your immediate attention to the stark facts already in the public arena about extreme unrest in the Cauvery basin especially in Bangalore city protesting against the interim order for the daily release of 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water at the inter State border, Biligundulu, which, if continued, would completely deprive the drinking water not only to the residents of Bangalore City but also to the farmers of the Cauvery basin and water for the only crop they grow. However, the present storage in the Mettur reservoir in Tamil Nadu and the North-east rainfall received in Tamil Nadu would be more than sufficient to meet the requirement of water for the Samba rice crop just being or still to be sown by the farmers in Tamil Nadu," Siddaramaiah wrote in his letter. Pointing out the problems being caused due to the release of Cauvery water, he added that the ongoing protest will cause a severe damage to the state's economy. "At an all-party meeting held on 6th September, 2016, to elicit the views of political parties the view of the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the State was that the order of the Supreme Court of India ought not to be implemented. However, as constitutional Chief Executive of the State I have taken it upon myself to obey the orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the waters are being released as per the order which has created more unrest and disquiet in the State. The unrest if continued will not only have a serious impact on the economy of the State particularly the IT economy which brings enormous revenue and foreign exchange to the country but will also impact the livelihood of the common man adversely in the large parts of the State," he said. Normal life in several parts of Karnataka, including state capital Bengaluru, was affected due to complete shutdown today. The state witnessed massive rallies and protests against the Supreme Court order of releasing water from Karnataka's reservoirs. The apex court on Monday directed the Karnataka Government to release Cauvery water for the next 10 days to ameliorate the plight of farmers. The apex court also directed Tamil Nadu to approach the supervisory committee within three days for the release of Cauvery water as per the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal's (CWDT). (ANI)
The police have registered a complaint of rape under Section 376 of the IPC against the doctor identified as Dr Ramesh Bura lal Chauhan and a ward boy Chandrakant alias Chandu.

The victim's father registered the complaint on September 6, said Police Inspector K.K. Pandya.

"We have found evidence against the two accused Chandrakant alias Chandu and Dr Ramesh Chauhan and have arrested them," Pandya said.

"The FIR was lodged under IPC Section 376 and offence has been registered.

According to the guidelines, the investigations are on as we have medical evidence, forensic evidence as well as CCTV footage along with other evidences," he added.

"We have full belief in police proceedings as the FIR has been registered and the investigations are going on and we are supporting the investigation team," doctor at Apollo Hospital Sandeep Joshi said.

The complainant, a student, was admitted on August 22 with high fever. She was diagnosed with dengue.

Her condition worsened on Sunday (September 3) following which she was shifted to the ICU.

In her complaint, the girl has alleged that Dr Chauhan and the ward boy had sexually molested her and later raped her. (ANI)
September 13th is Eid-ul-Azha and the people of Kashmir valley need to be able to celebrate it like their compatriots in the rest of the state. But separatists have decided not to give a break in the strike. Kashmiris who have been literally under a siege since July 10th when the strike began have nothing to look forward to, even during the Eid weekend. The protest calendar of the Geelani-Mirwaiz-Malik trio has not seen breaks for weeks on end. The Hurriyat is adamant not to break the spell of the current strike despite relentless pleas from several people from politics and civil society. The leaders have pushed themselves to a wall and nobody quite knows how to break the detente. The PDP-BJP government has to re-establish the primacy of the state in the Kashmir valley before it can think of next steps to bring about normalcy. Policemen have to return to the thanas, government officers need to get back to their offices, children and teachers need to be able to go back to school, shops and business establishments need to be able to open their shutters and trade needs to restart without fear of thugs. The security forces will start using Pava chilly filled shells instead of pellet guns to control crowds if they have to. But controlling crowds is what they will do. Whether one week or the next or the one after that. If it's a war of attrition, the forces will wear down the teenagers on the streets of Kashmir. For sure. Over 5,500 soldiers have suffered injuries in the recent weeks in mob control measures. But the media focus, quite naturally, has been on civilian casualties. Every life lost must be mourned. The violence must end. The governments in Delhi and Srinagar are in no hurry to remove AFSPA or tone it down from Kashmir. The reasoning is that the police currently are in no capacity to carry out arrests or control the law and order situation in Kashmir if AFSPA is removed or diluted. So first stop violence. Only then can there be talk of reduction of security forces in Kashmir. Those who are snatching weapons from the hands of soldiers are not misguided 'boys' who are throwing stones. The state must and will differentiate between the two types of protestors/insurgents. The Mufti government has to be in a position to provide governance and that can only be done if the insurgency activity is reduced to manageable levels. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is getting no support from the Hurriyat or the opposition despite pleas from the Centre and her personally. The all-party delegation that returned from Srinagar last week appeared dejected at the cold reception it got. Nothing seems to be working in Kashmir as far as political solutions are concerned. The Hurriyat can rise to the occasion for the good of the people of Kashmir. In a Wahabi Islamic Kashmir where women are in burkhas and men totting guns, even the Hurriyat leaders will not be accepted. They should know that imposition of an alien culture would not be possible in Jammu and Kashmir. A fatigue will set in among Kashmiris about the glorification of jihad that Geelani continues to peddle. Eid would have been the perfect window for the Hurriyat to call off the strike and thereby remain relevant among the youth, both on the street and with those stuck at home. Will they relent over the weekend? (ANI)
Leader of the opposition in the Delhi assembly Vijender Gupta today filed a complaint with Delhi Police that AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan had made remarks inside the assembly of threatening to kill him. Raising the issue in the assembly, Deputy Chief minister Manish Sisodia said he had received the information that Mr Gupta had made a complaint against Chauhan with police after walking out of the house. There had been a heated exchange of words between Mr Gupta and Mr Chauhan earlier in the day when the house was discussing the issue of a sex video allegedly involving sacked Delhi minister Sandeep Kumar. Later Mr Gupta filed a complaint with the police in the matter. Mr Sisodia said the way Gupta had made the complaint should be treated as contempt and that the issue should have been raised in the House. The Speaker agreed and said "Yes it is matter of contempt". Later Speaker Ram Niwas Goel told police not to take any action in the matter as it pertained to the proceedings in the house. UNI AR PS 0055 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927212.Xml
Three members of a family today ended their lives in an apparent suicide pact under depression over loss of a son who was doing MBBS in Russia in south-west Delhi. According to the police, the victims were identified as Bhagwan Das (50), an ex-serviceman, his wife Sharda (48) and their daughter Sunita (20). Police said three of them committed suicide by consuming insecticide at their house at Khera Dabar in Jafarpur Kalan area this morning. The incident took place around 0715 hrs when three of them were rushed to Rao Tula Ram Hospital by the neighbours who found them lying unconscious. Das's son, Kuldeep had committed suicide last month when he came to India on a vacation. He was a first-year MBBS student in Russia, said police. The police have also recovered a suicide note from the spot. Police said Das has charged two men in the suicide note Alok Sinha and Nasim - cheating him of Rs 35 lakh who promised them of getting his son admitted in a private medical college in India. Das also claimed in the suicide note that Kuldeep was under depression as he was not doing well in his academics and thereby wasting his parents hard-earned money. The police have registered a case under various sections of Indian Penal Code against Alok Sinha and Naseem. UNI SM PS 0108 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927214.Xml
Former MP and RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin today walked out of Central Jail here to hero's welcome. While a large number of his supporters including RJD MLAs and former ministers greeted him on his release from jail, celebrations started at Pratappur, his native village in Siwan district with crackers being burst and sweets distributed. The celebrations began yesterday after his release order was issued by a Siwan court following grant of bail to Shahabuddin by the Patna High Court on Thursday in a murder case. "The court had jailed me, and the court has now ordered his release. My release has nothing to do with politics. Judiciary has its own procedure", Shahabuddin told media persons outside the Central Jail here. In Siwan his wife Hina Shahab said she had been waiting for his release since 2003 and finally the day has come."I have faith in God and ultimately justice has been done to him",Shahab said as she greeted visitors with sweets at her Pratappur residence. Bihar Minority Welfare Minister Abdul Ghafoor whose meeting with Shahabuddin inside Siwan jail had created a storm said" it is a matter of pleasure for all of us as he is our party leader". While his supporters are celebrating ,a sense of uneasiness could be felt in Siwan with residents who had hitherto lived in peace since Shahabuddin's incarceration in 2005 discussing 'consequences' of his release.UNI IS AKC ADG 0915 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927269.Xml
Massive night protests rocked parts of the summer capital, Srinagar, including down town after death of a driver, allegedly beaten by security forces in the uptown. Meanwhile, "Mashal" processions were also taken out in the uptown last night. People hit the streets at Alikadal and adjoining areas in the down town, raising 'pro freedom' slogans after a driver of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CA&PD) identified as Abdul Qayoum died in the S K Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) last night. Qayoum was allegedly beaten up by security forces at Hyderpora, where curfew had been imposed in the uptown yesterday morning. Thousands of people joined the funeral procession of Qayoum, raising slogans against the security force. However, after his burial people clashed with security forces, who burst teargas shells and resorted to lathicharge to disperse them. A resident of Nawa Kadal Muzafar Ahmad said bursting of teargas shells and lathicharge continued till 0100 hrs at several places on Nallahmar road. He said people were protesting against the arrest of some youths by security forces during the raids earlier in the evening. Several people were injured in the clashes, he said adding ''today there is total curfew and nobody was being allowed to move out by the security forces deployed in strength.'' Security forces burst teargas shells and resorted to lathicharge who had blocked road at Natipora on Srinagar-Charar-e-Sharief road this morning. Demonstrators also damaged some vehicles plying after 0900 hrs today. The demonstrators were later chased away and additional security forces were deployed to prevent any more violence. Security forces allegedly fired pellets and burst teargas shells to disperse the demonstrators. Announcements were later made from mosques that several persons were hit by pellets. People at Pamposh Colony and Natipora took out ''Mashal'' processions, demanding right to self determination. However, the processionists dispersed peacefully late in the night.UNI BAS CJ ADG 1155 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-927370.Xml
A city based lady lawyer has been arrested by the Thane Nagar police on the alleged charges of fabricating court and police papers and getting two accused arrested by police out on bail, the Thane Nagar police said today. The police has booked at least half a dozen people including the lawyer, who was arrested on Friday, in connection with the case the police said and added that others had been arrested earlier. The Thane Nagar police said that the alleged accused including the advocate had been booked under sections 420,465,467,468,471 of the IPC.. The police said that the lawyer Rekha Potnis, 45, was involved in the racket of fabricating legal papers and getting the accused arrested in criminal case from the magistrates courts. She according to police facilitated the release of the two accused Mohammad Shaikh, 47 from Mira Road and Bashir Mulla, 62, from Latur,who were arrested by the Srinagar police here on the alleged charges of cheating and forgery in May last.UNI XR VS CJ -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-927284.Xml
Tripura government has filed a special leave petition (SLP) in Supreme Court challenging the decision of high court of Tripura last year acquitting the prime accused of triple murder case two-years ago in a vernacular daily. Police had arrested Editor-Proprietor of local daily 'Dainik Ganadoot' Sushil Choudhury in the sensational triple murder case in his office cum residence and lower court sentenced him for life imprisonment after custodial trial. However, the high court acquitted him in the appeal petition. The state government had to move Supreme Court against the high court decision and the apex court admitted the case last week. As many as three employees of 'Dainik Ganadoot' - Manager Ranjit Chowdhury, driver Balaram Ghosh and proof-reader Sujit Bhattacharjee had been brutally murdered in the residence of proprietor-owner Sushil Chowdhury. The residence is attached to his office on the ground floor. After initial investigation police had arrested slain driver Balaram Ghosh's wife Niyoti Ghosh and subsequently, proprietor Sushil Chowdhury as the mastermind of the triple murder. In the trial in district and sessions court Niyoti had turned approver and given valuable evidence which led to Sushil being sentenced to rigorous imprisonment till the last day of his life for the murder. UNI BB KK CJ ADG 1215 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-927362.Xml
Against the backdrop of mounting violence worldwide, the Soka Gakkai International's (SGI) Indian arm Bharat Soka Gakkai (BSG) organised a symposium here, titled 'Universal Respect for Human Dignity: The Great Path to Peace,' based on SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's 2016 peace proposal. The symposium was based on Mr Ikeda's 2016 peace proposal, who believes that the power of dialogue as well as the innate ability of humans to respond positively to difficult situations holds the key and emphasis on three major points humanitarian aid, ecological integrity and disaster risk reduction. Speaking of this initiative yesterday, former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan highlighted the problems related to terrorism, the refugee crisis and alarming instances of environmental degradation. Mr Balakrishnan said, "There are problems relating to terrorism, the refugee crisis and alarming instances of environmental degradation. This is the right time for us to stop, think and address these problems and symposiums such as these will ensure that these matters get attention and action is taken." He said, "The purpose of Soka Gakki is to have dialogue where we talk about problems and discuss to find the solution, said, Human rights activities must focus on giving our voice, to those who are embedded in various difficulties but are not in our field of vision." ''I deeply hope that the United Nations passes and ratifies Mr Ikeda's peace proposals as conventions to be implemented by various countries. While countries are not strictly bound by UN conventions, they definitely can and do form their municipal laws on basic ideas of UN conventions, of which bringing happiness to the greatest number of people is most essential,'' he said. Highlighting many other issues, famous journalist HK Dua said, "After 70-year of Independence many villages in India do not have drinking water and toilets but more money are been lost in improving technology of killing." "No war in the world has ever sorted out any problem. It only to leads to another war of a different kind, fought in a different place with a different technology," said Mr Dua, who also drew attention to the image of a poor Vietnamese girl set on fire by a Napalm bomb crying and running through a rice field. "Now after so many year a video went viral in which a man carried his wife's body for 12 km for cremation, there is where our humanity is evolving," he added. He said the peace proposals submitted by SGI President Daisaku Ikeda to the United Nations every year offer a sliver of hope to the world riven by conflict. Focusing on the peace proposal, Chairperson of Bharat Soka Gakkai (BSG) Vishesh Gupta said, "The preamble of the UNESCO chapter opens with the famous declaration, 'That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed'. How, then, are defences of peace that are truly lasting to be built? "In the 2016 peace proposal, Mr Ikeda has highlighted that by conducting one on one dialogue, we can build strong and unassailable defences of peace in the heart of one individual after another." He added that it "compels us to think of some key aspects of human life and behaviour: First, whether we can empower another life. Second, all action should be based on dialogue. Third, to see the world from other person's perspective, and finally, to believe in the power and passion of youth." Mr Gupta quoted President Ikeda, who says, "More than anything, it is the depth and intensity of the commitment and pledge that lives in the hearts of the younger generation that will transform the world from one where global issues threaten the lives and dignity of people to one in which all people can live in peace and fully manifest their inherent dignity." Former Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Nitin Desai said, "people life is still not secured after establishment of UN and other peace organisation, it reflects that what UN has started is still an agenda."UNI SHS CJ AE 1528 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-927202.Xml
An awareness-cum-sensitisation workshop on rehabilitation of people with disabilities (PWDs) has been organised by Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped of Mumbai, DEPwD, Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, in collaboration with Nagaland State Social Welfare Department and Prodigals' Home in Dimapur.The workshop was held at the Dimapur Town Hall yesterday. The Deputy Commissioner of Dimapur Kesonyu Yhome, who was the chief guest, stressed on the need to adopt a paradigm shift in addressing issues relating to PWDs, adding that the "bureaucratic approach" had not been able to deliver the desired results. He said the approach should be to shift from "just rehabilitation" of PWDs to their empowerment so that the PWDs can live normal lives and with dignity. The Additional Director of the Social Welfare Department, Kewe Kenye, in her address presented an overview of scenario of PWDs in the state and the various programmes undertaken by the government for welfare of PWDs. Earlier, Head of Department of Socio-Economic Rehabilitation Department & Nodal Officer-North East (AYJNIHH of Mumbai), R Bhattacharya, highlighted the activities of AYJNIHH. In the plenary session, the Deaf Biblical Ministry of Dimapur, in their presentation, 'Overview of hearing disability in Nagaland', informed that as per the National Programme for Prevention & Control of Deafness (NPPCD), about 1, 25, 284 persons in Nagaland with a population of 19,88,636 have Hearing Impairment (HI). Drawing attention on the society's approach towards such disability, the Ministry said that till the 1980s hearing impaired people were called "mad or crazy" and were the object of ridicule and even considered a curse from God. "Families hid them from the society and it took many years for society in Nagaland to accept the deaf people as contributing members of the society," conveyed the Deaf Biblical Ministry. However, with the change of mindset, between the years 2010-2016 there has been immense development where the persons with HI after their education, have become independent and are involved in different professions. Maong Jamir, Assistant Director of the Prodigals' Home, who spoke on 'Scenario of disabilities in Nagaland', also commented that society considers PWDs as a "curse from God and do not count their abilities while considering them to be an object of charity." Jamir therefore advocated for effective implementation of the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) Act 1995 and Nagaland State Policy for PwDs while recommending that the state should have State Resource Centre (SRC)/District Resource Centers' (DRCs) for PwDs, employment and livelihood alternatives for PwDs and intensive/ extensive awareness covering all districts by Office of Disability Commissioner, responsible Government Departments, NGOs and FBOs. UNI AS KK CJ -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-927467.Xml
The tech hub of Bengaluru has emerged as aglobal economic destination with a vast pool of highly skilledprofessionals and will thus be an exemplary test market forinnovation, Mr Shivram Mallavalli, President, South India InnovatorsAssociation, today said. Speaking during the inauguration of India InternationalInnovation Fair 2016 here, he said the fair was first of its kind inthe country and the idea was to boost the startup space in thecountry to spur innovation. He said the city, host to 11,500 Startups was poised to emerge asStartup capital of Asia with diverse industries spanning machinetools, electronics, defence, aeronautics, garments, medical,bio-tech and a host of research institutes, both National andInternational. Bengaluru is a global economic hub with a vast pool of highlyskilled professionals and will thus be an exemplary test market andstart-up domain should be further boosted by the Karnataka governmentto spur innovation, he said. The event hosted by the Karnataka government is organised by theIndian Innovators Association (IIA) and supported by theInternational Federation of Inventors Association (IFIA), a Genevabased body. The Department of Science and Technology, GOI has alsoextended their support. In all, 16 member countries of IFIA are participating at IIIF 2016. Karnataka Minister for Industry R V Dedshpande said innovationwas key for industrial growth and Startups will take up the mantlein the mordern world. ''Engineer par excellence M Visvesvaraya had said eitherindustrialise or perish. But now is the time to either innovate orperish,'' he said delivering the inaugural address. The Government of Karnataka extends its wholehearted support toIIIF as the policy of the Government is to encourage and supportstart-ups. It is set to build the future of India and hence it is time toinnovate and invest in the state. Bengaluru was poised to be themost innovative city in the world, in the next 3 years, the minister added. The various platforms at IIIF include, GIPX for Innovativeproducts, for manufacturers to connect personally with theirconsumers. There is also a site for live demos and presentations,touch-n-feel new products and innovations. 'i2BOX for innovativeideas, a platform where innovators from different walks of lifewill exhibit their innovative products and ideas. It also hosts innovators to connect with potential venturecapitalists, manufactures, industry associations and establish alicense or sales agreement. i2BOX includes innovations from five categories likeInternational, Government aided, Students, Grass root and start upsand the best two innovations from each of the category will berewarded. 'SUS for innovative start ups' is a launch pad forstart-ups and a platform for those that have just started out, be itonline or offline. There is also 100 Open Startups, category which is a networksponsored by global leading organizations that together evaluate andrank start-ups worldwide. The most attractive start-ups will be selected by corporations tocollaborate in the development of high impact innovations to societyand markets, and have the opportunity to match direct withexecutives, gain high visibility and access large companies resources.UNI RS MSP CS 1520 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-927609.Xml
An anonymous call stating thatbombs planted in Shatabadi express would go off at the Chennai Central Station, turned out to be a hoax. Police, Government Railway Police and RPF personnelwere on their toes soon after the call was received atthe Administrative office stating the bombs would explode on board the train. Railway police, along with bomb squads and sniffer dogs made a thorough search of the Central Station premises, but no explosives were found and the callturned out to be a hoax. The police personnel, along with bomb squad and sniffer dogs searched both the Shatabdi express trains, one that was scheduled for Mysuru and the other to Coimbatore. Police were trying to trace the caller who madethe hoax call. UNI GV CS 1629 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-927842.Xml
The body was handed over to kin after intervention of Chhindwara Collector JK Jain.

Mr Jain told UNI over telephone that as soon as the case came to his knowledge, he contacted the hospital authorities and after which, they handed over the body to the deceased's family members.

According to sources, Sant Kumar Dhurve (34), resident Chhindwara District's Marai village was admitted to the hospital by his kin as the man used to remain sick continuously.

The family members alleged that Sant Kumar died on September 2 and when they asked for the body, the hospital management demanded about Rs 1.75 lakh for the release of the body.

As the family was not in a position to make payment of such a huge amount, the authorities allegedly refused to hand over the body and even threatened to take out body parts if they failed provide the money.

The district administration said to have agreed to provide the amount to the hospital and then, the body was given to the family members, the sources added.UNI GV-BDG SB AS1631

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A 40-year-old man hacked four members of his family, including his mother, wife and two daughters, to death with a "Sattur", at his farm. The incident occurred early this morning at Kuddunur village, of Jat tehsil of this district, around 70Km from here. According to Jat police, the assailant was identified as Bharat Kundlik Irkar (40), resident of Kuddunur village. He had a feud over farm land with his step-mother and had filed a case in the court, hearing of which was underway. But in a surprise move, Bharat took all his family members to their firm land, early this morning and suddenly attacked them with a "Sattur" (used for cutting goat's meat) killing them on the spot. After the incident assailant surrendered at Jat police station. Police immediately arrested him andrushed to the spot. Police identified four deceased women as-- Sushila Kundlik Irkar (60), accused Bharat's mother, Sindhubai Bharat Irkar (40), wife and two daughters Rupali (19) and Rani (16). UNI SSS VS AKC SB 1553 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-927453.Xml
The dacoits first attacked two security guards deployed at the bank, broke open the main door with help of gas cutter and then looted Rs 65 lakh in cash in the wee hours of today, police said.

The dacoits also broke the CCTV camera installed at the main gate of the bank before committing the dacoity.

Bank manager Nikhil Kamble then lodged a complaint at Yavat police station, senior police inspector Sashikant Chavan of Yavat Police station told UNI.

Police have launched a massive search to nab the dacoits.

The PDCC Bank is one of the largest cooperative banks in Pune and celebrated its centenary last week.UNI SP SS SW AS1611

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Punjab Cabinet today gave its approval to include Saini and Swarnkar/Sunar communities in the list of Backward class of Punjab on the recommendations of Backward Classes Commission. A spokesman for the Chief Minister's Office said a decision to this effect was taken by the Cabinet in its meeting held under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at the Punjab Bhawan. This decision would also help the Saini and Swarnkar/Sunar Communities to avail various benefits of government welfare schemes. The Cabinet also gave nod for introducing the memorandum for passing a resolution to ratify the amendments to the Constitution of India (122nd Amendment Bill, 2014) by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha during its ongoing session for the implementation of General Sales Tax (GST). It may be recalled that the 122nd Amendment Bill, 2014 has already been passed by both the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet also gave approval to the draft of Punjab Anand Marriage Rules, 2016 in conformity with the registration of Marriages in the state by exercising the powers conferred under Section-6 of the Anand Marriage, Act 1909 as amended by Anand Marriages (Amendment) Act 2012. Pertinently, to mention here that those marriages which were being registered under the Anand Marriages Act 1909 and Anand Marriages (Amendment) Act, 2012 shall not be required to be registered under the Punjab Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act 2012.MORE UNI JS AE SB 1605 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-927740.Xml
The Haryana government has declared the diploma courses of minimum two-year duration run by the Department of Technical Education and affiliated to Haryana State Board of Technical Education, Panchkula, equivalent to X plus two course awarded by the Board of School Education Haryana. Director General, Technical Education, Dr Saket Kumar said here today that this would serve the purpose of recruitment where X plus two or equivalent would be the requisite qualification advertised by different departments. Earlier, the qualification of diploma from the Haryana State Board of Technical Education was not considered equivalent to X plus two for employment purposes. However, those candidates who had completed X plus two from various schools or institutions in Haryana were considered eligible for recruitment in government jobs where X plus two or equivalent is the requisite qualification advertised by different departments. It has been decided to consider diploma as equivalent to X plus two as the diploma holders were in no way less in terms of skills or competencies as compared to those who were X plus two qualified. Diploma holders from the Haryana State Board of Technical Education would now get a fair opportunity for recruitment in government jobs in the state. A notification dated September 8, 2016, has been issued to this effect, Mr Kumar added.UNI JS SW SB NS1700 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-927824.Xml
Prince of Arcot, Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali, and his family members made a courtesy call on Presiden Pranab Mukherjee at Raj Bhavan here today. The President is on a two-day visit to Chennai. The President was familiar with the history of the Nawabs of the Carnatic/Arcot, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in this part of the country. He was also happy to learn the Prince's profile and his social activities.UNI CS 1752 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-928013.Xml
Trinamool Congress Tripura state committee today threatened to seek judicial help against Assembly Speaker R C Debnath unless the status of leader of the opposition (LoP) is given to them as per law. Addressing to media, Trinamool Congress legislator Sudip Roy Barman alleged that the Speaker has been guided by the ruling CPI(M) not bothering the provision of law and procedures. He pointed out the first assembly after attaining statehood in 1972, Tripura assembly had passed the Salaries and Allowances of Members of the Legislative Assembly (Tripura) Act defined LoP as the leader of the party having greatest numerical strength in the house, which was re-defined as it is in 2008. "The Act said, LoP means that member of Tripura Legislative Assembly who is for the time being the leader in the state assembly of the party in opposition to the state government having the greatest numerical strength in the said assembly. How does the speaker demanding one-sixth of the total strength of the house for getting LoP?" Mr Roy Barman questioned. He also pointed out that Chapter XIV of Practice and Procedure of Parliament also made it clear that the opposition number should not be less than the quorum fixed to constitute a sitting of the house, which is one-tenth of the total membership. Trinamool Congress has greatest numerical strength among opposition in 60 members Tripura assembly. The Left front has 50 members and Congress is having only three and Trinamool has six MLAs and one Congress MLA has resigned and joined in CPI(M). "Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of Tripura does say nothing about recognition of opposition party and its leader. But Speaker is intentionally referring the rules where sitting of the house is described stating at least 10 members including the Speaker is required to constitute a sitting of the house. Moreover, no rule can be repugnant to the Act and even if it is so the procedure will be governed by the Act not by rules," he said. He further alleged time and again it has proved that leftists never honour democracy and rule of law. There is a tendency among communist to bury the voice of opposition by hock or crock and in case of Tripura CPI(M) has never been respectful or positive toward opposition. "However, if Speaker doesn't allow Trinamool Congress in offering the status of LoP we shall have to move to court to establish our right. Initially, the speaker was not against LoP to us but when we have nominated veteran tribal MLA of our party D C Hrangkhwal to the post he became furious, which once again proved that Leftist can't tolerate tribals in better position," Mr Roy Barman added. The Speaker has been holding up the claim of LoP by Trinamool Congress for a week, arguing that Tripura assembly rules say, unless one-sixth (60 members house needs at least 10) strength is there with any party cannot offer the status of opposition leader.UNI BB BM SW AS1722 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-927863.Xml
Police said the outlaws shot at senior photo journalist Indrajeet Dey`s son Akash Dey on his head on Bhootnath Road, leaving him critically injured in the incident. Family relatives of the boy rushed him to Patna Medical College and Hospital where was undergoing treatment in the ICU.

No arrest has been made in this connection so far.

Reacting sharply to attack on the journalist`s son, senior BJP leader and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Nand Kishore Yadav said the incident had buttressed the fact that no body was secure under the present dispensation in the state.

Describing the incident as unfortunate, Mr Yadav said earlier, journalists were attacked and now even they family relatives were not spared by trigger happy criminals in the state.

He said that attack on the photo journalist`s son only reminded the former regime of Lalu-Rabri when journalists were targeted and even a senior photo journalist was kidnapped. UNI DH BM SB AS1724

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The case has been filed in a local court and further notice is awaited.

This comes in the wake of unrest in the Cauvery belt thatwitnessed agitation by farmers and activists against the acceptingof Apex court verdict directing the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of water daily from Cauvery to downstream state for 10 days.

The decision had resulted in upheaval in the State that was shutdown for a day yesterday, while the basin districts had witnessedagitation with road blocks on highways for the last five days.

Today the situation returned to normal with road traffic beingeased and agitators staying off the roads.

The complainant M D Rajanna named the Chief Minister of Karnatakabesides the Judges of the Supreme Court Bench that ordered therelease of water, saying that the two riparian states shouldpractice 'live and let live' spirit.

The complaint also mentions the names of Chief Justice of theSupreme Court, Chief Ministers of Karnataka and TN and four others.

The private complaint, under CrPc Section 200, has been lodged atthe Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Court by the complainant.MORE UNI BSP RS cs 1733

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Pointing out that the banking sectorhas transformed itself from 'brick to click', Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidayasagar Rao today said thebanks have to play a critical role in boosting enterpriseand job creation under the 'Start up India, Stand up India'programme. Speaking at the centenary celebrations of Karur Vysya Bankhere, he said ''today banking is at the very fountainhead of the new-age world order.'' ''Banking has transformed from itself from 'brick to click'. Technology is expected to accelerate India's journey into a cashless economy'', he added. He said in the coming years, Banks will have to play a critical role in boosting enterprise and job creation under the "Start Up India, Stand Up India" programme. ''As Chancellor of State Universities in Maharashtra and in Tamil Nadu, I do feel that banks should be liberal in offering long term education loans to deserving students from poor and middle class pursuing higher education'',he added. Mr Vidyasagar Rao said this would help the nation achieve higher enrolment and benefit the students immensely. Stating that in January this year, he had convened a meeting of Corporate Leaders at Raj Bhavan Mumbai on the instructions of the Prime Minister. He said the purpose of the meeting was to seek the active participation of Corporates in the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan. The Tamil Nadu Government was also implementing various schemes and programmes for the welfare of the poor and the downtrodden and that the KVB should support the state government in bridging the small funding gaps in the implementation of these welfare programmes as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility. UNI GV CS 1834 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-928130.Xml
In yet another shocking case of sexual abuse, police have registered a case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 against the Head Master of Government High School in the district for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl student for the last one month. Police said the incident came to light yesterday after the victim's parents lodged a complaint with Tirumangalam All Women Police Station. The accused Madasamy, head master of the Kallar Government High School at Karadikkal village had been sexually assaulting the Class 6 student and threatened her of dire consequences if she tells anybody about his misbehaviour. A search is on to arrest the culprit who is absconding. The girl was admitted to government hospital here for medical examination. Meanwhile, Madasamy was placed under suspension by the district education officer. UNI GSM CS 1845 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-928149.Xml
Ex-minister Jatin Mali reportedly surrendered at Jalukbari police station in the city this afternoon.

His name was allegedly mentioned in a suicide note left by a city-based contractor, who had killed himself earlier this week.

The contractor, Biseswar Baruah, had alleged that he had accepted money from other people on Mali's assurance of giving them government contracts but he was unable to keep the assurance or pay back the money. UNI SG BM SB AN2006

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It is an irony that various political parties have not been able to begin building Ambedkar Bhawans in five of the most densely SC populated districts despite promises a plenty. In three districts, they remain incomplete, despite the fact that political parties are celebrating the 125th Birth Anniversary of Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar, said Aam Aadmi Party Leader Paramjit Singh Kainth today. He said, "They are all seeking votes in his name but doing nothing to complete these memorials. These Bhawans were flagged off to be built to commensurate 100th birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar and the government decided to build these memorials in all 22 districts of Punjab. It's a shame that in few of the most populated (SC dominated) areas like Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Amritsar, the work is yet to be completed. Since 1991, Congress and Akali Dal-BJP have both shared power in the state and no Government has ever tried to finish off what should have been done long back."Kainth said, "Punjab is the most populated State in India in terms of Scheduled Castes Population and they are a leaderless community which has always been considered nothing more than a vote bank and after the elections, they are left on their own to suffer till the next elections come and they can be sold the dreams of development and uplift again. "Akali Dal-BJP and Congress just want to exploit the Scheduled Castes and even the 34 MLAs and 5 MPs, who belong to the Scheduled Castes community have been unable to fight for the community in the Vidhan Sabha and even unable to properly implement the plans and schemes allocated for their own people. Having more than 1/3rd of the Population, Scheduled Caste Community deserves Leaders who can fight for them and can challenge the corrupt governments to give the Scheduled Castes Community the recognition and development they deserve."He added, "Aam Aadmi Party is a beacon of hope for the Scheduled Castes in Punjab and it will strive to bring the Scheduled Castes in Punjab the development and glory that he have been promised since the inception of an united India in 1947 but never been fulfilled." UNI JS RSA SB VN1901 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-928074.Xml
Meanwhile Dr Sanjiv Bhalla, senior medical officer visited the house of victim and asked the hospital authorities to submit the reports pertaining the treatment of Geeta .

He directed the health department authorities to conduct house to house survey in the Prem Nagar and rescue teams have been constituted.UNI XC SB AN2012

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Chairman of hardline Hurriyat Conference (HC) Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been invited for four-day meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Coopration (OIC) being held at the UN headquarters in New York from September 19. A spokesperson for HC said Mr Geelani, who continued to remain under house arrest since his return from New Delhi in April, has been invited by the OIC for the meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir to be held in New York. He said the meeting is scheduled to be held from September 19 to 22 on Jammu and Kashmir during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. However, he said Geelani, cannot attend the conference since he is under house arrest and doesn't have a passport.UNI ABS SB VN1931 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-928148.Xml
Online transfers of 482 doctors, including 42 senior medical officers, were made through the new system for the first time in the state.

The Minister said here that the decision to stop the transfers was taken as many flaws were foundin the system.

He said that he had been receiving complaints of irregularities in uploading the online data. Therefore, further action in the matter had been banned till further orders. The health department had found glaring mistakes in issuing the online transfer orders. Transfers of doctors were included in the system who had already sought retirement and also shifting of couples.

He said that the orders would remain in abeyance till the shortcomings found in the online transfers were corrected. He said that he had ordered enquiry in whole of he matter and further action would be taken after receiving the enquiry report. UNI XC RSA NS2015

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Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) will provide education to three daughters of Dana Majhi of Kalahandi who was in news recently for carrying his wife's body of on his shoulders for 10 km after he was denied ambulance to carry the body. The decision was taken after many tribal organisations of Kalahandi district, including Biswabasu Sabar Samaj, District Tribal Society, All Odisha Banjara Samaj, Tribal Employees Sangram Samiti and local MLA Capt Dibyasankar Mishra requested the KISS authority to take educational responsibility of Dana's daughters. Representatives from these tribal organisations along with Dana Majhi today formally communicated their request to Dr Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS and the KISS authorities agreed to admit Chandini, Sonei and Pramila, the three daughters of Dana Majhi, in the institute. The tribal representatives from the district also requested KISS authorities to open a branch of the institute in Kalahandi. A branch of KISS will start functioning in Kalahandi from the coming academic year, KISS authorities hinted. The tribal organisations from Kalahandi further requested to admit 100 more children from Dana Majhi's village and the local area in KISS, which was also agreed to in principle. Dr Samanta informed the tribal representatives about financial assistance from Government of Bahrain to Dana Majhi. The KISS Founder said he has already discussed with the Ambassador of Bahrain in New Delhi in this regard. An amount of Rs 9 lakh will be given to Dana Majhi when he will visit the Embassy of Bahrain in New Delhi with a representative of KISS, As per advice of the Ambassador of Bahrain, the amount will be deposited as fixed deposits in the names of daughters of Dana Majhi, Dr Samant said.UNI DP BM RSA RK2201 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-928396.Xml
Haryana Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Minister O.P. Dhankar, said that under the 'Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana', farmers would receive full compensation for damage to crops caused by waterlogging. The Minister, who was interacting with media persons at Jhajjar today, said that the Government would also provide compensation of Rs 12,000 per acre to the uninsured farmers for damage to crops under the earlier compensation policy. However, the farmers who have opted for the 'Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana' would get more compensation, he added. He said that orders had been issued to all Deputy Commissioners to conduct mapping of areas prone to waterlogging. The map would be prepared by committee of Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Tehsildar and Deputy Directors of the Department. He also urged the farmers to report crop damage due to waterlogging to the Agriculture Officer concerned. He said that it was the responsibility of the Farmers' Welfare Department to guide the farmers so that they could get appropriate compensation from the insurance companies for their losses. Replying to a question, he said that 30 per cent farmers in the State had got their crops insured under the crop insurance scheme, under which compensation up to Rs 25,000 per acre would be given in case of damage to paddy crop. He said that over 4.90 lakh hectares area was under horticulture in the State. The State Government is taking all possible steps to increase the area under horticulture to nine lakh hectares so as to fully exploit the market in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR). Besides, farmers are being encouraged to learn post-harvest processing and marketing techniques so that they might get better prices for their produce, he added. Replying to another question about CBI probe against former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, he said that the present government had not raised the issues which were currently under investigation. These had surfaced during the regime of the Congress government, he added.UNI JS RSA RK2140 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-928353.Xml
Expressing grief and shock over continuous killing of civilians in security force action in Kashmir, main opposition National Conference (NC) said the situation in the valley was deteriorating with each passing day. Meanwhile, NC accused Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of making insensitive comments and speeches that were allegedly adding fuel to fire that threatened to engulf the entire State. In a joint statement issued from Party Headquarters in Srinagar, NC leaders expressed solidarity with the families of those youth who had lost their lives in the current unrest. "Today's fresh spectre of brutality had demolished all assurances of the State and the Central Governments," it added. "One of the youth who lost his life today was shot at with a pellet gun and was declared brought dead at the hospital, yet again proving that pellet guns continue to devour our youth," the statement said. It said the State as well as the Central Government has defended the use of pellet guns. "The State Government defended their use in the High Court calling them 'modern weapons' while Union Minister V K Singh has called the use of pellet guns 'sensible'. How many Kashmiri youth have to be devoured before this brutality stops?,'' the joint statement said. The NC leaders also expressed grief and sorrow over the killing of a youth by drowning in Anantnag and of another youth who was killed in Shopian. "The Chief Minister's repeated exhibitions of insensitivity and ruthlessness were beyond shocking," they said. "While our youth are being killed like cannon fodder, our Chief Minister continues to ride scooties in Jammu and talk about her love for 'golgappas'. This is extremely shameless and shows her utter contempt for the grieving families," the joint NC statement said. They said there was no realisation in New Delhi and that the Central Government's denial and insensitivity was cushioned by the Chief Minister's repeated mocking of the pain and anguish in Kashmir. "Ms Mehbooba's five per cent versus 95 per cent theory has aggravated the youth of the State and also insulted thousands of families whose young ones have been injured. Hundreds of our young boys and girls have received grievous injuries in their eyes while nearly 50 have been blinded. Yet, the Chief Minister is busy taking scooty joyrides in Jammu and talking about 'gol gappas'. This is the height of shamelessness," they said.UNI ABS RSA RK2224 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-928475.Xml
It also said Turkish artillery units fired 41 shots at 15 IS targets, destroying four buildings belonging to the terrorist group, Xinhua news Agency reported.

The attack marks the seventh Turkish casualty in the Euphrates Shield operation, which has lasted 17 days.

On September 6, three Turkish soldiers were killed and four others wounded in another IS attack on two tanks.

Four Turkish soldiers were injured on August 30 when a rocket fired from the west of Syria's Jarablus region hit a tank in northern Syria.

--IANS sku/

( 126 Words)

2016-09-10-04:03:56 (IANS)
According to a new report, the Obama administration has offered to sell USD 115 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous administration, and the move was intended to replenish arsenal after war in Yemen. The surge in sales is in part to reassure the Saudi monarchy of US backing in the wake of last year's nuclear deal with Tehran, which raised fears in the Gulf that Washington would tilt more towards Tehran in its foreign policy, reports the Guardian. Authored by William Hartung of the Centre for International Policy, the report says that another factor was a drive by the US arms manufacturers to boost sales to compensate declining procurement by the Pentagon. However, the most recent deals - like the offer to sell more than 150 M1A2 Abrams battle tanks for an estimated USD 1.15 billion - were principally intended to replenish the Saudi arsenal, depleted in the war in Yemen. "I think that though the Obama administration is not thrilled about the Yemen episode; it feels it can't stay out of it, because of the need to reassure the Saudis," Hartung said. His report found that since taking office in January 2009, the Obama administration has offered to sell USD 115 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia, half of which are accounted for by deals that are still in the pipeline. The report comes as concerns about the United Kingdom's arms sales to Saudi Arabia and their implication in potential war crimes in Yemen have split the Parliament's arms control committee. Arms sales over the eight years of the Obama administration have also included combat aircraft, attack helicopters, bombs, air-to-ground missiles, warships and military training. The latest tank deal has drawn resistance from congressional democrats, who have called for a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, because of its bombing of civilian targets in Yemen. (ANI)
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who is to head the Rakhine State Advisory Commission in Myanmar, has assured the people that he will assuage concerns over the potential partiality of the commission, saying its mandate is to take on board the concerns of both the state's Buddhist and Muslim communities, and not to police human rights. Annan, during a press conference in Yangon yesterday, at the conclusion of a six-day trip, emphasised that the advisory body would take a consultative approach with all the stakeholders, reports the Myanmar Times. "We don't reconcile by focusing on one side of the issue," he said. His trip to Sittwe earlier this week was met by protests from Rakhine nationalists, who claim to reject international intervention in internal affairs. Annan, however, said he respected their right to demonstrate and that he hopes to engage them in a constructive dialogue. The commission, which was created at the behest of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, figures Annan, a Ghanaian, Ghassan Salame of Lebanon and Laetitia van den Assum of Norway. The Arakan National Party has been particularly vocal about the appointment of three foreigners to the commission. During the conference, Annan indicated that neighbouring countries would be consulted in the course of the commission's work, saying he believed this was an international issue that went beyond borders. Annan acknowledged that the matter of nomenclature is a controversial one. He stated that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had not requested that he avoid use of the word "Rohingya" - something she had asked of the diplomatic community. "The people in the camps and villages focused on issues of development, jobs, education, medical care, freedom of movement, occupation for [women] - and others spoke to us a lot about history, history of Rakhine State . That is important for us, particularly for the foreigners in the commission, to understand the background of the issue," he said. Annan also confirmed he had met with military representatives and President U Htin Kyaw in Nay Pyi Taw. A permanent office for the commission is currently being established in Sittwe and would operate with around five to 10 staff members, a representative of Annan's delegation confirmed. "We intend to submit the report within one year but we will not rush. We will be very patient and submit the solid report which is helpful for the Rakhine community," he said. The commission has been tasked with finding conflict-prevention measures, ensuring humanitarian assistance, rights and reconciliation, establishing basic infrastructure, and promoting development long-term plans in the restive state (ANI)
President Ghani made the remarks during a meeting with the United Kingdom's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Owen Jenkins in Kabul, reports the Khaama Press.

He said Afghanistan is no more a landlocked country as several other options and transit routes are available for the import and export of commodities of the Afghan traders.

President Ghani further added that Pakistan usually closes transit routes during the fruits season which incurs loss of millions of dollars to the Afghan traders.

According to him, India has agreed to exempt Afghanistan from financial tariff for the export of fruits to the country.

The duo also discussed Afghan peace talks, fight against terrorism, and the issue of the Afghan refugees' repatriation from Pakistan.

President Ghani said the Afghan refugees are tired of pressures and the ongoing situation in Pakistan as they are willing to repatriate to Afghanistan, emphasizing that the Afghan refugees have invested millions in the country and the government is committed to support them to shift their investments to Afghanistan.

He urged the international community to support Afghanistan in this process as the Afghan Government has taken necessary steps to assist the returnees. (ANI)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came under fire from Norway's largest newspaper for the company's decision to censor a historic photograph of the Vietnam War. The newspaper, Aftenposten, has published a front-page open letter lambasting Zuckerberg and calling him to recognize and live up to his role as "the world's most powerful editor", reports the Guardian. Espen Egil Hansen, the editor-in-chief and CEO of Aftenposten, accused Zuckerberg of thoughtlessly "abusing power" over the social media site that has become a vital platform for distribution of news and information around the world. "I am upset, disappointed, well, in fact even afraid, of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society," he wrote. "I am worried that the world's most important medium is limiting freedom instead of trying to extend it, and that this occasionally happens in an authoritarian way," he added. "Even though I am editor-in-chief of Norway's largest newspaper, I have to realize that you are restricting my room for exercising my editorial responsibility. I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly" he said. Facebook decided to delete a post by Norwegian writer Tom Egeland that featured 'The Terror of War', a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph by Nick Ut that showed children, including the naked nine-year-old girl identified as Kim Phuc, running away from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Egeland's post discussed "seven photographs that changed the history of warfare" - a group to which the "napalm girl" image certainly belongs. Egeland was subsequently suspended from Facebook. When Aftenposten reported on the suspension, using the same photograph in its article, which was then shared on the publication's Facebook page, the newspaper received a message from Facebook asking it to "either remove or pixelize" the photograph. "Any photographs of people displaying fully nude genitalia or buttocks, or fully nude female breast, will be removed," the notice from Facebook explained. Before Aftenposten could respond, Hansen writes, Facebook deleted the article and image from the newspaper's Facebook page. In his open letter, Hansen points out that Facebook's decision to delete the photograph reveals a troubling inability to "distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs", as well as an unwillingness to "allow[ing] space for good judgement". Hansen goes on to argue that rather than fulfill its mission statement to "make the world more open and connected", such editorial decisions "will simply promote stupidity and fail to bring human beings closer to each other". In response to the controversy, Facebook said, "While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it's difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community. Our solutions won't always be perfect, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them." (ANI)
The narrative hasn't changed in Pakistan for the past 50 years. The country still claims that it won the India-Pakistan war of 1965. On September 6, Pakistan celebrated its Defence Day in remembrance of its so called victory'' against India in the 1965 war. The fiction is that Pakistan had frustrated India's attempt to capture Lahore and Sialkot and had captured Indian territory, and thus, inflicted a defeat on India. Pakistan was then ruled by military dictator General Ayub Khan. He felt that a weak India recovering from the humiliating defeat in the China war of 1962 would not be able to withstand a Pakistani assault and Kashmir could be annexed wihout too much effort. He conducted a trial operations in the Rann of Kutch in April 1965. I was a Public Relations Officer of the Indian defence forces and had the opportunity of covering the operations in the Rann of Kutch in April that year when the Indian Army moved into the area, following the occupation of Kanjarkot by Pakistan. The Kutch conflict concluded early ,following persuation by the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson on April 28 to accept a cease fire. The next step that Ayub Khan indulged in was to launch Operation Gibraltar by inducting thousands of irregular 'mujahideen' into Jammu and Kashmir on the expectation that there would be an uprising. The rebellion never occurred . Instead, local Kashmiris alerted the Indian authorities. Based on the information received, the Indian Army launched an operation and captured the strategic Haji Pir Pass on August 30. Brigadier (Retd) Shaukat Qadir of the Pakistan Army and presently a security analyst, has pointed out that Pakistan went into Operation Gibraltar without any preliminary preparations and undertook guerrilla operations in Kashmir with a large number of regular soldiers, some SSG elements and a smattering of irregulars, expecting to be welcomed by the local population and raise them up in arms against the Indian Government . "They were destined to be rudely disillusioned. Far from rising up in arms, the local population denied any support and in many instances handed over the infiltrators to Indian troops . With its covert operation having failed miserably, Pakistan launched Operation Grand Slam in the Chamb sector of Akhnoor on September 1 which was designed to cut off Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of India," says Brigadier Qadir. The Pakistani operation was launched by a division headed by Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik, who was an Ahmadi. Soon after the operation was launched and Pakistan was gaining ground and sensing victory, General Ayub Khan replaced him with Major General Yahya Khan. There is still a debate going on why the change was made, which gave time to India to move troops to resist the attack and regroup. Following the Pakistan attack in the Chamb sector, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India asked the Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan to give clearance to the Indian Army to attack Pakistan on the Lahore front on September 6. India also launched an attack led by its armoured division on Sialkot. General Ayub had not anticipated this move. The attack on the Lahore front was led by three divisions. One was directed towards Lahore and another towards Burki and the third was deployed facing Khem Karan, which was attacked by Pakistan armour. India had an armoured brigade in the sector led by Brigadier Theograj and the regment commaders were Lt. Col A.S. Vaidya, and Lt. Col Salim Caleb. Pakistan attacked India in the Khem Karan sector, soon after the battle of Burki which India had won. It was a bitter battle at Khem Karan, where India initially faced reverses. But Pakistan suffered heavily in the battle of Asal Uttar. India had knocked out 70 Pakistani Patton tanks in the battle. 25 Pakistani tanks were found abandoned with their engines running and wireless sets on it. On the Lahore front, before the cease fire came into force, Indian troops had defeated Pakistani forces in Dograi, and had occupied the banks of Ichogil canal facing Lahore. Lahore was not the military objective of India. A the end of the 22-day war, India held 1920 square kilometres of Pakistani territory while Pakistan held 550 square kilometres of Indian land. The Haji Pir pass was also captured by Indian soldiers after an epic battle. All these advantages were lost at the negotiating table in Tashkent. On the night of January 10, 1966 , one senior journalist said "the dimunitive Prime Minister but a giant among men, died of a heart attack. It was his fourth cardiac seizure and was likely triggered by his anxiety at having to face an irate public and having to look into the eyes of his jawans -soldiers -whose hopes he had dashed. The account of the war, by R.D. Pradhan, who was secretary to Defence Minister Y. B. Chavan, and Capt Amarinder Siingh , then ADC to Lt. Gen Harbaksh Singh , who was GOC-in-C Westerm Command indicate that India agreed to a ceasefire after repeated pleas from the major powers. In fact Lt. Gen Habaksh Singh had refused to withdraw --as advised by the Chief of Army Staff, General J. N. Chaudhary, -- when Pakistan attacked Khem Karan. He paid visits to many units on the front to build up their morale. Capt. Amarinder Singh points out that "We had just finished a war with China and there were 15 Chinese divisions facing us (Indian Army) across the Indo -Tibet border. NATO countries had armed Pakistan while India had nothing in comparison and it was only because he (Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh) kept his nerve that he could convince the Army Chief, General J.N. Chaudhury about being able to put the Pakistan Army on the backfoot. I was the Public Relations Officer for the Lahore Sector based in Amritsar during the '65 war and was tasked to conduct media teams to the front during and after the operations. On the day of the cease fire, I was at Dograi town on the banks of the Icchogil Canal. I witnessed the Pakistani army taking the bodies of dead solders . I also witnessed civilians from Amritsar arriving at the spot and interacting warmly with the people from Lahore. The Pakistani JCO who was supervising the taking away of the dead bodies remarked to me : Major Saheb "These people (the civilian leadership) make us fight and kill each other . But see what they are doing." Looking back, my contribution as PRO initially was to dispel the impression that Pakistan was winning the war. Journalists were allowed access to the front and saw for themselves the horrors, lies and subterfuge of war. In Pakistan however, they pulled wool over the eyes of their population. There people still think they won the war. Mr. I. Ramamohan Rao is a former Principal Information Officer (PIO)of the Government of India. He can be reached on his e-mail raoramamohan@hotmail.com (ANI)
After being criticised for removing an iconic photograph of a girl fleeing a Napalm attack taken during the Vietnam war in 1972, social media giant Facebook on Friday took a U-turn saying it would allow the photo to be posted on the platform. It had previously removed the image, posted by a Norwegian author, on the grounds that it contained nudity. The move sparked a debate about Facebook's role as an editor. The editor of Norway's largest newspaper had written an open letter to Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling the ban "an abuse of power", BBC reported. Facebook later said it had "listened to the community" and acknowledged the "global importance" of the photo. "...because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed," Facebook was quoted as saying. "It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days. We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe," the company added. Meanwhile, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who had earlier posted a copy of the photo on Facebook herself only to see it removed, welcomed the decision. "That's very good, I'm a happy prime minister," Solberg said. --IANS sku/ ( 256 Words) 2016-09-10-07:59:56 (IANS)
The United States continued to re-iterate its support towards India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), saying India is more than ready to join the elite group, adding that they will continue to work constructively with New Delhi and with members of the NSG on India's accession in the months ahead. Addressing a press conference here, Director, Office of Press Relations Washington, DC Elizabeth Trudeau said that the U.S. has made its intentions towards India's membership in the four multilateral export control regimes since 2010, adding that "we continue to believe India is ready for the NSG" When asked if the U.S. took up the matter with China who has persistently been rooting against India's membership, she added that the government did not reach a consensus on the matter with the other NSG participating governments on admitting any 'new applicants' into the group, which was very disappointing. "We continue, though, and will be, continued to work constructively with India and with members of the NSG on India's accession in the months ahead," Trudeau said. Talking about the possibility on any progress on the matter after the last meeting on NSG, she said that the proceedings within the group are confidential, but the U.S. believes India is ready and that they will continue working towards that goal. This development comes after U.S. President Barack Obama told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Laos earlier, that his government "strongly supports" India's NSG membership bid. "Reaffirming the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and India, the President underscored that the United States strongly supports India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," a White House official said. The NSG will meet yet again this year to discuss the process of inclusion of countries like India, who have not signed the NPT. A special plenary session of the NSG can be called by the year end. According to sources, there is possibility of India's inclusion in the NSG, while New Delhi will continue to discuss the issue with China. The NSG in June failed to reach a consensus on New Delhi's membership application after several members of the 48-member group insisted on adhering to NPT conditions for admission. (ANI)
Asserting that Pakistani forces have started fresh waves of military operations across Balochistan, Baloch Republican Party representative at the United Nations Human rights council Abdul Nawaz Bugti has stated that in different parts of Dera Bugti, people are now being abducted. "Baloch civil populace have been attacked and more than 19 baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to the same family have been abducted. An innocent baloch man was killed in the operation in Dera Bugti. Similarly, many parts of naseerbabad district were also attacked and Baloch civilians were harassed and many of them have been abducted," Bugti said. He further stated that in Turbat area, a political worker's house is under siege since the past four days and his family, mostly women and children including an infant are starving. Bugti also emphasised that Pakistani forces have denied access to them including their own human rights organisations, who are not being allowed to visit them. "It is the time that international media raises their voices and helps save baloch from the inhuman atrocities committed by Pakistani forces on a daily basis in Balochistan," the activist said in a message. Earlier, welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement on Balochistan in his Independence Day address, several Baloch activists claimed that the people of the region support him and he should take up the Baloch issue with the international community at the United Nations. Last month, in a bid to highlight the ongoing Baloch genocide and human rights violations and the disappearance of Baloch people through the hands of Pakistani military and intelligence agencies in Balochistan, the Baloch National Movement (BNM) Germany chapter held demonstrations in different cities. Many activists are asserting that since 2003, more than 23,000 activists, students, lawyers, women, journalists, writers and human rights defenders have been enforced disappeared by the Pakistani army and its death squads. (ANI)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the United States was holding up a deal on Syria at talks in Geneva with US Secretary of State John Kerry today and said they may have to be reconvened next week."We're thinking of maybe calling it a day, maybe meeting next week," Lavrov told reporters waiting for a potential deal to be announced at a press conference between the two diplomats.Asked if Russia had approved a text of a deal, Lavrov said: "We are there, I don't know where our friends are, but I believe it's important for them to check with Washington."Asked about Lavrov's comments, a senior US administration official said Kerry was continuing to discuss the proposals with colleagues in Washington."Those discussions are ongoing and when we have more to say we will." REUTERS PS 0141 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927222.Xml
The United States has encouraged Serbia and EU-member Slovenia to diversify their energy sources away from Russian gas to make sure any potential disruptions will not hurt their economies, a senior US official said today.Wrapping a tour of Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, Mary Burce Warlick, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, said she urged them to look at ways to strengthen their energy security by diversifying its sources.Warlick said the United States believes energy security issues in Europe are very important and "really fundamental to national security issues more broadly".Serbia, a candidate to join the European Union, relies almost exclusively on Russian gas supplies while Slovenia imports less than half of its gas from Russia while Albania and Kosovo, both staunch US allies, import no gas from Russia."I sensed a real openness on the part of really all countries with whom we engaged to try to identify those solutions, partnering with Europe and us and many others to try to find a way to achieve some of those solutions," Warlick said.Warlick, a former ambassador to Serbia, said the United States had been discussing energy diversification with a number of European countries that rely on Russian gas.The cutoff of Russian gas from Ukraine in 2009 drove home the importance of diversification in European capitals."Our approach has been not to say that Russian gas shouldn't remain as it does an important part of the energy equation in Europe but simply for all countries to think a little bit again on how they position themselves to better diversify their energy mix," she told Reuters in an interview in Tirana.The United States has suggested either new investment or connections with neighbouring countries that will enable them to consider "developing a more diversified mix of gas on the one hand but also look to develop other resources", Warlick said.They could tap into additional volumes of gas that might come online in 2020 when the TAP pipeline brings Azeri gas to Europe as well as from increasing volumes of LNG thanks to a LNG terminal projects in and around Europe, she said."I think the reform measures that have taken in many countries are going to pave the way for increased investment, including in the energy sector," Warlick added. REUTERS PS 0320 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927229.Xml
An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during a rock-throwing protest near the Gaza-Israel border and a Palestinian health official said Israeli soldiers shot him, but the Israeli army said troops were not responsible.Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh was killed by an Israeli bullet to the head during the border clash in the central Gaza Strip.The Israeli military said troops had sought to contain the violence on the other side of the border fence and had used only tear gas."Dozens of rioters breached the buffer zone and attempted to damage the security (border) fence. ... Forces stationed at the border used tear gas that led to the dispersal of the riot. Following a preliminary review, the Israel Defence Forces did not conduct the reported shooting," a military statement said.In violence since October in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, at least 210 Palestinians have been killed, 141 of whom Israel said were assailants. Others died during clashes and protests.Palestinians, many of them acting alone and with rudimentary weapons, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans.Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014 and Israeli settlement expansion in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians seek for an independent state.REUTERS PS 0535 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-927242.Xml
Leghari has also failed to meet a major corporate group as well, according to sources.

Even the Swiss government has reportedly turned down a request to meet him. Leghari now hopes to meet the office holders of Swiss-Pak association, which is Pakistan Diaspora group.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in statement said that Leghari, Chairman of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee, is visiting Geneva and Swiss capital Bern to meet the office holders of the Swiss-Pakistan (A non-profit, non-religious platform of Pakistani community for promoting Pakistani culture and image building).

He also met Pakistani community and exchanged views on how to promote the cause of Kashmir in Switzerland. But the statement did not involve meeting any Swiss officials.

Pakistan's drive to publicise its point in Kashmir issue has made no headway in Switzerland as it has not been able to get across local media, local groups and other opinion group.

The exercise by Sharif is being seen as a way to give favours to a handful of Pakistani Members of Parliament to have a vacation at tax payers expense in the name of championing the cause of the Kashmiris right to self-determination. (ANI)
Syria's moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels said today they saw little chance of the new US-Russian peace deal succeeding because Damascus and Moscow would not abide by it.Fares al-Bayoush, head of an FSA group called the Northern Division, said Russia and Damascus had not observed the last agreement, and the chances of the new deal succeeding were the same as the last one.Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, military spokesman for the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, said the deal would only give the Syrian army an chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into the main battles raging in Aleppo.REUTERS AKC VN1502 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-927672.Xml
The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations in a statement said that the Afghan migrants were put on display inside cages along with several other illegitimate items confiscated by Shiraz police, reports the Khaama Press.

The ministry was undoubtedly against the principles of human rights, and a violation of the 1951 and 1967 Conventions on Refugees Rights as well as against the bilateral agreement between the two nations on treatment of refugees.

The statement added that that the Iranian government must take immediate steps to investigate the brutal act.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan has also been urged to follow the issue through diplomatic channels. (ANI)
Belgian authorities have ordered the closure of a Sikh gurudwara (temple) for an indefinite period citing a security threat, local media reported on Saturday. Hans Bonte, Mayor of Vilvoorde town, has ordered the closure. The town outside Brussels has only a dozen Sikh residents but because of the town's central location the Vilvoorde gurudwara was well frequented, said the VRT news outlet. --IANS nawab/ahm/bg ( 75 Words) 2016-09-10-19:55:56 (IANS)
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke by phone with US Secretary of State John Kerry today and told him that Turkey welcomes a US-Russian ceasefire agreement for Syria, the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.The US and Russia earlier hailed the deal to put Syria's peace process back on track, including a nationwide truce from sundown on Monday, improved humanitarian aid access and joint military targeting of banned Islamist groups.Turkey, which launched its first major military incursion into Syria two and half weeks ago, has said it is preparing to provide humanitarian aid to the northern city of Aleppo in conjunction with the United Nations following the deal.REUTERS JW RK2144 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-928452.Xml
The International Monetary Fund head of delegation for Egypt, Chris Jarvis (L), Egypt's Minister of Finance Amr al-Garhy (2-L) and Central Bank ofEgypt chief Tarek AmeR (C) attend a joint press conference in Cairo on August 11, 2016.(AFP Photo)

CAIRO, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank (WB) on Friday transferred one billion U.S. dollars to Egypt to boost the Arab country's economic reform program, official news agency MENA reported.

"This is the first batch of a three billion U.S. dollar deal allocated for funding a government economic development plan," Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nassr was quoted by MENA as saying.

The WB fund will support the government efforts to mobilize financial resources for implementing its economic program and the national projects that will help provide job opportunities, improve the citizens' living standards and strengthen the state infrastructure, Nassr said.

She added that the WB fund will be directed to the projects with high employment rates, and will help achieve sustainable economic development.

The Egyptian economy has been battling recession over the past five years due to political turmoil that led to the ouster of two presidents, shrinking the foreign currency reserves at the central bank from 36 billion U.S. dollars in early 2011 to 15.5 billion dollars as of end of July 2016.

The country's main sources of foreign currency -- tourism, the Suez Canal and the remittances of Egyptian expatriates -- declined over the past few years for various reasons.

The country has been struggling to carry out economic reforms and establish national projects to revive its ailing economy which included deals with the world's major financial organizations.

Egypt has recently reached an initial agreement with the International Monetary Fund to get a 12 billion U.S. dollar loan to reduce its budget deficit and carry out a three-year tough economic reform program that will include subsidy cuts and extra tax.
FRANKFURT, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- The benchmark DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Friday plunged by 101.85 points, or 0.95 percent, and closed at 10,573.44 points.

The disappointing monetary policy decision taken by the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday weighed further on the German equity market. In the meantime, German exports fell sharply in July according to official data showed on Friday.

Deutsche Bank advanced the most with a 4.12- percent increase, followed by Lufthansa and Munich Re. Meanwhile, German housing company Vonovia lost the most, dropping 3.85 percent, followed by HeidelbergCement and Deutsche Post.

Germany's largest commercial bank, Deutsche Bank, was the most traded share of the day with a turnover of 286.1 million euros (around 320.8 million U.S. dollars). Enditem
KIEV, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, informing her about violations of the ceasefire established earlier this month, the presidential press service said on Friday.

During the talks, Poroshenko said that despite the truce, independence-seeking insurgents continue armed provocations against government forces, sometimes with the use of heavy weapons, the press service said in a statement.

The two leaders have also discussed the progress in a prisoner exchange between the conflicting parties, underlining the importance of liberating all those being held hostage, the statement said.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that in the past 24 hours one Ukrainian soldier was killed in an insurgent attack on government forces. It marked the first combat death in the conflict since the start of the new ceasefire.

Besides, two other Ukrainian servicemen were wounded in the attacks, Lysenko added.

Rebels have not commented on their casualties. Meanwhile, the insurgent-run DAN news agency blamed the Ukrainian army for stirring the violence, saying that in the past day, the rebel forces came under several mortar attacks.

The conflicting parties in eastern Ukraine have renewed their commitments to a comprehensive ceasefire starting Sept. 1, in a latest attempt to put an end to the 29-month-old conflict that has killed more than 9,500 people.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim (R) and New Development Bank President K.V. Kamath shake hands after signing a memorandum in Washington D.C., the United States, Sept. 9, 2016. World Bank Group and the New Development Bank (NDB) set up by the BRICS nations on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their cooperation in addressing global infrastructure needs. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- World Bank Group and the New Development Bank (NDB) set up by the BRICS nations on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their cooperation in addressing global infrastructure needs.

The memorandum, signed by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and NDB President K.V. Kamath, formalized the World Bank Group-NDB knowledge partnership, paving the way for the two institutions to explore country-level cooperation that would primarily focus on infrastructure, the World Bank said in a statement.

"Signing this agreement enables our institutions to strengthen our collaboration. When the world's multilateral banks work closely together, and support development that promotes inclusive growth in low- and middle-income countries, the poor and the vulnerable benefit the most," Kim said.

Under the agreement, the World Bank and the NDB will explore and pursue opportunities for the co-financing of projects, facilitate knowledge exchange regarding their operations in accordance with their respective policies and procedures, explore opportunities for advisory services and facilitate secondments and staff exchanges.

"We greatly appreciate timely support offered by the World Bank Group throughout our establishment process, and look forward to advancing and deepening our cooperation," Kamath said. "We at the NDB, will listen, learn and collaborate to promote sustainable infrastructure development in our member countries."

Headquartered in Shanghai, the NDB was jointly founded by the BRICS countries of China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa in July 2014 and became fully operational in February 2016. Aiming to promote infrastructure and sustainable development with an initial focus on BRICS countries, the bank also complements the efforts of other financial institutions to realize the common goal of global growth.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Friday urged consumers who own Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cellphones to "power them down and stop charging or using" the devices.

The consumer warning, according to the U.S. agency, was based on recent reports involving lithium-ion batteries in certain Note 7 devices that have resulted in fires.

"These incidents have occurred while charging and during normal use, which has led us to call for consumers to power down their Note7s," it said in a press release.

The U.S. agency said it's working with Samsung to formally announce an official recall of the devices as soon as possible.

"CPSC is working quickly to determine whether a replacement Galaxy Note7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or their phone carriers to provide to consumers," it said.

On Thursday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration "strongly" advised passengers "not to turn on or charge" Note 7 devices on board aircraft and "not to stow them in any checked baggage."
Gabonese students living in Morocco take part in a protest following a disputed presidential election result in their home-country, on September 1, 2016 at the embassy of Gabon in Rabat. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

RABAT, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Morocco said Friday it is closely following the developments in Gabon since the announcement of the results of the presidential elections, pledging support to stability in its close African ally.

"Moroccan and Gabonese peoples are bound by historical ties of brotherhood, cooperation and solidarity, and the Kingdom of Morocco is strongly committed to the stability of Gabon", the Moroccan foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Calls to violence launched by some candidates to condition the outcome of the appeal at the Constitutional Court do not have a place in a democratic process", the ministry underlined.

It added that such calls are not in line with the democratic expression and the respect for the rule of law and show an attitude of nervousness incompatible with the exercise of democracy.

The North African Kingdom calls for "restraint and wisdom to preserve the stability of this sister country and spare the Gabonese people the agonies of division", the ministry added.

"Any other outcome would be fatal for Gabon, but also for the stability of the entire sub-region", warned the ministry, stressing that "only the Gabonese people are the masters of their destiny".
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday strongly condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Related:

Backgrounder: DPRK's five nuclear tests

UN chief strongly condemns DPRK nuclear test

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "in the strongest possible terms."

The DPRK's state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test, the country's fifth one. Full story

DPRK announces success of nuclear warhead test

PYONGYANG, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it successfully conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test, according to state-run television.

This marks Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, which came eight months after the last one. Full story
Gabonese students living in Morocco take part in a protest following a disputed presidential election result in their home-country, on September 1, 2016 at the embassy of Gabon in Rabat. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

RABAT, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- the Moroccan authorities have regularized the situations of nearly 23,000 illegal migrants since 2013, local media reported on Friday.

Citing the secretary general of Morocco's interior ministry, Nourdine Boutaib, Alyoum24 news site said that 23 percent of these unauthorized migrants are Syrians, 21 percent are Senegalese and 19 percent from Democratic Republic of Congo.

Morocco has also deported some 5,000 illegal migrants to their countries, the source added.

The same source pointed out that in three years authorities have dismantled 320 illegal migration networks and foiled some 26,000 illegal migration attempts, chiefly to Europe.

In recent years, Morocco has turned from a country of passage for illegal migrants to Europe to a country of settlement for migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, Syria and Iraq.

In 2013 Morocco announced a new and more liberal immigration policy that includes avenues for regularization of unauthorized immigrants.
MALAWI, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Fifteen people, including children, were killed and 40 others injured in a vehicle pile-up in the northern city of Mzuzu in Malawi Friday evening, hospital authorities confirmed.

The accident involved a lorry carrying passengers, two commuter minibuses and a tipper belonging to a construction company.

According to police in Mzuzu, the construction vehicle hit the two minibus commuters, one of which was carrying Christian Sunday School children who were heading to the border district of Karonga for a choir festival.

Reports also say the tailgate of the speeding lorry opened as the vehicle swerved to avoid the pile up, throwing out its passengers onto the tarmac in the process.

Mzuzu Central Hospital Administrator, Timothy Soko, told local media Friday evening that 6 people died at the hospital while 9 others were killed on the spot.

The forty who have sustained serious injuries are being treated at the northern region's referral hospital.
Antonio Guterres, former prime minister of Portugal and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, candidate for the position of the next secretary-general, speaks to the press at the United Nations headquarters in New York, April 12, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The fourth straw poll in the UN Security Council to find a candidate to replace retiring UN chief Ban Ki-moon showed on Friday no great change in the top rankings from previous tallies, but all five of the women sank into the lowest rakings of the 10 announced candidates.

Portugal's Antonio Guterres, former head of the UN refugee agency, was still on top, with 10 "Encourage" votes, five "Discourage" ballots and no one casting a "No opinion," according to diplomatic sources.

Slovak Republic Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak remained in second place with a tally of 10-4-1.

Former Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic of Serbia, also a former president of the UN General Assembly, came in a clear third this time at 9-4-2, the sources said. At the last straw poll held on Aug. 29, he shared third ranking with Irina Bokova, head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) who slipped to a fifth place tie this time around, leading the five women at the bottom of the list.

Srgjan Kerim, also a former president of the General Assembly and a former foreign minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, came up to fourth place at 8-7-0.

The former president of Slovenia, and a former UN assistant secretary-general, Danilo Turk, tied with Bokova for the number of 5 encourage ballots but had 6 discourage and 2 no opinions to her 5 discourage and 3 no opinions.

Argentina's Susanna Malcorra, Ban's former chef d'cabinet was sixth, followed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, currently head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Christina Figuers, former executive secretary of the UN Climate Change convention in Paris, and finally Moldovas's Natalia Gherman who served the last three years as foreign minister.

The informal, secret straw polls are held to get a reading on how candidates are faring. But even though they are held behind closed doors in the Security Council chambers, the results are almost immediately, and widely, leaked by diplomats who want a more transparent process in choosing the next secretary-general, whose term starts on Jan. 1, 2017.

There had been a push for a woman to serve as the next UN chief as well as a push from Eastern European states for winning candidates, but while diplomats in the 15-nation Security Council said they welcomed such diversity they also say they insist on getting the best possible candidate regardless of gender or geo-political region.

The next straw poll is slated for Sept. 26, a UN spokesman said.
As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.
by Diao Ze, Zhang Man

VENICE, Italy, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Short film is one of the few approaches to study and explore the film language, and China should establish its short film developing system, said Chinese director Hu Wei in an interview with Xinhua.

Hu's 18 minutes short film "Ce qui nous eloigne" has been included in the Orizzonti section of the 73rd Venice Film Festival. French female star Isabelle Hupert played the leading role. The film illustrates a Chinese couple going to France to visit their daughter who was adopted from childhood, providing insight into cultural differences and identity recognition.

Explaining the theme of the film, Hu said: "Identity recognition and discretion is a long-term theme of exploration for me, which concerns the self-identification and self-positioning of artists."

He said since there is no national boundary for art, world artists would first confront with the identity issue, and exploring such a theme in works also serves as the channel for the thinking on his personal identity.

"Film is the time art. It does not have any relationship with duration. 18 minutes is enough to express this theme," said Hu.

The young director delivered impressive performance in various international short film competitions.

By virtue of Butter LampIn, he was awarded in 2013 with the Best Short Film of the 50th Golden Horse Award and also entered the competition unit of "Critics' Week" in Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, he was nominated as the candidate for the Oscar Best Live Action Short Film.

In Hu's opinion, the relationship between short film and long film resembles that between poems with novel.

Short film is one of the few approaches able to study and explore the film language, being quite pure and authentic to the essence of film, he said. All candidate short films of big film festivals present the bold exploration on the film language and drive the development of film art.

He told Xinhua that feature film could hardly achieve pure artistic exploration due to the limitation of cost.

On the contrary, short film has the advantage of low cost. Besides, as the broadcasting channel is targeted for elite audiences, directors thus have larger room for exploration, Hu said.

Regarding the absence of domestic short films, he calls for the quick establishment of short film developing system. "I hope that more people could realize the importance of short film and a systematic development mechanism, including special supporting and broadcasting channel, could be established as soon as possible," said Hu.

Hu has studied and lives in France, and said that France has a relative mature system from manufacturing to broadcasting. "ARTE TV station broadcasts the packaging short film of 90 minutes each week. The audience rating is sound. MK2 theaters would also broadcast short films," Hu noted.

In terms of the commercial tendance of Chinese films, the director that focuses more on the film art said film has amusement and commercial property as the industrial system and it's natural to focus on the commercial return. He also emphasized that filmmakers also have responsibility to produce some qualified products.

According to Hu, Chinese film market is developing rapidly and brings opportunities to filmmakers. "Everything is possible in China, and if a sound short film production and issuance mechanism could be established, it would play positive role in enriching the diversity of modern Chinese films," he concluded.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General on Friday noted "with satisfaction" the completion of the relocation of more than 3,000 Camp Hurriya residents, a camp for exiled Iranians near the Iraqi capital, as requested by the government of Iraq, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here.

"The Secretary-General is pleased that his good offices efforts through his special advisor, Jane Holl Lute, resulted in the successful resolution of this humanitarian issue," Dujarric said in a statement issued here.

Ban Ki-moon "expresses his gratitude to the member states and international organizations that supported these efforts," Dujarric added.

Camp Hurriya is a former U.S. military installation in Baghdad, Iraq, and it was used to house the members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran who were forcibly evicted from Camp Ashraf.

In late 2011, the Iraqi government and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq struck a deal to move the camp residents in Diyala province to Baghdad temporarily until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gets the refugees resettled in a third country.

In October 2013, the United Nations on Wednesday launched a trust fund initiative to help relocate residents of the camp. Ban urged UN member states to contribute to the fund to cover relocation.

The United Nations frequently urged the international community to speed up its efforts to resettle the Iranian exiles in third countries.

Ties between the Shiite Muslim country of Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq have been picked up considerably since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, resulting in the loss of one million lives.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir holds a press conference in Washington, DC, on July 15, 2016, following the release of 28 pages of a 9/11 Congressional report. (Xinhua/AFP PHOTO)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed legislation allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. courts, despite the threat by the White House to veto the bill.

The bill, which passed the Senate unanimously in May, now heads to President Barack Obama's desk. The White House has expressed opposition to the measure.

It would require votes from two-thirds of the members in the House and Senate to override a veto.

"Given the concerns we have expressed, it's difficult to imagine the president signing this legislation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when the bill passed the Senate in May.

"This legislation would change long-standing, international law regarding sovereign immunity," Earnest said, adding that Obama continues to harbor "serious concerns" that this legislation would make the United States vulnerable in other court systems around the world.

The legislation has also drawn criticism from the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes the bill, The New York Times reported in April.

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom's message personally in March during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to 750 billion U.S. dollars in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts, The New York Times reported.

Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for terrorism. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.

Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the plot of the 2001 terror attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington D.C area and Pennsylvania.
BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- An Argentinean international relations expert, Patricio Carmody, wrote on Friday that challenges await Argentina ahead of organizing the G20 Summit in 2018.

Carmody stated in the La Nacion daily that he supported "the initiative of the government to lead the G20, the main forum for global economic cooperation in 2018. It is a fantastic opportunity to continue recovering prestige and strengthen the impact of Argentina's foreign policy,

"This responsibility, confirmed last weekend...at the G20 in Hangzhou, China, creates important challenges from an organization and a content standpoint, which must be faced early," he added.

According to the analyst, a consulting member of the Argentinean Council for International Relations (CARI), leading the G20 in 2018 is in line with the vision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Susana Malcorra, to "build a foreign policy which reflects Argentina's potential."

"This is also in harmony with a policy of 'diverse horizons', which seeks to maintain positive relations simultaneously with our neighbors, established powers, and emerging ones, all represented in the G20," wrote Carmody.

However, he warned that Argentina faces stiff challenges, such as coordinating, on the international level as much as nationally, the process of negotiations and debates and contributing in a substantive and original way to the G20 agenda, which seeks better global governance.

"This year, China focused on innovation, structural reforms and development, especially the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. By 2018, Argentina will have to choose the areas to which it will bring concrete, substantial and original proposals," emphasized Carmody.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- After the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) carried out a nuclear test on Friday, Latin American countries were swift to condemn this act.

Mexico condemned "in the most energetic terms" the fifth nuclear test by the DPRK which it says is a flagrant violation of multiple Security Council resolutions and the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In expressing "its most severe preoccupation at the repetition of such actions," Mexico said the act puts peace and international security at risk.

"The firing of ballistic missiles recently carried out by the DPRK raise obstacles to multilateral efforts to build dialogue, trust and cooperation with the aim of the pacification and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," said a statement by the Mexican government.

The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, also "vehemently" condemning the test.

"As a staunch supporter of a world free of weapons of mass destruction, Brazil rejects any actions that violate relevant UN Security Council resolutions and increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula," it wrote.

Argentina said it "condemns in the most vigorous terms the new nuclear test conducted by the DPRK." It also demanded that the "DPRK immediately cease all hostile acts, comply with the obligations imposed...by the Security Council resolutions, return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and lay the foundations for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to restart its safeguards activities in the country."

Latin America's larger economies were joined by countries such as Paraguay, which issued a statement saying "its preoccupation that this type of actions put in danger regional and international stability."

Paraguay also demanded that the DPRK "put an immediate end to these essays."

Honduras Foreign Ministry also condemned the test. It reiterated "its commitment to dialogue and peaceful solutions to these controversies" in order to see "the return of calm and guarantees for peace and international security."
People watch a TV broadcasting a suspected nuclear test held by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 9, 2016. South Korea's military believed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) might have conducted the "most powerful" nuclear test so far on Friday after an artificial earthquake was detected at a site where its fourth nuclear test was carried out earlier this year. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), saying it is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 (of the UN Charter) and a Security Council resolution," Ambassador Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen of New Zealand, the council's president for this month, told reporters here.

The DPRK's state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test. It was Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, which followed the previous one by eight months.

After a closed-door meeting on this matter, the 15-nation council said in a press statement that the nuclear test is a flagrant disregard of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and "therefore a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist."

"The members of the Security Council also recalled that they have previously expressed their determination to take further significant measures in the event of another nuclear test by the DPRK," it added.

In January, the DPRK carried out a test of what it called its first H-bomb. It also conducted underground nuclear tests respectively in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.

Related:

Backgrounder: DPRK's five nuclear tests

Backgrounder: Timeline of DPRK nuclear development

UN chief strongly condemns DPRK nuclear test

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "in the strongest possible terms."

The DPRK's state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test, the country's fifth one. Full story

DPRK announces success of nuclear warhead test

PYONGYANG, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it successfully conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test, according to state-run television.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry(L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attend a joint press conference after they reached a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict, in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)

GENEVA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached on Saturday a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict.

According to Kerry, who spoke first after day-long discussions with his Russian counterpart, the plan aims to rekindle a nation-wide cessation of hostilities beginning at sundown on Sept. 12, allowing life-saving humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need.

If the truce is respected for seven days, Washington and Moscow are then expected to increase military cooperation, including working on strategies targeting terrorist groups operating on Syrian soil.

This would mean that opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alongside terrorist groups such as Nusra will have to distance themselves to avoid being targeted.

Al-Assad, who Lavrov said had agreed to the new plan, will also have to halt air force strikes against opposition strongholds.

"I want to emphasize, this step is absolutely essential, it is a bedrock of this agreement," Kerry highlighted.

If all steps are implemented correctly, the new plan is seen by both powers as having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, a country at war since 2011.

"Today we have developed a significant, practical and concrete package of documents," Lavrov said.

"We cannot make these documents public because they contain rather sensitive and serious information," he added.

Related:

Erdogan, Putin agree to continue efforts on Aleppo ceasefire

ANKARA, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a phone call late Thursday, and agreed to continue efforts to achieve a truce in Aleppo, Syria, the Turkish Presidency said in a statement.

The two leaders discussed Turkish-Russia bilateral ties as well as the latest developments in Syria, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Full story

Spotlight: Syrians main victims of soaring violence: UN report

GENEVA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- The head of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned Tuesday that Syrian civilians were bearing the brunt of an upsurge in violence since a ceasefire was brokered in February this year.

"Militarization of the conflict has risen significantly over the past six months. Parties need to refocus their efforts on protecting and relieving civilians while pushing for a political solution," Paulo Pinheiro explained. Full story
MANILA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte stressed on Saturday that the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy "without any interference" from any country.

"In our relations with the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy," Duterte told a news conference in his hometown Davao City in the southern Philippines.

He added, "We will observe, and must insist, I repeat, I must insist, on the time-honored principles of sovereign equality, non-interference and the commitment to a peaceful settlement of disputes to best serve our people and protect the interests of our country."

He said he thinks this was "the most telling words" that he uttered in the just concluded summit of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN dialogue partners in Vientiane, Laos.

He said that it was not his intention to offend anybody in that meeting, adding he just wanted "to send message that we have every right to pursue an independent foreign policy without interference."

"I hope they realized it by now," he said without elaborating, adding, "I do not have an obligation to please everybody or to please some person."

Duterte did not mention names or any specific country that he intends to send a clear message to.

But before the high-level meeting of the leaders from ASEAN and their counterparts from ASEAN dialogue partners, controversy hounded Duterte for making "strong remarks" against U.S. President Barack Obama in connection with comments made by U.S. officials on drug-related extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

Duterte's remarks prompted Obama to cancel a scheduled meeting with Duterte last Thursday on the sidelines of the Laos meetings.

Duterte also thanked China for its help in the Philippines' war against illicit drugs.
PHNOM PENH, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Saturday led a group of senior officials and businessmen to attend the 13th ASEAN-China Expo in Nanning City, Southwestern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which will be held from Sept. 11 to 14, a senior official said.

"This is the ninth time that the prime minister joins the Expo," Srey Thamarong, a minister attached to the prime minister, told reporters at Phnom Penh International Airport before leaving for Nanning. "This clearly reflects the prime minister's high attention to further enhancing ASEAN-China relations in general and Cambodia-China ties in particular."

The expo will be held under the theme "Building Maritime Silk Road of 21st Century."

Thamarong said the expo would be a good opportunity for Cambodia and ASEAN member states to showcase their products to international markets and to attract foreign investors, particularly Chinese ones, to their respective countries.

He said some 75 Cambodian companies will exhibit their products in 114 booths at the event.

According to the official, Hun Sen will also open the 1st Cambodia-China Trade and Investment Forum, to be held on Sept. 12 back-to-back with the expo.

Hun Sen's entourage included Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak, Secretary-General of the Council for the Development of Cambodia Sok Chenda Sophea, and other government officials, as well as a group of businessmen led by Kith Meng, President of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce.

The prime minister will return to Cambodia on Sept. 12 in the afternoon.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry(L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attend a joint press conference after they reached a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict, in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)

GENEVA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced on Saturday a landmark agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which they hope would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

Kerry, who spoke first during an early morning press conference Saturday here, said the plan aims to enable a nation-wide cessation of hostilities in Syria beginning Sept.12, allowing life-saving humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need.

"If the plan is implemented in good faith... this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table could take hold and provide the people of Syria with a transition," Kerry said after more than 13 hours of talks at a lakeside Geneva hotel.

His Russian counterpart welcomed the consensus while saying much work needs to be done to see the package take full effect.

"Today we have developed a significant, practical and concrete package of documents," he said, adding that "this is not the end of the road, it is just the beginning of our new relations."

The first step of the plan is to reinstall a nation-wide cease-fire in the Middle East country for a minimum of seven days beginning at sundown Sept. 12, enabling humanitarian aid to reach civilians trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, including the northern city of Aleppo.

The week-long truce is expected to pave the way for greater military cooperation between Washington and Moscow, including working on strategies targeting terrorist factions operating on Syrian soil.

Another crucial element of the package, which Lavrov says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has given the green light to, is for Syria' s air force to end strikes against opposition strongholds.

"I want to emphasize, this step is absolutely essential, it is a bedrock of this agreement," Kerry said.

This is part of a broader long-term strategy to prevent Syrian warplanes from operating in areas singled out by the United States and Russia.

Opposition rebels fighting Syrian government troops alongside terrorist groups such as Nusra will also have to separate, a move greatly welcomed by Lavrov, who said this is included in the agreed-upon document.

The agreement is the culmination of much diplomacy and intense talks between both Kerry and Lavrov, who haven' t always seen eye to eye on the Syrian issue.

While Moscow backs al-Assad, Washington supports opposition groups seeking to oust him.

This is the first time both countries reach an agreement on such a comprehensive package. The breakthrough is seen by both officials has having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, where the conflict has killed up to 500,000 people.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura welcomed the development, saying "the United Nations hopes that the implementation of this understanding will facilitate renewed efforts to reach a Syrian-owned and Syrian-led political settlement of the conflict as called for in the Geneva Communique and Security Council resolution 2254."
QUITO, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador announced on Friday the completion of maritime border demarcation in the Pacific Ocean with Colombia and Costa Rica at a ceremony held on the Galapagos Islands.

The presidents of the three countries signed a definitive and coordinated maritime border agreement, on which negotiations have been on and off since 1978.

In an event broadcast live on the presidential website, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa presented his counterparts with updated nautical maps.

"We celebrate the definitive demarcation of our maritime border with our neighbors Colombia and Costa Rica. It seems paradoxical that, after 200 years of existence as a republic, we can finally declare that our borders are definitively established," he said.

The document also outlined the countries' exclusive economic zones, over which they have sovereignty.

In the light of the agreement, Ecuador's maritime territory is now 5.3 times larger than its land surface, according to Correa.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said "it is very positive for countries to have secure and clear borders. We can work together to enjoy the borders instead of having them as a topic of debate. There are many more possibilities when we cooperate in harmony."

During the ceremony, Santos announced that Colombia would expand the Flora and Fauna Sanctuary of Malpelo Island in the Pacific from 6,763 square km to over 27,000 square km.

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis said his country would expand the protected waters of the island of El Coco by another 10,000 square km.

"We do this as a homage to the universal effort to protect our seas," said Solis.
DHAKA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A water boiler blew up in a chemical plant in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka in Saturday morning, leaving eight workers dead and 20 others injured, according to the fire service.
HO CHI MINH CITY, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is planning to inspect motorbike exhaust fumes initially in five big cities from 2018, the Vietnam Register said Saturday.

According to the Vietnamese Transport Ministry's scheme on controlling motorbikes' exhaust, some 20,000 motorbikes with cylinder capacity of 175 cubic centimeters or more which are registered in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Can Tho and Hai Phong will be inspected in terms of exhaust from July 2018 once a year with an inspection fee of 60,000 Vietnamese dong (nearly 2.7 U.S. dollars) per vehicle.

Motorbikes with smaller capacity will be inspected in terms of exhaust after 2020.

Riders of motorbikes with no or invalid exhaust inspection stamps will be fined.

According to the latest official statistics, Vietnam currently has nearly 45 million motorbikes. Some 2.7 million motorbikes are sold in Vietnam each year, making it the world's fourth biggest motorbike market, after China, India and Indonesia.
BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- After the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced it has successfully carried out another nuclear test on Friday, the international community voiced its strong condemnation over the event.

The DPRK's state-run television made the announcement early Friday, making the test the fifth of its kind in the country.

After a closed-door meeting on the matter, the United Nations Security Council on Friday issued a press statement, saying "a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist" with the DPRK's latest test.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 (of the UN Charter) and a Security Council resolution," Ambassador Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen of New Zealand, the council's president for this month, told reporters.

The 15-member Security Council has imposed severe sanctions on Pyongyang in March, including an export ban and asset freeze.

The International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) on Friday said the nuclear test by DPRK is a deeply troubling and regrettable act.

"This is in clear violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions and in complete disregard of the repeated demands of the international community," the agency Chief Yukiya Amano remarked.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday called the DPRK's latest nuclear test "a grave threat" to regional and international peace and stability.

Obama said he had spoken separately by phone with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the issue.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Friday slammed the DPRK's act as "needless provocation," vowing to consult other international partners "on a robust response."

France called for a quick response to Pyongyang's violation of UN resolutions, according to a statement by the country's presidency office on Friday.

Also on Friday, China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing firm opposition to the nuclear test and commitment to settle the problems through the six-party talks on Pyongyang's denuclearization.

The statement said China's stance has always been to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, prevent nuclear proliferation and maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

DPRK's nuclear test "deserves the strongest condemnation," Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Friday's statement, warning that the act, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, will have negative consequences primarily for the DPRK itself.

Moscow urged all parties concerned to refrain from steps that could lead to further escalation of tensions, and confirmed its readiness for a "very tight coordination of steps aiming to elaborate an international response to Pyongyang's provocative actions," said the statement.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Brazil' s Labor Ministry has formally denied that the federal government plans to lift the country's work-hour ceilings.

"There will not be an increase in the 44-hour weekly workload or in the daily workload of eight hours," according to a statement released by the ministry on Friday.

The statement is in response to criticism caused by remarks made Thursday by Labor Minister Ronaldo Nogueira that the federal government is expected to propose by the end of this year labor reforms, which would increase the maximum daily workload to as much as 12 hours and the maximum weekly to 48 hours.

President Michel Temer's government is facing heavy pressure to improve the performance of Brazil's sluggish economy where unemployment is rising and much of the labor force earn barely more than minimum wage.
BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- China has scored a "diplomatic victory" at the just-concluded East Asian leaders' meetings as ASEAN leaders decided not to chime in with Washington and Tokyo over the South China Sea issue, several global media outlets reported.

An article appeared Friday on the website of The Wall Street Journal noted that ASEAN leaders chose to distance themselves from the U.S. stance regarding a recent arbitration ruling over the issue and use a softer tone -- even the Philippines, the country that filed the arbitration case, did not raise the subject during the series of meetings.

Another WSJ article noted an agreement between China and ASEAN nations to set up a hotline "as a fresh step to help avoid accidental military clashes in the South China Sea."

It also said a Wednesday statement by the 10-member bloc "reflected how Southeast Asian nations have largely moved on from the initial tensions surrounding The Hague tribunal's ruling and now shifted their focus on ensuring regional stability."

The Financial Times also noticed the "mild statement," saying the ASEAN countries did not mention the South China Sea arbitration case.

Meanwhile, an article carried in the Jakarta Post also spoke highly of a China-ASEAN joint statement on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in the South China Sea as well as a guideline on a senior diplomat hotline to cope with maritime emergencies.

The two documents showed that the parties involved are ready to focus their energy on building trust and march together toward the future, the article said, adding that the implementation of the two documents is expected to reduce the odds of accidents in the South China Sea and substantially promote regional peace and stability.

Experts believed what China and ASEAN countries have achieved during their summit are of great importance.

"Consensus between China and the ASEAN nations will be conducive for peace and stability in the area, and at the same time will prevent outsider countries from sabotaging regional peace. That is simply the most significant achievement of these meetings," said Saeed Chaudhry, chair of the Islamabad Council for International Affairs.

Tran Viet Thai, deputy director of Vietnam's Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies, made similar comments, saying that the latest China-ASEAN consensus deserves applause as it would contribute to regional peace and stability.

Meanwhile, Chen Gang, a senior research fellow at the East Asia Institute in the National University of Singapore, said it seems to him that China and ASEAN managed to move on from the arbitration case, conducted their summit in a peaceful and friendly atmosphere, and achieved better-than-expected results.
JAKARTA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian government deplored on Saturday the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), saying it was not in line with the world peace and stability.

"The test contradicted with Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and spirit contained in the treaty. It also a violation of the United Nations (UN) resolutions," the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry said in a statement released on Saturday.

DPRK conducted the nuclear test on Friday, its fifth nuclear test and eight months following the previous one.

Indonesia strongly urged DPRK to obey all the requirements of the UN Security Council.

Indonesia also called on all parties concerned to refrain from steps that could lead to further escalation of tension and committed to political and diplomatic settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula through appropriate negotiations for promoting peace and stability in the region.

The Pyongyang's test was aimed to judge the power of a nuclear warhead newly made by the scientists and technicians, said a statement issued by the DPRK Nuclear Weapons Institute and carried by the official news agency KCNA.
YANGON, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi Saturday left for the United States on an official visit, according to official sources.

It is Suu Kyi's second visit to Washington nearly four years after the first one in 2012.

Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to meet U.S. President Barack Obama and will discuss issues on lifting sanctions on Myanmar, human rights and democratic transition.

Suu Kyi will also address the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, according to official announcement.

En-route to the United States, Aung San Suu Kyi will also visit Britain for meeting with Myanmar ambassadors accredited to countries in Europe and Middle East as well as high-level dignitaries of Britain.
GUIYANG, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese liquor producer Kweichow Moutai Group said Friday that its net profit in the January-August period rose 6.7 percent year on year to 16.4 billion yuan (2.5 billion U.S. dollars).

At the International Alcoholic Beverages Expo in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Yuan Renguo, chairman of the group, told reporters that revenue rose 15 percent to 30.8 billion yuan during the first eight months of the year.

Yuan said the growth was due to exports growth and expansion into other businesses, including e-commerce, investment and financial leasing.

During the period, output reached 69,400 tonnes, including 36,800 tonnes of Moutai brand, China's "national liquor."

Yuan said the group could meet the annual revenue and profit targets of 43.6 billion yuan and 23.1 billion yuan, respectively, for 2016.
Fire fighters spray water at a burning factory at Tongi on the outskirts of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, Sept. 10. (Xinhua/Jibon Ahsan)

DHAKA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed and dozens others sustained injuries as a boiler explosion resulted in a devastating fire in a packaging factory at Tongi on the outskirts of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Saturday morning, police said.

According to the police official who did not like to be named, the initial assumption was that there was a blast in the boiler room that led to the fire at TEMPAC, a garment accessories factory, at around 6:00 a.m. (local time) on Saturday.

"At least 10 bodies were recovered shortly after the explosion," he said.

People gather around a factory at Tongi on the outskirts of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, Sept. 10. (Xinhua/Jibon Ahsan)

Nearly 70 people were injured in the fire triggered by explosion, said the official and they were rushed to different local hospitals where another 10 people succumbed to their injuries, he added.

The official said the death toll may go up as many people have sustained critical injuries.

Twenty units of firefighters after hectic efforts of hours managed to douse the fire at around 11:35 a.m. local time.

There are fears that some workers are trapped inside the burning factory building that has partially collapsed.

The spokesman of the factory was not immediately available for comment.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- From the Atlantic to the Pacific, tens of thousands of Americans start marking the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the deadliest ever in the history of the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama declared on Friday a three-day National Days of Prayer and Remembrance in memory of the occasion. Prayers, parades, art exhibitions, concerts, evening candlelight vigils, ringing of bells and various memorial services will be staged across the country.

"I invite people around the world to participate in this commemoration," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

Nearly 3,000 people from 62 countries were killed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001, when terrorists flew hijacked planes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania as passengers tried to regain control of the plane.

On the steps of the Congress building in Washington D.C. on Friday morning, some 200 members of the House of Representatives observed moment of silence to commemorate the tragedy.

"Today, I can't help but think of my own children -- and all the children born after 9/11," said U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"Do they fully understand what happened that day? Will they ever? Can they? They can watch the old footage. They can see clips of the towers falling. They can hear the great roar as a landmark comes crashing down - and with it, an era. But can they actually feel it?...Can they feel the sense of bereavement -- at losing almost 3,000 Americans in a single morning?" the Republican asked.

"I don't think they can. But that makes it our generation's burden. We lived through that terrible day. And we will never forget that terrible day," said Ryan.

A moment of silence was also held at the center courtyard in Pentagon on Friday. And on Sunday, Obama will join Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford to attend an observance ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial. All are expected to deliver speeches, said a Pentagon spokesman.

Also on Friday, led by bagpipers and drummers, police in formal uniforms from the New York Police Department and a number of law enforcement agencies from across the country, marched through Lower Manhattan, New York City, in honor of their colleagues who died 15 years ago on duty.

On Sunday, the anniversary ceremony will begin at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza at the World Trade Center. It will include six moments of silence, marking when the Twin Towers were struck and fell, when the Pentagon was attacked and when the United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Philadelphia.

The annual ceremony, with an honor guard made up of members representing the fire fighters and police, will involve the reading of all the names of the victims of both the 1993 and 2001 attacks.

On Feb. 26, 1993, a car bomb exploded in the World Trade Center's underground garage, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000.

Also on Sunday in Manhattan, the West Point Band and Cadet Glee Club from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, will present a concert, including the first public performance of 15 one-minute pieces created by composers on the theme of "service" and what it means to the military, the first responders and the community service providers.

From sunset on Sunday till next morning, twin blue beams of light, symbolizing the fallen Twin Towers, will shine skyward from Lower Manhattan for the annual Tribute in Lighting. The beams will reach four miles into the sky and be visible within a 60-mile radius on a clear night.
by Osama Radi, Saud Abu Ramadan

GAZA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thursday's decision of the Palestinian High Court of Justice to suspend holding the municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza deepens the internal split between Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, analysts said.

The municipal elections were scheduled to be held on Oct. 8, which would be the first local elections in the Palestinian territories, except east Jerusalem, since Hamas violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

On June 21, the cabinet of the Palestinian consensus government called for holding the local elections in 391 municipal councils in the West Bank and 25 councils in the Gaza Strip. However, on Thursday, the Palestinian High Court in the West Bank city of Ramallah decided to suspend the elections.

The court will hold a special session later this year to decide the fate of the local elections. All indications show that the court would indefinitely postpone the elections. The main reason for the decision is that east Jerusalem is not included in the coming local elections.

Right after the high court's ruling, Hamas claimed the decision "political and illegal," and Hamas spokesman in Gaza Sami Abu Zuhrin said the court's ruling "was incorrect." In the meantime Fatah accused Hamas of committing a massacre against democracy.

Hani al-Masri, a political analyst in Ramallah, told Xinhua that postponing or cancelling the local elections "has no doubt pushed for more deepening of the internal feuds and splits that has been going on between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for ten years."

"I believe that cancelling the local elections indefinitely would postpone holding the parliamentary and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories," said al-Masri, adding "the court's ruling would cause damage to the Palestinian national cause and would severely deepen the internal split."

He went on saying that instead of suspending the municipal elections in the Palestinian territories, the rivals should have worked together on preventing the dangers that threaten the national accordance, and both should have intensified their efforts to end the internal split and gain a real and practical unity.

Before the court's ruling, endless deep differences and feuds have been going on between rival Hamas and Fatah. Since the announcement of holding the local elections, both have traded arguments on every tiny detail related to the elections, such as Fatah opposition to cancelling some of Fatah lists in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas movement accused the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) of exerting a series of security pressures on the movement and its supporters and leaders in the West Bank to weaken the movement in the territory.

In fact, every time there is a political development in the Palestinian territories, Hamas and Fatah have been trading endless accusations against each other since 2007, the beginning of the internal split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Akram Atallah, a Gaza-based political analyst, asserted that the Palestinian situation went through a new crisis after the High Court's ruling to suspend holding the local elections, adding that "the coming days would witness deeper differences between Fatah and Hamas."

"Apparently, we are living in the worst cases and every time we say that we are close to ending the internal split, we discover that we are sinking deeper into crisis," Atallah said, adding "it seems that we are passing through roads of crisis that will never end, mainly in the Gaza Strip."

The last parliamentary elections were held in the Palestinian territories in 2006, when Hamas movement for the first time won the elections. However, the leader of Fatah Party Mahmoud Abbas won the presidential elections in 2005 and succeeded late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The last local elections were held in both Gaza and the West Bank in 2004 and 2005, which weren't completed in three municipalities in the Gaza Strip. The PNA held the local elections only in the West Bank in 2012, because Hamas, ruler of the Gaza Strip, boycotted them.

Since the beginning of the internal Palestinian split, the two rivals, Hamas and Fatah, have been unable to end their internal split and feuds, although both have signed a series of reconciliation agreements and understandings in Saudi Arabia, Cairo and Qatar.

Abdul Majid Sweilem, a West Bank political analyst, said that the high court's ruling unveil the large gap between Fatah and Hamas, adding "cancelling the local elections (on Oct. 8) is the start of cancelling Palestinian democracy."

"Unfortunately, over the past ten years, the Palestinian democracy had turned from a real democracy to a democracy that is controlled by the mood and the agendas of the Palestinian factions and political powers," he said, adding "this reality unveils a Palestinian failure to achieve a real and practical democracy."
BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) group on Saturday claimed responsibility for two bomb explosions at a busy mall in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad that killed 11 people and wounded 29 others, the group said in an online statement.

Two of the group's suicide bombers detonated a car bomb and an explosive belt at a crowd of Shiite people in Palestine Street, according to a brief statement, of which the authenticity could not be independently verified.

Earlier, a police source anonymously told Xinhua that two blasts occurred shortly before Friday midnight when a booby-trapped car detonated at the car park of al-Nakhil Mall in Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, while a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at the busy street outside the mall building, leaving at least 11 people killed and 29 others wounded.

Iraqi security forces sealed off the area and blocked the roads leading to the scene, while ambulances and police vehicles evacuated the killed and wounded people to the city hospitals, the source added.

The deadly attack occurred as many people came to the mall for shopping before the celebration of Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Monday. The four-day annual festival is also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice, which marks the end of the spiritual peak of the annual pilgrimage or Hajj in Arabic, when pilgrims descend from the hill of Arafat to the nearby holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The IS has frequently targeted areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 691 Iraqis and wounded 1,016 others in August across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
Wang Yi-wen, deputy chief prosecutor of the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, speaks in Taoyuan, southeast China's Taiwan, Sept. 10, 2016. The driver of a tour bus that caught fire and left 26 people dead in Taiwan on July 19 was drunken and set fire to the vehicle intentionally, local prosecutors said Saturday. (Xinhua/Song Zhenping)

TAIPEI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The driver of a tour bus fire that killed 26 people in Taiwan on July 19 was drunk and had splashed gasoline on himself and passangers, local prosecutors said Saturday.

Everyone on board the bus, including the driver, was killed when it caught fire and crashed into a highway barrier near Taoyuan Airport. They included 23 tourists and a tour guide from the Chinese mainland, the local driver and a local tour guide.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani attend Supreme Leader's meeting with authorities of the country and ambassadors of Islamic countries, in Tehran, Iran July 6, 2016.(Handout via REUTERS)

TEHRAN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran began the construction of a nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr on Saturday, official IRNA news agency reported.

The new power plant will be part of the plan to develop Iran's first commercial nuclear reactor Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the report said.

According to local Press TV, at a ceremony attended by senior Iranian and Russian officials, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said: "we are opening a new page in the trend of our peaceful industrial nuclear activities."

He also said the project will be carried out within the framework of the Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On Sept. 1, Salehi said Iran and Russia had agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Bushehr.

The construction, with an estimated cost of 10 billion U.S. dollars, would be completed in 10 years, he said.

By building these two power plants, Iran would save 22 million barrels of oil per year, Salehi added.

But he did not detail the specifications of the two projects.

According to IRNA, the construction of the other power plant will be launched in 2018.

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was first constructed in 1975 by German companies. However, the work was halted when the United States imposed an embargo on high-tech supplies to Iran after its 1979 revolution, in which the U.S.-backed monarch was overthrown. Russia signed a contract with Iran in 1998 to complete the construction.
WINDHOEK, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Namibian President Hage Geingob has had to defend his trip to the U.S after the media questioned why he is taking along a huge delegation and staying for three weeks when the government has admitted that there is no money.

Geingob leaves Namibia Saturday to attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and will return on Oct. 4. He is accompanied by seven ministers, several advisors and officials.

Addressing the media Friday at an impromptu press conference at State House in Windhoek, Geingob said because he is aware of the government's precarious financial position, he had to cut down the number of ministers who had initially been on the list.

"I'm not going to the UN to sleep. We have reduced the size of the delegation. Some have been asked to drop out. We are not careless people," he said.

The trip comes when teachers are likely to go on strike against the government's 5 percent salary increase instead of the 8 percent they want.

It also comes when the government announced that it was freezing hundreds of jobs in the civil service, while the Fitch Rating has raised red flags by downgrading the country's economic outlook from stable to negative on Sept. 2.

Fitch based their decision on depleted foreign reserves; weak revenue collection; budget deficit; ballooning government debt; and weakened earnings from the Southern African Customs Union of which Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho are members.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The civilian death toll in unrest in Indian-controlled Kashmir Saturday rose to 77, with an youth killed by a teargas shell during clashes with security forces in the northern region.

"The incident took place in southern Kashmir's Shopian district this morning when local people clashed with the Indian security forces there, forcing the latter to lob teargas shells to bring the mob under control," a senior police official said, on condition of anonymity.

He added: "The 26-year-old youth was hit by one of the teargas shells and became unconscious. He was rushed to a local hospital where he was declared dead."

Kashmir has been on the boil since the killing of 22-year-old Burhan Wani, terror outfit Hizbul Mujahiddin's poster boy for new militancy, by Indian security forces 60 days back. Apart from 77 deaths, more than 10,000 people have sustained injuries in violence since then.

Pakistan has eulogized Wani and invited India for foreign secretary-level talks over the unrest in Kashmir, an offer rejected by New Delhi.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between the two neighbors, in full and have fought at least three major wars over the region in the past 65 years.
TOKYO, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- One person died and two were injured following an explosion at a South Korean oil tanker Friday in waters off Wakayama prefecture in western Japan, local media reported Saturday.

The explosion occurred on the 740-ton tanker Eiwa Maru 3 when crew members were conducting welding on the deck and sparks met with vaporized oil from the tank.

10 crew members were on board when the incident happened. The ship's chief engineer died after being sent to a hospital, while two other crew members sustained injuries.

The Japan Transport Safety Board has sent investigators to look into the incident.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong speaks during the opening ceremony of China-U.S. Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 10, 2016.(Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Saturday attended the opening ceremony of China-U.S. Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.

Liu called on the college to cultivate youth with broad vision, excellent capability, responsibility and leadership. She hoped that Schwarzman College can be built as an international platform for cultivating future leaders.

Liu hoped that the first group of Schwarzman scholars will value the opportunity, promoting cultural exchanges between China and other countries, and cooperating to face the global challenges.

Liu also met with Stephen Schwarzman, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other foreign guests.

The Schwarzman Scholars program of Tsinghua University is a one-year post graduate program co-founded by the university and Stephen Schwarzman. It aims to cultivate students with international vision, overall quality, leadership and knowledge of China.

The first group of 110 scholars come from 70 colleges in 31 countries.
TEHRAN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Saturday began the construction of a nuclear power plant, with Russian help, in the southern port city of Bushehr, official IRNA news agency reported.

The new power plant is part of a plan to develop Iran's first commercial nuclear reactor Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the report said.

"We are opening a new page in the trend of our peaceful industrial nuclear activities," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said at a ceremony attended by senior Iranian and Russian officials, according to local Press TV.

He added that the project will be carried out within the framework of the Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran's First Vice President Is'haq Jahangiri and head of Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Sergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko attended the ceremony.

"Meeting energy needs is the prelude to economic development," said Jahangiri, adding that efforts must be made toward preservation of fossil fuels for the next generations.

On Sept. 1, Salehi said Iran and Russia had agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Bushehr.

The construction, with an estimated cost of 10 billion U.S. dollars, would be completed in 10 years, he said.

By building these two power plants, Iran would save 22 million barrels of oil per year, Salehi added.

But he did not detail the specifications of the two projects.

According to IRNA, the construction of the other power plant will be launched in 2018.

On Saturday, Salehi said that the construction of the new power plants will help the country prevent the emission of 14 million tons of greenhouse gas each year, Tasnim news agency reported.

The plants will also be equipped with water desalination facilities to produce 200 million cubic meters of fresh water per annum, Salehi was quoted as saying.

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was first constructed in 1975 by German companies. However, the work was halted when the United States imposed an embargo on high-tech supplies to Iran after its 1979 revolution, in which the U.S.-backed monarch was overthrown. Russia signed a contract with Iran in 1998 to complete the construction.
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Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

Virginia Vallejo Biography And Her Love Story With Pablo Escobar Virginia Vallejo can be referred to as one of the oldest whistleblowers in history after her involvement with Pablo Escobar which made her famous. Over the years, many questions have been raised about her relationship with the drug lord and why she endangered her life to be with him despite his notorious acts. The death ...

Princess Love Bio  Ethnicity, Real Name & Parents For many people, Princess Love is simply Ray Js wife but there is so much more to this feisty lady than meets the eye. She is a star in her own right and has many feathers on her cap. Princess Love is a reality TV star, a model, video vixen, and fashion designer. She and her ...

Who is Papa Franku Also Known As Filthy Frank or Joji, Where is He Now? The social media as we all know today has given people the opportunity to be creative and innovative and at the same time, make something of themselves. YouTube is one of the known social platforms we have today that makes it possible for people to express their God-given talents and post videos they created to ...

Who Is Molly Qerim, How Did She Become a Famous Sports Anchor and Who Is Her Husband? Molly Qerim is an American sports anchor popularly known for moderating First Take, a highly rated sports talk show, on ESPN. Prior to joining ESPN, Qerim hosted Fantasy Live and NFL AM on NFL Network. It is quite obvious that the widely acclaimed television personality is in a class of her own when it comes ...

Safiya Nygaard  Height, Parents & Net Worth Safiya Nygaard is an American YouTuber, writer, content producer, and director who is popular for posting makeup, beauty and fashion videos on YouTube. Her videos regularly top at least one million views, thanks to her lively character as well as her willingness to experiment with outrageous outfits and different beauty products. Here are the things to ...

The Rigors of Sunlen Serfatys Career Journey Until CNN and Fun Facts About Her Personal Life CNN correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for covering a broad range of breaking news stories, national news, and Washington politics. She has been able to garner widespread recognition for herself which even goes beyond the sphere of her work. Her profile also increased with the extensive work she did in covering ...

Demystifying Jazz Jennings Real Name, Boyfriend & Family Of One The Youngest Transgenders Jazz Jennings is an unusual personality who became famous as a transgender activist and was recorded as the youngest documented public figure to be seen as transgender. She is also a YouTube personality and spokesmodel for brands, her fans, and other transgenders. She fought for acceptance in her high school with her super supportive family for over ...

Inside Fred Armisens Life  Ethnicity, Romantic Relationships and Gay Rumors Fred Armisen is an award-winning American comedian, he is also a writer, an actor as well as a musician. He was a cast member of the legendary comedy show, Saturday Night Live for 13 years and also one of the brains behind the successful satirical show Portlandia. Find out more about this incredibly talented guy ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Biography: Cases, Kids, and Family Life Have you ever woken up with fear you could not explain, or felt a strange presence that made the hair at your nape rise or even experienced strange occurrences around you? Well, these were some of the promptings that made the well-known paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren delve into trying to explain the ideas ...

Truth About Tony Romos Wife, Kids and Life Since His NFL Retirement Tony Romo grew from the field as a quarterback to the screens as an American Football Analyst. He was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the richest football league in the world (NFL) before retiring. As a junior, he was honored as an All-Ohio Conference Member, an Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and ...

Who is Brittany Venti, The Controversial Game Streamer and YouTuber? In recent times, many people live stream themselves playing video games. This has become a popular pastime on the internet and many highly skilled gamers have become internet celebrities through this means. However, some of them rather than becoming renowned for their gaming skills and great commentary, have become controversial and infamous. A good example ...

Rob Dyrdeks Family: His Kids And Relationship With Wife Bryiana Noelle Flores A multi-talented star and an elite pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdeks success story began at a remarkably young age. Yet another proof that schooling doesnt always correlate with success, Rob has established himself not just as a phenomenal sportsman but also as a successful entrepreneur. Besides perfecting his skill as a natural talent on the board, ...

xChocobars  Biography and Everything You Should Know About Her Having distinguished herself and recorded massive successes in an industry notably dominated by men, it is very safe to say that Xchocobars deserves all the attention and cash she makes from her career. A household name on Twitch (a smart live streaming video platform), the online-gamer is popularly known for streaming classic games such as Stardew ...

Everything To Know About Mary Padian, Her Boyfriend and Net Worth Mary Padian is a famous American television reality personality best known for her involvements on the Reality show Storage Wars. She also has her own shop called Mary finds where she displays her antique collections. Since her childhood, Padian has been a creative learner. At the time, she used to create new items out of reusable ones and ...

Betsy Woodruffs Family Life: Is She Married or Related To Bob Woodruff? An old name in the world of journalism, Betsy Woodruff has warmed her way into the hearts of many with her impressive talents. Through hard work, Woodruff has carved a niche for herself in a very competitive field. Betsy has strong family and work values and is also an advocate for equal opportunities for everyone ...

Matpat (Matthew Patrick)  Wife, Height & Net Worth As far as internet business is concerned, Matpat remains one of the most dynamic and seasoned figures. He boasts a wealth of experience that has helped him in growing his business from one level of greatness to another. Like most successful people, MatPat started out small but today, he makes millions of dollars from his ...

Facts About Ricegum  His Girlfriend, Real Name & Net Worth Ricegum is an online gamer and YouTube sensation who ditched college; took advantage of the digital era, and made a name for himself on the internet. Though he began as a gaming YouTuber, Ricegum soon gained recognition as a controversial internet star following his many diss tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the youngster ...

Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

The Gist On Elise Jordans Marriages And Her Rise To Prominence Political commentaries tend to be boring when it is handled by someone who does not have a knack for it. However, when you see the likes of Elise Jordan run the same commentary, you will have a lot of reasons to look forward to watching her again as the journalist is well-versed in the field ...

What Is Timmy Thick Best Known For and How Successful Is The Star? Thanks to the internet, many people whose talents would have ordinarily gone unnoticed have become famous. A very good example of this modern-day internet celebrity is Timmy Thick, an American social media star. He became popular on Instagram due to his penchant for posting raunchy pictures of himself. He also often posted videos of himself ...

What Does Heather Storm Do For a Living and Who Is She Dating? Reality Television is a great way to make a name for oneself as well as amass a fortune. Heather Storm can attest to this as she is one of those who have made a name and earned a lot from reality TV. She made her name appearing on shows like Car Fanatics, Awesome Autos, and, ...

Matt Carriker Biography  Net Worth, Wife & Height Unlike your regular veterinary doctor next door, Matt Carriker chose to spice up his noble profession with the unusual. Though he is known to many as a medical practitioner, Carriker is better renowned as a YouTube star and an animal lover. Having recorded huge successes on his various YouTube channels, the vet doctors name and ...

Jillian Mele of Fox News Career Achievements, Husband & Measurements There are quite a good number of presenters on radio and television who listeners and viewers may never wish to miss any of their shows because of their sensational golden voice, beauty or the special way or artistry they anchor their shows. Jillian Mele is one of such. She has been at the top of ...

Who is Gillian Turner of Fox News? Her Fiance or Husband and Net Worth Gillian Turner is well-known as a news correspondent for Fox News Channel but before she became a TV personality, she built an intimidating resume working for different institutions, including the American government. She served in different capacities at the White House National Security Council during the administration of former US Presidents  George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ...

Gloria Govan Bio  Age, Ethnicity & Height Even as Gloria Govan is famous as an American actress, author, a TV host, and reality television star, shes more popular as the wife of the former NBA player, Matt Barnes. She became known after appearing on the Florida version of the reality television series, Basketball Wives and later, Basketball Wives: LA  after Matt was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Sadly, ...

Michael Fishmans Interesting Start as an Actor and Why He Divorced His Wife of Many Years When one door closes, another one opens. As silly as that axiom may seem, it is the story of the resurgence of Michael Fishman, who plays D.J Conner on the popular show, Roseanne. Having played the character for several years as a child actor into his teenage years; when the show originally ended, Michael did ...

Who Is October Gonzalez  Tony Gonzalezs Wife? All You Need To Know October Gonzalez is a popular American TV host and media personality. Additionally, she is also a model. Gonzalez has hosted several TV shows such as Beat Shazam, Entertainment Tonight, and Rachel Ray. She has also featured in several reality TV shows. Gonzalezs fame is not just due to her profession but also because of her ...

Who Is Tony Berlin  Harris Faulkners Husband: His Children and Family Facts Tony Berlin is a popular American media guru. He has variously worked as a reporter, anchor, and producer for some of the biggest TV networks in America. They include CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC (where he hosted the popular Good Morning America). Berlin has now diversified into public relations and owns his own PR firm. ...

The Progression of Gianna Tobonis Journalism Career and Details About Her Marriage to Kyle Buckley Gianna Toboni may not be your ideal newscaster but her unusual reporting is what made her a household name. The American journalist is renowned for her hard-hitting and authentic reportage. A motivator and activist for total press freedom, Gianna loves to explore pervasive cultural issues. Not only does this unique and ambitious journalist call for all ...

Dog The Bounty Hunters Family Including Details of His Late Wife and Kids Popularly known as Dog, a name which he got from the television series, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman, an American bounty hunter, and one-time bail bondsman, went from being convicted for a felony to being a reality TV star. He was brought to the limelight following the capture of the convicted criminal, Andrew Luster in 2003 and this eventually made ...

Vicky Karayiannis, Chris Cornells Wifes Bio, Children and Family The world of showbiz is made up of different people who serve different roles, and function in a variety of capacities, and one of the most important people are those in the background. Publicists are undoubtedly one of these background people yet they are vital to the life and fame of most of our favorite ...

Joe Rogan Has A Step-Daughter and 2 Other Kids With Wife Jessica Ditzel  Meet His Family Joe Rogan is a popular American stand-up comedian and TV host. His journey to stardom began in the late 80s and has seen him host several shows, the most popular is the game show titled Fear Factor. The exciting show dares contestants to face some of their greatest fears and embark on challenging stunts. The ...

Josh Gates and Wife Hallie Gnatovich Have 2 Kids But Who Has the Higher Net Worth? Best known for his explorations and adventures, Josh Gates, is a television presenter with a voracious appetite for seeing the world and the beauties in it. Some of that beauty, however, is in his home, in the form of two children he shares with his wife, Hallie Gnatovich. Not excluded is their marriage which has lasted ...

Holly Sonders Wiki, Plastic Surgery & Why She Divorced Her Husband  Erik Kuselias After trying everything within her capacity to have a low key wedding, Holly Sonders was drawn to the public because of her husbands controversy at his workplace. Well, the two are rumored to be divorced but the article below will give more light on how true these rumors are. Meanwhile, Holly Sonders is yet to ...

Nadeska Alexis Bio  Age, Boyfriend & Net Worth Journalism is one diverse profession that allows the practitioners to choose their area of specialty, build a career on it by reporting the truth and facts which in the long run will distinguish them as deserving commendation and recognition among their peers. Some choose to specialize in political journalism, while to others it is sports ...

Media Platforms Charlamagne Tha God Has Explored and All The Controversies He Has Courted Charlamagne Tha God is an American on-air personality, radio presenter, and more recently, author. He is popularly known as a co-host on New York radios nationally syndicated show, The Breakfast Club, a program he has been hosting alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee since 2010. However, his early years had no connection to his current career ...

A Look At Jimmy Fallons Net Worth and Family Including His Wife & Kids Sometimes, a childs passion for something is a pointer to what he/she would become in the future. As a child, Jimmy Fallon was literally obsessed with watching the late-night comedy program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Then, his parents would tape the clean parts for him to watch and later, he and his sister would re-enact sketches from the ...

Kay Adams Biography  Does The Sportscaster Have A Husband or Boyfriend? When you hear the phrase sports enthusiast, women are hardly the first group that comes to mind. Well, thats changing pretty fast. Especially with the rise of female sports analysts and broadcasters like Kay Adams who is famed for knowing more about sports than most men do. And why not, shes paid handsomely for it ...

Ben Shapiros Family  Meet His Wife, Kids and Sister Who is Popular for the Wrong Reasons A multi-talented man, Ben Shapiro is a man of controversial nature, an attribute that has made him an unusual public figure. An intellectual whose career path was clearly defined even before he became a man, the Jewish conservative commentator has always had his way with words. He became popular by sharing his critical and often ...

QVC Shawn Killinger Bio  Husband, Net Worth & Facts To Know Shawn Killinger is a prominent TV personality who has worked her way to the top. Though not initially a journalist by training, she defied the odds and today has established herself as a household name, as well as, worked alongside some industry legends. More than just being a reporter, newscaster, and anchor, heres all you ...

Liv Lo  Dissecting the Ethnicity, Parents and Personal Life of Henry Goldings Wife While many are aware that Liv Lo is the better half to Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding, only a few understand why his beautiful wife appears increasingly endearing to fans. A former model turned TV personality, and fitness star, Liv has an impressive resume which when combined with that of her statuesque spouse is considered a perfect ...

Stpeach Age, Husband and Other Facts About The Twitch Streamer Lisa Vannatta, famously known by her online alias, STPeach is a Canadian video game streamer cum vlogger who has garnered fame through her appearances on different video-sharing/social networking platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter. The beautiful lady got her career to a start in August 2015 when she joined the live streaming video platform, Twitch. She rose to ...

Insights into Seth Meyers Wife, Family and What His Net Worth Is Celebrities are mostly remembered and known for the work they do. For Seth Meyers, his career as a comedian, writer, actor, TV host, and producer is his biggest identifier. He was on Saturday Night Live SNL show as a head writer and cast member for more than ten years during which he built a reputation ...

Who Is Jessica Gadsden  Age, Net Worth & All About Charlamagne tha Gods Wife Jessica Gadsden is an American fitness coach as well as a personal trainer. She is better known as the spouse of popular American media personality, Charlamagne Tha God. Charlamange Tha God is a well-known TV and radio personality in the U.S. He has featured in several shows (both on the radio and TV) and is ...

Who Is Collins Tuohy  Michael Ohers sister ? Her Wedding, Husband & Net Worth Collins Tuohy is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, blogger, and social media personality. She is also better known as the adoptive sister of NFL player, Michael Oher, whose life story inspired the Hollywood blockbuster The Blind Side. The Blind Side tells the true life story of Oher who grew up in an impoverished background consisting of a ...

Eye-Popping Facts About The Personal Life And Career Success Of Sportscaster Heidi Watney Heidi Watney is a media personality who has created a niche for herself as a sportscaster. Starting out as a radio presenter, the brilliant young lady has gone on to work for several prominent sports networks, and currently, she is with the MLB. The sportscaster is also known to have been an avid sports lady right ...

Marty Lagina Bio  Siblings (Martina and Rick Lagina), Net Worth and Wife Marty Lagina is an American engineer and businessman who has risen to fame as a reality TV star. This is thanks to his involvement in the adventure TV series, The Curse of Oak Island. The Curse of Oak Island is a long-running TV series which airs on the history channel. The show aims to solve ...

Is Jordan Schlansky Just A Character or a Real Life Person and What Does He Do? The world of late-night television is an interesting one. Shows during that time are geared towards giving viewers comedic relief from a long day at work through interviews and comedy sketches. The often charismatic host of this show requires the balancing talent of a producer whose primary job is to deliver great episodes. It is ...

Heres How Wealthy Jimmy Kimmel Is From All The Phases of His Career, Marriages and Sons Health Jimmy Kimmel is a renowned late-night talk show host known for his charm, wit, and the A-list guests he features on his show. As the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! On ABC, Jimmy has been serving comedy to television viewers for years which played a pivotal role in launching him into mainstream fame and enabled ...

Natasha Bertrand Biography  Is She Married? Who Is the Husband & What Is Her Age? Natasha Bertrand is not just a young prominent journalist but a first-rate investigative reporter. With her natural beauty and smile, Natashas sharp, insightful political commentary also makes her a thorough reporter. Her sound political perspective and coverage in the country have made her a force to be reckoned with in the profession. Renowned for her ...

What Happened to Shane Kilcher? His Injury Update, Net Worth and More Shane Kilcher is well-known thanks to the Discovery Channel series Alaska: The Last Frontier. It is a show that documents the daily lives of the extended Kilcher family, people who live without plumbing or modern heating. The episodes follow their routines as they rely on hunting and farming for their nutritional needs as well as ...

Is Stephanie Gosk Gay or Lesbian, Who is the Wife or Partner  Jenna Wolfe? In August 2013, NBCs Today viewers were greeted with two shocking news. Today weekend anchor, Jenna Wolfe, announced that she was as a lesbian, introducing her partner as NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk, and said the two are expecting their first child. A long time has passed since then and certainly, a lot of things ...

Nikki Mudarris  Bio and Net Worth: 5 Interesting Facts You Need to Know Nikki Mudarris, also known as Miss Nikki Baby, is a reality television star, model and fashionista. Shes best known for VH1s reality TV series Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood. Her entrepreneurial skills enable her to create and run a successful lingerie line Nude by Nikki. Not only that, but Nikki has also successfully run the Las ...

5 Interesting Things You Need To Know About Kelly Nash Ever heard of the lady who gained national prominence for taking a selfie with a dangerous ball just a few inches away from hitting her? Its no other person than Kelly Nash, an American sports broadcaster currently working as host of The Rundown show which airs on MLB Network every weekday at 2 pm ET. ...

Understanding The Height of Fame John Oliver Achieved With The Daily Show and How He Met His Wife Without knowledge of who he is and his exemplary career, John Oliver cuts an unassuming figure of a regular man but he is one of the most influential personalities in America, especially on television. Since he began his career in 1998, he has been a loud and unapologetic agent of change, using his wit and ...

Why Did Big Chief Leave Street Outlaws, Where Is He Now And Why Did He Divorce His Wife? Justin Shearer, otherwise known by his professional name Big Chief is a famous street racer and television personality. He is famously known for being one of the main characters on the racing reality television series, Street Outlaws. Justin, who had been a significant part of the show since its premiere in 2013, appeared in a ...

Who is Josina Anderson of ESPN? Her Husband and Family Facts There has been a gradual paradigm shift in the world of sports which has today produced the likes of Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and other female athletes that are pulling great feats in different sporting fields. Their achievements have also been followed by the emergence of female sports journalists such as Jillian Mele, Eboni Williams, ...

Is Brittany Wagner Married, Who Is The Husband, How Old Is She? Brittany Wagner has been an inspiration to a lot of sports youngster. She has won the hearts of many athletic students with her role as a life coach and an academic counselor. She is well groomed in her career and has worked over a decade for The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and The National ...

Tati Westbrook Bio  Age, Husband & Net Worth With five videos dished out every week, alongside running her own brand, beauty guru, and YouTube superstar Tati Westbrook has proved to the world that theres utterly no impossibility or limit to whatever one is passionate about. Tati is best known for being the owner and manager of the worlds most-viewed beauty and lifestyle YouTube channel, ...

Cathy Areus Long Road to Becoming a Freelance Journalist and What to Know About Her Kids An American freelance journalist, news analyst, and author, Cathy Areu has built a lasting reputation for herself on cable television. Popular for her skillful and sassy presentation of professional views on varying topics including cultural and feminist issues, Cathy is an inspiration to many women across the globe. In addition to being a journalist, she ...

Tucker Carlsons Love Story With Wife Susan Andrews, their Children and Net Worth Today On the TV screens, Tucker Carlson is that fiery fellow who passionately dishes out his conservative and often controversial views on issues of national importance. Such brazenness has fetched him many enemies, especially on the left-wing, but it has also helped him cement a reputation as one of the foremost broadcast journalists in America. His ...

Paige Wyatts Net Worth, Boyfriend and Where She Is Now Paige Wyatt became popular after the Wyatt family began running the reality television show, American Guns. The Wyatt family comprises Rich Wyatt (father), Renee Wyatt (mother), Paige and Kurt Wyatt (children). Rich Wyatt originally ran a gun shop, the Gunsmoke Guns in Wheat Ridge, Colorado which is outside of Denver. The business which he ran together ...

The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ...

Lisa Joyners Biography  Ethnicity, Net Worth and Other Key Facts Lisa Joyner is an American Journalist, TV talk show host, and actress. Some of her well-known works are her correspondences for the Los Angeles based TV KCBS, inFANity show, Find My Family Show including her film and television appearances in Brimstone, American Sweetheart, The Bold and The Beautiful among others. Lisas passion for reconnecting people with their biological families ...

Amanda Balionis Rise Through the Ranks of Sportscasting and the Identity of Her Boyfriend Amanda Balionis is an American sportscaster currently working as a golf broadcaster for CBS Sports. Among so many of her works in the field of sports reporting, Amandas PGA Tour coverage seems to be the most popular so far. She covered the Super Bowl working with CBS Sports social media team in Atlanta, where she ...

Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ...

Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ...

What to Note About Dr Terry Dubrows Qualifications, TV Works and Marriage to Heather Kent In the realm of people that we expect to see regularly on our screens, medical doctors are closer to the bottom of the list. Aside from the fact that their work has little correlation with TV, they are presumably too busy to pursue life as TV personalities. Yet, a few of them have usurped this ...

Jessica Goch  Bio: 5 Things You Didnt Know About Ninjas Wife Jessica Goch is the Schofield-born American Social Media Influencer who has worked as a model but is now better known as a host and interviewer of prominent Electronic sports celebrities at popular gaming events/tournaments. The screen queen also serves as the manager of her famous husband Ninja aka Tyler Blevins whose exploits on Twitch and Fortnite has ...

CNNs Chris Cuomo Biography  Wife, Family & Net worth Chris Cuomo needs no elaborate introduction as he has starred graced many prominent Television cable networks and his voice has been heard through acknowledged radio shows. He is a television journalist and Lawyer who has previously worked for ABC News as Chief law and justice correspondent as well as a co-anchor on 20/20. If you still ...

Neil deGrasse Tyson  Family, Religion & Net Worth Neil deGrasse Tyson is a distinguished American astrophysicist and author who has been able to achieve so much after falling in love with astronomy at the age of 9. He has since attended and become an alumnus of prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, and also recorded numerous achievements in his field of ...

Is Simon Cowell Gay? Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend and Why is He Famous? Simon Cowell is a well-known talent show judge, TV producer, entrepreneur and one of the most popular TV personalities that Britain has ever produced. In conjunction with his company, Syco, Cowell is the brain behind hugely successful talent hunt shows such as The X-Factor UK, The X-Factor US, Britains Got Talent, Americas Got Talent and ...

Everything To Know About Joanna Gaines Life With Chip Gaines, Their Business Pursuits and Kids Joanna Gaines and her husband Chip Gaines became celebrities after their television show Fixer Upper began airing back in 2013. The show which was about home renovation and decoration ran for about 6 seasons with a total of 79 episodes before the couple bade farewell to it in April 2018. Apart from their appearances on ...

Who Is Larry The Cable Guy? What To Know About His Wife And Net Worth Larry the Cable Guy is a self-professed country kid renowned for his trademark Southern accent and sensational catchphrase Git-R-Done! The famous comedian who talks about anything under the sun has gone on to become one of the most memorable characters in comedy history. Join us in unearthing lesser-known facts about the former on-air-personality, standup comedy superstar, movie ...

Who Is Patrick Starr, What Is His Net Worth and Gender? The make-up industry over the years has grown to become a billion dollar industry not just because there are probably more women wearing make-up but because a whole lot of men, especially the young ones, have become bold enough to wear it unlike before. A few of these men, like Patrick Starr, have even gone ...

How Did Chris Jansing Become a Senior Correspondent at MSNBC and Who Is Her Husband? An award-winning American television news reporter and journalist, Chris Jansing has succeeded in carving a spectacular niche for herself in the field of TV journalism. Outstanding for not just her excellence in journalism, Chris is also cherished for her incredibly gorgeous looks post 60! For close to four decades, Jansing has continued to soar in her ...

Jaclyn Glenn Biography  Age, Height & Ex-Boyfriend American Youtuber, Jaclyn Glenn, rose to prominence through her self-titled YouTube channel Jaclyn Glenn. She has remained an acclaimed atheist and continues to air her views on hot issues from politics, religion, animal rights, to atheism. During the heated 2016 US Presidential elections, Glenn featured in Hump Trump: Official Donald Trump Song. Her parallel acting career ...

Is Pat Sajak Married to a Wife or is He Gay With a Partner? Pat Sajak is one of the most popular TV game show hosts in America. He commenced his career as a radio disk jockey as well as a TV weatherman before being tapped to host Wheel of Fortune, the longest-running syndicated game show in the United States. Sajak has hosted the popular game show from 1983 ...

Nayyera Haqs Bio  What To Know About Her Husband, Parents And Family Nayyera Haq can take anyone on political debates as well as discussions on social issues affecting many. Her ability to masterfully deliver her stance on every issue or political debate has made her a regular face in morning and evening news media platforms. This is not a common feat especially for someone from her kind ...

Inside Guy Fieris Family With Wife, Kids and Sister Who Died of Cancer Over the years we have seen men dominate the kitchen and churn out amazing delicacies from it. Some do it way better than their female counterparts and one of such men is Guy Ramsay Fieri  an American TV host, celebrity chef, restaurant owner, bestselling author of four culinary books, and game show host. His ...

Meet Phil Mudd of CNN  The Former CIA and FBI Exec, Is He Married, Who Is The Wife? When it comes to discussing issues surrounding terrorism, American Counterterrorism and National Security Expert, Phil Mudd, occupies a globally significant position. He has voiced his interest in the fight against terrorism and insecurity on many popular media platforms, both print and broadcast, such as CNN, BBC, CBS, MSNBC, al-Jazeera, ABC, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, ...

Jim Hoffer: Biography, Wife  Mika Brzezinski, Children and Net Worth Jim Hoffer is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works as an investigative reporter for Eyewitness News, New York City. In his over two decades of investigative journalism, Hoffer has been at the front lines of several crucial stories from the 9/11 attack to the crash of American Flight 587 to the 2003 Blackout. On top of ...

The Ups and Downs of Erin Mcpikes Journalism Career and Other Facts About Her Personal Life Erin McPike is a journalist working for the Independent Journal Review (IJR) as a White House Correspondent but she gained widespread recognition for her coverage of general news. Whether its breaking news or some mainstream story, McPike has a reputation of baring the facts. As a journalist, her work as a White House Correspondent for Independent ...

Bert Kreischer Is Married To LeeAnn Kreischer With 2 Kids  Meet His Family Those familiar with Bert Kreischer mainly have the image of a large-bellied party man whose college life inspired the National Lampoon film, Van Wilder. It is an image that one would not naturally associate with a wholesome family. The standup comedian still maintains his wild party animal image on stage. But, back at home, he is ...

How Brendan Greene Became a Game Designer to Look Out For and Facts About His Failed Marriage The name Brendan Greene may not easily ring a bell in the larger society but for gaming enthusiasts, he is considered a god and this is because of his invention of the video game, Player Unknowns Battlegrounds, also called PUBG. Based on the popular last-man-standing/battle royale concept, Greenes creation has taken the gaming world by ...

WFAAs Sonia Azad Bio  Does The Reporter Have A Husband Or Boyfriend? Emmy Award-winning journalist and Health & Wellness reporter Sonia Azad is on the news segment News 8 Daybreak for the television station WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, a channel which she joined in October of 2015. Besides her time on the news, Azad is also a marathon runner and a certified yoga instructor. She has covered major news ...

This Is Everything You Should Know About Caroline Heldman, Her Career Portfolio and Other Facts Love it or hate it, there is no escaping the fact that feminism has come to stay in our world. The movement has continued to garner momentum over the years and this is due to the sustained push by several women, and even men, including the likes of Caroline Heldman. A Professor of Politics at ...

Understanding The Enigma That Is Gavin McInnes, The Controversies He Has Stirred and All About His Wife Gavin McInnes is a polemical English-born writer and TV personality, who is best known for his racist and fascist ideologies, as well as his co-ownership of Vice Media and Vice Magazine. He is also an actor a
HANOI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- "Vietnam is seriously concerned about the nuclear test carried out by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday," said Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Le Hai Binh on Saturday.

Binh made the remarks while addressing reporter's inquiry over Vietnam's response to the latest nuclear test by the DPRK on Friday, the fifth of its kind in the country.

"The test seriously violates relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), increasing tensions and threatening peace and stability in the region," said Binh on the website of Vietnamese foreign ministry.

"It is a consistent policy of Vietnam to support denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, support comprehensive nuclear test ban, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and towards nuclear disarmament," said the spokesperson.

"Vietnam urges all related parties to strictly comply with the UNSC resolutions and carry out practical actions to boost peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula," said Binh.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from two bomb explosions Friday at a busy mall in Baghdad rose to 16, a police source told Xinhua Saturday.

"Our latest report said 16 people were killed and 39 others wounded in the two suicide bomb explosions of al-Nakhil Mall in eastern Baghdad," the source said on condition of anonymity.

The two massive blasts occurred shortly before Friday midnight when a booby-trapped car detonated at the car park of al-Nakhil Mall in Palestine Street, while a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at the busy street outside the mall building, the source said.

Earlier, the source put the toll at 11 killed and 29 others wounded by the two blasts.

Iraqi security forces sealed off the area and blocked the roads leading to the scene, while ambulances and police vehicles evacuated the killed and wounded people to the city hospitals, the source said.

The deadly attack occurred as many people came to the mall for shopping before the celebration of Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Monday.

The four-day annual festival is also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice, which marks the end of the spiritual peak of the annual pilgrimage or Hajj in Arabic, when pilgrims descend from the hill of Arafat to the nearby holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Hours later, the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for two bomb explosions in an online statement, saying that two of its suicide bombers detonated a car bomb and an explosive belt at a crowd of Shiite people in Palestine Street.

The authenticity of group's brief statement could not be independently verified.

However, IS group has frequently targeted areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 691 Iraqis and wounded 1,016 others in August across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
A Chinese medical team doctor treats a patient in Africa. (Xinhua)

ANTANANARIVO, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Malagasy citizens have hailed the helpful presence of the Chinese medical team in Madagascar, according to a TV documentary by Madagascar's national television (TVM).

Patients, their family members, Malagasy doctors and government authorities testified in the documentary that the Chinese medical team mission have been very helpful for the Malagasy people.

Chinese Ambassador Yang Xiaorong said that the documentary came as the Chinese medical team marked its 40 years of presence in the country.

TVM Chairman of Board of Directors Odile Raharijaona said the documentary is "a mark of good relationship between the two countries."

Chinese medical team doctors in Africa. (Xinhua)

Chinese medical team chief Yan Weidong said that the Chinese government is working towards improving the service of Chinese traditional medicine in Madagascar.

"The Chinese government will allocate funding to turn Mahitsy hospital into the standardized Centre in Chinese Traditional Medicine," said Yan.

The documentary will be broadcast on Madagascar National Television, chief of production of TVM, Zo Raharivony, told Xinhua.
ANKARA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Saturday welcomed a U.S.-Russian deal for a ceasefire in war-torn Syria, Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website Saturday.

It was essential to halt fighting and allow humanitarian aid to reach those in need on the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday starting on Monday, it said.

"Turkey is preparing to provide humanitarian aid to the northern city of Aleppo," the statement said.

The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a landmark agreement on a nationwide ceasefire in Syria, which would commence with the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The week-long truce also includes improving humanitarian aid access and a joint military operation against banned terrorist groups.

All attacks and airstrikes will be stopped and unobstructed access will be allowed to besieged areas, including the northern city of Aleppo, according to the truce.

Turkey said it would support efforts to ensure the truce holds and to turn the deal into a long-term political solution.

This is the first time between the United States and Russia reach an agreement on such a comprehensive package.

The breakthrough is seen as having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, where the conflict has killed up to 500,000 people.
CHONBURI, Thailand, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The second joint exercise of ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM-PLUS) on humanitarian aid, disaster relief and military medicine (AM-HEx 2016) concluded on Friday. China, sending a large delegation, took part in the exercise.

Troops from participant countries, including 10 ASEAN members and its 8 dialogue partners, cooperated in the exercise and showed capability of dealing non-traditional security threats, said Somsak Roongsita, chief deputy director-general of the office of policy and planning of Thai ministry of defense.

China attached great importance to the exercise as it sent a delegation of 365 troops, which is the largest delegation except for the host country, said Rear Admiral Li Ji, deputy director of international military cooperation office of the Chinese ministry of national defense.

Chinese engineer, medical, army aviation, and maritime detachments completed their missions in the exercise respectively, said Li.

During the exercise, 50 engineering soldiers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) 42nd Group Army participated in search and rescue operations in quarantine areas, and rescue operations in collapsed buildings.

As for the Chinese medical detachment, it was made up of a total of 40 persons, most of whom were from the PLA Air Force General Hospital. They successively treated about 50 people with moderate to severe wounds, and conducted 14 emergency surgical operations, including joint surgical operations conducted with Thai and Russian army doctors.

This is the first showcase of the medical service force of the Chinese Air Force on the international military stage, and the Chinese medical detachment is the only medical detachment that set up a second-class field hospital besides the host country Thailand.

Li also said that the joint exercise has strengthened trust between Chinese troops and troops from other participant countries and laid a solid foundation for future cooperation between participant countries in disaster relief.
by Xinhua writers Lu Yun, Wang Pan

GUANGZHOU, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- For bioenergy provider Guangdong Zhongke Tianyuan New Energy Technology (ZKTY), Africa is a wonderland.

At the 2nd Investing in Africa Forum that concluded on Thursday, the Guangzhou company signed a contract to invest in a bioenergy project in West Africa's Sierra Leone.

The project, which uses local crops to produce ethanol and generates electricity using the crops' remnants, is expected to bring returns for ZKTY and increased income for local farmers.

"Green development is a trend not only in China but in Africa," said Yu Junwei, chairman of ZKTY. "Africa has so much biomass resources that we can take advantage of."

Like ZKTY, an increasing number of Chinese firms are betting on the future of renewable energy in Africa.

According to a report by United Nations Environment Program, Chinese investment in renewable energy climbed 17 percent in 2015, making it the largest investor in renewables in the world. Much of the money flowed into Africa. From hydropower projects to bioenergy plants, Chinese companies are moving beyond investments in traditional oil and gas.

According to a 2016 report by the International Energy Agency, power plants and grids built by Chinese companies in Ethiopia, with almost 1.5 gigawatts in generation capacity, are 100 percent renewable energy.

The energy sector is essential to productivity and developing local business capacity. Private investment is vital - both foreign and domestic - to finance African infrastructure and bring affordable, reliable energy to more Africans, said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group.

Recognizing the potential for China-Africa cooperation in renewable energy, the World Bank signed a memorandum of understanding on an energy partnership Wednesday with China's National Energy Administration at the forum.

"We hope the partnership will result in numerous co-financing of projects in Africa's energy sectors, especially renewable energy," said Haleh Bridi, director of external communications and partnerships at World Bank Africa Region.

China's interest in Africa's renewable sector is also finding support from other international institutions. United Nations Development Program, for example, has been supporting two Chinese projects in Zambia and Ghana to "ensure a more holistic transfer of renewable energy technologies from China to Africa".

Oluniyi Robbin-Coker, Chairman of the Board at Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency, said China's growing investment in Africa's renewable energy sector is very beneficial for the continent's own development.

"In Sierra Leone we talk about 'greenovation', which is green and innovation. The world needs to become a greener place and we all have to manage our footprint," said Robbin-Coker.

For ZKTY, the bioenergy project in Sierra Leone will not only generate clean fuels for the country's auto industry, but also can help local farmers by purchasing waste from them to generate electricity.

"I think it's a very meaningful project. It involves the whole industry chain and would be very beneficial to the local economy," said Yu Junwei.

Nick Bridges, director of Sunbird Bioenergy Africa, which invested in the Sierra Leone project with ZKTY, agreed that the investment is a win-win.

"Africa has a lot of primary resources and China has a lot of technology and finance, so it's really a perfect marriage to bring them all together and create prosperity for Chinese investors and African countries," said said Bridges.
SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Up to nine militants were killed and 13 others injured as aircrafts pounded Taliban fighters in the northern Afghan province of Jauzjan Friday night, police said Saturday.

"Taliban rebels attacked some villages in Faizabad district late Friday night and government forces backed by aircrafts targeted the attacking militants killing nine rebels on the spot and injuring 13 others," Hafizullah Khashi, deputy to provincial police chief, told Xinhua.

The official, however, didn't provide more details.

Taliban militants who have intensified activities over the past several months are yet to make comment on the situation.
by Shristi Kafle

KATHMANDU, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Moon worship is not uncommon in Nepal and in fact plays a significant role in society, and while during the first week of September there were no significant moon-related observances, the iridescent orb was still the center of attention for thousands of Nepalese people this week.

The occasion, although not religious, was dubbed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as the man who left a human imprint on the moon for the first time alongside Neil Armstrong in July 1969, left his own mark on the country, a nation that still worships the moon as a divine power.

American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two humans to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission, appeared at the Nepal Academy hall in the capital on Thursday afternoon.

Dressed in a black T-shirt with "Mars" written on it and sporting a pair of blue jeans, the 86-year-old scientist was greeting by rapturous applause as the audience, overcome with pride and respect, could barely believe they were in the same room as a living legend.

Aldrin, who is on a five-day maiden trip to Nepal at the request of the Everest Science Center Nepal, started his presentation by mentioning his "No dream is too high" philosophy, which is also the title of his new book. "When people work together, even the impossible can be accomplished," Aldrin said in his opening remarks.

The moon became his destiny in two ways, the first being that his mother's name was Moon and was born in 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers first took to the skies, the second being that he is currently known around the world as "moon man."

"Determination, courage and confidence are the factors that can accomplish any shared goal," the astronaut said, while mentioning that from rocket scientists to tailors who made the space suits all worked together as a team to make the impossible possible.

Speaking in his twilight years, the legend seized upon every opportunity to encourage the young audience and shared the smallest details of landing on the moon and sometimes cracked jokes.

Aldrin was the first person to take a "selfie" in space, the same kind of photo that has become commonplace in everyday life.

"Why did I ever do that?" he said with a laughter that created a buzz in the hall filled with nearly 1,000 school and college students, as well as science enthusiasts.

At the age of 86, he said that life has been better than ever and things are finally coming together. Stressing the need for teamwork, he also said that his ultimate dream would be to make the Mars mission successful.

"The Mars mission is not only about landing on Mars, saying 'hello' and returning back; its about making a home on the red planet," Aldrin, who has been involved in the project for the last 30 years, said.

His son Andrew Aldrin has also been working on the Mars mission, along with nearly 400,000 other people involved. They are planning to send NASA's unmanned Orion capsule for a space-test mission in 2018 with a message of humanity and prosperity from Earth to Mars.

"It will not be on behalf of the U.S. or any particular country, but whole nations will come together for the sake of humanity for the Mars mission," Andrew said in his brief presentation. The real Mars mission is scheduled to take place in 2028 with humans.

The Lockheed Martin Payload Manager, Joseph Leblanc, and the Orion Configuration Management Specialist, Elizabeth Leblanc, also introduced various aspects of the space mission in the program, encouraging Nepalese students to contribute to future space missions.

The hall exploded into applause several times as some of the participants said that it had their lifetime dream for them to hear first hand accounts and those from experts about the moon, Mars and the universe.

Shrinkhala Regmi, a student at the Premiere International School told Xinhua, "It was amazing actually. I never imagined that I would have this opportunity to listen to the man who reached the moon and hear his experiences. I feel so blessed."

Her sentiments were echoed by many other students who went to the Academy Hall to hear Buzz Aldrin speak. A grade 11 student at Mega College, Saugat Bhattarai, told Xinhua, "I bought the ticket costing Rs 2500 (about 25 U.S. dollars) for the interactive talk program, but no price can compare to being so close to an Apollo 11 astronaut. For me, this is truly a historic moment."

Others maintained that Aldrin, in his hour-long presentation, also provided the keys to achieve success in life as many recalled the conclusion of his speech: "We explore or we expire."

Dilip Adhikari, Director of Everest Science Center and coordinator of the program, said, "Many ask me what is the meaning of talking about space in a country that worships the moon? The answer is simple. It is to change our thoughts and bring about a positive transformation."
GUIYANG, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Work to connect the main part of a bridge, nearly 570 meters above a valley, was wrapped up on Saturday in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

With a height equivalent to a 200-storey building, the Beipanjiang bridge is the highest in the world by the vertical distance from the bridge deck down to the ground or water surface beneath the bridge span, said Wu Dahong, an official with Guizhou's transport department, citing public data on high bridges that have been completed across the globe.

The structure, spanning the Beipanjiang Valley, is part of a highway linking Hangzhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province and Ruili City in Guizhou's neighboring Yunnan Province.

The construction of the 1,341-meter-long cable-stayed suspension bridge started in 2013, costing about 1 billion yuan (about 150 million U.S. dollars).

Situated in rolling mountains and gorges, Guizhou is home to seven of the 10 highest bridges in China.
KABUL, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan newspaper has welcomed the first-ever arrival of cargo train from China to Afghanistan's northern Hairatan border town as a vital step towards enhancing trade and economic activities as well as stabilizing security in Afghanistan and in the region.

"Connecting China to Afghanistan through railway is very important for stabilizing peace in Afghanistan and boosting trade and economic activities among countries in the region," the Daily Afghanistan said in its editorial on Saturday.

Afghanistan's connection with China, the second economic power of the world, would enable the landlocked country to reduce its dependency on Karachi port, the paper said, adding the newly opened Sino-Afghan road would enable countries in the region to seek common interests in boosting trade and economic cooperation in Afghanistan instead of rivalry over political interests.

The first-ever cargo train from China, after two weeks of journey through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, arrived in Hairatan port of the northern Balkh province on Wednesday.

The development has been widely welcomed in Afghanistan as all the newspapers published the event in their front pages and electronic media in their reports and commentaries described the Sino-Afghan railroad connection as significant for revival of the war-torn country's impoverished economy.

"It opens up new opportunities for Afghanistan's commerce and economic activities," Azarakhsh Hafizi, chairman of international relations of Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said at a ceremony in Hairatan on Wednesday to welcome the first Sino-Afghan freight train.

According to Afghans, linking the war-plagued Afghanistan with the world's second economic power through railway, from one hand would enhance trade and economic activities in the region and from the other, would create job opportunities for Afghans and eventually alleviates poverty which is essential for stabilizing security in the country.
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

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1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh fire fighters, after hectic efforts of eight hours, managed Saturday afternoon to put out the blaze at a packaging factory where an explosion earlier in the day triggered a massive fire and led to the collapse of its three-story building

At least 24 workers were killed and scores of others injured in the incident.

Officials said the incident happened in the Tampaco Foils Ltd at Tongi on the outskirts of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Saturday at about 6:00 a.m.( local time).

They said the fire triggered by the blast spread quickly because flammable chemicals were stored at the factory building which collapsed like a sandwich just in several minutes.

It is the biggest industrial disaster since 2013 when the Rana Plaza building collapsed.

"We've also come to know that at least 24 people were killed in the devastating fire caused by a boiler explosion," a Tongi police official told Xinhua.

Scores of the injured people were rushed to different hospitals in Dhaka and Tongi where many were said to be in critical condition.

The official who did not like to be named said the death toll may go up as many people have sustained critical injuries.

Nearly 70 people were injured in the fire triggered by explosion, said the official.

Twenty units of firefighters after hectic efforts of about eight hours at around 3:00 p.m. local time managed to douse the fire which was spreading to other adjacent buildings.

The Bangladesh authorities have already formed a five-member investigation committee which will submit its report in 15 working days.

A worker who survived the tragedy said many of them were inside the factory during the explosion because that was the time for morning shift workers to take the charges from their night shift colleagues.

Bangladeshi State Minister for Labour and Employment Mujibul Haque Chunnu said families of those killed in the explosion will get 200,000 taka each as compensation.

The tragedy once again revived questions about the commitments of the sector insiders to providing safe working conditions for the workers in the largest export sector in Bangladesh, which comprises about 5,000 factories employing more than 4 million workers, 80 percent of whom are women.

In 2012, at least 112 workers were killed in a fire that razed the eight-storey Tazreen Fashion Limited, where some global brands, including U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, were manufactured.

Months after the fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory, Bangladesh suffered a fresh blow in April 2013. At least 1,131 people, mostly garment workers, were confirmed dead as an eight-story building, Rana Plaza, housing five garment factories, collapsed on April 24, 2013, in Savar on the outskirts of capital Dhaka.

Like Tazreen and Rana Plaza buildings, sources said Tampaco Foils Ltd at Tongi also stood as a gross violation of building-control laws.

Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said they are looking into the matter whether the owner of the factory had any license to store any chemical item there.

He said stern actions will be taken if they find allegations of negligence against the owner .

Police are hunting the owner who has reportedly fled.

Requesting to be unnamed, a sector insider said that such incidents recur as culprits in most of the cases in past remained "untouchable" .

He said dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the owners after such incidents in past but they were later dissolved.

In Bangladesh, poorly constructed buildings have long been the source of successive accidents resulting in the death of workers.

In April 2005, at least 64 workers of Spectrum Garments were killed after its building collapse. In the subsequent year, another multi-storey Phoenix building in Dhaka's Tejgaon Industrial Area also collapsed, killing 21 people and injuring over 50.

Thanks to its cheap labor force, Bangladesh is now the world's second largest garments exporter after China, producing global brands for customers around the world. The country's garment industry has been severely criticized for safety concerns and labor unrest over rock-bottom wages in recent years.

Bangladesh set its export target in 2015-16 fiscal year at 37 billion U.S. dollars including 30.38 billion U.S. dollars from readymade garment products.
EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn (L) shakes hands with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic during a joint press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Nemanja Cabric)

BELGRADE, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- European Union(EU) stays dedicated to the process of enlargement with Serbia on the top of its list of candidates, a visiting EU commissioner said here on Saturday.

Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn started his visit in Serbia on Friday. He met with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic here on Saturday.

EU "is determined to progress towards the goal of Serbia's membership in the European Union" in order to achieve prosperity and make the country attractive for investors, Hahn announced at a press conference with Vucic.

"After the Brexit, there were certain doubts about the enlargement of the EU to the western Balkans, but European leaders at the summit in Paris expressed dedication when it comes to enlargement, with Serbia on the top of that list," Hahn said.

He stressed "there is support and determination within EU to make Serbia part of the European family".

Vucic said he and Hahn discussed Serbia's responsibility on its EU accession path as well as regional cooperation and economic progress.

Obtaining membership in EU is Serbia's strategic goal, said Vucic, adding his country will also "know how to preserve its national and state interests" in achieving it.

Vucic said Serbia economically depends on the EU as the bloc is the country's most important partner in trade and investments. He also said Serbia will act responsibly when it comes to the stability of the whole region.
BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday sent a congratulatory message to Kazakhstan's newly appointed Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev, saying that China attaches great importance to relations with Kazakhstan.

Li said in the message that the China-Kazakhstan relations currently keep a good momentum, mutually beneficial cooperation in all fields between the two countries keeps deepening, and mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples are constantly being strengthened.

Li said that he is willing to work with Sagintayev to further expand dialogue, exchanges and cooperation in various fields between the two countries, with the focus on the Belt and Road Initiative, production capacity, and the crackdown on the "three evil forces" so as to constantly enhance the China-Kazakhstan comprehensive strategic partnership.
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Facebook withdrew a decision to delete posts containing the iconic "napalm girl" photo from the Vietnam war on Friday after it was criticized for abusing powers of censorship.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut, is officially known as "The Terror of War" and depicts children running from a napalm attack with armed soldiers behind him. One of the children, Kim Phuc, is naked.

Napalm is a flammable liquid used in warfare. It was used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War primarily as an anti-person weapon, as it sticks to skin and causes severe burns when on fire.

When Norwegian writer Tom Egeland posted the photo among six others on Facebook, trying to discuss "seven photographs that changed the history of warfare," his post was deleted. And his account was subsequently suspended.

Norway's largest newspaper, Aftenposten, reported on the suspension, using the same photo in an article published on its Facebook account. Facebook reached out and asked the publisher to either remove or pixelate the photo.

Before Aftenposten could respond, Facebook deleted the article and image from the newspaper's homepage earlier this week.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg also joined the debate, posting on her Facebook page, "Facebook gets it wrong when they censor such images." Hours later, Solberg's post, which included the image, disappeared from her account.

On Friday, Facebook decided to give in to the public outcry and said it would restore the image.

"An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our community standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography," a Facebook spokeswoman said.

"In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," she added.

While Facebook admitted that the photo is iconic, it also asserted that it was difficult to create a "distinction between allowing a photo of a nude child in one instance and not others."

Facebook has repeatedly said it is only a tech company, not a media organization. But its zealous censorship has cited many criticisms.

In July, Facebook took down a live video posted by a U.S. woman that showed her boyfriend's last breath after being fatally shot by police. The company later restored the video after a public outcry.
TAIPEI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The driver of a tour bus that caught fire and left 26 people dead in Taiwan on July 19 was drunken and set fire to the vehicle intentionally, local prosecutors said Saturday.

The man splashed gasoline in the vicinity of the driver's compartment before igniting the bus with a lighter, according to the prosecutors.

All the people in the bus, including the driver, were killed when the bus caught fire and crashed into a highway barrier near Taoyuan Airport. They included 23 tourists and a tour guide from the Chinese mainland, the local driver and a local tour guide.

Wang Yi-wen, deputy chief prosecutor of the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, told the press that since the nature of the case was defined as murder, the families of the Chinese mainland victims could entrust civil compensation issues to representatives in Taiwan.

According to the prosecutors, the driver, identified as Su Ming-cheng, had a habit of drinking alcohol as well as smoking, and he rarely communicated with the tour guides on his bus.

Su was once detained for a period of 25 days on charge of injuring a tour guide after drinking alcohol. In addition, he was sentenced to five years in prison in a court ruling for rape, though the final verdict was not yet given when the bus fire case took place because he decided to lodge an appeal, according to prosecutors.

It was also found that just before the case happened, Su's family members had talked frequently with him, trying to discourage him from committing a suicide.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Israel's air force said it struck Syrian army posts on Saturday, retaliating against a Syrian mortar that hit the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, in a third such incident in a week.

An Israel Air Force aircraft "targeted artillery positions of the Syrian regime," said an Israeli military statement, after a projectile launched from Syria hit the northern Golan Heights earlier Saturday.

The Israeli military said that the fire, causing no injuries or damage, was believed to be a spillover of the fighting in Syria, and accused the Syrian government of a "blatant breach of Israeli sovereignty."

Israel occupied the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed the territory in 1981.

Israel had repeatedly declared it would not intervene in the internal fighting in Syria, amid the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011, but it did deliver medical treatment to hundreds of wounded Syrians who reached the Israeli border.

Israel had also been responsible for some airstrikes in Syria in the past several years, allegedly targeting convoys carrying weapons from Iran and Syria to the Lebanese Hezbollah militant organization, a staunch enemy of Israel.

The Jewish state remained quiet on its part on these attacks up until three months ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel carried out "dozens" of attacks across the border with Syria.
Image taken on April 14, 2016 shows tourists visiting Old Havana, in Havana city, capital of Cuba. (Xinhua/Joaquin Hernandez)

HAVANA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led trade embargo against Cuba continues to hamper the country's economic development, despite thawing relations between the two former adversaries, a top Cuban official said on Friday.

Cuba's Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez released the government's latest report on the impact of the "blockade," a term Cuba used to describe a web of sanctions that prevents it from having normal trade, economic and financial ties with other countries.

"There is no aspect of Cuba that does not suffer the consequences of the blockade. The application of this policy impacts services, healthcare, education, the economy, prices, wages, food and social security," Rodriguez said at a press conference.

"The impact of the blockade cannot be underestimated. It is the principal obstacle to national development," added Rodriguez.

Next month, said Rodriguez, Cuba will once again present the annual report to the United Nations General Assembly, which has consistently voted for an end to the embargo.

Between April 2015 and March 2016, the blockade has caused about 4.68 billion U.S. dollars in losses to the cash-strapped economy, the report estimates.

Over the nearly six decades the blockade has been in effect, total losses to Cuba's economy amount to 753.688 billion dollars.

"Wouldn't our economic situation be better without all these obstacles?" Rodriguez asked.

A boat with national flags of Cuba and the United States sails in Havana bay, Cuba, on May 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

Cuba and the U.S. have restored diplomatic ties in July 2015, and Washington has relaxed certain restrictions, but the blockade largely remains in place despite U.S. President Barack Obama calling for the lifting of the embargo.

Obama has said that decision remains with the Republican-controlled Congress.

In the 21 months since the two nations agreed to reestablish relations, Washington's measures regarding the blockade have been "limited and insufficient," said the foreign minister.

Prior to his historic visit to Havana in March, "President Obama announced Cuba would be able to use the U.S. dollar in its international transactions, however so far that hasn't happened and our financial operations are still persecuted by U.S. regulatory agencies," Rodriguez said.

During Obama's presidency, both U.S. and foreign banks have been fined more than 14 billion dollars by the Treasury Department for doing business with Cuba, a sign of the blockade's global scope, he said.

Last year, nearly all UN member countries, 191, voted in favor of lifting the embargo, and only two opposed the measure, the U.S. and its stalwart ally Israel.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri arrives at Hangzhou International Expo Center to attend the G20 summit in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli)

BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- An Argentinean international relations expert, Patricio Carmody, wrote on Friday that challenges await Argentina ahead of organizing the G20 Summit in 2018.

Carmody stated in the La Nacion daily that he supported "the initiative of the government to lead the G20, the main forum for global economic cooperation in 2018. It is a fantastic opportunity to continue recovering prestige and strengthen the impact of Argentina's foreign policy,

"This responsibility, confirmed last weekend...at the G20 in Hangzhou, China, creates important challenges from an organization and a content standpoint, which must be faced early," he added.

According to the analyst, a consulting member of the Argentinean Council for International Relations (CARI), leading the G20 in 2018 is in line with the vision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Susana Malcorra, to "build a foreign policy which reflects Argentina's potential."

Chinese President Xi Jinping presides over the opening ceremony of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

"This is also in harmony with a policy of 'diverse horizons', which seeks to maintain positive relations simultaneously with our neighbors, established powers, and emerging ones, all represented in the G20," wrote Carmody.

However, he warned that Argentina faces stiff challenges, such as coordinating, on the international level as much as nationally, the process of negotiations and debates and contributing in a substantive and original way to the G20 agenda, which seeks better global governance.

"This year, China focused on innovation, structural reforms and development, especially the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. By 2018, Argentina will have to choose the areas to which it will bring concrete, substantial and original proposals," emphasized Carmody.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Israeli rescuers said Saturday the last missing body was found in a collapsed Tel Aviv construction site, five days after the accident, bringing the death toll to six.

A military notice said the soldiers with the Home Front Command have located the place of the body but were still trying to extract it from the rubbles of the four-story car park, which collapsed on Monday in a high-tech business quarter of Tel Aviv.

Earlier on Saturday, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement that two other bodies were extracted from the site of collapsed car garage overnight.

"The bodies were transferred to the national forensic institute to ascertain their identity," Samri said.

Israeli authorities have identified three bodies, so far: Ahed Rimawi, 34, from Beit Rima, a Palestinian village outside the West Bank city of Ramallah; Denis Dianchko, 28, a citizen of Ukraine; and Oleg Yakobov, 60, an Israeli citizen from Tel Aviv.

All of the victims were construction workers at the site, which was still under construction at the time of the accident.

Dozens of construction workers at the site were injured. The car park was supposed to become usable in two weeks, with about 600 parking slots.

The reasons for the collapse were unclear. The police have launched an investigation into the collapse.

The car park was constructed by Africa-Israel, a construction company based in Israel that won a tender to build to the site from the Tel Aviv municipality.

Israel has a high number of construction accidents, compared to other developed countries. According to figures from the Economy and Industry Ministry, 30 workers were killed in construction sites since the beginning of 2016.
BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Saturday denounced a tour bus arson that killed 24 mainland tourists in Taiwan in July, after Taiwan authorities confirmed the driver's drunk-driving, arson and murder.

"We strongly condemn the deliberate vicious criminal case, and express strong indignation over such heartless, inhuman conduct," said a spokesperson of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.

Since the incident took place on July 19, the office has repeatedly urged Taiwan authorities concerned to investigate the cause of the incident and responsibility, and give an explanation to the families of the victims, said the spokesperson, adding the incident and some hurtful words and deeds from the island have had a serious impact on mainland tourists' traveling to Taiwan.

Next, mainland authorities concerned will continue to urge the Taiwan side to well handle the follow-up issues, including compensation, and will provide full assistance to the victims' families in handling related affairs, said the spokesperson.

The Taiwan driver of the tour bus was drunk, set fire and splashed gasoline on himself and passengers, killing himself, a local tour guide, and 24 tourists from the mainland, Taiwan prosecutors said.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire regime 65 times on the contact line of Karabakh-Azerbaijan opposing armies overnight September 10, during which it fired over 1500 bullets from different caliber weapon fire arms.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of NKR, more intensive ceasefire violation cases were registered in the southern and eastern directions, where the Azerbaijani armed forces used also DShK heavy machine gun.

NKR Defense Army units keep full control of the front line and confidently fulfill their combat duties.
DAMASCUS, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 24 people were killed Saturday by airstrikes against rebel-held areas in the northwestern province of Idlib, a monitor group reported.

The airstrikes targeted several areas in Idlib, mainly the Jisr al-Shughour area largely under the control of the rebels' Jaish al-Fateh, or Army of Conquest, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The shelling comes as the Syrian army advanced recently in the countryside of the coastal city of Latakia, stepping closer to the rebel stronghold Jisr al-Shughour.

The UK-based watchdog group said the death toll could rise due to the high numbers of people in critical condition.

Separately, state news agency SANA said the Islamic State group fired several rockets on the eastern city of Deir al-Zour in Syria, killing nine people.

The escalation comes a day after Russia and the United States announced they had reached an agreement on establishing a ceasefire in Syria, scheduled to take effect on Monday, as a prelude for further steps to resolve the Syrian crisis.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli (R) meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

NANNING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli met with leaders from member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in southwest China's Nanning City on Saturday, calling for stronger ties between China and ASEAN.

The foreign dignitaries include Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Myanmar's Vice President U Myint Swe, Lao Deputy Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone and Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong.

Zhang welcomed the foreign leaders to attend the 13th China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit slated from Sunday to Wednesday in Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

When meeting with Hun Sen, Zhang said Cambodia has played an active role in promoting China-ASEAN relations.

Expressing China's appreciation, Zhang said China is willing to continue to maintain exchange of high-level visits with Cambodia, well implement the consensus reached by the leaders in order to forge ahead bilateral ties and deepen cooperation in various fields.

Hun Sen said Cambodia has firmly pushed forward the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation with China.

Cambodia is ready to work with China to enhance cooperation in areas including agriculture, transportation, water conservancy and power grid, he said.

When meeting with Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Zhang said Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang maintained close contacts with Vietnamese party and government leaders, reaching consensus on further promoting China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperation.

China would like to work with Vietnam to implement the consensus, advance substantial cooperation, strengthen people-to-people and cultural exchanges so as to promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties, Zhang said.

Vietnam is the honorary country of this year's China-ASEAN Expo. Zhang said he believes that with efforts from all sides, this year's Expo will become a success and contribute to a closer China-ASEAN community of shared future.

Phuc said Vietnam and China share a comradely and brotherly traditional friendship, expressing the hope that the two countries can further enhance exchange of high-level visits and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation.

When meeting with U Myint Swe, Zhang said China and Myanmar should maintain close high-level exchanges, enhance mutual trust and deepen practical cooperation in all areas for the sustainable, steady and healthy development of bilateral ties.

U Myint Swe said Myanmar thanked China's valued support for Myanmar's economic development and national building, adding that Myanmar is willing to implement the consensus reached between the two countries' leaders and deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation.

When meeting with Sonexay Siphandone, Zhang said China will continue its friendly policies towards Laos and offer firm support to the development of Laos. He said China is willing to work with Laos and other ASEAN countries to implement the outcome of the China-ASEAN leaders' meeting to advance China-ASEAN relations to a new level.

Sonexay Siphandone said Laos attaches great importance to its relationship with China and will work with China in implementing the outcome of the ASEAN-China leaders' meeting and foster the building of ASEAN-China community of shared destiny.

When meeting with Prajin Juntong, Zhang expressed willingness to synergize development strategies with Thailand and jointly push forward the Belt and Road Initiative, calling for more cooperation in industrial production capacity, railway, aviation and aerospace, renewable energy and tourism.

"Thailand is an important member of ASEAN. China will work with Thailand and other ASEAN members to contribute to regional development and prosperity," Zhang said.

Prajin Juntong said Thailand will maintain high-level exchanges with China and strengthen cooperation in transportation and science and technology, adding that as a close partner of China, Thailand will work to advance the relations between ASEAN and China.
LHASA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The third tourism and culture expo kicks off in Lhasa, capital of Tibet in southwest China, on Saturday.

About 400 overseas guests, who were foreign ambassadors in China, diplomatic corps from Northeast Asia and South Asia, foreign journalists and overseas merchants from 15 countries and regions, including the United States, France, Republic of Korea and Pakistan, attended the Third China Tibet Tourism and Culture Expo.

Among the unprecedented number of overseas merchants, 219 were from Nepal. Traders from Taiwan island and India appeared for the first time in the expo, which will last until Friday.

Forums and exhibitions on Tibet's tourism, culture and the Tibetan medicine and mineral water industry, as well as investment and trade promotion, will be organized during the expo, according to the organizing committee.

Losang Jamcan, chairman of Tibet's regional government, said in the opening ceremony that Tibet would seize the strategic opportunity of the Belt and Road Initiative by upgrading the region into an international travel destination, a sheltered area of special Chinese culture and a major passageway open to South Asia.

Chinese culture minister Luo Shugang said tourism has become a strong force of economic growth and will drive the region to open up further to foreign tourists.

Tourism revenue, accounting for over 20 percent of the region's GDP, rose 30 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2015. Tibet aims to host 17 million tourists this year.

Mr. Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Nepal's deputy prime minister and minister of finance, said the number of visitors from China to Nepal is growing substantially and continues to grow further.

"If we manage to welcome only a fraction of Chinese outbound visitors to travel to Nepal, it will be a great achievement for Nepali tourism industry," the minister said, adding there is a tremendous potential for Nepal and Tibet to benefit from tourism as both have unique elements of attraction for global tourists.
WINDHOEK, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese construction company has won a case against the Namibian government who cancelled the company's successful tender of a 7 billion Namibian dollar (about 500 million U.S dollars) airport expansion project.

The tender was for expanding the Hosea Kutako International Airport road. Hosea Kutako is Namibia's biggest airport and is about 50 kilometers from Windhoek.

The tender cancellation by the government in December 2015 prompted the winning bidder, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group, to challenge the decision in the High Court in February this year.

Namibian President Hage Geingob cancelled the tender citing irregularities in the manner it was awarded by the Namibia Airports Company.

However, the High Court on Friday ruled that the cancellation was "unlawful and therefore invalid and set aside."

The Namibia Press Agency also reported Friday that the government suffered another setback when the High Court dismissed its counter aplication in connection with the matter.

The government was then ordered to foot the legal bills of the construction company, which include the cost of one instructing attorney and one instructed counsel, on top of having to pay its own legal representation, it reported.

In its papers, the company argued that it had already incurred costs negotiations, revisions undertaken, financing arrangements and negotiating with the Namibian workforce after winning the tender in 2014.

The company also cited time consuming processes as it took over an 18-month period just to win the tender.

The company further argued that even though Geingob decided to cancel the tender, he together with his predecessor, former President Hifikepunye Pohamba was involved in supervising the ultimate decision on the project.

The company wanted the court to review and set aside the decision by works and transport minister Alpheus !Naruseb to discontinue all activities related to the upgrading and expansion of the international airport.
TEHRAN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Saturday began the construction of a nuclear power plant, with Russian help, in the southern port city of Bushehr, official IRNA news agency reported.

The new power plant is part of a plan to develop Iran's first commercial nuclear reactor Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the report said.

"We are opening a new page in the trend of our peaceful industrial nuclear activities," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said at a ceremony attended by senior Iranian and Russian officials, according to local Press TV.

He added that the project will be carried out within the framework of the Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran's First Vice President Is'haq Jahangiri and head of Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Sergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko attended the ceremony.

"Meeting energy needs is the prelude to economic development," said Jahangiri, adding that efforts must be made toward preservation of fossil fuels for the next generations.

Jahangiri said that the construction of the new plant is the fruit of the nuclear agreement clinched between Iran and the world powers last year, semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Iran once again reiterates its commitment to the nuclear deal, known as JCPOA, and expects the implementation of obligations vis-a-vis the deal by the other side, which would facilitate the transfer of nuclear technology to the country, he said.

Iran is determined to use peaceful nuclear energy in medicine, agriculture, industry and electricity, he added.

On Sept. 1, Salehi said Iran and Russia had agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Bushehr.

The construction, with an estimated cost of 10 billion U.S. dollars, would be completed in 10 years, he said.

By building these two power plants, Iran would save 22 million barrels of oil per year, Salehi added.

However, he did not detail the specifications of the two projects.

According to IRNA, the construction of the other power plant will be launched in 2018.

On Saturday, Salehi said that the construction of the new power plants will help the country prevent the emission of 14 million tons of greenhouse gas each year, Tasnim news agency reported.

The plants will also be equipped with water desalination facilities to produce 200 million cubic meters of fresh water per annum, Salehi was quoted as saying.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Kiriyenko following the ceremony on Saturday, Salehi described nuclear industry as the epitome of "strategic cooperation" between Tehran and Moscow, saying that Iran and Russia have developed cooperation on the production of stable isotopes as part of joint nuclear activities, according to Tasnim.

The cooperation with Russia is Iran's top priority, he said. "Fortunately, the trade relations between Iran and Russia has witnessed a 70 percent growth in the current year, and we seek to preserve existing ties since the relationship between Iran and Russia is a strategic and growing one."

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was first constructed in 1975 by German companies. However, the work was halted when the United States imposed an embargo on high-tech supplies to Iran after its 1979 revolution, in which the U.S.-backed monarch was overthrown. Russia signed a contract with Iran in 1998 to complete the construction.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (C), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attend a joint press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 10, 2016. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached on Saturday a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)

DAMASCUS, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Syria's official SANA news agency said the Syrian government has agreed on the U.S.-Russian agreement concluded a day earlier, regarding establishing a ceasefire in Syria.

A day earlier, the United States and Russia announced a plan to bring about a ceasefire in Syria.

The ceasefire is planned to start at sundown Monday, the first day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice Holiday.

"Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it's dependent on people's choices," Kerry said in Geneva.

The planned ceasefire is not the first to be agreed upon by both powers, as last February, both agreed on a similar cessation of hostility agreement that held in some parts of the country, including the capital Damascus, and failed in other parts, mainly the northern city of Aleppo.




ISLAMABAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least four militants were killed and 37 suspects arrested over the last 24 hours in Pakistan as the law enforcement agencies speeded up the ongoing combing operation ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid, local media and officials said Saturday.

Inter-Services Public Relations, the mouthpiece of Pakistani army, said in a statement that the troops launched an operation in Rajanpur area of the country's east Punjab province on Saturday.

Four militants and a soldier was killed in the gun battle which was triggered-off by the search operation, conducted by the forces at the militants'hideouts.

The forces have also recovered arms and ammunitions from the hideouts. Separately, in the country's southern port city of Karachi, three militants were arrested as police foiled a terrorist attack to sabotage the forthcoming Eid celebrations.

Earlier on Friday night, police arrested 34 suspects from Lahore and Multan cities of Punjab, in separate search operations.

The arrested suspects were shifted to some undisclosed location for investigations, said the report.

The combing operations are being carried out across the country by security forces under the national action plan (NAP) to pre-empt potential sleeper cells and hideouts of terrorists.
Photo shows a traditional Dong music box. (Photo courtesy of Dr Nick Bryan-Kinns)

by Larry Neild

LONDON, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A collaboration that started between one of Britain's best known universities and an ethnic community in China will see traditional music boxes taking a starring role at an event which opens Saturday in London.

A collection of music boxes were crafted in Hengling Village as part of an interactive project with Queen Mary University in London (QMUL). The idea was to combine traditional Dong crafts and music with the concept of music boxes used in the western world.

Photo shows a Dong music box being made in China. (Photo courtesy of Dr Nick Bryan-Kinns)

The boxes in "Intersections", a free exhibit with immersive installations, haptic interactions, kinetic sculptures and much more as a showcase of Msc and PhD students from the Media and Arts Technology CDT program at QMUL.

The event runs from Saturday until next Thursday. It will include a symposium, talks and demonstrations as well as an exhibition focusing on the relationship between the arts and science.

Queen Mary academic Dr Nick Bryan-Kinns set up a collaboration with Hunan University in 2012 after he led an expedition to find partners for QMUL. The two universities have since created a collaborative masters program, as well as joint research projects and now two summer camp activities.

The Hengling music box project, is a collaboration between Hunan University, Queen Mary University of London and British company b00t Consultants. They were made specially for the project and have never previously been used or displayed in Britain.

They are described as interactive artifacts inspired by the Dong ethnic minority culture in rural China and focus on Interaction Design with Audio (IDwA).

Included are Doye boxes with their beautiful local songs and memories from Dong culture.

Photo shows a Dong music box being made in China. (Photo courtesy of Dr Nick Bryan-Kinns)

People can interact by changing the position of the box, creates different atmospheres by projecting local patterns as shadows on coloured lighting.

The Dong Shine is a portable music lamp based on Dong culture. Drawings on papers represent sceneries using Dong-style patterns, playing Dong songs. People interact by waving their hand under the lamp to make it play different music.

Dong Tunes is a traditionally shaped Lucky Flower decoration hung in symbolic buildings in Dong's community for good luck.

The KeepMake is a modern-day keepsake for storing intangible materials found in the surrounding environment, drawing Inspiration from local waterwheel. It features the sound of the river; and makes sound of local waterwheel when tilted to ear.

Bryan-Kinns told Xinhua: "A Maker space is a collaborative work space for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses both high tech digital tools and no-tech traditional tools. Maker spaces are quite popular in big cities such as Shenzhen or London, but ours is one of the first in rural Chinese location."

"The idea was to combine traditional Dong crafts and music with the Western concept of music boxes. The projects utilised local textiles and bamboo making to create hybrid objects interactive objects built locally and using local sounds using western technologies," said Bryan-Kinns.

A number of students from Hunan University, along with a Hunan alumni currently at Queen Mary studying for a PhD as a student of Bryan-Kinns are expected to go to the Intersections event.
People watch a TV broadcasting a suspected nuclear test held by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 9, 2016. South Korea's military believed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) might have conducted the "most powerful" nuclear test so far on Friday after an artificial earthquake was detected at a site where its fourth nuclear test was carried out earlier this year. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui said Saturday the nuclear test launched by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is "not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula."

Zhang made the remarks in a meeting with DPRK ambassador to China Ji Jae Ryong to voice China's position on DPRK's nuclear test.

Zhang said it is China's "firm and consistent" stance to realize denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, maintain regional peace and stability and resolve problems through dialogue and consultation.

"The DPRK's persisting nuclear weapon development and nuclear tests run counter to the expectations of the international community, escalate tension on the peninsula and is not conducive to the peace and stability there," Zhang said.

China urges the DPRK to refrain from actions that might exacerbate tension and return to the correct direction of denuclearization at an early date.

DPRK state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test. It was Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test and followed the previous one by eight months.

China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday expressing firm opposition to DPRK's nuclear test.
An earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude hit northwestern Tanzania's Kagera region on Saturday. Photo shows houses affected by the earthquake in Kagera's capital Bukoba. (Xinhua)

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people were killed and over 200 others were injured on Saturday as an earthquake measuring 5.7 hit northwestern Tanzania, said police.

The earthquake jolted Tanzania's northwest regions of Kagera and Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Kagera regional police commander Augustino Olomi said at least 11 people have been killed in the earthquake and over 200 others injured.

An earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude hit northwestern Tanzania's Kagera region on Saturday. Photo shows houses affected by the earthquake in Kagera's capital Bukoba. (Xinhua)

Salum Kijuu, the Kagera regional commissioner, told Xinhua in a telephone interview that the morning earthquake also left tens of hundreds of houses and other property damaged.

"It is too early to give the exact number of injured people, and the number of damaged property, including houses," said Kijuu, adding that rescue teams had been deployed to affected areas.

"But we think the damage is huge. Most of the victims have been rushed to hospitals but we are facing a problem of shortage of medicines," said Kijuu.

An earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude hit northwestern Tanzania's Kagera region on Saturday. Photo shows houses affected by the earthquake in Kagera's capital Bukoba. (Xinhua)

He said the earthquake hit the areas beginning at 9:27 a.m. local time, sending people into panic with most of them abandoning their properties.

Emelensiana Benjamin, a resident of Kagera region, said the earthquake left houses with huge cracks.

"The situation is worrying because some of the houses could fall down anytime," she told Xinhua by phone.

An earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude hit northwestern Tanzania's Kagera region on Saturday. Photo shows houses affected by the earthquake in Kagera's capital Bukoba. (Xinhua)

She said the earthquake was also reported in Simiyu and Mara regions, adding that many people came running from their houses when the earthquake hit.

"Panic and fear engulfed many residents across the region because they did not know what was happening," she said.

Augustino Nduganda, an officer with the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) in Mwanza region, confirmed that there was a huge earthquake, but he said it was too early to give details.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. If Artsakh or its people appear under risk, we will struggle for each inch of soil, Armenpress reports acting Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan told the reporters.

We have one expectation, that is the option proposed by us will be implemented. I mean Nagorno Karabakh conflict will be settled peacefully, through a dialogue, by creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and agreements. In the reality when it is difficult to come to terms with the adversary, when the provocations by Azerbaijan following the April 4-day war further deteriorate the chances to establish an atmosphere of trust, we have the right to say that if there is no atmosphere of trust, we cannot speak about reciprocal agreements, the Defense Minister said.
BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter on Saturday congratulating the opening of the China-U.S. Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.

Education is an important force that pushes forward human civilization. Nowadays the young people in all countries should establish a world vision and raise awareness of cooperation through education, Xi said in the letter.

The China-U.S. exchanges in education have played a positive role in promoting understanding and friendship among the people as well as improving the relations between the two nations, he said, adding the two countries should deepen cooperation in this field.

He hoped that the Schwarzman College can be built into an international platform for cultivating the world's excellent talents, providing study opportunities for the youth of all countries and helping them enhance understanding and exchanges.

U.S. President Barack Obama also sent a congratulation letter for the opening ceremony.

The Schwarzman Scholars program of Tsinghua University is a one-year post graduate program co-founded by the university and Stephen Schwarzman. It aims to cultivate students with international vision, overall quality, leadership and knowledge of China.

The first group of 110 scholars come from 70 colleges in 31 countries.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, French President Francois Hollande, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and Spanish State Secretary for the European Union Fernando Eguidazu (L-R) pose for a group photo during the Mediterranean European Union (EU) Countries' Summit in Athens, Greece, Sept. 9, 2016. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of seven southern European states joined their voices here on Friday in a call for a new European vision for a stronger Europe to effectively address common challenges that lie ahead.

Ahead of the forthcoming informal European Council meeting scheduled for Sept. 16 in Bratislava on Europe's future, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hosted the EU-Mediterranean summit in a first bid to reach common positions to tackle the economic crisis, the refugee-migrant flows, security issues, and other key problems the EU faces as a whole.

Leaders from France, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal, Malta, and Spain attended the one-day Athens mini- summit to exchange views.

The result of the dialogue was reflected in the Athens Declaration issued at the end of the meeting, which urged for concrete measures to build a better future for all Europeans.

Regarding economic policy, the Athens meeting called for emphasis to be put on growth, while the refugee crisis called for the effective management of the influx with a humane approach to sharing responsibilities.

Europe must respond to populism, xenophobia, nationalism, and racism, and ensure the internal and external security of Europe, it was stressed.

"The EU needs a new impulse in order to address the common challenges the member states are facing, upholding its values of freedom, democracy and rule of law, as well as tolerance and solidarity. This vision of Europe must be based on concrete measures that will contribute to the security of European citizens and improve their lives," the e-mailed declaration read.

"Regardless of our ideologies, what unites us is the Mediterranean Sea, our common problems, our faith in the European vision and our common will to fight for a better Europe," Tsipras said in his welcoming remarks broadcast live by the Greek national broadcaster ERT.

All leaders assured during televised joint statements to the press at the end of the meeting that the summit was not an effort to establish a southern European front to stand against the northern EU member states.

The aim was to enhance coordination and cooperation and introduce a Mediterranean perspective into the European Union's agenda to deal with joint challenges relating to migration, security and the economy, they explained.

"Today's summit and the Athens Declaration mark our common will to strengthen cohesion and unity of Europe ... We are not and we do not wish to become yet another initiative that divides Europe," Tsipras said during the joint press conference.

"At the time of Brexit, and while populism is on the rise in Europe, it is very important to send a message of cohesion and contribute to the dialogue from southern Europe," French President Francois Hollande stressed.

"The Athens Declaration is very important as added value in our description of a Europe which should be different than the one we have known so far," added Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

All leaders who participated in Friday's talks expressed the determination to continue the dialogue in the future. The next EU-Med meeting would be held in Portugal.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Saturday shot dead a suicide bomber at a crowded area in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, leaving a civilian killed and nine others wounded, a police source said.

Acting upon intelligence, the troops in the evening spotted a suicide bomber and shot him dead in the busy transportation hub of Alawi district in downtown Baghdad, but he blew his explosive belt, leaving a passerby killed and nine others wounded, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The human casualty could be higher as the attacker was intended to detonate his explosive belt at a busy place in the area, but the troops foiled his attack, the source said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State (IS) militant group, in most cases, is responsible for the suicide attacks, targeting areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Iraq has witnessed worsening violence since the Islamic State (IS) group took control of parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 691 Iraqis and wounded 1,016 others in August across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Mexico should expand economic ties with China as a counterbalance to its heavy reliance on the United States, according to a leading academic.

Attracting more investment from China would both help spur development in Mexico and reduce the dependence on its northern neighbor, said Cutberto Hernandez, a specialist in Asian and African affairs at the Faculty of Law of La Salle University in Mexico City.

"From my point of view, there needs to be a change in outlook, to try and take advantage of the economic and investment opportunity China offers," Hernandez told Xinhua in an interview.

"Unfortunately, that has not happened as it should have, due to the economic and political interests established with the United States, a market on which there is a strong dependency," he added.

Mexico would benefit from a more balanced situation and from the potential for economic expansion with China, he said.

"New expanded ties" between the two countries would lead to a formula for cooperation that would be of mutual benefit, said Hernandez.

In Latin America, Argentina and Brazil are reaping the benefits of closer ties with the Asian giant, said the academic, adding both countries today "are essential to China's food supply and food development."

Mexico and China have already laid the groundwork for increased cooperation, the expert noted.

Since 2013, the two have put in place mechanisms to promote bilateral and permanent dialogue on key economic issues, including a high-level bilateral work group (GAN) that meets annually to oversee trade promotion, and cooperation in industry and mining. A similar group focuses exclusively on investment (GANI).

On the sidelines of the recent Group of 20 (G20) summit held in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, the presidents of Mexico and China, Enrique Pena Nieto and Xi Jinping met over expanding their comprehensive strategic partnership.

Hernandez believes the two countries should draw up a road map for cooperation over the coming years.

In the meantime, a multimillion-dollar mutual fund for investment in different projects, which the two heads of state referred to at their meeting, "presents a good opportunity" for Mexico, said the academic.

Through the fund, China can participate in the Special Economic Zones Mexico plans to create, especially in the southern parts of the country, he said.

More than 70 Chinese companies operate in Mexico, in such sectors as telecommunications and fossil fuels, and more recently in the areas of renewable energy and commercial banking.

Related:

Mexico, China sign MOU on aquacultural cooperation

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- The governments of Mexico and China have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on aquaculture, in order to deepen technical, scientific and commercial know-how in the field, according to the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture.

The agreement was signed during the visit of a Chinese delegation to Mexico. Mario Aguilar Sanchez, the national commissioner for aquaculture and fishing, said this deal would lead to the exchange of personnel and the sharing of information on freshwater aquaculture, sanitary standards, and the conservation of fishery resources, the Ministry announced on Sunday. Full story

Interview: Mexico, China have potential to boost agricultural cooperation

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Mexico and China have an opportunity to take a big step forward in agricultural cooperation during a G20 summit to be held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in September, economist Anibal Zottele said on Thursday.
Vendors wait for customers at a livestock market in Gaza City Sept. 9, 2016. Muslims across the world are preparing to celebrate the annual Eid al-Adha festival. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar)
The adversary breached the truce along the line of contact between the Karabakh and Azerbaijani opposing forces 65 times, from late Friday night to early Saturday morning.

September 10, 2016, 10:22 Azerbaijan violates ceasefire with Karabakh 65 times at night

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS: During this time the Azerbaijani armed forces fired more than 1,500 shots toward the Armenian position-holders, and by way of rifle weaponry. More intensive ceasefire violations were recorded in the southern and eastern directions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Defense Army, where the adversary also made use of large-caliber machine guns.

But the NKR Defense Army vanguard units are full control over the frontline, and they continue confidently carrying out the military task set before them.
Last week, I stopped at the Owasco Veterans Memorial Park on Owasco Road next to the town hall and Owasco Fire Department No. 1. It was busy with quiet activity, even with a soft, drizzling rain falling. Bob Bruno had put on knee pads and was down on his knees lifting blank pavers and installing the first batch of engraved pavers of phase two in place. These were 271 of the latest group of the 500 memorial blocks ready for installation at the park for the dedication ceremony at 1 p.m. Sept. 16. There was no conversation between us as he and his helper were gently lifting a blank paver, stacking it in a row in front of them, then leveling the base and inserting the new engraved block.

I did not want to disturb them, and had stopped to watch how it was done. As I walked around, I read so many names. I know each veterans block there has a story. Each one could tell of an experience being far from home in a foreign country or stateside during a stressful time. I could not help but be moved when I stopped at one paver just set in place. I read the name "Robert Shaw." I murmured, Oh Bob! He served as our Owasco town clerk for three supervisors, and passed away Aug. 4. He did not get to see his name inscribed on the paver, but we will remember him.

My husband, Milo, was in the Army during the Berlin Wall crisis, and stationed in Germany in 1959. He took a picture of a lone Army sentry on the Russian border bundled up in thick clothing asleep in a chair with several rifles stacked next to him on the ground. His picture, Always Ready, took third place in the overseas Army photography contest. Actress Olivia De Havilland, of Gone with the Wind fame, presented him with his award. His memorial paver installed last year at the park simply states: Photographer.

Auchampaugh: Owasco veterans park readying for next phase of tribute When the town of Owasco began the work of engraving pavers with Owasco veterans' names in 20

In other Citizen columns, I have written about other servicemen like Kenneth Smith, a former councilman carving a flat slab of wood on Guadalcanal beach during World War II. His wife, Dorothy, told me that when they were in a restaurant after the war, he would always sit facing the door, and watchful of everyone in the room. He never would turn his back in a crowd. We call it post-traumatic stress syndrome today. I wrote of Lanson Swan Sr., trapped in knee-deep freezing water for weeks surrounded by the enemy in a swamp in Korea. His wife, Charlotte, told me he always had knee and leg trouble after that. I shared how Tom Morgan was caught helpless in the cab of his sinking truck in the Han River in Vietnam. His mother, Huldah, told me I could talk with him, but she didnt think he would like to talk about it. Tom graciously allowed me to tell his story, and the fact he managed to escape the submerged truck is still a mystery to him! Their memorial pavers were set last year also.

Living in Owasco village today, Ryan M. Whipple rarely talks about his service in the Navy as a medical corpsman and what he saw and experienced from 1999 to 2004 in Iraq. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, and trained to manage trauma patients' care prior to medical evacuation and assist in giving medical care to the Marine Corps in combat. He was part of the first company of Americans that went into Iraq. Communication was by postal mail only. His wife, Christine, told me he would sometimes talk about having to dig a hole for protection to sleep in each night. His inscribed paver will be dedicated Sept. 16.

This column appears in The Citizen on Sept. 11. How can we Americans ever forget the terror we felt on that early September morning in 2001 when the new enemy brought down the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan? How we watched in the safety of our homes on television the horrible collapse of the buildings full of innocent workers, firemen and police? Our country and many families were changed that day knowing the enemy was here among us, forever plotting to try and destroy our peace of mind and way of life.

We continue to trust in our leaders in our government and military to protect us here at home and abroad. The names inscribed on the memorial pavers at the Owasco Veterans Memorial Park will continue to remind us of their sacrifice.

Please join us at 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, for the dedication ceremony of these men and women at the park on the grounds next to Owasco Fire House No. 1 and the Owasco Town Hall. We will honor over 730 men and women who left their homes in Owasco to protect our freedoms.
Two community colleges in Central New York will accept former ITT Technical Institute students after the for-profit college announced its closing earlier this week.

Both Cayuga Community College and Onondaga Community College issued press releases Friday to address the sudden closure of all ITT campuses nationwide.

At CCC, President Brian M. Durant explained that many online and late-start courses are still available for students and a team of advisers and counselors has formed to help students transfer credits and create a plan to complete their degree.

"CCC stands ready to help these students, whether they were just starting or finishing up a degree," he said, noting that the school may waive placement testing and allow credit for life experience. "With our open admissions policy and combination of work-force training and academic study, (CCC) may be the obvious choice for these students. And we're here to help them navigate their next steps."

Meanwhile, OCC has planned a special outreach event for students who were enrolled at ITT. Staff will be on hand Saturday, Sept. 17 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Gordon Student Center on the OCC campus to help students with academic program options, advising, placement testing and financial aid. The center is located at 4585 West Seneca Turnpike in Syracuse.

"Our message is we want them to continue their education," Durant said.
PM: TT may refine Guyana oil

He also said the 2016/2017 Budget will be presented in Parliament before the end of this month and Finance Minister Colm Imbert will indicate when Bud- get Day will be.

Addressing the post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair, Port-of-Spain, Rowley said, Guyana has just discovered oil in commercial quantities...

Exxon being the company with partnerships with two other companies. He said there are two wells in Guyana that could flow...10,000 barrels per day each. Observing that this countrys oil production has plummeted from 120,000 per day to a current level of 73,000 barrels per day, the Prime Minister said, We have just spent a large sum of money in upgrading our refinery...

in the expectation that we would have been able to be refining more crude ...our own and import. He explained that to the extent that this country has refining capacity and Guyana has crude oil, especially crude by a company whose core business is not refining, it may very well be...that the possibility might very well exist for Guyanas crude to be refined in TT. Rowley reminded reporters that bilateral discussions he held with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in May could result in natural gas from Venezuela being used in energy facilities in this country.

Earlier in the briefing, Energy Minister Nicole Olivierre said she met with Guyanese President David Granger and Guyanas Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman in Guyana August 24-25.

She explained that because Guyana does not have any experience in the oil and gas industry, Rowley instructed her to go to Guyana and express the Governments willingness to extend technical support to the Guyanese Government to help in the development of their oil and gas sector.

Olivierre said Granger requested support from TT, not only for oil and gas development, but also asked for our cooperation in the areas of education...with emphasis on engineering and technical studies...

infrastructure development...

agriculture, particularly with the introduction of technology...

and eco-tourism. She said the drafting of the energy memorandum of understanding between TT and Guyana has begun. Olivierre said a Guyanese public/private sector delegation should be in TT in November to view some of this countrys energy facilities.
PH driver is murder 317

According to reports, the driver, a resident of Belle Eau Road whose name was not immediately available, was driving along Hermitage Road, approaching the junction with the Belmont Circular Road at about 5.30pm.

A gunman fired a hail of shots.

The driver slumped in his vehicle which then crashed into another vehicle on Belmont Circular Road, just opposite the St Judes Home for Girls.

Officers from the Belmont Police Station immediately cordoned the area, diverting traffic away from the busy Circular Road.

Onlookers said there were no passengers in the car at the time.

Grieving relatives had to be consoled at the scene.
An Auburn woman is the third person arrested following two alleged burglaries at farms in the towns of Scipio and Fleming.

The Cayuga County Sheriff's Office reported that Emilie Keeney, 22, of 109 Washington St., is facing two felony charges including second-degree burglary and second-degree robbery.

Keeney was allegedly involved with two armed robberies, which occurred on Aug. 27 and Sept. 1, where money and other property was stolen. Sheriff's deputies arrested Devin Meacham-Wheeler, 20, of 9576 Conquest and Christopher Johnson, 20, of 65 Owasco St., Auburn. The two men were charged Sept. 1 with second-degree burglary and second-degree robbery. They were arraigned and remanded to the Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond.

Keeney was arraigned in the Town of Fleming Court and committed to Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond.

The sheriff's office said it is still looking for another suspect, a while male who may drive a four-door black vehicle.

Anyone with more information is asked to contact Detective Fred Cornelius at (315) 253-1610 or leave tips at cayugacrime.com.
Venezuelan civil engineer jailed for illegal entry

San Fernando Magistrate Natalie Diop yesterday sentenced the foreigner to two years in prison with hard labour.

During the time you have been in this island, you committed serious offences and this history is an aggravating factor, Diop said.

The maximum penalty for this offence (illegal entry) is $50,000 and three years in jail. Diop further remarked that given the two previous convictions, together with the fact that Yzaguirre entered the country illegally, the court cannot turn a blind eye to the offences committed.

The Spanish-speaking national pleading guilty to the charge which stated that on June 19, at an unknown beach in Trinidad, a place which is not a designated port of entry, he entered the island and failed to report to immigration officers as required by law.

PC Chaitramsingh of the Immigration Department, San Fernando laid the charge.

Police prosecutor Sgt Sylvan told the court that on July 13, Central Division police officers arrested Yzaguirre. On July 26, he was taken to the Immigration Detention Centre. Chaitramsingh conducted enquires and discovered that there were no records of the foreigner entering the country at any of the lawful ports of entry.

Through the interpreter, Yzaguirre said that in his homeland there is no work and no food. Yzaguirre claimed he visited Trinidad with the hope of gaining employment.

The father of three is in a common-law relationship and his common law wife is pregnant.

They are all in Venezuela.

Yzaguirre explained he has not seen family members for two months.
Man runs away from home to use cocaine

Rondon reappeared in the San Fernando First Magistrates Court yesterday before Senior Magistrate Indrani Cedeno charged with house breaking and larceny.

It is alleged that Rondon committed the offence on June 28 at Marabella. PC Sooknanan laid the charge.

At previous court appearances, presiding magistrates had denied bail to Rondon and remanded him into custody at the St Anns Psychiatric Hospital for evaluations. When the accused reappeared yesterday, Cedeno enquired whether or not relatives had visited him while in at the institution.

He said no.

He added that they were unaware of his location and then suggested, If is anything, I can take a bus. If I was in Arima, I wouldda get ah officer to bring she to court (sic). But looking at notes before her, the magistrate remarked that Rondons mother is a patient of the Arima Psychiatric Out-Patient Clinic. The magistrate suggested that police make contact with Rondons relatives. She remanded him into custody at the psychiatric hospital for further observation and treatment to reappear on September 23.
Food For Weapons opens ttff New Media showcase

Curated by Venezuelan experimental film-maker, Sandra Vivas, Food For Weapons questions the manipulation of power in Venezuela and the methods used to prevent protest and uprisings  control of food, medicines, water and the media.

The title Food For Weapons, refers not only to the food shortages and violence in Venezuela, but also to the fact that ideas can be seen as food. A reminder that hunger can be both a dangerous oppressor and the most dramatic motivator for ultimate liberation. Ideas can be both food for thought and weapons of change, says Vivas in a media release.

The exhibited work undermines established discourse through intimate narratives that are either taboo or simply ignored.

According to Vivas, several of the artists have been politically persecuted for their work  some of which is deliberately shocking and only suitable for a mature audience. The artists use their body as an instrument, recognising it as a battleground where violence is often enacted through hunger, torture or menace, and seek to recreate it as a channel of liberation that is democratic and universal.

Food for Weapons will be followed by a second New Media installation Light by North Eleven, on September 24 at 9 pm, also at Big Black Box.

North Eleven projection artists are especially interested in the interaction between visuals and how the audience interact with them. Working with multiple technologies and interfaces Light is a live audio-visual performance that incorporates projection mapping and murals, live digital graffiti and motion design, and live visuals. From lo-tech mediums such as string, paper, wire mesh and cardboard, to the latest audio-visual applications, and collaborations with fellow artists, illustrators, painters and musicians, North Eleven will transform the Big Black Box into a stunning canvass of mixed media artwork.

North Eleven has been the ttff s official technical partner since 2010, working extensively with the community development programme to bring free community cinema to numerous communities throughout TT . For the past three years, they have provided technical sponsorship for the festivals New Media programme.

Big Black Box, located on 33 Murray Street, Woodbrook and managed by 3Canal, has evolved into ttff s official venue partner for New Media this year; and will also be a watering hole during the festival period, offering film fans a creative community space to relax after attending films and industry activities.

For more info: ttfilmfestival.com
Boy, 15, shot dead while playing cards

Dead is Mohammed Ali of Moonstone Crescent, Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas. An autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre revealed that he was shot 11 times in the head and upper body. Reports are that at about 10 pm, Mohammed was with a group of men at Village Plaza, edinburgh 500, Chaguanas when a white AD wagon pulled up.

One of the occupants began shooting at the group. The card players scattered and scampered to safety, but Ali slumped to the ground. The car sped off.

Police and emergency services were contacted and officers from the Central Division responded. Investigators told Newsday that the teenagers father was also murdered last year. Newsday understands that efforts were made to keep the teenaged boy, who was a student of Carapichaima West Secondary, on the right path. Despite their best efforts, he continued to be negatively influenced by friends. At the Forensic science Center yesterday, relatives refused to speak with members of the media.
ODPM warns of seaweed resurgence

An advisory from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management confirmed that significant quantities of Sargassum seaweed have been observed off the southern coast of Trinidad and on both the leeward and windward sides of Tobago.

This trend is expected to continue over the next few weeks as strong marine currents are anticipated to transport the mass of Sargassum located south-east of Trinidad in the Guiana Basin to the southern Caribbean, the ODPM noted. The advisory further noted that the Sargassum will likely impact marine interests and the shorelines of Trinidad and Tobago.

Citizens are urged to be vigilant and exercise caution when on the nations beaches and venturing out to sea. The relevant authorities are monitoring the situation and will issue further advisories as necessary, ODPM said. Last year, heavy deposits of Sargussum seaweed covered Tobagos coastlines, affecting fishermens livelihoods and tourism due to the unsightliness and strong odour of the marine plants.

The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) spent over $4 million in coastal clean-up efforts to remove the seaweed from the islands major beaches. Pelagic sargassum is a brown alga, or seaweed that floats free in the ocean and never attaches to the ocean floor. Sargassum occurs naturally on beaches in smaller quantities.

Environmentalists have also suggested using the seaweed as fertiliser for crops.
Facial reconstruction for murder victim

Terisher, 31, of Dindial Trace, Piparo was brutally chopped to death, in the presence of a 13-yearold girl who was also chopped, by her lover of five years. Most of the chop wounds were to the face and head. Her face, relatives disclosed bore multiple chop wounds which challenged the mortuary staff.

Her facial reconstruction allowed relatives a pleasant viewing - a far cry from what was seen on the day she died. Seeing her face, was the couples one and last wish for their daughters funeral and they got the opportunity they wanted. When the open casket finally arrived after a long wait at their home at Dindial Settlement Piparo, they wept uncontrollably.

Her son stared into his mothers casket while her daughter wept. Relatives caressed her face as they placed long-stemmed roses over her body.

Terisher was dressed in white and wore a tiara. Other close relatives and friends sobbed loudly. From early yesterday morning, mourners began gathering at Terishers home where a tent was erected, at the home of her parents and also at Christ Crusader Assembly Church. But as time ticked away, mourners realised that something had gone wrong as the body failed to arrive at the 9 am scheduled time. It was later learnt that it was still being prepared at the funeral home.

The service began some two hours later and as a result had to be curtailed in order to meet the deadline for cremation at Mosquito Creek, La Romaine. The body was not taken to the church and, instead, a ten-minute service was held downstairs the Dindial Road, Piparo house she shared with her killer. The prayers were said not too far from where she was found chopped to death. The hearse and cort?ge then moved to her parents home at Dindial Settlement where a 15-minute service was conducted before leaving for the cremation site. Both services were officiated by Pastor Robert Sookermany who said he knew Terisher since she was a child.

A relative told Newsday, The family didnt want Priyas (her nickname) casket closed, they didnt want a framed picture of on it as many had suggested. We just had to let, especially her parents and children, see her face for that one last time. Yesterday, there were loud screams of Priya, Priya as prayers were being said. Dont leave me and why he chop you? It was reported that in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Terisher was chopped when her lover became enraged after seeing her using Facebook on her mobile phone.

Up to yesterday her killer had not been found despite an extensive search by police and his relatives.

In his message to those present, Sookermany told mourners that Terisher always wore a bright smile, in spite of her problems, and only recently visited him at his home telling him she was ready to settle down and do what was right in the sight of God.
Carmona: Environment tops crime

I think in all honesty, in order for there to be crime, there must be an island to be standing on, and therefore the environment ought to be our prime priority, Carmona said.

He was speaking during a ceremony in which new Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Carla Lyn Hogan Rufelds, presented her credentials at the Office of the President, St Anns, yesterday morning.

The President also addressed students from the Trillium International School, Chaguanas, and Maple Leaf International School, Westmoorings.

These schools followed the Canadian curriculum.

The President said as a small island nation, we are on the threshold of every environmental disaster.

He warned that if nothing was done soon, in 40 years time, 246 tourist resorts in the Caribbean would be under water.

The impact of this on tourism, our way of life, will be catastrophic, the President said.

We need to engage in environmental outreach in a way that we have never done before.

We need to tell the governments of the region that climate change is here. It was here since yesterday and it will be with us for all time.

Climate change may not affect you now, it may not even impact on your children, but your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can be affected in a very fatalistic way.

We must be aware of what is taking place, said Carmona, a father of two.

The President praised Canadas Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who donated CAN$2.6 billion to countries that were suffering from climate change throughout the world on his own, without any advice or demand He noted that just this week, United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping had decided to sign on formally to the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Carmona said these two bodies alone represented 40 per cent of the worlds emissions of greenhouse gases
Cedros fishermen want bread on their table

Today it have plenty business people, boat owners, who owing the bank. How would we pay our loans? We will wait for the bank to come and just take up boats and engine (and) just go with it? We are pleading with the Government, do something for us now, do something for us today, within a week, do something for us. This follows six weeks of staggering losses following claims by an activist group that fish from the area were contaminated by the chemical COREXIT.

On August 19, 2016, via a joint statement, the Ministry of Planning and Development, the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) and the Caribbean Industrial Research Institution (CARIRI), said tests had ruled out COREXIT, algal bloom and internal parasites as being responsible for the initial incident of dead fish.

It was determined that dumping of bycatch was responsible for the first occurrence of dead fish, which included herring, mullet and catfish.

Three weeks later, fisherfolk are still waiting on word about whether or not these samples were sent abroad for further testing.

They lamented however that consumers remain wary about eating locally-caught fish.

Hence a second plea from Nurse, a boat owner and trustee with the Fullerton Fisherfolk Association in Fullerton Village, Cedros.

We asking please, Prime Minister, Minister of Planning (Camille Robinson-Regis), help us. Allyuh help us to help our families.

We need a bread on our table. Just as you want to live, we want to live too. Our kids have to live. Nurse was speaking on Friday afternoon during a press conference at Hotel Normandie, St Anns, Port-of-Spain. Attorney, Gerald Ramdeen, who is representing the group of fisherfolk free-of-charge, told the media he would be bearing the costs of sending raw fish samples to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to present additional proof that local fish is indeed safe to eat.
JSC: Help disabled pupils more

The report, dated July 7 was laid in the Lower House yesterday.

It urged that all teachers be trained in special-needs education, and that more specialist-teachers be supplied to help such pupils.

The report said a public hearing on June 6 had heard of educational challenges at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, including a lack of specialist teachers, aides to pupils and sign language interpreters.

Frequent bullying of students within the Secondary school system, and a lack of awareness and sensitization of teachers, students and the general public, were also serious concerns.

The consultation also revealed a lack of technical assistance for teachers and students within the classroom, including a lack of software to assist disabled pupils.

The committee urged these woes be addressed, especially by training for all teachers in special education including autism.

It said the Ministry of Education must assess the equipment/ technology and staff needed for an inclusive education policy. A Disability Affairs Unit (must) be established within each tertiary institution to assist students and the administration in resolving key issues at the particular school. Otherwise the report used a review of the laws on disability, accurate collection of statistics, better physical access and attitudinal changes.

The committee also the Ministry of Transport to boost public transport for disabled persons by buying regular buses to boost the capacity of the existing ELDAMO fleet. The Ministry of Planning must enforce building standards to allow disabled access.

The report also urged the Government to draft a revised National Policy on Persons with Disabilities within two months to go to public consultation.

Otherwise the report revealed that the Ombudsman has received 149 complaints against the National Insurance Board regarding claims for invalidity benefit. Further, the Equal Opportunities Commission has received 49 complaints of unfair treatment, namely employment (32 complaints), education (six complaints) and provision of goods and services (11).
Ancient cultures of the Colorado Plateau, Fiji, Mongolia, New Zealand and Easter Island will be the focus of free talks at Coconino Community College for the next five weeks.

A. Dudley Gardner, Ph.D., and CCC Vice President of Academic Affairs, will present a free lecture series at the Lone Tree Campus to share some of his discoveries from excavations around the world.

I hope that people see that at Coconino Community College our endeavors are directly translated into the classroom, Gardner said. And that the student gains from real-life experiences an appreciation for our ancient past.

Gardner is an archaeologist and an historian who has worked in the field of archaeology since 1975. He has published several books, articles and archaeological reports of his fieldwork, and he has even collaborated on work with renowned author Annie Proulx.

His specialty is the Formative Period and 18th century Archaeology from around the Pacific Rim, and he has conducted extensive archaeological excavations in Western Colorado and Wyoming.

The five talks in the lecture series will feature:

Sept. 12, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Paleo-Indians of the Colorado Plateau: In 2007 Gardner received a Bureau of Land Management grant to excavate Eagle Rock Shelter in Colorado. The shelter was occupied from 13,000 BP to 200 BP, and Gardners lecture will explore what was recovered during excavations.

Sept. 19, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Archaeology of Fiji: Gardner will talk about the Lapita People and studies done at the World Heritage Site of Levuka.

Sept. 26, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Archaeology of New Zealand: Gardners lecture will focus on excavations and a survey conducted around the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.

Oct. 11, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Archaeology of Mongolia: Gardner will look at the results of Yale Universitys Tarvagatai Valley Project conducted between 2010 and 2015.

Oct. 18, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Archaeology of Easter Island: Gardner will round out the lecture series by discussing excavations along the Moai Road and work on the Pircas on Easter Island.

I think it would be good for the community because they are from different areas of the world, Gardner said.

Several of the excavations were conducted over a period of several years.

We get to know the areas intensely because we work on them so long, Gardner said.

He added that his talks will not be something hes read in a book. His work has been done in the field and brought directly into the classroom. His aim is to tell the story of what happened on the excavations so that people can appreciate learning about the worlds past.

Often, archaeologists go out and do these projects and never tell anybody about what theyve found, Gardner said. I want to change that.

The CCC Lone Tree Campus is located at 2800 S. Lone Tree Road. For more information about events at CCC, visit www.coconino.edu/calendars.
Cabrera: Austerity leads to poverty

Austerity leads to national poverty, said Cabrera to JTUM members on its Labour Economic Alternative Plan (LEAP) .

Cabreras discourse began with him rejecting the characterisation of the last year of economic downturn as a recession .

Former Central Bank Governor, Jawala Rambarran, declared on December 4, 2015, that the country was officially in a recession, but Cabrera disagreed, saying that the country is suffering from an economic crisis caused by a tumble in energy prices not a classic recession. I have seen no capitalist throwing themselves off a skyscraper on the newspaper as yet, Cabrera quipped, which to me is the ultimate sign of a recession. Cabrera questioned how the nation could be in a recession if the malls were still filled, large conglomerates were declaring exorbitant amounts of profits, and hardwares in his area are always running out of bricks and cement .

ANSA McCal declares $353m profit  recession? ANSA McCal eyes two Barbados companies  recession? RBL, third quarter profits of nearly $1b  recession? The BIGWU President noted that a proper diagnosis of the economic situation is key to administering a proper remedy. And according to his diagnosis, a downward trend could be seen in the economy from as far back as 2005, long before the fall in energy prices .

He argued that this could be explained more by wastage and gross inefficiency in the economy .
Get down to serious work, Duke tells Deyalsingh

Addressing the media on Thursday at a press conference held at PSAs headquarters on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain, Duke called on Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh to get down to serious work on the nations health system.

Why do I say this? There is a particular place called Chemistry, Food and Drugs Division. They are responsible for monitoring foods, drugs, pesticides, alcohol and a number of things coming into this country. Part of the chief reason why there is a shortage of drugs in this country is because the drugs entering this country are not tested and are not registered by Chemistry, Food and Drugs Division. He continued, The PSA is very concern given the fact that the Ministry of Health plays such pivotal role in the health and welfare of our nation and we happen to be one of the unions that represent a lot of the areas that fall under the Ministry of Health. Duke explained that over the last year they kept silent regarding the nature of the nations health, and watched the nations health moved from a good stage to a bad stage. While thanking doctors, nursing and other medical staff at the Portof- Spain General Hospital for looking after him following his short stay at the institution, Duke said he discovered that simple things such as drinking water, writing paper, hot and cold baths, tea bags, and microwaves, were not to be found at the hospital.

When I asked the question why it dont have these things, they said they have to scrunt...they used the word scrunt for paper to write on. I was also told that they have a shortage of funds coming to the Ministry in particular at the hospital so they are on a short list. The PSA is concerned because if doctors are not given the basic things such as paper to write patients notes, how can we start talking about health care? he explained.
Francis: Local nurses world class

The Moruga/Tableland MP, on Thursday, gave the feature address at a symposium, Positioning Nursing and Midwifery Leaders for the 21st Century, held by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) at the UWI School of Nursing in El Dorado.

How does it feel to be world class? he asked the audience of nurse and midwife leaders. Our system of nursing education produces the cream of the crop. TT has trained its nurses so well that other countries try to steal them away, Francis added.

He hailed the highly successful training of nurses by UWI at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital which lacks proper facilities.

Im impressed that we can produce high-quality nurses without facilities. Francis said the ministry has decided to try to rationalise this situation and have it more streamlined, so as to ensure quality and to make the lives of trainee nurses easier. (Asked later if rationalisation will mean cutbacks rather than expansions, he said no.) Francis said the ministry will have a review of local nursing with alacrity and consultation.

In fact, he has already met local nursing schools and will next meet Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, with the view of producing nurses of the same high quality as before but under more amenable circumstances.

Later on, asked how this country can retain nurses when other countries try to lure them away with big salaries, he said the GATE programme mandates students to work for a certain period.

Pressed on rationalisation, he said nursing schools overlap in the services they provide, but he vowed to consult before eyeing any changes.
Young tells UNC: You failed on FATCA

Young did so in his contribution to debate on the Tax Information Exchange Agreement Bill 2016 in the House of Representatives. Responding to Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessars dismissal of the economic implications for TT if the country is not FATCA compliant by September 30, Young quoted from a Cabinet Note dated May 23, 2013, when Persad-Bissessar was prime minister.

Referring to that Note, Young said the PP was aware that FATCA, became law on March 18, 2010. He told MPs, What we have here is a record that in May 2013...

the then government... led by the then Member for Siparia (Persad- Bissessar)...were aware of the obligations and the international obligations that had to be fulfilled by TT. He said it was interesting that in May 2013, Persad-Bissessars Cabinet considered the matter and the implications for the failure to subscribe to this legislation and to execute the agreement that was only executed a few weeks ago in August by this administration. Young stressed that this legislation will have no effect on TT nationals, unless they are resident in the United States and have an obligation to pay tax in the US.

Referring again to the Note, Young said it was clear the PP knew the perception of TT as a non-cooperative country aiding US persons to evade taxes in the US and the potential loss of capital and business were some of the implications of TT being non-FATCA compliant.

He explained the PP knew the latter included, all business conducted by multinational corporations to be constrained. He explained that because this countrys economy relies heavily on its energy sector, this meant all the transactions of energy multinational corporations in TT, will now be subject...as that Cabinet noted to a 30 percent holding tax in the US. Young further stated the PP assigned then Finance Minister Larry Howai and the Board of Inland Revenue as the legal competent authority for FATCA under the same legislation now before Parliament.

Young said the Note further indicated that a planned announcement on FATCA by the PP at a Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Port-of-Spain in July 2013 did not materialise. He also said while the PP indicated the agreement would be signed by December 31, 2013 but this was not done.
Opposition signals no support for Tax Bill

Robinson-Regis added that in the interim, Government will meet with the Opposition on Monday to hold consultations about the legislation.

Speaking following the adjournment, Imbert explained that Persad-Bissessars proposal for the bill to be sent to a joint select committee (JSC) and the House sit within a week to continue the debate was not viable.

The members of the committee from the Senate will have to be named at a sitting of the Senate, he said.

Noting the Senate sits next Tuesday, Imbert continued, So at that sitting, the members of that JSC will be named by the President of the Senate, after discussion. He said the process returns to the House because six MPs would have to be appointed alongside the six senators on the JSC. Indicating September 16 would be the first time the committee would be appointed, its first meeting could only be on September 17 and Parliament prorogues on September 22, Imbert said this approach would not work given the September 30 deadline for TT to become FATCA compliant. In addition, Imbert said, Then you are into the budget cycle as well because the Budget must be completed at the end of October. He added four weeks are needed for the budget cycle in the House and Senate. In her contribution, Persad-Bissessar scoffed at Imberts earlier warnings of dire implications for the economy if the legislation was not passed. Describing the actions of the Government as reckless and irresponsible brinkmanship, Persad-Bissessar declared, I dont believe the deadlines. Recalling the Government spoke about deadlines regarding bail and Strategic Service Agency (SSA) legislation, Persad-Bissessar said TT suffered no dire consequences when the former was not passed and when the latter was passed.

She charged the bill was giving unfettered power to Imbert as Finance Minister and US authorities could now obtain confidential financial information about TT nationals.
WASHINGTON  Western lawmakers joined Olympic pentathlete Margaux Isaksen Thursday to warn against attempts to move federal lands into state or private hands and to call on the president to use his authority to expand national monuments.

Isaksen joined Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada after writing a letter to a Colorado newspaper recently in which she lauded public lands for shaping her into the three-time Olympic athlete she is today.

Its part of Americas heritage. It?s something thats not only important for our generations, but important for generations to come, she said.

But Gallego said that heritage could be threatened by Republican-backed legislation.

One of the biggest risks weve seen is the efforts by  Republicans to use different types of legislation to either strip away some of these protections or to stop any future protections, Gallego said, referring specifically to proposals backed by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

Bishop, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced a bill to settle an ongoing land dispute in the Bears Ears region. The Utah Public Lands Initiative designates parts of the lands in eastern Utah for conservation purposes, others for recreational purposes and parts for development under the belief that conservation and economic development can coexist, according to a release about the bill.

The bill was introduced in July, but has yet to get a hearing.

Weve seen this land seizure movement that originated in Utah essentially stall in most of the Western states, said Aaron Weiss with the Center for Western Priorities, which supports keeping public lands in federal hands.

Weiss cited a 2016 Colorado College poll in which only 33 percent of those surveyed in Western states supported proposals to shift management of public lands from the federal government to states. Fifty-eight percent of respondents opposed such efforts.

The opposition to such transfers was even stiffer in Arizona, where 29 percent of respondents supported state control of national public lands, while 65 percent surveyed opposed the idea, according to the poll.

Groups such as the American Lands Council say its not a matter of taking lands away from the public, but of putting those lands under the control of states which can better manage them based on local interests.

The federal government routinely sells off our public lands to the highest bidder, and there is nothing the states can do about it, said the councils CEO Jennifer Fielder.

Public lands are awesome, we just want them managed a lot better than what we are seeing from the distant, dysfunctional Washington, D.C., bureaucracy that presently controls over half of all land in western America, said Fielder.

She criticized Reid as hypocritical, claiming the Obama administration sold $85 million worth of public lands in Nevada this spring alone.

Reid on Thursday praised public lands in Nevada, specifically the Gold Butte site that he said President Barack Obama should designate as a national monument, using his authority under the Antiquities Act.

Gallego said he supports efforts to name a 1.7 million acre site around the Grand Canyon as a national monument to protect its cultural and ecological importance.

At a minimum we really need to look at the Grand Canyon National Monument designation, Gallego said. We all understand the Grand Canyon is our national park, but its also what feeds into it that is really important.

Gallego said public land is important to veterans like him so they can take a timeout from the world after returning from combat. That is especially true in a state like Arizona, which is home to the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world and dramatic desert landscapes, in addition to the Grand Canyon.

We certainly have a lot of work to do to protect our nation?s treasure, and well have to keep doing it, unfortunately, Gallego said.

Weiss said he is optimistic that the tide is moving away from efforts to remove stewardship of public lands from the federal government.

Were not declaring victory, but were confident that reasonable politicians from both parties realize this is not a winning issue, he said.
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This week saw news in the areas of business connectivity, IP video, LTE (News - Alert), software-defined networking, voice over LTE, and 4.5G.





In the realm of business connectivity we heard about new LTE modems from NETGEAR. The new NETGEAR LB111X line offers 4G LTE connectivity to any Ethernet device. Thats ideal for businesses with field technicians, mobile workforces, and outside sales teams.

Meanwhile, Nokia talked about how it offers a predictive optimization tool that can provide network operators with better visibility as to traffic flow on their networks. That will be useful, as contributing writer Steve Anderson explained, given the growth in video streaming.

Speaking of LTE and video, contributing writer Michael Guta this week reported on the worlds first demonstration of LTE Supplemental Downlink in a TV broadband band. Nokia (News - Alert), Qualcomm, and Yle were introduced in the demonstration, which showed how SDL and digital terrestrial television can coexist in the same band.

Separately, Nokia is working with Jiangsu Telecom to deploy what they say is Chinas first commercial carrier WAN-SDN project. That will enable the carrier to more efficiently define, provision, and activate network services on multivendor networks containing both physical and virtual infrastructure.

On the VoLTE front, Altair Semiconductor (News - Alert) revealed that Verizon Wireless has certified its chipsets for voice over LTE. The specific chipsets involved are the FourGee-3800 Cat-4 solutions.

While LTE has brought cellular networks into the 4G era, 5G is coming up fast. In fact, Research and Markets believes there will be 35 million 5G users by 2012 and as many as 89 million 5G subscribers by 2022.

In the meantime, the industry is working on both 5G and advanced versions of 4G. For example, Nokia recently launched the 4.5G Pro mobile radio and plans to introduce a 4.9G radio that will offer a near-5G experience.
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German-born astronomer William Herschel captured some of the wonder of the night sky felt by others of his occupational ilk when he described the stars as landmarks of the universe. Yet the magical, mysterious aura of a star-spangled dark sky is hardly limited to the purview of scientists. Lord Byron referred to stars as the poetry of heaven, Henry David Thoreau called them the jewels of the night, and to Ralph Waldo Emerson they were envoys of beauty that light the universe with their admonishing smile. The night sky, in fact, belongs to everyone, and it is just this message that underscores the third annual Flagstaff Star Party (FSP), set for September 22-24.

The FSP is a free event designed by the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition and its partners to inspire and educate people about one of Flagstaffs most celebrated natural resources (and we have a lot of them)dark skies. Telescope viewing, tours of the night sky, talks by professional and amateur astronomers, and workshops highlight this years event.

All of the activities take place at Buffalo Park or in the parking lot of the nearby NACET facility and most happen at night, starting with a Sunset Talk, Shadows and Circles, from 6  6:30 p.m. Each evening, Lowell Observatorys Brian Skiff will lead guests along the Buffalo Park Loop Trail and introduce them to the subtle atmospheric and astronomical phenomena that mark the transition from sunset to twilight.

Following this experience, astronomers congregate at the Buffalo Park Pavilion to share captivating aspects of the cosmos. These Twilight Talks run from 6:45  7:15 p.m. each evening, beginning on the 22nd when Lowells director Jeff Hall explains the true nature of the brightest stars in his program, A Walk Around Our Stellar Neighborhood. On the following evening, Lowells Nick Moskovitz will discuss Earth-assaulting space rocks in Asteroid Impacts and How We Are Avoiding the Fate of the Dinosaurs. NAUs David Koerner rounds out the Twilight Talks with his Saturday presentation, Discovering New Worlds, in which he reviews how he and his colleagues search for and study planets around distant stars, with a special look at plans to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

After the Twilight Talks, local astronomers and night sky enthusiasts will turn up to 30 telescopes toward the darkened sky to view planets, nebulae, and clusters of Thoreaus jewels of the night. This runs from 7  10 p.m. and is dependent on clear skies. Meanwhile, other sky experts will use laser pointers to give tours of the night sky from 7:15  7:30, pointing out the North Star, Milky Way, and other features visible to the unaided eye.

Besides these nightly activities, experts will also offer two different workshops for the more serious students of the night sky. From 3  5 p.m. on the 22nd, Lowells Jim Cole will lead a session on how to operate telescopes. Participants need to make reservations and bring their own complete telescope. On the 23rd from 5:30  8:30 p.m., photojournalist Stan Honda will introduce basic techniques for capturing nighttime photographs using modern digital technology. Like the telescope workshop, this one requires reservations and takes place at the nearby NACET parking lot.

The star party is presented by the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition, in partnership with the Coconino Astronomical Society, NAU Department of Physics and Astronomy, FUSD, U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, and Lowell Observatory. Lead sponsors include Vintage Partners and Findlay Flagstaff. More information, including reservation forms for the workshops, is available at www.flagstaffstarparty.org
Moroccan authorities have raised security level to maximum before and during Eid celebration in a move to thwart any terror plots by terrorists at the time threats of attacks have spiked.

The Islamic State group has ticked Morocco as one of its main targets. Moroccan authorities have adopted corresponding measures to eradicate the threats and protect citizens.

According to local media Al Ahdate Al Maghribia, authorities have mobilized nearly all the countrys security apparatus to ensure a peaceful celebration on September 12.

National police, army and intelligence services have been mobilized and put on alert, Al Ahdate Al Maghribia reports.

Security forces in uniforms and plain clothes have been dispatched across the country and at public spaces on patrol. Security check points have also been erected in order to inspect cars.

The forces have been also given the green light to arrest any person suspected of connection with terror networks or suspected of any offence.

Moroccan authorities have this week arrested a terror cell composed of three men operating in the cities of Oujda, Casablanca and Fez.

US intelligence services have also tipped off their Moroccan and Spanish counterparts of looming terror attacks to be perpetrated by an IS cell operating on the Spain-controlled enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
Following a successful anti-smuggling operation to clear the border area of Guerguerat from all sorts of illegal commercial activities, Morocco completed the asphalting of the Guergarat road as part of a security measure.

A government source told the le360.ma that the asphalting works of the road to Guergarat in beyond the security wall in the buffer zone were achieved with a view to safeguarding the supreme interest of the Kingdom and protecting its borders by barring the road to trafficking networks, which turned that border area into a venue for engaging in all sorts of illegal commercial activities.

The asphalting of the road took place in a context marked by the fog of war, as the Polisario separatists sent armed fighters to the buffer strip in the Guergarat area, in a failed attempt to halt the works.

Polisario fighters in a blunt violation of the 1991 UN-brokered cease-fire came 120 meters close to Moroccan army positions behind the wall, pushing to UN to express concerns over a real risk of a full-blown war between the two parties.

The situation remains tense in the Guergarat area said the UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, adding that any resumption of hostilities, with the potential to have wider regional implications, remains of significant concern to the UN.

The UN is actively engaging with the parties and key member states to urge restraint and identify options for an acceptable solution to the current crisis, Dujarric said.

In a desperate attempt to portray the buffer strip as a liberated area, the Polisario protested against the security operation launched by the Moroccan police and customs authorities in mid-August against smugglers who turned the area beyond the berm of Guergarat into a venue for engaging in all sorts of illegal cross-border commercial activities.

Moroccos crackdown on smugglers came after reports of a potential trafficking by separatists of an arms cargo into the southern provinces where they intended to undermine public order. Hence the fury of the Polisario leaders who have been accused by several international reports of connivance with trafficking networks and terrorist organizations in the region as well as embezzling humanitarian aid.

Earlier in August, the UN mission to the Sahara, MINURSO, has refuted the Polisarios failed attempt to portray Moroccos security operation as a breach of the ceasefire saying that the anti-smuggling operation in Guergarat had a police character and was undertaken in coordination with the UN.
Photo: Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Donald Trump has spent much of his general-election campaign portraying America as a blood-drenched hellscape where marauding bands of undocumented immigrants terrorize the countryside and African-American city dwellers sustain gunshot wounds every time they walk down the street.

Occasionally, the Republican nominee has flavored his demagogic hyperbole with a dash of empiricism. In his convention speech, Trump cited last years uptick in the homicide rate of Americas 50 largest cities as evidence that decades of progress in public safety had been undermined by the Obama administrations rollback of criminal enforcement.

Of course, that statistic did not actually support Trumps conclusion  nationally, violent crime has declined under the current president (and Obama has not rolled back criminal enforcement, unless suggesting that police should kill fewer unarmed black people qualifies as such). But Trumps data point was misleading in another, less obvious way: The murder rate did not rise last year in our nations 50 largest cities; rather, it jumped so sharply in a few urban centers, the collective rate of those 50 cities went up, despite stagnant  or even falling  homicide rates in the majority of locales.



On Friday, the New York Times published the most comprehensive analysis of last years homicide statistics to date. Its findings reinforce the conclusion that our country, as a whole, is not suffering a significant surge in the incidence of murder  but a disconcerting number of its urban centers are.

In 2015, homicide rates rose significantly in 25 of Americas 100 most populous cities  the largest such fraction since 1991, when 36 cities saw their annual murder rates increase, according to the papers analysis.

Even among those 25 cities, there were stark disparities in the level of crisis: Half of the entire increase in big-city homicides was concentrated in just seven municipalities  Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Nashville, and Washington.

And only in Baltimore was the spike in homicides sharp enough to return the city to a historically high murder rate. While Charm City suffered a historic high of 55 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2015, for the seven cities collectively that figure was 21. Which is significantly lower than it was throughout the 1990s.

Meanwhile, 70 large cities saw their murder rates hold steady in 2015, while 5 saw them fall.

Murder rates rose significantly in 25 of the nations 100 largest cities last year https://t.co/o3yechShVU pic.twitter.com/0tpbCnNgDU  ProPublica (@propublica) September 9, 2016

Cities are obviously heterogeneous, Robert Sampson, a Harvard social scientist who studies crime trends, told the Times. There is tremendous variation across the largest cities in basic features such as demographic composition, the concentration of poverty, and segregation that relate to city-level differences in rates of violence.

There is also considerable heterogeneity within cities. Chicago saw 488 homicides in 2015, the most of any city in the nation. But ten of the citys neighborhoods had homicide rates of zero last year  while the neighborhoods of Burnside and Fuller Park each suffered rates of over 100, according to the Trace, a digital news outlet that focuses on gun crime.



In light of these statistics, the Traces Daniel Kay Hertz argues that America does not have a murder problem so much as a murder inequality problem. That term has its drawbacks; no one wants every American neighborhood to experience an equally high crime rate. But it helpfully focuses attention on the fact that last years uptick in violent crime did not afflict America or Chicago, but rather the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in that city and other cities like it.



The seven cities that drove last years spike in homicides all have poverty rates above the national average. And it was the most economically disadvantaged  and, often, racially segregated  districts within those cities that saw the greatest bloodshed.

Observing the precise geography of violent crime in America can enable policymakers to identify the idiosyncratic problems facing certain municipalities. For example, during the riots that followed the death of Freddie Gray, looters cleared the inventory of several Baltimore pharmacies. Some experts who spoke with the Times believe the subsequent murder wave was linked to this sudden expansion in the supply of black-market opiates. If this theory holds true, the homicide rate should fall as the supply becomes exhausted.

But understanding homicide as a problem that manifests on the neighborhood level does not prohibit effective policy responses on the federal one. There is a clear correlation between concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and high homicide rates. A genuine anti-crime agenda would aim squarely at reducing the number of neighborhoods defined by those first two conditions. More effective law enforcement will also be required. While there is little evidence that draconian sentences deter crime, the certainty of apprehension absolutely does. When homicides routinely go unpunished, cycles of retaliatory violence proliferate. In Chicago, the neighborhoods with the highest murder rates often have the lowest clearance rates for homicide. So far this year, the city has seen a 50 percent spike in its homicide rate, while its police have solved only 30 percent of murder cases. (In the similarly sized city of Houston, the homicide clearance rate is 56 percent.) Improving clearance rates will require improving the relationship between police and crime-plagued communities. Which, ironically, may require less law enforcement: The Justice Departments recent report on the Baltimore police found that the departments zero tolerance approach to policing petty crime produced routine violations of residents civil rights. That probably isnt the best strategy for cultivating the cooperative ethos necessary for cracking homicide cases.



A disingenuous anti-crime agenda, on the other hand, would aim to validate white racial anxieties by evoking images of lawless minorities, and then assuage those anxieties with vague promises of toughness and impenetrable walls.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at press conference during the meetings. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images

After weeks of negotiations and months of failed peace efforts, the U.S. and Russia have ironed out a plan that is aimed at reducing the violence in Syria, while simultaneously linking U.S. and Russia efforts to strike Islamist militants in the country, CNN reports. The agreement, which Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov came to in Geneva early Saturday, will consist, at first, of a seven-day cessation in hostilities on both sides of the conflict, starting Monday, so that humanitarian aid can be brought into war-torn areas like the city of Aleppo. Assuming that works, the U.S. and Russia will begin working together and sharing targeting data to coordinate strikes against the Islamist militant groups Nusra Front and ISIS.

The plan also stipulates that the Russians will restrain their ally, Syrian president Bashar Assad, from conducting air strikes on opposition-held territory, in the hope of stopping the regimes devastating and indiscriminate attacks using barrel bombs and chlorine gas. On the other side, the U.S. will work to convince its allies among the opposition forces in Syria to stop associating with the Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda offshoot that the Assad regime has used to paint all opposition fighters as terrorists.



The aftermath of a purported Assad-regime airstrike on the rebel-held city of Idlib on Saturday. Photo: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

The New York Times notes that American officials dont seem very optimistic that the plan will work, since they dont believe that Russia or the Syrian regime are trustworthy actors in the conflict. For instance, some believe that Russia has taken advantage of the negotiations to allow Assads forces to strike opposition forces and work to retake control of Aleppo, and there is also concern that what Kerry said would be some sharing of information pertaining to the locations and compositions of forces on the ground in Syria would provide the Russians and Assad regime with data to use in their efforts against the non-Nusra opposition. The deal apparently hasnt inspired much optimism inside Syria, either.

In announcing the agreement, Kerry insisted that the U.S. wasnt basing the deal on trust, but on oversight and compliance.

A previous ceasefire plan, agreed to in February, only lasted a few weeks. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the more than five-year-old Syrian conflict, which has led to to the worst refugee crisis throughout the region and Europe since World War II.
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Earlier today, Facebook caught a very large and entirely reasonable amount of flak over the fact that it had removed a post featuring the famous napalm girl from the page of a Norwegian newspaper. As the papers editor-in-chief explained in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the services inability to distinguish between child porn and newsworthy photography is an embarrassing, arguably dangerous screwup for what is regarded as the most important information network in the world.

This afternoon, Facebook released a bad response:

After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case. An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography. In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time. Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed. We will also adjust our review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward. It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days. We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward.

Okay, I am going to attempt to break down this mealymouthed statement. Here is the first problem: Facebook talks about its user base of more than one billion people as our community. Facebook is not a single community. It is millions of separate ones that overlap. At Facebooks gargantuan scale, everybody that uses the service cannot be lumped into a whole.

Facebook, in the very next sentence, explicitly acknowledges this when talking about how different countries have different laws pertaining to child pornography. So its one community, which must follow a single set of guidelines, but each user is also subject to the laws of individual countries. Seems like a contradiction! This ill-conceived notion only gets worse because Facebook has, as far as I know, no mechanism in place to prevent content permissible in Norway from being displayed to users that arent Norwegian. Facebook wants one set of rules that can be layered over thousands of other regulations. This comes back to what I wrote earlier today: The content that Facebook prefers is so inert as to be completely unobjectionable  videos of food being prepared and moms laughing.

And then we get to this: Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal. Facebook reinstated the image because of historical importance  its action today is a one-time exception to its otherwise labyrinthine content guidelines. It has whitelisted this one photo and no others.

The idea of judging images based on their pre-Facebook historical impact is a terrible rubric, and one that really no longer applies. In fact, it is now because of Facebook that most of the viral images we see today garner attention. Facebook seems to have no qualms about distributing images of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old refugee whose body washed up on the shore in Turkey, or Omran Daqneesh, the devastated Syrian child covered in dust and blood. (Maybe the difference is that they were clothed.)

We will also adjust our review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward, Facebook wrote, adding, We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe. Review mechanisms? Policies? These sure as hell sound like editorial guidelines from Facebook, the publisher that refuses to admit it is one and which believes that, with algorithms and artificial intelligence, it can supersede journalistic outlets.

Earlier today, Facebooks Trending Topics module promoted a story asserting that 9/11 was an inside job.
I have toddlers that come into my office that act more mature than this cuntrag.

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Why are toddlers coming into your office?

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I doubt they're coming in by themselves lol ...

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I work with families who receive subsidized child care, and more often than not, they have to bring their children to their appointment.

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their 401k isn't going to contribute to itself!!

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He hasn't died yet?

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excluding freak accidents(praying for this tbh) his rich ass is going to outlive all of us...it's one of the most depressing things to think about

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No one takes this crazy douchebag serious.

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LMAO @ "I've acquired four new medicines. If you'd like to discuss meet me on the rooftop of the Chrysler building at midnight, Captain."



i'm dying

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Available guitarist for NYC band - must like EMO, PUNK, HARDCORE. NO BULLSHIT NO GAMES. NO SHOEGAZE. Can tour w/ notice, have my own gear.  Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) September 9, 2016



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aint nothing wrong with shoegaze, Shkreli!

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must like EMO, PUNK, HARDCORE.



LMAO



feeling good about my love for shoegazing rn.

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Miki Berenyi should rip his head off with her bare hands

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I'm starting to think Martin Shkreli is Ken M.

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So, basically he just got pissy on the internet while Chris didn't care and went about his day.

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Yeah, that's all I got from this, and I am loving it. I hope Chris doesn't respond.

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pretty much

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Can't hulk just do to this worthless human what he did to Loki

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I'd pay to watch that.

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I'd be hft.

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This guy legit never got over being bullied in high school, jfc. He also has definitely murdered someone with that serial killer face.



Also no disrespect to Joe Lo Truglio but he 100% needs to play this asshole in a sketch for Funny or Die.



Edited at 2016-09-10 01:46 am (UTC)

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lmao

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I mean, I never got over being bullied in high school, but I know better than turning into an actual movie villain to process that shit. 0/10, Shkreli.

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i'm so fucking tired of the harambe meme. it's not funny at all



martin can go fuck himself, i hate that dude so much



this also seems like a good post to say i finally saw ca: the winter soldier and it was a nearly perfect action movie imo, def one of my fave marvel movies i've seen so far



Edited at 2016-09-10 01:50 am (UTC)

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TWS is the best movie. 

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I wish I could relive it. Or just see it in theaters once :(

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And somewhere Chris is sitting there cackling as he watches this mess without a care

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two comments down

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LOL yess!

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Why hasn't Shkreli dropped dead yet?

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look at this cutie

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omg

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lmfao

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holy crap LOL

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OH MY GOD

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yaaaaasssssss gawd lmao I love this new edit!

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omg

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Lmaooo, I wasn't ready.

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omg

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roflmao

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omfg LOL this is amazing.

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OMG! This is getting out of control.



Edited at 2016-09-10 03:14 am (UTC)

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I've never really found him super hot but these full body, give no fucks laughs are super attractive.

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Even as a fan of his, I honestly never found Chris all that attractive in the beginning. It was totally his laughter and his goofball attitude that did me in in the end.

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That is a mind fuck, holy god.

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This is amazing!!!!!!!

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oh my god

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lmaoooooo i've never seen this gif before

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OMG

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Anyone else think the martin guy is just trolling and not at all serious?

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you've figured it out, nancy drew

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lol

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he's loooving the attention imo

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yes lol

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He's got zero self awareness and literally every interview he appears to be an absurd next level narcissist so no, I don't think he has any sense of humour or is trolling, I think he is deeply fucked up.

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He's just your average narcissistic sociopath.

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'On John Kascich reaction to seeing a Harry Potter book and saying, "You know that Daniel Radcliffe has declared himself an atheist? I'm serious. What a weird thing. "



lmao that's actually hilarious though.

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i'm still mad at u dan

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Man, I miss Michael Scott.

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And the one with the anger issues.

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oh this just made me recheck the post. did you also think we were talking about john krasinski?

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I'm picturing it to the tune of Anarchy In The UK.

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I'm always so pleasantly surprised when I meet someone who isn't self-righteous about their faith or lack thereof.

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There are dozens of us.

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Edited at 2016-09-10 10:42 pm (UTC)

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I have a friend who for years I've managed to avoid hanging out with because she's so into Jesus. And I have no problem with that but she's very into recruiting and I'm just like no.

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ikr? It's like he's thinking, "Look at all the success you've had in life. How can you not attribute that to an all-powerful, all-knowing spritual being?"

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I wonder if it would blow his mind if he met someone who didn't believe in a benevolent higher power but believed in a Satan-like power who they blame all their wrongdoings and failures on.

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lmao, right? Like, what it's the connection between religion and success?

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Dan is obviously disrespecting God since God gave him all that success and money. If it wasn't for God, Dan wouldn't have all those things.

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good for him

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I am with him on not understanding why people who are supposedly so secure in their religious beliefs care if others don't share them when others' opinions have absolutely no impact on their lives.

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I find that atheists do this the most often though. I only meet so many 'preachers' but every atheist like to talk about how dumb or evil religion/religious people are. This is the first time I've ever seen an atheist talk about religion and religious people this way.



Edited at 2016-09-10 05:44 pm (UTC)

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most english atheists i know are like daniel tbh, britain fosters secularism aka apathy about ti all



we do have dawkins though, i guess you always get arseholes being dramatic about shit everywhere

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you've probably met ton of normal atheists. we just don't usually run our mouths when religious talk starts up.

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Ia except that usually only happens when I'm talking to my religious friends about religion, some atheist will always pop off.

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Because they think they have to save our souls from damnation. I'm pretty much the worst person to have the conversation with about believing in god and heaven. Because I always end up posing the question on if murderers and such can end up in heaven if they repent and accept jesus into their hearts, but I won't end up there if I don't accept him into my heart. When they say yes I say that I'd rather be in hell than in a place that turns away good, honest people who just didn't happen to believe in god and turn around and take in the worst of humanity. Sends the conversation into a tailspin every time, because how can you come back from that? lol

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People in general are intellectually insecure and want validation from others that their beliefs are right.



But IA, I'm with him here 100%. I'm an atheist but it's not really a core part of my identity or anything so I'm always a bit confused by the atheists who spend a lot of time and energy being mad at the fact that other people believe in god point blank.

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lol it's like people who are apparently so """secure""" in their heterosexuality yet still feel the need to say things like I'M NOT GAY, BUT....!!!!

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Okay, since this is a politics post and I don't really have anyone to talk about it with right now...I kind of told my mom she was racist today. A political conversation last night ended beyond horribly, and at first I was upset and in and out of tears most of the night and this morning, but by the time we talked today, I'm just mad. I don't think I'm genuinely upset now that I offended her last night. She likes to see herself as progressive and such, but she's one of those people who with the Colin thing or Obama or police shootings, she always criticizes people's response. She's always on about how they're not talking about it right, they're not using the right tone, on and on, and finally today I just told her she was racist and judgmental and picks me and everyone apart for how we talk or phrase things and so on, and that's why she gets so pissed when we talk politics, because it's easier to tell me and other people how we need to fit into whatever mold she thinks we need to fit into rather than taking a second to actually admit I or other people might be right.



Sorry, I just totally rambled, but I've been a big ball of emotions since last night, and now I've mostly just moved to being mad.

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I've gone through similar things with my own mother. She's white but all of her kids are half-black and I'm the youngest/most outspoken about it so we clash a lot. She considers herself a progressive too but the way she talks about and reacts to things is really transparent so it's hard to talk to her sometimes. It's usually just momentary awkwardness when I call her out for stupid micro aggressions and she ignores me and we move past it but a few weeks ago she told me that "all lives matter" and that "we all just need to try harder" and I couldn't help myself. She got super defensive and confrontational even though I tried my best to stay calm and explain my point. That just frustrated her even more until she changed the subject to try to make me feel shitty about something completely unrelated. I just had to leave the room to collect myself and then leave her house before I totally lost it, then cried the whole way home. Didn't go back to visit for weeks.



I wish I had some sort of advice or something more useful than my own rambling story for you but I sympathize. It's tough having to call out people you love, especially when they aren't receptive to what you're saying. We've kinda softened toward each other in the past few weeks since the blowout but I still feel really weird about it... I was (and still am) really angry but at this point I guess I'm just wondering when the next awkward argument will be. I hope your mom doesn't have you fucked up for too long though.

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Thank you for this response. I'm white and she's white, which I think is why she gets so upset with me sometimes. She basically says I'm against white people and hate my own country. Never mind the fact that I took a crap ton of journalism classes in college and have a huge, huge love for the First Amendment. No lie, I kind of sound like a freak when I talk about the First Amendment because I love it and believe in it so much. I don't hate the US, but I don't want to say I love it. I just don't think I'd necessarily love any country. It feels weird to me to actually, legitimately love a country.



My mom is always talking about how she strives to be better and this and that, but she nitpicks the shit out of people. I told her that I tell myself every time we have a fight that I know I can't actually be open with her, that I have to bite my tongue and watch every word because she nitpicks so much of what I say and always have. I feel I'm always trying to speak carefully and think about my words, yet I never, ever get it right. She always finds something wrong with things I say, whether it's my tone, saying like too much, no phrasing it correctly, and so on. No matter how I work to adapt, it never quite fits the mold, and that's how she is with so many people. She gave me social anxiety, and then now admonishes me for my social anxiety. I mentioned it in another post this week, but I don't even like to pick a restaurant to eat at when I'm going out to dinner with someone. It legitimately stresses me out to pick a restaurant.



And to now swing it back around, this is how she approaches all the race stuff, too. She says she thinks things need to get better, but she criticizes every single way people try to do it better. For Colin it's he needs to put his resources to fixing the situation, never mind the fact that he is putting his money where his mouth is and no person can fix it. For Obama, he should've been better like Bill Clinton at crossing the aisle and bringing people together, so basically he was supposed to single-handedly fix the racism in the Republican party and it's his fault they never worked with him. For me, when I talk to her about the issues, I have to change my tone and how I approach it because no one will ever be open it otherwise. So, basically, no matter how people try to approach the issues, it's never right for her, and because it's not right for her, that means it's their fault not hers. It's not on her to change how she reacts to the issues, but on them to bend over backwards to figure out how to approach it in a way that won't offend her. It makes no sense, and I don't know where to go from this with her other than to just ignore it. I never want to talk politics or anything touchy with her again, it's on her to change if she wants to, and I have no desire to try and help or educate anymore.



Fuck I just wrote a novel! I'm sorry.



Edited at 2016-09-10 06:23 pm (UTC)

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It's very hard to talk about with friends and family when they do make racist or prejudice remarks. I think it's a good thing that you stood up to her. Hopefully it'll make her think.

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Yikes, sorry you are dealing with that. I don't have any advice, but I've had some similar conversations with my grandmother. She was born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid and talks about what a great system it was and how much better it was for black people (she's white). When I called her out once one that being racist, she was like 'it's not racist, it's just the truth'. Yiiiikes.

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i'm always calling my parents out whenever they say something racist or say something bad in general. i don't care that they're my parents, i have a great relationship with them and love them even with their faults, but i'm not going to sit around and let them stay stupid shit and get away with it.

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you still have racist friends tho.

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who doesn't? everyone is racist to some extent or another and the sooner we wise up about it, the better systemic racism can be dismantled

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you're not wrong about everyone having racist notions, but that alone doesn't make you a racist.

I trust danrad when he says that his friends are being openly racist. some ppl just can't "wise up", no matter how much you argue with them. it shouldn't be too hard to drop them if he really cared about racism - he obviously doesn't, probably bc he's white and it doesn't affect him personally.

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Yeah, isn't that on his list of books to burn?

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But have you dumped your racist friends, Dan?

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"you're being interviewed and you express an opinion and then it becomes 'this is what he thinks, now and forever'.



Yep.

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This is what upsets me, even with people on ONTD. You say it or think it and that's it, that's all you are. Forever. Even if you change and become a different person, you'll always be that person who said x y and z.

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It's because people just want to use it as an excuse to write you off as a person when they realize they have nothing else to say to discredit what you're saying, even in completely unrelated topics.

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John Kasich is the epitome of "old man yells at cloud" and he only got the character of "reasonable moderate one" because the rest of the Republicans running were either unprepared and hideously incompetent at campaigning (Rubio, Bush) or flat-out batshit crazy (Cruz, Trump). Though I guess the GOP in general is the party of "old man yells at cloud" so.



IDK, I know that DanRad has said some Problematic things recently but on the overall spectrum of celeb shittiness he still comes across as being closer to the "has their head screwed on okay and is generally mostly a decent human being" end of the spectrum. Too bad he sucks at acting tho.

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I'm Canadian and I've floated from voting Liberal at 18 to NDP at 25. I could maybe see myself voting Liberal again...maybe...but as someone who is pretty political, I can love and respect my conservative friends and family members but have literally no respect for their political beliefs. I think if you're born lower class or maybe lower-middle-class, I can forgive people who are right-leaning because it's maybe aspirational, maybe they've seen some things I haven't, maybe there's a bit of brain washing by harping onto other issues, but it really grosses me out when someone like Jack Whitehall says he doesn't belong to a party and wants to hear all sides. Like how old are you? What is the other side going to say that's going to convince you? It's just because they're rich and believe that their posh upbringing is justifiable but they don't want to seem ~Uncool~.

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. I think if you're born lower class or maybe lower-middle-class, I can forgive people who are right-leaning because it's maybe aspirational, maybe they've seen some things I haven't, maybe there's a bit of brain washing by harping onto other issues



This is one of the political tenents I don't quite buy into. Many in my own lower-middle-class family lean left, and I've not found it to be *that* uncommon among people I know. I think that every class of person is susceptible to not thinking their politics through and to mis-attributing cause and affect. Others hold their position genuinely. That grand-dame of the petite bourgeoisie herself, Margaret Thatcher, was utterly convinced, for example.



tl;dr I have feelings about this

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I wish I had a gif of Penn Jillette from Eric Andre's show last night. Magic and ATHEISM!

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I was snorting from laughing so hard at that!

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A man was arrested Monday on suspicion of sexual assault after a woman told police he had assaulted her in her apartment Friday night.

According to the police report, the woman told police that she, the man, her roommate and another friend had dinner at her apartment and were drinking alcohol Monday evening.

The woman told police the roommate eventually went to bed and the friend left, and the man said he was going to go home. She said she gave him a hug and he touched her skin under her shirt. She said the man then decided to stay the night, records show.

She said she went into her bedroom and left the door open so the man would have access to the bathroom. She said when she changed her clothes, she could see the man watching her from the doorway and told him to go away, according to the report.

According to the report he went into the bathroom and she went to bed. She said the man then got into bed with her and sexually assaulted her, even though she told him to stop and to leave.

The victim told her boyfriend about the incident, and he told her to tell police, according to the report.

Police contacted the man, who is a paraprofessional at Knoles Elementary School. When contacted, the man told police I should have just gone home two days ago.

Nelson Allen, 25, was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of sexual assault, police said.

Domestic violence

A man was arrested Monday on suspicion of domestic violence after a woman called police and said her boyfriend had hit her and broken her phone.

According to the police report, the woman said the man was drunk, and woke up when she came home and began yelling at her. The woman said she tried to call her sister, but the man grabbed the phone and broke it.

The woman told police the man then stomped on a TV tray, breaking it, and began hitting her with the pieces. The woman said the man then punched her in the face, according to the report. The woman estimated the man hit her approximately eight times with the tray leg, records show.

According to the report, the man then grabbed the woman around her neck and began to choke her. The woman said the man stopped when he heard police outside.

Carlos Feeney, 40, of Flagstaff was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence, assault, threats to intimidate or cause injury, criminal damage and disorderly conduct.

Charged with DUI

Chad William Bryant was arrested and charged with aggravated DUI at 11:07 p.m. Monday.

Corey Chapin Shook of Mesa was arrested and charged with DUI at 2:46 a.m. Tuesday.

Courage C. Cody of Ganado was arrested and charged with aggravated DUI at 3:46 a.m. Tuesday.
One week ago we reported that one of the biggest mysteries for the global oil market, and certainly the biggest wildcard for future oil prices, is the current state of China's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As JPM reported, China's SPR demand was equivalent to approximately 1mm bpd. More importantly, stopping shipments for the reserve would wipe out about 15 percent of the countrys imports. More to the point, according to JPM, and contrary to official data, China's strategic oil reserve was approaching capacity, which going back to JPM's June calculation, meant that "our base case assumes China continuing high volumes of (1mbd) SPR builds through August, while factoring in 7 percent domestic crude production decline and 2 percent refinery throughput increase. This means 15 percent mom decline in Chinas crude imports in September, or 1.2mbd loss from the China inventory demand. Chinas net oil imports ytd has expanded 16 percent yoy, versus a flat consumption growth."

This has been cited as one of the reasons why China's relentless demand for oil, which in early 2016 hit a record level of monthly import, has seen a modest decline in recent months.

However, it appears that the mystery over China's SPR is no longer the main driver when it comes to the future of Chinese demand. According to Oilchem, a Shandong-based industry researcher, China's major refineries cut runs to 70.3 percent of capacity as of September 1, down -1.43 percent from Aug. 18. To be sure, a big part of the utilization rates decline emerged as the Sinopec Qilu refinery with 8m ton/yr capacity, started maintenance. Oilchem expects the tons to rebound in mid-Sept. as some plants will resume after works.

That, however, may prove optimistic, because while we don't doubt that China's major refiners do come back on line in short notice, the biggest variable for China's recent oil demand, the blistering pace of refining by China's smaller, "teapot" refiners, may be about to see a steep decline. The reason is that, as Bloomberg wrote over the weekend, suddenly "everyone wants a share of the worlds hottest oil market, including Chinas taxman."

Which brings us to the teapots: as Bloomberg adds, "purchases by the countrys independent refiners, granted permission last year to buy foreign crude, have soaked up some of the global oil glut and helped revive prices after the biggest collapse in a generation. Sellers from Saudi Arabia to BP Plc have been supplying the plants known as teapots, which account for a third of the nations processing capacity."

Chinese "teapot" refinery

And now, the blistering crude oil demand from China may be about to hit a brick wall as a "government tax crackdown threatens to constrain this new source of demand from China, which rivals the U.S. as the worlds biggest importer."

How much is at stake? No less than a whopping 1.4 million barrels per day in teapot demand, more than all of Saudi Arabia's supplies to the worlds second-biggest user of oil.

Putting this number in context, Chinas oil imports have averaged an unprecedented 7.5 million barrels a day so far this year, boosted by the teapots, government data shows. The purchases, along with production outages in Nigeria and Canada, helped benchmark Brent crude jump almost 90 percent from mid-January to June.

Cited by Bloomberg, Wang Pei, a senior analyst at Unipec, the trading unit of Chinas largest state-run processor Sinopec, said that the government crackdown "is sort of a warning to independent refiners. It has been tough to implement proper tax compliance among independent refiners."

One of the reasons why last year's excess supply surge did not have an even more pronounced impact on prices is thanks to the demand that was brought online by China's independent refiners: teapots started getting licenses to import foreign crude last year as part of a government effort to boost private investment in Chinas energy industry. The refiners previously had to rely on state-owned oil majors including PetroChina and Sinopec for supplies of crude. They still have to adhere to a quota determining how much they can import. Nonetheless, as the WSJ reported in May, "Teapot Refineries Shore Up Chinas Demand for Crude" and Bloomberg added a month ago that "Oil Refiners Struck by Glut Find Comfort in China Teapot Drought."

However, that "silver lining" is about to be brushed off as authorities "are clamping down on anyone skirting the rules. The National Development and Reform Commission on Aug. 23 said the government will disqualify license applications or revoke import quotas if companies evade tax or falsify documents. Nobody replied to a fax seeking more details sent to Chinas NDRC after regular working hours on Monday or answered calls to the press office."

Related: Biggest Draw In Crude Stocks This Century Sees Oil Prices Spike

To be sure, while it is highly unlikely that all of the 1.4mmbpd in teapot demand could come off line, there will be a substantial cut in demand. Bloomberg notes that while local authorities in Shandong province, where the refineries are clustered, will support the industry, "import licenses granted by the government may drop by the equivalent of 400,000 barrels a day next year to 1 million barrels amid the crackdown on tax evasion, according to consultant Energy Aspects Ltd."

Processing rates at teapots will be curbed by the governments regulation on taxation and operations, Zhang Liucheng, director and vice president of Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, the biggest Chinese private refiner, said in an interview in Singapore on Monday. The company is tax-compliant, having paid 1.7 billion yuan ($255 million) in tax last year and 2.6 billion yuan in the first eight months of 2016 as it started refining imported crude, Zhang said.

Needless to say, for price purposes, a 400,000 bpd drop in global demand is the equivalent of a 400,000 bpd production surplus by OPEC or non-OPEC sources, certainly when it comes to price.

The importance of teapots to what remains a market mired in excess OPEC oversupply, was highlighted earlier this year when one of them purchased a spot cargo from Saudi Arabia, which broke from its usual policy of selling only under long-term contracts. Irans state-run oil company is said to be in talks to sell more crude to Trafigura in a strategy that may help it break into the market to supply the independent refiners.

If and when a substantial number of teapots are suddenly put offline by the government, both Saudi Arabia and Iran will scramble to find alternative buyers. To do that, they will have to offer generous price concession.

Among the notable losers from a teapot crackdown would be the independent commodity companies, such as Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura who have generated substantial profits shipping oil from the middle east to these sources of demand. As Chin Hwee Tan, the CEO for Asia-Pacific at Trafigura, said the advent of the Chinese private refiners as major buyers of crude and exporters of product has been the biggest change in the market since the shale revolution. Were doing significant business with them.

Finally, it's not just taxes: teapots face other headwinds including port and pipeline infrastructure not developing as fast as oil purchases. Chinese imports are also at risk of slowing because of ship traffic and lack of storage capacity. Concern about creditworthiness and lack of experience in international trade are also challenges. Slowing refining profits have forced cuts in processing rates, while the implementation of higher fuel-quality standards could force some of them to shut.

To be sure, some remain optimistic, such as BP, according to Andy Milnes, BPs CEO of integrated supply and trading for the Eastern Hemisphere. Shandong Dongming last year got crude from the company as part of a long-term supply contract.

In spite of Chinas clampdown, the government is still working toward liberalizing oil markets, and would continue to encourage the operations of independent refiners, according to Unipecs Wang. Many of them perhaps account for 70 to 80 percent of tax revenue in their cities, so the local government will want to keep them alive. However, if there is one thing that is certain about Chinese "liberalization" reforms it is that things are certain to get much worse before, and if, they ever get better, once the government starts micromanaging every aspect of yet another formerly independent industry's transition. Related: Most Oil Industry Experts See Oil Below $60 Through 2017

That covers the demand side of the equation. As for the supply side, the story is well-known. As the following chart reveals, most OPEC members are producing more oil now than they were in January, or at any time during the past year.

(Click to enlarge)

To summarize: OPEC oil production is near record and rising, shale is slowly returning on line with every weekly increase in Baker Hughes oil rigs, while demand is about to see a sharp drop due to either China's SPR nearing capacity, or the crackdown on teapots that is about to cut Chinese demand by as much as nearly half a million in barrels. How this will impact price, we leave to the central bankers to figure out, whose only recourse may be to start buying commodities in the open market, in addition to bonds and stocks, thus nationalizing yet another market.

By Zerohedge

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Last Thursday a SpaceX rocket exploded during a propellant filling operation at Cape Canaveral. The rocket was a Falcon 9 and is designed to transport satellites. Investors have looked on in envy in recent years as groups like Elon Musks SpaceX and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin have grown at a breathtaking pace. Despite that, neither firm shows any signs of going public soon. Firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are heavily involved in the space business, but frankly their business model is being disrupted by the SpaceX and Blue Origin. Investors looking to get exposure to this burgeoning area of the economy have had few options  so far. The SpaceX explosion highlights a backend way to invest in the space.

The Space X rocket that exploded was part of a $62 million launch operation, but it also included among other things, an AMOS-6 satellite on board valued at more than $200 million. Facebook owned this satellite and it was going to provide Internet access to parts of Africa. Thus the loss of the rocket is a $250M plus hit  and thats where the opportunity comes in. Such losses highlight the importance of risk mitigation through insurance  and the space insurance industry is one that investors can invest in.

Following the most recent explosion however, eyes have focused on who pays the bill for the rocket and its payload. For SpaceX to have an insurance policy they must pay a premium to big name insurance companies like AIG, Allianz, AON, or XL Catlin. Last year there were $500 million in claims; double the premiums being paid.

In other words, all it takes is 2 to 3 explosions a year for the insurance market to run into trouble  such problems can actually be a good thing. Typically, in catastrophe insurance markets, whether it is hurricanes or rocket explosions, a bad year leads to a good year. In bad years, some players exit the market, and everyone raises premium prices. That typically leads to a strong follow-up year in which the industry is more profitable thanks to higher prices.

This would have been SpaceXs 29th launch and 9th launch this year. The company hasnt had a shuttle crash since June 2015, which is fairly lucky considering 1 in every 20 rockets explode. The rocket was fully insured for the launch but, because this was two days earlier, it falls under pre-launch insurance, which only covers certain supplies on board.

With the commercialization of space exploration, private corporations are beginning to send more and more aircrafts into orbit. In previous years, SpaceX would only send 6 rockets annually but this number is likely to grow to 9 this year and potentially double digits in the future. SpaceX may not have insured their Falcon 9; they do not disclose this information. If SpaceX did not, they may consider doing so in the future, along with other similar companies.

Several companies stocks tumbled with the news this past Thursday. SpaceX is privately owned but Elon Musks other company, Tesla, fell more than 4.8 percent. Facebooks stock remained steady upon hearing the news.

Space Satellite Communications (Space Com), the company that owned the Facebook satellite, saw a plunge in their shares. The company was valued at $4,320/share but following the news immediately dropped to $2,000/share. The stock now rests at $2,700/share.

Space Com has requested $50 million from SpaceX for destroying their satellite or a free ride on their next rocket. Space Com is also demanding $200 million from Isreal Aerospace Industries, the manufacturers of the AMOS-6 who hold the claim to the insurance policy. Space Com then has to pay back upset bondholders and the state. Related: What Drove The 2016 Oil Price Rise?

Investors should short Tesla, seeing as they have to pay bondholders $422 million by the end of the quarter. On top of this, the merger with Solar City is continuing to bring bad news to both the companies stocks. There is also doubt that Tesla will be able to meet production goals on their new model 3 by next year.

Space Com will likely see a rebound in their stock once all debts have been settled. There is a promising merger in the process for the company with Xinwei of China, so investors should react accordingly upon announcement.

SpaceX is in the process of recovering from the loss of their rocket but will likely begin preparations for their next launch shortly. They have a series of missions planned for the near future.

With an increase in annual launches there is a high likelihood of rocket explosions becoming even more numerous. These commercial space companies will feel a greater need to insure their rockets and their payloads, increasing the demand for insurance policies. By investing in insurers like AON or XL Catlin, companies that protect these rockets, investors can see a correlation between returns and development of the space industry, predominantly private.

By Michael McDonald of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
From Brian. As most of you already know my wife Lorine has passed away. It was a great shock to myself, her family and many of you in the...
Reprinted from Truthdig





As President Obama toured an exhibition of prosthetics made for Laotians who lost limbs when bombs exploded years or even decades after the United States dropped them on Laos during the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. announced it would provide $90 million over the next three years to help Laos clear the remaining explosives.

The unexploded bombs are 30 percent of the total that the United States dropped on the country -- a total Obama described as "more bombs on Laos than [on] Germany and Japan during World War II." So far, such ordnance has killed or injured more than 20,000 people.

On Thursday, Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer told The Real News Network that the sum the U.S. has offered Laos is "chump change."

Read a full transcript of Scheer's remarks provided by The Real News Network below.

--Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

DHARNA NOOR, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Dharna Noor joining you in Baltimore.

On Wednesday President Barack Obama became the first sitting president of the US to visit Laos. Obama visited a prosthetic center that works with victims of bombs that initially failed to detonate when dropped on the country during the Vietnam war. He also toured an exhibition of prosthetic limbs and met with those involved with clearing unexploded ordinance in the Laos countryside.

The US announced earlier this week that it would provide an additional 90 million dollars over the next three years to help Laos clear the remaining ordinance.

BARACK OBAMA [in video clip]: But for all those years in the 1960's and 70's America's intervention here in Laos was a secret to the American people who were separated by vast distances and the Pacific Ocean and there was no internet and information didn't flow as easily. For the people of Laos obviously this war was no secret. Over the course of roughly a decade the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than Germany and Japan during World War II. Some 270 million cluster bomblets were dropped on this country.

Click Here to Read Whole Article
Snowden is the most entertaining, informing, and important film you are likely to see this year.

It's the true story of an awakening. It traces the path of Edward Snowden's career in the U.S. military, the CIA, the NSA, and at various contractors thereof. It also traces the path of Edward Snowden's agonizingly slow awakening to the possibility that the U.S. government might sometimes be wrong, corrupt, or criminal. And of course the film takes us through Snowden's courageous and principled act of whistleblowing.

We see in the film countless colleagues of Snowden's who knew much of what he knew and did not blow the whistle. We see a few help him and others appreciate him. But they themselves do nothing. Snowden is one of the exceptions. Other exceptions who preceded him and show up in the film include William Binney, Ed Loomis, Kirk Wiebe, and Thomas Drake. Most people are not like these men. Most people obey illegal orders without ever making a peep.

And yet, what strikes me about Snowden and many other whistleblowers I've met or learned about, is how long it took them, and the fact that what brought them around was not an event they objected to but a change in their thinking. U.S. officials who've been part of dozens of wars and coups and outrages for decades will decide that the latest war is too much, and they'll bail out, resign publicly, and become an activist. Why now? Why not then, or then, or then, or that other time?

These whistleblowers -- and Snowden is no exception -- are not passive or submissive early in their careers. They're enthusiastic true believers. They want to spy and bomb and kill for the good of the world. When they find out that's not what's happening, they go public for the good of the world. There is that consistency to their actions. The question, then, is how smart, dedicated young people come to believe that militarism and secrecy and abusive power are noble pursuits.

Oliver Stone's Ed Snowden begins as a "smart conservative." But the only smart thing we see about him is his computer skills. We never hear him articulate some smart political point of view that happens to be "conservative." His taste in books includes Ayn Rand, hardly an indication of intelligence. But on the computers, Snowden is a genius. And on that basis his career advances.

Snowden has doubts about the legality of warrantless spying, but believes his CIA instructor's ludicrous defense. Later, Snowden has such concerns about CIA cruelty he witnesses that he resigns. Yet, at the same time, he believes that presidential candidate Barack Obama will undo the damage and set things right.

How does one explain such obtuseness in a genius? Obama's statements making perfectly clear that the wars and outrages would roll on were publicly available. I found them with ordinary search engines, needing no assistance from the NSA.

Snowden resigned, but he didn't leave. He started working for contractors. He came to learn that a program he'd created was being used to assist in lawless and reckless, not to mention murderous, drone murders. That wasn't enough.

He came to learn that the U.S. government was lawlessly spying on the whole world and spying more on the United States than on Russia. (Why spying on Russia was OK we aren't told.) But that, too, wasn't enough.

He came to learn that the U.S. was spying on its allies and enemies alike, even inserting malware into allies' infrastructure in order to be able to destroy things and kill people should some country cease to be an ally someday. That, too, was not enough.

Snowden went on believing that the United States was the greatest country on earth. He went on calling his work "counter cyber" and "counter spying" as if only non-Americans can do spying or cyber-warfare, while the United States just tries to gently counter such acts. In fact, Snowden risked his life, refraining from taking medication he needed, so that he could continue doing that work. He defended such recklessness as justified by the need to stop Chinese hackers from stealing billions of dollars from the U.S. government. Apart from the question of which Chinese hackers did that, what did Snowden imagine it was costing U.S. taxpayers to fund the military?

Snowden's career rolled on. But Edward Snowden's brilliant mind was catching up with reality and at some point overtook it. And then there was no question that he would do what needed to be done. Just as he designed computer programs nobody else could, and that nobody else even thought to try, now he designed a whistleblowing maneuver that would not be stopped as others had.

Consequently, we must be grateful that good and decent people sometimes start out believing Orwellian tales. Dull, cowardly, and servile people never blow whistles.
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Reprinted from Counterpunch

Once again a plan for democratic transition in Syria has been drawn up by a coalition of opposition groups meeting in London, supported by the usual suspects in the shape of Turkey, the EU, US, and Gulf States. It is described as a detailed plan committing Syria to democratic and religious pluralism. Predictably, and the reason why it is a non-starter, it contains the pre-condition of Bashar al-Assad's removal from power.

The coalition behind this ludicrous scheme goes by the name of the Higher Negotiating Committee (HNC), and is said to comprise 30 different "moderate" political and military groups united in the objective of removing Assad as the country's president. Who exactly these people represent in Syria itself, nobody knows. What we do know is that Assad retains the support of the vast majority of his people, who will not accept any colonial arrangement to depose their president.

The gall of those who demand the removal of a government that has played an indispensable role in the country's survival over five long years of unremittingly brutal conflict against the forces of hell, unleashed as a direct result of the destabilization of the region by the US and its allies starting with the war in Iraq back in 2003, is simply staggering. London, the scene of the colonial and imperialist crime of Sykes-Picot in 1916 -- plotted, prepared, and organized to deprive the Arabs of their right to self-determination and sovereignty -- is 100 years later the scene of a crime to deprive the Syrian people their sovereignty and dignity under the guise of a plan for democratic transition.

There is no greater example of democracy than an army supported by a people refusing to bow in the face of unrelenting barbarism. As British journalist and Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk revealed earlier this year, 60,000 Syrian officers and men have perished in the most brutal and merciless conflict the region has witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war between 1980-88. Not only has the Syrian Arab Army -- made up of Christians, Alawites, Sunnis, Shia, and Druze soldiers -- faced along with its Lebanese and Iranian allies an enemy so barbaric and murderous it bears comparison with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s, it has done so knowing that their fellow soldiers and civilians have been slaughtered by forces supported by neighboring states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, etc., along with their Western backers.

And these are the countries and governments the Syrians are expected to trust with their future?

The Syrian government's crime in the eyes of the West is not the lack of democracy -- how could it possibly be given the longstanding alliance between Western governments and Saudi Arabia, run by a clutch of medieval potentates? -- but rather the fact that Syria under Assad has long refused to bend the knee to US and Western hegemony, especially with regard to the country's support for the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, and its friendship and alliance with Iran. Together they make up an axis of resistance which Washington and its regional allies have long been intent on breaking.

Despite the courage and tenacity of the Syrian Arab Army and people, there is little doubt they would have succeeded in this endeavor without Russia's intervention in the conflict, beginning at the end of September 2015. When Vladimir Putin addressed the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations days prior to Russian aircraft flying their first sorties against anti-government forces in Syria, he effectively announced the birth of the multipolar world demanded by Russia's recovery from the lost decade of the 1990s, caused by Washington and its European allies' attempt to impose a Carthaginian peace on the country in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union, along with China's ferocious economic growth and global footprint.

Russia's military intervention was and continues to be a remarkable achievement of logistics, planning, and organization, necessary in the successful projection of hard power thousands of miles beyond its own borders. It has allowed it to showcase some of the most advanced aircraft, missile systems, and technologically advanced weaponry in the world today, beating Washington at its own game in the process. This, to be sure, is the real reason for the demonization of Putin that has been a mainstay of Western media coverage over the past year and more.

Vladimir Putin and Russia have staked too much in the outcome of the conflict in Syria to allow Assad to be thrown under the bus in service to a contrived and transparent attempt to depose him under the guise of a peace plan. This is not to claim that Assad should lead Syria in perpetuity. It is, however, to claim that the government of Syria is a matter for the Syrian people and that at this point Assad's survival is coterminous with Syria's survival as a non-sectarian, secular state.

But let's not delude ourselves that the timing of the unveiling of this latest effort to depose Assad has anything to do with alleviating the biblical suffering of Syria and its people. It is not. Instead it comes as evidence of the desperation of those who are losing the war.

The objective of those who have suffered and sacrificed so much is victory not transition.
Presidential candidate for the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings has charged queen mothers in the country to be bold and assertive on national issues.



Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings urged the queen mothers to defend and rescue the nation from crippling under the Mahama administration.



She was addressing some queen mothers today at Ho in the Volta Region.



According to her, women form 52.8% of the population of Ghana, hence calling on them to take the affirmative action ignited by the 31st December Women Movement.



Nana Konadu empowered the queen mothers, noting down that Ghana's security has become a major problem.



She expressed worry over the perennial economic challenges confronting Ghana and believed it's time for the queen mothers and all women to demand a "say" on issues affecting the economy.



The President of the Volta Queen Mothers' Association, Mamaga Agbalisi, on behalf of the queen mothers, pledged their unflinching support for the former First Lady.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi /Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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WASHINGTON  Year after year, more Americans attempt to board planes with concealed firearms in their carry-ons. They also come with hidden swords, hatchets, sharpened ninja stars and even gunpowder.

Invariably, the response from passengers when officers from the Transportation Security Administration seize the weapons is: Oops, I forgot I had it.

Its always astonishing to me that people can forget they have a weapon in their carry-on, said TSA Administrator Peter V. Neffenger. Im not sure why people continue to do this.

Not everyone buys the excuse of forgetfulness.

They didnt forget their pants. Its beyond me, said David Borer, general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents the nations 42,000 or so transportation security officers.

Whether the reason is memory lapse or a desire to be prepared should armed terrorists once again try to commandeer an aircraft, the seizure of a record 2,653 firearms last year at airport checkpoints is but one aspect of an evolving security panorama as the nation passes the 15-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The security ritual now has a familiar rhythm: Shoes off. Laptops out. Everything through the X-ray machine. Nearly 2 million passengers endure the drill each day. Many hate it. A few get unruly.

The tools deployed by the security agents  including full-body scanners  get ever more sophisticated while the most basic of questions go without a satisfying answer: Do all the security measures work? Are terrorists truly deterred? Are we safe?

Experts agree on only one thing. Heightened airport security is here to stay.

Its going to take a long time before we stop taking our shoes off, said Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and fierce critic of the TSA.

Its hard to pick apart the security procedures the federal government has adopted and not arrive at the conclusion, as Schneier has, that much of it is security theater.

Seeming failures abound. An audit last year found that TSA officers found weapons only three times when undercover investigators passed through airport security checkpoints 70 times with weapons or mock explosives, a failure rate of 95 percent. The then-administrator lost his job.

We are not safer than before 9/11, regardless of the money and energies spent to change airport security, said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant and longtime former airline executive based out of Evergreen, Colo. The TSA approach is a dud. It is a giant bureaucracy with zero accountability for failure.

Events in the past month underscore how TSA officers, who are unarmed, behave in the face of potential terror. On the night of Aug. 14, when false reports circulated of gunshots at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, TSA officers and civilian security guards left their posts and joined a stampede of hundreds of travelers. Borer said TSA policy was for officers to run, hide, fight, in that order, in the event of any attack, and that the officers had not been disobeying orders. Still, the incident raised questions about what might unfold in the event of a real terrorist attack.

Two weeks later, panic broke out at Los Angeles International Airport when loud noises led to rumors of an active shooter. Several terminals were evacuated, and passengers and TSA officers alike breached security doors to flee to the airport tarmac.

Panicked people, Boyd said, were chasing off in all directions like a herd of gazelles running from thunder. TSA has no plan in the event of an incident, except to tell people to run away from the noise, or dump them into the street in a nice tight crowd for a terrorist target.

The hassles of slipping off shoes, pulling laptops out of bags and emptying coins from pockets have spurred applications for expedited security screening. Known as TSA PreCheck, the program lets low-risk travelers ease through checkpoints without removing shoes.

Some 12,000 applicants a day pony up the $85 for five-year memberships, after waiting six weeks for appointments, and total numbers have surpassed 3.5 million. According to Secretary Jeh Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security, 96 percent of PreCheck passengers spend an average of five minutes or less at security checkpoints.

Weve turned security into have and have-not, Schneier said: the PreCheck passengers whove paid their money and the rest of the traveling public.

Rudeness and the occasional too-intimate pat-down have led to combative encounters.

Theres just this sort of general hatred of TSA, and some people go off, said Borer, the union general counsel. All this scorn gets heaped on them. Its all the people coming through and saying, Screw you. Dont touch me. Its awful.

Passenger anger has occasionally flared. In 2013, an unemployed motorcycle mechanic killed a TSA officer and wounded two other officers and a teacher in a rampage at Los Angeles International Airport. A notebook he left behind referred to the TSAs Nazi checkpoints.

In 2015 in New Orleans, a taxi driver attacked TSA officers with a machete and wasp spray, injuring one of them, before being shot by a sheriffs lieutenant. The assailant later died.

Rating the effectiveness of security procedures is a divisive endeavor. Experts disagree.

The two things that have improved security since 9/11  and there are only two  is one, reinforcing the cockpit doors, and two, teaching passengers that they have to fight back, Schneier said.

Some airline pilots, protected by the reinforced locked cockpit doors, now maintain handguns at arms reach in case of intruders.

Awareness among passengers of their own potential roles in thwarting terrorism soared after Sept. 11, 2001, when courageous passengers aboard United Flight 93, bound from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, took on the four hijackers. The passengers and crew tried to regain control of the flight, leading to its crash in a field in Pennsylvania but preventing the hijackers from slamming the airliner into a still-unknown target, perhaps the White House or the U.S. Capitol.

Fighting back now seems ingrained in some passengers.

Go to an airport and pick 10 random people, and theyll tell you, We know we have to do this, 100 percent, Schneier said.

Indeed, passengers have averted several terrorist incidents. Richard Reid, a Brit whom al-Qaida had recruited to board a Paris-Miami flight with explosives in the soles of his shoes in late 2001, was tackled by passengers and crew members before he could ignite the explosives.

Travelers also subdued a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, after he attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear on a Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009.

Ultimately, its going to be fellow passengers and alert citizenry who create a better defense for Americans than a government monopoly like the TSA, said Chris Edwards, an analyst at the Cato Institute, a research center that advocates for minimal government intrusion.

Even the famed air marshals, whose numbers soared after Sept. 11, have come under fire. The program, which puts armed agents on high-risk domestic flights, costs more than $820 million annually. In theory, the marshals are the last line of defense before a terrorist hijacking. In practice, more air marshals appear to have been arrested for felony crimes they themselves have committed than make arrests in the line of duty.

When the bureau responded to a freedom of information request earlier this year by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, more than seven years after the request was made, it acknowledged that air marshals had been arrested 148 times from 2002 through the early 2012 for various crimes unrelated to their work.

While air marshals attended to thousands of medical emergencies and non-terrorist incidents involving unruly passengers, they apparently carry out few arrests of real terror suspects. A Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman, Thomas H. Kelly, did not address a request for a breakdown of incidents.

A Tennessee Republican U.S. lawmaker, John J. Duncan, said in 2010 that the air marshals service had made an average of 4.2 arrests per year from 2001 to 2010, adding that we are spending $200 million per arrest.

Even with the travails of the TSA and the air marshals, one fact since Sept. 11 can gladden the heart of any traveler.

There havent been any (successful) terror attacks since 9/11, knock on wood, said Borer.

That may make passengers feel better, but not experts who see shortcomings.

Some foresee airports with concentric rings in the approaches to terminals, with facial recognition software in active use, pushing a security perimeter outside terminal buildings.

Our back doors are wide open at airports, Boyd said. Ground security for airliners is really weak: things like catering carts, cargo pods, et cetera, have no security.

Certain airports present a better ideological target for terrorists: JFK, LaGuardia, LAX, San Francisco, Atlanta, said Anthony C. Roman, a former pilot who is a security consultant. We have to be hyper aware  not frightened, but not with our heads in the clouds.

Should there be a successful attack on a U.S. airport, I think were going to see more intense security procedures, he said.


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         2013 .         9          .    .
The life of Esther Phillips (1902 83) would have languished in obscurity, at most a footnote in history, were it not for the dedication of a few friends and supporters. Her story, which intersects with ideas about women, class and mental health in the 20th century, is all too familiar. An obstinate, free-spirited woman, she defied family expectations to contribute to their greater good by pursuing her passion for art. She rarely held a job, turning frequently to a small group of artistically minded friends for support. She was flighty and irresponsible, living the bohemian lifestyle with other artists in Greenwich Village once she abandoned Pittsburgh in 1936.

The harsh realities of her chosen life almost broke her. Like many women who dared to operate outside the norms, she was deemed unstable when it is likely that poverty and the lack of the basic necessitiesa common anecdote has her eating ketchup on crackers for dinnerdamaged both her body and her mind. In fact, her 6 year sojourn in an upstate New York asylum proved beneficial because she had a stable routine, regular meals and some kind of healthcare. There, a sympathetic librarian encouraged her with books and art supplies and had her write anecdotes about her life in the Village. Phillips was adept at attracting people who tried to further her career and provide basic necessities, and she achieved a modicum of success, showing and selling in both Pittsburgh and New York City, though she never achieved the success she felt she deserved.

The artist obsessively and determinedly pursued her passion, over coming numerous obstacles. She sought an education by taking advantage of the neighborhood art school at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement in the Hill District, where Samuel Rosenberg inspired so many artists. His teaching methods focused on learning to look as well as learning to make, and Phillips must have soaked up his discussions about art and artists because there are obvious references in her work to Henri Matisse, the Cubists, and Americans Arthur Dove, Georgia OKeeffe, John Marin, and above all, Stuart Davis. She might also have studied with Rosenberg when she was a part-time student at Carnegie Tech and even possibly with Robert Lepper, who taught Warhol at Tech. Either could have influenced her to look at her surroundings for subject matter, Rosenberg with his early gritty paintings of Pittsburgh and Lepper with his infamous neighborhood assignment. She spent time in the womens reading room at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and at the Museum of Art, especially when she lived in an apartment across the street. She would have witnessed the introduction of European modernism at the Carnegie Internationals, but she probably saw much more of it later while living in New York City.

Her close friends in Pittsburgh included writers such as the eccentric Merle Hoyleman, and she was acquainted with artists Mary Shaw Marohnic and Milton Weiss, and architectural historian Jamie Van Trump. John OConnor, who organized the exhibitions of American paintings at the Carnegie Museum of Art in place of the Internationals during World War II, was aware of her work and attempted to promote it, including it in exhibitions.

She was a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and participated in their annuals; her work was included in shows around the city reviewed in the Pittsburgh papers. She submitted work for the Carnegie Internationals, perhaps because John Kane, a kindred spirit, participated, but Phillips paintings were never accepted. In New York City, she hung out with the art crowd in the Village, claiming friendship with Franz Kline and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and she found a supportive friend in Eugenia Hughes. She was hired as a teacher for the Works Progress Administration, another meager stipend, but she kept trying to get accepted as a WPA artist instead. She sold her watercolors at the Washington Square Outdoor Shows in the 1950s and made ceramics and jewelry for street stands, all the while observing how certain abstract artists were making it while other artists, like herself, were practically starving.

If it werent for her friends, and later, her family, her work probably would not have survived, and it still hasnt been examined closely. Most of her work was done in watercolor, which requires a quick dexterity that seems to fit her quixotic personality. A studio mate once remarked that she didnt have the patience for labor-intensive oil painting, and Pittsburgh critic Douglas Naylor found it difficult to follow her disjointed conversational shifts when he interviewed her. She set things down as quickly as possible, frequently using both sides of the paper, sometimes crossing out the less substantial work. Her subjects remained close to her life, the cityscapes of Pittsburgh and New York City that bore the marks of industry and technological innovation as well as a vitality and energy, even after the Depression.

Defying expectations, Phillips eschewed the harsh, almost journalistic realism so popular in both cities, and she assimilated avantgarde tendencies toward abstraction. Her cityscapes were constructed with the fractured planes introduced by Cubism, and her bucolic images of the grounds of the asylum had an organic quality that emphasized shape over exacting detail. And in her most popular works, the many depictions of the women and their activities in the asylum, her figures were suggested by a few curved lines, rather than shaded to give solidity, and were placed in patternlike arrangements across the surface without much interest in spatial complexity or depth.

The resulting play between representation and abstraction paralleled the increasing interest in flatness seen in the work of her more famous peers. The asylum works appeal because of her insiders view of activities there with her fellow inmates bowling or reading, and because of our romantic notions about independent women who pursued careers outside the home or supposedly unstable women like the protagonist in the famous story The Yellow Wallpaper, published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. But what really interested her was the arrangement of shapes, whether her subject was women in the institution or boats in the harbor. While the institution images are usually muted, the landscapes and cityscapes exhibit the vibrant colors that were beginning to dominate much of the new abstract art. While not especially avant-garde, Phillipss work was in tune with the times, even when she remained isolated and restricted in the asylum.

If it werent for her friends, and later, her family, [Esther Phillipss] work probably would not have survived, and it still hasnt been examined closely.

This sophistication is held in check by a simplification that perhaps comes from her lack of a consistent formal education. Her work has been compared with that of the so-called primitive artists, a term from that era, who have also been called outsider, selftaught, or visionary artists, those who followed idiosyncratic paths in their highly personalized styles. Phillips is frequently associated with John Kane, Pittsburghs favorite itinerant painter whose success with works shown at the Museum of Modern Art also brought harsh criticism from the art elite. Although many looked down at these free spirits, modern artists were more favorably impressed because they sought to incorporate childlike wonder and naivete in their own works in an attempt to find more direct ways to communicate. Moving away from realism, they turned to African masks and the art of children or even the insane to rid their avant-garde work of centuries of realism and narratives, which they began to think of as kitsch made for the masses. Because of these concerns, the work of both Kane and Phillips had a better chance for appreciation in this era.

Both also interest us primarily because their art reflects their fascinating lives, feeding upon our stereotyped ideas about artists. Both lived on the fringes, the outskirts of polite society and the art world, obsessed with making art. While perhaps not the most important artists of their time, they add immeasurably to our understanding of the artistic personality faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles who nevertheless pursued artistic dreams. Kane has received critical attention, including a 1971 book by former Carnegie Museum director Leon Arkus that reprinted his autobiography, Skyhooks, which came out in 1938, but no one has yet tackled the stacks of Phillipss drawings. Lisa Miles book The Fantastic Struggle: The Life and Art of Esther Phillips relies on correspondence, journals, hospital records and reminiscences to flesh out our knowledge of her life. Posthumous exhibitions at the former Carson Street Gallery and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts will now be followed by one at Borelli-Edwards Gallery (Sept. 17Oct. 22). But the job of cataloging and carefully examining her work remains to be done.

It is always tempting to contextualize an artists life and work with comparisons to others. Like Esther Phillips, who moved to Pittsburgh from Russia at age 5, Andy Warhol was born into a family that emigrated to the city from Eastern Europe. Both grew up poor and both ended up at Carnegie Tech, though Warhol managed to get a degree. He moved to New York City 13 years later than Esther Phillips did and made his way much more easily there. The one thing they shared was the knowledge that they were artists with a dedicated perseverance to their passion.
WARRENSBURG  John Joseph Peter Kelly, born Nov. 15, 1953, of 266 River Street, Warrensburg, and born in Saratoga, raised in Schuylerville, passed away on Sept. 6, 2016, after a short painful battle with lung and bone cancer. He fought until the bitter end. He was a trooper.

His hobbies included hiking, camping, looking for rainbows and waterfalls, doing sudoku, bowling,playing games online, deer watching, and most importantly spending time with his beloved extended families and friends. He never starved for love and attention. He especially loved his other family; his mother and father in law Carlton and Joyce Roseboom of Ballston Spa and Stanton Nursing Home in Queensbury. He was loved and he was entertaining to all residents and staff there on a weekly basis. Also, his sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Robert and Holly Parslo of Connecticut; his sister-in-law, Adina Roseboom of Ballston Spa, his brother and sister-in-law, Tim and Bekkah Roseboom, and their three children Fahlon, Deklan, and Brenna of Perry.

John served his country in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, where he earned the rank of SA E2. For his service he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal and the Combat Action Ribbon.

John found the Lord again and corrected his ways of life through the help of his loving wife Valerie, his family on both sides, his inner strength, his Pastor, and his church family at New Life Baptist Church in Hudson Falls, whom he and his wife attended for six years. Theyve helped them over many rough and dangerous roads but never failed them. God was with John, and hes now with his Mom and Dad, stepdaughter and uncles and cousins whom will be meeting him to celebrate life with our Lord in Heaven. Always remember though I walk through the shadow of doubt I see God.

He is survived by his loving and devoted wife of 11 years, Valerie Lorraine Roseboom Kelly, also from Warrensburg and Schenectady, who stayed by his side and tended to his every need while he was ill and still worked 30 to 40 hours a week. John is also survived by his five children and two step children, whom he was proud to call his special miracles; his daughter, Crystal Powel of Jacksonville, Florida; four grand boys, one granddaughter and one great-grand daughter; his daughter Christina Mane Kelly-Cerbo of Chickamungia, Georgia, and his son in law Thomas Cerbo and their two boys and two daughters; his step children Amelia David Kelly whom passed away and is with Daddy now, and Peter and Kelly; his children with his loving wife Valerie: Austin Kelly, Dahkota Hathaway Kelly, and Nicoelle Hathaway Kelly; his mother and father, Gerald Kelly and Margaret Wolfe Kelly, who passed away after lung illnesses; his siblings, Gerald Kelly of Greenfield, now residing in Round Lake; his ex-sister in law, Debbie McCronchie Kelly; his sister Sharon Luongo and her husband, Martin of Fort Edward, their two sons, Scott and Steven, and daughter in laws; their three great nieces combined; his sister Rosemary and her husband, Wayne Hoch of Corinth; his niece and nephew, Heather and Tim, and three great nieces; his sister Betty and brother-in-law Kevin Brown of Greenwich, their two girls, Angie and Tasha, and their beloved gentlemen in their lives, Guy and Sam, their children combined three boys and one girl; his sister, Donna and her husband, Doug Zeno of Greenwich, their children, Tina and Duane, and daughter-in-law and son in laws and their children combined. John was also survived by aunts and uncles whom were all dear to him, especially Dickie Kelly of Cossayuna Lake, whom took over as his surrogate dad and always kept him in line.

Special mentions go out to three very special people in his life. Gloria Latorta of Presbyterian New England Church in Saratoga Springs Soup Kitchen; she was a surrogate mom to him and was never judgmental of him. She loved him for himself not from his past behaviors. The others are Bobby and Susie Dicks of South Glens Falls, they are dear and talented friends of both John and Valerie. Bobby Dicks of Rock and Roll 101, and Susie Q and Bobby Dicks of the famous Sundowners Era. They kept him rockin and rollin even in his darkest hours. Johns family would also like to thank Dr. Delmonte, Wendy, Christine and Bernie at Saratoga Oncology and Hematology, Dr. Gnuyen and his staff at the Saratoga Hospital, donna and Dave Kelly from Warrensburg for all their care and compassion given to them and Lynncare for providing John with oxygen.

Friends are invited to call from 6 to 8 p.m., Tuesday, at New Life Baptist Church, on Main Street in Hudson Falls. A funeral service will immediately follow, beginning at 8 p.m. with Pastor Jon Hawkins officiating.

Burial with full military honors will take place 1:30 p.m., Wednesday at Gerald B. H. Solomon-Saratoga National Cemetery, Duell Road, Stillwater.

Donations in Johns name may be made out to New Life Baptist Church, 62 Main St, Hudson Falls, NY 12839, or Saratoga Battlefield, 648 Route 32, Stillwater, NY 12170.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Carleton Funeral Home, inv., 68 Main St., Hudson Falls.

Online condolences may be made online at www.carletonfuneralhome.net.
Both candidates in Tuesdays primary for the Republican nomination to challenge state Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, said ethics reform is the top issue for voters this year.

Theres an anger out there. ... People want change, Chris Boyark of Mechanicville said at a recent forum conducted by the Southern Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce and Saratoga County League of Women Voters.

Im running as a non-establishment candidate, said Gerard Moser of Malta at the same forum.

Videos of the candidates presentations were posted on YouTube.

Both candidates talked about the status of government in general, and neither mentioned Woerner, the Democratic incumbent seeking re-election to a second two-year term.

Boyark said he would advocate for term limits for legislators and for a constitutional amendment to remove state pensions for government officials convicted of felonies in relation with duties of office.

We can no longer trust the Legislature to take care of its own, he said.

Moser called for a state constitutional convention and said reform should start even before an official takes office by initiating a more open party endorsement process.

We need to have a more transparent way of vetting candidates, he said.

The Saratoga County and Washington County Republican committees both endorsed Boyark.

Boyark already has the Conservative Party and Reform Party nominations and will be on the November general election ballot regardless of the outcome of Tuesdays primary.

Moser must win the primary to be on the November general election ballot.

Boyark said in a telephone interview Friday that hes emphasizing the importance of a united effort against Woerner in November.

My emphasis is on our ability to bring a voice back to this district, which means winning in November, he said.

Moser is emphasizing his independence from party allegiance.

Im a complete outsider, he said.

Neither Boyark or Moser has previously held elected office.

Both emphasized their business experience.

Boyark is co-owner of the Almost Saratoga bar in Malta, and, until recently, managed Hannoush Jewelers, a family-owned business.

Moser worked in hospitality and health care management, and he now owns a personal training firm.

Both candidates are running low-budget campaigns focused primarily on direct contact with voters.

Boyark had $4,790 in his campaign fund as of Aug. 29, the most recent report filed with the state Board of Elections.

He received $4,796 in contributions between Aug. 8 and Aug. 29, and spent $1,305.

His largest contributor was Saratoga County Republican Committee, which contributed $3,725.

Moser had $4,854 in his campaign fund as of Aug. 29.

He received $2,815 in contributions between Aug. 8 and Aug. 29, and spent $2,900.

The 113th Assembly District includes Argyle, Easton, Fort Edward, Greenwich, Hartford, Jackson, Kingsbury and Salem in Washington County; and Moreau, Northumberland, Wilton, Saratoga Springs, Saratoga, Stillwater and Malta in Saratoga County.

Other state legislative primaries in the region Tuesday are as follows:

49th Senate District  James Tedisco and Christian Klueg for the Republican nomination for an open seat;

112th Assembly District  James Fisher and Mary Beth Walsh for the Republican and Conservative nominations for an open seat;

118th Assembly District  Incumbent Marc Butler and Patrick Vincent for the Republican and Conservative nominations.
LAKE GEORGE  Divers recovered the body of a drowning victim Saturday afternoon, five days after his death, according to the Warren County Sheriffs Office.

Armando V. Cordero, 42, of Woodside, New York, drowned near 3 Brothers Island on Sept. 6.

He was vacationing with his family in Bolton Landing.

Water rescue teams tried to find him when family members called 911, but they were unsuccessful. Divers from the State Police and Saratoga County Sheriffs Office continued the search throughout the week.

Corderos body was recovered at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. His body was in water 60 feet deep off the northern shore of 3 Brothers Island, in the area where he was last seen.

His body was taken to Albany Medical Center Hospital, where doctors will conduct a post-mortem examination to determine the cause of death.
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LINCOLN  Nebraska state Sen. Bill Kintner is the kind of unabashed conservative whose comments on immigration, gay rights and fellow legislators have made even supporters cringe.

If colleagues needed a reason to boot the married, family-values lawmaker out of office, they got one when he admitted last month to having cybersex on a state laptop computer with a woman who later tried to blackmail him.

Despite bipartisan calls for his resignation  even from Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts  Kintner appears to be surviving the kind of scandal that has toppled lawmakers in other states. Conservative groups, worried about losing one of their strongest allies, are rallying behind the senator, even as they condemn his behavior as disgraceful.

The push to remove Kintner "is a political witch hunt designed to remove an obstacle to growing government in Nebraska," said Joe Herring, a conservative activist from Omaha who organized a rally to defend the lawmaker from Papillion, an Omaha suburb.

Herring and other activists in the state say removing Kintner from office is a step too far, despite his indiscretions and long history of inflammatory remarks. Since taking office in 2013, Kintner has worked aggressively to organize conservative Republican senators in a Legislature that takes pride in shunning formal party leadership.

"If we were to lose him as a state senator, it would cause major problems for conservatives," said Doug Kagan, president of Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, a tea party-backed organization based in Omaha.

Kagan called Kintner's behavior "disgraceful" but said the overwhelming majority of his group's members voiced support for keeping him in office.

Sen. Galen Hadley, speaker of the GOP-dominated unicameral Legislature, said he doesn't believe Kintner's critics have enough votes to oust him. The effort would require a special session at an estimated cost of $62,000.

"I just have the feeling that expulsion is a very drastic step," said Hadley, a Republican who has asked Kintner to leave office.

Kintner has said little about the scandal but noted he no longer uses a state laptop. He said he decided not to quit after extensive prayer and consultation with pastors and his wife, who works as a senior policy adviser for Ricketts. He said he apologized to his wife and God.

"Any time I make a major decision in my life, I pray about it," he said in an interview. "That's how we do it in my family."

Kintner's apology rang hollow to Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, who chairs the Legislature's 10-member, bipartisan Executive Board that sent Kintner a letter urging him to resign. Krist noted the lawmaker didn't initially express remorse to his constituents or lawmakers.

"I'm not at all surprised. It goes to his character," said Krist, a Republican. "Most sensible people would not have put their wife or family through this kind of thing, but Mr. Kintner has decided that's what he wants to do."

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a left-leaning independent who frequently clashes with Kintner, blasted his rival for having "no sense of shame" and "no common decency." The longtime maverick senator has already produced a series of long poems on state letterhead, dubbed Kintner-grams.

Kintner was fined $1,000 last month after admitting he engaged in mutual masturbation in July 2015 with a woman using Skype, an online video-chatting service. The woman, who the Nebraska State Patrol believes to have ties to an Ivory Coast crime syndicate, threatened to expose the encounter unless Kintner paid her $4,500.

Kintner reported the threat to the Nebraska State Patrol. The attorney general's office declined to take action, but a review panel levied the fine against Kintner for misuse of state property.

Last year, the state Latino American Commission condemned Kintner for repeatedly using an ethnic slur during a debate over allowing driver's licenses for certain youths brought to the country illegally.

In 2013, he criticized legislation that would allow same-sex couples to adopt, calling such measures "homosexual bills." He referred to "men in dresses" when defending his vote against a bill that would have outlawed anti-gay discrimination and assailed social programs as "government cocaine" during debate on a Medicaid expansion proposal.

Some were bemused and others offended by his 2013 comment to a newspaper, which asked him what he considered the biggest mystery. Kintner responded, "Women. No one understands them. They don't even understand themselves. Books and books and books have been written about it, and no one understands it."

Some of his most pointed criticism is aimed at fellow lawmakers. In one column he wrote for a weekly newspaper, Kintner claimed senators are like monkeys who attack those who try to disrupt the status quo.

In June 2015, he briefly posted a photo of a beheaded woman on his Facebook page to show his opposition to the Legislature's vote to abolish the death penalty.

Kintner's latest problems follow a spate of cases in which elected officials found themselves in trouble for online interactions.

Anthony Weiner resigned his congressional seat in 2011 after acknowledging he had texted sexually explicit photos of himself to several women, and his campaign for New York City mayor was torpedoed in 2013 when it was revealed he was still sexting with other women.
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While he agrees with 70% of the assertions made by Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia on the state of the economy, Dr. Mensah says figures were barely thrown around creating an economic impression that did not paint the true picture, especially in his accusations of poor debt management by the Mahama administration.

In an interview with Pulse.com.gh, Dr. Laud Mensah said Dr. Bawumia merely threw figures around to achieve political gains.

I get the sense that Dr. Bawumia played a lot of politics with the figures especially the debt issue. If you look at the figures carefully, you will see that the dynamics have changed. If borrowed years ago to produce two roads when the population was 18 million, you will need to borrow more when the population is 25 million. This will make your borrowing capacity go up. I expected Dr. Bawumia to add that analysis to his submission, instead of just throwing figures about.

Dr. Laud Mensah again refuted the former Central Bank Governors assertion that government has failed to maintain policy discipline under the countrys three-year IMF bailout program.

Dr. Bawumia referred to the failure of the Bank of Ghana Amendment Bill to follow the 0% budget financing restriction by the IMF.

I beg to differ with Dr. Bawumia on that assertion, because parliament has the constitutional right to peg the restriction at any level they deem fit, and that does not mean the government has been indiscipline in following the conditions of the IMF.

Even the minority in parliament, Dr. Bawumias own people saw that reducing the central banks budget financing from 10% to 0% as stipulated by the IMF, he said.

The economist, however, lauded the promise to create a more comprehensive national base as a good policy, that when implemented, will go a long way to remedy issues of unemployment, collection of domestic tax revenue and the provision of adequate infrastructure for the country.

Dr. Mensah, however, questioned how the NPP intends to implement their 1 million dollars to a constituency policy.

The NPP would need about 275 million dollars to implement this policy. Given that the country currently struggles to reach its revenue generation targets of 1.2 billion dollars, it is difficult to say how the NPP will finance this policy.
Abimbola Oyeyemi, spokesman for the Ogun police, said the two were working for a quarry company in the state, which is just north of the commercial capital of Lagos, when they were taken by unidentified gunman on September 1.
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."
He faulted the speaker for over relying on a "test case of Messrs Okudzeto Ablakwa and Dr. Omane Boamah versus Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey and that the Minority did not get justice from the decision delivered by the Speaker."

"The issue about the Ford Expedition gift was contained in the Auditor-Generals report," he added.

The speaker's statement said: "The Office of the Speaker hereby states expressly and unequivocally that there has been no mention of the issue of Ford Expedition Vehicle in any of the Auditor-Generals Reports submitted to the House since the inception of the Fourth Republication Parliament in January 1993.

The statement also condemned Mr Darkwa's comments on Newsfile last week Saturday in which he said the Speaker should have allowed debate on the motion.

The speaker questioned why Mr Darkwa was unable to advise former Speaker Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes whom he was consulting for during the case involving the Hotel Kufour Saga.

"In July 2005, the Minority caucus filed a motion a requesting parliament to establish a special committee to investigate His Excellency the president on what was termed as the Hotel Kufour saga.Speaker Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes promptly declined to admit the motion and dismissed it summarily.
On Friday, September 9 2016, as President John Mahama wrapped up his five-day campaign tour of the Central Region, lights at Winneba went out, much to the surprise of all.

He said it is incumbent on him as the leader of the country to solve problems.

If you look at the energy sector, people keep talking about dumsor but I will not blame anyone. I am the one who was voted as President of Ghana so I will confront it and fix it, Mahama added.

He said government has embarked on several measures to ensure availability of uninterrupted power.

I promise Ghanaians that very soon, we will enter into an era of energy security, he noted.

The country has been battling with a crippling power supply for almost four years now.
Amissah Arthur, who is a former governor of the Bank of Ghana and the current head of the economic management team by virtue of his position as the vice president, is often faulted for not challenging Dr Bawumia's diagnoses of the economy.

Nonetheless, Arthur Kennedy believes the vice president is no 'slouch' and that his credentials as the a former lecturer at the University of Ghana, Governor and a World Bank consultant speaks for itsself.

There have been a lot of comment on Dr. Bawumia's lecture on the economy yesterday. The partisan commentary began with claims that he had been denied a venue by the government.

"It is a shame that our media houses could not untangle that to let us know the truth," he wrote on his Facebook Wall.

Then following the lecture, some in the NPP, who should know better, went into overdrive with praise. Prof. HKP talked of picking a running mate who could "carry his weight" etc., leaving the unfortunate impression that the NDC running could not carry his weight. VP Amissah-Arthur, Bawumia's credentials notwithstanding, is no slouch.

"He has been a lecturer, a governor of the Bank of Ghana and a World Bank consultant. Politically, he helped the NDC to retain Central region while the NPP lost the Northern region and Walewale! So there, my friends, is the weight issue, he wrote.

Dr Bawumia jibed president John Mahamas handling of the economy, declaring his administration as the most incompetent in the fourth republic.

Dr Bawumia said people at the bottom of the income scale were better off under the Kufour administration, thus between 2001 to 2009, than they are today under the NDC administration.

Income inequality, which is the measure of change in minimum wage relative to the change in income, improved by 1.8% between 2001 and 2008, he said at the lecture.

In the wide-ranging lecture Thursday, he declared the government the worse borrower in the countrys history. He said it had borrowed to the tune of $42 billion.

The president, he noted, over the last four years accounted for 66% of the debt stock.

Touching on Bawumia's lecture, Arthur Kennedy described the NPP running mate as a 'solid gold.'
Benjamin Kpodo claimed the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Centre was to be located in the Volta region when the NDC lost the 2000 election.

He said upon assuming power in 2001, the John Kufour administration relocated the project to Accra.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Ho Central Campaign Taskforce of the NDC Thursday.

From Akoefe to Tanyigbe Etoe, a land was acquired to construct the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Centre during Rawlings regime.

"When we lost elections in 2000, he appointed his brother Addo Kuffo as the Minister of Defence and the first thing they did was to move the project to Accra," he said.
Depositors will earn between 1.5% to 7% interests on their deposit.

Tara Squire, Commercial Director at Tigo Ghana has welcomed the development in an interview Joy FM. He noted that paying interest between 1.5 percent to 7 percent [to customers] is a fair deal.

The Southern Zonal Manager for GN Bank, Kofi Fosu, explained that the interest payments will be done after discussions between the telcos and the respective banks that keep the money.

The banks are not going to have the individual telcos customers account. No we cant manage that. We are managing the telcos account. And therefore we agreed for instance that if you have GHC10 million in your account, you are getting between 10 to 15 percent on the GHC10 million.

If you move your account to say GHC20, GHC50 million we can top it up to over 18%. That goes to the telcos and then the telcos also determine how much they will offer their customers who have wallet [mobile money account], he said.

Head of Vodafone Cash, Martison Obeng-Agyei also explained that banks will pay the money that will be shared to mobile money subscribers as interest into an operational account within the telcos control.

The banks will pay the money into an operational account that is within the telcos control. And because we [telcos] know the metrics and we have the individual balances and what they have to get, we go ahead and pay the customers from the account, he explained.

Edmond Bawuah, Head of Cooperate at Airtel Ghana also revealed that the central bank has given guidelines as to how much money the banks can release to the telcos. He noted that the central bank expects the telcos to pay interest between 1.5 to 7%.

The central bank has given guidelines as to how much the banks are required to pay the telcos and of course we will intend make those payments to our customers. The central bank expects the payment will be made between 1.5% to 7% of the flows that is being held in the trust and at least 80% of that will be passed onto customers, he said.

Data available from the central bank notes that total interest accrued on the float [deposit] as at June 2016 was GH15.19million.

In addition, mobile money transactions in the country reached a total of GHC679.17 million.

This figure represents a 20% growth for the mid-year figure, compared to the GHC547.96 million recorded for the end of 2015.
'Mathematical Sege', as he is also called, stated this in an interview published by Punch News, on Saturday, September 10, 2016, where he refuted claims that he might soon retire from music.

After this last album, Insulin, I am done releasing albums in Nigeria. I purposely did not make too much noise about this album, I just released it and those who appreciate it have been giving me positive feedback."

"I dont know if I would release more albums but I am very certain that I would not release any other album in Nigeria."

"I can release my album somewhere else but not here in Nigeria."

The 'Cry' crooner lamented about the uphill in the Nigerian music industry, a reason why he is making his "Insulin" album his final work in the country.

His decision will no doubt leave his fans in shock, but they can take solace in his numerous timeless songs.

I have not given up on Nigeria but did Nigerians not give up on me? Things are not like they were about seven years ago."

"Things are getting too difficult, so I decided to release this Insulin album and I am done here."

"I already have my next chapter planned out. I am not retiring from music and Nigerians should not worry about me."

"I have left a lot of materials for them and they can always go and buy and listen to them."

"I am happy this last album made an incredible impact especially on my core fan base."

"This is the most airplay I have got in a while ever since I became an independent artiste. It is always good to step aside when the ovation is loudest.

Modenine, whose real name is Olusegun Babatunde, is regarded as one of Africa's top emcees.

Considered esoteric due to his elevated use of grammar and punchlines, 'Modo' offers a unique set of rap skills which matches the standard of any American rapper

His music dexterity has earned him awards such as the HipHop World Awards, Channel O Music Video Awards and the Lyricists on the Roll award, which he won for a record high of seven times, at The Headies.
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The Acting NERC Chairman, Dr. Anthony Aka, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Uyo on Saturday.

Aka said that the commission had improved on metering system, but however, explained that the unavailability of meter manufacturing companies were hindering maximum provision of meters to Nigerians.

You have to order them, you have to configured them and protect the system.

You have to deploy the technical expertise to ensure that these meters are not bye passed. But as we speak today, theses meters are being bye passed, he said.

He said that the commission would sanction electricity Distribution Company which failed to comply with directives relating to the distribution of prepaid meters.

It is our responsibility to ensure compliance with these metering scheduled.

We have our monitoring team following them and we want to make sure that if they dont deploy the number of meter per month, per quarter or per year, we are going to sanction them severely for that, Aka said.

He said, the customer that do not have electricity meter and who feels that they gave him a wrongful billing for that month and has the right to reject that bill and he should only pay the last bill he accepted.

He noted that any customer who paid for prepaid meter should be metered within 60 days of payment.

If they dont meter you, the electricity distribution company have no right to estimate you or bill you If you have given money to them and they have not given you meter after 60 days, he said.

Aka said that NERC would ensure refunds were made to customers wrongly billed as well as install the new prepaid meter.

He decried the situation where PHEDC workers were attacked by customers in the area, saying that such act was grossly unacceptable.

They are doing their legitimate job and for them to be harassed or interrupted in the course of doing their legitimate jobs, you are not helping to solve the problems of electricity in the country, he said.

He reiterated the companys commitment that electricity consumers were not exploited for light they did not consumed.

Aka explained that electricity distribution company was purely a private-driven sector and not a government sector.

He sad that government was only providing a regulatory framework and enabling environment.

He noted that fixed charges in electricity billing did not exist again but had been recalibrated as part of the charges.

According to him, if there is no electricity, distribution company should not charge the customers.

We as a regulators listen to Nigerians, we remove the fixed charges and recalibrated it into the energy charged

What it means now is that if I dont have light, you dont have any right to charge me, If I travel for three months, you have no right to come back to my house and charge me, he said.

He decried the situation where consumers provide resources to restore faulty power installations or transformers to the company.

He said that it was the obligation of the electricity distribution company to provide for the infrastructure, adding that the tariff paid by consumers covers infrastructure installations.

ALSO READ: Court nullifies increase in electricity tariffs, orders immediate reversal

He urged electricity distribution company staff not to compel customers to provide resources to restore faulty power installations in the country.

However, if communities want that, they should enter into agreement with us as a regulator being a witness to that and to ensure that the cost of that agreement should be refund over time by the distribution company, Aka said.

He gave Nigerians the assurance that the regulatory commission would continue to balance the interest of customers and that of the operators in the state.
The women, mainly peasant elderly farmers, marched peacefully to the palace of the monarch.

Chanting solidarity songs and brandishing green leaves, the women urged the traditional ruler to prevail on the herdsmen to stop using their cattle to destroy their crops.

The protesters also requested for immediate exit of the herdsmen from the community to save their farm lands and the people from imminent famine.

The spokesperson for the group, Mrs Janet Aja, said that they were at the palace to register their grievance over the destruction of their crops by herdsmen who allow their cattle to feed on their cash crops and other farm produce in their farms.

Aja said that all the crops including yam, cassava and rice, among others, have been destroyed prematurely by the rampaging herdsmen.

They expressed fears that the farmers might be left with nothing to harvest.

She said that farmers, especially the women in the community, were at present not able to go to their farms for fear of being attacked by the herdsmen.

The women are in your palace to inform you that our crops and farm lands are destroyed daily by cattle rearers and that we no longer go to our farms for fear of being attacked, raped or killed.

Our rice, yams, cassava and other crops in our farms have all been destroyed and eaten up by their cattle.

We demand urgent action from you as the community father to end the indiscriminate destruction of crops and farm lands by these foreigners.

We dont want the killings and destruction we hear that happen in other communities between them and farmers to happen in our own community.

She said that the women would employ every peaceful means to ensure that the herdsmen stopped their nefarious acts in the community as well as ensure that they were evicted from the town.

ALSO READ: Fulani herdsmen kill 81 people in Benue

We hope that your Majesty will handle this situation by providing a lasting solution to the menace otherwise the women of this community will protest naked at Government House in Abakaliki,  she added.

Ngele, while commending the women for their peaceful disposition, said that the palace would collaborate with other stakeholders and security agencies in dealing with the problem.

He expressed regret over the destruction of economic crops and assured the women that a permanent solution would be found.

We sympathise with you over on the indiscriminate destruction of your farm lands but want to assure you that we will not relent in our efforts to find a last solution to the manace.

It was good that you first registered your grievances with the palace and this shows the enormous respect you have for the institution and for me.

We want to assure you that no stone will be left unturned in providing a lasting solution to the problem.
Mr John Adewoye, the commandant of the corps in the state, said in a statement issued in Ibadan on Saturday that the deployed officers had been directed to be more vigilant throughout the celebration.

He urged Nigerians, irrespective of their religion, to be law abiding and to ensure peace and unity during the celebration.

Adewoye also called on Nigerians to be patriotic to ensure harmony, stability and development of the country.

He said the personnel on duty during the celebration would comprise those on mobile, stationary and customary patrol across the state.
The militants, in a statement signed by its spokesman, General Aldo Agbalaja, said the Nigerian government and the military is a pathetic waste of time and peoples resources.

It alleged that "the ongoing so-called operation, which the deceptive military administration has guised as an innocent training drill (Operation Crocodile Smile) is nothing but a facade, put together just to retire freshly stolen military funds.

"These unprofessional and ill-trained men have been feverishly engaged in a spree of blind arrests; just anyone that comes in sight, which explains the senseless arrest and parade of a septuagenarian, some teenagers and a pregnant woman as militants. Their eventual release by these oppressors, after being subjected to serious torture, intimidation and irreparable humiliation, is enough to prove to the Commander-in-Chief that they have all along had no clue to what is happening, just doing everything anyhow.

"Again, the Nigerian Army, in a bid to save face, announced the arrest of 'the declarer of Operation Crocodile Tears' and its spokesman said his name is Gabriel Ogbudje.

"By the so-called arrest, these jesters are suggesting that they have finally reached the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate.

"For the avoidance of doubt, we do not know this said Gabriel Ogbudje, as either member or leader, so we wonder why he was attributed with the mandate's ongoing operation?"
Chukwuma stated this at the funeral service of late Mrs. Janet Elobelu Madu, held at the Christ Church Achi, Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion, Diocese of Oji River, Enugu State.

At the event attended by top government officials, the clergy man expressed that the presidency should see the recent postponement of the Edo State Gubernatorial Election as an indictment on the government.

APC used to be a very effective medicine for headache in those days. If this APC cant cure the illness in Nigeria now, Nigerians will begin to drink codeine."

"Dr. Nwoye please pass the message to the APC government in Abuja. Change should begin with Mr. President."

"Let him pay federal civil servants. Buhari will try and make the change crusade begin with him by paying workers at month end.
ALSO READ: Septuagenarian couple welcomes first child after 47 years of marriage

The septuagenarian was reportedly fed up with living with his wife that he chose to go to jail rather than live at home.

Court documents revealed that Lawrence John Ripple had walked into a Kansas City bank on Friday, September 2, handed a note saying he had a gun and demanded money, to the first teller he met.

The note which read, I have a gun, give me your cash, saw Ripple being given $2,924 in currency from a drawer.

Ripple then takes the cash he was given and sits down in the lobby of the bank, turning himself in and telling a security officer that he wasn't there for the money, after all, the Kansa City reports.

The guard reportedly took Ripple into custody and retrieved the stolen cash from him. Following his arrest, Ripple admitted that he had gotten involved in an argument with his wife during which he had written the demand note, saying "Id rather be in jail than at home."

ALSO READ: Villagers dig up dead relatives for make overs

Ripple proceeded to carry out his threat on a bank which is one block from a police station.
Initial reports said that the overnight attack in central Baghdad left 40 people dead and 60 injured.

Shortly after, a car bomb went off at a gate to the mall. A large number of cars, parked in the mall garage, were set ablaze as a result.

The assault occurred as people were shopping for Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday that starts on Monday.

The Islamic State mouthpiece, the Amaq Agency, reported that the double attack included two consecutive suicide operations using an explosive belt and a car bomb.

Baghdad authorities have tightened security in the city as a result of the attack.

Security forces have been deployed in districts and streets located near shopping places, an unnamed official told independent Iraqi website Alsumaria News.

Baghdad sees frequent deadly bombing attacks, most of which are thought to be carried out by Islamic State.

ALSO READ: ISIS spokesman and head of external operations killed Syria

They often target busy locations such as markets and restaurants in Shiite areas as well as Shiite religious gatherings.

The radical Sunni group regards Shiites as heretics.
Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
This is so sad; its funny.

Considering that Hillary Clinton, from the recently concluded email investigation, is charged with gross negligence, dereliction of duty, was recommended that she lose her security clearance, while pathologically lying to congress, the press and the American People; and even though she was not referred for indictment because she is a Clinton: Will you? 11.84% Vote for Hillary 78.78% Vote for The Donald 9.39% Vote for none of the above 245 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!

What should be the priority of the Federal Government after the "Pulse" massacre: Should we turn our attention toward destroying, earadicating ISIS as Candidate Trump suggests, or, as Democrats' President Obama suggests, broaden our efforts to effect stricter Gun Control laws to limit "Gun Violence?" 88.24% After many years of trying to degrade and contain the murderous ISIS, we should make it the nation's policy to destroy ISIS immediately. 3.68% Gun Violence in America can be eliminated by limiting access to guns for all American citizens. 8.09% I don't care either way; I just live here. 136 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!

Should Americans be thankful for North Carolinians setting precedent in taking a stand for their state's right to manage the safety of their public facilities, where separation of the sexes remains, or should they follow Bruce Springsteen's lead and boycott the state as bigots since they will not allow grown Transgender men to use the same bathrooms /locker rooms as pre-pubescent girls? North Carolina is right to control the separation of the sexes as a matter of decorum and safety. North Carolina is a bigoted state to not require that children of opposite sexes share the same public facilities with adults of the opposite sex, although misidentified - the Transgender. I generally prefer the natural environs of the vacant, although rather public, large tree. 236 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



Lying Hillary Clinton has now done something that even Hussein Obama could not; she has unwittingly driven a wooden stake in a key Democrat rally word - "RACIST!"With race hustlers for decades defining, re-defining, and then, once again, re-defining racism, the word has been successfully watered down until just recently, Democrat talking points have termed the phrase, "What have you got to lose?" as a racist term.Now, the self admitted incompetent, L. Hillary, has stated that many /most of the people that will vote Donald J. Trump are racist.Well, I plan to vote for The Donald, so: What are the chances that I am a racist Madame Liar?Also, it wouldn't the first time I have been called a racist, and even though core Democrats will unambiguously state that being called a racist is once of the most damning epithets one can be called, I now consider it a badge of honor.Lying Hillary Clinton has now done something that even Muslim Barry could not; she has unwittingly driven a wooden stake in a key Democrat buzz word - "RACIST!"Most people that cry "RACIST!" with no real provocation are quantifiably racist, which can be proved just by digging a bit deeper into what motivates them, and how they interact with their fellow humans.Now, I don't have time to judge all Liberals, who cry "RACIST!" as to whether they are racist; that is between them and their God. But, what I can judge quickly, and without fail, is the quality of that person's intellect. Once I know their intellectual bent, I could, at my sole discretion, rain intellectual body blows on that individual until they cry "No Mas", but, there will be "No Mas".I will "Rocky" slam them into the corner, against the ropes of that intellectual ring of truth, and I will rain highly cognitive body blows on them until I break every rib of their hypocrite ego, until I tire of the sport of punching their vapid intellect. .Regarding my continual judgement of L. Hillary, one should surmise that I despise liars, especially politicians, who are elected to honor a fidelity to their constituents, and a true level of honesty to all Americans. Similarly, I will not tolerate Liberal hypocrites crying "RACIST".Sometimes, it is good for the Stupid, loud mouthed kid, to get their intellectual ass kicked.However, for the Democrat media, it has long made for good Democrat press.
A Beatty man is behind bars for allegedly sexually abusing a child under 14 years of age causing substantial mental or bodily harm, lewdness with a minor and possession of stolen credit cards.

A Beatty man is behind bars for allegedly sexually abusing a child under 14 years of age causing substantial mental or bodily harm, lewdness with a minor and possession of stolen credit cards.

Richard Moog was taken into custody May 12, after Nye County Sheriffs deputies received information regarding the alleged crimes from a police agency in central California.

According to the Nye County Sheriffs Office, the 8 year old was living with her mother when she was assaulted on a couch at a residence in Beatty more than five years ago.

The victim told her older sister about the assault five months later in October 2010, but police in California were not notified by the victims family until July 2013 shortly after the family moved there from Beatty.

The victim told police that Moog had placed his hands down her pants and panties on at least three occasions in May 2010.

On Aug. 7 2013, California authorities provided the victim with an anatomically-correct school health chart where she used a crayon to circle the groin area of her body where Moog allegedly touched.

California authorities reported the crime to Nye County authorities on Aug. 17, 2013, but its unclear why it took nearly two more years before Moog was arrested.

Nye County Sheriffs deputies eventually made contact with Moog at his Beatty residence last week where he was arrested and taken into custody without incident.

Deputies are also investigating stolen credit cards found at Moogs residence by the property owner.

Nye County Sheriffs Deputies have had past dealings with Moog. He was arrested on domestic violence charges after allegedly attempting to run down the victims mother with a vehicle, violating temporary protection orders and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

Authorities are also trying to determine whether additional sexual assaults occurred as Moog had lived with the family for more than four years.

He remains behind bars in Beatty on a $70,000 bail or cash bond. He is scheduled to appear in Pahrump Justice Court by video appearance Thursday.
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Blazing fast growth at MindFire Communications has again earned the LeClaire marketing company a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America  its fourth consecutive such honor.

With 57 percent growth over the past three years, MindFire moved into the 4,482nd spot among 5,000 companies. It also held the 22nd spot among Iowa companies. In 2015, Mindfire ranked higher at 3,960 with its 74 percent growth.

"It's just been a fantastic ride," said Erik Meade, who founded the business in 2007 with Lynn Manternach, the company's president, and Mike Smith, who is now retired. "There's no question we'll be on it for the fifth year next year and at a lower (improved) ranking."

According to Inc., the average company on its fastest-growing list achieved growth of 433 percent from 2012 to 2015. The Inc. 5000's aggregate revenue is $200 billion and the companies collectively created 640,000 jobs in the same period. That is 8 percent of the all jobs created those years. A measure of the companies' growth in sales and percentage of growth, the full list can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

MindFire employs 17 people, who sport the title of "arsonist" to go with the company's name and reflect their mission. "We're all about sparking that fire ... getting in their head and lighting a fire. It really is all about the mind," Meade said.

Mindfire may not the largest on the Inc. list, but its roster of 17 employees is up tremendously from the founding trio. The partners previously worked together at Henry Russell Bruce.

Today, their full-service marketing firm serves 65 clients in a variety of business sectors, including the first two it landed in September 2007  when the corporate office was one of their living rooms, Meade said.

"We have phenomenal clients who allow us to do work that makes a difference," said his business partner Manternach. "As we help our clients grow, their continued trust in MindFire helps us grow as well."

Help Modern Woodmen salute Q-C heroes

On this 15th anniversary of 9/11, Modern Woodmen of America will celebrate our everyday heroes with a Salute to Heroes march and community event today.

The public is invited to line the route as the march begins at 2 p.m. in downtown Rock Island, crosses the Centennial Bridge to end at Modern Woodmen Park in downtown Davenport. The community event will begin after the march.

Quad-City first responders, military personnel, musical groups, Modern Woodmen employees and others will march. The community event, planned for 3-6 p.m., will feature safety awareness demonstrations, hero recognitions, family-friendly activities, tours of emergency vehicles and more.

The event is part of the Rock Island-based Modern Woodmen's Be An Everyday Hero project.

RSM staff lend hand to Q-C nonprofits

Employees from the Davenport office of RSM US took a break from crunching numbers last month to volunteer their time and talents to area non-profits.

The nation's leading provider of audit, tax and consulting services recently held its seventh annual Volunteer Day across the country to benefit local and national nonprofits. In Davenport, 40 RSM employees volunteered with Cafe on Vine, Gilda's Club, Boys & Girls Club of the Mississippi Valley and Bethany for Children & Families.

They tackled projects such as sorting and assembling auction items for Gilda's Club, which provides support and education to those affected by cancer. They also helped paint, make repairs and do yard work for the Boys & Girls Club. And at Bethany, the child welfare and social services agency, they spent their time cleaning and disinfecting toys and other items.

"For 90 years, RSM has had a rich tradition of giving back to the communities where our employees live and work," said Ryan Weber, RSM managing partner in Davenport. Volunteer initiatives, he said "allow our employees to strengthen their relationships with one another while bettering their communities."
As a fundraiser, the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District is offering people an opportunity to sponsor a monarch butterfly that will be released during a ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 17, at Nahant Marsh Education Center, Davenport.

The release will take place in stages from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the center, 4220 Wapello Ave. You do not need to be a butterfly sponsor to attend the release.

The event is part of the TallgrassQC initiative, a collaboration to raise the awareness of prairie ecology in the Quad-Cities region. The day will begin with optional hikes around the marsh and educational butterfly activities.

Sponsorship forms are available at the Nahant Marsh Education Center, or online through Scott County SWCD at: scottcountysoilandwater.org

The cost is $21.40 for one butterfly ($20+ 7 percent sales tax) and $53.50 for three butterflies.

Checks may be made payable to the Scott County SWCD and sent to Scott County SWCD, 8370 Hillandale Road, Davenport, IA 52806

For questions, call Jan at 563-391-1403, Extension 3.

In other butterfly news:

 Paint by nature: The Wapsi River Center near Dixon, Iowa, is sponsoring a child-friendly butterfly class blending nature and art, beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17. First, a naturalist will help participants catch, test, tag and release migrating monarch butterflies. Then, participants will paint a theme picture on canvas in a guided step-by-step experience. The cost is $5 per painting. Registration is required and may be made by calling 563-328-3286.

 Volunteer planting opportunity: On Saturday, Sept. 24, the National Park Service at the Herbert Hoover site at West Branch, Iowa, is offering an opportunity for the public to plant seeds of flowers that attract pollinators.

Meet at the Visitor Center at 8:30 a.m. for an orientation and to get signed up. A monarch program will be from 9-10 a.m., with the planting from 10 a.m. to noon. Long pants and closed-toe shoes are required. Bring a water bottle, hat, sunscreen, bug spray, long-sleeved shirt, and a snack. The park has work gloves and other required tools.

For more information, email to heho_information@nps.gov or call 319-643-2541.

The Hoover site is at exit 254 off Interstate 80.

* Eagle Scout project creates Waystation: Corey Cutkomp completed a Monarch (Butterfly) Waystation Schoolyard Habitat Project at Northeast Junior High School in East Moline as his Eagle Scout project.

Corey, a Silvis School District graduate and current United Township High School student, raised money for the project last year and began building the waystation site this summer. The project cost $4,000, with many community members, organizations, businesses and a grant contributing, according to a news release.

Monarch Waystations are places that provide resources to sustain the butterflies' migration. The habitat will be used by students as an outdoor classroom.

* Storms killed overwintering butterflies: Storms earlier this year blew down more than a hundred acres of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico, killing more than 7 percent of the monarchs, according to the Associated Press.

Rain, cold and high winds from the storms caused the loss of 133 acres of pine and fir trees in the forests west of Mexico City, more than four times the amount lost to illegal logging this year. It was the biggest storm-related loss since the winter of 2009-10, when unusually heavy rainstorms and mudslides caused the destruction of 262 acres of trees.

This year's storm also appears to have frozen or killed about 6.2 million butterflies, almost 7.4 percent of the estimated 84 million butterflies that wintered in Mexico, said Alejandro Del Mazo, the attorney general for environmental protection.

"This points up just how fragile these forests are, and how fragile the monarchs are, and it makes clear the importance of reforestation efforts," said Omar Vidal, director of the conservation group World Wildlife Fund Mexico, which carried out the forest survey along with experts from Mexico's National Autonomous University and the government.
An Augustana College history professor said that although he will never forget the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he wonders how long the moment will be remembered.

Lendol Calder compared what happened 15 years ago in New York City and Washington, D.C., not to events like Pearl Harbor but to something that happened in Minnesota in 1862.

The Dakota Sioux  pushed to the brink of starvation after the U.S. government reneged on promises of food, clothing and cattle  invaded settlements throughout the then-young state and killed more than 600 white civilians. The weeks-long conflict was known as the Sioux Uprising, and the U.S. government immediately fought back amid public outrage.

"If I was going to compare 9/11 to something, I might compare it to an event that nobody remembers," Calder said. "And that's sobering, because it raises the possibility that 9/11 100 years from now will not be remembered, either, which is incredible to us, because how could it be forgotten?"

Certain images from that day remain etched in his mind.

Calder, who is in his 50s now and was in his late 30s then, was driving his children to school when he first heard the news that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers.

Later, after coming out of a meeting at Augustana, he sensed something was wrong because the campus in Rock Island was "strangely quiet." He said he walked into Old Main and saw that televisions had been pulled on rolling carts out of classrooms into public areas and faculty and students were huddled around each set.

"As I walked up to one of these televisions, the first tower collapsed," he said. "I saw it as it happened. I couldn't process what I was seeing, because I had never seen that before. It looked like an atomic bomb explosion, but upside down."

He remembered asking: "What's going on?"

Classes were canceled the rest of the day. Calder said he remained glued to the TV for hours.

He and his wife decided not to let their children, who ranged from preschool to about second grade, watch the events unfold on TV.

"They were too young to be seeing this stuff," he said. "But I was unable to step away from it  the horror of it."
I've forgotten more about Sept. 11, 2001, than I remember.

We're always so sure we'll remember the huge moments. I mean, how could we forget?

But we do.

The parts that stick

The dark stuff has a way of forcing itself into our reluctant memories: the people falling or jumping from the towers; the moment you realized all those firefighters had rushed in, climbing stairwells in heavy gear and heavier smoke as those seized by the desire to live pressed past them in the southbound lanes.

In every way, those firefighters were going to war.

The police soldiered on, too, bravely searching the burning towers to help where they could and to strategize on the battlefield, only to become a part of the sickening rubble.

Most of us probably remember where we were when the towers in New York City collapsed. If we didn't see it live on TV, there were endless opportunities to gasp again at the replays.

When we see the towers in the anniversary specials on TV and online, we can recall how our minds hovered in disbelief, overloaded by too much to process. What did we just see? What is happening? How many people are in there? Can they be rescued?

Who did this?

Then: Oh, God. Is it going to happen again?

If I take the time to really think about that Tuesday morning 15 years ago, I can remember being as scared as I've ever been. It was that life-or-death fear that makes you feel the most alone. I became almost desperate to count heads, reaching out to the people I love for reassurance the way a mother cat takes inventory of her kittens.

None of us could be sure what would happen next. So, schools closed, air and rail travel stopped, people were ushered off the Rock Island Arsenal, just in case it became a target. I remember being afraid something would happen to the bridges, and I wouldn't be able to get from my job in Iowa to my home and family in Illinois.

But technology was up to its new-century challenge. Information flew through space, and we grabbed at it with the kind of gentle urgency we use to catch lightning bugs.

Sorrow turned to fear and fear turned to anger, and all of those feelings morphed into a powerful desire to do something, anything.

Our best day

In the days immediately following 9/11, the then-publisher of the Quad-City Times, Charles Pittman, guided a plan for a get-together  a pen-to-paper plan to do ... something. He wasn't sure at first where we'd have it or who would come, but Charles was driven by the same force as the rest of us. Pastors and rabbis from all kinds of churches were asked to come and lead prayers, and arrangements were made for some music. That's about as far as the planning went.

The rest just sort of happened.

An estimated 5,000 Quad-Citians came together in an eerily silent march into LeClaire Park on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001. Some children came with American flags painted on their cheeks. Men wore their veterans' hats, and women painted their fingernails red, white and blue. Tiny flags punctuated the air as strangers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, eager for an invitation to exhale. Finally.

But my memories are borrowed. My own newspaper story, now yellowed, reminded me of the details my mind left behind.

More stories brought more recollection.

Rock Island County Circuit Judge Walter Braud, a beautiful vocalist, accepted our invitation to sing a solo in the park that Saturday. For a story on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 five years ago, our Alma Gaul spoke to Braud. His words helped me remember the hours we dubbed Salute to America.

"I had never, never witnessed anything like that before," he said. "I had never been in a place where the feelings were so intense, and the feelings were all the same.

"Everyone felt that the attack was not just an attack on the people who died, but on the idea of being an American. It was a way to shout back and say, We love America, and we love the idea of being an American.'"

That day in the park may have been the Quad-Cities' finest hour. Although never planned as a fundraiser, an in-the-moment gesture by one man led to a push of the crowd toward the stage. Today, I can remember Charles searching the backstage area of the LeClaire Park bandshell for something to hold the money. Somebody produced a cardboard box, and we filled it with $18,671.42. We called the local Red Cross to come get the money.

I remember crying when I saw men line up to empty their wallets into the box. Most of us were in tears.

Long trip to the city

As impromptu collections filled the box at the park downtown, a semitractor-trailer in the west end was being filled with more donations  water, gloves, dog food and, most importantly, generators. A volunteer driver from Wenger Truck Lines, me and photographer John Schultz headed for New York City the next day.

I was 35 years old  energetic, curious and looking forward to the overtime pay.

The trip was moving to all of us, because the patriotism and unity had only gained momentum. Highway overpasses were draped in American flags, and people shouted, waved and gave our truck the thumbs-up, because it was decorated in a sign that declared our mission: "New York City Relief Aid from Quad-Cities, U.S.A."

Someone at a truck stop insisted on buying our meals.

Our heavy load kept us under 60 mph, so it was an especially long 1,900-mile round trip. The semi cab was comfortable at first, but it got smaller by the day. When we finally got to the drop-off warehouse in New Jersey, we were re-energized by the massively mind-boggling stacks and piles of donated supplies from all over the country. One of the forklift drivers who had been unloading trucks for 20 hours napped at the wheel in one corner of the damp warehouse.

Schultz and I stepped outside to stretch our legs, despite a light rain, and we accidentally got our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. We rounded a corner of the massive warehouse, and there she stood. The floodlights at ground zero gave a glow to the mist. He got a great shot.

We ditched the trailer and took the semitractor downtown  drove it right down Broadway. My hayseeds were showing, for sure. It was my first trip to New York City, and I was absolutely mesmerized. But the cheerful little thrills didn't last. Amazingly, we found a place to (probably illegally) park the truck, and we walked to Union Square. Pictures hung everywhere.

People were still referring to their loved ones as "missing."

I didn't have to be reminded of that part. My mind holds an image of a woman trying to relight a candle. But she was sobbing, and her hands shook.

I don't know whether she knew the man who took the matchbook from her hand and lit the candle for her. When he did, she collapsed in sobs.

That particular memory gets stuck in my throat.

Another's recollections

Fifteen years ago today, Quad-City International Airport aviation director Bruce Carter was at the annual airport directors' conference in Montreal, Canada.

Three airport board members, the board's attorney and Carter's wife, Faith, also made the trip.

But she was scheduled to fly out of Montreal that morning, headed for Detroit, then Moline.

Things started to unravel.

"I was walking in the exhibit hall that morning before the conference," Carter said last week. "Some people were standing around a TV. All we thought at that point was that a small plane had hit one of the towers.

"For some reason, I called my secretary and told her to get me a rental car. I don't know why I did that."

Then his cellphone (for which he had no charger) started ringing.

"My sons started calling, looking for their mom," Carter said. "She was in the front row of the airplane, headed for Detroit, and she saw the flight attendant answer the phone from the cockpit. The woman's face went white.

"They were forced to land in Kalamazoo, just like we were having planes suddenly landing back in Moline."

The rental cars in Kalamazoo were all taken, so Carter's wife "chased down" a woman in the rental-car lot.

"The woman said she was going to Peoria, and my wife said she could get a ride home from Peoria and asked if she could go along," he said. "The woman said, 'I'll take you to Moline.' There were two other guys my wife knew of who needed to get to Moline, so she fetched them, and they all rode together.

"My wife has never forgotten that woman."

Meanwhile, even though Carter and his team had managed to procure a Ford minivan, he said, the Canada-U.S. border was closed.

"At 4 a.m. the next day, (former board member Steve) Meersman calls to say the border's open," he said. "We were going through the border as the sun came up, and we drove 20 hours to Moline."

They listened to what was happening on the van radio, and Carter charged his cellphone for a few minutes at a time when they stopped for gas. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect back at his airport.

"We had several big planes sitting on the runway," he said. "For probably three or four days we had no flights. There was limited access to the terminal, and the National Guard was keeping watch.

"To this day, I don't know why I called my secretary to get a car when I did. I got the last rental car from the Montreal airport. I didn't care if they sued me or I had to buy that car.

"I was getting home."

Carter recalled so much. In an email, I asked him how he did that.

"All of the memories are with me forever," he replied. "Will never forget!"

That is what we promised to do.
Schneids Bar and Grill in Lowden, Iowa, will host a car show and benefit Sunday with proceeds going to help the 5-year-old daughter of a veteran who succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder and took his own life.

The show runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 205 Washington St. Proceeds will go to support veterans suffering from PTSD and to a trust fund for Layla Ketchum, daughter of Brandon Ketchum.

Ketchum served as a Marine Corps combat engineer from 2004-2008, serving two tours of duty in Iraq. In July 2008 he joined the Army and in 2010 he was deployed to Afghanistan with the Iowa National Guard. He was honorably discharged after being injured in the line of duty.

Ketchum took his own life July 8 after being turned away from the VA Medical Center in Iowa City, where he had sought assistance.

Music at Sunday's event will be provided by Ugly Ol' Bear. There also will be a flea market and craft show, a 50-50 raffle, a Patriot Guard Fun Ride, PTSD Awareness events and other activities for children and adults.

The show is open to all makes and models of cars. There is no entry fee.
MUSCATINE, Iowa - Muscatine Community College started classes on August 22nd and had a full week of Welcome Back events including free breakfasts, outdoor games, and a scavenger hunt. Faculty and staff stayed late all week to help new students find their way to classes and purchase textbooks.

The following week was Club Fest which provided an opportunity for students to learn how to get more involved on campus and in the community through clubs and organizations. MCC opened this event up to the Muscatine community. Walnut Baptist Church, Unity Point Health, League of Women Voters, and the United Way of Muscatine attended this event to get more students involved in the community. Club Fest was hosted on August 31st by 20 different clubs and organizations at tables for students to visit. One table handed out pizza and another ice cream bars!

There is so much more to do at MCC other than to take classes! Over 200 students attended, enjoyed the swag given out by community organizations, and signed up for meetings, clubs, and organizations.

Getting involved in clubs/organizations gives students an opportunity to learn outside the classroom setting, to give back to their community, and establish lifelong friendships. Many MCC graduates add their memberships to their resumes for life after school.

Angie Mullenbach  MOL 14

Residential Life & Student Engagement Coordinator
MUSCATINE, Iowa - Korey Kreimeyer attended Muscatine Community College from 2011-2012. While at MCC, he studied economics and received the Ron Hanson Memorial Award for Outstanding Economics Student and received a Whos Who Among Colleges and Universities award. He was a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and participated in the study abroad program in Amman, Jordan.

Kreimeyer was offered an academic scholarship to attend Simpson College where he was a member of Enactus (a student volunteer organization), worked an internship for a Des Moines financial advisor, and co-managed a $500,000 investment portfolio. He graduated cum laude with a BA in Economics and Finance, and minor in Management.

After graduation, he took an internship at Principal Global Investors as a fund accountant where he managed 42 client portfolios. Kreimeyer worked in banking for a year and currently works at EMC Insurance Group Inc. as their Investor Relations Coordinator. He began studies at Drake University seeking a Master of Financial Management this fall.

When asked Why MCC? he said,

I chose to go to MCC after doing a semester at the University of Iowa, Kreimeyer said when asked Why MCC? The combination of not being mature enough to handle the responsibilities and independence of attending a large university and the culture shock of coming from a small high school and being one of a couple hundred students in a class was just too much for me to take on at the time. MCC was perfect for me as it was close to home and allowed me to ease my way into the college experience and mature as a person.

Kreimeyer added that he enjoys CC because of the personal attention he received by attending a small school.

I got to know my professors on a personal level and they were available any time that I needed them, he said. When you are able to establish relationships with your professors, it makes the entire process easier and more enjoyable. I believe community college gets overlooked and dismissed way too often by students. I benefited substantially from MCC as I was able to excel in my classes which led me to obtain a scholarship to finish my undergraduate degree. MCC allowed me to realize my potential and presented me with opportunities to be successful that may not have been there had I gone elsewhere.

Kreimeyer admitted that when he began school he was not sure of what he wanted to study in college. So why economics?

I was always good at math and that led me to accounting, Kreimeyer said. It was not until I had taken the economics classes that John Dabeet teaches at MCC that I realized I had an interest in the subject. He is very educated and passionate about economics and he taught me how the subject affects our lives every second of every day. I took every class that John taught at MCC and from there my interest just continued to grow.

MCC Business Department stands for Quality, Innovation, Leadership, and Practicality. Wed like to talk to you. Please contact John Dabeet at johndabeet@eicc.edu or at 563-288-6064.
A group of Quad-City Lutherans fed their souls Saturday as they completed a service project that will help curb hunger for thousands of area school children.

A total of 115 volunteers from seven Iowa Quad-City Lutheran churches worked two hours in an assembly-line fashion to fill 2,700 bags of food for River Bend Foodbank's backpack program. Working in unison at River Bend's west Davenport warehouse, participants walked around pallets of packaged food, carrying plastic bags that other volunteers filled with food items.

"People don't realize we have kids in the Quad-Cities that have such a need,'' said Claire Johnansen, a volunteer from Davenport's Grace Lutheran Church, and a part-time para-educator for Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley schools. "This gives us a chance to see how fortunate we are."

The effort was part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, or ELCA, nationwide day of service known as "God's Work. Our Hands."

The Rev. Travis Fisher of St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church, Davenport, said the ELCA designates a weekend each year for churches to be out in the community. "This is why our churches have partnered together to make a statement (about) doing God's work with our hands."

By uniting in one service project, he said "This allows all of us to be under the same roof doing the same thing."

In addition to Grace Lutheran and St. Mark, the volunteer event included Zion Lutheran Church, Davenport; St. James Lutheran Church, Bettendorf; Calvary Lutheran, Buffalo; St. Paul Lutheran, Davenport; and Faith Lutheran, Eldridge.

The project also supports the anti-hunger mission of the Southeast Iowa Synod, which the area Lutheran churches are part of, Fisher said. "We thought this was another way to help children who are food insecure."

Janine Johnson of Bettendorf, the neighborhood outreach worker at Zion Lutheran, said the day was an extension of her church's own work to feed the hungry, including its emergency food pantry.

"We're located at 8th and Marquette in Davenport, so we're in a distressed neighborhood," she said. But because most the members live in other areas, "the food pantry is a good opportunity to get to meet the neighbors who are food insecure," she said.

The project was somewhat eye-opening for 12-year-old Luke Haugen, a member of Grace Lutheran. "They are just getting the food they need to survive," he said. "It's weird to think (someone) does not have food for dinner."

Luke, a seventh grader at Wood Intermediate from Davenport, said hunger is an issue "we've talked about it in school quite a bit." Being able to help, he said, "feels good to do."

The Rev. Carrie Lewis LaPlante, the new pastor at Faith Lutheran, had seen a similar food project at her previous church but she was impressed with the backpack concept. "I love the idea that we're making sure kids have food on the weekends."

The service event was a family affair for many participants, including Leah Chandlee of Coal Valley, who brought three generations with her two daughters, Avery, 6, and Skyler, 9, and her mother, Barb Erickson of Davenport.

"I like getting the kids out and volunteering any chance we can," said Chandlee, a member of St. Mark Lutheran. "It's a good life lesson for them."
Fifteen years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, Jason Platt, and Holly Sparkman started their Tuesday work day.

Platt, of Davenport, was 28 and working in graphic design for an advertising firm. Sparkman, 33, lived in Rock Island and was employed by St. Ambrose University. She also had a son in junior high school.

As the drama unfolded in New York City, people like Platt and Sparkman slowly became aware of the national crisis. Televisions sets were turned on.

"We were in disbelief watching in the office," Sparkman said. "We couldn't work, we were mesmerized."

The situation was similar at the Boyd-Fitzgerald studio in Bettendorf where Platt worked.

"I sat there, slack-jawed, and watched with complete dismay," he said. "I didn't know what to do, say or anything."

What they did next: Sparkman called Edison Junior High School to check on her son, Scott, then 13 years old and in the eighth grade.

Platt had no children in 2001, but he got online and on the phone, checking on the welfare of friends, especially a playwright buddy who lived in New York City.

"He ended up being totally fine, but we knew that from an e-mail message from a mutual friend," he said.

The effects of the attacks focused, in Sparkman's case, on explaining what had happened to her son. She kept her talk based on facts, as she knew them, and noted both of them started to learn about the concept of terrorism.

Platt, on the other hand, did not have a child until 2003. Wyeth Platt is now 13 years old, and he has been told about the attacks over the years.

"It's like when our parents and grandparents would talk about Pearl Harbor and how horrifying that was to them," Platt, 43, said. "We can hear the stories, but we can't empathize with the moment."

Wyeth, who goes to Davenport's Creative Arts Academy and to Sudlow Intermediate School, has had open-ended conversations about the attacks with his father, who now works as a freelance artist in Davenport.

Last year, on Sept. 11, Wyeth addressed the topic in a faith-based setting. According to his father, Wyeth was beginning his first year of confirmation and was part of a class that went to Camp Shalom in rural Maquoketa on Sept. 11, 2015.

When it came to prayer time, Wyeth raised his hand and spoke about what had happened, who had lost families and loved ones and how it is up to us to rebuild the foundation that was lost.

A fear has developed since 9/11, Sparkman said. "I will always be wary."

Now the communications director for Rock Island-Milan schools, Sparkman, 48, understands about airport security and agrees it is necessary for safe travel.

Security checks do not stop Sparkman from traveling.

"We travel a lot more, and we try to prepare for security hold-ups and long lines," she said. "The fear ... has not held us back."
Clinton County Sheriff's officials identified the operator of the farm tractor who died after he was rear-ended Thursday afternoon by a semitractor-trailer on U.S. 61.

Steven R. Welsh, 68, of rural DeWitt, operated an open station John Deere tractor heading northbound near Welton when he was struck from behind by the semi and later died from his injuries.

The driver of the semi was Charles K. Culp, 62, of Des Moines. He was transported to Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt, for what was believed to be minor injuries.

Iowa State Patrol is assisting in the investigation.

 Brian Wellner
People who are in their 20s today will have a different perspective on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks depending on how old they were at the time, where they were and their personal experiences.

Tireni Ajibola: As a 5-year-old in Lagos, Nigeria, Tireni Ajibola only recalls shades of the news of the Sept. 11 attacks. He saw and heard about it, but it was not something that immediately affected him.

But just four months later, at age 6, Ajibola said he remembers when he and his mother and three brothers watched from the balcony of their home as explosions rocked the northern part of Lagos when ordnances at the Lagos Armory began exploding.

No one knew if his dad was alive or dead.

Ajibola only remembers his dad was working near the armory. He could see the explosions and flames wreaking havoc on the city. We all stood on the balcony and prayed for my dad, that he would return to us, he said.

It had to do with mines, and thats all I know, Ajibola said of that horrible day.

The toll, according to newspaper reports, was more than 1,000 dead in the accident.

At age 7, Tireni was standing at ground zero in New York City, on Sept. 11, 2003, two years to the day after the attacks. He and his family had arrived that day to start their lives in the United States as winners of a visa lottery.

I remember just seeing rubble getting cleaned up, he said. I remember the large cranes, and I remember it being very dusty.

My parents and my uncle tried to explain what had happened. My uncle worked near the towers and was nearby when it happened.

Three months after visiting ground zero, Ajibola and his family were living in Moline.

He graduated from United Township High School and now, at 20, is a student at Black Hawk College, studying exercise science. He works part time as a trainer at the Two Rivers YMCA in Moline.

As he grew older and as the internet progressed, Ajibola has seen footage of the attacks and said he can feel for the people who lost loved ones.

I can only imagine how I would have felt had my dad not survived those exploding mines, Ajibola said. I can imagine how the families of those people who died in the attack are feeling. God was looking out for my dad, and he came home.

Watching it is heartbreaking.

During his junior year at United Township, Ajibola made a return trip to New York City and once again visited ground zero.

"I got to see the new buildings they put up for the memorial," Ajibola said. "It was just like, 'Wow. I was here when this wasn't here.' It just seemed so crazy."

Mitch Driscoll: Mitch Driscoll was 12 years old and in seventh grade in Preston, Iowa, when about 9 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, the schools librarian walked into his music class and told the students to stop what they were doing.

She told us, Drop what youre doing. Something big has happened, and the students need to see this, Driscoll said.

Now 27 and living in Bettendorf, Driscoll, said he remembers somebody in his classroom, maybe a teacher, mention it was terrorism.

But other than that, he said, no one really put it into context for us.

During our second block we watched the news, Driscoll said. For the rest of the afternoon, we either just blatantly watched the news or had it on in the background, but we didnt do anything school-related.

I remember thinking, This is monumental. This is unbelievable. This is going to be historical. But there were a lot of things I didnt understand about it. It was hard to wrap my head around what it all meant.

I could understand that someone could fly a plane into a building, but I couldn't understand why.

It was a couple of months before I was able to comprehend what had happened, and then how it impacted the world. It was numbing.
It was a short week and a quiet week for investors returning from Labor Day Monday. Fewer economic reports and fewer corporate reports arrived on fewer days. Still, with the holiday behind and youngsters back in school, the unofficial end of summer focused renewed investor attention on the business scene. In the shortened week, our Quad-City Times Key 15 retreated 66.57 to 1,966.92 following the prior weeks new record high.

As so often, the economic backdrop presented mixed messages for returning investors. The Federal Reserve Boards periodic beige book was presented, compiled during late July and August with surveys of conditions from the 12 districts across the country. The surveys said that economic activity continued to expand at a modest pace on balance and that most districts reported a modest or moderate rate of growth. And, the Fed noted that contacts across those districts generally expect that modest growth to continue in the coming months. Interestingly, non-financial services were singled out as gaining further momentum. And for those worried about manufacturing, the report said that manufacturing activity rose slightly in most districts. The picture of modest to moderate growth in the late summer period was clearly comforting.

Still, Tuesdays report from the Institute of Supply Management did not confirm such a comfortable view. Here, the purchasing managers index, specifically for the services sector, fell from 55.5 to 51.4 in August. Loosely interpreted, says the institute, this suggests a declining majority, though still 51.4 percent of purchasing managers, saw rising purchases of supplies in August. On balance, thats positive. But, the declining direction cased concern, moving the index down to a 6 year low.

Similarly, the new orders sub-index fell even more steeply, off from 60.3 in July to 51.4 in July. Again, the declining direction and the move down toward a neutral 50-reading suggested caution, even in the week where the Federal Reserve reported modest, moderate growth and a pickup in the service sector.

Perhaps greater clarity came from our Quad-City area firms where Monsanto, the farm seed and herbicide titan with Muscatine operations, continues to be courted by the German firm Bayer.

While we were celebrating the dignity of all of our labors on Monday, Bayer upped its offer to buy all of Monsantos shares from $125 per share to $127.50. Monsanto on Monday confirmed the increased offers, saying it has been engaged in constructive negotiations with Bayer  Monsanto termed it still a non-bidding proposal. And, Monsanto said, talks are is continuing as this proposal is evaluated.

This is a big, big deal, though clearly not assured by Bayer nor Monsanto. Its the single largest all-cash buyout offer in corporate history. What is assured is that Monsantos number one position in farm seeds and Bayers extensive herbicide business combining would require regulatory approval in the United States, in the European Union, and in other significant markets. Monsanto shares actually dipped on Tuesday, but regained strength Thursday, all leading to a four-day retreat of 65 cents to $106.79 (1) while investors await further input.

The shape of Arconic continues to develop for investors as well. Remember that the planned separation of Alcoas value added operations, including our Davenport Works, is expected by the company to be completed before year's end. On the way to that separation, the two new boards of directors were announced by Alcoa on Wednesday. Importantly, both new boards will have plenty of members from the current Alcoa board in order to ensure continuity and to retain valuable company experience, says the company. The three new Arconic board members involved in decision-making on our growing operations here include Amy Alving, former officer of Leidos Holdings, a defense industry engineering firm, Rajiv Gupta, chairman of Delphi, in auto components, and Julie Richardson, former partner in Providence Equity Partners, a private investment group. Growing demand for aerospace and automotive applications from Arconic will require their growing expertise. Alcoa shares were down 54 cents at $9.60 (1) last week.

The new week brings Thursdays important report on retail sales from the Commerce Department, all the more important as investors begin to focus on holiday hopes in the sector. And, expect that a longer week might be a noisier week.
I take issue with some of the inaccuracies in the letter from Rowen Schusscheim-Anderson printed on Thursday.

First, Hillary Clinton is not intelligent. She flunked the District of Columbia bar exam, reputably one fo the easiest in the nation. Her constant ethical troubles for the past 25 years is either the result of a crooked mind or a foolish one. These are not the actions of an intelligent person.

The only difference she has made on domestic and international issues has been one of failure. One foreign policy disaster after another starting with Russia (her reset button) and Iraq and concluding with the killing of four embassy personnel in Benghazi. You can throw in worsening relations with such allies as all of Western Europe, Japan, and Israel and one must conclude she is incompetent.

She did not help establish the children's health insurance program. That was done through a bipartisan effort led by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy. It was enacted in 1997, four years before she became a carpetbagging senator from New York, where she had never lived.

Hillary Clinton is a person who rode to power on her husband's coattails playing a jilted but forgiving spouse. Her tenure as a senator and secretary of State has been one of incompetence and scandal. She is certainly not the smart, steady candidate with the qualifications to be president.

David A Millage

Bettendorf
This website is intended for U.S. visitors only.
Some historians believe that the life expectancy of a dynasty is about 200 years. Great Britain once ruled the oceans. Rome ruled the known world. The Aztecs were wealthy beyond imagination. They all fell prey to the belief that they could never be conquered.

The United States is the greatest nation on the planet, but we are still vulnerable. When Hitler's party took over Germany, the country was in a post-war recession and Hitler seized the opportunity to give the unrest a focus - the Jews. It was his path to dictatorship, and he used patriotism to do it. If we elect a president who admires Putin because he "has great control of the country" our freedoms are in jeopardy. Trump wants to run this country like a business with him as the CEO. CEO's ignore opinions that differ from theirs because they have one thing in mind, total control.

It took Hitler 12 years to gain control of his country, but when he got it, he totally and ruthlessly ruled without quarter. Trump wants to choose his own generals like Hitler did, and he thinks torture is okay for our enemies. What if he doesn't stop there? He tells lie after lie. His message varies because he says what his audience wants to hear. He has manipulated politicians with money, and he has hired illegal immigrants in the past because they were cheaper. Then they had to sue to get the meager pay due to them. Why would he suddenly give us any consideration as president?

Carol DeWilfond

Moline
SPRINGFIELD  Illinois fiscal health and its bond ratings arent the only things about the state that have been on the decline in recent years.

So has the population of the state insect: the monarch butterfly.

The distinctive orange and black butterflies, which make a 2,500-mile, multigenerational journey between Canada and Mexico each year, are facing a host of threats, including habitat loss along their migration path due to development and the proliferation of herbicide-resistant crops and in their overwintering sites in Mexico due to illegal logging. A group of conservation organizations has petitioned the federal government to add the monarch butterfly to the endangered species list, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to make a decision by summer of 2019.

In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is working to develop a plan to help boost the population of this important pollinator species.

The department gathered participants from agriculture, transportation, education, conservation, utility companies and other fields Friday at its headquarters on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield. The purpose of the first-ever Illinois Monarch Butterfly Summit was to take stock of the efforts that are already occurring across the state and to begin laying the groundwork for a cohesive statewide strategy.

Monarchs have become not only a national and a state issue, but its an international issue, Department of Natural Resources director Wayne Rosenthal told the summit attendees.

Illinois has had many conservation success stories, Rosenthal said, and the monarch butterfly very easily could be the next success story.

A survey that the Prairie Rivers Network conducted ahead of the summit showed many efforts already underway, such as a variety of groups working to restore native plants, including milkweed, which is vital to the monarchs lifecycle. The Rock Island County Soil & Water Conservation District has been involved with the annual Quad-Cities Pollinator Conference. Nine Illinois mayors have taken the Mayors Monarch Pledge from the National Wildlife Federation, committing to taking steps to help with the conservation effort.

Ann Holtrop, acting chief of the Department of Natural Resources division of natural heritage, said there now needs to be a coordinated plan to maximize habitat for monarchs and minimize threats.

We really have a pivotal role here, said Holtrop, who helped coordinate the summit.

Illinois strategy will also have to fit into regional, national and international monarch conservation efforts, she said, including major increases in milkweed plantings along the butterflys migration path.

Dave Lamb, Bloomingtons assistant superintendent of parks, was among the summit participants.

The city has converted roughly 200 acres of parkland to native prairie over the past decade or so, Lamb said.

Were also looking to convert some of the city right of way areas to monarch habitat, he said, adding that this would also provide the long-term financial benefit of reducing mowing expenses.

Participants spent much of the day in small-group discussions among people in four sectors: agriculture, education and outreach, natural and conservation lands, and rights of way, which included representatives from organizations such as Ameren Illinois and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Throughout the discussions, it became clear that coordinating local efforts like those in Bloomington into a statewide strategy will be among the challenges faced by those implementing the plan. Developing clear goals and identifying methods to meet them will be among the next steps, Holtrop said.

We have so much energy regarding this species, she said.

Matthew Lechner, natural resources program manager at Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, was another participant at the summit. Shawnee, which the U.S. Forest Service manages, has about 3,500 acres of open land suitable for monarch habitat, Lechner said.

He said he believes getting interested parties together to come up with a plan to maximize habitats and minimize threats for monarchs in Illinois is the right conservation thing to do.

Im not smart enough to know whether its going to solve the bigger problem or not, Lechner said.
NATION

Woman in iconic kiss photo dies

The woman kissed by an ecstatic sailor in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II has died.

Greta Zimmer Friedman's son says his mother died Thursday at a Richmond, Virginia, hospital of what he called complications from old age. She was 92.

Friedman was a 21-year-old dental assistant in a nurse's uniform on Aug. 14, 1945. She went to Times Square amid reports that the war had ended. That's when she was kissed by George Mendonsa celebrating Japan's surrender.

Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the moment. It became one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.

She will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to her late husband, Dr. Misha Friedman.

Hinckley leaves D.C. mental hospital

The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan has been released from a Washington mental hospital for good, more than 35 years after the shooting.

A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia's Department of Mental Health said early Saturday that all patients scheduled to leave St. Elizabeths Hospital had been discharged. Hinckley was among those scheduled for discharge.

An Associated Press reporter saw a hired car pull into the driveway of the Hinckley home at around 2:30 p.m. Officers from the Kingsmill Police Department chased reporters away.

A federal judge ruled in late July that the 61-year-old Hinckley is not a danger to himself or the public and can live full-time at his mother's home in Williamsburg.

Clinton regrets part of deplorable comment

Hillary Clinton said Saturday that she was wrong to put half of Donald Trump's supporters in a "basket of deplorables," but didn't back down from a description of his campaign the Republican nominee said smeared many Americans and would take a political toll.

Less than 24 hours after she made the statement at a private New York City fundraiser, Clinton said in a statement, "last night I was 'grossly generalistic' and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half'  that was wrong."

But she argued that the word "deplorable" was reasonable to describe much of Trump's campaign.

WORLD

45 die in airstrikes after Syria cease-fire

A day of intense airstrikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 people were killed Saturday, just hours after the new U.S.-Russian agreement was reached to try and end the violence in Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Aleppo province and another 39 were killed by airstrikes in neighboring Idlib province.

Contrasting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

The United States and Russia announced a deal Saturday that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.
Have you ever considered running out on your job? Now is your chance, literally.

The first annual Run@Work Day in the Black Hills will take place Sept. 16. Various employers across the region will allow their staff to take a break during work hours and enjoy a 30-minute run or walk with colleagues and friends.

The Black Hills Runners Club is teaming with Live Well Black Hills to host the event in western South Dakota. Companies, schools, running clubs, nonprofits, and individuals are encouraged to participate in runs at various locations.

We want to encourage employers to recognize the importance of running and walking toward overall health, said Allison Greco, president of Black Hills Runners Club and the current Mrs. Rapid City titleholder.

Greco wanted to bring Run@Work Day to the Black Hills as part of her pageant platform, but she has always been passionate about leading an active and healthy lifestyle. Greco and the Runners Club are also working to designate Rapid City an official Runner Friendly Community.

Runner Friendly communities must have at least three miles of clean, safe running paths within city limits, as well as community and government support; activities for runners; and runner-friendly businesses. Rapid Citys application will be submitted by April 30, 2017, with letters of support from community organizations such as Live Well Black Hills.

Rapid City has over 78 miles of trails for walking, running and biking within city limits, said Sara Hornick, a Live Well Black Hills representative. We are happy to support the Runners Club in becoming a runner-friendly community, and were excited about Run@Work Day. The goal of the day is to get people moving  whether youre running or walking  for at least 30 minutes.

Run@Work Day was developed by the Road Runners Club of America 11 years ago. Run@School Day  a spin off idea  launched five years ago. Both events are nationwide fitness efforts designed to promote increased physical activities across communities.

Greco said that so far, several employers and groups have signed up to participate in the event, including Black Hills Corporation, YMCA of Rapid City, Regional Health, Rushmore Mall and Lutheran Social Services. Runners clubs at Belle Fourche and Black Hawk elementary schools, as well as Stevens High School, will also participate.

Were all joining to work toward being a healthier community and to make movement a priority in our lives. Walking and running are basic, but very effective, forms of exercise, Greco said. Its been reported that running just five minutes per day cuts your risk of cardiovascular disease by 45 percent and increases your life expectancy by three years.

Nicole Craig, Wellness Director at YMCA of Rapid City, said "even a five- to 10-minute walk or jog can increase your energy and productivity levels and give your brain a rest from work.

It gets you out of your usual space and allows you an opportunity to get much-needed oxygen to your brain and muscles  which in turn, gives you increased energy and greater productivity for the rest of your work day.
PIEDMONT | Deacon Walt Wilson has been a member of Our Lady of the Black Hills Catholic Church for nearly half the life of the parish.

"Father Anji is my tenth pastor," he says while leafing through photo albums chronicling the church's history.

Wilson and his family began attending the church when it was located in the heart of Piedmont near what is now the Piedmont Valley Library. Today, the fourth generation of the Wilson clan attend the church.

The church is steeped in the history of the westward expansion of the country.

In the 1880s French Canadians mostly from Quebec settled in the Piedmont valley. Those early Catholic settlers relied on traveling priests who offered mass in local homes.

Over the next 100 years, the parish was served by 18 pastors, a few Benedictine priests but mostly diocesan priests.

According to a history of the church written by John Honerkamp, the first record of Catholic services being held in Piedmont is documented in the Nov. 25, 1904, Rapid City Daily Journal, Catholic services were held at the school house in the French District Monday. Five boys and girls were confirmed.

In early 1916, local Catholics seriously considered building a church. An Elkton farmer had promised $500 toward the building of a chapel in memory of his wife, Mary. The Catholic Church Extension Society contacted Bishop John Lawler knowing the Catholics in Piedmont wanted to build a new church.

Situated at the corner of Park and Second, the church was built on donated land. Volunteers helped with the work and, soon, St. Mary Catholic Church became a reality.

In late 1959, the congregation size had increased to the point where a remodel and update of the church and rectory was needed. Volunteers completed the project.

In the 1970s, Piedmonts population had grown to the extent that there was a need for a social center for the purpose of fellowship gatherings and fundraising events. One suggestion, though met with opposition, was to build onto the existing rectory and church  it was considered a short-term solution.

Another option was to build a new church a few miles south of town. A building committee began plans to work on a more desirable new facility.

"Father Emilio Nebula was the pastor and he convinced us that we should build a new church because the valley was going to do nothing but grow. You could kind of see that," Wilson said. "The difficulty came in trying to convince the bishop that we could do it on our own. He said he had seen that approach tried before and it didn't work."

Meetings were held with Bishop Harold Dimmerling to discuss design, budget, finance, and planning, and in April 1979, the bishop gave the approval for construction.

On April 22, 1979, groundbreaking commenced and excavation began the following morning. The budget was $160,000, and again, volunteers completed much of the work.

Teresa Thompson, coordinator of Faith Formation, safe environment and director of youth ministry at Our Lady of the Black Hills, said that story epitomizes the "can do" spirit of the congregation.

"The parishioners built this church. And when the church expanded, the parishioners again built the addition," she said.

Having the parishioners use their gifts and talents to build the church is what makes it so special.

"I remember staining baseboards," said Thompson, who grew up in the church.

Nestled at the foot of a hill in the Piedmont valley, Our Lady of the Black Hills church building pays homage to the Black Hills which surround it.

More than just bricks and mortar

The church itself has been at this site for less than 50 years, but it's the details inside the walls that give meaning to its namesake.

The altar is made from granite from Crazy Horse Monument. Deacon Walt Wilson worked with the late Ruth Ziolkowski to secure the granite both for the altar and the baptismal font. And, the chairs near the altar are covered in bison hide.

Just outside the church building along path lined in pines, is a wooden stations of the cross.

Stained-glass windows from the original St. Mary Catholic Church greet parishioners as they enter the church.

"We've all had a hand in building this church both physically and spiritually," Thompson said. "That is why people say there is a particular spirit here."

Thompson admits the parishioners have sometimes been labeled as "free spirits."

The Rev. Andrzej Wyrostek, who is relatively new to his post at Our Lady of the Black Hills, says it's not like his congregation has a reputation in the diocese for being out in a different zone, but more so for a group that is very involved in their parish.

He stresses that a parish is more than just bricks and mortar.

"In order to make a parish a living parish, it cannot be just a building," Wyrostek said. "It has to be about the people  people willing to sacrifice their time and bring their skills to the life of the parish."

He said that is the difference between a living, growing parish and one that just maintains its existence.

"We want parishes that look forward to the future with some energy," he said.

Our Lady of the Black Hills is, by its location, required to be forward thinking.

In 2014, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that Meade County was the eighth fastest-growing county in the nation with populations greater than 10,000. Much of that population growth is taking place around Piedmont in areas surrounding the church.

The church continues to focus not only on their needs for now, but also for continued growth expected in the future, Wyrostek said.

"It's good to see that we have a number of different groups looking into the life of the parish," he said. "It is refreshing to see. Things are happening and I am being informed rather than asking, 'How are we going to do this?'"

Wyrostek said he appreciates that role.

"I'm new to this, so I don't know what the local communities need or want, or how they see the parish."

The parish is steeped in tradition with generations of locals spending their life as members of the congregation.

"Our church community is small. We all know each other," Thompson said.

But even though the parish is a tight-knit community of people, one of their greatest strengths may be in welcoming in new people to the fold.

"I'm proud of this community and being a part of it," she said. "I'm glad that we are growing."

One of the signs of growth is an abundance of youngsters at mass.

"Mass is just noisy," Thompson said.

Wyrostek deadpanned: "That's OK. We just crank up the sound system."
PIERRE | A state board approved a smaller budget Friday for Deadwood historic preservation in 2017.

The budget is funded by an estimated $6,950,000 from Deadwood gambling tax revenues and about $1,975,000 from reserves for capital improvement projects.

The amounts spent from reserves last year and being spent this year are significantly larger than the reserves used in the 2017 plan, according to the data presented by Kevin Kuchenbecker, the citys historic preservation officer, to the State Historical Society board of trustees.

The capital improvement portion of the budget used more than $2.8 million from reserves in 2015 and is targeted for more than $4.6 million from reserves this year.

Kuchenbecker told the state trustees that the reserve funds balance would dip to about $4.5 million as a result of the proposed 2017 spending.

He said the target for the balance has been about $7 million, equivalent to the preservation offices operating budget.

The 2017 operating budget of $6,950,000 would be about $50,000 smaller than this years amount and $122,000 less than the 2015 amount.

Two of the spots facing reductions are the $25,000 trolley reserve, which would be eliminated, and decreasing promotions and marketing to $400,000 from $480,000.

Kuchenbecker said the hope is the state Department of Tourism could help cover the $80,000 cut in promotions and marketing.

He said the citys bonding program for historic preservation project expires in 2019 and a new comprehensive plan should be assembled. The last one dates to 2001.

We need to plan for the next 10 years, Kuchenbecker said.

Tom Blair, a former mayor of Deadwood, told the state trustees that state government receives $4 million annually and the Department of Tourism gets $5 million annually from Deadwood gambling taxes.

Blair, who was part of the campaign to win South Dakota voters approval in 1988 to legalize gambling in the city, said Deadwood has done a lot for tourism.

The impact of two million people on a town of about 1,500 is substantial, Blair said. What we do for South Dakota is bring another million people to town.
The Hill City man arrested Thursday for the death of a 42-year-old woman had just been released from jail earlier that day after pleading guilty to traffic offenses.

Courtney E. Millhouse, 41, was booked at the Pennington County Jail on Thursday evening for allegedly killing Stacy Childers, of Hill City.

Preliminary autopsy results showed that Childers died Wednesday from blunt-force trauma, according to the Pennington County Sheriffs Office. She passed away at the Rapid City Regional Hospital and may have been a victim of domestic assault, it said.

Millhouse appeared Friday morning at the county courthouse via video from jail, where a magistrate judge read his charge of first-degree manslaughter. The offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Millhouses charging document says the crime occurred around Aug. 8 and that he killed Childers while in the heat of passion. The Sheriff's Office learned Aug. 30 that she had been taken by ambulance to Rapid City Regional.

Judge Bernie Schuchmann set his bond at $1 million, denying an attorneys request to cut it by half.

The attorney told Schuchmann that Millhouse is again invoking his right to remain silent, after earlier waiving the right.

According to the court proceedings, Millhouses criminal history includes an aggravated assault charge in West Virginia.

It was not immediately clear what the relationship was between Millhouse and Childers. The Pennington County Sheriffs Office referred media questions to the States Attorneys Office. The case prosecutor on Friday declined to comment.

This was Millhouses second arrest and court appearance in a week. On Wednesday morning, he was booked in jail on a warrant for failing to appear in court in June 2015 for traffic offenses, according to official records.

On Thursday morning, he pleaded guilty in court to reckless driving and failure to stop after an accident, which occurred in May 2015. He received suspended jail sentences.

He was released from jail on Thursday at 1:19 p.m., only to be re-arrested at 6:15 p.m. on the manslaughter charge.

Millhouses next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 23.
NORTH OF CANNON BALL, N.D.  The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has appealed a federal judges ruling on the Dakota Access Pipeline and is seeking an injunction to protect sacred sites while the appeal is pending.

The tribe has filed a notice of appeal of Fridays ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg that denied the tribes request to halt pipeline construction while the lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proceeds.

The Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior issued a joint statement Friday that said pipeline construction will not proceed on Corps land in and around Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock reservation.

The agencies also asked Dakota Access to voluntarily stop construction 20 miles east and west of Lake Oahe.

Standing Rock is now seeking the court to order an injunction for 20 miles within Lake Oahe while its appeal is pending.

North Dakotas Historic Preservation Office plans to look into whether bulldozers clearing a path for the Dakota Access Pipeline destroyed burial grounds and other sacred sites identified the day before in a court filing by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Dakota Access says no sacred sites were destroyed and claims that six of the sites identified by the tribe were directly over the existing Northern Border natural gas pipeline and could not possibly be original artifacts.

The company has declined to comment since the Corps announced Friday construction would be paused on Corps land while the agency evaluates whether it needs to reconsider any of its previous decisions under the National Environmental Policy Act or other federal laws.

Meanwhile, Dakota Access opponents say they intend to continue the Sacred Stone Camp north of the reservation while the legal matters are ongoing.

The North Dakota National Guard continues to be in a support role at an information checkpoint on State Highway 1806, with a couple dozen guard members rotating to fill those shifts, said Guard spokeswoman Amber Balken.

Additional guard members were put on alert Thursday but have not been activated, Balken said Saturday morning.

Law enforcement officers from across the state are assisting the Morton County Sheriffs Office, with support from 10 city agencies, 12 county sheriffs departments and numerous state agencies, including some from parole and probation, said Morton County spokeswoman Donnell Preskey.
Does Greg Gianforte want to build a wall around Montana? Sure sounds like it when he campaigns on banning war refugees from countries suffering terrorist attacks and stopping any refugee resettlement until the vetting system is fixed.

He sounds like GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for shutting out immigrants.

The myth that governors can block refugee settlement keeps popping up, thanks to politicians campaigning on fears they help intensify. Federal law  not state law  sets rules for who may enter the United States.

About a week ago, the Gianforte campaign mailed fliers ominously warning that Gov. Steve Bullock supports bringing Syrian refugees into Montana. Those words appeared beside the black and red image of an armed man with a scarf concealing his face, except for the eyes. Below the picture was a photo of Bullock. On the flip side, the flier had a flattering, full-color photo of Gianforte standing over the words Montana security first.

Some Montana Republicans have been saying for months that Bullock wants unvetted Syrian refugees to come to our state. After former Texas Gov. Rick Perry campaigned for Gianforte in Montana, Perry repeated that false statement about Bullock on Fox News. Bullock critics then trumpet the news that the story has gone national.

Repeating a lie doesnt make it true.

Between 2011 when civil war erupted in Syria and 2015, the United States admitted 2,000 Syrian refugees. However, about 86,000 Syrian immigrants live in the United States, mostly people who have followed relatives here since 1990. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Syrian immigrants, on average are older and have higher education than the general U.S. population. Forty-nine percent of Syrian immigrants were employed in management, business, science or arts in 2014.

Before refugees are allowed into the United States, they are thoroughly screened by the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security in processes that take 18 to 24 months. Among 784,000 refuges (from all over the world) who have been resettled in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, three have been arrested for planning terrorist attacks  two of whom were planning attacks outside the country, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Gianfortes attack fliers arrived in mail boxes just as the first refugee family in years arrived in Missoula. These two parents fled war in the Congo. Three of their four children were born in a refugee camp in Tanzania and had never lived anywhere else before making it to safety to the United States. These are the type of people allowed into our nation as refugees in 2016.

Its just really disinformation and its disheartening that people seeking a position of power would promote that misinformation and play off of such a persecuted population, Mary Poole, founder of the Missoula resettlement organization told Gazette reporter Jayme Fraser. Amen, Mary, amen.
High school music students from Corvallis, Hamilton, Florence and Stevensville have been selected to perform in the Montana All-State Band, Choir and Orchestra Oct. 20 in Great Falls.

Each year professional musicians listen to high school auditions and select the best of Montana, about 370 students, to participate in the All-State music festival. This selection is the highest honor given to music students by the Montana High School Association.

The students learn the music for the festival performance and are led by guest conductors Colonel Timothy Holtan, U.S. Army Band Pershings Own (band); Dr. Nicole Lamartine, University of Wyoming (choir) and Dr. William Jones, University of Iowa (orchestra).

Corvallis band director Nancy Brown said she is proud of her students and excited for them to have this opportunity.

This is an amazing event for student musicians, Brown said. Not only do they get to work with top conductors, they get the opportunity to improve their own skills at a more advanced level while representing their own community.

The four students from Corvallis selected are Brookelyn Palin (flute), Michaela Allred (soprano), Sarah Cerdena (alto I) and Michael McKay (tenor II).

Palin said, I love music. I tried three years to make it to All-State and Im glad I finally made it.

Allred said she is excited to be part of the event.

I love singing and cant wait to meet other choir members from around the state, she said.

Cerdena said, The best part of All-State is getting to sing with the best musicians in the state.

McKay said he is looking forward to is working and learning at the college level.

Stevensville musicians selected under the training are trombonist Ben Crews and clarinetist Kayla Eyre.

This is Bens fourth year in either the All-State Band or orchestra and Kayla is in the band for three straight years, Stevensville band director Jeremy Ruff said. Ben is son of Kirk and Lisa Crews and Kayla is daughter of Bryon and Janet Eyre.

Florence-Carlton High School Music Director Jennifer Kirby said they have five students selected to participate in the All-State band and choir. Cassidy McCollum (flute), Jethro Thorne (euphonium) and Chase Windmueller (euphonium) will play in the band. James Clark and Dustin Anderson will sing in the choir.

Hamilton High School musician JT Vineyard, directed by Shawn Thacker, was selected to play tuba in the All-State Band.

Choir musicians, directed by Peggy Bucheit, selected for the honor are Bailey Evans, Emily Fussell, Morgan Kellar, Rio Hammond, Finn Belanger, Hagan Majors, Andy Merkel, Will Torres. Alternates are Dee Dee Rogers and Marissa McCrorey.

These students will join Montanas best musicians to present a concert in Great Falls next month, Bucheit said.

This will be Kellars first year to attend the All-State festival.

I think it is exciting because it will be great to be surrounded by people who share the same passion, she said.

Torres said he hopes the experience will be legendary.

Majors said he was honored to be selected.

We try out in the spring and we have to wait all summer to see if we made it or not, he said. It is so nerve-wracking. It is my second year to attend and it is good to find out all the hard work weve put into choir is coming back to help us out.

This is senior Finn Belangers third year to perform at the All-State festival. He said every year is exciting.

It is really awesome to go to All-State and be in choir with a whole bunch of people who are all really good at what they do, he said. Immediately, at the first rehearsal, everyone has their music practiced and can do it, so the first note everyone hits is just really powerful. It is really exciting to get to the higher level for the concert.

The Montana All-State Band, Choir and Orchestra performance will be 7 p.m., Oct. 20, in the Mansfield Convention Center, Great Falls Civic Center, and concludes the Montana Music Educators Association Conference.
Artists are often a solitary bunch.

They spend long hours creating their artwork in studios without much interruption from the outside world.

On Thursday, three Bitterroot Valley artists spent a creative day together in an effort to help out a longtime friend.

Steve Wilson and Jim Joyner met Chip Jones at his studio north of Stevensville to add their own special artwork to chairs for the upcoming annual auction that supports Corvallis Bitterroot Therapeutic Riding.

Inside the cavernous studio that once housed a roof joist factory, the men spent the day painting horses, cowboy boots, elk and quaking aspen onto the three old chairs that had already been donated to the cause.

Along the way, they offered each other encouragement and camaraderie that sometimes can be missing in a working artists life.

Other people dont really get what I do all day, Joyner said. Its nice to spend a day with people who do get it.

Jones said he moved to the Bitterroot from Frenchtown because of its growing community of artists.

People think of Bigfork or Big Sky as places where artists congregate in Montana, he said. The Bitterroot Valley is kind of a sleeper, but there are a lot artists here. Some pretty big names too.

Its one of the reasons I moved here, Jones said. This synergy of artists was attractive to me.

That still doesnt mean that artists get together for a work day all that often.

It wasnt just anyone who could get these three well-known artists to set-aside a day to volunteer their creative juices for a good cause.

We both get asked 30 to 40 times a year to donate artwork to a cause, Joyner said. Were trying to make a living tool, but when someone like Linda comes along and asks, its a no brainer.

With the help and support of her husband, Don, Linda Olson has been operating Bitterroot Therapeutic Riding for 17 years now. The organization provides therapeutic riding lessons to special needs children and adults at its facility just off Popham Lane north of Corvallis.

All three artists have known the Olsons for years. Theyve appreciated the help theyve provided to local artists when they owned a foundry and to all the people who gained new confidence through their therapeutic riding program.

I know that Linda has impacted a lot of kids, a lot of people, Jones said. When she asked if I could help out, I said sure.

Jones first met Don Olson in the early 1980s when he was still a college art student. He and some other students were helping to build a foundry at the school and gone to see Olsons foundry that was in Missoula at that time.

He wound up doing on my first university projects, Jones said. If Don or Linda need anything, you cant help by say yeah. Theyre good peopleTheyre some of those unsung heroes. Im sure that the Bitterroot has hundreds of them, but they are a couple of the best.

Linda Olson said shes always appreciated the help provided by the community in raising the money needed to pay for scholarships for the children and adults that use their facility.

Besides the three men, local artists Loree West and Eleene Weege also painted chairs for the auction that will be held on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 5 p.m. at their arena on Popham Lane.

People can just follow the balloons to get there, Olson said. All of the proceeds will benefit special needs riders.

The event includes an all-you-can eat buffet, music, petting zoo and big bounce for the kids. The cost is $30 per person and free to children 10 and under.

Olson said people will find all sorts of different items in the silent auction.

I dont do live auctions, she said. I dont want to put people on the spot. Not everything is high end merchandise. We have 10 pounds of hamburger or a haircut for the kids. There have been some lovely things donated and some useful ones too.

The event has always gone a long way in providing scholarships for riders.

Ninety-nine percent of the people who come to the arena to ride dont have any money, she said. They are lucky to have enough gas money to get here. The scholarship fund is for both adults and children. Weve never turned anyone away.
Michael Curtis

Shakespeare told us that the quality of mercy is not strained, but he did not tell us that the quality of justice in the United States and in Britain regarding Islamic terrorism is not flawless. In both countries, recent verdicts of the courts did not fit the crime, nor truly appreciate the extent of evil forces of Islamist terrorism.

On August 31, 2016 the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York surprisingly overturned a lower court decision that had imposed a large fine on the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for supporting a number of terrorist attacks in Israel.

On September 5, 2016 the 49-year-old Anjem Choudary, the notorious and extreme Islamist preacher and his deputy, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, were sentenced at the Old Bailey, the British Central Criminal Court, in London by a British judge, Justice Holroyde, to 5 years imprisonment for swearing allegiance to and encouraging support for ISIS, and urging supporters to join ISIS in Syria.

All rational people can applaud the fact that Choudary was finally sentenced to prison but in views of his activities the sentence can be considered too short since the legal penalty for his offence can be ten years.

The judicial system, in Britain as in the U.S., certainly has to deal with the difficult and controversial problem of the line between legitimate expression of views and criminal act. Justice Holroyde in Britain held that Choudary was free to express his personal views, but the right to freedom of expression is not absolute. It is an offence to invite support for a proscribed organization. Choudary had crossed the line between legitimate expression of his views, ghastly though they were, and the criminal act of inviting support for an organization that was engaged in appalling acts of terrorism.

Justice Holroyde explained the prison term had been limited to 5 years on technical grounds. He held that although Choudary had certainly indirectly encouraged violent terrorist activity there was no evidence of a direct link between Choudary's words and any specific act of terrorism.

Nevertheless, it is a fair comment that the leniency was unjustified: all Choudary's behavior was to encourage action, even if he never threw a bomb himself.

For twenty years, Choudary living in democratic Britain had stayed on the edge of the law though it was obvious he was influential in spreading hate and encouraging young people to join terrorist organizations. His lectures and speeches were well attended. He used the power of social media to influence young Muslims.

The final straw for British authorities was that Choudary, and Rahman, crossed the line in swearing an oath of allegiance to ISIS and to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-styled Caliph of the Islamic State. Choudary asserted that obedience to the Caliph was an obligation for all Muslims.

Choudary's luck ran out because in June 2014 the British government banned ISIS and other organizations, including the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General-Command, as terrorist organizations. According to the British Terrorism Act 2000 section 12, a person commits an offence if he invites support for a proscribed organization or advances its activities. The Act explains that proscription refers to terrorism that is defined as when the use or threat of action is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause.

Choudary born in London, had been a medical student, then a student of law who became a lawyer, a solicitor, for a short time before becoming a main student of Omar Bakri Mohammed, the Syrian extremist militant leader whose ambition is to attack Europe in similar fashion to 9/11 in the U.S. This terrorist fled Britain after the July 2005 attacks in London in which he was involved.

As a result, Choudary became a professional preacher, enormously influential, linked to hundreds of British jihadists, and responsible for influencing about 500 men to join ISIS. One estimate is that he inspired a quarter of the Islamists linked to terrorism in Britain since 1999.

Choudary was the face of Radical Islam in his organizational activity and in his rhetoric. He was the mouthpiece of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who founded ALM, al-Muhajiroun. When ALM was banned in Britain it reappeared in different forms and Choudary became its leader. He was also the head of Islam4UK, a group proscribed as a terrorist organization in January 2010.

In what must be seen as a despicable and perverse act, Choudary on July 7, 2014, the ninth anniversary, applauded the London attacks of July 7, 2005, the series of suicide bomb attacks on public transport that killed 52 and injured more than 700 people. He was friendly with the two terrorists, Michael Adeboiajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered the British soldier Fusilier Lee Rigby in London on May 22, 2013, both of whom attended Choudary's rallies as disciples. He approved the brutal beheading of the journalist James Foley by Jihadi John in Syria in 2014. Equally, he was linked to Jihadi John's successor, the ISIS executioner Siddhartha Dhar. He spoke of Osama bin Laden as a "hero".

Choudary spoke at street corners as well as mosques, always spouting anti-British propaganda. He prophesized that Islamic flags would fly over 10 Downing Street, the home of the British prime minister, and in Washington, D.C. He literally wanted to change the face of London. He argued that Buckingham Palace should be turned into a mosque, and that Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square be destroyed.

He urged Queen Elizabeth, who he described as "ugly," to wear a burka. At a rally in the Central London Mosque he proclaimed that Muslims will destroy the "crusade," and establish the Islamic state. He is a true imperialist, calling for the Muslim faith to dominate the world. Using Solzhenitsyn's comment as he wrote inThe Gulag Archipelago about extremists and evildoers, Choudary's ideology gave him the long-term justification and the necessary steadfastness and determination to hold and to spread his message.

To some extent the mainstream media exacerbated the problem for Britain on the grounds of free speech but in essence providing ammunition to the enemy. TV, particularly the BBC on a number of occasions, and newspapers approached him for his predicable views. Choudary made skillful use of all facilities. He used Facebook, You Tube between August and September 2014, and WhatsApp, to send his message and had 32,000 followers on Twitter. Investigators found the extent of his technical proficiency: he had used 333 electronic devices.

Amazingly, if the mainstream media should be criticized for providing opportunities for Choudary, the British state actually subsidized him and so has been indirectly supporting terrorism. Choudary and his family of five children, who lived in a comfortable house in east London, obtained welfare benefits of 25,000 a year. With outrageous chutzpah, he urged his supporters to claim "Jihadseekers allowances," and argued that Muslims believed in the concept of living on welfare because the sharia law created a welfare state. He declared it is normal to take money from non-believers.

Choudary has given us fair warning: "we are going to take England." He gave us figures, even if some are inaccurate. Brussels is now 30% Muslim; Amsterdam is 40% Muslim; Bradford in England is 17%. Recent elections in a number of European countries, Brexit in Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, reflect this fact. Will the U.S. presidential election also do so?
NEW DELHI, Sept 10: A boiler exploded and triggered a fire at a packaging factory near Bangladesh's capital, leaving at least 12 people dead and 16 others injured on Saturday, officials said.

Several bodies were recovered from the five-story Tampaco Foils Ltd. factory in the Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka, fire official Mohammed Rafiquzzaman said. A doctor on duty at the Tongi Hospital said nine bodies were in the mortuary as officials waited for family members to identify them.

Nineteen people were brought to the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where three of them succumbed to burn injuries, said police official Mohammed Bacchu Mia.

Local TV stations said about 50 people were injured, indicating that the death toll could be higher.

Factory safety is a major concern in Bangladesh, which has thousands of garment and packaging factories that supply products to global clothing chains like America's Wal-Mart and Sweden's H&M.

In 2012, a devastating fire at a garment factory killed 112 workers. A year later, a multi-storied commercial complex housing five garment factories and offices collapsed, killing 1,135 people, mostly garment workers near Dhaka.

Rafiquzzman said the upper three floors of the factory were damaged because of the huge impact of the explosion and subsequent fire.

The accident took place as Bangladesh was preparing for a weeklong holiday for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha that falls on Tuesday. Most of the factory workers, who are from rural Bangladesh, usually go on leave to celebrate the festival with families.

The major accidents prompted Bangladesh's government, global brands and the United Nations to work together for improving safety standards in the South Asian country's factories.

Several major retailers, including some from North America and Europe, say Bangladesh's factories have improved their safety conditions significantly over the last few years following the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse, the country's worst industrial disaster.
Chitwan, Nepal: At least one down people have injured, among the five have reported serious, when three vehicles collided with each other at Piple along the Narayangadh-Hetaunda road section of the East-West Highway in Chitwan district on Saturday morning.

A passenger bus that was bound to Kalaiya with registration number Na 5 Kha 3743, Narayangadh-bound truck with registration number Na 6 Kha 6793 and another truck came from the same direction with registration number Na 4 Kha 8343 collided each other while former two were collided first.

The injured passengers are rushed to the Bharatpur medical college for treatment.
Senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospitalas (TUTH)

Kathmandu, Nepal: Senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospitals (TUTH) issued an eight-day long ultimatum to the government meet his demand on Saturday.

Organizing a press conference at the TUTH on premises, Dr. KC has warned that he would resort a fast-unto-death strike again for the ninth time if the government fails to meet his single point demand- implement the past agreements - by Sepetmber 18.

I will compel to launch another strike to exert pressure to the government to fulfill its own commitment made with us, Dr KC has said.

He had ended the eighth fast-unto-death on July 25 after signing a four-point agreement with the government.
Kathmandu, Nepal: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and the senior leader of the main opposition CPN (UML) Madhav Kumar Nepal held a meeting at the parliament secretariat, Singhdurbar on Friday.

The two leaders of the big two communist parties of Nepal met with the aim to mend the souring relations between the big communist parties after the Maoist sever ties with the CPN UML chairman KP Sharma Oli led government.

During the meeting, the leaders duo discussed on ranges of issues concentrating on the latest political developments and upcoming India visit of the Prime Minister Dahal.

Likewise, the two leaders also discussed about the amendment in the new constitution to address the grievances of the disgruntle parties and to implement the constitution by holding tree elections.

Though, the meeting did not bear any concrete decision, it has obviously helped to mend the relations between the two major parties of the country.
The Huntley Project School District has alleged in a civil suit that JGA Architects Engineers Planners and Fisher Construction cut corners with the design and construction of the district's high school.

The district broke ground on a new high school in 2009 after its high school was burned in 2008 by a group of teenagers who burglarized the school.

The school district contracted with Fisher Construction to build the school and with JGA Architects Engineers Planners to design the new $15 million building.

In 2013, the school district's facility director emailed JGA and Fisher about water leakage problems in the school, according to the civil suit filed Sept. 1 in Yellowstone County District Court.

In 2014, the facility director sent another message to JGA and Fisher about "soft spots" in the roof and nails that had either "backed out" or were backing out of the asphalt shingles in the roof, according to court documents.

In response, Fisher sent the school district a report from an engineering and environmental consulting firm. The consultants said the construction of the building was done according to the plans drawn up by JGA. The consultant said the moisture and ventilation problems were due to the "errors, omissions and defects" in JGA's plans.

JGA said the consulting company was wrong, and any problems the school was having was because of the poor construction by Fisher.

In 2016, mold growth and failure of the asphalt roof were both confirmed, and a complete redesign, removal and replacement of the roof is required, according to court documents.

This spring, the board approved a $580,000 bid for the work, which is being done by contractors that weren't involved in the previous job.

The Huntley Project School District has accused the companies of breach of contract, negligence, fraud and a breach of good faith and fair dealing practices.

The companies have not yet responded to the school district's complaint. The case was placed on Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses' docket.
Pokhara, Nepal: At least three people killed and eight others injured when a passenger jeep met with an accident at Dhairing-3, Salyan of the Prabat district on Saturday.

The ill-fated passenger jeep with registration number Ga 1 Ja 5102 met with the accident at this afternoon as it skidded off the road and fell about 60 meters down to a gorge.

The deceased have been identified as Ram Maya Damai, 50 of Jyamrukot VDC-3 in Myagdi district, Dil Kumari Budhathoki, 50 of Ribhan-9 in Kaski district and Hari Maya Pun, 60 of the same locality.

Damai had died on the spot while Budhathoki and Pun had breathed their last while receiving treatment at local hospital.

Among the injured, two persons have reported critical in condition. Seriously injured passengers are being rushed to Pokhara for better treatment.

It is said that the accident had occurred due to the reckless driving in the hilly and muddy road.
Young roster has high hopes for future. Only four seniors suited up.
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Last session, I sponsored Senate Bill 128, which created the School Funding Interim Commission, and required the Legislature to examine the school funding formula at least every 10 years, if not more frequently.

The commission met for 18 months and just wrapped up its work. The results are several strong, new proposals to adjust some components of school funding to meet some pressing needs of Montanas public schools, and additionally, to lay out a road map for policymakers and those who wish to know where school funding still needs work and what information has been gathered.

Before the commissions first meeting, staff members sent out a survey asking for public input on what the most important issues in school funding are at this time. Nearly 1,400 Montanans responded to the survey and said the No. 1 issue is recruitment and retention of teachers. Next on the list is equity and adequacy of state funding. At the first meeting, the commission took more public comment and heard from education stakeholders, parents, and citizens who added that special education funding and facilities were key issues. Finally, a dedicated group of parents and advocates raised the issue of funding for gifted students as a critical need.

As the commission dove into its work, it focused on the issues above. While many, many ideas were presented, and many of those will continue to be worked on by stakeholders and legislators, the following ideas received consensus votes and will be taken up by the Legislature for funding in 2017.

Regarding recruitment and retention of teachers, the Commission determined that while many Montana schools are having some difficulties, rural and isolated schools, far from major population centers, including reservation schools, are having the most trouble. To help solve this problem, the commission revised the Quality Educator Loan Assistance Program to guarantee isolated schools the ability to offer loan repayment in exchange for commitment to teach in isolated districts.

The commission also looked at creating a statewide health insurance pool that all schools could join to reduce costs and allow districts to direct more funds to teacher salaries. This idea is very complex and the commission will recommend that the Legislature take this up as a separate study next year.

Regarding facilities, the commission will recommend four bills. One will expand the InterCap loan program. One will allow districts to transfer excess funds into their building maintenance funds. Two will guarantee a pot of revenue for grants to districts for major maintenance projects like boilers, roofs and windows.

Three bills will be proposed to increase funding by up to $6 million for special education, including cooperatives. For several years, funding for gifted students has been stuck at $250,000. Another bill will be offered to increase gifted funding to $2.5 million dollars. Additionally, because this area of school funding is a complicated tangle of state, local and federal funds, a study bill will request that the Legislature take up special needs and gifted funding again next year to see if a better formula can be created.

Finally, the commission took a deep look at the complicated issue of how all districts tax themselves to pay for schools and how the state formula tries to equalize the differences between resource-rich and resource-poor districts. Much valuable information was pulled together from many sources and the education committees will be able to draw on these sources to ensure continued equity among districts.

The School Funding Interim Commission took its work very seriously and provided a forum for healthy and rigorous debate on education funding priorities. I am pleased to have served on this successful commission.
Off the coast of Indonesia the body of man washes up on shore near a small village. As he lies comatose in a hospital a doctor from Jakarta, Ailin, looks after him. When he regains consciousness only fragments of his memory remain. Ailin dubs him Ishmael for the time being, after the novel Moby Dick that she was reading when she waited at his bedside. A bond begins to grow between the two. Elsewhere, gang boss Lee escapes from prison and regains his criminal empire with a handful of incredibly deadly killers at his side. Word gets to him that a body washed ashore and it may be someone that he has been looking for.

In 2011 a little action film from Indonesia blew up the action cinema world and put its humble lead actor Iko Uwais on our radars from then until the end of time. After that came the equally successful and epic sequel three years later. Others from that small island nation have tried to stake a claim of their own but none have had the goods to attain the global reach that this series did. So one can be forgiven if they head into a screening of Headshot with those films in mind, and with Iko at the lead again have set up their viewing easel and are ready to paint this new film with the same brush. It is just that the Mo Brothers have not done that. They have gone right ahead, grabbed your bucket of paint and smashed it against the canvas.

Here is what the Mo Brothers have done with Headshot. Take an early scene from that film in 2011 where the police had tied up a resident of the apartment block and he was sitting at a small table. Remember? And as the cops were looking out the windows and to the door of the apartment this guy reaches under the table and draws out a machete that was wired underneath. It is excruciatingly slow and the shot ends just as he swings that blade towards the neck of a unsuspecting cop. That moment. That moment is where the Mo Brothers pick up from throughout their film. Not content to let our imaginations to fill in the blanks they spell it out for us. Violently. They will show you what that machete does when it meets that tender meat around your neck. This is where their horror legacy pops in and screams hello. Loud, clear, and with very colorful language. Red to be exact.

If you are familiar with the work of the Mo Brothers (Killers, Macabre and ABCs of Death) you know that tonally it has been nasty stuff. Scenes in Headshot like the prison break which frees our master villain right off the hop, or the wholesale slaughter of innocents that will set our hero's quest a rolling, may be difficult to watch. Maybe they even have you second guessing if what we are watching is an action film or perhaps it is a horror film after all. Hold up. Is this what we signed up for?

What these scenes achieve is this, these are the bad guys, and they are the baddest mutherfuckers in all of Indonesia. What their role is in Ishmaels life will be unveiled later on but for now their actions propel him through a world of fast action and brutal violence that at times will leave you white-knuckled and gasping for air.

I saw this on a friends status last night and asked for permission to share it with you because he perfectly summarizes what we were all thinking. And I agreed to do it like this

"As a handsome and talented filmmaker friend said The Mo Bros film Headshot is half NC-17 Jackie Chan film and half Chang Cheh climax.

And hes right. During the Q&A Timo talked about the influence that the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema had on the story structure of Headshot and it fits. The old Heroic Bloodshed films from Woo and To. The Police Story series from Jackie Chan. All were loaded to the brim with action and style but they also never forgot to include that melodrama that their fans back home adored. We do not necessarily have to buy into the budding romance between Ishmael and Ailin but it has to be at least believable for it serves as the motivator in Ishmaels quest when she is kidnapped by Lees henchmen.

This story structure also brings out emotional performances from the leads Iko Uwais and Chelsea Islan. Uwais also has to broaden his range like he never has before. As a burgeoning action superstar he will not asked do much more beyond what the Brothers have asked of him in Headshot but you get his frustration, his hurt and his emotions.

The emotional keystone to all of this is Ishmael's relationship with Julie Estelle's character Rika, Lee's right hand woman. By the time Ishmael has finally uncovered his past and his connection to Lee's gang he also discovers Rika's role in all of this and that weighs heavy on him. The physical and emotional toil of Ishmael's journey will come to a head on a beach, facing off against the knife wielding Rika. Ishmael has not choice but to go through her to get to Lee. Estelle further cements herself as a femme fatale if not in international action cinema then at least within the Asian region. Now that Estelle no longer has pitch black sunglasses covering half her face like she did in The Raid 2 the mythos of Hammer Girl took a hit, but Estelle proves herself more than capable of picking up Uwais' fight choreography

As far as Chang Cheh is concerned? Well, he may have been single handedly responsible for depleting the Shaw Bros studios budget for fake blood during his time with them. His classic Kung Fu films were some of the most violent and bloody as he was influenced by directors the likes of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. None of whom were slouches when it came to violence.

The action in Headshot showcases Iko Uwais growth as an action choreographer. There is no room for grace and grand gestures because what the Brothers have planned for us is gruesome and horrific violence. Sugarcoating is the thing that probably got lost in translation on its way to Indonesia. The climactic fight between Ishmael and Lee is the closest the film gets to showing that influence of early Shaw Bros films. Setting aside implements of destruction like guns and knives the two combatants opt for their lethal limbs instead. It becomes the classic showdown between the hero and the villain that we deserve as an audience after enduring so much brutal violence until then.

The camera work changes up between static and dynamic, moving from the rig to handheld the moment the energy changes. For the most part the Brothers and their crew do an amazing job of capturing the action, moving within its lethal circle, but still allowing us to see what is happening amidst the sparring. There are times where it did get too close, lost and tangled with the movement, but careful planning and execution by the Brothers flows with the action and largely does not get left behind.

When someone asks you what no holds barred action looks like you just point them in the direction of Headshot. Stand back and be prepared to pick up the pieces of their shattered souls.

Early on Headshot is a test of moral fortitude, but as the story progresses, characters are set, and motivations are clearer, it settles on its bloody course of action and carries it out with bombastic aplomb. It reminds everyone that you do not turn you back on Indonesia when talking about international action hotspots.

They have machetes.
Arriving fresh into LAX with only the clothes on his back, some cash in his pocket and a South African passport, Jacob King is given the full interrogation by the customs officials, "Are you working? Are you staying with family? How are you going to manage a vacation on 600 dollars?" King is a blank slate, the mysterious nature of his trip from Cape Town, to the so-called City of Angels is as oblique to us, as it is to the authorities. But King oozes comfort in his own skin, and the quiet self-possession Chadwick Boseman (42, Marvel Studio's upcoming Black Panther) starts Message From The King off on a confident step, reminiscent (to me, anyway) of John Carpenter's They Live.

Once on the ground, checked into the rattiest hotel this side of The Neon Demon, it apparent that King is not looking for work, nor is he here to see the sights. He has crossed the ocean looking for his sister, Bianca, who recently fallen out of touch. Drugs, gangs, or simply poverty might the cause for her disappearance. His investigation through the alien, urban landscape of 21st century Los Angeles runs the gamut: crooked cops, Korean grocers, failed actors, petty drug dealers, Balkan gangsters, hookers with that heart of gold, uber-rich movie producers, municipal politicians, and , ahem, dentistry. All of this motley crew, from the highest to lowest denizens of the city, get pulled in the gravitational orbit of hyper-cool avenging Robin Hood. King is a fountain of surprises (both physical and emotional), and so is this movie. I remember the first time I saw Chiwetel Ejiofor in Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, the electric feeling of a movie star arriving whole-cloth. I got that tingle here with Boseman.

Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz comes to America by way of South Africa to deliver a stylish, masculine noir in the vein of Get Carter and Point Blank infusing a keen outsiders sensibility how Los Angeles functions as the cinematic city of our dreams and nightmares (spot the naked homage to David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. for instance). For mood, cinematographer Monika Lenczewska delights in long shots of the impersonal downtown skyscrapers; her 35mm photography somehow resembles high-res digital, maybe those parts were done with drones. This is contrasted sharply with Bergman-esque close-ups of Boseman's beard-shadowed (but honest) face overlapping in the frame with Luke Evans' clean-shaven (but oh so slimy) visage. Alfred Molina (always a treat to see him show up against type) sits in a melancholy middle distance, his sallow impotence contrasted with the trappings of wealth success. The procedural elements of the film are easily swallowed with a spoonful of sugar. Kinetic, and surprisingly abrupt bursts of violence are welcomely original and effective. You will never look at a bicycle chain the same way again after this film, it is demonstrated here as the swiss army knife of hand to hand fighting. Astonishing stuff that is icing on the cake.

Message For The King is somewhat of a work-for-hire project for Du Welz. I heard it be told at one point the film was to be directed by Michael Mann, with a lot of A-list talent going through the usual revolving doors prior to the finished film. Things have landed in fine hands, however. Du Welz, mostly known for his 'alienated freakout cinema,' the hapless parents who lose their child in a foreign country in Vinyan, the trapped clown in Calvaire, the mis-matched honeymoon killers in Alleluia, shifts gears into confident mainstream thriller while retaining much his off-kilter sensiblity. In short, he directs the holy hell out of the picture, soaking the city in polyglot diversity and torrential rainfall - weird as that may feel in 2016 - like a contemporary Blade Runner. One of the films few sympathetic characters comments to King on the contraction of just how rank the city is in the rain, but how full of dreams it is in the sunshine. Du Welz prefers things wet, while South Africa, always hovers just off screen (or in a hazy 16mm flashback) like an unspoken promise, whispering, "The future, Mr. Gittes."
Many things slide under the radar where state government is concerned. Some are so egregious they need to be brought into the light of day and fully examined.

One such event is the Montana Department of Commerce granting a Montana tourism contract to a Wisconsin firm with little or no experience in destination or tourism marketing, even though several Montana firms applied for the contract and had the necessary credentials to do the job. This contract is for $7 to $9 million in Montana tax dollars a year.

Lets look at the known facts. A deadline had been set for applications and was known by all parties for months. A few hours before the deadline it was extended to allow for all parties to have time to submit the application.

The extension alone is not terribly troubling until you realize that the Jennifer Pelej, the Department of Commerce Bureau Chief, who is heavily involved with awarding this contract, just happens to have a cousin who is a VP account supervisor with the Wisconsin firm Hoffman York. Suddenly the plot thickens, but it gets worse.

To get the contract, a company must go through three extensive evaluations. After the first two the Montana company, Brickhouse from Great Falls, was the point leader. However, after the third round Brickhouse suddenly received failing scores in all seven categories and Hoffman York got superior rating in all seven. One of the categories is understanding of the Montana brand. How is it possible that a Wisconsin company with no presence in Montana knows more about Montana than a Montana company?

In order to qualify for the contract, Hoffman York formed a small partnership with a Montana company, Shortgrass, in order to have someone to attend meetings in Helena.

I am sure there is more to be revealed about this contract but at best it stinks of blatant cronyism when an out-of-state company gets a contract this large even though they have no experience in the field. Why werent Gov. Steve Bullock and Commerce Director Meg OLeary paying closer attention to this process? Were they complicit in allowing this to happen? I believe honest answers to the citizens of Montana are required from our leaders. No more cronyism and favoritism with our tax dollars.
This well-established Blog is worth visiting on a regular basis for a wealth of information of interest to Armenian nationals and to the Armenian Diaspora world-wide. Although it has a particular role in promoting international recognition of the Genocide, the Blog encompasses much more and includes many articles of general appeal to all those concerned with Armenian affairs. Much of the content is difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and the long list of links provided gives easy access to a plethora of material on social, political, religious, educational and cultural matters, and many news items from around the world.




Pretty much immediately after new-ish Board of Education President Matt Haney, who is also running for re-election in November, floated the idea of re-naming local schools in San Francisco for local figures of historical import rather than slaveholders  such as changing the name of George Washington High School to Maya Angelou High School, after the writer who herself attended George Washington  the administrator got plenty of flack, including a good amount of hate mail. You know, like this gem, which Haney posted in full on his Facebook page. "Were slaveholders wrong to have slaves?" A very provocative member of George Washington class of '90 wrote. "Yes, of course. But look at this: The lives of the slaves in America were far better than the lives they had in Africa."

Um.

Speaking to SFist, Haney clarified that he wanted to empower schools to choose names for themselves, rather than rename them at will, which he had no plans to do. My intention was always just to create a space for conversation, he added to the Examiner. To let school communities know that this option is available and to encourage school communities that want to explore a name that they have pride and value in, to do so.

Bill O'Reilly on Fox News was not a fan of the idea, or rather, saw fodder for his founding-father-worshipping fanbase: "Maya Angelou was a patriot who did a lot of good, but George Washington is a towering historical figure," the Ex quotes O'Reilly as saying on his program. That, and the original coverage, prompted a slew of calls and complaints to Haney, including racist remarks and threats of violence. Some people maybe twisted it to make it seem as though this was going to be a heavy-handed, sweeping change without any input or contribution for the community, when actually the goal was to the contrary, Haney said.

Also on Facebook, Haney wrote that he wanted "to be clear about something related to the school names conversation: Our focus as a district, and my focus, continues to be, as it always has been, 21st century educational opportunities for all of our students in safe, supportive and equitable learning environments." And, midst the hubbub he also posted this, a quote from Maya Angelou. "I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good."

Previously: Board Of Ed President Calls To Rename SF Schools That Bear Names Of Slaveholders
It has been 15 years since the horrific terror attack of Sept. 11, 2001, that rocked our nation and forever changed our world. With the barbaric acts of terrorists, 2,977 peoples lives were taken when four jet planes were hijacked and crashed into some of our nations most emblematic landmarks. In the wake of the collisions, 411 brave responders lost their own lives while attempting to rescue survivors and fight fires.

I dont revisit these facts lightly, nor do I think that any American could ever forget the loss and terror of that day. Rather, I begin this way because we must remain clear-eyed about the continuing threats we face as a nation.

Our great nation is a symbol of freedom and democracy the world over, which is something that Im unwaveringly proud. Yet, there people around the globe that hate us for our liberty and the freedom that comes with being American.

Thats why its so important that we keep the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay open. Guantanamo Bay plays a critical role in keeping enemy combatants off the battlefield and as a source of intelligence to combat future attacks. Earlier this year, I traveled to Guantanamo Bay, and I remember vividly the eerie chill I felt walking past the cell of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principle architect behind the 9/11 terror attack.

Individuals like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed do not belong on U.S. soil, nor do they belong in the custody of a nation that may allow them to return to the battlefield as we have seen before. We must ensure terrorists dont continue to spread radical Islam throughout the world, and Guantanamo Bay serves an integral purpose for just that.

Just six years ago another tragedy occurred on Sept. 11, the massacre of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya. We have had to mourn far too many innocent lives due to terror and Islamic extremism.

As the worlds largest military power and defenders of freedom and democracy, we must remain vigilant in our fight against terrorism and religious extremism.

When I was elected to the United States Senate I took an oath to protect and defend our nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, and thats an oath I take very seriously. Protecting the American people is our constitutionally mandated duty.

Im incredibly proud that Montana and the men and women stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base play such a vital role in keeping our nation safe. And as an American Im thankful to the men and women who so bravely serve our communities as first responders and our nation in the U.S. Armed Forces. I hope that all Montanans will take extra time to keep the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and their loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.
Of stories to dine out on, David Cornwell has an abundance. Or should we say John le Carre has? Cornwell's pen name overshadows the title on the cover of this, his first memoir, "The Pigeon Tunnel."

The name "John le Carre" attracts the audience, but it's David Cornwell confiding in us here, as if over dinner, then chatting long into the evening over snifters of brandy, or, as he unspools memories of Russia, glasses of vodka.

He is nearing his 85th birthday, so he reflects on his brief stint as a British spy during the Cold War and long career as a revered espionage novelist who does his own fieldwork.

Fans of le Carre's fiction will use this as a code book where they will match up characters from "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," ''The Little Drummer Girl" and other titles to the real people who inspired them.

To research the Palestine-Israel conflict for "Drummer Girl," for example, Cornwell works his way into the world of Palestinian liberation fighters and eventually wins an audience with Yasser Arafat. He interviews a Russian mafia boss to gather material for "Our Kind of Traitor." For "The Mission Song," he seeks out warlords in east Congo.

Film offers came early, so there are actors and directors to befriend. When hard-drinking Richard Burton, cast as the hard-drinking lead in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold," the 1965 film adaptation of le Carre's early best-seller, needs a pal to keep him steady, it is Cornwell whom director Martin Ritt summons to the set.

Sober-minded Alec Guinness, who plays George Smiley in two BBC miniseries versions of le Carre novels, encounters an actor showing up drunk and "the poor man might as well have gone to sleep on sentry duty," Cornwell recalls. But Guinness' anger gives way "to an almost desperate kindliness."

When Sydney Pollack, Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick call, Cornwell jets off to discuss impossible projects. "One day, I trust, it will be recognized that the best films of my work were the ones that were never made," he laments.

The title "The Pigeon Tunnel" comes from a much earlier memory. His conman father (the inspiration for le Carre's autobiographical novel, "A Perfect Spy") has taken him on a gambling spree in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

At a sporting club, the teenager David sees "well-lunched sporting gentlemen" shooting pigeons. He learns the surviving birds fly back to their home on the casino roof where they are doomed to be trapped in the tunnels that lead them again into shotgun fire.

It's a troubling image. Does it haunt him into his 80s because he's trapped by his own inherited nature? His father, Ronnie, looms, at last fully formed, in "Son of the Author's Father," a chapter saved for late in the book.

Roguish Ronnie cheats, lies, runs cons, sends others to prison for his crimes, beds women, goes to prison himself and still manages to send his sons to the best schools. Later in life, Ronnie takes advantage of his son's fame whenever he can.

In these pages, Cornwell becomes one of his most fascinating characters  the son who learns to dissemble at his father's knee, joins the British intelligence service and rounds out his life creating false worlds as a novelist.

"Sometimes I walk round him, sometimes he's the mountain I still have to climb," he writes of Ronnie. We listen and nod, sipping with pleasure, intoxicated by his words.
Summer movies tend to lean heavily on explosions, special effects and guys in superhero garb, while fall films tend to favor more diverse subject matters.

This is especially true for a number of upcoming movies that have been adapted from books. With movies that picked up where "The Da Vinci Code" and "Harry Potter" left off, it's fair to say people may be heading to the nearest bookstore before buying tickets to the corresponding popcorn flicks.

"The Light Between Oceans"

M.L. Stedman's 2012 debut novel tells the story of lighthouse keeper Tom Sherbourne and his wife Isabel. The couple discover a baby girl who washes up in a lifeboat. Raising "Lucy" as their own child, the Sherbournes' lives are turned upside down by the appearance of a strange woman who may be their daughter's natural mother.

Like the novel, the movie version -- which opened Sept. 2 -- centers on the moral dilemma of people and their actions. It stars Michael Fassbender ("X-Men: Apocalypse") and Alicia Vikander ("The Danish Girl").

"The Girl On The Train"

In Paula Hawkins' 2015's psychological chiller, "The Girl On The Train" features an alcoholic woman reeling from the resolution of her marriage who thinks she knows something about a crime involving the attractive couple she sees on her train commute every day.

The cinematic adaptation starring Emily Blunt ("Into the Woods") will hit movie screens Oct. 7.

"Inferno"

Harvard University's symbology professor Robert Langdon sure gets into a lot of trouble. He's already seen plenty of action in Dan Brown's previous "Angels and Demons," "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Lost Symbol" novels. In 2013's "Inferno," he find himself the target of an international manhunt.

Slated to open Oct. 28, director Ron Howard's "Inferno" has Tom Hanks returning to the role of the hapless educator.

"Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them"

How do you top Harry Potter? If you're J.K. Rowling, you write (with the pseudonym of "Newt Seamander") the "textbook" used by Potter and his fellow sorcerers-in-training and wait for the money to start pouring in.

Like Rowling, Eddie Redmayne ("The Theory of Everything") will be making a nice paycheck. Even though the movie version of "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them" won't hit theaters until Nov. 18, the "Theory of Everything" star has already signed on to star in two planned sequels.
9/11 was like nothing else, ever.

Pop culture is like everything else, ever. Familiarity is comforting: thats why movies get remade, and Billboard hits sound like other Billboard hits.

Its only natural that pop culture, for the last 15 years, has tried to comfort us about 9/11 in the best way it knows how: by taming it, domesticating it, making it fit into familiar tropes and uplifting formulas. Nor is this, necessarily, bad. When people  or cultures  undergo a shock, they search above all else for a way to process it.

You take it, and you try to cut it down to size, something that will make sense, says Dr. Harvey Greenberg, a New York psychoanalyst and pop culture writer (The Movies on Your Mind).

Those of us lucky enough to live through that day in 2001 still remember the sense of utter chaos, blind panic, as unimaginable things began happening, one after another: skyscrapers collapsed, airplanes plummeted, tsunamis of smoke barreled up Manhattan streets, traffic became paralyzed for 100 miles in each direction. Fear and disorientation overwhelmed us. Anything, it seemed, might happen next.

In moments of panic  psychologists say  we tend to blindly, feverishly search for parallels, analogies. Our minds rifle through our store of memory, looking for any clue that will give us a context, an explanation, a guide to surviving the crisis.

What our minds do in seconds, pop culture has been doing for a decade and a half. Its been searching its storehouse for familiar ways to frame the narrative.

Former Record photographer Tom Franklin didnt seek to create an icon of pop culture when he happened to shoot, on the afternoon of Sept. 11, three firefighters hoisting an American flag amid the World Trade Center ruins. But that image quickly took on a life of its own: reproduced in murals, coins, statues, figurines, postage stamps.

Of all the eloquent pictures that emerged from that day, why this one in particular? Almost certainly, because it bore a phantom resemblance to another image: the famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photo from World War II. Never mind that the situations were hugely dissimilar.

The Iwo Jima picture captured a moment of triumph. Franklins image conveyed  what? Pathos? Resilience? Defiance? No matter. It seemed familiar  and that above all was what was needed in the months immediately following 9/11. The unspoken message: Weve been through this before, and survived.

A year later, in his album The Rising, Bruce Springsteen framed 9/11 in familiar Springsteenian terms: working-man heroes saying goodbye to their girls, as they do what a mans gotta do.

I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher, sings a firefighters lady in Into the Fire. Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire.

Its said that Springsteen was inspired to create his album a few days after the attacks: a stranger rolled down his car window and said we need you now. Of all the people one might need after a national catastrophe, why Bruce Springsteen? Was it, perhaps, because ruined cities are old news to him (My Hometown, Jungleland)? Not to mention tough but sensitive guys in a tight place, and the girls who have their back? If we needed Springsteen after 9/11, maybe it was because of the special brand of first aid he offered: continuity.

People wanted someone who could speak for them, who could give them some hope, some resilience, says Eileen Chapman, director of the Bruce Springsteen special collection at Monmouth University. Who better than Bruce Springsteen, whose songs have been anthems to his fans?

It took five years for Hollywood to tackle 9/11 head on. The two big films that came out in 2006 were both hero narratives  one of the things Hollywood does best. There were, of course, 9/11 heroes  even if more of us experienced the day as stunned bystanders or, more tragically, as victims or grieving relatives.

But if you want your movie World Trade Center to star Nicolas Cage, and attract a mainstream audience, you will choose a fact-based story about two firefighters who heroically kept each other alive in the rubble for more than 12 hours. And if youre director Oliver Stone, you will have characters say things like Were gonna need some good men out there to avenge this! and Hes alive! They couldnt kill him!

The years other 9/11 film, the well-made United 93, about the 40 people who deliberately brought a hijacked airliner down over Shanksville, Pa. (there were also several TV movies on this subject), was less histrionic. But both films ultimately did the familiar Hollywood pivot: crafting a feel-good movie out of a feel-bad subject.

The same thing could be said about another, weirder 9/11 movie. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, tried to mix 9/11 and cute  another reliable Hollywood commodity.

A 9-year-old kid with Aspergers syndrome (Thomas Horn) mourns for his father, a 9/11 casualty, by roaming the city having wistful interactions with different New Yorkers in what one critic called a quest for emotional blackmail, cheap thrills, and a naked ploy for an Oscar.

Some less pretentious Hollywood films that indirectly referenced 9/11 may have come closer to capturing the way the day actually felt for many of us. Cloverfield (2008) was a low-budget horror movie in which some kind of gigantic monster  we see it only in glimpses  attacks New York. War of the Worlds (2005), Steven Spielbergs update of the old H.G. Wells alien-invasion thriller, included a resonant scene (which some critics thought was in bad taste) of survivors poring over a fence posted top to bottom with missing persons fliers and photos.

Both films relied on 9/11 associations for part of their impact. Both films achieved dread by keeping the action at ground-level, with the characters experiencing the catastrophe  as most of us experienced 9/11  as a series of bewildering, disconnected flashes. And both films gave viewers a way to exorcise their memories of the 2001 attacks: by recasting them in the familiar form of a horror movie.

Unlike a theater screen, TV cant overwhelm with size. The crushing horror of the World Trade Center attack doesnt necessarily come through in TV movies and documentaries (of which there have been many). But what TV can address, especially in the new long-form arrangement that has become popular in the last 15 years, is time.

The excellent Homeland (2011-present), partly by virtue of its drawn-out, episodic format, captures some of the low-level trauma weve suffered in the 15 years since 9/11.

Homeland is about our abiding fear of attack at home  and the dread that our ever-morphing, never-ending Middle East wars, like the twists and turns in the story of turncoat soldier Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) and suspicious CIA officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), might just go on and on and on.

Comedy, another TV staple, was thought to be forever off the table when the first plane hit the first building. Actually, it didnt take too long for the wisenheimers to weigh in on 9/11  with varying degrees of taste.

Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants was the first new South Park episode to air after the attacks (Nov. 7, 2001). In a 2004 Arrested Development episode, Tobias (David Cross) talks of his failed marriage is these terms: Well, I dont want to blame it all on 9/11, but it certainly didnt help.

Seth MacFarlane (who himself narrowly escaped being on one of the hijacked 9/11 planes) has especially pushed the envelope. When the diabolical baby Stewie, in a 2010 Family Guy episode, is asked his favorite holiday, he promptly replies 9/11. When Norah Jones tells Ted the talking Teddy Bear (MacFarlane) her nationality in Ted (2012) he responds, Whatever. Thanks for 9/11.

Inappropriate? Maybe so. But humor, too, is a coping mechanism. And yet another way that pop culture does what it does best  by cutting the worst cataclysm most of us have ever known down to familiar, manageable size.

Humor helps us, Greenberg says. Its like turning a telescope to look through the wrong end. Sick jokes are a way of distancing ourselves. Its a way of saying: if I can laugh at it, Ive mastered it.
SIOUX CITY | Olga Guevara is intently watching the U.S. presidential race, keeping tabs on campaign events, ads and viral videos.

"I am following very closely," Guevara said.

Guevara cares about a number of issues, such as the economy and jobs. But for her the prevailing topic aired in the 2016 race involves immigration law enforcement and possible policy changes. Because she is Latino, Guevara is part of a group that politicos are watching, so see if a crest of voting by that growing demographic will be one of the deciding factors on whether Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton or Republican nominee Donald Trump, wins on Nov. 8.

Guevara, 34, of Sioux City, said lots of Latino friends talk about the campaign. "It is very top of mind. It comes up in personal conversations."

Guevara saw some presidential candidate campaign events in the city prior to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, when she supported Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who eventually lost the nomination to Clinton, a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady.

"The Latinos right now are unsure of which is the best candidate. I know for sure they are not for Trump, but some are unsure about Hillary," Guevara said. "The goal for a lot of Latino families is to defeat Trump."

Trump, an outspoken billionaire businessman, has been a lightning rod on the immigration topic. He has vowed to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico and to deport the estimated 11 million people in the country without legal status. He's also said controversial things about immigrants, which Siouxland Latinos said have sped into conversations, to the point that he is disliked by many.

Steffen Schmidt, an Iowa State University political science professor, said the population boom of Latino people makes them a desired target for candidates and political parties to reach. Buena Vista University professor Bradley Best said the sizable Latino voting bloc could have a "determinative impact" on whether Clinton or Trump win.

The two professors said they expect Latinos to vote primarily for Clinton.

Both Trump and Clinton teams are vying for Latino votes. In response to Journal inquiries, the two campaigns did not predict a vote percentage of Iowa Latino voters they would like to land. Clinton's team has hired field staff who are fluent in Spanish to aid Latino outreach in some large Iowa cites, including Sioux City.

The number of Latino people is compiled in government statistics. Predicting Latino voter turnout is a difficult projection to make. Some cannot vote, since they are not citizens. Others have been slow to embrace the outreach from longstanding political parties, Best said.

"The challenge for Democratic candidates is to stimulate a spike in voter registration and subsequent turnout among Hispanics, two forms of political behavior where Hispanics lag other ethnic categories...Get them to the polls, and in close contests youll tip the scales in your favor," Best said.

250,000 LATINOS IN TRI-STATE

The most recent estimate has 173,594 Latinos living in Iowa (more than double the amount of 82,473 from the 2000 census), with big pockets near the Storm Lake and Denison areas. That ranks as Iowa's largest ethnic minority, at 5.6 percent of the state's population.

There are 167,405, or 9 percent of the population, Latinos in Nebraska and far fewer in South Dakota, with 22,119, or 2 percent.

According to Pew Center research culled from U.S. Census data, the nations Latino population has increased almost nine-fold from 1960 to 2014, moving from 6.3 million to 55.3 million. Of that amount, an expected 27.3 million will be eligible to vote in November.

Using a statistical modeling approach that takes into account trends in Latino voter turnout in the last several presidential elections, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials is estimating that roughly half of the eligible Latino voters, or about 13.1 million, will vote in the November general election. If that happened, it would be a jump of 17 percent from the number who voted in 2012.

The association estimated 11.2 million Latinos voted in November 2012, an increase of 1.4 million voters from 2008, for voting growth of 15 percent.

Eric Branstad, a son of Gov. Terry Branstad, is the state director for the Trump campaign in Iowa. Branstad said Latino voters are receptive to Trumps message because they recognize he will create jobs, strengthen law enforcement and keep America safe.

While the Hispanic community in Iowa is small relative to some states, we make every effort to share Donald Trump's message with all the voters we can, including them. We do this by attending events in the Hispanic community, like the Latino Heritage Festival in Des Moines, and speaking with Hispanic voters about the issues they care about most," Branstad said.

Kate Waters, spokeswoman for Clinton's campaign in Iowa, said Trump's plan to deport people won't play well with voters.

"Latinos reject Donald Trumps divisive candidacy and dangerous policies and are rallying to Hillary Clinton because shes committed to building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," Waters said.

IMMIGRATION A TOP ISSUE

In election cycles dating to 2004, the Journal has delved into analysis of where the growing Latino Siouxland population would land politically. Some may align with the Republican Party, since Latinos with a Catholic faith may support the party's opposition to abortion. On the other hand, the Democratic Party could have allure through a focus on the working class on wages and health care access.

Best said Iowa Latinos "are mostly working-class people who seek stability and long-term opportunities for their kids. The extreme characteristics of the Trump message -- consistent talk of building walls and mass deportation schemes  has repelled Hispanic voters in ways that are unrecoverable in the final two months of the campaign."

Amy Abraham is an attorney for the Mary J. Treglia Community House in Sioux City. At the nonpartisan agency, she helps a lot of Latinos and other minorities process immigration-related details, including work permits and citizenship papers.

Abraham said she can't say how many she deals with are registered voters who will take part in November, but noted Latinos are dialed into the presidential race. She said they frequently wonder how the outcome will impact U.S. immigration policy, such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA is a 2012 program that delays deportation for certain young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Abraham said the talk from Latinos who bring up the presidential race is heavily on Trump and rarely about Clinton.

"They don't say they are necessarily for Clinton. They say they would not vote for Trump. They are worried about Trump...There could be some (who don't speak about the race) who are really for Trump. But I wouldn't have any idea," Abraham said.

Ofelia Valdez, 31, of Storm Lake, Iowa, is a Latino without legal status so she can't legally vote. Valdez said she is asked for her recommendation by close Latino friends who will vote. She said many are torn, and she doesn't know how to answer.

She said being raised a Catholic, she doesn't like that Clinton supports abortion rights. "I am more on the conservative side," Valdez said.

On the flip side, she said it doesn't make sense for Republicans to push a full removal of people who aren't citizens. Valdez said many Iowa agriculture and other businesses don't have enough workers.

"Most of my female Latino friends are for Hillary...I don't think (Trump) is up to be running a country," Valdez said.

Elizabeth Alaca, 25, of Sioux City, said she will vote for Clinton. Alaca said Trump is a controversial candidate, but has no derogatory thoughts about him. She said she prefers Clinton's stance on issues.

"I like (Clinton's) education support," Alaca said.

Guevara, a Western Iowa Tech Community College student, plans to go into social work. Guevara said her family is uniformly for Clinton, which will mean about a dozen votes cast for the Democrat.

Guevara said Latinos she knows aren't looking to minor party candidates such as Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein. For Latinos with voting rights, "there is a big feeling to go out and vote," Guevara said.

Guevara said Trump is an unsupportable candidate, given his comments about women and minorities, since she is both.

"The way he rallies to divide people and just the ongoing verbal abuse against anybody, women -- unless you are white, he is against anybody," Guevara said.
SIOUX CITY | The Sioux City Public Museum has a new exhibit featuring a diverse selection of artifacts from its own collection. The exhibit, entitled "New to You: Recent Artifact Donations," will be on display through Nov. 27.

Since the exhibit happens to coincide with the beginning of a new school year, it emphasizes artifacts relating to Sioux City high schools and colleges, said Matt Anderson, curator of history. Most of the artifacts have not been previously displayed.

Other exhibit highlights include a world-class beaded Lakota cradle cover, a stone pillar from the Arthur Garretson Mansion that once occupied the site of the Morningside branch library, and a very early defibrillator built in Sioux City in 1954. The museums extensive photographic collection is represented in the exhibit with the slide show "Sioux City Schools 1857-2000."

The museum, 607 Fourth St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5 pm. Tuesday through Saturday, and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
OMAHA | The Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District Board of Directors on Thursday approved a fiscal year 2017 budget that will not raise the property tax levy.

The 0.038034 tax levy is the same as the fiscal year 2016 levy, which means that the owner of property valued at $100,000 would pay $38.03 in property taxes to the NRD.

"With our property taxpayers in mind, we continue to hold the line on tax levy increases. This is the 11th year out of the past 12 that the NRD has decreased or held steady its tax levy," NRD general manager John Winkler said in a news release.

The NRD includes Dakota County and a portion of Thurston County. Other counties in the district are Sarpy, Douglas, Washington and a portion of Burt.

The budget calls for $22.8 million in revenue from property taxes. Total spending is estimated at $70.5 million. State and federal grants pay a large portion of the costs of the NRD's projects, which include construction and maintenance of flood control levees, dams, recreational trails and other infrastructure.
URBANDALE, Iowa | A state task force comprised of stakeholders from across the alcoholic beverages industry met Friday to take a first, introductory step toward changing Iowas alcohol laws.

The group, convened by Gov. Terry Branstad, held its first meeting Friday at the Urbandale Public Library. The group plans to meet another half-dozen times before making recommendations to the governor and state lawmakers prior to next years legislative session.

Debi Durham, director of state economic development and a task force co-chair, said some portions of the states alcohol laws are impeding economic growth. She said she hopes the group can suggest changes to state law that create more economic opportunities but won't negatively affect public safety or the three-tier system.

I do think that we will come forth with a plan that we can agree to that is a responsible plan for growth, said Durham, a former Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president.

John Gray, a Sioux City attorney, also serves on the 14-member task force, which was named last month.

In their initial comments, stakeholders expressed a desire for clarified and streamlined state alcohol laws.

A central issue sure to come before the task force is whether distilleries that sell spirits such as whiskey and vodka should be allowed to sell the product they make on-site, as is currently permitted for craft breweries and wineries.

Wed like to be treated the same way as breweries and wineries, said Garrett Burchett, a task force member and an owner of Mississippi River Distilling Co. in LeClaire. Weve worked on legislation for five years. We think we have a pretty good thought of what that looks like. Wed like an opportunity to vet that with this group.

Beer wholesalers have pushed back against such changes. They say it would upset the three-tier system around which state alcohol laws are built: an independent distributor must operate between the manufacture and sale of alcohol.

I understand the governors purpose of (the task force). Hes looking at economic development, said Robert Fahr, a task force member and president of Fahr Beverage in Waterloo. But basically, we as an industry, we were built on the three-tier system.  By having the wholesaler, were protecting the distribution to all people on an equal basis.

The state has carved out exceptions to the three-tier system for small breweries and wineries. Distilleries are asking for the same consideration.

Those in border towns see the issue as especially pressing; all six states that border Iowa and 36 total allow distilleries to sell spirits by the glass.

Were losing some business, said Matt Johnson, a task force member and owner of Barleys Bar and Grill in Council Bluffs. People are going (across the border into Nebraska), not to Iowa.

Stephen Larson, the other task force co-chair and administrator of the states Alcoholic Beverages Division, said the groups work is important because the industry is changing with the recent explosion of craft breweries, wineries and distilleries.

This industry, your industry, is changing rapidly, Larson said. "And we must be able to adapt fairly and rapidly."
HELENA  Republican-leaning websites Friday posted stories questioning trips that Gov. Steve Bullock and administration officials have taken to Missoula and the Kentucky Derby.

The governors office says the trips were, respectively, to conduct state business, and to fulfill Bullocks role as head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Newstalk KGVO's report that Bullock also traveled to Puerto Rico is wrong, said Bullock's spokeswoman.

It did not happen, said Ronja Abel, the governors spokeswoman. She said the governor has never been to Puerto Rico.

The website posted photos of the governor and some of his staff members at the Kentucky Derby in 2015 and claimed the governor also took another trip in March 2015, "most likely to Puerto Rico."

Bullock and state Commerce Director Meg O'Leary attended the Kentucky Derby last year as part of a Democratic Governors' Association event hosted by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Bullock was head of the DGA in 2015.

Each time the governor goes to a DGA event, he is staffed by a senior-level member of the administration, Abel said. In a total of three trips to the Derby, he has traveled with Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Bovingdon, former Deputy Chief of Staff Kevin OBrien, former Chief of Staff Tim Burton, current Chief of Staff Tracy Stone-Manning and OLeary. The senior staff was there to represent the states interests and meet with counterparts from other states, Abel said.

Travel costs were paid for by the association, Abel said, and the state plane was not involved. Abel said an employees time on trips like this is a mix of work and comp time. If time is spent on political activities, the employee is not on the state dime, she said.

Montana law bars state officials from political activity at taxpayer expense.

DGA tax documents show OLeary received a $1,900 travel check cut by the PAC in March 2015  one of more than a dozen such payments, totaling nearly $26,000, the group reported sending to Bullock and members of his inner circle since 2013.

As evidence for its suggestion of a trip to Puerto Rico, KGVO cited a Helena Independent Record story which pointed out that March 2015, the month O'Leary got the reimbursement, the only DGA activity was in Puerto Rico.

Actually, the March payment from the DGA to O'Leary was a reimbursement for the tickets she bought to go to the upcoming Kentucky Derby, and there was no other trip.

Bullock was invited to attend a Paul McCartney concert in August 2014 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula by University of Montana President Royce Engstrom.

Of course (the governor) is going to attend an event where hes in the room with people like Larry Simkins, the co-chair of his Main Street Montana project. He met with other economic development offices, Abel said.

OLeary flew to Missoula for the concert because of her role as commerce director; Main Street Montana falls under her department, Abel said.

Another website, Republican Uprising, run by Matthew Monforton, a state lawmaker from Bozeman who did not seek re-election, also published a post Friday on Bullocks travel.

Questions surrounding the trips come six months after Bullock first announced he would refund the state for the cost of oft-criticized plane trips hed taken to campaign stops. And in recent weeks, Montana Republicans have called on Bullock to further reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the Missoula trip.

GOP critics who slammed Bullocks concert attendence wasted little time in blasting his Derby trip.

We've seen a governor and now a member of his cabinet abusing state resources to fly to rock concerts, birthday parties and campaign fundraisers, said Amy Lunde, campaign manager for Republican governors office hopeful Greg Gianforte. What is a cabinet member doing at a dark-money DGA function?

Meanwhile, revenues are in steep decline, our economy has seen negative economic growth for the last two quarters, and the commerce director is unfairly outsourcing $7 million a year in business to an out of state firm as a gift to a family member of a staffer.
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Associated Banc-Corp, a bank holding company, provides various banking and nonbanking products to individuals and businesses in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. The company operates through three segments: Corporate and Commercial Specialty; Community, Consumer, and Business; and Risk Management and Shared Services. Its Corporate and Commercial Specialty segment offers lending solutions, including commercial loans and lines of credit, commercial real estate financing, construction loans, letters of credit, leasing, asset based lending, and loan syndications; deposit and cash management solutions, such as commercial checking and interest-bearing deposit products, cash vault and night depository services, liquidity solutions, payables and receivables solutions, and information services; specialized financial services such as interest rate risk management, foreign exchange solutions, and commodity hedging; fiduciary services such as administration of pension, profit-sharing and other employee benefit plans, fiduciary and corporate agency services, and institutional asset management; and investable funds solutions such as savings, money market deposit accounts, IRA accounts, CDs, fixed and variable annuities, full-service, discount and online investment brokerage; investment advisory services; and trust and investment management accounts. The company's Community, Consumer, and Business segment offers lending solutions, such as residential mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, personal and installment loans, auto loans, business loans, and business lines of credit; and deposit and transactional solutions such as checking, credit, debit and pre-paid cards, online banking and bill pay; and money transfer services. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 215 banking branches. Associated Banc-Corp was founded in 1861 and is headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
General Mills, Inc. manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates in five segments: North America Retail; Convenience Stores & Foodservice; Europe & Australia; Asia & Latin America; and Pet. It offers ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and salty snacks, ice cream, nutrition bars, wellness beverages, and savory and grain snacks, as well as various organic products, including frozen and shelf-stable vegetables. It also supplies branded and unbranded food products to the North American foodservice and commercial baking industries; and manufactures and markets pet food products, including dog and cat food. The company markets its products under the Annie's, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Blue Buffalo, Blue Basics, Blue Freedom, Bugles, Cascadian Farm, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, EPIC, Fiber One, Food Should Taste Good, Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Gardetto's, Go-Gurt, Gold Medal, Golden Grahams, Haagen-Dazs, Helpers, Jus-Rol, Kitano, Kix, Larabar, Latina, Liberte, Lucky Charms, Muir Glen, Nature Valley, Oatmeal Crisp, Old El Paso, Oui, Pillsbury, Progresso, Raisin Nut Bran, Total, Totino's, Trix, Wanchai Ferry, Wheaties, Wilderness, Yoki, and Yoplait trademarks. It sells its products directly, as well as through broker and distribution arrangements to grocery stores, mass merchandisers, membership stores, natural food chains, e-commerce retailers, commercial and noncommercial foodservice distributors and operators, restaurants, convenience stores, and pet specialty stores, as well as drug, dollar, and discount chains. The company operates 466 leased and 392 franchise ice cream parlors. General Mills, Inc. was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Designed to meet the needs of pre-service as well as professional school library media specialists, this blog provides news and information, book and technology reviews, and professionals sharing their expertise.
Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now...
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.Fifteen years after the carnage of 9/11, American foreign policy is still mired in its fossilized dogmas and dangerous delusions. The consequences are obvious. Iran, the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism and long an avowed enemy of the United States, has filled the vacuum of our ignominious retreat from the Middle East, even as the mullahs move ever closer to possessing nuclear weapons.Russia, Irans improbable ally, bombs civilians in Syria, kills the Syrian fighters we have trained, bullies its neighbor Ukraine, consolidates its take-over of the Crimea, and relentlessly pursues its interests with disregard for international law and contempt for our feeble protests. Iraq, for which thousands of Americans bled and died, is now a puppet state of Iran. Afghanistan is poised to be overrun by the Taliban in a few years, and ISIS, al Qaeda 2.0, continues to inspire franchises throughout the world and to murder European and American citizens.So much for the belief, frequently heard in the months after the attacks of 9/11, that this changes everything. The smoking ruins and 3000 dead surely had awoken us from our delusions that the end of history and a new world order had followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, a world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak, as George H.W. Bush said in 1990. The following decade seemed to confirm this optimism. Didnt we quickly slap down the brutal Saddam Hussein and stop his aggression against his neighbors? Didnt we punish the Serbs for their revanchist depredations in the Balkans? With American military power providing the muscle, the institutions of international cooperation like NATO, the International Court of Justice, and the U.N. Security Council would patrol and protect the network of new democracies that were set to evolve into versions of Western nations and enjoy such boons as individual rights, political freedom, leisure and prosperity, tolerance for minorities, equality for women, and a benign secularism.The gruesome mayhem of 9/11 should have alerted us to the fact many Muslims didnt get the memo about historys demise. Indeed, long before that tragic day in September, we had been serially warned that history still had some unpleasant surprises. Theorists of neo-jihadism like Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb for decades had laid out the case for war against the infidel West and its aggression against Islam. It is the nature of Islam, al-Banna wrote, to dominate not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and extend its power to the entire planet. So too the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini: Those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world, which is why Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers. The kidnapping of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Tehran by a group called Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam [Khomeini] sent us a message that we were engaged in the religious war the jihadists warned would come. But few of those responsible for our security and interests had ears to hear or eyes to see.Not even when the words became bloody deeds did we listen. The bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks in 1983, which killed 241 servicemen, was supported by Iran and executed by its proxy terrorist group Hezbollah. Our refusal to respond reflected our failure to take seriously Khomeinis vow to spread his revolution to the whole world. The humiliating televised abuse of our dead soldiers in Mogadishu in 1993, followed by our withdrawal, was exploited by Osama bin Laden in his sermons as signs that America had foundations of straw. That same year came the first World Trade Center attack, which killed six and wounded 1,042, an operation inspired by al Qaeda and traditional jihadist doctrine. In 1995 five Americans were killed by al Qaeda operatives at a training facility in Riyadh. In 1996 a truck bomb exploded in front of a residential complex housing Air Force personnel near Dhahran, killing 19 Americans. In 1998 al Qaeda bombed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Twelve Americans died in Nairobi. And the last warning came in October of 2000, when the destroyer Cole was attacked by a fishing boat loaded with explosive. Seventeen sailors died and 39 were wounded.Yet during these two decades of attacks that proved the jihadists words were not just bluster, we did little in response. We interpreted the attacks as crimes, not battles in a war, and reflections of poverty, autocracy, or vague evil, rather than as the fulfillment of Allahs divine commands. Instead, Clinton launched cruise missiles that made a lot of noise but accomplished nothing, limited as those attacks were by timid rules of engagement. His foreign policy was internationalist and idealist, seeing the spread of democracy and the promotion of human rights as paramount in foreign affairs. Americas presence needed to be reduced in the world, and the use of force should be a last resort, and even then carefully calibrated to avoid international condemnation and American casualties. Dialogue and outreach were preferable, for the jihadists were just defending traditional values, as one State Department official said. The wages of that delusion were the burned and dismembered bodies in Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.This history is worth reviewing, for all these mistakes, these failures of imagination, these indulgences of naive idealism, these sacrifices of our security and interests to political advantage, all comprise the everything that 9/11 was supposed to change. But here we are, fifteen years later, with a similar history of folly. George W. Bush pursued a delusional program of democracy promotion in Iraq and Afghanistan, with scant appreciation for the profound cultural differences between Islam and the West. But he at least left his successor a stabilized Iraq, which Obama quickly abandoned just to fulfill a campaign promise and assert his progressive bona fides. Then Obama blustered that Syrias Assad has to go and laid down red lines that were not to be crossed, only to do nothing when they were serially crossed, and to sacrifice this countrys credibility in his pursuit of the disastrous deal with Iran, our inveterate enemy stained with four decades worth of American blood. ISIS was allowed to flourish in the vacuum created by our withdrawal, creating a Hobbesian war of all against all, whose beneficiaries so far have been our rival Russia and our sworn enemy Iran.Perhaps worst of all, Obama has turned jihad denial into a fatal disease. He is not alone in this delusion, for religion of peace and nothing to do with Islam have been mantras chanted by our foreign policy savants going back to the Iranian Revolution. No matter that al-Banna, Qutb,Khomeini, bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the mullahs in Iran all have grounded their violence and aggression in Islamic scripture and tradition. Our smug Western analysts and apologists dismiss the jihadists exegesis as a hijacking or distortion of the true Islam, presuming to understand the Islamic faith better than pious Muslims do. So we half-heartedly fight an enemy whose name we cannot even say, and whose religion of violence we desperately distort into a religion of peace and tolerance. Meanwhile, like Bill Clinton and now Obama, we use bombs and drones as telegenic marketing tools to hide our failure of nerve and short-sighted political calculations.So fifteen years later, we still sleep. And dont expect things to change after November. Neither candidate has shown any indication he or she is willing to make the hard decisions required to destroy ISIS and reaffirm American prestige. Trump issues vague threats about bombing the shit out of ISIS, while Hillary chatters about smart power and coalitions, doubling down on Obamas failing policy. But no one proposes using the mind-concentrating levels of force, including troops as well as bombs, necessary to repair our broken foreign policy in the Middle East. Too many voters are in an isolationist mood, sick of wars and casualties, and concerned more about jobs and the economy.The attacks on 9/11 supposedly changed everything. When it comes to foreign policy, they didnt. One shudders to think how much worse the destruction and death will have to be to wake us up.
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Megan Sarikaya (on left) and Christina Sita (on right) attended the Unite to Face Addiction Rally in Washington D.C. in October 2015. (Photo courtesy of Christina Sita)

HOLLYWOOD, Md.

Megan Sarikaya sees her six months of incarceration a "blessing."Going to jail saved her life, Sarikaya said during a ceremony in the courthouse in Prince Frederick two weeks ago. She and four other graduates are the very first to successfully complete Calvert drug court's adult treatment program.Sarikaya started using drugs since she was about 11. She dropped out of Patuxent High School when she was 16 and spent her 21st birthday in Calvert Detention Center last year. In August of 2014, she was stopped by the police for not wearing her seatbelt, according to charging documents. When the police searched her car, they found cocaine, morphine, clonazepam and paraphernalia."Being in jail calmed me down," Sarikaya said. The detention center is also the place where she met her fiance Christina Sita. Sita was in jail because her father had revoked her bond and had her arrested because he was concerned for her safety.One time in 2012, Sita said her father came home to find her lying on the floor unconscious from an overdose."By the time the paramedics came, my lungs were over 80 percent depleted. I was dying," Sita said. "My father saved my life."When Sita was 18, she used heroin to replace the prescription drugs she was on to manage her pain from a major back surgery she had five years prior. Sita said she had been through "overdoses, institutions and deaths." Now 26-years-old, she had witnessed overdose deaths and experienced overdoses more times than she could count.Between the age of 18 to 25, Sita had been either in jail or under treatment. She said she had checked into nearly every rehab in the state and even tried treatment facilities in Florida and Connecticut. She also tried the drug court in Anne Arundel County in 2012. Unlike Sarikaya, she didn't complete the program.In about two months, the couple would celebrate their two-year anniversary of sobriety. Drug court worked for one of them, but not the other.The program is probably not going to be 100 percent successful in helping everyone transition into a drug-free life, said Mark Chandlee, presiding judge of Calvert's two year-old drug court.But helping one person is helping the entire community, he said.On a personal note, each individual's success in reclaiming a life from drug addiction is immeasurable. Advocates also say drug courts save money by reducing drug crime and keep communities safe.On a policy-debate level, some critics argue that results from drug courts are not as rosy as advocates claim to be. Because the results of drug courts are closely tied to how the judge and staff members run the programs, the success rates of drug courts across the country vary. However, most studies suggest that drug court participants are significantly less likely to relapse to drug use.Since the establishment of the first drug court in Miami-Dade County in Florida in 1989, the nation has more than 3,000 drug courts in half of all U.S. counties. What separates the drug court from the usual criminal justice system is its intention, which is to rehabilitate, not to punish.The drug court model uses a carrot-and stick approach. It sanctions those who fail drug tests or miss meetings with their case managers. The punishment can be as light as writing essays to as serious as being incarcerated for a short period of time. But when participants remain drug-free for the last 180 days of the program, appear on time for their monthly reviews, stay in school or keep a job and complete all requirements of the 18-month program, they are rewarded with not only graduation certificates, but also reconsiderations of their original sentencing.As the drug epidemic became more visible on everyone's radar in recent years, the drug court is also considered by many part of the effort to fight crime."You fix the drug problem; you fix the crime problem," said Molly Owens, coordinator of Calvert's drug court. She said the goal of drug court is to set up a solid drug-free foundation for the participants so that they never come back to the criminal justice arena.Calvert's drug court is funded by the state's Problem-Solving Courts. The drug court has one presiding judge, one coordinator and two case managers who handle more than 70 cases. The County Board of Commissioners also pitched in to fund one caseworker position when the state wouldn't. As the drug court grows and accepts more participants, the cost of running the program has also gone up.The drug court received a grant of about $ 200,000 from the state judiciary last year, according to Chandlee.The program welcomed its first participant in February 2015. Sarikaya was amongst the first group to be accepted into the program. The drug court has a screening process that generally excludes sex offenders, some drug dealers (because dealers do not necessarily have addiction problems) and people with a violent criminal record. Chandlee said the acceptance rate is about 50 percent.Participants are largely introduced to the program through referrals."Referrals can come from anyone," Chandlee said. It could be from a public defender, a lawyer, a judge, a probation officer or a concerned family member.Calvert's drug court doesn't function alone. The drug court collaborates with state's attorney, public defenders, probation officers, public health professionals, correction officers and police officers from the Sheriff's Office. Drug court also mandates each participant to volunteer 24 hours with Farming 4 Hunger, a non-profit organization founded by Bernie Fowler Jr. in 2012.Chandlee also meets with the members of the Citizen Advisory Counsel four times a year. The counsel is made up of doctors, business owners and other professionals from the community, who volunteer their time and energy to help participants with their rehabilitation process such as job searching.But at the end of the day, the decision to stop using drugs is up to each individual."There was nothing in the world that can ever change me. Drug court, jail, nothing, but me," Sarikaya said. "I had to help myself. Period."She believes that "anybody can overcome anything." But the motivation has to come from within.Sita agreed. She said the caseworkers and the judge in Calvert's drug court are more involved in each participant in comparison to the drug court in bigger counties such as Anne Arundel County. But seeking treatment all over the state and out-of-state made her realize that no rehab or institution was going to save her."Every time I tried to stop using, it was to try to please the courts or please my family or try to get my materialistic things back. It was never for the right reasons," Sita said. Until she realized that her life would not get better as a drug addict, she "changed everything" for herself and she has been able to maintain her sobriety for nearly two yearsthe longest since she first used heroin at the age of 18.Sita said she sees the value of a drug court, which is to provide a safety net and a structure for people with drug-related offenses to get back on their feet.For Sarikaya, she was grateful for all the help she received from the drug court and the community. She started working as a recovery specialist for the Calvert County Health Department about two weeks ago. She said she wanted to give back to the community that helped her during her lowest of lows. Her job also helps her remember her struggles."You got to remind yourself on a daily basis where you come from, and that makes you not want to go out and do it again and relapse," Sarikaya said.
Hundreds of opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline project declared a partial victory at a Friday afternoon rally on the Capitol lawn, which began by being rain-soaked but later was sun-kissed.

As the rain gave way to sunshine, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II praised the efforts of those coming from all over the country before a crowd that may have totaled as many as 500 at one point, saying it was a day for fellow Native Americans to be proud.

A public policy win is much stronger than a judicial one, Archambault said.

On Friday, a U.S. District Court judge rejected the tribes request for an injunction over the project. Shortly after the decision was announced, the U.S. Departments of the Interior, the Army and Justice issued a joint statement saying construction will not be allowed near or under the Missouri River until further review is completed. The three agencies also asked Dakota Access LLC, a partner of Energy Transfer Partners LP, not to undertake construction within 20 miles of the river on either side.

Rally organizer Kirsten Kelsch said the U.S. District Court ruling was disappointing but wouldnt impact the event atmosphere. She said the momentum to stop the project continues to grow.

Were going to keep pushing through with our agenda, Kelsch said. The end goal doesnt change, but its going to take us a little bit longer to get there.

Three main groups converged for prayer, singing and dancing, and to celebrate their efforts: participants from the United Tribes Technical College International Powwow; several Oceti Sakowin Youth Relay Runners who ran from North Dakota to the Disctrict of Columbia in July; and a number of individuals who have been camping next to a pipeline construction site near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

As a hard rain dissipated and participants stopped huddling together, rally participants said they were thrilled about the assist from federal agencies, vowing that they will continue to fight on.

Bryan Twilling Sr., of Sisseton, S.D., said the pipeline fight meant so much to him that he recently quit his job as a substitute teacher to come to the protest camp with his wife and children.

This is who its for. This is why Im here, Twilling said. Its still, I think, a victory. No one wants that in their backyard.

Twilling, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton-Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, said hes been impressed by the dozens of tribes coming together.

Well continue to fight. Im not ready to go home yet, he said.

Megan Tobin of Bellevue, Ohio, said she and four of her friends were at the Capitol for the same reason: future generations. She said they had been watching media reports online in recent weeks with growing concern.

We couldnt watch it online anymore, said Tobin, adding that her group arrived earlier this week for a short stay at the camp, bringing donations and supplies.

She, too, had been moved by people, native and non-native, coming together.

Amazing. Ive been brought to tears many times, Tobin said.

For Brandon Strong of Flint, Mich., his reason for wanting to protect water hit close to home: Flint has made national headlines in the past year over lead contamination in the citys drinking water.

They dont get very many victories, so this is great for them, Strong said of Native American tribes. I feel like this is a victory for everyone here.

Strong, an organic farmer who specializes in growing medical marijuana, said the location of the proposed river crossing was questionable.

"It almost seems like its intentional to pollute the water, he said.

Dakota Access LLC has been working on the 1,172-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline which, when completed, would originate near Stanley in western North Dakota and end near Patoka, Ill. If completed on schedule before the end of the year, the nearly $3.8 billion project would transport as many as 450,000 barrels per day of Bakken crude and have a future maximum capacity of 570,000 barrels per day.

LaDonna Allard, one of the protest camp organizers, told a few rally participants near the police lines that the step taken by the three federal agencies was a major one. However, she said the fight must go on.

We will be here, standing until every pipeline is out of the ground, until my world is put back together again, Allard said.
Carey Duwan Dickerson, a/k/a "Fats," age 41, of Abell, Md. (Booking photo via SMCSO)

LEONARDTOWN, Md.

Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at so.md/expungeme.

Melvin Jerome Maddox, a/k/a "Melly Mel," age 50, of Lexington Park, Md. (Booking photo via SMCSO)

(Sept. 10, 2016)The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office Vice Narcotics Division today released the following incident and arrest reports. The Division is an investigative team comprised of detectives from the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office and Federal Drug Agents (HIDTA Group 34). The Division was established on September 1st, 2007.Detectives identified Carey Duwan Dickerson, a/k/a "Fats," age 41, of Abell, as a distributor of heroin and cocaine. An indictment was issued on Sept. 8 with four charges for an incident which allegedly occurred on June 30. A search and seizure warrant was executed on his home on Sept. 9 and detectives recovered heroin, cocaine, a digital scale, cell phones and more than $500 in cash. As that investigation came to completion, detectives were alerted to an incident which took place at the home of a 16-year-old in Abell on Aug. 22. The investigation revealed the suspect lives near the victim and approached her home when adults were not present. He inquired about the presence of others in the home before he offered money for sexual favors, specifically oral sex. The suspect was observed leaving the area of the victim's home by witnesses. Detectives continued the investigation. After a review with the State's Attorney, the case was presented to the grand jury. An indictment was issued and Dickerson was arrested at his home without incident and charged with soliciting a minor.Detectives began making undercover purchases of cocaine from Melvin Jerome Maddox, a/k/a "Melly Mel," age 50, of Lexington Park. Detectives indicted Maddox on Sept. 7 and received multiple arrest warrants the following day. On Sept. 9, he was observed in the Dameron area conducting drug sales when detectives observed a 3-year-old child in the vehicle. A traffic stop was conducted by uniformed deputies and a K-9 deputy. Maddox exited the vehicle, threw a baggie containing more than 13 grams of cocaine (street value $1,320) and attempted to flee on foot. He was apprehended and transported to the detention center where he was charged with Possession of cocaine, Resisting Arrest and the open indictments for Distribution of Cocaine. Detectives recovered more than $500 and a cell phone from his person.There was a female occupant of the vehicle who, along with, Maddox and other persons, have potential charges outstanding pending a review by the State's Attorney.A search warrant was later executed on his residence and detectives recovered a digital scale with cocaine residue, packaging materials and nearly $700.00. A stolen Maryland motorcycle registration was recovered as well.
Elimination mania hit Mohawk Racetrack on Friday evening as the Campbellville oval hosted a long list of talented trotters for the William Wellwood Memorial and the Elegantimage Stakes.

$35,000 Elegantimage Stakes Eliminations

The winning streak is now four-in-a-row and counting for Caprice Hill, who stormed home in :26.4 to capture her elimination in a career-best clocking of 1:52.4.

Randy Waples hustled Caprice Hill right to the lead from Post 6 and the Tony Alagna trainee successfully sliced out splits of :27.1, :56.4 and 1:26 before turning on the jets and leaving her foes in her dust. Celebrity Eventsy sat a pocket trip throughout and grabbed the runner-up award, while Emoticon Hanover came first-over and settled for the show dough.

The daughter of Kadabra-Bramasole now owns a 7-3-0 record from 10 starts this season for owner Tom Hill of Hamilton, Ont. The 14-time winner recently surpassed $1-million in career earnings.

Flowers N Songs won as she pleased in the second elimination for the duo of driver Yannick Gingras and trainer Paul Reid.

Gingras got away fifth with the homebred while Side Bet Hanover threw down the first quarter in :27.3. Flowers N Songs tipped off the rail as the field headed into the backstretch, and she quickly powered to the top. She cruised past the half in :57 and then stormed by the three-quarter marker in 1:24.3 before kicking home in :28.4 to stop the clock in 1:53.2. Dream Child came on strong to be a lapped-on second, with Royal Charm rallying from last to finish third.

Bob Key of Leechburg, PA bred and owns the three-year-old daughter of Deweycheatumnhowe-Pleasures Song. Unraced as a rookie, Flowers N Songs has made up for lost time by manufacturing a 9-6-2 record from 23 starts this season. Shes stashed away more than $360,000 to date.

The top five finishers from each elimination advance to the rich final. Here's how they'll line up on the gate:

$436,000 Elegantimage Stakes Final

1. Emoticon Hanover

2. Worldclass Hanover

3. Flowers N Songs

4. Caprice Hill

5. Side Bet Hanover

6. Royal Charm

7. Dewdle All Day

8. Celebrity Eventsy

9. Dream Child

10. Tymal Tempest

$30,000 William Wellwood Memorial Eliminations

All eyes were on heavily-favoured Rubio in the first elimination, but a break behind the starting gate took him out of contention and left the door wide-open for another youngster to step up and score a major win.

That youngster was What The Hill, who posted an impressive victory in 1:55.4 for catch-driver Chris Christoforou. Trainer Ron Burke had to call a last-minute audible when programmed driver Brett Miller was stranded in the U.S. after plane issues grounded him along with fellow teamsters Dave Miller, John Campbell and Corey Callahan.

Christoforou got away fourth with the son of Muscle Hill- K T Cha Cha while Signal Hill marched to the lead and chopped out the first quarter in :28.4. As soon as the field hit the backstretch, Christoforou hit the throttle. What The Hill rocketed off the rail and rolled to the lead. He sliced out remaining splits of :58.3 and 1:27.4 before using a :27.4 kicker to fend off a determined Signal Hill. Third prize went to a hard-charging Jake.

The victory improved What The Hills record to 3-3-0 from seven starts for the partnership of Burke Racing Stable LLC, Our Horse Cents Stables, J And T Silva Stable LLC and Deo Volente Farms LLC. The $15,000 payday bumped the rookies earnings to $243,233.

It was a similar storyline in the second elimination as race favourite Victor Gio IT made a backstretch miscue, which turned out to be great news for Seven And Seven. The homebred turned a two-hole trip into a 1:56 victory for Team Durand.

Longshot Soho Hanover cut out fractions of :27.4, :58.2 and 1:27.3, but he couldnt fend off the pocket-sitting Seven And Seven in the closing strides. Tom Durand urged his colt home in :28 to post the win by a length over King On The Hill and Soho Hanover.

Trainer Tom Durand co-owns the son of Chapter Seven-Alley Oop with his wife, June, and partner Allan Smith of Oakville, Ont. From six starts the colt has managed to assemble a 3-1-0 record while banking $51,768 in the process.

The top five finishers from each elimination advance to the rich final. Here's how they'll line up on the gate:

$350,000 William Wellwood Memorial

1. Real Lucky Day

2. Seven And Seven

3. What The Hill

4. King On The Hill

5. Victor Gio IT

6. Mountain Of Love

7. International Moni

8. Signal Hill

9. Jake

10. Soho Hanover

$30,000 Fillies & Mares Preferred Pace

Lady Shadow was an impressive winner in front-stepping fashion for driver Yannick Gingras and trainer Ron Adams.

The five-year-old daughter of Shadow Play-Lady Camella got award third, but she motored to the lead shortly after Delightful Hill sliced out the first quarter in :26. Once in charge of the speed, Lady Shadow zipped through middle panels of :54.2 and 1:22.3. A closing quarter in :27 earned her the comfortable win in 1:49.3 over Katie Said and the hard-closing Bedroomconfessions.

David Kryway, Carl Atley, Edwin Gold and BFJ Stable share ownership on the 23-time winner who improved this years record to 7-2-1 from 14 starts with the win. Shes closing in on $1.4 million in career earnings.

To view results for Friday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Friday Results  Mohawk Racetrack.
Standardbred Canada President and CEO Dan Gall has issued the following letter to the SC membership with respect to the uncertainty over the future of Fredericton Raceway.

Dear Members,

On behalf of Standardbred Canada, I would like to express support that a long-term lease agreement is negotiated and agreed upon in the immediate future between Horse Racing New Brunswick and the Fredericton Exhibition Limited.

We greatly respect and promote that both parties continue to work collaboratively and cooperatively in reaching agreement.

We believe that horse racing in Fredericton represents an important contribution to the city, province and country. Having a long-term agreement between the two parties will encourage a positive outlook for the overall industry including the sport, economy, those that work in it, and of course for the horse racing fans that have frequented Fredericton Raceway for generations.

As Canada celebrates its 250th anniversary of horse racing next year, it would be a terrible loss for the industry and our nation to lose a heritage site like Fredericton Raceway, one of Canadas oldest racetracks.

We are hopeful that both parties support this position and encourage all industry partners to work collaboratively with government on a strategy for long term sustainability of the industry.

On behalf of Standardbred Canada, we thank you in advance for your support and assistance with this issue.

Regards,

Dan Gall

President & CEO

Standardbred Canada
After Horse Racing New Brunswick (HRNB) issued a statement questioning its future at Fredericton Raceway, the owner/operator of the racetrack has issued a response to the HRNB letter.

Mike Vokey, Executive Director of the Fredericton Exhibition told Trot Insider that the President of Fredericton Exhibition Limited (FEL), Gus Mazzuca sent a letter to HRNB President Kathy MacLean requesting a meeting "to discuss a long-term lease on July 22 and there was never an official response received."

According to Vokey, FEL leased the racetrack facility including the bars, out buildings, racetrack, grandstands, parking lot, and lounge to HRNB for $1. FEL "has taken action against HRNB as a result of; the inability of HRNB to race the agreed race schedule at the facility, the inability of HRNB to provide financial records to show how the revenue generated at the facility is spent if not for racing, and prove the facility is properly managed."

Vokey went on to say that "FEL has always and continues to support harness racing in Fredericton" and that they have requested a meeting with HRNB to discuss the future of harness racing at the facility.
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Bernie Altman, a beloved mental health advocate and retired teacher, died Thursday two weeks after suffering horrific stab wounds and other injuries at his Kelso home.

He died at about 4:40 p.m. at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, a spokesperson for the family confirmed. He was 92.

Altman was reportedly beaten and stabbed by his son David Altman in his Kelso home on Aug. 25. Friends say David Altman had suffered from severe mental illness for years. He is now being held without bail on charges of first-degree attempted murder and kidnapping. David Altman will be evaluated to determine his competency for trial, according to court documents, but his arraignment has not been scheduled. (It was not known whether the charge will be increased murder now that Altman has died.)

It was a tragic ending for a man who had dedicated his lifes work to helping the mentally ill.

Friends say his childrens mental illnesses became a catalyst for his advocacy work. In 1979, he and his wife, Marcia, help to found the Alliance on Mental Illness in Cowlitz County that eventually became the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)-Cowlitz. In 2013, the group merged with the Clark County arm of the national organization to form NAMI Southwest Washington.

He is one of the kindest, most considerate people I know. He was always so grateful for everything, yet he was a real advocate for social justice, said Peggy McCarthy, executive director of NAMI Southwest Washington

His activism took him into the political realm. He ran for a state House of Representatives seat in the late 1970s, and he worked with former state legislator George Raiter on a bill to create a statewide regional support system for people affected by mental illness.

I thought the world of him, Raiter said about the first time he met Altman.

A native of New York, Bernard Bernie Altman moved to Comerton, Mont., after completing college to teach in a small high school. There he met and married Marcia. They were two of four teachers at the school.

In 1948, the two moved to Kelso so Altman could teach English at what was then Huntington Junior High School. He and Marcia had two children, Rosalie and Hillery Jack. Hillery Jack later changed his name to David.

(Bernie) was very, very instrumental in Cowlitz County not only as a teacher in the school district for 30 years, but he was member of many support systems, said Janis Housden, who worked with Altman in the behavioral health care system.

His sense of social justice also bled into his work fighting for the elderly. He produced a monthly senior news publication for a local social service agency, which was later published by The Daily News in the 1990s.

He was very well known as an advocate of the mentally ill, but he was also an advocate for seniors. It gave the senior community their own voice, said Dave Rorden, an elder care lawyer and former City Editor of The Daily News who worked with Altman.

Friends described Altman as sharp-witted and energetic.

He had a wry sense of humor. He was from New York City, so he had a little different personality from a lot of people you run into our here, Rorden said.

Daily News reporter Rick McCorkle shared a desk with Altman for many years. At the time Altman was in his 70s, but would still show up focused and plugging away every day. He loved to play pickle ball and would often try to get other seniors in the area involved in the racquet sport.

Even as he entered his 90s, Altman continued to volunteer with NAMI Southwest Washington. He was also active with Retired Teachers Association and AARP.

He had the progressive, forward-thinking mindset of someone 50 years his junior, Housden said.

Rorden described him as a tireless advocate. He made sure that the issues stayed in the forefront. He will really be missed.

In the last year, Altman lived most of the time at his Kelso home, but for part of the time he stayed at the Canterbury Inn, where Marcia, 96, now lives, McCarthy said.

They were still in so much in love, McCarthy said of the couple.

A service will be held at Canterbury Inn but has not yet been scheduled. The family is still accepting donations to defray the costs of his two week hospitalization. With the help of NAMI Southwest Washington, Altmans daughter, Rosalie Olds, has created an account at Fibre Federal Credit Union for friends and family to donate to help cover his medical bills.
Cleon Moen told the court Friday that he still loved his wife, Michelle Moen, but Judge Michael Evans sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole for murdering her a year ago almost to the day.

Moen was sentenced in Cowlitz County Superior Court following a lengthy hearing in which he himself addressed the judge.

I loved that woman, he repeated several times  but never once apologizing during the 30-minute discourse.

A jury last week found Moen, a 73-year-old Longview resident, guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome Sept. 6, 2015, slaying of Michelle Moen, 58. She died from strangulation and was found with ax wounds to her head. Moen then attempted to take his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning, according to police. He was armed with two pistols at the time.

Defense lawyers had tried to prove that Moen was not mentally capable of premeditated murder, but jurors deliberated only about two hours before returning a guilty verdict. A member of the jury, who asked to remain anonymous, said Friday that Moen seemed as sharp as a tack during his testimony and that his defense didnt add up. Jurors were convinced of his guilt from the very start of their deliberations, the juror said.

She felt that the sentence was appropriate.

Prosecutors had argued that Moen had killed his wife in retaliation for pressing domestic violence charges against him in 2014. They were getting a divorce when the murder took place.

On Friday, Michelle Moens friends and family told Judge Evans about what she had meant to them.

Everybody loved her and all the love she had to offer everyone, said Brad Miller, Michelles son.

He did not have the right to take my mother from me, Miller continued, speaking of Cleon Moen, his stepfather. Im doing the best Ive ever done in my life and now I have no parents to show it to. I lost both parents on that horrific day.

Friends and family held each other as they cried and took turns recalling memories of Michelle Moen.

This picture here is of my sister, said Denise Carr, pointing to a framed photo of Michelle on horseback. She loved to train her horses for barrel racing and she loved and enjoyed training young people who loved to ride. That was her passion and she lost it all.

Carr described her and her sisters upbringing in poverty. Michelle and I, all we had was each other growing up. It wasnt an easy life but we made it, Carr told Evans.

We fought really hard to give our family and children the best life possible.

Prosecutor Eric Bentson asked Evans for the life sentence without parole.

Life without parole isnt really even enough for whats happened [to Michelle] but its the best thing thats available under the circumstances, Bentson said, referencing Gov. Jay Inslees moratorium on the death penalty.

After Evans handed down the sentence, Michelle Moens friends and family wept again.

Tears of joy, said Sheila Meyer, a friend of Michelles. Tears of joy.

Public defender Matthew Dekoatz argued that Moens status as an elderly man as well as his alleged mental health problems warranted a reduced sentence.

During his address, Moen shared intimate details of his relationship with his wife as well as details of those moments in Michelles bathroom when he killed her. Moen repeated several times that he loved that woman.

Judge Evans, though, expressed disgust for Moens comments and said he was moved by the tributes to Michelle Moen.

She sounds like a great person, a great woman, a great mother, a great grandmother, Evans said. A loving person.

I contrast that with the descriptions Mr. Moen gave of her, Evans continued. Not once did I hear an apology. Not once did I hear Im sorry. Not once did I see or hear any ounce of remorse. I heard criticisms. I heard belittlement, I heard unkind things. Personal things that shouldnt be aired in public. To me thats frankly frustrating.

Evans said he saw no convincing evidence that Moen was mentally compromised.

This was a crime of planning, Evans said. I disagree with Mr. Moens statements that he loves her. No, that is not true.
Work on a Colorado Street sewer line will require drivers to slow down starting at 7:30 a.m. Monday, according to the City of Kelso.

A temporary above-grade sewer bypass pipeline system will be installed so contractors can clean and inspect a 42-inch sewer pipe. The temporary piping will cross Colorado Street midway between Clinton Street and 13th Avenue.

Where the bypass pipeline crosses the roadway, two 12-foot wide road ramps will be installed to allow vehicular traffic to continue to use Colorado Street. The ramps are expected to be in place until Oct. 1.

Warning and speed signs will be in place, and drivers in vehicles with low-clearance vehicles are encouraged to use alternative routes.
Tiangong-2: Second space lab by China will launch next week; All you need to know

Chinese space agency is all set to launch its second spacelab Tiangong-2 next week. Long March 2F rocket will lift up the spacelab and both the entities have been transported to the launch pad located at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, yesterday. Tiangong-2 will test life support systems and refueling technology for its 60 ton modular space station.

Tiangong-2 will be placed in an orbit of 393 kilometers above the Earth and it will help in studying fundamental physics, biology, fluid mechanics in microgravity, space science and will monitor Earth from space. In addition, it has the capability to measure the topography of the oceans with very high precision which will enable scientists to study Earths gravity field.

Tiangong-2 has another payload named POLAR which is gamma-ray detector. It was developed by the collaboration of three countries  China, Switzerland, and Poland. POLAR will study Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), the most energetic event in the universe. According to reports, POLAR will work for two years and will observe a total of 20 GRBs.

If everything goes according to the plan then Tianzhou-1 (Chinas first refueling and cargo vessel) will visit Tiangong-2 in the first half of the next year. Long March 7 rocket will be used to blast Tianzhou-1.

China is also preparing Tianhe-1, a core space station module for the launch in 2018 which will be lifted by the most powerful Chinese rocket  Long March 5. In addition, Chinese scientists are also making Hubble-like telescope which is scheduled for 2020.

The vast majority of space technology being developed is dual-use, and so serves Chinese security interests as well, says Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program and a professor at the US Naval War College. China understands the military advantages reaped by US space capabilities for many years, and wants those same capabilities.

International Space Station will retire in 2024 and Chinese space station is a promising alternative. Other space agencies are looking forward to collaborate with China as Chinese station can become the international base for astronauts in coming years.
tech2 News Staff

Facebook has now taken down September 11 conspiracy story from automated Trending Topics. Machines and algorithms are not perfect and need constant human supervision to function correctly. This was proved correct once again when recently Facebook algorithms had pushed a conspiracy theory article claiming that "9/11" was a "controlled demolition."

Facebook removed human editors. (https://t.co/PdljXr2Cry) Now it is telling me 9/11 was caused by bombs, not planes. pic.twitter.com/X7Ug9khNVR  Jessica Contrera (@mjcontrera) September 9, 2016

The article entitled "September 11: The footage that 'proves bombs were planted in Twin Towers'," published by British tabloid 'The Daily Star' was promoted in the "Trending" topics section on the social media website as reported by Mashable. This is the second time when Facebook algorithms put in place to decide trending topics, has failed in as last few days.

This is the lead story in Facebook trending for #AppleEvent. O.K. pic.twitter.com/I6jwRT5g6h  Matt Navarra  (@MattNavarra) September 8, 2016

Earlier, the algorithm promoted a Siri Joke posted by FakingNews as news for Apple iPhone 7 event. These blunders come in light after Facebook made changes to how the "Trending" topics are chosen to stop any bias from directing the selection of stories. Facebook had removed the article from "Trending Topics" and changed the trends to reflect a local article on 9/11 as reported by the Washington Post.

We've also seen another hoax story surface on Facebook's trending section after a fake article claimed Fox News host Megyn Kelly was fired. The company had pulled the shutter on human editor after facing flak towards its bias selection of stories. Looks like, everyone would now want the human editor back or the least we could ask is improved algorithms.

The move, away from human editors who pick the "Trending" topics for the website happened after a massive controversy around "Trending" topics were picked. According to an interview, the editors at Facebook had a strong bias against politically conservative news as reported by Gizmodo. Facebook had to go in damage control mode with several meetings with conservative leaders and revamped structure on the selection of "Trending" stories.

This error is a far-cry from the recent report where Facebook censored the Vietnam-War era photograph of 'napalm girl' from the articles posted by a newspaper in Norway. The decision was reversed by the company after Norway PM joined the campaign by news publications in the country to call out Facebook on its blunder.
tech2 News Staff

The global recall of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 does not seem to help the company from the embarrassment apart from the confirmed financial loss. The company issued a statement apologising to consumers who had pre-booked Note 7, for the delay in the shipment. The statement clarifies the issue that the company found with battery cell and is now shipping Samsung Gear VR free of cost with the Note 7 along with Rs. 3,300 worth Oculus content voucher to deliver the best experience with the shipped VR headset.

This comes right after three Australian airlines banned the use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 during the flight or to be operated by flight operators. U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still mulling over banning the Note 7 in flights all across the USA.

The trouble started after widespread reports of exploding battery in the latest flagship Note 7, in the Galaxy Note series. These reports followed a detailed report by XDA where the phone was throttling the performance despite top end internals. In fact, the discussion gained traction after XDA and The Verge referred to each other while talking about the performance of Galaxy Note 7.
FARGO -- John North is glad the parents of Jacob Wetterling finally know what happened to their son after he was snatched from a rural road in St. Joseph, Minn., in 1989. Hes gratified they can finally lay him to rest.

But North, formerly of Fargo, is still waiting for the same for his youngest daughter. In a phone interview last week from his home in Albuquerque, N.M., North said he holds out hope that day will come.

A decent Christian burial would mean a lot to me, North said.

The tragedy the North family has endured is at this point a mirror image of the Wetterlings. Jacobs parents agreed to a deal struck by prosecutors allowing their sons confessed killer, Danny Heinrich, 53, of Annandale, Minn., to avoid criminal charges in exchange for helping find the 11-year-olds body. He did plead guilty in a separate child pornography case.

Jeanna Norths killer was convicted of murdering her, but her body has never been found.

She was also 11 years old when she disappeared, on the night of June 28, 1993, while Rollerblading to her north Fargo home from a friends house less than a block away.

Kyle Bell was charged and convicted of Jeannas murder in 1999. Bell had told them he dumped her body off a bridge over the Sheyenne River, but in 14 river searches, they never found a trace.

Its believed to be the first such conviction in North Dakota lacking the victims body, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers.

Would North rather be in the Wetterling familys position, knowing the answers?

You have to deal with what dice was dealt, North said. What was done is done. Hes in prison, and my daughter is still missing.

Bell is serving a life sentence for Jeannas murder at the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, Ariz.

North said he still prays Bell will show remorse and reveal exactly where he put Jeannas body, but isnt holding his breath for that.

Its unfortunate that the killers of our children dont have the balls to tell us where their remains are and go to their grave keeping that with them, North said.

North is glad there are strong sex offender registration and notification laws now, but they didnt come in time for Jeanna or Jacob.

Bell, who had done time for sexual molestation in South Dakota, was not required to register as a sex offender at the time.

If I had known, I would have moved my family out of that neighborhood in one day, North said.

Now 64 and retired, North lives in the same city as his oldest daughter, Jessica, while his second daughter Jennifer lives in Casselton. He has five grandchildren. North remains single; his ex-wife Sue died in 2009 at age 58.

Their youngest, Jeanna, would be 35 years old in December.
Mexico joins Philippines, Brazil with dengue vaccine

AFP, Mexico City :

While the world awaits a Zika vaccine, the first ever injection against dengue fever is spreading, with Mexico becoming next week the latest country where people can get the shot.

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi is presenting its Dengvaxia vaccine to doctors at an event in eastern Mexico on Saturday, while people aged nine to 45 will be able to get the shot from their physicians from Monday.

After public programs were launched in the Philippines and Brazil's state of Parana this year, the company is rolling out the vaccine in the private sector in Mexico while health authorities prepare a public immunization plan.

The head of Sanofi's dengue program, Guillaume Leroy, told AFP in Mexico City that the company already has one million doses ready in the country. Leroy said it was difficult to estimate how much the vaccine will cost in Mexico as it will depend on the distribution networks and the public vaccination program.

The mosquito-borne virus costs governments around the world $18 billion a year, Leroy said.

"We estimate that in Mexico and in other countries that the benefits will outweigh the costs of the (vaccine) intervention," he said.

The company will have a "fair policy throughout the world and affordable for health authorities."

Mexico was the first country in the world to give regulatory approval to the vaccine in December last year. Seven others followed suit, including Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and the Philippines.

Sanofi is awaiting authorizations in 18 other countries.

The fast-growing disease infects as many as 400 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has endorsed the vaccine.

Sanofi's research and development work took 20 years, costing more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion).

Now, Sanofi and other pharmaceutical firms are racing to find a weapon against Zika, which like dengue is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

"Developing a vaccine against Zika will be easier after developing a vaccine against dengue," Leroy said, noting that the viruses share genetic similarities.

"All these investments (on dengue) through more than 100 collaborations worldwide allow us today to gain a lot of time on different vaccinal approaches" against Zika, he said.

Some 70 countries and territories have reported local mosquito-borne Zika transmission, with Brazil by far the hardest hit and the WHO declaring it a public health emergency.

Zika causes only mild symptoms for most people such as fever and a rash, but infected pregnant women can give birth to babies with microcephaly, a deformation marked by abnormally small brains and heads.




UN Chief urges `appropriate action` over NKorea nuclear test

AFP, United Nations :

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged the Security Council to take "appropriate action" in response to North Korea's fifth nuclear test.

Ban condemned the underground nuclear test "in the strongest possible terms," branding it "yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council."

"I count on the Security Council to remain united and take appropriate action. We must urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation," he told reporters.

Ban spoke ahead of an emergency meeting of the council requested by the United States and Japan to discuss Pyongyang's fifth and most powerful nuclear test to date.

North Korea's state media said the test, which came after a series of ballistic missile launches, had realized the country's goal of being able to fit a miniaturized warhead on a rocket.

The blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site had a yield of 10 kilotons, according to experts.

The council has strongly condemned North Korea's missile launches and vowed earlier this week to take "further significant measures" against Pyongyang.
Pence releases tax returns, while Trump remain a secret

Republican vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence comments after receiving a national security briefing in Indianapolis on Friday.

AFP, Washington :

Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump's running mate released 10 years of tax returns on Friday, but his billionaire boss still refuses to do so, leading critics to cry foul over his lack of transparency.

Mike Pence's tax returns are quite simple compared to the financials of bombastic real estate magnate Trump.

Pence reported that he and his wife Karen earned a total of $113,026 in adjusted gross income last year, most of it from his salary as governor of Indiana and including nearly $9,000 in pensions or annuities.

They paid $8,956 in federal income taxes, at an effective tax rate of 12.40 percent.

The Pences were able to obtain a relatively low tax rate thanks to losses and tax breaks they claimed, including $8,923 in gifts to charity.

Their 2015 income was the lowest of the 10 years of released tax returns, though in all years they brought home a six-figure income. The peak came in 2009 and 2010, when they earned more than $187,000.

"The Pence family has been honored to serve their state and their nation for the past 16 years, while raising three great children and putting them through college," said spokesman Marc Lotter.

"These tax returns clearly show that Mike and Karen Pence have paid their taxes, supported worthy causes, and, unlike the Clintons, the Pences have not profited from their years in public service."

Every major US presidential nominee since Richard Nixon has released their tax returns before the election, but Trump has repeatedly punted on the issue.

In releasing Pence's returns, Trump's campaign again said Friday that the candidate "plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit."

Trump's rival for the presidency, Democratic nominee and former first lady Hillary Clinton, has described Trump as "dead wrong" for saying that his tax returns were not the concern of everyday Americans.

"He clearly has something to hide," she said this week.

Christina Reynolds, a deputy spokeswoman for Clinton's campaign, added: "As prominent Republicans have speculated, Trump's returns could reveal further ties to Russia and its oligarchs, the truth about his personal wealth, or more lies about his charitable contributions. But we won't know until we see them."
Students speak: Peace can guarantee sustainable development

We asked, you answered. Students say that social progress is possible in conflict, but peace-building is crucial to the development process

War and violence cost the global economy $13.6tn (10.2tn) in 2015, according to the annual global peace index. Terrorism is at a record high and the effects of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have been felt far beyond the region. Worldwide, a record 65 million people were forced to flee their homes last year, with one in every 113 men, women and children a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. What are the implications of all this for development? Can the global goals be realised if countries are beset by conflict? Is progress impossible without greater emphasis on peace-building? We asked students to give us their views. Below is a selection of the best responses.

International collaboration on peace-building is paramount

In developing countries, peace and development often coincide.

[My country], Pakistan, was conceived out of a struggle for independence against the British followed by a bloody separation from India. At present, the country's peace is severely compromised by Taliban attacks, sectarian violence and the international military operations of the US. Pakistan developed a strong military and strove to become a nuclear power, often at the cost of social development. Like me, many would argue that conflict prevention, or preparation for war, has made the government take a narrow view of development and prevented it from realising its potential in terms of industrialisation and social development.

I believe engaging in the problem of chicken and egg, with respect to development and peace, is a digression. The need to collaborate on an international level to promote peace-building cannot be stressed enough, whether or not it is a condition of growth and development.

Zahra Khan, London School of Economics, UK

Development is on the back foot in Kashmir

As [the Indian economist and philosopher] Amartya Sen famously noted, "Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means." Development should be assessed by access to factors such as political and economic freedom, social opportunities, and protective security.

The [long-running conflict in] my homeland, India-administered Kashmir, has meant education, healthcare and environment haven't been able to develop soundly. Unemployment is rampant; there is a lack of jobs for university graduates, and a lack of business investment.

Kashmir is under a curfew [imposed early in July] due to unrelenting unrest that has claimed more than 68 lives, with thousands wounded. Scores have received pellet injuries in one or both eyes, leading to loss of vision.

Development is on the back foot. Educational institutions have been closed, people can't go to their jobs, the economy has plummeted and NGOs are being charged with sedition.

Unless there is some form of peace and stability, no human endeavour, however powerful and well-meaning, can lead to progress and development.

Madeeha Mukhtar, Government College for Women, Srinagar, Kashmir

Peace-building is less costly than relief efforts

Peace fosters conditions conducive to economic development. To promote an inclusive, sustainable and harmonious society, it is necessary to take peace-building measures. These measures should focus not on imposing solutions, but on the creation of economic, social spaces within which local people can identify, develop and employ the resources necessary to build a peaceful, prosperous and just society.

Peace-building programmes are less costly than relief programmes, and should be considered an investment for future development and a tool for steering the peace-building process.

Vaibhav Mishra, National University of Advance Legal Studies, Kochi, India

NGOs must tackle causes of conflict

Peace is a fickle and fleeting thing. Where I'm from - Belfast in Northern Ireland - peace is intrinsically linked to the cooperation of nationalists and unionists, Protestants and Catholics. It is tied to the idea of a peace process, whereby the Good Friday agreement, a treaty tied to the European convention on human rights, has defined how two opposite sects can live alongside each other in harmony.

But this peace is neither universal nor solid, as dissident groups and individuals seek to undermine it daily. Brexit has potentially catastrophic implications for the peace in Northern Ireland, first for the validity of the peace process itself, and second if there is further separation from the Republic by a physical border. As such, the region's peace is at risk, as well as its development.

If sustainable development is to progress in poverty-stricken countries around the world, peacemaking must play its part. Money diverted to arms, and aid funding used to to repair the damage caused by conflict, takes away from investment in hospitals, schools and young people's futures. However, it is the attitude that comes with war that is most significant, the placing of personal ambitions and strategies for power over the progression of the lives of your people. In Northern Ireland, rejecting this doctrine has so far enabled the fragile peace to endure.

Until this power-hungry perspective changes, NGOs must focus on how to control the cause of the conflict.

Lucy Keown, University of Glasgow, UK

Working collaboratively in conflict zones is vital

Development occurs in conflict. Local organisations can, in many instances, act more effectively than international organisations during conflict. Establishing trust and building relationships through transparent negotiations with other local groups allows workers certain access and protections that international organisations do not have. Relationships can be built with military forces, who are often less suspicious of local workers than international agencies.

UN campaign highlights unsung work of women in Middle East peace-building

Read more

In Syria, for example, locals have persuaded military powers to focus their attacks on legitimate military targets rather than civilians. They have also asked that schools take priority over hospitals - which will inevitably draw shelling - so that future fighters have at least some education.

If international organisations wish to contribute to development in areas of conflict, they need to focus their resources on supporting the needs and efforts of local people and workers, providing capability building, logistical aid and mental health support to those who experience death and destruction on a daily basis.

Alex Kirby-Reynolds, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Only peace can safeguard development

There is an indisputable connection between peace and sustainable development. History has shown that whenever a state's peace has been threatened or suppressed, the recovery process has involved significant efforts to rebuild a stable society and repair interstate relations damaged by conflict. Peace can guarantee the human security of today, but also the sustainable development of tomorrow.

Andreea Botos, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania

-The Guardian


Khaleda shocked at loss of lives in boiler blast

UNB, Dhaka :

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia on Saturday expressed deep shock at the loss of lives in a boiler explosion at a packaging factory in Gazipur's Tongi BSCIC industrial area.

In a condolence message, Khaleda, now in Saudi Arabia, said, "I'm deeply shocked and saddened over the deaths and injuries of huge working people in a tragic incident ahead of Eid-ul-Azha."

The BNP chief also prayed for salvation of the departed souls of those killed in the blast and expressed her deep sympathy to their bereaved family members. She wished early recovery of those injured in the disastrous incident. Khaleda urged the authorities concerned to ensure treatment of the injured workers.

At least 26 workers were killed and 70 others injured as fire broke out across the five-storey building of Tampaco Foils Ltd factory after a boiler exploded early morning.
15 killed in road accidents

Staff Reporter :

Fifteen people were killed and 22 others injured in separate road accidents in Gazipur, Tangail, Cox's Bazar and Barguna districts on Saturday. In Gazipur, five people were killed and seven others injured in two separate road accidents on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway in the morning.

Officer-in-Charge of Sreepur Mawna highway police station Hafizur Rahman said a bus collided head-on with a pickup van coming from the opposite direction at Rangila Bazar in Sreepur upazila at around 7am, leaving one person dead on the spot and two others injured.

Besides, a truck hit a human hauler (Leguna) at Bhabanipur (Bagher Bazar) in Sadar upazila in the morning, leaving four of its passengers dead on the spot and five others injured.

Later, the injured were taken to local hospitals and clinics.

The bodies were sent to Gazipur Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital morgue.

In Tangail, five people, including two women and a child, were killed and fifteen others injured as a cement-laden truck fell into a roadside ditch after its collision with the Dhaka-bound bus on Tangail-Dhaka highway in Kandiar area of

Sadar upazila around 12.15am, said Jahangir Alam, in-charge of Elenga highway police outpost. Three of the deceased were identified as Birbala, Anjana and Jagadish Pramanik, hailed from Bogra district. The injured people were admitted at Tangail Medical College Hospital. In Cox's Bazar, three people were killed as a pickup carrying a consignment of Yaba tablets, cashed off by criminals, slammed into a roadside wall at Chhoto Enani on the Teknaf-Cox's Bazar Marine Drive Road in Ukhiya upazila in the morning.

One of the deceased, one was identified as Ziauddin, 27, son of Siddik Ahmad, a resident of Mankhali village of the upazila. The accident took place when nine criminals on three motorcycles run after a pickup carrying a consignment of Yaba tablets towards Cox's Bazar from Teknaf around 6:15am, said sub-inspector Arif, in-charge of Enani police camp. At one stage, the pickup hit a wall of Mission Lavela Resort as the bandits took over the vehicle, leaving three people inside dead on the spot.

The law enforcers also recovered 3,000 pieces of Yaba tablet from the pickup, the SI added.

In Barguna, two people, including a motorcyclist, were killed in separate road accidents in Khejurtala and Mastaktana areas of Sadar upazila at noon.

Witneses said, Mohiuddin, 26, sustained injuries after his motorbike turned turtle on Barguna-Purakata road at Mastaktana around 12pm on the way to Patuakhali.

He was taken to Sadar Hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Besides, an unidentified sexagenarian man was injured as a speeding motorcycle hit him at Khejurtala on the same road while he was crossing road at noon. He succumbed to his injuries at Sadar Hospital.
Online fundraising efforts for the Sacred Stone Camp and other Standing Rock Sioux Tribe encampments against the Dakota Access Pipeline had topped $800,000 and were still growing as of Saturday.

The Sacred Stone Camp was started by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in April and is dedicated to stopping and raising awareness of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Since it began, people from across the country and world have visited and participated in protest activities, including members of tribes from across the nation. The effort has expanded into additional camps, including the Red Warrior Camp.

But building such large camps isnt free, and organizers early on turned to a variety of fundraising efforts to keep their mission going. While people can mail money and supplies, much of the effort has centered around online services.

The Sacred Stone Camp GoFundMe campaign had raised more than $566,000 from more than 11,000 donors through 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The page for the fund says money raised will go toward water, propane, food and blankets.

Neither Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault nor Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, who started the GoFundMe campaign, returned calls seeking information on the fund and the support the tribe has received. But an update posted to the GoFundMe site last week expressed appreciation for the support.

The camp is increasing in size every day and all the support is most graciously appreciated! it said.

Archambault on Thursday addressed the support the tribe has received in a statement on KLND radio.

We welcome all the support, and were thankful for all the support, he said. Its a blessing. And that spirit in each and every one of us who are starting to rise and stand up  its a beautiful thing.

The camps legal defense fund, on FundRazr, had raised more than $310,000 by 10:30 a.m. Saturday from nearly 6,000 donors. The Red Warrior Camp Legal Fund, on Generosity, had raised more than $11,000 by 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

Additionally, more than $9,500 in items had been purchased on the Sacred Stone Camps Amazon wish list, including clothing, tires, trail cameras, a storage shed, Amazon gift cards, a GoPro camera and stoves. Similar items also had been purchased off Red Warrior Camp wishlists.

The Sacred Stone Camp also has sought funds via PayPal.

Numerous other campaigns have popped up online since the camp began. Some have been started in support of the camp, while others have been for people seeking funds to travel to North Dakota and join the camp. A number of campaigns were tied to the flotilla of canoes that traveled from Bismarck to the camp Wednesday and Thursday.

The biggest of the campaigns not directly tied to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is one started by Lynne Colombe, of Mission, S.D. Colombes campaign to raise $30,000 began on Aug. 19. By 10:30 a.m. Saturday, it had raised more than $33,000. The information on GoFundMe said the effort would support purchasing teepee supplies, communication devices, clothing, stoves, generators, first-aid supplies and food.

Cynthia Pulham, of Colorado Springs, Colo., also had a fund on the site, now closed to donations, that raised $3,364. With that money, Pulhams update on the site said she and her husband purchased steel-frame shelters, forced-air heaters, insulation, plywood and building supplies, an outdoor shower, first-aid items, cooking supplies and food.

I am so grateful and honored to be part of this community. We may live (literally) from sea to shining sea, but we're a community nonetheless. Love knows no borders, and it transcends all boundaries, Pulham wrote in an update the day after she delivered supplies. We're now all literally a part of the Standing Rock action; that's one of the things they said yesterday. The stuff we brought to them is there because of our energy, and, for them, that makes us literally a part of the Sacred Stone camp.

Stacey Patel, of Satellite Beach, Fla., put up a campaign on GoFundMe on Wednesday seeking $3,w00 to buy supplies and take them to Standing Rock. By 10:30 a.m. Saturday, her campaign had raised more than $3,100. She was hoping to buy things such as matches, lighters, rain ponchos, batteries, detergent, sanitary pads, money, cell charges, folding tables, hats and gloves, tarps, walkie talkies, sleeping bags, sweaters and winter-ready shelter and bring them to the camp.

Financial support also has come in other forms. Musician Jackson Browne has announced that he will be donating all of his proceeds from a tribute album made by other artists of his songs. The album was produced by Music Road Records  which is owned by Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind Dakota Access Pipeline.

I do not support the Dakota Access Pipeline, a statement on Brownes website said. I will be donating all of the money I have received from this album to date, and any money received in the future, to the tribes who are opposing the pipeline.

Support has come in forms other than monetary, as well. Rallies in solidarity with the effort are scheduled for across the country on Tuesday. The most high-profile rally planned will be held in front of the White House and will feature Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Suicide provocation case filed over RU teacher`s death

RU Correspondent :

Provocation to commit suicide case was filed with Motihar Police Station on Saturday following the suicide of RU teacher Akhter Jahan Jolly.

The case was filed by deceased Akhter Jahan's younger brother Kamrul Hasan Ratan where he mentioned, 'After seeing the suicide note it refers that directly or indirectly she could be forced to

commit suicide by someone'. But Ratan didn't mention any name. Humayun Kabir, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Motihar Police Station confirming the matter said, 'Akter Jahan's brother filed a case of abetting suicide against some unnamed persons.'

'We are investigating the matter and proper steps should be taken after investigation', he also added.

Meanwhile, after the autopsy, doctor primarily came to decision that Akter Jahan died for poisonous effect.

"Poison was primarily detected on her body and no injuries were found", said Dr Anamul Haque, Lecturer of Forensic dept of Rajshahi Medical College, after the teacher's autopsy on Saturday noon.

After the autopsy, the dead body reached Rajshahi University mosque premises at 4:15pm where her namaz-e-janaza was held.

Her dead body was taken in front of university Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) department while the students, teachers and her colleagues bursts into tears seeing her for the last time.

"She was taken to Dhaka from the university at 5:20pm while she would be buried at Banani graveyard", family sources confirmed.

It is mentionable that Akter Jahan, 44, was found dead in the university Zuberi building at her residential room No 303 on Friday.

A suicide letter was also recovered from her room at 8:00pm on the day in which she exempted everyone from liability for her death. She wrote that unbearable physical and mental pressure prompted her to take that decision.
Youth hacked to death in Keraniganj

UNB, Keraniganj :

A young man was hacked to death by some unidentified miscreants at Mandail in Keraniganj upazila on Saturday morning. The deceased was identified as Rubel, 24, son of Rabiullah, a resident of Najarganj village in the upazila.

Sub-inspector Oliar Rahman of Keraniganj Model Police Station said a group of miscreants hacked Rubel over previous enmity around 8:30am, leaving him dead on the spot. On information, police rushed in and sent the body to hospital morgue, the SI added.


Eid vacation brings little cheer for beach hoteliers

UNB, Dhaka :

Though people have got a long vacation to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha with their families, there is little for the hoteliers in the country's biggest tourism spots-Cox's Bazar and Kuakata-to cheer about.

In most cases, the holidaymakers prefer spending time with their families and relatives than visiting tourism spots once they reach their respective destinations after ending long sufferings on their way back home, say hotel owners.

They, however, hope to see a good business during September 14-16, right after the Eid day.

"It would definitely have been better if the holidays were scheduled after Eid. People are unlikely to come to Cox's Bazar before Eid," Cox's Bazar Hotel, Motel Owners Association General Secretary Abdul Qaium Chowdhury told UNB. Chowdhury, also the owner of Hotel Cox Today, said the occupancy of hotel before Eid-ul-Azha is 10-20 percent at best, while it may go up to 80-95 percent on September 14-16.

Sheikh Imrul Siddique, an official at Seagull Hotel, said people generally love visiting Cox's Bazar after Eid. "We've only 10-15 percent occupancy

we expect it to go up on September 15-16." Badal Barua, manager at the Hotel Diamond Palace, said they are expecting to have 50-70 percent occupancy after Eid. "Now we're almost empty."

An official at Sayeman Beach Resort, however, said their 80 percent rooms are already booked for the days before Eid while they will have 100 percent occupancy on September 15-16. He said many guests have already visited Cox's Bazar after Eid-ul-Fitr.

UNB Patuakhali correspondent reports that there is no significant tourist in Kuakata, a town known for its panoramic sea beach, right now.

"However, the bookings in local hotels are much higher for the three days starting from September 16-18," our correspondent said quoting Motaherul Islam, manager at Jubo Pantho Nibash Motel, Kuakata.

ASP (Tourist police wing) Azmanur Rahman said they have taken adequate security measures for the tourists who will visit Kuakata during the Eid vacation.

Tourism industry insiders say some 10 lakh people will visit various domestic tourism spots during the ongoing Eid holidays. A good number of people will also spend their times abroad visiting international tourism spots in India, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and China.

The government has already started working to bring unexplored tourism spots and installations in the limelight through effective steps to give a boost to the tourism industry enabling it to contribute to the national economy in a bigger way, officials said.
Security beefed up in city ahead of Eid

Staff Reporter :

The government has chalked out foolproof security in order to prevent subversive activities in the country during the Eid-ul-Azha holidays that began on Saturday.

In this connection, the senior officials of the law enforcement and the intelligence agencies attended a meeting held recently in the Home Ministry auditorium with Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal in the chair.

The law enforcement agencies have been asked to provide foolproof security to large Eid congregrations,

keeping the Sholakia Eidgah attack on the Eid day on July 7 in mind, to avoid any kind of subversive activities.

The Home Minister reminded the law enforcement agencies to stay alert, so that security at the diplomatic zone and key-point installations do not get relaxed during the Eid vacation.

The police deployed extra forces in the capitals, 23 cattle markets to ensure round-the-clock security. Preventive measures to stop the flow of counterfeiting currency in the cattle markets have also been taken. Ninety percent of the shopping malls in the capital ad per advice installed Close Circuit (CCTV) cameras to ensure smooth security systems.

The police set up 15 watch towers in different strategic points of highways as part of measures so that vehicles can run smoothly.

Additional forces have been deployed on highways, railways and river routs so that the Eid holiday makers can go home safely.

While asked if there is any threat targeting Eid, the Home Minister said, the law enforcement agencies would remain alert to meet emergencies.

The Home Minister also said that there would be Fire Brigade rescue teams and divers at all ferry terminals for emergency duties.


Five frauds held in city

Eight alleged swindlers including 3 Nigerians were arrested from Mohammadpur and Baridhara areas alongwith 67 cheque books, 15 ATM cards, 16 mobile phones and laptop from their occupations on Saturday.

Staff Reporter :

Detective Branch (DB) of Police arrested five cheats and three Nigerians in the capital on Friday.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) sources said, the arrested have been identified as Md Biplab Lasker, Md Harunur Rashid alias Kamal, Md Rezaul Islam, Md Kawsar

and Md Shawkat Ali. The three Nigerians are Chukwa Emmanuel, Ubenna, Michael Boumneme alias Eugene and David alias Ucennia Nicholas.

In the primary interrogation, the detained admitted that they were involved in fraudulence activities. The cheats used to call the targeted people over mobile phone or sent text messages saying that they had won lotteries.

Then they were asked to remit money so that lotteries could be handed over. In the message, names of few US citizens were mentioned to catch the amount. After receipt of money, the cheats stopped transaction and disappeared. They couldn't be traced because the address so given was fake, a DMP press release said.

They carries the fraudulence activities with the aid of local agents.

The local agents used fake addresses of the business firms that nobody could recognize them. The criminals expert with IT knowledge targeted businessmen, teachers, wage earners and students.


Border killing continues, no government can guarantee one-sided friendship

AT least 14 Bangladeshi civilians were shot dead by Border Security Force (BSF) of India since the middle of May this year even in the backdrop of top officials of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and BSF met in Dhaka. Media report says, the six-day talks started on 16 May in Dhaka and prior to it, a school student, Shehabuddin, a resident of Goalpara of Jibannagar in Chuadanga, was shot at point blank range by BSF on May 14. According to Bangladesh Home Ministry, 109 Bangladeshi civilians were killed by BSF in the borders between January 2012 and April 2016. Unfortunately, not a single killing on the Indo-Bangladesh border has been jointly investigated into as agreed upon between the Security Forces in border of the two countries in May last. It is known from BGB officials that they had prepared a joint investigation forum about which BSF said it was yet to be approved by Indian Home Ministry.

The borders between two friendly countries -- Bangladesh and India -- are now probably the most unfriendly spot where border crossing is most cruelly treated by the Indian side. But according to the Memorandum of Understanding and related treaties signed between Bangladesh and India, if citizens of either country illegally cross the border it would be considered trespassing and as per laws those people should be handed over to the civilian authority. However, we have noticed that India has been repeatedly violating such an arrangement over the years, killing or physically maiming anyone found near the border or anyone trying to cross the border. BSF also attacked Bangladeshi citizens by illegally entering into Bangladesh. These acts are clear violations of International Law and human rights.

It is seen that India becomes very active when matters like transit and transshipment placed on the table for discussion. The decisions on such subjects favouring India's interest are taken with haste.

The impression is gaining popularity among the people of Bangladesh that Indian government finds government of Bangladesh too feeble and obliging. But that does not make it right for India to ignore the public feeling in Bangladesh that they are getting raw deals most of the time and that is annoying.

Border killings have become a frequent human issue and we are not saying that the border crossing should not be treated as an offence. But joint investigation when Bangladeshis are being killed must take place. No government can ensure one-sided friendship.






Readers Forum

Unsung hero



We often laud the role of freedom fighters without naming most of them during the War for Independence of Bangladesh. Just after achievement of independence, we heard that the number of the FF was about 1,70,000. With the passage of time, the number fluctuated due to our failure to preserve record.

I am sure that majority of us will not be able to tell the names of the sector commanders who battled from the war field, risked their family life and shed blood. One of them was Major Nazmul Haque, Commander of Sector No. 7 (April 10-September 27). He died a mysterious death in September 1971 at Shiliguri, India. I cannot say whether the Indian government conducted any fair investigation.

So far I remember Nazmul Haque has not been given any recognition by any government despite his heroic. In this connection, may we request the present government to take initiative to confer medal on unsung heroes like Major Nazmul Haque, Major M.A. Jalil and others.

Abdullah Akber

Dhaka



Movies on Liberation War



It is a pitiful matter that almost all the TV channels ignore Liberation War related movies like Ora Egaro Jon, Shyamol Chhaya and Aguner Parashmoni; and art films like Surya Dighal Bari, Golapi Ekhan Trene, Kancher Dewal, and Mukh O Mukhosh.

Most Video channels highly prefer Indian movies, while the TV channels choose substandard Bengali films. We are tired of them. As such, we demand the Information Ministry's intervention to save us from torment.



Rozario

Dhaka
Better management strategies help higher performance

Mohammad Mosaddek Hussain :

All sorts of organizations and enterprises need their own development strategy and relevant policy

to run the organization appropriately to achieve the goal. So there is profound impact on the organization for its policy and strategy as a whole. Needless to say that human resource policy and its implementation strategy are the vital factors for both the employees and organization as well. So, in view of this we should give full importance to these factors for the interest of the organization to ensure growth and stability in due course. Top management should pragmatic steps in this respect.

Equally Organizations should develop human resource policies and strategies, including selection

and recruitment system, training and development, and performance management system, that reflect

their beliefs and principles as well as maintaining acceptable relationships between management and employees. However, some human resource departments merely devise policies that deal with current problems or requirements (Delery & Doty, 1996; Jackson & Schuler, 1995; Oakland & Oakland, 2001).

Many experts have argued that human resources are potentially the only source of sustainable competitive edge for organisations as B. Becker & Gerhart, 1996; Pfeffer, 1994; Patrick. Wright & Gary, 1992 expressed in their opinions. On the other hand, Pfeffer (1998) argues that human resource systems help create workforces whose contributions are valuable, unique, and difficult for competitors as well.

As research conducted by Arthur (1994) and Huselid (1995) at the organizational level that suggests that human resource practices affect organizational outcomes by shaping employee behaviours and attitudes. Further, Whitener (2001) suggests that employees can interpret organizational actions, such as human resource practices (Delery, 1998; Ostroff & Bowen, 2000; Settoon, Bennett, & Liden, 1996) and the trustworthiness of management (Settoon, et al., 1996) as indicative of the organisation's personal commitment to them.

Further the employees reciprocate, in their level of commitment to the organisation. Without dedication, commitment and attention to the improvement no organization can be stable for long run. So, these are the very important factors for any organization and enterprise those want to prosper in the days to come. Researchers and theorists have produced huge quantities of important studies that support the theory that the level of commitment to the employee demonstrated by an organisation will

have a direct impact on the commitment that employees show to the organisation in return

One useful mechanism for understanding commitment behaviours is to consider them the relationship between the employer and employee as one of a fair exchange as Pinder, opined (1984 ), with the way in which an employer treats employees having a direct wheel on their performance, attitude and commitment to the organization as a whole.

On the other hand, employee attitudes and behaviours, including performance, reflect their perceptions and expectations, reciprocating the treatment that they receive from the organization. In their multilevel model linking human resource practices and employee reactions, Ostroff and Bowen (2000) depict relationships suggesting that human resource practices are significantly linked to employee perceptions, notions, traits and employee attitudes. Studies by Tsui, Pearce, Porter, and Tripoli (1997), found that employee attitudes, most specifically employee commitments, were associated with the interaction of human resource practices and perceptions.

Arthur (1994), Huselid (1995), and Koch and McGrath (1996) suggest that high-involvement work practices can enhance employee retention. However, most examinations of retention and commitment are from the employer's point of view; as a result, new and refined programs are continuously introduced. These programs are expected to have a positive impact on employee retention and commitment; therefore, investments in high involvement work practices may promote of a positive work climate that may result in lower turnover and higher retention rate. Above all, organizations have implemented HR practices and policies to reduce unnecessary and unwanted employee turnover as Guthrie, 2001; Hom, Roberson, & Ellis, 2008; Kacmar, Andrews, Rooy, Steilberg, & Cerrone, 2006 opined their views in various studies.

In the current global situation, there has been widespread feeling that HRM has become more strategic, aligned and effective process in the organizational values, missions and visions. As a direct result of this, employers nowadays have started to place increased of focus on the methods by which they can assess and improve the organizational performance of an employee. This may influence equal employment opportunities and affirmative action policies aimed at creating a diverse workforce within which all employees feel appreciated and valued in the organization. They have also developed more sophisticated methods of rewarding employees through better benefit systems and comfortable work environment.

Many organizations opt for policy formulation strategies that reflect their own cultures and priorities, their crucial issues include whether employees are consulted and whether policies reflect a compromise between management and employee interests that is acceptable to both parties. If it is not, then the HR directive has not been successful and needs to be re-evaluated.

Needless to say that change constantly occurs in the practice of HRM, many of the assumptions on which it operates have been severely challenged, due to a series of reforms and new process.

Regarding the new challenge and the future prospects of HRM, it is worthwhile to examine the developments and directions of HR policies in terms of their relevance to the contemporary workforce, especially in the area of the attraction and retention of employees. Effective HRM practices have been deemed by many researchers to be of utmost importance in providing firms with competitive advantages and the ability to operate effectively within a competitive situation in the global age.

It is recognized by most of the organizations that the HRM practices are inextricably involved in the overall performance of the organizational commitment and development as a whole. In the past ten years, more and more studies have emerged that look at the implementation of HRM practices within

Asia, and while many of them confirm the relevance and importance of HRM practices to the successful operation of companies in this country and some differences have been identified in the nature of the HRM practices employed and the way in which they relate to Asia's culture and economy (Chang,

2006; Park, Gardner, & Wright, 2004; Takeuchi, Wakabayashi, & Chen, 2003; Wong, Wong, Hui, & Law, 2001; Yu & Egri, 2005). As a result it is gasped that cultural and economic systems are important variables that can support the contingency perspective on HRM effectiveness .

The process and methods by which HRM practices can influence the commitment of an individual employee to the vision and objectives of an organisation has been the focus of much research as Meyer

& Allen, 1997 opined in their studies. Some researchers have found that high-involvement HRM practices, such as regular appraisals, bonus and compensation schemes, training and development

Opportunities, motivational meetings and regular constructive feedback, can significantly enhance the

organizational commitment of employees and workers in the work environment. They have also been identified as one of the strongest inducers of affective commitment when compared with other types of organizational influences.

Further Witt, Kacmar, & Andrews, in 2001 expressed in their study that the strong association between the commitment of an individual to an organization's aims and the type and quality of HRM practices employed by that organization, can be explained by the theory of social exchange. Social exchange theory reveals that if individuals enter into a relationship within which both parties can identify a benefit for both for them , then a set of obligations is created that both parties feel obliged to fulfill the aim by taking necessary organizational actions.

As Wong, et al., 2001 a nice example in this regard, this is "employees who feel that their job is secure are much more likely to demonstrate a high commitment to an organization than employees who are afraid of being made redundant in the near future." On the other hand, if employees are regularly provided with the opportunity to attend training and development workshops on a short interval, they will recognise the company's commitment to improve their skills and will be more likely to remain in the environment where they have a opportunity to learn new things every time. This is mutually beneficial for employee and company, as it improves the strength and stability of the organization and retains key talent (Huselid, 1995). According to Ogilvie (1986), these types of HRM practices are more likely to have a positive impact on employee commitment and satisfaction than employee demographics or job characteristics.

Employee Retention and Management

Retention of talented employees in the organization is one of the greatest factors for the growth and stability of an organization. Experts of HRM, practioners and researchers have defined retention management as a strategic, coherent process that starts with an examination of the reasons why employees join an organization and why he/she will work long term in the organization. How one person thinks to retain in the same organization for long years, these questions are natural for a employees that to be analyzed and studied based on the organizational situation. Besides, a number of different factors can affect employee turnover. These include the internal structure of the organisation, recruitment policies and strategies, career progression opportunities, rewards and benefits, behavior and performance measurement systems, personality value, right set of job monitoring, equal opportunity neutral employee treatment, partiality-free environment, opportunity to growth, certainty of job and training and development. In order to improve employee-employer relations, reduce turnover, and improve commitment levels, ensure partial-free work opportunity, HRM policies need to take all of these factors into account and manage them congruently in the interest of the organization.

When an employee makes the decision to leave an organization, the reason can rarely be Attributed to one single factor such as a failure to be awarded a promotion or pay increase. Not only that other factors like lack of proper attention to employees, lack of properly measure of performance, partiality to employees, lake of understanding of real skills of an employee, wrong job, wrong placement, lack of understanding of the job of the position, inexperienced and less-qualified boss and sometimes employers, lack of motivation to employees, ill -behave or bad behaviour to employees, reluctant to listen the actual problems of the employees and lack of proper support to employees, always reprimanding attitude to employees are also the factors for leaving the organization as a whole.

Truly understanding how different factors interact with one another, and the impact that they have on an individual's commitment to an organization, can be very challenging.

Many organizations worldwide, retention problems are currently on the rise day by day.

They are significantly, affecting organizational productivity and performance and business growth also. That's why managers of various levels are facing the challenge of having to address retention problems in the context of increasing competition in the global marketplace.

So, considering the emerging situation, organizations should have to draw an effective and situation- based practical action plan to retain employees to achieve the organizational goal in time. Motivational training and development approach and continuing research should be done in this regard.

We should have in mind that talented, skilled, qualified and experienced employees can bring expected massive result for the development of the organization as a whole. That's why we need to take this factor as an emerging challenge for the interest and growth of the organization as a whole.
Invest in future through the children

Sir Frank Peters :

NAMIBIA has become the latest country to follow in the footsteps of Bangladesh and protect its children from shameful child abuse, more commonly known as corporal punishment.

In a landmark decision this week Namibian High Court judge Elton Hoff ruled that physical force of any kind to discipline pupils was not acceptable in both government and private schools and that perpetrators would be severely punished.

Corporal punishment had been outlawed by Namibia in government and private schools by the Education Acts of 1991 and 2001, but private schools viewed themselves to be exempt.

Judge Hoff reasoned that interpreting the abolition of corporal punishment laws to apply only to teachers employed by the government would be an absurdity in that children enrolled at state schools would be protected against invasive punishment, yet those enrolled at private schools would not.

The learned judge said that no amount of consent from parents or from a pupil at a school himself could nullify or invalidate the prohibition of corporal punishment.

Judge Hoff indicated that he supported a statement made in a judgement of South Africa's Constitutional Court on corporal punishment in 2000, when a judge of that court stated that South Africa's parliament wished to make a radical break with an authoritarian past when it decided to outlaw physical beatings in that country's schools.

The government consciously introduced new principles of learning to resolve learning problems through reason rather than force, the judge said.

"The outlawing of physical punishment in the school accordingly represented more than a pragmatic attempt to deal with disciplinary problems in a new way," Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs said. "It had a principled and symbolic function, manifestly intended to promote respect for the dignity and physical and emotional integrity of all children."

In 2011 Justice Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed the damaging and ineffective practice of corporal punishment in schools and madrasas throughout Bangladesh, declaring it to be "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child's fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom".

While much progress has been made in Bangladesh since 2011, the cruel torture of children in schools still continue here and elsewhere as evidenced last month by the suicide of class nine pupil N. Babu (14) of Periyar Nagar, Vadavalli.

A 'teacher' beat Babu so brutally that it drove him to despair and when his plaintive cries for help went unheard, he gave up all hope and decided to end his misery and young life.

While corporal punishment exists in schools, madrasahs, and homes, one can only hazard a guess at how many more children will be damaged, but indisputably they will.



(Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, a royal goodwill ambassador, humanitarian, and a respected foreign non-political friend of Bangladesh. Three Bangladeshi babies have been named 'Frank Peters' in his honour.)
ABT had plan to attack Kashimpur Jail 2 nabbed by RAB

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested two suspected members of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) from Chowrasta area in Gazipur on Saturday.

Staff Reporter :

The crime busting elite force Rapid Action Battalion [RAB] has thwarted a plan of banned Islamist militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team to attack high security Kashimpur Jail to bring out their imprisoned co-workers, including top-ranking philosophical leader Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani.



Two operatives of the terrorist group, Rashedul Islam alias Swapan,25, and Biplob Hossain alias Hujaifa, 33, who were netted by the RAB on Friday late night from Gazipur crossing, divulged the information to the law enforcers during first-round interrogation, officials said on Saturday. RAB also recovered knives and jihadi books from their possession.



"The Gazipur coordinator of ABT Rashedul Islam alias Swapan took the plan attack Kashimpur Jail. They had planned to bring out Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani along with other accomplices," Commander of RAB -1, Lieutenant Colonel Tuhin Mohammad Masud, said yesterday.



Mufti Rahmani at present has been facing imprisonment in the murder case of blogger and freethinker Rajib Haider Shovan. There are several other cases against him. The commander of military wing of ABT [led by Rahmani] is Major [terminated] Ziaul Haque, who is on run after a failed coup attempt.



"At present, the ABT is working to collect about 10 lakh members for strengthening the organization. In this process, they are using different internet applications, including facebook and twitter. So far as we know, the terrorist outfit has some 'sleeper cells' in Gazipur area. They are now active in different areas separately," he elaborated.



The RAB official further said that Swapan also divulged them several other important information, especially a top secret plan to eliminate a number of key personalities. "To carry out the plan, they have bought a huge quantity of arms-ammunition from Jessore worth about Tk 10 lakh. Sawpan and his accomplices were trying to coordinate some other groups active in the area and waiting for a chance," Lt Col Masud said.



"There are several women physicians in the terror outfit, who provide financial assistance to the ABT. Just now, we've got specific information about two women members of the terror group. We are conducting operation to nab the female operatives," he said quoting the statement of detainees.



According to RAB, the ABT is now conducting terror activities in Bangladesh in line with the ideological spirit of international terrorist outfit al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent [AQIS]. Swapan became interested about ABT in 2014 being inspired by the lectures of Rahmani through internet.



He got entangled with ABT through one Abdul Quddus and established a connection with Dhaka divisional coordinator of ABT Md Abbas. Later, he [Swapan ] became recruiter of the organization.



RAB officials said that the ABT was working to snatch away Rahmani and his associates like three Jama'atul Mujahedin Bangladesh [JMB] leaders who were snatched away by their co-workers two years ago.



On February 23, 2014, an armed gang ambushed a prison van and snatched away three convicted JMB militants -- two of them on death row -- in Trishal upazila of Mymensingh. Police, however, captured one of the trio from Shakhipur of Tangail while he was fleeing on a three-wheeler, about five hours after the incident.



A police constable named Atiqul Islam was killed as the gang of 10-15, all masked, opened fire and hurled crude bombs at the prison van at Signboard point of Aminabari area. The attack on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway took place when the van carrying the three was going to Mymensingh to produce them before a court in a sedition case.



The convicts of the JMB were Rakib Hasan Russell alias Hafez Mahmud, Salauddin Ahmed alias Salehin and Zahidul Islam alias "Boma" Mizan. Rakib and Salauddin were sentenced to death and "Boma" Mizan to 37 years in prison in different cases.


iStock/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) -- A California pediatrician, known partly for his controversial views on immunization schedules, faces the possible suspension of his license after the executive director of the California Medical Board accused him of being grossly negligent in his care and treatment of a child patient.



Dr. Robert Sears of Orange County, California, first drew attention after publishing a book in 2007 called "The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child" and introducing what he calls an "alternate" vaccine schedule.



His work has made him popular with parents who remain skeptical of common vaccines despite overwhelming medical evidence that they are safe as currently scheduled and recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics.



His work has also frustrated some pediatricians and health officials who point out that there is no approved "alternate" vaccination schedule that is safe and approved by major health organizations.



The doctor is now facing a possible hearing before the California Medical Board over allegations he was grossly negligent during his interaction with the toddler cited in the complaint. Sears and the board will first meet in a Sept. 20 settlement conference, where he can bring counsel, according to the medical board.



If no settlement is reached, the matter will go to a hearing before an administrative law judge. The judge will make a proposed decision that will be reviewed by the medical board, which makes the final decision, according to the board.



Sears recommended the toddler never get another childhood vaccine because of the "severity" of the reaction to earlier vaccination, according to the Medical Board complaint filed with the state Sept. 2.



The board claims in the document that Sears did not have enough information to make such a recommendation.



In the document released by the Medical Board of California, Sears is accused of multiple counts of negligence, including not taking basic information before recommending the toddler no longer receive any other childhood vaccinations; failing to conduct neurological testing on the patient when the toddler reported having a headache from head trauma; and failing to maintain adequate records because he did not keep a copy of the letter that exempted the child from further vaccinations.



He is subject to disciplinary action that could include revoking or suspending his license.



Complaints against California physicians can be made by patients or other members of the public, spurring the medical board to review. If the board's initial review finds evidence of a violation, the case will be investigated by a state deputy attorney general and an investigator who is an expert in the physician's field.



If the deputy attorney general finds there is enough evidence they will bring a formal accusation against the physician which can result in either a settlement or an administrative hearing held before an administrative law judge, who makes a recommendation to the medical board.



The board has not identified who lodged the initial complaint against Sears.



When asked by ABC News via email to comment on the complaint, Sears declined. Officials from the California Medical Board said they do not release information beyond a formal complaint prior to a settlement conference or hearing.



Sears has defended his alternative schedules, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2014 that they allow parents to get vaccinations in a way they're more comfortable with.



California enacted a strict vaccination law last year that required school children to be vaccinated and banned exemptions based on personal or medical beliefs. The law was enacted after the state faced multiple outbreaks in recent years of vaccine-preventable diseases including measles and whooping cough.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
MORTON COUNTY  The main council fire at the encampment to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline is rarely a quiet place, but Friday it erupted in a sound wall of cheers and ululations as tribal people reacted to news that three federal agencies had joined in an unprecedented statement to temporarily shut down a critical portion of the pipeline to address concerns about pollution and desecration of sacred sites.

The jubilation could be heard from the furthest end of the camp and, for these thousands of people who gathered because water is life, the shower of rain as the news fell on the camp offered validation rather than discomfort.

It sent chills up my arms, said Roger Houseman Jr., a Yankton, S.D., Sioux, after hearing the news. It feels like something we did together.

The moment was also very emotional. Many stood with a mix of tears and rainwater running down their faces as they absorbed the news.

The encampment near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation swelled to at least 2,000 to 3,000 people Friday as tribal representatives from all over the country continued to arrive -- in big buses, worn-out cars and everything in between -- to support the Standing Rock Sioux tribes stand against the pipeline.

The camp has been a spiritual gathering place with daily prayer, sage smudging and groups walking to the nearby Cannonball River to pray there for the water flowing by. Friday morning, while the camp quietly waited to hear the legal news, a circle group stood in the river praying for nearly an hour in the chilly water.

In a voice that broke with emotion, elder Virgil Taken Alive thanked the many tribes who have supported Standing Rocks cause and have come to live in the camp for days or weeks.

Thank you to each and every one of you for the work you have done to sustain us, and for all the wonderful things that have happened," he said.

It was clear on Friday that the camp would not disband as the immediate pressure is off. Lewis Grassrope, of Lower Brule, S.D., said the temporary stop-work order on the river crossing was a partial victory in a larger battle.

The best news would have been to stop it completely, he said. Its a good day, but not a really good day. Im in it for the long haul."

Michelle Cook, a legal volunteer, said its time for the media to quit describing the Native Americans as protesters and use the term protectors. She said the tribe may work with private landowners to re-evaluate their commitment to allowing the pipeline on their property, perhaps offering financial incentives to refuse it.

She said the action taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior is wonderful. They understand what happened here was wrong. They know now if theyre going to do development, they cant just railroad Native Americans. Its unacceptable.

Harold Eagle Shield, of Standing Rock, said he doesnt know if the effort would have had this much success without the support from thousands who traveled so far to live in tents and teepees for the past month without electricity, plumbing and other comforts. Tribes haven't gathered on the Great Plains in this number for years.

It wouldnt have happened if we hadnt come together, not if we had just been a handful of Indians, Eagle Shield said.

Waylon Frazier, of Nebraska, who volunteered to help with camp security, showed the hair standing up on his arms to illustrate how it felt to have accomplished so much in the fight against big corporations and a $3.8 billion project.

These goosebumps? Thats how it feels," he said.

Like Cook and Grassrope, Frazier said its not over yet, and he isnt planning to leave the camp.

Im here until Standing Rock tells us we can leave, he said.
1 killed: 5 cops among 8 hurt

Staff Reporter :



At least one militant suspects were killed and eight others including five cops injured in a 'gunfight' during a raid in a suspected militant hideout at Azimpur in the capital on Saturday night.



Identities of the deceased could not be known immediately.



Police also captured three suspected female militants in injured condition during the raid.



Among them, one Sharmin Akhtar (25) was hit by bullet directly participated in the gunfight, said police.



Confirming the matter, acting commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Sahabuddin Koresh said: "Acting on a tip off, a team of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit of DMP conducted the drive at the first floor of a six-storey building located near No 2 gate of the BGB. "Sensing the presence of the law enforcers, the militants hurled explosive at the CTTC members, leaving five of them injured."



"Later, the law enforcers shot on male militant to dead and captured three female members of the extremist gang in injured condition. Of the women, the condition of one is stated to be critical."



The drive started at 7:30pm and it was being continued till filing the report at 10pm.



The injured CTTC members are Mahtab, Jahiruddin, Lablu, Ram Chandra Biswas and Shajahan Ali. They have been admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, added the DMP officials. "The injured woman has also been taken to the DMCH."
Millions leave Dhaka

Staff Reporter :

Tens of thousands of people left Dhaka in the last three days for homes to shares Eid joys with kith and kin.



They were happy because they managed bus, train and launch tickets finally. They struggled, waited for tickets for hours at the stations and terminals, never gave up hope and at length got tickets. Now they are going home.



A student of Titumir Government College who was at Saidabad bus terminal said that he bought two tickets for himself and his sister for going to Noakhali. But he was charged Tk 600 each against the normal fare of Tk 350. He was still happy.



Around 7-8 million people or half the city's total population will leave Dhaka on the occasion of the Eid festival, police sources said.



"Of them, more than four million city dwellers already left the capital from Thursday to Saturday. The remaining 30-35 lakh people are making frantic efforts to reach their respective destinations by Monday" an official (Media wing) of the Dhaka Metropolitan (DMP) said.



The passengers are leaving Dhaka for their respective destinations with some worries over returning to the city safely and on time at the end of their holidays.



A 10-kilometre gridlock was created on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway stretching from Bishwa Road area of Daudkandi in Comilla to Gazaria upazila in Munshiganj with a large number of vehicles left stranded.



In the same way, bus journey from the capital to the northern and the southern districts took five to six hours more than the usual time due to long tailbacks on highways and delays at Paturia and Mawa ferry ghats.



Vehicles were moving slowly from Gumti Bridge to Doribaushia in Gazaria upazila of Munshiganj.



Sources said, due to the upsurge of vehicles crossing the bridge, movement was slow.



"Police are trying to control the situation, but their efforts are falling short," said Kamruzzaman Raj, Police Sergeant of Bhaber Char Highway Police Outpost.



Meanwhile, around 1,000 vehicles were waiting in queue at Paturia end of Daulatdia-Paturia ferry route and a five-kilometre tailback from Jamgora area to Daulatdia.



Though Dhaka-Mawa highway remained free, Shimulia-Kawrakandi ferry route was experiencing gridlock of around 500 vehicles.



Around 17 ferries including four Ro-Ro ferries have remained operational on the route, said Abdul Alim, Assistant Manager of BIWTC.



On the other hand, excessive flow of traffic to the northern districts caused vehicles to move slowly on the Dhaka-Tangail highway.



Home-goers suffered terribly due to long tailbacks at different points on the highway.



Mohammad Moeen Uddin, a passenger of a Tangail-bound bus from the capital, said he started from Kalyanpur around 7:00am and reached Tangail at 2:00pm.



"The bus remained stuck for four hours at Chandra, Board Ghar, Cadet College, Hatubhanga, Gorai, Sohagpara, Deohata, Mirzapur, Dhalla, Pakulla, Jamurki and Natiapara areas," he said.
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Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes.

What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection?

Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were.

Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property  there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection:

You get to see exactly what will happen to your money

When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor.

Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on.

A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with.

You find out about potential major repairs

Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing.

If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately.

You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on

One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home.

Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly.

You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for

While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best.

This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit.

Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home.

You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price

If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home.

You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price.

You can sell your home faster and for more money

If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are.

In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price.

Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for.

Your home will hold its value longer

As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property.

When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home.

You can make smart decisions about property investments

Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property.

If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal.

There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about.

If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage

If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing.

They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit.

You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors

If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for.

For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money.

You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition

Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building.

You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure.

Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so.

As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process.
Mike Eladlani/Josephina Morris/Kargar Motors Stafford VA(STAFFORD, Va.) -- A Florida teen who was accused earlier this year of posing as a doctor was arrested at a northern Virginia car dealership Friday, police said.



Malachi Love-Robinson, 19, was charged with three fraud-type offenses after trying to purchase a Lexus at Kargar Motors in Stafford with an elderly woman as his co-signer, said Donald Lenhart, spokesman for the Stafford County Sheriffs Department.



The teen, who told the car dealership he is a 19-year-old doctor, is being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail, Lenhart said.



According to Kargar Motors finance manager, William Park, Love-Robinson initially submitted an online inquiry about a Jaguar that was for sale at the dealership and said he was seeking credit approval. The car had already been sold by the time he showed up in person on Friday, so a salesperson showed him a 2013 Lexus instead.



Love-Robinson was with an elderly woman, allegedly his great aunt, who was going to be a co-signer, Park said, adding that when the young man said he was a doctor making $120,000 a year, it raised a red flag.



Park told ABC News he immediately recalled a story earlier this year about a 19-year-old accused of practicing medicine without a license in Florida. When he did an online search, the purported doctors name matched that of the customer who was at the dealership. The dealership called police and the Stafford County Sheriffs Office arrested Love-Robinson at the site around 6 p.m. local time, Park said.



Love-Robinsons attorney, Andrew Stein, did not immediately respond to ABC News request for comment Saturday.



Love-Robinson, who officials say was known to some unsuspecting clients as "Dr. Love," was arrested in mid-February after he allegedly gave a medical examination to an undercover sheriffs office agent posing as a patient.



Authorities say the teenager fooled his victims with an elaborate website and biography in which he called himself a well-rounded professional who uses psychotherapy, electrotherapy and other techniques to treat patients, according to ABC affiliate WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach.



Love-Robinson was at the time charged with two counts of practicing medicine without a license, one count of grand theft larceny and four counts of fraud. He was also ordered by the Department of Health to cease and desist practicing medicine without a license, officials told WPBF.



Love-Robinson spoke to ABC News following that initial arrest, defending his actions, saying that all he faced at the moment were "accusations."

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.


A great battle scene from the movie "A Bridge too Far". At 12:30 hours (on September 17, 1944) Lieutenant-General Horrocks received a signal that the first wave of the airborne forces had left their bases within the United Kingdom and set the time for the ground attack to start at 14:35 hours. At 14:15 hours 300 guns of the Corps artillery opened fire, firing a rolling barrage in front of XXX Corps start line that was 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 5 miles (8.0 km) in depth. The barrage was supported by seven squadrons of RAF Hawker Typhoons firing rockets at all known German positions along the road to Valkenswaard.



The advance was led by tanks and infantry of the Irish Guards and started on time when Lieutenant Keith Heathcote, commanding the lead tank, ordered his driver to advance. The lead units of the Irish Guards Group had broken out of XXX Corps bridgehead on the Meuse-Escaut canal and crossed into the Netherlands by 15:00 hours. After crossing the border the Irish Guards were ambushed by infantry and anti-tank guns dug in on both sides of the main road. Portions of the artillery barrage was refired and fresh waves of Hawker Typhoons were called in. The Guardsmen moved forward to clear the German positions, manned by elements from two German parachute battalions and two battalions of the 9th SS Division, and soon routed the German forces flanking the road. Interrogation of captured German soldiers led to some of them willingly, others after being threatened, pointing out the remaining German positions. The fighting soon died down and the advance resumed. By last light the town of Valkenswaard had been reached and occupied by the Irish Guards Group.



Horrocks had expected that the Irish Guards would have been able to advance the 13 miles (21 km) to Eindhoven within two-three hours, however they had only covered 7 miles (11 km). The operation was already starting to fall behind schedule. In Valkenswaard engineers were moved up to construct a 190 foot (58 m) Class 40 Bailey bridge over a stream, which was completed within 12 hours.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075784/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatio...
The majority of California voters would encourage a young person to become a teacher, citing the ability to make a difference in childrens lives.

A new survey , which was led by two researchers from the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education and conducted by the Policy Analysis for California Education in August, asked 1,202 California voters about their views on public education and the teaching profession. This is the fifth year the survey has been conducted.

This years results were encouraging: 71 percent of voters would encourage a young person they knew to become a teacher, mostly because of the ability to make a difference, but also citing respect from the community and good retirement and benefits.

Only 8 percent of voters would discourage a young person from becoming a teacher. Salary was the No. 1 reason why, followed by undisciplined students and overcrowded students.

The teaching profession, plagued by low salaries and dwindling morale , has taken a few hits recently from people reluctant to become or encourage others to become an educator. Just 4 percent of 2015 high school graduates who took the ACT exam said they planned to become teachers, counselors, or administratorsin 2010, that number was 7 percent. And a recent ASQ poll showed that 87 percent of parents would be concerned if their children became a STEM teacher.

Last year, award-wining teacher Nancie Atwell made headlines by advising young people to not become public school teachers, saying the profession has been constrained by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and schools emphasis on standardized testing.

Counter to the dominant narrative weve been hearing for some time, these results indicate widespread respect for and recognition of the value of the teaching profession, said Julie Marsh, a co-director of PACE and an associate professor of education at USC, in a statement about this most recent California poll.

In other interesting results: Nearly all respondents said it was important for teachers to contribute to students learning and get students to work hard and try their best. Most respondents also said it was important for teachers to maintain classroom discipline and provide students with a love for learning.

Just 59 percent said it was important for teachers to help improve students scores on standardized achievement testsa much lower percentage than those who supported teachers skills regarding classroom environment and students social and emotional health.

Sixty-eight percent of voters said they believe there is a teacher shortage in California, and paying teachers more was the most common solution given, followed by improving teachers working conditions. Seventy-seven percent of voters support paying teachers more if they teach in subjects where there are shortages (commonly mathematics, science, and special education), and 79 percent support increasing the starting salary for new teachers.

Again, just 60 percent of respondents support paying teachers more if their students demonstrate greater knowledge gains on state testsless support than all the other proposed policies received.

In many ways, voter sentiment in California reflects the broader, national backlash against high-stakes testing and a newer discourse around educational improvement equating to more than simply raising test scores, Marsh said.

A beginning teachers starting salary in California is about $40,000, with some districts paying new teachers much more. The average for experienced teachers is close to $80,000. According to the Los Angeles Times , in 2015, there were nearly 43,000 teacher vacancies across the state.

Source: Image by Flickr user www.audio-luci-store.it , licensed under Creative Commons .
Hurricane Update: Fears arise that Gov. Ron DeSantis may reroute Hurricane Ian from Florida coast to Martha's Vineyard

Study: People who define themselves by what they stand against, are usually afraid to tell people what they stand for

Liz Cheney: Voters need to ask themselves, why they are so out of touch with their politicians

White House: IRS toy guns for children are now politically correct, mandatory

BREAKING: Biden's economic sanctions on the U.S. to be partially lifted prior to November election

GOP's new slogan for midterms: Make Dissent Patriotic Again

PSA: Due to high gas prices police departments will now be responding and making arrests via Zoom.

NYT: Roe vs Wade to be renamed the "Don't Say Fetus" law

Democrats insist on carrying unwanted presidency to term

Elon Musk went to bed thinking he owns Twitter. Then the mail-in ballots arrived at 2am...

Obama: "If you like your information you can keep your information"

Fact checkers reveal Biden handler not a real Easter bunny

Biden 2021: you'll save $0.16 on 4th of July BBQ!

Biden 2022: you'll save a ton of $$ if you don't eat this 4th of July!

Disney to buy Epstein Island for new theme park

The Biology Underground is like the Weather Underground, except they are real biologists and they've had to go underground

"Psssst. Hey you, kid. Ya wanna watch a Disney movie with me?"

"I am not suicidal," says COVID-19 after being contracted by Hillary Clinton

Trans-swimmer Lia Thomas's trophy is smaller than for male swimmers, and only 73% gold

Sources: U.S. now considers majority of U.S. citizens a threat to U.S.

BREAKING: Russian General claims he was beaten up outside Ukrainian bio lab by two Nazis who poured vodka and caviar over him and yelled "This is NATO Country!"

Global warming news: 100,000 Russian migrants fleeing climate change about to march into Ukraine

Future headline: Donald Trump to buy CNN for one dollar

Georgia Governor Stacy Abrams feels honored to be the new Supreme Court justice

President Biden: 'Vote for me or I'll shoot this foot'

Fact checkers give Pinocchio's speech four Bidens

Fauci: The only thing we have to fear, is a lack of fear itself!

Study: Most people have had sex more violent than January 6th

Facebook permanently bans Facebook from Facebook for violating Facebook community standards

New remake of the 1950's horror movie Them to be titled Them/They

Teachers Union: Idea that CRT is being taught in K-12 just a conspiracy theory by white supremacists trying to maintain their systemically racist police state

Xze/She/He who controls the past controls the future; Xze/She/He who controls the present controls the past

S ocialists vow to fight against Critical Socialism Theory

A more perfect Soviet Union: the Party pretends it unites us, and we pretend we are united

Biden solves border crisis with free direct flights from Central America to major metropolitan areas

Critical race theory: destroy the world of systemic racism, build a world of systemic race-baiting

In the future everyone will get canceled for fifteen minutes

Biden proposes bill to spend two trillion dollars on more money printing factories

Social unity: They pretend to hold elections and we pretend we voted

Immigrants to Texas and Florida from New York and California break down and cry when they realize all their sacrifices for a better tomorrow were based on lies

China anal swabs detect new 'silent but deadly' transmission of covid-19 variant

Social science breakthrough: 'White' is the new way of saying 'Bourgeois'

Biden administration swat teams make sweeping arrests of underground female-only track meets

'Green energy' to be renamed 'blackout energy' for easier comprehension of climate complexities

New children's game: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Science







Texas: Biden administration sends emergency wind turbines to help fight the blackouts

BREAKING: Biden signs executive order canceling the number 45

ATTENTION: It is your duty to report anyone who says this is no longer a free country. Fact-checking commissars are monitoring all state-approved social media platforms for your convenience

OUT: If you don't vote, you can't complain!

IN: If you didn't vote Democrat, you can't complain!

Social media justice: followers removed from pro-Trump accounts will be added to Biden's Twitter account

Fact check: a democratic election is the one in which votes are counted until Democrats win

JUST IN: China bans Twitter for being too totalitarian

Pelosi introduces new House rule to replace 'gender' terms like mother, daughter, father, son with the word 'comrade'; the only acceptable pronoun will also be 'comrade'





Sources: Biden transition team demands access to White House basement to begin renovations

BREAKING: President Trump pardons America for its past

Prime Minister Modi: to avoid accusations of racism India will change its name to Cleveland

Biden creates Antifascist Librarian Justice Committee; the first book scheduled for burning is Fahrenheit 451

Media study: 148% of Americans believe voter fraud doesn't exist

2020 Election forecast: if Joe Biden emerges from the basement on Election Day and sees his shadow, expect four more years of Trump

BREAKING: President Trump pardons Corn Pop

Toobin, though on administrative leave, is still pulling for Biden

Chinese whistleblower: Biden-20 was genetically engineered in a Wuhan lab

Nancy Pelosi sponsors a bill to create the office of removal of the President

New college humanities major: Critical Trump Studies

Opinion: Joe Biden is just an idea

CNN: Biden took a solid second place in the debate, while Trump only came next to last

Having ordered that all Californians switch to electric cars by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom follows up by mandating them to have electricity by 2035

Election 2020: Joe Biden pledges to a peaceful post-election transfer of power to George Soros

Out: Flatten the curve. In: Flatten the country.

Breaking: the Democrat Party has finished transitioning from being the party of JFK to being the party of Lee Harvey Oswald

Paradigm shift in Chromatics: Study shows Indigo (#3F00FF) mixed with Jamaic (#C0FF01) yields Black (#000000)

Study: the trouble with wokeism is eventually you run out of victims

Stacey Abrams refuses to concede to Harris; declares herself Biden's VP

Election 2020: Spunky former presidential candidate wins VP slot by a head

Churches in many states to hold services in opened up pubs and bars

Election 2020: Xi Jinping still undecided on vice president for Joe Biden

Reports: Republicans pounce on 'Republicans pounce' reports

Minneapolis launches online looting app to combat Covid-19

DNC study finds lockdowns no longer necessary as the economy is now being destroyed more effectively by looters and rioters

With America in lockdown, China offers to host Democrat primary

Bernie Sanders tests negative for President

In related news, Joe Biden follows other candidates in withdrawing from race and endorsing Joe Biden

New York Governor Cuomo shuts down all 'non-essential' business, surprised to find himself out of a job

Biden commits to picking a woman as running mate as long as she passes his sniff test

Joe Biden's coronavirus prevention tips: always rub hand sanitizer on young girls before sniffing and fondling them

Russian lawmakers warned that the American Democrats are meddling to re-elect Putin

Joe Biden promises lucrative board member jobs as door prizes to get people to his rallies

Democrats now worried they might even lose the illegal alien vote

Soleimani's remains FedExed back to Iran and now no one knows what happened to the box

BREAKING: massive search underway in Iran after Soleimani's boxed FedEx'd remains stolen off front porch

Liz Warren harshly critical of Biden's suggestion to coal miners that they should learn to code, offers to have them trained as romance novelists instead

Pelosi: "First we have to impeach Donald Trump before we can find out why we impeached him."

Schiff calls his Amazon Alexa to testify: 'She knows absolutely everything'

Iran answers to new Reagan statue in Berlin by erecting Obama statue at Tehran airport where he delivered pallets of cash

California accepts award for most progressive environmental policies; further progressive developments to be announced as blackouts permit

BREAKING: Romney DNA test reveals he is 1/1024th Republican

California Governor Gavin Newsom blames electricity blackouts on Ukrainian kulaks, vows revenge

Rat falling from White House ceiling fears for his life, begs reporters for protection, offers a tell-all memoir

Latest UN climate report shows this month so far has seen the scariest climate pronouncements on record

Climate science: there's no need for climate protests in China because China is already communist

Islamic clerics split on whether Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib should be traveling around the world without an accompanying male relative

Dem candidates call for the Beatles' song 'Get Back' and the 'White Album' to be banned; surviving two white guys of the group must pay reparations

Bond's number is up: next 007 will be a black woman, played by Barack Obama

NYT: moon landing was one small step for Man, one giant leap for White Male Supremacy

HURRICANE WATCH: Tropical storm Barry has records sealed, once offshore expected to change name to Barack

Trump politicizes the 4th of July, declares it henceforth to be called the 45th of July, or July the Trumpth

Barack Obama critical of Trump for failing to insert 'I, me, my' into his 4th of July speech: "very unpresidential!"

Congressional Democrats: John Dean's testimony proves Trump is Nixon in disguise and must be impeached

Bernie Sanders admits to being a millionaire, promises to eat himself if nominated

International Women's Day observed, women only paid 73% of attention afforded to men

Democrats: anti-Semitism means never having to say you're sorry

AOC: aborting babies helps preserve the planet for the next generation

Bernie Sanders launches presidential campaign, promises to "build a great big beautiful Iron Curtain" around America if elected

West Virginia renames itself Eastern Kentucky to avoid further embarrassment from Virginia

BREAKING: Justice Ginsburg released from hospital after breaking 3 ribs at late night bar brawl in Adams Morgan

DNA news: Senator Warren tanking in latest totem polls

Orwell studies: 84% of academics believe problems raised in 1984 can be fixed with solutions from Animal Farm

Progress in gender justice: online dating industry issues recommendations for men to wear body cameras, bring attorneys as chaperones

Study: the only people who don't know what socialism is are the socialists

Poll: 1 in 3 #FightFor15 activists believe movement is related to lowering the age of consent across America

CNN expert: Kavanaugh confirmation will increase global warming by 3 degrees

Harry Reid comes forth to say Judge Kavanaugh didn't pay any taxes in high school

Hollywood to America: If you've got a flag on the Moon, you didn't plant that; some other country made that happen

Protest march in straight jackets against Trump ends in chaos as participants try but fail to free themselves

HEADLINES YOU WILL NEVER SEE: California Gov. Jerry Brown single-handedly stops wildfires in his state by issuing an immediate statewide ban on wildfires

San Francisco closes all Planned Parenthood clinics after sting operation catches employees using plastic straws

Vegan mother undergoes experimental surgery to force her breasts to produce almond milk

With none of his emails answered, frustrated Nigerian man commits suicide and leaves $100bn fortune to charity

California gives new meaning to strawman argument as caped Strawman battles supervillains in restaurants, bars, and fast food joints

Violence increases in Mexico as cartels switch from smuggling drugs to plastic straws to San Francisco

Obama proposes a Paris Economic Change agreement among nations to address how world will cope with future runaway economic warming

Stormy Daniels plans border visit to give migrant children freebies

San Francisco: man dumping off 20 lbs of human waste in plastic bag on street corner cited for using non-biodegradable plastic bag

BREAKING: ICE renamed Planned Citizenship, immediately absolving it of all criticism

Senate Democrats demand Supreme Court nominee not be unduly influenced by U.S. Constitution

BREAKING: In 2018, Obama and Biden can finally celebrate Recovery Summer

IG Report: the FBI broke the law, but since there was no criminal intent, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case

Pelosi on Trump's MS-13 "animals" comments: "Four legs good, two legs bad"

Iran nuclear talks set to resume between the United States and John Kerry

Report: The Mueller investigation has finally determined that the lyrics to Louie Louie are not about Trump and Russian collusion

MARKETS: Demand for carbon credits spikes as Hamas seeks to undo damage to Earth's atmosphere caused by burning 10,000 tires on Gaza border

BREAKING: After state reassignment surgery Pennsylvania will henceforth be known as Transylvania

Experts: If we don't act now, unicorns will be extinct in just ten years. Children will ask, "Mommy, what's a unicorn?" Women and minorities will be forced to seek alternative hallucinations

Korean war must continue: Hawaiian federal judge declares Trump's peace effort unconstitutional

New York: feminists march on Broadway, demand the street be given new, non-misogynistic name

Experts: California's planned transition of all state jobs from citizens to illegal aliens by 2020 will help to avoid bankruptcy and save money for social programs for illegal aliens

Putin: If I didn't want Hillary to be president she would be dead

Doritos maker PepsiCo to introduce snack line for women; new Doritas chips will be 77% as big as Doritos and won't make any scary 'crunchy noises'

TMZ: Tooth Fairy accused of sexually assaulting millions of children, outs self as Transgendered Tooth Recovery Specialist

RUSSIA COLLUSION: Trump offers Putin to trade Rep. Maxine Waters for two unnamed members of the State Duma

Ikea founder dead at 91; his coffin arrived in a box with confusing instructions and took 3 hours to assemble

This Thanksgiving ex-president Obama continues with his tradition of apologizing to turkeys everywhere for the injustice they suffered since America's founding

Oslo, Norway: 2017 Nobel Peace Prize goes to advocacy group about which you'll forget immediately after reading this headline

Cambridge, MA, library to replace racist 'Cat in the Hat' with inclusive 'Che in a Beret'

Millions of men worldwide eagerly await broadcast of Hugh Hefner's funeral, solely for the articles

Bill Gates offers to pay for Trump's wall on condition he gets to install Windows

Bernie Sanders introduces single-payer public transportation bill to end America's unequal, unfair, and expensive private transportation system

DNC embroiled in controversy after official Twitter account accidentally 'likes' pictures of US Constitution and Bill of Rights

Hurricane Irma hits Cuba, causes millions of dollars worth of improvements to property and infrastructure

Climate study: extreme weather may be caused by unlicensed witches casting wrong spells in well-meaning effort to destroy Trump

Ex-president Obama declares Irma "Hurricane of Peace," urges not to jump to conclusions and succumb to stormophobia

CNN: Trump reverses Obama's executive order banning hurricanes

ISIS claims responsibility for a total solar eclipse over the lands of American crusaders and nonbelievers

When asked if they could point to North Korea on a map many college students didn't know what a map was

CNN: We must bring America into the 21st century by replacing the 18th century Constitution with 19th century poetry

Pelosi: 'We have to impeach the president in order to find out what we impeached him for'

BREAKING: As of Saturday July 8, 2017, all of Earth's ecosystems have shut down as per Prince Charles's super scientific pronouncement made 96 months ago. Everything is dead. All is lost. Life on Earth is no more.

DNC to pick new election slogan out of four finalists: 'Give us more government or everyone dies,' 'Vote for Democrats or everyone dies,' 'Impeach Trump or everyone dies,' 'Stop the fearmongering or everyone dies'

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is humanity's last chance to save the Earth before it ends five years ago

Experts: The more we embrace diversity the more everything is the same

BOMBSHELL: TMZ offers Kathy Griffin $5 mil to keep any future sex tape private

DEVELOPING: CNN, WaPo, NYT anonymous sources say Vladimir Putin may have ties to Russia

BREAKING: Manning and Snowden have come out with strong condemnation of Donald Trump leaking classified information to Russia

Gun store goes into lockdown over report an "active university professor" roving the grounds

Dozens injured at Ralph Lauren & Louis Vuitton headquarters after Ivanka calls in missile strikes on rival fashion houses

BOMBSHELL: Evidence proves Donald Trump conspired with his campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton

University ranked "very intolerant of free speech" fights the accusation by banning the study and all involved

Concerned that Russians don't consume enough alcohol in the month of March, Russia's Orthodox Church makes St. Patrick's Day official holiday

Grassroots group calls for "The Million Regulators March" on Washington, supported by all who fear the loss of their betters telling them what to do

Experts: Starbucks CEO Schultz's hiring of 10,000 Muslim refugees likely to blow up in his face

Will the groundprog be frightened by its own shadow and hide - or will there be another season of insane protests?

Trump signs executive order making California and New York national monuments; residents have two days to vacate

Women's March against fascism completed with 400,000 fewer deaths than anticipated

Feminist historians uncover ghastly concentration camps where so-called "housewives" were forced to live inauthentic lives slaving away in kitchens

Dictionary of the future: Global Warming was a popular computer simulation game, where the only way to win was not to play

"Anti-fascist" groups violently protest misspelling of their original name, "aren't-we-fascists"

Post-inauguration blues: millions of democrats distraught as the reality of having to find real jobs sets in

"Journalism is the continuation of war by other means" is exposed as a fake quote by mainstream media journalists

Congressional Democrats: "We cannot just simply replace Obamacare with freedom because then millions of Americans will suddenly become free"

Schoolchildren jailed for building only white snowmen

Obama's reckless attacks on Russia serve as recruitment tool to create more Russian hackers

Hillary: "I lost, so I'm going to follow our democratic traditions, poison the wells, and scorch the earth"

Children in Venezuela cook and eat their Christmas toys

Hillary: "I can hack Russia from my bathroom"

Hillary suggests to counter "fake news" with government newspaper called "Truth" ("Pravda" for Russian speakers)

BREAKING: Millions of uncounted votes found on Hillary's private voting machine in her Chappaqua bathroom

New York Times: Fidel Castro world's sexiest corpse

After years of trial and error, CIA finally succeeds with the "waiting it out" technique on Fidel Castro

Post-election shopping tip: look for the PoliticsFree label at your local grocer to make sure you don't buy from companies that don't want your business anymore

In Hillary's America, email server scrubs you

Obama transfers his Nobel Peace Prize to anti-Trump rioters

Democrats blame Hillary's criminal e-mail server for her loss, demand it face prison

Afraid of "dangerous" Trump presidency, protesters pre-emptively burn America down to the ground

Clinton Foundation in foreclosure as foreign donors demand refunds

Hillary Clinton blames YouTube video for unexpected and spontaneous voter uprising that prevented her inevitable move into the White House

Sudden rise in sea levels explained by disproportionately large tears shed by climate scientists in the aftermath of Trump's electoral victory

FBI director Comey delighted after receiving Nobel Prize for Speed Reading (650,000 emails in one week)

U.N. deploys troops to American college campuses in order to combat staggeringly low rape rates

Responding to Trump's surging poll numbers, Obama preemptively pardons himself for treason

Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually

Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida

Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote

The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush

Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food

Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI

Obama captures rare Pokemon while visiting Hiroshima

Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"

Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"

White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party

President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'

Following Obama's 'Okie-Doke' speech, stock of Okie-Doke soars; NASDAQ: 'Obama best Okie-Doke salesman'

Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber

Experts: melting Antarctic glacier could cause sale levels to rise up to 80% off select items by this weekend

Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line

As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards

John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom

Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'

News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"

Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign

Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009

National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman

National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruzs basement

Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response

Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican

Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check

Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing

Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first

Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer

Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote

New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"

Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president

Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two

Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence

Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men

In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas

TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons

Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'

Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"

University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities

Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island

Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"

Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy

State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery

NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget

College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action

ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios

Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic

'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break

ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood

Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans

Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people

Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need

John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side

Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone

John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons

Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend

Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles

State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider

Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillarys Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons

Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations

Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals

US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'

NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy

China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"

Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'

Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%

America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith

Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine

Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET

Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths

Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'

Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State

President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise

Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market

Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record

People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services

Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba

White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'

CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate

Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'

Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'

Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'

Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first

The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office

White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders

Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time

Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy

Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents

Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences

Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity

Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow

African countries to ban all flights from the United States because "Obama is incompetent, it scares us"

Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it

Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'

BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama

Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free

Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness

President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser

Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members

White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos

Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency

Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole

Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"

Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids

Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution

Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon

"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original

Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts

Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks

100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"

Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news

"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence

Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours

Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues

"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes

Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed

Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account

Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"

In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea

Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"

Mardi Gras in North Korea: "Throw me some food!"

Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"

US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"

Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help

The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back. The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."

In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook

MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russias aggression in Ukraine

Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants

Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America

North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"

Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout

Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss

Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"

Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district

Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend

Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle

North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party

White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare

Kim Jong Un executes own "crazy uncle" to keep him from ruining another family Christmas

OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea

President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy

Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"

Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC

Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"

Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week

Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message

NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"

Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough

The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"

Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare

Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation

Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans

Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy

GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords

Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare

Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria

Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"

DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women

Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees

Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left

Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'

FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp

Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies

GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'

Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'

Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism

News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota

Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith

Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page

Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment

White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria

Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'

Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins

Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date

IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history

After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot

Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'

Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program

US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?

Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy

This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester



White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras

Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse

Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school

Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition

Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State

Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'

Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'

Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested

Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead

Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending

Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances

Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons

Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago

Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections

Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country

Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'

White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out

New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen

White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class

To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead

State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations

Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward

President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward

Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects

World ends; S&P soars

Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood

Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes

Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway

Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013

Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama

As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list

Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves

Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium

Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future

Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs

Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet

Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'

Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties

Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years

Obama attends church service, worships self

Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending

Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"

Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh

Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"

Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness

Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears

Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke

Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights

Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'

Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: "Too few words"

Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't

Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost

Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space

Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck

White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus

Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed

Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"

Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere

Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"

Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college

Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!

Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'

Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'

Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome

People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies

Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"

Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans

Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law

Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond

Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics

Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof

Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels

Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party

Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend

May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above

Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"

Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name

Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich

Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag

Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"

Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off

Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"

Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed

White House: "Let them eat statistics"

Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama







AD GOES HERE
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.
CREAL SPRINGS  Fairview Baptist Church is a white, neat little church that sits atop a slight hill, a large black bell on a brick platform outside its front steps. The church, surrounded by a century-old cemetery, thick woods and crops, is off a winding stretch of Saraville Road in rural Creal Springs.

It's an old church  celebrating its 136th anniversary and homecoming this weekend  whose leaders are thankful for that history and striving to remain relevant to its small congregation while attracting new members, particularly younger ones.

"You would like to reach out to have more people to come in," said Ken Sharp, pastor of the church. "We don't have a lot of young people; we're trying to reach out."

He said he attended a church convention and heard them talk about using Vacation Bible Schools as an evangelism tool. He said he didn't want to pressure church members to host one, but was pleased when they decided to organize one this year, the first in at least 20 years.

"It wound up being 'our' idea instead of 'my' idea," Sharp said."I wanted it to be a shared vision."

First Bible school in years

Sharp describes Fairview as a "small country rural church" with a small congregation, some with long family ties: 12 or so members on most Sundays, 15 to 20 on better days and up to 25 on a great day. The youngest person in the church is a young man in ninth grade, he said.

Second Baptist Church in Marion helped Fairview to organize and host its Vacation Bible School this summer, he said.

About 19 young people came, including a few from that Marion church and about a dozen youth from Creal Springs, including a handful who attend other churches.

"Only a couple of them arent (attending any church), and were trying to reach out to those to bring them in and thats where the struggle comes in," Sharp said, "and that's to get people to come to church on a regular basis."

According to the latest census figures, Creal Springs had an estimated population of about 536, almost 20 percent of whom were 14 and younger.

The group had Vacation Bible School one week in July, from Sunday through Thursday and ended with a family celebration that Friday. The classes met in the church's lower level, which has three rooms designed to be classrooms and a two-part Fellowship Hall and kitchen, and had music in the sanctuary upstairs.

Sharp said the best part came when a young brother and sister, who live a few miles up the road the church, approached him with a question that had him smiling as he repeated it: Yall going to do this again next year?

At this point, Sharp certainly hopes so.

Not so focused on small numbers anymore

Sharp has been pastor at Fairview for the past four years, after being at churches in Goreville, Murphysboro and Karnak. This is his 33rd year in ministry. He and Joanne, his wife of 30 years, have three adult children: Ashley, Kevin and Bridget.

The congregation he leads now built the church they're in 25 years ago, with help from Pastor Ricky Gray of Flowood Baptist Church in Mississippi, and members of that congregation; Gray will address the homecoming celebration at 2 p.m. Sunday at the church.

The event will also feature the Voices of Praise from Harrisburg; Sharp is himself a former minister of music who would love to one day see his own church create a choir that fills the three pews behind the pulpit.

Early on in his ministry, he said he worried about the number of people he could minister to.

In the beginning, numbers bothered me, Sharp said. I let it get to me. Now I know God wants me to be faithful  doing what he wants us to do.  He will take care of the numbers.

Our focus is to be on people, not numbers."
Natasha C. Mann, of Carterville, was sentenced for her role in a federal drug conspiracy, according to a Friday news release from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois Donald S. Boyce.

Mann, 29, who had previously pleaded guilty to a one-count indictment charging conspiracy to distribute MDMA, or more commonly known as ecstasy, was sentenced to 60 months in prison.

Evidence at the plea and sentencing hearings established that between December 2015 and March 22, Mann was involved with others in the distribution of approximately 11,971 ecstasy tablets. The offense occurred in Williamson County.

The ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Southern Illinois Enforcement Group, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration, Marion Police Department and U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

 The Southern
CHICAGO  A state audit finds children in the care of Illinois' welfare system are being housed in psychiatric hospitals and shelters hundreds of days longer than necessary because of the difficulty of finding placements in foster care.

The review of the Department of Children and Family Services was conducted by the state auditor general's office and released Thursday.

The Chicago Tribune reported that inspectors found one state ward remained in an emergency shelter 357 days last year, far longer than the court-ordered 30 days.

The number of children remaining in psychiatric hospitals longer than medically necessary more than doubled in 2015 from the year before to 168. The average length of stay for those children went up to 40 days in 2015.

"Meanwhile, the children are suffering," said Benjamin Wolf, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "I talked to a child who was trapped in a psychiatric hospital, and he was just weeping because he felt abandoned by everybody. What can you say? He has been abandoned. Like a shelter, it's a miserable place to spend a big chunk of your childhood."

Wolf said the audit's findings are symptoms of inadequate community mental health services and a chronic shortage of appropriate placements for children in the foster care system.

DCFS Director George Sheldon acknowledged in an emailed statement that "this is one of the most intractable issues we have been dealing with."

The agency responded to the audit with a number of proposed solutions, including a psychiatric hospital tracking database and improved procedures for kids in shelters, which are planned for later this year. DCFS also said it will overhaul the database used to track youth placement.

"We do recognize the children and older youth have been in the hospital too long," DCFS spokeswoman Veronica Resa said. "One day is too long."
The last clash between the KNLA of Karen National Union (KNU) and MNLA of New Mon State Party (NMSP) was back in 1988 fuelled by a land dispute over the Three Pagodas Pass area, on the Thai-Burma border.



Mon and Karens 1948

oath announcement Mon and Karens 1948oath announcement

KNLA and MNLA spokespersons stated that their troops didnt start firing at the opposing unit first and that no one in their unit was wounded.

Because they passed over the territory, we sent a moderator but could not negotiate. So, both sides started firing at each other from far away. However, it was not on purpose, said Padoh Win Khine, who is in-charge of Tavoy Districts KNU Liaison office.

The clash damaged several houses in Tae Chaung village including the village administrators house, according to locals of Tae Chaung Village.

It is still a complex issue between us due to land disputes in the area. However, this did not take place on purpose, said Nai Win Hla, who is in charge of NMSPs Home Affair Department.

The area, in the east of Ah-lae Sakhan Village Tract, Yebyu Township, is where the NMSPs Tavoy District forces are powerful, while it is also connected to the KNUs Myeik-Tavoy District controlled area.

On August 24, Saw Zee Zi, secretary of the KNUs Myeik-Tavoy District, sent warning letters to village administrators in Yebyu Township that the KNU troops would be active again in the area. The letter included that the KNU aimed to take back its originally controlled area. The KNU already signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government and decided would go back to its territory. It did not aim to be involved in clashes and cause fears or concerns amongst the villagers in the area.

Nai Win Hla also said that the NMSP informed Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, State level Joint Monitoring Committee and Minister of Tenasserism Division Border Security to avoid further disputes between the two groups.

The tension was high between the two groups in August when the NMSP, which stopped cutting down the trees in Ye Chaungphyaya area, did not allow KNU troops to carrying timber across NMSPs territory. Shortly afterwards, KNU troops set up their gate at Mayan Chaung Bridge.

The KNU signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with the government. The NMSP has only signed at the state level and union level but not the NCA with the government.
J. L. BELL is a Massachusetts writer who specializes in (among other things) the start of the American Revolution in and around Boston. He is particularly interested in the experiences of children in 1765-75. He has published scholarly papers and popular articles for both children and adults. He was consultant for an episode of History Detectives, and contributed to a display at Minute Man National Historic Park.
For a rough introduction to my philosophy of blogging, including the Code of Amiability Ito follow on this weblog, please read my fifth anniversary post . I consider blogging to be a very informal type of publishing - like putting up thoughts on your door with a note asking for comments. Nothing in this weblog is done rigorously: it's a forum to let my mind be unruly, a place for jottings and first impressions. Because I consider posts here to be 'literary seedings' rather than finished products, nothing here should be taken as if it were anything more than an attempt to rough out some basic thoughts on various issues. Learning to look at any topic philosophically requires, I think, jumping right in, even knowing that you might be making a fool of yourelf; so that's what I do. My primary interest in most topics is the flow and structure of reasoning they involve rather than their actual conclusions, so most of my posts are about that. If, however, you find me making a clear factual error, let me know; blogging is a great way to get rid of misconceptions.
St. Luke Presbyterian Church of Orangeburg is poised to congratulate one of its own for being selected as the top ecclesiastical leader of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, the son of the late James Herbert Nelson and Johnalee Nelson, was elected stated clerk of the PC (USA) on June 24 during the 222nd General Assembly meeting held in Portland, Oregon.

The 57-year-old has said that he is grateful for the support he has received from St. Luke Presbyterian Church on Mingo Street in Orangeburg. He credited the church with having a lot to do with his spiritual growth and development.

His father was once pastor of St. Luke Presbyterian.

The church will have a drop-in reception for Nelson from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 18, at the church. The community is invited.

Gladys Johnson, a member of St. Luke, said the church is sponsoring the drop-in reception along with First Presbyterian Church of Orangeburg in partnership with the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery.

Johnson said it is significant that Nelson, who began his term on Aug. 1, was the first black man in the more than 300-year history of Presbyterianism in the U.S. to be elected stated clerk of the church. The denomination is more than 90 percent white.

"It's a drop-in reception celebrating his nomination as the head executive officer of the Presbyterian Church USA. We've never had an African-American to reach that high. That's the highest office you can go in the Presbyterian denomination, and he's a relatively young man. He's from a small town that many people never heard of, and that's a plus, Johnson said.

She added, We want to congratulate him and let him know how proud we are of him. Hes just done very well. Were going to meet and greet him and are inviting all of the presbyteries in the state of South Carolina.

Nelson, director of the PC (USA)s Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C., succeeds the Rev. Gradye Parsons in the four-year term.

Nelson comes from a long line of Presbyterian pastors including his father, James Herbert Nelson; his grandfather, Warren Julius Nelson; and two uncles. Nelson's mother was a ruling elder and active on the national level of Presbyterian Women and in global missions work.

Nelson has said his familys history in Orangeburg runs deep and helped shape the man he has become.

His father was a former state conference president of the NAACP. During that period or shortly afterward, he was very much a part of efforts to help integrate Orangeburg as part of his ministry at St. Luke, Nelson said.

* The date of the event has been changed from Saturday, Sept. 17 to Sunday, Sept. 18.
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About Censored News Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell. Since 2006, Censored News has received more than 20 million pageviews. As a collective of writers, photographers and broadcasters, we publish news of Indigenous Peoples and human rights. Contact publisher Brenda Norrell: brendanorrell@gmail.com

From the publisher Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 40 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the mainstream media for 14 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

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News / National

by Richard Muponde

FORMER Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services, Deputy Commissioner Rhodes Moyo collapsed and died on Thursday morning while he was jogging in Gwanda's Jacaranda suburb.He was 60 years old.Matabeleland South Police spokesperson, Inspector Philisani Ndebele yesterday confirmed the death of former DCG Moyo."Yes I can confirm that we received a report of a sudden death of former DCG Moyo in Jacaranda yesterday."This happened while he was doing his exercises in the morning. That's the information I have for now," said Insp Ndebele.A source said:"He collapsed while jogging and died. He died early in the morning in the streets of Jacaranda where he always does his exercises every morning. When an ambulance was summoned he had already passed on."Gwanda Mayor Councillor Knowledge Ndlovu yesterday expressed shock at the untimely death of former DCG Moyo and said he was a fine man who got along with everyone in the town." It's really a sad loss to the people of Gwanda. He was a fine man. We really lost a good man. May his soul rest in peace," said Clr Ndlovu.Former DCG Moyo was promoted to that position in July 2014 after the Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs and also Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa conferred the title of Commissioner General to the then Commissioner of Prisons Paradzai Zimondi in line with the new constitution.Three of his deputies Fadzai Mupfure, Aggrey Machingauta and the late Moyo were promoted to Deputy Commissioner Generals.Moyo retired from the ZPCS recently to pursue other interests.He once worked as the prisons boss for Matabeleland region before he was transferred to Harare where he was appointed Deputy Commissioner responsible for administration before he was appointed DCG.
News / National

by Staff reporter

LEADERS of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association have scoffed at suggestions they have reached a political understanding with MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.ZNLWVA spokesperson, Douglas Mahiya said, while they continued to receive sympathy from a cross-section of politicians across the divide, there have decided to "rise above partisan politics"."Events in the last few months have opened our eyes to a whole new world. Things we did not know, but the arrests and harassments have also provided a window of opportunity to those who have fought Zanu PF for years to approach us in sympathy with our situation," he said in statement yesterday."We could not deny them a chance to feel for us, but we remain former freedom fighters, schooled in the Zanu ideology that brought independence to this country."Mahiya, ZNLWVA vice-chairperson, Headman Moyo, secretary-general, Victor Matemadanda, national commissar, Francis Nhando and Harare provincial leader, Hoyini Bhila are out on bail awaiting trial after being arrested in connection with a communique that trashed President Robert Mugabe's leadership.Media reports say Mahiya and Matemadanda met Tsvangirai, for as yet undisclosed reasons. But the ZNLWVA spokesperson said there was never a "secret meeting"."Zimbabweans from all walks of life attended court hearings involving leaders of the war veterans. Some have come to our homes to empathise with us, just as it is in African custom when you neighbour has met with misfortune," Mahiya said."But there has never been a secret meeting with anyone for whatever reason. However, I must state that some political parties think because we have been expelled from Zanu PF, there is a chance that we might accept their membership. We have decided to stick with association business and that is where we will remain."The former freedom fighters also scoffed at moves by the government to use "underhand tactics to replace the leadership of the association"."The counter revolutionaries think they have captured Zanu PF and are now moving in for the war veterans. The intention was revealed in Chiweshe (at a rally addressed by First Lady Grace Mugabe). There are no changes to the leadership of the war veterans and counter-revolutionary attempts to subvert and divide the ZNLWVA, mislead and confuse Zimbabweans have been thoroughly embarrassed by the failure of the (Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister) Mandi Chimene project," the statement said.Mahiya said ZNLWVA did not operate at government's discretion, but on its constitution, with the ministry responsible for the welfare of war veterans "only mandated with administering the Act."
News / National

by Staff reporter

The World Bank has denied media reports that it is about to resume lending to cash-strapped Zimbabwe.Widely-circulated reports this week suggested that the World Bank was working on a bail-out package for Zimbabwe that could see it handing over 400 million US to President Robert Mugabe's government starting next year.The claims elicited howls of protest from opponents of the 92-year-old leader. A leaked document appeared to show that the World Bank had ignored the government's unpopular decision to print its own banknotes and turned a blind eye to recent reports of rights violations during a wave of anti-government protests.But now the global lender says the leaked document the reports were based on was "an unofficial draft document that has not been approved.""The World Bank will only resume direct lending to Zimbabwe when the issue of arrears is resolved," a statement from them added.Zimbabwe owes the World Bank 1.1 billion US, according to the central bank governor John Mangudya.A mid-term fiscal policy review presented by the finance minister Patrick Chinamasa this week showed the dire straits that troubled Zimbabwe is in financially. The minister admitted that the wage bill for civil servants ate up 96.8 percent of revenue -- and that the authorities might be unable to meet that bill by the end of the year.
By Trend





Turkey can set up a camp in the Syrian territories liberated from the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terrorists and resettle Syrian refugees there after creation of a safe zone, the Turkish Office for Prevention and Elimination of Consequences of Emergency (AFAD) told Trend on September 9.

AFAD said it is preparing to create a camp in Syria.

Some groups of Syrian refugees are voluntarily leaving Turkey and settling in Syrias Jarabulus, previously liberated from the IS militants as part of the Shield of the Euphrates operation, AFAD said.

Earlier, it was reported that the first group of Syrian refugees, consisting of 250 people, returned to their motherland Sept. 7.

On Aug. 24 morning, the Turkish Air Force, with the support of the coalition aircraft, launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarabulus from the IS militants in northern Syria, near Aleppo. The operation was dubbed the Shield of the Euphrates.

The Free Syrian Army and the Turkish Armed Forces have liberated around 100 villages and Jarabulus from the IS militants since the beginning of the operation.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has so far claimed over 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

According to AFAD, there are three million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey has spent more than $10 billion on Syrian refugees.
By Trend





Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl (NICO), a Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), reached an agreement with Frances Total to resume oil swap in the near future, Mehr reported on September 9.

According to the report, NICO and Total are preparing to sign an agreement to swap 160,000-200,000 barrels per day of oil to revive the swap operations from Caspian countries, which stopped six years ago.

Earlier, Fars news agency also reported that NICO is also finalizing the talks with Switzerland-based Vitol as well as British Petroleum to resume oil swap operations.

Under oil swap agreements, which started in 1997 and were in place for over 12 years, Iran received crude oil of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the Neka port and delivered an equal volume to the clients of the same countries in Persian Gulf.

Iran says works are underway to increase the Neka ports swap capacity from the current level of 120,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 2.5 million b/d.

The total income received by Iran from swap transactions from 1997 to 2009 amounted to about $880 million.
By Trend





Iran has launched construction of a new unit at Busheher nuclear power plant with the help of Russia.



Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom (Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation) have attended the ceremony for launching the construction of the second unit of Bushehr nuclear power plant, IRNA news agency reported.



The construction of the second unit is projected to be completed within nine years. Iran also has in plans to build a third unit within the next 18 months.



Construction of the two units is expected to cost around $10 billion and the two new units will be capable of producing 1,057 megawatts of electricity.



Russias Rosatom, the Nuclear Power Production and Development Company of Iran (NPPD) and Atomstroyexport JSC (ASE JSC) signed two contracts last November for construction of power units of Bushehr nuclear power plant on a turnkey basis.



Russia built Irans first nuclear power plant and commenced it in 2011 with 1,000 MW of power generation capacity.
Plans are afoot to classify contractors in Oman in bid to open up opportunities for the whole segment of the contracting community and to create a level playing field, said a report.



The proposal has been submitted by the Oman Society of Contractors (OSC) to the government and is awaiting response, reported Oman Observer, citing officials at the OSC.



The classification will be able to highlight a company's ability and quality to implement projects, they said.



The OSC has about 110 members, but the sector is bigger than that, which is why now the society is taking steps to encourage the smaller and medium contracting companies to join it to be represented.



"It will bring in benefits to the contractors themselves, whether they are large or small companies, the clients or whether they are individual consumers and it will definitely be a benefit for the government," remarked Shaswar al Balushi, the chief executive of OSC.



The classification is expected to reduce many of the challenges that are faced today by the contracting sector in the country such as manpower and contractual related issues, he stated.



According to him, the society will classify large companies, medium and small-sized companies.



"It will enable the contractors to benchmark themselves and get an insight on how to improve themselves to move forward," added Al Balushi.



The certification of classification will be issued by OSC as it is an independent body representing the sector.



"We have reached the final stage now. The package is being reviewed by both the ministries for both respective ministers to take the decisions," he added.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is in talks with several parties, including South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, over the future of its components business Magneti Marelli, the carmaker's chairman John Elkann said.



"There are ongoing talks, but nothing formal," Elkann said on Saturday during a meeting of shareholders in his family's Exor holding company.



Talks with officials from the Korean group had taken place on the sidelines of Exor board meeting earlier this week, he added.



Samsung Electronics's vice chairman Jae Yong Lee is an independent board member of Exor.



"We have talked about Magneti Marelli and also other issues, including the insurance sector ... as we own PartnerRE," Elkann told journalists.



The components unit is attracting interest because it could have an important role in car development in the coming decades, Elkann said, adding FCA was keen to strengthen the business.

Last month FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said Magneti Marelli's future would be outside the Fiat group in the medium- or long-term, but for now it was essential to its parent company.



Samsung has identified automotive components as a growth driver as sales in its existing businesses, including smartphones, slowed. Acquiring a proven supplier such as Magneti Marelli could help it overcome the high entry barrier in an industry known for conservatism and an emphasis on track record.  Reuters
News / Regional

by Whinsley Masara

AN ailing injiva axed his wife before killing himself after suspecting that she was cheating on him and wanted to poison him.Sambulo Ndlovu (30) of Nembe Area, under Chief Magama in Tsholotsho, hanged himself after striking his wife, Mrs Nester Ndlovu (26), twice in the head and once on her back, leaving her for dead on Wednesday soon after midnight.Villagers said Ndlovu was bedridden after being diagnosed with Tuberculosis soon after his return from South Africa last month.They said he discovered some vegetable seed at his homestead and thought it was rat poison that his wife wanted to use to kill him.The villagers said Ndlovu seemed possessed when he suddenly gathered strength to brutally attack his wife and thereafter committed suicide.Mrs Ndlovu was rushed to Tsholotsho District Hospital where she was transferred to Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo.Ndlovu's father, Headman Thomas Ndengwane Mpofu, said Ndlovu looked depressed in the days leading to the tragedy."My son accused his wife of wanting to poison him. I heard noises and screams pleading for help. I found my daughter-in-law in a pool of blood."Headman Ndengwane said his son struck his wife twice in the head and once on her back before he fled from the scene."We thank God she managed to stumble outside her bedroom and shouted for help before collapsing."We called a neighbourhood watch committee member while we made efforts to rush her to hospital."We thereafter looked for Sambulo and found him hanging from a tree not more than 500 metres from our home," said the old man.He said Ndlovu used a piece of wire to hang himself.Headman Ndengwane said the couple had a troubled relationship."The couple was always fighting. Ndlovu was not permanently employed but would go to South Africa and do piece jobs."He returned home around mid August and was admitted for a week at Tsholotsho District Hospital where he was diagnosed with TB," he said.Headman Ndengwane said before his death, his son had become withdrawn from friends, family and socially."Earlier this week, we sat down together and I took time to counsel him. I advised him not to worry too much about his health or marital problems."When he returned from South Africa they fought over a man's jacket that he found his wife with. He always accused her of cheating," he said.Sambulo's mother, Mrs Siphangisile Mpofu, said: "The two always fought but I never expected it to come to this. Last year, their fights became serious until our daughter-in-law attempted to commit suicide."I took them to the police and at one time I even engaged lawyers to counsel them. There wasn't much change until today when we now mourn one of them. We are not sure yet if the hospitalised one will make it but we pray for the best."Matabeleland North acting provincial police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Eglon Nkala said investigations into the matter were in progress."I can confirm receiving the report involving attempted murder as well as sudden death by hanging by the same person."A man struck his wife with an axe before he hanged himself. However, I'm yet to receive full information on the matter and can't comment further," said Asst Insp Nkala.Ward 22 Councillor Phumuza Dube urged youths to seek counselling when in problems."We have lost a once very confident and energetic youth. It's been a while since Sambulo withdrew himself from the community."A problem shared is a problem solved and this young man should have done better," he said.
US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed over national security again on Friday, with Trump calling his Democratic rival "trigger-happy" and Clinton arguing his proposals would make the world a more dangerous place.



The two White House hopefuls have waged a running battle this week over who is best placed to command the world's most powerful military, with both touting their support from retired military leaders and attacking their opponent's temperament and judgment.



Trump also injected drama into the national security debate this week by wholeheartedly endorsing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader who has fared better than U.S. President Barack Obama. Clinton, many Democrats and even some in his own Republican party balked.



Trump, speaking on Friday at the conservative Value Voters summit in Washington, painted Clinton as a "massive failure" while she was America's top diplomat from 2009 to early 2013,blaming her for the current turmoil in the Middle East.



"The problem is, Hillary Clinton is trigger-happy. Her tenure has brought us only war, destruction and death. She's just too quick to intervene, invade, or to push for regime change," he said at the summit.



Meanwhile in New York, Clinton met with national security and foreign policy experts who are supporting her campaign to discuss terrorism. She touted the bipartisan nature of the meeting and vowed to work across the aisle as president to tackle national security challenges.



"The nominee on the other side promises to do things that will make us less safe," Clinton told reporters at a news conference on Friday afternoon. "National security experts on both sides of the aisle are chilled by what they're hearing from the Republican nominee."



Both candidates are hoping to capitalize on concerns about national security and paint their opponents as unqualified leading into the Nov. 8 presidential election.



WORKING WITH THE RUSSIANS



Trump's speech on Friday comes after the candidate took the unusual step of criticizing U.S. policy in a program aired on Thursday night on Russian government-funded television network, RT, a 24-hour news channel that broadcasts in both English and Russian. He said he disagreed with the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and that Obama botched the withdrawal.



"It's a war we shouldn't have been in, number one," Trump said in the interview. "And it's a war that, when we got out, we got out the wrong way. That's Obama."



Critics of the network, which mostly targets audiences outside of Russia, have described it as a propaganda arm of Putin's government.



American presidential candidates are not prone to condemn their country before a foreign audience, even if they are fierce critics of the current administration while campaigning in the United States. Trump has said far worse about Obama in appearances on U.S. television networks.



Clinton blasted Trump for appearing on the network and praising Putin, as he had done on Wednesday night during a televised national security forum.



"Every day that goes by this just becomes more and more of a reality television show," Clinton said. "It's not a serious presidential campaign, and it is beyond one's imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin."



The White House said it had no comment on Trump's remarks.



The New York businessman also said on RT on Thursday he did not think Russia's government was behind the hack of Democratic National Committee email servers, and doubted it was trying to interfere in the U.S. election. Experts inside and outside the government have pointed to Russian-backed actors as the source of the hack, which has been used to leak information in an attempt to embarrass Democrats.



Trump, in his speech on Friday, stuck to his belief that the United States and Russia can work together to defeat Islamic State militants. He said any nation that wants to join the United States against ISIS is welcome.



"That includes Russia," he said. "If they want to join us in knocking out ISIS, that's just fine as far as I'm concerned."



Trump also sought on Friday to blame Clinton after reports that North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon, arguing it was the fourth such test since the Democrat became secretary of state in 2009 and that she should have ended the nation's nuclear program before her tenure ended.



"It's just one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state," Trump said.



Clinton called the North Korea test "outrageous and unacceptable," saying she supports imposing additional U.S. and United Nations sanctions.



"It will be on the top of my list in dealing with China on how we're going to prevent what could very well be a serious conflict with North Korea," she said.  Reuters
UAE national carrier Etihad Airways has announced the extension of its commitment to the global fashion industry by collaborating with iconic luxury brand Jimmy Choo.



Etihad, also the official airline of New York Fashion Week, is celebrating the renowned designers 20th anniversary with events at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport and in New York City.



As part of the celebration, the Abu Dhabi carrier served as a supporting partner of Jimmy Choos VIP event hosted by the international models featured in the 20th Anniversary campaign including Amber Valletta, Milla Jovovich, Sasha Pivovarova, Lexi Boling, Taylor Hill, Jasmine Tookes and Xiao Wen Ju.



Highlights of the event included the unveiling of the brands 20th anniversary campaign video featuring the models and a live musical performance by Mary J. Blige, said the statement from Etihad.



Jimmy Choo has been revered by the global jetset for two decades, so it is fitting that Etihad partners with the iconic brand, which shares similar ambitions - to provide the ultimate in elegance, sophistication and comfort, said Patrick Pierce, the VP of Sponsorships.



Our aspiration is to become the airline of choice for the global fashion community, and our collaboration with Jimmy Choo serves as a natural extension of our fashion week alignment, particularly during New York Fashion Week, added Pierce.



On the fashion runway, Etihad is hosting a VIP lounge with WME | IMG and Jimmy Choo at Skylight at Moynihan Station, one of the main venues for the shows throughout New York Fashion Week, from September 8 to 15.



The lounge features a retrospective of the 20 most iconic Jimmy Choo shoes from the past 20 years, as curated by the brands creative director, Sandra Choi, and imagery from the anniversary campaign, shot by Craig McDean.



Along with the airlines cabin crew, the lounge will act as a hub for Etihad Airways signature hospitality and will feature imagery from the airlines uniform campaign shot by Norman Jean Roy.



On the airport tarmac at JFK International Airport, supermodel Amber Valletta unveiled an Etihad Airways A380 livery with the NYFW: The Shows branded logo on the aircrafts engines and door, along with prints by Choo, which are prominently displayed on board in The Lobby area of the aircraft, located on the upper deck between the First Apartments and Business Studios.



The anniversary celebration will continue with Etihad during London Fashion Week and in Abu Dhabi later this year, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
Germany's interior minister has warned that the country is home to more than 500 Islamic militants who could be capable of carrying out assaults on their own or as members of "hit teams."



Speaking in an interview with Bild newspaper, Thomas de Maiziere said there were currently at least 520 "potential attackers" in the country, which has been on edge since two Islamic State-inspired attacks in July.



He said another 360 "relevant" people were known to police because of their close proximity to the potential attackers.



Many Germans fear that fighters belonging to the Islamic State jihadist group could have slipped into Germany with the roughly one million of refugees from Syria, North Africa and Asia who arrived last year.



"The terror threat now stems from foreign hit teams as well as fanatical lone wolves in Germany," de Maiziere said in the interview ahead of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US, which were partly co-ordinated from Germany.



"The hit teams are secretly smuggled into Europe and prepare their actions without being noticed, as we saw with the attacks in Paris and Brussels," he added. "But it's even more difficult to uncover the fanatical lone wolves. Unfortunately, there is a real and present danger from both threats."



He said security authorities were doing everything possible to monitor "the potential terrorists" and noted that there have been more investigations and arrests this year.



Despite their efforts, he said, "the authorities are assuming there are undiscovered lone wolf terrorists out there."



Germany had until July been spared the kind of militant attacks suffered by neighbouring France and Belgium. But in late July, Islamic State claimed two attacks - on a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbach - in which asylum-seekers wounded 20 people in total.



The anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has seized on the attacks to criticise Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policies.-Reuters
Algeria's energy minister says there is a consensus among OPEC and non-OPEC members about the need to stabilise the oil market to support prices, state news agency APS reported.



Noureddine Bouterfa was speaking after meeting his Saudi counterpart Khalid al-Falih and OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo in Paris late on Friday.



Bouterfa has travelled to Qatar, Iran and Russia this week to push for stabilising the oil price between $50 and $60, and said he was "confident" about the outcome of an OPEC meeting to be held in Algiers on Sept. 26-28.



Bouterfa said Algeria would submit a proposal to steady prices at the meeting. "Our discussions with our partners show that there is a consensus around the necessity of stabilising the market. That is already something positive," Bouterfa said.



"We are in contact with the members and the secretary-general of OPEC and that is part of this work of achieving a consensus and I am optimistic."



"There is support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, and from non-OPEC countries, notably Russia."



Algeria is hosting a meeting of the International Energy Forum alongside the OPEC meeting later this month, and Bouterfa said he had discussed both sessions with Falih and Barkindo in Paris.



Algeria is among the oil producers to have taken a heavy hit from the halving of oil prices over the past two years.



Moves towards clinching a global deal on stabilising crude output come five months after talks for such a deal failed when Saudi Arabia insisted Iran join the pact.



Tehran says it supports any measures to stabilise the market, but it has stopped short of indicating whether it would join a global deal before its production reaches 4 million barrels per day, the level at which it says it was pumping before the imposition of Western sanctions in 2012. -Reuters
Middle East carriers posted the strongest passenger traffic growth across all regions in July, with a 13.1 per cent year-over-year increase.



According to a figures released by The International Air Transport Association (Iata), demand had dipped in June owing to the timing of Ramadan. However, capacity rose 15.5 per cent, causing load factor to drop 1.7 percentage points to 78.6 per cent.



Other regions had also witnessed a boost in passeger traffic, with Asia-Pacific airlines recording a 9.8 per cent increase compared to July 2015, while Latin American carriers and African airlines saw demand rise 7.5 per cent cent and 7.4 per cent respectively. European and North American carriers posted passenger demand growth of 4.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively.



Overall, July international passenger demand rose 7.1 per cent compared to July 2015, which was an increase over the 5.0 per cent yearly increase in June. Total capacity climbed 7.3 per cent, causing load factor to slip 0.2 per cent percentage points to 83.5 per cent.



Total revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 5.9 per cent, compared to the same month last year, with all regions reporting growth. Monthly capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 6.0 per cent, and load factor was 83.7 per cent - just 0.1 percentage point below the record July high achieved in 2015.



July saw demand strengthen, after a softening in June. Demand was stimulated by lower fares which, in turn, were supported by lower oil prices. And near record high load factors demonstrate that people want to travel. But, there are some important sub-plots to the narrative of strong demand. Long-haul travel to Europe, for example, suffered in the aftermath of a spate of terrorist attacks. And the mature domestic markets are seeing demand growth stall while Brazil and Russia contract, said Alexandre de Juniac, Iatas director general and CEO. - TradeArabia News Service
Sunday clubs and meetings

Alcoholics Anonymous: 10 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 10:15 a.m., 917 N. Beech; noon, 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 6:30 p.m., 456 W. Walnut; 6:30 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 6:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 8 p.m., 328 1/2 E. A. Douglas: 1 p.m., Douglas, 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back), womens meeting; 7:30 p.m., Douglas, 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 6:30 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 8 p.m., 15th & Melrose at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org.

Nicotine Anonymous: 5 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club. Info: Pam M., 577-0518; Troy Y., 267-6326.

Thin Blue Line 5/10K

The Windy City Striders are hosting the second annual Thin Blue Line 5K and 10K starting at the Town Hall in Evansville, 325 Curtis St. The fee is $30 per participant or $50 per team with a max of four people per team. Registration can be completed online by going to raceit.com or you can register the morning of the race at 8 a.m. The race starts at 9 a.m. All finishers will receive a medal and a thin blue line sticker that has been donated by Bar-D signs. Qdoba has donated burritos for participants after the race. Thanks also to our sponsors 1st American Title and the Flour Bin.

All proceeds will directly benefit our local law enforcement departments. You can find more information on the Windycitystriders.com website under the calendar tab or check it out on our Facebook page, Casper windy city striders.

Patriot Day

The Natrona County United Veterans Council is profoundly honored to present this years Patriot Day Ceremony at 11 a.m. at the Tom Walsh Chapel, Oregon Trail State Veterans Cemetery. Considering the untenable events of the last year, which caused the murder of nine officers of the law, the council believes the community should come together on this day to show our support for all first responders. The ceremony not only honors these nine lives, but all first responders who gave their lives in the line of duty during the past calendar year. The Fire Department Pipe and Drum Corps will be present, and the camaraderie we share as we honor each of these fallen heroes is undeniable. Please join us to share our solidarity with our first responders. Questions, Gary 237-7864.

Sunday breakfast at the Elks

Breakfast starts on Sunday, Sept. 11, at the Casper Elks Lodge. Open to the public from 8 to 11 a.m. Serving pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage links, potatoes, scrambled eggs, French toast and omelets to order. New to the menu is build your own breakfast burrito. Also served is toast, juice, tea and coffee. All you can eat for $7, children 5 to 12 are $3, 4 and under are free. Come down for the best breakfast in town and see the old crew again. For more information, call 234-4839.

VFW Benefit Breakfast

VFW Post 9439 and Auxiliary, 1800 Bryan Stock Trail, will host a benefit breakfast for the Boy Scout Troop 121 and Girl Scout Troop 10053 from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. All proceeds will go to Boy Scout Troop 121 and Girl Scout Troop 10053. Menu includes ham, bacon, sausage, biscuits with sausage gravy, eggs, hash browns, green chili, pancakes, danish, fruit and beverages. Cost is $7 for adults and $3.50 for children under 10. The public is welcome. Please call 235-4867 for more information.

September at Holy Family

Church of the Holy Family Anglican Rite, 4100 SE Wyoming Blvd., announces its September schedule.

Sept. 11: Christian Education for boys & girls 9 a.m. New Curriculum, audio/visual program-take home prayers. Adult Holy Baptism & Confirmation class. *After worship,helpers needed to remove carpet for new installation.

All interested people are welcome at all of these offerings.

Bishop Ken Kinner 262-7505; Father Jim Dean 262-6875; Sr. Warden John Becker 262-8813; Jr. Warden Dan Galles 258-9655.

Marriage class at Hilltop Baptist

Beginning Sept. 11, Hilltop Baptist Church will host a 12-week marriage class titled The Mingling of Souls. For more information or to sign up, please contact Rob or Nicole at the church office: 265-6540.

Jam session

Jam Session at Eagles Hall, 306 N. Durbin St., from 4 to 8 p.m. Music to dance by or just listen and enjoy. The Eagle Riders will be cooking some great hamburgers if you get hungry. No admission fee, all invited to join in on the fun. No admission fee but donations to the Eagle Charities are always welcome.

Robbie Daniels  235-5130

Coed bowling at Sunrise

Looking for people who would like to bowl on Sunday night starting Sept. 11 until late April or early May. Start time will be 6 p.m. at Sunrise Lanes. Coed teams of four people. Yearly signup fee is $20, then $14 per person per week. This is not a serious league, we are sanctioned, but we have a good time. There is room for singles and teams. Please contact Connie via text or call at 267-8687.
Chronic wasting disease caused a 10 percent annual decline in the white-tailed deer population south of Glenrock, according to University of Wyoming researchers.

Their study, presented in a paper published Aug. 30 in the scientific journal PLOS One, is the first to look at population effects of white-tailed deer herds with a high level of CWD prevalence.

University of Wyoming graduate student Dave Edmunds said the findings are notable because there is no effective management for infected herds. The findings increase the urgency of keeping CWD from spreading.

The take-home is: Prevent CWD from getting into new populations, because once it gets established we really have no way of handling the disease, Edmunds said.

The study said localized extinction among infected herds could occur within 50 years. The disease also affects elk, moose and other kinds of deer.

While CWD is not known to have a negative effect on humans or livestock, Edmunds said white-tailed deer are one of the most popular animals with the public, both for hunting and nature watching.

We care about population decline because this is the most commonly hunted big game species in North America, Edmunds said. There is a large segment of the population that want to hunt and just view  non-consumptive users ... just like to observe white-tailed deer.

The disease has existed in Wyoming and northern Colorado for 50 years but has steadily grown over time and is now spreading to states like Wisconsin, Michigan and New York and even central Canada.

It is undetectable for roughly the first 18 months after an animal is infected. During that time, Edmunds said saliva and feces from infected deer can spread it across the herds habitat.

The landscape becomes radioactive, Edmunds said. Thats what makes it such a nasty and difficult disease to manage.

In the final stage of the disease, deer become emaciated and effectively starve to death. Edmunds said there is no cure and even infected deer cared for in captivity will eventually succumb.

The study examined deer in southeastern Wyoming from 2003-2010. Edmunds said the 10 percent annual population decline was due largely to a high infection rate among female deer who are responsible for increasing herd size.

It doesnt take very many bucks to impregnate all the does, Edmunds said. Females are really what drive population growth.

Female deer in the studied population were infected with CWD at a rate of 42 percent, compared with 29 percent in males.

Edmunds said new hunting regulations, such as restrictions on killing does, might help ensure white-tailed deer populations remain stable. The research found CWD-infected deer are more likely to be killed by hunters even when no visible symptoms were present.

Hunting is exacerbating the problem, he said.

But a Wyoming Game and Fish official said that statewide the white-tailed deer population was doing fine.

Saying CWD is affecting the white-tailed deer population is probably over-exaggerating, said Scott Edberg, deputy chief of the Wildlife Division.

He said white-tailed deer are thriving in certain parts of the state, such as the Black Hills region.

But Edberg emphasized that for several years the state has had strict regulations of moving live animals and on exporting corpses of hunted animals out of the state  two main ways CWD is thought to be artificially spread.

We have very strict regulations specifically to address CWD, Edberg said.

Edberg said he had not yet carefully reviewed the new research but that Game and Fish, which helped fund and support the study, would incorporate the results into its decision-making process about hunting regulations.

The study was conducted through the Wyoming Wildlife/Livestock Health Center under the supervision of Todd Cornish, an associate professor at the university-affiliated State Veterinary Lab.
Cole Miller still remembers the first time he watched his mother speak. He sat in a crowd of 1,200 in Japan, eager to hear Mariko Terasaki Millers words.

When she took the podium, the whole temperature of the room changed, Miller recalled. She had that amazing quality to simply change the room when she became the focus of attention.

Mariko, known to her friends as Mako, was there to speak about her father, a Japanese diplomat known for his last-minute attempts to avert war with the United States. Wyoming was her home at the time, but she had lived in Japan during World War II.

Mako was well-known in the country, partly because of her father, partly because of her mother  an American who authored the bestselling book Bridge to the Sun  and partly because of her political activity and pursuit of peace. In 1980, a biography titled Mariko was written about her and her family and then produced into a docudrama that roughly 80 percent of the country watched.

She was a celebrity in Japan, Miller said.

That celebritys home was Casper. Its where she was active in politics and introduced Japanese culture to the Cowboy State. She died Wednesday at the age of 84.

Mako arrived in Wyoming in 1959, where she quickly became involved with politics.

In her life, she served on the steering committee of the National Womens Political Caucus, the board of Americans for Democratic Action, the Wyoming Commission for Civil Rights and the Wyoming Commission for Women. In 1976, she was elected to the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, according to her obituary.

She was never afraid to take an unpopular position and was eager in her pursuit of equality.

She was able to strike on new frontiers and new pathways that had not been explored before, said R.C. Johnson, who knew her for 10 to 15 years and is the state committeewoman for the Natrona County Democrats.

Like the (Casper) Democratic Womens Forum. Mako had heard some men say that women were not interested in politics, and that was what got the burr under her saddle. She was going to demonstrate to them that women had a very active and great contribution to make to politics and to the political discussion, and that is how the Democratic Womens Forum came about.

Mako was the first woman appointed honorary consul-general of Japan. She was active in bringing Japanese heritage to Wyoming through art, music, dance, speakers and performers.

What was immediately apparent (about Mako) was her passion for what she believed in, her engagement civically and politically and her enthusiasm, said former Gov. Mike Sullivan, who met Mako when he first arrived in Casper 50 years ago.

You knew if Mako called you. She wasnt going to take no for an answer. She was very persistent and persuasive.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 17 at Bustards Funeral Home, where family and friends will share stories about Mako.

As they talk, Miller will remember the first time he saw his mother speak, when she captivated a room of 1,200 people with her words and presence.

(After the speech), when she walked out, it was just amazing to see, Miller said. There was my mom as a big star, as a huge star, well-known to everybody, admired by people, as a celebrity.

And man, did she carry it with style.
SALT LAKE CITY  Police say a toddler is dead after a day care worker sat on a bean bag chair the child had crawled under.

West Jordan Police Sgt. Joe Monson said Friday the child appears to have suffocated in what investigators believe was a tragic accident.

Monson said the approximately 18-month-old crawled under the beanbag on Thursday morning, though it's not clear why.

He said the worker sat on the chair to read a story to the other children, unaware that the baby was underneath.

The child died at a hospital shortly after being discovered.

Police are investigating but don't believe there was anything criminal involved in the death.

Police did not immediately release the name, age or gender of the child, or the name of the worker.
HELENA, Mont.  Montana lawmakers advanced a bill package Friday that aims to blunt the economic impact of a coal-fired power plant's planned partial closure by levying millions of dollars in fees and taxes against the plant's owners.

The Energy and Telecommunications Interim Committee voted to send five bills to the 2017 Montana Legislature after a lengthy debate over whether the measures are actually meant to punish the out-of-state companies that own the two Colstrip power plant units slated to be shut down by 2022.

Colstrip is one of the largest coal-fired plants in the West and a major economic driver in southeastern Montana. Its future has been in question amid low coal prices, increasing federal regulations and lawsuits filed by environmental organizations.

A settlement in one of those lawsuits calls for the two older units owned by Washington's Puget Sound Energy and Pennsylvania's Talen Energy to shut down by July 2022. The plant's two newer units, which are co-owned by those companies and four others, will continue operating.

The most contentious bill in the package would charge Puget Sound and Talen $3 million a year for the first five years after the shutdown, plus the full amount of property and licensing taxes they would have paid had the plant been operational. The owners would pay a decreasing percentage of those taxes for five more years.

Sen. Duane Ankney, R- Colstrip, who proposed the package, said the bill is not meant to punish Colstrip's owners, but to ensure that workers and the community are treated fairly by the companies that promised permanent employment in Colstrip.

"You can bet if they shut Puget Sound Energy down, the executives of that company would leave that company with golden parachutes 10 times more than what this bill costs," Ankney said. "This bill's going to treat everybody equally."

But Ankney and Sen. Cliff Larsen, D-Missoula, acknowledged bitter feelings after they traveled last winter to Olympia, Washington, and failed to gain support from lawmakers there to require Puget Sound Energy to keep the two older units running during a transition period.

"We thought the votes were there to give us a soft landing," Larsen said. "We were misled, and this is a reaction to what we found over there."

Puget Sound Energy attorney Thomas Ebzery said the legislation that Washington state lawmakers did pass allows the utility to put aside money to cover future Colstrip decommissioning and remediation costs.

The company opposes the Montana proposal to impose taxes and fees without a waiver if the aging units can't meet federal or state regulatory standards, he said.

"An owner would continue to pay taxes for 10 years, as if it never left," Ebzery said in a written comment to the committee.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to 2022 shutdown date, the Montana Environmental Information Center, urged the committee not to pass measures so harsh that companies would be discouraged from considering the state for future energy projects, such as solar and wind.

"If we start passing bills that are punitive, we're not going to get future investment," said MEIC deputy executive director Anne Hedges.

Her sentiments were echoed by a committee member, Rep. Christopher Pope, D-Bozeman.

"We have to roll out the welcome mat again, otherwise Colstrip will be a ghost town," he said.

The five bills will be introduced when the Legislature convenes in January. Besides the fee proposal, another bill would double the wholesale energy tax on all power producers to pay for grants for local governments, school districts, economic development groups and to re-train workers.

A third bill would require Colstrip's owners to submit a decommissioning and remediation plan that could be rejected or changed by the state.

A fourth bill would authorize state officials to participate in the Colstrip shutdown case that will go before Washington utility regulators in January, and the fifth would create a panel to help ensure fired workers receive their pension benefits.
Opinion / Columnist

Zimbabwe opposition PDP and MDC-T anniversary celebrations that are lined up for Bulawayo starting from this weekend would only provide an opportunity for Blessers like Morgan Tsvangirai and Sugar Mummies like Joyce Mujuru to prey on unsuspecting innocent Matebele teenagers.PDP anniversary on Sunday at White City stadium will see Superior Shona masters from Harare like President of PDP, Tendai Biti, President of MDC-T, Morgan Tsvangirai and ZPF President, Joyce Mujuru and their delegations meet their inferior Matebele vasals; Vice of PDP, Sipepa Nkomo, Vice President of MDC-T, Thokozani Khupe and Vice President of ... Oh sorry! ZPF does not have a Matebele VP.This master and slave convergence will offer the people of Matabeleland a chance to view Shona superiority over Matebele at close range as the above set up shows where the real power in the Zimbabwe opposition politics really lies. All the guests of honour and main speakers will be from Mashonaland ie Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and Joyce Mujuru.The second grade from Matabeleland, which makes up the powerless group of deputies will be there to warm the front seats at the high table, watch the proceedings and of cause, wine and dine with their superiors from Mashonaland. Should there be anyone who will be lucky to get a platform from this sorry group, it would just be for the purpose of introducing masters from Harare to the people and in case someone is picked up to address the crowd, their speech will not carry any value and their voice would be of no significance.All structures of the opposition political parties from Mashonaland resemble that of ruling Zanu-pf where Matabeles play second fiddle to their Shona counter parts, not allowed to occupy highest positions.Does this mean that Matebeles are so dump, so incompetent that they cannot lead a ruling party or opposition party?What a shame! There is no name for this kind of rubbish other than tribalism with a capital letter T. This is politics of oppression, this is apartheid, this is pure hatred. Can you believe that this kind of nonsense will be happening right in the heart of Matabeleland, right in the city of kings, right in the capital of Matabeleland. Matebeles treated as second class citizens before our eyes, in the land of our forefathers?There is no difference between Zanu-pf and the coterie of Zimbabwe political parties like PDP, MDCT, ZPF and et all as they all have and share the belief of Shona supremacy over Matebeles. They are all beneficiaries of Zanu-pf policy of Shona supremacy over Matebeles as their respective party constitutions support this Shona apartheid principle. They are all corrupt to the core just like zanu-pfThis was demonstrated during the writing of the new Zimbabwe constitution where all of them Morgan Tsvangirai, Joyce Mujuru and Tendai Biti failed to back Matebele political aspirations for the restoration of Matebeleland but supported a constitution which does not give political power to Matebeleland.The currency that would appeal to Matebeleland to trade in is political power which all political parties in Zimbabwe are not willing and not ready to trade and share with Matebeleland until some unpleasantries make them understand our position.Replacing Robert Mugabe with any of the Shona leaders or a Matebele puppet appointed by the Zezuru Committee of 26 to be Zimbabwe president will not resolve Matebeleland grievance of genocide marginalisation and the corruption that has been adopted as a Shona culture in Zimbabwe.Replacing Robert Mugabe with any Shona leader without changing the Shona apartheid system which is founded through Zimbabwe constitution is not an answer to Matebele grievances. All is a waste of time and abuse of MatebelesThis is the very reason why Matabeleland statehood restoration must happen yesterday than tomorrow. When opposition parties in Zimbabwe adopt structures and policies of a brutal, genocidal, segregative and oppressive ruling party in their numbers, you know that the post Mugabe era would be far more worse for Matebeles.Such occasions do not add any value, bring any benefit or good for the people of Matabeleland if anything they bring humiliation, misery, unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol abuse. Do you remember Loreta Nyathi story? Blesser, Morgan Tsvangirai impregnated her and abandoned mother and child, it took the courts and long arm of law to force him to accept responsibility and pay maintenance for his illegitimate son, Ethan.Since the oppostion parties that will meet at White City are composed of MDC and Zanu-pf splinter groups, others like Tsvangirai and Biti will be celebrating 18 years opposition failure as they have collectively failed to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. Others like Joyce Mujuru and Dydimus Mutasa will be celebrating 36 years of participation in the running down of the country, corruption, marginalisation, domination and oppression of Matebeles.Bulawayo, under MDC-T has seen more companies relocating to Harare, Zambezi Water project failing to materialise and more people from Mashonaland being allocated residential stands under controversial circumstances. No sign of development, the present Bulawayo is the shadow of its former self. What is there to celebrate?Bulawayo, watch out for Morgan Tsvangirai and Joyce Mujuru they like them young and fresh! Bulawayo is not venue for opposition "vuzu parties"Let them Jamuka in Harare and let us restore our statehood in Matabeleland.Izenzo kungemazwi!Israel DubeMLO Secretary for Information and Public affairsContact: infomlo13@gmail.com
EVANSTON  If a river dries up, where do the fish go?

That question  focused on a fish species most people have never heard of  has launched a study along the Utah-Wyoming border. It involves a fish-finding tool most people would never have thought of: aerial drones.

Throttle is 63 percent, ground speed is 15 meters a second, said a ground-based radio communicator as the drone flew computer-controlled loops along a stretch of Yellow Creek.

Shes crabbing a bit with the wind, but she looks really steady, said drone pilot Daniel Robinson. Both of his feet were planted firmly on the ground just outside Evanston.

The fixed wing drone with a wing-span of 8 feet is part of a 10-drone fleet owned by Aggie Air, a flying research service out of Utah State University. The target this time? A fish species rare enough to have a worrisome future. The northern leatherside chub lives only in tributaries of the Bear River and the Snake River.

And nowhere else in the world, said Joan Degiorgio of the Nature Conservancy. If we cant sustain them here, story over.

The problem is that Yellow Creek tends to dry up late in the summer when runoff from winter snows is depleted and when farmers and ranchers are still drawing water for late-season irrigation. The diminishing water flow in the creek leaves patches of dry creek bed and isolated puddles of water. Only in certain stretches is there running water with a noticeable current.

We want to try to find out where we have water during the worst conditions possible, so late summer and during a drought time, said Paul Thompson of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Yellow Creek meanders on both sides of the border in Utah and Wyoming, so agencies from both states and the federal government are working together. Theyve partnered with the Nature Conservancy, a private group thats been working for several years to improve the natural habitat of the Yellow Creek watershed.

The job of the drone is to find the water thats left behind as the creek starts to go dry. Two on-board cameras capture images in color and infrared. The unmanned plane flies at altitudes less than 400 feet above the creek.

Manned aircraft would fly much higher, for reasons of man-safety, Robinson said. This aircraft can fly much lower and pick up the data.

Without the drone, Thompson said, we would be walking 35 miles worth of stream channel.

There are many places where Yellow Creek is dried up completely. In this era of climate change, reduced flows could get to be an even bigger problem in the future.

Well, its stressed right now, Degiorgio said. If the predictions are accurate, its pretty clear that its getting hotter and drier.

Along one dried-up stretch, Degiorgio and Thompson found a small pool of water almost hidden in a nook behind some boulders. In the puddle there were about a thousand tiny fish, leatherside chubs hanging on  surviving  at the worst time of year.

Yep, this is a leatherside, Thompson said as he captured one of the minnow-sized fish and examined it in the palm of his hand. Its very exciting that there are still refuges in a dry channel like this.

The agencies will use the images and information provided by the drones to help map out a game plan aimed at helping the species survive.

What were trying to do is find out where we have good water within the watershed, Thompson said. Then were trying to protect those areas and enhance them.

Part of the goal is to keep leatherside chubs off the federal endangered species list. That brings a whole other level of regulation into the mix, Thompson said, an outcome he said state officials would like to avoid.

Other sensitive species in Yellow Creek include the boreal toad and the Bonneville cutthroat trout. If the bail-out effort helps the leatherside chub, it may also benefit plants and other critters that are barely surviving the worst of the summer.
Editor:

Right now the Rock Springs BLM is quietly writing the draft management plan for the Northern Red Desert and surrounding areas, and the public waits without knowing the true direction of the plan. Should we trust the BLM to manage these areas in accordance with public will? Sadly, history suggests no.

In 2003, the supplemental Draft Plan for the Jack Morrow Hills was released, calling for increased oil and gas development in the Northern Red Desert. The plan garnered over 69,000 comments, the largest number of comments ever received by the BLM for a single Wyoming planning project. Eighty-nine percent of the comments were in favor of the Citizens Wildlife and Wildlands Protection Alternative, which postulated protection measures throughout the area. Despite the vast majority of the public in favor of protection, the BLM issued the Final Record of Decision for the Jack Morrow Hills, which ultimately called for more development in the Northern Red Desert.

Given the above example, how is the public to trust that the BLM is drafting a plan that will reflect their will and safeguard their interests? How is the public to believe that the Rock Springs Management Plan will protect open spaces and threatened wildlife corridors? Since original scoping five years ago, the public has been given no chance for input on important new information, such as the migration corridor and new BLM policy updates on lands with wilderness characteristics. Nothing short of a dramatic increase in public involvement and transparency will lead us to believe that the BLM is acting on our behalf.

The public would feel better if the BLM released preliminary alternatives, which would allow us to become invested in this plan. BLM offices in other states have provided preliminary management alternatives for public review and comment, such as in the Las Cruces District Office and the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. It is time for the Rock Springs BLM to listen to the public and become transparent in the planning process of the Rock Springs planning area.
PHOENIX  The states largest power company filed suit late Friday asking a judge to quash subpoenas a utility regulator issued for some of its records.

Arizona Public Service and Pinnacle West Capital Corp., its parent company, say theres no legal basis for the demand by state Corporation Commissioner Bob Burns for documents showing what the company has spent on political donations, charitable contributions and lobbying expenses.

An attorney for the companies, Mary OGrady, also said there is no reason the Arizona Corporation Commission needs the information, because money used for those expenses is not passed on to APS customers in the form of higher rates.

She also claims a constitutional right of her clients to keep the information secret. OGrady said the First Amendment not only protects free speech but also includes the right of individuals and corporations to make political or charitable donations.

In a separate filing Friday with the commission, Barbara Lockwood, an APS vice president, said the fact that Burns is targeting only APS and Pinnacle West in demanding the information is discriminatory. She said this is evidence of Commissioner Burns intent to harass.

Burns has focused on the companies because their spokesman has repeatedly refused to confirm or deny that APS or Pinnacle West were the source of any of the $3.2 million in anonymous donations poured into the 2014 commission race to help elect Republicans Tom Forese and Doug Little. Other utilities have said they stayed out of that race.

The lawsuit comes less than a week before the Sept. 15 deadline that Burns set for the documents to be delivered to the commission, and less than a month before Burns demand that Don Brandt, the chief executive of both firms, answer commission questions under oath.

OGrady, in a separate letter to Burns, said APS  but not Pinnacle West  will deliver a significant amount of documents identified in the subpoenas by the Thursday deadline. And she said those deemed confidential also will be furnished, subject to execution of an appropriate confidentiality agreement.

She emphasized, however, that this does not mean the company is waiving its legal right to challenge the subpoenas.

Burns, in a brief statement late Friday, said he is studying the companies lawsuit and its response to his subpoenas before deciding what to do next.

The legal battle stems from the questions Burns raised about the role of APS and Pinnacle West in a dark money campaign in the 2014 race. Both the Free Enterprise Club and Save Our State contend they are social welfare organizations, free to help elect or defeat candidates but exempt from state campaign finance laws that require disclosure of donors.

So Burns is instead trying to use his authority over the utility.

Lockwood, in her letter, suggested Burns motive is political.

He is running for another four-year term this year on the commission. The deadline he set to interview Brandt comes just a week before early voting begins for the general election, Lockwood noted.
Editors note: This is part of an occasional series following Handi-Dogs first pairing through its Rescue to Service program, which matches dogs who need homes with people who have disabilities.

Doug Muellers new roommate is a little challenging.

Hes messy and leaves his stuff everywhere. Then theres his total lack of boundaries.

His first day at Muellers house, he just barged in and made himself at home.

He came right on in, he tried getting on the couch, Mueller recalled. We had a chat about that.

Muellers roomie is Chazz, a big  80 pounds, to be exact  sweet-faced, brown dog with a black-tipped tail. Hes Muellers new buddy and may one day also be his service dog.

Mueller, 74, and Chazz, 2, are part of a pilot program by Handi-Dogs that trains abandoned dogs to become service animals. Called Rescue to Service, it aims to save canine lives that may very well one day return the favor  or at the very least, make life a lot easier for their human companions.

The program, which began in January, partners Handi-Dogs with Pima Animal Care Center, the Humane Society of Southern Arizona and Arizona Greyhound Rescue. Mueller and Chazz are the programs first match.

Mueller, who has epilepsy and suffers from neuropathy, was ready to get a Doberman pinscher puppy to train as a service dog. When things fell through, he started noodling around the internet and landed on Handi-Dogs website.

You can save a dog, which I think is cool  I didnt realize I was going to be the first person through the program, said Mueller, a married father of four and grandpa to six, with a good-natured chuckle.

A retired computer engineer, Mueller relocated to Tucson five years ago for his health. He needs a brace dog, one he can train to stay still when he needs support to steady himself or get up from a fall. Hed also like his four-legged companion to know how to push the red button on his med-alert device if he needs help.

Everyone thinks Chazz can be that dog. Time  and lots of training  will tell.

The inaugural Rescue to Service class started with six potential trainees. Two washed out early on, one suffered from severe separation anxiety and the other was too high energy for someone with a disability to handle. That left Kush, Buster, Trick and Chazz, who landed at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona after his family moved to an apartment and couldnt take him.

Chazz looked like a strong candidate because of his confidence and willingness to learn, said Glenda Laird, Handi-Dogs training manager.

Hes very people oriented, said Laird, and then laughed because who should charge in during that very point of the interview but Chazz, reporting for training class. He immediately launched himself onto the  no surprise here  sofa.

His manners are still to be worked on, she said, as she fixed the paperwork he sent flying over the cushions.

To further evaluate Chazzs potential as a service animal, he moved in with a foster mom, Nancy McDonald, a former certified public accountant-turned canine massage therapist whose job was to teach Chazz obedience basics. A dog lover, McDonald has long had pooches as pets, but this was her first time fostering. When she first met him, McDonald, whos petite, wasnt sure she could handle Chazz.

I never had a dog that big, McDonald said. He came up to me, and he was wagging his tail. He leaned on me  my heart just opened up. I thought, OK, I can do this.

Chazz adores people but does tend to be more reserved with men, so McDonald was heartened when he naturally gravitated toward Mueller during their first meeting. Even the electric cart Mueller relies on outside his home didnt faze him. In fact, Chazz has been known to shimmy up onto the cart to get into better ear-scratching position.

Since Mueller, who adopted Chazz from the Humane Society, took custody in early August, the duo have been taking trips around the neighborhood, practicing loose-leash walking. With the help of Handi-Dogs trainer Rama Heisey, theyre fine-tuning basic commands like sit and touch. Chazz, who enjoys riding a shuttle with Mueller to get around, is also learning to contain himself when faced with the incredibly exciting prospect of meeting new people.

Mueller and Chazzs first step toward becoming a service team is passing the American Kennel Clubs Canine Good Citizen test, a certification program that evaluates dogs in simulated everyday situations. After that, theyll begin task-based service training. It can take about a year to a year and a half to train a service dog, which charges program participants roughly $1,200-$1,600, about a third of what it costs Handi-Dogs, according to JoAnn Turnbull, Handi-Dogs president and CEO. The organization relies on community donations to supplement the cost, she said.

In the meantime, Mueller and Chazz are still getting to know each other and their quirks. For instance, Chazz is an early riser, as in 5:30 a.m. early. Its been an adjustment for Mueller, but a nice one.

Actually, Im enjoying it, Mueller said. I love it  its so nice out.

And even though the couch is off-limits to Chazz, Mueller relented on another piece of furniture, I let him on the bed.
Wensler Nosie of the San Carlos Apaches, Verlon Jose of the Tohono Oodham and Gabriel Ayala of the Pascua Yaquis are taking a stand against a $3.8 billion pipeline theyre worried will pollute a major Midwestern river.

Theyre part of a much broader wave of Indian support in Arizona for the Standing Rock Siouxs fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Two weeks ago, Nosie, former San Carlos Apache tribal chairman, drove to North Dakota to support the Standing Rock  and told his story about the Apaches effort to stop a huge copper mine in their backyard.

Two nights ago, about 200 people led by Pascua Yaquis marched from Tucsons southwest side to the Mission San Xavier to hold a prayer gathering for the pipeline fight, singing spiritual songs, banging drums and carrying signs saying Water is life.

On Sept. 18, groups of Tohono and Pascua Yaquis from Southern Arizona plan to caravan to North Dakota to bring the Standing Rock tribe food, medical supplies, batteries, equipment, chain saws, tents and rain jackets, along with our social songs, our dances and our prayers, said Verlon Jose, who is the Oodham vice chairman.

Two days later, internationally known Yaqui classical-jazz guitarist Gabriel Ayala, who played at a 2013 presidential inaugural ball in Washington, D.C., will make his own pilgrimage.

This outpouring is matching tribal support from around the United States. Tribes are sending people, food, prayers and equipment along with what they say will be their spiritual presence. Ayala said this week that the tribal presence at the pipeline site could become the largest gathering of Indians aimed at fighting a political battle since the 1973 takeover of Wounded Knee by the Oglala Sioux.

On Sunday, theyll get help from U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat who says hell travel to North Dakota in support of the Sioux. Grijalva is the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Whats driving this pilgrimage?

First, We have similar situations going on here in Arizona, said the Oodhams Jose.

The Oodham and Yaquis oppose the proposed Rosemont Mine, which they say would destroy many prehistoric cultural sites in the Santa Rita Mountains southeast of Tucson. The Gila River Indian Community is fighting construction of a freeway going past their reservation and cutting through South Mountain in Phoenix.

The San Carlos Apaches are fighting Resolution Coppers efforts to build the United States largest copper mine on whats now a federal campground at Oak Flat near the town of Superior. The Navajos are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over last years spill of toxic materials from the Gold King Mine into a tributary of the San Juan and Colorado rivers.

In some cases, Jose said, there was some consultation with the tribes, although not as much as they would prefer. But a lot of the work done by the Energy Transfer Partners on the Dakota pipeline was done without adequate consultation, Jose said.

For the Navajos, the mine didnt spill pollutants directly on their reservation but the iron, arsenic and other poisons found their way downstream to that reservation, Jose said. The same risk holds for the Dakota pipeline, he said, which would be built on private land, less than a mile from tribal land, and could pollute the Missouri River if the line broke and spilled oil, he said. The Missouri serves the tribe and many other people.

Former San Carlos Apache Chairman Nosie said he spent two days at the construction area to meet with the Standing Rock leaders. They met less than a half mile from the scene of last Saturdays confrontation, in which tribal members said they were sprayed with a chemical irritant and attacked by the pipeline companys guard dogs, and where company officials said their workers were attacked by pipeline protesters.

For native people, we feel this is a spiritual movement that is occurring about the water, said Nosie, who has personally led the Apaches charge against the Resolution Copper underground mine.

As we continue to pray, this kind of solidarity is coming together in this country, he said in an interview from his San Carlos reservation home. With young people reattaching themselves to their identity and to Mother Earth, which is their religion, we will see more people continuing to make their way there. We have to make this stand.

Without water there is no life. You cant eat copper. You cant drink oil. This protest is going to continue because all weve got left to exist is this water, he said.

For musician Ayala, the trip is his chance to be another voice in the debate.

Im in no way a famous role model, but I do have a following of people that follow me mainly because of my music, Ayala said this week. If I can use that platform to educate people and share whats happening in our country, I think its important to do that.

Ayala is holding a benefit concert on Sept. 16 near Saguaro National Park West to raise funds for the pipeline cause. When he arrives in North Dakota, Im going to go right to the source, right to the actual camp, outside Cannonball, North Dakota. Im going to go by myself and take as many items as I can with me and stay as long as I can.

He found it disheartening to read of Standing Rock Sioux getting dog bites and protesters being pepper-sprayed.

Children only learn of words like racism and hatred from us adults, Ayala said. You wouldnt think this would happen today, but we who are indigenous people have been pushed down.

He sees the North Dakota anti-pipeline gathering as an historic event.

Its not a protest. Its a demonstration to show we care whats happening to our Mother Earth here, he said. It was a great thing to see this native elder from South Dakota, and I dont remember his name or his tribe, saying that the only pipes we have here are the pipes we use to pray.
PHOENIX  Prosecutors are asking the Arizona Supreme Court to reinstate a law that allows some people accused of the sexual abuse of minors to be held without bail.

Deputy Maricopa County Attorney David Cole said the constitutional provision limiting access to bail was adopted by voters in 2002. He said the state Court of Appeals, in overturning the law enacted by lawmakers to implement that amendment, failed to give due consideration to the overwhelming will of the people.

It has long been the law in Arizona that legislative enactments enjoy a strong presumption of constitutionality, and that the burden to overcome the presumption rests squarely on the shoulders of the challenger, Cole said in legal papers filed with the states high court. And he said the attorneys for the two men at issue have failed to meet that burden.

The people of Arizona determined that sexual conduct with a minor is an acute problem and that pretrial detention for those accused of that crime was in the best interest of the community, Cole wrote.

State Solicitor General John Lopez IV, interceding in the legal dispute on behalf of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Senate President Andy Tobin and House Speaker David Gowan, went even further.

He said Arizona has a transcendent interest in protecting children from sexual exploitation. And Lopez said that outweighs the liberty interest of someone who has only been charged with a crime.

The case involves two men charged in separate, unrelated incidents of various charges, including sexual conduct with minors younger than 15.

Both were initially held without bail based on the 2002 measure that says people charged with those crimes are not entitled to pretrial release if the proof is evidence or the presumption great that the person is guilty of the offense charged.

But in June, the state Court of Appeals said even those protections are legally insufficient. Appellate Judge Peter Swann said bail can be denied only if prosecutors can also show that no bail conditions or restrictions would ensure the protection of others.

He cited a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said the categorical denial of bail is unconstitutional. Swann said that means trial judges must make case-by-case determinations of whether a person can be released  and under what conditions  while awaiting trial.

Cole does not dispute that ruling. But he said the facts in that case are different than here. He said the Arizona law does not parallel the federal law at issue in that case.

Anyway, he argued, the Arizona law is very specific, applying to those who have sexual conduct of a minor younger than 15. And Cole said the measure is not an absolute bar to bail but has conditions.

That includes a hearing where a prosecutor must present evidence sufficient to show it is likely the defendant committed the crime. Cole said that provides sufficient safeguards for individual liberty while ensuring the community is protected.

Lopez, for his part, said there is overwhelming evidence that denial of bail for those who prey on minors is appropriate, calling it a crime that devastates victims, future generations and communities.

He said lawmakers recognize how serious a crime this is, with offenders facing a presumptive prison term of 20 years, and lifetime imprisonment if the victim is 12 or younger. And Arizona law allows potential indefinite commitment in the Arizona State Hospital as a sexually violent person after a prison term is served.

Lopez said there is other evidence to show pretrial detention benefits the community.

Studies show a high rate of recidivism among pedophilic sex offenders generally, ranging from 10 to 50 percent, he wrote.

Swann, in writing the appellate decision saying defendants could not be categorically denied bail, was careful to say he was not excusing the offenses charged here.

Sexual conduct with a young minor is unquestionably a serious offense that involves a vulnerable class of victims and severe penalties, he wrote. But it cannot serve in every case, as a reliable proxy for unmanageable flight risk, witness intimidation, unmanageable risk to victims or any other plausible bail consideration.

That appellate court ruling was not unanimous.

In a dissent, Judge Andrew Gould rejected the contention that denial of bail in certain circumstances is unconstitutional.

He said the express purpose of the statute and its companion state constitutional provision is to protect victims and the community. That, he said, makes its purpose regulatory, not punitive.

The high court has not said when it will rule on the matter.

This isnt the first time an appellate court has voided a provision of Arizona laws on bail.

In 2014, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a 2006 voter-approved change to the Arizona Constitution that made bail unavailable to those charged with serious felony offenses if they are in this country illegally and there is evident proof the person is guilty of the offense charged.

In their ruling, the federal appellate judges said the measure violates the U.S. Constitution. The majority in that case said the right against being deprived of liberty without due process extends to even one whose presence in this country is unlawful.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to disturb that ruling.
Opinion / Columnist

Vice President and Second Secretary, Comrade Emmerson Mnangagwa, Secretary for Administration, Comrade Ignatius Chombo, Members of the Politburo, Members of the Central Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends. May I begin by extending a very warm welcome to you all to the 103rd Ordinary Session of our Central Committee. This meeting is going to give us an opportunity to review and plan for developments in our Party, Government and the country as a whole.Since our last meeting in June, some of our comrades have passed on, including two National Heroes, Dr Felix Ngwarati Muchemwa in June and Dr Charles Munhamu Botsio Utete in July. As is our practice, may we all rise up and observe a minute's silence in memory of our dear departed comrades!Comrades and Friends,We are meeting against the backdrop of increasingly disturbing indiscipline, which has the potential to undermine our Party. Recently we have had several Politburo meetings and a couple of public rallies, where we strongly denounced any such divisive conduct, which should never be entertained or condoned by any member of our Party.Such indiscipline distracts the Party from focusing on rallying our people against the common enemy. Instead of turning our guns at the common enemy, we turn the same guns against ourselves.Since political independence was the initial phase of our liberation struggle, we are currently grappling with the economic empowerment of our people. We now should focus on fully empowering our people, who should also fully utilise the natural resources our country is richly endowed with. We should all work towards the success of Zim-Asset, our economic blueprint.As you are all aware, our principled stance over our land and its resources has earned us the wrath of our erstwhile colonisers, who have responded by imposing illegal sanctions against us. The illegal sanctions have derailed our progressive policies of socio-economic empowerment. They have instead brought about untold economic hardships among our people. But we should never be seen to relent on what is rightly ours.President Mugabe's speech at the 103rd meeting of the Central Committee at the party headquarters in Harare on September, 9 2016.Lately, we have seen how the MDC has joined hands with other recently created political pressure groups. Under the umbrella of National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA), they are calling for the tightening of illegal sanctions which they believe are going to hurt the economy so severely as to cause disaffection amongst our people.This, they believe, would compel our people to rise against ZANU-PF and our Government. The demonstrations we have witnessed in the last few weeks were not by accident of history, but were purposefully choreographed and launched in the mistaken belief that time was ripe for a popular uprising against Government and ZANU-PF.Let the opposition parties, and all those angling for chaos and mayhem, and violent demonstrations, be warned that our patience has run out. Government will take very strong measures against any political party, organisation or individuals that perpetrate violent demonstrations. Anybody breaking the law of the land will be punished accordingly.ZANU-PF remains alive to, and does not need to be reminded about, the continuing everyday economic challenges facing all our people today. What is happening around us with these concocted demonstrations is distracting us from progressing on with our concerted efforts aimed at improving the performance of our national economy and the welfare of our people.Our economy has been quite resilient against the Western sanctions onslaught and it cannot get any worse than it already is. It can only get better as we all put our shoulders to the wheel, in concerted efforts to rebuild and develop our country.The banner of NERA, which they have used as a pretext to resort to violent demonstrations is quite clearly a smokescreen for their real intentions. They want to avoid going to the general elections in 2018 by creating a false electoral crisis which they hope would be addressed ahead of any plebiscite by outsiders.For the avoidance of doubt, let me reiterate what we have said about our elections. Elections in Zimbabwe are the hallmark of our democracy, and all the elections we have held before in this country, follow the dictates of our Constitution, to the letter and spirit. We have an independent Electoral Commission that runs our elections, and it has performed commendably.The electoral processes are accountable to our own people, who are entitled to vote for candidates and parties of their choice. When the people decide on the political party that should govern them, so be it. That does not require foreigners. There is no reason to believe that the 2018 elections should be regarded as different.Comrades and friends,The misuse of social media by whomsoever, especially to cause instability in the country, will never be tolerated. Political support should not be by coercion on social media platforms, where messages of hate, violence and terror against Government institutions and law enforcement agencies abound. The MDC and its supporters are playing a very dangerous game. We also understand that they are planning to terrorise the rural areas in the mistaken belief that they can intimidate and harass our supporters. Let them be warned. They cannot win that war.Ladies and gentlemen,We have reached that time of the year when the summer season beckons us and our farmers to begin focusing on preparing the land for the coming agricultural season. Last year was a bad year for our farmers because of poor rains but indications are that in the 2016-2017 season we are going to receive good rains.Let us urge our farmers to take heed of the favourable weather forecasts by preparing their land. Government has embarked on Command Agriculture as part of the efforts we are making to increase our chances of a good harvest next year.Meanwhile, we continue to distribute grain to all areas worst affected by drought to ensure that no one starves.In conclusion, I want to reiterate the importance of the unity of our Party and country. Zimbabweans must always be united.Pamberi nokubatana!Pambili lokubambana!I thank you.
PHOENIX  The Arizona Supreme Court wont repeal rules that threaten lawyers with disbarment if they help clients get, sell or use marijuana legally under a 2010 voter-approved law.

The high court rejected without comment a petition that would legally allow lawyers to help clients deal with the Arizona law that allows certain individuals to possess and certain businesses to sell and grow marijuana. The justices gave no reason for their decision.

In doing so, the court is affirming existing rules that forbid lawyers from assisting clients in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal.

While the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act makes marijuana legal for some, the sale, possession and use of the drug remain a felony for all under federal law.

Attorney Patricia Sallen, who urged the high court to alter the rules, said current rules leave lawyers at risk over what they can tell clients who want to get into the marijuana business. That is important because an attorney can be reprimanded, suspended or even disbarred for violating the rules.

The courts refusal has potentially deeper implications.

It comes as voters are to decide whether to expand state law and allow any adult to possess and use the drug. And if that is approved, it means a whole new set of Arizona laws on marijuana that lawyers may be ethically unable to help their clients navigate.

Whether that will pass remains an open question. Two new polls suggest a close race, with one putting approval at 40 percent and one at 50 percent.

The problem the rule creates for lawyers does not bother Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who opposed what Sallen wanted to do.

Lawyers have taken an oath to defend state and federal laws, he said. And that, said Montgomery, means they cannot counsel anyone on activities that remain federal crimes.

Nor was Montgomery concerned that the ethical rules could result in some individuals and businesses being without legal help as they try to navigate state laws legalizing marijuana.

Youre not entitled to (legal) help to break federal law, he said.

Thats called a conspiracy, Montgomery continued. And that makes the attorney an accomplice.

The fact that the Supreme Court was even looking at the issue came as a surprise to Ryan Hurley, who has been active in representing dispensary owners and others since the 2010 law was approved.

But Hurley said he is hoping the justices refusal to provide some cover for lawyers like him is not an indication that he could end up in trouble with the court. Hurley said, if nothing else, there is a 2011 opinion by the State Bar of Arizona.

That opinion says lawyers may advise clients about complying with the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. That includes helping them establish business entities and representing them before government agencies.

That opinion does require attorneys to advise clients about the potential federal law implications and consequences.

But in her petition to the high court, Sallen told the justices that opinion is just that, an opinion, and something that may not be enough to assure lawyers they can help their clients on issues related to medical marijuana. Specifically, Sallen said the opinion does not trump the actual written rule  the one the court refused to alter  and does not necessarily protect a lawyer from being disciplined.

Strictly applied, this means that by advising and helping clients conduct business under Arizonas medical marijuana law, lawyers would be engaging in criminal conduct under federal law, Sallen wrote to the court, and thus would be violating the written rules by which attorneys must act.

So she proposed amending the rules to say that attorneys can assist a client regarding conduct expressly permitted by Arizona law as long as the lawyer tells the client about the legal consequences under federal law.

Montgomery said that amending the rules is not an answer and called it disingenuous for attorneys to acknowledge the violation of federal law and then advise clients how to break it.

It speaks to a disregard for the law that does more to harm lawyers as a profession than just about anything else, Montgomery said of the desire to change the rules on attorney discipline. It makes us all just a bunch of hypocrites (to say) Follow the law unless I tell you you cant.
A 26-year-old suspected smuggler who was shot multiple times while trying to flee into Mexico through a Nogales port was in stable condition Friday in a Tucson hospital, offficials said.

The shooting occurred Thursday afternoon and shut down the southbound lanes of the Mariposa crossing for several hours.

The incident began when Border Patrol agents investigating smuggling activities west of the port became suspicious of a Dodge pickup truck and attempted to follow the vehicle before it sped away toward the port, according to a news release from Customs and Border Protection.

When agents arrived at the crossing, they saw the truck stopped in traffic bound for Mexico. When the truck's driver saw officers approaching him on foot, he accelerated the truck toward the officers. CBP officers and a Border Patrol agent fired multiple times at the driver, the release said.

The driver, a Mexican national, was shot several times. He was airlifted to Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson, where he was recovering Friday. A 16-year-old male passenger sustained non-life-threatening injuries and is in Border Patrol custody.

No officers or agents were injured.

Several federal agencies, including the FBI, are investigating the shooting.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday in connection to a threat, causing the school to go on lockdown.

The teen was booked into the Pima County Juvenile Detention Center on suspicion of a hoax and interference or disruption of an educational institution, said Deputy Ryan Inglett, a Sheriff's Department spokesman.

Both charges are felonies.

Gerad Ball, principal of Coronado K-8 School, said that the lockdown was lifted by 11 a.m. in a post on the school's home page. He said during the investigation it was found that students and staff were not in danger at any time.

Authorities, who were notified by administrators about the threat about 10 a.m., determined that the boy in Friday's case also was responsible for a similar threat Aug. 25 at the school, Inglett said. He said that threat did not warrant a lockdown.

Both threats were written to solicit a response from school administrators and law enforcement, said Inglett. The threat on Friday was written on a bathroom wall, and was aimed at the school.

No further information about the threats were released.
FLORENCE, Ariz.  It takes countless years of career field education, multiple deployments and temporary duty assignments to become a pararescue team leader.

The 68th Rescue Flight executed a 65-day course for ten pararescuemen in a newly-designed course to develop their leadership abilities while obtaining their 7-level certification for their dynamic career field.

Historically, Guardian Angel units were forced to conduct upgrade training internally, said Capt. Michael Jeff Ellingsen, 68th RQF commander. The 48th Rescue Squadron had their own method of training their team leaders; while the 58th Rescue Squadron at Nellis and the 38th RQS out at Moody also had theirs. Theyre all trained independently and to different standards, whereas now the process is more efficient and effective for the entire weapon system as a whole.

Tasked by Air Combat Command, the 68 RQF designed and implemented the Combat Leaders Course. The intent was to create a standardized course for pararescuemen to complete their 7-level certification and obtain their team leader qualification in support of the Air Forces global missions.

The thought process behind CLC was to identify What unique skill sets do we want our future team leaders and pararescuemen to possess, and what capability do we want them to provide to the squadron commanders and the combatant commanders downrange, Ellingsen said.

The ten students brought diversity to the course as they represented seven different major commands displaying a multitude of backgrounds and experiences. The knowledge and skills they learned during the course and from each other will be used in a variety of combat operations around the world.

The students mission planned and executed a multitude of scenarios including a jump mission with an overland movement, a mass casualty, and a technical rescue with the rotary wing exfiltration all within the climates of southern Arizona and California. Aside from these daily course tasks, peer performance feedbacks and intelligence briefings were included as well.

The environment  its like theyre downrange, said Staff Sgt. Steven Chubb, 68 RQF NCO in charge of intelligence analysis. Theres a lot of helicopter landing zones that the guys can actually use and implement. A lot of things for them to do their training and its away from everybody. So if they want to do things like a real-life convoy or an improvised explosive device explosion, they can do that.

The 68 RQF created this course, with ACC guidance, not only to standardize the way team leaders were trained, but to provide the Air Force with a Center of Excellence that is solely dedicated to supporting the GA weapon systems training and operational requirements. Guardian Angel is comprised of combat rescue officers, pararescuemen, survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists and specially trained support personnel dedicated to one of the Air Forces primary functions of personnel recovery and combat search and rescue.

The Combat Leaders Course supports the mission of not only GA, but one of the Air Forces core competencies. With the current class being only the third iteration of pararescuemen to undergo this monumental challenge, the 68 RQF has been able to successfully consolidate resources in order to maximize the training value and knowledge of their students. This unit will continue to build and improve upon their current capabilities in order to maximize the production throughput and quality of leaders for the Guardian Angel weapon system for many years to come.

This unit is unique in the fact that its the first of its kind to be implemented in the Air Force, Ellingsen said. Were not a traditional rescue squadron in the sense that we support deployment taskings. This unit provides a specific operational capability for the Guardian Angel weapon system in order to support the combatant commanders. Just to be a part of something this special and watch it grow to where its at today in such a short time is nothing short of astounding. These guys developed the methodology, tested it, and are now fully capable of executing to meet the desired end state. The guys here (are) motivated and dedicated individuals who are willing to go extreme lengths to make a difference in the career field and make Guardian Angel a more effective combat force. Once this place reaches its full operational capability, its going to be a mountain and will be able to withstand anything thats thrown at it.
Reading, writing and Arabic is on the agenda at a handful of Tucson schools this year.

The Tucson Unified School District is rolling out Arabic programs at three campuses: Wright Elementary, Doolen Middle and Catalina High  made possible, in part, by a $111,000 grant.

The establishment of the programs at the midtown schools will mean that students have an opportunity to study one of the fastest growing second languages starting in kindergarten, without interruption, all the way through high school.

The grant was awarded to TUSD by Qatar Foundation International, which seeks to inspire meaningful connections to the Arab world through language education and cultural exchange. The funds will be used to cover the cost of the teachers, materials and professional development training.

Arabic is spoken by more than 400 million people worldwide and has helped U.S. students pursue careers in business, journalism, diplomacy, national security, and more, according to QFI.

While QFI has partnered with more than two dozen schools across the country, TUSD is the only Arizona district it is working with. None of Tucsons other major public school districts offer Arabic.

As part of TUSDs strategic plan, Tucsons largest school district is working to expand foreign language options for students. In addition to Arabic, which is also offered at Safford K-8 and Cholla High magnet schools, other language courses available to students include Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Korean.

The main focus of the Arabic program is to give students the opportunity to learn another language and the district is happy to offer that option, said Tsuru Bailey-Jones, project director of TUSDs QFI grant. We think its important to have our students be global citizens and sometimes that will lead itself into learning different languages.

At the high school level and in middle school as well, Arabic is offered as an optional elective class. At the elementary level, all students are exposed to the Arabic language through teachings woven into standard lessons.

At Cholla, where TUSD first launched Arabic programming, enrollment has grown from less than two dozen students in its first year nearly a decade ago to 125 students today, said Principal Frank Armenta.

The west-side school has been recognized by QFI as one of the largest leading Arabic programs in the western hemisphere.

Through the program, Cholla students have not only learned the language and learned about Middle Eastern culture, they have also traveled to Washington, D.C., and Qatar, Armenta said.

Chollas Arabic program also complements the schools Army JROTC program, allowing cadets who are proficient in Arabic to earn additional money should they enter the military, Armenta said.

TUSDs Arabic program has also been backed by the U.S. Department of Education, which awarded the district a grant through the Foreign Language Assistance Program.

Between Wright, Doolen, Safford, Catalina and Cholla, more than 600 TUSD students are expected to be exposed to Arabic this school year.

Its a great opportunity for our district and we have to be a district that prepares kids for global world, Armenta said.
The race is on for three seats on the TUSD Governing Board and the seven candidates are sharing their thoughts on academic achievement, student discipline and the need for a cohesive board.

Those elected in November will make decisions over the next four years for more than 47,000 Tucson children. Incumbents Kristel Foster, Cam Juarez and Mark Stegeman are going up against Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, Lori Riegel, Brett Rustand and Rachael Sedgwick.

What you need to know

The Tucson Unified School District is the largest public school district in Tucson and the second largest in the state.

It has long struggled with low academic achievement and declining enrollment. In 2015, nearly 75 percent of TUSD students failed to pass the states math and English Language Arts test  a higher failure rate than the state average of 65 percent.

It is also operating under a decades-old court order for failing to adequately serve Latino and African-American children.

The school board is made up of five volunteers whose job it is to hire the superintendent, decide how the district spends its money and to establish policies that influence students educational outcomes.

Heres where the candidates stand on the following issues:

Academic Achievement

Foster: To improve achievement, its important to know how schools are performing and to hold the superintendent accountable for whether the district is performing on par with the state average. She pointed to Arizonas shift to a new assessment as being partly to blame for the districts dismal performance.

Juarez: Describing the state of Arizona education as deplorable, Juarez said it is difficult for students to learn without the resources needed. He also said he believes the emphasis needs to be on educating the whole child and moving beyond the snapshot provided by high stakes assessments.

Putnam-Hidalgo: Called for increased mentoring opportunities for new teachers, and adequately compensating teachers who meet performance goals. Individualizing instruction to meet individual students needs and holding the superintendent accountable for student performance are also key in improving performance.

Riegel: Filling teacher vacancies, ensuring students have the materials they need and increasing classroom spending would all positively impact student achievement. She also advocated for empowering and supporting school principals and teachers.

Rustand: Significant progress must be made and policies need to be created with student achievement in mind. He called for a more challenging curriculum that would require teachers to teach to a higher standard. He also argued that if administrative spending can be reduced, that would free up funds for the classroom.

Sedgwick: TUSD test scores have either been stagnant or on the decline in the case of minority students. She urged the district to form a partnership with the University of Arizona to train teachers to be leaders within their schools and to train teachers on how to work collaboratively for the benefit of children.

Stegeman: The superintendent and the Governing Board need to prioritize academic achievement, and to increase classroom spending by reducing administrative expenses. He specifically called for the funds to going toward teacher pay and classroom materials.

Discipline

The candidates were not directly asked about TUSDs discipline philosophy but many weaved it into responses on how to improve academic outcomes for students.

Both Foster and Juarez argued that historically, Latino and African-American students have been disciplined disproportionately and the district is working to turn that around through programs that seek to address the root causes of behavior.

Riegel, Rustand, Stegeman and Sedgwick called for supporting teachers decisions to maintain order in their classrooms.

Working together

Research has found that effective school boards can have a positive impact student achievement, but TUSD Governing Boards past and present often have been described as dysfunctional and driven by personalities rather than policy.

Foster: Public education is under attack in Arizona and the board needs to come together to build the communitys trust and confidence.

Juarez: The drama of the TUSD board has been known to push people away from the district. Its imperative for the board to come together and support approved policies even when a board member opposes it.

Putnam-Hidalgo: The TUSD board lacks a sense of civility. The focus needs to be on policy, not personalities or partisanship, to benefit kids.

Riegel: While disagreement is healthy, the TUSD board has failed at respectively listening and discussing for the greater good.

Rustand: He feels disagreement is healthy but says board members loyalty should not be to personal agendas; instead it should be to children and teachers.

Sedgwick: Personality clashes are taking away from the focus on student achievement, negatively impacting the district as a whole.

Stegeman: Personalities rather than issues drive outcomes. Focusing on issues and decisions will allow discussions to be less toxic.
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Opinion / Columnist

Thomas Mapfumo's much hyped recent release Danger Zone has the artiste playing Russian roulette not just in the name of the album - Danger Zone - but so too the zone in which he takes his music genre - Chimurenga.A 12 track effort, Danger Zone sees Mapfumo become somewhat a stalwart of a mix of music rather than just sticking to the hardcore traditional Chimurenga sounds that he is famed for.It is a gamble especially in tracks like Music, Celebrate and Are You Ready. It is evident Mapfumo has diverged from the hardcore Chimurenga sound to sample some 'world' music nuances and influences.This is not Chimurenga in the traditional straight jacket whatsoever. And the verdict of this 'experiment' is unanimous. This album is terrible!Terribly good that is!It paints a portrait of a Thomas Mapfumo who has become a citizen of the world and now has influences from his adopted nation, the United States, in which he is self-exiled, while also taking pieces, flavours and scents of Africa and more specifically his home country of Zimbabwe, to the world!This makes Danger Zone an eclectic album in as far as the sound is concerned. And for a change, Mapfumo, the eternal political whinger or commentator, whichever way one views him, not only takes a jab at political mismanagement in Zimbabwe and the Harare government, but takes his message to an international stage as an international music statesman especially in the title track Danger Zone. In it, he laments war and instability on a global scale. For instance the disturbances in (Syria, Iraq, Palestine) the Middle East where the Middle-Eastern crisis has raged on for decades.The world is a danger zone Mapfumo laments and demands that women and children be spared the brunt of mankind's wars.The eclectic nature of the album means that unlike the old products, there is a sound on this epic effort for everyone and every ear. A buffet of musical experiences. It also is the reviewer's nightmare.Because even for those who have listened to Mapfumo for decades, this is a unique experience with the godfather of protest music in Zimbabwe.The sounds are monumentally transformed.One can almost smell the 'deep South' of America for example in the tracks Hatidi Politics and cuts of Celebrate. Mapfumo takes the soul of the listener into New Orleans and the wind instruments envelope one with almost deathly hallows of the famed Southern Street Jazz funerals. The horns are haunting in their menacing accompaniment of the theme of gloom and doom that the album espouses through its title track, as well as these numbers, save for a handful.For those who love their Chimurenga unadulterated for example, the track Chikonzero satisfies that craving for a 'hit' of the real deal. Evoking flavours of tracks like the yesteryear hook (titsikire, ngoma iwe titsikiretitsikire mutsikirwe wekwedu titsikirekurira kwengoma), this track takes lead responsibility for all the Chimurenga orgasms the album no doubt commands.The bass-lines on the track sound like heavy honey dripping from the thick strings . . . slowly, falling into the ear with defined thuds that elicit excitement. The same bass line magic is evident on the song Chikwereti (Debt).Yet apart from the usual Mapfumo political rhetoric, the maestro demands an apolitical approach to righting the wrongs that have become apparent in Zimbabwe. In the track Zimbabwe, Mapfumo demands that the nation leave behind hate speech and politically incited divisiveness."Ngatibataneyi tose vana baba, ngatidananeyi tose muZimbabwe," he implores. (Let us unite and love one another in Zimbabwe) "Tikanganwe zvose zvakaitika," (Let us forget the past).Profound words coming from a voice that has always been heeded with regards being a beacon that makes the nation alive to where the problem lies.The voice that burst out with the track Corruption in 1989 and was the first voice to bring us face to face with a vice that has now officially been granted indefinite residence in Zimbabwe's social fabric in both the private and public sector.Add to that is a strikingly nostalgia inspiring layer of wind instrumental prowess that makes one think of the yesteryear tracks of James Chimombe.Only people like Mapfumo can reproduce such obscene perfection which transports us to the glory days of Zimbabwe's music industry. The same saxophonic magic is achieved in the track Nhamo Urombo, which is a tongue in cheek jab at Zimbabwe's political elite, in true Mapfumo style.A redo of the track Shabeen (Shebeen) bridges the gap between the old and the new, with the makeover being enough to breathe freshness without bastardising the old time sweet hit. He sexes it up with the rich voice of Natalia Rollins, and the result is sweet smelling scents in the ghetto corridors.Music, a serious deviation from the 'traditional' Mapfumo sound, is a fruity dance punch that is accompanied by a cheeky video of the fashion conscious Mapfumo dressed like a lustrous Brooklyn city sleeker, swaying to his music rhythmically as some rump-shaking and 'waist-management' is exhibited by fleshy dance girls in braids. Slick!Yet this is not entirely a 'new' phenomenon of having 'Mukanya', as he is affectionately known by his Gudo-baboon totem, fusing sounds to come up with gems. Some of his most hip tracks are owing to his acculturation.Hits like Shiri Yakanaka, My Music, and even Chipo Changu deviated from blatant Chimurenga music nuances and incorporated international tastes and became crossover hits, attracting new demographics into the Mapfumo supporter and fan camp.Add to that, the sorcery that Mapfumo uses to resurrect Jimi Hendrix in the breath-taking guitar-work on the track Are You Ready. The guitar strings weep a dirge as they are throttled by the magic of shape-shifting fingers until the guitar gives out the weeping whelps the player wants elicited. It is deathly beauty. Divinity in sound motion.At the end of the day, this is an album for all and sundry and yet a sophisticated trip down the creative genius of a man who has no doubt been influenced by his long stay in Eugene, Oregon, where he has found a home and a new musical family.Overall, this is a must have for the music rack for the lover of ANY genre of music. No wonder Jidenna of the Classic Man fame loves Mukanya; his art is the art of the world and can no longer be claimed by artificial boundaries like genre, race, culture, sex or continent.
The race is on for three seats on the TUSD Governing Board and while a local school board election may not seem as sexy as say, the 2016 presidential election, the implications are huge.

The people elected to the volunteer positions will make decisions over the next four years for more than 47,000 Tucson children. On Thursday night the seven candidates shared their thoughts on topics that hit close to home for families across the region.

The candidates are incumbents Kristel Foster, Cam Juarez and Mark Stegeman, as well as Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, Lori Riegel, Brett Rustand and Rachael Sedgwick.

What you need to know

The Tucson Unified School District is the largest public school district in Tucson and the second largest in the state.

It has long struggled with low academic achievement and declining enrollment. In 2015, nearly 75 percent of TUSD students failed to pass the states math and English Language Arts test  a higher failure rate than the state average of 65 percent.

It is also currently operating under a decades-old court order for failing to adequately serve Latino and African-American children.

The school board is made up of five volunteers whose job it is to hire the superintendent, decide how the district spends its money and to establish policies that influence students' educational outcomes.

See the candidates

If you missed out on Thursday's candidate forum sponsored by the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, two more are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Temple Emanu-El is hosting a forum on Sept. 14 from 6 to 8 p.m. at 225 N. Country Club Road.

YWCA and the League of Women Voters is hosting a forum on Sept. 29 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at 525 N. Bonita Ave.

Heres how the candidates stand on the following issues:

Academic Achievement

Kristel Foster (incumbent): To improve achievement, she says its important to know how schools are performing and to hold the superintendent accountable for whether the district is performing on par with the state average. She pointed to Arizonas shift to a new assessment as being partly to blame for the districts dismal performance.

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Cam Juarez (incumbent): Describing the state of Arizona education as deplorable, Juarez said it is difficult for students to learn without the resources needed. He also feels the emphasis needs to be on educating the whole child and moving beyond the snapshot provided by high stakes assessments.

Betts Putnam-Hidalgo: Called for increased mentoring opportunities for new teachers, and adequately compensating teachers who meet performance goals. Individualizing instruction to meet individual students needs and holding the superintendent accountable for student performance are also key in improving performance.

Lori Riegel: Filling teacher vacancies, ensuring students have the materials they need and increasing classroom spending would all positively impact student achievement, she says. She also advocated for empowering and supporting school principals and teachers.

Brett Rustand: Significant progress must be made and policies need to be created with student achievement in mind. He called for a more challenging curriculum that would require teachers to teach to a higher standard. He also argued that if administrative spending can be reduced, that would free up funds for the classroom.

Rachael Sedgwick: TUSD test scores have either been stagnant or on the decline in the case of minority students. She urged the district to form a partnership with the University of Arizona to train teachers to be leaders within their schools and to train teachers on how to work collaboratively for the benefit of children.

Mark Stegeman (incumbent): The superintendent and the governing board need to prioritize academic achievement. Increase classroom spending by reducing administrative expenses, specifically calling for the funds to go toward teacher pay and classroom materials.

Discipline

The candidates were not directly asked about TUSDs discipline philosophy but many wove it into responses on how to improve academic outcomes for students.

Both Foster and Juarez argued that historically, Latino and African American students have been disciplined disproportionately but the district is working to turn that around through programs that seek to address the root causes of behavior.

Riegel, Rustand, Stegeman and Sedgwick called for supporting teachers decisions to maintain order in their classrooms.

Working together

Research has found that effective school boards positively impact student achievement, but TUSD governing boards past and present have often been described as dysfunctional and driven by personalities rather than policy.

Foster: Public education is under attack in Arizona and the school board needs to come together to build the communitys trust and confidence.

Juarez: The drama of the TUSD school board has been known to push people away from the district. Its imperative for the board to come together and support approved policies even when a board member opposes it.

Putnam-Hidalgo: The TUSD board lacks a sense of civility. The focus needs to be on policy, not personalities or partisanship, to benefit kids.

Riegel: While disagreement is healthy, the TUSD board has failed at respectively listening and dialoguing for the greater good.

Rustand: Like Riegel, he feels disagreement is healthy but says board members loyalty should not be to personal agendas, instead it should be to children and teachers.

Sedgwick: Personality clashes are taking away from the focus on student achievement, negatively impacting the district as a whole.

Stegeman: Personalities rather than issues drive outcomes. Focusing on issues and decisions will allow discussions to be less toxic
Help India!

By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS,

Vairengte (Mizoram) : Last week when Captain Greg Adams and Staff Sergeant Cote along with 28 US Special Forces commandos arrived at this hilltop village in Indias northeastern state of Mizoram, they were far from thrilled.

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But after a week at the Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) here, the 30 US soldiers of the Special Forces or Green Berets were simply stunned.

Upon their arrival at Vairengte, a small tribal hamlet wedged on the border between Mizoram and Assam, they were not amused. Where on earth have we landed? they seemed to ask each other.

On Monday, Captain Adams told IANS: This is the most amazing military education facility anywhere.

Adams made the remarks as he led his troops to a dangerous slithering operation  coming down an MI-17 helicopter by clinging on to a rope and landing safely.

The school at Vairengte is today considered one of the worlds most prestigious anti-terrorist institutions with troops from several countries getting training there.

The US soldiers are being trained on sub-conventional guerrilla warfare, especially in dealing with urban terrorism. The exercise would end Aug 24.

The motto of this institute is to fight a guerrilla like a guerrilla, Brigadier A.K. Ram, commandant of the CIJWS, told IANS.

So far more than 156,000 soldiers have been trained at CIJWS, including about 1,500 foreign soldiers from 26 countries since the school was set up in 1970.

We have trained soldiers from the US, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries while we are expecting soldiers from China and other parts of the world soon, the commandant said.

The troops are taught to live in difficult and hostile terrains, eat and sleep like the guerrilla and strike as silently as the guerrilla, said Colonel B. Mukherjee, an instructor at the school.

Spurred by the successes in combating militancy to a great extent, New Delhi in 2001 opened the school at Vairengte for soldiers from abroad with three US army officers being the first overseas batch to be trained.

But it was only after the 9/11 that the jungle warfare school at Vairengte began attracting military cadets from across the world.

The training we are currently being imparted here would go a long way in tackling terror. We have also shared our experiences with our Indian counterparts the entire exercise is simply great, Captain Adams said.

In 2003, a group of about 100 elite US commandos completed a three-week anti-insurgency combat training at the institute.

The reputation of the CIJWS lies in the fact that the training module is framed in a highly scientific manner  soldiers receive training in identifying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), jungle survival, counter terrorism, and interrogation techniques.

Soldiers were also trained in jungle reflexive shooting, and a fast roping technique called slithering, used by the Indian Army.

The exercises are aimed at honing special skills for soldiers who are exposed to terrorist attacks.

The training module include among other things lectures, seminars, besides mock operations in the rugged jungles in Mizoram.

The training module is non-conventional and once a soldier undergoes training here, he can face all deadly situations anywhere in the world, the commandant said.

The CIJWS is also framing tactics to hunt down and face terrorists groups carrying weapons of mass destruction.

And there are plans to upgrade the school into a military college soon.
Help India!

By IANS,

Lucknow : Two dacoits carrying cash rewards for their capture were arrested Saturday after a gun battle with Uttar Pradeshs Special Task Force (STF), police said.

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We nabbed Deepak Patel, who is the brother of the slain gangster Ambika Prasad Patel, along with one of his aides Shiv Naresh Patel today (Saturday) in the forests of Chitrakoot district, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Brij Lal told reporters here. Chitrakoot is 280 km from Lucknow.

Deepak and Shiv were wanted by the police of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Both were wanted in several cases of murder, abduction and loot, he said.

According to the police, one semi-automatic Springfield rifle and two .315 bore rifles were recovered from their possession.

The duo were running the notorious gang of the slain gangster Thokia after he was killed by the police in a gun battle last year, said Lal, who termed the arrests an achievement by the STF.

While Deepak carried a reward of Rs.65,000 for his capture, a reward of Rs.60,000 had been announced for Shivs arrest.
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Help India!

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net,

Full Series: Buddhist-Muslim Relations in Ladakh

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Ladakh, the northern-most part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, occupies almost two-thirds of its territory but accounts for just 2.7 % of its population. Ladakh consists of two districts: Kargil and Leh. Both the districts have a roughly equal population of a little more than a hundred thousand people. The majority of the population of Kargil, some 85 per cent, are Shia Muslims, most of whom belong to the Balti ethnic community. The remainder are mainly Buddhists, in the Zanskar valley, with a small minority of Sunni Muslims in Padum and Nurbakshi Muslims in the Dras area. In Leh, the overwhelming majority of the population is Buddhist, with a minority of Sunni, Shia Balti and Nurbakshi Muslims, who account for roughly 15 per cent of the population. Muslims are found in 25 out of the 112 villages of Leh district. In most of these villages they form scattered minorities, although in some villages near Leh and in the Nubra Valley they account for a substantial proportion of the population.

Buddhist-Muslim Relations in Leh: A Historical Background

According to a leading Ladakhi historian from Leh, Abdul Ghani Sheikh, Islams first contact with Ladakh goes back to the eighth century, when Arab soldiers and traders began entering the area. He writes that by the mid-seventh century Arab armies had already conquered large parts of central Asia, which had close historical ties with Ladakh. In the late eighth century, during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mahdi (775-85), Arab armies reached as far as Tibet and had demanded tribute from the Tibetans. It is probable, Sheikh argues, that some Arab soldiers entered Ladakh at this time, although the available documentary evidence is fragmentary. Local legend has it that the Persian Kubrawi Sufi, Mir Sayyed Ali Hamadani, who played an important role in the introduction of Islam in Kashmir, passed through Ladakh in 1381/2. He is said to have built a mosque at Shey, then the capital of Ladakh, and at Padum, in Zanskar, although this is disputed. Not long after his visit, some Muslim mystics of the Rishi order, such as Baba Zainuddin Rishi and Baba Nasiruddin Ghazi, are said to have travelled to Ladakh and Baltistan, and are credited with having made some converts to Islam in the area. The spread of Islam in Ladakh is said to have further accelerated after the conversion to Islam of the Ladakhi Buddhist ruler of Kashmir, Lha-chen-dngros-grub in the early fourteenth century, who later went on to take the name of Rinchen Shah.







New mosque in Leh [Photo: http://sherabphoto.blogspot.com]



Ladakh witnessed a new influx of Muslims from the sixteenth century onwards, as Sunni Muslim traders from Kashmir began settling in the region. They were key players in the trans-Himalayan trade network along the Silk Route connecting West Asia with Tibet and China. They were welcomed by the Ladakhi Rajas, who saw them as playing a valuable role in the local economy. They were allotted their own special quarters in the capital city and lands to construct mosques. They married local Buddhist women, and the Argon community of Sunni Muslims in Leh today are descended from these unions. The Sunni community in Ladakh was further augmented after Ladakh became a vassal of the Mughals in the reign of Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century. Ladakhi rulers invited a number of Kashmiri Muslims to join their court as scribes to conduct official correspondence, in Persian, with the Mughal governors of Kashmir, and also to help run the royal mint. At this time Sunni Muslims also began settling in small numbers in the Zanskar area in Kargil, as assistants to the local Buddhist rulers as well as traders.

The Sunni Muslims are the largest religious minority in Leh today. They form around 6 % of the districts population, and are almost entirely of mixed Kashmiri-Ladakhi background. This explains why they are often referred to as Argons or mixed race. They are more commonly known as Khacha Pa, the wordKhacha Yul meaning Kashmir in the Ladakhi language. In addition to the Kashmiri element, some Argons also claim Turkestani and Central Asian descent.

The Shias of Leh are almost all of Balti stock, ethnically similar to the Buddhist Ladakhis and the western Tibetans. They trace their conversion to the sixteenth century Mir Shamsuddin Iraqi, who is credited with introducing Shia Islam in Kashmir and Baltistan. He and his disciples are said to have been responsible for the conversion of a number of Balti Buddhist princes to the Shia faith. Many of the local Shias, it is said, are descendants of migrants from Baltistan. They claim that they settled in Leh in the early seventeenth century, when the Ladakhi Buddhist ruler Jamyang Namgyal (1555-1610) married Gyal Khatun, daughter of Yebgo Sher Ghazi, the Shia prince of Khaplu. Gyal Khatun is said to have brought along with her a number of Balti Shias in her retinue. They were later accompanied by another group of Baltis who shifted to Ladakh following a devastating flood in Baltistan. Their descendants are now to be found in fairly sizeable numbers in Phyang, Shey, Chushot, Thiksey and Leh town.

A third Muslim community in Ladakh are the Nurbakshis, followers of the fifteenth century Persian mystic Sayyed Muhammad Nurbaksh. Nurbakshs own sectarian affiliation is disputed. Some claim that he was a Sunni of the Shafi school and a Kubrawi Sufi. Others insist that he was a Shia who concealed his faith out of fear of Sunni persecution. The Nurbakshis in Ladakh are today found chiefly in the Nubra Valley and in some villages near Dras, in Kargil. Larger numbers of Nurbakshis lives across the border in Baltistan, in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Today, they are increasingly being targeted by Sunni and Shia missionary groups, who are now engaged in a fierce competition to bring them to their respective folds.







Muslim-owned shops [Photo: http://sherabphoto.blogspot.com]



Although the consciousness of adhering to different religious systems remained strong, Buddhists and Muslims in Ladakh historically shared a broadly similar culture. The local Muslims spoke Ladakhi and wore the same dress, often with minor differences. Food habits were, to an extent, similar, except for the consumption of alcohol and carrion, which are forbidden in Islamic law. Given the Buddhist prohibition of killing animals, all the butchers in Ladakh were Muslims, and many Buddhist communities specially imported Muslim butchers from Kashmir and Baltistan to settle in their villages. At the popular level there was, in some cases, a blurring of religious boundaries. For instance, in several outlying areas Muslims would visit Buddhist oracles and healers for cures, and some Buddhists would attend the Balti mourning rituals for Imam Husain. Another revealing example in this regard is that of the royal ceremonies on the occasion of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. The Raja would pass through Leh at the head of a large procession, followed by his cavalry. The Buddhist head of the cavalry would visit the Sunni mosque in the town, offer oil for the lamps in the mosque, and ask for the blessings of the local Imam.

Intermarriage between Argons, Baltis and Buddhists in Ladakh was fairly common until recently. Such marriages occurred among both ordinary people as well as among the royalty. Thus, for instance, as mentioned above, the seventeenth century ruler of Ladakh, Jamyang Namgyal, married Gyal Khatun, daughter of the Shia ruler of Khaplu. Gyal Khatun remained a Muslim till her death, but she was regarded by many Buddhists as an incarnation of the White Tara, probably because her son, Singe Namgyal, rose to become the most famous ruler of Ladakh, playing a crucial role in the expansion of both Buddhism and the geographical boundaries of the Ladakhi kingdom. Another Ladakhi Raja, Nima Namgyal, was married to a Muslim princess, Zizi Khatun, who is said to have exercised a major role in running the affairs of the kingdom. Raja Pirang Namgyal married Begum Wangmu, daughter of a small Shia principality in Kargil. The son of the last independent ruler of Ladakh, Thundup Namgyal, also had a Muslim queen. Likewise, Hurchu Khan, the Shia ruler of a principality in Kargil, married a Ladakhi Buddhist princess.

The historical records speak of numerous wars were between the Ladakhi Buddhist kings and the Shia Muslim rulers of various small principalities in Baltistan. At the same time, they also mention a large number of marriages between the Shia and Ladakhi ruling houses. Political alliances often cut across religious boundaries. Thus, for instance, when Ladakh was invaded by a joint Tibetan-Mongolian army in 1681, the Ladakhi ruler appealed to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb for help. In response to this request, the Mughal army, under Nawab Fidai Khan, entered Ladakh and, along with the Ladakhis, inflicted a heavy defeat on the invaders. In gratitude for this assistance, the Ladakhi ruler allotted a plot of land just below his palace in Leh to the Sunni Muslims of the town for a mosque. The mosque, which still stands, is now the central or Jamia mosque of the Sunnis of Ladakh. In other words, one cannot speak in terms of a history of any inherent antagonism between Muslims and Buddhists, as entire communities, in the region. Ladakh has never known the sort of communal violence that many other parts of India have witnessed.
On July 27, Rijiju said in the Lok Sabha that the BJPs ideology on the uniform civil code should be taken as the country's ideology on the same. Basil Islam | TwoCircles.net NEW DELHI  Union Minister Kiren Rijijus recent remarks on implementing the uniform civil code have re-ignited the debate on the viability of a uniform civil code and its possible...
Help India!

Report made available by the organizers

Aurangabad: Indian Muslims have been facing myriad problems and afflictions for long. It is usually assumed that their plight set in motion with the coming of the British and reached its nadir with the victory of the British forces in the ill-fated uprising of 1857. Furthermore, the partition of the country put the Muslims who chose to stay behind in India in a precarious condition and the genuinely secular leaders of the majority community on the defensive. During the last sixty-five years only one phenomenon remained a constant, the plight of the Muslims. Whats more, the scourge of Islamic terrorism, whether real or imaginary, has awfully spoiled the image of the Muslims all over the world particularly after 9/11. In India, the Pakistan sponsored terrorist attacks, the worst being the carnage of 26/11, have rendered the Muslims extremely vulnerable to the excesses of various security agencies. The Muslim youths are very vulnerable in the contemporary scenario because on one hand they are likely to be trapped by the terrorist organisations and on the other they may face the wrath of the security agencies. There are also clear indications that some extreme Hindu organisations have adopted terrorism as a strategy to target the Muslims. Some activists associated with such organisations have also been arrested. Nevertheless, the security agencies prefer to go after the Muslims in the aftermath every terrorist act.

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Who is to blame for this perilous condition of the Muslims? Has the State failed awfully to uphold the constitutional rights of the largest religious minority of the country? Are the political parties that use the Muslims only as vote banks responsible? Should the orthodox mullahs, invariably supported by the ruling elite, who never allowed the bulk of the Muslims to break free the snare of religious-cultural identity and focus on the real issues, be held guilty? Objectively speaking the plight of the Muslims is the result of a combination of the three factors mentioned above. Consequently, the combined energy of nearly twenty crore Muslims of India that should have been used for nation building has been criminally wasted.

In recent years, two reports have stirred the imagination of those who aspire to establish an all-inclusive, truly secular India. The Sachar Committee Report has officially authenticated the reality that was widely believed that the Muslims, in terms of educational and economic indices constitute the most backward segment of Indian society while the Rangnath Mishra Committee Report recommended a policy of extending reservations to all the religious minorities in jobs and educational institutions to bring them on par with other Indians. Needless to add that the two reports generated a great deal of heat as their proponents and opponents refuse to de-communalise the debate and treat the whole issue as a matter of uplifting a backward segment of society by means of affirmative action.

In order to bring into focus all the real problems of the Muslims and make suggestions for their redress, Centre for Promotion of Democracy and Secularism (CPDS), a non-profit organisation comprising intellectuals, academics, social activists and journalists of Maharashtra, in collaboration with the Department of Political Science and Maulana Azad Chair of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad and with the sponsorship of ICSSR (Western Region) have organized a two-day national seminar on the theme of What Ails Indian Muslims on October 11 and 12 at the University campus in Aurangabad. Going by peoples response and the animated discussions witnessed in all the sessions of the seminar, it was without doubt, a successful and timely exercise.

In the inaugural event, Prof. Zaheer Ali, the President of the CPDS and the convener of the seminar enlightened the large audience about the theme, rationale and structure of the seminar. Ali underscored that the Muslim backwardness was the outcome of the external and internal factors; he identified external factors such as exclusion of Muslims from educational, economic and political empowerment by the state and society while the internal factors like supremacist view of Islam, overemphasis on the life Hereafter and the consequent resistance to modern, scientific and technological education, religious orthodoxy etc. were created by the Muslim religious elite. In this respect the Muslim community, Ali emphasized, had to do serious introspection. Justifying the need of the seminar, he pointed out that if the largest minority remained the most backward segment of the country, India could never achieve the status of a developed nation. Informing about the structure of the seminar, Ali said that in the 8 sessions spread over two days, well-known scholars and social activists of India would make their presentations delineating various problems of Indian Muslims and also make suggestions about their solutions.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Dr. Vijay Pandharipande observed that the seminar was the need of the hour and hoped it would lead to positive results. Dr. B. S. Waghmare, Professor and Head, Department of Political Science of the University welcomed the guests, the outstation scholars and the audiences. He also gave a brief introduction of the Department of Political Science. Dr. Afaque Khan, the Secretary of the CPDS, let the audiences know about the CPDS and its activities. He said that in its brief existence of three years, the Centre had conducted quite a few activities. Besides, holding the orientation camps for the youths, the CPDS in collaboration with another NGO, BUILD, he informed, had organized a seminar on Sanghi Terrorism in Mumbai and a two-day conference in association with Asha Kendra on the theme of Challenges before Indian Democracy at Puntamba. The two-day national seminar on What Ails Indian Muslims, he informed, was the third and the more ambitious venture of the CPDS. Dr. Intekhab Hameed Khan, Director of Maulana Azad Chair informed that his institution was running a one-year certificate course of communal harmony and national integration for a couple of years.

The highlight of the inaugural event was the keynote address delivered by the internationally renowned scholar Prof Mushirul Hasan of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He pointed out that Muslims were lagging behind in almost all the fields compared to other ethnic and religious communities of India. Their pitiable conditions were officially recognized by the State in the form of Sachar Committee Report. However, Hasan lamented, that the corrective measures adopted by the Union Government were not implemented with sincerity and impartiality. He said that there existed a bias against Muslims in society and state. Therefore, the title, according to him, of the seminar should have been What Ails Indian Sate and Society?. Prof. Hasan advised the Muslims to participate wholeheartedly in the corporate life of the nation as the responsible citizens of the country. He opined that various problems of the Muslims could only be solved by winning the confidence of the majority community. He said Muslim constituted the largest minority in India but they were not confined to a particular region. They were spread over across the entire territory of India. Therefore, Prof. Hasan suggested that it was absolutely necessary for Muslims to identify with respective regional languages and cultures. In his opinion, the Muslim could find out solutions to quite a few problems by becoming the part of the regional ethnicity in the state of their residence.

Thereafter, Justice Babu Marlapalle released the first publication of the CPDS, a book, Reading History: A Bunch of Papers, by S. H. Magrabi, edited with an introduction by Zaheer Ali. In his address Justice Marlapalle highlighted the constitutional solutions that could help ameliorate a number of problems of the Muslim community. The technical sessions followed thereafter.

In the first session that was chaired by Dr. Umesh Bagade, Professor and Head, Department of History, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, Prof. Zaheer Ali presented a paper on Problems of Indian Muslims: Real and Peripheral (an overview). Prof Ali pointed out that the Muslims like any other religious community did not constitute a monolithic social construct and because of it their problems too differed in terms of nature and magnitude. The real problems, in the opinion of Prof Ali, were those that endangered the very existence of the vulnerable Muslims and also destabilized the socio-economic and political interests of the entire community. He said the gravest problem of the Muslims was the protection of life and property. In this respect, he observed, the state had failed miserably. He made mention of the three pogroms of independent India viz. Hyderabad massacre in which as per Prof. Sunderlal Committee Report, about 2,00,000 lakh Muslims were killed by the Indian security forces. The second pogrom was the Hashimpura killing of 47 Muslims in cold blood by the PAC and the third, of course, was the Gujarat genocide of 2001. In addition to these pogroms there were many anti-Muslims riots in which 80 % victims had been Muslims. Prof. Ali observed that by passing the Communal Violence (Prevention) Bill and bringing about police reforms, the life and property of all the minority communities could be protected.

Prof. Ali pointed out that economic and political exclusion and educational backwardness too are real problems of the Muslims. He also made it clear that in addition to State bias and anti-Muslim politics of the Hindu Right, Muslim political and religious elite were also responsible for Muslim backwardness. As regards affirmative action he disfavored religion based reservations but suggested that the Muslim Dalits should be given the SC and ST status so they could get the benefits of reservation in educational institutions and employment.

Irfan Engineer made the second presentation of the first session. His paper was entitled Indian Muslims: Socio-Economic Conditions, Political Mobilization and Emerging New Challenges. He argued that most Muslim of the subcontinent were converts from the sudra castes who were exploited by the upper caste Hindus and therefore embraced Islam. These Muslims came to be known as ajlafs. He also pointed out that as opposed to the ajlaf, the ashraf were nobles and some of whom claimed to have migrated from the Central Asia. They generally held public offices, including the Mansabdars, Nawabs, landlords, Ulemas, etc. It was but natural, he reasoned, that a vast majority of Indian Muslims were rooted in the local culture. According to him there were many syncretic shrines where people of all religions prayed together. He underscored the pluralistic character of the Muslim community in India. He claimed that besides the sectarian divisions within the Muslim community, viz. the Shias and the Sunnis, there were sectarian divisions within the Sunnis  the Deobandis, the Barelvis, Ahle-Hadith and so on.

Mr. Engineer also traced the history of a few Muslim organisations such as the Wahabi movement and Tablighi Jamat and their impact on the Muslims of the subcontinent. According to Engineer the middle class among the Muslims had always been a tiny one. The creation of Pakistan had further reduced the number of people belonging to the middle class as many of them migrated to the newly created nation. In independent India, said Engineer, the Muslim leadership comprised moderate Muslims whose leader was Maulana Azad. However, after the demolition of Babri Masjid the moderate leadership failed and the community came to be led by the fundamentalists and political Islamists. According to Engineer the political Islamists aimed to establish Islamic State and enforce Islam, or rather rituals of a particular sect of Islam, through the state. Lastly, he made some suggestions like emphasis on education, participation in the democratic process, reforming Muslim community from within and shunning violence that could help Muslims to progress in India.

The third paper in the first session was on Sachar Committee Report: A Critique that was presented by Dr. Afaque Khan. He thoroughly analysed the report that had officially authenticated the fact that the Muslims constituted the most backward community of contemporary India. He said that by and large the report reflected the true picture of the socio-economic and educational backwardness of the Muslims. In his opinion the findings of the Sachar Committee officially disproved the false propaganda of Muslim appeasement that was carried out by the Sangh parivar. Dr. Khan observed that though the report was commendable the government failed to implement its recommendations properly. Despite tall claims, nothing of consequence was done by the government agencies to uplift the Muslims. Dr. Khan forcefully advocated that the entire scheme that was designed to implement the recommendations of the Committee should be thoroughly revised.

Quite a few participants commented on the contents of the papers and asked questions that were responded to by the three paper presenters. At the end of the session Dr. Bagade appreciated the scholarly presentations and the consequent debate that followed.

The second session was chaired by Dr. Ramesh Kamble of Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai Presenting his paper, Religious Reform Movement and Othering of Muslims Prof. Fakruddin Bennur enumerated a number of factors that were responsible for the plight of the Muslims. He argued that besides communalism, socio-economic exclusion, educational backwardness, denial of opportunities in almost all fields of life and anti-Muslim genocides and riots perpetrated by BJP and Shiv Sena were the major factors for the plight of the Muslims.

Prof. Bennur explained that while a number of reformers from Raja Rammohan Roy to Dr. Ambedkar strived to reform Hindu society, the Muslims were unfortunately remained under the dominance of orthodox Ulema. These Ulema, said Prof. Bennur, did not allow social economic and educational reforms. The Ulema, he argued overlooked the fact that 85% of Muslim Population was consisted of local converts who inherited a mixed culture. However, the orthodox Ulema insisted on transplanting the Arabic social structure in the name of purification of Islam. It led to alienation of Muslims from pluralistic culture of Indian society, concluded Prof. Bennur.

Dr. Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Head, Department of Islamic Studies, St. Xavier College, Mumbai was the second presenter of the paper that was on The Dilemmas of Muslim Women in India. She began her presentation by referring to the Sachar Committee Report that though did not cover the concerns of the Muslim women, had observed that the low aggregate work participation ratios for Muslims were due to the much lower participation in economic activity by the women of the community. She, however, added that despite Muslim backwardness the community had the best sex ratio among all Indians. She made a valid point that the plight of Muslim women should be considered in the context of overall backwardness of the Muslim community. Dr. Ali refuted the critics view that the reticent position of Muslim women was due to Islam and at the same time she condemned the position of the Muslim apologists who claimed that Islam gave undeniable rights to women.

She explained that in Islam the position of men and women was based on complementary functions. According to Dr. Ali, the spiritual-intellectual approach within Islam could re-establish its ideal of gender equality. The comparatively backward position, she pointed out, of Muslim women in the contemporary world was the result of lack of culture among the community rather than the precepts of Islam.

The third paper of the session was jointly presented by Dr. B. S. Waghmare and Mukhtar Shaikh. It was entitled Dalit-Muslim Unity Challenges Ahead: Some Observation. Their contention was that though the concept of Dalit-Muslim Unity was an abstract one, the unity of the marginalized people of Indian society was the need of the time. They argued that both the communities faced the crisis of identity and recognition. Thirdly, in Indian society the presence of both the communities was considered as problematic. Despite the commonalities their unity remained elusive. They also numerated certain challenges before the two communities. For instance, they said, both communities were heterogeneous; while Dalits had a long history of socio-political movement, the lower caste Muslims were exploited by the Muslim elite in the name of spiritual concept of brotherhood; while Dalits were alienated and distrusted, the Muslims were labeled as traitors and terrorists and while Dalits made positive use of Phule-Ambedkar ideology within the democratic framework, the Muslim leadership deliberately kept the Muslim masses ignorant to maintain its hold on them.

Prof. Shamsuddin Tamboli presented the last paper of the session that was on Muslim Women and Social Justice. He observed that the plight of women in pre-Islamic Arabia was pathetic and it was the Quran that guaranteed social justice to women 1400 years ago. However, Prof Tamboli contended, subsequently different interpretations corrupted Muslim society as social evils like oral divorce, polygamy, veil, honour killing and so on became the hallmarks of Muslim society. Consequently, the social status of Muslim women all across the world was much lower than the women of other communities. He argued that to help Muslim women, in a democratic country like India, Muslim Personal Law should either be removed or reformed. He also spoke about social, economic and education backwardness of Muslim women.

The fourth and the last session of day one of the seminar was devoted to the sub-theme, Media and the Muslims. It was chaired by Dr. Jaidev Dole of the Department of Journalism, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. Making his presentation Mohammad Wajihuddin, senior journalist with the Times of India emphatically underscored that the media showed bias while reporting about minorities, especially Muslims. The things, he pointed out, that routinely hit the headlines were burqa, fatwa, polygamous men, regressive maulavis, and myopic leaders making incendiary statements. He lamented that in the wave of Islamophobia, objective reporting about the Muslims became the casualty. He argued that since media fed on negative events, negative things about Muslims got reported widely. He advised the Muslim youths to join the media in large numbers. He said that he was witness to Muslim parents mortgaging their properties to fund education of their children. Though, he reasoned, this awareness about education was good, the focus was only on producing doctors, engineers and management personnel. Muslim parents and youth should also get trained in journalism and join mainstream media. He clarified that personally he was opposed to have a separate media outlet for the Muslims because such a thing did not work in the past and would not work in the future. He said that media was a weapon with which the Muslims could fight a jihad against the enemies within and without. However, this weapon should be of good quality, he remarked.

Presenting the second paper entitled, Media and Its Representation Ms. Babli Parveen, Senior Research Fellow at JNU, made it clear at the outset that the theme of her paper dealt not in its immediacy but in its historical context. Her aim, she pointed out, was not to focus the flawed representation of Muslims but one sided depiction of the past. It was the cause of negative stereotyping of the Muslims. She said that unless we provided a corrective to the past and projected the pietistic elements in Indo-Muslim history we would have to live with the demonization of Muslim history.

The third presentation was that of Mubasshir Mushtaq, a freelance journalist who delineated the relationship between media and the Muslims which, according to him, was based on misunderstanding. He commented that the media was far from being fair to Muslims. It would project a rabid rather than a moderate image of the community. The media, Mushtaq insisted, would focus more on terror and crime reporting in which the members of the Muslim community could be involved. He lamented that media that was supposed to be a watchdog of society became pet-dog of investigative agencies. He emphasized the need for improving relationship between media and the Muslims.

On the second day (Oct. 12, 2013) three papers were presented in the first session, i.e. the fourth technical session of the seminar, which was chaired by Irfan Engineer. Presenting his thought-provoking paper, Why We Must Become Muslims, Dr. Murzban Jal of the Indian Institute of Education, Pune, informed that his paper was on politics proper in a very Leninist sense. He said that politics proper was about aesthetics: the aesthetics of insurrection. Elaborating on the statement, why we must become Muslims Dr. Jal said that it was not only against the fascist phantasmagoria of Hindutva but it was also against the idea of Hinduism. He admitted that the idea of wanting to become a Muslim by a Marxist might seem to be rather strange, rather frightening and added that it was this very strange and frightening character that we should turn our attention. He clarified that in the era of imperialist Islamophobia, the idea of becoming Muslim also created a dialectical shock to the ruling establishment. He emphasized that his paper was on the very real need of a Marxist to address this question. According to Dr. Jal, the specter of communism that haunted Old Europe remained central to the question of wanting to become Muslims.

The second paper, Pawn In, Patrons Still Out was presented by Subhash Gatade. At the outset he made it clear that he was opposed to all sorts of terrorism, Hindu, Muslim or State. Dealing with the rise of Hindutva terror, Gatade explained, that a cursory glance at many terror acts committed by Hindutva activists would reveal two aspects of the phenomenon. First, the bombs would be planted at places where the targeted others would be present in large numbers. The second aspect, he stated, would be camouflaging the whole operation in such manner that it should appear an act by some fanatic Muslim group. In this context he referred to Malegaon bomb blast of 2006.

He contended that Hindutva terror was a serious threat to secular democratic polity. It had a pan-India presence and had been able to build international linkages too. He further elaborated that Hindutva terror was a very carefully designed strategy by the Hindu Right which had shifted from their earlier strategy of terror of riot to terror of bomb. Commenting on the chain of Hindutva terror, Gatade observed, that most of the people who had been apprehended were in fact planters or executioners of the terror acts while the masterminds or the planners were not touched. Citing the example of Bangladesh, he insisted that majoritarian terror could be reined in. He pointed out that in Bangladesh a combination of political will, proactive judiciary and active citizenry could rein in the menace of majority terrorism. India, Gatade concluded, could emulate Bangladeshs strategy.

Asad bin Saif, a social activist associated with BUILD, a Mumbai-based NGO, presented his paper on the Economic Problems of the Muslims in India. He began the presentation by underlying that economic betterment of the people was a crux of a healthy democracy. He informed that the Muslims in India were lagging far behind in terms of all development indicators as per the findings of the Sachar Committee Report. He commented that the findings were shocking testimony to more than six decades of neglect and bias perpetuated against the Muslims.

Commenting on the neoliberal policies of the government, Saif argued that they led to economic deprivation of all the vulnerable sections of society including Muslims. He suggested that in such a situation people cutting across caste, communal or ethnic lines should come together to struggle against anti-people policies. He asserted that there was a symbiotic relationship between democracy and development. The development should lead to all-inclusive nation building catering to the need of all sections of society including the Muslims. He suggested that India needed the institution like Equal Opportunity Commission as part of affirmative action.

The fifth session was chaired by Dr. Surendra Jondhale of the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai. Dr. Liyaqat Khan, Associate Professor in the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai presented a paper on Strategy of Minority Political Party: A Case Study of Muslims. The major thrust of his paper was how best the Muslim could make their political representation in India. He suggested that three choices were available to them. The first one, he informed, was the Muslim could join hands with political parties that were sympathetic to them; the second option, he pointed out was that the Muslim could work through a friendly pressure group to ensure the election of candidates sympathetic to Muslim cause irrespective of party affiliation and the last option according to Dr. Khan was that the Muslims could form their own political party.

The second paper of the session, Backwardness and Leadership Vacuum among Indian Muslims: The Need to go Beyond Sachar Report was presented by Dr. Shuja Shakir, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. He opined that overall backwardness and leadership vacuum constituted the bane of Muslim community in India. He argued that every political dispensation had always treated the Muslims as vote bank. Consequently, the Sachar Report found them extremely backward in terms of socio-economic and educational indicators. He admitted that State support would help the community but underscored the point that no community could tap its full potential without changing its outlook and attitude.

Dr. Shakir made an attempt to explore whether Muslims were serious about bringing a transformation in their socio-political viewpoint or they were interested only in raising symbolic demands like permission to grow beards in government service and asking for acquiescence in matter of Muslim girls wearing scarf in school. He insisted that there was an urgent need for the community to shun its historical and psychological baggage that made it believe that the entire world was anti-Islam. He forcefully advocated that it was absolutely necessary for the community to get itself extricated from the clutches of overtly religious leadership that thrived on pontification and little action. He stressed that the Muslims should imbibe secularism, which did not mean ir-religiosity.

Third presentation was that of Dr. (Ms.) Sandhya Mhatre of the Department of Economics, University of Mumbai and a social activist. She spoke on Implementation of Development Schemes for Muslims in Maharashtra. She was very critical of the manner these schemes that were meant for the development of the Muslims were implemented. Dr. Mhatre argued that first of all there was a need to increase the funds for the schemes in proportion to the Muslim population in the State. She pointed out that Rs. 28000 crores were allocated for the SCs even though their percentage of population was only 10.7. Similarly, Rs. 24000 crores were allocated for the STs who had a percentage of 8 in the population. Compared to these merely 1000 crores were allocated for Muslims who constituted 11.5 % of the State population.

What was worse, she argued, that even the meager funds meant for Muslim development were transferred to other schemes and projects. She called such policies as grave injustice to the Muslims of Maharashtra. In order to oppose such anti-Muslim policies of the government, she said that pressure should be exerted at the local level for proper implementation of the schemes. Moreover, the Muslims by joining hands with the members of the majority community should strive for increase in allocation of funds for their development schemes.

The sixth session of the seminar was chaired by Dr. Intekhab Hameed Khan, Professor in the Department of English and the Director of Maulana Azad Chair of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. Dr. Malika Mistry, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Poona College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Pune presented her paper on Gaps in Levels of Literacy, Education and Exposure to Media among Muslims and other Religious Groups: Evidence from NFHS-3 India. She analyzed the data of the National Family Health Survey-3 and on its basis brought into focus Muslim backwardness in terms of literacy, education and exposure to media. Dr. Mistry clarified that the objectives of her study were: first to know the level of literacy, education and exposure to media among the Muslims and other religious groups in India; second, to make comparison in regard to the aforementioned variables with those of men and women from other religious groups; third to find out the causes of Muslims current status and fourth, to make recommendation for improving the status of the Muslims in terms of the indices under consideration.

Prof. (Ms) Benazeer S. Tamboli presented her paper on Educational Problems of Muslims in India. She approached the issue of educational backwardness from various angles. She first discussed the educational problems of the Muslims in general terms and also suggested some practicable solutions. She underscored the point that if the largest religious minority in India remained backward in terms of education and economy, the progress of the entire nation would be badly affected. She also identified certain causes for Muslims overall backwardness. She made a mention of a silent revolution that was taking place in the area of Muslim education. However, lamented that its pace was considerably slow. She suggested some measures that could help accelerate the educational revolution among the Muslims.

The last paper of the session was presented by Dr. Quadri Syed Mujtaba, HOD, Political Science, Maulana Azad College, Aurangabad. In his paper he dealt with the issue of social reforms among the Muslims in India. He acknowledged the pivotal role that Sir Syed played in the context. He informed that Sir Syed was extremely critical of the Ulema whom he held responsible for destroying the original spirit of Islam. Instead of welcoming the reformist zeal of Sir Syed regressive sections of the Muslim hated him and fatwas were brought from Mecca and Medina to declare him a Kafir. Dr. Quadri also mentioned the name of Mumtaz Ali who championed the cause of Muslim women. He, however, stated that despite various efforts the Muslims women continued to lag behind in socio-economic and educational terms. Dr. Quadri concluded by saying that that the main difficulty in reforming Muslim society was the absence of peoples involvement in the process.

The special feature of the seminar was the seventh session that was an open house chaired by Prof. Fakruddin Bennur, in which the members of the audiences comprising socio-political activists, religious and political elite, professionals, academicians, journalists, members of women organisations and the common men were given the opportunity to give expression to their aspirations, grievances, demands and ideas pertaining to Indian Muslims. This was a successful experiment as quite a number of people came forward to put across their viewpoints. The notable speakers included, Prof. Mahebub Sayyad an academician-activist from Ahmednagar, Uday Chaudhary, a senior leader of the AITUC, Dr. Saleem Shaikh, Director of Millennium Institute of Management, Aurangabad, Dr. Wasiuddin Rizvi, an activist and many others including women. Based on the demands and aspirations of the audiences a resolution was unanimously passed with the intention to forward it to the Prime Minister, Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Chairman of Central Minority Commission, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Minister for Minority Affairs in the Government of Maharashtra and the Chairman of Minority Commission of Maharashtra. The resolution inter alia included the urgent need for passing the Communal Violence (Prevention) Bill, police reforms with the purpose to make police personnel accountable, reform in the Wakf Act, putting an end to religious profiling by government agencies and so on.

The Valedictory Session was chaired by Dr. Bhalchndra Kango, Secretary, CPI State Council and the valedictory address was delivered by Dr. Gautam Gawali, Professor and Head, Department of Applied Psychology, University of Mumbai, Chairperson, BOS-Psychology and Director, ICSSR (Western Region). In his valedictory address Dr. Gawali underscored the pluralistic character of Indian society that were responsible for the inter-group conflicts, prejudice, discrimination, injustice, perpetuation of inequality and oppression. He also differentiated between the conflicts that were the result of communal diversity and the conflicts that were deliberately created. The former, According to Dr. Gawali, could be easily managed but the latter could not be abated easily.

Making a psychological analysis of the conflicts of Indian society he opined that the upper caste Hindus had always oppressed the lower caste people and discriminated against the Muslims and Christians. He argued that unemployment among the Muslims and the Dalits was not necessarily because of the paucity of jobs but majorly because of the discrimination against them by the upper caste Hindus. He stressed on the need for abandoning faulty communal assumptions and identifying the areas where in the reconciliation could be possible.

In his address, Dr. Kango congratulated the organisers for the success of the seminar which, he pointed out, was timely and significant. He hoped that the seminar would be followed by action that would bring about change for the better in Indian society. He insisted that Islam was a secular and democratic faith. The propaganda that Islam was not compatible with democracy, Dr. Kango asserted, was carried out by the enemies of Islam. Citing examples of Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt, Dr. Kango emphasised that there was no incongruity between Islam and democracy.

In response to the thematic poser of the seminar, (What Ails Indian Muslims?), Dr. Kango argued that it was the corrupt political practices that ailed Indian society because of which all weaker sections of Indians including Muslims suffered the most. In the era of globalization and the ascendency of neoliberalism, the weaker, vulnerable people all over the world were forced to lead a life of misery and destitution. In India, Muslims who constituted the most backward segment of Indian society were the worst victims of globalisation and neoliberalism. Though he acknowledged the worth of civil society, he stressed that State action was absolutely necessary to offset the backwardness of the hapless sections of Indian society. He cautioned that politics without all-inclusive development was a dangerous trend that should be countered by all those who believed in democracy and secularism. He reminded the audiences that India had a long tradition of secularism and tolerance. We, therefore, should unite to strengthen Indian secularism and the value of tolerance so that everyone, including the Muslims, would live in peace and harmony in this pluralistic society.

Lastly, Dr. Shuja Shakir, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, proposed a vote of thanks.
Help India!

Gee Imaan Semmalar

On Sept 5th, I woke up to a message from an old friend from college, Geeee. I saw your article on scroll.in. So proud of you. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never submitted anything to scroll.in to publish so I googled my name and scroll.in. Sure enough, I found an article titled, How a trans mans attempt at surgery went horribly wrong with the byline,  Let this story also be one such warning to more men who come after me. I opened the link to find a photograph of me, a screenshot taken from a dalit camera interview of me, uploaded in 2014.

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Before



Scroll.in had published an excerpt from a short story of mine, titled Emperor Penguins published by Zubaan in the book A Life in Trans Activism by A Revathi. This book, published recently, also has the stories of trans men across caste  Sonu Niranjan, Mookan, Christy Raj, Kiran, Satya Nagpaul and my story.

I wrote to scroll.in immediately.

Dear Scroll team,



I am the author of an autobiographical short story titled Emperor Penguins in the book A Life in Trans Activism by A Revathi, published by Zubaan books recently. Today, a friend of mine from college sent me a link to an article titled How a Trans mans attempt at surgery went terribly wrong, on scroll. You have published my short story in its entirety on your website[ I later realised it was only a large excerpt]. You have made a claim that permissions were given but neither I, the author of this piece nor A Revathi whose book it is, were approached for permission. I would of course have loved for my story to be out on an online platform for a wider,more democratic readership. But you have removed the original title,Emperor Penguins and sensationalised it to be an account of attempt at surgery which went terribly wrong . In fact, I believe my story is much more than about my body or surgery. It is about caste, gender, a community, brotherhood, faith. It is the first time that stories about trans men was published in a book from this subcontinent and it is unfortunate that your opportunism worked more than your desire to get this story out. I demand that the title be immediately changed to Emperor Penguins and this letter to be published as a transcript to the piece.



Thanking you ,

Gee Imaan Semmalar



At the same time, I emailed Urvashi Butalia from Zubaan books about whether permissions had been taken. [She responded saying that they had given permission to carry excerpts from the book but were dismayed and apologised for the way scroll.in had carried it]. I also put up the email to scroll.in on Facebook. A friend, Essar Batool commented, I have been through this too, where a popular magazine while reporting on the lives of the five of us authors[ Kashmiri women authors of the book, Do you Remember Kunan Poshpora?], tried to portray us to fit their idea of girls who have been through much to reach that stage in life. My family was said to have excommunicated me, I was shown having solitary dinners and what not. When I protested and called the guy who did the story, and told him that I had not said any such thing to him and that my parents and family have been supportive of my choices, he said that he knew what readers want to read and how to make them connect with the story. After I stood my ground and told him Id not be put in a certain stereotype to fit his ideas, he edited the story online. Next time I will sue whoever does that.

Meanwhile, I got a call from the editor of the books section for scroll.in, Mr Arunava Sinha who argued with me about how readers wouldnt click on the link unless they knew what the story is about, why am I hiding my anguish, wasnt my surgery terrible so why dont I speak about it, how is this title sensationalist?, how I had an attitude problem etc. He wanted details about my surgery and the words horrible, perilous, disastrous in the title. After a long argument about how I dont want to be frozen into his narrative of victimhood, he changed the title to How a trans man went on a resilient journey of transformation. He made sure to send me a final email about the change with a patronising, I appreciate your conviction.

The byline which they had used earlier was- Let this story also be one such warning to more men who come after me. In the short story, the context of that line is  Soon after my experience, I put out a warning for trans men about this doctor. Let this story also be one such warning to more men who come after me. I do not for a second, regret the decision to undergo the surgery, I only regret the surgeon I went to. You see what they did there? As a stand alone sentence, it looks like I am warning trans men about undergoing gender affirming procedures. Read in context, it is plain to see I am warning them against going to Dr Neeta Patel in West Borivali, Bombay. After another email to them, they changed the byline to I went back and forth in my head for several years until the choice really became one between life and death. There are so many places where I had written about structural exclusions, caste privilege, hope, brotherhood etc. But they carefully chose these lines and distorted them out of context to create an image of a hapless victim.

This is not the first time this has happened.

In 2014, OPEN magazine had published a story about my passport change process under the title Sexual Harrassment when the article had nothing to do with that at all. The byline for that piece was The author underwent female-to-male sex re-assignment surgery, but has been unable to switch his passport gender. The story of his struggle in his own words.

On 6/4/2014 I wrote to the OPEN magazine editors-

Dear Mr Prasannarajan and Mr Madhavankutty,



I am writing to you regarding a piece on my life as a transgender person, titled Sexual Harassment that was published on May 30, 2014 in Open Magazine. None of the experiences I have recounted in the piece are about sexual harassment, so when I first saw the article, it bewildered me why the magazine would pick such a title. I spoke to Shahina KK , the journalist from Open Magazine who took my interview, and she said that she was not aware of the title and the editorial team has put it together. She advised me to write to you about this. I would like to know what the motive behind such a misleading title is? Is it to sensationalise our lives like the media always does? I find the title extremely demeaning and demand an explanation for the rationale behind it, if any.



Thanking you,

Gee Imaan Semmalar



The next day, Mr Madhavankutty, the editor wrote.

Dear Gee,

The sexual in the headline refers to sex as a synonym for gender. So read it as Gender Harassment and it will make sense. Sexual Harassment is merely a creative play on the standard term: that somebody has been harassed on account of his sex. Headlines are usually thought of in this fashion. The strap below the headline then explains what the story is about.

There is no intent to sensationalise because putting a headline which has no connect to the story would be absurd. Open has done a large number of articles on LGBTs and we have always been extremely sensitive. (You can look them up on our website.) I dont think you need to be upset about it but our apologies if it has hurt you in any manner.



regards

Madhavan



To which my reply was-

Dear Madhavankutty,

Sexcannot be used as a synonym for gender. Even if you read the terms on the basis of second wave feminism in the west and the collapsing of sex ( earlier meant to denote biology) and gender( denoting cultural constructs), I dont see how sexual can be used Instead of gender. A lot of people who have read it also commented on how absurd the title is. So it indeed has no connection with the rest of the article. I think Open editors should just accept the mistake. It is not about a personal hurt, it is a political question. And I do not think editors have any locus telling people from marginalised communities whether there is a need to feel upset and for what!

Open magazines recent coverage of Modi tells us a lot about its politics. Hope you will rectify the mistake and cross check with people whose stories you publish what the title should be.



Thanks,

Gee Imaan Semmalar



Predictably, there was no response from the editors after this email.

Apart from the similarity in cisplaining and caste arrogance that the Sinhas and Madhavankuttys display when questioned, there is a particular way in which narratives of trans people are carried by media, both print and visual. Brahmanism/white supremacy always function by creating and defining themselves against the other with no respect for our lived realities or articulations. It is how these systems of oppression perpetuate themselves discursively. It is plain to see that brahmanical print and visual media love to depict trans experiences through their own violently imposed meta narratives of suicide, our body, surgeries, sexual abuse. The victim categorisation is especially designed by brahmanical indian media for kashmiri women, dalit and adivasi people, trans people across caste etc and is an oft used device of othering, to mute our articulations while speaking on our behalf.

So, I am going to list out some of the common depictions of trans people so that this can be used as a primer on how NOT to write/make films/do interviews with us.

Reversing the gaze; What are the dominant representations of trans people ?

1. Obsession with our bodies/surgeries- Non trans people writing about trans issues always tend to focus on our bodies/surgeries. The truth about our gender, according to them is to be unraveled by focussing on our bodies.

2. Before- after stories  The other pitch they try to work out is before- after stories as if our lives are scripted on the basis of some bad fairness ads. They ask for photographs of us before and after as if to illustrates the transition. For the same reason, they consider trans people who have medically transitioned as more authentic voices rather than people who have no desire to or dont have access to these interventions. And so you have scoops like 10 handsome men you wont believe were women or 20 gorgeous women you wouldnt believe were men.

3. Disclosing birth names [trans people often call this practice, dead naming] and asking questions like what is your original name. As if the names we choose are deceptive/duplicate.

4. The media always focuses on the stories of those with privileges of caste, language and class. Even as I write against the depictions of us in media , I am complicit because I know my voice will be heard and my words will be published because of my privileges which translate into access.

5. They always want us to tell stories of victimhood. Even if we write a narrative that defies their frames of victimhood, they will appropriate and distort it by adding their own titles and bylines until we fit the category of a victim.

6. Opening shots of most films about trans women/hijras/aravanis/mangalamukhis will show them putting on make-up, in front of a mirror, clapping hands at signals. The script is already written and it implies that we are performing in a particular way. These depictions imply that once you strip us of the costumes and make up, we will be exposed for who we actually are. This view of gender variant expressions as mere performance also informs the choice of male actors in most films on trans women.

7. The few videos or films I have seen on trans men, will show us shaving, smoking cigarettes, going into mens toilets. Again, we are reduced to a stereotypical performance scripted on their understanding of masculinity or what manhood means.

8. Coming out narratives- When did you first know you were like this/different. This is a standard question in most interviews. As if, you could point out that one epiphanic moment when you realised your gender. This coming out narrative is a borrowed obsession from US media and doesnt really make sense in different contexts across the world and especially for trans people because of the publicness of gender.

9. Trans women /hijras/aravanis/mangalamukhis in films are either mocked, ridiculed or feared. They are shown as parodies of femininity. Because femininity is seen as a weaker trait under hetero patriarchy, they are mocked and made into objects of ridicule. The uncomfortable laughter in cinema halls reassuring the non trans people in the audience that the binarian gender system is safe from infiltration or disruption. Trans women are seen as phantasmagoric beings, half man-half woman or parodies of femininity or simply as emasculated men.

10. The peripheral presence we are ascribed to, in visual and print media through these problematic/derogatory depictions creates, reflects and perpetuates the attitudes, prejudices and violence towards trans communities off screen.

11. Trans women are most often depicted as sexually perverse. Immorality is permanently ascribed to them. The reason for their gender expression is seen as a result of lust or sexual depravity. This sexually loose, immoral trans woman figure who is the object of ridicule or fear helps to reinforce and create the purity,chastity and good morality of the endogamous, dominant caste woman. The figure of most subaltern women in cinema functions in this way as argued by Jenny Rowena in this essay.

12. With trans men, a lot of academicians/activists/media persons see us and our gender identity/expression as simply, a desire for patriarchal power. These are some of the common prejudices and meta narratives created around us.

13. Language issues- misgendering, shifting between pronouns for the past and present of a person, using transgender as a verb, saying a transgender, the judiciary and news articles using eunuch etc are some of the issues that persist even after repeated criticism.

14. A lot of white ethnographic filmmaking that have an ubiquitous colonial gaze exoticises the hijras of india as bangle breaking widows who are rooted in Brahmanical myths and legends. As if a reference to Hindu myths legitimises their existence.

15. And for those of you who are academics influenced by gender theory by white feminists, here is a quote from Judith Butler from an interview with Cristan Williams in 2014, Gender Trouble was written about 24 years ago, and at that time I did not think well enough about trans issues. Some trans people thought that in claiming that gender is performative that I was saying that it is all a fiction, and that a persons felt sense of gender was therefore unreal. That was never my intention. I sought to expand our sense of what gender realities could be. But I think I needed to pay more attention to what people feel, how the primary experience of the body is registered, and the quite urgent and legitimate demand to have those aspects of sex recognized and supported. I did not mean to argue that gender is fluid and changeable (mine certainly is not). I only meant to say that we should all have greater freedoms to define and pursue our lives without pathologization, de-realization, harassment, threats of violence, violence, and criminalization. I join in the struggle to realize such a world.

Othering, exoticisng, patronising and victimising groups facing particular kinds of oppression are old, old devices of Brahmanism/white supremacy. They do not want to show our struggles for dignity. They want to freeze us in frames of victimhood. They do not want to see us an individuals from different caste, gender, class backgrounds with political articulations, understandings and aspirations. They want to see us as single box categories who should be indebted to them for so generously granting us space.

All such self appointed patrons in media portals, film, academia should work on their own brahmanism/white supremacy instead of attempting to liberate us. Liberate your minds of how you see/ think about us first. We know you love the trans person-trapped-in-the-wrong-body narrative. In fact, it is your mind that is trapped, colonised and subjugated in its understanding of us. For gender justice to be actualised in this subcontinent,we all have to transition from brahmanism to an egalitarian view of the world.
Help India!

By Umair Azmi for TwoCircles.net

The article points out the internal inconsistencies in the theological arguments made by A. Faizur Rahman in articles which appeared in TheWire.in

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The affidavit of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board in relation to the continuance of personal laws has led to the expected frenzy in the media. The statement is being assailed on grounds of being violative of not just equality and constitutional rights but on the ground of being violative of the Quran as well. In the past few months, such has been the hysteria that even those who are neither Muslim nor have any background in Islamic Studies seem to have an insatiable urge to give a lecture on the Quranic procedure of divorce. For example, during this discussion on Uniform Civil Code, a legal expert reduces the question of UCC to the procedure of divorce established by the Quran. It makes one wonder whether Mr. K.T.S. Tulsi would like to see a uniform civil code based on Quranic teachings!

But for all of the talk of un-Islamic, barely anyone has undertaken the task of presenting the real Islamic side of the matter. A notable exception is Mr. A.Faizur Rahman who does not stop at asserting the un-Islamic nature of the AIMPLBs stance but also proceeds to provide rebuttals based on the Islamic sources. His piece in The Wire titled The Muslim Personal Law Boards Intransigence is Shocking attacks the affidavit for its supposed illogicalities and its unworthy theological sources, among other factors.

I would like to point out that this is an analysis of the theological aspects of the authors argument.

We are told that the scholars of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board betray an appalling ignorance of the Quranic procedure of divorce. But for a work that seeks to provide the correct Islamic interpretation, it is perplexing that it fails to engage with the scriptural evidence amassed by the traditionalists, for there is no dearth of scholars who have discussed the issue of three talaq in a single sitting. For instance, the Pakistani jurist Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani discusses the issue in Takmilah Fath ul Mulhim, a commentary on the canonical hadith collection, Sahih Muslim, an English translation of which is available online. The serious scholar would find more detailed material from the polemical-cum-scholarly debates on the issue between scholars belonging to the Hanafi and Ahl-e-Hadees jurisprudential traditions, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s.

In particular, Hadith scholar Mawlana Habib Al-Rahman Al-Azami wrote multiple treatises on the topic. (Some of these have been recently re-published in 2004 under the title Maqalaat e Abul-Maasir  Volume I from his hometown, Mau, U.P.). These debates, apart from providing theological depth would also help one to appreciate the intellectual rigour involved in Islamic jurisprudence. For an author to make bombastic claims and not engage with even one opposing scholarly work is a very unintellectual act.

The authors critique of the AIMPLBs affidavit attacks the referred sources for being of a lower level of authenticity than the hadith books of Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim. Other criticisms levelled at the sources in question are that Al-Daraqutni and Al-Bayhaqi were compiled at least three centuries after the Prophet, while the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shayba contains discontinuous reports. These criticisms raise several questions of methodology which must be addressed to make a compelling argument.

Whereas the greater level of authenticity of the collections of Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim are almost unanimously agreed upon in Sunni Muslim scholarship, the superior-most rating is about the collection as whole rather than each individual hadith. Therefore, it is entirely possible for a hadith from the collections of the imams Daraqutni, Bayhaqi or Ibn Abi Shayba to be as authentic as any hadith from the collections of Bukhari or Muslim.

The second criticism is that they are relatively unknown scholars. They may be so for the layman but not so for the hadith scholars. Is it the authors case that fame, as opposed to scholarly aptitude is the criterion for reference? (Or is it that the author wishes to bring down scholarship to the level of the lowest common denominator?) Imam Daraqutni was known in his time as the imam of his time and amir-ul-mumineen fi al-hadith i.e. leader of the faithful in hadith (see Jonathan A.C. Brown, Criticism of the Proto-Hadith Canon: Al-Daraqutnis Adjustment of the Sahihayn, Journal of Islamic Studies 15:1). To label him as a relatively unknown scholar flies in the face of the historical record.

On Al-Daraqutni and Al-Bayhaqi, we are told that the works were compiled in the third century after the Prophet (Peace be Upon Him). The collections of Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim were also compiled two centuries after the Prophet. If time is the criterion for rendering a work unworthy, what would be the parameter for it? If the intervening generations make Daraqutni and Bayhaqi irrelevant, why does not the same apply to Bukhari and Muslim? For two hundred years implies at least three generations. Interestingly, the generational gap between the Prophet and the compilation of the canonical hadith collections has been one of the factors used by many orientalists to dismiss all hadith literature as fabrications. Does the author wish to impute a similar charge, albeit to collections after Bukhari and Muslim? This tantalizing question is, unfortunately, left unexplored.

Imam Ibn Abi Shayba precedes Imam Bukhari and Muslim, so the charge of n centuries after the Prophet would not apply. The criticism directed against his Musannaf is that it contains maqtu reports which suffer from discontinuity in the chain of narrators. But according to the reference provided by the author, the Musannaf contains a mix of saheeh (sound), marfoo (attributed to the Prophet), mawqoof(attributed to the companions) and maqtoo ahadith! Is it the authors case that if a hadith collection contains a mix of differently graded ahadith, the collection as a whole becomes irrelevant? Once again, the methodology is not explicitly specified.

The author references an earlier article of his on the Quranic procedure for divorce, in which to buttress his case, he presents arguments that contradict his own methodology. He calls the account of the Caliph Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) legalizing talaq al bidah  an account found in the Sahih Muslim  unauthentic based on a hadith in the collection of Abu Dawud. The author objects to the affidavit for referencing a collection of hadith other than the authentic collections of Bukhari and Muslim (even though those they were not used as counters to narrations from the more authentic collections), yet the same author finds it legitimate to use a narration of Abu Dawud  which is lower in authenticity than Sahih Muslim  to declare a narration in the latter as unauthentic! Hadith collections compiled three centuries after the Prophet were deemed by the author to be unworthy of being quoted, yet the author quotes a hadith from Mishkat-ul-Masabih, a collection that was compiled more than six centuries after the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him)!

In short, some points of the authors methodology may be summed up as follows: 1) For others, it is invalid to cite a hadith unless it be from Bukhari or Muslim, even if it does not contradict them, but for A. Faizur Rahman, citing Abu Dawud to counter Muslim is valid. 2) Citing collections of hadith that date to the fourth century of the Hijri era is invalid, but in the case of Mr Faiz, all is hunky dory even while citing a collection dating to the seventh century.

What does one make of such methodological gymnastics?

Far from meeting any standards of scholarship, the pieces in question fail to meet even the basic test of internal consistency. But when it is about everyones favourite whipping boys, the mullas, why bother with such worthless ideas such as consistency?

The author works in Gurgaon. (Disclaimer: The author is a great grandson of the hadith scholar mentioned in the article, Mawlana Habib Al-Rahman Al-Azami.)
Help India!

By Anayat Ali Shah for Twocircles.net

If you are following campus elections, chances are your attention has remained mainly on the Delhi University elections and the Jawaharlal University elections. But in Hyderabad, the student elections in Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) have given a lot of reasons to cheer too. A Kashmiri student, Tajamul Islam has won the presidential elections in the University, that too with a huge margin.

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This is also first time in the history of Indian academics that a Kashmiri student has contested on the presidential position and won the same. The romance behind this eccentric triumph is that, it happened during the midst of current uprising in the Valley. On one side, Kashmir is bleeding, under siege for more than two months. About 80 people have been killed and thousands have been left injured. On the other side, a budding Kashmiri scholar has emerged like a star in the MANUU main campus.

It is a symbolic win that sends a message to the Indian polity that Kashmiris are capable of everything, provided they get the space, love and harmony. To the people people of India, who wish to see the Kashmiriyat, Insanyat and Jamhooriyat from the masses of the bruised Valley, I wish to remind that since the very beginning of the partition and accession, Kashmiris have displayed Insaniyat and Kashmiryat time and gain. When whole of India was burning in the fire of communal hatred during the partition, Kashmir was in peace and enjoying their communal harmony which compelled Mahatma Gandhi to utter, I have seen a ray of hope in Kashmir. Recently, when an elderly Hindu woman died in the heart of city, Srinagar and the Kashmiri Muslim brethren defied the curfew to cremate her dead body, this is Kashmiryat and Insanyat. During Amarnath Yatra, a bus loaded with Hindu pilgrims met road accident, fell down in the Jhelum river and nobody dared to rescue them, again, Kashmiri Muslims came out from their vandalised houses, defied curfew and rescued them, took them to the nearby hospital even offered their blood, this is Kashmiryat and Insanyat.

In return, poor, innocent Kashmiris are receiving inhuman treatment in the form of pellets and bullets, leaving them blinded or worse, dead. If this is called democracy, then sorry, no Human can accept this new religion (democracy).

However, students in the campus of MANUU have changed the whole narrative by electing a Kashmiri boy as their president. Despite being fed false and biased information about Kashmir conflict by Indian media, these students have seen a ray of hope in a Kashmiri boy, whom they elected beyond all the prejudices like regional and religion bias etc.

Tajamul is a resident of Bandipora, one of the worst-affected area in Kashmir in the current crises too. However, he has seen a ray of love in the hearts of youth of India that have been misguided from different quarters about Kashmiris. The youth of conflicted Kashmir are suffering from psychological ailments that demand extra care and special treatment from the centre. But the treatment, they are receiving are drifting them towards the point of alienation, from where it is difficult to come out.

Kashmir is the land of harmony and its people are peace lovers, but the broken promises and the harsh treatment on the part of both state and central government shattered their hopes and aspirations. Moreover, National media is too responsible for their predicament which is continuously adding fuel to the fire in which poor innocent Kashmiris are burning. People of Kashmir are waiting for a shower of love that could extinguish the fire and can halt the lava which has been coming out rigorously through the current crises. Further, it can pave the way for Kashmir solution according to its nature of dispute. Let me conclude with the couplets of Faraz:





Tum Apney Aqeedey Key Naizey Har Dil Me Utarey Jatey Ho, Ham Log Mohabbat Waley Hai Tum Khanjar Kew Lehratey Ho. Iss Shehar Me Nagmey Basney Do, Iss Shehar Me Ham Ko Rehney Do, Ham Palan Haar Hai Phooley Key, Ham Khushboo Ke Rakhwaley Hai, Tum Kiss Ka Laho Peeney Aaye Ho, Ham Pyaar Sikhaney Waley Hai





.







(Thou are piercing the spears of pseudo faith into every heart We are the people of love; thou art rippling the swords in the air Let melody live in this city, let us live in this city We are the guardians of flowers; we are the saviours of sweet smells Whose blood thou want to gulp, we are the teachers of love).





The author is a Ph.D student in the Department of English, MANUU
US Border Bans Canadian For Life After He Admitted He Smokes Weed

Trending News: Canadian Gets Life Ban From US After Admitting He Has Smoked Weed

Why Is This Important?

Because this is harsh, even by U.S. border standards.

Long Story Short

A Canadian trying to cross the Washington border to go to a music was stopped, interrogated and then banned for life after he admitted he smoked weed a couple days prior to entry. There have been reportedly been dozens of similar cases in the last few years.

Long Story

Donald Trump wants a wall at the border, but not the northern one as it would be "very hard" to do. Perhaps that's because the border is already pretty strict.

Canadian Alan Ranta learned that the hard way a couple weeks ago when he was trying to go to a music festival south of the border. Ranta told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that his colorful getup for the music fest aroused suspicion, which led the officer to flag his vehicle and send him in for questioning.

After officers found a small change purse labeled 'weed money' (Ranta denies it ever contained pot nor money, just legal pills like Melatonin and Aspirin), he was taken into "a very small concrete-box of a room  with just a bench and a toilet" and handcuffed. Then, the interrogation began.

When asked if he'd ever smoked weed, being an honest (nice) Canadian, the Vancouver writer said "yes." Wrong answer.

"I was open and honest," Ranta said. "I said 'yes, I smoke it regularly...last smoked it a couple of days ago. It helps my anxiety.' That led to follow-up questions, like, where have you done it, how do you smoke it, how often do you do it, that kind of thing. All seemingly innocuous questions, considering the state I was trying to go to has had legal pot for over three years."

Ranta further explained that after over three hours of questioning (reminder, he never had any drugs on him or in the car) he was told that he couldn't enter the U.S. and must apply for a waiver that costs hundreds of dollars. As an added bonus, there's no guarantee that he'll ever be allowed back into the States.

According to a Vancouver lawyer interviewed by CBC, dozens of similar situations have occurred in the last few years. Needless to say, that's pretty harsh, considering Washington is one of the states where marijuana is legal.

Maybe it's Canadians who need to be trying to enter the U.S. via raft instead of the other way around.

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Why was he blocked on such seemingly ridiculous grounds?

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Serves the Canadian right for being honest. That sort of honesty doesn't fly in the U.S.

Drop This Fact

Governor Scott Walker has said a U.S.-Canada border is a "legitimate" idea.
In the remote plains of southern India, in the village of Challekere, there is a mysterious construction project that is raising eye brows. And there are good reasons why local residents and Indias neighbours are concerned about it. According to intelligence analysts, the Indian government is building a complex for enriching uranium. The highly enriched uranium could be used to make thermonuclear weapons in the near future.

Residents worried about the nuclear program

Locals living around the factory have been a worried lot since the project begun.

According to them, the government seized their ancestral land, fenced off of the pastureland and embarked on building the facility without consulting them. And they have no idea what is going on behind the walls.

When the herders discovered the barbed wire fence blocking off part of the land, they contacted Doddaullarti Karianna, a village elder who sits on the village council. Karrianna was baffled by the news and tried to get an explanation from government officials but they were unwilling to answer his questions. In desperation, the villagers turned to an ecological advocacy group for legal assistance. To the lawyers dismay, officials warned the lawyers that there was no point in resisting the project.

According to the officials, the project was being run from the prime ministers office in New Delhi.

One year after construction began on the site, it became apparent that the Indian government was behind the program that is set to become the largest military-run complex in the sub-continent. The complex will feature atomic research laboratories, weapons and aircraft testing facilities as well as nuclear centrifuges.

All these are aimed at expanding Indias nuclear research, produce fuel for the countrys nuclear reactors and fuel Indias new submarines.

India refuses to sign the Nuclear-Non Proliferation Treaty, Pakistan responds

In response to the nuclear program, Pakistan, a long-time foe of India has vowed to keep up with its neighbor and own a similar programme.

Pakistans response spark fears of nuclear arms race in the Asian sub-continent which could trigger tensions in the region and threaten the lives of billions of people.

India conducted its first nuclear tests in the Rajasthani desert in 1998. The tests sent shock waves around the world while Pakistan responded by conducting retaliatory tests about 3 weeks later. Both countries faced sanctions due to the tests.

In spite of the sanctions, Indias ambitions for thermonuclear weapons have not changed. While the country has not conducted further tests, it has refused to sign the Nuclear-Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Treaty consider countries that tested their nuclear weapons before 1967 as nuclear weapon countries. States that tested their nuclear weapons later are expected to sign the treaty stating that they will not continue to perfect their nuclear weapons programmes.
Alphabet To Start Delivering Chipotle Burritos By Drone

Trending News: Extremely Lucky People To Get Chipotle Burritos Delivered By Drone

Why Is This Important?

Because this is paving the way for widespread fast food delivery.

Long Story Short

Some extremely lucky students and employees at Virginia Tech will have the opportunity to get their Chipotle meals delivered by drone next week. The test, led by Alphabet (Google's parent company), will be under the watchful eye of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration who recently passed strict rules regulating drone use.

Long Story

Fast food drone delivery is really starting to look like it's coming in the very near future. We've already seen tests by Domino's and 7-Eleven, and Amazon has expressed desire to deliver anything by drone. And now another player is in the food delivery by drone game  Chipotle.

The Tex-Mex fast food chain that bills itself as a healthy alternative to other fast food (is it really?) is working with Google's umbrella corporation Alphabet to successfully deliver hot burritos by drone, as reported by Tech Crunch. The tests will take place at Virginia Tech next week, which also happens to be where the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) test facility is.

But really, what's the big deal about strapping a burrito to a drone and lowering it down  plenty of toy drones could probably do that, right? Not exactly. First, the drone won't be controlled by a joystick  it'll fly autonomously (although, people will need to stand by just in case according to FAA regulations). Second, it has to abide by a bunch of FAA rules like not being allowed to fly over people's heads. Third, that burrito better be warm or people are gonna be pissed.

This is the most complex delivery flight operation that I am aware of thats occurred on U.S. soil," said Mark Blanks, director of the partnership between Virginia Tech students, the FAA and Alphabet, to Bloomberg.

Besides being just plain cool, Alphabet said in a statement that drone delivery could reduce carbon emissions and change the way consumers shop.

Unfortunately, due to FAA's strict rules, it's not currently legal for this type of flight to occur outside of test areas. But if tests like this one can prove it's safe, we might have drones buzzing over our heads emanating delicious-smelling fast food very soon.

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Would drones buzzing overhead as you walk down the street be cool or annoying?

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Is this really going to make substantial improvements to the way things are done currently or is drone delivery just a bunch of techies nerding out and fast food companies grabbing the free publicity?

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Delivery drones already exist, by wheels anyhow, and are being tested in several European cities.
Chile looks to boost cranberry exports to China Updated: 2016-09-10 10:58 (Xinhua)

SANTIAGO - Chile is looking to boost its cranberry exports to China, according to the country's ambassador to Beijing, Jorge Heine.

"Cranberries have been one of the great successes of our fruit exports," Heine wrote in a recent article headlined "Betting on our Super Fruit in China."

While "Chile has only cultivated the fruit since the 1980s, it is already the leading exporter of the fruit in the Southern Hemisphere, said Heine.

"With its counter-season production, Chile is the major supplier of the US and European markets (and) since 2012, it has also been exporting to China," said the diplomat.

"In China, the cranberry is something new. Nevertheless, large Chinese conglomerates, such as Legend Holdings, envisioning its great potential, are betting on this fruit, to the extent of even investing in it in Chile," said Heine.

Heine said the peak season for buying fresh fruit in China is during the main holidays, such as the Lunar New Year celebrations and National Day in October, since the Chinese traditionally present each other with gifts of fruit.

"Per capita consumption of cranberries in China is still low, but it's growing. The Chinese consumer values its nutritional value, health benefits and status as an 'exotic' fruit," said Heine.

Considered a "super fruit," the tart red berry is packed with vitamins A and C, and phytonutrients that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cranberries were brought over to Chile from New Zealand in the 80s, said Heine, adding that today the South American country plants some 30,000 hectares of the fruit to produce 90,000 tons a year.

Since Chile and China signed a free-trade agreement in 2005, Chile's agricultural and forestry exports to the Asian giant have grown 471 percent to reach $2.439 billion in 2015, according to an August 2016 report from the Ministry of Agriculture.
China, US eye growth in tourism Updated: 2016-09-10 07:10 By Cao Yin in Yinchuan(China Daily)

Travel agencies and administrations find ways to put total trip above the 5 million benchmark

China and the United States hope to notch 5 million tourist trips as soon as possible.

Last year, the number of trips between the nations surpassed 4.75 million, "which makes us confident to promote further cooperation with US partners in tourism insurance, tourism rescue, and tourism talent exchanges and cultivation," said Li Jinzao, chairman of the China National Tourism Administration.

"We will protect the rights and interests of tourists from both sides by improving supervision in the tourism market," Li said on Friday at the China-US Tourism Leadership Summit in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The better way to increase tourists and trips between the nations is to diversify channels of cooperation, according to Li.

He said that the 10-year visa policy, which came into effect in November, has triggered a boom in travel to the US, while trips from the US to China between January and June reached 1.12 million, up 8.4 percent year-on-year.

Kelly Craighead, executive director of the National Travel and Tourism Office under the US Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration, spoke highly of the policy, saying that visa procedures for China are expected to be more convenient.

She said that they also plan to attract more Chinese visitors by diversifying US travel routes, sharing tour experiences with Chinese enterprises and providing more information online.

At the moment, Chinese visitors with a 10-year US visa have to renew their information, including home address, every two years, "which in some people's view is a kind of a hassle, but I don't think so," said Ge Mu, assistant president of Caissa Travel Management.

"The 10-year visa is still attractive for Chinese tourists and contributes to travel between the nations," Ge said.

Updating the visa online is easier and will cost about 100 yuan ($14), "and we'll remind our members with visas to renew them via social media," she said, adding that platforms such as WeChat are popular choices to promote Sino-US tourism.

Liz Bittner, president and CEO of Travel South USA, said that they have highlighted the use of social media to share their tour projects, "as they are important in China."

The Chinese-language website is also updated every day to help Chinese tourists understand food, music and people in the southern US, Bittner said.

Travel agent Denise Harrell-McMillon prefers to post pictures in China first via social media after getting home. "It's a good way for more people to understand China and then come here," she added.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

Visitors view pictures at Charming Beijing Photo Exhibition at the main hall of Union Station in Washington DC on Tuesday. The exhibition is to celebrate "China-US Tourism Year" and to introduce Beijing's tourist attractions to local people. Yin Bogu / Xinhua

(China Daily 09/10/2016 page4)
SANTIAGO - Chile is looking to boost its cranberry exports to China, according to the country's ambassador to Beijing, Jorge Heine.

"Cranberries have been one of the great successes of our fruit exports," Heine wrote in a recent article headlined "Betting on our Super Fruit in China."

While "Chile has only cultivated the fruit since the 1980s, it is already the leading exporter of the fruit in the Southern Hemisphere, said Heine.

"With its counter-season production, Chile is the major supplier of the US and European markets (and) since 2012, it has also been exporting to China," said the diplomat.

"In China, the cranberry is something new. Nevertheless, large Chinese conglomerates, such as Legend Holdings, envisioning its great potential, are betting on this fruit, to the extent of even investing in it in Chile," said Heine.

Heine said the peak season for buying fresh fruit in China is during the main holidays, such as the Lunar New Year celebrations and National Day in October, since the Chinese traditionally present each other with gifts of fruit.

"Per capita consumption of cranberries in China is still low, but it's growing. The Chinese consumer values its nutritional value, health benefits and status as an 'exotic' fruit," said Heine.

Considered a "super fruit," the tart red berry is packed with vitamins A and C, and phytonutrients that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cranberries were brought over to Chile from New Zealand in the 80s, said Heine, adding that today the South American country plants some 30,000 hectares of the fruit to produce 90,000 tons a year.

Since Chile and China signed a free-trade agreement in 2005, Chile's agricultural and forestry exports to the Asian giant have grown 471 percent to reach $2.439 billion in 2015, according to an August 2016 report from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Best Square Watches For Men

Presenting All The Most Stylish Square Watches For Men

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

Huey Lewis was right about one thing: at least when it comes to the timepiece on your wrist, it's hip to be square. Wearing a square watch is a sure way to stand out from the crowd of ubiquitous round dials, and there are a number of styles to suit every suitability.

Elegant art deco designs work well under a suit, iconic driver's styles cover you for the weekend, while a slew of digital watches keep things modern without compromising in the style stakes.

Here, we've rounded up our favorite square watches for all price points and styles  from digial to chronograph.

Nixon Ragnar

Nixons low-profile 40mm Ragnar is the perfect weekend watch for its stylish versatility. The face is clean and delightfully unfussy while the brushed steel case and hands are a nice detail. It comes in six colours but were plumping for the white/chestnut style just because it offers more ways to coordinate it into an outfit. The white face for example will complement a crisp white shirt or t-shirt while the chestnut strap is a nice addition to tan boots and will nicely offset a pair of denims for a casual weekend look.

$200.00 at Amazon.com

Skagen Rungsted

Danish brand Skagen have been quietly producing well-priced chic accessories for some time now and so should definitely be on your radar. One of their standout pieces is the square-faced Rungsted watch which comes in a black or white face. Theres a novel subdial that shows the date and raised hour accents that give it an interesting 3D aspect. While the classic white face would make an excellent watch for business wear, we love the black and tan style for weekend use as it pairs nicely with a pair of light chinos.

$185.00 275 at Amazon.com

TAG Heuer Monaco

Together with Cartiers Tank watch, TAG Heuers Monaco chronograph ranks among the most iconic of the square timepieces, the design of which has remained virtually unchanged since it was launched in 1969 and then popularised by Steve McQueen in the 1971 film Le Mans. There have been a number of re-issues, including the most recent black-face styles, although purists will check out the 40th anniversary edition featuring the Calibre 11 movement, which is most true to the original. Needless to say, the Monaco is not well suited to spindly wrists  it much prefers muscular forearms that arent afraid of a bit of engine grease.

$4,311.00 at Amazon.com

Braun BN10

Brauns award-winning BN10 digital watch has been around since 2012 but has lost none of its design prestige. Its assuredly German-built with a stainless steel case and the option of a stainless steel or rubber bracelet. The digital interface is controlled by a nifty scroll wheel, while the display is pleasingly geeky. It wears extremely flat to the wrist making it very unobtrusive but even if you were to knock it, the lens is scratch-resistant K1 hardened glass. Design heads will be drooling over this one, which might make it something of a collectors item down the road.

$329.99 at Amazon.com

Bell and Ross BR S

A slimmer, sleeker reinterpretation of Bell & Rosss original BR01 model, the quartz-powered BR S is also a more affordable entry into a top class watch marque. It still measures a relatively brawny 39mm diameter but doesnt have the bulk of the original which actually makes it more shirt-cuff friendly and so perfect for wearing with black suiting or tightly cuffed sweatshirts. A scratch-resistant ceramic matte offering with a black rubber bracelet will work for outdoor types but opt for the steel if you'll be wearing it more in the office. Beautifully minimal and unapologetically masculine.

$1,495 at Amazon.com

Longines Heritage 1973

Although its more cushion-shaped than square, we bent the corners to include Longines Heritage 1973 model in this list simply because its a knockout watch. Based on a Longines classic from 1973, the 40mm chronograph reboot in brushed steel and alligator leather is stunning. Even though theres a ton of things going on in the dial, including a contrast blue tachymeter, it somehow just seems to work. For minimalists, itll be far too busy, but for classicists with an eye for chronographs, youll struggle to find a more interesting model.

$2,718.00 at Amazon.com

Casio Retro Collection

Forgive us for a touch of nostalgia but our squarish list couldnt be complete without a walk down memory lane and a brief stop-off at Casios colourful retro collection. If youre reasonably close in age to this writer, Casios F-91W might have been your first ever watch too. Digital timepieces, like velcro shoes, werent quite the stepping stone to manhood that we thought they were, but these retro reissues in a variety of vibrant colours make for a fun, super cheap watch for the gym or just to add a blast of colour to a white t-shirt. At 12 each, why not get every colour?

$46.95 at Amazon.com

Tsovet JPT-TW35

US watchmaker Tsovets JPT-TW35 is another cubist classic perfect for casualwear. You cant go wrong with tan/white/polished steel combination but Tsovet have also added blue steel accents to the hands for a subtle contrast. The art deco-style numerals really complement the smoothed corners of the case, especially against the crisp white face. At only 35mm, said case is diminutive by todays standards so if youre built like the proverbial outhouse, you may want to look for a more sizeable style.

$250.00 at Amazon.com

Christopher Ward C5 Malvern Slimline Square

British brand Christopher Ward does a nice line in elegant Swiss-made watches, and this one is no exception. Sober without being boring, it's a slender 37mm and under 9mm in height. The blue dial on a matching alligator strap will sharpen up any 9-5 office uniform and a nice extra touch is the hand-wound movement visible through the case back.

$529.00 at ChristopherWard.com

Nomos Tetra Neomatik

German watchmaking in the town of Glashutte has been on a tear of late with high-end brand A. Lange & Sohne leading the way. However, the easier-on-the-pocket Nomos has caught our eye with its recent Tetra Neomatik square watch in midnight blue, primarily because its absolutely stunning but also because at only 3.2mm tall its slimmer than anything else in the watchmaking world that runs on its own power and is produced in series. With a 33mm diameter, it is of dress-watch dimensions and yet there is an undeniable masculinity about the angles and colours that makes it far more than a dress watch. Powered by the in-house Caliber DUW 3001, Nomos have produced a cubist wonder that is excellent value compared to some of its better known contemporaries.

$3,291.33 at Nomos.com

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A NANG  Cumbersome procedures continue to discourage customers from lodging official complaints about poor quality products or services, experts said at a conference in a Nang on Thursday.

Phan The Thang, an official with the Viet Nam Competition Authority under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said a recent survey found 56 per cent of consumers saying they had bought or used poor quality products and experienced poor service in the medical, healthcare, fashion and hospitality industries.

Of these, 44 per cent said they chose to remain silent, and 22 per cent were wary of complicated procedures while petitioning authorities.

The survey, done in March and April this year, covered 3,000 consumers in 12 provinces and cities across the country.

Thirty-nine per cent of the respondents said they contacted the media for help when their consumer rights were violated, and just 20 per cent approached courts or other arbitrators. While 75 per cent of the respondents said they were aware of consumer rights and laws on consumer protection, 43 per cent said State agencies or local agencies tasked with consumer protection provided poor responses to their complaints, Thang said. Despite improvements over the last several years, 48 per cent still complained of complicated procedures. Thang said many people complained that the consumer rights protection offices were usually located in cities and people in rural or remote areas had no access to their services. Dr. Le Khoi, chief of Research and Market Forecast Department with the Viet Nam Institute of Trade, said enforcement mechanisms for the Law on Protection of Consumer Rights were inadequate. There are different challenges in supporting and protecting consumers from violations. Most Vietnamese consumers do not take invoices or bills from sellers, and they do not complain to the Consumers Right Protection Office even in risky situations, Khoi told Viet Nam News. He said unclear address of businesses, unknown brands and the purchase of products without Certificate of Origin (CO) were factors that increased the risk for consumers. We can only raise awareness for consumers via media, informing them about legitimate and reliable businesses. All businesses are required to register their brands and products, and to ensure their quality. Consumers are at risk if they buy from open free markets or remote areas, Khoi said.

He said the Viet Nam Competition Authority (VCA) had handled more than 6,000 complaints in 2010-15, in comparison to an average of 26 complaints before 2010. About 51 per cent of the complaints were dealt with, he added.

The VCA has launched a hotline at 1800 6838 to receive consumer complaint, and plans to establish switchboard services in 15 provinces and cities.

In 2012, the Vietnam Standards and Consumers Association (VINASTAS) honoured the Viet Nam Diary Products Company (Vinamilk) as the first company recognised as a reliable business for consumers.

VINASTAS is also considering recognising other brands like food processor Vissan, Ha Noi Beer, taxi group Mai Linh and consumer goods producer Unilever Viet Nam.  VNS
HCM CITY  Samsung Viet Nam Co Ltd on Thursday opened an exhibit at the Viet Nam Supporting Industry Expo 2016 (VSI 2016) held at Sai Gon Exhibition and Conference Centre.

The theme of the exhibit is Connecting Vietnamese businesses to the global chain of supply.

Following the supporting industry exhibition, which Samsung joint-hosted with the Ministry of Industry and Trade in June in Ha Noi for the its third consecutive year since 2014, this is the first time Samsung has participated in an exhibit in HCM City.

Covering an area of 200sq.m  and having the largest of the 250 booths at the exhibition, Samsungs booth is divided into three main areas, including a display area for parts suppliers with an appearance from 8 first-grade suppliers, an area introducing three of its best suppliers and an area displaying Samsung HCM City CE Complex (SEHC) products, such as televisions, vacuum cleaners, washers and refrigerators.

Samsung Viet Nam hoped to contribute to the countrys development of supporting industries, especially in the south of Viet Nam, where the electronics industry has been showing signs of strong growth.

Samsung plans to spend a fair amount of time interacting with and interviewing Vietnamese businesses wishing to integrate themselves into its supply chain. As planned, Samsung will invite some 200 Vietnamese businesses to the expo and expects to interview officials from some 70 businesses. Target businesses participating will be those primarily manufacturing electronics which meet its demands for the SEHC factory. This is an opportunity for businesses to directly share their needs, seek consultation, learn, and create opportunities for themselves.

Samsung will also invite 11 suppliers to visit the SEHC factory to exchange experience in production management and product quality between Samsung and their suppliers. This is a chance for Vietnamese enterprises to improve themselves in learning to meet the standards used in the global supply chain.

Samsung will create an open field of competition for the suppliers, while providing them opportunities to enter Samsungs supply chain. Recently, with the rising competitiveness in supporting industry projects, which Samsung has been doing from September 2015 until today, nine of Viet Nams supporting industry companies have received Samsungs assistance for 3 months in improving their production process, as well as learning about the standards of supplies for Samsungs factories in Viet Nam.

With hopes of long term sustainable growth in Viet Nam, Samsung is always co-operating with the Government in developing local supporting industries to ensure global market competitiveness through practical activities. We hope to continue creating more opportunities for businesses joining in Samsungs supply chain, ultimately helping us to raise our global competitiveness, as well as our long-term development in Viet Nam, said Lee Sang Soo, SEHCs president.

Currently, Vietnamese businesses joining Samsungs supply chain have tripled, compared to 2015. Similarly, Samsung went from having four tier 1 Vietnamese vendors to 12 currently. There are also 178 other Vietnamese enterprises acting as tier 2 vendors. Accordingly, there are now 190 Vietnamese enterprises participating in Samsungs supply chain. Specifically, Vietnamese enterprises in Samsung Electronics Viet Nam in the northern Thai Nguyen Province supply chain account for six tier 1 suppliers and 155 tier 2 suppliers. The corresponding numbers are six tier 1 suppliers and 23 tier 2 suppliers in SEHC.

Through the activities at this exhibition, Samsung will continue looking for suppliers to add to their supply chain.  VNS
HA NOI  The success of agricultural restructuring, including the establishment of new rural areas, depends on greater co-operation and risk sharing between different stakeholders, experts say.

The application of new technologies was also crucial, they said at a forum on enterprise development in the agriculture industry held in Ha Noi on Thursday.

Nguyen Van Binh, head of the Party Central Committees Economic Commission, who chaired the forum, said Viet Nam had a lot of ideal conditions to develop its agriculture industry, but for several decades, the sectors growth had been based on overuse of production inputs, human resources and natural resources.

Furthermore, production was mostly on a small scale, and the development of agricultural enterprises had been slow. These factors compromised sustainable development and safety, led to low-added-value of agricultural produce as well as lower profits, Binh said.

Many experts at the forum agreed with Binh. They noted that households continued to be the main unit of agricultural production, and the development of cooperatives had been sluggish. The lack of co-operation between farmers and enterprises also undermined the sectors growth, they said.

They also noted that 90 per cent of farming, forestry and fisheries enterprises were small and medium sized units.

Disproportionate investment

While agriculture accounts for 17.7 per cent of the national GDP (2014), it receives just five per cent of total investment, according to experts.

To redress this imbalance, agricultural enterprises should actively co-operate with partners in the supply chain and promote application of advanced technology in production and business, they added.

Vo Tri Thanh, former deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said agricultural production and business was constrained by many factors including dependence on weather conditions, short shelf-life of farming produce and low agricultural insurance cover. The application of advanced technologies would help reduce these constraints, he said.

The state should create favourable conditions for investment in infrastructure as well as technology development for agriculture, and support enterprises in the sector on the principle of sharing risks with them, Thanh said.

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong assured the forum that his ministry would help attract more private investment into the sector by helping enterprises solve existing difficulties in production and business, especially enterprises that: have production greements with farmers, process farming produce, make a variety of agricultural materials, and employ people in rural areas.

Cuong said his ministry would increase interactions with enterprises towards solving their difficulties and completing policies on attracting investment into agriculture and rural areas.

The ministry would also improve quality of planning for agricultural, forestry and fisheries production. It would also enhance the management of agricultural land use plans.

Besides attracting more investment from enterprises and large economic groups to value chains in production, the State should develop areas specialized production areas, said ang Kim Son, former director of the Strategic Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development.

He called for a breakthrough in land policies that would help obtain land for enterprises to invest in. This should be done in way that does not affect food security, he added.

Several speakers at the forum called for Government help in the application of advanced technologies by farmers as well as enterprises, shifting away from traditional farming methods.

To add value to agricultural produce and products, increase capacity as well as incomes, the State should expand investment in infrastructure and establish areas that specialise in hi-tech agriculture.

The Government should also provide financial and technical support for organic farming, they said.  VNS
Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israels ambassador to Canada.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

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..Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..07 September '16..International law defines occupation as one power occupying the lands of a foreign sovereign. In Israels case, Israel is not occupying any foreign sovereigns land; Israel entered the area known as the West Bank in 1967 and took over the authority to administer the land from Jordan, which was never considered to be a sovereign in the area.In actual fact, Israel and the Jewish people have got claims to the area that go far back into history. Anybody who reads the Bible can appreciate the fact that there is a very solid historic legal basis to the claim of Israel with respect to the territories and therefore Israel considers the territories not to be occupied, not to be Palestinian, but as in dispute.We appreciate that the Palestinians also have claims with respect to the territory. Israel considers that its claims are far better based and better documented than any other claims, but Israel is committed to conduct negotiations with the Palestinians in order to find a permanent settlement to the issue.The Jordanians, who occupied the territory after the 1948 war, annexed it, but this annexation was never really recognized or acknowledged by the international community. At a later stage the king of Jordan voluntarily gave up any Jordanian sovereignty or claim to the territories to the Palestinian people. So the Jordanians came and went, and the issue remains an issue between the Israelis and the Palestinians.The international communitys constant referral to the Palestinian territories is a complete fallacy and has absolutely no legal or political basis. There has never been a Palestinian state, as such, and therefore the territories never belonged to any Palestinian entity. Theres no international agreement, theres no contract, theres no treaty, and theres no binding international resolution that determines that the territories belong to the Palestinians.In actual fact, even the Palestinians themselves, in the Oslo agreement that they signed with Israel, acknowledge the fact that the ultimate permanent status of the territory is to be determined by negotiations. Therefore, even the Palestinians accept the fact that this is not Palestinian territory, its disputed territory whose status is yet to be settled.If the local population owns land, then the administrative power isnt allowed to take the land or use it. But if the land is not private, the administering power can use the land and enjoy the fruits of the land until sovereignty has been finally determined. So Israel justifiably can use land which is not private land, which is public land, for establishing settlements as long as these settlements dont take away the private rights of the local population. Therefore, in our opinion, the settlements are not illegitimate.Theres one other point, the issue of settlements is a negotiating issue. The Palestinians have agreed with the Israelis that the issue of settlements is one of the issues on the permanent status negotiating table. Therefore, anybody who comes along and claims that Israels settlements are illegitimate  whether its the EU, whether its individual governments, whether it is the secretary of state of the United States, who said so specifically, or the spokesman of the State Department  theyre prejudging a negotiating issue, which is clearly incompatible with any negotiating principle.These are issues that have to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. Therefore, nobody can claim that the settlements are illegitimate or that theyre illegal, as such. They have to be negotiated between the parties.Theres no such thing as 1967 borders. A border is a line between two sovereign entities. In 1967, there was a ceasefire line that had existed since the 1948-1949 war between the Arab states and Israel and after Israel declared its independence. The Jordanians insisted on inserting in the Armistice Agreement of 1949 a provision which says that the armistice demarcation line is not the final border. Final borders can only be determined in peace negotiations between the parties. So 1967 borders is a non-existent term and anybody using this term  again, including the U.S. administration and the EU  are simply being misled.* * *See alsoby Alan Baker.
Viet Nam and the United States look forward to significant opportunities for economic co-operation, especially in trade and investment, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said this week.  Photo vovworld.vn

HA NOI  Viet Nam and the United States look forward to significant opportunities for economic co-operation, especially in trade and investment, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said this week.

He made the announcement during an investment promotion conference in Washington D.C., the United States capital, beginning Tuesday.

The conference attendees learned that the near future would be especially opportune for bilateral investment co-operation.

US companies alone currently have 820 projects in Viet Nam, with a total investment capital of about US$11 billion, and the United States ranks eighth among 115 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam.

Dung told participants, including US authorities, policy scholars and entrepreneurs, besides representatives of ASEAN nations, that Viet Nam was taking drastic measures toward faster and more sustained development.

Considering enterprise the driving force for future development, Viet Nam is building a stimulative and creative government, which is shifting toward serving businesses instead of managing them.

The country is determined to speed up economic restructuring, renew growth models and enhance the productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy.

It is also striving to complete legal frameworks and boost transparency for investorsso they feel secure about long-term operationsand create more advantageous conditions for them to take part in global value chains.

Dung said the Vietnamese economy was opening more.

The country has signed 12 new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs), and it is expected to enter more FTAs in the future.

Viet Nam has entered the ASEAN Economic Community, and this will provide investors with access to the 600 million-people regional market.

Viet Nam and the United States are also members of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the biggest trade deal ever that is in the finalising process.

"The partnership is expected to facilitate collaboration between the two countries, promoting their advantages and boosting bilateral relations to a new high that is more profound, substantial and efficient, Dung said.

"Although the TPP approval process is facing certain obstacles, Viet Nam is resolutely pursuing innovation, integration and development to attract US investors," he said talking to about 150 representatives of the US business community.

Among the representatives were officials from Coca-Cola, Caterpillar and Mastercard, alongside ExxonMobil, United Technologies Corporation and the American Chamber of Commerce.

Before the conference, Dung has worked with US trade representative Michael Froman, who said that the government of President Barack Obama would continue to urge the US Congress to ratify the TPP in the future.

US-ASEAN Business Council Vice President Marc Mealy told the Voice of Viet Nam that co-operation prospects between Viet Nam and the United States were positive.

Mealy said ASEAN had become more attractive to US companies due to dulling investment outlooks in other parts of the world and Vietnams ongoing foreward-looking reforms.

Directions

Dung told reporters that Viet Nam had three major directions to lure investments, especially from the United States: accelerating equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and merger and acquisition activities, encouraging start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises to develop, and fostering public-private partnership.

During working sessions with World Bank (WB) officials in his visit, Dung said Viet Nam would continue to rationalise public investments, the banking system and SOEs.

In a context that Viet Nam would no longer receive concession loans from the WBs International Development Association in a near future, as the country had reached a lower middle-income status, Dung recommended that the WB assist Viet Nam in building strategies to attract foreign direct investment.

He also proposed that the WB help Viet Nam build master plans for development and support the country in technology transfer.

Alex van Trotsenburg, Vice President of Development Finance at the WB, said the WB was committed to close collaboration with the Vietnamese government and relevant agencies to extend support in Viet Nam.  VNS
Vietnamese newspaper and website owners and app developers must know how to approach the advertising budgets of global brands and be aware of the mistakes that website owners often make. Photo daubao.com

HA NOI  Vietnamese newspaper and website owners and app developers must know how to approach the advertising budgets of global brands and be aware of the mistakes that website owners often make.

Cost per click (CPC) in Viet Nam still ranks among the lowest in the world, advertising experts said.

The experts made these comments at the 2016 Vietnam Top Publishers Summit held in the capital city this week, co-organised by Google and Viet Nam Netlink JSC. The event attracted the participation of more than 100 leading editors-in-chief of major online newspaper and websites, publishers (website owners) and mobile app developers in Viet Nam.

The event, the third of its kind in 2016, aims to enhance the advertisement values of websites in Viet Nam through the setting up of a website owners alliance to create high-quality products.

At the event, delegates were given an overview of the latest developments in the digital advertising industry in Viet Nam and the world in 2016.

Additionally, the summit also touched upon digital advertising trends around the world and discussed ways to approach the advertising budgets of global brands.

Vietnamese delegates attending the event had the opportunity to discuss with senior Google personnel several issues related to the companys advertising products and policies, as well as difficulties and obstacles in cooperation between Google and Vietnamese website owners.

During the summit it was revealed that until 2020, the budget for digital advertisement will reach US$285 billion, accounting for one third of the global investment for advertising. In Asia, the budget is estimated to reach $70 billion, 50 per cent of which is forecast to be poured into the Chinese market.

The delegates said it was difficult for website owners in Viet Nam to approach advertising budgets due to limitations on the application of advanced technology, weak human resources and shortcomings in controlling advertising content.

They also agreed that it was essential to form a coalition of Vietnamese website owners and successfully understand brands needs to decide on the most appropriate ways to advertise.

Participants held that website owners in Vietnam are being hindered by poor application of advanced technology and weak human resources. They pointed to the need to form an alliance of website owners while exploring requirements of brands to offer suitable advertisement measures.

Speaking at the event, An Ly, representative of Netlink, said the estimated budget for digital marketing in the Asia-Pacific region will reach $70 billion by 2016. However, more than 50 per cent of the advertising budget for the Asia-Pacific region is being poured into China.

Ly said Viet Nam had yet to appear on the world map of digital marketing. Some top brands were spending very limited resources in Viet Nam, not paying much attention to this market.

According to Google Adsenses CPC numbers, with regard to the average CPC around the world in 2015, 97 countries were present on the map in order of the highest average CPC to the lowest average CPC, in comparison with the USs average CPC, which is between $1 and $2 on the search network. Viet Nam has an average CPC of $0.03, while Indonesia is at $0.04 and China, India, the Philippines and Russia, as well as South Korea and Thailand stand at $ 0.05.

Gaby Hien, an expert of mobile apps and games in Viet Nam, said advertising prices in the Vietnamese market were quite low. In the United States, cost per 1,000 ad impressions was some $4, but in Viet Nam it was half of this figure.

Nguyen Dung, CEO of Netlink, said the value of advertising in the market was incorrect. The reason was that Vietnamese websites and its content were developed quickly but they had the same development process. Viet Nams online advertising market was creating an excess supply of traffic but it still lacked the quality to attract large brands to pour money into the country.

Hiro Hiroki, Furuya regional head of channel business development, Asia-Pacific, Google Inc, agreed with the recommendation that Vietnamese publishers should concentrate on producing more attractive content.

Dung said four year ago, the top four Vietnamese companies, including FPT and 24h, accounted for 80 per cent of the online ad revenue in the country. In 2015, over 70 per cent of online ad revenue in Viet Nam shifted to Google and Facebook.

It is expected that in 2016, Google and Facebook will account for over 80 per cent of the advertising budget of Viet Nam.

The 2016 Vietnam Top Publishers Summit will be held in HCM City right after the event in Ha Noi. -- VNS
MoF urges the equitisation and divestment process in Viet Nam. Under plan, 48 state-owned enterprises (SoEs) will complete their equitisation this year.  Photo baodautu.vn

HA NOI  The State has received VN5.8 trillion (US$256.5 million) from the divestment of State capital in local enterprises in the first eight months of this year, it was announced by the Department of Corporate Finance under the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

The department concluded that the equitisation process of State-owned enterprises and their divestment in non-core business had failed to meet expectations.

The department said the divestment was part of equitisation plans of 48 State-owned enterprises (SOEs) with their equitisation plans approved this year.

It added that the value of these enterprises was some VN32 trillion, of which VN23.2 trillion belonged to the State. Following equitisation, the firms are expected to have charter capital of over VN23 trillion, including VN11 trillion of State capital.

According to the MoF, the equitisation of SOEs and their withdrawal from non-core businesses have fallen short of the target for this year because most of the target companies are large and operate in multiple industries. Clearly, investors seeking to buy stakes in large companies require a lot of time to study them with due diligence.

MoF said the legal framework for equitising and restructuring SOEs is in place, creating favourable conditions for equitisation. However, the ministry would continue to study and roll out policies to facilitate equitisation and restructuring.

The MoF thought it was necessary in the future to speed up restructuring, increase the quality of management and operational efficiency of SOEs and intensify inspections and supervision of the operation of groups and corporations.

It said SOEs must continue divesting capital from their non-core operations, adding that the State would withdraw more capital from targeted enterprises.

Diligence to avoid losses during the equitisation process is the most important requirement for relevant authorities, it said.

The MoFs Department of Business Finance said the Government should instruct the State Audit of Viet Nam to ascertain the quality of consultancies hired by State companies to advise them on the equitisation process and check the final valuations. It also called for fining companies that have already equitised but failed to list on the stock market.

The ministry said all ministries, industries, localities, economic groups and corporations should consider equitisation as their most important task.

However, the department believed that the operation of some equitised businesses had improved. Among them, Viettel Group, Viet Nam Textile and Garment Group, State Capital Investment Corporation, and Ha Noi and Northern Food Corporation have pulled out nearly VN3 trillion from non-core businesses.  VNS
The Quan An Ngon chain of restaurants has won wide acclaim for popularising traditional Vietnamese cuisine. The enterprise was inspired by the culinary excellence of her grandmother and mother, founder Pham Bich Hanh tells Viet Nam News.

You are celebrating 11 years of Quan An Ngon on September 11 this year. How did you start this enterprise?

My inspiration came from my childhood experience, when I lived with my grandmother and my mother, who were famed cooks. My grandmother, Nguyen Thi Tan, known as Ba Lau, had a very famous pho bo (noodle soup with beef) in Ha Nois Old Quarter near the ong Xuan Market.

Several elderly people have told me they can never forget the taste of my grandmothers pho.

Ha Noi has always been known for its snacks and street food. As a little girl, I was often taken to enjoy snacks at the ong Xuan Market, and on Ly Quoc Su and Ta Hien streets.

When I grew up, I realized that street food was a singular feature of Vietnamese cuisine, and of Ha Noi in particular. So I thought of introducing quality traditional dishes from the countrys three regions. This was how the first Quan An Ngon restaurant was opened at 18 Phan Boi Chau Street.

As you look back on Quan An Ngon after 11 years, what are your feelings?

I just thank God that since the first days of opening, the restaurant has been packed with customers, including foreigners. Sometimes, there are long queues of people waiting for their turn.

Tell us the secret of your success.

Actually, there is no secret. The house at 18 Phan Boi Chau Street is a French colonial villa that was once owned by renowned Dr Phung Ngoc Tue, who used it as a medical clinic. When he died, his descendents let out the villa to a foreign company to open a representative office.

The locals were very curious to see the villa from inside. The villa is surrounded by trees, such as ylang-ylang and sapodilla, and I have planted bananas and bamboos to try and create an authentic Vietnamese space.

I think this, good food and affordable prices are the reasons why so many people keep coming to the restaurant. Many people have expressed surprise at how affordable the food is here.

Before I opened the restaurant in a villa, very few restaurateurs were concerned about the space. They only thought about the food. From the very beginning, I wanted people to experience a culinary culture, not just food, so I paid a lot of attention to the surrounding environment. This concept has clearly worked.

Our food also attracts customers from all walks of life.

Once, an overseas Vietnamese, Duong Quang Phong, about 60 years old, said the che sen (lotus seed pudding) we served made him relive his childhood, reminding him of the time he used to have this dish from a stall on the corner of the same street.

Young students studying abroad also visit the restaurant to enjoy banh tom and banh goi to get a taste of their mothers or grandmothers cooking.

Several elderly Viet Kieu between 70 and 80 have told me that theyd believed that they would never again enjoy the tasty plain rice flan of the olden days, but were able to savour it once again at my restaurant.

Our foreign customers are also surprised by our reasonable prices and friendly service. So we demonstrate the warm hospitality of Vietnamese culture.

You have opened several branches of Quan An Ngon since. Can you tell us something about them?

The restaurant at Trung Hoa Nhan Chinh is located in a new urban area with high buildings and very few trees. I found that the area lacks a local market, and it was dominated by western fast food and pizza restaurants.

So I decided to have the restaurant designed based on ancient Ha Noi architecture, using wooden door frames and roof tiles. The aim was to bring Ha Nois old-world charm to the new urban area, along with tasty food.

I was a little concerned at first that there might not be as many guests as at Phan Boi Chau Street, but my fears were unfounded.

At the third Quan An Ngon on 34 Phan inh Phung Street, we serve customers in a private dining room. Officials from several embassies are our regulars. They bring their guests here to introduce Vietnamese cuisine.

Our fourth restaurant is at the Royal City Trade Centre, where many snacks are served apart from the regular dishes.

Last year, we opened the Ngon Pho - a Food Street Restaurant at the Aeon Mall in Long Bien District. We wanted to serve customers with traditional Vietnamese dishes including banh khoai, banh tom and banh hoi in street food style.

Our consistent popularity is because we serve a huge variety of dishes at reasonable prices in a pleasing atmosphere. We also go to great lengths to make our food authentic. For example, when we cook bun bo Hue (Hue beef noodle soup), we obtain authentic and quality mam ruoc (shrimp paste) from Hues reputable manufacturers.

Our aim is also to use different concepts and designs for each of our outlets, offering our customers a different experience.

What are your future plans?

Im planning to open one more Quan An Ngon, spreading over 2,500sq.m, in a Nang. The design concept will be that of a citadel gate.

We continue to learn more about Vietnamese culture and cuisine. To learn more about our culinary heritage, since 2014, we have been asking thousands of our employees to introduce us to the specialties of their native villages.

Several foreign companies from the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei and China have expressed their desire to open Quan An Ngon as a franchise in their countries.

This can bring us a lot of money, but Im still not ready to export our trademark abroad. I want to continue improving the quality of our dishes as well as our management practices.  VNS
IT applications will considerably expand tertiary options for students in 2017, Education and Training Minister Phung Xuan Nha tells the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.  Photo thanhnien.vn

IT applications will considerably expand tertiary options for students in 2017, Education and Training Minister Phung Xuan Nha tells the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Whats the rationale for changes planned in conducting the national university and college entrance exams next year?

Though no final decision has been taken yet on the changes, I want to say that the ministry is continuing with the 2016 test model, and introducing changes that will improve the process as well as choices for students.

Now, if a 12th grader just wants a general school certificate, she/he should apply to the local Department of Education and Training to sit for the test. Those wanting to pursue higher education should apply to the concerned universities or colleges to sit for the exams.

However, based on what happened last July, the ministry felt that it was unnecessary to divide into two the group of students sitting for tests in one locality. So it has come up with the idea of having one test site for both: those wanting just a general school graduate certificate and those trying to get seats in colleges or universities.

In feedback we collected from education sector staff on results of the tests in 2016, we found that the majority felt that students still tended to cram only for subjects likely to feature in the tests questions. So we think it is advisable to make changes that will prevent this narrowed focus. The use of Information Technology (IT) advances, particularly for multiple choice questions, will help in this regard.

To make the marking of tests fair for all students, IT applications will be used for some subjects including math, social science, humanities and foreign languages. So the students will do the test on paper, but IT applications will be used to mark the test. This will hopefully limit outside influence in the marking process.

The Ministry will try to overcome weaknesses and constraints of previous years while ensuring high quality of the tests and testing process in the coming academic year.

There will be one significant difference. If in the 2016 school year, each student could apply only for two colleges/universities and four faculties, in 2017, there will be no such limits. Each student can apply for as many faculties and institutions as she/he wants, thanks to the application of IT software.

Several people are anxious about the word reform used by the Ministry. How would you respond?

Let me clarify that our plan for 2017 is not totally new. The basics remain the same as last year, with some improvements. I dont think a new plan is needed for each year.

I also want to emphasise that the key objective of the Governments Resolution on fundamental and comprehensive reform of the education sector is to move away from the top-down, teacher to student transfer of knowledge and introduce new methods including self-learning. The idea is very simple.

As we all know, reform is a process. And the process must have a road map and be sustainable as well as workable. It cannot be done overnight. With the education sector in particular, the results of reforms cannot be seen immediately. It could take almost a decade to see good results. Or they could become apparent in a few years. So I urge all stakeholders to be patient. VNS
How do you expect your children to study at school?  Photo vietnamnet.vn

Your Say, published every Friday, lets readers express their opinions on a topic or issue raised by the editor.

How do you expect your children to study at school?

A recent letter sent to the Ministry of Education and Training by a father asking for his son to study badly at school has shocked many people in Viet Nam, who often have great expectations that their children will study the best they can at school, no matter their capacity.

The fact is that the high expectations of parents about their childrens ability to study puts great pressure on young learners. Many feel very disappointed if their children fail the university entrance exams, and many parents try to find ways to enter their children into famous or good schools without considering whether their children would benefit from studying at these schools or not. Even worse, many parents ask their children to join as many extra classes after school as possible with the hope of making their kids excellent students at school.

This has put great pressure on children, who are certainly not good at all their subjects in school. In some cases, students have committed suicide or suffered depression as a result of not fulfilling their parents expectations.

What do you think about this fathers letter? How do you expect your kids to study at school? What should you do to guide your children to pursue their own dreams, not their parents dreams?

Please reply by email to: opinion@vnsmail.com, or by fax to (84-4) 3 933 2311. Letters can be sent to The Editor, Viet Nam News, 79 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Ha Noi. Answers must be received by Thursday morning, September 15, 2016.  VNS
The chairperson and vice chairperson of district and commune level Peoples Committees in Ha Noi have been ordered to conduct weekly food hygiene and safety inspections.  Photo doanhnghiepvn.vn

HA NOI  The chairperson and vice chairperson of district and commune level Peoples Committees in Ha Noi have been ordered to conduct weekly food hygiene and safety inspections.

It is unacceptable if you only sit at your desk and direct others to make sure food is hygienic and safe, said vice chairman of the Ha Noi Peoples Committee, Nguyen Van Suu at a meeting on Thursday.

The meeting was organised to assess activities to ensure food hygiene and safety in the city during the first eight months of this year.

At the meeting, Nguyen Khac Hien, director of the citys Health Department, said more than 12,000 violations of food hygiene and safety were recorded in the first eight months of this year. The fines received from violators added up to VN22 billion (US$986,000).

Hien said controlling the quality of vegetables and fruit in traditional markets was still proving difficult. In addition, a high risk of food poisoning caused by unhygienic and unsafe food at canteens still existed.

A representative from the citys Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said canteens in several companies and schools were discovered to buy meat, vegetables and fruit from wholesale markets instead of co-operatives that supply safe foods. This was because of the higher prices if they bought food from co-operatives, he said.

After hearing reports from representatives of authorised agencies, Suu asked every commune to assign one staff member to take responsibility for issues related to food hygiene and safety.

Ensuring food hygiene and safety was very important, as it relates to peoples heath and to our nations future generations, he said.

Suu required all local schools to buy safe food for their canteens. Principals would take personal responsibility if any cases of poisoning occurred.

In a related move, the Ministry of Health officially introduced its hotline to receive comments on food hygiene and safety violations across the country on Thursday.

If anyone has a complaint about food hygiene or safety they can contact the hotline on 043 2321 556 or via tiepnhantinvipham@vfa.gov.vn.

The hotline is part of an attempt by the national health sector to fix issues related to food hygiene and safety. The issue is a hot topic that many people are very concerned about.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of the Viet Nam Food Administration  the agency assigned to receive and deal with complaints about food hygiene and safety  said the agency would work hard to identify and deal with violators.

Statistics from the ministry showed that over 2,900 people suffered from food poisoning nation-wide with eight fatal cases in the first eight months of this year.  VNS
Compiled by Mai Phuong

HA NOI  Why do you want to buy a low-priced social house when you already own a house?

Because I qualify and I can afford it.

The answers surprised me.

Several people whom I know already own a house applied to buy low-priced social houses, too. Yet social houses are supposed to be sold only to poor people who dont own a house as part of the Governments low-income accommodation policies.

The primary qualification to buy a social house is that the buyer does not already own a house. Another qualifying factor is that each household member has less than 8sq.m of living space in a low quality home which is not State-supported.

So whats happening?

They are cheating, of course said Nguyen Hong Son, an official specialising in administrative procedures for social housing projects in Ha Noi. The official is working for the Viglacera Corporation - a leading company in the construction industry in Viet Nam and one of the successful companies in the social housing sector.

Violations of the government low income housing policies are increasing, despite authorities actions to tackle the issue, Son said.

There are two main groups of violators. The first group includes real estate speculators who pay the social house homeowner more than the purchase price, then turn around and sell the social house for even more money than they paid for it. Such speculators earn alot of money this way. But its money illegally earned.

The second group of violators includes buyers who are not low-income people but who take advantage of loopholes in existing administrative procedures to buy a social house illegally.

To obtain a licence to buy a social house, one should show a certificate from his or her local administration that he/she is low-income, does not own a house, or is currently living temporarily in substandard accommodations.

"This creates opportunities for corrupt local administrative officials to collect bribes which are usually worth around VN30 million (roughly US$1,400) from the illegal buyers," Son said.

In some cases, owners dont live in their social houses but lend them illegally to others. Others illegally sell them to real estate speculators for profit.

If violations are discovered by administrative management authorities, the government reclaims the social houses and invalidates the purchase contracts.

Recently, Lao ong (Labour) newspaper reported a case concerning a social housing project at 30 Pham Van ong Street in Ha Nois Cau Giay District.

A real estate broker named Thanh introduced himself as being able to provide social houses at better prices.

This is illegal as buyers are not allowed to sell their social houses during the first five years after the initial purchase. Contracts signed between sellers and buyers without any guarantee from a housing company or authority are not valid.

Thanh said such trading was very risky but was very popular because demands for social housing were very high.

The price of a social house is normally VN10-15 million ($450-670)per square metre, but after going through several illegal transactions the cost could reach VN20-25 million (about $900-$1,100).

A Ha Noi Construction Department report said a total of about 10,000 social houses had been sold and put into use so far this year.

A very small number of violations were discovered, including two cases in a project on Ngo Thi Nham Street, Ha Nois Ha ong District, the newspaper reported.

Many others violations remain undetected as authorities could not find proof with which to accuse the violators.

The Government should issue more accurate regulations with stricter punishment for violations, a deputy general director of the Viet Nam Construction Association (VNCA) said as quoted by the newspaper.

The VNCA deputy general director, who refused to give his name, told the paper violators only had to pay a fine of several million ong, in addition to losing the house. After which, the total purchase price would be refunded to the original buyer.

With such small punishment, violations are common, said the official.

Recently, another report in the local newspaper Thoi bao kinh doanh (Business Times) exposed issues in managing and developing social housing in HCM City and southern a Nang City.

The newspaper said about 16.7 per cent of the social houses inspected by the State Audit in HCM City in July last year - and 35.5 per cent of those in a Nang inspected in the same period - had been illegally bought and sold.

The HCM Citys Department of Construction proposed to establish an action team tasked with observing, investigating and settling issues relating to managing social houses in nine projects within the city.

The Construction Department in a Nang City also vowed to boost their management of social housing.--VNS
HA NOI  With affordable prices and diverse flavours, homemade moon cakes have become a favourite in the capital city.

As the mid-Autumn Festival approaches, online cake shopsrun by small-scale producersare booming, advertising their products with a wide range of flavours and fresh ingredients.

Many consumers have switched to to homemade sweets away from mass-produced products, calling the homemade goods more healthy, hygienic and safe.

Nguyen Thu Trang, resident in Ha Nois Ton uc Thang Street, said she no longer purchased the cakes from big companies, calling their flavours less delicious and fresh than the home-made ones.

The expiry date of the mass-produced cakes last over a month, while the homemade that Ive bought last only ten days. I was told that they have no preservatives or vacuum seal.

The taste of the cakes are totally different. They are sweet and small enough to enjoy the whole cake, she said.

Moon cakes are a traditional treat for celebrants, especially children, during the fall celebration. Thus, she only bought cakes that were ensured the safety and hygiene criteria, she added.

However, not all home-made cakes are safe.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of the Ministry of Healths Food Safety and Hygiene Department, said that big enterprise moon cakes must be tested for quality and granted food safety certificates before being sold at the market.

In the meantime, most home-made products did not face regulation, posing risks for consumers health, he said.

Along Hang Buom Street, a street known for selling sweets, or ong Xuan and Hom markets, raw materials for moon cakes of baked or sticky rice ones are available.

Tens of fillings, ranging from expensive oneslike fish fins and barbeque chickento the traditional bean paste, salted eggs, sausage, lotus seeds, and jam are displayed outdoor. Powder to make the cover of the cakes is put into a plastic bag without the labelling of origin, expiry dates or information on manufacturers.

A shop owner at ong Xuan Market said that raw materials are divided into small bags and are cheap and easy to sell.

Explaining the lack of labelling, she said raw materials were packed in big bags, and sellers usually divided them into small ones, thus were not labelled.

She added that all of her products were home-made, and they were just done to serve this moon festival. Thus, she maintained that everything was safe and fresh.

Under reporters observation, grinded lotus seed for the filling of cake is sold at VN130,000 per kilo while raw dry seed is VN100,000 ($4.3). The sausage is sold at VN80,000 per kilo while pork is VN90,000 ($3.9) per kilo. Each kilo can make between 20 and 30 cakes.

Vu Thanh Thuy, deputy head of the markets management board, said that traders only sold raw materials of moon cakes for some days before the moon festival.

The board has worked with the citys market watch to disseminate traders information concerning the food safety and hygiene regulations and inspections, but she admitted that the task was still loose.

Nguyen Van Tien, doctor at the National Institute of Nutrition, said that consumers could hardly tell whether the cakes were made from hygienic materials or not. It could bring risks of food poison for consumers without having signs.

He suggested that consumers should carefully choose home-made cakes to assure their safety. Any products, traditionally or industrially-made, must have proper labelling as required.  VNS
HA NOI  The lives of thousands of farmers in the Mekong River Delta that depend on rising-water season are threatened by the possibility that the floods will not come this year.

It is likely that many fishermen will have to shift from fishing to farming or leaving their homeland to look for other jobs.

This has added to the woe of farmers in the delta who have endured the most serious drought in 60 years that has damaged 200,000ha of rice, about 9,000ha of orchards and 2,000ha of aquatic farms.

According to experts, decreased river flows caused by upstream dams and a change in climate patterns have led to saline intrusion, barren soil and increased agricultural production costs.

They also warned that the livelihoods of millions of farmers who rely on agricultural production and fishing would be affected.

The Mekong Delta with over 18 million people is an important economic region of Viet Nam. The deltas accounts for 95 per cent of the countrys total rice production, while it also supplies the country with 65 per cent of its aquatic produce and 70 per cent of its fruit.

The floods normally begin in September and end in November or December.

The floods bring alluvium as well as fish and other aquatic creatures into paddy fields, enabling farms to perform aquaculture every year.

Farmers anticipate the floods as they allow more silt into the fields, wash away chemicals and other pollutants, and kill pests so that the next rice crop will yield a better harvest.

Without the floods, farmers would have to spend more on fertilisers and pesticides, experts said.

Nguyen Van Tung, a farmer from An Giang Provinces An Phu District, said fishermen in the region were suffering losses as the amount of fish caught this year was one third of last years figure due to the low water levels.

Tran Van Ut, another fisherman, said last year he caught 30kg of fish a day, earning VND300,000-400,000 (US$13.5-18). But now he only catches about 12kg of fish a day, saying that his family was struggling to make ends meets.

Le Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Research Institute for Climate Change at Can Tho University said the river bed had become rapidly deeper compared with previous years.

He blamed it on over exploitation of sand in the Mekong Delta and the building of dams on upstream rivers.

The scope of erosion also came as a result of low water levels, experts said.

Statistics from ong Thap Provinces Department of Natural Resources and Environment showed that riverbank erosion was over 35km last year. The loss was estimated at over VN31 billion (US$1.4 million) with up to 2,141 households in erosion-prone sites.

Doctor Duong Van Ni from Can Tho University said the risk of erosion in the Mekong Delta would be higher if floods did not return.

He also warned that the drought would be severe in the next few years if floods didnt occur, adding that farmers who relied on natural aquatic exploitation would have to change their jobs.

Long-term solutions

Due to the exhaustion of fresh water, restructuring plants towards using less water and shifting to other occupations were the best solutions for the Mekong Delta region, experts said.

Farmers in An Giang as well as other provinces in the Mekong Delta cant only rely on available natural resources, but will also have to restructure production, intensify non-agricultural services and increase the value of agricultural products, said Tran Anh Thu, director of An Giang Provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Farmers in An Giang Province were advised to focus on products like rice, fish, pharmaceutical plants and other crops which were in high demand, he said.

The province also encouraged the establishment of high-technology agricultural farms and cooperatives.

Nguyen Thi Kieu, deputy director of Can Tho Citys Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the department coordinated with the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to open vocational training classes for fishermen so they could change their jobs more easily.

Ky Quang Vinh, head of Can Tho Citys Climate Change Monitoring Office, suggested that the Mekong Delta reserve water, especially in the rainy season, to boost their ability to adapt to climate change.

This was also shared by other scientists, who stressed that it was necessary for the Mekong Delta to set up a management plan to adapt to climate change. Accordingly, the region should build reservoirs along major rivers and channels. Those reservoirs - the so-called flood control areas  were not for local residency and should be used as targets for tourism development and aquaculture production.  VNS
The HCM City Peoples Court has upheld a 30-year prison sentence for Pham Cong Danh, a former bank executive, for his wrongdoings and violations of banking rules.  Photo vnexpress.net

HCM City  The HCM City Peoples Court has upheld a 30-year prison sentence for Pham Cong Danh, a former bank executive, for his wrongdoings and violations of banking rules.

The sentence was announced yesterday after nearly two months of trials and deliberations.

Danh, the ex-Chairman of the Viet Nam Construction Bank (VNCB) Board of Directors, Chairman of the Board of Members and General Director of the Thien Thanh Group, was was found guilty by the HCM City Peoples Court for illegally withdrawing more than VN9 trillion (US$404 million), the biggest such loss brought to light in the countrys banking sector.

He was accused of deliberately violating State regulations on economic management causing severe consequences and violating the lending regulations of credit institutions.

The accused stood trial yesterday with 35 other defendants, including many of the banks executives.

Starting as a tile seller, Danh expanded his family shop into a company dealing with building materials, real estate and tourism before buying the small, debt-ridden Trust Bank in 2012. The bank was later renamed the Construction Bank, and was based in the Mekong Delta province of Long An.

Along with Danh, the court also upheld a sentence of 22 years in prison for Phan Thanh Mai, another former general manager of the VNCB.

Others sentences of 20 and 19 years in prison were given to two former VNCB executives, Mai Huu Khuong and Hoang inh Quyet, respectively.

According to the indictment issued by the Supreme Peoples Procuracy in July, after the State Bank of Viet Nam gave a nod to Trust Banks restructuring plan, Danh took over the failing bank and renamed it VNCB.

Danh abused his post as chairman of the VNCB Board of Directors and leader of Thien Thanh Group to instruct his staff in the group and the bank to commit a range of violations.

From June-July 2013 and from February-April 2014, he asked his accomplices to sign false house rental contracts at 268 To Hien Thanh Street and 816 Su Van Hanh Street in Ho Chi Minh City, with his two companies  Trung Dung and Huong Viet.

He then guided the transfer of over VN601 billion (roughly US$27 million) from VNCB to the two companies. The money was transferred via a private account and used to pay the interests of six companies under the Thien Thanh Group, and the debts this group owed Hai Tien Investment Development Company, and customer services.

From December 2012-March 2014, Danh and his accomplices set up false files and committed various violations of the lending regulations of credit institutions

VNCB was established by Trust Bank in May 2013. Trust Bank was operational for 23 years, with chartered capital of VN3 trillion (US$142.85 million). In mid-2014, the SBV appointed new officials to VNCB after some former top executives at the bank were arrested for allegedly violating state regulations.

Apart from VNCB, other commercial banks owned by the SBV are Ocean Bank and GP Bank. The SBV acquired all three banks at zero ong due to their ailing performances and failure to meet required charter capital increases.

Vietnams fragmented banking sector has undergone major reform in recent years, with stricter lending and debt classification, forced takeovers, numerous fraud investigations and the formation of a state-run asset management company to lend support.  VNS
Social security for migrant workers will be the theme of the 9th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) hosted by the Laos Government in November this year.  Photo thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn

HA NOI  Social security for migrant workers will be the theme of the 9th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) hosted by the Laos Government in November this year.

The information was announced in the national preparatory meeting for the forum held by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) in Ha Noi yesterday.

The AFML has been organised annually since 2008. Those gathered discuss, share experiences, build consensus on the protection of migrant workers issues under the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers  the Cebu Declaration in 2007  and conclude with the adoption of recommendations that bring life to the provisions of the Cebu Declaration.

Le Kim Dung, the director of the Department of International Cooperation under the MoLISA, said the purpose of the national preparatory meeting was to check national-level activities to implement recommendations of the previous forums.

Experts at the meeting also discussed the recommendations which Viet Nam will present at the coming AFML, when other ASEAN countries present their own recommendations.

Migrant workers make considerable contributions to countries economic growth and sustainable development. So Viet Nam and other ASEAN countries are paying increasing attention to protecting the legal rights and social security of migrant workers and their families, according to Dung.

Chang-Hee Lee, the director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Country Office for Viet Nam, said ILO supports preparatory meetings like this to allow wider participation of national social partners, civil society organisations and related government ministries in ASEAN.

When migrant workers are better protected by legal frameworks and effective enforcement, safe and profitable migration is more likely to make economic and social contributions to Viet Nam and to our region, Lee said.  VNS
Unequal Budget funding for the Yes vote wont give Australians equal say If you seek to ensure not all Australians get an equal say in the debate about an enshrined voice, then dont be surprised when millions of them cry foul about the integrity of the result.

Our gas: Andrews makes national energy demand Victorias Premier has proposed solving the east coast's gas problems by creating a nationwide scheme similar to one already successful in the country's West.

Cash challenges PM to front Australians over IS families With the contentious Syrian repatriation mission in full swing, the Opposition continued to question the safety of the Islamic State linked families that have begun arriving on Sydney soil.

Andrew Clennell looks ahead to the coming week in politics 02:31 Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell has assessed what is set to be seen in the coming week in politics.
CEDAR FALLS  State Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, is organizing a listening post next Thursday to hear from people on the Iowas vision and ongoing support for UNI.

The forum will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, at the University of Northern Iowas Maucker Union in the University Room.

Danielson said hes invited key legislators to hear the concerns of Cedar Valley residents about the future of UNI, including the effect of tuition increases and state funding decisions.

Those key legislators include Democratic Sens. Brian Schoenjahn of Arlington and Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids, who joined Danielson in writing to the Iowa Board of Regents urging transparency in the process of selecting UNIs next president.

UNI graduates a higher percentage of students from Iowa, and they are more likely to stay in Iowa upon graduation.

Schoenjahn, who is the Senate chairman of the Education Appropriations Committee, noted the state has made progress in addressing historic shortfalls in UNI funding. The Board of Regents is set to discuss at its meeting today its fiscal year 2018 funding request that includes a 2 percent increase for each of the three public universities, as well as an additional $2.5 million for UNI.

For more information about the listening post, contact Danielson at 538-2247.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo Fire Rescue blood drive is set for from noon to 6 p.m. Monday at the Waterloo Fire Rescue Headquarters, 425 E. Third St.

The drive is a 15th anniversary remembrance of 9/11.

Everyone who tries to donate will receive a coupon for a free haircut courtesy of Sport Clips Haircuts.

Volunteer donors of all blood types  especially those with types AB, O, A negative and B negative  and platelet donors are needed every day.

For more information, call the Red Cross at (800) 733-2767.
Even with 5-0 lead, Verlander can't get 1st World Series win
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 09, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 09, 2016 | 05:34 PM | PADUCAH, KY

A McCracken County man was arrested early Friday morning after police say he tried to break into a home on Caldwell Street, but fled when confronted by the homeowner.



The Paducah Police Department says Kyle Katterjohn of the 1100 block of Caldwell Street called them at 2:39 am, saying a man had broken into his locked back porch. An officer arrived and began searching the area, and found wires at the rear of the home had been cut. He also found an insurance card belonging to a Justin Williams.



As another officer was enroute, he came upon a white male walking at Brown Street and Irvin Cobb Drive. The man identified himself as Justin Williams. Williams was taken into custody, and reportedly admitted to being at the home and prying open the porch door. He said he fled when Katterjohn fired a handgun.



Katterjohn told police he fired two rounds from a handgun into the air, but did not aim at Williams. Officers said Williams told them where he discarded his shirt and a pair of pliers used to cut the wires behind the house.



Williams was charged with second-degree burglary and booked into McCracken County Regional Jail.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 09, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 09, 2016 | 12:55 PM | PADUCAH, KY

A McCracken County woman was arrested Thursday night for assaulting her uncle after an altercation at her home.



Paducah Police were called just after 7 pm to a disturbance at a home in the 1100 block of North 13th Street. At about the same time, a man called 911 from his home on South 5th Street and reported he had been stabbed.



When police spoke to 23-year-old Farren Sims at the scene, she said 44-year-old William Patrick Sims came to her home and assaulted her, so she stabbed him in self-defense.



William Sims told police he was asked to come to the home and was ambushed when he arrived.



He was taken to Baptist Health Paducah for treatment of a cut to his forearm and a puncture wound to his back.



Farren Sims was arrested on a charge of 2nd degree assault and booked into McCracken County Regional Jail.
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Sep 9, 2016 | By Nick

Researchers in Ireland have found a new 3D scanning method that could potentially spell the end of the X-ray. Its called long wavelength excitation and it involves pumping gold particles into your blood before taking a scan.

Dont count on X-rays disappearing for a while yet. They have been with us since 1895 and theyre still the go-to diagnostic tool for straightforward injuries to your bones. But this chemical approach by researchers from the School of Chemistry at Trinity College and the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, could be the start of a new technique that has a multitude of uses.

Essentially the technique relies on the fact that the body releases significant levels of calcium from any micro crack in the bone. The team at Trinity found a way to attach luminescent material to nanoscale gold structures that collectively is drawn towards the calcium deposits.

A simple scan will then reveal an accurate picture of micro cracks and more serious problems with the bone structure. At the moment doctors have to visually inspect x-rays for obvious damage and it isnt unusual for them to miss small cracks. This technique would effectively highlight any damage, no matter how small, so there would be almost no chance of overlooking a problem.

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Inevitably this involves introducing the agent in to the blood stream and it seems like taking the long way round to the same destination. But the compound is biologically safe and gold has been used in medicine for a long time thanks to its inert and stable nature.

X-rays carry an increased risk of cancer and the team argues this new method could be a much safer alternative. They are also relatively limited.

The nanoagents we have developed allow us to visualize the nature and extent of the damage in a manner that wasnt previously possible, said Professor Thorri Gunnlaugsson, who led the team along with post-doctoral researcher Dr Esther Surender. This is a major step forward in our quest to develop targeted contrast agents for bone diagnostics for use in clinical applications.

This new technique will go much further than highlighting simple cracks and breaks. It could offer an early warning for the onset of conditions such as osteoporosis, which is a major contributing factor in broken bones in elderly patients. If a doctor can spot the condition early and prescribe treatment, the patient has a better chance of a healthy and happy life in their old age.

For patients that suffer with the disease, repeated checks can also highlight weak bones and preventative care can then cut the risk of serious injury. In a lot of cases, patients require bone implants or lengthy rehabilitation that could have been avoided with an early warning sign like this.

Clive Lee, Professor of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, was heavily involved in the development of this innovative 3D scanning technique. He thinks the biggest benefit will come from identifying potential weaknesses in bones, rather than treating breaks after the event. He thinks thats just as important for Olympic athletes as it is for the elderly."Everyday activity loads our bones and causes microcracks to develop, he said. These are normally repaired by a remodeling process, but, when microcracks develop faster, they can exceed the repair rate and so accumulate and weaken our bones.

This occurs in athletes and leads to stress fractures. In elderly people with osteoporosis, microcracks accumulate because repair is compromised and lead to fragility fractures, most commonly in the hip, wrist and spine. Current X ray techniques can tell us about the quantity of bone present but they do not give much information about bone quality."

Theres no word on the potential costs, but the technique makes a little gold go a long way and it may well cost the same as an old-fashioned X-ray. The technique could also be portable, unlike X-rays, because there is no hazardous radiation to worry about.

The full paper has been published in Chem, published by Cell Press.

Posted in 3D Scanning

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Mary wrote at 9/30/2017 10:47:05 PM:Can I make a appointment to get a bone scan,I have constain pain in my bones.




Sep 9, 2016 | By Nick

Hong Kong 3D engineering guru and MIT graduate Victor Leung has found a way to print molten sugar to create elegant glass-like structures. He calls the 11-day workshop he created to teach kids how to follow in his artistic footsteps: The Sweetest CNC Machine.

Leung teaches 3D printing to children as part of his mission to spread the gospel of additive manufacturing and engineering in his local community. He is one of those people that has been involved with a vast amount of random hacker projects over the years, from creating a programmable camera dolly for filming and a hotwire cutter to producing a stencil for a birthday cake.

He likes to share his work and you can see some of his greatest hits on his personal website.

Having seen the MIT media lab printing glass, Leung hatched a plan to replicate their achievement with pure sugar.

Now, with MakeBlock backing, he is taking local students through the process of building a 3D printer as part of the AA Visiting School 2016 program in Hong Kong.

There are practical limitations. Leung doesnt recommend eating the sculptures, they tend to fall apart when they get hot or wet and wasps love them. But they are an elegant way to show students how CNC controlled robotics work, introduce them to 3D printing and also to get them thinking about materials science and how we can manipulate the tools at our disposal to do a specific job.

Leung saw his old colleagues 3D printing glass with strong optical qualities and recognized that sugar and glass behave in a similar fashion, melting and achieving a certain level of viscosity. That means that gravity becomes the most effective depositing method and he simply needed to incorporate a kiln above the print head.

So he set to work creating a design for a sugar reservoir and a print nozzle that could comfortably accommodate the molten sugar at 150 degrees Centigrade, contain a heating element to keep the sugar in the right state and come apart for easy cleaning thanks to the sticky nature of the fluid that really doesn't play nice with mechanical parts.

Together with the students, Leung built five separate 3D printers and he claims that this is the first time that molten sugar has been used as a printing material. Were not so sure about that, but it is an interesting project.

Now Leung wants to go further and pressurize the printer head so that he can use a smaller nozzle, achieve a higher quality finish and potentially remove the clear layered effect in his sculptures. The transparency of the finished sculptures is seriously impressive. So if Leung can remove the layers and produce a smooth surface then were curious to see just what the next generation sculptures will look like.

If he can come up with a perfect finish then it may even be worth experimenting with coatings that turn these relatively useless sugar sculptures into permanent art installations and even usable pieces for the home.

As for MakeBlock, it is an open source platform that specializes in modular components that help students and enthusiasts get to grips with building robots and machines. They are designed to be removable and reusable, so that machines can be easily modified and the students can understand the build process.

The company produces 400 mechanical parts, electronics modules, software and training material to help people get to grips with complex engineering concepts in a way that brings the subject to life. We constantly hear about how science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are losing the crowd and students are choosing to focus on arts-based subjects instead. Initiatives like this are a great way to engage the students and get them working as a team to create a beautiful sugar sculptures.

They might not have a practical purpose today, but if it gets kids into science then these sugar sculptures and Victor Leungs workshop could help spawn the next generation of 3D printing superstars. We know were going to see more of Leung, too, because anybody that thinks like this belongs in the 3D printing community.

Posted in 3D Printing Technology

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Wes wrote at 9/11/2016 3:28:19 AM:The looks of this, is very coolLoL wrote at 9/10/2016 5:28:57 AM:I can see this project is sponsored by a ShenZhen-China company. I don't see any position of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a name for Shopping and financing not Hi-Tech things.




Sep 9, 2016 | By Nick

Open Source Software licenses and Creative Commons agreements have become part and parcel of the 3D printing industry, but now an industry expert has warned that they are simply not up to the job and could cause serious problems.

Michael Weinburg has written extensively on the field of 3D printing and copyright and its a subject that makes the whole industry nervous. Now he has published a paper entitled: The Cost of a Successful Creative Commons and Open Source Software Movement.

We know that Intellectual property is going to become increasingly complex as 3D printing takes hold and we can 3D print the actual final product in our homes or at a local 3D print shop. We also know that we need new laws to cope with the new industrial revolution. Nobody seems to have a clear vision of how it is going to work, but Weinburg is absolutely sure that the Open Source and Creative Commons rules that many repositories and design communities rely on simply arent up to the job.

A lot of designers are happy to share their work. But as things stand there is nothing to stop a company taking the design and turning it into a commercial venture. By the letter of the law, the company doesnt even have to credit the creator and they certainly dont have to pay them.

This has caused serious friction in the open source world. The likes of Makerbot have found themselves at the center of a storm of negative PR after starting with open source ideas and then integrating them into a closed source design, but nobody could stop it.

Its a problem that will keep getting worse and companies are starting to realise the benefits of simply combing through the open source communities for commercially viable products they can simply take. Theres no research and development, almost no design work and they can turn a design into a quick profit.

The simple fact is that Open Source Software and Creative Commons licenses simply werent designed to deal with these kinds of issues. Some specific parts of an open source hardware project are often protected and a large number of 3D printed objects are covered by a basic form of copyright, but utilitarian and basic objects arent covered.

Lawyers can even make a case for slight changes to complex objects that might look the same as a supposedly protected item in photographs. So even if a community or individual designer feels that they are simply showing a design, or sharing it for non-commercial use, they may well find that they dont have the protection they thought was in place.

It could get even more complex if a designer incorporates what they think is open source work into a larger project and then find themselves on the receiving end of a claim. That makes the whole field murky and complex. So we need some clarification.

The University of Melbourne recently produced a website to help the general public get started with 3D printing and included a thorough guide to the complexities of intellectual property and copyright law. Its a solid start, but it is a guide and its a long way short of the answer we need.

As an industry we need to address this problem sooner, rather than later. Intellectual property is a thorny issue in any industry, but 3D printing removes production barriers like tooling and it allows anybody with a suitable 3D printer to take a design and print the product within hours.

Recent research shows that its possible to hack a 3D printer with just a smartphone, too, so a determined third party can copy almost any product without even accessing the file. There are so many ways to access designs, from the software through to the printing process, that we need a robust set of laws in place to deal with potential copyright infringement after the event.

At the moment, we just dont have them and relying on laws that were designed for other things just isnt going to work. Weinburg is right, we need something better.

Posted in 3D Design

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Sep 10, 2016 | By Tess

While a cold bottle of beer can be thirst quenching, theres nothing quite as satisfying as taking the first few sips from a cold, freshly poured draught beer, whether youre on a sunny patio, at a bar, or on a plane. Yes, thats right. On a plane. The tasty breakthrough is thanks to Dutch airline KLM, which finally figured out how to serve fresh draught beer from the tap thousands of feet in the air. How did they manage this, you might ask. Well, well give you a little hint, 3D printing helped!

To the delight of an exclusive group of flyers in World Business Class, KLM recently served its very first Heineken from the tap on its August 31st flight to Curacao. The achievement, for those unaware of how draught beer works, is substantial as the airline (in collaboration with Dutch beer giant Heineken) was finally able to overcome the challenge of designing a draught trolley that would both work and be safe in the air.

Traditionally, draught systems use pressure from CO2 to keep the beer from the tap flowing, for safety reasons, however, CO2 canisters are not allowed on flights, so an alternative method had to be created. Finally, after much research and development, KLM and Heineken devised the innovative and 3D printed BrewLock keg, which uses air pressure instead of CO2 to keep the cold beer flowing from the tap, even in pressure-controlled airplane cabins. 3D printing was used to create the specially designed parts for the in-flight keg.

We are always looking for typical Dutch products to set us apart from other companies, explained Miriam Kartman, KLMs Inflight Services Vice-President. Heineken is our beer partner for many years, and we both know that customers rate a beer from draught higher than out of a can.

According to KLM, the taste of the Heineken beer they will be serving on flights is just the same as what you would be served with your feet planted firmly on earth. In fact, it will even be as cold! The airline has achieved this last feat by pre-cooling the keg before takeoff and then housing it in a specially designed insulating container, which will maintain the beers optimal temperature.

Unfortunately, the fresh draught beer service wont be available on all flights, at least for the foreseeable future, due largely in part to the complicated and expensive process of 3D printing the system and pressurizing the air. Like all flying perks, the in-flight draught beer will only be available to World Business Class flyers, and even then, only on certain special KLM flights.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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I.AM.Magic wrote at 9/12/2016 9:51:13 AM:Pretty cool invention, could make it on stores' shelves to provide cheaper tap beer.




The experts are recommending the creation of a new national network that would allow cancer patients across the country to have their tumors genetically profiled and included in a new national database  one of several recommended steps that they say would significantly speed the progress of cancer research in the United States. The panel is also urging the creation of a network to coordinate clinical trials using immunotherapy, the promising new treatment that turns the bodys immune system against the disease. The recommendations are part of a report issued Wednesday by an expert panel advising the White House in its cancer moonshot initiative. It was formally accepted by the National Cancer Advisory Board Wednesday morning. The tumor network would help scientists better identify which treatments work for which cancers in which patients, the panel said. As scientists become more aware of the many different kinds of cancer, and turn increasingly to more personalized treatments, they see the profiling the genetics of individual tumors as crucial. Patients would be connected with the hospitals and cohorts across the country that profile tumors and those institutions would share the collected data. The network would both aid in enrolling specific patients in clinical trials that show promise for their cancer by letting them pre-register for trials, the panel said, and allow researchers to make broader observations about the genetic makeup of different cancers and about which treatments are successful in fighting them.Researchers have been clamoring for more tumor profiling since the moonshot was first announced by the White House. There is at least one caveat, however: As the panel itself notes, there is currently limited evidence about whether tumor profiling actually leads to better care, though that is attributed at least in part to the limited ability of researchers to collect the large amounts of data needed to prove its effectiveness.So the experts argue that the proposed network would have a transformative impact on cancer research and care, potentially leading to precision oncology being integrated into everyday care in doctors offices for all patients.

The second proposed network centers on another area that many researchers believe holds great promise, though the scientific evidence is still catching up: immunotherapy.

More here.
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The industrial coatings market in China is expected to grow at a lucrative pace from 2018 to 2023. Experts predict robust growth in demand as well as supply of industrial coating products in this country.

Industrial coatings protect substrates from harsh conditions. The rising focus on green technologies necessitates the development of coating products that have minimal impact on the environment, yet continue to be effective and durable. The industrial coatings market in China is expected to grow at a lucrative pace from 2018 to 2023. Experts predict robust growth in demand as well as supply of industrial coating products in this country. This can be attributed to its accelerated economic growth arising out of high industrial output, large-scale capital investments, consumer consumption, and sound import & export.

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To gain from this huge market potential, many large vendors are expanding their operations in this region. Some of them include DuPont, Nippon Paint, and ICI. While Italian, German, Canadian, and American brands have entered into joint-ventures to benefit from the advanced operating lines, several manufacturers from Taiwan and Hong Kong also compete with the domestic operators. The local manufacturers lack the financial prowess and intellectual property to further their brands. Thus their inefficient marketing strategies work in favor of the global participants. Moreover, the locals are yet to reap the rewards of economies of scale. They need to cater to expanding consumer demands such as faster curing times, as well.

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The Chinese government is encouraging consolidation in the industry in an effort to increase their competitiveness at the global level. This has prompted mergers & acquisitions amongst the local medium and large businesses. The industrial coatings market in China is segmented according to resins, coating types, and end-users. Based on resins, the market is split into epoxy, acrylics, vinyl, alkyds, pigments, additives & modifiers, solvents, and other synthetic resins. Alkyds hold a dominant share of the total market revenues.

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Types of coatings comprise powder coatings, solvent-based coatings, electrodeposition coatings, high-solids & water-based coatings, radiation-curable coatings, and others. Electronics & electrical, automobiles & transport equipment, metal decorating, machinery & equipment, furniture, and others constitute the main end-use industries. Key players in the Chinese industrial coatings market are BASF Coatings, Sherwin-Williams, Akzo Nobel, DuPont, The DoW Chemical Co., BYK-Chemie, and Chemquest Group Inc. The future years will witness a trend leaning towards environmentally-sustainable products.

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The report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2011-2016 market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of O-Succinimidyl-1,3-dimethylpropyleneuronium tetrafluoroborate industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export.

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(Bloomberg) Three former Tesco Plc executives were charged with fraud and false accounting by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, after a multi-million dollar shortfall discovered two years ago led to a criminal investigation of the grocers finances.

Former U.K. chief Chris Bush, Carl Rogberg, the former British finance director, and John Scouler, another one-time executive, were all charged with one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of false accounting by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office Friday. The alleged activity occurred between February and September 2014.

The SFO started investigating Tesco in 2014 after the grocer said it had overstated profits by an amount which has since spiraled to as much as 326 million pounds ($433 million). Nine senior managers were put on leave, most of whom have since left. The U.K. prosecutor was one of a number of authorities to open an investigation, including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Reporting Council. The FCA closed its probe in light of the SFO case, while the FRC is still investigating the retailers auditors at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

A lawyer for Bush said his client was "extremely disappointed by this decision.

He is not guilty and from the outset has cooperated with both Tesco and the SFO, Ross Dixon, a lawyer for Bush at Hickman & Rose, said in a statement.

Rogberg declined to comment, while Scouler and his lawyer didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. The trio are scheduled to appear in a London court Sept. 22.

Tesco, which has been considered a probable candidate for a settlement agreement with the SFO, said that it was continuing to cooperate with prosecutors.

"The last two years have seen an extensive program of change at Tesco, but given this is an ongoing legal matter, we are unable to provide any further comment at this time," the company said in an e-mailed statement.

The SFO said the investigation into the company remains ongoing.

Bush, 50, spent more than 30 years at Tesco, while the 48-year-old Scouler joined in 2002 and rose to become U.K. commercial director, according to his LinkedIn profile. Rogberg, 49, started in 2007 and became the companys U.K. finance director in 2013, his LinkedIn profile shows.

Scouler joined TalkTalk Telecom Group Plc after leaving Tesco, but has been put on sabbatical. A spokeswoman for TalkTalk said she couldnt comment on an investigation unrelated to the company.

A number of executives have been interviewed by the SFO in the course of the probe, including former Chief Executive Officer Philip Clarke and ex-commercial director Kevin Grace. The FRC, the accounting regulator, last month closed an investigation into Tescos former Chief Financial Officer, Laurie McIlwee.
Zee Anmol, India's leading FTA (Free to Air) television, channel announces the launch of its new series  Detective Raghav. Launching 11th September at 4:00PM, the show is a crime thriller that is bound to captivate audiences and keep them on the edge of their seats.

Starring renowned actor Sharad Kelkar as Detective Raghav Sinha, the show is about a handsome 35-year-old detective with a charming personality and exceptional observation skills. He has a very high IQ and is an expert at reading a persons mind and body language. Raghav picked up these unique skills from his father, who was a renowned psychiatrist. However, at the age of 14, Raghav witnessed his fathers murder at the hands of one of his own clients. The killer was untraceable and even the police had to give up after some time. Ever since then, it has become Raghavs mission to find the killer and avenge his fathers death. Raghav joined the Crime Branch Special Unit because of his special skills which helped him to bring criminals to justice and solve some of the most challenging cases of his career.

Speaking about his character as Detective Raghav, Sharad Kelkar said, Im a big fan of the crime genre, and an avid follower of some of the best crime shows in the world. I was very excited to bring alive the dynamic character of Raghav, on screen, as this was my first experience essaying such a role.
In 4 to 3 ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court Orders Secretary of State Jon Husted to  rescind his September 6, 2016 transmission of the initiative to the General Assembly. Husted is instead ordered to accept for verification the supplementary part-petitions proffered to his office on August 31, 2016, and if they are found to contain sufficient valid signatures, to place the matter on the November 2017 general-election ballot.

In a major victory for drug pricing advocates, the Ohio Supreme Court (OSC) issued a ruling earlier today that brings the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, a ballot measure that would lower drug prices for state programs in Ohio, one step closer to being placed before voters on the November 2017 statewide ballot.

Over the past year, backers of the measure collected and submitted signatures of nearly 200,000 Ohio registered voters in support of the measurefar more than the 91,677 needed to qualify. Secretary of State Jon Husted repeatedly moved to invalidate many of the signatures, and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association) and the Ohio Manufacturers Association also filed a legal action challenging the signatures.

In response, backers of the measure sued in the OSC to reinstate many of the signatures it believed were illegally thrown out by Secretary Husted. In a four (4) to three (3) ruling in that case earlier today, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered Secretary of State Jon Husted to  rescind his September 6, 2016 transmission of the initiative to the General Assembly. Husted is instead ordered to accept for verification the supplementary part-petitions proffered to his office on August 31, 2016, and if they are found to contain sufficient valid signatures, to place the matter on the November 2017 general-election ballot.

This is a huge victory for the Democratic process in Ohio and we thank the Court for its ruling reinstating voter signatures on many of our petitions in support of the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, said Tracy Jones, Midwest Regional Director & National Director of Advocacy Campaigns and a proponent of the Drug Price Relief Act. The Court ordered Secretary Husted to carry out his official duties regarding the ballot measure process in Ohio on our initiativeverifying signatures and then placing this measure on the general-election ballot. We have seen that politicians across the nation are unwilling or unable to stand up to the drug industry and do anything meaningful on reducing drug prices and improving transparency. Ohioans deserve the chance to weigh in on this crucial issue of drug pricing and we are now one step closer to having that chance in November 2017.

Following is the final paragraph of the Supreme Courts 16-page decision:

Although we found in Ohio Mfrs. Assn.,___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2016-Ohio-5377, ___ N.E.3d ___, that the December 2015 petition contained an insufficient number of signatures, that finding was based on the limited evidence that was before the court in that case. As stated above, we order Husted to validate 20,092 additional signatures from Cuyahoga County, 256 additional signatures from Adams County, 14 additional signatures from Darke County, 23 additional signatures from Hocking County, 67 additional signatures from Madison County, 18 additional signatures from Putnam County, 56 additional signatures from Union County, and 314 additional signatures from Delaware County. The evidence submitted in this case therefore establishes that the petition filing exceeded the minimum-signature threshold. Thus, it was unnecessary for the committee to collect additional signatures or for the initiative to be resubmitted to the General Assembly. We therefore order Husted to rescind his September 6, 2016 transmission of the initiative to the General Assembly. Husted is instead ordered to accept for verification the supplementary part-petitions proffered to his office on August 31, 2016, and if they are found to contain sufficient valid signatures, to place the matter on the November 2017 general-election ballot.

The Ohio Drug Price Relief Act will amend Ohio law to require state programs to pay the same or less for prescription medications as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs1. Backers intended to have the initiative appear on Ohios November 2016 presidential election ballot, but obstructionistand backers believe, illegalmoves by Secretary of State Husted have forced the ballot measure proponents to aim for the November 2017 Ohio ballot instead.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 600,000 individuals in 36 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare.

1 V.A. pricing is generally believed to be 20% to 24% lower than for almost any other government program.

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New course allows pararescuemen to develop as leaders, obtain certification

It takes countless years of education, multiple deployments and temporary duty assignments to become a pararescue team leader.



The 68th Rescue Flight recently implemented the Combat Leaders Course, a 65-day course for 10 pararescuemen in which they develop their leadership abilities while obtaining their 7-level certification.



The 68th RQF created the course, with Air Combat Command guidance, not only to standardize the way team leaders were trained but also to provide the Air Force with a center of excellence that is solely dedicated to supporting the guardian angel weapon systems training and operational requirements. Guardian angel is comprised of combat rescue officers; pararescuemen; survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists; and specially trained support personnel dedicated to one of the Air Forces primary functions of personnel recovery and combat search and rescue.



Historically, guardian angel units were forced to conduct upgrade training internally, said Capt. Michael Ellingsen, the 68th RQF commander. The 48th Rescue Squadron had their own method of training their team leaders, while the 58th RQS at Nellis (Air Force Base, Nevada), and the 38th RQS out at Moody (AFB, Georgia), also had theirs. Theyre all trained independently and to different standards, whereas now the process is more efficient and effective for the entire weapon system as a whole.



The thought process behind CLC was to identify what unique skill sets do we want our future team leaders and pararescuemen to possess, and what capability do we want them to provide to the squadron commanders and the combatant commanders downrange, Ellingsen continued.



The 10 students brought diversity to the course as they represented seven different major commands displaying a multitude of backgrounds and experiences. The knowledge and skills they learned during the course and from each other will be used in a variety of combat operations around the world.



The students planned their missions and executed a multitude of scenarios, including a jump mission with an overland movement, a mass casualty, and a technical rescue with the rotary wing exfiltration, all within the climates of southern Arizona and California. Aside from daily course tasks, peer performance feedbacks and intelligence briefings were included as well.



The environment  its like theyre downrange, said Staff Sgt. Steven Chubb, the 68th RQF NCO in charge of intelligence analysis. Theres a lot of helicopter landing zones that the guys can actually use and implement. (There are) a lot of things for them to do (during) their training and its away from everybody. So, if they want to do things like a real-life convoy or an improvised explosive device explosion, they can do that.



The current class is the third iteration of pararescuemen to take on the course.



This unit is unique in the fact that its the first of its kind to be implemented in the Air Force, Ellingsen said. Were not a traditional rescue squadron in the sense that we support deployment taskings. This unit provides a specific operational capability for the guardian angel weapon system in order to support the combatant commanders.
Tanzania: 20th ordinary meeting of the EAC Council of Ministers to begin Friday 19 March in Arusha

The 20th Ordinary Meeting of the East African Community Council of Ministers is scheduled to run from 19 to 26 March 2010 at the Arusha International Conference Centre.








Local officials on Saturday said that at least thirteen Daesh militants were killed in airstrikes in Afghanistans Nangarhar province.

The Selab 201 corps in a press statement said, that Daesh militants were killed in the past 24 hours in Achin and Deh Bala districts of the province, reports the Tolo News.

The officials added that two other Daesh militants were wounded during the attack.

So far, no civilian casualties have been reported.
Controversial Islamic scholar Zakir Naik on Saturday said the campaign against him was an attack on Indian Muslims and a Murder of democracy.

Amid growing calls that his Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) should be banned, Naik urged the government to be fair in its investigation and be truthful with facts.

In a 2,000-word open letter, Naik said he was ready to be punished for any wrongdoing but this should be on the basis of concrete evidence and not hearsay.

If you find any wrongdoing on my part, punish me by all means. Give me the harshest of punishments if Ive wronged anyone.

My appeal to the government  be fair in your investigation. Be fair in what you allege. Be truthful with facts. To my fellow citizens  Let no one and nothing dissuade you from speaking the truth, he said.

He said he had spent 25 years promoting peace and spreading greater awareness of Islam besides talking about similarities between religions, and the last two months had been a rude shock.

I am alarmed at the Murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights I am also alarmed at how the system, media and the agencies are being used to suit a pre-meditated end result set by none other than our own governments, he wrote.

Saying the Constitution gave him freedom to profess, practice, and propagate his religion, he claimed there was a deeper agenda behind this vicious campaign against him.

This, he said, was not only an attack on him but an attack against Indian Muslims.

In case he and IRF are banned, he said: If you thought intolerance increased in the country recently, this action of the government will take it to an all-time high.

Naik claimed that selective government documents were being selectively leaked to the media.

He rubbished accusations of forced conversions against him and his NGO, asking for the converted person and his or her statement about how he or she was forcibly converted to be made available.

Naik, whose sermons are alleged to have turned some young Muslims into radicals, said he may find shelter in other countries.

 but this isnt only about me. Its about us. Its about the morals and values of a great country.

What will become of India if we let bigotry and injustice seep into the very fabric of our nation? he said.

Naik has been on the radar of security agencies for long and his channel Peace TV has been banned in India for broadcasting objectionable content.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) has asked service providers and new entrant Reliance Jio to settle their dispute related to call drops amongst themselves.

At a meeting where representatives of both sides Met the regulator, the latter told attendees that the matter of points of interconnection (PoI) should first be settled bilaterally, failing which an adjudicator be appointed.

For now, both parties have agreed to try and resolve their issues bilaterally. Telecom companies sign agreements with each other under which each company is mandatorily obliged to provide points of interconnection, which facilitate carriage of a call from one operator to another.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Rajan Mathews, Director-General of industry body Cellular Operators Association of India(COAI) said that telecom firms have complained about the volume of calls that are being made to Jios users to other networks.

We have highlighted a number of principal issues. The asymmetry of call traffic originating from Jios network, the number of PoIs needed, the nature of freebies that is giving and whether its preview launch should be considered launch of commercial services, he added.
One of the Mewat gangrape victims has alleged that their attackers were cow vigilantes but the Haryana police today said no evidence has so far come to fore suggesting that the four accused arrested in the case were part of any cow protection group.

The family of the victims alleged that they had informed the police personnel about the cow vigilantes but they chose to ignore it.

They (attackers) asked us you eat cow meat. We said no. They then said you eat cow meat. They said we are killing you because you eat cow.

We told this to the police but they are not doing anything, one of the two victims said.

A couple was murdered and two girls from the family allegedly gangraped after the accused had barged into their house in the wee hours on August 25 in a village in Mewat district.

I need justice. They have killed by son and daughter-in-law. They have gangraped my grand-daughters. The way police has behaved, we have no hope, said a relative of the victims.

Police said that the investigation in the case is still on and so far they have not found any link with cow vigilantes.

So far there is no such evidence of them (accused) being cow vigilantes or being part of cow vigilante group, Inspector General of Police, South Range, Rewari, Mamta Singh said.

She, however, said that investigations in the case was continuing.

Singh said that the case has been recommended to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

On August 28, Haryana Police had arrested four youths in connection with incident.

The accused had also ransacked the house, an isolated structure located in the middle of farmland, and fled with some valuables including cash.

After committing the crime, the accused had tied the injured with ropes and escaped from the spot. Some residents living nearby found the injured after which the police was informed.
Genocide and Persecution: What's Next for Iraq's Christians?

Washington -- "Together, we will advocate for the Christian, Yazidi, and other communities in Northern Iraq that they may return to their homes on the Nineveh Plain to be secured there by coalition and successive international forces," Andrew Doran, senior adviser to the group In Defense of Christians, stated at the Sept. 7 press conference beginning the group's advocacy convention in Washington, D.C. The Nineveh Plain is a 1,600 square mile area in northern Iraq that has been home to various ethnic and religious minorities, including Assyrian Christians who have lived there for centuries as one of the earliest Christian communities. When militants of the Islamic State swept across northern Iraq in 2014, they displaced hundreds of thousands of these minorities from their homes. They killed innocents, raped and enslaved women and young girls, and destroyed churches and shrines. In March, the State Department declared that the Islamic State had committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims, and had also committed "crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing" against some "Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities." However, advocates insist that declaring genocide is just the beginning of putting back together the shattered society of northern Iraq. "There has been far too much of a history of sort of declaring something and then everybody packing up their tents and going home," Katrina Lantos Swett, former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, stated at the convention press conference. One of the next steps the U.S. can take now is to help resettle genocide victims in their homes, should they choose to go back. However, what should be the best course of action and how soon must this be done? The first step would be a safe, secure return for the victims. "The Christians should return to their homes just as quickly as that region is secure," Doran told CNA. A coalition of forces, including Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga and local militia, are fighting to eventually retake Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. That fighting will be long and difficult, Doran acknowledged, but the Nineveh Plain, which lies north and east of the city, would be the first to be abandoned by Islamic State before the city would fall. There will be refugees from the city already looking to relocate to the plain, he noted. "In the long term there would need to be coalition and other successive forces to - not substantial numbers, but some numbers - to patrol and keep safe the region around the Nineveh Plain," he said. The area "will be relatively easy to secure." However, then the area needs to be made livable. And it is here where plans need to be laid for the long-term stabilization of the region. First, the infrastructure would need to be rebuilt since there are whole villages that are "like ghost towns" and houses that have not been occupied for two years, Doran explained. Then there would have to be economic revitalization of the region, with the help of outside investors. Finally, efforts would have to be made towards "reconciliation" of the various groups in the region - Christians, Sunnis, Yazidis, and Kurds. In Defense of Christians is hoping for a congressional resolution to support the policy, which would ultimately have to be proposed by the Iraqis themselves. "We the organizers of this conference are currently advocating for a new congressional resolution that voices U.S. support for the government of Iraq as it moves to create this province," Robert Nicholson, executive director of the Philos Project, stated at the press conference. The province would be semi-autonomous and part of a newly-federalized Iraq, where "power and governance" is relegated to the "lowest level," Nicholson explained. The idea isn't new, advocates maintain, as the Iraqi government had planned to create three new provinces in January of 2014, months before Islamic State took over Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. "The first community that needs to be helped and empowered" is the Assyrian Christians, Nicholson said. They would need "administrative autonomy in their local affairs" and a security force that would be trained and equipped, along with an "international rapid deployment force based in the Nineveh Plain" and legal protections for their culture and language. They should still have the rights and duties of Iraqi citizens, IDC said, insisting that the area will not be a "ghetto" for minorities. However, if they need a safe zone they must be self-sufficient, and the Nineveh Plain would provide the best opportunity for that. Would the de-centralization of Iraq lead to further sectarian conflict? "I think because it wasn't decentralized, the sectarian conflict is precisely what led to ISIS," Doran stated. "In other words, the Sunni populations of Anbar and Nineveh province who felt alienated by the Tehran-dominated central government, those conditions led precisely to many people in the population welcoming ISIS as an alternative to what they regarded to be an oppressive central government."
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) shake hands at the conclusion of their news conference following their meeting in Geneva, Switzerland where they discussed the crisis in Syria, Sept 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

GENEVA - US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached on Saturday a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict.

According to Kerry, who spoke first after day-long discussions with his Russian counterpart, the plan aims to rekindle a nation-wide cessation of hostilities beginning at sundown on Sept 12, allowing life-saving humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need.

If the truce is respected for seven days, Washington and Moscow are then expected to increase military cooperation, including working on strategies targeting terrorist groups operating on Syrian soil.

This would mean that opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alongside terrorist groups such as Nusra will have to distance themselves to avoid being targeted.

Al-Assad, who Lavrov said had agreed to the new plan, will also have to halt air force strikes against opposition strongholds.

"I want to emphasize, this step is absolutely essential, it is a bedrock of this agreement," Kerry highlighted.

If all steps are implemented correctly, the new plan is seen by both powers as having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, a country at war since 2011.

"Today we have developed a significant, practical and concrete package of documents," Lavrov said.

"We cannot make these documents public because they contain rather sensitive and serious information," he added.
A Plan for Protecting Iraq's Minority Communities

( SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images) Now that the U.S. Congress and Secretary of State have officially recognized (as of March 2016) that ISIS has perpetrated genocides against multiple ethnic and religious minorities in Northern Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, we believe that the creation of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian province for the peoples of the Nineveh Plain in Northern Iraq--one that could eventually become a semi-autonomous region within a federated Iraq--is consistent with American values and interests. The Middle East today is locked in a web of complex conflict between and among hostile factions. Many of those factions are proxies of regional powers that are fighting for control over a region whose current international and internal boundaries will most likely be redrawn. And while Arabs, both Sunnis and Shi'a, and Kurds have also suffered greatly, Christians and other vulnerable minorities are the most forgotten and most vulnerable in the region: They are caught in the crossfire, targeted because of their religious beliefs and ethnicity, and are being killed or forced from their homes in record numbers. These minorities are not strangers to the Middle East; they are in fact the indigenous peoples, the "first nations," of the region--Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, Turkmen, and others--who have lived in Mesopotamia for centuries and in some cases millennia. Many of these minorities have lost everything in recent years: homes, businesses, livelihoods, physical safety, dignity, and hope for a secure future in the land of their birth. Today they often live in tents and trailers. Every day hundreds flee the region to seek refuge abroad. Ancient communities, cultures, and languages are disappearing forever. It is now possible, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, to imagine that this besieged region, the historic Cradle of Christianity, will be without any Christians in our lifetime. ISIS is no longer a mere non-state actor, whose limited organizational scope is to inflict violence and terror; it now governs significant swathes of territory, from the Levant to North Africa, in addition to maintaining a global reach for terrorist operations. While the West must focus its efforts on the destruction of ISIS, its funding, and ideological wellsprings, it, and the U.S. government in particular, must offer concrete post-conflict solutions, including decentralized governance and regional autonomy, reflecting the complex cultural and ethnic realities on the ground. One region that could serve as a model for local governance (and pluralism) is the Nineveh Plain. Response to Genocide The March 2016 recognition by Congress and the State Department of ISIS-perpetrated genocide against vulnerable minority communities accomplished two goals. First, it established the enormity of ISIS's crimes against humanity. Second, it called the world to action: to rescue the survivors among the indigenous communities of the Nineveh Plain; to restore these traumatized peoples to individual wholeness as citizens (and not victims); and to return them to their homes, revitalizing their communities. The military defeat of ISIS is necessary, of course. But it is merely the first step toward guaranteeing that the indigenous communities of this region are never again subjected to genocide, displacement, persecution, or discrimination. Upon return to their liberated cities and villages, the communities of the Nineveh Plain ought to be afforded the right to determine the nature of their own political community within the framework of Iraq. In so doing they might provide a model, for both Iraq and the whole region, that promotes local governance and thereby stability, security, and prosperity. Many well-intentioned Westerners have looked on the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria and offered a simple and immediate solution: exodus. This would not only be a disaster for these communities, whose ancient identities and rich cultural heritages would invariably be subsumed by the dominant cultures of the regions to which they emigrate; it would also be a disaster for the Middle East, further radicalizing the region and giving ISIS and other violent extremists precisely the end they seek: the end of pluralism in the region. The exodus option is also born from a stunning degree of historical ignorance. Ethnic and religious pluralism has characterized every enlightened epoch in Middle Eastern history, and its erosion in recent times is altogether tragic. As Chris Seiple wrote in 2014, the Christians "are a bridge between and among different faiths, and traditions within those faiths. Such action, if allowed to flourish, strengthens society by preventing stereotypes that might be manipulated by terrorists; indeed, loving all neighbors enhances the stability of the state." To do nothing as Christians and other communities are driven out will not only "accelerate instability;" it will also sever a natural link with those outside the region and, with it, insights into promoting peace for all its inhabitants. Oppression and Terrorism Cycles of oppression, social and cultural revolt, and political instability and conflict has left the Middle East in a state of upheaval. This has provided fertile ground for recruiting young people to radical causes. Western powers have contributed much over the years to the current violent dysfunction in the region but the situation will not sort itself out through a new policy of benign neglect. Instead, the United States and its kindred allies outside and within the region must advance solutions designed to promote peace, pluralism, and stability. A key premise of such an effort is the honest recognition that current formal state boundaries, notably as they appear on the maps of Iraq and Syria, do not reflect reality on the ground. The violent instability in these countries undermines the security of the United States and serves neither its interests nor its values. U.S. policy in recent years has been extremely wary of the idea of remapping the region, and for good reason. But policies that countenance the binding together of peoples divided along lines of religion, ethnicity, history, language, and culture under highly-centralized government authority violates the most fundamental precepts of pluralistic democracy: ordered liberty and the protection of minority rights, which sum to a formula for advancing the common good. While democracies evolve differently in different contexts, these fundamental commonalities are the basis of political stability and ought to be reflected in some form of self-determination. States with populations that are characterized by a diversity of nations--that is, of groups of people self-defined according to ethnicity, religion, language, heritage, and culture--but that lack a developed concept of the common good can maintain their unity only through coercion. When fear of that coercion is removed, sectarian interests often prevail; more often than not, the majority "nation" works to advance itself, scapegoating minorities, as the state weakens and eventually breaks apart. Thus the goal of pluralistic democracy, which America sought to realize in Iraq, proved unsustainable because federated governance was passed over in favor of an overly empowered central government in Baghdad, run for the first time in Iraq's modern history by the majority faith group. This government did not authentically represent the interests of the various minority nations/communities who still understood themselves as Iraqi. Yet the formal dissolution of Iraq in favor of the creation of smaller, fragile states does not offer a pristine solution. There is no quick or obvious fix to Iraq's problem any more than there is to Syria's. Decentralization and local governance are the proper places to begin the long process of reflection and reform, building the common good from the ground-up. The relevance of the concept of the common good to political stability in pluralistic states such as the United States and other Western countries is rarely referenced in public discourse, mainly because it is taken for granted. It is not, however, mere academic abstraction. Indeed, a process of reflection and reform with respect to Iraq cannot begin with America, the West, or its common values; it must instead start with the Middle East itself. It is imperative, and practical, to note that much of what we suggest here is rooted in indigenous Middle Eastern values. King Cyrus, for example, gave us the "Cyrene Cylinder," which accommodated religious freedom as the most practical precept for social harmony and governance in a multi-ethnic and multi-faith empire. It was Cyrus, after all, who allowed the Jews to return to their land under Nehemiah's leadership, and it is the Jews who in turn shaped the values (including the rule of law) of the other descendants of Abraham, both Christian and Muslim. For example, God told the Jews through His prophet Jeremiah--whom all three faiths revere--that they should seek the good of the city (Jeremiah 29:7). God did not differentiate which part of the city, or which nation of people, or that only those who believed in Him should benefit. God commanded those who believed in Him to seek the good of the whole city, just as he earlier sent Jonah to preach repentance to the non-Jews of Nineveh! A shared concept of and commitment to the common good is the glue that binds complex, pluralistic societies together--without need for coercion, the preferred means of achieving unity for many regimes. But sadly and ironically, a shared concept of the common good simply does not exist across much of the Middle East at present. Thus, the best and most practical short-term step is to encourage and enable local self-governance in those communities that already share a vision of the common good, and to foster governance buffers between sectarian groups--rather than to condemn one sect to the oppressive rule of an opposing sect. The combination of distant, overly centralized government and insufficient local self-governance has led to alienation and violence, contributing significantly to the growth and appeal of terrorism. As Iraq's Prime Minster Haider al-Abadi observed in April 2015, "If we don't decentralize, the country will disintegrate. To me, there are no limitations to decentralization." This is precisely what led to the debacle in Mosul in 2014. The success of ISIS in Iraq may be attributed in large part to the withdrawal of a credible U.S. reaction force, to American acquiescence to a Shi'a-majority, centralized government in Baghdad--too often influenced by Iran--and the resulting grievances and alienation of the Sunni Muslim population, particularly in Anbar and Nineveh provinces. The sense of exasperation among Sunni Muslims at the indifference of Baghdad played no small part in the implosion of Mosul as just 1,500 ISIS fighters captured a city of two million, ostensibly defended by an Iraqi Army of 30,000 mostly Muslim soldiers. Although some of these soldiers were like-minded in their understanding of ISIS, many simply saw it as a "better deal"--rooted in legitimate grievances--than Baghdad and its sponsorship of Iranian-backed Shi'a militias that killed Sunnis with impunity. And with the fall of Mosul came the subsequent conquest of the Nineveh Plain, the historic heartland of Christianity in Iraq. Such a province could become a buffer zone of stability and peace building, better enabling: the care of those impacted by psychological trauma and moral injury; gender integration and education; the growth of civil society and economic revitalization; and, ultimately, personal and communal security. These are the kinds of efforts too often ignored by U.S. policy in the aftermath of conflict. Nineveh Plain Province We propose that the U.S. government, together with its key global partners outside and within the region, mobilize its political, economic, and military assets to complete the liberation of northern Iraq--from Mosul to the Nineveh Plain--from ISIS. The U.S. government should thereafter support the creation of a province in the Nineveh Plain that would serve as a haven to protect those ethnic and religious minorities who want to return and rebuild their communities. Iraq's recognition of this province would provide the distinct, indigenous nations/communities with some measure of self-governance and self-defense. Local self-governance and self-defense is necessary for a citizenry that has lost confidence in public institutions regarded as distant, sectarian, corrupt, or under the sway of regional powers. Just as it will take time for the mostly Sunni-Arab people of Mosul to have confidence in the Shi'a-Arab government in Baghdad, so it will take time for the non-Muslim peoples of the Nineveh Plain to trust that Mosul is not a threat. Local interests-- survival foremost among them--must be addressed before traumatized communities, perhaps now more than ever inclined toward sectarianism, can be integrated into the whole with a view of the common good as Iraqis. This is not to say that there is not a role for national and regional governments as the process of restoration, revitalization, and reconciliation occurs after ISIS is driven out of Nineveh. On the contrary, local governance and self-defense will deny ISIS and other terrorist organizations opportunities, while anticipating and building toward a day when regional and national governments are better equipped to enable a strong, locally-governed and protected society. Such an end is consistent with American values and national security interests. This province would not be an externally created construct. It would be a political recognition of the province's underlying ethnic and cultural makeup, building on what has already been taking place. Indeed, on January 21, 2014, Iraq's Council of Ministers "agreed, in principle, to turn the districts of Tuz Khurmato, Fallujah, and the Nineveh Plains into provinces," pursuant to Articles 61 and 80 of the Iraqi Constitution. What remains is for the United States, its allies in the coalition against ISIS, and regional partners to support the Iraqis as they begin a transition toward greater federalism and greater protection for the country's most vulnerable communities. In the face and aftermath of genocide, such a province for the ethnic and religious minorities of the Nineveh Plain region is even more urgently needed. These communities, which have lived together in peace for centuries, ought not to exist at the sufferance of national or regional governments. Too often, Iraq's governance has been characterized by narrow sectarian interests rather than the common good, as Iraqis in Nineveh Province--Sunni, Shi'a, Yazidi, and Christian--learned firsthand in 2014, if not earlier. Rather, these people of the Nineveh Plain should exist in cooperation and harmony with the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government within the framework of a genuinely federal Republic of Iraq. The recognition of a Nineveh Plain Province would accomplish many goals simultaneously: 1) it would provide a practical response to the declaration of genocide by preserving ethno-religious minorities in the Middle East; 2) it would blunt further ISIS military momentum and delegitimize ISIS, whose theology is focused on a territorial caliphate; 3) it would dampen the desire of global recruits who might travel to Iraq to join ISIS; 4) it would stem refugee flows out of Iraq to the broader region, Europe, and the United States; and 5) it would prove cost effective over the long-term; while, 6) waiting on a broader peace process in Syria to take root. With good governance and protection of minorities, the Nineveh Plain Province will provide a practical model of transition for other parts of Iraq, Syria, the broader region, and other parts of the world that ISIS threatens. Securing the Nineveh Plain The peoples of the Nineveh Plain also have a right to self-defense, to prevent humanitarian cataclysms such as that which befell them in the summer of 2014 at the hands of ISIS. These defense forces already exist (numbering upwards of five thousand or more), most with the consent and support of Iraq's governmental structures. As ISIS is driven out of the Nineveh Plain, these Christian and Yazidi defense forces ought to participate in securing their native lands with the support of a credible international stabilization and reconstruction force, to include representatives from the Coalition against ISIS and other nations and organizations. The most pressing question is security: How will the Nineveh Plain be protected after ISIS is defeated? The Iraq Security Forces (ISF), Popular Mobilization Units, and Kurdish Peshmerga are divided and not properly constituted for the task. (The Peshmerga, though not equipped or trained for offensive operations, have nevertheless been a reliable partner against ISIS in defensive operations in northern Iraq and against ISIS in Syria.) Meanwhile, the United States and the "international community" may have little appetite for reestablishing a large military presence inside the country. But success against ISIS will be futile if the United States and its coalition allies leave immediately after its defeat. Such action will only create another vacuum, the next version of ISIS, and exacerbate disputes between Baghdad and Erbil. With or without the Nineveh Plain Province, Iraq's future hangs on the crafting and execution of a serious national security strategy. Therefore, we believe that the answer lies in 1) rebuilding the ISF; 2) expanding and integrating local security forces, including minority forces; and, 3) establishing a medium- to long-term international security presence in northern Iraq. Rebuild the ISF. If it is to last, the state of Iraq must be defended by Iraqis from all of its communities. A strong, integrated, and unified ISF is the foundation for any durable security strategy. Confidence in the ISF was deeply shaken after the fall of Mosul. But the ISF has engaged and defeated ISIS in successive engagements and now is preparing to reclaim Mosul. The Ministry of Defense needs to launch urgent reforms, improve recruitment and training programs, and focus resources on logistics, planning, and support capacity. It also needs to reign in the various Shi'a militias that are supported and directed by Iran. Expand local security forces. Iraq is a state of nations, and these nations have reached the point, after 13 years of war, that each demographic bloc feels a need to field a local security force to safeguard its unique communal interests. Rather than posing a threat to Iraqi security, these Popular Mobilization Units and militias have contributed to the fight against extremism for a decade. Expanding, training, and integrating these local forces into Iraq's military forces is crucial for Iraq's long-term security. The Sunnis require special attention as the Central Government seeks to reassure them of their future in post-ISIS Iraq. Meanwhile, Christian and Yazidi militias have been begging for support from the "international community" for months; now is the time to respond. They should be primarily and ultimately responsible for policing and protecting the rebuilding communities of the Nineveh Plain. But they will need back-up. Commit international forces. Data indicate that the minorities will only return if they receive some measure of international protection. They don't trust the Arabs and Kurds who abandoned them in the face of ISIS. (The Kurdistan Regional Government has taken in two million internally displaced Iraqis and other refugees, which merits much gratitude, but there are also credible allegations that remain a legitimate source of deep concern for many minorities in northern Iraq, particularly at a moment of heightened ethno-nationalism for Kurds in Iraq and Syria.) For this primary reason, the international coalition must stay put, at least in the medium term, under newly negotiated multi-national security agreements with the Republic of Iraq. The mission must be, first and foremost, to support, train, and equip local forces. But the Coalition should also create a Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) that will provide credible military support for Iraqi forces under threat. The United States should lead the creation of this RDF, but Sunni Arab and European allies will likely have an interest in contributing company- or battalion-sized elements. Basing this RDF inside the Nineveh Plain will increase the confidence of the minorities and allay the fears of the Sunnis, and will also provide a buffer between Kurds and Arabs in a region that has been hotly contested by both. For those in the U.S. who balk at any kind of return to Iraq, big or small, the prospect of an ISIS comeback or--worse--further expansion of Iranian power are enough to justify a long-term commitment. The above plan requires minimal troops for maximum time, or for as long as it takes Iraq to rebuild its security structure from top to bottom. Anything less will begin the same cycle all over. Iraq will call again. The U.S. government and its allies should also encourage membership in a coalition of states committed to overseeing the reconstruction of the Nineveh Plain (to include Mosul). New partners could include Armenia and Georgia. Both nations have ancient Christian communities, substantial Middle East Christian refugee populations, and a strategic interest in cooperating with the United States and other Western nations. Federated, decentralized models of governance will be necessary to restore stability to Iraq and Syria, as well, most likely, to Libya and possibly Yemen. Safe havens, autonomous regions, and buffer zones will also necessarily be formed to protect vulnerable populations and redevelop communities devastated by conflict. This kind of approach offers a third way to communities--particularly Sunni communities--too often forced to choose between hostile, Tehran-inflected militias and governments in Baghdad and Damascus and violent extremist organizations like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Jabhat al-Nusra. If such an approach is not adopted, violent extremists will continue to recruit and influence indirectly with ease--and the escalating violence that has targeted nuns in Yemen, priests in Normandy, and gays in Orlando will only worsen. By recognizing a new province for Iraq's most vulnerable communities, the United States and its international partners should work to secure and revitalize the region and ensure that these communities will survive and flourish in their historic homeland. The Nineveh Plain Province, once recognized, will provide a model of freedom, coexistence, and rule of law in Iraq, such that American and coalition forces' lives were not given in vain. This model might also pave the way for the creation of similar constructs in post-conflict Syria, where many of the same complex, interrelated issues exist. This is not mere humanitarian sentimentality; this approach is a calculated response to the key causes of Middle Eastern instability and global terrorism. Put differently, our recommendations allow for urgently needed community reconciliation to take place. Generational violence, after all, can only be curbed by generational healing. This healing can only begin with the end of conflict. The next step is reconciliation within, between, and among communities as trauma and moral injury are intentionally and comprehensively addressed. Only whole people can build whole societies. Sectarian violence, an unwelcome reality in Iraq and Syria, has not been characteristic of the Nineveh Plain. These nations and communities with diverse religious, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic heritages have provided a model for pluralism that stands in contrast to the sectarian violence around them. It is a multi-faith, multi-ethnic region with a sense of the common good. The common good is a notion rooted in the Middle East, especially in the Abrahamic faiths. It has been too much occluded of late in tribal, sectarian violence, often in the name of religion. This rich heritage, which offers a path to peace and reconciliation, has an ancient foundation in Nineveh, where the tomb of Jonah, recently destroyed by ISIS, may one day become a symbol of reconciliation for those communities torn apart by violence. We therefore encourage support for measures within Iraq, by its people and government, to facilitate the recognition of a province on the Nineveh Plain, within the framework of Iraq's constitution, for the protection of Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christians and other indigenous peoples. If this is indeed deemed to be the will of the people of the indigenous people of the Nineveh Plain, we call upon the U.S. government, its partners in the Counter ISIS Coalition, and the international community to provide support for the recognition of a Nineveh Plain Province. This is the time for principled and pragmatic leadership that addresses root causes through a long-term strategy that builds good governance and good citizenship--and ultimately a sustainable environment that protects the fundamental rights, including religious freedom, of all peoples. We recognize that this will not be easy. Getting from concept to reality must overcome many obstacles. There will have to be a security presence to protect an infant Nineveh Province, and that presence will need to some extent to be externally provided. Only the U.S. government can provide the convening table for such purposes. But the domestic political obstacles to a renewed U.S. security presence on the ground in Iraq under any circumstances and for any purpose are many. So are the obstacles to persuading other governments to follow the United States back into Iraq. Clearly, it will take visionary and determined leadership in the next administration to turn concept into reality. But without a concept, and without U.S. leadership in promoting it, there looks to be no good ending to what has already been a tragic story. This is a time for courage and steadfastness. Everyone will suffer if we cannot summon it, as the cradle of Christianity is rendered devoid of Christians.
September 9, 2016

BAGHDAD  The Baghdad Operations Command announced the release of two kidnapped children from southern Baghdad on Aug. 20. The crime itself was no surprise, as the abduction of children has become a serious and common social problem in Iraq. This summer, a UN report confirmed that 1,496 Iraqi children have been abducted during the past 36 months and few have been seen again. In one rare case, on Aug. 3, a kidnapped child was released from captivity and his kidnapper arrested in Baghdad.

Poor Iraqi families have been calling for help since June in Basra, where children are now being snatched from the streets or their homes. On June 22, the council of Al-Qurnah district in the Basra governorate warned about the rise of child abduction, demanding the security forces to take decisive actions against it. This kind of crime had previously affected the children of the rich.

Mostly, reported cases of child abduction are not dealt with systematically by the Iraqi police, noted Mohsin Ali Attia, a writer in the field of education in Babil governorate. Intervention in these cases remains at the security level. There is no comprehensive treatment for this pressing issue, Attia told Al-Monitor.

Capt. Abbas Fadil of the Babil police told Al-Monitor, There are no sociologists or experts on child abduction. Children who are released from captivity are returned to their families without any psychological or social treatment and follow-up.

Asked about his experiences with child kidnapping, Fadil said, In December 2015, a child was gang raped after being forced to climb into a vehicle duct taped. Most of the cases are similar to this one, where children are being abducted by amateur gangs in the security chaos and lack of security measures. The motives are either financial, where criminals ask for ransom amounting to as much as $20,000, or the organ trade. Girls are kidnapped to be sold into sexual slavery, he said.

Qassem Saleh, the head of the Iraqi Psychological Association, told Al-Monitor, We relayed a message to the government and parliament that we are ready to employ our scientific expertise and to conduct the necessary research and study to help provide solutions to serious social threats like child abduction, but to no avail.

He added, This negligence is undermining the role of social and psychological research, despite the fact that there are many sociologists and other experts holding seminars to voice their findings  but [the government] does not invest in their capabilities and studies.

The lack of social research in Iraq cannot be attributed to a dearth of specialists. Large numbers of university graduates in the relevant subjects cannot find work, while child abduction and other social issues continue to rise.

Mohammed Hussein, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Baghdad in 1987, was unable to find a job related to his major. I had to work as a trader, although I am well aware that the community is in need of my expertise.

Hussein, however, continues to follow social problems. He said, Many studies have been conducted on the abduction of children, but none has made any tangible impact on the ground.

He went on, There have been modest attempts to support social research related to child abduction on the part of the local government, which is funding the field visits of researchers and other experts to districts and subdistricts in Basra governorate. Researchers are being offered a monthly stipend of around 250,000 dinars [$200] a month for educating children in schools and other places about this matter.

Other modest steps are being taken to address child abduction, according to Abdul Aziz al-Zalimi, a parliament member on the Labor and Social Affairs Committee. Zalimi told Al-Monitor, Last year, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs contracted with 1,200 social workers to conduct a field survey on ways to consolidate social protection and to find means of communication between social workers and families who face such social hardships.

The government is not currently involved in any initiatives to find solutions to child abduction in Iraq. For instance, there is no kidnapping database for use by researchers and decision-makers.

Yousef Muhsen, who writes about political and social affairs for the Sabah newspaper, asked Al-Monitor, Do the academic institutions in Iraq have the necessary scientific research on social illnesses? Does it have a database on child abduction cases and their effect on social and physiological structures?" He added, "What has been achieved so far in this sector is so little because of the lack of support and supplies from the government.

A great deal of work is needed on finding solutions to child abduction in Iraq not only in the security field but also in the social and educational realms. The role of academics and professionals with training in social rehabilitation ought to be promoted in various state institutions, including police stations, schools, hospitals and orphanages, as Iraq struggles to fight this problem.
September 9, 2016

When Ahmed Medhat, a medical student at Ain Shams University, left his sisters house on the evening of Aug. 29, little did his family know that this was the last time he would be seen alive. After several failed attempts to reach him on his cellphone, his brother spent the night frantically searching for him at police stations and hospitals in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City  but to no avail.

It was not until the following morning that the family of 21-year-old Medhat finally received news of his whereabouts.

We were told by a police officer at Nasr City police station that my son had been arrested the night before and we were asked to come back later for more information, his father, Kamel Medhat, an engineer, told Al-Monitor.

He said, When we returned a couple of hours later, another officer informed us that Ahmed had tried to escape by jumping out of a moving police van but fell to his death, fracturing his skull. He asked us to claim the body from Zeinhom morgue."

On Sept. 2, four days after Ahmeds disappearance and untimely death, the police gave a different account of what had happened. In a statement on their official Facebook page, the Interior Ministry claimed that Ahmed had jumped to his death from a window of a house of ill repute in an attempt to escape arrest during a police raid on the premises.

Medhat dismissed the allegations but his request for a coroner to investigate the cause of his sons death was turned down by prosecutors. After allegedly seeing brown scars on his sons body, he is convinced that Ahmed was tortured to death by the police.

In February, Ahmed was given a two-year jail sentence in absentia on charges of taking part in anti-government protests last year. Police had arrested him at his home in August 2015 acting on a tip-off from an informant who had accused him of possessing firearms and plotting attacks. Medhat disappeared for three days before his lawyer was able to track him down during the investigation by prosecutors. With no evidence against him, he was released on a bail of 500 Egyptian pounds (about $55), but the charges against him were not dropped. Medhat alleges his son was brutally tortured by the security forces when he had been forcibly disappeared. He has vowed to press charges against his sons killers.

The death bears the hallmarks of the kind of police brutality that we have seen with increasing frequency in recent months, he said.

Police excesses have been on the rise in Egypt since early 2015, with a string of violent assaults on civilians by low-ranking police officers, resulting in fatalities. In many of the cases, the officers implicated in the deaths have escaped punishment and the victims themselves have been blamed by the police for provoking the violence. On Sept. 5, the news broke that a minibus driver had been shot in the leg and wounded by a low-ranking police officer in the 6th of October district in Giza, after a dispute between them over a traffic fine. The Interior Ministry released a statement claiming the driver was an ex-convict who faces multiple charges. The incident came hot on the heels of another incident of police brutality in which a minibus driver was shot dead by a low-ranking officer in the Cairo suburb of Maadi. The Interior Ministry claimed the driver was mistakenly hit by a bullet when the officer fired warning shots into the air.

There has been an unprecedented spike in forced disappearances since early 2015 in Egypt, according to a report published by Amnesty International in July. Describing it as a trend, the report alleged that hundreds of activists, students and protesters  including youths as young as 14  have vanished without trace at the hands of the state, and that torture has been used to extract false confessions from them. The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a local rights watchdog, claims to have recorded more than 1,200 cases of forced disappearance in the first eight months of 2015 alone. Meanwhile, Egypts Interior Ministry has denied the allegations, insisting it had not subjected any individual to enforced disappearance or torture in custody.

While the full truth about Ahmeds death may never be known, the latest case of alleged police violence resembles the brutal murder of Italian researcher Guilio Regeni, whose mutilated body was found in a ditch alongside the Cairo-Alexandria highway in early February, 10 days after his disappearance. An investigation by prosecutors into his murder has revealed little about his killers to date, but the police are strongly suspected of involvement in his murder. Egyptian activists and Regenis mother have claimed that he was tortured and killed like an Egyptian.

Ahmeds death is also reminiscent of the 2010 killing of Khaled Saeed, a young Alexandrian whose death  allegedly at the hands of the police  was one of the factors that sparked the 2011 mass uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. Much like Ahmeds case, there were conflicting reports at the time about Saeeds death, with police denying they were implicated and claiming that he was a drug dealer who had died of drug abuse. Revolutionary youth activists, however, insisted that Saeed was violently assaulted and killed by two police officers. Unlike in Saeeds case, where photographs of his disfigured face on social media networks had fueled mass protests against Mubarak, pictures of Ahmeds bruised face have only prompted mild condemnation and a short-lived outpouring of anger and frustration by a handful of activists on social media.

Despite the spike in torture, police brutality and forced disappearances in Egypt since early 2015, Egyptians  who have paid a high economic price for the 2011 uprising  appear unprepared for another revolt. The lifting of fuel subsidies in the summer of 2014 and the devaluation of the Egyptian pound in March have given way to price increases, leaving many families in the lower and middle income brackets struggling financially. A large majority of Egyptians are now too engrossed in their daily lives and overwhelmed by their economic problems to care about police excesses and rights violations.

While the prosecution has started an investigation into Ahmeds death, his family has little hope of justice for their son. In light of the culture of police impunity and the absence of accountability, it is hard for truths to be uncovered but even harder for justice to prevail.
September 9, 2016

In the Sept. 1 Financial Times, Simon Kupers column How Turkey tramples free speech had the following accurate observation: A modern Turkish government has probably never been so central to geopolitics. Western leaders want [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogans help to fight [the Islamic State (IS)], to minimize the horrors in Syria and to keep Middle Eastern refugees out of Europe. If he cooperates, the West will allow him his excesses. But Erdogan is now snubbing Europe and the US and flirting with Russia and Iran. He is also going freelance in Syria: Turkish artillery and jets are helping Syrian rebels fight the Kurdish militia.

It is true that the current Turkish government is central to geopolitics, and there is no one who is more aware of this fact than Erdogan himself. His awareness  and perhaps even more than that, his political wit  is the main reason he is snubbing Europe and the United States and going freelance in Syria.

His snubbing produced dividends, and his contacts with US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China, are clear indicators of this.

Anybody who knows Erdogan closely and understands his modus operandi knows that his flirting with Russia and Iran was a win-win policy.

If Turkey was sidelined by the Western world, he would have done the necessary groundwork to be on the same page with Russia and Iran in a new international alignment that would replace Turkeys Western vocation. That would be a win. His flirting with Russia and Iran would also work as leverage in getting the United States and Europe to support him. That would also be a win.

And he won. Erdogan is like a master poker player. He not only plays his own cards very well, but he also has the gift of seeing the cards in the hands of the others across the table.

His one-on-one meeting with Putin was not expected to be dramatic. They know each other very well, and they have similar mindsets.

The Aug. 9 Erdogan-Putin rapprochement in St. Petersburg continued in Hangzhou as business as usual and reached new heights in the cooperation against IS in northern Syria. They spoke on the phone Sept. 8, and the tacit cooperation on Syria between the two leaders led to announcements from both the Kremlin and the Turkish government. The Kremlins announcement was at 10:45 p.m. Turkish time, emphasizing the agreement of both leaders on the continuation of the peace efforts in Syria, followed only 10 minutes later with the more specific announcement of the Turkish presidency, mentioning that both presidents agreed that the efforts to reach a cease-fire in Aleppo for the upcoming Muslim religious holiday has to be intensified. It referred to the efforts in this regard of Russia and the United States.

A few hours before that announcement, Erdogan, with clear self-confidence, said, Without Turkeys consent, no scenario can be executed in Syria.

This is an apparent reversal of fortunes for a leader and his country; only a short while ago, Syria meant Erdogans decline and Turkeys doom.

Syria is still a very risky, uncertain case, but compared to earlier circumstances, it is a colossal turnabout.

Interestingly enough, the change of direction in Syria was thanks to the United States. Erdogan received what he wanted from Obama in Hangzhou, as Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, put it accurately, a tender loving care, which he had not gotten a lot lately.

To the dismay of Erdogans critics, Obama  during the meeting and later on  spoke only about his support for Turkey, did not bring up the crackdown on the press and did not mention the mass arrests that followed the coup.

Kuper, who wrote prior to the G-20 summit, If Erdogan cooperates, the West will allow him his excesses, has been vindicated by the account of the Erdogan-Obama meeting.

Obama, after voicing his strong support of Erdogan and Turkey, ended his remarks in the joint press conference as follows:

So, Tayyip, once again, its good to see you. We're glad you're here, safe, and that we are able to continue to work together to build on the strong alliance and partnership that we've established during the course of my presidency.

The apparent affection he displayed for his Turkish counterpart was reciprocated. Erdogan responded with equal warmth: President Obama, thank you. Barack, thank you.  It's a pleasure for me to get together with you within the framework of the G-20 summit here in Hangzhou. In the aftermath of the July 15th failed coup, we've had a telephone conversation and this is the first time we got together in order to see each other face to face. And I would like to thank you for your support against this coup attempt.

The way he spoke, the words he chose were in stark contrast to the language he and his loyalists used earlier in blaming America for the failed coup.

On Sept. 6, The New York Times published an interview with Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus. He said, Our official position is clear. We dont see any evidence that US officials supported the coup detat.

The case is closed. Now that Obama is onboard with Erdogan, officially endorsed allegations linking Washington with the failed coup have been dropped.

Erdogan went from being snubbed by Obama during his visit to Washington in February to being pampered by the same Obama at Hangzhou in September.

That could be realpolitik for Obama, but for Erdogan, it is a great leap forward, indeed.

Erdogans stature in front of the most powerful and important European leader, Germanys Merkel, also merits attention. The image of their bilateral meeting in Hangzhou that seemingly showed the German chancellor humiliated by him triggered anger in the German media. Die Welt likened Merkel next to Erdogan, looking like a governor suffering under the weight of a crime she committed, being received in the court of the sultan.

That could be an imperative realpolitik move for Merkel. She needs Turkey to stem the flow of refugees into Europe, which is the biggest concern of the European Union. Yet, Die Welt insisted that Germany should have a red line in regard to respect and that one of Merkels obligations is to demonstrate that Berlin is not a Turkish province.

The G-20 summit in Hangzhou became a stage to see how shrewd Turkeys president is. It is a foregone conclusion now that he will outlive Obama and maybe Merkel, as well.

Similar to Putin, he will be regarded as a veteran international political actor.
September 9, 2016

On the night of the July 15 coup attempt, a friend called from Nurtepe, a predominantly Alevi neighborhood of Istanbul. She was concerned about the hundreds of men marching on her street with sticks in their hands chanting Allahu akbar (God is Great). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called upon the people to come out on the streets and some saw it as an opportunity to intimidate Alevi neighborhoods.

Alevis have had notoriously sour relations with the Gulen movement, which many Turks suspect of orchestrating the coup attempt, so there was no reason to suspect Alevi involvement in the putsch. Indeed, at the end of August the government had announced that Dersim, a majority Alevi province, was the least infiltrated province by Gulenists among Turkey's 81 provinces. My friend, who had studied Alevi massacres in modern Turkey, was scared for her life. Has life as an Alevi gotten much more difficult in Turkey in the aftermath of the attempted coup?

Al-Monitor interviewed over 100 Alevis from different parts of the country to discuss this issue, which Turkey's mainstream media does not cover.

Erdal Dogan, a prominent human rights attorney, told Al-Monitor, "Any sort of military coup or intervention is a political situation almost all Alevis would refuse and resist; that was the first reaction of the Alevi community on July 15. Yet, the coordinated lynching attempts in heavily Alevi neighborhoods confirmed Alevi fears about security." Indeed, my friend's observations in Nurtepe were not isolated, several other Alevi districts were attacked in Hatay, Istanbul, Ankara and particularly Malatya.

Dogan said, "Alevis were worried about the putschists as much as they are worried about the jihadi tone that the democracy rallies took."

Even if Alevis are the biggest victims and one of the most distant groups to the Gulen movement, pro-government media outlets published articles trying to generate conspiracy theories about Alevis collaborating with coup plotters. For example, daily Turkiye posted on its first page that "Alevi muhtar [elected head of a village or neighborhood] was ordered to massacre Sunnis." The allegations had no concrete evidence, no names of the muhtar, towns or other officials  just that it was in Hatay province on the border with Syria. Alevi leaders all around the country promptly issued a solidarity message against the coup attempt before tensions escalated any further.

A prominent sociologist from Istanbul who has done research in Dersim told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "Since the coup attempt, the people of Dersim have all the bragging rights and they joke among themselves and [remind] outsiders, 'Did we not tell you [about Gulen]?' In 2011, Dersim held a 10,000-strong march against the Gulen movement. In Dersim, Gulenists were limited to the bureaucracy, over which local authorities had no control."

The sociologist, however, is concerned about the impact of the state of emergency law on Alevi communities of eastern Turkey. He said, "One of my colleagues in Dersim, an Alevi of about 60 years of age, told me, 'People of Istanbul or Izmir do not know what emergency law means, but for us, all of our life will be altered.' Now the city faces a double-edged sword with multiple areas announced as 'special sections' where your freedom of movement is significantly curtailed. Particularly people who are engaged in farming or raising livestock are quite bitter because their livelihood is directly affected by these regulations. They are angry against the government as well as the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party].  They also fear Islamic State [IS] attacks. There are rumors that Syrians settled in nearby areas are indeed IS supporters and that their first goal is to attack Dersim. Streets are deserted, people are scared to hold gatherings."

There are several issues that deeply worry the Alevi community. Alevis are not a homogenous group. While most are Turkish and some are quite nationalistic, there are those who are ethnic Kurds. But all are secular, so the intensification of Islamic rhetoric since July 15 scares Alevis.

Both on the day of the coup and thereafter, Erdogan's and other government officials' first reaction to terror attacks has been "the call to prayer will not stop." As comforting as this may be to some residents of Turkey, Alevis have suffered for decades of Sunnification. Building mosques and sending imams to Alevi towns have been a time-honored tradition of the Turkish government.

Now, Dersim suffers from this effort in another way, as a resident of Dersim told Al-Monitor. "They have put loud speakers into the mescit [prayer section] of the university, and now the whole city has to listen to the call to prayer five times a day. It is torture for us. We cannot hold our festival or visit our holy places due to security concerns. It is as if they would like us to leave our town. But if we go, we will be forced to assimilate so we stay where we can practice our faith," said the resident.

In addition, it has been all over the news that different Sunni religious orders have been allowed to perform their dhikr (devout Sufi chanting) ceremonies at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, just as they have been openly performing them at the democracy rallies since July 15. These performances could be enchanting for the believers of a religious order, yet worrisome for others. Considering members of such religious orders openly brag about naming Istanbul's new bridge that opened on Aug. 26 after Sultan Selim the Grim, who was notorious for his Alevi massacres in Anatolia, the ruling Justice and Development Party's [AKP] insistence on this name has alienated Alevis once more. Meanwhile, any talk about Alevi demands, such as the legal status of their prayer houses and exceptions to compulsory religious education for their children, are muted under the emergency law.

All Alevis interviewed told Al-Monitor they were concerned about the Turkish army's recent incursion into Syria. Hayri Tunc, a reporter and author who has provided diligent coverage from Istanbul's prominent Alevi neighborhoods, told Al Monitor, "There are very few if any Alevis who do not question the Turkish approach to the Syrian civil war. Especially Turkey's dubious relationship with IS and other jihadi militants is quite worrisome for Turkey's Alevis. Now that the Turkish army's incursions started, Alevis fear further attacks by IS inside Turkey. There are some Alevis who are against the PKK because they view the PKK as Sunni. There are also those who support the Kurdish struggle but not the war. Kurdish Alevis support neither the Syrian government nor Islamic entities in Syria."

On Sept. 4, several Alevi associations joined Kurdish groups on a hunger strike demanding to have a meeting with the PKK's captive leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to restart peace talks.

While Alevis are trying to make sense of life under the emergency law, they are not the only ones confused. On Aug. 29, seasoned AKP politician and parliament Speaker Ismail Kahraman told the press that Cuban leader Che Guevara (who is quite popular among Turkish leftists) is a "bandit" and "killer" and that Turkish youth should not be wearing T-shirts or pins with his image. This led to a boom in Che-decorated item sales. A young Alevi college student from Kadikoy told Al-Monitor, "I was not wearing any symbols of my faith for fear of attacks, but now I see that even a Che T-shirt could be a reason for hate. I think the country is at a breaking point."

The AKP's incessant intervention in individual rights and liberties, and encroaching violations of secularism worries Alevis. This, however, is not exclusively an Alevi issue in Turkey, and it is likely to become a major problem in the near future.
auction.jpg

Auctioneers take bids on items at a recent state surplus property auction conducted by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. The final auction of 2016 is Sept. 14. (Courtesy photo)

The last state property surplus auction of the year will take place next week in Montgomery.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs will host the event at 8 a.m. until the last item is sold Sept. 14 at its warehouse on 4590 Mobile Highway in Montgomery. Visitors will have a chance to bid on a variety of items, including vehicles, computers, office supplies and kitchen equipment.

Items selected for auction are no longer needed by the state or voluntarily abandoned at airports across the Southeast. ADECA Director Jim Byard Jr. said the event is a "great opportunity for organizations and individuals to find needed items at a discounted cost."

"I encourage anyone interested in items at the surplus auction to take advantage of our last auction of the year," he said in a statement.

You must present a photo ID and Social Security number or federal employee ID to participate in the auction. An on-site inspection of the items will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.

Visit www.adeca.alabama.gov/surplus to see the complete list of items that will be up for bid. Call 334-284-0577 for more information.
A father and son were allegedly shot and killed by the son's former father-in-law on Friday night in Lawrence County.

Coroner Greg Randolph said the two bodies were discovered with multiple gunshot wounds on Lawrence County Road 217 in the East Lawrence area, which is located about 20 minutes from Decatur in north Alabama.

The son, Michael White, 32, was found dead in his Ford F-350 crew cab pickup at the New Antioch Church of Christ parking lot. Down the road, White's father, Hubert White, 67, was found dead in a home.

Randolph said the son's ex-father-in-law shot the victims during a domestic dispute. The cause of the confrontation has not been released by authorities.

For more information about the shooting, click here.
A Valley Head man accused of delivering multiple pounds of meth throughout northeast Alabama was arrested Friday in DeKalb County after he was caught with $12,000 in cash during a traffic stop.

Luis Cardona-Patron, 35, was pulled over by Alabama State Troopers. They soon learned he also had federal warrants for his arrest. DeKalb County Drug Task Force and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents discovered the large quantity of cash in Cardona-Patron's vehicle when they arrived on the scene.

The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office said Cardona-Patron has several federal charges against him in connection to the drug trafficking investigation that started three years ago.
Two of the three inmates who escaped from the Dallas County Jail on Friday night have been recaptured, District Attorney Michael Jackson said.

Inmates Michael Christian, Jeremy Swann and Derrick Watson escaped from the jail around 10:45 p.m., he said. Christian and Swann were recaptured on Saturday.

Jackson said the one of the inmates threw something in the correctional officer's eyes temporarily blinding him. They were then able to make their way out of the jail.

Dallas County Sheriff's Office Capt. Mike Granthum told the Selma Times Journal that the inmates overpowered the guard, and they were able to get the keys from him.

Two of the inmates were located in the Burnsville community after the sheriff's office received a tip.

Christian and Swann were both in jail on rape charges, Jackson said. Watson was in jail on a charge of first-degree assault.

Jackson said all three inmates will face additional charges related to the assault of the correctional officer.

This isn't the first time Christian has escaped from the Dallas County Jail.

Jackson said Christian escaped twice in 2014 by crawling through the ceiling.
F-35.JPG

BF-17, Maj. Richard "BC" Rusnok and BF-18, Lt. Col. Jon "Miles" Ohman, fly behind a KC-130J, over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Sept. 26, 2013.

((Contributed photo/ Darin Russell))

Before the F-35 had even fired a bullet, dropped a bomb or launched a missile in the line of duty, the $1.5 trillion Joint Strike Fighter aircraft had already been at the center of intense political dog fighting since its inception 20 years ago. Despite a catalog of high-profile failures in production and Congressional detractors lining up to criticize it, politicians are scrambling to have the multirole fighter based in their respective states, including Alabama Representative Martha Roby.

In recent meetings with U.S. Air Force officials, Roby put forward her case to why the 187

th

Fighter Wing based at Dannelly Field in Montgomery should be selected above 16 other candidates to host the Lockheed Martin-built aircraft.

"I believe the 187th is a great candidate for the F-35 program," said Roby in a press release Friday. "This is the military's most cutting-edge war machine, so certainly the Air Force has a lot of specifications. As the selection process continues, I am eager to help make the case for why the 187th is an ideal fit."

F-35 Roby from Martha Roby on Vimeo.

Should Montgomery and the 187

th

Fighter Wing prove successful in attracting the aircraft to the Yellowhammer state, it will thrust the base to the forefront of the Air Force's operational capabilities for the 30 to 40-year lifespan of the project. When the F-35 reaches full operational capability across all the military's branches, it will eventually replace many Cold War-era fighters, including the F-16 Falcons that are currently flown by the 187

th.

The final selection for where the F-35 will be based is expected to be cut to six candidates next week, marking an important turning point in the manufacture and operational preparedness of the aircraft. Over the last few years, the project has been fraught with software and equipment difficulties, including faulty ejector seats that tests showed could have severely injure a pilot that was under a certain weight.

Detractors of the project, including Arizona Republican John McCain, who is the current Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called the project both "a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance." While many of the major issues with the aircraft are being fixed gradually, the entire project is over budget and behind schedule. So far, Lockheed has produced a little under 200 aircraft, but should have built more than 1000 by late 2016, according to McCain.
Norway Facebook Napalm Girl

The cover to Norway's largest circulation newspaper, Aftenposten, displayed in Oslo Friday Sept. 9, 2016. Editor-in-chief and CEO, Espen Egil Hansen, wrote an open letter to founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of threatening the freedom of speech and abusing power after deleting the iconic picture from the Vietnam war, taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut, of a young girl running from a napalm attack. (Cornelius Poppe, NTB scanpix via AP)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Facebook on Friday reversed its decision to remove postings of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant.

Protests in Norway started last month after Facebook deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut from a Norwegian author's page, saying it violated its rules on nudity.

The revolt escalated on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the image on her profile and Facebook deleted that too. The brouhaha is the latest instance in which Facebook's often opaque process for deciding what stays and what goes on its network has spurred controversy.

"It's an interesting dilemma because you've got a newsworthy historical image that has been published by traditional news media that was effectively censored by a social network," said Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago communications professor.

Initially, Facebook stood by the decision, saying it was difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. But late Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.

"In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," Facebook said in a statement. "Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed."

Politicians of all stripes, journalists and regular Norwegians had backed Solberg's decision to share the image.

The prime minister told Norwegian broadcaster NRK she was pleased with Facebook's change of heart and that it shows social media users' opinions matter.

"To speak up and say we want change, it matters and it works. And that makes me happy," she said.

The image shows screaming children running from a burning Vietnamese village. The little girl in in the center of the frame, Kim Phuc, is naked and crying as the napalm melts away layers of her skin.

This is a June 8, 1972 file photo of South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places. The Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut is at the center of a heated debate about freedom of speech in Norway after Facebook deleted it from a Norwegian author's page last month. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

"Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality," Solberg told the AP earlier Friday, adding it was the first time one of her Facebook posts was deleted.

Solberg later reposted the image with a black box covering the girl from the thighs up. She also posted other iconic photos of historic events, such as the man standing in front of a tank in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, with black boxes covering the protagonists.

Like its Scandinavian neighbors, Norway takes pride in its freedom of speech. It's also a largely secular nation with relaxed attitudes about nudity.

Several members of the Norwegian government followed Solberg's lead and posted the photo on their Facebook pages. One of them, Education Minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, said it was "an iconic photo, part of our history."

Many of the posts were deleted but Isaksen's was still up Friday afternoon. The photo was also left untouched on a number of Facebook accounts, including the AP's.

It would be physically impossible for the company to comb through the hundreds of millions of photos posted each day, so it relies on user reports and algorithms to weed out pictures that go against its terms of service.

Photos are often automatically removed if enough people report them. Facebook usually does not proactively remove photos, with some exceptions, such as child pornography.

Because of this, what photos aren't always treated consistently, and sometimes Facebook reinstates reported photos after removing them.

It can also adjust its standards depending on the response. Breastfeeding and mastectomy photos used to be deleted, but after much outcry the company adjusted its policy on nude photos to allow most of such photos. In another case, a court ruled Facebook could be sued after a man's account was suspended after he posted "The Origin of the World," by Gustave Courbet, an 1866 French painting of a nude model exposing her genitalia.

The issue in Norway "points out there's very little transparency," Jones said. "We really don't know how these decisions are made so there's not a lot of accountability either necessarily."

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published the Vietnam photo on its front page Friday and also

in which chief editor Espen Egil Hansen accused the social media giant of abusing its power.

Hansen said he was "upset, disappointed -- well, in fact even afraid -- of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society."

The uproar also spread outside of Norway, with the head of Denmark's journalism union urging people to share Hansen's open letter. Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who has previously clashed with Facebook over its failure to remove hate speech deemed illegal in Germany, also weighed in, saying "illegal content should vanish from the Internet, not photos that move the whole world."

Facebook's statement said it will adjust its review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward.

"We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward," it said.

Paul Colford, AP vice president and director of media relations, said: "The Associated Press is proud of Nick Ut's photo and recognizes its historical impact. In addition, we reserve our rights to this powerful image."

Before it was published 44 years ago, AP also had a discussion about the image because it violated the news agency's policy on full-frontal nudity.

Hal Buell, then AP's executive news photo editor in New York, said he received a message from Saigon photo editor Horst Faas saying a "controversial picture" was coming up.

"Maybe we discussed it on the desk for 10-15 minutes," said Buell, who is now retired. "But there is nothing about this picture that is prurient. How can we not publish this picture? It captures the horrors of war. It captures the terrible situation of innocents caught in the crossfire of the war."

AP published the image and media worldwide used it, though some chose not to, Buell said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is appealing a federal judge's ruling that overturned the murder conviction of "Making a Murderer" subject Brendan Dassey.

The notice of appeal was filed Friday, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

Dassey and his uncle Steven Avery were convicted in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. Their cases were featured on the Netflix docu-series "Making a Murderer."

Federal Magistrate William Duffin overturned Dassey's murder conviction on Aug. 12. Prosecutors were given 90 days to appeal the ruling or release Dassey from prison.

Dassey's attorneys had argued that Dassey's constitutional rights were violated in the way that the case was investigated.

"We believe the magistrate judge's decision that Brendan Dassey's confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law," Attorney General Brad Schimel said, the newspaper reported. "Two state courts carefully examined the evidence and properly concluded that Brendan Dassey's confession to sexually assaulting and murdering Teresa Halbach with his uncle, Steven Avery, was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics."

Schimel said Halbach's family "has been notified of the appeal and fully supports the State's decision to seek justice on behalf of their daughter."

The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University in Chicago, which is representing Dassey, issued this statement to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

"We are disappointed in the State's decision to prolong Brendan's case by seeking an appeal," the release stated. "We look forward to continuing to defend his rights in court. Like Brendan, we remain grateful to his many supporters for their continued loyalty and strength."
A Demopolis man was arrested Thursday for intentionally starting several house fires around the city, according to authorities.

Willie James Harris

Demopolis police said Willie James Harris, 18, has been setting the abandoned homes on fire for over a month. Police Chief Tommie Reese said Harris' arrest was the result of a long-term investigation. More arrests are expected since the investigation is ongoing, Reese said.

Harris was charged with first-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespassing, two counts of second-degree arson and two counts of third-degree burglary.
Al Jazeera meets someone who finds comfort in talking openly about self-harm, and a researcher who has written a guide for parents.

Note: Al Jazeera is publishing this piece on World Suicide Prevention Day. If you are affected by any of the issues it raises, please visit IASPs website.

Megan Dallat shows me her series of three photographs of women hanging in a downtown Belfast art gallery. Each of the women has a violent streak of red paint running across their bodies.

They are disturbing images, particularly given Dallats history of self-harm.

The arts blogger first cut herself when she was 14, on her left forearm with a pin. She progressed to fishing knives and razor blades on her upper thighs. The cutting continued until last year when, at 23, she got the help she needed and stopped self-harming.

Back then if I was to cut I would know that I was going to do it throughout the day. I would feel a building frustration and there was nothing that I could do to help myself, or nowhere I could turn.

It was so frustrating and then it was almost exciting to get ready to do it, and then doing it was a release of, I dont know, an up emotion, said Dallat, who has a small sunflower tattooed on one ankle and a tiny heart tattoo, barely visible in white ink, on her wrist.

Mental health workers estimate that 10 to 15 percent of young people self-harm; cutting and pill overdoses are the most common forms. Most, like Dallat, learn other ways of coping and outgrow the destructive behaviour by their mid-20s, but 1 to 2 percent end up committing suicide.

Mental health professionals say that a majority of people who do kill themselves have self-harmed at some point in their lives.

Parents of young people who self-harm are often blind-sided when they learn their carefully nurtured child is harming himself or herself. Dallats parents learned their daughters secret from a teacher.

Warning signs

Now, there is help available, in the form of a 12-page booklet entitled Coping with Self-harm; A Guide for Parents and Carers. Its been translated into Flemish and Icelandic, and other languages may follow.

I went to Oxford to the universitys Centre for Suicide Research to meet the guides author.

Anne Ferrey consulted 42 parents in putting together the guide. Its clearly written with tips on what parents should look for: a child refusing to swim, covering their arms with long sleeves, or bangles and bracelets  more than the usual teenage withdrawn behaviour.

Ferrey explained that self-harm does seem to release endorphins, positive chemicals that bring short-term relief.

For some people it just helps them feel more in control of their life. So, young people will say, I cant control anything else  but I can control how I treat my own body.

Although it does help them in the moment feel like its improving the way theyre feeling, overall its quite negative and its not something you would want to continue, she said.

READ MORE: What mental illness means to me

Ferreys office in the Department of Psychiatry is tucked behind the Warneford Hospital, built in 1826 as the Oxford Lunatic Asylum. Just the language shows how far weve come since then in accepting mental illness.

Its difficult to find people willing to talk about mental illness. Most dont want to expose themselves to ridicule  to be considered a freak. And those whove stopped cutting want to forget their unstable period and move on.

Dallat is a rare, brave voice willing to buck the stigma and talk about her difficult history.

The more people talk about it the more you feel you can open up without being judged, Dallat told me as rain pelted the large windows in her Belfast studio.

I can talk about [self-harm] because I am completely over it, and if theres anything I can do to help other people stop, I want to do it.

Click here to view Dallats personal website.
Berbera, Somaliland  Up to one million sheep and goats crowd vast, smelly pens across three quarantine stations in the searing heat and desert wind outside Somalilands ancient Red Sea port town of Berbera.

During the weeks of the peak season, a steady stream of the finest animals have arrived from markets around the Horn of Africa to be shipped across the Gulf of Aden to Saudi Arabia, destined for ceremonial slaughter in the lead-up to this months annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca and the Eid al-Adha celebrations that will fall on September 12.

Somaliland is a breakaway territory in northern Somalia that declared itself independent in 1991 but remains internationally unrecognised. It has one of the lowest gross domestic products per head in the world and a youth unemployment rate pushing 70 percent.





Livestock production is the backbone of Somalilands fragile economy with up to 80 percent of the territorys export income generated by sales of sheep, goat, camel and cattle.

Around 5.3 million animals were exported throughout 2015 from greater Somalias three fractured territories of Somaliland, Puntland and South Central, constituting a six percent increase on the previous year according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Between Berbera and the neighbouring ports of Djibouti and Bosaso, this trade movement of live animals is one of the largest in the world.

In May this year, Dubai-based global ports company DP World won an historic bid to expand, operate and manage the Berbera port for a period of 30 years in a landmark deal worth $442m.

The project aims to boost trade for underdeveloped Somaliland, open a trade corridor connecting landlocked Ethiopia to the Red Sea and take pressure off neighbouring Djibouti, one of the busiest ports in Africa.

Somalilands herders devastated by drought
The Security Council needs to stop simply uttering condemnations and take decisive action by imposing the arms embargo.

Matt Wells is the senior advisor on peacekeeping for Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC).

The past three weeks have seen steady criticism of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) for its inability to protect civilians during and after the July fighting in Juba. Much of that criticism is justified, and a recently appointed UN Special Investigation should lead to accountability for those who underperformed. But UN leadership in New York, including the Security Council, has failed those same peacekeepers through inadequate emergency care and a meek response to government obstruction.

Its time for the Council, just back from South Sudan, to put peacekeepers in the best position to succeed  including by imposing an arms embargo.





On July 10-11, UN House  the core area of UN offices in Juba as well as the site of two camps sheltering some 37,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs)  was the epicentre of heavy fighting between President Salva Kiirs Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and then-First Vice President Riek Machars SPLA-in Opposition (SPLA-IO).

Bullets, tank shells, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) landed near and inside the UN base in yet another flagrant violation of the UNs sanctity and the laws of war.

Rules of engagement

According to our interviews with witnesses and UNMISS officials, as well as an internal UNMISS timeline, an RPG struck a UN armoured vehicle inside POC1, which houses about 8,600 IDPs, around 6:30 pm on July 10. Six Chinese peacekeepers were seriously injured.

OPINION: South Sudan  A country captured by armed factions

The wounded peacekeepers were quickly transported to the basic clinic at UN House, where there was no blood for a transfusion and no surgical team. Around 7:30pm, China requested a UN medical evacuation to get the casualties to a hospital at the UN base in Jubas Tongping neighbourhood, only 10 miles away.

Improved trauma care and medevac capabilities would send peacekeepers a strong and needed message of support. by

Fifteen hours later, the wounded Chinese peacekeepers were still stuck at UN House. Two died during that period, one of them after bleeding for 16 hours. His death, many UNMISS officials told me, was most likely preventable. It took another seven hours, and China negotiating bilaterally with the government, to move the remaining casualties.

A military officer at UNMISS told me that in return for their commitment to put their life on the line, soldiers have two basic expectations. First, that if they follow their rules of engagement, they will have the support of their military and civilian command. And second, if wounded, every effort will be made to get them immediate medical care.

Failure to uphold these expectations is devastating for soldiers morale. A Western official in South Sudan told me his countrys military officers are even encouraged to disobey orders if medevac capacities are not in place, and have done so in places such as Afghanistan.

In the weeks since the July violence, UNMISS struggled to send out armoured or foot patrols. During this period, South Sudanese women venturing outside the camp, desperate to find food for their families, were raped on a large scale by SPLA soldiers.

Several UNMISS military officials linked the reluctance, in part, to troops concerns about the lack of medevac capacity if they ended up in a confrontation with the SPLA.

To be sure, concerns over medical care and evacuation are not solely, or even primarily, responsible for peacekeepers inability or unwillingness to protect civilians.

There were serious inadequacies with UNMISSs response in July irrespective of the medevac problem. Likewise, there were major peacekeeping failures during an attack in February on IDPs housed in a UN base in Malakal.

Message of support

Still, improved trauma care and medevac capabilities would send peacekeepers a strong and needed message of support. While in Juba, we were told that, after what happened in July, there were efforts to recruit a medical team and establish a hospital at UN House. That should be an immediate priority for the UN leadership in New York.

OPINION: South Sudan  Independence movement gone wrong

The Chinese peacekeepers likely preventable death is also another consequence of the government of South Sudans relentlessly blocking UNMISSs movement.

The UN was negotiating to move the casualties to Tongping, yet did not receive the necessary assurances. Even the Chinese Battalions Quick Reaction Force would not transport the wounded soldiers through Juba, so great was the perceived risk that the SPLA would target a UN vehicle.

The fighting forces obstruction of UNMISS has been an almost daily occurrence over the past three years, undermining the missions response as civilians have been targeted for killings and sexual violence; and humanitarians have been blocked repeatedly and subjected to violence.

The recent Security Council resolution on South Sudan links a long overdue arms embargo to continued obstruction, either of UNMISS or the deployment of 4,000 additional peacekeepers.

There is no question that the government continues to impede the missions movement, and it has sent mixed signals, at best, on accepting the additional peacekeepers. To better position UNMISS to protect civilians under threat, the Security Council needs to stop simply uttering condemnations and take decisive action by imposing the arms embargo.

Matt Wells is the senior adviser on peacekeeping for Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC).

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
At least 50 people were also injured when fierce fire engulfed packaging factory north of the capital Dhaka.

An earlier version reported that the fire took place at a garment factory. That was incorrect. The fire was at a packaging factory.

At least 24 people have been killed and 50 injured after a fire engulfed a packaging factory north of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported on Saturday that the fire erupted due to a boiler explosion at the Tampako Packaging Factory in the industrial town of Tongi, 20km north of the capital.

Citing hospital officials, the paper said the bodies of 19 people were recovered from the building while five others succumbed to their injuries while undergoing treatment.

Michael Shipper, the secretary of the Labour and Employment Ministry, also told Al Jazeera that the death toll stood at 22.

About 100 people are believed to have been working at the building when flames tore through the four-storey factory.

A series of deadly incidents have raised concern over safety standards in the South Asian countrys factories.

What I have seen here is an industry with bad safety provisions, Shaidul Haq, the inspector general of Bangladesh police told reporters gathered in the capital.

We have to look into whether the factory had proper permission or proper documents.

Working conditions have been described as notoriously poor, with little enforcement of safety laws, while overcrowding and locked fire doors are common.

A fire at a plastics factory last year killed 13, and in 2013 more than 1,100 people died in the Rana Plaza factory collapse, Bangladeshs worst industrial accident.
Opposition leader Ping says judges must choose between stability and instability when weighing call to nullify result.

Libreville, Gabon  Gabons opposition leader has warned of further instability if judges do not heed his call to recount votes after a closely fought presidential election.

Jean Pings warning came after he filed a petition challenging the election results, and after two weeks of sporadic violence.

I fear that if they [judges] make a wrong judgment, Gabon will be unstable, he said at opposition headquarters in the capital Libreville. They have to choose between stability and instability. Its a heavy responsibility but I hope they make judgment that is beyond passion.

Ping lost the August 27 presidential election to incumbent Ali Bongo by only 6,000 votes.

In his court petition, Ping requested a recount of votes from President Bongos home province of Haut-Ogooue, and for the election result to be nullified.

READ MORE: Gabons Jean Ping challenges result in court

His supporters celebrated his decision to file a petition. Gathering in Libreville as they awaited his arrival at the headquarters, dozens cheered and chanted pro-opposition slogans.

The atmosphere, though, turned hostile when a journalist who works for the national broadcaster turned up,. underlining the tension that still exists.

The opposition and some rights groups have said dozens were killed in violence between protesters and police after the vote. Hundreds went missing in a crackdown on dissent, they have said.

Government leaders contest those figures, saying that at least four people were killed and more than 1,000 people were arrested.

Theres a lot of news from politicians that say 50 people have been killed, but you need to verify this information by going to hospitals and mortuaries, said Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet Boubeya, as he addressed journalists. Im surprised to hear this figure. Give me a list of names and Ill look into it.

President Bongo and his ministers have said that there were election irregularities in opposition strongholds that must be investigated.

Judges at the constitutional court have two weeks to either throw out the oppositions complaint or invalidate the election results.

Follow Catherine Soi on Twitter: @c_soi
Death toll rises to 78 in anti-India protests as lock down of disputed region continues for 64th day.

Two protesters have been killed and at least 100 others injured when anti-India demonstrators clashed with government forces in Indian-administered Kashmir as the region remains locked down for the 64th day, officials have said.

One young man was killed in southern Shopian district on Saturday when his head was hit with a tear-gas canister fired by police, a medical officer in the local hospital said.

Another protester died of pellet injuries as government forces fired pump action shotguns to break up a public rally against Indian rule attended by thousands in Botengoo village in southern Kashmir valley, a police officer said.

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

We have reports of more than 100 injured in todays protests. Around 25 of them have bullet wounds, the police officer said.

The protests and clashes broke out in at least half a dozen places across the southern and central parts of the Himalayan valley.

WATCH  Reality Check: Who actually cares about the Kashmiris?

Thousands of people in Indian-administered Kashmir have been protesting against Indian rule almost daily since the killing of a popular rebel leader in a gun battle with soldiers on July 8, staging freedom rallies.

With Saturdays killings, the death toll in the unrest, which has entered its third month, climbed to 78.

The government has been coming under growing pressure over the use of pellet guns and the level of casualties in Kashmir during the anti-India protests.

The metal pellets or birdshot fired from the pump-action shotguns rarely result in deaths, but can often blind victims if the fragments hit them in the eye.

Authorities lifted a curfew in most parts of the territory late last month, but schools, shops and many banks remain closed while residents struggle with a communications blackout.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the two gained independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full.

Several rebel groups have for decades fought Indian soldiers  currently numbering around 500,000 deployed in the territory, demanding independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.
Israeli PM says Palestinian opposition to Israeli settlements in West Bank is ethnic cleansing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced growing criticism after he attributed the Palestinian opposition to Israeli settlements in their territory with ethnic cleansing.

In a video released on Friday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, were an obstacle to peace, drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted Israels diversity which manifests in the nearly two million Arabs living in the Jewish state and reflects its openness and readiness for peace.

Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews, he said.

Theres a phrase for that: Its called ethnic cleansing.

The US State Department called the video unhelpful and inappropriate.

We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank, spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said on Friday.

READ MORE: Israel approves millions for West Bank settlements

We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful, she said.

Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties.

Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage.

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

After Netanyahus video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised, she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Imaginary reality

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating an imaginary reality and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu doesnt care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major cities, he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

READ MORE: Netanyahu renews rejection of French peace initiative

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahus government has nonetheless continued with the policy.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law and major obstacles to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.
US president begins remembrance by celebrating diversity and promising to destroy groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL.

Hailing the values and resilience that he says both define and sustains Americans, President Barack Obama on Saturday honoured the nearly 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In his weekly radio and internet address, he also hailed the bravery of survivors and the emergency personnel who responded, and the work of scores of others who have worked since to keep the US safe.

In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters  We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society, he said.

The attackers goal was to frighten Americans into changing how they live, Obama said, adding: Americans will never give in to fear.

Were still the America of heroes who ran into harms way, of ordinary folks who took down the hijackers, of families who turned their pain into hope, Obama said.

Diversity makes us resilient

Its our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly  no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith  thats part of what makes our country great. Its what makes us resilient, said the president, whose term ends in January 2017.

WATCH: The 9/11 decade

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York City, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon when hijacked commercial airliners were slammed into all three locations in attacks that were planned and carried out by the al-Qaeda group.

Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was killed nearly a decade later by US forces during a May 2011 raid on his Pakistani hideout that Obama authorised.

Obama noted in his address that the threat has evolved since September 11, 2001, as weve seen so tragically from Boston to Chattanooga, from San Bernardino to Orlando, cities that suffered headline-grabbing attacks.

He pledged that the US will stay relentless against attacks from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which is spreading its mayhem across the Middle East and the West.

So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, well stay relentless against terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIL.

We will destroy them. And well keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland, Obama said.

Obama will mark Sundays anniversary by observing a moment of silence in the privacy of the White House residence at 8:46am EDT, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, before delivering remarks at a Pentagon memorial service.
Fatah and Hamas officials have responded to the indefinite deferral of local elections by blaming each other.

Exactly one month before the long-awaited local elections were set to take place across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian high court in Ramallah suspended the vote  and it is now unclear whether polling will go ahead at all.

The October 8 vote was meant to elect local councils in more than 400 cities and towns across the occupied Palestinian territories. Thursdays ruling does not definitively cancel the polls, with the court announcing a further hearing for September 21.

The decision to suspend the elections was based on the disqualification of a number of Fatah lists by a Gaza court, and on the inability to hold a vote in occupied East Jerusalem due to Israeli opposition.

As the elections were obstructed in Jerusalem and because of the procedural hurdles in Gaza, a decision was taken to defer the elections, the court stated.

INSIDE STORY: Can Hamas and Fatah work together?

Both Fatah and Hamas officials responded by blaming each other. Fatah spokesperson Osama Qawasmi accused Hamas of deliberately sabotaging the elections for fear of the results, while Hamas denounced the politically motivated court ruling as an effort to rescue Fatah after its lists of candidates collapsed in a number of areas. Hamas alleged that the ruling effectively originated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Many Palestinians have trouble seeing the cancellation as anything other than politicised, with a weak legal pretext, Nathan Thrall, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.





Thrall noted that in 2012, when Hamas chose not participate in West Bank-only municipal elections, Jerusalem was excluded, and Fatah raised no objections. Now that Hamas decided to participate, the elections have been cancelled, supposedly because they would not take place in Jerusalem, he said.

Ever since the June 21 decision to hold the municipal elections, and particularly since Hamass announcement on July 15 that it would participate in the polls, there has been an intensifying climate of tension, with rounds of accusations and counter-accusations between Fatah and Hamas.

On September 6, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights expressed concern over the violations against activists and candidates in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including threatening some candidates either of arresting, beating or shooting; severely beating political activists, arrests and summonses on grounds of elections and other violations.

Many Palestinians have trouble seeing the cancellation as anything other than politicised, with a weak legal pretext. by Nathan Thrall, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group

Another obstacle to free and fair elections is the Israeli occupation. Aside from thwarting voting in the illegally annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli forces have also continued their long-standing harassment of Hamas activists in the West Bank  including placing Hamass representative on the Elections Commission under a six-month administrative detention order.

The Israeli authorities were clearly worried at the prospect of Hamas achieving some degree of success in the polls; senior military and Shin Bet officials repeatedly warned Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in recent weeks that the elections could be a dangerous gamble.

The Israelis assessment was that a divided, and thus weakened, Fatah, along with Abbass lack of popularity, could help to create conditions similar to those that saw Hamas sail to victory in 2006.

OPINION: Hamas is firmly in power, but it has yet to deliver

While the suspension, and possible complete cancellation, of the municipal elections may be welcomed by Israeli military officials, for every other actor, it is a lose-lose situation.

According to Hala Turjman, a Brussels-based researcher in Middle Eastern affairs and a member of Al Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, recent developments will only add to the already crumbling legitimacy of the PA in recent weeks during the Nablus events, the six hunger-strikers and the teachers strikes.

Thrall similarly believes that Fatah will be a major loser if the election does not go ahead but may have decided that being blamed for the cancellation is a lesser evil than getting trounced at the polls.

But Hamas also loses, he said, because elections offered it a chance to shake things up and perhaps offload onto new municipal leaders some of the responsibility for the mounting problems in Gaza.

It is possible that the elections could still go ahead. What is certain, however, is that while some hoped local polls could be a prelude to parliamentary and presidential elections and a step towards ending the national division, recent events have simply highlighted just how stubborn and bitter the split truly is.

Municipal elections serve as a signpost of the level of readiness of the factions to work with one another, rather than themselves being an expression of unity, Turjman said. The prerequisites for elections to even get off the ground just do not exist, she added: So there is no way forward.
Philippine president vows day of reckoning for those involved in September 2 blast that killed 14 people.

Davao City, Philippines  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned that more blasts could hit the country because of reprisals against his government, a week after a bombing killed 14 people and injured more than 60 others in his home city.

Arriving in Davao after his first foreign trip as president, Duterte told reporters on Saturday that it was too early to talk publicly about any leads being pursued by those investigating the September 2 attack.

But I guarantee you that there will be a day of reckoning. So watch out, Duterte said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Duterte was returning on Saturday from a visit to Indonesia, which followed his trip to Laos to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) summit.

Duterte did not mention a specific group involved in the attack. But after the blast, he ordered the army to carry out a major operation in the Sulu province, sending at least 7,000 troops to a province long known as a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf armed group.

Senior government officials had earlier blamed Abu Sayyaf, an armed group that has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), for the Davao blast.

The Philippine navy had imposed a blockade to stop fighters from slipping out of the notoriously porous southern border next to Malaysia and Indonesia.

An ongoing military offensive has killed at least 32 fighters and left more than a dozen government soldiers dead.

READ MORE: The Philippines  where bodies pile up, but no one talks

In Davao, Sara Duterte, city mayor and daughter of the president, has raised a reward offered for those behind the attack from $20,000 to $30,000, a hefty amount in the Philippines.

On Saturday afternoon, state broadcaster PTV reported that a politician from Mindanao had been arrested after being linked to the attack. He was identified as Talitay, Maguindanao vice mayor Abdulwahab Sabal. He has denied the allegations, according to the ABS-CBN website.

Sabal and his brother, Montasir Sabal, Talitay mayor, have also been linked to the illegal drug trade in their province, the PTV report said.

On Friday in Indonesia, Duterte told a group of Filipino workers that he wanted Abu Sayyaf blown up at sea.

He said that Indonesia can go ahead and blast them [Abu Sayyaf] off in the event of a chase in the high seas between the two neighbouring countries.

Duterte said the Indonesian navy had the right to enter Philippine territory if they were pursuing the armed group, adding that the Philippine navy would work closely with it to end this problem once and for all.

After a meeting with President Joko Widodo, Duterte issued a statement saying: We expressed commitment to take all necessary measures to ensure security in the Sulu Sea and maritime areas of common concern.

In May, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia reached an agreement to coordinate patrols in shared sea routes.

Abu Sayyaf, whose name translates as Bearer of the Sword, has been involved in a spate of kidnapping cases in Muslim-majority Sulu and elsewhere in the southern Philippines for years.

It is believed that it is currently holding at least nine Indonesians and seven other foreign nationals.

In June and April, the group claimed responsibility for the beheadings of two Canadians.

READ MORE: Inside Abu Sayaff  Blood, drugs and conspiracies

Abu Sayyaf emerged in the early 1990s during a separatist rebellion being fought by minority Moro Muslims in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.

Conducting bombings, kidnappings, beheadings and extortion, the groups kidnap-for-ransom operations have become a lucrative business for the group.

In 2017, the Philippines will host the annual ASEAN summit.

Asked if Davao could be the venue, Duterte said it would depend on the security situation.

I would have to listen to the military and the police for an accurate assessment, he said.
Smartphone maker calls on consumers to stop using faulty Galaxy Note 7s and exchange them as reports of fires continue.

Samsung Electronics has renewed calls to consumers to stop using its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones immediately and exchange them as soon as possible, as more reports of phones catching fire emerged even after the companys global recall.

The fresh call from the South Korean company, the worlds largest smartphone maker, came on Saturday after US authorities urged consumers to switch off the Note 7 and not to use or charge it during a flight.

Several airlines around the world asked travellers not switch on the smartphone or put it in checked baggage, with some carriers banning the phone on flights.

In a statement posted on its website, Samsung asked users around the world to immediately return their existing Galaxy Note 7 and get a replacement.

We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note 7s and exchange them as soon as possible, Koh Dong-jin, Samsungs mobile president, said in the statement.

We are expediting replacement devices so that they can be provided through the exchange programme as conveniently as possible.

Consumers can visit Samsungs service centres to receive rental phones for temporary use. Samsung plans to provide Galaxy Note 7 devices with new batteries in South Korea starting on September 19, but schedules for other countries vary.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced an unprecedented recall of 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s worldwide just two weeks after the phone was launched. That move came after Samsungs investigation into reports of fires found that rechargeable lithium batteries manufactured by one of its suppliers were at fault.

READ MORE: Samsung halts Galaxy Note 7 sales over battery problem

The US was among the first countries to take action following the recall. Late on Friday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged owners of the phone to turn them off and leave them off. It also said it was working with Samsung and hoped to have an official recall as soon as possible.

The recall by the safety commission will allow the US Federal Aviation Administration to ban passengers from carrying the phones on planes. The FAA warned airline passengers late on Thursday not to turn on or charge the Galaxy Note 7 during flights and not to put the smartphone in their checked baggage.

Scandinavian Airlines said on Saturday that it has prohibited passengers from using the Galaxy Note 7 on its flights because of concerns about fires. Singapore Airlines has also banned the use or charging of the device during flights.

Samsung said it had confirmed 35 cases of the Galaxy Note 7 catching fire as of September 1, most of them occurring while the battery was being charged.

There are at least two more cases that Samsung said it is aware of  one at a hotel in Perth, Australia, and another in St Petersburg, Florida, where a family reported that a Galaxy Note 7 left charging in their Jeep had caught fire, destroying the vehicle.

Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7 on August 19. The Galaxy Note series is one of the most expensive line-ups made by Samsung.
Agreement, hailed as breakthrough, aims to halt fighting and start US-Russian military cooperation in Syria.

The United States and Russia hailed a breakthrough deal on Saturday to put Syrias peace process back on track, including a nationwide ceasefire.

The deal, agreed upon by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, aims at halting fighting in Syria and moving towards a political transition after over five years of combat between President Bashar al-Assads forces and opposition rebels.

Here is a closer look at the deal.

What the agreement says

A nationwide ceasefire by Assads forces and the US-backed opposition is set to begin across Syria at sundown on Monday.

That sets off a seven-day period that will allow for humanitarian aid and civilian traffic into Aleppo, Syrias largest city, which has faced a recent onslaught.

Fighting forces are to also pull back from the Castello Road, a key thoroughfare and access route into Aleppo, and create a demilitarised zone around it.

Also on Monday, the US and Russia will begin preparations for the creation of a Joint Implementation Centre that will involve information sharing needed to define areas controlled by the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) and opposition groups in areas of active hostilities.

The centre is expected to be established a week later, and is to launch a broader effort towards delineating other territories in control of various groups.

As part of the arrangement, Russia is expected to keep Syrian air force planes from bombing areas controlled by the opposition. The US has committed to help weaken Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that has intermingled with the US-backed opposition in several places.

A resumption of political dialogue between the government and opposition under UN mediation, which was halted amid an upsurge in fighting in April, will be sought over the longer term.

Who is on board

Kerry said the US-supported opposition and other fighters will be called upon to set themselves apart from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

Lavrov said through a translator: The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfil them.

How the arrangement came together

The Geneva negotiating session lasted more than 13 hours and capped a flurry of meetings between the two diplomats in recent days.

Kerry and Lavrov met four times since a previous Geneva meeting on August 26, and Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed the matter at a summit in China.

What makes the agreement different

The US and Russia, ultimately, are to find themselves fighting together against ISIL and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and embarking on unprecedented information-sharing, aimed at dispelling long-standing mistrust between the two powers over the Syria conflict.

Kerry acknowledged confusion over Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and legitimate opposition groups that had led to a fraying of a ceasefire that was shepherded earlier this year by the US and Russia and brought a badly-needed, if temporary, respite to Syrian civilians for several weeks.

Will the agreement work

For the agreement to work, Russia will need to persuade the Syrian air force to stop strikes on anti-government positions, which have killed large numbers of civilians.

In turn, Washington has to get the opposition groups it backs to separate themselves from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which has allied itself with a range of rebels at different points in the fluid conflict.

The armed opposition in Syria now faces what is perhaps its biggest and most momentous decision since they chose to take up arms against the Assad regime in 2011, said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank.

Mainstream rebels appear reluctant to withdraw from frontlines where Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters are also present because of fears the ceasefire will fail, he said.

For this reason alone, many opposition figures see the US-Russia talks and whatever comes from them as a conspiracy against their long and hard fought for revolution. It will be hard to change this mindset, Lister added.

A truce agreed in February and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council has been repeatedly broken by both sides.
The United States and Russia hailed a breakthrough deal on Saturday to put Syrias peace process back on track, including a nationwide ceasefire effective from sundown on Monday.

Today, Sergey Lavrov and I, on behalf of our president and our countries, call on every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russia have reached, to  bring this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would enable coordination of the fight against armed groups and a revival of Syrias failed truce in an enhanced form.

This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time, Lavrov told a news conference.

READ MORE: Syria ceasefire deal explained

The two powers back opposite sides of the conflict, with Moscow supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the US behind a coalition of rebel groups.

If Russia is able to pressure Assad to respect the ceasefire for a week, Moscow and Washington will set up a joint coordination unit and begin air strikes against agreed targets.

We will jointly agree on strikes against terrorists to be carried out by the Russian and American air forces. We have agreed on the zones in which these strikes will be carried out, said Lavrov.

Marathon talks

The much anticipated  if tentative  breakthrough came at the end of marathon talks between Lavrov and Kerry in Geneva, as the pair pushed for an end of the five-year civil war.

Today, the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria, Kerry said.

The vexed question of Assads fate remains, with Western powers calling for his removal and Russia backing him.

But both Kerry and Lavrov said the complex plan represents the best available chance to end the fighting between the government and the mainstream opposition rebels, while still targeting Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (the group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Key to the deal is the withdrawal of Syrian government forces around rebel-held Aleppo, allowing desperately needed humanitarian access to besieged communities.

The High Negotiations Committee, an umbrella group of the Syrian opposition, on Saturday welcomed the deal, saying it hoped it would bring relief to hundreds of thousands of civilians.

We hope this will be the beginning of the end of the civilians ordeal, HNC spokeswoman Bassma Kodmani said. We welcome the deal if it is going to be enforced.

Russia also needs to persuade the Syrian air force to stop strikes on anti-government positions, which have also killed large numbers of civilians.

In turn, Washington has to get the opposition groups it backs to separate themselves from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which has allied itself with a range of rebels at different points in the fluid conflict.

Only if commitments by Moscow and the Assad government to cease violence for seven days are fully met will the US and Russia start cooperating with joint strikes, the Pentagon said in a statement following the announcement.

Lavrov cautioned that Moscow could not 100 percent guarantee that all the parties would obey the ceasefire.

The Syrian Government has been informed by us about these arrangements, and it is ready to fulfil them, he added.

Window of opportunity

A truce agreed in February and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council has been repeatedly broken by both sides.

The final hours of the talks dragged out as Kerry contacted US President Barack Obamas office to get approval for the plan, but the top diplomat said both governments stand behind it.

The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia and my colleague have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and come to the table and make peace, Kerry said.

The UNs Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura described the deal as a window of opportunity, and said he would discuss with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when stalled political negotiations can restart.

Pro-government forces have taken back a strategically important district on Aleppos southern outskirts, rolling back nearly every gain from a month-long rebel offensive there.

The government advance further sealed off Aleppos opposition-held eastern districts, and government troops backed by the Russian air force have completely encircled opposition-held neighbourhoods, leaving the civilian population completely cut off.

In another major blow to the rebels, the military commander of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the largest rebel alliance, was killed in an air strike, rebel sources said on Thursday.

Rebels are now back to square one, under an even more ruthless siege, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP news agency.

In Aleppo, once Syrias economic powerhouse, which has been ravaged by the conflict that began with anti-government protests in March 2011, desperate civilians described a battle for survival.

The conflict has so far claimed an estimated 400,000 lives, according to the UN special envoy for the Syria crisis Staffan de Mistura. Millions of others have been displaced.
Ruinous violence has raged in several parts of Syria, shortly after the US and Russia sealed an ambitious agreement aimed at breathing life back into a stuttering peace process.

More than 100 people were reported killed in a series of bombing raids on rebel-held parts of Aleppo province in the north of the country, and in Idlib in the north-west.

The worst strikes were in Idlib city, the capital of the province of the same name, where they hit a market, killing 55 civilians.

A Russian fighter jet targeted a residential area and a market in Idlib, said Al Jazeeras Adham Abu al-Husam, reporting from the city as civil defence forces, firefighters and paramedics worked to pull survivors from the rubble.

The marketplace was full of civilians shopping for the upcoming Eid holiday.

In Aleppo, at least 46 civilians, including nine children, were killed in a bombardment of opposition-held areas, an Al Jazeera correspondent in the city said.

The raids on Idlib and Aleppo were believed to have been carried out by Syrian army fighter jets, or those of its main ally Russia.

Aleppo, a major battleground in the conflict, has seen intensified fighting between government forces and the opposition in recent months, worsening the humanitarian situation there.

The surge in violence came hours after the United States and Russias top diplomats announced the ceasefire agreement after 13 hours of talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The accord included a truce to start across Syria at sunset on Monday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.

The agreement also paved the way for joint US-Russian raids against hardline groups in Syria, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

READ MORE: Syria ceasefire deal explained

US Secretary of State John Kerry, emerging late on Friday in Geneva from talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said the deal could provide a turning point in the conflict if the parties implemented it in good faith.

The two powers back opposing sides in the conflict, with Moscow supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Washington backing a coalition of rebels it regards as moderate.

Syrias state news agency, SANA, said that the Geneva agreement had been reached with full knowledge of the Syrian government, which has approved it.

Iran and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, both supporters of Assad, have supported the deal as well.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on Sunday, however, that the success of the ceasefire relied on comprehensive monitoring of the truce, particularly along Syrias volatile borders.

Opposition concerns

The influential Ahrar al-Sham rebel group late on Sunday rejected the truce deal, just hours before it was set to begin.

A high-ranking member of the group, which works closely with former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, said in a statement on YouTube that the deal would only serve to reinforce the government of President Bashar al-Assad and increase the suffering of civilians.

The oppositions political umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), cautiously welcomed the agreement, but said it required effective enforcement mechanisms if any truce deal is to credible.

We hope this will be the beginning of the end of the civilians ordeal, HNC member Bassma Kodmani said.

We welcome the deal if it is going to be enforced. What if Russia doesnt pressure the regime, because that is the only way to get the regime to comply? We are waiting with a lot of anxiety.

Kodmani told Al Jazeera that if the truce was to be credible, any ceasefire violation should be met with a military response.

If we we have a credible line of cessation of hostilities, then we can look to moderate groups in the opposition to disassociate themselves from extremists.

In a letter sent to Syrian rebels over the weekend, US State Department envoy Michael Ratney urged armed opposition groups to distance themselves from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, or there would be severe consequences.

Reuters news agency reported on Sunday that Syrian rebel groups responded to Ratneys letter on Sunday, saying they would cooperate positively with a ceasefire, but voicing deep concerns over the details of the deal.

The agreement, the rebels wrote in a letter to the US, neglected besieged areas and was devoid of guarantees, monitoring mechanisms or sanctions for breaches.

The rebel letter also expressed concern at clauses in the agreement indicating that Syrian government jets would not be barred from flying until up to nine days after the ceasefire had taken effect.
Protest part of a growing animal rights movement that has prompted local authorities to crack down on the tradition.

Thousands of people have rallied in the Spanish capital Madrid to call for a ban on bullfighting, adding their voices to a growing animal rights movement that has prompted some administrations to clamp down on the centuries-old tradition.

PACMA, a Spanish political party that promotes animal rights, said that Saturdays rally was the biggest protest yet against the gory sport, in which a matador brandishing a sword and cape battles a bull in an effort to kill the animal as a public spectacle.

[Its] time to end bullfighting and all other bloody spectacles, a PACMA spokesman said at the rally.

The Madrid protesters held up banners that read Bullfighting, the school of cruelty and Bullfighting, a national shame.

Bulls feel and they suffer, said Chelo Martin Pozo, a demonstrator from the city of Seville who had come to Madrid for the rally.

Bullfights are a national shame and if they represent me, then I am not Spanish, she said.

Surveys show public support for bullfighting has waned in recent decades in Spain. An Ipsos Mori poll from January carried out for animal welfare organisation World Animal Protection, found that only 19 percent of adults in Spain supported bullfighting, while 58 percent opposed it.

Bullfighting events, in which audiences watch matadors with red capes and swords confront bulls at close range, are still common in Spain and the practice retains a loyal following across the country.

But opposition to the sport is also gaining force, and each year there has been a decline in the number of bullfights.

We dont want Spaniards to be identified with bullfighting. This is not our national fiesta, Mari Paz Rojo said as she marched through the capital with thousands of other demonstrators.

Politically, the issue has been divisive. Spains parliament, under the centre-right government of the Peoples Party, moved to protect bullfighting in 2013, declaring it a cultural asset and enabling it to draw on public funding.

But some regions have cracked down on elements of the festivals, including northeastern Catalonia, which banned bullfighting outright in 2011.

READ MORE: Spanish region says adios to bullfighting

Madrids leftist mayor, who took over the city council last year, has withdrawn subsidies for bullfighting schools.

This year for the first time, participants in one of Spains most controversial festivals, known as the Toro de la Vega (Bull of the Plain), will not be allowed to kill the bull.

In June, the countrys anti-bullfighting lobby successfully managed to obtain a ban on a famous Toro de la Vega festival that ended with a bull being speared to death in the region of Castilla y Leon.

Meanwhile Valencia, Spains third largest city, has banned the tradition of setting bulls loose with lighted torches attached to their horns  called bous embolats.

Spains first pro-bullfight lobbying group, the Bull Foundation, made up of breeders, matadors and aficionados, was set up last year.

A number of protest rallies in favour of the controversial pastime have been held recently, such as one in the eastern city of Valencia, a major bullfighting city, which drew thousands of people in March.
Finance minister says the country is struggling to pay civil servants whose salaries take up 96.8 percent of the budget.

Zimbabwes government has said it will fire up to 25,000 civil servants in an attempt to rein in government spending, while those keeping their jobs wont receive end-of-year bonuses for the next two years.

Patrick Chinamasa, the finance minister, said on Friday that the government was struggling to pay civil servants, with their salaries reportedly eating up 96.8 percent of the annual budget.

The economy is facing strong headwinds, with major challenges being experienced than what the 2016 national budget anticipated, Chinamasa was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

He said the government also ran up a $623m budget deficit in the first six months of 2016 and warned it could widen to $1bn by the end of the year.





The outlook points to a situation where projected revenues fall short of meeting employment costs, leaving no room for expenditure on operations and maintenance as well as capital projects.

The last time the Finance Minister tried to impose such drastic measures, President Robert Mugabe came out to reassure Zimbabweans that no one would be fired and that the money would come from somewhere, Al Jazeeras Haru Mutasa, reporting from the capital Harare, said.

But economists are saying Mugabe is serious under pressure to fix the ailing economy.

WATCH: Zimbabwe unrest: Media triggers, media controls

Anger over high unemployment and cash shortages has led to violent protests in the past month.

Despite Mugabes record of deploying the security forces to crush public dissent, a one-day strike in July, called by trade unions and Christian pastor Evan Mawarire, shut down offices, schools and some government departments.

Mugabe has repeatedly vowed to fight back, with threats of cracking down on protest leaders.

Police last week banned protests in the capital for two weeks as a coalition of opposition parties planned street marches to press for reforms before the next general election in 2018.

Mugabe, 92, has held power since the countrys independence from Britain in 1980. He is increasingly under pressure from opponents, as well as his war veterans allies, who last month called him as a dictator and called on him to step down.
In 2013, Australias government announced a tough new policy towards refugees travelling by boat to its shores. The campaign that went with it was called, No way. You will not make Australia home.

Its goal was to discourage asylum seekers from entering the country illegally  as the government saw it.

The whole camp was set up like that ... set up to break their spirit, to dehumanise people, to grind them into the ground and I assume to encourage them to go back ... The whole camp was set up to break people's spirits, to cause trauma. And that's probably one of the most distressing things that I first realised and that is that I'm an Australian, I'm from a liberal democratic country where our rights are enshrined and personal freedoms and all those sorts of things, they're covered by law, they're protected by law. We consider that those things are really important, in fact, we consider them paramount and yet, the people in Nauru - the refugees and the asylum seekers - they were completely deprived of those things. by Evan Davis, former teacher on Nauru

Most were coming from countries such as Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

Many refugees  having fled their homes  considered themselves stateless.

Their journeys were arduous and complex. Those from Iran, for instance, would travel first to Malaysia, where they could enter without a visa. Then theyd make their way to southernmost Indonesia, and from there, they took boats towards Australias closest islands.

The trips typically involved people smugglers and dangerous  sometimes deadly  journeys on boats that were often overloaded and unseaworthy.

Of the boats intercepted at sea by the Australian Border Force, many were forcibly turned back to where theyd come from. But passengers on some  and all those who did make it into Australian waters  were taken into custody, then deported, flown to neighbouring countries.

There, in Nauru and on Papua New Guineas Manus Island, they are still held in what Australias government calls regional processing centres. Critics call them prisons.

Nauru is a tiny 29sq kilometre island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

That small independent country  a member of the United Nations  has played a central role in the history of Australias refugee policies.

Naurus detention centre first opened in 2001, under a policy brought in by Australias conservative Liberal Party  the so-called Pacific Solution.

But this all changed when Kevin Rudd, from the centre-left Labour party, came to power in 2007. Rudd closed Naurus centre and most of the refugees were relocated to Australia.

But then as the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat started going back up, the Labour Partys government was forced to reconsider. The centre reopened in 2012.

Today, the islands detention centre is home to almost 500 people, including about 50 children.

Many of them have been there for more than three years.

But whats going on inside? Both the Nauruan and Papua New Guinean detention centres are run under a veil of secrecy, off-limits to the media and to NGOs like Amnesty International.

People working there are not allowed to talk about what they have seen. Why?

Talk to Al Jazeera sits down with former employees who have decided to break their silence to tell us about the situation inside Australias offshore detention centres.

Are they, as the government says, having the desired effect by discouraging people from making dangerous journeys? But are they also, as the people we spoke to say, dehumanising and dangerous?

We spoke to Evan Davis, a teacher who used to work with children living in the Australian-run camp in Nauru. Despite secrecy provisions limiting the ability of staff to talk, he decided to share his experience.

It struck me straight away that the place was more like a military camp, a prison, more than anything else, that was efficiently run, he says. The children were referred to by personnel as numbers, not names, and Davis said the teachers endeavoured to make a point of learning the childrens names.

Judith Reem used to teach secondary school children on Nauru. She, herself, comes from a family of Bosnian refugees to Australia, which is one of the reasons she decided to speak out publicly. The tents where people lived, she says, were not designed for habitation, and cultural considerations, such as spaces for people to pray, were not taken into account.

Judith Reem feels particularly bad about having prepared the children for a life in Australia which was never going to happen.

I feel, that in retrospect, I was a part of the lie, because I was teaching them conversational English for life in Australia and that just hasnt happened, she says. The conditions were worse than in a prison, Reem says.

Some of the children in the camp cant remember life before the camp because they were so little when they arrived, she says.

The cloak of secrecy around it [the camps] is what allows us this plausible deniability, which is hopefully a luxury I can take away.

Jennifer Rose, a former elementary school teacher in Nauru, believes Australia needs to take a different approach when it comes to dealing with asylum seekers.

How could you not be affected by seeing children retraumatised by a system that Australia has set up? Rose asks.

Editors note: Talk to Al Jazeera has reached out to the governments of Australia and Nauru, requesting interviews in order to guarantee their right to reply. Naurus government has not answered our request. Australias Department of Immigration and Border Protection agreed to an interview. Next week, Australias Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, will speak to Al Jazeera.

You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.
One by one, they approached the wooden towers.

Jotting down a good deed they had done  or would soon do  students and residents placed small squares of paper between the 3-foot-tall replicas of the World Trade Centers twin towers.

Smile at a stranger, one person wrote. Tell someone theyre beautiful. Call grandma.

By mid-afternoon on Turlington Plaza, about 100 acts of kindness decorated the space between the towers, symbols of hope nearly 15 years after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student and Community Center held the memorial event Friday. It served as a way for community members to remember the nearly 3,000 people who died Sept. 11, 2001, and to honor their lives through random acts of kindness.

Its up to us to keep their memory alive, said Rabbi Aaron Notik of Lubavitch-Chabad.

***

Charlie Anderson listed his four years serving in the U.S. Air Force as his good deed.

Working as a heavy-equipment operator in the military about three decades ago, the Gainesville resident said his job was to help rebuild bases after attacks.

But even 15 years after the deadliest terrorist attack in history, the U.S. and its people have yet to fully rebuild, he said.

But through small acts of compassion, like those pinned on Turlington Plaza, he said the nation would eventually heal.

If we put our hearts together and come together as a country, we can be great again, he said. Without that, we dont have anything. We dont have freedom.

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Mariam Hussein, a UF biology sophomore from Somalia, said she would donate to a nonprofit that specializes in child care.

She said the ripples of 9/11 are felt even today. After the attacks, grief was tinged with anger and counterintuitive foreign policy, she said.

Although understandable, Hussein said the countrys mindset has changed for the better since the attacks. Fridays event was proof of progress.

I think its awesome, the 19-year-old said. We have to move on.

Some good deeds passed through the hands of Jacob Zieper, 21, who spent the afternoon encouraging passing students to fill the plastic-foam board.

He said it was humbling and gratifying that students would take time out of their day to act selflessly.

The only way you can fight senseless hate is with random love, the UF jewish studies senior said.

mvassolo@alligator.org

@martindvassolo
A conservative UF group announced plans Friday to invite journalist Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus in October.

Yiannopoulos, a technology editor and writer for conservative news website Breitbart News, has been the subject of controversy  his critics accuse him of promoting racism, and his supporters defend his right to free speech.

In July, Twitter permanently suspended his account from its social media site.

Keira Hornyak, the president of Turning Point USA at UF, said Yiannopoulos had contacted the group about a month ago to add UF to his Dangerous Faggot speaking tour.

Hornyak said she hoped to hold the event Oct. 4, but would not clarify where it would happen. The group is currently undergoing a registration process to reserve a space for the event, she said.

Hosting Yiannopoulos, who is gay, would hopefully spark meaningful dialogue among students, she said.

I want to show the world that UF is civil and we can act like adults, she said.

Paul Bernard and Steve Orlando, UF spokesmen, said they are not aware of Turning Points plans to host Yiannopoulos.

As of press time, Yiannopoulos could not be reached for comment, and UF is not on the list of tour stops available on his official website.

He is scheduled to visit several Florida universities later this month, including Florida State University, the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida, according to his website.

Ben Duong, a UF microbiology and political science senior, said if Yiannopoulos were to visit campus, his speech would likely be met by protesters.

The 21-year-old said Yiannopoulos supports sexism, racism and xenophobia.

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He also said the writer is a proponent of the alt-right movement, which Duong described as a modern rebranding of white nationalism.

Hes definitely not above causing controversy, Duong said. In fact, I know him to usually embrace the controversy.

Noah MacGinnis, a UF political science sophomore, said both critics and supporters of Yiannopoulos would benefit from hearing him speak. Doing so, he said, would help them understand each other.

The 19-year-old said although he does not align himself with Yiannopoulos social views, he believes in defending his right to say what he wants.

I definitely share his values for sharing what he feels and expressing his first-amendment rights, MacGinnis said.

josmond@alligator.org

@jawosmond
The Movie - Frida (2002):

The Book - The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo (2012):

The Polvorones de Naranja (Orange Shortbread Cookies):



Before heading out, Frida grabbed a fistful of orange shortbreads like the ones they'd fed to the wounded, taking little mousy bites to allay her nerves.

yield: 2 dozen Author: Heather Schmitt-Gonzalez print recipe Polvorones de Naranja (Orange Shortbread Cookies) prep time: 12 MINS cook time: 18 MINS total time: 30 mins Melt-in-your-mouth soft and crumbly walnut shortbread cookies infused with a bright pop of orange. INGREDIENTS:

5 1/2 ounces (11 tablespoons) salted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

finely grated zest of 2 oranges

1/2 teaspoon orange blossom water, optional (but nice)

1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 ounces walnuts, ground to a fine meal

~1 cup powdered sugar, optional to finish: INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the orange blossom water. Add the flour and walnut meal to the bowl and beat until coarse pebbles form and no dry spots remainbasically it will look like streusel. Use your hands to press the crumbs together into a ball of dough. Use a 1 tablespoon scoop (or guesstimate) to portion dough, rolling each one into a ball and placing it on the cookie sheet, leaving at least an inch of space between each. Slide into preheated oven and bake until just golden, 18-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once they have cooled completely, roll them in the powdered sugar if you wish (personally, I like them better as-is, without powdered sugar). http://www.allroadsleadtothe.kitchen/2016/09/polvorones-de-naranja-frida.html

More Recipes for a Frida Kahlo Inspired Menu:
A September 6 story in the New York Times headlined "Nancy Pelosi Urges Paul Ryan to Ban Republicans From Using Hacked Documents" contains this:

Ms. Pelosi, calling the hack into Democratic servers, apparently by Russians, "an unprecedented assault on the sanctity of our democratic process," said Mr. Ryan should not condone either party using materials originating from the cybercrime. "Democrats and Republicans must present a united front in the face of Russia's attempts to tamper with the will of the American people," Ms. Pelosi wrote. Government officials have concluded that two Russian intelligence agencies, the F.S.B. and the G.R.U., are responsible for the hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the House Democratic campaign arm. Emails and other internal documents have been published by a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0, who is believed to be tied to the Russian intelligence agencies.

Google, right now, will find you hundreds of stories claiming Russian government involvement in a DNC hack that didn't happen  the material was copied and then leaked by someone with local access, not stolen by someone limited to remote network access.

In contrast, the original Clinton email leaks did come from hacking  but of the brute force kind that uses fake addressees constructed from the names used by the great houses of Europe (e.g., Windsor, Reynolds, Colbert, Stewart, Mojmir, and Bogdan) to identify targets and then goes after those sites using easily available modules tailored to the weaknesses inherent in poorly managed Windows hardware and software.

Thus, the bottom line on Russian involvement is first that not one person who is both in a position to know and not in thrall to the Obama administration has shown evidence for this, and second, that nothing revealed so far suggests the sophistication one would expect from state-level actors.

So why has Clinton been able to sell the idea that the Russians in general, and Putin in particular, are part of the vast right-wing conspiracy against her?

Part of answer is that the media generally want to hear this because they hate Putin for being a success but not a communist, fear Russia because its socio-political landscape now bears some resemblance to that of late 19th-century America, and want desperately to blame someone else for the disasters inflicted on the world by the Obama/Clinton foreign policy they so eagerly supported.

Another part of the answer is that it makes perfect sense for Russia to support Donald Trump. Russia needs a strong America: as Trump says, they're natural partners in keeping jihadism down to its usual dull roar  and, never forget, the Russian nationality is surrounded by majority Muslim populations whose festering resentments against central authority continually threaten both civil and border war.

Of course, a ready audience does not in itself explain the message: why would Clinton and her allies want to implicate Russia in this? Again, the obvious has to be part of the answer in that pointing at Russia gives the media something they want to help sell, avoids having to admit to internal opposition and poor management, and tends to unite the troops by giving them an external enemy.

The deeper reason, however, has to be that screaming "the Russians did it" distracts attention from the fact that Clinton's actions as secretary of state were consistently uninformed, arrogant, and rather stupid.

The easiest example of this in the Russian context involves the "reset" button she gave the Russian foreign minister in March of 2009. Here's the story, as reported by the Washington Post on March 7, 2009:

... Clinton presented [Foreign Minister] Lavrov with a palm-size box wrapped in a green ribbon. Lavrov opened it and pulled out a yellow-and-black plastic box with a red button that clicked -- a symbol of the Obama administration's determination to "reset" the relationship, as Vice President Biden phrased it last month in Germany. Lavrov, a tough-minded diplomat, burst out in a smile. At Clinton's urging, Lavrov joined her in jointly pressing the button down for the benefit of the cameras. The word "Reset" was beneath the button, and the Russian word "Peregruzka" was above it. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word," Clinton said. "Do you think we got it?" Lavrov, who never misses an opportunity for a diplomatic jab, bluntly said, "You got it wrong." The word, he pointed out, was two letters off -- it should have been "Perezagruzka." What was there, he added, actually means "overcharge." Clinton burst out in laughter and declared, "We won't let you do that to us."

Intended, as home audience political theatre showing the remaking of international partnerships destroyed by Bush administration incompetence, it became something else entirely:

The use of the Roman alphabet in place of Cyrillic for "Peregruzka" was at best insensitive and at worst an insult.

The use of the wrong word in the wrong alphabet showed the Russians that Clinton did not care enough about them even to consult the State Department's own Russian section.

Clinton's underlining of the American use of the wrong word was probably utterly naive but could reasonably be seen by Minister Lavrov as implying that he might not notice an error in his own language.

Hillary total misunderstanding of Lavrov's quick translation as "overcharge" showed her to be both historically ignorant and culturally chauvinistic  because "overcharge" is literally correct, but the reference is to gunpowder, not money.

(The more technical English rendition would be "overarm," a term of art referring to the rather dubious 19th- [and 20th-] century Russian willingness to overcharge ordnance at the risk of having the gun crew killed.)

Almost any Russian, and certainly any federal state official, would see the use of a green ribbon around a yellow and black box as a reference to the Ural Independence Movement  and, quite possibly, understand a red button on an overarmed plastic box done up in movement colors as a direct personal threat.

Personally, I think of the reset episode as a kind of exploding cigar: emblematic of Obama administration naivete and arrogance and having nothing to do with any hacking effort, but in the upside-down world of the Clinton campaign's paranoid obsession with conspiracies against them, the hacking could be seen as Russia's answer to Clinton's moronic "we won't let you do that to us"  a kind of Russian "si se puede" delivered in time to wreck her chance at the presidency.

Paul Murphy, a Canadian, wrote and published The Unix Guide to Defenestration. Murphy is a 25-year veteran of the I.T. consulting industry, specializing in Unix and Unix-related management issues.
On April 24, 2004 the USS Firebolt, a Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat in the Persian Gulf, launched a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RIB) when its crew observed a dhow -- a traditional boat, in this case likely owned by Iran -- fast approaching the Al Amaya oil terminal in Iraq. Suspecting an attempt to destroy the terminal, the RIB's seven-man crew pulled alongside the Dhow in order to board it. The dhow blew up in a blast intended for the terminal. Two sailors, Navy Petty Officers Michael Pernaselli and Christopher Watts, were killed instantly. Coast Guard Petty Officer Nathan Brukenthal died when the RIB turned over in the water. Brukenthal was the first Coast Guardsman killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Last week, the USS Firebolt was back in the news.

On September 4th a swarm of seven Iranian fast boats, armed with guns and missiles and belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval force, harassed the Firebolt and forced it to divert from its heading to avoid a collision. In an incident that lasted some eight minutes, three of the Iranian boats maneuvered within about 500 yards of the Firebolt and then pulled away. Another Iranian boat sped in front of the Firebolt and blocked its path. From what can be ascertained, the Firebolt sent radio warnings that were not answered and then - closing in at about 100 yards - the Firebolt turned away to avoid the "parked" Iranian attack craft. The Firebolt did not fire warning shots or blast its foghorn.

The Iranians were once again clearly testing swarm boat techniques and seeking to provoke the United States. It was the fourth time in less than a month. American official said there have been 31 similar events this year, almost double the same period last year. This incident follows other recent harassment of vessels including the guided missile destroyer Nitze, the patrol ships Tempest and Squall and the destroyer, the USS Stout.

General Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, said the Iranians are conducting unsafe maneuvers to exert their influence in the Gulf. He is correct.

There are major political, psychological, and military gains for the Iranians from these provocations.

On the military level the Iranians are learning a lot about the speed of the U.S. Command Structure - how long it takes for a warning to be made and what happens when the first radio broadcast, foghorn, or gun is fired. One can imagine the Iranians with stopwatches. A successful swarm attack that can do real damage to major U.S. naval assets needs to be correctly sequenced, as the Iranians surely know. Even though U.S. warships are poorly equipped to deal with swarming fast attack boats, they are not without resources. And air power can be called in to augment U.S. ships under attack. If Iran's objective in such a situation involving a real attack is to cause serious damage to a U.S. aircraft carrier or a guided missile cruiser, by now they know pretty much what they have to do and what price they will pay.

The sight of U.S. warships running away from Iranian fast boats is great political propaganda that, for the Iranians, plays well at home and abroad. It is the perfect David and Goliath moment in which the Great Satan is forced to turn and run. Iran, in fact, made a video purporting to show the sinking of the Nitze as a result of Iranian courage and righteous anger at an American invasion. Internally, such propaganda boosts the Revolutionary Guard, increasing its leverage. Outside, it helps Iran spread its influence in the region and as far afield as South America.

American allies and clients in the Persian Gulf and Middle East feel the opposite impact. If the United States does not stand up to aggression, smaller and less capable countries may find it necessary to accommodate Iran. President Obama and American policy compound their distress. The president told Jeffrey Goldberg in an Atlantic magazine interview that Saudi Arabia -- a U.S. ally and Iranian adversary -- "needs to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace." Reflexively backing the Saudis against Iran, he said, "would mean we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores. And that would be in the interest neither of the United States nor of the Middle East."

The president quickly eschews the idea of military force in the Gulf, but what other response is there to the problem posed by Iranian-created incidents? The Iranians have already captured American sailors, and it is only a matter of time before an American is killed by Iranian action -- on purpose or in error.

To stop an evolving and increasingly dangerous game, the United States has to take aggressive action against Iranian fast attack boats before they come after us. The goal is not to start a war -- the Iranians are already working on that -- but low passes by fighter planes or helicopter gunships, rapid firing guns, and aggressive chase will make it clear to the Iranians this far and no farther.

The U.S. must not be chased out of international waters. The U.S. Navy surely has the assets to do the job. We just need courage from our politicians.
Shakespeare told us that the quality of mercy is not strained, but he did not tell us that the quality of justice in the United States and in Britain regarding Islamic terrorism is not flawless. In both countries, recent verdicts of the courts did not fit the crime, nor truly appreciate the extent of evil forces of Islamist terrorism.

On August 31, 2016 the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York surprisingly overturned a lower court decision that had imposed a large fine on the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for supporting a number of terrorist attacks in Israel.

On September 5, 2016 the 49-year-old Anjem Choudary, the notorious and extreme Islamist preacher and his deputy, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, were sentenced at the Old Bailey, the British Central Criminal Court, in London by a British judge, Justice Holroyde, to 5 years imprisonment for swearing allegiance to and encouraging support for ISIS, and urging supporters to join ISIS in Syria.

All rational people can applaud the fact that Choudary was finally sentenced to prison but in views of his activities the sentence can be considered too short since the legal penalty for his offence can be ten years.

The judicial system, in Britain as in the U.S., certainly has to deal with the difficult and controversial problem of the line between legitimate expression of views and criminal act. Justice Holroyde in Britain held that Choudary was free to express his personal views, but the right to freedom of expression is not absolute. It is an offence to invite support for a proscribed organization. Choudary had crossed the line between legitimate expression of his views, ghastly though they were, and the criminal act of inviting support for an organization that was engaged in appalling acts of terrorism.

Justice Holroyde explained the prison term had been limited to 5 years on technical grounds. He held that although Choudary had certainly indirectly encouraged violent terrorist activity there was no evidence of a direct link between Choudarys words and any specific act of terrorism.

Nevertheless, it is a fair comment that the leniency was unjustified: all Choudarys behavior was to encourage action, even if he never threw a bomb himself.

For twenty years, Choudary living in democratic Britain had stayed on the edge of the law though it was obvious he was influential in spreading hate and encouraging young people to join terrorist organizations. His lectures and speeches were well attended. He used the power of social media to influence young Muslims.

The final straw for British authorities was that Choudary, and Rahman, crossed the line in swearing an oath of allegiance to ISIS and to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-styled Caliph of the Islamic State. Choudary asserted that obedience to the Caliph was an obligation for all Muslims.

Choudarys luck ran out because in June 2014 the British government banned ISIS and other organizations, including the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General-Command, as terrorist organizations. According to the British Terrorism Act 2000 section 12, a person commits an offence if he invites support for a proscribed organization or advances its activities. The Act explains that proscription refers to terrorism that is defined as when the use or threat of action is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause.

Choudary born in London, had been a medical student, then a student of law who became a lawyer, a solicitor, for a short time before becoming a main student of Omar Bakri Mohammed, the Syrian extremist militant leader whose ambition is to attack Europe in similar fashion to 9/11 in the U.S. This terrorist fled Britain after the July 2005 attacks in London in which he was involved.

As a result, Choudary became a professional preacher, enormously influential, linked to hundreds of British jihadists, and responsible for influencing about 500 men to join ISIS. One estimate is that he inspired a quarter of the Islamists linked to terrorism in Britain since 1999.

Choudary was the face of Radical Islam in his organizational activity and in his rhetoric. He was the mouthpiece of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who founded ALM, al-Muhajiroun. When ALM was banned in Britain it reappeared in different forms and Choudary became its leader. He was also the head of Islam4UK, a group proscribed as a terrorist organization in January 2010.

In what must be seen as a despicable and perverse act, Choudary on July 7, 2014, the ninth anniversary, applauded the London attacks of July 7, 2005, the series of suicide bomb attacks on public transport that killed 52 and injured more than 700 people. He was friendly with the two terrorists, Michael Adeboiajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered the British soldier Fusilier Lee Rigby in London on May 22, 2013, both of whom attended Choudarys rallies as disciples. He approved the brutal beheading of the journalist James Foley by Jihadi John in Syria in 2014. Equally, he was linked to Jihadi Johns successor, the ISIS executioner Siddhartha Dhar. He spoke of Osama bin Laden as a hero.

Choudary spoke at street corners as well as mosques, always spouting anti-British propaganda. He prophesized that Islamic flags would fly over 10 Downing Street, the home of the British prime minister, and in Washington, D.C. He literally wanted to change the face of London. He argued that Buckingham Palace should be turned into a mosque, and that Nelsons Column in Trafalgar Square be destroyed.

He urged Queen Elizabeth, who he described as ugly, to wear a burka. At a rally in the Central London Mosque he proclaimed that Muslims will destroy the crusade, and establish the Islamic state. He is a true imperialist, calling for the Muslim faith to dominate the world. Using Solzhenitsyns comment as he wrote in The Gulag Archipelago about extremists and evildoers, Choudarys ideology gave him the long-term justification and the necessary steadfastness and determination to hold and to spread his message.

To some extent the mainstream media exacerbated the problem for Britain on the grounds of free speech but in essence providing ammunition to the enemy. TV, particularly the BBC on a number of occasions, and newspapers approached him for his predicable views. Choudary made skillful use of all facilities. He used Facebook, You Tube between August and September 2014, and WhatsApp, to send his message and had 32,000 followers on Twitter. Investigators found the extent of his technical proficiency: he had used 333 electronic devices.

Amazingly, if the mainstream media should be criticized for providing opportunities for Choudary, the British state actually subsidized him and so has been indirectly supporting terrorism. Choudary and his family of five children, who lived in a comfortable house in east London, obtained welfare benefits of 25,000 a year. With outrageous chutzpah, he urged his supporters to claim Jihadseekers allowances, and argued that Muslims believed in the concept of living on welfare because the sharia law created a welfare state. He declared it is normal to take money from non-believers.

Choudary has given us fair warning: we are going to take England. He gave us figures, even if some are inaccurate. Brussels is now 30% Muslim; Amsterdam is 40% Muslim; Bradford in England is 17%. Recent elections in a number of European countries, Brexit in Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, reflect this fact. Will the U.S. presidential election also do so?
Islam Awareness Week is a project of the Muslim Student Association, a frequent source of disruption and anti-Semitism on college campuses. The organization also helps shill for Palestinian terrorists through Palestine Awareness Week (PAW). This article will respond by designating September as militant "Islam" (or Islamism) Awareness Month, a reminder of this depraved ideology's 1,400-year assault on civilized humanity.

September 2, 1898: Battle of Omdurman

On January 25, 1885, Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed mahdi, or messiah, overran Khartoum in Sudan and massacred the garrison and inhabitants, including General Charles Gordon. The Mahdi died of natural causes shortly afterward, but his followers continued to wage violent jihad throughout the region. They were met on September 2, 1898, by an Anglo-Egyptian army under the command of Herbert Kitchener. The collision between Islamist fanaticism and European military science, including the new machine guns  "Whatever happens, we have got / the Maxim gun, and they have not"  was essentially a one-sided massacre of the former. The only significant Anglo-Egyptian losses were suffered by the Twenty-First Lancers, who paid roughly a quarter of their strength dead and wounded for three Victoria Crosses. Winston Churchill rode with the Twenty-First during the attack, and he used a Mauser "broomhandle" pistol because a shoulder injury made it difficult for him to wield a saber.

September 5, 1972: The Munich Massacre

The Munich Massacre began on September 5, 1972, when Palestinian terrorists took Israeli Olympic athletes hostage and subsequently tortured and massacred them. They also murdered a German police officer. Hillary Clinton later kissed the wife of terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, who is believed to have been complicit in the Munich Massacre.

September 11, 2001

Americans are most familiar with September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Nineteen deranged terrorists hijacked four airplanes full of innocent people, brayed "Allah akbar," and crashed three of the planes into buildings filled with more innocent people including law-abiding Muslim citizens and guests of the United States. The passengers on the fourth aircraft attacked the terrorists, who decided to crash the plane into a field rather than risk letting the passengers regain control. Here is a video of militant "Islam's" contribution to world history on September 11, 2001, which by itself makes September the ideal month for Islamist awareness.

Colonel Ardant du Picq explained more than a century ago why the passengers did not fight back sooner even though the able-bodied ones outnumbered the hijackers. "Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare attack a lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely." The passengers did not know whom among their neighbors they could rely on for support, so none dared to make the first move.

September 11, 1697: Battle of Zenta

The cause of militant "Islam," however, suffered a far greater catastrophe at Zenta on September 11, 1697, where the jihadists met armed enemy soldiers rather than unarmed civilian airplane passengers. A numerically inferior Austrian army under the command of Prinz Eugen of Savoy slaughtered roughly 30,000 Ottoman soldiers, at a cost of fewer than 500 fatalities, and captured 87 artillery pieces. This showed yet again that Western military science and discipline beats militant "Islamic" fanaticism any day of the week. Prinz Eugen also distinguished himself in the Battle of Vienna on September 12, 1683.

September 12, 1683: Battle of Vienna

The high water mark of Islamism's assault on civilization came in the summer of 1683, when an enormous Turkish army laid siege to Vienna. A Polish army under the command of King Jan Sobieski III, however, attacked the Turkish besiegers and dispersed them with catastrophic losses. The Turks' allies, the Crimean Horde, did not apparently believe their holy men's promise of one-on-one meetings with Allah and harems of 72 virgins, because they ran away the instant their khan saw Poland's dreaded Winged Hussars. This leads to several Polish jokes that Poles are likely to enjoy:

How do you know the Polish Army has been in your camp? Your Janissaries are dead, and your artillery, flags, and coffee are missing. (Captured Turkish coffee was served in Vienna's first coffee shop, and crescent pastries were modeled on the captured Turkish battle standards.)

Although Poles are reputedly the best horsemen in Europe, why can the slowest Turkish Spahi outride the fastest Polish Winged Hussar? The ones that couldn't are dead.

What two things do you need to ensure that you don't lose a battle to Polish cavalry? Fast horses and a head start, as applied by the Crimean Horde.

How do you get a Janissary to set a new speed record? Walk up behind him and say something in Polish. "Bij! Zabij!" ("Strike! Kill!") works well.

The Turkish court jester asked the sultan, "Did you hear the one about the Polish cavalry?" "Yes," the Sultan answered while he drew his scimitar and cut the jester's head off.

The next Turkish jester began, "How many Poles does it take," whereupon the Sultan cut off his head as well. "They had as many as they needed!"

The Turks did, however, succeed in massacring their Christian prisoners before they were dispersed. This underscores the fact that the militant "Muslim," ISIS/Daesh being the latest example, is at his best against helpless and unarmed civilians rather than infidel combatants. Poland's role in saving Central Europe from militant "Islamic" domination is meanwhile a strong argument for making September 12 Jan Sobieski Day, to go along with Kosciuszko Day, which commemorates Tadeusz Kosciuszko's role in our War of Independence.

September 12, 1897: Battle of Saragarhi

A less prominent but more amazing battle against militant "Islam" took place on the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna. Although the twenty-one soldiers of the 36th Sikhs could not have been blamed for abandoning Saragarhi in the face of an attack by roughly 500 times their number  that's roughly ten thousand Islamists versus 21 Sikhs  their absolute devotion to their duty made them choose to fight to the death instead. All 21 were eventually killed, and all received the Order of Merit (equivalent to the Victoria Cross and Param Vir Chakra) posthumously, which is probably the highest number of such decorations awarded for any battle in history. Rorke's Drift, in contrast, resulted in "only" eleven Victoria Crosses. It would be fair to call Saragarhi the Thermopylae of what is now Pakistan.

The Islamists, meanwhile, admitted to losing 180 killed, and the British claimed that the figure was closer to 450. The fact that the Sikhs killed no fewer than nine enemies for every man they lost despite being outnumbered 500 to 1 underscores the complete superiority of the Sikh soldier over the Islamist fanatic, as well as that of the Sikh sense of duty over Islamist fanaticism.

Let us therefore designate September as Islamist Awareness Month to recognize what the ideology of militant "Islam" has given the world ever since its creation: an unbroken legacy of Dark-Age savagery, mindless violence, and crushing defeats when confronted by infidels who were willing to resist it.

William A. Levinson, P.E., is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.
Americans have long set aside days to remember our men and women in uniform, some of whom gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect our God-given freedoms.

Sunday, Sept. 11 is the 15th anniversary of the Islamist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the hijacked jet brought down by patriotic Americans in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which was likely intended as a gigantic bomb bound for the U.S. Capitol building.

In New York alone, 2,753 people died, including 23 New York City police officers, 37 Port Authority officers, and 346 firefighters. Some of these men ascended stairs in the crumbling World Trade Center towers even as evacuees fled past them.

At the Pentagon, 184 people lost their lives when one of the hijacked jets crashed into the Outer Ring.

On Flight 93 from Newark Airport, several passengers on their cell phones learned that a jet had crashed into one of the Twin Towers at 8:46 a.m. Knowing they would never land safely on Earth again, several passengers formulated a plan to overpower the hijackers.

Todd Beamers last words to his wife are seared into the consciousness of every American who recalls that horrific day: Are you guys ready? Lets roll. It was the only instance of American resistance to the attacks that day. Minutes later, the jet flipped upside-down and crashed into a field, killing all 40 passengers and crew.

As Election Day 2016 approaches, we face the most consequential choice in our lifetimes. It was in February 1998 during Bill Clintons presidency that Osama bin Laden declared a fatwa against the United States, urging radical Muslims to kill Americans wherever they found them. That fatwa remains in place, and we have seen its bloody effect in several recent attacks here in America.

Over the past seven years, a feckless foreign policy led by Barack Obama has destabilized the Middle East, subjected Christians and others to genocide, and allowed Iran to continue its march toward nuclear terror, aided by payments in cash from our own government.

History tells us that tyrants and bullies respond only to force, which is why the years of weakness have emboldened our enemies.

If someone tells you its not important to vote on November 8, or that its fine to throw away your vote on a third-party candidate, please remind him or her that our very freedoms are at stake. We cannot survive more years of the same failed policies, either domestically or around the world.

Voting is the least we can do to honor the memories of those who came before us and fought and died for this beloved country that we are in danger of losing.

Please remember to pray for the families of those in our armed forces and law enforcement, the victims of the ongoing terrorist war against civilization, and for America.

And vote on November 8. Vote as if the very future of our children and grandchildren depends on it.

Because it does.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.
This week could be the point of no return for the faltering Clinton campaign. The elitism that is a defining characteristic of the contemporary political establishment has lured the campaign into a strategic blunder. They are in a panic with Trump closing the polling gap in battleground states.

So as panicked people sometimes do, the Brooklyn Brain Trust made a decision from the gut. They are scared of the Trump supporters, and they presume that their voters are, too. So scared that it makes sense to them for Bill and Hillary Clinton to publicly disparage a substantial fraction of the American public.

How else to explain Bill Clinton disparaging coal people?

We all know how [Hillarys] opponent has done well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, the former president told the crowd at the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum. The coal people dont like any of us [Democrats] anymore.

But last nights basket of deplorables speech by Hillary Clinton to a wealthy gay and lesbian group should become a catastrophe.

It is really stupid to use such a colorful and original expression when insulting voters. Basket of deplorables fits on a bumper sticker. And the root word deplore projects the speakers superior status. Elites deplore so many aspects of the common folk in America. And the common folk know it. That is why resentment of the elites is such a powerful driver of politics this cycle.

This gaffe, if properly exploited by the Trump campaign, will drive turnout. Frank Luntz is ecstatic on Twitter, calling it Hillarys 47% moment.

Tonight, Hillary Clinton just had her "47 percent" moment.



Expect poll numbers to get even tighter after this one. #Deplorables  Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) September 10, 2016

Ann Althouse makes an excellent point:

Panic. What to do? One new goal for Clinton now, aides said, is to spend more time trying to connect directly with voters by sharing a more personal side of herself.... That's a "new goal"? That's exactly what she purported to be doing when she announced her candidacy in spring 2015. I don't think there is a more personal side.

So they let Hillary be Hillary and spend more time in the public eye. Of course, history shows that Hillarys popularity goes down in proportion to her visibility. The more she is in the face of voters, the less popular she becomes. The apotheosis of her popularity in the polls was when she was flying around the world as secretary of state and constantly lauded in the media as effective.

Panic drives a lot of mistakes, as we have just seen with the Clinton camp. They are prisoners of their own self-image.
If you support Donald Trump, you are irredeemable, part of a basket of deplorables. A kind who should never be allowed to rise again. You are a radical fringe made up of racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynist, xenophobic, you name it types. Hillary Clinton paints you as hopeless moral lepers who should be banished to a remote island to live your final days.

We are so bad, so evil, that we are no better than terrorists.

We are not America.

We are all of these things (and more), according to Hillary Clinton. And anyone who thinks the language she uses to describe us is merely words spewed to inspire her base is fooling himself.

Clinton will act on her words. And her actions will be as harsh and as anti-American as it gets. The boom will come down so hard that our lives will be impacted in ways that are almost impossible to fathom.

The stakes could not be higher.

Its not enough to vote on November 8. We must all be foot soldiers for the Trump campaign. Its our last best hope. Because contrary to Jonah Goldbergs perspective during a recent conversation with Glenn Beck that we are never just one election away from doom, I believe we are.

And en route to explaining why, Id like to first take up one specific point they discussed: Supreme Court appointments under Clinton. Goldberg noted that Ginsburg will just be replaced by a younger version of Ginsburg, as if it would be a wash. But it wouldnt be a wash because, as Goldberg pointed out, the replacement would be younger. Right. Younger. As in on the court for decades, irrespective of which party is in power.

But if Clinton wins, we can predict which party will be in power election after election after election. Her presidency will seal our fate on a broad and lasting scale. The Democratic Party will turn what is now a major Electoral College advantage into a guaranteed win as massive numbers of Hispanics and Muslims are imported into the United States  demographic groups that vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

November 8 is, I believe, our last chance to grab the reins of power, to keep this nation from crashing over the precipice upon which we precariously sit. Teetering and holding our breath.

Hat tips: Breitbart, Daily Caller, Los Angeles Times, TheBlaze
The House of Representatives passed a controversial bill that would allow 9/11 families to sue the Saudi Arabian government for complicity in the 9/11 attacks. The vote was unanimous.

The Hill:

The bill, which passed the Senate unanimously in May, now heads to President Obamas desk, where its future is uncertain.

The White House has hinted strongly it will veto the measure. Obama has lobbied fiercely against it, arguing it could both strain relations with Saudi Arabia and lead to retaliatory legislation overseas against U.S. citizens.

But lingering suspicion over Saudi Arabias role in the 9/11 attacks and pressure from victims families made the bill a popular bipartisan offering on Capitol Hill.

The bills popularity puts the president in adelicate position. Supporters are hoping Obama will be leery of expending political capital he desperately needs during the lame-duck session.

The president is hoping lawmakers will pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and a criminal justice reform measure and confirm Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

If Obama does choose to veto the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, supporters believe that they have the two-thirds majority needed to override him  a first during his presidency.

I think we easily get the two-thirds override if the president should veto, Sen. Charles Schumer(D-N.Y.), who introduced the bill in the Senate, said when the bill cleared the upper chamber in the spring.

But many on Capitol Hill do not believe that the veto is a done deal. The White House has not issued an official position on the bill and spokesmen have been careful with their language, stopping short of issuing a full veto threat.

We have serious concerns with the bill as written, a White House official said Wednesday.

We believe there needs to be more careful consideration of the potential unintended consequences of its enactment before the House considers the legislation, the official said. We would welcome opportunities to further engage with the Congress on that discussion.

The president has 10 days to either sign or reject the legislation before it becomes law.
The electoral college superstate of "Minnewisowa" (first named by me in 2004) is suddenly in play in the 2016 presidential contest.

This superstate, composed of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, has a tradition of voting as a bloc, consists of 26 electoral votes, and shares (in addition to adjoining location) many demographic characteristics.

In 2008 and 2012, Minnewisowa voted all its electoral votes for Barack Obama, supported by strong popular vote margins for the Democratic ticket.

Initially, it appeared that would be repeated in 2016, but recent indications are that Iowa is leaning to Republican nominee Donald Trump, Wisconsin has become very competitive, and only Minnesota seems now secure for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

In spite of the controversies surrounding Mr. Trump, his success in Iowa can be attributed to the united effort by the Iowa GOP around his candidacy. Longtime and popular governor Terry Branstad, and both GOP U.S. senators, Chuck Grassley (running for re-election) and Joni Ernst, are strongly supporting the top of the GOP ticket, something that has not yet happened in some other battleground states across the country.

In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker (previously a competitor to Mr. Trump in the presidential nominating contest) and speaker of the House Paul Ryan (and Wisconsin congressman) have endorsed the GOP ticket much more cautiously, but they are working very hard to re-elect Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson and several other GOP congressional incumbents in 2016. The governor's political organization and the speaker's popularity, combined with Mr. Trump's frequent campaign stops in the state, are making the Badger State probably more competitive than it has been in many presidential campaign cycles.

Only in Minnesota, which has no statewide Republican officeholders, and a weak GOP state party organization, does Mr. Trump trail Mrs. Clinton significantly. Nonetheless, the Republican ticket appears strong in outstate

Minnesota, particularly in congressional districts 6, 7, and 8. In MN-8, a blue-collar area in northeastern Minnesota, Mrs. Clinton, according to private polls, is reportedly trailing Mr. Trump and endangering the re-election of the incumbent DFL (Democratic) congressman (who had previously endorsed Bernie Sanders in the state caucus). In MN-7, the incumbent DFL congressman is so conservative that Trump's popularity there does not endanger his re-election.

Since both Iowa and Wisconsin both voted Democratic in 2008 and 2012, a Trump victory in one or both of them would notably enhance his path to victory in November, especially if they were added to victories in Michigan, Ohio, and/or Pennsylvania where Mr. Trump's campaign currently appears to be unusually strong (and where Mr. Obama won all their electoral votes in 2008 and 2012).

With 60 days to go until election day, however, Mrs. Clinton still leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, as well as in several other national battleground states. The race remains hers to win, unless, as happened in 2008, she throws it away.
The search for the best combination of method, rub, glazing sauce, and mop sauce used to achieve baby-back perfection has been an arduous but enjoyable task. I think I may have found it this past Labor Day weekend with a new twist on a tried and true formula.

Over the years, I have used many methods: grilling, smoke boxes, barrel smokers, mesquite charcoal, briquettes with wood chips, and pellet smokers. I have used rubs of all types as well as sauces ranging from store-bought to homemade, from simple to complex.

I thought I had found the right combination some years ago and have stuck with it for the past ten years or so. The choices made were culled from personal experience and the help of Steven Raichlens excellent book The Barbecue Bible. The format is Memphis Rub, 3-2-1 (smoke three hours, wrap and roast for two, then glaze and grill for one), a Simple Mop Sauce and Elidas Honey-Guava Barbecue Sauce.

Elidas Sauce was what seemed to be the missing ingredient. Its beauty is in its simplicity: store-bought sauce (I use Sweet Baby Rays), add some honey and guava paste (found in Mexican Markets). After first using that sauce, I felt that my search might be over.

And after a visit to Arthur Bryants in Kansas City, a barbeque house renowned to be one of the best in the country, I knew that the search was over.

A note on Arthur Bryants: Fellow Benician and rib aficionado Randy also took a trip to Kansas City in search of rib heaven. His method of finding the best ribs was to ask the skycaps. One of them replied: Well, most people go to Bryants. Randys response: was no, where do you go? He was directed to several, including Gates BBQ and Oklahoma Joes, with the later coming out at the top of the list.

Bryants may indeed be thriving based on past glories, but nonetheless, I compared mine to theirs and felt that my method was as good, if not better. Thus, I remained loyal to the basics, but I would modify occasionally.

Recently, a tweaking indicated that the settled formula is capable of improvement. The missing ingredient was narshrab.

This is a specialty ingredient from Central Asia: Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. It is better known as pomegranate molasses and can be found in stores that cater to Mideastern food.

More on narshrab later, but first a few comments on methodology used to achieve baby-back nirvana:

Treating the Ribs  First, and this is old news to an experienced griller but should be stated, remove the membrane (that thin layer on the concave side of the rib). Use a butter knife. With a little practice, the task is not daunting and worth the effort. Second: Never boil your ribs. You want boiled ribs, go to the chains.

Smokers  I wore two barrel types out over the years, while going through too many bags of mesquite charcoal to count. They work well but have two serious drawbacks: the mess of starting and cleaning up and the occasional need of an additional fire during a long smoke. For the past two and half years, I have used a Traeger Pellet Grill. When I saw that my local butcher uses one for smoking his meats, the decision was made.

The Rub  The Barbecue Bible has a recipe for Memphis Rub, an excellent multipurpose rub. I use smoked paprika and always double the batch I am making. This rub works well on fish, chicken, and ribeye steaks. I do omit the MSG, in deference to allergies in the house, and have noticed no diminishment in flavors.

3-2-1 Method  I actually fell into this method before I knew what it was. I had long been smoking the ribs first, wrapping them in foil to let them sit, and then putting them back on the fire to glaze the sauce. The time spent wrapped in foil is the key to fall-off-the-bone perfection.

Sauces  Two are required for all and three for some. The first is the mop sauce, and for me that actually means a spray bottle. Simple is best: cider vinegar, mustard (I prefer Dijon style), apple juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Once an hour for the first three hours is a minimum. Second is the glazing and serving sauce, mentioned above. At our house that means two: one mild for the Mrs. and one with a bit of spice, usually red pepper flakes and dab of Sriracha, for me.

The Missing Ingredient: Pomegranate molasses. As mentioned earlier, this is also called narshrab and can be readily purchased. True narshrab is a very thick dark syrup with a strong sweet-sour taste. Mine was a home-made variety from pink pomegranates, thus not as pungent or dark. Pomegranates are a fruit most do not do anything with except on rare occasions. My neighbor has a tree, the fruit was free, and I decided to give it a shot after reading about it in The Barbecue Bible.

I removed the arils from two dozen pomegranates to make the molasses (videos are on YouTube for the removal process). Once juiced, sugar and lemon juice were added, and the mixture reduced. Eight cups of juice yielded two cups of a syrupy molasses.

This was then used in the mop sauce (in lieu of apple juice) and added to the glazing sauce (in lieu of the guava).

The end result resolved an issue I had with the guava-honey-based sauce, that being its thickness. The G-H sauce has a consistency of tomato paste. The lower viscosity of the pomegranate molasses yielded a thinner sauce, yet still fruitful.

The missing ingredient now found, the recipes may be tweaked on occassion, as I need to compare store-bought narshrab to the homemade style used.

Heres to future grilling for all!
President Obama's trip to China and the "stairs" incident put the bow on two terms of trying to popular rather than respected. I just hope #45 understands what he or she is walking into.

This is what happened in China, as explained by Dr. Krauthammer:

The president of the United States lands with all the majesty of Air Force One, waiting to exit the front door and stride down the rolling staircase to the red-carpeted tarmac. Except that there is no rolling staircase. He is forced to exit -- as one China expert put it rather undiplomatically -- through the ass of the plane.

We don't know if the incident was planned or accidental. However, all of the leaders got the usual treatment, and "hope and change" didn't. And no one apologized for doing this to the president of the U.S. As they say, actions speak louder than words.

It started in Egypt in 2009 with a speech that blamed the U.S., followed by a revolution in Iran that he didn't pay attention to, a withdrawal from Iraq that left a vacuum for ISIS to grow and expand in, to drawing a red line that he didn't enforce, to making a deal with Cuba that benefited the Castros, not the U.S., to an Iran nuclear deal that he was desperate to make no matter how much cash the other side demanded, to allowing Iran boats to bully the U.S. Navy to Russian MiGs flying feet over our ships.

Wonder what's next on the long line of cheap shots at the U.S.!

We are living in extremely dangerous times, and President Obama does not have a clue. Worse than that, no one in the U.S. media is bothering to ask him about it or hold him accountable for the disarray. The media is obsessed with Trump, Mrs. Clinton is promising not to send ground troops, and our enemies are enjoying it a great deal.

The Chinese forgot the donkey to remind our president that he is a Democrat and something else that I'll leave to your imagination.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
The mainstream media, Hillary Clinton, and the left (but I repeat myself) are up in arms over Donald Trumps comment that Putin is a strong leader.

Putin Has 'Been a Leader Far More Than Our President Has'

Hillary Clinton held her first press conference and had this to say:

Now, that is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country as well as to our commander-in-chief -- it is scary.

Before I get into Hillarys comment, let me ask  is it a press conference if the, ahem, press spoonfeeds Hillary a question that her campaign staff provides to said press, so that she can make a statement, as a recovery from her abysmal showing in the previous nights commander in chief forum?

Speaking of the Commander in Chief forum, how come it took a private citizen to finally ask Hillary Clinton a pointed question?

Donald Trump didnt, to my knowledge, condone Vladimirs Putins actions as leader. He only asserted that Putin is stronger than our president. Does anyone doubt this statement?

Like him or hate him, Vladimir Putin leads, while Barack Obama leads from behind. BTW, the leading from behind quote originated in the White House, by one of the presidents advisers, following their disastrous overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya.

I despise Vladimir Putin, as every American should, but he is a strong leader. Likewise, I hate Harry Reid, but is there any doubt he is a stronger leader than Mitch McConnell?

Vladimir Putin, as is also true of Harry Reid, are advancing the interests of their constituents. Vladimir Putin is advancing the interests of the Russian people. Harry Reid is advancing the interests of the hard left elements within the Democratic Party. I wish Mitch McConnell was half the leader Harry Reid is.

On this note, it is unfair to suggest that Barack Obama isnt advancing the interests of his constituents. Sadly, though, his constituents arent the whole of the American people.
Retired Air Force general Philip Breedlove, who served as supreme allied commander of NATO, sent a series of scathing emails about President Obama to a colleague at a think-tank, saying the president saw NATO as a "warmonger worry" and a threat rather than an alliance.

Washington Times:

The four-star general bemoaned what it was like trying to work with the White House at a time when Vladimir Putins troops had invaded Ukraine and was trying to rattle other former Soviet Union puppet states.

The emails were acquired by DCLeaks, a new site which earlier exposed a number of emails from the political empire of billionaire George Soros, a big financial backer of Hillary Clinton.

The think tank official is Harland Ullman, a long time Washington hand who advises the Atlantic Council. Mr. Ullman was hooking up Gen. Breedlove with former Secretary of State Colin Powell to seek advice on dealing with a standoffish Mr. Obama and the White House.

To Mr. Powell from Gen Breedlove: Thank you for this, sorry for the tardy reply. I know Harlan has passed some of my proposed asks of you, let me add one thought. I may be wrong, but I do not see this WH really engaged by working with Europe/NATO. Frankly I think we are a worry, ie a threat to get the nation drug into a conflict, vice an opportunity represented by some pretty stalwart allies. I seek your counsel on two fronts,. how to frame this opportunity in a time where all eyes are on ISIL all the time, and two, how to work this personally with the POTUS. v/r Phil.

Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump charged this week that Mr. Obama steamrolls his generals. One of his key advisers, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, said he was fired by Mr. Obama as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for promoting a hard line against radical Islam.
Hillary Clinton has been seriously stressed for most of her adult life, and since 2012, when she had her fall and sustained close-to-the-brain damage, she has been looking more and more impaired.

The Benghazi crisis broke on September 11, 2012, right before the second Obama election. We have finally been told that Hillary was out of the decision loop on the night of Benghazi, because her closest aide, Huma Abedin, told her protective detail that she had to sleep instead of answering the phone. The worst command failure on that crucial night was Washington's non-response to many urgent calls for help, followed by a top decision to tell the military "in extremis" rescue teams to stand down and do nothing. Ambassador Stevens was "in extremis" (close to death), and the commander-in-chief did nothing. The SecState was asleep for medical reasons.

Those decisions had to come from the top because they countermanded longstanding legally binding military policies and procedures. Hillary didn't answer that 3 am call, and neither did Obama.

Hillary is now nearing age 70, when a lifetime of too much stress begins to take its toll. Some of Hillary's recent news photos and videos show her wearing a bulky gown, perhaps to cover wearable medical equipment. High-tech medicine can now include a small oxygen tank or an external blood supply, along with electronic monitors for vital signs.

The public has been told nothing.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, a reputable M.D. commentator on CNN, risked his job to raise the alarm in public. The next day, he was fired  showing just how compassionate the left really is.

The other big media have been blocking news about Hillary's health almost unanimously. Today's headlines report that 71% of the M.D.s in the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons are either "concerned" or "deeply concerned" about Hillary's health.

But the Party of Compassion doesn't care.

Hillary's physical decline is not new. She has looked increasingly impaired since her fall and concussion in 2012. Soldiers who keep fighting in spite of wounds can be considered heroes. But Hillary is a politician, and if she decides to retire from this physically dangerous campaign, who can blame her?

Under the tremendous stress of a presidential campaign she is taking more and more risks. Yes, Hillary is surrounded by an emergency medical team, including a Secret Service member carrying an injection needle with some unexplained cocktail of drugs. She has a history of blood clots.

But her medics can't provide the most important healing factor: rest and recuperation, without stress. I apologize for making a joke here, but millions of people are being reminded of the movie Weekend at Bernie's. We don't want to see Weekend at Hillary's.

Hillary is on the old-fashioned drug coumadin and other meds to prevent and treat strokes. But a neurologist looking for asymmetrical face and body movements, trouble recalling words, and impaired self-control might advise her to check into a good Intensive Care Unit for rest and recuperation. Her medical problems are serious, and they impair her fitness for office. Now we have more than 70% of M.D.s in a national medical association sounding the alarm.

What we are seeing is real cruelty  but then the Party of Compassion does lots of cruel things. This is just the most obvious one.

If there are any honest liberals left, they should mount a Save Hillary web petition. I am more than willing to sign it, because, believe it or not, the great majority of conservatives are compassionate, feeling people. I don't want to see Hillary suffer. It is grossly immoral for the Democrats, including Bill Clinton, to watch this tragedy and do nothing. She needs an immediate transfer to an Intensive Care Unit.

Eight weeks from now, we will be asked to vote for the most powerful political office in the world. In eight weeks, Hillary is not likely to recover from her four-year illness.

The country therefore has a 50-50 chance of electing a seriously ill person to the presidency. Hillary's health threatens her, but it also poses a serious threat to the country.

Almost eight years ago, Americans voted for a Chicago "community organizer," with no experience for the job. Hillary has had a lot more experience. What is in question today is her judgment, her temperament, her political ideology, her Muslim Brotherhood money (via Huma Abedin), and now her health.

This is not a normal election. Hillary's health crisis raises the stakes even higher.
The United States and Russia have agreed to promote a ceasefire in Syria and allow critical humanitarian aid to reach affected cities and towns. They also agreed to a joint targeting of the Islamic State and other Islamist militias.

This is the second ceasefire attempted this year. In February, the two sides reached a similar agreement only to see it fall apart in days.

Reuters:

"This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time," Lavrov told a news conference. The deal followed talks that stretched late into Friday night and several failed attempts to hammer out a deal over the past two weeks. The announcement on Friday was delayed as Kerry and U.S. negotiators consulted with officials in Washington. "The Obama administration, the United States, is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague (Lavrov), have the ability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace," he said. Previous efforts to forge agreements to stop the fighting and deliver humanitarian aid to besieged communities in Syria have crumbled within weeks, with the United States accusing Assad's forces of attacking opposition groups and civilians. Kerry said the "bedrock" of the new deal was an agreement that the Syrian government would not fly combat missions in an agreed area on the pretext of hunting fighters from the banned Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. "That should put an end to the barrel bombs, and an end to the indiscriminate bombing, and it has the potential to change the nature of the conflict." Under the agreement, Russian-backed government forces and opposition groups, supported by the United States and Gulf States, would halt fighting for a while as a confidence building measure. During this time, opposition fighters will have the chance to separate from militant groups in areas, such as Aleppo, where they have become intermingled. If the truce holds from Monday, Russia and the United States will begin seven days of preparatory work to set up a "joint implementation center", where they will share information to delineate territory controlled by Nusra and opposition groups. Both warring sides would pull back from the strategic Castello Road in Aleppo to create a demilitarized zone, while opposition and government groups would both have to provide safe and unhindered access via Ramouseh in the south of the city. "We must go after these terrorists," Kerry said. "Not indiscriminately, but in a strategic, precise and judicious manner so they cannot continue to use the regime's indiscriminate bombing to rally people to their hateful crimes."

Kerry's words are pathetic. And terribly naive. What are the chances that President Assad will break off his nearly successful seige of Aleppo to please the United States? Assad, the Russians, and Hezb'allah are on the verge of a spectacular victory. Putin isn't going to try very hard to convince Assad to obey the ceasefire.

And the rebels? They are fighting tooth and nail to hang on to Aleppo, perhaps the most important symbol of the rebellion. The fact that they are fighting with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups is out of necessity, and the notion that they would voluntarily separate and weaken their defenses is absurd.

The deal's documents will remain secret. The reason for that is clear: the U.S. gave away the store to get Russia to go along.

Apparently, as part of the joint targeting of terrorists, we are going to reveal to Russia where U.S.-backed rebel forces are located. For obvious reasons, the Pentagon is livid about this:

Pentagon and U.S. intelligence officials have spoken out against the idea of closer military cooperation with Russia, in particular the sharing of locations of opposition groups that have fought to topple Assad. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who only days ago delivered a forceful speech in England criticizing Russia, has long been skeptical of Moscow's intentions in Syria. The Pentagon said in a statement it would carefully monitor the "preliminary understanding" agreed on Friday and cautioned the Assad regime and its backer, Russia, to stick to deal requirements. "Those commitments must be fully met before any potential military cooperation can occur," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."

I have zero confidence that any sort of ceasefire will last beyond a couple of days. The violence will subside temporarily, but neither side has much motivation to quit fighting. And as far as the joint targeting of terrorists, Putin will find a way to define "terrorist" in such a way that U.S.-backed rebels are bombed.

A failure all around compounded by betrayal. That will be Obama's Syrian legacy.
When the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was released just over a month ago, it became an instant success, with the company having to ramp up production just so it could meet the demand for possibly one of the best flagships of the year. While things seemed pretty solid for Samsung with the release of the Galaxy Note 7, it all went downhill when numerous reports from all over the world emerged that there were units which exploded while being charged. This prompted Samsung to launch an official investigation which then lead to a massive recall of all affected units which number in the millions from all over the world. Samsung went on to put the blame on the phablets battery.

With the danger the exploding Galaxy Note 7 poses to people and property, the US Federal Aviation Administration, or better known as the FAA issued a statement to advise passengers to avoid turning on or charging their Galaxy Note 7s on all flights. The FAA went on to state that passengers should not stow the Galaxy Note 7 in checked-in luggage, due to concerns that the device may catch on fire or explode during flights. Now, Samsung has issued a response to the statement by the FAA. In the response, the company says that it is aware of the FAAs advise and it will be expediting new shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 starting from this week. This is to alleviate any safety concerns and to reduce any inconvenience towards its customers. As it is, there have been reports that retailers such as Best Buy have already started to receive new Galaxy Note 7 units.

Before the FAA issued their advice, three of Australias biggest airlines decided to issue a ban of the usage and charging of the Galaxy Note 7 on its flights. though in Australias case, its more of an outright ban to use or charge Galaxy Note 7 units, rather than just an advice. Well, if you are a Galaxy Note 7 user in the US or in any other affected market, it is best you contact your local Samsung service center or retailer/carrier and get a replacement unit in order to avoid any explosions or mishaps regarding the Galaxy Note 7 in the future.
The Galaxy Note 7 recall is the biggest recall in recent memory, when it comes to consumer electronics. Just a couple short weeks after the device was made available in a handful of countries, and the company sold 2.5 million of said device, the South Korean company was forced to recall every single Galaxy Note 7 that it had sold. And cease sales of the device. This was due to the device having an issue with the battery, and some units exploding. Since the recall was initiated last week, there have been a few more cases where the Galaxy Note 7 has blown up  one where it totaled a car, and another where it totaled a home. Now Samsung is urging all Galaxy Note 7 users to power down their device and turn it in.

Samsung began sending out emails to everyone who had purchased the Galaxy Note 7, urging them to power down the device and turn it in and receive a replacement from the company. Now Sprint has offered an update on the Galaxy Note 7 recall as well. Sprint is allowing customers to take their Galaxy Note 7 into their local Sprint store and exchange it for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge and youll get a refund for the difference. Customers are also able to bring in any accessories they bought with the Galaxy Note 7 for a refund as well. All shipping and restocking fees are being waived by Sprint, as it should be.

For Sprint customers, Samsung is offering a $25 bill credit, as well as a Galaxy S7 family replacement to all those that turn in their Galaxy Note 7 within the next 90 days. If you dont have a Sprint store nearby, you can call them at 1-888-211-4727 and get the return initiated. The Galaxy Note 7 has already caused enough damage to a number of places around the world. Its important that if you do own the device, that you return it to Samsung, that way your Galaxy Note 7 doesnt explode either. The device has already been banned on flights in many countries and the FAA is looking at banning it on flights in and out of the US as well.
Investment bank UBS have written a report stating that the United States carriers are about to experience contracting margins after what it says are historically high levels. UBS believes businesses will see the difference in 2017s figures. The report follows a period of relatively high profits, which have been mostly caused by a change in accounting bought about by the switch from traditional contracts to equipment installation plans. However, UBS analysts note that declining service revenues, which started last year, are likely to continue but despite this the industrys overall EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a common industry metric) climbed over 40% in the second quarter. Many customers who switched to the equipment installation plans are now seeking to replace their aging smartphones, but because the main carriers are now using this type of plan and two thirds of smartphones are sold this way, this will not favour one carrier over another. Essentially, the US carriers have never had it so good and wont for the foreseeable future.

As for the individual carriers in the market, UBS in particular favours AT&T and T-Mobile US. AT&T gets a gold star for its acquisition of DirecTV, which will form a key part of the business strategy going forwards whereby AT&T is bundling video content with its traditional offerings. Verizon Wireless purchase of Yahoo and, earlier, AOL, is not seen as having the same positive benefit. For T-Mobile US, here UBS recognises that Americas third largest carrier has momentum behind it thanks to three years of being the Uncarrier and acknowledges that the changes that T-Mobile US has started have changed the sector. T-Mobile US has successfully grabbed market share and overtook Sprint last year to move into the third largest carrier spot.

Unfortunately, as 2017 arrives so the investment bank are expecting a number of changes to unsettle the market. In 2016, the US carriers are enjoying record metrics including average revenue per customer and low churn figures, but it expects this to change as more customers seek to replacing aging smartphones. We have already seen a price war between the four national carriers, even if AT&T and especially Verizon Wireless have been keen to distance themselves from this. All of the carriers offer more per dollar than they did just a small number of years ago and T-Mobiles ONE plan looks set to continue this trend. It is also interesting that there is no mention of other devices that carriers can use for growth, such as devices such as new LTE-connected smartwatches or the Internet-of-Things.
Why not allow police in burkas? Theyre already wearing masks

Do you think its ok for a policewoman to wear a veil over her face? The Express and Daily Star says it could happen. Actually both papers say a police woman could wear a burka. Theyre wrong.

Dave Thompson, chief constable of West Midlands police, says hes looking at allowing female staff to wear a niqab. The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear. The burka is a one-piece veil that covers the face and body, often leaving just a mesh screen to see through.

Thompson says its cultural sensitivity would be taken into account if a woman officer wanted to wear one. He says the force must reflect the community we serve.

As yet no female officer has asked to wear a niqab. We dont know if any woman has been put off from joining the force because they cant wear one at work.

A spokesman from The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), quips: The women who do [wear a veil] would probably not want to be in the police.

Like the Express and Star, Omer El-Hamdoon, deputy secretary general of the MCB, also gets it wrong:

We appreciate that West Midlands police are trying to open up and recruit more ethnic minority backgrounds, but we feel wearing the burka would restrict duties In policing that involves a high level of action, you need the face to be shown so the burka would not work in the normal policing environment. But steps to increase the involvement of Muslims in policing are welcome.

A source at West Midlands police tells the Times:

Apart from anything else there is the health and safety issue. How could you possibly have an officer pursuing a suspect down the street while wearing a burka over their face?

Tory MP Philip Davies tells the Express:

Its is a load of politically correct nonsense. Im not for banning people wearing the burka as the government should not tell people what they can and cannot wear. But I do not think we should be encouraging people. The police are supposed to be about getting close to the community. People wearing the burka are actually removing themselves from it. This is exactly what happens with political correctness. It builds resentment with ethnic minorities when it is not their fault.

Of course, theyre right. A copper covering up their face is, as one source tells the Express, mad:

Police in veils. Madness!

Anorak

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
Peace breaks out before Manchester United and Manchester City war

Its Manchester Untied v Manchester City in the Premier League. Its WAR! It is. The media has told us as much.

In the Mail Jose Mourinho tells Pep Guardiola WERE READY TO RUMBLE.

Its WAR says the Sun:

The Week sums up: Man Utd vs Man City: Mourinho and Guardiola prepare for war

Or as the Express puts it:

And Henry winter writes in the Times:

Such was the public love-in of Mourinho and Guardiola yesterday  and the Premier League insists that no missive was launched from London demanding common courtesy  that it would be little surprise to find half-and-half scarves featuring the pair for sale outside Old Trafford.

Its PEACE before the WAR.

Anorak

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Back pages, Manchester City, manchester united, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
Ministers from the APEC member economies issued a statement following their meeting in Lima on Friday to facilitate the modernization of micro, small and medium enterprises across the Asia-Pacific.

The statement reflects the outcomes of the 2016 APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meeting chaired by Bruno Giuffra, Perus Minister of Production. It describes joint actions to be taken forward by APEC economies over the next year to boost their small businesses as engines of improved growth and living standards.

Click here to view the APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Statement

The next APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meeting will take place in 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam to review the progress of implementation work by APEC economies and to take next steps.

# # #

For additional information, please contact:

David Hendrickson (in Lima) +65 9137 3886 at [email protected]

Michael Chapnick +65 9647 4847 at [email protected]

More on APEC meetings, events, projects and publications can be found on. You can also follow APEC onand join us onand






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The real news of the day is not who won the day in political mudslinging, lies, and personal attacks and the joy it provides for the media to interpret, repackage, and report as fact between commercials.

The real news is in Senator Corker's warnings this past week about the failures of this administration to respect and enforce the laws, sanctions, and international laws and agreements that protect this country in its legitimate movement in international waters and airspace. This "sleeping giant" is in no position to be awakened by more bad news from North Korea, China, Iran and all their cowardly support partners whether it be for weapons, money, or military might.

We Americans are travelling in the blind, and unfortunately so is Congress, when the President and Secretary of State both are attending joint meetings abroad and making speeches to the world. It is imperative that we maintain the relationships that Senator Corker and other members of the Foreign Relations Committee (especially those with experience in the military) have built with their counterparts throughout the world to continue their efforts to prepare us for what they know now and what they expect in the future.

We have learned from witnessing the Committee hearings that Senator Corker deals with facts, speaks the truth, and lays it on the line, regardless of who is called upon to testify. That is a critical consideration in the upcoming election. It is up to the voters to hold it in place.

Thank you, Senator Corker, for your reports.

Charlotte Parton

Chattanooga
Riyadh tightened security after the pilgrimage was marred by incidents in the recent past. About 17,000 agents and 3,000 vehicles will be deployed. After preliminary rites in previous days, pilgrims today set off towards Mina. The absence of Iranian pilgrims is controversial. The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies)  At least 1.5 million people are expected for this year's Hajj pilgrimage, which begins today in Makkah.

As of last Thursday, more than a million people have arrived in Saudi Arabia. This year pilgrims will be subject to extra security measures such as electronic bracelets.

More than 17,000 officers and 3,000 vehicles used by Saudi security forces will be deployed to ensure the safety of hundreds of thousands of people who will crowd the holy places of Islam.

After preliminary rites at the Grand Mosque in Makkah in the past few days, pilgrims today will make their way by bus, train or on foot to Mina, about 5km the east, to a small granite hill called Mount of Mercy where, according to Muslim holy texts, Adam and Eve were reunited after their expulsion from Eden. Muhammad took the same path some 1400 years ago.

In 2013, for security reasons, the Saudi kingdom reduced by 20% the number of foreign pilgrims allowed to come Hajj. Every Muslim country can send a pilgrim for every 1,000 inhabitants. Due to the large numbers of people, there have been several serious accidents in the past few years.

Last September, some 2,000 people died in Mina during a disastrous stampede of pilgrims heading towards the Jamarat Bridge.

Riyadh tried to minimise the number of deaths, but has been criticized by several countries (especially Iran) for poorly handling security.

For the first time in 30 years, Iranian pilgrims will not come because of recent religious-political tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia triggered by a blistering attack by Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, who called the Saudis infidels and blasphemers, small and puny satans in US hands.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are also involved in an unresolved dispute over visas and direct flights between the two countries.

The Hajj is considered one of the five pillars of Islam and every good Muslim should perform it at least once in life.

For Saudi Arabia, the pilgrimage represents the end of the tourist season. In 2015 foreign pilgrims spent a total of  4.75 billion on the event ( 4,100 each).

Saudi Arabia has often used its power to grant entry visas for political purposes. For example, Syrians have not been allowed to travel to the Muslim holy cities for many years.
Lee University will welcome hundreds of guests, alumni, and community leaders on Friday, Sept. 30, for Celebration 2016. This event is planned as a festive and colorful day recognizing the success of the five-year Find Us Faithful Campaign, including the opening of Lees new School of Nursing building and further development of the southern end of the Cleveland campus.

When the time is right, we enjoy taking a day to gather Lee family and friends and acknowledge Gods faithfulness, said Lee President Paul Conn. We have a lot to celebrate this year.

The campus community will also use the week of Celebration to reflect on Dr. Conns 30 years of transformational leadership as Lee president. The Lee faculty and staff will mark the anniversary at a dinner and concert on Monday night, Sept. 26. In addition to other smaller events, Tuesday, Sept. 27 will feature a special guest speaker in chapel, Rebekah Lyons, author of Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning. On Thursday morning, students will recognize Conns 30th in a special student-led chapel, followed by a noon outdoor party on the Sharp Pedestrian Mall.

VIP alumni representatives from the past 60 years of Lees history on the Cleveland campus, as well as other out-of-town guests, will gather Thursday evening for a Celebration banquet.

Morning classes are cancelled on the day of Celebration, so students may join other guests for one of 40 special Celebration Seminars from 9-10 a.m. conducted simultaneously across campus. Seminars will feature lectures from alumni, faculty, and other guest speakers on a variety of topics from advertising to sculpture to nursing.

A Service of Celebration will then begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Conn Center which will include the dedication of the new nursing building, a 41,000 square foot structure completed in August.

A 300-voice choir will highlight the mornings festivities, along with an orchestra composed of Lee students. The event will begin with a processional of Lee faculty in academic regalia, and the 60 VIP alumni representatives will wear caps and gowns to march alongside the faculty and Board of Directors.

The School of Nursing building includes the 140-seat Patricia Carroll Lecture Hall, two interactive classrooms, five standard classrooms, a learning resource center, a quiet room and 17 faculty offices. The facility features six hospital-like simulation labs - along with control rooms, a competency lab, assessment lab, and two debriefing conference style rooms. There will be a public "open house" on the day of Celebration from 12-2 p.m., and the community is invited to attend.

For more information on Celebration, please call the Office of Community Relations at 423-614-8598.
According to Eurostat data, trade volume between Iran and EU hit  5.107 billion. EU exports to Iran grew by 13 per cent to  3.565 billion with EU members Greece, France and Spain leading the way.

Tehran (AsiaNews)  Trade between Iran and the European Union rose 43 per cent in first six months of 2016, the European Union's statistics agency Eurostat reported. This follows the signing of the nuclear deal in July 2015 and its implementation in January.

EU demand for Iranian oil is one of the main factors in the growing trade.

The European Unions trade with Iran amounted to  5.107 billion in the first half of 2016, up from  3.563 billion in first six months of 2015.

According to Eurostat, in the first half of 2016, EUs exports to Iran increased by 13 per cent reaching  3.565 billion in the first half of this year, up from  3.154 billion in the same period last year.

Data released in May already showed the positive trend. EUs exports to Iran jumped to  1.602 billion in the first quarter of this year, a 16 per cent rise from  1.374 billion in the same period last year.

At the same time, EUs imports from the Islamic Republic increased 52 per cent and stood at  396 million, while the amount was  260 million in the same period in 2015.

In mid-April, Iran and the EU issued a joint statement in Tehran setting the road map for cooperation. The statement was released by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini who visited Iran along with seven European commissioners.

The rising trade with the Islamic Republic benefitted especially some EU countries in the mentioned period, so that exports to Greece, France and Spain witnessed 108, 60 and 9 times increase, respectively.

The two sides taking stock of their long standing relations, based upon mutual respect and interests, reiterated their intention to develop a broad and comprehensive agenda for bilateral cooperation.

After years of embargo, Iran obtained a partial easing of Western economic sanctions, in exchange for agreement on its controversial atomic programme (for civilian use according to Tehran, to produce the bomb according to other countries, including Israel).

However, the US has kept a range of sanctions place because of Irans missile programme, as well as its military support for Shia movements in the Middle East.

Washington recently blocked the use of US dollars in banking transactions, stopping new economic agreements established after the nuclear deal.

This decision has also affected European policy, in particular in the banking sector, preventing the change of direction needed to boost Iran's domestic production and foreign trade, after years of harsh embargo.

This has helped Iranian fundamentalist hardliners undermine the reform programme of Irans moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov reach deal in Geneva. A nationwide truce will begin at sunset on Monday. This will allow the distribution of humanitarian aid in the most affected areas. After seven days, a Russian-American joint centre will come into operation to fight against terrorist groups. Air strikes are in specific areas of the country.

Geneva (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The United States and Russia have reached an agreement in Geneva with a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria starting at sunset next Monday (12 September).

After weeks of fruitless talks, the two parties agreed to allow aid into areas where the humanitarian crisis is greatest and to undertake joint missions in rebel-held areas.

The announcement follows talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Seven days after the start of the cessation of hostilities, Russia and the US will establish a "joint implementation centre" to fight Jihadi groups like the Islamic State.

Mr Lavrov said the joint implementation centre would allow Russian and US forces to "separate the terrorists from the moderate opposition".

He said the coordinated air forces would carry out co-ordinated strikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

"We have agreed on the areas where such co-ordinated strikes would be taking place, and in those areas, on neutral agreement shared by the Syrian government as well, only the Russian and US air force will be functional," he said.

Mr Lavrov added that "the Syrian air force will be functional in other areas, outside those that we have singled out for Russian-American military co-operation".

The opposition has indicated it was prepared to comply with the plan, provided the Syrian government "shows it is serious".

John Kerry said that the agreement will lead to a significant decrease of violence in Syria.

The United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, welcomed the agreement and said the UN would exert all efforts to deliver humanitarian aid.

The Syrian conflict broke out in March 2011 as a civil uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. So far it has caused at least 289,000 dead and generated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, with millions of refugees.

In recent weeks, Aleppo has become the epicentre of the conflict with expectations for a pitched battle for the conquest of the city. Currently, the western part of the city is in government hands and the eastern sector is controlled by rebel groups.
Hi,



One more question, my wife would be travelling in 6th month of pregnancy and will be there till the birth of child (Apr 2017), and the passport of the baby. And we will return till we finally move in, next year end. As per the form 119 which is necessary for the passport, there is a below clause, Identity Declaration, which can be done by someone who satisfy the below conditions,

but we would not be knowing anyone under the profession list for at least 1 year. And baby would be just born, so no one can know him for a year ;-)



Ideally, doctor, GP should sign this, but could this be an issue to get the Evidence of Citizenship for the baby, can anyone guide on this... As we would be very new to the place.



This part is to be completed by a person who:

 is an Australian citizen, and

 has known the applicant for at least one year, and

 is currently working in a profession or occupation listed on

page 9, and

 is not related to the applicant by birth, marriage, or de facto

relationship, and

 is easy to contact by telephone during normal working hours,

should we need to make contact.

The person who completes this declaration must also endorse the

applicants photograph, which must be no more than 6 months old.





Thanks everyone for answering the questions .. Cheers !!
Hi guys,



I've applied for a 2nd working holiday visa about 2 weeks ago but I'm planning to go overseas next weekend.

My 1st working holiday visa expires next year, so thought it'd be okay to go overseas and come back.

But someone says my 1st year visa could be cancelled or my currently applied 2nd year visa could be declined.

Also granted BVA even tho my 1st year visa is valid until later.



I've called the immi office and she says I need to email them to notify that I'd not be in Aus when it's finalizing.

Not sure it makes such differences.



Any advices please?



Thanks.

MJ
Hi,

I am an Engineer with B.E (IT) having 11 years of experience and 5 years in Project Management. Currently working as Delivery Manager in IT firm.

My wife is a doctor, MBBS with PGDM in Public health from Mumbai and working in a hospital with 8 years experience.

We want to immigrate to AUS. could you suggest if my wife has a better chance of getting PR and job in AUS and then I apply as co-applicant.

Please suggest what is the best way for both of us to apply for PR.



Thanks.
SUV

FWD

AWD

ICE

For the 2017 Nissan Rouge Hybrid, the Japanese manufacturer had gifted the crossoverwith a 2.0-liter four-cylinder powerplant and a 30-kilowatt electric motor . Combined, the duo churns out 176 horsepower, which is merely six ponies more than the standard Nissan Rogue.As per the EPA, the Rogue Hybrid manages 34 mpg combined in front-wheel-drive form. The all-wheel-drive model, on the other hand, settles for 33 mpg on the combined cycle. Compared to the standard Rogue, thats five miles per gallon better thanandmodels.The downside to choosing the hybrid over the-only Rogue is space. Due to the battery pack, you cant get three rows of seats. More than that, the Rogue Hybrid loses 0.2 cubic feet of space behind the front seats. Behind the second-row seats, thatll be 1.1 cubic feet less.Pricing isnt available for the hybrid at the time of writing this piece, yet prospective customers shouldnt expect more than $3,000 on top of the price of the gas-chugging 2017 Nissan Rogue. Speaking of which, all Rogue models boast modern headlights and taillights, a more stylish front grille, chrome detailing, as well as memory seats and mirrors, a different shifter, and a flat-bottomed steering wheel that can warm your hands up during those cold winter mornings. And as expected, most goodies come in the form of options.By comparison, the only standard additions to the entry-level model in the 2017 Nissan Rogue lineup are remote start and heated front seats. On the safety front, Nissan ups the ante with useful bits and bobs such as high-beam assist, lane departure warning and prevention, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian protection, and Intelligent Cruise Control.The 2017 Nissan Rogue will arrive at U.S. dealers in early November, while the 2017 Nissan Rogue Hybrid should roll in dealer lots by the end of 2016.
10 September 2016 10:18 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani Minister of Energy Natig Aliyev has met with Bulgarian ambassador Maya Hristova to discuss the preparations for the 4th meeting of Azerbaijan-Bulgaria Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation to be held in Baku on September 29-30, Azertac reported.

Ambassador Hristova hailed the importance of the meeting of the two countries' energy ministers in terms of contributing to the discussions of the development of energy cooperation between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria.

Aliyev underlined the need for such a meeting for implementing joint projects and reviewing the work done in connection with the pipelines.

Bulgaria's Minister of Energy Temenuzhka Petkova and Economy Minister Bozhidar Lukarski were also present at the meeting.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 September 2016 16:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has paid compensations worth over 252.07 million Azerbaijani manats to depositors of DekaBank, KredoBank, Zaminbank, Parabank, Caucasus Development Bank, AtraBank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Gandjabank and Texnikabank, ADIF said in a message on September 10.

Acceptance of applications from insured depositors of DekaBank, KredoBank, Zaminbank and Parabank began Aug. 1 and the payment of compensations has been carried out since that day.

Compensations to the insured depositors of Caucasus Development Bank and AtraBank are being paid starting from Aug. 23.

Payments are being carried out at the branches of those closed banks.

AtraBanks clients can obtain compensations at those branches, where they concluded agreements to accept deposits. Those people, who concluded agreements at the Khazar branch, should apply to the banks main office.

Depositors of Caucasus Development Bank receive compensations at the banks main office.

Payment of compensations to insured depositors of Bank of Azerbaijan has been carried out since Jan. 29, 2016: these payments are being carried out at branches of Muganbank and Rabitabank. Clients of Ganjabank receive compensations since Feb. 4 at the branches of Rabitabank, Unibank and Kapital Bank.

ADIF started payment of compensations to insured depositors of Texnikabank since Feb. 12: clients receive compensations at the branches of Muganbank, Rabitabank, Unibank and Kapital Bank.

Depositors of Parabank received 30.198 manats out of the total compensations of 43.79 million manats, and depositors of Zaminbank received 43.906 million manats.

The compensations paid to DekaBanks depositors amounted to 2.763 million manats out of the payments total volume of 5.59 million manats.

KredoBanks depositors received compensations worth 16.8 million manats out of the compensations total volume of 30.21 million manats.

The compensations paid to depositors of Caucasus Development Bank amounted to 1.527 million manats.

Depositors of AtraBank received 12.146 million manats out of the total compensations of 13.9 million manats.

Depositors of Bank of Azerbaijan received compensations worth 24.091 million manats out of the compensations total volume of 24.2 million manats.

The compensations paid to depositors of Gandjabank and Texnikabank amounted to 0.93 million manats and 119.723 million manats out of the total compensations of 1.5 million manats and 122.6 million manats, respectively.

The licenses of all the nine banks were cancelled during 2016 as their assets were not classified in line with the law, they didnt create adequate reserves and the aggregate capital of these banks doesnt meet the minimum requirements [50 million manats]. In general, they havent fulfilled the regulators instructions.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 September 2016 11:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Former National Security Minister of Azerbaijans Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Vali Alasgarov, who is under arrest, has been transferred from an investigatory isolation ward to a detention facility in Nakhchivan, Alasgarovs lawyer Vugar Khasayev told Trend on September 9.

Khasayev said he met with his client in prison on September 6.

During the meeting, the lawyer inquired about conditions of Alasgarovs detention and his health.

Vali Alasgarov has no complaints about the conditions of detention and health, Khasayev said. Currently, we are preparing a cassation appeal.

Alasgarov was charged under articles 179.3.2 (large-scale embezzlement), 308.1 (abuse of power) and 309.1 (excess of power) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

The Military Court of Nakhchivan sentenced the former minister to 14 years in prison.

An appeal was filed regarding the courts decision, but the Supreme Court of Nakhchivan upheld the decision of the first instance court.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 September 2016 16:00 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan`s Defence Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov has met with UK Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon as part of his visit to London, Azertac reported.

The sides discussed how to develop bilateral relations between the two countries on various fronts, particularly in the military area. They exchanged views over the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Michael Fallon hailed Azerbaijan's contribution to the events organized by the two countries and as part of the NATO "Partnership for Peace" Programme, including peacekeeping operations.

The two also discussed military and military-technical cooperation between the two countries.

---

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10 September 2016 14:16 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl (NICO), a Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), reached an agreement with Frances Total to resume oil swap in the near future, Mehr reported on September 9.

According to the report, NICO and Total are preparing to sign an agreement to swap 160,000-200,000 barrels per day of oil to revive the swap operations from Caspian countries, which stopped six years ago.

Earlier, Fars news agency also reported that NICO is also finalizing the talks with Switzerland-based Vitol as well as British Petroleum to resume oil swap operations.

Under oil swap agreements, which started in 1997 and were in place for over 12 years, Iran received crude oil of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the Neka port and delivered an equal volume to the clients of the same countries in Persian Gulf.

Iran says works are underway to increase the Neka ports swap capacity from the current level of 120,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 2.5 million b/d.

The total income received by Iran from swap transactions from 1997 to 2009 amounted to about $880 million.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 September 2016 11:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkey can set up a camp in the Syrian territories liberated from the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terrorists and resettle Syrian refugees there after creation of a safe zone, the Turkish Office for Prevention and Elimination of Consequences of Emergency (AFAD) told Trend on September 9.

AFAD said it is preparing to create a camp in Syria.

Some groups of Syrian refugees are voluntarily leaving Turkey and settling in Syrias Jarabulus, previously liberated from the IS militants as part of the Shield of the Euphrates operation, AFAD said.

Earlier, it was reported that the first group of Syrian refugees, consisting of 250 people, returned to their motherland Sept. 7.

On Aug. 24 morning, the Turkish Air Force, with the support of the coalition aircraft, launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarabulus from the IS militants in northern Syria, near Aleppo. The operation was dubbed the Shield of the Euphrates.

The Free Syrian Army and the Turkish Armed Forces have liberated around 100 villages and Jarabulus from the IS militants since the beginning of the operation.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has so far claimed over 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

According to AFAD, there are three million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey has spent more than $10 billion on Syrian refugees.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
You are here: Home

Four executives of online video service Qvod who are on trial for spreading pornography for profits and who had pled innocent in a previous trial, changed their pleas to guilty on Friday in a new open trial in Beijing.

Wang Xin, former CEO of Shenzhen-based Qvod Technology Co. Ltd. and three other executives, all admitted to spreading pornography on the Internet, Beijing's Haidian District People's Court heard.

The company was charged with spreading a large amount of pornography and pirated content on its popular video player since the end of 2012 and by doing so had also made huge profits through charging users and advertisers.

According to Haidian District People's Procuratorate, 21,251 of 29,841 files that police obtained from three servers used by Qvod were pornographic.

During the first trial, on January 7-8, the defendants denied all the charges.

In Friday's trial, the procuratorate alleged that the large amount of obscene content had increased Qvod's users, and its profits.

In 2013, the company's business division posted revenue exceeding 140 million yuan (21 million U.S. dollars), according to the procuratorate.

"Our company's revenue is based on user numbers," admitted defendant Zhang Kedong.

Founded in 2007, Qvod is a peer-to-peer video streaming site and it has around 300 million users.

"Faced with the choice between social responsibility and company interests, I chose the the latter, " said Wang. He showed remorse for his actions.

"Spreading obscene content on the Internet did harm to others,especially adolescents. Not only have I broken the law, but I have also neglected my duty," said Wang.

The court will announce the verdicts at a later date.
10 September 2016 19:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Current acting Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will become the next president of Uzbekistan with a 100 percent probability, a Russian expert told Trend on September 10.

No major changes will take place in foreign and domestic policy of Uzbekistan during Mirziyoyevs rule, said Leonid Gusev, a senior research fellow at the Analytical Center of the International Studies Institute at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Regarding foreign policy, Mirziyoyev, like his predecessor, will conduct a multi-vector policy, Gusev said. He will cooperate with Russia and China, the EU and the US.

The expert added it will be good if the new president to some extent succeeds in establishing relations with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, however it is difficult to say for now how the relations with the neighbors in the region will develop. At the same time, Gusev noted that no conflicts are observed within the country and around it.

In domestic policy, Mirziyoyev, as well as Islam Karimov, is sharply opposed to the internal opposition of Uzbekistan and acts against Islamist organizations, Gusev added.

The first president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov passed away Sept. 2 at the age of 78 after a stroke.

Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev was appointed the acting president by a decision of a joint meeting of the Senate and the Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistans Parliament Sept. 8.

Uzbekistan will hold presidential election Dec.4.

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At the #NLGJA16 (National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association) Convention in South Beach, FL along with its high end dinners and cocktail parties, educational panels took place through-out the day. Now if you have ever wondered about the sad state of LGBT media all you have to do is look at the tweet above by vlogger Matt Baume about a statement made my Steve Rothaus of the Miami Herald one of the very few gay journalists covering LGBT news at a major newspaper at one of the panels.

Rothaus who once called Chad Griffin the Rosa Parks of the LGBT community will received the Eddy McIntyre Community Service Award in recognition of his reporting on issues and news affecting the LGBTQ community in October at the Task Force Gala  Miami at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

Imagine what he could get if he actually knew his history?

Now in full disclosure I have had many run-ins with NGLJA in the past for their very kiss-ass PC ways and their inability to use LGBT media as not only an educational tool but also as an activist tool also. For lack of a better word they are an old boys club of LGBT journalist and legends in their own minds who discriminate against others and get together for award programs and and conventions to jerk each other off. And whats worse they have somehow persuaded the prestigious Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund to donate up to over $75,000.00 a year to bankroll their soirees under the guise of education.

Well I am about to educate them for free.

Below is Gay History for Dummies timeline which provides basic information about the gay rights movement in the United States from 1924 to the present: including the Stonewall riots; the contributions of Harvey Milk; the Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy; the first civil unions; the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York; and more.

I hope that Steve Rothaus, the NLGJA, and others so-called journalist will use this timeline and learn.

Our history matters and should be learned and held sacred by everyone. Especially by those who pretend to be the scribes of the community.

The American Gay Rights Movement: A Brief Timeline

The Society for Human Rights in Chicago becomes the countrys earliest known gay rights organization.

Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, revealing to the public that homosexuality is far more widespread than was commonly believed.

The Mattachine Society, the first national gay rights organization, is formed by Harry Hay, considered by many to be the founder of the gay rights movement.

The first lesbian-rights organization in the United States, the Daughters of Bilitis, was established in San Francisco in 1955.

The Daughters of Bilitis, a pioneering national lesbian organization, is founded.

Joe Cino, an Italian-American theater producer, opens Caffe Cino. Caffe Cino is credited with starting the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. Six years after Caffe Cino opens, it hosts the first gay plays, The Madness of Lady Bright, by Lanford Wilson, and The Haunted Host, by Robert Patrick.

Illinois becomes the first state in the U.S. to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults in private.

The worlds first the transgender organization, the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, was established in San Francisco.

The Stonewall riots transform the gay rights movement from one limited to a small number of activists into a widespread protest for equal rights and acceptance. Patrons of a gay bar in New Yorks Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn, fight back during a police raid on June 27, sparking three days of riots.

The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders. Harvey Milk runs for city supervisor in San Francisco. He runs on a socially liberal platform and opposes government involvement in personal sexual matters. Milk comes in 10th out of 32 candidates, earning 16,900 votes, winning the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods. He receives a lot of media attention for his passionate speeches, brave political stance, and media skills.

San Francisco Mayor George Moscone appoints Harvey Milk to the Board of Permit Appeals, making Milk the first openly gay city commissioner in the United States. Milk decides to run for the California State Assembly and Moscone is forced to fire him from the Board of Permit Appeals after just five weeks. Milk loses the State Assembly race by fewer than 4,000 votes. Believing the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club will never support him politically, Milk co-founds the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club after his election loss.

Activists in Miami, Florida pass a civil rights ordinance making sexual orientation discrimination illegal in Dade County. Save Our Children, a campaign by a Christian fundamentalist group and headed by singer Anita Bryant, is launched in response to the ordinance. In the largest special election of any in Dade County history, 70% vote to overturn the ordinance. It is a crushing defeat for gay activists.

On January 8, Harvey Milk makes national news when he is sworn in as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Running against 16 other candidates, he wins the election by 30 percent. Milk begins his term by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlaws sexual orientation discrimination. Only one supervisor votes against it and Mayor Moscone signs it into law. John Briggs drops out of the California governors race, but receives support for Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, a proposal to fire any teacher or school employee who publicly supports gay rights. Harvey Milk campaigns against the bill and attends every event hosted by Briggs. In the summer, attendance greatly increases at Gay Pride marches in San Francisco and Los Angeles, partly in response to Briggs. President Jimmy Carter, former Governor Ronald Reagan, and Governor Jerry Brown speak out against the proposition. On November 7, voters reject the proposition by more than a million votes. On November 27, Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone are assassinated by Dan White, another San Francisco city supervisor, who had recently resigned and wanted his job back, but was being passed over because he wasnt the best fit for the liberal leaning Board of Supervisors and the ethnic diversity in Whites district. San Francisco pays tribute to Harvey Milk by naming several locations after him, included Harvey Milk Plaza at the intersection of Market and Castro streets. The San Francisco Gay Democratic Club changes its name to the Harvey Milk Memorial Gay Democratic Club.

About 75,000 people participated in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington, D.C., in October. It was the largest political gathering in support of LGBT rights to date.

At the 1980 Democratic National Convention held at New York Citys Madison Square Garden, Democrats took a stance supporting gay rights, adding the following to their plank: All groups must be protected from discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, language, age, sex or sexual orientation.

Wisconsin becomes the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The city of Berkeley, California, becomes the first city to offer its employees domestic-partnership benefits.

The Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy is instituted for the U.S. military, permitting gays to serve in the military but banning homosexual activity. President Clintons original intention to revoke the prohibition against gays in the military was met with stiff opposition; this compromise, which has led to the discharge of thousands of men and women in the armed forces, was the result. On April 25, an estimated 800,000 to one million people participate in the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Several events such as art and history exhibits, public service outings and workshops are held throughout Washington, DC leading up the event. Jesse Jackson, RuPaul, Martina Navratilova, and Eartha Kitt are among the speakers and performers at a rally after the march. The march is a response to Dont Ask Dont Tell, Amendment 2 in Colorado, as well as rising hate crimes and ongoing discrimination against the LGBT community.

In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court strikes down Colorados Amendment 2, which denied gays and lesbians protections against discrimination, calling them special rights. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, We find nothing special in the protections Amendment 2 withholds. These protections . . . constitute ordinary civil life in a free society.

Vermont becomes the first state in the country to legally recognize civil unions between gay or lesbian couples. The law states that these couples would be entitled to the same benefits, privileges, and responsibilities as spouses. It stops short of referring to same-sex unions as marriage, which the state defines as heterosexual.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that sodomy laws in the U.S. are unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. In November, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that barring gays and lesbians from marrying violates the state constitution. The Massachusetts Chief Justice concluded that to deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to gay couples was unconstitutional because it denied the dignity and equality of all individuals and made them second-class citizens. Strong opposition followed the ruling.

On May 17, same-sex marriages become legal in Massachusetts.

Civil unions become legal in Connecticut in October.

Civil unions become legal in New Jersey in December.

In November, the House of Representatives approves a bill ensuring equal rights in the workplace for gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.

In February, a New York State appeals court unanimously votes that valid same-sex marriages performed in other states must be recognized by employers in New York, granting same-sex couples the same rights as other couples. In February, the state of Oregon passes a law that allows same-sex couples to register as domestic partners allowing them some spousal rights of married couples. On May 15, the California Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. By November 3rd, more than 18,000 same-sex couples have married. On November 4, California voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage called Proposition 8. The attorney general of California, Jerry Brown, asked the states Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of Proposition 8. The ban throws into question the validity of the more than 18,000 marriages already performed, but Attorney General Brown reiterated in a news release that he believed the same-sex marriages performed in California before November 4 should remain valid, and the California Supreme Court, which upheld the ban in May 2009, agreed, allowing those couples married under the old law to remain that way. November 4, voters in California, Arizona, and Florida approved the passage of measures that ban same-sex marriage. Arkansas passed a measure intended to bar gay men and lesbians from adopting children. On October 10, the Supreme Court of Connecticut rules that same-sex couples have the right to marry. This makes Connecticut the second state, after Massachusetts, to legalize civil marriage for same-sex couples. The court rules that the state cannot deny gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry under Connecticuts constitution, and that the states civil union law does not provide same-sex couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples. On November 12, same-sex marriages begin to be officially performed in Connecticut.

On April 3, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously rejects the state law banning same-sex marriage. Twenty-one days later, county recorders are required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On April 7, the Vermont Legislature votes to override Gov. Jim Douglass veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry, legalizing same-sex marriage. It is the first state to legalize gay marriage through the legislature; the courts of the other states in which the marriage is legalMassachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowagave approval. On May 6, the governor of Maine legalized same-sex marriage in that state in Maine; however, citizens voted to overturn that law when they went to the polls in November, and Maine became the 31st state to ban the practice. On June 3, New Hampshire governor John Lynch signs legislation allowing same-sex marriage. The law stipulates that religious organizations and their employees will not be required to participate in the ceremonies. New Hampshire is the sixth state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. On June 17, President Obama signs a referendum allowing the same-sex partners of federal employees to receive benefits. They will not be allowed full health coverage, however. This is Obamas first major initiative in his campaign promise to improve gay rights. On August 12, President Obama posthumously awards Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

March 3, Congress approves a law signed in December 2009 that legalizes same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. August 4, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rules that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in California, violates the 14th Amendments equal protection clause. Proposition 8 singles out gays and lesbians and legitimates their unequal treatment, Vaughn writes. Proposition 8 perpetuates the stereotype that gays and lesbians are incapable of forming long-term loving relationships and that gays and lesbians are not good parents. December 18, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 31 in favor of repealing Dont Ask, Dont Tell, the Clinton-era military policy that forbids openly gay men and women from serving in the military. Eight Republicans side with the Democrats to strike down the ban. The ban will not be lifted officially until President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agree that the military is ready to enact the change and that it wont affect military readiness. On Dec. 18, President Obama officially repeals the Dont Ask, Dont Tell military policy.

June 24, New York passes a law to allow same-sex marriage. New York is now the largest state that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry. The vote comes on the eve of the citys annual Gay Pride Parade and gives new momentum to the national gay-rights movement. The marriage bill is approved with a 33 to 29 vote. Cheering supporters greet Gov. Andrew Cuomo as he arrives on the Senate floor to sign the measure at 11:55pm, just moments after the vote. After making same-sex marriage one of his top priorities, Cuomo emerges as a true champion of gay rights.

February 7, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California rules 21 that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in state, is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In the ruling, the court says, the law operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majoritys private disapproval of them and their relationships.

February 13, Washington becomes the seventh state to legalize gay marriage. March 1, Maryland passes legislation to legalize gay marriage, becoming the eighth state to do so. May 9, President Barack Obama endorses same-sex marriage. It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married, he said. He makes the statement days after Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan both came out in support of gay marriage. Nov. 6, Tammy Baldwin, a seven-term Democratic congresswoman from Wisconsin, prevails over former governor Tommy Thompson in the race for U.S. Senate and becomes the first openly gay politician elected to the Senate. Also on Election Day, gay marriage is approved in a popular vote for the first time. Maine and Maryland vote in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. In addition, voters in Minnesota reject a measure to ban same-sex marriage.

Feb. 27, in a policy shift for party members, several Republicans back a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to rule that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. More than 100 Republicans are listed on the brief, including former New Hampshire Congressman Charles Bass and Beth Myers. Myers was a key adviser to Mitt Romney during his 2012 presidential campaign. The brief is filed as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider overturning Proposition 8, the California initiative banning same-sex marriage, as well as overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law passed during Bill Clintons presidency, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. March 26, the Supreme Court begins two days of historical debate over gay marriage. During the debate, the Supreme Court consider overturning Proposition 8, the California initiative banning same-sex marriage, and the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law passed during Bill Clintons presidency, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The Supreme Courts decision will be announced in June 2013. April 29, Jason Collins of the NBAs Washington Wizards announces in an essay in Sports Illustrated that he is gay. Im a 34-year-old N.B.A. center. Im black and Im gay, he writes. Ive reached that enviable state in life in which I can do pretty much what I want. And what I want is to continue to play basketball. I still love the game, and I still have something to offer. My coaches and teammates recognize that. At the same time, I want to be genuine and authentic and truthful. Collins is the first active athlete in the NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB to make the announcement. May 2, after same-sex marriage legislation passes in both houses of Rhode Islands legislature, Governor Lincoln Chafee signs it into law. The new law, legalizing same-sex marriage, goes into effect on August 1, 2013. May 7, Governor Jack Markell signs the Civil Marriage Equality and Religious Freedom act, legalizing same-sex marriage for the state of Delaware. The new law goes into effect on July 1, 2013. May 13, in Minnesota, the State Senate votes 37 to 30 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. The vote comes a week after it passes in the House. Governor Mark Dayton, a supporter of same-sex marriage, says he will sign the bill the following afternoon. Gay couples will be able to marry in Minnesota in August 2013. June 26, the Supreme Court rules that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. In a 5 to 4 vote, the court rules that DOMA violates the rights of gays and lesbians. The court also rules that the law interferes with the states rights to define marriage. It is the first case ever on the issue of gay marriage for the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. votes against striking it down as does Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. However, conservative-leaning Justice Anthony M. Kennedy votes with his liberal colleagues to overturn DOMA. July 17, Queen Elizabeth II approves a same-sex marriage bill for England and Wales. Her approval comes a day after it passes in Parliament. While the queens approval is simply a formality, her quick response clears the way for the first gay marriages to happen as soon as 2014 in England and Wales. The bill allows same-sex couples to marry in both religious and civil ceremonies. It also allows couples currently in a civil partnership to convert it into a marriage. Scotland is currently considering its own new legislation on same-sex marriage. Aug. 1, Minnesota and Rhode Island begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples this month. Oct. 21, in an unanimous vote, the New Jersey Supreme Court rejects Gov. Chris Christies request to delay the implementation date of same-sex weddings. Same-sex couples in New Jersey begin to marry. Just hours later, Christie drops his appeal to legalize same-sex marriages. Therefore, New Jersey becomes the 14th state to recognize same-sex marriages. To see a current list of all the states that have legalized same-sex marriage, go here. Nov. 5, Illinois becomes the 15th state to recognize same-sex marriages when the House of Representatives approves the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which passed the state Senate in February 2013. Governor Pat Quinn, a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, will sign it into law. The new law will be implemented on June 1, 2014. Nov. 12, Hawaii becomes the 16th state to recognize same-sex marriages when the Senate passes a gay marriage bill, which had already passed in the House. Governor Neil Abercrombie, a vocal supporter of gay marriage, says he will sign the bill. Beginning December 2, gay couples who are residents of Hawaii as well as tourists can marry in the state. Hawaii is already a very popular state for destination weddings. State Senator J. Kalani English says, This is nothing more than the expansion of aloha in Hawaii. To see a current list of all the states that have legalized same-sex marriage, go here.

Jan. 6, The United States Supreme Court blocks any further same-sex marriages in Utah while state officials appeal the decision made by Judge Shelby in late December 2013. The block creates legal limbo for the 1,300 same-sex couples who have received marriage licenses since Judge Shelbys ruling. Jan. 10, The Obama administration announces that the federal government will recognize the marriages of the 1,300 same-sex couples in Utah even though the state government has currently decided not to do so. In a video announcement on the Justice Department website, Attorney General Eric Holder says, I am confirming today that, for purposes of federal law, these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages. These families should not be asked to endure uncertainty regarding their status as the litigation unfolds. With federal approval, same-sex couples will be able to receive spousal benefits, like health insurance for federal employees and filing joint federal income tax returns. May 19, Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Oregon when a U.S. federal district judge rules that the states 2004 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage violates the Equal Protection clause in the U.S. Constitution. May 20, A judge strikes down the same-sex marriage ban in Pennsylvania, making the state the 18th to legalize gay marriage. The judge rules that Pennsylvanias 1996 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The state is the last in the Northeast to legalize same-sex marriage. Before now, the state did not even recognize domestic partnerships or civil unions. Oct. 6, The U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear appeals of rulings in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin that allowed same-sex marriage. The move paves the way for same-sex marriages in the five states. In fact, Virginia announced that unions would begin that day. Nov. 12, The U.S. Supreme Court denies a request to block same-sex marriage in Kansas. Nov. 19, A federal judge strikes down Montanas ban that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Nov. 20, The U.S. Supreme Court denies a request to block same-sex marriage in South Carolina. The ruling means South Carolina becomes the 35th U.S. state where same-sex marriage is legal.

June 26, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 54, in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that states cannot say that marriage is reserved for heterosexual couples. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. July 27, The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) ended its ban on gay adult leaders. The new policy was approved by the BSA National Executive Board by a 45-12 vote. The new policy did still allow church-sponsored Scout groups to ban gay adults for religious reasons.

In the year since the June 26, 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that extended the right for same-sex couples to marry nationwide, the LGBT community has been fighting against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations. On May 13, 2016, President Obama weighed in on the toilet warslegislation being hashed out in some states about which bathrooms transgender people have the right to usewith the guidelines: students may use bathrooms according to their self-identified gender.

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Tingting's mother holds the girl's picture in front of her seat at the kindergarten on September 8, 2016. [Photo/Tianjin Daily]

On Wednesday, Tingting, a four-year old girl, was found locked for 8 hours in the "school bus" of her kindergarten in Tianjin's Hedong District. The driver of the bus, surnamed Zhang, found the girl lying in the bus without breathing.

The police of the city's Hedong District has initiated an investigation into the case. The bus driver and the head of the kindergarten has been detained.

Around 8 am on Wednesday, the bus driver took Tingting to kindergarten in his private car, the so-called "school bus". He left the girl in the car while fixing the brakes. At about 4.50pm as Zhang went to take the girl home, he found the girl still in the car. He called an ambulance immediately, but the hospital found the girl had already passed away.

According to a local report, the girl's parents expressed concern over the kindergarten. They believed the kindergarten should take undeniable responsibility as the incident occurred in the driver's private car. There were no supervising teachers to ensure that the girl had arrived at the kindergarten.

The kindergarten has been presently suspended and the staff of education bureau in Hedong district, Tianjin, is looking to settle the other 89 students.
 Flash

The UN Security Council on Friday condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), saying it is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 (of the UN Charter) and a Security Council resolution," Ambassador Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen of New Zealand, the council's president for this month, told reporters.

The DPRK's state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test. It was Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, which followed the previous one by eight months.

After a closed-door meeting on this matter, the 15-nation council said in a press statement that the nuclear test is a flagrant disregard of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and "therefore a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist."

"The members of the Security Council also recalled that they have previously expressed their determination to take further significant measures in the event of another nuclear test by the DPRK," it added.

In January, the DPRK carried out a test of what it called its first H-bomb. It also conducted underground nuclear tests respectively in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.
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Its no secret that the cost of higher education has reached an all-time high. However, there are many things a prospective student can do to help offset the steep cost of college. To attend college for free, you can apply for scholarships, work for your school, find tuition-free degree programs and more.

How much does college cost?

Over the past 10 years, the cost of college has been increasing. College Board data shows that in 2011-12, tuition and fees averaged $9,890 at public four-year colleges (in 2021 dollars). In 2021-22, that number was $10,740. The disparity is even greater for private four-year colleges; from 2011-12 to 2021-22, average tuition and fees rose from $33,320 to $38,070.

The cost of college depends largely on the school you choose to attend. Heres how College Board breaks down average costs for the 2021-22 school year:

Expenses Average cost Public university tuition $10,740 for in-state students; $27,560 for out-of-state students Private university tuition $38,070 Room and board $11,950 for public universities; $13,620 for private universities Books and supplies $1,240 Transportation $1,230 for public universities; $1,060 for private universities Personal expenses $2,170 for public universities; $1,810 for private universities

How to attend college for free

Its important to research all the ways you can avoid paying much  if anything  to attend college. Here are the top strategies you can pursue.

1. Apply for grants and scholarships

There are thousands of programs, institutions, companies and organizations that give away free money. In general, grants are based on need, while scholarships are based on academic, artistic or athletic merit.

You can apply for grants and scholarships at the federal and school level by completing the FAFSA. Ask your high school guidance counselor or college financial aid office if youre eligible for any local programs or institution-specific scholarships.

Scholarship search engines are an easy way to find scholarships outside of your college offerings. You can customize your search based on any number of factors, including:

Race.

Ethnicity.

Gender.

Financial need.

Potential major.

Military affiliation.

Religion.

Physical disabilities.

The earlier you start your search, the more free money you could qualify for. Many grants and scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so the sooner you apply, the more money you could score.

2. Serve your country

The U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, Military (West Point), Merchant Marine and Naval academies offer free college opportunities to students who serve after college. Scholarships are also available through local Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs.

Offered at more than 1,700 colleges and universities in the U.S., the ROTC program provides a paid college education and guaranteed postcollege career to participants in exchange for committing to serve in the military after graduation.

If youve served on active duty on or after Sept. 11, 2001, you may also qualify for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which helps cover the cost of in-state tuition and fees and provides an allowance for living expenses, books and supplies. Those who qualify for the programs maximum benefit will have the full cost of public in-state tuition and fees covered for 36 months. There are funding limits for private and foreign schools.

AmeriCorps is another national service organization that offers education awards in exchange for community work. The award amount varies among AmeriCorps programs, but a person cannot earn more than the aggregate value of two full-time national service education awards. The full education award is equal to the maximum Pell Grant value for that year. Members also receive a living stipend while serving in the program.

3. Work for the school

Many schools offer free or reduced tuition for employees and staff of the school. In addition, if a students parent works for a college, a full or partial waiver may be available for that student. The terms vary by the institution, since theres no minimum standard, but many full-time workers qualify for tuition-free classes. Future students can find out about their schools policy by calling the admissions office.

4. Waive your costs

Some students can get a free pass based on academic performance or other factors.

Tuition waivers may be available for (current or former) military and talented students, says Manuel Fabriquer, founder of College Planning ABC, a financial aid and admissions counseling firm in San Jose, California. Even families that have substantial income can get tuition waivers if [the student] has the right test scores.

Some schools also offer waivers for Native American students, though this policy varies by school. To find out what a school offers, contact the financial aid office.

5. Have your employer pick up the costs

Theres a long list of companies that offer tuition reimbursement, including Chegg, Google and Hulu. Ask your employer if theyre willing to provide full or partial tuition reimbursement. Up to $5,250 in tuition reimbursement each year is tax-free for both employees and employers.

6. Choose an in-demand career

Another great way to attend college for free is to find a high-need field of study. If youre trying to cut the cost of college, this is something to consider before you even enroll.

Math, science, nursing, teaching and social work are all subjects that colleges may incentivize through scholarships. There are additional opportunities available through organizations like Teach for America and the Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program, and you can earn a TEACH Grant of up to $4,000 per year in exchange for a commitment to teach at a low-income school or educational service agency for four of the first eight years after graduation.

7. Attend a work college

A work college is another way to get a free or substantially discounted college education. These schools, which are generally four-year liberal arts institutions, provide educational opportunities as well as valuable work experience.

Be aware that all students must participate in a comprehensive work-learning service for all four years of enrollment. In other words, all resident students have jobs. Often the jobs are located on campus, but off-campus jobs are also possible. Specific program details vary by college.

All participating work colleges are approved and supervised by the U.S. Department of Education and are required to meet specific federal standards.

8. Choose a school that pays you

Some schools will pay you to focus your studies on a single subject, which they select. Schools like the Webb Institute and the Curtis Institute of Music offer a select range of academic programs and pick up the tuition cost for every student.

However, its important to think through the decision before you commit to this course. You dont want to get caught up in taking free college courses only to graduate and realize that youre not interested in the subject anymore.

9. Attend a community college with a free tuition program

There are many community colleges that now offer free tuition programs; Tennessee, Oregon, California, New York and Washington are all examples of states that have implemented some version of free community college.

For many states, you have to graduate from an in-state high school and enroll full time to qualify for the free tuition program. You may also have to commit to staying in the state for several years after graduation. Even though tuition will be free, you may still have to pay for textbooks, supplies and room and board.

10. Look into online tuition-free degree programs

Community colleges arent the only schools that offer tuition-free programs. Some employers provide free college courses to employees. For example, Starbucks has partnered with Arizona State University (ASU) to provide workers with full tuition for their online programs and degrees.

The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Berea College in Kentucky are two schools that offer online tuition-free programs. You can do a Google search for more online tuition-free degrees, which may be especially suited for students who want to continue living at home.

Will President Biden make college free?

During his campaign, President Biden indicated that making community college tuition-free for all Americans was a top priority. Unfortunately, the president was forced to cut the proposal from his spending bill, citing some pushback from moderate Democratic senators.

Now its unclear what the path toward nationwide tuition-free community college would look like  especially if the Republicans take back one or both chambers of Congress during the 2022 midterms.

What if I take out student loans?

If youve done everything you can to go to college for free and you still have to pay for some of it, you can use student loans to cover the financial gaps.

Whether you take out federal or private student loans, you should borrow only as much as you need. Every dollar that you borrow is a dollar you have to pay back with interest. The more you borrow now, the more youll end up paying back after you leave school. While Biden suggested in his campaign that he would like to forgive $10,000 of student loan debt per borrower, there are no official plans in place  so you should plan on paying back your entire balance.

Federal student loans are available when you complete the FAFSA. They include flexible repayment terms, like income-driven repayment plans, forgiveness options and long deferment and forbearance periods. If youre still struggling to pay for college and have maxed out the federal loan limit, you might need private student loans, which can have high interest rates and fewer borrower protections. If this is the case, its important to shop around with a few lenders before applying for your student loan in order to keep your costs as low as possible.

The bottom line

While getting a free college education is possible, it will require a lot of time, effort and commitment. Start your search early and apply to as many scholarships, grants and other programs as possible. If you cast a wide net, you have the best chance of attending college for free. If you still need to fill in the gaps, taking out a student loan can get you the rest of the way.
Selling a home isnt hard if youve got the right guidance and approach. Here we break down the process to sell your housefrom deciding if you really should sell, to finding a real estate agent wholl be your partner through it all, to pricing your home and negotiating offers.
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Two months after Cade Johnson turned 11, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

His condition fueled an aspiration.

As a fifth-grader, Johnson would wake up every Monday before dawn, sleep during a two-hour drive from his Lumberton home to Houston and sit through day-long doctor's appointments.

Although he went into remission a month after his diagnosis, Johnson underwent chemotherapy and regular doctor's visits for four years to ensure the cancer was as suppressed as possible.

Now 21 and a pre-med junior at Lamar University studying biology and exercise science, Johnson spent this past summer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia conducting cancer research.

Crediting his health history for his career goals, he wants to become a pediatric hematology oncologist.

His cancer research this summer involved testing drugs on cancer cells to prevent them from multiplying.

"We would break open cells to test the protein and research if protein involved in cell reproduction was triggered," Johnson said.

He was able to test his aptitude for research and persevered when the results were unexpected.

"There was a lot of failure involved in research as far as having an experiment designed and not getting the results you wanted," Johnson said.

He used his weekends to regroup, returning on Mondays to retrace his steps and determine what went wrong.

Ultimately, most of the research results were positive.

Johnson received the David J. Beck fellowship, which provided a year's tuition at Lamar

and $10,000 toward a summer research project.

For the project proposal portion of his application, he sought the help of a nurse practitioner who helped him during his cancer treatments in Houston.

Cara Smith, who now lives in Philadelphia, put Johnson in contact with oncologists at the Children's Hospital, which led to Johnson's research opportunity.

Although he is sure of his path now, Johnson has not always been interested in a career in medicine.

"Once I was done with cancer treatments as a kid, I was done with the medical field," Johnson said. "I didn't want to see anything related to medicine anymore."

It wasn't until late in his high school years that he revisited the idea of becoming a doctor.

"Now I realize that I can have an effect on kids that need it. I know I would be able to connect with kids in ways that other doctors can't," he said.

Johnson expects to graduate in May 2019.

He said he is considering pursuing a master's degree in biology and applying to medical schools like Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine.

SFlores@BeaumontEnterprise.com
The Texas Rangers on Wednesday said they continue to look into the possible misuse of federal grant funds by Silsbee police chief Mark Davis, after district attorneys in two Southeast Texas counties have declined to prosecute.

"The Texas Rangers will continue to work with local prosecutors and explore other possible options," Lt. Craig Cummings, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, wrote in an email.

The allegations involve "misconduct by the Silsbee police chief," Cummings said.

The Enterprise last week anonymously received a copy of a Texas Rangers internal memo and a recording of a phone conversation between Davis and a police equipment dealer. Taken together and authenticated by officials, the items sketch the outline of the inquiry to date.

The June 30 memo, from Texas Rangers Lt. Robert Smith to a superior, details Smith's efforts to determine whether the matter was under investigation and bring it to the attention of prosecutors in Hardin and Jefferson counties.

The nine-minute recording is of a May 5 conversation between Davis and a representative of Code Blue Police Supplies in Beaumont. In it, Davis, who also is the presumptive Hardin County Sheriff-elect, asks the vendor to overcharge the police department by about $500 for several items and issue a credit to spend the rest of the grant on later department purchases. It is not known whether the transaction actually occurred.

Gary Reaves, chief prosecutor for the Public Integrity Unit of the Jefferson County District Attorney's office, verified that the memo referred to the audio recording.

Because prosecutors declined to pursue the case, Smith did not recommend that a "special investigation" - required in the case of elected officials - be initiated, according to the memo.

The disposition of that recommendation is unknown.

Davis said the memo is proof no crime was committed and that he welcomes further inquiries.

"I've got nothing to hide here," Davis said. "We stand by the positive things we're doing here in Silsbee, and I plan for that to carry over into my next role as Hardin County sheriff."

Code Blue owner Tony Cervantes, speaking on behalf of the company, declined to comment Wednesday. Cervantes said he generally does not comment on items his store sells to law enforcement.

Reaves told Smith that Davis' actions "appeared inappropriate but did not warrant a criminal investigation," according to Reaves and to the memo. Reaves told Smith it was a matter for Homeland Security's Grants Division, both said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Office of Inspector General have been notified of the allegations against Davis, Cummings said Wednesday. The DHS is the source of the grant funding awarded to the Silsbee Police Department.

The Homeland Security grant funds in question are distributed through the governor's office, a spokesman said. The spokesman did not respond to further questions about the grant and whether Davis' actions were improper.

Davis and Reaves both said this week they believe the audio was originally obtained illegally - before The Enterprise received it in an unmarked envelope. Neither would not comment on specifics of their allegations.

The memo was released earlier to an unknown requestor under the Texas Public Information Act, Cummings said. He said it was not leaked. He did not comment on the audio recording.

On June 9, Aimee Snoddy, director of the Homeland Security grants division, passed along an anonymous "allegation of potential fraud" involving federal grant funds to the Texas Rangers, according to the June 30 memo.

When reached by phone, Snoddy declined to comment on the complaint.

Several local, federal and state agencies also received the complaint, according to the memo.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Beaumont told Smith no federal investigations were pending regarding the anonymous complaint, according to the memo.

Malcolm Bales, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, said in a telephone interview this week he was unfamiliar with the complaint.

Hardin County Judge Wayne McDaniel and Hardin County Attorney Rebecca Walton each confirmed to Smith that they had listened to an audio recording brought to their attention by the complainant.

Both told Smith they were unaware of any active investigations of the complaint, according to the memo.

Smith met on June 27 with Hardin County District Attorney David Sheffield, who said he was aware of the complaint, according to the memo.

Smith wrote that he asked Sheffield if he would prosecute any criminal violations related to the complaint that were turned up by a Texas Ranger Special Investigation.

Sheffield told Smith his office wouldn't prosecute for two reasons - first, because he had donated $1,000 to Davis' campaign and therefore had a conflict and second, because "the vendor involved" was located in Jefferson County, Smith wrote.

"It probably would not be proper for me to do it," Sheffield said in a telephone interview this week.

In the audio recording, which is electronically dated May 5, Davis asks the vendor's representative to mark up the cost of police vests by $59 each to bring the order to $21,474, closer to the full amount of the grant. He asks him to keep track of - but not record on the invoice - a credit of $531 for the department to spend later.

The invoice, Davis said in the recording, did not need to say "anything about credits or nothing else."

"I want to spend as much of (the grant monies) as I can," Davis said on the recording. "I don't want to leave $500 out here. So we'll come back.  Just make you a mental note somewhere."

Davis agreed with the vendor to buy more duty gear, such as boots.

Earlier in the recording, Davis and the vendor's representative discussed how to label a purchase listed on the purchase quote only as pouches. He asked that they be marked as radio pouches.

He also ordered nine vests and ballistic plates.

"It's finicky, but my grant will not pay for anything that is weapons systems or weapon-related," Davis says in the phone conversation. "And if a pouch is designed to hold something for a weapon, or an (ammunition) magazine pouch, they won't pay for it. So I don't need it to say anything to do with ammunition."

Davis has been Silsbee's police chief since 2011. He started his career in law enforcement as a sheriff's office dispatcher in 1986.

In May, Davis became the Republican nominee for sheriff after winning a runoff election, which set up a clear path to the county's top law enforcement position. No Democratic challenger is on the November general-election ballot.

BScott@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/BrandonKScott
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An openly gay reverend in Waco is planning an LGBTQ pride event after seeing a billboard in the city promoting gay aversion therapy.

On Monday, KXXV reported that a billboard reading "Ex-gays prove change is possible" was spotted in Waco. The billboard is sponsored by the group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), which works as a "support group for people who are working to overcome same-sex attractions," according to the news station.

READ MORE: Navy names ship after gay rights advocate Harvey Milk

Reverand Charley Garrison of Central Texas Metropolitan Community Church in Waco told the news station that he plans to hold a pride event rather than renting out a billboard to refute the ex-gay billboard.

"Ex-gay therapy does not do any good and in fact, can harm in increasing the suicide rate in the LGBTQ community," Garrison told KXXV.

According to the PFOX website, the group "exists to educate, support and advocate for individuals and parents on the issue of same-sex attraction, and increase others' understanding and acceptance of the ex-gay community."

READ MORE: Small town fires gay police chief, citing poor performance

Licensed psychotherapist and board member of PFOX David Pickup told KXXV that most people believe homosexuality is genetic. According to the news station, Pickup believes there is "little to no scientific evidence that homosexuality is a genetic trait."

Pickup told KXXV that reparative therapy is aimed at addressing unresolved emotional issues since some people have "traumatic causes for their homoerotic feelings."

The Human Rights Campaign reports that aversion therapy that Pickup suggests does not work. Instead, it can cause a high risk in suicide, depression and drug use, according to the group.

READ MORE: Gay priest who backed gay married Catholic worker suspended

Garrison said he doesn't believe that gay people have to change their sexuality and will use the pride event to celebrate them instead.

Garrison is originally from Louisiana where he was an AIDS activist and "discovered Metropolitan Community Churches and began to integrate his spirituality, his sexuality, and his passion for justice," according to his church's website.
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Lidl and fellow German discount chain Aldi have shaken up the UK grocery sector

The boss of Lidl's UK business has stepped down after overseeing the German budget supermarket's rapid rise across the country.

The company said Ronny Gottschlich has been replaced by Christian Hartnagel, who will become c hief executive of Lidl Great Britain with immediate effect.

Lidl and fellow German discount chain Aldi have shaken up the UK grocery sector and sparked a bitter s upermarket price war by stealing market share from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

Mr Gottschlich spent 16 years at Lidl, including six years as the company's Great Britain CEO.

Lidl saw sales growth of 12.2% in the 12 weeks to August 14, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel. The chain's total market share now stands at 4.5%.

The supermarket said Mr Hartnagel will now take charge of "moving the business forward and securing its ongoing market growth".

Lidl is in the midst of rolling out a bold investment strategy to more than double the number of British stores to 1,500.

In a statement, Lidl said: " The business is extremely grateful for Ronny Gottschlich's contribution throughout his six years as Lidl GB CEO, during which time he steered the business forward through a transformative period."

Mr Hartnagel was previously a board director for Lidl Austria, spearheading sales and operations.

The 34-year-old has worked in a raft of different management positions since joining the company 13 years ago, including regional director of Lidl Ireland.

Lidl Great Britain operates 630 stores and recorded revenues of 4.7 billion in the financial year to 2015.
The Office for National Statistics said the UK's deficit on trade in goods and services hit 4.5 billion

Surging export sales helped narrow the UK's yawning trade gap in the first month after Britain voted to leave the European Union, official figures have revealed.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the UK's deficit on trade in goods and services hit 4.5 billion in July, shrinking from 5.6 billion in June.

The brighter picture for UK trade came after total exports jumped by 800 million to 43.8 billion, while total imports eased by 300 million t o 48.3 billion.

Sales of jewellery and oil played a key role in driving up exports to the European Union by 1 billion to 12.5 billion over the period.

The plunge in the value of the pound to 31-year lows following Britain's vote to leave the EU has made UK goods more competitive on the global market, helping exports to grow.

The shrinking of the trade deficit will raise hopes that the economy can continue to grow in the third quarter despite initial fears that Britain was heading for a recession.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said the result adds evidence to the economy's "current resilience".

"A major hope for the UK economy going forward is that the substantial overall weakening of the pound since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June's referendum will increasingly feed through to boost foreign demand for UK goods and services.

"While the pound has recently firmed from its post-Brexit vote lows, it is still at an extremely competitive level and is likely to remain so for an extended period," he added.

The ONS said total exports were lifted in July by rising sales of ships and fuel, which both stepped up by 500 million.

There were smaller export increases from food, drinks, tobacco and machinery, but these rises were offset by a 500 million fall in aircraft exports.

It came as car imports shifted into reverse, dropping by 300 million.

Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, questioned whether the trade deficit was feeling the impact of sterling's drop in the wake of the Brexit vote.

"Looking ahead, the lesson from the past is that it takes at least a year for sterling depreciations to boost net trade, as it takes time for firms to re-negotiate contracts and exporters to invest in new capacity.

"In addition, multinational companies have warned vocally that they will hold back from investing and relocating production to the UK to take advantage of sterling's weakness until the UK's future trade arrangements are known. As such, the trade boost from sterling's depreciation looks set to be a damp squib."
The director of Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary on climate change has claimed a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election would be "the worst thing that could happen" for the environment.

Oscar-winner Fisher Stevens filmed DiCaprio as he travelled around the world to see the effects of global warming for his latest feature, Before The Flood.

Stevens joined The Revenant actor at the documentary's world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival where he voiced concerns about Mr Trump's views on climate change.

The Republican nominee has previously claimed global warming is a hoax created by China and said he would "cancel" the Paris climate deal aimed at cutting carbon emissions.

Stevens told the Press Association: "Donald Trump would be the worst thing that could happen on the planet if he's elected president.

"At least that's what he says....you never know with Donald Trump. Right now, he says he won't validate the Paris climate talks and he's going to overturn all of the good things (Barack) Obama has been doing."

Stevens, who produced the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove about dolphin hunting practices in Japan, said DiCaprio,41, approached him about making their latest film together.

Before The Flood follows DiCaprio as he travels to a number of countries, visiting flooded streets in Miami Beach, smog-choked areas of Beijing and incinerated forests in Indonesia.

"We're not doing this to get rich," Stevens said.

"Leo certainly didn't schlep around all over the world to enhance his career.

"I learnt the climate is actually in worse shape than I expected. I also learned we could fix it a lot easier than I thought. The way renewables and solar and wind are becoming more affordable, it's all economics."

DiCaprio's long-time collaborator, director Martin Scorsese, is an executive producer on the Before The Flood.
Scottish comedian and actress Wendy Wason has become a regular visitor to Northern Ireland since she married local actor Stephen Hagan. Not only is she here on frequent family visits but local audiences have been enjoying her sharp humour on TV's The Blame Game.

This week though she is back for a very different reason - supporting the drive for more integrated education in Northern Ireland.

And the stunning brunette, who captured the heart of heartthrob actor Hagan at first sight, has fallen in love with her husband's homeland.

She will join a great line-up of local stars - mentalist David Meade and comics Tim McGarry, Colin Murphy and Neil Dougan, - for a unique gig in the Ulster Hall tonight in aid of the Integrated Education Fund.

Wendy, who was brought up a Scottish Catholic, and married Stephen, a Northern Irish Protestant, and is raising their children in multi-cultural central London, says she was shocked to discover that education here is still segregated.

Her father-in-law, well known local businessman James Hagan who runs property development company Hagan Homes, is a supporter of the Integrated Education Fund and it was through him that Wendy first heard about the work of the charity.

"My father-in-law supports the charity and I heard they were having a talk in London and I decided to go along," she says. "I was amazed to find in this day and age that children in Northern Ireland are educated in different schools according to their religion.

"I was also talking to Baroness Blood who was telling me how much children benefit from learning about each other's backgrounds and religions.

"In my children's school they have Muslims, Jewish people and all sorts of religions and they don't know the difference between Protestants and Catholics. I was happy to have this chance to support the charity as I really believe in what they are doing."

Straightaway she lightens the mood by pointing out that her husband is not, in fact, up for grabs as reported in a recent survey of Northern Ireland's most eligible bachelors.

"He's a married man," she laughs. "I think he was ninth on the list and Gary Lightbody, who I went to university with, was third, so maybe I need to upgrade."

Stephen, from Greenisland, is currently filming for the second series of the hit Sky drama Lucky Man, in which he stars as the brother of the main character played by our own Jimmy Nesbitt.

Last year in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph to mark the launch of the first series, Stephen didn't hold back when talking about his admiration and love for Wendy.

The couple met by pure chance in a pub in London when Stephen was going through a phase of being out of work.

They married shortly afterwards, in 2012, and have a son Riley (4) as well as two children from Wendy's first marriage, Isobella (14) and Max (12).

At the time Stephen told us: "I fell instantly in love with her. Wendy knows what she wants and we are always very honest with each other and we communicate with each other and she is beautiful and gorgeous as well which is a bonus."

Wendy is just as candid. She says: "I am 10 years older than Stephen and I was going through a divorce and working nights when we met and I just thought he would want nothing to do with me. He was a struggling young actor who hadn't worked in seven months and I felt sorry for him.

"We just hit it off and he is the nicest man in the world and his looks aren't even the best thing about him."

The couple work together as a team when it comes to juggling their careers with family life.

Wendy has just finished a long run at the Edinburgh Festival where she did 50 performances in a month.

This week she was home getting the kids ready for back to school and preparing Riley for his very first day in primary one next week.

"I've gone from performing non-stop in Edinburgh to sewing school labels on," she says. "Riley can't wait to do homework like his big brother and sister.

"For us it is about being present when we are at home with the kids. We have a no device rule on a Sunday when everything is switched off and we spend the day with the kids playing board games or getting out and doing something and having a laugh.

"When we are home we are 100% present and enjoying it and I think spending quality time with them is more important. There are people who are home all the time with their children and yet spend no time with them.

"In Edinburgh I worked flat out for the first week and then the children came down for the second week and we did some fun things together. When I finished we had four or five days in Spain together as a family.

"We are very lucky we have similar jobs and both of our lives can be hectic, but we go and do it and there is no point getting upset. We don't have a conventional life but we try and make it work as best we can and I'm really proud of how we make it work as a family."

As well as success as a stand-up comedian, Wendy is an established actress with roles in Coupling, the IT Crowd, Sherlock and working with everyone from Chris O'Dowd and Nicholas Lyndhurst to Johnny Depp and John Malkovich. In February 2014 she was nominated for best actress in Hollywood for British Hustle, the Toscars spoof.

While she has a film lined up for the New Year (although details as yet cannot be revealed), her comedy career has taken off.

Jimmy Carr has described her as "absolutely hysterical" and in a review The Sunday Times commented: "She's charming, clever and funny."

Wendy describes her humour as observational. "I tell stories about family life and day to day stuff and the darker side of motherhood, the things you would normally share with your closest friends," she says.

She is also soon to embark on a tour with her stand-up show called Tiny Me. Stephen meanwhile is filming for Lucky Man as well as being back in Northern Ireland to shoot Zoo, which is a true story set during World War Two in Belfast.

Wendy is naturally proud of his success. "Lucky Man has really taken off and it's brilliant. He gets on so well with Jimmy Nesbitt and I think they enjoy the banter together and have a good giggle on set," she says.

Northern Ireland has certainly found its way into Wendy's heart. She says: "We come over to Belfast a lot for family and I love it over there. We spent a week going round the North Coast and visiting Portstewart and that was wonderful.

"I love performing there as the audience's sense of humour is very like the Scottish sense of humour.

"The Blame Game is great and I love working with Tim McGarry and the team. I went to university with Gary Lightbody, who was with a band called Polar Bear at the time before he joined Snow Patrol. I hadn't seen him since and one night after the Blame Game I went into a pub with Tim McGarry and Gary was there which was really bizarre. It is amazing the connections, it seems that more and more things lead back to Northern Ireland.

"I'm really looking forward to doing the show on Saturday night. It should be a good night and hopefully people will have fun."

Tickets for Stand Up for Integrated Education,Ulster Hall, 8pm, cost 20. For more information go to www.ief.org.uk/events
Big league: Jamie Dornan in the first series of The Fall, a role which helped him land the lead in 50 Shades opposite Dakota Johnson

The actor Jamie Dornan would like to make one thing clear from the outset: when he is playing the charismatic serial killer Paul Spector in BBC2s hit crime drama The Fall, he is very much not a Method actor.

The Northern Irishman, who is very happily married to actress Amelia Warner and has two young daughters, laughs that he couldnt possibly remain in character on The Fall 24/7.

I dont want to be Method and stay in character as Spector all the time. If I did, I wouldnt have a wife any more. Talking to the Belfast Telegraph at the launch of the eagerly awaited third series at the British Film Institute in London this week, Dornan adds: Over the last four years, I have found ways of locking myself into Spectors psyche quickly without too much build-up.

But when I can, I jump out of his skin because I dont think its appropriate to stay in it for longer than I have to.

Thats not to say that the character hasnt got into Dornans head.

The 34-year-old actor from Hollywood adds: I woke up one morning just before we started filming, and on my chest were all these books about murderers.

I was going to bed reading about these horrible people and, of course, it affects you. So inevitably there were occasions when the actor simply needed a break from living in the mind of a psychopath.

Thered be times where Id see my mates. Theyd want to go out for dinner, and I had to say, Look, I cant do it. I need to lie in a bath and listen to Maria Callas and think about happy.

But for all Dornans quite understandable reluctance to inhabit the deeply disturbing character when the cameras have stopped rolling, there can be no doubting that Spector has made a splash.

Over the past two series, the character has riveted audiences. They have been spellbound by Spector.

Throughout The Fall, he provides a menacing, malevolent, yet magnetic presence which, maybe against your better judgment, you simply cannot take your eyes off.

Like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, The Joker in the Dark Knight or Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Spector proves that the devil has all the best tunes. Audiences have been particularly gripped by his mesmerising cat and mouse relationship with Stella Gibson (played by Gillian Anderson), the driven detective pursuing him.

The shows creator Allan Cubitt describes this relationship as, "A macabre, obsessive dance of death".

Viewers have also been hooked by Spector's astonishingly ironic double life: by day, he works as a bereavement counsellor, helping relatives of those who have died; by night, he is the 'Belfast Strangler', who gets his kicks from murdering dark-haired professional women in their 30s.

The third series, which starts on BBC2 later this month, picks up the action at the cliff-hanger moment where the last season ended. Spector has been shot and, as she cradles him in her arms, Gibson is crying out: "We're losing him!"

As Spector teeters between life and death, The Fall then embarks on a thrilling ride with more twists and turns than an Alpine road.

Anderson (48), already a huge global star thanks to the worldwide popularity of The X-Files, explains why her character is so eager to keep the heinous serial killer alive. "Gibson is fascinated by him and obsessed with bringing him to justice," she says.

The actress, who is sporting a stylish leather jacket over a black jumpsuit, continues: "The idea that he could get away with it and get off easily by dying is a difficult thing for her to grasp.

"But that possibility is playing out in front of her. The families of his victims want justice. For him to die on the side of the road would be beyond devastating for them."

Anderson, who next up will be starring opposite Hugh Bonneville in Viceroy's House, a movie about the Mountbattens during the Partition of India, gives a characteristically enthralling performance as Stella Gibson. She is a character whom the actress freely admits she admires, if not envies.

The American-born performer, who lives in London with her three children, declares that: "Gibson is a great role model. She's so comfortable with who she is as a woman.

"She answers to no one and is uncompromising. I don't think I've ever met anyone like her. There are lots of aspects of her that are not like me which it would be fun and interesting to adopt." With a grin, she adds: "I wish I was her!"

That does not mean, however, that Anderson thinks Gibson is perfect. "She has lots of flaws. She's made morally ambiguous decisions as a police officer that may have repercussions. She's also lied. I find that fascinating."

Such nuanced characterisation is an essential part of the show's success. In the same way, Dornan argues that Spector is less black and white and less unremittingly evil than we might at first imagine.

"It is hard to find redeeming qualities in Spector, but there are a few aspects of him which are commendable.

"For instance, he shows traces of being a good father at times. And he approaches his job as a bereavement counsellor with professionalism.

"He provides good quality support to families who are grieving. That is Allan's genius as a writer. Spector is both so adept at taking life and also at helping people through the grief of losing someone."

Many viewers might regard Spector as a monster, but not Dornan.

The actor, who is currently also starring in Anthropoid, the movie about the plot to kill the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, does not find it helpful to view Spector in that way.

"I think it would be wrong to play him as a monster," he says. "One of the reasons that makes Spector compelling and why I found him very alluring from the first moment I read the script five years ago is that there are relatable aspects to him, aspects that other human beings can identify with to an extent."

The actor, who looks particularly dapper today in a light blue jacket and dark trousers, carries on that: "I always felt when I was playing those moments with his children that there should be nothing else, there should be no undercurrent of menace or psychopathy.

"Why would there be? He is a father talking to his daughters. So I don't play him as totally monstrous. I've always tried to avoid that tag."

All three series of The Fall have been filmed in Belfast, and they have proved a terrific advertisement for the city. They have been responsible for an enormous boost to local tourism.

As an example, visitors have been clamouring to book Room 203 at the Hilton, where Gibson stays.

Dornan, a former model who has had to learn to live with the inevitable label of "heart-throb", is delighted that The Fall has enabled people to see his home town in a new light.

"Still today when I say I am from Belfast people say, 'Oh God, how is it there? How was your upbringing? It must have been crazy?', and you're constantly defending it and trying to explain it is a great place, full of brilliant people.

"The show already has an energy to it from the fact that it's set in Belfast and everyone knows its history. So, for me, it's a total thrill to be there and to appreciate it and to show there is so much more to it than what people think."

Anderson has certainly fallen in love with Belfast, describing it as: "A beautiful place filled with beautiful people. I think it is being seen for what it is today. I have just had the most extraordinary experience working there."

The actress was already a Hollywood A-lister, but The Fall has now catapulted Dornan into the American big league too, a fact for which he will always be thankful.

"You know, The Fall changed my life. They are like family to me, and I'm forever grateful that it is part of my life. I would play that character till my dying day if I had the opportunity."

Dornan has already filmed not one but two follow-ups to his box-office smash movie Fifty Shades of Grey, entitled Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

But the actor says that will be the end of him appearing in the erotic blockbusters. "We have done two movies back to back now, and I'm actually finished with it. I've done Fifty Shades forever.

"I move on very fast in my mind. As much as from the outside people think you are synonymous with one character, I'm very much like, 'Right, that's done'. I move on to the next project and worry about that character."

For now, you sense the role Dornan is most keen to play is that of doting father of two young daughters.

He reflects on the hugely beneficial effect that the arrival of his children has had on him. "Having children is like pressing the reset button. You're like a totally different human being. The fundamentals of your life are altered overnight, all in the most positive way imaginable."

If Dornan has one regret about the last few years, it is that he has been making decidedly grown-up work that his young children cannot watch.

With a laugh, he concludes: "I think that now I'll have to do some stuff that's more family-friendly!"

The third series of The Fall begins on BBC2 later this month
A female actor (not, you'll note, styled here an "actress", called Beatie Edney has not attracted the attention, indeed derision, she deserves for describing her fellow star of Poldark, Aidan Turner, "guy candy". A trivial remark, yes, but hardly untypical.

Allow me to quote her in full: "We'd chatted about sexism against women in the industry and the following morning I walked into the makeup bus and there he was with his shirt off.

"I couldn't help doing a double take and he caught me and said 'that's the same thing," Edney said. "I know how he feels. It'd make me uncomfortable if people were ogling me." Which at least suggests that Ms Edney, who plays Poldark's servant Prudie, has a modicum of self-awareness about gawping around the set.

Sadly, she is hardly alone in her unquenchable desire for the Turner torso, and it makes "normal" ie non-Adonis blokes like me feel just a little unhappy. I mean I don't have a six-pack (except the one in the fridge) and abs are alien to me. It's the most I can do to stay on the right side of obesity and I have heard the phrase "I don't go for looks" a little too often for my self-esteem. (To which my quickfire reply, by the way, is "Neither do I", which does the trick satisfyingly).

For the past few weeks, as Poldark fever has built, Britain's menfolk, lithe and chunky alike, have had to try and get on with their lives through a blizzard of sexist language and imagery every time the idea of the shirtless Turner flitted across the consciousness of womankind.

Of course there's nothing that new about the phenomena; we've had to live with past episodes of mass hysteria about various beefcakes and heartthrobs. John Travolta and Robert Redford still move many to paroxysms, while Johnny Depp and Matt Damon (left) have as devoted a following as any commanded by Cary Grant or Clark Gable. Once upon a time Prince Charles was thought sexy. Still, familiar as it is, there's nothing welcome about this sexism against men, treating us as though we were no more than sex objects, without minds and ideas of our own. The time has come to stop it, surely?

Perhaps the only good thing about all these periodic hysterical phases over ripped abs is that, if they didn't already, it makes men realise how bloody awful it must have been to be a woman in the high noon of sexism, which I take to be the years between about 1950 and 1979, when the consumer society and mass communications collided with well-established traditions of sexism.

From Pirelli calendars to the Benny Hill Show, from naked women draped over the bonnets at the Motor Show to "I'm Cheryl, Fly Me" and the (still extant) Page 3, women were assaulted every hour of their waking lives with images and attitudes that dehumanised them.

For those of us looking back at the years they grew up in, there's an unexpected sense of shame about all of that. Or at least there should be. I say 1979, by the way, because it was the year that Fiat ran a poster campaign for their 127 hatchback with the slogan "If this car was a woman, it would get its bottom pinched" - but on which was added the graffiti "If this woman was a car, she'd run you down".

Plus the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, who didn't do much for feminism, I grant you, but was a sort of example, and who a few years later provoked the Greenham Common women's peace protest and the militant feminism of that time.

In some ways, I'd even argue, from a position of no great authority, I admit, the immediate post-war decades were even worse than the era when women were denied the vote and almost entirely excluded from the professional work. Actually, those times were all appalling, in their different ways, and there's not a competition about which is worse.

The more we (men) look back the more we ought to realise why women were angry about their lives, and why they resented being patronised by men in power as to why they could not be trusted to participate in a "democracy", prejudice dressed up as pragmatic arguments.

Anyway, you know all that, and you know what women had to put up with for millennia. Still, that doesn't make anti-male or reverse sexism against males any more excusable, because two wrongs don't make a right, do they? It might be fun to take the vote off us chaps for a few hundred years, and ban us from taking degrees, but that just goes to show how absurd the argument that men should have a taste of their own medicine really is.

The uncomfortable thing is that these sorts of attitudes are so commonplace and so longstanding, on either "side" that you wonder whether there's not something inevitable, even "natural" about it. Maybe, your mind drifts to "it's not so bad. Just harmless fun". I don't really think so, though.

We used to think that there was nothing wrong with women being paid less than men for identical work.

We used also to believe that there was nothing wrong with seeing them ridiculed and abused for being, basically a normal shape, let alone a bit fat? Let alone the inexcusably lax way the police have investigated sexual assaults and "domestics". While the "apology culture" has probably gone too far, and usually is about gesture politics, I do wonder whether women are owed an apology by men.

Not so long ago there was a whole generation of female actors, the predecessors of Ms Edney, whose whole careers were spent playing ugly, neurotic spinsters, sometimes too fat, sometimes too thin, comic props.

Now we are more enlightened, I'd hope, and while I'd never expect to have my bottom slapped or pinched, I do feel a very minor victim of reverse sexism every time there's some awful gushing stuff published about some Poldarkian beefcake. It's enough to turn me into a feminist.
The beautiful mature elm tree still stands on the upper east side of Central Park, in the shadow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most locals, however, know the terrible significance of this tree.

Exactly 30 years ago this week, under its distinctively crooked branches, one of the most notorious crimes in American history took place. After a night out drinking, Robert Chambers, a young, first generation Irish-American, dragged 18-year-old Jennifer Levin (above right) to the ground and strangled her to death. It was a crime that sent shockwaves through Manhattan.

His trial, a tragedy of privilege, class and endemic misogyny, captured the American public's imagination like few others before it. The sense that Chambers was a handsome child of privilege only inflamed interest in the case. He was a well spoken, well connected varsity jock, was swooned over in the media and received love letters by the sack. The headlines screamed of 'rough sex' and the tabloids quickly dubbed Chambers 'the Preppy Killer'.

Feminists protested outside the courthouse that his deceased victim was being posthumously vilified. Even before the trial was over, the question of who would play Chambers in the movie was being discussed (William Baldwin would be among those who took the role in the decades after). The case influenced legal history in the US too - five years later, Chambers's notorious 'she was asking for it' defence would resurface - in the William Kennedy Smith trial.

This seemed oddly fitting, and not only because Chambers had frequently been described as 'Kennedy-esque' in the media. There was also the fact that a strange twist of fate linked his family with the Irish-American dynasty.

His mother Phyllis Shanley, a trained nurse, had moved from Co Leitrim to New York in the late 1950s, in search of a better life. There she got a job at a hospital, which brought her into contact with the city's elite.

One of the first children she nursed was the infant John F Kennedy Junior. Phyllis was mesmerised by the power and wealth that buzzed around this boy prince. She vowed that one day her own son would become a part of the high society whose children she cared for.

As her career developed, Phyllis's romantic prospects also improved.

In New York she met Bob Chambers, a young man who came from a well-to-do Irish-English family. In 1965, Phyllis and Bob were married, and a year later their son Robert was born. He was a cherubic child, already displaying the good looks that would later mesmerise millions.

Phyllis had trouble in her marriage - Bob drank too much - and perhaps in reaction she pinned much of her hopes and dreams on her son. She wanted to give Robert the chances she never had herself.

At vast expense, she enrolled him in Knickerbocker Greys, a prestigious after-school group that aimed to instil leadership skills in the privileged young men of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Its alumni included Rockerfellers and Vanderbilts, and the Irish nurse harboured illusions that her son would one day be mentioned in the same breath. The family's social mobility continued when they moved to an apartment on Park Avenue.

Robert attended a private prep school. He became an altar boy at St David's prep school and excelled at aristocratic pastimes such as marksmanship. He was also elected to the school's honour guard.

Behind the scenes, however, he was beginning to show the first signs of dysfunction and rebellion. In his mid-teens he was caught drinking and smoking marijuana after class, and soon Phyllis opted to move him to the Browning School, a stricter, but no less prestigious, private prep school on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

By now in his late teens, he began to style himself as something of a playboy and, in the words of one of his biographers, "quickly adapted to the jet set lifestyle of New York's A-List crowd; fast cars, fast drugs and fast sex." He and his clique of friends were regulars at the legendary nightclub, Studio 54.

Robert was accepted to study at Boston College, but by then his problems were not confined to drink and drugs. He also began stealing, and when he was found in possession of one his teachers' credit cards, he was expelled. Phyllis intervened at this point, and funded a stint in a chemical dependency unit in Louisiana. This set a pattern that would endure over the next few years.

After leaving rehab, he failed to stay clean and was arrested on a number of petty charges.

Unable to hold down a job, he received a summons for disorderly conduct one night after leaving Dorrian's Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar. Chambers destroyed the summons in front of police, yelling, "You f**king cowards, you should stick to n***ers!" and was arrested again. He later entered and was discharged from the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota, another addiction treatment centre.

New Yorkers are fairly unshockable at the best of times, but in the mid-1980s in particular, murders sometimes barely merited a mention in the press, so commonplace had they become. Times Square was still a cesspit of hookers and pimps, and certain parts of the west side of Manhattan were too dangerous to walk, even in daytime hours.

To put the overall atmosphere in the city in perspective, 1,907 people were murdered in New York City in 1986, while only 617 died in this way in 2014. Thirty years ago it took something truly macabre to propel a murder into the Manhattan headlines.

They couldn't resist poor Jennifer Levin, though. Her cold, partially clothed body was discovered by a cyclist on a grassy knoll just after six in the morning on August 26, 1986. The first responders at the scene found her bra twisted around her neck. Her short pink skirt was pulled up around her waist, and her white sleeveless blouse was at her shoulders. The clothing was torn. In her jacket pocket was a crumpled and torn $1 bill and a wallet containing a learner's driving permit and a birth certificate. The permit bore her correct birth date: May 21, 1968. The birth certificate copy had been altered to make her four years older.

In the days after, more details would emerge about her. She was the bubbly daughter of a successful SoHo property agent, and, like Chambers, had attended upper crust private schools in Manhattan.

In the days before her death, Levin had been partying in the Hamptons with friends, and returned to Manhattan where she met two more friends - a man and a woman - for drinks. They arrived at Dorrian's, known as "a rich kids' hangout," on the Upper East Side around midnight.

There, fatefully, a familiar 19-year-old Irishman caught her eye. Robert Chambers was in a bad mood. He'd told a friend that he was depressed because he'd just found out that a companion from the drug rehabilitation centre had committed suicide earlier that week. He had stood up his 16-year-old girlfriend earlier in the night. Now, he had his sights set on Levin, with whom he had had a few casual flings in the past. Or maybe she had her sights on him.

"I just want you to know, the sex you and I had together was the best sex I ever had in my life," Levin reportedly told Chambers at the bar, according to court transcripts. Chambers allegedly bowed his head and said, "Jen, you shouldn't have said that."

They spent the next few hours flirting at the bar before leaving together around 4.30am. She'd been in the bar for many hours by that point but she seemed to have sobered up. (Later, a toxicologist report concluded that Levin's blood contained minimal levels of alcohol).

Levin is estimated to have died at about 5.30am. At around five, according to newspaper reports and other sources, a jogger, an Upper East Side doctor, saw the couple together and thought they were making love. He passed by again about 20 minutes later, and heard someone cry out in pain. "Are you all right?" he called, and someone responded that everything was okay. It would be the middle of the following day before police picked up Chambers.

Almost immediately, he tried to spin a number of tales to police, including that he had been scratched by his cat (which was later proven to have been declawed).

He eventually confessed to police that he had killed Levin, but denied that it had been intentional and instead insisted that it had been a case of 'rough sex gone wrong.'

He said that he didn't realise at first that Levin was dead, and he tried to rouse her from what may have seemed like a stupor or a game. Afterwards, he made no effort to get help or to call the police. Instead he returned home - his mother was away - and slept for a while.

Police confronted him with the evidence they found. "I have never seen in my entire career the strangulation marks on her neck the way I did that day out of the 2,000 murders I've investigated," detective Mike Sheehan told The Post.

"She had all of these half-moon marks above the moustache line because she was desperately trying to pull the jacket off her mouth and nose so she could breathe."

Bizarrely, Chambers was released on bail and that was when a home video - rare in those pre-mobile phone days - surfaced, showing Chambers smiling and laughing with four lingerie-clad girls.

In the video, Chambers chokes himself with his own hands while making gagging noises before twisting the head off a Barbie doll and saying, "My name is Oops! I think I killed it." The public was aghast.

The trial was a sensation. In what would become a notorious courtroom manoeuvre, Chambers's legal team claimed that Levin had in fact sexually assaulted their client.

Levin's family were appalled that her sex life was used to try to show that she had "asked for it". In his closing argument, Chambers's lawyer said: "It was Jennifer who was pursuing Robert for sex... that's why we wound up with this terrible tragedy."

After the jury deadlocked, Chambers pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. When asked by presiding Judge Howard E Bell if he intended to cause harm to Levin that fateful night, Chambers recanted on his original claim that it was all an accident, saying, "Looking back on the event, I have to say yes. It breaks my heart to say that."

Because of constant infractions in prison, Chambers got no time off for good behaviour and served his full sentence of 15 years. He was released in 2003 - but soon found himself in trouble again. After holding a series of odd jobs, he was arrested for selling drugs out of his New York apartment. In 2008, he was sentenced to 19 years in jail. His earliest release date from prison is now January 25, 2024.

A wrongful death lawsuit, to which Chambers pleaded no contest, ruled that his future income (up to $25m), including any income from book or movie deals, will be turned over to the Levin family. It's thought by some that upon his release Chambers may attempt to move back to Ireland.
Almost 560 dogs have been destroyed by councils across Northern Ireland since April 2015, it can be revealed (stock photo)

Almost 560 dogs have been destroyed by councils across Northern Ireland since April 2015, it can be revealed.

The proportion of the 559 dogs put down across our councils varies enormously - from none by Ards and North Down Borough Council to 185 by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.

Just two dogs that were deemed to be illegal pitbull-types were put to sleep - one by Belfast City and one by Fermanagh and Omagh.

In a statement, Fermanagh and Omagh council said: "One of the 185 dogs put down was a pitbull-type. The dog was seized after attacking another animal and the owners relinquished it."

Belfast City Council also said the illegal pitbull-type dog it had put down had attacked either a person or an animal, but did not specify which.

Earlier this year, Hank the dog escaped being put down despite being found to be an illegal pitbull-type.

He was seized by Belfast City Council following a concern raised by a member of the public, and officials brought a canine expert over from England to examine Hank.

However despite Hank being found to be a pitbull-type dog, he was released to his owners with a number of conditions.

The Belfast Telegraph discovered the figures by making information requests to each of the 11 councils. Two required us to ask for the statistics using the Freedom of Information Act.

The time period for each one was from April 2015, when the new super-councils officially became responsible for local government after a year of sitting in shadow form.

Ronnie Milsop, Northern Ireland campaigns manager for the charity Dogs Trust, said the figures were a poignant remainder of how important it is to microchip pets.

He also urged dog owners to ensure the details on their animal's microchip were up to date, that dogs were neutered and to ensure that they wore a collar with an address or phone number printed on it.

Mr Milsop said he believed the disparity in the figures of the number of dogs destroyed in different council areas was due to more people in rural area tending to own dogs, with fewer in urban areas.

"If you take, for example, the border areas such as Newry, Fermanagh and Derry, those will be councils that will have more stray dogs," he added. "It stems back to the agricultural background of rural areas.

"The more rural an area is, the greater the tendency to have more dogs. Whereas if you take, for example, north Down, there are fewer dogs."

Mr Milsop said there tended to be more stray dogs in Northern Ireland than in England because there is less neutering of dogs here.

He urged anyone who loses their dog to contact their local dog warden as soon as possible.

Figures from the Dogs Trust show that across the UK, 5,142 stray dogs were put to sleep by local authorities between 2014 and 2015 - the equivalent of one dog every two hours.

Dogs Trust does not destroy any dogs in takes in.

It runs campaigns to highlight the importance of neutering and microchipping and it is currently running a free microchipping service. It also runs a programme called Chance Of A Lifetime, in which it takes 2,000 dogs a year from Northern Ireland to England for rehoming.
The British and Irish Governments are to sign an international treaty to set up a new body aimed at ending paramilitary activity, it has been revealed.

Secretary of State James Brokenshire said last night he hoped the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) would be in place by the end of the year.

The IRC formed a key part of an Executive's strategy published after the report of a three-man panel set up following last year's Fresh Start deal between the DUP and Sinn Fein. It will report regularly on the levels and nature of paramilitary activity.

In a speech to the annual conference of The British-Irish Association, Mr Brokenshire said: "We cannot tolerate cold-blooded murder in alleyways masquerading as justice.

"It has to stop and these groups must be put out of business for good."

The Conservative MP, who replaced Theresa Villiers, and Irish foreign minister Charlie Flanagan are expected to sign the treaty in the next few days, coming up to a year after the Fresh Start document, which prevented the collapse of the Stormont Executive last autumn.

Mr Brokenshire told the gathering of almost 200 people in Oxford, which continues over the weekend, there was no justification for paramilitary groups and that they should disband. But he added: "This is easier said than done. It requires a concerted effort across society.

"We need to look at how we prevent young people being drawn into these groups in the first place. We need to help communities challenge the influence and legitimacy of these groups.

"We need look at how we can support people coming forward to give evidence in paramilitary-linked cases.

"We need to ensure that the justice system works to prosecute more of these people and put them behind bars for longer.

"Those engaged in what is often described as paramilitary activity serve no political cause. They commit crime using the cloak of paramiltarism to line their own pockets.

"They use intimidation and fear to power and exert influence within their communities.

"They hold communities back, deterring investment and jobs and preventing people from moving forward with their lives.

"They were never justified in the past, and they are not justified today - and they should disband."

During Mr Brokenshire's wide-ranging address - arguably his most comprehensive overview since taking up office in July - the Secretary of State revealed he had been "profoundly moved and affected" after meeting victims' groups over recent weeks and seeing "the pain, raw emotion and, frankly, suffering that still persists decades on". "They are the ones who suffered the most during the Troubles," he told the audience. "And we have an obligation to do what we can to help them."

His comments came only a few days after Northern Ireland's most senior judge called on political leaders to agree on funding to complete long-delayed inquests into deaths that happened during the Troubles.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan - in his second intervention on the legacy cases - said it was disappointing that there would have to be a political resolution before the resources needed for the investigations could be released.

Mr Brokenshire said he was considering a "more public phase" to give people a chance to have their say.
A shake-up of Northern Ireland's political map threatens to damage unionism, the DUP has warned.

In its first formal response to proposals redrawing Parliamentary boundaries, the party accused the Boundary Commission of "taking a machete" to some constituencies.

Deputy leader Nigel Dodds also said many major cities and towns have been cut adrift from their natural hinterlands.

Almost three months of consultations are now underway into the plans - with revised proposals expected next year.

In the country's capital city, only East Belfast remains relatively intact while the north, south and west are being redrawn to form the new electoral areas of North West Belfast and South West Belfast.

But the names of other existing constituencies including East Londonderry, North Antrim, Lagan Valley and Mid Ulster disappear, while six new constituencies would be created, provisionally called Dalriada, Glenshane, North Tyrone, Upper Bann and Blackwater, West Antrim and West Down.

North Belfast MP Mr Dodds said: "These changes will represent the single biggest change in boundaries from the 1983 elections. We need to make sure everyone is fairly represented.

"However, these Boundary Commission proposals will have a detrimental effect on unionist representation.

"The proposals do not take into consideration the natural hinterlands of many major cities and towns (which is) something of particular concern.

"The proposals have simply done away with a constituency in Belfast as North, South and West Belfast constituencies will be redrawn to form North West Belfast and South West Belfast, with the make-up of East Belfast dramatically changed.

"A machete has also been taken to four other constituencies to create six new constituencies.

He added, however: "Of course this will be a very long process and previous boundary changes have shown that. We are now in the middle of a consultation process and it is important everyone has an opportunity to respond.

"It is of vital importance that people make their responses to the Boundary Commission and that they attend public hearings in their areas."

Public hearings are to take place in Tullyglass Hotel, Ballymena on October 5, Silverbirch Hotel, Omagh on October 11, Ramada Hotel Shaw's Bridge, Belfast on October 20 and Seagoe Hotel, Portadown on October 25. There will be three sessions at each venue, running from 10am-1pm, 2pm-4pm and 6pm-8pm.

A consultation form is available online at www.bcni2018.uk
Forensics officers on Great Victoria Street, Belfast, where Gerard McMahon was involved in a violent incident that required the use of CS spray

The man who died after a struggle with police in Belfast has been described by family and friends as "one of the good guys".

Gerard McMahon passed away in hospital on Thursday after police attempted to restrain him during a "violent" incident.

CS spray was used by officers, but it is not yet known if it contributed to Mr McMahon's death.

Yesterday, his heartbroken parents, Gerard and Ella, called for a "thorough and swift investigation" into their son's death by the Police Ombudsman.

"Our family are grieving for our son and brother, Gerard, and are calling on the Police Ombudsman's office to carry out a thorough and swift investigation into the circumstances of his death," they said.

The Belfast man, who was known as DJ Macko to his friends, was allegedly involved in an altercation with a number of taxi drivers on Great Victoria Street at around 5am on Thursday, when police attempted to arrest him.

He is not believed to have been armed and no weapons were recovered from the scene.

CS spray was used by an officer during a struggle with Mr McMahon, who then became ill.

Officers administered first aid at the scene of the incident until paramedics arrived.

Family and friends later paid tribute to the 36 year-old on social media.

One described him as "one of the good guys". Another friend said he was a "true gentleman."

In another post, a pal wrote: "You could never have met a nicer person."

Mr McMahon's aunt also spoke of her heartbreak over his death on Facebook.

She said her heart was heavy and she was "totally heartbroken." She added: "If love could have (saved) you yesterday, you would still be here xx".

Officers believe Mr McMahon may have taken the prescription drug Lyrica, also known as 'bud', prior to the incident.

A police source told the Belfast Telegraph: "The detained person appeared to be high on drugs when officers arrived at the scene.

"He is believed to have taken Pregabline (Lyrica).

Police Ombudsman investigators have gathered evidence from outside the Grand Opera House and taken away CCTV footage.

Senior investigating officer Paul Murphy said the Ombudsman's office was informed by police at 6.30am on Thursday that they had responded to a male who had been in an altercation with a number of taxi drivers outside the Grand Opera House.

Mr Murphy said a number of witnesses had come forward.

However, he also appealed for anyone else who may have been at the scene to contact the Ombudsman's office.

"This is now a Police Ombudsman investigation, so the Police Ombudsman's Office will now take primacy and we'll conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest and also the condition of the male in question," Mr Murphy said.

Irritant spray, also called CS spray or Pava spray, is used on a fairly frequent basis by officers and is one of the items in the standard police toolkit.

Exposure to the gas causes a burning sensation and significant tearing of the eyes to the extent that the subject cannot keep them open and is thus often incapacitated.

Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said he was shocked to learn of the death. "My thoughts are with his family at this tragic time," he added. "I have been in touch with senior police about the circumstances which led to Gerard being rushed to hospital."

"The Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the detention of Gerard McMahon. That must be thorough so that his grieving family get the full facts as quickly as possible."

Alliance councillor Emmet McDonough Brown tweeted: "Heartbreaking to hear of the death of Gerard McMahon. Such a tragic, tragic case. Thoughts with family and friends."
Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Family members arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Priscilla Salmon's husband Joe and daughter Zoe arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Press Eye - Funeral Of Priscilla Edith Salmon - 10th September 2016 Photograph By Declan Roughan Friends and family arrive at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor for the funeral of Priscilla Salmon.

Hundreds of mourners have turned out for the funeral of the mother of former Miss Northern Ireland Zoe Salmon.

Close friends have said the 36-year-old Bangor-born TV presenter is devastated after 'best mum of all' Priscilla passed away peacefuly at home on Tuesday.

Family and friends turned out on Saturday afternoon to say a final farewell to the late Mrs Salmon, during a service at Clarke's Funeral Church in Bangor.

Afterwards, the mother-of-four, who was aged in her 60s when she passed away after an illness, will be laid to rest in Blaris New Cemetery in Lisburn.

Modelling boss Alison Clarke, who knew Priscilla through modelling work, offered her condolences to her close personal friend Zoe, her father Joe, her sisters Lara and Naomi and her brother Julian.

Newlywed Zoe, who tied the knot with Newtownards butcher William Corrie (30) in an intimate ceremony in Barbados in May, was extremely close to her mother, who she said was sometimes mistaken for her sister.
The Twaddell stand-off has so far cost police around 21m

A number of members of one Orange lodge involved in the Twaddell stand-off in north Belfast are believed to be quitting the institution over an alleged secret deal.

Negotiations have been ongoing since the dispute started in July 2013, when three lodges were forbidden from completing their parade home along the Crumlin Road through a section of Ardoyne.

A protest camp was then established at Twaddell Avenue, vowing to stand until the lodges were allowed to finish their July 12 parade from 2013.

However, the negotiations were ramped up in recent months and it is believed a deal has been struck which would allow the three lodges to parade on Ulster Day in exchange for winding up the protest camp.

Parades negotiator Jim Roddy, who was at the forefront of successful negotiations over the Apprentice Boys' parade in Londonderry, has been brought in to try and help the warring parties reach an agreement ahead of the marching season.

It is understood that two of the Orange lodges involved have agreed to the deal with the nationalist residents group Cara, but there has been division among the third - Ballysillan LOL 1891. Now, up to eight of Ballysillan's members have either resigned or are threatening to resign from the Orange Order following a crunch meeting held on Thursday night.

These members have claimed they felt "pressurised" into accepting the agreement, which they have slammed as a "dirty deal".

In one of the resignation letters, a member claims that some Orange Order members have "bowed to pressure with a result they are now dancing to a Republican tune". They also express frustration at what they view as a "complete waste of time".

"It is not another Drumcree, it is worse because they did not give in to Republicans, the current deal is founded on deceit, lies and cover-ups which will all come out eventually," the letter is reported to read.

The Drumcree impasse in Portadown - which started in 1996 when an Orange Order parade was banned from its traditional route along the Garvaghy Road - is still ongoing.

A spokesman for the Orange Order said that it would not be commenting on the Twaddell impasse, nor the talks.

Ballysillan LOL 1891 has had a stormy year, walking out on a potential deal to end the stand-off in July.

The lodge was also let down by the band it had invited to accompany it.

The July deal would have seen the Orange parade prevented from returning to Ligoniel in 2013 allowed to complete its journey on July 1, in return for not applying for a return parade on the Twelfth, and dismantling the protest camp at Twaddell.

Also in July, the PSNI's estimated total bill for policing the loyalist Twaddell Avenue protest camp had reached 21m, the PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton told the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

The small site at Twaddell Avenue consists of just a caravan, a portable cabin and some toilets, however the sporadic violence means that there has been a police presence there since it was set up.

Protesters have been feeling the strain of continuing to man the camp three years on.

In March, Scottish loyalist group the Regimental Blues came over to Belfast to take up a "residency".

They have since visited again to help man the protest.

Last year, more than 20 police officers and a teenage girl were injured when trouble erupted on the return leg of a Twelfth of July parade.
Coalisland woman Briege Dorman and her cousin Raymond Hughes, who gave her one of his kidneys

Coalisland woman Briege Dorman and her cousin Raymond Hughes, who gave her one of his kidneys

A grandmother has told how she got her life back after her "hero" cousin donated a kidney.

Briege Dorman spent six years on dialysis while waiting for a suitable donor.

The 57-year-old grandmother, who finally underwent a transplant this week, said she owed everything to her cousin, Raymond Hughes, who offered up one of his healthy kidneys after being moved by watching her struggle with pain.

"Raymond has given me my life back - I don't know what I would have done without him," she told the Belfast Telegraph. "He is a hero in my eyes."

Briege lost one of her kidneys to cancer just before the other one stopped working.

She has had to undergo four-hour dialysis sessions three times a week for the past six years - meaning a 70-mile round trip from her home in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, to Newry.

She has not only had to deal with her own illness, but has also helped her son battle cancer.

Over the years, promises of a kidney from several would-be donors fell through.

But in an act of selflessness, Raymond offered to help.

"It was the only decision - the look in her face, it was so sad, and knowing the gift I could give," he said.

The 52-year-old, also from Coalisland, underwent surgery on Tuesday morning at Belfast City Hospital.

His kidney was removed and transplanted into Briege later that day.

The pair hope their story will inspire others.

Briege said that her life had been taken over by dialysis sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the past six years.

"It takes a big chunk out of your life - you can do nothing," she explained.

"I had two children who got married in that time and had babies and it didn't matter - you still had to go on with dialysis no matter what was happening.

"That was life. You couldn't go anywhere without thinking about it. Your life is not your own.

"I would get lifted at 7am in the morning, which meant a 5.30am or 6am start to get showered and so on before they called for me.

"My whole day was taken up with it. I was lying on a bed for four hours, and then when I came home I was not fit to do anything but go to bed."

Briege said she was stunned when Raymond offered to donate one of his kidneys.

"A few others had offered and hadn't followed through with it, and I thought that this was going to be another of those cases," she added.

"But then Raymond came back and said he had got all the tests done and that he was a good match.

"I nearly fell off my chair. I just didn't expect it. It's such a big decision."

Modest Raymond rejected any suggestion that he was a hero said he was embarrassed by all the texts he has been getting from family and friends. He added he simply wanted to help his cousin get her life back.

You can register to be an organ donor by calling the NHS Donor Line on 0300 123 23 23
Pat Hickey and Kevin Mallon will be returned to jail if they breach any conditions imposed on them by a court in Rio de Janeiro.

On Friday night a Judge accepted charges against the Irish men and eight others over their alleged involvement in a ticket touting ring.

They are now set to stand trial in Rio.

In a statement on the court service website Judge Juliana Leal de Melo of the Fan and Major Events confirmed that she had accepted a recommendation by the public prosecutor Marcus Kac in Brazil.

Mr Hickey, who temporarily stood down as President of the Olympic Council of Ireland following his arrest on August 17, and THG director Mr Mallon have been ordered to appear at the headquarters of the Juvenile Court every 20 days and justify their activities.

They are required to observe a curfew from 10pm each night and are also prohibited from attending any events at the Paralympics.

The magistrate also retained the passports of the accused, who are forbidden to leave the country. The judge said that any breach of the precautionary measures will be preventive detention.

Also charged with Mr Hickey and Mr Mallon are co-defendants Michael Glynn, Ken Murray, Eamonn Collins, Maarten Van Os, David Patrick Gilmore, Martin Studd, and Barbara Zancope Carnieri.

The ten defendants are charged with Criminal Organisation; Ticket Touting, Ambush Marketing, Larceny, Money Laundering, and Tax Evasion.

It is expected that it could be around one and a half years before a court case in Rio de Janeiro reaches fruition. Sources have suggested that the passports of the two Irish men could be returned in this interim, but any such decision rests with the Brazilian judiciary.

Police sources in Brazil last night confirmed that they had been informed of the decision but were awaiting receipt of formal papers.

Mr Mallon's solicitor Franklin Gomes said he too had not received copies of the decision but believed that this was the case.

The judge has ordered the return of passports to Kevin Kilty, Dermot Henihan and Stephen Martin.

Details were published on the official courts service website for Rio de Janeiro.
Police are to "assess and identify what criminal offences - if any - may have been committed" in the wake of Sunday newspaper revelations about Labour MP Keith Vaz.

Mr Vaz (59), a married father-of-two, quit as chairman of the influential House of Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday after becoming embroiled in a rent boy scandal.

The Leicester East MP had a conversation regarding cocaine with one of the male escorts in which the MP said he did not want to use the drug, but indicated that he would pay for it for the other man at a later date, according to the Sunday Mirror.

In the wake of the revelations, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, a strong critic of Mr Vaz, indicated he would be writing to Scotland Yard, calling for Mr Vaz to be investigated for misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to supply controlled substances.

Scotland Yard released a statement yesterday saying that following the Sunday Mirror allegations it had received a letter requesting police consider the matter concerning a MP.

It added: "At this stage a police investigation has not been launched."
WestJet said the decision was taken "out of an abundance of caution"

A flight from London to Canada declared a mid-air emergency because of a suspected mechanical fault and was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Iceland.

The Boeing 767 was diverted on the way to Edmonton after crew discovered a "potential mechanical issue".

It landed safely at Keflavik Airport after taking off from Gatwick airport on Saturday morning.

Passenger Taylor Anne tweeted: "Not how I envisioned my first time in Iceland, but am happy to be on the ground! @WestJet flight crew was amazing."

Autumn Hodgins posted: "Well this is unexpected. Emergency landing on @WestJet flight. Now safe in Iceland."

A spokeswoman for Canadian airline WestJet said an emergency was declared "out of an abundance of caution" and the aircraft will undergo maintenance in Iceland.

She added: "Guests will be reaccommodated as soon as possible. We are currently making arrangements for hotels and meal vouchers.

"WestJet sincerely apologises to our guests for the inconvenience and thanks them for their patience."
Several bodies have been recovered from the explosion at a factory in the Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka

A boiler has exploded and triggered a fire at a packaging factory near Bangladesh's capital, killing at least 23 workers and injuring dozens.

Fire officials described as huge Saturday's explosion at the five-story Tampaco Foils Ltd factory in the Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka.

The fire triggered by the blast spread quickly because flammable chemicals were stored at the factory.

At least six of the 14 people being treated for burns at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital were in a critical condition, said police official Mohammed Bacchu Mia. He confirmed that at least 23 people had died.

Local TV stations said about 50 people were injured in all. Television footage showed smoke billowing from the factory, with the fire engulfing part of the upper floors.

Factory safety is a major concern in Bangladesh, which has thousands of garment and packaging factories that supply products to global chains like Wal-Mart and H&M.

A fire at a garment factory in a Dhaka suburb killed 112 workers in 2012. A year later, a commercial complex near Dhaka housing five garment factories collapsed, killing 1,135 people, Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster.

It took firefighters nearly five hours to bring Saturday's blaze in the Tongi area under control. Huge piles of burned materials and chemicals had to be removed from the building to prevent the fire from spreading further.

Authorities have ordered an investigation but it was not immediately clear what caused the explosion, which occurred at around 6am.

Syed Mokbul Hossain, the owner of the Tampaco Foils factory, said he was not sure when the boiler was last inspected.

He said around 75 people had been scheduled to work the overnight shift.

Saturday was the last working day at the factory before the workers were to go on leave for a week-long holiday for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, which falls on Tuesday.

The major factory accidents in 2012 and 2013 prompted Bangladesh's government, global brands and the United Nations to work together to try to improve safety standards in the South Asian country's factories.

AP
The cover of Norway's Aftenposten as editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen wrote an open letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Cornelius Poppe, NTB scanpix/AP)

Facebook has reversed its decision to remove postings of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant.

Protests in Norway started last month after Facebook deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut from a Norwegian author's page, saying it violated its rules on nudity.

The revolt escalated on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the image on her profile and Facebook deleted that too.

Initially, it stood by the decision, saying it was difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. But late on Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.

"In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," Facebook said in a statement.

"Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed."

Politicians on all sides, journalists and regular Norwegians had backed Ms Solberg's decision to share the image.

The prime minister told broadcaster NRK she was pleased with Facebook's change of heart and that it shows social media users' opinions matter.

"To speak up and say we want change, it matters and it works. And that makes me happy," she said.

The image shows screaming children running from a burning Vietnamese village. The little girl in in the centre of the frame, Kim Phuc, is naked and crying as napalm melts away layers of her skin.

"Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality," Ms Solberg said earlier, adding it was the first time one of her Facebook posts was deleted.

Ms Solberg later reposted the image with a black box covering the girl from the thighs up. She also posted other iconic photos of historic events, such as the man standing in front of a tank in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, with black boxes covering the protagonists.

Several members of the Norwegian government followed Ms Solberg's lead and posted the photo on their Facebook pages. One of them, Education Minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, said it was "an iconic photo, part of our history".

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published the photo on its front page on Friday and also wrote an open letter to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in which chief editor Espen Egil Hansen accused the social media giant of abusing its power.

Mr Hansen said he was "upset, disappointed - well, in fact even afraid - of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society".

The uproar also spread outside of Norway, with the head of Denmark's journalism union urging people to share Mr Hansen's open letter.

Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who has previously clashed with Facebook over its failure to remove hate speech deemed illegal in Germany, also weighed in, saying "illegal content should vanish from the internet, not photos that move the whole world".

Facebook's statement said it will adjust its review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward.

"We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward," it said.

AP
Young Lawson was pronounced dead in hospital after he was left in a truck for eight hours

A firefighter has been charged with aggravated manslaughter in connection with the death of his 23-month-old son who was left in a pick-up truck for eight hours.

Troy Whitaker, 41, of Palm Harbour, Florida, placed his son Lawson and five-year-old daughter in his pick-up truck on Friday morning and took the girl to school, said the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Whitaker then drove home without taking Lawson to day care and left him unattended inside the truck until about 3.30pm, when he drove to a nearby grocery store.

He did not notice Lawson was still in the back seat of the truck until an hour later when he got home and began unloading groceries, detectives said.

Whitaker, a Hillsborough County Fire Rescue firefighter, tried to revive Lawson after calling 911.

However Lawson was pronounced dead in hospital.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Lawson's body temperature had reached 108 degrees.

Whitaker told detectives that he thought he had dropped Lawson off at day care in the morning, said the sheriff's office.

Whitaker had driven home to study for an exam at the fire department, said Mr Gualtieri.

"You've got to be responsible for your kids. You can't leave them in a hot car and let their temperature get up to 108 degrees," said Mr Gualtieri.

"He did this with negligence and, under Florida law, that is child abuse. He has got to be responsible for his actions."

Witness Aaron Begay said he was mowing his lawn across the street from Whitaker's home when he heard the man screaming.

Mr Begay said he heard Whitaker crying: "I can't believe it, I can't believe it, I can't believe it."

He said Lawson's body was limp as his father pulled him from the truck and began CPR.

Whitaker had called 911, but Mr Begay said he had to pick up the phone because the father was inconsolable.

Whitaker was released from the Pinellas County jail on 50,000 dollars (37,689) bond.

AP
General Motors is recalling 4.28 million vehicles worldwide, with 3.6 million being in the US (AP)

General Motors (GM) has recalled more than four million vehicles, most of them in the US, to fix an air bag software defect that has been linked to one death.

The vehicles involved in the recall are all from the 2014-2017 model years and include models from Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac.

The company is recalling 4.28 million vehicles worldwide, with 3.6 million being in the US.

The company said Friday that in rare cases, the car's sensing and diagnostic module - a tiny computer that senses what the vehicle is doing and controls air bag deployment - can go into test mode. If that happens, the front air bags will not inflate in a crash and the seat belts may not work either.

GM said the defect is linked to at least one death and three injuries.

The company learned of the problem in May when a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado crashed and its air bags did not deploy.

GM notified Delphi Corp, the supplier that made the module. The two companies tested the modules and decided to recall the vehicles last week. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the recall on Friday.

General Motors Co will notify customers and update the software for free. GM said dealers already have access to the software update so they should be able to repair the vehicles quickly.

The recall involves 3.6 million vehicles. They are:

:: 2014-2016 Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet SS, Chevrolet Spark EV

:: 2014-2017 Buick Encore, GMC Sierra 1500, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Trax, Chevrolet Caprice police car and Chevrolet Silverado 1500

:: 2015-2017 Chevrolet Tahoe, Chervrolet Suburban, Chevrolet Silverado HD, GMC Yukon, GMC Yukon XL, GMC Sierra HD, Cadillac Escalade and Cadillac Escalade ESV.

AP
The United Nations has strongly condemned North Korea's latest nuclear test and promised new measures against Pyongyang.

North Korea said it had conducted a "higher level" nuclear test explosion that will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.

The North's fifth atomic test and the second in eight months brought the UN's most powerful body into emergency session, three days after it strongly condemned Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile launches.

South Korea's president said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North's biggest in explosive yield, was an act of "fanatic recklessness" and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un "is spiralling out of control".

President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the US would never accept the country as a nuclear power.

North Korea's boast of a technologically game-changing test defied tough international sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions. It will raise serious worries in many world capitals that North Korea has moved another step closer to its goal of a nuclear-armed missile that could one day strike the US mainland.

A press statement agreed on by all 15 UN Security Council members said diplomats will draft a new resolution in response to its earlier promise to take "further significant measures" if the North continues to defy the international community.

"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures" in a new UN resolution, the statement said.

The measures will be under Article 41 of the UN Charter, which specifies non-military actions including sanctions.

US ambassador Samantha Power said the council must use "every tool at its disposal" including new sanctions "to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for its unlawful and dangerous actions".

"This is more than brazen defiance," Ms Power told reporters at the UN headquarters. "North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strikes."

What measures are included in a new resolution will largely depend on China, the North's major ally and neighbour which fears any instability on the Korean peninsula.

"All sides should refrain from mutual provocations and any actions that might be a threat to peace and security," China's UN ambassador Liu Jieyi said after the meeting.

"We believe it is more urgent than ever to work together to achieve de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula (and) "to prevent proliferation and ... maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."

In March, the Security Council adopted its toughest sanctions against North Korea in two decades in response to a nuclear test in January and a rocket launch. It took two months of negotiations mainly between the US and China.

South Korea's UN ambassador Oh Joon said he hopes agreement on a new resolution will come quickly.

Hours after South Korea noted unusual seismic activity near North Korea's north-eastern nuclear test site, the North said in its state-run media that a test had "finally examined and confirmed the structure and specific features of movement of (a) nuclear warhead that has been standardised to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets".

"The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable (North Korea) to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power. This has definitely put on a higher level (the North's) technology of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets."

AP

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula is one of the most serious issues facing the world because the impact of North Korea's use of nuclear weapons would be far greater than the casualties in Syria and other conflicts.

He said that for almost 10 years as UN chief, and before that as South Korea's foreign minister, he had tried with "all my efforts ... to talk with North Koreans in any way I can to promote peace and security and reconciliation between the South and the North".

"But I regret to tell you that it has not been materialised because of many different situations, mainly caused by North Koreans' provocative actions," Mr Ban said.

Now, he said, "we are coming to almost this confrontational situation".

AP
Church of England Bishop of Grantham, the Rt Rev Nicholas Chamberlain, has put the ecclesiastical cat among the pigeons by revealing that he is in a gay relationship.

He did so to prevent a Sunday newspaper from outing him, and I admire his courage in doing so.

However, he has given further publicity to a major issue which is facing all the churches, and none of them seems to know how to handle it.

Bishop Chamberlain has also admitted that his relationship with his homosexual partner is celibate, in order to comply with the rules of the Anglican Church, but as someone said to me this week: "What does celibate mean? Is it sharing a bed or holding hands, or what."

It is unfortunate that the Bishop had to talk publicly about his celibacy, and it think it's a private intrusion of the highest order.

Whether people choose to be celibate or not is a matter for themselves, and ought not to be any of our business.

Naturally those who are in same-sex relationships have welcomed the Bishop's public admission about his sexual orientation, but I also acknowledge others who feel that this is yet another step in forcing the Churches to weaken to the gay lobby pressure.

There is much more for the Churches to worry about, including poverty, violence and deprivation, but the constant agitation by homosexuals over same-sex issues refuses to go away. They are doing so very cleverly, and many people have fallen for the concept of 'equal marriage'.

However, this has nothing to do with 'equal' marriage. The Churches rightly maintain that the proper definition of marriage is the union of a man and a women.

The homosexual and lesbian communities have the legal protection of a civil partnership, and the idea of 'equality' is not relevant. The trouble is that the whole area of same-sex relationships is surrounded by deep emotion on both sides, and many people are not listening to what the others have to say.

There is a need for continued patience and dialogue all round. The Anglican Church has made courageous efforts to find some compromise, but so far without success.

One way not to handle it is the line taken by the Presbyterian Church. In this year's General Assembly they voted by a narrow majority, for the second year, not to send the Moderator to next year's General Assembly in Edinburgh because the Scots approved of same-sex clergy in civil partnerships becoming ministers in congregations which approved of such arrangements. This was an unfortunate decision, particularly as the Scottish Moderator was polite enough to attend the General Assembly in Belfast.

The Irish Presbyterians are stuck with the ruling for the coming year, but surely it is not beyond the ability of those with wiser heads in the Church to devise a system where they can more graciously convey their views to their Scottish brothers and sisters.

In general much time and effort will continue to engage the Churches in trying to find a solution to this virtually insoluble problem.

It is a topic which many people find wearying, particularly because of the stridency with which a great deal of the debate takes place. What concerns me about all of this is not the reality of same-sex relationships, but rather the pressure by the gay lobby to change Church teaching on the subject.

The Churches and their members are justified in taking a stand on this issue. Just because something has a carefully cultivated element of public support, this does not necessarily mean that it is right.
by Zohaib Zafar

My story with non-violence starts with my ancestors who joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Among what inspired my ancestors to join this community was the strong condemnation of violence in the name of Islam by the communitys founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Ahmad believed that unnecessary violence was not only prohibited in Islam but was a great misfortune for the religion. Ironically, since the beginning of the communitys inception, untold persecution has befallen the community in part because of this belief. And our communitys response to this persecution is the true essence of non-violence.

When my great grandfathers home was burned down because he was an Ahmadi, he not only gathered the courage to stand by peacefully when the police refused to do nothing but he prayed for the people who had committed this act. This was the ethos of the community in 1953 when hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims were murdered in Lahore and recently in 2010, when 86 Ahmadi Muslims were brutally murdered at their mosque in the very same city.

As Ahmadi Muslims we are able to do this because of the power of prayer. We also strongly believe in the Jihad of the pen, literally translated as Struggle of the Pen. Emphasized by our communitys founder, we realized early on that swords cannot sway the hearts but that the true jihad was based on how ideas can change nations. In light of this, our community has produced more Islamic literature than any other Muslim organization in the 20th and 21st centuries. In post 9-11 America, we are one of the loudest voices for the Muslim community at large. Some Islamophobes call it Stockholm Syndrome but Ahmadi Muslims are taught by our Khalifa(spiritual leader) to speak the truth even when we have to sacrifice everything. Non-violence is not only about trying to understand the other and bridging a connection but also protecting ones said enemy from injustice. We do this everyday when we fight Islamophobia by representing a mainstream Islam that many mainstream Muslims may not even count us part of.
This site from the National Automobile Dealers Association offers a broad range of information to help educate people in the market to buy, sell or trade a vehicle. Use their popular pricing and specification information to find car valuation. Find research, pictures and reviews for new, used and classic vehicles for sale in the Decatur area.

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A companion site to the popular auto enthusiast magazine by the same name, this Web site offers buyers guides and reviews as well as news and video from the auto industry. The site also includes coverage of auto shows and the latest in concept cars. Use it to discover which cars are most popular among Illinois drivers and which are the best selling makes and models in the Decatur area.

Produced by the National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration, this site offers extensive safety information. Find details on defects and recalls for vehicles, tires, child restraints and other equipment. Sign-up for recall alerts and find child safety seat inspection stations in the Decatur area. Learn about airbags and how to survive auto accidents. Get answers to all your questions about vehicle safety ratings.

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Shutterstock.com

The attacks on 9/11 are among the greatest tragedies America has ever faced. Thousands died in flame and falls, and the New York skyline was forever altered, a void opened where once stood twin towers.

After the attacks, which were carried out by operatives of al-Qaeda, a terrorist movement made up primarily of Islamic extremists loosely led by Osama bin Laden, America simultaneously united and dividedlike united with like, while those who didnt look quite American enough were suddenly regarded with suspicion, especially if they looked like those who carried out the 9/11 attacksif they looked like Muslims.

While the intense patriotism and unity following 9/11 may have been short-lived, the disunity has remained. One has only to look at the cultural warfare surrounding the 2016 presidential election to see thissome of the political rhetoric reveals an intense American fear of the Muslim community.

Rising, too, is violence against Muslims. Each time there is a terrorist attack, such as the November 13th attacks in Paris and the mass shooting in San Bernardino California on December 2nd, attacks and threats against Muslims surge. There is a tendency to conflate Islam with terrorism, especially in the wake of an attack. In such a climate, the slightest perceived provocation can lead to violence.

One such moment may be coming. Eid al-Adha, also called the Sacrifice Feast, is one of two Muslim holidays annually celebrated worldwide. It honors the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son in submission to God before God intervened, stopping him, sending an angel to inform Abraham that an animal may be sacrificed instead. This holiday is governed by the Islamic lunar calendar that is based on the cycles of the lunar phases rather than the revolution of the Earth around the sun.

And this year, the holiday may possibly begin on the evening of September 11th.

With one of the holiest of Muslim holidays possibly falling on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, an almost certain cultural misunderstanding looms. Addressing this idea, Habeeb Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island, told the New York Times that Some people might want to make something out of that, going on to explain that some might misunderstand the nature of the festivities, thinking Look at these Muslims, they are celebrating 9/11.

Many are worried about how this coincidence will be viewed, and about what retribution may come of it--retribution rooted in misunderstanding. Muslim holidays are based on a non-western calendar that is widely unknown in America, creating the opportunity to mistake the date of the holiday as deliberately provocative, and an affront to the lives lost on 9/11. It should be noted that the Islamic community did not choose the date of this holidayit was dictated by the phases of the moon. The crossroads between this Islamic holiday and the anniversary of the terrorist attacks is a coincidence.

There have been calls for the Muslim community to put off the celebration of Eid al-Adha until 9/11 has passed in a show of compassion. But to ask this is to suggest that all Muslims bear responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. It is this kind of generalization that builds walls between Americans.

Because of the potential for violence against the Muslim community during the convergence of 9/11 and Eid al-Adha, national Muslim officials have urged Muslim leaders to speak with authorities in order to ensure their security during the holiday, and some mosques which usually hold holy day services outdoors will be moving their prayer services inside this year. All Muslims publically celebrating Eid al-Adha are cautioned to be vigilant during this time.

Some imamsMuslim worship leadersare making plans of a more inclusive sort. Shamsi Ali, the imam of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, still plans to host his congregations outdoor prayer service, which attracts up to 20,000 people, and is one of the largest gatherings in New York City. Importantly, he also plans to invite non-Muslims to his services in order for all to learn about Muslim holiday traditions, and to pray for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. If people are trying to build walls, we are building bridges, Ali said.

Alis quote highlights a very important truth. The fact that Eid al-Adha may fall on September 11th is an opportunitya chance to burn down the walls between cultures, and build bridges in their stead. The 15th anniversary of 9/11 doesnt have to be a time of divisionit can be a time of solidarity, of the complete unity that should have begun in American on September 11th, 2001.

Alis example is the one America needs to follow in the days to come. The alternative is a continuing cycle of violence and retribution, of alienation and isolationism. No one in America should fear for their lives because they choose to practice their faith. That fear runs contrary to the ideas America was founded upon. American was founded upon the ideas of equality, unalienable rights, and the rule of law, and to deny the fruits of those ideas to members of any people, race, or faith is to undermine Americas very identity.

Despite differences in religion, traditions, and histories, all Americans should share a common goal: peace. And with the human tendency to fear the unknown, peace can only come through familiarity, through learning and understanding other culturesin this case, the culture of the Muslim community.

This unique crossroad between the western tragedy and Islamic celebration provides an unprecedented opportunity to foster that familiarity. With many New York imams planning sermons on dealing with loss and grief, and opening their doors to everyone in the community, the non-Muslim world has a chance to see the truthMuslims are people, and what is more, they are Americans. They lost friends and family members in the terrorist attacks. They, too, breathed the smoke and the dust, and trembled as the towers fell.

Realize this, and the misconceptions surrounding this Muslim holiday will be dispelled, and the violence stopped before it ever begins.

If you want justice and nothing but justice, you will inevitably get injustice. If you want justice without injustice, you must want love.

- Miroslav Volf

Wesley Baines is a graduate student at Regent University's School of Divinity, and a freelance writer working in the fields of spirituality, self-help, and religion. He is also a former editor at Beliefnet.com. You can catch more of his work at www.wesleybaines.com.
According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among men and women. Each year, more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast or prostate cancers combined. An estimated 160,000 people will die from lung cancer each year. To help with the early detection of lung cancer, Mayo Clinic Health System has expanded low-dose computerized tomography (CT) scanning to locations across northwest Wisconsin.

Up until now, the Lung Screening Program has been available to patients throughout northwest Wisconsin, but the low-dose CT scan could only be performed in Eau Claire. Those scans now can be performed at Mayo Clinic Health System sites in Barron, Bloomer, Menomonie, Osseo and Rice Lake.

Without screening, catching lung cancer early enough to improve outcomes is difficult.

People who have lung cancer often dont even know it, says pulmonologist Adel Zurob, M.D. Symptoms of cough, chest pain, coughing up blood or weight loss may not appear until the cancer is in a late stage.

The process starts with a simple phone call with a pulmonary specialist to determine whether the patient qualifies for screening. Patients from outside of Eau Claire who qualify for screening will then participate in a telemedicine shared-decision visit to discuss pros and cons of screening. A low-dose CT scan can then be completed at the Mayo Clinic Health System location that is most convenient for the patient.

Offering telemedicine visits and low-dose CT scans at multiple locations eliminates distance barriers and improves access to this program for patients who live in rural or distant communities, says Dr. Zurob. In all cancers, and especially in lung cancer, time is life. The earlier cancer is found, the more likely that person will survive.

Since the program started in northwest Wisconsin in February 2015, 416 patients have been referred, and 243 have completed their low-dose CT scans. Of this group, eight received a confirmed lung cancer diagnosis.

The Lung Screening Program also is available at Mayo Clinics Arizona, Florida and Rochester campuses, and Mayo Clinic Health System locations in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Mankato, Minnesota.

The screening is covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Check with your insurance plan regarding coverage; a flat fee is available if insurance doesnt cover this screening. Speak with your primary care provider or call Pulmonology at 715-838-6593 if you are interested in the Lung Screening Program.
Stored chemicals accelerated a fire that killed at least 24 workers and injured dozens more after a boiler exploded at a packaging factory near Dhaka on Saturday, Bangladeshs top building safety official told BenarNews.



There could have been a huge stockpile of chemical substances used in foil packaging, so the fire turned devastating very quickly. The building collapsed and the adjoining building broke down, too, Syed Ahmed, the inspector general of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, said in confirming that an explosion in the boiler room started the fire.



The blaze at the five-story Tampaco Foils Ltd. Factory in Tongi, which packaged food and tobacco products, was the deadliest industrial accident in Bangladesh since more than 1,100 garment workers were killed in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex three years ago.



Saturdays fire was the latest in a series of deadly industrial disasters that have struck the South Asian country in recent years, exposing widespread problems with workplace safety and raising questions about enforcement of building codes at factories nationwide.

The explosion and fire at the Tampaco factory began at around 6 a.m., but after firefighters put out the flames late in the day, first responders Saturday night were still looking for more bodies or people who might still be trapped alive beneath the smoky rubble of the collapsed buildings, authorities said.



They said around 100 workers were believed to be inside the building when the explosion occurred. Reports conflicted as to how many people were hurt in the disaster. At least 50 injured people were taken to local hospitals, officials said, but other reports put the figure as high as at least 70.



Authorities said they would open an investigation and that the companys owners could face criminal charges.



What I have seen here is an industry with bad safety provisions. Whether they had proper permission or not, proper documents, we will have to look into it, Police Inspector-General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said while visiting the site of the disaster on the outskirts of Dhaka, according to Reuters.



Ahmed, the chief building safety inspector, said the Tampaco Foils Limited factory worked round-the-clock and employed 258 workers in three eight-hour shifts.

Tampaco, which was established in 1978, packages products for local affiliates of Western brands including the Nestle and Nabisco food companies and British American Tobacco, according to the firms website.

My company is fully compliant and I've never sacrificed on quality, as my clients are mainly multinational companies, Reuters quoted Tampaco Chairman Syed Mokbul Hossain, a former Bangladeshi parliamentarian, as saying Saturday.

Now my only focus is on my workers who were injured and on those who died. We will take care of them.

Myopic

Not counting Saturdays fire, as many as 1,376 people have died in three large-scale industrial disasters in the country dating to June 2010.



In July, 38 people, including the owner of Rana Plaza, were charged with murder in Bangladeshs deadliest industrial disaster to date.



The latest disaster reflected the governments myopic actions and policies in safeguarding the lives of factory workers who are integral to Bangladeshs economy, said Sultan Uddin Khan, executive director of the Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS).



After the Rana Plaza tragedy, the government has given attention to improving the working conditions at the ready-made garment (RMG) factories due to pressure from the international buyers. But they [the government] did not attend to the safety of workers employed in other industries, Khan told BenarNews,



Ensuring the safety of the RMG sector only is a myopic view of the government, he added.



Syed Ahmed defended his department against Khans criticism, saying it had been inspecting the factories of other industries to ensure worker safety.



We have been in gradual improvement, Ahmed said.



Boiler blasts a common occurrence: Chemist



Meanwhile, according to Dr. Mohammad Nurnabi, a professor of applied chemistry at the University of Dhaka, boiler-room explosions happen frequently in Bangladesh.



These are partly caused by the use of untreated water in boilers, which, he said, often are not properly cleaned. He said this was necessary to remove a build-up of calcium, which could hazardous leaks in boilers.



The factory owners should use purified water, what we call boiler-fed water, for boilers. But the factory owners in Bangladesh, in most of the cases, use ordinary water to reduce expenditure, Nurnabi told BenarNews.

Firefighters work to put out a blaze at the factory in Tongi, Sept. 10, 2016. [Newsroom Photo]
Whether its plumbers, electricians, masons or any other trade in the construction industry, theres a shortage of people to fill the positions.

Ashley Construction owner Adam Ashley has felt the impact personally. When Ashley was in high school, he and his friends were all involved with in the industry in some way, shape or form. As time has gone by, he feels there has been a disconnect between schooling and the trades.

However, a recent partnership with Chippewa Falls Senior High School is bringing some new apprentices into the field. The school has partnered with the Chippewa Valley Home Builders Association (CVHBA) to create a Youth Apprenticeship program. It had students working with local companies over the summer to learn more about the trades.

Ashley, president of CVHBA, said the partnership is to generate interest and to give some experience to students in the construction industry. CVHBA has also created a similar program with the Chippewa Valley Technical College since it have also been noticing a shortage of people in its programs.

They might take different forms or have different titles but there are many efforts taking place across the country to try to get younger people interested in the trades, Ashley said.

In a recent report by the National Association of Home Builders, an estimated eight million jobs were expected to open up in the construction trades. Over 300,000 construction jobs were added in 2014 and over two million craft professionals will be needed by 2017. The entire field is projected to grow 25 percent.

If you can expose people to it before they take another path, that might be a good thing, Ashley said. But also to just give them a sampling of it to see if its not for them.

The apprenticeship program ran for the first time this summer and had students work 450 hours, which gave them high school credit, certificates specific to the apprenticeship as well as a summer paycheck.

The Youth Apprenticeship placed six students this summer between Ashley Construction and C&M Home Builders. Ashley said he hopes to see as much as 30 students come through the program in 2017.

One of the students helping him this summer was Chi-Hi senior Nick Murkley. He heard about the program through one of the construction courses. Since he liked working in construction in the past, he signed up for the program.

Murkley worked doing a wide variety of tasks for Ashley such as framing, siding, putting in windows and the usual clean up at the end of a job. He said he loved the whole experience in general and learned a lot about the field and a potential career.

It made me realize theres a lot of different things than just construction, too, Murkley said. It also made me realize that I want to do it for awhile.

Ashley said they didnt have too much time before summer to advertise the new program but hopes to extend the reach of the program to all areas of the Home Builders Association for next year. He hopes to expand to areas beyond Chippewa Falls as well and would like the program to reach the Eau Claire districts, Altoona and other surrounding areas.

Both state and nationally people are working hard to try to help bring awareness to the (worker) shortage, Ashley said. And to let people know theres some good income available.
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For a week, Barbara VanDoorn and the rest of the Lake Holcombe School District knew there would be an assembly at 9 a.m. Thursday at the high school. Everyone was told to wear the school colors of purple and white.

Speculation by students was a celebrity would stop by. Perhaps Beyonce. Perhaps internet star Kid President.

Instead, it was Tony Evers, superintendent of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. He had some good news for VanDoorn. The schools counselor was being named Wisconsins Special Services Teacher of the Year for the 2016-17 school year.

Completely blown away, VanDoorn said of her reaction to the surprise announcement.

Her award is one of four the DPI is giving, with others going to teachers in elementary, middle and high schools in the state. Evers will recognize VanDoorn during his State of Education address Thursday, Sept. 15 in Madison.

VanDoorn has helped students in the school district for 23 years.

She was nominated for the state honor by first grade teacher Jane Ash, who started in Holcombe the same year as VanDoorn.

She grew up in Sand Creek in Dunn County and graduated from Chetek High School. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Stout and earned her masters of education degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

I wanted to come back to Wisconsin, she said, and thats how she wound up in Holcombe, a K-12 school with about 300 students. Its a good fit for me.

VanDoorn likes working someplace where she can help students from the time they start school until they graduate. The DPI said VanDoorn sends a care package to every college freshman who graduated from Lake Holcombe the previous spring.

Mark Porter, principal of Lake Holcombe High School, recalled going to a session where VanDoorn oversaw nine clubs, businesses and others in a Santa Giving program helping 80 students and their families.

She is certified as a Mental Health First Aid Instructor, and she would like to see mental health first aid principles being shared as frequently as CPR training.

She sees great promise in teaching youth, teachers, bus drivers, administrators and parents how to access the tools they need to provide mental health support when it is needed the most, the DPI said.

VanDoorn said while over the years the problems students face have changed, including the impact of social media. Kids themselves, however, havent changed.

While older students are concerned about their future, they are also focusing on the short-term.

They are still concerned about more immediate things, she said.

Fortunately, VanDoorn said when you work with a good staff, it makes everyone working at the school better.

I have been so fortunate to work in a really great school, she said.

After accepting the honor, she had to apologize to the students who thought a celebrity might be stopping by.

Im sorry guys if you were expecting Beyonce or Kid President, she said.

Thats OK. Theres only one school in the state that can boast of having the special services teacher of the year.




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The smell of fresh paint greeted lawmakers reacquainting themselves with their workplace after their seven-week break.

The scaffolding was coming down, revealing a gleaming dome and, underneath it, restored friezes, oil paintings and statues. The Capitol has been returned to its former glory.

If only they could do the same to Congress.

After their seven-week recess, which was the longest break since at least 1960, the peoples representatives in the House are back for just four weeks before recessing again until the election  and there has been talk of cutting those four weeks of work to three or even two.

They might as well go home, because the House to-do list could end up looking something like this: Impeach the IRS commissioner. Punish the Democrats. Sue the Saudis.

This is how Donald Trump happened.

Americans are worried and angry about the big issues: stagnant wages, immigration, trade deals, health care, entitlement programs, the Zika virus. Yet the best Congress can do for the moment is to keep the government running on autopilot for a few more months, and even this isnt guaranteed.

With three weeks to go in the fiscal year, Congress has enacted not one of the 12 annual appropriations bills (the House has passed six). While leaders struggle to pass a temporary continuing resolution, Republicans fight among themselves about how long it should last and hard-liners threaten to derail it by adding language banning Syrian refugees.

As Republicans sat down for their caucus meeting Wednesday morning, the conversation wandered  this members new grandchild, that members engagement, various anecdotes and talking points. GOP leaders held a news conference after the meeting, at which they voiced enthusiastic support for ... a new soapbox that had appeared over the recess to help shorter members of the caucus be seen behind the lectern.

You could put three people on that thing, House Speaker Paul Ryan said upon entering the room and spying the new piece of furniture.

Gee whiz! exclaimed Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., trying it out.

With so little happening, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to create the illusion of activity, asserting that in this Congress a total of 219 bills have been enacted into law. Thats an increase over the 25-year average.

Actually, the average number of bills enacted into law in previous Congresses going back to 1991 is 435  double the current output. McCarthys spokesman said the claim was based on when Congress went on its long summer holiday. But as of now, McCarthys 219 bills are well below the 25-year average of 257 enacted at this point by previous Congresses. And most have been minor suspension bills, such as post-office namings.

People want a positive vision and a clear direction for solving the countrys big problems, Ryan declared at his news conference.

But instead, theyre getting:

An attempt to impeach the IRS commissioner. Some hard-liners, still angry about the IRS treatment of conservative groups, are trying to force leaders to hold a vote to impeach the current commissioner, John Koskinen, who took over after the alleged wrongdoing occurred.

A bid to punish two dozen House Democrats, led by civil rights icon John Lewis, who staged a sit-in on the House floor in June to protest Republicans refusal to bring up gun-control legislation.

Legislation allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in federal courts, a bill with no chance of getting enough votes.

Instead, House Republicans could spend their fleeting time at work resolving an impasse blocking funds to fight the Zika infection. The Senate reached a bipartisan deal in May to provide $1.1 billion for the effort, but the agreement fell apart when House Republicans added a provision restricting funds from going to Planned Parenthood.

At Wednesdays news conference, CNNs Manu Raju asked Ryan why he wouldnt accept a clean bill without the poison pill.

Look, give me a break, Ryan said, blaming the Senate.

But even some of Ryans Republicans arent giving him a break. Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., told Bloombergs Billy House that we become obstructionists with the Planned Parenthood gambit.

And Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., carried a jar full of Florida mosquitoes onto the House floor. During the seven weeks ... we were gone, cases of Zika rose from 4,000 to by some estimates over 16,000 in the country, he said. His constituents are demanding action and they are seeing inaction, and in that inaction they are angry.

Yes, but have they seen that new soapbox for members of Congress? Gee whiz!
The following editorial appeared in the Sept. 3 Chicago Tribune:

Lets play a quick game of word association. When we say: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, you say ...

Many Americans would blurt: scandal.

Not wrong. Egregious example: revelations in 2014 of dangerously long wait times for veterans in need of medical care, some of whom died while on ever-lengthening waitlists. VA officials lied about  and attempted to cover up  those lists. More than 120 medical centers and clinics were flagged for a more extensive investigation into patient access and scheduling practices.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki took the fall. But flash forward. Now, after major investigations and billions more spent, is the VA health system better? President Barack Obama says yes. Weve hired thousands more doctors, nurses, staff, he told a recent conference of the Disabled American Veterans. When we really put our sweat and tears and put our shoulder to the wheel, we can make things better.

But for too many vets, Obamas better is no good. Serious problems persist at the Veterans Health Administration, the VAs medical wing. And theyll continue to persist until Congress and the White House feverishly commit to three goals:

Allow more veterans to seek medical care with private doctors. The more flexibility in choosing providers, the better chance that veterans will get the excellent care they deserve.

Streamline and downsize the rest of the system to focus on specialized care for battle-related injuries that private docs cant perform as well as VA staffers.

Fire workers who resist change or dont perform.

A massive new report from the Commission on Care, created by Congress after the 2014 scandal, concludes: Although VHA provides care that is in many ways comparable or better in clinical quality to that generally available in the private sector, it is inconsistent from facility to facility, and can be substantially compromised by problems with access, service, and poorly functioning operational systems and processes.

Among the commissions 18 recommendations for a sweeping overhaul: Create a more comprehensive and flexible VHA care system. Thats envisioned as a less rigid network of providers including doctors from the VA, military hospitals, other federally funded providers and facilities, and VA-credentialed private doctors and clinics.

The commission also suggests that the current Veterans Choice program be expanded so that all vets can consult private physicians. Good idea: It doesnt take a specialist in battlefield wounds to prescribe blood pressure meds. In 2014, Congress passed Veterans Choice, which already allows many vets to choose a private doc outside the system if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility or have to wait more than 30 days for an appointment.

Yet that law has led to billions of dollars in expenses, millions of square feet of new medical space ... and even longer wait times at many VA facilities. One reason: The law not only mandated a complex new health system, but ordered the VA to set it up in 90 days.

Predictable result: bureaucratic chaos.

Predictable congressional solution: Lets throw more money at the VA!

In the decade since 2006, the VAs budget has soared from $73 billion to $167 billion, with much of the growth in the health system. Staff, too, has ballooned. None of that has significantly dented the VAs entrenched culture that disdains accountability.

For instance: The 2014 law streamlined the process to fire VA executives who concealed the waiting-list scandal. Since then, however, only nine people have been fired for manipulating wait times, The New York Times reports. And some of them could still get their jobs back after appeals. Maddening.

If you dont have accountability, and you know your job is safe whether you perform or not, its hard to make any progress,  Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia tells the newspaper. Right now, that is what we have at the VA.

The Care Commission recommends a new board of directors accountable to the president. That could sharpen oversight or just provide more political theater and VA blamesmanship. The bottom line:

No plan to revive the VA will succeed until superior performance is rewarded and poor performance is punished.

Until then, count on more VA scandals, more excuses  and more American veterans cheated of the care they deserve.

No plan to revive the VA will succeed until superior performance is rewarded and poor performance is punished.
home Tech iPad Air 3 release date, specs news update: Apple updates iPad Air 2, iPad mini

The iPad Air 3 was one of the no-shows at the recent Apple keynote event held last Sept. 7. In fact, anything iPad was left out at the affair as it focused on the iPhone 7 and the Apple Watch.

Although the company did not have something to say about the iPad Air 3, it actually had some behind the scenes changes for some of its iPad units.

Apple has doubled the base model storage of its iPads from 16 GB to 32 GB, but kept them at the same price. The iPad Pro also got a price cut with the price of the 128 GB version down by $50 and the 256 GB model now priced $100 less.

The iPad mini 2 is only being offered with 32 GB while the iPad mini 4 and the iPad Air 2 are now available in their 32 GB version and 128 GB version.

It is a mystery what this means for the iPad line although Apple is still expected to release new versions of the iPad Pro. The iPad Air 3, despite the lack of leaks and information, is still believed to arrive.

Rumor has it that it will arrive March next year, presumably along with the iPad Pro 2 and the new iPad Pro with 10.5-inch version. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that a "low-cost" iPad will be released as well.

It is a mystery if the model in question and the iPad Air 3 will be one and the same. The former is said to be powered by the A9 processor while the new iPad Pro iterations are getting the A10.

The iPad Air 3 is also rumored to sport a slimmer build but a more durable one, thanks to a new aluminum chassis. A boost across the board is expected, including the camera department.

If the rumors are to be believed, the iPad Air 3 arrives early next year.
home World Pastor, running for president, vows he won't turn Liberia into a Christian state

Sen. Prince Y. Johnson declared that he will not be involved in anything that would turn Liberia into a Christian state. Johnson, the leader of the Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction, insisted that all religious groups should be free to practice their religion without any prohibition.

"There shall be no Christian State or Islamic State established in this country. We are one people and we have co-existed for the past 200 years plus to now. Let no one or group of people put knife between our unity and peace," he proclaimed while speaking at his party headquarters in Monrovia.

Johnson is a Christian who is known to preach as a pastor every Sunday. He recently announced his plan to run for the president of Liberia in the 2017 elections.

A portion of the nation's Christian population is reportedly campaigning to make Liberia a Christian state. The proposition became controversial even among Christian leaders.

Bishop Jonathan B.B. Hart, the head of the Liberia Council of Churches, denounced the proposal to Christianize Liberia and said that the nation should remain secular. Liberian Muslims reportedly threatened to engage in civil disobedience if the proposition is passed.

Johnson recently proposed a controversial bill that seeks to declare two national holidays for Muslims. Several pastors criticized the bill as "harmful" and claimed that it violated the constitution.

The senator also declared that his administration will not accept gay rights. "Liberia is not Sodom and Gomorrah! We will not accept that here," he said.

Johnson once led the rebel group Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) which was notorious for committing hideous crimes. The INPFL was known for torturing and killing President Samuel Doe in 1990. Johnson stated that he still regrets t that Liberians once had to fight each other, referring to the Liberian civil war.
home Entertainment 'Star Wars Rebels' season 3 air date, spoilers news 2016: The death of the extended universe

A few weeks from now, the third season of "Star Wars Rebels" will premiere on Disney XD. The network recently released a trailer for the upcoming season, revealing one of the show's latest antagonists, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Although the original antagonists Darth Maul and Darth Vader will appear in the series, the two will not be causing the main conflict in the upcoming season.

Thrawn will be plotting the destruction of the universe the Ghost crew in the upcoming season, as revealed in the latest trailer of "Star Wars Rebels." Unlike the more well-known antagonists who have relied on their strength and powers, Thrawn is a more manipulative and conniving enemy.

Sources reported Thrawn will be giving the heroes a terrible time this season, as the new character is relentless and clever. Sheer strength won't be able to defeat this particular adversary.

For the uninitiated, Thrawn came from the unknown regions of the universe. He climbed up the ranks of the Galactic Empire because of his wit and skill. When he was a commander in the defense forces, he successfully completed his task to destroy the Outbound Flight. Because of Thrawn's success, his name resounded among the higher-ranking members of the Empire, earning him the title Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Since Thrawn was introduced in the "Star Wars" canon, fans have been disappointed and declared the death of the "Star Wars" extended universe. To note, the extended universe supposedly took place five years after the events of the 1983 film "Return of the Jedi." Thrawn was the main adversary in the expanded universe, particularly in the Thrawn trilogy, where he faced Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca, but ultimately met his demise.

Incorporating the character with the original storyline has destroyed the possibility of reproducing the extended universe in "Star Wars Rebels."

"Star Wars Rebels" will be back on Disney XD on Saturday, Sept. 24, at 8:30 p.m. EDT.
Fianna Fail Finance Spokesperson Michael McGrath has said that Ireland must deliver a firm message on tax policy to the European Union this weekend.

He has said that Finance Minister Micheal Noonan must reiterate that tax rates are a sovereign issue to be decided by each individual member state.
An Irish naval vessel has been involved in a mission to rescue migrants off the coast of Libya.

The LE James Joyce this morning located and rescued 423 migrants from 18 separate vessels during a complex operation 40 nautical miles North-West of Tripoli.
Update 2.41pm: Minister for Health Simon Harris says he hopes John Halligan will remain part of the Government.

The Minister was responding to Mr Halligan's threats to quit over a report which found there was no need for a second cath lab at University Hospital Waterford.

Speaking in Dublin this afternoon, Minister Harris said he will provide significant investment for the hospital.

I outlined in my statement the other day, when I published the Herity Report, exactly what I could do for Waterford, which included significant investment, longer opening hours, more equipment, additional staff, and then an opportunity to review the impact of those additional resources on the volume of people using those services next year, he said.

I think this is a prudent and appropriate approach to take, based on the clinical report that I have, and I would hope that John Halligan would remain in the Government.

But thats entirely a matter for John.

Earlier:

A review that has found a high-tech cardiac unit could be transferred from Waterford University Hospital to Cork is a closed matter according to the Minister for Health.

Simon Harris who says he will not be over ruling the independent review - despite calls from Junior Minister John Halligan for the findings of the review to be scrapped.

Minister Halligan had threatened to resign over the report earlier this week - Minister Harris says the issue is closed.

"The Programme for Government gave a very clear commitment to carry out an independent clinical review, and only if that independent clinical review gave a favourable outcome would you install a second cath lab," he said.

"We brought in a very eminent cardiologist by the name of Dr Niall Herity, works for the NHS  to look at all of these matters.

"He reported to me, and he was very clear in the view that a second cath lab was not currently required.

"I, as Minister, have no intention of overruling that expert view of a clinician.

"So as far as I can see, the matter is closed."
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Reaching the Batwa (pygmy) for Christ in the Great Lakes region of Africa is deep on my heart, writes Jay Wittmeyer, executive director of Global Mission and Service. The formerly forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers suffer profound discrimination, marginalization and violence and because of the depletion of their historic forests and access restrictions by government, the Batwa are being forced to acculturate to the modern, agrarian worldit is not going well.

Working through a nascent Brethren church in the region, the Church of the Brethren sponsored a capacity-building conference to bring Batwa together from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The following is excerpted from a report by Dr. David Niyonzima, detailing the conference and some of the learnings gained from the interaction:

Report of the Capacity Building Conference of the Twa of the Great Lakes Region of Africa

The Twa of Rwanda, Congo and Burundi, being the most affected of all other communities, are still marginalized, discriminated, and locked into a poverty that needs serous initiatives from both themselves and the concerned supporters.

It is with this concern that the representatives of the Brethren of Rwanda, the Shalom Ministries of Congo, and the Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services in Burundi joined efforts to facilitate a capacity building and an exchange of experience among the Twa of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, that was held in Burundi on Aug. 15-19, at the THARS Center at Gitega, with the support of the Church of the Brethren.

Seeing that the objective was to build the capacity of participants through an exchange of experience, the conference was facilitated with a participatory approach. There was a session that was organized in a get to know each other format where each country shared their way of life with questions and answers.

This was so interesting. For example we heard the Burundi Twa asking the Twa from Congo if truly they ate other human beings as rumors had spread. The answer was, No, we do not eat our fellow human beings. The Twa from Congo were shocked to learn that some of the Twa in Rwanda and in Burundi were out on the streets begging, instead of getting into the forest to hunt animals for food and for sale. The Twa of Rwanda were impressed to learn that the Twa of Burundi were going to church and they said they were going to try it as well. Twa of Congo and Burundi, empathized with the Twa of Rwanda when they heard that the government had put a law prohibiting them to go into the forest to get honey to sell.

The learning from each other and practical exchange of experience was prioritized through group sharing and group presentation, questions and answers after brief presentations by the facilitators, as well as an exposure visit at Taba, one of the Twa communities in the Gitega province.

Participants were put in groups to discuss fully on the topics on their own and express themselves in an effort to establish an ownership of the issues being raised during the presentation. Those who were not able to speak found opportunities to do so, with the support of the group members. Groups were mixed ethnically and internationally for discussion on presented topics:

1. Improving the Twas wellbeing, facilitated by Ron Lubungo.

2. Counteracting the Twas discrimination, facilitated by David Niyonzima.

3. Increasing the Twas self-esteem, facilitated by Etienne Nsanzimana.

4. Overcoming the Twas economic indigence which was facilitated by Nelson Alaki, from Congo since Joseph Kalegamire (Congo World Relief) was not able to attend the conference due to other commitments.

The climax of the conference was time when the participants were boarded in minibuses to go to Taba to visit a Twa Community. Upon arrival in the village, the hosts broke into dancing and singing, welcoming the visitors with whom they knew they had a lot in common. The hosts proceeded to show the visitors where they lived, taking them right inside their houses. The language barrier particularly for Congo Twas and Burundi Twas did not seem to be a handicap for understanding each others living conditions. According to the participants report, the Twa from Congo and Rwanda were shocked to realize the dire poverty of the Taba Twa.

Recommendations: The last day was concentrated on proposing some recommendations, which were worked out in groups. Some of the main points, voiced with hope that their cry would reach the supporters, were the following (we have translated the statements in the Twas own wording):

1. Please help us so that this conference may be organized in Congo and in Rwanda for more capacity building.

2. We need schools in our Twa villages and parents must get sensitized to send children to school.

3. We Twa communities should develop our own self-esteem before seeking it from others.

4. We Twa communities must break the habit of begging on the streets and develop a working mentality on income-generating activities.

5. We agreed that we are lazy but this mindset should change because we are as capable as other ethnic communities, except that our governments have discriminated us for so long.

6. We need help for more advocacy and lobbying for our economic and social situation to improve

With all gender and ethnic groups represented, there was a total of 39 participants including 25 Twa, 4 Hutu, 4 Tutsi, 3 facilitators who were at the same time representatives of the three sponsoring organizations, 1 expert in community development from Congo, and 2 THARS staff for logistics, beside the kitchen staff.

We wholeheartedly thank the Church of the Brethren for supporting this important conference.

 This report was provided to Newsline by Jay Wittmeyer, executive director of the Church of the Brethren Global Mission and Service. For more information about the ministries of Global Mission and Service, go to www.brethren.org/global .
The Barr government has promised to spend $36 million across four years to employ another 68 nurses if re-elected.

Oral health would also get a boost, with Labor promising to spend nearly $4 million to buy two more mobile dental centres.

The ACT's first mobile dental centre, which began operating last year. A re-elected Labor government would deliver $3.94 million to buy and operate two more mobile centres.

Extra graduate nurses were the centrepiece of Labor's five-point nursing plan announced on Saturday, with an additional 12 graduates each year to take the number employed annually past the 100-mark.

The package would include 12 new nurse navigators to help support complex patients, and an extra six school nurses for public schools, more than doubling the current four.
Police have caught the second of two men who escaped Canberra's jail after a week on the run.

ACT Policing said they found 21-year-old Jacob MacDonald in Narrabundah on Saturday morning.

Escaped: Patrick McCurley (right) and Jacob MacDonald (left) have both been caught.

"MacDonald was on remand for charges relating to property and burglary offences. He escaped from the Alexander Maconochie Centre on Friday, 2 September," police said.

"About 11am this morning, police arrested him without incident at a house in Narrabundah."
The decision by the Canberra Raiders club to go back to the drawing board on its controversial $80 million plan for Braddon is both a surprise and a worrying indicator for the ACT economy.

When plans were first mooted more than four years ago there was huge community opposition to the proposed closure of the Braddon Club and the mixed use development that was set to be built in its place.

An artist's impression of the Canberra Raiders' development at Braddon, now shelved.

The club could only finally progress plans when in March the North Canberra Community Council opted to drop its appeal against the ACT government's original approval of the project.

The decision to re-work the development can therefore not be taken as a bow down to the needs and wishes of the surrounding community.
EXCLUSIVE

Crossbench MPs are calling on Bill Shorten to ditch his same-sex marriage bill and throw his support behind theirs in a bid to attract a Liberal co-sponsor and pressure Malcolm Turnbull to abandon his plebiscite plans.

A large crowd at a marriage equality rally in Melbourne in June. Credit:Luis Ascui

Greens MP Adam Bandt and independents Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan will introduce their private member's bill into the lower house on Monday morning, just after Mr Shorten and his deputy Tanya Plibersek.

However the trio believe the Labor bill is doomed and theirs has a better chance of attracting support from across the aisle.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calls it "troubling" but his deputy Barnaby Joyce apparently doesn't have a bad word to say about a West Australian plan for a new $7.2 billion mining tax.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Joyce appear to have split over WA Nationals leader Brendan Grylls' proposed iron ore tax hike.

Barnaby Joyce, left, and Malcolm Turnbull Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

While Mr Joyce was a leading critic of federal Labor's now-defunct mining tax and has close ties to mining magnate Gina Rinehart, he appears to have an open mind on Mr Grylls' controversial plan.

"Minister Joyce said the proposal was a matter for the state government and he would not run down any proposal that was designed to get a better deal for its constituents," said a spokesman for Mr Joyce, who is currently acting PM.
French actress Juliette Binoche on Friday urged Europeans to let go of their fears of immigrants and respect the freedom of Muslim women to wear the veil or not as they choose.

Europe is grappling with a migration crisis that has brought more than a million mostly Muslim people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa and has highlighted problems about the integration of Muslims already in Europe.

Juliette Binoche Credit:Gregg DeGuire

Binoche, who reached global stardom in films such as Chocolat and The English Patient, for which she won an Academy Award, has often promoted women's rights and spoken out in favour of freedom of expression.

Speaking at a Hungarian film festival where she will receive an award, Binoche told Reuters that feminism called for compassion in the migration crisis, where fear sows the seeds of more conflict.
I can still so clearly remember the first time I heard Breathe In Now, george's break out hit.

It wasn't a seminal life-changing moment, it wasn't even enormously interesting. I only remember it because of that song.

Katie Noonan in a 2016 shoot for a recent project.

A chunk of my youth played out to a soundtrack of george music, so it was with some trepidation that I entered the QPAC concert hall for their 20th anniversary reunion show.

Katie Noonan has gone from strength to strength in her career and I have loved everything she has done and her brother Tyrone has reinvented himself and his sound so many times it is hard to keep up.
A man has been charged with almost 60 offences over an alleged crime spree in Melbourne's west and north-west.

Police arrested the 35-year-old in Gisborne on Friday, charging him in relation to a string of alleged burglaries and thefts.

Police arrested a Gisborne man over the alleged crime spree.

The 57 charges relate to dozens of alleged thefts in the Brimbank, Moonee Valley, Hobsons Bay and Gisborne areas.

The man, of no fixed address, was interviewed and later charged with numerous offences including burglary, theft of a motor vehicle, theft from a motor vehicle and obtaining property by deception.
A man allegedly snatched a young girl from a shopping centre food court and ran with her until a member of the public stopped him.

Police said they were investigating the incident at Northland Shopping Centre in Preston on Thursday night.

Northland Shopping Centre. Credit:Suppled

It is believed the man, who has an intellectual disability, grabbed the girl, 4, about 8.15pm.



A Victoria Police spokeswoman said he ran about 50 metres with the child before being stopped.

The 26-year-old Reservoir man was taken back to a police station and interviewed. He was later released without charge.
Amman: Jets struck a busy marketplace in the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib on Saturday, killing at least twenty five people, including children and women, and injuring dozens, rescue workers and residents said.

Two civil defence workers told Reuters via internet that bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble of collapsed buildings in a marketplace in the city that is the provincial capital of the northwestern province of Idlib.

In this file photo from a June attack, civil defense workers and Syrian citizens rescue people after airstrikes hit a market area in Idlib, Syria.

One resident and rescue workers say they thought that the jets were Russian, which they said can be identified by their high altitude flying in sorties, unlike Syrian helicopters that hit at lower altitudes.

In recent weeks aerial bombing on villages and towns in the province run by a coalition of mostly Islamist brigades under the banner of Jaish al Fateh army (Army of Conquest) have escalated and left dozens of dead and injured, residents and civil defence workers say.
A growing number of Chinese parents have taken to choosing an English name for their offspring in the hope of helping them gain a future foothold in Britain and the West.

Unfortunately that has led to mixed results, with some Chinese children now blessed with names such as Cinderella, Gandalf and even Rolex.

Teen enterprise: Beau Jessup, 16, runs a successful business to help name Chinese children.

Step forward Beau Jessup - a 16-year-old schoolgirl who has earned more than 48,000 ($84,000) offering advice to Chinese families on how to choose rather more suitable English names.

Beau, a pupil at Cheltenham Ladies College, hit on the idea during a family visit to China, when she was asked by friends during a meal out to suggest an English name for their newborn baby.
Astros strike back to win Game 2 vs. Phillies, evening up World Series

The Houston Astros won Game 2 on Saturday night to send the World Series back to Philadelphia at 1-1.
The Union ministry of commerce and industry has convened a meeting next week to discuss the possibility of maharatna PSU Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) acquiring stake in MMTC promoted Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL).


Right from his days in college, Kapil Shelke dreamt of building the worlds fastest electric motorcycle. Armed with a rudimentary knowledge of electric motors, circuits and batteries from tinkering with remote control cars as a child, he set out to achieve this dream.
Assyrian Militias Help Fight ISIS Into Retreat in Iraq

Christian militias are playing a hard-core role in the fightback against Islamic State as the Iraqi Army gears up to retake Mosul. The militias, with some of their weaponry supplied by US pastors and other supporters, are aiding the slow but steady erosion of the territories captured by the Islamist terror group. Already, some Christian leaders in the area are starting to discuss the post-ISIS settlement. Christian Today reported that the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) had driven Islamic State out of Badaneh, a traditional Christian Assyrian vilage south of Mosul on 1 September. "Liberation of Badanah village in #Khazer axis by NPU warriors with the support of international coalition by airstrikes, heavy and middle weapons" said a statement from the NPU, which posted videos and photos to its Facebook page. Badanah fell to ISIS in 2014 along with a number of towns, cities and villages in the Nineveh Plains. The Islamist invasion has resulted in a catastrophic decline in the region's Christians with many having fled the country. Rape, murder and torture has been inflicted with savage cruelty on the region's Christian and Yazidi populations, as well as on Muslims who attempt to resist the extremists. The conservative website Mad World News reported the NPU as "Christian crusaders". Militia commander Bahnam Abush told media in Iraqi: "The operation is a step towards restoration of their confidence and hopes for Christians to stay in the land of their grandparents."
According to state law, fines, penalties, and license money shall be appropriated exclusively to the use and support of the common schools ... . An exception is fines for overloaded vehicles. Seventy-five percent of those funds go to state highways; 25 percent go to the county general fund where the fine or penalty is paid. Fifty percent of money forfeited or seized in enforcing drug laws goes to counties for drug enforcement. Vehicles seized in drug law cases may be used by law enforcement agencies or sold with the proceeds going to schools.
Metropolis, a major pathology lab chain in the country, is looking at acquiring in India and Africa, with a revenue size of up to $50 million.

The Rs 650 crore company, in which private equity investor Carlyle has a 30 per cent stake, would look at IPO or PE investments to fund such acquisitions, said Ameera Shah, CEO of the company.
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Walmart will stop selling Welspun's Egyptian-cotton sheets over concerns about the products' provenance, dealing a fresh blow to a supplier embroiled in controversy. Walmart took the step after a review of Welspun's cotton sheets, a move spurred by rival Target Corporation cutting ties with the Indian vendor. Unlike Target, Walmart said it won't end all business with Welspun, which is putting stronger quality controls in place and adopting new labelling practices. "Our customers trust us to provide products that are what they say they are on the label," Marilee ...
President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday reminded the country's bankers that it is their sacred responsibility to safeguard the money of those who have reposed trust in them. He was speaking at the Centenary Celebrations of Karur Vysya Bank in Chennai on Saturday.
RJD strongman on Saturday walked out of prison on bail after 11 years with much fanfare and praised party chief Lalu Prasad while making it clear that there was no love lost between him and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

"For me Lalu Prasad is the leader" and Nitish Kumar is the chief minister "circumstantially", said the controversial leader, who has been a four-time MP from Siwan, as he emerged out of the Bhagalpur divisional jail and left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.

Shahabuddin, who is a member of RJD National Committee  the top decision making body of the party  and is known to be close to the RJD chief, said categorically that he never enjoyed good relations with Kumar.

Various pending cases against Shahabuddin were reopened and he was sent to jail after Kumar had assumed power in 2005.

He was, however, quick to add that it was the court which sent him to jail and the court again which ordered his release from the jail.

Shahabuddin had got final reprieve on Wednesday when Patna High Court granted him bail in a case of murder of a witness in the 2004 killing of two brothers in Siwan. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.

Shahabuddin was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers.

He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district.

Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and "We all are standing solidly behind him."

He said after reaching Siwan he would meet the family of journalist Rajdeo Nandan, who was shot dead recently.

Shahabuddin's close associate Laddan Mian is in jail in connection with the scribe's murder and though the inquiry into it has so far not named the RJD strongman, he was shifted to Bhagalpur divisional jail from Siwan a little after the incident.

The Nitish Kumar government had recommended CBI probe into the murder on demand of the scribe's family.

Asked by newsmen whether his prolonged jail term had harmed him politically, Shahabuddin said, "A little damage has happened."

His wife Heena Sahab lost to Om Prakash Yadav of BJP in the last parliamentary election from Siwan in 2014.

Asked how he spent his time in jail, the RJD leader said he is an avid reader. "Out of four cartons I am taking back from jail, two are full of books which I read during my stay."

To a question on senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi's allegation that the Grand Secular Alliance government had paved way for his release as RJD is the major partner in it, Shahabuddin said, "There is no need to take Sushil Modi seriously."

"During his early days in Bihar Assembly in the 1990s I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts," he said.
Sanatan Sanstha, which is under scanner in the murder of CPI leader Govind Pansare, rubbished police claims that drugs were found at its ashram near here and said investigators were "deviating" from their path and making false allegations against the outfit.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Maharashtra Police, probing the murder case, told a Court in Kolhapur it had found some drugs which could affect the nervous system.

Addressing a press conference here, a spokesman of the Goa-headquartered right wing outfit vehemently denied SIT had seized narcotics from its Panvel ashram.

"Many seekers in various age groups reside in the ashram that runs a free dispensary managed by qualified doctors having experience of 20-30 years. The medicines in the dispensary are purchased from the market with bills.

"But we are very sorry to say the investigating agency enacted a drama to seize these medicines and told the media they were narcotics," Abhay Vartak, spokesperson of Sanstha, said.

Legal adviser to the Sanstha, advocate Sanjeev Punalekar, questioned, "What is the connection between investigation in a murder case and medicines."

He said the police were "deviating" from their path and making false allegations against the outfit.

Punalekar claimed the Sanstha was being needlessly dragged in the case and defamed.

ENT doctor Virendra Tawde, a member of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), an offshoot of the Sanstha  who has been chargesheeted in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case  is an accused in the Pansare case also.
After Beijing thwarted New Delhi's bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the US has reiterated that it ias committed to India's membership as it is ready for it.

"Well, you know that discussions within that group are confidential within that group, so I'm not going to read out," Eizabeth Trudeau, Director of Press Office in the US State epartment said in the daily press briefing in reply to a question on Friday.

"But the US remains committed. We believe India is ready for full membership. We will work towards that goal."

At the plenary in Seoul in June, China blocked India's bid for membership on the ground that a country has to be a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to become a member of the 48-nation bloc.

"In the last meeting, the participating governments, as you know, did not reach a consensus decision - we spoke about it at the time - to admit any new applicant into the group," Trudeau said.

"We were disappointed in the outcome. We continue, though, and will be, continued to work constructively with India and with members of the on India's accession in the months ahead," she stated.

But she qualified this by saying that a country's membership in the NSG is a consensus decision of the bloc.

It must be mentioned that during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to New Delhi last month, it was agreed that China's Director General for Disarmament, who heads his delegation in the NSG talks, will have negotiations with India's Joint Secretary for Disarmament on the issue.

Following the Second India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in New Delhi towards the end of August, US Secretary of State John Kerry also reiterated Washington's commitment to New Delhi's bid for NSG membership.

"Our civil nuclear cooperation will bring affordable clean energy to tens of millions of Indian households as we move closer in the use of safe, modern, latest generation, modular nuclear power," Kerry said at a joint press interaction following the Dialogue.
Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, facing the allegation of 'radicalising' youths, today asked the government what exactly has he done to get the tag of "Dr Terror" and sought "logical answers" to charges levelled against him.

In a four-page "open letter" released here, Naik posed five questions to the government as to what he has done to earn the tags of "terror preacher", "Dr Terror".

"Why now? I have been preaching for 25 years not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr Terror'? Of 150 countries where I am respected, I am called a 'terrorist influencer' in my own country. What an irony!," the 50-year-old televangelist asked.

"Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigators are being asked to repeat and continue the probe. Why?" he sought to know.

On the government's action against his NGO, he asked why would the government renew IRF's FCRA registration and then cancel it? And that it seemed "illogical".

"Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA? Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media?" the letter said.

Naik, a medical doctor-turned Salafist preacher, said the entire row in the last few months have come as a "shock" to him and termed it as "murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights".

"This is not just an attack on me, it is an attack against Indian Muslims. And it is an attack against peace, democracy and justice," Naik wrote in the letter.

On allegations of forced conversion, Naik, who has been away from the country for over two months, said, "While chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement? Isn't this person the most basic proof of forced conversion?"

The founder of Peace TV, run by his Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Naik has come under the scanner of security agencies after a Bangladeshi newspaper had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka was "inspired" by his speeches.
A virulent version of the virus that has swept the globe is headed for India, where an older, more benign strain is likely to be quietly residing within some Indians, possibly preparing genetic ground for a quick, new second-coming, experts have warned.
The pharma industry has said it might have to continue to depend on China for raw materials with the Centre lowering support to bulk drug manufacturing.



The government had earlier announced plans to set up bulk drug parks and come out with a policy to support manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and intermediates, ingredients used to produce the final formulation medicine. It was also meant to protect India from a drug shortage if the flow of these ingredients from China was affected.



While the plan was to boost the industry with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore, this has been reduced to setting up common effluent plants in three bulk drug parks with a total outlay of Rs 600 crore. More than the parks, the industry was expecting some incentives to upgrade facilities, and subsidies for land and electricity, said SV Veeramani, president, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association.



According to a report, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar said the government had decided against a bulk drug policy and that states would have to come up with the parks. M Narayana Reddy, MD of Virchow Laboratories and a member of the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association, said a policy would have helped the industry meet infrastructure and related concerns. Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a reply in Parliament in May that API imports to India were around $2.22 billion in 2014-15.
COLUMBUS  No one really loves getting up at 5 a.m., but tune your radio to KLIR 101.1 and those two bubbly personalities coming across the airwaves make mornings a little easier to bear.

For six years Riley Scott and Sandie Fischer have been bringing the community up to speed on what to know, fun facts, current events and peppy music through their "Morning Buzz" show.

Their office is a little different than most.

What's said within the four sound-proof walls certainly doesn't remain there, whether it was planned or not.

Sometimes things fly out of your mouth that you dont expect, Fischer joked.

Scott said being on the radio requires a person to think on their feet  or from their seat in this situation.

To run a live show, the duo said it takes an upbeat person with the ability to talk as if no one is listening, but at the same time watching every word that leaves their lips.

We have to be good, Fischer joked. We know families are in cars listening so we have to behave.

I have to tone down my political rhetoric, Scott added.

It may seem like it to listeners, but the two haven't always worked together.

Fischer, a Humphrey native, worked in sales at the local radio station before learning of an open morning talk show position in 2000. She was pretty much handed the job with her gift of gab and buoyant personality.

After leaving her radio sales position in 2001 to work at the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce, departing from her morning show host duties was out of the question. She still takes on both duties, hosting her weekday radio show before shifting to her responsibilities as the chamber's retail/membership developer and events planner.

Scott, an Iowa native, took a slightly different route. She was working as a night manager at a Columbus hotel when she was dared to try out at the station, being told she had a voice for radio.

I had never been to a radio station, let alone knew anything about it, Scott explained. My husband said, Whats the worst that can happen? They tell you that you suck?

She read a few lines, and the job was hers. That was 18 years ago.

I can honestly say I love my job. I get to come in every day and be goofy, Scott said.

Fischers morning co-hosts came and went over the years, but someone else was always there  Scott.

However, Scott worked nights and weekends, until about six years ago when she was needed to fill the open host position, giving Fischer someone to converse with.

We just clicked so well that they decided to keep us together, Scott said.

Fischer said they are actually a pretty unconventional morning show, featuring two women rather than two men or one male and one female.

With Fischers comforting voice and Scotts boisterous laugh, they admit they have absolutely nothing in common, but thats what makes it work.

Fischer, 60, a Catholic Democrat, and 56-year-old Scott, a Protestant Republican, are pretty much as night and day as they come.

We are the complete opposite, Scott said. But were so good together just naturally.

Shes the bubbly morning person and Im the lump that rolls in, Scott said, pointing to Fischer who was all dressed up, then to herself wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. There are times I wear my pajamas in here.

But running a morning talk show isn't a job for slackers.

They try to be asleep by 10 p.m. to be up and running by 4 a.m., a routine not many envy.

How do they find stuff to talk about?

Fischer said they just open their mouths and it comes out  whether they researched a topic on the internet or Scott is discussing complicated toilets she came across on her latest vacation. Any topic is up for discussion, within the realm of a family-friendly show.

Scott is also the stations music director, choosing every song that plays on KLIR throughout the day.

After Fischer leaves for her chamber job each morning, Scott sticks around the station to schedule music, commercials, guests and news.

She jokes that if you don't like the music, she's the one to blame.

Its adult contemporary, Scott said, adding that she tries to focus on top-50 hits. If I keep a song after it docks out of the top 50, its usually because its upbeat and has a good rhythm. I want to be a station that people like to listen to.

She also remotely runs an afternoon radio show that airs in Brookings, South Dakota.

The technology can surprise people, and so does the size of the 10-by-10-feet studio. Alpha Media runs five local radio stations from the small brick building nestled between industrial facilities and a cornfield just north of 23rd Street.

Their office may be small, but it's who Fischer and Scott reach outside those walls that really counts.
The Rs 19,000 crore Phase-I of the Project, covering a length of 45 kilometers, is expected to be completed by December, 2017, said a senior official from Ltd. The company is changing the model of contract a little from the proposed Phase-I extension project of nine kilometer, to reduce the risk of delays due to some issues faced by contractors.

Phase-I of the project, which had an initial investment outlay of over Rs 14,600 crore, has seen an increase in investment up to Rs 19,000 crore, owing to various issues including the issues in contract, price escalations and variations in the project after the conception.
PM Narendra Modi (Image source: ANI Twitter handle) The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Laos for the Asean-India Summit this week had been expected to provide speed to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.
As the Sultanate of Oman continues to focus on economic diversification beyond its traditional petrochemical base and strives to transform itself into a major industrial and logistics centre for the region, the and Freezone has come looking for investments to India.
Union minister of Urban Development M on Saturday hailed the smart city plan submitted by Odisha as 'best example to emerge as number one among the 20 winners of the Smart City Challenge competition held earlier this year.
In a demonstration of Indias commitment to its ties with Kenya and to promoting maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region, Indian Naval Ships Kolkata and Aditya under the Command of the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet, Rear Admiral Ravneet Singh,NM have arrived at Mombasa on a three day visit. The ships are part of the Indian Navys Western Fleet based at Mumbai under the Western Naval Command and are on a two month deployment to the Western Indian Ocean. .

.

The current visit is aimed at enhancing bilateral ties, strengthening the existing bonds of friendship and reinforcing cooperation in maritime security between India and Kenya. During the visit, the warships will interact with the Kenyan Defence Forces on professional issues, aimed at enhancing co-operation and sharing nuances of naval operations including combating threats of maritime terrorism and piracy. In addition to professional interactions, the ships, during their stay in harbour, will undertake a plethora of activities, including official calls and cultural events. The ships would also be open to public for onboard visits during the stay at Mombasa. INS Kolkata is commanded by Captain Rahul Vilas Gokhale and INS Aditya is commanded by Captain Vidyanshu Srivastava. .

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India and Kenya have historical maritime trading links. The sizeable Indian diaspora settled in Kenya is a testimony of our strong cultural linkages. The signing of the India-Kenya Trade Agreement in 1981, under which both countries accorded Most Favoured Nation status to each other, set the foundation for strong and vibrant trade relations. Bilateral relations between the two countries have since been progressively stepped up through economic, military and diplomatic cooperation. The recently concluded visit of Indias Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi provided fresh impetus to the bilateral relationship between the two countries. The healthy state of naval cooperation is evident from frequent port visits by Naval ships, hydrographic survey by Indian survey ships and training of Kenyan Naval personnel in India. The Indian Navy last visited Kenya in October 2014 when Indian Naval ships Mumbai, Talwar and Deepak visited Mombasa as part of overseas deployment. The current visit seeks to strengthen the existing bonds of friendship between India and Kenya and underscore Indias peaceful presence and solidarity with friendly countries of the region. .

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DKS/GY
Three British-Muslims have been jailed for up to four years in the UK for sending 10,000 pounds to a relative in controlled territory in Syria.

Mohammed Hussain, 26 and Mohamed Rohaman, 33, believed to be of Pakistani-origin, sold their brother Musadikur Rohaman's BMW and jewellery to raise cash for him while he was fighting for (ISIS).

A third man, Mohammed Khan, a family friend, was also jailed for his role to send the money to Raqqa after a trial in the Old Bailey court in London last week.

Mohammed Hussain was jailed for four years, Mohamed Rohaman for two years and nine months and Khan, 27, received 18 months in custody.

Musadikur and his wife, Zohura Siddeka, both 27, left for Syria in December 2014. His two brothers sold his car and gold jewellery, the court heard.

Their distraught mother was forced to lock up valuables in the family home to try to stop them, the Guardian reported.

They also arranged for Siddeka's maternity pay to be sent to Syria. She gave birth in September 2014 but the baby died days later.

She has since had another child.

"Each of you knew where Musadikur was, what he was doing and the reasons why he needed finance. It would be obvious to each of you Musadikur and Siddeka were in Syria and they were there in support of the so-called Islamic State," Judge Mark Lucraft told.

"Their actions cause death and suffering to a large number of people. While the trial was ongoing there were a number of incidents around the world said to be carried out by or where Islamic State claimed responsibility.
In what's sure to be a college student's dream come true, drones will soon be delivering burritos on the campus of Virginia Tech. The experimental service, to begin this month and last just a few weeks, is a test by Project Wing, a unit of Google's parent company Alphabet, Chipotle Mexican Grill and the Blacksburg, Virginia, university have agreed to participate. The Federal Aviation Administration approved the venture, the most extensive test yet in the US of what many companies - including Amazon.com and Wal-Mart - hope will eventually become routine drone deliveries of ...
President on Saturday urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.

"In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

"We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society," he added.

"Because it's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly-no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith-that's part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient," Obama said.

"And if we stay true to those values, we'll uphold the legacy of those we've lost, and keep our nation strong and free."

On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump's bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.

Following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California for example, Trump called for a temporary ban on the entry to the United States of all Muslims.

Obama was speaking two months before the presidential election in which real estate magnate Trump will face Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001, the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries, ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Evoking "one of the darkest in our nation's history," Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.

"We delivered justice to (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden. We've strengthened our homeland security. We've prevented attacks. We've saved lives," Obama said.

But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, "the terrorist threat has evolved."

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

"We will destroy them. And we'll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," Obama said.
The federal government stepped into the fight over the Dakota Access oil pipeline Friday, ordering work to stop on one segment of the project in North Dakota and asking the Texas-based company building it to "voluntarily pause" action on a wider span that an American Indian tribe says holds sacred artifacts.

The government's order came minutes after a judge rejected a request by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction of the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline.

The tribe, whose cause has drawn thousands to join their protest, has challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits at more than 200 water crossings for the pipeline. Tribal leaders allege it violates several federal laws and will harm water supplies. The tribe also alleges that ancient sites have been disturbed during construction.

The tribe's chairman, Dave Archambault II, spoke at the North Dakota state Capitol in front of several hundred people, some carrying signs that read "Respect Our Water" and "Water Is Sacred." Archambault called the federal announcement "a beautiful start" and told reporters that the dispute is a long way from over.

"A public policy win is a lot stronger than a judicial win," he said. "Our message is heard."

A joint statement from the Army and the Departments of Justice and the Interior said construction bordering or under Lake Oahe would not go forward and asked the Texas-based pipeline builder, Energy Transfer Partners, to stop work 20 miles to the east and west of the lake while the government reconsiders "any of its previous decisions."

The statement also said the case "highlighted the need for a serious discussion" about nationwide reforms "with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects."

Energy Transfer Partners officials did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council said he was disappointed with the government's decision to intervene and called it "flagrant overreach" that will result in more oil being moved by trucks and trains.

The 1,172-mile project will carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said in denying the tribe's request for a temporary injunction that the court "does not lightly countenance any depredation of lands that hold significance" to the tribe and that, given the federal government's history with the tribe, the court scrutinized the permitting process "with particular care."

Nonetheless, the judge wrote, the tribe "has not demonstrated that an injunction is warranted here."

Attorney Jan Hasselman with the environmental group Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit on the tribe's behalf, said earlier this week any such decision would be challenged. "We will have to pursue our options with an appeal and hope that construction isn't completed while that (appeal) process is going forward," he said.

Tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard said Boasberg's ruling gave her "a great amount of grief. My heart is hurting, but we will continue to stand, and we will look for other legal recourses."

Earlier in the day, thousands of protesters, many from tribes around the country, gathered near the reservation that straddles the North and South Dakota border.

"There's never been a coming together of tribes like this," according to Judith LeBlanc, a member of the Caddo Nation in Oklahoma and director of the New York-based Native Organizers Alliance. People came from as far as New York and Alaska, some bringing their families and children, and hundreds of tribal flags dotted the camp, along with American flags flown upside-down in protest.

The judge's order was announced over a loudspeaker there. John Nelson of Portland, Oregon, came to the camp to support his grandson, Archambault. The 82-year-old says he was not surprised by the ruling, "but it still hurts."

State authorities announced this week that law enforcement officers from across the state were being mobilized at the protest site, some National Guard members would work security at traffic checkpoints and another 100 would be on standby. The Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association asked the Justice Department to send monitors to the site because it said racial profiling is occurring.

Nearly 40 people have been arrested since the protest began in April, including tribal chairman Dave Archambault II.

A week ago, protesters and construction workers were injured when, according to tribal officials, workers bulldozed sites on private land that the tribe says in court documents are "of great historic and cultural significance." Energy Transfer Partners denied the allegations.

The state's Private Investigation and Security Board received complaints about the use of dogs and will look into whether the private security teams at the site are properly registered and licensed, board attorney Monte Rogneby said Friday, adding that he would not name the firms.

On Thursday, North Dakota's archaeologist said that piece of private land was not previously surveyed by the state would be surveyed next week and that if artifacts are found, pipeline work still could cease.

The company plans to complete the pipeline this year, and said in court papers that stopping the project would cost $1.4 billion the first year, mostly due to lost revenue in hauling crude.

A status conference in the tribe's lawsuit is scheduled for Sept. 16.
A top Donald Trump aide said the Republican nominee now believes President Barack Obama was born in the United States, seeking to shelve the "birther" controversy that hurt Trump's standing with minority voters.

"He believes President Obama was born here... He was born in Hawaii," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN.

The remarks echoed those of Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who went on television late Thursday to assure Americans that Trump now accepts the legitimacy of Obama's citizenship.

"Donald Trump believes now that (Obama) was born in the United States," Giuliani told MSNBC.

"I believe it. He believes it. We all believe it. It took a long time to get out."

Trump was the most prominent early proponent of a theory that Obama, the nation's first black president, was not born in the United States and therefore, under the US Constitution, ineligible to be commander in chief.

Trump embraced the long-debunked "birther movement" in early 2011, eager to push the theory as a way to connect with white conservatives and catapult himself into prominence while he mulled his own run for the White House.

That year, he routinely called on Obama to produce his long-form birth certificate, a demand that African-American leaders warned was stirring up racial animosity in the middle of Obama's presidency.

Obama eventually did produce the document in 2011, which appeared at the time to put the matter to rest once and for all.

But in August 2012, just three months before that year's election, Trump revived the controversy with a stunning tweet: "An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud."

Nearly four years later, in 2016, Trump rode to primary victory thanks overwhelmingly to white support.

But with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton leading him in most polls, Trump will need to expand his base of support in order to win the White House. Distancing himself from his birther claims is seen as an important step in that effort.

Asked why Trump himself has not yet announced his belief that Obama was born in the United States, Conway said "you have to ask him."

"But the point is, what kind of president has he been?" she posed.

"He's not been a particularly successful president, and that's what this campaign is about on our side.d
Consumers in mainland China are demanding foreign brands that promise something many local products can't: peace of mind. Worsening pollution and several product-safety scares have led to increased sales for imports that are considered safer, from baby formula and facial creams to fresh fruit and live seafood. "The fear of pollution is changing consumer spending," says Shaun Rein, managing director of Shanghai-based China Market Research Group. "Anything that's sort of natural is doing really well." Comvita is one beneficiary of the growing appetite for ...
Republican presidential candidate has said that radical Islam has emerged as the greatest national security threat to the US and defeating this menace should be a bipartisan goal for the country.

"We must establish a bipartisan goal in the US - and an goal with our allies - of defeating Radical Islamic Terrorism," Trump said at an event here.

"Just like we won the Cold War by identifying our enemy, and building a consensus to guide a long-term strategy, so too must we do the same with Islamic terrorism," he said.

Trump said the North Korean nuclear test is yet another example of the foreign policy failure of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

"Just today, it was announced that North Korea performed its fifth nuclear test - its fourth since Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. It's just one more massive failure from a failed Secretary of State," he said.

"Her policies have also put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons - not to mention the ransom payments. At the same time, Islamic State (ISIS) is hunting down and exterminating what it calls the "nation of the cross. ISIS is carrying out a genocide against Christians in the Middle East," he said.

"We cannot let this evil continue. ISIS must be destroyed. To defeat ISIS, we must use military warfare, but also cyberwarfare, financial warfare, and ideological warfare," he said claiming that the US can no longer afford to continue "the failed policies" of Hillary Clinton that unleashed ISIS and destabilised the Middle East.

"Just look at what her policies have left us with in Iraq, Syria and Libya," he said.

"The problem is, Hillary Clinton is trigger-happy. Her tenure has brought us only war and destruction. She's just too quick to intervene, invade, or to push for regime change. This creates the power vacuums that are filled by terrorist groups like ISIS," Trump said.

"My administration, on the other hand, will work with any country that is willing to partner with us to defeat ISIS and halt radical islamic terrorism. It's an imperfect world. You can't always choose your friends, but you can never fail to recognise your enemies," he said.

Trump said if elected he will pursue a complete reform of the economy to bring millions of new jobs into the country.

"That includes massive tax cuts for working families and small businesses. It includes the elimination of all needless job-killing regulations. It includes lifting the restrictions on American energy," he said.

"I will also renegotiate NAFTA, stand up to China, and fight for every last American job. Crucially, I will also fight for the American family and American family values. The family must be at the centre of any anti-poverty agenda," he said.

In a Trump administration, he said our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected and defended.

"And that includes your religious liberty," he said.
French authorities have seized private mansions, offices and a horse stud farm belonging to an uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, suspected of having acquired the properties with embezzled funds, a source close to the case said today.

Rifaat al-Assad, 78, who commanded Syria's notorious internal security forces in the 1970s and early 1980s, had been charged in June with corruption for allegedly receiving embezzled public funds and tax fraud.

In the probe, investigators estimated that he and his family amassed 90 million euros ($100 million) worth of real estate in France, mainly through companies registered in Luxembourg, between 1984 and 1988.

According to Sherpa, an activist group that represents victims of financial crime and lodged complaints against him in 2013 and 2014, Rifaat al-Assad's fortune was stolen during his time at the heart of Syrian regime.

In 1984 he was forced into exile for trying to overthrow his older brother, the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad.

The Assad family claims his fortune was the result of gifts from wealthy Saudi supporters, including former king Abdullah, with whom he shared a love of horse-racing.

French authorities have said he has only produced proof of one donation for $10 million in 1984.

Former Syrian foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, who also resides in France, told investigators that same year Hafez al-Assad had given his brother some $300 million in order to get rid of him.

Of that, $100 million was in the form of a loan from the Libyan government, a source close to the probe told AFP.

Rifaat al-Assad's lawyers have said the "false accusations" against their client come from longtime political opponents.

On July 8 a French judge ordered the seizure of the properties out of concern that they could be sold, preventing their confiscation if he ends up being convicted, the source close to the case told AFP.

The long list of properties ordered to be seized included a horse stud farm in the Paris region worth an estimated seven million euros, two mansions and several other properties in the French capital and a suite of offices in Lyon, estimated at 12.3 million euros, the source said.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has accused former secretary of state and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of committing greatest foreign policy blunders, triggering massive global disorder.

"Hillary Clinton has presided over the greatest series of foreign policy failures and blunders anyone has ever seen. Her policies have produced massive global disorder," Trump said at an election rally in Florida.

Clinton, who served as the secretary of state in the first term of the Obama Administration, handed Iraq over to ISIS, unleashing that terror group onto the world, he alleged.

"She helped destabilise Egypt by supporting the ouster of President (Hosni) Mubarak in exchange for the Muslim Brotherhood. Fortunately, President El-Sisi is now in-charge, but terrorists have gained a foothold in that country. She helped push Syria into a prolonged civil war by pushing regime change in that country too  without any plan for the day after," Trump said.

"She failed with China, which has only grown more aggressive. By the way, she also let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property. And of course, Hillary Clinton failed with her Russian Reset. She gave up missile defence in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for nothing in return. Then, she gave up 20 per cent of US uranium to Russia -while those who benefited from the deal gave money to the Clintons," he said.

"Let's not forget, Russia went into Crimea on President (Barack) Obama's watch. Unlike Clinton and Obama, we will negotiate with Russia from a position of strength  not weakness. And weakness is all we get from President Obama and Hillary Clinton," he said.

"The difference between me and my opponent on Vladimir Putin, and in all negotiations, is that I negotiate by creating leverage so I can extract a good deal for the United State," Trump said, adding that Clinton negotiates but never gets anything of value for the United States.

"Putin laughs at our leaders, and takes them to the cleaners again and again. That is why we will rebuild our military, strengthen our economy, and regain our position of leadership in the world  so we can negotiate from a position of great strength once again," he said.

Trump said if he cannot get a good deal for the US, he will follow the example of Ronald Reagan and walk away.

"I will end this legacy of failure and strongly defend the interests of the US," he said.

"But I will also keep focused on the ultimate goal. We will not seek endless conflict and hostility; we won't get trapped in the failed approaches of the past. A future where America can find common ground with countries like Russia and China is a better future for our children," Trump said.

He said Clinton's policies have produced only death and destruction, not diplomacy.

She's trigger-happy, pushing recklessly for regime change - but never creating or promoting stability, or advancing the core interests of the United States, he claimed.2
The UN Security Council condemned North Korea's fifth nuclear test on Friday as a clear threat to international peace and security and said it will start discussing new "significant measures" against Pyongyang. Security Council members "had previously expressed their determination to take further significant measures in the event of another nuclear test," said Gerard van Bohemen, New Zealand's ambassador to the UN, speaking in his capacity as president of the council. "The members of the Security Council will begin work immediately on appropriate ...
Multinational companies should refrain from tax-avoidance practices and pay their fair share, the head of finance ministers said on Saturday in a new endorsement of the European Union's fight against tax-dodging.
Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday asked a US judge to allow the South Korean company to pay cargo handlers to remove its goods from Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd's vessels stationed near US ports after the world's seventh-largest container carrier filed for bankruptcy.

Hanjin's collapse last week came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season, stranding cargo for the likes of HP Inc and .

Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tug boat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin because they fear they will not be paid due to uncertainty over plans to provide new financing. said an order this week by a US bankruptcy judge did not encourage the Hanjin ships to enter US ports as intended, which the company blamed on a misunderstanding of maritime law, the bankruptcy code and Korean law.

The maker of electronic goods including Galaxy smartphones said the judge should issue an order barring the seizure of ships and allow it and other cargo owners to retrieve their goods by paying cargo handlers, who have been demanding payment guarantees. "There's no earthly reason why these parties should not be permitted to cut their own deals," Samsung said in a Thursday court filing with the US Bankruptcy Court in Newark, New Jersey.

Cargo handler Maher Terminals LLC, which operates a container terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey, backed the plan to let owners of cargo pay for handling. But it urged the court in a filing not to protect Hanjin vessels from seizure without also considering the rights of suppliers.

"Maher is currently being victimised by having hundreds of Hanjin containers clogging up its facility and impeding the ability of Maher to properly service its other customers," the company said in court papers on Thursday.

Nothing in the court order "should be deemed to compel parties like Maher to continue to provide services without receiving payment or adequate assurance of such payment," it added.

Total Terminals LLC, a West Coast marine terminal operator partly owned by Hanjin, earlier in the week cautioned the court that a plan was needed to pay for several levels of port services, such as tug boats and stevedores, and to ensure Hanjin vessels would be able to refuel and leave port.

"This lack of a short term plan for these vessels will lead to mayhem," it said in the filing.

An attorney for Hanjin, Ilana Volkov, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One Hanjin ship, the Hanjin Scarlet, is in Canada's Port of Prince Rupert, where it is being unloaded, with cargo owners covering charges, port spokesman Kris Schumacher said.

It remains unclear if the vessel would proceed to stops in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, he added.

"... All the supply chain partners  the pilots, the tug boat operators, the marine terminals operators, railroads and trucking  are saying they want a guarantee they will be paid," said Tara Mattina, a spokeswoman for The Northwest Seaport Alliance, a partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, that manages their cargo terminal leases.

The U.S. judge, John Sherwood, will hear the request on Friday. As of Thursday afternoon, two Hanjin ships were near the Port of Long Beach, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which tracks cargo ship traffic. One of the ships, the Hanjin Boston, is scheduled to head into the port on Friday afternoon for re-fueling. A third ship, the Hanjin Greece, was off the shore of Mexico, where it could avoid U.S. anti-pollution regulations that require use of low-sulfur fuel, the tracking group said. Many ships carry only a limited supply of low-sulfur fuel.

Some cargo owners have already paid fees to terminal operators to allow the release of Hanjin containers held up on the docks, according to a Port of Oakland spokesman. The Seoul Central District Court is presiding over the receivership filed by Hanjin last week. A foreign representative of the shipping line has filed for so-called Chapter 15 bankruptcy with the Newark court. Chapter 15 is meant to allow a company to seek recognition by US courts of orders issued overseas and to ask US judges to assist in a foreign corporate debt restructuring.
The leaders of and Malaysia agreed on Friday to boost security cooperation and consider building a border wall to combat transnational crime and smuggling, an idea that appears to be gaining popularity elsewhere in the world.
The US and Russia agreed to impose a ceasefire in Syria's bloody civil war, seeking to ease the country's deepening humanitarian crisis and begin talks on a political transition that opponents of President Bashar al-Assad hope will lead to his ouster. US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the deal with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov late Friday in Geneva after a day of negotiations. Under the agreement, fighting would be halted at sundown on September 12. If the ceasefire holds for seven days, the US and Russia would then work together to target an al-Qaeda affiliate ...
More than half of Nebraska's farmland is leased, and some of that with only a handshake agreement.

At one time, that might have been enough, but now a written agreement allows both parties  landlord and tenant  the opportunity to spell out rights and responsibilities before issues arise. A written lease gives both parties an opportunity to discuss various operational aspects which may not be similarly understood and develop a mutually beneficial plan.

Landlords probably have narrower legal rights than they thought under handshake leases in Nebraska. However, tenants suddenly wanting to assert their rights may find themselves looking for different land next season.

The following are common misconceptions landlords have.

MYTH: Landlords can tell their tenants how to farm the land.

FACT: During the period of the lease, the tenant is in charge of how things are done on the farm, not the landlord. From a legal perspective the tenant calls the shots unless the parties both agree otherwise. If the landlord wants to specify how it should be farmed, the best route to avoiding misunderstandings midseason may be to discuss farming practices and note them in a written lease.

MYTH: Landlords can come onto their land any time they want because they own it.

FACT: A landlord can be a trespasser on his/her own rented land if the landlord comes without the tenant's permission. Without a written lease, the landlord legally has the right to come onto rented land only to collect the rent and make repairs. Otherwise, the landlord can come onto the property only with the tenant's permission. Of course, the tenant would be pretty short-sighted to push this too hard.

MYTH: Selling the farmland automatically terminates any leases on it.

FACT: If the landlord sells rented land, the new buyer is subject to any existing lease. And if the lease has not been legally terminated, the new buyer may be stuck with the tenant for one to two more years. If the landlord sells the land, the tenant is not likely to give up the lease without being paid.

MYTH: Landlords can change the rent any time before the new crop year begins, which in Nebraska is considered to be March 1.

FACT: In Nebraska, after Sept. 1, the landlord can't raise the rent for the following year without the tenant's agreement.

MYTH: Landlords can hunt on their rented land without their tenant's permission.

FACT: Landlords can't hunt on rented land unless the tenant agrees to it.

In all these instances, discussing these rights ahead of time and noting them in the lease can help avoid misunderstandings and keep landlord-tenant relations positive. While the savvy tenant often will accommodate the landlord's interests in order to keep the lease, working from a written lease will benefit both parties.

For more information on ag leases, go to the website aglease101.org, where the document library has information on land, pasture, building, livestock and other farm leases as well as sample lease forms. Ag Lease 101 was created by and is maintained by the North Central Farm Management Extension Committee.
After weeks of negotiations, the US and Russia finally reached an agreement on ceasefire in which could possibly bring the two countries together in the fight against Islamic State.

The agreement was announced by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva yesterday.

"Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking but it's dependent on people's choices," Kerry said.

The deal would include steps that would stop the Syrian regime from flying combat missions where opposition forces are operating, Kerry said, adding that the two countries are calling on the opposition and regime to recommit to the cease-fire on September 12.

Kerry told reporters in Geneva that the deal, if implemented could be the "turning point" for the conflict.

The Pentagon here welcomed the agreement.

"If implemented, the arrangement negotiated by Secretary Kerry could achieve a sustained cessation of hostilities, help ease the suffering of the Syrian people and address the immediate humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo," the Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

"This preliminary understanding now requires the Russians and the regime to carry out a number of very specific steps, including, importantly, a sustained cessation of hostilities for at least seven days," he said in a statement.

"Those commitments must be fully met before any potential military cooperation can occur. We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead," Cook said.

Kerry told reporters that "bedrock" of the agreement, is Russia's ensuring that Assad's air force will no longer fly combat missions over opposition and civilian areas.

"This step is absolutely essential. By all accounts, Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows out of Syria," he said. "That should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods," he added.

"It is the primary responsibility of the leading powers, first of all Russia and the United States to do everything to create the necessary conditions to settle this very difficult conflict despite all the problems that have arisen," Lavrov said.After weeks of negotiations, the US and Russia finally reached an agreement on ceasefire in which could possibly bring the two countries together in the fight against Islamic State.

The agreement was announced by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday.



"Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking but it's dependent on people's choices," Kerry said.

The deal would include steps that would stop the Syrian regime from flying combat missions where opposition forces are operating, Kerry said, adding that the two countries are calling on the opposition and regime to recommit to the cease-fire on September 12.

Kerry told reporters in Geneva that the deal, if implemented could be the "turning point" for the conflict.

The Pentagon here welcomed the agreement.

"If implemented, the arrangement negotiated by Secretary Kerry could achieve a sustained cessation of hostilities, help ease the suffering of the Syrian people and address the immediate humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo," the Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

"This preliminary understanding now requires the Russians and the regime to carry out a number of very specific steps, including, importantly, a sustained cessation of hostilities for at least seven days," he said in a statement.

"Those commitments must be fully met before any potential military cooperation can occur. We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead," Cook said.

Kerry told reporters that "bedrock" of the agreement, is Russia's ensuring that Assad's air force will no longer fly combat missions over opposition and civilian areas.

"This step is absolutely essential. By all accounts, Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows out of Syria," he said. "That should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods," he added.

"It is the primary responsibility of the leading powers, first of all Russia and the United States to do everything to create the necessary conditions to settle this very difficult conflict despite all the problems that have arisen," Lavrov said.
After achieving the five per cent of target for blending ethanol with petrol for the first time after it was mandated, the programme might be hit in the 2016-17 crushing season (starting October 1). This is due to lower availability of molasses, the raw material, following estimates of a sharp decline in sugarcane output.
While coal imports in India are on a declining trend as Coal India has stepped on the gas and the nations thermal plants are stocked with 20-days coal reserves, the price of the fossil fuel will continue to be in excess of $50 a tonne for the 6,000 GCV (gross calorific value) variant.
Andhra Pradesh Assembly was adjourned sine die on Saturday as the opposition YSR Congress Party members protested demanding special status and central package to the state.

The trouble began soon after the house met for the day with the opposition members objecting the presence of marshals in the house.

The YSR Congress members trooped into the well of the House raising slogans and displaying placards.

They demanded a discussion immediately over the issue where as the ruling TDP demanded action to be taken against those who misbehaved in the house on Friday by breaking microphones of the Speaker and broken the railing of the podium.

When the pandemonium continued in the house, the Speaker adjourned the house for a brief period.

"The government has clearly stated that financial devolution to any state is not possible. The Central Government has decided to give more money than the money from financial devolution. The Central Government has helped Andhra Pradesh a lot. The government is ready to discuss anything based on facts and figures," Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told the media in Hyderabad.

The state is observing bandh today in protest against denial of special category status to the state.

Security has been beefed up to prevent any untoward incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jai Karnataka organisation yesterday staged a protest in state's Gulbarga district against the Supreme Court's order to Karnataka to release water from the Cauvery river to neighboring Tamil Nadu.

They staged a 'Shava Yathra Protest' in front of the collector office in the district, wherein they carried on a shava yathra of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa and burnt their photos and effigies.

"We are staging this protest because we feel that water should not be given to Tamil Nadu. As of now we are staging a small strike so that water of Cauvery River is not sent to Tamil Nadu. We will stage a bigger protest if this water continues to be sent to Tamil Nadu," Mohd Zakir Ahmed, one of the protestors, told ANI.

"We believe that not even a single drop of water should be given to Tamil Nadu," he added.

According to reports, there was a clash between police and Jai Karnataka activists even as the southern state is witnessing a dawn-to-dusk Karnataka bandh called by pro-Kannada outfits on Friday.

Transport services have been hit with government buses staying off the roads while auto-rickshaw and cab unions have extended their support to the bandh. Metro services in the Bengaluru have also been halted.

Meanwhile, TB Jaychandra, Karnataka Law Minister, has appealed to the public not to take law and order in their hands and to maintain peace.

"We know that the Supreme Court is the highest court in the country. We have to oblige to their orders. My appeal to public is not to resort to agitation and keep calm. They should cooperate with the state government," Jaychandra told ANI.

Earlier, the Karnataka Government had decided to abide by the apex court directive to release 15,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu for 10 days. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah then told reporters, "As we cannot defy a constitutional body like the Supreme Court, with a heavy heart we have decided to release the water as directed by the apex court."

He yesterday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to call a meeting of chief ministers of states concerned to resolve the Cauvery water dispute following the Supreme Court's direction to release water from the river to Tamil Nadu.

The apex court on Monday, directed the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to ameliorate the plight of farmers.

.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One of the spearheads of Kannada activism, Vatal Nagaraj on Saturday said that he will participate in 'Rail-roko' protest-which would be carried against the Supreme Court's directive of releasing the Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu-on September 15 from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, the pro-Kannada women and farmers' wing formed a human chain in protest in Karnataka's Mandya region over the Cauvery water issue. Protesting farmers entered into the flowing waters up to the waist-level in Srirangapatna near Mandya during which some of them fell ill.

It is also reported that three farmers attempted to commit suicide by jumping into Cauvery river in Mandya. However, they were later rescued.

Vehicular movement between various parts of the state crippled as well as the highway was blocked at several places in Mandya district, the epicentre of the stir.

Activists of pro-Kannada group Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, have been resorting to rail-roko in Belagavi and Bengaluru.

Earlier, the Karnataka Government had decided to abide by the apex Court directive to release 15,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu for 10 days. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah then told reporters, "As we cannot defy a constitutional body like the Supreme Court, with a heavy heart we have decided to release the water as directed by the apex court."

Siddaramaiah on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to call a meeting of chief ministers of states concerned to resolve the Cauvery water dispute following the Supreme Court's direction to release water from the river to Tamil Nadu.

The apex court on Monday, directed the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to ameliorate the plight of farmers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress Party on Saturday backed Kapil Sharma's bribe allegations against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, saying there must be some ground on which the comedian was making such accusations.

"Kapil Sharma has not been bitten by an insect so that he would make such allegations. He must have proof behind his allegations. Now he is being told that the construction that he was carrying out was illegal. If that is the case, how was till now the office was being constructed?" Congress leader Meem Afzal told ANI.

"I want to ask if the BMC had to stop the construction work of the office, then how is it possible that the construction till now took place? What was the need for Kapil Sharma to allege that he was asked to pay a bribe of Rs. five lakhs?" he added.

Lashing out at Kapil Sharma over his bribe allegations against BMC officials, the Shiv Sena has said that the comedian was carrying out an illegal construction and, therefore, an action should be initiated against him first and then after it should be seen whether he was asked for a bribe or not.

Sharma, who is facing the ire of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), had yesterday insisted that he just "voiced his concern on the corruption he faced" and did not "blame any political party."

"I just voiced my concern on the corruption I faced with certain individuals..Its No blame on any political party be it BJP, MNS or Shiv Sena," Sharma said in a tweet.

The MNS had earlier on Friday threatened Sharma to prove bribe allegations against BMC officials or face action.

"Kapil Sharma said that a MNS worker asked for bribe to legalize his under construction building, we challenge him to prove his allegations. If he is unable to prove his allegations then we won't allow him to shoot in Mumbai till he apologises to us," Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's (MNS) Chitrapat Sena President Amey Khopkar said.

On Friday morning, a frustrated Kapil Sharma tweeted about being asked to pay Rs 5 lakh as bribe to Mumbai civic body BMC for getting his office made. He also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, 'Yeh hai aapke acche din?' (Kapil Sharma asks PM Narendra Modi 'ye hai aapke acche din', Devendra Fadnavis takes action)

He also mentioned that he has paid Rs 15 crore as tax. "I am paying 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office @narendramodi." (Kapil Sharma tweeted he paid Rs 15 cr as tax. This is how much he earns)

Retaliating against Sharma's allegations, the civic body officials had said that the demolition work was carried out in accordance with all the rules and regulations.

BMC vigilance chief engineer Manohar Pawar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have both responded to Sharma and assured that they are looking into the matter.

While Pawar asked Sharma to make a formal complaint and name the officer who demanded bribe from him, the Chief Minister responded to his tweet asking for the name.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 23 workers were killed and 74 others injured in a boiler explosion at a garment packaging factory in Tongi BSCIC industrial area of Bangladesh's Gazipur district today.

Superintendent of Gazipur police Harun-ur Rashid has confirmed the death toll in the incident, reports the Daily Star.

The incident is considered as the biggest industrial disaster since 2013, when the Rana Plaza building collapsed.

Twenty units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire this afternoon, while rescue operation continued.

The district administration has formed a five-member investigation committee which will submit its report in 15 working days.

Meanwhile, Riyad Ahmed, marketing executive of Tampaco Foils Limited, said that a large number of workers were present at the factory during the incident as they were in the process of taking the charges from the night shift labourers.

He added that the factory runs three shifts round the clock, each with eight hours.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Saturday sought an explanation from the manufacturer of Embraer aircraft after media reports suggested that the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer had accepted bribes.

A joint US-Brazil investigation into Embraer, has uncovered a bribery case leading to a deal signed between the company and DRDO in 2008 for three aircraft equipped with indigenous radars for AEW&C (airborne early warning and control systems).

Embraer also sold VVIP executive jets to the Indian Air Force. This deal is also likely to come under a probe.

The company has been under the scanner of the United States Justice Department since 2010 after a contract with the Dominican Republic raised suspicions.

Speaking on the matter former Defence Minister A. K. Antony said "Let the government inquire.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pep Guardiola enjoyed victory over his old nemesis Jose Mourinho as Manchester City clinched a 2-1 victory over Manchester United in their fourth Premier League clash at Old Trafford on Saturday.

It was City's midfielder Kevin De Bruyne who opened the account first for his side by scoring the goal in the 15th minute of the match, Sport24 reported.

City doubled their lead via Nigerian striker Kelechi Iheanacho, who tapped in from six yards in the 36th minute.

Iheanacho, who replaced suspended Sergio Aguero in the squad, played a pivotal role in both City goals, first flicking the ball on for the 15th-minute opener before tapping in the second after De Bruyne's shot had hit the post.

Although United produced some fight back through Zlatan Ibrahimovic's goal in the 42nd minute, it was just not enough to seal victory.

The match, which marked the first encounter between Guardiola and Mourinho since 2013, also saw City end United's perfect start to the Premier League this season.

United, who have won three of their four league matches so far, will lock horns with Watford while City will take on Bournemouth in their next league clash.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Continuing his tirade against Narendra Modi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the Prime Minister should visit Uttar Pradesh and know the plight of the farmers instead of visiting various foreign nations.

Interacting with the villagers here in Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's parliamentary constituency, Gandhi said, "Sometimes Prime Minister Modi visits America, wears suit worth Rs. 15 lakhs, hugs Obama ji. We want him to visit Uttar Pradesh and interact with farmers here. Kisaan, mazdoor, Hindustan ka gareeb vyakti trast hai, Narendra Modi mast hai (Modi ji is happy whereas the poor and the common people in India are suffering)."

Continuing his road show, the Congress vice-president earlier in the day talked to farmers and reminded them of the loans waived off during the UPA regime and how the Modi government has failed to keep their promises.

"They won elections in Delhi and started their work. They made big promises like payment of 15 lakhs, employment to youth. But, when will the 15 lakhs be sent? When will the youth get employment? They talked about bullet train but increased the fares of trains", said Rahul.

He went on to talk about the purpose of the Yatra which he started from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh.

Gandhi's said his month long 'Kisan Mahayatra' is aimed at highlighting the plight of farmers in Uttar Pradesh.

His road show is also a part of the party's campaign for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. His 'Mahayatra' will cover 39 districts spread over 80 Lok Sabha constituencies.

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Hurt by the way the Afghan migrants were exhibited in cages in Shiraz city, the Afghan government has slammed Iran for the act, saying it goes against the principles of human rights.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations in a statement said that the Afghan migrants were put on display inside cages along with several other illegitimate items confiscated by Shiraz police, reports the Khaama Press.

The ministry was undoubtedly against the principles of human rights, and a violation of the 1951 and 1967 Conventions on Refugees Rights as well as against the bilateral agreement between the two nations on treatment of refugees.

The statement added that that the Iranian government must take immediate steps to investigate the brutal act.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan has also been urged to follow the issue through diplomatic channels.

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Just like his co-star Anushka Sharma, Bollywood megastar Sharh Rukh Khan, who recently wrapped up the first leg of shooting of his forthcoming flick 'The Ring' too turned to embrace Amsterdam.

Wowing his fans around the world, the 50-year-old actor recently Instagrammed a picture of himself posing candidly beside a huge I'Am'sterdam!

"I am...like the Truth. Loving me is easy, if you see it for what it is. Terribly difficult if you want it to be what it isn't," hecaptioned the picture.

Anushka too has been sharing her pictures, posing at beautiful places in Prague during the shoot.

Directed by Imtiaz Ali, 'The Ring' features King Khan in the role of a guide and Anushka Sharma plays a Gujarati girl.

The drama flick will hit screens on August 11, next year.

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"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world", a perfect example of this powerful quote by Nelson Mandela has been manifested by Muskaan Ahirwar, a class three student from a slum area of Bhopal is the best example of this.

"I am very happy. My parents and my friends are also extremely happy. I want to be a doctor in future. I had started the library with 121 books.now I have many books. Now around 50 kids come here. I would like to invite the kids who do not come here and tell them to be something when they grow up," Muskaan told ANI.

Muskaan, who wants to be a doctor, was awarded the 'Thought Leader' award by NITI Aayog in Delhi yesterday.

The youngest recipient of the award received the honour at the hands of Olympic medalist Sakshi Malik.

"It's like a dream for me. I am very happy that my daughter is going to Delhi. I have never thought about it," Muskaan's father Monohar told ANI.

Niti Aayog on Friday declared the 12 winners of its 'Women Transforming India' campaign.

The online campaign was launched on International Women's Day this year by NITI Aayog, in partnership with MyGov and the United Nations in India, to crowdsource stories of women who make a difference.

The story of this young librarian will surely be a source of inspiration for many others who are looking to make a difference.

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The All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) has suggested the adoption of a 'modern nikahnama' (marriage contract), seeking changes in the terms and conditions of marriage under the Islamic law.

"Our school of thought does not accept talaq just like that. We need evidence of talaq. Just by uttering talaq three times, it cannot be granted," Shia cleric Maulana Yasub Abba told ANI.

Resonating similar sentiments, Maulana Sadiq, All-India Muslim Personal Law Board vice-president said, "There are many sects in the Muslim religion. Even if husband says 'talaq' three lakh times, it won't be valid. Until both man and woman call for a divorce, action shouldn't be taken."

He asserted that the Muslim religion teaches that nothing can be without justice and reasoning.

The AIMPLB had mooted a similar model 'nikahnama' in 2003 laying down specific guidelines and conditions on which a marriage can be annulled by both husband and wife and the prescribed format has been prevalent among a large section of Sunni Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

On September 2, the AIMPLB had told the Supreme Court, which is hearing a PIL by a Muslim woman against the practice of triple talaq, that the scrapping of instantaneous talaq will increase the possibility of husbands killing their estranged wives. It also defended the practice of polygamy.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Saturday that the speed of response to comedian Kapil Sharma's tweet is already proof that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promised 'Ache Din' have already arrived in the country.

"He (Kapil Sharma) must have realized the ' ache din' by now as within 24 hours of his tweet to the Prime Minister, the (Maharashtra) Chief Minister took action," BJP leader Prem Shukla told ANI.

He added that Kapil should definitely disclose the name of the culprit and cooperate in the investigation.

"As a responsible citizen who pays an income tax of Rs. 15 crore annually, he should definitely speak out the name of whoever asked for the bribery as well as give out the details and there should be a investigation in this matter. Kapil Sharma should cooperate in the investigation," he said.

On allegations by the Congress Party that corruption is prevlent everywhere in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Shukla said, "If there is corruption anywhere don't support it but expose it. If Congress knows where the corruption is they should highlight it and it will be investigated

Kapil Sharma lashed out at Prime Minister Modi in a tweet yesterday claiming that a BMC employee asked him to pay a bribe of Rs. five lakh for getting approval for an office in spite of paying income tax regularly.

"I am paying 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office @narendramodi. Yeh hain aapke achhe din ? (these are your achhe din?)," he said in a series of tweets.

The BMC then asked the comedian to reveal the names of the erring officials while asserting that appropriate action would be taken against them.

BMC's Vigilance Department chief Manohar Pawar said the corporation has taken the complaint seriously, adding that such cases are not tolerated.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis earlier assured the comedian that the culprit would not be spared.

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Law and Justice Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday questioned the Congress on the NGO run by the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) of the controversial Islamic speaker Zakir Naik. He asked how the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation received a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs from Naik in 2011.

Prasad said leaders like the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, P.Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi, Suman Dubey, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Ashok Ganguly etc., were associated with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation back in 2011.

Prasad said, "I am raising some questions, and I hope the Congress party will reply. Is the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation duly registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act? If so, on what terms and conditions? Does it also include money from outside and money from an NGO getting money from outside?"

"On behalf of the BJP, I am raising the question very clearly and categorically. Let the Congress party explain that if a formal government view is conveyed on the floor of the Parliament that the security agencies have identified 24 channels which are a threat to security environment, which included Peace TV and Peace TV being owned by Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation, why was this Rs. 50 lakhs not returned?", said Mr. Prasad.

On its part, the Congress first denied that it had accepted a donation, but later claimed that the money did not come to the RGF but to an allied entity called the RGCT and the same was returned to the IRF. However, an IRF spokesman quoted Naik as saying that the money had gone to the RGF and not to the charitable trust and that this amount was yet to be refunded.

A few days ago, four officials, including a joint secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs were suspended for renewing the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act registration of Naik's NGO despite of an ongoing investigation against him.

Naik is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia. He was also accused of radicalizing and attracting youths for terror acts and has come under the scanner of the security agencies. This happened after the Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' stated that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka ran propaganda on Facebook quoting Naik.

Naik is popular in Bangladesh through Peace TV which is owned, run and managed by his Islamic Research Foundation.

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Continuing his road show, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi talked to farmers and reminded them of the loans waived off during the UPA regime and how the Modi government has failed to keep their promises.

"They won elections in Delhi and started their work. They made big promises like payment of 15 lakhs, employment to youth. But, when will the 15 lakhs be sent? When will the youth get employment? They talked about bullet train but increased the fares of trains", said Rahul.

He went on to talk about the purpose of the Yatra which he started from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Gandhi's said his month long 'Kisan Mahayatra' is aimed at highlighting the plight of farmers in Uttar Pradesh. On the fourth day of the 'kisan yatra', the Congress Vice President reached Ambedkar Nagar today.

His road show is also a part of the party's campaign for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. His 'Mahayatra' will cover 39 districts spread over 80 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Mr. Gandhi's also visited the Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya and followed it up with a meeting here. Hanuman Garhi is only about a kilometre away from the Ram Temple at the disputed Ramjanmbhoomi-Babri Masjid site.

He also met students of the Faizabad Public School at Gandhi Park besides garlanding statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Acharya Narendra Dev in Faizabad.

Gandhi's 'Mahayatra' shall be briefly halted on September 12 and 13 due to the Eid festival.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's federal cabinet has granted an extension of stay to registered in the country by a further three months.

The permits will allow these refugees to live in the country till March 31, 2017.

"The cabinet while deliberating on agenda item on Extension of the Proof of Registration (PoR) Cards and Tripartite Agreement in respect of Registered approved the extension till 31st March 2017," Dawn quoted the statement issued by the Pakistan Prime Minister's Office.

In June, the Pakistan Government had extended the stay of till December 31, 2016.

This is reportedly the third extension in the deadline since the decision was taken last year following the Army Public School tragedy to repatriate the remaining Afghan refugees by December 31, 2015.

Reports suggest that around three million Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan, half of whom are unregistered.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Special Envoy Awais Leghari, who is on a visit to Switzerland, has failed to get an appointment with the Swiss government.

Leghari has also failed to meet a major corporate group as well, according to sources.

Even the Swiss government has reportedly turned down a request to meet him. Leghari now hopes to meet the office holders of Swiss-Pak association, which is Pakistan Diaspora group.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in statement said that Leghari, Chairman of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee, is visiting Geneva and Swiss capital Bern to meet the office holders of the Swiss-Pakistan (A non-profit, non-religious platform of Pakistani community for promoting Pakistani culture and image building).

He also met Pakistani community and exchanged views on how to promote the cause of Kashmir in Switzerland. But the statement did not involve meeting any Swiss officials.

Pakistan's drive to publicise its point in Kashmir issue has made no headway in Switzerland as it has not been able to get across local media, local groups and other opinion group.

The exercise by Sharif is being seen as a way to give favours to a handful of Pakistani Members of Parliament to have a vacation at tax payers expense in the name of championing the cause of the Kashmiris right to self-determination.

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With popular actor-comedian Kapil Sharma alleging corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), former Congress Member of Parliament Sanjay Nirupam on Saturday said the Shiv Sena and BJP, both the parties, are in power in the corporation and they are, as a matter of fact, protecting the corrupt regime of the Mumbai Mahanagar Palika and are getting commissions as their share.

"I would congratulate Kapil Sharma for openly coming out with regard to the corruption prevailing in the BMC for a long time. There is a rampant corruption in all the department of the BMC, and without bribe you cannot get your work done here. The Shiv Sena and the BJP, both the parties, are in power in the corporation and they are, as a matter of fact, protecting the corrupt regime of the Mumbai Mahanagar Palika," Nirupam told ANI.

Stating that the BMC must be dissolved with immediate effect, Nirupam, president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, said: "The BMC is mandated to provide the civic amenities to the Mumbaikars but, as a matter of fact, the BMC has completely failed as far as civic amenities provision is concerned. Whether it is water supply, road construction or cleanliness, the BMC has failed on each front and the reason behind the failure is the corruption prevailing in the corporation. Thus, I want that the BMC must dissolve with immediate effect."

Demanding a high-level inquiry after dissolving the BMC into its functioning, the Congress leader said, "Six months before, I had written a letter to the Chief Minister, which was never replied by him as usual, and again I am demanding because the BMC, which is being ruled by the Shiv Sena and the BJP, has completely failed and proved an incompetent body, so it is high time that it should be completely dissolved and a high-level inquiry should be set up and should be inquired by the CBI-like agency so that a complete corruption issue can be probed in detail."

He further demanded that Shiv Sena and BJP leaders must be taken under the ambit of the probe, because the whole corruption was being patronised by them and they were getting commissions as their share.

When asked about Kapil Sharma questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Achhe Din', Nirupam said, "He is right. Mr. Narendra Modi became Prime Minister with promise that 'Achhe Din' will come, but frankly speaking from Delhi to Mumbai nobody is feeling that. Corruption has increased twice or three-fold everywhere and in every office, whether it is Delhi office or Mumbai office.

"So, Narendra Modi has failed completely in providing 'Achhe Din' to the people, and that is why I am congratulating Kapil Sharma that he came out openly challenging that promise of 'Achhe Din', which is completely failed on the part of the Prime Minister."

In a series of tweet Sharma on Friday said, "I am paying 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office @narendramodi. Yeh hain aapke achhe din ? @narendramodi. (sic)"

However, he further tweeted, "I just voiced my concern on the corruption I faced with certain individuals..Its No blame on any political party be it BJP, MNS or ShivSena (sic)."

Sharma's tweet shook Maharashtra's political circles with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray taking immediate cognisance of it, assuring him of action.

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A recent study has found out that giraffes actually are not one species, but four.

For comparison, the genetic differences among giraffe species are at least as great as those between polar and brown bears.

The unexpected findings highlight the urgent need for further study of the four genetically isolated species and for greater conservation efforts for the world's tallest mammal, the researchers said.

"We were extremely surprised, because the morphological and coat pattern differences between giraffe are limited," said researcher Axel Janke.

Giraffes are also assumed to have similar ecological requirements across their range, he added, "but no one really knows, because this megafauna has been largely overlooked by ."

Giraffes are in dramatic decline across their range in Africa. Their numbers have dropped substantially over the last three decades, from more than 1,50,000 individuals to fewer than 1,00,000.

Despite that, the researchers said that there has been relatively little research done on giraffes in comparison to other large animals, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, gorillas, and lions.

About five years ago, Julian Fennessy of Giraffe Conservation Foundation in Namibia approached Janke to ask for help with genetic testing of the giraffe. Fennessy wanted to know how similar (or not) giraffes living in different parts of Africa were to each other, whether past translocations of giraffe individuals had inadvertently "mixed" different species or subspecies, and, if so, what should be done in future translocations of giraffes into parks or other protected areas.

In the new study, Janke and his research group examined the DNA evidence taken from skin biopsies of 190 giraffes collected by Fennessy and team all across Africa, including regions of civil unrest. The extensive sampling includes populations from all nine previously recognized giraffe subspecies.

The genetic analysis shows that there are four highly distinct groups of giraffe, which apparently do not mate with each other in the wild.

As a result, they say, giraffes should be recognized as four distinct species. Those four species include (1) southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa), (2) Masai giraffe (G. tippelskirchi), (3) reticulated giraffe (G. reticulata), and (4) northern giraffe (G. camelopardalis), which includes the Nubian giraffe (G. c. camelopardalis) as a distinct subspecies.

The elusive Nubian giraffe from Ethiopia and the South Sudan region was the first described some 300 years ago, Fennessy says, and is now shown to be part of the northern giraffe.

The discovery has significant conservation implications, the researchers say, noting that the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Species Survival Commission Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group recently submitted an updated proposed assessment of the giraffe on the IUCN Red List taking into consideration their rapid decline over the last 30 years.

"With now four distinct species, the conservation status of each of these can be better defined and in turn added to the IUCN Red List," Fennessy said.

"As an example," he added, "northern giraffe number less than 4,750 individuals in the wild, and reticulated giraffe number less than 8,700 individuals--as distinct species, it makes them some of the most endangered large mammals in the world."

Janke and Fennessy said that they are now analyzing the amount of gene flow between the giraffe species in greater detail. In addition to expanding the ecological and species distribution data, they want to better understand the factors that limit gene flow and the giraffes' differentiation into four species and several subspecies.

The study has been published in Current Biology.

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On specific inputs, a special operation was carried out by the Bishalgarh Police, which recovered huge quantity of marijuana hidden in a truck near Gokulnaga rail bridge area of bordering Sepahijala district of Tripura.

This is one of the biggest catch of dry marijuana (locally called ganja) worth around Rs. 56.5 lakhs, which was found hidden in a truck bearing a Nagaland registration number.

Only five days back, in a similar incident, another consignment of marijuana worth around Rs. 44 lakh was recovered in a joint operation of BSF and police in the same district.

Sepahijal district Superintendent of Police (SP) Sudipta Das said, "Bishalgarh Police staff led by SDPO Bishalgarh and Officer-in-Charge of Bishalgarh Police Station detained one truck bearing Nagaland registration plate near Gokulnagar rail bridge. Upon search of the truck about 1130 kg of dry ganja were found concealed behind driver's compartment. All the packets were air tight, air sealed; we estimate the value of the ganja to be about Rs. 56.5 lakh that is a conservative estimate."

Three persons including the driver, co-driver and assistant were arrested along with some cash in suspect and are under interrogation.

Das added, "We have arrested three persons who were on the truck along with Rs. 21,500 cash. We suspect that the truck was heading towards Agartala and from there towards Guwahati."

According to police, Sepahijala district has turned into one of the prime areas of illegal cultivation of marijuana, especially in the deep forest and bordering areas where the presence of security forces is comparatively less.

Last year, the BSF destroyed more than six lakh ganja plants in the district here in Tripura.

Meanwhile, during the month of August, the Bishalgarh Police had seized around 1,500 kg of dry ganja destined for smuggling across the border to Bangladesh.

Smuggling of different contraband items is on the rise across the state despite security agencies making relentless efforts to curb the illegal trade.

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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked service providers and new entrant Reliance Jio to settle their dispute related to call drops amongst themselves.

At a meeting where representatives of both sides met the regulator, the latter told attendees that the matter of points of interconnection (PoI) should first be settled bilaterally, failing which an adjudicator be appointed.

For now, both parties have agreed to try and resolve their issues bilaterally. Telecom companies sign agreements with each other under which each company is mandatorily obliged to provide points of interconnection, which facilitate carriage of a call from one operator to another.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Rajan Mathews, Director-General of industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said that telecom firms have complained about the volume of calls that are being made to Jio's users to other networks.

"We have highlighted a number of principal issues. The asymmetry of call traffic originating from Jio's network, the number of PoIs needed, the nature of freebies that is giving and whether its preview launch should be considered launch of commercial services," he added.

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At meeting held on 09 September 2016

Cimmco announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 09 September 2016 has approved the scheme of amalgamation of Titagarh Agrico with Cimmco. The scheme is subject to approval of shareholders, High Court of Calcutta and all other necessary approvals as may be applicable.

The Board also approved the exchange ratio of one equity share of the Company to be issued for every five equity shares held by the equity shareholders of Titagarh Agrico.

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Of US$ 330 million by way of ECB

Reliance Sibur Elastomers, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries has signed facility agreement for availing a term loan facility of US$ 330 million (equivalent to approximately Rs 2193 crore) by way of External Commercial Borrowing.

The facility with door to door tenor of 10 years shall be utilised to part finance the capital expenditure to set up India's first butyl rubber manufacturing facilities at Jamnagar, Gujarat.

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will come to India on a two-day visit on September 14 during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was announced on Saturday.

"The President will hold discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will also host a lunch in honour of the visiting dignitary," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"Their discussions will cover a wide range of matters of mutual interest."

Ghani wil also interact with the business community and address a leading think tank.

"The upcoming visit will provide an opportunity to continue the close and frequent consultations between the two friendly neighbours, including at the highest level," the statement said.

"Such interaction is the hallmark of their strategic partnership and has guided the strengthening of all-round cooperation between the two countries," it added.

India helped in the construction of a new building of the Afghan parliament in Kabul that was inaugurated in December last year and in the reconstruction of a mega dam in the country's Herat province that was inaugurated in June this year.

--IANS

ab/vd

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The special status issue again rocked the Andhra Pradesh assembly on Saturday as no business could be conducted for the third consecutive day.

The speaker adjourned the house sine die.

The opposition YSR Congress Party continued its protest for the third day over denial of special status to the state by the Centre as per the commitment given at the time of the state's bifurcation.

As soon as the house met for the day, the legislators of lone opposition party were on their feet, demanding immediate debate on the issue.

The government maintained that the debate could be taken up after a statement by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The opposition legislators, clad in black and holding placards, surrounded the speaker's chair raising slogan aspecial status Andhra's right.

However, scuffle broke out again as women marshals tried to prevent women legislators of YSRCP from moving closer to the speaker. The protesting MLAs, some of them standing on benches in front of speaker's podium, tore papers and threw pieces at him.

Leader of opposition Y.S.Jaganmohan Reddy lodged his strong protest when his mike was cut as he rose to speak. Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad Rao remarked that the House cannot be run as Jagan likes.

With the opposition continuing its protest, the speaker adjourned the House for 10 minutes.

After the House re-assembled, there was no let up in the protest.

Amid the pandemonium, Legislative Affairs Minister Y.Ramakrishnudu moved a resolution for referring the issue of unruly behavior of the opposition members to privileges committee of the House for action. The resolution condemned the attack on speaker, marshals and other staff of the assembly. The speaker announced that the resolution was passed by a voice vote.

The minister said that Jaganmohan Reddy should take the responsibility for the incidents which occurred in the house during last three days.

"I have not seen this sort of conduct by members in my entire political career. If necessary they should be suspended permanently," he said.

As the uproar continued, the speaker adjourned the House sine die.

Talking to reporters, Jaganmohan Reddy alleged that Chandrababu Naidu bartered the state's interests at the Centre to wriggle himself out of 'cash for votes' case in Telangana as he was caught 'red-handed'.

Tension also prevailed at media point in the assembly premises as TDP members tried to disrupt a media conference by YSRCP members. There was pushing and jostling between the two sides. Police intervened to bring the situation under control.

--IANS

ms/ksk/vm

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President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said bankers are trustees of depositors' money and urged them to be prudent about non-performing assets (NPA).

Speaking at the centenary celebrations of Karur Vysya Bank Ltd, Mukherjee said bankers should remember that they were trustees of depositors' money, and it is their sacred responsibility to protect the money of those who have reposed trust in them.

Mukherjee said a growing economy like India needs credit expansion but the provisions for NPA has reduced the resources for credit disbursement by commercial banks leading to an undesirable situation.

He pointed out that stressed advances to gross advances of scheduled commercial banks have increased from 10.9 per cent in March 2015 to 11.4 per cent in March 2016.

According to Mukherjee, who was Union Finance Minister before he became president, the aggregate provisions made by all scheduled commercial banks have consequently increased from Rs 73,887 crore for the year March 2015 to Rs 170,630 crore for the year ending March 2016.

--IANS

vj/vd

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The homogeneous culture and high degree of social connectedness of a community can contribute to teenage suicide as well as thwart prevention efforts, says a study contradicting popular notions about being socially connected.

"The findings highlights the downside to social connectedness, something that is usually touted as a key tool for suicide prevention," said Anna S. Mueller, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago in Illinois, US.

Community with its intense pressure to succeed, coupled with narrowly defined ideals about what youths should be, can perpetuate teenage suicide clusters, in which a series of suicides happen around the same time and in close proximity.

Fears of not living up to such ideals combined with the ease with which private information became public, due to social connectedness, leave teenagers and their parents unwilling to seek help for mental health problems.

Despite having social connections within the community, such conditions rendered youths who were already struggling particularly vulnerable to suicide, the researchers explained.

"Our study also helps explain why some schools with intense academic pressure have problems with suicide while others do not. It's not just the pressure, but a combination of certain community factors that can make asking for help even harder," Mueller added.

The study demonstrated how community needs to be considered when assessing vulnerabilities, and why prevention organisations should no longer view social connectedness exclusively as a positive force in measuring suicide risk.

For the study, the team focussed on a single community, in which 19 students or recent graduates of the local high school had committed suicide between 2000 and 2015. Their field research included interviews and focus groups involving a total of 110 people.

The creation of various programmes to help students navigate perceived failure and academic stresses should be developed, the researchers recommended, in the paper published in the journal American Sociological Review.

--IANS

rt/ask/vm

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It's after Labor Day.

Now the presidential election is getting serious.

Now is when what the candidates say and do really counts. And now, incredibly, an already depressing campaign is getting worse every day.

No matter who wins in November, we're going to end up with a president that half the country hates and the other half didn't really want to win.

We have Hillary the Crooked still trying to lie her way out of her email crimes like a cheap lawyer.

We have Trump the Unqualified still talking in gibberish about grabbing Iraq's oil, claiming he knows more about ISIS than the generals and trading air-kisses with Vladimir Putin.

Thursday morning we even had Johnson the Pot Head flying his Libertarian Party's campaign plane into a cliff on "Morning Joe" with his already famous "What is Aleppo?" response.

So who's left to vote for -- Jill Stein, the mad doctor of the Green Party?

It's sad to say, but Trump, for all his many, many flaws, is still our best choice in an election year that has produced the worst slate of candidates in recent history.

For both The Donald and The Hillary, one of whom will be the next president, this election is no longer about gaining voters for their candidacy. It's all about suppressing the other guy's voters.

Whoever can get the other guy's supporters to stay home on Election Day wins.

If Trump is going to win in the end, it might have less to do with what he says or does than what Citizens United and Judicial Watch do.

The two conservative groups, which have used lawsuits and Freedom of Information requests to get the state department to release Clinton's emails, have caused Hillary much more trouble than Trump or the mainstream media.

There will be more emails coming because of Citizens United and Judicial Watch, plus whatever October surprises WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have coming.

You have to applaud both groups for what they are doing. They are the greatest assets Trump has.

Every time they force an email dump the media are forced to report on it and more Americans hear about Hillary's sloppy email habits and how crooked she is.

The email dumps might very well suppress the voting for Hillary, which, let's face it, is the only way Trump can win.

If you're looking for a good reason to vote for Trump, here's one -- unlike Barack Obama, who dislikes America and blames it for every ill known to mankind, Trump loves America.

Here's another: Unlike Hillary, Trump is not a lifelong liar.

And here's a third: We know what we'll get with President Hillary -- four more years of sleazy Clinton Family values, four more years of Obama progressivism and two generations of liberal Supreme Court decisions.

With President Trump -- who has no ideology but narcissism -- at least there's the hope that he'll convert to a conservative and hire people who'll reverse, repeal and repair the damage done by eight years of Obama.
SpaceX CEO has termed last week's launch pad accident that destroyed a rocket and a communications satellite as the "the most difficult and complex failure" in the company's 14-year history and sought help from the public in its ongoing investigation.

"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Musk tweeted on Friday after a week of public silence.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket exploded on September 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida during a pre-launch test, destroying the rocket itself and a $200-million communications satellite that was set to play a key role in Facebook's plans to provide internet access to remote villages in Africa. No one was injured in the explosion.

In a note, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his disappointment but also promised to come back stronger to fulfill his mission to "connect everyone".

"If you have audio, photos or videos of our anomaly last week, please send to report@spacex.com. Material may be useful for investigation," Musk appealed.

Sharing some details on the ongoing investigation, Musk said that the accident happened during a routine filling operation.

"Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source," he said.

"Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else," the SpaceX Chief Executive said.

SpaceX, founded in 2002 by Musk, has been the face of American commercial space industry. It has been hired by the US space agency NASA to send cargoes and, ultimately, American astronauts, to the Space Station.

The mishap was also a setback for NASA, which has been counting on the private company to keep the Space Station stocked with supplies and, ultimately, astronauts.
Japan and South Korea on Saturday agreed to boost cooperation to tackle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme after it conducted its fifth test.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in a telephone conversation with his South Korean counterpart, Han Min-koo, denounced Pyongyang over its nuclear test on Friday as a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, Japan's Defence Ministry said.

Inada stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation, including information exchange with South Korea, EFE news reported.

He also spoke about the importance of coordinating with the US to deal with the issue.

Han said senior defence officials from Japan, South Korea and the US on Saturday agreed that North Korea's provocative actions required the international community as a whole to prepare additional sanctions against Pyongyang.

North Korea on Friday carried out its fifth nuclear test and claimed that it had tested a nuclear warhead that can be fitted onto missiles.

The most powerful test drew international outrage and gave rise to demands for new UN sanctions against the country.

The UN Security Council condemned the test and announced that it will consider new sanctions against Pyongyang in addition to others already imposed in March after its nuclear and long-range missile tests in January and February respectively.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The AISA-SFI combine on Saturday evening won all four seats in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) election.

The Students Federation of India (SFI) and the All India Students Association (AISA) bagged the posts of President, Vice President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary.

The BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Congress-backed Students Union of India (NSUI) were far behind in all four posts, the sources said, while the newly founded Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) gave a closer fight.

The SFI, affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and the AISA, the student wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML), formed an alliance to fight the elections.

Mohit Kumar Pandey, the presidential candidate for AISA-SFI alliance, defeated his closest rival, Jahnavi of ABVP, by a huge margin of 798 votes while the candidate for Vice-President's post, Amal PP routed another candidate from ABVP, Ravi Ranjan Choudhary, the second best, by an incontrovertible mandate of 2,300.

Satarupa Chakraborthy from the SFI, running for the post of General Secretary, won by a margin of 966 votes from his closest rival Vijay from ABVP who got 1,287 votes.

The only post where was seen a close contest between the candidates of ABVP and Left alliance was of Joint Secretary's, where Tabrez Hasan of AISA, who got 1,533 votes against 1,263 votes received by Pratim of DSU.

This was the first student election in the campus since the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar -- of the CPI-backed All India Students Federation -- on charges of sedition after a group of students allegedly raised anti-India slogans at an event in February.

A total of 4,865 votes were polled in the election.
Many Pakistani parliamentarians pay very low income tax that "do not match their princely lifestyle", according to the tax directory of MPs.

Going by their income tax returns, Senator Taj Muhammad Afridi is the richest MP in Pakistan and Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf the poorest, the Dawn on Saturday quoted the directory as saying.

The directory released by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday gives some insight into their wealth, based on the tax paid by the rich and the not-so-rich members of the National Assembly and the Senate, the daily said.

"But the lifestyle and daily expenditures of many of them are in stark contrast to what the income tax declarations indicate," it added.

Few MPs are among the highest tax-paying citizens, according to the directory of 1,074,000 taxpayers for 2015.

"Save a few worthy exceptions, the sums paid as income tax by most of the elected representatives are laughably low and do not match their princely lifestyle," the Dawn said.

Pakistan's industrialist Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif paid Rs 2.195 million (Rs 1 million equals $9,580) as income tax while his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif paid Rs 7.609 million.

Shahbaz Sharif's son Hamza paid Rs 6.33 million. The Prime Minister's son-in-law, retired Captain Muhammad Safdar, paid only Rs 49,902 as income tax.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan, who lives in a palatial farmhouse, paid Rs 76,244 as tax during the year and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Fazlur Rehman paid a paltry Rs 49,902, the daily reported.

The directory has been compiled on the basis of returns filed by the parliamentarians. The Dawn said some legislators had not filed their tax returns for the year.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of activists on Saturday set fire to an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un here in protest against Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test.

The activists rallied here against the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Friday that coincided with its 68th anniversary, EFE news reported.

Besides an effigy of Kim, the activists burnt anti-nuclear placards displaying the North Korean leader's photos and slogans reading "Down with North Korea" and "Kim Jong-un out".

"Defeat North Korea and leader Kim Jong-Un," the group chanted throughout the hour-long demonstration.

The protest came after North Korea's fifth and most powerful nuclear test on Friday from its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, less than 100 kms from the country's border with China.

Pyongyang claimed that it had tested a nuclear warhead that can be fitted onto missiles.

The test drew international outrage and gave rise to demands for new UN sanctions against the country.

The UN Security Council condemned the test and announced that it will consider new sanctions against Pyongyang in addition to others already imposed in March after its nuclear and long-range missile tests in January and February respectively.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJPs national general secretary and its Kashmir point person Ram Madhav on Saturday said Pakistan-based militant commander Syed Salahuddin was masterminding the ongoing unrest in the valley through Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

In an interview with India Today TV, Madhav said the two-month long unrest - the deadliest the valley has suffered in six years - had posed no threat to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government in the state.

He said the government was committed to "bring back normalcy" in the valley before Eid - a Muslim festival that is being celebrated on Tuesday.

"Stone-pelting needs to be stopped," he said and blamed United Jehad Council commander Syed Salahuddin, who is based in Muzaffarabad - the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir - for sponsoring the agitation in Kashmir.

"It is led by Syed Salahuddin and certain sections get influenced by him. Geelani is leading the campaign in the valley. There is no doubt about that. But the real masterminds are from across the border," Madhav said.

The former RSS leader, credited to have cobbled together the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, denied there were any differences between the ruling partners.

"We have confidence in the PDP-BJP government led by (Chief Minister) Mehbooba Mufti. It will last its full term of six years," Madhav told India Today TV.

He was asked if the Kashmir unrest, which has left 78 people dead, had caused fissures in the coalition government.

Referring to MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig's series of media interviews asking Mehbooba to step down because the agenda of alliance had not been implemented, Madhav said the PDP leader should have taken up the matter with his party rather than speaking publicly about it.

He said the situation in Kashmir was "definitely disturbing and had caused "concern for all of us".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Opposition members in Pakistan have accused the Nawaz Sharif government of misleading the Senate by concealing information about the Pathankot terror attack in India, it was reported on Saturday.

The accusations came on Friday when PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar alleged that the government was patronising militants, a claim Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq strongly denied, the Express News reported.

"Why else did the government not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House?" asked Babar.

"Has the Indian government provided any facts/information to the Pakistani government? And what is the latter doing in this regard?" he asked.

The queries went unanswered. But it prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to announce that the findings of the probe would be made public.

On January 2, terrorists, believed to be from Pakistan, stormed the Indian Air Force (IAF) base. All attackers, their number believed to be four to six, were killed. Seven Indian security personnel were also killed.

India allowed a Pakistani team of investigators to visit the IAF base.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Film: "Sully"; Director: Clint Eastwood; Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O'Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan, Ann Cusack, Jane Gabbert, Molly Hagan, Holt McCallany, Chris Bauer and Patch Darragh; Rating: ****

"Sully" is a focused and well told story of the "miracle on the Hudson".

On January 15, 2009, a US commercial aircraft, "Cactus 1549" - commanded by Captain Sullenberger aka Sully, with 155 passengers on board, survived a "forced water landing" in New York's Hudson River after being hit by a flock of birds.

The film not only gives an insight into the well covered and documented incident and the rescue operations that followed, but it also reveals the facts about the investigations conducted by the National Transport Safety Board - as to whether or not Captain Sully could have, in fact, made it back to a runway instead of landing the plane in the middle of a river, thereby risking the lives of passengers.

With not much over-dramatic overtures, this lightly fictionalized re-enactment of Sully's remarkable aviation feat is well encapsulated by director Clint Eastwood and his screenwriter Todd Komarnicki. They astutely portray the reality in all its simplicity.

They build up the drama by actually evaluating the psyche of the captain and ingeniously walks the audiences through the incident a number of times, from different perspectives giving depth to the narrative and elevating Sully to the status of an undoubtable hero.

Tom Hanks as Captain Sullenberger is outstanding. With a calm and unfazed composure during the calamity and looks that befit his 42 years of flying experience with a combat background, he carries himself with remarkable confidence. He portrays the humble hero, who is uncomfortable with the "hero" tag, and his internalised trouble, with natural ease.

He is aptly supported by his co-stars who are mostly one-dimensional characters. Prominent among the many are Aaron Eckhart as the First Officer Jeff Skiles, who co-pilots the ill-fated aircraft, and Laura Linney as his wife who seems more interested in Sully's pay cheque than him.

The writing, which includes the dialogues, is simple, crisp and powerful. The spoken lines like; "A delay is better than a disaster" or "A man with no time becomes a hero of all times", linger in your mind much after you leave the auditorium.

It is a feel good film that has been aesthetically presented and realistically mounted. Tom Stern's camera work seems so real and intruding. His frames seamlessly mesh with the visual effects and you feel as though you are watching a docudrama.

Editor Blu Murray's snappy edits are worth a mention. The transitions of the scenes especially from flashbacks to reality are smooth and seamless, it perfectly suits the momentum of the narrative.

Overall, this film is a treat to watch.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors that half of Republican rival Donald Trump's supporters fall into "the basket of deplorables", meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.

In an effort to explain the support behind Trump, Clinton on Friday night went on to describe the rest of Trump supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathise with them, CNN reported.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said, adding "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

"And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric," CNN reported citing the former secretary of state as saying.

Clinton went on to say that some of these people were "irredeemable" and "not America".

"One day after promising to be aspirational and uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans. desperate," Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted in response.

Clinton made the comments before introducing Barbra Streisand at an LGBT fundraiser in New York.

According to average ticket prices and attendance figures provided by the campaign, Clinton raised around $6 million at the fundraiser, only the sixth she has opened to press, CNN noted.

While she has headlined over 330 fundraisers as a candidate, her campaign has kept most of these events closed from the media.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two men were killed in fresh clashes with security forces on Saturday in the Kashmir Valley that remained shut for the 64th day.

Police said the deaths occurred in two south Kashmir villages where hundreds took out demonstrations defying restrictions on the assembly of four or more people.

Security forces fired tear gas canisters, pellets and cane charged the protesters, several of whom were injured in Tukroo village of Shopian and Botengoo village of Anantnag, police said.

The deceased were identified as Sayar Ahmed Sheikh, 25, and Yawar Ahmed, 23.

Sheikh, according to police, was hit on the head by a flying tear gas shell. The Shopian man was removed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, a police spokesperson said.

Ahmed, according to health officials, received pellet injuries in his chest and abdomen during a clash. He was also declared dead on the arrival at an Anantnag hospital.

With this, the death toll rose to 78 in the ongoing turmoil that has rocked the Kashmir Valley since the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.

Over 12,000 civilians and security personnel have been injured in the unrest that began a day after Wani's killing.

The valley has been observing a separatist-called shutdown for over two months.

The fresh violence came as hundreds of soldiers had started moving towards south Kashmir -- the worst hit region in the unending cycle of violence -- to help the civil administration re-establish authority in the valley.

The sources said the army had suspended its anti-militancy operations in the south for over two months because of the street unrest.

The fresh deployment of soldiers is to resume the counter-terrorism operations, the sources said. They said the army had been told not to get into mob control unless it came under attack by stone-throwing protesters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh is presently on a two-day visit to the Kashmir Valley. The sources said the chief's visit has been timed with the decision to move the army to the southern region.

On Saturday, curfew continued at many places in the valley to foil separatist-called protest rallies.

But people at various places, including in Srinagar, took out rallies, shouting anti-government and pro-freedom slogans.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
So who's winning the Commander-in-Chief Election?

In their first proximate -- but not joint --appearance of the fall campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump each made the case for their foreign policy chops this week.

Their backdrop: The retired aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Intrepid, in New York City.

One of them - Clinton - was decidedly more effective than the other.

Yes, Clinton spent much of her allotted 30 minutes during a televised "Commander in Chief" forum on MSNBC on Wednesday re-explaining her mystifying and damaging decision to use a private email server while she was Secretary of State ("a mistake," she allowed, even as she defended it).

But Clinton also offered a more sharply defined vision for the wielding of American power than Trump who, pardon the pun, often seemed lost at sea during his allotted screen-time.

"I view force as a last resort, not a first choice," she said under questioning from "Today" show anchor Matt Lauer and an audience of veterans."I will do everything in my power to make sure our men and women in the military are fully prepared. But I will be as careful as I can about making any decision that a president or commander in chief can make about sending our men and women into harm's way."

Trump, who advocated a "peace through strength" policy during a speech at the Union League in Philadelphia earlier in the day on Wednesday, took a Nixonian turn at one point, avoiding Lauer's questions about how he planned to defeat the Islamic State.

Trump has claimed he has a "secret plan" to defeat the terrorist organization. He now says he'll give the nation's generals and military experts 30 days after he takes office to come up with their own recommendations.

If those jibe with his -- fine. If not, not. He still didn't say what he was going to do.

"I have a very substantial chance of winning, if I win, I don't want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is," Trump said, adding that he might incorporate some of the military establishment's own recommendations into his plan.

Trump also flubbed a few basic facts. He proposed a court system for the military to handle sexual assault cases (it already has one) and he turned out to be wrong when he corrected a former service member on the number of monthly suicides by veterans (It's 20, not 22, as Trump mansplained to the female vet).

Dispiritingly, Trump's man-crush on Russian strongman Vladimir Putin still burns brightly.

Putin "has been a leader far more than our president has been leader," even with his controversial annexation of Crimea and his dabbling in the internal affairs of Ukraine, Trump said.

It's key for Trump to prove he has what it takes to be commander-in-chief, perhaps moreso than Clinton, who has her State Department experience to fall back on.

The billionaire ducked service in Vietnam multiple times. He's called the military a wreck, insulted a war hero and demeaned a Gold Star family.

And he didn't do much better explaining to Lauer the specific skill-set he brought to the table.

"I built a great company. I've been all over the world," he said, adding later, "The main thing is I have good judgment -- I know what's going on. I've called so many of the shots."

Clinton has her own obstacles to overcome - notably trust issues and historically high unpopularity ratings. In an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Wednesday, Clinton trailed Trump by 19 points (55-36 percent) among current and retired service people.

Kyle Kopko, a political science professor at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., said party identification and affiliation is the chief driver for Trump's popularity among current and retired military.

If Clinton had been "a generic Democrat, it might be different," he said. "But she has this uphill battle (among veterans)."

In New York City on Wednesday, Clinton made what she likely hopes will be the one argument for her qualifications that results in her becoming the country's next commander-in-chief:

"Steadiness. An absolute rock steadiness, mixed with the strength to be able to make the hard decisions," she said.

It'll be up to voters, come Nov. 8, to decide who has more of that quality. So far, it's advantage Clinton.
Taking strong exception to remarks by Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) Director General Rajan Mathews, following an industry meeting on interconnection issue, the telecom watchdog has sought both a retraction and an apology.

"In order to set the record straight, the Director General, COAI may be directed to retract his false statement made in the media and issue apologies for the same," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a letter to the association Chairman Gopal Vittal.

The sectoral regulator -- which sternly told the telecom players to resolve the matter amicably -- said no association was invited for the meeting held on September 9, and that this position clarified to Mathews as well.

"In view of the above, the statement of Director General, COAI, in electronic media alleging that he was not allowed by TRAI to participate in the said meeting at the behest of Reliance Jio is to say the least patently wrong, mischievous and perhaps made with a malafide intention.

What the regulator took exception to was a comment by Mathews pertaining to Friday's meeting. "COAI has been kept out of the TRAI meeting at the insistence of Reliance Jio and TRAI acquiesced to their demand in an unprecedented manner."

Representatives of the service providers, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, met with the watchdog to discuss the issue of network interconnection among players.

After the meeting, Reliance Jio Infocomm Board Member Mahendra Nahata told reporters: "This is a fight of justice for the Indian customer. This is not about Jio customer, Idea customer, Vodafone customer or Airtel customer."

He also said they did not ask anyone to leave the meeting. "We just said the meeting should be attended by those who have been invited by the TRAI."

Existing players, notably Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea on the one side, and Reliance Jio on another, have been fighting it out over interconnection issue, with the former asserting that adequate points were being provided by their networks for Jio calls to go through.

But Jio has been crying foul, saying such points are inadequate.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The day-long shutdown called by the opposition parties on Saturday to protest denial of special category status to the state hit the normal life and led to large-scale arrests of protesters.

Public transport was affected in all the 13 districts as activists of Yuvajana, Shramika, Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) stopped buses from plying.

The opposition workers staged sit-in at State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) depots since early Saturday to prevent buses from coming out.

However, the police arrested scores of protesters.

APSRTC was running buses in some districts with the police protection. Shops and business establishments and educational institutions also remained close in Vijayawada, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Kurnool, Anantapur and other towns.

Shutdown was total in Vijayawada, the functioning capital of the state. Buses were off the roads and schools, colleges and shops remained shut.

Tension prevailed in parts of Tirupati as police arrested dozens of leaders of the opposition parties including YSRCP's Bhumana Karunakar Reddy.

The attempt by CPI-M workers to conduct mock funeral of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also triggered tension. The attempt was foiled by the police, which led to heated arguments between the two sides.

The protestors alleged that Modi betrayed the people of by going back on his words to grant special status to the state.

The police imposed prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons in the temple town.

The shutdown was near total in Kadapa district. All 930 APSRTC buses in the district were off the roads while shops, petrol bunks and cinema theatres remained closed.

In Srikakulam district, YSRCP leaders including former minister Dharmana Prasad Rao was placed under house arrest.

YSRCP alleged that police were resorting to indiscriminate arrests and use of force to foil the shutdown.

The opposition parties took out rallies and staged sit-in at various places, condemning the attitude of the central and the state governments.

The protesters raised slogans against Modi and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Congress party staged road blockade on Bengaluru highway in Kurnool. The protest led by state Congress chief Raghuveera Reddy led to huge traffic jam.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) on Saturday attacked the Democratic Alliance government over its relations with the US, saying the Narendra Modi-led dispensation has established India as a junior partner of America at the global level which will have serious implications on our relations with China and Pakistan.

" ties now give an impression that India is a junior partner of America. Due to this, India's image as a leader of developing countries has suffered a setback," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters at a press conference in Jaipur.

He also alleged that India's policies to allow foreign direct investment in various sectors was for the US companies which will have serious implications on labourers.

Yechury slammed the Modi government over the joint naval exercise "Malabar", held near the South China sea in which Japan also participated, saying, "It gave wrong signals to our neighbours".

"It is like the US has given Jaagirdari of South Asia to India. This will have serious implications, be it our relations with China or to have a dialogue to resolve the issues in Kashmir. The relations of Pakistan with the US are well known and this will have its impact on India's efforts in Kashmir," he said.

Asked about the present situation in Kashmir, Yechury said, the government did nothing.

"Under our pressure, the government agreed to send a delegation of parliamentarians to Kashmir. Dialogue is the only process to resolve the issue there, but the government is not taking any initiative on its own," he said.
At least 10 people were killed and 20 others sustained burn injuries today when a massive fire broke out after a boiler explosion at a four-storey packaging factory in Ghazipur, just north of Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

The fire broke out due to boiler explosion at Tempako Packaging Factory around 6:15 AM in Bisic industrial area of Tongi, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.

A local police officer said that at least 10 people were killed in the fire.

Twenty units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire, local media reports said.

"The bodies of 10 people were kept in the hospital," Md Parvez Mia, a residential doctor of 50-bed Tongi Government Hospital, was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune.

20 people with burn injuries were rushed to the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, he said, adding that the death toll may increase.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 13 people were killed and 203 injured in northwest Tanzania when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit the country, authorities have said.

"The toll has climbed from 11 people dead to 13 and from 192 injured to 203," said Deodatus Kinawilo, District Commissioner for Bukoba, the town close to the epicentre of the quake.

"For now, the situation is calm and under control," said Kinawilo yesterday, who was reached by telephone.

"Some people have been discharged from hospital," he said. "We don't expect many more injuries. We'll see tomorrow."



Residents of Bukoba had said earlier that some houses there had caved in, and Augustine Ollomi, the Kagera province police chief in charge of the Bukoba district, had said "rescue operations are ongoing".

The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25 kilometres east of the north-western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria, according to the US Geological Survey.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity.

An AFP correspondent in Dar es Salaam whose mother's family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed.

"My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people starting running around and buildings collapsing," he said.

The quake rattled the entire province of Kagera. Parts of Mwanza region further south also felt the quake but there was no impact, he said.

No damage had been reported in the economic capital, Dar es Salaam, which is located some 1,400 kilometres southeast of Bukoba.

"It's safe in Dar but we are still worried about the safety of our family," the correspondent added. "The regional hospital is overwhelmed and can't handle any more patients."



"Emergency operations are poor and the government isn't saying anything," he said.

The earthquake was felt as far away as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said.

"The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards," said a correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo said it was felt, though faintly, in Bukavu in the east, but not in nearby Goma or Lubumbashi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
has said the 2016 general elections is the last chance for the Republican party to win presidential elections because undocumented migrants "legalised" under a Hillary Clinton presidency will give Democrats an electoral advantage in future elections.

"I think this will be the last election if I don't win," Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network's "Brody File" in an interview yesterday.

"I think this will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning because you're going to have people flowing across the border, you're going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they're going to be legalised and they're going to be able to vote and once that all happens you can forget it," he said.

"You're not going to have one Republican vote. And it's already a hard number. Already the path is much more difficult for the Republicans. You just have to look at the maps," Trump said.

"I think it's going to be the last election that the Republicans can win. If we don't win this election, you'll never see another Republican and you'll have a whole different church structure. You'll have a whole different Supreme Court structure," he said.

In his interview, Trump said he wants to win the election for the evangelicals.

"I do want to win for the evangelicals because they have been so supportive of me. You know that better than anybody. They have been so totally supportive of me and I'm going to win for the evangelicals among many others," he said.

"We want to win for jobs, we want to win for strong military and for the vets, we want to protect our Second Amendment but I want to win for the evangelicals because they have been so good to me," Trump said.

Responding to a question, Trump called Clinton a "bad person" and alleged that she would be a "disaster" for evangelicals.

"Win. That's all I want to do. I want to win. She's a bad person. She's a person has done a horrible job. Her judgement is flawed," he said.

"As for as the evangelicals are concerned, you can just forget it. She would actually be a disaster," Trump said.

"Hillary Clinton is unfit to be President, for many reasons, the biggest of which her judgement is so bad," Trump said in his address to the Values Voters summit.

"Our enemies probably hacked into Hillary Clinton's emails. These are the same emails she destroyed after receiving a federal subpoena -- using a software called bleachbit. She even mysteriously lost 13 different phones before the FBI could get them - some were even destroyed with a hammer," he said.

"The other night in the Commander-in-Chief forum, Hillary Clinton answered questions on her emails horribly - it seems with each week, she has a different answer. But there can be no answer when she deletes 33,000 emails, bleaches them so they can never be recovered, an unheard of practice, and then hammers her phones into total silence," Trump said.
A boiler explosion at a packaging factory triggered a massive fire today, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 50 others in the industrial area just north of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

The fire broke out due to boiler explosion at the four-storey Tempako Packaging Factory around 6:15 AM in Bisic industrial area of Tongi, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.

A part of the building collapsed as the rage of the blaze spread despite frantic efforts of the fire fighters.

At least 21 people were killed and 50 others sustained burn injuries, hospitals sources said.

Officials said 15 bodies are now in the Tongi hospital, four at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and two more at the Adhunik Medical College Hospital at Dhaka's Uttara.

Thirteen of the 21 dead have now been identified.

While 30 burnt victims were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, 10 others shifted to Kurmitola Hospital, said the residential physician.

Ten of the injured are struggling for life with critical burn wounds, officials said.

Twenty units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire but they could not manage to douse the blaze till noon.

Flames and smoke were seen billowing out of the factory, six hours after the fire started. The fire service said strong winds had fanned the flames.

A five-member probe body headed by Gazipur Executive Magistrate Rehanul Islam has been formed to look into the incident, Gazipur Deputy Commissioner SM Alam said.

The factory produced and printed the plastic packaging for food items like potato chips and small household goods including mosquito coils.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 25 people were killed and over 70 injured, many critically, in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a packaging factory in on Saturday, in one of the worst industrial accidents in the country since 2013 when a building collapse claimed more than 1,100 lives.

The fire broke out following a boiler explosion at the four-storey Tempako Packaging Factory this morning in Tongi industrial area, north of Dhaka, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.

The blast was so powerful that a part of the building collapsed as the blaze  aided by strong winds  razed until afternoon despite frantic efforts by firefighters to contain it.

About 100 people were inside the food and cigarette packaging unit when the explosion occurred and the fire spread quickly because of flammable chemicals stored in the building.

"A part of the building collapsed and we fear some people could be trapped inside," a fire department official said.

The workers at the factory were to go on leave for a weeklong holiday for Eid festival after their work on Saturday.

"The Eid is ruined for our family," a wailing mid-aged woman whose husband died in the accident told a TV channel.

Most of the 25 victims died at the scene while succumbed to their injuries at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and other healthcare facilities in the area.

Officials said the dead bodies were at a Tongi hospital, DMCH and at the Adhunik Medical College Hospital near Dhaka.

Thirty people with burn injuries have been admitted to DMCH, 10 to Kurmitola Hospital, said a residential physician. Ten, with critical burn wounds, were fighting for life.

Twenty five units of firefighters were deployed to douse the fire. Flames and smoke were seen billowing out of the factory for six hours after the fire started.

"We have launched investigation... The persons responsible for the accident, the owner of the factory in particular, will face stern legal action," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

A five-member probe body headed by Gazipur Executive Magistrate Rehanul Islam has been formed to look into the incident, Gazipur Deputy Commissioner SM Alam said.

Low-cost manufacturing is the mainstay in Bangladesh, one of the world's top garment exporters with a USD 27-billion industry. But a series of industrial disasters in recent years have raised questions about its safety standards.

Tighter controls have been introduced, but dozens of workers still die every year.

At least 13 people died in a fire at a plastics factory in Dhaka last year. In 2012, 112 workers died in a fire at a factory just outside the capital.

The country suffered an even greater tragedy in 2013 when the Rana Plaza garment complex collapsed on the outskirts of Dhaka, killing 1,135 people, after another clothing factory building collapsed, trapping over 3,000 workers.
At least 26 people were killed and more than 70 others injured today in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a packaging factory in Bangladesh.

The fire broke out due to boiler explosion at the four-storey Tempako Packaging Factory around 6:15 AM in Bisic industrial area of Tongi, north of Dhaka, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.

A part of the building collapsed as the rage of the blaze spread despite frantic efforts of the fire fighters.

At least 26 people were killed and than 74 others sustained burn injuries, hospitals sources said.

Officials said 19 bodies are now in the Tongi hospital, five at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and two more at the Adhunik Medical College Hospital at Dhaka's Uttara.

While 30 burnt victims were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, 10 others shifted to Kurmitola Hospital, said the residential physician.

Ten of the injured are struggling for life with critical burn wounds, officials said.

Twenty five units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire.

Flames and smoke were seen billowing out of the factory, six hours after the fire started. The fire service said strong winds had fanned the flames.

A five-member probe body headed by Gazipur Executive Magistrate Rehanul Islam has been formed to look into the incident, Gazipur Deputy Commissioner SM Alam said.

The factory produced and printed the plastic packaging for food items like potato chips and small household goods including mosquito coils.

Low-cost manufacturing is a mainstay of Bangladesh's economy, but a series of industrial disasters in recent years have raised concerns about safety standards.

Tighter controls have been introduced, but dozens of workers still die every year.

At least 13 people died in a fire at a plastics factory Dhaka last year.

In 2012, 112 workers died in a fire at a factory just outside the capital.

The country suffered an even greater tragedy in 2013 when the Rana Plaza garment complex collapsed on the outskirts of Dhaka, killing 1,135 people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four persons were killed when their car rammed into a trailer on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway near Lonavala in the wee hours today.

"The accident took place at around 1.40 AM. The car hit the trailer from behind near Lonavala, killing four occupants on the spot," said an official from Expressway Control Room.

The mishap occurred when the victims were on their way to Pune.

Lonavala City police has identified all four deceased as Rajendra Chavan, Vanita Chavan, Shankar Vangule and Pooja Vangule, all residents of Mumbai.

Station duty officer at the Lonavala City police said Rajendra Chavan was a police personnel with Mumbai police and they are probing the exact reason of the accident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least eight children were allegedly sexually assaulted in their school bus by its driver and cleaner in presence of a woman assistant in Wani here.

Police yesterday arrested the driver, identified as Surendra Sav, cleaner Kiran Brahmane and the assistant on the basis of a joint complaint filed by eight parents.

The trio was today produced before a court here, which remanded them in police custody till tomorrow.

"We received a joint complaint from eight parents of the victims of Wani-based 'Dream Play School', alleging that their minor kids have been sexually assaulted by the driver and the cleaner for the last one month and they were assisted by the lady escort of the bus," said police sub-inspector Rakhi Gedam.

"Surendra and Kiran have been booked under sections 376/2 i (rape), 354 a (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354 b (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 506 (criminal intimidation) and under various provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, while the assistant under section 109 (punishment of abetment) of IPC," she added.

As per preliminary investigation, Surendra and Karan allegedly sexually assaulted the children in the school bus itself while the woman assistant remained a mute spectator, police said.

Meanwhile, Wani police has written to the Assistant Charity Commissioner, Yavatmal, and the Assistant Registrar of Co-Operative Societies requesting them to disclose the names of the trustees of the school so that necessary legal action could be initiated against them too.

Various political parties and social organisations in Wani had called a bandh today in protest of the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
National carrier Air India announced discounts up to 75 per cent on base fares to the war disabled officers and their family members for flights across its domestic network.

"We respect & honor our Heroes. Concessions for War Disabled Officers & their families," Air India said in a tweet.

Air India offers 75 per cent discount on basic fare on select classes for the War Disabled officer while their family members would get a discount of 50 per cent on basic fare on select classes across the airline's domestic network, it said.

Meanwhile, in another development, Air India has extended the waiver on ticket cancellation charges, rescheduling fee for travel on its flights to and from Kashmir till September 19.

"Waiver on applicable penalties of re-issuance, date change, no-show, cancellation & refund charges has been extended for travel from/to Srinagar for both dom & intnl flts, on all tickets issued on/before 9th Sept for trvl till 19th Sept,2016," Air India tweeted.

The tickets under the discount offer can be purchased any time with their validity one year from the date of booking.

The family includes spouse, dependent children between 12 and 26 years of age and dependent parents, the national carrier said adding married children are not considered as part of family.

Earlier in June this year, in a novel gesture to honour armed forces personnel, Air India had announced free upgrade to the business class for the recipients of war and peace time gallantry awards.

The soldiers who have been bestowed with military honours such Param Vir Chakra (PVC), Maha Vir Chakra (MVC), Vir Chakra (VC), Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, would get an upgrade to business class from economy at the time of boarding in case seats are available in the aircraft from this month, Air India had said.

The Indian Armed Forces are eligible for various military decorations, which are awarded for extraordinary bravery and courage, as well as distinguished service during times of war and peace.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Malaysian no-frills carrier AirAsia Berhad which runs a joint venture airline with Tata Sons in India, today prohibited the use of Samsung Galaxy Note7 mobile devices on its flight as well as some of the subsidiary airlines, including AirAsia India.

The decision to prohibit the use of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 mobile devices was taken in the wake of its recall due to safety concerns over the battery issue, AirAsia said in a travel advisory, issued today.

"Following the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 mobile device by Samsung due to safety concerns over its battery, AirAsia and AirAsia X would like to inform all guests that the usage and charging of the device onboard all our flights are prohibited with immediate effect until further notice," it said.

The advisory is applicable to all flights operated by AirAsia and its subsidiaries including AirAsia India, an airline spokesperson said.

All guests travelling on AirAsia and AirAsia X with a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 must turn it off until disembarkation from the aircraft, it said adding the device must not be kept in any checked baggage as well.

The travel advisory from AirAsia comes a day after the Government here prohibited the use of Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices onboard an aircraft.

AirAsia currently flies to six destinations --Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Trichy -- while AirAsia X flies to New Delhi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
From Asia, Africa and points in between, nearly 1.5 million Muslims began the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia to Islam's holiest sites today, undeterred by last year's deadly stampede.

The numbers are down because of the absence of tens of thousands of Iranians over tensions between their Shiite nation and the Sunni-dominated Gulf kingdom.

The 2015 stampede magnified those frictions.

After preliminary rituals this week in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, pilgrims moved today, many by bus, to Mina several kilometres east.

In debilitating temperatures exceeding 40 C (100 F), some pilgrims walked under coloured parasols.

They are following in the footsteps of their Prophet Mohammed who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago.

"It's an indescribable feeling. You have to live it to understand. This is my sixth hajj and I still cannot express how happy I am to be in Mecca," said Hassan Mohammed, 60, from Egypt.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once, marking the spiritual peak of their lives.

"People come from every country of the world, talk every language of the world, and meet here in one place under one banner, the profession of the Muslim faith," said Ashraf Zalat, 43, also from Egypt.

The first day of hajj was traditionally the chance for pilgrims to let their animals drink and to stock up on water.

Then they proceed to Mount Arafat, several kilometres further, for the peak of the hajj tomorrow.

Okaz newspaper reported that, for the first time in 35 years, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, will not deliver a sermon to the Arafat crowds.

The paper cited health reasons.

Mina becomes the pilgrims' base, where an expanse of solidly built white fireproof tents can accommodate 2.6 million people beneath bare mountains.

Last September 24, Mina was the scene of the deadliest disaster in hajj history, when the stampede broke out as pilgrims made their way to the Jamarat Bridge for a stoning ritual.

This year's "Stoning of the Devil" will start on Monday.

Although Riyadh stuck with a stampede death toll of 769, data from foreign officials in more than 30 countries gave a tally almost three times higher - at least 2,297.

Saudi Arabia announced an investigation but no results have ever been released, although a number of safety measures have been taken.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two-days after the Anti-Corruption Branch raided the Delhi Waqf Board office, AAP MLA Amantullah Khan today resigned as its chairman claiming that he was being "framed in false cases".

The Okhla legislator, who was also a member of the State Haj Committee, sent his resignation letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

His resignation came two days after the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Delhi government raided the Delhi Waqf Board office here in connection with an alleged recruitment scam involving Khan.

In his letter, Khan stated that he has "run out of patience" of issuing clarifications to the public pleading innocence over a number of allegations levelled against him and his family members.

"Some people dislike my honesty and service and false allegations are being levelled against me and my family to frame us. I want to be free from all the responsibilities given to me by the government and therefore I tender my resignation from all the posts," Khan said.

Speaking in the Delhi Assembly yesterday, Khan defended himself saying he had made the "contractual" recruitments following due procedures. Waqf Board was reeling under shortage of staff which necessitated the appointments, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amidst strong demand for special category status for Andhra Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said there were ample opportunities for development in the state which was given a special financial package two days ago.

The Prime Minister made the remarks when a BJP delegation from the state met him to thank him for the announcement of the special package, PMO sources said.

The Centre's financial package for Andhra Pradesh includes full funding of Pollavaram irrigation project, tax concessions and a special assistance, among others.

But it stopped short of giving the state a special category status, which is being demanded by the opposition parties.

"During the interaction, the PM said there are ample opportunities for development in Andhra Pradesh, and they must work for development of the state," the sources said.

However, opposition parties, including the YSR Congress are not satisfied with the financial package and are demanding special category status in the wake of carving out of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

The state Assembly has been witnessing uproar over the issue since the beginning of the Monsoon Session on September 8, with the Opposition pressing for special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day of intense airstrikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 people were killed Saturday, just hours after the new US-Russian agreement was reached to try and end the violence in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Aleppo province and another 39 were killed by airstrikes in neighboring Idlib province.

Contrasting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

The United States and Russia announced a deal today that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.

Previous Syrian cease-fires or limited truces have also been preceded by spikes in violence as both government and rebel forces seek to consolidate positions or gain new ground in the final remaining hours of warfare.

State agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, for "humanitarian reasons." It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the U.S.-Russia agreement "was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government."



Today's violence shows that it might be difficult to implement the U.S.-Russia agreement as both countries enjoy limited influence on the government and insurgent groups to cease the bombardment.

A cease-fire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Russia is a main backer of Assad's government while the US has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power. Syria's conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try end the violence. At least a quarter million people have been killed and half the country's prewar population displaced.

Today's air raids were mostly in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Aleppo has been the center of violence in Syria in recent months where some 2,200 people, including some 700 civilians, have been killed since last July according to the Observatory, which tracks violence in Syria through a network of activists on the ground.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bangladesh police today shot dead a militant who played a key role in carrying out the cafe siege, and injured three other women terrorists in a gunfight.

The members of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit have killed one militant and captured three others, including the wife of deceased New Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh leader Murad during a raid at a militant den in the capital's Azimpur area.

Acting on a tip-off, a group of policemen carried out a raid at a house in Azimpur, said Masudur Rahman, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Sensing the presence of police, four militants, including three women, who were inside the house with sharp weapons, swooped on the law enforcers, triggering a "gunfight", he said.

At one point, the militants also a blasted grenade at the law enforcers, leaving eight persons, including five policemen injured, Rahman said.

"One of the three women is critically injured," he added.

"Police have rescued three children from the spot and they have been sent to Victim Support Centre (VSC) in Tejgaon," he was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune.

A senior counter-terrorism officer said they suspect the extremist to be Abdul Karim, a deputy of Tamim Chowdhury, who was the leader of a faction of the banned Islamist militant outfit, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and was accused of being behind the cafe attack.

"We have found remarkable similarities between the face of the dead militant and that of Karim, who rented a house for the Gulshan attackers," he added.

The JMB has been blamed for a wave of attacks on foreigners and religious minorities in the last three years.

At least 28 Islamist extremists have been shot dead by Bangladesh security forces since the cafe assault in which mostly foreigners, including an Indian, were killed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP today accused the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar of playing a role in the grant of bail to gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin, also a murder convict, by presenting a "weak case" in court saying the development highlights the state's slide into "Jungle Raj".

"The government presented a weak case and Shahabuddin received bail. It did not hire good lawyers to present its side. BJP is of the view that the government has played a big role in the creating this atmosphere of fear in Bihar," spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told a press conference.

Referring to the fanfare after the RJD leader was released from jail, Hussain said state ministers and MLAs were part of the procession.

"The government has failed in tightening noose around criminals. Nitish Kumar should accept that jungle raj has been established in Bihar."



Latching onto Shahabuddin's remarks that Kumar is a "chief minister of circumstances", Hussain raised questions over law and order situation in the state as someone "associated with the ruling party and having involvement in criminal cases" is targeting head of the government.

RJD is in power with JD(U) in the state. Kumar is also JD(U) president.

"No RJD party leader is ready to consider the head of the government as their leader in this jungle raj," he said, noting morale of criminals has gone up with Shahabuddin's release.

He further said that the BJP will hit the streets and be on the side of people of the state as the "atmosphere of fear" is allegedly being created in Bihar.

"We will expose the government on each turn, will stand against criminals, we will hit the streets to protect people. We can't sit with ease in this atmosphere of fear being the main opposition party," Hussain added.

Taking a jibe at Kumar, Union Minister Giriraj Singh said he hoped that Shahabuddin will help spread the message about his "good governance".

Four-term ex-MP from Siwan, Shahabuddin walked out today after 11 years in jail. The Patna High Court had given him bail in a 2004 murder case on September 7.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Karnataka government today welcomed the reported statement of Union Minister Uma Bharti about intervening in the Cauvery river water dispute, if necessary, but demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiate the process to solve the long-pending issue.

"If she has given the gesture that she will intervene (to resolve the vexed Cauvery dispute), we welcome it. It (step) will be towards solving the problem," Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here.

His response was to a question about reports quoting Uma Bharti as saying that the Centre would intervene in the Cauvery matter if necessary.

Asked about Tamil Nadu not even looking at a compromise solution, he said "Let's suppose it is initiated by the Prime Minister. We are in the first stage, let the Prime Minister initiate that.... Then let us see the response of Tamil Nadu."



Jayachandra also appealed to the BJP MPs from the state to take up the issue with the Prime Minister.

To a question that the consistent demand for the Prime Minister's intervention was politicising the issue further, he recalled that the PM had earlier on one occasion intervened on Supreme Court advice. It has to be done now also to solve the vexed issue, which needs to be resolved through an out-of-court settlement, he said.

"When the Supreme Court advised the then Prime Minister to intervene, it happened then. Now to resolve this, these are all to be settled out of court," he said.

"However, whether they are coming (intervening) or not again is the question. Injustice has been done to the state from Britishers' period. It is a long-pending and almost 200 year old dispute," Jayachandra said.

Asked about changing Fali Nariman as the state's counsel, he said he wouldn't like to react as the matter was coming up for final hearing on October 16 before the Court.

"I don't want to react to that because the matter is coming up for the final hearing on October 16. The Supreme Court has specifically said it will be listed on that day. So let us hope for the best," he said.

To a query, Jayachandra said the state must have filed



the plea to counter Tamil Nadu's submission before the Cauvery Supervisory Committee, asking for release of more water.

"Our legal and technical team, they are in Delhi. They must have filed a response to the Tamil Nadu government before the Supervisory Committee also, and it is likely to come up on Monday (September 12) when the meeting takes place," he said.

Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on September 7 with its demand for more water.

Karnataka had also written to the panel to send an expert inspection team headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer as done by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee in October 2012, to study ground realities in the Cauverybasin.

Jayachandra said a plea has been filed before the Apex Court for modification of the order on the basis of Karnataka going through the times of distress.

The Supreme Court on September 5 had directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the demands of the summer crop in the state.
Protests against the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu showed signs of abating in Mandya, the epicentre of agitation, and other districts in the basin, as Karnataka government braced for the next step in the tussle.

Sporadic protests by farmers and pro-Kannada outfits were reported in Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Mysuru and other placesin the Cauvery basin, a day after the state observed a bandh to protest the Supreme Court order asking Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu.

Road traffic between Bengaluru and Mysuru was normal today, barring short blockades by protesters, after it was disrupted for five days in Mandya district, the worst hit by agitation, police said.

Business establishments, including hotels, functioned normally while Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses are plying buses in rural parts of Mandya district.

Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil today said the state would submit an appeal to the Cauvery Supervisory Committee against Tamil Nadu's demand for release of more Cauvery water.

"Tamil Nadu has already approached the supervisory committee asking for more Cauvery water... We will be submitting the counter appeal to the panel... Explaining the hardships and difficulties being faced by the people due to the Supreme Court order to release water," Patil told reporters in New Delhi.

Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on September seven with its demand for more water.

Patil, along with his legal team and officials, held deliberations with Karnataka Counsel Fali S Nariman in Delhi.

The Minister said the state had already written to the panel, informing it about the difficulties and problems faced by the people due to the Supreme Court's direction. He said the state would also apprise the panel about the ground realities prevalent in the Cauvery basin, Patil said. The Supreme Court had on September five directed Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the irrigation requirement for Samba paddy crop.

Earlier, Patil, speaking to a Kannada TV channel,



objected to Tamil Nadu's demand for more water terming it "baseless and impractical."



Karnataka had also written to the supervisory panel seeking an expert inspection team headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer as was done by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee in October 2012, to study the ground realities in the Cauverybasin.

The panel, headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar, will meet on September 12 to decide the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states.

Meanwhile, the farmers' leader spearheading the protest in Mandya said the agitaion would continue till they get justice.

"We have decided to continue the Cauvery agitation till we get justice," said G.Madegowda, President of Cauvery Horata Samithi.

Government should compensate crop loss and should stop water release to Tamil Nadu, he told reporters, adding, the people of Cauvery basin were struggling for their survival.

"Instead of coming to rescue of our farmers Karnataka government is so adamantly releasing water," he said. BJP activists in Mandya submitted a petition to the district police complaining against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah following caning of the protesting farmers near the KRS reservoir yesterday during the bandh. "The BJP activists have submitted a petition against the Chief Minister, and we are scrutinising it," Mandya Superintendent of Police Sudheer Kumar Reddy told
A private complaint was filed at a local court here on Sunday against two Supreme Court judges who directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for 10 days, which has triggered severe protests in the state.

The names of Chief Ministers of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are also mentioned in the complaint under CrPc Section 200 (relating to examination of the complainant) filed before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Court.

The complainant M D Rajanna, a resident of Mandya, has also named Chief Secretaries of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka Water Resource Minister M B Patil.

He has also cited that Article 262 of the Constitution has mentioned that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over inter-state water disputes and as such it cannot adjudicate such cases.

The Court has posted the case to September 14.

A Supreme Court bench,comprising Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit had on September 5 ordered Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu for 10 days, a direction that has triggered protests, particularly in the Cauvery basin area, with Mandya being the epi-centre of the stir.

Complying with the Apex Court order, the Karnataka government began releasing water on Tuesday midnight. The state also observed a bandh called by some 800 organisations yesterday to protest the Supreme Court direction.
Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia today said that BJP-led central as well as Madhya Pradesh governments have betrayed farmers, poor, Dalits and youth.

"BJP-led central and Madhya Pradesh governments have betrayed farmers, poor, Dalits and youth of the country. People are angry with BJP leaders," the Congress chief whip in Lok Sabha said at a meeting of Dalits and farmers at Indragarh here.

Before the Lok Sabha and 2013 MP Assembly elections, BJP leaders had promised the moon to the farmers, Dalits, poor and youth. But they have now betrayed them, he added.

Scindia claimed the BJP leaders were leading a luxurious life and not paying heed to the problems of people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu today said the financial assistance announced by the NDA government to Andhra Pradesh would be to the tune of Rs 2.25 lakh crore, biggest ever support extended to any state so far in the country.

"The Centre has announced financial assistance to the tune of Rs 2.25 lakh crore. People are satisfied (with the financial package). Some political parties are not happy. What can we do? Their intention is that we get out of the seat and they want to come. They will have to wait for that," he said.

Naidu was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 16th anniversary celebration of Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence.

"The assistance announced by the Centre to Andhra Pradesh has not been done to any state by any government in the history of the country in this short time. If you come with facts and figures, the Government is ready for a debate," he added.

The Centre on Wednesday announced a financial package for Andhra Pradesh that includes full funding of Pollavaram irrigation project, tax concessions and a special assistance, but stopped short of giving the state a special category status.

Naidu said some persons are trying to mislead people on special category status to AP by converting it into an "emotional" issue.

The minister also downplayed the criticism by actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan over not according special category status to AP, saying that he does not need anybody's certificate.

Kalyan, who campaigned for NDA during the last general elections, in a meeting recently held at Kakinada had hit out at Naidu for "not getting" special category status to AP as promised by the then Congress government at the time of bifurcation.

Hitting out at Naidu, Pawan had said the Information and Broadcasting Minister had "killed" BJP in Andhra Pradesh.

"They have liberty to comment. I don't need their certificate. Where were all these when the state was being bifurcated in 2014? I have my own work. I have to take care of my state, my people, my country and my party. Other things are taken care of by the people concerned," the minister said.

Earlier during his speech, Naidu said that Hindutva is not about religion but a way of life for Indians.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Coast Guard is undertaking Operation Utsav to provide seaward security and safety cover to people during Ganesh Visarjan days.

The cover was in force during visarjan days on September 6 and 9 and will be in force tomorrow and September 15-16.

Coast Guard Regional Headquarters (West), Worli is deploying Fast Patrol Vessel, Interceptor Boat, Hovercraft and Helicopter on random patrol off Mumbai coast.

This is for being extra vigilant and provide surveillance against seaward threats and assisting civil authorities during Ganpati Visarjan, a CG official said.

The operation forms part of Coast Guard efforts towards realising its motto of 'We protect' at Sea, the official said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh today ruled out the possibility of an alliance with any political party or group in the upcoming state assembly polls and claimed that the party was firmly placed for a "landslide victory" in the elections.

Singh said that he had suggested a broad based alliance of secular forces earlier, but the situation and circumstances have now changed and the party was way ahead of others.

He said while the People's Party of Punjab and Shiromani Akali Dal-Longowal had already merged into the Congress, the BSP has decided to contest of it alone.

"The massive response the party is getting during its programmes is indicative of the times to come. You will be having a Congress government with landslide victory", he claimed while speaking on the sidelines of his 'Halke Vich Captain' programme held in Ropar.

Amarinder, who is also Congress MP from Amritsar, claimed that the ruling Akali-BJP alliance was "just fighting for survival while the Aam Aadmi Party had already disintegrated."



Asked whether Delhi CM and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal's ongoing visit to Punjab will have any impact on the state politics, he said, "of course it has already had a good impact by exposing and disintegrating the AAP further".

Singh also said that Kejriwal should have come clean on the allegations of financial and sexual exploitation against some AAP leaders.

"However, once we will form the government we will probe and investigate everything," he said.

Singh also claimed that if voted to power he will not waste a single minute "in putting behind bars" Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Badal and Sukhbir's brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia "for the way they have destroyed and devastated Punjab".

Earlier, during an interaction with the workers of Ropar assembly segment, he promised to bring to the book the entire Badal clan for their alleged false cases against the Congress workers.

"I wonder how they can sleep in peace after doing all this to the state," he said.

Singh said that if voted to power the Congress will give priority to the state-run power plants for power generation and in case there is a shortage only then the private sector will be involved.

He alleged that the Akalis had compromised state's interest by signing agreements with private players.

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Corporate leaders in Tamil Nadu should come forward and support various schemes for the welfare of the poor initiated by the state government, state acting governor CH Vidayasagar Rao said today.

"In January 2016, I chaired the Corporate Leaders meeting in which Tatas and Birlas participated. The purpose of the meeting was to seek the active participation of Corporates in Swachch Bharat Abhiyan", Rao said at the Centenary Celebrations of the Karur Vysya Bank here.

"The Government of Tamil Nadu is also implementing various schemes and programmes for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden. I appeal Corporate leaders in Tamil Nadu to come forward and support such schemes", he said.

Stating that Banks play a critical role in boosting enterprise and job creation under the Start Up India, Stand Up India programme, he said, as Chancellor of State Universities in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, "I feel banks should be liberal in offering long term education loans to deserving students".

He said that under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme, a record 220 million accounts were opened by June 2016 and the credit for the success of this scheme and towards financial inclusion equally goes to the 'banking industry'.

"Today banking is at the very fountainhead of the new-age world order. Banking has transformed itself from brick-to-click", he said.

Earlier, a book tracing the Corporate History of Karur Vysysa Bank was released by him and it was received by President Pranab Mukherjee.

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In 1990s when the Union Front government wanted him to take over as Prime Minister, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu let go the opportunity on the advise of his son who told him that the PM's post was "temporary".

"My son (Lokesh, now Telugu Desam general secretary) told me the Prime Minister's post is temporary but the Chief Minister post is permanent. So, I did not accept the prime minister's post," the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister told reporters in an informal chat on the occasion of his 35th wedding anniversary today.

Chandrababu had served as the convener of United Front.

It was in 1997 when the United Front government was in power at the Centre that Chandrababu was chosen by the Front leaders to be the Prime Minister.

He was just two years old as Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh at that time but, given his party's numerical strength in Lok Sabha, played a key role in bringing various parties together to forge the United Front.

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1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Novak Djokovic's strange US Open path took another odd turn as the defending champion defied stultifying humidity and the controversial tactics of Gael Monfils to book a title showdown with Stan Wawrinka.

World number one and defending champion Djokovic prevailed 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-2 in a bizarre semi-final last night that saw 10th-seeded Monfils roundly booed and accused of not trying.

Third-seeded Wawrinka withstood an early onslaught from sixth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan, asserting himself in the later stages to claim a 4-6 7-5 6-4 6-2 victory.

Although Djokovic holds a 19-4 record over Wawrinka, including two victories since the Swiss player shocked him the French Open final last year, Wawrinka welcomed the chance to take him on again.

"To play Novak again it will be very special," he said.

Djokovic admitted he was "completely caught off guard" when Monfils, down 0-5 in the first in 15 minutes, stood lackadaisically in the court and began chipping the ball back.

The strategy paid off as Monfils reeled off three games in a row.

"If I would get to the net he would go for the passing shot and hit some impossible gets and balls. But that's Gael," Djokovic said.

It was Djokovic who emerged with the set, however, and as the Serbian star raced through the second Monfils's interest again appeared to wane.

By the sixth game the 30-year-old had won just nine points, which he managed to nudge into double figures by the end of it.

Monfils, playing in only his second Grand Slam semi-final after making the last-four at the 2008 French Open, theatrically hobbled off the court and was jeered.

He was booed again by sections of the 20,000-strong crowd as he dropped the first game of the third set.

Monfils said his tactics were a deliberate attempt "to get inside his head".

A more orthodox approach saw Monfils break back for 2-2 and again for 4-2 in a third set that saw Djokovic receive treatment on his left shoulder.

Although Djokovic saved one set point, and gave himself three break chances in the ninth game, Monfils was able to extend the match, marking the moment with a mighty roar to which Djokovic responded by ripping off his shirt.

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A Delhi University girl student todaychased and caught two snatchers who tried to make off with her bag in east Delhi's Anand Vihar area, police said.

Nikita, 18, a first-year student ofInstitute of Home Science and Economics at Hauz Khas,was heading towards Karkardooma Metro station on her scooty when the duo riding a motorcycle snatched her bag and sped away around 7 AM.

"The girl fell down but later gathered courage and chased the snatchers on her scooty. She finally caught up with the duo when they hit a car," a police spokesperson said.

"A passersby helped Nikita catch the duo who had sustained injuries after hitting the car. Nikita also suffered inury in her leg," he added.

Police arrived on the spot following a PCR call and took the injured to hospital.

Nikita's bag was recovered from the snatchers.

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RSS' student outfit ABVP continued its dominance in the DUSU polls, bagging three seats and describing the thumping victory as the "triumph of nationalism", while Congress' NSUI made a comeback, winning the post of Joint Secretary in the results announced today.

ABVP's Amit Tanwar was elected the new president of Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU), defeating NSUI candidate Nikhil Yadav by a margin of 4,680 votes.

Priyanka and Ankit Singh of ABVP have been elected as vice president and secretary respectively.

NSUI candidate Mohit Garid won the contest for the Joint Secretary's post, preventing an ABVP hat-trick. The RSS' student body had bagged all the four seats in the DUSU polls last year as well as in 2014.

AAP's Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, which was defeated last year on its debut, did not contest the election this year.

"A significant number of 17,712 voters opted for NOTA, introduced in the DUSU polls this year," said Chief Election Commissioner for the polls DS Rawat.

Union minister Arun Jaitley, who was elected DUSU president in 1974, congratulated ABVP on its victory.

"Congratulations to DU students & #ABVP on comprehensively winning President, VP & Secretary posts in #DUSUPolls All the best to ABVP team," he tweeted.

BJP national president Amit Shah too congratulated the ABVP candidates, describing the victory as "the triumph of nationalism".

"Congrats to ABVP. #DUSU verdict is triumph of Nationalism. Youth have reposed their faith in constructive politics," he tweeted.

The election, held yesterday, saw a turnout of over 36.9 per cent, recording a dip of 7 per cent from last year's turnout of 43.3 per cent. A total of 1,23,246 students were eligible to exercise their franchise.

Celebrations broke out with bursting of crackers and loud cheering at the Kingsway camp counting venue as the results were announced. ABVP supporters lifted the victorious candidates on their shoulders and posed for photos flashing the 'victory' sign.

The winners were garlanded and processions were taken out by ABVP supporters who paid tributes at Swami Vivekananda's statue at the Arts Faculty of the university.

DUSU is the representative body of students from most of the colleges and faculties of the university. The polls have been keenly contested over decades and are seen as a stepping stone to mainstream politics.

Jaitley, Congress leader Ajay Maken, Delhi BJP chief



Satish Upadhyay, Union minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel are some of the prominent politicians whose journey into mainstream politics began from DUSU.

Priyanka, the lone female face in this year's elected panel, bagged 15,592 votes and defeated her closest rival by a margin of 2,455 votes.

Ankit Singh Sangwan, who won the secretary's post secured 15,518 votes. He won by a margin of 1,383 votes.

NSUI's Mohit Garid garnered the maximum number of 16,526 votes and won the seat by a margin of 2,466 votes.

"NSUI's drought in DUSU has ended with Garid winning the joint secretary's post. The vote share of the party has increased in all the seats and we are confident of sweeping the panel in the next polls," NSUI national president Amrita Dhawan said.

A total of 17 candidates were in the fray for the four posts of DUSU office-bearers.

While seven aspirants were vying for the post of president, four nominations were validated for the vice-president's post and three candidates each were in the fray for the post of joint secretary and secretary.

While the political battle at DU has been between NSUI and ABVP over the decades, Left-affiliated All India Students' Association (AISA) this time tried hard to make it to the central panel with a series of campaigns but failed to open its account.
Civil aviation authorities in the Emirates have banned the use of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 on all its national carriers because of the risk of batteries exploding in the "phablet" smartphone.

"The General Civil Aviation Authority has banned operating, charging and carrying in bags the Samsung Note 7 on board national carriers' flights," it said in a statement carried by the official WAM agency today.

Samsung last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.

Since then, airlines or air safety agencies around the world have warned passengers against using them on flights.

Yesterday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged Note 7 owners to stop using it.

Dubai's Emirates Airline, the largest Middle East carrier, said it will comply "immediately" with the instruction from civil aviation.

"This measure is to avoid the possibility of these devices' batteries causing fires," it said.

Another carrier in the United Arab Emirates, Etihad Airways, has already temporarily banned the use of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on board its flights, and the UAE also has two low-cost airlines, flydubai and Air Arabia.

Singapore Airlines, Australia's Qantas, and Virgin Australia have announced similar bans.

US and Japanese aviation authorities have urged passengers not to turn on or charge the large-screen phones on aircraft, while the US Federal Aviation Administration has told passengers not to stow the device in checked baggage.

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Actors Emma Roberts, Jeffrey Tambor and Jane Levy will star in an upcoming indie film "Four Seasons".

It will be directed by "Here Comes the Night" helmers Peter Kline and Pete Shanel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The project, which Paradigm is selling at the Toronto International Film Festival, is a New York-based story chronicling the dissolution of the Music family, following a divorce.

Walter (Tambor), a successful public radio host, is separating from his alcoholic wife, and at the same time dealing with his troubled daughter (Roberts).

His son, Stephen, tries to start a new life in Los Angeles with his girlfriend Ashley (Levy) but is pulled back into the family discord.

Tambor, 72, stars in Amazon's hit series "Transparent" and won a Golden Globe for his work on the show.

His upcoming films include "The Accountant" with Ben Affleck and voice work in the animated "Trolls".

Roberts, 25, was most recently seen in the thriller "Nerve", which came out this summer. She stars on the hit FX series "Scream Queens", which will return for its second season this year.

Levy, 26, starred in the hit horror-thriller "Don't Breathe", which is currently in theatres.

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The Delhi Police, which is conducting a preliminary enquiry into the allegations of phone tapping of politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and many other high-profile people by corporate major Essar Group, today questioned the complainant in the case Suren Uppal for over two hours.

Uppal was called for questioning by the special investigation team constituted by Delhi Police at its headquarters at around 11 am and was asked questions on a wide array of issues including his allegations and the evidences he claimed to have in support of his charges of phone tapping by the corporate major, sources said.

He was asked by the SIT officials led by a Special Commissioner rank officer about documentary evidences including log books, handwritten notes as well as recordings of some top politicians and other high-profile persons he claimed to possess, they said.

Uppal said he was questioned by a team of five officials for over two hours and he agreed to provide all evidences he has with him in support of his allegations.

"I was questioned for over two hours by the officials. I agreed to provide all the evidences to police but urged them to not to make public some tapes of personal conversations which could ruin lives of people. I have been called again to join probe on September 17," Uppal told PTI.

He has also handed over to the SIT a letter stating that the content of the tapes that are "personal" in nature should not be made public.

Uppal, a lawyer, had filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court in June alleging that Essar tapped phones of a number of high-profile persons including some Union Ministers. He had also approached the PMO against the group in the case.

He had alleged that the Essar Group had ordered its former security chief Albasit Khan to tap telephonic conversations of its business rivals when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

He said he had sent a mail to Albasit Khan requesting him to join the investigation but received no reply.

In July, the Home Ministry had told the Delhi High Court that it has directed police to carry out a preliminary enquiry into the allegations Uppal made in his PIL.

The five-member SIT is likely to call many people to join the probe, sources said.

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Facebook has restored a post by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg which it had taken down over an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing.

The world's leading social network backtracked yesterday on a decision to censor the historic image because it had been flagged for violating standards regarding inappropriate posts.

An active social media user, Solberg defied Facebook early yesterday by posting the photograph, helping to bring the weeks-long controversy to a head.

But it was deleted a few hours later by Facebook, in what is believed to be a first such online censorship involving a government leader. By this morning the post was restored on the Norwegian premier's Facebook page.

The online giant stopped short of apologising, saying: "An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography.

"In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," it added.

Taken by photographer Nick Ut Cong Huynh for the Associated Press, the 1972 picture of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack is considered one of the war's defining images. It was honoured with the Pulitzer Prize.

After Facebook reversed its position on the image, Solberg told the BBC she was a "happy prime minister," saying: "It shows that using social media can make (a) political change even in social media.

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A camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group in Iraq was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania today, the group said.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq has been based in Iraq since the 1980s, when they received arms and support from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. US-led forces disarmed the group after the 2003 invasion and settled them at a base north of Baghdad.

Late Friday night a car bomb targeting a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad killed 11 people and wounded 28, according to police and hospital officials. Three Iraqi policemen were among the dead, the officials added.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the press.

The attack comes as Iraqi ground forces are moving into position around Mosul ahead of a planned operation to retake the militant-held city from the Islamic State group.

The Iranian opposition group, whose members who were flown out of Iraq Friday, was listed as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department for years over its killing of Americans. The MEK was also accused of taking part in the brutal suppression of a 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam, allegations denied by the group.

The MEK says it renounced violence in 2001. The US military in Iraq signed an agreement with the group in 2004, promising that members would be treated as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The State Department removed the group from its list of terrorist organisations in 2012.

On Friday, US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau thanked the governments of Albania and Iraq.

"We are grateful to the Government of Iraq for facilitating the departure of the MEK. And we are specially appreciative of the extraordinary efforts of the Albanian Government, the Albanian Prime Mister Rama, to welcome these people who are in need of international protection," Trudeau said.

Iraqi forces raided Camp Ashraf, the group's longtime base north of Baghdad, in 2009, shortly after U.S.-led forces handed over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqi government. The group was later relocated to a former military base in the capital.

Armed groups have repeatedly attacked the group since Saddam's ouster, killing scores of its members.

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The best price outlet at Nidamanuru here was fully gutted in fire today, police said.

Noone was injured in the mishap.

The blaze broke out in one of the AC units in the huge complex abutting the national highway-16 early in the morning triggering an alarm.

The security personnel tried to douse the fire using the fire-fighting equipment in the store but the flames spread fast and turned uncontrollable.

The Disaster Response and Emergency Services Department was immediately called to put out the fire. The department pressed at least eight fire engines into service and battled for over seven hours to control the blaze.

Traffic on the NH, coming from Visakhapatnam side, came to a halt because of the fire-fighting operation as the stretch of road here was narrow. Police diverted traffic via alternative routes.

As the store had a fibre-sheet roof, fire spread fast and led to its collapse, preventing the staff from moving out the goods to safety, police said.

"Over eighty per cent of the goods were gutted. According to preliminary estimates, the monetary loss could be about Rs 20 crore," a senior police official said.

As the furniture section was located separately, the staff succeeded in emptying it before any damage was done.

An investigation is being carried out to determine the exact cause of the fire accident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Conferencing Zone Week in Review: HP, AnyMeeting, FaceMe, Hello

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By Stefania Viscusi

Assignment Desk, Content Management By Stefania ViscusiAssignment Desk, Content Management

Welcome to another weekly look at all the top stories making headlines in the conferencing market this week.

HP announced this month the launch of its new Elite Slice personal computer. Now it has also announced the Elite Slice will come with Meeting Rooms so businesses can have conferencing. Included will be modules to handle Skype (News - Alert) for Business calls, speakerphone, microphone access and the ability to manage modules during a call.





Also this week, a company taking a different kind of approach to video communications announced it has already passed goal for its Kickstarter campaign. The device its offering will be sold for $199 and easy to use with only an HDMI and power cable plugged into a users computer.

Once this happens, a users TV turns into a communications device that can be voice controlled and has wireless screen sharing capabilities.

In partnership news, Cogent announced it has joined forces with FaceMe to offer Videoconferencing for businesses across the country.

Ray Noonan, Cogent CEO commented, This partnership is another step in Cogents vision to provide our customers with exceptional unified communications and networking solutions. Were very excited to be adding FaceMe to our growing managed services portfolio. Integrating video into contact centers is set to be the next wave in the growth of that discipline.

AnyMeeting also announced a new update this week to its web conferencing software. The new version, version 4.0, offers WebRTC support, an updated interface and new mobile apps. The goal was to offer users a more natural interaction when using video and audio conferencing and the company leveraged its many years of expertise to make the updates possible.

Thats all for this week  be sure to check back for all the latest Conferencing news as it happens. Until next week
Global retail major Walmart today said a fire had broke out at its Best Price Store premise at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh that was brought under control later.

The company is assessing damages to the Cash & Carry store and there was no harm to the employees, said Walmart India in a statement.

"A fire broke at our Best Price store premises in Vijaywada earlier today. State Fire authorities quickly reached the store and have brought it under control," said a company spokesperson said.

He further added: "We are assessing the damage to the property and investigating the matter."



There was no injury or body harm to anyone in this incident and all the employees and staff are safe, it added.

Walmart India is operating 21 Best Price Store here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi president Tol Thirumavalavan today suggested setting up of a committee, comprising representatives of all political parties and farmers associations, to discuss vexed inter-State water disputes.

The committee, thus constituted, should meet the prime minister and put forward the water rights of Tamil Nadu on rivers like Cauvery, Palar, Siruvani and Mekedatu, so that a permanent solution could be arrived at, Thirumavalavan told reporters here.

Alleging that the state government was hesitating to convene an all party meeting to discuss such serious issues, he said his party always preferred such meetings so that a solution could be found from different opinions.

On reports appearing in social media that VCK was supporting Karnataka on Cauvery issue, Thirumavalavan said the post was an old one, which, he alleged, was being exploited by pro-Kannada organisations.

"VCK will always stand and fight for the cause of Tamil Nadu," he said.

Thirumavalavan welcomed Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah writing to the prime minister on convening a meeting of the chief ministers of riparian states to discuss the Cauvery water dispute.

On local body polls, he said his party will fight it in the company of left parties and MDMK.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today called upon Jain monk Ratan Sundar Sureshwar Maharaj here and discussed various issues with him.

He later visited various Ganesh pandals in the city.

"I discussed several issues related to education, culture and development of all sections of society with the monk who provided me good guidance on achieving this," the CM said.

He also visited oldest Jain temple in Raopura area of the city.

The CM praised the Vadodara Municipal Corporation for maintaining cleanliness in city in accordance with the PM's 'Swachch Bharat' campaign.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today held a meeting with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and senior leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi here.

"The Gujarat CM Rupani called on RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and Sarkarywah for nearly one hour," RSS sources said.

They refused to divulge the details of the meeting.

The meeting was held on the second day of a two-day meeting which began yesterday in Udaipur.

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Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki today lauded the role of social workers, especially those of Red Cross, in mitigating human suffering and assisting in the progress of the community.

The Governor, who is also the President, Haryana State Branch of Indian Red Cross Society and St John Ambulance (India), was presiding over the 31st annual general meeting of these organisations at Haryana Raj Bhavan here.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also present on the occasion.

Appreciating its good work, Solanki said the Haryana branch of Indian Red Cross Society was one of the most active branches in the country.

It has been striving hard to achieve the objectives of Red Cross since its inception, he added.

With a view to provide rehabilitation services to the differently-abled, the branch is running 11 rehabilitation centres where workshops are organised, besides physiotherapy services being provided at 13 centres.

Solanki said Haryana Red Cross had also provided relief material worth Rs 18.95 lakh to Jammu and Kashmir Red Cross for flood victims and Rs two lakh to Andhra Pradesh Red Cross for the victims of Cyclone Hudhud.

The staff of Haryana Red Cross also donated Rs 50,000 for the flood victims of Jammu and Kashmir, he added.

The Governor said Red Cross was also running three old age homes at Ambala, Panipat and Panchkula, two family counselling centres at Yamunanagar and Faridabad, three drug de-addiction-cum-counselling centres at Faridabad, Rohtak and Jind to provide free treatment to drug addicts and nine working women's hostels.

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The Bombay High Court has directed the officials of Ministry of External Affairs to explain to it on September 29 the steps taken to trace an Italian national who returned to his country with his adopted daughter while locked in a custody battle with his Indian wife.

"We have given directions from time to time but no progress has been made by the authorities to trace the husband and the child, and bring them to India.

"We, therefore, direct officials of Ministry of External Affairs to appear on September 29 and tell us what steps have they taken," a division bench headed by Justice V M Kanade said.

The lawyer for Union government, Rui Rodrigues, told the HC that Italian authorities would be informed about the court's directions.

The had HC, on September 14 last year, had directed the Interpol wing of CBI to issue a red corner notice against the husband, an Italian national, who left India with his adopted 7-year-old daughter despite giving an undertaking that he would not take her abroad without the high court's permission.

The HC had also ordered issuing 'yellow corner notice' to bring back the child.

The man and his Indian wife, who hails from Goa, are fighting a legal battle over the child's custody since 2011.

A year after adopting the girl from a Pune institution, the couple split. In 2011, the husband got her custody from a Pune family court.

However, both husband and wife challenged the family court's order in the High Court. The wife wanted the custody of the child, while the husband contested the order as the family court had refused to remove the mother as joint legal guardian.

Pending the final hearing, the High Court granted the wife



access to the child. The HC also restrained the husband from taking the daughter to his native country without permission.

However, on August 19 last year, the HC was informed that the man had left for Italy with the daughter.

The wife received an order of Juvenile court in Venice which granted custody of the child to the husband. She produced a copy of the order before the HC, which observed that the Italian court was apparently not informed about the legal proceedings in India.

The wife also lodged a case of abduction against the man in Pune.

Rodrigues had informed the court that husband had disposed of his properties in Goa and Pune before leaving for Italy.

The bench had then observed, "He may have taken the child out of love and affection for her but prima facie it appears that the husband had abducted the child despite an undertaking to the court that he would not take his daughter to Italy."



Advocate Mihir Desai, appointed 'amicus curiae' (friend of the court), had said that in such cases, Ministry of External Affairs can inform the Indian embassy which can take further action to bring back a person from a foreign country.
A Delhi court has dismissed as withdrawn the bail application of a BBA student, who allegedly mowed down two men with his Honda City car in an inebriated condition and left a youth severely injured.

Additional Sessions Judge Vikas Dhull passed the order yesterday after the counsel for 21-year-old accused Rishabh Rawat sought to withdraw the plea.

The incident took place on the morning of June 13 this year when two persons, including an elderly man, were killed and another was critically injured after they were knocked down by a speeding car allegedly driven by the student in a highly inebriated state in west Delhi's Janakpuri area.

The defence counsel sought bail contending that sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) or 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC were not made out and his client was in custody for nearly three months.

He also claimed the accused did not intend to kill the two persons.

The bail plea, however, was opposed by victims' counsel who said the allegations against the accused were grave.

Advocate Amit Sahni, representing one of the victims Ashwani Anand (67) who died in the accident, said the accused was drunk and the victims got flung 30-40 meters away under the impact of the crash and two men died on the spot.

He said the victims were on a morning walk when the accident took place.

"The matter is grave in nature and no concession should be given to the accused. Court should not give indulgence to these kind of crimes where two persons have lost their lives and the third victim is paralysed and bed-ridden," Sahni said.

According to the police, the incident took place around 6.30 AM when Rishabh, a resident of Janakpuri and son of a businessman, was returning from a party at a friend's house in west Delhi's Hari Nagar area and was driving his father's Honda City car at a speed over 100 Kmph.

He allegedly hit three persons, including two who were out for morning walk, one after another, in a stretch less than 1.5 Km in Janakpuri, police said.

While Ashwani Anand and Kameshwar Prasad (40) died on the spot, Santosh (40) was serious injured. The youth was arrested immediately after the accident.

Police said Prasad, an employee at a union ministry, was the first man to be hit. He was out for morning walk. The impact of the crash threw him several metres away.

It alleged that Rishabh did not stop and hit Santosh, who was cleaning cars in a residential area. He sped away, driving on the wrong lane, and ended up hitting Anand, a property dealer who was taking a stroll with a neighbour.

Police said Rishabh was in such a state that he could not even manage to stand straight when he was apprehended. The car was impounded and liquor bottles were found inside the vehicle.

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India-born student Dharun Ravi, who had served a 20-day prison term for spying on his gay roommate who later committed suicide, won a major legal reprieve after a New Jersey appeals court threw out his conviction and ordered a new trial.

In a 61-page ruling issued yesterday, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey in Newark said the jury had found Ravi guilty of bias intimidation under a law that was later deemed "constitutionally defunct."



Ravi, a former Rutgers University student, was convicted in March 2012 on 15 counts of bias intimidation, invasion of privacy, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence for spying on the sexual encounter of hisroommate Tyler Clementi, 18 with another man through a webcam in September 2010."



Days later, Clementi had committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington bridge near here.

Ravi was not charged with causing or contributing to Clementi's death.

Ravi, now 24, was sentenced to a month in Middlesex County jail and was released in June 2016 after completing 20 days in prison and getting five days credit for good behaviour.

Ravi, who had faced up to 10 years in prison, had also been sentenced to three years' of supervised release, ordered to do 300 hours of community service and pay a fine ofabout 11,000 dollars.

Ravi'sattorney Steve Altman told the Wall Street Journal he was pleased with court's decision.

"We genuinely felt that the basis of the conviction and the basis of the presentation of the state's case was wrong," Altman said.

"Dharun Ravi, whatever he did or didn't do, had no homophobic motive involved."



The case had garnered international attention and Clementi's suicide had sparked an outrage in the country, giving rise to a debate on cyberbullying and treatment of young gays and lesbians.

In April 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court had ruled that the state's bias-intimidation law was unconstitutional, giving hope to Ravi and his lawyers that his conviction would be reversed and he will be accorded a new trial.

According to the earlier state statute on bias intimidation, defendants can be convicted of bias intimidation if their victims "reasonably believed" they were harassed or intimidated because of their race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

However, the state Supreme Court had unanimously ruled that the 2001 statute was "unconstitutionally vague," striking down the third section of the statute that focused on the victim's state of mind.

The ruling had said it is the defendant's intent and state of mind that is important, not the victim's.

In the new ruling, theAppellatejudges said "it is clear that the evidence the (prosecution) presented to prove the bias intimidation charges permeated the entire case against defendant, rendering any attempt to salvage the convictions under the remaining charges futile.

"Finally, we conclude that the evidence the State presented to



prove the charges (on bias intimidation) tainted the jury's verdict on the remaining charges, depriving defendant of his constitutional right to a fair trial," they said.

The prosecution "used evidence revealing the victim's reserved demeanor and expressions of shame and humiliation as a counterweight to defendant's cavalier indifference and unabashed insensitivity to his roommate's right to privacy and dignity," the panel of judges said adding that it was "unreasonable" to expect a rational juror to remain unaffected by this evidence.

While ordering a new trial for Ravi on 10 other counts that included invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence, the judges said their verdict does not in any way condone his acts.

They said "the social environment that transformed a private act of sexual intimacy into a grotesque voyeuristic spectacle must be unequivocally condemned in the strongest possible way."



"The fact that this occurred in a university dormitory, housing first-year college students, only exacerbates our collective sense of disbelief and disorientation."



They said the sense of loss associated with a young man taking his own life "defies our meager powers of reason and tests our resolve to seekconsolation."



In a written statement, Clementi's parents, Joe and Jane Clementi, said the decision "shows ushow much more work there is to be done, andwill push usforward with stronger determination tocreate a kinder, moreempathetic society where every person is valued and respected."
A 31-year-old Indian prisoner, sentenced by a military court here for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card, has been shifted to a separate cell after he was attacked thrice by fellow inmates.

Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online, was shifted last month by prison authorities after receiving direction from Peshawar High Court to adopt security measures for protecting him.

A division bench comprising Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan on August 4 had directed Prison Superintendent Masoodur Rehman to hold a meeting with human rights activist Rakhshanda Naz and find a solution for safety and security of Ansari, The Nation reported.

Ansari was attacked and injured three times over the last couple of months and shifted to the hospital for treatment, the counsel added.

He said even the head warden would subject him to brutality and slap him on a daily basis without any reason.

Anwar said that Ansari lodged a complaint about this with the superintendent.

Superintendent of the prison Masoodur Rehman confirmed the incidents but insisted they're of minor nature and that such incidents did happen in prisons.

Rehman also told the bench that Ansari, who was serving three years jail term, had been kept in the death cell.

Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed on January 13 that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court.

He was convicted by the military court for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

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Leaders from business, government and academia will deliberate on ways to enhance bilateral trade and investments between India and the US during a two-day summit New Delhi.

"Starting from September 13, the will deliberate on augmenting the existing two-way trade to $500 billion and will focus on sectors that foster growth," Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) said in a statement.

The chamber's North India council (NIC) is hosting the function.

It will be inaugurated by Richard Verma, the US ambassador to India, and will be addressed by Union Ministers  including Information & Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal  along with top global executives.

The summit will bring together more than 250 people, who are thought leaders from business, government, civil society and academia.

"As the Indian economy further globalises and expands, the Summit will provide a valuable opportunity to assess developments across India-US trade relationship, economy and society," Lalit Bhasin, Summit Chair and Regional President, IACC-NIC said.
Exploring beyond domestic tour and travel market, IRCTC is now offering international packages covering Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

"The Enchanting Singapore and Malaysia" and the "Sri Ramayana Yatra: Sri Lanka" tours, departing from New Delhi, are now open for bookings and will be fully managed by the IRCTC which will arrange for the visa, air journey, meals and hotel stay, road travel and sightseeing for the travellers.

An experienced tour manager from IRCTC will accompany the group and oversee the services, according to a release.

The 5-night 6-day Enchanting Singapore and Malaysia tour will depart on October 13 by Milindo Airlines. Tourists will stay at Singapore for 3 nights with sightseeing at the Singapore Flyer, Night Safari, City Tour and Sentosa Island.

In Malaysia, they will visit Genting Highlands, Batu Cave, Snow World and Kuala Lumpur city.

There are three additional departure programmes for this tour - one on October 19, 2016 and and two in March 2017.

For culture aficionados, IRCTC has created a unique Ramayana-themed tour to Sri Lanka, covering significant destinations including the Ashok Vatika, Sita Mata Temple, Bhakta Hanuman Temple, Anjanair Temple, Vibhishana Temple, Munavari and Muishwaram Shiva Temple.

The 5-night 6-day tour, departing from Delhi on November 24, will also cover other popular locations in Sri Lanka such as the Nogambo beach, Pennawalla elephant orphanage, Ramboda waterwall, Nuwara Elliya hill station, Grogery Lake, Kandy Tooth Temple and Colombo city tour.

The tour cost is Rs 72,580 per person for the "Enchanting Singapore and Malaysia" tour and Rs 48,220 per person for the "Sri Lanka Ramayana" tour, including visa charges, airfare, hotel stay, meals, road transport, sightseeing, guide charges and taxes.

IRCTC will run the Sri Lanka tour again on December 10 this year, and also next year on January 12, February 10 and March 2.

Tourism and catering wing of the Indian Railways operates tours to several other popular foreign destinations including Australia, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan and Dubai.

IRCTC offices in Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Varanasi are coordinating the international tour package.

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Stand-up comedian Kapil Sharma's bribe tweets against the BMC seems to have backfired, with the civic body claiming that the artist had flouted norms not only in his Versova office building but also in his apartment in suburban Goregaon.

"We received two complaints from separate people about illegal construction being done in Sharma's both premises, one in Versova and another in Goregaon. In both the cases, we followed the due procedure and first served notice before initiating action," said a senior BMC official, seeking anonymity.

"In the Versova case, the Corporation had served a notice on him on July 16. Since he did not pay heed to it, we demolished the illegal portion of his office structure on August 4. As far as another complaint is concerned, he was served notice under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act in April for unauthorised work on his 9th floor apartment at Goregaon (West)," he said.

Kapil had on Friday kicked up a row when he tweeted that BMC officers sought a bribe of Rs 5 lakh for the construction of his premises in Versova. However, he has not so far, put forth his side on the allegations of violation of norms levelled by the civic body.

Asked why BMC took 19 days to demolish illegal structure at Versova, Parag Masurkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner K-west ward, where Sharma's office is located, said "Generally we do give some extra time to the occupants or owners of the premises to put forward the copies or permissions to justify their work and wait for the reply. Meanwhile, we uploaded the contents and nature of the complaint at complaint tracking portal too."

"We have devised an online complaint tracking system. When we receive any complaints, we go to the site, take photographs and on that basis we generate the notices and upload it while monitoring it till it is redressed," said Masurkar, adding that the procedure wipes out all the chances of corruption.

"In Versova premises case, Sharma carried out unauthorised horizontal extension in his ground-plus-one storey row house and also carried out the construction at upper floor without mandatory permission.

"Since he did not come forward to show the copies of permissions, we followed the rule and demolished it as and when we got police security," he said.

Also, BMC officers are yet to receive any response from Sharma on the name of the bribe seeker so as to initiate action against the erring officer.

"Sharmaji has not made any contact with us or with our department so far," said Manohar Pawar, chief engineer of vigilance department who had on Friday requested the actor to name the officer who demanded the bribe.

Sharma has 63 lakh followers on his Twitter handle and since he tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tweet generated sharp reactions from all major political parties, with an eye on the forthcoming civic elections.

It was 'retweeted' and 'liked' by thousands on the social media.

Opposition Congress used the issue to target BJP and Shiv Sena, who together control BMC.

Shiv Sena, meanwhile, dared Kapil to name the bribe seeker.

"This is not a comedy show where he can tweet what is going on in his life. He needs to immediately name the person publicly who asked for a bribe or people would watch the whole episode like a comedy drama, laugh over it and forget about it," Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said.

Raj Thackeray-led MNS also reacted sharply to Sharma, seizing on a statement he reportedly made alluding to role of its workers.

Kapil yesterday tweeted his anguish and said, "I am paying Rs 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office @narendramodi (sic)."

"Yeh hain aapke achhe din? @narendramodi (are these your good days)," he had sought to know in another tweet yesterday, referring to Modi's 2014 poll slogan of "good days are ahead".

It sparked instant response from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who requested Sharma to provide the authorities with the necessary information to punish the culprit.

"Kapilbhai pls provide all info. Have directed MC, BMC to take strictest action. We will not spare the culprit," the Chief Minister said in a tweet yesterday to which Kapil thanked the CM.

Later, in an apparent attempt to cap the controversy from escalating, Sharma said he did not seek to blame any political party.

"I just voiced my concern on the corruption I faced with certain individuals..Its No blame on any political party be it BJP, MNS or ShivSena (sic)," he tweeted in the evening.
With already having become a law, Karnataka Cabinet on Saturday decided to call off the special session of the legislature to be convened on September 14 to ratify the Goods and Services Tax Constitution Amendment Bill.

"Since the amendment has been approved by the President of India and has become law of the land, there is no necessity for the state legislative assembly to ratify the bill," Karnataka Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

"The cabinet has decided to convey the message to Karnataka Governor (Vajubhai Vala) the needlessness of the convening the special session," he said.

The biggest tax reform was needed to be ratified by at least 15 state legislatures before the President could notify the Council which will decide the new tax rate and other issues.

"Since the ratification of GST by 17 state legislatures in the country has met the condition of the President to notify the GST Council to decide the new tax rate and sundry other issues, I reiterate that there is no necessity for us to ratify the bill in our assembly," Jayachandra said.

The Congress government had decided to convene a special session of the legislature on September 14 to ratify the GST Constitution Amendment Bill.

Parliament earlier this month had passed the long pending bill to amend the Constitution that would facilitate roll-out of GST.

A Constitution amendment bill needs to be ratified by the legislative Assemblies of at least 50 per cent of the states.

The President gave his assent to the Bill on September 8 after as many as 19 States ratified it.
Justifying the security extended to separatist leaders of Valley, Union minister Jitendra Singh said they faced threat from Pakistan which might attack them to blame it on India.

Singh said the unrest was first such turmoil in the world in which number of the civilians injured are more or less equal to those in security forces and policemen. It clearly shows how much restraint the security personnel exercised.

He said as soon as the situation improves, there is a need to engage with the youth of the state.

"We keep blaming Mehbooba (Mufti, Chief Minister), but miss the sight of those forces engaged in it. Pakistan and separatists are threat," he said at a function organised by Sanjeevni Sharda Kendra here.

"Pakistan is not only threat to us but also to separatists as well. Separatists have no threat from us (India) but from Pakistan," he said.

Justifying their security given by the government, Union Minister said "why security has been given to them, because Pakistan backed people will kill them blame us (India)".

"What has happened to Moulvi Farooq... What has happened to Abdul Gani Lone... They have fear and threat from their own people," Singh said.

The Union Minister further said that Pakistan has a threat from Pakistan itself. "See what is happening in Peshswar...What is happening in Balochistan."

"Pakistani is trying to engineer terrorism selectively. These forces who have upped its ante fear from their own people. We have to prepare ourselves," he said.

On the situation in Kashmir, he said, "We will have to move forward on three basic ideologies (sidhant). First, there will be no compromise with violence whatever may be the aim of violence, violence is a violence and we have to put an end to circle of violence and it has no place in the society and all political parties agree to it."

"Second, as the situation will improve there is a need to engage with the youth of the state and the beginning of chain of several schemes by the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for last two years. The youth of the country are taking benefit of these and we do not want that the youth of Jammu and are deprived of it. The youth of Kashmir valley also wants to become stakeholder of the journey of development but due to some reasons they are not fully coming forward," he said.

"And third, there should be no premium on anti-India activism. It should not look that if someone raises anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans, I will get glorification", he said.
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal today met several groups of workers and industrialists even as he claimed he would bring back all industrial units that had left Punjab if his party came to power.

This evening he left for Patiala where he will interact with doctors and teachers after concluding his three-day stay at Jhande village near here.

Tomorrow, Kejriwal will release party's farmers' manifesto at Baghapurana in Moga.

At Ludhiana, he met several groups of workers and volunteers and asked them to work for the victory of the party in the 2017 assembly polls.

However, some of the workers were upset after they were told to deposit their mobile phones, pens at the gate of the venue of the meeting.

A group of Ludhiana workers claimed they were not allowed to meet Kejriwal. They said they wanted to present a memorandum to the Delhi CM in which they had demanded that 25 out of 32 candidates announced so far had "shady" image and they should be changed.

Earlier, Kejriwal interacted with a group of Ludhiana industrialists and assured them of all help in case his party was voted to power.

During the meeting, he talked about his government's achievements in Delhi and claimed that he would bring back all those industrial units that had migrated to other states.

Meanwhile, Sucha Singh Chotepur who was recently removed as Punjab convener of AAP alleged that Kejriwal had "miserably failed" in his damage control exercise for which he had specially come to Punjab.

Chotepur said Kejriwal was a man of no vision and depth.

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Rebel MLA Devendra Sehrawat has shot off another letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying he will be held "responsible" if 21 party MLAs appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries lose their Assembly membership in the wake of a Delhi High Court order.

The fresh salvo from Sehrawat came as internal bickering intensified in the party which is grappling with charges of sleaze and misconduct by its leaders.

Sehrawat alleged that Kejriwal, despite being "well aware" of Supreme Court order whereby appointments of Sonia Gandhi and Jaya Bachchan were held illegal, appointed them as Parliamentary Secretaries on the "advice" of "advisors around him like Ashish Talwar" who have "no knowledge" of such things.

The Bijwasan MLA, who has fallen out of senior party leaders, attacked the Aam Aadmi Chief and his "coterie" after the party's Punjab unit filed criminal defamation cases against him for accusing the state leaders of exploiting women in return for tickets.

The High Court in its order on August 8 had termed the appointments of 21 legislators as Parliamentary Secretaries by the government illegal as it was not sanctioned by the Lt Governor of Delhi.

"The present situation is that these 21 MLAs are facing danger of losing their (Assembly) membership and now it is your responsibility as you have not only poised them to face elections again but have also burdened people of Delhi with (possible) re-election," Sehrawat wrote in his letter.

He also complained that his various letters to Kejriwal in the past, including one on "exploitation of women", had reamined unanswered.

Sehrawat also targeted AAP leader Ashish Khetan, who heads Delhi Dialogue Commission, and demanded that Kejriwal scrap the body with "immediate effect" as it was a "white elephant".

"Delhi Dialogue Commission had suspicious role in the proposal for Shuttle Bus Service... The Commission is being known as Delhi Dalal Commission," he wrote in his letter.

AAP's Punjab affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh and Organisation Building Secretary Durgesh Pathak filed defamation cases against Sehrawat and two other leaders HS Kingra and Paviter Singh, in a court in Chandigarh yesterday.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today claimed the ban imposed on sale of liquor by his government has checked incidence of domestic violence in the state and expressed hope it will help improve purchasing power of the people.

"There is no political goal behind the decision to impose ban on sale of liquor in Bihar, but to bring in social reform," Kumar, who was in the Steel City to take part in Karma Mahotsav organised by a social organisation of Kurmi Community 'Kurmi Sena', said.

"Liquor consumers have been spending Rs 10,000 crore, which is now saved and will help improve their purchasing power," Kumar told reporters here.

Liquor had ruined many families and the state had witnessed violence due to it before the ban was imposed by his government, Kumar said, adding peace prevailed and family atmosphere has improved ever since the ban.

"We did not have any political goal behind imposing the ban on sale of liquor, but wanted to bring in social reform, which is now being witnessed in the state," he said.

"I have raised the issue after people of Jharkhand, particularly women from Bokaro and Dhanbad, requested to take up the issue of imposing liquor ban in the state, but the state government is not listening," he said.

"It is not because of any political rivalry, but an advise for the benefit of the society," Kumar said.

"Around Rs 5,000 crore revenue was being generated on account of excise/value added tax (VAT), but we preferred to forgo it for a good social cause," the Bihar Chief Minister claimed assuring that the revenue loss would be compensated.

Regretting that expected development had not taken place in Jharkhand during the last 16 years, Kumar said the the mineral rich state should have been number one.

To query about the poor state of affairs of National Highway 33 between Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Kumar said the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had failed to maintain the road.

Kumar reiterated the demand for special state status for Bihar as well as Jharkhand for their development.

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Senior Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra, who is in jail in Saradha scam case, was released from prison early this morning.

Mitra was released from Alipore jail at around 6.45 AM and taken to a hotel in the southern part of the city within the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction as per the conditions set by the court for granting him bail after over 21 months in prison.

Mitra could not be taken back to his residence as it is within Kalighat police station jurisdiction.

"I'm very happy. I'm happy that I'll be with my family. I'm a civilised person and I'll abide all the conditions of the court. I'll not break the law. Now I'll take complete rest and enjoy my time with my family members and enjoy Durga Puja," Mitra said after his release.

"Time will prove my innocence," he added as his followers gathered outside the hotel and distributed sweets.

Mitra's counsel said an appeal would be made to the court so that he could go to his residence. "Because the court is closed today the plea will be made next week," his counsel Niladri Bhattacharya told PTI.

Yesterday, Alipore sessions court granted bail to Mitra, a former transport minister, on two sureties of Rs 15 lakh each.

He was directed to appear before the court on November 23, surrender his passport to CBI and appear before the CBI investigating officer once every week. He was directed not to go out of the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction area.

Mitra, who was arrested on December 12, 2014, was granted bail by a lower court last year. The TMC leader had surrendered before the court after his bail was cancelled by the Calcutta High Court on November 20 last year.

Former Union minister Matang Sinh is among those arrested in the case, while several TMC functionaries, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's close aide Mukul Roy, have been questioned.

CBI had taken over the investigation in June, 2014 on the order of the Supreme Court.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today returned to the city after a week-long visit to Rome after attending Mother Teresa's canonisation ceremony and interactions with potential investors in Germany.

Banerjee reached the city this morning and headed home.

The Chief Minister participated in the canonisation programme of Mother Teresa at Vatican City on invitation and stayed in Italy till September 5.

She was also an invitee to a special reception hosted by Rome's first woman Mayor Virginia Raggi.

From Rome, Banerjee flew to Munich to explore investment opportunities and met investors including German auto major BMW to consider investing in West Bengal.

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Noting that the media in recent times has become "aggressive" to get high television rating points (TRPs), Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu today said self-regulatory mechanism adopted by the media should be fair and strict.

Addressing a CSR conclave here, Naidu said media should carry development to the people for overall growth of the society.

"Unfortunately, media, particularly the electronics media, has becoming aggressive. Self-regulatory mechanism adopted by the press should be fair and strict," he said.

Stating that media's role should be "constructive and positive" instead of making it a practice of serving sensational stories aiming high viewership, Naidu said channels must dedicate some space for developmental stories.

"Sensationalism and yellow journalism can erode the confidence of consumers. The responsibility of the media sector is not just providing news, but providing factually correct news. It should be of utmost importance that the news provided is not biased and partitioned," he said.

He said if the media maintains quality, TRP should not be a problem for it.

"Social media is playing an extremely important role and is competing with traditional media in reaching out to masses. Though there is self regulation in press, the social media do not have it," Naidu pointed out.

"Media acts as an agenda setter for society apart from playing the role of a watchdog, which has been transforming people's lives by setting up progressive agenda, shaping up public opinion, maintaining social cohesion and removing social evils and superstitions," Naidu said, adding, that the media should highlight the best practices of the people which would encourage them to keep the good work going.

"It will not only motivate the good-doers, but the youth will be inspired for self-employable initiatives," the Union Minister said.

He also called upon the media "not to dilute" the country's rich culture and heritage.

"Social consciousness is very important for media... Obscenity, vulgarity and violence are causing havoc in our society... It must be avoided... It is not in our culture and media organisations must not dilute our culture and heritage," he said.

Speaking on the corporate sectors, Naidu said "We need socio-economic development of the society and the corporates must take steps for skill development programmes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ministers of the Modi government will criss-cross the globe in the next three months as part of an outreach programme that will cover 68 countries to achieve the target of NDA ministers having visited all the 192 nations with which India has diplomatic relations.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh will travel to Hungary, which is among the countries not visited by any minister in the Modi government.

Apart from Singh, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will visit Estonia and Latvia and Chemical and Fertiliser Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar will be heading to Tongo, while BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party leader and Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been assigned to travel to Mauritius.

The entire exercise is likely to be over by the year end.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where Indian Ministers have not gone, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her Ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

The aim of the visits, which is part of government's massive outreach programme, is to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.

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The three-day Monsoon session of the Assembly ended abruptly on Saturday after the opposition YSR Congress members created ruckus as they tried to uproot mikes and damage cameras over the special category status issue.

The House passed a resolution referring the unruly acts of the YSRC legislators in the last three days to the Privilege Committee for "necessary action".

Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao then adjourned the House sine die as it could not take up any listed business because of the pandemonium caused by the Opposition over the special status issue.

More than half-a-dozen YSRC legislators climbed the Legislature Secretary's table in front of the Speaker's podium and threw papers at the Speaker.

For the second day in a row, the YSRC members entered into a scuffle with the House marshals and tried to uproot mikes and damage the cameras recording the proceedings.

When the House was first adjourned briefly for 10 minutes around 9.20 a.m., the media point on the Assembly premises became a virtual battleground with the TDP and the YSRC MLAs coming close to blows.

The Opposition legislators continued with their protests inside the House when it resumed.

As a result, five Bills that were supposed to be discussed and cleared, could not be taken up.

The Chief Minister was to make a statement in the House on the special financial package announced by the Centre while the Deputy Chief Minister (Home) was to make statement on the prevailing seasonal conditions in the state. That too did not happen as the Speaker adjourned the House sine die.

On Friday also, the state Assembly abruptly ended without transacting any business after two adjournments failed to restore order in the House.
The city-based K G Foundation



today conferred the "Dynamic Doctor of Excellence of the Decade Award" on a Mumbai-based doctor, Manish Agarwal.

The Foundation Chairman G Bakthavathsalam handed over the citation to Agarwal, a Consultant Orthopaedic Oncologist of PD Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Mumbai, who has been identified as the exemplary personality to be honored with the award and excelled in the little known but evolving medical field called "orthopedic oncology."



In his address, Agarwal said, "Most people never heard of bone cancer and because of its rarity not much attention was paid to such a serious health issue.

Mostly, young people in the age group of 10 to 25 years develop sarcoma which is generally growing faster in the knee area of the leg."



Before the invention of modern implants, the only cure offered was amputation of the affected limb, he said adding that his focus was on salvaging the limbs and not amputation.

On imported implants, he said, as they were costing a fortune and priced at about Rs 4 lakh, he along with engineers worked on manufacturing indigenized implants with locally available technology.

With government funding he could succeed in evolving indigenized implants that cost about Rs 1 lakh, thus making it affordable and improving the quality of life of patients, he added.

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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today turned nostalgic and recalled his initial days in politics while also sharing memories of former CM and his father-in-law N T Rama Rao.

Naidu, who celebrated his 35th wedding anniversary today, became emotional while addressing the Legislative Council.

In an informal interaction with journalists following his Council address, Naidu recalled various political instances of the past, including his invitation to Telugu film icon N T Rama Rao to join politics and his demand for resignation of Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister post-Godhra incidents.

Naidu, who married NTR's second daughter Bhuvaneswari, told reporters, "Our marriage took place in Chennai. It was a grand affair with leading film and political personalities from across the country in attendance. We neither sought any dowry nor did he (NTR) offer us anything. NTR offered us a house built for his son Balakrishna (a film star and MLA) in Chennai, but I rejected."



"I once met NTR on the sets of his film 'Anuraga Devata' and said people like him should join politics to cleanse the political system," he claimed.

Naidu was a minister in the Congress government in 1980 and remained in the party even after NTR founded Telugu Desam in March 1982. After losing the Assembly election in 1983, he joined TDP.

"I wanted to contest an MLC election when I was just 23-years-old, without realising I was underage. I became an MLA at the age of 28 and used to be aggressive. I went to then Chief Minister Marri Channa Reddy and asked him to make me a minister. He shot back saying 'You are so young and you want to be a minister straightaway!' Later, I was inducted into the Cabinet headed by T Anjaiah," Naidu said.

The TDP supremo also recalled his demand for the resignation of then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the Godhra incidents.

"I sought his resignation at that time. But I later told him why I had to make the demand. It was because of the then political situation," he said.

When asked about Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan's comment that the Centre thrust "two stale laddus in AP's hands" in the name of a special economic package and not special category state status, Naidu retorted, "Why would I accept stale laddus?"



"I accepted the economic package only after the Centre assured that it will be equal to special status. I am not finding fault with Kalyan as he spoke in an emotional manner," he said.

While addressing the Legislative Council earlier



today, the Chief Minister said it could be the last session of the AP Legislature in Hyderabad.

"I think this is the last time here (in Hyderabad). Unless there is an emergency, the next Legislature sessions will be held in AP's new capital region Amaravati only. Though I do not want any emergency situation," he quipped.

"I stepped into this Council hall way back in 1980 when I was the Minister for Cinematography, Archives, Archeology and Libraries. I have a 38-year-old association with Hyderabad as I first came here in 1978. Today, I went round the Assembly premises and recalled the memories. I also took photographs with some friends," Naidu said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today faced growing criticism after he called the Palestinian refusal to let Jews live in their future state "ethnic cleansing".

In a video released yesterday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that West Bank settlements were "an obstacle to peace", drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted "Israel's diversity" which manifests in "the nearly two million Arabs living" in the Jewish state and reflects its "openness and readiness for peace".

"Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews," he said.

"There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."



The US State Department called the video "unhelpful" and "inappropriate".

"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said yesterday.

"We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.

"Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties."



Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of "trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage".

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

"After Netanyahu's video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised," she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating "an imaginary reality" and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of "ethnic cleansing".

"Netanyahu doesn't care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major cities," he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahu's government, considered to be the most right-wing in the country's history, has nonetheless continued with the policy.

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North Korea today sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear "blackmail" as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from yesterday's test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons -- almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.

The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

"It is believed that the North's nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace," Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for "more and stronger sanctions".

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that -- even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North's drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting yesterday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and called for "strong retaliation", including pre-emptive attacks on the North's nuclear complex.

"Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!" and "Destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons!" the elderly activists shouted.

Some newspapers were equally scathing. "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac," read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

But the North's ruling party newspaper vowed Saturday not to submit to US nuclear "blackmail", and described the South's President Park Geun-Hye as a "dirty prostitute" for working with US forces.

"Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK," said Rodong Sinmun, using the country's official name.

"The US is exasperated by the strong military steps being taken by the DPRK in a phased way."



The US stations 28,500 troops in the South. The Joongang Ilbo newspaper recommended they should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, as they were until the early 1990s.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang's sole ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US ambassador Samantha Power said.

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Senior Congress leader Deependra Hooda along with office bearers of party's student wing NSUI went on indefinite hunger strike alleging discrepancies in counting of votes for the Delhi University Student Union polls.

DU's Election Commission maintained that the complaint has been forwarded to the varsity's grievance cell, which deals with such issues.

The National Students Union of India, bagged the post of Joint Secretary in DUSU polls the results of which were announced here today. The outfit made a comeback in DU panel after a gap of two years.

The office bearers and supporters, however, alleged that there were discrepancies in the polling and counting process and demanded that the counting of votes should be done again.

After the announcement of the results, the protesters ghearoed the Vice Chancellor's office and staged an agitation raising their demands.

"Member of Parliament Deependra Hooda, AICC Secretary Girish Chodankar, NSUI President Amrita Dhawan and other office bearers are on indefinite hunger strike," said Angelica Aribam, NSUI National Secretary.

"We demand recounting of the votes polled for all the posts and the election commission should furnish us the recordings of the counting process. To ensure transparency we should also be told number of votes polled per voting machine and secured by each candidate," she added.

The student outfit demanded that until the said issues are resolved no DUSU office bearer should be allowed to take charge and the elections for the Executive Council be postponed.

"The EC said that only students with fee slips till August 31 will be allowed to vote. We came to know that it hasn't been uniformly implemented.

"Yesterday we were informed by voters that when ballot number 5 was pressed for the post of President in Aurobindo College, it went to ballot number 1 which was fo ABVP. Similar complaints were received from other colleges as well. We demand re-election in these colleges," Angelica said.

DS Rawata, Election Commissioner for DUSU polls said, "as per Lyngdoh committee recommendations any issue after the announcement of results has to be referred to the grievance cell and I have forwarded the complaint. Now it is for them to take a call on the issue".

DUSU is the representative body of students from most of the colleges and faculties of the universities. This year, RSS' student outfit, ABVP, maintained its dominance in DUSU polls bagging three seats including that of the president.

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Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is not an enemy of BJP but its political rival.

"We are not enemies, we are political rivals. We can meet, greet and talk.... If we can talk to Pakistan, why not the leaders of BJP talk to BJD and Congress politicians? Politicians should not consider themselves as enemies, but as rivals," he said at a function here.

"I would have met the Chief Minister had I enough time. We are friends though we belong to different political parties," Naidu said.

The BJP leader's statement is significant as the supporters of the ruling BJD and BJP clashed with each other in different parts of the state recently.

While a BJD MLA has been accused of engineering attack on Union Minister Santosh Gangwar's car in June, police in Boudh district have registered a case against another MLA for allegedly thrashing BJP supporters.

Naidu also took a dig at a number of schemes like free mangalsutra and free power by several state governments.

"Some people say free, free and free. Free power means low power and this subsequently turns to be no power. There is no free power in Gujarat, but 24x7 power," he said.

"My father-in-law had given mangalsutra during my marriage. Now the Chief Minister will give mangalsutra. This is simply the Vote Sutra," Naidu said.

The Union Minister said the government should make people skilled and able to earn on their own so that they are empowered both socially and economically.

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A Pakistani court today denied bail to the father of a British-Pakistani woman who was killed allegedly by him and her ex-husband in the country's latest case of so-called "honour killing".

Victim Samia Shahid's father, Muhammad Shahid, and ex-husband, Muhammad Shakeel, allegedly murdered her in July in her parental house in Mangla area of Jhelum district of Punjab because she had divorced Shakeel and married a Shia Muslim.

A district court turned down bail request of the victim's father. It has not yet ruled on the ex-husband's request for bail.

Police said that during investigation it was found that her first husband first raped and then strangled her to death with the help and knowledge of her father.

The 28-year-old beautician was buried by her family after declaring that she had died of a heart attack.

Shahid's second husband, Mukhtar Kazim, had raised the alarm, which resulted in the arrests and the subsequent inquiry into the latest case of so-called "honor killing" in the country.

The court accepted bail application of the chief of local police station Aqeel Abbas and Samia's uncle Haq Nawaz.

Abbas is accused of negligence and taking bribe to turn a blind eye to the murder while Nawaz produced a fake certificate that she died of natural causes.

Shahid married her first husband in February 2012 but soon returned to England and obtained a divorce two years later. After that, she married her second husband and moved with him to Dubai.

Her family was apparently unhappy with her second marriage. Shahid's mother and younger sister got her to agree to come for a week-long visit to Pakistan, claiming her father was ill.

Her mother and sister had fled to UK after the murder and police is trying to bring them back.

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A Pakistani security official and four terrorists were today killed in a gunfight during a combing operation in a tribal area of Punjab province.

The security forces carried out the combing operation in Gayandari area bordering Balochistan during which four terrorists were killed and a number of militants were apprehended, officials said.

A security personnel also died during the gunbattle.

A cache of arms and ammunition were seized from the terrorists.

In April, Pakistan army launched a full-fledged ground and aerial offensive in Rajanpur against the notorious Chottu gang after the gangsters killed seven police officials and took 24 others hostage.

The Punjab government has sought deployment of Rangers for at least "two months" to assist police and the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in hunting down terrorists and their facilitators and combating banned organisations in the province.

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A photo-journalist's son was today



shot at by unidentified persons within the Agamkuan police station limits of the state capital this morning.

Agamkuan PS SHO Kamakhya Narayan Singh said the boy has been identified as Akash Dey (20), who has been admitted to the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) for treatment and his condition was critical.

Three unidentified motorcycle borne persons came when Akash was sitting at his shop located on Amarnath temple road and fired one bullet in his head, Singh said adding, no arrest has been made so far in this connection.

Akash is the son of Indrajeet Dey who is a photo journalist with a Hindi daily in Patna, he said.

Asked about the reasons behind the incident, SHO said that the police are investigating the matter from all angles including whether the youth had any enmity in his circle of friends and acquaintances.

The family members, however, said Akash had no enmity with any one, the SHO said.

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Two motorcycle-borne unidentified gunmen today shot dead a doctor who was incharge of a polio vaccination team here in the northwestern city of Pakistan, police has said.

Zaksullah Khan was killed by unidentified gunmen after he came out from a mosque, after evening prayer, police said.

He was taken to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The reason of shooting is yet to be ascertained, police said, adding that personal enmity may also be a reason behind the shooting.

However, polio workers have long been targeted in the country by Islamist groups including the Taliban militants which claim that the polio immunisation drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.

In April, at least seven policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in two separate attacks during a polio campaign.

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With landmark Goods and Services Tax (GST) now a law, President Pranab Mukherjee today hoped the government will set up a GST Council soon and reduce cascading effect of indirect taxes.

The GST, which will transform India's USD 2 trillion economy and 1.3 billion consumers into a single market for the first time, has been ratified by 19-20 states after Parliament nod last month, thereby qualifying to Presidential assent, he said.

"And I do hope the finance ministry will take appropriate steps to set up the GST council to fix the rate because it is the responsibility of the GST Council that one uniform rate of goods and services is introduced in our economy," he said at the centenary celebrations of Karur Vysya Bank here.

GST, which will replace an array of central and state indirect taxes like excise duty, service tax and VAT, will "not only be a one uniform rate of taxes but it will also be single point taxation not multi-point taxation and therefore the cascading effect would not be very serious," he said.

Mukherjee said the effort made over almost one and half decade fructified with the passage of GST legislation.

"Finally with the constitutional procedures being complied and constitution amendment being carried by both Houses of Parliament and day before yesterday more than 19 states, perhaps 20 states, ratified and therefore it has qualified for Presidential assent," he said.

Mukherjee said India has firmly established itself as the fastest growing large economy with a GDP growth rate of 7.3 per cent in calendar year 2015.

"We can say confidently that our economy has revived and our prospects are brighter as we are poised to grow at 7.5 per cent in both 2016 and 2017," he said.

He said India's external sector has remained steady with current account deficit improving to 1.1 per cent of GDP in 2015-16 from 1.3 per cent in the previous year.

Foreign exchange reserves stand at USD 365 billion.

"Blessed with a normal monsoon this year, I am hopeful that our food grain production will surpass the record of 265 million tons achieved in 2013-14," he said.

The President on Thursday gave assent to Constitution



Amendment Bill on the new indirect tax regime which the government wants to roll out from April 1 next year.

The assent paves the way for setting up of a GST council that will decide the tax rate and the cess and surcharges that are to be subsumed.

The GST is a single indirect tax which will subsume most of the central and state taxes such as Value Added Tax (VAT), excise duty, service tax, central sales tax, additional customs duty and special additional duty of customs.

Parliament on August 8 passed the bill which then went to the states for ratification. A Constitution amendment bill needs to be ratified by the legislative Assemblies of at least 50 per cent of the 29 states and 2 union territories.

The bill was sent to the President's secretariat after as many as 19 states, BJP-ruled Assam being the first, ratified the bill.

The other states which passed the legislation include Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Haryana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Telangana, Goa, Odisha and Rajasthan.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia had recently said that the government is ahead of schedule for implementation of GST.

"Instead of 30 days kept for this (states' ratification), it is achieved in 23 days," he had said in a tweet.

Now that the bill has got Presidential assent, the government will notify the GST Council, which will decide on the tax rate. Headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Council will comprise state Finance Ministers.

The states and the Centre are working overtime and talking to stakeholders to draft the Central GST, State GST and Integrated GST laws, which are to be passed in the Winter Session of Parliament.

The CGST and IGST will be drafted on the basis of the model GST law. The states will draft their respective State GST (SGST) laws with minor variation incorporating state-based exemptions. The IGST law would deal with inter-state movement of goods and services.
President on Saturday said the 21st century is witnessing strife of a very "virulent nature" and called for capable and responsive armed forces to ensure stability and peace.

Stating that security challenges go much beyond conventional borders and threats in the international arena including a sizeable diaspora, he said, "India requires young men and women to take up the challenge of navigation through troubled waters and work tirelessly and selflessly even at the peril of their lives in the service of country."

"Our security challenges in fact go much beyond conventional borders and conventional threats in the international arena including a sizeable diaspora to protect in unstable regions in the world, energy security issues and protection of maritime sea lanes," he said.

Addressing the officers on the occasion of review of the passing out parade of the summer term at Officers Training Academy, Mukherjee said the country has reposed faith in armed forces in internal crisis situations, both man made and natural.

"All these challenges demand a capable and responsive armed Forces to ensure stability and peace, so vital for our country on its path of peace and prosperity for all its citizens," he said.

The 21st century has ushered in its own set of challenges, he said.

"Though turbulence and uncertainty have manifested all along in the history of mankind, this century is witnessing chaos and strife of a very virulent nature comprising asymmetric warfare involving both state and non-state actors," Mukherjee added.

The Indian Army represents the Instrument of Last Resort, he said, adding that "the acme of a great and powerful army does not lie in the power it can unleash but the manner and dexterity with which it does so".
Canada-based Pakistani cleric Tahirul Qadri today accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother of conspiring against the country by giving work to more than 300 Indians in their sugar mills mostly in Punjab province, a claim dismissed by the Sharif Group of Industries.

"The choice before the nation is clear - either Pakistan or the Sharif brothers. More than 300 Indians are workers in their mills. I have released 50 of the 300 names, along with their passport numbers," Qadri, the head of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, said.

He said these workers include engineers, IT specialists, technicians and even welders.

"These Indians were exempted from security checks, police reporting, Customs' clearance and were transported in official protocol vehicles," Qadri claimed.

Terming Sharif an 'Indian agent', he asked army to arrest him (Nawaz) and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for conspiring against Pakistan.

Qadrialleged the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi was instructed to give Indians visas that exempt them from reporting to the police.

"Some of them may be Indian 'spies'. It is not written on the forehead of anybody that he is a spy," he said.

"Can't the Sharif brothers find this category of workers in Pakistan? How come that so many of these Indians were on Pakistani soil, enjoying access to the entire country and roaming around official protocol vehicles," Qadri said.

He also showed a letter to the media written by the sugar mills asking the High Commissioner to India for arranging visas for these personnel.

"Since no proper investigation can be held with both Sharif brothers in power, they must be arrested to clear way for the investigation. If my allegations are proven wrong, I would owe an apology to the nation," he said.

Qadri also quoted the World Bank figures which indicate increase of Pakistani money transfer to India.

"When the Sharif brothers took over in 2013, only Rs100 million were going from Pakistan to India. This money jumped to an unbelievable Rs 470 billion within a year, in 2014. Next year, the amount jumped to Rs 490 billion. All these questions need to be investigated by the security agencies," he said.

Responding to Qadri's allegations, Sharif Group of Industries Managing Director Yousaf Abbas Sharif said: "Not a single Indian is working in the Sharif family sugar mills.

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Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan has reviewed the functioning of Cochin Port Trust and assured support for promoting cruise tourism.

He appreciated the initiatives taken by Cochin Port to implement RFID-based Gate Access System and online berth allotment system towards facilitating trade and enhancing efficiency, an official statement said today.

He noted that with the waiver of penal interest, the creditworthiness of Cochin Port has been enhanced, allowing it to vigorously pursue new projects.

The minister expressed keen interest in the cruise tourism promotion activities of Cochin Port. He assured support for the new cruise terminal project planned at Ernakulam wharf to accommodate cruise vessels in the most professional manner comparable to international standards.

He also noted that the prospects of domestic cruise tourism, with cruise ships home-porting at Cochin, are high.

There are new opportunities for Cochin Port with prospective cruise liners showing interest in the Colombo-Cochin-Male-Colombo circuit, and circuits connecting Mumbai and Male, calling Cochin enroute, it added.

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh will travel to Hungary, which is among the 68 countries not visited by any minister in the Modi government, and will be covered as part of the massive outreach programme to be undertaken by it by the end of the year.

Apart from Singh, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will be will visit Estonia and Latvia and Parliamentary Minister Ananth Kumar will be heading to Tongo, while BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party leader and Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been assigned to travel to Mauritius.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where Indian Ministers have not gone, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her Ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

The aim of the visits, which is part of government's massive outreach programme, is to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.

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Punjab Cabinet today gave its approval to include Saini and Swarnkar/Sunar Communities in the list of Backward Classes of the state on recommendations of the Backward Classes Commission.

A spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office in a release said a decision to this effect was taken by the cabinet in its meeting held under the chairmanship of the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here today.

This decision would help the Saini and Swarnkar/Sunar communities to avail various benefits of government welfare schemes, it said.

The cabinet gave nod for introducing memorandum for passing a resolution to ratify amendments to the Constitution of India (122nd Amendment Bill, 2014) by the state assembly in its ongoing session for implementing Goods and Service Tax.

It gave green signal to the proposed amendments in the Punjab State Legislature Members (Pension and Medical Facilities Regulation) Rules, 1984. Likewise, it approved amendments in the Act to increase pension of Ex-MLAs.

Both the draft Bills in this regard would be introduced in the current Punjab Assembly session to pass necessary amendments, the spokesperson said.

It approved the draft of the Punjab Anand Marriage Rules, 2016 in conformity with the registration of marriages.

To mention, marriages which were being registered under the Anand Marriages Act,1909, and Anand Marriages (Amendment) Act, 2012, shall not be required to be registered under the Punjab Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act, 2012.

The cabinet decided to introduce the Punjab Laws (Special Provision) Bill, 2016, replacing the already issued ordinance in the current session of assembly for enactment to regularise unauthorised colonies.

It will bring them within the ambit of planning framework and provide basic civic amenities to the residents of these colonies for another one year.

The state government has been inviting applications from residents from time to time and subsequently the term of these extensions given twice for one year each had expired on April 16, 2014 and February 5, this year.

Under this scheme 4,39,902 applications were received from across Punjab but still several people working outside the state and NRIs could not avail its benefit.

Therefore, the Cabinet has taken a conscientious decision to make the Punjab Laws (Special Provision) Bill, 2016 to provide another opportunity for one more year.

In another decision aimed at providing land to weaker sections and homeless, the Cabinet approved amendments in the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948, to allot five marla plots each from village common land (Jumla Mustarka Maalkaan) to homeless people.

On the basis of a representation submitted by the



Handicrafts Inlay Work Industry Association, Hoshiarpur, the cabinet decided to abolish VAT on wooden goods with inlay work.

It will ensure a level playing field to the local handicraft industry to compete with its peers in Uttar Pradesh, which has already exempted VAT on wooden handicrafts. Besides, craftsmen would get more employment, the spokesperson said.

In order to promote tourism in the holy city of Amritsar by ensuring cleanliness and upkeep of civic amenities, the cabinet approved presenting the bill to enact Amritsar Culture and Tourism Development Authority Act, 2016, in the ongoing assembly session.

This Act would facilitate setting up of the Amritsar Culture and Tourism Development Authority under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister with the Deputy Chief Minister as its co-chairman.

The tourism minister and local government will be members besides nine other official members.

This authority would take care of all the newly created tourist facilities in the vicinity of Golden Temple, Gobindgarh Fort, Durgiana Mandir and Ram Tirath Complex.

The authority would undertake maintenance, cleanliness, power supply, monument lighting, sanitation, roads, solid waste management and other related works.

The cabinet also gave nod to create a corpus fund of Rs 50 crore for operation and maintenance of Jang-e-Azaadi Memorial Kartarpur, Bhagwan Valmiki Tirath Sthal Amritsar, Sri Guru Ravidass Memorial Khuralgarh and War Memorial Amritsar, after their completion.

The provisions for the corpus would be made under the state plan and would remain with foundation and boards constituted for the projects.

It approved setting up of the Advanced Autism Care and Research Centre at Mohali and gave necessary permission for creation of posts to recruit specialists.

Likewise, it approved creation of six posts of clinical psychologist, speech therapist and paediatric occupational therapist at the Government Medical College, Patiala and Amritsar's department of medical education and research.

The spokesman said, the Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion (PBIP) would henceforth be a statutory authority and the draft bill was approved to this effect.

The cabinet approved amendments to the Punjab Rural Development Act, 1987, by inserting a provision regarding the utilisation of fund as the government might deem fit in interest of producers and benefit of the persons paying fee, including dealers.

Acceding to the request of the Punjab Unaided Technical



Institutions Association (PUTIA), the Cabinet gave approval to amend the compounding policy issued earlier on August 17, 2016 to formulate a revised policy to rationalise the compounding fee charged from the institutions/public buildings.

Subsequently, the Cabinet decided to grant substantial relief to slash the compounding fee by 50 per cent for public buildings and institutions.

The Cabinet also decided to abolish 25 per cent direct quota for the post of Sub-Divisional Soil Conservation Officers, now 100 per cent of these officers would be promoted from amongst the Soil Conservation Officers.

Taking cognisance of reports about the death sentence awarded to 10 youths from Punjab in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and expressing heartfelt sympathies with the affected families, the Cabinet also decided to send two ministers -- Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Madan Mohan Mittal -- to the UAE to take effective measures and also explore possibility of their prompt release.

The Cabinet also decided to enhance the retirement age of the Chairmen of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) from 65 to 67 years.

The Cabinet approved the waiver of the penal interest to the tune of Rs 35 lakh payable by Bhai Randhir Singh Trust, Ludhiana by granting relaxation in the existing rules.
A clutch of scheduled caste and minority outfits on Saturday announced the boycott of Samajwadi Party leader over his controversial remarks on B R Ambedkar while demanding an unconditional apology from him.

The decision, taken by four organisations including the the South Asian Minorities Lawyer's Association, was announced at a press conference in New Delhi, where their representatives unequivocally condemned Khan's remarks.

"The Constitution of India, which acts as a safeguard for the rights of the oppressed, downtrodden and women, owes its origin to Ambedkar. is a politician who can go to any extent to remain in headlines," Mehmood Pracha of South Asian Minorities Lawyer's Association said.

The other organisations, party to the decision to boycott Khan are Samata Sainik Dal, Anjuman-e-Hyderi and Bhagwan Valmiki Foundation.

Khan, without naming Ambedkar, had recently said that the statue (of Ambedkar) pointing its finger into the distance seems to say that not only does it own the plot of land on which it stands, but also the one towards which it points its finger.

Pracha said the statement reflects Khan's mentality as it is he who thinks about capturing plots and lands all the time. Khan has crossed all lines of decency through such derogatory remarks, he said.

"So we have come together to punish and shame him. We will not let him enter the boundaries of Delhi. If he does, we will blacken his face. But we will not break any law and let it happen peacefully," he said.
The SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act would not be scrapped but suggestions for genuine amendment could be considered, Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale today said here.

Referring to the "silent agitation" by Maratha community in Maharashtra demanding scrapping of the Act, Athawale, a prominent Dalit leader, said, "Let agitations take place, but under no circumstances the Act will be scrapped because with growing number of atrocities against Dalits in the country, the Act is needed."



He hastened to add that the atrocities against Dalits can not be attributed to a BJP or Congress government, but such incidents happen because some people, who are communal, want to create a rift in the society.

Athawale admitted that the Act was misused to some extent, and said he would personally see to it that this was stopped.

"The Act was formulated after serious deliberations in 1989 and if there are genuine amendments or suggestions, it will be taken into consideration," he said.

"I believe inter-caste marriages are the solution to bring about communal harmony. Our ministry is encouraging such marriages and people should come forward to encourage such things," said Athawale, who is the chief of Republican Party of India.

He said he had always backed demand of reservations for Marathas.

"Marathas in Maharashtra, Patels in Gujarat, Rajputs in Rajasthan and all non-SC and ST communities who are economically backward should get reservation, but Dalit reservation should not be touched," Athawale added.

(Reopens BOM 10)



Supporting the Dalit community's decision in Gujarat not to skin dead animals following the Una incident, Athawale said he was although opposed to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act which bans slaughter of cow and its 'progeny'.

He said he agreed with the ban on cow slaughter but prohibition of bull slaughter, especially the aging animals, "puts a financial burden on the farmers".

Athawale also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent remarks "Shoot me if you want to but do not target Dalits".

After several years, a Prime Minister had made such a statement, and to show our gratitude, RPI is planning to arrange a felicitation for Modi In Pune, he added.
BJP on Saturday termed as "well planned strategy" of the Nitish Kumar government to ensure release of RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail and said it would stage dharna across in Bihar on September 14 to protest against it.

"It is a managed bail. It is a government's well planned strategy which cleared the way of Shahabuddin in securing bail," senior BJP leader said.

The Patna High Court on September 7 granted bail to former Siwan MP Shahbuddin in the murder case of two brothers of whom the elder one, Rajiv Roshan, was a witness in the killing of two brothers in 2004 in Siwan.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said the government could neither begin trial of Rajiv Roshan murder case within nine months as per the High Court's direction, nor engaged top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's bail.

The Patna High Court had on February 3 directed the state government to conclude trial of the case preferably within nine months, Modi said quoting the court's order, the copy of which was distributed among media persons.

If the state government wished to start trial, it could have done so via video-conferencing from Bhagalpur where Shahabuddin was lodged, he said.

But it did not begin trial through video-conferencing nor committed the case to Sessions court when Shahabuddin was in Siwan before being shifted to Bhagalpur jail.

"The government's failure to start trial led to Shahabuddin getting bail," Modi said while quoting the High Court's September 7 order that "there is no progress in the trial and considering the period of detention, petitioner (Shahabuddin) is directed to be released on bail."





ALSO READ: Mohammad Shahabuddin out of jail after 11 years, takes a swipe at CM Nitish Kumar

The state government also did not engage any top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's case as it had done in other major cases in the past, he said and named several cases and the lawyers the state had hired.

The government has powers to impose Crime Control Act on hardcore criminals if it feels that release of a particular person could disturb public order as it was done in the case of Independent MLA Anant Singh, Modi said.

On Shahabuddin's statement that Nitish Kumar is a "Chief Minister of circumstances", Modi said he was right as Kumar with less number of MLAs is the CM while RJD with more seats is the junior partner.

Shahabuddin probably meant to say that RJD could get the CM's post in future, he said.

BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party would protest Shahabuddin's release across the state on September 14.
: Tamil Nadu Manavar Mandram (TN Students Forum) today began a signature campaign at Pollachi in the district today, seeking the release of seven convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The forum in a release said that the seven convicts -- V Sriharan alias Murugan, A G Perarivalan, T Suthendraraja alias Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran and Nalini -- are still languishing in jails despite a resolution passed by the State government for their release.

The campaign, inaugurated by Tamilaga Valvurimai Katchi president Velmurugan, has set itself a target of getting seven lakh signatures to exert pressure on the powers concerned for the release of the convicts, it said.

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Police have so far recovered cash and valuables worth nearly Rs 28 lakh stolen from devotees during recently held Krishna Pushkar festival and arrested five persons from two gangs.

"The Crime Investigating Division has so far recovered Rs 27,82,300 from 120 offenders of as many as 25 notorious criminal gangs who were indulged in looting either cash, gold ornaments or other valuables like cell phones etc," stated Commissioner of Police Goutam Sawang.

Police today arrested five members, including two women, from two different gangs and recovered Rs 2l lakh in cash and 103 grams of gold from them, he stated in a release.

He said these gangs are operational in various states.

"These gangs maintain time tables of religious events across the country and reach these places in advance to loot people," the top cop said.

Explaining the modus operandi, he said the gang members disguise themselves as devotees by mingling in crowd and flick goods by diverting attention of their targets.

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After eleven years of research, scientists in China have developed a substitute for wild caterpillar fungus, a rare Tibetan herb known for its cancer-resisting properties.

The science department of northwest China's Qinghai Province said on Friday that scientists can extract and cultivate the hypha from caterpillar fungus by producing an artificial substitute.

The eleven years of research was sponsored by the provincial government, as it wanted to stop depletion of the wild herb, Zhang Chaoyuan, deputy director of the science department told state-run Xinhua agency.

A tiny stalk of fungus, known in China as "winter worm, summer grass", sells for about the same price as gold, even in the nearest town to the plateau where it grows.

The wild herb has been an important source of income for ethnic Tibetans living in the region.

However, excessive digging of the fungus, which has a long growing cycle, has led to serious damage to the fragile ecological environment in the region.

Zhang said scientists collected the wild fungus from the Tibetan prefecture of Yushu, which is 4,800 meters above sea level, and used it to produce the artificial substitute, which also possesses the herb's medical properties.

Found only on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the caterpillar fungus reportedly has cancer fighting properties and boosts the immune system.

During the process of artificial cultivation, scientists removed unnecessary parts and isolated the valuable Cordyceps sinensis (Hirsutella sinensis).

Zhang said the government provided financial and technical support to the project, which will have an annual output of 200 tonnes of the fermented caterpillar fungus powder and by-products.

The artificial product has a 97-per cent DNA similarity with the wild herb, according to Qinghai Everest Cordyceps Pharmaceutical, the research company.

The processed health product earned 135 million yuan (USD 20 million) in revenue during a trial production.

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Promoters of Sunburn Festival today said they have kept the option open to shift the festival from Goa to Maharashtra or Delhi, if their proposal for this year on the same date and venue as last year was not cleared by the Goa government.

"Sunburn happens in December. We are in September right now and we are yet to hear from the Government of Goa. If the Goa government has difficulties, then we can shift the venue for a year and then come back seeking their permission next year," Harinder Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Percept Limited told PTI today.

The festival, which is held annually in the last week of December, is currently facing hurdles as State Level Permission Committee (SLPC) chaired by State Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar has asked them to shift the date due to New Year rush.

Parulekar has said that the Electronic Dance Music Festivals or any mega events won't be allowed between December 15 and January 15 to avoid strain on the law enforcement machinery.

Singh said he is yet to hear anything from the state government though they have been regularly communicating to them seeking permission.

"Officially, we have not heard anything. What we read is through media. There are statements of individual. We can't go by media reports," he said.

The Sunburn organisers has said that if Goa does not want them, the cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Alibaug, Lavasa, Delhi and Mumbai are ready to welcome the festival.

"The government in respective places is very supportive. We are a Mumbai-based company. Maharashtra government is very supportive towards us," he said.

Singh said it is not possible to shift the dates of the festival as fans have already blocked their dates and booked their journey, and the last minute changes won't be possible.

When contacted, Parulekar refused to comment stating, "The decision is already taken by the State Level Permission Committee not to allow the EDMs during peak tourist season.

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Three kids drowned in Yamuna river in Okhla, police said today.

Danish, Faisal and Waris, all between the age group of 11-14 years, had gone to take bath in the river along with few of their friends, a senior police officer said.

Even though the area was an 'out of bound' area and there was fencing to prevent people from going there, the kids jumped over the fence to take bath in the river, added the officer.

A PCR call was received at around 4:30 PM after which divers found the kids and rushed them to a nearby hospital. Faisal and Waris were declared dead by the doctors at the hospital, they said.

Danish who was admitted in the ICU succumbed later, the officer said.

The parents of the children are residents of Batla House and work as labourers, the officer added.

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A 30-year-old timber trader was shot dead by unidentified assailants at Garhi village in Shamli district, police said today.

Sajid Hassan was yesterday shot dead by unidentified attackers who first called him out on pretext of some work and later killed him, SHO of Garhi Pukhta police station, Amandeep said.

The body has been sent for postmortem, he said.

A case has been registered in the matter and a probe is underway to identify the assailants, the officer said.

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Turkish police today detained a veteran journalist and his academic brother as part of the investigation into the failed July 15 coup, the latest prominent figures to be detained in the controversial crackdown after the putsch.

Journalist and writer Ahmet Altan and his brother, Professor Mehmet Altan, were detained early in the morning by Istanbul anti-terror police, the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

The Dogan agency said they were detained in the investigation into the July 15 coup, which Ankara blames on the US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Ahmet Altan, a hugely prominent figure in Turkey, was for years a columnist with top dailies like Hurriyet and Milliyet before in 2007 founding the opposition daily Taraf.

He resigned his post as Taraf editor-in-chief in 2012 and has also written several novels. Mehmet Altan is the author of several books on politics in Turkey.

The Hurriyet daily said that the Altan brothers were investigated over comments in a talk show on the Can Erzincan TV channel on July 14, on the eve of the coup.

The TV channel, seen by the authorities as staunchly pro-Gulen, has since been shut down.

Turkey has detained dozens of journalists in the wake of the coup, raising accusations from rights groups of a drastic erosion of press freedoms. But the government says those accused were not engaged in normal journalistic activity.

Among those arrested previously is veteran journalist and writer Nazli Ilicak, who also appeared on the same talk show with the Altan brothers. The content of the talk show has not been publicised in Turkish media.

Gulen had over the last years built up a substantial media presence in Turkey, with prominent newspapers such as Zaman, English-language Today's Zaman and TV channels like Samanyolu all closely linked to him. They have since been shut down.

The cleric, who has lived in the United States since 1999, strongly denies any involvement in the coup.

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Turkey today granted permission to the family of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan to visit him for the first time in two years, in an apparent bid to counter alarm over his welfare.

Ocalan's family will be allowed to see him at his high security jail on the prison island of Imrali off Istanbul over the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha beginning next week, the state-run Anadolu agency said.

Turkish media reports said this will be the first family visit Ocalan has been allowed since October 6, 2014. Anadolu said Ocalan would meet with his brother Mehmet.

The permission comes as a group of 50 Kurdish activists, including MPs, are on the sixth day of a hunger strike to protest the lack of about Ocalan's welfare.

However the activists in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir said they would continue their action until the family returns with concrete confirmation that he is alive and well.

Ocalan founded the armed movement to fight for greater rights for Turkey's Kurds in the 1970s and led a bloody insurrection against the Turkish state that formally began in 1984.

He was captured in 1999 by Turkey's secret service in Kenya, put on trial and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 when Turkey abolished the death penalty.

Ocalan held secret talks with top officials that resulted in the PKK declaring a ceasefire in 2013. But this collapsed in 2015 and conflict is again raging in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.

Despised by many Turks as a "baby killer" who has presided over a 32-year conflict that has left tens of thousands dead, Ocalan remains an icon for many in the southeast with his face plastered on flags and banners at rallies.

Ocalan had until then met regularly with a delegation from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). But these trips halted with the renewed violence and the last such visit dates back to April 2015.

The last visit to Ocalan was by a delegation of the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in April 2016. It said there were just four prisoners held on Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara.

The hunger strikers in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir had said they would continue their strike, despite the landmark of the family visit.

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The UN peacekeeping force in Congo has evacuated some 300 supporters of South Sudan's opposition leader Riek Machar, many of whom were wounded, acutely malnourished or in life-threatening condition, the United Nations has said.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the armed fighters and civilians crossed into Congo from South Sudan with Machar, who was evacuated from Garamba National Park with his wife, son and 10 aides on August 17.

He said the UN mission evacuated about 300 of Machar's supporters from Garamba Park, in northeast Congo near the border with South Sudan, between August 24 and September 5, on humanitarian grounds.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but it was rocked by a civil war that began in December 2013 when government forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by Machar, his former deputy who is a Nuer. At least 50,000 people were killed in the fighting and over 2 million people were displaced.

A peace deal reached in August 2015 which established a unity government has been violated regularly by fighting. Machar, who was vice-president again, fled the capital Juba in July after fighting with forces loyal to Kiir, which left hundreds dead. Machar then slipped across the border to Congo in mid-August, also needing medical treatment. Kiir fired him as vice-president.

Dujarric said the UN peacekeeping force known as MONUSCO handed 117 individuals including Machar, his wife and son to Congolese authorities. Machar is now in Sudan.

As of Thursday, he said, there were an additional 183 individuals in two MONUSCO-run facilities where they are receiving medical treatment or recovering while Congolese and South Sudanese work on a longer-term solution.

Dujarric said the UN is also trying to encourage a solution between authorities in both countries and "regional actors" to the presence in Congo of opposition fighters.

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The UN Security Council agreed to immediately begin work on a new raft of sanctions on after its fifth nuclear test drew global condemnation.

During a meeting behind closed doors yesterday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters after the urgent talks.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site, the North's most powerful yet at 10 kilotons.

The council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from China, Pyongyang's ally, to calls for tougher measures.

After the meeting, China's Ambassador Liu Jieyi sidestepped questions about Beijing's support for sanctions.

"We are opposed to testing and we believe that it is more urgent than ever to work together to ensure denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," Liu said.

"All sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation."

has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

Work on that resolution took two months, with the United States engaged directly with China on the sweeping measures.

Since that measure was adopted, has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US Ambassador Samantha Power said, describing those tests and Pyongyang's second nuclear detonation this year as "more than brazen defiance."

"North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike," Power said.

France backed plans for a new resolution to make clear to Pyongyang that its actions will have consequences.

"We believe new sanctions are indispensable," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said.

Pyongyang's state media said the nuclear test had realised the country's goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket.

"Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country's northern nuclear test site," a North Korean TV presenter said.

The first indications of an underground explosion came when seismic monitors detected a 5.3-magnitude "artificial earthquake" near the Punggye-ri nuclear site.
Union minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti will launch the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in the state on September 28.

Separate functions will be organised in Srinagar and Jammu on the same day to distribute free LPG connections under the scheme among the BPL women beneficiaries of the state, said minister for Consumer Affairs Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali.

is a welfare scheme launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year with an aim to provide 5 crore LPG connections in the name of women for BPL households across the country.

Ali has directed the representatives of oil companies and asked them to expedite the process of identifying real beneficiaries in tandem with district administration and to complete all formalities in time so that they can receive the LPG connection documents on the launching ceremony.

He also asked the companies to meet the set target of one lakh connections to the beneficiaries of the state in first phase.

Ali also reviewed the process of shifting oil depot from Jammu city and directed the concerned officials to expedite the process and asked them to appoint a nodal officer to coordinate with oil companies.
The has issued a worldwide caution for its citizens travelling abroad, including India, in view of the increased threat from terror groups such as Islamic state, Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Taliban.

"Current information suggests that terrorist groups continue to plan attacks in multiple regions," the state department said in a worldwide caution issued yesterday.

"Recent terrorist attacks, whether by those affiliated with terrorist entities, copycats, or individual perpetrators, serve as a reminder that citizens need to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness," it said.

The state department said ISIS (Daesh) has called its supporters to attack citizens and coalition partners wherever they are. In the past year, major terrorist attacks occurred in Belgium, France, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh among .

Authorities believe there is a continued likelihood of attacks against the US, western and coalition partner interests throughout the world, especially in the middle east, North Africa, Europe and Asia, it said.

The US government assesses terrorist groups in South Asia may be planning attacks in the region, possibly against US facilities, citizens, and interests. The presence of al-Qaeda, Taliban elements, including the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Daesh, indigenous sectarian groups, and other terrorist organisations, pose a danger to US citizens in the region, it said.

"India continues to experience terrorist and insurgent activities which may affect US citizens directly or indirectly," the state department said.

Anti-western terrorist groups active in India include Islamist extremist groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Indian Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Past attacks have targeted public places, including some frequented by westerners, such as luxury and other hotels, trains, train stations, markets, cinemas, mosques, and restaurants in large urban areas, it said.

In Pakistan, terrorist attacks have occurred against civilian, government and foreign targets, it said.

Attacks have included armed assaults on heavily guarded sites, including Pakistani military installations and airports.

Extremist groups have also targeted hotels and western interests in Pakistan's settled areas, including Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. Terrorists and criminal groups also have resorted to kidnapping for ransom.

According to the state department, credible information



indicates terrorist groups such as ISIS/Daesh, and al-Qaeda and affiliates continue to plot attacks in Europe as foreign fighters return home from Syria and Iraq, while other individuals may be radicalised or inspired by ISIS propaganda.

The US government remains highly concerned about possible attacks against US citizens, facilities, businesses, and perceived US and Western interests, in the Middle East and North Africa, the state department said.

"Private US citizens should not travel to any country to participate in armed conflict. US citizens are reminded that fighting on behalf of or providing other forms of support to designated terrorist organisations, can constitute the provision of material support for terrorism, which is a serious crime that can result in penalties including prison time and large fines," it said.
The US has said it will continue to work "constructively" with New Delhi and other countries for India's entry into NSG, a senior US official has said.

"We continue, and will be, continued to work constructively with India and with members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on India's accession in the months ahead," State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters at her daily conference yesterday.

However, she did not respond to questions on the talks the US is having with China on this issue. China is the only major country that has opposed India's membership.

"On the particular conversations on China, because I know you're going to come back and ask, I have nothing to read out on that," she said.

"We've been very clear since 2010, the US has made clear our support for India's full membership in the four multilateral export control regimes. We continue to believe India is ready for the NSG," she said.

"In the last meeting, the NSG participating governments did not reach a consensus decision to admit any new applicant into the group. We were disappointed in the outcome," she said, adding that decisions within NSG are taken with consensus.

"Discussions within that group are confidential within that group. But the US remains committed. We believe India is ready for full membership. We will work towards that goal," Trudeau said.

The US has been playing a lead role in supporting India's bid in the 48-member elite group. China had scuttled New Delhi's bid at the Plenary Session of NSG in June.

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A woman died of suspected dengue in this industrial city, police said today.

Geeta (44), a resident of Prem Nagar here was admitted in the Guru Ram Dass hospital, Amritsar following suspicion of dengue.

She passed away in hospital last night.

Dr Sanjiv Bhalla, Senior Medical Officer visited the house of victim and asked the hospital authorities to submit the reports pertaining to Geeta's treatment.

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A 29-year-old woman whom authorities allege is part of a female "terrorist commando" that tried to carry out an attack near Notre Dame Cathedral is going before a judge for preliminary charges.

The Paris prosecutor's office said the woman, identified as Ornella G., was appearing before an anti-terrorism judge today.

Prosecutor Francois Molin says the woman's fingerprints were found in a car loaded with gas canisters discovered Sunday near Notre Dame. She was arrested Tuesday with a companion near the southern city of Orange.

Molins said yesterday the investigation of the aborted attack has led to the dismantling of a "terrorist commando of young women" aligned with the Islamic State group.

Three other women were arrested Thursday night near Paris, including the 19-year-old daughter of the vehicle's owner.

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A youth allegedly trying to



smuggle cough syrup to Bangladesh was killed in firing by BSF personnel in Kaliachak area of Malda district, BSF officials said today.

A group of youths were trying to smuggle cough syrup to Bangladesh, which is used by some people as an intoxicant, at Chouri Anantapur village under Kaliachak police station last night.

After noticing the group, a patrolling party of the BSF chased them and were attacked by the youths, the officials said.

A BSF jawan Alok Kumar was injured in the attack following which other members of the patrolling party opened fire killing 18-year-old Dilwar Sheikh on the spot.

The other youths then fled, the officials said, adding the body has been handed over to the police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In April, about three months prior to its launch, Tata Motors started taking pre-launch orders for its much-hyped Nano, the world's cheapest car that was priced at Rs 1 lakh. Some people booked the car thinking that they would sell it in the black market for a premium, expecting a huge demand-supply mismatch in the months after the launch. But that never happened.

A similar story seems to be playing out in the telecom sector, where Reliance Jio has taken the country by storm. There are long queues at Reliance Digital stores to buy new connections. The waiting period is long because there are fewer SIM cards on sale than the demand from users. Those who cannot wait are buying SIMs in the black market for Rs 500-1,000. The pull, of course, is the world's cheapest data plans and free voice calling for lifetime.

Soon after its launch, Nano ran into a series of problems, including incidents of the car catching fire on more than one occasion. The experience with Jio is also far from seamless till now. People who are given connections are facing issues with activating them. Those who have got it activated are not able to make calls because of major connectivity issues. The only saving grace seems to be data, which is working fine in most locations.

In his launch speech, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani had grudged the lack of support from incumbent telecom operators. He mentioned that Jio customers suffered from 5 crore call failures to other networks in just one week due to insufficient interconnectivity capacity. If this continues for long, it would lead to irreversible damage to the users' perception.

Over the years, Nano's sales have gone through several dips and surges. At its peak, the previous version of Nano - the current version is GenX Nano - hit sales of 10,475 units in March 2012. In recent years, sales have been going only southwards. For instance, the sales in July 2016 stood at a dismal 701 units compared to 2,120 units in July 2015 even though the base variant of the car still costs Rs 2.06 lakh, the lowest ex-showroom price for any car in the country. The slightly-higher priced Renault Kwid had sold 9,897 units in July this year.

Reliance Jio has set for itself a target of 100 million customers in the shortest possible time. Earlier, there were reports that it targets to reach 100 million subscribers in one year. Let's assume that the shortest possible time is one year. That translates into selling a whopping 273,000 connections every day, or about 8.22 million connections a month. That looks daunting because with their established retail and distribution network, the top six telcos - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Telenor and MTNL - could add just 2.1 million subscribers this July. Bharti Airtel alone could add just 1.07 million in July, which is roughly one-eighth of Jio's target.

In the case of Nano, only 100,000 cars were sold at Rs 1 lakh, the price at which the car was supposed to be sold, as was thought by its Tata Sons' chairman emeritus Ratan Tata. The later models were priced much higher. The consumers don't have to pay anything to use Jio's services for now. Its welcome offer gives unlimited access to its bouquet of services till December 31, 2016. Experts say that more clarity on tariffs is likely to emerge after this largesse ends. Like any other business, Jio's profitability will be keenly watched by market analysts. With its aggressive pricing, Jio's financial performance is expected to be under duress.


Amid ongoing war between incumbent and new telecom operators over interconnect issue, sector regulator Trai on Friday asked them to resolve the matter without compromising on service quality but Airtel continued to accuse Reliance Jio of abusing network by "tsunami of free traffic".

Trai on Friday met Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea to discuss ongoing tussle over network interconnection, but barred officials of industry body COAI, which on the behalf of incumbents has been leading the fight against new player Reliance Jio, from the meeting.

According to sources, Trai Secretary Sudhir Gupta asked operators to resolve issue among themselves without compromising on quality of service norms laid down by the regulator.

Cellular operators association COAI claimed that players have agreed to discuss and negotiate "reasonable" points of connectivity that can be provided to Jio.

COAI said the operators will meet one-on-one to negotiate the "reasonable" incremental capacity to be provided to Reliance Jio, and following agreement will have 90 days to comply to the latter's request for interconnection ports.

Despite the "constructive dialogue" on the matter, the largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel hit out at Mukesh Ambani's telecom venture and asked Trai to find a way to curb the "massive asymmetric traffic" and ensure that receiving networks are not "abused by tsunami of free traffic".

"In this regard, Interconnection Usage Charges is an effective tool in the hands of Trai, which we hope they will use judiciously," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

The issue of interconnectivity among telecom networks has become the flashpoint for one of the fiercest corporate battles in the sector.

Interconnection is required to enable mobile users to make calls to customers of other telecom networks, and is all-important for Reliance Jio which is scripting a disruptive entry into 4G market by offering free voice calls.

Reliance Jio, which commercially launched its services on September 5, has accused incumbent players for not releasing sufficient interconnection ports and had sought legal action against them.

Existing operators, however, have argued that they cannot release more ports as their networks are already under stress due to surge in traffic following free voice call offer by the Mukesh Ambani-led company.

Emerging from the hour-long meeting with Trai, Reliance Jio Infocomm Board Member Mahendra Nahata told reporters that "this is fight for justice, fight for customers".

Airtel has urged Trai to engage on the subject of a fair IUC regime and ensure that the practice of pricing is in compliance with Telecom Tariff Order which requires tariffs to be "IUC compliant, non-predatory and non-discriminatory".

Reliance Jio is providing unlimited calling and 4G data use on its network for free till December 31, 2016. The company has set a target of achieving 100 million subscribers within a year of commercial rollout of the service.

Jio has submitted to Trai that it will need 12,727 network inter-connection points for mobile services and 3,068 for STD call facility to start commercial services.

It has complained that incumbent carriers have provided it less than 4 per cent of the required ports in the first year, due to which over 65 per cent of calls to networks of the top three operators are falling through.

Jio has said that it is paying interconnection charges to telecom operators for each call made its customer on respective networks but COAI has contested that the charges set by Trai at 14 paise for a mobile incoming is very low and it should be increased to about 31-32 paise to maintain balance.

Jio has requested Trai to take action against incumbent telecom operators for purportedly denying adequate capacity leading to call failures in its network during the trial run.

COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said that incumbents will consider September 5 as date of request from Jio to seek PoI as their earlier request was made during trial period.

He said that Jio has to talk one-on-one to each operator to get "reasonable number" of PoIs and the number of PoI sought by it earlier as on date is too high.

Mathews also alleged that he was kept out of the meeting by Trai officials on insistence of Reliance Jio.

Nahata, however, denied the allegation.

"We have not said any such thing. Whosoever was invited should attend the meeting," Nahata said.

Reliance Jio is also member of COAI, but has been sidelined by leading telecom operators in the association.
Awareness and Education is the focus of National Suicide Prevention Week. Image courtesy Samantha Marx.

Saturday, September 10 is <a href=https://www.iasp.info/wspd/ target=_blank>World Suicide Prevention Day</a>. According to the Utah Department of Health, an average of two Utahns die from suicide every day and 12 Utahns are hospitalized or treated in an emergency room due to injuries from a suicide attempt.

Utah State Senator Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, has been attending legislative meetings this week where the problem of suicide was addressed. He says ideas were presented about how efforts should be made to deal better with the huge problem.

I think we, as a state, need to at least train our doctors, train our health care providers so they can be better equipped to look for those issues, says Hillyard and to intervene, to stop this really tragic problem.

Luckily in my family Ive never experienced that but I have had clients and people that I know who have experienced it. It can be absolutely devastating because of the pressure left on the families, leftover, what should I could have done better.

Hillyard says at the next legislative session he is going to ask for funding to help deal with the issue because suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in Utah and the suicide rate in 2014 was seventh highest in the nation.

He says efforts to deal with suicide should be a top priority.
Utah Theatre

The fall season opens Saturday at the newly-remodeled and renovated Utah Theatre and Operations Manager Gary Griffin says it promises to be a lot of fun.

He says the Utah Theatre will be the home of classic movies starting with the <em>Sound of Music</em> sing-along on Saturday.

The words to the songs will appear on the screen, Griffin explains. People can sing along with Julie Andrews to that wonderful classic. Well have showings at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Well be open with movies every night Tuesday through Saturday night. Next week were going to show the classic film <em>Charade</em> starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.

There will be other sing-along movies, including <em>Grease</em> and <em>Mamma Mia</em>. Griffin says during the month of October classic horror shows such as <em>The Night of the Living Dead</em>, <em>Frankenstein</em> and <em>Dracula</em> will be shown at the Utah Theatre, which is part of the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre Company.
Justice Court Judge Ross McKinnon has announced he will be leaving the bench at the end of the year, ending 23-years serving in Rich County.

Utah State Courts communications director Geoffrey Fattah said applications are being accepted now to replace Judge McKinnon, who will retire on January 1.

Judge McKinnon was appointed Rich County Justice Court Judge in February 1993. He attended Utah State University and owns a cattle ranch in Randolph, where he has been a lifetime resident.

Fattah said applications to replace Judge McKinnon will be accepted through September 27. To be considered for a Justice Court judgeship, candidates must be at least 25-years-old, a citizen of the United States, a Utah resident for at least three-years, and have a minimum of a high school diploma or GED. In addition, candidates must be a resident of Rich Countyor an adjacent countyfor at least six-months.

The annual salary range for the position is $8,000 to $12,000 with some benefits.

Fattah explained that Utah law requires the Judicial Nominating Commission to submit three-to-five nominees to the Rich County Commission Chair Willliam Cox within 45-days of its first meeting. Chairman Cox then has 30-days to make a selection. The candidate must then be certified by the Utah Judicial Council.

An application for judicial office form is available on the courts website (<a href=https://www.utcourts.gov/admin/jobs/index.htm target=_blank>www.utcourts.gov/admin/jobs</a>).

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
A special program will be held <a href=http://cachecommunityconnections.com/wp-content/uploads/CCC-HealingwithinourCommunities.pdf target=_blank>Friday night</a> in the Logan Tabernacle in memory of those who suffered from the tragic terror attacks of 2001. It is sponsored by Cache Community Connections, an organization that was formed when the local community came together after those attacks.

Committee co-chair Sharon West says the keynote speaker, Utah State University professor Dr. John Carman, was at the Twin Towers when it happened.

Well also have various other interfaith groups doing prayers, West explains, we have musical numbers. We have a meditation from the Buddhist Sangha. So it will be a wonderful night and it is free to everyone in the community.

West says the program starts at 7 p.m.
SHARE Contributed photo Gordon Landreth Contributed photo Adelfino Palacios (from left), Rob Hatherill and Del Mar College President Mark Escamilla

Garcia selected as resident assistant

Manuel Garcia of Robstown was selected to serve as a resident assistant at Lebanon Valley College for the 2016-17 academic year, officials said.

Garcia, a graduate of Ray High School, is pursuing a bachelor of arts in English and philosophy at the college. Resident assistants (RAs) and resident mentors (RMs) are selected from the student body who live in the residence halls and serve as mentors and role models.

Stipp joins Austin volleyball team

The Austin College volleyball team welcomed six new members along with returning players as they enter their 40th season as a varsity sport in 2016.

Shelby Stipp of Robstown, a graduate of Tuloso-Midway High School and daughter of Brian and Karen Stipp joined the team, officials said.

Professor awarded for excellence

During fall convocation, the Del Mar College announced John "Rob" Hatherill, Ph.D. and professor of biology in the Natural Sciences Department, as the 2016 Creighton Award recipient.

The award, named in honor of Dr. Aileen Creighton, dean emeritus of Arts and Sciences, represents the late educator's legacy as a "master teacher" and serves as the benchmark faculty must emulate to receive the honor, officials said. Creighton was known for her dedication to students and higher education, along with the inspiration she provided to other educators during her 41-year career at Del Mar College.

As the 15th Creighton Award recipient, Hatherill accepted the honor by providing a short lesson about his own teaching philosophy. He explained how he supports students' success by collaborating with other natural sciences colleagues and embedding undergraduate research and mentoring into the classroom to enhance their learning experiences rather than just teaching through traditional textbook methodology.

The professor's passion and commitment in building the college's biology and biotechnology programs has driven his students' successes. In the past six years, more than 30 students have won first and second place awards for research presentations  contending against top tier university students from across the country  during regional and national competitions held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Microbiology, Department of Energy, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance and Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, among others.

Hatherill initiated Del Mar's acceptance into the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science project in 2011. Del Mar College became the first community college to participate in the SEA PHAGES "Phage Hunters" program, which is a course-based undergraduate research program. Phages are viruses that attack bacteria; and since beginning the program, DMC students have discovered and isolated 100 mycobacteriophages from soil samples from the Texas Coastal Bend area.

Hatherill joined the College's faculty in 2004. He earned bachelor's degrees in biology and chemistry and a master's degree in microbiology from Eastern Michigan University, certification in clinical chemistry from the American Society of Clinical Pathologists in Chicago and a doctoral degree in environmental toxicology from The University of Michigan. He also completed postdoctoral work in molecular toxicology at Stanford University. He continues to write books focusing on his area of expertise, nutrition.

A&M-K adds new degree program

The Board of Regents of the Texas A&M University System approved the establishment of a new master of science degree program with a major in clinical mental health counseling at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. This establishment is pending approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

A&M-Kingsville already offers a master of science degree program in counseling and guidance within the College of Education. The new degree program in clinical mental health counseling would prepare students for employment in the counseling profession beyond school guidance and counseling, officials said. It would work to prepare competent counselors to work with culturally diverse populations. It also will focus on providing graduate students with the educational and experiential tools to acquire positions in a wide variety of mental health settings.

The program will be housed in the Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling. The proposed implementation date is spring 2017.

Compiled by Natalia Contreras
Contributed photo American Bank employee Allison Webster (left) presented a check for $1,308 to Sr. Milagros Tormo, board president of the Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for Youth (The Ark). American Bank employees raised the money for the nonprofit.

SHARE Contributed photo Lynda Berglund, an activity assistant at Mirador, helps a resident with art therapy.

American Bank makes donation to shelter

American Bank's employees contributed $654 to the Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for Youth (The Ark) with the reward of wearing jeans Aug. 12, officials said.

The bank matched the employee's contribution, bringing the total to $1,308.

The American Bank Wears Jeans for a Cause program is designed to raise awareness and money for various nonprofit organizations. Each month American Bank highlights a nonprofit organization, and if employees choose to make a donation to the organization, they may wear jeans on the designated American Bank Wears Jeans for a Cause day.

Information www.AmericanBank.com.

Advocacy Center names new director

The board of directors of the Children's Advocacy Center of The Coastal Bend named Clarissa Mora as permanent executive director, officials said.

Mora began her career with the center as an intern in 2009. The following year she was hired full time as a family advocate and worked for about five years, officials said.

In 2015 she was promoted to program director where she oversaw the forensic interview and family advocate programs.

Mirador residents make art as therapy

Mirador residents recently participated in art therapy classes designed to allow the memory care residents the creative freedom to make pieces that interest them and stimulate their senses. Mirador understands that these activities can reduce stress, lower blood pressure and even ease depression. Creative activities such as these also have the ability to increase concentration and stimulate the imagination, effectively quieting the mind and promoting satisfaction and pleasure from one's work.

Compiled by Natalia Contreras
Contributed photo IWA students donated nearly 100 Bibles to freshman at Cristo Rey Tampa High School, a Catholic, college-preparatory school and corporate work study program in Florida.

SHARE Contributed photo School of Science and Technology students were selected to eat lunch with Cammie Bonilla, outreach coordinator, Aug. 31 as a reward for good behavior and leadership. Outreach Bonilla (front row from left), Rico Espinar, Makayla Ponce, Brooklyn Mechum, Mayumi Lopez (back row from left) and fourth grade teacher Vanessa Roberts enjoyed lunch together.

Foundation awards scholarships locally

The Coast Guard Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to the education and welfare of all Coast Guard members and their families, announced it has awarded a record 128 new scholarships in 2016.

Combined with multiyear scholarship recipients and three Fallen Heroes Scholars, the foundation is supporting 163 students totaling $576,500 in support this year, officials said. In just over 26 years, the foundation's scholarship program has paid out more than $3.8 million to more than 630 college-aged young adults to help the families of Coast Guard members achieve their goals of higher education.

Erin Smith, daughter of Chief Petty Officer Steven Smith; Madison Smith, daughter of Chief Petty Officer Anthony Smith; and Tahlia White, daughter of Petty Officer 2nd class Curtis Keller, all of Corpus Christi, were awarded Coast Guard Foundation Scholarships. Erin Smith will attend University of Texas, Madison Smith will attend Texas A&M University and Tahlia White will attend Del Mar College in the fall.

The Coast Guard Foundation Scholarships benefit the children of enlisted men and women who are serving or have served in the Coast Guard, whether active duty, reserve, retired or deceased.

To learn more about the Coast Guard Foundation, or to help support its work, please visit www.coastguardfoundation.org or call (860) 535-0786.

IWA students donate Bibles

Incarnate Word Academy High School Level students collected alms this past Lenten season to contribute to IWA's Solidarity Fund, which is used for various mission and service projects throughout the school year, officials said.

Using funds from the Solidarity Fund, the students donated nearly 100 Bibles to freshman at Cristo Rey Tampa High School, a Catholic, college-preparatory school and corporate work study program in Florida.

The donation request for the Bibles came from former IWA President and CEO Charles D. Imbergamo who is now the President and CEO at Cristro Rey Tampa High School, which is in its inaugural school year.

Cristo Rey Tampa High School provides an affordable college preparatory education for youth from low-income families who are looking for quality educational options. Students are employed at one of 25 corporate businesses in their community to help pay for their schooling. The Bibles will be used by the school's first student class for their religious studies classes.

The Cristo Rey Network, which has a total of 32 schools across the U.S., educates over 10,000 students who live in urban communities with limited educational options.

Compiled by Natalia Contreras
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By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

Dawson Elementary School's Parent Teacher Association is hosting a neighborhood gathering Monday in response to a recent indecent exposure incident near the school, the organizations president said.

A man exposed himself to a 48-year-old woman last week and it happened about a 6-minute walk from the school.

Another indecent exposure incident happened near Mireles Elementary on Aug. 25.

"We thought we would take these negatives and make something positive," PTA president Amber Garza said. "We want to educate students, neighbors and the community."

Project Keep Your Kids Safe will be from 6-7 p.m. Monday at the school's parking lot. Garza said parents are welcome to bring lawn chairs, picnic items and their neighbors.

Officials from the Corpus Christi Police Department and the Corpus Christi Fire Department will speak the group about how to be proactive about keeping children, as well as the neighborhood, safe.

"We're inviting the neighborhood and community to get to know each other," Garza said. "Why not get to know our surrounding neighbors?"

Twitter: @CallerBetty
SHARE Jeremiah Jenkins Truanser Hughes Darien Marshall Filamir Gomez Jr.

By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times

A third suspect in the fatal shooting of a local gun store owner turned himself in to police Friday afternoon, his defense lawyer said.

Jeremiah Jenkins, 28, is one of four suspects police sought after a robbery homicide Sept. 1 at Shooters Depot.

The gun store owner, 62-year-old George Koumbis, died shortly after being taken to the hospital. Another employee, who also was shot, is recovering in the hospital.

Jenkins' lawyer, Scott Ellison, said he believes his client was not involved in the incident. Jenkins was picked up by authorities from Ellison's office at about 4 p.m., Ellison said. The attorney said he believes evidence will prove Jenkins' innocence.

Police arrested 19-year-old Truanser Hughes Sept. 2 by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated aggravated robbery warrant before charging him with capital murder and obtaining arrest warrants for three other suspects.

Filamir Gomez, 20, was arrested on suspicion of capital murder Wednesday in San Diego.

Both Hughes and Gomez remained in Nueces County Jail Friday, according to jail officials. Hughes' bail was set at $1,050,000 and Gomez's bail was set at $1,000,000.

As of press time Friday, Jenkins was not processed in Nueces County Jail, jail officials said. His bail was set at $1,000,000 in the arrest warrant.

Police are still searching for Darien Marshall, 22. Anyone with information on his location can leave a tip by calling Crime Stoppers at 888-TIPS or submitting information online at www.888TIPS.com.

Twitter: @Caller_Fares Caller-Times reporters Julie Garcia, Esther Hackleman and Krista M. Torralva contributed to this report.
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES File Bishop Michael Mulvey of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi talks to the media June 26, 2015, at the Corpus Christi Cathedral.

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By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times

The Diocese of Corpus Christi will be lending a hand to Louisiana residents who have been impacted by floods.

Louisiana flood victims will be the focus of the annual diocesan collection for disaster relief, according to a news release.

The collection will be taken during masses in the 101 parishes and missions of the diocese during Sept. 17 and 18.

The diocese serves 11 counties in the Coastal Bend, and serves roughly 400,000 Catholics.

Twitter: @Caller_Fares
CONTRIBUTED RENDERING About 45 acres in the Port Aransas Nature Preserve will undergo a prescribed burn Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, at 10 a.m.

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By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times

The Port Aransas Nature Preserve will be closed to the public for part of Sept. 18 for a controlled burn that will be monitored by the volunteer fire department.

The burn area spans 45 acres between Community Park and the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, according to a news release. Access to the preserve and connecting trails will be closed off Sept. 17 at normal closing hours. Access will be restored once the burn is complete on Sept. 18.

The planned burn comes from the preserve's Brazilian Peppertree Management Plan. Brazilian pepper-trees are nonnative plans that threaten the native biodiversity in the preserve, according to a news release. Controlled burns help restore nutrients in the soil and improve plant growth in the area.

Twitter: @Caller_Fares

Editor's note: A previous version of this story said the Port Aransas Nature Preserve would be closed Sunday. It has been corrected.
"The charity register has been searched over 1.6 million times since the ACNC was established, so I strongly encourage those charities with outstanding reports to file them as soon as possible to avoid any further damage to their reputation," she said.
"You think of New York as a city full of aggressive people, but in the week afterwards people were reflective and upset about it, wondering how anybody could have done something like this," he said.
"He had a lot of post-traumatic stress and the whole experience was brushed under the carpet. It was a relief, I think, to tell his story, and he said that was when he started to forgive his captors."
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.

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Jerry Comello entered the Army upon graduation from West Point in 1962.

We already had interests in Vietnam, but we were preoccupied with completing the Officers Basic Course, Ranger School etc., at the Infantry school and anticipating our first assignment, so we didnt think too much about that.

In fact, his first assignment was at Fort Riley, Kansas and Germany with the 2nd Battle Group of the 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. There he cut his teeth as a new officer, and met people and had experiences that would influence both of his two tours in Vietnam. The orders for Vietnam came after he was promoted to 1st lieutenant.

Back then, when you made 1st lieutenant, you were 'available' for assignment to Vietnam because a 1LT had been added to the battalion advisory teams. In early summer 1964 I attended the Military Assistance Training and Advisor (MATA) course at Fort Bragg and deployed to Vietnam. That course was exceptional. I couldnt pick up the language as fast as I wouldve liked, i.e., I never had a 'conversation' in Vietnamese beyond the task at hand because most of my counterparts spoke English. But I never had a problem getting fed."

Comello was assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Command (MACV)'s Third Corps area in the Phuoc Binh Tanh Special Zone.

Col. Manh was in charge, and his counterpart adviser was Lt. Col. John Hill. Initially I was assigned as a watch officer in the Tactical Operation Center (TOC). The Special Zone had three ARVN regiments and one Ranger battalion the, 31st Rangers. In my interview with Lt. Col. Hill I requested assignment to the 31 Rangers and he approved.

With the previous captain wounded and evacuated, the new advisory team would be comprised of Comello, Capt. David Longacre and Sgt. Bennet.

The first thing we did was to review the notes that Capt. Thorsen had left behind, principally his maps. They were the 1 over 100,000, variety. He had marked and commented on all the recon routes they had used. To the east there was an area called War Zone D. Only part of the map had topography and color. Most of war Zone D was white, and in that space Capt. Thorsen had written: There be dragons.' And he was right, there were plenty of dragons in there.

Protection

Two companies, the battalion headquarters and advisory team were stationed at a rubber plantation owned by a Frenchman named Legay near Phuoc Hoa. The other three companies were stationed at Phuoc Vinh, guarding the Special Zone Headquarter about eight miles to the north. Legay looked just like Lou Costello with red hair. He told us he had been in Vietnam during the World War II and been interned by the Japanese. He had been freed, he said, by Americans. After WWII he had gone to Africa to manage a rubber plantation, and he had been invited back by the Diem regime.

"He had an excellent operation. There was an old triangular French fort on the property, which was unoccupied. He had a smokehouse and processing mill, an enormous water tower, a school, a contingent of Vietnamese women that taught there, and a little railroad that ran bulk items around. The property abutted the Song Be River. He was being intimidated increasingly by the VC.

Legay needed support to make sure his workers could get to and from the fields, and protect his convoys shipping the rubber south. So the battalion patrolled the area surrounding the plantation and cleared the road for his convoys. To clear the road, approximately 15 miles, the 48th Regiment would come north from Tan Uyen halfway, and the 31st would go south to meet them. But to coordinate with the 48th and control the operation, the best we had was the Korean War vintage PRC 10 radio, so communications was always an issue.

It was an issue that would come back to haunt the 31st later.

The enemy would, on occasion, mine the road, but the real concern was keeping the date of the convoys departure secret. Then the VC knew as much as you did, when you did. That was one of the enduring problems over there. Not only then, but on my second tour as well. The people who were ostensibly on your side, werent always. Anything you knew they knew, thats for sure. As a matter of fact, to me, it appeared that what the ARVN knew the VC knew, and we advisers were the last to know. Thats not a good thing.

Enemy contact was sporadic. During this period of time, I believe we had the initiative, and were doing it as well as it could be done with the resources. On one occasion we overran a camp that was within striking distance of the road, but they apparently knew we were coming and had evacuated shortly before we arrived. If you engaged with them it was accidental, somebody made a mistake. They always seemed to have had the edge of knowing where you were and where you were going. On occasion youd engage a sniper, but they were avoiding us unless they knew they had the advantage."

Assignments

After you came off TOC (Tactical Operations Center) duty, (Lt.) Col. Hill had a policy. He had operational control of Air Force Maj. Bristol, and four Forward Air Controllers (FACs) and their aircraft. He insisted that when one of the FACs went up that there was an Army officer in the back seat in case the FAC went down. So after TOC duty, youd ride the back seat of one of these aircraft.

The Air Force FACs were super in spite of their initial attempt to make you airsick. Maj. George Bristol commanded the FACs and he was a great big guy. If I was flying with him it would take that O1-F half the time of the flight to get to altitude because it couldnt haul us with the radio suite he had in it, his master set. 

"About half way through my tour, the ARVN decided to form a new division with an area of operation inclusive of War Zone D and using resources from Phuoc Binh Tanh Special Zone. As a result Lt. Col. Hill reorganized the advisory teams and I was reassigned as assistant battalion adviser to the 1st Battalion, 48th Infantry Regiment, in the new division."

In the interim of that new assignment, Comello said he was back with Tactical Operations Center while a new team joined the 31st in clearing the road one more time - an effort that would cost the soldiers their lives.

"Wed been through there a number of times, we knew there were houses under which there were rooms for 10-15 men and what that implied. Nonetheless, if you are going to make a reasonable attempt to clear that road and communicate with both ends, you have to be right there (in the middle of the road). Thats what happened once too often.

"The VC knew it was going to happen. A battalion-sized force overran the 31st headquarters."

Comello said the 31st fought until they were out of ammunition and had fought long enough to establish an aid station where they could tend to the wounded. But that didn't save them.

In the end, the VC executed any who surrendered and all the wounded. They were all killed where they lay. I was in the TOC at the time. I was very fortunate because I would have been right there with them if I hadnt been reassigned.

When you ask about actions, thats the kind of thing that was going on. You didnt find the enemy until they were ready. They picked the time and place, they knew what you had to do and what constraints you enjoyed.

Comello returned to the United States at the conclusion of his tour, but would return years later for a second tour. His story will conclude in next weeks column.
SCRANTON  A state police trooper seriously wounded in a 2014 ambush near a rural barracks in eastern Pennsylvania has put the alleged gunman and his parents on notice that he plans to sue them.

The (Scranton) Times-Tribune reports court documents were recently filed on behalf of Trooper Alex Douglass against Eric Frein and his parents, Eugene and Deborah Frein.

Scranton attorney Vincent Cimini filed a writ of summons on behalf of Douglass in Monroe County Court last month, notifying the Freins a lawsuit will be filed.

Eric Frein is charged with fatally shooting Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and wounding Douglass outside the Blooming Grove barracks.

He led police on a 48-day manhunt before U.S. marshals caught him. Hes pleaded not guilty.
With an array of upgrades that cover design, safety, technology, and drivability, the facelifted Holden Colorado 7 will now be known as the Trailblazer, across the Australian market.



Developed in collaboration between Holden and GM Brazil, it features exterior styling enhancements such as the signature LED DRLs combined with chrome accents, which complement a more stylish front fascia and a more muscular design of the bonnet.

Step inside and youll be greeted by a new dashboard with an updated center console, while more expensive versions add heated leather seats and Holden MyLink infotainment that works with a new 8-inch color touchscreen and comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

A remote vehicle start system is also on the list of upgrades, along with voice recognition, sat-nav, electronic climate control and an extensive range of active and passive safety features that include Forward Collision Alert, Lane Departure Warning, Side Blind Zone Alert, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, hill start assist, hill descent control, tire pressure monitoring system, electronic stability control and others.

Engineering improvements over the Colorado 7 include revised steering calibration, which is said to provide a more precise steering feel thanks to a faster steering rack ratio and less turns lock-to-lock, tweaked set of engine, transmission and body mounts on the chassis that lead to a more refined and composed ride and a new final drive ratio for the manual gearbox, improving its drive quality, especially during towing.

Powered by the same 2.8-liter Duramax turbodiesel engine, the first units of the 2017 Holden Trailblazer will arrive at the brands dealers across Australia from early October. According to the local media, prices will kick off from AU$47,990 (US$36,872), plus on-road costs for the LT model, while the better-equipped LTZ, from AU$52,490 (US$40,330).

PHOTO GALLERY
Images may have recently emerged online showing a BMW M2 Convertible, but according to sources within the company, theres no chance of seeing the model come to fruition.



According to BMW Blog who has been in contact with sources from the marque, there arent any plans for a drop-top M2 to be launched, backing up BMWs previous statements that such a model wasnt on the cards.

Although theres an M4 and an M6 open top, BMW is targeting purists with its baby M car and doesnt think these buyers would find a convertible appealing. Thus, the M235i Convertible will have to suffice for buyers who want to combine an open-top driving experience with reasonable levels of performance.

On the plus side, the automaker is planning something around the M2  and its a lot more exciting than a chop top. According to reports, a souped-up GTS version is in the works and will adopt more power, aerodynamic upgrades and less weight.

Rendering via Theophilus Chin

PHOTO GALLERY
Daimler marketing chief Hubertus Troska said that his company is planning on selling Mercedes-Benz electric cars in China, thus taking advantage of government initiatives meant to boost demand for new-energy vehicles (NEVs).



According to Autonews, Troska also stated that thanks to the governments tax breaks and other policy support, the number of NEVs sold last year surpassed 300,000, turning China into the worlds biggest market for electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

During an analyst and investor conference in Beijing, Troska stated that most of those NEVs were priced under 250,000 yuan ($37,515), and were sold mainly by Chinese automakers.

Daimler is very confident NEVs will be an important factor of the Chinese market, said Troska. Mercedes-Benz is also going to play a role in China in NEVs, he added while referring to cars currently in the pipeline.

While the Daimler exec didnt get into any specifics about cost, pricing or launch dates, we do know that Mercedes will reveal more details about their future EV plans during this years Paris Auto Show, possibly part of a new sub-brand of electric cars.

Currently, Daimler only sells one EV in China under its Smart small-car brand, and another under the Denza brand. Its local lineup also includes the plug-in hybrid versions of the Mercedes C-Class and S-Class, as well as the GLE.

Note: Mercedes IAA Concept pictured

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: Shane Austin

The metal object tied up in Gellatly Bay could be from a broken up houseboat.

Emails to Castanet News suggest a houseboat, named Enterprise, was destroyed during the massive windstorm three weeks ago.

The houseboat was apparently in one of the small bays on the east side of Okanagan Lake below Okanagan Mountain Park.

Debris from the boat remains strewn along a large section of the shoreline.

Witnesses say the debris field has increased over the weeks.

It's believed one of the large pieces from the boat floated out into the middle of the lake where, eventually, it was hauled to Gellatly Bay.
Photo: Darren Handschuh

There could be teen vampires in downtown Vernon on Monday.

Vancouver-based Sepia Films will be filming one scene for a TV movie on 30th Avenue, between 29th and 30th Streets, from 2:30 to 7 p.m.

The City of Vernon says the street will remain open to vehicles, pedestrians and the public for parking except for two parking stalls in front of Poohs & Beans Sweet Shop.

The company has been shooting 'Drink, Slay, Love' in the North Okanagan.

It's about a sixteen-year-old vampire named Pearl who's pretty evil, until a unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn.

Last month, crews were spotted filming at or near two local high schools.
Photo: Getty Images

A productive summer for Kelowna-Lake Country

It was my priority this summer to host a number of Liberal caucus and cabinet members.

I wanted my colleagues to have a better understanding of Kelowna-Lake Country because I thought it would help me better articulate our communitys specific needs.

With the support of local organizations like our chambers of commerce, our mayors, and our business and non-profit sectors, meetings were held with more than 100 individuals, representing almost 50 stakeholders throughout Kelowna-Lake Country and the Okanagan.

Harjit Sajjan, minister of National Defence, Bardish Chagger, Government House Leader and minister of small business and tourism, and members of the Pacific Caucus, heard a wide range of opinions from groups representing our cities and towns, social service groups, agriculture, tourism, the tech sector, health care, the marijuana industry and a host of others.

In addition, a number of community outreach events attracted many more people from around the riding, including three key roundtable discussions with constituents on electoral reform, climate change, and veterans issues, part of our governments promise to listen to citizens.

Kent Hehr, minister of veterans affairs, also visited the riding to deliver on a campaign promise, announcing the re-opening of the Veterans Affairs office on Nov. 1.

A well-attended veterans roundtable followed, providing our local veterans with the opportunity to have a frank discussion with the minister and I about improving veterans services and benefits.

As for our younger citizens, Ill be keeping the dialogue going with them too by striking a local youth council.

Young voices must be part of our decision making process and Im interested in hearing from those ages 16 to 24 about the kind of Canada they want. To apply to be a part of our youth council, please go to www.sfuhr.liberal.ca.

Applications are being accepted until Sept. 30.

Whether at the Kelowna Pride March, at our summer barbeque in the park, or through the many phone calls and e-mails I receive, hearing from so many of you this summer has provided me with valuable feedback, which I will take back with me to Ottawa when Parliament resumes Sept.19.

As our government moves forward, your input will not only inform policies that will benefit Kelowna-Lake Country, but no doubt other communities as well.

Stephen Fuhr is the member of Parliament for Kelowna-Lake Country. Reach out to Steve locally or by calling 250 470-5075.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Contributed

The Armstrong Fair is always about agriculture, but this year it really went green.

The annual Interior Provincial Exhibition diverted almost 7,000 pounds of organic waste from the landfill, thanks to a composting effort aided by students from Vernon's Silver Star Elementary School.

They worked with Spa Hills Compost to divert as much of the food waste and other organics as possible from the dump.

With the generous help by a group of 52 enthusiastic and hard-working students ... we managed to keep almost 7000 pounds of organic waste out of the landfill," said Spa Hills' Keli Westgate. We were so excited to have so much help this year. The kids were all easily trained in what to sort from bins, how to help vendors, what to say to the public when asked what they were doing ... this endeavor was a huge success.

Food vendors at the fair were given caddies to collect compostables, and volunteers worked the food truck area to encourage the public to use compost bins placed there.

Everyone visiting the fair this year was not only curious about it, but very supportive of our efforts to reduce waste, said IPE manager Yvonne Paulson.

The extra effort resulted in more than five times as much compostable material being diverted compared to last year, when one person sorting through the trash collected 1,240 pounds.

This initiative just makes sense in an agricultural area, said Westgate, who thanked Silver Star parent Karla Ziegler for organizing the volunteers.
Photo: USGS

UPDATE: 6 a.m.

No damage was reported in Saturday's 4.0 magnitude earthquake in the South Okanagan.

The tremor hit at 9:16 a.m. east of Oliver and was felt across the region, from Bridesville in the east and as far north as Lake Country.

Okanagan residents reported lights swaying and a rumbling sound that lasted a few seconds.

Earthquakes Canada says there have been no reports of damages, and none would be expected.

The last reported earthquake above a 4.0 magnitude in British Columbia occured May 8, south of the Village of Queen Charlotte.

UPDATE: 10:50 a.m.

Natural Resources Canada reports this morning's earthquake near Oliver was a magnitude 4.0 tremor.

NRCan also differs from U.S. Geological Survey information in stating the quake struck at a depth of one kilometre.

The precise time of the quake was 9:16 a.m., according to NRCan.

ORIGINAL: 10 a.m.

Castanet is receiving multiple reports of an earthquake felt across much of the South and Central Okanagan.

The quake was felt about 9:20 a.m. in areas spanning from Kelowna to Lake Country, Oliver and Greenwood.

"Our place shook pretty good," said one tipster who was at Big White at the time.

Residents in Okanagan Falls also reported their homes shaking.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, which maps earthquakes globally, the quake measured 4.2 on the Richter scale and was centred 21 kilometres east of Oliver.

It was measured at a depth of five kilometres.

It's not yet known if the quake caused any damage.

Heidi in Penticton said it sounded like "something was driving in the house, and I felt house shake. Looked up and saw the ceiling fan pull cords swaying."

If you or your property were affected by the quake, share your photos and information by emailing [email protected]
Photo: Skylar noe-vack

A head-on collision between Penticton and Summerland sent at least one person to the hospital Saturday morning.

The accident, involving a white Ford Escape and a green Toyota Tacoma, occurred just after 11 a.m. near the Sage Mesa turnoff and backed up traffic along the highway in both directions.

Fire crews, police and ambulance attended the crash.

A woman in the Toyota was removed by fire crews , put on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital. Her condition, and the condition of the other people involved, is unknown at this time.

Single-lane traffic is now moving on the highway in both directions.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Warships from NATO countries will be in Halifax this week for a Canadian-led military exercise aimed at bolstering anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

The Defence Department said six countries are participating in the exercise dubbed Cutlass Fury, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany.

The 13-day exercise  which includes 11 ships, three submarines and 26 aircraft  will begin on Monday with a sail past in Halifax harbour.

The department said the mission includes anti-submarine exercises and will take place in waters off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Canadian navy Commodore Craig Baines said Cutlass Fury is the largest anti-submarine warfare exercise to be conducted on Canada's East Coast in the last 20 years.

"It's an opportunity for us to bring like-minded NATO countries together to hone a very difficult skill set which is not only anti-submarine warfare but also working in the surface domain, the air domain and also doing a lot of work in boarding operations," said Baines in a statement.

"It's very important for Canada to work in this type of exercise because not only will we take a leadership role, but we'll also be working with six very keen NATO allies using real life assets in a live environment so we can increase our cooperation, increase our communication and make sure that all of our units are ready for any eventualities that might come our way."

The Canadian warships taking part include HMCS Fredericton, HMCS Athabaskan, HMCS Goose Bay, HMCS Summerside and HMCS Windsor.

The Halifax-based Windsor is currently Canada's only operational submarine, one of four purchased from Britain in the late 1990s.
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Current Affairs 2022

Welcome to the Adda247 Current Affairs website which provides you with the best compilation of the Daily Current Affairs 2022 taking place across the globe: National, International, Sports, Science and Technology, Banking, Economy, Agreement, Appointments, Ranks and Report and General Studies. Adda247 has been a fantastic buddy in assisting you in reaching your full potential in terms of knowledge and learning by providing you with the top academic information.

Adda247 is one of the most popular Current Affairs website in India for UPSC, SSC, Banking / IBPS, IAS, NTSE, Railways, NDA, CDS, Judiciary, UPPSC, RPSC, BPSC, MPSC, MPPSC, and other state civil services / government job recruitment examinations in India.

Current Affairs is a major part of the exams like UPSC, UPSC CSE, IBPS, SBI, RBI, SSC, Railway, UPPSC, RPSC, BPSC, MPPSC, TNPSC, UKPSC, APPSC, MPSC etc. Many Govt job aspirants have benefited from our Current Affairs website now its your turn. This is the best current affairs site to find recent updates on Daily Current Affairs not only for competitive exams but also for interviews and updated with the latest information happening in nation and around the world.

Current Affairs plays a vital role in all government examinations. To secure your selection with a vast margin, one needs to prepare this section in a holistic way. The current affairs section tests your awareness and how inquisitive you are. A basic understanding of current events will not only help you to secure a job, but will also help you grow in your job later.

Check out the link below or visit www.currentaffairs.adda247.com to get daily current affairs updates. This post will provide you a general overview of how to prepare current affairs and several approaches you can utilise in your upcoming banking exams.

The three main bank exams:- IBPS, RBI, and SBI are administered nationally each year and thousands of candidates sign up for them, raising the stakes in the race to the top. A significant portion of these bank exams is the GA Section, which contains the majority of the current events questions. This section is quite challenging because there is no set syllabus for it. This segment requires careful planning and continuous preparation on the part of the candidates.

To get ready for the current affairs section, you can use the advice below:

Candidates must first look at the previous years questions to understand what is asked in the exams. The previous years questions will guide what to read in newspapers.

GA section requires consistency; one must read newspapers daily.

Make crisp notes of important news.

Revise the notes on regular intervals.

Another method is to follow news channels or current affairs YouTube channels to remain updated with current affairs.

If you do not have time to read daily current affairs, you can follow monthly magazines provided by various institutes. Such magazines are available online as well as in PDF form.

It is very important to test your preparation on regular basis. Solve quizzes according to the exams you are targeting.

NOTE : READ- NOTE- REVISE-TEST to ace current affairs.

Why Adda247?

Adda247 provides you with every kind of current affairs sorted under various sections like national, international, sports and awards to ease your preparations. The current affairs are divided into various sections and some of the important topics are depicted below:

National Current Affairs:

Every single essential piece of news on whats going on in the country is included in this section

International Current Affairs:

As for the banking exam, a candidate must prepare well for both national as well as international news going on since last year.

Economic related issues:

This section of economic current affairs will include every little news about the economy of India and the economic corridor with other countries. You can also find other relevant topics related to daily current affairs like product rate, economic growth, new economic frisking zone, and schemes indulged in the growth of the economy.

Banking Current Affairs:

All the recent changes in rules, policies of banking sectors will be discussed in this section. As you are preparing for the banking exam, you must be aware of stock market, and other banking activities for economic growth.

Sports Current Affairs:

This section covers all the tournaments and sports events held recently in the nation or outside the nation.

Current Affairs Awards & Achievements :

Current affairs on both national and international awards are included in this section for your preparation.

Appointments Current Affairs :

This section covers all the new appointments done in various departments of the government of India and other countries of the world. At Adda247, we provide detailed information with designation and name for your convenience to prepare for your bank exam.

You can find the most relevant and updated current affairs for your bank preparation with us. Just join us and we will help you out with your preparation in the best possible way we can.

Check SSC CGL 2022 Notification

Current Affairs 2022: FAQs

Q.1 What are the latest types of question asked in recent exams?

Ans. In RBI assistant mains it was asked when Ramsar convention was signed. This is a static question in context of current affairs as India got new ramsar sites. Adda covers the static part with its current affairs.

In SBI PO mains 2021, TIME Magazines Person Of The Year For 2021 was asked it was covered in current affairs.

Q2. How to cover the static portion in context of current affairs?

Ans. Candidate should look into political, historical background of the news. These aspects need to be prepared. Static portion is covered along with current affairs.

Q.3 What aspects to cover while reading government schemes?

Ans. For central level schemes: Amount allotted, ministry, year of launch, main characteristics are to be learnt. For state level schemes purpose and state is to be read.

Q.4. What are the various sources of Adda247 current affairs?

Ans. Adda 247 current affair sources are: PIB, NewsOnAir, RBI website, Various newspapers like Hindu, Indian express, financial express and many more.

Q.5 Does Adda247 provide Current Affairs PDF?

Ans. Yes, Adda247 provides weekly and month-wise current affairs pdfs in both Hindi and English languages.
Assams Majuli becomes first island district of India

Published: September 9, 2016

Majuli became the first island district of India after it was inaugurated as the 35th district of Assam by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

The inauguration the island district coincides with the 90th birth anniversary of Assamese music maestro and Dadasaheb Phakle awardee Bhupen Hazarika.

Earlier in September 2016, Majuli had become the worlds largest river island in the Guinness Book of World Records, replacing Brazils Marajo.

During inaugurating the island district, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal announced that construction of Bogibeel bridge was at its terminal stage and Dhola-Sadiya Bridge will be commissioned in 2017.

Besides, Chief Minister also held the cabinet meeting at Majuli which was for the first time held outside Guwahati. It was announced that state government has proposed to set up cultural university in Majuli to enable research and advanced studies of art and culture of the state. State Government also has decided to set up centre of water resources in the island to suggest remedial steps for the recurring flood and erosion there.

For more details: Majuli, worlds largest river island

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016

Topics: Assam  Brahmaputra River  Current Affairs - 2017  Current Affairs 2016  Majuli  Places in News  States

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A ceremony was held at the Madison County Courthouse at noon Friday to remember 9/11.

Sargent Jason Fitzwater of the Fredericktown Police Department began the ceremony by addressing the several Madison County citizens who broke away from their hectic work day for the reverent ceremony.

I ask that Sunday, please just remember the people that lost their lives that day, Fitzwater said. The many, many, many soldiers that have gone overseas to fight since 9/11 and who have also lost their lives.

James Murdock is the associate pastor of the Fresh Anointing Pentecostal Church and spoke with an increasing level of compassion as he looked at the flag bearing the names of people who were lost on that day in 2001.

I labored over what to say. I look at that flag and the stripes and there are so many names of those who gave their lives, Murdock said. Let us never forget.

The pastor listed statistics relative to engines and personnel from numerous fire departments in New York City deployed to the site of the World Trade Center after the first tower was hit.

At that point most observers thought that a horrific accident had occurred, Murdock said. But, that was until less than 20 minutes later.

In fact at that point I know that I was in front of the (television) watching the south tower. Then to see the image of the second jet coming into the second tower, Murdock said. At that point that the two planes crashing into adjoining towers within minutes was not just an accident.

Murdock continued to give a historic outline of the tragic days events.

It became blaringly obvious that the unthinkable had happened, that America was under attack, Murdock stressed. News reports jumped back and forth flashing images of two cities under siege.

The normal flow of life across the country had come to a screeching halt, his account continued. While a nation stood riveted in front of television screens.

Murdock said in the days and weeks immediately following the travesty, Americans could be seen in great numbers putting their hands over their hearts during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance" or during the singing of the National Anthem. People prayed in the streets and frequented churches to pray for those who lost their lives.

Murdock pointed out that he has witnessed a downturn in the level of patriotism in the country over the years following 2001. He stated he saw an increase in this negative trend. Murdock provided a list of indicators such as school children choosing not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the increased dangers faced by the brave men and women of police forces.

Let the tide be turned now, let it start here in Fredericktown, Missouri, Murdock said. Let it be known that we support our police officers, the city, the county and the state officers, that we are thankful for their service for their daily (risking) of their lives to protect ours.

Madison County Presiding Commissioner Bob Mooney closed the ceremony with an invitation of refreshments for the guests.
This years freshman class are children of the 21st century  born after the start of a new millennium.

For them, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 are something they read about in a textbook or see on television. This generation of students note that day as pivotal point in American History  much like the battles shaping the nation and world their parents learned about as students.

On Friday, a group of the class of 2020 at Farmington High School took a few minutes out of taking a quiz in the World History through Literature class of Dr. Brian Reeves to discuss what they learned about the events of that day  through stories told to them by their families.

Reeves told the students he was in a neighboring classroom on that Tuesday, turning on the television to watch what was occurring in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Elayna Roberts said her father is an air traffic controller and was working in St. Louis on 9/11.

He remembers being really nervous about everything, she said. Everything that happened touched him in a way. I remembering him talking about it being traumatic, very hectic.

Melissa Miller said her mother is an elementary special education teacher. On 9/11, her mother and fellow teachers gathered around a television in the teachers lounge to watch the events unfold.

Uncertainty of what would occur was also on the mind of her father, Melissa said.

He said it was a very scary experience for him, she said. My mom was pregnant with me at the time and they also had a 3-year old, my sister. He told me he remembered having to get home because he was afraid the whole entire country would be under attack.

Olivia Currington said the anniversary makes her mom emotional each year.

We didnt know anyone (killed or injured) in 9/11, but she remembers how terrified she was because she didnt know what was going on and she was pregnant with me, she said.

Although Mikaila Moffit said her family hasnt shared a lot about what they remember from that day, she knows it to be one of the worst tragedies to happen in American history.

Alex Hatch said his mother talks about how her work came to a stop to watch the events unfold on live television.

Rothman Harris remembers seeing the footage replayed in real-time during the anniversary of the attacks and thinking that it was happening  when his parents explained it was a remembrance of that day.

Watching it on the news every year is a reminder of what could happen, Currington said. Then, the Paris attacks in November were so alike  its kind of scary.

Reeves noted there is a new paradigm for students growing up now.

I never worried about terrorism in Cape Girardeau when I was growing up, he said. I dont worry about it here in Farmington. But, going to New York, you think about it a little more if you are traveling to a big city.

Reeves shows footage from 9/11 in his classrooms when the anniversary falls on a school day  something he feels is significant for this generation of students.

For 10 years after, all of my students (remembered the attacks), he said. This is a visceral image they had. They remembered watching and hearing this.

Last year, I had some students that really struck me for the first time that (9/11) could have been Antietam and the Civil War. This came before their time.

Reeves said a challenge he faces as a history teacher is some things like the Cold War and 9/11  I lived through all that so I just assume they know about it. Its an awakening sometimes to know that (it) now is history.
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DEAR HARRIETTE: I have always been a "mommy's boy." I am turning 27 this year, and I thought it was finally time to give my mother her credit card back. This card has become of a symbol between us. I barely use it anymore, and I thought it would be a great way to show my mother that I can be independent. However, when the time came to give it back, she bawled and accused me of cutting her out of my life. This was not the reaction I was expecting. I thought she'd be proud that she had raised a son who can support himself. I ended up taking the credit card back with me because she left it on the table when she left the room crying. How can I let go of this safety net? I clearly didn't do it right the first time. -- Out of the Cradle, Washington, D.C.

DEAR OUT OF THE CRADLE: Welcome to this new phase of your life. Parents and adult children often go through twists and turns as they figure out how to be adults together. You do not need to relinquish that card. Shutting it down would likely impact your credit negatively. Instead, you can just stop using it. Put it in a drawer, and let it be. Or if you do decide to use it, pay the bill yourself, or set aside the amount that you owe and at the end of the year do something nice for your parents with that money.

Meanwhile, assure your parents that you had no intention of insulting them. Instead, you want them to see that they have done a great job of rearing a responsible young man, and that's all you wanted them to know.

DEAR HARRIETTE: After being laid off from my job, I thought I'd try to get into the cannabis industry. It appears to be booming, and I feel like there are still unturned stones there that could make a bunch of money. I spoke to a senior mentor from my old job, and his strong opposition to my business venture scared me straight. He explained that cannabis is still considered a drug just like cocaine or heroin in the United States. He told me the Drug Enforcement Administration would try to lock me up. I thought I had a revolutionary business model until this lunch. I have all of my money invested in my product and no job. I think I should just take a leap of faith. -- Cannabis Calling, Brooklyn, New York

DEAR CANNABIS CALLING: While your friend is somewhat right in that the federal government has yet to legalize the use or sale of marijuana nationally, there are many opportunities to enter this business, and many entrepreneurs are doing the research right now to determine how they can fit in.

As with any other business venture, you must do your research thoroughly. This includes learning what legal constraints exist and what relationship you can expect with the DEA. Don't give up until you have exhausted your research. One place to start is theweedbusiness.com. You should also contact medical marijuana sellers and businesses in the states where the sale of marijuana is legal to get more input.

Harriette Cole is a lifestylist and founder of DREAMLEAPERS, an initiative to help people access and activate their dreams. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106
I noticed that Phill Brooks' August 24 perspective "The Dignity of Missouri's Capitol" contained a bigoted slam against my religion, the Church of Scientology, in reference to an unnamed organization's exhibit in the Missouri State Capitol Rotunda. In fact, this organization is the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis (www.CCHRSTL.org); it has been warmly welcomed and exhibiting yearly in the State Capitol for many years. CCHR was founded in 1969 by the late psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, whose mission is to restore human rights to the field of mental health. CCHR is not a "campaign against psychiatry" but rather a watchdog group for the mental health industry which is running amok over people's human rights. The intention is to see psychiatry brought back under the law and cease its rampant fraud and abuse of vulnerable Missouri citizens. CCHR St. Louis educates people about pertinent Missouri legislation designed to curb the insane bloat of the Missouri Department of Mental Health's budget, which only furthers more patient abuse and has very little to do with returning traumatized people to being productive members of society.
A wall of green ivy at Greenhouse, a Deloitte work space at 111 S. Wacker Dr. in Chicago. Deloitte announced this week a family leave policy that offers 16 weeks of leave that can be used not only by new moms and dads, but also by professionals caring for aging parents. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Could paid leave to care for elderly parents be the next big corporate perk?

Deloitte this week announced a new family leave program that goes beyond the generous maternity and paternity policies that are becoming common in some industries competing for high-skill talent.

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The consulting firm, which has 5,000 employees in Chicago, announced that it will offer 16 weeks of fully paid family leave that can be used not only by new moms and dads, but also by professionals caring for aging parents or an ailing spouse, significant other, child or sibling.

Conversations about work-life balance often focus on child care  and often on women  but Deloitte's program recognizes shifting family structures and that children are not employees' only family obligation.

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"It's great to remind people that even people who are not parents have parents and partners and loved ones," said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values @ Work, a network of groups pushing for paid leave. "We hope that we'll see more companies expanding in this direction."

The aging population may force more employers to take notice. The number of people over 65 is expected to double, to 98 million people, by 2060, raising concerns about a shortage of caregivers.

"There will be more executives who will be running into this themselves, or will have need for care and want their adult children to have that time without jeopardizing their careers," Bravo said.

Still, the big companies that might jump on the bandwagon represent a sliver of the nation's employers, "so ultimately the only way to ensure that everyone has access is a public policy," she said.

While the Family and Medical Leave Act permits employees to take 12 weeks off unpaid to care for an immediate relative with a serious health condition  that includes spouse, child or parent  as well as a new baby, there is no federal policy mandating paid time off. And the law only applies to employees who have worked at least a year at a company with at least 50 employees, or about 60 percent of the population.

Deloitte's prior paid leave policy offered primary caregivers eight weeks and nonprimary caregivers three weeks of paid parental leave. Mothers who gave birth got additional short-term disability. (Under the new policy, mothers who gave birth get six months off paid, including short-term disability).

To take time off for caregiving of parents or spouses, employees had to use personal time off, unpaid leave under FMLA or flexible and virtual work arrangements.

aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

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Larry Holmes, a Medicaid beneficiary, has hepatitis C but cannot get medication that would cure his disease because of the state's policy. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune). (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

The state of Illinois has backed off a 2-year-old policy that allowed only its sickest residents with hepatitis C who rely on the traditional Medicaid program to get disease-curing drugs.

The policy change, announced Friday evening, means Illinois residents on Medicaid with stage 3 liver scarring  not just the sickest patients with stage 4 liver scarring  will be able to access the drugs. If left untreated, hepatitis C can lead to liver failure, cancer and even death.

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At least 12,000 Illinoisans covered by Medicaid had been diagnosed with hepatitis C as of last year, according to the state.

The disease is transmitted primarily through blood contact, meaning drug users who share needles are at risk, as are those who get tattoos in nonsterile conditions and anyone who got a blood transfusion before 1992, when screening of the blood supply began.

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A number of other states already relaxed their rules in response to pressure from the federal government, lawsuits and the declining cost of some of the medications.

The announcement followed questions posed to the state by the Chicago Tribune about its policy restrictions, which patient advocates and lawmakers had asked the state to loosen.

John Hoffman, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, said in an Aug. 31 email to the Tribune that the state's policies "were designed to provide care within the state's fiscal restraints for those facing the most need."

In a subsequent email two days later, Hoffman wrote, "While there are no specific proposed changes formally under consideration after the 2014 policy implementation, as circumstances evolve we continually work with medical professionals on the most effective approaches."

The department said in its news release Friday that the changes followed a "thorough review of policy."

Friday's policy change prompted cheering by some advocates for those living with the disease, but they said it doesn't go far enough.

"I think it's a step in the right direction," said Dr. Andrew Aronsohn, a hepatologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "It still doesn't offer access to everybody that has hepatitis C. I still think that everyone that has chronic hepatitis C  should have access to treatment because of all the benefits."

Doctors often don't request the drugs for Medicaid patients in the early stages because they know they'll be turned away, Aronsohn said.

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Hoffman said he could not provide specifics Friday evening about how many more people might be helped or when the new policy would take effect.

Medications that started coming on the market several years ago cure the vast majority of those with hepatitis C, and without the debilitating side effects of earlier drugs. But many state Medicaid programs, including Illinois', limited who could get the drugs in response to their price tags: as much as $94,500 for one 12-week treatment regimen.

Increased competition among pharmaceutical companies has helped give states better negotiating power to lower costs. Medicaid is funded by state and federal dollars.

Last year, 623 people in traditional Medicaid were denied hepatitis C drugs, while 228 were granted access to the medication, according to the state.

The state said 753 people in Illinois' Medicaid managed care programs got the drugs last year, but it doesn't keep data on how many denials were issued to people in those programs. In Medicaid managed care, private insurers administer Medicaid benefits  in contrast to traditional Medicaid, for which the state administers benefits. Different insurers in the Medicaid managed care program have different rules on who can get the medications. About two-thirds of the 3.2 million people on Medicaid in Illinois are in managed care programs.

Jill Wolf, hepatitis C program director of the Caring Ambassadors Program, a patient advocacy nonprofit, said she'd like to see the state go even further. Some states have broadened access to all hepatitis C patients regardless of what stage they are in.

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In 2015, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance to all states saying it was concerned that some states were breaking federal law by restricting access to the drugs.

Earlier this summer, a judge in Washington granted a preliminary injunction forcing the state to change its policy pending the outcome of a lawsuit there. Massachusetts, Delaware and Florida are also among the states that have recently expanded or announced plans to broaden access to the drugs. Indiana faces a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana over the issue, and settlement talks in that case are underway.

But Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said access to the drugs is not just a state Medicaid problem.

"There's a lot of blame to go around," Salo said. "The manufacturers priced this too high, but I also think there's been a total and utter lack of leadership at the federal level to say, 'What should we as a people and a nation be doing about this?'"

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in June called on drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers to make the drugs more affordable to state Medicaid programs.

Meanwhile, Gilead Sciences, which sells some of the drugs, continues to defend its prices, saying the medications still cost considerably less than the lifetime price of otherwise treating hepatitis C. Gilead believes the medications' prices "reflect the innovation of the medicines and the value they bring to patients," Mark Snyder, a Gilead spokesman, said in an email.

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Gilead continues to work with Illinois Medicaid to offer rebates "above and beyond those mandated by law," Snyder said. Illinois, for example, gets more than half off the $94,500 wholesale cost of one 12-week regimen of hepatitis C drug Harvoni, he said.

State Rep. Michael McAuliffe, R-Chicago, was elated to hear of the new policy Friday. McAuliffe is chairman of the state's task force on hepatitis C, which he created after losing his father-in-law, brother-in-law and uncle to complications of hepatitis C. The task force had been pushing for changes to the policy.

"I think it's going to save a lot of lives," McAuliffe said.

Larry Holmes at his home in Chicago on Sept. 7, 2016. Holmes, a Medicaid beneficiary, has hepatitis C but can't get medication that would cure his disease under the state's policy. Holmes, who is in an early stage of the condition, said he's happy to hear that the state plans to expand drug access to more patients, even though he won't yet qualify under the new guidelines. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Larry Holmes, of Chicago, who is in an early stage of the condition and is on Medicaid, said he's happy to hear of the policy change, even though it won't give him access to the medications.

"It can't help me, but somebody can get help," said Holmes, 62.

He continues to worry about his own future. He's concerned about how sick he'll have to get before the state will cover the medication for him.

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"Anytime you're sick and you can't get the medicine, that's a problem," Holmes said.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
Comedian Rebecca O'Neal is ready to graduate. Not from high school or college, but from Chicago comedy. To be clear, it's not because she doesn't love the city and its comedy community  the native Chicagoan has nary a bad word for her current stomping grounds. It's just that given the nature of the industry and what Chicago can offer, the logical next step for any career-minded comedian is to hawk his or her wares in New York or LA.

"The people who are starting comedy now are freshman," says O'Neal, who's been performing in Chicago since 2012. "Extrapolate," she says with a laugh, then continues the metaphor: "All my friends are graduating, and if I hang around too long I'm going to be a fifth-year senior who's creepy. So I've got to get out of here before that happens."

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If graduating is the goal, she's putting in the work to be the class of 2016's valedictorian, currently prepping for a headlining performance at Laugh Factory Chicago (3175 N. Broadway; 773-327-3175 and www.laughfactory.com/clubs/chicago) at 8 p.m. Oct. 29, titled "Laugh Factory Presents: Rebecca O'Neal Live!" Let's call that event her graduation ceremony.

But O'Neal can't get too caught up in that show alone. Recently quitting her day job to focus solely on comedy, she's lined up near-constant gigs. "I want to do at least one show every day," she says. "Otherwise I might as well just have a day job." On nights that she doesn't have a show scheduled, she will reach out to venues and fellow comedians to find somewhere to perform. "I really have to focus on paying gigs," she says. "Literally every day I'm trying to pay rent and just be a good comedian."

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She's so focused on performing as often as she can that our post-show backstage interview almost didn't happen. Pumped after a show at the Athenaeum Theatre  a high-profile gig for a local comedian, opening for nationally touring comic Maria Bamford (star of the Netflix series "Lady Dynamite")  she nearly walked out of the theater to hit an open mic with fellow opener Jackie Kashian. "I felt so good that I completely forgot and almost waltzed out of the building on a high like, 'I'm going to go do more comedy!'" she says.

Even when she's not opening for big names, O'Neal's schedule stays pretty packed. On Tuesdays she hosts the showcase/open-mic hybrid "Top $10 Tuesdays" at Laugh Factory, where aspiring comedians can hop on stage between sets by proven comics. And Wednesday nights at Cole's Bar (2338 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 773-276-5802), she co-hosts what is perhaps the city's most notable open mic (former hosts include Cameron Esposito, Rhea Butcher and Adam Burke). This is also where she performed comedy for the first time. "I didn't stand in the light. I sort of just stood there, reciting my jokes at the audience," she says.

She's come a long way since then. Less than a week after the Bamford show, she gets a last-minute call from the booking agent at the Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee asking her to open for Esposito. "She talked about how she saw my first-ever stand-up set at Cole's at the open mic she started, and now I'm hosting it." O'Neal says. "It was a really nice moment."

After the show, Esposito has nothing but support for O'Neal. "Watching her grow and seeing her handle a large room and an out-of-town crowd has been so rewarding," she says. "I can't wait to see what she does next."

For now, O'Neal's next move is clear: make her headlining show a success. "I'm going to try to just pack it to the rafters," she says. "Get a great clip of me doing 40 minutes and send it to whoever wants it."

Beneath the confidence, she still has a healthy sense of anxiety about her career. "I'm a little panicked. I'm sort of just paying for everything I need in my life," she says. "But comedy has never taken me backward. Nobody can take my credits from me. I'm not going to forget all my jokes. If I do, I can write new ones. So that's how I look at it."

A highly educated outlook.

Zach Freeman is a freelance writer.

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ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ZachRunsChicago
There's good love and bad love, but it's all the sorts of love in between  hopeful, tarnished, downright impossible, sometimes all at once  that Christine Sneed catalogs in her often heartsick, always gimlet-eyed new collection of short stories, "The Virginity of Famous Men."

It would be reductive, politically and otherwise, to say the Evanston-based author views the outcomes of love relationships as inevitably determined by gender roles and, in many cases, the corrupting power conferred by wealth and fame. (Several of the pieces here involve Hollywood figures; the title story reads like an outtake from her 2013 novel "Little Known Facts," about a middle-aged movie star, Renn, and the noxious pull of his glamorous force field on his family members, in particular his adult son and romantic rival, Will.)

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But it's an unavoidable conclusion that in Sneed's fictional universe, love is hard under the best of circumstances. Introduce power imbalances brought about by disparities in money, beauty, class, status, race, age or any number of other factors, and heartbreak  often accompanied by bitterness, resentment and at times a hankering for payback once things go wrong  is almost always in the offing. Add to this the fact that almost no two lovers are evenly matched, early or late, and you have a vision of love as unending guerrilla war, with men pressing their unacknowledged advantages and women mounting various counteroffenses, often surprisingly effective, with whatever weapons come to hand.

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In "The Prettiest Girls," for example, Jim, a handsome, aging scout for a film company on location in Mexico, sets his sights on Elsa, an extremely attractive young local woman desperate to leave her native country for the bright lights of Hollywood. In his lustful confusion, he agrees to smuggle her across the border but convinces himself that he'll be able to control her. "You have to do what I tell you," he says, "because you could be sent back here so fast you'd get dizzy." The threat proves empty. Back in Los Angeles, jealousy devours him: "Elsa was so beautiful that worry over losing her crouched in my gut like a venomous toad." And later, after she makes an impression on a film set as a gorgeous extra and future femme fatale: "I buried my face in her hair, smelled her warm, clean scent, and knew that I adored her in spite of her prejudices and ignorance and selfishness. I also knew that she couldn't possibly love me." He's left alone, "my skin gray in the mirror, my gut looking like a deflated punching bag as it sagged over my jeans before I pulled on a rumpled red shirt."

"The First Wife," the collection's best story, is also set in Hollywood. The protagonist is a screenwriter who marries the famous and impossibly handsome movie star Anthony.

A tragic weight anchors all but a few of these stories (an exception is "The New, All-True CV," as acidly hilarious as Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O."), in which the battles are often over almost before they've begun  all that's left is to take stock of the carnage and bury the dead, less in anger than in sorrow. In that sense, Sneed is as much heir to John O'Hara and John Cheever as to many of the women writers, such as Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant, who seem to have inspired her. Sneed's frustration and impatience with love and its obstacles are tempered, though not softened, by her sense of resignation. It was never an even playing field, romance, and it never will be. And yet it beckons, a killing ground strewn with roses.

Kevin Nance is a freelancer.

Twitter @KevinNance1

The Virginity of Famous Men

By Christine Sneed, Bloomsbury, 301 pages, $26
Former Chicago Tribune Editor Robert R. McCormicks 24th-floor office in Tribune Tower is among the buildings ornate rooms that developers would be smart to preserve. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune 2012)

He stood 6 feet 4 inches tall, had an erect soldierly bearing and was known simply as "the Colonel," having won that title in World War I. Often remembered (and reviled) as a doctrinaire isolationist and conservative, he also was an innovator who built a media empire that encompassed radio and television, as well as Canadian paper mills that supplied newsprint for his Chicago Tribune. He was an aristocrat who detested the idle rich, yet he was known to enjoy a fox hunt.

The hackneyed phrase "larger than life" was made for Robert R. McCormick, the controversial editor and publisher who died in 1955 and whose name still graces the Chicago convention center built to memorialize him. McCormick's greatest monument, however, is Tribune Tower, the flamboyant neo-Gothic office building designed by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood.

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In last Sunday's column, I sounded a warning about the future of this icon, which Tribune Media, a broadcasting and digital company, plans to sell to Los Angeles and Chicago developers who could surround the magnificent old building with mediocre new ones. And while most of the tower's exterior is protected by its status as an official city landmark, its interior is far more vulnerable. Only the hushed, churchlike space of the main lobby and the adjoining elevator lobbies have landmark protection. The Colonel's baronial 24th-floor office and other great rooms within the tower enjoy no such guarantees.

Located in the tower's southwest corner, the office reinforced the skyscraper's identity as a cathedral of journalism and signaled McCormick's status as an American press lord.

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The walls of the long, essentially rectangular room were paneled in dark pine. The delicately rendered ceiling featured personalized decoration  a scroll and key that symbolized the secret society to which McCormick belonged at Yale; a cannon representing his World War I military service. At one end of the room, a monumental fireplace was inscribed with a quotation from (who else?) McCormick. At the other end was his desk, a luxurious marble table. Visitors must have approached warily, as if they had been granted an audience with the pope.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 34 The Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue was built in 1925 and houses the Chicago Tribune and other businesses. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

There's a seamy story about this room, though it has nothing to do with McCormick. In 2009, as The New York Times reported a year later, underlings of Sam Zell, then Tribune Co.'s controlling shareholder, had a poker party there. "We are in the office of the guy who ran the company from the 1920s to 1955," one of the partyers wrote on his Facebook page. "It's normally a shrine. We pretty much desecrated it with gambling, booze and cigars."

What kind of shape is the room in now? I wish I could tell you, but the building's property manager turned down my request to take a look Friday, citing orders from Tribune Media's real estate division. That's rich: A media company shuts out the media that want to document the office of a man who built a media empire.

Why should you care? Here's why: A building's interior has the power to convey an essential part of its story. Smart real estate developers get that. They understand the power of the past to confer cachet and, in the process, justify higher rents. At the Rookery Building, for example, guided tours head upstairs to the meticulously restored former office where two architectural giants, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root, famously shaped booming, late-19th-century Chicago.

The developers who plan to buy Tribune Tower, CIM Group of Los Angeles and Chicago-based Golub & Co., should follow that lead and breathe new life into McCormick's office and other stirring spaces within the building. They have yet to release their plans, but it is expected that they will convert the tower and the rest of the 3-acre Tribune property into a mix of shops, a hotel and high-end residences.

The first battle lines over the redevelopment of historic Tribune Tower have formed over a proposed retail structure that opponents argue could block the Towers south facade from the Michigan Avenue Bridge and clutter a little-known sliver of open space, the so-called Ogden Slip view corridor. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

But the transformation should not wipe out the best of what's inside. For example, on the same floor as the Colonel's lair there's another old office that's almost as impressive. It belonged to Joseph M. Patterson, once McCormick's co-editor and co-publisher. Between the offices is a former Tribune Co. boardroom with a vaulted, coffered ceiling of ornate mahogany. The elegance continues on the fourth floor in an imposing, wood-paneled conference room where Tribune editorial writers have grilled everyone from presidents to candidates for the sanitary district.

They don't make rooms like this anymore, just as they don't build buildings like Tribune Tower anymore. For the sake of their reputations as well as their balance sheet, the skyscraper's new owners would do well to save these treasures.

bkamin@chicagotribune.com

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An Indiana man was charged Friday with kidnapping in connection with a series of alleged sexual attacks in Calumet City on women he met through online prostitution and exotic dancing advertisements, authorities said.

Keith Dewitt Davis, 26, of South Bend, is accused of beating and raping a woman early June 27 after the two met online and agreed to have sex for $120, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

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The complaint implicated Davis in three other similar attacks over the summer within four blocks of each other in vacant or abandoned homes near Pulaski Road and Burnham Avenue in Calumet City. Davis allegedly arranged the meeting place. He displayed a weapon in two of the attacks, the complaint states.

In the first incident, a woman who admitted her attacker had solicited prostitution services from her told police he instead punched, raped and warned, "This should make you stop," before he fled with her cellular phone and identification. Police were notified after the woman went to a hospital for her injuries.

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Days later, a second woman reported to Calumet City police that she escaped after a man attempted to punch her and pull her into the same abandoned house where the first attack allegedly occurred. The man fit a similar description. The woman said she had agreed to meet him at the location but fled after she realized it was an abandoned house.

The third alleged attack, on July 10, involved a woman who worked as an exotic dancer. Authorities said she reported being forced into an abandoned house at gunpoint, then beaten and repeatedly raped in a basement. Her attacker fled with her clothing and purse, according to the complaint.

"(She) then ran from the house, naked, and contacted residents of a nearby house, who called police," the federal complaint said.

In the final alleged attack, on Aug. 12, patrol officers stopped to help a partially nude woman who was walking in the area of the earlier incidents. According to police, she also had advertised online prostitution services. The woman began to fight the man after he placed a metal object that she believed to be a handgun to the side of her head.

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"(The victim) fell to the floor and was punched, kicked, bit, and scratched repeatedly," the complaint says. "(She) fought back and was able to grab the metal object, which was in fact a pipe, and strike the male with it. She also bit the male's fingers to the point of drawing blood."

She managed to escape, and she told police the man called her the next day to try to arrange to meet her again. After she recognized his voice, according to the complaint, he called her profanities and said, in part, "I should have (expletive) killed you yesterday."

Authorities said they were led to Davis through cellular phone records, surveillance cameras near the crime scenes, photo identification by the women and other witness interviews.

Davis agreed to meet authorities Sept. 2 for an interview. During the interrogation, authorities said he initially denied involvement but later admitted to meeting each of the four women for sex but said it was consensual and turned violent after they attacked him.

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Davis was arrested last weekend on a state of Indiana warrant. He was taken into federal custody Friday and appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge M. David Weisman in Chicago.

cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @christygutowsk1
A Canadian judge is facing the possibility of removal from the bench after he faulted a 19-year-old woman who said she was raped for not doing enough to defend herself during the alleged attack and suggesting that she wanted to have sex.

Among Federal Court Justice Robin Camp's remarks during a 2014 sexual assault trial, according to a notice of allegations posted on the Canadian Judicial Council website:

"Why couldn't you just keep your knees together? Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?"

Young women, the judge said, "want to have sex, particularly if they're drunk," according to the notice.

He also said that "some sex and pain sometimes go together" and "that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Camp's controversial remarks resulted in an investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council, a federal body that polices judges.

He is expected to testify Friday before a five-member committee as part of a week-long proceeding that began Tuesday and will end next week in Calgary, Alberta.

The committee will decide on Camp's fate after hearing evidence and testimony.

Camp made the comments during a five-day trial in June 2014. At the time, he was appointed to the Alberta Provincial Court Criminal Division in Calgary. He became a federal judge last year.

The woman had accused a Calgary man, Alexander Wagar, of raping her over a bathroom sink during a house party.

Camp acquitted Wagar in September 2014. The woman appealed, and the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned Camp's ruling, according to a statement of facts. Wagar is scheduled for a second trial in November.

The Canadian Judicial Council's investigation began in November 2015, after four law professors filed a complaint against Camp, who later recused himself from any cases involving sex crimes, according to the statement of facts.

Members of the public later followed suit in filing complaints.

In December, the Alberta attorney general filed a formal complaint against Camp and referred the matter to what's called an "inquiry committee," which is made up of three judges and two lawyers.

The committee will decide whether Camp should be removed from the bench.

According to the notice of allegations, Camp's "rude and derogatory" comments "belittle(d) and trivialize(d) the nature of the allegations." He also made "stereotypical assumptions about how someone confronted with sexual assault would or would not behave."

The woman, whose identity has been concealed, said the judge's remarks made her hate herself, CBC News reported.

"He made me feel like I should have done something, like I was some kind of a slut," she said.

During the proceeding, Camp's daughter, who said she herself is a rape victim, testified that her father's comments were "disgraceful."

But, she said, she stands behind her father, according to CBC News.

Lauren Camp wrote that although her father is "old-fashioned in some ways" and does not completely understand "how women think," he is not "an inherent or dedicated sexist," CBC News reported.

"I have seen him advance in understanding and empathy for victims, vulnerable litigants and those who have experienced trauma," she wrote.

Camp has since apologized for his conduct. His attorney, Frank Addario, argued that Camp has "consistently shown remorse," records say, and has taken steps "to educate himself and gain insight into his beliefs."

Addario also argued that although Camp made "insensitive and inappropriate" comments, his misconduct can be "remedied by education" and does not warrant removal from office, records say.

Camp also has gone through mentoring, counseling about how victims of abuse respond to trauma, and a crash course on the history and current state of sexual assault law.

Records say Camp did not receive any training or judicial education on sexual assault law or how to preside over sexual assault trials.

A law professor who called Camp's comments "rude and stupid" testified Thursday that she had five educational sessions with Camp and believes he is now familiar with how to deal with sexual assault cases, CBC News reported.

The 64-year-old judge is married with three children. He grew up in South Africa and attended the University of Stellenbosch, where he received degrees in commerce and law, according to a statement of facts from the Canadian Judicial Council.

He later practiced as a barrister in Johannesburg and has represented members of the African National Congress.

Camp moved his family to Botswana in 1992, then to Calgary in 1998.

His practice in Canada mostly focused on contractual, trust, oil and gas, and bankruptcy litigation.

In March 2012, he was appointed to the Alberta Provincial Court Criminal Division in Calgary. He became a federal judge in June 2015.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.  Hillary Clinton said Saturday that she was wrong to put half of Donald Trump's supporters in a "basket of deplorables," but she didn't back down from describing his campaign as largely built on prejudice and paranoia. The Republican accused her of a "grotesque attack on American voters."

Less than 24 hours after she made the comments at a private New York City fundraiser, Clinton said in a statement, "last night I was 'grossly generalistic' and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half'  that was wrong." But she argued that the word "deplorable" was reasonable to describe much of Trump's campaign.

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"He has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people," the Democratic nominee said.

Responding in a statement, Trump said it was "disgraceful that Hillary Clinton makes the worst mistake of the political season and instead of owning up to this grotesque attack on American voters, she tries to turn it around with a pathetic rehash of the words and insults used in her failing campaign?"

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Trump added that Clinton was showing "bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans," arguing that she was "incapable to serve as President of the United States."

Clinton, who has said she is the candidate to unify a divided country, made the "deplorables" comment at an LGBT fundraiser Friday night at a New York City restaurant, with about 1,000 people in attendance. She has made similar comments recently, including on an Israeli television station.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic  you name it," she said, before stressing that other Trump supporters are frustrated and need sympathy.

Trump and his supporters quickly pounced on the remark, arguing that it revealed Clinton as disconnected from struggling Americans.

"Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard-working people. I think it will cost her at the polls!" Trump said in a tweet.

Running mate Mike Pence, in remarks at the Values Voter conference in Washington, shot back: "The truth of the matter is that the men and women who support Donald Trump's campaign are hard-working Americans, farmers, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community, members of every class of this country who know that we can make America great again."

Of course, while Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump's brand is controversy. At a rally in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, he said Clinton is "so protected" that "she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart. And she wouldn't be prosecuted."

Clinton's rhetorical stumble came as the candidates head into the final two months of the campaign, with Trump trying to make up ground before the Nov. 8 election.

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Clinton has not let the media into many private fundraisers, but press was allowed in to hear her remarks Friday. At the New York restaurant, Clinton bemoaned the people she described as "deplorables," saying "unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people  now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks  they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America," said Clinton, who was the country's top diplomat during President Barack Obama's first term.

Clinton then pivoted and tried to characterize the other half of Trump's supporters, putting them in "that other basket" and saying they need empathy.

She described them as "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change."

Seeking to explain the statements, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a series of tweets after the remarks that Clinton has been talking about the "alternative right," or "alt-right" movement, which often is associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity," oppose multiculturalism and defend "Western values." Merrill argued that "alt-right" leaders are supporting Trump and "their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events."

But the moment recalled comments about voters  also at private fundraisers  that have tripped up presidential nominees in the past.

Weeks before the 2012 election, Republican Mitt Romney landed in hot water for saying that 47 percent of the public would vote for President Barack Obama "no matter what" because they depended on government benefits and his job was "not to worry about those people."

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During the 2008 Democratic primary, then-Sen. Obama said that small-town voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

On Saturday, Clinton's staff said she attended another fundraiser at the Armonk, New York, home of attorney David Boies. But reporters traveling with her campaign were not allowed in and did not see her.

Trump, meanwhile, did not address Clinton's comment at his only scheduled public appearance on Saturday, a funeral in St. Louis for social conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Trump noted that Schlafly rooted for the underdog, and "the idea that so-called little people, or the little person that she loved so much, could beat the system  often times, the rigged system."

Associated Press
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton attends a National Security working session at the Historical Society Library in New York on Sept. 9, 2016. (Andrew Harnik / AP)

PENSACOLA, Fla.  Hillary Clinton said Friday it was time for a "rethinking" of America's strategy for North Korea following the regime's latest test of a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump and his campaign chief, meanwhile, refused to outline the Republican presidential candidate's plans for defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The New York billionaire, however, vowed to deploy military muscle to attack America's enemies if provoked.

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Largely ignoring North Korea, he noted a recent incident in which he said Iranian ships were "toying with" an American destroyer near the Strait of Hormuz. During a Trump presidency, he promised at a Friday night rally in Pensacola, Florida, ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water."

In New York, Clinton was focused on the North Korean threat after meeting with a bipartisan group of national security experts.

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The former secretary of state said she would seek to impose tougher sanctions on the communist nation, arguing the latest test provides an opening to pressure China, which has been tepid in its response to North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

"I think we have an opening here that we haven't had for the last several years that I intend to do everything I can to take advantage of," Clinton said.

Clinton spoke hours after Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, pressed repeatedly on Trump's plans for the region, said only, "He wouldn't do what's being done now."

"He's not going to reveal all of his plans and he's made that very clear. And maybe someone can ask him in a debate," Conway told "CBS This Morning." ''But the fact is that this entire world would be put on notice that there's a strong leader in the White House."

North Korea's latest atomic test was its fifth, and the second in eight months. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North's biggest ever in explosive yield, was an act of "fanatic recklessness" and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un "is spiraling out of control."

President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the U.S. would never accept the country as a nuclear power.

In appearances in Florida and Washington, Trump used the North Korean development to attack Clinton. "North Korea, like so many other things, is one more Hillary Clinton failure," he said in Pensacola.

He did not say whether he had a plan to address North Korea's claim the test will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.

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He focused instead on attacking Clinton's credibility. He said Clinton was being "protected" during the Justice Department's investigation into her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

"She could walk right into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn't be prosecuted," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Clinton said the United States would not let North Korea pursue a nuclear weapon and said that as president, she would seek new sanctions and work closely with allies in the region, such as South Korea and Japan.

But she also said she would consider discussions similar to recent negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, because sanctions "aren't enough."

The development in North Korea comes at the end of a week in which Trump and Clinton clashed repeatedly over national security.

The New York billionaire attacked Clinton's record as the nation's chief diplomat, yet he faced criticism from within his own party for refusing to outline his plans for combating foreign policy challenges, including threats posed by the Islamic State group. Trump said this week that he does indeed have a plan, but would convene military leaders in his first 30 days in office to craft another plan.

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Trump has also faced criticism for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin during a high-profile national security forum earlier in the week, and appearing on a Russian-backed television network Thursday evening.

On Friday, Clinton said she was "disappointed" by Trump's decision to appear on RT America, saying that "every day that goes by this just becomes more and more of a reality television show. It's not a serious presidential campaign."

With several prominent Republican national security officials already concerned about Trump's national security acumen, Clinton has tried to cast herself as the better potential commander in chief. She has aggressively promoted her growing list of military endorsements from both parties.

On Friday, her campaign said the number of retired generals and admirals endorsing Clinton for president has grown to 110. Trump quickly countered by saying his list had ballooned to 120 former U.S. generals and admirals earlier in the week.

Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, received his first intelligence briefing Friday. The vice presidential nominee declined to offer any specifics since the information was classified.

Continuing her aggressive fundraising push, Clinton was to appear at two fundraisers in New York. One of them is an LGBT event featuring Barbra Streisand.

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Clinton is getting some help from another wealthy backer as well. Billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz said Friday he's giving $20 million to help defeat Trump.

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News of the 9/11 attacks came slowly in the Zambian bush  though I did listen to it unfold live, on my short-wave radio.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer and had been to meetings in other parts of the southern African country for two weeks. I was happy to get back to the village of Chizimba, about three days' trave l from Lusaka, the capital. I arrived at my mud house in the early afternoon. Typically I didn't listen to the radio until the evening, so it was unusual that I flipped it on before dinner. I scrolled the dial and landed on a Voice of America station, where I heard what was going on, right then, in New York. Except I'd landed on a VOA station in "special English," which broadcasts the news in a very slow cadence so people learning English can follow along. Here's what it sounded like to me: "A... plane has hit the World Trade Center in New York City"

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What?!? Spit it out!!

I spun the dial until I found a regular VOA channel and stayed glued to the news for the rest of the day, listening to the confused reports, taking in that a lot of people in New York were dead, and trying to keep track of what was happening at the Pentagon and over Pennsylvania.

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We had no electricity or generators in my village, and I was the only American for at least a day's drive in any direction. No televisions, certainly no internet and the only phone I could access  at a nearby missionary home  rarely worked. So I sat at my house and listened to the battery-powered radio. After a few hours, a neighbor came by to let me know he'd heard what was happening in the U.S. He offered his condolences and said he'd keep the village kids from visiting me for a while. I appreciated that.

Sept. 11 was a Tuesday. It was my brother's 30th birthday, so I was thinking of him. But I also wondered about my parents, who lived in Arlington, Va. My father's military job involved working part of each week at the Pentagon, and I had no way of knowing if he was there during the attack or if he'd been hurt or killed.

I didn't feel panicked about that. The Peace Corps protocol was that if bad news was to be delivered, an official would do it in person. I knew it could sometimes take two or three days for a vehicle to reach my village from the capital, so I just waited. That seems so strange now, but I was calm, assuming there was little I could do and if no vehicle came then everything was OK.

I listened to radio reports, but I went on with life. I played with the kids, I worked on the HIV/AIDS projects that were my main volunteer job, I wrote letters home about mundane life in the village.

By Friday, my nerves were fraying. I was worried about my dad, so I bicycled into the small town a few miles away and visited the Catholic mission with the phone. I didn't expect my call to go through, but remarkably I got a ring on the first try. My mom answered, and with her first words I knew everything was fine. "Oh, Lara, we were so worried about you!" That's the sentiment of a loving parent. My remote pocket of Zambia was probably one of the safest places in the world at that moment. Living and working around the Pentagon was not  yet she was worried about me. Deep relief washed over me.

The weeks that followed were strange in that I had no Americans to talk with at all. Some of the elder men of the village visited me one day. They wanted to understand the news better, and their questions were interesting. One man wanted to know more about the Twin Towers and Manhattan. Why did so many people need to live and work on top of one another in such vertical spaces  had we run out of land in the rest of America? I tried to answer, but what I said felt inadequate and the whole idea of New York suddenly made no sense. Why did we pile into cities like that? Obviously, that was beside the point.

The majority of people in my region of Zambia were Christian or followers of traditional beliefs, but there was a vibrant minority Muslim community  including generations of people who had arrived from South Asia and the Middle East. The Muslim-Zambians and black Zambians lived and worked together with relative ease. But after 9/11, I was surprised by how many of my black Zambian acquaintances used the opportunity to share their anti-Muslim thoughts with me. It was unnerving to have those conversations, to have to repeat over and over things like "There are extremists in all religions" and "No, I don't blame the Muslims." It was hard, in part, because my country had just been attacked by people claiming to act in the name of Islam. At that raw time, I felt stingy about spending my energy defending a religion that admittedly I didn't fully understand. But we had good discussions about the growing culture clash between fundamentalist Muslims and the modern Western world. In the end, one of my neighbors summed it by using a local word, ukwa, that roughly translates as "jealousy" but is broader than that. He said, "Ah, so in your country there is ukwa, too." Yes, I suppose so.

I didn't see a single image from Sept. 11 until a few weeks after the attacks, when I traveled toward the provincial capital, Chipata, and stayed along the way at the home of a rough old Afrikaner who had satellite TV and two big La-Z-Boys in his living room. We watched CNN for hours. When I got to the Peace Corps house in Chipata, I finally was surrounded by other American volunteers. Through a very slow internet connection, and a shaky phone system, we were back in touch with our families at home. Many of us had been cut off in those first days or weeks, so our response to the situation felt delayed, like we'd been in a time warp. A few copies of Newsweek's international edition had just reached the house. I hadn't realized that any of the people trapped in the World Trade Center had jumped. I remember seeing a full-page photo of that in one of the magazines and feeling sick.

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After that, we cooked big group dinners, while friends from home came to visit and brought news and personal stories from New York that all of us volunteers soaked up. And then we headed off for a safari and a visit to my village. Life resumed. Everything the same, but entirely different.

Lara Weber is a member of the Tribune Editorial Board. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Chama, Zambia, from 2000 to 2002.
Inderjit Singh Mukker, of Darien, was allegedly beaten in September 2015 by a teenager who later was charged with a hate crime, in addition to other counts. (Kimberly Fornek / Chicago Tribune)

A Sikh-American named Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot and killed on Sept. 15, 2001, outside his gas station in Mesa, Ariz.

Sodhi, who maintained his beard and turban in accordance with his Sikh faith, saved money to purchase the gas station as he pursued his version of the American Dream. The shooter, who wanted revenge in the wake of the tragic terror attacks four days earlier, told his friends he was going "to go out and shoot some towel-heads." The murder became the first deadly hate crime in the United States after 9/11 but certainly not the last.

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Last September, our own community witnessed similar hatred, when a local teenager attacked and beat Inderjit Singh Mukker, a Sikh-American father, in suburban Darien. The assailant shouted "terrorist" and "go back to your country" before he repeatedly punched Mukker in the face. Despite these facts, local authorities initially failed to recognize and investigate the vicious assault as a hate crime.

These two crimes did not happen in a vacuum. In 2012, a white supremacist with neo-Nazi ties walked into a Sikh gurdwara (house of worship) in Oak Creek, Wis., and murdered six. Even though Sikh-Americans had experienced hundreds of hate crimes in the wake of 9/11, it took the deadliest mass shooting in an American house of worship in nearly 50 years for the federal government to finally agree to start tracking hate crimes against the Sikh-American community.

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I served as Mukker's attorney, and I can tell you that advocating for a hate crime charge was never about a harsher punishment. Instead, it's about making sure that our government and communities acknowledge the problem of hatred in our society. If we don't acknowledge it locally and track hatred nationally, how will we ever commit the resources necessary to address hate?

Today, as we enter the final stretch of the most vitriolic election cycle in U.S. history, we have to acknowledge the reality that hatred remains rampant in America. The climate of fear and bigotry impacts all Americans, especially Muslim-Americans and those who may be mistaken for Muslim. In two recent incidents, we witnessed the hate-fueled murders of three American men, two of whom were Muslims and a Lebanese-Christian who appeared to be Muslim.

The surge in anti-Muslim sentiment also takes a significant toll on Sikh-Americans who maintain turbans and beards as part of their religious identity. Our legal aid organization witnessed a dramatic spike in cases of backlash over the last year, including racial discrimination, verbal attacks and violent assaults like the one Mukker survived.

In Darien, after sustained public pressure from advocacy organizations and community members, local authorities reversed course and included hate crime charges in Mukker's case. The assailant eventually pleaded guilty to the hate crime and was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and two years of probation. His case publicly acknowledged that hate exists within our community, and it provided another important data point to aid us in our efforts to address hate and bigotry. These statistics matter as we work with authorities across the nation to better protect minority communities.

For 125 years, Sikh-Americans have been an integral part of the national fabric and made significant contributions to American life. Unfortunately, some Americans continue to judge us negatively based on our appearance. From Inderjit Singh Mukker to Balbir Singh Sodhi, hatred continues to damage and needlessly take innocent lives. We must acknowledge the problem, so that we can begin holding each other to a higher standard.

Harsimran Kaur lives in Vernon Hills and is the legal director for the Sikh Coalition.
Stacks of $100 notes lay at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in May 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

An existential question is facing modern consumers: paper or plastic?

No, not grocery bags. Money.

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OK, OK, we know that American dollar bills are actually made of fibers, not paper. We have some.

But over the last six years, Americans have been reaching more and more for their credit and debit cards  and passing over cash. The U.S. stands at the tipping point, perfectly pitched to tumble after Sweden, Singapore and the Netherlands to become another cash-averse nation.

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But while those in Scandinavia and Singapore have embraced their digital wallets  only 1 in 5 payments is made using cash in Sweden  many Americans still cling to currency.

In 2013, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that while noncash payments have been on a slow, steady rise, cash still accounts for more than a quarter of all U.S. payments. Debit and credit card transactions are more telling for our future, though; 53 percent of payments were made using plastic.

It's not hard to see why. Digital transactions are clean, simple and accurate. There is no worry of miscounted or misplaced change. Mobile apps make it easy to check bank accounts and credit card balances, create budgets, track spending, send money to friends and family, and even pay bills.

Plus, storing, creating and processing physical money costs  you guessed it  money. Singapore made headlines recently when the head of its central bank encouraged the city-state's other banks to pass on to their customers the cost of managing cash and checks, as a way of promoting the use of digital payments.

Cold cash has another drawback: Criminals like it. Thanks to its anonymity and portability, cash is an efficient way for crooks to keep transactions off the books. In a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff listed crimes facilitated by paper money: racketeering, extortion, money laundering, drug and human trafficking, corruption of public officials and terrorism.

In May, the European Central Bank announced that it would phase out its 500-euro bank note at the end of 2018. Europe's chief law enforcement officer, Rob Wainwright, argued that the bill made it too easy for criminals and terrorists to fund their illegal activities.

That's not to say that digital money isn't susceptible to crime. We're all familiar with credit card fraud. But cutting out cash  especially bills worth more than $20  could hobble crime bosses.

Creating a completely cashless society wouldn't come without a few hiccups; we'd have to learn to walk that fine line between security and privacy.

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According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., nearly 9.6 million American households don't have bank accounts. Those households present a challenge. Some of the "unbanked," as the FDIC calls them, prefer to keep their money close, away from the prying eyes of banks. Others face some impediment to opening an account, such as job or income loss, which means they might be left behind during a digital revolution of our monetary system.

Then there are those sticky questions we haven't yet asked ourselves about going cashless: How do we give spare change to street musicians? The homeless? What happens during a natural disaster? What will grandparents send in birthday cards?

We don't want those Washingtons to disappear from our wallets  at least not yet. Small bills are essential to everyday transactions.

The way to ease us into a new era of digital denomination is to take a page from the Europeans' book: Slowly phase out higher bills. We'll find new ways to honor Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin  other than $50 and $100 bills.
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Tom Allen, a former Northwest Side alderman and public defender who also ran for states attorney, is running to become chief judge of the Cook County Circuit Court. (Heather Charles / Chicago Tribune)

An election will unfold Thursday, but this one isn't dominating the airwaves. There are no televised debates. No super PACs. No demands to release tax returns.

The election is for chief judge of the Cook County Circuit Court. Voters don't make this choice. A majority of judges of the circuit court do, via secret ballot. It's a crucial election that will impact the future of the county's court system, which serves the city of Chicago and 126 suburbs. Most county residents aren't paying much attention, but the race is mobilizing the city's most powerful dynasties and rousing keen interest in lawyerly circles.

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Chief Judge Timothy Evans, first elected by his peers in 2001, is running for his sixth term. He's being challenged by Judge Tom Allen, a former Northwest Side alderman and public defender who also ran for state's attorney, and Judge Sandra Ramos, a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney elected to the bench in 2010. The winner will oversee 400 judges, 2,000 employees and an annual budget of $240 million.

Evans has been the subject of controversy during his tenure, including a recent embarrassment: A judge at the Markham courthouse allowed a law clerk to don a robe and hear a couple of traffic cases. Evans removed the judge from the bench and fired the clerk.

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But that incident, while disconcerting, doesn't reflect the broader criticism of Evans: His critics say he is not capable of properly managing one of the nation's largest court systems; he is too hands-off with judges who are lazy or incompetent; and he isn't proactive in addressing inefficiencies within his six courthouses.

One judge, Sheryl Pethers, grabbed headlines recently when she announced she would retire early because she didn't have the clout under Evans' administration to advance. She said repeated calls to Evans' office were not returned and that Evans rewarded other judges  some of whom didn't always show up for work  with better assignments. (Evans said Pethers was promoted, but he was unaware she wanted a different post. He also said his judges are expected to work an eight-hour day).

Yet the molasses pace of Cook County's criminal justice system prompted the Illinois Supreme Court in 2013 to intervene. At the time, the Cook County Jail was perpetually overcrowded and some defendants were waiting years behind bars for their cases to be resolved. A Supreme Court audit of Evans' pretrial services program  designed to screen defendants, advise judges and speed up cases  revealed problems with staffing, supervision, training. Basically, everything.

Evans responded by switching out the leadership of the division. Of 40 reforms the Supreme Court recommended, Evans implemented all 40. He says that under his guidance the court system has become more flexible. The number of specialty courts has expanded, including courts for domestic violence cases, prostitution-related crimes, for veterans and for housing issues.

Allen says Evans hasn't done enough to hold misbehaving judges accountable or to support judges in the trenches. "If judges aren't working and we have issues, I want to get to the bottom of that and find out what we can do to make this system operate more efficiently," he tells us. "The court system is not a play toy. It's real. It affects people's lives."

In a letter to colleagues, Allen wrote that the situation at the Markham courthouse made the courts "a laughingstock."

Ramos, who presides over felony cases at the Englewood branch, an assignment she sought, wants to bring more transparency to the selection of associate judges and to supervisory roles. Hispanics, she says, are not adequately represented. Despite bringing this to Evans' attention a year ago, she says the problem endures.

Underpinning this race, of course, is politics. This is Cook County.

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Evans' supporters say he has brought more independence to the courts, but that he crossed paths with the wrong pols. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Evans are longtime adversaries. She unseated him in a bitter 1991 aldermanic race. She and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke led the push to force the recent reforms on Evans.

Burke's husband, Ald. Ed Burke, who holds significant influence over the judicial slating process, is backing Allen.

Evans tells us he views the judicial branch as "a high and noble calling beyond the reach of any individual family, any individual party or political apparatus. I fight for and respect a commitment to independence every day." He says his opponents have no supervisory experience to oversee such a complex system.

Allen says he, too, has demonstrated independence. As alderman, he says he stood up to machine politicians, including former Mayor Richard M. Daley. He wasn't afraid to question whether the state's attorney's office ignored complaints about former police Cmdr. Jon Burge, who routinely tortured suspects. "My whole career and legal career, I do what's right," Allen says. "Nobody owns me. Nobody bought me."

The judges who'll decide this election will gather in a courtroom at the Daley Center. They'll listen to pitches from each candidate, then submit secret ballots. Expect high drama.

We won't make a formal endorsement, but we would like to put a thumb on the scale. As is, the system lacks a sense of urgency  a sense that running harder, modernizing protocols and energizing judges would keep the justice system here focused on fairness, efficiency and dexterity.

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While most judges are dutiful public servants, some courtrooms are empty by early afternoon. It wasn't too long ago that television crews caught judges running errands and sunbathing during the workday at a time when defendants were waiting behind bars months, sometimes years, to resolve their cases.

Yes, Evans boasts of reforms and he's widely regarded as warm and approachable. But those reforms were forced upon him only after an extraordinary intervention by the Illinois Supreme Court. It should never have come to that.

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Join us for the Cook County state's attorney debate

Visit chicagotribune.com at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, when we live-stream the Tribune Editorial Board debate between Democrat Kim Foxx and Republican Christopher Pfannkuche.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a master propagandist. Media manipulation is his forte. But he can't do it all on his own. He's needs minions who can chip away at that furrowed brow the West always has when it thinks about the Kremlin, a few good messengers who can disseminate the storyline that Vlad's not so bad after all  certainly not the shadowy, scheming authoritarian the West always portrays him to be.

RT, a state-owned Russian television network once known as Russia Today, was created by the Kremlin in 2005 to provide that very function. But the network needs household names in its programming, personalities with enough street cred to at least get headline-grabbing attention from London to Los Angeles.

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Maybe that's the way we should interpret GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's perplexing decision to agree to an interview aired on RT's American arm, RT America  was it a tryout? The Donald always has so many lines in the water  was he auditioning to be a Putin propagandist?

We jest, of course, but we're once again scratching our heads about the Trump team's judgment, and more specifically, its inability to see the folly in appearing so charmed by a world leader who has spent a decade and a half trampling on human rights, snatching up sovereign territory and eliminating political opponents.

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We'll grant that Trump's not playing for the other team. Nevertheless, unwittingly he still fell in lockstep with what makes RT tick. On a network that represents the antithesis of free expression, he accused American media outlets as being dishonest. Putin must have been beaming. And when asked if he believed Russian hackers snuck into Democratic Party databases, Trump said that's "probably unlikely." Congratulations, Comrade Trump, you're hired!

Trump was interviewed by former CNN journalist Larry King, who now anchors a prime-time interview show that airs on RT. Trump's people contend they didn't know that the interview would appear on RT. It's widely known that King's show appears on RT, so either their researchers should be sacked or they're not telling the truth. The interview also comes at a time when Trump faces still more criticism about Kremlin cozying, this time for remarks at an NBC candidates forum Wednesday in which he said of Putin, "Certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

We've said before that Trump's perspective on Putin is naive  and dangerous. And as far as the Russian leader is concerned, he doesn't really have to put Trump on the payroll. Trump's playing patsy as laid out in the Kremlin playbook  whether he knows it or not.

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Join us for the Cook County state's attorney debate

Visit chicagotribune.com at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, when we live-stream the Tribune Editorial Board debate between Democrat Kim Foxx and Republican Christopher Pfannkuche.
Aadil Farid, a leader with the Islamic Center of Naperville, holds a poster with messages of support from a nearby church. (Hannah Leone / The Beacon-News)

In the 15 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks shook the U.S., Muslim leaders in the Fox Valley say their congregations have experienced more hate  but with that has come sincere support from neighbors, strangers and other religious organizations.

Anwaar Khan, president of the Muslim Association of Bolingbrook, was living in Nashville on Sept. 11, 2001. He moved to Illinois in 2008 and joined the mosque in Bolingbrook, where he served as a board member before taking over as president about four months ago, he said.

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Khan called the 2001 attacks a tragedy and said they have affected everyone in some way or another. Mosques tend to receive hate mail whenever there's a terrorist attack that implicates the Islamic State or another extremist group, he said.

"Muslims, non-Muslims, it's just different now," Khan said. "After that, I think there was more surveillance for the mosques.  Luckily, nothing happened to my family, but people  they fear something will happen."

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Aadil Farid, who has lived in Naperville since 2000 and is on the board of the Islamic Center of Naperville, where he has also been president, said that since 9/11, Muslims in America have encountered more and more prejudice.

"I think it has worsened," Farid said. "Things have gone down significantly."

He attributes the animosity to a lack of positive media coverage of Muslims and a concentrated effort by certain groups to spread hate, bolstered by the rise of the Islamic State. Kids pick up what they see on TV and what their parents talk about at the dinner table, he said.

The center has received more hate mail since 9/11 and has seen a spike in negative mail and calls with subsequent attacks, most recently the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, he said.

But he said he's also felt an outpouring of love from non-Muslims.

The center's congregation has about 3,500 members, and it's growing, he said. The center has plans to build a bigger facility on a nearby plot of land it recently annexed.

Similarly, attendance at Bolingbrook's mosque has swelled over the years, Khan said. It has two Friday prayer services and is prepared to consider a third within the next couple of years if it seems necessary, he said.

Farid recalled working in a bank in downtown Chicago on the day of the 2001 attacks. He was in a meeting, and someone knocked on the door and said to evacuate the building. The first plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City, and they didn't know where other planes might be headed.

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Outside, people flooded the streets. The train back to Naperville was packed. He got home and started following the news. At first, he didn't realize the scope of the attack. After the second plane struck, he learned it was an act of terrorism.

"As the day started to progress, we slowly started to realize it was a terrorist attack that had a very wide-ranging impact," Farid said.

His son was young, not 3 years old. He and his wife only realized the impact of watching the attacks on TV a couple of years later, when traveling to India.

"He was 5 years old," Farid said. "He was saying he didn't want to sit on the plane. 'When the plane goes into the building, the fire comes out,' " he kept repeating.

Only one of Khan's five children was born before the attacks. He and his wife have explained to them that Islam teaches against such violence, he said.

"It is a difficult experience for the young ones," Khan said.

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Farid pointed out that 9/11 has influenced American life today in many ways for people of all faiths.

"Who has not been impacted by this major event?" Farid said. "Not just in the United States, but all over the world?"

As the years progressed, Farid and his family started to feel the weight of being Muslim American, he said. They heard about assaults on other Muslims. He began to worry about his wife wearing a head scarf and asked her about taking it off out of concern for her safety, but she chose to wear it anyway, he said.

Once, he and his wife, who was covered with a head scarf, were parked in a strip mall's parking lot. The woman in the car that had been parked next to them zoomed out of the parking spot, he said, but not before "she rolled down the window and started screaming at my wife, 'Go back to your home.' "

One child in a Scout troop Farid leads said that in a school locker area, kids were taunting him, telling him he was a terrorist.

Another time, hateful graffiti was found at the mosque. Usually Farid would contact police but not publicize such incidents because it "creates fear and intimidation in hearts of people," he said. But this time, word got out. An American stationed in Iraq heard about the attack and wrote to the mosque, saying he was sorry for what happened and it was not why he enrolled in the armed forces. He wanted to let the mosque know he stood with them and sent money to help fix the graffiti damage, Farid said.

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"It is really amazing to see there is so much humanity, so much compassion," Farid said.

Farid and other Muslims he knows have found support from law enforcement in the area, he said. Although the mosque is in Naperville, its members live all over the Fox Valley.

"We have no words to express how much support we are getting from them (Naperville police), from the Aurora Police Department," Farid said. "We have a very good relationship with the FBI."

When the mosque's website was hacked with what Farid described as a "nasty message," law enforcement responded within about an hour, and technology experts helped fix it quickly, he said.

"From our perspective, the terror groups and the Islamophobia are part of the same kind of hatred," Farid said. "They feed on hatred."

hleone@tribpub.com

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Alderman Matt O'Shea, 19th, unveils a school restructuring plan that would affect four elementary schools in his district during a Kellogg Elementary Local School Council meeting on Sept. 6, 2016 (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

A significant school restructuring proposal floated by 19th Ward Alderman Matt O'Shea would relocate or consolidate four elementary schools in his district in an effort to address changing enrollment patterns.

The plan, which he announced Tuesday afternoon in an email blast to his constituents, would consolidate Kellogg Elementary and Sutherland Elementary in Sutherland's building in Beverly; move Keller Regional Gifted Center from Mount Greenwood to the former Kellogg building in North Beverly; and create a second campus for Mount Greenwood Elementary within the former Keller building.

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O'Shea said he believed the moves, which will not be implemented for at least a year or two, would "enhance performance, balance enrollment and address infrastructure needs throughout the community."

Early feedback about the plan had been positive, he said, but the approximately 100 parents, teachers and former students who packed Kellogg's gymnasium for a special local school council meeting just hours after the announcement did not take kindly to the news that their school was slated to close.

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"I was floored. I was shocked. It hit me like a ton of bricks," said Kellogg Local School Council member Emily Lambert, one of a few stakeholders O'Shea approached about the proposal before making the announcement publicly.

The problem, O'Shea said, is that both Kellogg and Sutherland have lost more than 20 percent of their students since 2005, and the number of neighborhood students appears likely to continue shrinking.

He declined to offer an explanation for why enrollment had dropped so precipitously at elementary schools in Beverly, while skyrocketing in neighboring Mount Greenwood.

"That's the million dollar question," he said, after one parent asked him to explain the trend. "All I can see is that the numbers are declining. I don't have a theory."

While both schools were actually slightly over capacity last year, according to CPS' Utilization Report, those numbers include non-neighborhood students who enroll through the Options for Knowledge program.

According to O'Shea, only about 700 of the 950 combined pupils at Kellogg and Sutherland last year were neighborhood students  an amount he said would fit comfortably into Sutherland's building.

State Sen. Bill Cunningham, whose wife has taught at both schools, said he believed a merger was necessary to create a single strong neighborhood school.

"Between 87th Street and 107th Street, I just don't think we have enough students to support two schools," he said. "So we have to come up with a school usage plan for everybody, for all of our schools in the neighborhood."

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Nicole Maldonado, the mother of a Kellogg Elementary student, questions a proposal to merge the Beverly school with nearby Sutherland Elementary during a Sept. 6, 2016 local school council meeting. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Multiple parents who spoke Tuesday night accused O'Shea, who in July asked CPS to conduct an audit of Kellogg and Sutherland that resulted in the suspension of the Options program at both schools, of artificially depressing enrollment figures to justify a merger.

"The goal is to underenroll us and create the excuse [that our enrollment is declining]," said Troy LaRaviere, the outspoken former principal of Blaine Elementary in Lakeview, who has a fourth grader at Kellogg. "No negotiations, that's it. No compromise. We want our Options program open."

Others argued that O'Shea's request for an audit, which he said was being conducted to provide an accurate count of the out-of-boundary and out-of-city students at Kellogg and Sutherland, also jeopardized school funding.

If after 10 days schools have lower-than-projected enrollment, as Kellogg did on its first day this year, CPS will pull funding, which is allocated on a per-pupil basis.

"We receive funding based on the number of students that are enrolled in the school. And when you arbitrarily close our enrollment, you are underfunding my child, for the benefit of someone else," Margaret LaRaviere said. "This is wrong You don't get to defund my son or any of these other children. Open our enrollment."

O'Shea promised to speak with CPS officials Wednesday morning about the status of the audit and whether the Options program could be reinstated for prospective students who lived out-of-boundary. He said that any student already enrolled at Kellogg or Sutherland through the Options program would be allowed to remain.

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George Levy, 36, who graduated from Kellogg Elementary in Beverly more than 20 years ago, returned for a local school council meeting on Sept. 6, 2016 to confront Alderman Matt O'Shea about his proposal to merge Kellogg students with students at nearby Sutherland Elementary. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

At the request of parents, O'Shea also agreed to request that CPS audit not only Kellogg and Sutherland, but all schools in the 19th Ward, including Mount Greenwood Elementary, which CPS considers "overcrowded."

Mount Greenwood Elementary, which has nearly doubled in size to more than 1,110 students since 2005, would become a two-campus school as part of O'Shea's school restructuring proposal.

He said it would ultimately be left up to the school's principal or its local school council to decide how to split up the students, but that it would make sense to shift either the lowest grades or the highest grades to the building currently occupied by the Keller Regional Gifted Center at 3020 W. 108th St, which has an ideal capacity of 210 students.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Keller's students would move to the existing Kellogg building at 9241 S. Leavitt St. in North Beverly, which could easily accommodate Keller's 244 students and possibly allow the high-performing selective enrollment school to offer kindergarten or other educational options in the future. Since it draws students from all over the city, Keller's relocation would result in minimal disruption to its student body, O'Shea said.

In the coming months, the alderman plans to attend additional local school council meetings and host public meetings of his own to present his restructuring plan and gather input from the community.

O'Shea's next meeting will be held Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St.

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He assured skeptical community members Tuesday night that his plan was far from a done deal and that he would be upfront with CPS about "how well this meeting didn't go tonight."

"If I have more of these meetings in the coming weeks and months and people speak like you guys have spoken, then we would go in another direction," he said.

zkoeske@tribpub.com

Twitter: @ZakKoeske
Will County officials are considering a plan in which they may opt out of their participation in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, in the wake of a new law that bans newly elected board members from the state pension program.

Members of the county board's executive committee voted to recommend a resolution eliminating the IMRF pension for all county board members, effective Nov. 30. It's expected to be voted on by the full board at its Sept. 15 meeting

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"People should not be coming here to get a pension," said board member Mike Fricilone, who made the motion to drop the pension benefit, saying Will County should take the lead on this issue.

Currently, county officials reported that 17 of the county's 26 board members participate in the IMRF pension program and the county pays 11.6 percent of a member's annual salary of $23,000 into the IMRF. Members pay 4.5 percent of their paychecks, according to the IMRF.

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The new law, Senate Bill 2701, disqualifies newly elected part-time county board members from receiving pension benefits through the IMRF, but allows those currently in the program to remain.

The law is designed to gradually eliminate all county board members from the pension system.

Currently, 45 of the state's 102 counties participate in the IMRF, with a total of less than 300 county board members, out of a total of 174,000 active members, according to John Krupa, IMRF spokesman.

If Will County no longer wants to participate, it needs to rescind its resolution stating that board members will meet the hourly standards, and notify IMRF, he said.

The legislation initially proposed banning municipal and township officials from the IMRF as well, but they were removed from the final bill.

According to assistant state's attorney Mary Tatroe, it does not apply to full-time countywide seats, such as county executive, county clerk, state's attorney, county sheriff and coroners.

Members who were enrolled before January 2011 needed eight years to become vested, now it is 10 years. If the county opts out of IMRF, vested members would not lose what they invested, but would accrue nothing more.

Will County board members were always required to work 600 hours per year, but now they must submit monthly reports documenting their hours. If reports are not submitted for two consecutive months, members are no longer eligible for the pension, Tatroe said.

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Senate Bill 2701 was a joint effort by state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, and state Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, and the IMRF after Franks called for an investigation in March to determine if McHenry County board members were in violation of IMRF policy by not working or documenting their required 1,000 hours per year. McHenry County has since opted out of the IMRF.

Franks is giving up his House seat to run for McHenry County Board chairman in November.

Calling it a "political smackdown" by the legislature to "get back at one county," Republican leader Chuck Maher, R-Naperville, said that state legislators should look at pensions across the board and not just focus on one group.

"We have seen the state go downhill in the last several years with pensions being a huge issue," he said. "Make sure you get the entire state under control."

"I don't think any elected official on the local level should get a pension," said board member Suzanne Hart. "But I want to prove that this is not a part-time job."

Democratic leader Herb Brooks opposed eliminating the pension program.

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"I do feel we put in a lot of time with the county board, but I never looked at this as a perk," he said.

Some executive committee members were leery of eliminating the pension benefit Nov. 30, saying some people may have counted on that for retirement.

"I don't want to pull the rug out on people," said board member Don Moran, D-Romeoville.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Board member Gretchen Fritz urged her colleagues to "consider the total impact," noting that because they spend so much time on county business, it is difficult to have a full-time job that offers such benefits.

Ray Tuminello, R-New Lenox, suggested the pension benefits end with their terms, instead of Nov. 30.

In the November election, 18 of the 26 county board seats will be up for election, with newly elected officials taking office in early December.

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Board member Bob Howard wanted to take this a step further and eliminate all benefits, including health care, for elected board members.

Board speaker Jim Moustis said he has previously argued against pay raises for county board because they receive these other benefits and that is a form of compensation.

According to Krupa, if Will County decides not to participate, those who are vested can begin receiving their pension. If they are not vested, they can request a refund of their contributions, or keep them on file with the IMRF. Should they later participate in another IMRF-qualifying position, they could count their service with the county toward a future pension, he said.

slafferty@tribpub.com
If a doctor diagnosed you with cancer, you'd want to know right away.

Later, when you found out you had cancer, you wouldn't want to learn your doctor knew about your illness more than a year before telling you.

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"Doc, why didn't you tell me I had cancer?" you would ask.

"Mistakes were made," the doctor might reply. "I did say there was reason to be concerned. My actions and decisions were always made based upon the available information at the time."

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If that happened to you, you'd change doctors. You'd leave that office, shaking your head, wondering why the doctor hid the information from you.

In this parable, the patient is the taxpayers and parents of Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210. The doctor is the district's senior administration and school board.

In this case, the patient finally learned of the diagnosis in March 2015, when the Illinois State Board of Education announced Lincoln-Way was among 38 districts in the worst fiscal health. That's how the state describes its Financial Watch List.

A shocked public demanded answers. Shock turned to anger five months later when the district decided in August 2015 to close Lincoln-Way North High School in Frankfort.

Subsequent investigations have revealed district leaders predicted multimillion dollar annual deficits more than a year before the public learned of them in March 2015. Email records obtained by The Daily Southtown through the Freedom of Information Act show Supt. Scott Tingley privately informed the board in September 2014 he anticipated a $6 million deficit that year.

The latest revelation, reported Friday, shows Tingley corresponded with another administrator in February 2014 about trying to get the deficit down to $5 million.

These documented exchanges should prompt parents and taxpayers to ask why the district wasn't more transparent about the seriousness of its financial condition much sooner.

Having sat through hundreds of hours of public meetings during my career as a journalist, I would expect a taxing body to be up front and brutally honest about its finances. That's been my experience throughout countless coverage of budgets, tax levies, audits and referendums.

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I've known administrations to paint bleak pictures in reports to boards, and board members to ask interrogative questions about how and why the public body arrived at its situation. Invariably, there was outreach by the administration and elected board or council to the public to seek suggestions and feedback on ideas to manage the situation moving forward.

The aspect of Lincoln-Way's situation I find most troubling is that the board and senior administration seem dismissive of the public. Many citizens have said they felt shut out of the process that led to the decision to close North.

Instead of a sense that "we're all in this together" or "let's collaboratively work to solve this problem," many people sense an "us vs. them" mentality.

Some of the district's financial woes are due to sheer administrative incompetence, such as a failure to renew a state waiver for driver's education fees that resulted in the district this year having to refund nearly $700,000 overpaid by parents.

Other decisions point to a litany of bad judgment. Aunt Nancy's, a private business, operated day care centers in district schools rent-free from 1998 until this year, while other districts with similar arrangements collected revenue from those businesses. Space was devoted to the Superdog obedience training program at Lincoln-Way North with no benefit to students or taxpayers.

The district rewarded former Supt. Lawrence Wyllie with an annuity, the state's most generous pension for a retired superintendent and other benefits. The board approved $272,000 in retirement bonuses for 18 departing educators, then taxpayers had to eat another $199,113 in penalties because the raises exceeded state limits.

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The board and senior administration never questioned these and other arrangements until they came into public view, at which point criticism forced the district to take more responsible action.

I think it's insufficient to say the fault for this collection of bad decisions rests solely with Wyllie, the former superintendent. He certainly needs to answer for his actions, including why he directed $4.6 million in bond funds be spent on operating costs.

"The true financial condition of our district was masked by improper accounting," Lincoln-Way attorney John Izzo told the board in July.

That and other Lincoln-Way decisions are the subject of ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a federal grand jury.

While authorities continue those investigations, I think it's fair for the public to demand answers about why the district didn't tell them sooner about the deficits.

Friday's story detailed how Tingley expected a deficit of at least $5 million when he emailed former assistant superintendent for business Ron Sawin on Feb. 7, 2014.

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There's no indication Tingley informed the public of his expectations during the next Lincoln-Way board meeting on Feb. 26, 2014. Instead, minutes from that meeting show the board heard an update from Stacy Holland, then-director of community relations, on objectives to "continue to improve parental and community communication opportunities."

"Mrs. Holland summarized the methods used to communicate district information to members of the community, including a database of more than 8,000 email addresses for distribution of the Quick Notes from the board meetings and the e-Newsletter," the minutes state.

The board and superintendent should have followed its own goals and taken advantage of those communication channels to tell the public about the expected deficit of more than $5 million, more than a year before the public learned the truth from the state.

That would have provided more time for public input on addressing the deficit. Instead, the board decided in August 2015 to close North  just five months after the public learned the extent of the district's dire financial condition.

Tingley took over as superintendent when Wyllie retired in summer 2013. After just 10 months on the job, the board rewarded Tingley with a contract extension through May, 2019.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

I get the feeling the current board isn't even considering looking into whether Tingley should be replaced before his contract is up. I think the board and senior administration are looking out for each other more than parents and taxpayers.

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I look forward to April 4, when six of the seven seats on the Lincoln-Way board will be up for election. Four board members have resigned this year, and the four members appointed to replace them will have to run for office if they want to remain on the board.

Additionally, terms will expire for two longtime members  Dee Molinare and Christopher Kosel  who have served since when Wyllie was superintendent. The term of Christine Glatz, a board member since 1993, expires in 2019.

I think Lincoln-Way voters will send a strong message to the board and senior administration in April.

Until then, I think it's fair to question why the public wasn't told sooner about the true state of the district's finances.

tslowik@tribpub.com

Twitter @tedslowik
Retired Elgin Fire Chief John Fahy has a scrapbook containing this Courier-News photo of when fellow firefighters John Tobin (from left), Anthony Bialek,Fahy and Jim Mulvihill headed to New York City in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to deliver a ladder truck to the fire department there. (John Fahy / handout)

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, crashes of two airliners hijacked by terrorists that ultimately pulverized the World Trade Center, Elgin firefighters John Fahy, Jim Mulvihill, John Tobin and Anthony Bialek drove east to deliver a needed ladder truck to the New York City Fire Department.

The four wound up in the whirlwind of history, meeting strangers willing to help along the way and lending a hand themselves in the cleanup and search for bodies at ground zero.

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"The most helpless feeling was doing nothing, so we  the guys in Elgin and the Elgin community  wanted to do our part in helping the recovery efforts," Fahy said. "This trip on behalf of the EFD and the city of Elgin did just that. Elgin helped NYC in its time of need, and that's pretty cool."

"We came in contact with many Americans that supported us, some buying us food, and some gave us money to spend on such, refusing to take it back when we said we would not take any money," Bialek said. "Along the highways, many people waved, honked and cheered us on."

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For Fahy  who became Elgin's fire chief in 2011 and who recently retired from his post  the days and weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington showed the country the most united he's ever seen, he said.

"There was one woman who came up to the truck window as I was sitting in the driver's seat with tears streaming down her face. She couldn't talk but mouthed the words 'thank you' as she handed us $20 for fuel, then patted me on the arm and turned away to walk back to her car," he said.

As for how the journey happened, Tobin  now retired from the Elgin Fire Department, where he was the chief mechanic  had worked as a salesman for Seagrave, and the company made all the rescue equipment used by the New York City Fire Department.

The $400,000 ladder truck was one of 27 pieces the city had on order. New York lost some 82 pieces of equipment in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Seagrave needed a delivery driver, and Tobin was familiar with the equipment.

Having commercial licenses, Tobin and Bialek took turns behind the wheel of the 25-ton rig that pulled out of Elgin's Fire Station 2 the Sunday after the Tuesday attacks. Fahy and Mulvihill followed in Tobin's Suburban, and all drove home in the big SUV, arriving back in town the following Wednesday  or a little more than a week after the attacks.

The plan was to take the truck to a dealership in South Plainfield, N.J., from where it would be taken to the New York City Fire Department. But with rumors of terrorist plans to hijack equipment to cause more destruction, the men didn't want to leave the truck alone for any period of time. So they decided that when they got into New York very early that Monday, they would head to the site of the devastation.

"Part of the reason Seagrave gave me the truck to go was some of the drivers refused to go out, as the airlines were just back up in operation, and they were not going to fly so soon after the hijackings," Tobin said. "I had the perfect solution to get one of the trucks out to New York, and Seagrave knew I would safely get it out there  I kind of forgot that. I got into big trouble with Seagrave for taking the rig to ground zero, but looking back, I wouldn't change a thing."

"We arrived very early in the morning and had to wait for the receiving center to open to accept the ladder truck," Bialek said. "We came in from the Empire State Building side. I remember all of the crushed and mangled firetrucks and emergency vehicles lined up along the road."

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Bialek said Fahy and Mulvihill went down to the site  commonly called "the pile"  to assist, while Tobin and he went to deliver the ladder truck across into New Jersey, a few miles from the towers.

"Traffic was so bad, as they were not letting anyone move about, and we had to use the Holland Tunnel to get to our destination," Bialek said. "Explaining what we had to do to a couple of police officers, they gave us an escort into New Jersey."

With no GPS at the time, Bialek and Tobin bought a road map to find the receiving center. The delivery process took many hours, Bialek said.

"Once that was done, we returned to the work site near the towers. We had cellphones, so eventually we got hold of Fahy and Mulvihill and met at one of the entrances to the site," Bialek said.

"The smell was overwhelming," Fahy said of the ruins. "I remember saying to myself that this is what war must smell like. Being too young for Vietnam, I never knew war except for something seen on TV. Ground zero was an act of war, and the smell as well as the desperate looks on the firefighters' faces sticks with me to this day."

"As I stood atop the ruins of the twin towers, the graves of my fellow 343 firefighters, as well as police and private citizens, I got a taste firsthand of how some are out to destroy the USA," Tobin said. "I remember the sheer size of the operation at hand, and, in the dead of night, watching as they dug out ladder trucks and engines that were crushed by the weight of the falling towers. There was a feeling of futility, watching as ambulances cruised back and forth from the site to the temporary morgue. If the casualty was a firefighter or police officer, the ambulance had a police motorcycle escort."

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Bialek, a Navy veteran, said he was assigned to help two steelworkers who were cutting iron. His task was to move long hoses for cutting torches, making sure they would not be kinked or cut on sharp metal.

"Very long lines of workers were removing debris by bucket brigades, handing white buckets of debris down to a main dumpsite," Bialek said. "The red ones had body parts. I remember picking up a hand and depositing it in one of the buckets. I stayed and worked until I was too tired to stand up anymore, about 16 hours. This seems like a lot, but many of the firefighters and other workers had been there much longer."

"At the entire ground zero site, all the workers, firefighters, police officers, ironworkers and heavy machine operators stopped working and came to attention and saluted every time a body was recovered," Fahy said. "It was simply amazing how fast word spread that another brother was found and coming home."

Bialek recalled walking back toward Tobin's SUV very early in the morning, "with hundreds of people standing along the street, cheering workers on as they walked toward the site or toward a rehab station that was set up."

A semitruck with full showers and clothing had been provided by an investment company, Bialek said, and he threw away the clothes he had worn before putting on other ones.

"The next morning, we had to leave to get back to our regular jobs," Bialek said. "On the way out we saw a lady pedestrian trying to cross the street to hail a cab. No one would stop for her. She was pulling a luggage carrier and was handicapped to boot. We offered her a ride toward where she lived, and she took it. We had a pleasant conversation and let her off near her apartment."

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The men also stopped to see the fire station where the delivered ladder truck would eventually be housed.

"It was very sad to see that so many firefighters had perished from that one house alone," Bialek said. "The trip home was very quiet."

Tobin recalled taking donations out to the fire station where the truck wound up months after the attacks and also leaving Elgin's story behind in a binder.

"You have to realize just how desensitized they were to hearing a far-out story such as ours and actually listening through, let alone understanding, with all of their brothers killed," Tobin said.

Five years ago, Tobin was the lead craftsman on a project that took the front portion of an old New York City Fire Department truck and transformed into a work of art. Its detailing includes an American flag, an eagle and images of the World Trade Center. It also has markings for the company (Ladder 125); the date the company was established (1907); and the insignia for "Clown College," the unofficial handle of the station in Queens.

Tobin has documented the project on YouTube. He's also writing a book about the delivery and his restoration projects.

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Tobin said his experiences reinforced his sense of pride in being a firefighter and also had him reflecting on the importance of equipment.

"Some look at a firetruck as just a hunk of metal. I look at one as being almost lifelike, to be depended on to perform just like the firefighters who ride on them are," Tobin said. "I took that sense and applied it to the maintenance of the EFD vehicles and the importance of a performance-type spec, where each and every rig should be as close to identical as possible, regardless of the brand name."

Fahy and his wife, Peggy, traveled to the new World Trade Center site last summer to see its reflecting pool and 9/11 museum.

"There is a listening room where all victims' pictures are shown, and voice recordings of some saying goodbye to loved ones, not knowing if they were going to live through the attacks, was heartbreaking  everyday people stuck on upper floors of the burning towers making that one last call," he said.

As for how that trip 15 years ago still resonates, Fahy said, "As a firefighter, it put in perspective that any call could be your last call. Those 343 NYFD heroes answered the call, responded as they were trained and saved tens of thousands of lives by getting people out of the building as they went in."

Fahy added, "Firefighters run toward danger. While we are trained, there are some things that we haven't prepared for. These guys were well-trained. They beefed up their response to the WTC after the 1993 bombing in the garage of the building  but no one ever trained for those buildings collapsing like they did. After 9/11, I realized that when the bell rings, it truly could be your last alarm. So be prepared, let the little stuff go and always tell your family you love them as you head to another shift at the firehouse."

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mdanahey@tribpub.com
A series of meetings is designed to give parents and community members the opportunity to give input on the district's long-term vision. (Emily Coleman / Lake County News Sun) (Chicago Tribune)

Rosa Vara said she worries about the bullying at Lyon Magnet Elementary School, where her son is a fifth-grader.

The Waukegan mother has already pulled two of her students out of Waukegan School District 60 schools, sending one to the new LEARN charter school in town and the other to the Catholic middle school, but she still made her way to Glen Flora Elementary School on Wednesday morning for a community meeting.

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The goal of the meeting was to gather input from parents and community members about what they'd like to see as the district's long-term vision, Superintendent Theresa Plascencia said.

"I think all the ideas come to one  education, a better future for our kids," Vara said. "This is not going to happen in one day, not one week, not one month, not even a year. This is our vision for five years from today.

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"I think some parents are going to say, 'Well, my kids are going to be by that time in college,' but we have to create a better future for our nieces, nephews, grandkids."

The district has two more morning sessions planned, from 9 to 10:30 a.m Tuesday at Glen Flora Elementary School, 1110 Chestnut St., and from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Oct. 11 at Carman-Buckner Elementary School, 520 Helmholz Ave.

Six more evening sessions, which will run from 6 to 7:30 p.m., are also planned. They will be held Thursday, Sept. 22 and Oct. 6 at Glen Flora; Oct. 13 and 26 at Carman-Buckner; and Oct. 17 at H.R. McCall Elementary School, 3215 N. McAree Road.

The sessions start with a quick presentation outlining goals before attendees break off into smaller groups to start brainstorming.

The session Wednesday evening sometimes detoured as parents voiced issues they've had with the district for years or individual problems they've had with different schools, something Plascencia said she also encountered on the "listening and learning tour" she held when she first started with the district late last school year.

"Our parents are upset in Waukegan," she said. "They feel oppressed. They feel ignored. They feel that they're not valued."

Parents talked about how some schools had stopped allowing parent volunteers and how they wished programs offered at some schools were available to all students.

"It's not fair," said Nancy Aguilar Servin, who has an eighth-grader at Daniel Webster Middle School, a seventh-grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and a fifth-grader at Whittier Elementary School.

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She pointed to the district's rollout of Chromebooks, which had been piloted at one middle school but are being rolled out to eighth-graders districtwide this year. All students need to have access to that technology, she said.

Plascencia said she hopes that if parents and community members are involved in creating the district's strategic plan, they'll be more invested in making it a reality.

"It is very important for us to have a strategic plan," she said. "It's our road map. Without a strategic plan, we're just like walking blind."

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Chuck Wehrli, a retired Naperville Fire Department captain and a 9/11 responder, rang a signal bell at the 9/11 remembrance in 2013. (Gary Gibula / Special to the Tribune)

About three years ago, Chuck Wehrli said, he started hearing the conspiracy theories.

The retired Naperville Fire Department captain responded to New York City in the days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, each fall he talks to students at Neuqua Valley High School about his experiences as a safety officer among the detritus of the World Trade Center.

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Each year, fewer kids have remembered the day airplanes flew into the twin towers. As such, Wehrli said he hears more and more voices each year questioning whether two passenger airplanes really did fly into the Manhattan towers, destroying them and killing thousands.

This September, the students he spoke to were all of 1 year old when the attacks happened, Wehrli said.

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"A lot of the kids now really have no clue except for what their parents told them," he said. One student's "mother told her a rocket hit the building, not a plane."

"That's why I do it. I don't want people going out with conspiracy theories," he said.

Wehrli responded as a member of a search and rescue team out of Missouri. So far, he said, he hasn't suffered side effects from inhaling dust that, in following years, caused serious health problems for first responders.

He recalled walking by soldiers on alert, as the country sought to make sense of what happened and waited to see if more attacks were planned.

"They had the right to shoot to kill. So we followed every rule that they had," Wehrli said.

Wehrli said he remembered helping to pull a body from the wreckage that turned out to be a New York firefighter who gave him a patch off his hat seven years earlier.

Harder than pulling out bodies, Wehrli said, was "seeing faces of the firefighters that survived."

Wehrli said he makes sure to mention Dan Shanower in his presentation. The Naperville Central graduate died when a passenger jet hit the Pentagon on the same day as the attacks on the twin towers. A friend of Wehrli's and Fairfax County firefighters found Shanower's body in Washington D.C.

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Wehrli also mentions the unity felt in the United States in the days following 9/11, whereas the country now often seems divided by political rhetoric.

"When it first happened, America came together so strong," Wehrli said.

gbookwalter@tribpub.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
Gloria Caruso said the day she learned her son David had died was just as it looks in the movies.

"I had had a funny feeling at work," Caruso said. "As soon as I got home, three Marines stepped off the porch and I knew he had been killed."

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It was Nov. 9, 2004, and David Caruso, 25, had been killed by machine gun fire in the Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq. It was one of the most intense battles of the Iraq war.

"He said, 'you're not going to hear from me for a while,'" said Gloria Caruso, recalling a conversation with her son, a graduate of Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora. "You won't know where I'm going, but watch TV and that's where I am."

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Now, Gloria and Joe Caruso volunteer to send hundreds of care packages to overseas troops. They help those who lose military loved ones learn to handle their grief.

A lot near their Naperville home of 45 years has grown into a park in his name, with benches, flowers, trees and shrubs that encourage visitors to sit and reflect. A flag pole holding an American flag stands in one corner.

And the couple pays tribute at Naperville's 9/11 memorial service each year, commemorating the terrorist attacks that led to the war that claimed the life of their son.

And the parents have three words for U.S. military leaders, which they spoke almost in unison in their living room on a recent afternoon: "Don't. Go. Back."

"Don't send the troops over," Joe Caruso said, emphasizing their view that the U.S. military can't solve the Middle East's problems.

They focus on the upcoming presidential election, and have strong opinions on some of the things that have been said this campaign season.

They were deeply offended by Republican Donald Trump's treatment of Ghazala Khan, the mother of a fallen soldier who stood at her husband's side as he denounced Trump at the Democratic National Convention.

Afterward Trump asked if Khan, who is Muslim, wasn't allowed to speak because she is a woman. Khan responded in an interview that it's hard for her to talk about her son or be around his image.

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"We know why the mother didn't talk. She couldn't," Joe Caruso said.

Even more offensive, said the Carusos, were Trump's comments about earning purple heart the easy way after a military veteran presented Trump with his medal.

"I thought that was the ultimate disrespect for our veterans," Gloria Caruso said.

"I wouldn't trust him with the nuclear button," said Joe Caruso.

While the decision to go to war in Iraq has become part of the political debate, the Carusos said they still feel strong support and appreciation from neighbors and fellow Americans for their son's service.

The couple needed four or five years before they could clean out David Caruso's room and go through the boxes of his things sent to them after his death. Now, the room serves as something of a memorial to David and his older brother Steve, who died a few years before.

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Photo collages adorn the walls. A former Eagle Scout, David's badges hang near his military paddles in a corner. Photos of him in military parachute gear, dress blues and camouflage look out from around the room.

Statues of Chinese dragons grace the book shelves, near military coins and above volumes of books on military tactics and stories.

His parents still visit him, in a way. David is buried in Naperville's Assumption Cemetery, which the Carusos said they chose over Arlington National Cemetery.

"We stop there pretty often," Joe Caruso said.

David's longtime girlfriend, Arline, recently married, Gloria and Joe Caruso said. But she keeps in touch and still calls them mom and dad.

Meanwhile, each year members of the Caruso family gather to select the winner of the Sgt. David Caruso Scholarship, a $1,000 award given to a graduating senior from one District 204's high schools. David Caruso graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School.

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The money comes from an endowment set up by a family friend, along with donations given at David Caruso's funeral. Last year saw 80 applicants, and seven family members helped judge.

The award isn't based on grades or success alone, the Carusos said.

Instead, "it's an all-around picture of the person and how much they are like David."

Gbookwalter@tribpub.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
Developers of the 21-story Vantage Oak Park development announced they have signed Coopers Hawk Winery & Restaurant and Edward-Elmhurst Health to lease deals to occupy commercial space at the tower. (James C. Svehla / Chicago Tribune)

The 21-story Vantage Oak Park development announced it has filled its two stories of commercial space by agreeing to a pair of lease deals for its building at 150 Forest Ave.

In addition to Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants, the developers have signed a 12-year lease with Edward-Elmhurst Heath, officials confirmed. Cooper's Hawk will occupy the entire first floor of the building's Lake Street front, while Edward-Elmhurst will move into approximately 14,000 square feet of second-floor space.

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"It was a perfect opportunity for us to add additional services," said Mary Lou Mastro, president of Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare. "We know we have a lot of patients in the Oak Park area that use our hospital services. We thought we would bring some of these ambulatory services closer to home for Oak Park residents."

Mastro said Edward-Elmhurst will offer immediate care, occupational health, imaging services, a lab for blood testing and family physicians at its Vantage Oak Park location. She is hopeful the new space can be open by the end of January 2017.

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According to Vantage officials, Cooper's Hawk has also signed a long-term lease for the entire ground-level space, which includes an outdoor dining area. The restaurant is also expected to feature a full-service bar, private event space and a Napa-style tasting room and artisan market together in one space.

In August, it was revealed by Vantage Oak Park's Michael Glazier that Cooper's Hawk had agreed to a 10-year lease with two five-year options for the 12,500 square feet of first-floor space. Officials expected the restaurant to be open by June 30, 2017.

With the lease deals complete, Vantage Oak Park spokesman Jim Prescott said all commercial space is filled at the development, but the focus remains on finishing the 270 apartments inside the tower.

"The interest [in residential units] has been strong," Prescott said. "We're pleased with the conversion rate where the number of potential tenants looking at model units in the building convert into residents by signing the lease agreement. That number has been strong."

While he wouldn't say just how many residents are now living in the building, Prescott said the first tenants began moving into the tower in early July.

Vantage Oak Park also features a 288-space private parking garage as well as a 300-space public parking garage that is owned by the village of Oak Park. The public parking garage has been open since late February.

Vantage Oak Park's development group consists of Atlanta-based Wood Partners, Chicago-based Golub & Company and the village of Oak Park.

sschering@pioneerlocal.com

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It was going to be a normal day. Or so she thought.

Allison Barber, a Schererville native and chancellor of Western Governors University of Indiana, an online university, departed Reagan National Airport on a 6 a.m. flight Sept. 11 , 2001. Barber, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense from 2001 to 2007, was headed to Atlanta for a typical two-day Department of Defense business trip.

After landing in Atlanta, Barber and her colleagues were informed that the World Trade Center towers had been attacked.

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Barber, who now lives in Indianapolis, said when she finally got to a television to see the news, she was shocked to see the Pentagon, her office building, in flames. She slowly digested the macabre details: a hijacked airplane flown into the western facade of the Pentagon, killing all 58 passengers and 125 of her colleagues.

"I think for every citizen, we were unprepared mentally for what was happening because we never suffered this type of attack that was happening," she said.

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Barber immediately called her husband and her parents to let them know she was out of the office and was safe.

When she returned to the Pentagon on Sept. 12, she said, the heightened level of security alarmed her.

"What was surreal for me was when I walked to my office, I passed several fully armed military police officers," Barber said, adding that before 9/11 there was only one police officer manning the desk.

The pain lingered in the aftermath of the attacks, she said.

"Everyday we saw the reality of that attack," she said. "What was also heartbreaking is on my drive to the office I would see people working, and they were sifting through the ashes looking for personal belongings to give to the families of the victims."

Barber said she remains heartbroken for the tragedy that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and the families that were directly impacted by the tragedy.

"There was pain I felt for those family members," Barber said. "There was anger that I felt toward the terrorists, and then there was resolve that I felt everyday to protect the freedoms of this country."

Fifteen years later, Barber said it's important for the U.S. to never forget. "I hope we also remember the feeling of togetherness and the lessons learned," she said.

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jaanderson@tribpub.com

Twitter @JavonteA
The Hobart resident whose water-filled pit on the west side of the city claimed the lives of two young Gary brothers two years ago is again under scrutiny by a city official, this time for the possible illegal dumping of truckloads of asphalt chunks in the rear of his property on County Line Road.

Hobart city engineer Phil Gralik told the Board of Public Works and Safety that he found about 50 truckloads of asphalt grindings where trees had been cleared at the back of the property owned by Randy Goldschmidt, as well as a white residue on the ground.

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"Truckload after truckload of debris had been dumped there," Gralik said.

He said he told Goldschmidt to cease and desist any work at the site, but learned the ground was quickly regraded anyway.

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Goldschmidt told the board he's building a house on the County Line Road property and the asphalt will be used for his long driveway. He said it's the same material the city is using for its road work. He said the white substance is agriculture lime.

"If it's ag lime, then why was it covered up within an hour of the city seeing it," Gralik asked at the public meeting.

He added that the city doesn't use asphalt chunks like he found on Goldschmidt's property.

"Ours are milled," he said.

He said he has no problem with Goldschmidt using asphalt grindings for the driveway, but asked why there is a mountain of asphalt chunks in the back of the property. He said the chunks are not shown on Goldschmidt's fill permit.

"It seems like illegal dumping to me," Gralik said, adding later, "I see no reason why 50 truckloads of asphalt need to be hidden in the back."

Gralik said he went to the site after receiving a complaint about drainage "with an oil sheen on it."

Mayor Brian Sndecor said it appears the problem is with the asphalt chunks, not the grindings. He said Goldschmidt should be ordered to remove all the non-conforming fill.

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City Attorney Anthony DeBonis told Goldschmidt that he violated the fill ordinance. He asked how much money Goldschmidt was being paid by haulers to take the materials. Goldschmidt said he was paying for the material to be brought in, not making money off of it.

Gralik said the amount of fill Goldschmidt is proposing to use would need plan commission approval.

Gralik said Indiana Department of Environmental Management has been on the site and has expressed serious concerns about it. Gralik also plans to contact Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

According to an IDEM spokesman, the last time the state regulating agency received a notice about Goldschmidt and his County Line property was in late 2015. The spokesman said an inspector was sent to the location and found no solid waste violations during the visit.

"Mr. Goldschmidt is taking in clean construction materials, considered clean fill, and is not in violation of any state environmental statutes or laws," the spokesman said.

Gralik said nothing should be done at the site until the state agencies investigate it again. After that, he would give Goldschmidt 30 days to remove the asphalt chunks.

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Goldschmidt was not found guilty of any criminal liability in the drowning deaths of Donel Smith, 9, and his brother Terrion Smith, 8, following a five-month investigation by the Hobart Police Department. However, city officials said Goldschmidt failed to obtain the necessary permits when he dug the deep pit on his Missouri Street property, which is a violation of city rules and regulations.

Goldschmidt claimed at the time that he had put up "no trespassing" signs, but they were taken down by trespassers.

Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Opposition is growing against a proposed charter school that aims to open in the fall of 2017 to educate students by focusing on the classics.

Public school supporters in Chesterton and Valparaiso say the South Shore Classical Academy represents not a true alternative to the public school format but instead a plan to deprive high-performing schools of much-needed funding.

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Charter authorizer Grace College is holding a public hearing at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Westchester Library Service Center, 100 W. Indiana Ave., Chesterton, to consider whether or not to approve the school's application. Representatives from the Duneland and Valparaiso school districts are expected to be in attendance to demonstrate their opposition to the plan.

Valparaiso Superintendent E. Ric Frataccia said the backers of the school met with him in February, but he was pretty blunt in his assessment of the idea.

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"At the time, I told them that I didn't think it was a very good idea. I didn't think we needed something like that in Porter County," Frataccia said. "My goal would be to put them out of business."

The school has the support of two Valparaiso University professors  Robert Elder, assistant professor of history, and Honors College Dean Peter Kanelos  who are board members, along with former state House candidate Dan Granquist, Kristal Chenault, Elias Crim and Diana Gonzalez.

The school would serve students in grades K-10; grades 11 and 12 would be added later. A location has not been selected yet, but the school's website indicates that the board is considering a handful of locations in Porter County. Students would be required to wear a uniform.

A statement from the school's board said it offers a "unique educational opportunity" that is unavailable in Northwest Indiana. The South Shore Classical Academy board said it "believes this school will make a negligible impact on the funding and enrollment of surrounding school districts." It insisted that charter schools don't receive any proceeds of local property taxes or referendums such as the recent one in Valparaiso.

But in Indiana, the state's base per-pupil funding follows the student. For example, if a student enrolled in a Valparaiso school would choose to attend the South Shore Classical Academy, Valparaiso would stand to lose about $5,293 in funding.

Christopher Pupillo is a member of the Friends of the Valpo Schools group, which supported the May 2015 referendums which generated $148 million for capital projects and $4.4 million annually for the general fund.

Though Pupillo understands arguments for different school models, he said, the school would be financially damaging for the districts.

"The bottom line is that the Valparaiso and Duneland school districts are exceptional schools districts," Pupillo said. "Going by its projections, this charter could pull $3 (million) to $4 million dollars of taxpayer money away from the districts.

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"We just begged taxpayers for not one but two referendums, and people stepped up, including the bulk of residents who had no personal interest. We stand to lose staffing and programming."

The charter application for South Shore Classical Academy states that it would "provide a rigorous educational program, grounded in the humanities, the sciences and the arts" and focus on moral character and civic virtue. The school is receiving technical support from the Barney Charter School Initiative at Hillsdale College, which supports the launch of classical charter schools.

Monte Moffett, Duneland's assistant superintendent of operations and human resources, said he hadn't heard much about the proposed school before the announcement of next week's hearing.

"It's hard to understand the need when we're an 'A' district," Moffett said. "I would challenge them with the fact that we have students going to Harvard and Stanford. It's really hard to see a charter school doing any better."

Frataccia said the project represents a want and not a need.

"This may fulfill a want of some professors, who think, 'Wouldn't it be nice to have a classical academy,' but my community just voted to provide the schools with $150 million to fix school buildings. If anybody wants to take those resources, I think it needs to be opposed."

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cnance@post-trib.com

Hearing scheduled Wednesday

Grace College will host a public hearing on the proposed South Shore Classical Academy at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Westchester Library Service Center, 100 W. Indiana Ave., Chesterton.
George Fitusis yelled to an employee from a booth in the back of his restaurant.

"Please keep an eye on the register!" Fitusis said, his thick Greek accent seasoning every word.

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Since his Bright Spot restaurant opened in downtown Hobart in 1980, he has yelled those words thousands of times. He also has repeatedly called out his wife's name to seat new customers or to ring up their bill.

"Angie, Angie!" Fitusis yelled on the day I visited, waving her over to our booth. "Come join us here."

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"No thank you, bye, bye," replied Angie, his wife of 54 years, returning to her usual seat near the cash register.

The couple lives in Crown Point and commute together every day to Hobart to oversee daily operations. They're as dependable as the old stools at the counter. These days, though, Fitusis mostly mingles with customers while his wife runs the register.

"Because of my age and my health, we can't keep doing this," said Fitusis, who's 84, with a surgically-repaired back and heart.

"I'm getting old," he said with a shrug.

"And I'm tired," sighed Angie, who's 74.

For two years, the couple tried to sell their restaurant, a landmark in Hobart. The latest deal from a buyer in Illinois recently fell through. The couple couldn't wait for another buyer to emerge.

"Our last day will be Sunday, Sept. 25," Fitusis said. "The next day, we won't be in business anymore."

They raised four daughters here, each taking turns to help run the place. They imported more than 40 family members from the "old country" to this area through formal sponsorships. And they've fed thousands of Northwest Indiana residents who came in as strangers, but left as friends.

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"Customers say they'll miss us," Fitusis said. "We'll miss them, too."

To get an idea just how much the Bright Spot will be missed, visit my Facebook post about the closing. It attracted dozens of farewell comments from long-time customers, some of whom have dined there since day one.

Before Fitusis opened the eatery in 1980, he and his brother-in-law bought the old Abbott's restaurant across the street. While working at U.S. Steel in Gary, Fitusis read a classified ad in the Post-Tribune that the Hobart restaurant was for sale.

"I had an idea. I took a chance," he said. "We kept the name Abbott's because it had been around since the 1940s."

A few years after opening the Bright Spot, Fitusis expanded it by purchasing two adjacent buildings. One building housed a news stand, the other was a TV repair shop.

"We needed more dining room," Fitusis said, noting its current 150-seat capacity. "I used to come in here every day at five in the morning to make daily specials."

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Fitusis learned how to cook on a merchant marine ship after he left the Greek island of Chios, six miles off the Turkish coast. He grew up in a small village on the island during World War II and the Nazi occupation.

"I love Greece but I had to leave," he said. "I wanted to come to America. Something told me that I was going to make it in this country, even though I only had $40 in my pocket."

It may sound cliche or comically reflect the classic movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," but Fitusis is truly proud of everything Greek. He rattles off Greek-flavored trivia and statistics with genuine sincerity.

"Did you know Manhattan alone has 3,000 Greek business owners," asked Fitusis, whose relatives in Northwest Indiana operate a handful of other Greek-styled restaurants.

The Bright Spot has been his primary source of income for decades -- and his identity. Customers didn't come here merely for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They came to chat with Fitusis, who has become a sort of grandfather to hundreds of families.

"We're all one big family, my friend," he told me as his shy wife again disappeared.

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Fitusis knows many of his customers by name. All others he calls "my friend."

"This section is closed, my friend," he told one wayward customer.

He knows the closing will be bittersweet.

"We served so many meals here," said Fitusis, whose face is badly bruised from a recent fall on a wet floor in the restaurant. "I guess everything good must end."

No one in his large, extended family has stepped up to keep the restaurant in business. Either they're too old, too young, too unhealthy or too unwilling to work the long, hard hours it requires.

"Bright Spot will still remain for sale, and we pray the next person or family to come along will share similar values as we have, serving this community," states a heavily-shared Facebook post by the family.

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Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"If they got the guts, the will and the time, then they will make it," Fitusis said. "Just like we did."

Daughter Mary Fitusis-Mojica said, "God could not have chosen better parents for my sisters and me. I will be forever grateful for their constant sacrifice for us and all of their grandchildren. They deserve to enjoy life."

Fitusis and his wife have served up a hearty slice of the American dream.

"I've been blessed to be part of the American, uh, apple pie," Fitusis said, honestly unaware of his play on words. "First, I thank God. Second, I thank the United States for allowing me to be here and raise my family."

jdavich@post-trib.com

Twitter@jdavich

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You can watch a video and view more photos here: www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/chi-jerry-davich-staff.html.
Veterans and first responders fill their plates during annual luncheon. (Jon Langham / Pioneer Press)

The Rotary Club of Western Springs honored about 200 veterans and first responders with a steak fry luncheon on Friday at the Western Spring Baptist Church.

The Rotary Club has hosted this luncheon for 16 years.

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Club President Jason Dobrzynski noted the motto Service before Self and said Rotary works with the community to provide this annual steak meal to deserving veterans and first responders. Community members were offered the opportunity to purchase a lunch ticket for $15, which would provide a steak dinner for a veteran or first responder attending the event.

Sharon Flaim, a Rotary member who prepares all of the food except for the steaks, said the lunch menu included a hash brown casserole, tomato basil salad, broccoli in a butter sauce and dessert. Flaim said she enjoys doing the cooking and "giving back something to the veterans who have done so much for us."

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Steaks were cooked on a grill by volunteer Rotary Club members and were purchased from Casey's Market with community donations. The public was welcome to attend the event and purchase a lunch ticket at the door.

Representatives from the Western Spring VFW and the La Grange American Legion also attended the event.

"The VFW community is honored to provide the color guard and flag to display at this event," said Western Springs member Bruce Harken, who is a Marine veteran. He said those in attendance included Korea, Vietnam and World War II veterans.

Retirement community Plymouth Place provided transportation to resident veterans and families who wished to attend the luncheon. The event began with the Pledge of Allegiance and a short prayer. McClure Junior High students Annie Tracy and Gracie Regan sang the national anthem accompanied by McClure music director Kelly Kruiswyk.

Dave Doyle, an Army veteran from Indian Head Park, attended for the first time with friend Sam Scaccia from Schaumburg. Doyle said the friends "Wanted to meet up to discuss an Army reunion, and appreciated being invited to lunch by the community."

Also attending for the first time was the La Grange Fire Department first shift responders.

"The food is very good and we are happy to be here," said acting Chief Jeff Behland.

Grant Dixon, Rotary member, said the event was originally a fundraiser held by another organization and the Rotary Club decided to make it an event to honor veterans and first responders in our community.

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The Rotary Club started the event in 2000 and it continues to have a high degree of participation.

The club's next project is working on a December event to celebrate incoming and outgoing high school exchange students, Dobryzyski said.

Diane Dachota is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Further progress was made in realization of the project for the modernization of the Budapest-Belgrade railway, the Serbian Ministry of Transport, Construction and Infrastructure said in a press release on Friday.

The release was issued after the fifth meeting of the Trilateral Group of China, Serbia and Hungary was held here on Friday.

The meeting was chaired by Serbian Minister of Construction, Infrastructure and Transport Zorana Mihajlovic, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Wang Xiaotao, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC).

According to the release, representatives of China, Serbia and Hungary agreed to finish the preliminary design of the first segment of the planned high-speed railway between Belgrade and Stara Pazova (around 40 kilometers) by the end of September and continue talks on finalization of the commercial contract in October.

The ministry also stated that the "technical working group of all three countries worked today on reaching agreement on technical and technological issues related to the railway line", because this line will be designed for electrified passenger and cargo trains with a maximum speed of 200 km per hour.

The railway linking Budapest and Belgrade, has a total length of 350 km, of which 184 km is in Serbia.

The project for the modernization of the Belgrade-Budapest railway was initially agreed on in 2013 at the China-Central and Eastern European countries leaders' meeting in Bucharest.
All 28 suspects in three high-profile telecoms fraud cases that resulted in three student deaths have been apprehended, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced on Friday.

Law enforcers were sent to at least seven provinces in southern and eastern China to search for the suspects and have detained all of them.

Xu Yuyu, an 18-year-old high school graduate in Linyi City, Shandong Province, was reported to have lost 9,900 yuan, meant for university tuition fees, to telecoms fraudsters and died of cardiac arrest on August 19.

Just a few miles away in Shandong, would-be sophomore Song Zhenning, was reported to have died in the same way in August, having lost money in another act of fraud.

In the third case, a college student committed suicide after her money was taken by scammers in Jieyang, Guangdong Province.

The cases caused considerable public anger and the MPS issued a top-level order for the arrest when the cases made the news. The MPS also vowed to crack down on telecoms fraud.
An undated photo shows a luxury club in downtown Hangzhou, east Chinas Zhejiang Province, was closed. [File Photo/China.com.cn]

It's not a good time to be in the luxury private club business in China.

The Daily Telegraph reports that several clubs in cities such as Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been closed in recent months, whilst others have suffered from severely declining revenue.

It's all down to the success of President Xi Jinping's high-profile crackdown on corruption amongst government officials.

Apparently, the clubs were a popular place to conduct so-called "graft corruption."

That's a form of corruption where an official might award a public contract to a company at an inflated rate. That official might then have some of the excess profit from the deal paid back to them as an incentive to arrange similar deals. The term refers specifically to the "intentional misdirection of official funds."

The Telegraph's report suggests that graft corruption was particularly prevalent at private luxury clubs with high membership fees (sometimes as high as 200,000 yuan or 30,000 US dollars a year) and a small number of members. This created a protected environment for the corruption to take place.

It is also claimed that bribery took place at some of the clubs.

Other initiatives in President Xi's anti-corruption policy have seen a control of lavish gift giving and banquets. The successful drive has seen hundreds officials detained for flouting rules.
Drolma, a Tibetan woman in Ganzi, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province, was reported to have released 6,387 goats to a prairie in Sertar County. [File photo/ifeng.com]

As the country passed the revised edition of China's Wild Animal Protection Law which bans random releasing of captive animals to the wild, a similar incident has drawn people's attention lately causing controversy, reported the Beijing News on Saturday.

Drolma, a Tibetan woman in Ganzi, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province, was reported to have released 6,387 goats to a prairie in Sertar County after she saved them from slaughter houses with 5.1 million yuan (around 763,000 USD) of donated money, organized by a group called "Snowland Release Group".

The incident immediately drew great attention after it was exposed on September 4 on Sina Weibo, Chinese version of Twitter, with some praising her for doing a good deed and others, including experts, fearing the environmental balance of the prairie could be harmed with such a large number of goats suddenly introduced to the ecosystem.

Later it was revealed that the woman was just sending those goats to a local pasture and not releasing them randomly, but despite this the incident revealed the seriousness of the problem in China and some people's attitude towards it.

There have been a number of reports recently in China in which captive animals were released randomly into the wild by animal activists or by those following a Buddhist ritual known as "fangsheng" or "release life" which demonstrates spiritual compassion and piety by releasing captive animals back into nature.

However, experts say an ecosystem has a very delicate balance which could be jeopardized easily by changing the number of certain species or introducing a new species to the area.

The revised China's Wild Animal Protection Law is to take effect starting from the year 2017, with added special items to regulate the release of captive animals into the wild.

Any organization or individual releasing captive animals should choose indigenous species that are fit to survive in the wild, and the release should have no impact upon local people or harm to the ecosystem, the law said. Anyone who frees captive animals in a reckless manner and thus causes property damage or physical injury to others, or jeopardizes the ecosystem, will be held accountable.
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An independent special investigation team appointed by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to probe UN Mission in South Sudan's (UNMISS) respond to the July violence, begun its work in Juba on Friday.

The team, which is led by Major General Patrick Cammaert, will review reports of incidents of attacks on civilians and cases of sexual violence that occurred within the vicinity of the UN House Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites in Juba.

A statement from the UNMISS said the team will determine whether the mission responded appropriately to prevent and stop these incidents and to protect civilians within its resources and capabilities at the time.

"It is also charged to review the mission's response to the attack on the Terrain Hotel of July 11," UNMISS said in the statement.

"Due to the gravity of these incidents, related allegations and the preliminary findings by UNMISS, the Secretary-General has decided to launch an independent special investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding these incidents and to evaluate the Mission's overall response," the statement said.

The UN chief has reiterated his outrage over the acts of violence committed by the government and opposition forces in Juba from July 8 to 25, during which many South Sudanese civilians and two UN peacekeepers were killed.

The team, comprised of experts with military, human rights and sexual/gender-based violence, and policing and legal backgrounds, is expected to submit its report to Secretary-General within one month.
PHNOM PENH - A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed here on Friday between the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce (CCC) and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

The deal was inked between CCC President Kith Meng and CCPIT Chairman Jiang Zengwei during a Cambodia-China Investment Forum.

"The MoU will contribute further to enhancing trade and investment relations between the two countries," Kith Meng said.

He added that the deal would basically cover the areas of cooperation such as exchange of information, trade promotion activities, exchange of visits, experience sharing, and capacity building.

Speaking about the Cambodia-China Investment Forum, Jiang said the excellent cooperation between China and Cambodia is a solid foundation encouraging more and more Chinese investors to Cambodia.

"Enterprises play a very important role in promoting trade and investment relations between the two countries," he said. "The CCPIT is ready to encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Cambodia and to assist Cambodian companies wishing to do businesses in China."

He was confident that the forum would greatly contribute to developing trade and investment ties between China and Cambodia.

Jiang is leading a delegation of 47 Chinese enterprises on a visit to Cambodia.
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Employees work on an Airbus A380 plane inside the Air France KLM maintenance hangar near Paris, France.[Photo/Agencies]

Although terrorist attacks and visa requirements have impacted Air France-KLM, the group is still confident of a business rebound in 2017, its chairman and CEO said on Thursday.

"Of course, terrorist attacks in Europe impacted the number of passengers choosing our airlines this year, especially from China. We have seen a quite important decrease in the number of groups, which is partly made up by other visitors. The Schengen Visa process is also having a negative impact on the number of Chinese tourists going to Europe," said Jean-Marc Janaillac, chairman and CEO of Air France-KLM Group, at the celebration of the carrier's 50 years in China.

"But we are quite confident that we are going to see a rebound in 2017, since we've noticed that situation has stabilized now," he noted, adding that efforts have been made to convince Chinese travelers that it is interesting and safe to go to Europe.

In late July, Air France-KLM issued warnings about the impact on revenue this year of the recent attacks in France and political upheaval elsewhere, which led to a drop in sales.

"There is clear pressure on France as a destination," chief financial officer Pierre-Francois Riolacci said.

According to a report by the Irish Examiner, travelers from China and Japan in particular were staying away. Furthermore, lower ticket prices will more than cancel out any savings from lower fuel bills this year.

Since October, 2015, tourists from East Asia, including China, are required to provide biometric data, including fingerprints of both hands and a digital photo, when applying for the Schengen Visa, according to a China Daily report.
The insurance regulator will allow mainland insurers to invest in Hong Kong stocks through a trading link with Shanghai, a move which experts say would help diversify insurers' investment risks.

The liberalization came as insurers suffered a sharp profit decline in the first half of this year, down by 54 percent largely due to the stock market volatility, according to data from the regulator.

The move also underscores the regulator's effort to lower investment barriers for mainland institutions that are facing a shortage of assets that yield sound returns amid an economic slowdown.

"It is certainly good news for the insurers since they are demanding more investment channels to better allocate their surging premium revenues and to diversify investment risks," said Chen Guoli, vice secretary-general of the Insurance Asset Management Association of China.

Led by financial stocks, Hong Kong shares rallied on Friday on investors' anticipation that more mainland capital would pour into the market. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong gained 0.5 percent on Friday and 3.8 percent this week.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission said in a statement on Thursday that mainland insurance funds will be allowed to invest in Hong Kong shares through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program. The regulator did not specify when the insurers could start such operations.

The CIRC said that the purpose is to broaden investment channels for the insurers and to help ease their asset allocation pressure by granting them greater flexibility. The new policy will also help boost their investment returns, the regulator added.

Under current regulations, insurers can invest up to 15 percent of their total assets overseas. Haitong Securities Co estimated that the mainland insurers' overseas asset accounted for only 1.9 percent of their total assets by the end of last year, meaning that further liberalization could help unleash a huge investment potential.

The move to permit insurance funds to invest in Hong Kong shares came after the regulator last month scrapped the overall investment quota under the trading link between Shanghai and Hong Kong, while retaining a daily quota limit.

Xiong Ying, an executive at Huatai Asset Management Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Huatai Insurance Group, said that the latest regulatory liberalization will help optimize the investment portfolios of insurance funds by expanding their investment scope.

"But in the short term, it is unlikely that a huge amount of capital will pour into the Hong Kong market, as it takes time for the mainland insurance funds to explore and learn the market," Xiong said.

Wang Hanfeng, an analyst at China International Capital Corp Ltd, said that the move will likely boost the prices of the dual-listed stocks in Hong Kong as they are now traded at a discount to their Shanghai-listed counterparts.

Mainland insurers previously could invest in overseas equities markets only under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors program, which is subject to a quota.

The Chinese government has been gradually liberalizing overseas investment for mainland investors. Last month, a trading link between Shenzhen and Hong Kong was officially approved.
A freight train has left Qinghai bounding for Belgium on Sept 8, 2016. The train carries 44 containers packed with products like Tibetan tapestries and goji berries. The 12-day journey will take the train through Kazakhstan and Eastern European countries including Russia and Poland. It is the first train from the Tibet Plateau going to Europe. So far, 16 Chinese cities such as Chongqing, Wuhan and Xi'an have sent freight trains to European cities. [Photo / Chinanews.com]
BEIJING - Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli on Friday called for solid supply-side reform efforts in a bid to adapt to the current economic climate, known as the "new normal".

The reform is a "major innovation" to meet new changes following the global financial crisis and an "inevitable choice" of China to fit into new economic circumstance that feature slower but higher quality growth, Zhang said during a meeting with the country's senior officials.

Given a prolonged slowdown and entrenched economic problems, China's policymakers are counting on structural reform to inject vitality into the economy.

Zhang described the reform as a "significant and urgent" matter.

He stressed five major tasks of the reform: cutting excess industrial capacity, reducing housing inventory, lowering corporate leverage, relieving corporate burdens and fixing economic weaknesses.

Overcapacity reduction in bloated steel and coal industries should be highlighted, Zhang said, adding that governments should make proper arrangements for laid-off workers and handling corporate debt.

Zhang said different policies should be taken to resolve excessive housing stock in a variety of areas. Helping 100 million rural residents to integrate in cities will be part of the efforts, as will the renovation of dilapidated residences. Affordable housing should also be improved.

To lower corporate leverage, authorities will encourage mergers and acquisitions, help companies liquidize remnant assets and promote equity financing, Zhang said.

China will also reduce corporate burdens in several areas, including tax, financing, labor, land use and logistics, as well as introduce significant spending on weak economic links, such as poverty relief, agriculture, new industries and infrastructure, Zhang said.
XIAMEN - Vice-Premier Wang Yang said that China will further expand market access, improve foreign investment policies and protect the legitimate rights of foreign investors.

Multinationals have made great contributions to China's economic development and improving people's lives, Wang said Thursday at a meeting with representatives from foreign companies.

Opening up has benefited social and economic development in China, so this will continue, Wang said.

China remains an ideal investment destination due to its plentiful human resources and solid infrastructure, he said, while encouraging foreign investors to adapt to the current economic climate, known as the "new normal."

He also promised to continue to create a fairer and more stable and transparent investment environment.

Representatives from foreign companies, including Coca Cola, Toyota, Dell and IBM, said they remained upbeat about China's economy and will increase investment in the country, and hope that China will further expand market access, improve the business environment and create more favorable conditions for them.
HONG KONG - As the western offshore renminbi hub, London will continue play its leading role to help promote the internalization of the Chinese currency, Jeffrey Mountevans, mayor of the City of London said here on Friday.

London welcomed the "truly significant" development of the internalization of renminbi, Mountevans told a press conference, adding the city took great pride, together with Hong Kong, to play their roles in the process.

"I think a great deal has been achieved in a very short time," he said.

London will continue help promote renminbi products, Mountevans said. "We are committed to developing an industry that supports the currency's growth as China's markets open up."

Over the past few years, financial market collaboration has been a priority for both governments in China and Britain.

There will be many high-value opportunities for the two countries to collaborate in the financial and innovative industries in the future, such as green finance and FinTech, he said.

Moreover, as a maritime Lord Mayor with 44 years in shipbroking, Mountevans said China and Britain have a "very strong" relationship in maritime sections.

"There's a great deal of respect in London for strengthening the capability of Hong Kong market as the ship owning and operating business moves increasingly eastwards," he said.

Mountevans also expected the two countries to build up more mutual interests in maritime finance and maritime arbitration.

Lord Mountevans is leading a business delegation to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin on Sept 7-14, in a move to strengthen the commercial ties between Britain and China.

During his three-day visit to Hong Kong, Mountevans has met Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government John Tsang and representatives from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd and Hong Kong Shipowners Association.
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka is targeting at least 300,000 Chinese tourists this year as China has now become the largest market for tourist arrivals in the island nation, the Tourism Ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said in a statement that already 132,842 Chinese tourists had arrived in the island country during the first two quarters in 2016 and the numbers were expected to increase.

Sri Lanka has become a popular tourist destination in the Indian Ocean region after the end of its conflict against Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009.

The country has received recognition from international travel agents with Forbes also recommending Sri Lanka as one of their top 10 coolest places to visit for Wildlife in 2015.

The Tourism Ministry said that in the recently held Xi'an Silk Road International Tourism Expo held in China, Sri Lanka secured the most popular destination award.

"China is the second largest outbound travel market for Sri Lanka and Xi'an is one of the top sourcing cities in China," the ministry said.
BEIJING - Vice-Premier Ma Kai on Friday called for more to be done to promote supply-side reform as a tool to move the manufacturing sector up the value chain.

Although solid progress has been made over the past three decades, challenges remain for the sector, such as overcapacity and a shortage of high-end products, Ma said at a forum.

He called for efforts to propel supply-side reform and the efficient implementation of the "Made in China 2025" initiative to upgrade the manufacturing industry.

Authorities at all levels should try hard to eliminate overcapacity and enhance innovation in all areas, Ma said.

He said the future was in the integration of manufacturing and the Internet, and measures that would help establish modern corporate systems and a salary distribution system.

Ma also called for a more friendly business environment to better protect intellectual property rights and help ensure orderly market competition.
A BYD Co Ltd badge is seen on an e6 all-electric vehicle in New York, on Friday, Dec. 20, 2013. [Photo/VCG]

Chinese automotive manufacturer BYD officially launched 51 new single decker electric buses on Friday, which it said would be Europe's biggest all-electric bus fleet so far, saving London 700 metric tons of CO2 emissions a year.

The new fleet was launched after BYD's initial supply of two electric buses to London three years ago proved a success in reliability and consistency in running a 16-hour shift without a recharge being necessary.

London's deputy mayor Val Shawcross, who looks after the city's transport, attended the launch ceremony.

The 51 buses will be operated by London bus operator Go Ahead from its Waterloo garage, servicing two Transport for London routes - 507, which connects Waterloo with Victoria, and 521linking Waterloo and London Bridge.

When BYD supplied the single decker buses to Go Ahead three years ago, it also helped Go Ahead with installing the charging stations.

Apart from the single decker buses, BYD is testing the world's first pure electric double decker fleet of five buses in partnership with London bus operator Metroline.

BYD's initiative also highlights the green vehicles China is developing and expanding internationally.
He has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in the New York Times, featured at Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com and interviewed on radio, TV and in social media.





Inducted into the Philadelphia Public Relations Hall of Fame, for many years he served as a Lecturer in Corporate Communication at Penn State University. A former President of the Philadelphia Public Relations Association (PPRA) he has lectured at Rowan University, Temple University, The College of New Jersey and Arcadia University. He has conducted workshops on public relations for thousands of participants throughout the nation and has taught countless others the art of public speaking. He has also advised numerous lawyers, judges, public officials and political candidates.





Cirucci is a prolific writer and his op-ed pieces have appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Courier-Post and other publications.



A native of Camden NJ, Cirucci is a former President of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Cirucci served as Associate Executive Director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for nearly 30 years. He served as Chair of Penn State University's Professional Advisory Board for the Corporate Communication major at Penn State Abington and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Judicial Selection Commission.



He received his MA degree from Rowan University and his BA from Villanova University. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rowan's public relations program and received the E. A. "Wally" Richter Leadership Award, the highest honor from the National Association of Bar Executives' Communications Section. He has also been honored by numerous other local, state and national groups.









Cirucci's passions include politics, the popular culture, books and authors, art, communication, music, theatre, movies, dining and travel. In his hometown of Camden, Cirucci taught fifth grade at the Ulysses Wiggins Elementary School named for the founder of the Camden NAACP. There he was one of the first teachers in the country to teach African-American history to inner city students. He later served as editor of a local weekly newspaper, as Assistant to the Township Manager of Cherry Hill Township and as Associate Director of Communications at the New Jersey State Bar Association.

He's Dan Cirucci, the founder and editor-in chief of the Dan Cirucci Blog, Matt Rooney's sidekick on Save Jersey's videocasts and one of the most widely honored public relations professionals in his field. He's also been a public relations consultant to numerous organizations and individuals and hosted The Advocates on RVN-TV.
A technician installs programs into a robot at an industry expo in Xiamen, Fujian province.[Photo/Xinhua]

Broader plan seeks to construct 40 such facilities to tackle technology bottlenecks in major industries

China plans to set up a State-level innovation center by the year-end to boost homegrown companies' production capability in key robot components, the minister of industry and information technology, Miao Wei, said on Friday.

The move is part of China's broad plan to tackle technological bottlenecks in key industries. The aim is to build about 40 State-level innovation centers by 2025, to make the country's manufacturing industry smarter, safer and more flexible.

Miao said the center would focus on developing speed reducers, drive and control devices, as well as other key robot components that China currently needs to import from other countries.

"The center will be established by leading robotics firms and research institutes and it is designed to reduce repetitive investments by pooling best resources together," Miao said.

A source at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told China Daily that the center would be co-funded by companies and governments.

"But the investment size has not been decided yet," he said.

The move came shortly after China set up its first innovation center in June to advance research and development in batteries used in electric vehicles.

The center has so far attracted first-phase capital of more than 1.2 billion yuan ($179 million) from automakers and local governments. It aims to help China catch up with Japan and South Korea in battery technology by 2020.

Vice-Premier Ma Kai said on Friday that when cranking up the automation of factories, "it is important to ensure that homegrown firms master core technologies."

China is targeting an annual output of 100,000 industrial robots by 2020. Fueled by rising labor costs and a thriving labor pool, the country became the world's biggest buyer of industrial robots in 2013, data from the International Federation of Robotics shows.

Wang Bin, product director at Beijing-based robot start-up Cloud Minds, said a robot arm can be worth several million yuan and most of that cost came from foreign components such as speed reducers and servomotors.

"The State-level innovation center will lower the entry barrier for startups and inspire mass innovation in the cash-intensive robot industry," Wang said.

He Dongdong, senior vice-president at Sanyi Group Co Ltd, a leading machinery maker in China, said the government's 40-innovation-center plan values the role of enterprises in driving innovation.
For Taiwan tourism, winter came early.

A significant drop in mainland visitors in the past few months has taken its toll on the island's tourism economy. Forty percent of related businesses were hit with a sharp drop in revenue - 23 percent on average - according to a survey by Taiwan companies 1111 Job Bank and its subsidiary TaiwanXing travel agency.

The cold spell claimed its first major victim when Genesis Travel Agency, a time-honored company specializing in group tour services for mainland visitors, declared bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to the Taiwan tourism authority.

Mainland tourists accounted for 40 percent of Taiwan's total visitors last year. Now, with fewer visitors coming from the mainland, Hsu Kao-ching, a former executive of the Travel Agent Association, said he worried there would be more travel agency closures.

The total number of mainland visitors has fallen 22.3 percent since Tsai Ing-wen took office in May 20, according to the Taiwan tourism authority. In June, the number had dropped to 271,000, the lowest point in 30 months.

The number of Chinese group tours was cut by 47 percent from June to July, partly because of fallout from a fatal bus fire near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that killed 24 mainland tourists on July 19, according to the Taiwan tourism authority.

"Political uncertainty created by Tsai's party and safety concerns over the bus accident are the main reasons for the free fall in mainland tourists," said Zhu Songling, director of Taiwan Research and Cross-Straits Relations at Beijing Union University. "Mainland visitors just don't feel safe or welcome in Taiwan anymore."

The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of tourism employees are at risk, said Lee Chi-yueh, chief adviser for TaiwanXing, in a public seminar on Wednesday.

"The situation doesn't look promising in the rest of the year either," he said.

Zhang Zhihao in Beijing contributed to this story.
Li Xuyi, security truck robbery suspect.

Li Xuyi, who is suspected of robbing 6 million yuan ($900,00) from a security truck in Dashiqiao, Liaoning province, has been arrested, police said on Thursday night.

A police statement said all the money had been recovered. The truck was carrying 35 million yuan.

Li, 35, a security truck driver for a local financial company, allegedly used a homemade gun to hijack the truck.

The robbery took place at about 1 pm on Wednesday. The vehicle was transporting cash to an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Dashiqiao. Li was arrested eight hours later at his home.

According to China Central Television, the suspect hid 5 million yuan in a home near the robbery scene and carried 1 million yuan away. He took part of the money to pay back several debtors. When he went back home to get more money to repay other debts, the police caught him.

"The suspect used to run a business. However, he suffered losses recently and owed a lot of money. So the idea of the robbery came to his mind," said Cui Lidong, deputy director of the criminal investigation bureau of Liaoning Public Security Department.
A farmer carries rice at fields in Yanzhai village of Jingping county, Southwest China's Guizhou province, Sept 7, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese scientists have found the genetic basis of what makes rice hybrids perform better than their inbred parents, offering a potential boon for breeding by precise molecular design to meet global food demands.

They have discovered how the more than 400 genetic locations that determine the traits of rice are expressed in hybrid rice varieties, which will serve as navigators to produce new rice products of high yield and quality, said Han Bin, leading researcher of the team and director of the Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, a branch of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The discovery, made after eight years of study, was published on the website of the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

Breeding hybrid rice varieties began in the 1970s in China, and a large number of such varieties have been brought into being after repeated attempts, contributing greatly to food security.

Researchers knew that only through fully understanding the genetic basis at the molecular level could they achieve more efficient use of hybrid improvements.

The team collected nearly 1,500 samples of hybrid rice from around the country, and selected 17 that were representative of a variety of indicators, including the place of origin and grain yield. They analyzed more than 10,000 rice lines produced by the 17 varieties.

"It's like 17 couples gave birth to more than 10,000 children, and we looked for the same genetic patterns of those that displayed the same specific good yield-related traits," said Huang Xuehui, another researcher on the team.

"With the large samples and big data analysis, together with the latest technology in the areas of genomics, quantitative genetics and computational biology, we found that a certain genetic variation at a genetic locus is related to a certain trait of the crop," Huang said.

They have also found that when certain genes are put together, they may inhibit each other, so rice-breeding scientists can avoid such combinations.

Han said they expect to cooperate with rice-breeding scientists in two years to speed up their practice. "It usually takes eight to 10 years to cultivate a new variety, but the duration will be reduced by half," he said.
China's first pilot zone for facilitating border inspection and quarantine, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has been successful and similar zones will be built in other parts of China to facilitate trade between China and Southeast Asian countries, according to inspection and quarantine authorities.

"The speed of customs clearance of goods has increased by more than 60 percent since the pilot zone began operation in August," Wang Jiwei, deputy chief of Guangxi Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, said today during the Fifth China-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine that was held in Nanning, Guangxi's capital.

The pilot zone, launched into operation in Pingxiang, which borders Vietnam, in August, advances the existing entry-exit inspection and quarantine models to improve efficiency while ensuring risks are under control, according to the Guangxi Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

Innovations utilized in the zone include integrating departments for different functions into one, such as the department for quarantine supervision and the department for issuing certificates, adopting a paperless e-platform for supervision and simplifying approval procedures for imports of certain types of agricultural products.

New technologies applied in the zone also have contributed to facilitated inspection and quarantine. For example, an integrated sterilization system to eliminate bacteria and viruses has been implemented to handle goods that were found to contain harmful species by inspection and quarantine officers, according to Nong Anyang, an operation manager in the zone.

Compared with current sterilization methods, which usually rely on heating or chemicals, the new method brings much higher efficiency and can expedite whole customs clearance procedures to benefit trading companies, he said.

China is ASEAN's biggest trade partner. Bilateral trade between the two reached $472 billion last year.

The Fifth China-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine was attended by 95 delegates from China and 10 ASEAN members, including the Philippines and Vietnam.

Contact the writer at wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn.


Despite doing hard labor, an early Chinese immigrant to Singapore preferred to be photographed as a man of learning. Photos by Zeng Yu / For China Daily

For Sophia Soon, a Singapore-born museum guide, a black-and-white picture taken of a Chinese man - probably a first-generation immigrant - and now hanging on the wall of the Chinese Heritage Center at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, speaks volumes. "Look at his shoes - so small that he could barely squeeze his feet in," she says.

"They were actually props borrowed from a photo studio - just like the cheongsam and the hat."

According to Soon, despite looking urbane, even scholarly, the man in question is most likely to have been a coolie, someone doing hard manual labor, presumably along the banks of the Singapore River.

"However, he was adamant about having this picture taken, where he was portrayed as a man of learning, evidenced by the book in his hand. Why? Because traditional Chinese culture valued literary achievements above all else," the 60-year-old says.

For those familiar with history, the picture holds up a mirror to generations of Chinese immigrants who traveled to Singapore, the reality of their existence, and the stubbornness with which they tried to hold on to their identity, while being constantly washed by the cultural tides flooding Singapore's shores.

"The Chinese first arrived in Singapore around the early 15th century. But the biggest inflow of Chinese immigrants in Singapore's contemporary history took place between the late 19th and early 20th century, when China was facing foreign invasion and political unrest," says Soon.

"The story of these immigrants progressed on two parallel narrative lines: one was about settling down; and the other was about reaching back."

Chu Kin Fong, a licensed tour guide and third-generation Chinese immigrant, has made it her job to take visitors - especially from the Chinese mainland - to Chinatown in Singapore.

The area, in the southern part of the island, is where Chinese immigrants once congregated, on both sides of the Singapore River.

"The majority of them worked as porters. But some ran restaurants or barber's shops," says Chu.

Life was never easy, she says. In fact, Chinatown is also known locally as "niu-che-shui", meaning "ox-driven water cart".

In the old days, Chinese immigrants, with no fresh water to drink, used ox carts to ferry water from other parts of the island.

However, according to Chu, the hardships endured were in a way mitigated with the formation of associations, which were essentially mutual-help groups based on the area in China where the immigrants hailed from.

"The heads of these associations were also community leaders who took under their wings men from their hometowns," she says, pointing to the two-storey buildings in Chinatown that used to house these associations.

"These days, they have largely turned into venues for the study of traditional Chinese art and culture, opera and instrument-playing, for example," she says.

From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, Chinese immigrants in Singapore, especially affluent businessmen, concerned themselves with the fate of their "motherland".

They offered financial support first to topple the Qing Dynasty, China's last feudal rulers, and then to the Chinese fighting the invading Japanese between 1937 and 1945.

After the end of World War II and the founding of the People's Republic of China the focus shifted. Starting in the 1950s, some local Chinese community leaders advocated the setting up of a Chinese university.

Prominent among the leaders was Tan Lark Sye, a rubber tycoon.

The university that came into being, in 1955 was called Nanyang University, with Nanyang, or the South Sea, referring to southeast Asia that includes today's Singapore and Malaysia.

Speaking of the project, Soon says: "We have black-and-white pictures showing people from all walks of life - from tricycle-pullers to dance girls - donating for 'our university'.

"Nanyang was the pride of all Chinese in Singapore."

Today, Nanyang University, or Nantah as it's known in Cantonese, is the site of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

Nantah was merged with the University of Singapore to form the National University of Singapore in 1980.

English is now the official language of all universities in Singapore.

The Chinese Heritage Center is housed in the former administration building of Nanyang University.

The center, with a permanent display showcasing the history of Chinese immigrants to Singapore, is the only university research center outside China that specializes in the study of overseas Chinese.

That status is enhanced by a collection of 30,000 books donated by Professor Wang Gungwu, a renowned historian who is now the chairman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.

The books, many on Chinese immigration, formed the core of the Wang Gungwu Library, located on the ground floor of the Heritage Center.

According to librarian Luo Biming, many books from the collection are very precious as they can no longer be found on the Chinese Mainland.

"Many were first published during China's Republican Era (1912-1949) but the copies were destroyed during the cultural revolution," he says, referring to the ideology-centered political movement that threw China into tumult between 1966 and 1976.

"In many cases, what we have is the only remaining copy."

Meanwhile, reflecting on the metamorphosis Chinese immigrants in Singapore underwent, both mentally and culturally, Soon points to a group of three pictures, of the same family taken over a period of 20 years.

In the first picture, everyone, from the matriarch who sits in the middle of the front row, to the younger members of the family, and even the toddlers, are dressed in traditional Chinese attire. The adults have long bead necklaces, then considered a part of court regalia.

Then changes gradually take place: the boys from the first picture appear in the second one as teenagers, and are dressed in Western-style suits that are too big for them.

If the second picture shows any sense of unease, the third picture portrays confidence, projected by the young men and women who have grown up.

Here, even the matriarch's son - the bread-earner of the family, had traded his heavily-embroidered Chinese official's gown for a sharply tailored suit.

His hair has turned white - thanks mostly to years of hard work to keep the family afloat.

One thing, however, remains unchanged: The matriarch and her daughter-in-law are still dressed in traditional style, years after their arrival in their adopted home.

"The women tended to be more conservative," says Soon.

"But even they had in time to yield to the need to localize."

The Republic of Singapore was founded in 1965.

And according to Luo the librarian, there were then efforts by the central government at "de-sinicization", in order to mint new a national identity, and to enhance social inclusion in a society that was - and still is - predominantly - ethnic Chinese, with Malays and Indians.

According to Luo, one can get a sense of the profound changes which took place in Singapore by comparing the textbooks used by school students before and after 1965.

"The notion of Singapore was stressed, as the emphasis shifted from Chinese history to local Singapore history," he says.

With this background, the picture of an early local cemetery for Chinese immigrants at the Heritage Center serves as a reminder of the country's contemporary history.

Inscribed on the gravestones are not only the names of the deceased, but also their place of origin, right from the province to the county and the village.

"In the back of their minds, they still wanted to go home," says Soon.

Born in Singapore, Soon is a second-generation immigrant.

"My father died in 1991, at the age of 79 and about 63 years after he took the life-threatening boat ride from the southern Chinese coast to Singapore," she says.

"Like most Chinese immigrants of his generation, dad, for many years, sent every penny he had earned and saved to China. In fact, he always longed to go back, but never did."

Weeks before the death of the old man, his son, Soon's brother, visited the family's home in China's Guangdong Province and managed to locate their father's elder sister."

"My brother took a picture of the old woman, our aunt, who was almost blind by then. Then, he returned to Singapore to show that picture to dad, who cried," says Soon.

"My father passed away a few days later, on October 1, China's National Day."

zhaoxu@chinadaily.com.cn





Left: Sophia Song, a second-generation Chinese immigrant to Singapore, recounts the story of her forefathers. Zhao Xu / China Daily; Right: Chinese Heritage Center in its Nantah days (top) and its current incarnation (middle). Nanyang University in its early days (below). Photos by Tan Wei Ann / For China Daily
On Sept 4, the International Union for Conservation of Nature downgraded the giant panda from "endangered" to "vulnerable" on its red list of threatened species, because the wild stocks of the species have been recovering. By the end of 2013, China had 1,864 giant pandas in the wild, 67 percent more than the number (1,114) from 1985 to 1988. The number of captive giant pandas, too, increased, from 164 to 375.

Yet the State Forestry Administration responded that the giant panda is still under threat and its habitats remain fragmented, so it is too early to be declared "vulnerable", a better conservation status than "endangered".

Many media outlets have highlighted the spat with headlines such as "IUCN and China's forestry administration quarrel over giant panda", ignoring the fact that both the IUCN and SFA admit the species needs protection, and they only differ on the degree of threat it faces.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has seven categories. Taking away the "extinct" and "extinct in the wild" groups, "endangered" is the most serious and "vulnerable" second only to it. As such, the change made by the IUCN doesn't make a major difference because "vulnerable" species, too, need special protection.

Several benchmarks are used to classify a species "endangered", such as whether the total number adults in the wild is below 250, whether their area of distribution is less than 5,000 square kilometers and whether their stocks have been dropping abruptly for the past 10 years. If a species meets any one of these yardsticks, it is labeled "endangered".

Judging from these criteria, the giant panda is no longer endangered. And the main reason for that is, China has deterred poachers and restored its habitats, which the IUCN has spoken highly of.

China, too, is proud of that achievement, but the SFA is more concerned about the difficulties ahead. Giant pandas still face two major threats: fragmented habitats make it difficult for the wild stocks to mate with each other and climate change is likely to reduce by about 35 percent of the bamboo forests, their only source of food.

Therefore, even though the IUCN has downgraded the threat giant pandas face, there is no reason to underestimate the difficulties ahead in its conservation. In fact, China has been taking multiple measures, such as establishing and enlarging special forest areas, for their conservation.

The problem is, the giant panda is just one of the hundreds of threatened species in China. Incomplete data show that more than 120 species listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species are from China, while over 400 are listed in the country's Red Data Book of Endangered Animals. And the endangered lists of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions contain the names of hundreds of other animals.

The giant panda is perhaps the most fortunate among all threatened species, because it is considered the symbol of China and enjoys special protection. China's giant panda conservation efforts include earmarking natural protection areas and strict implementation of the laws banning trade in the species or its body parts. The other threatened species, in contrast, do not enjoy such protection. Some of them, such as the white-flag dolphin or baiji, which is found only in the Yangtze River, are under greater threat than the giant panda, but the protection they enjoy is far below that given to the giant panda.

Given these facts, China has to take comprehensive measures to save all the threatened species. And to do that, it should invest more resources in conservation projects and implement stricter laws on animal and habitat protection.

The author is deputy editor in chief of Encyclopedia magazine and a former researcher in medical science.

(China Daily 09/10/2016 page5)
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea said on Friday, its 68th National Day, that it "successfully" tested a nuclear warhead in the morning. This is the fifth nuclear test conducted by Pyongyang since 2006 and the second this year. The DPRK only on Wednesday rejected a UN Security Council statement condemning its latest missile tests and threatened to take "further significant measures".

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement censuring Friday's nuclear test and urging the DPRK to meet its denuclearization commitments.

In the Republic of Korea, the presidential office reportedly held a National Security Council meeting on Friday afternoon after "a seismic event" of magnitude 5.3 was detected near the DPRK's northeastern nuclear test site.

The nuclear test carried out by the DPRK on Friday should not come as a big surprise given the planned deployment of the US' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in the ROK. In other words, the almost confirmed deployment of THAAD, an anti-missile defense system, has prompted Pyongyang to continue its ill-designed foreign policy.

Judging by its latest nuclear test, the DPRK still stands firm on its strategic misreading, believing that by developing nuclear weapons it will pressure the United States to respond to its concerns. That also explains why the DPRK has conducted missile tests this year even though THAAD might not necessarily pose a major threat to it.

Besides, a nuclear test on the 68th National Day of the DPRK also has a noteworthy political implication - that top leader Kim Jong-un will keep expanding the country's nuclear arsenal.

But it does not suggest the situation on the Korean Peninsula is out of control, because Pyongyang's nuclear efforts usually follow US and ROK military moves.

China is determined to divert this trajectory toward a peaceful direction. But admittedly, China's strategic choices in the face of a rising nuclear threat in the neighborhood are limited because of the geopolitical complexity and the denuclearization process may take five to 10 years to complete. So Beijing has been urging all parties concerned to make more concerted efforts to becalm the ensuing turbulence.

Washington and Seoul, in particular, should sincerely rethink their decision to install THAAD on the peninsula and review their other strategic mistakes that have prompted Pyongyang to make the wrong steps.

A vicious cycle is in the making between the US and the ROK on one side and the DPRK on the other, which can make peaceful reunification of the peninsula even more unlikely. In fact, if tensions continue to rise on the peninsula, the DPRK and the ROK will eventually be the worst victims.

The peninsula policies adopted by the US and the ROK are not conducive to lasting peace, as they have exhausted the very few opportunities to replace the 1953 armistice with a peace treaty.

As US President Barack Obama will leave office in four months and his ROK counterpart Park Geun-hye faces a presidential election next year, there is hope their successors (if there is one in the ROK) would make a difference and forge a permanent peace and security mechanism with China.

The author is a researcher in Asia-Pacific strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Cui Shoufeng.

(China Daily 09/10/2016 page5)
Isabell Rohde (left) on a trip with Pu Yongjian's family. [Provided by Pu Yongjian]

A program which originated in the Europe is now taking hold on the mainland.

Three-year-old Yoyo has a special friend in his home this summer.

Isabell Rohde, 18, from Spangenberg, a small town in central Germany, is spending six months as an au pair with Yoyo's family in southwest China's Chongqing.

Like many European peers, the young woman decided to take a gap year to experience some foreign culture before going to college.

"I was looking for an opportunity to experience a different culture after finishing high school," Rohde tells China Daily.

"It's my first time abroad."

At Yoyo's home, her main duty is to take care of the boy, play with him and teach him some English. She will also take some Chinese language courses every week and travel with the host family.

The au pair program originated in Europe after World War II to promote cultural exchanges among young Europeans.

Au Pair, a French term, means "at par" or "equal to", and indicates that the au pair is on par with other members of the family, rather than a traditional domestic help or nanny.

Au pairs live with their host families and look after the children. In return, they get an allowance and opportunities to study a foreign language.

Due to visa restrictions and limited demand, the au pair program was not introduced in China until the early 2000s.

At first, it was Chinese au pairs going out, mainly to the United States, as some American parents started to realize the importance of learning Chinese.

In 2006, Yu Hongbin, from Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang province, was the first Chinese au pair to land in the United States, according to the New York Times.
Travel agencies and administrations find ways to put total trip above the 5 million benchmark

Visitors view pictures at Charming Beijing Photo Exhibition at the main hall of Union Station in Washington DC on Tuesday. The exhibition is to celebrate "China-US Tourism Year" and to introduce Beijing's tourist attractions to local people. [Photo/Xinhua]

China and the United States hope to notch 5 million tourist trips as soon as possible.

Last year, the number of trips between the nations surpassed 4.75 million, "which makes us confident to promote further cooperation with US partners in tourism insurance, tourism rescue, and tourism talent exchanges and cultivation," said Li Jinzao, chairman of the China National Tourism Administration.

"We will protect the rights and interests of tourists from both sides by improving supervision in the tourism market," Li said on Friday at the China-US Tourism Leadership Summit in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The better way to increase tourists and trips between the nations is to diversify channels of cooperation, according to Li.

He said that the 10-year visa policy, which came into effect in November, has triggered a boom in travel to the US, while trips from the US to China between January and June reached 1.12 million, up 8.4 percent year-on-year.

Kelly Craighead, executive director of the National Travel and Tourism Office under the US Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration, spoke highly of the policy, saying that visa procedures for China are expected to be more convenient.

She said that they also plan to attract more Chinese visitors by diversifying US travel routes, sharing tour experiences with Chinese enterprises and providing more information online.

At the moment, Chinese visitors with a 10-year US visa have to renew their information, including home address, every two years, "which in some people's view is a kind of a hassle, but I don't think so," said Ge Mu, assistant president of Caissa Travel Management.

"The 10-year visa is still attractive for Chinese tourists and contributes to travel between the nations," Ge said.

Updating the visa online is easier and will cost about 100 yuan ($14), "and we'll remind our members with visas to renew them via social media," she said, adding that platforms such as WeChat are popular choices to promote Sino-US tourism.

Liz Bittner, president and CEO of Travel South USA, said that they have highlighted the use of social media to share their tour projects, "as they are important in China."

The Chinese-language website is also updated every day to help Chinese tourists understand food, music and people in the southern US, Bittner said.

Travel agent Denise Harrell-McMillon prefers to post pictures in China first via social media after getting home. "It's a good way for more people to understand China and then come here," she added.
Children peer into the south reflecting pool at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in Manhattan, New York, US, September 1, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

In the 15 years since the Sept 11 attacks, the Lower Manhattan area has been transformed by public and private investment, according to a new city report.

New office towers, a mass transportation hub and new retail complexes that attract young professionals have sprung up in an area that suffered extensive damage to its infrastructure.

"As the rebuilding has progressed, the local economy has changed. The area has become much more residential as older office buildings have been converted to residential use and new towers are completed," said the report, "Transformation of Lower Manhattan's Economy", which was released on Tuesday.

"The streets are filled with young professionals and growing families."

Thomas P. DiNapoli, state comptroller of New York, told The Wall Street Journal that Lower Manhattan is a residential neighborhood "very much on the rise".

The population in Lower Manhattan grew from 22,700 in 2000 to 49,000 in 2014, and more than three-quarters of the population is younger than 45 years old, with the number of children tripling since 2000.

Residential housing units have more than doubled to 30,000 since 2000.

Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc, said the downtown area has seen a tremendous expansion of development "to the point where over the last decade at least, we've seen price growth in that area at nearly double the overall growth of the borough".
China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) launched a data platform for control and prevention of plant and animal diseases across borders today, during a bilateral meeting.

Through the platform China and ASEAN members can adopt unified regulations in monitoring, preventing and controlling animal and plant diseases across their borders, said Li Jianwei, chief for animal and plant quarantine supervision at the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The two sides will have more intensified and effective cooperation in this field, Li said during the platform's launching ceremony at a ministerial meeting between the two sides in Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

In addition, the platform will facilitate trade between China and ASEAN and result in the swifter flow of agricultural products between the two sides, he said.

"With accelerated economic globalization, animal and plant diseases have been transmitting more rapidly and extensively across borders," Li said. "This has posed serious threats to the global economy, public health and ecological systems. China and ASEAN also face the same problem."

The platform will integrate related systems in China and ASEAN member countries, such as animal and plant disease collection, monitoring, information management and warning systems. It also will evaluate the risks of the spread of such diseases to give rational and economic solutions to disease prevention and control across the border between China and ASEAN, Li said.

All data on the platform will be shared between these countries, so China and ASEAN will share information on animal and plant diseases and be better coordinated in coping with challenges, he said.

More than 1 million metric tons of fruits from ASEAN members were exported to China through ports in Guangxi, which borders Vietnam, last year, a 45 percent increase compared with 2014, according to the regional government.

Last year, entry-exit authorities across China intercepted 1.04 million batches of harmful species at ports and prevented them from entering China, an increase of about 30 percent compared with the previous year, according to General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Many of the harmful species were found in agricultural products exported to China.

Contact the writer at wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn.
CHONBURI - The second joint exercise of ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM-PLUS) on humanitarian aid, disaster relief and military medicine (AM-HEx 2016) concluded on Friday. China, sending a large delegation, took part in the exercise.

Troops from participant countries, including 10 ASEAN members and its 8 dialogue partners, cooperated in the exercise and showed capability of dealing non-traditional security threats, said Somsak Roongsita, chief deputy director-general of the office of policy and planning of Thai ministry of defense.

China attached great importance to the exercise as it sent a delegation of 365 troops, which is the largest delegation except for the host country, said Rear Admiral Li Ji, deputy director of international military cooperation office of the Chinese ministry of national defense.

Chinese engineer, medical, army aviation, and maritime detachments completed their missions in the exercise respectively, said Li.

During the exercise, 50 engineering soldiers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) 42nd Group Army participated in search and rescue operations in quarantine areas, and rescue operations in collapsed buildings.

As for the Chinese medical detachment, it was made up of a total of 40 persons, most of whom were from the PLA Air Force General Hospital. They successively treated about 50 people with moderate to severe wounds, and conducted 14 emergency surgical operations, including joint surgical operations conducted with Thai and Russian army doctors.

This is the first showcase of the medical service force of the Chinese Air Force on the international military stage, and the Chinese medical detachment is the only medical detachment that set up a second-class field hospital besides the host country Thailand.

Li also said that the joint exercise has strengthened trust between Chinese troops and troops from other participant countries and laid a solid foundation for future cooperation between participant countries in disaster relief.
By Li Keqiang, premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, in Vientiane, Laos, on Sept 7

Your Excellency Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith,

Dear Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to join you in Vientiane as we mark the 25th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations. I wish to thank the Lao government and Prime Minister Thongloun for the elaborate preparations and thoughtful arrangements made for this meeting. I also thank Singapore, the country coordinator for China-ASEAN relations, as well as other ASEAN countries, for their efforts and contribution in growing China-ASEAN relations.

We have just attended the ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations to review the extraordinary path of development of our relations. Since our dialogue relations were established in 1991, China and ASEAN have, holding high the banner of development and cooperation and staying committed to mutual respect, mutual understanding, mutual trust and mutual support, made major strides forward in growing our relations and gained much valuable experience along the way. Development of our relations has effectively promoted peace, stability, prosperity and development in the region. Many colleagues from ASEAN countries have said that among all ASEAN's dialogue partnerships, relations with China are the most dynamic and most fruitful. I, too, am very much encouraged by the development of our relations.

The past 25 years has witnessed the ever strengthening of our political mutual trust. China is not a country from the ASEAN region, yet it was the first to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the first to unequivocally support ASEAN centrality in regional cooperation, the first to establish a strategic partnership with ASEAN, the first to openly state the willingness to sign the protocol to the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone and the first to start negotiations with ASEAN on an FTA. These many "firsts" are testimony to China's pursuit of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness in its neighborhood diplomacy. They have added up and show China's strong resolve in developing relations with ASEAN. They are also indicative of the strong will on both sides for cooperation, and they reflect the farsightedness and vision on both sides to lead cooperation in the region.

The past 25 years has seen fruitful results in China-ASEAN practical cooperation. Both sides have given priority to our cooperation with each other. We have steadily improved the cooperation mechanisms and shared development opportunities with each other. In recent years, the two sides have worked actively to align the initiatives of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with individual national development strategies of the region. As we all know, by now, the negotiations on upgrading the China-ASEAN FTA have been completed, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has been set up and the Lancang-Mekong cooperation mechanism has been instituted. Over the past 25 years, the two-way trade volume has risen from US$8 billion to US$472.2 billion, an increase of almost 60-fold. China has been ASEAN's biggest trading partner for seven years running and ASEAN has been China's third largest trading partner for five years in a row. Two-way investment has registered fast and balanced growth with a total amount of US$160 billion in accumulative terms. Chinese companies have set up 26 projects in eight ASEAN countries. These projects, being overseas economic and trade cooperation zones in nature, have attracted over 300 Chinese companies, achieving a total investment of US$1.77 billion and an output of US$9.02 billion. This is a new highlight of China-ASEAN cooperation that has worked for our mutual benefit. Our cooperation in production capacity has made solid steps forward and construction of a number of major projects, including railways, roads and power stations, has been started or completed. Our cultural and people-to-people exchanges have increased day by day, with 180,000 students studying in each other's countries, and over 23 million mutual visits being made every year. China has become ASEAN's biggest source of tourists. Such cooperation meets our own development needs and has brought tangible benefits to the people of both sides.

Looking ahead, China-ASEAN relations still enjoy vast prospects. China takes ASEAN as a significant force for regional peace and stability, regional integration and also for multi-polarity in the world. China will continue to give priority to ASEAN in its neighborhood diplomacy. China will continue to firmly support ASEAN's community building, ASEAN's centrality in regional cooperation as well as ASEAN playing a greater role in international and regional affairs. The theme of ASEAN for this year is "turning vision into reality". China will work with ASEAN countries to strengthen strategic communication, push forward the implementation of the "2+7 cooperation framework" and enhance cultural and people-to-people exchanges. By so doing, we can inject fresh impetus into our cooperation, jointly build a closer China-ASEAN community of shared destiny and realize the vision of greater peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region.

Dear Colleagues,

With our joint efforts, China-AEAN relations have stood the test of changing international landscape and grown into an exemplary relationship of equality and joint pursuit for development between big and small countries. Looking back at the path we have traveled over the past 25 years, I believe the following points are important for the development of our relations.

Only by upholding mutual trust can we strengthen the foundation of our relations. If we compare China-ASEAN cooperation to a big tree, then political mutual trust is its roots. There is a proverb in Laos which goes to the effect that when the tree takes deep root, it will be able to defy the swaying of its branches. Over the past 25 years, the two sides have viewed each other in a positive way and taken each other as opportunities rather than challenges for their development. We have respected the development paths of each other's choice and accommodated each other's major concerns. This has led to a sound situation of equality, mutual trust and mutual support between big and small countries. As a result, the relations between the two sides have stood the test of numerous challenges and shown a momentum of development.

Only by cherishing genuine friendship can we enrich the soil to sustain the growth of our relations. Valuing friendship is part of the culture and tradition in both China and ASEAN. Over the past 25 years, we have managed to stay as good neighbors and good partners helping each other in times of need and in the joint pursuit of common development. We have stood with each other to overcome difficulties and challenges, financial crisis, natural disasters and cross-border infectious diseases, to name just a few. What we forged is a genuine friendship that is more precious than gold, and that helps lay the foundation of strong popular support for our relations to grow even further.

Only by pursuing common interests can we strengthen the bond for our relations to grow. Win-win cooperation is the anchor and propeller of our relations. Through the past 25 years of seeking joint development, the two sides have advanced trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, achieved leap-forward progress in business cooperation and made the pie of common interests even larger. As a result, there has formed a pattern of greater interconnection and win-win cooperation, which has benefited the two billion people in our 11 countries. Such cooperation, based on common interests, will be the strongest and longest-lasting of all.

Only by valuing peace and harmony can we ensure overall development of our relations. Nothing can be achieved without a peaceful and stable environment. Both China and ASEAN countries have suffered from war, and that's how we come to know the importance and value of peace. Over the past 25 years, we have followed the principles of openness, inclusiveness and seeking common ground while shelving differences. We have made popular the idea of good-neighborliness and have stayed committed to properly resolving disputes through dialogue and consultation. As a result, peace and stability have become the main theme of our relations, providing a strong guarantee for the development and cooperation of the region.

These mentioned above represent the political wisdom of leaders of past generations on both sides. They are important experience as well as valuable assets that we need to doubly cherish and carry forward. As long as we stay true to these concepts and principles, we will move China-ASEAN relations toward even greater development.

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the South China Sea has seen some tension that shouldn't have been there at all. Yet I am pleased to note that with the joint efforts of both China and ASEAN countries, the situation is moving in a positive direction. The China-ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting held this July issued the Joint Statement on Full and Effective Implementation of the DOC, by which the foreign ministers reaffirmed the efficacy of the framework of regional norms. The statement also reiterated the return to the right track of solving related issues through negotiations and consultations, in order to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea and promote common prosperity and development of countries in the region.

It has been proved that the DOC reached between China and ASEAN countries in the spirit of respecting the principles of international law is indeed a feasible norm for countries to follow in the region. For more than a decade, China and ASEAN countries have jointly maintained peace and stability in the South China Sea, and for that to happen, the DOC principle of peacefully settling disputes by countries directly concerned through negotiations and consultations has played a crucial role. China and ASEAN countries are now working actively on consultations for a Code of Conduct, in order to properly settle the South China Sea issue and to manage differences, defuse tensions and enhance cooperation pending final settlement of disputes. A basis for the Code of Conduct consultations is the implementation of the DOC. If the DOC is not properly implemented and observed, how can the Code of Conduct consultations be moved forward? The truth is, the Code of Conduct consultations will only move forward in an effective manner when the DOC is truly observed.

Regarding the Code of Conduct consultations, China has proposed four visions, including the prospect of reaching a Code of Conduct framework by the middle of next year. This speaks fully to China's good faith and sincerity in working with ASEAN countries to properly handle disputes and jointly uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea. This meeting will adopt the Guidelines for Hotline Communications among Senior Officials of the MFA of China and ASEAN Member States in Response to Maritime Emergencies, and the Joint Statement on the Application of the Code of Unplanned Encounters at Sea in the South China Sea. These will be important steps taken to increase mutual trust and confidence, lower risks at sea and safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.

Peace and stability in the South China Sea is simply indispensable when we talk about development of countries in the region. As countries in the region, we are the ones that benefit the most from a peaceful South China Sea, and we will all stand to suffer if peace is ruined here. History and reality have proved time and again that the South China Sea will be peaceful and stable only when we, countries in the region, take the key to problems firmly in our own hands. China stands ready to work with ASEAN countries to remove disturbances and properly handle the South China Sea issue in the spirit of the DOC and consistent with the "dual track" approach. So long as we keep in mind the long-term interests and work together, we will rise above differences and make the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation that benefits all countries in the region.

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, the world economy is experiencing weak recovery, and problems of terrorism, refugees and geopolitical risks are on the rise. Globalization has run into setbacks and there have been growing distablizing factors and uncertainties in the international landscape. Against such backdrop, East Asia has on the whole maintained vigorous growth and social stability, and made steady progress in its integration process. It stands out as the most dynamic and promising region in the world. China will work with ASEAN to seize opportunities, overcome obstacles and build and grow our relations for the benefit of people in the region. To make it happen, I wish to propose the following:

First, let's write a new chapter of China-ASEAN relations. China has now entered a decisive stage for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, while ASEAN is implementing its ASEAN Community Vision 2025. This provides an opportunity for us to keep moving to the overall direction of bilateral relations, better align our development goals and paths and build an even closer China-ASEAN community of shared future. China welcomes the Joint Statement to Commemorate the 25th Anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations as adopted at this summit. The two sides may work under the guidance of the 2+7 cooperation framework and the third Action Plan for the China-ASEAN strategic partnership to deepen cooperation across the board and steadily expand common interests. China will continue to support regional cooperation programs for Asia, especially for the ASEAN region. China also wishes to be an active part in celebrations for the 50th anniversary of ASEAN and we wish ASEAN even greater development.

Second, let's build a new platform for cooperation on political and security issues. China wants to discuss with ASEAN countries an early conclusion of a treaty of good-neighborliness, friendship and cooperation, which will provide a legal and institutional framework for our friendship to go forward. China supports ASEAN's efforts to build a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Southeast Asia. If ASEAN intends to sign a protocol to the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-weapon-free Zone respectively with the nuclear weapon countries, China could be the first to put its signature on the document. We may also institutionalize, at an early date, the informal meeting between China-ASEAN defense ministers to enhance our defense and military interactions. We may build on last year's success of a first ministerial dialogue on law enforcement and security cooperation to make this mechanism even more practical. Just a few days ago, the Davao City of the Philippines has suffered a terrorist bombing attack that caused many casualties. China strongly condemns terrorist attacks against innocent civilians and firmly opposes terrorism in any form. We may also establish a special committee on long-term counterterrorism cooperation to jointly meet the rising nontraditional security threats such as cross-border crimes and terrorism, with the view to upholding peace and stability at both the regional and international levels.

Third, let's foster new impetus to business cooperation. The protocol to upgrade the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was signed last year and came into effect this July. It is time that we step up efforts to deliver the outcomes and enhance the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment. China hopes to welcome ASEAN leaders at the upcoming 13th China-ASEAN Expo through which to strengthen our trade and investment links. China is willing to work with ASEAN countries in building the Belt and Road. We could synergize our development plans and vigorously, effectively and in an orderly fashion work to enhance our connectivity through major projects like the China-Laos railway, China-Thailand railway and Jakarta-Bandung railway. We could work out a strategic plan for transport cooperation and a document for cooperation on transport science and technologies. China welcomes the Joint Statement on Production Capacity Cooperation to be issued by the meeting, and will deepen industrial cooperation with ASEAN countries to achieve a higher level of industrialization. China supports the building of a China-ASEAN information port, and hopes that an action plan for deepening the China-ASEAN partnership for common development in the ICT field (2017-21) can be formulated at an early date.

Fourth, let's make people-to-people exchanges a new pillar for cooperation. Friendship between the people holds the key to state-to-state relations. China will work with ASEAN countries to make people-to-people ties a third pillar for our relations, in addition to the two pillars of political and security cooperation and business cooperation. This year is the China-ASEAN Year of Educational Exchanges, in which we have successfully run events like the 9th Education Cooperation Week and the second Education Ministers' Roundtable Conference. These activities have boosted our interactions and cooperation in education, culture and between the youth. We may further enhance people-to-people ties with education and tourism being a priority of cooperation. China has proposed an upgraded version of the "Double 100,000 plan" to bring our student exchanges to 300,000 person times by 2025. To meet this goal, China will set up "China-ASEAN Maritime Silk Road Scholarships", and provide 1,000 to ASEAN students next year. It is hoped that a China-ASEAN action plan on education cooperation (2016-20) can be worked out at an early date. China applauds making 2017 the China-ASEAN Year of Tourism Cooperation. We could discuss a plan for tourism cooperation and set a target to achieve 30 million mutual visits by 2020. China looks forward to an early entry-into-force of the newly signed MOU on the ASEAN-China Center and hopes that the center will play an even greater role in enhancing our people-to-people interactions.

Fifth, let's work together to open up new prospects for regional cooperation. The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation initiative, put forward by the Chinese side at the 17th China-ASEAN Summit in response to Thailand's idea, is aimed at narrowing development gaps among ASEAN members, and could well be a new highlight in China-ASEAN cooperation. The first LMC leaders' meeting, held this March in Sanya, identified the three cooperation pillars of political and security issues, economic and sustainable development and people-to-people exchanges, as well as the five key priority areas of connectivity, production capacity, cross-border economic cooperation, water resources, agriculture and poverty reduction. China came up with a number of initiatives at the meeting, and 45 early harvest projects, such as establishment of the Lancang-Mekong water resources cooperation center, were agreed upon. These initiatives and projects are now being actively implemented. The special fund for LMC cooperation has officially been launched and will be used for cooperation on related programs between countries in the subregion.

Dear Colleagues,

If we can call the past 25 years as a period of growth for China-ASEAN relations, I believe the coming 25 years will be a period of maturity for our relations, in which we could move our relations from fast development to growth of higher quality at higher levels. Of course, we will embrace new opportunities as well as new challenges along the way. As we say in China, distance tests the strength of a horse, and time reveals the true character of a person. China will work hand in hand and in good faith with ASEAN countries. Let's build on what we have achieved and do what we can to promote even broader and deeper growth of China-ASEAN relations in the next 25 years, thus making even greater contribution to enduring peace and common prosperity of the region and beyond.

Thank you!

Premier Li Keqiang waves as he arrives at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Vientiane, Laos, on Wednesday. Ye Aung Thu / Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 09/10/2016 page9)
Your Excellency Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith,

Dear Colleagues,

It is a pleasure to attend the 19th ASEAN Plus Three (APT) Summit and join you to review the history of APT development, envision a bright future of East Asia cooperation and discuss plans for regional cooperation. On behalf of the Chinese government, I wish to thank the Laos government for the thoughtful preparation and arrangements it has made for the Summit.

APT cooperation, which emerged as Asian countries worked in unity to meet the financial crisis, is about to enter its second decade. Having stood the test of the global financial crisis, APT cooperation has become one of the most full-fledged and productive cooperation mechanisms. It has delivered tangible benefits to people of the region and contributed to making East Asia an important engine for world economic recovery and growth.

We meet at a time of difficult world economic recovery. Fluctuations continue to plague the international financial markets; global trade remains sluggish; trade protectionism is clearly on the rise; and economic globalization is facing a stronger headwind. The international security situation is no cause for optimism. Regional conflicts and hotspots are intertwined; terrorism, flow of refugees and other non-traditional security threats have become more pronounced and present a common challenge to the international community.

The G20 Summit, just concluded in Hangzhou under the theme "Toward an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy", put forth a host of major initiatives and measures and sent a strong message of parties working together to tide over difficulties. Under the new circumstances, East Asian countries need to stay vigilant, plan ahead and keep their focus on expanding the economy, improving people's well-being, advancing practical APT cooperation and maintaining overall peace and stability. This serves to ensure that East Asia cooperation, sound and sustainable as it is, will always stay on the right track and bring benefit to the people of countries concerned.

Dear Colleagues,

Since it was set in motion 19 years ago, APT cooperation has become an important platform for East Asia cooperation and played an important role on the political and economic stage in Asia and beyond. Since last year, new progress has been made in APT practical cooperation across the board. Countries concerned have worked in real earnest to implement the APT Cooperation Work Plan 2013-2017 and the EAVG II Report. A large number of cooperation projects have been carried out. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) officially started operation; CMIM made continued progress; AMRO was officially upgraded into an international organization; and steady headway was made in APTERR institution building and RCEP negotiations. New steps have also been taken in such areas as connectivity, social, people-to-people, cultural and non-traditional security cooperation. As an important part of East Asia cooperation, China-Japan-ROK cooperation also made progress. The eighth China-Japan-ROK Foreign Ministers' Meeting was held in late August in Japan. Practical cooperation in various fields has been moving forward, providing useful impetus to APT cooperation.

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of APT cooperation. I suggest that we take this as a new starting point to increase input, cement the role of APT as the main channel for regional economic integration and write a new chapter in East Asia cooperation. Next year, China will host the 15th East Asia Forum as well as commemorative activities and will discuss with various parties the formulation of an "East Asia economic community blueprint". Here, I wish to put forth the following suggestions for APT cooperation going forward:

First, we need to step up financial security cooperation. We need to further enhance the efficacy of CMIM and ensure sound periodic review of relevant agreements. We need to facilitate AMRO in strengthening institution building, support greater contacts between AMRO and other regional mechanisms such as the Boao Forum for Asia, build it into an authoritative platform for regional macroeconomic research and assessment and make sure that it supports APT countries in elevating their macroeconomic monitoring capabilities. China supports the establishment of an Asian Financial Cooperation Association. This will enable us to promote experience sharing and exchange of expertise among regional financial institutions in a joint effort to uphold regional economic and financial stability.

Second, we need to deepen trade and investment cooperation. Last year, trade among APT countries was US$1.3 trillion in total, accounting for merely 15% of the total of the 13 APT countries. As such, there is still much untapped potential for intra-regional trade. China supports ASEAN centrality in RCEP negotiations. We hope that parties will speed up and conclude negotiations as soon as possible to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation among APT countries. China hopes to discuss with various parties the establishment of an APT SMEs services alliance to help SMEs gain more tangible benefits from regional integration.

Third, we need to advance cooperation in agriculture and poverty alleviation. China supports greater efforts for APTERR institution building. The Modern Agriculture Cooperation Demonstration Base and the East Asian Transaction Platform for Livestock Products initiated by China will soon be officially launched. China will continue to conduct programs such as the APT Roundtable on Food Security, the Modern Agriculture Workshop and the APT Village Leaders' Exchange Program. And we look forward to active participation by all sides. China is actively implementing the Cooperation Initiative on Poverty Alleviation in East Asia, which is expected to move into a stage of substantial implementation within this year. China and Laos have jointly sponsored the APT Statement on Promoting Sustainable Development Cooperation to encourage countries in the region to implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and make sustainable development a reality in East Asia. Moreover, China, Japan and the ROK may also harness their respective strengths to explore trilateral cooperation with ASEAN on sustainable development.

Fourth, we need to advance connectivity building. China supports ASEAN in formulating the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 and stands ready to strengthen synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and the master plan so as to promote, on that basis, overall connectivity within East Asia. China will work with other parities to make full use of such financing platforms as the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund to secure greater financial support for connectivity projects in Asia, especially in ASEAN countries. China will continue to advance the building of the East Asia maritime cooperation platform, and will play a successful host to the Seminar on APT Connectivity Partnership.

Fifth, we need to create new models for production capacity cooperation. China, Japan and the ROK are strong at equipment manufacturing, infrastructure development as well as financial and human resources. The three countries may work together to explore the possibility of greater production capacity cooperation with ASEAN countries. China will host an international seminar on APT production capacity cooperation within this year. Government officials and representatives from industrial, academic and research communities of countries in the region are welcome to attend the seminar and share their views and ideas. China may also work with Japan and the ROK to help ASEAN countries with logistics and supply chain building to enhance economic integration in East Asia.

Sixth, we need to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Since the launch of the APT Cooperation Fund in 2008, a variety of events have been conducted in the social and cultural fields. China supports the Fund in carrying out more people-to-people and cultural programs. Parties concerned should earnestly implement the Memorandum of Understanding on APT Tourism Cooperation signed early this year and strengthen interactions between the East Asia Cultural Cities and ASEAN Cultural Cities. This year, China will host the "Understanding China" program and "Eyes on China Program for Mainstream Media in Asia", and we look forward to the active participation by parties concerned. China supports the APT Statement on Active Aging proposed by Thailand and stands ready to share with other countries in the region its experience in coping with population aging.

Dear Colleagues,

Asia will not enjoy prosperity and development without a peaceful and stable regional environment. As we speak, the situation in Asia remains stable on the whole. This does not come easily and should be cherished by all of us. Against the backdrop of incessant hotspots and conflicts in other parts of the world, East Asia should remain a place of peace, for only in this way can we seize the opportunity for development and prosperity. China calls for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security in Asia. As all countries have a stake in each other's security, we should all work to build consensus and make the regional security architecture more inclusive, instead of exclusive. We should work to avoid confrontation and try to find appropriate ways to handle sensitive issues, like the issue of history, and address them through peaceful and diplomatic means. The purpose is to find a path of security and development compatible with the reality of the region.

Some colleagues just mentioned the Korean Peninsula. As a close neighbor of the Peninsula, China is committed to denuclearization on the Peninsula, to peace and stability on the Peninsula and in the region at large, and to addressing relevant issues through dialogue and consultation. We oppose any move that may create tension on the Peninsula and in this region, and we support all efforts that will help ease tension and resume dialogue.

China's development has benefited from the greater environment of stability in East Asia, and China's development has brought new development opportunities to countries in the region. In the first half of this year, despite the weak global economic recovery, China's economy withstood the downward pressure and realized a growth rate of 6.7%, running within a reasonable range. The economic structure is making faster adjustment. The shift from old to new growth drivers is picking up speed. We are confident that for a fairly long time, China's economy will maintain a medium-high growth rate and move toward the medium-high end of development. We will pursue innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, push forward supply-side structural reform and open up still wider to the outside world. China is still a favored place for transnational investment and an important engine for world economic growth.

East Asia cooperation now stands at a new starting point with a lot to look forward to. China will work closely with all parties to promote East Asia integration with APT as its main channel, focusing particularly on two-way trade and investment cooperation, so that this region will truly be a powerful engine driving global growth and a land of peace, tranquillity and harmony. By so doing, we will better serve the interests of people of all countries in the region and make even greater contribution to peace, stability and development of the region.

Thank you.
Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China in Vientiane, Laos, on Sept 8

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith,

Dear Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to join you in the beautiful city of Vientiane.

The world political and economic landscape is undergoing complex and profound changes. There has been anemic global growth, resurfacing trade protectionism, and increasing regional hotspots and global challenges such as political and security conflicts and turbulence, refugee flow and terrorism. All this makes it imperative and daunting to promote steady world economic recovery and maintain international peace and stability. In comparison, East Asia is still regarded as a land free of war and conflict and a land of robust growth of trade and investment. It is with such peace and stability that we have achieved development and prosperity. Such achievements are hard-won and should be doubly cherished by all sides.

Since its inception in 2005, the EAS has played a positive role in enhancing mutual understanding and mutual trust as well as regional peace, stability, development and prosperity. The EAS has now entered its second decade. Parties need to cherish and draw on the experience that the EAS has obtained, keep working in the right direction, highlight priorities, and secure steady progress for East Asian cooperation for the long run.

We need to keep the EAS as a "leaders-led" strategic forum, support ASEAN centrality, adhere to the ASEAN way of building consensus and accommodating each other's comfort level, and advance dialogue and cooperation in a positive and pragmatic way. China supports institution building of the EAS and the setting up of an EAS unit of ASEAN Secretariat. China hopes that the unit will coordinate efforts to review progress in the Plan of Action to Implement the Phnom Penh Declaration on the EAS Development Initiative and that the drafting of a second-phase plan of action will be started in due course, so as to take EAS cooperation to new heights.

Economic development cooperation and political and security cooperation are the two wheels driving EAS forward. They should reinforce each other and advance in parallel.

In economic development: first, we need to vigorously support connectivity building in the region. China and Laos have jointly proposed a Vientiane Declaration on Promoting Infrastructure Development Cooperation in East Asia to be issued at today's EAS with a view to inject enduring impetus to regional integration. China hopes to work with all parties to promote development of the Belt and Road Initiative. We could use such financing platforms as the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund to provide capital support for regional connectivity. Second, we need to speed up the building of FTAs. China and ASEAN are stepping up efforts to deliver the outcomes of the protocol to upgrade the FTA, and China, Japan and the ROK will work together for early progress in the negotiations of the trilateral FTA. We hope to see early conclusion of the RCEP negotiations so that the RCEP and other free trade arrangements will reinforce each other and promote the development of an inclusive FTA of the Asia-Pacific. Third, we need to strengthen cooperation in areas related to people's well-being. China will ensure success of the EAS Clean Energy Forum and EAS New Energy Forum, and will facilitate sharing of relevant technologies and experience. China will continue to engage actively in education policy dialogue with countries in the region and will encourage cooperation in training programs and exchanges in language and culture.

In the political and security area, China upholds the diplomatic tradition that all countries, irrespective of size, are equal and should respect one another; China champions a new vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and calls for joint efforts to uphold regional peace and tranquillity. First, we need to enhance non-traditional security cooperation. Non-traditional security threats such as terrorism, natural disasters, transnational crimes and infectious diseases are getting more prominent and posing imminent security challenges to countries in the region. China will step up cooperation with all parties to cope with these challenges. Since 2012, China, the United States and relevant UN agencies have held five rounds of earthquake emergency response exercises and will hold the sixth round next year. China will host a workshop to exchange experience in maritime search and rescue next year. Second, we need to explore building of the regional security architecture. The EAS, as a strategic forum, should pay high attention to the regional security architecture. It should foster a new thinking on regional security and build a regional security architecture that reflects the reality of the region and meets the need of all parties concerned. China welcomes the sixth Seminar on Regional Security Architecture to be hosted by Thailand next year and will consider holding a track-two workshop in this regard. Third, we need to properly handle hotspot and sensitive issues. Countries in this region live side by side as neighbors. Frictions are hardly avoidable, just like between the tongue and the teeth. Parties concerned need to adhere to the principle of mutual respect, seeking common ground while shelving differences and peaceful coexistence, and properly handle differences and disagreements through direct negotiation and consultation. Pending the final solution of relevant issues, it is important to carry out dialogue, seek cooperation, manage differences and frictions and prevent escalation of tension.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula remains complex and sensitive. China's position regarding the Korean Peninsula is consistent. We are committed to the nuclear nonproliferation regime, to denuclearization on the Peninsula, to maintaining peace and stability there, and to resolving issues through dialogue and consultation. Parties need to implement relevant UN Security Council resolutions in their entirety. They need to work together to maintain peace and stability on the Peninsula, and quickly bring the Korean nuclear issue back to the track of dialogue and negotiation. China firmly opposes any move that might aggravate tension in the region, and welcomes all actions and dialogue that are conducive to easing tension in that part of the region.

Just now, some colleagues talked about the South China Sea. For me, I wish to say the following.

First, China is a state party to UNCLOS and China implements the convention in good faith. According to UNCLOS, state parties have the right to primacy on peaceful settlement of disputes through direct dialogue and consultation. By not accepting and not participating in third-party settlement procedures like an arbitration, China is in fact exercising its right bestowed by international law including UNCLOS. The truth is, certain countries present here have also adopted similar positions.

Second, over the past decade or more, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) agreed upon between China and ASEAN countries has served as a basis for peace and stability in the South China Sea. The DOC is formulated on the basis of and is in keeping with the principles and spirit of international law, UNCLOS included. It has become an effective norm for the region to act upon. Regarding the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, there has been no problem whatsoever in the first place. According to the DOC, relevant disputes in the South China Sea shall be peacefully resolved by parties directly concerned through negotiation and consultation. All parties should follow this provision and honor their commitment made accordingly. Moves of unilaterally initiating arbitration and bringing in a third party constitute violations of the DOC. Non-observance of the most forthright and clear norms of the region will do nothing but further complicate the issue. It will disrupt the rules-based regional order and undermine peace and stability in the region.

Third, China and ASEAN countries are actively implementing the DOC and advancing consultations on a Code of Conduct. The purpose is to properly regulate and manage the South China Sea issue, and to address disputes, resolve disagreements and advance cooperation pending final settlement of disputes. Implementation of the DOC provides the basis for COC consultations. To effectively advance COC consultations, the DOC must be implemented and adhered to in good faith. This serves the interests of all parties.

The Chairman's Statement issued at yesterday's ASEAN Plus China Summit fully recognizes the achievements made over the past 25 years in China-ASEAN dialogue relations, and reiterates a commitment to properly handling disputes through the DOC and a COC now under consultation, in order to maintain stability in the South China Sea. The summit also adopted the Guidelines for Hotline Communications Among Senior Officials of the MFA of ASEAN Member States and China in Response to Maritime Emergencies and the Joint Statement on the Application of the CUEs in the South China Sea. All these fully demonstrate that China and ASEAN have found an effective way of dispute management that embodies the norms of international law. They also show that China and ASEAN countries have the wisdom and capability to properly handle the South China Sea issue. Countries from outside the region need to show understanding and support for the positive efforts made by countries in the region, and should not do things to play up the differences, or to expand or even trigger disputes.

China has acted in the larger interests of regional peace and stability and approached the South China Sea issue in a constructive and responsible manner. China stands ready to work with all parties concerned to make the South China Sea a sea of peace, cooperation and friendship for the benefit of people of all countries in the region.

Dear Colleagues,

East Asia now faces huge opportunities for peace, stability, prosperity and development. As a saying in Laos goes, "One trunk does not make a fence. And a village will not be a good place without every villager working for it together." I hope that parties will work together to promote steady progress of East Asian cooperation and contribute to peace, stability and enduring prosperity of the region, the benefit of people of all countries.

Thank you.
(Photo : Youtube) The five renewable energy vehicle manufacturers penalized by China's Ministry of Finance mainly make buses.



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China's Ministry of Finance has penalized five renewable energy vehicle producers for illegally obtaining government subsidies, amounting to about 1 billion yuan ($150 million).



The five companies include Suzhou Gemsea, Higer Bus, Wuzhoulong Motors, Mychery Bus and Shaolin Bus. The companies reportedly accumulated a total of 1.01 billion yuan in subsidies in 2015 after claiming to have sold 3,547 vehicles that were actually either unfinished or unsold.



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These five companies primarily make buses. One of the companies is a subsidiary of Chery Holding, the owner of the seventh most popular Chinese passenger car brand.



The ministry said the five companies would return the illegally gained subsidies. They would also be fined and disqualified for subsidies in 2016. The ministry has fined the five companies amounts equal to 50 percent of the subsidies they are accused of fraudulently receiving.



Gemsea has the most serious violations and would be removed from the country's list of automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company reportedly fabricated its entire electric-vehicle-manufacturing business and did not make alternative-energy vehicles. The other four of the bus-making companies abused the subsidy program by padding their reported electric-vehicle sales.



Individual companies seeking profit violated relevant laws to cheat and fraudulently obtain financial subsidies, seriously disrupting the market order, violating the legitimate interests of firms that honor the law in researching, developing and manufacturing new energy vehicles, the ministry said in a statement.



The announcement comes as the Chinese government has intensified efforts to support the use of new energy vehicles.



In 2015, the Chinese government spent a total of 90 billion yuan (over $13 billion) in the sector, including direct cash subsidies for electric-vehicle makers and construction of public charging stations. Government data show that sales of electric and hybrid cars and buses quadrupled in 2015 from the previous year to 331,000 vehicles, China Daily reported. It is unclear how many of those reported sales may be false.



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Tagschina, China's Ministry of Finance, new energy vehicle maker, Subsidy Fraud, Gemsea, Higer Bus, Wuzhoulong Motors, Mychery Bus, Shaolin Bus, China energy vehicle Subsidy Fraud
(Photo : US Navy) A Mark 48 torpedo detonates beneath the keel of a decommissioned U.S. Navy ship during a test.

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After years of hesitation and amid increasing friction with China, the United States will approve the sale of the latest version of its Mark 48 (Mk-48) heavyweight submarine torpedo to the Republic of China (RoC).



The Ministry of National Defense of the RoC or Taiwan announced Taiwan will receive the improved Advanced Capability (ADCAP) variant of the Mk-48. ADCAP is designed to sink deep-diving nuclear-powered submarines and high-performance surface ships.



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The torpedoes will arm the two Dutch-built Sea Dragon-class (Zwaardvis Mk 2) submarines operated by the Republic of China Navy (ROCN). These subs will also be outfitted with 32 UGM-84L Sub-launched Harpoon Block II anti-ship missiles from the United States, which Taiwan acquired under a $200 million deal.



These more powerful subs should be enough to give China serious thoughts about launching a naval invasion of Taiwan across the 180 kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait separating it from Taiwan. But to ensure China won't consider this option, Taiwan has also said it will build eight super-quiet diesel-electric submarines under its Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS) Program.



The new boats will give Taiwan 10 submarines all armed with Mk-48 and UGM-84L Harpoons.



This August, Taiwan's China Shipbuilding Corporation established a submarine development center to support the construction of the diesel electric submarines under the IDS Program.



The coming decision to sell the Mk-48 to Taiwan follows a U.S. Navy decision to re-start production of the Mk-48. This torpedo, which arms all U.S. Navy submarines, is a huge, wire-guided torpedo weighing 1,600 kilograms.



It has the unique ability to circle around and again attack a surface warship it failed to hit on its first try. The torpedo is nicknamed "the keel buster" because its warhead is designed to explode beneath the keel of an enemy ship, thereby breaking its back and sinking it more quickly.



The newest version of the torpedo, the Mk-48 Mod 7 Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS), is optimized for both the deep and littoral waters and has advanced counter-countermeasure capabilities. The version is more resistant to Chinese or Russian countermeasures.



The Mk-48, which is 5.8 meters long and packs a 290 kg high explosive warhead, arms U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and Seawolf-, Los Angeles-, and Virginia-class attack submarines. It's also used by Canadian, Australian and Dutch submarines.



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TagsMark 48 (Mk-48) heavyweight submarine torpedo, roc, torpedo, Republic of China, Republic of China Navy, Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS) Program, Taiwan
(Photo : IHS Janes) China's second carrier under contruction at Dalian.

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The third aircraft carrier being planned for the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will also be China's first conventional carrier featuring a lengthy, horizontal flight deck and a catapult launch system that allows combat aircraft to carrier more weapons.



A photograph in Chinese online forums revealed that China's aircraft carrier mock-up on an air base in Wuhan, Hubei Province, has been modified by the removal of the ski-jump section. This change is fueling speculation the mock-up is being modified into a carrier flight deck similar to those in U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.



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U.S. Navy carriers use powerful steam catapults to hurl fighter jets laden with missiles and bombs into the air in a short distance. This tremendous acceleration isn't possible with ski-jump flight decks such as the one aboard China's only carrier, the Liaoning.



As a result, China's Shenyang J-15 fighter jets designed specifically for naval aviation carry far lighter weapons loads compared to U.S. combat aircraft. The third Chinese carrier, identified as Type 003, will apparently remedy this defect.



Satellite photos in 2015 of the Huangdicun Airbase reveal facilities assessed to be catapults. This is seems to indicate future Chinese carriers will have catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) systems.



The two systems being installed at Huangdicun might be steam-powered and electromagnetic catapults. Both suggest a final decision on which system to adopt hasn't been taken.



Construction of China's third carrier will take place at the Jiangnan Changxingdao shipyard near Shanghai.



There hasn't been official confirmation of the carrier's construction or visible evidence of any work related to this project. There is, however, much speculation that production of the initial modules for the carrier is progress.



The third carrier will likely have a larger aircraft complement than the Liaoning or the modified second carrier, the Type 002 that will still have the ski jump.



The Liaoning can embark 36 aircraft: 24 Shenyang J-15 fighters; 6 Changhe Z-18F anti-submarine warfare helicopters; 4 Changhe Z-18J airborne early warning helicopters and 2 Harbin Z-9C rescue helicopters.



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TagsType 003 aircraft carrier, People's Liberation Army Navy, U.S. Navy, Shenyang J-15 fighter jets, PLAN, Liaoning
(Photo : Getty Images) Philippine President Duterte expressed gratitude to China for supporting his anti-drug campaign.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday thanked China for helping build a drug rehabilitation center in Manila as the country intensifies its war on drugs.



"China offered to build the rehab. I think they have already started in Fort Magsaysay. They are bringing the materials there already. Only China will help us in our campaign against illegal drugs," Duterte told the Filipino community in Indonesia.



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Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said China started the construction of the rehabilitation center this month at Fort Magsaysay as part of Beijing's pledge to help the Philippines in its fight against illegal drugs.



Gratitude



Duterte said the rehab center in Nueva Ecija is one of the several rehab facilities that China has promised to build in the coming months.



"I would like to thank China for being so generous to us. Thank you so much," Duterte said.



Fort Magsaysay, which sits on 35,000 hectares, is the largest military camp in the Philippines and is one of the training grounds of the Philippine Army.



Abella said the initial phase of the construction started on September 1 after Beijing promised Duterte that it would support Manila's war on drugs including hunting down Chinese drug lords operating from mainland China.



"The initial groundwork (on the rehab center) has begun," Abella told reporters at a press briefing in Manila on Friday.



Military camps



Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had earlier ordered the opening of all military camps nationwide for the construction of drug rehab centers for addicts as directed by the president during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA).



Duterte said the government is yet to build a rehabilitation center citing the lack of budget for this purpose. He added that the government is currently operating on a budget that was passed during the last administration which does not cover treatment and rehab of four million drug addicts.



Among the military camps that would house drug rehab centers are the Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Camp Macario Peralta in Jamindan, Capiz, Camp Kibaritan in Bukidnon, and Camp Tomas Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal.



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TagsFort Magsaysay, drug rehab centers, President Rodrigo Duterte, President Xi Jinping, Philippines, china
(Photo : Getty Images) Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar has described India-China tie as complicated, but urged both countries to show maturity to solve all the outstanding issues.

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Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar on Friday described the ties between India and China as complicated, urging both countries to show maturity and not approach their bilateral relationship as a zero sum game.



Jaishankar stated that India wants China to acknowledge some of its pressing concerns, especially in relation to issues that do not directly affect China's interest, Times of India reported.



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"Combating terrorism is one such area and sanctioning of well-known terrorist leaders........Nor should reservations on developmental issues, such as India's predictable access to international cooperation and investments in the field of civil nuclear energy," Jaishankar said.



Indian Foreign Secretary was making a reference to China's recent blockade against India's bid to blacklist Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar with the United Nations as well as Beijing's role in stopping India's bid for membership in the Nuclear Supplier Group. Both issues have lead to a considerable strain in the diplomatic ties between both nations over the past few months.



Despite the ups and downs, India's top diplomat hailed the considerable progress that both countries have made over the decades. "The report card of our ties for the last three decades is much stronger than many assume," he said.



Jaishankar added that it is no mean achievement that both countries are meeting and cooperating at a host of international forums including EAS, G20, SCO and BRICS.



On economic issues, India's diplomat raised concern about the lack of access to Chinese market for Indian companies, particularly in competitive areas like pharmaceutical and information technology.



He highlighted a number of initiatives taken by the Indian government to give a boost to India-China economic ties.



"They include a more enthusiastic welcome of Chinese investments, establishment of industrial parks, collaboration in railways and a more liberal visa regime," Jaishankar said.



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As Ohio attorney general, I oversaw 18 executions in accordance with Ohio law. As a state legislator before that, I helped write Ohios current death-penalty law. We thought maybe it would be a deterrent. Maybe the death penalty would provide cost savings to Ohio. What I know now is that we were wrong. What I am coming to understand is just how wrong we were, and what needs to be done to fix our mistake.





My direct experience with executions makes me more than a mere spectator as Ohio continues to struggle with capital punishment. Since I left office in 2007, Ive been following developments and watching those most deeply engaged with it.





Earlier this week, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) released its third report in as many years, providing perspectives on the status of Ohios death penalty. I am in agreement with the report, A Relic of the Past: Ohios Dwindling Death Penalty, which details a continuing decline in executions and new death sentences in Ohio while highlighting the disparities between counties that prosecute death cases.





In 2015, only one new death sentence was handed down. Cuyahoga and Summit counties, two jurisdictions responsible for more than 25 percent of death sentences, initiated zero new death penalty cases last year. In fact, new death sentences overall were down for the fourth year in a row. There were three in 2014, four in 2013, and five in 2012.





It has become clear to me that what matters most is the personal predilections of a county prosecutor. Consider Cuyahoga County, which until 2012 was seeking the death penalty in dozens of cases a year. Last year Cuyahoga County sought none. Crime rates did not plunge. There was a new prosecutor.





On the other hand, consider Trumbull County, with one of the lowest homicide rates of Ohio counties which sentence people to death. Trumbull County leads the state with the highest death-sentence-per-homicide rate. Why? Again, the personal preference of the county prosecutor matters most.





The new OTSE report addresses many other issues, including 13 wrongful convictions and exonerations in Ohio death cases. After serving as attorney general, my chief concern was that our state has sentenced individuals to death or lengthy prison sentences for crimes they did not commit. The National Registry of Exonerations reports that 26 Ohioans were found guilty of murders they did not commit between 1975 and 2015. Half of these wrongfully convicted individuals  13 of 26  faced the death penalty, including Clarence Elkins, a man whose claim of innocence gained my support when I was attorney general.





Most urgently in my view, the new report catalogs the reluctance of Ohio legislators to consider most of the 56 recommendations made in 2014 by the Supreme Court Joint Task Force on the Administration of Ohios Death Penalty. The charge to that task force was to find ways to make Ohios death penalty more fair and accurate.





Only a handful of the recommendations have been considered, and not those which would make the biggest difference. For example, the recommendation to narrow the felony murder rule would address much of Ohios disparity in death sentencing. Thirteen of the recommendations, individually and collectively, would go a long way toward preventing wrongful convictions. In failing to act, legislators effectively maintain the status quo, which is a broken system that currently serves only the interest of Ohio prosecutors. That is a grave mistake.





Another grave mistake is the terrible suggestion by the director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association that Ohio adopt the gas chamber to conduct executions. I hope Gov. John Kasich and all Ohio legislators soundly reject that notion. It is offensive to the human experience and has no place in our great state.





I am convinced that the death penalty is just not worth it any more, and I dont think it can be fixed. Starting in January 2017, 28 Ohioans have execution dates. If were going to have the death penalty, then it must not be carried out until the legislature implements the task forces reforms intended to ensure fairness and accuracy.





Source: Columbus Dispatch , Op-Ed, Jim Petro, September 10, 2016. Jim Petro served as Ohio Attorney General from 2003 to 2007.

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A California bill that would expand punishments for those who secretly record and disseminate conversations with health are providers has been approved by vote by both the state's Assembly and Senate, and awaits the governor's signature.

The bill, which is sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, was most approved by the state Senate on August 31 by a 26-13 vote, and by the state Assembly by a 52-26 vote on the same day.

Though California law already mandates that the act of recording conversations without the consent of all participants is illegal, the new bill (AB 1671) would add punishments for those who disseminate secret recordings of conversations specifically with health care providers.

Supporters of the bill argue that the new measures are necessary to prevent negative backlash to health care providers. Planned Parenthood argues that it faced an increased amount of violence after the Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress released videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells aborted fetal organs.

"With the Internet and the tremendous wildfire nature in which news can be spread now through social media, we need to have a crime against distribution by those in particular who did the illegal recording," chief legal counsel of Planned Parenthood Beth Parker told the Los Angeles Times.

However, the bill was also met with criticism and some were concerned that it may used against journalists and lawyers who are using footage or materials given by another organization or individual.

"Why a healthcare provider merits special protection even when discussing things that dont involve patient privacy is mystifying," the Los Angeles Times wrote in an editorial on August 31. "Worse, the original version of the bill pushed by Planned Parenthood would have allowed prosecutors to target not just those who made the recordings, but those who shared them online, reported on them or published the transcripts."

"When '60 Minutes' uses a hidden camera and discovers a unique story, it's called outstanding journalism. But when a private citizen does it and unmasks a very, very unpleasant truth, it's a call for legislation," the Sacramento Bee quoted Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) as saying.

If passed, those who are found to have intentionally and secretly recorded a confidential conversation would face up to one year in jail and/or with $2,500 in fines. Disseminating a secret recording of a confidential conversation with a health care provider would also be punishable with up to one year in jail and/or with $2,500 in fines.

Any count of the same crime thereafter for both secretly recording a confidential conversation and disseminating one with a health care provider would be punishable with up to one year in jail and/or with $10,000 in fines.
Pro-Lifers Across Anne Arundel County and Surrounding Areas Join Together to Kickoff the 40 Days for Life Fall Campaign Contact: Tony Martelli, Maryland Coalition for Life, 443-254-5433, tonydmartelli@gmail.com



ANNAPOLIS, Md., Sept. 10, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Annapolis 40 Days for Life campaign will commence on September 28th, initiating 40 days of Prayer and Fasting, Peaceful and Prayerful Vigil at the West Street abortion facility, and Community Outreach.



Before the campaign's official start on the 28th, we will gather together for a kickoff event on Sunday, September 25th at 6:30 PM. The event will begin at Trinity United Methodist Church (1300 West Street, Annapolis, MD) and will include prayer and speakers. Participants will then process to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility (933 West Street, Annapolis, MD) for a prayer vigil. The event will wrap up at the Annapolis Pregnancy Clinic across the street (934 West Street, Annapolis, MD) for light refreshments, facility tours, and fellowship at 8:00 PM.



Annapolis Planned Parenthood is the last remaining abortion facility in Anne Arundel County. Our prayer is to have it join the more 75 other facilities that have closed during past 40 Days for Life campaigns. Please join us in prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil at our kickoff event, to end abortion in our county.



For more information please visit 40daysforlife.com/Annapolis, or contact Carolyn Schumaker at 410-757-8840, or Tony Martelli at 443-254-5433



The Maryland Coalition for Life is a community-based, grassroots, pro-life network dedicated to bringing the many Maryland pro-life organizations, churches, elected officials, and citizens together peacefully and prayerfully to end abortion in Maryland - forever.

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home US Cuba churches condemn U.S. gov't for threatening to remove tax-exempt status of Christian charity

The Cuban Council of Churches criticized the U.S. government for its plans to revoke the tax-exempt status and non-profit status of Pastors for Peace.

Last month, the parent organization of the group, Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), received a notification from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that its tax-exempt status is at risk because it failed to obtain permission from the U.S. Treasury Department to send aid to Cuba.

Joel Ortega Dopico, President of the Cuban Council of Churches, expressed his disappointment with the Obama administration during a press conference in Havana.

"I do not understand how at this moment, when the Obama administration's policy is to seek understanding, that on the other hand they are taking these types of measures against institutions that have created an understanding between our peoples," Dopico said.

The Obama administration started normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba in December 2014. Since then, Americans were given easier and cheaper means to visit the communist country.

Pastors for Peace has been sending donations to Cuba since 1992 without permission from the U.S. government as a sign of protest against the U.S. trade embargo.

Over the years, the U.S. border authorities have reportedly detained aid workers but there has never been any legal action against Pastors for Peace. The IRS revealed that the group has been under investigation since 2009.

In 2011, IFCO was accused of sending aid to the alleged terrorist group Hamas through its support of the charity Viva Palestina. IFCO was also charged with the violation of the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act. Both charges were eventually dropped. Right now, the group is dealing with a charge of flawed record-keeping.

On Sept. 1, IFCO announced that its appeal against the latest charge had failed. Gail Walker, the executive director of IFCO, suspects that the U.S. government may require the organization to put taxes on donations. Walker did not expect the attacks from IRS because of Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.

Walker thought that "the President would respect the work of IFCO/Pastors for Peace."

"For a quarter of a century we've organized friendship caravans as an expression of love and solidarity with the [Cuban] people and in opposition to the blockade," she said to People's World.

IFCO has launched an online petition to stop the IRS from revoking its tax-exempt status. The petition has been signed by over 2,000 supporters.
Over 100,000 Chileans stage mass protest to oppose proposed abortion law

Tens of thousands of Christians sang happy songs and even ate ice cream together to celebrate one thing: the beauty of life.

The event took place in Chile's capital Santiago last weekend when 100,000 people trooped to the streets to call on their lawmakers not to pass a proposed legislation that will allow the killing of innocent babies inside their mothers' wombs in certain circumstances.

People from all walks of lifepriests, nuns, students and entire familiespacked the city's pedestrian street, Paseo Bulnes, waving banners which say, "Chile no mates," meaning "Chile doesn't kill."

During the Sept. 3 event meant to celebrate life, Santiago Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, who has worked on life issues with other Christian churches, urged the attendees to help ensure that all people are given the chance to live life with dignity.

"Life is a precious gift from God, the most priceless gift you can ever have. It is important that we help people to live with dignity: children who are abandoned, women who suffer domestic violence and the homeless. Today I want everyone to shout loud and clear that they are saying 'yes' to life," the Roman Catholic Church official said during the event, as quoted by The Catholic Herald.

Abortion has been outlawed since 1989 in Chile, where around 55 percent of the people are self-professed Catholics. The banning on the killing of innocent babies was among the last acts of General Augusto Pinochet's military government.

Last March, however, Chile's lower house of Congress approved the overturning of this abortion ban, and sought to allow killing babies in cases of rape or when the existence of the baby threatens the mother's health. This proposed legislation will still have to be approved by Chile's Senate.

During the Sept. 3 Santiago rally, a man named Massiel Moreno, who was born after his mother was raped, said he is a living proof that no one should be allowed to kill babies, no matter what the circumstances are.

"I was adopted by a loving family who couldn't have children. They did the very best they could for me, and here I am today, married with a beautiful nine-month-old daughter, the continuation of the gift of life that God gave me," Moreno said.
Trump says America can be a nation of 'one people, under one God'

What exactly is Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump's vision of the United States under his leadership? He wants an America with one God, swearing to one flag.

In a speech in Philadelphia on Wednesday, the controversial businessman promised to make the U.S. safe and great again, implying that this will entail unity in religious beliefs.

"Together, we will have one great American future. We will be one people, under one God, saluting one American flag. America will be a prosperous, generous and inclusive society," Trump said, according to a transcript of his speech posted by The Hill.

This is a rare mention of religion by the Republican presidential nominee, who is narrowly leading his rival, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, in a recent CNN poll.

Trump also said that he will not continue the policies of U.S. President Barack Obama that promote division.

"We will discard the failed policies and division of the past, and embrace true American change to rebuild our economy, rebuild our inner cities, and rebuild our country," Trump said.

Talking about his national security plan, the presidential candidate emphasised his strict policy on immigrants entering the U.S.

"Immigration security is a vital part of our national security. We only want to admit people to our country who will support our values and love our people," Trump said.

Trump also took the opportunity to criticise the foreign diplomacy strategy of Clinton, who served as State Department secretary under the Obama administration. He attributed the current conflicts in the Middle East to Clinton.

"Unlike my opponent, my foreign policy will emphasise diplomacy, not destruction. Hillary Clinton's legacy in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has produced only turmoil and suffering. Her destructive policies have displaced millions of people, then she has invited the refugees into the West with no plan to screen them," Trump said.

He also pledged to protect American soldiers: "To all those who have served this nation, I say: I will never let you down. We will protect those who protect us. And we will follow their example of unity. We will work across all racial and income lines to create One American Nation."
GENEVA  The United States and Russia working in lockstep against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria. A rejuvenated truce that will compel President Bashar Assad's air and ground forces to pull back. New flows of badly needed humanitarian aid.



Those details emerged Saturday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov capped another marathon meeting in Geneva to present their latest ambitious push to end Syria's devastating and complex war.



The potential breakthrough deal, which launches a nationwide cessation of hostilities by sundown Monday, will hinge on compliance by Assad's Russian-backed forces and U.S.-supported rebel groups, plus key regional powers such as Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia with hands directly or indirectly in Syria's 5-1/2 years of carnage.



"We believe the plan as it is set forth  if implemented, if followed  has the ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change," Kerry said as he and Lavrov laid out the contours, but admittedly not too much fine print, of the hard-won accord.



The ultimate hope is to silence the Syrian guns so that the long-stalled peace process under U.N. mediation can resume between Assad's envoys and representatives of the opposition, while the two world powers focus on battling jihadis.



The deal, at least publicly and for now, appears to overcome months of distrust between Russia and the United States that President Barack Obama had cited less than a week ago.



Now, the two powers are lining up in an unexpected new military partnership targeting IS and al-Qaida-linked militants, while trying to prod Assad and opposition groups to end a civil war that has killed up to 500,000 people and displaced millions.



Continue reading the main story



"This is just the beginning of our new relations," Lavrov said of the U.S.



Washington must persuade Syrian rebels to break ranks with Fath al-Sham, an al-Qaida-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front, which has intermingled with U.S.-backed fighters. Moscow is to pressure Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against the armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed.



"The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfill them," Lavrov said at a news conference alongside Kerry after midnight.



Kerry said the arrangement depends on "people's choices. It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we  and we expect other supporting countries  will strongly encourage them to do."



He also alluded to the possibility of backsliding that all but doomed a previous U.S.-Russia cease-fire initiative earlier this year, which briefly halted the fighting and paved the way for new aid convoys before a resurgence of bloodshed.



"No one is building this based on trust," Kerry said. "It is based on a way of providing oversight, and compliance, through mutual interest and other things. If this arrangement holds, then we will see a significant reduction in violence across Syria."



The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.



The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Fath al-Sham; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.



The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against IS and the group once known as Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.



Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.



But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.



Russia, in response, has chafed at America's financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be "wise" for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.



"Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody," Kerry said. "It is profoundly in the interests of the United States."



The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions.



After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."



At one point, Lavrov said he was considering "calling it a day" on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a U.S. response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, "This is from the U.S. delegation," and two bottles of vodka, adding, "This is from the Russian delegation."



The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the U.S. and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.



Getting Assad's government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and the new focus of the war.



Assad's government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.



Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries  notably into Aleppo.



"If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten," he said. "If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim."



But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturday's plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the U.S. is unlikely to take any action against him given Obama's longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.



In the Mideast, the main Syrian opposition umbrella group said it hoped the new U.S.-Russian agreement would be enforced in order to ease the suffering of civilians. Basma Kodmani, of the High Negotiations Committee, told The Associated Press that Russia should pressure Assad to abide by the deal, adding enforcement mechanisms will be needed including the "cessation of hostilities and the grounding (of) regime air forces."
US wants more sanctions after North Korea carries out another nuclear test

North Korea conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew a fresh wave of global condemnation. The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea's main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme.

Under 32-year-old third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.

The United Nations Security Council denounced North Korea's decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the group to remain united and take action that would "urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation."

U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures against North Korea and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions."

LAVROV SEEKS NEW TALKS

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis. That diverged from calls by the United States, Japan and South Korea to escalate pressure on the North, signalling it may prove a challenge for the Security Council to come to an agreement on new sanctions.

"The current situation shows that diplomats should be more creative than just responding by sanctions, sanctions and sanctions again on any aggravation of the situation," Lavrov told a news conference in Geneva. "It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them."

The so-called six-party talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear programme involving the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea have been defunct since 2008.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearisation, which it had refused to do.

"We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea," he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for a similar outcome as in the nuclear talks in Iran.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

On Saturday, the influential Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking building nuclear weapons would provide it more security or prestige in the world. "Owning nuclear weapons won't ensure North Korea's political security," it said in an editorial. "On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country."

Beijing has also repeatedly expressed anger since the United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South. China says that THAAD is a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear programme.

"Washington and Seoul, in particular, should sincerely rethink their decision to install THAAD on the peninsula and review their other strategic mistakes that have prompted Pyongyang to make the wrong steps," Wang Junsheng, a researcher in Asia Pacific strategy at the government think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the official China Daily in a piece published on Saturday.

Still, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter singled out the role he said China should play. "It's China's responsibility," he told a news conference during a visit to Norway. "China has and shares an important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it."

"OUT OF CONTROL"

South Korea's Park said late on Friday Kim was "mentally out of control," blind to all warnings from the world and neighbours as he sought to maintain power. "The patience of the international community has come to the limit," she said.

North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgement of the power of a nuclear warhead," according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

"Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything possible, so the policy is at an impasse," said Tadashi Kimiya, a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

"In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits," he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.

The Pentagon did not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturise a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added, "given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst."

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicated the magnitude - around 5 - of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield or its largest to date. Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which exploded with an energy of about 15 kilo tonnes.

South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilo tonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful nuclear blast to date.

"The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backwards state any more," Lewis said.
A former supervisor with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will spend more than seven years in prison for smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country, officials said Friday.

Lawrence Madrid, 54, was convicted in May 2016 of accepting money to allow them through the U.S. ports of entry in El Paso from August 2010 to September 2011. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling for financial gain, aiding and abetting alien smuggling for financial gain and two counts of accepting a bribe, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas.
FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA
Thousands sprinted through a sweaty, sticky Saturday morning in southeast Houston at the city's sixth annual 9/11 Heroes Run.

The foot race was one of more than 50 that are held every year across the globe to honor the efforts of first responders and military on Sept. 11, 2001, and to preserve the memory of those who died during the September 11th terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Iraq.
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.
Attention, fans of outdoor celebrations: After Tuesday, Lebanon will have a new venue open for rent.

City officials plan a ribbon-cutting ceremony and official opening celebration from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, at the new gazebo at Academy Square.

Cake will be served, Fate 55 will provide live music and food vendors will be on hand. The public is invited.

The gazebo is open to anyone who stops by, whether that's to read a book from the adjacent Lebanon Public Library or to find a shady spot on a hot afternoon.

But like all city parks, the spot will also be open to rent for weddings, concerts, parties, reunions or other events. Interested residents are asked to call the city's parks department at 541-258-4917 for details.

Started three years ago, the gazebo project was the brainchild of Bill Rauch, a longtime member of the Lebanon Optimists Club.

With Lebanon Middle School gone and its campus now home to the library and the Lebanon Senior Center, Rauch envisioned a place where people could gather for picnics, library storytimes, maybe even events sponsored by the city's medical college.

The Optimists took on the project and broke ground in September 2013 with the idea of turning it over to the city.

Optimist Shawn Turrentine of Turrentine Engineering designed the 1,000-square foot structure with a raised concrete floor, steel beams and wooden roof covered with asphalt shingles. Briese Custom Concrete did the paving work and Jimco Electrical Inc. wired the building for sound.

Doug Phillips, club member and chairman of the project, said many organizations and individuals helped see the project through, including city crews, who finished the last dirt-moving operations.

Leigh Matthews Bock, communications coordinator for the City of Lebanon, said the next step will be to work with Lebanon Master Gardners on landscaping.
The second batch of annual results from the Smarter Balanced state test scores was released this week, and while there's still controversy over the test and the Common Core standards that it measures, the hubbub seems to have died down considerably.

Maybe that's because we increasingly understand that these test scores are just one way to gauge the success of our students and the effectiveness of our schools. Just like the statewide tests these replaced, the Smarter Balanced tests offer just one window into our schools. The insights that these test results offer can be useful, but don't come close to telling the entire story.

Statewide, the test scores were mostly unchanged, although the numbers edged slightly upward. Overall, 55 percent of Oregon students fully mastered Common Core standards in English and 42 percent met them in math.

In Linn County, the results were mixed, as was the case the year before, the first year of the Smarter Balanced testing. Overall, 57 percent of Albany students met or exceeded the English standard, a bit ahead of the state average. And 56.3 percent of Central Linn students met or exceeded the English standard, ahead of the state average. Lebanon and Sweet Home were below the state average.

The math results were similar: Albany and Central Linn students exceeded the state average, while Lebanon and Sweet Home fell below.

After two years, it shouldn't come as much of a shock that so many students statewide did not meet or exceed the standards: The Smarter Balanced test is considerably harder than the test it replaced, the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

That's by design: The tests are intended to help measure whether students are on track to be college-ready when they graduate. They rely on written answers with proof of reasoning instead of fill-ins on multiple-choice bubbles.

In other words, the Smarter Balanced tests don't just ask students to regurgitate information they've picked up in the classroom: They have to apply their math or English skills to new problems, just like they'll have to do in college  or, for that matter, in real life.

Again, though, these test results aren't the only piece of information we have to assess the performance of our schools. The state's report cards for each public school are due later in this school year. We'll have new statistics looking at high school graduation rates to pore over. We even will be able to look at attendance rates in our schools, the theory being that you can't teach students who aren't there.

In addition, these test results can provide important information for teachers as they decide how best to work with individual classrooms and students.

In our constant fussing and fighting over the state of our public schools, there's something we sometimes forget, and it's worth remembering as we start a new school year: The education of our students isn't just something that professional educators do. Parents and guardians have a huge role to play in this as well. It's no coincidence that the best schools are the ones with the most parental involvement. The most successful students tend to be the ones who know that someone outside the school is keeping tabs on their education as well.

It's easy, especially these days, to focus on this statistical report or that statistical report about our schools, and those reports do have merit. But education doesn't occur in a vacuum, and it's not something that takes place just inside the walls of the classroom. (mm)
Here, on the eve of the 15th anniversary of 9/11, New York seems a city strangely at peace. The physical wounds of that awful day have largely healed. Lower Manhattan has been made whole again. A monument to the dead stands where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood. A new office building rises from the rubble of Ground Zero. The long-delayed transportation hub is open and millions of people pass through it every day. It took longer and cost far more than it should have, but the job got done.

Pre-9/11, New York was a city on the upswing, well on its way to becoming the safest, most prosperous, most dynamic city in world history. And, contrary to the worst fears of many in the immediate aftermath, the post-9/11 decade turned out to be the best time in recent memory to be a New Yorker. Crime and disorder had been licked. It was safe to take your kids to the park and to ride the subway at any hour. The economy hummed. Tourists came in droves.

Of course, it wasnt for everybody. People complained about gentrification, as they still do. Some felt that the city had been Disneyfiedall the salacious fun had been taken out of it. Others worried that the NYPD had become too potent a presence in the city. In occasional, seemingly random displays of force, a sea of patrol cars would swarm into a neighborhood (mostly in Midtown). The idea was to rehearse a coordinated response to an ongoing attack, but also to send a message to anyone planning such an attack. We are here. We are not sleeping. We are ready for you.

If it was occasionally unnerving to be suddenly surrounded by 50 police cars, lights flashing and moving in formation, it was also reassuring. As other global citiesLondon, Madrid, Mumbai, Paris, Nairobicame under sustained attack by Islamic terrorists, it was nice to know how actively the NYPD was hunting down and disrupting plots against our city. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly, the NYPDs mantra was clear: complacency equals death. Never again.

Fifteen years is a long time. You only have to read the stories of the children left orphaned by 9/11 to realize how much time has passed. Kids so young that they barely remember their firefighter fathers are graduating from college. After a decade and a half, we seem to be reverting to a pre-attack mindset. One thing that the Colin Kaepernick brouhaha has exposed is just how conflicted many Americans remain about our fundamental goodness as a nation. Are we as virtuous as we think we are? Its a question tied directly to the one that was on most peoples minds in the days following 9/11: What did we do to deserve this?

We did nothing to deserve it. The people who went to work in those towers that morning did nothing to deserve the instant obliteration that was their fate. The firefighters and police who selflessly and reflexively responded to the call did nothing to deserve what befell them. The passengers on those planes, and the flight crews that were mercilessly slaughtered, did nothing to deserve to have their lives extinguished in a terrifying instant.

More than that, however, we, the United States of America, did nothing to deserve it. Throughout its short history, this nation has tried to spread liberty in the world, to oppose tyranny, to advance freedom, to promote prosperity, to be a beacon of hope to the oppressed, the mistreated, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. No nation, our own included, is without sin; but no other nation is what the United States is. In Lincolns words, we are the last best hope of Earth.

Nothing will heal the invisible wounds of 9/11. For those who lived through it, the panic and despair of that terrible morning is never far from the surface. The memories are easily summoned. Those who remember will grieve on this anniversary much as they did on the first anniversary and much as they will decades hence. But we must never lose sight of the truth: we are not the enemy.

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The New York Times this week set off a firestorm of criticism on Twitter for a merry-go-round of wholesale changes it made to an online story on a presidential candidates forum.

The same headline, Candidates Flex Debate Muscles During TV Forum, stood atop three completely different storiesfeaturing differing tones, anecdotes, and authorsover the course of hours. The discrepancies, pointed out by the website NewsDiffs, were roundly criticized by journalists and media watchdogs, who decried a startling lack of transparency.

But Times political editor Carolyn Ryan says the uproar was much ado about nothing. She says swapping out stories online is normal practice at the Times. Ryan tells CJR she didnt understand the backlash as this was not an unusual practice at the Times. She says they constantly update web stories to keep readers on top of ongoing news events and dont view these changes as corrections.

You wouldnt want to give print readers two stories about essentially the same event, she says.

Ryan explained for certain stories, the Times first publishes a preview story prior to the event. Then, they assign one writer to online coverage and another to print as the event occurs. The online coverage replaces the first story and serves as a way to keep the website up to date in the early stages. Once the more in-depth print version is complete, it becomes the only version available both in print and online.

The Society of Professional Journalists ethics chair, Andrew Seaman, is not quite buying that argument. The best practice would be to place a note on all stories that undergo changes, preferably with a way to view the original story, he says.

It just doesnt seem like a smart decision for readers, in terms of a relationship and in terms of business, to be swapping out stories and possibly making them question the validity of the accuracyof the impartialityof your work.

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The whole point of journalism is to clarify things, he tells CJR. It just seems like that would be the approach to take especially in an age where people are growing increasingly skeptical of news coverage. It just doesnt seem like a smart decision for readers, in terms of a relationship and in terms of business, to be swapping out stories and possibly making them question the validity of the accuracyof the impartialityof your work.

The current version of the Times article online does not have a note or correction giving any type of explanation for all the changesone point in particular that has confused observers. Ryan says for the future, she would consider noting the story would be updated continuously.

All of the versions of the story in question were filed under the same web address, showing these were not published as separate stories.

The first version, written Wednesday morning prior to the forum by Alan Rappeport, was completely replaced 12 hours later by an article written by Alexander Burns. The Times made revisions to Burns piece while it was live, but it was eventually replaced entirely by another story, written by Patrick Healy. Editors continued tweaking that story as well, NewsDiffs shows.

Notably, the criticism mostly surrounded the swap of Burnss and Healys pieces and not the original removal of Rappeports preview story. While both latter articles provided solid accounts of the forum, online critics noted that the two versions had different tonesparticularly on their treatment of Trump. One of Healys early versions did not mention Trumps defense of Putin. This line was added back in the version most recently reviewed by CJR.

2. .. something that didnt even mention the Putin riff (prominent part of early story). I love the NYT, but whats behind this?  James Fallows (@JamesFallows) September 8, 2016

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, wrote in a series of tweets, If this story comparison is correct, the NYT had a good early story on HRC-DJTand replaced it with something that didnt even mention the Putin riff (prominent part of early story).

When asked about the different tones of the stories, Ryan defends her writers. She says Burns was assigned to online coverage and Healy to print, and that was the only reason for the change. When asked about concerns over Healys bias she says, Patrick is a brilliant reporter and he is scrupulously fair.

@tigerlilymom @spaydl Burns wrote swiftly+well for web+early edition. My story had news+analysis and was updated thru night. Not unusual.  Patrick Healy (@patrickhealynyt) September 9, 2016

Healy has received heat in the past for being soft on Trump in his political reporting. Last week, public editor Liz Spayd addressed readers concerns over a story that Healy wrote following Trumps visit to Mexico. The first version of the piece was criticized for missing Trumps rowdy anti-immigrant tone at a speech in Phoenixinstead making the candidates appearance seem more routine and measured, in line with a visit he made to Mexico earlier the same day.

Spayd writes, I see nothing nefarious or ill-intentioned on the part of any editors or reporters involved in the Trump piece. Everyone was scrambling with late-breaking news across time zones, many moving parts, and both print and web deadlines. But given the complications of the storyan unpredictable candidate, brutal deadlinesit seems the newsroom was not in position to deliver a strong coverage package.

Spayd also notes that Healy was responsible for both the web and print coverage of the event, which she says may have accounted for some of the error.

CJR highlighted similar concerns over transparency last year when the Times made various changes to a story about a criminal investigation involving Hillary Clinton. Critics say this ongoing problem is clearly counter to the goals of journalism and cause for concern.

On Twitter, many tried to start conversations with the key playersincluding the Times authors involved, Ryan, and Spayd to clarify what happened. Healy respond to some tweets yesterday, echoing Ryans statements that this was normal practice at the Times.

I have not seen this before. @nytimes story with a byline completely replaced by a different one with a new byline. https://t.co/DYWJfSZlLu  Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) September 8, 2016

Media critic Jay Rosen was one of the many mediaites who tweeted the NewsDiffs tracking that had been circulating. He tells CJR he was quite puzzled by the situation as well.

It was hard for me to understand why one was substituted for another. Rosen adds. Readers care what the Times reports, and when you dont explain what youre doing as you do it, people are going to speculate.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Carlett Spike is a freelance writer and former CJR Delacorte Fellow. Follow her on Twitter @CarlettSpike.
AKRON, Ohio -- Akron police are asking for the public's help to identify a possible suspect in connection with a Labor Day burglary.

The burglary took place between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on the 1100 block of Mount Vernon Avenue, near East Cuyahoga Falls Avenue, according to an Akron police news release sent Friday. The burglar forced open the house's front door and stole three guns, police said.

A possible suspect in the burglary was caught on a residential surveillance camera. The man is estimated to be between 18 and 23 years old, has a goatee and tattoos on his arms and legs, police said.

The burglar should be considered armed and dangerous, police said. Anyone with information about the suspect's identity and whereabouts is asked to contact Akron police at 330-375-2552.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
Ambulance

Four individuals were found overdosed at the same Akron house Friday evening.

(File photo)

AKRON, Ohio -- First responders treated four adults for drug overdoses at the same Akron house Friday evening.

Akron fire personnel responded to the overdose call about 5 p.m. on the 900 block of Concord Avenue, according to an Akron fire department news release. Initially, three people were treated and taken to the hospital.

An Akron fire department official did not immediately respond to a message seeking information regarding what drug caused the overdoses.

While treating the patients, first responders learned that a 3-year-old child was at the house but had wandered off when the adults in the home were overdosing. Authorities began searching for the child in the neighborhood, the release states.

Akron police found the child in the backyard of a house one street away, the release says. A neighbor saw the child and was babysitting until police arrived.

First responders had left the house where the first three overdoses took place when "a fourth patient showed up at the same address overdosed," the release states. A crew was sent back to the house to treat the fourth victim.

No information about the overdose victims' ages, genders or current conditions was released.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
Akron Public Schools

With September temperatures unusually high, Akron Public Schools worked to keep students cool and hydrated in its nine older schools.

(Akron Public Schools)

AKRON, Ohio -- It's been brutally hot outside, but in some Akron Public School buildings, it's almost as miserable inside.

While many of Akron's schools are brand new, nine schools, serving kids from pre-kindergarten to high school, don't have fully functional air conditioning. Unlike Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Akron chose not to close any schools for heat.

Cosing individual schools can cause problems for a few reasons, said Debra Foulk, the district's executive director of business affairs.

Schools must adhere to a mandated number of instructional minutes per year. That means closing schools now, before winter arrives with its potential for snow days, could cut into those minutes. Once they're used up, students have to attend classes in June when families would rather be leaving for vacations. Some families have students at different schools, making it difficult for working parents to find babysitters. Some students with special needs rely on therapy and other services during the school day, including getting breakfast and lunch, so closing school would deprive them of that assistance.

"We've been making adjustments as necessary and on the whole I think we've done a pretty good job of dealing with it," Foulk said. "They are truly hard calls to make, but we felt we had most of our schools under the new air conditioning system and we could meet the needs of those that haven't gone through that rebuilding process yet."

Here's what APS has done this week to beat the heat:

To better circulate air, APS distributed 150 fans to the nine schools. Fifty more arrived today.

To keep students hydrated, the schools received 124 cases of bottled water.

To help students feel cooler, some schools had dress-down days.

To keep student comfortable, they were encouraged to get up and move around more frequently.

The good news is the temperatures are expected to drop this weekend, and hover in the 70s next week.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland Museum of Art has no official position on the Black Lives Matter movement.

But the museum's new show on the work of Kara Walker, which opens today, highlights connections the acclaimed American artist sees between religion, slavery, martyrdom and the use of lethal force by police, which has inspired protests nationwide, including in Cleveland.

In the show's catalog, Walker says that controversial recent killings of black men by police represent a backlash, caused by deep-seated racial anxieties, against the election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president.

"I fear that Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and all the rest were killed as proxies for The Black President," Walker writes in her essay, entitled "Assassination by Proxy," published in the show's catalog.

Michael Brown was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in an incident that stirred violent protests; Tamir Rice, 12, was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014 after brandishing a toy gun in a city park.

Walker's catalog essay is illustrated by a photograph of Philando Castile, who was fatally shot by a St. Paul, Minnesota, police officer in July after a traffic stop. Captured by Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, the photo shows Castile dying as blood seeps through his T-shirt.

The Diamond Reynolds photo of her boyfriend Philando Castile dying after he was shot by a St. Paul police officer is reproduced in the catalog of the Cleveland Museum of Art's new show on the work of artist Kara Walker.

Walker juxtaposes that image with photographs of Baroque Italian sculptures of saints and martyrs, which she saw during a residency earlier this year at the American Academy in Rome.

Aside from inspiring many of the works on view at the museum for the first time, the Rome sojourn caused Walker to ponder the relationship between Christianity and the history of black slavery.

She also thought about the role of religious cults and what she called "a spirit of civilian war" that surfaced in the recent mass shootings of gays at an Orlando nightclub and what she describes as the "retaliatory attack on police in Dallas."

In Rome, Walker became fascinated by the depiction of martyrs and saints alongside actual physical relics, which caused in her "a slippery sensation of revulsion and realness" that made her consider "whether we must carry the rotting bodies of the fallen through the streets."

Martyrs and saints

Inspired by Gianlorenzo Bernini's famous sculpture, "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa," which depicts a swooning Saint Teresa of Avila being pierced with an arrow by an angel, Walker entitled her Cleveland show "The Ecstasy of St. Kara."

Whether one agrees with Walker's views, her words put an intense spin on a show that would be incendiary enough, given its unsparing examination of racism and the legacy of slavery in America.

The exhibition, which smolders with hallucinatory vividness and moral outrage, continues Walker's 20-year exploration of imagery that skewers racial stereotypes by exaggerating them to the point of painful absurdity.

Review

What's up:

"The Ecstasy of St. Kara," recent works by Kara Walker

Venue:

Cleveland Museum of Art

Where:

11150 East Blvd., Cleveland

When:

Saturday, Sept. 10 through Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016

Admission:

Free. Call 216 421-7340 or go to clevelandart.org

The biggest drawing in the show, "Easter Parade in the Old Country," includes a depiction of a despicable-looking white slave master who leads a shackled black woman by a rope attached to an iron ring around her neck, while she drags a bawling infant who clings pathetically to her loincloth.

It's an obvious indictment. But just as typical of Walker's approach is a second scene in "Parade," in which a naked black woman masturbates her ecstatic male partner as they dance wildly. Here, Walker critiques stereotypical views of black sexuality by intensifying them and flinging them back at her audience.

Rapid rise to fame

Walker, a recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant," burst into art world prominence in 1994 with a New York show focusing on her large-scale, black-on-white silhouette cutouts of black mammies, slave mistresses, Sambos and Southern belles.

Rife with violent and absurdly eroticized scenarios, her works magnified racist antebellum stereotypes as a way to lash out against them.

More recently, Walker has concentrated on vast drawings that address her troubling themes in ways that add texture, volume and three-dimensional illusionism to her previous repertoire of black-and-white cutouts.

The Cleveland exhibition is an up-to-the-minute glimpse of Walker's very latest thinking.

Topical or not?

Surprisingly, the show's organizers, Reto Thuring and Beau Rutland, the museum's curator and associate curator of contemporary art, respectively, write in their introduction to the show's catalog that "Walker's new work does not overtly respond to our current crises."

Instead, they say, Walker's art "beautifully and tragically points to just how far back in time one can trace the roots of current violence and loss."

However, it's clear that linking historical racism to ongoing tensions in American society is exactly what Walker is trying to do. And one doesn't have to look too hard to find such connections.

Walker's catalog essay references the Black Lives Matter movement, which is the subject of one of her large drawings in the show, entitled, clearly enough, "BLM."

It depicts a tombstone labeled "BLM," topped by the silhouetted head of a black woman, standing amid a charred landscape.

As Thuring and Rutland point out in their catalog introduction, Walker's large-scale print "The Last Memory of Birdie Africa," which depicts black bodies amid flames and shattered brick walls, was inspired by the 1985 police-sanctioned bombing of the Philadelphia row house occupied by MOVE, a black separatist group, that left 11 dead, including five children.

Lethal force, moral outrage

Walker apparently very much wants to connect the MOVE tragedy to more recent killings of blacks by police that have raised questions about the use of lethal force.

"Securing a Motherland Should Have Been Sufficient," a large, three-part drawing, depicts the construction of what looks like a cross between a vast wall and the hull of an endless Noah's Ark.

Crushed outside the planks of this nightmarish construction are the bodies of black men, women, children and rotting corpses.

I'll leave it up to viewers to decide whether the drawing refers to Donald Trump's promise to build a wall along the Mexican border and to make Mexico pay for it.

Walker's work brims with undisguised fury over what she sees as unresolved contradictions between the promise and the reality of America.

This not what one usually expects to encounter at the Cleveland Museum of Art. But if the museum weren't taking risks and exploring difficult and challenging topics, it wouldn't be living up to its mission and its potential.

In the case of the Walker show, it's doing all of those things, and something more. It's demonstrating courage.
Disorderly conduct, Eastland Road: An Akron man, 33, was arrested at about 12:20 a.m. Sept. 4 after he dumped beer on an accordion player during Cleveland Oktoberfest at Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, 164 Eastland.

The man spoke to police in both English and German. He said that during Oktoberfest in Germany it's common and acceptable for people having a good time to throw beer on each other.

The man spoke English well until he was told he might go to jail, at which time he switched to German.

Assistance to firefighters, East Bagley Road: A Brunswick woman, 25, was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights at about 11:15 p.m. Sept. 3 after a custodian found her passed out in the parking lot of Berea High School, 165 East Bagley.

When police arrived, the woman was moving and trying to stand, with the custodian's assistance. She remembered attending Oktoberfest earlier but didn't know how she ended up outside the school. She smelled of alcohol.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, West Bagley Road: A Middleburg Heights man, 60, was arrested at about 9:45 p.m. Sept. 2 after police caught him speeding and squealing his tires on West Bagley near Karl Street.

The man and his car reeked of alcohol. When police asked him to step out of his car, the man threw himself on the ground and complained of chest pain. He also called officers profane names.

Paramedics arrived and asked the man where he was hurting. The man said "chest pain," then "head pain," then wrist pain," and finally "ego and pride."

The man then refused treatment and said nothing was wrong, so police took him to jail. He spat at jail staff and was placed in restraints.

Attempted aggravated burglary, Barberry Drive: A Barberry woman believes someone tried to break into her home and garage between 4 p.m. Aug. 31 and 1:30 p.m. Sept. 1.

The woman noticed a small pry mark on the home's front door. Also, the garage door was not functioning properly. There were no signs that anyone was in the home and nothing was missing.

However, the black weather strip and metal plate around the door frame were not damaged, so police had doubts that someone tried to break in. They told the woman to call if she sees or hears anything suspicious around her house.

Driving with a suspended license-marijuana possession, Front Street: A Massillon woman, 22, was pulled over at about 3 a.m. Sept. 3 after her car remained stopped at a green light on Front near Depot Street.

Police checked the car's license plate number and learned that car's owner had a suspended driver's license. However, the driver was not the car's owner. Police then learned that the driver also had a suspended license and cited her.

Officers smelled marijuana in the car and later found marijuana shake and a marijuana grinder containing raw marijuana inside. The car's passenger, a 22-year-old Massillon woman, admitted the items were hers, so police cited her.

Petty theft, Barrett Road: A 48-inch Vizio TV was stolen from the gym at Tower in the Park Apartments, 55 Barrett. It happened at about 12:05 a.m. Sept. 4. Security video shows two men removing the TV from a wall. Police have identified suspects.

Heroin possession, Third Avenue-Pearl Street: A Cleveland man, 44, was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights after he was found passed out behind the steering wheel of a parked but running pickup truck at about 12:30 a.m. Sept. 4.

The truck was parked in the street, against the curb, at Third and Pearl. Police turned off the engine and paramedics, after waking the man, carried him into an ambulance.

Police found a pack of cigarettes, with a needle sticking out, inside the truck. The needle was filled with liquid, which police believed was heroin. The cigarette pack also contained an alcohol wipe and Band-Aids.

A second cigarette pack found in the truck contained needles and two pills, which police believed were oxycodone.

Petty theft, Berea Industrial Parkway: A catalytic converter was reported stolen at about 10 a.m. Sept. 6 from a 2010 Ford E-350 parked outside Joyce Manufacturing Co., 1125 Berea Industrial.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, High Street: A Cleveland man, 40, was arrested at about 2:45 a.m. Sept. 5 after police saw him turn his pickup truck from Pulaski Street onto High Street without signaling.

The man admitted drinking a liter of Long Island Iced Tea. He failed field sobriety tests.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.
Operating a vehicle under the influence-head-on collision, Interstate 480: An Olmsted Falls woman, 19, was arrested at about 4:15 a.m. Aug. 13 after a Volkswagen Jetta she was driving hit a Subaru Forester head on.

The woman, who was drunk, drove the wrong way up the Interstate 480 exit ramp at West 150th Street. A man, 43, and woman, 19, both from Aurora, were in the Forester and were seriously injured in the collision. They - along with the Olmsted Falls woman, who was also hurt - were taken by ambulance to Fairview Hospital and MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland.

Both the Jetta and Forester were totaled. The Olmsted Falls woman faces misdemeanor charges in Berea Municipal Court.

Fire, Snow Road: A GMC van was destroyed by fire at about 1 p.m. Aug. 27 outside Solid Gold Lounge, 15005 Snow.

The van was parked, with no one inside, when the fire started. The fire also damaged a Cadillac sedan parked next to the van. Police are still investigating the cause of the fire.

Theft, Remora Boulevard: Someone broke into a vehicle and stole it from a driveway early Aug. 20. Police did not provide additional details.

Criminal damaging-theft, West 130th Street: Collector albums containing dollar bills and quarters were stolen between 2-4 a.m. Aug. 24 from a Dodge Caravan parked outside Uncle Bob's Self Storage, 4976 West 130th. Someone smashed the passenger-side window to get inside.

Grand theft auto, Brookpark Road: A 2016 Acura MDX with the keys inside was reported stolen at 8:35 p.m. Aug. 27 from Airport Acura, 14080 Brookpark.

Police immediately found the vehicle in the same dealership.

Larceny, Middlebrook Boulevard: Planks and fence material were stolen between July 8 and Aug. 28 from outside a house.

The building material had been left in the open in the backyard. The homeowners were on vacation when the items were stolen. The material was being used to build a deck onto the house.

Theft, Holland Road: Tools were reported stolen at about 6:30 p.m. Aug. 21 from an unlocked pickup truck parked in a driveway.

Theft, Glenway Drive: A blue Roadmaster bicycle was reported stolen at 5:50 p.m. Aug. 20 from the patio of an apartment. The bike had been locked to a decorative pillar.

Theft, Richard Drive: A black and blue Tony Hawk bicycle was stolen Aug. 19 or Aug. 19 from behind a garage. It had been left unlocked.

Sudden Illness, Heatherwood Drive: A Brook Park man, 32, overdosed on heroin at about 6 a.m. July 22 in his home. He was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.
gavelpromo.jpg

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating several Lake County residents and believe that they laundered drug money and illegally placed charges on people's phone bills.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is in the throes of a two-year investigation into a Colorado man and several Lake County residents it believes laundered drug money and set up companies in Ohio and elsewhere to charge phone customers for services they never received.

Federal prosecutors have not obtained indictments against their targets, who operated or were tied to phone directory companies Discount Directory Inc. and Enhanced Telecommunication Services. However, the case is laid out in court filings, and AT&T Services has agreed to pay $7.75 million as part of a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission to refund customers who were scammed by the two companies.

DEA spokesman Rich Isaacson did not return a phone call. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Mike Tobin declined to comment on the investigation.

Agents have seized nearly $3.4 million worth of money, cars and jewelry, and have frozen bank accounts, filed liens and held property for more than two years as the DEA's investigation continues.

In a May 2015 court filing requesting forfeiture of the seized assets, Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Tripi wrote that Kirtland resident Brandon Selvaggio conspired with Pueblo, Colorado resident Dominic Schender and others to commit wire fraud.

The filing says Selvaggio formed companies that were supposed to provide directory assistance services to phone customers. The companies then contracted with telecommunication companies, including AT&T. But Selvaggio's companies never actually provided the services, even though customers were billed for them, an illegal practice known as cramming, the filing says.

(You can read the government's forfeiture complaint and the AT&T settlement document at the bottom of this story.)

The DEA discovered the illegal billing while investigating Schender, Selvaggio and others for drug crimes and money laundering, according to an FCC news release. Tripi wrote in his court filing that Schender appears to be growing marijuana on his property in Colorado and using Selvaggio's phone directory companies, among others, to launder money.

In addition to Schender and Selvaggio, prosecutors name Lake County residents Iris Baker, Gabriel Saluan, Gregory Harris, John McCoy and Chelsea Baker as part of the conspiracy. The government also has seized property from Roberta Eldridge, Schender's ex-girlfriend, court records show.

AT&T agreed in August to pay $6.8 million in refunds to those wrongly charged on their bills, as well as a $950,000 fine.

The forfeiture case has been on hold since November, while the criminal investigation continues. This holding pattern has caused strife for Selvaggio, who has been "financially hamstrung" by the seizures, said Edward LaRue, his attorney.

LaRue also said the government refuses to disclose specifics about the investigation. Recently, he asked Magistrate Judge George Limbert to unseal the affidavits that DEA agents swore to obtain search warrants. The judge is considering that request.

"The hope would be to be better apprised of the accusations made by the United States against Mr. Selvaggio," LaRue said. He said the accusations presented so far are untrue.

Craig Weintraub, an attorney representing Schender and Eldridge, said this investigation has been going on for more than two years and that Selvaggio has not been afforded due process.

He also pointed to his filings in the forfeiture case, in which he wrote that there are no criminal allegations against Eldridge. In one filing, he described the government's view of Schender's conduct as "an unbelievable litany of unverified, unsworn recitations, lay opinion, and inflammatory, factually-unsupported innuendo."

Ian Friedman, Iris Baker's attorney, said Friday that "at no time in her life has Ms. Baker been in trouble with the law.

"We are hopeful and confident that any government investigation will reveal that further scrutiny of her particular conduct is not warranted," Friedman said.

An attorney for Saluan did not return a phone call.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Friday's crime and courts comment section.
voting

A tentative list of issues, with their issue numbers, shows 121 questions will be put before voters this November in communities and school districts across Cuyahoga County.

(cleveland.com file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cuyahoga County voters will see 121 issues scattered on ballots for the November election throughout the communities and school districts, according to a tentative list from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Friday was the deadline for cities to file charter change issues, the elections board said. The board assigned numbers to each issue voters will face in November.

Let the season for numbered election signs begin.

Among the key issues on the ballot:

Issue 32: Cleveland's proposal to increase its income tax to 2.5 percent.

Issue 108: The renewal of a tax that provides operating revenue for Cleveland city schools.

Issues from

Not on the list was a proposal to establish a workers' rights commission for part time workers in Cleveland. The proposed charter change had appeared on previous working lists kept by the elections board for the November election. Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley said the organizers asked that it be withdrawn.

The final list of issues still must be approved by the elections board.

You can read the tentative list below. Mobile users click here.

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RaiseUP.jpg

Members of Raise Up Cleveland announced on Tuesday that they will seek a $12 minimum wage citywide beginning in January, with $1 annual raises on a path toward $15 an hour.

(Leila Atassi, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Two petition-driven initiatives that Cleveland city officials feared would kill jobs and threaten to undermine the city's economic recovery appear to have missed the November ballot.

A proposal to phase in a $15 minimum wage in Cleveland and a proposed city charter amendment seeking to establish a "part-time workers' rights commission" and set strict rules on scheduling, wages and promotions did not appear on a tentative list of local ballot issues released Friday by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Council was required by charter to adopt legislation in August submitting the proposed charter change on workers' rights to the elections board for inclusion on the ballot.

But City Council President Kevin Kelley said in an interview Friday that three of the five members of the petitioners committee had since sent Council Clerk Pat Britt written requests to withdraw the issue.

Council is expected to pass legislation Monday repealing the ordinance passed last month.

The controversial proposal was championed by Bob Goodrich, a businessman from Grand Rapids, Mich., who acknowledged to cleveland.com that he chose to push the issue in Cleveland because it was easier to get it on the ballot here than virtually anywhere else.

Other states passed laws mandating that any changes to employment laws be handled on the state level, and gathering the signatures needed for a statewide initiative was too daunting, Goodrich said.

But Kelley and other city officials worried that the proposed employment regulations, which would have carried steep civil penalties if violated, would have prompted a mass exodus of businesses from the city and kill jobs.

City officials have expressed the same anxieties about the proposal to phase in a $15 minimum wage in Cleveland -- beginning with $12 an hour in January - while the rest of the state remains at $8.10.

Raise Up Cleveland, with the support of the Service Employees International Union, had gathered enough signatures to compel City Council to introduce legislation in May seeking a $15 minimum wage that would have begun in January.

After months of debate and public hearings, council voted down the proposal last month, with only Councilman Jeffrey Johnson voting in support of it.

The City Charter gave the petitioners the option of putting the issue on a future ballot for Cleveland voters. And the final language submitted by the group took a more tempered, phased-in approach to reaching $15 an hour that they hoped would alleviate voters' concerns that an 85 percent increase all at once would harm local businesses.

Council must now certify the issue to the board of elections. The charter-prescribed deadline to make the November ballot was today -- 60 days before the election. However, council isn't scheduled to meet again until Monday.

Invoking another charter provision, the petitioners had collected an additional 5,000 signatures in an attempt to force a special election on the issue. But Britt rejected the signatures, contending that she could not accept them before council had made its final decision on the matter.

Members of Raise Up Cleveland then sued City Council in the Ohio Supreme Court, accusing Britt of unlawfully refusing to accept the signatures. As of Friday, the court had not ruled on the case - and the issue did not appear on the board of elections' list of issues for the upcoming ballot.

In a news release, Raise Up Cleveland chastised council for letting the clock run out, "effectively turning its back on the thousands of working people who filed for an opportunity to send the issue to a vote this fall."

"We are disappointed, but not surprised by City Council's continued refusal to act in the best interests of the people they serve," wrote Raise Up Cleveland spokeswoman Jocelyn Smallwood. "Time and time again, they have chosen to keep their heads in the sand and ignore the suffering that is happening just down the street from their lavish offices. ... The leaders who voted against our proposal for the ballot, who stood in the way of progress will soon come to find themselves on the wrong side of history."
kayakers.jpeg

Kayakers negotiate a bend in the Cuyahoga River near Brecksville last month during the Crooked River Commute, a 50 mile kayak trip from Kent to the mouth of the river on Lake Erie.

(Tom Ondrey/Plain Dealer file photo)

FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio - Three of the region's foremost experts on water in Northeast Ohio will lead a panel discussion Thursday to assess water quality in Lake Erie, the Cuyahoga River and the surrounding network of streams, ponds and marshes.

The free event will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Fairview Park Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, 21255 Lorain Road, Fairview Park. This reporter will be the moderator. It is open to the public.

The panelists are Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, deputy director of Watershed Programs at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District; Jane Goodman, executive director of Cuyahoga River Restoration; and Jim White, director of Sustainable Infrastructure Programs at the Port of Cleveland.

The sponsors of the event are the Case Western Reserve University Siegal Lifelong Learning Program, the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, The Plain Dealer / Cleveland.com, and the Lakewood and Cuyahoga County library systems. The corporate sponsor is First Interstate Properties, Ltd.

For years, all three of the panelists have had a vital role in improving and maintaining the quality of the water found in our greatest natural assets: Lake Erie, the Cuyahoga River and the surrounding waterways.

Discussion topics expected to be raised at the event include:

Progress reports on the Sewer District's two biggest undertakings: the $3 billion

An update on the ongoing conflict between the Port of Cleveland, the Ohio EPA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. To date, the

And what about that

The status of

The potential benefits from the imminent removal of the

Readers who attend are welcome to pose questions to the panel or raise additional water-related topics of discussion, and to share their thoughts on the region's progress during the 45 years or so since the passage of the federal Clean Water Act.

A good crowd of passionate people is expected.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Authorities have identified the body of a 33-year-old man found dead of an apparent gunshot wound and wearing only socks on Cleveland's East Side.

Clarence Laron Ashford Scott, of Cleveland, was found dead Aug. 30 lying in the brush off Danbury Avenue, between East 81st and East 82nd streets according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office.

The medical examiner has not released an official cause of death, but police said it appeared that Scott had been shot in the head.

Paul James, 58, was riding his bicycle on Danbury Avenue when he discovered Scott's body.

The body's head was swollen with a knot that looked it had a hole in it, and was covered in flies, James said.

The man was naked except for a pair of black socks, James said.

James and other people who live near Danbury Avenue told homicide detectives after Scott's body was discovered that they had heard a gunshot the night before, but did not call police because gunfire is so common.

To comment on this story, please visit Saturday's crime and courts comments page.
Cleveland police tape 3

A motorcyclist is dead following a Saturday morning crash on Cleveland's East Side, police said.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A man was killed Saturday morning in a motorcycle crash on Cleveland's East Side, police said.

The crash occurred at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Kinsman Road in Cleveland's Central neighborhood, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said.

The motorcyclist, a 50-year-old man, was speeding eastbound on Kinsman Road on a 2006 Kawasaki motorcycle, Ciaccia said. A 49-year-old woman was driving a 2013 Ford vehicle westbound on Kinsman Road and took a left turn at Grand Avenue.

The speeding motorcyclist crashed into the woman's vehicle, and he was thrown from the motorcycle, Ciaccia said. The motorcycle began spinning in the roadway and continued to hit the Ford.

The motorcyclist was taken to MetroHealth, where he was pronounced dead, Ciaccia said. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office will release the man's identity once his family is notified.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
heroin_needle

East Liverpool, Ohio officials posted on Facebook graphic photographs of an unconscious couple police say had overdosed on heroin in the front seat of a van with a 4-year-old boy in the backseat.

(File photo)

EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio -- An Eastern Ohio city made national news when it posted on Facebook graphic photographs of an adult couple they say overdosed on heroin in a moving SUV with a young boy in the backseat.

The City of East Liverpool posted the photographs and police report of the incident about 5 p.m. Thursday, after the couple, James Acord and Rhonda Pasek, had already appeared in court on child endangering and drug charges.

The city acknowledged the photographs would be offensive to some. But the law director, administration and police department said they decided to make the pictures public to depict the ugliness of the state's heroin addiction.

To view the Facebook post and the photographs, click here.

An officer came upon the scene about 3 p.m. Wednesday, the report says, when he spotted Acord driving an SUV erratically. Acord's head bobbed back and forth as he told the officer he was trying to drive Pasek to the hospital, the report says.

Acord passed out, and the officer noticed Pasek, who was slumped over and unconscious in the passenger seat, was starting to turn blue.

The officer held the woman's head up to keep her airway open, and paramedics got to the scene and revived both Acord and Pasek with the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.

The boy, who was 4 years old and the child of one of the adults, sat in the SUV's backseat during the incident. Columbiana County Children's Services took the child. It's unclear if he was turned over to other family members or if he remains in the care of the county.

The city said it decided to post the photographs of the scene to show "the other side of this horrible drug."

"We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess," the city wrote. "This child can't speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody."

The post was shared more than 26,000 times, and was reported on by several national media outlets including Buzzfeed and CNN.

While many of the 4,400 comments on the Facebook post supported the city's post, several people criticized the department for not blurring the child's face in the photographs, and accused the department of trying to shame the parents for their drug addiction.

"Can't you blur out the child's face??? I understand the point of showing this but his identity should not be revealed," one use wrote.

"When did public notice become public shaming," another user asked. "One of your duties is to protect. Btw shaming these addicts will not get them the help they need."

The city said it was prepared to deal with any backlash over the post.

"We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the non-drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis," the city wrote. "The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until it's gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that."

The post came the same day Cuyahoga County officials announced that August was the deadliest month on record for heroin and fentanyl overdoses.

To comment on this story, please visit Saturday's crime and courts comments page.
Dr. Rachel Schreiber, an allergy specialist, examines Dylan Neustadt, 6, as Dylan's mother, Michelle Simon, looks on in Rockville, MD.

Outrage over soaring prices for EpiPen, a life-saving allergy treatment, has drawn renewed attention to the number of children suffering from allergies.

As more children grapple with these ailments, the reasons behind the spike are still being debated. Lots of money is at stake: The diagnosis and treatment of allergies is a nearly $26 billion market, according to data from Grandview Research.

Research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that food allergies in children have increased approximately 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, now affecting 1 in 13 children in the United States. This translates to roughly two students in every classroom.



About 90 percent of allergic reactions come from these eight foods alone: Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish. In total, food allergies cause about 300,000 ambulatory-care visits a year, just among children under age 18.



With those numbers on the rise, a few theories are being explored, including one linked to Western society's obsession with fighting germs. The so-called hygiene hypothesis posits that a lack of exposure to infectious agents early in childhood can create a scenario where the immune system mistakes a food protein as an invading germ.
Even though most consumers don't change carriers during the life of the phone, why would Apple seemingly take a step backward in terms of flexibility and simplicity?

That's a bit of a head-scratcher, given that with the iPhone 6s, Apple had one model that worked across all U.S. carriers.

Included in the fine print with the iPhone 7 is the fact that consumers who buy the AT&T and T-Mobile version of the new phone are getting a version that can never work with Sprint or Verizon .

The reason has everything to do with the way the company does business. Apple loves to have more than one supplier of any key component. And while it designs the iPhone's A10 processor (and that chip's predecessors), it has long relied on Qualcomm exclusively for the iPhone's modem chip.

Exclusivity gives a supplier more leverage, and Apple likes to bargain from a position of strength. So there has been talk for a while now that, with the iPhone 7, Apple was going to split the modem business between Qualcomm and Intel .

More from Recode:

Apple's iPhone upgrade program: How to turn your 6s into a 7

The 'secret browser' inside iOS 10

Samsung looks to woo more Silicon Valley chipmakers to use its factories



But Intel's latest modem chip doesn't support the old CDMA standard still used by Sprint and Verizon.

By creating a separate version for Sprint and Verizon, Apple is able to use Qualcomm exclusively on that model while using chips from both Intel and Qualcomm for the GSM model used by AT&T and T-Mobile as well as many carriers in other parts of the world.

Sources familiar with the situation as well as outsiders agree that the modem diversification effort is the likely reason for the separate phone versions. Apple and Intel declined to comment on the matter, and a Qualcomm representative was not immediately available for comment.

While having separate models is a win for both Intel and Apple's effort to gain more power over its suppliers, it's a modest loss for customers, who now have to make a technological commitment to a carrier even in a world where many are no longer signing long-term financial contracts.

As noted above, though, it's a flexibility that few consumers take advantage of. The vast majority of people who change carriers do so at the same time they get a new phone. There are often switcher deals that make it more financially attractive to do so, and it's just the way most people think about their cellphone service.

For those who really want maximum flexibility, Apple offers the Apple Upgrade Program through its stores. With that program, you finance your phone over two years, but have the option to upgrade phones and change carriers each year.

By Ina Fried, Recode.net.

CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.


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The U.S. must sort out its tax regime if they want to protect their companies from billion-dollar penalties imposed on Apple by the European Union, the head of the euro zone finance ministers group told CNBC.

The iPhone maker has found itself in the crosshairs of European regulators for its business tax arrangement with Ireland. European regulators recently determined that Apple must fork over more than $14 billion as a result of having received in "illegal tax benefits." Speaking to CNBC on the sidelines of a Eurogroup meeting in Bratislava Saturday, the group's head, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said that Apple's row with Europe was largely a "tax issue."

Dutch Finance Minister and Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Yves Herman | Reuters

Dijsselbloem said that "American companies will have to pay their taxes. Actually I would prefer they have a good arrangement at home in the U.S. to pay their taxes. But that I cannot sort out from Europe. "The Americans need to make sure their companies pay a fair share, at home, and that would solve a large part of this issue."

'Times are changing'

Tim Cook Mark Neuling | CNBC

For its part, Ireland has opposed the European Commission's ruling on concerns that it would jeopardize its policy of wooing foreign businesses to relocate there, as well as interfering with the country's' sovereign right to set tax policy. In response, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has slammed the decision as "total political crap" and "completely unfair,"

However, Dijsselbloem dismissed the controversy, telling CNBC that there was a new mood in Europe. "The bottom line is, and the big companies have to realise this, times are changing and new times will ask them, make them, pay taxes in a fair way," he said. "Where they make their profits, they must pay their taxes to a fair amount, a fair share and I think for too long they have been able to get out of that and it has to stop," the official told CNBC. "I think to my citizens I cannot explain why they should pay their fair share and the large companies do not."

Earlier this week, Ireland's Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, told CNBC that the government will appeal the ruling to provide "clarity and certainty." "I am confident the appeal will succeed because what has happened here is that the European Commission has made a finding with regards to state aid rules, which crosses the threshold into tax competency, which is a matter for each individual country," Kenny told CNBC. Apple also plans to mount a separate appeal. Katy Barnato contributed to this report.
Now, it's hoped that counterterrorism can encourage ASEAN unity amid a spate of recent attacks . Last week alone saw two separate bombings, one at a night market in the Philippine city of Davao and the other at a school in Thailand's southern Narathiwat province.

Among the many criticisms leveled against the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), disunity is perhaps the direst. From the South China Sea dispute to free trade, the 10-member bloc's legitimacy has been called into question as it remains unable to offer a coordinated response on the region's most pressing issues.

Participant leaders pose for a photograph during the closing ceremony at the 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits at the National Congress Center in Vientiane, Laos on September 8, 2016.

Unlike other political issues that have caused ruptures among members, nations so far seem to be in unison on terrorism, as indicated by the ASEAN summit in Laos this week.

"If ASEAN cannot unite on this issue, then its raison d'etre and future will be called into question once again," said Colin Chapman, founder and editor-in-chief at think-tank Australian and South East Asian Strategies.

On Wednesday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned that members must work more closely together on intelligence sharing and counter extremist doctrines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he intended to use the summit to seek better support for regional counter-terror efforts. Japan meanwhile promised $440 million on Wednesday to help Asian countries strengthen anti-extremist measures for the next three years, but it was not clear who the recipients would be. Australia also expressed its desire to expand counter-terror arrangements with Indonesia and Malaysia.

Not only would a unified response to counter-terrorism give the bloc credibility, it would also create a mechanism for responses to other threats, such as epidemic diseases and climate change, explained Jonah Blank, senior political scientist at RAND Corporation



But the biggest hurdle to a coordinated regional crackdown on militant networks may be ASEAN itself. Even optimists can't ignore the organization's long history of internal divisions.

"ASEAN has never been unified about anything. There are few mechanisms in place for genuine cooperation by allor even most ASEAN nations on any issue," explained Jonah Blank, senior political scientist at RAND Corporation.

Among the stumbling blocks are:
A soaring beacon of hope: The Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center. Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Lower Manhattan, the neighborhood that was home to the Twin Towers and which endured the brunt of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has spent the last decade and a half in a state of healing and recovery. Today that process appears to be paying off. It hasn't been easy. According to data provided by the Alliance for Downtown New York , 90 percent of Lower Manhattan stores saw revenues decline for a full year after the attacks, and 47 percent of the neighborhood's retailers, services and restaurants reported layoffs. It was also hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis. At the time of the 2001 attacks, it boasted almost 237,000 private-sector jobs. In 2009 it could account for less than 200,000. Anyone could have been forgiven for wondering if the area could recover from two disasters in a single decade.

By the end of 2015, the picture had changed considerably. More than 232,000 people were employed in Lower Manhattan, and the number continues to grow. It's nothing less than a rebirth, which is a by-product of the grit and resilience of neighborhood residents and small-business owners who were determined to stick it out. One such business owner and neighborhood denizen is Todd A. Spodek, managing partner at Spodek Law Group P.C. The firm was founded in 1976 by his father and has always operated out of Lower Manhattan, even when business took a big hit in the wake of 9/11. "After 9/11, new business stopped for a considerable amount of time," Spodek told CNBC.com. "The entire city was in shock, and certainly people were not running downtown to relive this nightmare every day."

Against all odds: Todd Spodek survived 9/11 and grew his law firm despite all the challenges. Source: Alex Zhik

The firm's business didn't dry up completely  its ongoing caseload kept its doors open in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. But Spodek conceded that it was two or three years before the firm experienced any significant uptick in new business. Today, however, he believes that both his firm and the neighborhood it calls home have returned to full strength. Spodek Law Firm currently houses six lawyers, four support staff and pulls in $3 million in annual revenue. "At this point the neighborhood is booming," he said. "We have since moved directly next to the World Trade Center, and it's a fantastic neighborhood. There's a tremendous amount of new restaurants, bars and businesses. ... I think that the neighborhood has bounced back completely." Another small-business owner who stayed in Lower Manhattan after 9/11 is Mary White, founder and CEO of BnBFinder.com, an online guide to bed & breakfasts and inns. She started it as a home business in 1998, and she was working and living directly across the street from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Her building was forced to close for two months to recover from the damage, and she considered shutting down. However, the programmers who hosted her site out of Dallas wouldn't hear of it, and offered to run the business for free until she could come back. She rented a temporary apartment to work from with her single employee, and she kept going. She had to, anyway, because work never let up. "What stands out to me is the number of inquiries we got from brides and others scrambling to make plans for weddings, honeymoons, family reunions and other trips that they could drive to, because of the general fear of flying," she told CNBC.com. "That holiday season we sold what was then a record number of gift certificates, because a number of articles were written about giving time, something not material, being with loved ones, and our gift certificates made this possible."

BnBFinder.com survived 9/11 and grew right along with the internet, with the gift certificate business in particular seeing great success. In November 2008 it relocated to Broad Street, in the Financial District, where it remains to this day. The company has 2,000 clients and pulls in $800,000 in annual revenue. Lower Manhattan's recovery is likely to see a further boost, courtesy of the Westfield World Trade Center, a shopping mall within the World Trade Center complex that opened in August. Occupying 365,000 square feet, it serves as home to approximately 60 businesses, including an Apple store and Kate Spade, with Crabtree & Evelyn and Victoria's Secret still to come. It's all part of the long rebirth that the neighborhood has undergone in the last 15 years.
The finest known 1896 silver dollar from Chihli, graded Mint State 63 by Numismatic Guaranty Corp., realized $345,000 U.S., during Champion Hong Kong Auctions Aug. 22 sale.

The finest known 1896 silver dollar from Chihli Province is only better than the next finest known by one grade point, being graded Mint State 63 by Numismatic Guaranty Corp.

But that one point translated to $111,836, according to Michael Chou, director of Champion Hong Kong Auctions, which sold this finest (MS-63) example during its Aug. 22 auction for $345,000, including the 21 percent buyers fee.

The Howard Bowker benefit auction realized $1,299,463.20 U.S.; everything in the sale came from the Howard Franklin Bowker East Asian Collection. According to Chou, all proceeds from the auction are designated for the promotion of numismatics, including digitization and education projects. A portion of the proceeds will be granted to the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonians National Museum of American History.

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Champion has sold parts of Bowkers collection during the past few years, donating pieces of the collection to museums in China and raising money for the Smithsonian.

The Chihli coin in this auction topped an MS-62 example Chou bought for a collector in Taiwan during a March 11, 2014, auction by Fritz Rudolph Kunker. The MS-62 example sold for 168,000 ($233,164 U.S.), including the 20 percent buyers fee.

The customer from Taiwan was at the 2016 auction and was the underbidder as the lot sold to a floor bidder from Hong Kong.

Many of Bowker coins are in the top level of preservation and with excellent eye appeal, Chou told Coin World before the sale. This is a great opportunity to add these coins to a Chinese collection.

The Chihli silver dollar features a distinctive dragon design (with long horns and a large head) that was employed for only one year, on all coins struck in Chihli. These coins were struck at the Peiyang Arsenal Mint in Tientsin and are dated Year 22 of the reign, which is 1896. The 1897 and later coins have a different style dragon.

Several other identifying design elements distinguish the Year 22 coin from later issues, notably the denomination is listed in English as ONE DOLLAR instead of the more common 7 MACE 2 CANDAREENS used by all other mints.

It is unclear who provided the minting equipment and dies for these coins. According to the catalog, its possible that the dies were made in Japan but no evidence to support this has been discovered (though later dies for Tientsin coinage were produced in Japan).

In total, 3,000 examples were struck, most likely late in the year, according to Champion.

Its scarcity and condition combine to make the coin one of the top in the Chinese series; it ranks No. 19 in the Top Chinese Coins  Silver Coinage book published by Champion, based on surveys of experts.
Missouri football's Brady Cook 'deserves to be praised' after upset win

Missouri quarterback Brady Cook has taken criticism all season. On Saturday night, he led the Tigers to an upset road win at South Carolina.
November 19, 2015  Visitors are served food during an interfaith Thanksgiving meal at Heartsong United Methodist Church. Leaders from Heartsong as well as the Memphis Islamic Center across the street headed the event with hundreds in attendance sharing food and prayers, and reflecting on the recent attacks in Paris, France and the current environment between members of different faiths in Memphis. (Brandon Dill/Special to The Commercial Appeal)

When Christians and Muslims get together in Memphis, they generally find they have at least three things in common.

Their belief in God.

Their belief that God wants them to get to know and love their neighbors.

Their belief that Southern hospitality is God's preferred way of doing that.

"There's plenty of food back there, if you all are still hungry," Robert 'Sonny' Robinson of Shady Grove Presbyterian Church told their guests Wednesday night.

"Thank you," Dr. Muhammed Moinuddin of Masjid Al-Salaam replied. "We are grateful for your hospitality."

"We're just glad you're here," Robinson said.

And so it goes in fellowships halls across Memphis, especially this time of year.

Age-old traditions of food and fellowship overcoming post-9/11 doubts and anxieties.

Fear of the stranger, and of the stranger's religion, giving way to hospitality and friendship, fried chicken and pecan pie.

When I started writing about religion in Memphis in the early 1990s, the most common interfaith get-togethers were black and white or Christian and Jewish.

Since 9/11, interfaith almost always includes Islam. Shady Grove's dinner with its Muslim neighbors was one of half a dozen such invitations I've received this month.

The more we get to know each other, the more we learn about each other.

"I have been troubled by the hateful rhetoric about Muslims that fill our airways and printed media," Robinson said. "I decided to learn more about the faith and to encourage members of our church to do the same."

I've never understood why anyone would pay more attention to a non-Muslim's view of Islam than a Muslim friend or neighbor's view.

If you want to know more about being black, would you ask a white friend or a black friend?

If you want to know more about being female, would you ask a male or female friend?

If you want to know more about being Muslim, ask a Muslim friend or neighbor.

That's how Robinson and other Shady Grove members began their fact-finding mission.

They visited the mosque on Stratford. Then they invited Muslims at the mosque to come to dinner at the church and talk about their faith.

Moinuddin gave them a lesson in Islam 101. He talked about how and why he fasts and prays.

He explained that Abraham, Moses and Jesus are mentioned more frequently in the Quran than Muhammad, and just as reverently.

That not all Arabs are Muslim, and that Arabs represent only 20 percent of all Muslims worldwide.

That most Muslims in American are African-American, African or Asian.

That most victims of terrorism are Muslim, and nearly all Muslims are moderate, pious people who abhor violence.

Amziane, who teaches French at Craigmont High, spoke more personally.

He grew up in Morocco. He came to America as an exchange student in 2000.

He met and married a Christian woman from Tupelo. They have three daughters, ages 12, 7 and 3.

"Her father was open to our marriage, but her mother didn't like the idea at first," Amziane said with a smile. "Then we gave her grandchildren. She likes me now."

He was living in DeSoto County on 9/11. Shady Grove members asked him about terrorism.

"Like you, I watch the news and see the atrocities being committed in the name of Islam," he said. "Like you, I wonder how these things can happen."

They asked him about ISIL and al-Qaida.

"I try to explain to my children that these horrible things have nothing to do with religion," Amziane said. "That's not what my parents taught me about Islam. That's not how they raised me to be a Muslim. The people who are doing these awful things are not Muslim. They have no God but themselves."

They asked him about Shariah.

"Shariah is a religious law, but it has been misinterpreted and distorted into a political one in some places," he said. "I am an American and here the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That's the law I follow."

They asked him about jihad.

"Jihad means struggle," he said. "When you wake up in the morning and go to work and pay your bills and take care of your family, that's a righteous struggle. That's considered the greater jihad in Islam."

Amziane became a U.S. citizen in 2009. They asked him why.

"Morocco is the best country in the world to be born in. America is the best country in the world to live in," he said.

"I feel really privileged to be here."

Now they know that have at least four things in common.

The Mosque Across the Street

WHAT: Public discussion of a multi-platform story of the now-famous friendship between Heartsong United Methodist Church and Memphis Islamic Center in Cordova. Its part of the Upstanders series of uplifting stories, produced by Starbucks.

WHO: Rev. Steve Stone of Heartsong and Dr. Bashar Shala of MIC, along with series co-producer Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a Starbucks vice president.

WHEN and WHERE: 1-2 p.m. Wednesday, Starbucks, 970 N. Germantown Parkway.
With her new book, "The War on Cops," and subsequent writings in major newspapers, Heather Mac Donald is quickly becoming the heroine of those who pooh-pooh any notion that African-Americans are treated unequally by police.

"The Black Lives Matter movement is based on a lie," Mac Donald emphatically wrote last week in the ultraconservative Washington Examiner. "And not just the lie that a pacific Michael Brown was gunned down in cold blood by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in August 2014.

"The idea that the U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of racially driven police shootings is also false, and dangerously so," she added. "Several studies released this year show that police officers are less likely to shoot blacks than whites."

Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a New York-based public policy think tank that focuses on a variety of issues including proactive policing.

She also is one of the leading advocates warning of the dangers of the "Ferguson effect." That's the idea that since Brown's death in Ferguson, police are more reluctant to engage the public, and that has led to an alarming increase in violent crime.

Writing in The Washington Post in July, Mac Donald said, "Virtually every police officer working in an urban area in the post-Ferguson era tells the same tale: He or she is backing off of discretionary, proactive policing."

"Officers operate today under the presumption that they are racist, even homicidal; their stop and arrest activity is measured against population benchmarks, rather than crime benchmarks, and thus deemed racially biased; they worry that any use of force against a black civilian, no matter how justified, could be interpreted as a race-based assault and could put their career at risk."

Mac Donald's book, along with her extensive research and opinion columns, are helping critics of the Black Lives Matter movement make the case that police are the real victims in the ongoing roiling debate over excessive use of force against African-Americans.

And yet, studies can often be fashioned to say what you want them to say. For example, another study reported in the Los Angeles Times in July concluded that blacks and Latinos who are stopped by police are no more likely to be killed than whites. But the research also found that minorities to begin with are far more likely to be stopped and arrested than whites.

And a report in 2014 by ProPublica, an investigative journalism website, found that young African-American males faced a far greater risk of being fatally shot by police than their white counterparts.

Still, I have no reason to quibble with many of Mac Donald's findings, including the undisputed fact that African-Americans are much more likely to be killed by another African-American rather than by the police. And I have long since concluded that the killing of Michael Brown did not represent excessive force the way that the deaths of Eric Garner in New York, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota did.

But what Mac Donald and her new legions of fans fail to see is that the Black Lives Matter movement  which actually sprang from the Trayvon Martin case, not Ferguson  is about getting beyond statistics and studies and getting to the root causes of frustration in many minority communities.

Residents of majority-black Ferguson had been feeling oppressed and harassed by the overwhelmingly white police department for years. The Justice Department concluded last year that virtually every branch of government in Ferguson, particularly the police and city courts, unlawfully targeted African-American residents with excessive tickets and fines as a way to fill the city's coffers.

Brown's death was basically the final straw that sent people in Ferguson and elsewhere into the streets to express their outrage  which unfortunately included rioting and looting.

The fact that Brown may not have been a completely innocent victim does not lessen the legitimate calls for better police-community relations.

I've said this before and I will say it again: Gang activity is a scourge on society and should be eradicated. But gang members do not take an oath to protect and serve. Police do.

We all should respect and support law enforcement officers because they have a difficult and dangerous job. But we also expect them to do their jobs professionally.

The shame of it all is that Black Lives Matter has become a political wedge issue. Those who support it are branded as anti-police and anti-American. Those who oppose it are painted as racists. Neither of which is true.

The movement is fighting for legitimacy and a seat at the policy-making table while its critics  now with Heather Mac Donald as a chief spokesperson  are using studies to paint BLM as a fraud.

If only both sides could learn to see each other as fellow human beings  and not just statistics.
Author Elmore Leonard  photographed in September 2012 at age 86  was an advertising man who later in life became one of America's foremost crime writers. He died in 2013. Paul Sancya/AP

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By Fredric Koeppel, Special to The Commercial Appeal

Sometimes the lifetime themes of fiction writers can be summed up in one sentence. For Nathaniel Hawthorne, it would be, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children." For Franz Kafka: "Guilty as charged." For Anne Tyler: "We are all so nice, each and every one of us."

In the case of Elmore Leonard, the quick summation might be: "Don't trust anyone, anywhere, any time."

Leonard's career as an author of popular and best-selling crime thrillers was based on that tenet, taken as an article of faith whatever the twisted plot or how simple or complicated the characters. He began in the 1950s writing pulp Westerns but switched in the mid-1970s to crime and suspense, finding financial success and renown as a writer particularly gifted in the areas of clean, concise prose, crackling dialogue and devilishly fraught narratives.

Take "Get Shorty" (1990), the first of the novels featured in "Elmore Leonard: Four Later Novels," recently issued by The Library of America and the third of a three-volume series devoted to the author's crime novels. The plot is typically convoluted but centers on the character of Chili Palmer, a loan shark from Miami who after completing a job in Las Vegas goes to Los Angeles to collect a gambling debt from Harry Zimm, a producer of schlock horror movies. Chili pitches an idea for a script  based on his own history  to Harry, who likes the scheme but has to placate Bo Catlett, a local drug dealer whom Harry has already bilked out of $200,000 for a different movie, actually gambling the money away. Catlett, meanwhile, is hampered by a Mexican drug deal that fell through. That payment is stashed in a locker at L.A. International Airport, where it is staked out by DEA agents. Bo wants Chili to go to LAX and get the money so he'll be apprehended and gotten out of the way of any deal that he can make with Harry.

That description only begins to detail the twists and turns and the potential and real betrayals that occur in "Get Shorty," one of the funniest books in the author's canon, but which Leonard did not regard as satire. The novel draws on his own extensive and often frustrating experiences in Hollywood. As he told an interviewer: "Actually, I'm doing it straight. You don't have to send them up; you don't have to exaggerate. ... You just do it straight."

The other novels in this collection are "Rum Punch" (1992) and "Out of Sight" (1996), both among Leonard's finest efforts, and "Tishomingo Blues" (2002), not quite displaying the same satisfactions as the others. It is, if anything, almost too inventive and complex in its plot and condescending in its characterizations of good ol' boys and the culture of Civil War re-enactment in the Mississippi Delta. The first three titles are significant because they produced movies that were among the best film adaptations of Leonard's fiction.

Leonard's world is bleak and violent, where betrayal and untrustworthiness reign, but with sardonic overtones, and he treats the most cruel actions with total detachment, the way it ought to be done, stripped of all sensationalism. In "Out of Sight," when the gangster Maurice takes his cohort on a home invasion and the result is a horrendous body count, with rape thrown in, Maurice's girlfriend Moselle says to Glenn, a new member of the gang, "Was worse than you imagined, wasn't it? Baby, you with the bad boys now." Baby, they're all bad boys in these novels.

Except that that's not always true. Each book contains a central figure who as bad as he or she might be, is actually a good person. Chili Palmer  a memorable role for John Travolta in the movie directed by Barry Sonnenfeld  may be a "shylock" with a tendency toward larceny, but he's also thoughtful, compassionate and, to a limit and depending on the circumstances, honest, which is to say, he possesses weird integrity. Also displaying that trait is Max Cherry, the bail bondsman at the heart of "Rum Punch," who finds himself attracted to the flight attendant-drug money smuggler Jackie Burke. This was filmed by Quentin Tarantino, with a name change to "Jackie Brown," with the great Pam Grier in that role and Robert Forster as Cherry.

Jack Foley, in "Out of Sight," is a world-class bank robber, but his sense of fair play, his wit and charisma mark him as a gentleman as well as a habitual criminal, a natural part for George Clooney, who was paired, with tremendous on-screen chemistry, with Jennifer Lopez as deputy U.S. marshal Karen Sisco, an odd-couple with passion and tenderness. Still, at the end of the book and film, she has to do her job.

Leonard's gift is to make readers sympathize with off-kilter or even outlaw characters whose deep flaws don't mask their essential nobility. Yes, that character is straight out of the myth of the Old West, where this author  born in 1925, died in 2013  sketched his beginnings, as well as in the classic American detective novel. That he carries off the feat with such aplomb testifies to his talent, of course, but also to the enduring power of such literary and cultural myths. Elmore Leonard wrote with grit, realism and black humor about many types of scandal, duplicity, immorality and depravity, but his heart was with the angels.
June 29, 2016 - Monday morning, Shelby County Commissioners Melvin Burgess (left) and Terry Roland (right) attends a budget committee meeting and a special called meeting of the full commission to finalize and approve a county budget before the fiscal year ends on June. 30., in the commission chambers at the Vasco A. Smith Jr. Administration Building. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

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By Linda A. Moore and Ryan Poe of The Commercial Appeal

Shelby County Commission Chairman Melvin Burgess is floating the possibility of a merged law enforcement agency for Memphis and Shelby County, an idea he shared while taping a local news show recently.

"I was just thinking out loud," Burgess said on Friday. "If that were to happen, I'd like to pull people from law enforcement in, talk to cities that have gone through that process. Was it successful? Did it really make a difference? You really have to study that kind of thing."

Burgess, the son of a former Memphis police director, said he hasn't done any research into whether merging the agencies is possible or legal.

But Memphis has a deficit of about 400 police officers, making public safety a higher priority for city and county government, he said, than the county helping the city fix potholes.

"How can we work together and come up with one police force to deal with some of these issues?" he said.

Burgess, a manager in the Shelby County School's business operations office, has for years proposed more consolidations within government and has advocated for group purchasing and broader use of the school system's Central Nutrition Center by the county, Memphis and the other municipalities.

Shelby County Sheriff's Office spokesman Earle Farrell noted that the state charter requires every county to have a sheriff and that any merger would enfold the city police department into the sheriff's office. Sheriff Bill Oldham was unavailable for comment.

Memphis City Council chairman Kemp Conrad said he's open to discussing consolidating law enforcement, but still needs to be convinced that it's worth the effort at a time when the city is facing myriad challenges, including a crime rate that's too high.

"To achieve something of that political magnitude, there's going to have to be a huge value proposition  a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," he said.

Any consolidation would have to be carefully thought out, and done with input from Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland's administration, Conrad said. And discussion of consolidation shouldn't be confined to a "silo" of law enforcement.

"I don't know why you would look at just our law enforcement and not fire or anything else," he said.

Rallings declined to comment. There was no comment from the city, a spokesperson said.
Protesters raise their hands in front of police atop an armored vehicle in Ferguson, Mo. on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014. On Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014, a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in the St. Louis suburb. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, J.B. Forbes)

By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

WASHINGTON  From boots, binoculars and body armor to mine-resistant trucks, helicopters and rifles, used military equipment stockpiled by police agencies in Tennessee over the past decade includes the mundane and the menacing.

Law-enforcement agencies in the state have accumulated more than 47,000 pieces of used military gear and weaponry since 2006 under a Pentagon program that gives surplus equipment to local police.

The hardware's original value: $126 million, according to a database provided by the state Department of General Services.

Police say they need the used military gear to do their jobs, especially when terrorists can strike with weapons designed to kill and maim large numbers of people quickly and efficiently.

"It's vital for local law enforcement that we have this type of equipment to protect our citizens and the officers who serve them," said Clinton Police Chief Rick Scarbrough, second vice president of the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police.

But the build-up of military weaponry by local and state police departments, which accelerated after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, is cause for concern in some quarters.

Images of camouflage-clad officers using mine-resistant vehicles and combat-style assault weapons to quell protests in Ferguson, Mo., two years ago touched off congressional hearings on the militarization of local police and prompted President Barack Obama to issue an executive order making certain types of military gear off limits to law enforcement.

While the use of some military-type gear by police might be appropriate in certain circumstances, "there's a very difficult balance that we need to figure out how to handle," said U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville.

"I think very few people would want a federal police state," Duncan said. "In some ways, we've gone a little too far in that direction."

In Tennessee, the stash of used military equipment and weaponry that police officers have accumulated through the Pentagon program includes standard supplies, such as flashlights, tourniquets, antennas, bed sheets, canteens and helmets.

Other items involve more elaborate machines and weaponry, such as helicopters, mine-resistant trucks, all-terrain vehicles, boats and dozens of rifles and pistols.

The Memphis Police Department, for example, got a mine-resistant vehicle valued at $658,000 and five 7.62-millimeter rifles valued at $138 each.

The Nashville Metropolitan Police Department received an armored truck valued at $65,000, four observation helicopters valued at $92,290 apiece, three dozen 7.62-millimeter rifles valued at $138 each, and a dozen .45-caliber automatic pistols valued at $58 each.

The Jackson Police Department stockpiled $2.5 million worth of gear: a mine-resistant vehicle (value: $733,000), an observation helicopter ($92,290), two military-training helicopters ($833,400 each), more than six dozen 5.56-millimeter riles ($499 each) and more than a dozen 7.62 millimeter rifles ($138 apiece).

The helicopters aren't equipped with weaponry but are vital in searching for missing people and often can get to the scene of a car crash before a police squad can arrive, said Jackson Deputy Police Chief Barry Michael, who is in charge of operations for the department.

The mine-resistant vehicle hasn't been needed yet but would allow police to engage an active shooter without endangering officers, Michael said.

"It can take fire and pretty much stop any type of rifle we might encounter," he said.

Jackson police often get calls for assistance from surrounding rural counties, so the used military equipment could be deployed at times across the entire region, Michael said.

Besides protecting the public and officers, the used military hardware is also a good deal for taxpayers, Scarbrough said.

Police departments get the gear and weaponry for free. They pay a nominal fee to participate in the program and then must make arrangements to pick up and transport any of the equipment they are given. They also are responsible for maintaining the equipment.

For smaller departments, updating weapons and other basic equipment can be a financial drain, Scarbrough said.

"If we can find those resources on the federal government surplus fund, which have already been paid for by taxpayers, there's no need to buy new equipment," he said.

Still, concern that police are becoming too militarized has led to restrictions on the program.

The executive order that Obama signed last year barred the federal government from giving local police departments certain types of military gear, including tracked armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, ammunition larger than .50 caliber, and some types of camouflage uniforms.

Other equipment, including tactical vehicles, explosives and riot equipment, can be transferred to local police only if the departments certify that appropriate protocols and training requirements have been adopted and that other oversight measures are in place.

In the Tennessee General Assembly, state Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, and state Rep. Martin Daniel, R-Knoxville, filed bills last year that would have required local governing boards, such as city councils or county commissions, to approve the acquisition of military-style equipment by their law-enforcement agencies. Police would have been required to explain what equipment they wanted, why they needed it and how it would be used and maintained.

The lawmakers decided not to move forward with the legislation after Obama's order addressed many of their concerns, Daniel said.

While it's important to equip police officers to do their job, "we want to ensure that Tennessee law enforcement officers are trusted and respected in the community, not feared," he said.
SHARE Dave Darnell/The Commercial Appeal files Adding his name to a 12-foot by 25-foot card wishing Holiday Inns a Happy 25th Birthday is founder and chairman of the board Kemmons Wilson on Sept. 8, 1977. More than 8,000 employees and their families' special guests were invited to a party held at Libertyland to celebrate the event.

Sept. 10

25 years ago: 1991

Vacant lots in the Midtown corridor brought premium prices Monday as city officials tentatively accepted $580,839 in offers for 22 lots. If the sales are culminated, the City of Memphis will have recovered nearly 40 percent of its $1.46 million cost for nearly 200 lots in the abandoned Interstate 40 right-of-way. The sales contracts, which aren't final until they are signed by Mayor Dick Hackett, should be ready for Hackett's signature in a day or two, said Cindy Buchanan, director of planning for the Office of Planning and Development.

50 years ago: 1966

LITTLE ROCK  Far-reaching improvements, including the design and construction of new solitary confinement barracks to replace the disputed prison strap, may be undertaken soon at the scandal-hit Arkansas prison. There is ample cash available now and the legislative authority to use it. "We can at least partially do away with the strap," Governor Orval Faubus said, if solitary confinement cells could be built in two to three months.

75 years ago: 1941

WASHINGTON  United States relations with Nazi Germany reached the most critical stage of World War II last night as Axis sink-on-sight sea warfare, successively sending two United States-owned merchant vessels to the ocean bottom, directly challenged American freedom of the seas.

100 years ago: 1916

The Commercial Appeal's Woodrow Wilson campaign fund was opened for contributions yesterday in response to a telegram received from Henry Morgenthau, chairman of the finance committee of the Democratic national committee.

125 years ago: 1891

CHICAGO  The sensation of the Board of Trade was the slump in corn. During the early part of the session the market had been weak, but the decline was not of much importance until the last hour, when the bottom went out of it on a rumor that the clique was beginning to unload.
By Jennifer Pignolet of The Commercial Appeal

The Germantown Board of Mayor and Aldermen will vote Monday on the purchase of 31 acres for the site of a fourth Germantown Municipal School District elementary school.

The purchase from Regency Homebuilders of the $1.1 million parcel near the corner of Winchester and Crestwyn Drive would be the first step in the citys second major capital project for its three-year-old school system.

The city is midway through a project to replace the portable classrooms at Riverdale School with 60,000 square feet of brick and mortar space. But with that project adding little extra capacity, school district and city officials have long acknowledged another building would be necessary.

Mayor Mike Palazzolo said the city chose the site on the southeast side of Germantown to serve the needs of students south of Poplar Avenue, where the district does not currently operate a school. About a third of the land would be used for a new city park adjacent to the school.

Theres a very limited amount of undeveloped property, Palazzolo said. This fits our needs and it fits the school districts needs.

Palazzolo estimated the cost of the new school at $18 million to $25 million. He said its too soon to talk about whether a tax increase will be required to pay for the new building, although he noted the Riverdale addition, at $11.5 million, did not necessitate a tax increase.

The south side of the city does have three schools within its borders, but they are operated by Shelby County Schools. In May, the city proposed purchasing two of the schools  Germantown Elementary and Middle  from SCS for $5 million. The county school district declined the offer, not wanting to pre-empt a facilities master plan the administration expects to complete and release this fall.

Palazzolo said building a new elementary school does not mean the city is giving up on acquiring one or both of the namesake Germantown schools.

Hopefully well continue the dialogue with SCS, Palazzolo said, adding that the schools may come available in the next couple years.

Shelby County Schools said in an emailed statement Friday there has been no discussion between Superintendent Dorsey Hopson and his board about a different future for the Germantown schools.

Last year, less than 10 percent of the elementary and middle school students were Germantown residents, the district said in the email. Without additional facilities in the area we would not have classrooms to serve the students. We know there is a great deal of pride in these schools and community.

Germantown Superintendent Jason Manuel said capacity issues continue to be a problem as new families move into the city. The area around the land where the new school would go is slated for housing development.

This will help us with our current growth issues because we currently have 500 students over our optimal capacity level at the elementary grade bands, he said.

Another 500 new students are expected to move into the district in the next few years, he said.

The district has been phasing out nonresidents from its schools, who were allowed to stay after zoning lines were redrawn in 2013 following Germantowns secession from SCS. Manuel said no new transfer students were allowed into the school district this year unless they had a sibling who was a student or a parent working for the district.
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Tony Barba

Cordova

Almost all of us are able to remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001, when the most horrific attack on American soil was perpetrated by radical Islamic jihadists who murdered 2,996 innocent people and injured more than 6,000 others.

Yet, the distractions of everyday life have clouded our memories. The initial shock as we viewed the images of the twin towers engulfed in flames and billowing smoke. The absolute gut-wrenching, tearful moments as we watched our precious fellow citizens plunge to their deaths to avoid incineration created by burning jet fuel. The stream of bad news that never seemed to abate, which included multiple airplanes hijacked and rammed into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and forced by heroic passengers to crash into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And finally, the collapse of the twin towers.

Americas exceptionalism was on display in the aftermath of the attack. President George W. Bush showed a calmness and resolve that assured America that the evil jihadists would be brought to justice. Churches overflowed with parishioners mourning the loss of life, praying for survivors and providing financial aid. Volunteers from across our great country poured into New York City to assist in the cleanup.

Americans were once again proud to display the red, white and blue throughout their cities, towns and rural areas. Finally, as America today endures corrosive attacks from within and from without, maybe it is time to stand up once again and shout USA, USA, USA!
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By James Jay Carafano

We are taught that wars are linear. They aren't.

In history textbooks, wars break out on the first page and end on the last. Textbook wars have clear turning points and inevitable outcomes.

Real wars are different. They are fierce, constantly shifting competitions, with innumerable advances and setbacks. Te outcome is always uncertain.

The war that began on Sept. 11, 2001, is a real war. Its progress has been anything but sure, and the outcome remains in doubt. One thing, however, is clear: The nature of this war has changed dramatically since the Twin Towers fell, and America is not keeping up.

As the ashes settled in Manhattan and at the Pentagon, Americans had two grave concerns. One was a shadowy terrorist organization called al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, longed to establish a new caliphate. The main obstacles were the existing regimes in the Middle East, propped up, he believed, by the United States.

Bin Laden saw America as a paper tiger  one that would withdraw if attacked. And so, he attacked. After 9/11, his strategy remained unchanged: He aimed to find more ways to hit America with bigger and more spectacular strikes.

America's second grave concern was that al-Qaida or other radical groups might gain access to weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical or biological weapons that they would be unafraid to use.

These twin concerns are what launched the global war on terrorism and two long protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At home, the U.S. also implemented a swath of domestic counterterrorism measures  everything from implementing a color-coded terror alert system to standing up a massive Department of Homeland Security.

In the years that followed, the fears about terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction went unrealized. Meanwhile, al-Qaida was beaten back in Afghanistan and again in Iraq, where the terrorist group used the post-Saddam Hussein chaos to spark an uprising centered on the country's Sunni minority tribes.

At the same time, the domestic security measures were proving to be highly controversial. Some, like the color-coded alerts, were found to be useless  indeed, little more than comical. But there was no question the U.S. had become a much harder target for terrorists than it was on 9/11. The ability of foreign terrorists to infiltrate the homeland and execute coordinated attacks as directed from abroad dropped dramatically. It remains low to this day.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he discarded much of the war on terror rhetoric but continued many of the same polices. The military focus remained on tracking down and killing bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.

The following year, however, Obama introduced a dramatic shift in counterterrorism policy. Though he continued the mission of taking out "core" al-Qaida operatives, he began withdrawing U.S. from direct action, particularly in the Middle East. He withdrew forces from Iraq, without making a serious effort to negotiate a status of forces agreement that would have allowed them to stay. He also announced his intent to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the U.S. played an ambivalent role in the Arab Spring. Previously, U.S. administrations had supported pro-democracy freedom movements throughout the world. But now  starting with the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran 2009 and continuing through to the aftermath of the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, to the Syria revolt and the Muslim Brotherhood's aborted reign in Egypt  the U.S. stood virtually silent on the sidelines.

The regional turmoil  combined with the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a half-hearted "surge" in Afghanistan and a hands-off attitude toward postwar Libya  created space for a resurgence of terrorist activity.

Various Islamist organizations have flourished in the power vacuum. The most high profile threat is the Islamic State, which stormed into Iraq in 2014 and declared the historical caliphate reborn. Its stunning success on the battlefield, combined with its winning Islamist narrative, enabled it to attract tens of thousands of fighters from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Quickly, the organization won pledges of allegiance from groups across the region and established a worldwide presence  even as the administration blithely dismissed it as "a JV team."

The face of the Islamic State looks different in different parts of the world. While it fields armies in Iraq and Syria, in the U.S. it provides motivation rather than manpower. Its focus here is to "inspire" individuals to plan and carry out their own acts of terrorism.

Unlike 9/11, virtually all of the terrorist plots we see today are "homegrown," designed and carried out by people who live here  and have been inspired to kill their neighbors. The number of plots, successful attacks, and casualties has risen dramatically since Obama's tenure. Since Jan. 1, 2015, U.S. authorities have uncovered at least 25 domestic terror plots, making it the most active period of Islamist terrorist activity in the U.S. since 9/11.

Global trends look similar. According to the Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics & Peace, terrorist attacks soared 80 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year. There are more terrorists  and more people dying from terrorism  than a decade ago.

And it's not just the Islamic State. Al-Qaida has quietly rebuilt its terror network. Unlike IS, the "new" al-Qaida does not seek to not draw the attention of the U.S. As one key al-Qaida leader warned his colleagues: "Better for you to be silent. " Al-Qaida's strategy is to let IS draw the ire of the U.S. while it expands its influence in the shadows.

The sad reality is that, back in 2008, America and the rest of the West were winning the war on terror. But once we had the upper hand, we relaxed our grip, giving the global Islamist insurgency a chance to revive, recover and reinvent itself.

Today, the war rages on, although the enemy's tactics are far different here on the home front as well as abroad. Regardless of who wins the White House in November, the next American president will be a war president.

And he or she will need to adjust America's strategy to deal successfully with this ever-evolving threat.

James Jay Carafano is a vice president at the Heritage Foundation and directs the think tank's research on national security and foreign policy issues. He wrote this for Tribune News Service.
Despite reports that brick-and-mortar retails day is done, studies show people overwhelmingly prefer to shop in physical stores. But todays real-world retailers must provide the kind of optimized experiences shoppers have become accustomed to online. Fortunately, there are a number of innovative technologies that can help you modernize your retail operations and provide a customer experience to rival even the biggest brands.

1. Get bullish for beacons

Beacons are a great way deepen customer engagement with your retail store. Mounted to walls or ceilings, these small wireless devices can send relevant messages via Bluetooth to nearby smartphones that have the right app. Retailers have used them to reach out to shoppers in-store, pushing everything everything from welcome messages when they walk in the door to exclusive offers and recommendations as they browse the aisles. They can also be used to shepherd shoppers through the store and ensure they find the items theyre looking for.

2. Take the transaction to the customer

Nothing makes shoppers abandon purchases faster than long, slow checkout lines. Implementing a mobile point-of-sale (POS) systemwhere tablet-toting sales associates bring the point of purchase to the customeris one of the easiest ways to speed up the checkout process. But the strategy has benefits beyond line busting. Armed with a mobile POS device, staff can check item pricing and inventory for a shopper without leaving the sales floor. The ability to check out customers in the aisles also gives retail staff more opportunity to make product recommendations, employ up-sell strategies, and generally provide more personalized customer service.

3. Streamline scheduling with software

Shift-scheduling challenges can quickly undermine the best customer service strategy. Managers can overcome the most common of these by switching to cloud-based employee scheduling software. These applications easily match available employees with open shifts, alert you to scheduling conflicts, and allow you to turn schedules into templates for easy reuse. They also empower employees to pick up, drop, or swap shifts with or without manager approval. And you can keep them informed and accountable with scheduling notifications via email, text, or in-app messages.

4. Embrace analytics

Who are your customers? How often do they come in? What products are they most interested in? You can answer these and other questions by using a retail analytics solution. These programs analyze data collected from video camera feeds, beacons, Wi-Fi, POS systems and other components of your stores infrastructure and organize and present it in easily digestible reports and graphs. With the insights you gain, you can improve everything from your marketing to your staffing strategies to provide a more satisfying customer experience.

Whether youre targeting new tech to ramp up retail sales, new strategies to support business trends, or new equipment to streamline the office, success in business today is all about innovative solutions. Thats why HP PageWide - an entirely new category in business printing  is making waves.For businesses seeking advanced printing solutions, only HP PageWide printers can deliver the fastest speeds, energy efficiency, and affordable color printing. It all adds up to best-in-class cost of ownership.
Samsung Electronics woes mounted Friday with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urging consumers to power down and stop charging or using their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, after reports of the overheating and bursting of the lithium-ion battery in the device in some cases.

The statement by the CPSC comes a day after the Federal Aviation Administration advised passengers not to turn on, charge or stow away their devices in checked baggage when on board aircraft. Three airlines in Australia, including Qantas, its unit Jetstar and Virgin Australia, have also prohibited their passengers from using or charging the Galaxy Note 7 during flight.

The incidents relating to the Note 7 smartphones have occurred both while charging and during normal use, CPSC said.

The agency, which is charged with protecting the public from risk of injury or death linked with consumer products under its jurisdiction, is working with Samsung to formally announce an official recall of the device.

Samsung last week stopped sales of the Galaxy Note 7 and volunteered to replace the device for its customers following 35 cases reported worldwide as of Sept. 1 that suggested a battery cell issue in some of the devices.

On Friday, Samsung confirmed it was working with the CPSC on the battery cell issues of the Note 7. "We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note7s and exchange them now. said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, in a statement.

The company could delay replacement of the Note 7 phones with new ones, as it said that the replacement Note 7 phones will be issued to exchange program participants upon completion of the CPSC process. For such users, Samsung is offering through select carrier and retail outlets a loaner phone to use until new Note 7 devices are available.

In the interim, consumers can return their Note7 for another device, Samsung said.

The South Korean company offered last Friday to swap existing Note 7 phones for new phones to be available in the next week. But the CPSC said it would be looking into whether a replacement Note 7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or phone carriers to provide to consumers.

A U.S. Product Exchange Program from Samsung also offered to exchange current Galaxy Note 7 devices for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge and replacement of any Note 7 specific accessories, with a refund of the price difference between devices. To placate users, Samsung further offered consumers a US$25 gift card or bill credit from select carrier retail outlets.

Consumer Reports, a consumer advocacy group, had earlier recommended that CPSC be involved in an official recall program. Multiple retailers in the U.S. were still selling the phones last Friday after Samsungs announcement that it had stopped selling the phones, which would have been illegal under an official recall from the CPSC, it said.

On Friday, Consumer Reports welcomed the progress on an official recall, saying that besides making it illegal to sell the phone, it would lead to government oversight of the replacement program and provide clear guidance to consumers.
This mornings Telegraph reports the latest twist in the ongoing debate over Parliamentary repairs  a dire warning that Parliament might burn down if the decision isnt made as soon as possible.

It looks a bit like somebody is trying to bounce the Prime Minister into a decision before shed had an opportunity to master the brief on this issue. Happily, Theresa May does not seem the sort to allow this to work, and she should not.

Because transplanting the Commons and the Lords out of their current building is not something to be done lightly, for it risks doing irreversible damage to their historic character.

Much to the disgruntlement of some, Parliament is not just another place of work and moving it is not the same as temporarily moving the office of an ordinary company. It is one of the oldest and certainly most influential legislatures in the world, and with that comes a range of conventions and traditions that are much tied up with its location.

Its true that Parliament has sat outside the Palace of Westminster before. From 1941 both houses sat in Church House, now a conference centre, after the Palace was bombed during the Second World War. Getting them back into their proper places took until 1950, and in the process bequeathed us a new tradition: the still-popular Speakers Procession through Central Lobby.

But that was before the present modernisation fad had taken hold. In 1940 both the Conservatives and Labour were equally cognisant of the value of our unique national institutions (perhaps especially so, in light of the bombs).

After the war Clement Attlee would embark on a very radical agenda indeed, but it didnt include the sort of endless constitutional cosmetic surgery we see called for today. His Labour thought it natural to fit their ambitious efforts to transform the country alongside its traditions and quirks.

This attitude was summed up very well by George Orwell in his wartime tract The Lion and the Unicorn:

What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.

The modern lefts disconnect with patriotic feeling is oft discussed, not least by more perceptive left-wing commentators, but its constitutional outworking is often too narrowly analysed in terms of devolution. Equally significant is the desire for an entirely modern, rational Parliament.

Our great crime, in this view, is to do things in ways that theyre not normally done, and the solution is to import: separation of powers, elected senate, and a codified constitution from the US, plus coalition politics from continental Europe (the truly radical want this packaged in a horseshoe-shaped chamber in a glass building somewhere).

Not that this sort of attitude is confined to Labour, as John Bercow eschewing of the traditional Speakers robes attests. Such uniforms help to subsume the individual office holder into the role of the office, which is very important for a neutral, chairmanship role like that of Speaker.

Its surely no coincidence that that the ditching of this layer of anonymising officialdom has coincided with a counter-productively and inappropriately personalised Speakership, and Bercows successor would be well-served to reverse course.

This would provoke some squeals from the constitutionally fashion-conscious but thats all these complaints really amount to: fashion statements.

There is usually some talk of accessibility, but there is not a voter in the land who is sufficiently engaged to care about the Speakers robes, or the Lords ermine, who is not sufficiently engaged full-stop. If you asked voters to list their priorities most would likely run out of things to say before they thought to mention robing.

Some of our representatives think that the ceremonies, outfits, and Norman French, like the monarchy, are demeaning to grand and important people such as themselves.

In truth, that is very much part of their value: a humbling reminder to our rulers that they are simply the temporary custodians of a democratic inheritance grander and very much older than any of them, that serving your country in Parliament is not a normal job, and that if the British people want them to take an oath to an old lady more popular than any of them then thats what theyll bloody well do.

All of which is notwithstanding the fact that no amount of change will prevent future generations of reformists finding things to dislike (and future conservatives things to cherish, in fairness). Claims that any settlement is entirely rational and universal always prove Ozymandian in the end.

So May should take careful stock before she allows Parliament to vacate the Palace. And should she decide to do so, it should be on condition that the traditions and customs of both Houses are preserved and revived when they are transplanted back into their proper home.

The Prime Minister must demand, and receive, proper safeguards to that effect. No cost savings on preserving the body of our legislature are worth taking risks with the soul.
You're not supposed to use a home pressure cooker as a pressure fryer. You're just NOT. So if you try this recipe and something goes...
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The band literally came out of the gate stealing, as evidenced by the similarities between their breakthrough hit "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and the T. Rex classic "Get It On (Bang a Gong)":

In their defense, Prince totally copied the same T. Rex song for his massive hit single "Cream." We'd love to show you video evidence of that, but even if we could find the video, Prince would sue us into oblivion for posting it (and probably you for watching it).

But we digress, let's get back to Oasis. Not only is the band prolific in their thievery, but they're incredibly diverse as well, not content to just steal from bands similar to them. That's not to say they don't steal from bands similar to them. They're basically a less talented version of the Beatles, after all. We're just saying they like to branch out a bit when it comes to who they steal from. For example, Stevie Wonder apparently noticed that the track "Step Out" sounded suspiciously like a classic song of his called "Uptight":

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We don't know what action Wonder took, but we know "Step Out" was included on early promotional copies of the album, but was mysteriously pulled at the last minute, and when the song finally surfaced, they were sure to list Stevie Wonder as one of the songwriters. Seriously, how did they think they'd get that by him? Stevie Wonder is blind, so he undoubtedly has superhuman hearing.

But if stealing from Stevie Wonder seems like a stretch, give a listen to the melody of this Oasis song and see if it sounds like something you might have heard before:

Does that sound familiar to you at all? If not, it probably just means you were born sometime after the 1970s. Most everyone else will recognize that melody as one belonging to a massively popular Coke commercial:

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So, you know, give Oasis credit for stealing in a think-outside-the-box sort of way, at least.
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House Republicans and their New Dem/Blue Dog allies have made crippling and chipping away at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) their top priority and they are always looking for opportunities to hamper the agencies operations. Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee, along with right-wing Democrats on the committee who work for Wall Street-- like Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), John Delaney (New Dem-MD), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), David Scott (New Dem-GA) and Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)-- have been busy little bees working to chip away at Dodd-Frank protections, especially those that are part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Almost a year ago Elizabeth Warren said she wasn't surprised "that the big banks and Republicans are attacking me or the CFPB. After all, in just four years, the brand-new consumer agency has already forced the biggest financial companies to return more than $11 billion directly to the people they cheated. And even on Wall Street, $11 billion is real money. But I am surprised by just how bold and shameless these new attacks are." Here's a misleading Orwellian TV ad the banksters financed to attack the CFPB at the time:













This week, exactly what the Republicans and New Dems were trying to prevent happened-- and spectacularly so. The CFPB forced a major campaign donor for corrupt members of Congress, Wells Fargo, to pay a $185 million fine for stealing from its customers . The bank was caught systematically using "illegal sales practices that included the opening of unauthorized duplicate accounts and credit cards by employees in order to meet sales quotas" without informing the customers.

"Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses," said CFPB director Richard Cordray. "Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed."



In a statement, Wells Fargo said it "reached these agreements consistent with our commitment to customers and in the interest of putting this matter behind us."



...Cordray said: "Todays action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences."

The Wells Fargo executives who were behind the scandal, face exactly zero sanctions whatsoever. The big, scary fine comes from the company's shareholders, not the crooked executives, and the 5,300 employees being fired are all low-level working stiffs who, in opening a million and a half unauthorized accounts and issuing 600,000 unauthorized credit cards, were being terrorized by the higher-ups and thought they were following orders from their bosses who dangled bonuses under their noses and threatened them with unemployment if they didn't follow the implied orders in a pressure-cooker culture that was first exposed in 2013.





The CFPB order doesn't include any provisions for Wells Fargo to admit any wrong-doing. Yes, there was a public apology, but no sanctions on the guilty and no admission that the company did anything wrong. This shouldn't be over. The Department of Justice and the SEC should open investigations and prosecute the real culprits so that it isn't just low-level tellers who are made the scapegoats. And if the banksters want to maintain the fiction that they didn't know, then, clearly the bank is too big to manager and has to be broken up into more manageable pieces. That could never happen under an Obama presidency, of course; that's not what they do. What about under President Hillary?





So far this cycle, Wells Fargo's PAC has contributed $847,200 to federal candidates, 66% to Republicans and 34% to Democrats. They particularly target their bribes towards members of Congress well-placed to help them create a regulatory environment that allows them to cheat their customers with impunity, the way Wells Fargo was caught doing.





Sean Duffy always bragged how he'd take an ax to agencies that protect consumers

Wells Fargo's biggest 2016 bribe was paid to Sean Duffy (R-WI), the extraordinarily crooked chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, who is the only member of either house of Congress to get over $10,000. Notorious Wall Street puppets like Speaker Paul Ryan, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, Budget Committee chairman Tom Price, Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, Senate Agriculture Committee's Chair of the Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management and Trade John Boozman and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer each "only" got $10,000 pops this cycle but Duffy, whose subcommittee has done more to enable Wells Fargo's criminal behavior than any other congressional grouping took a nice fat $15,000 legalistic bribe from the very people he's in charge of exercising oversight over!





This year's dozen Members of the House Financial Services Committee who took the biggest bribes from Wells Fargo to make it easier for the banksters to get away with ripping off its customers:

 Sean Duffy (R-WI)- $15,000

 Ed Royce (R-CA)- $10,000

 Frank Lucas (R-OK)- $10,000

 Dennis Ross (R-FL)- $9,000

 Robert Pittenger (R-NC)- $7,500

 Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)- $7,500

 Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- $7,500

 Jeb Hensarling, chairman (R-TX)- $7,500

 Tom Emmer (R-MN)- $7,500

 Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)- $7,500

 Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)- $7,500

 French Hill (R-AR)- $7,500

Duffy has the misfortune of having an effective and determined opponent this cycle, Mary Hoeft, who beat her primary opponent last month with over 80% of the vote. When she read about the Wells Fargo settlement Thursday, she issued this brief statement: "Sean Duffy, chair of a congressional banking oversight subcommittee, accepted more than $400,000 in political contributions from bankers to use against me in this campaign. At the very least, Sean should have acknowledged the ethical dilemma he faced when accepting money from the bankers he oversees. That doesn't appear to be the case. He is doubling down on his efforts to cripple the Consumer's Financial Protection Bureau, the very agency designed by Elizabeth Warren and others to make sure Big Banks are never able to bring our economy to its knees again--an economy where 7 million Americans lost their homes to bankruptcy." Blue America has endorsed Mary Hoeft and you can help her replace the ethically unfit Duffy by tapping on the thermometer below:
Schumer and his pathetic Montana sock-puppet, Jon Tester, spent millions of dollars people contributed to the DSCC to defeat Democrats Joe Sestak and Alan Grayson. Early in the cycle, Schumer informed Bernie Sanders that if he interfered with Schumer's 4th rate candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida he would not be a committee chair when the next Senate convened. So now the Democrats are stuck with three inferior candidates-- Katie McGinty, Patrick Murphy and Ted Strickland-- who probably can't win their races against 3 terribly flawed Republicans-- Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio and Rob Portman-- who should be easy to knock off in a presidential election year. Sestak, Grayson and Sittenfeld probably would be in the middle of spirited campaigns pitting a clash of ideas right now and there's a better than even chance all three would have beaten their weak Republican opponents. Thanks to Schumer and Tester the GOP may well keep all three seats, which will be catastrophic for the Democrats' hope to win the Senate in 2016 or-- if everything else goes their way-- a sure-fire incentive for the GOP to filibuster everything until McConnell is back in charge in 2018.





Huffington Post polling averages shows Clinton ahead in all three states, Schumer's three disastrous Senate candidates are losing. Clinton is beating Trump in Florida 46-42%, but Rubio is beating Murphy 47-41%. Clinton is beating Trump in Ohio 43-41%, but Portman is slaughtering Strickland 46-39%. Clinton is beating Trump in Pennsylvania 46-40%, but Toomey and McGinty are in a dead-heat. Schumer is about to be handed the Democratic leadership on a silver platter. The Senate Dems would be better off hanging him a harikari (or seppuku) tanto ... pronto. Althoughpolling averages shows Clinton ahead in all three states, Schumer's three disastrous Senate candidates are losing. Clinton is beating Trump in Florida 46-42%, but Rubio is beating Murphy 47-41%. Clinton is beating Trump in Ohio 43-41%, but Portman is slaughtering Strickland 46-39%. Clinton is beating Trump in Pennsylvania 46-40%, but Toomey and McGinty are in a dead-heat.





The Ohio race, as anyone who watched the primary would have predicted, is the worst mess. Strickland is like a barely animated walking corpse whose past conservatism has come back to bite him in the ass. He's a nightmare from the past Ohio voters don't want to deal with and instead of Hillary's coattails dragging him to victory, his reverse coattails could drag her down. His campaign, like the candidate, is a total mess . Seeing the futility of spending money on him, the DSCC cancelled millions of dollars in ad buys. And yesterday, Strickland's own campaign followed suit, canceling ads scheduled to have gone up in Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown over the next two weeks. Sittenfeld is the opposite of a corpse and would have been running an energetic and inspiring campaign instead of sitting around hoping for an anti-Trump tsunami. This is Chuck Schumer and his know-it-all arrogance at work.





Toomey is taking on the Trump problem head-on. As Steven Dennis explained yesterday for Bloomberg readers, "Toomey knows he has a Donald Trump problem. Hes just hoping his opponent has an even bigger Hillary Clinton problem. As the only endangered Republican incumbent yet to back or reject his partys nominee, Toomey is campaigning as an independent voice who can be a check on whoever is president. Hes also working to tie his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, as closely as possible to Hillary Clinton, whose unfavorable ratings rival those of Trump."

"There is no question that Katie McGinty will never stand up to Hillary Clinton, but I will, and Ill stand up to Donald Trump if I think hes wrong," he said in an interview last month.



Toomey is trying to find the middle ground by motivating disgruntled Republicans and independents to vote without alienating Trumps passionate backers. Barring a Trump comeback, his message of independence might be the best he can do in the state that has emerged as a key battleground for control of the Senate, as well as the presidency.



Pennsylvania is already the second most expensive Senate race this year by some measures, with campaigns and outside groups spending an estimated $31.8 million on advertising on the general election so far, according to data from ad-tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.



Toomey has irritated Trump fans by withholding his endorsement of the nominee and many have peppered him at events across the state for his stance. But he hasnt gone beyond saying he wont vote for Hillary Clinton.



The senator is reflecting where a sizable, key bloc of voters stands, particularly in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs-- not enamored with Clinton but not sold on Trump.



...Like Senator Marco Rubio in Florida, Toomey emphasizes he will be a check on whoever becomes president, and he dinged McGinty for failing to name a single issue where she disagreed with Clinton at a press conference last month.



"I have played that role. I have separated myself from my party when I thought it was wrong," he added. He touts his long fight against spending earmarks, which were prevalent a decade ago before being banned, and his failed bipartisan push for expanded background checks for gun purchases.

This slug-fest is going to go on and on 'til election day, with all the worst right-wing elements in American politics, like the Kochs and the NRSC, in the mud and muck with the DSCC and EMILY's List, the worst garbage on the Democratic side. If the outside groups cancel each other out, Toomey will probably rout McGinty, possibly the least qualified candidate running for Senate this year other than Patrick Murphy... which brings us to the latest election news out of Florida.





is as terrible as Rubio.. and, man, is that terrible. This is the one race where there is, literally, no lesser evil. (If I was a Florida voter I'd cast my ballot for independent Steve Machat.) And, now that they got rid of Grayson-- who Wall Street puppet Schumer was so scared to see in the Senate that he would rather lose the chance to win the majority than have anyone as brilliant and effective as Grayson challenging him-- they're At least in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Strickland and McGinty for all their obvious flaws, are the lesser of two evils for Democratic voters. Strickland isn't as terrible as Portman and McGinty isn't as terrible as Toomey-- close but not as terrible. Murphy, on the other hand,as terrible as Rubio.. and, man, is that terrible. This is the one race where there is, literally, no lesser evil. (If I was a Florida voter I'd cast my ballot for independent Steve Machat.) And, now that they got rid of Grayson-- who Wall Street puppet Schumer was so scared to see in the Senate that he would rather lose the chance to win the majority than have anyone as brilliant and effective as Grayson challenging him-- they're willing to cut the embarrassingly pathetic Murphy loose . Or... maybe it's just a shot over the bow of the family yacht, Miss Cocktails, and a threat for Murphy's father to pay up the other $4 million he promised the DSCC for backing his feeble son. Daddy Murphy gave Schumer and Reid's Senate Majority PAC a million dollars as a downpayment for the endorsement and now they're squeezing him for the rest. Squeezing? Well the DSCC cancelled their first week of TV ads for Florida, just like they did for Ohio.





Columbus Dispatch, Schumer's lackey at the DSCC, Tom Lopach, was in a private meeting with a trade association a few days ago where he went through Schumers top targets. On the list were Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Missouri and North Carolina. Not on the list: Ohio and Florida! According to a report from the, Schumer's lackey at the DSCC, Tom Lopach, was in a private meeting with a trade association a few days ago where he went through Schumers top targets. On the list were Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Missouri and North Carolina. Not on the list: Ohio and Florida!

[A]ccording to a source who attended the meeting, Lopach said Strickland could only win "if a wave comes" in, a reference to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton winning by a strong margin in Ohio.



When asked why Ohio is not among the likely states for Democrats to win, Lopach reportedly replied, "Portman has run a damn fine race."



"The rest, Ill have to tell you over a drink," Lopach added, the source said.

Blue America is backing just two candidates running for Republican-held Senate seats this year. How about helping them out with $5 or $10 each? They're both real progressive Democrats, not craven, worthless Schumercrats like Strickland, McGinty and Murphy. Please click on the thermometer below and give what you can:
There are plenty of reasons-- both real and concotted out of the thin air between the ears of your typical GOP hate monger -- to be repulsed at the idea of voting for Hillary Clinton. (Personally, I'd never do it.) But there arelegitimate reasons for anyone to cast a ballot to elect someone of Senor Trumpanzee's caliber and character to the presidency of the United States.

Trump fans may not know what "diverse" means but they know they wantof it... and that's what they interpret making America great again to mean. And if that wasn't just fine with Senor Trumpanzee, he wouldn't have brought alt-right sociopath Steven Bannon on to run his campaign. Sure the vast majority of Trump fans-- even the occasional ones you see who climbed into a suit and tie for his rallies-- are two-digit IQ losers who hate the world and their miserable existences and want to see it all end. But then there really are the alt-right leaders portrayed this weekend by Betsy Woodruff at the

In a windowless room in a swanky hotel half a block from the White House on Friday afternoon, three of the most visible leaders of the Alt-Right movement held a two-hour press conference to discuss their affection for Donald Trump and their hopes for a white homeland. The white supremacist Alt-Right movement has grown over the last eight years or so, incubated in racist forums like StormFront and meme-loving corners of the internet like 4chan and 8chan. Its members generally share a disdain for political correctness, feminism, zionism, Jews in general, immigration (especially Hispanic and Muslim immigration), and anyone who criticizes them for holding these views.





And the Alt-Right won substantial mainstream media attention when Hillary Clinton gave a speech last month excoriating Donald Trump for some of his staffers ties to it. Clintons team zeroed in on the campaigns new CEO, Steve Bannon, who formerly helmed a website that he himself once described as the platform for the Alt-Right. And prominent Alt-Right figures, including two of the men who helmed Fridays press conference, told The Daily Beast last month that they were delighted Trump hired him.





The three Alt-Right leaders who gathered in D.C. this afternoon made two things very clear: They think white people are genetically predisposed to be more moral and intelligent than black people, and they do not want to share their envisioned utopian ethno-state with folks of the Jewish persuasion. Theres some disagreement in the Alt-Right on what they refer to as the Jewish question. But the big take-away was that Jews are suspicious.





Jared Taylor, who founded the white supremacist American Renaissance site, explained the Alt-Right as predicated entirely on the belief that some races are inherently superior to othersthe movement, he said, is in unanimity in rejecting the idea that the races are basically equivalent and interchangeable. There are genetic differences in race that make some races more ethical and intelligent than others, he said. Thats what the Alt Right is all about.





...One more Alt-Right platform plank: that white people, as a group, have discrete interests that are different from other races, and that they should push for those interests. In practice, this means the Alt-Right thinks school integration was bad and Apartheid was good. Later in the press conference, Taylor said he thinks white people are more moral and more intelligent than black people.





...[T]hey just want white people to have their own homeland.





With no Jews.





Spencer in particular fixates on the homeland idea.





The Alt-Right needs to aspire to something, even if that dream wont come true in his lifetime-- and that means they should aim to build an ethno-state for just whites. And Spencer made it clear that white-only means Jews arent invited. They have their own identity, and it isnt white-slash-European, and thats that.





Jews are Jews, he said.





He added that his whites-only utopia would still have a good relationship with Israel.





These people (I hope) sound sad and racist and antisemitic and deeply confused to you. But they dont sound that way to Breitbart, the right-wing news site to which Trump has given countless exclusives and from which he pulled his new campaign boss. The site has seen its traffic skyrocket over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, rapidly gaining clout in the conservative movement and among Trump-loving voters. The site says it had 31 million visitors in July. And in March, it ran a piece describing Taylor, Spencer, and their ilk as fearsomely intelligent, and praising them for speaking truth to power or whatever.





So the Alt-Right-- helmed by the trio who gathered at The Willard on Fridayis the most extreme example of a shift on the American right: away from a nostalgic conservative focus on restoring the values of the Founders, and towards a forward-focused nationalism that prioritizes drastic limits on immigration and open hostility to globalism. Trump isnt a white nationalist. But he speaks their language. And they dig it.
- by Tracy B. Ann





Last Saturday, security for the Dakota Access pipeline used mace and dogs to attack peaceful Native American protesters from Standing Rock Reservation.





The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is fighting on many fronts to stop this pipeline from coming so near their land.. Through legal means they are seeking an injunction, through media they are seeking support for advocacy. They are marching in the streets and making their voices heard.





It's a complicated and convoluted story that I can barely begin to comprehend, so let me just lay out the little that I do understand. The application that Energy Transfers Partners submitted to build this pipeline is 800 pages long. I doubt anyone read the whole thing.





"Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners will build, own and operate the proposed $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline and plans to transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil fracked from the Bakken oil fields across four states to a market hub in Illinois. The pipelinealready facing widespread opposition by a coalition of farmers, ranchers and environmental groupswill cross 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries, according to Dakota Access, LLC ."





Marvin Nelson , state Rep for the 9th district in ND, and a candidate running for Governor, endorsed by Blue America , said it would probably be "hard to find someone who hadn't dropped the ball" in the approval process.





Problems from legal notices not being given, to engineers not consulting the Source Water Protection Program ; a regulatory group that is supposed to keep water safe. "They are the ones charged with this task, it shouldn't have to be the public's job."





The route for the pipeline doesn't make sense either. It goes through protected water areas. There were other paths it could have taken that would not have been in protected areas, so why not put it there?





As Marvin said "It doesn't take a historian to know that this part of the Cannonball River area was a Native American burial ground."





This protest has been going on for some time. On Friday, a burial site was found. Legal steps were immediately taken to stop further bulldozing; which should have been stopped long enough for the historical experts to come and investigate. Instead, Saturday morning, the pipeline company stopped working where they had been and skipped ahead 10 to 12 miles to bulldoze the burial site; which is a felony if done knowingly. This is when the protesters moved in to physically block the bulldozers.





Chase Iron Eyes , a candidate for the at-large congressional seat in ND, lives on Standing Rock Reservation. He says: "It's pretty shameful that North Dakota elected leadership isn't doing their part to mediate the greatest tribal event since Wounded Knee. They are not engaging tribal leadership, have set up road blocks, declared states of emergency, and imposed economic sanctions."

Chase Iron Eyes graduated from the University of North Dakota earning a bachelors degree in 2000 with a double major in Political Science and Native American Studies. Chase finished his legal training at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2007.



Having served as in-house counsel to various Tribal Nations in the Northern Plains since gaining admission to the South Dakota Bar, he went into private practice in 2011."



Iron Eyes drives through a road block every day to go to work. The local media is portraying the protesters as armed agitators, some even suggesting they have pipe bombs. The protesters at Standing Rock are very aware of public perception and are determined to protest peacefully.



Chase says "the media and leadership of North Dakota don't seem to be aware of how deeply committed the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon."

Marvin Nelson echoed that. After visiting the camp the protesters have set up, he said, "the protest was totally peaceful and the resolve of the people of Standing Rock was impressive. The current Governor is trying to ignore the Sioux Tribe, but they are not going away."




The dead fish is sold in a local market. Photo by VnExpress/Le Hoang

The fish raised for export purpose died as seawater turned red.

About 47 tons of fish were found dead at aquatic farms on September 8 in a bay near Ngoc Island, Nghi Son Commune, Tinh Gia District, Thanh Hoa northern central province.

The dead fish, worth about VND8 billion ($354,000), belong to 21 households in Nghi Son, according to Nghiem Xuan Dung, vice chairman of the commune. There are total 60 fish farm households in the bay.

We have raised fish in the bay for tens of years. Fish also died this time in previous years but this year we've seen the worst damage, said Tran Van Thac, a 60- year- old fish farmer. About 5 tons of fish, each weighing between 3.5-6 kg were killed.

Thac said the seawater in the bay turned red with abnormal scum on the surface before the fish died.

On Friday, representatives from Thanh Hoas Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Police and authorities of Tinh Gia District came to take samples in the bay to investigate the cause behind the fish deaths.

Initial conclusion from local authorities showed that the fish died because of lack of oxygen.

Earlier this year, Taiwanese Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Plant grabbed headlines for causing one of the biggest environmental disasters in Vietnamese history, killing tons of fish across four coastal provinces. The companys test-run led to the discharge of toxic substances into the sea, including phenol, cyanide and iron hydroxide.

Formosa has officially apologized to the Vietnamese people and paid $500 million in compensation to make up for the damage. The firm also promised to compensate local people for economic losses, help them find new jobs and subsidize clean-up activities.

Related news:

> Compensation from Taiwanese fish killer to reach Vietnamese fishermen next month

> Taiwanese fish killer completes $500 million compensation package
Bottles of Saigon beer and Hanoi Beer are seen displayed for sale at a mini-mart in Hanoi, Vietnam September 1, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Kham

45 percent of Vietnamese admitted to consuming alcohol.

With 77 percent of men and 11 percent of women admitting to drinking alcohol within 30 days prior to being surveyed, Vietnam is increasingly concerned about related health problems as well as traffic safety.

A study released yesterday by the Ministry of Health said that the rate of male drinkers increased by 11 percent while the rate of female went up by 6 percent compared to 2010 figures.

The study was carried out in all 63 provinces with the participation of some 4,000 Vietnamese aged between 18 and 69.

It revealed that 44 percent of men drank alcohol at a hazardous level, which means within 30 days, there was at least one time they drank more than 180 milliliters of hard wine or more than 6 cans of beer.

About half of the drinkers drove after two hours of drinking.

Doctor Pham Thi Hoang Anh, head of HealthBridge Canada in Vietnam, a non-governmental organization working in health improvement, said that its now easy for Vietnamese youngsters access alcohol. The country only bans commercials of drinks with alcohol content of 15 percent or higher.

Anh said policies to control alcohol consumption in Vietnam are not strict enough amid low prices of wine and beer.

Over the past decade, while global consumption of alcoholic beverages almost stayed the same, Vietnam was one of the few countries with rising trends, nearly quadruple the worlds average.

The doctor recommended that the government should consider passing the Law on Alcohol Control, which draft was initially planned for submission by the Ministry of Health in 2017 but it has now been delayed.

According to the World Health Organization, alcohol is one of the 10 leading causes of death worldwide, with 20 percent of drinkers dying of traffic accidents; 30 percent of cancer and 50 percent of cirrhosis.

In Vietnam, more than 40 percent of road fatalities or some 4,000 deaths were related to drunk driving last year, data from the Traffic Safety Committee showed.

Under the new law passed last August, any trace of alcohol found in a driver's body will result in a fine of up to $800.

On the supply side, domestic beer production has shown no sign of slowing down this year even though the government has imposed higher taxes on the beverage.

Related news:

> Da Nang could ban alcohol sales after 10 p.m.

> 15 million Vietnamese still sparking up the tobacco
Total 213 years in jail were given to 36 former bank employees.

A Vietnam court convicted 36 former bank employees, including the chairman, for stealing more than $400 million, an official said Friday, the largest sum ever pilfered from Vietnam's scandal-hit banking sector.

The bankers from the joint-stock Vietnam Construction Bank secretly withdrew money from clients' saving accounts, using the cash for loans or depositing it into their own accounts, reports said.

"The defendants were convicted Friday of deliberately breaking laws on economic management and violating bank lending activities," the Ho Chi Minh City court clerk told AFP.

"Former bank chairman Pham Cong Danh was given 30 years in jail. Others were sentenced to between 22 years in jail and three years probation," he added.

The bankers were responsible for losses of more than $400 million, "the greatest loss for the Vietnamese banking sector to date", state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

Vietnam's economic growth hit 6.7 percent last year, its fastest rate in five years, boosted by strong exports, foreign investment and buoyant domestic consumption.

But soaring public debts, bloated state-owned enterprises and rampant official corruption have made economic progress vulnerable.

The country's banking sector has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent years, with the high-profile arrests of wealthy businessmen and executives over allegations of corruption, embezzlement or incompetence.

Earlier this year, three senior former bankers and six securities officials were arrested over a fraud worth millions of dollars at the partly state-run MHB Bank.

In July last year police arrested the former chairman of state oil giant PetroVietnam over mistakes that allegedly led to the loss of a $38 million investment in Ocean Bank.

The troubled lender had been taken over by the government after being rocked by a major scandal of its own.

Ocean Bank's former chairman, Ha Van Tham, once one of Vietnam's richest businessmen, is now in detention, pending trial for violations of lending regulations, including approving millions of dollars of loans without proper collateral.

Related news:

> Vietnam's biggest bank sells stake to Singaporean investor

> Vietnam warns firms of email hacking, bank fraud risks

> Vietnam bank nearly falls victim of massive cyber theft like Bangladesh central bank
Cuba denounces US blockade still persists

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the US economic, financial and commercial blockade still persists, and caused Cuba damages for some 4.68 billion dollars last year alone.

At a press conference to present the report Cuba will take to the United Nations, Rodriguez stressed that the economic siege has lasted over half a century and it has a negative impact on the well-being of Cuban families and the socio-economic development of the country.

The Foreign Minister said the main losses for Cuba were in the export of services and goods, increased prices to products because the need to buy them in faraway markets, and the impossibility of using US dollars in its financial deals.

Cuba will introduce at the UN General Assembly next October 26 Resolution 70/5 under the name: Necessity to end the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States to Cuba.

Despite the improvement on the relations between Cuba and the US, the harm the blockade does to the Cuban people forces Cuba to present this resolution again, said the Minister . (acn)
The airplane has been staying at Noi Bai International Airport since May 2007.

Vietnams Ministry of Transport has proposed to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to allow the Airports Corporation of Vietnam to auction a Boeing 727-200 that has been left at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi for around 10 years.

The aircraft, which was previously owned by Cambodias Royal Khmer Airlines, has been parked at the airport since May 2007 following a technical malfunction, Vietnamplus reported Friday.

Noi Bai has sent several requests to the Cambodian carrier, asking them to remove it from the airport and pay related parking fees but to no avail.

In October 2014, the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) sent a notice to Cambodias Foreign Ministry and the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation of Cambodia (SSCA) asking them to take the plane back. The CAAV also posted the notice on its website in both Vietnamese and English, indicating that the airplane would be treated as an abandoned one if its owner does not take it back.

One month later, the SSCA replied that Cambodian authorities have revoked the license for operating the abandoned airplane previously granted to Royal Khmer Airlines. And the airplane has been removed from the list of aircrafts which carry Cambodias nationality since October 13, 2008. Therefore, the CAAV could handle the abandoned airplane according to Vietnams law.

In early June this year, an assessment team set up by the CAAV concluded that the airplane has been seriously degraded and it can't be recovered for normal operations.

Vietnams Ministry of Transport also asked the prime minister to allow the Airports Corporation of Vietnam to hire a consultant to set the starting price for the auction of the abandoned airplane.

In October last year, Vietnam Aviation Academy proposed to the Ministry of Transport and CAAV to allow it to use the abandoned aircraft for training activities.

Related news:

> Laser beams continue to threaten Vietnams aviation safety

> Heavy rains turn Saigon airport to seaport
These real PA creatures could become cryptids if we don't save them
A woman wearing a traditional hat, known as a non, la sits in a rice field outside Hoi An, Vietnam. Photo by Reuters/Jorge Silva

She is a pioneer in helping fellow female farmers in the Mekong Delta adapt to climate change by switching to a new production model.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific will honor Pham Thi Huan, a Vietnamese farmer, for "her outstanding agricultural production achievements in the context of increasing climate change challenges."

Huan is known to have helped many female farmers in the Mekong Delta switch to duck raising for eggs after growing rice and other crops has become difficult due to climate change. The initiative not only created jobs, it has also improved female farmers' standing in the community.

She's also been recognized by the Vietnamese Government for her active involvement in programs like "Support Association for People with Disabilities and Orphans and Everyone is the Same as well as "Dream House", a program by Ho Chi Minh Television to help farmers establish businesses.

The award will be presented at a ceremony held in Bangkok on October 17 to recognize farmers achievements under the theme Climate is changing, food and agriculture must too. This is the theme of the FAOs annual World Food Day (WFD) celebrations in the Asia-Pacific region which highlights how food and agriculture need to adapt to climate change to feed a growing global population in a sustainable way.

Pham Thi Huan or 'Ba Huan' (meaning Ms. Huan), from Long An Province in the Mekong Delta, will receive the Model Farmer award along with others from Fiji, Mongolia, Pakistan and Thailand.

Pham Thi Huan is general director of Ba Huan Company Ltd - one of the leading fresh egg suppliers in Vietnam. Photo by kinhtedothi.vn

Vietnam is considered one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise. Farmers in many parts of the Mekong Delta, known as the country's rice bowl, have been forced to abandon rice cultivation and adapt by switching to new cultivation models to cope with salt water intrusion and draughts.

In the first half of 2016, Vietnam was hit by what the U.N. penned the worst drought in almost a century, seriously affecting about two million people living in the southern and central regions of the country and resulting in losses totaling $669 million.

Related news:

> Vietnams agriculture sector miles behind China: official

> Vietnamese farmer reaps rewards on the grapevine

> UN backs Vietnam's call for $48.5 mln in aid to combat record drought
Enter the lions' den to discover the secrets of the beasts that will dance through the streets of Vietnam next week.

Last week was all about Vietnams National Day, and this week, all eyes are on the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar (September 15 in this year's Gregorian calendar).

Agreed to be second only to the Lunar New Year Festival when it comes to importance, the day is not short of festivities full of the Mid-Autumn spirit. Lion dancing (mua lan in Vietnamese) is arguably the strongest rival for the most expected thing on the night the moon shines the brightest.

The dance can be found across Asia but may have lost part of its exotic charm due to the rise of Chinatowns in cities worldwide where the performance has become common-place. Vietnam, which shares much of its culture with China, has lion dance crews on every street during the Mid-Autumn Festival, prowling to the drumbeat and claps and cheers of passers-by.

Just a tip: usually the idea of a lion stopping by at your house may not sound like the luckiest thing in the world, but in this instance prepare for a year of prosperity if a lion comes a-calling. Today, we guide you to the birthplace of these talismanic animals.

At the beginning of this lunar month, the traditional lion workshops in Hue are finishing up their proud products. The lion head molds are made from cement, and then layers of paper are added. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

The process starts as early as the second month of the lunar calendar (around February or March) so the costumes are ready right before the Mid-Autumn Festival, according to Nguyen Sinh Anh, 43, a Hue craftsman with 20 years of experience. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Paper used to make the lion head has to be soaked in water before being layered on the cement mold. The paper head will then dry until hard. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

The design is considered of the utmost importance and it's reserved for the best craftsmen. Handled wrongly, and everybody will have the "best" mid-autumn ever laughing at the dancing kitten. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Lions' eyes in the making. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Last check before shipping. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

At the moment, there are over 10 families making lion heads in Hue. Each mid-autumn, Anhs workshop churns out an average of 3,000 lion heads, shipped mostly to Hanoi and Nghe An Province. The price for a standard head is around VND35,000 ($1.57), but some of the larger bespoke designs can claim up to $50. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh

Now that you know how it's made, let's see how it rolls.

Photo by Thai Pham Tuyet Phuong/VnExpress "Vocations in 21st century" competition

Photo by Thai Pham Tuyet Phuong/VnExpress "Vocations in 21st century" competition

Photo by Thai Pham Tuyet Phuong/VnExpress "Vocations in 21st century" competition

Related news:

> Glass paper lanterns 'reborn' in Saigon

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> Vietnamese burn private jets, fancy cars and villas for their ancestors
What a bold, confident and truly conservative vision for the future of Britain Theresa May set out yesterday!

In her first major speech, the Prime Minister pledged to put the interests of ordinary, working class people first, to stand up to vested interests and turn this country into a great meritocratic nation.

The Mail couldnt agree more with her laudable aims. But to succeed she will need the kind of courage and implacable will not seen in our politicians since the last time a woman was in 10 Downing Street.

For Theresa May to succeed, she'll need the courage not seen in Downing Street since Maggie

Like Mrs Thatcher in her fight against union militancy, Mrs May faces powerful opponents as she attempts to kick-start stagnating social mobility and improve Britains schools.

So sharply have they declined in recent years that British teenagers rank below those in Vietnam, China and Poland in maths, science and literacy.

Equally shameful is the collapse in social mobility, on which Britains schools rank among the lowest in developed countries. For youngsters growing up today on sink estates, a new grammar school could be their only escape route.

All this is anathema to the teaching establishment Blob, which resisted former Education Secretary Michael Goves important reforms at every turn.

This weeks opposition to Mrs Mays grammar school proposals, from the education unions, academia and the Labour Party was as knee jerk as it was bitter. But their suggestion that grammar schools create segregation is utterly wrong-headed. Grammars can be great engines of social mobility, as millions of baby-boomers can attest.

The real segregation scandal, of course, is that good English schools are dominated by the well-off, who buy their way into ever smaller catchment areas.

And in any case, a fair reading of Mrs Mays speech reveals an education blueprint which is explicitly not a return to the binary 1960s system and secondary moderns. New grammars will have to prove they are taking bright children from poorer backgrounds and entry at 14 and 16 as well as 11, to allow for late developers.

And why shouldnt large independent schools use their expertise to help new State schools, or take on more pupils from deprived backgrounds?

Similarly, universities will have to use their expertise to help improve school standards. This is infinitely preferable to the current insidious social engineering in which entrance exams are dumbed down for poor pupils.

Despite the clear merits of Mrs Mays proposals, the road ahead will be difficult.

To face down The Blob, opponents within her own party and the ideological objections from Liberal Democrats and Labour Peers, Mrs May will need the tenacity of the Gods.

A very bad bet

This newspaper has long campaigned against the proliferation of fixed-odds betting terminals, which are so addictive theyre known as the crack cocaine of gambling machines.

Like Labours super casinos which the Mail successfully campaigned against, they condemn addicts families to ruin. Despite repeated promises, David Cameron failed to limit their damage.

This newspaper has campaigned against fixed-odds betting terminals which are known across the industry as the 'crack cocaine' of gambling allowing people to bet 100 at a time

So the Mail welcomes Culture Secretary Karen Bradleys review of these pernicious machines, which allow gamblers to bet 100 a time. Like Mrs Mays grammar school policy, it appears to be a genuine attempt to right a social wrong tolerated for too long.
Has sunbathing ever been quite such a hot political issue? French politicians  and British ones, too  have spent all summer arguing over a womans right to wear a burkini on the beach.

Here in Germany, in Chancellor Angela Merkels own backyard, there has been a pretty toxic debate over a womans right to wear nothing at all.

People are angry. Its always been in our culture to sunbathe naked. Now our naturist beaches have to have signs which say No Photography in Arabic because these so-called refugees are filming them, says Jens Schneider, a local candidate and activist for Alternative Fur Deutschland  Alternative For Germany  in Mrs Merkels home state.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is under considerable political pressure in her home state due to the growing unpopularity of her long-standing open door immigration policy

Rival political parties have used high profile attacks by suspected Muslim asylum seekers on German women as part of a high profile advertising campaign ahead of local elections

In Botenhagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, in north east Germany, a sign has been posted in Arabic on the beach warning people against taken pictures of people swimming nude

This is the new, presentable Hard Right party which did not even exist five years ago, but which has just notched up a very substantial victory  beating Mrs Merkels own party in her own backyard.

It is the clearest illustration to date of the substantial shift in German public opinion since the Chancellor opened the countrys borders last year, welcoming well over a million migrants from all over the world, regardless of their need for refuge.

In doing so, she has triggered the creation of an utterly plausible, hardline, Euroscpetic, anti-immigrant movement that makes Ukip sound like a Lib Dem picnic.

Founded in 2013 by a group of academics, intellectuals and economists who wanted to leave the Euro, the AFD has since enjoyed soaring popularity through its furious opposition to the countrys open door migration policy. Each time one of Germanys 16 states has had an election, the AFD has proved itself to be a serious force.

But nothing has quite matched the shock last weekend when it beat Mrs Merkels own CDU party in her home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The new party has virtually wiped out the Far-Right NPD party along the way. This neo-Nazi outfit had been running an aggressively anti-Muslim campaign, one which also involved lady sunbathers.

Their posters show a model looking out to sea wearing nothing more than a tiny thong. She has not noticed the two, crouched figures ogling her from behind. Their black hoodies say Rapefugee. The slogan above says: Tourists welcome. Out with failed asylum-seekers and Islamists.

Anti-immigrant graffiti has been daubed in prominent locations across the town

But their brutish extremism didnt impress the electorate. At last weekends poll, their vote collapsed and they lost all their state MPs (their last in Germany).

That, though, is a small crumb of comfort to Mrs Merkel and to German liberal opinion. Because the thuggish NPD has been superceded by something much more threatening to the status quo.

The metropolitan elites, who have thrived on the centrist consensus politics of the last 70 years, are appalled by the rise of the AFD. Here is a party discussing taboo topics  deporting migrants and side-lining religious groups  but which has suddenly become burgerlich (socially respectable).

Whats more  horror of horrors  many of its leadership not only want to leave the Euro but the European Union itself, raising the hitherto inconceivable spectre of Dexit (as a Deutschland departure would be known).

The current German constitution might preclude a referendum  but that can be reformed. AFD leaders have said it should be a key issue at next years national election, a view shared by the ex-Communist Left Party (the third largest in the German parliament).

And then what? Two years ago, this sort of talk was strictly for fruitcakes. Now polls put support for a referendum as high as 40 per cent ...

So what on earth is going on?

Former radio presenter Leif-Eric Holm, pictured outside the local parliament building believes Germany could prosper if they decided to follow Britain and leave the European Union

Political commentators have even started to wonder whether Mrs Merkel might be replaced ahead of next years national election. Only a fool would write off one of the most formidable figures in post-war world politics at this point, but she has seldom looked so vulnerable.

At a broader level, it is a reflection of a growing feeling among the German electorate that enough is enough. And anyone who thinks that Britain has problems with community cohesion post-EU referendum should look at the profound racial problems in Germany. Travelling through Mrs Merkels backyard this week, I have seen and heard things which would unleash howls of breast-beating Establishment outrage in Britain. Yet here they are little noticed.

When some moron sprayed Go Home on the Polish centre in West London after Junes Brexit vote, Remainers wailed that it was the end of civilisation. Politicians including Jeremy Corbyn rushed to be filmed extending their condolences.

This week I passed through Parchim, a town in Mrs Merkels north-eastern state, where a few days ago yobs not only covered the local mosque in racist graffiti, but then bricked up the door. There was modest coverage in a few papers. But no national outrage, no celebrity visitors.

Aydin Ylmaz is forced to clear the debris outside the local mosque in Parchim which as been targeted by Neo-Nazi thugs

Local worshipper Aydin Ylmaz shows me the rubble which they have had to clear away to regain entry. Was he afraid? He says he was more afraid during the latest election when the neo-Nazi NPD came driving through Parchim with a loudspeaker pledging to clean the streets of foreign vermin.

These are isolated, extreme incidents, of course. But there is a clear sense that mainstream Germany feels that it has been doing the decent thing for long enough. Thus far, the people have been happy to bankroll the poorer parts of Europe and a huge immigration programme out of a sense of national pride, fair play and guilt for the evils of Nazism.

However, now many feel that their culture is under threat and that their generosity is being abused.

It is a view hardened by this summers run of terrorist atrocities in Germany and France; by well-documented cases of molestation and sexual assaults by gangs of migrants in several German cities; by an unyielding belief that German culture should take precedence over what everyone here calls multi-culti.

People were already feeling that the political elites were not listening to them, and then the refugee crisis just made it worse, says Regina Kruze, 64, a former car dealer. The politicians didnt take the people with them, and this election shows what can happen.

Ms Kruze is shopping in the centre of Schwerin, the pretty state capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She didnt vote for the AFD in last weekends elections and still prefers the coalition of the Centre-Left/Centre-Right which has dominated German politics for years.

But she admits that, recently, she has started feeling differently about her home town.

I am not a fearful person, but I do feel a little bit of fear walking through town at night now, especially when there are groups of young foreign men hanging around.

The new AfD party is gaining support among people angry at teh European Union

Hotel worker Sebastian Bielat, 30, says: Id like to see Merkel stand again, but she has got to stop being the saviour of the world and she has got to close the borders. The media says that most Germans agree with her, but thats not true.

His colleague, Jana Lorenz, 49, has a huge CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) badge  For Peace  hanging from her neck but she thinks things have gone far enough. She feels so disillusioned with all the main parties that she didnt vote last weekend.

The rise of the new AFD, she says, should be a warning to all of them. These are all liberal-minded people who feel that Germanys long and impressive record of liberalism has gone far enough, thanks very much.

Then there are those who want to push things the other way. And that is why the AFD is gathering momentum.

What I find so remarkable in Schwerin, and the surrounding area, is that there are so few migrants on the streets. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in what used to be in East Germany, is Germanys least-populated state. There is one migrant per 300 locals  a tiny ratio compared to big cities in the West. Yet it is richly fertile territory for the AFD.

Its because we have fewer migrants that we want to keep things the way they are, says Steffen Beckmann, 38, who works at his fathers stonemasonry business. He returned here last year after 12 months working at a restaurant in a prosperous part of former West Germany.

I was the only German working there. There were eight Kurds, one Pole and me. Its not the sort of Germany I want.

Last month, he decided to join the AFD. A keen sailor, he was soon put in charge of an unusual election tool  the campaign boat.

Schwerin sits on a picturesque lake with the state parliament housed in a Disneyesque ex-royal castle at the waters edge. After a number of their bright blue posters had been vandalised, local AFD activists clubbed together and bought a sailing boat, which they have covered in party slogans like No Storm Can Sink Us.

The other parties were very cross, but there was nothing they could do to stop us sailing round parliament, chuckles local activist Jens Schneider, who acts as crew.

On the day after Britain voted for Brexit, Jens bought a Union flag, hauled it up the mast and then sailed up and down outside the castle.

Brexit was a big celebration. You got your control back. We were very happy, says Jens, who was a member of Mrs Merkels CDU party for 14 years before defecting to the AFD.

He insists that their supporters are a cross-section of society. We have doctors and lawyers, young people and pensioners, he says. And they come from all parties  we took votes from the Right, from the Greens, the Left, people who had never voted before.

There was certainly a whopping rise in turnout, from 50 to 61 per cent. I even meet settled migrants, such as Turkish-born restaurateur Safik Ince, 50, who supports the AFD because he feels Mrs Merkels Willkommenskultur  welcome culture  has gone too far.

The AFDs new MPs in the state include a divorce judge, a female pensioner and also an openly gay scaffolding contractor married to an immigrant. Thomas Jesus de Fernandes, whose husband is Brazilian, says that he used to support Mrs Merkels CDU. But now her loyalty is to the politics of the European Union, and the EU is giving everything away.

There are obvious comparisons with both Donald Trumps populist campaign and with Ukip. Here is another Eurosceptic party eclipsing the Far-Right and shaking up the established order. But the tone and the banter is of a far more disturbing nature.

Ukip turfed out Godfrey Bloom MEP merely for cracking an unfunny joke about sluts. AFDs new state MPs include Professor Ralph Weber, a top lawyer, who cheerfully quotes Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and believes that Germanys Welcome Culture needs to be replaced by a Farewell Culture. The threat to the German identity is a recurring theme.

These so-called refugees  they come to public swimming pools and look at the girls and film them, says Jens. Thats why we have to put up signs. You had the same problem in Rotherham.

The Rotherham scandal, of course, had nothing to do with refugees. It was predominantly gangs of British Asians who were responsible for systematic child abuse in Yorkshire going back over 20 years.

But the perceived threat to young women has been a powerful and emotive campaign tool for the AFD, particularly since New Years Eve, when it emerged that many women had been sexually assaulted by migrant gangs in Cologne.

This is not a rational discussion, its an emotional one, explains Nils Minkmar, a leading commentator for Der Spiegel magazine. In Germany, there is a very deep sense of cultural identity. So when Merkel changed migration policy without any preparation, it caused a mental and cultural shock, and she has been very poor at explaining it. Germans just want to feel that the government is in control.

Some of the fears here in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are, indeed, overdone. I drive up to the beaches at Boltenhagen where I duly find new No Photography signs in Arabic. But the signs are in German and English, too.

Back in Schwerin, an historic meeting is starting in the fairytale castle-cum-parliament. It is the first meeting of the AFD since being elected. And with 18 MPs, they have been allocated the big conference room which used to belong to the CDU. This is a symbolic moment.

In her early days in the local party 25 years ago, Angela Merkel held court around this table, beneath these chandeliers. Now it is the local AFD leader, a tieless and smooth-talking former radio presenter called Leif-Erik Holm, 46, who takes charge.

Beforehand, he tells me that he blames Mrs Merkels open-door policy for Britains decision to leave the EU.

I wish Britain would stay to help us change things. But I can fully understand why they wanted to take control.

The AFD is still not the largest party in this state, having come second to the centre-Left SPD. But, across Germany, their defeat of Mrs Merkels CDU continues to send shockwaves.

The ZDF television network reports that the tourism industry, worth 7 billion last year, could suffer. Aiman Mazyek, chairman of Germanys Central Council of Muslims, has announced that he has had his first and last holiday in the German lake district.

Now the battle moves on to Berlin where state elections take place next weekend. Canvassing local opinion, I meet Philippos Berhane, 43, who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker from Eritrea 31 years ago, via a Sudanese refugee camp.

He has done his best to settle here, learning fluent German and working hard as a construction project manager. Since Germany opened its borders last summer, however, he has seen a new side to his adopted country.

As a refugee, I thought it was the right thing to do. But the situation has never been so bad. There are parts of Berlin I just cant go.
Theresa May has been widely feted for her performance during her first two months as prime minister.

Her brave announcement that every school in England will be free to convert to a grammar or selective school has been described as the biggest education revolution in decades.

However, I believe that she risks making one crucial mistake.

Theresa May, left, needs to learn how to delegate important matters to her ministers in a similar manner to the previous female in charge at 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher

Mrs Thatcher, right, once famously said that 'every prime minister needs a Willie', referring of course to her deputy Willie Whitelaw, left, who provided sage advice to then Tory leader

It is in Mrs Mays nature that she wants to take control of every major decision.

Of course, this is understandable. She cares deeply about doing the right thing. Also, I am sure that she does not trust the judgment of all her Cabinet colleagues  which, in some cases, is justified.

But she must learn to delegate. Otherwise, there is a danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of decision-making.

This is what happened to Gordon Brown. As prime minister, he often stayed up all night, agonising and fretting. Ultimately, he lost his focus.

Already, we have seen Mrs May display a similar tendency when she demanded that her office must be shown in advance all ministerial speeches and that it should approve Press interviews.

One revealing example of this wish to control everything was the way Brexit minister David Davis was slapped down after he said it would be hard for Britain to remain in the single market.

This episode showed that Mrs May is reluctant to allow ministers too much freedom of movement and that she will watch them all like a hawk.

Even more important, this told us that the real Brexit minister is not Mr Davis but that Mrs May herself will make the decisions.

Mrs May should consider Patrick McLoughlin, pictured, to be her 'Willie' in cabinet

Of course, that is as it should be, because the process of leaving the EU is the most important task the Government must fulfil.

How it is achieved will define what sort of country we are for years to come. So, Mrs May is absolutely right to make Brexit her No 1 priority.

CORBYN REBELS SHOULD SHUT UP OR PUT UP I predict that Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected Labour leader with an overwhelming majority. His victory would mean he had secured two massive mandates within less than a year. So where would that leave the estimated 100 Labour MPs who have conspired to undermine him practically from the moment that he took over the party last year? It is quite clear what they should do if they are men and women of integrity. Either they should stick to their beliefs and set up a new political party. If so, the best of luck to them. Or they should rally behind Corbyn. Labour rebels such as Ben Bradshaw should leave or throw their support behind Corbyn What would be completely unacceptable, though, is for them to carry on, treacherously sniping at Corbyn and trying to sabotage him. But there is little sign of them taking this sensible path. For example, one of their number, Exeter MP and former BBC journalist Ben Bradshaw, shamelessly sent out gloating texts last week after Labour suffered a shock defeat to the Lib Dems in a council by-election in its traditional stronghold of Sheffield. My advice to traitors such as Bradshaw: accept Corbyns leadership, volunteer to take a senior party post and, above all, show loyalty. And if thats not possible, Bradshaw and his sulking ilk should resign as MPs. Advertisement

But she is misguided to think that she can closely manage Brexit and take charge of every other policy area.

It is well known that Mrs May is a huge admirer of Margaret Thatcher and models herself on her style of government. Since that is the case, she ought to learn one particular lesson from Mrs T.

As Charles Moore has shown in his superb biography of Maggie, she was rarely a tyrant in Cabinet. In fact, she was a very good colleague and worked well with those whose views strongly differed from her. She could also be a good delegator.

Above all, for many years, Mrs Thatcher benefited from having a brilliant deputy prime minister in Willie Whitelaw.

During moments of crisis  such as the Falklands War and the miners strike  Whitelaw was a safe pair of hands who made sure things ran smoothly.

He was also a source of sage advice. He was so invaluable that Mrs Thatcher famously said: Every prime minister needs a Willie.

Mrs May is no exception.

Like Mrs Thatcher, she needs a reliable, senior and trusted colleague who will ease the strain of office and enable her to focus on the vital task of Brexit.

But who should fulfil that role?

Chancellor Philip Hammond lacks personality, and needs to concentrate on the economy. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is only in his first Cabinet job. Home Secretary Amber Rudd is too inexperienced. But fortunately, there is a senior Cabinet member capable of stepping into the shoes of Willie Whitelaw.

That is the outstanding Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin. Like Whitelaw, McLoughlin is an experienced politician whos occupied a series of Cabinet posts. Like Whitelaw, he is a former chief whip trusted by all sides. Like Whitelaw, he has sound judgment and  equally important  limited personal ambition.

But while Whitelaw was an aristocrat who loved grouse-shooting, McLoughlin, a former miner and man of the people, is the product of a Catholic state school. He is perfectly attuned to Mrs Mays wish to lead a One Nation government.

In short, Mr McLoughlin is perfectly placed to become Theresa Mays Willie. There is no better person to become her right-hand man as she sets about the massive job of negotiating Brexit and building a new Britain fit for the 21st century.

How Labour's wimmin obsession has hurt women's chances

Next week, Britain is set to have its eighth woman to be currently leading a political party.

Joining Theresa May, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymrus Leanne Wood, the Greens co-leader Caroline Lucas, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, Northern Irelands First Minister Arlene Foster, and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, Ukip is expected to elect a woman as its leader.

Following his resignation after his Brexit triumph, Nigel Farage will be succeeded by MEP Diane James or (less likely) by Lisa Duffy.

The new Ukip leaders main task will be to make sure the Government keeps its Brexit means Brexit promise. (She must also prevent the effervescent Farage being a back-seat driver.)

Ms Dugdale apart, the Labour partys track record on promoting women is appalling.

Despite its obsession with wimmins issues, Labour has never had a woman leader. Whats more, this seems unlikely to change any time soon  despite 20 years of all-women shortlists.

The best it has achieved is Harriet Harman as deputy leader and Margaret Beckett as a stand-in leader.
For every hard-working family of modest income, paying taxes, raising children and struggling to get by, the story of Arnold Mballe Sube will leave them burning with anger.

Cameroon-born Mr Sube insists the three-bed council house he lives in with his wife and their eight children at taxpayers expense is too small. Yet he has refused three offers of larger homes from Luton Council, including a five-bedroom property.

We are entitled to six bedrooms, he insists, even though he uses one room in his existing home as a study and gym. The council has to support me in order for me to become a positive person and contribute to the tax system.

Arnold Mballe Sube, pictured with his family, is proof that Britain was correct to vote Brexit

Mr Subes sense of entitlement is utterly shameless. He arrived four years ago from France with his wife and seven children  an eighth came along once they were here  to study as a psychiatric nurse for three years, courtesy of a 27,000 NHS grant.

As a student in Britain, he has claimed 44,000 a year in benefits. He has run up a 38,400 Hilton hotel bill plus a 21,000 room service and restaurant charge, both paid by the taxpayer. And still he says he is being neglected and that the council is trying to make it hard for him!

Lets not forget Mr and Mrs Sube have smartphones, a laptop, a 60in flatscreen TV with Sky HD in their front room, a 52in screen in their bedroom as well as a TV, Xbox and dozens of games. All paid for by us.

The fact is that Mr Sube will never be able to pay back the generosity lavished on him by Britain. His starting salary as a psychiatric nurse will be 21,000 if he ever gets a job, while the cost of educating his eight children at state schools alone will run into millions.

The council says that if he refuses the latest offer of a five-bedroom house they will evict him because, under the law, hell have made himself intentionally homeless. Good for them.

Predictably, Mr Sube has engaged solicitors to challenge the council if they try to evict him. And guess wholl pay their bill? Taxpayers, of course.

Isnt the real disgrace in all this the fact we allowed an unqualified father with low earning potential to come with his huge family to Britain, offering him grants, a free home and vast sums to live here? Millions of decent Britons who have worked and paid their taxes for years can only dream of such a lifestyle. Countless far more deserving families have been waiting years for council accommodation.

Mr Sube and his family were able to come and live in Britain because of the EU freedom of movement laws. They emigrated from Cameroon to Paris where they become French  and EU  citizens. This meant Britain was obliged to take them in.

Is it any wonder so many people  appalled by such abuse of our welfare system  voted Brexit?

WESTMINSTER NOTICEBOARD... Isn't it apt that Jeremy Corbyn should choose the now defunct band UB40 to join him on stage at one of his leadership hustings? Its a relic from the Eighties and one former member is even being sued by his own brothers. Corbyn could always step in with a rendition of their big hit, Red Red Whine. How shameful that in Keith Vazs 400-word resignation statement there was just one sentence about  and no apology to  his loyal wife and their two children. Instead, he said that he was immeasurably proud of his role as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. What a pity the slippery old fraud wasnt a bit more caring about his own home affairs. As Labour rages over the introduction of new grammar schools, we are reminded that Jeremy Corbyn and five of his top team, including John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, went to them. While Im a big believer in grammars, Corbyn and Co. might be proof theyre not such a good thing after all. Advertisement

Shes the woman credited with breaking up the worlds greatest band, yet John Lennons widow Yoko Ono says her memoirs wont mention The Beatles at all.

The new book is all about her and her achievements.

Short book then, Yoko.

Sniffing out Botox?

Talentless Britains Got Talent judge Amanda Holden was knocked to the floor at an awards ceremony by an excited dog.

Perhaps Baxter the Labrador is a sniffer dog, trained to detect concealed substances  like the Botox the impossibly ageless Holden swears she doesnt use any more.

Amanda Holden, pictured right with Baxter, was knocked down by the Labrador recently

It's miserable being a mistress

The mistress of Lloyds Banking Group boss Antonio Horta-Osorio finally broke cover and returned to work at the Russell Group of top universities.

Blonde Wendy Platt looked sad and haggard as she left her central London flat this week.

She was almost as distraught as Horta-Osorios wife Ana when they were photographed on holiday this summer and his affair was splashed across the front page of The Sun newspaper.

But then, Antonio, as the boss of Lloyds, is a banker.

And we all know how used they are to inflicting misery on people.

Shaken and stirred by Swift

Tom Hiddleston was distraught after his split with Taylor Swift, pictured right

No wonder Tom Hiddleston was looking distraught after his break-up with multi-millionairess Taylor Swift.

It seems one of the reasons for tensions in their relationship was his obsessive fitness regime  possibly inspired by an ambition to take over from Daniel Craig and his beach body as the next James Bond.

Forget it.

No one could take seriously a 007 who is dumped by his more powerful girlfriend, however sculpted he is; however tight his budgie-smugglers.

Cold Feet returned after 13 years to rapturous reviews but without the lead love interest, Rachel, played by Helen Baxendale.

Her character had previously been killed off in a car crash, and the actress turned down the offer to return as a ghost or in any other capacity.

She thought it ridiculous. Now, Helen must be kicking herself.

After all, Bobby Ewing returned after a car crash, his wife Pam revealing it was all a dream. Dallas went on for 31 more episodes.

If Cold Feet takes off again, as it surely will, Baxendale will look back and think it was all a nightmare.

Three cheers for the old fashioned head teacher

Hurrah for headteacher Matthew Tate, who sent home 50 children on the first day of the school term and 20 on the second as they broke his strict uniform rules.

When I was at school, the two-inches-above-the-knee-maximum rule for skirts was ruthlesslessly enforced, with spot checks in assembly.

Teachers forced us to kneel while they measured suspect skirts with a wooden ruler.

Then they flicked up those skirts to make sure we were wearing the mandatory bottle-green, big, school knickers.

It wouldnt be allowed nowadays  not even by Mr Tate.

Bespectacled little Owen Howkins has a rare disease that attacks every muscle in his body.

People used to stare so much as his dad pushed him in his wheelchair that he would hide under his hoodie.

Then he adopted a three-legged rescue dog called Haatchi, and people stopped him in the street to pet his pooch.

Its a sad world where people feel more at ease stroking a disabled dog than they do talking to a little boy in a wheelchair.

A survey conducted by a hair transplant clinic finds that Prince Harry is the hottest royal in the world. Would brother William have beaten Harry ten years ago, before his hair started falling out? Im afraid poor Willss sex appeal is disappearing as fast as his follicles. Advertisement

Having been paid 30 million to be the front man sipping Nespresso coffee, the eco-warrior, hybrid-car driving George Clooney must have a nasty taste in his mouth.

Due to his patronage, the coffee pods sales have soared 30 per cent last year alone.

Now we learn they take 500 years to break down and the capsules are an environmental disaster. Theres no hypocrite like a celebrity hypocrite.

After a two-year health regime, the hitherto rotund actor Timothy Spall has become a shadow of his former self.

His extreme weight loss makes him almost unrecognisable as the lovable character Barry Taylor he played in the hit TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Was losing his paunch a good decision?

Some people are more adorable when theyre cuddly.
The prized possession you value above all others My 12 albums and drawers full of old family photos. Theyre the keys to my precious memories and are irreplaceable.

The biggest regret you wish you could amend Never learning to play the piano. Id love to be able to play at parties with everyone singing along.

The temptation you wish you could resist Spoiling my Cavalier King Charles spaniels, Gemma and Roxy. I make a fuss of them and give them titbits from the table, which I shouldnt.

The book that holds an everlasting resonance The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which was so special to my daughter Caron during her seven-year fight against breast cancer [Caron tragically died aged 41 in April 2004]. It helped her to live in the moment.

The priority activity if you were the Invisible Woman for a day Id reset the computers that regulate Londons traffic lights. So many are timed badly and cause unnecessary hold-ups.

The pet hate that makes your hackles rise People wearing rucksacks who turn around and smack you in the face. They dont seem to be aware what they have on their backs.

The film you can watch time and time again Breakfast At Tiffanys from 1961. I first saw it in Belfast when I was in my early 20s and I wanted to be Audrey Hepburn.

The person who has influenced you most My father, Charles, who was talented at so many things. He taught me you can do anything if you want it badly enough. He died in 1979 aged 70, but I still hear him inside my head.

The figure from history for whom youd most like to buy a pie and a pint Oscar Wilde  he was such a marvellous, flamboyant character, who fought convention. Hed be such witty company.

The piece of wisdom you would pass on to a child If something bad happens, do your best to fix it, but if its beyond your control, let it go and move on.

The unlikely interest that engages your curiosity Teapots. I have about 30 that Ive collected over the years.

The treasured item you lost and wish you could have again A handbag that was stolen from my car in London in 1987. It contained some of my mothers jewellery, the wedding and engagement rings from my first marriage and a special fountain pen.

The unending quest that drives you on Keeping busy with work. I have a saying  If I dont move, Ill rust.

The poem that touches your soul Sometimes by Frank Brown sums up the pain you feel when you lose someone, but it also makes you feel positive. I put it in a frame after Caron died to help me through the darkest days.

The misapprehension about yourself you wish you could erase That Im laid-back. Im actually very impatient.

The event that altered the course of your life and character The day Caron, who was only in her 30s, was diagnosed with cancer. I couldnt believe it could happen to my vibrant daughter.

The crime you would commit knowing you could get away with it Id drive down bus lanes and on the hard shoulder on motorways when theres a jam.

The song that means most to you Have I Told You Lately by Van Morrison is a special song for our family. Weve had it played at parties, weddings and funerals.

The way you would spend your fantasy 24 hours, with no travel restrictions... Id spend all day with my husband, Stephen, and wed start by flying all the family  including my sons Paul, 52, and Michael, 45, and our ten grandchildren  to New York for some shopping therapy on Fifth Avenue. After that wed all go and have lunch on Mullins Beach in Barbados. Id have lobster and a rum punch. After that Id visit Portadown in Northern Ireland, where I was brought up. I had a glorious childhood, so Id wander around all the old places. All the family would then fly to our holiday home in Saint-Paul de Vence in the South of France. Id wander around the wonderful local markets. Wed finish the day with dinner at nearby La Colombe dOr, which is my favourite restaurant. Id have some pink champagne followed by lamb and then souffle for dessert.

The happiest moment you will cherish forever Being at the births of Carons boys Charlie and Gabriel, and Pauls son Jake.

The saddest time that shook your world Without question, Carons death. To lose your child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent. I think about her hundreds of times a day.

The unfulfilled ambition that continues to haunt you To become super-fit. Theres always an excuse not to.

The philosophy that underpins your life Helping is part of my healing and I do this through the Caron Keating Foundation, which supports people suffering from all forms of cancer.

The order of service at your funeral I want a big send-off with everyone welcome at St Peters Church in Hever, Kent. Id like Cliff Richard to say a few words  Ive known him for 45 years and he has such strength in his beliefs. Then I want to be buried next to Caron in the churchs graveyard.

The way you want to be remembered I talk a lot, so maybe the best epitaph is: There are no more words. Phew!

The Plug Gloria presents Rip Off Britain on Monday at 9.15am on BBC1. Visit the Caron Keating Foundation at caronkeating.org. n
Four years after he took part in The Great British Bake Off John Whaite can still remember all too well the feeling generated by the prospect of taking his lovingly made creations to be placed under the scrutiny of its steely-eyed judges.

'We all used to call it the sacrificial gingham altar,' he recalls. 'Approaching it is terrifying.' As this year's contestants can doubtless testify  what with those Jaffa cakes, collapsing gingerbread creations and all manner of baking challenges causing raised temperatures with the series barely under way.

'It is stressful,' John remembers. 'But I thrive in that environment. It was great fun.' Even if, as he confesses, he came close to what he jokingly calls 'fisticuffs' with judge Paul Hollywood. 'We had our moments,' he says.

John Whaite used to call the table you placed your bakes on in GBBO the 'sacrificial gingham altar'

I'm all ears: it turns out that in a moment that wasn't captured on camera, John had a bit of a set-to with Mr Hollywood after Paul criticised his Chelsea buns for being bland.

'I was exhausted  I'd cut my finger the week before so I couldn't knead the dough properly,' John recalls. 'I felt like Paul didn't give any constructive criticism, so after the cameras rolled I approached him outside the tent and almost squared up to him.'

Oooh! What happened? 'He actually spoke to me very kindly like I was his teenage son and told me not to worry about it, which at the time riled me even more,' John says.

'I did walk away but I overheard Mary Berry say 'I've marked his card' and I wasn't sure she was joking.'

Obviously they didn't bear a grudge: John went on to win Bake Off at the tender age of 23, but it's a reminder of how feelings run high in the tent. 'You're running through a maelstrom of emotions  stress, excitement, invigoration. It's a melting pot,' says John.

Oh and that great enemy of good decisions, panic. 'When you're panicking you make rash decisions,' he affirms. 'I was thinking that watching the first episode of this year's series, when Candice overdid the flour for her Genoese sponge. You have to take a step back, but we've all been there.'

In a moment that wasn't captured on camera, John had a bit of a set-to with Mr Hollywood after Paul criticised his Chelsea buns for being bland - but he went on to win anyway

In his case, it was while making a Torte Noir With Boozy Cream, which Paul Hollywood described as a 'chocolate breeze block'. 'It tasted lovely but it was so inelegant. I'd got in a bit of a state and piled on the ganache. It's easily done,' he says.

John says it's too early in the current series for him to predict a winner, 'but I've already got a soft spot for Andrew, who I think may prove to be the dark horse of the competition. I just feel sorry for Lee,' he says of the church minister who left after a disappointing performance in the opening episode. 'It's really tough to be the first contestant sent home.'

John has flourished since winning the coveted trophy: he's become a regular chef on ITV's Lorraine and written three cookbooks, including his latest, Perfect Plates, recipes from which we're featuring in Weekend today.

John has flourished since winning the coveted trophy: he's become a regular chef on ITV's Lorraine and written three cookbooks, including his latest, Perfect Plates, recipes from which we're featuring in Weekend today

Not bad for a former law student who not long before Bake Off genuinely thought his career arc, in his own downbeat assessment, was 'become a solicitor, work, die'. Really? 'Honestly,' he smiles. 'I didn't see much else on the horizon, but Bake Off came along and threw a spanner in the works.'

And then some: these days John, still only 27, even has his own cookery school, established in a converted barn alongside his family home near Wigan, Lancashire, where he holds classes on everything from beginners' bread to high-end patisserie (soon after winning Bake Off, John went to train as a pastry chef at London's prestigious Cordon Bleu cookery school).

'It's not Michelin nonsense though,' he emphasises. 'I love going to those restaurants as a treat, but day to day no one eats or cooks like that. For me the key phrase is 'rustic sentiment'. The school's about learning fundamental skills with food that's easy and cost-effective to prepare.'

John, still only 27, even has his own cookery school, established in a converted barn alongside his family home near Wigan

It's a philosophy that underpins Perfect Plates, in which each recipe uses just five main ingredients, plus store-cupboard essentials such as salt, pepper and oil. 'It should be called Imperfect Plates really because the idea of perfection these days is towering stacks of beautiful food when actually the food that we grow up with, like your mother's wobbly corned beef hash, is perfect food,' he reflects. 'The problem with a lot of modern recipes is that you have a great list of ingredients and you only need a tiny bit of each one so the rest perishes in the fridge. I wanted a more pared-back approach, the happy side effect of which is that it helps reduce food waste. But there's no sacrifice on flavour either.'

They do sound delicious, with dishes including coconut macaroon and lime cheesecake and apple crisp cake. 'I think there's something for everyone,' says John. 'There's a chapter of posh plates but it's so basic that people who've never cooked will know what to do. Hopefully this will encourage people to cook rather than eat a ready meal.'

John's mindful of his health  he was 18st before he took part in Bake Off, as well as suffering from bouts of depression that he's talked about in the past  and he's now on a more 'even keel' emotionally

John's mindful of his health  he was 18st before he took part in Bake Off, as well as suffering from bouts of depression that he's talked about in the past  and he's now on a more 'even keel' emotionally. His partner Paul, a graphic designer, must take some credit for that too. The couple have been together for eight years after being introduced through mutual friends in Manchester, where John had reapplied to pursue a law degree following a brief stint at Oxford studying Italian and Spanish.

It's a long way from a career in food, but Paul has remained a constant. 'We're best mates,' says John. 'During Bake Off people said, 'You're going to become a celebrity and leave your boyfriend,' but I knew it would never happen. My career could go up in smoke and as long as I've got my health and my family then nothing else matters.'

It's a heartfelt sentiment, but he doesn't have much to worry about on the career front just yet. In fact, he probably needs to do less. 'I've definitely got another couple of books in me but I'd like to have a break and travel for a few months,' he confesses.
Without doubt, it was one of the most daring missions of the Second World War. In December 1941 two agents parachuted into Czechoslovakia from an RAF bomber. Their task was to assassinate SS general Reinhard Heydrich, an architect of the Final Solution whose nicknames included The Hangman, The Blond Beast and The Butcher of Prague.

Czech soldier Jan Kubis, 28, and his 29-year-old Slovak comrade Josef Gabcik were trained by the British as parachutists and were working for Churchill's Special Operations Executive, which carried out covert missions.

They knew when they volunteered for Operation Anthropoid their chances of success  and survival  were slim.

Cillian Murphy, pictured starring in Peaky Blinders, stars as Slovakian Josef Gabcik in the recently released Anthropoid

Now this extraordinary story is the subject of two exciting new Hollywood films. First up is Anthropoid, with a cast of stars from recent British TV hits. Cillian Murphy (best known as Thomas Shelby, leader of the ruthless gang in BBC2's Peaky Blinders) and Jamie Dornan (who played the serial killer in the BBC2 drama The Fall, as well as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades Of Grey) take the roles of Gabcik and Kubis, with Toby Jones (recently in BBC1 drama The Secret Agent) as Czech Resistance leader Jan Zelenka-Hajsky. The second film, next year's HHhH, is based on a novel by Laurence Binet and stars Rosamund Pike and Jack O'Connell.

Many sites in and near Prague remain as testament to the mission. I visited them and was also lucky enough to meet the last living parachutist who did the same training as Gabcik and Kubis in Britain. Jaroslav Klemes, a brigadier general, now 94, is a Czech national hero, and has a fondness for Britain, the country that gave him and his comrades refuge and training during his nation's darkest period.

Reinhard Heydrich's task in Czechoslovakia was to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation. While doing so he led a life of luxury in a villa known as the Lower Castle, nine miles from Prague. Built in 1833, its pillars and marble staircase speak of grandeur but the building has been left to rot. So I was stunned to find Heydrich's private office intact, with its wood panelling and soundproofed walls. Heydrich no doubt savoured this villa all the more because it was confiscated from Jewish tycoon Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Bloch-Bauer's beautiful wife Adele was painted by artist Gustav Klimt.

The gates to the villa are flanked by ugly concrete boars and, at just after 10am on 27 May, 1942, Heydrich, aged 38, was driven past them down the drive and to his death. His arrogance was such that he believed no Czech would dare attack him, travelling in an open-top Mercedes. He knew he had pushed most of the nation into submission by his reign of torture and executions. Some of the horrific torture methods are chillingly portrayed in the film Anthropoid.

Without doubt, it was one of the most daring missions of the Second World War. In December 1941 two agents parachuted into Czechoslovakia from an RAF bomber. Their task was to assassinate SS general Reinhard Heydrich

Agents Kubis and Gabcik had spent five months planning their hit since being parachuted in, having been kept hidden by members of the Resistance. They finally decided to ambush Heydrich on his route to work at a hairpin bend that forced his driver to slow down.

When Heydrich's car braked on that day in May, Gabcik jumped out and aimed his Sten gun at the Nazi commander only for it to jam. Kubis then tossed a grenade at the car. It exploded against a wheel and the blast and shrapnel left Heydrich badly injured. Kubis made off on his bike, while Gabcik ran down a side street pursued by Heydrich's chauffeur; Gabcik shot him in the leg and escaped.

In the three weeks after the attack the Nazis launched a massive manhunt. Finally, Resistance soldier Karel Curda, eyeing the reward on offer, gave information to the Nazis that led to them finding the assassins hiding in the crypt of Prague's Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Bullet holes still pockmark its walls from the siege of 18 June, 1942 when Kubis, Gabcik and five comrades tried to hold out against 750 SS soldiers. The two parachutists didn't make it out, Gabcik shooting himself when he realised all was lost.

Reinhard Heydrich and his driver in a scene from Anthropoid. The film has a cast of stars from recent British TV hits

Heydrich had died eight days after the car attack. Hitler attended his funeral and, in the wake of his death, ordered reprisals, including the destruction of Lidice, a village near Prague the Nazis claimed was connected to the assassins. In total 5,000 people lost their lives as the Nazis took revenge.

The bodies of Gabcik and Kubis are believed to lie in a mass grave in northern Prague. I ask General Klemes what he thinks of the campaign to exhume their bodies and rebury them with national honours. It appears that his own father, guillotined by the Nazis for helping Jews flee across the border, may lie in the same cemetery, and as he talks, emotion wells up. 'Even though my father might be there I want to leave the hallowed ground alone. We should leave the dead resting,' he says.

General Klemes had extensive training in Britain, including unarmed combat. 'I was trained to put explosives on trains, to be a telegraph operator and to perform intelligence exercises,' he says.

There have been critics of Operation Anthropoid who say the price of assassinating Reinhard Heydrich was too high. But Klemes is not one of them. 'Heydrich was killing so many people it was worth the price, because the terror of his regime was so terrible.'
Tim even criticized Project Runway winner Ashley Nell Tipton whose plus-size designs he said 'came off as condescending'

He said although progress has been made in the inclusion of plus-size women in fashion shows it is still 'very much the exception'

Speaking during New York Fashion Week, he said the industry is still 'subscribing to the mythology it has created of glamour and thinness'

Project Runway host Tim Gunn has hit out at the fashion industry for ignoring plus-size women.

The fashion expert said there is huge financial gains to be made from the market but claimed designers 'don't want to address it'.

As the US fashion industry celebrates New York Fashion Week, the industry is still 'subscribing to the mythology it has created of glamour and thinness,' he wrote in The Washington Post.

Not impressed: Project Runway host Tim Gunn, pictured, has attacked designers for ignoring plus-size women in a damning assessment of the fashion industry

Developments: He said progress has been made in the inclusion of plus-size women, such as Ashley Graham, pictured modelling her lingerie collection at NYFW last year

Unusual: But the presenter, pictured during the Project Runway fashion show with model Heidi Klum on Friday, said size diversity in models is still 'very much the exception'

Despite progress made in recent years - such as last year's NYFW shows by Marc Jacobs and Sophie Theallet and Ashley Graham's plus-size lingerie line - the inclusion of plus-size models is still 'very much the exception'.

Citing a recent survey by Washington State University that found the average American woman now wears a size 16 to 18, he said there is 'money to be made' in plus-size.

But he claimed that many designers are still unwilling to work with larger sizes.

He wrote: 'Many designers  dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk  still refuse to make clothes for them.'

He said shopping is a 'horribly insulting and demoralizing experience' for women over a size 14 because they are not designed appropriately.

'Half the items make the body look larger, with features like ruching, box pleats and shoulder pads.

'Pastels and large-scale prints and crazy pattern-mixing abound, all guaranteed to make you look infantile or like a float in a parade,' he wrote.

He said even TV design show Project Runway, on which he is a mentor, could do more to address the problem.

Whenever they have the 'real women' challenge, when designers are required to design clothes for non-models, competitors 'audibly groan'.

Attacking: Tim even criticized Project Runway winner Ashley Nell Tipton, pictured

Critical: He said her plus-size designs, pictured, 'came off as condescending'

Tim criticized designer Ashley Nell Tipton, who won the contest with the shows first plus-size collection, because he said her clothes 'came off as condescending'.

He added: 'Ive never seen such hideous clothes in my life: bare midriffs; skirts over crinoline, which give the clothes, and the wearer, more volume; see-through skirts that reveal panties; pastels, which tend to make the wearer look juvenile; and large-scale floral embellishments that shout prom.'

Tim claimed her triumph 'reeked of tokenism', adding that he 'wouldn't dream' of encouraging any woman, whatever their size, wear her clothes.

He said Vogue's 'shape issue' is 'no more than [a] nod to anyone above a size 12'.

He added: 'For decades, designers have trotted models with bodies completely unattainable for most women down the runway.

'First it was women so thin that they surely had eating disorders.

'After an outcry, the industry responded by putting young teens on the runway, girls who had yet to exit puberty. More outrage.'

He said designers 'need to wrap their minds' around the shape of women in America today and create clothes accordingly.
Women and girls with cancer in Britain are now able to have groundbreaking treatment to preserve their fertility after the ravages of chemotherapy and radiotherapy  on the NHS.

Three NHS centres are offering ovarian tissue cryopreservation, a procedure that involves removing and then freezing healthy ovarian tissue containing eggs before the start of cancer treatment that is lifesaving but can permanently damage the reproductive system.

Once a patient has finished their treatment and is either in remission or of childbearing age, the ovarian tissue is thawed and re-implanted in an ovary or the lining of the womb.

Family planning: One of the first British patients is Tori Coles, 27, owner of Wight FIT gym in Newport, Isle of Wight, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last October

The woman can then try to conceive naturally, as the implanted strips begin producing healthy eggs. Re-implanting healthy ovarian tissue can also help prevent premature menopause, another side-effect of some cancer treatments.

Currently, women may be offered the opportunity to freeze individual eggs if chemotherapy or radiotherapy is likely to damage fertility.

But some women are not suitable for egg freezing because their cancer needs treating urgently and they cannot wait for the ten to 14-day course of hormone injections needed to mature eggs. If cancer strikes before puberty, eggs cannot be harvested so freezing is impossible.

Some cancers, including severe leukaemia in childhood or solid muscle tumours, are treated using kinds of chemotherapy  called alkylating agents  which damage fertility. Total body irradiation before a bone marrow transplant also irreversibly damages the ovaries.

The new procedure allows doctors to remove an ovary through a keyhole incision, under general anaesthetic, and harvest the tissue and eggs lying just under its surface.

All of a womans eggs for her lifetime can be found in the thin 1mm outer layer of the ovary. The inside of the ovary is a pulp of blood vessels that feed the eggs on the periphery. The extracted tissue is cut into 5mm x 15mm strips, each containing many eggs, and then frozen. The blocks can be thawed and re-implanted later to restore fertility.

Fertility: Tori said it was 'devastating' when she was given her cancer diagnosis

The procedure is also being offered by some private clinics as a fertility-preserving treatment for women who wish to delay motherhood for lifestyle or other reasons. This option is not available on the NHS.

Professor Nick Macklon, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS) and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Southampton, said: It is distressing for cancer patients to learn that they may become infertile as a result of their cancer treatment and not all girls or women can benefit from freezing embryos and eggs.

'This technique opens up the possibility to preserve fertility for many more women and for girls too.

The technique has been used successfully worldwide for years, but stringent regulations mean that just three UK centres are licensed to perform the procedure, and only on a case-by-case basis.

They are the Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton, John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and The Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh.

Southampton has been offering the procedure since November, and takes referrals from all over the UK.

The option is also successful: 68 babies have been born worldwide using frozen ovarian tissue, with the first British birth reported in July this year to a 31-year-old from Edinburgh.

Last year, an unnamed 27-year-old woman in Belgium was the first in the world to have a baby using ovarian tissue which was frozen before puberty.

She was just 13 when she had the procedure before invasive treatment for sickle cell anaemia, showing that immature eggs could ripen successfully.

One of the first British patients is Tori Coles, 27, owner of Wight FIT gym in Newport, Isle of Wight, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last October.

It was devastating to hear that I had cancer, and that there was a risk that chemotherapy might also end my chance of having children, she says.

Egg harvesting was out of the question: the tumour was very aggressive, and she needed treatment urgently.

In November she became the first Southampton patient to have ovarian tissue harvested, which doctors can re-implant once she is cancer-free and wants to start a family.

After gruelling surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Tori had the all-clear in May. Ive always wanted children, and its wonderful to think this pioneering treatment has given the best chance of preserving my fertility, she said.

Professor Adam Balen, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and chairman of the British Fertility Society (BFS) welcomed the NHS initiative.

He said: In the UK, both freezing ovarian tissue and freezing eggs are safe and effective treatment options for women prior to cancer treatment. However, currently, ovarian tissue cryopreservation is only available to NHS patients on a case-by-case basis. Its hoped it will soon be an option for more women across the UK.
The front cover of Norway's largest newspaper by circulation, Aftenposten, is seen at a news stand in Oslo, Norway September 9, 2016. Photo by Reuters

Facebook reinstates the photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack after its removal pitted it against Norway's prime minister.

Facebook Inc on Friday reinstated a Vietnam War-era photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack, after a public outcry over its removal of the image including harsh criticism from Norway's prime minister.

In a clash between a democratically elected leader and the social media giant over how to patrol the Internet, Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg said Facebook was editing history by erasing images of the iconic 1972 "Napalm Girl" photograph, which showed children running from a bombed village.

The company initially said the photo violated its Community Standards barring child nudity on the site.

"After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case," Facebook said in a later statement, adding it recognized "the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time."

Solberg posted the iconic "Napalm Girl" news photograph on her Facebook page after the company had deleted it from sites of Norwegian authors and the daily Aftenposten. Facebook had also removed the photo from the page of the woman who had been photographed as a girl.

Captured by Pulitzer Prize-winner Nick Ut of the Associated Press, the image of screaming children running from a napalm attack shows a naked nine-year-old girl at its center.

Solberg said Facebook's ban put unacceptable limits on freedom of speech. "They must see the difference between editing out child pornography and editing out history," she told Reuters.

"It's perfectly possible for a company like Facebook to sort this out. Otherwise we risk more censorship," she said.

Protesting Facebook's move, Solberg re-posted the photo with a black square covering the naked girl, and published a range of other historic images blacking over faces of people such as Ronald Reagan or Winston Churchill.

She also posted a version of the "Tank Man" image from the 1989 protests in China's Tiananmen Square, with a black square covering a man standing in front of a row of army tanks.

Solberg wrote on her Facebook account: "I want my children and other children to grow up in a society where history is taught as it was."

Aftenposten splashed the Vietnam photograph across its front page on Friday, next to a large Facebook logo, and wrote a front-page editorial headlined "Dear Mark Zuckerberg", saying the social network was undermining democracy.

Earlier, Facebook said in a statement its rules were more blunt than the company itself would prefer, adding that restrictions on nudity were necessary on a global platform.

Norway is a big investor in Facebook. Its $891 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world's biggest, had a stake of 0.52 percent in Facebook worth $1.54 billion at the start of 2016.

Solberg told Reuters she intended to maintain her Facebook account. ($1 = 8.2667 Norwegian crowns)

Related news:

> Norway's PM attacks Facebook 'censorship' over Vietnam photo
Bridget Jones's Baby Cert: 15 2hrs 3mins

Rating:

Bridget Jones has not graced the big screen for 12 years but the good news is that while shes been away she seems to have got her mojo back.

Shes lost the lingering puppy-fat that was the curse of her early 30s, glossed up her hair and, at the age of 43, can still turn heads on London Bridge. There is, as she herself puts it, life in the old dog yet.

And thanks to the remarkable comic talent that is Renee Zellweger, shes right.

Despite Bridget Jones not gracing the big screen for 12 years, Renee Zellweger slips back into the character so convincingly that its like meeting an old friend

Zellweger slips back into the character so convincingly that its like meeting an old friend. Sure, our intrepid television news producer may look a little older and, indeed, a little sleeker, but shes unmistakably the wonderful, accident-prone Bridget weve always known. Which, of course, means shes still having man trouble.

Of the two great loves of my life, one is married and the other No, tempting as it is, Im not going to spoil the clever story device that provides an early comic highlight, explains Hugh Grants absence as the wicked Daniel Cleaver and sets comedy expectations soaring.

Expectations that, it turns out, are never quite met. For while the vanity-free Zellweger is genuinely terrific, and the film certainly delivers a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, it never quite catches comic fire.

For Bridget aficionados, its going to be unmissable, but for others, the end result is only fractionally better than the flawed Edge Of Reason, and not a patch on the magnificent original

As Bridget might say, if she were keeping score in the same way she used to with calories and alcoholic units: Laughs? Not quite enough.

So where does it go wrong? Its difficult to say, but the twinkly-eyed Patrick Dempsey, who plays one of the two men who might be the father of Bridgets soon-to-be-born baby, is nowhere near as funny as Grant.

IT'S A FACT Preparing for the first film, Zellwegger worked undercover for a month in a London office, perfecting an English accent. She put a photo of then-boyfriend Jim Carrey on her desk... which fellow workers thought odd. Advertisement

Gags about Glastonbury mud and Gangnam Style dance routines feel dated, and theres something about the pregnancy storyline itself that never really got me chuckling.

Yes, of course, I can see the comic potential in a plot that involves two men, two nights of passion and some vegan condoms well past their use-by date but, for me, that potential is never quite realised, partly because of the lies Bridget then finds herself telling to both men (inadvertently, she would no doubt say) and partly because of what ensues.

Although the film delivers a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, it never quite catches comic fire and the twinkly-eyed Patrick Dempsey is nowhere near as funny as Grant

Because, stretching credibility, at least for me, to the limit, both men  Jack (Dempsey), the American internet dating billionaire she hooks up with at Glastonbury, and the love of her life, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), stick around to support her through her pregnancy. Being men, each is convinced the baby is his.

Having this unlikely trio attend an ante-natal class only to be mistaken for a gay couple and their surrogate is very funny but, elsewhere, large chunks of this awkward storyline left me not so much unamused as under-amused.

Nevertheless, Firth, now 56 and notably slender, remains a deadpan delight as Darcy, the strait-laced human-rights lawyer who surely knows he cant escape his destiny  to be hopelessly in love with the almost entirely unsuitable Bridget  for ever.

Colin Firth, now 56, remains a deadpan delight as Darcy, the human-rights lawyer whose destiny is to be hopelessly in love with the almost entirely unsuitable Bridget  for ever

There are also nice supporting turns from returning regulars Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent as Bridgets parents, Neil Pearson as her soon- to-be-replaced boss, and from franchise newcomer Sarah Solemani, who plays Miranda, her dirty-talking newscaster colleague.

For Bridget aficionados, its going to be unmissable, the film that belatedly completes (surely) the trilogy.

But for others well, despite the return of original director Sharon Maguire and a screenplay by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson  who also does a scene-stealing turn as Bridgets splendidly pragmatic obstetrician  the end result is only fractionally better than the flawed and floundering Edge Of Reason, and not a patch on the magnificent 2001 original.

Liz Jones's verdict Liz Jones says she owes her career to Bridget and always found her an inspiration I owe everything to Bridget Jones. In the late Nineties, when Helen Fieldings newspaper column about being a hopeless singleton had taken off, the editor of the Sunday broadsheet I was a minion on came to my desk saying he needed a hit copycat, and as your name is Jones and youve never had a boyfriend, I got the job. Ive been writing my column ever since, while Fieldings career has gone into the stratosphere. I still watch the first two films of the books: Renee Zellwegers sweet face, awful clothes, worse attic flat, ailing career, ageing parents and terrible luck with men mirrored my life. It isnt an exaggeration to say her optimism  that things would turn out OK even if we never could afford a whole house or get married or have children or reach 8st 2lb  was an inspiration for those of us who had ever been on a diet (in my case since the age of 11) or been cheated on or been stumped for something intelligent to say at parties. Who only have legs up to here (indicates something in the region of a dachshund), not up to here (indicates arm pits). I so, so, so wanted to love the new film. There was Bridgets plumptious face above the Odeon, 20ft high, alongside that of Colin Firth, achingly dashing. Imagine my disappointment to discover the airbrushing budget, as well as that for cameos, must have been astronomical: in the film, Mark Darcy is acceptably craggy, bespectacled and even more bad tempered. Its Bridgets appearance that comes as a shock. Shes unrecognisable. She has become what she always abhorred: a stick insect. She has legs up to HERE! (indicates the stratosphere). The only place she gains weight during the entire movie is on her stomach: the sort of high, round baby bump only ever seen on the likes of Elle Macpherson: its isolated, like post-Brexit Britain, and doesnt seep to legs, or face, or rump, like on a normal person. (Note to producers: its a bad idea to include flashbacks, as they only serve to highlight Bridgets deflation). Bridgets appearance comes as a shock. Shes unrecognisable. She has become what she always abhorred: a stick insect and by the end of the film, it's clear she's no longer on of us But even worse than the fact that B has betrayed those of us who gaze longingly at a tiramisu, give in (the producers left chocolate on every seat of the cinema; I imagine every last Aero Bubble was eaten given the depression by the end), then are awash with guilt the next day, is the fact she has abandoned her sunny optimism. The word Dooom! is etched across her face, telling me shes given up trying to have fun and has become like best friends Jude and Shazza: trapped in a cats cradle of infants and domestic detritus. Zellweger tries valiantly to conjure up some of the old endearing ticks but even the comedic waddle misfires now shes thin. Shes cat nip to men, too, when surely she should still be struggling, especially as we are told in GREAT BIG LETTERS that shes 43. She falls into bed with handsome, rich, American hunk Patrick Dempsey, cavorting with no care for her naked body, oozing confidence from every teeny-tiny Hollywood pore. There are no longer any wobbly bits: only the script is saggy, its premise that women should give in, sprog up. Rely on a man, because youre rubbish at your job. Keep the weight off, or else (there is only one aside about her weight, from the glorious Celia Imrie, saying of the baby bump: Oh, I thought youd just put the weight back on). I really thought Bridge was better than that. Shes a rubber ring that has been punctured, no use at all when you need it most: when you wake at 3am, knowing you will die alone, eaten by Alsatians. I wont spoil the ending, but suffice to say Bridget is serene, shes sane, shes normal. Shes no longer one of us. Advertisement

SECOND SCREEN

Ben-Hur (12A)

Rating:

Hell Or High Water (15)

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Kubo And The Two Strings (PG)

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Captain Fantastic (15)

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Anthropoid (15)

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The Russian director Timur Bekmambetov was always on a hiding to nothing when he decided to remake William Wylers epic and, indeed, iconic 1959 masterpiece, Ben-Hur.

Even so, it comes as a surprise to discover what an underwhelming job hes made of it.

His Ben-Hur is dreadful to look at, so murky and dark at times, that its difficult to know whether to blame the weather, a duff conversion to 3D or Oliver Woods original cinematography.

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's Ben-Hur is dreadful to look at, so murky and dark, and Jack Huston - nephew of Anjelica, grandson of John - underwhelms as the Jewish prince

The 1959 version (itself a remake of a silent film from 1925) by comparison still looks fabulous.

Of the two big set-pieces, the chariot race is better than the sea-battle that pitches Romans against Greeks, but Jack Huston  nephew of Anjelica, grandson of John  underwhelms as Judah Ben-Hur, the Jewish prince falsely condemned for treason and sentenced to life as a galley slave before returning to Jerusalem for revenge.

Its there, of course, that his former adopted brother, Messala (Toby Kebbell), now an ambitious Roman tribune, awaits with his chariot.

One improvement on the 1959 version of the film is the casting of Morgan Freeman as Sheik Ilderim (above left) while Sofia Black-D'Elia plays Ben-Hur's sister (above right)

Hell Or High Water is easily one of the best films Ive seen all year. Set in run-down west Texas, its the story of the Howard brothers  Chris Pine and Ben Foster  who embark on a series of bank robberies, always hitting small branches of the same bank and always taking only small-denomination notes.

Jeff Bridges is the soon-to-retire Texas ranger sent in to discover why.

Taylor Sheridans screenplay  which highlights the economic depression in this farming area  is word-perfect and the photography stunning.

With distant echoes of Butch Cassidy and Jesse James, and haunting music from Nick Cave, this beautifully crafted film stays with you and should do great things for the career of its Scottish director, David Mackenzie.

Kubo And The Two Strings is the magical latest from Oregon studio, Laika. Its the story of Kubo, a young boy with only one eye who lives in a high cave above a remote fishing village

Kubo And The Two Strings, created using stop-motion (think Noggin The Nog or Wallace And Gromit), is the latest offering from Laika, the Oregon studio that brought us Coraline and The Boxtrolls.

But this mystical, magical offering is its best yet.

Its the story of Kubo, a young Japanese boy with only one eye who, thanks to his magical mother, survives a great storm to grow up in a high cave above a remote fishing village.

By day he entertains the villagers with magical tales of a brave samurai warrior and his enemy, the Moon King.

But by night, we soon learn, the Moon Kings wicked daughters come looking for Kubo. And they want his other eye.

The animation is near-flawless, and the end result  at least for anyone who liked last years Song Of The Sea  unmissable.

Charming but with laboured eccentricities: Captain Fantastic stars Viggo Mortensen as a charismatic survivalist and polymath who has raised six children in a self-sufficient compound

Captain Fantastic has Viggo Mortensen as Ben Cash, charismatic patriarch, survivalist and polymath who  with wife, Leslie  has raised six children in a meticulously run, self-sufficient woodland compound.

But as the film begins, Leslie is absent and the familys off-grid life is about to be challenged by the outside world.

It has charm but its hard to believe in a man of such diverse talents (everything from rock-climbing to particle physics), while the laboured eccentricities (the family celebrate Noam Chomsky Day rather than Christmas) madden as much as entertain.

The story of the attempted assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Nazi-occupied Prague in 1942 has been made into one good film, Operation Daybreak in 1975, and now its told again in Anthropoid.

I didnt care for the decision for British and Irish actors such as Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan and Toby Jones to use cod-Czech accents but the power of the story  especially its climax in a Prague cathedral  and the real-life bravery of those involved is compelling.
In 2005, Oxford graduate Amara, now 32, was slogging away in the City. Yet all she thought about was acting

Who? The investment banker turned actress from Wimbledon is most recognisable as the train stewardess in Wes Andersons The Darjeeling Limited. She is currently playing a defence lawyer in The Night Of on Sky Atlantic, a crime drama about a New York college student accused of murder.

Big break In 2005, Oxford graduate Amara, now 32, was slogging away in the City. Yet all she thought about was acting. Id wanted to be an actress ever since I was eight and performed in a school assembly opposite some boys I fancied, she says.

It was utterly terrifying but after that I was addicted. I never thought acting was a realistic career  partly because Im Asian [her parents are Sri Lankan] and partly because I had no connections in that world. I had a strong academic record, so when I left university I jumped straight into a City job.

Turning point A year later, it was clear to Amara that working in the financial sector wasnt for her. She was putting in long hours and felt that to give so much to the job, she really had to love it.

So she quit and enrolled on an MA drama course at Arts Educational Schools in London.

Her decision paid off  Amara has worked ever since, including a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company and roles in St Trinians (with Gemma Arterton) and A Fantastic Fear of Everything (with Simon Pegg).

Any hurdles? My parents were devastated when I gave up a great career to embark on an unstable and competitive vocation  however, now they couldnt be more thrilled.

What next? Amara will be returning to her role of detective Suri Chohan in the second series of Sky 1s Stan Lees Lucky Man, which airs next year.
It may be true that many fashion designers are men (eg, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld and so on), but think of Helena Rubinstein or Estee Lauder and its clear that beauty tells a different story.

So lets hear it for the girls who enhance natural beauty with smart, wearable products.

The make-up artist who began her career as a painter in Paris is now celebrating the 20th anniversary of a collection relied upon by women everywhere.

Charlotte Tilbury and Kate Moss

Laura Mercier and Bobbi Brown (right)

Youll know her as Laura Mercier and will love the 12 products she has selected for limited-edition birthday box The Iconics (135, spacenk.com), including the Caviar Stick Eye Colour and Lip Glace.

Then theres all-American Bobbi Brown, fairy godmother of easy, breezy beauty. To mark 25 years since the launch of her first ten lipsticks, shes continuing her quest to empower women with The New Classics Luxe Lip Colors, with shades from Uber Beige to Red Velvet (25 each, bobbibrown.co.uk).

A newer name on the circuit, Charlotte Tilburys effortlessly sexy make-up range is universally adored, obsessed over and desired.

Now, shes even got her chum Kate Moss to front her first perfume. Scent of A Dream (from 49, charlottetilbury.com) is an erotic floral chypre of lemon, black pepper, tuberose and violet.

Laura Mercier's limited-edition birthday box The Iconics (135, spacenk.com) includes the Caviar Stick Eye Colour and Lip Glace

Scent of A Dream (from 49, charlottetilbury.com) is an erotic floral chypre of lemon, black pepper, tuberose and violet

To mark 25 years since the launch of her first ten lipsticks, Bobbi Brown is continuing her quest to empower women with The New Classics Luxe Lip Colors, with shades from Uber Beige to Red Velvet (25 each, bobbibrown.co.uk)

This week were keeping a bottle of Plenish Probiotic Water (2.29, plenishcleanse.com) close to hand. Each flavour  from Lime Cucumber to Pineapple Ginger Lemon  contains one billion cultures of friendly bacteria. At 23 calories or less, its the handy way to feel healthy on the inside  and look healthy on the outside.

Each flavour  from Lime Cucumber to Pineapple Ginger Lemon  contains one billion cultures of friendly bacteria

The mechanised beauty trend continues as sonic technology comes to scalp cleansing. During the Kerastase Specifique Scalp Purification System in-salon treatment, a Clarisonic brush is used in tandem with a cleansing shampoo such as Specifique Bain Divalent (17.50, kerastase.co.uk) to address the effects of environmental aggressors on the scalp, unclog pores, remove excess oil and boost cell metabolism.

During the Kerastase Specifique Scalp Purification System in-salon treatment, a Clarisonic brush is used in tandem with a cleansing shampoo

After a gel masque massage, your scalp will be cleansed and moisturised  and your hair rid of the frazzled hallmarks of city life (85 including a blow-dry, at Richard Ward and Kerastase salons nationwide, salons.kerastase.co.uk).
Comedy writer and actress Sarah Solemani plays Bridget Joness New Best Friend in the much-anticipated third film. And she was thrilled to be championed for the role by Renee Zellweger herself, she tells Judith Woods

SARAH WEARS TOP, TROUSERS and BELT, all Safiyaa. SHOES, Kurt Geiger

Im Bridgets friend and as a friend, its my job to get her laid. Its what friends do, isnt it? I suppose it is, given that the Bridget in question is perhaps the worlds most famous singleton, and this friendship mission statement comes from British actress and comedy writer Sarah Solemani, who plays Bridgets New Best Friend Miranda in the much-anticipated Bridget Joness Baby.

The film chronicles the next phase of Bridgets hapless life having found herself single at 43 and still bruised from a distant break-up with Mark Darcy (the plot deviates from the most recent Bridget Jones novel, in which Bridget is a widow, following Marks untimely death). As you might surmise from the title, Miranda succeeds in her matchmaking plan. But who is the babys father: old flame Colin Firth (Mr Darcy) or new hottie Patrick Dempsey (aka Dr McDreamy in Greys Anatomy), who plays American billionaire Jack Qwant?

Having had a sneak preview of the film, I can attest its not just hilarious but make-a-block-booking-with-all-your-girlfriends-at-one-of-those-cinemas-that-serve-wine hilarious. Bring your daughter. Bring your mum, for that matter; Bridget is a modern icon whose well-meaning klutziness and grace under fire unites the generations. But with great poignancy, Sarah reflects that her own mother, Rachel, a huge Bridget fan, wont be around to share the fun. A sociology teacher, she died of cancer when Sarah was just 16.

What can I say? It was a nightmare; the way she died was awful, she says quietly. I became aware that life is short and that every tiny choice we make is against a bigger picture of life and death. My mum loved the Bridget Jones books, so it was nice and special to reconnect with something she would have been proud of. When the news came through that Id been cast, I looked upwards and thanked her for making it happen.

The chemistry between Sarah, 34, whose deadpan comic timing is faultless, and Renee Zellweger, 47, positively fizzes with energy. When I went for the audition Renee could not have been nicer, giving me the thumbs-up from behind the camera, Sarah says. Ive had auditions where the star wasnt interested or was too busy trying to impress the director to give me much space, but she was brilliant. After I got the part I said, Thank you so much, and she replied, It had to be you, silly.

Bridget is now a high-powered television executive (hurrah!), single again (boo!) and desperately trying to relive  or rather reinvent  her youth with Miranda, the stations much younger, hard-partying news anchor (eek!). As they set off for a girls weekend away, buttoned-up Bridget is smartly dressed in white jeans and nude heels for what she assumes will be a spa break. It transpires that Miranda, wearing tiny denim shorts, wellies and a come-hither look, is taking her to a music festival in a very muddy field.

Sarah with Renee Zellweger in Bridget Joness Baby

The chaotic, slapstick and debauched results are laugh-aloud funny and I darent disclose more for fear of spoiling it. But right from the get-go this film, featuring top-notch cameos from Ed Sheeran and Emma Thompson, underlines the fact that the outpouring of affection for the Bridget Jones franchise is because its as much about female bonding as finding The One.

Bridget is infatuated with Miranda and I totally get that, says Sarah. Meeting someone and making friends is a form of courtship and its terribly flattering when the other person responds. Sometimes my husband Daniel will watch me getting terribly overexcited and voluble with a strange woman at a party and ask, What on earths going on? Ill say, Cant you see? Im falling in love.

Sarah has friends of all ages and believes a range of perspectives adds an extra richness to her life. I love being around older women. They tend to be more relaxed, dont put up with any p***-takers and have a bit of money to make their wardrobes amazing.

One friend is Beeban Kidron, 55, who directed the second Bridget Jones film. Shes got two kids, does a ton of stuff other than film-making  shes a baroness in the House of Lords  and still has time to have a laugh with her mates. Shell never say, Oh, youre too young to Were the same age in spirit. I have younger friends too, mostly young creative girls, writers/actresses. I love their zest.

However, Sarah insists that  unlike Bridget  shes rarely led astray by younger pals. Most of the time Im an astray-leader. We had a fabulous wrap party for Bridget Jones at a fancy hotel, and there was a big swimming pool roped off. I turned to Beattie Edmondson, an excellent young actress who is in the film, and said, Come on, were going in. She was instantly up for it  I mean, she is the daughter of a Young One! We did a synchronised swimming routine, and at one point I swam up to Beattie and tried to do a Dirty Dancing lift. The hotel staff were so p***** off they refused us a towel, so we were dripping outside in our cocktail dresses. Mine was a cheap vintage polyester number, bright red, and the dye stained my skin so I looked like Id escaped a butchering. Worth it, though!

TOP, Bambah. TROUSERS, Hebe Studio. Opposite page: JUMPSUIT and CAPE, Safiyaa

Sarah, who grew up in London, the daughter of a Persian Jewish father and a Northern Irish mother, is a dark-eyed beauty with a great line in quizzical expressions. She has a sister, Anna, 29, who works in the charity sector. Sarah is married to Daniel Ingram, 34, who works in finance and specialises in sustainable investment. They have a daughter, Soraya, who will soon turn three. (Soraya is extremely funny. She can deliver a line bang on time, and shes not afraid to push boundaries with her subject matter.)

When we meet, Sarah is still slightly dazed by her YOU photo session the previous day. I just cant believe that was me! she cries. I feel like Ive duped everyone. I looked amazing, and it was such a laugh, so thank YOU for having me.

Endearingly for an ultra-bright, super-successful Cambridge graduate with a degree in social and political sciences, Sarah says thank you a lot and with genuine feeling. This may be her first major international movie, but Sarahs fearless comedy career in Britain has been gaining traction. She is best known as the earnestly right-on biology teacher Miss Gulliver in the Jack Whitehall sitcom Bad Education, object of desire for his immature history teacher Alfie Wickers.

Jack is so sweet. His mother plays a school mum in the show and just watching them together  how respectful he is of her  you can tell he is a good egg and she has brought him up well.

She had a part in James Cordens screwball thriller The Wrong Mans (We chatted like a pair of schoolgirls  boys, babies, clothes. Its no surprise hes doing so well Stateside, he has a talent for bringing people in) and played the eponymous Her (opposite Russell Tovey) in near-the-knuckle Bafta-winning BBC Three cult comedy Him and Her.

But right now its all about Bridget. Bridget Joness Baby finds Sarah in a different league  and with a New Best Friend of her own. She loyally deflects widespread suggestions that Renee has had too much cosmetic work done. Renee is the most beautiful woman, inside and out, she says stoutly. The news stories make me sad because its another example of shaming women, which is just so wrong and so depressing.

Renee is professional but also sweet  and surprisingly naughty and funny. A lot of the time we improvised and just riffed on the slightly vulgar aspects of sex. It all sounds tremendous fun. We dont get much proper comedy in the cinema, us girls, Sarah points out. Look at the fuss everyone made about Bridesmaids  a great film but youd think it was the coming of the Messiah in comedy terms. We become trained to laugh at boys things, so its great to have something thats a bit closer to home.

Sarah at the premiere of Bridget Joness Baby

Sarah lives with her family in Hackney, East London. Her father Akiva, now retired, lives in the next borough. A maths lecturer, he gave up academia and retrained as a full-time foster carer. Both he and his late wife were active Labour Party members. Akiva was conferred with honorary miner status in the 1980s when he gave his salary to the coal workers during their national strike. He also loves theatre and sparked Sarahs passion for performance. I vividly remember the first time I went to the theatre with my dad; it was The Wizard of Oz and it was so dazzling I decided to follow the Yellow Brick Road into acting.

I was in a local drama group as a kid, then I was accepted into the National Youth Theatre, had an agent by the age of 17 and thought, Oooh, this is easy. Confident she could pick up the threads after university, she went to Cambridge and joined the Footlights theatre group, in which she was always, always the only girl.

I became vice president and we took productions to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. When you do live shows you get a sense of what works; you dont know its funny until you get a laugh.

But after she graduated with a 2:1, reality hit hard; the work dried up and she found herself working in a call centre to make ends meet. So she decided to write her own scripts rather than wait for work offers to come to her. There are lots of funny women out there but not a lot of funny parts for them, so I decided to redress the balance, she says. She has written plays for the Royal Court, the Old Vic and Soho Theatre, and both wrote and starred in The Secrets, a darkly funny one-off drama for BBC One about a bride who discovers the night before her wedding that her fiance was accused of rape. I was proud of that, says Sarah. The BBC left us to make it how we wanted, and it was the most creative, brilliant experience.

TOP and SKIRT, LK Bennett. SHOES, Giuseppe Zanotti

She is currently shooting the second series of No Offence, coming soon to Channel 4. Its like The Bill, only mental and set in Manchester, says Sarah. I play a hard-nosed DCI. Think Helen Mirren meets Kenneth Williams  thats my character inspiration.

It sounds like the ultimate portfolio career and it suits her. If you were to tell me Id landed a role in a play for a year, Id panic, Sarah says. I thrive on variety; Im prepared for taking risks and I set out to organise my life so that even though I have a child I can be as spontaneous as possible. My wonderful mother-in-law Amanda comes over from West London to look after Soraya and they adore each other. Shes very encouraging and tells me Im doing a good job, which every first-time mother needs to hear, especially if your own mum isnt around. You have to make sure you have a support system and are not too hard on yourself.

Sarah earlier this year with husband Daniel Ingram at the Jameson Empire Awards

'I like seeing my friends and having time for myself. When I got the part in Bridget Joness Baby I immediately started figuring out how to make my own childcare work during filming. Soraya was only one at the time, so Amanda brought her on set. When theyre that little, everyone finds them cute until they start weeing on a prop and then you realise its impossible to have a toddler on a film set!

Renee and Sarah spent a lot of time shooting the breeze between scenes. The set people created a festival for us to film in and one of the green rooms was a tent full of hay bales, where we would hang and talk about our lives in between takes. Another thing about Renee: that girl likes to chat. And I do mean chat.

But it wasnt all idle banter. When the make-up artist mentioned that Sarah was a scriptwriter, Renee asked Sarah to send her what she was working on. I thought, Thats sweet but no way does she mean it, admits Sarah. But the next time we were on set she said, Hey, you didnt send it to me, so I did.

Renee, who is a producer as well as an actress, read it, loved it and was encouraging; that script became The Secrets. Another high-profile professional generous with her time was BBC newscaster Fiona Bruce, whom Renee and Sarah met while researching their roles. Fiona took us on a tour of the news studios and talked us through her day. It was hugely impressive  the deadlines, the quick response times, the way she stayed calm under pressure. It really gave us something to draw on.

SPOT ON FOR SARAH Bridget pants or small pants? Not big pants; they constrict your tummy so you cant eat as much. Marks & Spencer pants, or Agent Provocateur if Im feeling fruity. Mark Darcy or Daniel Cleaver? Ah, its tricky, isnt it? Mr Darcy has that explosive, simmering passion, so uptight and English, whereas Daniel Cleaver is more suave, more European and looser. Basically, Mr Darcy is the yin to Daniel Cleavers yang. Or maybe the schlang to his schlong. The point is, most women want a bit of both. Reading A House Full of Daughters by Juliet Nicolson. Its a simple premise looking at seven generations of women in one family, but its got all the juicy bits of several novels in one. Listening to I love 90s garage and R&B, played very loud in my car. Watching I am obsessed with the Channel 4 documentary 24 Hours in Police Custody  its genius TV. Dream dinner party guest Charlotte Church. We met at a rave at Glastonbury this year and had the most amazing chat about politics and global affairs. Love her. Guilty secret If I wanted, I could probably grow a full beard. Motto Nothing feels as good as fat tastes. Advertisement

Sarahs performance in the film is guaranteed to get her noticed; unlike romantic, wistful Bridget she is gung-ho and entirely blase about one-night stands. In real life things are rather different. Sarah describes her husband as Mr Darcy but with 30 per cent more humour. Daniel gives me roots and wings and is terribly practical but romantic too, she says dreamily.

He fixes things and is organised but also makes sure we have fun date nights. Above all he still makes me laugh. Laughter is a powerful force, off and on screen, but in a film such as Bridget Joness Baby there must be light and shade, poignancy and, above all, believability.

Three alternative endings were shot and for a long time not even the cast knew whether Bridget would end up with Colin Firth or Patrick Dempsey. Its a shame any woman has to pick just the one husband, sighs Sarah with mock incomprehension. Having had a child myself, you do need two men  one to help with the child and one to help with your needs. Actually, three  one more to help with the house.

But there was no way Bridget was going to do anything too avant garde. You cant suspend the truth, otherwise the audience wont connect and wont trust you, says Sarah. Shes right, because theres a truth at the core of Bridget Jones that touches us all: is there any woman who hasnt felt unsure or lonely or fearful that she wont ever be loved? Or lost her keys and purse, or found herself woefully over- or under-dressed for an occasion?

All women know how hard it is to fail publicly and hold on to your dignity, says Sarah. Bridget has shown us that you can pick yourself up, dust down your bunny outfit and walk into the party with your head  and your pink floppy ears  held high.

Wise words, which the nations women should hold close to our hearts as we clink our glasses and watch the opening credits roll.

Bridget Joness Baby will be in cinemas from Friday
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, he said that to ensure durable bilateral ties, and steady development, it is of paramount importance that we respect each others aspirations, concerns and strategic interests.

Later External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup explained: You can pretty well understand that when we talk of strategic interests and aspirations, it is not as if China is unaware of our strategic concerns and aspirations or we are unaware of their concerns.

Modi had not only the Valley in mind, but also Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir (POK).

PM Narendra Modi (left) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the West Lake State Guest House ahead of G20 Summit in Hangzhou.

Concerns

In his August 15 speech, the Prime Minister had asserted: The people of Balochistan, the people of Gilgit, the people of POK have thanked me in such a manner, from places that I have never been and never had a chance to meet, they have sent wishes to the people of India and thanked us... I am grateful to them.

On the previous day, Pakistans Independence Day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had dedicated his countrys independence to the freedom of Kashmir from Indian rule.

During the previous weeks, Pakistan had been bringing the Kashmir issue on the world scene.

During the previous weeks, Pakistan had been bringing the Kashmir issue on the world scene. (Policemen intervene protesters during a protest against the separate townships for Kashmiri Pandits in Maisuma area of Srinagar)

Two issues forced India to take a tougher position to defend its interests: the current unrest in the Valley, but also the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), cutting across POK, in which Beijing plans to invest $46 billion.

To get proper historical perspectives of the current situation, it is necessary to go back to the year before the British left the jewel of their empire.

The British Empire, born from a trading company, was a sea-empire.

But at the beginning of the 20th century, two new factors appeared on the strategic scene: one was aviation (whose role was masterfully demonstrated by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour in 1941) and petrol, and therefore, the importance of the Middle East.

When the British Chiefs of Staff were ordered to submit a report on the strategic consequences of the departure from the subcontinent, the generals agreed that Pakistan was more important than India; they foresaw the possibility of installing air bases in the north of Pakistan to control Russia and naval bases opening to the Arabian Sea in the south.

Another argument was that Mohammed Ali Jinnah was extremely keen to remain within the Commonwealth while the Indian National Congress had not made up its mind.

Jinnah once forcefully told Mountbatten: You cant kick us out.

Subsequently, Londons policy was meticulously implemented; as the time of Independence came, while Jinnah insisted on becoming the first Governor- General of Pakistan, the Congress big-heartedly offered the job in India to the Viscount.

This was the first of a long series of blunders. Then, when soon after Independence, the issue of Junagadh and Hyderabad came up, the Cabinet had to create a defence committee.

Who became its chairman? A Britisher, the same Mountbatten. Second blunder.

Mistakes

This was a surrealistic situation: two dominions, one with a Pakistani Governor- General, the other with a British; two armies, both commanded by British generals.

The Indian British generals took orders from the British Governor- General and not from the Indian government; the Defence Committee being chaired by a Briton, often overrode the Cabinets decisions and a stand-down order stated that British officers would not fight one another.

The story is too well known to be recounted here, but the interesting point is that the British constantly played a double game. (Images of Kashmiri protesters)

As a result, India could not defend itself. Such was the situation when the raiders trained, equipped and directed by Colonel Akbar Khan, military adviser of the Pakistani Prime Minister, entered Kashmir at the end of October 1947.

The story is too well known to be recounted here, but the interesting point is that the British constantly played a double game.

For example, General Douglas Gracey, the Pakistani Army Commander, knew of the raiders attack beforehand, but he did not inform his Indian British counterpart.

Another mega blunder: as the Indian Army was ready to chase back the raiders and the Pakistani regulars, Jawaharlal Nehru unnecessarily referred the issue to UN on the advice of Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister and Mountbatten.

Outlook

The invasion of J&K by Pakistani regular forces on May 8, 1948, was in contravention of all international laws.

Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs, wrote: When even direct aggression failed, (Pakistan) began to clamour for a plebiscite, thereby hoping to achieve by other means what she had failed to obtain by force.

Bajpai remarked that for the first time in its Resolution of August 13, 1948, the UN recorded one major change in the situation as contemplated by the Security Council during its deliberations in the early part of that year, namely, the presence of Pakistan troops in the state of J&K.

In this condition, the plebiscite never took place. It is important to keep this in mind, when one goes through the recent developments in the region.

It is essential to look at these events in their historical context. The large presence of Chinese workers on a territory that was legally part of the India Union, and also the joint patrols conducted by PLA frontier defence troops and the Pakistani Khunjerab Security Force south of the Khunjerab pass (aiming to offer security guarantee to the construction of the CPEC), are naturally a serious concern for India.

Let us hope that China is now aware of Indias strategic concerns and aspirations in the region.
Street vendors are allegedly selling beef biryani on wheels by paying off the police in Haryanas Mewat district.

The residents and local legislators told Mail Today that this is against the backdrop of a swirling controversy over the use of the forbidden meat in the Muslim- dominated area.

Authorities collected samples of biryani from shopkeepers and hawkers last week from Mundaka village - 85km from Gurugram, and sent them for testing in a laboratory, following a flurry of allegations.

A biryani seller in Mewat -the place has been in news over the recent beef controversy.

However, the office of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal said it was yet to be determined whether the collected samples contained beef.

It denied that any report on the issue from the Hisar laboratory has been released to the government.

Once the report is out we will know whether there was beef in the biryani samples or not. Then, as it is a matter of law, we will act accordingly, said Amit Arya, the CMs media adviser.

"It is not a communal issue at all.

Haryana has stringent cow protection laws with slaughter of the animal, considered sacred by many Hindus, drawing punishment of 10 years in jail and a person can be imprisoned for five years for beef trading.

A drive across Mewat revealed that the number of biryani sellers that dot every intersection in the district has gone down ever since the raid.

An on-ground, reality check by Mail Today threw up contradictory claims from several stakeholders in the district that has long been seen as the centre of a spectrum of illicit activities.

A drive across Mewat revealed that the number of biryani sellers had decreased.

Earlier, a number of biryani vendors were spotted at every intersection, dotting the entire maze of highways crisscrossing the district, but only a few were spotted on Friday.

Local Muslims, including their representatives in local bodies such as panchayats, told Mail Today team that cow meat was a usual ingredient in the biryani preparation of street vendors.

The Muslim residents in the district do not believe in the logic of cow slaughter being a pivot of Islam, they said.

A panchayat member of Ghasera, one of the biggest villages of Mewat, said: Only a small section of people in Mewat eat beef, but the majority does not."

Street vendors use beef in their biryani, which is a major attraction for the truck drivers. For the sake of communal harmony, we want cow slaughter to end, but some people do practice it to suit their religion though their motive is purely divisive and political.

This local Meo Muslim - a community beleived to be consisting of Hindu converts, are dominant in this region.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal said it was yet to be determined whether the collected samples contained beef. (Picture for representation only)

Due to the presence of this community, the region boasted of exceptional communal harmony even during the tumultuous days of the 1947 partition.

The members of Meo Muslim alleged that cow smugglers are active in the region and in the past four months, several incidents had occurred in the villages.

Many of us helped the police to catch these culprits. Nowadays, they have evolved imaginative ways to smuggle cows such. The smugglers are bringing cows inside oil tankers; and have become so adept that they are even able to stuff a full-blooded cow inside a car as small as a hatchback, he said.

The police, though, he claimed were also to blame as they had failed to nab many of these smugglers and butchers, while he alleged that the police is even complicit in this underground black economy.

MLAs from the Nuh segment - the other two assembly segments being Punhana and Ferozepur Jhirka (from where the biryani samples have been found positive for beef) are against the biryani vendors.

Zakir Hussain from the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), accused the local police of being in cahoots with the offenders.

All the villages of Mewat are connected via good roads; one can see one village from the other and yet the police say that they are not able to stop the nefarious activity, said Hussain.

This move of targeting biryani vendors by the BJP government is only a ploy to communalise the atmosphere and harass the already backward and poor Meo Muslim community.

The police denied any links with cow smuggling other than strict adherence to the law.

We take care of the complaints that come to us as strictly as possible. We even have a CS or cow slaughter cell that is the nodal agency for these complaints. We recently had a meeting with the cow protection task force and were educated in the cow protection law, said Ashok Kumar, Nuh police stations SHO.

Opposition smells BJPs UP poll strategy

By Mail Today Bureau

Political opponents of the Manohar Lal government have accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of conducting beef raids in Mewat to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments across India, from Kashmir to Haryana, to influence the UP assembly elections in 2017.

Congress national spokesperson Meem Afzal alleged that the Haryana government was indulging in a campaign that was even against the spirit of the Prime Ministers contention when he declared that most of the gau-rakshaks were antisocial elements.

The Haryana government thinks it is even bigger than the PM who did the nation much service to declare that gau-rakshaks were a front for criminal activities in most cases."

Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly, INLDs Abhay Singh Chautala also blamed the ruling party of trying to create conflict

"On the other hand, the BJP is trying to create an atmosphere where it culminates into a communal riot on the occasion of Eid so that they can reap the electoral harvest in the UP elections. Due to its crass failure, the state government is trying to hide its face behind cow, said Afzal.

Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly, INLDs Abhay Singh Chautala also blamed the ruling party of trying to create conflict.

BJP has a long history of doing communal riots by creating conflicts. It has picked beef issue in Haryana for the same purpose. They want to make such a situation to create riots between Hindu and Muslim, he said.

The INLD leader also targeted state for not working in the interest of common people of Haryana and raising non relevant, pre-vocational issues.

Khattar government in Haryana is working while keeping in mind of industrialists and private builders. It has given Rs 100 crore to private builders which was actually allocated for farmers, and (another) Rs 200 crore from state exchequer, added Chautala.

Ye BJP mahaul bana rahi hai UP elections ke liye, (BJP is preparing the ground for Uttar Pradesh polls) said INLDs Zakir Hussain.

'Government's cow fight gets little funds'

By Ajay Kumar and Siddhartha Rai

With the BJP government caught in a beef row in Haryana, Aam Aadmi Party has said that the raids are politically motivated and the BJP has neglected cows in its state.

AAPs Haryana unit members said the government has allocated just Rs 4.5 crore in the last two years, and that too has been spent on making the identity cards forthe Gauraksha Dal members.

Haryana has 408 gaushala (cow shelters) in 21 districts, of which 341 are government registered.

AAP said the Haryana government has allocated only Rs 4.5 crore for the welfare of cows in the last two years.

Sirsa district has as many as 73 such shelters which is the maximum, while Faridabad has just four.

RS Rathi, official spokesperson of AAPs Haryana wing said: The BJP government is using the beef issue as a tool to create communal tension between two communities and it has nothing to do with cow protection and conservation. The Khattar government has not even allocated adequate funds for the gaushalas to nurture cows.

He said that BJP had mentioned cow protection, research and nurturing of the animal as its prime agenda during the assembly election, which they have failed in.

Nurturing one cow in a good manner needs Rs 30 per day and Haryana has 3,60,490 cows in various gausahlas. Besides these, there are street cows which have been abandoned. The protection and conservation of cows in Haryana needs at least Rs 360 crore per year and Haryana government allocation is much lower, Rathi said.

AAP has demanded that Haryana government to allocate at least Rs 500 crore for this.
Naiks organisation has come under scanner amid fears that his

Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation in 2011 had donated Rs 50 lakh to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation

Controversial televangelist Zakir Naik has now cast a shadow over the Sonia Gandhi led Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

At the centre of a storm is a donation of Rs 50 lakh allegedly made by the preachers Islamic Research Foundation in 2011.

Though the amount was returned after an emergency meeting of the trust in July, the issue has turned into a political hot potato for the party.

Naiks organisation has come under the scanner amid fears that his hardline views could radicalise youth after it was alleged that some of the gunmen who launched a deadly attack on a cafe in Bangladesh about two months ago were influenced by his sermons.

BJPs RP Singh tweeted about the raising the preacher's connection with the high and mighty.

Speaking to India Today TV, Singh alleged: This returning (of money) is to fool people. Now investigation against Naik is in full swing, they realised it's safer to return it. Digvijaya (Singh) called Naik man of peace. Now we know what made him say so.

Naiks organisation has come under the scanner after it was alleged that some of the gunmen who launched a deadly attack on a cafe in Bangladesh about two months ago were influenced by his sermons.

The Congress, visibly embarrassed by its party presidents name being dragged into a controversy, was quick to hit back.

Senior party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: Do you expect us to know that Zakir Naik will be under scanner after years? One needs to be an astrologist for that. The moment investigation against Naik began, the donation was returned.

But with the NIA, Home Ministry and Intelligence Bureau after Naik, the report has emerged as a nettlesome issue for the Congress.
Neeraj Kumar, 32, is a temporary employee of MCD for last 12 years

Neeraj Kumar, 32, spends his day pulling out rubbish and excreta from the citys drains.

The father-of-two who once dreamt of joining the Army is a postgraduate in political science, but is yet to be recognised by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as a regular employee despite 12 years of service.

I joined as a beldar (field worker) for MCD after finishing Class XII, he told Mail Today.

I thought eventually I would progress and be promoted to a senior level. However, seeing my interest in studies, my seniors encouraged me to continue with my education. Along with my work, I completed my graduation and post-graduation. While I miss my dream, I have come too far to have any regrets.

India has passed several laws to end manual scavenging with governments pledging to modernise sanitation and criminalise those who employ people to dispose of excreta.

Despite spending 12 long years as a manual scavenger, graduate Neeraj Kumar is yet to be recognised as corporations regular employee

Despite the regulations, studies conducted by social services groups and NGOs reveal that hundreds of people are still involved as scavengers.

Kumar leaves home at 6am and finishes only by 9 at night.

The stench in the drains is so unbearable, he says, that one cannot walk anywhere in the area without covering their faces.

It is now too late for me to find something that suits my qualification, he said.

Delhi State Legal Services Authority interacted with about 1,000 workers, of which it has identified 233 employed as manual scavengers

I hope one day my dedication will bring benefits from the corporations policy for regular employees.

Like him, 34-year-old Sunil Sharma who is a graduate from Delhi University, is making his ends meet by working as a manual scavenger.

Due to financial difficulties, he says he had to give up the dream of joining the Delhi Police.

Sunil is also a talented musician. He has completed a course as a Disc Jockey but once again monetary problems have prevented him from taking up a career as a musician, says Pankaj Sharma, Sunils younger brother.

Sunil and Neeraj do not enter the pits but still physically come in contact with the hazardous waste and work without any protective gear.

In a recent survey, the Delhi State Legal Services Authority interacted with about 1,000 workers, of which it has identified 233 employed as manual scavengers.

Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act prohibits employing manual scavengers. (File photo of 60-year old manual scavenger in UP)

The study was carried out after the directives given by the Delhi High Court.

Of the 233 manual scavengers -104 were government employees and the rest were working for private contractors.

The employees of Delhi Jal Board and Municipal Corporation of Delhi do not enter the pits; that work is outsourced.

The survey identified five manual scavengers who had studied beyond Class XII, including Neeraj, who has a masters degree.

In the case of DJB employees, even though the agency provides protective gear like gumboots, ropes, gloves, safety belts and helmets, they are hardly put to use by the workers.

According to an employee, these gears are heavy and they have no facility to carry them from one place to another.

However, in MCD, no protective gear is provided due to which around 50 workers revealed that they have bought the equipment with their own money.

During the month-long survey, the para-legal volunteers found that many workers were suffering from skin diseases and disabilities such as weakening of eyesight, spinal injuries and respiratory problems.

Taking note of a report filed by the DSLSA, the Delhi High Court pulled up the civic bodies for the disgraceful practice.

The bench of Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice Ashutosh Kumar also noted that the report contradicted the stand taken by the agencies, which had claimed there were no manual scavengers in the Capital.

The bench also termed it "ridiculous and shocking" when it was informed by DSLSA's member secretary Dharmesh Sharma that one of the manual scavengers was a postgraduate.

"This completely belies the statement made by the Delhi Jal Board, MCDs and other authorities concerned," it said, adding that "despite the rights that they (manual scavengers) have under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, their presence is indeed disgraceful for the city".
Tonnes of Chinese fireworks, which erupt into a toxic haze over Indian cities every Diwali and leave residents gagging for oxygen, are being smuggled into the country despite the Centre ordering a clampdown last year.

Officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized such firecrackers worth Rs 7.2 crore that were stuffed inside cargo containers labelled Adhesive Tapes and Badminton Rackets at a Mumbai port in August.

But sources say dozens of similar cases go unnoticed. Possession and sale of foreign-made explosives is a punishable offence under the Explosives Act, but the Chinese fireworks that are cheap but often unreliable and dangerous easily make their way to Indian markets.

A visit to the wholesale fireworks market in old Delhis Chandni Chowk area reveals how the illegal imports have dampened the local business in the past few years.

Manufacturers of firecrackers in Tamil Nadus Sivakasi town say Chinese variants are flooding the country without any checks and the trend has gone up in the past few years.

Diwali has been muted in Delhi and other big cities in recent years with activists and experts blaming the celebrations for exacerbating the appalling air quality.

K Mariappan, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Fireworks & Amorces Manufacturers Association (TANFAMA), said nearly 2,000 containers of Chinese firecrackers worth about Rs 1,500 crore are sold in Indian markets annually.

They are being smuggled into India through main seaports such as Kandla, Nhava Sheva (Mumbai), Tuticorin (Chennai), ICD Tuglakabad and Kolkata."

The manufacturers also alleged that unlike Indian products, Chinese fireworks do not adhere to any noise standards prescribed by the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986 and the Explosives Rules, 2008

"They enter under false declarations in the name of toys or electronic goods, he said. The Chinese firecrackers are low on cost but come with a lot of risks, say industry insiders.

They are cheaper because of the use of chemicals such as potassium chlorate and perchlorates that are banned in India as they are not safe for the climate here. In Sivakasi as well as in many parts of the country where the temperatures are often high, the use of these chemicals in firecrackers may prove lethal, said Mariappan, pointing out that more expensive but safer potassium nitrate and aluminium powder are used in India.

The manufacturers also alleged that unlike Indian products, Chinese fireworks do not adhere to any noise standards prescribed by the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986 and the Explosives Rules, 2008.

Rising cases

As early as on Wednesday, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials seized large quantity of Chinese crackers worth Rs 1.27 crore during a raid at Pithampur inland container depot (ICD), Dhar.

DRI officials say the crackers were brought ahead of Diwali festival, when their sales boom.

Shailendra Singh, joint secretary in the ministry of commerce and industry, acknowledged that Chinese firecrackers are being illegally brought into the country.

Many instances of smuggling have come to light. The containers of crackers enter the country under the guise of different items like toys or sports goods, he said.

Enforcement agencies including DRI, Customs and state authorities, keep a check on the influx of foreign fireworks at Indian borders.

Singh said the government has not provided any licence for import of Chinese firecrackers.

The matter was taken up with chief ministers to direct concerned authorities for keeping a close vigil on clandestine import of fireworks and their sale.

Officials said advertisements were published across the country to sensitise people against using illegally imported firecrackers and their harmful effects to the environment and health.

Also, district authorities, DRI and Customs officials have been instructed to confiscate such items and take action against illegal importers and sellers.

We have been writing to these agencies and states as the import of fireworks from China has been banned, added Singh.

This time too we would write to them and they will also be sensitised to stop the smuggling into the country.

A visit to the wholesale fireworks market in old Delhis Chandni Chowk area revealed how illegal imports of Chinese crackers have dampened the local business in the past few years.

Many people dont think about safety and buy Chinese crackers because they are cheaper, said Janaki Jain, a wholesale trader.

Huge demand

Merchants said smuggled fireworks enter the market only a few days before Diwali in Delhi and other parts of the country and are mostly sold by temporary licence holders.

There is a huge demand of such crackers in smaller colonies and cities, Jain added.

People dont care about safety and only go for the stuff sold at cheaper rates.

Licence to kill cracker business

By Kumar Vikram

As Diwali approaches, thousands of shops start selling fire-crackers, though on a temporary basis.

But traders claim that unfriendly approach of authorities have dampened their business over the years.

In states, district authorities are empowered to grant licences for possession and sale of fireworks.

Lack of time frame has been causing several hardships to the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of fire crackers

Manufactures claim that these temporary licences are given in a haphazard manner for varying periods ranging from three to 15 days before Diwali.

These licences reach the hands of the licensees on the last day of Diwali and in some cases, even after Diwali. There is no time frame or uniform practice set for receipt of applications, grant of licences, says K Mariappan, general secretary, TANFAMA (Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association).

Lack of time frame has been causing several hardships to the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of fireworks.

They say that the fireworks shops should be able to get their supplies well ahead of Diwali.

The consumers should also have sufficient time to procure their requirement before Diwali. But when the temporary licences are delayed, the shops are left perplexed and there is a grave uncertainty as to when they will be granted with licences, adds Mariappan.

In recent years, the industry has witnessed a trend wherein the majority of stocks with temporary firework shops remain unsold after Diwali for want of sufficient time to sell, giving raise to storage problems and safety hazards.

According to Sivakasi-based fireworks associations, several representations have been made to the Union government to address the issue of unwanted delay in issuing the licences, besides ensuring that such licenses are valid for 30 days.

A senior official of the department of industrial policy and production (DIPP) says that the department has written to the states in this regard and has issued guidelines to sort out the issue.
A complaint has been filed against Delhi Bellys director Akshat Verma by the Hindu Sena wherein the organisation alleged that the director had hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus by making fun of the Mahabharat in its sixteen minute satirical film titled Mamas Boy.

The complaint filed at Parliament Street Police Station has the Hindu Sena chief asking the police to take stringent action against the filmmaker for the portrayal of some characters in the Mahabharat as homosexuals.

The film is a satirical take on Draupadis polygamous wedding to the Pandavas, using a lot of innuendos.

Scroll down for video:

Mama's Boy featuring Aditi Rao Hydari (left) and Neena Gupta (right) is a satirical take on Draupadis polygamous wedding to the Pandavas, using a lot of innuendos

The film Mama's Boy featuring actress Aditi Rao Hydari as Draupadi and acclaimed actress Neena Gupta as Kunti is getting huge response on social networking sites.

Akshat Verma and the team of Mamas Boy have deliberately and maliciously acted intending to outrage religious feelings of Hindus by insulting its religion and religious beliefs by making fun of its religious book. The content of the film may also be made objectionable under article 19(2) of Constitution of India, read the complaint.

The film portrays some characters in the Mahabharat as homosexuals

The Hindu Sena Chief, who had forwarded the complaint had said that the film should be removed from YouTube and the makers of the film must immediately face strict action.

The makers of the film could not be contacted for their response.

The police has received the complaint, but are yet to file an FIR regarding the matter.
President Barack Obama has concluded his trip to Laos, the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited the Southeast Asian nation.

In a speech to the Lao people, Mr. Obama noted that in the past the relationship between Laos and the United States was burdened by conflict. The United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs on Laos in an attempt to block supplies to the North Vietnamese Communist forces during the Vietnam War. Thousands of Lao have been killed or wounded by unexploded ordnance since the war ended. Mr. Obama announced that the United States would double its funding to $90 million over three years to help Laos clear the unexploded ordnance.

Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal, he said.

President Obama also spoke of strengthening the relationship between Laos and the United States with an eye to the future. He said the U.S. wanted to partner with the Lao people in areas including nutrition, education, trade and commerce, and the pursuit of clean energy.

Mr. Obama linked his visit and the deepening U.S.-Laos ties to his broader agenda of engagement with the nations and people of the Asia Pacific region, a region that is home to half of humanity and destined to become even more important in the century ahead. He noted the strengthening of U.S. defense collaboration with Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Australia, as well as the expanded U.S. engagement with emerging economies and powers, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, in promoting entrepreneurship, opposing violent extremism, and addressing environmental degradation.

President Obama also emphasized the U.S. role in standing with citizens on behalf of democracy and human rights. Nations are stronger and more successful when they uphold human rights, he said. They are the birthright of every human being. And we know that democracy can flourish in Asia because weve seen it thrive from Japan and South Korea to Taiwan.

This is the partnership that America offers here in Laos and across the Asia Pacific, President Obama said. Respect for your sovereignty. Security and peace through cooperation. Investment in childrens health. Education for students. Support for entrepreneurs. Development and trade. A commitment to the rights and dignity that is borne out of our common humanity. This is our vision. This is the future we can realize together.
The Haryana Police has deployed Special Task Force (STF) units on the state borders, adjoining western and southern Uttar Pradesh, which are known as hotbeds of cattle smuggling.

The decision was taken following strong demands made by the cow protection activists in Haryana.

We wanted the constitution of a task force in all the 21 districts of Haryana and the state police has accepted our demands. One task force comprises of at least 17 policemen. The task force with the highest strength of 100 will be deployed in Mewat district as it is most vulnerable, said Bhani Ram Mangla, president of the Gau Seva Ayog in Haryana.

Cow vigilantism has been stepped up in several districts of Haryana

Districts such as Yamunanagar, Panchkula, Ambala, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Panipat and Sonipat share the borders with districts of western Uttar Pradesh such as Muzaffarnagar, while Palwal in southern Haryana touches UP's Mathura district.

It is believed that major highways like the GT Road connecting Sonipat, Panipat, Karnal and Kurukshetra; the Maneser-Palwal Expressway connecting Gurugram, Mewat and Palwal; NH-2 connecting Palwal with Mathura and Agra; and NH-8 connecting Gurugram, Rewari and parts of Rajasthan border are used by cattle smugglers.

These border areas are highly vulnerable as cattle smugglers are very active here. They use the road routes of these adjoining districts of the two states to smuggle cattle and hence, need to be checked. We have urged the Haryana Police to keep a vigil in these routes by deploying a task force, Mangla said.

The STF will be deployed in borders where cos is smuggled in the state from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan

Bharti Arora, DIG, Haryana Police and the nodal officer for cow protection and conservation told Mail Today that these task force units are headed by an inspector-rank officer under the supervision of the district SP or police commissioner in all the districts.

The job of the task force is to collect information about cattle smuggling and slaughtering through ground-level informers and their intelligence network in the district. They are entitled to take prompt action following specific inputs about criminal activities and also take the help of the district police if needed," Arora said.
Fit for purpose: Everyone should keep track of their credit history

Everyone should keep track of their credit history. It might not be in quite the tip top shape you think  for a number of reasons including fraud  and it could derail your plans to remortgage your home or buy a new one (perish the thought).

Thankfully, access to information on personal credit worthiness is now readily available. Under the Consumer Credit Act, we are entitled to see what the main credit reference agencies  CallCredit, Equifax and Experian  have on their files about us.

It is these details which lenders use to determine whether any application made for a personal loan, credit card or mortgage should be accepted or declined.

It costs 2 to request a full statutory credit report from one of the agencies although it is worth forking out 6 to see what details each of them have on you (they vary). By accessing such information, you will be able to check the records are correct  you can get mistakes put right  and that no one has been busy trying to take out credit in your name.

Six pounds very well spent.

There are quicker  and free  ways to get an idea of how credit worthy you are. Provided you are happy to reveal a few key personal details, companies such as Noddle and Clearscore will give you an online rating within minutes.

Last week, I tested both (I am still waiting for my statutory credit report from Experian).

Clearscore gave me a credit score of 519 out of a maximum 700 (better than the average score of 365 for where I live and better than the average for the UK of 380). It also described my credit rating as stable. Noddle rated me higher, giving a score of 690 (out of a maximum 710) and a maximum five-star rating.

Experian has now decided to join this free credit score brigade. As part of its new online creditmatcher service it will provide people with their credit score (mine was an excellent 981 out of 999). Not just now but for ever. For those who want to go further and apply for new credit  be it a card, loan or mortgage  creditmatcher will come up with the best deals from across the market based on how eligible it thinks you are.

On credit cards, for example, I was offered cards ranging from a 90 per cent eligibility rating down to 60 per cent. Experian says that by shopping for credit this way, you reduce  not avoid  the probability of making an unsuccessful application (or multiple applications) which blemish your credit rating further.

Only when you apply for a specific product will it be noted on your credit record. Details of the wider search will not impact on your credit record.

Of course, creditmatcher has not been set up purely to ensure our credit records remain as exemplary as possible, taking into account our predilection for debt.

Stock market-listed Experian is in business to make money and will earn commission every time someone buys a product through its new service.

But provided it remains true to its word and comes up with product recommendations based purely on eligibility grounds (not influenced one iota by how much commission providers pay it), its a service borrowers should welcome. A comparison website a cut above many others.

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Why Yorkshire BS is teaching kids about money

Lending and borrowing is one of ten lesson options Yorkshire Building Society is currently offering to deliver at schools up and down the country as part of its commitment to increase financial literacy in the classroom.

Like a select number of other banks and building societies keen on a future financial world without scandal and misselling, Yorkshire believes better financial education is part of the answer. This education, it says, should start as early as possible.

As a result, it has launched its Money Minds programme which schools can use as part of their national curriculum requirement to deliver financial lessons for key stages one to five.

The lessons will be delivered by employees and embrace everything from buying a house (not a chance without the Bank of Mum and Dad) through to exploring the world of work and wages.

There are also sessions on pensions (for 16 to 19-year-olds) and keeping money safe. Glaring omissions are the inevitability of humungous student debt (it does provide a broader lesson on lending and borrowing) and the fruitlessness of putting money into a savings account.
Martin also warned Brexit negotiators

Leave campaigner and chairman of Wetherspoons Tim Martin has used a bumper set of results to attack the scaremongers who warned of a post-referendum economic collapse.

Martin said it was difficult not to be smug about a 5.4 per cent boost in pub revenues, and warned Brexit negotiators.

With profits at the pub chain rising 12.5 per cent for the year to July 24, Martin, 61, said Britain didnt need a trade deal with the EU.

He said: Scare story one, from the IMF, the OECD and the Treasury that the economy was going to crash if we voted to leave, was just that, a scare story.
Shock exit: Ronny Gottsclich leaves Lidl

The boss of Lidls UK business has stepped down after overseeing the German budget supermarkets rapid rise across the country.

The company said Ronny Gottschlich had been replaced by Christian Hartnagel, 34, who will become chief executive of Lidl Great Britain immediately.

Lidl and fellow German discount chain Aldi have shaken up the UK grocery sector and sparked a price war by stealing market share from Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons.

Gottschlich spent 16 years at Lidl, including six years as its boss in Britain.
Asda has paid its parent company Wal-Mart the biggest dividend for 12 years, even as a food price war raged about it.

It transferred 450 million to a sister company owned by Wal-Mart in January despite sliding sales and as it saw its market share further eroded by fast growing German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

The money was paid after Asda made record profits of 975 million in the year to December 2015, a rise of 5.9 per cent on the previous year. Sales dipped 3.7 per cent to 22.4 billion. The dividend was the first Asda had paid to Wal-Mart since 2009 and the biggest since the 1.4 billion it paid in 2003.

Price war: Sales at supermarket Asda slipped 3.7 per cent last year but profits rose

It was transferred from Asda to its holding company, Corinth Investments, which is owned by Wal-Mart Stores UK.

A trail of documents shows a higher sum of 505 million was then transferred from yet another Wal-Mart-owned company based in Britain to an Amsterdam firm, Broadstreet European Holdings, also controlled by the US group.

The payout came despite fierce supermarket price competition. Last year, Asdas then chief executive, Andy Clarke, dismissed suggestions he had been ordered by Wal-Mart to hold on to its profit margin at the cost of lower sales.

But Asdas performance will have been a welcome boost to the Wal-Mart balance sheet in a year in which group profits slipped.

Asda said the payment was a capital reduction that was part of an exercise to simplify the group structure. In a surprise announcement three months ago, Clarke was replaced after more than six years as Asdas boss. He is understood to be conducting other duties for the group until the year end.
New Marks & Spencer chief executive Steve Rowe was last night standing firm against demands by Labour MPs that he accept a pay freeze for three years.

The MPs have waded into a staff pay row at the retailer via a letter and targeted Rowes own salary as part of their campaign.

However, in a written reply seen by The Mail on Sunday, Rowe said he and other executive directors had already agreed not to take a pay rise next year, but offered no further freeze.

Standing firm: The MPs have waded into a staff pay row at the retailer via a letter and targeted Steve Rowes own salary

He also rejected the MPs call for the board to reconsider staff pay changes, saying the vast majority would be better off. And he argued that M&S customer assistants will be paid more than the recently introduced National Living Wage and that from April next year M&S staff would be amongst the highest paid in UK retail.

Interventions by MPs on pay at companies are on the rise amid claims that firms are cutting back on benefits to help fund the higher National Living Wage announced last year.

Their letter was organised by Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden. Backers included Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith, former contender Liz Kendall and former Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson. It followed a petition of 90,000 signatories against the pay changes.

M&S says its proposals will see big rises in basic pay, but will scrap premium pay for Sundays, introduce a standard payment for Bank Holiday working and reduce pension contributions. But after a lengthy consultation M&S has agreed top-up payments to compensate those who might lose out.

Rowe told the MPs in his letter: For those who would see a reduction in total pay as a result... top-up payments will ensure nobody is worse off in the first two years. He added that further top-up payments would be made from 2019 onwards.

Rowe took over as chief executive in April with a salary of 810,000. He also received 1.4 million in benefits and bonuses over the past two years. Replacing the outgoing Marc Bolland, Rowe is spearheading a turnaround plan at M&S in an effort to revive struggling clothing sales.

City analysts welcomed his plans to lower everyday prices and his focus on cherishing the companys core customer, who he dubbed Mrs M&S. However, he has warned that his plans will hit profits in the short term, but will deliver long-term gains.

McDonagh said 3,500 long-serving staff would lose out on pay under the new terms, while the pension arrangements of 11,000 will also be affected.

She said she would write back to Rowe and ask him to meet the 71 concerned MPs at the House of Commons. She said the staff affected by the new pay terms were hard working, dedicated and are

very loyal to the brand. She added: Many have been with the company their entire working lives. Its reasonable that they should expect the same conditions they signed up for.

The company has been struggling to revive its clothing business, which has been shrinking for years. Former boss Marc Bolland spent 3.5 billion on turnaround plans, but the City fears profits may not increase materially until at least 2020.

McDonagh said staff were not responsible for the mixed fortunes of the ladieswear division. They feel very let down, particularly because Rowe, like them, has been at the company all his life and they feel he should understand.

He has quickly taken a more radical stance than Bolland and last week also unveiled plans to cut 525 head office jobs and move 400 out of London.
The employment boom has been driven overwhelmingly by small companies which have accounted for almost four fifths of the rise in private sector jobs, a report claims.

Employment in Britain has risen by 2.5 million since 2010 with small companies responsible for 1.9 million new jobs.

The growth has been particularly strong among the self-employed with an extra 900,000 one-person businesses set up in the last five years, according to the study by energy group Npower and research company Capital Economics.

Best foot forward: The study has identified the key hotspots for small firms over the last five years with Manchester, the City of London and Leeds leading the way

Despite fears over growth in a post-Brexit Britain, small and medium-sized companies are expected to add a further 200,000 jobs between now and 2020 and are likely to generate an extra 16 billion for the economy.

The study has identified the key hotspots for small firms over the last five years with Manchester, the City of London and Leeds leading the way.

Smaller companies in the City of London are expected to provide an additional 36,000 jobs in the next five years, followed by Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton.

The report assessed the areas most likely to enjoy fast growth among small companies by measuring key factors including the workforce skills in a particular area, property costs and broadband speed.

Dale Murray CBE, a board adviser at the Centre for Entrepreneurs and non-executive director for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, said: Growth of small and medium-sized enterprises will be crucial to the British economy over the next five years as they create tens of thousands of jobs.

Policy makers must recognise how vital business rates, living conditions and workforce skills are to attracting small firms and do everything they can do support them.

Philip Scholes, head of Npower Business, said: These companies have been the backbone of the country in recent years and  as this research shows  there is significant opportunity for them to grow further over the next few years.

Small companies provide jobs for 16.8 million people in Britain  more than half of all employment.

Last week, Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark announced that Start Up Loans with a value of 250 million have been made available to entrepreneurs.
Viscount Weymouth attended Glastonbury with his wife Emma (pictured) this year

Arguments between the delightfully dotty Marquess of Bath and his son, Ceawlin, were laid bare last year in an entertaining BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, All Change At Longleat.

Now, their crumbling relationship has killed off a plan to host the Glastonbury Festival at their 10,000-acre estate in Wiltshire.

Glastonburys founder, Michael Eavis, plans to move the rock jamboree in 2019 from his working farm in Somerset, where it was first held in 1970. He was in detailed discussions with Lord Bath and his heir about switching it to Longleat, some 20 miles away.

However, Lord Bath, 84  known as the Loins of Longleat because of the 75 former lovers he calls wifelets  has been over-ruled by Ceawlin, who took over the running of the estate and safari park in 2010.

Longleat probably wont happen any more, Eavis confirms. Lord Bath is really keen. I went to him because I knew him when he was a boy.

But he and his son arent agreeing, and they dont speak very much, so its hard to make decisions. I havent been able to sit down with all of them at the same time.

Ceawlin (pictured with wife Emma), who took over the running of the state and safari park in 2010, is said to have over-ruled the plan to move Glastonbury to Longleat

Lord Baths relationship with his son, who has the title Viscount Weymouth, became strained after a series of disagreements. The biggest was over the decision by Ceawlin and his wife Emma, daughter of a Nigerian oil tycoon, to remove some of Lord Baths garish murals, which his father had painted for him and his sister when they were children.

Lord Bath and his real wife, Anna, failed to attend the couples wedding in 2013. Ceawlin was said to have stopped his mother from seeing his son, John, to prevent the child being contaminated by her racism. The marchioness, 72, denied she was a racist and said she had absolutely nothing against her daughter-in-law.

This summer, Ceawlin and Emma went to Glastonbury, which became a quagmire because of rain.

Ceawlin and Emma dont like the mud, Eavis says. They saw the mud at its worst. They were supposed to come and see it all cleaned up on September 1, but they didnt turn up.

Lord Baths (pictured) relationship with his son, who has the title Viscount Weymouth, became strained after a series of disagreements

He adds: They let me down gently about their decision. I went round to their house and we had a very long discussion. They said to clean up all that mud theyd have to restrict the whole of the operations at Longleat for about three months, and its too expensive.

Did Camerons get cold-shouldered?

Have the Camerons lost their social cachet now theyre no longer resident at Number 10? I hear David and Samantha were not invited to his cousin Adelaide Dugdales wedding.

David and Samantha Cameron were not invited to his cousin Adelaide Dugdales wedding

The omission is all the more noteworthy because the former Prime Minister has spoken of how close he was to technology writer Adelaides father, Sir William Dugdale. Uncle Bill was chairman of Aston Villa and took the young Dave to matches as well as teaching him how to shoot rabbits.

It wasnt a particularly small wedding, but shes got loads of cousins, so we didnt send him an invite, confirms Addys groom, Tom Naylor.

To add insult to injury, the ceremony was held at Chelsea Town Hall, near the house the Camerons have been renting.

When Theresa May told her new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to share his grace-and-favour country home with Brexit Secretary David Davis and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, there were always likely to be tensions among the Three Brexiteers.

Now, Dr Fox has tried to solve the problem by staying away from the 115-room house in Kent altogether. I have no intention of going to Chevening at all, he tells me at the Conservative Way Forward summer reception. Im too busy.

But what if BoJo invites him for the weekend? Considering I see Boris two or three times a day, we dont exactly need to spend even more time together.

Question Time chairman David Dimbleby wore a tie printed with images of flying pigs for the Labour Party leadership special on Thursday. He denies this was a comment on the likelihood of Jeremy Corbyn or Owen Smith ever entering Downing Street.

There was no hidden message, he insists. I have a range of wacky ties. Not nearly as wacky as Corbyns policies.

Producer Eric Fellner, who has two children with top model Laura Bailey (pictured), has been in a High Court battle over his 7.5 million country home

Bridget Jones bigwig wins 7.5m home battle

Busy promoting his new film, Bridget Joness Baby, producer Eric Fellner had to find time for a High Court battle over his country home, which he bought more than ten years ago for 7.5 million.

Fellner, who has two children with top model Laura Bailey, signed a contract to sell the Elizabethan Pyrton Manor in Oxfordshire to banker Alexander Schmid.

However, Fellner, who made his name with Four Weddings And A Funeral, pulled out of the deal, preferring to sell the grade II-listed property for 16.5 million to another buyer, businessman Wayne Burt. This enraged Schmid, who sued Fellner, demanding that he honour the original agreement.

Just like Fellners films, the story has a happy ending  for him at least.

A judge ruled last week that he was within his rights to terminate the contract.

Pictured is the grade II-listed property he decided to sell to another buyer

Princesses face tourist nightmare!

Undeterred by criticism of Prince Charless love of shady billionaires, Buckingham Palace took the dangerous step earlier this year of courting some of the worlds richest tycoons to plug a shortfall in the finances of the Royal Collection Trust, which looks after the Queens million precious artworks.

The gamble doesnt seem to have paid off and now courtiers are taking desperate measures. Theyre considering opening St Jamess Palace to paying visitors for the first time in its 485-year history.

Among those who live there are Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who may be alarmed by the prospect of running the gauntlet of gawping tourists. Documents from the trust confirm: A plan for the potential opening of St Jamess Palace to visitors will be developed and presented to trustees by November 2016.
As the doors closed on Whitburn Academys prom night, departing guests agreed it had been a jovial affair. Sixth form leavers from the West Lothian secondary school, no doubt ecstatic to have finished their exams, danced the night away in a room heady with aftershave, perfume and teenage hormones.

Alcohol was drunk. There was flirting and not, as we shall see, just among the pupils. One of those leaving the Carlton Highland Hotel in Edinburgh on June 5, 2014, was a sixth-former accompanied by a young woman teacher. She was apparently concerned that the worse-for-wear teenager should get back safely to the hotel room he had booked for the night.

Had that been the extent of her actions then she might have been praised for a sense of responsibility which went beyond the call of classroom duties. What followed that walk to the Travelodge in the citys Waterloo Place, however, has left 27-year-old Shona Grahams teaching career and reputation in tatters.

Former teacher Shona Graham's career and reputation have been left in tatters after 'repeatedly engaging in sexual activity' with a 17-year-old pupil

Last week, the popular, attractive blonde was struck off by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) for spending three hours in a hotel room with a 17-year-old pupil and repeatedly engaging in sexual activity with him.

She has narrowly avoided a criminal prosecution and a possible five-year prison sentence after the Scottish Procurator Fiscal decided there was a lack of police evidence.

But having refused to attend the disciplinary hearing in the Scottish capital, Graham was hundreds of miles away in the south of England still protesting her innocence in this sorry and troubling tale.

The deeply religious church ministers daughter, who has since married and gave birth to her first child just a couple of weeks ago, insists that her evangelical Christian beliefs meant she was saving herself, sexually, for her future husband at the time of the alleged incident and would never have willingly indulged in such conduct.

Shona Graham was pictured in bed in a Travelodge while the teenage pupil stood at the door

Graham, whose husband is a trainee minister, claims to have no recollection of the events of that night despite CCTV footage and an incriminating photo of her in bed in the 50-a-night room. Taken by another pupil, it shows her wrapped in a duvet, her bare shoulders and long hair visible, while the teenager she is alleged to have bedded stands behind her in a doorway with a bottle of champagne in his hand.

Nevertheless, Graham is insistent that if sexual activity did take place then someone must have spiked her drink, in effect alleging she was sexually assaulted.

So what happened that night? Is it really plausible that Whitburn pupils would have drugged one of their teachers, making her the victim, not the perpetrator of a crime? There is little doubt that the 2014 Whitburn School Prom was anticipated with excitement among pupils and staff and heralded a flurry of pupils messages on social media. Among them were a couple on Twitter by the boy who spent the night in bed with Graham. Gony get so jaked (drunk) at prom, he wrote, and try to fondle Mrs [another teachers name].

Whether Graham was aware of the unpleasant juvenile brags being circulated is not known. Ironically, a colleague told investigating education chiefs that they had a discussion about the consequences of inappropriate behaviour between staff and students the day before the prom.

Graham claims to recall drinking only four glasses of wine at the hotel but since she says she remembers nothing after 10.30pm and before 5am and was seen drinking wine after midnight by other members of staff, then she is likely to have drunk far more than that.

The deeply religious former teacher with her husband Andrew Wilkie, was described as 'merry' on the night she ended up in bed with a pupil

A member of staff who saw her at about 12.45am said she was merry.

Classmates said Graham was seen rubbing the boys leg under a table during the prom. She was said to have been buying Jack Daniels whiskey shots for students before setting off into the darkness just after 1am with the sixth former she would later go to bed with. They were picked up on CCTV, walking side by side and, six minutes later, arriving at the Travelodge.

Miss Graham wanted to walk them to their hotel because all three were drunk and she wasnt happy with them going home like that, says a former pupil. She said she lived nearby. I dont know if she did or not but she ended up going into the hotel with them.

A girl pupil who saw Graham at the hotel told investigators the teacher seemed totally out of it and clueless  a statement Graham would later try to rely on as evidence that she had been drugged. However, hotel CCTV footage painted a picture of a woman very much in control and, according to police, making conscious decisions.

Graham is seen ushering pupils into the foyer and then towards the lift area. Police who viewed the footage, said she appeared to be taking on a teacher role of encouraging the pupils to move, among them the sixth former referred to at the GTCS hearing as Pupil A.

Graham and her husband pictured leaving their home in Hampshire after the 27-year-old was struck off

While one group of pupils got in one lift, Pupil A got into another. Footage shows Graham approaching, looking back over her shoulder to check if anyone else was coming, before getting into the lift with him. As the doors close, their heads can be seen moving towards each other as they began to kiss.

At 4.30am they again appear by the lifts. As Graham reaches the door, she pauses and turns to Pupil A. They kiss for about 30 seconds before she leaves the hotel.

Detective Sergeant Keith Mailer, who worked on the investigation, said in the GTCS report that Graham did not appear heavily intoxicated, she was not stumbling. He described the kiss as passionate.

He also said: Where the respondent and Pupil A were seen together, they seemed happy in each others company. They appeared to be people who were intimate with each other.

The events which occurred between those two recordings were pieced together by investigators over the months that followed. Although Pupil A gave the police a full account of what happened, he refused to co-operate with the GTCS inquiry, saying he wanted to put the matter behind him. So too did the boy who took the photograph of Graham.

However, two other pupils admitted seeing Graham in bed with the boy at various times during the night. At one stage, she was apparently even awake and allegedly commented on the situations awkwardness. One pupil recalled seeing her leave looking like she had had a rough night.

Two other pupils said they had seen Graham in bed with the pupil at various times in the night - and even commented on the awkwardness of the situation

Most incriminating of all however was that photograph of Graham in bed which was taken by another boy and posted in an online group chat just hours later. It was swiftly removed, but not before others had taken screenshots which began circulating among their peers. It wasnt long before a student alerted a member of school staff. Everyone was talking about it, everyone through all six years in school, says a pupil who spoke to the Mail.

The day after the prom, Graham turned up for work, sharing a lift with a colleague who said she seemed relaxed and claimed to have left the prom about 10.30pm or 11pm, but it wasnt long before Graham became aware of the photograph being circulated by pupils.

Whitburn Academy, where Shona Graham was a teacher before being struck off

After lunch, she went to a hospital in Glasgow and told staff there that she had no memory of the previous evening. She was concerned, she said, that her drink had been spiked.

Graham was given a medical examination. The police were called. DS Keith Mailer from Edinburgh polices rape investigation unit spoke to her.

According to documents from the GTCS hearing seen by the Mail, however, Graham made no complaint of sexual assault. Nor did medical examinations (blood and hair tests) show any trace of drugs of any kind.

According to the officer who examined the case, there were only two possible scenarios: the respondent had been the victim of a sexual assault or she had committed an offence. Graham was, and still is, insistent it is the former.

The GTCS report says: The respondent stated she did not believe that a teacher, in their lucid, sober mind, would willingly socialise with pupils and colleagues, leave for a hotel with a large group of pupils and enter a hotel room in view of witnesses to engage in further inappropriate behaviour.

Smiling: Graham, pictured with husband Andrew, was kicked out of the profession after her behaviour at the prom came to light

At the time of the prom, West Lothian Council policy guidelines for staff said that teachers attending social events such as proms remain in a position of trust and standards of professionalism and conduct should be maintained. This is particularly so in relation to the consumption of alcohol which could adversely impact on an individuals judgment and ability to maintain profession boundaries.

In January 2015, the policy was changed to say that teachers should refrain entirely from alcohol.

Graham was also adamant that what happened was entirely at odds with her beliefs as an active and practising Christian. Indeed, coming as she does, from a deeply religious community, there is little doubt that her behaviour was out of character.

She was born into a family of missionaries in France in 1988 after her 56-year-old father Paul Graham, a Northern Irish minister, and her Scottish mother Isobel, a midwife, moved there to embark on church planting. Her first name is Isabelle but she has always used her middle name, Shona.

Graham, along with her brothers Scott and Ryan, spent the first 16 years of her life in Aubagne on the outskirts of Marseille in the South of France. She attended French schools and worked for her parents as a youth leader in the evangelical church they helped to set up there.

The family returned to Scotland in 2003 and her father took up a ministerial role with Bellevue Chapel in Edinburgh.

Her mother, to whom Graham was very close, died aged 51 in 2010 from breast cancer and her father remarried two years later. Shona went on to study French and Spanish at university before taking up her role at Whitburn Academy where, by all accounts, she was a highly popular member of staff.

She was a lovely teacher and everyone was shocked because it was out of character for her, says the former pupil who spoke to the Mail.

You could go to her with any problem you had about anything and she would be happy to have a chat with you and help you. She would take any questions through the lesson and stop and help in case the whole class was having that problem. Outside school, Graham continued to proselytize her Christian faith, helping at a Christian youth club called Powerpoint, which claims to bring together young people across Scotland on fire for God.

She met her husband, trainee minister Andrew Wilkie, through the church in 2012 and they were the engaged at the time of the incident.

Pub landlords son Mr Wilkie, 27, has refused to believe that she would willingly betray him. In July, he travelled to Edinburgh from Aldershot where the couple now live and petitioned in vain to have her hearing held in private.

His statement in her defence read: She has always put her Christian faith above all other things. I have never had any doubt that the allegations made against her were false. He also asked the hearing to consider evidence that date-rape drugs are available which leave victims lucid, but hinder their decision-making. Such claims were dismissed as speculative by the education chiefs although police conceded such drugs do exist.

Graham lost her job at Whitburn Academy after engaging in sexual activity with a 17-year-old pupil

When Graham married in July last year, her wedding photographs masked the unhappy scandal which has dominated her life since.

Since relocating to Aldershot, the Wilkies have been working with the Soldiers and Airmens Scripture Readers Association (SASRA) of which the Queen is a patron and which aims to spread Christianity among UK troops.

Their home has been a small flat above the charitys headquarters where Mr Wilkie is employed as a support worker and his wife, who has edited a book about the diaries of a World War I Christian soldier for the charity, worked as a part-time donor relations officer.

However, since the GTCS ruling, SASRA has said it is launching an investigation and the couples names have been removed from its website. Only she and the pupil know what happened that night. The case has divided opinion among the Whitburn school community between those who believe she was taken advantage of and those who argue that had she been a man, her punishment would have been more severe.

One mother contributing to an online discussion said: He was nearly 18 so it isnt like he was a minor. She still should have known better. A father retorted: If it was a male teacher people would be in an uproar but because she is female people try to defend her.
Edward VII's favourite: It has been revealed in interview with servant for the first time that Alice Keppel (pictured) had an 12 year affair with Queen Victoria's oldest son

The first time Prince Charles met Camilla Shand (today his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall), legend has it she seduced him with the words: My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather  so how about it?

That great-great-grandfather was Queen Victorias oldest son, Bertie, who would become Edward VII. The great-grandmother was the most celebrated courtesan of the age, who became one of the richest women in Europe by sleeping with some of the worlds most influential aristocrats and tycoons . . . though she never had sex with her own husband, according to gossip below stairs.

I have interviewed the servant who witnessed her antics  and I can now disclose her astonishing story in full for the first time. Her name was Alice Keppel. When she met the future king she was 29, dazzlingly good-looking, famously witty, and already had a reputation as a woman with a voracious sexual appetite who expected lavish rewards for her favours. Love is all very well, she liked to say, but money is better.

Mrs Keppel became the Prince of Waless mistress in 1898 and remained his favourite until his death 12 years later. Throughout his reign, which began in 1901, she liked to say she was the real Queen of England, and that his wife Alexandra was not his soulmate  she was.

But Bertie, as he was known to friends, was far from being the first wealthy man Mrs Keppel seduced for his money. Almost from the day she married the Hon George Keppel, third son of the 7th Earl of Albemarle, and discovered he was not the millionaire she had imagined, Alice was determined to be rich.

She would get money by the only means open to her: the sale of her body to wealthy men. Alice had two children, but her husband was father of neither  the first, Violet, was the daughter of an MP and banker named Ernest Beckett, and the second, Sonia, was almost certainly the child of the King himself.

At Royal Ascot: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall who married in 2005

It was Sonia who would become the grandmother of Camilla . . . another mistress to another Prince of Wales.

The Royal Family did all they could, after his death in 1910, to destroy evidence of Edward VIIs long affair with Alice. His private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, destroyed mountains of letters and private papers in a bonfire that lasted days.

Alice, too, was famous for her discretion. It was one of the many things the King adored about her.

But fragments of evidence have survived the intervening century to tell a fascinating story. One piece was discovered in a strongbox that had lain forgotten at Drummonds Bank at Trafalgar Square for decades after Alices own death.

It contained a fortune in jewellery, most of it gifts from the King to Alice. One diamond-encrusted brooch with a nautical theme came with a saucily suggestive note in the monarchs own hand: Position quarterly and open. I am about to fire a Whitehall torpedo ahead.

Other hints come from the diaries of contemporaries such as American novelist Henry James  who lived in England for decades. He referred to the King as Edward the Caresser and described the relationship with Alice as quite particularly vulgar.

Alice Keppel who wanted to be rich and surrounded by luxuries entertained lovers on her 'pouncing couch'

But some of the most revealing new evidence has come from interviews I conducted in the early Eighties, and am publishing for the first time, with a former housemaid, Agnes Cook.

She and her mother were servants at Mrs Keppels London house in Portman Square from the 1890s to the 1920s, and the detailed memories of this remarkable woman  who was in her late 80s when I interviewed her  paint a shocking picture.

Agnes said her mother saw it all, from the start: The servants at Portman Square knew what was going on  of course they did. The Keppels were definitely living above their means and, according to my mother, the MP Ernest Beckett was funding the whole thing. He looked like a dog on heat  that was the phrase the footman used when he described Becketts arrival each week.

Servants heard all sorts coming from the drawing room where Mrs Keppel entertained him alone. George was always at his club at these times. The rule among the servants was that if Alice saw a man alone, we were to stay well clear.

Mrs Keppel had always possessed a racy streak. As a teenager, the daughter of an aristocratic Scottish family whose ancestral seat was Duntreath Castle, north of Glasgow, her nickname was Flirtatious Freddie.

It was whispered among the servants that she would kiss the stable lads, just to see what it was like.

Alice Keppel and King Edward VII 1940: Kind Edward and members of a country house party at West Dean Park, Chichester, with Alice stood directly behind him

But she would probably have still been a virgin when she married, aged 22. It was true that, at the end of the Victorian era, in the Naughty Nineties, adultery was the favourite sport of the idle rich. Wealthy, titled men spent their lives sleeping with each others wives  it was a pastime, like shooting, in which the idea was to bag as many birds as possible.

Married women were fair game because, as one of Alices lovers put it, they had already been broken in.

Single women were very different, and only a cad of the lowest type would attempt to seduce, say, a friends unmarried sister.

The newly-wed Alice may not, however, have consummated her own marriage. It was certainly a relationship of convenience: they had separate bedrooms.

George did sometimes entertain young female prostitutes but the servants were never sure, so Agnes Cook said, what he got up to with them. The opinion below stairs was that the master preferred boys.

Whatever the truth of their wedding night, Alice discovered soon after that, in the coded language of the day, she was very good at making wealthy men happy. She liked to give dinners, with unlimited champagne. Every day she spent hours getting dressed, in layers of expensive silks and dresses laden with jewellery.

She soon added to her list of conquests, conducting affairs with the Earl of Ilchester and Baron Alington. And she made it clear that money was expected in return for her sexual enthusiasm, which was rapacious  when she got a man on her pouncing couch, she was like an animal: so said the butler.

Alice pictured walking in Hyde Park with her husband George Keppel (left) and Alice with Lady Desborough (right)

She first met the Prince of Wales at the Keppel family home, Quidenham Hall, Norfolk, in the mid-1890s, but he seems not to have paid her any particular attention on that occasion. It was a different story in 1898, at the home of Lady Howe, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.

Alice was precisely the Princes type: beautiful skin, rich chestnut hair, delicate hands and a large bosom. She was also, crucially, quite short. Bertie was only 5ft 7in and felt awkward with taller women.

Twice her age at 58, he was hugely overweight. All his adult life he had smoked a dozen or more large cigars and up to 20 cigarettes a day: his beard was stained with nicotine, and his body odour lingered for hours in any room where he had been.

His mother, Queen Victoria, had disliked him from birth. Probably suffering from post-natal depression, she said she found all babies disgusting and hated their frog-like action.

Bertie (I grieve to say) shows more and more how totally, totally unfit he is for ever becoming king, she wrote as he grew up. He has even failed to be good-looking. Handsome I cannot think him, with that painfully small and narrow head, those immense features and total want of chin.

Little wonder, psychologists might say, that Bertie yearned all his life for a woman who could be lover, mother, confidante and pal, all in one. He found her that night in 1898.

Other guests noted how quickly he and Alice wandered off for a private conversation. For more than an hour they stood together at the top of a staircase, speaking quietly and intensely, looking continually into each others eyes.

Everyone else was ignored. Then they sat down on the top marble step like students in love. Many of the guests were amazed at how swiftly Bertie had succumbed.

Alice Keppel, King Edward VII's mistress almost exactly 100 years ago (left) and Camilla (right) who has worn jewellery left to her by Edward's mistress

The Princes private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, was immediately instructed to write to Mrs Keppel, asking if Bertie might call on her. This was a blatant declaration: I wish to visit you for sex, so please make sure your husband is absent.

With consummate skill, Alice had already smoothed the way, by dropping a hint to the Prince that her husband would find it so much easier to stay out of the way if he could be a member of the exclusive Marlborough club on Pall Mall, which had already rejected him on several occasions for having neither title nor fortune.

Knollys was despatched to write another letter, George Keppel was mysteriously accepted, and for the rest of his life he liked to visit the Marlborough Club every day, simply because he could.

Her husband placated, Alice set about securing Bertie all to herself. In his youth, he had been a ravenous lover, who seemed intent on sleeping with the wife of every man he knew.

Edward VII: King of the United Kingdom, the British Dominions and Emperor of India

He fathered at least six illegitimate children, paid for numerous abortions, and was very nearly named as co-respondent in a notorious divorce case: at the last minute, the angry husband relented, but nevertheless insisted on calling the Prince as a witness to his wifes scandalous behaviour.

He also liked to seduce the daughters of his mistresses, when the girls were barely of age. In some cases, it is likely the young women he bedded were his own illegitimate daughters  and in one instance, his granddaughter.

By his mid-50s, Berties appetites were exhausted by over-indulgence. Yet his affair with Mrs Keppel seemed to rejuvenate him: Among the servants, said Agnes Cook, the gossip was that the King was often dragged back into Alices private apartments when he was trying to leave. Alice, laughing, would say: Perhaps just once more, and pull him back in a playful way. The King got very excited and they would then disappear again into her private rooms.

One of the maids was always complaining about the state of the sofa after Edward VII had been to the house, and I dont think she was talking about cigar ash, although there was also a lot of that!

But his health quickly worsened once he took the throne in 1901. His breathing became laboured, and during one visit the servants heard a heavy thump and then cries for help from Mrs Keppel.

The butler rushed into the room to find the King lying on the floor, with a table overturned. He had fallen from the chaise longue and, winded, was unable to get up.

Queen Alexandra detested Alice at first, but began to acknowledge her value: the mistress was the only woman who could soothe Bertie in his frequent fits of temper.

She would lean towards him and look into his eyes, Agnes Cook recalled, her hand gently on his knee or shoulder. Her voice was low, very deep, and she talked in such an easy, unaffected way her manner acted as a sort of sedative.

As the Kings health worsened, his mistress urged him not to smoke and eat so much, but she did not lecture him: her role was the infinitely indulgent mother.

When Edward VII died his wife forbid Mrs Keppel from entering the Palace premises again event to sign a book of condolences

His eating habits became worse as his health declined: servants said he seemed to swallow his food in chunks without chewing, and that his noise at table could be heard in the corridors.

After a visit to the French resort of Biarritz in 1910, his health took a dangerous turn. He was given morphine, his appetite disappeared but he still insisted on smoking.

Bertie summoned his closest business associate, merchant banker Sir Ernest Cassell, and begged him for money to give as a final gift to Mrs Keppel. Sir Ernest laid a roll of notes, about 10,000, on the pillow beside the Kings head.

Bertie also dictated a letter to Alice, insisting that she must come to see him  so that I may say farewell and thank you for all your kindness. Armed with this document, Alice was able to push her way into the royal death chamber.

But once the King slipped into his final coma, after a series of heart attacks, his Queen turned to the royal doctor and hissed: Get that woman out of here.

Mrs Keppel was never permitted to enter Palace premises again, not even to sign the book of condolences. She did not receive the Kings last payment for her services, either.
On June 25, 1996, members of the Saudi Hizballah terrorist group attacked the Khobar Towers apartment complex used to house U.S. and foreign military personnel near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.





The attackers drove a tanker truck filled with plastic explosives into the parking lot and detonated it, all but destroying the nearest building. The attack killed 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi citizen, and wounded 372 others of many different nationalities.

Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, a Saudi citizen, helped plan and carry out the attack. A U.S. federal court has indicted him for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. nationals, conspiracy to destroy U.S. property, and related charges.



AlNasser stands approximately 5 feet 8 inches, or 173 centimeters, tall, and has black hair and brown eyes.



The Rewards for Justice Program is offering a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to al-Nassers arrest or conviction.



The U.S. guarantees that all credible reports will be investigated and the identity of all informants will be kept confidential. If appropriate, the U.S. is prepared to protect informants by relocating them. If you have information on this man, contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate and the tip line at www.rewardsforjustice.net or e-mail information to RFJ@state.gov.
It is understood three members of the 'disgusting' stag party work together at a bank in New York

. I don't even have words for that'

Rosanne Hughes, 61, who lost her husband in 9/11, said: 'I'm

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A British stag-do caused outrage by taking selfies with a blow-up sex doll at Ground Zero on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The group of men - who said they were from London - were eventually confronted by a police officer and asked to leave the area.

When asked what they were doing, a man believed to be the groom said 'it's just a bachelor party' before answering other questions with 'no comment'.

One person who claimed to know the party, said three of the men work together at a bank in New York.

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The British stag-do caused outrage by taking selfies with a blow-up sex doll at Ground Zero two days before the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks

The group of men - who said they were from London - were eventually confronted by a police officer and asked to leave the area

When asked what they were doing, a man believed to be the groom said 'it's just a bachelor party' before answering other questions with 'no comment'

The incident comes ahead of the 15th anniversary of the deadly terror attacks which brought down the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan

Rosanne Hughes, 61, who lost her husband in 9/11, said she was appalled to hear about the stag party celebrating on Ground Zero

The incident comes just two days before the 15th anniversary of the deadly terror attacks which brought down the Twin Towers.

Rosanne Hughes, 61, from the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation said she was appalled to hear about the stag party celebrating on Ground Zero.

She lost her husband Thomas F. Hughes Jr, 46, in the terror attack.

Thomas, a paint contractor, was on the 107th floor of the World Trade Centre for a meeting when the plane hit.

She said: 'I'm speechless. I don't even have any words for that - that's a disgrace.

'That is sacred ground, I lost my husband and I don't even know what to say - it's disgusting.

Rosanne Hughes said: 'I'm speechless. I don't even have any words for that - that's a disgrace. That is sacred ground, I lost my husband and I don't even know what to say - it's disgusting'

A police officer from the New York Police Department confronts the group of men, one of whom is seen holding a sex doll

Mrs Hughes added: 'We hear things like this and I honestly think it's disgraceful to take selfies of anybody there laughing and smiling when they haven't lived the life we've lived for 15 years and the people we've lost'

Michael Frazier, executive vice president of communications and marketing at 9/11 Memorial and Museum, said: 'This image is exceptionally disturbing'

Mr Frazier added: 'What is just as disturbing - if not more - is that these people find it appropriate to blatantly disrespect this place made sacred by the murder of 3,000 innocent people'

Other visitors to the memorial looked on as the British stag do wandered around carrying the inappropriate item

DO YOU KNOW ANY MEMBERS OF THE STAG PARTY? Get in touch with us on 0203 615 3908 or email abe.hawken@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement

'We hear things like this and I honestly think it's disgraceful to take selfies of anybody there laughing and smiling when they haven't lived the life we've lived for 15 years and the people we've lost.

'Even though it's been 15 years every year is difficult and seeing things like this is heartbreaking.

'If I came face to face with these people I would say "shame on you. You have no clue to what those families have gone through and to be that disrespectful" - they should be fined. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with that.'

Thomas left behind a daughter, now 30, and a son, now 28.

There have been complaints from many New Yorkers about a lack of respect being shown at the memorial, such as posing for smiling selfies.

Currently, there are no plans for extra measures to be introduced to prevent the kind of behaviour seen here

A visitor takes a photo of a sign by the memorial as one of the men on the stag-do walks by carrying the blow-up doll

The men did not appear to make any effort to hide the doll while visiting the site, where the names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed in bronze panels lining the memorial pools

On its website, the memorial is described as 'a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil'

There have been complaints from many New Yorkers about a lack of respect being shown at the memorial, such as posing for smiling selfies

New Yorker Mike Opelka, 57, visits the memorial every year to pay his respects and was there today.

He said: 'I was a mile from the towers when they were attacked. I have friends on the wall, so to speak.

'To be honest I don't understand why people are taking smiling selfies at a mass grave because that's what this was - underneath us were so many thousands of bodies.'

Sarah Joiner, 43, who was visiting from Austin, Texas, added: 'I try not to judge but I think it is a little bit obnoxious when there is a lot of laughter and selfies going on here.

'It is a bit disrespectful. This is a cemetery and it needs to be treated as such.'

Michael Frazier, executive vice president of communications and marketing at 9/11 Memorial and Museum, said: 'This image is exceptionally disturbing and what is just as disturbing - if not more - is that these people find it appropriate to blatantly disrespect this place made sacred by the murder of 3000 innocent people.

New Yorker Mike Opelka, 57, said: 'To be honest I don't understand why people are taking smiling selfies at a mass grave because that's what this was - underneath us were so many thousands of bodies'

Sarah Joiner, 43, who was visiting from Austin, Texas, added: 'I try not to judge but I think it is a little bit obnoxious when there is a lot of laughter and selfies going on here'

A group of people pose for a selfie in front of the plaque bearing the names of the dead, which surrounds the two memorial ponds

As well as remembering the dead during the 9/11 attacks at the Twin Towers at the Pentagon, the memorial also honours the six people killed in the World Trade Centre bombing in February 1993

'At any time this would be enraging and offensive, we are days away from commemorating the 15th anniversary of 9/11 - this is disgusting.

'I have never seen anything like this or expect to see anything like this - not even remotely close.

'There's no reason for a human being with any sense to do that on a sacred site.'

Mr Frazier added that there are no plans for extra measures to be introduced to prevent this type of behaviour.

He said: 'We have all the rules and regulations but people should have an inherent sense of how to act. I don't even understand it if you're going to a place where so many people have died.'

Do you know any of the stag party? Get in touch with us by phoning 02036153908 or email abe.hawken@mailonline.co.uk

Some relatives of the dead are upset by the site of visitors taking selfies at what is meant to be a solemn memorial to the dead, which numbered nearly 3,000

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is expected to visit ground zero in Manhattan on Sunday to mark the 15th anniversary of the attacks

The site's twin reflecting pools, which sit in the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood, are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in North America
Rubbing shoulders with TV presenters, soap stars and a host of minor celebrities, Keith Vaz was in his element at Curry Life magazine's recent Chef Awards.

The tireless political networker joined the likes of London Mayor Sadiq Khan and last year's Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain for the bash in the gilded ballroom of the Lancaster Hotel, overlooking Hyde Park.

Guests included an impressive Who's Who of influential Asians, from ITN anchor Nina Hossain to Lord (Karan) Bilimoria, the multi-millionaire entrepreneur behind Cobra Beer.

Close: MP Keith Vaz and Daniel Dragusin on the House of Commons terrace

The event was the perfect occasion for Vaz to pursue one of his favourite hobbies: adding to his list of high-profile personal contacts. It also offered Vaz, an inveterate seeker of publicity, one more priceless commodity. It was a golden PR opportunity.

For the Labour MP was also there to raise funds for his diabetes charity, Silver Star. Press releases issued after last year's event, and widely reported in the regional press, declared that he'd helped add 3,000 to its coffers.

Vaz has been vigorously trying to raise his personal profile in this manner since 2007, when he founded Silver Star to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his election to Parliament.

While the organisation carries out much good work, running four mobile diabetes testing units in the UK and India (which have so far helped 35,000 people), it also provides a useful vehicle to build the MP's status in the British Asian community.

Indeed, Silver Star has, over the years, held many glamorous fund-raising events, which Vaz almost invariably attends. The Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shilpa Shetty are patrons and often turn up, regularly posing for photos with Vaz.

The pair have also brought crowds to the streets on their occasional visits to Silver Star's offices in Vaz's Leicester East constituency.

So far, so mutually beneficial. Or so it must have seemed  until last Sunday, when the charity was caught up in a deeply unedifying scandal.

Vaz founded the diabetes charity Silver Star in 2007. He first met Dragusin in 2010

To blame was the revelation that Vaz, who is married and has two grown-up children, had paid for a sex party involving two male prostitutes at which he admitted having had unprotected sex and to have experimented with sex-enhancing drugs known as 'poppers.'

He also offered, in a taped conversation, to buy cocaine.

Bank records uncovered by a Sunday newspaper which exposed the whole sordid affair then showed that two payments of 150 to the rent boys were transferred into their accounts by an employee of Silver Star.

By Tuesday, Vaz had been forced to resign as the chairman of the prestigious House of Commons' Home Affairs Select Committee (which involves overseeing our laws on drugs and prostitution).

The following day, attention began to shift to the MP's relationship with the Silver Star employee who processed the payments (which, it should be stressed, did not involve charitable funds). He is Daniel Dragusin, a 31-year-old Romanian who has worked as the charity's 'London Co-ordinator' since 2012.

Silver Star has refused to comment on how Dragusin came to join its payroll, but he seems to have been handed his job, at its offices in Edgware, at least a year after becoming close to Vaz.

Married father-of-two Keith Vaz's home in Edgware, London with a collection of cars

The 59-year-old MP first met Dragusin in 2010, shortly after he came to the UK, when the Romanian was working for Express Rent-a-Car, a firm which delivers upmarket cars to clients at airports.

Vaz began employing him as a chauffeur and personal assistant, and by 2011 the duo were sufficiently close for Dragusin to travel to Goa in India with the MP, where he was photographed on the beach with a plastic bag bearing the emblem of the Houses of Parliament.

Why did a diabetes charity employ a driver chum of Vaz?

The two men were pictured together several times later that year. One image uploaded to Facebook shows them together on the terrace of the House of Commons. In early 2012, Dragusin secured a parliamentary pass, which allowed him unfettered access to the Palace of Westminster. It was sponsored by the now deceased Lord King of West Bromwich, a close friend of Vaz.

Fast-forward to the present day and Dragusin appears to remain very close to Vaz. In April, he posted to Facebook from a match at Leicester City FC's stadium. 'With KV?' a friend asked, presumably referring to the MP.

All of which brings us to the mysterious business of last month's 150 payments.

It should be stressed that there is no evidence that Mr Dragusin knew that the cash, which carried the reference 'painting work' when it appeared in bank records leaked to a red-top newspaper, was intended to pay for sexual services.

Neither did the money come from Silver Star's bank accounts. Indeed, the charity this week hired the legal firm Carter Ruck to write to newspapers describing any such allegation as 'baseless' and 'completely false'.

Welford Court, where Vaz is alleged to have paid for the services of male escorts

That said, the affair raises one question which Silver Star has so far failed to address. Namely, what was Daniel Dragusin doing on its staff in the first place? Why did a diabetes charity decide to employ a chum of Keith Vaz who had no apparent experience in either the charity or the medical sector?

Dragusin studied car mechanics at technical college in Transylvania. He'd worked largely as a chauffeur since coming to the UK in his mid-20s. His only other professional work (aside from assisting Vaz) was in the construction trade  helping out his father and brother, who run a London building company.

Quite how this qualified him for an office job at Silver Star is anyone's guess. The charity did not respond to questions regarding how he came to be employed by them, whether Vaz introduced Dragusin to them and what he's been paid.

Speculation over Vaz's wealth goes back 16 years

Its finances are equally mysterious. The organisation's last published accounts, for the 12 months to December 31, 2014, show that it spent 160,680 during the course of the year. However, only nine per cent  14,968  was 'direct charitable expenditure'.

Of the remaining 145,000, some 21,377 was spent on 'fundraising', while 10,381 went on publishing its 'Globe newsletter'  which is often festooned with images of Mr Vaz. A total of 81,990, was spent on 'wages'.

It's a similar story during each one of the four years for which records are available. During that period, Silver Star has spent 393,099, of which just 11.8 per cent, or 46,052, was 'direct charitable expenditure'.

Over the same period, a greater sum appears to have been spent on 'fundraising'. It adds up to 78,573.

Perhaps most intriguing, in the context of Dragusin, is the fact that Silver Star's 'wages' bill has increased dramatically in the years during which he has been involved. In 2011, it was 52,329. In 2012, the year he joined, it went up to 60,789. By 2013 it was 70,176 and in 2014 it was 81,990. At least some of this cash is presumably finding its way into the Romanian aide's pockets by way of a salary.

Vaz earns 74,926 as an MP (plus an extra 15,025 that he, until this week, got for chairing the Home Affairs Select Committee)

So what's going on?

It's difficult, if not impossible, to say. Silver Star did not respond to questions from the Mail asking, for example, how many staff it employs, or what these people do.

Neither would it elaborate on what 'direct charitable expenditure' listed in its published accounts covers, or why it appears to account for less spending than 'fundraising'.

In the UK, the charity's social media accounts (and online schedule) suggest that its mobile diabetes testing units are reasonably active: they have attended just over 100 events in the past year, or roughly one each per week. It's unclear what proportion of the charity's outgoings this accounts for. But such opaqueness is par for the course when you're dealing with Keith Vaz and money.

Consider, in this context, the other great unanswered question surrounding his sex party: how on earth could he afford to buy the London flat where it took place?

Vaz earns 74,926 as an MP (plus an extra 15,025 that he, until this week, got for chairing the Home Affairs Select Committee). Since 2000, he's declared outside earnings of only 1,950, plus income of 'over 10,000' annually from rental properties in Pimlico and Leicester.

Meanwhile, his wife, Maria Fernandes, is an immigration lawyer. Her earnings were reported in 2001 to be around 60,000 per year (though these have presumably increased since then).

Against this prosperous but not exactly wealthy backdrop, the couple have in recent years managed to enjoy the lifestyle of free-spending multi-millionaires.

Since 2000, Vaz has declared outside earnings of only 1,950, plus income of 'over 10,000' annually from rental properties in Pimlico and Leicester

They have, for example paid for both of their children to attend the private Haberdashers' Aske's School in Hertfordshire, which would have cost them a combined 35,000 per year (of taxed income).

They have serviced the HSBC mortgage on their family home in Stanmore, which cost 1,150,000 in 2005, and simultaneously have built a private property portfolio that now contains at least seven houses, together worth around 4 million.

It includes, aside from their main home, two adjacent terraced houses in Leicester bought cheaply in the 1980s, one of which Vaz uses as a constituency office and one of which he rents out, plus the Pimlico rental property that cost 545,000 in 2004.

Then there's Maria's Wembley office, bought for 485,000 in 2010 (with a mortgage from Lloyds) and a one-bedroom flat in Vauxhall Bridge Road, which she paid 465,000 for in December last year using a mortgage from Santander.

The Edgware flat where the sex party took place was purchased by Vaz in June

Finally, we have the Edgware flat where the sex party took place.

It was purchased by Vaz in June. Land Registry documents state that he paid 387,500. There is no mortgage on the property, raising the obvious question of where that vast tranche of money came from.

Asked about this matter last week, the MP's lawyer Mark Stephens claimed it was partly raised via a 'personal loan' which would be imminently repaid by selling one of Vaz's homes in Leicester.

'[That house] has been on the market for three months and has been sold subject to contract,' he said. However, when the Mail spoke to the occupants of the Leicester home, they said they moved in two months ago and had a one-year tenancy.

Oddly, we were unable to find any estate agent that had advertised the property for sale, and a check of Land Registry documents still show Mr Vaz as the owner (although it can take several weeks for records to be updated).

Once more, one might describe things as being as clear as mud.

What's certainly true is that Mr Vaz, the son of immigrants from Goa, never inherited great wealth. His father committed suicide in the 1970s, and when his mother Merlyn died in 2003, she left an estate of 138,450.

The lion's share of that came from the value of one of the aforementioned Leicester homes. It was bequeathed to Vaz, but only because he'd originally bought it as a gift for Merlyn, a teacher, several decades earlier.

What's certainly true is that Mr Vaz, the son of immigrants from Goa, never inherited great wealth

(Incidentally, in her will Merlyn left 'a suitable sum' to provide for 'an annual dinner for my children on [her birthday] 29th August each year'. It was at this year's event, charmingly, that Vaz exchanged text messages arranging his encounter with the rent boys.)

Speculation about Vaz's wealth dates back to 2000, when Elizabeth Filkin, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, began investigating claims that he'd secretly taken thousands of pounds from a solicitor called Sarosh Zaiwalla.

The MP, who had pledged prior to his election as an MP in 1987 that he would 'only accept a worker's wage and donate the rest of his parliamentary salary to the local Labour Party' (a promise he never kept) had in 1994 set up a firm called Mapesbury Communications to accept earnings from outside Parliament.

The sole shareholder was his wife. And, Filkin wrote that, despite 'repeated requests', Vaz refused to divulge 'precise sources of the company's income or where it goes to'.

What soon became apparent was that both Mapesbury and Vaz had peculiarly close ties to a number of very wealthy men.

Maria Fernandes, Vaz's wife, is an immigration lawyer. Her earnings were reported in 2001 to be around 60,000 per year

In 2001, Filkin looked at allegations that he had received payments via the firm from Gopichand and Srichand Hinduja, two billionaires who had managed to secure British passports despite being caught up in a bribery scandal involving an arms deal in their native India.

(The brothers, who were later acquitted, also cost Peter Mandelson his job: he was forced to resign as Europe Minister after it emerged that he, too, had sought to help the billionaires secure a passport.)

Vaz eventually admitted having 'made representations' on behalf of the brothers, who had indeed made several payments to Mapesbury. He quit as Minister for Europe 'on health grounds'.

The same year, it emerged that Vaz had helped another billionaire chum in controversial and opaque circumstances. He was an Anglo-Iraqi called Nadhmi Auchi. Vaz had sought to help him avoid extradition to France over his alleged role in a fraud scandal. Though Vaz denied wrongdoing, it emerged he'd previously served as a director of one of Auchi's UK firms.

And so the story of Vaz's byzantine financial affairs continued.

Vaz's father committed suicide in the 1970s, and when his mother Merlyn died in 2003, she left an estate of 138,450

In 2002, Vaz was expelled from the Commons for falsely claiming that a retired policewoman had upset his elderly mother in a phone call.

The attempt to smear the former WPC came after she had helped a personal friend (who was an exemployee of Vaz's wife) file claims with the standards commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin, that the MP's family had received valuable gifts from an array of Asian businessmen including the Hindujas. (No evidence was found to support such claims).

Meanwhile, in 2008, the Mail revealed that he'd intervened in a High Court case for another wealthy friend, Shahrokh Mireskandari, who had fraud convictions in the U.S. and bogus legal qualifications.

Underpinning all of these cases have been consistent, if unconfirmed, suspicions that Vaz has at some point in his career profited from his array of wealthy associates.

To this end, in September 2012, the Telegraph reported that a Met Police investigation had discovered that around half a million pounds was deposited into bank accounts belonging to Vaz between 1997, when Labour gained power, and 2001.

Scotland Yard allegedly described the funds as being 'of a suspicious nature'.

Vaz denied wrongdoing. The cash was the proceeds of property deals, he said.
Her mother said they spoke often before her death - it was 'unusual'

Slain British backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung sent a number of heartbreaking Facebook messages to her mother days before she was stabbed to death.

The 21-year-old was killed during a frenzied knife attack at a remote north Queensland hostel on August 23 which also left fellow British backpacker Tom Jackson dead, reported The Daily Telegraph.

Ms Ayliffe-Chung was undertaking laborious work on a sugarcane farm when she messaged her mother admitting: 'I'm so worrying'.

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Mia Ayliffe-Chung sent a series of Facebook messages to her mother just days before her death reaching out to say she was worried she would not be able to extend her visa

Rosie Ayliffe said her daughter was worried she would not be given the 88 days of work on a farm to stay in Australia for a second year

Her mother, Rosie Ayliffe, quickly replied: 'Worrying?'

'I don't want to not get enough work,' Ms Ayliffe-Chung said.

'Are you working hard?' Ms Ayliffe asked before the pair had a phone conversation.

Ms Ayliffe-Chung had spent most of her first year living at the Surfers Paradise where she worked at The Bedroom nightclub but left in August to spend three months working on North Queensland farms to extend her holiday visa.

In order to extend her visa and continue living in Australia for a second year, Ms Ayliffe-Chung had to find 88 days of work on a farm.

Ms Ayliffe-Chung died after being stabbed to death during a frenzied knife attack at a north Queensland hostel last month

Frenchman Smail Ayad (right), 29, is charged with Ms Ayliffe-Chung's murder (left)

Rosie Ayliffe said it was unusual how often her daughter spoke to her before her death and that she was homesick

The work was not easy as the 21-year-old spent her days removing stones from between crops to reduce the risk of machinery getting damaged.

'She worked every day she could, right through the weekend,' Ms Ayliffe said.

'She felt she had to work really fast.

'She spoke to me so often that week, that was unusual. She was homesick, she was intending to fly home for Christmas.'

The young backpacker was put to rest during a multi-faith funeral earlier this month after her family travelled from the UK to Queensland.

Frenchman Smail Ayad, 29, was arrested and charged with murdering Ms Ayliffe-Chung and stabbing Mr Jackson, who later died in hospital.

It is believe the 29-year-old developed an obsession with the young woman.

Tom Jackson, 30, died in hospital a week after the attack from injuries sustained while trying to save Ms Ayliffe-Chung
Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, described the grammar school proposals as a return to the class-ridden Britain of the 1950s

The massed ranks of the educational establishment, dubbed The Blob by Tories, yesterday reacted with fury to Government plans for a new wave of selective schools in England.

Militant teachers pledged to lobby MPs and parents over the radical overhaul, warning Theresa May that this is not an argument that has been won.

They were joined in their opposition by Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw, former education secretary and independent school pupil Nicky Morgan and the Labour Party, which has pledged to fight the plans every step of the way.

The Blob is a term used by Mrs Morgans predecessor Michael Gove to attack teachers, union leaders and other education professionals who resisted his school reforms.

Under the biggest education revolution in decades, the Prime Minister unveiled proposals to lift the longstanding ban on new or expanded grammars, with a 50million annual government subsidy to support new places.

But Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, labelled the move a return to the class-ridden Britain of the 1950s.

He said: With many Conservatives opposed to grammar schools this is not an argument that has been won. The NUT will be working with parents, politicians and other unions to oppose these plans which are simply not suited for the 21st century.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: Our education system is currently facing unprecedented strain, reeling under a barrage of crises.

We have children without school places; classrooms without teachers; schools and colleges struggling to operate in a financial strait jacket; assessment, curriculum and qualification reforms disintegrating.

Outgoing Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw was at the forefront of attacks on the Governments plans

In this context, and in the face of universal opposition ... Theresa May plans to reintroduce unnecessary and potentially damaging selection policies.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis denounced grammars as outdated relics, removed ... because the two-tier grammar/secondary modern system failed the majority of young people.

And Karen Leonard, schools organiser of the GMB union, added: GMB is vehemently opposed to an expansion of the grammar school system and will do everything it can to fight against turning the clock back to the 1950s.

Theresa May was accused of trying to put the clock back in a way that would halt momentum towards better results

Yesterday outgoing Ofsted head Sir Michael, who has repeatedly clashed with unions in the past, was at the forefront of attacks on the Governments plans.

He accused Mrs May of trying to put the clock back in a way that would halt momentum towards better results in the state system.

The former headteacher told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: Theres been a turn-around in state education because of reforms and we dont want to put that at risk. A good comprehensive, a good all-ability school can deliver for the most able children.

He said we need to ensure children in all schools are achieving well, adding: My fear is that by dividing children at 11 and by creating grammars and secondary moderns  because thats what well do  that we wont be able to achieve that ambition.

Mrs Morgan  who was sacked from the education brief in July  also found herself on the side of union leaders. In a Facebook message, she warned increased selection by ability would be at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap and at worst risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform.

The former pupil of Surbiton High School, an independent school in Kingston upon Thames, said Mrs May should instead build on David Camerons academy and free school reforms, which were creating a truly comprehensive school system in which every child is able to achieve excellence.

Her comments followed concerns from other Tories, including Commons education committee chair Neil Carmichael and health committee chair Sarah Wollaston, in an indication of the difficulty the Prime Minister may face forcing her reforms through Parliament.
New free faith schools can only select half of intake by reference to faith

Faith schools would be allowed to select more pupils based on religion

Theresa May faced a revolt yesterday over her faith school plans

Theresa May faced a revolt yesterday over her faith school plans amid claims they could unwittingly lead to classrooms becoming incubators for extremism.

Under the proposals, faith schools will be allowed to select more pupils based on religion. Current rules limit oversubscribed new free faith schools to only selecting half of their intake by reference to faith.

Yesterday, Mrs May swept away this limit to the delight of the Catholic church, which has over 2,000 schools in England, educating almost 820,000 pupils.

The rule has been blamed for preventing new Catholic schools from opening. But she faced condemnation from critics, who warned of ghettoisation and risks of potential radicalisation among pupils.

Within her own party, Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston branded the plans a regressive step that she will vote against.

Mrs May insisted the current cap was failing in its objective to promote integration and particularly impacting on the Catholic church.

She said the rule was having little impact on many Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu schools because they tend not to appeal to parents of other faiths.

This means they are not oversubscribed so the rules do not apply. But it does prevent the opening of new Catholic schools, which are popular and which are often oversubscribed.

Mrs May said that  in place of the 50 per cent rule  the government will consult on a set of much more effective requirements to ensure faith schools are properly inclusive.

Measures could include an independent member of a different or no faith sitting on the governing body of new religious schools.

Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston branded the plans a regressive step that she will vote against

Dr Wollaston told Radio 4s Today programme: Im opposed to 100 per cent selection by faith and this happening in more schools at a time when we should be moving to greater community cohesion and taking down the barriers.

Chairman of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, claimed the decision would result in the forming of religious ghettos that will lessen integration in schools.

He said: In a country that is becoming increasingly diverse, this is exactly the wrong time to give faith schools the power to divide and segregate children.

Hannah Stuart, a counter-extremism expert at the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank, warned that removing the cap could make it easier for extremists to target the education system.
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She's a high-flying fashionista with a jewellery collection to die for, so it's no surprise China's 'Red Princess' Bao Bao Wan snapped up a sparkling $10.5 million penthouse to match.

But since the glamorous jewellery designer and socialite snatched The Residence penthouse in Sydney's Darlinghurst last year, she reportedly spent only two nights inside the luxury apartment.

The high-end home, which offers a private rooftop entertaining haven and sweeping city skyline views, is hitting the market with an eye-watering $13 million asking price, reports Domain.

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China's 'Red Princess' Bao Bao Wan is selling the luxury $13 million Sydney penthouse she bought last year

The high-end home, which offers a private rooftop entertaining haven and sweeping city skyline views

The luxury penthouse listing has already been met with a flurry of interest from high-profile Chinese buyers

Less than 18 months after the purchase the three-bedroom property has been listed for sale with a $13 million asking price

Wan, whose Instagram account boasts of an enviable globetrotting lifestyle dripping with diamonds, uploaded an image of herself perched atop a gold-inflated swan on the penthouse roof last year.

But less than 18 months later the three-bedroom property has been listed for sale with a $13 million asking price through Anthony Birdsall, of Laing Real Estate.

The listing has already been met with a flurry of interest from high-profile Chinese buyers.

Wan was raised in Zhongnanhai, the red-walled compound reserved for China's top leadership and their families, before jetting off to study in New York.

She has been spotted brushing shoulders with the likes of Victoria Beckham and Adrian Brody, and her lavish jewellery line is a favourite among Hollywood's elite.

Despite the rooftop snaps and sources attesting to the purchase, a representative on the penthouse claimed last year it was bought by Jun Yang.

Wan uploaded an image of herself perched atop a gold-inflated swan on the penthouse roof last year
This is terrifying moment a car drove off a Texas parking garage and through a wire barrier, leaving the car dangling over the edge about 25 feet from the ground.

The ordeal unfolded on Friday just before 2.40pm at the Littlefield Garage in downtown Austin after a man's SUV went off the edge of a parking garage, police said.

The 2004 Toyota 4Runner then somehow got caught on one of the high tension wires that had wrapped around one of the vehicle's wheels.

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This is terrifying moment a car drove off a Texas parking garage and through a wire barrier, leaving the car dangling over the edge about 25 feet from the ground (left). The driver was miraculously able to make his way to safety (right)

The ordeal unfolded on Friday just before 2.40pm at the Littlefield Garage in downtown Austin after a man's SUV went off the edge of a parking garage, police said

The driver, a 24-year-old man whose name has not been released, is seen moments later miraculously escaping from the dangling car without injury, KXAN reported.

In photos and video capturing the heart-stopping moment, the SUV is seen dangling over the side of the parking garage over an alleyway in between two buildings.

The man told police, who arrived at the scene along with firefighters, that he was unable to stop the SUV as he was parking on the ninth floor of the garage.

He said the vehicle flipped several times down the side of the garage before suddenly becoming caught on the wire, according to KVUE.

The driver, a 24-year-old man whose name has not been released, is seen moments later miraculously escaping from the dangling car without injury

In photos and video capturing the heart-stopping moment, the SUV is seen dangling over the side of the parking garage over an alleyway in between two buildings

The car then hung over the alleyway as a small amount of gasoline slowly leaked from the vehicle.

A video taken by witness Andrew Miller captured the moment the driver climbed out of the car and back into the parking garage with the help of a bystander.

Miller told KXAN that he was getting food at a nearby restaurant when he saw the incident, which he described at the time as looking like a scene from Jurassic Park.

'It looked pretty dangerous even though it wasn't swinging,' he told the station.

Firefighters worked late Friday afternoon to lower the SUV to the ground following the accident

The car then hung over the alleyway as a small amount of gasoline slowly leaked from the vehicle

While it is not immediately clear how the car went off the parking garage, police said the man was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident

Miller also noted that a delivery person passing in the alley on a bicycle narrowly dodged a horrific outcome when the vehicle came over the edge of the garage.

By late afternoon, the Austin Fire Department posted on Facebook that the suspended vehicle had been lowered to the ground.

While it is not immediately clear how the car went off the parking garage, police said the man was wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident.
Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence released a decade's worth of tax returns Friday, revealing a much more humble lifestyle than his boss.

The Indiana governor's documents reveal that he and wife Karen made $113,026 last year, mostly from their own income, and paid $8,956 in taxes - an effective tax rate of 7.9 per cent, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Pence promised to release the documents a month ago - unlike Donald Trump, who is still holding back, citing an IRS audit.

Republican VP candidate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, released tax records showing that he and his wife made $113,026 last year - putting them in the top 20 per cent of the country

Support: Pence and his wife drew $40,000 out of a retirement account in 2014 to pay for their kids' colleges. From left to right: kids Michael, Charlotte and Audrey Pence

The Pences also made almost $9,000 in taxable income from federal pension, but lost $3,458 to 'That's My Towel Charm,' Mrs Pence's struggling business that sells charms to identify individuals' towels on beaches.

They lowered their tax payments by deducting $2,500 in student loan interest and $8,923 in charitable donations. They also received $5,000 in education tax credits.

Their income puts them in the top 20 per cent of the country, with a 7.9 per cent tax rate that's slightly under the average for that bracket.

Pence's income topped out at $187,000 while he was still a member of Congress.

Other details that were revealed include $40,000 being taken out of a retirement account in 2014.

A spokesperson said the money was used to pay for their children's college education.

Family: Pence and wife Karen (far right) with their kids. In 2015 Karen lost $3,458 on her business, which sells 'charms' to identify towels. The couple also gave $8,923 to charity

The Trump campaign claimed that over the past decade Pence paid a state and federal tax rate that ranged between 10 per cent and 16 per cent.

An analysis of just his federal taxes shows he paid an effective rate between 6.4 and 12 per cent, based on his family's adjusted gross income.

The family has donated 10 per cent of their take-home pay to charity, the campaign said, which reflects an average 7.4 per cent of their adjusted gross income.

Pence has never been outrageously wealthy, compared with his peers.

During his time in Congress, Pence carried four mortgages on his homes in Indiana and northern Virginia.

When he left Congress in early 2013, he and his wife's net worth, excluding the value of their Indiana home, was less than $300,000, according to calculations based on his federal financial disclosures.

The average net worth for Pence's fellow members of Congress at that time was more than $5million.

When he left Congress in 2013, the net worth for Mike Pence and his wife was $300,000. The average net worth for other congress members at that time was more than $5million

As US vice president, Pence would earn more than $230,000 per year - considerably more than he has made in the past decade.

'The Pence family has been honored to serve their state and their nation for the past 16 years, while raising three great children and putting them through college,' said Marc Lotter, Pence's spokesman.

'These tax returns clearly show that Mike and Karen Pence have paid their taxes, supported worthy causes, and, unlike the Clintons, the Pences have not profited from their years in public service.'

On Thursday Pence said 'for too many in Washington ... politics seems to have morphed into a rigged game of self-enrichment and cronyism.'

Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, he later lamented that politicians can come to Washington with modest means but 'emerge as millionaires' by auctioning access and profiting off policies.

'Americans are fed up with Washington's self-enrichment racket,' he added.

Pence promised to reveal his tax returns last month. Donald Trump has so far refused to release his, citing an audit - although the IRS says he can still release the returns

'We're pleased to see that one member of the Trump ticket has decided to meet the long-held threshold for disclosure in a modern-day presidential campaign,' said Christina Reynolds, deputy communications director of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

'But it's Donald Trump - who just this week attacked America's generals and showered praise on Russia's authoritarian leader - running to be our next president.'

Clinton has raised questions about what Trump may be hiding by refusing to release his taxes and has wondered whether he is worth the $10billion he says he is.

Major-party presidential nominees have publicly released their taxes since 1976, but Trump is the exception. He has said he is waiting for the conclusion of an audit.

Last month Clinton released her own 2015 tax return, adding to the records dating to 1977 she previously made public. Her running mate, Virginia Sentor Tim Kaine, also released ten years of tax returns last month.

Trump, meanwhile, said in an interview on Fox News this week that he would release his returns if Clinton releases all the emails she sent from a private server when she was secretary of state.

Since joining the ticket, Pence has made jokes about his own net worth - especially when compared to Trump.

This week, he said of his boss: 'I always tell people - I mean, but for a whole lot of zeroes, he and I have an awful lot in common.'
Ministers could be allowed to speak against Government position

Cabinet Office official was photographed with paper that discussed plan

Theresa May is considering giving ministers a free vote on controversial plans to build a third runway at Heathrow, it emerged last night.

In the second major leak in a week, a London Underground passenger filmed a senior Cabinet Office official holding a paper that discussed the plan  which suggests expansion is the Governments preferred choice.

The Prime Ministers plan to open new grammar schools was also revealed by mistake on Tuesday when a senior Department for Education mandarin was pictured displaying a document on the topic as he walked into No 10.

Ministers could be given a free vote on Heathrow's third runway. Boris Johnson is a fierce opponent of expansion at the airport

The papers about Heathrow set out a potential waiving of collective responsibility ahead of the forthcoming decision around airport capacity.

The document, obtained by Channel 4 News, discussed the possibility of allowing ministers to speak against the Governments position in the House, a freedom they enjoyed in the EU referendum campaign.

Most decisions taken at Cabinet level are subject to the principle of collective agreement, where ministers must publicly support Government policy regardless of their views  or quit.

A move to waive that principle would be good news for Cabinet members Boris Johnson and Justine Greening  whose constituencies are close to Heathrow and who are fierce opponents of expansion at the airport. Under David Cameron, both had suggested they might resign if the project got the go-ahead.

Mr Johnson and Miss Greening have since been promoted to Foreign Secretary and Education Secretary respectively by Mrs May, whose own constituency would be affected by the expansion, and a free vote would allow them to continue in their posts.

Theresa May could be hoping to stave off Cabinet resignations with the plan

A commuter on the Tube spotted the email print-out while standing close to the official on a Central Line train. The message was addressed to Sue Gray, director general of the Cabinet Offices propriety and ethics team.

The passenger photographed some of the contents on their smartphone, including a section clearly marked waiving collective responsibility.

A free vote might also attract Labour support  which, with many Tories against expansion, could be required to win a Commons vote. A report published last year recommended Heathrow should be the focus of airport expansion over its main rival, Gatwick.

The Airports Commission said expanding airport capacity was crucial for the UKs long-term prosperity. But even if ministers approve the recommendation, it would be likely to face numerous objections.

The Heathrow blueprint would mean demolishing 783 homes, including most of the neighbouring village of Harmondsworth, and there are environmental concerns about noise and air pollution.

However, earlier this week it emerged that the Department for Communities and Local Government is considering proposals to rip up planning laws that would normally slow up development, in order to allow a new runway to be finished within two or three years.

The 18.6billion third runway plan at Heathrow would mean 250,000 more flights a year, providing a 150billion boost to GDP over 60 years and 70,000 new jobs.

Gatwicks owners argue that a second runway at its site would deliver the same economic boost but with a lower environmental impact and at a cheaper price.
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With jets zooming across the sky and dropping bombs that burst into balls of flame - this was a fireworks display with a deadly serious purpose.

The display of military might took place in Crimea on Friday as Russia showcased its ground, marine and air forces in the biggest exercises held on the strategic peninsula since its 2014 annexation from Ukraine.

The drills involved 12,500 troops, fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles, and happened at the Opuk training range on the Black Sea coast.

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This display of military might took place on Friday in Crimea as Russia showcased its ground, marine and air forces. Pictured is an explosion from a thermobaric bomb, which create a pressure wave that can suck the air out of people's lungs

The drills involved 12,500 troops, alongside fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles, and took place at the Opuk training range on the Black Sea coast. Pictured is another view of the thermobaric bomb blast

The halo-shaped wave from the thermobaric explosion can be seen above the clouds of spray kicked up from the surface of the Black Sea

The drills involved warships, aircraft and tanks, with Moscow firing its S-300 missile systems. Here, a small ship cowers from a huge blast as a helicopter flies overhead

Thermobaric bombs explode as other ordinance drifts down towards their targets on parachutes. Thermobaric missile launches are said to have been deployed by Russia in Syria

The more advanced S-400 systems were used earlier in the Caucasus-2016 exercises that began on September 5. In this still image, a ship fires a missile at a mock target

A large landing ship moves across the still waters of the Black Sea, depositing a smoke screen in its wake to hide it from 'enemy' forces

The drills involved warships, aircraft and tanks, with Moscow firing its S-300 missile systems.

The more advanced S-400 systems were used earlier in the Caucasus-2016 exercises that began on September 5.

Inland, on a dusty steppe, paratroopers made a mass landing while ground forces ignited a wall of fire with napalm.

'On such a scale and with the deployment of different force groupings, such drills are being held for the first time,' defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists.

Watching the drills were Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the head of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as well as Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov.

'This training range is the biggest on the Crimean peninsula, which allows for such exercises to be held,' said Konashenkov, adding that it had been used by Russia before the peninsula's annexation.

A Kamov Ka 52 Alligator helicopter fires rounds at a practice target during the drills. The spent shell casings can be seen dropping from the base of the aircraft

A Mil Mi-35 attack helicopter darts downwards while firing missiles. Clouds of smoke billow behind the projectiles as they head towards their target

The two attack helicopters fly in formation, raining down ammunition. Inland, on a dusty steppe, paratroopers made a mass landing while ground forces ignited a wall of fire with napalm

'On such a scale and with the deployment of different force groupings, such drills are being held for the first time,' defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. Pictured are warships moored on the Black Sea coast

Konashenkov insisted to journalists: 'You should not twist this into anything - there's no politics.' However, such flexing of Russia's military muscle sent out a clear message that any real attack on Crimea will be fought off

The drills also come about a month after President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev of sending a group of saboteurs into Crimea, saying Ukraine was 'practising terror.' Pictured is a still from video footage released by the Russia's Defence Ministry

'Strategic drills... are essential to military training in Russia in 2016,' Mr Konashenkov said, 'with a focus on different troops working together.'

In Crimea, the exercises simulated an attempted invasion by a major force.

But Mr Konashenkov insisted to journalists: 'You should not twist this into anything - there's no politics.'

The drill was planned last year and is not related to the current heightened tensions with the West, he said.

Nevertheless such flexing of Russia's military muscle sent out a clear message that any real attack on Crimea will be fought off.

The war games also come about a month after President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev of sending a group of saboteurs into Crimea, saying Ukraine was 'practising terror.'

Two Russian officers were killed in clashes on the border but Ukraine denied any involvement. Pictured is an Ilyushin IL-76MD military transport aircraft depositing its payload

Two Sukhoi Su-35 multi-role fighters fly in formation as one fires off two missiles through the clear blue sky. Friday's drills took place in hot, sunny weather

A group of Russian military jets fire flares during military drills at the Black Sea coast. Flares are used to protect aircraft from heat-seeking missiles by diverting them off course

A Sukhoi Su-35 multi-role fighter flies under the path of two missiles. The aircraft has been developed since the 1980s and is now greatly improved

Four blue Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighters release their payloads. The bombs drift down in an almost even line in an impressive display of military timing

Two Russian officers were killed in clashes on the frontier but Ukraine denied any involvement.

'The troops really are training here to make sure that everything is guaranteed - security is ensured,' Konashenkov said.

'Crimea is protected now, it was protected yesterday and it was protected a year ago,' he stressed.

'Crimea is part of Russia and the country protects it like any other region.'

During Caucasus-2016, 'the troops were set the task to fight off every kind of aggression,' the defence ministry spokesman said, adding the drills included blocking and disarming illegal rebel groups.

The drills also worked on manoeuvres learnt in Syria, he said, including creating artificial ridges to allow troops to move around in a flat landscape.

'The military showed good skill level,' chief of staff Gerasimov said after the exercises.

Russia has recently beefed up its military might in Crimea - delivering its most advanced air defence system, the S-400, to the peninsula last month. Pictured is a T-90 tank firing rounds on the Opuk range

A soldier pretends to take an enemy hostage during the war game, with both men wearing different colour uniforms to differentiate between the two sides

Ukraine and its Western allies have been locked in a bitter confrontation with Russia since Moscow seized the strategic region from Kiev in March 2014

Kiev and its Western allies have accused Moscow of pouring troops and weapons across Ukraine's porous eastern border to fuel a separatist conflict that has cost almost 10,000 lives since April 2014

US-led military alliance NATO has vowed to boost troop levels in eastern Europe in response to fears in Poland and the Baltics over Russian expansionism
For a while, it looked like the two and a half-year-old civil war in South Sudan might finally be over. In August of last year, both Salva Kiir and Riek Machar signed a peace agreement to end the conflict, the terms of which confirmed Salva Kiir as President and returned Riek Machar to government as the First Vice President.

But just months after Riek Machar returned to South Sudan to resume his vice-presidential duties, violence resumed and Machar fled.

One of the most heinous aspects of South Sudans civil war is the forced conscription of child soldierschildren younger than 18, with far too many under the age of 15. According to UNICEF, the United Nations' children's agency, since South Sudans civil war began in December 2013, over 16,000 children have been recruited into armed groups on both sides.

UNICEF has reported on the recruitment of child soldiers since the July 7 outbreak of violence. Both sides are using various methods, including coercion and blackmail, to force parents to surrender their children to them.

The United States is profoundly alarmed by the UNICEF report. Above and beyond our calls for an end to ongoing violence in South Sudan, we insist on an immediate halt to the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers by government and opposition forces. Individuals responsible for the unlawful recruitment or use of child soldiers for armed groups or forces may be subject to sanction under U.S. law and may be targeted for UN sanctions, said State Department Spokesman John Kirby in a written statement.

The continued unlawful recruitment and use of children in armed conflict in South Sudan is unacceptable. Eliminating the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers for armed groups in South Sudan is a leading priority of the United States. We remain committed to securing accountability for those who recruit and use children as soldiers.
Harriet Wran will walk free on parole within seven days under the condition she will not touch alcohol or drugs.

The 28-year-old spent two years behind bars over her role in the murder of a Sydney drug dealer in 2014.

Wran, the daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran, has been eligible for early release since August 12, but the decision by the State Parole Authority was postponed last month so that reports and documents could be prepared.

Wran was also told she must not contact the victim's family or her co-offenders while being subjected to parole supervision until August 2018.

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Harriet Wran has been granted parole and will walk free within seven days after she was jailed over her role in the murder of a Sydney drug dealer

The State Parole Authority made a decision on the 28-year-old's parole bid during a private hearing on Friday afternoon

In addition to the list of parole requirements Wran must 'participate in psychological and psychiatric treatment as directed'.

The former Sydney socialite has been behind bars for nearly two years after being arrested over the fatal stabbing of Daniel McNulty, 48, in a Redfern housing commission unit in 2014.

Wran was sentenced in July to four years in jail for being an accessory to the murder.

The former drug addict has admitted helping then-boyfriend Michael Lee and his friend Lloyd Edward Haines gain entry to the flat, but says she didn't know Lee had a knife and didn't see Mr McNulty being stabbed.

She pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact of murder, robbery in company, and harbouring, maintaining and assisting Lee, after prosecutors dropped a murder charge.

Daniel McNulty (pictured) was stabbed to death at his inner-Sydney Redfern housing commission apartment in August 2014

Wran has been behind bars for nearly two years after being arrested over the fatal stabbing

Wran revealed how she relapsed to drug taking after her father Neville's state funeral in 2014 (pictured above with her brother Hugo at the event)

During the July sentencing, Justice Harrison said Wran was not aware Lee had a knife, nor that Haines had donned a balaclava in the moments before she knocked on the door to Mr McNulty's home.

'Ms Wran took no part and played no role once entry had been gained - it escalated quickly and unexpectedly,' Justice Harrison said.

He said he accepted Wran was genuinely remorseful and added that he did not believe she would re-offend once released.

'The agreed facts make it clear Ms Wran did not contemplate any injury at all.'

Lee and Haines have both pleaded guilty to murder and other charges.

The former drug addict has admitted helping then-boyfriend Michael Lee and his friend Lloyd Edward Haines gain entry to Mr McNulty's flat
A caviar farmer's plans for a tiny village have outraged residents who fear the luxury food farm will spoil their rural idyll.

Ken Benning  the UK's only caviar farmer - wants to keep more than 200 five-foot long Siberian sturgeon on a new fish farm in the East Sussex village and harvest their eggs for the luxury dish.

But villagers in picturesque East Chiltington have complained the farm would scar the landscape, disrupt their country peace and drain water from nearby sea trout spawning grounds.

Ken Benning, the UK's only caviar farmer, wants to keep more than 200 five-foot long Siberian sturgeon on a new fish farm in East Chiltington, East Sussex, and harvest their eggs

Mr Benning, who also owns online firm London Fine Foods, became the UK's first caviar farmer when he launched Exmoor Caviar in 2010.

He now wants to create another farm close to where he grew up - in the village north of Lewes which has a population of around 250 and sits in the South Downs National Park.

His plans, which are being considered by the local council, would see several large two-metre-deep ponds created along with outbuildings and a 36 foot high wind turbine on land he bought from his parents.

The caviar would be processed using Cornish sea salt and sold through a wholesale market to selected buyers.

But locals say plans to take 20,000 litres of water per day from natural resources will drain the water table so that native sea trout will no longer be able to use the local winterbourne to spawn.

Since plans were lodged last month villagers have been erecting signs featuring cartoonish fish, with the slogan 'Save Our Sea Trout.'

Mr Benning, who also owns online firm London Fine Foods, became the UK's first caviar farmer when he launched Exmoor Caviar in 2010 (file photo)

Janet Downes, whose home adjoins the site, told the Brighton Argus: 'We are very lucky to live and work in such a beautiful place.

'The proposed caviar farm could leave us with a permanent scar on the landscape in return for little or no economic benefit to the area. This is just the wrong place for this enterprise.'

So far ten letters of objection have been sent to Lewes District Council.

Harry Haskell, 74, who has lived in the village for 37 years, said: 'My fear is that we'll lose the natural habitat.

'This whole area is used by ramblers, bird watchers, horse riders, because it's a haven for wildlife and this project will have a negative effect.'

Villager Helen Elliot said: 'My objection to this scheme in particular is that it is entirely unnecessary.

'If it goes ahead it will not only cause stress for the fish used in the farm and produce pollution from their waste, but if it is successful it may also lead to expansion.

'Caviar is a luxury product and there is no justification for its production as a food stuff.

'I am sure that the land in question could be put to better use for food production of a more useful and healthy kind.'

Sarah Osborne, Lib Dem leader on Lewes District Council, said she backed villagers in their 'fight against this blot on the landscape'.

She said: 'I share their concerns about the impact this development would have on the local environment and the detrimental effect on the quality of life of its immediate neighbours.'

But Mr Benning, who lives with his wife and five children in Battersea, said: 'From the objection and protests you'd think I was trying to build Hinkley Point here.

'I certainly do not feel this will 'eat up' the landscape as some claim, again quite the opposite.

'There are extensive four to five metre high boundary hedges and large oaks, not to mention the soft planting plan that we hope to install once the planned earthworks have finished; including beehives, wild meadows and multiple fruit trees.'

And he said the project will be a 'beacon' for British farming which will benefit, not disrupt, the ecology of the area, adding: 'Our aim is to greatly increase the biodiversity, not the opposite.
Betting machines dubbed the crack cocaine of gambling face a major Government crackdown in a victory for the Daily Mail.

Ministers are finally ordering a review of the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) amid mounting alarm at the social harm they cause.

The machines  on which 100 can be wagered every 20 seconds  have been linked to two suicides, gambling addiction, debt and money laundering.

Ministers have announced a review of fixed-odds betting terminals

The review could lead to the stakes involved being reduced to as little as 2 a spin if the damage they are suspected of wreaking is confirmed.

The maximum number of machines in each bookmakers premises could also be slashed from the current four. Critics say that cramming four of the machines into often small betting shops has created mini-casinos on the high street.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport review  which has the full backing of Theresa May  will also consider restrictions on the advertising of betting sites on TV.

The move was last night welcomed by campaign groups, who were hugely critical of David Camerons failure to take strong action against machines which rake in 1.7 billion a year for bookies.

The ex-PM had promised to act, only for a government review to be cancelled by the Cabinet Office and No 10. Opponents said he had buckled under pressure from the powerful gambling lobby.

The urgent review will be unveiled by culture minister Tracey Crouch within weeks and completed by the end of the year. The Mail has led the way in highlighting the harm caused by the machines  repeatedly demanding action to protect the vulnerable. MPs have also demanded changes to the rules governing the touch-screen roulette machines.

The move has been welcomed by campaign groups, who have branded the machines the 'crack cocaine' of gambling

Gamblers can play casino-style games with a maximum stake of 100, which can be wagered every 20 seconds  a possible 300 a minute. There are more than 35,000 fixed-odds betting terminals in the UKs bookmakers.

MPs say they are disproportionately found in the poorer parts of the country.

The DUPs Jim Shannon said: Campaigners have labelled the machines the crack cocaine of gambling, and that is what they are. The issue is of great importance.

There is also alarm that the machines are being used to launder dirty money by drug dealers and criminals. Mr Shannon said the most common use of FOBTs since they landed on the high street is for getting rid of dyed notes obtained during robberies on armoured vans, cash machines and so on. The notes are sprayed with an irremovable dye, but are still identified as legitimate currency by the gaming machines. The money which is paid out from a win will normally be from a different batch  becoming clean.

THE GAMBLING ADDICT WHO KILLED HIMSELF AT 27 Ryan Myers was just 27 when he died after running up huge debts Gambling addict Ryan Myers ran up huge debts and killed himself just hours after losing another 500 on the machines. The 27-year-old carpenter died in 2014, but is still being sent promotions offering free bets. Mr Myers ran up debts of thousands of pounds and had resorted to taking out a 1,000 payday loan to help pay them back. He had also contacted gambling websites asking them to bar him. But his family were unaware of his problems, saying that a few days before his death he had been laughing and joking as usual on holiday with them. After losing 500, Mr Myers left a note saying how much he loved his family and fiancee, and that he had put his last 300 for her into his fathers account. His father John, a car factory supervisor from Liverpool, said: I hate fixed-odds betting terminals with a passion. You can lose hundreds in minutes and people get hooked  they should cap how much you can spend. Advertisement

Councillor Simon Blackburn, chairman of the Local Government Associations Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: A review into the high stakes of fixed-odds betting machines and the harm they cause to vulnerable people and local communities is overdue.

FOBTs have fuelled clustering of betting shops in some places, which has a detrimental impact on local high streets and goes against the wishes of local people.

We need action to help protect communities and those at risk of problem gambling. Under Mr Cameron, the number of crack cocaine terminals soared, despite him admitting in January 2014 that they were a problem that needed looking at.

In 2010, when he entered Downing Street as prime minister, there were 32,832 machines. But by the end of last year, the number had risen to 34,704  up 6 per cent.

Over the same period, the sums wagered also rocketed from 37.1 billion to a staggering 48.5 billion  a rise of nearly one third. The amount lost on the machines rose from 1.3 billion to a whopping 1.7 billion  an increase of 31 per cent, according to the Gambling Commission.

Since 2008, punters have squandered an eye-watering 11.5 billion on the addictive terminals.

Council chiefs also want cumulative impact tests to be introduced  as there are with pubs and bars  to enable local bodies to reject applications for new betting shops where there are already too many.

Currently, councils have no powers to restrict their proliferation.

Figures show nearly a fifth of problem gamblers in the UK have reported debts of between 20,000 and 100,000, with counselling sessions increasing by 29 per cent between 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Police were called to betting shops 9,308 times in 2013-14  an average of once every hour  to deal with gambling-related disturbances.
A woman who wants to use her dead daughters frozen eggs to give birth to her own grandchild is a step closer.

The 60-year-old has been cleared by health experts to take her daughter's eggs to the US for IVF treatment.

There she hopes to use donor sperm to conceive her daughter's child after she died aged 28 from bowel cancer.

A 60-year-old woman has been cleared by health experts to go and attempt IVF in America to give birth to her daughter's child after she died from bowl cancer and it was her dying wish

The woman claims her daughter, who was single, asked her to carry her babies but failed to complete a consent form.

She sparked a five year legal battle and last year the High Court refused permission but that was overturned by the Court of Appeal in July.

If the treatment is successful the woman, known only as Mrs M, will give birth next year  six years after her daughter died.

The Court of Appeal, pictured, overturned a High Court ruling in July banning a 60-year-old woman from using her dead daughter's frozen eggs in IVF treatment

The Court of Appeal overturned a High Court verdict banning the woman from taking her late daughters eggs for IVF.

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 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 woman, known only as Mrs M, can now fly to the US and use the frozen eggs (file picture) to give birth to her own grandchild

Speaking to The Sun a spokesman from HEFA said: 'This has been a difficult case. Such issues of consent are the cornerstone of the law and needed to be carefully considered.'
A Chinese naturopath advising cancer patients against mastectomies and chemotherapy and a farmer claiming apricot seeds can cure the fatal disease are under investigation.

Australia's Health Care Complaints Commission will determine if these businesses are misleading cancer patients with treatments that are not proven to be successful.

Naturopath Peter Chen, based in Sydney, is under investigation as he believes women with the BRCA gene, which increases the risk of cancer, should not have mastectomies which could ultimately save their lives, The Saturday Telegraph reported.

Peter Chen's business in Parramatta offers clients an alternative to conventional treatments with Chinese medicine

Mr Chen, who was a naturopath in China, also advises patients against chemotherapy.

'I do not believe in chemotherapy- you need to increase your immune system, not shut it down,' he told the publication.

His business in Parramatta offers clients an alternative to conventional treatments with Chinese medicine.

Farmer Garry Vereb, based in Blacktown, in Sydney's west, runs the business Apricot Seeds Australia.

He claims his apricot seeds cured his prostate cancer but the Cancer Council said there is no evidence to support this and are worried about the cyanide levels in the seeds.

Cancer Council Australia chief executive Professor Sanchia Aranda has called for an inquiry into such treatments.

Farmer Garry Vereb (pictured), based in Blacktown, in Sydney's west runs the business Apricot Seeds Australia
The owner of a Texas mattress store has closed his store after apologizing for what he called a 'tasteless' advertisement promoting a 9/11 anniversary sale.

The online ad for Miracle Mattress in San Antonio featured a woman screaming as two towers of mattresses topple.

In a statement posted to the store's social media on Friday, owner Mike Bonanno said the store 'will be closed indefinitely.'

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The owner of a Texas mattress store has closed his store after apologizing for what he called a 'tasteless' commercial (pictured) promoting a 9/11 anniversary sale

In a statement posted to the store's social media on Friday (shown above), owner Mike Bonanno said the store 'will be closed indefinitely'

He said the company also 'will be silent through the 9/11 anniversary to avoid any further distractions from a day of recognition and remembrance for the victims and their families.'

He repeated his Thursday apology, saying the online ad was produced without his knowledge by employees in San Antonio.

Bonanno said he will announce next week 'accountability actions' taken with the employees responsible for the ad.

The closure comes after the company was forced to apologize after issuing the 9/11 promotional video offering a 'Twin Tower sale' that caused a firestorm online and sparked death threats against employees, according to Fox News.

'We are not hate, we are love. We are somebody that stands out,' Cherise Bonanno, manager of the store and Mike Bonnano's daughter, told News 4 San Antonio on Thursday as she spoke through tears.

'We're Miracle Mattress, we make miracles happen.

'For our lives to be in danger, that's no what we ever wanted.'

She added: 'It was stupid, it was a stupid idea that we sent out and we apologize for our stupidity and we really hope that you forgive us for what we have done.'

On Friday, Facebook users remained baffled by the company's decision to release the video.

Cherise Bonanno (pictured left and in the commercial, right), manager of the store and Mike Bonnano's daughter, said for employees lives to be in danger is not what they wanted

'In all seriousness, how did NOBODY speak up during the inception of this ad and say it was a bad idea? Every single one of us does stupid stuff on a regular basis, but you would think somewhere between the inception of this idea and the execution that SOMEONE would have said "hey guys, I may be the new guy here, but maybe this is not the best idea,"' Seth Chambers wrote.

Others raised questions as to whether the owner's daughter would be fired.

'Yup. Wise to close. The backlash of this is significant,' Kirsty F. Macintyre wrote.

'Have you fired your daughter yet? Anyone else would have done so by now.

'She's destroyed your business. Hire professional staff, make a stand. Family or not. Do the right thing, and you just might succeed, and receive forgiveness.'

The company had produced the video showing two employees collapsing into a stack of mattresses pretending to be terror victims.

Cherise Bonanno says in the clip: 'What better way to remember 9/11 than with a Twin Tower sale?'

After shouting: 'Store-wide sale all day long,' two men behind the woman collapse onto a stack of mattresses in simulation of the Twin Towers terrorist attack.

She then shouts: 'Oh my God!' before looking into the camera and saying: 'We'll never forget.'

On Thursday, Mike Bonanno apologized in a letter posted to social media.

Miracle Mattress, based in San Antonio, Texas, posted the video showing two employees collapsing into a stack of mattresses pretending to be terror victims on Facebook

Cherise Bonanno (centre), manager of the store, says in the clip: 'What better way to remember 9/11 than with a Twin Tower sale?'

After shouting: 'Store-wide sale all day long,' two men behind the woman collapse onto a stack of mattresses in simulation of the Twin Towers terrorist attack

He said: 'The video is tasteless and an affront to the men and women who lost their lives on 9/11.

'Furthermore, it disrespects the families who lost their loved ones and continue to struggle with the pain of this tragedy every day of their lives.

'All I can say is I am deeply sorry and on behalf of the entire Miracle Mattress family, I accept responsibility for this thoughtless and crude advertisement and will immediately hold my employees accountable for this serious lapse of decency.'

The businessman added: 'Effective immediately, Miracle Mattress will review our entire marketing strategy to ensure a stringent approval process will be in place to stop this from every happening again.

'We will also engage a personnel review to hold these employees accountable for their actions.'

The video has drawn widespread outrage from viewers online

The owner of the business (pictured) Mike Bonanno apologized in a letter posted to social media

Before announcing their closure, the company had said on Thursday that they would be donating 30 per cent of their sales this weekend to the 9/11 Foundation.

The video drew widespread outrage from viewers online.

John Lazar, a volunteer firefighter in New York, said: 'I am truly horrified. Your actions have proven to me that you have forgotten.

'The terror of that day was never felt by you or anyone who worked on that commercial or even came up with the idea of a sale gimmick on that day.'

Joe Rios said: 'This makes me and countless other Americans sick.'

On Thursday, Mike Bonanno apologized in a letter posted to social media (shown above), calling the video 'tasteless and an affront to the men and women who lost their lives on 9/11'

Twitter user Random Things said: 'What a disgusting way to try to make money' while TrueAmerican said: 'This is so disrespectful! Shame on you!'

The offensive clip comes just days after a Walmart in Florida came faced criticism for also using 9/11 as a promotional stunt.

A display in the store saw boxes of Coca-Cola stacked into an American flag behind a representation of the Twin Towers.

A Walmart spokesman said Coca-Cola had approached the retailer with the idea.

Walmart bosses decided to take down the display after the social media backlash.

In 2014 an Alabama clothing company requested 2,296 retweets, one for each person who had lost their life in the attack.
Hillary Clinton could get away with murder, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told a cheering crowd of his supporters at a raucous Pensacola rally Friday night.

Speaking weeks after Clinton avoided prosecution after an FBI investigation, Trump said shoot somebody 'right smack in the middle of the heart' and avoid prosecutions.

'Because she's being so protected  she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn't be prosecuted, okay?' Trump said.

'That is what happened. That is what's happened to this country. I never thought I'd see the day where this has happened to our country,' Trump speaking to a crowd of about 10,000.

The brutally expressive line echoed a comment Trump made about himself in Iowa as his popularity grew during the primaries. 'I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters,' Trump said then.

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Republican Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton could 'shoot somebody' in front of 20,000 people and not get prosecuted

In January, Trump said 'I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters'

Trump's statement about a Clinton capable of shooting someone at a rally came on a day when he continually pounded her 'corruption' and called her 'unfit' to lead the nation.

'Hillary Clinton isn't just part of the corrupt establishment. She is the corrupt establishment,' Trump said.

Trump warned the crowd that they 'can't let this election be taken away,' just hours after warning that this could be the last election in which Republicans have a chance because Democrats would legalize undocumented immigrants and let them vote.

'It is your turn now,' Trump said. 'It is your time now. We've gotta be smart. We've gotta be tough. We've gotta get out and vote.'

'We can't let this be taken away, 'cuz this will be taken away if you don't get out and do it. We have to be smart we have to be tough,' Trump warned.

Then he cautioned cryptically: 'And by the way, be very, very vigilant on November 8th. Watch what's happening. Watch what's happening.'

Trump made a gun-like gesture with his hand when he said Clinton could shoot someone and not get prosecuted

During the primaries, Trump said, 'I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters'

Trump warned the crowd to be 'very vigilant' during the elections

Trump made his comment about Clinton shooting someone in an arena 'with 20,000 people watching' inside an arena with thousands of supporters

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cheer as he arrives to a rally in Pensacola

Trump told the crowd, referring to people who 'rigged the system, 'Their gravy train has reached its last stop'

Trump was speaking in a state that was home to the infamous butterfly ballot and other irregularities that was at the center of a recount that the Supreme Court ultimately stopped, leading to the election of George W. Bush in 2000.

'The fact that so many encrusted old political insiders oppose this incredible campaign, this incredible movement, is the best proof you will ever need that we are fighting for,' Trump said.

'Change is coming,' Trump said. 'All the people who've rigged the system  for their own personal benefit are trying to stop our change campaign because they know that their gravy train has reached its last stop.'

Trump, who addressed the Values Voter Summit in Washington Friday afternoon, expressed his view that this would be the 'last election' if Clinton wins.

'I think this will be the last election if I don't win, Trump told Christian Broadcasting Newtork News Friday. 'I think this will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning because you're going to have people flowing across the border, you're going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they're going to be legalized and they're going to be able to vote and once that all happens you can forget it.'

He continued: 'You're not going to have one Republican vote. And it's already a hard number. Already the path is much more difficult for the Republicans. You just have to look at the maps.'

Polls show that Trump and Cliton are tied in Florida

Agreeing with an idea also promoted by former Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Trump said, 'I think it's going to be the last election that the Republicans can win. If we don't win this election, you'll never see another Republican and you'll have a whole different church structure,''You'll have a whole different Supreme Court structure.'

In another incendiary comment, Trump said of Iran: 'And by the way, with Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.'

He also brought up a 'smear' by Bill Clinton, who questioned Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan as a racial code.

'I'm actually old enough to remember the good old days, and they weren't all that good in many ways,' Clinton said on the campaign trail Wednesday. 'That message where "I'll give you America great again" is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?' Clinton said.
Donald Trump riled up his supporters in Florida on Friday, saying Iranian ships harassing the US Navy would be 'shot out of the water' under his presidency.

'With Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,' Trump said.

Last weekend, an Iranian boat came within 100 yards of a US coastal patrol ship in the Persian Gulf, forcing the USS Firebolt to maneuver out of the way in the fourth confrontation in the past month.

Donald Trump riled up his supporters in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, saying Iranian ships harassing the US Navy would be 'shot out of the water' under his presidency

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he speaks during a rally in Pensacola

His incendiary comment, which would most likely launch the country in a war if it was carried out, came after recent confrontations between the US and Iran on international waters

While Trump has tried to soften his tone and stick to teleprompters in the three weeks after his campaign shake-up, Friday's rally showed signs he was reverting to his controversial ways.

His incendiary comment, which would most likely catapult the country in a war if it was carried out, came after a series of recent confrontations between the US and Iran on international waters.

And yet Trump accused Hillary Clinton of being 'trigger-happy' on Friday, calling her an 'unstable person' whose policies 'produced only death, destruction and not diplomacy'.

This week, the Republican presidential nominee laid out a multi-billion dollar plan to bolster the military, which would become 'so strong that nobody's going to mess with us'.

And thousands of supporters applauded his taunts in Florida on Friday, and later cheered 'USA! USA!' in response.

Trump has based his foreign policy beliefs on keeping the United States out of what he called 'endless wars' in the Middle East.

The business tycoon, who has been criticized for his frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also mentioned a recent incident in which a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet of a US Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea.

'Putin laughs, believe me, he laughs at our leaders. Yesterday he had a plane 10 feet away, taunting us, toying with us, just like Iran,' he said.

The USS Firebolt (file photo from 2011) was forced to change course after an Iranian Navy patrol boat came within 100 yards of it last Sunday despite repeated warnings

The incident came after the USS Nitze fired flares at Iranian patrol boats after the approached at speed and in an 'unsafe and unprofessional' manner, officials said

The confrontations are taking place in a narrow band of international water that runs between Iran on one side and the United Arab Emirates on the other

He also said Hillary could kill someone and get away with it because she avoided prosecution in regards to her use of a private email server.

'Because she's being so protected, she could walk into this arena right now and shoot someone with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn't be prosecuted,' Trump said.

His comment was reminiscent of his own popularity claims in January, when he told supporters in Iowa: 'I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.'
Speaking about Amazon today Kaphan said he believes the company isolates people in the sense that '

Kaphan revealed he had been thinking about a way to turn books into a

It's been 17 years since Amazon's first employee left the company, before it became one of the world's most successful retail giants.

As part of a series of interviews by The Macro.com which focuses on sharing the untold stories of early employees at tech companies, Shel Kaphan revealed that he had been thinking of a way to turn books in print into a 'hypertext version' before he met Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 1994.

Kaphan became the vice president of research and development for Amazon when the company first started out as a fledgling online bookseller.

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Shel Kaphan (pictured) revealed that he had been thinking about a way to make books in print into a 'hyertext version' before he even met Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 1994. During a breakfast meeting Bezos told him about starting an online bookstore

He moved to Seattle from Santa Cruz, California, to join what is now one of the largest retail giants in the world.

It all started when Kaphan and a friend, Herb Jellinek, were trying to come up with a business idea and started talking to various people in their networks, Macro reported.

Jellinek had a friend who worked with Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, at the time.

He connected Kaphan and Jellinek with Bezos, who was working at a hedge fund but was going to leave to start a web-related business, according to Macro.

'We had breakfast together and Jeff told us about his idea to start an online bookstore,' Kaphan told the site.

Kaphan said they even talked about locating the company in Santa Cruz, but Bezos 'learned more about mail-order business' and 'he eventually decided it made more sense to be in a smaller population state or one that didnt charge sales tax'.

Jeff Bezos (pictured) was working at a hedge fund when he met Kaphan but was getting ready to leave to start his business

Bezos narrowed his choices down between Nevada and Seattle.

'When he finally decided on Seattle, it took him all summer to convince me to move because I had lived in Santa Cruz for nearly 20 years and I liked it there.

'Eventually, I decided that there was enough that I wanted to do on the project that it made sense to move,' Kaphan said.

At the time I thought, "Okay, Im going to be building this website to run a bookstore and I havent done that before but it doesnt sound so hard. When Im done with that Im not sure what Ill do,"' he told Macro.

Kaphan, who stayed with Amazon for five years, went on to say that he 'was pretty wrong about how the business would develop and how ambitious Jeff was'.

He said that he had no idea how big and diverse Amazon would become when he started.

But before Bezos' company really got started, Kaphan said he had been thinking about a way to take 'books in print or something like it and make a hyertext version'.

He told Macro: 'I was thinking, "Man, I hate going to the library and ruffling through those card catalogues and trying to find that thing that Im looking for."

'I thought solving that problem was a perfect application for hypertext,' which is one of the reasons why he joined the project.

In the beginning, Kaphan said that they 'pretty much had to figure out and learn' how to do certain things on their own as there were no cloud services or anything similar to it at the time.

'It was all build your own and run it yourself. At that point the web was a very static thingmostly just a collection of pages,' he said.

Kaphan said that on the technical side of things, 'Amazon was really pretty straightforward to build in the beginning', but noted that they had their fair share of bugs.

The business started doubling quarterly for about 'six quarters or more in a row' and it was run completely on a 'couple of small Sun desktop machines'.

Kaphan told Macro that Amazon was shipping to all 50 states in the beginning and they had 'a lot of international orders from fairly early on'.

'Germany and England were the first two,' he said.

Throughout his time at Amazon, Kaphan said his role was primarily technical with some technical management.

'At that time I was VP of Development and was responsible for writing the software and keeping the systems up and running.

Leading up to Kahphan's departure he said Amazon was still pretty much a 'retail business' when he left as digital products and Ebooks hadn't happened yet.

Leading up to Kahphan's departure he said Amazon was still pretty much a 'retail business' when he left as digital products and Ebooks hadn't happened yet

'It was already a big company from my perspective,' he said.

But today, Kaphan said he sees Amazon as a company that isolates people in the sense that 'everything caters to convenience so much that you dont even have to get out of bed to take care of your day-to-day business'.

'To me, thats a step too far. Of all the major online businesses, I dont really think that they extend in that way much beyond what we did very early on by allowing for customer reviews.

Kaphan told Macro that he and Bezos didn't stay close after his departure.

'When he replaced me in my original job and I was moved into the CTO slot, I was nominally in charge of architecture, but in fact that just meant rubber stamping projects that were 95 per cent complete by the time I saw them.

'That was all after having told me that my job was mine as long as I wanted it. So I would say we were not really on particularly friendly terms at that point.'

He went on to praise Bezos as a 'super brilliant businessman' while noting that if he had any idea what kind of company Amazon would have turned into, 'I might have decided it wasn't what I wanted to do'.

Kaphan added that 'the first couple of years at Amazon really were a high point for me'.

'One thing that the Amazon experience taught me is try to imagine what a project or company would be like if it was more successful than you could ever possibly imagine. Its very unlikely but its possible.

'Being a part of something from the very beginning that engages people and has an astonishing growth curvebeing part of making that actually workwas hugely satisfying, and I still look back on those first couple of years as a really exciting and great time in my life.'

Kaphan had worked as a programmer starting in 1975 and landed a job with Information International, Inc. He then went back to finish his undergraduate degree at UC Santa Cruz.

Kaphan worked for a few other companies before heading to Amazon.
They were acquitted by Italy's highest court last year

Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially found guilty of murder and sentenced to 26 years in jail in 2009

The British student was found half naked and with her throat slit at the house she shared with Knox in Perugia in November 2007

Knox was pictured at the airport with boyfriend Christopher Robinson for the Toronto Film Festival

Amanda Knox touched down in Toronto ahead of the premiere of her Netflix documentary, but it was her boyfriend - and his outfit - that grabbed attention.

While Knox, 29, looked understated in jeans and a simple red shirt and black jacket, her new boyfriend Christopher Robinson chose a much bolder look.

The author sported a pair of loud cheetah-print pants which he paired with a blue Letterman jacket, emblazoned with Amanda's name.

A Netflix documentary entitled 'Amanda Knox' will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival today

Amanda Knox and her author boyfriend Christopher Robinson touched down in Toronto today

He topped off the look with eyeglasses framed in red and a Yankees hat.

Knox and Robinson are attending the Toronto Film Festival for the release of the film Amanda Knox, which investigates the Meredith Kercher murder trial.

British student Kercher, 21, was found half naked and with her throat slit in the house she shared in Perugia with Knox in November 2007.

The US student and Raffaele Sollecito were initially found guilty of murder and sentenced to 26 years in jail in 2009.

Knox spent nearly four years in jail before she and Sollecito were acquitted last year by Italy's highest court following numerous appeals and retrials.

In the documentary Knox breaks down in tears as she discusses the case that made headlines around the world.

She is asked 'did you kill Meredith Kercher?' and she replies' no' before giving the same reply to two further questions: 'Were you there that night?' and 'Do you know anything you have not told police?'

Knox says anyone could have been in her shoes.

The first trailers have been released for Netflix's highly-anticipated documentary have been released and the film is set to come out later this month

'Amanda Knox' delves into the life of the 29-year-old American student whose world was turned upside down when she was accused of brutally killing Kercher in 2007 (above in 2007)

Looking at the camera, she states: 'That's everyone's nightmare. Either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing or I am you.'

The Netflix documentary promises 'unprecedented access to key people involved and never-before-seen archival material'.

There are also interviews with Knox's ex-boyfriend and fellow co-defendant Sollecito, as well as Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

Discussing her former housemate Kercher, Knox says: 'We weren't best friends but I was so shocked by what happened to her. Suddenly I found myself tossed into this dark place.'

Breaking down in tears, she states: 'I was so scared. I don't know what else I can say.'

She tells the camera: 'Before Italy I had a happy life. It was very important to get out of my comfort zone and see if that made me turn into an adult.'

But after the events in Italy 'the whole world knew who I had ever had sex with', she continues. 'I felt like a child again and I know I was a kid.'

Knox and Sollecito were first acquitted in 2011 after evidence used against them was found to be flawed.

She immediately returned to the United States protesting her innocence, but in January 2014 the Italian courts overturned that acquittal and reinstated the guilty verdict.

Tragedy: It has been almost a decade since Knox and then boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito (left) were accused of murdering Meredith Kercher (right)

However, the case ultimately went to the Supreme Court and their conviction was definitively overturned in March last year.

Knox, now a journalist in her hometown of Seattle, has since taken her case against Italian police to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming she was mistreated during their murder investigation.

Sollecito finished his undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Perugia in 2008 while in prison.

He has since become an 'expert' for Italian crime show 'Mystery of the Week' and offers a perspective on the 'faults of the justice system'.

Meanwhile, Knox is getting serious with Robinson, who she moved in with just earlier this month.

The journalist recently wrote a revealing piece in which she said the experience reminded her of when she was in prison in Italy.

Knox wrote about how she was preparing herself to combine her belongings with another person, including her clothes and books, when she began to think about her time behind bars.

'Im reminded of how my cell in Capanne prison transformed in character with the arrival or release of even just one prisoner,' wrote Knox in a blog post published on the West Seattle Herald's website.

'While none of us was allowed much in the way of material possessions, our combined emotional baggage, when bashed together without consideration, could make an already inescapable situation insufferable, even dangerous.'

Sollecito (left) also appears in the trailer, speaking of happier times with Knox (right)

Knox appeared to be overcome with emotion at one point in the trailer and breaks down in tears

Knox reviewed Robinson's book War of the Encyclopeadists on her blog last May, calling it a 'hilarious and heartbreaking investigation of the truth of two lives through fiction.'

She makes no mention of knowing Robinson in the review and appears to have met him after writing the post.

Knox was newly engaged to musician Colin Sutherland at the time, but the two split at some point in the past year.

The brutality of the attack on Kercher, the alleged sex games, and multiple trials provided fodder for tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired books and films.

It has previously been the subject of the documentary A Long Way From Home and TV movie Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy, with Hayden Panettiere in the title role.

Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, is halfway through a 16-year sentence for his involvement in Miss Kercher's death after a separate trial.

He has always denied killing her.

The documentary, directed by Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival today, before a global launch on September 30.

Knox described her carefree life before Italy, before she was accused of murder, before she was locked up in an Italian jail (pictured before she was accused in 2007)

The documentary explores the turmoil Knox faced as she she battled with the courts for almost a decade
Gold producers fill job slots in a variety of recruitment efforts that range from posting openings on the internet, advertising, attending job fairs and recruiting at colleges and universities. They also step up to help when there are mining layoffs.

Barrick Gold of North America also is launching a new effort in partnership with Gov. Brian Sandoval's office and Great Basin College to recruit military veterans. GBC has a veterans office.

"The prime target is home-grown Nevadans," said Marine veteran Brian Mason of Barrick's human relations department.

The plan is to help veterans translate their military experiences into marketable skills in civilian life, he said.

"What it really means is you can do this, this and this," Mason said.

Barrick and Newmont Mining Corp. are the biggest mine employers in Nevada.

"We're doing fairly well. Fortunately, the gold price has been favorable in recent months," Newmont's regional vice president of human resources, Rich Martinez, said, reporting the company has had about 500 new hires so far in 2016.

A high gold price provides more incentive for mines to hire.

Newmont has roughly 3,800 employees in Nevada.

"We recruit in our region and neighboring states. We do a very nice job hiring Nevada citizens," Martinez said.

He said the 500 new hires were to fill jobs created with new projects and to fill vacancies when people retire or leave their jobs. For instance, Newmont had hired 180 people by August for the new Long Canyon mining operations near Wells slated to start production at the beginning of 2017, and "by the end of next year it will be up to 250," Martinez said. "The majority of people are new to the company so this will be good for the community."

Newmont also answered the call in July to come to Gillette, Wyo., for a job fair to help laid-off coal miners. Roughly 600 coal workers have lost their jobs in an energy downturn for the Wyoming coal industry.

"We saw around 50 people that day," said Shawn Smith, recruiting specialist for Newmont's Cripple Creek & Victor Mine in Colorado. "Within the last couple of weeks, we have received multiple phone calls and resumes of individuals who could not attend the job fair," he said on Aug. 9.

The recruiting in Gillette was for Cripple Creek, which Newmont acquired a year ago. The mine had 601 employees at the end of July and is looking to fill 40 positions, Smith said.

He earlier told the Gillette News Record that there are a lot of similarities between gold and coal mining, "a lot of the same equipment that we are running," and he said in an email later that those jobs include haul truck operators, mechanics, welders and any entry-level maintenance roles.

Barrick will hold a job fair when there are local layoffs, for example, but is "a bit shy about attending the fairs," said Jorge Esteva, communications director for Barrick Gold of North America. One reason is that a job fair raises expectations for attendees while Barrick is looking for the right profile and skills for workers.

He said Barrick works closely with universities and offers college internships that will provide skills and tempt students to come back for full-time work, and the company "uses all sorts of media" to attract people. Potential employees can apply online for Nevada jobs, as well.

"We have walk-ins every day," Esteva said.

Barrick had 6,206 employees at the end of 2015 in the United States, he said. However, Kinross Gold Corp. acquired the Bald Mountain Mine from Barrick in January, so that figure may include Bald Mountain workers.

Louie Diaz, director of corporate communications for Kinross, said the company focuses on online recruitment for Nevada jobs but also participates in certain job fairs, including local school district job fairs, as well as the Elko Mining Expo, where Kinross can recruit.

"We are committed to employing local workers wherever we can," he said.

Kinross owns the Round Mountain and Bald Mountain mines in Nevada and has 1,300 employees in the state, Diaz said.

"We take advantage of every opportunity to help fellow employers; if there is an announced layoff, we make every effort to be there," said Elaine Truhls, human resources specialist for Silver Standard Resources' Marigold Mine at Valmy.

She said the mine interviewed and hired several of the employees laid off earlier from Hycroft Mining Corp.'s mine west of Winnemucca and the Florida Canyon and Standard mines recently acquired by Rye Patch Gold Corp., east of Lovelock.

Marigold General Manager Duane Peck said the mine currently employs 382 full-time workers "with a goal of growing to 396 by the end of the year."

He said there are 14 openings within the technical services group and mine operations department.

Marigold also has 16 full-time contractors and typically hires 12 to 15 summer interns and college students whose parents work for Marigold, Peck said.

Once recruited, the mines hope to keep their workers, and Newmont's Martinez is proud of Newmont's low turnover rate of 9 percent a year.

"Anything less than 10 percent is excellent. We attract very well and retain very well."

Esteva offered an example of miners looking for safe and steady work. He said the Turquoise Ridge Mine that now has an excellent safety record is finding that workers who went away are now coming back "for security and assurance of long (mine) life." Barrick owns 75 percent of the underground mine and Newmont owns the other 25 percent.

Barrick's new effort to recruit veterans includes plans to approach military veterans at the company's Nevada mines to help with recruitment, Mason said.

"Some of this is pretty new. People who will best know vets are fellow vets. We haven't tapped into this resource yet but plan to do so in coming weeks," he said.

Esteva said the veterans already working at the mines can spot and identify veterans' abilities, and this is "something that has us really excited."

Mason explained that a veteran's discharge papers list skills that may not make sense to civilians but with translation, the skills show up. For instance, a Navy carrier is like a small city with roughly 4,000 people. The carrier needs electricians, mechanics, millwrights and water managers, to name a few skills that would convert to a mine job, such as working in a mill, he said.

Veterans with post traumatic stress syndrome will find that "the best thing to assist with that is employment," said Mason, who was in Desert Storm and Somalia.

He said there will be a link established on the Barrick website for veterans. Veterans also can email him at bmason@barrick.com.

Martinez of Newmont said he also would like to see more women apply for good-paying jobs in mining.

"I would encourage women to apply," he said.

Esteva said Barrick's ratio of women to men employees in Nevada is 13.5 percent, while Mason, program manager for Native American affairs, said of the more than 110 Western Shoshone people the company hired, roughly 40 percent are women.

Along with recruiting in Nevada, Diaz said Kinross is "committed to generating benefits to the local communities where we operate," such as buying goods and services from more than 430 Nevada suppliers.

Kinross spent roughly $110 million in goods and services last year, before the company added Bald Mountain Mine to the company's portfolio in January, Diaz said.
The 47-year-old had a bitter dispute with her husband about money

Mrs Ristevski was last seen leaving her Melbourne home on June 29

The brother of missing Melbourne mother, Karen Ristevski, says he is close with his sister's husband, Borce, despite the speculation surrounding her disappearance.

Mrs Ristevski's only sibling, Stephen Williams, is the latest family member to comment on the saga surrounding the 47-year-old mother's disappearance by regularly posting comments on social media.

Mr Ristevski claims his wife left their Avondale Heights family home on June 29 to 'clear her head' after the couple had been arguing about finances.

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Mrs Ristevski's only sibling, Stephen Williams (right) says he is in constant contact with his sister's husband Bruce

Mr Williams explained he and his sister's husband have spent years working together and he still frequently meets with his brother-in-law.

'I worked with him [Mr Ristevski] for ten plus years,' Mr Williams posted on the Facebook page 'Where is Karen Ristevski?'.

'We've had heated disagreements like all family members do but consider us to be close.

'For those also wondering, I catch up with him weekly for the last two months.'

Mr Williams has chosen not to speak publicly since his sister's disappearance stating he has faith in the legal system.

'I have belief in our legal system and will leave it up to them on thoughts etc [sic], me or anyone else speculating won't bring us closer to finding Karen,' he said.

The 47-year-old mother was last seen at her Avondale Heights home on June 29 after arguing with her husband, Borce (right), about finances

Mr William's comments come as it is revealed Mrs Ristevski had received part of a $360,000 share of an inheritance from her father in the months leading up to her mysterious disappearance.

The inheritance was split between the 47-year-old woman and her brother after their father Joseph Williams died at the age of 78 in December 2014, The Australian reported.

It's not clear when the Melbourne siblings received their money from the inheritance but lawyer George James Bouhalis, who acts for the family, said the pair secured their share in the estate at the end of 2015.

There is no suggestion Mr Ristevski was involved in his wife's disappearance.

Mrs Ristevski's brother has chosen not to speak publicly about his sister's disappearance but has recently taken to social media to say he trusts the legal system
She sat at rear with fellow students when a male, 13, touched her breast

A schoolgirl, 14, was digitally raped and filmed on a Brisbane bus in 2013

A man who digitally raped a 14-year-old schoolgirl on a bus while a fellow student filmed the attack has walked free from court with a suspended sentence.

In April 2013, the teenage girl was sitting at the rear of the bus in Brisbane, Queensland, with other students when a 13-year-old male touched her breast, The Courier Mail reported.

Erick Osguedo, now 21, then put his hand under her skirt and digitally raped the girl from the seat in front while another student allegedly filmed 30 seconds of the assault on a mobile phone.

A man who digitally raped a 14-year-old schoolgirl on a bus while a fellow student filmed the attack has walked free from court (stock image)

The footage no longer exists.

The Brisbane District Court heard Osguedo, now 21, believed the teenager consented to the assault, even though she tried to fight him off when he placed his hand up her skirt.

He was handed a 12-month suspended sentence and Judge Brad Farr described the attack as 'brazen'.

The Brisbane District Court (pictured) heard Osguedo, now 21, believed the teenager consented to the assault

The student, now 16, who placed his hand on the teenager's breast also pleaded guilty to indecent treatment of a child and received a six-month supervision order.

Crown prosecutor Matthew Hynes said the girl was laughing nervously as she tried to slap the boy's hand away.

Her victim impact statement said the teenager, now 17, has become a recluse and self-harmed twice, according to the newspaper.
A fashion forward Julie Bishop bared her legs as she stepped out in a pair of shorts during her meeting with UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in London on Friday.

Australia's Foreign Minister, known for her sense of style, wore high-waisted pleated shorts with a matching blazer and a pair of striking red heels.

Ms Bishop has previously revealed she doesn't have a stylist- and why would she need one?

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A fashion forward Julie Bishop (centre) bared her legs as she stepped out in a pair of shorts during her meeting with UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson (right) in London on Friday

Australia's Foreign Minister, known for her sense of style, wore the high waisted pleated shorts with a matching blazer and a pair of striking red heels (pictured)

Ms Bishop (left) has previously revealed she doesn't have a stylist

'I don't spend a lot of time getting ready in the mornings,' Ms Bishop told the News.com.au.

'I give myself 30 minutes to shower, dress, do my hair, make-up, and go ... it comes with experience.'

Ms Bishop painted her nails red for the occasion, matching her windswept scarf and her heels.

Ms Bishop traveled to London with defence minister Marise Payne to discuss how the two countries plan to move forward following the UK's exit from Europe. The meeting is the eighth Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations and was hosted by Johnson and the UK's defence secretary Michael Fallon.

Mr Johnson said a 'glutinous harmony' had prevailed between the two countries during the annual Australia-UK ministerial meeting.

Australia is 'keen' to do a free trade deal with the UK and the Cabinet minister said he was 'very confident' that an outline agreement can be reached.

Ms Bishop painted her nails red for the occasion - they matched her scarf (and Boris' tie)

Julie Bishop (right) traveled to London with defence minister Marise Payne to discuss how the two countries plan to move forward following the UK's exit from Europe

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised an ''early... very strong, very open'' agreement with Britain after meeting Theresa May last weekend.

'I'm very confident that we will be able to at least sketch out, pencil in, the essentials of a very progressive deal that will be good for Australia, good for the UK, good for Europe and good for the world,' Johnson said after talks with Ms Bishop.

The Foreign Secretary said it would be a 'fantastic thing' if the UK had a 'more sensible system' for dealing with migration between the UK and Australia.

'This is something where I think we can make progress and I'm confident that we will.'

Ms Bishop said it would be a 'fantastic thing' if the UK had a 'more sensible system' for dealing with migration between the UK and Australia
She posted numerous Islamophobic rants on her Facebook hours before the attack on Thursday

Xhelili also tried to knock over stroller with one of the woman's babies inside, police said

She allegedly punched one of the woman in the face and kicked them both

Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, has been charged with a hate crime for the attack

A New York woman has been charged with a hate crime after she allegedly screamed and attacked two Muslim women as they pushed their babies in strollers.

Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, yelled at the two women, aged 23 and 24, to 'Get the f*** out of America, b*****s' before punching one of them in the face on Thursday, police said.

Xhelili, who calls herself Mary Magadalene on Facebook, also allegedly kicked the women in the legs and tried to rip their hijabs off their head.

Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, was charged with a hate crime after she allegedly screamed and attacked two Muslim women and tried to pull off their hijabs as they pushed their babies in strollers

'This is America, you shouldn't be different from us,' she allegedly yelled during her attack on the woman around 1.30pm near her Brooklyn home.

She also attempted to knock over one of the woman's strollers, which was carrying a 15-month-old baby, prosecutors said.

Neither of the victims or their children were hurt in the attack.

'She didn't even care for the well-being of a baby - that's how serious this hate crime is,' Assistant District Attorney Kelli Muse said, according to the New York Daily News.

Xhelili was arrested a half hour later, when one of the victims identified her to police.

Muse said Xhelili continued to taunt the victims, telling them: 'You don't belong here. Get the f**k out of here.'

Xhelili, who works at a Kosher Italian restaurant, has been charged with misdemeanor assault as a hate crime and is being held on $50,000 bond.

The judge also issued an order of protection banning her from contacting either of the victims or their children.

Xhelili, who calls herself Mary Magadalene on Facebook, also allegedly kicked the women in the legs and screamed 'Get the f*** out of America, b*****s'

She has no previous arrests.

Xhelili posted a number of Islamophobic Facebook posts, written in all caps, in the hours leading up to the attack.

'What is your Allah doing to me? It's kissing my a**', she wrote less than an hour before the attack.

'You can't live in America and be a Muslim! When you take the oath it says so help me God! It doesn't say help me Allah!'

In one post Xhelili seemed to attack to her neighbors, writing: 'Your f*****g Alll llah (sic) is so powerful that you need to rent houses near me, have stores near me and be visible to me.'

'Nobody sees you, notice you or cares you are alive.'

Xhelili posted a number of Islamophobic Facebook posts, written in all caps, in the hours leading up to the attack

In another post written just a day before the attack, Xhelili specifically threatened women who wear hijabs.

'From this moment on, ever woman that waers (sic) the jihab/hijab will go to hell!' she wrote.

'I can't stand you f*****g hypocrites. You have been warned.'

Xhelili also called Martin Luther King Jr a fraud because 'you can't be a black Christian' and praised Donald Trump.

'Can't hide I love Trump,' she wrote. 'When I had no hope and I thought everyone was bad, I looked at Trump goodness and speeches (sic)...And I had hope.'
The group plans to return with submarines next year

But the plane wasn't found - it may have sunk into the sea

Record-breaker Amelia Earhart, who vanished in 1937 while attempting a round-the-world voyage, may have died a castaway on a remote Pacific island, an expert said.

Earhart, who in 1932 became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo, vanished while trying to find Howland Island, 1,700 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu.

But according to the NY Post, Ric Gillespie of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) says that Earhart's real fate is more chilling: She died a castaway on a different Pacific island.

Vanished: Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, while flying around the world. She had been trying to find Howland Island, near Honolulu, but got lost over the Pacific Ocean

Wings: Earhart was flying this Lockheed Electra when she disappeared. Many believe she and her navigator plunged into the Pacific, but some say she landed on Gardner Island

Earhart was four months into her 29,000-mile trip when she began to run low on fuel while trying to find Howland Island.

She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen on radar on June 2. Then they disappeared.

What happened to the pair is a mystery, but Gillespie believes they didn't plunge into the water.

In fact, he says, Earhart and Noonan landed, injured but alive, on Gardner Island, also known as Nikumaroro, around 400 miles southeast of Howland Island.

How does he know?

'People started hearing radio distress calls from the airplane and they were verified,' he told an audience at a talk in North Carolina on August 5.

From July 2 onward he says, more than 100 radio distress calls were made by Earhart and heard by people all over the world, from Texas to Australia.

Castaway: This is Gardner Island, also known as Nikumaroro. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) believes she and the navigator landed here

Injured: The group claims that over 100 radio messages were recorded from Earhart between June 2 and June 6, in which she said she and navigator Fred Noonan (left) were injured

Location: The island is located deep in the Pacific. Earhart's short wave broadcasts were supposedly heard in Australia, Texas and Florida

They included a housewife in Texas, who heard Earhart on short-wave radio saying she had landed partly in water, and a 12-year-old girl in Florida, who tried to transcribe what Earhart said.

She must have landed with some fuel, Gillespie says, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to use the radio.

Earhart told those listening that she was injured, but Noonan was worse.

But if the pair were alive on the 3.7-by-2.1-mile island, no-one came to find them. The last call was logged on June 6.

In 1940, Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer and licensed pilot, told his superiors that he'd found a skeleton on the island.

It was sent to Fiji where measurements were taken. It was initially identified as male, but re-examination of the measurements in 1998 concluded it was probably a tall white female.

The bones were lost in the years between.

Discovery: TIGHAR says it found this piece of aluminum, which was made to 1930s standards, on the island. Its members say it came from her plane

Panel: This is the panel that they believe shows the aluminum piece; the photo was taken just before Earhart went missing. TIGHAR says the plane was pulled into the sea by the tide

TIGHAR members - including engineers and archaeologists - also claim to have found aluminium paneling fitting 1930s specifications, Plexiglas like that used in Earhart's plane, and ball bearings.

They also claim to have found a size 9 Cat's Paw heel dating from the 1930s, similar to that seen on Earhart's footwear in world flight photos.

But the plane itself is nowhere to be found - because, Gillespie says, it would have been pulled into the sea by the tide.

TIGHAR plans to search the area with submarines next year - the 80th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance.

Perhaps then the truth will be discovered.
If you've ever lamented getting pestered by your pet while watching TV, spare a thought for the owners of Australia's biggest dog, Baron.

The 113kg English mastiff may be a gentle giant, but images of him crushing his owner Mark York under his hulking frame show the affectionate hound lacks a great deal of spacial awareness.

The 6'6' Sydney pooch is set to start visiting schools and hospitals as a therapy dog  and he's yet to stop growing.

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Down boy, down! Australia's largest dog, Baron, lacks a great deal of spatial awareness

Man's best friend: The 6'6' Sydney pooch is set to start visiting schools and hospitals as a therapy dog

'He will start his training soon. He is a very laid back dog, gets on with everyone and all kinds of other animals,' York told Daily Telegraph.

Baron will continue growing until he is four, making him a contender for the world's heaviest dog - a title currently claimed by a 127.5kg US mastiff.

York said he forks out an eye-watering $200 a week feeding the insatiable beast a mountain of food.

'Baron eats a lot, he has meat and biscuits for brekkie, chicken necks for a midday snack and meat and biscuits for dinner with extra vitamins and oils, some pilchard or sardines, egg, pumpkin and veggies.

Baron snared the best junior dog award at the Royal Melbourne and first place at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

In spite of his size he has the playful nature of a pup, with social media images showing Baron frolicking with dogs of all shapes and sizes.

Gifted: Baron snared the best junior dog award at the Royal Melbourne and first place at the Sydney Royal Easter Show

Adopted from Queensland, Baron will continue growing until he is four, making him a contender for the world's heaviest dog

York forks out an eye-watering $200 a week feeding the insatiable beast a feast of food
An 18-year-old man has been charged with sexually assaulting two seven-year-old boys.

The man from Bentley, in Perth's south, was a family friend of one of the young boys, police said.

He has been charged with a string of nine sex offences, WAToday reported.

An 18-year-old man has been charged with sexually assaulting two seven-year-old boys (stock image)

The man is set to appear in Perth Magistrates Court (pictured) on Saturday

The sex attacks are alleged to have occurred between August and September this year.

The teenager allegedly first assaulted the boy of the family he knew, and then attacked his friend.

The teenager faces three counts of sexual penetration of a child under 13-years-old.

He also faces one count of attempted sexual penetration of a child under 13 and five counts of indecent dealing with a child under 13.

He is set to appear in Perth Magistrates Court on Saturday.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle have graced the cover of the October issue of Essence, which includes a romantic photos of the couple that has social media swooning.

As the Obamas prepare for their final months in the White House, they have been featured in the special collector's issue, that hit stands on Friday, in which they open up about their legacy.

On the cover, the couple is pictured standing close to one another, flashing big smiles, as the first lady gently rests her hand on the president's chest.

But the stunning cover photo has been upstaged by a sweet snap inside the issue, showing the couple holding hands as they lovingly stare into one another's eyes.

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This romantic photo of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle from Essence magazine's special collector's issue has the Internet swooning

As the Obamas prepare for their final months in the White House, they have been featured on the cover of the October issue of Essence (pictured), which hit stands on Friday

The photo was taken in front of a window inside the White House, and has garnered praise from several fans on social media.

'Can we just take a moment??? Obama and Michelle in love on #Essence Sept cover #BlackLove,' one user wrote.

'Now this is #RelationshipGoals. I'm going to miss the Obamas,' another user wrote.

'The one and absolute only thing I like about the Obama's is their love for each other,' a user commented.

The romantic photo of the first couple has garnered praise from several fans on social media, with many noting it is a prime example of 'relationship goals'

Some fans went on to praise Michelle Obama's physique as she wore a form-fitting, off-the-shoulder black dress.

'But can we talk about Michelle Obama in these Essence photos?' a user wrote.

'Michelle Obama gotta be the first FLOTUS in FLOTUS history to look more beautiful as time progressed,' another user pointed out.

'Yes, black love. Yes, Obama love. And with all respect, black body love,' a commenter wrote.

Some fans went on to praise Michelle Obama's physique as she wore a form-fitting black dress. They also noted she has aged gracefully

The issue's cover story includes Obama's most notable moments during his eight-year term as president.

'I can unequivocally say that America is better off now than we were when we came into office,' President Obama told Essence.

'By almost every economic measure, we're better off. But having said that, we still have a lot of work to do.'

The Obamas also talk about the legacy they hope to leave behind, hoping their initiatives including Let's Move and My Brother's Keeper, will live on.

The Obamas pictured last month as they arrived in Martha's Vineyard. In the cover story, they about the legacy they hope to leave behind

The Obamas pictured last month at the State Dinner at the White House. President Obama said the memories from his time in office that will last are all of the family memories

The first lady notes she hopes their visibility will continue to inspire black children.

'I think when it comes to Black kids, it means something for them to have spent most of their life seeing the family in the White House look like them. It matters,' Michelle Obama told Essence.

'All the future work that Barack talked about, I think over these last few years we've kind of knocked the ceiling of limitation off the roofs of many young kids' imaginations of what's possible for them.

'And as a mother, I wouldnt underestimate how important that is, having that vision that you can really do anythingnot because somebody told you, but because youve seen and experienced it.

'I think that will be a lasting impact on our kids.'

The first lady has also been featured on the October cover of InStyle magazine, in which she discusses her Let Girls Learn initiative

President Obama said the memories from his time in office that he will take with him are all of the family memories.

'Some of my fondest memories of the White House are just being with the girls on a summer night and walking the dogs around the South Lawn, talking and listening to them, trying to get Bo to move because sometimes it's hot.'
The popular saying goes that when you fall off a horse you have to get back up again, and Athina Onassis is doing just that after her very public divorce.

The heiress, who is the last surviving relative of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, split with her Olympic-winning husband Alvaro de Miranda Neto, also known as 'Doda', earlier this summer.

Miranda, 43, and Athina's decade-long marriage came to an end after he was caught in bed with the sister of an international equestrian by Athina's security team at the couple's $2million Wellington, Florida home.

Heiress Athina Onasiss appears at her first race, the Longines Global Champions League 2016 in Rome, since splitting with Brazilian husband Doda de Miranda earlier this summer

Athina, who is the granddaughter of Greek shipping magnate Aristole Onassis, immediately left Miranda and fled to Europe after he was caught in bed with a one-night stand

The accomplished 31-year-old equestrian kept a low-profile after the scandal but now appears to be back on the saddle

Athina, who is the granddaughter of Greek shipping magnate Aristole Onassis, immediately left Miranda and fled to Europe.

The accomplished 31-year-old equestrian has kept a low-profile after the scandal rocked the show jumping world and skipped the Rio Olympics, where she had hoped to represent Greece, entirely.

But now it seems Athina is back on the saddle, competing in the Longines Global Champions League 2016 in Rome over the weekend.

Athina will get the chance to come back from what has been a bad year on the Longines tour, winning thousands of dollars less in winnings compared to years past.

Her appearance comes just weeks after it was reportedly that Athina had hired high-powered Manhattan celebrity divorce attorney Robert Cohen.

Cohen, who has also represented Ivana Trump and Chris Rock, headed to Athina's home in Belgium earlier this month, according to Page Six.

Athina will get the chance to come back from what has been a bad year on the Longines tour, winning thousands of dollars less in winnings compared to years past

Miranda, 43, and Athina's decade-long marriage came to an end after he was caught in bed with the sister of an international equestrian by Athina's security team

Athina Onassis was spotted at the Global Champions Tour show jumping tournament on May 22 in Madrid (left) without her wedding band or engagement ring

Earlier this summer Miranda pledged he would 'fight until the end' to win back Athina.

I am really in the midst of a storm, he admitted to Brazilian magazine Epoca, But I will not give up on my love.

Doda was a member of Brazils Olympic showjumping team that won bronze medals in both 1996 and 2000.

Athina has also enjoyed a successful career, winning $70,000 in prize money in 2014.

But that figure pales in comparison to the heiress' immense wealth.

Athina inherited an estimated $2.7 billion on her 18th birthday, and at the time was reported as the richest teenage girl in the world.

Earlier this summer Miranda pledged he would 'fight until the end' to win back Athina's love

But that has clearly not panned out after he took another woman home to the couple's $2million home in Wellington, Florida (pictured here)

Doda was a member of Brazils Olympic show jumping team that won bronze medals in both 1996 and 2000

But her fortune has been badly managed over the years, experts say, and she sold the jewel in the Onassis crown  Aristotles private Greek island, Skorpios  to Russian billionairess Ekaterina Rybolovleva in 2013 for an estimated $100 million.

And all the money in the world could not shield the Onassis family from tragedy. Athina was just 3-years-old when her mother Christina, whose father would later marry Jackie Kennedy, was found dead in her bath tub in 1988 aged 37.

She had died of a heart attack brought on by years of eating disorders.

Christina had four marriages, none of them lasting more than three years. Athina, whose father was her final husband, French pharmaceutical heir Thierry Roussel, was her only child.

Roussel fathered a son with Swedish model Gaby Landhage while Christina was pregnant, and the couple split shortly after Athina was born. After Christinas death, Athina went to live with Roussel and Landhage.

Athina (pictured with mother Christina Onassis) inherited an estimated $2.7 billion on her 18th birthday, and at the time was reported as the richest teenage girl in the world

Athina and her father became estranged after she married Miranda and Roussel was not among the 1,300 guests at the couple's 2005 wedding in Sao Paulo.

But relations have reportedly warmed between father and daughter since Athina's split after Roussel reached out to console her, according to the Greek Reporter.

Athina at first finally seemed to have found happiness with her horses and her 12-years-older husband.

She learned to speak fluent Portuguese and settled down to a comfortable new life in Brazil. They lived in a 17,000 sq ft apartment with 15 dedicated parking spaces.

But before they married, in February 24, 2003, shortly after arriving in Sao Paulo, she checked herself into a clinic, reportedly to have liposuction done on her abdomen and derriere at Doda's urging.

Doda told a Brazilian magazine they spent most of their time training, and only occasionally let their hair down. We do have fun, he said. But in a more low-profile way.

We go out every now and then, but we prefer a dinner to a discotheque.

Miranda told a Brazilian magazine in 2011 that they intended to start a family within a few years.

Athina is still very young, he said, adding that having a baby would interrupt her budding showjumping career.

I also have a very busy life, he said. When a baby comes I want to reduce the number of competitions to be more present.

Athina reportedly became pregnant in 2013, but suffered a miscarriage.
Manning is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking thousands of military documents to WikiLeaks

The Army Private said she is mentally and emotionally prepared for the strike, even if it proves fatal

Chelsea Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking thousands of secret military documents, is going on a hunger strike.

Manning, who passed classified files to WikiLeaks, said on Friday that she would refuse to eat until given help for her gender dysphoria and 'treated with dignity, respect and humanity' by the government.

The 28-year-old Army private, who was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman, tried to commit suicide in July.

'I need help. I needed help earlier this year,' Manning, who was briefly hospitalized after trying to hang herself, said in a statement released by a spokeswoman.

Chelsea Manning (above), the ex-US-soldier who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking thousands of secret military documents, allegedly attempted suicide in prison

'I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn't get any. I still haven't gotten any.'

'I am no longer asking. Now, I am demanding.'

Manning said her strike will not end until she is given 'minimum standards of dignity, respect, and humanity'.

'I shall-refuse to voluntarily cut or shorten my hair in any way; consume any food or drink voluntarily, except for water and currently prescribed medications; and comply with all rules, regulations, laws, and orders that are not related to the two things I have mentioned.'

Manning said in her statement that she was prepared mentally and emotionally to endure an indefinite hunger strike, even if it proved fatal.

'I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this,' she said.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense could not be reached for comment on Friday afternoon.

The Army recently announced that it would investigate Manning for misconduct in connection with the attempt to take her own life.

It could lead to indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security or additional prison time.

Manning - pictured here after being found guilty, and before beginning the transition into a woman- tried to hang herself at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas on early Tuesday, a source told TMZ

According to Manning's representatives, doctors have recommended that she be allowed to follow 'female hair grooming standards' as part of her treatment for gender dysphoria.

Manning also requested after her transition that she be moved to an all-female prison.

The government has refused both requests.

Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in prison.

A military court convicted her of providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The case ranked as the biggest breach of classified materials in U.S. history.

Among the files Manning leaked in 2010 was a gunsight video of a US Apache helicopter firing on suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007, an attack that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

She was hospitalized in the Fort Leavenworth prison hospital before being released, as she is being 'monitored.' (file photo above)

Manning, who was born Bradley Manning, said in statement after being sentenced that she had felt female since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea,

In May, her lawyers appealed Manning's conviction, citing that she acted in the interests of the public.

In their argument, they claim she doesn't deserve the 'harsh' sentence in prison.

'For what PFC Manning did, the punishment is grossly unfair and unprecedented,' the appeal said.

'No whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly.'

Manning's lawyers hope to get the court to either reduce her sentence to ten years or dismiss the charges entirely, Manning said on her blog.

The reasons she gave for the appeal were being placed in solitary confinement before her trial - described as 'deplorable' and 'unconstitutional' by her lawyers - the use of 'vague evidence' for sentencing and a 'lack of evidence on charges of theft of information'.

In 2010, Manning - pictured above before beginning the transition into a woman- leaked classified Army documents to the website WikiLeaks and was convicted on 21 counts of espionage.

She also cites a 'vague definition of 'exceeding authorized access'' in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a 'lack of proof' that US interests were harmed by the leak as additional reasons.

'Throughout trial the prosecution portrayed PFC Manning as a traitor and accused her of placing American lives in danger, but nothing could be further from the truth,' the appeal said.

It added that she released the documents because she 'believed the public had a right to know about the toll of the wars... the loss of life, and the extent to which the government sought to hide embarrassing information of its wrongdoing.'

Manning announced the appeal on her Twitter account, saying 'My fight is far from over. I am only just getting started.'

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in defense of Manning, saying that her conviction was 'unconstitutional,' ABC reported.

It said the Espionage Act is 'unconstitutionally vague,' because it gives the US government a tool 'to subject speakers and messages it dislikes to discriminatory prosecution'.

It also said that the act was used unconstitutionally when the judge refused to allow the court to consider whether the leaked documents might have been so valuable to public discussion that they justified the leak.

In 2013, Manning - pictured above before beginning the transition into a woman - was sentenced on the charges to 35 years in prison. Her lawyers filed an appeal in May citing that she acted in the interests of the public

Manning had originally been charged on 22 counts, but was acquitted of 'aiding the enemy,' which carried a potential death sentence.

While in prison, she joined with Amnesty International to sue the government for the right to hormone therapy and won the lawsuit.

Manning recently wrote an essay for The Guardian about the new US rules allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military.

'Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are,' Manning wrote.

'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.'
ELKO  As the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting rounded out its last day in Elko, some of the working group recommendations given aligned with public comment and were focused on alleviating the population issue and restoring viable rangelands.

While the first recommendation  to destroy horses deemed unadoptable or sell them without limitation  was recognized as being the least socially palatable, Dr. Robert Cope said it was necessary to look at all options.

During its time in Nevada, the board was given a first-hand experience of the rangeland and horses in the form of a field trip, where it became so obvious theres an incredible crisis situation out there affecting the resource, he said.

The rangeland was described as the bedrock the burros, wild horses, wildlife and rural communities depend on, said Dr. Julie Weikel.

Cope said it has become apparent the time for discussion was over, instead it is now at a point where something has got to be done.

This working group recommended the Bureau of Land Management follow the stipulations of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act by offering all suitable animals in long and short term holding deemed unadoptable for sale without limitation or humane euthanasia. Those animals deemed unsuitable for sale should then be destroyed in the most humane manner possible.

The initial recommendation was approved by all present board members save Ginger Kathrens.

It was asked if more horses could be removed from the wild to put less pressure on the land.

I would like to see them put some more pressure to get more funds to do more gathers, said June Sewing.

When asked about his feelings on the measure, member Ben Masters said, citing his age of 27, he was angered about inheriting and having been given messes.

He said his ultimate goal is to have a target population controlled by birth control. Masters didnt think that could be accomplished through adoption and he would like to pass down a better rangeland to future generations.

Its a way of taking the public and Congress  on that field trip, said Weikel.

The second recommendation  which also found approval, with Kathrens abstaining  focused on the prioritization of sage grouse habitat, when removing excess animals.

Kathrens did so based on a lack of information concerning the amount acres and herds impacted by this decision.

Additionally, it was proposed that the degree of degradation on the range was to be used as a criterion when prioritizing and removing excess animals.

The later caveat includes considering rangelands, which can be restored and maintained in a healthy status.

Its already past time for some of these places, said Weikel, explaining this is an attempt to ask the BLM what can be saved.

That recommendation was not meant to usurp the priorities of the bureau.

Cope brought up the subject of genetic variability, which was touched upon by Dr. Boyd Spratling Thursday during public comment.

This form of variability or diversity potentially allows for a realistic chance of avoiding the problems associated with inbreeding.

Cope researched how high the numbers of horses would have to be to ensure this from within.

According to what I heard yesterday, that magic number isnt 150 its closer to 5,000, he said.

Spratling said this is easily solved by placing studs in smaller herds, for example less than 150.

The conversation soon turned to economic viability by developing relationships with other agencies and departments to conduct an analysis of socioeconomic and environmental effects on communities.

Encouragement was given to state agencies and BLM redevelopment advisory councils to submit plans for range rehabilitation and herd management, which would be created to serve various areas based on local expertise and understanding.

The working group recommendations looked toward a theme from Thursdays public comment to help the resource by dealing with the population and create unification to work with Congress and the Secretary of the Interior. One member of the public asked for the BLMs hands to be untied.

The issue was called a breakdown of scientific management.

A representative of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said the BLM is not using the contraceptive porcine zona pellucida in a way that is managing the population. Sterilization was also called invasive and barbaric and the board was asked to abandon it in favor of funding acceptable forms of contraception.

It was commonly asked for to remove the horses for appropriate management levels and begin conservation efforts.
A vaccine to banish thrush could be available by the end of the decade, say scientists. File photo

A vaccine that would end thrush could be ready by 2020 according to scientists.

Clinical trials for a vaccine against the yeast infection have shown 'strong results' according to the Times.

Selinda Orr, a researcher at Cardiff University who specialises in the study of immune responses to fungal infections, said that hope could soon be at hand for many of these women.

Speaking at the British Science Festival in Swansea, Dr Orr pointed to two vaccines that could be used to inoculate people against thrush. NovaDigm Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in North Dakota, is working on the NDV-3 vaccine, which is a transgenic form of one of the proteins found on the surface of the Candida albicans fungus that causes the condition.

According to the newspaper, a clinical trial involving 188 patients showed that the vaccine was safe and had the potential to become the first powerful drug against chronic thrush.

The vaccine has given strong results in early clinical trials. File photo

Thrush is a type of infection caused by Candida, a kind of yeast. It can affect both men and women, in the mouth, vagina and sometimes the penis, but most commonly affects women from puberty until menopause.
Sir David Attenborough has laid into the hunting of trophy animals

Sir David Attenborough has taken leave of his usual calming tone to launch a stinging attack on big game hunters.

The matter comes following the emergence of 12-year-old animal killer Aryanna Gourdin, who made global headlines after posing with a giraffe she had just shot.

Sir David, who is a keen conservationist outside of his TV work and did a show on the giraffe's survival only months ago as their numbers have almost halved in recent years, has lashed out at the treatment of these and other large creatures.

He told the Mirror hunting was like something out of the 19th century, with many species' numbers dropping alarmingly due to the human destruction of their homes to make various products.

12-year-old Aryanna Gourdin made headlines across the world after this picture of her posing with a slain giraffe

'I would never back down from hunting. I am a hunter and no matter what people say to me, I'm never going to stop,' Aryanna has said

'Apparently there are still people who get a kick out of killing things and taking the lives of others, which is something I find incomprehensible' he said.

'It brings a real sadness that some people think it's clever, or victorious or strong to take the life of something else.'

The iconic 90-year-old, who has just released another series of Planet Earth and new show Natural Curiosities. has pledged to carry on working, saying he would even pay to carry on doing so.

However, he says he fears for the world of tomorrow, telling the newspaper: 'We, and I particularly, have had a wonderful time here on Earth, but I worry whether my great-grandchildren will see some of the things I've been able to see.'

Pre-teen hunter Aryanna, from Utah, has given interviews across the world in defence of her actions, including one clash with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain.

The youngster is seen here posing with more wildlife that she has proudly killed - and she questions while people sometimes value animals' lives as higher than humans

Her actions have been slammed by Sir David, who said: 'It brings a real sadness that some people think it's clever, or victorious or strong to take the life of something else.'

He challenged the youngster live on TV by asking her how she would feel if he killed her pet cat and 'celebrated' the slaughter.

The girl - who was wearing a 'Stand Up to Anti-Hunting bullying' t-shirts - was visibly thrown off guard and stammered as her father answered in her place.

She then added: 'What... I'm not allowed a pet because I hunt?'

After asking the same question again, Mr Morgan told Aryanna there was a conflict between photographs that she posts of slain animals and those of her pet cat.

Mr Gourdin then replied on behalf of his daughter: 'I think that's a trick question. That would be your choice because I've never killed a pet and most hunters don't kill pets.'

He added: 'A giraffe's not a pet. We would never think to go out and kill somebody's pet.'

Aryanna went on to add: 'I like hunting because it's something that's been in my family a long time.
Britons may have to apply for visas to travel throughout continental Europe once the UK leaves the EU, it has been reported.

A scheme apparently being debated by the executive body of the European Union suggests the 26-nation passport-free Schengen zone, which does not include the UK, could operate a visa programme similar to the US waiver.

Currently British passport holders can travel throughout member states without having to apply for short-term visas, but Britain's decision to leave the EU has left question marks over the criteria needed for UK nationals to visit the Schengen zone.

British passport holders may have to apply for visas to visit some parts of Europe after Article 50 is invoked and the UK leaves the European Union

According to The Guardian, the European Commission (EC) is due to unveil draft legislation for the EU travel information and authorisation system (Etias) later this year as part of a broader response to calls for greater security across the continent following recent terror attacks in France and Belgium.

The scheme would cover all visitors to the Schengen zone from countries that do not need a visa to enter.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Steve Peers, a professor of EU law at the University of Essex, said he believes electronic visa waiver plans will go ahead but he did not know what the rules would be.

'It's going to annoy a lot of people,' he said. 'We can ask for full free movement, but any arrangement is going to have to be reciprocal, so you have to ask what Nigel Farage and the others will accept.'

Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow specialising in justice and home affairs at the Centre for European Reform, quoted in the newspaper, said: 'In theory UK citizens, as third-country nationals, would certainly be subject to the obligations (of such a scheme),' adding: 'This will have to be part of the Brexit talks. It will all have to be negotiated.'

It is believed EU powerhouses France and Germany, who have been victim to a spate of terror attacks in recent months, both back a system based on the US ESTA visa and want visitors to request permission to travel to the zone at least three days before they enter.

The plans for a visa programme were announced back in 2011 and the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said last month that France supported 'a European ESTA, like that in the US, Canada and Australia'.

Now the plan has resurfaced as part of a series of security measures to counter the growing terror threat in Europe.

In July a German-Iranian citizenship shot and killed nine at a shopping center in Munich while on Bastille Day in Nice, in the same month, 86 people were mowed down by a truck driven by a fanatic.

Currently Britons can travel and live freely across EU member states however potential new regulations could put an end to that amid security concerns on the continent

British citizens can currently travel to the US without a visa although Britons must pay $14 US dollars and complete and submit an application form at least 72 hours (three days) in advance of entering the country-as part of a visa waiver programme.

However UK passport holders can only stay in the US for 90 days under the scheme and if a Briton has a criminal record they can be denied entry.
Police have located one of two missing boys that were last seen with their skateboards along a busy road.

A Queensland police spokeswoman confirmed that 12-year-old boy while the 13-year-old boy is still missing.

He was found safe and well with relatives in the Caboolture area, north of Brisbane, and is in their care.

The 12-year-old boy was found safe and well, he is currently in the care of relatives

She also confirmed that the 13-year-old boy was still missing and that police were still searching for him.

The boys were last seen walking together with their skateboards along the Caboolture River Road, north of Brisbane, around 8.30am on Friday morning.

Police hold concerns for his welfare.

Queensland Police are still searching for the missing 13-year-old boy (pictured) who was last seen on Friday morning

He is described as being of Aboriginal in appearance, 165cm tall with slim and short brown hair.
It is only open for 5 weeks a year and visitors should pack a face mask as there's

Previous guests to the only hotel in the

are included in the price. Guests can also kite ski

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After an extensive renovation the White Desert hotel in Antarctica is ready to start accepting guests although a week's stay will cost a cool 54,000.

Holidaying in freezing conditions may not be many people's idea of a relaxing break away but after the hotel's five-star upgrade wealthy punters may soon be flocking to the Antarctic Peninsula.

The continent's only hotel hosts guests in 'sleeping pods' which are kitted out with fur-covered beds, designer furniture and stylish en-suite bathrooms.

Ice pod. Hotel guests make their way to their room in a snow cleared backdrop. Each pod weighs three tones and had to be shipped from elsewhere to the southernmost continent

Majestic view. The hotel only takes 12 guests at a time and for five weeks of year but the price of a stay means revenue should be high!

Looks warm. Fur covered beds ensure that customers are kept snug at night although those blinds will have to be firmly shut to ensure a sufficient sleep as there is 24 hour sunlight

We assume for the price all of the pods come equipped with central heating too!

The all inclusive hotel, which permits 12 guests at a time, is only open for five weeks across the summer months of November and December. Although summer visitors should not expect temperatures to reach upwards of -5.

Another caveat to holidaying in this remote location is the 24-hour sunlight meaning guests would be advised to pack a sleeping mask.

21st century igloo. The seating area in the White Desert hotel looks cozy but is it worth the 54,000 a week price tag?

The peninsula's best albeit only restaurant. Justine Lindsay, personal cook for F1 champion, Lewis Hamilton, is also the chef for guests in the 5-star hotel

In addition to lavish sleeping quarters guests have day excursions included in the price.

Holiday makers can enjoy a visit the South Pole, via a seven hour flight, and see a colony of Emperor Penguins which is only accessible by way of another flight.

The more vivacious guests can also kite-ski and go ice-climbing up steep and presumably slippery inclines.

Would you ever want to leave the hotel? Previous guests include members of the Saudi Arabian royal family and Prince Harry

Nice. An airy shower in the peninsula's only hotel. Britons will need to take a flight to Buenos Aires, then fly Ushuaia before catching another plane or boat to Antarctica

Justifying the substantial costs for a week's stay hotel founder Patrick Woodhead told The Times that the upgrade has been extremely expensive due to the remote location.

'All the materials, fixtures and fittings had to be flown in at a cost of 12.50 a kilo and then transported across a crevasse-ridden route on a specialised 4x4,' he said.

Considering each of the sleep pods weighing three tones one can imagine how much the renovation cost.

'All the materials, fixtures and fittings had to be flown in at a cost of 12.50 a kilo and then transported across a crevasse-ridden route on a specialised 4x4,' said hotel founder Patrick Woodhead

'Blue ice caves, mountains to climb, ice waves etc, throw in penguins and a monumental trip to the South Pole, any other place in the world will be underwhelming' said hotel visitor Jane Loginova on her stay

However despite the price guests, which have included Prince Harry and members of the Saudi Royal family, seem to have been enchanted by the hotel and the remote peninsula.

'Blue ice caves, mountains to climb, ice waves etc, throw in penguins and a monumental trip to the South Pole, any other place in the world will be underwhelming' said hotel visitor Jane Loginova.

Tourists flying from the UK will have to travel to Argentine capital Buenos Aires before catching a flight to Ushuaia, the most southern most town in the world.

After reaching Patagonia guests, who are not flying via private jets, will need to catch another plane down to the hotel which sits on the rim of peninsula.

Fun in the snow. Guests enjoy the snow outside the hotel. If there is a snow storm visitors could be confided to the their rooms for a number of days
It's thought the smugglers failed and the cocaine was not picked up

Investigators believe the stash should have been picked up in Valencia

The son of a British aristocrat is facing a lifetime in Kenyan prison over a drugs haul he knew nothing about, according to investigators.

Jack Marrian, 31, a sugar trader, was charged after police in the eastern port city of Mombasa seized 100 kilos of cocaine hidden in a sugar consignment ordered by his firm.

But U.S and Spanish investigators, who have tipped off Kenyan police, claim the drugs should have been picked up in Spain using a smuggling technique mastered by Columbian cartels.

Jack Marrian, 31, a sugar trader, pictured today, was charged last week after police in the eastern port city of Mombasa seized 100 kilos of cocaine hidden in a sugar consignment ordered by his firm

Mr Marrian, who was three years younger than the Dutchess of Cambridge at 30,000-a-year Marlborough College, is on bail awaiting trial over the shipment from Brazil.

An organised crime unit officer in Spain told The Times it should have been offloaded in Valencia and picked up by smugglers, but the operation failed.

'They do it without the knowledge of the companies transporting these goods.

'It has been popular method used by Colombian cartels

'We do not have a clear idea of who was waiting for this shipment to arrive in Spain, but it was certain that it was heading for Spain, not Kenya.

An organised crsaid the drugs should have been offloaded in Valencia and picked up by smugglers, but the operation failed

'For some reason it was not collected at Valencia.'

The technique is referred to as a 'blind hook' or a 'rip on, rip off' and involves smugglers hiding drugs inside other people's cargo and unloading their haul at a certain point in the journey without the carriers ever knowing it was there.

Spanish police attempted to search the containers on board the MSC Sonia, but four of the five containers - including the one with the cocaine - had already been loaded onto the boat.

Each container is sealed to clearly show if they have been opened during its transportation, but as well as the drugs, there was a spare seal in the stash.

Mr Marrian and his co-accused Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi deny the charges of smuggling a Class A drug on June 29.

A judge in Kenya has ruled that the son of a British aristocrat accused of trafficking 4.5million worth of cocaine should be released on a 530,000 bail.

Jack Marrian, 31, a sugar trader, was charged last week after police in the eastern port city of Mombasa seized 100 kilos of cocaine hidden in a sugar consignment ordered by his firm.

He is set to be tried by a court over what he claims is a tampered shipment from Brazil.

High Court judge Luka Kimaru ruled today that Marrian should be released on bail of 530,000 cash, with two Kenyan sureties of similar amount

High Court judge Luka Kimaru ruled last month Marrian should be released on bail of 530,000 cash, with two Kenyan sureties of similar amount.

He added that the prosecution had not provided compelling enough reasons to warrant the Briton being held in custody.

Marrian has protested his innocence since his arrest and his lawyer declared the courts have 'the wrong man'.

The defendant is the son of Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor, 58, the daughter of the late Hugh John Vaughan Campbell, the sixth Earl Cawdor, an artist and landowner.

The 31-year-old enjoyed a privileged upbringing in an affluent part of Nairobi and was educated at 35,280-a-year Marlborough College in the 1990s when the Duchess of Cambridge was a pupil.

His family's relationship with Kenya dates back decades, his lawyer said, as Marrian's grandfather had served as a minister in the colonial government just before independence in 1963.

His father David Marrian said he had spoken with his son every day since the arrest.

He said: 'I have no doubt that Jack will be exonerated.'

Jack Marrian's aristocratic family travelled to Kenya as a 530,000 bail bond was paid

The 31-year-old was charged on Thursday after police in the eastern port city of Mombasa seized 100 kilos (220 pounds) of cocaine hidden in a sugar consignment ordered by his firm

Magistrate Derrick Kuto said the Briton had to post a bond of 70 million shillings (530,000) with two Kenyan sureties and must surrender his passport given the seriousness of the charge, which if convicted could see him face a life sentence

At a court hearing in early August, Magistrate Derrick Kuto said the Briton had to post a bond of 70 million shillings (530,000) with two Kenyan sureties and must surrender his passport given the seriousness of the charge, which if convicted could see him face a life sentence.

Defence lawyer Sheetal Kapila said he believed the case was driven by the authorities' desire 'to stop Kenya being a transit point' for drugs, but added that 'it's the wrong man who's been picked up.'

'Unknown people have smuggled this drug into the consignment,' Kapila said.
Police are searching for the two balaclava-clad men who shot a man at point blank range as his fiancee sat in his car next to him.

The 29-year-old had just paid a brief visit to a house on the corner of Brisbane and Sydney Streets in St Marys, Western Sydney at 7pm on Friday.

He was returning to his car where his fiancee was waiting, Deputy Chief Inspector Grant Taylor told reporters on Saturday.

The victim was visiting the home of Hayan Chandab, a Comanchero bikie, who was shot several times in the abdomen in 2013, according to a report by Seven News.

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A 29-year-old man was gunned down while walking back to his car where his fiancee was waiting

The fiancee (pictured in centre with police) 'was very, very lucky not to be killed herself' Deputy Chief Inspector Grant Taylor said

As he was getting into the silver Toyota Corolla, two men wearing balaclavas, who detectives believe are members of an outlaw motorcycle gang, pulled up in a silver Holden Commodore and shot him several times with semi-automatic handguns.

One shooter got out of the car and shot the victim once more at point blank range as he lay in the gutter.

A neighbour at the scene told Seven News: 'It was eight shots or ten. It sounded like a pistol to me.'

Then the killers drove off.

'They certainly wanted to make sure this individual was deceased,' Inspector Taylor said.

Emergency services were called to the scene at 7.20pm, but the victim died at the scene .

The victim was visiting the home of Hayan Chandab (pictured), a Comanchero bikie

Emergency services were called to the scene at 7.20pm, but he died at the scene

'(The fiancee) was very, very lucky not to be killed herself.

'A number of projectiles entered the vehicle she was sitting in and by the grace of God they missed.'

The couple were due to marry next week.

A neighbour said he heard 'eight shots or ten. It sounded like a pistol to me'

Police do not believe the victim had formal links with the bikie gang

Police do not believe the victim had formal links to a outlaw bikie gang but say he was 'closely aligned' with one.

His body has not been formally identified by family so his name is yet to be released.

Investigators want to know if any members of the public witnessed the silver Holden Commodore loitering in the area.
Animal rights campaigners are calling on China to be banned from hosting the World Dog Show amid the shocking treatment of man's best friend in the country.

Shanghai is set to open its doors to canines from across the globe in 2019, but many feel this should not be allowed because of the way they are cruelly slaughtered.

Footage emerged just this week of a greyhound being callously thrown into a boiling pot of water, but it is one of many examples of the way they are cooked for meat.

Beijing is set to open its doors to canines from across the globe for the World Dog Show (pictured, left), but it also holds the Yulin Dog Meat Festival (pictured right are animals awaiting slaughter at Yulin)

Another poor individual of the 15,000 dogs that are eaten at Yulin during a ten-day period around the Summer Solstice.

Every June, the same month as the World Dog Show is held, thousands flock to the controversial Yulin Dog Meat festival, during which almost 15,000 dogs are eaten during a ten-day period around the Summer Solstice.

There are also issues with dogs being forced to fight each other in China.

An online petition calling for the country's host status to be shelved as already amassed more than half-a-million signatures, with Britain's national dog show organisation, The Kennel Club, already boycotting the event.

Secretary Caroline Kisko told the Mirror: 'We should lobby and say to China 'if you want to hold the dog show you should be taking a very active role in ending this ghastly trade'.

'We are completely and utterly against it and we campaign on this issue every year. We encourage people to lobby against it and 100% want to see it come to an end.'

There are also issues with dogs being forced to fight each other in China, such as this example from Yuncheng

The World Dog Show is hosted by the Federation Cynologique Internationale, disapproves of China's brutal record, but has defended the decision to hold their event there.

Director Yves De Clercq said: 'I understand protests and make clear the FCI is against any cruelty to animals, specifically dogs. We stand against the cruel ways in which the dogs are killed. This is unbearable.

Several social media users have also expressed their disgust in recent weeks.

French journalist Ursula Gauthier, who used to report on China, said on Twitter: 'You shouldn't get to host a major dog show if you eat dogs.'

Audrey Connor tweeted: 'China, where dogs are tortured, slaughtered & eaten every day is not fit to host a dog show.'

The Federation Cynologique Internationale, disapproves of China's brutal record, but has defended the decision to hold their event there.

The disgusting video of the greyhound being cooked caused outrage when it was published.

It shows a number of people looking on as the dog is carried over to a vat before it is lowered in to the boiling water while two men put a lid over the tub, as the dog howls in pain, desperately trying to escape.

They keep the dog inside the pot until it stops struggling.

Horrific footage emerged of men boiling a dog alive at a market in Shijiazhuang, northern China

A man then drags the dog's limp and lifeless body from the boiling water and places it on the ground

Once the animal is dead one of the men uses a stick to remove the greyhound's limp, lifeless body from the vat.

The founder of action group Fight Dog Meat, Michele Brown, said the animals are tortured because of an ancient belief that tougher meat has more health benefits, including an increased male libido.

'The only way to get the meat tough is to flood the conscious animal's body with adrenaline,' she told MailOnline.
A woman has been reunited with a wallet which was stolen from her 11 years ago after a builder found it in a roof and dropped it off to police.

Kathy O'Donnell from Adelaide was working in a Pirie Street office in 2005 when the Annapelle purse was stolen from her bag under her desk  just metres away from where she was sitting.

There was cash, cards and vouchers in the bag when it was stolen The Advertiser reports.

Kathy O'Donnell from Adelaide was working in a Pirie Street office in 2005 when the Annapelle purse was stolen from her bag under her desk

To Ms O'Donnell's surprise a $130 David Jones voucher was still inside. And the company has committed to honouring it.

'It is wonderful to think that after all those years the police would still find and call me,' Ms O'Donnell said.

She then praised the builder who took the time out of his day to hand the purse in to the police.

'He could easily have thrown it in the rubbish I really appreciate it.'

The brazen daylight robbery made the office worker nervous at the time.

'After that we got a chime for the door which made a sound whenever it was opened,' she said.
Company's chairman calls for fences to be installed to protect iconic stairs

Spanish Steps in Rome are set to reopen after 18-month restoration project

A popular tourist hotspot made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck could be fenced off to protect it from 'barbarian' hordes of sightseers.

The Spanish Steps in Rome are set to reopen later this month following an 18-month cleaning and restoration project funded by luxury jewellers Bulgari.

Paolo Bulgari, the company's chairman, has called for a fence to be installed of the marble staircase so the attraction can be locked up every night.

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The Spanish Steps, made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, could be fenced off to protect it from 'barbarian' hordes of sightseers

He told La Repubblica newspaper:' It is a precious and fragile monument, like many others in Rome and across Italy.

'Now that its been restored, we cannot allow it to revert to being an open-air sewer. We cannot leave it to the barbarians who eat and drink there, making it dirty.

People should be able to stroll up and down it but they shouldnt be allowed to use it like the steps of a stadium, sitting for hours, getting drunk and throwing their cigarette butts on the ground.'

Responses to the proposal have been mixed, with many in the Italian city calling for monuments to be preserved.

The Spanish Steps in Rome are set to reopen later this month following an 18-month cleaning and restoration project funded by luxury jewellers Bulgari

However others have voiced their opposition to any such plan, stating that the stairs should be maintained for their original purpose.

Bulgari donated 1.5m towards the fixing of cracked paving stones and removing of stains on the iconic stairs, which featured in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday.

A notice, written in English, tells those visiting the steps not to 'shout, squall or sing', adding that it is forbidden to ' damage, disfigure or draw with any kind of means or instruments'.
We know when rural communities do well, America does well. Rural America provides us with the food we eat, the water we drink and the energy we use, not to mention a disproportionate percentage the Nations military that keeps us safe from threat. Thats why its good news that in all corners of rural America, were seeing real, positive change take hold for the first time in the years since the Great Recession.

Today, rural populations have stabilized, meaning more and more people  especially young families  are electing to stay in rural America rather than leave for the city. Better job prospects are helping that trend. Rural counties added over 125,000 jobs in both 2014 and 2015, after job losses averaging 200,000 per year during 2008-2013. As a result, the rural unemployment rate has dropped below 6 percent for the first time since 2007, which is impacting falling poverty rates. From 2012-2014, we saw rural child poverty fall by 3 percentage points. And new data indicates that 7.9 million fewer people are struggling to provide adequate food for themselves or household members than when President Obama took office. In fact, food insecurity for children is at the lowest level on record  meaning our children are able to access nutritious food in higher numbers than in the past.

Taken together, these benchmarks of progress should give us great hope for the future.

Over the past eight years, the Obama Administration, led by USDA, has vigorously invested in the rural way of life, strengthening the small towns and rural communities that so many call home.

Weve supported the heart of the American dream, helping more than 1.2 million families buy, repair or refinance a home in rural America, creating more homeownership opportunities than any other previous seven-year period in USDAs single-family housing programs history.

Weve invested in 8,350 critical community facilities like schools, libraries, hospitals and public spaces that improve the rural quality of life.

Weve facilitated the 21st century basic infrastructure of broadband in areas that desperately needed it, enabling access to new or improved high-speed internet service for six million Americans who live and work in rural areas.

Weve also set up the next generation of rural Americans by investing in a new economy focused on biobased products and manufacturing; lifting the potential of conservation and natural resources to expand recreation and business opportunities; building a local and regional food system that supports millions of new jobs; and supporting the worlds greatest production agriculture system which has produced record exports and record profits for our nations farming families.

Weve proven time and time again that an investment in rural America is a good bet. And to that point, weve helped unlock billions of dollars in private capital that is now flowing into rural businesses across the country.

Ive always believed that the potential of rural America is limitless, but in these eight years, Ive seen the proof. With the steadfast support of our partners across the nation, and historic investments from President Obama and his entire Administration, Im proud to say that change has come to our rural communities.
A teenager who proposed to her 60-year-old boyfriend at the Scottish International Airshow has revealed she lost her virginity to him after she bought him a happy meal for his birthday meal.

Lisa Miller, 18, proposed to Jim Kerr at the beginning of September as the pair were interviewed on television about the airshow.

Now she's revealed more about their relationship, including their first date to McDonalds in Paisley in April.

Lisa Miller, 18, proposed to Jim Kerr while visiting the Scottish International Airshow in Ayr

Miss Miller told The Sun: 'I bought him a Happy Meal, then got him a cake and a few balloons too. I couldnt afford much but tried to make it as special as I could.

'Later on we were watching movies, one thing led to another and things got a bit heated.

'It was my first time but there was no pressure and it was all comfortable.'

Big moment: The teenager proposed in front of a crowd of thousands - but it has sparked anger among many, including Mr Kerr's family

The couple have been together since November and now live together in Thornliebank, East Renfrewshire

The proposal sparked anger with many people, including Mr Kerr's daughter who is 32.

Alison Kerr said she had nothing to do with her father anymore.

Mr Kerr, a 60-year-old grandfather, lost his job when his employers found out about his relationship, even though it started when the teenager had left school.

A source close to the couple said that the relationship had started in March, after Miss Miller's 18th birthday.

BAM Construct UK, the contractors who employed Mr Kerr, said he was suspended when they discovered the relationship in the same month.

A spokesman said: 'We were informed about this in March and suspended him the same day.

'The school is fully aware and was informed over an email.

'He had worked at the school for ten years. The pupil had left the school and was over the age of consent when we became aware of it.

'At the time we became aware of this, the girl was over the age of consent so legally they hadn't done anything wrong but professionally we did what we had to do.

'The investigation has now concluded.'

A former pupil shared a photograph of the couple getting engaged writing: 'No chance. Hahaha. A girl in the year below me has got engaged to our school's janny. Fear'

A source close to the couple, who did not wish to be named, said they got together when Mr Kerr was going through a divorce from his wife, Marion.

They said: 'Lisa had not been at school for almost two years when she started seeing Jim in March.

'They didn't know each other at school, but they bumped into each other after she had left and got talking.

'It was then they realised that he had worked there and she had gone to school there.

'She loves him with all her heart. She doesn't see herself as a victim as people have been saying. He has helped her a lot and they will stick together through this.
A British Airways flight from London to Orlando was forced to make an emergency landing in Boston after a 'drunken passenger' tried to get off the plane in mid-air.

According to the Daily Record, the passenger, thought to be from Glasgow had downed 12 miniature bottles of wine after the plane took off from Gatwick.

Eyewitnesses claim the man began to wander around the Boeing 777 before asking cabin crew if he could get off the plane after it departed Gatwick Airport last night.

One passenger said he watched the Scot drink steadily for several hours.

He said: 'I was sitting three seats from him and he drank 12 to 14 small bottles of wine and one vodka  all given to him by cabin crew in the first three-and-a-half hours of the flight.

'While the gentleman was totally out of order and a danger to staff and customers around him, BA should shoulder most of the blame.'

Air stewards had to keep him seated and the pilot even went down to speak to him, before deciding to divert the Florida-bound BA2039 flight to Boston, Massachusetts.

A 24-year-old man from Glasgow was arrested by U.S. officers for interfering with a flight crew after a disturbance on a Florida-bound British Airways flight that departed London Gatwick last night. Pictured: A U.S. officer is seen on the plane after it landed at Boston's main airport

Eyewitness Mark Christie took to Facebook to claim the man had been drinking on the plane

When the plane landed, the 24-year-old Glaswegian was arrested by U.S. officers.

Passenger Mark Christie, 30, from Aberdeen, told MailOnline exclusively: 'The drunk guy got on the flight and became increasingly more drunk.

'Then he started wandering around and asking if he could get off. I think that was the worry.

'Eventually he needed to be baby-sat by two cabin crew at a time.

'Then the pilot came through to try and calm him down. And he obviously decided it was better to land in Boston.

'Folk were kind of annoyed by the end of it, but more so because of the delay.

'The cabin crew were amazing and so patient.'

He later added on Facebook: 'Slight detour on the way to Orlando. Apparently BA are pretty strict about heavy drinking on their flights. Boston looks lovely from the runway though.'

British garage band Gorgon City were also on the plane when the drama unfolded yesterday

British garage band Gorgon City were also on the plane when the drama unfolded, as they tried to make their way to Orlando for a gig.

They wrote on Twitter: 'Some drunk t*** assaulted staff on @BritishAirways flight and now in Boston instead of Orlando. Be there soon tho (sic)!'

They later added: 'Quick stop in Boston so someone on the plane can get arrested, now we fly to Orlando to play tonight.'

The man was arrested at around 4.45pm local time (9.45pm BST), half an hour after the passenger plane made the unscheduled landing at Logan International Airport.

Massachusetts State Police said the man would be summonsed to appear in court accused of interfering with flight crew on the aircraft.

Air stewards had to keep the man seated and the pilot even went down to speak to him, before deciding to divert the Florida-bound BA2039 flight to Boston, Massachusetts (file picture)

A force spokesman said: 'Customs and Border Protection took custody of the 24-year-old man from Glasgow, Scotland.

'Massachusetts State Police will be summonsing the man for interfering with a flight crew.'

British Airways confirmed the flight was diverted due to an 'unruly' passenger.

A spokesman added: 'Our customers and crews deserve to enjoy their flights, and not to suffer any form of abuse.

'Disruptive behaviour will not be tolerated, and the appropriate action will always be taken.
This is the shocking moment a thug burst into a shop before stabbing the worker behind the counter in the face with a Stanley knife and making off with 3,000 in cash.

Wayne Davies, 41, and accomplice Jason Hateley, 38, burst into the Costcutter store in Wombourne, Staffordshire, at 10pm on September 20 last year.

Davies, from Birmingham, admitted robbery and was jailed for eight years at Stafford Crown Court on Friday.

This is the shocking moment a thug burst into a shop before stabbing the worker behind the counter in the face with a Stanley knife and making off with 3,000 in cash

Wayne Davies (left), 41, and accomplice Jason Hateley (right), 38, burst into the Costcutter store in Wombourne, Staffordshire, at 10pm on September 20 last year

Hateley, from Tipton, denied the same offence but was found guilty by a jury and jailed for six years.

Terrifying CCTV footage captured Davies attacking a member of staff with a Stanley knife.

In the clip the hooded thug can be seen forcing the shopkeeper to the floor as they struggle behind the counter.

Davies repeatedly jabs the knife at the worker and knees him in the body before making off with 3,000 in cash.

The 21-year-old victim had to be rushed to Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, where he was treated for deep cuts to his face and head.

The court heard the thugs targeted the Costcutter in a robbery described by police as 'frenzied and traumatic'.

Terrifying CCTV footage captured Davies attacking a member of staff with a Stanley knife

In the clip the hooded thug can be seen forcing the shopkeeper to the floor as they struggle behind the counter

Davies repeatedly jabs the knife at the worker and knees him in the body before making off with 3,000 in cash

Detectives linked Hateley to the crime after the black Vauxhall Corsa he was driving was spotted near the shop at the time of the robbery.

Blood was found on the interior light in the car which was sent off for analysis and came back as a positive match for Davies.

He was also implicated because of his distinctive tattoo of a bird on his hand which could be clearly seen on the shop's CCTV footage.

The court heard the victim, from Wolverhampton, was left shaken by the ordeal.

After the hearing, Staffordshire Police released a photo of the shopkeeper's blood-drenched jacket. Another shows blood splattered on the floor behind the counter.

Detective Sergeant Ian Whitehouse said: 'This was a particularly nasty robbery which not only resulted in the loss of cash but left a man seriously injured, causing him a great deal of lasting distress.

After the hearing, Staffordshire Police released a photo of the shopkeeper's blood-drenched jacket

Davies was also implicated because of his distinctive tattoo of a bird on his hand (left) which could be clearly seen on the shop's CCTV footage. Pictured right, the balaclava worn by Davies

'At the time of the robbery we issued a public appeal for witnesses, making mention of a black Vauxhall Corsa which was seen near the shop at the time of the robbery.

'Thankfully a vigilant shop keeper reported seeing a matching car in the West Midlands area, a man was seen acting suspiciously at his shop before getting into the vehicle.'

He added: 'Thanks to this eagle-eyed member of the public taking down the registration number of the Corsa we were able to trace the car and its driver, Hateley, who we were then able to place at the scene of the robbery.

'Despite the evidence being stacked against both men Hateley continued to deny his involvement and was found guilty by a jury.
The body is that of a woman who weighed 17 stone despite being 5ft5 tall

Doctors said even cutting through the skin was difficult due layers of fat

The post mortem is the first in the UK to

BBC documentary will show the full effects of obesity on the human body

A chilling BBC documentary showing the post mortem of a 17 stone woman has revealed the full effects of obesity on the human body.

Obesity - The Post Mortem, set to air on BBC Three on September 13, depicts the stomach churning scenes of pathologists slicing open the women and examining her skin, heart, liver, lungs and kidneys.

The body used in the documentary is that of a woman from Long Beach, California in her early 60s who died of heart failure and donated her body to medical science.

The American woman weighed 17 stone despite being just 5ft 5 inches tall. She died of heart failure when she was in her early 60s

'I needed a lot more strength to cut through the tissue which kind of bloomed out in neon yellow,' said a pathologist who cut open the woman's skin

Standing at five-foot and five inches tall she was 17 stone and was morbidly obese.

After having her left arm removed for cremation and ashes returned to her family the woman's remains were sent to medical staff for analysis.

As the team began the post mortem they noted a thick layer of greasy fat that 'felt like butter with a mesh going through it' that was mainly distributed around the belly.

'I needed a lot more strength to cut through the tissue which kind of bloomed out in neon yellow,' said Carla Valentine, technical curator of the museum of pathology at Queen Mary University.

'It made me aware of the fat on my own body and the effect it has.'

The heart bared all the hallmarks of an obese person. Doctors said the heart felt baggy and was a lot heavier than it should have been

Pathologist, Giles Yeo, noted that although some fat is healthy for the body when the 'extra fat looks for somewhere else to go and that is where the damage is caused.'

'The amount of fat you can see tells you how likely the fat is to be doing damage elsewhere.'

After cutting the deceased woman open they then went onto extract the heart which had a number of striking problems.

Pathologist Dr Mike Osborn says: 'The heart feels baggy, when you pick up the heart of someone fit it would be tight and hard like picking up a piece of steak, this is like more like a bag.'

'At 449 grams, it's a heavy heart, despite her weight this woman is quite a petite person and should have a heart of 225 grams so this is much heavier.'

'This is sort of heart you would expect in someone who has heart failure due to high blood pressure'

'This heart has gone from a thick muscle to a paper bag that is not able to pump blood around the body,' he added.

The heavy heart is weighed. The woman died from heart failure which was undoubtedly linked to her weight

The woman's liver also showed the signs of obesity being not as soft as it would be in a healthy person.

'The first thing I saw in the liver marked 'fatty change,' Osborn said.

'It was pinky, soft, like pate. A normal liver is quite soft but not as soft and is much more meaty - the pink int his liver is the fat.'

'The most common cause is alcohol related but we known this lady drank virtually nothing so it's almost certainly obesity.'

'Fatty damage can lead to cirrhosis and cancer but even people who do not develop those can have liver failure.'

After inspecting the woman's lungs the BBC pathologists said they were dripping with fluid which is a sign of pulmonary edema caused by heart failure.

'This would have given a sensation of drowning,' Osborn said during the documentary.

Doctors examine the kidneys. 'If you are obese some fat will end up in your kidneys and they will have to work harder' one of the doctors said

Carla Valentine during the haunting autopsy that was the first in the UK post mortem focused specifically on looking at the effects of obesity on the body

'People with this condition tend to need support for example if someone tells you they have sleep sitting up or with eight pillows that is very indicative of heart failure.'

'Heart failure is different to a heart attack, when it fails it doesn't fail straight away, it fails over time so symptoms are gradual.'

'This lady might have been able to walk up 10 flights of stairs three years ago then only five flights and then struggle up one flight of stairs, it was a progressive disease as the heart became worse and worse,' Osborn continued.

Yeo said: 'If you are not getting enough oxygen in you are going struggle to breathe and get out of breath.

A pathologist with the kidneys in their hands. Having fatty kidneys can cause the organ to fail and lead to diabetes

The kidneys also had the scars of obesity.

'You should be able to see the kidneys and they should have a little bit of fat around them like an edamame bean that you pop out but these had very large fat capsules and lots of extra fat,' said Carla.

Yeo said that obesity can lead to diabetes which can cause kidney failure as the organ can become overworked.

'The kidney is another detoxifying organ and it filters your urine,' he said in the BBC documentary.

'If you are obese some fat will end up in your kidneys and they will have to work harder.'

'If you begin to tip into type-2 diabetes then you will get sugar in your urine because you are unable to deal with glucose.'

'The kidney then has to filter all this sugar that your body can't cope with and it will fail.'

A BBC spokeswoman told the Mail Online that the deceased woman 'consented for her body to be donated to medical science.'

'The only information we have about the women is that she was American, in her 60s, and she died of heart disease,' she added.

Another BBC statement said that the woman knew her body may be used 'for research, and educational use, including being filmed anonymously for scientific presentation.'

Obesity in the UK has been on an upward slope with levels trebling over the past three decades.

According to NHS statistics from 2013 the UK has the most over weight people in Europe with 24.9 of adults weighing more than they should. Ireland is in second place with 24.5% of adults over weight or obese.
In the age of crowdfunding it is not uncommon to see people asking for help to pay for medical bills, funeral expenses or to help them get through in times of need.

But a disturbing twist to the fundraising trend has seen people, mostly Gen Y ask for help to pay for their holidays - from overseas adventures to mini-trips to the Gold Coast.

While many crowdfunding campaigns prove successful, people seem resistant to handing over their hard-earned dollars for someone else's holiday.

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Accommodation on the Gold Coast

Three 16-year-old boys from South Australia are excited to rent a house on the Gold Coast in October but don't have the money so they took to popular crowd sourcing site gofundme to raise the money for their stay.

This crowdfunding campaign was set up by three 16-year-old boys who wanted to prove their independence to their parents

They were asking for a total of $1,000 because - even though they are 'taking extra shifts at work or asking family members' they have 'struggled' to come up with the funds.

'During October the 26th 2016 Liam, Brad, and Thomas are planning to go on a holiday to the Gold Coast for a week, we all thought of the idea when we saw that our favourite band Slipknot is playing in Brisbane,' the boys wrote online.

'We then noticed that the opening act for Slipknot is another one of our favourite bands Lamb of God, we have organised a flights, tickets, food, and things to do while we stay down for a week but because we are all only sixteen we are struggling to gather the funds.'

This is to be their first holiday away from their parents and they hope it will prove they are independent.

'We think that it (going away) is a good idea because it will give us experience in traveling and organising an entire holiday, it will also prove to all of our parents that we are capable of doing such a thing.'

The boys have reached $80 of their $1000 goal in 24 days. They have offered to sweeten the deal by promising a postcard from the Queensland city.

Holiday to New Zealand

A 17-year-old girl who has never been overseas has also taken to crowdfunding so she can travel from Australia to New Zealand this year.

This young woman wanted the good people of the internet to pay for her first overseas trip

Kalli Hardi is only asking for $700 for her trip which she says will be a 'well deserved break' from the HSC.

Her profile includes a picture of Hobbiton, below she explains how her mother is a fan of Lord of the Rings so the pair want to visit the movie sets.

'it would mean so much to us both if we could get this money!!!!! thank-u guys!!! :-))) (sic),' she wrote.

She is yet to receive any donations - she started the campaign on August 14.

Holiday to Korea

Many crowdfunding campaigns come with a painful backstory to help paint a vivid picture of why the money is needed so badly.

These two best friends want to see each other in person and were asking for a hand to get to Korea for a holiday

Nicole Barnes from Turramurra in Sydney shaped her profile by explaining how bad it is not to have enough money to meet up with her long-distance best friend.

'Hannah and I would like to spend a week in South Korea (an easy meet up point), where we don't have to have our conversations cut short by poor internet connections, and we can share a meal together without dropping our pizza on the keyboard when attempting to show one another (Hannah still hasn't fully cleaned her laptop from that tragic experience),' Ms Barnes wrote.

She also explains what she will do with the money.

'The money raised will go towards a modest AirBnb spot for the week, local transport when we arrive, and some SWEET Korean BBQ!'

If that wasn't enough Ms Barnes set out reward levels to help make people want to donate.

For five dollars you are eligible for the 'basic' package which is a selfie of the girls when they are reunited.

For $20 the girls will film themselves eating the spiciest street food they can find and for $200 they will invite you into their long-distance friendship and Skype you for ten minutes.

The campaign was set up in July but has not yet received any interest.

Getting hitched at Comi-Con

A couple of self-confessed nerds called Chris and Peta want people to help them fly from Sydney to San Diego so they can get married.

Chris and Peta were asking for $10,000 to get to America so they could marry at Comi-Con

The couple plan to spend four or five weeks in the US with Comi-Con coming toward the end of the trip.

' Those two nerds decided they should probably get hitched,' the couple's page read.

'But they didn't want a big gaudy wedding. They didn't want flowers and cards and cold chicken or fish; they just wanted to go to America.

'Specifically, San Diego. Comic-Com.'

The couple have promised to save themselves but are also looking to raise $10,000 with the help of crowd funding so they can experience the US the way they have always dreamed.

They have made $800 in donations since they embarked on their online campaign 24 days ago.

The couple plan to start their American adventure in San Francisico before moving on to Las Angeles, San Diego and finally New York.

European adventure

A young woman keen to head to Europe in 2017 initially made her crowdfunding experience for friends and family only.

This young woman thought she would ask friends and family for money to go to Europe and then decided to open the opportunity up to everyone else

But then Jessica Lenon, from Sydney, decided she would ask the rest of the internet as well.

'Just spreading the link around in case there are any other generous people who want to see me take on Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Greece,' she wrote.

The wanderluster's goal is to raise $500 - however as she had only had the campaign going for one day at the time this article was published she didn't have any donations.

Trip to Tanzania

Natalia Horinkova traveled from Sydney to Tanzania after she was offered an opportunity to take photos in the African nation.

A rare successful holiday crowdfunding campaign saw Natalia, pictured, head to Africa

The young woman started her successful crowdfunding campaign by acknowledging she had been fortunate to travel the world since she was 18.

The young woman originally from Slovakia was in Australia when she had the urge to go to Africa.

She managed to raise $3,475 of a $3,900 goal.

'This year, I have been given the opportunity as a photographer to go on an expedition to Tanzania through Raleigh International,' Ms Horinkova wrote.

'For this project to come to fruition I need the help of the generous people around me to assist in raising funds so that I can take part in the expedition. My goal amount to be able to head off on this adventure is AUD$ 3900 which includes the cost of: travel and medical insurance, food and accommodation, specialist equipment, in-country transport and full training and support both pre- expedition and when on program.'

33 people donated to the cause and got the young photographer to Tanzania.

Home to England

Two young men posted on the crowdfunding website to ask for money to help them fly home before their visa expired.

Jord Allen from the UK was asking for $1,800 to help him get from Sydney home.

Jord Allen, pictured, was bitten by a spider and couldn't afford his ticket home to England

The Briton admitted his trip to Australia had been more costly than he thought when he needed medical attention.

These extra costs meant he couldn't afford to pay his own way home at the expiration of his visa.

'I first came to Australia 11 months ago with the dream of travelling the world like most people who start backpacking,' Mr Allen wrote.

'However a few months ago I was hospitalised from a spider bite (ironic) and was there for a week. I lost my job, had to move out of my hostel and have been struggling to save money ever since.

'Before going into hospital I had booked to travel a few more countries and had already paid for the expenses now with no money to fly back home to England when my visa ends in August.

'I hate to have to even do this but I am looking for some help to help fund my ticket back to England so I can fly home when my visa ends.'

Mr Allen did not get any donations in the two months his campaign was open.

Home to America

The second visitor to need to go home came to Australia from America.

Jeff Lange made just over half of his $2000 goal using the online site.

Jeff Lange was in Australia for three years and needed help buying his ticket home before his visa expired

'I began my journey three years ago as I sought to discover myself and embark on a new adventure in an exciting new land, Australia,' he wrote.

'But now, it's time to take what I've learned and apply that to a life back in the USA. It's happening quick though, and I only have 11 days left until my visa expires, so I need a little help to come up with the money for the flight home.'

The post did not elaborate on why the American suddenly had to leave - or why he hadn't realised when his visa was due to expire.

Holiday to America

A woman from Melbourne has asked for help to fund a trip to America for herself and her partner.

Sharna had a rough start to her adult life and was asking for a chance trip to America to make it a little bit better

Sharna explained she had lost both of her parents when she was 20 years old, in 2012, and would like to take a holiday now.

'I have never been overseas as I have never had the finances to do so. I have some amazing Friends in The States the I would love to go and see, I would also love to take my Partner our very first holiday together, except some assistance is required to do so. I would be so appreciative if you are willing to help me out. I would Love to see the New York winter, so January would be an amazing time to go. (sic)'

The 24-year-old has raised $410 in two months and has a goal of $5000.
Acord allegedly tried to drive away, but the officer took his car keys away

Officer pulled over Acord after he was seen driving

The man and woman disgracefully pictured passed out in a car allegedly overdosed on heroin as a toddler was in the backseat have lengthy criminal records.

An Ohio police department in Ohio published images of the parents - identified as 50-year-old Rhonda Pasek, whose toddler was in the car, and 47-year-old James Acord - on the City of Liverpool's Facebook page.

Acord, who was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, endangering children, and slowing or stopping in a road for this incident, has a laundry-list of offenses dating back to the early 1990s.

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Shamed: Police in East Liverpool, Ohio, shared on Facebook this shocking image showing Rhonda Pasek and James Acord passed out in their car with the woman's child in the backseat after a suspected heroin overdose

The 47-year-old has previously been charged with crimes ranging from robbery to drinking in public in Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio.

He also has a history with substance abuse and run-ins with the law in West Virginia.

His history includes multiple arrests on DUI charges, most recently in March of this year.

In relation to Thursday's charges, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 180 days in jail for each of the first two, according to The Weirton Daily Times. The last count of impeding traffic was dropped.

Officials say they decided to make the photos of the unconscious man and woman public to raise awareness of the heroin epidemic in the state

Acord's punishment also includes a three-year license suspension and a $475 fine, WTOV reported.

On Thursday, Pasek was charged with endangering children, public intoxication and not wearing a seatbelt. She pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $150,000 bond pending her next court appearance scheduled for September 15.

She also has a history of arrests and substance abuse, including a drug possession charge in 2011. Court records in Pennsylvania include past charges of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

People responded to the pictures on Facebook, with many praising police for sharing them.

'I usually don't have many words of praise for law enforcement actions but these pictures needed to be posted with the way things are going in Ohio. People need to take a cold hard look at what this epidemic is truly doing and all the risks associated with it. This is the worst epidemic I've ever seen, and scares the living hell out of me. I applaud you all 4 (sic) stepping up and addressing this issue head on,' Hiiedi Hahn wrote.

'These photos you posted are the frightening reality to addiction. I think you did the right thing by posting these photos. We need to share information and lend a hand to those in need that want help,' Brandon Cordova said.

'I just saw the pictures of the kid with the junkie parent(s) and if it takes ugly pictures of the realities of drug addiction to wake people up and stop being all "feel good" then by all means keep them coming until families fight back against this scourge,' Tony Taylor added.

However, other accused the police of exploiting the parents and their child just to 'make a point'.

Couple arrested: James Acord, 47 (left), was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, endangering children. Rhonda Pasek, 50 (right), was charged with endangering children, public intoxication and not wearing a seatbelt

OPIOID OVERDOSES IN US REACH EPIDEMIC LEVELS FORCING FEDERAL AND STATE GOVENRMENTS TO TAKE ACTION Addiction to opioids such as heroin, morphine, fentanyl and codeine in the US has reached the proportions of a full-blown epidemic in recent years, with states like Ohio reporting a dramatic spike in drug-related deaths. Prescription opioid painkillers can have effects similar to heroin, and research suggests that abuse of these drugs may be a gateway to heroin addiction. For decades, heroin was considered the drug of choice of low-income youths living in inner-city neighborhoods because it was readily available and cheap. Now, it is affecting suburban middle-class white adults. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2014 found that the dramatic shift in demographics is likely linked to the growing availability of and demand for prescription opioids. Nearly half of young people who inject heroin surveyed in three other recent studies reported abusing prescription opioids before starting to use heroin. Some individuals reported taking up heroin because it is cheaper and easier to obtain than prescription opioids. A record 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in the US in 2014, according to the latest figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number was up 7 per cent from 2013, spurred by large increases in heroin and opioid painkiller deaths. In Ohio, which has been among the states hardest hit by the overdose epidemic, there were 3,000 unintentional drug overdoses last year, at an average of eight per day, according to information from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Over one-third of those accidental deaths were caused by the powerful opioid fentanyl, which more than doubled from the previous year and increased from just 75 in 2012. Ohio Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor this week called on the state House of Representatives to pass a package of reforms aimed at curbing the opioid abuse, which passed in the state Senate. One provision increases access to the drug naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose within minutes. Paramedics working in the state last year administered nearly 19,800 doses of naloxone, which can be sold by pharmacists without a prescription under changes made in 2015. Last month, the Obama administration announced that it will spend $17million to help law enforcement agencies deal with the increase in heroin and opioid abuse. The administration said the spending will support an array of projects to disrupt drug trafficking, increase the use of the drug naloxone to reverse overdoses and train medical providers on safe prescribing practices. Congress has approved legislation aimed at curbing heroin and opioid drugs. Obama signed the bill into law in July, but the president said he was deeply disappointed about funding levels. Advertisement

'I hated the fact you published an innocent child/under aged juveniles face all over Facebook to prove a point about his drug addicted parents,' Annette Hall wrote on Facebook.

'Being an addict doesn't change one's civil rights or one's rights to privacy. Posting photos of two individuals in need of medical attention in an attempt to use their condition as an "example" in what is a clear violation of their civil rights is despicable. Spend more time trying to aid addicts in recovery and less time shaming them further into continued use,' Jemma Monck said.

'I am horrified by the actions of first responders and Officer Kevin Thompson to leave this child strapped in the car and to photograph him and his caretakers and use it for publicity purposes. That child's welfare and the safety of the individuals in need of medical response should have been a first priority,' Mairghaed Brigid wrote.

'The government has done this with their war on drugs. Now we are shaming the victims of the result. This, these photos, they don't change anything, they hurt people including that child,' Andrea Rainwater added.

Jailed: Pasek, pictured in this Facebook photo from 2012, has pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $150,000 bond

It comes after officials said they decided to publish the photos in an attempt to raise awareness of the heroin epidemic in the state, and also to try and deter people from using drugs while having children in their care.

Addiction to opioids such as heroin, morphine, fentanyl and codeine in the US has reached the proportions of a full-scale epidemic in recent years.

In Ohio, which has been among the states hardest hit by the opioid scourge, there were 3,000 unintentional drug overdoses last year, at an average of eight per day.

'We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the non drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis,' the City of East Liverpool wrote in a caption accompanying the photos.

'The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until its gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that.'

An East Liverpool police officer was patrolling St Clair Avenue at 3.11pm Thursday when he spotted a dark Ford Explorer with West Virginia plates that was driving erratically before screeching to a stop near a school bus that was dropping off children, according to an arrest report that was also shared on Facebook.

When the officer approached the vehicle, he noticed that the driver, Acord, appeared intoxicated, with his head bobbing back and forth and his speech almost unintelligible.

The 47-year-old told the officer he was driving Pasek to a hospital. The 50-year-old was slumped over in the front passenger seat.

According to police, Acord then made an attempt to drive away, but at that moment the officer reached into the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

That is when the officer noticed Pasek's four-year-old in the backseat.

Paramedics who were summoned to the scene administered Narcan - a drug used to counteract the effects of a heroin overdose - to Pasek and Acord, who by that point had passed out as well. The couple were then taken to East Liverpool City Hospital to be evaluated.

Her young son has been placed in the custody of Columbiana County Childrens Services.

The City of Weirton, West Virginia, also shared the images of the couple on its Facebook page and revealed additional information about their background.




Multinational companies should stop dodging taxes and pay their fair share, the head of euro zone finance ministers has said.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem's comments came in the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax-avoidance practices and a drive by Brussels to adopt stricter rules.

The recent shock 11million tax demand on Apple was part of that trend as the EU also drafts plans for a common corporate tax base and a single European blacklist for tax havens.

Multinational companies should stop dodging taxes and pay their fair share, the head of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem has said. He is pictured at the start of a meeting of the ministers on Friday

He attempted to inject some levity into the start of the proceedings on Friday, using a sticker bearing his name to play a game of 'Who Am I?'

'My message to those companies is you are fighting the wrong battle. You have to move on. Times are changing,' the head of the eurogroup and Dutch Finance Minister told reporters on arriving at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Bratislava.

'You need to pay your taxes in a fair way. Part of that would be in the U.S., part of that would be in Europe. So get ready to do that,' he added.

Mr Dijsselbloem attempted to inject some levity into the start of the meetings on Friday, using a sticker bearing his name to play a game of 'Who Am I?'

The Commission, which is in charge of protecting market competition in Europe, is investigating multinationals' tax arrangements in several EU countries to assess whether, by lowering corporations' tax bills, illegal state aid may have been given.

Mr Dijsselbloem's comments came in the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax-avoidance practices. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond also attended the gathering

Online retailer Amazon.com McDonald's face European Commission probes over taxes in Luxembourg.

And coffee chain Starbucks has been ordered to pay up to 25million in back-taxes to the Dutch state.

The Netherlands has appealed against the Commission's decision, and Ireland did the same in the Apple case, fearing it could undermine the country's long-established policy of attracting multinationals with low taxes.

European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici plans to unveil proposals in the coming weeks on a common tax base for multinationals operating in the EU, telling reporters the initiative was about the tax base rather than rates, which will remain in the hands of member states.

He also said the Commission will move forward with plans to align taxes on ebooks and online press with paper publications, in line with earlier announcements.

Mr Dijsselbloem (pictured with European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, right) also said the Commission will move forward with plans to align taxes on ebooks and online press with paper publications

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble welcomed the efforts while EU Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said new rules were needed to eliminate mismatches and loopholes between member states' tax systems that companies exploit.

'What is clear is that with every new case of unfair tax practise or abuse, public frustration grows,' he told a news conference at the conclusion of the summit.

Ministers at the meeting also discussed a paper presented by the Slovak presidency of the EU calling for more tax certainty for multinationals.
Police have offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Nina Nicholson's killer, 25 years after she was found dead at her own door.

The 22-year-old nurse was last seen alive at her parents Spike and Ann Jones' house in the country Victoria town of Clunes for dinner at 8pm on September 10, 1991.

Police have offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of the killer of Nina Nicholson (pictured), 25 years after she was found dead by her own door

When she never showed up to work at St John of Gods hospital in Ballarat, just 36 kilometres away, Ann and Nina's brother Andrew, then 17, went to look for her.

They found her battered body lying face down on the back porch of her house, around the corner from her parents', dressed in her nurse's uniform.

Her handbag with keys, cash and credit cards was untouched next to her, her glasses were found in grass nearby, and her white Nissan still parked in the driveway.

Investigators believed she struggled with her murderer before she was struck with a fatal blow to the head, dying in her mother's arms.

'I had her in my arms, she just gave a sigh and... she was dead,' Ms Jones recalled to Nine News on Saturday, choking back tears.

Nina's husband Robert, a truck driver, was often away on overnight deliveries leaving her home alone - and she swore someone was watching her.

She didn't tell her parents until about a year before her death when she called them in a panic in the middle of the night, convinced she heard someone creeping outside her house.

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The 22-year-old nurse was last seen alive at her parents Spike and Ann Jones' house in the country Victoria town of Clunes for dinner at 8pm on September 10, 1991

Underwear was also disappearing from her clothesline and that of another woman in her street.

Police accounted for everyone's whereabouts in the tight-knit historic goldfields town, except one neighbour who was interviewed multiple times but never charged.

More than two decades later, on the anniversary of Nina's death, her parents are pleading for someone to come forward and help solve the mystery.

'It's something we've lived with for 25 years, 24 hours a day,' Mr Jones said.

Her family found her battered body lying face down on the back porch of her house, around the corner from her parents', dressed in her nurse's uniform

Ms Jones said: 'She was the most loveable, gorgeous, generous person you could meet. I'm very annoyed a frustrated because I know there is somebody in Clunes that knows.'

The $1 million reward would be paid at the discretion of the Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police for information that led to a conviction.

The Director of Public Prosecutions would also consider granting immunity from prosecution to anyone who gave information about the main culprits.

More than two decades later, on the anniversary of Nina's death, her parents Spike and Ann Jones are pleading for someone to come forward and help solve the mystery

The couple hope the massive reward will end their torment at not knowing who killed their beloved daughter and why.

'I try to think of nice things, but I always seem to go back to the last time I saw her and had her in my arms,' Ms Jones told The Age.

'It is so hard to believe, I sort of think 'How have we gotten through the last 25 years?' I honestly thought we never would.

'We both hope that somebody, maybe, will have a bit of a conscience and say something because if the police have another little bit, it might be enough.'

The couple hope the massive reward will end their torment at not knowing who killed their beloved daughter and why
The only non-terrorism related homicide reported on 9/11 remains unsolved to this day.

Henryk Siwiak, 46, a Polish immigrant with a wife and two children, was shot and killed in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001. He was on his way to clean a supermarket and found himself on a violent corner of Bed-Stuy at 11:42 pm.

Fifteen years later, authorities have yet to name a suspect or a person of interest in Siwiak's death.

On any given day, six to eight detectives would have responded to the scene. But on that day, only one came to the intersection of Albany Avenue and Decatur Street, where Siwiak was shot.

Henryk Siwiak, 46, a Polish immigrant with a wife and two children, was shot and killed in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001

That was the only homicide reported in New York City outside of the 9/11 attacks. Siwiak's sister Lucyna is pictured holding a photo of him

'We would have had uniforms canvassing the area, we would have had computer checks running, we would have had all the forensic capabilities available,' former lieutenant Tom Joyce told NBC News.

That sole detective took only one Polaroid photo.

Siwiak was not supposed to be in Bed-Stuy that night. He had just picked up a job cleaning at a Pathmark supermarket in Flatbush, for about $10 an hour.

His wife, Ewa, their daughter Gabriela and their son Adam were still living in Krakow. Siwiak had moved to the United States 11 months earlier looking for work.

Siwiak was not supposed to be in Bed-Stuy that night. He had just picked up a job cleaning at a Pathmark supermarket in Flatbush (pictured), for about $10 an hour

After ending up three miles south of his intended destination, Siwiak was fatally shot at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Decatur Street in Bed-Stuy (pictured)

'I told him just in case: don't leave tonight, because it can be dangerous in New York,' Ewa told WNYC in 2011.

But Siwiak, who sent money to his family, went to pick up his shift regardless.

The Pathmark supermarket was on Albany Avenue, but Siwiak ended up three miles south in Bed-Stuy.

'He just got off the train at the wrong block and at the wrong time. He's a totally innocent individual,' retired detective Mike Prate told NBC News. 'It was really a shame.'

The area, Prate said, was rife with gang shootings, robberies and narcotics.

'Everything else in the city shut down. It didn't seem like anything on that block shut down,' he said.

Prate made several forays into the case until he retired in 2012. It remains open and other detectives are now working on it.

'It's just a matter of finding the right guy with the right information,' Prate said. 'There is a person out there who saw, knows, or heard about it.'
Her mother told doctors 'no one would want to have sex with her'

A woman who thought her 15-year-old daughter's vagina was untidy fought with doctors so she could have surgery.

Alana, whose name has been changed for legal reasons, shrugged and agreed when doctors asked her if she wanted to have plastic surgery on her genitals as her mother had demanded.

The mother had told doctors that the girl's genitals were not as neat as that of other women, according to News.com.

A mother who thought her daughter had an untidy vagina pushed doctors to giver her surgey (file image)

'She will never be able to have sex looking like that,' the mother said.

Alana did not need the surgery for health reasons, and even when a doctor assured her mother that labia come in all shapes and sizes she pushed on.

Incoming president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Professor Steve Robson said plastic surgery on anyone under 18 was risky.

He also noted that all teenagers, both male and female, go through a phase where they wonder if their bodies are normal.

'Having your mum say a man wouldn't want to make love with you because you're untidy is not particularly helpful parenting,' Prof Robson said.

He went on to say that young people should be taught love is about 'the quality of your heart and not the quality of your genitalia'.

Doctors published the case in a book about instances where parents and professionals have clashed (file picture)

The surge in genital surgery in Australia has been blamed on the abundant and immediate availability of intimate images online.

With people comparing the genitalia of porn stars and comparing it to their own  or in some cases to their partners.

Research fellow at the Children's Bioethics Centre and Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Merle Spriggs, said 25 per cent of requests for labiaplasty at her hospital surgery came from parents.

Alana's story has come to light after being featured in the new book When Doctors and Patients Disagree.
Campaign of those, who defeated Angela Merkel (video)

Brexit, the referendum on the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union, may influence the local elections in Germany. Brexit was a good lesson also for our youth. Many young people didnt take part in the referendum, but they have to live with the results of Brexit. If the young took part in the referendum, Great Britain may have remained a member of the European Union, explains 46-year-old office worker Tanja Bunduls, who has been nominated by Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and on September 11 will take part in Hannover local elections. The youth in Germany isnt active in the elections. According to the statistics of the recent years, only 50 percent of voters take part in the elections. Tanja Bunduls has been nominated for the second time for becoming a member of the City Council. It is a post on a voluntary basis. It is my free time. I want to use it for the sake of my city and welfare, the candidate told Armenian journalists, who are in Hannover within the frames of Cross-border observations: reliable coverage of local elections in Lower Saxony and Armenia project, which was organized by Berlins School of Journalism together with Journalists for Future Armenian NGO. But candidates of Social Democratic Party of Germany dont propose projects for changes. I dont want to change anything. I want to continue the direction, which was in the past, says Chrsitine Ranke-Heck, who is taking part in the local elections in Lower Saxony. It isnt much surprising, as Mayor of Hannover, which is the administrative center of Lower Saxony, is just from that party. And though Mayor is a Social Democrat, some citizens refused to take pre-election booklets, which were distributed in the streets by the candidates of this party. By the way, on September 11 there wont be mayoral elections in Hannover. The current Mayor, who has been elected for 8 years term, will remain in office until 2021. Nevertheless, candidates of Social Democratic Party of Germany dont rule out unexpected outcome in the upcoming local elections in Lower Saxony: the voters are always unpredictable, in spite of the fact that on September 4 they defeated Angela Merkels party members in her homeland- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state. Social Democratic party received 30.5 percent of votes. Alternative for Germany party, which was established three years ago, was on the second place with 21 percent votes. The Christian Democratic Party lead by Angela Merkel received only 19 percent votes. The reason for such a picture, according to the analysts, is the issue of refugees and the social-economic condition of the country. That s why September 11 local elections are considered to be a check before 2017 nationwide elections. Karine Asatryan Yerevan-Hannover-Yerevan
Convicted terrorists will be kept in jail even after they have served their sentence if do not show remorse for their crime thanks to new legislation.

The High Risk Terrorist Offender legislation will be introduced into Federal Parliament, in Canberra, this week.

It will be directed at keeping radicalised and remorseless offenders behind bars, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The new law is aimed at criminals like teenage terrorist Sevdet Besim who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his ANZAC day attack to run down a police officer and cut off his head.

High Risk Terrorist Offender legislation will be introduced into Federal Parliament this week, it is aimed at keeping radicalised and remorseless offenders, like teenage terrorist Sevdet Besim, behind bars

The masterminds behind Australia's biggest terrorism plots such as Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho and Mohammed Omar Jamal, whose 2005 plan to attack Sydney was foiled, will also be subject to the new law.

In a statement on the national security on counter-terrorism Malcolm Turnbull said the post-sentence detention system will a court-supervised process.

'It will be... similar to the arrangements that apply in a number of jurisdictions for sex offenders and for extremely violent individuals,' he said.

Malcolm Turnbull: 'Around 200 people in Australia are being investigated for providing support to individuals and groups in the Syria-Iraq conflict'

The legislation is also aimed at addressing the growing threat of radicalisation in Australian jails.

The Prime Minister said: 'there are still people outside our country, and some within it, who hate the freedoms that we enjoy and would seek to threaten them and undermine them with violence'.
A 12-year-old refugee boy lost movement in his wrist and fingers because he did not get post-operative treatment for a broken arm on Nauru, his lawyer claims.

Iranian boy Erfan waited a month for surgery last year after he fell off his bike and was now said to be in chronic pain because he has outgrown the plates in his arm.

The boy lived with his family outside the island nation's detention centre after their asylum claimed was approved.

Refugee boy Erfan, 12, lost movement in his wrist and fingers because he did not get post-operative treatment for a broken arm on Nauru, his lawyer claims

Refugee lawyer George Newhouse said his client can no longer hold objects properly and needed urgent medical attention or his arm would be permanently deformed.

'Unless action is taken urgently, this boy may never be able to use his hand and arm properly again. That's a most astounding situation, when all we have is a fracture caused by a bicycle accident,' he told the ABC.

Dr Barri Phatarfod, from Doctors for Refugees, agreed, saying Erfan needed an orthopedic surgical review to assess his pain and deformity.

He can no longer hold objects properly and needed urgent medical attention or his arm would be permanently deformed. Pictured trying to straighten the fingers on his left hand

'That this young boy could be operated upon and not have post-op follow up, especially in light of his ongoing symptoms, would be unthinkable anywhere else,' he told Buzfeed.

The boy sent a desperate plea for help via a video message shared on Mr Newhouse's Twitter.

'We don't want anything. We just want treatment and we want our family to be OK: every one of them,' he said.

'My mum needed treatment for her breast... they need to take off the cyst in the breast. My sister, she needed treatment. She will have to be in a good place.'

He waited a month for surgery last year after he fell off his bike and was now said to be in chronic pain because he has outgrown the plates in his arm

Mr Newhouse called on the Australian Government to show compassion and intervene in his case, and had also been writing to it about Erfan's mother and sister.

He told Saturday AM the sister was very sick with a skin disease in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the mother was in extreme paid with multiple breast cysts.

'She was told yesterday by doctors on Nauru that they do not have the medicine to assist her or treat her breast cysts and that they could turn cancerous if they are not addressed,' he said.

X-rays obtained by Daily Mail Australia last June showed a severe fracture to Erfan's left arm

Mr Newhouse said the family were not asking to come to Australia for treatment, and had been shuffled between Nauru, where the specialised treatment is not available, and PNG, where they waited for months.

'This is one of the most bizarre cases I've seen. The Government has acknowledged that this family is ill and needs medical care,' he said.

'They take them at our taxpayers' expense to Port Moresby, where only one member of their family gets treatment.

'They then arrest them and ship them back on a charter plane to Nauru, at taxpayers' expense, where they can't get the medical care they need.'

Dr Barri Phatarfod, from Doctors for Refugees, said if the bones were left to heal as they were, he risked losing the ability to rotate his forearm

A Department of Immigration and Border Protection spokesperson told ABC the family received treatment in PNG in April.

'The Department is confident that the medical care the boy has received, and the ongoing medical assessment and treatment he is receiving, is appropriate,' they said.

X-rays obtained by Daily Mail Australia last June showed a severe fracture to Erfan's left arm, which Phatarfod said at the time 'required operative fixation for this fracture as a matter of urgency'.

'If left as it is - it will likely heal in a poor position and he will lose rotation of his forearm, which is functionally very debilitating and very difficult to restore later,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Erfan's lawyer George Newhouse called on the Australian Government to show compassion and intervene in his case. Pictured Immigration Minister Peter Dutton

Dr Phatarfod said it was concerning for those who resettled on the island were not getting access to appropriate medical care.

'If he's left-handed, he might never be able to write again,' she said.

She said 11 Australian doctors, including an orthopedic surgeon, a radiologist and an emergency physician have all said surgery is required otherwise he will lose complete function of his arm.

Erfan was eventually given surgery a month after his accident.
Evil: Hitler became a super-junkie during the Second World War

Adolf Hitler was holed up in the Berghof, his frozen cloud-cuckoo-land of a home in Obersalzberg, in Bavaria, with his lover Eva Braun.

Through the course of the war he had become a super-junkie, addicted to cocaine, hooked on the heroin-like drug eukodal, and a toxic cocktail of vitamins, animal hormones and narcotics supplied by a doctor known as the Reich injection master.

However, since defeat at Stalingrad he had barely set foot outside the door, so terrified was he of the snow. It was now February 1944 and, as his army was retreating from Ukraine, the British were bombing Berlin and many of his allies were abandoning him.

Yet Hitler, who previously had been so ill he spent his time watching ravens and performing wearying impersonations of different machine-gun sounds, had a new lease of life.

His personal physician, Theodor Morell, who the Fuhrer had recently awarded the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross, had just given him a new vitamin and hormone injection.

Before the injection, Morells Patient A was very tired and exhausted, without sleep. Afterwards he was very fresh  Fuhrer extremely pleased!

Hitler had another reason to be happy. Morell was also treating Eva Braun  Patient B. She demanded the same medication as Patient A in order to be on the same wavelength as her lover, who was 22 years her senior. Hitler received testosterone for his libido, while Braun was given medication to suppress menstruation so that their chemistry was right, and they could at least enjoy some sexual success in the momentary breaks between increasingly lengthy military briefings. That was what Hitler strived for.

On occasion, he even claimed that relationships outside marriage were in many respects superior, since they were rooted in natural sexual attraction.

He seemed convinced of the beneficial effect of physical love: without sex, he claimed, there was no art, no painting and no music. No civilised nation, Catholic Italy included, could manage without extramarital intercourse.

Morell also provided indirect information about the kind of copulation performed at the Berghof, when he stated after the war that Hitler had sometimes cancelled medical investigations to conceal wounds on his body from Eva Brauns aggressive sexual behaviour. Caring for the Fuhrer was exhausting work.

On the same wavelength: Eva Braun in 1937 - she demanded the same cocktail of drugs as Hitler in the final years of the Second World War when the Reich crumbled

Morell was so run-down that he could hardly climb a flight of stairs. The personal physician found no rest, because everyone  not just Hitler and his lover  needed him.

His patients had come to include all the top-ranking officials of the Reich and their allies: he treated Mussolini, who was given the codename Patient D; industrialists such as like Alfried Krupp or August Thyssen (fee for treatment: 20,000 Reichsmarks); many Gauleiter and Wehrmacht generals; Leni Riefenstahl, the film director and actress, who was given morphine enemas; SS chief Heinrich Himmler; foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop (Patient X), the Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer; Japanese ambassador General Hiroshi Oshima; and the wife of Reich Marshal Hermann Goring, who had injections on alternate days of Vitamultin forte  whatever was hidden behind that label.

More and more influential National Socialists made the pilgrimage to Morell  even if it was only a way of announcing their closeness to Hitler and confirming their own position.

But it was the Fuhrer himself who demanded the most of his personal physician, and Morell, who was himself in poor health by now, complained to the wife of the economics minister, Walther Funk, another patient: At all times of day and night I have to follow the instructions that I get from above.

At the moment I drive up to the Fuhrer at noon to possibly give him treatment, and come back to the hotel at almost two oclock in the afternoon, to lie in bed all day so that Im able to accompany the Fuhrer again the following day.

By now Morell was hooked on the needle himself, and his assistant, Dr Weber, had to travel from Berlin to the remote Berghof, as he is the best at giving injections, and the only one guaranteed to find my veins. What Morell was treating himself with is not recorded.

Love nest: Adolf Hitler, pictured with Eva Braun with their dogs. His arm were covered in marks caused by drugs use

Hitlers sexual pick-me-up was only temporary. While the Red Army was taking more and more towns in East Prussia in November 1944, Hitlers own veins were so wrecked that even the expert shot-giver Morell could hardly penetrate them.

The skin of the veins, perforated too many times, was inflamed, scarred and a peculiar shade of brown. Morell had to take a break: I cancelled injections today, to give the previous puncture holes a chance to heal.

Left inside elbow good, right still has red dots (but not pustules), where injections were given. F says this wasnt the case before.

Each jab created a new wound that joined the previous one, and it produced an elongated, growing crust what addicts call track marks.

Even Hitler was gradually becoming nervous, and worrying about what the huge number of injections was doing to him: When I gave him the intravenous injection, the Fuhrer thought I wasnt rubbing the area long enough with alcohol so that he often developed small red pustules at the needle holes.

Hitlers favourite poison was eukodal, a potent mixture containing an opioid called oxycodon, synthesised from opium. But when the drug waned, the trembling began, and in the last few weeks of 1944 only grew in intensity.

Morell expressed a suspicion that Hitler was suffering from Parkinsons. There is no way of telling whether this was accurate.

Base: By February 1944 Hitler's army was retreating from Ukraine, the British were bombing Berlin and many of his allies were abandoning him. The Fuhrer called for his personal drugs doctor to visit him in Berghof in Obersalzberg

Another explanation is that Hitlers notorious shaking was the direct effect of his unchecked drug consumption.

Drug use was widespread across the fighting forces of the Reich  for its new recruits, and even its prisoners.

From autumn 1944, when German hopes rested on a new device, the Seehund (Seal) mini-submarines, that could sail to the Thames Estuary and the beaches of Normandy in order to blow up Allied ships, Nazi leaders developed cocaine chewing gum to keep sailors awake.

It was decided to test the drug on prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp just north of Berlin.

They were given astonishingly high doses of drugs: 50-100 milligrams of pure cocaine in pill form, 20 milligrams in chewing gum, or 20 milligrams of Pervitin (effectively crystal meth) as chewing gum. Thirty minutes later the effect set in, and prisoners were forced to march on the camps testing track  an ordeal that would last to the end of the night. Between 4am and 5am, having spent seven or eight hours tramping in the dark, most of them gave up because they were footsore.

One camp inmate later described the experiments: Just now a singular patrol is marching round and round the parade ground interminably. All are kitted up and sing and whistle as they walk. Thats the pill patrol. Theyre being used to test out a new energy pill. How long can they keep going full steam on it?

Hitler committed suicide as the allies reached Berlin in April 30, 1945

After the first 48 hours its said that most of them had given up and collapsed, although the theory is that after taking this pill one can perform the impossible.

The Germans certainly hoped so. In December 1944, 5,000 members of the Hitler Youth, most of them teenagers and some as young as 12, were signed up and driven to the ports to man the mini-submarines.

Reporting for duty, they were given their special rations: hastily manufactured Pervitin tablets or cocaine-spiked chewing gum. The young sailors were fuelled by the hardest drugs that serving military personnel had ever taken, but the submarine campaign was a failure.

The drugged submariners were torpedo fodder for the Allies and died wretchedly, like kittens drowned in a sack.

Hitler was not the only one suffering the side effects of too much drug use. Hermann Goring, the second most powerful man in Germany, had developed a severe morphine addiction.

Moring, as he was secretly nicknamed, liked to take his craftsman-made syringe with its gold ring out of a light-brown deer-hide case, pull it open, draw back the sleeve of his green velvet dressing gown, bind his arm, narrow his eyes to find the right spot, and give himself a massive injection.

It was all the more reckless given that his taste for narcotics had led to a disastrous strategic decision. Shortly before Dunkirk in 1940, in his blissfully opium-soaked brain he decided that the glorious victory over the Allies should under no circumstances be left to the arrogant leaders of the army (the Wehrmacht).

They could at least enjoy sexual success between long war briefings

The German generals, Goring feared, would otherwise win such respect among the people that they might undermine his own position as well as Hitlers.

His pilots just needed an open target  the Wehrmacht tanks had to retreat a bit to stay out of the danger zone. This order  a demand that German tanks withdraw from Dunkirk  still puzzles historians today. When the British saw what was happening, they could hardly believe their luck.

Within a very short time, hundreds of rescue ships arrived: Royal Navy destroyers and other warships, launches, even packet steamers and confiscated private yachts, a colourfully assorted armada ceaselessly coming and going.

The Allied troops crossed makeshift bridges made of lorries with planks laid on the top and made their getaway through the miraculous loophole of Dunkirk.

Gorings high-handed plan to snatch victory from the air was a failure from the very beginning.

The Reich Marshal had overestimated himself in his morphine dream, in which his dive-bombing Stukas were sinking over a thousand of the British rescue boats.

But at the end of May, clouds had gathered and obstructed their view. The RAF, whose bases were much closer, also played their trump card: suddenly Spitfires appeared from above and conquered the sky.

Adolf Hitler asleep, next to Eva Braun in the teahouse on the Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden

The commander-in-chief of the army, Walther von Brauchitsch, stood in the map-house of the German HQ, about to have a nervous breakdown.

He implored Hitler to be allowed to strike again and bring the campaign to an end. But the dictator refused to budge. He would show the army. He and no one else would wage this war.

More than 340,000 British, French and Belgian soldiers escaped. The Allies averted a total defeat.

The revelations about the drug misuse of Hitler and his generals do not diminish his or their monstrous guilt.

Hitler did not murder because he was living in a haze  quite the contrary: he remained sane until the end. When there was no eukodal left for a golden shot, he opted for the bullet.

He hastily married Braun and celebrated with a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce on the side, a hydrogen cyanide capsule for Evas dessert and, for himself, a bullet in the brain from his 6.35mm Walther.

On April 30, 1945, at about 3.30pm, Hitler, Patient A, perished, leaving behind a nation that had overdosed on his own poisonous creed.

Germany, land of drugs, of escapism and world weariness, had been led to doom by a super-junkie.

 Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2015. Translation  Shaun Whiteside 2016.
A South Carolina woman has been awarded more than $4.6 million after being pricked by a needle in a Target parking lot.

A jury awarded the sum to Carla Denise Garrison, of Anderson, on Thursday. The award will be one of the largest in the county's history if it stands.

She was in a Target parking lot in May 2014 when her eight-year-old daughter Kaileigh picked up a hypodermic needle, court documents state.

Garrison swatted the needle out of Kaileigh's hand and it got stuck in her own palm.

Carla Denise Garrison, of Anderson, South Carolina, was awarded more than $4.6 million in damages after being pricked by a needle in the parking lot of this Target

The mother had to take medication to keep her from contracting HIV, which made her feel sick and left her bedridden, according to court documents.

Her husband Clint had to take time off work to take care of her, her attorney said.

The lawyer offered Target a $12,000 deal in February according to the Independent-Mail. Target offered $750 in response.

'When we started this, we were just trying to get Target to make my client whole, to pay for her medical bills and the time that her husband had to take off work,' attorney Joshua Hawkins told the Independent-Mail.

'We tried to be reasonable and not take this to trial. But Target took a really hard stance on it and I think the jury sent a message.'

Garrison's test for HIV and hepatitis have been negative.

Target is now considering an appeal, spokeswoman Erika Winkels said.

Punitive damages can be capped under certain circumstances by South Carolina law.

'The final damages award has not yet been determined by the Court,' Winkels told the Independent-Mail in an email. 'Target is currently considering post-trial motions and appeal options.'
Says she ended up 'completely enraptured with an ideal and not finding it'

Thought her college years at Syracuse would be much sexier than reality

Grew up with a Vietnam veteran father who intimidated her crushes

A woman in New York City didn't lose her virginity until she was hours away from turning 30 - but now wants to embrace the quirks she says got her there.

Lianne Stokes, who is now 37 and living in Austin, Texas, grew up in Nyack. Her father, a Vietnam veteran, had a way of intimidating her crushes.

That was only part of the equation for Stokes, who believes the actual reason why she didn't have sex until turning 30 was her warped idea of romance and what she describes as unrealistic expectations.

But Stokes refuses to lament the years she spent waiting. She hopes her upcoming memoir, Below Average: A Life Way Under the Bar, empowers others who feel left out.

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Lianne Stokes (pictured), who is now 37 and lives in Austin, Texas, grew up in Nyack, New York and ended up working in New York City. She waited until her 30th birthday to lose her virginity

Growing up, Stokes felt it was impossible for her to relate to the opposite gender.

'My father starts every conversation by asking "Do you hunt?" I grew up with a cartoon-character version of what men are like,' she told the New York Post.

Unbeknownst to her father, Stokes traveled to Ohio during her senior year of high school. She was hoping to surprise her crush there - and, maybe, lose her virginity.

When she got there, she told the young man that she had traveled to see the musical Cats. Sex did not happen.

Stokes (pictured) believes the reason why she didn't have sex until turning 30 was her warped idea of romance and what she describes as unrealistic expectations

Stokes then developed a vision for her college years at Syracuse University - a vision that turned out to be much sexier than reality.

'I viewed college as a place where everyone was sexy and dating and boozing. I was a virgin who had only been drunk once,' she said.

'I had visions of myself in a hot tub holding a cosmo in one hand, a textbook in the other, while some babe of a man played with my hair and I swatted him away.'

But her college years instead became filled with studying and not much else.

This continued throughout Stokes' stint in television, at a time when she had yet to experience her first kiss, and during her career in advertising.

'My whole relationship with men was full of unrealistic expectations,' she said. 'I was completely enraptured with an ideal and not finding it, so I kept holding back.'

But Stokes (pictured) now wants to celebrate every aspect of her personality and hopes her new memoir can help other women who might be feeling like misfits

The day before her 30th birthday, Stokes decided it was time for a change. One week later, she met a Scottish man at a restaurant in Williamsburg.

They went home together and he played a CD called 'babes in the bed'.

That specific night wasn't memorable, but Stokes doesn't regret waiting for the Scottish man.

'I joined in when I was ready. 'It took me years to realize that was part of my charm, she said.

'When you're an oddball, you feel left out. Then you realize everyone around you admires that you're not like everyone else. They weren't judging me. I was holding my own self back.'

She hopes her memoir can help other girls and women who might have trouble fitting it.

'I think girls and women should feel like they're enough,' she told the New York Post. 'It's going to be hard to make it and hard to find love, but never stop your hustle.'
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In the 1950s it wasn't uncommon for Los Angeles to have two sunrises.

The United States government conducted 928 atomic bomb tests in the Nevada Test Site, approximately 240 miles away from the City of Angels, from 1951 until 1992.

Those tests went off just 65 miles from the city of Las Vegas where thousands of people flocked to visit the iconic strip.

One hundred of the tests were atmospheric, according to Amusing Planet, with enormous mush room clouds.

The light given off by atmospheric atomic tests turned night into day for Los Angeles and Las Vegas and reporters and curious locals snapped photographs of the phenomenon.

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Nearly 1,000 atomic bomb tests (pictured) were detonated in the Nevada Test Site in the Nevada Desert from 1951 until 1992

Atomic bomb mushroom cloud seen from the Old Frontier Village (pictured) in Las Vegas stopped swimmers in their tracks as the nation became enamored with the tests

The tests went off just 65 miles from the city of Las Vegas (pictured) where thousands of people flocked to visit the iconic strip

Newspapers covered the events, which were considered spectacular despite their regularity.

'At first, the images seem rather mundane for looking so much like a sunrise  the difference of course is that this fission-born light comes straight from mans handiwork, and heralds the beginning of an arms race that in the 1960s tilted perilously close to Armageddon,' Wired reported.

Pictures taken by photojournalists at the time show how the cities reacted to the atomic bomb.

Some show visible detonations followed by blinding light, while others show locals stopped in their tracks at a pool as they turn to witness a mushroom cloud.

Americans were fascinated by nuclear weapons at this time and would watch broadcasts by local Los Angeles television networks of bombs detonating at early hours of the morning.

The city of Los Angeles approximately 240 miles away experienced 'two sunrises' when the atmospheric tests were detonated

The atomic bomb blasts caused the sky to light up in the city for several seconds. This phenomenon was captured by photojournalists at the time

The largest of the tests was done on March 7, 1955, and illuminated Los Angeles for 20 seconds with a 'premature dawn', according to reporters at the time

Photojournalists were invited out to the test site in the Nevada Desert to capture the bomb blast as atomic bombs were detonated

Military observers from Europe were also invited to come water the mushroom cloud snake skyward after an atomic test

Americans were fascinated by nuclear weapons at this time and would watch broadcasts by local Los Angeles television networks of bombs detonating at early hours of the morning

A detonation at 5.30am on April 22, 1952 received remarkably high ratings for the time slot.

The largest of the tests was done on March 7, 1955, and illuminated Los Angeles for 20 seconds with a 'premature dawn', according to reporters at the time.

Miss Atomic Bomb pageants were held in Nevada during the 'atomic age'and Lee Merlin was the final and most famous of all the women crowned with the title.

Merlin was photographed with a mushroom cloud made of cotton on the front of her swimsuit, which became an iconic picture of the time.

Pictures taken by photojournalists at the time show how the cities reacted to the atomic bomb. This image shows the Fremont Hotel with a mushroom cloud exploding behind it in June of 1957

Just one month earlier in 1957, another atomic detonation lit up the sky behind the Fremont Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada
Holidaymakers were forced to endure a terrifying two-hour flight alongside a migrant who repeatedly screamed Allahu Akbar and death is coming  as it emerged the Home Office is using budget airlines to deport illegal immigrants.

Children were reduced to tears and travellers feared a terror attack until it became clear that the handcuffed man was being guarded by Home Office officials.

But there was no official explanation from the captain or crew as he kicked, thrashed about and threatened passengers and crew in an expletive-strewn tirade.

Click below to listen to the audio

It has emerged that budget airlines are being used by officials to deport illegal immigrants from Britain

In an extraordinary 11-minute audio recording made by a passenger sitting just yards away and obtained by The Mail on Sunday, the man screamed Allahu Akbar 29 times, death is coming 17 times, and we will die nine times.

The unidentified migrant, who was being deported to Venice, kept up the crude and threatening behaviour for nearly the entire length of the budget flight, according to those on board.

The presence of the disturbed man on easyJet flight EZY5263 from Gatwick to Venice on August 23 turned what should have been a routine trip into a nightmare.

Ironically, rather than calming worried passengers, easyJet cabin crew ordered passengers to delete videos and pictures of the man they had taken on mobile phones.

Passengers were left terrified by the threats made by the handcuffed man on the plane

In a bid to control the deportee, one Home Office official crouched on his knees facing the man, with an arm on his shoulders, for much of the flight.

The man is thought to be a failed asylum seeker who had spent a year in a UK detention centre. He was being deported to Italy under the Dublin Regulation, which dictates that people must claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.

It is the first time a deportee has been reported to have disrupted a budget commercial flight to Europe. The Home Office spends about 30 million a year on returning illegal immigrants and foreign criminals to their home countries. It charters private jets and pays for individual seats on commercial flights.

Last night, a couple who were travelling on the flight on the way to their honeymoon destination revealed how they feared for their lives. Lucy and Terence OSullivan, from Detling, Kent, were sitting only five rows in front of the man, who was positioned at the back of the plane, with officials either side of him.

Mrs OSullivan, 33, a carer, said: It was really scary. I felt threatened. I was tearful. The worst-case scenario was that we werent going to get off that plane alive because we didnt know who the person was, what the circumstances were or anything. There was nothing explained to us. It was very daunting.

When we got on board, the seats were moving so he was obviously kicking or thrashing out. I thought someone was having a fit.

But when we got up close we could see people were restraining him.

As events unfolded without any official explanation, Mrs OSullivan even feared they could be victims of a terror attack.

We didnt know whether he came from a group of terrorists, or anything along those lines, she said.

Lucy and Terrence O'Sullivan were left terrified by the threats made by the handcuffed man, who was being deported to Venice

We didnt know if there would be people on the plane who knew he was going to be deported that were on his side and whether they were going to mount a terrorist attack to free this person. She said she thought to herself: Weve just got married  is this the last time were going to be together?

Mr OSullivan, 34, a site auditor, added: It was pretty terrifying. I was thinking hes somehow got explosives on to the plane and he doesnt want to go through with it. I absolutely feared for my life. It was only later during the flight that fellow passengers explained the situation to the couple.

I was thinking hes somehow got explosives on to the plane and he doesnt want to go through with it. I absolutely feared for my life. Terence O'Sullivan

The migrant, believed to be of African origin, shouted and screamed constantly for the first half an hour of the flight and then sporadically thereafter. Passengers were not allowed to use the lavatory towards the rear of the plane where the deportee was seated in the back row. Italian police boarded the flight when it landed in Venice before anyone was allowed off and took the migrant away.

After complaining about the incident, easyJet told the couple, who had paid 348.68 for their return flights, that they were not eligible for a refund. Another passenger on the flight, who was with his wife, their two children, and his brother and sister-in-law and their three children, said his family had to endure the mans crude and threatening language.

Last night easyJet apologised for the distressing incident and announced it was reviewing the circumstances with the Home Office. The company said: We acknowledge that on this occasion the situation onboard could have been distressing for other passengers and apologise for that.

However, the safety of the flight was never compromised.

We would not have carried the passenger had he displayed threatening behaviour prior to the flight, the captain would have diverted if any threat was made to the safety of the flight or passengers on board, and he was in the care of two officers escorting him on behalf of the Home Office for the duration of the flight.

We are reviewing this case with the Home Office to see if lessons can be learned.

EasyJet only received three complaints from customers on board this flight.
A man claims to have experienced a close encounter with a 'Yeti' after coming across a 'gorilla-like creature' in Welsh woodlands.

Bigfoot enthusiast Jason Parsons, 40, was on a hunt for the elusive beast in woods near Caerphilly Mountain, North of Cardiff, when he experienced the surreal sighting, reports the Daily Star Online.

Mr Parsons had whipped out his camera to record an oddly shaped twig he believed may have been related to yeti activity in the area when he caught the sighting.

Jason Parsons claims to have seen a yeti after captured the shady outline of a 'gorrilla-like creature' lurking in the woods of Caerphilly mountain in Wales

On watching the film back at home he was gob-smacked to see the shady outline of a tall creature lurking in the brush and was convinced he had finally laid eyes on the mysterious bigfoot.

He told the Daily Star: 'To my astonishment, I saw what I can only describe as a gorilla-like figure, slightly blended into the dark bush, but still having a clear form, just like a gorilla or Bigfoot creature might have.'

Mr Parsons had decided to go on a trek across the mountain after finding strange x-shaped structures left in the woods.

He believed these had been constructed by bigfoot and trekked up a trail to find out more.

After analysing his footage, Mr Parsons showed it to the British Bigfoot Research organisation - who were excited by his apparent close encounter.

Co-founder of the group, Adam Bird, said: 'Sceptics will say it is just a person but why would a person stand in the middle of a remote forest, swinging and pushing a tree? Lets think about it logically.

Most scientists have dismissed sightings of bigfoot as folklore and hoaxes (artist's impression)

'We believe Jason Parsons has captured footage of something quite significant.'

Legends of Bigfoot have been reported around the world since the 1850s but sightings became popular during the twentieth century as hunters often reported sightings of large ape-like men in the forests.
It is an enduring wartime mystery  the exact fate and final resting place of a Royal Navy spy submarine sunk with the loss of all its crew in 1914.

And for Keith Hiscock, one of Britains leading marine biologists, the loss is also a personal tragedy because his grandfather was among 25 British sailors on board that day.

The fate of D2  described in the Navys official Loss List as sunk in North Sea, cause unknown  has always nagged at Dr Hiscock. But following a chance conversation with a former colleague, it appears the truth may finally emerge.

Marine biologist Keith Hiscock, whose grandfather is believed to have perished during a WW1 submarine mission, is to visit the 'lost' vessel after the sub - the D2 - was discovered by a Dutch diving team in the North Sea

On Tuesday, Dr Hiscock will join a Dutch diving team to investigate a wreck that is believed to be the wartime submarine.

It is lying on a level seabed in 65ft of water off the East Frisians  a chain of islands off the coasts of Holland and Germany.

Startlingly clear sonar images show the dimensions of a 164ft submarine-shaped vessel that closely match those of D2.

Dr Hiscocks grandfather Arthur Hiscock, then 34, was serving on board as a petty officer.

With the Great War only three months old, he had already won the Distinguished Service Medal following action at Heligoland Bight, off the German coast. Ministry of Defence records describe his ability as superior.

Dr Hiscock, 68, from Plymouth, said: Finding D2 would be a great thing for me and my family. The location, and how she was lost, have been a mystery for more than 100 years  too long. Ive always wondered exactly how he lost his life. Now Ill hopefully find out.

Dr Keith Hiscock, 68, of Plymouth, Devon, intends to dive the final resting place of Arthur Hiscock (pictured) who perished at the age of 34 when the submarine was sunk on November 25, 1914

It will be a mystery solved. I dont have any emotional attachment to him but Im very aware that his remains may lie inside that submarine. It is a war grave and we will treat it with due respect.

Dr Hiscock, former head of the Marine Nature Conservation Review of Great Britain, began researching D2 in earnest three years ago.

He attended conferences, researched naval records, contacted professional Dutch diving companies and even asked British energy company Dong  which has a base on the East Frisians  if it knew of a wreck within its offshore wind farm. All leads drew a blank until a chance meeting on a train with his friend and former colleague Dr Chris Pater, head of marine planning at Historic England. Months earlier they had briefly discussed the search for D2. Dr Pater revealed he was travelling to a European conference and offered to approach colleagues at the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency.

As a result, they uncovered the charts and images revealing a wreck of the right shape and size in the precise area where she the submarine was believed to have been lost.

A team of Dutch wreck divers has been licensed to explore the site and, after hearing Dr Hiscocks story, they agreed he could join them.

MoD records suggest that on the day D2 was sunk  November 25, 1914  the submarine was spying on enemy warships in the area.

Ministry of Defence records suggest that the day D2 (pictured) was sunk the submarine was spying on enemy warships off the East Frisians

Documents suggest the role of the 600-ton vessel was to monitor German shipping movements to and from Hamburg. Dr Hiscock found one report claiming that it had been hit by an enemy patrol boat, although no clear evidence has emerged.

She could have been swamped by heavy seas, he said. We cant know until we see the hull.

But its clear she was spying on German shipping at the very start of the war. The Navy could not have known what fate befell her. All they knew was that she hadnt come back.
An eight-year-old Missouri boy can no longer go to school after a restraining order was issued against him by the parents of another student.

Peyton Whitehead has been ordered to stay more than 1,000 from six students at his school, Hillsboro Elementary, until a court date that is set for September 20.

The order states that Whitehead punched a seven-year-old boy several times and said he would 'slice his head off', during an altercation on August 31.

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Peyton Whitehead (pictured) has been ordered to stay more than 1,000 from six students at his school, Hillsboro Elementary, in a restraining order

Then, on September 6, the eight-year-old told a girl, who is the same age, he was 'going to murder her with a knife and throw her off a cliff' and kill her dog, St Louis Today reports.

But Peyton's mother, Danielle, struggled with the order put down against her son, and said he had even been told he could be arrested if he breaks it.

Video courtesy of KMOV

'The cop told me my son is not even allowed to attend school now,' she said to WPXI, struggling to hold back tears.

'I don't know what to do, I have to wait to the court date... he explained that if he ever did have any kind of contact with (the other students) as he's riding his bicycle that they would have to come and put handcuffs on him.'

Peyton's mother, Danielle, says her son has been told he will be arrested by police if he brakes the order

Court documents for the eight-year-old show the order given out by a judge against Peyton Whitehead

The upset mother added that she is now home-schooling her son, who has learning difficulties.

Danielle Whitehead also said the claims against her son are exaggerated, and the neighbors who made them are escalating a feud over property code violations.

'This is active retaliation against us because we're questioning the bylaws of our little community here,' Whitehead told St Louis Today.

'Unfortunately, my son was caught in the crossfires of that.'
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A hero driver leapt from his cab to save passengers from a stricken steam train amid fears the engine was about to explode.

The vintage locomotive, which was carrying 50 passengers, struck a tractor at a level crossing near Dymchurch.

The volunteer driver leapt 'four or five feet' from the train to help people escape from one of the carriages which was left tilting sideways after the collision.

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A driver leapt from his cab to save passengers from a stricken steam train amid fears the engine was about to explode

The vintage locomotive, which was carrying 50 passengers, struck a tractor at a level crossing near Dymchurch

The volunteer driver leapt 'four or five feet' from the train to help people escape from one of the carriages which was left tilting sideways after the collision

Five people, including the driver, were injured after the train derailed off the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch line, and treated at the scene by paramedics.

Crews then secured the locomotive's boiler which was 'thought to be at risk of exploding', the fire service said.

Witness Sandra Leverick told Kent Online: 'There is an unmanned crossing which I have seen the tractor using regularly today but the tractor wasn't moving and the train was coming.

'They carried on blowing the whistle and then suddenly the front engine part of the train was off the tracks.

'The driver was amazing. I know they are all volunteers and he leapt about four to five feet out of the train and was then helping people from the first carriage which was leaning on to the ground.'

The fire service said it was called to reports of a collision between the train and a farm tractor on a level crossing on Hythe Road at 2.40pm.

Witness Sandra Leverick said: 'The driver was amazing. I know they are all volunteers and he leapt about four to five feet out of the train and was then helping people from the first carriage which was leaning on to the ground'

The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch line - which was built to run trains at 25mph - was shut after the incident

The locomotive and first carriage were derailed, while the remaining 12 carriages were unaffected.

The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch line - which was built to run trains at 25mph - was shut after the incident.

A police spokesman said: 'Police were informed at 2.35pm on 10 September that a train on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway had collided with a tractor at a crossing in Dymchurch.

'No serious injuries have been reported.'
Michael Foster (pictured) was barred by Mr Corbyn after mounting a powerful attack accusing Mr Corbyns leadership cabal of being behind incidents of intimidation

Jeremy Corbyn has reignited the race row engulfing Labour by suspending a Jewish party donor who criticised his regime in The Mail On Sunday.

Michael Foster was barred by Mr Corbyn after mounting a powerful attack accusing Mr Corbyns leadership cabal of being behind incidents of intimidation.

He likened them to the Sturmabteilung  the stormtroopers, known as the SA, or Brownshirts, who helped to cement the Nazis in power in 1930s Germany.

Despite Mr Fosters status as one of Labours top donors  giving nearly 700,000 to the party over the past three years  he has been excluded while he is investigated for abuse.

As a result, Mr Foster will be banned from the partys annual conference in Liverpool and prevented from voting in this months leadership contest between Mr Corbyn and Owen Smith.

Last night, a furious Mr Foster said he feared the action heralded the start of a full-scale purge of Mr Corbyns opponents after his expected victory in the contest.

Mr Foster said: The rule of law is being ignored because of intimidation by Corbyn, backed by Momentum, his Praetorian Guard. This will presage the purge of opponents within the Labour Party and then the deselection of any MP who is not signed up to the Lefts ideology.

Criticise Corbyn by using the free press and within hours 11,000 people petition the National Executive Committee for your suspension. The coward NEC then takes away your democratic right both to free speech and to vote and you are excluded from the Party. There is no due process.

He added: Corbyn is not just bad for Labour, he is bad for Britains democracy.

Labour General Secretary Iain McNicol told Mr Foster last week that he was being suspended because of the urgency to protect the partys reputation.

ACCUSATIONS OF ANTI-SEMITISM PROMPT VICIOUS LABOUR REVENGE 'If MPs declare their opposition to Corbyn, bully boy McCluskey threatens to target them with deselection. Oppose them as a Jewish donor and the riposte from Seumas Milne, Corbyns mouthpiece, is that you are part of a Blairite, Right-wing conspiracy (the ancient racist rhetoric is that Jews dont act alone, the malevolent Jew always conspires) to destabilise the democratically elected leader. MICHAEL FOSTER, MoS, August 14, 2016' 'He is too weak to stand up against the wing of the party on whose support he relies. These people have a Pavlovian reaction to Jews and Israel: see a Jew, see an anti-Palestinian. They blend Israel and Zionism into the supposed demagoguery of the classic Jew, an all-controlling malevolent demon intent on committing incremental genocide against the Palestinian people. Advertisement

He is accused of breaching a party leadership rule that all eligible members and supporters must conduct themselves in a calm and polite manner and be respectful to each other at all times.

Mr McNicol said in a letter to Mr Foster: It is important that these allegations are investigated and the NEC will be asked to authorise a full report to be drawn up with recommendations for disciplinary action if appropriate.

Mr Foster wrote his article for this newspaper in response to a series of allegations of violent and anti-Semitic incidents blamed on members of Momentum, the pressure group set up to maintain Mr Corbyns grip on power.

They have been accused of singling out moderate MPs who are opposed to Mr Corbyns leadership for abuse and running social media campaigns garnering support for the deselection of such MPs from Parliament.

Mr Foster is understood to be furious that the party has taken action against him under the very rules which were intended be used against the anti-Semitic abuse.

DATELINE OF A ROW THAT JUST WON'T DIE June 15, 2015 Political blog Guido Fawkes reveals Jeremy Corbyn referred to militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas as friends at a meeting in Parliament in 2009. He later says he regrets it. October 4, 2015 Jewish actress Maureen Lipman hits out at Mr Corbyn, drawing attention to his controversial meetings with people she claims were virulent anti-Semites. Mrs Lipman adds: If he is not anti-Semitic himself then he is more than happy to consort with those who are. April 26, 2016 Labour MP Naz Shah is accused of anti-Semitism after it is discovered that before she was elected she shared a graphic on Facebook in 2014 showing Israels outline on a map of the US, commenting: Problem solved. She is suspended from party and apologises in Parliament. Jeremy Corbyn and Shami Chakrabarti attend the Anti Semitism inquiry findings at Savoy Place, on June 30, 2016 April 28, 2016 Ken Livingstone defends Shah, claiming she is not anti-Semitic. He provokes outrage by referring to Hitlers policy of removing Jewish people to Israel, arguing he supported Zionism. He is subsequently suspended. April 29, 2016 Labour launches an anti-Semitism inquiry chaired by Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of rights group Liberty, pictured above with Mr Corbyn. June 30, 2016 Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth walks out in tears from press conference to launch Labours anti-Semitism report after being singled out by a member of Momentum while the leader looks on. August 4, 2016 Reports emerge that Miss Chakrabarti has been nominated for a peerage by Mr Corbyn, weeks after her report on anti-Semitism was condemned as a whitewash. Advertisement

Moderates fear that if, as expected, Mr Corbyn wins the leadership contest against Mr Smith on September 24, he will crack down even harder against his opponents.

Only three days ago the two leadership contenders clashed angrily over the partys record on tackling anti-Semitism and abuse within Labour. Mr Smith claimed there was a hard-Left infiltration of Labour and that some were bringing in to our party anti-Semitic attitudes.

But Mr Corbyn responded by branding Mr Smiths attacks unfair and saying: I have spent my life opposing racism in any form.

In his article on August 14, Mr Foster compared the Corbyn cabal to the Sturmabteilung as part of an argument that they were using Momentum as an intimidatory device in a manner similar to that used by the nascent Nazi regime.

Mr Foster wrote: Once political parties believe they are above the law, it ends with all opposition silenced, whether it is my grandparents in Dachau, or the Left in Erdogans Turkey rounded up and held uncharged in prison. And in reference to a recent court judgment about the leadership contest, he added that the decision advantaged Corbyn and his Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers).

To Mr Corbyns fury, an accompanying news story highlighted that the stormtroopers were also know as the Brownshirts.

Mr Foster went on to say in his MoS article: If MPs declare their opposition to Corbyn, bully boy [Len] McCluskey [the Unite union leader] threatens to target them with deselection.

Oppose them as a Jewish donor and the riposte from Seumas Milne, Corbyns mouthpiece, is that you are part of a Blairite, Right-wing conspiracy. 

In an earlier article for this newspaper, on April 10, he accused Mr Corbyns supporters of blending Israel and Zionism into the supposed demagoguery of the classic Jew, an all-controlling malevolent demon, and a rich one, intent on committing incremental genocide against the Palestinian people.

The articles led to Mr Foster being bombarded with abuse by Momentum activists, with 11,000 people signing a petition calling for his suspension. The anti-abuse rules used against Mr Foster had been instituted in the wake of a review into allegations of racism carried out by Shami Chakrabarti earlier this year.

The report by the former Liberty director, who has since been given a peerage by the Labour leader, was dismissed by critics as a whitewash after it found the Labour Party was not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism.

The row follows a string of claims that supporters of Mr Corbyn have been behind alleged anti-Semitic attacks on his moderate opponents. Last week, Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP who criticised Jeremy Corbyn, said she had been given police protection after receiving 25,000 abusive messages since the end of June.

Counter-terrorism officers are investigating after one abuser accused the Stoke-on-Trent MP of treason and said the gallows would be a fine and fitting place for her.

She was also called a dyke and a CIA agent by someone claiming to be a supporter of Mr Corbyn.

Moderates have accused Mr Corbyn of helping to whip up sentiment against Ms Smeeth by holding a Momentum rally in the town as part of what has been dubbed his deselection tour: Stoke is one area likely to face bitter reselection contests after changes are made to constituency boundaries later in this Parliament, which is expected to trigger brutal battles within the party.

Mr Corbyns opponents point to their leaders own remarks in 2009 when he referred to militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas as friends at a meeting in Parliament.

Earlier this year, Ken Livingstone provoked outrage by saying that Hitler was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.

Moderate MPs opposed to Mr Corbyns leadership  a majority of the party in the Commons  are divided about whether to serve reluctantly under Mr Corbyn while they resist these calls for their deselection, or to form a splinter group on their own.

The row comes as union barons gather in Brighton this weekend for the start of the TUC conference against the backdrop of the turmoil in Labour. TUC General Secretary Frances OGrady is expected to enter a plea for Labour to stop the in-fighting and start mapping out how to win the next Election.

The Corbynite revolution has made his party truly foul: STEPHEN POLLARD, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, on how Labour is punishing those who attempt to tackle anti-semitism

Its the ultimate irony. When a Jew complains about the Labour Partys attitude to anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn, it is the Jew who is purged.

The Corbynites who now control the Labour Party can put whatever spin on it they choose, but thats the reality of what has happened to Michael Foster.

Mr Foster, a long-standing and generous donor to the party, as well as a recent Labour parliamentary candidate, is not a man to stand back and accept the foul behaviour of some of his fellow Labour members and their Momentum comrades.

His comparison of the tactics of the hard left to Nazi stormtroopers may have been more of a scream of anger than an academically rigorous description, but think about what lay behind it.

For months he has witnessed a series of Labour members exposed as anti-Semities.

He has seen the shocking antics of the Corbynite Momentum organisation, which is engaged in a takeover of the Labour Party.

Jeremy Corbyn protests that he has attempted to tackle anti-Semitism and has said repeatedly that he instigated the report by Shami Chakrabarti

And he has seen  and been the target of  the disgusting anti-Semitic abuse which is now par for the course for anyone identified as a Jew on social media, almost always from people who express their support for Jeremy Corbyn.

In response, he has tried, tried and tried again to save the party he loves by demanding its leadership confronts this.

All to no avail. Is it any wonder his language was strident?

Nothing better illustrates why he is so angry at what is happening to the Labour Party than its response to his Mail on Sunday article. Instead of asking why a man who has spent his entire life serving the party should feel as he does, the party has suspended him.

That is a shocking message that everyone concerned with decency in politics should note.

Labour has shown that it is now, quite simply, an indecent party that punishes those who attempt to prevent that indecency.

Jeremy Corbyn protests that he has attempted to tackle anti-Semitism. He says repeatedly that he instigated the report by Shami Chakrabarti, as if that demonstrates his bona fides.

But no one is taken in by any of this charade any more.

Ms Chakrabarti is now a widely discredited figure, joining the Labour Party on the day she started her supposedly independent report and then accepting a peerage from Mr Corbyn. She has been exposed as nothing more than a spokeswoman for Labours hard left leader.

The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis put it well: The credibility of her report lies in tatters and the Labour Partys stated intention, to unequivocally tackle anti-Semitism, remains woefully unrealised.

As for Jeremy Corbyns commitment to tackling anti-Semitism: all one needs to know is that two weeks ago the Labour leader chose to share a platform with Jackie Walker. Ms Walker, you may recall, was suspended from the party for writing that Jews were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade.

As vice-chairman of Momentum, Ms Walker is a significant figure. It might have sent a powerful message had Labour decided that a woman with such views about Jews  historical bunkum, it should be said  was not welcome in the party.

Instead, it lifted her suspension  which sent a very different but no less powerful message. And then Mr Corbyn chose to address a Momentum rally two weeks ago, speaking alongside her.

Not that anyone should be surprised that the Labour leader keeps unsavoury company: in the past he has appeared alongside Hamas and Hezbollah representatives and referred to them as friends.

But the real story here is that Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party has now consciously decided that when a Jew points out that a cancer has taken hold, it should be the Jew, not the cancer, that is purged.

It seems scarcely possible that such a thing should be possible in the 21st Century, let alone in a party that once proudly fought prejudice.
Authorities asked employees to evacuate the park, which is now closed

Person on the phone also warned that people there would be shot

State police received a phone call saying there was a bomb at the park

The Six Flags America theme park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was evacuated because of a bomb and shooting threat.

State police received a phone call Saturday afternoon warning that there was a bomb inside the park, NBC Washington reported.

The person on the phone, who called around 1:30 pm according to Fox 5, also said that people at Six Flags America would be shot.

Authorities told Six Flags America about the call and asked them to evacuate visitors.

The Six Flags America theme park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was evacuated because of a bomb and shooting threat. Visitors are pictured at the exit Saturday afternoon

State police received a phone call Saturday afternoon warning that there was a bomb inside the park and that people there would be shot. Visitors are pictured during the evacuation

The threat came on the eve of the 15th 9/11 anniversary.

Police investigated the origin and validity of the phone call. County officers said they didn't find any source of danger inside the park.

There were about 3,000 people inside Six Flags America when the evacuation happened, according to authorities.

'The safety of our guests and employees is always our highest priority,' a Six Flags America spokeswoman said.

The park was about to close for a private event when the evacuation took place. It will reopen on a normal schedule.

Authorities told Six Flags America about the call and asked them to evacuate visitors. Police vehicles are pictured at the park on Saturday

Police investigated the origin and validity of the phone call. Officers said they didn't find any source of danger inside the park. Some are pictured responding at the scene on Saturday

There were about 3,000 people inside Six Flags America when the evacuation happened, according to authorities. An area close to the park is pictured as visitors left
On Friday, Whitman apologized for mistakenly giving the OK to responders

Christine Todd Whitman, who was the head of the Environmental Protection Agency during the September 11 attacks, has apologized for saying the air was safe to breathe in the days after 9/11.

Whitman admitted to making a mistake by saying responders could go in to Ground Zero just a week after the attack.

Since then hundreds have died from inhaling toxins and the number of those affected continues to climb.

The former New Jersey governor made sure to point out she never lied, but rather she had been given bad information by government scientists.

Former head of the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman (pictured), apologized for saying the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe after 9/11

'Whatever we got wrong, we should acknowledge and people should be helped. I'm very sorry that people are sick,' Whitman told the Guardian.

Three days after the attack, Whitman assured the first responders the air was clean to breathe.

'The good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause us no concern,' she said at the time.

Now, as several reports on the ongoing health crisis are due to be released amid the 15th anniversary of the attacks on Sunday, Whitman has acknowledged the mistake that was made.

'I'm very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I'm sorry.

'We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had,' she said.

Since then hundreds have died from inhaling toxins and the number of those affected continues to climb

Three days after the attack, Whitman assured the first responders the air was clean to breathe

Whitman was unaware the air was still thick with dust and asbestos-heavy debris, she says.

The attacks left just over 3,000 people dead and since then more than 1,000 people who registered with the World Trade Center Health Program have died.

The program was set up to help those who suffered health conditions in the years following 9/11.

Reports say the number of people who fell ill after the attacks and the types of illnesses developed since have been greater than initially believed.

Asthma and post-traumatic stress disorder were linked to persistent gastroesophageal problems post-9/11, according to the New York Daily News.

Some people who didn't initially develop gastroesophageal issues later developed ailments, according to the studies.

The EPA told responders to wear masks and respirators as they searched for victims among the rubble.

More than 1,000 people who registered with the World Trade Center Health Program, which handled the health of many first responders, have died due to health complications since

However, the surrounding areas were deemed safe to breathe.

'Every time it comes around to the anniversary I cringe, because I know people will bring up my name, they blame me, they say that I lied and that people died because I lied, people have died because I made a mistake,' Whitman said.

Whitman stepped down from her role as head of the EPA in 2003.

In 2008, a judge said that Whitman had not lied to the public and was not personally responsible for the inaccurate information given to the first responders.
Tame lions are being killed by rich trophy hunters conned into thinking they are wild animals, claims a safari cameraman.

Derek Gobbett said that 'canned lions', which are released from captivity mere days before a hunt, are being illegally killed in South Africa, reports the BBC.

Mr Gobbett captured upsetting footage of a male lion being gunned down after he was hired by 10 American hunters, who had paid thousands of dollars to kill one of the magnificent animals.

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Tame lions are being killed by rich trophy hunters conned into thinking they are wild animals claims a safari cameraman (pictured, hunters pose next to lion after a hunt in South Africa)

He claims that the men were led to believe the lionesses they were tracking had been roaming the wild.

Mr Gobbett told the BBC that while some of the lions were released a day before the hunt, others were set free just hours before it began.

Canned lion hunting is illegal in South Africa, but the hunting of those bred in captivity is not.

Discussing the hunt, Mr Gobbett described how the hunters were mislead by their guides into thinking they had just snared one of Africa's deadliest predators.

He said: 'Right from the start, the guys are told it's very dangerous - that these are wild animals and of course they take it all in.

'It's all: 'You got so lucky, that was such an amazing shot.' Slaps on the back: 'You're such a hero, look at what you've done - you have got your king of the jungle.

'Meanwhile, it's all just a lie.'

Pictured, a still from the shocking footage captured by safari cameraman Derek Gobbett

In the video captured by Mr Gobbett a lion is seen staring into the camera before retreating into the bush.

The frantic hunters, sitting on the pack of a jeep, fire off shots at the lion who is seen arching up as its takes a round in the back.

Finishing his kill, the hunter takes another shot into the bush.

Later three men are seen sitting triumphantly behind the beast and one of the hunters kisses a dead lioness on the head.

One of the hunters says: 'When it was behind the bush, it was one of the scariest things ever.'

Trophy hunting is rife in South Africa and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) believes that 1.7million animals were killed for such a purpose between 2004 and 2014.

Pictured, a magnificent lion slumps dead in the sand of the South African bush after being gunned down by hunters

A lion welfare charity, Lion Aid, have commended Mr Gobbett for shining a light on canned lion hunting.

Christine Macsween from Lion Aid said: 'Well done Derek Gobbett for having the courage to release his own graphic footage of a 2012 canned lion hunt. T

'These hunts happen every single day and the 6000 to 8000 captive bred lions held in lion farms in South Africa represent the stock of lions waiting to be shot for trophies.
The woman who played a starring role in one of the most famous photos of the 20th century has died.

Greta Friedman passed away in an assisted living facility in Virginia at the age of 92, her family confirmed to the New York Daily News.

And while her name may not ring any bells, the famous photograph of the woman being kissed by a sailor in the middle of Times Square celebrating the Japanese surrender in WWII is seen and known by millions.

Greta Friedman, he woman who played a starring role in one of the most famous photos of the 20th century, has died

She will be laid to rest alongside her late husband, Mischa Friedman, who died in 1998, at the Arlington National Ceremony.

It took decades before Friedman and George Mendonsa, a sailor on leave, were identified as the couple locking lips in the picture taken by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945.

Mendonsa is 93, and lives in Rhodes Island.

Freidman's son, Joshua, said his mother and Mendonsa became friends as they got older, despite Greta being kissed entirely out-of-the-blue on V-J Day all those years ago.

'My mom always had an appreciation for a feminist viewpoint, and understood the premise that you don't have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street,' Josh Friedman told the NYDN.

'(But) she didn't assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.'

Greta Friedman and George Mendonsa, a sailor on leave, were identified as the couple locking lips in the picture taken on August 14, 1945

George Mendonsa (pictured) holds one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century at his Middletown, Rhode Island home

He said they met again in the 1980s, and from that point his mother and the man she will be forever linked with would exchange Christmas cards.

There had been dozens of people falsely claim they were the couple who starred in the iconic image. However, a 2012 book, The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II, verified that Friedman and Mendonsa were the two in the shot.

The former dental assistant is survived by her two children, Joshua and Mara, two grandchildren, Caroline and Michael, plus plenty of other relatives.
Maria Fernandes (pictured) insists her husband is 'not a bad man'

Every Friday evening Maria Fernandes would practice her Spanish by listening to an audiobook, then watch a bit of television before retiring to bed. There was never time, she says, to go out to dinner or the cinema with her husband, Keith Vaz, because he always worked late.

But on Friday, September 2  a night when not only her routine, but the entire fabric of her family life, would rupture  he hastened home. He arrived at about 9pm, having vaguely forewarned her that there might be reporters outside the house.

Ms Fernandes gave it little thought. As the wife of a high-profile, often controversial politician, she was accustomed to outside scrutiny. But nothing could prepare her for what was coming next.

First, though, having greeted her tepidly, Vaz busied himself with mundane household chores. Knowing details of his fall from grace would break over the weekend, he was in fact steeling himself for a devastating admission. After 20 minutes he ushered his wife into his study, where they sat a few feet apart, facing each other on leather armchairs.

Interlocking his hands on his lap, he paused for a few moments then detonated his bombshell.

'He said something was going to break [in a newspaper], that it was bad,' says Ms Fernandes. 'He said it was going to be hard; he said it was going to be of a sexual nature.'

While Vaz did not go into detail, he did concede  to his wife's incredulity  that his infidelity involved men, not women. Later, she learned that they were gay escorts and that her husband of 23 years had paid cash for their services.

Until this point Vaz, who resigned as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee last Tuesday, had tried hard to prevent his face betraying evidence of strain.

Maria Fernandes said the revelation that her husband of 23 years paid two male prostitutes for sex had come 'out of the blue' and was a 'complete shock'

But now, in his study, he was tearfully begging for forgiveness, repeatedly stressing that he was 'very sorry' and promising that it would 'never happen again'.

If Ms Fernandes cannot recite with clarity everything they discussed during this excruciating exchange it is because, she says, his words washed over her: shock rendered her 'numb'.

She says: 'It was like an out-of-body experience, it was not real. There was a lot of things over the years, but this had not been one.'

Over the next 48 hours Ms Fernandes would learn, just as the nation would, that her husband had paid two male East European prostitutes for sex, and discussed buying cocaine.

She says: 'It was a terrible shock and I am still processing it Keith is not a bad person, he's just done a terrible thing. It's absolutely terrible because it's affected all of us, because it's affected the kids.

'But he's a good person, a good father, he's been a good husband and nine-tenths of the time he's got things right. This time he's fallen badly.'

For the rest of that Friday night they didn't talk. But Ms Fernandes explained the situation, as she understood it, to their 19-year-old daughter. Their 21-year-old son was in Vietnam on holiday and would learn nothing until 24 hours later.

Ms Fernandes says: 'She was very upset, she was very angry with her father, and I think she was angry for me. She was picking up the anger that I should have felt. She also wanted to see he was OK because they have a very close relationship. She was worried about him.'

Over the next few days Ms Fernandes would experience a range of emotions, from profound sadness to white-hot, visceral anger at what she squarely calls Vaz's 'betrayal'.

Keith Vaz was photographed leaving his home earlier this week to attend a meeting at the Commons

She says: 'I would have liked to have taken all my crockery and broken it on his head My immediate thought was to tell him to leave then have space to discuss things.' But she made an early decision to wait a few days.

'Most people in that position get some privacy to talk about it, whereas in this case it's as if the whole world were in the same room talking about it. It's kind of surreal.

'I've decided to forgive him. That's different to forgiving him right now. If I don't forgive him eventually, it is going to tear me up. It's going to destroy me and I don't want that. I don't like that feeling of anger and bitterness.

'Although I'm a lapsed Christian, there is still a Christian part of me that talks about forgiveness because you let go if you forgive. So from that point of view, yes, I've made the decision but how it will be done that's all to happen in the future.'

Ms Fernandes says her husband begged for forgiveness 'but he's also said that whatever I decide, he will stand by that. We've decided to talk things through and give it time. Then to see how things go and that's in the context of forgiveness.'

For now, she says, they will go to Relate marriage guidance.

But for all her clemency, which she acknowledges will confound many, Ms Fernandes does not conform to the cliche of the wronged-but-submissive politician's wife.

As with any MP's spouse, she has given up a lot and endured a lot, but she is by no means meek. A smart, articulate, thoughtful professional  she's the only partner in a successful law firm and a part-time tribunal judge  she is very much her own woman. 'I come from a strong line of females. My mother would never tolerate people breaking down,' she says.

It took her two days before she cried. 'It happened in the early hours of the morning. Suddenly the pain comes out from nowhere.'

Ms Fernandes adds: 'We've reached a very difficult point but you marry for better or for worse. At this moment, it's the worst period. You just see it through.'

From the outset, her instinct has been to protect her children. On the Friday night she chatted with her daughter until the early hours and then slept in a spare bedroom.

'My daughter was devastated by it all. I had to make sure I didn't break down. I had to protect her. If she saw me weaker, I didn't want my child propping me up. I had to say, 'It's OK, we can be strong'.

'I think I was zombified by it all. I can't remember screaming or shouting. I was trying to process it.'

On the Saturday morning, Ms Fernandes avoided her husband 'but by the afternoon we had a little bit of carping, some exchanges, but we did not sit down and talk.' When the story finally broke in a Sunday newspaper, Ms Fernandes could not bear to read it beyond the headline. The article detailed how her husband boasted to the two male prostitutes, whom he met in a 390,000 flat he owns near his family home in Edgware, North London, about having unprotected gay sex.

And in a series of texts, reproduced by the newspaper, he asked them to bring the sex-enhancing drug 'poppers' to their meeting. Ms Fernandes says: 'My daughter was here and she said, 'Oh, there's a video' '

There's no suggestion Vaz took drugs, and Ms Fernandes said: 'He's an anti-drug person. He's somebody who wouldn't. I could never imagine him saying yes to drugs. He doesn't even like alcohol.

'Then what had happened became more clear. It's an unnatural situation. It's not as if you can sit with your husband and have a frank discussion about it, because everyone's involved. People are ringing and messages are being sent and the television, the news is full of it.'

Her son heard something was wrong before they could break the news to him. He contacted his mother asking: 'Is something happening?' He was told not to look at any newspapers, nor go online for a couple of days.

This is the apartment block in north London where Labour MP Keith Vaz is alleged to have paid the male escorts

She adds: 'We have had many years of marriage, and we were happy. This came out of the blue. We were in a good place.'

Asked if she ever suspected in the past that her husband had cheated on her  with either men or women  Ms Fernandes shoots back: 'No, never. Absolutely no.'

After a pause, she adds: 'I used to worry about him being out there and not knowing where he was. I think I got partly used to it but I felt I knew where he was most of the time.'

If it ever crossed her mind that Vaz was cheating, she would have suspected 'it would be with women'. She adds: 'I think in the early years if this happened, I would have been so incensed about it that I would have left, or done something.

'This is not going to happen again. If this were to happen again I would not put up with it  this is it, this is the last chance saloon.'

Of his boast that he had unprotected sex with the prostitutes, Ms Fernandes says: 'Yes, it did bother me. He needs a full check-up in case of incubation.

'We've been happily married for a long time, we have two beautiful children, and we have a good life together, and he has threatened that by his behaviour. And if he does that again, then I'll sling him out.

'I don't know how my son feels about it, he is away, and my daughter is still processing it  she is trying to deal with it.'

Having initially moved into a spare room, Ms Fernandes is once again sharing a bed with her husband, chiefly because she is so worried about him. 'Keith is very down. What's happened is so huge and the fallout was so huge that it was his penance. He loved his role and he had to face losing that.'

She says his father committed suicide when Vaz was 14 and she fears for her husband. 'I think he was suicidal,' she says. 'We have to look after our own. I am angry with him but my love is greater. Yet if it happens again, I am done.'
More than a third of job applicants have been rejected after employers checked their social-media profiles, according to a study.

Employment website Monster.co.uk, which carried out the research, also revealed that 32 per cent of people have deleted some posts and changed their settings on their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn profiles so that prospective employers can see only certain parts of it.

Monsters managing director Andy Sumner said: Jobseekers should be wary of the content on their social media channels to ensure theyre not oversharing in the public eye.
Energy companies are named and shamed today for exploiting customers by signing them up to cheap deals  then shifting them on to the most expensive tariffs.

New research reveals that the power firms are cynically raking in about 900 million by automatically switching customers to costly tariffs once their initial deal expires.

All the Big Six energy companies  British Gas, EDF, npower, E.ON, Scottish Power and SSE  feature in a top ten list of firms using bait and switch.

But they insist it is up to customers to tell them if they want to be moved to another cheap deal.

First Utility, Extra Energy, npower and EDF were among the companies named in the top ten most expensive switches by suppliers list

Commons Energy Select Committee member Glyn Davies reacted with anger to the findings and accused companies of acting dishonestly. The Tory MP said: This evidence clearly shows that energy companies are being deceptive by not making it clear to customers how much they will be paying once their deal runs out.

THE TOP TEN MOST EXPENSIVE SWITCHES BY ENERGY SUPPLIERS FIRST UTILITY 53% rise First Fixed July 2017 (745.61) to First Variable (1,139.89). NPOWER 48% rise Price Fix July 2017 (724.2) to Standard Energy (1,071.85) EDF 47% rise Energy Simple Fixed May 17 (727) to Standard Variable (1,068.4) EXTRA ENERGY 45% rise Fresh Fixed Price Oct 2017 v1 ((752.91) to Variable Price v1 (1,094.97) SCOTTISH POWER 45% rise Online Fixed Price Energy June 2017 (728.84) to Standard (1,059.45) BRITISH GAS 43% rise HomeEnergy Exclusive June 2017 (720.22) to Standard (1,030.84) SAINSBURYS 38% rise Fixed Price June 2017 (746.71) to Standard (1,030.84) CO-OP ENERGY 37% rise Fix For Longer Sept 2017 (757.67) to Pioneer v5.2 (1,041.79) SSE 37% rise 1 Year Fixed v8 (752.48) to Standard (1,027.98). Paperless E.ON 36% rise MSM fixed 1 Year Collective March 2016 (758) to Energy Plan paperless (1031.3) Research by Octopus Energy Advertisement

They are taking advantage of people, like most of us, who do not know the ins and outs of switching.

An analysis of Britains energy market found the largest independent provider, First Utility, was the worst culprit and charges customers an average of 394 a year more once their fixed tariff runs out  an astonishing 53 per cent increase.

Npower, which was fined 26 million last year for sending out inaccurate bills, was second on the list. Its standard energy tariff is 348 a year more expensive than the 12-month fixed deal it offered in July.

The research was carried out by energy supplier Octopus Energy, which identified the best one-year fix each company offered during the past six months and the latest standard tariff. The figures are based on national average usage.

Chief executive Greg Jackson said: It should be clear to the customer what they will be paying once their 12-month deal is up. Its exploitative and not letting them make an informed decision.

Most people think once they have switched provider, and the year is up, the price increase will not be too much. But actually companies are levying cynical hikes.

By the time the company lets you know your deal is running out, you have normally received so much junk mail from them that you dont bother reading it.

'Energy is something we all need and there is no difference in the quality. We shouldnt be penalised by such a huge amount when a contract runs out.
At that moment 'the cancer and everything else went away' staff said

Willhite, who fought in the Vietnam War, was in a hospice with terminal cancer

A Vietnam veteran has died peacefully after fulfilling a dying wish to go fishing one last time.

Connie Willhite, 68, died on August 29 at the Hospice Care Unit at Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia.

Three days prior, the avid fisherman who was terminally ill with cancer, took his final fishing trip.

It was just one of two simple requests he had in his last days, which also included being baptized.

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Connie Willhite had just two simple requests before he died, to be baptized and to take one final fishing trip (pictured on his final fishing trip)

Willhite, 68, died on August 29 at the Hospice Care Unit at Carl Vinson VA Medical Center (pictured) in Dublin, Georgia

Willhite, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, had told staff: 'There's nothing like fishing. Even when they're not biting, it's still a good day to be outside', according to a hospital spokesman.

'I know I'm dying and the cancer is going to get me, but as long as I can go, I want to fish,' the Telegraph reported.

The first request was easy.

Chaplain Sam Scaggs was brought into the Hospice Care Unit where he performed Willhite's baptism in front of family and hospital workers.

'He immediately felt better because he felt like he could cross over now,' Greg Senters, a hospice social worker, told KomoNews.

Three days prior, staff wheeled out the veteran on his hospital bed to a nearby lake (pictured) behind the hospital for his final fishing trip

His second wish was a bit more tricky as he had to remain bedridden.

But staff say they were dedicated to making 'those last precious days precious.'

Senters, and fellow hospice staff, helped prepare their patient for his final fishing trip, bringing bait and gear.

Too ill to stand or even sit, Willhite was wheeled out on his hospital bed to a lake behind the VA Medical Center and handed his old trusty fishing pole.

The grandfather, from Dalton, Georgia, had been warned not to get his hopes up as it was unlikely he would catch anything in the newly filled lake.

But Willhite defied all expectations by catching not one - but four fish.

'I'll never forget the look on his face. After all the preparation, we had no idea if he would actually catch anything,' Senters said.

'All of a sudden, the cancer and everything else went away, and what you see is that precious few moments of someone really enjoying life.'

Lisa Kittrill, Willhite's cousin (left) and Greg Senters, a hospice social worker (right) said that in the short moments when Willhite caught fish, he was back to his old self again

Lisa Kittrill, Willhite's cousin, said that in those short moments, 'when he was smiling and glad, when he wasn't in pain, that made that difficult situation better.'

She described her cousin as a 'great guy, always joking' and said he never failed to bring his family joy.

'He talked and talked when I came in that day, and said he went fishing and got baptized, and for that I'm so glad,' Kittrill said.

Willhite left the navy after the war and was employed at Shaw Carpet Industries in Dalton and attended Rosemont Baptist Church, Treutlen County, according to his obituary.
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There are now over 600 persons of

went missing on NSW's mid-north coast on

Detectives searching for missing toddler William Tyrrell have engaged police across New South Wales to investigate 600 persons of interest in the baffling case.

William disappeared from the backyard of his grandmother's home in Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast on the morning of September 12, 2014, in his treasured Spiderman costume.

As the suspected abduction of the three-year-old nears its second anniversary police have revealed the scope and complexity behind the homicide investigation.

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William disappeared from the backyard of his grandmother's home in Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast on the morning of September 12, 2014, in his treasured Spiderman costume (pictured)

In a desperate bid to find missing toddler William Tyrrell detectives have engaged police across New South Wales to investigate 600 persons of interest in the baffling case

Police arrive to search for evidence of missing boy William Tyrrell near Bonny Hills on the NSW mid-north coast in 2015

Three-year-old boy William Tyrrell went missing from his grandmother's home in 2014

Of the 600 persons of interest being investigated by Strike Force Rosann, 200 have not yet been fully identified, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The unidentified profiles include suspicious sightings and physical descriptions gathered by police.

Information on 400 persons of interest have been given to local police across New South Wales in an effort to rule out each name on the mammoth list.

Mid-north coast Man William 'Bill' Spedding has been the most high profile person of interest in William's disappearance, but has not yet been arrested or charged.

Earlier this year investigators looked into another man from the Mid North Coast, who walked into a police station. He asked to speak to someone on the strike force and to be handcuffed, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

This man was later ruled out as a suspect.

Mid North Coast Man William 'Bill' Spedding (pictured) has been the most high profile person of interest in William's disappearance, but has not yet been arrested or charged

Police have expanded their hunt for clues on missing toddler William Tyrrell (pictured)

This comes as police interviewed a fifth person over the case.

Detectives questioned Kim Loweke, who is best friends with William's grandmother Natalie Collins, over her whereabouts on the day the three-year-old went missing.

According to Nine's ACA, police became interested when the two women applied to the Department of Housing for a three-bedroom home in western Sydney.

Ms Loweke also has personal links with Tony Jones - and accused paedophile named as a person of interest in the case.

Detectives questioned Kim Loweke, who is best friends with William's grandmother Natalie Collins, over her whereabouts on the day the three-year-old went missing

Ms Collins said it was 'disgusting' that police had questioned her best friend and cast doubt over the pair's intentions with requesting a new home

Ms Collins said it was 'disgusting' that police had questioned her best friend and cast doubt over the pair's intentions with requesting a new home.

'That's just disgusting, I'm sorry, because like I wouldn't hide him. Like Kim said it would be good if we could find him, we would hand him over anyway,' she said.

In a statement released to ACA, NSW Police said it would not be appropriate to comment on who was being questioned by police as it was an 'ongoing investigation.'
Clinton has pledged to provide 'path to citizenship' for illegal immigrants during her first 100 days in office

If Donald Trump fails to win the election this November, the Republicans can forget about ever returning one of their own to the Oval Office since Hillary Clinton would grant wholesale citizenship to illegal immigrants, the outspoken candidate said on Friday.

In an interview with evangelical Christian journalist David Brody, Trump said that Clinton's proposed immigration reforms make this a critical election for the GOP.

'This will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning,' Trump told an evangelical audience in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

'You're going to have people flowing across the border, you're going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they're going to be legalized and they're going to be able to vote and once that all happens you can forget it.'

Donald Trump (left) says that a Hillary Clinton (right) presidency would mean citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants who would then support the Democrats in future elections

Clinton has vowed that if elected, she 'intends to introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship within her first 100 days in office.'

A Clinton presidency would pave the way for irreversibly altering the demographics of key states like Florida and Texas, meaning that the Democrats would hold a clear advantage in electoral college votes.

Trump says that the pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants combined with the prospect of a 'super liberal' Supreme Court could change the political calculus in this country to the benefit of Democrats.

'I think this will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning because you're going to have people flowing across the border,' he says.

'You're going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they're going to be legalized and they're going to be able to vote and once that all happens you can forget it.'

US border patrolmen take migrants who crossed into Texas from Mexico into custody. Trump says that Florida and Texas will end up voting for Democrats if Clinton is elected president

'You're not going to have one Republican vote. And it's already a hard number.'

'Already the path is much more difficult for the Republicans. You just have to look at the [electoral college] maps.'

According to RealClearPolitics, Clinton maintains a slim edge over Trump in the latest polls.

Trump is fighting to sway rebellious Republicans who have vowed not to support him in the election.

The lack of enthusiasm for Trump's candidacy among GOP voters explains some surprising numbers in the polls, with some showing that Texas and Mississippi - two states traditionally considered a shoe-in for Republicans - is up for grabs this November.

The Washington Post is reporting that Clinton holds an advantage in the electoral college vote - 244 to 126 for Trump - if the elections were held today.

Clinton needs just 26 more electoral college votes to clinch the presidency.
On the eve of 9/11, thousands of New Yorkers and people across the nation came together to prepare for the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people.

Families, friends and strangers alike, joined hands across the nation to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country during a time of terror.

Wreathes were laid for fallen officers, prayers were said as loved ones were honored and thousands of US flags flew high as Americans proclaimed: 'We will never forget.'

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On the eve of 9/11 thousands of New Yorkers prepare for the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks that saw nearly 3,000 people lose their lives. The Tribute in Light memorial could be seen in the Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge Park (top left)

Heroes of that tragic day were honored by their loved ones and those who will never forget their ultimate sacrifice when terror struck the US 15 years ago

The 343 firefighters who died in the September 11 attacks were honored Saturday at a St Patrick's Cathedral memorial service for their acts of heroism that New York's mayor Bill de Blasio said 'most of us could not fathom'.

'We remember what the members of the FDNY did in the face of something that could not be imagined.

'They showed selflessness. They showed courage,' he said.

'When we needed them most they showed us the best, the best in humanity.'

Hundreds of family members of those who died and those who survived the attacks listened to their loved ones remembered for their courage on a day that would claim the lives of more firefighters than any other day in the nation's history.

Each of the names of the dead firefighters was read aloud during the service.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch read a letter from President Barack Obama that described the effect left on the nation after hijacked planes struck the twin 110-story towers of the World Trade Center, causing their collapse.

'We remember that no act of terror can match the character of our country, change who we are as Americans or overcome our enduring resolve to be each other's keepers in times of calm and crisis alike,' the letter said

Members of the New York Police Department Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band marched during a procession in Lower Manhattan to mark the anniversary of 9/11 and the police officers who were killed during and after the terror attacks

Families, officers (pictured) and friends gathered for remarks and a wreath laying at a wall commemorating the fallen officers on Saturday

Families and friends gathered across the nation to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country during a time of terror

Members of the New York Police Department Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band marched during a procession in Lower Manhattan to mark the anniversary of 9/11 and the police officers who were killed during and after the terror attacks.

Families, officers and friends gathered for remarks and a wreath laying at a wall commemorating the fallen officers on Saturday.

The Tribute in Light memorial could be seen in the Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge Park as many paid their respects to their lost but not forgotten loved ones.

People across the country were pictured standing amongst hundreds of flags as they saluted the heroes of the United States whose untimely deaths shook the nation.

Pepperdine University

The university, which is located in Malibu, California, placed around 3,000 US flags in the ground in tribute to the nearly 3,000 victims lost in the attacks.

As the flags flew, students and staff were captured walking among them as they paid their respects on the eve of 9/11.

People all across the country were pictured standing amongst hundreds of flags as they saluted the heroes of the United States whose untimely deaths shook the nation

Wreathes were laid for fallen officers, prayers were said as loved ones were honored and thousands of US flags flew high as Americans proclaimed: 'We will never forget'

Texas A&M and Prairie View A&M Universities

Painted patriotic ribbons adorned the 25 yard line of Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, in honor of the anniversary of 9/11 before the start of an NCAA college football game between Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M.

Texas A&M wore custom made patriotic helmets to honor the 15 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York during Saturday's game.

Painted patriotic ribbons adorned the 25 yard line of Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, in honor of the anniversary of 9/11 before the start of an NCAA college football game between Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M

Texas A&M wore custom made patriotic helmets to honor the 15 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York during Saturday's game

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Visitors in Pennsylvania honored those who lost their lives on Flight 93 as they made their way through the Flight 93 National Memorial.

Dozens lit candles in memory of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and carried them to the Wall of Names.

Edward Noon, 22, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, paid tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93, while candles remained lit along the Wall of Names.

The heroic men and women of Flight 93, who had just left Newark, New Jersey, and were headed to San Francisco, devised a plan, held a vote, stormed the cockpit and sought to take control of the jet from their hijackers.

Although their plan failed, they were still able to force the Boeing 757 to crash, preventing it from hitting its likely target, the US Capitol, just 20 minutes away by air.

Visitors made their way through the Flight 93 National Memorial before lighting candles that were carried to the Wall of Names in memory of the passengers and crew of Flight 93, at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania

The candles, which honored the passengers and crew of Flight 93, were carried to the Wall of Names Saturday evening

Several people surrounded the area as they paid their respects to victims of the terror attacks

Edward Noon, 22, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, paid tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93, while candles remained lit along the Wall of Names

The heroic men and women of Flight 93 devised a plan, held a vote, stormed the cockpit and sought to take control of the jet from their hijackers. Although their plan failed, they were still able to force the Boeing 757 to crash, preventing it from hitting its likely target, the US Capitol

Ahead of the 15th anniversary ceremony, the NYPD has heightened its security detail.

In a statement, an 'adequate detail will be in place' around the city, according to NBC New York.

Authorities told NBC that 'as of now, there are no specific credible threats to New York City'.

'We will monitor and deploy our personnel as needed. Once again, we ask the public to be vigilant and if you see something, say something.'

Ahead of the 15th anniversary ceremony, the NYPD has heightened its security detail. Authorities said that 'as of now, there are no specific credible threats to New York City'. A member of the US Marine Corp stands guard next to artwork depicting a fallen NYC officer

Those visiting the World Trade Center memorial will more than likely see more officers and squad cars during the ceremony

The State Department also urged Americans to be vigilant about their personal security, NBC reported.

The latest worldwide caution from the State Department says: 'Current information suggests that terrorist groups continue to plan attacks in multiple regions.

'Recent terrorist attacks, whether by those affiliated with terrorist entities, copycats, or individual perpetrators, serve as a reminder that US citizens need to maintain a high level of vigilance.'

Saturday afternoon, the Six Flags America theme park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was evacuated because of a bomb and shooting threat.

State police received a phone call warning that there was a bomb inside the park, NBC Washington reported.

The person on the phone, who called around 1.30pm according to Fox 5, also said that people at Six Flags America would be shot.
The security company that employed Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen was fined $151,400 for falsely listing psychological testing information on thousands of forms.

G4S Secure Solutions, which employed Mateen as a security guard for nine years before he killed 49 people at the gay nightclub Pulse in June, was fined on Friday by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The company falsely listed the name of a psychologist it claimed had screened Mateen and thousands of other employees and then cleared them to carry guns.

Dr Carol Nudelman, who now lives in Colorado, revealed in June that she had never met Mateen, despite the fact that her name was listed on his psychological evaluation.

The security company that employed Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen was fined $151,400 for falsely listing psychological testing information on thousands of forms

G4S Secure Solutions, which employed Mateen before he killed 49 people at gay nightclub Pulse in June, falsely listed the name of a psychologist it claimed had screened Mateen

The form claimed Nudelman had administered Mateen's mental health test in September 6, 2007. But Nudelman had retired nearly two years before.

'What I do know is that in September 2007, I was not living or working in Florida,' she said in a statement.

Nudeman added that she was not 'performing any work' for G4S, which at the time was known as Wackenhut, and that she did not administer any type of exam on Mateen.

Investigators then discovered that the company had listed the wrong psychologist's name on thousands of forms that allowed employees to carry guns between 2006 and 2016.

Nudeman's name was erroneously listed on 1,514 forms that G4S submitted between 2006 and 2016, according to The Sun-Sentinel.

The company was fined $100 per violation.

G4S initially claimed that a 'clerical error' had caused Nudelman's name to be erroneously listed on Mateen's form.

On Friday it said that an 'administrator error' caused Nudelman's name to appear on the firearm license applications.

Investigators found the company listed the wrong psychologist's name on thousands of forms that allowed employees to carry guns. Pictured is Pulse nightclub, where the attack occurred

The company called the discrepancy a 'clerical error' and said Mateen, who was a G4S employee for nearly 10 years, had been evaluated by a different psychologist

'As soon as this error became known to G4S, it immediately and publicly acknowledged that this was an administrative error and took measures to ensure that this error would not be repeated,' the company said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said there was no evidence indicating Nudelman had been involved.

Jennifer Meale added that the department was satisfied with the actual evaluations carried out by G4S, noting that it had simply been done by another psychologist.

'Our investigation revealed that, while a psychologist reviewed character certifications for G4S, the company's use of preprinted forms resulted in inaccurate information being reported to our department,' she said.

This isn't the first time G4S came under fire for its employment of Mateen.

In June it was revealed the security firm had concluded that allegations about Mateen's inflammatory comments while working as an armed guard in 2013 were serious enough to transfer him to an unarmed position, according to NBC News.

Mateen, who had no criminal history, was first interviewed by the FBI in 2013 after making 'inflammatory comments' that alleged possible terrorist ties to one of his colleagues.

He was interviewed by the FBI twice, who also contacted witnesses, physical surveillance and record checks.

In 2014, Mateen came to the FBI's attention again and agents interviewed him about a potential connection he may have had with American suicide bomber Moner Abu Salha, who lived about 30 minutes away in Vero Beach, Florida.

The fine on G4S comes three days after the final hospitalized survivor of the massacre was discharged from the Orlando Regional Medical Center

In addition to the 49 people killed, 53 others were wounded in what would become the worst mass shooting in US history

The FBI determined the contact was 'minimal' and didn't constitute 'a substantive relationship or threat at that time'.

But the security firm still kept Mateen as an employee, moving him to a kiosk at a gated community in Palm Beach County, where he was not armed.

Mateen announced his allegiance to ISIS during his attack on Pulse, which would become the worst mass shooting in US history.

He blamed US airstrikes for the deaths of 'innocent women and children', writing 'now taste the Islamic state of vengeance' on the morning of his attack.

After a three-hour standoff, Mateen was shot and killed by police.

The fine on G4S comes three days after the final hospitalized survivor of the massacre was discharged from the Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Their condition had been upgraded from critical to guarded on August 16.
She may be 90, but the Queen proved yesterday that she still takes the controls when it comes to family gatherings at her beloved Scottish estate.

The monarch played chauffeur to her granddaughter-in-law Kate  relegating their security guards to the back seat.

Dressed in a casual sleeveless jacket, she drove the Duchess of Cambridge  or the Countess of Strathearn as she is known north of the border  to a picnic lunch with Prince William in the hills above Loch Muick on the Balmoral estate.

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The Queen drove the Duchess of Cambridge to a picnic lunch with Prince William in the hills above Loch Muick on the Balmoral estate

Our remarkable picture illustrates just how close the pair have become in recent years  and how much they enjoy each others company.

A smiling Kate looked happy and relaxed as she sat in the front passenger seat of the dark green Range Rover in a khaki coat and patterned scarf.

William and Kate, who arrived in Royal Deeside on Thursday, have been staying at Prince Charless private Birkhall residence with their children, Prince George, three, and one-year-old Princess Charlotte.

William, 34, was also spotted driving a converted Land Rover Defender up the Capel Mounth path on the way to Glen Clova for a grouse shoot shortly after 10am yesterday.

William and Kate have been staying at Prince Charless private Birkhall residence with Prince George and Princess Charlotte

At the butts behind imposing Creag Bhiorach, dozens of soldiers were waiting to do the beating and drive the grouse towards the waiting guns.

An hour later, the hills rang with the sound of gunfire. At lunch time, Her Majesty and the Duchess of Cambridge, 34, arrived, closely followed by more Special Branch officers.

Walkers on the public path at Loch Muick were delighted to see the Queen, who appeared not to be wearing a seatbelt, driving Kate  who had her belt on  to the grouse moors.
Move over Magic Mike  party man and nine-time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt has been strutting his stuff in Bora Bora.

The Jamaican sprinter is on the small South Pacific Island northwest of Tahiti in French Polynesia on a holiday after he enjoyed partying in London following his Rio Olympics take-over.

Bolt, 30, was captured engaging in some traditional dance, and as well as being the fastest human ever timed, he seemed to pick up the moves pretty quickly.

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Usain Bolt shows sprinting isn't his sole talent in Bora Bora as he quickly picks up traditional Island dance

The nine-time olympic gold medallist who recently celebrated his 30th birthday in London is continuing his holidays on the South Pacific Island

Bolt won three golds at Rio 2016

Dancing ladies joined the performance and Bolt even showed off his Magic Mike-style body rolling in a bid to impress.

Usain Bolt continued to show impressive stamina to go with his speed on his nights out in the UK capital.

Bolt rounded off his 7 days of partying in the capital with a night out at Drama nightclub.

It came just a day after he held a mock medal ceremony for a group of women who had flashed their breasts to him.

As is now customary, a second van full of women arrived at Bolt's minutes after him, and the girls all

He tried to avoid being pictured on his final night out by sneaking out of a different door to the one his van was waiting at and arrived back at his hotel alone.

He reportedly racked up a huge 12,000 bar bill at the Libertine nightclub and 6,000 at Tape during his partying spree.

Bolt was spotted dancing in various clubs in London and wasn't shy of getting down with the ladies who didn't fail to show him attention

The sprint king took many of the parties back to his hotels with many guests following

Despite his womanising whilst out partying Usain Bolt was thought to have left a cryptic message on Snapchat on Monday suggesting him and his long-term girlfriend Kasi Bennett are engaged.

But it has since been revealed a hoax after a user changed the caption.

The athlete is currently on holiday with Kasi, who seems to have put the pictures and rumours behind her to enjoy a luxurious break with Bolt.
Grammar schools are an 'engine for social mobility', she said

Many of party leaders and their children benefited from this type of education, she says

Kate Hoey has hit out at 'staggering hypocrisy' within her own party

There will be many ideas proposed by Theresa May in the years to come that I as a Labour MP will oppose with all my heart.

But restoring grammar schools to their rightful place in Englands mixed educational system is not one of them.

I write as the proud product of just such a school, as one of those people for whom selection at the tender age of 11 was a huge help in life.

Its why I am dismayed at the kneejerk, ideological opposition to grammars now being mounted by my own partys leadership - many of them not just themselves beneficiaries of the very same type of education but their children too.

Even now, I can remember my first day at my own grammar school - Belfast Royal Academy in my native Northern Ireland.

Within days, I was friends with a wonderfully disparate group  the daughter of a shipyard worker, the son of a postman, the daughter of the editor of Northern Ireland's morning newspaper as well as a girl from a Jewish family which owned Belfasts most exclusive shop.

And there was me, the future MP and government minister, born and bred on the small family farm with its thatched roof right out in the country.

What brought us all together was the very selective system which, though it still exists where I grew up, has now become a dirty word in English education.

There was no coaching, no special classes just the tests we all took, me in my stride, my sister - though much more academic than myself - with trepidation,

Mixing with others from such a wide range of radically different backgrounds and from all over Belfast was hugely invigorating.

Without doubt, grammar schools were and still are in Northern Ireland an engine for social mobility, giving young people the chance to shine according to their abilities, not their family background or social status.

Everyone at my school was expected to achieve, not just academically but in sport, music and drama. Most did.

The difference between Northern Ireland and England these days is that grammar schools are still available all over the Province and have widespread support.

The 11 plus has changed but selection still is there.

It is the shortage of grammar school places in England that has led to those who can afford to moving house to be near a Grammar school.

It has caused parents to pay for special support to pass the entrance tests to get the scarce places.

Of course, there are other difficulties too in England - not least the danger that some youngsters are consigned to an education second division if they fail an exam at 11.

But rather than stop grammar schools, why are we not doing, as in Northern Ireland, improving all schools?

Prime Minister Theresa May has lifted a ban on grammar schools in Britain

Children can move between schools there too so if someone by the age of 13 or 14 is clearly not wanting to pursue an academic route they can move to a more vocational school or perhaps move to the Grammar school if felt more appropriate.

Of course, the Prime Minister is not proposing just some back to the future 1960s system but what I hope is a more nuanced, pragmatic approach designed to get the best educational opportunities for all young people.

So for these reasons, I am saddened that my own party should be pathetically predictable in its response to the reforms  dusting down the same tired old, uninformed arguments as to why one-size-fits-all education is somehow the only, socialist, Left-wing way.

Mediocrity isnt  and never was  what Labour should be offering to its supporters.

Surely, we should champion what offers working people a chance to improve and change their lot.

That of course means building on the excellent schools already in existence and learning from the many examples of how failing schools have been turned round to be first rate.

What makes the wrong-headed opposition of Labours top team all the worse is their staggering hypocrisy.

The advantages it gave them, that great extra push in life, the encouragement to widen horizons was good enough for them but not apparently for young people now.

It is, I am afraid, the very definition of scrambling up the ladder and then taking great pains to kick it away for future generations.

That was exactly what happened when Margaret Thatcher took the first rung out of that ladder during her premiership.

Ironically if a young person in my constituency has a very special talent in music they could end up at a specialist music school.

A really talented sports youngster could get a scholarship to a brilliant sports school like Millfield.

Why then do we frown on academically talented youngsters being able to thrive in a grammar school?

Secondary schools have improved a great deal in London since I was first elected back in 1989.

However, many middle class parents including some who are members of the Labour party find a way and some excuse to get their children into the small number of highly desirable 'state schools' in inner London.

So the system is rigged now in favour of the pushy parent, those with clout, money or influence.

Only by allowing successful schools of all kinds to expand can we offer real choice for our children and that must include grammar schools.

So on this occasion, this former grammar school girl will be putting aside tribal party politics and backing instead what worked for me and what will work for young people today.
Vegan food? Six o'clock starts? Communal washing facilities? Spending a weekend at a Buddhist monastery may not be everyone's idea of a good time.

However, when you see the beauty of Koyasan, one of Japan's holiest towns, it does start to look more appealing.

Two hours from the major city of Kyoto in central Japan, this small town is the head quarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, established by its founder, the monk Kobo-Daishi in 819AD. Today there are more than 100 temples in the region.

Buddhist retreat: Hoon-in, is one of more than 100 temples in the small town of Koyasan

The big draw in Koyasan is the Okunoin cemetery (above), which is believe to house the meditating Kobo Daishi while he waits for Miroku, the future Buddha to arrive

To add to their mystique, one of the only ways to stay at one is by applying through the temple committee, who will assign you a lodging based on your price range.

Naturally, we picked economy, and were assigned to a small, modern temple called Hoon-in at the edge of town charging 65 per person per night, including a vegan dinner and breakfast.

After catching three trains, a cable car and a bus we arrived at Hoon-in temple in the late afternoon arriving in the driving rain and bracing ourselves for 48 hours of spiritual life.

I had expected a place of silent prayer, chanting and reflection. But my preconceptions of a land lost in time were instantly dashed when Ito, the monk who greeted us, pulled a mobile phone out of the pocket in his robes and started chatting away on it.

Then he took our bags and apologised, explaining that as we were staying in the sub-temple, a small building next to the main complex, the wifi wouldn't work there.

Hang on a second, wifi? This was not what I had imagined.

Traditional tastes: All the rooms have futons to sleep on the floor and Japanese tea sets

The simple life: The accommodation was surprisingly comfortable and did feature a TV and plug sockets, although the monks apologised that the second wifi did not work in the complex

Shown to our room, we were also politely asked to remain quiet as the monks (and their wives) were living on the floor beneath us.

The room, though simple, had a TV and plug sockets.

But where was the bed? The answer was rolled up mats with a thin duvet on top. Comfortable enough, but no one would be able to forget we were sleeping on the floor.

Dinner was at 6pm sharp and the monks scurried around us, doling out rice, tea and miso soup in the largest room in the temple.

The Shingon sect of Buddhism does not eat meat, fish, dairy products, onions or garlic, so I wasn't sure what would leave for us to eat.

Dinner is served at 6pm sharp and while guests sit on the floor monks dole out rice, tea and miso soup in the largest room in the temple

Vegan treats: Dinner and breakfast at the temple had no meat, dairy,onions, garlic but was delicious

But once again I turned out to be completely misguided as each meal was utterly delicious and packed with unexpected flavours.

Aubergine in peanut sauce, lightly battered tempura vegetables, pickles, soups, hot potato croquettes - it was a wonderful introduction to vegan food.

Way of life: Hoon-in Temple also houses the monks

And it was washed down refreshingly with beer and sake on the side served by the monks - although they wouldn't partake, they certainly didn't object to us doing so.

Our fellow guests were mainly couples from Europe, although I was impressed by the way the children of one French family gamely tried all of the different vegetables on offer.

Not only did our room not have a permanent bed, there was no shower or bath.

Instead, we were expected to wash in the communal bath after dinner.

Of course, the British are famed for being more prudish than many other nations, and the prospect of getting in to a bath with one of the women I had been chatting with at dinner didn't exactly fill me with glee.

When I crept into the washroom there was only one other person there, which somehow made the situation even more awkward.

However, after rinsing off using one of the showers first (which is the custom in Japan), getting into the steaming bath was a great way to unwind after the hours of travelling.

At Okunoin graveyard Torodo hall (above) contains 10,000 lamps that are kept eternally lit out of respect for Kobo Dasihi

Early in the morning, we were invited to join the monks prayer session at 6:30am.

I dressed in a long top and leggings, expecting to take part in some kind of mystical chanting session akin to yoga or mediation.

But as it turned out, we just sat in a row of chairs and watched the monks chant, individually and in unison, to a grand carved Buddha at the end of the hall.

It was a beautiful, hypnotic sound, but we all left being none the wiser as to what the prayer was about.

The big draw in Koyasan is the Okunoin graveyard, which is believe to house the meditating Kobo Daishi while he waits for Miroku, the future Buddha to arrive.

Holy place: A temple in Koya-san which is one of the country's holiest towns

Buddhists believe that only he will be able to interpret the new Buddha's message for humanity, so being buried here is a good way to get close to the action.

Accordingly, this is a graveyard for VIPs, with many Japanese samurais and aristocracy among the 200,000 buried here.

The most breathtaking part is the Torodo hall, which contains 10,000 lamps that are kept eternally lit out of respect for Kobo Dasihi.

A visit to Okunoin graveyard certainly makes you feel as if you have stepped into a special place, and there is a distinct aura around the whole of the town.

However, while the monasteries in Koyasan have ancient roots, this was a much more modern experience than I had expected.
An ocean cruise is a great way to explore and relax, whether you are looking for autumn or winter sun, a spring holiday or a summer expedition.

Here is Mail on Sunday's pick of cruises you can book now.

Canary Islands with Marco Pierre White

Tasty breaks: Join Marco Pierre White, above, in the Canaries on a no-fly cruise from Southampton departing in October

Join Marco Pierre White in the Canary Islands.

On a no-fly cruise departing Southampton on October 16, the chef will be interviewed about his career and share his culinary tips.

Sign up for his masterclass and tasting session for just 14 participants (75).

The 11-night voyage aboard Ventura calling at Vigo, Madeira, La Palma, Tenerife and Lisbon starts at 999pp (pocruises.com, 0843 373 0111).

Christmas shopping in New York

Head to New York and shop until you drop before returning in style aboard the Queen Mary 2

Do your Christmas shopping in New York with no worries about the weight of your suitcases when you sail home on Queen Mary 2.

Leave New York on December 8 and spend seven days relaxing aboard the ocean liner, fresh from a 90 million makeover.

The cost is from 1,299pp sharing a balcony cabin and including flight to New York. (cunard.co.uk, 0843 374 2224).

A mystery cruise from Southampton

If you love surprises, Captain Ren-tells Final Mystery Cruise is for you.

For 24 days, the Saga captain will keep you guessing where youll dock next.

Departing Southampton on November 7, the round-trip cruise costs from 4,929pp (saga.co.uk/cruises, 0800 505030).

Classic cruise to Cuba, Mexico and the Caribbean

Get the flavour of Old Havana and enjoy the nightlife on a seven-week to Cuba, departing from Bristol in February

Classic ship Marco Polo sets off from Bristol on February 28 for a seven-week Cuba, Mexico and Caribbean cruise.

Highlights include an overnight stay in Havana to enjoy the nightlife, island hopping and calls into the Azores.

Fares start at 3,029pp for the first person and 1,519 for the second, sharing a cabin (cruiseandmaritime.com, 0844 998 3877).

Adult-only cruise to Italy

Enjoy a child-free cruise to Italy, with a days scenic cruising along the Amalfi Coast and around Capri with time ashore in Amalfi and Sorrento.

The no-fly cruise aboard Boudicca starts and ends in Falmouth.

Other ports of call on the 16-night voyage, departing on April 13, include Cartagena, Palermo and Olbia.

Fares start at 1,899pp. (fredolsen cruises.com, 0800 035 5242).
Michelangelo started work on that ceiling of his in 1508, and beavered away on it for four years. It felt like I queued for that long to see the blessed Sistine Chapel the first time I visited the Vatican.

This time though, with only a twinge of guilt, I glided past a massive line of grumpy tourists and joined a much smaller group of wiser, far less weary sightseers.

It was all thanks to a little beauty called the skip-the-line ticket.

Life in the fast lane: Wendy at the Colosseum (above), one of the attractions that offers queue-skipping tickets

Attraction Tickets Direct offers tickets for sightseeing tours, attractions and theme parks in destinations including Orlando, New York, Miami, Dubai and Paris.

It has just added Rome and the Vatican to its portfolio, so you can pre-book tickets to all of the most popular attractions.

The Best of Rome tour, for example (it costs 83 for adults and 64 for children) includes skip-the-line tickets for the Vatican Museums, the aforementioned Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and access to the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum, as well as a 48-hour hop-on/hop-off bus ticket and free 48-hour public transport pass.

Alternatively, for 138 for a 90-minute tour, you can whizz around in a legendary Fiat 500  dont panic, you dont have to drive yourself.

The Campo deFiori market is where you can pick up products like olive oil, pasta and limoncello to take home

Theres a brilliant food tour too, called Eat As The Romans Do, which costs 73.

We met our guide, Roberto, near Largo di Torre Argentina, the square believed to include the very site where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

This did not put us off nibbling vast quantities of scrummy cheeses, meats, pizza and pasta of assorted varieties, all washed down with wine, of course, at local restaurants.

We circled the Campo deFiori market for olive oil, pasta and limoncello to take home, too, before sampling creamy gelato for dessert.

Additional Attraction Tickets Direct options include walking tours and sightseeing by bike and Segway, with different itineraries taking in must-see sights such as the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain (my favourite) and the Spanish Steps.

We stayed at the Navona Palace Residenze di Charme, in Via della Pace, which has a terrace with city views, as well as a spa with sauna, Turkish bath and a solarium.

Navona Palace Residenze di Charme, where Wendy stayed, is just a couple of minutes from Piazza Navona (above)

This splendid little boutique establishment is just a couple of minutes from Piazza Navona and its many bars and restaurants, and only a mile from the Trevi Fountain and a mile and a half from the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City.

The chapel is much smaller than you might expect, despite being the venue for papal conclaves when the cardinals elect a new pope.

Its borderline claustrophobic when its packed with tourists. But take my advice: head quickly to the back, find a space and start looking up as soon as you can, particularly at the Creation of Adam section, of course.

Even with the hot crowds and miserable security staff constantly muttering at you to move on, or stop talking or laughing, it is well worth the wait  especially when its a short one
Activist wasnt allowed to cross the border

Artak Gevorgyan, author of famous cardboard tank and member of Counterattack art group, hasnt been allowed to cross Armenian-Georgian Bagratashen checkpoint for already the second time. In the interview with A1+ Artak Gevorgyan noted that after being acquitted by the court, yesterday he wasnt allowed to cross the border for the second time, This year I have been acquitted along lines of Cardboard tank case, the decision must have come to power in a month. Then I went to the Armenian-Georgian Bagratashen checkpoint. I was arrested and I was told that there was a sanction against me and I couldnt leave the country. Then police officers of Bagratashen were called, and they were aware that it was Cardboard tank case, but they told that the sanction hadnt been removed from the computer. They released me and told to go and solve my issues, saying that they couldnt do anything. To remind, a criminal case was instituted against Artak Gevorgyan, when he staged political action in Yerevan on December 9-10 overnight, 2015, using handmade green cardboard tank and protesting against the Constitutional referendum. He hit the NSS building gates with the tank. Yesterday, before crossing the border, Artak Gevorgyan asked Judge Gagik Poghosyan whether he can cross the border or not, I also inquired from several relevant state bodies and received positive answer that I can cross, if I have a document given by the court, it means that I was acquitted, irrespective what is written in the computer. But the border guards arent interested in the document; they cite the computer data, which shows red mark in front of my name and I am not allowed to cross the border. He called HRD office from the border, and told that he had been arrested and that he was being taken to Bagratashen police station, The HRD office told that they have had such cases before, but they cannot do anything, the problem is systematic. Artak Gevorgyan doesnt rule out, that these obstacles are manly connected with the fact that his case related to the NSS, The border guards said that it is one minutes work to remove my name from the computer, but, it turns out, they dont do it. Activist is now near Bagratashen checkpoint, on returning to Yerevan, he will try to find out who is responsible for all this.
It is nearly 18 months since Nepal suffered its worst natural disaster in nearly a century  a devastating earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people and destroyed ancient villages.

The effect on tourism has been equally shattering: visitor numbers are estimated to be down by two-thirds, as uncertainty lingers over the condition of attractions such as world-class trekking trails in the Himalayas and Kathmandus prized sites.

Although theres no denying the impact of the earthquake, it was a wonderful surprise and relief to discover that the vast majority of Nepals attractions are largely intact.

Although theres no denying the impact of the earthquake, the vast majority of Nepals attractions are largely intact

As my husband Nick and I wandered through the elegant courtyards of the 17th Century Hanuman Dhoka palace in Kathmandus Durbar Square, we were stunned at every turn by artistry and beauty.

Delicate birds and exquisite flowers burst from intricately carved teak pillars.

Durbar Square is the heart of ancient Kathmandu and it teems with life, colour and fascinating traditions: from the Kumari Devi, a living child-goddess housed in the Kumari Bahal temple, to women selling butter lamps used as temple offerings.

At Boudhanath, Nepals biggest stupa, we joined pilgrims walking clockwise around the temple, its huge spherical base inset with intricately embossed prayer wheels.

Its impossible not to be moved at the sight of monks and devotees on their kora, chanting as they make offerings of rice, flowers and incense.

Lapping it up: Jennifer during her elephant safari, where she discovered the rolling meadows of Chitwan

Early the next morning we left the dusty, crowded streets of Kathmandu behind for an eight-hour drive south to Chitwan National Park.

Judged one of the best national parks in Asia, Chitwans sprawling 350 square miles of (malaria-free) rainforests, grass and marshlands are a haven for rhinos, elephants, leopards, sloth-bears and tigers.

We stayed at Machan Country Villa, a small collection of well-appointed jungle lodges supported by a fantastic cook and team of knowledgeable rangers.

Thanks to chief ranger Ram, we now know that more than 546 species of birds  from serpent eagles to red-headed cormorants  live in this jungle.

Early the next morning, as we set off on an elephant safari through rolling meadows, the countryside looked strangely English  until a monkey leapt from a tree directly above our heads and scampered noisily off into the canopy.

The extraordinary landscape of Pokhara, Nepals trekking capital, where most of the worlds tallest mountains are situated

A hornbill hooted indignantly, and a macaw shrieked in agreement. But our guide urged us to look ahead instead to where there were two grazing rhinos.

Our elephant decided to investigate further, and we clung to the howdah saddle as she lumbered up a steep bank, plunged through trees and sent brightly coloured butterflies billowing in every direction.

Our sunset safari was equally thrilling: a jeep ride to the beautiful Narayani River.

We werent lucky enough to spot one of the 125 Bengal tigers in Chitwan, but canoeing down the river at sunset, as crocodiles basked on muddy banks, could not have been more atmospheric.

We were sad to leave Chitwan but it was time to travel 100 miles north to Nepals unofficial trekking capital, Pokhara. Most of the worlds tallest mountains are in this region.

Pokhara is 20 miles from the Annapurna ranges  a popular Himalayan trekking circuit  and its pretty lakeside district is a bustling hub of trekking shops and guides, with plenty of cafes and bars to rest weary legs.

At Boudhanath (pictured), Nepals biggest stupa, Jennifer joined pilgrims walking clockwise around the temple

We stayed 20 minutes away at Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge, a collection of colonial-chic bungalows offering spectacular views of the Himalayas, as well as exquisite cuisine, an elegant pool and impeccable service.

Wed heard beforehand how friendly the locals were, and we experienced that first-hand one afternoon while driving back from haggling for yak wool blankets in Pokhara.

Spotting a colourful wedding party, Nick jumped out of the bus and asked if he could photograph the beautiful bride in her red wedding sari. Not only did she say yes, but she invited us to join the party.

It was an unforgettable afternoon, and once the wedding was finished, guests piled into our bus and we dropped them off at another wedding close by.

The whole experience was magical  and just one reason why we should be heading to Nepal in our droves.
As the Model T chugs past the manicured lawns, it becomes immediately clear that this is no ordinary village.

The Wright Cycle Shop is no homage  its the original bike shop from Dayton, Ohio, where the Wright Brothers built their first plane. Tycoon Henry Ford had it moved brick-by-brick to his remarkable Greenfield Village project, near Detroit.

The same applies to other sights around the village: the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practised in Springfield, Illinois; the house from Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, where Henry John Heinz went from selling bottled horseradish to ketchup fame.

Motor city: Part of the collection at the Henry Ford, a museum founded by the car tycoon

On its own, Greenfield Village would be one of the best museums in the United States. Its brilliantly presented and has some seriously high-quality exhibits. But the astonishing thing is that it is a mere side dish to the main course.

The Henry Ford is named in honour of the man who founded it, and it is utterly absorbing.

Some things are to be expected  the section on motoring with lots of old Fords, for example.

But it dives into other things, such as the history of the interstate system, how motels have changed over the years, and also includes a famous neon-lit McDonalds sign.

Theres a collection of presidential cars, including the Ford Lincoln that JFK was riding in when he was assassinated. Whats even more remarkable is that the limo was later revamped with some armour and used by Lyndon B. Johnson.

An old McDonalds sign at the museum is one of the most famous installations at the attraction

Henry Ford, pictured at the Indianapolis Speedway in 1932

The aviation section starts with information on how early pilots used railroad tracks as navigational aids and how the first stewardesses were hired after one feisty woman marched into the Boeing offices and suggested the idea.

The American history section is superbly presented, with independence, the Civil War and the civil rights movement given enough detail to tell a gripping story, but not too much so that you feel like youre drowning in the dull bits.

The wow-factor objects keep coming, from George Washingtons camp bed to the seat from Fords Theatre used by Abraham Lincoln when he was shot.

But most affecting of all is a green and yellow bus. Youre free to saunter on board, and a voice is heard over the speakers.

The voice belongs to Rosa Parks, and shes explaining why she refused to give up her seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama.

Heaven knows how they found it, but this is the bus where it happened, starting protests that would lead to the end of racial segregation.

Henry Ford may be most famous for his cars, but he has left an astonishing cultural legacy too.
The ladies of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills are on the move.

Kyle Richards and Lisa Vanderpump were spotted looking ultra glamorous at LAX Airport in Los Angeles on Friday before their flight out of town.

The reality star veterans linked up with new cast member Dorit Kemsley, who joins the women for the upcoming seventh season of the hit show as filming begins.

Flight fashion: Kyle Richards and Lisa Vanderpump were spotted looking ultra glamorous at LAX Airport in Los Angeles on Friday before their flight out of town

New face: The reality star veterans linked up with new cast member Dorit Kemsley, who joins the women for the upcoming 7th season of the hit show as filming begins

Kyle made a chic jet-setter clad in all white nixing the old-fashioned Labor Day rule.

The 47-year-old mother-of-four donned skinny jeans and a white tank top underneath a stylish sheer cut-out trench coat which was belted at the waist.

The brunette beauty teamed the summery look with nude open toe sandals which showed off her fresh red pedicure.

She left her long locks down with the front strands pulled back and added a pretty gloss to her lips leaving her trendy sunnies on inside the airport.

Chic jet-setter: Kyle was clad in all white nixing the old fashioned Labor Day rule

Peace out! The 47-year-old mom-of-four left her long locks down with the front strands pulled back and added a pretty gloss to her lips leaving her trendy sunnies on inside the airport

Paris and Nicky Hilton's aunt was decked out in jewelry and toted a large Louis Vuitton purse over her shoulder.

Kyle took to Instagram before take off captioning the Snapchat filtered shot with: 'Love an adventure ...and we're off!'

Kyle appeared in high spirits before her flight as she flashed a smile and a peace sign.

Happy travels: Kyle took to Instagram before take off captioning the Snapchat filtered shot with: 'Love an adventure ...and we're off!'

Opposites attract: Lisa looked lovely in an all-black ensemble flashing some flesh in a black long-sleeve cut-out dress

Meanwhile, Lisa looked lovely in an all-black ensemble flashing some flesh in a black long-sleeve cut-out dress.

The 55-year-old and mum of two showed off her tan legs in the feminine frock due to the sheer lacy panels which hit high on her thigh.

The British beauty topped her look off with a large brimmed black hat, and a black and silver buckled belt.

Fashion over comfort: The 55-year-old British beauty topped her look off with a large brimmed black hat, a leather and silver buckled belt, and sparkly stilettos

She opted for fashion over comfort adding a pair of sparkly stilettos to her travel attire.

Lisa sported a face full of make-up and left her hair down as she made her way through the terminal with a large carry on case and a black rolling bag.

Newbie, Dorit, added a pop of color to the group wearing a bright pink blouse which she paired with a white skinny jeans and black open-toe sandals.

Pretty in pink: Newbie, Dorit, added a pop of color to the group wearing a bright fuchsia blouse which she paired with a white skinny jeans and black open-toe sandals

The blonde beauty, who is a fashion designer and is married to British property developer Paul Kemsley, wore her long locks down and also kept her over-sized shades on inside the terminal.

Dorit, who happens to be good friends with RHOBH vet Lisa, appeared relaxed and at ease with the group of women.

Season six, which wrapped up on May 10, saw two cast members leaving the show.

Yolanda Hadid announced her decision to leave the show in June, reportedly after producers told her she would be demoted to a friend of the program, rather than a main star, in the upcoming season.

Kathryn Edwards, who was new to the cast for season six, was confirmed to be leaving the show last month.

'I feel great,' Edwards, 51, told People recently, 'I walk away from it all with great feelings. I have no regrets at all.'

'It was definitely an adventure for me. I really am kind of a private person.'

The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills season 7 returns later in 2016 on Bravo.
It's certainly been an eventful year, with her husband imprisoned and a breast cancer diagnosis.

But on Friday, Roxy Jacenko, 36, chose to lean on friends after her first week of radiation treatment.

The PR queen stunned as she dared to bare in a little black dress, as she enjoyed a night out in Sydney's affluent suburb of Double Bay.

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Stunning: Roxy Jacenko, 36, dared to bare in a little black dress as she enjoyed a night out with friends in Sydney's Double Bay on Friday

Taking to Instagram, Roxy stunned in a little black frock that drew attention to her lithe arms and toned legs.

Sitting on one of the bar's lounges, she accessorised with just a gold man-style watch, wedding rings and strappy black designer heels.

Allowing her signature blonde tresses to fall in loose waves around an elegantly made up face, the entrepreneur looked a picture of content as she sidled up to heiress and Sydney socialite Francesca Packer Barham.

'So much fun,' Roxy captioned the snap alongside the kiss mark emoji.

Mingling: The businesswoman enjoyed a girls night's out with close pals including Sophie Falkiner (far left), socialite Angelique Andrews (second left) and wife of Bashar Ibrahim, Laura Cathery-Ibrahim (far right)

Another fun snap saw the Sydney-sider mingling with other notables including television personality Sophie Falkiner, socialite Angelique Andrews and wife of Bashar Ibrahim, Laura Cathery-Ibrahim.

Roxy appeared to be enjoying the girl's night out, beaming happily for the black and white photo.

Picture perfect: An earlier image shared to Instagram saw the PR dynamo perfecting her selfie game in a sweet snap at Sydney restaurant Mr Wong, alongside socialite Barbara Coombes

Just a few hours earlier, Roxy took to Instagram to share a sweet snap while enjoying dinner with socialite Barbara Coombes at Sydney restaurant Mr Wong.

Looking to perfect their selfie game, the close pals pouted up a storm, with the media personality pulling the peace sign.

Simply captioning the snap with a love heart emoji, Roxy's recent health and legal woes appeared the furthest from her mind.

Made up: The mother-of-two got glammed up for the fun night out with a little help from friend and hair and makeup artist Craig Beaglehole

Retail therapy: Roxy Jacenko treated herself to a new season Chanel Chain Embellished Boy handbag, worth around $8,000

Roxy also appears to be calming her worries with a spot of retail therapy.

This week saw the mother-of-two pick up a new season Chanel Chain Embellished Boy handbag, worth around $8,000.

The medium black leather bag features a quilted pattern on the centre of the flap and has a chain detail border in silver hardware.

Taking centre stage is the Chanel logo, which appears in brushed silver on the clasp.

It appeared Roxy could barely wait to return to her office before showing off her latest accessory - as she held the empty Chanel store shopping bag in the other hand while she photographed herself in a lift.

Bag lady: Roxy is known for having a large collection of designer handbags - many of them Hermes Birkin bags
She's an Emmy award-winning TV host, who is often found interviewing celebrities on the red carpet.

But Renee Bargh found herself on the other side of the lens on Friday, as she appeared backstage for the Project Runway fashion show during New York Fashion Week.

The 29-year-old turned heads as she put on a leggy display in a shimmering lace dress.

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The other side: Renee Bargh found herself on the other side of the red carpet on Friday as she was photographed backstage at the Project Runway fashion show during New York Fashion Week

The dress, which was long sleeved, ended at the top of her thighs and drew attention to the television presenter's tanned and toned pins.

She accentuated her long legs with a pair of nude strapless heels.

A beaded hem and sleeves added a playful touch to the glamorous dress, which she appeared to wear over a black slip.

Renee let the dress do most of the talking as she kept her makeup looking natural, save for a classic dark lip.

Shaking it: The 29-year-old showed off the beaded hem and sleeves of her dress in a playful video shared with her social media followers

The Byron Bay bred presenter kept her accessories to a minimum - adorning herself with only a few thin silver rings and a chain around her neck.

Her hair was also styled in a natural way, as her golden tresses hung in loose waves down past her shoulder.

She shared photos of her glamorous night out with her near 72,000 Instagram followers.

In one image, she appeared with Misha Collection designer Michelle Aznavorian and model friend of Kim Kardashian, Jasmine Sanders - better known as Golden Barbie.

In the second photo, the bubbly blonde showed off her playful side as she shimmied in her dress - showing off the beaded detail.
They may have missed her son-in-law's big show but this reality star was not about miss another second of New York Fashion Week.

Kris Jenner near galloped her way into Manhattan on Friday with boyfriend Corey Gamble in tow.

The couple rode into town via helicopter after touching down in JFK following their holiday in Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.

Trot along: Kris Jenner near galloped her way into Manhattan on Friday with boyfriend Corey Gamble in tow

The 60-year-old set a cracking pace as she trotted along in platform Stella McCartney lace ups from the helicopter to their waiting car.

Corey - who is 15 years her junior - was a little slower out of the gates, lugging two designer carry-ons and checking his phone.

The couple are about to have a very fashionable few days, so Kris obviously decided to push the style envelope from the moment she arrived in NYC.

The star hopped out of the helicopter in a pair of Stella McCartney horse print harem pants and matching long sleeve jumper.

Full steam ahead: The 60-year-old set a cracking pace as she trotted along in platform Stella McCartney lace ups while Corey - who is 15 years her junior - was a little slower out of the gates

And she's off: The star hopped out of the helicopter in a pair of Stella McCartney horse print harem pants and matching long sleeve jumper

Skipped it: The couple's arrival in New York follows reports that Kanye West was less than impressed that not all of the Kardashian clan made themselves available for his show on Wednesday (Kim, Kendall and Kylie made it)

Worn together, the ensemble - the top of which is now sold out but as a set cost of $1600 - made quite a statement.

Making the outfit's collective price tag even higher, the star ported an alligator Hermes Birkin bag as well as the new Gucci handbag, the Sylvie Gucci Signature bag.

Corey meanwhile wore a Ferrari shirt black pants and a pair of Kanye West's Yeezys.

Had something else on: Instead Kris joined daughters Khloe and Kourtney (pictured) in France for a quick vacation

The couple's arrival in New York follows reports that Kanye was less than impressed that not all of the Kardashian clan made themselves available for his show on Wednesday.

In February, everyone, including Kris' ex Caitlyn Jenner, made sure to attend the rapper's fashion and album launch.

Instead Kris joined daughters Khloe and Kourtney in France for a quick vacation.
Their characters have a close friendship on Australian drama 800 Words.

And it seems the bond extends beyond the camera, with Erik Thomson issuing a touching public congratulations to his friend and co-star Rick Donald, who was married last week.

Sharing a photo of himself and the 30-year-old hunk with 8,000 Instagram followers, Erik extended his best wishes to Rick and his new wife, former Home and Away star Catherine Mack.

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Friends behind the camera too: Erik Thomson wished his 800 Words co-star Rick Donald congratulations on his wedding to Home and Away star Catherine Mack in a heartfelt Instagram post on Saturday

'Earlier this week at Yosemite in the States, this bloke married his beautiful partner,' he wrote on Saturday morning.

'They did it on the down-low and with inimitable style!

'I just wanted to publicly wish Rick and Catherine a wonderful future together and an amazing and infuriatingly brilliant honeymoon/ world tour.'

Newlyweds: Catherine Mack and Rick Donald tied the knot at Yosemite National Park

The message comes just days after the newlyweds identified themselves as the couple in a stunning sunset wedding photo taken at Yosemite National Park that went viral.

The couple were posing for wedding photos last Thursday, when a man hiking through the park caught them in the background of an epic sunset photo.

Insurance adjuster Mike Karas, who photographed the couple, was too far away to catch up with the bride and groom, so he enlisted the public's help on social media to track them down.

Picturesque: The couple were posed up on a rocky ledge last Thursday when a man hiking through the park took a picture of them at sunset

Photographer Mike Karas (pictured) then used social media to track down the couple

He finally got an answer on Tuesday, when he spoke with Catherine, who identified herself as the bride.

In an update on his Instagram post, Mike wrote that the bubbly blonde 'was laughing and happy about the photo and the whole story and loved it'.

In a post on her own Instagram account on Wednesday, the 30-year-old thanked everyone who helped the photographer find her and her husband.

'Thanks for looking for us far and wide, you certainly caught our attention... you all know how to get the word out there #thankyou #yosemite #love,' she wrote.

Loved up: The couple appear to have spent their honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico, according to photos posted to Instagram

Good times: Mack pictured on the left on holiday in Tulum last week, and on the right at the Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite

In August, Rick gave an interview with TV Week saying that the date of the wedding was being kept a big secret because they wanted 'to keep [their nuptials] personal'.

'That's one of those things I've always said, your personal life is personal,' he said. 'The family and us will be the only ones who'll know.'

The couple became engaged in October 2014, during a romantic getaway to Ko Samui, Thailand.
The BBC has cast a host of celebrities to star in Sunday's episode of The Archers, as the verdict is given in Helen Titchener's attempted murder trial.

Listeners will hear a star-studded jury including Dame Eileen Atkins, Nigel Havers and Catherine Tate deliberate on the gripping case in an hour-long special.

The most loyal fans of the Radio 4 soap will also notice a familiar voice as Graham Seed, who played Nigel Pargetter for 27 years, returns as one of the jurors.

Listeners will hear a star-studded jury including Dame Eileen Atkins, left, and Catherine Tate, right, deliberate on the gripping Archers murder case

The Ambridge drama has been dominated by the domestic abuse storyline and recently by events in Borchester Crown Court, as Helen stands trial accused of attempted murder, after she stabbed her controlling husband Rob in April.

In one episode this week, Rob portrayed himself as a loving husband, whilst in another Helen claimed that Rob had raped her throughout their marriage.

On another evening, listeners heard Helen's five-year-old son Henry giving his version of events of the stabbing incident via a video link.

Unexpected drama then ensued when it was found that one of the jurors had been tweeting about the case, and was dismissed for contempt of court.

Yet Sunday night's episode will likely be the most intense yet for the soap's millions of fans, many of whom have been reacting to the drama as though it is a real-life trial.

Sean O'Connor, the outgoing editor of the Archers, said he had wanted to introduce a celebrity jury to make this a unique moment in the history of the programme.

Havers, who is most famous for his role in Chariots of Fire, will also pop up in the radio show

He said: 'To make up the jury, we assembled a fantastic cross section of British acting talent from radio, TV, stage and film led by Dame Eileen Atkins, Nigel Havers and Catherine Tate.

'Everybody we approached agreed to take part with such enthusiasm - some without even reading the script.'
She's been touring the globe promoting the highly-anticipated comedy sequel Bridget Jones's Baby.

And Renee Zellweger pulled out all the stops when she attended the premiere in Madrid, Spain on Friday night, donning a gorgeous glittering gown.

The 47-year-old star was the picture of elegance in the black strapless number from Carolina Herrera, which featured glitzy embroidery and a full skirt.

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Stunning: Renee Zellweger pulled out all the stops when she attended the premiere in Madrid, Spain on Friday night, donning a gorgeous glittering gown by Carolina Herrera

Renee set off her look with a statement cocktail ring and wore her blonde locks pulled back in a bun.

The actress accessorised with a simple pair of black heels, adding some extra height to her svelte frame.

Also joining her at the red carpet event were the usual suspects, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey.

Strike a pose: Renee set off her look with a statement cocktail ring and wore her blonde locks pulled back in a bun

Dazzling: The 47-year-old star was the picture of elegance in the black strapless number, featuring glitzy embroidery and a full skirt

Clowning around: The actress joked around for the cameras at the star-studded event

Her main men: Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey accompanied Renee

Back together again: Colin and Renee looked friendly as ever at the premiere

Earlier in the day, Renee looked more than happy to be back in the spotlight at the pre-premiere photocall for the film in Madrid.

The actress looked gorgeous in a classy floral dress as she posed at the event in the Spanish capital alongside her dapper co-stars Patrick Dempsey and Colin Firth.

Renee looked a far cry from her Bridget Jones counterpart in the elegant floral dress, which featured a stylish ruffled drop hem.

Elegant: Renee cut a regal figure as she graced the special purple carpet

All together now: The A-list stars posed with the film's director Sharon Maguire

Printed with purple, blue and red flowers all over, the Chicago star stood out on the carpet in the vibrant dress as she smiled for the cameras.

Falling to just above the knee, the dress gave a glimpse of her slender pins but still remained incredibly classy.

She paired the frock with a pair of classic nude heeled sandals and left her hair loose and natural, adding to the effortless style of the look.

Picture of class: Renee looked gorgeous in a classy floral dress as she posed at the Spanish photocall earlier in the day

Power trio: The star looked happy to be back in the spotlight as she posed alongside her handsome co-stars

Regal: Falling to just above the knee, the dress gave a glimpse of her slender pins but still remained incredibly classy

No Bridget here! Renee looked a far cry from her British alter-ego in the elegant floral dress, which featured a stylish ruffled drop hem

Meanwhile her co-stars posed by her side in their usual dapper fashion.

Beloved British actor Colin, 55, looked particularly debonair in a traditional grey suit, layered on top of a crisp white shirt, and his trademark retro glasses.

His suave style was matched by Patrick, 50, who opted for the trendy combo of a shirt jacket and tie with faded jeans and white trainers.

Leading lady: Printed with purple, blue and red flowers all over, the Chicago star stood out on the carpet in the vibrant dress

Oh Mr Darcy! Colin, who reprises his role as Mark Darcy in the flick, looked suave and stylish as ever in his trademark retro glasses

McDreamy! Grey's Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey joined the crew as the newbie to the cast, playing rival American hunk Jack Qwant

The trio looked fresh-faced and healthier than ever as they posed for the cameras, considering Madrid marks their fourth European city in one busy week of promotion.

The third installment of the beloved Bridget Jones's Baby held its premiere in London's Leicester Square on Monday, and has since been met with rave reviews.

The Daily Mail's Brian Viner described the movie as 'a worthy completion of the trilogy' while the Daily Mirror's critic penned the flick 'a laughathon'.

The movie catches up with Bridget who is now working a news producer, with awards under her belt and a more balanced approach to life than in the previous two movies.

Just acting: The funny trio, who make up the movie's love triangle, looked happy and comfortable together as they posed for the cameras

Gentlemen: Beloved British actor Colin, 55, looked particularly debonair in a traditional grey suit, while Patrick opted for the trendy combo of a shirt jacket and white trainers

Success! The third installment of the beloved Bridget Jones's Baby held its premiere in London's Leicester Square on Monday, and has since been met with rave reviews

However, her life is about to be turned upside down once again, as she discovers she's pregnant.

And Bridget is unsure whether the father of the child is the faithful Mark Darcy, (Firth), or the dashing American Jack Qwant, played by Greys Anatomys Doctor McDreamy (Dempsey).

The iconic role of Bridget herself marks one of Renee's first after a six year break from acting, alongside her upcoming thriller The Whole Truth, with Keanu Reeves.

Yet, talking on the Jonathan Ross Show this week, the star admitted that she actually quite liked being out of the public eye.

Comeback kid: Renee's reprised role marks her first acting venture since 2010

Private: Talking on the Jonathan Ross Show this week, the star admitted that she actually quite liked being out of the public eye

She explained: 'When you go away and youre out of peoples consciousness, they stop noticing you. Its fantastic, you order your coffee and you get a coffee and leave.

'Its really nice because Id meet people authentically, youd have authentic conversations on the street and I enjoyed that, thats something that I had missed.'

However, she reveals she is just as happy to be making her comeback - especially considering she gets to reprise her favourite character Bridget.

She confessed to the Telegraph of why she wanted to return with the role that scored her an Oscar nomination back in 2001: 'So many people feel they can relate to her because theyve shared her awkwardness and theyve shared her humiliation.

'She makes it OK to be imperfect and we are all kind of looking for that.'
The Toronto International Film Festival is chock-a-block full of big name stars so a celebrity needs to twinkle just that little bit harder to stand out.

Dakota Fanning dazzled literally and figuratively at the TIFF premiere of her new film American Pastoral.

From the moment the 22-year-old stepped out in the red carpet in Toronto, Canada, on Friday, she sparkled.

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Easy being green: Dakota Fanning dazzled literally and figuratively at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of her new film American Pastoral on Friday

Her nature lustre was bolstered by her shimmering outfit and shiny accessories.

For the premiere, the young actress wore a glistening green gown that was both red carpet-ready and fun and playful.

Dakota gown featured a spaghetti strapped ruched bodice with a long flowing skirt created by soft layers of tulle.

As she walked, The Runaways actress' dress flowed behind her adding some drama but still allowing her to move effortlessly.

Shine bright: For the premiere, the young actress wore a glistening green gown that was both red carpet-ready and fun and playful

Going with the flow: As she walked, The Runaways actress' dress flowed behind her adding some drama but still allowing her to move effortlessly

Tulle-y fantastic: Dakota gown featured a spaghetti strapped ruched bodice with a long flowing skirt created by soft layers of tulle

Helping her to shine even brighter, the dress was covered in tiny luminescent silver spots which caught the light with every step.

Dakota did not have to worry about wearing a necklace as the top featured a giant round Art Deco-inspired brooch.

Sparkle! The beauty wore three Tiffany & Co. rings which were worth just under $250,000

The diamonds in dark silver settings also encircled her tiny waist with a matching belt.

While she did not wear a necklace or ant earrings for that matter, the actress still managed to rock some very pricey jewels.

The beauty wore three Tiffany & Co. rings which were worth just under $250,000.

The priciest of which was a platinum ring with a 10-carat sapphire and diamonds which costs $165,000.

The star also wore another smaller sapphire plus a diamond surrounded 3-carat green tourmaline, which matched her gown perfectly.

Different approach: In contrast to Dakota's flowing soft gown, her co-star and on-screen mother Jennifer Connellywore a sleek edgy black dress

Dare to bare: Constructed from leather, the gown featured a zip which ran the length of it and the Labyrinth star un-zipped it almost to the top of her thighs in a daring style move

Taking the plunge: The top of the dress had a plunging sequinned neckline with bone-like beads stitched on

Her co-star and on-screen mother Jennifer Connelly took a very different approach.

In contrast to Dakota's flowing soft gown, the 45-year-old actress wore a sleek edgy black dress.

Constructed from leather, the gown featured a zip which ran the length of it and the Labyrinth star un-zipped it almost to the top of her thighs in a daring style move.

Well suited: Taking an even bigger fashion risk was the director and star, Ewan McGregor

Changing it up: The 45-year-old wore a bone suit with a classic-fit jacket but with cropped trousers which tapered in at the ankles

Stars of the show: Ewan and Jennifer embraced at the screening

The top of the dress had a plunging sequinned neckline with bone-like beads stitched on.

The unusual detail seemed to have been created by a designer drawing inspiration from tradition breastplates wore by Native Americans.

The actress accessorized her look with a pair of strappy heals with metal studs across the foot and a hard rectangular case-like clutch.

Date night: Valorie Curry and Sam Underwood snuggled up on the film festival's red carpet

Twinkle twinkle: The 30-year-old actress wore a striking silver gown which highlighted her svelte shape

But taking an even bigger fashion risk was the film's director and star, Ewan McGregor.

The 45-year-old wore a bone suit with a classic-fit jacket but with cropped trousers which tapered in at the ankles.

Highlighting the unusual length of his suit pants, the actor skipped wearing socks.

Classic look: Molly Parker stepped out in an easy to wear Little Black Dress for the event

Say cheese: The film's stars posed up together inside the venue (L-R) Uzo Aduba, Valorie, Peter Riegert, Jennifer, Ewan, Dakota, Rupert Evans, Molly, Mark Hildreth and David Strathairn

The star's shoes also were eye-catching, with Ewan wearing white and tan alligator hide lace ups.

Ewan helmed American Pastoral which is based on the Philip Roth novel by the same title.

In the film, his character's perfect Middle class American world collapses after his daughter (played by Dakota) radicalizes and blows up a post office.

Handsome pair: Sam and Valorie happily posed for a picture with Valorie looking stunning in a silver dress

Promotional push: Rupert Evans and Andre Lamal caught up at the screening

The bombing was in protest of the Vietnam War and kills a man, leading to nation-wide hunt for Dakota's character.

The film is set in the late 1960s as the country is thrown into social and political turmoil during Lyndon B Johnson's presidency both in terms of America's international policies and also its treatment of its own non-white citizens.

American Pastoral will be in theatres October 28.
She gave birth to baby boy Rocket last year, and is set to welcome her second child with husband Sam Worthington in coming months.

And Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) looks to be content with pregnancy, as she shared a unique snap to Instagram on Friday, while at her home in New York.

The 29-year-old posted a black and white image that featured the outline of a pregnant naked body, presumably her own silhouette, with the caption: 'My Friday night'.

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In bloom: Lara Worthington, 29, shared a unique artwork to Instagram on Friday, presumably of her own pregnant naked body

The artwork saw a pregnant woman lying in either a bath or on a bed, completely naked.

While it is unknown who lent their skills to the image, it's presumed to be of Lara's frame.

The snap captioned 'My Friday night,' was an instant hit with her social media fans.

Challenge: The image comes just after the popular personality admitted to blog Tomboy Beauty via The Daily Telegraph, that the thought of giving birth again is 'scary'

The image comes just after the popular personality admitted that the thought of giving birth again is 'scary'.

'Knowing you have to give birth and there is no other way you can go is scary,' she confessed to blog Tomboy Beauty, via The Daily Telegraph.

Lara explained that once you're pregnant 'there's no going back,' but admitted it's a difficult concept to explain to people without children.

Family ties: The entrepreneur gave birth to baby boy Rocket Zot last year, and is set to welcome her second child with husband Sam Worthington (L) in coming months

Bumping along nicely: Lara often takes to Instagram to document her pregnancy journey

While the former swimsuit model has kept quiet about her pregnancy to the media, Who magazine reports that she's been telling friends she's expecting a boy.

'She was quite open, saying how happy she is,' a source told the magazine.

In July, Lara praised her actor husband Sam in an interview with InStyle magazine.

'He's a hands-on-dad': In July, the former swimsuit model praised her actor husband Sam in an interview with InStyle magazine

'He's a hands-on dad,' she said.

She added: 'He's not one to sleep through the night and not help'.

While many A-list couples choose to hire outside help when raising their children, Lara and Sam, 40, have decided against it.

'Sam and I weren't brought up with any help... It's definitely a lot harder than I thought,' she said.
She has taken to letting it all hang out in an array of see-through attire during New York Fashion Week.

Kim Kardashian carried on that eye-opening trend as she hit up Harper's Bazaar celebration of 'ICONS By Carine Roitfeld' at The Plaza Hotel on Friday night.

The 35-year-old reality star - who was joined by her rapper-turned-designer husband Kanye West - wowed in a sheer black lace Givenchy gown with plunging cleavage and a trailing hemline.

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Sheer daring: Kim Kardashian carried on her eye-opening fashion trend in a sheer black lace gown at the Harper's Bazaar 'ICONS' party in NYC on Friday

Kim was bronzed and beautiful with a slicked back hairstyle and natural-toned make-up.

The mother-of-two rubbed elbows with some of the most gorgeous models in the world, but held her own here.

Kim posed on the arrivals line with poise, turning to show more of the dress in the back and that generous booty of hers.

Clingy: The reality star's dress fit her figure like a glove and showed off her bountiful curves

Mr. and Mrs. West: Kim was joined at the event by her rapper-turned-designer husband Kanye West

Support mode: The shapely stunner arrived in New York to support Kanye for the unveiling of his Yeezy season four collection that took place on Wednesday

Out for the night: Kim was seen heading to the bash earlier in the evening

Inside the star was joined by her family, with Kris, Kendall and Kylie Jenner in attendance as well as Kourtney Kardashian.

While Kris and Kourt missed Kanye's fashion show the other day, they - along with the other guests - were treated to a performance by the rapper during the party.

Kanye had the room going crazy and even brought up lady of the hour , Carine Roitfeld, come dance with him as well as getting his mother-in-law to sing too.

Family time: Inside the star was joined by her family, with Kris, Kendall and Kylie Jenner in attendance as well as Kourtney Kardashian

Getting the people going: While Kris and Kourt missed Kanye's fashion show the other day, they - along with the other guests - were treated to a performance by the rapper

Letting loose: While fashion people are not known for losing their cool, the rapper had the crowd going crazy

Dance it out: The star even brought up lady of the hour , Carine Roitfeld, come dance

Karaoke? Kanye got some elp from mother-in-law turned backup singer Kris

Earlier in the day, a braless Kim put her breasts on show as she rocked yet another sheer top.

In recent days the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star has worn a series of variations of the look, with her nipples on show beneath plunging, tight tank tops.

This time it was rather early for such a daring display - with the mother-of-two rocking her daring outfit early on Friday morning.

Can't help help herself! Kim spent most of her husband's performance Snapchatting

Everyone get in! Kim takes a snap of Kanye's performance with the crowd all hoping to be involved

Getting his good angels: The stra made sure fans could feel like they were at the event

Packed house! The family was surrounded by VIPs wanting to get some snaps of Kanye

Blazing trail: The 35-year-old showcased her derriere and her legs as she strolled to the car

Details: Kim's dress billowed about her feet in a shimmery finely embroidered flourish

Kim was pictured as she left her hotel and the look-at-me top was teamed with paneled satin and cotton black cargo pants, and some geometric sunglasses.

Mrs. Kanye West has been at New York Fashion Week in support of her husband for his Yeezy season four collection unveiling, which debuted on Wednesday.

The Only One rapper debuted his 'timeless' pieces at the event on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

Sister act: Kendall posed up with Kim as they partied at the exclusive event

In the limo: The brunette beauty alerted her social media followers of her plans

Designer: Kim showed off more of that stunning Givenchy gown

Mementos: The mother of two had some Polaroids taken inside the party

But all did not go according to plan.

The show was due to start at 3pm but didn't properly kick off until an hour and half later and as guests arrived, they were met with the sight of hundreds of models stood in neutral outfits on the green space between the two runways.

Meanwhile there was said to be friction between Kanye and Kim's family, after they failed to show.

Besties: The 35-year-old also snapped some pics with Carine and her husband
Her big break came when she signed her first modelling contract with Calvin Klein.

But it seems model Tony Garrn opted to leave her Calvins at home on Friday evening when she attended the Harper Bazaar ICONS party celebrating New York Fashion Week.

The 24-year-old German stunner left very little to the imagination when she showed up in a completely sheer dress.

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Missing something? It seems model Tony Garrn, 24, opted to leave her Calvins at home on Friday evening when she donned a completely sheer dress to attend the Harper Bazaar ICONS party celebrating New York Fashion Week

While the garment did feature some patches of gold brocade and black seams also dotted in gold details, most of the vital areas were completely visible.

She opted to go braless on top, but did opt for some skimpy black panties for just a dash of coverage down below.

Perhaps most bizarre was that the barely-there dress included small hip pockets, which were also sheer of course.

Not shy: While the garment did feature some patches of gold brocade and black seams also dotted in gold details, most of the vital areas were completely visible

A pair of delicate strappy metallic heels and a small metal clutch rounded out the ensemble, though most onlookers' eyes were probably drawn elsewhere.

Her wavy platinum tresses were parted in the center, and allowed to cascade down past her shoulders.

Some light pink lipstick, minimal eye make-up and natural blush accentuated her flawless visage.

Free form: Most of her red carpet looks have involved no support garments whatsoever (pictured here in November 2014)

On her way up: Her big break came when she signed her first modelling contract with Calvin Klein (seen here walking the Calvin Klein collection for Fashion Week 2008)

The latest dress was obviously eye-popping, but it seems the leggy blonde has never been much of a fan of the brassiere.

Indeed, most of her red carpet looks have involved no support garments whatsoever.

Then again, it may simply be the current style, as fellow model Emily Ratajkowski, 25, also opted for a bra-free look at the Harper's event.
Husband Jason Sudeikis actually appears in the film.

But Olivia Wilde still managed to upstage him on the red carpet, as she flashed a bit of cleavage during the premiere for Colossal at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The 32-year-old House actress, who is reportedly approximately five months pregnant, donned a long black dress with flared sleeves for the event.

The real star: Olivia Wilde managed to upstage husband Jason on the red carpet, as she flashed a bit of cleavage during the premiere for Colossal at the Toronto International Film Festival

She also put on a somewhat busty display thanks to a very low cut neckline.

While the dark garment definitely helped hide her bump when viewed from the front, the Vinyl star did swivel for the cameras a bit to show off her sizable tummy.

Accessories included a small black leather clutch and an intricate chain and charm necklace with matching earrings.

Monochrome: The 32-year-old House actress, who is reportedly approximately five months pregnant, donned a long black dress with flared sleeves for the event

A little sexy: She also put on a somewhat busty display thanks to a very low cut neckline

Definitely pregnant: While the dark garment definitely helped hide her bump when viewed from the front, the Vinyl star did swivel for the cameras a bit to show off her sizable tummy

Her brunette tresses were parted in the middle and fell in waves past her shoulders.

A slick of light pink lipstick complemented a moderate amount of blush, while some sharp eye make-up made her famous opalescent irises pop.

Husband and co-star of the film Jason, 40, looked dapper in a classic-cut navy blue suit from Ben Sherman, white shirt and burgundy tie.

Dashing: Husband and co-star of the film Jason, 40, looked dapper in a classic-cut navy blue Ben Sherman suit, white shirt and burgundy tie

He opted to dress down the look slightly with some white sneakers, though they did feature coordinating burgundy accents.

Also at the premiere was Anne Hathaway, 33, who stars as the lead in the scifi action thriller.

In the film, Anne stars as a woman who returns to her small hometown, where she reconnects with an old friend, played by Jason, and discovers she is mysteriously linked to a giant monster terrorizing Seoul.
He's often described as rugged.

But on Friday night's episode of Channel Ten's The Living Room, The Bachelor's Richie Strahan claimed he's more polished than some may think.

The 31-year-old rope access technician compared himself to a 'seal' after revealing to the show's co-hosts that he doesn't 'have too much hair'.

'I'm like a seal': The Bachelor's Richie Strahan, 31, compared himself to a seal on Friday night's episode of Channel Ten's The Living Room, referring to his lack of body hair

'No, I'm like a seal,' Richie shared to the show's presenters Amanda Keller, Chris Brown, Miguel Maestre and Barry Du Bois.

'I don't have too much hair, so that's probably not for me,' he continued.

The Perth-based hunk was referring to a manscaping tool Miguel had demonstrated on a segment of the show.

The tool, in the shape of a giant razor, was placed over both eyebrows to shield them, while another razor would shave around the covered area.

Smooth operator: The reality star shared to the show's presenters Amanda Keller, Barry Du Bois (left), Chris Brown (centre) and Miguel Maestre (second right) that he doesn't have to indulge in much manscaping

The manscaping comments comes after Richie's personal hygiene was called in to question.

Several reports claimed that many of the Bachelorettes found the personality to suffer from body odour.

However when speaking to Kent Small on Nova's Smallzy Surgery back in July, the reality star hit back at rumours, saying they were made up.

Not shy: The Perth-based hunk often takes to social media to share topless snaps

Model looks: The rope access technician is not the only reality TV star to show off a polished look. Pictured here with Davey Lloyd (second left) and Dave Billsborrow (second right) who appeared with Richie last year in The Bachelorette

'We don't know who these sources are. It could be anyone,' he shared.

'I think they were looking for a bit of dirt on me and they couldn't find it so they legitimately rubbed dirt on me and called me the 'smelly kid''.

New Idea magazine previously claimed that Richie had body odour problems while filming the successful Channel Ten series.

'No-one knew if he was aware of it, or if it was down to his nerves. But it was noticeable and was certainly a mood killer as far as romance goes,' a source told the publication.

Just rumours? The manscaping comments comes after Richie's personal hygiene was called in to question, leading people to believe that he has body odour
She's most commonly known for her role as Madison on Neighbours.

But Sarah Ellen, who has wrapped up filming for the long-running soap, proved she's also a serious contender in the style stakes.

The 18-year-old earned her stripes in a flirty frock while attending New York Fashion Week on Thursday.

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Earning her stripes: Former Neighbours star Sarah Ellen, 18, cut a stylish figure in a flirty frock as she attended New York Fashion Week on Thursday

Standing outside of the Marissa Webb show, Sarah accentuated her lithe legs in a figure-hugging striped frock, with a frilly hem finishing mid-thigh.

Accessorising with a pair of open-toed suede boots and a stylish cap, the actress had her short cropped locks fall in loose waves around her face.

Opting for a minimal makeup palette, the blonde beauty sported a flawless complexion, defined brows and a soft pink lip.

Fashion forward: Standing outside of the Marissa Webb show, the actress accentuated her lithe legs in the striped ensemble with a frilly hem finishing mid-thigh

Despite her contract having ended with Neighbours, Sarah shared with The Daily Telegraph in July, that she loved playing the daughter of Scott and Charlene Robinson.

'It's my first TV acting role, so I'm lucky to start with such an iconic show. I love the cast and everyone on set; they're like a big, happy family,' she told the publication.

On her debut, the budding actress received a congratulatory message from her on-screen mother, played by Kylie Minogue.

In-demand: The blonde beauty has also secured modelling contracts with fashion chain Supre and Maybelline Australia

'Congratulations on your first acting job Sarah and welcome to the neighbourhood!,' the 48-year-old penned to NewsCorp Australia.

'A lot has changed since I was in Neighbours, but I have no doubt the family spirit of the cast and crew remains the same,' she added. 'Have a great time'.

Neighbours marked Sarah's first acting gig after securing fame from a quirky 30-second video which the teen uploaded to YouTube more than five years ago.

Sarah said after the video gained momentum online, people became interested in who she was.

Star alliances: Sarah played the daughter of Kylie Minogue's character Charlene Robinson on the Melbourne-based soap

'They became interested in who I was - my life, what else I was doing and what was next for me  so my audience on social media grew quite fast after that!,' the western Sydney native told Daily Mail Australia.

'I love technology, social media and creating fun content (like most people my age do!), and it was great to have an audience to share this with,' she continued.

The social butterfly has also secured modelling contracts with fashion chain Supre and Maybelline Australia.
She's turned heads all week as she appeared in one glamorous outfit after another.

And Nicole Trunfio stayed true to form on Friday as she sat in the front row for the Zimmermann show during New York Fashion Week.

The 30-year-old Australian supermodel cut a glamorous figure in a deep burgundy lace dress with an A-line skirt.

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Flirty frock: Nicole Trunfio turned heads for all the right reasons on Friday as she rocked a stunning burgundy lace dress to the Zimmermann show at New York Fashion Week

The stunning frock teased a lot of skin, but still appeared modest through the clever use of texture and slips.

Nicole played up to the feminine look, using natural colours in her makeup and a pink lip to give the outfit a youthful feel.

Her dark brunette locks were parted in the middle and slicked back into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Sheer delight! Just a hint of the supermodel's lithe legs could be seen through the sheer lace, though her modesty was preserved through clever use of texture and slips

The model accessorised sparingly, pairing her wedding ring with a pair of statement silver earrings.

She finished off the look with a pair of black platform heels, showing off the feather tattoo on her right foot.

Beneath the lace, Nicole's lithe legs could be seen, only lengthened by the heels.

Front row friends: The 30-year-old posed next to Victoria's Secret Angel and fellow front row attendee Shanina Shaik

Nicole, who is married to Gary Clark Jr., posed for photos alongside other popular Australian export, Shanina Shaik.

The Victoria's Secret Angel rocked a flirty pink mini dress, which she teamed with a pair of nude flats.

Her curls were swept to the side and rested neatly at the top of her shoulders.
She's been busy promoting her brand new children's book Marge In Charge.

And Isla Fisher appeared to need a morning boost in Los Angeles on Friday as she picked a coffee to start her day.

The Australian actress looked fresh-faced and youthful as she was photographed leaving Starbucks in West Hollywood.

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Fresh-faced: Isla Fisher cut a youthful figure as she picked up her morning coffee in Los Angeles while running errands

And it seems even celebrities have to give their name when ordering at the coffee chain as Isla left the branch carrying a takeaway cup bearing her name.

The 40-year-old showed off her legs in a blue denim skirt, which she paired with a leather jacket and a top featuring star prints.

She finished off the look with some trademark shades and comfortable brown boots as she ran errands in the American city.

Back in the USA: The actress wore a blue denim skirt and leather jacket as she got back into LA life following a trip to Europe

Her return to the grind in LA follows last month's family holiday in the South Of France with husband Sacha Baron Cohen.

The Hollywood couple were invited to stay on U2 frontman Bono's luxury yacht with their children during the getaway.

They have two daughters and one son - Olive, eight, Elula, five, and 16-month-old son, Montgomery.

Busy: The 40-year-old has been promoting her new children's book Marge In Charge, which involved a trip to London

The trip was a welcome break from Isla's recent promotional push, which saw her tour for her new children's book Marge In Charge, including a trip to London.

The actress previously told The Bookseller: 'Now that I have children of my own I see the joy and magic in their everyday lives.

'Books are a crucial part of this. I hope together we can introduce Marge to as many family bedtimes as possible.'
He's been linked to both Barbara Palvin and Winnie Harlow this week alone.

And Lewis Hamilton continued to surround himself with a bevy of beauties as he attended Tommy Hilfiger's SS17 show in New York on Friday.

The 31-year-old F1 racing driver looked dapper as he sat FROW, before he mingled with Taylor Swift and Martha Hunt.

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Hot property: Lewis Hamilton continued to surround himself with a bevy of beauties as he attended Tommy Hilfiger's SS17 show in New York on Friday

Looking suave Lewis sported ripped jeans, black high-top trainers and a white T-shirt with red and black block stripes.

Adding a military-chic twist to the ensemble, he wore a khaki Dsquared2 jacket embroidered with badges.

And accessorising with large diamond studs and a silver chain, the British star put in a glamorous appearance.

Good company: The 31-year-old F1 racing driver looked dapper as he sat FROW, before he mingled with Taylor Swift and Martha Hunt

And Lewis soon found himself surrounded by beauties, posing with newly single Taylor Swift and Victoria's Secret model Martha Hunt.

Taylor looked sailor-chic in a white shirt with navy trimming and a black miniskirt with a gold belt and buttons.

Rocking a bold red lip she linked arms with Yolanda Hadid and Martha, who wore a pale blue shirt and coordinating red and blue striped skirt.

Hosting: The blonde duo seemed enthralled with Lewis, gathering around him as he played host

Military chic: Looking dapper Lewis sported ripped jeans, black high-top trainers, a white T-shirt with red and black block stripes and a Dsquared2 jacket

And the blonde trio seemed enthralled with Lewis, gathering around him as he played host.

Sitting in the front row of the show the cheeky chap sat next to beauty Olivia Culpo.

The 24-year-old model and former beauty queen looked effortlessly chic in jeans, a shirt and a pale satin blue kimono style jacket.

FROW: Sitting in the front row of the show the cheeky chap sat next to beauty Olivia Culpo

'Fan Club Red Leaf Amy Catch': Trying to tell us something Lewis?

On Thursday Barbara Palvin appeared to ignore recent reports of a romance with Winnie, when she was pictured leaving the 31-year-old Brit's hotel.

Barbara and Lewis are thought to have met at Cannes Film Festival this year and she has since supported him at the trackside during the European Grand Prix, Monaco Grand Prix and Hungarian Grand Prix.

However a representative for Lewis has since insisted that the two are just 'good friends'.

Good spirits: Barbara Palvin appeared to ignore recent reports of Lewis' 'romance' with Winnie Harlow, when she was pictured leaving the 31-year-old's hotel on Thursday

Meanwhile, the sportsman and Winnie were spotted on Wednesday partying up a storm at New Yorks Up and Down nightclub.

The pair were seen making their way onto the sidewalk, with Winnie walking two paces behind the racing driver as they climbed into the rear of a waiting car.

It's understood that the couple made a beeline for 1OAK, staying for one hour before calling it a night at 5am.

A spokesperson has since insisted the couple are not romantically involved, telling MailOnline: 'Lewis and Winnie are just friends.'
With less than one week to go before The Bachelor's big finale, fans have been grasping for any indication as to who takes out the gold this season.

And while Richie and his final three contestants have managed to remain mum on the issue, a quick scan of prior top three rose ceremonies may help fans determine the winner.

Curiously, each prior top three rose ceremony has seen the final girls wearing either black or white outfits.

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Will the code come into play again? Curiously, each prior top three rose ceremony has seen the final girls wearing either black or white outfits, meaning Alex would remain in the final two

When the third runner-up was eliminated in each instance, two girls wearing different coloured gowns remained standing.

In this instance, this would mean single mum Alex, dressed in black, will definitely be in the final two along with either frontrunner Nikki or makeup artist Olena.

Back in the 2013 top three rose ceremony, Anna Henrich wore a black dress, while Rochelle Emmanuel-Smith and Ali Oetjen wore white gowns.

As per the colour code, white dress-clad Ali was eliminated, leaving a white dress and black dress-clad lady still standing.

The dresses have it! Back in the 2013 top three rose ceremony, Anna Henrich wore a black dress, while Rochelle Emmanuel-Smith and Ali Oetjen wore white gowns

In 2014, we were faced with a similar line-up of gowns, with Sam Frost donning a black number, while Lisa Hyde and Louise Pilladge appeared in white-toned gowns.

Again, a white gown-wearing contestant was sent packing when Louise was eliminated, leaving a black and white gown in the top two.

However, we run into trouble when considering the 2015 series, which saw Sarah Mackay clad in a black dress, while the top two, Snezana Markoski and Lana Jeavons-Fellows, both wore white frocks.

Once again: In 2014, we were faced with a similar line-up of gowns, with Sam Frost donning a black number, while Lisa Hyde and Louise Pilladge appeared in white-toned gowns

It is perhaps worth noting that the Lana's frock featured heavy black detailing, while Snezana's was completely white, therefore creating some level of contrast between the two.

Next week on The Bachelor, the top three hopefuls will be whisked away to Bali where the final two will weather Richie's biggest test yet- meeting his family.

Contestant Rachael Gouvignon was sent packing after hometown visits at the end of Thursday night's episode.

A break in the chain? However, we run into trouble when considering the 2015 series, which saw Sarah Mackay clad in a black dress, while the top two, Snezana Markoski and Lana Jeavons-Fellows, wore white frocks

The final frontier: Next week on The Bachelor, the top three hopefuls will be whisked away to Bali where the final two will weather Richie's biggest test yet- meeting his family
She bid Australia goodbye to enjoy a European adventure with her husband Gianni and promised her 83,000 followers to post amazing food from her adventures on her blog Snobs in the City.

But the My Kitchen Rules star Zana Pali has posted more than just her delicious foodie finds, basking in the Mykonos sun she flaunted her slender physique posed outside her luxury suite.

Combing her chocolate brown locks behind her ear, the reality star is as breathtaking as the spectacular ocean views from her room.

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'Those views': Zana Pali flaunts her slender physique in front of the picturesque views of Mykonos Island in Greece while wearing a revealing white bikini in holiday snaps posted to Instagram

In the snap, Zana is seen wearing a revealing white bikini allowing her brown tresses to fall in waves appearing to be windswept over her shoulder.

The magnificent view of an old-fashioned boat floating past and homes on the island are not enough to steer from the sizzling reality star who has her eyes shut in the picture.

The awe-inspiring picture captioned 'our luxury suite @kivotosmykonos those views. So in love with this beautiful island', is one of many from the Mediterranean adventure.

Zana is also seen soaking up the culture in another snap while drinking Ouzo, a well-known spirit in Greece.

'My husband is trying to get me drunk': Zana enjoys a refreshing Ouzo deliberating between the local spirit and a cocktail in a breathtaking holiday snap from Greece

She playfully captioned the picture: 'When you can't choose between cocktails and Ouzo....why not both!

'Husband is trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me!' she added.

She and husband Gianni have been hopping around Greece since Tuesday and have been pictured in luxurious locations across Greece.

Last day in Athens: Before leaving the home town of the Acropolis Zana admitted that she loved the food and history of Greece and couldn't wait to get to Mykonos her next stop

Holding mouthwatering toasted sandwiches the reality star cooks captioned one picture: 'When you can't stop eating in Greece!

While another holiday snap saw Zana sitting in a blue and white jumpsuit in front of the crumbling Acropolis in Athens.

Zana had her long brown hair combed pack in a tight ponytail and with a goddess like pose while 'sitting with the Greek gods'.

Greek goddess! Posed in front of the Acropolis in Athens Zana is seen sitting on a large rock in a blue and white jumpsuit with her hair tied back in a sleek ponytail

Before moving from Athens to Mykonos Zana said: 'I'm in love with the food and incredible history of Greece.

'Tonight we have a special dinner with a view of the incredible Acropolis.'

Meanwhile, the luxurious holidays comes just one month after a romantic getaway to Queensland's Whitsundays with Gianni where the pair shared loved up snaps while frolicking on the beach.

Foodies! Zana revealed that she and husband Gianni 'can't stop eating in Greece' uploading all of her delicious food finds onto her blog Snobs in the City

Zana is seen exploring the Whitsundays and baking in the sun on the white sand beaches.

Her social media accounts plastered with bikini-clad photographs flaunting her slender physique.

The MKR 'villains' recently shared their family plans with New Idea magazine, with Gianni confessing he would like to have five children.

Another holiday! The Mediterranean getaway comes just one month after a romantic trip to the Whitsundays in Queensland where Zana posed bikini-clad against the blue ocean

'Zana knows I want lots of kids,' he admitted. 'I've told her I want a futsal team - which is five! She needs to get cracking, that's what I keep telling her!'

The lovebirds, who tied the knot in November 2014 and have been together for more than three years, said they keep the spark alive with regular romantic date nights.

'My favourite nights are when he chooses what he would like me to wear for the night,' confessed Zana. 'He has great taste and surprises me with gorgeous clothes quite often.'
It's no secret that the lucky ladies of the Bachelor mansion undergo a huge beauty overhaul to become camera ready for the show.

But contestant Olena Kamula appeared to have required the help of a rather fluffy hair extension in order to get her desired look during hometown visits this week.

The makeup artist and aspiring model accidentally forgot to hide the weft of her blonde clip-on hair extension during her date with Richie, allowing viewers to see the area where her faux hair was attached.

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Oops! Olena Kamula appeared to have required the help of a rather fluffy hair extension in order to get her desired look during hometown visits this week.

It comes after former Bachelorette star Sam Frost revealed that her hair became significantly thinner during her time on the show due to excessive styling.

Speaking to her 2DAY FM radio co-host Rove McManus last year, the bubbly star said her brunette mane had started to fall out.

'I've got a bit of a mullet happening. My hair got so damaged doing The Bachelorette,' she said.

A hairy situation: The makeup artist and aspiring model accidentally forgot to hide the weft of her blonde clip-on hair extension during her date with Richie, allowing viewers to see the area where her faux hair was attached

Will she take home the gold? Olena is one of three remaining contestants on this season of The Bachelor

Ruined: Sam Frost said her hair had been left damaged after being styled 'four times a day' while she filmed The Bachelorette, complaining about her locks in a video with her 2DayFM co-host Rove McManus last year

Hard work: Sam, who dyed her formerly blonde tresses brunette ahead of her return to television, also took the opportunity to list the various products she uses to try and rejuvenate her mane

'I used to have long, lovely, luscious hair, but then I would get my hair styled four times a day with a tongs and its all broken,' she went on.

'It's just a mess at the moment. I'm a bit self conscious about how scrappy my hair is looking at the moment.'

Sam, who dyed her blonde tresses brunette ahead of the show, also took the opportunity to list the various products she uses to try and rejuvenate her mane.

Damaged: The beauty had her hairstyle changed a number of times a day while filming the Network Ten show

Despite her efforts, the beauty admitted still resorting to using clip-in hair extensions for celebrity events.

'When I go to events I get clip-on hair extensions just because hairdressers don't like my mullet happening,' she added.

The hair and makeup artist behind Sam's look on the Bachelorette, Helen Dowsley, recently spoke to Popsugar about her beauty regimen during the show.

Hands off! Helen revealed that when Sam gets nervous she fidgets with her hair, adding that the habit made it difficult for her to choose styles

'Having the darker hair now, it does a lot for her skin tone  it's quite fresh,' she said, adding that she thought it was 'great' the Network Ten veteran had returned with a 'different look.'

She also revealed having to factor Sam's nervous habit of playing with her hair when considering how to style her.

'The thing that I had to think of with Sammi Frost is number one: when she's nervous, she plays with her hair 24/7!

'It's actually a joke with us that I nearly had to get physically violent with her when she touched her hair,' she continued.
As one of the biggest and most glamorous parties of the year, it is natural for guests to want to make a statement with their fashion choice.

But model Amina Blue may have taken this too far as she arrived at the bash in New York on Friday - holding the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

The 23-year-old left hardly anything to the imagination in a bizarre and overly-revealing black dress, flashing her bust and almost her modesty for all at the Plaza Hotel to see.

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Too much? Amina Blue, 23, left hardly anything to the imagination in a bizarre and overly-revealing black dress as she arrived at the Harper's Bazaar Icons party in NYC on Friday

Featuring two thigh-high splits on each side and a completely open chest section, the braless model showcased serious skin in the barely-there number.

Tying at the waist before extending into one long panel down the front, the dress only just covered her modesty with the cut-outs leaving the entirety of both her legs on show.

While the dress was of a long-sleeved style the top involved no fastening, cutting racily down her chest to reveal ample cleavage.

Racy: Featuring two thigh-high splits on each side and a completely open chest section, the braless model showcased serious skin in the barely-there number

Walking side by side with her male companion, the former flame of rapper Tyga flashed a large amount of side boob as she entered the party, threatening to fall out of the risque ensemble.

Making a statement in more ways than one, the striking model scraped her platinum hair into a dramatic bun and left her intricate tattoos on show.

Rising to prominence in the modelling world, the star has already hit headlines this week for stumbling on the catwalk of Kanye West's NYFW showcase.

Thigh-raising! The dress only just covered her modesty with the cut-outs leaving the entirety of both her legs on show

Held at the abandoned Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, the blonde, who has previously been dubbed as 'Kanye West's muse' was chosen to model the fourth season of his Yeezy fashion collection.

However as the highly-anticipated fashion show got into full swing, Amina began to struggle in her muled heels.

After struggling to strut and stumbling several times, she stopped and tried to gracefully take off one of her shoes, but ended up tripping again and ripping them off in frustration.

Near-miss: Walking side by side with her male companion, the former flame of rapper Tyga flashed a large amount of side boob, threatening to fall out of the risque ensemble

Bending down to pick up the troublesome footwear, she then caused a backlog of models on the runway who were forced to slow down so she could move out of the way.

With designer Kanye married to Kim Kardashian, Amina may have landed herself in even more bother with the infamous family after the traumatic catwalk event.

Earlier this summer she was rumoured to be involved with Tyga while he and Kylie Jenner were briefly broken up.

Bad to worse: Earlier this week, the star stumbled on the catwalk of Kanye West's Yeezy Season 4 showcase after being unable to walk in her muled heels

The rapper posted a rather titillating shot of the model posing in a sheer white shirt and bikini bottoms in June, while they were filming his 1 Of 1 video in Jamaica.

The shot of Amina, who stared straight into the camera scored over 41,000 likes within an hour.

In another photo taken during his break with Kylie, Tyga posed shirtless on a lounge chair while Amina wore nothing but a thong and white silk shirt.
It hopes to be one of the most important meetings for DJ Ruckus when he makes his way to Australia next week.

And Ruckus has revealed meeting Shanina Shaik's father for the first time is nothing short of exciting.

Despite his fearless demeanour, Ruckus admitted to the Daily Telegraph that he is nervous about the rendezvous and not having met the Victoria Secret model's father yet is a 'very big ordeal'.

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Meeting the parents: DJ Ruckus admits he is nervous about meeting fiance Shanina Shaik's father for the first time ever as he makes his second visit to sunny Australia

'Shanina's mother came to Christmas in New York with us when we got engaged  which is apparently a big deal because they always do Christmas in Australia,' Ruckus told the newspaper.

'But I haven't met her father yet, which is a very big ordeal. I'm not too concerned though as he's a very nice guy. And I'm not a bad dude. I'm excited.'

The visit will mark the second time that the world-renowned rapper has been to Australia and he's looking forward to spending as much time as possible with his soon-to-be-in-laws.

'It's a beautiful place and I've only visited once and I had such a great time so I'm looking forward to it,' he said.

Engaged: Ruckus revealed that Shanina's mother came to visit over Christmas when the pair were engaged - even though they usually spend the holiday in Australia

The pair were engaged earlier this year and posted a snap cuddling up together while showing off a huge diamond engagement ring on her hand.

The 24-year-old captioned the image: ''This is a sure thing! I said 'YES!!' @djruckusofficial #loveofmylife #mrsandrews #heputaringonit #togetherforever'.

The proposal is said to have taken place at the DJ's cousin Lenny Kravitz's private beach in the Bahamas just before New Year.

Daddy's girl: Shanina posted a loving message on Father's Day sitting in her dad's lap. Ruckus said he isn't nervous about meeting him because he is a 'very nice guy'

Meanwhile, his beautiful fiance is gearing up for fashion week as seen in pictures posted to the exotic beauty's Instagram account.

Stealing a kiss from model Jasmine Tookes, the pair look ravishing in elegant body hugging dresses posed in front of a spectacular flower arrangement at a Harpers Bazaar party.

Shanina is dressed in a laced white outfit which flaunts her pert derriere accessorising with a pair of large hooped earrings.

Engaged: The pair were engaged earlier this year and posted a snap cuddling up together while showing off a huge diamond engagement ring

The elegant dress is cinched at the waist with a black band and long sleeved with a sheer material to showcase her slender arms which lead down to her hand donning an engagement ring.

Jasmine opted for a sizzling red number, with a pentagonal cut out which displayed her ample assets.

The chocolate brown locked model wore her hair out in loose waves and is seen leaning in for a kiss on Shanina's cheek.
They fell in love on the first season of The Bachelor in 2013.

But despite not tying the knot, Anna Heinrich looks very much in love with former Bachelor star Tim Robards as they made their way to Melbourne for a business trip.

Tim hopes to speak at The Wellness Summit and commented that he's both 'nervous' and 'excited' about getting to speak about The Robards Method training app surrounded by 'so many great speakers'.

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It's business time: Tim Robards and Anna Heinrich touch down in Melbourne for The Wellness Summit at which Tim is hoping to speak about his app The Robards Method

The loved up snap comes just hours before landing in the Victorian city and sees Tim and Anna posed close together on a flight looking fresh faced and ready for the upcoming conference.

'Touching down in Melbourne town! Off to speak at #thewellnesssummit Excited and nervous!' wrote the rugged original Bachelor star.

He appeared at ease in the picture, despite his anxious comments in the captions, wearing his hair slicked to one side and donning a sculpted beard that framed his gleaming smile.

A blue shirt remained slightly unbuttoned and hugged the 33-year-olds biceps as he took the selfie.

Star speakers: Pictured after the summit, Tim appeared relieved to have made it to the end and posted a picture on stage with a group of other speakers on the night

Amy looked quite the picture, with her long blonde locks falling loosely over her shoulders and also to one side.

She opted for an almost makeup free face aside from lashings of mascara and a nude lip.

She appeared to be in high spirits wearing her camel coloured coat and a black shirt on the flight in support of her partner.

Relaxed: To complete the whirlwind business trip, Tim posted a final picture lazing back onto a plush double bed at the Crown Resort holding a beer in one hand

Pictured after the summit, Tim appeared relieved to have made it to the end and posted a picture on stage with a group of other speakers on the night.

'Nervous? Hell Yeah! So great to be surrounded by so many great speakers  And to be finished! Haha!'

To complete the whirlwind business trip, a final picture posted lazing back onto a plush double bed at the Crown Resort holding a beer in one hand signified the end of a 'huge day'.

The original! Tim Robards is well-know for being the first Bachelor to star in the hit Australian reality show

'Huge day  Huge week! When you just need a beer!' he captioned the relaxed picture.

Tim appeared to be exhausted and had his eyes closed for the snap while grasping to a cold Stella Artois.

Draped over him was a leather jacket, hiding a black shirt over dark denim jeans.
Earlier in the day she turned heads in a completely sheer studded dress at the Harper's Bazaar celebrates ICONS party.

And later on Friday Toni Garrn stood out in a silver strappy dress as she left a Jimmy Choo party.

The 24-year-old German model continued to go bra-free, but maintained more of her modesty in the metallic number.

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Shimmering down the street: On Friday Toni Garrn stood out in a silver strappy dress as she left a Jimmy Choo party

The slinky piece fell just above her legs , showing off her tanned pins.

And accentuating her modelesque stature, she wore the same silver strappy sandals from her earlier event.

Perhaps getting ready to wind down for the day, Toni tied her hair up into a casual bun.

Cheese! The 24-year-old German model continued to go bra free, but maintained more of her modesty in the metallic number

And appearing to go make-up free, she showed off her glowing complexion.

Accessorising with a delicate silver bracelet, she smiled at photographers before getting into a nearby cab.

Earlier in the day she Toni attended the Harper Bazaar ICONS party celebrating New York Fashion Week.

The stunner left very little to the imagination when she showed up in a completely sheer dress.

Missing something? It seems Toni opted to leave her bra at home on Friday evening when she donned a completely sheer dress to attend the Harper Bazaar ICONS party celebrating New York Fashion Week

While the garment did feature some patches of gold brocade and black seams also dotted in gold details, most of the vital areas were completely visible.

She opted to go braless on top, but did opt for some skimpy black panties for just a dash of coverage down below.

Perhaps most bizarre was that the barely-there dress included small hip pockets, which were also sheer of course.

A pair of delicate strappy metallic heels and a small metal clutch rounded out the ensemble, though most onlookers' eyes were probably drawn elsewhere.
They've been enjoying their time in Bali and canvassing Instagram with envy-inducing pictures from their romantic getaway.

And now Ashley Hart has posted another loved up snap with runaway hubby Buck Palmer holding hands in the middle of a picturesque rice paddy in the Indonesian countryside.

The pair look smitten as ever as they walked along a dirt track between rice fields and palm trees smiling, while Ashley gazed at beau Buck.

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Smitten! Ashley Hart has posted a loved up snap with hubby Buck Palmer holding hands in the middle of a picturesque rice paddy in the Indonesian countryside

Ashley cut a casual look wearing short denim cut offs and a white T-shirt paired with pink and purple sandals.

Her hair lay swept behind her shoulders as she gazed at her husband while walking along the footpath.

Sunglasses hang from the collar of her shirt and she appeared to be toting a shoulder bag.

Her long slender legs were in full display and flaunted her sun kissed skin from her week long Bali adventure.

Relaxed: Ashley cut a casual look wearing short denim cut offs and a white T-shirt paired with pink and purple sandals during her trip to the rice paddies

Family unit: The pair appeared to have celebrated Father's Day with the Palmer family while in Bali and shared coconuts while sitting in what appeared to be a resort

Buck appeared to be in happy spirits as he walked beside his wife matching her white T-shirt with his own over dark jeans.

He wore sandals and dark shades over his eyes while grasping tightly to his partner's hand.

Taking a page out of the Victor Flemming classic The Wizard of Oz, Ashley captioned the snap: 'We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of... Bali.'

'I am Mrs Palmer!' Model Ashley Hart got hitched to her fiance Buck Palmer in wedding ceremony in Los Angeles in May 2015

Mais, oui! The genetically-blessed pa ir got engaged in July 2014, when Buck proposed during a holiday to the South of France

The pair appeared to have celebrated Father's Day with the Palmer family while in Bali and shared coconuts while sitting in what appeared to be a resort.

They also spent a few days in silence at a yoga retreat where they indulged in Vedic rounding (gentle yoga, pranayama breathing, meditation and rest) throughout the day.

The pair were married early last year and revealed that part of their reason to elope had to do with astrology.

Speaking to Kyle and Jackie O show Ashley said: ''(We were) looking up when it would work astrology wise, cause we're both a bunch of hippies trying to work it out with the stars.

Spiritual: They also spent a few days in silence at a yoga retreat where they indulged in Vedic rounding

Happy! Ashley posted a picture of herself doing yoga as the sun rose one morning in the retreat

Then, during a quick trip back 'home' to Los Angeles, the Australian-born model and her fiance woke up one morning and decided to elope, which Ashley says was a huge relief.

'Buck and I had been planning the wedding for a long time and honestly not agreeing on a lot of things, trying to please people.

'We had been engaged for a year and we woke up and thought: 'you know what, let's just get married'.'

The pair later celebrated their nuptials with a party with friends and family.
It has been heavily speculated recently that she is secretly planning a wedding to her new man Nikolai von Bismarck.

But Kate Moss flew solo on Friday, heading for lunch with friends in her usual glamorous fashion without her beau in tow.

The 42-year-old proved why she is one of the world's top models as she headed to the London pub in a chic black skinny jeans and blazer combo.

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All black everything! Kate Moss, 42, proved why she is one of the world's top models on Friday as she headed to a London pub for lunch with friends in black skinny jeans and a blazer

Sporting jet black skinny jeans, the model showed off the incredible slender legs that have kept her in the fashion spotlight over the last two decades.

The Croydon-born beauty paired the strides with a formal black blazer, which featured leather lapels to give the look her trademark rock-chick edge.

Adding small black stilettos decorated with spots, the star remained co-ordinated and effortlessly glamorous as she went to catch up with friends.

Effortless: The Croydon-born beauty paired the jeans with a formal black blazer, which featured leather lapels to give the look her trademark rock-chick edge

Kate added a touch of glamorous bling to complete her look, adorning herself with a long gold chain, a vibrant emerald bracelet and the ring rumoured to mark her engagement to boyfriend Nikolai, 29.

Wearing her blonde hair loose, the mother-of-one's famous tresses glamorously blew in the wind as she headed to her intimate lunch.

Holding up a hand to shield her face, the model flashed the sapphire and diamond ring Nickolai is believed to have presented her with whilst on holiday in Italy.

The sighting comes soon after rumours emerged that she is planning a small, intimate wedding to Nikolai.

Wedding bells? Holding up a hand to shield her face, the model flashed the sapphire and diamond ring her man Nickolai, 29, is believed to have proposed to her with

According to The Sun, the couple have started making plans for low-key wedding in Greece after falling in love with the country during a summer break.

The paper claims that Kate and her beau scouted venues while holidaying in Hydra for nearly a month this summer, where they were joined by pals including the Duchess of York and Kate's ex Jefferson Hack.

The couple are reportedly hoping to tie the knot before Christmas, but Kate wants to wait until her divorce from Jamie Hince is finalised before sending out invites.

An insider told the paper: 'They fell in love with Greece after jetting there last month and got the ball rolling by planning the wedding while out there.

Second time lucky: The Sun claims that Kate, who was spotted sporting the ring as she browsed a jewellery shop last week, is planning low-key wedding in Greece

'Both want a low key ceremony with a handful of friends and family. The plan is to head back to London to celebrate with a larger group.'

Greece is one of Kate's favourite destinations, with the top model spending part of her 2011 honeymoon on a yacht off the coast of Kefalonia.

A representative for Kate was contacted by MailOnline for comment at the time.

If Kate is engaged, the star will have to wait a while before tying the knot, as she is still legally married to The Kills guitarist Jamie.

The Vogue cover regular- who has a daughter Lila Grace, 13, with ex-partner, publisher Jefferson Hack - married Jamie in 2011, but the couple separated last year.
He shot to fame at the tender age of 11 with his starring role in the Harry Potter series.

And more than a decade on, Daniel Radcliffe proved he still had star power as he was mobbed by fans at Deauville US Film Festival in France on Friday.

Seeming in good spirits, the 27-year-old actor ensured he chatted with as many fans as possible, stopping to snap selfies as he walked the red carpet.

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Snap happy: Daniel Radcliffe proved he still had star power as he was mobbed by fans at Deauville US Film Festival in France on Friday

The MTV Movie Award winner cut a casual figure to meet his fans, donning a navy T-shirt and jeans as he chatted with the crowds.

Earlier in the day, Daniel took part in one of the annual traditions of the festival, unveiling his beach locker.

Pulling back the US national flag on the Promenade des Planches, the British star - who now lives in the States - couldn't keep the smile off his face at the ceremony.

Happy Potter: Seeming in good spirits, the 27-year-old actor ensured he chatted with as many fans as possible, stopping to snap selfies as he walked the red carpet

Playing it cool: The MTV Movie Award winner cut a casual figure to meet his fans, donning a navy T-shirt and jeans as he chatted with the crowds

Daniel, along with Chloe Grace Moretz, will be honoured with the Nouvel Hollywood/Hollywood Rising Stars award, and the festival will hold a screening of his latest film, Imperium.

Imperium, which was given a limited release last month, sees Daniel star as an FBI agent who gets involved with white-supremacist groups whilst starring as an undercover agent.

The film also stars Toni Collette and Tracy Letts and was directed by Daniel Ragussis.

U.S.YAY! Earlier in the day, Daniel took part in one of the annual traditions of the festival, unveiling his beach locker

Chirpy: Pulling back the US national flag on the Promenade des Planches, the British star - who now lives in the States - couldn't keep the smile off his face at the ceremony

Daniel has enjoyed a variety of film roles since starring in the Harry Potter franchise and recently told The Sun that he is uninterested in picking up Harry's wand again, but did not rule out participating in an older version of the role in future.

'It is a tricky one,' he said. 'You never want to close a door on anything, especially something that has been so good to me.

'At the moment I am definitely not at a stage where I would feel comfortable going back to it, who knows in ten and 20 years if I would feel differently about that.

'And I think I have still got a little while for me to be age appropriate for this Harry.'
Dakota Johnson made out nicely.

Not only did the 26-year-old movie star get her 66-year-old dad Don Johnson's attractive facial features, she also inherited her 59-year-old mother Melanie Griffith's knockout legs.

On Friday the Fifty Shades Of Grey star put her limbs on display while wearing a short black dress in New York City.

Check out my stems: Dakota Johnson showed off shapely legs while on a cell phone call in NYC on Friday

She's got ink too: The stunner also gave a good look at the tattoo on her foot

The star looked to be in deep conversation as she stood against a staircase outside a brownstone in Manhattan.

Her black dress came above the knees and was short sleeved.

Johnson also had on black slides with a two inch heel.

Chit chat: The star looked to be in deep conversation as she stood against a staircase outside a brownstone in Manhattan

A beauty: Her mom is Melanie Griffith; here they are seen together in NYC in April 2015

On Thursday Dakota also had on a black dress, only that one hid her legs.

The actress exuded effortless chic while shopping with a friend in the Big Apple's SoHo district.

Fifty Shades of Demure: Johnson, 26, showed off her more demure side as she enjoyed a low-key day out in New York on Thursday

The screen star sported a loose-fitting black dress, cropped just above the ankle and belted at the waist to accentuate her slim figure.

Black leather brogues artfully matched her buckled over-the-shoulder bag, as Dakota clung to a 'best day ever' shopping bag.

The How To Be Single actress added a touch of glamour to the understated ensemble with large bedazzled earrings and a simple gold chain necklace.

Effortlessly chic: The daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson sported a loose-fitting black dress, belted at the waist to accentuate her slim figure

Dakota and her pal, who dressed in an oversized white t-shirt and shorts, looked to be enjoying the sunny weather as they chatted joyfully during their stroll.

The actress wore her long chestnut tresses in a stylish up-do, while shielding her eyes from the beaming New York sun with large-rimmed tinted shades.

Dakota has been hard at work on the back-to-back filming of Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, the sequels to her breakthrough film Fifty Shades Of Grey.

Starlet: Fifty Shades Darker is set for release in 2017, while Fifty Shades Freed will hit cinemas in 2018

The trio of infamously raunchy movies have given the actors an abundance of sex scenes to perform.

In April, the Texan actress explained the process alongside her hunky co-star Jamie Dornan was 'not ... comfortable. It's pretty tedious'.

At the time, she was filming the sequels in Vancouver, Canada, and explained: 'I've been simulating sex for seven hours straight right now, and I'm over it.'

Fifty Shades Darker is set for release in 2017, while Fifty Shades Freed will hit cinemas in 2018.

Also this weekend Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James is celebrating the birthday of her character Anastasia Steele by sharing an excerpt from her upcoming book.

The writer is getting ready to release a new novel telling the events from Fifty Shades Darker from the perspective of Christian Grey.

'Good morning, all. I know youre anxiously awaiting the trailer, and thats happening soon. In the meantime, in honour of Anas birthday, theres this,' E.L. captioned the excerpt on her Facebook account.
The festivities at Bestival have been affected by the drizzly British weather.

But Caroline Flack refused to let the rain put a damper on her weekend, partying up a storm on The Isle Of Wight with her pals on Saturday in a nautical inspired look.

The 36-year-old presenter donned a slogan T-shirt to raise awareness of Help Refugees UK, doing her bit for a good cause.

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Hello, sailor! Caroline Flack refused to let the rain put a damper on her weekend, partying up a storm on The Isle Of Wight with her pals on Saturday in a nautical inspired look

Caroline teamed her black top with an eye-catching gold miniskirt, donning a pair of lace-up combat boots to add a masculine twist to the look.

Topping off her look with a nautical cap, the star put on a lively display as she larked around behind the scenes.

The former X Factor presenter is no doubt making the most of her free weekends following her intense schedule this time last year.

Fashion forward: Caroline teamed her black top with an eye-catching gold miniskirt, donning a pair of lace-up combat boots to add a masculine twist to the look

Charity tee: The 36-year-old presenter donned a slogan T-shirt to raise awareness of Help Refugees UK, doing her bit for a good cause

Caroline departed her hosting role on the singing competition after just one season, along with co-presenter Olly Murs, and former host Dermot O'Leary has returned to his job.

The brunette is expected to return for another series of reality show Love Island next year after proving popular with viewers.

A source told The Sun: 'Love Island has enjoyed incredible ratings and bringing Caroline back is a no-brainer.

Living it up: The former X Factor presenter is no doubt making the most of her free weekends following her intense schedule this time last year

'She's great fun and has really appealed to the show's young audience.

'All the raunchy scenes proved to be a huge driving force for the show and bosses are keen to cash in on the huge interest in TV sex next year.'

An insider added to MailOnline: 'Nothing has been finalised for next year as yet but Caroline has been a key part of Love Island and we look forward to speaking to her soon about the next series.'
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She's carved out an incredible career in fashion, flying the flag for curvy women everywhere.

And Tess Holliday was leading the parade of plus-sized models at the groundbreaking Curve Fashion Festival, held at The Exhibition Centre Liverpool on Saturday.

The American star, who is the world's first [UK] size 26 supermodel, broke with style protocol in a bold horizontal striped dress.

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Curvy catwalk queen: Tess Holliday was leading the parade of plus-sized models at the groundbreaking Curve Fashion Festival, held at The Exhibition Centre Liverpool on Saturday

Tess proudly showcased her killer curves in the punky A-line number, which also offered a glimpse of her tattoo sleeves and heavily inked calves.

The model set off her look with a pair of strappy heels and styled her auburn locks in an elegant fishtail plait.

Rosy blush and a slick of coral lipstick enhanced her pretty features and she highlighted her eyes with winged liner.

She was joined on the runway by fellow plus-sized model Hayley Hasselhoff, who looked the picture of elegance in a flowing silk wrap dress.

Tattooed beauty: Tess proudly showcased her killer curves in the punky A-line number, which also offered a glimpse of her tattoo sleeves and heavily inked calves

Famous faces: Also in attendance was fellow American plus-sized model Hayley Hasselhoff (centre), who joined Tess at the runway show extravaganza

Fashiom Q&A: The model set off her look with a pair of strappy heels and styled her auburn locks in an elegant fishtail plait

The 24-year-old blonde, the daughter of Baywatch legend The Hoff, was in her element as she strutted down the the runway.

The Curve Fashion Festival is the UK's largest Plus Size Event for women over size 14.

The highlight of the day was the star-studded catwalk show, featuring clothing for the more voluptuous figure.

Making a statement: The 24-year-old blonde, the daughter of Baywatch legend The Hoff, was in her element, modelling in turn a chic white ensemble (pictured left with celebrity stylist Gemma Sheppard) and a black wrap coat (right)

Guests at the ticketed event could browse clothing from retailers including Boohoo.com, Very, Marks and Spencer, Anna Scholz, @Studio 8 by Phase 8, Simply Be Fashion and River Island.

Last year's inaugural event saw over 1100 women from all over the UK descend upon Manchester for a full day of shopping, fashion shows, industry seminars and celebrity meet and greet.

Tess and her partner Nick Holliday welcomed their son Bowie Juniper into the world on June 6.

Celebrities attendees: Geordie Shore's Holly Hagan was putting in an appearance, rocking a rather demure paisley dress

Show of support: Reality star Chanelle Hayes turned up in casual ripped jeans and a pyjama style blouse

Beauty queens: Hayley was loving life as she chatted to glamorous pageant stars behind-the-scenes

The social media star, who was born Ryann Hoven, is already a mother to a ten-year-old son Rylee from a previous relationship.

Throughout her pregnancy, Tess became an even more vocal body advocate, sharing plenty of candid photos of her growing baby bump as well as nude photos to celebrate her changing body.

The plus-size model would often take to Instagram to hit back at critics who insisted that her baby's life was in danger because of her size.

Ready for the runway: The Curve Fashion Festival is the UK's largest Plus Size Event for women over size 14

Bold and bright: Models strutted down the catwalk in an array of fabulous outfits

Shop til you drop: Guests at the ticketed event could browse clothing from retailers including Boohoo.com, Very, Marks and Spencer, Anna Scholz, @Studio 8 by Phase 8, Simply Be Fashion and River Island

In an interview with ET this summer, Tess hit back at critics who insist her weight is a danger to her unborn child, claiming that her doctor had just given her a clean bill of health.

'I literally saw my OB/GYN yesterday and everything's fine,' she said. 'He's happy. Everything's fine and I'm fine.'

Tess also discussed with the publication her decision to post nude photos on social media, despite the criticism she ultimately receives from online trolls.

'The more they don't want to see things like that or are criticizing my body, the more I want to do it,' she said. 'Since you are complaining about my covered-up photo, I am going to give you a nude photo to make you even angrier.'

Body positivity: Models exuded confidence as they strutted down the runway in front of thousands
The show's judging panel is rarely static.

But X Factor viewers could be forgiven for thinking the latest shake-up was a little bizarre - after Louis Walsh was replaced by a contestant on Saturday's episode.

The Irish pop mogul was relegated to the sidelines to make way for hopeless wannabe Philip Hadlow, who left Simon Cowell speechless.

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Forced break: Louis Walsh was momentarily replaced by contestant Phil Hadlow on Saturday

Although he started with a standard audition, the 48 year-old's poor singing left the judges - Simon, Mel B, Louis and Sharon - underwhelmed.

When Simon asked what his dream was, he replied: 'Ultimately, Id love to end up on that panel,' before adding that it would 'open doors' for him.

Incredulously, it works - and Simon sends Louis off on a tea break, allowing Phil to momentarily fill his shoes.

Dire: Although he started with a standard audition, the 48 year-old's poor singing left the judges - Simon, Mel B, Louis and Sharon - underwhelmed

What was he thinking? When Simon asked what his dream was, he replied, 'Ultimately, Id love to end up on that panel,' before adding that it would 'open doors' for him

Clearly unimpressed by the move, Sharon looked horrified by the change and could be seen covering her mouth in astonishment.

Sitting down with confidence, Phil - who was embarrassingly under-dressed for the occasion in tasteless shorts and matching T-shirt - didn't waste any time.

When the following act, Christina Postma from Holland, entered the room she was understandably confused. Thankfully, he reassured her by saying: 'Don't let me put you off - carry on as normal'.

Dressed to unimpressed: Phil failed to make an impression in his tatty T-shirt and shorts

Not happy: Clearly unimpressed by the move, Sharon looked horrified by the change and could be seen covering her mouth in astonishment

Oh dear: Sitting down with confidence, Phil - who was embarrassingly under-dressed for the occasion in tasteless shorts and matching T-shirt - didn't waste any time

Flirting with her response, she confirmed that she was romantically available -causing guest judge Mel B to suggest they get to know each other better.

And they may be well-suited as it turns out her attempt to impress was equally poor.

'You have a lovely radiant smile to go with your voice but youre not quite ready for the competition yet,' Phil told her, without any irony.

Awkward: When the following act, Christina Postma from Holland, entered the room she was understandably confused

You're not Louis! Poor Christina was understandably bewildered by the panel change
Congratulations are in order for Jaime Winstone, who is engaged to DJ James Suckling, I can reveal.

The 31-year-old daughter of Ray Winstone has calmed down her party-loving lifestyle since giving birth to her first child in March and is expected to host a wedding next summer at her fathers Surrey estate.

Jaime has named her son Raymond after her father and his surname is Winstone, rather than Suckling.

How will James cope with being related to not one but two Ray Winstones?

Jaime Winstone (left), daughter of film star Ray has engaged to DJ James Suckling (pictured together right)

Jo Wood, who has landed herself a Radio 2 talk show
Camila Alves is a paragon of both red carpet glamour and New York City street style.

And on Saturday, when Rebecca Minkoff held an open-air New York Fashion Week show in SoHo outside her flagship shop, Mrs Matthew McConaughey was able to meld both look.

The 34-year-old smoldered in a floral top with a neckline that fell to give a generous view of her cleavage.

Only the best for Fashion Week: Camila Alves smoldered in a floral ensemble at Rebecca Minkoff's New York Fashion Week Show on Saturday

Glittering company: She posed alongside actress Victoria Justice, who wore a purple dress with a bit of sheen and round blue sunglasses

Fashion alfresco: The stands had been set up outside the designer's flagship shop in the SoHo neighbourhood of Manhattan

The Itambacuri native wore an identically matching pair of slacks and let her voluminous hair fall free.

The mother of three did largely without jewelry, except for a ring. A small black purse sufficed as far as accessories were concerned.

At one point, she posed alongside actress Victoria Justice, who'd thrown a denim coat casually over her shoulders.

Wearing a simple purple dress with a bit of sheen, the 23-year-old augmented her outfit with round blue sunglasses and a gold choker.

Quality time: Camila was enjoying some girl time without her famous actor husband Matthew McConaughey

Designing women: The Brazilian beauty got a chance to catch up with designer Rebecca Minkoff

Blonde bombshell: Socialite Olivia Palermo wore a largely black, grey and white, adding a pop of colour with a yellow purse

VIP access: Before the show began, she posed with the designer herself (left) in her SoHo shop

A trunk-like black purse with the names of various cities - New York, Paris, Seoul - on it matched black leather shoes with light brown platforms.

Her hair was pulled back severely and gathered into a low bun.

Olivia Palermo flashed her knockout legs in a pair of high-waisted black, grey and white checked shorts.

She let her wavy blonde hair cascade over her pinstriped grey blouse, which she'd tucked the shorts, cinching the ensemble with a belt.

Basic black: The 35-year-old kept her outfit simple backstage before heading out to the stands

The family business: She posed alongside her brother Uri Minkoff (right), who is CEO of her company, The Rachel Minkoff Collection

Pride in her city: As the event progressed, she threw on a leather jacket with 'I [heart] NY' scrawled onto the back

A yellow purse added a pop of colour, and the socialite rounded out her look with a pair of white flats that had brown bows on top.

Coco Rocha wore a rather sheer black dress speckled with gold polygons over a black underskirt, giving a glimpse of her fantastic legs.

A leather jacket slung over her shoulders, the Toronto native let her brown hair fall about purple sunglasses. Her slender gold choker was barely perceptible.

Louise Roe braved horizontal black and white stripes, holding her hands about her tiny waist as she posed in a black miniskirt with buttons running up it.

Sheer elegance: Coco Rocha gave a glimpse of her knockout legs in a largely translucent gown

Before the show began, the designer herself was photographed in her shop alongside Palermo.

Keeping it simple for work, the 35-year-old wore a faintly sheer black top over tight black pants, the pop of colour coming from a floral pattern on her black shoes.

When she headed out toward the stands that had been set up outside the shop, she stood for the camera alongside her brother, Uri Minkoff, who serves as CEO of her company, The Rebecca Minkoff Collection.

The executive head of her company pulled a navy blazer over a casual open-neck white shirt. Grey jeans cut off above the ankle clashed elegantly with his white boat shoes.

New York chic: Fashion journalist Louise Roe kept to black and white for the event

Later on, outside, the designer threw on a leather jacket with 'I [heart] NY' scrawled onto the back.

Justice, Palermo, Alves, Rocha and Roe all sat front row as they watched the models stroll down the catwalk, which was just the cobblestones of Greene St.

Though many of the designers at New York Fashion Week were debuting collections for next spring and summer, Minkoff - like Tom Ford on Wednesday - showcased her fall and winter lines for this year.

In an interview published Saturday, Allure asked her why she had an affinity for 'see now, buy now' collections. She pointed to her previous New York Fashion Week show, to which she'd taken the same approach.

Prime seats: (from left) Justice, Palermo, Alves, Rocha and Roe all sat front row to watch the show

Adapting to the habitat: Models strode down the catwalk, which was just the cobblestones of Greene St

Immediacy: Though many designers are unveiling spring/summer collections for 2017 at NYFW, Minkoff is debuting her fall/winter 2016 line just as Tom Ford did Wednesday

'We saw the success of our show in February - we did comparisons and our sales were up over 200 percent,' she explained.

'Our consumer wants to see something and buy it right away and not have to wait six months. So, were giving her what she wants when she wants it.'

She credited the creative thrust behind her show to the 'idea of a gypset lifestyle that a modern millennial woman lives - traveling to a lot of places and picking up the best of the best of the things you find along the way.

'Its just the things you want to have in your wardrobe come fall that have a touch of where youve been and where youve experienced global cultures,' she said. 'Its subtle.'

'What she wants when she wants it': The designer explained her affinity for 'see now, buy now' collections to Allure, saying: 'Our consumer wants to see something and buy it right away and not have to wait six months'
Cressida Bonas and her on-off boyfriend Harry Wentworth-Stanley are an item again after a long time apart, I can report.

But they will soon have to endure a further 60 days separation when Harry sets off on a gruelling 3,000-mile row across the Atlantic in December.

Prince Harrys former girlfriend, Cressie, 27, is said to be fretful as more people have climbed Everest, reached the North Pole or ventured into space than have rowed the Atlantic without mishap.

Cressida Bonas and her on-off boyfriend Harry Wentworth-Stanley are an item again after a long time apart, I can report

Strapping Harry and friends Rory Buchanan, Sam Greenly and Toby Fenwicke-Clennell are rowing in memory of Harrys older brother, James, who took his own life in 2006. They are due to set off on December 15, the tenth anniversary of his death.

Harry, son of the marchioness of Milford Haven, has dated Cressida on an off since they were at university together and she will no doubt be a welcome sight when she greets his landfall in Antigua in January.

Royal photographer Hugo Burnand is to capture shots in HMP Dartmoor

Royal pal Hugo is going to jail...

I was shocked to learn least week that society and Royal photographer Hugo Burnand is off to jail.

But dont be alarmed, Hugo, 52, favourite of Prince Charles as well as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, is visiting HMP Dartmoor as part of his latest photography project.
Reese Witherspoon still looks like a college student.

On Saturday she wore a pair of prescription glasses that brought back memories of the former child star when she studied at Stanford University.

The mother of three was seen shopping in Los Angeles in a blue blazer and jeans.

Shopping : Reese Witherspoon, 40, looked cute in glasses on Saturday

For her outing, Reese layered a solid, white T-shirt underneath a classic navy blazer.

The Legally Blonde star added a pair of flared denim jeans, paired with a set of heeled sandals.

The actress completed her look with gold jewellery, a brown cross bag and specs.

Chic: For her outing, Reese layered a solid, white T-shirt underneath a classic navy blazer

Important remainders: The actress completed her look with gold jewellery, a brown cross bag and specs

Earlier that morning, Reese made sure to start her day off with a workout.

The Hot Pursuit star looked comfortable in a grey, cut-off T-shirt paired with cropped leggings.

Her look was complete with blue mirrored shades and colourful trainers.

Keeping fit: Earlier that morning, Reese made sure to start her day off with a workout

Despite having an already packed day, the busy entrepreneur wasn't done yet.

Reese took to Snapchat to let her followers know of her cross-country plans.

The actress shared a selfie where she revealed that she would be heading to the Toronto International Film Festival.
Most 19-year-old girls are just heading back to college.

But Kylie Jenner is busy with her own projects, which she discussed on Saturday.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star took to Snapchat to detail the process of getting ready for Puma's New York Fashion Week. The beauty flashed her toned legs in a tiny pair of Puma shorts.

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Behind the scenes: On Saturday, Kylie Jenner documented for her Snapchat followers the process of getting ready for the Puma show at New York Fashion Week

Detail work: She detailed, for example, the makeup artist's work on her face

The younger Jenner sister sat on a small stool as makeup lights flared onto her.

Not only were her white T-shirt's sleeves rolled up, but so was its hem, offering a full view of her well-maintained midriff and emphasising the tininess of her waist.

Her platinum blonde hair was clipped back, though she later pulled it free, and she held her phone up near her face.

As the Young MA song OOOUUU played, she shrugged each shoulder one after another to the beat.

Feel the heat: The 19-year-old wore skimpy Puma shorts that showcased her incredible legs

When you got it: Her T-shirt was pulled up to show her well-maintained midriff

She spent another part of the song stroking her showstopping legs.

One of her posts showed a makeup artist working on her face. A red arrow pointed to him, and on the other end of it was white text reading: 'He hates me.'

In yet another post, she mouthed along to Watch Out by 2 Chainz.

The image had been strained through a filter that made her mouth appear contorted and her eyes enlarged.

'Hair and makeup': She set the mood by playing music

'Vibes': Her selections included OOOUUU by Young MA

Goofing around: One clip of her mouthing along to Watch Out by 2 Chainz had a filter that contorted her mouth and enlarged her eyes

Later posts showed her sampling her completed outfit, which had as its centrepiece her bare midriff.

She wore high-waisted denim shorts with a bit of lacy embroidery below the pockets.

The white lace matched her white tube top, which betrayed only a hint of cleavage.

Midriff bared again: She matched the jacket with high-waisted denim shorts that had lacy embroider on them

A denim jacket with several splotches of lace embroidery slid off one shoulder. Her hair flowed out from beneath a tight white cap.

She rounded out the ensemble with elaborate white stiletto boots not unsuited to Dolly Parton's wardrobe.

In one post, whilst wearing that outfit, she used a filter to give herself a dog's ears and snout, pouting for a camera through her new features.

Later Snapchat posts showed her walking about, wearing the ensemble, in what appeared to be the backstage area of the event.

Bedecked: She rounded out her outfit with a pair of elaborate white stiletto boots

Puppy-dog face: In one post, she gave herself a filter that gave her a dog's ears and snout

Putting the outfit to use: Later Snapchat posts showed her wearing the ensemble in what appeared to be the Puma show's backstage area

'Everything': She seemed impressed with the actual show, which she also uploaded a bit of to Snapchat
Jonah Hill sure likes to change his appearance.

He started his career with some weight on him, then lost so many pant sizes he was almost unrecognizable.

On Saturday the 32-year-old star was at it again, this time modeling a bushy beard that made him look more Zach Galifianakis than Superbad when at the War Dogs premiere held at the 42nd Deauville American Film Festival in France.

A new JH: Jonah Hill modeled a beard when at a photo call for the film War Dogs during the 42nd Deauville American Film Festival in France on Saturday

Snazzy: He had on a zip-up black jacket over a grey shirt and dark slacks. Black and white sneakers made him look ready for a skateboard session; he was joined by Miles Teller

The comedian turned serious actor looked to be in good spirits as he walked the blue carpet.

He had on a zip-up black jacket over a grey shirt and dark slacks. Black and white sneakers made him look ready for a skateboard session.

The Wold Of Wall Street actor had on a heavy gold watch.

The boys: Teller and Hill posed with director Todd Phillips

On his way to the top: Teller looked handsome in a grey bomber jacket over a black shirt and jeans. His Nike sneakers looked pulled straight out of the box

Teller looked handsome in a grey bomber jacket over a black shirt and jeans. His Nike sneakers looked pulled straight out of the box.

They were joined by director Todd Phillips.

Before heading to France, Jonah took in the Kanye West concert in New York on September 5.

He was arm in arm with pals Nick Cannon and Vic Mensa.

Party on: Before heading to France, Jonah took in the Kanye West concert in New York; here he is seen with Nick Cannon
She never fails to make an effort in the fashion department.

And Chloe Sims was certainly dressed to impress when she hit London on Saturday night, rocking a military chic ensemble to attend the Love Sick London & Calum Best jacket launch party held at the Cereal Killer Cafe.

The 33-year-old TOWIE beauty displayed her long legs in a pair of suede thigh-high boots, teamed with a thigh-skimming T-shirt dress.

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Putting her best foot forward: TOWIE veteran Chloe Sims was dressed to impress when she hit London on Saturday night, sporting a pair of peep-toe, thigh-high boots

Chloe added a chunky leather belt to cinch in her tiny waist, and accessorised with an on-trend choker necklace.

Ever the fashionista, the platinum blonde star shrugged her camouflage print jacket off her shoulders for a nonchalant look.

The star carried a small leather clutch bag in one hand as she strutted along, looking every inch like she was on a catwalk.

Making a statement: Ever the fashionista, the platinum blonde star shrugged her camouflage print jacket off her shoulders for a nonchalant look

Simply stylish: Chloe added a chunky leather belt to cinch in her tiny waist, and accessorised with an on-trend choker necklace

Chloe toned down her make-up look, opting for pale pink lips and heavy black kohl lining her eyes.

The star was enjoying a night on the town following the end of the latest drama-filled series of The Only Way Is Essex.

Chloe recently opened up about her close friend Danielle Armstrong's break-up with long-term love James 'Lockie' Lock.

Time off: The star was enjoying a night on the town following the end of the latest drama-filled series of The Only Way Is Essex

She revealed in her Star magazine column: 'I knew Dani and Lockie were splitting up a while ago, but she didn't want the news out there straight away.

'It was good they gave it another shot  you should if you still have feelings or you'll always wonder "What If?"'

The single mother insisted that it was a mutual decision, explaining the pair had simply 'outgrown' each other.
Police bands from across US march to honor 9/11 victims

Playing drums and bagpipes, police bands paraded through the streets of New York on Friday in a memorial procession honoring those who died in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Seventy-one police officers were killed in the attacks at the World Trade Center when Al-Qaeda operatives crashed airplanes into the twin towers, including 23 members of the New York Police Department.

Every year since then, several NYPD bands, sounding bagpipes, pipes and drums, have paraded near Ground Zero, the site of the attacks.

The New York Police Department holds a memorial procession in New York on September 9, 2016, in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks William Edwards (AFP)

But for the 15th anniversary of the worst attacks on US soil, the NYPD invited other police bands to join them and they came from Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle to mark the solemn occasion.

The NYPD's Emerald Society, wearing kilts, led the procession to the New York City Police Memorial in lower Manhattan, not far from the attacks site.

"Fifteen years seems like a long time, but the wounds are still there," NYPD chaplain Robert Romano said in a speech to an audience including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The songs most played, as usual, were the old Christian hymn "Amazing Grace" and patriotic standards such as "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America."

The bagpipes tradition in the United States comes from the Irish and Scottish immigrants who gained a foothold in police forces in the northeastern states in the 19th century.

The bands "represent the fallen," said Anthony Ferragamo, an officer in the Marine Unit of the Seattle Police. "For this occasion, all the bands came together to show respect for the fallen at the NYPD."

The bands typically play at the funerals of police officers who have died while serving the public.

"It's the first time that all the police bands actually got together," said Ferragamo.

Lightening the mood a bit, one of the NYPD bands played "New York, New York," the upbeat homage to the city made famous by Frank Sinatra.
UN to begin work on new North Korea sanctions

The UN Security Council has agreed to start work at once on a new series of sanctions on North Korea after its fifth nuclear test drew global condemnation.

During a closed-door meeting Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters after the urgent talks.

North Korea said the fifth nuclear test, which comes after a series of ballistic missile launches had realised the country's goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site, the North's most powerful yet at 10 kilotons.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and North Korean flags and called for "strong retaliation", including pre-emptive attacks on the North's nuclear complex.

"Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!" and "Destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons!" the elderly activists shouted.

Some newspapers were equally scathing. "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac," read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

But the North's ruling party newspaper said Saturday it would not submit to US nuclear "blackmail", and described the South's President Park Geun-Hye as a "dirty prostitute" for working with US forces.

"Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK," said Rodong Sinmun, using the country's official name.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang's ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After the meeting China's Ambassador Liu Jieyi sidestepped questions about Beijing's support for sanctions.

"We are opposed to testing and we believe that it is more urgent than ever to work together to ensure denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," Liu said.

"All sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation."

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

- Holding the world hostage -

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US Ambassador Samantha Power said, describing those tests and Pyongyang's second nuclear detonation this year as "more than brazen defiance."

"North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike," Power said.

Pyongyang's state media said Friday the nuclear test had realized the country's goal of being able to fit a miniaturized warhead on a rocket.

"Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country's northern nuclear test site," a TV presenter said.

The first indications of an underground explosion came when seismic monitors detected a 5.3-magnitude "artificial earthquake" Friday near the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

"The 10-kiloton blast was nearly twice the (power of the) fourth nuclear test and slightly less than the Hiroshima bombing, which was measured about 15 kilotons," said Kim Nam-Wook of the South's meteorological agency.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test -- which came on the 68th anniversary of the country's founding.

The nuclear program has accompanied a series of ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China.

- Challenge for China -

This week's events pose yet another challenge for China, which has been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbor.

Beijing strongly condemned the test, but has limited room to maneuver. Its priority is to avoid the regime's collapse, which would create a crisis on its border and potentially shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula toward the United States.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for further pressure on North Korea, but said China bore responsibility for tackling the problem.

"China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it," he said.

"It's important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going."

Nuclear North Korea -, - (AFP Graphic)

People watch a television news report on North Korea's latest nuclear test, at a railway station in Seoul, on September 9, 2016 Jung Yeon-Je (AFP)

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) speaks to journalists upon his arrival at his office in Tokyo on September 9, 2016 following news of North Korea's fifth nuclear test Toru Yamanaka (AFP)
US inmates launch nationwide prison protests

Prisoners throughout the United States went on strike Friday, answering social media calls to protest prison living conditions in a mobilization whose magnitude remains difficult to assess.

Two Florida prisons -- Gulf Correctional and Mayo Correctional -- were placed on lockdown following "disturbances," according to the Miami Herald newspaper.

Late Wednesday at Holmes Correctional in northwestern Florida, a revolt involving more than 400 inmates preceded the nationwide strike.

Activist groups in the US took to social media and called for peaceful protests in prisons to improve the lives and working conditions of prisoners Robyn Beck (AFP/File)

The Florida Department of Corrections called it a "major disturbance involving several hundred inmates housed in multiple dorms."

The state's corrections department announced Friday the cancellation of weekend visits at the Holmes facility and the Gulf Correctional Institution Annex, without providing details.

Elsewhere in the US, activist groups took to social media and called for peaceful protests to improve the lives and working conditions of prisoners.

"They are participating in work stoppages, hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of long-term isolation, inadequate health care, overcrowding, violent attacks and slave labor," the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee member Phillip Ruiz told the Miami Herald.

His group is among several leading the protest movement.

Friday's events occurred on the anniversary of the historic September 9, 1971 rebellion in which inmates took over and shut down upstate New York's Attica prison, a bloody uprising that prompted four days of intense negotiations.

According to the Free Alabama Movement group, prisoners were also striking in Alabama, Texas and South Carolina facilities.
Pence releases tax returns, Trump still won't

Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump's running mate released 10 years of tax returns on Friday, but his billionaire boss still refuses to do so, leading critics to cry foul over his lack of transparency.

Mike Pence's tax returns are quite simple compared to the financials of bombastic real estate magnate Trump.

Pence reported that he and his wife Karen earned a total of $113,026 in adjusted gross income last year, most of it from his salary as governor of Indiana and including nearly $9,000 in pensions or annuities.

US vice presidential candidate Mike Pence reported he and his wife earned $113,026 in adjusted gross income last year, most from his salary as governor of Indiana Mark Ralston (AFP)

They paid $8,956 in federal income taxes, at an effective tax rate of 12.40 percent.

The Pences were able to obtain a relatively low tax rate thanks to losses and tax breaks they claimed, including $8,923 in gifts to charity.

Their 2015 income was the lowest of the 10 years of released tax returns, though in all years they brought home a six-figure income. The peak came in 2009 and 2010, when they earned more than $187,000.

"The Pence family has been honored to serve their state and their nation for the past 16 years, while raising three great children and putting them through college," said spokesman Marc Lotter.

"These tax returns clearly show that Mike and Karen Pence have paid their taxes, supported worthy causes, and, unlike the Clintons, the Pences have not profited from their years in public service."

Every major US presidential nominee since Richard Nixon has released their tax returns before the election, but Trump has repeatedly punted on the issue.

In releasing Pence's returns, Trump's campaign again said Friday that the candidate "plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit."

Trump's rival for the presidency, Democratic nominee and former first lady Hillary Clinton, has described Trump as "dead wrong" for saying that his tax returns were not the concern of everyday Americans.

"He clearly has something to hide," she said this week.

Christina Reynolds, a deputy spokeswoman for Clinton's campaign, added: "As prominent Republicans have speculated, Trump's returns could reveal further ties to Russia and its oligarchs, the truth about his personal wealth, or more lies about his charitable contributions. But we won't know until we see them."

"We're pleased to see that one member of the Trump ticket has decided to meet the long-held threshold for disclosure in a modern day presidential campaign," she said.

"But it's Donald Trump... running to be our next president."
South Korean media sound alarm over 'nuclear maniac'

South Korean newspapers sounded the alarm on Saturday over what one termed the "nuclear maniac" Kim Jong-Un, saying the North Korean leader's fifth and biggest nuclear test is a game-changer demanding a tougher response.

One newspaper urged Seoul to persuade its ally Washington to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons withdrawn from South Korea in the early 1990s.

The Joongang Ilbo also urged China to cut off oil supplies to its ally and neighbour.

People watch a TV broadcast, showing file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, at a railway station in Seoul on September 9, 2016 Jung Yeon-Je (AFP)

"High time for switching gear in nuclear deterrence against North", read its front-page headline.

Kim had "crossed the river of no return", it said in an editorial headlined "The North's fifth nuclear test that expedites its own demise".

The banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo read "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac".

Splashed below was a cartoon of Kim mounted on a galloping horse, his face distorted with anger and his hands clasping nuclear missiles.

In an editorial entitled "Counter-measures against the North's nuclear programme must change completely", Chosun said the North had been successful in its "nuclear gambling" but cracks had begun to appear inside its system.

"We must set up and actively pursue a strategy to isolate Kim Jong-Un and his clique from within and topple them", the conservative paper said.

The leftist Hankyoreh daily also said it "strongly condemns" the latest nuclear test.

But it said the repeated tests reflect a failure in the existing approach to the mounting crisis.

"There won't be any solution in expressing anger to the North and keeping putting pressure on it. We must go beyond Cold War-style confrontation," it said.

"We must stop pinning our hopes on the unrealistic theory that the North is coming close to implosion. Instead, a new, comprehensive strategy is needed."
Gabon post-election turmoil escalates with court bid for recount

Gabon's Jean Ping took his bid to have a wafer-thin presidential election loss overturned to the country's top court, as President Ali Bongo blamed the opposition leader for creating a climate of violence.

Days of riots followed the August 31 announcement handing Bongo a narrow victory with a margin of some 6,000 votes, and Ping warned of more trouble to come if the court -- which has 15 days to decide -- rejects his recount appeal.

"I greatly fear that another false step by the Constitutional Court will be the cause of deep and long-lasting instability in Gabon," Ping told hundreds of supporters in Libreville.

Gabon's opposition leader Jean Ping warned of more trouble to come if the country's top court rejects his appeal for a recount in the presidential election Steve Jordan (AFP)

"If the Constitutional Court ignores the reality of the Gabonese vote, the people, who would have nothing left to lose... will take the future into their own hands," said Ping, who continues to refer to himself as "president-elect".

Gabon's President Ali Bongo said that the opposition leader had created "a climate" through his "violent campaign of lies and denigration" which was to blame for the unrest that erupted after his re-election.

"I have not employed or triggered the violence," Bongo said in an interview with AFP.

"I wanted democratic elections, I wanted transparent elections, I wanted a ballot that was just, I am not reliant on fraud," he added.

- 'Apprehensive' -

Ping is asking for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, a Bongo family stronghold where the incumbent won more than 95 percent of the vote on an official turnout of more than 99 percent.

An EU election observer mission also said that there was a "clear anomaly in the final result in Haut-Ogooue".

Ping admitted that he was "apprehensive" about getting a fair hearing at the court, "which the Gabonese call the Tower of Pisa because it always leans to the side of the ruling power".

But he told supporters "2016 is not 2009", a reference to the last presidential election when the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo's victory.

The central African nation has been ruled by the Bongo family since 1967.

The rancour sparked by the poll dispute was in further evidence at Ping's headquarters Friday as supporters escorted a television journalist from the premises amid accusations state broadcasters Gabon Television and Gabon24 had been deliberately under-reporting the death toll from recent unrest.

Reporter Jean-Raoul Mbadinga was frogmarched out amid a barrage of insults hurled by hundreds of people who had gathered to hear Ping's address.

"I came as I do for (covering) Bongo. I am a journalist," Mbadinga protested.

Ping supporters say state broadcasters have understated the scale of post-poll violence and add that interior ministry figures of just three deaths are highly inaccurate.

- Bodies in 'common grave' -

"Credible sources tell us there is a freezer box at Oloumi (a Libreville suburb) where bodies have been hidden," Ping stated.

He also alluded to "a common grave" in the city and claimed that an undertakers firm had been refusing to take delivery of any more bodies.

Members of one Libreville family meanwhile told AFP they had discovered the body of a relative taken by emergency services to a morgue.

They said Prosper Mesmain Nang Alongo, a 42-year-old married father of six, had been taken to the morgue in the early hours of September 1, hours after the electoral commission had declared Bongo the election winner.

Alongo's head showed the impact of a bullet, the family said, while indicating they did not know the exact circumstances in which he died.

Gabon opposition leader Jean Ping told supporters in Libreville people would "take the future into their own hands" if his appeal for an election recount is denied Steve Jordan (AFP)

People gather at a makeshift memorial for victims of Gabon's post-presidential election violence outside opposition headquarters in Libreville Steve Jordan (AFP)
Hajj nears climax for world's Muslims

Close to 1.5 million Muslims from around the world prepared on Saturday night for the climax of the annual hajj pilgrimage at a rocky hill known as Mount Arafat.

The pilgrims will mark Sunday with day-long prayers and recitals of the Koran holy book at the spot in western Saudi Arabia where they believe their Prophet Mohammed gave his last hajj sermon.

The numbers are down this year because of the absence of 64,000 Iranians over tensions between their Shiite nation and the Sunni-dominated kingdom.

Muslim pilgrims from around the world circle around the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque in the Saudi city of Mecca on September 9, 2016 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP)

Last year's hajj stampede which killed roughly 2,300 people, many of them Iranians, magnified those frictions.

Masses of Iranian faithful held an alternative pilgrimage on Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of the Iraqi capital.

After preliminary rituals this week in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia moved east on Saturday to the tent city of Mina and Mount Arafat.

They are following in the footsteps of their prophet who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago.

"It's marvellous. I'm here closer to God. It's an indescribable feeling," said an Egyptian pilgrim who gave her name only as Louza, 45, as a helicopter monitored the throng.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once, marking the spiritual peak of their lives.

Pilgrims come from every corner of the globe but Indonesia -- the world's largest Muslim-populated nation -- has the largest quota.

Despite diverse languages and origins, they all "meet here in one place under one banner, the profession of the Muslim faith," Ashraf Zalat, 43, from Egypt, said in Mecca.

Okaz newspaper reported that, for the first time in 35 years, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, will not deliver a sermon to the Arafat crowd on Sunday.

The paper cited health reasons for the absence of the grand mufti, who has also waded into the Saudi-Iranian row over the hajj.

- Mina main base -

After Mecca, Mina becomes the pilgrims' base, where an expanse of solidly built white fireproof tents can accommodate 2.6 million people in a valley beneath bare mountains.

Guides in orange vests helped to direct pilgrims while police cars patrolled and troops were stationed at regular intervals.

Last September 24, Mina was the scene of the deadliest disaster in hajj history, when the stampede broke out as pilgrims made their way to the Jamarat Bridge for a stoning ritual.

This year's "Stoning of the Devil" will start on Monday.

Although Riyadh stuck with a stampede death toll of 769, figures compiled from foreign officials in more than 30 countries gave a tally almost three times higher -- at least 2,297.

Saudi Arabia announced an investigation into the disaster but no results have ever been released, although a number of safety measures have been taken.

Among the changes, government facilities have been moved out of Mina to free up space, and roads in the Jamarat area expanded, Saudi newspapers reported.

Officials have also been issuing pilgrims with bracelets that digitally store their personal data.

Authorities aim to give bracelets to each of the 1.3 million faithful from abroad, who are joined by more than 100,000 Muslims residing in Saudi Arabia.

Interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki spoke of "great efforts being exerted by the kingdom, not only in maintaining the security and safety of the pilgrims, but in facilitating performance" of the rites in comfort.

Pilgrims appeared satisfied.

"The transportation went well and the lodging is comfortable," said Salah Gaddoumi, 40, from Sudan, who is on his second hajj.

"It's better organised this time," he said in Mina.

Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars in hajj infrastructure and safety projects over the years.

Despite the safety and security measures which Saudi Arabia says it has taken, Iran has questioned the kingdom's custodianship of Islam's holiest places.

The two countries do not have diplomatic relations and are at odds over a string of regional issues including the wars in Yemen and Syria.

Iran last year reported the largest number of stampede victims, at 464, and its pilgrims are excluded for the first time in decades after the regional rivals failed to agree on security and logistics.

Many of the Iranians who would have travelled to Mount Arafat wound up instead in Karbala to visit the Imam Hussein shrine.

An official in Karbala said that one million pilgrims were expected, mostly from Iran.

Graphic on the annual hajj, which begins on September 10 Laurence Chu, Gal Roma (AFP)

After preliminary rituals in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, pilgrims will move to Mina, about five kilometres (three miles) east Ahmad Gharabli (AFP)
Bailout for crisis-hit Hanjin Shipping gets conditional approval val

A key member of South Korea's Hanjin Group agreed on Saturday to a conditional bailout of the group's shipping unit, whose collapse has sparked turmoil worldwide on the high seas.

The board of group unit Korean Air, meeting for the third straight day, decided to lend 60 billion won ($55 million) to Hanjin Shipping, two thirds of whose cargo fleet is marooned at sea due to huge debts.

"The board members decided to provide the loan but only in exchange for collateral (from Hanjin Shipping)," a company spokeswoman told AFP.

A US court, on September 9, 2016, gave Hanjin Shipping provisional protection from US creditors, allowing ships to dock and unload at the country's ports Robyn Beck (AFP)

At the two previous meetings on Thursday and Friday, some board members objected to offering the loan and securing collateral afterwards, she said.

It remained unclear whether the badly indebted Hanjin Shipping could provide matching collateral.

The company is seeking bankruptcy protection at home and in the US after creditors rejected its latest plan to deal with a $5.37 billion debt.

Its bankruptcy would be by far the largest in the history of container shipping, which is suffering its worst downturn in six decades because of slumping global trade and a slowdown in China.

Hanjin Group announced earlier in the week it would inject 100 billion won, including a personal donation of 40 billion won from its chairman and biggest shareholder Cho Yang-Ho, to help the shipping unit.

The remainder would come from Korean Air.

Earlier on Saturday, a Hanjin Shipping spokesman said a US court had issued an order allowing it to unload some cargo without fear of creditors seizing its ships.

As of late Friday, 92 of 141 ships being operated by the world's seventh largest shipping firm were stranded at sea.

They have been banned from docking in the US, China and many other countries until there are guarantees of payment for service firms and port workers.

The freight on the 92 ships is reportedly worth $14 billion, the Chosun Ilbo daily said. Much of it is destined for US stores before the Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping spree.

- 'No expertise' -

Some ships have been seized by its creditors, further complicating the problem.

"The New Jersey bankruptcy court issued a stay order" aimed at protecting some ships from being seized by creditors, Hanjin Shipping spokesman Jang Jin-Hong told AFP.

Jang said the court granted the order after it was shown the bailout plan by Hanjin Group.

Consequently, four Hanjin container carriers out of the 92 had begun unloading, he said.

Hanjin has seen its financial woes deepen since the 2008 global financial crisis.

It posted a net loss of more than 473 billion won in the first half of this year alone, after racking up total net losses of about 1.2 trillion won over the past three years.

The shipping firm's previous owner Cho Su-Ho died in 2006 and his widow Choi Eun-Young, a housewife with little business experience, took the helm.

The firm's troubles are partly blamed on long-term charters for high fees which she agreed when global shipping was still booming.

At a parliamentary hearing Friday into the country's troubled shipbuilding and shipping industries, Choi shed tears and said she "keenly" felt her responsibility.

"I had no expertise as I had been stuck home as a housewife" she said.

Choi has been under investigation on charges she was involved in insider dealing -- selling off the shares of her and her two daughters before the company sought court receivership in August. She has denied the claims.

World's biggest shipping lines -, - (AFP Graphic)
At least 25 dead in Bangladesh factory fire

At least 25 people have been killed and 70 injured, many critically, in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a Bangladeshi packaging factory, officials said Saturday as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.

Around 100 people were working when flames tore through the four-storey building in the industrial town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka.

Parvez Mia, a doctor at the Tongi government hospital, told AFP the death toll was at 25, up from 22 previously reported, and said at least 70 people were injured.

Smoke and flames billow from a burning garment factory in Tongi, the key Bangladeshi garment manufacturing hub of Gazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on September 10, 2016 Salahuddin Ahmed Shamim (AFP)

The fire started in the boiler room at the Tampaco Foils Limited factory, which supplies foreign and domestic brands.

"We still have not controlled the blaze and we fear some workers are still trapped in the factory," police inspector Aminul Islam told AFP.

Mia, the doctor, said seriously injured victims had been sent to hospitals in the capital Dhaka.

"Several of them are very critical," he added.

Factory electrician Mohammad Rokon, 35, escaped with minor injuries.

"I was working inside the office room when I heard an explosion and felt a tremor. Then suddenly the ceiling started to fall on me," he told AFP from his hospital observation bed.

"I almost became unconscious. But I forced myself to go out with the help of my mobile phone's flashlight."

Machine operator Rubel Hossain was two minutes away from entering the factory when the blast occurred.

"I heard a huge explosion and saw smoke and fire coming out of the factory," he said.

"I am simultaneously feeling lucky and heartbroken," he said, tears streaming down his face as he helped rush the many injured to hospital, blood staining his T-shirt.

The tragedy struck as families were preparing to celebrate the major Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

"My brother Delwar Hossain told us last night he would take us to our home district of Sherpur. Now he is going to be buried there," said Khaleda Begum, the sister of a factory worker killed in the accident.

"Eid is ruined for our family."

Chemicals may have been stored on the ground floor of the factory, helping to explain how the blaze that began at 6:00 am (0000 GMT) spread so fast, said Tahmidul Islam of Bangladesh's industrial police unit.

"What we have heard is that there were chemicals stored on the ground floor. As a result, the fire took no time to spread," Islam told AFP, adding scores of firefighters were still battling to bring the blaze under control.

According to the company's website, the packaging factory supplies multinational and domestic brands including British-American Tobacco Bangladesh Limited and Nestle Bangladesh Limited.

The head of Bangladesh's factory inspection department said a committee had been set up to investigate the fire.

"They'll probe why the fire occurred and whether the factory lacked proper fire safety measures. They will also suggest how we can improve fire safety of local factories," Ahmed said.

- Fires, accidents common -

Fires and other accidents are common in the factories that make up the $27-billion garment industry in Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest apparel exporter after China.

In November 2012, at least 111 workers were killed when a devastating fire engulfed a nine-storey garment factory in the Ashulia industrial area, outside the capital Dhaka.

The accident was followed by an even bigger tragedy six months later when 1,138 people died after another clothing factory complex collapsed, trapping over 3,000 workers.

The Rana Plaza tragedy triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

Western brands subsequently improved safety standards and inspections for suppliers, dramatically reducing incidents of fire and other accidents at export-orientated factories.

Fires in garment factories have dropped from 250 in 2012 to just 30 in 2015, with no fatalities that year, according to Bangladesh fire department figures.

But thousands of local factories supplying the domestic market have done little to address safety concerns.

Workers are often crammed in elbow to elbow, while fire escape stairwells are routinely blocked or padlocked closed, ostensibly to prevent theft.

Building regulations are rarely enforced and volatile chemicals are often improperly stored, while official safety inspections are few and far between.

Smoke and flames billow from a burning garment factory in Tongi, the key Bangladeshi garment manufacturing hub of Gazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on September 10, 2016 Rehman Asad (AFP)

A mourner cries next to the bodies of factory workers after an explosion in a factory in the key Bangladeshi garment manufacturing town of Tongi on September 10, 2016 Rajib Dhar (AFP)
N. Korea says nuclear weapons a defence against US 'blackmail'

North Korea Saturday sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear "blackmail" as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from Friday's test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons -- almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.

People watch a television news report on North Korea's latest nuclear test, at a railway station in Seoul, on September 9, 2016 Jung Yeon-Je (AFP)

The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

"It is believed that the North's nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace," Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for "more and stronger sanctions".

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that -- even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North's drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and called for "strong retaliation", including pre-emptive attacks on the North's nuclear complex.

"Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!" and "Destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons!" the elderly activists shouted.

Some newspapers were equally scathing. "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac," read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

But the North's ruling party newspaper vowed Saturday not to submit to US nuclear "blackmail", and described the South's President Park Geun-Hye as a "dirty prostitute" for working with US forces.

"Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK," said Rodong Sinmun, using the country's official name.

"The US is exasperated by the strong military steps being taken by the DPRK in a phased way."

- 'Holding the world hostage' -

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South. The Joongang Ilbo newspaper recommended they should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, as they were until the early 1990s.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang's sole ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US ambassador Samantha Power said.

"North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike," Power said.

Pyongyang's state media said Friday the nuclear test had realised the goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket.

"Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country's northern nuclear test site," a TV presenter said.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test.

The nuclear programme has accompanied a series of ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China.

- Challenge for China -

China has long been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbour.

Beijing strongly condemned the test. But its priority is to avoid the regime's collapse, which would create a crisis on its border and potentially shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula toward the United States.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for further pressure on North Korea, but said China bore responsibility for tackling the problem.

"China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it," he said.

"It's important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going."

Timeline on nuclear tests conducted by North Korea

South Korean conservative activists denounce North Korea's latest nuclear test, in Seoul, on September 10, 2016 Jung Yeon-Je (AFP)
Fiji foreign minister loses job during Pacific forum

Fiji's foreign minister Inoke Kubuabola, filling in for Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama at this weekend's Pacific Islands Forum in Micronesia, confirmed Saturday he has lost his job in a cabinet shake-up.

Kubuabola said he was told late Friday he had been moved to the defence and national security portfolios and Bainimarama would take over the duties of foreign minister.

"Cabinet positions are decided by the prime minister and it is his prerogative to allocate our responsibilities," he told the Islands Business magazine as he entered the forum leaders' retreat on Saturday.

Fiji's Foreign Minister Inoke Kubuabola attends the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting in Sydney, in July 2015 Peter Parks (AFP/File)

Bainimarama refuses to attend the forum, a regional leaders' summit, because of New Zealand and Australia's involvement.

He blames the two regional powers for Fiji being suspended from the forum after he seized control of the island state in a 2006 coup.

Since Fiji was invited back into the forum after organising a return to democratic elections in 2014, Bainimarama has sent his foreign minister in his place.

Bainimarama said in a statement he wanted to "reinvigorate" his cabinet.

"This reshuffle will enhance our ability to continue to provide the high level of service that the Fijian people have come to expect," he said.
N. Korea's nuclear threat growing after largest test: analysts

North Korea's nuclear threat has grown significantly following its latest and largest nuclear test and a series of missile launches, analysts say, with some South Korean newspapers even theorising about an atomic attack on Seoul.

The South Korean capital stayed calm Saturday, with residents immune to near-daily threats from their neighbour, but newspapers and analysts saw Friday's test as a game-changer.

With a force of 10 kilotons, the blast was two-thirds the size of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in August 1945. It took place just eight months after the previous detonation.

North Korea appears to have conducted a fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016 after monitors detected a 5.3-magnitude "artificial earthquake" near its main nuclear site KCNA (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/File)

More importantly, the North claimed it had successfully tested a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

The nuclear programme has been accompanied by a series of ballistic missile launches, including from a submarine.

Given that Friday's test was the most powerful in terms of yield and that the time lapse from the previous test was shortened, "the North's nuclear capability is believed to have been sophisticated to a considerable degree and being developed at an increasingly faster pace," South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials.

The world must now "cautiously accept the reality" that the North could launch a nuclear attack by missile, said analyst Jeung Young-Tae of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), although the range of such a nuclear-tipped missile remained unclear.

The North's announcement of its test indicated they had tested the bomb that would arm their missile units, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

"And that's a big deal," he wrote in an article entitled "North Korea's nuke program is way more sophisticated than you think", for the website of Foreign Policy magazine.

"In the past, we've treated North Korean nuclear tests as temper tantrums or political demonstrations."

- 'Not completely insane' -

The North is believed to have succeeded in making nuclear warheads small enough to arm Scud missiles to hit South Korea or Rodong middle-range missiles to attack Japan, Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"But it has not yet completed the re-entry technology needed to develop an ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) that could hit Hawaii or the United States mainland," Yang said.

Given the enormous prestige and resources devoted to the nuclear programme, Yang doubts it would vanish even with regime change.

"Having witnessed with alarm what happened to Libya's Moamer Kadhafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, North Korea is deadly serious in believing its nuclear weapons are the only guarantee that can ensure its survival against an invasion by the US," he said.

"The nuclear arsenal gives Kim the halo as the country's top military commander and helps tighten his grip on power, both over the party and the military as well," Yang said.

"The North would never give up its nuclear arsenal unless it is guaranteed security, even if the Kim Jong-Un regime collapses and someone else took over."

But Kim is not a madman and is not about to launch a pre-emptive strike, Jeung of KINU told AFP.

"The sole purpose of Kim Jong-Un's regime is survival of the regime but nothing more. So they must know very well that any pre-emptive nuclear strike will immediately prompt counter-attacks on North Korea, which will seriously jeopardise the regime.

"They may be reckless but they are not completely insane," Jeung said.

Some South Korean newspapers still flirted with doomsday scenarios.

Up to 235,000 would be killed if a nuclear blast of 10 kilotons occurred in Seoul, Yonhap news agency said, citing research in 2010 by the US think tank RAND Corp.

Top-selling Chosun daily also warned of "total destruction" and compared potential damage to the World War II bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

North Korea's latest nuclear teast comes just eight months after its previous one

With a force of 10 kilotons, North Korea's latest blast was two-thirds the size of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in August 1945
Philippines' Duterte says 'not a fan' of US, plots own course

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, saying he was "not a fan" of the United States, vowed Saturday to steer an independent course for the key Asian ally and refrain from confronting territorial rival China.

The incendiary leader made the comments after a controversial first foreign trip and spectacular falling out with US President Barack Obama, who he called a "son of a whore".

"I am not a fan of the Americans... Filipinos should be first before everybody else," Duterte told reporters upon arrival in his hometown of Davao city Saturday.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's trip to a summit in Laos was overshadowed by his verbal tirade, which saw Obama cancel a planned meeting Ye Aung Thu (AFP/File)

"In our relations to the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy. I repeat: The Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy."

The president's trip to a summit in Laos was overshadowed by his verbal tirade, which saw Obama cancel a planned meeting. The pair met briefly later after Duterte expressed regret.

The US, Manila's main military ally and the Philippines' colonial ruler until 1946, has criticised Duterte's brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed 3,000 lives since he took office in July and drawn condemnation from the United Nations.

Obama has urged the Filipino leader to conduct his crime war "the right way" and protect human rights, but Duterte has dismissed it as being none of America's business.

The two also subtly differed on how to proceed after a UN-backed international tribunal in July outlawed most of China's claims to the strategic South China Sea, including areas that overlap with those of the Philippines and other neighbours.

Obama, whose government wants to ensure freedom of navigation in the waterway, brought up the contentious issue at the Laos forum also attended by China.

He stressed that the tribunal's ruling was "binding" and could not be ignored by Beijing, which has rejected it.

Duterte favours a "soft landing" for the issue and said Saturday it would be counter-productive for his militarily weak nation, which hosts small units of US forces, to confront China or undertake actions that could lead to armed conflict.

"I assured everybody that there are only two options there: We go to fight, which we cannot afford at all, or talk," he added.

On Friday during an overnight visit to Indonesia, Duterte announced China had pledged to help build drug rehabilitation centres to treat Filipino crystal meth users.

Law enforcement officials believe criminal gangs in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong supply most of the illegal and highly addictive stimulants to the Philippines.
Syria regime accepts US-Russia truce as opposition wavers

Syria's government on Saturday approved a ceasefire deal brokered by its Russian ally and the US, but the main opposition group was more cautious.

The landmark deal, reached after marathon talks in Geneva on Friday, could also lead to the first joint military operations by Moscow and Washington against jihadists.

But even as diplomats touted the agreement as a path to peace, a barrage of air strikes on two major cities in the north killed dozens.

A wounded man and a child walk away as others help a victim at the scene of a reported air strike on the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib on September 10, 2016 Omar Haj Kadour (AFP)

The truce deal negotiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to enter into force on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the "government has approved the agreement, and a cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons".

Citing "informed sources", it said "the entire agreement was reached with the knowledge of the Syrian government".

The opposition High Negotiations Committee said it had yet to receive the deal's "official" text.

"We saw the agreement via the media -- we must receive an official copy," HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet wrote on Twitter.

Leading HNC member Bassma Kodmani told AFP that her group "cautiously welcomed" the deal but was sceptical that Damascus would comply.

- 'Best chance' -

Both Kerry and Lavrov said the complex plan is the best chance to end the five-year war that has killed more than 290,000 people and seen millions flee to neighbouring countries.

Under the deal, fighting would halt across the country at sundown on Monday and Syria's air force would stop attacking rebel-held areas.

US special envoy to the Syrian crisis Michael Ratney appealed to rebel groups to commit to the deal, saying it was the "best way" to save lives.

In a letter, he said the initial truce would last 48 hours and could then be renewed, and that it would be "more effective than its predecessor" because it would halt Syrian strikes on "on civilians and the opposition".

To get aid into the battered second city of Aleppo, a "demilitarised zone" would be established around the Castello Road into the city.

In turn, Washington must get opposition groups it backs to separate themselves from the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

If a cessation of hostilities holds for one week, the US and Russia -- which back opposing sides -- could start joint operations against those jihadists.

The HNC's Kodmani said the opposition would "do our part" to see that rebel groups break ranks with the jihadists if the truce held.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said that the deal provided a "window of opportunity" and that he would begin consultations on relaunching peace talks.

- 'Beginning of the end' -

But the deal faces some major obstacles.

The question of Assad's fate remains a key sticking point: the HNC repeated its demand this week that he leave power, but Russia continues to back him.

And Syria expert Charles Lister said mainstream opposition fighters had not indicated a willingness to break their alliance with powerful hardliners, which they see as "a military necessity".

The rebel-jihadist alliance is most pronounced in Idlib province, site of Saturday's deadly air strikes.

The Observatory said 58 people were killed in raids on various neighbourhoods of Idlib city, including a market, but it was not immediately clear who carried out the strikes.

The toll included 13 women and 13 children, it said.

An AFP photographer in Idlib saw men clambering over rubble in just sandals to help evacuate wounded and dust-covered residents from a collapsing building.

Another 12 civilians were killed in unidentified strikes on several neighbourhoods of Aleppo city, and 18 people died in bombardment of other parts of Aleppo province, the Observatory said.

A UN-backed truce in February faltered after each side accused the other of repeated violations.

Damascus resident Taher Ibrahim told AFP he did not expect this new truce to play out any differently.

"Nobody among the Syrian population accepts this agreement... (the opposition) are all the same and none of them will commit to this truce," he said.

But student Abdulhadi Al-Omari said he believed "it is the beginning of the end of the crisis".

"I am very optimistic because this truce is not like the previous one, it categorises the opposition groups between terrorist and moderate," he said.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said it was "vital that the regime in Damascus now delivers on its obligations".

Key rebel backer Turkey said it was essential that the fighting stop and aid start flowing from day one of the ceasefire.

The vexed question of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's fate remains, with Western powers calling for his ouster and Russia backing him

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) said the truce in Syria would come into force September 12, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha Fabrice Coffrini (AFP)

The US and its allies have been insisting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's air force, accused of widespread civilian massacres, must stand down Abd Doumany (AFP/File)
Turkey welcomes Russia-US Syria truce plan

Turkey, which has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria in an unprecedented incursion, on Saturday welcomed a deal between the United States and Russia for a ceasefire in its conflict-torn neighbour.

"We welcome the agreement," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Fighting must be halted across Syria and humanitarian aid reach those in need "from the first day" of the ceasefire, it said.

Turkey has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria in an unprecedented incursion Nazeer al-Khatib (AFP/File)

The truce is scheduled to start on the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday on Monday.

The statement said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had "closely followed" the process to secure the ceasefire, following talks with Russian and US counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 in China.

It said Turkey was already making preparations for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria's northern Aleppo province and would make efforts to "ensure the effective implementation" of the ceasefire.

In a later telephone call, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also told US counterpart John Kerry, who helped broker the accord, of Ankara's satisfaction over the deal.

"Minister Cavusoglu said Turkey would to everything it can to ensure the ceasefire is applied," the foreign ministry said.

Turkey and Russia have been on opposing sides of the conflict, with Ankara backing the opposition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Moscow his key international supporter.

But there have been signs of greater harmony between Ankara and Moscow on Syria since a June deal to normalise their own ties following the crisis over the shooting down of a Russian war plane.

Cavusoglu had spoken to Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov late Friday ahead of the announcement of the deal, both sides said.

"They expressed mutual understanding of the importance of all parties concerned complying with the cessation of hostilities and the resumption of the inter-Syrian negotiation process," the Russian foreign ministry said.

The Russia-US agreement came as Turkey presses on with its Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, aimed at pushing both Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militia out of the Syrian border area.

Lavrov said the United States and Russia have agreed to carry out joint air strikes against "terrorists" in Syria if the ceasefire holds for a week.

Washington has applauded Turkey's actions against IS but is wary of its assault on the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which has been a US ally in the fight against the jihadists.
Obama urges unity on eve of 9/11 anniversary

President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.

"In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

"We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society," he added.

US President Barack Obama called 9/11 "one of the darkest (days) in our nations history", adding that much had changed over the past 15 years Saul Loeb (AFP)

"Because it's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairlyno matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faiththat's part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient," Obama said.

"And if we stay true to those values, we'll uphold the legacy of those weve lost, and keep our nation strong and free."

On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump's bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.

Following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California for example, Trump called for a temporary ban on the entry to the United States of all Muslims.

Obama was speaking two months before the presidential election in which real estate magnate Trump will face Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001 -- the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries -- ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Evoking "one of the darkest (days) in our nations history," Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.

"We delivered justice to (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden. We've strengthened our homeland security. We've prevented attacks. We've saved lives," Obama said.

But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, "the terrorist threat has evolved."

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and [the Islamic State group] ISIL.

"We will destroy them. And well keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," Obama said.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence
Opposition eyes victory as 3-day Seychelles vote winds up

Voters in the tourism-dependent nation of Seychelles cast their ballots Saturday, the third and final day of a poll that may see the opposition win control of parliament for the first time in two decades.

Polls in the Indian Ocean nation kicked off Thursday to allow the roughly 70,000 registered voters of the archipelago nation of 115 islands to choose their representatives.

Voting began on the islands furthest away from the main island of Mahe, and its capital Victoria.

A woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Victoria, Seychelles, on September 10, 2016, during the third and final day of a poll that may see the opposition win control of parliament for the first time in two decades

Mahe voted on Saturday, along with the two other main islands Praslin and La Digue. The three account for 98 percent of the archipelago's 90,000 people.

Voting appeared to have taken place peacefully though some booths closed behind schedule, possibly delaying first results, which are expected in the following hours.

"I hope that the process continues to be peaceful, that everyone goes to exercise their rights and goes home to await the final results, President James Michel told the Seychelles News Agency.

The main opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP) shunned the 2011 election claiming it would not be fair but is contesting this time.

SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in presidential elections in December 2015, losing to Michel by just 193 votes.

It marked the first time a candidate from the dominant Parti Lepep (meaning People's Party in the local Seychellois Creole language), in power since 1977, was forced into a second round.

Lepep has maintained a majority in parliament since the return of multiparty politics in 1993, but now the ascendant SNP hopes to take control.

In a bid to strengthen its showing, the SNP has partnered with four smaller opposition parties -- together known as The Seychellois Alliance and made up of former Lepep leaders -- to form the Seychellois Democratic Alliance (known by its creole acronym, LDS, standing for Linyon Demokratik Seselwa).

Together, opposition candidates won 52 percent of votes cast in the first round of December's presidential vote, but were then beaten in the run-off after failing to coalesce around a single candidate. They now hope to emulate that first round majority in this week's parliamentary vote.

"If the voters vote as they did in the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition would have won. But if it is like the second round, there will be districts that will be in the balance," said Paul Chow, an economist and former MP.

Voters this week will choose just 25 directly-elected members of the National Assembly.

The remaining 10 members are allocated to each party according to its proportional representation in the parliamentary elections.

Seychelles' opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in the December 2015 presidential elections, losing by 193 votes Rassin Vannier (AFP/File)
Top Saudi cleric 'to skip annual hajj sermon for health reasons'

For the first time in 35 years Saudi Arabia's top cleric will not give a traditional hajj sermon to pilgrims from around the world, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh has annually addressed the faithful from the Namira mosque in Mount Arafat for the peak of hajj, which this year falls on Sunday.

Okaz newspaper, citing anonymous sources, said Sheikh, "will step down from delivering the sermon on the day of Arafat, due to health reasons."

Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh usually addresses the hajj faithful from the Namira mosque in Mount Arafat at the peak of pilgrimage, which this year falls on Sunday Hassan Ammar (AFP/File)

He was appointed Grand Mufti in 1999 after the death of his predecessor Sheikh Abdel Aziz bin Baz.

But Okaz said Sheikh had for about two decades prior to that given the annual address to the hajj throng at the site where Prophet Mohammed is said to have delivered his final sermon.

Okaz said the mufti spent about two months preparing for each address.

The grey-bearded Sheikh is a descendant of Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab, the 18th-century fundamentalist preacher who co-founded the Saudi state.

In previous Arafat sermons, Sheikh has attacked jihadist extremists and Yemeni rebels who Saudi Arabia accuses of receiving weapons from Iran.

In a report on Tuesday in the Makkah daily newspaper, Sheikh said Iranians are "not Muslims", after the supreme leader of the Shiite country launched a fresh tirade over the kingdom's handling of the hajj pilgrimage.
Clinton seeks to recover after 'deplorables' gaffe

Hillary Clinton seeks to recover Sunday from a major campaign blunder with just over two weeks to go before the first debate in her bitter battle with Donald Trump for the White House.

Both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are set to be at a 9/11 ceremony in New York marking the 15th anniversary of the deadly terror strikes. Neither of them have scheduled campaign events for the day.

With less than two months to go before Election Day, and the race still tight, Clinton is fending off outrage over remarks made at a New York fundraiser late Friday in which she said many Trump supporters belong in a "basket of deplorables."

With less than two months to go before US election day, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is fending off outrage over remarks in which she said many supporters of Republican candidate Donald Trump belong in a "basket of deplorables" Brendan Smialowski (AFP/File)

"To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton told a crowd at the "LGBT for Hillary" gala.

"The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that."

She added that those people are "irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

Trump on Saturday slammed the remarks as "INSULTING," "disgraceful," a "grotesque attack on American voters," and "the worst mistake of the political season."

Trump's running mate Mike Pence, rhetorically addressing Clinton, said that these people "are Americans, and they deserve your respect."

Clinton admitted in a statement that her remarks had been "grossly generalistic" -- as she said at the time.

"I regret saying 'half' -- that was wrong," she said.

Clinton then listed a number of "deplorable" things about Trump, which include a campaign based "largely on prejudice and paranoia," attacking "a federal judge for his 'Mexican heritage,'" and bullying the family of a slain army soldier "because of their Muslim faith."

Said Clinton: "I won't stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign."

- Clinton's '47 percent'? -

Trump compared Clinton's remarks to Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign gaffe, when he was caught saying that 47 percent of the people would vote for Barack Obama's re-election because they are "dependent upon government," and "believe that they are victims."

"Hillary Clinton just had her 47% moment," Trump tweeted. "What a terrible thing she said about so many great Americans!"

Romney's remarks likely hurt him with independent voters, but it's unclear if Clinton's 'deplorable' gaffe will have such an impact.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll out Sunday shows that 70 percent of the electorate has already decided who to vote for, and only 30 percent are undecided or could switch.

Clinton leads Trump 46 percent to 41 percent lead among likely voters, according to the poll.

The enthusiasm level however is low, especially for Clinton: 46 percent of Trump supporters say they are "very enthusiastic" about the real estate magnate's candidacy, while only 33 percent of Clinton supporters are so excited.

Sixty-one percent of Trump supporters say they are following the campaign very closely, and 93 percent say they will definitely vote.

Among Clinton supporters, that drops to 45 percent and 80 percent respectively.

Clinton's "narrower advantage among likely voters, just beyond the poll's 4.5 percentage-point margin of error, could reflect weaker engagement among her supporters," according to the newspaper.

- Questions over Trump foundation -

In another potential scandal, The Washington Post reported that nearly all of the money in Trump's charity foundation comes from people other than Trump, but is often donated through the charity in Trump's name.

An investigation into the 17 years of tax filings of The Donald J. Trump Foundation and more than 200 interviews concluded that Trump rarely gave money to his own charity.

Tax records, according to the Post, show that the last gift from Trump to the foundation was in 2008.

"In two cases, he has used money from his charity to buy himself a gift. In one of those cases  not previously reported  Trump spent $20,000 of money earmarked for charitable purposes to buy a six-foot-tall painting of himself," the Post said.

Trump Foundation money has also been used for political purposes, breaking US tax laws.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns - which would show how much he gives in charity - though his campaign said that he "plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit."

Supporters cheer as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump unveils his 10-point plan to crack down on illegal immigration during a campaigm event inside the Phoenix Convention Center David Cruz (Digital/AFP/File)

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump pictured in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2016 Mandel Ngan (AFP/File)
Iranians flock to Iraq's Karbala for holy plan B

Barred from Mecca amid an escalating spat between Tehran and Saudi Arabia, masses of Iranian Shiite faithful have converged on the holy Iraqi city of Karbala for an alternative pilgrimage.

The row that has prevented Iranians taking part in this year's hajj pilgrimage is diverting hundreds of thousands to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

"I expect the number of pilgrims to reach a million, about 75 percent of them Iranians," Adel al-Mussawi, a shrine official, told AFP.

Iranian Shiite Muslim worshippers visit the shrine of Immam Abbas ahead of the start of the Eid al-Adha in the holy city of Karbala on September 9, 2016 Haidar Hamdani (AFP)

Not all of those had planned to travel to Mecca but many of the 64,000 Iranians who were allocated places for this year's hajj ended up in the holy Iraqi city this weekend.

Visiting the Imam Hussein shrine does not have the same religious significance as the hajj, which is a pillar of Islam and therefore an obligation for Muslims who are able to visit at least once in their lifetime.

But followers of the Shiite sect of Islam feel more at home in Karbala than in Mecca, where around 2,300 people died in a stampede last year, according to an AFP tally, including 464 Iranians.

"Karbala is normal for us. We always come here. This year they have blocked the path (to Mecca) and no one can go," said Shukrullah, a white-haired Iranian pilgrim sitting on a rug near one of the gates to the mausoleum.

"It's our duty to come here. This is an Islamic country. It's good," he said.

Iran has accused Riyadh of incompetence and of failing to investigate the 2015 disaster or take satisfactory precautions for this year's pilgrimage.

Talks broke down between the two regional powerhouses and Iranians were denied entry.

A war of words has since escalated, with both countries' top clerics exchanging sharp words -- Iran's Ali Khamenei calling Saudi monarchs a "cursed, evil family" and Saudi's Abdulaziz al-Sheikh saying Iranians were not real Muslims.

"The Saudi-Iranian conflict has forced Iranians to come to Karbala to visit the shrine of Imam Hussein," Mussawi said, adding: "For the Shiites, this is worth 70 hajj."

For the city, which lies about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, the extra influx of pilgrims is nothing out of the ordinary.

- 10-year wait -

"We have prepared transport, accommodation and security. We are used to handling bigger occasion such as Arbaeen so we can handle this," Karbala Governor Aqeel al-Turaihi told AFP.

In the Friday sermon read by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, Iraq's top Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani appealed for respect and tolerance among all Muslims.

Yet resentment ran deep in the ranks of the Iranian faithful who were barred from Mecca, where the hajj got under way on Saturday.

"Last year, how many people were killed from all over the world? They (Saudi Arabia) killed all of them, but no one did anything to them," said Shukrullah, sheltering from the midday sun with his family near lockers where the faithful leave their shoes before entering the mausoleum.

Unlike Shukrullah, Nasirah, a woman from the Iranian city of Ahvaz, has not yet performed the hajj and predicted that the substitution trip to Karbala could become a habit.

"In Iran, the pilgrims... pay to get a visa and go to hajj. We in Iran wait a long time to get a chance to go. It can take 10 or 15 years," she said.

"So I said let's go for Arafah day in Karbala," Nasirah said, referring to a prayer performed by Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Arafat plain on the second day of hajj.

"If we are in Karbala, it's the house of God, it can be considered hajj for us. So for the next few years, we will be coming to Karbala -- what can we do?"

Muslims have travelled to Mecca for the hajj since the 7th century
Houses collapse as 5.7 earthquake hits Tanzania: USGS

An earthquake measuring 5.7 hit Tanzania on Saturday and was felt in nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said, as reports came in of collapsed homes.

The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of the north western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but residents of the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, near the epicentre, told AFP some houses there had caved in.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity Ted Aljibe (AFP/File)

"The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards," said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
Pakistan court denies bail in UK woman's 'honour killing'

A Pakistani court on Saturday denied bail to the father of a British woman believed to have been the victim of an "honour killing."

Samia Shahid, a dual national, was murdered in July during a visit to her family village in Punjab province.

"There was a hearing into the bail application by Samia Shahid's father, but the court rejected it," defence lawyer Mian Arif told AFP.

The victims's second husband, Mukhtar Kazam, claims she was murdered for bringing "dishonour" to her family Habib Shaikh (AFP/File)

Arif said that the next hearing would take place next week in the city of Jhelum, while the accused would file another bail petition to the Punjab's high court.

The victims's second husband, Mukhtar Kazam, claims she was murdered for bringing "dishonour" to her family. Kazam has said his wife had angered her parents by converting to Shia Islam, his sect, before their wedding.

Police have accused her ex-husband Muhammad Shakeel and father Muhammad Shahid of being involved in her killing.

Shahid's ex-husband has also been charged with raping her.

Police have also accused Samia's mother and sister of abetting the crime; however, the two have fled to the UK, according to police. The chief of the local police station was later arrested for helping them escape.

Kazam and Shahid, both dual British-Pakistani citizens, had been married for two years and were living in Dubai.

At a news conference in August, Kazam presented a copy of the post-mortem report into his wife's death that said the 28-year-old had marks on her neck, suggesting she had been strangled.

Shahid's father has denied the charges, claiming his daughter died of natural causes.

Hundreds of women are murdered by relatives in the conservative Muslim nation each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.
Young hajjis transform Mecca pilgrimage

The hajj is no longer an old person's ritual as a new generation of youthful Muslim pilgrims has transformed both the annual rites and Mecca itself.

"The younger you are, the easier it is," says Saniah, a British pilgrim who, at 25, was on her second trip to Islam's holiest site in Saudi Arabia.

"Twelve years ago my family and I came for umrah," the lesser pilgrimage which can be performed throughout the year, she says, elegantly veiled in green and black.

About 1.5 million people from across the world will attend the hajj this year Ahmad Gharabli (AFP)

This year, Saniah returned for the hajj because it is a religious obligation and "a radical change of life", said the Briton, preferring not to give her last name.

Saniah is among roughly 1.5 million people from across the world attending the hajj which formally began on Saturday.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once, marking the spiritual peak of their lives.

A can of soft drink in one hand and a cone of French fries in the other, Saniah eats with her husband at one of the many modern commercial centres dotted around the Grand Mosque in Mecca after performing Friday prayers.

"In early generations young people waited to be old before doing the pilgrimage," Saniah says.

"But the new generations, we're more aware of our religious obligations."

- 'Spending on the spiritual' -

Smiling, she adds that the long hajj marches and prayers under a burning sun "are easier to bear when you're young".

Omar Saghi, author of "Paris-Mecca, Sociology of the Pilgrimage", says the hajj is no longer "the mystical horizon of an entire life but a rational event" which has become almost routine.

Mohammed, 33, who travelled to the hajj with his wife from Paris, says a number of their friends have already performed the hajj.

Their travel agency told them it is also sending many other young couples.

"The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam," says Mohammed, a physical education teacher.

"It's an obligation and so, as soon as we had the means and while we're healthy, we decided to do it," he says, waiting in line at a luminous fast food counter with his wife Madiha, 28, a student of education science.

"Rather than buy material things like a car, better to spend our money on something that is going to benefit us on a spiritual level," she says.

Mohamed Khazma, who works on the security team at a hospital in Tripoli, Libya, is searching for a table to eat his fried chicken.

At 27, he says he is delighted he was able to gather enough money to come to Mecca, because "it's an opportunity that not everybody has".

- 'Far from Abraham' -

The rising number of such young people, "more educated and already used to tourism and mass consumption", has slowly helped to change the face of Mecca, the author Saghi says.

"The big (advertising) signs, the big companies, capture this new clientele that the classical market of hotels and family restaurants can't satisfy," he says.

Saniah recalls that, during her first visit to Mecca 12 years ago, they ate in the street.

"It's a lot better (now). We have the option of five-star service."

Khazma, however, wants nothing to do with the shopping centres, their air conditioning, restaurants and shops.

"I forget all of that," says the young man with a short trimmed beard and long grey jalabiya robe.

"I take my Koran, some dates and some water and I stay in the Grand Mosque from afternoon until the middle of the night," says Khazma.

Mohammed also says he is sometimes uncomfortable with all the modern conveniences which are "very far from the time of Abraham and the harshness of the desert" thousands of years ago.

He says he and his wife were obliged to accept their travel agent's plan and hotel to perform the pilgrimage in the footsteps, they believe, of the Prophet Mohammed and Abraham before him.

"But we often wonder if all of that is in line with our spiritual quest," Mohammed says.

"The shops, the luxury, the commercial centres, it clouds the spiritual aspect."

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once

The rising number of young people, "more educated and already used to tourism and mass consumption", has slowly helped to change the face of Mecca, the author Saghi says Madaree Tohlala (AFP)
Morocco says committed to WSahara truce

Morocco's envoy to the United Nations has said Rabat is committed to a ceasefire in Western Sahara after the UN voiced fears of renewed hostilities in the disputed territory.

A 1991 UN-brokered truce ended 16 years of conflict between Morocco -- which maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of its kingdom -- and the Algiers-backed Polisario Front independence movement.

But tensions flared in recent weeks after Morocco began road works in the Guerguerat area south of a buffer zone separating the two sides and close to the Mauritania border.

Members of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army stand guard in the Algerian city of Tindouf, on June 3, 2016 Farouk Batiche (AFP/File)

A confidential UN report sent to the Security Council in late August accused both Morocco and the Polisario of truce violations after they sent security forces and fighters into the buffer zone.

"The situation remains tense in the Guerguerat area of Western Sahara inside the buffer strip," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

"Any resumption of hostilities, with the potential to have wider regional implications, remains of significant concern to the UN," he said.

But ambassador Omar Hilale told the official Moroccan news agency MAP on Friday that the situation was under control, as he sought to ease UN concerns.

"Morocco is ready to confront any aggression, but at the same time it will observe restraint and remains committed to the ceasefire," Hilale said.

He said the work consists of rehabilitating a 3.5-kilometre (two-mile) stretch of road that had been used by "small arms traffickers, people smugglers, as well as drug and car traffickers".

Morocco has assured the Security Council that the work in Guerguerat is "purely civilian" and "limited in time", said Hilale.

But the work was "strategic" and Morocco was "determined" to complete it.

The UN spokesman said Wednesday that the construction has been met with resistance by Polisario Front fighters, who are separated from Moroccan troops by only around 120 metres (yards).
Top Islamist extremist shot dead in Dhaka: police

Bangladesh police Saturday shot dead a suspected top Islamist extremist who allegedly had a key role in July's Dhaka cafe attack in which 22 people were killed, police told AFP.

"While we were conducting a raid to bust a militant den in Azimpur neighbourhood in Dhaka, the militants opened fire at law enforcers," Deputy Police Commissioner Mohammad Ibrahim said.

"One militant was killed and three women members were injured and later arrested," he told AFP.

Bangladeshi policemen exit from a gate leading to an upscale cafe in Dhaka on July 3, 2016 a day after a bloody siege ended with the death of 20 foreign hostages Roberto Schmidt (AFP/File)

Sanwar Hossain, a senior counter-terrorism officer, said they suspect the extremist to be Abdul Karim, a deputy of Tamim Chowdhury, who was the leader of a faction of the banned Islamist militant outfit, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and was accused of being behind the cafe attack.

Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was shot dead during a gunfight with police last month.

"In (our) primary investigation, we have learnt that the dead militant was Abdul Karim, 35, who was the second in-command of Tamim Chowdhury," said Hossain.

"He was also a mastermind and a planner of the Gulshan cafe attack and hired the flat used by the militants before the cafe attack," Hossain told AFP.

The JMB has been blamed for a wave of attacks on foreigners and religious minorities in the last three years that has killed at least 80.
Philippine film 'The Woman Who Left' wins Venice Golden Lion

Philippine film "The Woman Who Left", a revenge tale shot in black and white by director Lav Diaz, won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

"I want to dedicate this film to the Filipino people and their struggle, and humanity's struggle," Diaz said as he received the award.

Holding his Lion aloft, the man behind Melancholia (2008) and Century of Birthing (2011) thanked the jury, lead this year by British director Sam Mendes, who said the 20 films in competition had proved to be of "a wonderful, astonishing variety".

Director Lav Diaz holds the Golden Lion award for Best Film for the movie "The Woman Who Left" during the awards ceremony of the 73rd Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2016 Tiziana fabi (AFP)

In "The Woman Who Left", a story about the absurdity of human existence, a wrongly convicted schoolteacher plots retribution against the ex-boyfriend who framed her, disguising herself in a bid to get close to her prey.

Released in the late 1990s after decades behind bars, Horacia (Charo Santos-Cancio) discovers her loved ones are either dead or gone, and the ex-boyfriend, now a wealthy underworld boss, becomes the target of her simmering rage.

At nearly four hours long, Diaz's film -- nominally inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1872 short story "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" -- plays with the theme of moral accountability within a narrative coloured by kidnappings, transgenderism and poverty.

- 'My biggest dream' -

Best actor went to Argentina's Oscar Martinez for his portrayal of a cynical Nobel Prize-winning author who returns to his village for the first time in 40 years in the comedy on art and fame, "The Distinguished Citizen".

US actress Emma Stone received the best actress prize for her depiction of a struggling thespian who falls head over heels in love with a jazz pianist -- played by Ryan Gosling -- in US musical "La La Land".

"I wish I could be there to make sure it's not an elaborate prank," quipped Stone in a video message, saying she could "think of no better place in the world than Venice to premier 'La La Land', we had a wonderful time".

Fashionista-turned-director Tom Ford was awarded the Silver Lion grand jury prize for "Nocturnal Animals", a romantic thriller about former lovers starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, with a violent revenge tale told as a story within a story.

An emotional Ford addressed the audience in Italian, saying he had spent "some of my best years in Italy" and it was his "biggest dream to return to Venice" after premiering his first film here, "A Single Man", in 2009.

- Aliens and cannibals -

The Silver Lion for best director was divided this year between Mexico's Amat Escalante for "The Untamed", about the sex life of a tentacled extraterrestrial creature, and Russia's Andrei Konchalovsky for Holocaust drama "Paradise".

"Jackie", a bio-drama which stars Natalie Portman as the grieving widow of US President John F. Kennedy, meanwhile took best screenplay, with Chilean director Pablo Larrain saying the triumph was Portman's, calling her "the only woman who could have played this role".

Ana Lily Amirpour -- dubbed "the new Tarantino" by fans -- scooped the special jury prize for her second film "Bad Batch", a cannibal love story with Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves about a young girl who ends up on the menu in a futuristic United States.

But there was no recognition for Terrence Malick's "Voyage of Time", which wowed Venice audiences with its portrayal of the life and death of the universe through stunning special effects and real-life images taken from earth's most sophisticated satellites.

Actor Oscar Martinez holds the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor in the film "The Distinguished Citizen" (El Ciudadano Ilustre) during the awards ceremony of the 73rd Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2016 at Venice Lido Filippoe Monteforte (AFP)
Hunger-striking ex-Gitmo inmate leaves Uruguay hospital

A former Guantanamo inmate resettled in Uruguay left hospital Saturday after being admitted amid a long hunger strike.

Jihad Diyab, a 45-year-old Syrian, had been taken to Hospital de Clinicas in Montevideo, a government intermediary with former inmates from the US military prison told AFP.

"Staff spoke with him for three hours trying to have him receive assistance and accept testing, but it was impossible. He also spoke with some friends, but there was no way, it was impossible," hospital director Raquel Balleste told El Observador newspaper.

Syrian 45-year-old Jihad Diyab, a former Guantanamo inmate who was resettled in Uruguay, lies in a matress on the floor of his house as he holds a hunger strike, in Montevideo, on September 9, 2016 Dante Fernandez (AFP/File)

"We think that he must be admitted but must respect his autonomy and his rights."

It was the second time his week that Diyab was hospitalized after launching a hunger strike about three weeks ago to press his demand to be reunited with his family in Turkey.

On Friday, Diyab told local media that if he died, his death would be the responsibility of "the United States and Uruguay."

Held in Guantanamo for 12 years without charge, Diyab was released in 2014 from the US-run military prison in Cuba to Uruguay along with five other former inmates under an agreement with Washington.

The ex-prisoner has repeatedly shown that he wants out of Uruguay.

He fled the country and turned up in Venezuela, where he appeared at the Uruguayan consulate on July 26 seeking help reuniting with his family in Turkey.

In Venezuela, Diyab was jailed at the headquarters of the secret police, who prevented him from receiving visitors, including activists following his case and his US-based lawyer, Jon Eisenberg.

He was sent back to Uruguay on August 30.
US designer with Iraqi roots stuns NY fashion week

Oday Shakar is still young but he has already lived through more than your average American fashion designer: childhood bullying, two years in Iraq after the Gulf War and cancer.

But he's back stronger than ever to relaunch his label after a two-year hiatus with full-skirted gowns of breathtaking grace and elegance that would look right at home in a James Bond movie.

His stunning collection for spring/summer 2017 inspired by Middle Eastern art, Arabic calligraphy and geometric prints aroused an outpouring of oohs, aahs and raucous applause at New York Fashion Week.

Models display the fashion of Oday Shakar during New York Fashion Week on September 9, 2016 Angela Weiss (AFP/File)

"I realized I needed to find beauty in my own story so that's where I grabbed inspiration for this, so I mix contemporary Middle Eastern art with beautiful simple silhouettes for everyday (wear)," Shakar told AFP.

And what a story. Born in southern California to a Harvard-educated Iraqi father and impeccably stylish mother, Shakar grew up riding horses. But his world was upended when he moved to Iraq as a 12-year-old.

It was after the 1990-1 Gulf War when US-led forces expelled Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait. He did not speak Arabic and suddenly found himself in the very different world of Baghdad.

"It was a bit of a culture shock," he admitted.

But it was in Iraq that Shakar realized he wanted to be a designer.

"My aunt studied fashion design and wasn't able to pursue it, so in a way I'm doing all of this because she didn't get the chance and I have the opportunity, being an American," he said.

- Glamorous -

Shakar first launched his label in 2009 aged just 25 and has dressed the likes of Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock, but his New York show was the first of his career.

"A little nervous," he giggled backstage when asked how he felt.

The Oday Shakar woman is a woman of the world, he explains. Elegant, timeless, conservative and yet cutting-edge, his designs could be worn by devotees from across cultural and geographical divides.

"She is well travelled, she's educated, she is very bold, she knows what she wants," he told AFP.

"She also likes to feel glamorous but doesn't want to be wearing a fully beaded gown anymore... to me that's a thing of the past."

From the first twangs of Middle Eastern music, Shakar transported the crowd into a world with a simple yet sophisticated silhouette.

There were the full skirts for day and evening, cinched at the waist in delicate geometric patterns, or two-tone skirts in purple and violet, or black and gray that shimmered in the light.

Capes billowed behind, necklines were high and cut-outs on the sleeves. There were also tight pencil skirts in suede, wide-legged pants with pleated front panels and jodhpur-style pants with a strap under the foot.

- Remission -

Moving to New York only six months ago, Shakar hit the ground running, developing and producing everything in the Big Apple.

"It's definitely had its ups and downs," he said. "But it's been actually one of the more inspiring times of my life."

He was diagnosed with stage four thyroid cancer in 2009, but has been in remission since 2011. Shakar just sees it as part of life.

"It's how you overcome those things and not so much what you're going through at the moment, but looking further and growing beyond it and seeing how you can grow stronger," he said.

Now in his mid 30s, he has not been to Iraq for nearly 18 years but members of his family are still there and they keep in touch.

After Iraq, he lived in Jordan and Lebanon before returning to the United States.

"I keep myself grounded by the memories of not having as much and dealing with just stuff that we don't necessarily think about living here," he said.

He does not wish to be dragged into the controversies surrounding race and immigration in the United States -- hot-button issues in the divisive presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

"I just believe in peace and equality all around no matter what religion, culture, sexuality," he said.

"That's something that really needs to be put in the forefront -- not focusing on all of the things that divide us."

Designer Oday Shakar is greeted by the audience during New York Fashion Week Angela Weiss (AFP)

The Oday Shakar woman is a woman of the world, he explains. Elegant, timeless, conservative and yet cutting-edge, his designs could be worn by devotees from across cultural and geographical divides Angela Weiss (AFP)
Fifteen years after 9/11, America in perpetual war

The 9/11 attacks of 2001 forever changed America and upended its foreign and national security policy, leaving the country for the past 15 years in a war against jihadists -- without ending the upheaval in the Middle East.

Barack Obama, who will leave the White House in January, is the president who tried to get the US military out of the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan -- devastating "war on terror" conflicts launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in the wake of the suicide plane strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But Obama's legacy on that front is mixed, with US forces still present in both countries.

Photo taken on September 11, 2001 shows the rubble of the World Trade Center smouldering following the collapse of its Twin Towers Alexandre Fuchs (AFP/File)

And while he worked hard to bring America closer to the Muslim world, he will leave office with the United States bogged down in a seemingly endless conflict against Islamists at home and abroad, experts say.

"The evolving threat of Islamist terrorism compelled President Obama, against his own inclinations, to engage militarily in Iraq once again, and since then in Syria and Libya as well," said Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"The wars in the Middle East, the metastasis of ISIS, online radicalization and a series of attacks in European and American cities have made the paradigm of a 'global war on terror' very hard to set aside, even 15 years after 9/11," she wrote on the World Economic Forum website.

The US is also still engaged militarily, in limited form or on a purely logistical basis, in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen to counter myriad threats.

"The thinking of the Obama administration is that big wars make things worse," Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told AFP.

So instead, Obama launched a new era in American warfare -- one dominated by drones, special forces and training for local fighters.

The human and financial costs of such engagements are more limited -- a significant fact, after the 5,300 US military personnel killed, 50,000 wounded and $1.6 trillion spent from 2001-2014 in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional data.

Obama's strategy had its best success in May 2011, when US special forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Obama bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, at his home in Pakistan.

But for Ibish, such a use of "limited resources... looks like a continuous war."

"It is even more than a permanent war because the limited resources cannot change the instability. It accepts the current chaos as being unsolvable," he added.

- Evolving threats -

In Syria, a lasting peace is still not at hand, though a fresh truce brokered by the United States and Russia -- both now involved militarily in the deadly conflict -- is due to begin Monday.

And a US military re-engagement in the Middle East is not in the plans of either of the candidates looking to succeed Obama -- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Fifteen years after the Twin Towers fell, forever changing New York's skyline, Obama said the terror threat facing America had "evolved," referring to lone-wolf attacks in the United States like the nightclub massacre in Orlando in June.

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIL. We will destroy them. And we'll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," he said Saturday in his weekly address.

- Mass surveillance -

As Amy Greene -- an American researcher at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences-Po) -- pointed out, "there has not been an attack on US soil of the same scale" as the carefully planned 2001 attacks.

Of course, Washington still fears more small-scale attacks carried out by homegrown attackers, like the Orlando shooting that left 49 people dead or the San Bernardino attacks last December that left 14 dead.

Faced with ongoing threats, the United States has built up a massive surveillance apparatus in the post-9/11 era both at home and abroad.

The budget for the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency has nearly doubled since 2001.

"The threat that I think will dominate the next five years for the FBI will be the impact of the crushing of the caliphate, which will happen," Comey said this past week, referring to the Islamic State group.

Since the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11, legislation maintained by Obama, "Americans have accepted the idea of giving up some of their freedoms," Greene said.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of Americans fear that "the ability of terrorists to launch another major attack on the United States is greater than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks."

That is the highest share expressing that fear since 2002.

On Saturday, the US State Department warned in its regular "worldwide caution" note to travelers on terror risks that the IS group had "called on supporters to attack US citizens and coalition partners wherever they are."

The September 11, 2001 attacks Infographie (AFP)

Police pause during a procession in Lower Manhattan to mark the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the police officers who were killed during and after the event on September 9, 2016 in New York City Spencer Platt (Getty/AFP/File)
After 15 years, last artifacts of 9/11 have been given away

NEW YORK (AP)  Behind the barbed wire, the white minivan's busted windows and crumpled roof hint at its story. But forklifted to this windblown spot on the John F. Kennedy International Airport tarmac, between a decommissioned 727 and an aircraft hangar, it's doubtful passing drivers notice it at all.

In the long struggle with the searing memories of 9/11, though, the van's solitary presence here marks a small but significant transition point.

Tons of wreckage  twisted steel beams weighing up to 40,000 pounds, chunks of concrete smelling of smoke, a crushed fire engine, a dust-covered airline slipper  were salvaged from the World Trade Center site for preservation in the weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Now, 15 years later, this van, part of a government agency motor pool likely sheltered from the impact in the parking garage beneath the complex, is the very last artifact without a resting place.

In this Friday, Aug. 26, 2016 photo, pedestrians walk by artist Heath Satow's sculpture "Reflect," made with a damaged, rusted I-beam from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, outside the Rosemead, Calif., city hall plaza. The 9/11 memorial sculpture has 2,976 interlocking birds representing individual victims from the 2001 attacks. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

When the van is claimed, as soon as a few weeks from now, it will fulfill a pledge that, to move beyond 9/11 without losing sight of it, New York would share relics of that terror, along with the tales of sacrifice and fear that come with them.

The decision by officials to give away pieces of Trade Center wreckage has been praised and criticized over the years. But its impact is undeniable.

More than 2,600 artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries. Each recipient has pledged to use them in memorials or exhibits honoring those killed on 9/11. While some have not followed through, the many that have mean it is now possible to touch a piece of September 11 during a Roman Catholic Mass in Port St. Lucie, Florida, while standing in the shadows of Colorado's San Juan mountains, or in a park honoring animals in Meaford, Ontario.

"They are the relics of the destruction and they have the same power in the same way as medieval relics that have the power of the saints," said Harriet Senie, a professor of art history at the City University of New York and author of "Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11."

"History is a vague concept, but if you have this tangible object that was a part of this historical event, it makes it very difficult to deny and it also makes it possible to experience it in a very visceral way."

In the days immediately after the attacks, it wasn't at all clear what would happen to the wreckage of the Trade Center. It's not as if anyone had confronted questions of that scale before. There was no certainty about exactly which artifacts, if any, should be saved.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which owned the Trade Center, dispatched an architect to comb through the site and cull pieces that seemed distinctive. Investigators carted away others. Most of the wreckage from the site was scrapped or recycled. But the agency saved about half of 1 percent of the total.

It all had to go somewhere. That ended up being JFK's Hangar 17, an 80,000-square-foot cavern of sheet metal left empty when tenant Tower Air went out of business in 2000.

Officials were uncertain what to do with so much material, given the emotions intertwined with it. A judge determined the artifacts were not evidentiary or personal, and approved donations to those who promised to care for them. But where to begin?

"It was piles and piles, probably my height or higher, of steel beams," says Amy Passiak, the archivist hired to catalog the artifacts and manage their distribution, recalling the first time she walked into the hangar in 2010. Passiak, a high school senior in Michigan at the time of the attacks, had been working as an intern at New York's 9/11 museum, but says she was still unprepared for the scene.

"I remember going home that day and just being exhausted, just from being there a few hours, just being emotionally exhausted and not being able to comprehend the amount of work that was going to go into the process. It was like, maybe a year, maybe two years. And here I am, six years later."

Passiak built a database of every item, cataloging its size and approximate weight, with descriptive notes. As word spread that the Port Authority was giving the material away, requests poured in. Through August, the Port Authority had distributed 2,629 artifacts.

Many went to fire departments, local governments and organizations in the New York area with direct ties to the first responders and workers who perished when the towers fell.

"When those buildings came down, everybody and everything in its path was either pulverized or vaporized off the face of the earth," said John Hodge of the Stephen Siller Tunnels to Towers Foundation, named for his cousin, a New York firefighter killed on 9/11. In late July, the foundation marked the looming closure of Hangar 17 with a ceremony outside before hauling away an elevator motor from the Trade Center, a piece of the parking structure, and a portion of a broadcast antenna that crowned the complex.

"That's where the DNA is. Neither my cousin or anybody else from Squad 1 was ever found, but it's in that steel," Hodge said.

But for many of the people and groups that adopted artifacts from the Trade Center, the loss was more abstract. At least it started off that way.

Heath Satow, a sculptor in southern California hired to design a 9/11 memorial for the plaza fronting Rosemead's city offices, recalls awkwardly scanning a digital catalog showing beams available from the Trade Center. But hundreds of hours creating the memorial  a 10-foot beam cradled by hands of chrome, the palms and fingers formed from 2,976 interlocking birds representing individual victims  left a deep impression.

"Every individual was attended to," said Satow, his voice breaking five years later, as he described making the sculpture. "I just was totally unprepared for it. But when you spend all that time seeing it as individuals it will just wreck you."

Satow said he purposely positioned the beam at about eye level, so people could see, touch and feel it. Others who adopted Trade Center artifacts used them to similar effect.

Firefighters in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, created a memorial in front of their station around a small piece of donated I-beam. Many people in the town, surrounded by the San Juan mountains and the Southern Ute Reservation, will never get to New York or Washington D.C., said David Hartman, who worked to obtain the artifact. But September 11 was his generation's Pearl Harbor, and being able to see and touch the wreckage enables residents to reflect on its lessons, he said.

At Flour Bluff Junior High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, a piece of Trade Center steel  one of three received by the school district  is housed in a case near the entrance to the cafeteria. In September, it is taken out and students from the school's officer training program stand guard. Bruce Chaney, the naval science instructor who applied for the artifacts, brings another, smaller piece to his classes.

The artifact is "twisted and somewhat burned. It's not pretty. I'm hoping it will make them think as they're growing up, that they have to pay attention to their past," Chaney said.

Most Flour Bluff students hadn't yet been born in 2001, so the relics are the closest most will ever get to experiencing that day.

But the desire to touch and own history, however distant, has been around since long before this generation, said Erika Doss, a professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame and author of "Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America."

She notes that after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, millions of Americans gathered alongside the tracks as a train carrying his body made its way to Illinois. People wore mourning bands on their arms. They hung Lincoln's portrait in their homes. They flocked to see death masks cast from his face. They wanted to see and touch Lincoln.

Artifacts let people grapple with pained memories. But 15 years after September 11, the dispersal of artifacts from the Trade Center has not resolved the public's conflicted feelings about those events, now set against continued fears of terrorism.

"We just don't know where the events of 9/11 have led us," said Rick Sluder, fire chief in Wauseon, Ohio, which obtained a Trade Center beam and, together with neighboring departments built a memorial at the nearby Fulton County Fairgrounds.

"A lot of people are looking at this as, is this the point of downfall or the point at which we rose above the rest, the point of resiliency?" Sluder said. "I don't think that's been determined yet."

There's little questioning, though, the emotions people invest in the artifacts. During the six years Passiak spent archiving the relics, the people seeking them would often tell her stories of the losses in their own communities  of firefighters, or soldiers or others  that connected them, however tangentially, to 9/11.

In the first years, there were so many artifacts that she could easily match them with requesters. So when a girl at Cracker Trail Elementary School in Sebring, Florida, wrote that she wanted to help her fellow students learn about 9/11, Passiak set aside a children's alarm clock recovered from a store in the Trade Center's concourse, a burned notebook, and small piece of steel, 6 inches square.

"I felt like that allowed a full story to be told," she said.

As the piles of material winnowed, though, it became more difficult. Most of the groups seeking artifacts wanted pieces they could build a narrative around. The biggest artifacts were unwieldy. By early this year, there was little left except rails from the commuter train line that ran under the complex. Items like police cruisers, whose purpose that day were clear, found takers. But unmarked vehicles, anonymous but for their place in the wreckage, were initially passed over.

When the Port Authority shuttered the artifact program in August and padlocked Hangar 17, officials moved the only remaining artifact  a Dodge Caravan with a ripped out red interior  to the tarmac, uncertain of its fate. It, too, is likely to go soon, to a group officials will not identify until its application has been approved. Hangar 17, itself, may eventually be torn down.

Passiak moved back to Michigan to start a job at an art museum this month. But many of the people whose groups received donations of Trade Center artifacts have stayed in touch with her, extending invitations to visit their memorials, from California to Germany.

Someday, the archivist said, she'd like to take a road trip, stopping in cities and towns along the way to see where the artifacts she once cared for have found homes. She imagines she'll recognize some of them, and remember their stories. It will not matter that the steel, concrete and other relics are at rest far from lower Manhattan. The memories they hold, she is certain, will not soon fade.

In this Friday, Aug. 26, 2016 photo, California State EDD employee Juan Milan, right, talks with artist Heath Satow about his sculpture, "Reflect," made with a damaged, rusted I-beam from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, outside the Rosemead, Calif., city hall plaza. Satow said he purposely positioned the beam at about eye level, so people could see, touch and feel it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

This Aug. 18, 2016 photo provided by the Port Authority shows a van damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, outside Hangar 17 at the JFK airport in New York. When the Port Authority shuttered the artifact program in August, officials moved the only remaining artifact to the tarmac. (Amy Passiak/Port Authority of New York and New Jersey via AP)

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 11, 2015 file photo, Landon Cole reaches out to touch steel beams from the World Trade Center on display at the The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas. They are the relics of the destruction and they have the same power in the same way as medieval relics that have the power of the saints, said Harriet Senie, a professor of art history at the City University of New York and author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

This Sept. 3, 2016 photo shows a beam from the destroyed World Trade Center buildings, part of the 9/11 Memorial near the Veterans' Pavilion at the Fulton County Fair, in Wauseon, Ohio. We just dont know where the events of 9/11 have lead us, said Rick Sluder, fire chief in Wauseon, Ohio, which obtained the beam and, together with neighboring departments built the memorial. "A lot of people are looking at this as, is this point of downfall or the point at which we rose above the rest, the point of resiliency? Sluder said. I dont think thats been determined yet. (Jetta Fraser/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015 file photo, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and members of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department honor the arrival of a 2,000-pound World Trade Center steel beam enclosed in a case draped with the U.S. flag at Miami International Airport in Miami. The beam is destined for the Kennedy Space Center Fire Rescue's 9/11 memorial. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 file photo, Cookie Bell, wife of Mississippi State Fire Academy Executive Director Reggie Bell, looks as a display with a salvaged section of the World Trade Center after it's unveiling during a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the academy in Pearl, Miss. History is a vague concept, but if you have this tangible object that was a part of this historical event, it makes it very difficult to deny and it also makes it possible to experience it in a very visceral way, says Harriet Senie, a professor of art history at the City University of New York and author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11. (Rick Guy/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)

In this September 2011 photo provided by the Flour Bluff Independent School District, students look at a piece of steel from the World Trade Center building which was destroyed 10 years earlier, during a 9/11 commemoration event at the Flour Bluff junior high and high school campus in Corpus Christi, Texas. The artifact is twisted and somewhat burned. Its not pretty. Im hoping it will make them think as theyre growing up, that they have to pay attention to their past, says Bruce Chaney, the naval science instructor who applied for the artifacts. (Hector Zapata/Flour Bluff Independent School District via AP)

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 11, 2006 file photo, visitors to the Dole Institute of Politics on the Kansas University campus in Lawrence, Kan, view the center's 9/11 memorial and an exhibit of photos, flanked by two beams that formed part of the World Trade Center. Artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries. (Mike Yoder/The Lawrence Journal-World via AP)

FILE - In this Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 file photo, Spokane Valley Fire Department Deputy Chief Larry Rider, far right in white, and SVFD Captain Tag Baugh adjust a 1,200 pound beam recovered from the World Trade Center into it's final resting spot in a ceremony at the new SVFD administration building on the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, in Spokane Valley, Wash. Artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries. (J. Bart Rayniak/The Spokesman-Review via AP)
After 15 years, last artifacts of 9/11 have been given away

NEW YORK (AP)  Behind the barbed wire, the minivan's busted windows and crumpled roof hint at its story. But forklifted to this windblown spot on the John F. Kennedy International Airport tarmac, between a decommissioned 727 and an aircraft hangar, it's doubtful passing drivers notice it at all.

In the long struggle with the memories of 9/11, though, the van's solitary presence here marks a small but significant transition point.

Tons of wreckage  twisted steel beams, chunks of concrete smelling of smoke, a crushed fire engine, a dust-covered airline slipper  were salvaged from the World Trade Center site for preservation after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Now, 15 years later, this van from a government agency motor pool likely sheltered in a garage beneath the complex, is the last artifact without a resting place.

In this Friday, Aug. 26, 2016 photo, pedestrians walk by artist Heath Satow's sculpture "Reflect," made with a damaged, rusted I-beam from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, outside the Rosemead, Calif., city hall plaza. The 9/11 memorial sculpture has 2,976 interlocking birds representing individual victims from the 2001 attacks. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

When the van is claimed it will fulfill a pledge that, to move beyond 9/11 without losing sight of it, New York would share relics of that terror, along with the tales of sacrifice and fear that come with them. The decision to give away pieces of wreckage has been praised and criticized over the years. But its impact is undeniable.

More than 2,600 artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries.

"They are the relics of the destruction and they have the same power in the same way as medieval relics that have the power of the saints," said Harriet Senie, author of "Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11."

After the attacks, it wasn't at all clear what would happen to the wreckage. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the Trade Center's owner, dispatched an architect to comb the site, saving a fraction of the material, which was sent to JFK's empty Hangar 17.

A judge determined the artifacts could be donated to those who promised to care for them. But where to begin?

"It was piles and piles, probably my height or higher, of steel beams," says Amy Passiak, the archivist hired to catalog the artifacts, recalling the first time she walked into the hangar in 2010. Passiak, a high school senior in Michigan at the time of the attacks, had been working as an intern at New York's 9/11 museum, but says she was still unprepared for the scene.

"I remember going home that day and just being exhausted, just from being there a few hours, just being emotionally exhausted and not being able to comprehend the amount of work that was going to go into the process."

As word spread that the Port Authority was giving the material away, requests poured in. Through August, it had distributed 2,629 artifacts.

Many went to fire departments, local governments and organizations in the New York area with direct ties to those who perished.

"That's where the DNA is," said John Hodge of the Stephen Siller Tunnels to Towers Foundation, named for his cousin, a New York firefighter killed on 9/11. In late July, the foundation claimed an elevator motor from the Trade Center, a piece of the parking structure, and a portion of a broadcast antenna that crowned the complex.

"Neither my cousin or anybody else from Squad 1 was ever found, but it's in that steel," Hodge said.

But for many of the people and groups that adopted artifacts, the loss was more abstract.

Heath Satow, a sculptor in southern California hired to design a 9/11 memorial for the plaza fronting Rosemead's city offices, recalls awkwardly scanning a digital catalog showing beams available from the Trade Center. But hundreds of hours creating the memorial  a 10-foot beam cradled by hands of chrome, the palms and fingers formed from 2,976 interlocking birds representing individual victims  left a deep impression.

"Every individual was attended to," said Satow, his voice breaking. "I just was totally unprepared for it. But when you spend all that time seeing it as individuals it will just wreck you."

At Flour Bluff Junior High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, students from an officer training program stand guard each September alongside Trade Center steel displayed near the cafeteria. Bruce Chaney, the naval science instructor who applied for the artifacts, brings another, smaller piece to his classes.

The artifact is "twisted and somewhat burned. It's not pretty. I'm hoping it will make them think as they're growing up, that they have to pay attention to their past," Chaney said.

But 15 years after September 11, memories of the attacks are set against continued fears of terrorism.

"We just don't know where the events of 9/11 have led us," said Rick Sluder, fire chief in Wauseon, Ohio, which obtained a Trade Center beam and, together with neighboring departments, built a memorial at the Fulton County Fairgrounds.

"A lot of people are looking at this as, is this the point of downfall or the point at which we rose above the rest, the point of resiliency?" Sluder said.

By early this year, there was little left at Hangar 17, Passiak said. Items like police cruisers, whose purpose that day were clear, found takers. But unmarked vehicles, anonymous but for their place in the wreckage, were initially passed over.

When the Port Authority shuttered the artifact program in August, officials moved the only remaining artifact  a white Dodge Caravan  to the tarmac. It, too, is likely to go soon, to a group officials will not identify until its application has been approved.

Passiak, who recently moved to Michigan to start a job at an art museum, said some day she'd like to take a road trip, stopping to see where the artifacts have found homes.

It will not matter that they are far from lower Manhattan. The memories they hold, she is certain, will not soon fade.

In this Friday, Aug. 26, 2016 photo, California State EDD employee Juan Milan, right, talks with artist Heath Satow about his sculpture, "Reflect," made with a damaged, rusted I-beam from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, outside the Rosemead, Calif., city hall plaza. Satow said he purposely positioned the beam at about eye level, so people could see, touch and feel it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

This Aug. 18, 2016 photo provided by the Port Authority shows a van damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, outside Hangar 17 at the JFK airport in New York. When the Port Authority shuttered the artifact program in August, officials moved the only remaining artifact to the tarmac. (Amy Passiak/Port Authority of New York and New Jersey via AP)

This Sept. 3, 2016 photo shows a beam from the destroyed World Trade Center buildings, part of the 9/11 Memorial near the Veterans' Pavilion at the Fulton County Fair, in Wauseon, Ohio. We just dont know where the events of 9/11 have lead us, said Rick Sluder, fire chief in Wauseon, Ohio, which obtained the beam and, together with neighboring departments built the memorial. "A lot of people are looking at this as, is this point of downfall or the point at which we rose above the rest, the point of resiliency? Sluder said. I dont think thats been determined yet. (Jetta Fraser/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015 file photo, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and members of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department honor the arrival of a 2,000-pound World Trade Center steel beam enclosed in a case draped with the U.S. flag at Miami International Airport in Miami. The beam is destined for the Kennedy Space Center Fire Rescue's 9/11 memorial. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 file photo, Cookie Bell, wife of Mississippi State Fire Academy Executive Director Reggie Bell, looks as a display with a salvaged section of the World Trade Center after it's unveiling during a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the academy in Pearl, Miss. History is a vague concept, but if you have this tangible object that was a part of this historical event, it makes it very difficult to deny and it also makes it possible to experience it in a very visceral way, says Harriet Senie, a professor of art history at the City University of New York and author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11. (Rick Guy/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)

In this September 2011 photo provided by the Flour Bluff Independent School District, students look at a piece of steel from the World Trade Center building which was destroyed 10 years earlier, during a 9/11 commemoration event at the Flour Bluff junior high and high school campus in Corpus Christi, Texas. The artifact is twisted and somewhat burned. Its not pretty. Im hoping it will make them think as theyre growing up, that they have to pay attention to their past, says Bruce Chaney, the naval science instructor who applied for the artifacts. (Hector Zapata/Flour Bluff Independent School District via AP)

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 11, 2006 file photo, visitors to the Dole Institute of Politics on the Kansas University campus in Lawrence, Kan, view the center's 9/11 memorial and an exhibit of photos, flanked by two beams that formed part of the World Trade Center. Artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries. (Mike Yoder/The Lawrence Journal-World via AP)

FILE - In this Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 file photo, Spokane Valley Fire Department Deputy Chief Larry Rider, far right in white, and SVFD Captain Tag Baugh adjust a 1,200 pound beam recovered from the World Trade Center into it's final resting spot in a ceremony at the new SVFD administration building on the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, in Spokane Valley, Wash. Artifacts have gone to 1,585 fire and police departments, schools and museums, and other nonprofit organizations in every state and at least eight other countries. (J. Bart Rayniak/The Spokesman-Review via AP)
Key points of judge's ruling in Dakota Access pipeline case

MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  A federal judge in Washington denied Friday an attempt by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to halt construction of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline that passes near its reservation in North Dakota. Here's a look at some key points from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's 58-page opinion:

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KEY QUOTE

People rally on the grounds of the state Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, following a federal judge's ruling in Washington denying a request by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to halt construction on the Dakota Access pipeline, a thousand-mile pipeline being built to carry North Dakota crude oil across four states to Illinois. (AP Photo/Blake Nicholson)

"This Court does not lightly countenance any depredation of lands that hold significance to the Standing Rock Sioux. Aware of the indignities visited upon the Tribe over the last centuries, the Court scrutinizes the permitting process here with particular care. Having done so, the Court must nonetheless conclude that the Tribe has not demonstrated that an injunction is warranted here."

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THE DECISION

The tribe argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had a duty under the National Historic Preservation Act to consult with the tribe before issuing a permit for the pipeline, but the judge wrote that the corps probably has complied with the law. He also said the tribe hasn't shown it will suffer any harm that the court has the authority to prevent. So he denied the request for an injunction.

Contrary to the tribe's assertions that it was left out of the process, Boasberg said, the corps has documented dozens of its attempts to engage with Standing Rock officials in consultations to identify historical resources at Lake Oahe and other places covered by the permit. The corps was not required to consider the effects along the entire pipeline route because the corps has jurisdiction only where the route crosses water, he noted.

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CHANCES TO CONSULT

Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and the corps gave Standing Rock officials several chances to weigh in in 2014, but tribal officials didn't take advantage of those opportunities, the judge wrote. Relations between the tribe and corps didn't improve in 2015, when tribal officials canceled several meetings, according to the ruling.

"Suffice it to say that the Tribe largely refused to engage in consultations," he wrote. "It chose instead to hold out for more  namely, the chance to conduct its own cultural surveys over the entire length of the pipeline."

The tribe did provide timely and extensive comments earlier this year on a draft environmental assessment, and the corps and tribe held several meetings to discuss the cultural surveys, the judge wrote.

___

THE ROUTE

Ninety-nine percent of the route for the Dakota Access pipeline crosses private land, and 48 percent of it has already been completed, the ruling noted. Most of the route doesn't require a federal permit  only the 3 percent that crosses streams and other waters in more than 200 places.

The ruling said Dakota Access hired professional archaeologists to survey the entire route through the Dakotas and much of Iowa and Illinois for cultural resources. When the surveys revealed previously unidentified resources, the company changed the route on its own 140 times in North Dakota alone to avoid them, the judge said, and the corps ordered the company to change the route where it crossed the James River to avoid burial sites there.
The Latest: Park Service says Yosemite expansion was legal

FRESNO, Calif. (AP)  The Latest on an expansion of Yosemite National Park (all times local):

3:25 p.m.

Federal officials say a U.S. lawmaker was mistaken in claiming Yosemite National Park broke the law by adding its largest amount of land in decades without clearing it through Congress.

This undated photo provided by The Trust for Public Land shows Ackerson Meadow in Yosemite National Park, Calif. Visitors to the park now have more room to explore nature with the announcement on Wed. Sept. 7, 2016 that the park's western boundary has expanded to include Ackerson Meadow, 400 acres of tree-covered Sierra Nevada foothills, grassland and a creek that flows into the Tuolumne River. This is the park's biggest expansion in nearly 70 years, and will serve as wildlife habitat. (Robb Hirsch/The Trust for Public Land via AP)

National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson said Friday that the 400-acre addition doesn't require approval because the land was donated. He says different standards apply to donations vs. acquisitions using Land and Water Conservation Act funding.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, says the expansion required congressional approval because of its size and value.

Yosemite officials announced this week that a nonprofit conservation group bought the land for $2.3 million and donated it to the park as wildlife habitat. It marked Yosemite's largest expansion since 1949.

Bishop staffers say the congressman maintains his position and will seek answers.

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12:40 p.m.

A U.S. lawmaker says Yosemite National Park violated federal law by adding 400 acres to its boundary without clearing it through Congress.

Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican from Utah who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, told The Associated Press in a statement Friday that the National Park Service "acted outside of its authority, and we will require them to account for their actions."

Yosemite officials announced this week that a nonprofit trust bought the land for $2.3 million and donated it to the park as a wildlife habitat. It marked Yosemite's largest expansion in 70 years.

Bishop says he doesn't want to give back the land but wants answers.

Federal law says Congress must approve land added to a national park that's over 200 acres and worth more than $750,000.

Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman didn't immediately respond to request for comment.
Barack Obama's easing of the US trade embargo on Cuba has had virtually no positive effect on the island's economy, Cuba's top diplomat said Friday.

Presenting Cuba's annual report ahead of a UN vote on condemning the embargo, foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez said sanctions cost the country $4.6billion last year, making a total of $125.9billion since it began 55 years ago.

The report contains a detailed accounting of both specific damage from the embargo, such as US government fines on Cuba's business partners, and scenarios in which Cuba faults the US for the loss of hypothetical business.

Scroll down for video

Barack Obama's easing of the US trade embargo on Cuba (pictured) has had virtually no positive effect on the island's economy, Cuba's top diplomat claimed Friday

Obama - seen here with First Lady Michelle and Cuban President Raul Castro - was the first US president to visit Cuba in 88 years this year. But thawing relations aren't helping make money

For example, the report estimates that Cuba could sell 2.5million cases of Havana Club rum in the United States each year and factors in that theoretical lost revenue, $105 million, to the total damages in the report.

The annual update is designed to drive home - mostly to a domestic audience - Havana's message that US sanctions are to blame for most of Cuba's problems.

Rodriguez praised Obama for allowing easier US travel to Cuba with commercial flights, and trying to ease financial transactions with Cuba, among other measures.

However, he said, 'there's been no fundamental change in the application of the blockade, and because of that, I can say, there hasn't been a greater economic impact of the executive actions until now and there won't be until we see bigger steps.'

Rodriguez acknowledged the problems of Cuba's centrally controlled economy, which is struggling to increase productivity in the face of an outdated and inefficient bureaucracy.

This in addition to low state salaries that lead many employees to steal from their workplaces or accept small bribes in order to get by.

'No one's ignoring or aims to hide our problems, our limitations, our mistakes,' he said. 'But neither can we diminish the impact of the blockade.'

Passengers on the first US-to-Cuba cruise ship in decades arrive on May 2, 2016. But increased travel hasn't helped the country make money, according to officials

The United Nations votes next month on an annual resolution on condemning the embargo that usually passes with overwhelming support.

Last year the United States considered abstaining for the first time, before voting against it.

As reporters were leaving Rodriguez's press conference at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, US Charge d'Affaires Jeffrey DeLaurentis' car was seen dropping him off.
Former 49er Miller appears in court in attack on 70-year-old

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  Former 49ers tight end Bruce Miller has made his first court appearance on assault and battery charges after San Francisco police say he drunkenly attacked a 70-year-old man and his son.

Miller didn't enter a plea Friday, and his arraignment is set to wrap up Nov. 2.

Police say Miller tried to enter an elderly couple's hotel room Monday. Their son was staying next door and told Miller he was at the wrong room. Police say the former player then attacked the younger man and his father. He's accused of hitting the older man with a cane.

Former San Francisco 49ers' Bruce Miller waits to enter San Francisco County Superior Court, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in San Francisco. Prosecutors charged Miller with seven felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from Monday's alleged drunken rampage in which he is accused of attacking a 70-year-old man and his son at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Miller's agent, Jack Reale, has said there's more to the case than meets the eye.

The 49ers released Miller on Monday. He's among several 49ers who have had legal trouble in recent years.

Former San Francisco 49ers' Bruce Miller, left, walks in the Hall of Justice building on the way to a San Francisco County Superior Courtroom, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in San Francisco. Prosecutors charged Miller with seven felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from Monday's alleged drunken rampage in which he is accused of attacking a 70-year-old man and his son at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Former San Francisco 49ers' Bruce Miller waits to enter San Francisco County Superior Court, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in San Francisco. Prosecutors charged Miller with seven felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from Monday's alleged drunken rampage in which he is accused of attacking a 70-year-old man and his son at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
In festival-hit 'Moonlight,' growing up black and gay

TORONTO (AP)  The shimmering glow of Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight," a poetic coming-of-age tale told across three chapters about a young gay black kid growing up in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood of Miami, has lit up this year's fall film festival circuit like no other film.

Following its much-lauded debut at the Telluride Film Festival last week and leading up to its bow Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, "Moonlight" has been received with an overflowing of emotion and acclaim. It's an uncannily intimate portrait of a young man's identity being formed, in fits and starts, both painful and beautiful, with profound reverberations about black America.

The film, executive produced by Brad Pitt, has, among other things, established its director as a major talent in cinema. It's Jenkins' second film, coming eight years after his well-received 2008 feature debut, "Medicine for Melancholy." ''Moonlight" will also land at the upcoming New York Film Festival before hitting theaters Oct. 21.

This image released by A24 Films shows Alex Hibbert in a scene from the film, "Moonlight." The film is a poetic coming-of-age tale told across three chapters about a young gay black kid growing up in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood of Miami. (David Bornfriend/A24 via AP)

"Very rarely do you realize 'I'm living one of my dreams' in the present tense," Jenkins said Friday in Toronto, having come straight from Telluride and still elated by his film's reception.

"Moonlight" is based on the play "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who, like his protagonist Chiron, grew up homosexual outside Miami, the son of a crack-addicted mother. Though Jenkins is heterosexual, he comes from the same area and his mother was also an addict.

"When I read Tarell's play, I saw myself literally," says Jenkins, whose film takes details, like warming bathwater on the stove, from his own impoverished upbringing. "It was empathy but it was empathy on a different level. So I'm all over it. That is all my childhood."

"Moonlight" follows Chiron in three separate, chronological stages and through three separate actors. Alex Hibbert plays him as a shy, uncertain, bullied boy; Ashton Sanders plays him an awkward teen, awakening to his sexuality; and Trevante Rhodes is Chiron as a hardened adult.

"I was like: They don't have to look alike. Their skin tone should be somewhat similar," says Jenkins of their casting. "But it's got to be this feeling and they have to have the same eyes. We really cast those guys for their eyes."

The power of "Moonlight" comes substantially from the way each version of Chiron is a boiling mix of confusion under the surface, as he tries to figure out who he is.

"It's not a loquacious film. There's a lot of space and a lot of silence," says Jenkins. "I always approached it as: You have to hone in on these moments. I did think that you could get more out of watching someone respond and react to a very simple ripple in the formation of their identity than three hours of going through these small, incremental waves."

For Jenkins, that interior, unspoken existence has a larger meaning.

"There's something in the way black men grow up in this country," he says. "There's a lot of information on these men's faces when they're not speaking, partly because we're robbed of our voices so much by society and the things society projects on us."

In the intervening years between his feature debut and "Moonlight," Jenkins spent a number of them trying to make a film with Focus Features' James Schamus and John Lyons, whom Jenkins credits for taking him under their wing. The movie, which never came to fruition, he says, was too high-concept and too ambitious. "It was about time travel and Stevie Wonder," he says, chuckling. "It was out there."

When the suggestion of adapting McCraney's play came up, Jenkins hesitated.

"When this play first came to me, I was scared. Can this be my second film? I don't know," he says. "But there was something about it that just grabbed me. I think I would have been too afraid of the material in 2009. That voice in the back of my head would have been saying: You can't do this for your second film. You have to somehow build."

Instead, Jenkins found a new direction by, for the first time, returning to his own life.

"I was not living my full identity by not putting that into my work," says Jenkins. "So here we are."

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

This image released by A24 Films shows Alex Hibbert, left, and Mahershala Ali in a scene from the film, "Moonlight." The film is a poetic coming-of-age tale told across three chapters about a young gay black kid growing up in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood of Miami. (David Bornfriend/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 Films shows Andre Holland, left, and Trevante Rhodes in a scene from the film, "Moonlight." The film is a poetic coming-of-age tale told across three chapters about a young gay black kid growing up in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood of Miami. (David Bornfriend/A24 via AP)
US, Russia seal Syria cease-fire, new military partnership

GENEVA (AP)  The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unexpected new military partnership targeting the Islamic State and al-Qaida as well as the establishment of new limits on President Bashar Assad's forces.

After a daylong final negotiating session in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight Saturday that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential "turning point" in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria's Russian-backed government and U.S.-supported rebel groups.

The cease-fire begins at sundown Sept. 12, Kerry said, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hold a press conference following their meeting in Geneva, where they discussed the crisis in Syria, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

"Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria," Kerry said. "We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on people's choices."

"It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we  and we expect other supporting countries  will strongly encourage them to do," he added.

Kerry's negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counterterrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians under U.N. auspices that have been stalled for weeks. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was informed of the accord, and prepared to comply.

"The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague, have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace," Kerry said, citing a number of recent meetings with Lavrov.

"This is just the beginning of our new relations," Lavrov said.

The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against Syria's armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed. Washington must persuade U.S.-backed rebels to break ranks with Fath al-Sham, an al-Qaida-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front, and other extremist groups.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.

The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against Islamic State and Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.

Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.

But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.

Russia, in response, has chafed at America's financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be "wise" for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.

"Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody," Kerry said. "It is profoundly in the interests of the United States."

Getting Assad's government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people.

Assad's government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.

The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions.

After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."

At one point, Lavrov said he was considering "calling it a day" on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a U.S. response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, "This is from the U.S. delegation," and two bottles of vodka, adding, "This is from the Russian delegation."

The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the U.S. and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.

Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries  notably into Aleppo.

"If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten," he said. "If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim."

But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturday's plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the U.S. is unlikely to take any action against him given Obama's longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, take their seats at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, to discuss the crisis in Syria. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photos via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meet in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, to discuss the crisis in Syria. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photos via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about North Korea's latest nuclear test during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, September 9, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photos via AP)
The Latest: More mosquitoes with Zika in Miami Beach

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP)  The Latest on Zika mosquitoes in Miami Beach (all times local):

7 p.m.

Officials say additional mosquitoes have tested positive for Zika in Miami Beach.

This Aug. 4, 2016 photo shows a plane conducts mosquito control aerial spraying over Wynwood area of Miami, Fla., and the surrounding areas in order combat the spread of Zika. Miami-Dade County officials say they're delaying the aerial spraying of an insecticide called naled over South Beach following concerns voiced by residents and local officials. County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a statement Wednesday, Sept. 7 that the spraying to fight the Zika virus scheduled for Thursday morning was moved to Friday morning. Additional sprayings are scheduled for Sunday and the next two weekends. (Logan Riely/Miami Herald via AP)

Florida's agriculture department said Friday that one more batch from the area had tested positive. State officials say in a news release that an additional 2,900 batches of more than a dozen insects each have tested negative for the virus statewide.

Aerial insecticide spraying to combat mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus is underway in Miami Beach. A plane carrying the insecticide naled released the spray over the Atlantic Ocean before dawn Friday.

The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2cL57UF ) quotes Miami-Dade County officials as saying that on-board meteorological equipment was used to measure weather conditions and calculate a flight pattern that would allow the wind to carry the spray over the island.

___

Noon:

Aerial insecticide spraying to combat mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus is underway in Miami Beach.

A plane carrying the insecticide naled released the spray over the Atlantic Ocean before dawn Friday.

The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2cL57UF ) quotes Miami-Dade County officials as saying that on-board meteorological equipment was used to measure weather conditions and calculate a flight pattern that would allow the wind to carry the spray over the island.

The next round is scheduled for 6 a.m. Sunday.

Some residents opposed spraying, citing the potential for harmful effects. But county officials say the low concentration of naled won't harm them.

Aerial spraying targets adult mosquitoes; different pesticides for larvae will be sprayed on the ground.

Of Florida's 56 non-travel-related Zika cases, 11 are associated with Miami Beach.

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If she does, she'll get a $3m cash payout and almost $41m in stock options

She's expected to leave once it is sold to Verizon for $4.8b next year

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has failed to stop a long-standing slide in the company's advertising business, but she could still leave with a $44million severance package, according to a filing Friday.

Mayer hasn't announced plans to leave, but industry observers say she's unlikely to stay after Yahoo is sold to Verizon for $4.8billion early next year.

The 41-year-old executive stands to collect $3million in cash and almost $41million of stock options and awards under a 'golden parachute' agreement, according to a regulatory filing.

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Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer failed to stop a slump in its advertising business, but could still leave with $44m once the company is sold for $4.8b to Verizon next year

In a filing last spring, Yahoo said Mayer could walk away with $55 million in compensation, but the estimates can vary with the value of Yahoo's stock and the date she leaves.

Mayer has been CEO for four years but failed to reverse a long-standing slide in Yahoo's advertising business.

After an unsuccessful effort to spin off its investment in the Chinese internet giant Alibaba, Yahoo Inc began entertaining offers for its core business earlier this year.

The company weighed a variety of offers, according to the proxy statement filed Friday.

One was a merger proposal from Yahoo Japan, a separate company that Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo co-owns with Japanese tech giant SoftBank.

An unnamed group also came forward and asked Yahoo co-founder David Filo to consider financing its bid.

Yahoo co-founder David Filo was asked to consider financing one bid for the company, but it was beaten by Verizon. Mayer has not said she will leave, but experts say it's likely

Filo, who sits on Yahoo's board of directors, agreed to talk with the group and recused himself from participating in further board discussions about a possible sale, according to the statement.

The filing doesn't say if Filo ultimately decided to join the group. But in the end, the unnamed group submitted a $4.35billion bid that was lower than Verizon's.

Verizon hasn't spelled out its plans but it's expected to continue operating at least some of Yahoo's popular internet sites under the familiar brand, while combining some of its ad business with the AOL operation it acquired earlier.
A look at details of US-Russia deal on Syria

GENEVA (AP)  A look at some of the key points in an "arrangement" announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, aimed at halting fighting in Syria and moving toward a political transition after 5-1/2 years of combat between President Bashar Assad's forces and opposition rebels:

WHAT THE ARRANGEMENT SAYS

A nationwide cease-fire by Assad's forces and the U.S.-backed opposition is set to begin across Syria at sundown Monday. That sets off a seven-day period that will allow for humanitarian aid and civilian traffic into Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial capital, which has faced a recent onslaught.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, center, delivers vodka to reporters awaiting a late night press conference along with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Fighting forces are to also pull back from the Castello Road, a key thoroughfare and access route into Aleppo, and create a "demilitarized zone" around it.

Also Monday, the United States and Russia will begin preparations for the creation of a Joint Implementation Center that will involve information sharing needed to define areas controlled by the radical Nusra Front and opposition groups in areas "of active hostilities."

The center is expected to be established a week later, and is to launch a broader effort toward delineating other territories in control of various groups.

As part of the arrangement, Russia is expected to keep Syrian air force planes from bombing areas controlled by the opposition. The United States has committed to help weaken the Nusra Front, an extremist group that has intermingled with the U.S.-backed opposition in places.

A resumption of political dialogue between the government and opposition under U.N. mediation, which was halted amid an upsurge in fighting in April, will be sought over the longer term.

THE STAKES

Syria's civil war has killed as many as 500,000 people and sent millions fleeing their homes within Syria and into exile.

Kerry said this "new equation" offers an opportunity to find a peaceful solution and reverse the current trend of "creating more terrorists" and more destruction.

WHO'S ON BOARD

Kerry said the U.S.-supported opposition and other fighters will be called upon to set themselves apart from the radical Islamic State group and the Nusra Front.

Lavrov said through a translator, "The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfill them."

HOW THE ARRANGEMENT CAME TOGETHER

The Geneva negotiating session lasted more than 13 hours and capped a flurry of meetings between the two diplomats in recent days. Kerry and Lavrov met four times since a previous Geneva meeting on Aug. 26, and Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed the matter at a summit in China.

WHAT MAKES THIS DEAL DIFFERENT

The United States and Russia, ultimately, are to find themselves fighting together against the Islamic State and Nusra, and embarking on unprecedented information-sharing  aimed at dispelling longstanding mistrust between the two powers over the Syria conflict.

Kerry acknowledged "confusion" between Nusra and "legitimate opposition groups" that had led to a "fraying" of a cease-fire that was shepherded earlier this year by the U.S. and Russia and brought a badly-needed, if temporary, respite to Syrian civilians for several weeks.
Dig for California student missing 20 years yields remains

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP)  Remains were found during a three-day excavation looking for a California college student missing for more than 20 years but it may take months before officials know if they're human, authorities said Friday.

FBI agents and local sheriff's deputies searched three hillside locations on the campus of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, said Tony Cipolla, a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

Cipolla said various items of interest turned up in all three spots, including remains that will need to be tested to determine if they're animal or human.

The FBI and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department continue their dig and investigation on the hillside above Cal Poly related to the disappearance of student Kristin Smart two decades ago, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016 in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Kristin Smart, 19, of Stockton, was last seen in the early morning of May 25, 1996, while returning to her dorm after an off-campus party. (David Middlecamp/The Tribune (of San Luis Obispo)

The testing will be done by forensic anthropologists at the FBI's headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, he said.

The campus halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the last place 19-year-old Kristin Smart was seen alive.

A male student said he dropped Smart off near her dormitory on May 25, 1996, after an off-campus party. He is considered a person of interest but has never been arrested or charged.

A lead developed by investigators over the past two years "strongly suggested" that Smart's remains might be buried on the hillside near a large concrete letter "P'' that is the school's landmark, the Sheriff's Office announced when digging began Tuesday.

The three locations were then targeted with the use of dogs trained to detect old human remains.

The area was searched at the time of Smart's disappearance, along with most of the rest of the campus.

The FBI and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department continue their dig and investigation on the hillside above Cal Poly related to the disappearance of student Kristin Smart two decades ago, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016 in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Kristin Smart, 19, of Stockton, was last seen in the early morning of May 25, 1996, while returning to her dorm after an off-campus party. (David Middlecamp/The Tribune (of San Luis Obispo)
Rising Uighur militancy changes security landscape for China

BEIJING (AP)  They have been praised by the leader of al-Qaida and wooed by the head of the Islamic State group. They have distinguished themselves on battlefields in Syria and are accused of carrying out a devastating bombing in Thailand.

In the past two years, militants belonging to the Uighur ethnic group native to the vast Xinjiang region in western China have shown signs of becoming a force in Islamic extremism globally, a development that is reshaping both the ground war in Syria and Chinese foreign policy.

The predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people  ethnically distinct from China's Han majority  have chafed for decades under Beijing's heavy-handed rule. Uighur separatists belonging to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant group based in the rugged tribal areas of nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan and allied with al-Qaeda, have been blamed for attacks in Chinese cities, often using crude but effective weapons such as knives, Molotov cocktails and speeding vehicles.

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2003, file photo, a Uighur official stands near a picture of a dead separatist militant at an exhibition in Hotan in China's western Xinjiang province. Since 2015 militants belonging to the Uighur ethnic group native to the vast Xinjiang region in western China have shown signs of becoming a force in Islamic extremism globally, a development that is reshaping both the ground war in Syria and Chinese foreign policy. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

Their activities have taken on a transnational dimension in recent years as hundreds of Uighur fighters have flowed into Syria to participate in jihad. And instead of targeting China's cities, militants have struck less guarded overseas targets.

The reach of ETIM, which seeks to establish an independent Islamic state called East Turkestan, was highlighted most recently when a man crashed a van packed with 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of TNT into the Chinese diplomatic compound in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing himself and wounding five people. Kyrgyz officials on Tuesday identified the bomber as Zoir Khalimov, an ethnic Uighur member of ETIM who carried out the attack with support from the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria.

In Thailand, a trial began last month for two Uighur men charged with an August 2015 bombing that killed 20 people at a busy Bangkok shrine. The attack came weeks after Thailand forcibly repatriated scores of Uighurs to China, where they faced persecution. Chinese officials said the Uighurs were on their way to fight in Syria when they were arrested.

Analysts see the broad outlines of metastasizing Uighur militancy that has prompted a response from China, which has traditionally abided by a foreign policy of non-interference.

"China's calculus is shifting because the threat picture is shifting from one in which only the Americans and Europeans were targets," said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. "That's why you're seeing Beijing push out. It's a combination of the new Chinese foreign policy assertiveness but also a real concern about what's happening on the ground."

In mid-August, China dispatched a senior People's Liberation Army admiral, Guan Youfei, to meet with Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij and a senior Russian military official in Damascus to discuss expanding Chinese support for their war effort.

China has made similar moves closer to home. This year, it pledged equipment and counterterrorism training for Afghan police with the aim of containing ETIM. It has also expanded its role as a mediator, welcoming both President Ashraf Ghani and Taliban representatives to China on visits and brokering low-level talks between the sides.

In 2015, Uighur fighters from ETIM, also referred to as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), began flowing from Central Asia into Syria, according to propaganda videos from the group's Islam Awazi media arm. They have won battles against loyalist forces in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, at times deploying suicide attackers to decisive effect. Although exact numbers are impossible to confirm, analysts believe there are hundreds, possibly more than a thousand, Uighurs fighting alongside the Nusra Front, said Beirut-based analyst Haytham Mouzahem.

Separately, the Islamic State group, which competes with the Nusra Front for recruits, has at least a hundred Uighur fighters, most of whom came directly from Xinjiang to escape religious persecution in China, according to leaked IS documents analyzed by the New America Foundation think tank.

Uighur groups in exile and international human rights monitors say China plays up the threat of Uighur militancy to justify abusive law-enforcement policies and religious restrictions in Xinjiang, which have fueled resentment among ordinary citizens. ETIM's organization may also be overestimated, experts warn, because it is unclear to what extent they offered training or support to perpetrators of attacks.

"China should evaluate its own policies to find the source of Uighur discontent," overseas Uighur spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in a statement this week following the Kyrgyzstan investigation. "The Kyrgyzstan incident could supply China with more excuses to oppress and expand its influence in Central Asia for its political purposes."

China has been sensitive to international criticism of its policies in Xinjiang while casting itself as a target of terrorism similar to Western countries. It has successfully lobbied the United States, the European Union, Russia, Britain and other governments to recognize the Turkistan Islamic Party as a terrorist organization.

"I would to stress that East Turkestan terrorist forces headed by the ETIM have plotted and undertaken terrorist attacks many times inside and outside China," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday, while vowing to "strike back" at the group.

Chinese anti-terrorism expert Li Wei said the extremist threats that China faces domestically and from abroad are now "inextricably linked, just like with other countries," leading China to expand its dealings in Syria and Afghanistan.

"I think the international community would agree that Syria is a nexus of global jihad that does threaten the entire world," said Li, director of the anti-terrorism research center at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank under the Ministry of State Security, China's main intelligence agency.

Despite its shifting posture, Chinese observers say the likelihood of the People's Liberation Army fighting directly in Syria and Afghanistan remains extremely low. Over the last decade, China has leaned on Pakistan to carry out drone strikes against TIP commanders in tribal Waziristan, pressured Central Asian allies for intelligence-gathering and sought help from Thailand  but never deployed troops.

"China can participate in Syria in direct or indirect ways," said Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel and commentator on military affairs in Beijing. "Currently, the indirect path is better. In the future it can provide a variety of equipment or arms support for Russia and Syria but dressed up as something more pleasant-sounding, like humanitarian aid."

China's increasing willingness to confront Uighur militants abroad mirrors global jihadi networks' growing interest in their cause.

In the 1990s, the Taliban  no strangers to fighting communists  sheltered Uighur separatists but forbade them from launching attacks on China from Afghanistan and Pakistan, fearing that would anger Beijing, according to writings by the jihadi Abu Musab al-Suri.

And in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, published interview transcripts show Osama bin Laden downplaying the Uighurs' plight or claiming ignorance of them altogether. Instead, he argued that Chinese leaders and Muslims should unite against what he considered to be common enemies like the United States and Israel.

His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, takes a starkly different approach, decrying China as an enemy. He opened a recorded message to his followers in July by praising Uighurs' dedication to global jihad and lambasting "Chinese invaders" as "atheist occupiers" of Xinjiang.

Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has also prominently decried Chinese oppression of Muslims while laying out a vision of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Xinjiang.

Michael Clarke, a researcher at Australian National University, said competition for Uighur recruits between al-Qaida and Islamic State explained the heightened rhetoric, but also underscored the more complicated landscape facing China.

"Since the 1990s the discourse has changed," Clarke said. "The long-established conflict between China and Uighur opposition is getting more and more connected to regional and global currents of radical Islamism."

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Leila Saralayeva in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2008, file photo, Uighurs rest near a food stall and Beijing Olympic Games billboards in Kashgar in China's western Xinjiang province. Since 2015 militants belonging to the Uighur ethnic group native to the vast Xinjiang region in western China have shown signs of becoming a force in Islamic extremism globally, a development that is reshaping both the ground war in Syria and Chinese foreign policy. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2008, file photo, Uighurs are seen outside a restaurant in Kashgar in China's western Xinjiang province. Since 2015 militants belonging to the Uighur ethnic group native to the vast Xinjiang region in western China have shown signs of becoming a force in Islamic extremism globally, a development that is reshaping both the ground war in Syria and Chinese foreign policy. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
AP EXPLAINS: How Uighur militants are affecting China

BEIJING (AP)  The suicide bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan on Aug. 30 highlighted the expanding threat of an ethnic Uighur militant group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement  and the growing Chinese involvement in Syria and Afghanistan to combat it. The ETIM, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, has sought for decades to establish an independent state in China's far west for the repressed Muslim Uighur minority. The group has recently formally pledged allegiance to al-Qaida and has expanded its global operations, sending at least hundreds of fighters to Syria to wage holy war and carrying out attacks against Chinese overseas targets.

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DISCRIMINATION AND SETTLERS FUEL DISCONTENT, RIOT

FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2016, file photo, a Chinese Embassy employee examines broken windows at the Chinese Embassy after a suicide bombing in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The suicide bombing of the embassy highlighted the expanding threat of an ethnic Uighur militant group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement - and the growing Chinese involvement in Syria and Afghanistan to combat it. The ETIM, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, has sought for decades to establish an independent state in Chinas far west for the repressed Muslim Uighur minority. (AP Photo/File)

Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic group native to China's far western region of Xinjiang, which was sporadically controlled by Chinese dynasties over the centuries. They have long complained of ethnic and religious discrimination under the majority Han, Communist Chinese government, which has placed restrictions on Islamic dress, education, food and prayer. Several decades of economic development have brought an influx of ethnic Han settlers into resource-rich Xinjiang, marginalizing Uighurs and fueling discontent that culminated in a deadly 2009 riot. Overseas Uighur groups and analysts have urged China to reconsider heavy-handed policies that could lead to Uighur radicalization, but with little effect. In 2014, China sentenced the economist and Uighur advocate Ilham Tohti to life imprisonment on separatism charges after he made calls for Chinese-Uighur reconciliation and greater economic justice.

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SEPARATISTS FIND COMMON GROUND WITH JIHADIS IN AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, SYRIA

The decades-old Uighur separatist movement built its ties with fundamentalist and militant groups in the 1990s, when it settled in Afghanistan under Taliban protection. But both the Taliban and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden discouraged the group against attacking China, which they viewed as a shared enemy of the West. The ETIM, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the EU and other countries, was believed to be pushed into Pakistan's tribal areas after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, but it moves between the countries' porous border. After years of existing on the fringes of the global jihadi movement, Uighur militants began to make a name for themselves in 2015 in Syria, where most fought alongside al-Qaida's affiliate and swayed several key battles against pro-Assad Syrian forces. Both the Islamic State and al-Qaida have repeatedly sought to recruit them by highlighting the plight of Chinese Uighurs and condemning China's treatment of Muslims.

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MILITANTS TARGET CHINESE INTERESTS ABROAD

On Aug. 30, a man crashed a van packed with 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of TNT into the Chinese diplomatic compound in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing himself and wounding five people. Kyrgyz officials identified the bomber as Zoir Khalimov, an ethnic Uighur member of ETIM who carried out the attack with support from the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. In Thailand, a trial began last month for two Uighur men charged with an August 2015 bombing that killed 20 people at a busy Bangkok shrine. The attack came weeks after Thailand forcibly repatriated scores of Uighurs to China, where they faced persecution. Chinese officials said the Uighurs were on their way to fight in Syria when they were arrested.

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CHINA RAISES INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT TO BATTLE MILITANTS
The Latest: Excavation ends in search for California student

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP)  The Latest on a dig to search for a California college student missing since 1996 (all times local):

8 p.m.

Remains have been found during a three-day search for the body of a California college student missing for more than 20 years but authorities say it may take months before they learn if they are human.

Authorities say a three-day excavation process ended Friday.

Sheriff's spokesman Tony Cipolla says the dig in three spots at the edge of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo was completed on Friday night. He says all three spots yielded various items of interest, including remains that will need to be tested to determine if they're human or animal.

Cipolla says the testing will be done by forensic anthropologists at the FBI's headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and could take months.

Dogs trained to detect old human remains identified the three excavation sites in January.

Nineteen-year-old Kristin Smart was last seen returning to her dorm from a party in May 1996.

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6 p.m.

Authorities are nearing the end of a three-day search for the body of a California student missing for more than 20 years.

A spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office says the search for 19-year-old Kristin Smart will end Friday night at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Spokesman Tony Cipolla says the search uncovered various items of interest, including remains that will need to be tested to determine if they're human or animal.

He says the testing will be done by forensic anthropologists at the FBI's headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and could take months.

Dogs trained to detect old human remains identified the three excavation sites in January.
Group votes to urge countries to end domestic ivory trade

HONOLULU (AP)  An international environmental group voted Saturday to call on every country to shut down domestic ivory markets that threaten elephants.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has 1,300 members from more than 160 countries, has no enforcement power, but its policy experts could help countries craft laws. Ivory trading is banned internationally, but domestic trade within countries is legal nearly everywhere.

"Today's vote at the IUCN World Conservation Congress calling for closure of domestic elephant ivory markets across the globe is vital, as the news about Africa's elephants is as bad as bad news gets," Wildlife Conservation Society President and CEO Cristian Samper said in a statement.

In this Sept. 7, 2016 photo, Susan Lieberman, vice president for international conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, talks about the need for countries to ban trading ivory in Honolulu, Hawaii. Members of an international environmental group are voting on a proposal to urge leaders in every country to close domestic ivory markets. The International Union for Conservation of Nature plans to vote on the proposal at the World Conservation Congress in Honolulu. (AP Photo/By Cathy Bussewitz)

Details of the vote were not made public Saturday, but for a measure to pass more than half of the eligible members must be voting and a majority of the votes must support it.

The group of government and nonprofit representatives planned to vote Friday at the World Conservation Congress in Honolulu, but the vote was delayed when some members filed a complaint saying their concerns had not been heard. Conference organizers did not identify the representatives or countries who delayed the vote.

The number of savanna elephants in Africa is rapidly declining and the animals are in danger of being wiped out because of the ivory trade, according to a recent study, which said the population plummeted by about 30 percent from 2007 to 2014 and is declining at about 8 percent a year.

The United States announced a near-total ban on the domestic sale of African elephant ivory in June.

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Follow Cathy Bussewitz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cbussewitz . Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/cathy-bussewitz .

Conference attendees walk by a display of elephants and other wildlife at The International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress on Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in Honolulu. Members of the international environmental group are voting on a proposal to urge leaders in every country to close domestic ivory markets as the savanna elephant population in Africa declines. (AP Photo/Cathy Bussewitz)
Victim in terror attack asked colleague to say bye to mom

LOS ANGELES (AP)  A woman who lay among the wounded moaning in pain and others cowering in fear during the San Bernardino terror attack tasted blood and sensed death was near.

When she called out to a colleague and asked her to say goodbye to her mother, the other woman tried to assure her she was going to make it.

"I'm not, I'm bleeding from the mouth," she said before closing her eyes a final time.

FILE - In this Dec. 2, file image from video provided by KNBC-TV, first responders attend to people outside a Southern California social services center in San Bernardino, where one or more gunmen opened fire, shooting multiple people. A lengthy report into the San Bernardino terror attack reveals new details about the killings last year and the way the husband and wife who carried them out died in a police shootout. The report released Friday, Sept. 9, 2016 provides an in-depth look at the chaos and confusion as the Islamic extremists opened fire at a meeting of the man's colleagues. The carnage was described as looking "like a bomb had gone off." (KNBC-TV via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT. TV OUT

The woman's story emerged in a lengthy review of the police response to the Dec. 2 attack by a husband and wife armed with semi-automatic rifles who stormed a conference room where the man's colleagues from the San Bernardino County Health Department were attending a training event and holiday gathering. Fourteen people were killed and 22 were wounded in the massacre.

An in-depth report based on that probe provided new information Friday, including efforts by three men to stop the gunfire and details on how the Islamic extremists who carried out the massacre died in a police shootout.

The report by the Police Foundation, a policy study group, and the Department of Justice, gave law enforcement high marks for their rapid response, though it pointed out areas of confusion or challenges they faced as they entered the scene of such horrific bloodshed.

The first four officers who arrived at the scene after several reports of a shooting, prepared for the worst, thinking the shooters were still stalking the large building complex of the Inland Regional Center.

"I felt so naked, because we didn't have cover and concealment approaching the building," said a patrol officer, who like most of the first responders and witnesses was granted confidentiality in the report. "You know you are outgunned, it is going to be hard to beat an AR with a handgun."

What officers didn't know at the time was that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were gone. What they wouldn't discover for six hours was that Farook had left behind a bag in the conference room with three pipe bombs to be triggered remotely. Luckily, the detonating device didn't work.

The report said investigators now think the bombs were supposed to be set off when first responders arrived.

Farook, a health inspector, had been present at the meeting, but got up and left before a break. He returned a short time later clad in black, wearing a mask and armed with a semi-automatic rifle. His wife was also wearing black and toting an assault rifle.

The first victims had been shot outside the conference room. One man appeared to have been eating lunch at a picnic table and another man was found still holding his cellphone.

Colleagues inside had heard popping sounds, but many didn't recognize the sound of gunfire until the doors burst open and a man in black they didn't recognize started spraying bullets. People ran in horror, some dove to the floor and others fell from the fusillade. His wife  also disguised and not recognizable  entered and also opened fire.

Even then, some weren't sure what was happening, with one county official taking cover and thinking it was the "most glorified training" he had ever seen.

"Probably on the second or third clip, it finally clicked that this wasn't an exercise," he said.

Three men rushed one of the shooters, but were cut down by gunfire. The report didn't make clear if any survived, though a federal prosecutor hailed their sacrifice.

"These victims had no chance to protect themselves as a result of the callous perpetration of violence, while others heroically sacrificed themselves in an attempt to stop the shooting," U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said in a statement. "In the face of this unfathomable suffering, the law enforcement personnel and citizens who put themselves in harm's way to help others exemplifies the very best that our country has to offer."

The couple calmly reloaded several times over the course of two to three minutes. They appeared to look for signs victims might still be alive, shooting one or more bullets into those who made a sound or moved.

When they left  after firing 85 rounds  the scene was pandemonium and horror. A fire alarm was shrieking. Water poured down from a fire sprinkler struck by gunfire. The smell of gunpowder and smoke filled the air. Blood was everywhere.

The carnage looked "like a bomb had gone off," the report said.

"It was the worst thing imaginable," the patrol officer said. "Some people were quiet, hiding, others were screaming or dying, grabbing at your legs because they wanted us to get them out, but our job at the moment was to keep going."

A rookie officer took a crucial report from a survivor, who said Farook had left the meeting early and there was something about the shooter's body language that looked similar.

That eventually led officers to Farook and Malik's apartment in nearby Redlands hours later. The two left in a rented black SUV and were trailed by several undercover officers. When a sergeant in a squad car joined in and tried to pull the couple over, his vehicle was hit by gun fire.

Farook then abruptly stopped and he and Malik began shooting at officers in the street, who took cover behind vehicles and returned fire.

The couple shot 81 bullets at police before being outgunned by two dozen officers who fired 440 rounds. One officer was shot in the leg and a deputy was grazed by a bullet.

Farook was struck 25 times, mostly in the legs. Malik was shot twice in the head, and had 13 other wounds.

Police found more than 2,000 rounds of ammo in the vehicle, along with first-aid equipment.

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Abdollah reported from Washington.

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Israel's role in South Sudan under scrutiny amid violence

JERUSALEM (AP)  Escalating violence in South Sudan is casting a light on Israel's murky involvement in that conflict and raising questions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new strategy of strengthening ties with African countries.

Netanyahu has been forging alliances across Africa in an effort he says will help blunt Palestinian diplomatic initiatives against Israel at the United Nations.

But critics says these new ties  illustrated by Netanyahu's high-profile visit to several African countries in July  have come without regard for the human rights records of those allies.

File - In this file photo taken Thursday, April 14, 2016, government soldiers follow orders to raise their guns during a military parade in Juba, South Sudan. Escalating violence in South Sudan is casting a light on Israels murky involvement in that raging conflict, with the government's use of Israeli arms and surveillance equipment drawing criticism from human rights activists and a lawmaker who are demanding that Israel halt such transfers to the embattled African country. The scrutiny comes as Israel has been forging new ties with countries across Africa, hoping their support will counter Palestinian diplomatic offensives at the United Nations.(AP Photo/Justin Lynch, File)

Such concerns have been magnified by Israel's close ties to South Sudan, whose government has used Israeli arms and surveillance equipment to crack down on its opponents. Critics say Israel's global arms export policies lack transparency and proper oversight, and ignore the receiving country's intended use.

"It is the role of the prime minister, the defense minister and the foreign minister to look out for Israel's interests. But this has a limit: not at any cost and not with everyone," said Tamar Zandberg, an Israeli opposition lawmaker who has filed a court appeal to halt Israeli sales of sensitive technology to South Sudan.

Israel has long viewed South Sudan as an important ally and a counterweight to neighboring Sudan's support for Islamic Palestinian militants. Israel was one of the first countries to recognize South Sudan's independence in 2011, and South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir visited Israel months later.

Since South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013, some 50,000 people have been killed and 2 million have been displaced.

In July, hundreds died when fighting erupted in the capital, Juba. South Sudanese troops went on a nearly four-hour rampage at a hotel, killing a local journalist while forcing others to watch, raping several foreign women, and looting the compound, several witnesses told The Associated Press.

Just days earlier, Netanyahu had traveled to four African countries  Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia  in a visit meant to cultivate new allies in his diplomatic battle with the Palestinians. It was the first visit to sub-Saharan Africa by a sitting Israeli prime minister in nearly three decades.

During the visit, he convened a summit with seven regional leaders, including Kiir  nearly all of whom have been criticized by rights watchdogs for alleged abuses.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has been charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity for his role in stoking ethnic violence, charges that were later withdrawn, with the prosecutor accusing Kenya of blocking her investigation. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, 71, has served for 30 years and is trying to change the constitution so he can effectively extend his rule for life. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and criticized by rights groups for being an authoritarian ruler.

A U.N. report in January said Israeli surveillance equipment was being used by South Sudanese intelligence, allowing it to intercept communications in a "significantly enhanced" crackdown on government opponents.

The report also found that an Israeli automatic rifle known as the Micro Galil is "present in larger numbers than before the outbreak of the conflict."

According to the report, Israel sold the rifles to Uganda in 2007, which transferred the weapons to South Sudan's National Security Service in 2014. According to the report, Israel said it didn't receive a request from Uganda for the transfer.

Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer working with Zandberg, the opposition lawmaker, said weapons export licenses require knowledge of end users and mid users  meaning the transfer would either have been done with Israel's knowledge or would have prompted an investigation into the offending company. He said no investigation was known to have been opened.

The U.N. report said Israeli ACE rifles were used in a massacre that targeted Nuer citizens in Juba in 2013.

Zandberg said Israel stopped sending firearms to South Sudan in 2013 but that export licenses for the surveillance equipment continue. The Israeli Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel is "extremely satisfied with our renewed relations with many African countries and Israel does not interfere in those countries' internal affairs." He rejected criticism of the Israeli outreach, suggesting Israel was being unfairly singled out. The United States and other Western countries also consider many African countries important allies.

The European Union has placed an arms embargo on South Sudan, and following the outbreak of violence, the U.S. imposed sanctions on top military officials from both sides of the conflict.

In August, the U.N. Security Council approved an additional regional protection force to enter South Sudan, but decided against an arms embargo on the country.

"Even without an international arms embargo, states should unilaterally suspend arms transfers given the likelihood that arms would be used to commit human rights violations," said Elizabeth Deng, Amnesty International's South Sudan researcher.

Zandberg and Mack asked Israel's Supreme Court in May to force Israel to explain why it has continued export licenses for the surveillance system to South Sudan. Reflecting Israel's typically opaque approach to such transfers, the Defense Ministry asked for a gag order to be imposed on the proceedings. A hearing is scheduled later this month.

Zandberg is also seeking to change Israel's weapons export oversight law, which she says does not adequately ensure that Israeli arms don't end up in troubled countries.

The law states that Israel shall not supply weapons to any country under a Security Council arms embargo. But the council can often be slow to act, and Zandberg wants Israel's Foreign Ministry to have clout in determining whether it should allow arms transfers.

A 2013 report by Israel's state comptroller pointed to "shortcomings, some of them significant," in export oversight, including a lack of personnel to investigate possible breaches and lax enforcement of requirements for exporters.

"A country that hands out these export licenses has to be accountable and to take responsibility for the (weapons') final use," Zandberg said.

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Beach town reels over chief's death after gun investigation

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (AP)  Worries would seem to be few and far between in Bay St. Louis, a community of sandy beaches and monthly art walks that bounced back strong after 2005's Hurricane Katrina all but wiped it out. But the death of the city's well-respected police chief who shot himself in the chest after being suspended from duty has shaken many in the small Mississippi Gulf Coast community.

The shooting  in the police station's parking lot  happened soon after police chief Mike DeNardo had learned authorities were investigating allegations he illegally sold city-owned firearms, including an assault rifle, a sheriff's deputy said.

Hancock County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Don Bass told The Associated Press that DeNardo illegally sold one city-owned assault rifle, and that authorities were looking into allegations that other city-owned weapons were sold as well. But Bass said the investigation was in the early stages, and the chief's decision to take his own life stunned Bass and others law enforcement.

Balloons are attached to the Bay St. Louis Police Department sign on U.S.Highway 90, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in Bay St. Louis, Miss. The decorations are a tribute to Police Chief Mike De Nardo, who killed himself Thursday. DeNardo was suspended without pay shortly before his death. Mayor Les Fillingame says DeNardo was being investigated by the Hancock County Sheriff's Office, but he wouldn't discuss why. (Karen Nelson/The Sun Herald via AP)

"We can't get his side of the story," Bass lamented. "It's terribly upsetting. We're in shock."

Bass said the investigation started from an anonymous tip.

It wasn't clear if the buyer knew the sale was illegal, and Bass said he could not discuss whether the weapon was evidence from a case or had been purchased for the department's use.

Sheriff Ricky Adam said a "multipoint investigation" had been going on for four months and included payroll fraud, the Sun Herald reported. The police chief left three apology letters  to the sheriff, the mayor and one other unspecified person  for the payroll fraud, Adam said. Those were turned over to the FBI.

Those are the latest developments in a case that has shocked many in this small, tourist-friendly beach community.

On Thursday, hours after DeNardo killed himself, the mayor had said the chief was under investigation by the sheriff's department. A federal official also had said investigators received "unsubstantiated criminal intelligence" about DeNardo. But until now, there were no details of what the investigation concerned.

DeNardo was informed of the investigation Thursday at city police headquarters, where he was suspended and his equipment confiscated. He then went to the parking lot, retrieved a shotgun from his trunk and shot himself, Bass said.

Earlier Friday, Jason Denham, the resident agent in charge for the Gulfport field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the agency received "unsubstantiated criminal intelligence" about DeNardo only a day or two before his death. They had not yet opened a formal investigation and had not approached him or confronted him about the allegations.

He said barring DeNardo's death, the agency would have moved forward to confirm or dispel the intelligence. He could not give details on what the intelligence was about.

Mayor Les Fillingame told The Associated Press on Thursday that he believed DeNardo would have been cleared of any wrongdoing.

DeNardo also appears to have been grieving a personal loss. Doug Seal, a member of the city council, said Friday that DeNardo's mother had passed away last week, and he had been away for her services.

As the beachside bars and restaurants prepared for the weekend influx of tourists, no one could fathom why DeNardo would take his own life. They knew little of the events before he killed himself  his suspension without pay pending an investigation or his recent family loss.

Mockingbird Cafe owner Alicein Schwabacher knew him as a strong but soft-spoken man, a lover of veggie burgers, who ran a good police department and was "loved by the community."

The cafe's executive chef Julie Ragusa spent the morning preparing freshly baked muffins for delivery, along with fresh coffee, to the grieving police department.

"It's tragic and it's sad and this is such a small, tight-knit community it affects a lot of people," Ragusa said.

Ragusa was gassing up her car near the police station Thursday when a sudden onslaught of police cars and other emergency vehicles rushed by.

"I honestly thought they were running some kind of drill," she said.

During an emergency city council meeting Thursday, the council turned control of the police department over to the sheriff's department. The Sun-Herald reported that the move was temporary, as the city goes through a tumultuous period.

An interim replacement for DeNardo has been named but will report to the sheriff's department.

DeNardo had been with the department since 2004, according to the department's website. The mayor appointed him police chief in 2010. Before coming to Bay St. Louis, DeNardo worked for 18 years at the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana, the website said.

DeNardo's death hit especially hard in this city, which bounced back from bleak devastation 11 years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

"So much healing has taken place here. I don't know what he was dealing with, that he felt he had no one to reach out to," Schwabacher said. "He was loved by the community."

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Santana reported from New Orleans. Associated Press writer Jeff Amy contributed to this report.

In this Oct. 20, 2015 photo, Bay St. Louis Chief of Police Michael DeNardo listens during a city council meeting in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Hancock County Coroner Jim Faulk said Chief DeNardo died Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. (John Fitzhugh/The Sun Herald via AP)

Law enforcement officers comfort each other outside Memorial Hospital at Gulfport in Gulfport, Miss., on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016, after Bay St. Louis Police Chief Mike De Nardo died. Hancock County Coroner Jim Faulk said Chief DeNardo died Thursday. (Amanda McCoy/The Sun Herald via AP)
Pakistan court denies bail in alleged 'honor killing'

JEHLUM, Pakistan (AP)  A Pakistani court has denied bail to a man accused of slaying a British-Pakistani woman in the country's latest so-called "honor killing."

Samia Shahid's father, Muhammad Shahid, and ex-husband, Muhammad Shakeel, are accused of killing her in July because she had divorced Shakeel and married a Shiite Muslim. A police investigation concluded that her father stood guard while Shakeel raped her, before the two men strangled her to death.

Najful Hussain Shah, the lawyer for the deceased woman's husband, says the court rejected bail for Shahid on Saturday. It has not yet ruled on Shakeel's request for bail.
2 killed, 25 injured in protests in Indian Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India (AP)  Two people died and at least 25 others were injured Saturday as government forces fired tear gas and clashed with protesters demanding freedom from Indian control in Kashmir.

A police officer said a young man was killed when police and paramilitary soldiers tried to stop protesters from marching to a village in Shopian district.

In another incident, a 25-year-old man died from pellet injuries in Anantnag district following clashes between police and protesters.

A prolonged curfew, communication blackouts and a tightening crackdown have failed to stop some of the largest protests in Kashmir against Indian rule in recent years, triggered by a rebel commander's killing on July 8. Since then, tens of thousands of people have defied security restrictions, staged protests and clashed with government forces on a daily basis to seek an end to Indian rule.

At least 70 civilians have been killed and thousands injured, mostly by government forces firing bullets and shotguns at rock-throwing protesters. Two policemen have been killed and hundreds of government forces have been injured in the clashes.
At least 45 killed in Syria after US-Russia agreement

BEIRUT (AP)  A day of intense airstrikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 people were killed Saturday, just hours after the new U.S.-Russian agreement was reached to try and end the violence in Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Aleppo province and another 39 were killed by airstrikes in neighboring Idlib province.

Contrasting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confer at each other at the conclusion of a joint press conference following their meeting to discuss the crisis in Syria, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

The United States and Russia announced a deal Saturday that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.

Previous Syrian cease-fires or limited truces have also been preceded by spikes in violence as both government and rebel forces seek to consolidate positions or gain new ground in the final remaining hours of warfare.

State news agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, for "humanitarian reasons." It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the U.S.-Russia agreement "was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government."

Saturday's violence shows that it might be difficult to implement the U.S.-Russia agreement as both countries enjoy limited influence on the government and insurgent groups to cease the bombardment.

A cease-fire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Russia is a main backer of Assad's government while the U.S. has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power. Syria's conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try end the violence. At least a quarter million people have been killed and half the country's prewar population displaced.

Saturday's air raids were mostly in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Aleppo has been the center of violence in Syria in recent months where some 2,200 people, including some 700 civilians, have been killed since last July according to the Observatory, which tracks violence in Syria through a network of activists on the ground.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees also reported an airstrike in the Damascus suburb of Douma where the dead included four children.

The Observatory said the deadliest airstrike occurred in the northwestern city of Idlib and struck near the main market. The LCC said the airstrikes were carried out by Russian warplanes, adding that they left a number of civilians dead or wounded.

An amateur video posted online showed wounded people being rushed away as debris filled a street and fire blazed in some shops and apartment buildings. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events.

State TV said insurgents shelled government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, killing one and wounding others. The channel also reported shelling by the Islamic State group on government-held neighborhood in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, saying it killed nine and wounded 26.

The agreement comes at a time when Assad is in a much stronger position than where he was a few months ago. Rebel-held parts of Aleppo are under full siege and two major suburbs of Damascus have been taken out of rebel control after an agreement was reached with the government.

A senior member of the main Syrian opposition umbrella group said Saturday it hopes a new U.S.-Russian agreement will be enforced in order to ease the suffering of civilians while an official with al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria vowed to retaliate throughout the world if the Americans and Russians target them.

Basma Kodmani, of the High Negotiations Committee, told the AP that Russia should pressure Assad's government to abide by the agreement reached early Saturday.

"We are closely following this agreement and are waiting for its details to know the conditions of its implementation," Kodmani said by telephone. She said mechanisms will be needed for the enforcement of the deal, including the "cessation of hostilities and the grounding (of) regime air forces."

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries to besieged areas around the country.

Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target the al-Qaida-linked militant group of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front. They would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.

"Very big questions remain surrounding how exactly the U.S. and Russia plan to determine areas where the opposition is sufficiently distant from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and where they are in fact too close and thus legitimate counter-terrorism targets," said Charles Lister a Middle East Institute fellow who has written a book on jihadist dynamics in the Syria conflict.

Lister said there is no hiding the fact that mainstream opposition forces are extensively "marbled" or "coupled" with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham forces on front lines in southern, central and northwestern Syria. "This is not a reflection of ideological affinity as much as it is merely a military necessity," he said.

Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, one of the most powerful factions in Syria, is part of the Fatah Army coalition that played an instrumental role in the fighting against Assad's forces over the past year in northern Syria.

A JFS official told the AP that if they are hit by Russians and Americans they will strike back "immediately."

"We have holy warriors who will burn the ground," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He added that the group enjoys fighting the "coalition of the Crusaders" saying they have a large number of suicide attackers for the mission.

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EU finance ministers line up behind tax ruling against Apple

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP)  The Dutch finance minister urged Apple on Saturday to "get ready" to pay up.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem and his counterparts from other EU nations lined up behind a finding that the technology company owes billions of euros due to more than a decade of improperly low taxation.

Apple's bill could reach 19 billion euros ($21 billion) with interest, and both the company and Ireland, Apple's European headquarters, are appealing the European Commission ruling.

Netherland's Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem during press conference after the Eurogroup's deliberations at the Informal Meeting of Ministers for economic and financial affairs in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Ministers for economic and financial affairs gather for a two-day informal meeting in the Slovak capital, where they will discuss BREXIT, EU economic policies, and the migration crisis. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)

But as the last day of an EU finance ministers' meeting focused on ways to harmonize tax rules for multinational companies, Dijsselbloem told reporters that these "have an obligation to pay taxes in a fair way."

"International tax loopholes are a thing of the past," said Dijsselbloem, who also heads the 19-strong group of nations within the EU using the euro currency. Apple will have to pay back taxes both in the United States and Europe, he added, "so get ready to do that."

Philip Hammond, his British counterpart, said the EU was keen "to make sure that international corporations pay the right tax at the right place."

"That's the fair way to do it, and we are going to make sure it happens," Hammond said.

The Apple decision is only one of several faulting international companies  and the countries hosting them  for exploiting European exemptions to pay minimal taxes. Both Starbucks and Fiat Chrysler are contesting rulings handed down last year that they are each about 30 million euros ($33 million) in arrears.

The European Commission hopes to have ready by fall proposals for multinational companies operating in the EU that tightens up rules on tax bases. Pushing back against U.S. criticism of the Apple decision, EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici on Saturday hailed U.S. investment as an "important driver of growth and employment in Europe."

The commission ruling, he said, "is not a message that investors from U.S. companies are not welcome."

While Ireland would reap a huge windfall from the extra money, it opposes the ruling because it has also benefited from the setup. Multinationals have such huge revenue that small countries can reap big gains even from low taxes, and they also gain from the jobs created.

Other countries are expressing interest in any payout, however. Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said Austrian, Italian and France tax authorities are following the case closely with the option of posting claims, and a senior OECD official attending the meeting suggested they could have right to do so.

Angel Gurria, who heads the 35-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, cited the EU Commission ruling on Apple, saying it invited other nations that might have a claim "to come forward."

Before turning to tax issues, the meeting focused on Greece. Ministers and senior EU officials in the Slovak capital urged Athens to speed up enactment of economic reforms so it can get its hands on the next batch of bailout cash before the end of October.

Greece, which depends on the money due from the bailout to stay afloat, has recently fallen short of reform commitments, stoking concerns of a flare-up in the country's debt crisis. Because it hasn't delivered on the reform promises it has made, it can't yet get hold of the 2.8 billion euros ($3.2 billion) due from this current phase of its bailout program.

Netherland's Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem during press conference after the Eurogroup's deliberations at the Informal Meeting of Ministers for economic and financial affairs in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Ministers for economic and financial affairs gather for a two-day informal meeting in the Slovak capital, where they will discuss BREXIT, EU economic policies and the migration crisis. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)

Participants pose for a group photo, after the Eurogroup's deliberations at the Informal Meeting of Ministers for economic and financial affairs, in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Ministers for economic and financial affairs gathered for a two-day informal meeting in the Slovak capital, where they will discuss BREXIT, EU economic policies and the migration crisis. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)

British Minister of Finance Philip Hammond prepares for the group photo, after the Eurogroup's deliberations at the Informal Meeting of Ministers for economic and financial affairs, in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Ministers for economic and financial affairs gathered for a two-day informal meeting in the Slovak capital, where they will discuss BREXIT, EU economic policies and the migration crisis. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)
Top Saudi cleric will not deliver hajj sermon

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)  Saudi Arabia's top cleric will not be delivering this year's prestigious hajj sermon on Sunday for the first time in more than three decades.

Al-Riyadh newspaper reported Saturday that Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, who has delivered the sermon since 1981, will be replaced by Sheikh Saleh bin Hamid.

Hamid previously served as chairman of the top consultative Shura Council and was appointed to the Supreme Judicial Council before serving as a royal adviser. The newspaper did not give a reason for the change.

Muslim pilgrims prepare themselves for Friday prayers in front of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
The Latest: Hezbollah backs Syrian cease-fire

BEIRUT (AP)  The Latest on Syria's civil war (all times local):

11:30 p.m.

Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, which is taking part in Syria's civil war, says it supports the cease-fire but vows to continue fighting against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida's affiliate.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hold a press conference following their meeting in Geneva, where they discussed the crisis in Syria, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Hezbollah's media arm known as the Military Media says the "allies of Syria" abide by whatever the Syrian government decides. The Military Media said late Saturday that the truce is an opportunity that everyone should take for the interest of the Syrian people.

The group vowed to repel any attack its members are subjected to during the truce.

Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad's forces.

The announcement came after the Syrian government said it supports the U.S.-Russia agreement adding that it will cease its military operations in Aleppo.

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10:45 p.m.

Syrian opposition activists say intense airstrikes on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo and nearby villages and towns have killed at least 45 people.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 people were killed Saturday, just hours after a new U.S.-Russian agreement was reached to try and end the violence in Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 69 people were killed in Aleppo province, including 13 children and teenagers.

Contrasting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

The United States and Russia announced a deal Saturday that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.

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8 p.m.

Syria's state news agency SANA says the Syrian government accepts the new U.S.-Russian cease-fire agreement.

The Saturday report says that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, for "humanitarian reasons." It adds that the U.S.-Russia agreement "was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government."

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3 p.m.

Turkey is hailing a new U.S.-Russian agreement aimed at halting the fighting in Syria and delivering humanitarian aid.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that it was pleased with the deal, which is to take effect on Monday, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

The ministry says Turkey will deliver aid through the United Nations to the Syrian city of Aleppo, which has seen heavy fighting in recent months. It says the agreement is "critical" for ending the fighting throughout Syria, and specifically Aleppo.

Turkey is a leading backer of the rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad. It launched a military incursion into Syria last month to battle the Islamic State group and halt the advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, which it views with suspicion.

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12:45 p.m.

The main Syrian opposition umbrella group says it hopes a new U.S.-Russian agreement will be enforced in order to ease the suffering of civilians.

Basma Kodmani, of the High Negotiations Committee, tells The Associated Press that Russia should pressure President Bashar Assad's government to abide by the agreement reached early Saturday.

The United States and Russia announced a deal that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unexpected new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on Assad's forces.
Q&A: The hajj pilgrimage and its significance in Islam

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Around 2 million Muslims from around the world are beginning the five-day hajj pilgrimage on Saturday. They will circle Islam's most sacred site, the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, and take part in a series of rituals intended to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims.

Here's a look at the pilgrimage and what it means for Muslims:

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Muslim pilgrims prepare themselves for Friday prayers in front of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE HAJJ?

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform it once in their lifetime. The hajj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and start fresh. Many seek to deepen their faith on the hajj, with women taking on the Islamic hair covering known as "hijab" upon returning from the pilgrimage.

Despite the physical challenges of the hajj, many people rely on canes or crutches and insist on walking the routes. Those who cannot afford the hajj are sometimes financed by charities or community leaders. Others save their entire lives to make the journey. A few even walk thousands of miles by foot to Saudi Arabia, taking months to arrive.

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WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE HAJJ?

While following a route the Prophet Muhammad once walked, the rites of hajj are believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

Muslims believe Ibrahim's faith was tested when God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Ismail. Ibrahim was prepared to submit to the command, but then God stayed his hand, sparing his son. In the Christian and Jewish version of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill his other son, Isaac.

Pilgrims also trace the path of Ibrahim's wife, Hagar, who Muslims believe ran between two hills seven times searching for water for her dying son. Tradition holds that God then brought forth a spring that runs to this day. That spring, known as the sacred well of Zamzam, is believed to possess healing powers and pilgrims often return from the hajj with bottles of its water as gifts.

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WHY IS THE KAABA SO IMPORTANT TO MUSLIMS?

Islamic tradition holds that the Kaaba was built by Ibrahim and Ismail as a house of monotheistic worship thousands of years ago. Over the years, the Kaaba was reconstructed and attracted different kinds of pilgrims, including early Christians who once lived in the Arabian Peninsula. In pre-Islamic times, the Kaaba was used to house pagan idols worshipped by local tribes.

Muslims do not worship the Kaaba, but it is Islam's most sacred site because it represents the metaphorical house of God and the oneness of God in Islam. Observant Muslims around the world face toward the Kaaba during the five daily prayers.

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WHAT ARE THE RITUALS PERFORMED DURING THE HAJJ?

Pilgrims enter into a state of spiritual purity known as "ihram" that is aimed at shedding symbols of materialism, giving up worldly pleasures and focusing on the inner self over outward appearance.

Women forgo makeup and perfume and wear loose-fitting clothing and a head covering, while men dress in seamless, white terrycloth garments. The white garments are forbidden to contain any stitching  a restriction meant to emphasize the equality of all Muslims and prevent wealthier pilgrims from differentiating themselves with more elaborate garments.

Muslims are forbidden from engaging in sexual intercourse, cutting their hair or trimming nails while in ihram. It is also forbidden for pilgrims to argue, fight or lose their tempers during the hajj. Inevitably, though, the massive crowds and physical exhaustion of the journey test pilgrims' patience and tolerance.

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THR FIRST DAY OF HAJJ

The hajj traditionally begins in Mecca, with a smaller pilgrimage called the "umrah", which can be performed year-round. To perform the umrah, Muslims circle the Kaaba counter-clockwise seven times while reciting supplications to God, then walk between the two hills traveled by Hagar. Mecca's Grand Mosque, the world's largest, encompasses the Kaaba and the two hills.

Before heading to Mecca, many pilgrims visit the city of Medina where the Prophet Muhammad is buried and where he built his first mosque.

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THE SECOND DAY OF HAJJ

After spending the night in the massive valley of Mina, where 160,000 tents are set up to house them, the pilgrims head to Mount Arafat, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Mecca, for the pinnacle of the pilgrimage.

The Prophet Muhammad is believed to have said that hajj is Arafat, in reference to the day spent there and its importance. Pilgrims are packed shoulder to shoulder, with some men and women openly weeping and praying.

Tens of thousands scale a hill called Jabal al-Rahma, or mountain of mercy, in Arafat. It is here where Muhammad delivered his final sermon, calling for equality and for Muslim unity. He reminded his followers of women's rights and that every Muslim life and property is sacred.

Around sunset, pilgrims head to an area called Muzdalifa, nine kilometers (5.5 miles) west of Arafat. Many walk, while others use buses. They spend the night there and pick up pebbles along the way that will be used in a symbolic stoning of the devil back in Mina, where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk Ibrahim out of submitting to God's will.

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THE FINAL THREE DAYS OF HAJJ

The last three days of the hajj are marked by three events: a final circling of the Kaaba, casting stones in Mina and removing the ihram. Men often shave their heads at the end in a sign of renewal.

The final days of hajj coincide with Eid al-Adha, or the festival of sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims around the world to commemorate Ibrahim's test of faith. During the three-day Eid, Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

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Follow Aya Batrawy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ayaelb

Muslim pilgrims prepare them selves for Friday prayer in front of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Muslim pilgrims make their way at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Turkish woman prays on top of Noor Mountain, where Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation from God to preach Islam, on the outskirts of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Muslim pilgrims make their way at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

An African man reaches the top of Noor Mountain, where Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation from God to preach Islam, on the outskirts of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. The Mecca Royal Clock Tower Hotel is seen at center. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Chechens pray atop of Noor Mountain, where Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation from God to preach Islam, as Egyptians at right watch the view, on the outskirts of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. The Mecca Royal Clock Tower Hotel is seen at center. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Election hacks raise fears of Russian influence

WASHINGTON (AP)  Recent hacks of election data systems in at least two states have raised fear among lawmakers and intelligence officials that a foreign government is trying to seed doubt about  or even manipulate  the presidential race, renewing debate over when cyberattacks cross red lines and warrant a U.S. response.

Federal officials already are investigating cyberattacks at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, believed to be the work of hackers tied to the Russian government. Trolling a private organization's emails is one thing, cyberexperts say, but breaching state election systems to undermine the integrity of the November ballot would be quite another.

"The mere access to those systems is incredibly concerning to me," said Sean Kanuck, former national intelligence officer for cyber issues at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "I think that the manipulation of election data or voting systems would warrant a national security response."

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2016 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds the Cabinet meeting in Moscow's Kremlin, Russia. Recent hacks of election data systems in at least two states have raised fear among lawmakers and intelligence officials that a foreign government is trying to seed doubt about - or even manipulate - the presidential race, renewing debate over when cyberattacks cross red lines and warrant a U.S. response. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

No one has yet confirmed that data was actually manipulated. Law enforcement and intelligence officials are investigating the election-related breaches, but also are looking at the extent to which Russia could be involved in a disinformation campaign to diminish U.S. clout worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow wasn't involved in the hacking of emails of the Democratic Party.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said last week he thinks it's unlikely that Russia is trying to influence the election. "I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out," he said on RT America, the U.S. partner of Kremlin-backed network Russia Today.

But Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued a public warning to Moscow last week while in Europe. "We will not ignore attempts to interfere with our democratic processes," Carter said. Asked later to elaborate, Carter said he was referring to Russia's use of hybrid warfare  "interference in the internal affairs of nations, short of war"  which he said is a concern across Europe.

Late last month, the FBI sent a "flash alert" to warn state officials to strengthen their election systems in light of evidence that hackers targeted data systems in two states. The FBI described a "compromise" of one elections board website and "attempted intrusion activities" in another state's system. The FBI didn't name the states, but state election websites in Illinois and Arizona experienced hack-related shutdowns in the parts of the websites that handle online voter registration.

Manipulating an election in the United States would be difficult, officials say, because there are thousands of electoral jurisdictions across the 50 states.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday that the election system is "so decentralized, so vast ... it would very difficult to alter the count."

FBI Director James Comey agrees.

"The vote counting in this country tends to be kind of clunky," which is a blessing because it makes harder for hackers to infiltrate, Comey said. "It makes it more resilient and farther away from an actor who might be looking to crawl down a fiber-optic cable, and find there actually is no fiber optic cable  that it's actually some woman named Sally and a guy named Joe and they roll the thing (voting machine) over and pull out the punch cards," Comey said.

Such reassurances have not eased concern on Capitol Hill, yet reaction has been mixed.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada was "deeply shaken" after a half-hour briefing about Russian activities that he received at the FBI office in Las Vegas, according to an individual familiar with the briefing. The individual was not authorized to publicly discuss the briefing and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

An aide to another senator, who also was briefed, said what gave the lawmaker "pause" was that Russia might be meddling in the United States in the same way it has in Eastern Europe where it has a history of using cyberattacks to facilitate their political objectives.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is bipartisan concern about the "Russian government engaging in covert influence activities." He said a section of this year's intelligence authorization bill directs the president to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.'"

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, however, that he's not surprised by the hacks.

"I just think people have been asleep," he said. "This is the challenge of going to digital records, digital voting. This is why it's imperative to keep paper voting."

How the U.S. should respond to cyberattacks is the subject of much debate.

John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department, described a three-pronged approach: figure out who's responsible, don't be afraid to take it public and routinely impose consequences.

Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI, said each one of those steps presents challenges. "In terms of options for action, they are limited  very understandably sometimes  by international policy constraints, diplomatic challenges and the concern about the impact on partners and relationship with partners."

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said each cyberattack will require a different U.S. response. In some cases, it could begin with "naming and shaming" responsible parties, he said. Other cases call for economic or other sanctions. When it comes to cyberattacks by North Korea, perhaps the U.S. should consider dropping public leaflets aimed at denouncing the repressive North Korean government, he said.

"I think the failure to act, the failure to establish any deterrent, the failure to even name responsible parties  particularly in the case of Russia  only invites further exploitation, further attacks and further effort to disrupt our elections," Schiff said.

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Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.
Checking out: Drug users take advantage of public libraries

The same qualities that make libraries ideal for studying and reading  unfettered public access, quiet corners and nooks, minimal interaction with other people  also make them appealing places to shoot up heroin, librarians are finding.

In Norfolk, Virginia, a 47-year-old man died after a patron found him in a library restroom. In Batesville, Indiana, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, police revived others in library restrooms using a popular overdose antidote.

The body of a homeless man who frequented the Oak Park Public Library in suburban Chicago might have been there for days, fully clothed and slumped on the toilet in a restroom on the quiet third floor, before a maintenance worker unlocked it on a Monday morning in April and discovered his inglorious demise. The empty syringe and lighter in his pockets and the cut soda can in the trash pointed to the cause, an accidental heroin overdose.

In this September 9, 2014 file photo, Ann Arbor police, firemen, and medical personnel respond to an overdose at the Ann Arbor District Library in Ann Arbor, Mich. Librarians are finding themselves face-to-face with the heroin and opiod epidemic as drug users take advantage of the free access to quiet areas where people often keep to themselves. (Katie McLean, The Ann Arbor News via AP)

"On both a personal and a professional level, we were all very shocked and of course worried about how this could happen in our spaces," said executive director David Seleb, who fired the security company responsible for clearing the library before closing.

The country's heroin and painkiller problem has produced public overdoses in many places, including restaurants, gas stations, alleys and even hospitals, but the inherent attributes of public libraries leave them especially exposed. They're free and open for whoever walks in, and lingering is welcome, no transaction or interaction required.

"People need to know that this is happening everywhere and that public libraries haven't done anything wrong to cause it to happen in public libraries," said Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan.

Her library already had removed bathroom ceilings and toilet tanks where people could hide drugs and restroom entrances that could be locked  changes made over a decade ago to curb cocaine trafficking, Parker said.

She raised drug-abuse concerns again in 2014 when officials were discussing a proposed park next to the library. Though unpleasant, starting a public discussion about drug and alcohol abuse observed at the library spurred a beneficial community response, Parker said.

These days, police routinely walk through the library, and social workers set up shop there, checking in with folks. All that, Parker said, strips away some anonymity.

"Anonymity allows people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise in public places," she said, "and if you can take away anonymity, you can help change behavior."

In Ohio, peace officers from Toledo's library system are being trained to help the sheriff's Drug Abuse Response Team. Boston's libraries have needle drop boxes and have offered overdose prevention training for employees and residents.

At the Humboldt County Library in Eureka, California, a librarian turned life-saver when she realized a man apparently sleeping in a chair was actually unresponsive, his lips turning blue. Health officials had provided the overdose antidote naloxone  often known by the brand name Narcan  for the library, so librarian Kitty Yancheff injected it into the man's leg, then into a still-limp arm before he gurgled and fluttered his eyes.

"I felt grateful that we had this Narcan on hand and that we were able to save his life, but it was kind of surreal," said Yancheff, the library's public services division manager.

It was also a bit ironic, considering Yancheff had given a presentation titled "Librarians as First Responders" during a conference years earlier. She was talking about how libraries increasingly provide non-traditional services, such as job-search help and de facto daytime sheltering for the homeless; she hadn't figured on overdose rescue becoming part of the job.

Many librarians don't go that far, turning instead to emergency responders or security staff.

The American Library Association encourages librarians to get training on interacting with special populations, such as drug users and the homeless, but stresses the importance of partnering with groups such as police and social workers, said Julie Todaro, the association's president.

"Clearly when you have the epidemic that we have and the issues with the patrons that we have, we need to organize assistance," she said. "That doesn't mean we ourselves provide it."

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Find Kantele Franko at http://www.twitter.com/kantele10. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/kantele-franko.

In this September 9, 2014 file photo, Ann Arbor police, firemen, and medical personnel respond to an overdose at the Ann Arbor District Library in Ann Arbor, Mich. Librarians are finding themselves face-to-face with the heroin and opiod epidemic as drug users take advantage of the free access to quiet areas where people often keep to themselves.(Katie McLean, The Ann Arbor News via AP)
EU increases aid to migrants in Greece ahead of winter

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP)  The European Union will add 115 million euros ($129 million) in funding to humanitarian organizations in Greece to assist programs for refugees and migrants before the winter, officials said Saturday.

The money would be used to support refugee schooling, food stamps, heating and living facilities for unaccompanied minors, said Christos Stylianides, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

"We have to respond to the needs of migrants in the EU. Most of these people risked their lives and traveled in a plastic boat to get here. We are providing help to improve the conditions they are facing," he said.

A Syrian woman cooks on a makeshift fire at Ritsona refugee camp, north of Athens, which hosts about 600 refugees and migrants on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. The refugee crisis is expected to be a central issue in discussions Friday at a meeting in Athens of leaders from Mediterranean countries in the European Union. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Stylianides spoke in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki after meeting Greek government officials.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece due to European border closures.

The EU money was pledged a day after U.S.-based Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the government for continuing to use police cells to house unaccompanied migrant children.

Ioannis Mouzalas, a Greek minister for migration, said the government was working on building more permanent structures at camps to replace tents.

"We have said repeatedly that many of the facilities we have are not good quality and we are working to improve that," he said, adding that it would take several months to create new facilities for children who traveled to Greece without adult relatives.

New shelter space on the mainland will also help reduce overcrowding at camps on Greek islands where several violent protests have occurred in recent weeks.

Under a deal between the EU and Turkey, migrants who arrived on the islands after March 20 are being held for deportation back to Turkey if their asylum claims are rejected.

The rights group Amnesty International on Saturday renewed its criticism of the EU-Turkey agreement after a Syrian asylum seeker had his claim rejected by a government appeals board in Greece.

"This ruling takes for granted that a Syrian will be fully protected in Turkey, and hence is fundamentally flawed," Amnesty's John Dalhuisen said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press.

"The idea that Turkey fully respects the rights of asylum seekers is a fiction."

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Derek Gatopoulos reported from Athens.

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Follow Costas Kantouris at http://www.twitter.com/CostasKantouris and Derek Gatopoulos at http://www.twitter.com/dgatopoulos

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Online:

EU Statement: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2986_en.htm

HRW report: http://buff.ly/2bX7brr

A Syrian man hammers a nail on woods as he prepares his family tent for winter at Ritsona refugee camp north of Athens, which hosts about 600 refugees and migrants on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. The refugee crisis is expected to be a central issue in discussions Friday at a meeting in Athens of leaders from Mediterranean countries in the European Union. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Serbia police arrest migrant suspected of stabbing local man

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Serbian police say they have arrested a migrant suspected of stabbing a young Serbian man in a brawl.

Police said Saturday that the 35-year-old migrant faces charges of attempted murder for inflicting life-threatening injuries on the 27-year-old man.

The incident happened overnight in the town of Sid, near the Croatian border.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Serbia, looking for a way to cross into neighboring EU countries Croatia or Hungary. Many have turned to people smugglers to guide them through clandestine routes.
Clinton says 'Deplorables' comment is 'grossly generalistic'

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP)  Hillary Clinton said Saturday that she was wrong to put half of Donald Trump's supporters in a "basket of deplorables," but she didn't back down from describing his campaign as largely built on prejudice and paranoia. The Republican accused her of a "grotesque attack on American voters."

Less than 24 hours after she made the comments at a private New York City fundraiser, Clinton said in a statement, "last night I was 'grossly generalistic' and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half'  that was wrong." But she argued that the word "deplorable" was reasonable to describe much of Trump's campaign.

"He has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people," the Democratic nominee said.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a LBGT For Hillary Gala at the Cipriani Club, in New York, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Responding in a statement, Trump said it was "disgraceful that Hillary Clinton makes the worst mistake of the political season and instead of owning up to this grotesque attack on American voters, she tries to turn it around with a pathetic rehash of the words and insults used in her failing campaign?"

Trump added that Clinton was showing "bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans," arguing that she was "incapable to serve as President of the United States."

Clinton, who has said she is the candidate to unify a divided country, made the "deplorables" comment at an LGBT fundraiser Friday night at a New York City restaurant, with about 1,000 people in attendance. She has made similar comments recently, including on an Israeli television station.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic  you name it," she said, before stressing that other Trump supporters are frustrated and need sympathy.

Trump and his supporters quickly pounced on the remark, arguing that it revealed Clinton as disconnected from struggling Americans.

"Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard-working people. I think it will cost her at the polls!" Trump said in a tweet.

Running mate Mike Pence, in remarks at the Values Voter conference in Washington, shot back: "The truth of the matter is that the men and women who support Donald Trump's campaign are hard-working Americans, farmers, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community, members of every class of this country who know that we can make America great again."

Of course, while Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump's brand is controversy. At a rally in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, he said Clinton is "so protected" that "she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart. And she wouldn't be prosecuted."

Clinton's rhetorical stumble came as the candidates head into the final two months of the campaign, with Trump trying to make up ground before the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton has not let the media into many private fundraisers, but press was allowed in to hear her remarks Friday. At the New York restaurant, Clinton bemoaned the people she described as "deplorables," saying "unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people  now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks  they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America," said Clinton, who was the country's top diplomat during President Barack Obama's first term.

Clinton then pivoted and tried to characterize the other half of Trump's supporters, putting them in "that other basket" and saying they need empathy.

She described them as "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change."

Seeking to explain the statements, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a series of tweets after the remarks that Clinton has been talking about the "alternative right," or "alt-right" movement, which often is associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity," oppose multiculturalism and defend "Western values." Merrill argued that "alt-right" leaders are supporting Trump and "their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events."

But the moment recalled comments about voters  also at private fundraisers  that have tripped up presidential nominees in the past.

Weeks before the 2012 election, Republican Mitt Romney landed in hot water for saying that 47 percent of the public would vote for President Barack Obama "no matter what" because they depended on government benefits and his job was "not to worry about those people."

During the 2008 Democratic primary, then-Sen. Obama said that small-town voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

On Saturday, Clinton's staff said she attended another fundraiser at the Armonk, New York, home of attorney David Boies. But reporters traveling with her campaign were not allowed in and did not see her.

Trump, meanwhile, did not address Clinton's comment at his only scheduled public appearance on Saturday, a funeral in St. Louis for social conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Trump noted that Schlafly rooted for the underdog, and "the idea that so-called little people, or the little person that she loved so much, could beat the system  often times, the rigged system."

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Associated Press writer Steve Peoples contributed from St. Louis.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before the funeral Mass for Phyllis Schlafly Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016, in St. Louis. Schlafly, the outspoken conservative activist who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group, died Monday at the age of 92. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Melania meet with family members of Phyllis Schlafly before the start of a funeral Mass for Schlafly, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016, in St. Louis. Schlafly, the outspoken conservative activist who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group, died Monday at the age of 92. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Melania meet with family members of Phyllis Schlafly before the start of a funeral Mass for Schlafly, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016, in St. Louis. Schlafly, the outspoken conservative activist who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group, died Monday at the age of 92. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)
Brock Turner sex assault focuses attention on sex registries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  When ex-Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner became a registered sex offender for life last Tuesday, he joined a nationwide list of registered sex criminals that has grown dramatically in recent years to more than 800,000.

Even some who have denounced Turner's six-month jail sentence as too lenient for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman question whether he should spend his life with the stigma and onerous restrictions of a registered sex offender.

They join a growing number of defense attorneys, advocates and judges who are questioning the fairness of applying lifetime, blanket restrictions to expanding definitions of sex crimes that frequently treat first-time offenders the same as serial rapists.

FILE--In this Sept. 6, 2016, file photo, Brock Turner registers as a sex offender at the Greene County sheriff's office in Xenia, Ohio. When the former Stanford University swimmer registered as a sex offender he joined a nationwide legion of criminals that has grown dramatically in recent years and now numbers more than 800,000. As registration has expanded along with the definition of sex crimes, so have legal challenges to a one-size-fits-all punishment that can treat a one-time peeping tom the same as a serial rapist.(Jarod Thrush/Dayton Daily News via AP, file)

In California, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama it's impossible for people convicted of any sex crime to be removed from the online registries showing their pictures, addresses, convictions and probation details. Offenders have been turned into victims themselves when they are targeted in vigilante attacks or can't find jobs or places to live, critics say.

Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, who lambasted Turner's sentence as too lenient and is leading a campaign to oust the judge who imposed, said requiring the 21-year-old man to be registered as a sex offender until he dies may be too harsh.

"No one should be defined by their worst decision for the rest of their life," Dauber said in an interview. "Deciding who should be removed, which cases or crimes should qualify would require thoughtful legislation, a fair process and, of course, an unbiased judge."

Dauber stressed there are many criminals who deserve lifetime registration, but said at some point after at least 10 years on the registry Turner should be given a chance to get off it by proving he has successfully rehabilitated himself.

Turner was released from jail Sept. 2 and moved to his parent's home in Bellbrook, Ohio, registering as a sex offender at the Greene County sheriff's office four days after his release from a California jail for good behavior after serving half his sentence. Protesters demonstrated in front of the home before and after his arrival and Turner's parents told police eggs were thrown at the house.

Advocates for sex crime victims insist that lifetime registries make the public safer by preventing offender recidivism and giving citizens and police access to crucial information on the whereabouts of sex offenders and where they are prohibited from going  like schools and other areas frequented by children. Access to that information in 50 state registries plus a federal government registry, they say, far outweighs complaints about the registry burdens for criminals who have served their prison sentences.

"Sex offender registries are an important part of the criminal justice system," said Staca Shehan of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "Registries assist law enforcement and the public  to keep track of the locations of convicted sex offenders."

But some defense attorneys say registration has turned into such a harsh punishment that they now negotiate longer jail terms for their clients in return for prosecutors dropping sex offender registry requirements, trading incarceration for pleading guilty to charges that don't require registration.

"At least a prison sentence ends," said Gary Goodman, a public defense lawyer from Palo Alto, California. "Registration is forever."

Most states allow peeping toms and people convicted of crimes like indecent exposure to have their names removed from registries after 10 to 30 years of good behavior, while more serious sex crimes like rape and the sexual assault Turner was convicted of are punishable with lifetime registration whether they are committed by first time offenders or people with a history of sex crimes.

California attorney Janice Bellucci has filed more than 50 federal lawsuits challenging sex offender registration conditions in cases that have forced cities to amend or eliminate residency restrictions imposed on criminals listed in in the registries, rescinding prohibitions for them to be physically present in public places like street side bus stops and parks.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 upheld the legality of sex offender registries, but the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that changes to Michigan's sex offender registry law cannot be applied retroactively to offenders convicted before the changes were put in place.

Calling Michigan's residency and loitering prohibitions for registered sex offenders similar to "the ancient punishment of banishment," the appeals court panel wrote that the state "brands registrants as moral lepers solely on the basis of a prior conviction."

Federal officials have been trying with mixed success for a decade to get all 50 states to adopt uniform registration requirements as part of a single national database they say would make the system uniform and improve tracking of sex offenders who move from state to state. But only 17 states have substantially compiled so far.

The federally registry has helped investigators quickly identify potential sex crimes suspects and capture offenders who have fled their home states, said Luis deBacca, the U.S. Justice Department official in charge of the federal sex offender registration and tracking office.

"We really do see this as making a difference in the community," deBacca said.

n this Sept. 2, 2016, Brock Turner leaves the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose, Calif. When the former Stanford University swimmer registered as a sex offender in Xenia, Ohio, Sept. 6, 2016, he joined a nationwide legion of criminals that has grown dramatically in recent years and now numbers more than 800,000. As registration has expanded along with the definition of sex crimes, so have legal challenges to a one-size-fits-all punishment that can treat a one-time peeping tom the same as a serial rapist. (Dan Honda/Bay Area News Group via AP, file)
The Latest: Romania police find 10 migrants hidden in truck

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  The Latest on Europe's migration crisis (all times local):

5:05 p.m.

Romanian border police have found 10 migrants, including two children, hidden in a truck transporting paper that was crossing the border into Romania from Bulgaria.

Children play at the top of a tent at Ritsona refugee camp north of Athens, which hosts about 600 refugees and migrants on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. The refugee crisis is expected to be a central issue in discussions Friday at a meeting in Athens of leaders from Mediterranean countries in the European Union. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A statement said that the migrants, nine Syrians and an Iraqi man, arrived at Romanian customs on Saturday morning.

The Bulgarian truck driver told border authorities he was transporting paper from Bulgaria to Germany.

Police checked the vehicle and found the migrants hidden in the back of the truck next to pallets loaded with piles of paper.

Police said they paid 4,000 euros ($4,050) each for transport and were had paid to be left in Vienna. The migrants and driver will be handed over to Bulgarian authorities.

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4:10 p.m.

Serbian police say they have arrested a migrant suspected of stabbing a young Serbian man in a brawl.

Police said Saturday that the 35-year-old migrant faces charges of attempted murder for inflicting life-threatening injuries on the 27-year-old man.

The incident happened overnight in the town of Sid, near the Croatian border.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Serbia, looking for a way to cross into neighboring EU countries Croatia or Hungary. Many have turned to people smugglers to guide them through clandestine routes.

Serbian officials have said that most of the migrants in Serbia are young men from Afghanistan who have little chance of asylum in the European Union. Serbia has stepped up border patrols with Macedonia and Bulgaria to prevent a further influx.

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3:20 p.m.

The European Union says it will add 115 million euros ($129 million) in funding to humanitarian organizations in Greece to assist programs for refugees and migrants ahead of the winter.

Christos Stylianides, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, said Saturday the money would be used to support refugee schooling, food stamps, heating and living facilities for unaccompanied minors.

He spoke in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki after meeting Greek government officials.

Some 60,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece due to European border closures.
The Latest: Kaine predicts Catholic shift on gay marriage

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times EDT):

10:15 p.m.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is predicting the Roman Catholic Church may eventually change its opposition to gay marriage.

FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2016 file photo, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. speaks during a rally at the J Douglas Galyon Depot in Greensboro, N.C. Kaine is predicting that the Roman Catholic Church may eventually change its opposition to gay marriage. Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. He told the Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016, in Washington that he changed his mind about gay marriage in 2005 and that his church may follow suit one day. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)

Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. He told the Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner Saturday in Washington that he changed his mind about gay marriage in 2005 and that his church may follow suit one day.

Kaine points to God and what he calls the beautiful diversity of the human family and says he believes "we're supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it."

The president of the Human Rights Campaign, Chad Griffin, called Republican nominee Donald Trump the "gravest threat" the LGBTQ community has faced in a presidential election.

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4:36 p.m.

Donald Trump is planning to mark the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks by attending the official commemoration at ground zero.

A person familiar with the decision, but not authorized to discuss it until it's announced publicly, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Trump is expected to attend the annual commemoration at the World Trade Center site.

His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also attending. It is not clear whether the two will cross paths, and neither candidate is expected to make public remarks.

Both Trump, a native New Yorker, and Clinton, who was senator from New York at the time of the attacks, have agreed to refrain from campaigning Sunday, continuing the tradition of setting aside partisan politics on the somber anniversary.

 by Jonathan Lemire

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4:05 p.m.

Donald Trump says that Hillary Clinton's remarks calling half of his supporters a "basket of deplorables" is "the worst mistake of the political season."

Trump said in a statement Saturday that "her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans."

Clinton made her comments at an LGBT fundraiser in New York late Friday, then walked them back Saturday, saying in a statement that it was "grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea."

She specified that she believes the word "deplorable" was reasonable to describe much of Trump's campaign.

Trump is calling Clinton's comments a "grotesque attack" and questioning how she can be president when "she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans."

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3 p.m.

Donald Trump told mourners at a funeral service for conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly that she promoted the idea that the "little person" can beat "the rigged system."

Trump spoke at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis Saturday, where he said that Schlafly is looking down on those gathered, telling them to "keep up the fight."

The Republican nominee said Schlafly was "there for me when it was not at all fashionable."

Trump concluded his brief remarks speaking to Schlafly, saying, "we will never, ever let you down."

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2:50 p.m.

Donald Trump has arrived at the funeral of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.

The Republican nominee arrived Saturday with his wife, Melania, at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, where the funeral will be held.

Trump is expected to speak at the Catholic service for Schlafly, who died Monday at the age of 92.

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2:05 p.m.

Hillary Clinton says she regrets describing half of Donald Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables."

In a statement Saturday, Clinton said that, "many of Trump's supporters are hard-working Americans who just don't feel like the economy or our political system are working for them."

She said she was "grossly generalistic" in her remarks at the LGBT fundraiser in New York Friday and, she added, "that's never a good idea."

She said she regrets only half of her statement, emphasizing that it is "really deplorable" that Trump is affiliated with people from the right-winged "alt-right movement," and that "David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values."

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1:55 p.m.

The head of the Republican National Committee is describing Hillary Clinton's description of Donald Trump supporters as "insulting."

In a statement Saturday, a day after Clinton said she regards half of Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables," Reince Priebus said Clinton is showing "her outright contempt for ordinary people."

He added that millions of Americans support the Republican nominee because, "they are sick of corrupt career politicians like Hillary Clinton."

Clinton made her remarks at an LGBT fundraiser in New York late Friday. She then pivoted and tried to characterize the other half of Trump's supporters, putting them in "that other basket" and saying they need understanding and empathy.

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12:00 p.m.

Donald Trump's running mate is firing back at comments by Hillary Clinton in which she described Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables."

Mike Pence said Saturday at the Values Voters Summit in Washington that Clinton's comments should be "denounced in the strongest possible terms."

He said that Trump supporters are "not a basket of anything," adding, they are "members of every class of this country who know that we can make America great again."

Clinton made her comments at an LGBT fundraiser in New York late Friday, adding that Trump supporters are "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic  you name it."

Pence said, "the men and women who support Donald Trump's campaign are hard-working Americans: Farms, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community."

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11:05 a.m.

Donald Trump says he'll be in St. Louis later Saturday to attend the funeral of Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group.

Schlafly died Monday at age 92.

Trump tweets that he'll be in Missouri with his wife, Melania, for the funeral of "a wonderful and truly respected woman."

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11 a.m.

Hillary Clinton has verbally banished half of Donald Trump's backers to a "basket of deplorables," and the Republican presidential nominee is quickly pouncing.

He says she's smeared many Americans and will pay a heavy political price.

Clinton  who's said she's the candidate to unify a divided country made the comment at an LGBT fundraiser Friday night at a New York City restaurant, with about 1,000 people in attendance.

Here's what she said:

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic  you name it."

Clinton then pivoted and tried to characterize the other half of Trump's supporters, putting them in "that other basket" and saying they need understanding and empathy.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in Pensacola, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a LBGT For Hillary Gala at the Cipriani Club, in New York, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his wife Karen take the stage prior to his speaking at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his wife Karen take the stage prior to his speaking at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
UK-Canada WestJet plane declares emergency, lands in Iceland

LONDON (AP)  A WestJet flight from London to Edmonton diverted to Iceland on Saturday after the crew discovered a "potential mechanical issue," the Canadian airline said.

The pilots aboard the Boeing 767 declared an in-flight emergency about two hours after taking off from Gatwick Airport. It landed safely at Keflavik airport, and the airline said "all guests and crew will be taken care of until we arrange new flights."

The airline didn't disclose the nature of the mechanical issue, but said the plane would remain in Iceland for maintenance, and passengers would be put up in hotels.

It declined to say how many people were onboard, citing competition reasons.
Muslim pilgrims begin hajj, but this year without Iranians

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP)  Close to 2 million people from around the world began performing the first rites of the Islamic hajj pilgrimage on Saturday, which calls for entering into a state of physical and spiritual purity and circling the cube-shaped Kaaba with their palms facing upward in supplication and prayer.

Notably absent this year are Iranian pilgrims. Last year, some 64,000 Iranians took part in the hajj, but disputes with the Saudi government prompted Tehran to bar its citizens from taking part this year.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Iranian officials for the decision and suggests it was politically motivated to publicly pressure the kingdom. Iran says Saudi "incompetence" caused a crush and stampede during last year's hajj that killed more than 460 of its citizens. On Friday, thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities to protest Saudi Arabia, chanting prayers against the kingdom's Sunni rulers after midday prayers.

Muslim pilgrims make their way at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

The hajj is one of the world's largest pilgrimages. It draws the faithful to the holy city of Mecca and areas around it for five intense days of rituals and prayers aimed at erasing past sins and drawing Muslims closer to God. The pilgrimage is required of all Muslims to perform once in their lifetime.

To begin the hajj, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims circle the Kaaba in Mecca's Grand Mosque. In a sign of humility and equality before God, the pilgrims shed symbols of materialism, entering a state of "ihram." Women forgo makeup and perfume and wear loose-fitting clothing and a head covering, while men dress in seamless, white terry cloth garments.

Since arriving in Mecca over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands have chanted, "Labayk Allahuma Labayk," or "Here I am, God, answering your call. Here I am."

While following a route the Prophet Muhammad once walked, the rites of hajj are believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

The Interior Ministry says more than 1.3 million people from 160 different countries have arrived to the kingdom to perform the hajj this year.

Most pilgrims will spend the evening outside Mecca in a valley called Mina that houses more than 160,000 tents. They will head to an area called Arafat on Sunday for the pinnacle of the pilgrimage, an emotional day of repentance and supplication.

For the first time in more than three decades, Saudi Arabia's top cleric will not be delivering this year's prestigious hajj sermon on Sunday.

Al-Riyadh newspaper reported Saturday that Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, who has delivered the sermon since 1981, will be replaced by Sheikh Saleh bin Hamid.

Hamid previously served as chairman of the top consultative Shura Council and was appointed to the Supreme Judicial Council before serving as a royal adviser. The newspaper did not give a reason for the change.

The mufti sparked controversy this week when, in response to the Iranian criticisms, he was quoted as saying that Iran's Shiite leaders "are not Muslims."

Muslim pilgrims prepare themselves for Friday prayers in front of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Muslim pilgrims have begun arriving at the holiest sites in Islam ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Worshippers circle the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have arrived in the kingdom to participate in the annual hajj pilgrimage, which starts Saturday, a ritual required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in their life. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty).

Iranian protesters hold placards with pictures of Ayatollah Sheik Isa Qassim, Bahrain's top Shiite Muslim cleric during an anti-Saudi rally after weekly Friday prayer in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Thousands of Iranians marched through the streets Friday to protest Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj, a sign of soured relations between the two countries following last year's crush and stampede during the annual pilgrimage. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Iranian protesters chant slogans as one of them holds a placard reading "oh Islam! we will sacrifice our lives for you", after weekly Friday prayer in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 9, 2016. Thousands of Iranians marched through the streets Friday to protest Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj, a sign of soured relations between the two countries following last year's crush and stampede during the annual pilgrimage. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Montenegro police detain man suspected of fighting for IS

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP)  Police in Montenegro say they have detained a Montenegrin man who allegedly fought for the Islamic State group in Syria.

Police say the man was detained Thursday at the airport in the capital, Podgorica, upon returning to Montenegro.

The statement from police on Saturday says that the suspect left Montenegro more than a year ago, going first to Turkey and then on to Syria where he joined IS.

This is the first such arrest in Montenegro since the Balkan country last year passed a law banning its citizens from taking part in foreign wars. If tried and convicted, the suspected fighter faces up to five years in prison.
Colombia's FARC rebels turn over 13 child soldiers

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)  Colombia's largest rebel group has handed 13 child soldiers over to an international humanitarian mission as part of a deal to end decades of bloody fighting.

The International Red Cross said in a statement Saturday that the minors were in good health and were being transported to a temporary shelter under the supervision of the United Nations Children's Fund.

The humanitarian gesture comes in the wake of a deal reached last month between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the government to end a half-century of hostilities.

Out of respect for the minors' privacy, the Red Cross did not say where the handover took place or provide their ages.

The FARC has long faced accusations of violating human rights norms by forcing minors to join its ranks, as a way to demonstrate its military strength in rural areas where it is dominant. Between 1975 and 2014, almost 12,000 minors are believed to have been illegally recruited, Colombia's chief prosecutor says.

But as peace talks in Cuba advanced last year, the rebels announced they were raising the minimum age for recruits from 15 to 17, and in May it agreed to let all guerrillas under age 18 leave its jungle camps. The handover didn't materialize until now because of FARC leaders' security concerns that the underage fighters would be interrogated by authorities in order to locate and attack rebel camps.

It's unclear how many of the FARC's estimated 7,000 guerrillas are minors. The chief rebel negotiator known by his alias Ivan Marquez said in May that 21 soldiers under the age of 15 live in guerrilla camps, but some government officials have put the number closer to 200.

A visit to a rebel camp last month by Associated Press journalists found several guerrillas who acknowledged joining the rebel group as children, some as young as 14. But all said they had done so of their own free will while fleeing poverty and domestic violence.

Authorities say more minors could be handed over before the FARC begins to demobilize as part of the peace deal. The government has vowed to reunite the children with their families when possible and provide them with psychological assistance to ease their transition back to civilian life.

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Thousands protest bullfighting in Spain's capital

MADRID (AP)  Thousands of animal rights activists have gathered in Madrid to demand an end to Spain's long tradition of bullfighting.

Animal rights political party Pacma called for Saturday's protest, which went through central Madrid including major tourist sites. Crowds chanted "less violence and more intelligence," and "torture is not culture."

The protest is part of a growing tension between progressives who see the practice as a blatant form of animal cruelty and traditionalists who defend it as part of Spain's culture.
How Clinton and Trump plan to tackle education as president

WASHINGTON (AP)  Hillary Clinton has spent decades talking about the needs of children and touting the benefits of early education. It's a new subject for Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential nominee added plans for education to his still relatively thin roster of policy proposals this past week, unveiling an effort to spend $20 billion during his first year in office to help states expand school choice programs. Trump wasn't shy about his intentions, debuting his ideas at an inner-city charter school in Cleveland as part of his new outreach to minority voters.

"There's no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly," Trump said at the school, blaming the Democratic Party for having "trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the opportunity to join the ladder of American success."

FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in New York. Hillary Clinton has spent decades talking about the needs of children and touting the benefits of early education. Its a new subject for Donald Trump. The Republican presidential nominee added plans for education to his still relatively thin roster of policy proposals this past week, unveiling an effort to spend $20 billion during his first year in office to help states expand school choice programs. Trump wasnt shy about his intentions, debuting his ideas at an inner-city charter school in Cleveland as part of his new outreach to minority voters. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

"It's time to break up that monopoly," he said.

But like many of his policy plans, this was one was vague, with few specifics.

Trump argued his approach would create "a massive education market," one that produces better outcomes than the nation's existing public education system. Beyond his $20 billion in federal money, he wants states to divert another $110 billion of their own education budgets to support school choice efforts, providing $12,000 to every elementary school student living in poverty to attend the school of their choice.

Clinton's much more detailed education plans, meanwhile, are firmly rooted in improving the country's public schools. The Democratic nominee has called for new spending to improve classrooms, improve teacher salaries and add computer science programs.

"We're going to invest in education and skills, from early childhood education to giving our teachers the tools and flexibility they need to succeed in the classroom, without a lot of top-down strings all over them from Washington," she said on Monday.

On education, the two candidates are as far apart as they are on any issue at stake in the 2016 election. A summary of their proposals:

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SCHOOL CHOICE

TRUMP: The billionaire businessman has embraced the concept popular among conservatives, which calls for students and their parents to be able to select the school they wish to attend  public, private, charter or magnet. To support that effort, Trump proposed reallocating an unspecified $20 billion in his first budget as president into block grants to states, and directing them to use the money to help millions of elementary school students living in poverty attend the school of their choice. That money "should follow the students," a concept known in education policy as portability. Critics of school choice argue that approach would deprive public schools of money, and Congress rejected the idea in the education law it passed last year to replace the No Child Left Behind Act.

CLINTON: Clinton has voiced support for charter schools, which operate with public money but are governed by an independent "charter" rather than a community's established public education system. But Clinton does not back the broader concept of school choice. "I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system  not outside of it  but within it, because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity," she said in November 2015.

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STUDENT LOANS AND DEBT

TRUMP: He has decried the impact of debt from loans on college students, but beyond his often-stated promise to create jobs as president, he has not offered a concrete proposal to address what he called "one of the biggest questions I get is from people in college." Trump has criticized the federal government's student loan program for making a profit, telling The Hill newspaper in July 2015 "that's probably one of the only things the government shouldn't make money off. I think it's terrible that one of the only profit centers we have is student loans."

CLINTON: She has proposed that students from families making less than $125,000 a year be able to attend a public college or university in their home state without having to pay tuition, and that all community colleges be tuition-free. Under her plan, students with existing student loan debt would be able to refinance, and Clinton promises a three-month moratorium on payments to allow those in debt to take steps to reduce their monthly payments. Those deemed "entrepreneurs" will get a three-year deferment on their loans "so that student debt and the lack of family wealth is not a barrier to innovation in our country."

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COMMON CORE

TRUMP: The academic standards adopted in more than 40 states are a frequent target of Trump's ire. "We spend more by far, and we're doing very poorly. So, obviously, Common Core does not work," he said this past week. Trump has pledged to do away with the standards if elected, which could prove a challenge: they were created and adopted by states, not the federal government. Trump has also pledged that ripping up the state-developed standards and bringing education "to the local level" would immediately boost student performance.

CLINTON: The standards are not mentioned in Clinton's education plans, although her campaign does note that as the first lady of Arkansas, she chaired the state's education standards commission. Speaking in Iowa during the primary season, Clinton lamented what she called the "really unfortunate argument" about the standards. "It wasn't politicized," she said. "It was to try to come up with a core of learning that we might expect students to achieve across our country, no matter what kind of school district they were in, no matter how poor their family was, that there wouldn't be two tiers of education."

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CHILD CARE

TRUMP: Trump said in August he would "reduce the cost of child care by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care spending from their taxes." He has not provided more details, which he said would come after he refined his plan with his daughter, Ivanka. As a tax deduction, rather than a tax credit, Trump's plan would primarily help more affluent households. More than 40 percent of U.S. taxpayers don't make enough money to owe taxes to the federal government, meaning they would not benefit from a deduction.

CLINTON: She proposes that no family should spend more than 10 percent of its income on child care. To achieve this goal, Clinton would seek to boost federal spending on child care subsidies and provide "tax relief for the cost of child care to working families." Those benefits would be offered on a "sliding scale" based on need. Since announcing the plan in May, Clinton has offered few details on the specifics, including how it would be funded beyond raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

TRUMP: Trump has not discussed early childhood education.

CLINTON: She would seek to make preschool universal for all 4-year-old children within 10 years of her election by providing new federal dollars to states. Clinton also seeks to double the number of children enrolled in Early Head Start, a government program that provides early education services to low-income families. Clinton has not detailed in depth on how she would pay for these expanded efforts.

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What political news is the world searching for on Google and talking about on Twitter? Find out via AP's Election Buzz interactive. http://elections.ap.org/buzz
Judge: New Jersey Gov. Christie's emails can be searched

TRENTON, N.J. (AP)  Republican Gov. Chris Christie's personal email must be searched  or he must prove that it already has been  to comply with the state's public records law, a judge has ruled.

The Record (http://bit.ly/2c5AUgy) reports that Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson issued the ruling Friday in response to a request filed last year by North Jersey Media Group, the newspaper's publisher.

The request sought records related to a range of subjects, including the George Washington Bridge scandal. Among the records requested, the newspaper asked for email correspondence between the governor and his aides dealing with a 2013 meeting with Democratic Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Two former Christie allies go on trial this month on federal charges that they conspired to create traffic jams at the bridge to punish Fulop for not endorsing Christie's re-election in 2013. Christie wasn't charged in the lane-closing scandal and has denied knowing anything about it.

The judge said in her ruling that the newspaper was entitled to the personal emails because the bridge scandal made it clear Christie had used his personal email account for business. She also ordered the search of personal emails of administration employees to the extent that it's possible.

Christie's office declined comment on the ruling.

The governor's office provided 90 pages of documents in response to the newspaper's request, but 56 of those pages were heavily redacted. The office also did not search Christie's personal accounts in responding to the request, even though he and other state employees frequently used personal email to conduct government business, as investigators found in the fallout of the bridge lane closures.

During court arguments, Christie's office contended that one email, about a meeting between a former Port Authority executive and Fulop, was not subject to the open-records law because it concerned his re-election campaign. It also argued that the reporter who filed the request was playing a "game of gotcha" in seeking records that "were all at play or at least discussed" in the federal criminal case on the 2013 bridge lane closures.
FBI, ATF to establish offices at US Embassy in Jamaica

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will establish offices at the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica to help fight violent crime.

The government's Jamaica Information Service said Friday the initiative will improve U.S. efforts to train local law enforcement and speed up the response of U.S. authorities when a federal crime is committed in Jamaica. The information service said the ATF office will trace serial numbers and undertake forensic tests on illegal weapons seized on the island.
Ex-minister says Brazil gov't wants to derail investigation

SAO PAULO (AP)  Brazil's former solicitor general said he believes President Michel Temer fired him in an effort to derail the investigation into a corruption-kickback scheme at state oil company Petrobras, according to an interview published Saturday.

"I have no doubt that I was fired because the government wants to suppress the investigation," Fabio Medina Osorio told Veja newsmagazine. "It fears how far the investigation will go."

Osorio was let go Friday and replaced by Grace Mendonca, the first woman appointed to Temer's otherwise all white male Cabinet.

Brazil's President Michel Temer, center, and wife Marcela Temer, watch an Independence Day military parade in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016. Pictured right is Lower House Speaker Rodrigo Maia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Temer's press office said it had no immediate comment on his allegation.

Prosecutors allege roughly $2 billion in bribes were paid by companies in return for inflated building contracts. The investigation has ensnared dozens of people, from lawmakers to businesspeople.

Osorio said he had been planning to file administrative misconduct charges against politicians and added that such charges could result in lawmakers being barred from holding elective office.

Three of Temer's ministers resigned amid corruption allegations and leaked wiretapped conversations shortly after he became interim president in May.

Temer took over the presidency permanently when President Dilma Rousseff was ousted by the Senate on Aug. 31.

At her impeachment trial, Rousseff told senators she was being punished for refusing to quash the wide-ranging investigation into Petrobras and alleged that corrupt lawmakers conspired to oust her.

Watchdog groups estimate that 60 percent of the 594 lawmakers in the Senate and the lower chamber are being investigated for wrongdoing, many for corruption related to the Petrobras probe.

David Fleischer, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Brasilia, said he sees Osorio's interview as a way to "go out shooting" and predicted it would not hurt Temer's government.
Woman in iconic V-J Day Times Square kiss photo dies at 92

NEW YORK (AP)  The woman in an iconic photo shown kissing an ecstatic sailor in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II has died. Greta Zimmer Friedman was 92.

Friedman, who fled Austria during the war as a 15-year-old, died Thursday at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, from complications of old age, her son, Joshua Friedman, said.

Greta Friedman was a 21-year-old dental assistant in a nurse's uniform when she became part of one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.

FILE - In this Aug. 14, 1945 file photo provided by the U.S. Navy, a sailor and a nurse kiss passionately in Manhattan's Times Square, as New York City celebrates the end of World War II. The woman who was kissed by an ecstatic sailor in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II has died at the age of 92. Greta Zimmer Friedman's son says his mother died Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016, at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. She died from complications of old age, he said. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy/Victor Jorgensen, File)

On Aug. 14, 1945, known as V-J Day, the day Japan surrendered to the United States, people spilled into the New York City streets from restaurants, bars and movie theaters, celebrating the news.

That's when George Mendonsa spotted Friedman, spun her around and planted a kiss. The two had never met. In fact, Mendonsa was on a date with an actual nurse, Rita Petry, who would later become his wife.

The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt is called "V-J Day in Times Square," but is known to most simply as "The Kiss." Mendonsa said that in some photos of the scene, Petry could be seen smiling in the background.

The photo was first published in Life magazine, buried deep within its pages. Over the years, the photo gained recognition, and several people claimed to be the kissing couple. In an August 1980 issue of Life, 11 men and three women said they were the subjects. It was years before Mendonsa and Friedman were confirmed to be the couple.

Joshua Friedman said his mother recalled the events happening in an instant.

"It wasn't that much of a kiss," Friedman said in an interview with the Veterans History Project in 2005. "It was just somebody celebrating. It wasn't a romantic event."

Both of Friedman's parents died in the Holocaust, according to Lawrence Verria, co-author of "The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II."

Friedman will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to her late husband, Dr. Misha Friedman.
Brazil judge sets conditions for 8 in ticket scalping scheme

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  A judge in Brazil has set the house arrest conditions for eight of the 10 people charged with ticket scalping, conspiracy, and ambush marketing during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The conditions are the same already imposed on Ireland's top Olympic official, Pat Hickey, and countryman Kevin Mallon.

The Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary branch says on its website that Judge Juliana Leal de Melo set the same conditions for the others.

The 10 must appear in court once a month, respect a 10 p.m. curfew, and cannot attend any of the Paralympic events in Rio.
FDNY memorial held at St. Patrick's to mark 9/11 anniversary

NEW YORK (AP)  The 343 firefighters who died 15 years ago in the Sept. 11 attacks were honored Saturday at a St. Patrick's Cathedral memorial service for acts of heroism that New York's mayor said "most of us could not fathom."

Hundreds of family members of those who died and those who survived the attacks listened to their loved ones remembered for their courage on a day that would claim the lives of more firefighters than any other day in the nation's history. Each of the names of the dead firefighters was read aloud during the service.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch read a letter from President Barack Obama that described the effect left on the nation after hijacked planes struck the twin 110-story towers of the World Trade Center, causing their collapse.

"We remember that no act of terror can match the character of our country, change who we are as Americans or overcome our enduring resolve to be each other's keepers in times of calm and crisis alike," the letter said.

In a service presided over by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Mayor Bill de Blasio noted that the firefighters killed ranged in age from 22 to 71.

He said everyone in New York that day suffered, but none more than members of the Fire Department of New York.

"We remember what the members of the FDNY did in the face of something that could not be imagined. They showed selflessness. They showed courage," he said. "When we needed them most they showed us the best, the best in humanity."

De Blasio said the firefighters "did things that day that most of us could not fathom. They rushed to danger, not from it."

The mayor also noted that some firefighters died after 9/11 from diseases linked to the contaminated air they were exposed to that day and that others are still alive but suffering.

The massive Roman Catholic cathedral was filled to capacity for the afternoon service with city dignitaries, firefighters and families of those killed.
Federal intervention on oil pipeline project unprecedented

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  The Standing Rock Sioux's effort to block a four-state oil pipeline got a lifeline when the federal government temporarily stopped the project, a move some say likely may forever change the way all energy infrastructure projects are reviewed in the future.

Just minutes after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's attempt to halt the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that skirts the reservation in southern North Dakota, three federal agencies appealed to the pipeline company to "voluntarily pause" work on a segment that tribal officials say holds sacred sites and artifacts.

Tribal officials challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' $3.8 billion pipeline that is intended to carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

More than a thousand people gather at an encampment near North Dakota's Standing Rock Sioux reservation on Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe's attempt to halt construction of an oil pipeline near its North Dakota reservation failed in federal court Friday, but three government agencies asked the pipeline company to "voluntarily pause" work on a segment that tribal officials say holds sacred artifacts. (AP Photo/James MacPherson)

Friday's ruling by Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, came amid growing protests over the pipeline, which would cross the Missouri River less than a mile upstream of the reservation.

The statement by the Departments of Justice, Army and Interior said it would "reconsider any of its previous decisions" on land that borders or is under Lake Oahe, one of six reservoirs on the Missouri River and the drinking water source for the tribal members on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The statement from the federal departments also said the case "highlighted the need for a serious discussion" about nationwide reforms "with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects."

Troy Eid, a former U.S. attorney in Colorado who now specializes in Indian law, said the action was unprecedented and a "significant setback" for the pipeline's builders.

"Everywhere in Indian Country, people are talking about this," said Eid, who spoke by phone Saturday while on horseback during a parade at the Navajo Nation Fair in Window Rock, Arizona.

He said the lack of tribal consultation on the Dakota Access pipeline "is a textbook example of how not to do a project."

Historically, tribes only have been consulted on energy infrastructure projects, with the federal government making the actual decisions, said Eid, a Republican.

The Obama administration's action Friday likely changed that, he said.

"Tribes want to be able to influence the outcome in a substantive way," Eid said.

Industry consultant Brigham McCown, a former acting administrator for the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the Obama administration's involvement has "changed the lay of the land forever" for infrastructure projects.

"This could bog down or delay every single infrastructure project moving forward," he said. "I don't think they even realize the can of worms they've opened."

As a regulator during the George W. Bush administration, McCown said he oversaw safety for 1 million daily shipments of hazardous goods throughout the United States by air, rail, sea, land and pipeline.

"We were very apolitical in the decisions we made," he said. "Things are very different now, whether from the right wing or left wing, politics of all kinds are being injected into this."

The company plans to have the pipeline completed this year. In court papers, it said stopping the project would cost it $1.4 billion the first year, mostly due to lost revenue in hauling crude.

The federal government's action in trumping the federal judge's ruling, however temporary, was a major victory for Native Americans in a "cultural and historical context," said Monte Mills, an assistant professor and co-director of the Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic at the University of Montana in Missoula.

"The way Indian Country came together to support Standing Rock has really been powerful," he said.

"There is no question it will be much more difficult and costly for these projects to move forward in the future," said Brian Jorde, an Omaha, Nebraska, lawyer who is working with opponents of the Keystone XL oil pipeline designed to move crude from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

"The reality is (Dakota Access) likely will move forward  not that I believe it should move forward  but all the pieces are in place for it to go forward," Jorde said. "There is too much money involved and too much influence in Washington to just give up."

A banner protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline is displayed at an encampment near North Dakota's Standing Rock Sioux reservation on Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe's attempt to halt construction of an oil pipeline near its North Dakota reservation failed in federal court Friday, but three government agencies asked the pipeline company to "voluntarily pause" work on a segment that tribal officials say holds sacred artifacts. (AP Photo/James MacPherson)

Megan Tobin, of Bellevue, Ohio protests on the grounds of the North Dakota state capitol Friday, Sept. 9, 2016 in Bismarck, N.D. The federal government stepped into the fight over the Dakota Access oil pipeline Friday, ordering work to stop on one segment of the project in North Dakota and asking the Texas-based company building it to "voluntarily pause" action on a wider span that an American Indian tribe says holds sacred artifacts. (Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP)
Thousands march in Mexican cities against gay marriage

MEXICO CITY (AP)  Organizers say thousands of people have marched in several Mexican cities in opposition a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage.

The National Front for the Family group's website shows videos of marches in a half-dozen cities Saturday.

White-clad demonstrators chanted "Children need a father and a mother!" and "Wake up and defend the family!" They also chanted slogans against government-mandated sex-education programs.

In May, President Enrique Pena Nieto proposed legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It is currently legal only in some places such as Mexico City, the northern state of Coahuila and Quintana Roo state on the Caribbean coast.
Father Beaver, pictured, said he felt completely relaxed when he was having the surgery

A priest said he felt 'completely relaxed' as surgeons performed revolutionary surgery inside his eye with the aid of a robot.

The patient, Father William Beaver, 70, an associate priest at St Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford, said his eyesight was returning following the operation, having previously experienced distorted vision similar to 'looking in a hall of mirrors at a fairground'.

The procedure - the world's first robotic operation - was carried out by surgeons at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, who welcomed its success and said it could revolutionise the way such conditions are treated.

Father Beaver told BBC Breakfast: 'I was completely relaxed and completely comfortable because I could see that all the technology was in place and all the goodwill was in place and all the skills were in place.

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Professor Robert MacLaren says scientists 'have just witnessed a vision of eye surgery in the future'

'Because, you see, the key is the precision. The pulse coursing through the hand of the surgeon could have ruined it, could have given me a haemorrhage and this just made it, well, simple.'

On completing the operation, Professor Robert MacLaren said: 'There is no doubt in my mind that we have just witnessed a vision of eye surgery in the future.

'Current technology with laser scanners and microscopes allows us to monitor retinal diseases at the microscopic level, but the things we see are beyond the physiological limit of what the human hand can operate on.

'With a robotic system, we open up a whole new chapter of eye operations that currently cannot be performed.'

Father Beaver, left, with his surgeon Robert MacLaren. Fr Beaver said his eyesight is returning after the operation

The technology allows surgeons to operate with more precision than they could by hand

Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology, conducts surgery on Fr Beaver with the Preceyes robot

Professor MacLaren uses a joystick to control a needle operating inside Fr Beaver's eye

The procedure was necessary because the patient had a membrane growing on the surface of his retina, which had contracted and pulled it into an uneven shape. The membrane is about 100th of a millimetre thick and needed to be dissected off the retina without damaging it.

Surgeons normally attempt this by slowing their pulse and timing movements between heart beats, but the robot could make it much easier. Experts said the robot could enable new, high-precision procedures that are currently out of the reach of the human hand.

The surgeons used a joystick and touchscreen outside the eye to control the robot while monitoring its progress through the operating microscope. This gave medics a notable advantage as significant movements of the joystick resulted in tiny movements of the robot.

This is the first time a device has been available that achieves the three-dimensional precision required to operate inside the human eye.

HOW DOES ROBOT EYE SURGERY WORK? This robot technology has been designed for vitreo-retinal eye surgery, which requires a huge amount of precision. The surgery is performed with minimal invasion and tiny 0.5mm needles, but even the pulse through a surgeon's hand can be problematic. The Preceyes robot assists surgeons with this precision, with a piece of equipment that can line up on the operating table and be included or excluded as the surgeon needs it. The surgeon uses one hand to conduct surgery as usual, and uses the system with another, rotating a needle through a joystick that means his tremors are filtered out. When the surgeon relaxes his grip, the needles stop moving so drug delivery can be incredibly accurate. Advertisement

Speaking at his follow-up visit at the Oxford Eye Hospital, Father Beaver said: 'My sight is coming back.

'I am delighted that my surgery went so well and I feel honoured to be part of this pioneering research project.'

Prof MacLaren said: 'This will help to develop novel surgical treatments for blindness, such as gene therapy and stem cells, which need to be inserted under the retina with a high degree of precision.'

The current robotic eye surgery trial involves 12 patients undergoing operations with increasing complexity. In the first part of the trial, the robot is used to peel membranes off the delicate retina without damaging it.

If this part is successful, as has been the case so far, the second phase of the trial will assess how the robot can place a fine needle under the retina and inject fluid through it.
Rollercoaster ride for golden girl Libby Clegg

Libby Clegg endured a rollercoaster of emotions in being reinstated before upsetting a partisan crowd to win Paralympic gold in Rio.

The 26-year-old partially sighted runner beat the T11 100 metres world record previously held by Brazil's Terezinha Guilhermina in Friday morning's semi-final, but then a rival lodged a protest.

Britain successfully appealed against the claim that guide Chris Clark had dragged her in the race, contrary to regulations.

Libby Clegg and guide Chris Clarke win gold

It meant the 11.91 seconds world record stood and Clegg and Clark could run in the final.

And Clegg, in her third Paralympics, claimed her third medal after silvers in the T12 class at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, with victory in 11.96secs. Guilhermina was disqualified after finishing fourth.

"It's been a bit of a tough day," Clegg said.

"I thought they were going to protest Chris being so close on the line with me, because we know that we cut it fine. I never thought it would be through dragging.

"I'd never what to dishonourably win a medal or cheat or break the rules in any way.

"I was a little bit upset that allegation had been made against me.

"I'm just glad I've got a fantastic technical support team that fought my corner."

Clark described himself as being "like John Terry", the Chelsea captain who in 2012 lifted the European Cup in full kit after a Champions League final for which he was suspended.

"She did all the work, I'm just here, like John Terry," Clark said on Channel 4.

Clark, who teamed up with Clegg in February, was concerned that, like Terry has been known to do, he had made a major error at a crucial moment.

"I was just thinking 'oh God - I hope I haven't ruined her chances'," he added.

Clegg suffers from a deteriorating eye condition which means she only has slight peripheral vision in her left eye and she is registered as blind.

Her eyesight has deteriorated, leading to her reclassification from a T12 to a T11 sprinter - and meaning she had to compete in a blindfold, something she did for the first time at July's Anniversary Games in London.

"It is still terrifying. It's really exhilarating at the same time though," she added.
Before The Flood director warns of consequences of Trump presidency

The director of Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary on climate change has claimed a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election would be "the worst thing that could happen" for the environment.

Oscar-winner Fisher Stevens filmed DiCaprio as he travelled around the world to see the effects of global warming for his latest feature, Before The Flood.

Stevens joined The Revenant actor at the documentary's world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival where he voiced concerns about Mr Trump's views on climate change.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the documentary.

The Republican nominee has previously claimed global warming is a hoax created by China and said he would "cancel" the Paris climate deal aimed at cutting carbon emissions.

Stevens told the Press Association: "Donald Trump would be the worst thing that could happen on the planet if he's elected president.

"At least that's what he says....you never know with Donald Trump. Right now, he says he won't validate the Paris climate talks and he's going to overturn all of the good things (Barack) Obama has been doing."

Stevens, who produced the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove about dolphin hunting practices in Japan, said DiCaprio,41, approached him about making their latest film together.

Before The Flood follows DiCaprio as he travels to a number of countries, visiting flooded streets in Miami Beach, smog-choked areas of Beijing and incinerated forests in Indonesia.

"We're not doing this to get rich," Stevens said.

"Leo certainly didn't schlep around all over the world to enhance his career.

"I learnt the climate is actually in worse shape than I expected. I also learned we could fix it a lot easier than I thought. The way renewables and solar and wind are becoming more affordable, it's all economics."
Johnson hails Syria ceasefire deal

A US-Russia deal aimed at addressing the crisis in Syria has been welcomed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

The breakthrough agreement, following talks in Geneva, will see a nationwide ceasefire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unexpected new military partnership between the US and Russia to target Islamic State and al Qaida militants.

The plan would also establish new limits on president Bashar Assad's forces and enable humanitarian supplies to reach the besieged city Aleppo.

Boris Johnson paid tribute to the work of US secretary John Kerry in securing the ceasefire deal

The deal was thrashed out by US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and it is hoped the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloody civil war.

Diplomats hope the deal will also focus military efforts on tackling IS and al Qaida militants, following long-standing complaints from the international coalition that Russia had been targeting moderate groups opposed to Moscow's ally Assad.

The Foreign Secretary said: "I welcome the agreement that the US and Russia have reached to restore the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access in Syria. I pay tribute to the tireless work of secretary Kerry in bringing us to this point.

"For years we have seen the indiscriminate targeting by the Assad regime of civilians and moderate groups, and heard only broken promises leading to sieges and starvation.

"I call on all parties to the Syria conflict and all countries with influence upon them to do what is needed to end violence and lift sieges. In particular, it's vital that the regime in Damascus now delivers on its obligations, and I call on Russia to use all its influence to ensure this happens. They will be judged by their actions alone.

"I hope this agreement will begin to unlock the flow of desperately-needed aid to Syria's people, particularly in and around Aleppo, and that it will create the necessary space for a credible political process based on the Geneva Communique.

"It is only through a political transition that Syria will rid itself of the twin scourges of Assad and terrorism, and give the country and its people the chance of a peaceful future.

"The Syrian opposition high negotiations committee set out in London this week a clear and detailed plan for securing that transition; the Assad regime must now respond with convincing ideas of its own, not bombing, shelling and sieges."

One of the most surprising elements of the Geneva deal is that the US and Russia will share intelligence and co-ordinate targeting for strikes against IS and the al Qaida-linked Nusra Front, now known as Fath al-Sham.

The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against Syria's armed opposition and civilian areas. Washington must persuade "moderate" rebels to break ranks with groups linked to al Qaida and other extremists.

Save the Children's Syria director Sonia Khush said: "The announcement of a nationwide cessation of hostilities from Monday is very welcome, and couldn't come soon enough for Syria's children.

"All parties to the conflict must put their interests aside to implement it immediately and fully, with independent monitoring in place to ensure it's being adhered to.

"This cessation of hostilities is desperately needed and it is imperative that parties to the conflict adhere to it and that all besieged and hard-to-reach areas are able to receive aid immediately, and that hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure are no longer targeted.

"Children cannot be plunged back into war, hunger and deprivation after a brief reprieve.

"We must build on this initial ceasefire to move towards sustained humanitarian access and a longer term pause in the fighting. That will allow us to start rebuilding the country's devastated hospitals and schools.

"Across Syria, more than 250,000 children are estimated to be living under siege. We cannot abandon them.

"World powers, including the US and Russia, need to put maximum pressure on the parties to the conflict to open up immediate access to those children trapped in places like Madaya and al-Waer.

"Recent reports of a spate of child suicide attempts in Madaya only drives home the desperation and urgency of the situation."

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: "We welcome the progress made by John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov, and at the very least, let us hope this agreement will ensure that the people of Aleppo get the emergency humanitarian aid that they so desperately need.

"But let us also hope this agreement shows what is possible if people negotiate in good will towards a political settlement that will isolate Jihadist extremists, and bring a lasting peace not just to the city of Aleppo but to all the people of Syria.
Polish community in 'shock and fear' after murder near takeaway shops

The Polish community in Harlow is in a state of "shock and fear" after the murder of Arkadiusz Jozwik outside takeaway shops in a suspected hate crime.

Mr Jozwik's was killed by a single punch in an apparently unprovoked attack on August 27.

Two other Polish men were assaulted in the town centre hours after attending a silent vigil for the 40-year-old, known as Arek, on September 4.

A vigil in Harlow for Arkadiusz Jozwik, killed in a possible hate crime

Speaking at a public meeting on Saturday, Miroslawa Majdzinska said she has been repeatedly been targeted in racist incidents, including someone trying to set fire to her house.

"After Brexit of course things got worse," the Polish national added.

"Many, many people were abused, my friends were told not to speak the Polish language in the workplace, kids are not allowed to speak Polish in school."

"We knew it would be bad but didn't know it would be this bad," she added.

"Arek's death was like something breaking our hearts - it was shock and fear. We are a close community, everyone knows each other.

"I knew Arek's brother, he was a fantastic guy, a real family guy.

"Every day their family would have dinner together, it is a really close family.

"Arek was a really quiet man and really a family person, he worked in the factory with his mother."

Albanian Mimoza Matoshi, who works for Integration Support Services in Harlow, said there has been a dramatic rise in racist attacks since Brexit.

"We feel like we don't belong here anymore. The vote was one thing but the reaction of people is another," she added.

"Since the murder people don't have hope anymore, people want to leave."

She said the majority of racist attacks are not reported to police and that many of those that were have not been properly recorded as hate crimes.

Harlow resident Sumana, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, said someone tried to rip her hijab from her head as she walked down the street about two weeks ago.

"I haven't reported it to the police. One of the problems is people don't know how to, it's not something you can ring 999 for," she added.

The 25-year-old, who did not want to give her full name, said she worries about her mother going to the shops alone in an evening.

"For the past few weeks I have been concerned for her," she said.

"I don't want out to be a place that's thought of as unsafe for us to go out in."

Mr Jozwik, a Polish factory worker living and working in Harlow, was attacked outside the TGF Pizza and Mr Luigi's takeaway shops in The Stow at about 11.35pm.

He suffered head injuries and died in hospital two days later.

A 43-year-old man from Harlow and a third man, aged 40, were also assaulted.

Six teenagers, aged 15 and 16, have been arrested in connection with the incident and released on bail until October 12.

Police have released CCTV footage in a public appeal for information.

Essex Police chief superintendent Sean O'Callaghan said: "There has been limited contact from the public so far, that is why we are asking people to assist us.

"We believe the answers to what has happened is in the community.

"We are talking about teenagers, school-aged groups, we know people will be concerned and frightened about coming forward but we would urge people to do so."

Anyone with information is asked to contact Essex Police on 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
Steve Cummings sees his lead cut heading into Tour of Britain finale

Steve Cummings will take a 26-second lead into the final stage of the Tour of Britain on Sunday after emerging unscathed from a difficult double stage in Bristol.

A strong display from Rohan Dennis (BMC), who won the penultimate stage having placed second in the time trial earlier in the day, narrowed the gap to the overall leader, which had been 49 seconds at the start of the day.

But Cummings (Dimension Data) did just enough to hold onto first place, finishing fourth in the time trial and safely within the main group at the finish of stage 7b.

Steve Cummings, yellow jersey, held onto his overall lead in the Tour of Britain on Saturday

Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) had claimed victory in the time trial, pipping Dennis by three seconds with Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) in third.

Then Dennis launched another bid to catch Cummings when he attacked shortly before the finish of 7b along with Argentina's Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx-QuickStep).

Cummings led the pursuers, keeping the Australian within his sights to ensure he will have the advantage heading into the final stage in London.

"It was a tough two stages," Cummings said. "First off in the morning the conditions were treacherous really with the rain so I was happy to get that done and limit my losses. Luckily the weather improved in the afternoon so that was less of a concern, it was just about not losing the race at the start and being attentive at the end.
Jeremy Corbyn vows to reverse Theresa May's plans for grammar schools

Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to make reversing Theresa May's plans for new grammar schools his top priority if he becomes prime minister.

The Labour leader said the plans were "divisive" and Mrs May had "no mandate" to push through her plans for a new generation of selective schools in England.

Instead he promised a National Education Service that would result in a "system for all, not just a select few".

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the plans were 'divisive'

Writing in The Sunday Mirror he said: " The Tories are threatening to take education back 60 years - to the bad old days when your future was decided by the arbitrary 11-plus test.

"Their plan to bring back grammar schools is a poor attempt to duck their record - which has seen classes grow to the largest in Europe, teachers flocking to leave the profession as pay and conditions stagnate, and a raft of corruption scandals at unaccountable Tory academies that have failed to deliver the promised improvements in standards.

"It is investment in our children and schools that will fix the classroom crisis - not a return to selective education."

He said Mrs May was ignoring evidence that showed grammar schools did not improve the chances of poorer children.

"Grammar schools depress overall educational achievement and siphon off a few better off children at the expense of the rest," he said.

"Theresa May has no mandate to make these changes. Therefore, if these divisive plans go ahead, I will make it a top priority to reverse them when Labour is back in power."

His comments came as leadership rival Owen Smith accused Mr Corbyn of a "dereliction of duty" for failing to challenge the Prime Minister over her plans for Brexit.

The Labour leadership contender said his rival repeatedly failed to "put the ball in the back of the net" in the Commons at Prime Minister's Questions.

On the two sessions he has had against Theresa May he had not raised the "seismic" issue of the EU - despite the divisions within the Tory ranks over Brexit.

Mr Smith accused Mr Corbyn of being "comfortable" leading Labour in opposition but claimed he did not believe he could ever be prime minister.

Attacking the leader's performance in the Commons, Mr Smith referred to Mr Corbyn's failure to mention Iain Duncan Smith's resignation and his reluctance to challenge the Prime Minister over Brexit.

"The trouble with Jeremy is he doesn't put the ball in the back of the net," Mr Smith said.

"We walk out of the European Union, Jeremy has done two PMQs since then, he hasn't raised it. He hasn't raised the fact that we are leaving the European Union.

"Now, whatever his views about the European Union, that can't be right. Whatever his views, whether he is sanguine about us leaving, whether he is content we are leaving, it cannot be right that the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, when we have such a seismic event as Britain stepping back from the continent we are part of, fails to ask a single question when he has the opportunity.

"It is dereliction of duty."

Mr Smith added: "Jeremy just can't do it. I have looked him in the eye, he doesn't think he is going to be a Labour prime minister, he doesn't think it.
Briton held over Trump gun incident 'so sorry for everything', mother says

The mother of a British man accused of trying to grab a policeman's gun in a bid to kill Donald Trump said she does not "for one minute" believe he meant any harm.

Lynne Sandford was able to visit her son, Michael Sandford for the first time on Thursday - more than two months after he was arrested on June 18.

The 20-year-old of Dorking, Surrey, allegedly tried to snatch an officer's weapon during a rally at a Las Vegas casino, later telling officials that his plan was "to shoot and kill Donald Trump".

Lynne Sandford pictured with her son Michael (Family handout/PA)

Ms Sandford spoke to her son, who she says does not remember what happened, through a wire divide at the Lloyd D George courthouse in Las Vegas on Thursday.

She told the Press Association "He's so sorry for everything. He's very remorseful and glad that nothing happened, nobody got hurt, and he just feels terrible about the whole thing and the effect that it's having on the family. He desperately misses us and loves us and he just wants to come back to the UK.

"We spent the whole meeting hand-in-hand through the wire mesh, at the end we put our cheeks together and I was crying and he felt one of my tear drops come through the mesh, so we actually had contact after all."

The 46-year-old said her son had never shown an interest in politics, and when asked if she believed he had intended harm, replied: "Not for one minute."

"He has actually said to me: 'It's imperative you understand, mum, I would never under normal circumstances do anything like this. You know that don't you?' and I said 'yes of course I do'.

"I know something went very wrong with his mind at that time."

Ms Sandford said that her son had a number of mental health conditions - including autism, severe OCD, anxiety, depression and previously anorexia - and had previously tried to take his own life twice.

She and her son had only "erratic" contact after he travelled to New Jersey, and the next time she saw him was on TV being frogmarched out of the Trump rally.

Continuing she said: "He feels in limbo because the trial keeps getting put back. He doesn't know how to cope with each day, let alone any longer than that.

"In some ways he's very young - like a little boy in a man's body.

"This was completely out of character: he's never hurt anybody, never had any inclination to hurt anybody. He's always been the opposite: very kind, very polite and well-mannered and considerate."

Mr Sandford's British lawyer, Saimo Chahal QC said the 20-year-old had two options - to have a jury trial or to accept a plea bargain that has been offered.

More than 32,000 has been raised on a crowdfunding page set up to help the family pay for legal fees.

Mr Sandford has been charged with being in the country illegally and disrupting government business. He faces up to 10 years in US prison if found guilty.
Baroness Nicholson returns to Tory fold 21 years after joining Lib Dems

A former Liberal Democrat peer has joined the Conservatives, highlighting Theresa May's education plans as a reason for the switch.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, who quit the Lib Dems during Parliament's summer recess, said the Prime Minister's controversial schools shake-up showed a "real commitment to delivering for the next generation".

She had previously been a Tory MP before defecting to the Liberal Democrats in 1995 in a severe blow to John Major's government.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne has rejoined the Conservatives

Lady Nicholson has now returned to the party she quit more than two decades ago, welcoming the Prime Minister's plans for a new generation of grammar schools.

She said: " I am rejoining the Conservative Party with tremendous pleasure. My energies are dedicated to fighting for our new PM and her policies.

"Her education speech last week showed she leads a party with a real commitment to delivering for the next generation and building a country that works for everyone.

"We in the Conservative Party have a great history of diversity, optimism in our people's creativity and success.
Wife tells of 'complete shock' at Keith Vaz rent boy revelations

The wife of shamed MP Keith Vaz has said she will eventually forgive him for cheating on her with rent boys - although she admitted she felt like smashing crockery over his head.

Maria Fernandes said she had decided to give the high-profile former minister a second chance, but warned he needs to change or "I'll sling him out".

Mr Vaz, 59, who has two children with Ms Fernandes, quit as chairman of the influential House of Commons Home Affairs Committee after becoming embroiled in the scandal.

Keith Vaz quit as chairman of the influential House of Commons Home Affairs Committee

Ms Fernandes told the Mail on Sunday the revelation that her husband of 23 years paid two male prostitutes for sex had come "out of the blue" and was a " complete shock".

She said the Leicester East MP begged for forgiveness, saying he was "very sorry" and promising it would "never happen again" after he broke the news to her before the scandal was reported in the press.

"'It was like an out-of-body experience, it was not real. There was a lot of things over the years, but this had not been one," she said.

"It was a terrible shock and I am still processing it ... Keith is not a bad person, he's just done a terrible thing. It's absolutely terrible because it's affected all of us, because it's affected the kids.

"But he's a good person, a good father, he's been a good husband and nine-tenths of the time he's got things right. This time he's fallen... badly."

Police have said they will "assess and identify what criminal offences - if any - may have been committed" in the allegations, first reported in the Sunday Mirror.

Mr Vaz had a conversation regarding cocaine with one of the male escorts in which the MP said he did not want to use the drug but indicated that he would pay for it for the other man at a later date, according to the newspaper.

Ms Fernandes, who was told about the situation on the Friday before the story broke, said she told the couple's 19-year-old daughter about it but their 21-year-old son was on holiday in Vietnam and did not find out for a further 24 hours.

Ms Fernandes said their daughter was "v ery angry with her father, and I think she was angry for me" but she was also "worried about him".

She added that over the next few days she experienced a range of emotions following her husband's "betrayal".

" I would have liked to have taken all my crockery and broken it on his head," she said.

"My immediate thought was to tell him to leave then have space to discuss things."

But she continued: " I've decided to forgive him. That's different to forgiving him right now. If I don't forgive him eventually, it is going to tear me up. It's going to destroy me and I don't want that. I don't like that feeling of anger and bitterness.

"Although I'm a lapsed Christian, t here is still a Christian part of me that talks about forgiveness because you let go if you forgive. So from that point of view, yes, I've made the decision but how it will be done ... that's all to happen in the future."

Ms Fernandes, a lawyer, said they would go to marriage guidance sessions and he would need a full health check after having unprotected sex.

She said she feared for Mr Vaz's mental health: "He wanted to kill himself twice - once as Europe minister ( when he was caught up in a scandal over passports) - and again now. He just wanted to die."

She added: " We've been happily married for a long time, we have two beautiful children, and we have a good life together, and he has threatened that by his behaviour. And if he does that again, then I'll sling him out."

The two male escorts accused Mr Vaz of being a "liar and an actor", and defended their role in exposing the double life of the MP, who told them he was an industrial washing machine salesman called Jim.

One of the men told the Sunday Mirror: "Some people may be upset by what we did. But we feel exposing a public person like Vaz is the right thing.

"Vaz has two lives - Jim and Keith. He's the biggest liar I've ever met - tricking people from every side so he can get the benefits.

"People trusted him and voted for him. He was the best actor I've ever met."

The escort dismissed the suggestion that Mr Vaz might have been drugged: "If he'd been drugged why did he not go to the police and say he was a victim and he was drugged? He had enough time to contact police."

One of the men explained how they realised who their client was after seeing him on TV

"I feel sorry for his wife. I wouldn't be able to take that stress, that shame. She loved him, she married him. He never wore a wedding ring," the man said.

"He's brought shame on his family, they all have to suffer for him, they are guilty of nothing and they are victims in this. I feel sorry for them and I would like to apologise to them.

"But Vaz has only one person to blame - himself."

The men claimed Mr Vaz suggested flying them abroad to Tunisia or Morocco and offered money for each male prostitute they supplied.
Valiant Brook falls short after brutal loss to middleweight kingpin Golovkin

Kell Brook's world middleweight title dream ended in a devastating fifth-round stoppage defeat by the fearsome Gennady Golovkin at London's O2 Arena.

Stepping up from welterweight to challenge one of the greatest middleweights in history, he did his reputation little harm but, as expected, was gradually out-boxed and over-powered by the defending champion.

His pursuit of Golovkin's IBF and WBC titles - the WBA chose not to sanction theirs - concluded in the fifth when, struggling to resist the champion's latest powerful assault, Brook's corner threw in the towel.

Kell Brook came up short in pursuit of the WBC and IBF middleweight titles

Referee Marlon Wright responded by waving the action over, and while the crowd booed and Brook complained, he was swiftly tiring and it appeared the right decision.

The 30-year-old's finest chance of victory came in relying on his greatest strengths - his impressive punch accuracy and exceptional timing - and hoping he retained his natural power at the bigger weight.

Golovkin has been known to allow his opponents to land unnecessary punches but on this occasion it was Brook's guts and class that created the moments where he enjoyed success.

The champion's masterful footwork - Brook's lateral and head movement proved limited - also repeatedly forced the Briton to where Golovkin wanted him, setting up the lethal attacks that gradually wore his tough challenger down.

The opening 90 seconds of the fight demonstrated the size of the task he was facing. Powerful hooks to both head and body clearly hurt Brook, threatening an early finish and forcing him to cling on.

He impressed, however, in ending the round in the ascendency and going toe-to-toe with a fighter described as the 'new Mike Tyson'.

He remained the aggressor throughout the second, and much of the third, slowing Golovkin with strong combinations and a powerful uppercut. Even if he out-worked the champion, however, the suspicion remained he was the one being worn down whenever Golovkin landed.

By the start of the fourth a cut by Brook's right eye was beginning to swell, and even with him continuing to time both jabs and counters, the undefeated champion appeared no closer to suffering his first ever knockdown.

The Briton was tired by the start of the fifth, and while he impressively remained on his feet he was gradually offering less in response. With Brook again caught on the ropes and receiving Golovkin's latest powerful combination, trainer Dominic Ingle moved to end the fight.

If Brook's toughness meant he could have continued for at least a little longer, he increasingly appeared the smaller of the two and fighting on could potentially have shortened his career.

The defeat was the first of his otherwise impressive professional record. Stepping up from the welterweight limit that was such a struggle for him means it is likely he will return at light-middleweight, but only the harshest critic would question him losing to a great like Golovkin.

Before Brook was taken to hospital, he spoke of his intention to return at 154lbs, and revealed he had suffered a suspected broken eye socket.

"I expected him to be a bigger puncher," he said. "In the second round he broke my eye socket but I was tricking him, I was frustrating him. I was starting to settle into it but when you see three, four, five of them it's difficult.

"I hurt him, when you're in the fight you can see, his legs buckled a little. But I'm not taking anything away from Golovkin, I would fight him again, with a good eye. When you see five of them against a great champion, it's tough.

"I would have to go back to the drawing board, I'd be most suited at light-middle. I know (Liam) Smith and 'Canelo' (Saul Alvarez) are fighting next week: I would love the winner.

"It wasn't my night because there was much more to come from me but I was seeing five of them out there.

"I'm a warrior, I want to carry on, I was ready to fight on. Anyone who trains with me knows that.

"I was starting to come on. We knew the first five or six rounds would be tough, but you would have to talk to my coach to ask him why he pulled me out. I'll be back."

Despite Brook's repeated success in landing punches, Golovkin insisted he was not hurt and spoke of his desire to fight Billy Joe Saunders.

"I knew that Kell was a very good fighter," he said. "But he's not a middleweight. He's just not. I respect him, because he is very good, but he's not so strong. He didn't hurt me at all. There were a lot of punches, but I didn't feel them. I respect Kell. And thanks to his corner.
Children who lost fathers during war also died younger

Children whose fathers were killed or seriously wounded in the First World War had their own lives shortened by a year on average, research has shown.

Life expectancy was reduced by more than two years for those who became fatherless while still in their mother's womb.

The explanation is still being investigated, but experts believe it to be linked to the effects of psychological stress on the children and their mothers.

The First World War took a terrible toll on Britain

According to some experts, much of our susceptibility to disease in adulthood may stem from what happens to us very early in life.

The French study aimed to investigate the potential impact of early negative experiences, or "early life adversities" (ELAs), on children born during the First World War.

A team from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) identified more than 4,000 children born between 1914 and 1916 whose fathers had either been killed in the trenches or severely injured.

Each child was matched with another - a "control" - who was born at the same time in the same district, but did not experience the tragedy of having a war victim father.

Compared with the control subjects, children whose fathers had been killed or badly wounded in the war lost an average of one year of life expectancy.

The effect was greater for those whose fathers died while their mother was pregnant. Their adult lives were typically shortened by 2.2 years.

Lead researcher Nicolas Todd, from Kremlin-Bicetre Hospital in Paris, said: " The next step in the study will be to determine the cause of death for those having suffered ELA. This will shed light on the mechanisms involved.

"We know that deregulation of the stress response is commonly found on animal models of ELAs, so it will be interesting to see if any evidence of this can be seen in the causes of death in the French cohort. It may give us further insight into the long-term effects of ELA."
Two car bombs explode in Tripoli, no casualties - security official

By Aidan Lewis

TRIPOLI, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Two car bombs exploded near Tripoli's foreign ministry and a naval base used by Libya's U.N.-backed government early on Thursday, a security source said.

Images posted online from the bombing near the foreign ministry showed charred vehicle wreckage scattered in the middle of a street close to Tripoli's coastal highway. There were no casualties from either bombing.

Tripoli is home to numerous armed factions that have clashed in the past, though the situation in recent months has been relatively calm.

Militants loyal to Islamic State are also thought to operate sleeper cells in Tripoli and carried out attacks there last year.

Some armed groups have helped provide security to the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). Its leaders arrived in Tripoli in March, travelling to the naval base by ship after opponents shut down the airspace to prevent them flying in.

Since then, the GNA has gradually taken control of government buildings in Tripoli, including the foreign ministry, which is close to the naval base.

The GNA is designed to replace two rival sets of institutions in Tripoli and eastern Libya, which split after a battle for control of the capital in 2014.

But the new government has struggled to impose its authority and has failed to win endorsement from power-brokers in the east. It has also been widely criticised for failing to deal with day-to-day problems in Tripoli and beyond, including a liquidity crisis and lengthy power cuts.
China hits 60 pct of 2016 target for coal output cuts -state media

BEIJING, Sept 9 (Reuters) - China has reduced its coal production capacity by 150 million tonnes in the first eight months of the year, representing 60 percent of its 2016 target for capacity cuts, state media said on Friday citing the state planner.

The rate is nearly 1.5 times progress in the first seven months of 38 percent, Lu Junling, a senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), was quoted as saying at an industry meeting on Thursday to discuss market stabilization measures.

The country is the world's top coal consumer but demand has been on the wane as economic growth slows and as the country shifts away from fossil fuels as part of a drive to curb pollution.

China's coal producers have lobbied the government to approve a plan to increase output that could add 8-9 million tonnes per month of new supply from some 74 mines that produce high-quality clean coal.

That was discussed at the meeting on Thursday and included a proposal that would allow producers to raise output if domestic prices hit certain levels, state-media Xinhua said.

According to the proposal, selected mines would be able to increase average daily production by 200,000 tonnes if the benchmark price, the Bohai-rim steam-coal price index (BSPI), trades above 460 yuan per tonne for two weeks.

That would rise to 300,000 tonnes of coal a day if prices go up to 480 yuan per tonne, and would increase to 500,000 tonnes if prices hit 500 yuan for two weeks, Xinhua said.

The BSPI is currently at 515 yuan, according to industry website CQCOAL.com.

Any increases would be pulled if prices fall below trigger levels respectively at 460 yuan, 470 yuan and 490 yuan also for as long as two weeks.
S.Korea spy agency seen concerned over North's advances in miniaturising warheads

SEOUL, Sept 9 (Reuters) - South Korea's intelligence agency is concerned that North Korea is advancing faster to miniaturize warheads on missiles, a lawmaker said after receiving an agency briefing on the North's latest nuclear test.
UK fraud agency charges three in Tesco accounting probe

By Huw Jones and James Davey

LONDON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Serious Fraud Office has charged three former senior Tesco executives with fraud in its investigation into accounting practices at the country's biggest supermarket chain.

A 250 million pound ($333 million) overstatement of Tesco's first-half profits in August 2014, due to booking deals with suppliers too early, led to the suspension of eight senior members of staff in the following months.

None of them commented at the time.

When Tesco revealed the overstatement, which was later raised to 263 million pounds, it plunged the firm into the worst crisis in its near 100-year history and led to a 4 billion pound drop in the company's stock market value.

Carl Rogberg, Christopher Bush and John Scouler have been charged with one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of false accounting, the SFO said in a statement on Friday, giving no further details of the charges.

Bush, 50, who was managing director of Tesco UK, Rogberg, 49, who was finance director UK and Scouler, 48, who was UK food commercial director have been asked to appear at a London court on Sept 22, the SFO said.

Hickman & Rose Solicitors, which is representing Bush, said he was "extremely disappointed" by the SFO's decision.

"He is not guilty ... he will vigorously contest these allegations and is confident he will be cleared of any wrong doing," it said.

Norton Rose Fulbright, which is representing Carl Rogberg, said "Our client, Carl Rogberg, has always denied any wrongdoing. He will be vigorously contesting the charges to prove his innocence."

Lawyers for Scouler, who is the commercial director of telecoms company TalkTalk, were not immediately available for comment.

The SFO, which launched its criminal investigation in October 2014, said the alleged activity occurred between February and September of that year. The SFO's statement said its investigation into Tesco is ongoing.

Under SFO rules, if Tesco cooperates with the ongoing inquiry, can show it has put measures in place to prevent any further wrongdoing and agrees to terms, it could qualify for a suspended prosecution, or deferred prosecution agreement (DPA).

The Tesco probe is seen as a key case for the SFO, an agency established to deal with the most serious and complex fraud cases, that has had a chequered record in securing white collar convictions over its 28-year history.

The convictions of three former Barclays traders in London's third, high-profile Libor trial in July after a bitterly-fought case have helped silence some of its critics.

The SFO's statement also made no mention of Tesco's former chief executive Philip Clarke who was sacked in July 2014.

Clarke, who has not commented since leaving Tesco, was interviewed under caution last year as part of the SFO's investigation.

Tesco said it has introduced a programme of extensive change in the two years since Dave Lewis took over as CEO and could not comment further.

Tesco agreed to pay $12 million in November 2015 to settle a U.S. lawsuit brought by holders of the company's American depository receipts, alleging breaches of federal securities laws in connection with the overstatement of commercial income.
US House speaker pushes Obama on sanctions after N.Korea nuclear test

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan condemned North Korea's nuclear test "in the strongest possible terms" on Friday and called on U.S. President Barack Obama to immediately utilize his sanctions authority.
Informants admit lying during U.S. probe of Venezuela first lady's nephews

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A father-son team of informants testified on Friday that they repeatedly lied to U.S. investigators in order to secretly traffic drugs, even while they were working on a narcotics probe of two nephews of Venezuela's first lady.

Testifying in Manhattan federal court, the informants also said they engaged in other unauthorized activities, including sleeping with prostitutes in the midst of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) probe of Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores.

Their activities trafficking drugs into the United States behind the DEA's back led both men, key witnesses in the case, to be charged and plead guilty to narcotics-related charges as well as to having lied to authorities, they said.

The testimony came as lawyers for the nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, sought to call into question the informants' credibility in order to have evidence gathered against their clients suppressed.

The nephews were arrested in November 2015 and are fighting U.S. charges that they worked with others to try to send 800 kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Honduras for importation into the United States.

The two informants at issue are a father and son who, according to testimony and court papers, posed as the Mexican boss of the Sinaloa cartel and his son while meeting with the nephews in 2015 to discuss a cocaine-trafficking venture.

Both have for years worked for the DEA and local authorities as undercover informants.

The Mexican-born 34-year-old son, referred to only as CS-2, said he has earned $400,000 as an informant. The 55-year-old father, called CS-1, said he has earned about $1 million since 2003.

But in recent years, both men said they had been working with others to bring drugs into the United States, without DEA knowledge. Authorities confronted them earlier this year, they said, and both are now in jail after pleading guilty.

"You'd been lying to them for years?" John Zach, a lawyer for Campo Flores, asked.

"Yes I did lie to them," CS-2 said.

The informants testified that while in Caracas, they also had sex with prostitutes, one on which the son said one of the defendants paid for. The father acknowledged that he did not tell prosecutors about one of these incidents until a lunch break after his son had testified.
Wisconsin appeals overturned conviction in 'Making a Murderer' case

Sept 9 (Reuters) - Wisconsin on Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling to overturn the conviction of one of two Wisconsin men serving life sentences for the 2005 slaying of a freelance photographer in a case spotlighted in the popular Netflix television documentary "Making a Murderer."

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel appealed the case to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin on Aug. 12 ruled that a jury's 2007 guilty verdict against Brendan Dassey was based on a coerced confession the defendant gave as a 16-year-old with a learning disability.

Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, were convicted in separate trials of killing freelance photographer Teresa Halbach at Avery's home in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.

In a statement explaining the decision to appeal, Schimel said two state courts "properly concluded that Dassey's confession was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics."

"The Halbach family has been notified of the appeal and fully supports the state's decision to seek justice on behalf of their daughter," Schimel added.

The case was the subject of the 10-part Netflix-released documentary "Making a Murderer," which questioned the handling of the investigation and the motivation of Manitowoc County law enforcement officials, who had sent Avery to prison in 1985 for a rape he did not commit.

Halbach's charred remains were found in an incineration barrel and a burn pit on Avery's property, about 80 miles (130 km) north of Milwaukee.

Laura Nirider, one of Dassey's post-conviction attorneys, said in a statement she was disappointed in the state's decision to appeal.
Thailand, Malaysia consider border wall to boost security

BANGKOK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The leaders of Thailand and Malaysia agreed on Friday to boost security cooperation and consider building a border wall to combat transnational crime and smuggling, an idea that appears to be gaining popularity elsewhere in the world.

People-trafficking and the smuggling of contraband, including drugs and petrol, have flourished along the Thai-Malay border for years until a crackdown by Thai officials on human traffickers caused some of the routes to shut down last year.

Analysts say separatist insurgents operating in Thailand's deep south use Malaysia as a base to launch and plan their attacks.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters that security remained "a very important matter" for both countries and there was an agreement to step up intelligence gathering and sharing to rein in cross-border terrorism.

"We both face security issues including the fight against terrorism, human trafficking and illegal smuggling, that is why we need to address these issues seriously," said Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

Najib said both sides had discussed the construction and extension of a border wall but details remained to be worked out.

"The matter is under consideration, but we need to determine the physical dimensions of the wall or fence as well as the sharing of the costs," he said.

The step reflects a controversial plan by U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico, and get Mexico to pay the cost.

It remains unclear who will pay for the Thai-Malaysia wall, which the two countries first formally discussed last year. A fence already runs along parts of their 640-km (398-mile) border.

Najib's visit follows three deadly bomb attacks in southern Thailand over the past month, including a wave of bombings in tourist towns in August that Thai police linked to Muslim separatists.

Analysts say the attacks were carried out by a separatist insurgent group known as Barisan Revolusi Nasional after it was left out of peace talks between Thailand and another separatist umbrella group in Malaysia.

Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until Thailand annexed them in 1909.

Since 2004, Muslim separatists operating in the area have waged a bloody insurgency that has killed more than 6,500 people, says conflict monitor Deep South Watch.

"It is clear why Thailand is pursuing this wall," Srisompop Jitpiromsri, a director of Deep South Watch, told Reuters.

"They view it as a necessary step to combat these groups that cause violence."
One Hanjin ship cleared to dock at U.S. port, others remain in limbo

By Lisa Richwine and Jim Christie

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A Hanjin Shipping Co container vessel idled off the coast of Mexico after the company's bankruptcy has received permission to dock and unload cargo at the Port of Long Beach, industry and union officials said Friday.

Authorization for the Hanjin Greece to enter the port came after bankruptcy courts in the United States and South Korea cleared the way for the company to spend $10 million to unload cargo from four ships headed for ports on the U.S. West Coast.

South Korea said it expects Hanjin Greece to start unloading cargo on Saturday morning U.S. time. Hanjin could not be immediately reached for a comment.

"We're looking forward to getting these ships unloaded, said Ray Familathe, vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union representing 20,000 dockworkers.

But he said that could be complicated by legal wrangling. "It's a day-to-day thing for us," he said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood, who issued an order barring seizure of Hanjin property by creditors, acknowledged that some details remained unresolved and urged the parties to "self-help" and work out problems among themselves.

That could prove thorny. Hanjin has identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in bankruptcy filings, including the Hanjin Greece and two other vessels currently near the Southern California coast.

Port operators, cargo owners, longshoremen, shippers and others all must reach financial agreements with Hanjin before each ship can be docked, officials said.

Terminal operators could be reluctant to allow Hanjin ships to dock without assurances they would leave promptly, said Robert Krieger, president of Krieger Worldwide, a customs broker and freight forwarder headquartered in Carson, California.

"The money is in place to pay for as far as I can tell," Krieger said. "The question is, once that happens, what happens next? Because the terminal operators don't want the ships to stay there."

Among other issues raised in court but not fully resolved was what to do with Hanjin containers that are piling up at ports and with retailers.

Some retailers are stuck with empty containers they cannot return to port, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

The containers are tying up equipment needed to handle loaded containers, he said.

"Also, the shipper and retailer get charged for not returning the equipment on time, and they cannot return it because the ports wouldn't accept it," Gold said. "This is just a completely chaotic situation."

Union officials said the docking situation seemed to change hourly over the last week, with conflicting reports about where ships might be headed.

"It's been a really, really fluid situation where it's very hard to get info about it," said Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for Justice for Port Drivers, a union organizing effort by the Teamsters' Port Division.

HANJIN CONTAINERS ON SHIPS OWNED BY OTHERS

In South Carolina, ports were trying to sort out what to do with Hanjin containers coming in on ships owned by other firms.

The Charleston port allowed trucking companies to pick up imported Hanjin containers and also allowed exporters to "restuff" them into containers from other carriers, said Clinton Eisenhauer, senior vice president of external affairs for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Charleston is, however, levying a $350 fee on empty containers brought back to the port to go back to Asia, to cover its labor costs. The fee will be returned to customers if Hanjin eventually covers the costs.

"We decided we didn't want to make a bad situation worse," Eisenhauer said.

Hanjin's bankruptcy has also caused a scramble to book new shipments with other container lines, as shippers who expected to move cargo with Hanjin over the coming weeks and months make other arrangements, said Candace Sider, vice president of regulatory affairs in Canada for trade compliance company Livingston International.
U.S. Appeals Court blocks Kansas, Alabama, Georgia on voter ID rule

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday blocked an effort by Alabama, Georgia and Kansas for voters to furnish proof of citizenship when registering at the polls, which opponents say disenfranchises voters, especially minorities.

The decision effectively strikes down a rule that requires voters in the three states to provide proof they are United States citizens. Elsewhere, voters only need swear that they are citizens in order to cast a ballot.

"With just weeks to go before a critical presidential election, we are grateful to the court of appeals for stopping this thinly veiled discrimination in its tracks," Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, which had sued to block the new requirements, said in a statement.

Conservatives in Republican-controlled states have moved to tighten voter identification rules ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Supporters say tougher rules help prevent fraud, but in-person voter impersonation on election day is virtually non-existent, a 2012 study at Arizona State University showed. Opponents, mostly Democrats, say the rules discriminate against minorities.

Seven percent of Americans do not have proof of U.S. citizenship such as a birth certificate, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The Appeals Court of the District of Columbia said the League of Women Voters had shown there would be irreparable harm if the rule was permitted, and had also shown it was likely to win the case on its merits.

It ordered any voter applications filed since Jan. 29, 2016, to be treated as if they did not contain the proof of citizenship instructions.
Bangladesh garment factory fire kills 12

DHAKA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A fire broke out in a garment packaging factory just outside the Bangladeshi capital on Saturday, killing at least 12 people, police and witnesses said.

Dozens more were taken to hospital with injuries as firemen struggle to control the blaze in the four-storey building, one fire official said.

"The fire broke out in the morning just when work was about to start," said the official, Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman.

The reason for the fire in the industrial zone of Tongi, 20 km (12 miles) north of Dhaka, was not immediately known. Around 100 people were in the building when it began.

Readymade garments are the mainstay of the Bangladeshi economy, and earned $28 billion in exports during the fiscal year that ended in June.
S. Korea says North's nuclear capability "speeding up", calls for action

By Jack Kim

SEOUL, Sept 10 (Reuters) - South Korea said on Saturday that North Korea's nuclear capability is expanding fast, echoing alarm around the world over the isolated state's fifth and biggest nuclear test, carried out in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

North Korea conducted the test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

The test showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unwilling to alter course, and that tougher sanctions and pressure were needed to apply "unbearable pain on the North to leave no choice but to change", South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said.

"North Korea's nuclear capability is growing and speeding to a considerable level, considering the fifth nuclear test was the strongest in scale and the interval has quickened substantially," Yun told a ministry meeting convened to discuss the test.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew global condemnation.

The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea's main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme.

In Beijing on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui told North Korea's ambassador to China, Ji Jae Ryong, that the test was "not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula", China's Foreign Ministry said.

"China urges North Korea not to take any more actions that could exacerbate tensions, and return as soon as possible to the correct direction of denuclearisation," Zhang said.

But Russia was sceptical that more sanctions were the answer, while China was silent on the prospect of a new U.N. Security Council resolution, although state media did carry commentaries criticising the North.

Under 32-year-old leader Kim, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.

DENUNCIATION

The Security Council denounced North Korea's decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.

U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis, suggesting that a Security Council agreement may prove difficult.

"It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them," Lavrov said.

The talks, aimed at ending the North's nuclear programme, involve the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea, but have been defunct since 2008.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearisation, which it had refused to do.

"We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea," he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for an outcome similar to that reached in nuclear talks with Iran.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions.

On Saturday, the Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking that building nuclear weapons would provide it with more security or prestige.

"Owning nuclear weapons won't ensure North Korea's political security," it said in an editorial. "On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country."

"OUT OF CONTROL"

South Korea's Park said late on Friday that Kim was "mentally out of control", blind to all warnings from the world and neighbours as he sought to maintain power. "The patience of the international community has come to the limit," she said.

North Korea, which calls the South and the United States its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead", according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead would be especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.

The Pentagon does not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added: "Given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst."

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far, at yield of 20 to 30 kilotonnes.

That would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which had an output of about 15 kilotonnes.

South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful blast to date.

"The important thing is that, five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backward state any more," Lewis said.
Leader of Fiji opposition party arrested - media reports

MELBOURNE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Authorities in the tiny Pacific island nation of Fiji arrested the leader of an opposition party and a senior trade union official on Saturday, and issued arrest warrants for several other opposition politicians, New Zealand media reported.

Radio New Zealand said the leader of the National Federation Party, Biman Prasad, and a trade unionist, Attar Singh, were arrested on Saturday afternoon.

The arrests were related to public meetings held last week to discuss Fiji's constitution, it added.

Police had taken Prasad for questioning, the National Federation Party said in a message from its official account on social network Twitter. It gave no further details.
Key China border city brushes off latest North Korea nuclear test

By Sue-Lin Wong

DANDONG, China, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Tourists and the odd train made their way across China's main border point with North Korea on Saturday, with residents largely brushing off Pyongyang's fifth and largest nuclear test and little sign of stepped up security or scrutiny.

China, Pyongyang's main diplomatic ally, is key in any effort to rein in North Korea's nuclear programme. It has been infuriated by repeated nuclear and missile tests and has signed up to increasingly tough United Nations sanctions.

While China says it is fully committed to enforcing the sanctions, it has also made clear it does not think ordinary North Koreans should be made to suffer, and has long worried that totally cutting off Pyongyang would lead to the country's collapse, sending waves of refugees its way.

China's border city of Dandong, through which as much as 80 percent of the bilateral trade is conducted, would be the most obvious place for Beijing to make its displeasure with North Korea felt by slowing the flow of goods, even temporarily.

Residents said there had been no such reaction, even though the main bridge connecting the two sides had been closed on and off for repairs in the past few days, but not totally shut.

One Dandong businessman, who asked to be identified by his family name of Lu, said for him North Korea held no fascination - it was simply a place to trade with, though he did admit to being nervous about possible radiation.

"There's still huge demand for ordinary goods, like food and clothes," he said. "There was a train this morning, one yesterday, one the day before. Things haven't stopped."

At the main border post, trucks lined up to take goods into North Korea on Monday, the port not being opened for routine trade on weekends.

"It's business as usual, it's no different from any other day," said a 24-year-old woman who exports clothes to North Korea, declining to give her name.

Tourists had to walk across though, because of the repairs.

Shops around the border post and train station are packed with goods obviously aimed at the North Korean market like machinery, with Korean script featured prominently.

Some residents said they hadn't even heard of the latest test, which has not received top billing in Chinese state media.

"Trade has been increasing each year between North Korea and China. North Koreans rely on us for generators, natural resources, food, all sorts of things," said Lu Shilei, 34, who runs tours to North Korea.

"I don't think the sanctions have had a huge impact, they're only limited to a few products connected to the nuclear programme. There's still lots of trade either way for common goods that ordinary people use."

China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether border checks had been stepped up.

BRIGHT LIGHTS, NO LIGHTS

At night, Dandong's bright lights stand in marked contrast to the darkness that looms from the North Korean side of the Yalu River which separates them, drawing a clear line between a booming China and impoverished North Korea.

Dandong has deep emotional ties to North Korea due to the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Mao Zedong's forces fought alongside North Korea against a U.S.-lead UN coalition.

The "Broken Bridge", bombed in half by U.S. aircraft in that war, is a major tourist draw, sitting in the centre of town next to the "Friendship Bridge" over which much of today's bilateral trade is conducted. There is also a large war museum.

Trade between Beijing and Pyongyang has always been opaque, with experts believing much of the trade and aid China sends North Korea is off books and so difficult to track, making a true assessment of commercial ties close to impossible.

Officially, bilateral trade in the first seven months of the year fell 5.6 percent year-on-year, with China's imports falling a larger 8.7 percent.

Business between the two is dwarfed by trade between China and capitalist South Korea, which was worth 908 billion yuan ($135.97 billion) in the January to July period, compared to just 17.7 billion yuan between China and North Korea.

Wang Quan, general manager of a trading firm that sells trucks, cars and buses to North Korea, said overall trade had suffered slightly because of sanctions, and also China's own slowing economy, but overall he saw no major impact.

"It's just business as usual each time North Korea conducts a nuclear test. Nothing really changes for a small business like ours."

On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry would not be drawn on whether China would support further sanctions, saying only that it has fulfilled previous U.N. resolutions and would continue to take a responsible and constructive attitude towards talks at the Security Council.

China is also angry at Washington and Seoul for a decision to place an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea, saying it threatens China's security and won't help bring North Korea back to the negotiating table.

Cai Jian, an expert on North Korea at Shanghai's Fudan University, said China had always been very careful in having targeted sanctions, aimed directly at the nuclear and missile programmes.
Fiji detains leaders of opposition parties, trade union official

MELBOURNE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Authorities in Fiji on Saturday detained the leaders of two opposition parties and a senior trade union official after they took part in an event critical of the Pacific island nation's constitution, an opposition party official said.

The leader of the National Federation Party (NFP), Biman Prasad, and a trade unionist, Attar Singh, were taken into custody over their participation in Wednesday's forum on the 2013 constitution, said an NFP official, Prem Singh.

"The arrest is a threat to public assembly and we don't know why they are being arrested, they are only doing their jobs," Singh said, but added that no charges had yet been made.

In a statement, the Sodelpa opposition party said its leader Sitiveni Rabuka, a former prime minister, had turned himself in to police. Rabuka was involved in two previous coups in 1987 and went on to become prime minister between 1992 and 1999.

Police and government officials did not immediately respond to telephone calls from Reuters seeking comment.

But a Fiji police spokeswoman, Ana Naisoro, told The Fiji Times that several people were being questioned over comments made at the forum which "could affect the safety and security of all Fijians".

"This step is being taken merely to eliminate all doubts and concerns that could stem from speculation," Naisoro was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times.

Police are also holding a former politician and an official of a non-government body that organised Wednesday's event, Radio New Zealand said. The event coincided with the tiny nation's first public holiday for Constitution Day.

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the day before the event, Prasad had described the holiday as a "waste of money" and government "propaganda".

"There is nothing much to celebrate about the 2013 constitution, which was opposed to the will of the people," Prasad said.

Prasad's wife, Rajni Chand Prasad, told Reuters that police had searched their house looking for documents and that police also searched his office and took away a laptop computer.
Unchanged Moody's rating positive for Poland says minister

WARSAW, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Poland sees a decision by Moody's Investor's Services not to update its credit rating as confirmation of the country's positive long-term economic growth prospects, Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was quoted as saying.

There have been concerns that Poland could be downgraded ever since Moody's said in August that a constitutional crisis in Poland has escalated, threatening its relationship with the European Union and investors.

On Friday, however, Moody's European Union Sovereign Rating calendar activity listed Poland as one of the issuers whose ratings had not been updated. The agency has held Poland's A2 rating stable since 2002.

"Perhaps it is something other than a full confirmation of the rating, but no downgrade is no downgrade," state-run news agency PAP quoted Morawiecki as saying on Saturday.

"I think that the lack of a downgrade decision confirms what results from my talks with foreign investors - that the long-term growth prospect for our economy is positive," he said.
Afghan security forces plan push to relieve besieged provincial capital

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Afghan forces backed by air strikes are preparing a new offensive to clear Taliban militants encircling the capital of Afghanistan's province of Uruzgan, where the two sides have fought bitter clashes, officials said on Saturday.

Street-to-street fighting in Tarin Kot, the provincial capital, where Taliban fighters rampaged to within a few meters (yards) of the government center on Thursday, has quieted as the frontline has moved 15 to 20 km (9 to 12 miles) away, said Dost Mohammed Nayab, the provincial governor's spokesman.

"We have enough forces, ammunition and reinforcements at the moment," he said. "We are working on a bigger plan to eliminate the Taliban from Uruzgan. We will have a massive operation in three or four days."

The Taliban attack, in one of Afghanistan's top opium-producing areas, reveals how thinly stretched Afghan security forces have become as they try to contain Islamist insurgents fighting to overthrow the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Since the U.S.-led military coalition declared the end of its combat mission in 2014, the Taliban have sought to move from their strongholds in rural areas and attack major cities such as south-central Tarin Kot, as well as the capitals of the southern province of Helmand and the northern region of Kunduz.

On Friday U.S. warplanes conducted at least three air strikes in Uruzgan, alongside strikes by the Afghan air force.

Taliban forces briefly seized Kunduz city a year ago and the American commander of the roughly 16,000 international troops remaining in Afghanistan has vowed to help Afghan forces hold onto the cities.

In an online statement on Friday, the Taliban said clashes continued and at least one local government commander had defected, along with some of his men and weapons.
Syrian rebels cast doubt on U.S.-Russian deal, says Moscow will keep bombing

AMMAN, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Syria's moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels said on Saturday they saw little chance of the new U.S.-Russian peace deal succeeding because Damascus and Moscow would not abide by it.

Fares al-Bayoush, head of an FSA group called the Northern Division, said Russia and Damascus had not observed the last agreement, and the chances of the new deal succeeding were the same as the last one.

Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, military spokesman for the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, said the deal would only give the Syrian army an chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into the main battles raging in Aleppo.
Iran, Russia start construction of new Iranian nuclear plant

DUBAI, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Iran began building a second nuclear plant with Russian help on Saturday, in a $10 billion project which follows Tehran's landmark nuclear deal with world powers last year, state media reported.

State television showed Iranian and Russian officials at launching ceremonies for the 10-year project which will include two power plants with a total capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts after their completion.

Iran already runs one Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr, its first. Russia signed a deal with Iran in 2014 to build up to eight more reactors in the country.

A report by the U.N. nuclear agency has found that Iran has kept to the nuclear deal it agreed with six world powers last year limiting its stockpile of substances that could be used to make atomic weapons.
Lidl's boss in Britain in surprise exit from discount supermarket

LONDON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The boss of Lidl's British business has left the discount supermarket and is being replaced by the firm's executive in charge of sales and operations in Austria.

Lidl gave no reason for the exit of Ronny Gottschlich, 41, who has been with the group for 16 years

His six years as CEO has seen rapid growth in sales and market share gains at the expense of Britain's big four grocers - Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons.

The firm is currently vying with fellow German discounter Aldi to be Britain's fastest growing supermarket.

Gottschlich will be succeeded by Christian Hartnagel, 34, - a 13 year Lidl veteran, who has worked in different management positions across the business, including regional director at Lidl Ireland.

"(Hartnagel) will be responsible for moving the business forward and securing its ongoing market growth, including the continuation of Lidl GB's ambitious investment plans which will see store numbers potentially more than double to 1,500 in the long term," Lidl said in a statement.
Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

More U.S. adults smoke pot as fewer people see risks

More and more Americans are admitting they use marijuana, and a new study suggests this may be due at least in part to the growing number of people who don't think it's dangerous. Researchers surveyed almost 600,000 U.S. adults from 2002 to 2014 about their drug use and health. Marijuana use increased from 10.4 percent of adults to 13.3 percent during the study period, researchers report in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Asian nations plan fund to better prepare for health emergencies, says WHO

Eleven countries in South and East Asia on Friday agreed to establish an emergency fund to strengthen their health services to better respond to outbreaks of diseases, including emerging viruses such as Zika, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. Made up of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, South Korea, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste, the South East Asia region is highly susceptible to disasters such as floods which can result in disease outbreaks.

Teva says aims to launch EpiPen-like device by 2018 in U.S.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said Friday it aims to win U.S. approval by late 2017 or early 2018 for its version of Mylan NV's EpiPen device for treating severe allergic reactions, a move that would challenge the branded product's overwhelming market dominance. EpiPen's list price has soared from less than $100 when Mylan acquired the product in 2007, to more than $600 now, sparking outrage from patients, consumers and politicians.

U.S. Senate committee chair: Mylan's response on EpiPen price hike 'incomplete'

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee probing Mylan NV's EpiPen price hike on Friday said its response to his query was "incomplete," and called on the drugmaker to give more details over how much government health insurance programs pay for the allergy treatment. "It's an incomplete response and wouldn't satisfy my constituents who are upset about the EpiPen price increases. It doesn't provide the full picture that I requested, and it doesn't answer all of my questions," U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement. He added that it is still unclear how many patients will benefit from Mylan's expanded assistance programme.

Avoiding weight gain may cut costs for diabetics

Overweight adults with type 2 diabetes who can maintain their current weight may reduce their health care costs in the long term, a recent study suggests. From 2010 to 2013, researchers looked at whether maintaining weight, along with keeping blood sugar under control, had an impact on health care costs for people with type 2 diabetes.

Ivory Coast re-opens western borders closed during Ebola epidemic

Ivory Coast has re-opened its western borders with Liberia and Guinea two years after they were closed to prevent the spread of an Ebola epidemic that killed thousands across West Africa, an Ivorian government spokesman said on Friday. Around 29,000 people contracted the hemorrhagic fever during the more than two-year long outbreak, the worst on record. Over 11,000 died before it finally ended in June, nearly all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Depression risk spikes right after a stroke

During the first three months after a stroke, survivors are about eight times more likely to experience depression than their peers who didn't experience a stroke, a large Danish study suggests. Researchers analyzed data on a large group of stroke patients and compared them to similar people who didn't have a stroke.

Childhood cancer survivors living longer, cancer-free

Due to better treatments and better monitoring, childhood cancer survivors are living longer, healthier lives, according to a study in the U.K. Looking at 60 years of data on nearly 35,000 childhood cancer survivors, researchers found decreasing mortality rates overall, and fewer deaths from cancer itself or from after-effects of cancer treatment. By the time survivors are in their 60s, circulatory problems like cardiovascular disease are their biggest cause of death - just like the rest of the population.

Cholera blamed on U.N. peacekeepers surges in Haiti as funding vanishes

U.N.-led foreign funding has dried up for Haiti's fight against cholera, thought to have been introduced by Nepali peacekeepers, triggering a surge of deaths this year even as the global body vowed to help overcome the epidemic. The lack of support is notable because Haiti was free of cholera until 2010, when U.N. peacekeepers dumped infected sewage into a river, according to investigators.

Obama to meet U.S. Congress leaders Monday on spending
Germany has at least 520 Islamic militants living in the country who are capable of lone-wolf attacks or 'hit team' strikes at any time, the country's interior minister has warned.

Thomas de Maiziere said there were hundreds of 'potential attackers' in the country, which has been on edge since two ISIS-inspired attacks in July.

Speaking in an interview with Bild newspaper, he said another 360 'relevant' people were known to police because of their close proximity to the potential attackers.

Germany has at least 520 Islamic militants living in the country who are capable of lone-wolf attacks or 'hit team' strikes at any time, the country's interior minister has warned (file picture)

Many Germans fear that fighters belonging to the ISIS jihadist group could have slipped into Germany with the roughly one million of refugees from Syria, North Africa and Asia who arrived last year.

'The terror threat now stems from foreign hit teams as well as fanatical lone wolves in Germany,' de Maiziere said in the interview ahead of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, which were partly coordinated from Germany.

'The hit teams are secretly smuggled into Europe and prepare their actions withoug being noticed, as we saw with the attacks in Paris and Brussels,' he added. 'But it's even more difficult to uncover the fanatical lone wolves. Unfortunately, there is a real and present danger from both threats.'

Thomas de Maiziere (pictured) said there were hundreds of 'potential attackers' in the country, which has been on edge since two ISIS-inspired attacks in July

He said security authorities were doing everything possible to monitor 'the potential terrorists' and noted that there have been more investigations and arrests this year.

Despite their efforts, he said, 'the authorities are assuming there are undiscovered lone wolf terrorists out there.'

Germany had until July been spared the kind of militant attacks suffered by neighbouring France and Belgium. But in late July, ISIS claimed two attacks - on a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbach - in which asylum-seekers wounded 20 people in total.
EU to double emergency aid for refugees stuck in Greece

ATHENS, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The European Union will more than double emergency aid to Greece in order to improve living conditions for refugees and migrants who have been stranded in the country for months.

Some 115 million euros ($129 million) in emergency support is being provided by the EU, in addition to 83 million euros earlier this year, the European Commission said on Saturday.

The money would be channelled via humanitarian organisations towards improving living shelters and access for refugee children to education, while part would be given in cash or voucher schemes, it added.

"The new funding has the key aim of improving conditions for refugees in Greece and make a difference ahead of the upcoming winter," Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Christos Stylianides said.

Just under 60,000 refugees and migrants are stuck in Greece after their attempts to head to central and northern Europe were prevented by a cascade of border shutdowns throughout the Balkans at the start of the year.
Venezuela opposition says blocked from meeting near summit

CARACAS, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The leader of Venezuela's opposition-led parliament accused President Maduro's government on Saturday of blocking legislators from flying to Margarita island for a planned session alongside this week's Non-Aligned Movement summit.

"The government prohibited sea and air carriers from transporting us," National Assembly president Henry Ramos said via Twitter, amid a controversial build-up to the Sept. 13-18 meeting of the 120-nation bloc of mainly developing nations.

With Venezuela mired in economic crisis and political protests, the Maduro government hopes to use the event to bolster its international legitimacy, while the opposition wants to embarrass him and advance their campaign to end his rule.

The National Assembly had announced it would hold a session from Sept. 15 in Margarita, in the Caribbean off Venezuela's northern coast, to take advantage of contacts with visiting delegations for the Non-Aligned summit.

The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ramos' accusation.

Venezuela's opposition says the government is engaged in a wave of repression, including arrests of activists, while Maduro says his security forces are thwarting U.S.-backed coup plots.

The government has not yet said who is coming to the Non-Aligned meeting, though local media have reported there will be few heads of state beyond Venezuela's main political allies around the region like Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Ramos, a pugnacious 72-year-old lawyer and veteran of Venezuela's turbulent politics, delights hardliners with his colorful anti-socialist rhetoric and now rivals other opposition leaders Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez in popularity.
Several killed by earthquake in Tanzania -president's office

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Several people were killed when an earthquake measuring 5.7 hit northwest Tanzania on Saturday, the president's office said, with a local newspaper putting the death toll at 10.

The quake struck at 1227 GMT, 43 km (27 miles) from Bukoba, a city on the western shore of Lake Victoria, at a depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

President John Magufuli's office said in a statement several people had died, but gave no toll.

"The president is shocked at the reports of the incident that has resulted in the loss of several people, and many others injured and property destroyed," the statement said.

The privately owned Mwananchi newspaper tweeted that the quake had killed at least 10 people and injured at least 100 in Bukoba, quoting a local police commander.
Syrian state TV says Israeli air force attacks army post inside Syria

AMMAN, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes hit a Syrian army outpost near the Israeli occupied Golan Heights on Saturday, state television reported, quoting a Syrian military source as saying the strike was aimed at helping an offensive by hardline Islamist rebels.

The source was quoted as saying that the Israeli air force was helping the former Nusra front and other radical groups in an offensive launched against Syrian troops in the southern province of Quneitra which borders the Golan region.
Israel attacks Syrian post after stray shell crosses border

JERUSALEM/AMMAN, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft attacked a Syrian artillery post on Saturday after a stray shell from fighting in Syria's civil war landed inside the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Israel's military said.

The shell landed just across the border, causing no injuries, and in retaliation the air force targeted "artillery positions of the Syrian regime", the military said.

The Israeli military has responded similarly in the past when mortar fire from Syria's war has landed in the Golan, territory that Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war.

Syrian state television quoted a Syrian military source as saying the Israeli strike was aimed at helping an offensive by hardline Islamist rebels who had launched an offensive against Syrian troops.
Philippine revenge drama wins Venice Film Festival's top prize

By Agnieszka Flak

VENICE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A nearly four-hour long movie about a woman's thirst for revenge and her feelings of forgiveness after 30 years in jail for a crime she did not commit won the Venice Film Festival's top prize on Saturday.

Director Lav Diaz has described "Ang Babaeng Humayo" ("The Woman Who Left") as a testimony to the struggles of the Philippines after centuries of colonial rule.

"This is for my country, for the Filipino people, for our struggle, for the struggle of humanity," the 57-year-old said as he accepted the Golden Lion award for his black-and-white movie.

Diaz, who at the Berlin Film Festival in February had premiered a film that ran over eight hours, said he hoped the latest recognition would create more appreciation for longer movies.

"Cinema is still very young, you can still push it," he said.

Twenty U.S. and international movies featuring top Hollywood talent and auteur directors were in competition at the world's oldest film festival, in its 73rd outing this year. The event is seen as a launching pad for the industry's award season.

All the movies that won awards were examples of directors' "lack of compromise, (their) imagination, original vision, daring, and a kind of pure identity," said Sam Mendes, known for directing James Bond movies "Skyfall" and "Spectre", who headed the jury. "It's taken me out of my comfort zone."

Mendes said he hoped the awards would help the films get distributed.

The runner-up Grand Jury prize went to Tom Ford's thriller "Nocturnal Animals", the second feature by the celebrated fashion designer.

The Best Director award was shared by Russia's Andrei Konchalovsky for the Holocaust drama "Rai" ("Paradise") and Mexico's Amat Escalante for "La Region Salvaje" ("The Untamed").

Commenting on Escalante's drama, which opens with a naked woman being pleasured by a tentacled creature, jury member and Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas said the movie affected all the judges emotionally.

"We liked the lack of sentimentalism. We felt he really took risks making the film. It's a film that pushes the medium forward," he said.

American Emma Stone took the Best Actress prize for her role in the musical "La La Land" and Argentine actor Oscar Martinez was named Best Actor for his performance in the comedy-drama "El Ciudadano Ilustre" ("The Distinguished Citizen").

German actress Paula Beer received the Marcello Mastroianni Award acknowledging an emerging performer, for her role in post-war drama "Frantz".

Noah Oppenheim took the best screenplay award for his work on Pablo Larrain's "Jackie", about first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the aftermath of the assassination of her husband U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The special jury prize went to Ana Lily Amirpour's cannibal-survivor fairytale "The Bad Batch". While the film earned mixed reviews, the jury appreciated its spirit.
U.S. Syria envoy warns rebels of dire consequences of cooperating with former Nusra

AMMAN, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Cooperation with Fateh al-Sham, formerly al Qaeda's Nusra Front, could bring "dire consequences" for Syria's mainstream rebel groups once a proposed U.S.-Russian deal to attack hardline Islamist militants comes into effect, Washington's envoy to Syria said on Saturday.

In a letter to armed opposition groups seen by Reuters, Michael Ratney urged them to abide by the U.S.-Russian deal, saying it gave them the right of self-defence against attacks by the Syrian army and Russia.

He said the deal would end aerial bombardment by Russia and the Syrian air force of their positions and of civilians living in areas they control.
France's Sarkozy outlines measures to get tough on militants- report

PARIS, Sept 11 (Reuters) - France needs to get tough on militants by creating special courts and detention facilities to boost security, the country's former President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a interview published in Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD).

The French capital was once again put on high alert last Sunday after a car loaded with gas cylinders was found near Notre Dame cathedral in an incident that could have been an attack on a Paris railway station.

Security is a key topic in the presidential elections in 2017, as more than 230 people have been killed in militant Islamist attacks on French soil since January 2015.

Sarkozy's comments come after French President Francois Hollande, a Socialist, took a swipe at his opponents this week, saying their hardline reactions to a wave of militant attacks demonstrated an intent to destroy France's social model.

Sarkozy took an even tougher approach on Sunday by proposing to systematically place French citizens, suspected of having militant links, in special detention facilities.

"Every Frenchman suspected of being linked to terrorism, because he regularly consults a jihadist website, or his behaviour shows signs of radicalisation or because is in close contact with radicalised people, must by preventively placed in a detention centre," Sarkozy said in the interview.

Sarkozy, who announced last month his candidacy for the April 2017 presidential election, has said there is no place for "legal niceties" in the fight against terrorism.

According to French Institute for Public Opinion, Ifop, voters turned out to have most confidence in former Prime Minister Alain Juppe to guarantee security, with Sarkozy in second place, Prime Minister Manuel Valls in third, and Hollande a distant 8th.

French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said in a separate interview with the French newspaper on Sunday he planned to make proposals next week to Valls to ease prison overcrowding.

"I do not advocate creation of facilities dedicated to terrorists...The real challenge is to prepare the release of those who are sentenced for a short or medium term," Urvoas said.
The Turkish Republic, since its emergence in 1923, was bound to follow the European ideals of secularisation-modernisation, as dictated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Kemalism, through its built-in ideals, envisages a strong homogenised nation-state, governed by the political elite, supervised by the military and guarded by the judiciary.

Authoritarian Kemalist state, compared to a rather deprived society, attempted to bring the homogenised nation-state into force by employing the harshest measures. Nationalism and the notion of otherness have been instrumental in marginalising the wider sections of the society and the elite core, filtered out through the top-down approach of the Kemalist cadre to remain in control.

It alienated the religious Islamic groups from intra-elite politics on the one hand, pushing aside all non-Turkish identities, including Kurds. The dichotomy between Islam and Turkish nationalism created by the Kemalist secular elite led to a perpetual political tension.

Notwithstanding the Kemalist-secularist control over religion, Islam has always been a stronger force in deciding the fate of Turkish politics. With the ouster of Necmettin Erbekan, his general Cevik Bir - who had masterminded the former's heave-ho - realised Islam's inevitability and stated: "In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy..."

The child of this marriage is secularism, and it frequently falls ill. The Turkish Armed Forces play the doctor who saves the child. Although Kemalist Turkey had never been democratic in its true form, Islam has always been a constituent of the Turkish national identity, even under Kemal Ataturk. As a result of an unstable political situation and economic recession, the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to come to power and started liquidating the stagnant "tutelage" by expediting the process of democratisation of the Turkish society.

By avoiding any substantial focus on its political Islamist ideology, the AKP began synergising with mainstream politics and introduced a series of democratic reforms in the system. The AKP government had promised to pursue Turkey's bid to secure EU membership, economic advancement, and the standardisation of the judicial system.

Abiding by the EU's directive of "civilianisation", it has abolished the death penalty, and by ushering several socio-economic reforms, including ratification of international human rights conventions, the AKP government put substantial checks on military-dominated intra-elite politics of Turkey.

Its megalomaniac leader Erdogan's pragmatic approach won him the support of business class, liberal intellectuals, and - to some extent - political legitimacy in the eyes of the military. But, these initial calls for democratisation of Turkey seem more likely a part and parcel of the AKP's survival strategy as one can clearly perceive an evident shift in Erdogan's policies - from democratisation to authoritarianism.

With his four consecutive electoral successes, Erdogan began monopolising powers to emerge as an immune political figure beyond any opposition. For this, the constitution needs amendments supported by the required majority and that can be achieved only by ensuring an opposition with no say. As the first priority, he silenced those media outlets that were hesitant in eulogising him. In addition, he employed further pre-emptive measures against the judiciary, political opponents and, in fact, all those who were even likely to be critical of the AKP's politics.

Developments in the aftermath of the infamous high-level corruption probe of 2013, allegedly launched by the Gulenists (which Erdogan later termed as "dirty conspiracy") instigated him to take harsher undemocratic measures.

He finally used July 15's failed coup d'etat as an excuse to launch an immediate massive violent purge targeting innocent civilians, including teachers, university deans, prosecutors and judges, by profiling them as terrorists.

Instead of upholding the process of democratisation that he himself employed to strengthen the country's democratic institutions, Erdogan - now accused of being driven by neo-Ottomanism - is using the attempted coup as an opportunity to overthrow each and every possible opposition.

It has already been argued by Turkish officials that the restoration of death penalty can be a useful tool to mitigate the potential threats of future coups. Verily, the attempted coup was an attack on democracy and condemned by all corners of the world, but the measures taken by the country's president in its aftermath have wrought an even severe thrust on the country's democracy.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, he said that "to ensure durable bilateral ties, and steady development, it is of paramount importance that we respect each others aspirations, concerns and strategic interests."

Later, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup explained: "You can pretty well understand that when we talk of strategic interests and aspirations, it is not as if China is unaware of our strategic concerns and aspirations or we are unaware of their concerns."

Modi had not only the Valley in mind, but also Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir (POK).

Concerns

In his August 15 speech, the prime minister had asserted: "The people of Balochistan, the people of Gilgit, the people of POK have thanked me in such a manner, from places that I have never been and never had a chance to meet, they have sent wishes to the people of India and thanked us... I am grateful to them."

On the previous day, Pakistans Independence Day, prime minister Nawaz Sharif had dedicated his countrys independence to the "freedom of Kashmir from Indian rule".

During the previous weeks, Pakistan had been bringing the Kashmir issue on the world scene.

Two issues forced India to take a tougher position to defend its interests: the current unrest in the Valley, but also the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), cutting across POK, in which Beijing plans to invest $46 billion.

Modi has not only the Valley in mind, but also Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir (POK). (Photo: PTI)

To get proper historical perspectives of the current situation, it is necessary to go back to the year before the British left the jewel of their empire.

The British Empire, born from a trading company, was a sea-empire. But at the beginning of the 20th century, two new factors appeared on the strategic scene: one was aviation (whose role was masterfully demonstrated by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour in 1941) and petrol, and therefore, the importance of the Middle East.

When the British chiefs of staff were ordered to submit a report on the strategic consequences of the departure from the subcontinent, the generals agreed that Pakistan was more important than India; they foresaw the possibility of installing air bases in the north of Pakistan to control Russia and naval bases opening to the Arabian Sea in the south.

Another argument was that Mohammed Ali Jinnah was extremely keen to remain within the Commonwealth while the Indian National Congress had not made up its mind. Jinnah once forcefully told Mountbatten: "You cant kick us out."

Subsequently, Londons policy was meticulously implemented; as the time of Independence came, while Jinnah insisted on becoming the first governor-general of Pakistan, the Congress big-heartedly offered the job in India to the Viscount.

This was the first of a long series of blunders. Then, when soon after Independence, the issue of Junagadh and Hyderabad came up, the Cabinet had to create a defence committee.

Who became its chairman? A Britisher, the same Mountbatten. Second blunder.

Mistakes

This was a surrealistic situation: two dominions, one with a Pakistani governor-general, the other with a British; two armies, both commanded by British generals.

The "Indian" British generals took orders from the British governor-general and not from the Indian government; the Defence Committee being chaired by a Briton, often overrode the Cabinets decisions and a "stand-down" order stated that British officers would not fight one another.

As a result, India could not defend itself. Such was the situation when the raiders trained, equipped and directed by Colonel Akbar Khan, military adviser of the Pakistani prime minister, entered Kashmir at the end of October 1947.

The story is too well known to be recounted here, but the interesting point is that the British constantly played a double game.

For example, General Douglas Gracey, the Pakistani Army commander, knew of the raiders' attack beforehand, but he did not "inform" his "Indian" British counterpart.

Another mega blunder: as the Indian Army was ready to chase back the raiders and the Pakistani regulars, Jawaharlal Nehru unnecessarily referred the issue to UN on the advice of Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister and Mountbatten.

Outlook

The invasion of J&K by Pakistani regular forces on May 8, 1948, was in contravention of all international laws.

Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, the secretary-general of the ministry of external affairs, wrote: "When even direct aggression failed, (Pakistan) began to clamour for a plebiscite, thereby hoping to achieve by other means what she had failed to obtain by force."

Bajpai remarked that for the first time in its Resolution of August 13, 1948, the UN "recorded one major change in the situation as contemplated by the Security Council during its deliberations in the early part of that year, namely, the presence of Pakistan troops in the state of J&K."

In this condition, the plebiscite never took place. It is important to keep this in mind, when one goes through the recent developments in the region.

It is essential to look at these events in their historical context. The large presence of Chinese "workers" on a territory that was legally part of the India Union, and also the joint patrols conducted by PLA frontier defence troops and the Pakistani Khunjerab Security Force south of the Khunjerab pass ("aiming to offer security guarantee to the construction of the CPEC"), are naturally a serious concern for India.

Let us hope that China is now aware of Indias strategic concerns and aspirations in the region.
Photo for illustration

Thailand surpassed China to become the biggest fruit and vegetable provider to Vietnam, with nearly USD163 million of import value in the first seven months of the year, accounting for 38.7% of the countrys total import value or a year-on-year rise of 70%.

Meanwhile, import value of the commodity from China reached USD102.52 million, making up 24.4% and up nearly 30% over a year earlier.

Vietnam also imported fruits and vegetables from the US, worth USD41.2 million, Australia at USD24.6 million, Myanmar at USD18.5 million, New Zealand at USD13.8 million and South Africa at USD7.6 million./.




The PM hailed the outcomes of talks between the Cambodian Minister and Vietnamese Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan, noting that both sides need to enhance experience sharing which will benefit both sides.

Minister Tram Iv Tek, for his part, said the visit aims to enhance collaboration between the two ministries and learn from Vietnams experience in developing information and telecom technology, thus opening up opportunities for bilateral partnerships in the field.

He reported to PM Phuc that the two sides had agreed to direct agencies and units to carry out cooperation deals and make it easier for Vietnamese businesses to invest in Cambodia./.




Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh, who led the Vietnamese delegation, told Vietnam News Agency correspondents that the participants agreed on the UNs reviews of countries contributions to the UN peacekeeping forces. They were informed about the UNs urgent peacekeeping requirements at present.

They approved a joint statement with a view to promoting the UN missions peacekeeping capacity as well as international cooperation in this sphere.

The participating countries also pledged to coordinate more closely to improve the quality of peacekeeping operations through personnel training and womens increased engagement in the UN peacekeeping forces, Vinh said.

He noted that many delegates, especially those from powerful countries, expressed the willingness to take larger part in peacekeeping activities. They also asked the UN to make reforms to strengthen the management and readiness of peacekeeping forces.

At the meeting, Vietnam called on UN peacekeepers to prioritise the issue of humanity, helping local people in nation rebuilding efforts, apart from ensuring peace.

Vietnam also asked for enhanced international cooperation and mutual support, especially assistance for newcomers to peacekeeping operations like Vietnam, the deputy minister said.

Those proposals received widespread support at the meeting, he added.

The UN peacekeeping forces have permanent personnel of about 90,000 troops tasked with addressing political and military crises at countries with ongoing armed conflicts or war risks. They just engage in peacekeeping, humanitarian aid provision and monitoring of ceasefires at conflicted areas.

On the fringe of the London event, the Vietnamese delegation met with officials of other countries, such as the Japanese deputy defence minister and the defence ministers of Indonesia, Cambodia and China, Vinh noted.

Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan spoke highly of the recent China visit by his Vietnamese counterpart Ngo Xuan Lich. He said the two sides should accelerate discussions to soon realise aspects of defence cooperation as agreed by the two ministers./.




After the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the first session of the 14th National Assembly, Chinese leaders sent congratulatory messages to Vietnamese counterparts and confirmed China is willing to maintain strategic exchanges and deepen cooperation across fields to promote healthy and stable rapport with Vietnam.

At meetings, the Chinese side continually asserted that it places importance to the ties with Vietnam and is also ready to work the neighbor to manage and address maritime disputes and enhance bilateral collaboration in defense, external and judicial affairs.

Both countries agreed to take effective measures to boost two-way trade to USD100 billion in 2017. China pledged to pay more attention to Vietnams trade deficit and gradually implement large-scale investment projects that would represent the bilateral relations.

The bilateral trade reached USD66.6 billion in 2015, a year-on-year rise of 13.7 percent, of which Vietnam exported USD17.1 billion worth of goods to China (up 14.8 percent) and imported USD49.5 billion in commodities (up 13.3 percent).

In the first seven months of 2016, Vietnams exports reached USD10.85 billion (up 14.93 percent) while its imports stood at USD16.47 billion (down 3.42 percent).

In the first half of 2016, China ran 127 new investment projects in Vietnam with the total newly-registered and increased capital of USD537.6 million.

As of July 2016, China (excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau), secured 1,500 investment projects in Vietnam worth USD10.86 billion, ranking ninth out of the 116 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

China continued to take the lead in the number of tourists to Vietnam with nearly 1.5 million in the first seven months of 2016, accounting for over one quarter of international holidaymakers to Vietnam in the period.

Regarding the East Sea issue, Vietnamese and Chinese leaders reached important perceptions on settling satisfactorily disputes at sea on the basis of respecting mutual benefits and international law.

Vietnam and China have completed their joint survey of waters off the Gulf of Tonkin and kick-started a research cooperation project on a comparative study on Holocene-era sediments in the Red River Delta of Vietnam and the Chang Jiang River Delta of China.

The two sides have also conducted the eighth round of negotiations on maritime cooperation in less sensitive fields.

During his stay in China, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is scheduled to attend the 13th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) and the 13th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit, following the theme Building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Forging an Even-Closer China-ASEAN Community of Common Destiny.

The two events constitute an important mechanisms to boost friendship, trade and multi-sector cooperation between ASEAN member countries and China./.
At the event, organizers presented 70 bicycles, 70 gift packages and five education packets from AIA Vietnam Life Insurance Co., Ltd (VND20 million each), worth VND230 million in total, to disadvantaged local students.

With all the bikes donated to unprivileged children, we hope their long way to school will be less arduous. We believe this contribution will bring them more opportunities to continue their education for a better future, said AIA Vietnam CEO Wayne Besant.

Binh Duong is the ninth beneficiary of this year's program after Bac Ninh, Thai Binh, Hung Yen, Thai Nguyen, Nghe An, Quang Binh, Quang Nam and Gia Lai provinces.

















Photos: Thanh Ngan

In its third year, Real life journey is designed with 12 major events from the North to the South, providing at least 1,070 bicycles to disadvantaged students. So far, over 2,600 bikes given to students.

The event was launched in 2014 to encourage disadvantaged children from distant locations to go to school and achieve high academic performance. Apart from assisting disadvantaged children, it has also contributed to promoting the rights of children, traffic safety and environmental protection.

During 2014-2015 period, as many as 1,800 bicycles contributed by AIA Vietnam Life Insurance Co. Ltd staffs, clients and partners, have been transferred to poor students in 37 provinces and cities nationwide.

Every year, around 200,000 students drop out of school; one of the main reasons being the long distances they have to travel by foot. In remote areas, many students need to walk between five and ten kilometers to the nearest school.

Over the past four years, AIA Vietnam Life Insurance Co. Ltd supported over VND10 billion for poor kids across the nation, including nearly 4,000 floating backpacks, over 530 drinking water purifying machines, over 800 sets of school stationery, and around 4,400 scholarships for poor students in 50 localities, bringing benefit to over 11,000 kids and their families./.
White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides insurance and other financial services in the United States. The company operates through five segments: HG Global/BAM, Ark, NSM, Kudu, and Other Operations. The HG Global/BAM segment provides insurance on municipal bonds issued to finance public purposes, such as schools, utilities, and transportation facilities, as well as reinsurance protection services. The Ark segment writes a portfolio of reinsurance and insurance, including property, marine and energy, accident and health, casualty, and specialty products. The NSM segment operates as a managing general agent and program administrator for specialty property and casualty insurance to various sectors comprising specialty transportation, real estate, social services, and pet. The Kudu segment provides capital solutions to boutique asset and wealth managers for generational ownership transfers, management buyouts, acquisitions and growth finances, and legacy partner liquidity, as well as strategic assistance to investees. The Other Operations segment offers insurance solutions to travel industry through broker channel and on a direct-to-consumer basis; and manages separate accounts and pooled investment vehicles for insurance-linked securities sectors, including catastrophe bonds, collateralized reinsurance investments, and industry loss warranties of third-party clients. White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Vermilion Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of petroleum and natural gas in North America, Europe, and Australia. The company owns 81% working interest in 636,714 net acres of developed land and 85% working interest in 301,026 net acres of undeveloped land in Canada; 130,715 net acres of land in the Powder River basin in the United States; 96% working interest in 248,873 net acres of developed land and 86% working interest in 134,160 net acres of undeveloped land in the Aquitaine and Paris Basins in France; 53% working interest in 901,791 net acres of land in the Netherlands; 54,625 net developed acres and 920,723 net undeveloped acres in Germany; 975,375 net acres land in Croatia; 946,666 net acres land in Hungary; and 48,954 net acres land in Slovakia. It also owns 20% interests in the offshore Corrib natural gas field located to the northwest coast of Ireland; and 100% working interest in the Wandoo offshore oil field and related production facilities that covers 59,553 acres located on Western Australia's northwest shelf. As of December 31, 2021, the company had 401 net producing conventional natural gas wells and 2,132 net producing light and medium crude oil wells in Canada; 167.6 net producing light and medium crude oil wells in the United States; 297.0 net producing light and medium crude oil wells and 3 net producing conventional natural gas wells in France; and 47 net producing natural gas wells in the Netherlands. Vermilion Energy Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
ALLETE, Inc. operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. The company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 145,000 retail customers and 15 non-affiliated municipal customers. It also owns and maintains electric transmission assets in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois. In addition, the company focuses on developing, acquiring, and operating clean and renewable energy projects; and owns and operates approximately 1,000 megawatts of wind energy generation facility. Further, it is involved in the coal mining operations in North Dakota; and real estate investment activities in Florida. The company owns and operates 158 substations with a total capacity of 10,066 megavolt amperes. It serves taconite mining, paper, pulp and secondary wood products, pipeline, and other industries. The company was formerly known as Minnesota Power, Inc. and changed its name to ALLETE, Inc. in May 2001. ALLETE, Inc. was incorporated in 1906 and is headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota.
Banc of California, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Banc of California, National Association that provides banking products and services in the United States. The company offers deposit products, including checking, savings, money market, retirement, and interest-bearing and noninterest-bearing demand accounts, as well as certificate of deposits. It also provides various commercial and consumer loan products, such as commercial and industrial loans; commercial real estate and multifamily loans; construction loans; single family residential mortgage loans; warehouse and indirect/direct leveraged lending; home equity lines of credit; small business administration loans; and other consumer loans. In addition, the company offers automated bill payment, cash and treasury management, foreign exchange, card payment, remote and mobile deposit capture, automated clearing house origination, wire transfer, direct deposit, and internet banking services; and master demand accounts, interest rate swaps, and safe deposit boxes. Further, it invests in collateralized loan obligations, agency securities, municipal bonds, agency residential mortgage-backed securities, and corporate debt securities. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 29 full-service branches in Southern California. The company was formerly known as First PacTrust Bancorp, Inc. and changed its name to Banc of California, Inc. in July 2013. Banc of California, Inc. was founded in 1941 and is headquartered in Santa Ana, California.
Duke Energy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Electric Utilities and Infrastructure, Gas Utilities and Infrastructure, and Commercial Renewables. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electricity in the Carolinas, Florida, and the Midwest; and uses coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, oil, renewable generation, and nuclear fuel to generate electricity. It also engages in the wholesale of electricity to municipalities, electric cooperative utilities, and load-serving entities. This segment serves approximately 8.2 million customers in 6 states in the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States covering a service territory of approximately 91,000 square miles; and owns approximately 50,259 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity. The Gas Utilities and Infrastructure segment distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and power generation natural gas customers; and owns, operates, and invests in pipeline transmission and natural gas storage facilities. It has approximately 1.6 million customers, including 1.1 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as 550,000 customers in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. The Commercial Renewables segment acquires, owns, develops, builds, and operates wind and solar renewable generation projects, including nonregulated renewable energy and energy storage services to utilities, electric cooperatives, municipalities, and corporate customers. It has 23 wind, 178 solar, and 2 battery storage facilities, as well as 71 fuel cell locations with a capacity of 3,554 MW across 22 states. The company was formerly known as Duke Energy Holding Corp. and changed its name to Duke Energy Corporation in April 2005. The company was founded in 1904 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. 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KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. 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Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. 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Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc.,      ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc..

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The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial products and services in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases. It also provides credit cards and payments; real estate secured lending, auto finance, and consumer lending services; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, and advice to retail and institutional clients through direct investing, advice-based, and asset management businesses; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking products and services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to corporations, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,061 branches and 3,381 automated teller machines (ATMs) in Canada, and 1,148 stores and 2,701 ATMs in the United States, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. It has a strategic alliance with Canada Post Corporation. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
Wipro Limited operates as information technology (IT), consulting, and business process services company worldwide. It operates through three segments: IT Services, IT Products, and India State Run Enterprise Services (ISRE). The IT Services segment offers IT and IT-enabled services, including digital strategy advisory, customer-centric design, technology and IT consulting, custom application design, development, re-engineering and maintenance, systems integration, package implementation, cloud and infrastructure, business process, cloud, mobility and analytics, research and development, and hardware and software design services to enterprises. It serves customers in various industry sectors, such as healthcare and medical devices, consumer goods and life sciences, retail, transportation and services, communications, media and information services, technology products and platforms, banking, financial services and insurance, manufacturing, hi-tech, energy, and utilities. The IT Products segment provides a range of third-party IT products comprising enterprise platforms, networking solutions, software and data storage products, contact center infrastructure, enterprise security, IT optimization technologies, video solutions, and end-user computing solutions. It serves enterprises in various industries primarily in the India market, which comprise the government, defense, IT and IT-enabled services, telecommunications, manufacturing, utilities, education, and financial services sectors. The ISRE segment offers IT services to entities and departments owned or controlled by the Government of India and/or various Indian State Governments. The company was incorporated in 1945 and is based in Bengaluru, India.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has taken part in the launch of the exploration of the upper horizon of the Shebelynka gas field in Balaklia district of Kharkiv region.

"This well is extremely important for our independence. Moreover, experts say, they have huge optimism about this field's gas reserves. We will be able to increase our energy independence," Groysman told reporters after the launch of the wildcat.

According to the chief geologist of the gas industrial management of Shebelynkagazvydobuvannia Viktor Zhmurkov, the depth of well is 1.110 m. It is launched on the basis of re-interpretation of industrial-geophysical explorations on the basis of old wells. The test of well No. 250 in the western Shebelynka deposit block showed good results. The commercial well rate of 109.6 cubic meters per day has been obtained from the interval of 695-703 m.

"Taking into consideration, that the depth of the well is small, this year its drilling will be finished, its gas content will be estimated, tests will be carried out and it will be put into operation," Zhmurkov said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier discussed at their meeting a number of issues relating to the OSCE activities in the eastern Ukrainian territories beyond Kyiv's control.

"The sides have discussed strengthening international presence in the region and first of all, through deployment of an OSCE armed police mission in Donbas," the Ukrainian presidential press service said in a communique following the meeting on Friday.

Poroshenko drew Zannier's attention to the necessity of restoration of control over the Ukraine-Russia frontier section, across which, Poroshenko believes, military equipment and weapons continue to be shipped.

"In this context, the key is implementing provisions of the Minsk Agreements with regard to imposition, on the part of the OSCE, of a permanent monitoring over the uncontrolled section of the state border," the Ukrainian presidential press service said.

Meanwhile, Russian Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich said earlier that restoration of any control over the section of the Ukraine-Russia border on the part of the Ukrainian authorities may not start until local elections are held in Donbas.
Panama court has ordered a $600,000 bail for ex-head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management Vladyslav Kaskiv and he filed a political asylum petition, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin has said.

"Tonight (Kyiv time) Panama court ordered a $600,000 bail for Kaskiv and restricted his movement within Panama City [new selfies with policemen should not mislead Ukrainians]. As soon as he pays the money he will be released," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Yenin said that Kaskiv is obliged to report to the police twice a week. He said that Kaskiv has filed a political asylum petition.

"Kaskiv's readiness to cooperate with Ukrainian law enforcers was a fake. There would not be short extradition procedure. Kaskiv has filed a political asylum petition. Chances to have it passed are small, but this means extra time," Yenin said.
Third part of a four-part series.

Less than a week into her race around the world, Elizabeth Bisland was a tortured soul.

Outwardly, the 28-year-old writer presented an image of poise and grace. But behind the veneer, she was tormented by nameless, undefined apprehensions.

It wasnt until Bisland left San Francisco on the steamship Oceanic on Nov. 21, 1889, that she felt she might have the opportunity to relax and return to normal. Several days of stormy seas and a bout of seasickness that made her glad she had penned her last will and testament squashed that hope.

Around the same time, on the opposite side of the world, Nellie Bly was meeting Jules Verne, who had inspired her global jaunt. The famous author and his wife, Honorine, were favorably impressed with the plucky Bly.

During Blys overnight stay with the couple in Amiens, France, Mrs. Verne went so far as to predict to her husband that the 25-year-old newspaper reporter will make your heroes look foolish. She was so certain that Bly would better Phileas Foggs 80-day record that she offered to place a wager with the man who had created the fictional character.

The novelist declined the offer, feeling sure that it would be a fools bet. He was much more interested in the route Bly would follow on her journey.

Bly was happy to trace her intended line of march on a map. It took her from New York to London, then across the English Channel to Calais, France. Then it was on to Brindisi, Italy; Port Said; Ismailia; Suez; Aden; Ceylon; Singapore; Hong Kong; Yokohama, Japan; San Francisco; and back to New York.

Bisland was following a similar route, but in the opposite direction. She knew it was a race from the outset, but Bly didnt learn it was a competition until she reached Hong Kong on Dec. 23, 1889.

Bly was dumbfounded to hear about Bisland. When she had regained her composure, she reaffirmed her objective of circling the world in 75 days. If someone could do it faster, she felt, so be it.

Bly was emphatic that she didnt consider it a race, but she was largely alone in that thinking. Her sponsor, the New York World newspaper, did whatever it could to ensure she would be the victor.

Ultimately, it would come down to missed connections, which were practically inevitable on a trip that covered 30,000 miles. The most critical for Bisland was being told that she had missed the fast steamship that was supposed to carry her from England back to America.

This wasnt true, but it put Bisland several days behind Bly, because it led to her having to take a much slower ship from Ireland. If not for this misstep, Bisland likely would have won the race.

Bly won, but she had the benefit of riding across the United States on a specially chartered private train. She ended her dream trip in New Jersey at 3:51 p.m. Jan. 25, 1890.

It had taken Bly 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes to complete the journey. Bislands slow boat from Ireland reached New York on Jan. 30, 1890. It had taken her 76 days, also besting Foggs fictional record.

Bisland wrote a series of stories about her journey for the monthly magazine The Cosmopolitan, which had sent her on the trip she didnt want to take. The series was published in the book In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World.

Bly also wrote a book about her adventure, titling it Nellie Blys Book: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days.

The world record didnt last for long. A few months after Bly finished circumnavigating the planet, George Francis Train did it in 67 days. In 1892, he did it in 60 days.

Although Train did it faster, the feats Bly and Bisland were able to pull off were remarkable for the times. They showed that women could be as independent, resourceful, ambitious and courageous as men.

Bly went on to become a leading industrialist, as well as an inventor. She died on Jan. 27, 1922, of pneumonia at the age of 57.

Bisland never received the recognition that Bly did for racing around the globe. She scarcely was mentioned in the daily reports published in the New York World and other newspapers.

And The Cosmopolitan was a monthly magazine, so it hadnt been a timely source of information during the race. This lack of notoriety likely pleased Bisland a great deal.

Bisland was content to put her writing in the limelight, not herself. It would be her search for a quiet place to live that brought her to Charlottesville in 1924.

Next: Bislands final years.
Walking down the halls of Brownsville Elementary School toward the fifth-grade classrooms, a series of American flags can be seen decorating the walls.

The flags, each about the size of a standard magazine opened at the centerfold, were created by fifth-graders at the school as part of an annual project.

Bobby Humphrey, a fifth-grade teacher at Brownsville, said the project shows both the unity of students as Americans while also highlighting their individuality.

A closer look at each students flag shows words and letters cut from magazines and pasted to the white stripes. Students were asked to pick out words and phrases that they thought would identify them as individuals.

For fifth-grader Caroline Just, she placed several of her interests  studying nature, playing music and being a gymnast, to name a few  and lined them neatly within the white stripes. Unlike some of her classmates who chose to overlap pasted words with other stripes and use broader paint brush strokes, Caroline said she decided to go for a clean and neat look, which goes with the perfectionist she said she tries to be.

Her flag is one of many designs with an assortment of words that express creativity and identity at the individual level but together create a collective scene of unity and patriotism.

The project has become a tradition at Brownsville for several years, even before Humphrey said he started working at the school six years ago.

Karen Morris, who also teaches fifth grade at Brownsville, said the project is done as a way to build community among the students during the first few weeks of school.

The American flag signifies us as all Americans, she said. Were all united, we're part of the community, but we have the students create their own version of the flag using their words that describe themselves to show how each flag is unique but we're all still united as Americans, and as students of the school and people in our classroom.

Morris said the project was inspired in part by artist Jasper Johns work Flag. The piece is a painted depiction of the American flag on canvas with strips of newspaper, which is visible through the stars and stripes, according to its description from the Museum of Modern Arts website.

To mimic Flag a little more, the students painted a thin white line across the words on the white stripe, making them blend in a little more with the overall flag.

For students Emmy Miller, Hailey Hodson and Jack Schmitz, the flag project is a way to express themselves.

I think it's a way to show who we really are and our passion, and it's cool because together, we're a community, but each one of us is special, said Jack, who used words such as game for his love of sports, history because he enjoys it and go bananas to reflect what he calls his crazy nature.

Emmy and Hailey both said the individuality was a key component of the project.

If you look at them  no two [are] the same, which I think is really cool and I like that, Hailey said, who included words related to family and baking, two things shes passionate about.

I feel like it was really fun because we could actually make our own words just using letters from magazines and, if you find, like, a word that really speaks to you, you can use it on there, said Emmy, who chose dessert-related words for her flag.

Morris said the flags will stay up in the hallway until the next project comes along for the fifth-graders to complete and then display in the same location.
Low-income youth, statistics show, are at a disadvantage when it comes to staying up to date on technology  and seeing what they can achieve if they put their mind to it.

The U.S. Bureau of Statistics says more than 50 percent of jobs require some technology skills and experts say the percentage will increase to 77 percent in the next decade.

To help stem the digital divide, Meredith Richards, Irvin Cox and Sarah McConnell teamed up more than 15 years ago to create Computers4Kids. The goal of the program is to empower low-income youth by bringing together technology and imagination through supportive mentoring, youth-driven programming and skill-building for life success.

Marking the 15th anniversary this year of its Learning Lab opening to students, C4K began after organizers conducted a survey to assess the amount of access seventh-graders had to computers at home. The survey showed that the percentage of students at each school who did not have a computer and those on the free and reduced-price lunch program was almost identical.

Richards wanted to fix the problem.

I was running for City Council and my campaign platform was to bridge the digital divide in our community. I hoped to do so by refurbishing computers and distributing them to families with kids in the school that didnt have access to a computer, said Richards, a former member of Charlottesvilles council.

Eventually, Richards did an interview on air with Sarah McConnell, then-news director of WINA, and started talking about the digital divide. While on the air, Irvin Cox, founder and owner of Entre Computer Center, called in and said he also was trying to start a program. One thing led to another. I said, Lets get together and talk, so the three of us got together and soon after we became the founders of C4K, Richards said.

The founders worked with the Boys and Girls Club to help establish C4K and eventually received help from Virginia National Bank and a grant from the federal Department of Commerce.

The $350,000 grant from the commerce department established the first computer laboratory, which helped formalize the program. However, the grant money couldnt be used to hire anyone.

The community came together and helped fund C4K, and for quite some time VNB paid for the organizations first and only executive director, Kala Somerville.

Somerville was faced with so many obstacles, but has proven herself time and time again. Shes really just a wonderful person, Richards said.

During the beginning stages of C4K, there were no rules or requirements as to what computers could be donated and then distributed. Eventually, C4K established standards for equipment donations.

We realized our program needed to do more than just give someone a computer, because its only so helpful if they dont know what to do with it, said Somerville, which is why C4K offers mentoring and a year-round learning environment to empower lower-income youth with hands-on activities.

Once a student member has completed the orientation session, they can use the C4K studio anytime its open. Once a student is matched with a mentor, they are required to come in at least once a week for an hour to meet with the mentor.

Johnny Jackson is working with his mentor, Juandiego Wade, a member of the citys School Board, to create a computer video game.

I love it here, I get to be me  If I want to make something theyll find a way to help me create it, Jackson said.

Jacksons mom, Shay Green, said she loves that her son has a place to express himself and be with people who enjoy helping him.

When Johnny brought me the flier home, I was a little nervous about trying another after-school program but I cant say enough about how much we love it, and how happy I am watching my baby find himself, she said.

Over the years, Somerville has had the opportunity to watch C4K grow and develop into the organization that it is today.

The thing I like most about this program is that it is always changing. As an organization, we are constantly looking at the community and the needs of the workforce and making sure that we are providing the best services that we can to our members, she said.

Though Richards, McConnell and Cox are no longer C4K board members, Richards expressed their complete confidence in the staff to continue serving low-income children.

This is a community story, and one that I am proud to be a part of, she said.
Once upon a time, you could board an airliner without first taking off your shoes.

Once upon a time, you could walk to the airport gate with your dearly departing to exchange long looks and last kisses.

Once upon that time, you could make a phone call, text or email without a computer algorithm scanning for key words such as bomb, target and nuke.

That time was before Sept. 11, 2001.

A lot has changed since the day terrorists hijacked and flew airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon and a passenger revolt forced the fatal crash of another in the Pennsylvania countryside.

Congress quickly created the Transportation Safety Administration and the Department of Homeland Security and pushed through legislation known as the Patriot Act.

We went to war in Afghanistan. We are still there.

A few years later, we went to war in Iraq. Were still there, too.

Now we bicker amongst ourselves over immigrants, refugees, drone strikes, demonstrations and patriotism. We are polarized by the politics of war, race, economics and religion. Sometimes it seems that the terrorist attacks caused our melting pot to boil over.

After 9/11, someone said to me that he prayed we didnt become the evil we sought to overcome that day, said the Rev. C. Neal Goldsborough, interim rector at St. Pauls Memorial Church in Charlottesville. I dont believe for a minute that we, as a nation, are as evil as the folks who slit the throats of the crews on those airplanes and flew the airliners into buildings. But I do worry that our actions in Iraq have allowed that evil to expand.

The Rev. Goldsborough has watched the societal change since 2001, but he has a broader perspective. Unlike those of us who watched the horror of 9/11 unfold on television or read about it in school, he saw it up close.

A U.S. Navy Reserve chaplain living in Northern Virginia, he was called to duty at the Pentagon beginning Sept 12. He notified families that loved ones were missing, presumed dead and then for sure dead. He walked into the ruins to help remove with dignity any human remains, most of which were parts and pieces due to the impact and inferno caused by American Airlines Flight 77, full of fuel, crashing into a concrete building recently reinforced to contain explosions.

At other times, he waited for remains to be brought to him, speaking prayers over them before consigning them to a refrigerated trailer for later identification.

It was tough on everyone, especially on the families waiting for word about their loved ones. The lucky people were the ones who found out that their loved ones remains had been found, the Rev. Goldsborough recalled. There were some people who had nothing recovered. All they found of one man was his American Express card.

The impact of those days hit him hard. One day, waiting to bless remains, he was brought the broken body of a child.

Thats when it really hit home for me that evil was very real in this world, he said. At the same time, I worked with so many people who proved that evil doesnt have the last word. These were people who really witnessed the word of God.

In the Iraq War, the Rev. Goldsborough served as Father Mulcahy to a mobile hospital unit, providing what spiritual sustenance and assistance he could to the wounded, maimed and dying at a field hospital in Kuwait.

I remember thinking when I was in that hospital that if all of this suffering and loss that these men and women are going through comes to nothing, if it is a fools errand, it will be too much to bear. Im afraid it will become something like a fools errand the more I hear people say its all been a mistake. We put our best women and men in harms way and for what? Im still working on it. Maybe Ill be working on it the rest of my life, he said.

There are a lot of questions about how far weve gone as a nation and what were becoming. Theres also a lot of inconvenience because of whats happened. Every time I take my shoes off at the airport I have to check myself from getting upset and feeling inconvenienced, the Rev. Goldsborough said. I do that by thinking back to the wounded who came through my hospital. They were the ones who were inconvenienced.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko congratulated intelligence officers on professional holiday on September 7 and described the tasks intelligence officers have.

"As for the future expectations from the military intelligence in the framework of the implementation of the provisions of the National Security Strategy of Ukraine, the President stressed the need to bring the structure of military intelligence into conformity with NATO standards taking into account the experience of hostilities in eastern Ukraine. It is also necessary to expand human intelligence capabilities, build capacity of electronic, space and geospatial intelligence, primarily in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, strengthen analytical activities and establish cooperation with special services of the countries-members of NATO and the European Union," the press service of the head of state has reported.

Poroshenko visited the Technical Intelligence Center of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine that processes information on the activities of the Armed Forces of the country-aggressor in Crimea and the occupied territories of Ukraine. The president examined new intelligence means. New facts of violation of the Minsk agreements revealed by modern means of intelligence have been shown to the president.

According to Poroshenko, the establishment of the center is a significant contribution to the development of the unified system of state intelligence.

"Actually, this is the beginning of intelligence information collecting and processing automation. Further accumulation of the opportunities of this center will allow the integration of data extracted by all kinds of technical intelligence (space, air and radio electronic) and its transfer to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ministry of Defense and Chief Situation Center of Ukraine. I am confident that the Technical Intelligence Center will become one of the main components of the future unified automated system of military intelligence of Ukraine," the Supreme Commander-in-Chief said.

The president expressed gratitude to the intelligence officers for brave performance of military tasks near Donetsk and Luhansk airports, battles for Savur-Mohyla, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Debaltseve and other places.

"I believe that the younger generation of intelligence officers will augment the glory of military intelligence, which is an example of professionalism, valor and honor," he said.

"Intelligence officers have always been in trouble spots," the president said.
The era of sexual harassment against women in the workplace did not end this week. But the resolution of former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit against dethroned TV titan Roger Ailes provides a high-profile warning to the powerful and predatory: Don't be so certain you'll be able to brush off an accusation or slink away with your reputation intact in exchange for writing a check.

Yes, the Fox News chairman, who played a role in propagating the modern conservative movement, was ousted from his position, as he should have been. And, yes, Carlson got a huge check to end the litigation: a reported $20 million.

But what we also hope resonates is the public apology Carlson received, which cited her talent and professionalism, and which acknowledged that at Fox exemplary ability didn't guarantee equal treatment.

The statement of parent company 21st Century Fox

provided no details, not even Ailes' name, another shortcoming typical of the way corporations historically have confronted these allegations. They'd prefer to take minimal action to end a crisis than rip off the bandage and examine cultural rot. Frequently, settlements of these types avoid apologies or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Which is why Fox's apology stands out: This is a major media organization with profound influence on the country's political and cultural climate  and it acknowledges wrongdoing. Fox said Carlson, like other women at the network, deserved to be treated with respect and dignity. Much of what we know comes from the lawsuit Carlson filed against Ailes. Carlson alleged that when she complained to Ailes about the hostile and sexist atmosphere on the set of the show "Fox & Friends," Ailes called her a "man hater" and advised her to "get along with the boys." In his own polluted mind, that advice to "get along" apparently involved an offer from Ailes for a sexual relationship.

In retaliation against Carlson for her complaints, the suit alleges, Ailes took away important interview assignments and reduced her airtime.

That Carlson dared to file a lawsuit at all may be the most significant step toward stopping workplace harassment. Her decision to take on a powerful boss led to complaints by other female employees at Fox of Ailes' predatory behavior, which he has denied.

Carlson thanked "all the brave women" who came forward to tell their own stories or supported her. If there is more action the network needs to take, we hope Fox does it.

What actions would guarantee that all employees are treated equally, and that sexual harassment in particular won't be tolerated? There are none. But time  the passing of new generations into authority  helps, because ultimately that's how cultures change. Short of that, it's important to see that offenders are held accountable and that bad behavior, especially by powerful figures, is loudly and publicly rebuked.

Adapted from The Chicago Tribune.
MP from Petro Poroshenko Bloc Serhiy Leshchenko has given preliminary explanations about purchase of an expensive apartment in Kyiv, National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) analysts are examining documents, NABU Director Artem Sytnyk.

"This fact is being examined by our analysts. Leshchenko paid a visit and gave preliminary explanations about it. He will provide with documents. The authenticity of the documents will be checked. The decision to put the case on the register or not will be made or it would be confirmed that everything is lawful. Anyway the result will be made public," Sytnyk said at a briefing in Kharkiv on Saturday.

He said that the examination could be finished by the end of next week when Ukrayinska Pravda Head Olena Prytula who allegedly lent a part of the sum and Leshchenko's girl Anastasia Topolskaia gave their explanations.

As reported, according to media reports, MP Leschenko bought an apartment with gross area of 192 square meters downtown Kyiv.
Culpeper's restaurant scene expanded its scope this week as the area's first full-time Indian restaurant opened for business downtown.

Located at 201 South East Street in the space which formerly housed the Jamaican restaurant Fusions, Taste of India opened its doors Monday and has been doing steady business since.

Unit Manager Gopal Sharma, who helps oversee operations in the chain's five locations, said Taste of India began eight years ago with a flagship restaurant in Harrisonburg.

"We do Northern Indian food with a touch of Awadh," Sharma said.

Sharma said the restaurant's Awadhi dishes include kebabs cooked vertically in a charcoal-fired clay oven, known as a tandoor.

The Northern Indian fare includes vegetarian and meat dishes including chicken, lamb, goat, fish and seafood which feature rich gravies made with a wide variety of Indian herbs and spices, Sharma said.

Some of the herbs and spices the restaurant uses frequently include cumin, cardamom, ginger, onion, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, garlic and bay leaf, he said.

The famous Indian heat mostly comes form green chilies and the restaurant's homemade green chili paste, Sharma said.

"Most people think that all Indian food is hot, but that's not true," he said. "We make our food to the taste of our customers. It can be mild, medium, hot or very hot, depending on what the customer wants."

While Sharma said he can eat green chilies on their own, he prefers his meals made with medium heat.

"The most important thing is it is always fresh," Sharma said. "In Indian cooking, we do not keep food or spices around or freeze them. Everything must always be fresh."

Sharma said Culpeper is the fifth location in the restaurant's chain, which also includes eateries in Charlotteville, Staunton and Gainesville.

Owned by Ashok Kunver and Mausam Shrestha, Taste of India soon plans to open a second location in Harrisonburg, Sharma said.

The Culpeper restaurant currently has 10 employees, five servers and five people working in the kitchen. The local shop's chefs are Raj Ghale and Bhadra B. Jhankri, he said.

Expanding into Culpeper has been a goal for the restaurant chain for a while now, Sharma said.

"Culpeper has always been on our list," he said. "We want to bring Indian food to places that have no Indian restaurants."

While the restaurant first planned to locate in the former Foti's location on East Davis Street, Sharma said the owners moved around the corner to South East Street because it has more space.

"We needed the space because we wanted to have a large lunch buffet," Sharma said.

Sharma said the space had to be reworked quite a bit to transform it from its previous Caribbean theme to reflect the aesthetics of Northern India.

The room was repainted, artwork and statues from India were brought in and the kitchen needed to be refitted to authentically prepare the new restaurant's cuisine, he said.

So far, Sharma said the response from the Culpeper community has been very positive.

"The response has been tremendous," Sharma said. "We never thought it would be like this  we really didn't do much promotion."

Sharma said, once the signs went up that Taste of India was coming, people have been asking when they would open. Since Monday, word of mouth has spread rapidly around the Culpeper area that they are now open for business.

Sharma said the restaurant is open seven days a week, serving lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and dinner from 5 to 9:30 p.m.

There is a daily lunch buffet for $8.95 featuring a variety of traditional Indian appetizers, main courses and sides, and an extensive dinner menu.

Sharma said the owners have ordered new doors for the business and are waiting for them to arrive. They are also waiting for a Virginia ABC license so they can begin operating the full bar that is already in place at the location.

Taste of India offers a number of daily specials and a 10 percent discount for teachers, law enforcement officers in uniform and veterans, Sharma said.

"Ten percent is not a big thing, but it's an invitation," Sharma said. "It's a gesture to show that we want to support the community. And we want everybody to come down and taste our food."

Sharma said the restaurant offers catering and is already receiving calls from people who wish to serve Indian cuisine at their functions.

The restaurant can be contacted at 540/764-4647 for catering services or reservations.
The Warrenton attorney facing a misdemeanor sexual battery charge was recently hospitalized, delaying sentencing Friday in a Culpeper case involving the man who accidentally shot his neighbor while trying to kill a rabid raccoon.

Lawyer Jud Fischel is representing defendant Douglas Ward, who pleaded guilty in May to felony reckless handling of a firearm resulting in impairment. On June 6, 2015 around 8:15 p.m. in the town of Culpeper, Ward reportedly shot his female neighbor in the forearm while attempting to kill what he thought was a dangerous animal.

The neighbor was held overnight for observation at the local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries. She reportedly went outside to check on her children when she heard gun shots and was struck by one of the bullets.

Town of Culpeper citizens are allowed to shoot guns within the town limits for the control of varmints, according to local ordinance. At the time, Police Chief Chris Jenkins described the accidental shooting as an isolated incident and said that varmint hunting has generally not been a safety issue in town.

The charge against Ward is a class 6 felony, the lowest ranking felony offense potentially punishable by imprisonment of one to five years and a possible maximum fine of $2,500, according to the Code of Virginia. He was supposed to be sentenced Friday in Culpeper County Circuit Court and showed up early nearly an hour early for his 10:30 a.m. hearing.

But Culpeper prosecutor Russell Rabb informed the judge that Wards attorney was unable to be at the hearing because he had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital.

Judge Susan Whitlock continued Wards sentencing to Sept. 19.

Fischel was indicted in July on misdemeanor sexual battery, a charge that resulted from allegations by clients of Fischels law practice, according to Virginia Lawyers Weekly. Hes due to appear in Fauquier County Circuit Court on the charge Sept. 13.
Ukraine to propose to European Commission to jointly develop border infrastructure on border with EU

Ukraine intends to develop border infrastructure on the border between Ukraine and the European Union (EU), Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said at a meeting with Poland's Deputy Infrastructure and Construction Minister Jerzy Szmit.

The ministry's press service reported that the meeting was held in Odesa on September 8.

"We would like jointly with Poland, Romani and Slovakia to address the European Commission with an initiative of joint development of border infrastructure on the border between Ukraine and the EU," Omelyan said.

He added that recently long car and truck queues have been recorded at the checkpoints with Poland.

"This is not evidence of bad work of customs officers and border guard, but this is evidence that our infrastructure is not developed," the minister said.

The sides discussed a wide range of cooperation issues, in particular, in the railway and aviation sectors.

Szmit said that there is broad international support in the implementation of Via Carpathia project to joint north of Europe with south.
ALABAMA - USA - The internet is one for speculation, and there has certainly been a storm over what Mrs Clinton coughed into her drink during another tiring speech session.

We gave the tape to an expert visual analyst who worked for the CIA for many years, now retired, to try and explain the green deposit Clinton spewed from her mouth into a glass of water, then drank from.

James Albright, a former CIA analyst gave us his take on the green gunk episode.

What we have here are two heavy objects that Mrs Clinton deposits into the tall glass of water. She has her lips close together when she releases these objects which I assume are quite heavy as they immediately go to the bottom of the glass.

The reason for Clinton having her lips partially closed is because she wants to disguise her efforts whilst ejecting the two objects from the audience.

After analysing the footage utilising specialist techniques, I have come to the conclusion that the two objects are human testicles, possibly from her husband, Bill.

Shape analysis and the weight of the objects, as well as the colouring. Hillary Clinton may have been chewing on them for awhile, and gangrene could have set in.
PARIS - France - The mystery of EgyptAir MS804 is being kept very quiet by the French authorities and there does not seem to be any sight of details about the midair plane explosion that killed 56 passengers and 10 crew in May.

Lifting off from Charles De Gaulle airport on 19 May 2016, EgyptAir MS804 disappeared off the radar when it suddenly dropped from 37,000 feet cruise altitude.

Shrouded in mystery

No one knows what happened, and the French seem to be keeping the details of any searches or black box results very quiet. The Egyptians on the other hand point towards a terrorist attack, which is the natural logical hypothesis considering the planes altitude when it exploded.

This begs the question, is it safe to fly from Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, or any French airport for that matter?

There is a definite reason why the French government is keeping this midair incident very hush hush, because if it comes to light that there is lax security at French Schengen zone airports, it will damage the already fragile tourist trade in France which is crucial to its ailing economy.

No one seems to care really and its all very quiet..ho hum. Maybe theyre hoping its all forgotten.
LONDON SEP. 8  LONDONS BURNING festival closed on Sunday, as a 120-metre-long sculpture of 17th century London was set alight on the River Thames. The spectacular finale marked the end of a week of extraordinary arts events that transformed the London to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London.

An audience of tens of thousands watched enthralled from the pedestrianised Victoria Embankment and the South Bank, as well as from Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridges which had been closed for the event. In addition, over one million people tuned into the live broadcast commissioned by The Space and hosted by Lauren Laverne, via social media platforms, and many more watched it streamed through external outlets across the world.

LONDON 1666 was designed by American artist David Best, working in collaboration with Artichoke and involved months of learning and participation work with young people across several boroughs adjacent to the City of London. Hundreds of schoolchildren took part in integrated drawing and history workshops in schools across these boroughs. The project also offered young Londoners not in education, employment or training, a potentially life-changing opportunity to take part in the construction of the piece. All involved received an introduction to the construction and creative industries, and the opportunity to gain a CSCS certificate and further employment qualifications.

Helen Marriage, Director of Artichoke said: 50 years ago the 300th anniversary of the Great Fire of London was marked with a pageant. We wanted to do something completely different with an artistic approach that would mark the moment, create modern parallels, and bring the event to life for everyone.

"Each piece of the London's Burning programme added a different dimension and it was all free. People got to run through the City's streets and buildings in a wildly exuberant domino fall, and were reminded of the beauty and the horror of events centuries earlier with a beautifully-choreographed burn on the river for the finale."

Mark Boleat, the City of London Corporation's Policy Chairman, said: "City of London Corporation, the founding sponsors of LONDONS BURNING, are delighted that Artichoke's spectacular programme of events was so successful. A fiery St. Paul's dome, giant toppling dominoes, and a 120-metre wooden sculpture engulfed in flames were among the art installations that captured people's imaginations and generated global media coverage. Not only did it commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire and celebrate how the City rose from the ashes, 'London's Burning' demonstrated that we take considerable pride in our huge investment in arts, culture and heritage."

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "London is the greatest city in the world and the events of LONDONS BURNING are an inspiring testament to the way in which the capital responded to a significant moment in our citys history. Londons Burning has captured the imagination of thousands of Londoners and visitors from around the globe, showing that London is open to the world and bursting with creativity."
(Xinhua) 09:49, September 10, 2016

Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan, together with Belgium's Queen Mathilde, sent congratulatory messages respectively on Friday to celebrate the 100th day of a baby giant panda born in Belgium's Pairi Daiza zoo.

"I would like to express my sincere congratulations to the baby panda on the occasion of its 100-day birthday, and to extend my appreciation to the staff of the zoo and all Belgian friends for taking good care of Xing Hui and Hao Hao, the parents of the baby panda," said Peng in the message.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Belgium in March 2014, Peng recalled, she made a tour to Pairi Daiza zoo with Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde and visited the two pandas, Xing Hui and Hao Hao.

"I wish the baby panda a healthy childhood and hope it will bring more joy to the Belgian people, especially the Belgian children," she said.

Hao Hao and Xing Hui were sent to Belgium from China in 2014. They are the first giant pandas China has sent overseas for a lease term of 15 years instead of the usual 10.

The arrival of Hao Hao and Xing Hui made Belgium the 13th country and Pairi Daiza the 18th zoo in the world to house giant pandas, which are considered one of the world's most endangered species.
(Xinhua) 11:59, September 10, 2016

After the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced it has successfully carried out another nuclear test on Friday, the international community voiced its strong condemnation over the event.

The DPRK's state-run television made the announcement early Friday, making the test the fifth of its kind in the country.

After a closed-door meeting on the matter, the United Nations Security Council on Friday issued a press statement, saying "a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist" with the DPRK's latest test.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 (of the UN Charter) and a Security Council resolution," Ambassador Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen of New Zealand, the council's president for this month, told reporters.

The 15-member Security Council has imposed severe sanctions on Pyongyang in March, including an export ban and asset freeze.

The International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) on Friday said the nuclear test by DPRK is a deeply troubling and regrettable act.

"This is in clear violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions and in complete disregard of the repeated demands of the international community," the agency Chief Yukiya Amano remarked.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday called the DPRK's latest nuclear test "a grave threat" to regional and international peace and stability.

Obama said he had spoken separately by phone with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the issue.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Friday slammed the DPRK's act as "needless provocation," vowing to consult other international partners "on a robust response."

France called for a quick response to Pyongyang's violation of UN resolutions, according to a statement by the country's presidency office on Friday.

Also on Friday, China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing firm opposition to the nuclear test and commitment to settle the problems through the six-party talks on Pyongyang's denuclearization.

The statement said China's stance has always been to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, prevent nuclear proliferation and maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

DPRK's nuclear test "deserves the strongest condemnation," Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Friday's statement, warning that the act, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, will have negative consequences primarily for the DPRK itself.

Moscow urged all parties concerned to refrain from steps that could lead to further escalation of tensions, and confirmed its readiness for a "very tight coordination of steps aiming to elaborate an international response to Pyongyang's provocative actions," said the statement. Enditem
CFMoto, a Chinese company which manufactures motorcycles, ATVs and engines for domestic and international markets, is planning to add a Kawasaki Versys-style 650 twin motorcycle in its line-up. The motorbike will be named as 650 MT and is based on the existing 650NK streetfighter. Although, there hasn't been any official statement from the company, but the leaked patent images give an impression about the upcoming motorbike.

The new CFMoto 650MT will share the chassis and the 650cc parallel-twin engine with its naked sibling, while getting lots of new features including a new swingarm, inverted forks, and much more. The ride height will also be increased to match the adventure tourer requirements, along with the ground clearance. The liquid-cooled, 8-valve motor of the bike comes mated to a 6-speed gearbox and is fed by a Magnetti-Marelli fuel injection system. In the existing 650NK and the 650TK, it delivers 61PS of power and a peak torque of 56Nm, which is expected to remain unchanged in the 650MT as well.

Not only this, the company is also going to revamp the existing models for the 2017 line-up. The models will be restyled by Austrian designers Kiska for more attractive looks in comparison to their current versions.

Currently, Indian automobile firm Eider Motors is selling 3 CFMoto bikes -- 150NK (as Eider Dave 150), 650NK and 650TK (as Police 650) -- in India with its other model lineup. The prices of CFMoto bikes available in the country start at Rs 1.35 lakh and goes up to Rs 4 lakh (all, ex-showroom, Hyderabad). So we can expect that along with the updated CFMoto bikes, Eider Motor will bring the new 650MT in the Indian market as well, and it will be priced near Rs 4 lakh.

Source: BikeDekho.com
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the latest nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "in the strongest possible terms."

The DPRK's state-run television reported early Friday that the country had conducted a nuclear warhead explosion test, the country's fifth one.

"This is yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council," Ban told reporters here.

"This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime," he added.

Ban called on the DPRK "to reverse its course and commit to a path of denuclearization."

"Rather than pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology, the DPRK should be promoting the well-being of the country's people," he said.

In January, the DPRK carried out a test of what it called its first H-bomb. It also conducted underground nuclear tests respectively in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on Friday afternoon on the DPRK's latest nuclear test.

The 15-nation council has adopted five resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.
UM Motorcycles, an American motorcycle manufacturer, introduced its Renegade series of motorbikes at the 2016 Delhi Auto Expo. Now, the company is expected to introduce a quarter-litre adventure motorcycle in 2018.

In a discussion with reporters at the inauguration of UMs first dealership in Mumbai, Rajeev Mishra, director, UML, said that while the brands focus will continue to be cruisers, a 230-250cc adventure motorcycle is also being considered. We can expect the bike to be revealed at 2018 at the Auto Expo.

In conversation with reporters at the launch of UMs first dealership in Mumbai, Rajeev Mishra, director, UML, stated that while the brands focus will continue to be cruisers, a 230-250cc adventure motorcycle is also being considered. The new model could be revealed in December 2017, with the prices being announced in February 2018 at the Auto Expo.

Technical details havent been revealed, but what we do know is that it will employ the same engine platform as the existing Renegade twins. Suspects? Well since the UM Hypersport was spied in India, it could be the bike en-route the launch pad. The Hypersport is already on sale overseas and is powered by a 223cc, single-pot engine that makes 16PS of power and 17.69Nm of torque. As it stands, the adventure motorcycle segment has a very limited number of players. While there are a few options available from the likes of Triumph, BMW and Ducati, the only affordable option thus far is the Royal Enfield Himalayan.

UM currently has localization levels of about 70 per cent and plans to raise that to 100 per cent by September 2018. Thanks to its local tie up with Lohia Auto to produce its vehicles in India, the brand has managed to offer the Renegade Commando and Renegade Sport S at competitive prices of Rs 1.59 lakh and Rs 1.69 lakh ex-showroom Delhi, respectively.

However, deliveries of both models have been delayed, though they will finally begin next month. Even the Renegade Classics development has fallen behind schedule, so we do hope to see the yet-to-be-revealed models launch take place on time.

Source: BikeDekho.com
It was not just bagging a role alongside Rajinikanth that put Radhika Apte in the limelight. It was that one scene when audiences were on the verge of becoming impatient with Kabalis pursuit of finding his Kumudhavalli  when everyone was worried that anything short of stupendous acting might make the whole scene a big cliche  came Radhika with that incredible performance which would be spoken of for years to come. DC spoke to the actress, who was in the city for the launch of Audis A4 car.

Lets start with Kabali. I know you have spoken about it enough. But how was it acting alongside Superstar?

Yes, youre right. I have answered it a lot of times! Rajinikanth sir is someone who is very professional when it comes to acting. It was, of course, a great experience working with the team altogether.

It is a dream for any actress to work with the him. Now that you accomplished it, who do you want to act with next?

No, not at all. I do not have any such preferences. I sign a project based on the role and content. Nothing else.

You choose a range of movies from commercial ones like All In All Alaghu Raja to something like Parched. How do you go about accepting a project?

I dont think in that sense. If I hear a script and if I like the film and the role, I do it. As far as rejection goes, it is pretty much the same thing I said earlier  content is all that matters to me.

You are someone who has acted in almost all major film fraternities in India including Marathi, Telugu, and Bengali. So, what is a distinct feature of Tamil cinema according to you?

I think I cant speak about the whole industry based on my experience here. But with the films I have done so far, I feel that the industry has been very

professional.

Ahalya then Kriti; What is your particular affinity towards short films?

To me platforms dont make any difference. It is doesnt matter if it is a short film or a feature film. Even now if Sujoy Ghosh (director of Kahaani and Ahalya) asks me to work in a short film, I will very well act in one.

You are one of the few actresses who is married and pursuing acting. How do you manage the work-life balance?

It is pretty much same as everyone. How does a journalist manage his work and life? There is nothing different about this profession as well.

So, will we be seeing more of Radhika Apte in Tamil film industry?

Yes, definitely (she smiles). I look forward to working in more Tamil films.
While Mollywood boasts of a bunch of forever heroes, the heroines are always in short supply. While some go industry hopping as soon they get noticed, others get married and go abroad even as their careers are on an ascend. That explains why there was a collective sigh of relief when the talented Manju Warrier decided to make a comeback. Otherwise, directors were forced to import actresses from different states and dress them up in nadan clothes.

All of a sudden, however, there seems to be a young crop of female actors competing to establish a toehold and priding themselves on being the promises of the future.

Prayaga Martin is one such girl, who made her foray into Malayalam with a K-Town visiting card. Her Malayalam debut Oru Murai Vanthu Parthaya has helped her bag a series of new-gen films Kattapanayile Hrithik Roshan of Nadirsha, Ore Mugham of Dhyan Sreenivasan and Fukri having Jayasurya in the lead.

The kind of reception I am treated to was totally unexpected, says Prayaga. Being a Malayali, getting acceptance in my native state is a great thing. I see things in two ways  from an audience perspective and as an industry insider. Our viewers are a sensible lot. Their judgement is unbiased without considering who or what the actor is. The result for the actor in me partially rests with myself. The outcome comes from how I prioritise and select projects, provided the right factors fall into place  good script, time and so on.

The small screen chatterbox Rajisha Vijayan, on the other hand, virtually walked into the hearts of audience playing Elizabeth aka Eli in Anuraga Karikkin Vellam. Following a 'one-film-at-a-time' norm, she has joined the sets of Dileeps next film being shot in Thrissur. She observes that social media and the platform of short films open umpteen doors for a tinsel town aspirant these days.



If an appearance on a magazine cover or a close contact within the field or a kalathilakam title were desirable factors for a movie heroine once, things have changed, she says. I feel the audience these days look for newcomers for unknown reasons. Everyone therefore gets a chance to showcase their talents. Malayalam film industry has no dearth of talent. Fresh faces have come and gone. Stability might be a reason why switching of industries happens. Rajisha is not here to do a part time job. She wants to get herself fully into the acting profession and learn new things. If things turn out in her favour, she would certainly stay for long. Eli is getting into the shoes of Merlin for her next outing.

Happy Wedding fame Anu Sithara has a long list of projects. Having acted in Naval Enna Jewel and College Diary, she is excited about Sarvopari Palakkaran and Fukri which are on the way. Ours is a period when everyone loves cinema. The families are supportive of us. Like the way viewers associated a certain period of movies with the names of particular actors, after some more years therell be a generation of people who identify a phase of cinema with the current actors. More number of talents means a tougher competition. Becoming choosy is one way to tide over the situation. In my case, my husband has a role in selecting movies for me, Anu gushes.



From a directors perspective, College Diarys Jeevan Das says the attitude of the actors contributes a lot. Sustenance is a matter of loyalty. The industry has a steady inflow of talents. Those approaching with seriousness will stay, he says.

The list doesnt end there. Premam girl Anupama Parameswaran is readying to consolidate her position by acting opposite Dulquer Salman in Sathyan Anthikads next. Aparna Balamuralis journey from Oru Second Class Yathra is going strong and steady with Maheshinte Prathikaram, Sarvopari Palakkaran, Oru Muthassi Gadha and an upcoming Asif Ali starrer. As for the viewers, more the merrier.
Mumbai: Rumours of Coldplays Indian tour confirmation got millennials across the country to hyperventilate hysterically. The excitement turned to agitated dismay soon enough when news started trickling that the tickets were priced at a ludicrous minimum of Rs. 25,000. This led to a cluster of memes cropping up and the internet had been broken.

But laying all rumours to absolute rest, The Global Citizen Festival, a non-profit music festival thats been hosted in the U.S. since 2012, will be bringing Coldplay to Mumbai, in November. And the tickets for the gig, believe it or not, are going to be absolutely free!

Global Citizen Festivals official statement reads, "Were so excited to be announcing that on World Toilet Day  November 19th  were hosting the first-ever Global Citizen Festival in India, with an incredible lineup of international and Indian headliners including  Coldplay! Just like our annual festival in Central Park, tickets to the Indian Festival will be FREE. Fans will earn them through taking actions in support of education, equality, and sanitation campaigns."

Sounds great, doesnt it?

But nothing comes for free. What one would need to do is download the Global Citizen app, and use the Take Action, feature that urges the user to raise awareness about the issues being tackled by Global Poverty Project in collaboration with the U.N., the Australian government and the British government. The users are granted points post completion of every action, which gets cumulated and after the required points, the user would be allowed to participate in a draw, which grants every winner two tickets. Further clarity on the procedure is awaited.

This, nevertheless, is a welcome news for all those who were planning to sulk at home on gig day, watching Coldplay videos on YouTube.
Warsaw: A porcelain Mickey Mouse figurine that once belonged to a child the Nazis deported to the Auschwitz death camp has been rediscovered after more than 70 years, a local foundation told AFP on Friday.

"It's a sad object because it reminds us of a child who was probably gassed to death in the camp," Agnieszka Molenda, who runs the Foundation of Memory Sites near Auschwitz-Birkenau (FPMP,) told AFP. "Farmers found the figurine after the war near the banks of the Vistula river over a kilometre from the camp and then stored it along side other smaller items that we recently received," she said.

Set up in 2013 by private collectors with a passion for local history, the foundation gathers items related to the death camp and its annexes that covered some 40 square kilometers (15.4 square miles). Working with the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum on the site of the former Nazi death camp in Osciecim, southern Poland, the foundation has collected thousands of items kept in private homes since the war.

"We'll probably never know who the figurine belonged to," Molenda added. "Experts told us that it was manufactured in Germany in the 1930s, without a Disney copyright. "It is a model that was sold in Germany between 1929 and 1932 and was exported in large numbers to neighbouring European countries."

The donor, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Molenda that her grandfather dug up the figurine while working in a field after the war. He also found coins from the Nazi-run Jewish ghetto in the city of Lodz and some small brushes that he stored in the attic of his house.

One million European Jews died at the camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940-1945. More than 100,000 others including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died there, according to the museum. An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitz victims were children.
Short-term effects of using marijuana can include mood changes, impaired body movements and difficulty with thinking, problem solving and memory. (Photo: Pixabay)

More and more Americans are admitting they use marijuana, and a new study suggests this may be due at least in part to the growing number of people who dont think its dangerous.

Researchers surveyed almost 600,000 U.S. adults from 2002 to 2014 about their drug use and health. Marijuana use increased from 10.4 percent of adults to 13.3 percent during the study period, researchers report in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Over the same period, the proportion of adults who thought there was a great risk of harm associated with smoking pot once or twice a week declined from about 50 percent to 33 percent.

Despite scientific evidence of potential harms, adults are much less convinced about dangers associated with using marijuana, said lead study author Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

These reductions in perceived harm were strongly associated with the increases in use, Compton added by email. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the U.S., according to NIDA.

Short-term effects of using this drug can include mood changes, impaired body movements and difficulty with thinking, problem solving and memory. Over time, the drug can also lead to breathing challenges, increased heart rate and a range of mood disorders.

Overall, marijuana use by U.S. adults increased more than 30 percent in the past dozen years, the study found, with 10 million more people using pot in 2014 than in 2012.

Use of marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis increased even more markedly. In 2002, 3.9 million adults in the U.S. reported using marijuana daily or nearly every day. By 2014, that number had more than doubled to 8.4 million.

Physicians need to be aware of these changing patterns of marijuana use to guide healthcare, and additional research needs to be conducted to study the consequences  both acute and long-term  that may be associated with frequent, heavy use, Compton said.

Both the prevalence and frequency of marijuana use increased starting around 2007 and showed significantly larger spikes after 2011, the study found.

During the study period, a growing number of U.S. states adopted legislation legalizing marijuana for medical purposes and, in some instances, for recreational use. As of 2015, 24 states and the District of Columbia had passed medical marijuana legislation, the study authors note.

Meanwhile, many countries outside the U.S. including Canada, India, Mexico, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands have decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana, the authors also point out.

The message that adults are not getting is that marijuana is a drug and, like all drugs, can harm some users when it is used in certain ways, said Wayne Hall, director of the Center for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

Like alcohol, it can when used daily over substantial periods of time produce dependence and seriously interfere with some adults health and well-being, Hall, author of an editorial accompanying the study, said by email.
Jasmine Milton, 20, from Shropshire bought her two-year- old pup Anuko as a way of helping her battle with her bipolar disorder. (Photo: Facebook)

London: A grumpy looking husky dog has netted his owner a staggering 20,000 pounds that she is now using towards paying for her medical degree.

Jasmine Milton, 20, from Shropshire bought her two-year- old pup Anuko as a way of helping her battle with her bipolar disorder. But the dog's unusual markings have since caused a sensation online after she set up an Instagram page in Anuko's name.

Appearing to have a steely stare and furrowed brow because of the pattern of his fur, Anuko has amassed 11,000 followers on the social media site, the Mirror reported.

Jasmine said, "He's really affectionate, he loves people. He loves cuddles, he loves dogs. He's never been grumpy at all. He's always had social media since he was a puppy and he has always had this look as well," she said.

Jasmine is hoping to study at the Plovdiv Medical University in Bulgaria next year and said: "It's certainly going to help towards it, all the money that he is making. It's not going to cover the whole thing but it's a real good start."

She added: "Before I got him I went through a really low phase, when I was in hospital someone said dogs are a really good therapy, they help their owners. It really did help," Jasmine said.
Muskaan Ahirwar, who wants to be a doctor, was awarded the 'Thought Leader' award by NITI Aayog in Delhi yesterday. (Photo: Room To Read)

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world", a perfect example of this powerful quote by Nelson Mandela has been manifested by Muskaan Ahirwar, a class three student from a slum area of Bhopalis the best example of this.

"I am very happy. My parents and my friends are also extremely happy. I want to be a doctor in future. I had started the library with 121 books.now I have many books. Now around 50 kids come here. I would like to invite the kids who do not come here and tell them to be something when they grow up," Muskaantold ANI.

Muskaan, who wants to be a doctor, was awarded the 'Thought Leader' award by NITI Aayog in Delhi yesterday. The youngest recipient of the award received the honour at the hands of Olympic medalist Sakshi Malik.

"It's like a dream for me. I am very happy that my daughter is going to Delhi. I have never thought about it," Muskaan's father Monohar told ANI. Niti Aayog on Friday declared the 12 winners of its 'Women Transforming India' campaign.

The online campaign was launched on International Women's Day this year by NITI Aayog, in partnership with MyGov and the United Nations in India, to crowdsource stories of women who make a difference.

The story of this young librarian will surely be a source of inspiration for many others who are looking to make a difference.
The man later vomited out the head of the snake after he was given a powder by a 'Peer Baba. (Photo: Pixabay)

A man in Indore ended up unintentionally killing a snake after it crept inside his mouth while he was asleep. Raghuvanshi, who lives in Kulkarni Ka Bhatta, has reportedly no memory of the bizarre episode as he was in deep sleep when it happened.

The incident had occurred on September 8th when Raghuvanshi decided to take a nap after returning home as he was tired from his shift at a petrol pump. It was his mother Rampyari who first discovered him in his room with blood all over his face and the snake wriggling on the floor. I saw blood on his face and a headless snake lying on the floor. He told me that something had dropped into his mouth and he chewed it. I was terrified and took him to Peer Baba, who gave him a powder and he vomited out the head of the snake. The Peer Baba told us to rush to the hospital, Rampyari was quoted as saying.

He was later rushed to the government-run Maharaja Yeshwantrao where he was given medical treatment.
The brave not-so-new world of Twitter is a ruthless place, where no one is spared. This time, megastar Amitabh Bachchan had to face the wrath of the site when the Twitteratti saw through the apparently harmless personal letter to his granddaughters, which they claim is a publicity strategy for his upcoming film, Pink. If it was indeed a marketing strategy, was this step unethical on Amitabhs part? Or is the Twitteratti getting too touchy? We also ask celebrities if in the age of the overactive social media, the star system is fading out and the aura of superstars

diminishing?

We get celebrities to give their take on a current issue each week and lend their perspective to a much-discussed topic. This week we talk about: Big Bs letter a publicity stunt?

Rakul preet, Actor: Hes facing backlash only because hes a celebrity

I think we should focus on what is written in the letter. I think he is facing backlash only because he is a celebrity. Even if the letter is a stunt, one should see the bright side of it, instead of creating controversies  there was a message for everyone to learn from it. People tweeted back to him saying that they wished somebody had told them such things earlier. I personally dont believe in stardom; were all just doing our job. It is the people who make or break stars. Its just that when we have a bigger influence, our messages reach out to more people.

Saloni Chopra, actor: The letter was not a publicity stunt

More than an actor, Amitabh Bachchan is a great human being. He is one of the many actors who can inspire people. The letter hed written to his granddaughters is really beautiful. As he mentioned, the letter is not just meant for Navya and Aaradhya alone, but for all granddaughters out there. People on the Internet made an issue out of it because the content of the letter made a few uncomfortable. Most of the people in our country are not ready to accept the fact that girls can decide their own lifestyle. So, when an influential person writes such an open letter there will be a huge outcry against him on Twitter. It is baseless to say that Amitabh wrote the letter as a publicity stunt, ahead of his films release. He is Amitabh Bachchan, the God of Indian cinema. He will never do that for marketing himself.

Kenney Jacob, social media expert: No one on social media is spared

Twitter has a diverse mix of people, and some can be touchy. Having said that, if everyone agrees to what the mainstream media puts out, whats the point of social media? I dont think Amitabh Bachchan did anything wrong by involving his granddaughters for a movie promotion; the trick worked. Like they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. A private company making the Indian PM their poster boy is what is unethical. Super stars in India still have an aura and continue to have a huge fan following. However, no one on social media is spared from criticism.

Ivan Mehta, tech writer: Celebrities are still centre of attraction on social media

Its surely okay to use social media for marketing. But if you execute it badly it can hurt your image and it ends up looking like a stunt. The star system still exists  the celebrities are still the centre of attraction, even on social media. And since they are more visible, they end up being watched all the time. Every step they end up taking goes under a scanner of suspicious eyes.

Aditya Gupta, Co-founder, iGenero: Now, Opinions of audiences are tangible

We see this as overactive social media only because now opinions of audiences are tangible. Traditional media would have covered the same thing during the pre-social media phase  people might still have expressed their harsh or blunt opinions but those wouldnt reach a bigger group. It would perhaps be discussed over dinner, or a party as a passing comment. The star status hasnt diminished, if anything, it has got another metric to measure  how many twitter followers does an actor have, how well does he/she tweet, how quirky/stupid the celebrity is on Twitter. Twitter has given traditional media and fans yet another point of contact with the celebrities and yet another facet to discuss about.

Anitha Kholay, fashion designer and car rallyist: It works as a publicity stunt for the movie

It indeed works as a publicity stunt for his upcoming movie Pink, since the timing of this tweet seems apt at this point. Having said that, I have to confess this was a thoughtfully written message that also sends out a strong social message. A personality like Amitabh Bachchan already has a huge fan base, and may not require a publicity strategy whatsoever, but theres always a right time for everything, so maybe he feels this was the perfect time to send out this message.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.10

Trend:

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated the countrys people on the occasion of Eid al-Adha.

Dear fellow countrymen! I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you and all our fellow countrymen living in different parts of the world on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, and wish each of you good health, family happiness and success in your works, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory message.

A symbol of nobility, benevolence and equality, Eid al-Adha encourages mercy, solidarity, brotherhood and humanity in people, said the president.

On this blessed day Muslims demonstrate their readiness for any self-sacrifice in the name of Allah and religion and in the name of noble aims, as well as their attachment to moral values, and experience the joy of being close to the Almighty, added President Aliyev.

He pointed out that as an integral part of the Muslim world, Azerbaijan has made unparalleled contributions to the development of the Islamic culture throughout history.

At the same time I am pleased to note that Islam had also played an exceptional role in building an exemplary environment of coexistence, tranquillity and multiculturalism in a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Azerbaijani society based on mutual respect and confidence, said the president.

The people of Azerbaijan have always been faithful to national and moral values and traditions, and fulfilled their religious ceremonies, including Eid al-Adha with great enthusiasm, said President Aliyev.

Prayers are said for the tranquillity and prosperity of our people and state, the undying memory of our martyrs is revered in all parts of our country these days, he said. I am confident that this year's Eid al-Adha too will mark a triumph of the national and moral solidarity, noble deeds, and the feelings of compassion and mercy in our society.

Dear brothers and sisters! I once again wish each of you robust health, your families happiness and your homes abundance. Happy Eid al-Adha! added President Aliyev.
Kolkata: In a terrible case of negligence, a ten-day old girl was administered a near-lethal narcotic drug by a nursing staff in Kolkata's Lady Dufferin Victoria Hospital 'by mistake.'

According to a report in NDTV, the girl, who was born on October 31, was to be discharged on Wednesday, but the doctor noticed that the infant's navel, from where the umbilical cord was separated, was bleeding.

He directed a nurse to administer a dose of Vitamin K.

But five minutes after the medication, the mother was taken aback to find her daughter developing a stiff neck, chest, and slipping in and out of consciousness.

Rushing her daughter to the doctor, Manruda Bibi, the distraught mother was shocked to learn that the nursing staff on duty, instead of administering Vitamin K injection, had administered a 50 ml dosage of Tramadol, a narcotic like pain killer which can be lethal.

The toddler was rushed to the Calcutta Medical College nearby. But the trauma was too much for the mother to bear.

She also fainted and had to be admitted to the emergency ward, said 27-year-old Jamsuddin Jamadar, the infant's father.

An enquiry has been ordered into the incident and the authorities assured that action would be taken against those responsible.

The baby is responding to the medications, Dr Tridib Banerjee, head of special task force of health department said.
Visakhapatnam: A 15-year-old minor Dalit girl was allegedly raped by a 22-year-old youngster on last night. However, the incident came to light on Friday when the victims parents have approached the Gajuwaka police on in the wee hours of Friday. Sources in police said that the accused M Gowrishankar and his friend Manikanta were taken into police custody and the victim was sent to KG Hospital in the city for medical tests.

Inspector of Gajuwaka, T Immanuel Raju told that the main accused Gowrishankar has been stalking the girl since last two weeks on the pretext of falling in love with her. The girl went to visit the Ganesh Pandal in her locality on Thursday night. Noticing the girl at the Ganesh Pandal, Gowrishankar met the girl and accosted her and made her accompany him to an isolated place close to Zinc Ground and he raped her while his friend Manikanta stood guard to ensure nobody entered the area.

After returning home, the girl told about the incident to her parents. Her parents immediately rushed to the Gajuwaka police station and lodged a complaint against the youngster at about 2.30 am on Friday. Based on the complaint, the police have registered cases under SC/ST Atrocities Act and Posco Act.
Hyderabad: Personnel from the Central Crime Station have arrested the chairman of a city motorcycle firm for allegedly cheating at least 40 investors from across the country. Officials estimate the fraud could be in the range of at least Rs 10 crore.

Maroju Shiva Kumar, 36, from Kokapet of Narsingi, is believed to have attracted investors by claiming that his firm, Eider Motors, possessed manufacturing licenses for bikes imported from Germany and Japan. The CCS police had started investigating Kumar shortly after complaints from three individuals who said they had invested lakhs of rupees to become dealers of the vehicles.

Police revealed that Shiva Kumar was also running another company called Nirvana group of industries with offices at Road number 36 of Jubilee Hills.

Kumar had even advertised in the newspapers and had a website  eidermotors.com. Official documentation said his firm held manufacturing licenses for motor bikes and scooters. He also claimed he had manufacturing units in Gurgaon, a senior official with the CCS said.

He managed to convince investors that his firm was importing body parts and technology from Japan and designs from Germany adding the parts assembly was being carried out at a factory in Pedda Amberpet, in Hayathnagar mandal, the official said. Kumars advertising claimed the bikes met BS-III emission norms and were certified by a testing centre in Gurgaon.

Investors from across the country had approached Kumar with an interest in opening dealerships for the bikes. His firm even offered a minimum commission of Rs 6,000 to a maximum of Rs 12,000 on each vehicle. All the dealers were also told they would receive Rs 50,000 per month towards the maintenance of their showrooms, the official added.

Investigating officials said a total of 40 individuals had entered into dealership agreements by paying Rs 20 to 40 lakh to Kumars company. The firm also took purchasing orders from some dealers without any permission from concerned authorities. But later, the suspect failed to deliver vehicles and when the victims approached him asking about their investment, he refused to return their money, a source close to the investigation said.
Dalit community members holding a banner while protesting against the attacks on them in Gujarat. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The Social Justice Ministry has proposed release of 90 per cent of the total allocated funds to Gujarat for various welfare schemes for Dalits, two months after seven men of the community were flogged by cow vigilantes' in the state leading to widespread protests there.

"The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment has proposed for sanction of Rs 8.60 crore under the centrally sponsored schemes for implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act during the current financial year," it said.

The state government can also use funds for awareness generation, special courts, incentives for inter-caste marriage and vigilance squads, according to a proposal prepared by the ministry.

According to sources, the total budgetary allocation for the state is Rs 9.50 crore, and the move is aimed to ensure that there should not be any shortage of funds for welfare of Dalits in the state.

The move came nearly two months after seven Dalit youths were flogged allegedly by self-styled cow vigilantes at Una in Gujarat, which triggered outrage and protests across the state.

The state police filed a charge sheet against 34 people for the Una incident, including four police personnel who were also arrested on charges of dereliction of duty. The state CID has also filed a separate charge sheet against three minors in the case before the Juvenile Justice Board at Junagadh.
ABVP candidates for Delhi University Students Union election 2016 in New Delhi on September 3. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) student outfit Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) maintained its dominance in DUSU polls bagging three seats including that of President, while Congress' NSUI made a comeback by winning the Joint Secretary's post in the results announced on Saturday.

Amit Tanwar is the new President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) while ABVP's Priyanka and Ankit Singh have been elected as Vice President and Secretary respectively, according to the Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, D S Rawat.

NSUI candidate Mohit Garid won the Joint Secretary's seat, preventing a hat-trick by ABVP which had bagged all the four seats in the DUSU polls last year as well as in 2014.

AAP's Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, which was defeated last year in its debut, did not contest the polls this year.

A significant number of 17,712 NOTA votes which were introduced for the first time in DUSU polls, were also exercised by the students.

In the keenly contested President's post, Amit Tanwar got 16,357 votes defeating NSUI candidate Nikhil Yadav by a margin of 4,680 votes, Rawat said.

Priyanka, who is the lone girl in the elected panel, obtained 15,592 votes. She defeated her closest rival by a margin of 2,455 votes votes.

Ankit Singh Sangwan, who won the Secretary's post got 15,518 votes. He won by a margin of 1,383 votes.

NSUI's winning candidate Mohit Garid garnered the maximum votes in the elected panel at 16,526 votes, winning the seat by a margin of 2466 votes.

The DUSU polls were held on Friday in two phases for electing representatives from 17 candidates of ABVP, AISA and NSUI.

While seven candidates were in the race for the post of President, 4 nominations were validated for the post of Vice-President.

Over 36 per cent out of a total of 1,23,246 voters had cast their votes at 117 booths in 51 colleges.

Celebrations broke out with supporters of the winning candidates dancing to the drumbeats and distributing sweets outside the counting centre.

The winners were garlanded and procession was taken out by ABVP supporters who paid tributes at Swami Vivekanand's statue in the Arts Faculty of the university.
The committee members will visit the state immediately and submit their report to Shah over the 'growing' political violence targeting the party workers. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Expressing concern over "growing incidents of attack" on BJP workers in Kerala, party president Amit Shah has constituted a five-member team to visit the state and submit a report over the matter.

BJP General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav will head the committee whose other members are party MPs Meenakshi Lekhi, Anant Hegde, Nalin Kateel and its National Secretary and Kerala in-charge H Raja, a statement said.

The committee members will visit the state immediately and submit their report to Shah over the "growing" political violence targeting the party workers.

The decision comes in the wake of a crude bomb attack at the party's office in Thiruvananthapuram which, it has alleged, was aimed at its state chief Kummanam Rajasekharan, who had left the office some time before the bomb was thrown.

BJP has blamed the Left workers for the attack on its and RSS functionaries, alleging that such incidents have increased since the CPI(M)-led Left front came to power.
Hyderabad: The three-day Monsoon session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly ended abruptly on Saturday after the opposition YSR Congress members created ruckus as they tried to uproot mikes and damage cameras over the special category status issue.

The House passed a resolution referring the unruly acts of the YSRC legislators in the last three days to the Privilege Committee for "necessary action".

Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao then adjourned the House sine die as it could not take up any listed business because of the pandemonium caused by the Opposition over the special status issue.

More than half-a-dozen YSRC legislators climbed the Legislature Secretary's table in front of the Speaker's podium and threw papers at the Speaker.

For the second day in a row, the YSRC members entered into a scuffle with the House marshals and tried to uproot mikes and damage the cameras recording the proceedings.

When the House was first adjourned briefly for 10 minutes around 9.20 am, the media point on the Assembly premises became a virtual battleground with the TDP and the YSRC MLAs coming close to blows.

The Opposition legislators continued with their protests inside the House when it resumed. As a result, five Bills that were supposed to be discussed and cleared, could not be taken up.

The Chief Minister was to make a statement in the House on the special financial package announced by the Centre while the Deputy Chief Minister (Home) was to make statement on the prevailing seasonal conditions in the state. That too did not happen as the Speaker adjourned the House sine die.

Yesterday also, the state Assembly abruptly ended without transacting any business after two adjournments failed to restore order in the House.
Hyderabad: Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said the financial assistance announced by the NDA government to Andhra Pradesh would be to the tune of Rs 2.25 lakh crore, biggest ever support extended to any state so far in the country.

"The Centre has announced financial assistance to the tune of Rs 2.25 lakh crore. People are satisfied (with the financial package). Some political parties are not happy. What can we do? Their intention is that we get out of the seat and they want to come. They will have to wait for that," he said.

Naidu was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 16th anniversary celebration of Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence.

"The assistance announced by the Centre to Andhra Pradesh has not been done to any state by any government in the history of the country in this short time. If you come with facts and figures, the Government is ready for a debate," he added.

The Centre on Wednesday announced a financial package for Andhra Pradesh that includes full funding of Pollavaram irrigation project, tax concessions and a special assistance, but stopped short of giving the state a special category status.

Naidu said some persons are trying to mislead people on special category status to AP by converting it into an "emotional" issue.

The minister also downplayed the criticism by actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan over not according special category status to AP, saying that he does not need anybody's certificate.

Kalyan, who campaigned for NDA during the last general elections, in a meeting recently held at Kakinada had hit out at Naidu for "not getting" special category status to AP as promised by the then Congress government at the time of bifurcation.

Hitting out at Naidu, Pawan had said the Information and Broadcasting Minister had "killed" BJP in Andhra Pradesh.

"They have liberty to comment. I don't need their certificate. Where were all these when the state was being bifurcated in 2014? I have my own work. I have to take care of my state, my people, my country and my party. Other things are taken care of by the people concerned," the minister said.

Earlier during his speech, Naidu said that Hindutva is not about religion but a way of life for Indians.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta alleged that during the House proceedings, AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan threatened to cut him to pieces. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta on Friday alleged that during the House proceedings, AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan threatened to cut him to pieces.

As Gupta spoke on the controversy surrounding sacked Minister Sandeep Kumars sleaze CD, Chauhan intervened and was heard shouting at him.

A furious Gupta immediately staged a walkout alleging he was threatened by Chauhan. I will complain to the police immediately, he said while storming out of the House.

Later, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Gupta was deliberately evading the discussion and urged Speaker Ram Niwas Goel to initiate contempt of House proceedings against him if he takes up an internal issue of the Assembly with the police.

If he goes out and calls 100 over an issue related to Assembly proceedings then it amounts to contempt of the House. He should have taken up the matter with the Speaker, Sisodia said.

The Speaker also read out a statement where he said that he wants the police not to take any action pertaining to anything that happened inside the House.

I am submitting the issue of contempt proceedings as raised by the Deputy CM to the House Committee, Goel said.

Gupta said he had every right to do so as his life was under threat. The Speaker did not take any action against Chauhan while Deputy CM Sisodia indirectly supported him forcing me to call the police, he said.

In a letter to Goel, Gupta demanded an FIR against Chauhan so that the police could take necessary action to safeguard his life.

As you and all the ministers and MLAs present in the House are a witness that during the discussion around 7.40 pm, I was threatened by Chauhan that he will kill me by cutting into pieces. Therefore, it is apprehended that there is serious threat to my life, Gupta said in his letter.
Vehicular movement between various parts of the state crippled as well as the highway was blocked at several places in Mandya district. (Photo: PTI)

Mandya: Pro-Kannada women and farmers' wings formed a human chain on Saturday in protest in Karnataka's Mandya region over the Cauvery water issue. Protesting farmers entered into the flowing waters up to the waist-level in Srirangapatna near Mandya during which some of them fell ill.

It is also reported that three farmers attempted to commit suicide by jumping into Cauvery river in Mandya. However, they were later rescued.

Meanwhile, one of the spearheads of Kannada activism, Vatal Nagaraj on Saturday said that he will participate in 'Rail-roko' protest- which would be carried out against the Supreme Court's directive of releasing the Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu -on September 15 from 6 am to 6 pm in Karnataka.

Activists of pro-Kannada group Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, have been resorting to rail-roko in Belagavi and Bengaluru.

Vehicular movement between various parts of the state was crippled as well as the highway was blocked at several places in Mandya district, the epicentre of the stir.

Business establishments, including hotels, functioned normally while Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses are plying buses in rural parts of Mandya district. Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil today said the state would submit an appeal to the Cauvery Supervisory Committee against Tamil Nadu's demand for release of more Cauvery water.

Tamil Nadu has already approached the supervisory committee asking for more Cauvery water... we will be submitting the counter appeal to the panel... explaining the hardships and difficulties being faced by the people due to the Supreme Court order to release water," Patil told reporters in New Delhi.

Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on September seven with its demand for more water. Patil, along with his legal team and officials, held deliberations with Karnataka Counsel Fali S Nariman in Delhi.

The Minister said the state had already written to the panel, informing it about the difficulties and problems faced by the people due to the Supreme Court's direction.

He said the state would also apprise the panel about the ground realities prevalent in the Cauvery basin, Patil said.

The Supreme Court had on September 5 directed Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the irrigation requirement for Samba paddy crop.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 10

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Azerbaijans state budget allocated 5.1 million manats in July 2016 through the line of the countrys Mortgage Fund (AMF) to finance the social mortgage against 5.3 million manats in July 2015, according to the report of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA).

The official exchange rate for September 10 is 1.6403 AZN/USD.

The total volume of the loans refinancing issued by banks earlier was 1.2 million manats.

In the current year, the Azerbaijani state budget already provided 28.2 million manats for social mortgage. In general, 50 million manats are envisaged for these purposes in the state budget in 2016.

During July, as in the previous two months, Azerbaijani banks didnt issue any residential mortgage loan, while for the same period of 2015, the volume of mortgage lending in July, June and May of 2016 totaled 65.2 million manats, 56.5 million manats and 47 million manats, respectively.

During the reporting period, placement of mortgage bonds wasnt carried out, either. The suspension of mortgage lending is associated with the reorganization of the AMF, the fund will continue issuing loans after the approval of the relevant legal acts.

The average monthly amount of the loan issued by the authorized banks of the AMF amounted to 40,882 manats in July 2016 (this figure amounted to 40,697 manats in July 2015).

The average period for which the loan is issued is 280 months (279.7 months), the average annual interest rate is 6.7 percent (6.72 percent a year earlier), and the average amount of payments is 296.1 manats (297.5 manats).
Bengaluru/Mandya: The Karnataka Bandh against release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu was peaceful across the state but not near the KRS dam in Mandya where hundreds of farmers broke the metal barricades and tried to enter the dam site to stop water from flowing to the neighbouring state leading to violence.

While the bandh was total in old Mysuru and Malnad, it evoked no response in coastal Karnataka and some districts in North-Karnataka. Near KRS dam, several protesters were injured, five of them seriously when the police resorted to a lathicharge and lobbed teargas shells to stop them from entering the dam site. Some of them managed to push aside the barricades and rush towards the dam site where they were beaten up black and blue by the Karnataka Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel.

Cops injured

Agitated over this, protesters threw stones at the cops in which a few cops sustained minor injuries. Tension prevailed at the site for more than two hours with the farmers sitting on a dharna protesting against the excesses. The injured agitators were shifted in ambulances to hospitals in Mysuru and Srirangapatna and are said to be out of danger.

Close on the heels of this incident, former MP and Mandya Zilla Raitha Hitarakshana Samiti President G Madegowda called up the deputy commissioner of Mandya and reportedly took him to task for caning peaceful agitators. Mr Madegowda threatened to lay siege to the DC office if action was not taken against the cops.

Suicide attempts

At least four farmers attempted to commit suicide near the dam. Two jumped into the river and raised slogans against the government but swam to safety. Another farmer, Ramegowda (58) from Chadregrama village in Pandavapura taluk, too jumped into the river and was caught in the weeds. The fire department rescued him and shifted him to hospital. Yet another farmer attempted to consume pesticide but was prevented by the cops.

According to sources, the police lobbed 20-25 teargas shells to chase away the agitating farmers.

Buses off the road

The bandh did not affect the movement of trains on the Bengaluru-Mysuru section but the number of travellers was very less. The KSRTC and private buses remained off roads for the fifth consecutive day due to the bandh in Mandya. All shops, hotels, cinema halls, banks and commercial establishments remained shut. Addressing a gathering, former MP Mr Madegowda sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the current crisis.

Commuter dies in Mysuru

Amidst the bandh, a 40-year-old commuter who had come to catch a bus, reportedly collapsed and died at Mysuru rural bus station, in Lashkar police station limits here on Friday morning.

The body remains unidentified and has been kept at the mortuary of KR Hospital. The deceased reportedly carried tablets and syrup used to treat Gastritis. He had Rs 900 and change in his pocket, Lashkar police said.

According to security personnel at the bus station, the deceased had inquired about a bus for Sakraypatna in Kadur taluk, Chikkamagaluru district and was told that buses were not operating due to the bandh. He then sat in a chair at the bus stand and collapsed around 9 am which was recorded by the CCTV camera. He seem to have died due of cardiac arrest but only the post-mortem report will reveal the exact cause of death.

Lashkar police have registered a case of unnatural death, and are looking for his family members. Meanwhile, a farmer, Ramegowda 68, a native of Chandre village in Mandya district who attempted to commit suicide and jumped into river Cauvery during a protest near KRS reservoir, has been admitted to KR Hospital. Two others Anil Kumar, 28 and Vinay 27 who were injured in the lathicharge near KRS reservoir were treated and discharged from KR Hospital.

ATMs go cashless as stir continues

People of Mandya district are literally 'cashless' as almost all ATMs are out of cash following closure of banks in the last five days ever since the Supreme Court directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for ten days. Sources told Deccan Chronicle that the agitators have forced closure of all banks in the district from the day the SC issued directions to Karnataka. The cash in ATMs has been exhausted and all ATM machines are displaying no cash messages. This has badly hit people of Mandya city who are unable to withdraw money. "I have to buy groceries and make payments. But I am unable to do it as cash is not available in ATMs. Even the banks are closed, otherwise I would have gone to my bank to withdraw cash from my account. I did not know when the banks will insert money in their ATMs", said Mr Ramesh, an employee of a private firm. Mr Prakash, a businessman, said his business transactions have been disrupted because of the closure of banks.
Global retail major Walmart on Saturday said a fire broke out at its Best Price Store premise at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

New Delhi: Global retail major Walmart on Saturday said a fire broke out at its Best Price Store premise at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, and was brought under control later.

The company is assessing damages to the Cash & Carry store and there was no harm to the employees, said Walmart India in a statement.

"A fire broke at our Best Price store premises in Vijaywada earlier on Saturday. State Fire authorities quickly reached the store and have brought it under control," said a company spokesperson said.

He further added: "We are assessing the damage to the property and investigating the matter."

There was no injury or body harm to anyone in this incident and all the employees and staff are safe, it added.

Walmart India is operating 21 Best Price Store here.
Bhagalpur: Former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Shahabuddin walked out of jail after 11 years on Saturday, as the Patna High Court granted him bail in the much-publicised Rajiv Raushan murder case. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.

He was found guilty in 2004 for kidnapping of brothers Girish Raj and Satish Raj, giving them an acid bath and then murdering them.

Everyone knows I was framed. It was court who jailed menow court has released me. No one should take Sushil Modi seriously. This has got nothing to do with politics, judicial has its own procedures, Shahbuddin told the media.

"During his early days in Bihar Assembly in the 1990s I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts," he said.

Earlier, BJP had alleged that the Bihar government paved the way for Shahabuddins release in a systematic manner. "The state government in a systematic manner paved the way for release of Mohammad Shahabuddin, who is part of the RJD top policy-making body, from jail," senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

Shahabuddin said he has never done back door politics. I am going to my village after 13 years. Why would I try to change my image? People have accepted me the way I am for 26 years. I havent met with anyone for the last ten years, he added.

The former MP was in jail since November 2005 after he was rounded-off from his residence in New Delhi by a joint team of Siwan and Delhi Police.

Shahabuddins son Osama was charged for killing of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Rajiv Roshan, who was a witness in the case.

Roshan was the main witness in August 2004 murder case of his two younger brothers.

He was shot dead three days before he was to record is statement in the murder case of his brothers Girish Raj and Satish Raj.

Shahabuddin praised party chief Lalu Prasad while making it clear that there was no love lost between him and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. "For me Lalu Prasad is the leader" and Nitish Kumar is the chief minister "circumstantially", said the controversial leader, who has been a four-time MP from Siwan, as he emerged out of the Bhagalpur divisional jail and left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.

Shahabuddin, who is a member of RJD National Committee - the top decision making body of the party- and is known to be close to the RJD chief, said categorically that he never enjoyed good relations with Kumar.

Various pending cases against Shahabuddin were reopened and he was sent to jail after Kumar had assumed power in 2005. He was, however, quick to add that it was the court which sent him to jail and the court again which ordered his release from the jail.

Shahabuddin was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers. He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district.

Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and "We all are standing solidly behind him."

He said after reaching Siwan he would meet the family of journalist Rajdeo Nandan, who was shot dead recently.

Shahabuddin's close associate Laddan Mian is in jail in connection with the scribe's murder and though the inquiry into it has so far not named the RJD strongman, he was shifted to Bhagalpur divisional jail from Siwan a little after the incident.

The Nitish Kumar government had recommended CBI probe into the murder on demand of the scribe's family.

Asked by newsmen whether his prolonged jail term had harmed him politically, Shahabuddin said, "A little damage has happened." His wife Heena Sahab lost to Om Prakash Yadav of BJP in the last parliamentary election from Siwan in 2014.

Asked how he spent his time in jail, the RJD leader said he is an avid reader. "Out of four cartons I am taking back from jail, two are full of books which I read during my stay."
Rebel AAP MLA Devendra Sehrawat said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be responsible if 21 party MLAs appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries lose their Assembly membership. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Rebel AAP MLA Devendra Sehrawat has shot off another letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying he will be held "responsible" if 21 party MLAs appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries lose their Assembly membership in the wake of a Delhi High Court order.

The fresh salvo from Sehrawat came as internal bickering intensified in the party, which is grappling with charges of sleaze and misconduct by its leaders.

Sehrawat alleged that Kejriwal, despite being "well aware" of the Supreme Court order whereby appointments of Sonia Gandhi and Jaya Bachchan were held illegal, appointed them as Parliamentary Secretaries on the "advice" of "advisors around him like Ashish Talwar" who have "no knowledge" of such things.

The Bijwasan MLA, who has fallen out of senior party leaders, attacked the Aam Aadmi Chief and his "coterie" after the party's Punjab unit filed criminal defamation cases against him for accusing the state leaders of exploiting women in return for tickets.

The High Court in its order on August 8 had termed the appointments of 21 legislators as Parliamentary Secretaries by the AAP government illegal as it was not sanctioned by the Lt Governor of Delhi.

"The present situation is that these 21 MLAs are facing danger of losing their (Assembly) membership and now it is your responsibility as you have not only poised them to face elections again but have also burdened people of Delhi with (possible) re-election," Sehrawat wrote in his letter.

He also complained that his various letters to Kejriwal in the past, including one on "exploitation of women", had reamined unanswered.

Sehrawat also targeted AAP leader Ashish Khetan, who heads Delhi Dialogue Commission, and demanded that Kejriwal scrap the body with "immediate effect" as it was a "white elephant".

"Delhi Dialogue Commission had suspicious role in the proposal for Shuttle Bus Service... the Commission is being known as Delhi Dalal Commission," he wrote in his letter.

AAP's Punjab affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh and National Organisation Building Secretary Durgesh Pathak filed defamation cases against Sehrawat and two other leaders HS Kingra and Paviter Singh, in a court in Chandigarh yesterday.
Chennai: The Madras High court has directed the authorities not to give approval or permission to convert agricultural lands into layouts and prevented the IG Registration from registering the unapproved land and buildings.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan, before which a petition filed by Elephant G Rajendran, came up for hearing, said

we are of the view that this aspect would brook no delay till the government develops some thought process for plans and brings into force Section 22A of Registration (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act 2008.

The bench said we thus hereby direct that no registering authority shall register any sale deed in respect of any building constructed on such plots unauthorised layouts.

The bench said this order becomes necessary in order to prevent unauthorised and haphazard development/sale of agricultural areas for agricultural use, and giving government time to come with a broad policy document to save ecology and prevent flooding.

The judges said, We are concerned with the absence of any provision for the Act/Rules/Regulations at present describing any wetland lying for more than three years to be converted into residential or other use applied for. This was noticed in our order dated March 24, 2016 while simultaneously noticing that only 5 per cent of land area was under statutory planning process and for the remaining 95 per cent plans are yet to be developed.

The bench said We are of the view that this aspect would brook no delay till the government develops some thought process for plans and brings into force Section 22A of Registration (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act 2008.

We thus hereby direct that no registering authority shall register any sale deed in respect of any building constructed on such plots or unauthorised layouts. This order becomes necessary in order to prevent unauthorised and haphazard development/sale of agricultural areas for agricultural use, and giving government time to come forthwith with a broad policy document to save ecology and prevent flooding, the judges said.

The bench directed the IG Registration to circulate the order to all registering authorities forthwith and adjourned the matter to October 21.
Lucknow: With some senior BSP leaders deserting the party in the recent past, party supremo Mayawati on Saturday said it will have "no impact" on the "growing mass support" of the outfit.

Stating that BSP considers several issues before giving tickets to capable candidates, Mayawati said, "BSP is a social movement besides being a political party and it has to take into account several issues before giving tickets. Some sitting MLAs and MPs are also denied tickets.

"The missionary workers remain in the party even after being denied tickets but some others go to other parties to serve their selfish motives ...but their move is not going to have any impact on the growing mass support of BSP," she said in response to those leaving the outfit for want of party tickets.

Putting in a stern word for media, the BSP chief said, "They (media), however, project these reports as if BSP is going to suffer huge losses but it has been seen that all this has no effect and the party keeps gaining ground."

Mayawati said in view of the 2017 UP Assembly election, tickets are being given after considering all aspects and some dozen odd sitting MLAs have been denied tickets on the basis of "unsatisfactory reports from their areas, their work and efforts to connect the party with the 'sarv samaj' (public)".

She said such MLAs were informed about the decision three months ago.

Hitting out at BJP, which opened its door to two of BSP's main deserters Swami Prasad Maurya and Brijesh Pathak recently, Mayawati said it only proved the "bad shape" of the saffron party in Uttar Pradesh.

"It has become public knowledge that there is dearth of candidates in the BJP, like it had in Bihar. So it (BJP) was giving tickets to the new entrants who have been wooed by 'misusing' the central government, especially the ones leaving BSP," she said.
Ludhiana: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said the current phase of "false propaganda" targeting Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will pass soon.

He assured his party workers that selection of candidates for the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections will be from the constituencies and nobody will be fielded from "outside the constituencies".

Kejriwal, who is staying at a farmhouse in Jhande village in Ludhiana, had a closed-door meeting with the party workers who had come from all over the state to meet him.

A party spokesman said due to a last minute change in his schedule, the AAP supremo started meeting party workers from around 4 pm after returning from Amritsar.

On the second day of his four-day Punjab tour in the aftermath of the sex CD exposure and cash-for-ticket allegations, Kejriwal told his party workers that they were going to steer through this phase of "false propaganda" soon.

Quoting Kejriwal, the spokesman said these allegations were a part of a "deep-rooted conspiracy" of its political opponents to "defame" AAP.

He also asked for suggestions from the cadres for strengthening the party.

The party workers were not allowed to carry mobile phones during the meeting, sources said, adding that Kejriwal met them in batches.

A delegation of mid-day meal workers also met and apprised him of their demands and difficulties.

The AAP supremo assured them of "all the help".

Later, Kejriwal paid a visit to former vice chancellor of Punjabi University and noted agro-economist SS Johal at the latter's residence in Gurdev Nagar here.
Senior Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra was released on Saturday after more than 21 months. (Photo: PTI)

Kolkata: Senior Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra, who is in jail in Saradha scam case, was released from prison early Saturday morning.

Mitra was released from Alipore jail around 6.45 am and taken to a hotel in the southern part of the city within the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction as per the conditions set by the court for granting him bail after over 21 months in prison.

Mitra could not be taken back to his residence as it is within Kalighat police station jurisdiction.

"I'm very happy. I'm happy that Ill be with my family. I'm a civilised person and I'll abide all the conditions of the court. I'll not break the law. Now I'll take complete rest and enjoy my time with my family members and enjoy Durga Puja," Mitra said after his release.

"Time will prove my innocence," he added as his followers gathered outside the hotel and distributed sweets.

Mitra's counsel said an appeal would be made to the court so that he could go to his residence. "Because the court is closed today the plea will be made next week," his counsel Niladri Bhattacharya said.

Yesterday, Alipore sessions court granted bail to Mitra, a former transport minister, on two sureties of Rs 15 lakh each.

He was directed to appear before the court on November 23, surrender his passport to CBI and appear before the CBI investigating officer once every week. He was directed not to go out of the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction area.

Mitra, who was arrested on December 12, 2014, was granted bail by a lower court last year. The TMC leader had surrendered before the court after his bail was cancelled by the Calcutta High Court on November 20 last year.

Former Union minister Matang Sinh is among those arrested in the case, while several TMC functionaries, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's close aide Mukul Roy, have been questioned.

CBI had taken over the investigation in June, 2014 on the order of the Supreme Court.
Jammu: Separatists should have put across an implementable roadmap for resolution of Kashmir issue instead of shying away from meeting the all-party delegation and being "caught in darkness", Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has said.

She also voiced hope that the Centre will initiate inclusive engagement through an institutionalized mechanism to address the Kashmir issue and the separatists will respond positively to it.

"Instead of being caught in darkness, the separatists should have met the members of the all-party delegation and put across an implementable roadmap for the resolution of the

(Kashmir) issue," the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister was quoted as saying at a function in Jammu on Friday.

She said "by shying away from talks, a message has gone around that the separatists are not interested in ending the people's miseries by coming forward for peaceful resolution of the issue", according to an official statement.

"We hope a fresh and productive effort would be made by the country's political leadership to reach out to all the stakeholders in the state to address the issue through inclusive and comprehensive engagement," she said.

Separatist leaders had refused to meet some of the MPs of the all-party delegation who had reached out to them during its visit the state on September 4-5.

Mehbooba expressed the hope that the separatists would also respond positively to the fresh initiative to end the decades-old political uncertainty in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Chief Minister appreciated the efforts of the all-party delegation to reach out to various shades of political opinion in Jammu and Kashmir and added that it depicts the true essence of India's vibrant democracy.

Mehbooba said a serious and sustained effort is required at various levels to resolve the problem and ensure peace and stability in the state and the region.

"It (Kashmir issue) is a complex problem and a chief minister or a prime minister can't overnight come up with a solution to this multi-dimensional challenge," she said.

Mehbooba said, "What is required is a serious, concerted and inclusive effort at diplomatic and political levels through an institutionalized mechanism to resolve the issue."

She said that violence is no solution to any problem, rather reposing faith in the dialogue process is the only way out to address the issues.

She said that governance and political process should go hand in hand to overcome the tough times.

"The people of Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of theirage, gender, status or the political affiliation, have been suffering the disastrous consequences of the turmoil and unrest and they have to be retrieved from this blood-spattered quagmire, sooner the better," she said and added that the onus lies on all the stakeholders.

The Chief Minister reiterated that the present government, based on its Agenda of Alliance, is working on a comprehensive developmental road map to ensure equitable development of all the three regions of the state.

She added that various projects that were left in limbo have now seen the light of the day.

She said that it is the state government's vision of developing Jammu as an independent tourist destination and bringing the state on the world map as the top tourist destination.

She said that the Government is committed to enhance the job avenues for the youth and increase employability.

She also appreciated the people of Kashmir for their cooperation in the smooth conduct of the Amarnath Yartra showing the cultural essence of Kashmiriyat.
Panaji: The Centre on Friday said deployment of additional troops in Kashmir was aimed at foiling attempts by terrorists to enter India from across the border and the move has nothing to do with the ongoing unrest in the Valley.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the deployment of troops in Jammu and Kashmir was meant for foiling infiltration bids and it has nothing to do with the protests in the Kashmir Valley, which started after the killing of a militant Burhan Wani in an encounter on July 8.

"Army does not act in internal matter unless requested by the local administration. Our mandate is to seal the border and foil infiltration bids by terrorists," he said.

Parrikar was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function organised to commission Indian Coast Guard ship "Sarathi" in Vasco town, about 40km from Panaji.

Union Home minister Rajnath Singh, who was also present at the event, said deployment of Army men in J&K had nothing to do with the current situation in Kashmir.

"The situation in Kashmir is being handled by district administration. We are providing them all the support they want," Singh said.

Responding to a question, Parrikar said India is taking necessary precautions in aftermath of the Scorpene submarine data leak episode.

The Defence Minister said the leak did not occur in an Indian naval area but on side of the French company which is a partner in the submarine project.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 8

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Petlim container port in Turkey will reach its design capacity of 1.5 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) during four-five years, Director General of Petlim Dogan Cirakoglu told Azerbaijani reporters in Izmir.

The first phase of construction has already been completed, and the construction work within the second phase will be completed before late 2016, Cirakoglu said. Presumably in 2019 the terminal capacity will reach 500,000-600,000 containers a year, and it will reach its design capacity of 1.5 million containers per year after 2020.

He said that currently the construction work within the second phase has been completed by 60 percent.

A 350-meter berth is being constructed within the second phase, and the deepening work continues, Cirakoglu noted. The total length of the berth within the two phases will be 736 meters. It is expected that the port will start to receive vessels within the framework of commercial activity in late September-early October 2016.

Currently, 10 large container ports operate in Turkey.

Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim and the Dutch APM Terminals inked an agreement for the construction of the Petlim port in March 2013.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
New Delhi: A USD 208-million Embraer jet deal of the UPA era has come under the scanner of the US authorities over alleged kickbacks paid to secure the contract.

The deal was inked in 2008 between the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for three aircrafts equipped with indigenous radars for AEW&C (airborne early warning and control systems).

The company has been under investigation by the United States Justice Department since 2010 when a contract with the Dominican Republic raised the Americans' suspicions.

"Investigations that have been opened by the government of the United States to establish whether Embraer paid bribes in order to obtain contracts abroad have affected deals that the Brazilian company closed with Saudi Arabia and India,"

Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported.

It is suspected that a leading Indian middleman based in UK was roped in for the deal.

Defence Ministry officials here said that the DRDO is yet to hear anything on the probe by the US authorities. DRDO chief S Christopher, who headed the AEW&S programme earlier, did not pick up calls or respond to messages.

Since then, the investigation has widened to examine business dealings with eight more countries.

Embraer is cooperating with the investigations and announced in July that it was expecting to reach a deal soon with American authorities, the paper said.

The company has put USD 200 million aside to pay any eventual fines that come about as a result of the process. The company has not released details regarding the state of the investigations, but three people who have been following the case have confirmed to Folha that the deals concluded in Saudi Arabia and India are being examined, the paper reported.

In both cases, suspicions were underlined in May this year when an employee with more than 30 years at the company reached a plea-bargain agreement in investigations being conducted by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in Brazil.

Albert Phillip Close, Manager of Embraer's defence area, told Prosecutor Marcello Miller that he had heard a former sales director who worked in Europe admit to American investigators the payment of commissions to facilitate the sale of aircraft to the Saudis.

In November of 2010, the company announced the delivery of two Embraer 170 executive jets to the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil company Aramco. The amount of the deal was not announced at the time.
Mumbai: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, facing the allegation of 'radicalising' youths, on Saturday asked the government what exactly has he done to get the tag of "Dr Terror" and sought "logical answers" to charges levelled against him.

In a four-page "open letter" released in Mumbai, Naik posed five questions to the government as to what he has done to earn the tags of "terror preacher", "Dr Terror".

"Why now? I have been preaching for 25 years not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr Terror'? Of 150 countries where I am respected, I am called a 'terrorist influencer' in my own country. What an irony!," the 50-year-old televangelist asked.

"Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigators are being asked to repeat and continue the probe. Why?" he sought to know.

On the government's action against his NGO, he asked why would the government renew IRF's FCRA registration and then cancel it? And that it seemed "illogical".

"Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA? Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media?" the letter said.

Naik, a medical doctor-turned Salafist preacher, said the entire row in the last few months have come as a "shock" to him and termed it as "murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights".

"This is not just an attack on me, it is an attack against Indian Muslims. And it is an attack against peace, democracy and justice," Naik wrote in the letter.

On allegations of forced conversion, Naik, who has been away from the country for over two months, said, "While chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement? Isn't this person the most basic proof of forced conversion?"

The founder of Peace TV, run by his Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Naik has come under the scanner of security agencies after a Bangladeshi newspaper had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka was "inspired" by his speeches.

Naik said if his NGO was banned, it will be the biggest jolt to demoncracy in India.

"IRF and I have been 'set up' for a ban. And if that happens, if IRF and I are banned, it will be the biggest jolt to the country's democracy in recent times. I do not say this just for me but because this ban will set a precedence of unspeakable injustices against the 20 crore Muslims of India."

Naik said he was open to any investigation and "harshest of punishments" if found guilty.

"I still have faith in the judiciary and I know that truth will ultimately prevail. But it may come at a huge price if the current actions are not checked. My appeal to the government? Be fair in your investigation. Be fair in what you allege. Be truthful with facts," he said.
New Delhi: Controversial preacher Zakir Naiks NGO Islamic Research Foundation has been banned from receiving foreign funds directly and the home ministry has asked RBI to seek prior permission from it before releasing any money to the NGO.

The decision has been taken after a preliminary inquiry conducted by the Home Ministry found that the NGO was carrying out activities contrary to the Foreign Contribution Regulations Act (FCRA) under which it has to function.

Sources said with IRF being put into prior permission category, the Reserve Bank of India, henceforth, has to inform the Home Ministry about all funds coming to the NGO and permission has to be taken from the ministry before releasing them to IRF.

They said that last month the Home Ministry had renewed the FCRA licence of IRF despite several ongoing probes against the NGO and its founder Naik including one by the Home Ministry itself.

Taking strong exception to the goof-up, the Home Ministry suspended joint secretary GK Dwivedi, who was heading the foreigners division of the ministry looking after the FCRA-related issues, and three other officials.

Naik was accused of radicalising and attracting youths for terror acts.

Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

He, in a lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly urged all Muslims to be terrorists.

Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.

He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects.
The IRF, NGO run by Salafist preacher Naik, is embroiled in a controversy because of allegations that he was inciting youth for terror. (Photo: Facebook)

New Delhi: The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has come into the limelight for wrong reasons having received a Rs 50 lakh donation from an NGO run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has been accused of radicalising youths, but the money has been returned.

According to officials of Union Home Ministry, which have put Naik's Islamic Research Foundation under 'Prior Category list', the NGO had given donations to an allied entity of RGF called Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) in 2011 which engages in promoting girl education and providing money to needy for meeting hospital expenses.

The RGCT, a registered, not-for-profit organisation, was established in 2002 to address the development needs of the underprivileged of the country, especially the rural poor. It works in the poorest regions of Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed states in the country, and Haryana.

Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) spokesperson Aarif Malik said the money had been given to the NGO RGCT, which was also registered under the FCRA in 2011, and it was returned in July this year after a terror attack in a Dhaka restaurant.

Read: Zakir Naiks NGO banned from receiving foreign funds directly

"We have received the money back in July this year for reasons best known to the NGO. However, my point is that why has this NGO singled out. We gave money to other NGOs also," Malik said.

He accused the government of having "pre-decided notion" of "banning the organisation after they failed to gather even a shred of evidence" during months of investigation in late 2014 which continued till early 2015.

"I have a simple question. Was there anything wrong in giving donations?" he asked.

The IRF, NGO run by Salafist preacher Naik, is embroiled in a controversy because of allegations that he was inciting youth for terror.

The IRF spokesman said that a thorough probe was conducted earlier after the new government took over but they could not find any evidence against it.

"I wonder why our FCRA licence was renewed in August 2016? It is because the officials, who have since been suspended by the Government, went by the rule book and not under external and extraneous pressures," he said.

The Home Ministry had suspended Joint Secretary G K Dwivedi, who was heading the foreigners division which deals with the FCRA related issues, and three other officials for renewal of the licence of IRF.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi has owned up the donation but claimed it was unsolicited and a one-off affair.

Singhvi emphasised that the donation preceded IRF's embroilment in allegations of terror and forced conversions, adding Naik's NGO was not on the watchlist at the time.

"It (donation) was discovered by chance when the recent events happened... and some months ago, a remittance was made," Singhvi was quoted as saying.

Organisations like IRF registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act are allowed to transfer money they receive from abroad to other FCRA approved bodies. Both RGF and RGCT have FCRA licence.

Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

Naik, in a lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".

The popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.

He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, which has been banned after the Dhaka attack.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday told the Legislative Council that he was ready to be enlightened if anyone explained the benefits a state would get with special category status. He was responding to the statements of a few leaders including former Union minister Jairam Ramesh who said the denial of special status would cost the state Rs 60,000 crore annually.

How can a state lose Rs 60,000 crore annually just because it denied special status? From where these funds will come? How can anyone account for the loss of that magnitude, he said.

Continuing in a similar vein, Mr Naidu said: I fail to understand the benefits under the special status. Himachal Pradesh and the northeastern states have special status, what great benefits did they get? I am ready to get myself enlightened on this. If anyone speaks about this I am ready to listen.

He was also referring to actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan calling the special package rotten laddus. Mr Naidu said he could understand the agony and anger of Pawan Kalyan, but calling the package as rotten laddus is not a good comparison. The Centres decision on completing the Polavaram dam with 100 per cent funds is a big boon for AP. Polavaram will be the lifeline for Andhra Pradesh and it cannot be called a rotten laddu, he said.

He said Centre had ruled out giving special status to any state but had promised a package that was equivalent to special status to AP. What should I do? If I reject the package AP which is already debt-ridden and facing a deficit, will suffer. What is wrong if we accept the package and fight again for other things? This is what I am doing, he said.
BENGALURU: A day after seeking Prime Minister, Narendra Modis intervention to solve the Cauvery water impasse, law minister T. B. Jayachandra on Saturday declared that Karnataka would essentially argue that dams were not built on its territory across rivers just to release water to neighbouring states but also to protect the interests of local farmers.

He told the media after a meeting of the cabinet here: The state government is following the Supreme Courts order on release of water with a heavy heart to Tamil Nadu. Now, we will surely try and draw the apex courts attention to the question of protecting the states interests. Therefore, we are seeking a reprieve from the apex court order by moving an application to seek modification of its earlier order.

The minister added that seeking a solution to the two-century old problem was always a problem and the state government felt that this issue could only be solved through an amicable settlement between riparian states which must decide unanimously to settle this matter out of the court.

The ongoing Cauvery problem is two century old. Had Tamil Nadu not opposed the construction of Mekedatu power project, we would not have objected to Hogenakkal project of theirs. This is how the problem has grown and vitiated the atmosphere. The final award of the tribunal also allows us to utilise 70 TMC feet to 100 TMC feet water that directly flows into the sea. But the Tamil Nadu government is opposing it. As quid pro quo, let them build a dam at Hogenakkal and allow us to build Mekedatu project, he explained.

In response to a question, the minister said the states legal team headed by its Advocate General and Technical Team headed by Chief Secretary, Aravind Jadhav, reached New Delhi on Saturday to complete the process of filing an application as well as to face the Cauvery River Supervisory Committee (CRSC). The CRSC has convened meeting of Cauvery basin states on Monday, which will also be looking into the matter. We are hopeful of getting due justice from both agencies, he added.

Reacting to the campaign by Opposition parties that the ruling Congress had betrayed the states interests, Mr Jaychandra argued that the state government whenever dealt sensitive issues like the Cuavery or Mahadayi, always took everyone into confidence before taking any steps.

Reacting cautiously to Union water resources minister Uma Bharatis statement on Cauvery water dispute, Mr Jayachandra, asserted that the state government would welcome any gesture intended to help resolve the crisis. I do not know, when and where she has made any statement. (As I am going by what the media is said to me), If she has made any such statement, the state welcomes it, he said.
Geeta had also filed dowry case against her husband in September last after 30 years of marriage. (Representational Image)

Jaipur: Rajasthans chief secretary O.P. Meena has been accused of sexual exploitation by his daughter. Meenas wife and Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) officer Geeta Singh Deo distributed copy of her daughters email to the press on Saturday.

Meenas wife had already filed a complaint against him for domestic violence. Geeta had also filed dowry case against her husband in September last after 30 years of marriage.

She had also alleged that after the birth of her daughter, Meena and his family harassed and even beat her. The FIR was filed only after courts directives. In a press conference on Saturday, she said that Meena has been torturing her right from the beginning.

I had written a letter to the Prime Minister in December 2014. I once again wrote to the Prime Minister when Meena was selected for chief secretarys post, appealing him not to appoint this kind of a person to such a high post, Deo said.

The RAS officer claimed that she has sought time from the Prime Minister to apprise him about her harassment and torture. In January last year, the PMO acting on Ms. Deos complaint had asked the state government for inquiry but nothing happened. Both, Mr. Meena and Ms. Deo belong to well known families of bureaucrats.
Hyderabad: TS IT minister K.T. Rama Rao on Saturday termed the fight for Special Category Status in AP as a battle of political one-upmanship.

In an interview to a Telugu news channel on Saturday, he said that all political parties, leaders and general public in AP lacked clarity on SCS and no one in that state was in a position to explain how special status would benefit them. He said there was a need to create awareness in AP over what special status is all about.

He also said that Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan lacked political maturity and remains in an utterly confused state over his political moves. Mr Rao opined the struggle for special status in AP was no match to Telangana statehood agitation spearheaded by TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao for 14 years, involving people from all walks of life.

There is a marked difference between Telangana statehood agitation and AP's special status agitation. While people from all walks of life took part in Telangana agitation voluntarily, the APs special status agitation is about each political party and leader trying to gain the upper hand over the other leaders. While YSRC is trying to gain upper hand over the TD and BJP, the Jana Sena is trying to gain an upper hand over the YSRC. While Jagan is trying to settle scores with Chandrababu Naidu, Pawan Kalyan is trying to overtake Jagan. This is all nothing but a battle for political one-upmanship, Mr Rao said.

Referring to Pawan Kalyan, Mr Rao said, Though he may be a good person, he lacks political maturity. He is in a state of utter confusion over his political moves and that reflects in his speeches.

Stating that TRS has no intention to take up programmes in AP to create awareness on special status, Mr Rao said, We were elected by Telangana people and not by AP or Karnataka people. We have enough work to do in Telangana and time is not sufficient for us even if we work 48 hours a day.

Mr Rao noted that TRS had indeed benefitted AP from bifurcation of the state.

Due to bifurcation, AP got 29 prestigious institutions, airports etc, which they never could have imagined, he said.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has suggested that the Centre and the Medical Council of India do away with the criteria of minimum age of 17 years for getting admission into the course.

Counsel said that the petitioner Dheeraj got admission in the International University of Health Sciences in the West Indies and the foreign university gave him admission at its branch attached to a college in Guntur.

He said that after making an application to the MCI on April 28, 2010, for issue of the mandatory eligibility certificate, Mr Dheeraj continued his course under the impression that the MCI would issue the certificate before he completed the course. The MCI communicated to the petitioner in 2015 that his application was rejected.

The MCI contended that its regulations had a binding effect as has been decided by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, the case of the petitioner was rejected on the ground that he had not applied for eligibility certificate before commencing the MBBS.

While allowing the petition, Justice Suresh Kumar said, The regulations are of the year 1997 and now we are moving towards e-courts, paperless courts and appreciating any of the citizens of this country, who does some out of the routine or anti-stream. Even in sports, boys and girls aged 16 and 17 are bagging medals for their respective countries. In that case, we appreciate and celebrate that at such a young age, he/she has attained this position. In such a situation, the age of 17 years for admission in MBBS has no meaning.

While directing the Registry to send a copy of the same to the Secretary, Public Health System Centres, GoI so that talented students may not face the difficulty faced by the petitioner, the judge ordered the MCI to issue eligibility certificate to the petitioner within two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of the order.
Hyderabad: AP legislators bid adieu to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council buildings on Saturday, after their last session here. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced that the next session would be held from the temporary premises constructed at Velagapudi in Amaravati capital city area.

The Chief Minister even turned nostalgic and went around the precincts of the Houses, obliging several requests for selfies. There were tears in his eyes as he recalled several memories of the old Assembly.

Mr Naidu, who was first elected an MLA in 1978, is the only legislator besides K.E. Krishnamurthy, who has served out a full term when the AP Assembly functioned from the old building, until 1983.

Speaker Dr Kodela Siva Prasada Rao, Deputy Chief Minister K.E. Krishnamurthy and finance minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, who made their debut as MLAs in 1983, had participated in debates in the old Assembly till 1984.

The structure was built in 1913 by the Nizam to serve as a town hall  with funds raised by the people to mark the 40th birthday of Nizam Mir Mahboob Ali Khan. Architects were commissioned to design the building after they visited Jaipur, which is why the blend of Rajasthani and Persian architecture is evident in the building.

After the first general elections in 1952, in Hyderabad state as it was then known, the town hall was converted into the Legislative Assembly. After the formation of AP on November 1, 1956, it served as the Assembly till August 3, 1985.

After the bifurcation, Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan allotted the old building to the newly-carved AP, from where it held its sessions for two-and-a-half years. On Saturday, Mr Naidu decided to bid adieu.

As national president of the Telugu Desam, I will visit Hyderabad. I am not leaving Hyderabad permanently, he said. He also said it was a fact that he had demanded the resignation of Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister owning moral responsibility for the 2002 riots. Recently, I met Mr Modi and told him about this, I told him under what compulsions I made such a demand. He understood, Mr Naidu said.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 10



By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:



Construction of an power line of 500 kilovolts is under consideration for ensuring the electricity supply from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported.



The route of the new electricity grid will run in parallel to the route of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, according to the newspaper.



Moreover, work is underway on constructing Mary - Sarakhs - Mashhad (Turkmenistan-Iran) overhead power transmission line of 500-400 kilovolts in order to increase Turkmenistans electricity export. It is also planned to construct Balkanabad - Gonbad (Turkmenistan - Iran) overhead power line of 400 kilovolts for this purpose.



Construction of overhead power lines will pave way for implementation of the program for electricity export to Iran and Turkey through Irans power supply system, said the newspaper.



In the future, it is planned to unite Turkmenistans power centers in a single ring circuit with overhead power lines of 500 kilovolts.



Implementation of these plans will create favorable conditions for ensuring the energy security, strengthening Turkmenistan's position on the global energy market and will give a strong impetus to the countrys economic growth, said the newspaper.



Turkmenistan generated 22.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2015 and exported 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of this volume to Afghanistan and Iran.



The country plans to increase the volume of electricity production to 27.4 billion kilowatt hours by 2020 and 35.5 billion kilowatt hours by 2030.
Patna: After spending more than a decade in jail, criminal-turned-politician Mohammad Shahbuddin was released on Saturday. Shahbuddin, who was facing trial in the murder case of eyewitness Rajiv Roshan, was granted bail by the Patna High Court on Wednesday.

Dismissing allegations by BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi that the grand secular alliance government paved way for his release from the jail, he said, Such allegations are baseless. Judiciary granted bail to me, not the government. Everyone knows that charges against me were false and now the court has released me.

His release also turned out to be a mega show of strength as political leaders from the RJD gathered outside the jail premises along with their supporters to greet him. Sources claimed that more than 100 SUVs and cars had reached Bhagalpur to escort him back to Siwan.

Indicating a comeback in Bihar politics after his release from the jail, he took a dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by calling him, Chief Minister of circumstances. He said, My support to Lalu Yadav will continue as before. As far as my comeback is concerned, I had never left politics.

The former RJD MP was earlier declared by the state police department as Type A history-sheeter. He was arrested by the NDA government led by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in 2005 in connection with a murder case. He faces 39 criminal cases including those of kidnapping and murder.
Lucknow: The All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) has formulated a new nikaahnama that makes sweeping changes in the existing marriage terms under Islamic laws. The new nikaahnama does away with triple talaq.

Talking to reporters on Saturday, Shia cleric Maulana Yasoob Abbas said, The concept of triple talaq cannot be accepted any longer because it is being misinterpreted. There has to be a valid reason for divorce and both the parties should be ready for it.

He said that there were many sects in the Muslim religion where even if the husband utters talaq three lakh times, it will not be considered valid. He further said that the Muslim religion teaches that nothing can be without justice and reasoning. The Shia nikaahnama further gives the woman, the right to work after marriage and also bans dowry.

It may be recalled that the All India Muslim Personal law Board, in 2003, had prepared a similar nikaahnama which laid down guidelines and conditions on which a marriage can be annulled by the husband and the wife.

However, on September 2, the AIMPLB had told the Supreme Court, which is hearing a PIL by a Muslim woman against the practice of triple talaq, that the scrapping of instantaneous talaq will increase the possibility of husbands killing their estranged wives. In SC, it had also defended the practice of polygamy.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on September 14 a public interest writ petition filed by advocate and social activist Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay for the appointment of an independent Lokapal at the Centre and equally effective Lokayukta in all states in the spirit of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, 2013.

In his PIL, Mr. Upadhyay said that corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effect on the society. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organised crime, terrorism, and other threats to human security to flourish.

This evil phenomenon is found in all the states and its effects are most destructive. Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining governments ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign aid and investment.
Hyderabad: Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said he did not care for the criticism either by actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan or others over the Centre denying special category status to the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Replying to questions by mediapersons at a private function here on the remarks made by Pawan Kalyan at his Kakanida rally, Mr Venkaiah Naidu said he did not want to reply to comments by his critics and that he did not care for such comments made by others..

Let them say whatever they want against me, there is a freedom of expression. I will go ahead with and do whatever I feel is right for the development of Andhra Pradesh though I am not representing it, the Union minister said. He said a lot of exercise was done before announcing the special financial measure for AP that was subjected to immense loss due to bifurcation.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has suggested that the Centre and the Medical Council of India revisit rules governing MBBS and do away with the criteria of minimum age of 17 years for getting admission into the course.

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait was allowing a petition by Vanama Sri Venkata Dheeraj seeking to declare the action of the MCI in rejecting him an eligibility certificate to attend the screening test of the National Board of Examination on the grounds of not being 17 when he joined the MBBS course.

Counsel for the petitioner Y. Balaji told the court that the date of birth of his client was September 13, 1992, and he had taken his SSC exam when he was 13 with the permission of the erstwhile AP government in 2005 as a private candidate. Later, he completed his Intermediate in 2007 and appeared for Eamcet in 2007. However, he could not succeed.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh will travel to Hungary, which is among the 68 countries not visited by any minister in the Modi government, and will be covered as part of the massive outreach programme to be undertaken by it by the end of the year.

Apart from Singh, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will be will visit Estonia and Latvia and Parliamentary Minister Ananth Kumar will be heading to Tongo, while BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party leader and Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been assigned to travel to Mauritius.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where Indian Ministers have not gone, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her Ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

The aim of the visits, which is part of government's massive outreach programme, is to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.
Lakhimpur Kheri: A man here took to begging in a bid to arrange a vehicle to carry his daughter's body back home on Friday even as a senior district official claimed he had not intimated hospital authorities for an ambulance.

The incident came to light after a photograph showing the girl's father, Ramesh, begging went viral on social media. Following which authorities swung into action.

The 14-year-old girl, a resident of Suatali in Mitauli area, was admitted to Mitauli health centre on Thursday with high fever, hospital officials said.

Due to her serious condition she was referred to the Lakhimpur Kheri district hospital, where she was declared brought dead, they added.

Ramesh pleaded several persons to help him arrange a vehicle to carry the body back home. However, no one obliged him. Deeply perturbed, Ramesh put the body on a footpath outside the hospital and started begging from pedestrians.

Chief Development Officer Amit Singh Bansal said he has sought all documents related to the girl's admission and treatment."

Virtually giving a clean chit to hospital authorities, he said, "If the girl's father had intimated hospital staff for the ambulance, the same could have been arranged."
Philanthropy in an age of the self-driven, and self-seekers? Well for some like Gubbi Thotadappa's Charities, the changing contours of the city or the world hardly matter for they are bound by values which go beyond time.

A blessed spot for the poor in the heart of Bengaluru where they can find a resting place by spending just Rs 30? That's Thotadappa Chatra, located near the busy Bengaluru City Railway Station and Majestic bus station, which see thousands of passengers arriving from faraway destinations every day and scouting around for affordable lodging.

You would have got an accommodation for the same amount 50 years ago. Now, you may not even get a full meal for Rs 30. But Gubbi Thotadappa Chatra (resting place) is different and the lodging rates are unusually low in a city where everything is prohibitively costly from the vada you eat to the room you rent.

Philanthropy in an age of the self-driven, and self-seekers? Well for some like Gubbi Thotadappa's Charities, the changing contours of the city or the world hardly matter for they are bound by values which go beyond time.

The Chatra was started in 1930 by Gubbi Thotadappaa, a merchant who used to frequently visit Bengaluru for his business related work, traveling from

Gubbi in Tumakuru. His business forced him to stay in the city and even in

those days, it was no easy task finding affordable accommodation.

It was then that Thotadappa struck on the idea of providing shelter to

travellers and merchants like him and built the Chatra near the railway

station. The good samaritan went on to start a hostel for poor students from the Veerashaiva community. Interestingly, Siddaganga Math seer Shivakumara Swamiji and former CM S. Nijalingappa were student inmates of this community hostel, which even today provides free food and accommodation to over 500 students.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Mr C.H. Budihal, Executive Officer, Rao Bahadur Dharmapravartha Gubbi Thotadappa's Charities (RBDGTC) said: "Thecommunity hall is a shelter for hundreds of poor tourists. The Chatra has 150 rooms and can accommodate 300 people. It is open to poor people from all castes. We charge only Rs 30 from visitors."

"We have come to Bengaluru as my husband has to undergo heart surgery. We have to stay here for a week and can't afford to stay in lodges by paying huge amounts. At Thotadappa Chatra, we are provided accommodation for just Rs 30", Lakshmamma, a traveller who has come from a village in Ballari district said.

And how is the Chatra run? "Thotadappa had no children. He owned huge properties in Bengaluru which he donated to a trust named after him before his death. Most shops surrounding Bengaluru city railway station and some in commercial areas like Mamulpet are owned by the trust. The rent we collect from these shops touches Rs 40 lakh a month which is used to fund the free hostel in the city and in other districts in Karnataka," Mr Budhihal explained

To encourage meritorious and poor students who pursue post-graduate andprofessional courses, scholarships of Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 is provided bythe trust. Every year Rs 25 lakh is reserved for the purpose of providing scholarships,.

Philanthropy in an age of the self-driven and self-seekers? Well for some like Gubbi Thotadappa's Charities, the changing contours of the city or the world hardly matter for they are bound by values which go beyond time.
Chennai: Chennai and Coimbatore have been brought under a heavy security ring as President Pranab Mukherjee begins his two-day visit to Tamil Nadu on Friday. Thousands of police personnel from across the state have been deployed for the Presidents visit and several roads in these cities would be blocked for his cavalcade to pass through.

Mr Mukherjees Special Aircraft will arrive at the Coimbatore Airport on Friday afternoon after which he will board a chopper to reach Wellington in Nilgiris where he would attend an event at the Defence Services Staff College.

After the event, the President would take a chopper to Coimbatore Aircraft from where he would be flying to Chennai. In Chennai, he will attend the passing out parade ceremony (PoP) at the Officers Training Academy and Centenary Celebrations of Karur Vysya Bank on Saturday.

Apart from the local police, Central forces and the Presidents security wing are also involved in providing tight security at the international, domestic and cargo terminals of the Coimbatore and Chennai airports.

Preparatory measures are on, with the city police working out the security plans. A mock drill to check the safety measures was conducted on Thursday at the Chennai Airport.
Mumbai: Relaince Jios ad featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier last week kicked up a hornets nest online. But the episode is far from over, with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal posting yet another tweet on Friday, taking a dig at Modi and RSS.

Dubbing the Prime Minister as Mr Reliance, Kejriwal had earlier tweeted, Modi ji, you keep modelling for Reliance. People across the country will teach you a lesson in 2019.

Alleging that Modi was in Ambanis pockets, Kejriwal further said, Any more proof required to prove that Modiji is in Ambani's pockets? PM of India openly endorses Reliance product.

Speaking on the controversy, RIL chairman was reported as saying, Modi is my Prime Minister as well. The Prime Minister has given a Digital India vision which I am personally inspired by. We are dedicating our service to the vision of Indias leader, to India and 1.2 billion Indians and theres nothing political about this.

Many others, including the prime opposition Congress had also joined the bandwagon to criticise Modi.

But not one to put the issue to rest, Kejriwal tweeted on Friday, After PM modelled for Reliance, someone has said that RSS stands for Reliance Swayamsewak Sangh.

While his latest dig at the hindutva outfit has garnered as much response as the previous ones, many have also asked the AAP leader to get over the whole incidence. Many trolls also invited Kejriwal to join their Twitter troll clubs.

"Sir we are all coming to welcome you to the troll club," one of them said. Another added, "Its a pity seeing a person our CM whose IQ is lower than primary students; who is more childish than children. Grow up man."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 10

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend: The international rating agency Fitch Ratings has affirmed Kazakhstan-based JSC KazTransOil's (KTO) Long-Term Foreign Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB-' with a Stable Outlook, the rating agency reported.

The ratings reflect KTO's strong operational and financial profile, which we expect the company to maintain at least over the medium term, as well as its strategic importance to the economy of Kazakhstan (BBB/Stable), Fitch said.

KTO dominates the Kazakh oil transportation sector that is critical for the national economy. As a national operator, KTO holds a quasi-monopolistic position in domestic oil transportation. In 2015 it transported 51 percent of crude produced in Kazakhstan, excluding the volumes of its two JVs with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC, A+/Stable), which operates the major part of the 20 million tons per annum (mtpa) capacity Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline.

KTO's ratings are capped by NC KMG's because the parent exercises significant influence over KTO's free cash flow (FCF) through dividends, which NC KMG uses to service its large standalone unadjusted debt of 3.1 trillion ($9.3 billion) at end-June 2016. KTO's dividend payout ratio for 2015 was 114 percent and ranged from 66 percent to 231 percent in 2011-2015. In addition, in 2015 KTO provided a 20 billion interest-free loan to NC KMG, which was repaid in June 2016.

The agency views KTO's operational profile as commeasure with the 'BBB' rating category, limited by the regulatory environment and asset concentration in a single country. Fitch expects that in the event of financial stress, the state would support KTO, either directly through equity contributions, loans from state-owned banks and funds, or indirectly through higher transportation tariffs.

In 2015, KTO's crude oil turnover (excluding JVs) edged up 3 percent yoy to 37 billion tons-kilometres despite a 1.6 percent drop in Kazakhstan's oil production. Fitch expects that KTO's volumes and turnover will decline gradually over the medium term, reflecting falling production at Kazakhstan's principal brownfields. Additionally, the share of KTO's deliveries to domestic customers, mainly refineries, is likely to increase after the completion of refinery upgrades expected in 2017, driving down its EBITDA margins. Fitch believes, KTO may compensate the income shortfall from lower domestic tariffs by increasing export tariffs.

Positive rating action on NC KMG following a positive rating action on Kazakhstan may lead to positive rating action on KazTransOil.

Negative rating action on NC KMG due to weakening support from the state to NC KMG, negative rating action on the sovereign or NC KMG's failure to improve standalone credit metrics or KTO's aggressive capex or dividend payments exceeding Fitchs expectations resulting in a significant and sustained deterioration of its credit metrics, including FFO adjusted gross leverage above 3x may, individually or collectively, lead to negative rating action on KazTransOil.
Hyderabad: YSRC chief and Opposition leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday demanded the resignation of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for welcoming the special assistance measure given by the Centre in lieu of special status. He termed the day when the package was announced as a Black Day for AP.

Immediately after the Assembly adjourned, the YSRC president and party MLAs staged a protest at the Gandhi statue on the Assembly premises. He asked how Mr Naidu could welcome the package when the future of 5 crore people was at stake.

AP bandh has Mixed response

Saturdays state bandh called by the YSR Congress and Left parties demanding special category status for Andhra Pradesh was peaceful and evoked mixed response.

It was partial in Guntur, Eluru and Rajahmundry and Nellore and Prakasam districts. The response was mixed response in the YSRC-dominated Kadapa, Kurnool, Anantapur and Tirupati.

Except for a few hours in the morning, RTC buses operated as usual barring at a few places. Some educational institutes closed voluntarily. Shops and establishments were found open in most places.
The delicious apples of Kashmirs glorious orchards are rotting on the ground. Soon the walnuts will also meet the same fate. The fruits cannot be crated or trucked because the Valley is under curfew. Earnings of entire communities have been wiped out. Soon winter will set in. The Line of Control runs for over 700 km at heights that average 14,000 feet and more. There will be 20 feet of snow on the LoC ridge. The barbed wire fence has only a height of 12 feet, and will be buried beneath the snow. The snow is accompanied by dense fog. Our brave soldiers cannot see beyond a couple of feet. Pakistan is waiting for this moment to send across its jihadis. Kashmir is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis. There have been crises in the past as well, but this time it appears that there is a crucial difference: the alienation and anger among the youth. Undoubtedly, some of the children, not yet in their teens, who front mobs that pelt stones on our valiant soldiers, policemen and paramilitary forces, are cynically manipulated by unscrupulous hardliners on Pakistans payroll. They have to be weaned away from this senseless violence, and the youth as a whole has to be given a sense of hope in the dividends of our national mainstream.

The situation is exceptionally complex and difficult, a result of both history and geography. But, since J&K will always remain an inalienable part of India, a solution must be found. Can the Indian State, and the political parties that run it, find that solution? The visit of the all-party parliamentary delegation was a positive step that should have been taken much earlier. But a sense of drift has gripped the BJP government at the Centre and the BJP-PDP alliance in Srinagar.

Democracy throws up its own compulsions, and we have scores of examples where bitter foes have come together to form a government in response to the logic of electoral verdicts. But even so, the BJP-PDP alliance was, from the very beginning, one of the most unworkable, cynical and expedient attempts to cling to power even when it was crystal clear that the resultant government would be intrinsically and fundamentally unworkable.

From its very inception, there was almost no issue on which the two alliance partners were on the same page. Both of them held diametrically opposite views on Article 370, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the causes behind the unrest and insurgency and the ways to handle it. And yet they formed a government, and even agreed to an 11-page Agenda for Alliance. For months the alliance partners sparred over how to draft this document while J&K remained without a government and the situation continued to spin out of control. The document they finally produced is a classic example of a deceptive editorial exercise to create the impression of consensus where none existed. That is why it has remained on paper and not implemented. The manner in which the BJP has reneged on key points of the common agenda is nothing short of scandalous. For instance, the agenda, citing Atal Behari Vajpayees initiation of a dialogue process with all political groups, including the Hurriyat Conference, commits the coalition government to facilitate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders, which will include all political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections. But once the drafting exercise was over, there was no follow up.

The extent to which the BJP would resort to subterfuge to escape its publicly stated alliance responsibilities became ludicrously clear during the visit of the all-party parliamentary delegation. An invitation was sent to the Hurriyat to meet with the delegation, but not from the coalition government. It was sent by Mehbooba Mufti, but not in her capacity as the chief minister. She sent it as the leader of the PDP. Does this not mean that the BJP, which is in government in J&K in alliance with the PDP, is deliberately subverting an initiative to which it had jointly committed while forming the government? When leaders like Sharad Yadav and Sitaram Yechury made the effort to meet with Hurriyat leaders, home minister Rajnath Singh did not object. But his party, which was committed to carrying out this dialogue in the name of Vajpayeeji, cynically stayed away. The hardliners in the Hurriyat such as the likes of Syed Shah Geelani need to be dealt with sternly and under the law. But the BJP should have, in all good conscience, made this clear when forming the government with the PDP. The partys cynical policy now seems to be to hunt with the hound and run with the hare, leaving the PDP to fulfil the commitments to which it had lent its full support in a public document.

The same expediency can be seen in the BJPs commitments to review the continuation of the AFSPA, the return of land under the Land Acquisition Act to the rightful owners, escalated economic development, and a review of royalty agreements with the NHPC. The net result is governance paralysis, lack of cohesive strategy, and unacceptable drift in policy-making. Apparently, the BJP has now decided to take a hard line with the Hurriyat and to focus on Islamic radicalisation in the Valley. But while adopting this policy, has it consulted its alliance partner, the PDP? Muzaffar Baig, a key aide to Ms Mufti, has asked for his leader to resign if she cannot implement the Agenda for Alliance with the BJP that includes talking to all stakeholders, including the Hurriyat. Quite clearly, therefore, the two partners in this opportunistic alliance are talking at complete cross-purposes. Pakistan is blatantly fishing in these troubled waters. Cross-border infiltration is growing, and will increase further during the coming winter. For how long then can this increasingly serious situation in J&K be held hostage to this non-workable BJP-PDP alliance? The BJP is answerable not only to its collapsing alliance in Srinagar, but to the entire nation.
It was expected that Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif would make a reference to Kashmir in his Defence Day speech earlier this week. This is par for the course. If Pakistans Kashmir cause did not exist, the rationale of the Pakistan Army to maintain a tight grip over the country would slip away. Especially in the present context, when there is continuing political turmoil in Kashmir on account of misgovernance on the Indian side, the Pakistan Army Chiefs strong words on Kashmir were to be all the more expected, not least when Pakistan has decided to dedicate its Independence Day this year to the cause of Kashmirs independence. But it is the vehemence packed in Gen. Sharifs observations which can cause surprise.

The language used by the military commander was the language of a politician, going beyond what may be expected of the military chief. Gen. Sharif spoke of Kashmir being Pakistans jugular vein (or lifeline), a stark factual falsehood. The expression is not a new one, but it has been used by politicians in the past or by military strongmen when they give up their formal military title and assume charge as President. It is essentially a call to mobilise the country on the Kashmir issue and probably a signal by the Pakistan Army that the civilian authority headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif which, while despatching diplomatic scouts to rake up Kashmir as an international question, had not been sufficiently strenuous on the domestic front in spreading the governments message on the issue. Gen. Sharif also referred to self-determination for Kashmir and alluded to the long defunct UN resolutions towards holding a plebiscite in which Pakistan had showed no interest when these were still live.

In a basic sense this is meant to boost the anti-India Pakistani terrorist gangs that operate with state patronage  such as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed  and to give them the code message to refuel their activities in the Valley. New Delhi may, therefore, expect their continued exertions at a heightened level in Kashmir. The pro-Pakistan constituency in Kashmir may be expected to be given a fillip as a result. The manner in which Gen. Sharif has approached the issue may also be deemed to be a subtle hint to the Pakistan Prime Minister that the Army Chief may be thinking of extending his normal three-year tenure beyond November 30 this year. In January, the general had said that he would not seek an extension. It is early to speculate whether something even more may be read into these circumstances, but nothing should cause surprise when it comes to Pakistan.
Triple talaq is banned in about 20 Muslim-majority countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. Polygamy is prohibited in Turkey and Turkmenistan among other countries.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) recently told the Supreme Court that rewriting Personal Laws in the name of social reform would erode religious freedom guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

AIMPLB said that a man giving triple talaq to his wife was a better option than him murdering her or burning her alive; that women were less proficient in decision-making and, therefore, this right lay with men; and that polygamy was Islamic, banning of which would lead to promiscuous sexual practices.

The justifications of AIMPLB a non-government organisation that is supposed to educate Indian Muslims on the protection and application of Islamic laws  are medieval and reinforce the worst stereotypes that Islamophopbes have constantly proliferated. By relegating women to second-class status, the Board betrayed misogyny and patriarchy of the worst kind that was done away with by Prophet Muhammad.

Read: What media is not telling us about Aimplbs stand

Some of Qurans major concerns were to liberate humankind from the dangers of subservience, autocracy, ethnicity, racism and chauvinism. Islam allowed questioning, encouraged the ability to interrupt a prearranged archaic thought process ingrained in a male-dominated oligarchic system.

In early Islam, Muslim women were active in numerous fields, and participated in decision-making. They were equal participants in both spiritual and material aspects of life. Womens right to participate in social, economic, educational, cultural and political activities was equal to their male counterparts. They could acquire, administer, dispose and inherit property. They had equal freedom to choose or refuse a spouse. Women can enjoy the same benefits as men, and follow any respectable profession as men: To men is allotted what they earn and to women what they earn (Quran, 4:32).

The Quran extols the leadership of Queen Bilques as a woman ruling over them provided with every requisite (H.Q. 27:23). Her leadership qualities are not measured by her gender but by her capacity to fulfill the requirements of office, her political acumen, the purity of her faith and her independent judgement.

Historical evidence shows that women contributed significantly in the fields of knowledge and learning. The wife of the Prophet Mohammad, Harzat Khadija, also a powerful business woman, was the first to embrace Islam. The progeny of the Prophet primarily emanates from his esteemed daughter Hazrat Fatimah who played an active role on discussions relating to succession.

Hazrat Aisha, well known for her knowledge of Hadith, was also a politically active, influential leader. Hazrat Hafsa held with her the entire manuscript of the compilation of the Quran finally published in the time of the Caliph Uthman. Umm Salama was instrumental in advising the Prophet during the crises at Hudaybiya). Bibi Zainab was actively involved in social work.

The early history of Islam shows that women took part in national activities, acted as advisors, and joined in congregational prayers in mosques. They were in battlefields, helped carry the wounded and slain. Women served male guests during feasts, did business with men.

The Prophet consulted women and took their opinion seriously. According to Imam Hanbal, the Prophet appointed Umm Waraqah as the imam of her household. She also led prayers for both genders. Khawla bit Salibah corrected the authoritative ruling (fatwa) of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab on the issue of dower (mahr). Hanbali jurisprudence upholds the qualifications of women to serve as judges. They owned and sold property and engaged in commercial transactions (there are references to this effect from Hadith of Imam Bukhari).

Women became Muslims before men, again contradicting the patriarchal view that women were incapable of independent action. In the political arena the Quran refers to women who, independent of their male relatives, pledged the oath of allegiance (bayah) to the Prophet: O Prophet whenever believing women come to thee to pledge their allegiance to thee then accept their allegiance (Quran. 60:12). Women were not confined within the four walls of their houses. Household duties were not their sole responsibility. The best of you is the one who is best to his wife (Tirmidhi; Ibn Majah).

The Board also said that divorce proceedings instead of triple talaq could damage a womans chances of re-marriage if the husband indicts her of loose character in the court.

But neither the Quran nor Prophet Muhammad sanctioned triple talaq. The Prophet said: God has not created anything on the face of the earth that he loves more than emancipation; and God has created nothing upon the face of the earth more hateful to him than divorce (Abu Daud, 13:3).

Triple talaq clearly disregards the displeasure of the Prophet as the following tradition illustrates: The Messenger of Allah was informed of a man (Rukhana) who divorced his wife three times together, his face became red and he stood up in displeasure and said: Is the Book of Allah being sported with while I am still in your midst?(Nasai; 27:6 ).

AIMPLB has argued that polygamy is a social need and a blessing as a lawful second wife is better than an unlawful mistress, saying that it gave divorced or widowed women more opportunity to remarry.

But polygamy in Islam is a restrictive and not a permissive ordinance; it is an exception not the rule. Prophet Muhammad did not introduce polygamy as is conveniently believed. The only verse in the Quran on polygamy (4:3) was revealed during the Battle of Uhud when, under the circumstances of war, women were left orphans, homeless and destitute. Prophet Muhammad restrained polygamy by insisting on adl (justice). A large number of influential jurists, like the Mutalazaites, belonging to schools presently archaic, held polygamy unlawful.

Prophet Muhammad at the age of 25 married Hazrat Khadeja who was 40, adhering strictly to the ideal of monogamy in a totally polygamous society, at a time when prevailing conditions were normal and there was no war. It was only when war situations arose and women needed shelter and protection that the Prophet married another.

A number of Muslim countries have limited polygamy by bringing about statutory provisions, anti-bigamy stipulations or exercise of judicial and social control.

AIMPLB has argued that the death rate of men is higher since it is mostly men who die in accidents, and that since women outnumbered men, not permitting polygamy would force women into leading a spinsters life.

But in India the sex ratio is approximately 920 women to a 1,000 men. What then is the argument to retain polygamy?

It is not Islam but the assertion of pre-Islamic patriarchy that are obstacles in the path of women.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has given to the Supreme Court its opinion on triple talaq and polygamy. As expected, media reports have reacted to the absurd and indefensible statements made by the Board, but the positive aspects in the affidavit seem to have gotten buried beneath the flurry.

The affidavit starts on a positive note by stating that the Supreme Court in the 2002 Shamim Ara ruling has already dealt with the issue of instant, arbitrary triple talaq, and has laid down the test of reasonable cause and prior reconciliation, and goes even further to state that the principle laid down in the Shamim Ara ruling is the law of the land and a binding precedent.

Even while stating that the Shamim Ara ruling does not accurately reflect the Shariah law, the affidavit accepts the judgment by stating that the Board does not wish to reopen the discussion on it in these proceedings but ends with a rider that it reserves its right to interpret the Shamim Ara ruling in future. This appears to be a feeble objection to the historic ruling, especially since the board accepts that the proper course open to Shayara Bano  petitioner in the current case  was to challenge the arbitrary triple talaq and claim her rights in a local court by invoking the 2002 ruling.

Fourteen years have gone by since the ruling, and the volume of case law accumulated through the decisions of various high courts which have relied on the Shamim Ara ruling makes it difficult for the Board to feign ignorance about it as the principle of stare decisis will apply when the Board wakes up to challenging this ruling.

What does this imply for Muslim women who are sent such arbitrary talaqnamas by post? While trial courts have been relying on this ruling when Muslim women approach them to claim their rights, the community has been hesitant to challenge the fatwas that triple talaq are valid, discouraging women from approaching the courts. The Boards affidavit, in paragraph six, sends out a clear signal that a Muslim woman has every right to challenge the triple talaq sent to her by her husband relying upon the Shamim Ara ruling.

The fact that the Board has accepted the principles laid down in the Shamim Ara ruling is the most positive aspect of the affidavit, and this should be hailed. After pleading that Shayara Bano had the right to challenge the triple talaq in a local court in a duly affirmed affidavit by a person no less than its secretary, it will be difficult for the Board to retract from this position in future. Now Muslim women can defend their rights against instant talaq pronounced on them, as the Board has given its approval.

The second positive aspect is the acceptance that a Muslim woman who has been subjected to domestic violence has the right to claim relief under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005. This helps break yet another prevailing myth that Muslim women are not entitled to relief under PWDVA. There is a clear direction to Muslim women who are victims of domestic violence to claim relief under the progressive statute, which helps women claim maintenance, protection, injunction, residence, compensation and child custody through summary proceedings in a magistrates court.

Further, remedies under this Act can be claimed not only during the marriage but at any time thereafter. The Board does not seem to restrain Muslim women from claiming relief under this statute even after their marriage has been dissolved. Acknowledging the rights of Muslim women for remedies under this civil statute is suffice to clear any misconception which the media may harbour.

The third positive point: In the event that Shayara Bano wished to end her violent marriage by accepting the talaqnama sent by her husband, she has the option of exercising her rights under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights upon Divorce) Act, 1986. The agency of the Muslim woman and her multiple choices under various legal provisions, which are seldom highlighted, are captured in a nutshell.

The affidavit chides Shayara Bano for rushing to the Supreme Court by way of a PIL without first benefiting from the remedies available to her against her husband in a local court. In fact, it is on these grounds that the affidavit claims that the PIL should be dismissed ad-limine (at the initial stage).

The affidavit further states that these alternate remedies are more apt as the appropriate judicial authorities can give effective and adequate remedy. These statements help to clear the misconception that a divorced Muslim woman has no rights under the existing laws.

The affidavit further states that provisions of maintenance after divorce have been codified in the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, and the constitutional validity of this Act was upheld in the Danial Latifi ruling of 2001.

The Board was a party to these proceedings and had opposed the wider interpretation provided by the Supreme Court. But today it seems to accept this judgment and urges Muslim women to reap its benefits.

Unfortunately, due to the negative projection of these important milestones, Muslim women were not able to sufficiently reap the benefits of these rulings. The affidavit seems to clear the misconception surrounding these important rights.

It would have been better for the Board to confine itself to these legal positions rather than contradict what is stated in the opening paragraphs, by invoking obscurantist authorities to uphold arbitrary, instant triple talaq. Unfortunately, by making sensational and outlandish comments about the necessity of validating this practice, the Board has played into the hands of Hindu communal elements, especially before the UP elections, and provided fodder to mount its vitriolic campaign against the Muslim community.

After affirming that the principle laid down in the Shamim Ara ruling is the law of the land and is binding, these contradictory and atrocious comments were totally unwarranted.

Since the main objective of the media is to secure the rights of Muslim women, it would do well to publicise the fact that the Board has encouraged Muslim women to safeguard their rights by using the existing laws available to them.
The California-based company also issued an appeal to the public. "Please email any recordings of the event to report@spacex.com."

Miami: SpaceX appealed for help from the public and US government agencies on Friday in the investigation of what made a Falcon 9 rocket explode last week during a launch test. No one was hurt in the September 1 blast, which happened as the rocket was being fuelled ahead of a standard, pre-launch test known as a static-fire at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. "Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years." Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who rose to fame as the co-founder of PayPal, added that the blast happened "during a routine filling operation."

"Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source." According to video footage of the incident, the SpaceX rocket and an Israeli communications satellite, Amos-6, suddenly burst into a massive fireball amid what appeared to be a succession of blasts.

"Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off," Musk wrote. "May come from rocket or something else."

He said "support and advice" from the US space agency NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the US Air Force would be "much appreciated."

The California-based company also issued an appeal to the public. "Please email any recordings of the event to report@spacex.com."

The accident -- the second of its kind since SpaceX was founded in 2002 -- came just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket exploded after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9 -- including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

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Facebook on Friday reversed its decision to remove postings of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant.

Denmark: Facebook on Friday reversed its decision to remove postings of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant. Protests in Norway started last month after Facebook deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut from a Norwegian author's page, saying it violated its rules on nudity.

The revolt escalated on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the image on her profile and Facebook deleted that too. The brouhaha is the latest instance in which Facebook's often opaque process for deciding what stays and what goes on its network has spurred controversy.

"It's an interesting dilemma because you've got a newsworthy historical image that has been published by traditional news media that was effectively censored by a social network," said Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago communications professor.

Initially, Facebook stood by the decision, saying it was difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. But late Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.

"In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," Facebook said in a statement. "Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed."

Politicians of all stripes, journalists and regular Norwegians had backed Solberg's decision to share the image. The prime minister told Norwegian broadcaster NRK she was pleased with Facebook's change of heart and that it shows social media users' opinions matter.

"To speak up and say we want change, it matters and it works. And that makes me happy," she said.

The image shows screaming children running from a burning Vietnamese village. The little girl in the centre of the frame, Kim Phuc, is naked and crying as the napalm melts away layers of her skin.

"Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality," Solberg told the AP earlier Friday, adding it was the first time one of her Facebook posts was deleted.

Solberg later reposted the image with a black box covering the girl from the thighs up. She also posted other iconic photos of historic events, such as the man standing in front of a tank in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, with black boxes covering the protagonists.

Like its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway takes pride in its freedom of speech. It's also a largely secular nation with relaxed attitudes about nudity.

Several members of the Norwegian government followed Solberg's lead and posted the photo on their Facebook pages. One of them, Education Minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, said it was "an iconic photo, part of our history."

Many of the posts were deleted but Isaksen's was still up Friday afternoon. The photo was also left untouched on a number of Facebook accounts, including the AP's.

It would be physically impossible for the company to comb through the hundreds of millions of photos posted each day, so it relies on user reports and algorithms to weed out pictures that go against its terms of service. Photos are often automatically removed if enough people report them. Facebook usually does not proactively remove photos, with some exceptions, such as child pornography.

Because of this, what photos aren't always treated consistently, and sometimes Facebook reinstates reported photos after removing them. It can also adjust its standards depending on the response. Breastfeeding and mastectomy photos used to be deleted, but after much outcry the company adjusted its policy on nude photos to allow most of such photos. In another case, a court ruled Facebook could be sued after a man's account was suspended after he posted "The Origin of the World," by Gustave Courbet, an 1866 French painting of a nude model exposing her genitalia.

The issue in Norway "points out there's very little transparency," Jones said. "We really don't know how these decisions are made so there's not a lot of accountability either necessarily."

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published the Vietnam photo on its front page Friday and also wrote an open letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in which chief editor Espen Egil Hansen accused the social media giant of abusing its power.

Hansen said he was "upset, disappointed - well, in fact even afraid - of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society."

The uproar also spread outside of Norway, with the head of Denmark's journalism union urging people to share Hansen's open letter. Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who has previously clashed with Facebook over its failure to remove hate speech deemed illegal in Germany, also weighed in, saying "illegal content should vanish from the Internet, not photos that move the whole world."

Facebook's statement said it will adjust its review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward.

"We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward," it said.

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'I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions,' said Clinton.

New York: Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who has faced criticism for being aloof, told a popular blog she is aware she can be perceived as cold or unemotional and is not like President Barack Obama and her husband Bill Clinton with an appealing naturalness.

I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And thats a hard path to walk, Clinton told the immensely popular Humans of New York blog on Facebook. Clinton cited an intense incident of how she was heckled by men during a law school admissions test in Harvard.

She said she was among only a handful of women in the room when a group of men began to yell things like: You dont need to be here. And Theres plenty else you can do.

One of them even said: If you take my spot, Ill get drafted, and Ill go to Vietnam, and Ill die. Clinton said even though the insinuations became personal, she could not respond as she couldnt afford to get distracted and mess up the test.

So I just kept looking down, hoping that the proctor would walk in the room. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you dont want to seem walled off. And sometimes I think I come across more in the walled off arena, the 68-year-old former secretary of state said. Clinton said in the blog post that is she takes responsibility for creating the perception of being walled off but she is not cold or unemotional.

I dont view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I cant blame people for thinking that, she said. In another post, Clinton said she is not like Obama and her husband Bill Clinton.

Im not Barack Obama. Im not Bill Clinton. Both of them carry themselves with a naturalness that is very appealing to audiences. But Im married to one and Ive worked for the other, so I know how hard they work at being natural. Its not something they just dial in, she said, adding that both the US presidents work and practice what they are going to say.

Its not that theyre trying to be somebody else. But its hard work to present yourself in the best possible way. You have to communicate in a way that people say: OK, I get her. And that can be more difficult for a woman, she said. Clinton said women running for the Senate or Presidency have fewer women to look top to since most of the role models are men.

And what works for them wont work for you. Women are seen through a different lens. Its not bad. Its just a fact, she said. Clinton said she has learnt she cannot be as passionate in her presentation as the men.

I love to wave my arms, but apparently thats a little bit scary to people. And I cant yell too much. It comes across as too loud or too shrill or too this or too that. Which is funny, because Im always convinced that the people in the front row are loving it, she said.
Washington: With a new promise of $20 million to help defeat Donald Trump, billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz becomes one of the top Democratic donors of the election.

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur calls the Republican presidential candidate dangerous and divisive and says his appeal to Americans who feel left behind is quite possibly a deliberate con.

By contrast, Moskovitz says, Democrats and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, are running on a vision of optimism, pragmatism, inclusiveness and mutual benefit.

Moskovitz wrote about his planned contributions in a Thursday night posting on the website Medium titled Compelled to Act. Until now, Moskowitz had made only one federal campaign contribution, $5,200 in 2013 to Democrat Sean Eldridge. The husband of another Facebook co-founder, Eldridge unsuccessfully ran for a New York congressional seat.

Half of the $20 million Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, are giving will go to the League of Conservation Voters and to a political action committee called For Our Future. The latter group is a get-out-the-vote effort in battleground states that is paid for primarily by labour unions and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer.

Moskovitz and Tuna also are giving directly to Clintons campaign and to party committees helping Senate and congressional Democrats.

As a nation, we need to figure out how to bring everyone with us, and we believe the Democratic platform currently is more aligned with ensuring that happens, he wrote.

In comparison, Donald Trumps promises to this group are quite possibly a deliberate con, an attempt to rally energy and support without the ability or intention to deliver. His proposals are so implausible that the nation is forced to worry that his interest in the presidency might not even extend beyond winning a contest and promoting his personal brand.

Only Steyer has given more this year to Democrats, campaign finance records show. The Californian has put up almost $40 million so far, to promote environmental issues and help elect Clinton and other Democrats.
It now heads to President Barack Obama's desk, just days before the 15th anniversary of 9/11. (Photo: AP)

Washington: The House of Representatives passed legislation Friday that would allow victims of the 9/11 attacks and their relatives to sue foreign governments suspected of backing acts of terrorism against the United States.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act -- approved in the House by unanimous voice vote some four months after its Senate passage -- is strongly opposed by the government of Saudi Arabia, the home nation of 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

It now heads to President Barack Obama's desk, just days before the 15th anniversary of 9/11. The White House has signaled its opposition to the measure because it would essentially waive the doctrine of sovereign immunity that protects nation states from civil suits or criminal prosecution.

"This legislation would change long-standing, international law regarding sovereign immunity. And the president of the United States continues to harbor serious concerns that this legislation would make the United States vulnerable in other court systems around the world," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said back in May, after the Senate unanimously approved the bill.

The measure would allow 9/11 families to pursue cases in federal court against foreign governments, notably Saudi Arabia, and demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for the attacks.

Under current law, victims of terrorism can only sue countries officially designated by the State Department as sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Syria.

No official Saudi complicity in the al-Qaeda attacks has been proven, and the kingdom has never been formally implicated. It is not a designated sponsor of terrorism.

In February Zacarias Moussaoui, dubbed the 20th hijacker, told US lawyers that members of the Saudi royal family donated millions of dollars to al-Qaeda in the 1990s.

The Saudi Embassy denied Moussaoui's claims. But his accusations revived debate over whether the Obama administration should release a still-classified 28-page section of the 9/11 Commission Report.

The documents were declassified and released in mid-July. They showed that while the United States probed links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 attacks, it found multiple suspicions but no proven ties.
According to a source in the Russian Energy Ministry, Russia is waiting for signing the permits on the Turkish Stream pipeline in the coming days, Sputnik reported.

Russia is waiting for signing the remaining permits on the Turkish Stream pipeline in the coming days, a source in the Russian Energy Ministry said on Saturday.

We are waiting for the response of Turkish colleagues [to the proposed roadmap on the Turkish Stream], we must meet with them again. We are waiting for their permits in the near future but there were some impediments earlier There is still no date [of signing the agreement on construction]. We are waiting for the response and then there will be a date We are waiting for the construction permit, Gazprom is working on that, the source told RIA Novosti.

The Turkish Stream project, which was planned to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, was suspended after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter in Syria on November 24, 2015. In June, following Turkey's apology to Russia for the November incident, the sides began a reconciliation process.
The incident took place at the couple's Sunrise apartment's wardrobe in Florida. (Photo: Facebook)

Florida: A Floridan man has confessed to ripping out his girlfriend's intestines in a fit of rage after 'rough sex' as during sex she referred to him as her ex-husband by mistake.

According to a report in the Mirror, the accused identified as Fidel Lopez, told police that he and his girlfriend Maria Nemeth were drunk before engaging in 'rough sex' at their home.

The matter came to light when the accused dialled 911 calling for help as his girlfriend had problem while breathing.

When police reached the spot, they were shocked to find blood on the walls inside the apartment, bathroom and on the door. They also came across a shattered sliding window.

Lopez was found crying next to the lifeless body of Nemeth in the bathroom. He was arrested on the suspicion of murdering the victim. At first, Lopez pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and murder, but later confessed to have killed Nemeth.

In his statement to the police, Lopez said that he and girlfriend were having sex when she accidentally referred to him as her estranged husband twice. That's when he got into a fit of rage and turned into a 'monster', attacking her violently.

"She changed my name. She called me the name of the other guy," Lopez told the police.

During further interrogation, the accused said that after he punched his girlfriend unconscious, he had inserted various foreign objects in her private parts, including a beer bottle, his fists, arms up to his elbows and a flat iron used for hair straightening. He also admitted to ripping out internal tissues from her body.

After the assault, Lopez washed the blood off his hands and went out for a smoke.

Lopez has been sent to prison and is being held without bond on first-degree murder charge.
The North has tested five nuclear missiles in the past 10 years and the rest of the world appears to be helpless to stop it.

Washington: On Friday North Korea claimed it had successfully conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test. The world leaders condemned the blast which was estimated to have an explosive power of 10 kilotons, almost twice as large as the previous test, according to Kim Nam-wook of South Koreas Meteorological Administration.

While Japan, China, US and Russia said the nuclear test was absolutely unacceptable and was a grave threat to regional security and to international peace and stability there seems to be not much they can about it. Cutting off the power supplies and turning off the lights in North Korea seems to be the only way to stop North Korea.

Pyongyang is already subject to the strictest sanctions in the world, the CNN reported. In March it was hit with a whole list of sanctions, including the prohibition of supplying aviation fuel, including rocket fuel, and the sale of small arms, to Pyongyang, it said.

The sanctions also included a ban on North Korea exporting most of the countrys natural resources with coal alone estimated to be worth $1 billion in annual income, according to Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN.

While China, its closest ally, could be pressed to take the strongest possible action by blocking the transportation of fuel and oil but that could have grave consequences for the general population, the CNN said.

The move would be controversial but the world leaders are running out of options. The North has tested five nuclear missiles in the past 10 years and the rest of the world appears to be helpless to stop it.
Phnom Penh: A 13-year-old has been arrested by the Cambodian police on the charges of being a drug mule after she was found transporting drugs. The minor has been accused of allegedly carrying crystal meth.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the girl has been detained at the Prey Sar Prison since the past eight months and the case has been put on hold as her lawyers claim that she is too young to be convicted.

However, this is not the first time that she has been caught with drugs. She was previously held for drug trafficking when she was 12, and sent to a re-education centre -- only to be let out and re-arrested for the same crime.

The accused's lawyers have been postponing her trial stating that she was too young to face charges and that she can only be convicted for the crime when she turns 14.

But this time, her mother claimed that although she was 12-year-old, police arrested her and booked her under her 20-year-old sister's name.

"I cannot say why the police put her at 20 years of age. She is too young to be 20 - she still plays with rubber bands," her lawyer was quoted as saying.

Billy Gorter, Executive Director of a non-profit organisation, This Life Cambodia, said that there must have been 'grave oversight at multiple levels' if the girl was arrested even though she was a minor.
Seoul: North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear device on Friday, but the more worrying aspect for its rivals was Pyongyang's claim that it had advanced its ability to make a nuclear weapon, by miniaturising and mounting a warhead on a missile.

Its KCNA news agency said the test had used a nuclear warhead that had been "standardised to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets".

"The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power," KCNA said, referring to the North's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

There is little scientific evidence to verify that North Korea has perfected the science of creating a nuclear bomb small enough to fit on a ballistic missile and withstand the physics of atmospheric re-entry.

But it may be getting closer.

In April, a South Korean official said the North had accomplished miniaturisation of a warhead, although the Pentagon said it did not necessarily share that assessment.

In March, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met nuclear scientists working on miniaturisation. He was photographed at the visit looking at a small, ball-like device KCNA said was a miniaturised nuclear warhead. He was also photographed inspecting a missile nosecone.

"They called the A-bomb they displayed 'small-type' or 'miniaturised', but it might be better to say 'compact'," said Joshua Pollack, editor of the Nonproliferation Review. "It looked bigger than what we would call miniaturised, but they wanted to show us that it would fit into an ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) nosecone."

"If it fits that nosecone, it ought to fit on a Scud or Rodong as well," said Pollack. The Rodong is a North Korean medium-range missile tested earlier this week that can fire a 1 tonne (1,100 lb) warhead up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles).

That would bring all of South Korea and Japan within range.

After Friday's test, however, experts were more focused on the intensity of the blast.

Earthquakes triggered by North Korean nuclear tests have gradually increased in magnitude since Pyongyang's first test in 2006, indicating the isolated country is steadily improving the destructive power of its nuclear technology.

After Friday's test, South Korean monitors said the blast caused a 5.0 magnitude earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured a magnitude of 5.3.

In terms of energy, the USGS estimation translates to a nuclear blast potentially 2.8 times stronger than the estimation given by the South, according to a USGS tool used to calculate earthquake strength.

Little boy & fat man

After its fourth test, in January, North Korea boasted it had tested a hydrogen bomb, although the yield of that explosion indicated it was more likely to have been a boosted atomic bomb.

A boosted bomb is not as powerful as a standard H-bomb, but can efficiently increase the explosive power of an A-bomb by using small amounts of radioactive hydrogen isotopes.

Boosting means North Korean scientists can get more explosive yield out of a smaller amount of fissile material, stretching their small stockpile of plutonium further, getting more bang for their buck.

"This means they might have more bombs than a simple plutonium count would leave you to believe," said Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

In terms of explosive yield, the USGS measurement points to a North Korean bomb more powerful than the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and almost as powerful as the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

The South Korean measurement would indicate a yield slightly smaller than the Little Boy at 10 kilotonnes, although calculating yield is difficult and subject to the unknown variables in terrain and geology of the test site.

North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006 created a magnitude 4.3 earthquake, according to USGS data. Friday's bomb-induced 5.3 earthquake was a magnitude and therefore ten times bigger, indicating a significantly more powerful nuclear blast.
A defaced image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is burned by South Korean protesters during a rally denouncing North Korea's latest nuclear test in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday. (Photo: AP)

United Nations: The UN Security Council has threatened to impose a new raft of sanctions against North Korea as it strongly condemned Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, terming it a "threat" to international peace and security.

The 15-member powerful UN body held urgent consultations here yesterday to address the "serious situation" arising from Korea's atomic test  believed to be its most powerful ever.

Strongly condemning the test, the Council said it is a clear violation and in flagrant disregard of Security Council resolutions and of the non-proliferation regime and "therefore a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist."

The Council members said they have previously expressed their determination to take "further significant measures" in the event of another nuclear test by North Korea.

"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures," they said.

The US and France urged the Council members to push ahead with new sanctions against North Korea, saying its repeated tests show "complete disregard" for international law.

Terming the latest nuclear test as "more than brazen defiance", US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the Council must send a "clear, united and strong message that the international community will never accept a nuclear North Korea. The Council must take further, decisive action that forces North Korea to change its calculus."

Power said the Council will take additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are "consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions."

Chinas UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi told reporters that "all sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation."

French envoy to the Francois Delattre said the latest nuclear test by North Korea is more than a grave provocation.

"North Korea will have to bear the consequences of its acts and provocations," he said, adding that more importantly, new sanctions are "indispensable."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and said, "This is yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council."

"This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime," he stressed.

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo called the tests a frightening, unfortunate and serious breach of the norms adopted by the international community. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano called it a "deeply troubling and regrettable act".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein also designated two independent human rights experts to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea Tomas Ojea Quintana.
State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said the United States will continue to work constructively with India and with members of the NSG on India's membership. (Photo: Videograb)

Washington: The United States has said it will continue to work "constructively" with New Delhi and other countries for Indias entry into NSG, a senior US official has said.

"We continue, and will be, continued to work constructively with India and with members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on India's accession in the months ahead," State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters at her daily news conference on Friday.

However, she did not respond to questions on the talks the US is having with China on this issue. China is the only major country that has opposed Indias membership.

"On the particular conversations on China, because I know youre going to come back and ask, I have nothing to read out on that," she said.

"Weve been very clear since 2010, the US has made clear our support for Indias full membership in the four multilateral export control regimes. We continue to believe India is ready for the NSG," she said.

"In the last meeting, the NSG participating governments did not reach a consensus decision to admit any new applicant into the group. We were disappointed in the outcome," she said, adding that decisions within NSG are taken with consensus.

"Discussions within that group are confidential within that group. But the US remains committed. We believe India is ready for full membership. We will work towards that goal," Trudeau said.

The US has been playing a lead role in supporting Indias bid in the 48-member elite group. China had scuttled New Delhis bid at the Plenary Session of NSG in June.
Muslim pilgrims from all around the world circle around the Kaaba in Macca. (Photo: AFP)

Mecca, Saudi Arabia: The haj is no longer an old persons ritual as a new generation of youthful Muslims are flocking to Macca for the holy pilgrimage.

The younger you are, the easier it is, says Saniah, a British pilgrim who, at 25, was on her second trip to Islams holiest site in Saudi Arabia.

Twelve years ago my family and I came for umrah, the lesser pilgrimage which can be performed throughout the year, she says. This year, Saniah returned for the haj because it is a religious obligation and a radical change of life, said the Briton.

Saniah is among roughly 1.5 million people from across the world attending the haj which formally began on Saturday.

Omar Saghi, author of Paris-Mecca, Sociology of the Pilgrimage, says the haj is no longer the mystical horizon of an entire life but a rational event which has become almost routine.

Mohammed, 33, who travelled to the haj with his wife from Paris. Its an obligation and so, as soon as we had the means and while were healthy, we decided to do it, he says. His wife Madiha, 28, said: Rather than buy material things, better to spend our money on something that is going to benefit us on a spiritual level, she says.

The rising number of such young people, more educated and already used to tourism has helped change the face of Macca, Saghi says.
The victim said that while the accused was sexually assaulting her, she was being filmed by another student. (Representational Image, Photo: AP)

Brisbane: An Australian man, who was accused of raping a teenaged girl on a bus using his fingers, walked free from the court after he was awarded a suspended sentence.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the victim was sitting in the bus with other students when the accused sneaked up to her and touched her breasts. He then put his hand under her skirt and penetrated her 'digitally' using his fingers.

In her statement, the victim said that while the accused was sexually assaulting her, she was being filmed by another student.

While the case was under trial, the Brisbane District Court ruled that the victim had consented to the assault although she claimed that she tried to fight back her attacker.

At the end of the trial, the accused walked free and was handed a suspended sentence by the judge who termed the attack as 'brazen'. The attacker's partner-in-crime who filmed the act on camera was given a six-month supervision order.
London: Three British-Muslims have been jailed for up to four years in the UK for sending 10,000 pounds to a relative in Islamic State controlled territory in Syria.

Mohammed Hussain, 26 and Mohamed Rohaman, 33, believed to be of Pakistani-origin, sold their brother Musadikur Rohaman's BMW and jewellery to raise cash for him while he was fighting for Islamic State (ISIS).

A third man, Mohammed Khan, a family friend, was also jailed for his role to send the money to Raqqa after a trial in the Old Bailey court in London last week.

Mohammed Hussain was jailed for four years, Mohamed Rohaman for two years and nine months and Khan, 27, received 18 months in custody.

Musadikur and his wife, Zohura Siddeka, both 27, left for Syria in December 2014. His two brothers sold his car and gold jewellery, the court heard.

Their distraught mother was forced to lock up valuables in the family home to try to stop them, the Guardian reported.

They also arranged for Siddeka's maternity pay to be sent to Syria. She gave birth in September 2014 but the baby died days later. She has since had another child.

"Each of you knew where Musadikur was, what he was doing and the reasons why he needed finance. It would be obvious to each of you Musadikur and Siddeka were in Syria and they were there in support of the so-called Islamic State," Judge Mark Lucraft told.

"Their actions cause death and suffering to a large number of people. While the trial was ongoing there were a number of incidents around the world said to be carried out by Islamic State or where Islamic State claimed responsibility."
The victim's husband told police that two men approached them and started hurling insults at his wife for wearing the Islamic veil. (Representational Image)

Barcelona: In an alleged incident of hate crime, a heavily pregnant woman was kicked in the stomach by two men after being abused by them for wearing niqab.

According to a report in the Independent, the victim was attacked by two men when she was walking in Barcelona's central Old Town area with her husband and children.

The victim's husband told police that two men approached them and started hurling insults at his wife for wearing niqab. When he tried to confront the men, they attacked and pushed him. The victim then tried to intervene and was kicked in the stomach by one of the men.

Some passers-by who witnessed the assault jumped in to help the woman and her children until police arrived. The pregnant woman was immediately taken to a nearby hospital. Doctors found no harm to her unborn child.

Police have made two arrests on the suspicion of hate crime in regards to the incident.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 10



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iran has launched construction of a new unit at Busheher nuclear power plant with the help of Russia.



Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom (Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation) have attended the ceremony for launching the construction of the second unit of Bushehr nuclear power plant, IRNA news agency reported.



The construction of the second unit is projected to be completed within nine years. Iran also has in plans to build a third unit within the next 18 months.



Construction of the two units is expected to cost around $10 billion and the two new units will be capable of producing 1,057 megawatts of electricity.



Russias Rosatom, the Nuclear Power Production and Development Company of Iran (NPPD) and Atomstroyexport JSC (ASE JSC) signed two contracts last November for construction of power units of Bushehr nuclear power plant on a turnkey basis.



Russia built Irans first nuclear power plant and commenced it in 2011 with 1,000 MW of power generation capacity.




Sheetal Ranot, 35, of Queens, was convicted by a jury in July this year of first-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. (Representational Image)

New York: An Indian-origin woman, found guilty of brutally abusing and starving her 12-year-old step-daughter for more than a year and half, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the US.

Sheetal Ranot, 35, of Queens, was convicted by a jury in July this year of first-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter yesterday sentenced Ranot to 15 years in prison.

Ranot's stepdaughter Maya was repeatedly denied food and so severely battered on one occasion with a broken metal broom handle that her wrist was sliced to the bone and required a lengthy hospitalisation and surgery.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Ranot was the "epitome of an evil step-mother".

Not only did she refuse to provide basic nourishment for the child but also "wantonly beat and abused the girl inflicting pain still evident by the scars that mark her body today. The youngster, at 12, weighed just 58 pounds. No child deserves to be treated in this manner."

Maya's biological father Rajesh Ranot is also charged with assault, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child and will be tried at a later date.

Ranot repeatedly hit her stepdaughter on her body and face, causing bruising and severe pain.

Between December 2012 and May 2014, she even locked the youngster inside her bedroom and for extended periods of time refused to feed her.

In one instance, Ranot kicked the girl in the face while wearing footwear, causing bruising, swelling and substantial pain about her eye and face.

On another occasion, she struck Maya in the face with a wooden rolling pin causing a laceration, swelling and pain toher left cheek that required the girl to be treated at a local Queens hospital, where doctors found Maya to be underweight and thin.

In a third instance, Ranot hit Maya with a broken metal broom handle. The blow caused a deep laceration and bleeding of the youngsters left wrist and right knee.

When medical personnel arrived at the family residence, they found Maya lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen with the tendons of her left wrist exposed.

The young girl had to undergo surgery for her wrist and received stitches to her knee.
Derby: A UK-based woman has been accused of murdering her husband after plotting the crime with her alleged lover.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the victim identified as Sukhjit Singh was found in bed with his throat slit while on a holiday to his hometown in India.

The incident took place at the victim's maternal home in Banda, south east Delhi.

Accusing the man's wife, Ramandeep Kaur Mann of plotting the murder, police have remanded her in custody.

Images showing the accused paraded with their faces covered have emerged online.

Police said that the woman hit her husband on the head using a hammer while her lover smothered him with a pillow. The duo then slit his throat with a knife to ensure that he was dead.

She admitted to putting sleeping pills in her family's dinner and let her lover and partner-in-crime, Gurpreet, in the house. The duo then proceeded to commit the crime when the entire family was sleeping.

While Gurpreet was arrested moments before he was due to board a flight to Dubai, Ramandeep "confessed" to the crime on hearing about his arrest, police said.

In her statement to the police, the accused said that her husband had refused to divorce her. The couple had been married since 2005.
On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were struck by hijacked aircraft, claiming 2,753 lives. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

Dubai: Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri threatened the US that the September 11, 2001 attacks will be repeated "thousands of times", in a video marking the 15th anniversary of the deadly assault.

Addressing the United States in a video message posted on Thursday on YouTube, Zawahiri blamed 9/11 on "your crimes against us".

He said that if these continue, 9/11 "will be repeated thousands of times".

On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were struck by hijacked aircraft, claiming 2,753 lives.

Further deadly attacks that day were carried out against the Pentagon and on a third commercial aircraft that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

In the video, Zawahiri cited Washington's policies towards Arab and Muslim countries, its "occupation" of lands in their countries, and support for their "criminal and corrupt" governments.

His threats come as American officials say the United States has become hardened against such well-developed plots as 9/11 but remains vulnerable to small and home-grown attacks.

The 9/11 attacks spawned Washington's so-called war on terror, which initially focused on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, before later targeting the ISIS which has seized territory in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

Zawahiri also urged terrorists to unite and urged African Americans to convert to Islam to "save" them from US laws which he said are controlled by "the white majority".
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday, faced growing criticism after he called the Palestinian refusal to let Jews live in their future state "ethnic cleansing".

In a video released yesterday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that West Bank settlements were "an obstacle to peace", drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted "Israel's diversity" which manifests in "the nearly two million Arabs living" in the Jewish state and reflects its "openness and readiness for peace".

"Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews," he said.

"There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."

The US State Department called the video "unhelpful" and "inappropriate".

"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said yesterday.

"We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.

"Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties."

Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of "trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage".

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

"After Netanyahu's video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised," she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating "an imaginary reality" and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of "ethnic cleansing".

"Netanyahu doesn't care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major cities," he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahu's government, considered to be the most right-wing in the country's history, has nonetheless continued with the policy.
The row that has prevented Iranians taking part in this year's hajj pilgrimage is diverting hundreds of thousands to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam. (Photo: AP)

Karbala: Barred from Mecca amid an escalating spat between Tehran and Saudi Arabia, masses of Iranian Shiite faithful have converged on the holy Iraqi city of Karbala for an alternative pilgrimage.

The row that has prevented Iranians taking part in this year's hajj pilgrimage is diverting hundreds of thousands to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

"I expect the number of pilgrims to reach a million, about 75 percent of them Iranians," Adel al-Mussawi, a shrine official, said.

Not all of those had planned to travel to Mecca but many of the 64,000 Iranians who were allocated places for this year's hajj ended up in the holy Iraqi city this weekend.

Visiting the Imam Hussein shrine does not have the same religious significance as the hajj, which is a pillar of Islam and therefore an obligation for Muslims who are able at least once in their lifetime.

But followers of the Shiite sect of Islam feel more at home in Karbala than in Mecca, where around 2,300 people died in a stampede last year, according to an AFP tally, including 464 Iranians.

"Karbala is normal for us. We always come here. This year they have blocked the path (to Mecca) and no one can go," said Shukrullah, a white-haired Iranian pilgrim sitting on a rug near one of the gates to the mausoleum.

"It's our duty to come here. This is an Islamic country. It's good," he said.

Iran has accused Riyadh of incompetence and of failing to investigate the 2015 disaster or take satisfactory precautions for this year's pilgrimage.

Talks broke down between the two regional powerhouses and Iranians were denied entry.

A war of words has since escalated, with both countries' top clerics exchanging sharp words -- Iran's Ali Khamenei calling Saudi monarchs a "cursed, evil family" and Saudi's Abdulaziz al-Sheikh saying Iranians were not real Muslims.

"The Saudi-Iranian conflict has forced Iranians to come to Karbala to visit the shrine of Imam Hussein," Mussawi said, adding: "For the Shiites, this is worth 70 hajj."

For the city, which lies about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, the extra influx of pilgrims is nothing out of the ordinary.

10-year wait

"We have prepared transport, accommodation and security. We are used to handling bigger occasion such as Arbaeen so we can handle this," Karbala Governor Aqeel al-Turaihi said.

In the Friday sermon read by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, Iraq's top Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani appealed for respect and tolerance among all Muslims.

Yet resentment ran deep in the ranks of the Iranian faithful who were barred from Mecca, where the hajj got under way on Saturday.

"Last year, how many people were killed from all over the world? They (Saudi Arabia) killed all of them, but no one did anything to them," said Shukrullah, sheltering from the midday sun with his family near lockers where the faithful leave their shoes before entering the mausoleum.

Unlike Shukrullah, Nasirah, a woman from the Iranian city of Ahvaz, has not yet performed the hajj and predicted that the substitution trip to Karbala could become a habit.

"In Iran, the pilgrims... pay to get a visa and go to hajj. We in Iran wait a long time to get a chance to go. It can take 10 or 15 years," she said.

"So I said let's go for Arafah day in Karbala," Nasirah said, referring to a prayer performed by Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Arafat plain on the second day of hajj.

"If we are in Karbala, it's the house of God, it can be considered hajj for us. So for the next few years, we will be coming to Karbala -- what can we do?"
Kerry's negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counterterrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians. (Photo: AP)

Geneva: The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unlikely new military partnership targeting the Islamic State and al-Qaida as well as the establishment of new limits on President Bashar Assad's forces.

After a daylong final negotiating session in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight Saturday that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential "turning point" in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria's Russian-backed government and U.S.-supported rebel groups.

The cease-fire begins at sundown September 12, Kerry said, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

"Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria," Kerry said. "We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on people's choices."

"It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we - and we expect other supporting countries - will strongly encourage them to do," he added.

Kerry's negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counter-terrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians under U.N. auspices that have been stalled for weeks. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was informed of the accord, and prepared to comply.

"The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague, have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace," Kerry said, citing a number of recent meetings with Lavrov.

"This is just the beginning of our new relations," Lavrov said.

The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against Syria's armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed. Washington must persuade "moderate" rebels to break ranks with the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, and other extremist groups.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.

The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against Islamic State and Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.

Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.

But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.

Russia, in response, has chafed at America's financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be "wise" for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.

"Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody," Kerry said. "It is profoundly in the interests of the United States."

The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions.

After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."

At one point, Lavrov said he was considering "calling it a day" on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a U.S. response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, "This is from the U.S. delegation," and two bottles of vodka, adding, "This is from the Russian delegation."

The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the U.S. and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.

Getting Assad's government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people.

Assad's government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.

Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries - notably into Aleppo.

"If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten," he said. "If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim."

But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturday's plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the U.S. is unlikely to take any action against him given Obama's longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.
Rescue personnel work at the site of a fire in Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: A boiler explosion at a packaging factory triggered a massive fire on Saturday, killing at least 26 people and injuring more than 70 others in the industrial area just north of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

The fire broke out due to boiler explosion at the four-storey Tempako Packaging Factory around 6:15 am in Bisic industrial area of Tongi, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.

A part of the building collapsed as the rage of the blaze spread despite frantic efforts of the fire fighters.

At least 21 people were killed and 50 others sustained burn injuries, hospitals sources said.

Officials said 15 bodies are now in the Tongi hospital, four at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and two more at the Adhunik Medical College Hospital at Dhaka's Uttara.

Thirteen of the 21 dead have now been identified. While 30 burnt victims were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, 10 others shifted to Kurmitola Hospital, said the residential physician.

Ten of the injured are struggling for life with critical burn wounds, officials said.

Twenty units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire but they could not manage to douse the blaze till noon.

Flames and smoke were seen billowing out of the factory, six hours after the fire started. The fire service said strong winds had fanned the flames.

A five-member probe body headed by Gazipur Executive Magistrate Rehanul Islam has been formed to look into the incident, Gazipur Deputy Commissioner SM Alam said.

The factory produced and printed the plastic packaging for food items like potato chips and small household goods including mosquito coils.
A beauty therapist from Bradford, Samia had previously been married to her first cousin Shakil. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: A Pakistani court on Saturday denied bail to the father of a British woman believed to have been the victim of an "honour killing."

Samia Shahid, a dual national, was murdered in July during a visit to her family village in Punjab province.

"There was a hearing into the bail application by Samia Shahid's father, but the court rejected it," defence lawyer Mian Arif said.

Arif said that the next hearing would take place next week in the city of Jhelum, while the accused would file another bail petition to the Punjab's high court.

The victims's second husband, Mukhtar Kazam, claims she was murdered for bringing "dishonour" to her family. Kazam has said his wife had angered her parents by converting to Shia Islam, his sect, before their wedding.

Police have accused her ex-husband Muhammad Shakeel and father Muhammad Shahid of being involved in her killing.

Shahid's ex-husband has also been charged with raping her.

Police have also accused Samia's mother and sister of abetting the crime; however, the two have fled to the UK, according to police. The chief of the local police station was later arrested for helping them escape.

Kazam and Shahid, both dual British-Pakistani citizens, had been married for two years and were living in Dubai.

At a news conference in August, Kazam presented a copy of the post-mortem report into his wife's death that said the 28-year-old had marks on her neck, suggesting she had been strangled.

Shahid's father has denied the charges, claiming his daughter died of natural causes.

Hundreds of women are murdered by relatives in the conservative Muslim nation each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.

Rights groups and politicians have for years called for tougher laws to tackle perpetrators of violence against women in Pakistan.
Lahore: Canada-based Pakistani cleric Tahirul Qadri on Saturday accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother of conspiring against the country by giving work to more than 300 Indians in their sugar mills mostly in Punjab province, a claim dismissed by the Sharif Group of Industries.

"The choice before the nation is clear - either Pakistan or the Sharif brothers. More than 300 Indians are workers in their mills. I have released 50 of the 300 names, along with their passport numbers," Qadri, the head of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, said.

He said these workers include engineers, IT specialists, technicians and even welders.

"These Indians were exempted from security checks, police reporting, customs clearance and were transported in official protocol vehicles," Qadri claimed.

Terming Sharif an 'Indian agent', he asked army to arrest him (Nawaz) and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for conspiring against Pakistan.

Qadri alleged the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi was instructed to give Indians visas that exempt them from reporting to the police.

"Some of them may be Indian 'spies'. It is not written on the forehead of anybody that he is a spy," he said.

"Can't the Sharif brothers find this category of workers in Pakistan? How come that so many of these Indians were on Pakistani soil, enjoying access to the entire country and roaming around official protocol vehicles," Qadri said.

He also showed a letter to the media written by the sugar mills asking the High Commissioner to India for arranging visas for these personnel.

"Since no proper investigation can be held with both Sharif brothers in power, they must be arrested to clear way for the investigation. If my allegations are proven wrong, I would owe an apology to the nation," he said.

Qadri also quoted the World Bank figures which indicate increase of Pakistani money transfer to India.

"When the Sharif brothers took over in 2013, only Rs100 million were going from Pakistan to India. This money jumped to an unbelievable Rs 470 billion within a year, in 2014. Next year, the amount jumped to Rs 490 billion. All these questions need to be investigated by the security agencies," he said.

Responding to Qadri's allegations, Sharif Group of Industries Managing Director Yousaf Abbas Sharif said: "Not a single Indian is working in the Sharif family sugar mills."
Barring a few minor incidents, Fridays dawn-to-dusk bandh was complete and peaceful in the city. The statewide bandh was called by various pro-Kannada organisations to protest the Supreme Court order directing Karnataka to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.



Life came to a grinding halt with all modes of transport being suspended, leaving hundreds of people who arrived here in buses and trains stranded for hours. Thousands of passengers were also stranded at the Kempegowda International Airport. Protesters also blocked the toll gate near the airport. A few people were also detained when they attempted to barge into the airport.



Hundreds of passengers arrived at the airport well before 6 am to ensure that they did not miss their flights. As many as 11 flights delayed departure for the benefit of those who were stranded. Thousands of passengers who landed in Bengaluru, however, had to wait till 4 pm to get a cab. While business establishments remained shut between 6 am and 6 pm, educational institutions and IT majors declared a holiday.



Most of the government offices and banks remained closed. Protesters barged into a few offices, including the Namma Metro head office at Shantinagar, and forced officials to down the shutters.



IT hubs hit



Tech hubs like Whitefield, Electronics City, Koramangala, HSR Layout and Hebbal were completely shut down. A few companies worked with skeletal staff to ensure critical operations run, while a few others permitted their employees to work from home. A majority of the companies, however, are working next Saturday to compensate for the loss.



Film artistes and technicians lent their support to the bandh by protesting in front of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce. They later submitted a memorandum to Governor Vajubhai Vala. Protesters burnt effigies of Water Resources Minister M B Patil and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. A few even conducted the mock last rites of the chief minister. In some parts of the city, tyres were burnt to obstruct vehicular movement. Karnataka Rakshana Vedike members stoned an LED sign board at a church in J J Nagar for displaying verses from the Bible in Tamil.



In another incident, a youth, Prabhu (29), slit his stomach in protest against the release of Cauvery water. He was rushed to hospital and he is said to be out of danger. City Police Commissioner N S Megharikh said the police had detained as many as 200 people on Friday. The police had also taken 596 others into preventive custody on the eve of the bandh to ensure there were no untoward incidents, he said.



Meanwhile, the bandh was complete in the Old Mysuru region of Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar, Kolar, Tumakuru, Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Davanagere and Hassan. Life was also crippled in Shivamogga and parts of North Karnataka like Hubballi-Dharwad. The coastal regions were not affected by the bandh.



At KRS, police resorted to teargas shelling to control the agitating farmers. At least four farmers attempted suicide, but the police foiled their attempt. Security personnel resorted to caning when a few farmers attempted to climb the retaining wall of the reservoir. When the mob went berserk, the police lobbed teargas shells to disperse the crowd. In the melee, a few farmers fell into the canal and sustained injuries.


Baku, Azerbaijan, Sep.10

By Dalga Khatinoglu  Trend:

As Iran is planning to attract $100 billion worth of investment by 2021 to develop its oil and gas fields, it seems that foreigners would face a challenge in Iran: competing with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and The Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order aka (EIKO).

IRGC is still blacklisted by the US, but the nuclear agreement, commenced in January 2016, lifted sanctions against the EIKO, a vast holding company controlled by the supreme leader with assets and commercial operations worth an estimated $95 billion.

Therefore, foreign companies would be cautious to cooperate, while the pressure on Iranian government for signing mega contracts with IRGC and EIKO continues.

Earlier, Irans oil ministry and French Total signed a confidentiality agreement for studying giant South Azadegan oil field. Irans Oil ministry said that the mentioned agreement doesnt mean that Iran commits to give away the development of this field to Total.

However Fars News Agency, close to IRGC, reported on Sep.10 that Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters (belongs to IRGC) as well as Tadbir Energy Company (belongs to EIKO) have proposed a development plan of South Azadegan to the ministry.

The value of their proposal is under the Totals proposed value, the report said.

The report didnt elaborate any exact value, but said that one of them has a 15 billion-euro proposal for the oil ministrys oil and gas projects.

On the other hand, another news agency Tasnim, which is close to IRGC, criticized the governments order for oil ministry to recognize articles of 14 and 15 of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 as well as article 37 of the nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) in Irans new designed oil contracts, called Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC).

According to the mentioned articles, in case if the nuclear agreement is cancelled and sanctions which were eliminated in January 2016 are revived, the foreign companies which started dealing with Iran during the post sanctions era will not be sanctioned, unless they are involved in deals with companies which are still blacklisted.

Irans government introduced IPC last December which proposes 49 oil and gas projects for foreigners, but couldnt sign any agreement as of now due to opposition from Iranian hardline politicians. Since then, the Iranian government has had to amend the 150 terms of IPC, but the opposition still continues.

The offered 21 gas and 29 oil fields based on IPC:

Gas in place Trillion cubic feet Current output Mcf/d Total estimated output Mcf/d Estimated condensate output b/d 226.42 1,023 14,416 110,610 Oil in place billion stock tank barrels Current output b/d Total estimated output b/d Associated gas output mcf/d 214 217,000 To be proposed by contractor 7,000

Despite serious criticism from the hardliners, Irans government plans to issue the first tender on oil and gas projects based on IPC in October.

Iran expects to attract $10 billion by March 2017 by sealing three contracts based on IPC, Ali Kardor, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said Aug 30.

IPC allows foreign companies to sign long-term contracts with Iran (20-25 years) and receive a percentage of produced oil as long as the field is active.

Foreign companies are reluctant to the terms of old contracts (Buy-back) that Iran had offered for the last several decades.

A foreign company also has to choose an Iranian partner, and the leadership of the project would change between them. It would help Iranian companies to get familiar with project development aspects and technologies.

However, it seems that Iranian hardliners have decided to prevent the implementation of IPC, arguing that it is against national interests.

It seems the rivals are determined to defeat moderate President Hassan Rouhani in the next presidential elections, scheduled for 2017, with all possible leverages to thwart his economic programs including flourishing the countrys energy sector.

Dalga Khatinoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Iran news service, follow him on Twitter: @dalgakhatinoglu
RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin today walked out of prison on bail after 11 years with much fanfare and praised party chief Lalu Prasad while making it clear that there was no love lost between him and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.



"For me Lalu Prasad is the leader" and Nitish Kumar is the chief minister "circumstantially", said the controversial leader, who has been a four-time MP from Siwan, as he emerged out of the Bhagalpur divisional jail and left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.



Shahabuddin, who is a member of RJD National Committee - the top decision making body of the party- and is known to be close to the RJD chief, said categorically that he never enjoyed good relations with Kumar.



Various pending cases against Shahabuddin were reopened and he was sent to jail after Kumar had assumed power in 2005.



He was, however, quick to add that it was the court which sent him to jail and the court again which ordered his release from the jail.



Shahabuddin had got final reprieve on Wednesday when Patna High Court granted him bail in a case of murder of a witness in the 2004 killing of two brothers in Siwan. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.



Shahabuddin was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers. He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district.



Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and "We all are standing solidly behind him." He said after reaching Siwan he would meet the family of journalist Rajdeo Nandan, who was shot dead recently.



Shahabuddin's close associate Laddan Mian is in jail in connection with the scribe's murder and though the inquiry into it has so far not named the RJD strongman, he was shifted to Bhagalpur divisional jail from Siwan a little after the incident.



The Nitish Kumar government had recommended CBI probe into the murder on demand of the scribe's family. Asked by newsmen whether his prolonged jail term had harmed him politically, Shahabuddin said, "A little damage has happened."



His wife Heena Sahab lost to Om Prakash Yadav of BJP in the last parliamentary election from Siwan in 2014. Asked how he spent his time in jail, the RJD leader said he is an avid reader. "Out of four cartons I am taking back from jail, two are full of books which I read during my stay."



To a question on senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi's allegation that the Grand Secular Alliance government had paved way for his release as RJD is the major partner in it, Shahabuddin said, "There is no need to take Sushil Modi seriously."



"During his early days in Bihar Assembly in the 1990s I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts," he said.




The UN Security Council has threatened to impose a new raft of sanctions against North Korea as it strongly condemned Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, terming it a "threat" to international peace and security.



The 15-member powerful UN body held urgent consultations here yesterday to address the "serious situation" arising from Korea's atomic test - believed to be its most powerful ever.



Strongly condemning the test, the Council said it is a clear violation and in flagrant disregard of Security Council resolutions and of the non-proliferation regime and "therefore a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist."



The Council members said they have previously expressed their determination to take "further significant measures" in the event of another nuclear test by North Korea.



"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures," they said.



The US and France urged the Council members to push ahead with new sanctions against North Korea, saying its repeated tests show "complete disregard" for international law.



Terming the latest nuclear test as "more than brazen defiance", US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the Council must send a "clear, united and strong message that the international community will never accept a nuclear North Korea. The Council must take further, decisive action that forces North Korea to change its calculus."



Power said the Council will take additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are "consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions."



China's UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi told reporters that "all sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation." French envoy to the Francois Delattre said the latest nuclear test by North Korea is more than a grave provocation.



"North Korea will have to bear the consequences of its acts and provocations," he said, adding that more importantly, new sanctions are "indispensable." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and said, "This is yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council."



"This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime," he stressed.



Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo called the tests a frightening, unfortunate and serious breach of the norms adopted by the international community. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano called it a "deeply troubling and regrettable act".



UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein also designated two independent human rights experts to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea Tomas Ojea Quintana.


Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra, who was released from prison this morning after being incarcerated for over 21 months in connection with the Saradha scam, said he wants to rest now but would follow Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's instructions.





"I am tired and want to take rest now. I want to spend time with my family, my wife, my sons and my grandson. For two years I have not seen (Durga) Ma. This year I will enjoy Durga Puja with my family," he said after his release from Alipore Central Jail today.



"Whenever Mamata Banerjee assigns me, I will follow her instructions. I want to see a new Bengal emerging under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ... To see the BMWs and the Tatas investing in the state," he said while replying to questions about his plans to resume his political career.



Declining to comment on CBI terming him as an "influential" person, Mitra said, "The court will see into it... My counsel will explain this in the court. I am a lone man these days. I have nobody beside me."



"I will not comment anything more as I am unwell since the past 20 months and my doctors have prescribed me not to engage into any kind of political debate," he added.

Mitra, who was arrested on December 12, 2014, however, insisted he had done nothing wrong.



"I have never done anything wrong. My only fault was that I was young and inexperienced. But in the last 21 months I have gained the experience of 21 years."

Mitra said he is a civilised person and will abide all the conditions set by the court.

"I'll not break the law. I will extend my assistance to CBI and will appear whenever and wherever they want me to appear," he said.



Mitra said he has full faith in judiciary and is hopeful of getting justice and that his innocence would be proved. He was released from Alipore jail at around 6.45 am and taken amidst rejoicing by his supporters and party members to a hotel within the Bhowanipore police station limits as per the condition set by the court for granting him bail. His own residence is within Kalighat police station limits.



Mitra, former West Bengal transport minister said, "I'm very happy (on getting bail). I'm happy that I'll be with my family. I feel so good coming out of jail after such a long time.



Kolkata seems to be almost a new place to me ... I have not seen it for 20 months." Alipore sessions court granted Mitra bail yesterday on two sureties of Rs 15 lakh each.



He was directed to appear before the court on November 23, surrender his passport to CBI and appear before its investigating officer once every week. He was directed not to leave Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction area.



Mitra, who was arrested on December 12, 2014, was granted bail by a lower court last year. He had surrendered before the court after his bail was cancelled by Calcutta High Court on November 20 last year.



Former Union minister Matang Sinh is among those arrested in the case, while several TMC functionaries, including Mamata Banerjee's close aide Mukul Roy, have been questioned in connection with it. CBI had taken over the investigation in June, 2014 on the order of the Supreme Court.
Devastated by the mysterious death of their son last month, a couple and their daughter allegedly committed suicide on Friday morning after consuming poison.



Residents of Khaira Dabur village near Najafgarh in southwest Delhi, the deceased are identified as Bhagwan Das, 50, his wife Sharda, 48, and their daughter Sarita, 20. Das was a retired army personnel and was employed by Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) as a bus driver, said police.



In his seven-page suicide note, Das alleged that a man had taken more than Rs 30 lakh from him for the admission of his son in a medical college in Madhya Pradesh.

He still didnt get admission and later went to to Kyrgyzstan for medical studies, He died during a visit home.



In the note, Das blamed the man, Alok Sinha, for his own death and of his family members. Police have registered a case of abetment to suicide under section 306 of Indian Penal Code, and a investigation has been ordered.



According to police, the entire Das family was under a pall of gloom since the death of Kuldeep, 25, on August 19. Kuldeep was found dead in the bathroom, and an inquest is underway to find the cause of it. On Thursday night, the family allegedly consumed poison by mixing it with water and went to bed.



Around 7.15 am on Friday, neighbours heard Shardas voice. When they went over to her home, she talked to them without opening the door of her house. Through the closed door, Sharda told them that the family was committing suicide. Then she apparently collapsed. The neighbours tried to force open the door, but it was bolted from the inside.

They then climbed over the wall.



When they entered the bedroom they were shocked to see Das and his daughter lying unconscious on separate beds. All the three were rushed to a nearby hospital where they Das and Sarita were declared brought dead while Sharda died later, said police.



At the house police have found a suicide note in which Das has blamed Alok Sinha for his and his family members death. ccording to the note, Sinha, a resident of Ghaziabads Indirapuram, had taken Rs 30 lakh cash and Rs 5 lakh through a demand draft from him for his son Kuldeeps admission in a medical college in Madhya Pradesh.



Das even went to the college with his son for his counselling but ultimately his son didnt get admission in the college. When Das asked Sinha to return the money, he refused.

Following this Das managed to get a loan and sent his son to Kyrgyzstan for medical studies.
The AAP-dominated Delhi Assembly on Friday resolved to back Speakers stand against the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jungs decision to repatriate Assembly Secretary Prasanna Kumar Suryadevara to central government.





Speaker Ram Niwal Goel appreciated the Secretary and announced that he would take up the matter of Suryadevaras transfer with Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman.



Goel said he would also talk to central government ministers, especially Information and Broadcasting Minister, to retain the Secretary in the Delhi Assembly.



The resolution passed by voice vote said that Suryadevara, who has been asked by the Home Ministry to report in Prasar Bharti, shall continue to discharge his duties as Secretary, Legislative Assembly, NCT of Delhi notwithstanding any order issued/ to be issued from any quarter that runs contrary to Speakers directions. Minister Satyendar Jain concluded the discussion by urging Coel to help prevent the efficient Secretary's transfer.



The resolution was moved by Malviya Nagar legislator Somnath Bharti. It said the transfer of the Secretary was aimed at stalling work of a number of House committees functioning with his advice.



The House also passed another resolution against condemning the alleged attempt to derail governance in Delhi by resorting to arbitrary transfers and various other measures with the intention to terrorise and moralise well meaning officers.



Earlier, the Aam Aadmi Party legislators strongly objected to the Jungs direction on August 29 to the Assembly Secretary to report in Prasar Bharti. They lauded Suryadevara for his good work.



On the other hand, the Opposition BJP slammed the AAP government for trying to adopt unconstitutional practices. The Secretary was present in the House when the members spoke in his favour.



Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta said the salary of the secretary has been withheld since August 29 when the LG transferred him.



"The AAP is doing politics on an officer's future. He has been made to sit on the seat of the secretary but in official documents he is being referred to as ex-secretary," said Gupta.



"We do not know what the AAP government wants," he said, questioning the AAP MLAs' allegation that Suryadevara had got an extension for two years in May but was suddenly removed in August.



He also alleged that the Secretary had written an article in a newspaper on the issue of office of profit  something which was in contravention of the service rules.



Goel prevented him from alleging politcal motives behind postings in the Assembly. Chandni Chowk legislator Alka Lamba wondered what emergency had arisen that the Prasar Bharti wanted to recall Suryadevara to its office after his deputation in Delhi.

"The Secretary should be appreviated for working in such a pressure situation," said Lamba.



Greater Kailash Saurabh Bhardwaj appreciated the Speaker's efforts to save Suryadevara from unnecessary transfer. "We back your decision and are willing to accompany you in a delegation to whoever you decide to petition over the issue," he said.


For the last 27 years, over one lakh residents of parts of Kota city have been living under the shadow of prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC, which has prevented them from hosting any public functions and processions, except during marriages and funerals.



Places like Bajaj Khana, Ghanta Ghar, Makbara Patan Pole and Tipta, stretching over an area of two kilometer in Kota city where a large section of residents belong to the minority community, had been placed under the section which prohibits the assembly of four or more persons after outbreak of communal violence in 1989.



But residents claim that the restrictions were continuing till day though no law and order problem has been reported and it was a "stigma" for them. Locals allege that banks refuse to grant them loans and officials ignore their grievances.



Section 144 was imposed following the lifting of curfew after communal riots took place in September 1989. However, the then district collector of Kota (S N Thanwi) in September 1990 issued a circular extending the imposition of the Section "till the next order", which never came.



"The locals in the area are forced to lead an inferior life as they have not been to carry any cultural, social religious programmes or procession for last 27 years," state secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions R K Swami said.



"We are facing apathy of the administration due to the current situation," said Sarfaraj Ansari, a local resident who was only 22 years old when the order was imposed.



The locals moved court in March 2009 against the long imposition of the CrPC section in the area, Swami said.



He said though the state government gave a positive reply to the court, the restrictions were not lifted in the area where a sizeable population belongs to the minority section.



There has been no major crime or unlawful activity in the these areas for the last several years but the locals still have to face the changing dates in the court instead of an order lifting the imposed section, Ansari added.



Asked about the issue, District Collector Ravi Kumar Surpur evaded a direct reply and said that the section is invoked to ensure there is no breach of peace.



"Section 144 is a preventive and precautionary measure to maintain law and order situation. That is the very reason that certain practices are followed that there should not be breach of peace, should not be disturbance in the communal harmony," he said.



An RTI activist said that not lifting the restrictions for such a long duration is a "violation of civil rights."



"Imposition of Section 144 in civil area of the city for as long as 27 years is clearly violation of civil rights and is not in favour of the country and the democracy," said Phralad Singh Chadda, RTI activist in Kota.



Section 144 can be imposed for a maximum of six months, an advocate Jamil Ahamed said.


The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has got into limelight for wrong reasons having received a Rs 50- lakh donation from an NGO run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has been accused of radicalising youths, but the money has been returned.





According to officials of Union Home Ministry, which have put Naik's Islamic Research Foundation under 'Prior Category list', the NGO had given donations to an allied entity of RGF called Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) in 2011 which engages in promoting girl education and providing money to needy for meeting hospital expenses.



The RGCT, a registered, not-for-profit organisation, was established in 2002 to address the development needs of the underprivileged of the country, especially the rural poor. It works in the poorest regions of Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed states in the country, and Haryana.



Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) spokesperson Aarif Malik said the money had been given to the NGO RGCT, which was also registered under the FCRA in 2011, and it was returned in July this year after a terror attack in a Dhaka restaurant.



"We have received the money back in July this year for reasons best known to the NGO. However, my point is that why has this NGO singled out. We gave money to other NGOs also," Malik said.



He accused the government of having "pre-decided notion" of "banning the organisation after they failed to gather even a shred of evidence" during months of investigation in late 2014 which continued till early 2015.



"I have a simple question. Was there anything wrong in giving donations?" he asked.



The IRF, NGO run by Salafist preacher Naik, is embroiled in a controversy because of allegations that he was inciting youth for terror.



The IRF spokesman said that a thorough probe was conducted earlier after the new government took over but they could not find any evidence against it.



"I wonder why our FCRA licence was renewed in August 2016? It is because the officials, who have since been suspended by the Government, went by the rule book and not under external and extraneous pressures," he said.



The Home Ministry had suspended Joint Secretary G K Dwivedi, who was heading the foreigners division which deals with the FCRA related issues, and three other officials for renewal of the licence of IRF.



Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi has owned up the donation but claimed it was unsolicited and a one-off affair.



Singhvi emphasised that the donation preceded IRF's embroilment in allegations of terror and forced conversions, adding Naik's NGO was not on the watchlist at the time.



"It (donation) was discovered by chance when the recent events happened... and some months ago, a remittance was made," Singhvi was quoted as saying.



Organisations like IRF registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act are allowed to transfer money they receive from abroad to other FCRA approved bodies. Both RGF and RGCT have FCRA licence.



Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.



Naik, in a lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".



The popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.



He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, which has been banned after the Dhaka attack.
President Barack Obama today urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.





"In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.



"We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society," he added.



"Because it's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly-no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith-that's part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient," Obama said.



"And if we stay true to those values, we'll uphold the legacy of those we've lost, and keep our nation strong and free."



On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump's bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.



Following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California for example, Trump called for a temporary ban on the entry to the United States of all Muslims.



Obama was speaking two months before the presidential election in which real estate magnate Trump will face Democrat Hillary Clinton.



The Al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001 -- the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries -- ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.



More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.



Evoking "one of the darkest in our nation's history," Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.



"We delivered justice to (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden. We've strengthened our homeland security. We've prevented attacks. We've saved lives," Obama said.



But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, "the terrorist threat has evolved."



"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentle ss against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.



"We will destroy them. And we'll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," Obama said.
Protests against the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu showed signs of abating in Mandya, the epicentre of agitation, and other districts in the basin, as Karnataka government braced for the next step in the tussle.



Sporadic protests by farmers and pro-Kannada outfits were reported in Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Mysuru and other places in the Cauvery basin, a day after the state observed a bandh to protest the Supreme Court order asking Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu.



Road traffic between Bengaluru and Mysuru was normal today, barring short blockades by protesters, after it was disrupted for five days in Mandya district, the worst hit by agitation, police said.



Business establishments, including hotels, functioned normally while Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses are plying buses in rural parts of Mandya district.



Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil today said the state would submit an appeal to the Cauvery Supervisory Committee against Tamil Nadu's demand for release of more Cauvery water.



"Tamil Nadu has already approached the supervisory committee asking for more Cauvery water... we will be submitting the counter appeal to the panel... explaining the hardships and difficulties being faced by the people due to the Supreme Court order to release water," Patil told reporters in New Delhi.



Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on September seven with its demand for more water.



Patil, along with his legal team and officials, held deliberations with Karnataka Counsel Fali S Nariman in Delhi.



The Minister said the state had already written to the panel, informing it about the difficulties and problems faced by the people due to the Supreme Court's direction. He said the state would also apprise the panel about the ground realities prevalent in the Cauvery basin, Patil said.



The Supreme Court had on September five directed Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the irrigation requirement for Samba paddy crop.

Earlier, Patil, speaking to a Kannada TV channel, objected to Tamil Nadu's demand for more water terming it "baseless and impractical."



Karnataka had also written to the supervisory panel seeking an expert inspection team headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer as was done by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee in October 2012, to study the ground realities in the Cauvery basin.



The panel, headed by Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar, will meet on September 12 to decide the quantum of Cauvery water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states.



Meanwhile, the farmers' leader spearheading the protest in Mandya said the agitaion would continue till they get justice.



"We have decided to continue the Cauvery agitation till we get justice," said G.Madegowda, President of Cauvery Horata Samithi. Government should compensate crop loss and should stop water release to Tamil Nadu, he told reporters, adding, the people of Cauvery basin were struggling for their survival.



"Instead of coming to rescue of our farmers Karnataka government is so adamantly releasing water," he said.



BJP activists in Mandya submitted a petition to the district police complaining against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah following caning of the protesting farmers near the KRS reservoir yesterday during the bandh. "The BJP activists have submitted a petition against the Chief Minister, and we are scrutinising it," Mandya Superintendent of Police Sudheer Kumar Reddy told PTI.



Before submitting the petition, the BJP activists staged protest in front of the office of the Superintendent of Police, accusing Siddaramaiah of "cheating" the farmers by permitting release of Cauvery water.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 10



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



A percussion bomb exploded in Irans western province of Ilam on September 9.



The explosion took place at 23:00 local time (GMT+4:30) in Abdanan County in Ilam Province, IRNA news agency reported.



The governor of Abdanan County, Majid Asgari, said that the explosion did not cause any damages.



According to the governor, the reason of the explosion is not clear yet and security officials are probing into the incident.



He further added that security is in a good condition in the county.




Karnataka government today welcomed the reported statement of Union Minister Uma Bharti about intervening in the Cauvery river water dispute, if necessary, but demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiate the process to solve the long-pending issue.





"If she has given the gesture that she will intervene (to resolve the vexed Cauvery dispute), we welcome it. It (step) will be towards solving the problem," Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here.



His response was to a question about reports quoting Uma Bharti as saying that the Centre would intervene in the Cauvery matter if necessary.



Asked about Tamil Nadu not even looking at a compromise solution, he said "Let's suppose it is initiated by the Prime Minister. We are in the first stage, let the Prime Minister initiate that.... then let us see the response of Tamil Nadu."



Jayachandra also appealed to the BJP MPs from the state to take up the issue with the Prime Minister.



To a question that the consistent demand for the Prime Minister's intervention was politicising the issue further, he recalled that the PM had earlier on one occasion intervened on Supreme Court advice. It has to be done now also to solve the vexed issue, which needs to be resolved through an out-of-court settlement, he said.



"When the Supreme Court advised the then Prime Minister to intervene, it happened then. Now to resolve this, these are all to be settled out of court," he said.



"However, whether they are coming (intervening) or not again is the question. Injustice has been done to the state from Britishers' period. It is a long-pending and almost 200 year old dispute," Jayachandra said.



Asked about changing Fali Nariman as the state's counsel, he said he wouldn't like to react as the matter was coming up for final hearing on October 16 before the Court.



"I don't want to react to that because the matter is coming up for the final hearing on October 16. The Supreme Court has specifically said it will be listed on that day. So let us hope for the best," he said.



To a query, Jayachandra said the state must have filed the plea to counter Tamil Nadu's submission before the Cauvery Supervisory Committee, asking for release of more water.



"Our legal and technical team, they are in Delhi. They must have filed a response to the Tamil Nadu government before the Supervisory Committee also, and it is likely to come up on Monday (September 12) when the meeting takes place," he said.



Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on September 7 with its demand for more water.



Karnataka had also written to the panel to send an expert inspection team headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer as done by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee in October 2012, to study ground realities in the Cauvery basin.



Jayachandra said a plea has been filed before the Apex Court for modification of the order on the basis of Karnataka going through the times of distress.



The Supreme Court on September 5 had directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the demands of the summer crop in the state.


The government is not in favour of spending much of the public money on Public Sector Units which are running into tremendous losses and have no scope for their turn around.





Niti Aayog has given a list of 74 PSUs to the government which are running into losses, out of these, 26 have no scope for revival.



Official sources said, the government will soon take an action on them and see if some kind of merger plan will help or closure is the only option.



They said after the PSUs are confirmed for sale, the government will auction their building, equipment and machinery through e-auction. Any free-hold land belonging to these companies will be sold to their respective state governments on the prevailing market price. According to Niti Aayog, the 26 PSUs need to be closed. But five out of the list of 74 can be revived through by being handed out to private sector. Government-run hotels have been included in the list of five.



In the case of outright closure of sick PSUs, the final guidelines for disposal of liabilities, including land and employees, would be done by the department of public enterprises (DPE).



The government has started the process of sale in 14 hotels of India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC). Other PSUs up for strategic disinvestment include Hindustan Photo Films, Tyre Corporation and Richardson & Cruddas.



Niti Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kant had earlier said that Niti Aayog will identify sick units and the department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) will be taking it forward.



The government has set a target of Rs 56,500 crore in this fiscal to come through disinvestment this fiscal.



Disinvestment plan



The government will look at PSUs whether if some kind of merger plan will help or closure is the only optionNiti Aayog has given a list of 74 loss making PSUs to the government and identified 26 which are to be closedIn the case of closure of sick PSUs, the final guidelines would be done by the department of public enterprisesThe government has set a target of Rs 56,500 crore in this fiscal to come through disinvestment this fiscal




JD(S) leader and MLA H D Revanna, on Saturday, demanded that the state government should declare the district, which experienced below par rain, as drought-hit.





He was addressing JD(S) workers, who continued their indefinite protest against the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, in front of the DCs office, here. The MLA said, the dams in the district  Hemavathi, Yagachi and Vatehole  have not filled and the district is facing drinking water crisis. The state government should announce a compensation to the farmers, he demanded.



Though the state has 17 MPs from the BJP, they have failed to convince Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Cauvery and Mahadayi rivers water sharing dispute.



Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda has discussed the issue with the PM and has explained the pros and cons, Revanna said and expressed confidence on resolving the issue soon.



The former minister said, the party workers will continue the protest till the state government stops releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.



Revanna said, the party workers will hold a padayatra to Bengaluru and lay siege to Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs official residence.



MLA H S Prakash, former MLC Patel Shivaram, K M Rajegowda among others were present.


Hundreds of farmers from Periyapatna taluk in Mysuru district, Cauvery region, on Saturday laid siege to the office of superintending engineer of Water Resources Department in the town and urged him to stop releasing water from Harangi reservoir.



The farmers also condemnded the recent order of Supreme Court asking the state government to 15,000 cusecs of water from KRS reservoir in Mandya district to the neighbouring Tamil Nadu every day.



The protesters, led by Primary Land Development Bank Chairman Chandrashekar and farmer leader from Bettadapura Shivanegowda, came on a Padayatra to the superintending engineers office. The Padayatra started from Kanagal village in Bettadapura hobli, and passed through Honnapura, Hanumanthapura, Shya-

nubhoganahalli, Chamarayanakote, Doddakamaravalli, Dindigadu, Muthinamullusoge before stopping at the statue of Goddess Cauvery at Koppa village.



The aggrieved farmers, who staged a demonstration near the statue, demanded that the five legislators coming under Cauvery catchment area should arrive at the spot and hear to their demands. Later, they resumed their Padayatra and it culminated at the superintending engineers office at HRP Layout in Kushalnagar.



Apart from registering their protest against the release of water from KRS reservoir, the farmes demanded the authorities to stop further release of water. When the reservoirs in the state have not received sufficient water due to scanty rainfall leaving farmers in the State in a fix, there is no one to hear the plight of the agrarian community, the poured out woes.



Strangely, the judiciary which is supposed to protect the interests of the farmers has turned against them and the future appears bleak, they contended.



They also vented their ire against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha for repeatedly playing with the sentiments of farmers by raking up Cauvery river water sharing issue time and again.



The farmers also raised slogans against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the states counsel Fali S Nariman.



Rajya Raitha Sangha leader Devarajagowdru said, Though the state has witnessed less than 30% of annual rainfall, it has become inevitable for to release water to Tamil Nadu to honour the order of the apex court.



He said pressure should be exerted on Prime Minister Narendra Modi through the Union ministers and MPs of the state to solve the issue.



The farmers also submitted a memorandum to Superintending Engineer Chandrakumar in this regard.



Executive Engineer Ranganath and Assistant Executive Engineer Dharmaraj were present.


Former minister B A Moideen Bava (in pic), who was conferred D Devaraj Urs Award by the state government during the valediction of the birth centenary of Urs, will be accorded a civic honour on September 15.





The programme will be held at Town Hall at 3.30 pm.



MLC and Chief Whip of the state government in Legislative Council Ivan DSouza, who announced this at his office on Saturday, said, Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar will deliver the felicitation address, while Mayor K Harinath will preside over the ceremony. Religious heads from different faiths, including Khazis of Dakshina Kannada district Alhaj Thwaka Ahmed Musliyar and Alhaj Assayed Fazal Kohamma Tanhal, Sri Adhichunchanagiri Mutt Mangaluru branch seer Sri Dharmapalanatha Swami and Rev Father Denis Moras Prabhu of Mangaluru diocese, will be the special invitees.



DSouza said, While Urs is credited for bringing in land reforms in the state, Moideen, as a minister in the same Cabinet, ensured that the reforms were implemented in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district. Although Moideen has retired from active politics and is involved in educational institutions, he deserves to be honoured for being a recipient of the Urs award.



Accordingly, three sub-committees were formed to chalk out the programmes associated with the ceremony.



Earlier, DSouza, along with Mangaluru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) chairman Ibrahim Kodijal, Mayor K Harinath, Congress leader S M Rasheed Haji and Chief Whip in MCC M Shashidhar Hegde released publicity materials like invitations and posters related to civic honour.



Kateel issue

Quoting a report in newspaper related to police arresting a suspect for posting a derogatory Facebook post on Goddess Durga Parameshwari the deity of Kateel temple, DSouza offered to extend all possible help from the government, as the youth in question has acted at the behest of people abroad with vested interests. The cooperation of the Central government is also essential and we will apprise the chief minister too in this regard, he added.



DSouza said, I have already spoken to IGP (Western range) Arun Chakravarthy and Police Commissioner M Chandra Sekhar.


Religious heads from different faiths on Friday gave a clarion call for Mangalureans to stay United For A Better Mangaluru.





The programme organised jointly by 19 organisations irrespective of religion, at Town Hall here, was attended by people belonging to Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain and other religions, signalling the beginning of a movement for a common cause.



Police Commissioner N Chandra Sekhar, who delivered the valedictory address, cracked a whip on the self-proclaimed decent people, who prefer to remain oblivious to the ongoing incidents, without raising their voices against the injustice.



The commissioner quoted a poem written during German dictator Adolf Hitlers tyrannical Nazi rule, that well-described the heights of decency. Instead, one should come out of cobwebs and raise their voices against injustice and redefine the word decency, the commissioner said, asking the very community of decent people to use Facebook and other tech-based platforms to make their opinion.



The commissioner also felt that Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (a Sanskrit phrase that describes the whole world as one family) as the apt thought for relevant situation in the society, where people are being divided in the name of colour, language and also caste.

Making a point that division is not the answer to make a way forward, the commissioner said, One should believe in unity in diversity, as there are many instances of the past, where the lack of unity led to many disturbances. To set right the wrongs, organisations including the Police Department should be accurate in addressing the issues, without letting others point out the same. If put into practice, it also improves the credibility of the particular organisation.



Jain inscription

Jain scholar M K Nirmal Kumar quoted the speech of then President of India S Radhakrishan during the 50th year celebrations of Mysore University (now University of Mysore). Radhakrishnan had advised the faculty to walk the talk, by putting thoughts into practice.



Nirmal Kumar recalled that the highlight of the ceremony was an invocation rendered by a group of students, that was derived from a Jain inscription that vouched for harmony.



Islamic scholar Mohammed Kunhi said the government, the district administration and the Police Department should organise such programmes aimed at unity on a regular basis. Most importantly, people should accept all religious scriptures as their own.



Kemaru Mutt seer Sri Esha Vittaladasa Swami said the very programme should set the tone for peace transcending boundaries.



Father Onil DSouza, director of St Joseph Educational Institutions, Jeppu, advised, The call for united Mangaluru should not remain a wishful thinking, but should translate into action. Rev Dr Hainibal R Cabral, principal of the Karnataka Theological College, said, One should have the ability to maintain peace even during vituperative situations.



Moulana Basheer Ahmed Umari from Vijayapura advised the people to have a proper understanding of religions, without blindly following the religious heads. He also gave a call for getting rid of the caste system.



Bhayi Parveen Singh from Gurudwara said, Peace was the call of even Guru Nanak.

Earlier, Harikrishna Bantwal said, Although technology has improved, it is still the people who should take a step towards building a better nation. Beginning from this day, Sept 09, 2016, it should be achieved within 10 years.



DCP (Crime and traffic) Dr Sanjeev M Patil, who was all praise for Mangalureans, also advised them to bask in the glory of setting examples in the fields of banking and educational institutions and continue to think as a productive society.


The construction of the vegetable market in the town is still incomplete.

Heaps of soil and iron rods erected all over the place mirror the sorry state of affairs.





The work is incomplete due to lack of funds in the City Municipal Council and the negligence of its members. The merchants are, however, still hopeful that the work will begin as the monsoon season nearing its end.



The City Municipal Council, which had boasted of constructing a supermarket, became silent after the work commenced. The work on the market, in turn, has come to a standstill about one year ago.



Coffee growers, farmers and labourers from rural areas visit Madikeri to purchase essential commodities every week. For the weekly shandy on Friday, merchants from Mysuru, Hassan and Kushalnagar get clothes, shoes, vegetables, leafy vegetables and flowers to the market. Without the completion of the construction work of the market, the merchants who arrive to the shandy do not have place to sell their wares.



The old market in Madikeri can accommodate only vegetable vendors. As a result, merchants are forced to sell their produce beside the road in spite of rain. Worse, the roof of the old market too leaks, during monsoon. A few stalls in it are on the verge of collapse. As a result, the meat sellers are not ready to purchase any modern equipment without proper market facility.



The ruling and opposition members in the Council of the City Municipal Council engage in mudslinging against each over delay in the completion of market. The merchants, however, are hopeful that the work on the market will commence after the new president takes charge, with the election to the post of the City Municipality president and vice president on September 9.



Sources in the City Municipality said, A sum of Rs 1.40 crore was sanctioned for the work on the market. The contractor who had been entrusted with the work had reportedly informed the Municipality of insufficient funds and has sought an additional Rs 40 lakh to restart the work. The City Municipality has not taken any decision on the additional fund. The final decision will be taken after the election to the posts of the president and the vice president.


Ahead of Eid, two civilians were killed in fresh violence in Kashmir on Saturday, taking the death toll to 77, while more than 100 were injured.





A 25-year-old youth died after being hit on head by a tear gas shell during clashes in Tukroo village of Shopian district in south Kashmir. Scores of people were also injured during the clashes that broke out after security forces tried to foil a protest rally in Tukroo.



In a separate incident, a 23-year-old man died of pellet injuries in Batengoo village of south Kashmirs Anantnag district. Medical Superintendent, District Hospital Anantnag, Dr Majeed Mehrab said, The youth suffered pellet injuries in his chest and abdomen. He was declared dead on arrival.



Reports said at least 12 other civilians were also injured during the clashes. The protesters set on fire a state-run school in Batengoo after the killing of the youth.



The mourners, who were marching with the body of the slain youth, alleged that forces fired tear gas shells at them. With these two killings, the overall death toll in the current unrest, which erupted after the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani on July 8, has reached 77.



In Badragund village of Qazigund in south Kashmir, at least 12 people were injured in clashes with forces. Reports said the clashes erupted after forces vandalised the venue of a proposed protest rally.



Massive clashes also erupted in several areas of Srinagar and Budgam district, in which at least 20 people were injured.



In old city Srinagar, the family of a driver with the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Department, who died in a hospital on Friday night, claimed he was beaten by security personnel.



However, the police said the driver succumbed to injuries suffered in a road accident.

Divisional Commissioner Baseer Khan said there was no curfew anywhere in Kashmir on Saturday. However, restrictions were imposed in a few places in Srinagar, he said.



A police spokesperson said six incidents of stone pelting were reported from Anantnag, Kulgam, Sopore, Baramulla and Shopian. He confirmed the death of two protesters during clashes.




The efforts of Russia and United States on Syria have not been in vain, and Moscow thanks the US delegation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday after talks with US State Secretary John Kerry, TASS reported.

"This work was not in vain, and we thank the US delegation," Lavrov said. He noted that the work assigned by the presidents of the two countries in February, is now completed.

"We maintained constant contacts  both on the telephone and in person," the foreign minister added.

"As you remember, a year ago our proposal to establish coordination was at first met rather chilly by our American colleagues who were ready only for procedures allowing to avoid unforeseen incidents," Lavrov reminded.

"But, as I have already said, in February this year our presidents came out with an initiative to make additional efforts in order to first of all ensure the sustainable cessation of hostilities," he added.

"On this basis, several meetings took place, and the climax occurred today," the foreign minister stated.

After todays talks, Kerry said that the United States and Russia have coordinated a joint plan on Syrian settlement.
As the National Green Tribunal (NGT), New Delhi, will hear the petitions against the Yettinahole project on September 21, the Nethravathi Rakshana Samyuktha Samithi will offer mass prayers at places of worship on September 14, seeking the blessing of almighty for the success in hearing.





Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Samithi President Vijaykumar Shetty said prayers will be offered at Kadri Sri Manjunatheshwara Temple at 8.30 am, Milagres Church at 10 am, Sri Mangaladevi Temple at 11 am, Ullal Dargah (12 noon) and Sri Gokarnanantheshwara temple at Kudroli at 1 pm. MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, MLA J R Lobo, elected representatives of the city corporation and the Zilla Panchayat in the mass prayer programmes. We have invited all elected representatives, including all the MLAs, to take part in the mass prayers, he added.



Shetty said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had directed officials to take measures to speed up the Yettinahole project implementation at a meeting recently The ministers should ensure proper coordination among all the departments and clear bottlenecks, if any, Siddaramaiah had stated. This clearly shows that the elected representatives from Dakshina Kannada have failed to air the grievances of the people of coastal belt before the chief minister, he charged.



He said the chief minister had spoken about setting up desalination units in 12 districts. When water is available naturally in Dakshina Kannada, what was the need for such unit to supply water to the people of the coastal belt.



Instead, let the water from desalination units be used for supplying water to parched Chikkaballapur, Tumakur, Kolar and Bengaluru Rural districts. By raising the issue of setting up desalination units in Coastal districts, the chief minister is trying to divert the mind of the people, he regretted.



Samithi Member Dinakar Shetty said the chief minister, who had promised to hold talks with the protesters in Dakshina Kannada, has failed to do so. The state government is displaying a step-motherly attitude towards the people of Dakshina Kannada. Fearing the contempt of court, the government has released water for Tamil Nadu in spite of stiff opposition from the people. But the government has failed to abide by the NGTs directive on not to fell trees, he charged.



Leader Harikrishna Bantwal said Rajya Sabha member Oscar Fernandes has also spoken about the situation to chief minister. Fernandes is also answerable to the people of the district.



Dakshina Kannada district has experienced deficit rainfall. The people of the district will also face drought-like situation, if the rain fails. The elected representatives have failed to speak in favour of the people of the district. Otherwise, they will have to face drought for vote as well.



The Samithi members condemned the derogatory posts against Kateel deity on social media. The Samithi also flayed the DC for declaring holidays for schools and colleges on September 9 on account of Karnataka bandh though it was not observed in the district.


Tanusha Goswami, student of Manipal Institute of Technology bagged the second prize at the GE contest for global universities called, The Unimpossible Missions: University Edition held in April 2016.





The third-year Electronics and Communication made the Manipal University especially proud by her achievement.



The competition received over 575 entries from over 375 institutions and 35 countries. Three winners were selected for their brilliant  and what could be considered feasible  approaches to solving their respective Unimpossible Missions. Tanusha won the second prize and, with it, an internship with GE in Bengaluru.



The students were asked to select an idiom and think of an experiment to debunk that idiom, using GE technology. Tanusha focused on the Spanish saying Cuando llueva pa arriba (When rain falls upwards). Her experiment used magnetic fields to make water drops to go in the direction converse to the natural.



Sukla Chandra, general manager, Global Research director, PACE, John F Welch Technology Center, Whitefield, handed over the prize to Tanusha at a function held at MIT.

Giving a brief about how GE conceptualised the idea of conducting a competition for university students, Sukla Chandra said, A snowball was put into molten metal in a container, invented by GE researchers. It was found that the snow did not melt. That led to the idea, Why dont we impress upon the students of universities to come and participate in experiments to prove that impossible can be done. The thought gave rise to this competition, Sukla said.



MIT director Dr G K Prabhu, while congratulating Tanusha for her achievement, promised the students that the institute would go all out to ensure that the dream of every child was fulfilled. Students have come here with dreams, well ensure that they are nurtured and fulfilled, he said, and thanked GE for the support and recognition.



Ive got butterflies in my stomach, Tanusha exclaimed, when asked if she was excited. The competition had a deadline of June 15 and the class was told about it in May. I started researching, considering different options with different ideas. After a lot of thinking, I finally selected a Spanish idiom, because I know the language. Once that was finalised, I started working on the experiment, she said, and added, In July, I got information that I was a potential winner and I had to fill a few forms. She thanked Dr Somashekara Bhat, Professor and Head, Department of E&C, for his support.



Sukla also made a mention of the prestigious GE Edison Innovation Competition, organised at the John F Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC), Bangalore, in 2008, which was won by the MIT. The 5-member student team named Fastrack Developers comprising Vasuki Prasad, Rupan Sarkar, Pranab Purkayastha, Rahul Sharma and Gaurav Kumar Barman with Dr Radhakrishna S Aithal as the mentor, presented the TRAIN BLAZER, a reliable, rugged working model (approved and certified by the Indian Railway Authorities) on communication system to record and display maximum information of the train passing through a station without stopping and to determine the characteristics of the rolling stock (hot axle detection, derailment possibility etc) in a cost-effective way, he reminisced.


Sharpening its attack on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the BJP on Saturday charged that Rs 50 lakh donation Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) got from controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naiks NGO was essentially a hefty bribe to shelter his anti-national activities.



Security environment



A day after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted to expose the link, the BJP dug out past official documents to charge that UPA regime was aware that the television evangelist Naiks preaching was not conducive to the security environment of the country and attempts were made to shield him from backlash on his Islamic discourse.



Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a press meet on Saturday, wondered why didnt the Congress return the fund, which they did now after the controversy broke out.



In December 2012, the UPA government was informed by the security agencies that Naik through his Peace TV was airing content challenging security environment.



Prasad read out former information and broadcasting minister Manish Tiwars answer to an unstared question no 1819 raised in the Lok Sabha on December 4, 2012.



Illegal channels

Tiwari said the Peace TV uplinked from Dubai was one of the 24 illegal channels found to be telecasting views threatening secular environment.



Peace TV is owned and controlled by Naik and a militant accused of carrying out terror strike in Bangladesh recently had said that he was inspired by the evangelist to fight for Islam.


A Union ministers husband was on Saturday accused of locking a junior engineer and a contractor tasked with renovating her official bungalow in Lutyens Delhi.





The junior engineer from the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and the contractor had gone to Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patels residence at C1/29 Pandara Park to complete some pending construction work.



The duo charged that they were locked up in the bungalow as the ministers family accused them of delaying the work. Tiles didnt come today (Saturday). It will come tomorrow morning. They accused us of delaying the work and then locked us up. We were told that we will be locked up until the tiles arrived, the contractor said.
Consensus may elude the Modern Nikahnama (terms of marriage) proposed by the All India Shia Personal Law Board that accords equal rights to women and does away with the controversial triple talaq (divorce).





The sources said that the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Muslims in the country, must give its approval to the Nikahnama for it to be accepted by the community, especially the sunnis.



Shia Personal Law Board spokesman Maulana Yasoob Abbas said that he had handed over the Nikahnama to prominent shia cleric and AIMPLB vice-president Maulana Kalbe Saadiq and requested him to put it before the board for consideration.



According to Yasoob Abbas, the new Nikahnama provides the women the right to divorce under certain conditions.



The nikahnama is in accordance with the constitution of the country....it gives equal rights to women...it also gives the women the right to work if they so want, he added.



Maulana Saadiq said he was for equal rights to women in every field of life and assured that he would take up the proposal with other AIMPLB members.



Sources, however, said that the AIMPLB was not likely to give its nod the Nikahnama. Shia clerics here said the sunni sect had a different view on the issue of marriage and divorce. Triple talaq (giving divorce by uttering the word divorce three times) system is prevalent among sunnis, said a prominent shia cleric here.


The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) is operating a Bharat Darshan Tourist Train  Ganga Yamuna Sangam Yatra from Madurai to Agra via Gaya-Varanasi-Allahabad-Haridwar-Delhi-Mathura and back.





The train is departing exclusively for tourists from Madurai and passing through Bengaluru (Whitefield) on October 13 for the benefit of pilgrims from Karnataka. The duration of the tour is ten days from October 13 to 22. The cost of the package is Rs 8,360 per person in the non-AC sleeper class and Rs 11,500 per person in 3-tier AC, said a press release.



The cost includes sleeper class train tickets, hall accommodation wherever night stays are planned, buses for local sightseeing and vegetarian food. Reservations for the above tour has commenced at the IRCTC counters and also through the website www.irctctourism.com.



For details, call 080 22960014/ 9686575201/02/03 or visit the IRCTC website.


Pro-Kannada organisations, after taking to the streets over the Cauvery issue for days, are now looking at ways to carry forward their agitation.





Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, which spearheaded the Cauvery agitation in the Cauvery basin on Friday, is now planning to intensify its agitation by not allowing any activities related to Tamil Nadu in Karnataka.



Vedike president T A Narayana Gowda on Saturday said that during the 1991 Cauvery agitation, protests against Tamil Nadu went on for three months.



Telecast of Tamil TV channels, screening of Tamil movies, circulation of Tamil newspapers and vehicular movement between the two states was blocked for three full months over the Cauvery river water sharing issue. We are planning to launch a similar agitation now. A final decision would be taken in a couple of days. We need to send a strong message to Tamil Nadu, he added.



He also said the Vedike is planning to lay siege to Vidhana Soudha to prevent politicians from entering the building.
Revenue Minister Kagodu Thimmappa claimed on Saturday that Fali S Nariman, appearing for Karnataka in the Supreme Court in the Cauvery water issue, was an able advocate and one should not talk negatively about him.





Speaking to media persons, he said some organisations were demanding the replacement of Nariman. But he is one of the seniormost lawyers in the country. Nariman had represented Karnataka in Supreme Court even when BJP, JD(S) were in power in the state. People who are opposing him should remember this, he added.



He said it was the duty of the government to follow the Supreme Courts direction to release water to Tamil Nadu. However, the government is prepared to draw the attention of the court to the water scarcity in the Cauvery basin due to deficit rainfall this year. The government is likely to file a review petition before the Supreme Court on September 12. A detailed report on the scarcity of water would be submitted to the Cauvery Supervisory Committee soon, the minister said.


Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Saturday said if required, the Centre will intervene in the Cauvery water release issue to Tamil Nadu.





She told reporters that the Centre will do justice to all and will also protect the interest of all states.



Earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to resolve the issue.



Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil rejected the demand for changing the states legal team headed by Fali S Nariman.



The Nariman-led team always worked hard to protect Karnataka's interest in the courts in inter-state water disputes. So, there is no question of replacing them, he said. The minister was reacting to a demand from some quarters to replace the legal team for failing to protect the interests of state in the Cauvery issue.



The Karnataka legal team said, There is nothing like winning or losing the case in water disputes. Every decision has some good and some bad parts.



We must know that primarily, the legal team is fighting the upper riparian's case which is an uphill task in courts because, the general perception in the world is that the upper riparian state can ruin the lower state by building dams or barrages and steal water. Despite this general bias, this legal team succeeded in reducing the liability to Tamil Nadu from 380 tmcft to 192 tmcft annually in Cauvery. We hope to reduce it further in the Supreme Court in the pending civil appeal, Mohan Katarki, member of the legal team said in a statement.



Karnataka could not have argued that we won't share water with Tamil Nadu or we don't owe any water to Tamil Nadu. The only point was - how much we owe to Tamil Nadu and when we owe. We said, what we owe should be determined by the Supervisory Committee and until it determines this, we propose, as a goodwill gesture, to ensure 10,000 cusecs for 10 days when already, on an average, 6,000 cusecs were going. It was a wise proposal and when the same proposal was made in September 2012, the Supreme Court had accepted it and everyone, including those who are taunting the legal team now, praised it, he said.


Following a meeting in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have announced plans to stem the violence in Syria, Sputnik International reported.

Speaking to reporters, Kerry expressed hope that the new plan could be the moment when multilateral diplomatic efforts begin to take hold.

"We must go after these terrorists. Not indiscriminately, but in a systematic way," he said.

Russia and the US are calling on all sides to honor a nationwide cessation of hostilities beginning at sundown on September 12. This involves halting all attacks, including airstrikes.

The agreement also requires unimpeded humanitarian access to areas in need, including Aleppo, and depends on all forces pulling back from Castello Road.

Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that there still remains a lack of confidence in US-Russia cooperation and negotiations on Syria.

He added that the top priority for this agreement is to reconfirm the ceasefire, stressing that both the US and Russia will work will with all parties to ensure that hostilities cease within the next 48 hours.

Once that is done, a joint implementation center will be established. This will be used to track down terrorists and separate them from moderate opposition groups, after which joint aerial strikes will be carried out by both US and Russian air forces against terrorist groups.
Even as members of various organisations, in parts of the district, on Saturday, continued the protests against the release of water to Tamil Nadu, president of the Cauvery Hitharakashana Samithi G Madegowda said, the protests will be dropped if the state government announces Rs 25,000 compensation per acre of land.





Road traffic resumed, despite several blocks for short durations.Speaking to reporters, he said, the Cabinet should take a decision in this regard. He said, the samithi has convened a farmers meeting on Sunday to discusss the further course of protests.



The agitators blocked the highway at Indavalu in the taluk, Visvesvaraya Circle, and Sanjay Circle in the city for short durations.



A large number of protesters staged protests in Mandya, Srirangapatna, Pandavapura, Maddur and other parts of the district.



They raised slogans against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha. JD(S) party workers, led by MP C S Puttaraju, took out a bike rally.



However, life in the city was returning to normal with shops, petrol bunks, theatres, etc, which were closed for four days, opening on Saturday.



Indefinite hunger strike



An indefinite hunger strike, launched by Lancha Mukta Karnataka Nirmana Vedike members at Visvesvaraya Circle, entered the third day.

Five members  advocate Venkatesh, Chidambara, Hanumantegowda, Prajwal and Shivakumar  of the vedike have been staging the protest.



SMKs intervention



Former MLA L R Shivaramegowda sought former chief minister S M Krishnas intervention in resolving the Cauvery water issue. He said, Krishna should take an initiative to hold talks with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa over the issue.



Pontiff of Spatika Mahasamsthana Mutt of Pattanayakanahalli, Sira taluk, Nanjavadootha Swami, who took part in a car rally from Bengaluru to KRS, warned the peoples representatives to be careful with water issues.



The state government has failed to convince the Supreme Court. Former chief minister S Bangarappa had taken a bold decision regarding the Cauvery issue, during his tenure as chief minister. The stand taken by Bangarappa should serve as a model for the state government now. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should adopt the same method to protect the interest of the farmers of the state, he suggested.Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj warned the government of staging a rail-roko on September 15 between 6 am and 6 pm. He was speaking to reporters before visiting the KRS to stage a protest.



He said, trains will be blocked across the state to draw the attention of Union government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



Complaint against CM



BJP leader Siddaraju filed a police complaint with the Mandya West Police Station against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah holding him responsible for the loss suffered by the farmers as the paddy seeds were distributed, but water was supplied for cultivation.



The chief minister is responsible for the crop loss. The Police, who file cases against the agitating farmers, if they damage public property, should also book the chief minister for the crop loss, he said.



Depressed farmer kills self



A farmer killed himself, allegedly due to insufficient water to his crops at Boppanahalli village in the taluk on Saturday, reports DHNS from KR Pet in Mandya district.



The deceased has been identified as Shivalingegowda (48). Shivalingegowda had cultivated crops depending on the Hemavathi Left Bank Canal for water. He had lost his paddy crops, owing to water shortage and was under depression last year also. He consumed poison as water flow in the canal has been insufficient. Though he was rushed to a hospital in K R Pet, he succumbed. Taluk Raitha Sangha president Maruvanahalli Shankar has urged the government to provide compensation to the family members of the deceased.



Bus services resume



The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation buses via Mysuru stayed off the road even on Saturday. However, buses to Chennai and other parts of the state via Hosur resumed service.



The services of KSRTC to Tamil Nadu remained unaffected. KSRTC buses have been ferrying passengers to Tamil Nadu from both the routes, via Mysuru and Hosur. An official at the TNSRTC counter at the satellite bus stand said that a few buses will be operated from Sunday. Regular services will be started after assessing the situation.



KSRTC bus services from Bengaluru to Mysuru were also operated via Kanakapura, Malavalli, reports DHNS from Mandya.




The MedTech and healthcare startup ecosystem in the city is set to get a boost with a delegation from Switzerland visiting Bengaluru in search of possible collaborations and investments.





Starting on Sunday, the Swiss delegation consisting of 11 entrepreneurs, researchers and investors will tour India, specifically Bengaluru and New Delhi, the two most prominent startup hubs in the country.



For the next one week, the delegates will immerse themselves into the Medtech and healthcare startup ecosystem of the two cities. The tour is being organised by Swissnex India, an initiative of the Consulate General of Switzerland. Swissnex works closely with science and technology counsellors based in Swiss embassies around the world.



Dr. Shwetha Suresh, manager, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Swissnex India told Deccan Herald: India is a great destination for business with a great ecosystem for startups and innovation. This is an opportunity for businesses on both sides to set up shop, collaborate and showcase their products. The delegates will also meet over 50 key stakeholders from the same sector and it will also involve visits to hospitals, research institutions, life-sciences companies and enablers.



As part of the tour, there will also be a Pitch Fest where 10 Indian startups and six Swiss startups will pitch for four Indian investors and three Swiss investors, respectively. The goal is to help bridge the financing gap for good technology by presenting them to serious investors and a select audience.



Dr Shwetha further said that while India was known to import a number of medical devices, it had its own strength in various low-tech medical devices. The Swiss, who are known in the field of precision engineering, also have their own technology to boast of in this sector. Each party can understand the scenario and there is a possibility of a lot of learning on both sides, she added.



Products on show

From startups that specialise in making cost-effective products that monitor heart, breath and sleep for personal and clinical use to those that make bone graft substitutes based on silk fibroin will be on show. Startups on both sides will showcase their expertise and products like tools to automatically convert and store medical records or provide 3D printed surgical models and guides.




Crash in the prices of tomatoes and green gram in Hubballi will not have any impact on the markets in Bengaluru.





The Wholesale Vegetable Merchants Association said that there was no chance of the price of tomato dipping further as the present cost is itself very low. The price of tomatoes at wholesale markets is Rs 4 to Rs 5 a kg, while in the retail outlets the cost fluctuates between Rs 8 and Rs 15, traders said. A month ago, the wholesale price of tomatoes was Rs 30 to Rs 40.



The prices of green gram have also reduced in the city in the last two weeks. Bharath Kumar R Shah, secretary, Foodgrains and Pulses Merchants Association, APMC (Yeshwantpur), told DH that the price of green gram reduced by Rs 30 per kg in the last three months.



The present rate is Rs 60-Rs 75 per kg at wholesale markets, based on quality. In retail outlets, green gram is being sold at Rs 80 to Rs 90 per kg. Already, the rate is low and there is no chance that the prices will dip further. Green gram is outsourced to the city from Gadag, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Hubballi and other parts of North Karnataka, Shah said.



Rajeev Reddy, a retailer, attributed the decrease in green gram prices to an increase in the crop yield.



Beans, carrot dearer



Prices of beans and carrot have increased in the last one week. President of the Wholesale Vegetable Merchants Association R V Gopi said that owing to the shortage in arrivals of beans and carrot, the prices have shot up. A kg of beans that used to cost Rs 20-25 at wholesale markets is now priced at Rs 45-Rs 50. The price of carrot has increased from Rs 30 to Rs 40 a kg.


In a bid to minimise citys carbon footprints, a group of citizens have launched Green Bengaluru Campaign (GBC).





The group has taken up a drive to plant at least 5,000 saplings by September-end. The forest division of the BBMP too has come to their help to make the drive successful.



Eshwarappa of GBC said, they have identified at least 17 locations across the city including Koramangala and BTM Layout with four volunteers at each location.



We are taking the help of forest cell of BBMP which is providing us with tree guards, saplings and labourers to dig pits, said Eshwarappa. GBC is working in tandem with the ward corporators to identify locations and make arrangements to ensure that the trees survive.


The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee is gearing up to build a case against former MPs Janardhana Poojary and A H Vishwanath for issuing media statements against the partys government led by Siddaramaiah.



On a suggestion by Digvijaya Singh, who is the party general secretary in charge of Karnataka, the state Congress unit decided to bring the repeated barbs against Siddaramaiah and his governance to the Delhi leaders notice.



Sources in the party said that paper clippings of the statements issued by Poojary and Vishwanath have been compiled and will be dispatched in a couple of days to the Disciplinary Committee headed by A K Antony.



During the co-ordination committee meeting held on Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had brought the repeated criticism by Poojary and Vishwanath to Digvijaya Singhs notice.



Following this, Singh suggested sending newspaper statements issued by the two former MPs to the Disciplinary Committee.



Sources in the party said the state unit would not lodge a complaint as such but would be just forwarding the clippings with a covering letter signed by the party president. The state Congress is not sure whether the high command would immediately react to the complaint, the sources said.



The Congress, which has begun preliminary work for the 2018 Assembly elections, has prepared a three-month action plan to keep the party active across the state. The plan would be formally launched on October 2, to coincide with Gandhi Jayanti and will conclude on Martyrs Day, January 30, 2017. Rallies and seminars showcasing the governments programmes and achievements to the people are part of the action plan, the sources said.



The sources said the party may get a new president only next January or February. On October 29, state president G Parameshwara would complete six years in office.



Minister D K Shivakumars name has been doing the rounds for the post. But sources said that though he is keen on becoming the president, he would like to continue as minister for now.


A 2008 deal to purchase three aircraft for DRDO from Brazilian aviation major Embraer is the latest defence contract to come under the scanner.





This comes in the wake of reports that the company violated Indian rules by hiring a middleman in the UK to secure the deal. The $210-million contract was for buying three Embraer-145 jets for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which was developing an indigenous airborne early warning system under the leadership of

S Christopher, the incumbent DRDO director-general.



Reports of the scam, being probed by the US and Brazilian authorities, appeared in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo on Friday.



DRDO is to seek explanation and details from the manufacturers of Embraer aircraft on media reports on the deal signed in 2008. On receipt of information by DRDO, further steps may be initiated, said a defence spokesperson.



The DRDO has asked the Brazilian manufacturer to furnish the information within the next 15 days. Christopher headed the Indian airborne early warning and control system at the Centre for Airborne System (CABS), Bengaluru, while at the time of inking the deal DRDO was headed by V Saraswat.



While Christopher did not answer phone calls on Saturday, former defence minister A K Antony asked the government to enquire about the deal.



The investigations began in 2010 when another Embraer deal worth $94 million with the Dominican Republic came under a cloud. A Dominican minister and three others were arrested for accepting a bribe of $3.5 million.



Embraer executives told the investigator about corruption in the Indian deal for which a middleman was hired. Since engaging a middleman in defence contracts is banned in India, the person was hired in the UK.



Brazilian media reports suggest that a copy of the Indian contract was kept in a locker in the UK for safekeeping with the firm and the middleman each having a key to the locker.



Since 2011, Embraer has publicly reported that it has been conducting an extensive internal investigation and cooperating with the authorities on investigations regarding alleged violations of the FCPA. The company voluntarily expanded the scope of the investigation, systematically reporting the progress of the case to the market, the company said in a statement.



The company is not party to the legal proceedings in Brazil; therefore, it does not have access to the information contained therein, it added.




The ragging incident at Srinivas College of Pharmacy took a new turn on Saturday with four female students (among nine complainants) denying any such incident in their statement to the police.





A group of nine students (four girls and five boys) had made a complaint to the college principal on September 3 stating that 23 students had ragged them. On the same day, the principal had lodged a complaint with the police. Subsequently, the police had booked 23 students under IPC Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and Section 116 of Karnataka Education Act.



A student from the college was arrested in Kerala on Friday in connection with the incident. However, the whole episode took a new turn on Saturday when four complainants (all girls) met DCP (Law and Order) and stated that the ragging they complained of, had never taken place. They also claimed that they lodged the complaint following pressure from the principal and two lecturers.



The police are now verifying the veracity of the statement of these four students. Since the matter is already pending before the court, these students will have to appear before the magistrate to give their statements.



Meanwhile, Campus Front of India (CFI) state president Mohammed Thufail, in a press meet on Saturday claimed that college students were being harassed after a row over wearing scarf/shawl in another college.
Karnataka, which witnessed the worst agrarian crisis in recent years due to failure of rain, is also a poor performer in distribution of soil health cards to farmers.





According to the Union Ministry of Agriculture, Karnataka stands third among the three worst performers in distribution of soil health cards in the country. So far, 1.36 lakh health cards have been distributed in Karnataka against a cumulative target of 16.65 lakh, which is just 1.47% progress.



Karnataka stands just better than Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh which have made just 1.29% and 1.23% progress respectively. While Uttarakhand tops with 42% progress, neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu distributed 34% of cards each against the target set by the Centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the soil health card mission last February to encourage farmers to grow crops suited for the soil for better yield.



The scheme involved testing the soil and educating farmers on how to make it more fertile for better yield. Under the programme, the state agriculture department can engage any private firm to test the soil and educate farmers. The scheme also involves setting up soil testing laboratories and issuing soil health cards to farmers. The Union Ministry of Agriculture will bear 40% of the total expenditure of the scheme while rest will be spent by the state government.



Recently, at a meeting chaired by Union Health Minister Radha Mohan Singh to review all centrally sponsored programmes in the Agriculture Ministry, it was observed that Karnataka has been lagging behind in implementing the soil health card mission and was asked to buck up.



Karnataka witnessed the worst agrarian crisis in the past two years. The state also registered the sharpest jump in farmer suicides which shot up from 321 in 2014 to more than 1,300 in 2015, the third-highest among all states. Apart from failure of rain, mounting debt and crop loss are also reasons for rise in farmers suicides in the state, said an official in the Ministry of Agriculture.
The UN Security Council will start working immediately on measures in response to the latest nuclear test by North Korea, the council's president, Gerard van Bohemen of New Zealand, told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Friday, Sputnik International reported.

"Members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 [of the UN Charter] and the Security Council resolutions," van Bohemen said.

The Security Council met on Friday after North Korea confirmed earlier in the day that it had carried out a nuclear test in the country's northeast. The blast is believed to be the fifth and largest since Pyongyang began pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs, drawing condemnation from the international community. Council members also denounced the test, calling it a threat to international security.

According to the Council, the tests are in clear violation of its resolutions and the United Nations' nuclear nonproliferation protocols. Council members have frequently warned North Korea that further significant measures would be taken in response to additional nuclear tests.
The government will cancel BPL cards which are not linked to Aadhaar numbers in urban areas before the end of September.





Addressing reporters in Bengaluru on Saturday, Food and Civil Supplies Minister U T Khader said BPL card holders were asked to furnish Aadhaar numbers of all beneficiaries. Nearly 72% of the beneficiaries have submitted details. The deadline to submit the numbers is September-end. Cards which are not linked to Aadhaar would be considered bogus, he added.



The minister said applications for issuing new ration cards would be accepted online both in urban and rural areas. The new system would be introduced by the end of this month. The cards would be distributed under the Sakala scheme.



Khader said distribution of rations in urban areas through the coupon system has begun this month. There is good response from beneficiaries. In October, coupons for three months would be issued at one go, he added.


Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.10



By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:



Turkish Air Force has inflicted strikes on strongholds of militants of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist group in Turkeys Semdinli district, said the message from General Staff of Turkish Armed Forces.



The air strikes were inflicted on Sept.9 evening between 20:04 and 20:21 (UTC/GMT + 3 hours) based on the analysis of the intelligence data. Nine strongholds of the terrorists were destroyed.



Turkish armed forces will continue the operations against terrorists, according to the message.



The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 33 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives.



The UN and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organization.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Thalli Pogathey Will Be Shot In Bangkok With Simbu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.10



By Orkhan Guluzade  Trend:



Well-known journalists Turkish Ahmet Altan and his brother, professor Mehmet Altan have been detained in Turkey as part of the fight against the Fethullah Gulen movement, the Milliyet newspaper reported Sept.10.



Fethullah Gulen is accused of being involved in the military coup attempt in Turkey.



Reportedly, the journalists have been detained due to their anti-state remarks during one of TV programs.



On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.



Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246, excluding the coup plotters, and more than 2,000 people were wounded. Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
Bottom line: How did the Buckeyes grade vs. Penn State?

Grading Ryan Day and the rest of the Buckeyes after Ohio State's win over Penn State.


Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.10



By Orkhan Guluzade  Trend:



Turkey has announced a recruitment of candidates for police service, Sabah newspaper quoted the countrys Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu as saying Sept.10.



He said that 20,000 people will be selected for the police service and 10,000 of them will serve in the police special forces.



Currently, around 276,000 policemen serve in the structures of Turkeys Interior Ministry.



In total, more than 7,000 policemen were dismissed in Turkey as part of the fight against the movement of Fethullah Gulen who is accused of being involved in the military coup attempt in the country.



On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.



Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246, excluding the coup plotters, and more than 2,000 people were wounded. Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
Pakistan, which last year created an army division with more than 10,000 troops to fight Baloch separatists, is reported to have launched a fresh wave of military operations across the restive region.

Reports quoting Baloch Republican Party representative Abdul Nawaz Bugti's statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council said that Pakistani forces have unleashed a fresh wave of attacks on civilians in Balochistan.

Exposing Pakistan's brutality, Bugti said 19 Baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to the same family, were recently abducted.

He further said that the civilians in Dera Bugti, Baloch have also been attacked.

The Baloch Republican Party leader further claimed that Pakistani forces have attacked Baloch civilians in many parts of Nasirabad district.

Bugti also said an innocent Baloch man was killed during an operation in Dera Bugti while in the Turbat area, a political worker's house is under siege for the past four days.

Bugti appealed to the international media to raises their voice and help save Balochistan from inhuman atrocities of Pakistan.

Recently, Balochistan's representative at UNHRC Mehran Mari had accused Pakistan of committing war crimes against Baloch people and urged the international community to penalise Islamabad for its alleged human rights violations in the Baloch and Sindh regions.

PM Nawaz Sharif, Army Chief Raheel Sharif, ISI DG and others are war criminals and they must be arrested whenever they leave Pakistan, Mari had said.

Activists say Pakistani atrocities against the locals in Balochistan have increased, ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for action against Islamabad for atrocities against Balochs.

In his address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of 70th Independence Day, PM Modi hit out at Pakistan for "glorifying" terrorists.

PM Modi in his I-Day speech came out openly in support of "freedom" for Balochistan and "PoK."

Balochs are opposed to Chinese construction of an ''economic corridor'' linking China with Pakistan's coast, which is of no use to them. On the other hand, construction in the region destabilises its ecology and caused the death of at least 44 workers since 2014.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a $46 billion network of roads, railways and energy pipelines linking western China to a deep-water port on Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast, which passes through Pakistan's resource-rich Baluchistan province.

Pakistani officials say they have taken tough measures to quell local opposition where ethnic Baluch separatists have battled the government for years.

In fact, Pakistan last year created an army division, believed to number more than 10,000 troops, to focus specifically on protecting CPEC projects.
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Ronald Moede was born on December 21, 1934, in Rio Creek, WI. The son of the late Fred and Emily (Hanamann) Moede, he married Bonnie Neinas in Brussels on June 4, 1960, and they were married for 62+ years. He was a life-long resident of Rio Creek and was an innovative dairy farmer. He owned and managed a large dairy operation, Meade Manor Farms, which had been homesteaded by his grandfather, August Moede, in 1895. The log cabin home, barn, and herd grew to become one of the larger dairy farms in Kewaunee County under his guidance. Upon his retirement, it evolved into Meade Manor Pet Clinic, a vet service for small animals, but the land continued to flourish and produce. Ron graduated from Casco High School, Class of 1952 and Graham School for Cattlemen, Kansas. He was a member of the Wisconsin Holstein Breeders, Kewaunee County Holstein Breeders, and the National Holstein

Association. He was a charter member of the Algoma FFA Alumni. His family exhibited champion dairy cattle at local, state, and national dairy cattle shows. In 1984, in Madison, the Wisconsin FFA named him Outstanding Farmer and in 1995, he was named and honored at the Wisconsin State Fair as a Century Farmer. He served as an elder in his church for many years as well as a trustee and various committee appointments. In his younger days, he was active in dartball and also high school sports. He received the Algoma Honorary Chapter Farmer Award, and the Unified Board Business Award. In his retirement, he drove school bus for 15 years for the Algoma School District and was a member of the Great Lakes Sports Fishermen. A hobby later enjoyed was his chicken farming. He raised a small flock of chicken, and he enjoyed passing out extra eggs to friends and relatives when the supply was greater than the family could handle. He was an avid sports fan and he and Bonnie attended both Packers Super Bowl games in 1996 and 1997, and also the Milwaukee World Series in 1983. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, both here and in upper Michigan and Minnesota. He even got Bonnie to go along with him to Lake of the Woods on the Canadian border to do some ice fishing. He held Packers season tickets since 1960 and at the time they bought their tickets they were allowed to pick out where they wanted to sit on the sidelines --there were no end zone seats yet-- and the tickets cost $5.00 a piece! He traveled through most of the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii as well as traveling to the Caribbean and Europe. He enjoyed a summer place in Door County for 20 years. He told many stories of farming with his dad and the fact that at the age of 12, he had his own team of horses to work with on the farm. Responsibility came early as he was left in charge whenever it was necessary for his parents to be gone for a few days. He learned to drive a truck at an early age and often drove himself to school in 8th grade and parked the vehicle a few doors down at a relatives. This was because chores need to be done before and after school. The first tractor purchased was in 1937. In his retirement, he had it restored and displayed in local fairs and tractor shows. He would tell of shocking grain and threshing crews traveling from neighbor to neighbor and the wonderful table his mother would set full of food. A vivid memory was the day WWII ended. The whole neighborhood and working crew quit in the early afternoon (unheard of) and celebrated With beer and music! Even the clergy arrived and joined in. It was a day to remember! In his lifetime he went from horses and the depression, to the digital age and unimagined luxuries. There was no electricity and no running water in his youth and now he had wireless phones, computer screens in his vehicles, along with heated steering wheels and heated seats. Who would have thought that back then.

Ron is survived by his wife Bonnie; son Robert (Debbie Harms) Moede; grandson Michael and granddaughter Megan; siblings, Terry (Jane) Moede, Paul (Roxie) Moede; sisters-in-law, Diane Fontaine, Sheila (Don) Baudhuin; and brothers in-law, Dan (Mary) Neinas. He was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Emily Moede; sister, Marilyn (Arno) Schneider; father- and mother-in-law, Herman and Madeline Neinas, and brother-in-law, Gary Fontaine.

Visitation will be held at Kinnard Funeral & Cremation Services  Algoma, on Friday, October 7, 2022, from 4-7:30 pm with a prayer service at 6:30. Visitation will continue on Saturday, October 8th at St. Johns Lutheran Church  Rankin, from 9-11:00 am. Funeral service will be held at 11:00 am with Dr. Rev. Christopher Jackson officiating. Burial to follow in Evergreen Cemetery. Online condolence message may be shared at KinnardFCS.com. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Kewaunee County 4-H Dairy Fund and the Projection Screen Fund at St. Johns- Rankin.
Siemens uses VR to optimise operations at UK VSD plant

Siemens is using a virtual reality (VR) installation at its Congleton variable-speed drives factory in Cheshire, UK, to simulate and optimise assembly processes, to design workcells, and for factory planning. It is even using VR for everyday tasks, such as organising office moves.

The VR system  a Virtalis ActiveWall  projects images onto the wall and floor, and is combined with optical tracking of participants, some of them wearing head-mounted displays, for extra levels of immersion.

Siemens has found that the VR system can save considerable time when designing new production cells. It removes the big issues early on and lets us concentrate on simple refinements, explains layout planning engineer, Adrian Webster. Typically, we build a mock-up of a new cell on the factory floor. Previously, we would need to leave it there for four weeks to resolve all the issues. Now, we are finding two days digital review, plus just one week on the factory floor, solves all the issues.

It is costly to create the tooling to manufacture a new product, adds Siemens mechanical team leader, Simon Charlson, and mistakes tend to be expensive. We are now working with our suppliers to bring their virtual tooling into our design reviews. We are finding that this agile development is resulting in great communication between mechanical, electrical and design engineers, and is shortening lead times.

Typically, were finding that we are reducing the snagging list of a new cell design by 90%, reports transformation manager, Anil Thomas. We are even finding more and different snags virtually and solving them in VR. This will certainly have a positive impact on our product lifecycle.

The Siemens team is also saving money by using virtual interrogation of belt and drive mechanisms, for example, resulting in fewer mistakes. A recent VR design review picked up a clash within two minutes that had not been obvious on a CAD screen.

Siemens is using its virtual reality system to help save time when planning operations at its Congleton VSD plant

Our VR has been a game-changer for us and how we work, says Carl German, another transformation manager at the VSD plant. Its no exaggeration to say it has changed the way we think and act.

Every worker in the factory has now seen or experienced the VR installation. Its key that the technology is not seen as something for a privileged few, says German. As a result, we now bring VR into every facet of what we do.

We are not resting on our laurels, as it is apparent there is much more we can do with this technology, adds Thomas. Wed like to work with Virtalis to create a roadmap to incorporate real-time collaboration with other Siemens factories around the world as well as haptics and motion capture.
Volkswagen currently has partnerships with two domestic automakers in China. (Photo : Getty Images)

The Volkswagen Group has entered formal talks with a state-run Chinese company that could lead to production of electric cars, a move seen by analysts as part of the German automaker's push to electric vehicle sector and recover from its emissions cheating scandal.



Volkswagen signed a memorandum of cooperation with China Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co. to continue negotiations for "long-term cooperation in the joint development of all-electric vehicles in China," the companies said in separate statements. Jianghuai said the two will have equal ownership of the joint venture, and hop to reach a formal agreement within five months.



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"As we aim to be at the forefront of e-mobility, Volkswagen Group is looking forward to explore all options to set up a close and mutually beneficial partnership with JAC," Volkswagen CEO Matthias Muller after the memorandum was signed at the company's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. "We believe this cooperation would not only benefit our two organizations, but would also be of great value to our customers, a sound environment and the Chinese society in general."



Volkswagen, which derives more than a third of its global vehicle sales from China after three decades of operations there, aims to achieve sales of a million electric vehicles a year by 2025. It currently has two manufacturing partners in the China: SAIC Motor Corp. in Shanghai and FAW Group Corp. in the northeast. Under government rules, foreign carmakers must tie up with local partners to produce cars.



China limits foreign auto companies to two local partners to manufacture gasoline-powered vehicles. While the limit does not apply to electric vehicles, most foreign automakers choose to produce alternative-energy vehicles with their current partners. However, analysts say Volkswagen may be able to strike a more favorable deal with Jianghuai than with its existing partners.



"You may get a better agreement from a company who values your technology more," Bill Russo, a Shanghai-based managing director at consultancy Gao Feng Advisory Co., told the Wall Street Journal in a report published Wednesday. "SAIC and FAW may already have [electric vehicle] technologies and do not need VW as much [compared to Jianghua]."



Officials from both FAW and SAIC have declined requests for comment.



With several of its cities suffering from the worst air pollution in the world, China is pressuring local automakers to develop vehicles with reduced emissions while boosting fuel economy. The country also hopes to become a leader in the electric car market.



"We look forward to a full-scope cooperation together with Volkswagen Group, focus on new energy vehicles, to provide Chinese consumers with highly cost-effective battery-powered electric vehicle products that promote the development of the Chinese new energy vehicle sector as well as the Chinese auto industry's transformation," said Jianghuai chairman An Jin.



Volkswagen's venture into the alternative energy vehicles is shadowed by its admissions last year to rigging more than 11 million diesel-powered cars around the world with software that enabled them to beat emissions tests. The company is currently paying out billions in the U.S. to try to settle claims with the government and customers, and criminal investigations are still underway.



In the aftermath, the automaker has said it that it is going to shift its focus from "clean diesels"--which accounted for an estimated 20 percent of its U.S. sales alone--toward battery-powered cars. The Volkswagen Group, which owns other brands like Porsche and Audi, said it will have 30 new electric models by the end of the next decade.


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Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

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"One Punch Man" Season 2 update (Photo : OPM poster)

It was in December 2015 when the hit anime series, "One Punch Man," ended its first season with a success. Since the second installment is already confirmed, recent reports claim that Saitama might be powerless in the upcoming season.



It is said that the lead character of the series, who can beat and destroy an enemy with a single punch (except Lord Boros), might lose his power in "One Punch Man" Season 2, Vine Report has learned. According to the same publication, this might give Lord Boros the chance to finally defeat Saitama. However, the report also noted that the leader of the Dark Matter thieves may no longer have the interest to fight the Class A hero, because Lord Boros only intends to fight a powerful individual.



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Another story arc mentioned by the same report is that Genos will once again fight his master, Saitama. Although it was already seen in the previous season that Genos already fought Saitama due to his interest to learn more about Saitama's power in order to be more powerful, sources are saying that their fight in the upcoming season is going to be a serious one.



The report also claim that "One Punch Man" Season 2 is going to introduce a new villain in the name of Garou. It was said that Garou was once the disciple of Bang, but chose to part ways to gain more power. It was also noted that Amai Mask will be the other villain that Saitama will fight in "One Punch Man" Season 2. It was already seen in the first season that Amai and Saitama have their differences, and that the former sees the latter as a threat to his position in the hero association.



On the other hand, iTech Post cited some rumors that the second installment is going to air this month. However, this is not yet confirmed, and Madhouse has not yet announced an official release date. Despite of this, fans are still very hopeful that their favorite anime series is going to premiere next month or in December.


WZ-10 (Photo : CAIC)

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has revealed the deployment of the tank killing WZ-10 attack helicopter, the rough equivalent of the U.S. Bell AH-1 SuperCobra, to its Western Theater Command that includes China's border with India.



India last June said it had reinforced Indian Army units defending its border with China in the tense Ladakh region with more tanks, troops and armored fighting vehicles amid an ongoing Chinese military build-up.



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The Indian Army deployed some 100 specially modified Russian-made T-72 main battle tanks along its mountainous frontline border in Ladakh, a key geostrategic region located along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. LAC is a demarcation line separating Indian-held territory from Chinese-controlled territory.



This is only the second time in half a century India has deployed tanks to this region, a signal of the unease China's unceasing military build-up over the past few years is causing in Delhi.



The armored regiment to which the newly deployed troops and tanks belong will raise to a full brigade the Indian Army units in the region. Two infantry regiments are already in place.



PLA said an undetermined number of WZ-10s (also called the CAIC Z-10) were delivered to the Air Defense Brigade of the PLA 13th Group Army under the Western Theater Command. This command is part of the Chengdu Military Region that encompasses the Xizang/Tibet Autonomous Region, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou.



These areas, especially the Xizang/Tibet Autonomous Region that borders India, are probable flashpoints for conflicts with China's neighbors, namely India.



Beijing's announcement of the WZ-10 deployment also comes amid its efforts to dissuade India from emplacing its BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to both countries' shared border in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. India has refused and has reinforced Indian Army units defending this state against China.



The PLA also said it's finished equipping ground force aviation units of the PLA Ground Force (PLAGF) with the WZ-10. PLAGF apparently has some 100 operational WZ-10s and has ordered over 20 more.



An anti-tank helicopter with a secondary air-to-air capability, the WZ-10 was designed by Russia's Kamov design bureau under a contract with the Chinese government.



The PLA claims the WZ-10 has superior maneuverability and combat compatibility compared to the WZ-9 (Harbin Z-9), which is distinctive because of its fenestron tail that makes it more quiet.



Wu Ximing, chief designer of the helicopter at Changhe Aircraft Industries, admitted the WZ-10 is somewhat inferior to the WZ-9 in firepower, ammunition load and engine power.



The PLAGF still needs more medium-lift, multipurpose helicopters such as the U.S. Army's Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk to perform both combat operations and transport tasks.



The WZ-10 can be armed with a wide variety of weapons. This includes three types of autocannon up to 30 mm; the HJ-8, HJ-9 and HJ-10 anti-tank missiles; the TY-90 air-to-air missile and unguided air-to-ground rockets. The HJ-10 is the Chinese equivalent of the American AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile.


We all know that Avon is the number 1 direct selling beauty company in the world. While I am sure most of us grew up in finding a neighbor or a friend who is an Avon Lady, sometimes there are areas that does not have one. Because of that, Avon came up with an amazing innovation to be able to reach out to more women in the country. Presenting the Avon Beauty Bus, a.k.a. Avon Beauty on Wheels, is a roving beauty store that will feature Avon makeup, skincare, personal care and fragrance product.

Marian Rivera-Dantes unveiled the Avon Beauty on Wheels, after she was introduced as the lates brand ambassador for the Avon Indulgence Lipstick, the rich, creamy color with intense hydration lipstick that everyone will surely love. Marian Rivera for one loves the Petal Pink shade.

The Avon Beauty Bus allows customers to see and try Avon products first-hand . There are makeup artist inside to give them free makeovers and answer all their Avon beauty related questions and concerns and there will be an Avon Representative on standy to take their orders so they can purchase the items they want on-site!

Opening this September 10, 2016 at the Bonifacio Global City, just behind the BGC Central you can enjoy this Avon Beauty on Wheels, the bus is airconditioned and can fit a few people at a time so hurry be the first in line! I love the bus so pretty!

Aside from BGC , the Avon Beauty Bus will be in Manila on September 13 (somewhere in the University Belt!) , in Araneta Cuba on September 17 and will be in Cebu on September 24 and 25 and Davao in October 6-7! For the exact location you may follow Avon Philippines on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Marian expressed her excitement being a part of the Avon Philippines family. As a representative of the Avon Indulgence lipstick Marian also shared which shade of lipstick she uses at home or when on a hot-date with husband Dingdong Dantes.



Kapag nagpapadede ako kay baby , gusto shempre isuot yung Red (Tulip) para tititigan ako nung anak ko at sasabihin, ayan, ayan ang nanay ko ang ganda! Gusto kong maging ganyan! Kapag date naman kay Dingdong gusto ko pademure ng konti , I love the Petal Pink talaga! Feeling ko girl na girl at bagay na bagay sha saken, she said.

Of course, Avon Philippines is one of the beaut brands that never fails to make their guests bloggers and media the best of beauty , by allowing everyone to try out the Avon Ultra Color Indulgence Lipstick in a makeup buffet with a standby makeup artist to determine the shade best for us.

Heres the entire 8 shades available to match every skin tone. Corals and Reds : Royal Peony, Peach Petunia, Daffodil Petal and Red Tulip. Plums and wines Spring Lilac and Purple Hyacinth. Pinks and Mauves Pink Petal and Rose Bouquet.

Avon Ultra Color Indulgence Lipstick is available exclusively throgh Avon Representative (Regular Price of Php399.00 each) but from September 1 to 30, 2016 you can get one for Php199.00 or 2 pcs for Php389.00! Hurry grab this sale!

And at the end of the event, held at Mango Tree in BGC Taguig, we were all surprised when Marian Rivera-Dantes announced Avons gift to their guest, our very own Makeup Kit! I die! I always wanted to have a makeup kit like this! I am super happy! Thank you Avon! This event is part of Avons 130 years celebration of Beauty for a Purpose.

Aside from making women feel beautiful physically, they also empower women with the earning opportunity they provide with their Avon representatives.

If you want to see more of the Avon products and purchase it you can download Avon Brochure app on Google Play or Apple Store . Visit www.avon.ph on how you can get in touch with a representative.

You may watch what happened at the event in the video below:

Stay gorgeous everyone!
NASA, more often than not, streams live coverage of the earth from the ISS. (Photo : YouTube/NASA)

A video footage showing a large object flying over a remote village in Malaysia was recently released on the internet at about the same time when NASA cancelled the "Space Station Live" show, therefore, arousing suspicion from UFO enthusiasts. They believe that this was not a coincidence as NASA was trying to cover up the spotted UFO.



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The video was taken by locals around Kuala Krai earlier this week and was later shared by an anonymous blogger. UFO hunters, enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists believe that the flying object was an alien spacecraft. They also believe that, NASA allegedly cancelled the thirty minute show that has been streaming live feeds from the International Space Station (ISS) for many years in order to reduce UFO sightings this year, Headline and Global News reported.



NASA has in the past been caught up in the middle of controversies where it was accused of covering up evidence of extraterrestrial life on earth by high government officials as well as astronauts who worked for them. These incidents, apparently, contribute to the magnitude of doubt and speculation aroused after cancelling "Space Station Live".



The American Space Agency, however, said that they had to cancel the show in order to update programing bits. UFO enthusiasts still believe that NASA is trying to hide evidence they wish to withhold from the public. Some also believe that the rise in UFO incidents over the past few months was the reason that NASA decided to terminate possible ways of arousing questions and demand for answers.



According to Chat Spot, the nature of the program set to replace "Space Station Live" shifts focus from occurrences around the ISS to events on the Johnson Space Center located in Houston. The space station, however, only accounts for details on NASA's mission control, astronaut corps, and only a few human spaceflight programs.



Whilst the ISS was one of the most reliable source and reason for controversies to the UFO community, NASA has not yet revealed any information that admitting to these claims. UFO incidents, reports, and testimonials from people who claim to have inside knowledge of UFO cover ups and alien existence are still the only basis of all controversies involving NASA.



Watch the alleged livestream:






Amazon and Wells Fargo Education Financial Services this week suddenly ended a partnership to offer low-cost loans to college students, less than six weeks after announcing the program.

Wells Fargo, the largest lender of private student loans among all U.S. commercial banks, had offered a 0.50 percent discount to Amazon Prime Student customers under the partnership. They were eligible for an additional 0.25 percent rate reduction if they enrolled in the banks automatic monthly loan repayment plan.

Amazon Prime Student offers college students a more targeted series of benefits than the companys traditional Amazon Prime customer program. The Amazon Prime Student program provides a six-month free trial period, two-day free shipping on more than 30 million items, special promotions targeting college students, free streaming video and music, and a free Kindle First book each month.

More Than Coincidence?

The student loan agreement with Wells Fargo ended less than two weeks after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the bank to pay US$3.6 million in civil penalties for a series of illegal practices in its private student lending business.

The bureau last month announced that Wells Fargo charged consumers illegal late fees, failed to correct inaccurate credit information, and failed to provide important credit information to consumers.

Beyond the civil penalties, the CfPB ordered Wells Fargo to pay $410,000 in refunds to borrowers for illegal late fees.

Wells Fargos Education Financial Services division originates and services student loans, and has 1.3 million total customers in the U.S., operating in all 50 states, according to the bureau.

Despite the timing of the CFPB action and the end of Amazons partnership with Wells Fargo, it remains unclear whether there is any direct link between the two. The CFPB, Amazon and Wells Fargo did not respond to our requests to comment for this story.

Loan Servicers History of Failure

There are more than 40 million federal and private student loan borrowers, according to the bureau, and they collectively owe $1.3 trillion. As of 2015, more than 8 million borrowers were in default on $110 billion in student loans, and private student loans comprise more than $100 billion of all outstanding student loans.

The CFPB, along with the Department of Education and Department of Treasury, last year called out the student loan industry for widespread servicing failures that contributed to the delinquency problem.

In comments made last summer, CFPB Director Richard Cordray cited a vast disconnect between existing laws and the experiences of many borrowers, who were not provided the relief they qualified for to mitigate student loan debt.

Amazons brief attempt to lower the cost of student loans was not the first effort on the part of a technology company in this market.

Online companies have been working for quite a while to help fill the void between federal student aid and private lenders that service the college student loan business, said Tina Malott, a spokesperson for College Ave, a student loan firm led by Joe DePaulo former CFO at Sallie Mae and former CEO of Credit One Financial Services.

Mainly, there is a gap between what the federal government will loan you and the cost of tuition and living expenses, Malott told the E-Commerce Times. That gap is sometimes filled by private student loans.
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By Larry Buhl and Steve Horn

Friday afternoon brought a roller coaster of emotions for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporters in the battle to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) near the tribes North Dakota reservation. Shortly after a federal judge rejected the tribes emergency legal challenge, a joint statement by three federal agencies effectively stopped work on the pipeline until significant questions are answered about potential environmental and cultural impacts.

Multi-tribal gathering of demonstrators on the Missouri River to show solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sacred Stone Camp

In August the tribe filed suit to challenge the Army Corps of Engineers decision to grant permits to DAPL at more than 200 water crossings for the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project. The Sioux argued that the project violates several federal environmental laws and would threaten water supplies for millions of people who rely on the Missouri River for drinking water.

The Dakota Access pipeline would snake beneath the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, carrying 450,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. Construction has already damaged sites of significant cultural significance to the Standing Rock Sioux, and continues to threaten further sites.

Snatching Victory From the Jaws of Defeat

Minutes after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a 58-page ruling Friday denying the tribes request for a temporary injunction to halt construction, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement to cease to authorize construction on federally controlled landsessentially nullifying the courts action.

Citing concerns raised by the Standing Rock Sioux lawsuit, the joint statement reads:

The Army will not authorize constructing the Dakota Access pipeline on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe until it can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws. Therefore, construction of the pipeline on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe will not go forward at this time. The Army will move expeditiously to make this determination, as everyone involved  including the pipeline company and its workers  deserves a clear and timely resolution. In the interim, we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe.

The statement also invited Native American tribes to continue ongoing talks about their concerns regarding pipelines and similar infrastructure projects.

Breaking News: U.S. paused construction on part of a North Dakota pipeline that inspired protests https://t.co/cxj0k4pnsz  The New York Times (@nytimes) September 9, 2016

What Happens Next is Unclear

The Corps of Engineers can block construction on its land, which does stop the contested Missouri River crossing, at least for now.

But the federal government cant stop Energy Transfer from proceeding to construct the Dakota Access pipeline on private land, which is why it asked DAPL to voluntarily halt construction there.

It is not certain that the company will voluntarily agree to stop construction in the 20-mile zone on either side of Lake Oahe. If it continues, some Native American cultural and archaeological sites could still face the risk of damage or destruction.

Dakota Access LLCs parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, has not responded to repeated requests for comment from DeSmog. The Departments of Justice and Interior said they would not comment beyond what was written in the joint press release.

Mixed Reactions

For now the tribe and their supporters are treating the joint agency statement as a victory.

Our voices have been heard, said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II, in a statement. The Obama administration has asked tribes to the table to make sure that we have meaningful consultation on infrastructure projects. Native peoples have suffered generations of broken promises and today the federal government said that national reform is needed to better ensure that tribes have a voice on infrastructure projects like this pipeline.

Craig Stevens, spokesman for the industry-friendly Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN) said the group was disappointed with Fridays decision.

Had the decision been different, it most certainly would have had a chilling effect on domestic infrastructure development and the U.S. economy as no sane American company would dare invest the time and resources necessary for proper consultations and approvals only to have its project shuttered halfway through, Stevens wrote.

Not everyone who opposes the pipeline is optimistic. Robin Martinez, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild in Kansas City, told DeSmog he has mixed feelings about the implications of the joint statement.

On one hand, he said that it not only appears to open review of the Dakota Access permits, but the underlying decision-making process when it comes to pipelines and that it presents an opportunity to help shape the direction of the pipeline permitting process and actually take a hard look at the environmental impacts as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Martinez was doubtful, though, that Dakota Access would stop bulldozing contested private land.

Hopefully theyll do the right thing and stand down, but given what appears to be their deliberate destruction of Native American historic sites last weekend, I wouldnt count on it, he said.

Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, had this to say in response to Friday announcements:

North Dakotas Governor Dalrymple and President Obama could defuse and demilitarize this, while the peaceful gathering to protect the water continues. We ask for a moral high ground, by elected officials while we continue to support the Standing Rock tribe and Lakota people to seek justice. There should be no further destruction or construction. We are asking Enbridge and Energy Partners to stop construction and respect our people.

Demonstrations to Continue

Conflict over the pipeline reached a wider national audience last weekend after video surfaced showing pipeline security workers using attack dogs and pepper spray on demonstrators.

Support and protesters have continued to flow into the Sacred Stone camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Currently there are more than 100 Native American Tribes represented at the camp.

The #DAPL fight is not over: Nationwide actions to stop the Dakota Access pipeline on 9/13. Find 1 near you: https://t.co/uZYLngUurS #NoDAPL  Sierra Club (@SierraClub) September 10, 2016

North Dakota authorities announced a mobilization of law enforcement at the protest site and National Guard members were dispatched to work security at traffic checkpoints. As of early Friday evening, no incidents had been reported at the camps, in the pipeline construction zone, or in the dozen cities around the country where protests against DAPL are taking place.

On Friday afternoon, more than six dozen youth led a run for peace to the North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck, calling attention to their petition to stop DAPL. It was the fourth run for this youth group, who recently ran from North Dakota to Washington, DC to deliver 252,000 petition signatures.

In Des Moines, Iowa, a nonviolent civil disobedience event is scheduled for Saturday to protest the use of eminent domain to seize land for DAPL construction in that state.

On Tuesday, thousands of people will rally during the #NoDAPL Day of Action in Washington, DC and dozens of cities across the country to demand that President Obama stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sen. Bernie Sanders will speak alongside Tara Houska and other tribal leaders at the DC event.

This struggle to protect the land and water, goes hand-in-hand with the struggle to defend our Rights as Indigenous Peoples, said Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network. We ask our relatives and allies to join us in solidarity to defeat the Dakota Access pipeline.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin of the Federal District Court in Eugene, Oregon, decided in favor of 21 young plaintiffs in their landmark constitutional climate change case against the federal government. Judge Coffin ruled Friday against the motion to dismiss brought by the fossil fuel industry and federal government.

The courts ruling is a major victory for the 21 youth plaintiffs, ages 8-19, from across the U.S. in what Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein call the most important lawsuit on the planet right now.

The youth plaintiffs after the hearing on March 9 in Eugene, Oregon. Photo credit: Our Childrens Trust

These plaintiffs sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, and their right to essential public trust resources, by permitting, encouraging and otherwise enabling continued exploitation, production and combustion of fossil fuels.

This decision is one of the most significant in our nations history, plaintiffs attorney Philip Gregory said.

The court upheld our claims that the federal government intensified the danger to our plaintiffs lives, liberty and property. Judge Coffin decided our complaint will move forward and put climate science squarely in front of the federal courts. The next step is for the court to order our government to cease jeopardizing the climate system for present and future generations. The court gave Americas youth a fair opportunity to be heard.

As part of Fridays historic decision, Judge Coffin characterized the case as an unprecedented lawsuit addressing government action and inaction resulting in carbon pollution of the atmosphere, climate destabilization and ocean acidification.

In deciding the case will proceed, Judge Coffin wrote:

The debate about climate change and its impact has been before various political bodies for some time now. Plaintiffs give this debate justiciability by asserting harms that befall or will befall them personally and to a greater extent than older segments of society. It may be that eventually the alleged harms, assuming the correctness of plaintiffs analysis of the impacts of global climate change, will befall all of us. But the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government. This is especially true when such harms have an alleged disparate impact on a discrete class of society.

This decision marks a tipping point on the scales of justice, Kelsey Juliana, one of the youth plaintiffs from Eugene, said. Youth voices are uniting around the world to demand that government uphold our constitutional rights and protect the planet for our and future generations survivability. This will be the trial of the century that will determine if we have a right to a livable future, or if corporate power will continue to deny our rights for the sake of their own wealth.

The court rejected the courtroom arguments of the federal government and fossil fuel industry that Congress could sell the coastal sea waters of the U.S. to Exxon. Instead, the court found that the federal government is subject to the public trust doctrine and that such a sweeping and profound effect as suggested by the defendants is not consistent with U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence. In January 2016, defendant status was granted to three fossil fuel industry trade associations, representing nearly all of the worlds largest fossil fuel companies, who called the case extraordinary and a direct, substantial threat to [their] businesses.

The decision denied motions seeking to dismiss the youths climate change lawsuit. The motions were brought by the federal government and the fossil fuel industry who denied any duty under the constitution or the public trust doctrine to protect essential natural resources, such as air and oceans, for the benefit of all present and future generations.

Science clearly establishes that our planets increasing energy imbalancecaused in substantial part by our governments support for the exploitation and combustion of fossil fuelimposes increasingly severe risks on our common future, Dr. James Hansen, guardian in the case for all future generations and world-renowned climate scientist, said.

Now, from Eugene Oregon, comes a prescient and insightful ruling from a federal district court. Judge Coffin in effect declares that the voice of children and future generations, supported by the relevant science, must be heard. We will now proceed to prove our claims. It is perhaps not too late for serious action to preserve a viable climate system that will be required by our posterity.

The court heard oral arguments from attorneys for two hours on March 9, before hundreds of people supporting the youth, while hundreds more waited in lines to enter the courthouse. In an unprecedented move, oral argument was streamed via video feed into three additional courtrooms in Eugene, Oregon and one in Portland.

In denying the motions of the federal government and the fossil fuel industry, the courts decision framed the issue as follows:

Plaintiffs are suing the United States  because the government has known for decades that carbon dioxide (C0 2 ) pollution has been causing catastrophic climate change and has failed to take necessary action to curtail fossil fuel emissions. Moreover, plaintiffs allege that the government and its agencies have taken action or failed to take action that has resulted in increased carbon pollution through fossil fuel extraction, production, consumption, transportation, and exportation. Plaintiffs allege the current actions and omissions of defendants make it extremely difficult for plaintiffs to protect their vital natural systems and a livable world. Plaintiffs assert the actions and omissions of defendants that increased C02 emissions shock the conscience, and are infringing the plaintiffs right to life and liberty in violation of their substantive due process rights.

The courts decision also upheld the youth plaintiffs claims in the Fifth and Ninth Amendments by denying them protections afforded to previous generations and by favoring short term economic interests of certain citizens. Judge Coffin upheld plaintiffs assertion of violations under the public trust doctrine, ruling that there is a federal public trust and plaintiffs claim can proceed.

Judge Coffin accepted the complaints presentation of undisputed scientific evidence that the federal government has, and continues to, damage these young plaintiffs personal security and other fundamental rights, Julia Olson, counsel for the plaintiffs and executive director of Our Childrens Trust, said. Unlike almost every other case deciding constitutional rights throughout history, the climate rights that will now be decided in this case, cannot be vindicated by future generations.

This case alleges the federal government is violating plaintiffs constitutional and public trust rights by promoting the development and use of fossil fuels. The complaint explains that, for more than 50 years, the U.S. Government has known that carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution from burning fossil fuels causes global warming and dangerous climate change, and that continuing to burn fossil fuels destabilizes the climate system. The next step is a review of Judge Coffins decision by another judge in the same court, Judge Ann Aiken.

When those in power stand alongside the very industries that threaten the future of my generation instead of standing with the people, it is a reminder that they are not our leaders, Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez, one of the youth plaintiffs and youth director of Earth Guardians, said.

The real leaders are the twenty youth standing with me in court to demand justice for my generation and justice for all youth. We will not be silent, we will not go unnoticed, and we are ready to stand to protect everything our leaders have failed to fight for. They are afraid of the power we have to create change. And this change we are creating, will go down in history.

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U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken scheduled Wednesday an oral argument for the youths landmark climate lawsuit for Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. PST in Eugene, Oregon.

The youth plaintiffs after the hearing on March 9 in Eugene, Oregon. Photo credit: Our Childrens Trust

The 21 young plaintiffs received a favorable decision in their case brought against the federal government and fossil fuel industry from U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin in April. Now, they are looking forward to their next opportunity to appear in court to fight for climate justice.

I am excited that Judge Aiken is interested in hearing our oral argument this September, plaintiff Kiran Oommen, a 19-year-old from Eugene, said. The U.S. governments continued support of the fossil fuel industry, despite the obvious high risks, is hurting people all the time and its getting worse. With incidents like the oil train derailment and proceeding disaster in Mosier, Oregon this month, we can see the direct negative consequences of the governments blatant disregard for the health and safety of the people. The longer this case lasts, the greater the evidence will be condemning their actions.

Oil Train Derails in Columbia River Gorge, Rally Calls for Ban on 'Bomb Trains' https://t.co/9l9468UAph @tarsandsRESIST  EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) June 5, 2016

The plaintiffs are suing the federal government for violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property and their right to essential public trust resources, by permitting, encouraging and otherwise enabling continued exploitation, production and combustion of fossil fuels. The case is one of multiple related legal actions brought by youth in several states and countries, all supported by Our Childrens Trust, seeking science-based action by governments to stabilize the climate system. Recently, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington, also ruled in favor of youth in related actions.

We look forward to the opportunity to argue this case before Judge Aiken, Julia Olson, counsel for the plaintiffs and executive director of Our Childrens Trust, said. The more these brave young climate advocates appear in court, with the tremendous public support we anticipate for this September 13 hearing, the better. This is another chance to tell the egregious story of this case: that for more than 50 years our government has exploited fossil fuels, hand in hand with industry, knowing it would destroy our climate system and the healthy futures for these young people. We are eager to show the court how these youths fundamental constitutional rights are being infringed.

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With the goal of protecting students civil rights and limiting unnecessarily harsh school discipline, the Obama administration is calling on schools to ensure that the role of on-site police is limited and clearly defined.

The U.S. departments of Education and Justice released new resources last week related to the hiring and training of school resource officers, which come amid national discussions about school discipline and the role of law-enforcement officers following several high-profile student arrests. They are the latest efforts by the administration to reshape school discipline by pushing back against zero-tolerance policies.

Among the resources are guidelines for crafting agreements between schools and local law-enforcement agencies, monitoring the actions of school-based police officers, and training police in such areas as child development and conflict de-escalation.

Those recommended practices will now serve as requirements for agencies that hire school resource officers through Justice Department grants, said Ronald L. Davis, the director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the agency.

Local law-enforcement agencies around the country use those grants, administered on a three-year cycle, to hire between 100 and 150 school resource officers every year, which means about 450 positions are funded by the grants at a given time, a small fraction of officers in schools nationwide, Davis said.

But federal officials hope the heightened requirements will serve as an example to all schools with on-campus law enforcement, whether or not they use federal grants to hire officers, he said. The new requirements build on a condition that the Justice Department introduced in 2014 that police agencies receiving the federal grants must have clear agreements with districts that outline their responsibilities within schools.

Federal officials said they are concerned about violations of students civil rights by school-based officers if schools dont clearly define their role and review their practices.

NEW GUIDELINES FOR POLICING IN SCHOOLS The U.S. departments of Education and Justice are urging schools to adopt a number of steps to improve the practices of school-based police officers. Among them: Seek community input when drafting agreements with law-enforcement agencies that detail officers roles in schools and limit their involvement in disciplinary issues.

Incorporate local, state, and federal civil rights laws into those agreements and establish processes for monitoring compliance and receiving complaints about potential violations.

Set policies for hiring and training school resource officers on issues like appropriate use of restraints, child development, and the effects of youth involvement with the justice system.

Train teachers and staff to avoid calling on school officers to assist with nonviolent disciplinary issues.

Establish a process for evaluating school resource officers. Source: U.S. departments of Education and Justice

While school resource officers can help provide a positive and safe learning environment and build trust between students and law-enforcement officials in some situations, I am concerned about the potential for violations of students civil rights and unnecessary citations or arrests of students in schools, all of which can lead to the unnecessary and harmful introduction of children and young adults into a school-to-prison pipeline, U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. wrote in a letter to states and districts.

As education leaders, you can empower schools, educators, and staff with the skills and capacity to avoid relying on [school resource officers] in the first place, and also eliminate SRO-related school discipline policies and practices that may harm young people and needlessly contribute to their involvement with the juvenile- and criminal-justice systems.

Police Presence Expands

Thirty percent of public schools reported having at least one resource officer in 2013-14, according to the most recent federal data, and 11 percent reported the presence of at least one sworn law-enforcement officer that is not designated as a school resource officer.

The presence of school-based law enforcement has grown alongside concerns about student safety, but some civil rights groups have said officers often threaten students civil rights by being involved in routine disciplinary matters that should be handled by school personnel. Their presence disproportionately affects students of color, who are more likely to be arrested or referred to law enforcement, they note.

Black students were more than twice as likely to be referred to law enforcement or arrested at school than their white peers in 2013-14, according to the latest data from the Education Departments office for civil rights.

Communities that do not trust cops in their neighborhoods do not want to invite them into their schools with their children, Jonathan Stith, the national coordinator of the Alliance for Educational Justice, said in a statement.

Karol Mason, the assistant attorney general for the office of justice programs at the Justice Department, told reporters in a call that student-arrest rates are fueled by policies and practices that hustle kids out of school and into the court system for minor infractions.

The guidelines released last week encourage schools to take a number of steps that federal officials say would improve the practices of school-based officers. (See related box.)

A similar document for local and state policymakers, also released last week, includes examples of state statutes and local policies that require schools to take such actions. Just 12 states have special training requirements for school resource officers, according to a 2015 report by the American Institutes for Research. Some states have worked to amend laws that contribute to high student-arrest rates for vague and subjective infractions like disturbing a school.

Communitywide Effort

One policy held up as an example by federal officials is an agreement that the Broward County, Fla., district drafted with law enforcement agencies from 31 municipalities that employ their school resource officers. The documentcreated with input from judges, public defenders, law enforcement, social service groups, civil rights organizations, and othersrequires educators to try to resolve non-violent incidents before consulting law enforcement.

The success of our children is a communitywide effort...so the way we went about this is through a very collaborative effort with our entire community, Superintendent Robert Runcie said.

The agreement, part of Broward Countys broader effort to improve school climate, has helped contribute to a 60 percent decline in student arrest rates, from 1,170 arrests in 2010-11 to 469 arrests in 2014-15, state data show.

Even if school-based officers are employed by an outside law-enforcement agency, schools are responsible for ensuring that they do not violate students civil rights, the Justice and Education departments said in 2014 civil rights guidance on school discipline. The agencies have enforced that position through investigations and complaint resolutions, including a recent agreement with the Richland County, S.C., sheriffs department, which came under fire last year after one of its officers violently arrested a girl, dragging her from her desk after she refused to put away her cellphone in math class. The officer was fired, but faced no criminal charges.

Some civil rights groups have suggested that schools shouldnt have police at all, citing research that shows higher student-arrest rates in schools with on-site officers. The Dignity in Schools Campaign, a coalition of civil rights and student groups, said in a statement that the guidance should go further to promote substantive solutions and alternatives to police presence in schools, such as redirecting funding from school police towards more counselors, peace builders, and positive discipline.

Secretary King stressed in a call with reporters that decisions to hire school resource officers are local. If police are in schools, they should operate under carefully crafted policies, he said. He also said schools should weigh how to appropriately spend resources so that students feel both safe and supported. He noted federal civil rights data showing that in 2013-14, 1.6 million students attended a school that had a law-enforcement officer but no school counselor.

Davis of the Justice Department said school resource officers can form positive relationships with students so that when theres a need for police to respond to a school, they are familiar with the unique needs of students.
Beijing and Ukraine Form Partnership to Build the Biggest Plane in the World

China continuously guards the South China Sea despite the UNCLOS ruling. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's army and the Ukrainian Antonov Company will build the AN-225 Mriya. It has six massive engines creating over 300,000 pounds of thrust, and the plane can reportedly carry a 200-ton load nearly 2,500 miles.



An observer in Twitter posted, "It would provide China with the large and global lift that not even the U.S. has possessed, except by rental. It's large enough to carry helicopters, tanks, artillery, even other aircraft."



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The partnership allows China to rent the planes but also gained rights to manufacture the planes domestically.



Aside from exploring developments in aircraft, the Chinese government has been China has been developing large, military-grade runways, as well as military hardened hangars in the South China Sea.



China intends to make the South China Sea a military zone with blueprints of building facilities in one of the islands.



"China is building hangar space for 24 fighter jets and 3-4 larger military planes at each of its three largest artificial islands," Gregory Poling, director of Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI).



Poling added, "The number, size, and construction make it clear these are for military purposes--and they are the smoking gun that shows China has every intention of militarizing the Spratly Islands."



According to a report by the AMTI, "Construction of fighter-jet hangars appears complete at the southern end of the runway and is well-advanced along the middle of the airstrip. At the northern end, construction on a final set of hangars is still in the early stages."



However, the country's claim over the South China Sea has been unfounded and baseless, according to the Permanent Court Ruling of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.


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.
New York, Sep 10 (EFE).- Spanish actress Paz Vega, who after an intense decade of work in the United States and Mexico has returned to Spain, where her latest film "Perdoname senor" will be released, said in an interview with EFE that she feels she is an "adventurous and curious woman."

Vega is returning to Telecinco and to Spain, a homecoming to the origins of her success in "Siete vidas," which allowed her to make the jump to film and achieve recognition in works such as "Hable con ella" (Talk to Her) and "Lucia y el sexo" (Sex and Lucia), her Hollywood calling card.

Vega took a break from filming the series, in which she shares top billing with Stany Coppet and Jesus Castro, to attend Fashion Week in New York, where she was to be found in the front row of the Desigual fashion show, a firm that she said "enchants" her.

"This collection is a wink at the pioneer woman of the last century who gained freedoms. An authentic woman. I like the mixture of textures, of patterns, which is also the DNA of Desigual," she said in the interview, conducted in downtown Manhattan and for which she had selected one of the brand's jackets.

When asked whether she also considers herself to be a pioneering woman, she said that at least she is "adventurous and curious."

"I like challenges. It doesn't scare me to face new situations and I also love learning about other cultures," she said.

After years of living in Los Angeles, she is returning with her husband, Orson Salazar, to Spain, although there are now five in her family, including her three children, ages 6, 7 and 9.

"The kids are thrilled about returning to Spain because it's a place they know from visiting every summer. Kids are always those who adapt best to everything," she said.

The star of "Spanglish" joked that her English has improved a lot since she starred in that comedy with Adam Sandler, adding that her children are bilingual, although they speak English among themselves because "they're connected with that language in school, games and their friends."

About her ability to reconcile her busy television and film career in recent years with being a mother, she said that her secret is "just like that of any woman who works and decides to become a mother."

"The recipe is a lot of work, sacrifice and organization. At times, you don't have the free time you'd like or the time you'd like for yourself, but the adventure is worth the trouble," she said.

The 40-year-old actress - who has several films pending, including the Mexican comedy directed by Manuel Caro, "La vida inmoral de la pareja ideal," and "Emperor," filmed in Prague with Adrien Brody - this year won the Malaga Sur Award for her professional career, and she said that receiving such honors always is a source of "joy," and constitute a "pat on the back."

Vega plans to return to Mexico to continue filming the successful series "La hermandad," as well as to take part in other projects in Los Angeles.
Bogota, Sep 10 (EFE).- A film with seven fathers and seven sons, almost an hour in length, a budget of $30,000, set in Oregon, Kansas City and California, but with one objective: to overturn the arguments of those who accuse Latin American immigrants to the United States of being homophobes.

"El Canto del Colibri" (The song of the hummingbird), by Mexican educator and attorney Marco Castro-Bojorquez, provides a voice for immigrant fathers who have had to accept their homosexual sons.

Covering the gamut of emotions from numbness to joy, the film delves into the lives of seven families from Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela who explain how they came to the United States and how parental love overcame the stereotypes of the Latino community as "anti-gay."

"That's enough about them saying that I'm homophobic because I'm Latino. The things they hang on Latinos in the U.S. are done because of lack of curiosity and to give them a label," Castro-Bojorquez, who lives in Los Angeles and is of Mexican heritage, told EFE.

In the film, the parents and sons speak in Spanish with English subtitles about the prejudices, the problems and happy moments that fathers and sons have experienced from the time the heads of the household came to the United States until father-son love overcame sexual labels.

"It's your son, first of all," says a father, almost in tears, in one part of the documentary after confessing that it was tough to accept that his son "had come out of the closet.

Castro-Bojorquez admits that the idea for the film arose when he was working as an educator and he wanted to put a face on family acceptance of LGBT people.

"First, I made a short, 15-minute film entitled 'Tres Gotas de Agua" (Three drops of water)" - which can be accessed on YouTube - "in which I told about three Latino mothers with the Somos Familia organization in San Francisco. The logical consequence was to do something longer with fathers."

"These communities are like the hummingbird. There's a pre-Hispanic story about the song of this bird that, although it has a fragile appearance, is strong like us," he added.

Castro-Bojorquez confessed that filming the work over three years was a difficult but enriching personal experience.

Another thing the film deals with is the influence of the Catholic religion on the cultural life of Latinos in the United States. On being asked about that, Castro-Bojorquez said he found surprises and the idea for his next documentary.

"It seemed very interesting to see a father saying to his kids to leave religion behind, and they remain steadfast in their faith. ... I want to do a short film (about it)," he said.

On the film circuit, "El Canto del Colibri" has been shown at more than 30 international festivals and - among other honors - has won the Best Documentary Prize at CinHOMO in Valladolid, Spain.
Rio San Juan, Nicaragua, Sep 10 (EFE).- In far southeastern Nicaragua, on the banks of the San Juan River, which forms the boundary with Costa Rica, is the Indio Maiz biological preserve, one of Central America's most important tropical rainforest areas where in recent years colonists have been moving in.

Inhabited on 70 percent of its territory by the Rama and Kriol indigenous communities, the ancestral owners of the virgin jungle, the bio-preserve is home to a wide variety of representative Central American species, including green and red parrots that are in danger of extinction.

To protect the birds - and the other fauna - from the colonists who are taking possession of the area, which totals about 2,640 square kilometers (about 1,000 square miles), the Rama and Kriol communities, organized into the Rama Kriol Territorial Government, or GTRK, decided to delineate and clearly mark the limits of their lands by installing signs and markers.

"The idea to delimit our territory is to preserve the reservation for our descendants, and not only for them but for all Nicaraguans, because these forests are everyone's," one of the territorial forest rangers in the zone, Margarito MacCree, told EFE.

Several ecological organizations in Rio San Juan province - subsumed under the Union of Environmentalist Organizations for the Defense of the Indio Maiz Biological Preserve - decided to support the GTRK and organized a "joint project of peasants and Ramas" with the aim of preserving the rainforest, which was declared a biosphere preserve by Unesco in 2003.

The organizations estimate that about 1,000 families from the Northern Caribbean and central zones of Nicaragua have settled within the preserve, attracted by land sellers who have been placing them in 30-50 hectare (75-125 acre) tracts.

The ecologists say that the situation is getting out of control and add that it appears the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry and the Nicaraguan army have abandoned them.

In addition, they say that local officials have been promoting the colonists' invasion in exchange for political support and funding.

The land sales have been so unorganized that the same parcels have been sold to several different people, sparking conflict that has resulted in at least one death, the head of the environmental Rio Foundation, Saul Obregon, told EFE.

He added that with "the pace of current colonization, in about 20 years the tropical rainforest in the entire preserve will have been fragmented and destroyed."
On 2 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modis photograph was splashed across an advertisement on the front pages of major newspapers. That in itself was hardly unusual. What was out of the ordinary was that the advertisement was not placed by the government or the Bharatiya Janata Party but by Indias largest private corporate entity, Reliance Industries Limited, headed by the countrys richest man, Mukesh Ambani, announcing the launch of an ambitious new mobile voice and data services venture, Reliance Jio (RJio). It was averred that Reliance was furthering Modis vision of a Digital India, that it was one of those rare life-changing movements in the journey of time. While questions about the legality of the use of the Prime Ministers picture to promote a private companys service are probably misplaced, doubts about the propriety of the move remain. The question to be asked is why it suits bothReliance and Modito be seen as sharing a vision and what implications this has for RJios future. Another question that is bound to arise is whether the RJio offering is truly as revolutionary as is being claimed or another instance of the kind of brilliant sales pitch that both the Ambanis and Modi are known for.

To those familiar with the trajectory of the Reliance Group, the couching of the RJio project in rhetoric that evokes the quest for the greater good of the public will come as no surprise. The groups first major foray into a consumer business, in the form of the textiles brand Vimal, was pitched as a bid to clothe every Indian. Its entry into the oil and gas sector was portrayed as part of the national effort to gain energy self-sufficiency. Its maiden telecom venture over a decade ago was sold as making telephony as affordable for all Indians as a postcard. It is totally in character, therefore, that Ambani should say that Reliance is not about blindly chasing profit. Many are sceptical of such pious pronouncements.
View along Sirmione in Lake Garda, Italy. All photography is the property of EuroTravelogue. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

Soaring Alpine peaks sink into the northern shores of glistening Lake Garda, echoes of passion resound as Romeo proclaims his love to Juliet, the homemade tortellini makes my mouth waterbenvenuti a Veneto where you'll discover the delicious flavors of bella Italia. I didn't think it was possible to love Italy any more than I do, but after visiting the Veneto region just west of Venice, I fell passionately in love.

The city of loveVerona

Verona Arena dates back to A.D. 30 and is built entirely of pink marble.

Founded by the Romans in 49 B.C. and located between Milan and Venice, Verona is rich in 2,000 years of Roman history. Fought over for centuries because of its strategic location along the River Adige, Verona fell under the rule of one country after the next, not to mention Venice and Napoleon, until finally joining the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Despite the catastrophic earthquake that struck in 1117, much of it remains intact because of the city's commitment to its preservation. Today, Verona is a living museum full of artifacts dating back two millennia and my only regret after having visited is the fact that I didn't spend enough time. But I was fortunate to see these not-to-be-missed sights!

Some of my favorites:

The Arena:

Only fragments of the original outer wall stand today after the devastating earthquake in 1117.

Claiming title as the largest amphitheatre in northern Italy, the Arena dates back to A.D. 30 and is built entirely of pink marble. At the time, it could accommodate an unfathomable 25,000 spectators.

Castelvecchio:

The Ponte Scaligeri leads the way to Castelvecchio in Verona, Italy.

Completed in 1376, the Castelvecchio is a sprawling medieval fortress that was once home to the Della Scala (Scaligero) family who rose to power during the 13th century. At the time, the bridge and castle complex was a prominent example of Gothic architecture and includes seven towers, one elevated keep and four main buildings. Surrounding the entire fortification is a moat, now drained of its one-time Adige waters. Today, the Castelvecchio is a museum and exhibition hall housing paintings, weapons and sculptures from 1300 to 1700 throughout its 29 rooms.

If you look carefully, you'll see that the bridge actually slopes down and away from the castle to facilitate a quick escape during a military onslaught.

Casa di Giulietta (Juliet's House):

Hopeless romantics from around the world travel here to write letters to their beloved Juliet.

Truly, one of my favorite places in Verona was Casa di Giulietta, a mecca for hopeless romantics who travel here from around the world to write letters to our beloved Juliet asking for guidance in romance. The house itself dates back to the 14th century and was probably an inn. Although Juliet never lived here and certainly never stepped out onto the balcony added by the city council in 1928, this romantic courtyard is a must-see attraction. A gentle rub to Juliet's right breast on her bronze statue that stands in the courtyard brings buona fortuna in romance!

Portal to romance. Look along the back wall and to the right of the courtyard and you'll find our Juliet awaiting her Romeo.

Letters to Juliet.

Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori:

Benvenuti a Piazza dei Signoria.

A sea of humanity ebbs and flows in the Piazza delle Erbe!

The heartbeat of the city of love lies in its piazzas delle Erbe and dei Signori where a sea of humanity ebbs and flows along the bustling cafes and remnants of the past. The former has been the city's marketplace since medieval times and before that, a Roman Forum! Among the cafes that line its northeastern edge, ancient artifacts abound including the Torre Gardello, Verona's first clock tower completed in 1370. Nearby, perched upon its towering pedestal, the mighty Venetian Lion reminds us of when Verona was part of the Venetian Empire.

Dante looking pensive in the Piazza dei Signoria (Lords Square).

Piazza dei Signori is where you'll find Dante standing pensive and contemplative as he recounts recent battles with the Black and White Guelphs who forced him to seek refuge in Verona at the invitation of Cangrande I della Scala. Cangrande was later immortalized in Dante's "Divine Comedy" for his benevolence.

Lake Garda

My love affair with Italy soared to new heights when I toured Lake Garda. Cradled by the Italian Alps south of the Dolomites Mountains , Lake Garda is a just 40 minutes from Verona and approximately two hours from Venice. Renowned for its world-class resorts and breathtaking scenery, Lake Garda is surrounded by Italian villages lining its shores, soaring Alpine peaks, verdant olive groves, sprawling vineyards and medieval castles towering high above the villages.

Bella Lago di Garda in northern Italy is a must see for all travelers! This photo only: WikiMedia.org.

Sirmione

It was my last night in the Veneto region when I discovered the magic of Sirmione, truly one of the most enchanting places on the planet. Accessed via Lake Garda's southern shores, this 2-mile-long peninsula and the views across the lake provided the backdrop for my final sunset in Italy, and if you're fortunate enough to stay longer, you'll love the panoramic views from myriad vantage points along its coastline.

An enchanting evening in Sirmione, Lake Garda.

Cross over the drawbridge and you'll travel back in time to the 13th-century when Castello Scaligera or Scaligera Castle was originally built for the della Scala family (Scaligeri) of Verona. Beyond the castle, meander the narrow alleys and discover the winsome medieval village lined with shops and sidewalk cafes.

Travel back in time to the 13th-century fortressCastello Scaligera or Scaligera Castle originally built for the della Scala family (Scaligeri) of Verona.

Scenes of Sirmione along the shores of Lake Garda.

Stroll along the cobbled lanes in Sirmione.

Peschiera del Garda

Climb aboard a boat tour cruise around the imposing 15th-century fortress, the Bastione San Marco.

After a stroll through the cobbled lanes that wend their way around this village of canals, stop by the Osteria Al Canal for a tasty lunch along the shores of Lake Garda. After, climb aboard a motor launch for a boat tour around the imposing 15th-century fortress, the Bastione San Marco or San Marco Fortress which provided protection for many a military campaign.

Halloween in Gardaland

Halloween in Lake Garda's Gardaland.

Northern Italy's answer to Disneyland, Gardaland is a fun-filled theme park with whimsical attractions for the entire family. When I visited, it was just a few weeks before Halloween and throughout the park, Halloween themed settings like the one above decorated the landscapes and attraction facades with frightfully-fun embellishments!

Soar to a bird's-eye view of the entire park aboard the Flying Island or embark on an upside-down adventures inside the Magic House. Coaster fans will revel in the adrenaline-pumping attractions throughout the park.

Whimsical attractions await at Gardaland. Fun for the entire family!

Bird's-eye views of Lake Garda and surrounding neighborhoods can be seen high atop the Flying Island.

Borghetto

Benvenuti a Borghetto.

Clearly one of the most beautiful villages in all of Italy is Borghetto, an absurdly picturesque medieval hamlet along the banks of River Mincio and home to the annual Festa del Nodo d'Amore or Festival of the Love Knots! Borghetto means "fortified settlement" and was established during the Lombard rule of northern Italy. To protect and control the Mincio River, medieval fortifications were constructed including Scaligeri Castle, the Visconti Bridge and dam, and the 10-mile-long Serraglio defensive line. Eventually the area fell to the Venetians in 1405 and sadly only vestiges remain, the scars of natural disasters and wars.

Festa del Nodo d'Amore or Tortellini Festival

The setting for the Tortellini Festival is the Visconti Bridge and Dam pictured here in Borghetto, Italy.

This annual event would convince any tortellini lover to visit this tiny hamlet where 550,000 tortellini are served to 4,000 diners from around the world on long tables stretched across the Ponte Visconeteo. The festival takes place every year on the third Tuesday in June.

In nearby Valeggio sul Mincio, we visited Al Re del Tortellino, a family-owned pasta factory whose mission is to preserve the traditional ways of making tortelliniby hand. Their motto: "There are things that machines cannot do." Little did I know that I would need the skills of an origami artist to fold these little love knots but it was the time of my life nonetheless!

Hungry travel writers line up for lunch at Le Al Re de Tortellino.

Scrumptious homemade pasta fills the cases inside Al Re de Tortellino.

Carefully, we folded the tiny squares in half sealing in the filling. Then with index fingers and thumbs, this is not easy, we grabbed the ends while we pinched the filling and folded one on top of the other until it resembled our beloved tortellini. My first few attempts didn't quite cut it, but after a few more practice runs, I was on my way to becoming the next Tortellini King; and just in time, because the King just happened to stop by to see how we were doing.

Making homemade tortellini.

The NEW Tortellini King?

Another perspective of one of three medieval mills perched above the River Mincio.

Le Ali del Frassino

Le Ali del Frassino was at one time a dilapidated villa and over five years of restorations, it was transformed into the sprawling resort and spa within the Lake Frassino nature reserve.

In the heart of the Veneto region and within minutes of Lake Garda, Le Ali del Frassino Resort, Restaurant and Spa is a destination unto itself. After five years of renovations, a dilapidated villa was transformed into the sprawling resort and spa within the Lake Frassino nature reserve. While on tour in the Veneto region, I was fortunate to have spent one luxurious evening here that included dinner at Ardea Purpurea, and accommodations in of their magnificent Executive Rooms.

Exquisitely hand-painted murals of the local flora and fauna decorate the rooms.

Rustic charm abounds at Le Ali del Frassino.

Decorating each of the 92 rooms and suites are exquisitely hand-painted murals of the local flora and fauna and the rest of the spaces are filled with fine furnishings designed to welcome you home in luxurious surroundings.

One of three swimming pools with a spectacular lake view, whirlpool feature and even a grotto! Kids will love having their own pool too!

Health and wellness reign supreme in the world-class spa and while your body is experiencing a little bit of heaven, enjoy the natural surroundings of the lake and wildlife. Also, the resort features three swimming pools, whirlpool and even a grotto.

Exterior view of the Ristorante Ardea at Le Ali del Frassino.

Sunrise view of Lake Frassino from my room 102!

While I am not one who seeks luxury experiences when I travel, there are those who do and Le Ali del Frassino hits all the marks. For me, it was an unexpected surprise of luxury, nature and old-world charm combined into one unforgettable experience! And wait until you indulge in the culinary delights. I could easily have stayed there a week!

Now, see it for yourself!

Only 1 mile from Peschiera del Garda, Le Ali Del Frassino is your paradise while you explore the best of Veneto!

Special Thanks

My heartfelt thanks to Anna Paola Antonini and her colleague Alessandra from Valeggio sul Mincio Tourism; Katia and Marianna from Al Re del Tortellino; Lorenzo from Visit Mantua; Katia from Le Ali del Frassino and the Verona Tourism Board for kindly hosting our company of journalists on this cultural immersion in the traditions and flavors of the region!
In my experience, the application from outside Canada will be processed by the closest embassy - not to the country from which you apply, but to the country for which you hold a passport. This is not something you decide, and processing times will be based on that Embassy's processing times. However, if you are currently in Germany you can have your medical records check done in Germany and you can physically send you application from Germany to Canada.
hello! I recently moved from nyc to Egypt, I am originally Sudanese but I've lived abroad all 24 years of my life. I was hoping someone would tell me more about their experiences here, or where I can go to meet new people. it's definitely not like new York where you can stumble into a place and it not be weird if you strike up convo with others. I know expats tend to stick together (British people at bca, others at their respective clubs) but is there a place where everyone just kinda goes to hang out? this is my last ditch effort I've looked everywhere! thanks in advance.
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Thanks alot for your answer kdsb,Yes it's the non-lucrative visa, thanks for the correction.We went to both a consulate and a sub-consulate here in Argentina and got essentially contradictory info, especially W/R/T whether I can work freelance. The two sticking points are that since I'm freelance, it's not clear if my income will qualify as "regular income", and furthermore some of my clients are in Spain, so I'm not sure whether working for them whilst in Spain would be frowned upon. Either way, in order to meet the financial threshold (only halfway there) we would either need to include my 401k or have my freelance income counted as valid.My thought about the primary applicant aspect was that perhaps if my wife was the primary applicant, might there be less scrutiny as to where my income comes from? Or could it be the reverse, with my income being an asset in our favour? I might just be over-thinking this.I used to live in Boston; too bad I can't head to the consulate there
Friday, September 9, 2016

(NewsUSA) - Sponsored News - Agricultural accidents remain a crucial issue for farmers in the United States. However, Nationwide, a top farm insurer, is taking action to help prevent tragedy in the event of an accident. The company supports Grain Bin Safety Week, which calls attention to the importance of specialized training for first responders to aid farmers and other agricultural workers who may become trapped in a grain bin.

In conjunction with the Grain Bin Safety Week events, Nationwide sponsored a "Nominate Your Fire Department" contest to promote awareness of agricultural safety. Now in its third year, the 2016 contest generated 641 nominations and selected 19 fire departments from 14 states to receive rescue tubes and training.

"Thanks to the generous and increasing support of our partners, who help the contest continue to grow each year," says Nationwide Agribusiness President Brad Liggett. "While accident prevention is our No. 1 goal, we're committed to helping equip first responders with the necessary grain rescue equipment and training."

Each winning department receives a grain rescue tube and training in specialized extraction techniques to help rescue workers in a grain bin.

Dan Neenan, director of the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS), provides the hands-on rescue training using a state-of-the-art grain entrapment simulator that holds approximately 100 bushels of grain.

Over the past three years, Nationwide has awarded rescue tubes and training programs to 32 fire departments, and they have seen the effectiveness of the program. In 2015, the Westphalia Fire Department in Westphalia, Kansas, one of the winners from the contest's first year, used their tube and training in a successful grain bin rescue.

"A huge thank you to Nationwide and all who contributed to the contest's success," says Al Wessek, chief of the Dyersville Fire Department and one of the 2016 award winners. "The tube and training gives us the opportunity to bring an emergency situation back to some sense of normalcy."

Sponsors of the 2016 Nominate Your Fire Department contest include CHS, West Side Salvage, GSI, KFSA, M.F. Block Insurance, Barry Walker Agency, ABIS, KC Supply Co Inc., Scoular Co., Arthur J. Gallagher, The Mennel Milling Company Sukup Grain Handling, Drying and Storage Equipment, Sump Saver, National Education Center for Agricultural Safety and the National Farm Medicine Center.

For more information, please visit www.grainbinsafetyweek.com.

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Friday, September 9, 2016

Community Friday: Making A Bigger Impact in Society

Valeri Bocage CEO

Powerful Women International Connections

We had a tremendous time at the PWIC Global Impact Conference, August 18-19, in San Francisco, CA. The two day conference was filled with excitement, connections, energy, and enthusiasm. We featured all of our humanitarian projects to make the world a better place, especially for our children.

Justina Page, provided this testimonial: I now know I have the right ideas and collaborative partners in place to build the Amos House for burn survivors. The conference gave me the added confidence and strategic insight I needed for moving forward.

As our keynote speaker, Carrie Nikitin, presented PWICs National Prison Project to reduce recidivism. Attendees listened intently and joined in the discussion. Several female leaders attended who have projects developing for the incarcerated. This resulted in new collaborations formed focused on making a bigger impact with the prisons and the newly released.

We also discussed our global project to rebuild the school/orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya that we have adopted. Like magic, new collaborations formed to make a bigger impact with the school.

Powerful male leaders joined in for the two days as well. Nicholas Zaldastani spoke about how men can add to the value of womens projects to make a bigger impact in society. As a result, the men and women began collaborating to expand each others humanitarian projects. Magic? Yes, it seemed like it was magical. But, in all honesty, it was the best group of passionate leaders I have ever witnessed. All seemed hungry to work together, to make a bigger impact. It was food for the soul!

Nicholas Zaldastani Speaking about the power of women and that\ of men and women working together to make a Bigger Impact to change lives of others.

The magic continued as our members who were panelists and exhibitors shared with the audience insights about their individual projects. These projects include stopping human trafficking, empowering developing countries, working to improve underprivileged communities, building a facility for families of burn survivors, and much more. The collaboration just flowed and flowed. It seemed endless for the connections that were made.

Pam Terry from Houston, TX and Delia Horwitz from California were the emcees each day. They brought their expertise, mastery, and wisdom to the conference leading the attendees through the panel discussions and group dialogue. This encouraged further collaboration for each project. They were part of the magic too!

Experts such as Dr. Denise Strong from New Orleans provided her wisdom on nonprofit structure. She also helped to start the Global Impact Conference for PWIC when we began creating it a couple of years ago. Elinor Stutz, internationally known best-selling author, shared her skills of powerfully building relationships online. Social media strategy was taught for members to boost their projects in order to help more people. She has also been working behind the scenes to build the community worldwide for PWIC. Elinor brought her husband to the conference. He commented that this was the best and most inspiring conference he had ever attended!

On Thursday evening, at the end of our first day of connections and collaborations, the San Francisco Police Departments Sergeant Steven Pomatto and his colleague, Officer Phil Helmer, joined Najjiyya Arnold, former body guard to Muhammad Ali, and her associate, Adrienne Jones, owner of Soaring Eagles Taekwondo in Vallejo, CA. Their purpose was to teach self-defense training. The training was presented to prepare our members who work late in the evenings. These include risk prone areas, such as bad neighborhoods, and prisons. Of course, we had to change into more appropriate attire for the training. We learned so much! We learned about the power of your voice, how to walk confidently, subtle maneuvers to defend yourself, tools to use and not use, and strategy. The entire self-defense training built our confidence. It was emphasized that confidence alone is your first line of defense.

The conference was a lot of work to create and well worth it. The connections we made and the projects that will grow are immeasurable. We will be monitoring the projects, tracking the many lives we will improve, and share the updates. We will also share how many initiatives we accomplish over the next 12 months. When we meet next year at the Global Impact Conference August 10-11, 2017 in San Francisco Bay Area, we will reveal the progress. Finally, we will create more collaborations and connections to continue to grow the power of impact.

We are changing the world, making it better, and would love for you to join us!

You can join us and/or contribute to our effort to change the world, making it better for all, especially children, by contributing to Our GoFundMe campaign. Thank you in Advance!

Left to Right: Panelists Doris Mangrum, Dr. Veronica Hunnicutt, Najjiyya Arnold, Dr. Louann Tung, and Pam Terry, emcee, discuss their various humanitarian projects with the audience. PWIC Making a Bigger Impact in Society

Officer Phil Helmer and Sergeant Steven Pomotto of the San Francisco Police Department give women self-defense techniques.

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Farmers Union of Wales has met with the Minister of State for Exiting the European Union, David Jones MP, to talk about farmers concerns.

The union discussed the "critical risk" to trade negotiations that the existing level of bovine TB present.

"Ive no doubt that this issue is now also critical to British Ministers as they seek to develop long-term trade relations post-Brexit," said FUW President Glyn Roberts.

David Jones MP was said to be highly supportive of the need to ensure that views of Welsh farmers were recognised during any negotiations about future support for agriculture.

"It is very good news for us that there are UK Government Ministers with detailed understanding and knowledge of the unique challenges that Welsh farms face.

"We will work with them, and others, to ensure that the voice of Welsh farms are heard and understood in the coming months.

"The FUW has a critical role to play in the coming months and years to ensure that the voice of Welsh farms is clearly heard in London.

"We know that the farmers in Wales face very different challenges to those in England and other parts of the UK and it is the duty of the FUW to ensure that equal hearing is given, so that we achieve settlements for Wales that meet those needs," said Mr Roberts.

Both sides agreed that there was a significant amount of work to be done in order to develop the clarity that everyone is seeking, but agreed to develop plans through dialogue over the coming weeks and months.

"We were pleased to hear the positive comments from Prime Minister Theresa May in support of the food and farming sector in the first Prime Ministers Questions since the summer recess," added the Union President.
New testing released today has revealed extremely high levels of antibiotic-resistant E.coli bacteria found in UK supermarket chicken and pork meat.

Carried out by scientists at Cambridge University, and commissioned by the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, the tests looked at 189 UK-origin pig and poultry meat samples from the seven largest supermarkets in the UK.

The research found soaring levels of resistance in chicken meat, with 24% of samples testing positive for ESBL E. coli, a type of E. coli resistant to the critically important modern cephalosporin antibiotics.

This is four times higher than was found during a similar study in 2015, in which just 6% of chicken tested positive for ESBL E. coli.

Modern cephalosporins are widely used for treating life-threatening E.coli blood poisoning in humans.

The study is the first to examine UK-origin retail meat for resistance to a wide range of important antibiotics

The study is the first to examine UK-origin retail meat for resistance to a wide range of important antibiotics for treating E. coli infections.

It found very high levels of resistance to two more highly important antibiotics.

51% of the E. coli from pork and poultry samples were resistant to the antibiotic trimethoprim, which is used to treat over half of lower urinary-tract infections.

In addition, 19% of the E. coli were resistant to gentamicin, an important human antibiotic used to treat more serious upper urinary-tract infections.

Mass medication of livestock

The study tested for the presence of E. coli which are resistant to the key antibiotics for treating E. coli urinary-tract and blood-poisoning infections in people.

The highly resistant ESBL E. coli was found on meat from all of the supermarkets.

The findings provide further evidence that the overuse of antibiotics used to medicate livestock on British farms is likely to be undermining the treatment of E. coli urinary-tract and blood-poisoning infections in humans.

No new antibiotics have been discovered for treating E. coli for 35 years

Some of the antibiotics tested are used in far greater quantities in livestock farming than in human medicine.

Emma Rose of the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics said the findings show the level of antibiotic resistance on retail meat is "worse than expected."

"Supermarkets must now publicly commit to polices which prohibit the routine mass-medication of groups of healthy animals, and take immediate steps to reduce farm use of the Critically Important drugs," Mr Rose said.

'Need for improvements'

Dr Mark Holmes, from Cambridge University, who led the study, said he is concerned that insufficient resources are being put into the surveillance of antibiotic resistance in farm animals and retail meat.

"We dont know if these levels are rising or falling in the absence of an effective monitoring system," Dr Holmes said.

"These results highlight the need for improvements in antibiotic stewardship in veterinary medicine.

"While some progress has been made we must not be complacent as it may take many years before we see significant reductions in the numbers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in farms," Dr Holmes concluded.

E-coli is by far the most common cause of urinary-tract infections and of blood poisoning. These infections must be treated with antibiotics.

Figures compiled by the Alliance from official data show that the number of E. coli blood-poisoning infections has been increasing for the past 25 years and reached a record 45,666 in 2015.

The increase is partly being driven by increasing resistance to key antibiotics in urinary-tract infections, resulting in more treatment failures and in some cases the development of serious blood-poisoning infections.

No new antibiotics have been discovered for treating E. coli for 35 years.

'Routine dosing of animals'

Increasing scientific evidence from a wide range of studies shows that the routine dosing of animals on intensive farms is an important contributor to the problem.

Dr Ron Daniels BEM, CEO of the UK Sepsis Trust said the study highlights a "worrying trend" towards rising resistance in E.coli on UK retail meat.

"E.coli in people is the greatest cause of deaths from sepsis, and poor antimicrobial stewardship in intensive farming is undoubtedly contributing to this trend," Dr Daniels said.

"It's of paramount importance that we act decisively to reduce this immediate threat to human life."

The Alliance has raised the issue of farm-antibiotic use with all major retailers over the last few years.

The organisation says it has seen positive progress from Waitrose, who in 2015 stated that antibiotics would not be used for routine prophylaxis within its supply chains.

In August 2016, Waitrose updated their policy to also state that they are working towards significant year on year reductions in usage of all antibiotics, and have pledged to end the use of all CIAs as soon as possible.

In response to the testing, the Alliance is calling for similar action from all UK supermarkets to tackle the use of antibiotics in their supply chains, by banning the routine preventative mass-medication of groups of animals, and dramatically curbing farm-use of the critically important antibiotics.

'Abusing medicines'

Peter Melchett, policy director at the Soil Association said: "These results show how vital it is to encourage farming systems that keep animals healthy without abusing medicines that are crucial to human health.

"Organic farmers have been doing this successfully for years. Supermarkets must act to protect public health and support farmers to change their farming systems."

Philip Lymbery, Compassion in World Farmings CEO, said the study reveals "our worst fears".

"Without a drastic change in the over-use of antibiotics on factory farms, we could be facing a post-antibiotic era.

"We must no longer sacrifice animal welfare for the sake of producing cheap meat," Mr Lymbery said.

Responding to findings, Keith Taylor, the Green Party MEP for the South East and the party's Animals spokesperson, said: "The systematic overuse of antibiotics driven by intensive farming is fuelling a public health emergency that campaigners are predicting will cost millions of lives."

"The report reinforces the need for any post-EU government to overhaul the way farm subsidies are paid.

"Any new subsidies should be designed to prioritise a transition away from intensive farming and towards an environmentally and ecologically sustainable agriculture industry," concluded Mr Taylor.
In the run up to the EU farm ministers meeting the agricultural sector have called for legislation to be introduced at EU level to combat unfair practices in food chain.

The meeting, held in Bratislava next week, EU agri-cooperative Copa & Cogeca have called for legislation to be introduced at EU level to combat unfair trading practices in the food chain and to ensure a fair return for producers.

Copa & Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen said: Farmers incomes across Europe are constantly being "squeezed".

"We believe that unfair trading practices can only be curbed by a combination of voluntary codes backed by legislation"

"The price the farmer gets often does not even cover his production costs," Mr Pesonen said.

"We need a fair, transparent and functioning food supply chain, we believe it is good for farmers, for processors and retailers  and above all for consumers.

"It is the only way to ensure a sustainable farming sector," he said.

'Fair price and paid on time'

Mr Pesonen said the sector needs contracts between producers, processors and retailers that are enforced to ensure farmers are given a fair price for their produce and are paid on time.

"Voluntary agreements alone do not work," he said.

"We believe that unfair trading practices can only be curbed by a combination of voluntary codes backed by legislation and supported by a robust enforcement system so that operators are fined when they break EU law.

"An ombudsman would impose the fines when the codes of good practice are broken.

"Different initiatives are currently in place at national level but we need rules at EU level that can be enforced as large retailers are increasingly pan-European and regulation in one country will not prevent abuse across borders.

"Spain has recently introduced legislation that works well and its a good model for the EU to build on.

"The EU Commission knows theres a problem and needs to come up with a proposal," Mr Pesonen concluded.
The vast majority of livestock produced in England and Wales are slaughtered in abattoirs with CCTV cameras, new figures suggest.

102 out of 207 red meat slaughterhouses (49.3 per cent) and 50 out of 71 white meat slaughterhouses (70.4 per cent) have some form of CCTV in use for animal welfare purposes.

This is similar to the 2015 survey, which showed 105 out of 215 red meat slaughterhouses (48.8 per cent) and 51 out of 72 white meat slaughterhouses (70.8 per cent) had some form of CCTV.

FSA estimate that in England and Wales 92 per cent of cattle, 96 per cent of pigs, 88 per cent of sheep and 99 cent of poultry throughput comes from premises with some form of CCTV in use.

'Monitoring and protecting animal welfare'

The FSA said the support of CCTV by business operators is part of the system for monitoring and protecting animal welfare.

"It does not replace direct oversight by management, or checks by officials, but it can improve their effectiveness," the FSA said.

"Whilst we have been encouraged by increase in use of CCTV in recent years the latest survey results appear to suggest that uptake may have plateaued.

"However, the FSA is well placed to continue to work with industry and Government partners to encourage further uptake."

The National Pig Association said the results are "encouraging" as they show the vast majority of pigs in the UK are slaughtered in premises with CCTV.

"This can only reassure the public about how the animals are treated in abattoirs," the organisation said.
What was it like to be an Oath Keeper? John Zimmerman can tell you

John Zimmerman said he was active with the Oath Keepers from September to November 2020, then left after a falling out with founder Stewart Rhodes.
Reese Witherspoon has paid a glowing birthday tribute to her daughter Ava.

Reese Witherspoon

The Oscar-winning actress has taken to Instagram to post a picture of her look-a-like daughter, who is 17 today (09.09.16), and to publish a heartfelt message.

Reese wrote: "Can't believe my baby is 17 today! I love you, @avaphillippe Your gorgeous heart and loving spirit never cease to amaze me! I'm so lucky the universe let me be your mother. (sic)"

Meanwhile, the blonde beauty - who shares her teenage daughter with her ex-husband, actor Ryan Phillippe - recently opened up about her spiritual beliefs.

Reese said: "I truly believe you're on a spiritual path that is yourself. We're born alone and we die alone.

"I think we go to heaven. I think you get an angel and the wings and a halo and the thing and all that."

The Hollywood actress also claimed to have seen the ghost of her late grandfather while she was performing on stage in New York.

She explained: "This is just me, I really believe it.

"I've had car accidents, I've given birth to babies, I swear my grandparents are in the room. I've seen my grandfather in a theatre in New York when I was on the stage. I know it."

She also revealed her dislike for those people who use religion to promote "intolerance" and "hate".

Reese said: "I grew up, obviously, in the South and there is amazing, wonderful connectivity and people are loving and communitive.

"But there is a tiny aspect of it, people [that] use parts of the Bible in order to express their intolerance and their hate and they manipulate it."
Terrence Howard's son Hero is his "new favourite".

Terrence Howard

The Hollywood actor and his wife Miranda Pak welcomed their new son in August and he has admitted being a father of young boys is a life-changing experience.

Terrence - who also has a 16-month-old son called Qirin Love with his wife, as well as three other children from a previous relationship - shared: "He's changed my life. He's my everything. He's my new favourite."

However, the 47-year-old star was quick to point out that his definition of the word was based on the needs of the child.

He told 'Live with Kelly': "You know, we do have favourites as parents! The one that needs us the most becomes our favourite."

The Empire' actor is also a grandfather and has revealed his grandchildren have come up with nicknames for his younger two sons.

Terrence shared: "I've got a four-year-old granddaughter and I've got a two-year-old grandson, and they call Hero and Qirin 'Baby Uncle."

Last year, meanwhile, Terrence won his spousal support battle with Michelle Ghent, who he was married to from 2010 until 2013.

Terrence sought to get his divorce settlement from his second wife - who he married in January 2010, but split from 11 months later - thrown out on grounds he signed it under duress and a Los Angeles Superior Court judge sided with his claim.

Michelle had wanted the actor to pay more than his current $5,800-a-month agreement because of his success on 'Empire', but the judge agreed she had blackmailed him with threats of releasing naked photos and videos.

However, the judge also admonished the Hollywood star over allegations of domestic abuse while delivering the ruling.

The judge said: "Terrence is a bully, but that doesn't mean he can't be bullied."
Lucy Watson has officially quit 'Made in Chelsea'.

Lucy Watson

The 25-year-old beauty recently skipped the show's spin-off in the south of France and has now confirmed she has quit the programme for good.

A spokesperson said: "After four amazing years on Made in Chelsea, Lucy feels that now is the right time to explore some other exciting opportunities and projects that she is passionate about.

"Being part of such a successful show has been an incredible experience for her, and she wishes everyone involved all the very best for the future."

The announcement comes shortly after Lucy's friend Frankie Gaff revealed she was taking time away from the spotlight to concentrate on her relationship with her boyfriend James Dunmore, who she has been dating since 2015.

Frankie told BANG Showbiz: "Lucy's not going to be in the next series. At the moment she's decided not to because she's loved up."

Lucy's last appearance on 'Made in Chelsea' saw her clash with her best friend Stephanie Pratt after she "dumped" her for her boyfriend-at-the-time Josh Shepherd.

Lucy - who joined the show in 2012 - previously said: "We don't talk anymore. Last year was a very difficult year for me because she essentially dumped me for her boyfriend at the time [Josh Shepherd] as he didn't like me. When something like that happens you don't forget."

Lucy subsequently received heavy criticism for the way she handled the situation, but later hit back at her critics.

She explained: "It's very easy to make me out to be the villain because I don't think before I speak. I know I can have a vicious tongue at times people shouldn't jump to conclusions before they know the whole story."


Its surprising that for many of us the neck is one large blindspot, considering it is so close to the face. Neither makeup nor nourishing skin creams reach this very important zip code of our body. Its all the more alarming because the skin of the neck is one of the first areas to start showing signs of aging. If your face is like porcelain and your neck has the first signs of tree-ring lines, this is for you. Unless, of course, you want to spend the rest of your life in turtleneck tees!



The skin on your neck is extremely fine, quite like the skin under your eyes. Use gentle products that you would use for your face. Dont miss the neck in your skincare routine. What goes on the face must extend to the neck too.



Another factor that causes the neck to show early signs of aging is that the skin here is prone to dryness. Dont miss the SPF cream that you use on your face and apply liberally on the column of your neck, both back and front.



Regular facials with intense moisturising creams will address the problems that this area is prone totree-ring lines that appear across the neck, tech neck (that comes from looking down at your phone or computer), sagging and wrinkling. Watch your weight; else excess weight can lead to rolls of fat accumulating on your neck.



Face yoga: Ema Trinidad, a skincare expert from Bangalore who recommends facial yoga as an anti-aging solution, says that this form of yoga stretches the neck, jaw, chin and muscles of the face to keep them strong and supple while delaying aging.

Next Story : Not Your Average Gift: Our Handpicked Thoughtful Diwali Gifts
Following the resignation of David Sharp, president and chief executive officer at apparel and footwear marketer Rocky Brands, the company has named Mike Brooks, chairman of the board of directors as interim chief executive officer. Mike Brooks will serve as interim chief executive officer till the time Rocky Brands finds a replacement for David Sharp.Brooks had previously served as the chief executive officer of the company from August 1991 to July 2011.

Following the resignation of David Sharp, president and chief executive officer at apparel and footwear marketer Rocky Brands, the company has named Mike Brooks, chairman of the board of directors as interim chief executive officer. Mike Brooks will serve as interim chief executive officer till the time Rocky Brands finds a replacement for David Sharp.#

Rocky Brands is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of footwear and apparel marketed under a portfolio of brand names like Rocky, Georgia Boot, Durango, Lehigh, Creative Recreation and the licensed brand Michelin. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Japanese specialty fibres producer Asahi Kasei is exhibiting at Premiere Vision trade show and will be showcasing fabric innovations produced from its Cupro fibre at booth 6C-62 and 6D-63. Cupro is a refined material that creates an exquisite and sensual silk like touch fabric, with great moisture control that's anti-static and gentle on the skin.According to the company, leading European fabric mills are now offering innovations in Cupro, that expands the creative choices on offer, not only in its leadership role in luxury linings but also creating a new vocabulary of forward fashion.

Japanese specialty fibres producer Asahi Kasei is exhibiting at Premiere Vision trade show and will be showcasing fabric innovations produced from its Cupro fibre at booth 6C-62 and 6D-63. Cupro is a refined material that creates an exquisite and sensual silk like touch fabric, with great moisture control that's anti-static and gentle on the skin.#

Asahi Kasei has seen premium brands like Wolford, Diesel, MM6 Maison Margiela and Deha use fabrics made from the Cupro fibre in its collections. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Over 6,000 buyers from the fashion industry visited the 23rd edition of Milano Unica, the Italian textiles and accessories trade show held September 6-8, 2016 in Milan, a number flat over the earlier edition. The show hosted 442 exhibitors showcasing Fashion/Winter 2017-2018 collections and who came from various regions and countries like Japan and Korea.The organiser took extreme care to have a new, more rigorous, invitation-based selection criterion, which put a stronger focus on buyers, which in their opinion, led to improved results for exhibitors, in terms of the number of contacts they made.

Over 6,000 buyers from the fashion industry visited the 23rd edition of Milano Unica, the Italian textiles and accessories trade show held September 6-8, 2016 in Milan, a number flat over the earlier edition. The show hosted 442 exhibitors showcasing Fashion/Winter 2017-2018 collections and who came from various regions and countries like Japan and Korea. #

I can say that we have successfully passed the test relative to move the show to the new Fieramilano Rho fair grounds, along with the revision of our proposal, Massimo Mosiello, general manager of Milano Unica said.The numerous and complex organisational innovations, including the layout were realised thanks to the prompt response received from all suppliers and in particular, the collaboration with Fiera Milano and Nolostand, he added. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Pakistan's Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) has reduced cotton production estimates for cotton season 2016-17 by 20 per cent, bringing it down to 11.27 million bales (of 170 kg each) from the earlier estimate of 14.1 million bales. The estimate has been revised due to dip in area under cotton cultivation as farmers have shifted to growing other crops.

Punjab, the main cotton producing state, is estimated to produce 7.5 million bales instead of 9.5 million bales projected earlier. Similarly, Sindh's estimate now stands at 3.73 million bales down from 4.5 million bales. Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are estimated to grow 0.038 million bales and 0.001 million bales, respectively.

CCAC conducted its first meeting for this season with the ministry of textile industry in order to gauge the volume and area under cotton cultivation. It was mentioned that the overall sowing area in the country has decreased by 15 per cent compared to the previous season. In Punjab itself, the sowing area has gone down by 15 per cent. However, Sindh has reported a 2 per cent increase in the same.

Pakistan's Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) has reduced cotton production estimates for cotton season 2016-17 by 20 per cent, bringing it down to 11.27 million bales (of 170 kg each) from the earlier estimate of 14.1 million bales. The estimate has been revised due to dip in area under cotton cultivation as farmers have shifted to growing other crops.#

Last season, Pakistan missed its cotton production target by 30 per cent and its output decreased to 10 million bales. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
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Putting to rest all rumors, Global Citizen Festival (an annual not-for-profit music festival that started in the US in 2012) has confirmed that Coldplay will perform in Mumbai, in their first ever concert in India, in November.

But here's the real good news. The social media blitzkrieg that followed after rumours of tickets costing upwards of Rs 25,000 was absolutely untrue because the tickets to the concert are free.

Here is Global Citizen Festival's official statement, from their website:

"Were so excited to be announcing that on World Toilet Day  November 19th  were hosting the first-ever Global Citizen Festival in India, with an incredible lineup of international and Indian headliners including  Coldplay! Just like our annual festival in Central Park, tickets to the Indian Festival will be FREE. Fans will earn them through taking actions in support of education, equality, and sanitation campaigns."

Here's the process.

From 10 September (Monday), tickets to the Global Citizen Festival in India can be procured by signing up to become a Global Citizen and completing the festivals action campaigns. This could include some charity and volunteer work, but we'll have more clarity soon.

Coldplay aren't going to be the only ones who are a part of the festival. According to this Billboard report, Aamir Khan, A R Rahman, Farhan Akhtar are also expected.

So, gear up for this Monday. It isn't going to be so blue after all.

"Our whole goal was to have 70 percent Indian artists -- we wanted to make sure that it was India first and India and the world. We plan to host the festival in different cities in India every year for the next fifteen years as an annual accountability moment," says Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans

Here's what Twitter had to say about the announcement:

"Coldplay tickets are too expensive" "If you do charity work, they're free" "25,000 is not that bad!"#ColdplayIndia  Daniel Fernandes (@absolutelydanny) September 10, 2016

Come on!! @Coldplay ARE headlining @GlblCtzn Festival in India n tix r FREE &in aid of ending poverty.This is imp! https://t.co/e72V4Gom8H  PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) September 9, 2016

Coldplay tickets are free.

But you need to do tasks to get them.

I'm confused.

Am I going to a concert or Roadies?  Sahil Shah (@SahilBulla) September 9, 2016

Great news @coldplay playing in Mumbai on 19 Nov. Now, which religion is going to ban the concert? Who is filing the PIL?  KHAU (@rockyandmayur) September 10, 2016
Amancio Ortega, the 80-year-old founder of fashion group Inditex that owns Zara, overtook Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the world's richest man for just two days last week on account of a rise in share prices of his company, said a report in Forbes. The ranking is based on the real time net worth.

The stock of Spain-based Inditex, the world's biggest retailer which operates over 7,000 stores in 91 countries, rose 2.5 percent on Wednesday lifting his wealth by $1.7 billion, according to the report. The shares fell on Friday morning by 2.8 percent. However, as per the real time data now, net worth of Ortega stands at $78 billion as on Friday and that of Gates at $77.4 billion.

Apart from Zara, which is its flagship store, Inditex also owns Zara Home, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Oysho and Pull and Bear. This is not the first time that Ortega, son of a railway worker, has overtaken Gates as the richest man.

It was in October 2015 that he overtook Gates for the first time to be the world's richest. According to a Reuters profile of the reclusive retailer genius, "the brief appearance of Ortega at the summit of the Forbes "real time" global rich list (then) was hailed in Spain as a milestone".

In the profile, Reuters said Ortega turned Zara into a byword in chic for the money-conscious, transforming the apparel business with its "fast fashion" model. Affordable imitations of catwalk designs can move from drawing-board to stores within two weeks, and poor sellers are pulled off the shop floor even quicker.

Ortega is seen a rare self-made mogul. He started his professional life at 14 as a delivery boy with a shirtmaker in the wind-swept northern city of Coruna. Within a few years he had set up a workshop making nightgowns, lingerie and babywear, and the first Zara opened in Spain in 1975.

Ortega never gives interviews and is rarely photographed. He did not even attend the inaugural ringing of the stock market bell at the Madrid exchange when Inditex floated in 2001.

In person, Ortega is a persuasive and enthusiastic businessman, who despite progressively handing over the day-to-day management of the company over the last decade continues as an active part of it, people familiar with Inditex say.

He is known for selecting designs based on feedback from shop assistants who zero in on shoppers' reactions.

"If he speaks to a shop assistant and he likes what they had to say, he will pay more attention to that than to any of his managers," a former Inditex director told Reuters.

The Reuters report said Ortega's majority stake in Inditex is held through another company, Pontegadea Inversiones, which Ortega has also used to channel the steady flow of dividends and build up a real estate portfolio.

Another report in Reuters in July 2016 citing corporate filings said Ortega held more than 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in prime real estate assets at the end of 2015.

His real estate investment arm, Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, booked assets of 6.06 billion euros at the end of 2015, up 8.3 percent from the previous year, making it one of the biggest property companies in Spain.

According to Reuters, Ortega consolidated most of his private interests into holding company Pontegadea Inversiones last December, with him at its helm and his wife Flora Perez and a close business partner listed as his vice-chairmen.

Pontegadea Inversiones, which holds a 50.01 percent stake in Inditex alongside billions of euros in real estate investments, had income of 810 million euros in 2015 from Inditex dividends, up 5.2 percent on the previous year, the corporate filings show.

In total, Ortega's controlling stake in Inditex amounts to 59.29 percent, with a stake of just over 9 percent held separately to Pontegadea Inversiones.

Using massive dividend payouts from Inditex, which have nearly doubled over the last five years, Ortega has made largely debt-free purchases of prime buildings from London to New York, becoming a major commercial real estate player over that period.

"All the buildings he buys are in prime districts. It's a steady, reliable income stream, almost like a sovereign bond," Carles Vergara, finance professor at IESE Business School, told Reuters.

Ortega's first big real estate purchase was Torre Picasso, an office building in Madrid, bought in 2011 around the time he handed the daily running of the world's biggest clothing retailer to chief executive officer Pablo Isla.

Since then he has bought properties including an office block in London's Mayfair; a stretch of London's prime shopping drag Oxford Street; and the historic cast-iron clad E.V. Haughwout Building in SoHo, New York, which housed a world- famous cut glass and porcelain store in the 19th century and featured the world's first passenger elevator.

Ortega not only rents out his commercial property to Inditex stores like Zara and upmarket label Massimo Dutti at market rates, but also to rivals such as H&M of Sweden and Gap of the United States.

With Reuters
Chennai: Just retired RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's clean-up of more than $ 100 billion of stressed assets on the books of banks on Saturday came in for praise from President Pranab Mukherjee who felt rising NPAs are not a desirable situation.

"Of course more than often you listen to NPAs of banking system, which is no doubt a matter of concern. And Governor of RBI who has just retired, Mr Rajan, took many appropriate steps to put the system in the right direction," he said at the centenary celebrations of Karur Vysya Bank here.

The stressed advances to gross advances of scheduled commercial banks have increased from 10.90 per cent in March 2015 to 11.40 per cent in March 2016, he said, adding the aggregate provisions for NPAs has increased from Rs 73,887 crore to Rs 1,70,630 crore.

Also, net profits of the banks have come down from Rs 79,465 crore in March 2015 to Rs 32,285 crore in March 2016, he said.

Rising NPAs is "not a desirable situation," he said, adding those resources must be available for commercial disbursement.

Rajan, who completed his three-year term as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India on 4 September, had forced banks to recognize the true state of their bad loans. This culminated in a six-month asset-quality review that led to banks reporting a surge in bad-debt disclosures and higher losses this year.

Mukherjee said Indian economy and its banking system has done reasonable well considering "indiscretion of a private bank (abroad) could create such an international financial crisis from which world is yet to recover."

Forecasts of the IMF and World Bank are revised and re-revised year after year because world economy is hit by one after another crisis and overall performance of major economies of world are not so bright and prosperous, he said.

"Everybody at that point of time pointed out that when the major banking institutions in international arena were suffering, Indian banking system stood firmly and solidly because of its prudent management not indulging in some sort of profligation. I am happy to note that because of the basic foundations, and strength of our macroeconomic indices, Indian economy is doing reasonably well," he said.

Mukherjee further said the areas of concern in banking system today are substantially in the NPA.

"This has resulted in an increased stressed assets and ... profitability," he said. "Therefore the resources available for credit disbursement by the commercial banks has been seriously affected and this is not a very desirable situation."

"Because with the growing economy you require credit expansion. Credit expansion must take place prudently, bank management must have prudence in lending so that it does not enter into their NPA accumulation. But on the overall, I must say that the Indian banking system has done well," the President said.

He said banks are the trustee of depositors money and its their utmost responsibility to protect the money of those persons who have imposed trust on in them as banker.
Chandigarh: If the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP goverment in Haryana on Saturday finds itself in a soup over its strange decision to test samples of biryani in Muslim dominated Mewat district of Haryana to find out if they contain beef, it has itself to blame. Just a few days before the Muslim festival of Bakrid, the government move has generated a lot of controversy and ill-will.

The opposition has squarely blamed the BJP government in the state of disturbing the communal harmony. Only a few months ago the Jat reservation agitation had created a lot of violence and destruction in Haryana when the Jats were pitted against backward communities.

Cow slaughter and consumption of beef is a criminal offence in Haryana. In 2015, the BJP government in the state enforced Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gau Samvardhan Act 2015 making cow slaughter punishable with rigorous imprisonment of up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh to the offender of the law.

Earlier the Haryana government had received some complaints that beef was being served in meals in Mewat. So on 24 August, the government issued orders to collect biryani samples from hotels to check whether beef was being served in shops and markets. Seven biryani samples were collected from food stalls for laboratory test.

Incidentally all seven samples of biryani collected by the Mewat police were alleged to have been found positive for beef reportedly at the Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (LLRU). However, there was no official confirmation of the report yet.

However, Khattar said it was yet to be found out if the collected samples contained beef. Mewat district officials are a bit circumspect on the controversial issue now. Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma said the campaign for the collection of samples of biryani was run by Gau Seva Ayog chairman Bhani Ram Mangla.

A Hindustan Times report quoted Mewat animal husbandry departments deputy director Narender Kumar saying more samples would be collected if such complaints were received again. The polices Cow Protection Task Force (CPTF) has spruced up its network of informers in areas where beef consumption is suspected to be high, official sources said according to the report.

Meanwhile talking to the media in Chandigarh on Friday, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said in the light of the fact findings, the concerned officers have been asked to take action as per law.

"The police officers are in charge of implementing the law. It is part of their duty to check that beef is not consumed as it is illegal in Haryana. Strict action will be taken against the offenders," said Vij.

At a joint press conference in Chandigarh, both former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former minister Randeep Singh Surjewala condemned the state governments move to check biryani samples. "The BJP government in Haryana is trying to divide communities on the lines of religion. We condemn this move in the strongest possible manner," said Hooda.

"The BJP has always been indulging in sinister conspiracy to persecute and prosecute people with an aim to divide the society," said Surjewala.

Leader of opposition in Haryana and Indian National Lok Dals senior leader Abhay Singh Chautala also condemned the governments action. "The BJP government is raising the issue of beef to divide communities and disturb peace in the state," he said. The CPM also condemned the BJP governments move.

CPTF, nodal officer, Bharti Arora said she could not comment on the report of lab test as she had not seen it.

"We received some reports and went ahead to confirm it. We have no intention of snooping in any kitchen unless we get specific complaints," said Bharti.

Meanwhile the Mewat Vikas Sabha has threatening to make Mewat 'cow-free'. The district lawyers are also planning a PIL against the attempt to disrupt communal harmony of the district.
Patna: BJP on Saturday termed ensured release of RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail as 'well planned strategy' of the Nitish Kumar government and said it would stage dharna in Bihar on 14 September to protest against it.

"It is a managed bail. It is a government's well planned strategy which cleared the way of Shahabuddin in securing bail," senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said.

The Patna High Court on 7 September granted bail to former Siwan MP Shahabuddin in the murder case of two brothers of whom the elder one, Rajiv Roshan, was a witness in the killing of two brothers in 2004 in Siwan.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said the government could neither begin trial of Rajiv Roshan murder case within nine months as per the High Court's direction, nor engaged top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's bail.

The Patna High Court had on 3 February directed the state government to conclude trial of the case preferably within nine months, Modi said quoting the court's order, the copy of which was distributed among media persons.

If the state government wished to start trial, it could have done so via video-conferencing from Bhagalpur where Shahabuddin was lodged, he said.

But it did not begin trial through video-conferencing nor committed the case to Sessions court when Shahabuddin was in Siwan before being shifted to Bhagalpur jail.

"The government's failure to start trial led to Shahabuddin getting bail," Modi said while quoting the High Court's September 7 order that "there is no progress in the trial and considering the period of detention, petitioner (Shahabuddin) is directed to be released on bail."

The state government also did not engage any top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's case as it had done in other major cases in the past, he said and named several cases and the lawyers the state had hired.

The government has powers to impose Crime Control Act on hardcore criminals if it feels that release of a particular person could disturb public order as it was done in the case of Independent MLA Anant Singh, Modi said.

On Shahabuddin's statement that Nitish Kumar is a "Chief Minister of circumstances", Modi said he was right as Kumar with less number of MLAs is the CM while RJD with more seats is the junior partner.

Shahabuddin probably meant to say that RJD could get the CM's post in future, he said.

BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party would protest Shahabuddin's release across the state on 14 September.
Lets talk about why I love Tamil and Tamil Nadu for a bit.

As a Kannadiga in Bangalore, it may seem like a risky thing to do today, given all the protests over sharing Cauvery with Tamil Nadu. But hear me out. Every Tamilian has a strong sense of identity. There is a love for the language and their culture, but this is not coming at the cost of having to hate some other language. Yes, they protest when the central government tries to shove Hindi down their throats, but those protests are driven more by a need to keep Tamil Nadu, Tamil and not out of any hate for Hindi.

Just see how in the past few years, it has become very common among young people there to jokingly add "ji" to various names. Their movies have better production values, the popularity of their stars is genuine, and heck, they even make better memes out there on the Internet than any other language group. Chennai is a lot like Bangalore (except the weather, of course), in that it has always been cosmopolitan with large groups of people whose primary language is something else. Yet, Tamil has primacy there, and in a manner that is unobtrusive. And if there is one set of politicians, who have consistently and correctly reminded the central government that they cannot make one-size-fits-all rules for the country, it is all the Tamil Nadu leaders.

If one thinks of Tamil activism, one thinks of various causes  social, cultural, linguistic, and one thinks of various leaders with well-pronounced stances on their pet cause. There isnt any single figurehead, except may be Rajinikanth. (My tongue is firmly in my cheek.)

On the other hand, when you think of Kannada activism, it is very likely that the first image that gets summoned is that of Vatal Nagaraj. With his hat that looks like someone upended a pot on him, cooling glasses, and a toothy smile, he is a caricaturists dream. And his actions, or protests, usually are a newsroom producers dream. From taking buffaloes to the bus stand, to urinating on the Raj Bhavans wall, Vatal definitely knows how to make himself newsworthy.

Vatal Nagaraj has been at the forefront of Kannada activism for over three decades now. But unfortunately, his lasting legacy seems to be some sort of a joke. To quote Rakshith Ponnathpur, someone who is quite vocal about the Kannada cause on social media, "If you are someone who is outspoken about saving Karnataka's interests, your friends and family often taunt you with 'next Vatal Nagaraj neene, haha' in a condescending tone. People have a perception that Kannada activism involves zero seriousness and is a joke which jobless people undertake."

The other big problem is his choice of issues to protest against. Take for instance his protest against Kabalis release where he went around burning Rajinikanth posters. Outside of the fact that it is sure to attract media attention, there is nothing useful that could have come out of the protest. Given that Kabali in Bangalore was distributed by his friends in the movie industry, it may even have been a PR move for the movie itself, calling attention to its wide release in Bangalore.

Instead, a worthier cause would have been to protest against the cartel that has for years banned dubbing into Kannada, giving specious reasons about how it hurts the Kannada film industry. It is not like there is a shortage of Kannada-interest causes that need attention drawn to it. The use of only English and Hindi in ATMs, for example. Or how a lot of TV channels, like Discovery and National Geographic, have offerings in Tamil and Hindi but not in Kannada. Cartoons even. Vatal Nagarajs choice of things to protest against consistently smacks of the trivial and the absurd.

The Cauvery issue is not a trivial or absurd one, of course. However, the bent of activism instead of being about the farmers affected, or the citys water supply getting affected, is instead centered on the easier straw man of hating Tamilians. Throw stones at businesses run by Tamilians, set fire to vehicles with a TN registration and so on. Where nuance was necessary, all we got from the Vatal camp was nuisance. The Kalasa-Banduri protests on the other hand were messaged much better, going purely by the placards people protesting were holding.

Also, claims of Vatal Nagaraj being a "mass leader" ring a little hollow. Unlike the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike led by Narayana Gowda, or Jaya Karnataka led by former gangster Muttappa Rai, Vatal does not command any cadre. What he does command is a ragtag bunch of "aatakkunTu lekkakilla" (loosely translates to "they exist but they do not count") organisations, some hundreds of them, which muster a crowd of around 2,000 (the current going rate is apparently Rs 500 plus a packet of chicken biryani) when needed.

Vatals modus operandi has become predictable. Call for a bandh, get media coverage, devise an appropriate gimmick on the day of the protest (on Friday, it was wearing all-black by the looks of it), get even more media coverage, and call it a day. I listened to his speech on Friday, given that Udaya News was covering it live. It was long, yet he said nothing. It was a bunch of punch dialogues strung together  cut me open, and it is Cauvery water and not blood that flows in me, and so on. It had absolutely no substance. Yet, it got media coverage, possibly at the cost of other more meaningful protests happening elsewhere.

So what is the alternative to Vatal Nagaraj. Karnataka Rakshana Vedike seems like the obvious choice, but outside of their core base, they seem to have an unfortunate image problem. There is Jaya Karnataka, but they have a Muttappa Rai problem. Not too many people will be inclined to believe that the party would serve anything more than Rais own commercial interests. Bengaluru underworld is essentially a real estate business, and it will be hard for Rai to shake off his past, both with the gun and with the land deals.

I got talking to Vasanth Shetty, someone who has been involved with various pro-Kannada causes for many years now, and the author of the book Karnatakavonde, primarily to get some perspective on what the history of Kannada activism was, what has worked and what has not. One thing is clear, the only protests that have worked are the ones where the activists have had a clear long-term view of what they wanted to achieve, and targeted their efforts towards those in a position to bring about the necessary changes. This was true of the railway board exams, where all of Karnatakas recruitment was dominated by people from Bihar. This was true of getting the courts to declare that dubbing into Kannada was perfectly legal.

And Vatals bandh-a-day model does not work. Shetty believes that the best way forward would be for a Kannada activist group to enter mainstream politics. "Karnataka Rakshana Vedike is best poised for this, but it does not have to be them. What we need is someone who can understand and represent the cause of Kannada beyond tokenism." He talked of Belgaum where once Kannada newspapers had to be smuggled hidden inside Marathi ones, how people worked towards the goal of getting a Kannada mayor elected. As a move to make a real impact, this probably has gone a longer way than having a Vidhana Soudha replica there.

Rakshith too agrees. "What we need are activists who are constructive, and have enough insight to identify what is causing the problem, and able enough to come up with solutions for those. I doubt if Vatal has ever done anything constructive."

A quick check on Twitter too shows that this is the general zeitgeist among Kannadigas. Yes, we have issues important to us. Yes, Cauvery river sharing too is one of them. But no, we have had enough of Vatal.

I think it is time for the man to finally lay down his hat, remove those glasses, and let someone else take charge.
Egypt's prosecutor general Nabil Sadek ordered the detention of Al-Ayyat train driver for four days pending investigations over accusations of murder and attempted murder of 35 people in Giza's Al Ayyat deadly train crash that killed 5 people.

Five people were killed and 27 were injured when three train carriages derailed in Gizas El-Ayyat Wednesday morning.

A technical committee was assigned to compile a report after investigating the incident and determinig the extent of damages.

Giza governor Mohamed Al-Dali issued compensation: EGP 5000 for the families of deceased and EGP 2000 for those injured in the train accident.

Al-Ayyat, about 70 km south of Cairo, also witnessed the worst train disaster in Egypt when a train packed to double capacity caught fire, killing 373 in 2002.

Egypt's railway system is operated manually, with employees responsible for managing the opening of crossings by communicating with drivers  a practice that is considered potentially unsafe and unreliable.

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Bengaluru: Karnataka government on Saturday welcomed the reported statement of Union Minister Uma Bharti about intervening in the Cauvery river water dispute, if necessary, but demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiate the process to solve the long-pending issue.

"If she has given the gesture that she will intervene (to resolve the vexed Cauvery dispute), we welcome it. It (steps) will be towards solving the problem," Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here.

His response was to a question about reports quoting Uma Bharti as saying that the Centre would intervene in the Cauvery matter if necessary.

Asked about Tamil Nadu not even looking at a compromise solution, he said "Let's suppose it is initiated by the Prime Minister. We are in the first stage, let the Prime Minister initiate that.... then let us see the response of Tamil Nadu."

Jayachandra also appealed to the BJP MPs from the state to take up the issue with the Prime Minister.

To a question that the consistent demand for the Prime Minister's intervention was politicising the issue further, he recalled that the PM had earlier on one occasion intervened on Supreme Court advice. It has to be done now also to solve the vexed issue, which needs to be resolved through an out-of-court settlement, he said.

"When the Supreme Court advised the then Prime Minister to intervene, it happened then. Now to resolve this, these are all to be settled out of court," he said.

"However, whether they are coming (intervening) or not again is the question. Injustice has been done to the state from Britishers' period. It is a long-pending and almost 200 year old dispute," Jayachandra said.

Asked about changing Fali Nariman as the state's counsel, he said he wouldn't like to react as the matter was coming up for final hearing on October 16 before the Court.

"I don't want to react to that because the matter is coming up for the final hearing on 16 October. The Supreme Court has specifically said it will be listed on that day. So let us hope for the best," he said.

To a query, Jayachandra said the state must have filed the plea to counter Tamil Nadu's submission before the Cauvery Supervisory Committee, asking for release of more water.

"Our legal and technical team, they are in Delhi. They must have filed a response to the Tamil Nadu government before the Supervisory Committee also, and it is likely to come up on Monday (12 September) when the meeting takes place," he said.

Tamil Nadu government had approached the Committee on 7 September with its demand for more water.

Karnataka had also written to the panel to send an expert inspection team headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer as done by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee in October 2012, to study ground realities in the Cauvery basin. Jayachandra said a plea has been filed before the Apex Court for modification of the order on the basis of Karnataka going through the times of distress.

The Supreme Court on 5 September had directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days to meet the demands of the summer crop in the state.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on 10 September. It is being republished in light of the Supreme Court's orders to Karnataka on Monday, about the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

Most, if not all, of the journalists in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka writing about the Cauvery dispute remind me of an 1869 short story by Mark Twain.

In this story, a journalist pens down a sentence this way:

John W. Blossom Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.

The editor changes it into:

That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren.

An adjective here or a metaphor there or a clever turn of phrase can turn fact into a half-truth or a lie or even slander.

Forget actors. Even journalists of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka join in the Cauvery battle, supporting the causes of their respective states. In both the states, they add to the cacophony of politicians, and bureaucrats who pander to them. So there, we have the awesome troika in both the states: Lying politicians, kowtowing officials and jingoistic journalists.

For all of them, statistics come in handy. As American humorist Evan Esar once famously said, statistics can help you produce

"unreliable facts from reliable figures".

So the awesome troikas keep the Cauvery dispute alive and kicking.

Thats why, when the rains dont come, madness does. You hear, both in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, war cries like those of the prehistoric Huaorani tribesmen in the Amazonian jungles.

Tamil movies are stopped in Bengaluru, and Tamils run for cover.

And thats enough for social medias verbal terrorists to depict the wonderful city of Bengaluru  as if it was the first one to invent a bandh in India  as a monster with ugly horns and protruding teeth, out to wipe out Tamils and Tamil Nadu from the face of earth. They forget that Kannadigas are more tolerant to outsiders than any in India, and that Bengaluru is the most cosmopolitan of the countrys cities. Do they remember what was done to Biharis in Mumbai once? They dont. And they forget that Karnataka has gifted India with an IT capital. It has a pretty face, and a few blemishes like Vatal Nagaraj cant turn it into an ugly beast. Nagaraj doesnt represent Kannadigas, even if he thinks he does.

The whole issue should have been considered resolved on 5 February, 2007, when the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal delivered its award.

The dispute lasted a century. And then for a decade, there was debate over setting up a tribunal to resolve it once for all. Then the tribunal deliberated on it for 17 years and gave its award. It apportioned the water among the states, and it even said what should be done when the monsoon failed and who should ensure the allocation of shares between states.

As I reported on that day, Karnatakas counsel before the tribunal, FS Nariman even said: "The (tribunals) decision is satisfactory for all parties concerned."

But along with rains, truth becomes scarce when the monsoon fails. And the farmer suffers nightmares, when he's told he wouldnt get enough water his crop. Human misery in both states, not politics, starts the fire. The awesome troika fans the flames in each state.

Farmers in Karnataka are not ignoramuses. They know "some" of the water, whatever there is of it, must flow down the river to Tamil Nadu. Farmers in Tamil Nadu are not dumb idiots either. They know Karnataka would release "some" water. But you cant blame them for not being able to quantify this "some".

Farmers in both states have no way of knowing how much water there really is in the river or reservoirs and whats the right share of each state when the monsoon fails, and how much water they can expect for their crops. They must only rely on the awesome troikas: Lying politicians, kowtowing officials and jingoistic journalists. Thats when the trouble begins.

By Karnatakas own admission, its reservoirs have some 50 tmcft of water. But, however much water there is, shouldn't Karnataka ensure that Tamil Nadu gets 56 percent of it in a water year beginning June? The tribunals formula, gazetted by the central government, is the law of the land. And shouldnt facts be told to Karnataka farmers?

And Tamil Nadu says its short of more than 80 tmcft of water. Where does Jayalalithaa think Siddaramaiah can produce it from? Is he a rain god? Or does she expect him to lug it from the Krishna or the Godavari and pour into the Cauvery so that her farmers can get it? Shouldnt facts be told to Tamil Nadu farmers?

When truth becomes a casualty, you end up with only babble and bedlam.

Adding to the information terror is the constant whining from people, who are not sure what they are whining about. So we have a tweet showing random photographs of lush green fields in Karnataka. Then comes a wild taunt by an actor, who wont know the difference between a cusec and a tmcft, who cant tell the difference between a canal and a field channel and who has never probably stepped into a paddy field except for a sexy hip-hop scene with a heroine after rubbing lotion on his flawless skin.

Its only truthful information that can keep tempers of the farmers under control. The state governments have machineries to do that job. They are called agriculture departments. Its their job to keep farmers informed about the possibility of a monsoon failure and about possible changes in crops and harvesting patterns they could make.



By Karnatakas own admission, its reservoirs have some 50 tmcft of water. But, however much water there is, shouldn't Karnataka ensure that Tamil Nadu gets 56 percent of it in a water year beginning June?

But forget it. Indias agriculture departments dont even effectively advise tomato farmers how they should avoid a market glut. This year once again, Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra saw a huge tomato glut, leading to a price crash.

Did anyone say Karnataka and Tamil Nadu cant work together to find a solution?

In Chennai, in 2000, I was happy to watch SM Krishna and M Karunanidhi, when they were the chief ministers of the states, sit around a table in one room under one roof, along with their ministers and officers, and work together wonderfully and discuss plans to catch forest thug Veerappan.

But back then, the states had a common enemy to fight. And now too the states have a common problem. If they have turned into enemies of each other, I blame again the troikas.

Let the farmer cry. Why must the lying politicians, kowtowing officials and jingoistic journalists care?
New Delhi: Congress leader Jagdish Tytler was on Friday questioned by the CBI in connection with a 1984 anti- Sikh riots case in which he was earlier given a clean chit by the agency.

The move came after a special CBI court in July had given the agency last chance to complete its probe in two months in the case against Tytler. Tytler on Friday appeared before the investigation team where he answered to the questions put by the investigating officers, sources said.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Shivali Sharma, while directing CBI to complete the probe, had made it clear that if there were no fruitful results in these two months, the agency's Superintendent of Police would have to explain.

The court's direction came when the CBI prosecutor filed a status report of ongoing probe and sought two more months to file the final report in July. The court had on 4 December, 2015, directed CBI to further probe the riots case against Tytler, saying the statement of arms dealer Abhishek Verma had revealed an active role played by the Congress leader in extending "helping hand" to a witness against him.

The case pertains to the riots at Gurudwara Pulbangash in North Delhi where three people were killed on 1 November, 1984, a day after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

CBI had re-investigated the case of killing of Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh near the gurudwara after a court had in December 2007 refused to accept the closure report. CBI had filed three closure reports in the case.

Tytler has denied any role in the riots.
Vijayawada: The day-long bandh called on Saturday by opposition parties demanding Special Category State (SCS) status to Andhra Pradesh, was by and large successful with commercial activities coming to a halt in all the main towns.

Educational institutions, too, remained shut, but the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) managed to run most of its services without much trouble, an Additional Director General of Police said.

Many opposition leaders, mostly those belonging to the YSR Congress, were put under 'house-arrest' since early morning while scores of activists were taken into custody as they tried to organise the bandh.

"No untoward incident was reported barring a minor one in rural Krishna, where the protesters pelted stones at an RTC bus," the police official said.

The YSRC had called the bandh protesting the denial of SCS to AP as promised during the bifurcation. The CPI, the CPM and the Congress extended support to the bandh.

The opposition denounced special economic package announced by the Centre to the state saying it was just an "eye wash".

The Left workers took out a rally in Visakhapatnam and organised a dharna at Maddilapalem. The protesters raised slogans saying SCS was AP's right.

YSRC legislator K Sridhar Reddy said the bandh was a success.

"People of AP have foiled the conspiracies of the Chief Minister by making the bandh a success. Why did Chandrababu Naidu mortgage the state's interests on the SCS issue," Sridhar questioned.
The BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won the three top posts of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU). Announced on Saturday, the Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) got one seat.

ABVP's Amit Tanwar, Priyanka Chabri and Ankit Sangwan were elected DUSU President, vice-president and secretary respectively. Mohit Sangwan of the NSUI won the joint secretary post.

#DUSUPolls Winners Amit Tanwar- President, Priyanka Chabri - VP, Ankit Sangwan - Secretary, all from ABVP. Mohit Sangwan- Joint Secy, NSUI.  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

Elections to the Delhi University Students' Union and Central Council were held on Friday, reported NDTV. Over 36 percent of students exercised their franchise in the polls with the voting percentage recording a dip of over 7 percent from last year's overall turnout of 43.3 percent.

The winners distributed sweets among students and their supporters. DNA quoted Karan Kuhar, a student of Daulat Ram college as saying, "plans are afoot to hold a massive victory procession".

"We have won and our vote share has increased because throughout the year, we have stayed amongst students and fought for them. This ABVP win is also a comment against anti-national activities happening across the country," Hindustan Times quoted Tanwar as saying.

ABVP workers celebrated their win soon after the result declaration.
Friday night's terrorist attack on a CRPF camp was the second ambush in two days in Kashmir's troubled Pulwama district. According to a report in Hindustan Times, at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, a group of militants attacked a police station, fired at the officers and pinched the rifles before escaping. Reports also emerged of another incident in Kulgam where attackers snatched away weapons from the security guards of a former National Conference leader.

The situation in Kashmir resists easy analysis. But these attacks represent a pattern. Amid the boiling cauldron of Kashmir violence, infiltration is going hand-in-hand with insurgency. The unrest has become a fertile ground for cultivation of Pakistan's 'deep-state' assets. "Popular discontent" is being fashioned by external forces. Local uprising, fuelled by the separatist movement, is getting subsumed into Pakistan's proxy war. Calls for azadi from India cannot be distinguished any more from a larger intifada that seeks to attach Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan  which is less of a country in the sense of a modern Westphalian nation-state and more of an Islamist ideology that has a territory of its own and commands a set of people through the decree of an army.

It is the last development that should worry India the most. The Kashmiri separatists are no longer calling for independence from India and self-determination. The objective  as The Times of India recently quoted PDP ideologue Muzaffar Hussain Baig as saying  has changed. The secessionist movement now has as its goal not just political accession to Pakistan but also religious and ideological amalgamation.

"This, the fourth stage in the struggle of Kashmir, is in danger of becoming religious extremism, which is not a political goal but a religious vision; that Muslims must have their own state and they cannot live in a Hindu state," he told the newspaper.

This significantly raises the stakes. Given India's position that there can be no compromise with the state's sovereignty and territorial integrity, it must add new dimensions to its efforts of bringing Kashmir back from brink. The battle against jihadist ideology that seems to have gained recent ground will require a multi-faceted, long-term approach. It certainly wont be easy in a changed world order where the idea of an Islamist Caliphate based exclusively on a politico-religious identity has taken a rebirth.

But before anything else, New Delhi's first step is to reclaim the writ of the administration.

The Centre and the state were clearly sluggish in their responses to counter the quick unfolding of events following Burhan Wani's death. Lack of cohesion among the NDA and PDP governments was painfully evident from the start. The alliance partners spoke in different voices and sometimes at cross purposes.

The state administration went AWOL in the first few days following the neutralising of Wani, and when Mehbooba Mufti finally emerged in an attempt to take control, it was too late. The violence had spread, Hurriyat leaders came out of cold storage to hijack the protests and ISI-sponsored non-state actors were busy fuelling the fire. Leave alone imposing state's decree, Mufti's own MLAs came under attacks. In a subsequent joint media conference with home minister Rajnath Singh, Mufti lost her cool and seemed totally lacking in control. She has since swayed between passionate pleas for peace and angry interjections at separatists for using school children as shields, but the situation on ground remains grim.

Reports from Srinagar, normal life remains crippled for the 64th straight day since Wani's killing on 8 July. Schools, colleges remain shut. So do private offices, business establishments, shops, petrol pumps and other necessities of civic life.

According to a report by NDTV, violent clashes with security forces over two months have resulted so far in over 70 deaths and 6,000 cases of injury. Equally, however, 5,000 policemen have also been injured.

There are many reasons behind a near absolute undermining of the state's decree over troubled parts of the Valley  most specifically in south Kashmir. Not the least among them is the violence conundrum. The forces have been ordered to maintain 'maximum restraint' while protestors carry on with the violence, sometimes even shooting at them from among the crowd.

Sameer Yasir reports in Firstpost how, throughout the last couple of months, armed militants have openly taken part in public rallies and protests in south Kashmir, with some even addressing rallies. Though the police have refrained from carrying out counter insurgency operations, fearing mass casualties, militants suffer no such ethical compunctions. One SHO, for instance, was fired at in Kulgam district.

If there was still any doubt, the arrest of Bahadur Ali, an LeT operative who crossed over into India from PoK, made it clear how Pakistan is using the unrest to carry out its unfinished war with India.

A recent report in The Times of India provides more details. In four districts of south Kashmir  Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag  there is not even a hint of administrative apparatus at work. Amid near anarchy, thousands hold azadi rallies almost daily. Cops have fled from police stations. Out of 36 police stations in these districts, only three are in operation. Irate mobs have set a number of these on fire. CRPF jawans are no longer visible while crowds rule the streets, says the report. Quoting a senior police officer, the report also details how scores of youth have joined militants in Tral, where organised training camps are being run by top LeT and JeM commanders.

These are the very four districts in south Kashmir, which will see a redeployment of Army for the first time since 2014. About 50 of the total 70 deaths so far have taken place here alone.

The deployment of Army gives the clearest signal yet that the Centre, too, understands the importance of reestablishing the primacy of the state. In an open challenge to the state's authority, the Hurriyat forces shops and business establishments to remain closed even though curfew has been lifted.

It has, says a report in Greater Kashmir, extended the shutdown call until 16 September and called for a march to the office of the United Nations Military Observers' Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) in Srinagar, on the day of Id. This "calendar" details the exact time when normal life may resume and when protests will continue. It has completely usurped the state's functioning and has thrown the gauntlet at the Centre.

The escalation of violence has left very little political maneuvering room for now. The Indian state must establish its decree over the Valley first. All other efforts will follow.
An embattled Mehbooba Mufti government is mulling over handing the reins of the ongoing crackdown against the mass protests to the Army, who have been working alongside the police and CRPF to quell the protests over the last six weeks. But it is now believed that the government is resorting to the use of maximum force in the form of the Army to retrieve the ground in south Kashmir, that it has lost to people's mass gatherings and pro-Independence processions and street protests.

Army chief, General Dalbir Singh, arrived in the Valley on Friday to review the security situation, particularly in the four worst affected districts of south Kashmir, that have become the epicenter of the current uprising. These four districts  Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag  continue to witness hundreds of pro-freedom rallies every day in the absence of an effective police force on the ground.

Sources said Singh, who was briefed by General Officer Commanding of Chinar Corps Lt Gen Satish Dua, instructed his commanders "to be ready for operations across south Kashmir".

These operations, sources added, would help the law enforcing agencies, particularly Kashmir police and CRPF to reassert control over the ground that has slipped under the control of police and CRPF. The protests have gone out of hand since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on 8 July. More than 70 people lost their lives in various protests.

A defence ministry spokesperson in Srinagar said Singh reviewed the security situation and "collaborative measures" of the security forces towards ensuring peace and calm in the region. "Gen Singh reinforced the need to synergise efforts with all the other stakeholders and assured all support for bringing in normalcy, particularly in South Kashmir," the statement issued here, said.

Throughout the last months, armed militants had openly taken part in public rallies and protests in south Kashmir, with some even addressing the rallies. This had unnerved security apparatus in valley, who had largely avoided carrying out any counter insurgency operations in the south fearing mass casualties.

But Kashmir police say militants had attacked them from crowds, and, in one instance, even fired at an SHO in Kulgam district.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir region, Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said that the anti-militancy operations by the Kashmir police had stopped for some time due to the prevailing situation from last two months.

"But since the situation has started improving, we have started cordon, search and anti-militancy operations. We have started them again and what will happen is the influence of militants on this unrest will diminish quickly," IGP Gillani, said.

The Army, meanwhile, is preparing for a massive redeployment across the villages and towns of south Kashmir. This deployment will help the police and paramilitary forces to regain control in countryside. The Army will be at the backend but we will not have a uniform strategy. It will be a localised strategy to deal with the prevailing situation," an Army official, based in south Kashmir, said.

Recently, the top officials of the Army have reportedly conveyed to the state government that they were not ready to take a direct confrontational role with the protesters, because its men are not meant for crowd controlling. But was ready to facilitate the return of normalcy. But it is not clear how the Army has agreed for the redeployment now.

"It is perhaps a push by the central government to Army top brass that situation is getting out of control, either wise a top General had openly called for a dialogue with separatists, a political analyst said.

The Army had told the state government that if there were indications of militants being part of the protest, they will carry out the "counter-terrorism (CT) operations, by locating and killing militants mingling with crowds".

Throughout the last months, armed militants had openly taken part in public rallies and protests in south Kashmir, with some even addressing the rallies.

Sources said that Kashmir police have requested Army presence for the five new camps to be setup in the rural areas of Pulwama district, where militants have been seen openly roaming with weapons. The redeployment of Army is seen as a failure of the Mehbooba Muftis government to wrest back control of the streets from the protesters in south.

Ironically, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is ruling the state in an alliance with the BJP, has been a long time votary of the reduction of footprint of the Army from the Valley. It was during the first tenure of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, from 2002 to 2005, when troops were de-inducted from different parts of Kashmir Valley, as a confidence building to heal the wounds of the people. Now, the government, headed by Mufti, has been knocking on the doors of Army to wrest back control of south Kashmir.
Visitors to Kerala now may find something strange with the states mainstream media: besides politics and sleaze, they have a new obsession - stray dog menace.

This obsession is so strong that the general impression one gets is that of a raging epidemic or a disaster situation in which the risk of getting bitten, or even being mauled, by street dogs, is very high. Obviously, it comes with the threat of a miserable and fatal disease called rabies.

Its like the unusual warning-boards that greeted visitors at the Ambon airport in Indonesias Maluku province which in 2012 witnessed a rabies outbreak. There are no official signposts yet in Kerala, but the newspaper headlines and scary pictures make up for them. They are more than good enough to warn and disconcert people.

Although it has been going on for months, since August when an old woman was killed by a pack of street dogs, the media havent taken their eyes off the menace. Scary dog-bite stories are headline news every day and its as if feral and rabid dogs are ruling the streets everywhere. Its really an unsettling situation, particularly for a state that earns about Rs 25,000 crore from tourists every year.

Unsurprisingly, it has caught the state government on the wrong foot because it hasnt been able to find a solution. As the clueless state drags its feet, justifiably because of the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) rules enacted by the central government in 2001 under an old (1960) Cruelty to Animals Act forbids culling, theres a virtual war going on between animal lovers and anti-dog vigilantes. Most of the media, general public and political leaders side with the vigilantes because the problem is real. People want them off the streets and the only way known to them is to kill them. But the rule of law prevents any such short-term cure.

KT Jaleel, the state minister concerned, was initially quite frontal in his support to the popular sentiment of killings dogs, but went soft when the Animal Welfare Board and activists told him that his idea was illegal. Initially, he had said that the government would instruct local bodies to kill dangerous dogs that pose a threat to people, but subsequently went silent. On 30 August, the government issued orders for a comprehensive plan on dog menace, that talks about databases, rehabilitation, and dog parks instead of culling. It certainly wouldnt solve the immediate crisis.

Anti-dog activists are obviously miffed. A woman panchayat member, incidentally from the ruling CPM, was so enraged that she reportedly led a small scale culling. People and the media supported her and even hailed her as a hero, but the state police booked her under the Cruelty to Animals Act and IPC. Anti-dog activists, led by a homegrown industrialist, Kochouseph Chittilappally, have promised legal support not only to her, but also to anybody who is willing to kill. Chittlilappally is the chairman of a stray dog free movement that is pressing for culling and amendments to existing legislation.

The popular demand is for a short-term solution to the threat because getting bittern by the dogs and contracting rabies is real. But, the only short term solution is culling, which is illegal. What the law suggests, since 2001, is Animal Birth Control (ABC), which means removing them from the streets, sterilising them and then releasing them back where they belong. Animal lovers and research literature say that this will work in the long term because it will reduce the numbers and make the dogs better-behaved, but the panic-stricken people dont want to wait that long.

Without anything drastic, the streets and thoroughfares of Kerala are not going to be free and safe because they are teeming with free-roaming dogs. The state health minister had told the assembly that in 2014, about 1.19 lakh people were bitten by dogs compared to about 88, 172 the previous year.

Any disaster or epidemic warrants both short term and long term solutions: short term to mitigate the immediate impact, and long term to find a sustainable, lasting solution. Therefore, the law and the central government (thanks to a steadfast Maneka Gandhi and the Animal Welfare Board) insisting only on long term solutions is inimical to public interest. If not culling, the authorities have to find some alternative in making its streets safer. Applying ABC and waiting for a few years (at least five years) for it to begin showing results is like formulating a long term public health policy in response to a spiralling epidemic such as Ebola.

The sustainable solution, however, is certainly not culling because if the underlying reasons for the multiplication of dogs are not addressed, they will fill the streets again. Both animal lovers and vigilantes are unanimous in their opinion that the stray dog population has multiplied manifold, they have become more aggressive and they reproduce more. There are two reasons - one, environmental degradation, and two, the governments inability to apply ABC although it has been the rule of law for the last 15 years.

In the last few years, the state's solid waste management has collapsed and people dump waste, which also includes meat from illegal abattoirs and food-retailers, on the streets. This has become a regular source of food for the dogs, which have not only become healthier but also aggressive. Animal activists say that this has contributed to a higher fertility rate as well - female dogs that used to deliver, on an average, once a year now deliver thrice a year. It means a single female dog adds at least 24 new dogs to the streets every year.

Had the government implemented ABC, the numbers would have certainly come down because the average lifespan of a dog is 10-12 years. Had it started in 2001, along with strict vigilance on the proliferation of pet dogs, the street would have been freer. Some estimates show that a single un-neutered female dog can produce more than 60,000 puppies in six years. Even a partial success in ABC could have made a big difference.

A steady supply of food through mounds of waste dumped on the streets and no sterilisation have ensured the perfect ecosystem for the fast-breeding of dogs. The government needs short term and long term plans to address both. Unfortunately, nothing tangible seems to be in sight.

The street-dog menace is a co-creation of the people and the government and its a live example of how environmental degradation and official inaction can rollback the states hard-earned development gains. Infectious diseases that appeared to have been eradicated years ago have come back and diseases alien to the land are raging. The state is losing the sheen of its eponymous model because its undoing the socio-economic transition of a century.

That feral dog on the street is both real and metaphoric. It summarises the fast-spreading physical decay of a state, known for its stunning looks, and the reversal of some of its famous public health gains.
Shillong: Domiasiat is at the centre of the Uranium mining debate in Meghalaya again. A debate that many wrongly assumed the side of environmentalists, non-governmental organisations and the local communities had won when in the later half of the last decade theyd managed to halt mining activities.

But lo and behold, an ugly head has risen. Again.

There is a sense of helplessness and angst among the thousands of Khasis who are fighting helplessly against what they perceive to be complete injustice at the hands of the government. The Uranium Corporation Of India Ltd, a public sector enterprise under the Department of Atomic Energy, has been vigorously pushing for the mining of uranium.

While the objective of the government is to procure all of the uranium for its nuclear activities, the goal of the people of Domiasiat, Wahkaji and Thyrnai in the West Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya is a much simpler one. All they are hoping for is that road and that school and that health centre and those inconsequential jobs and that minuscule amount of money. What they do not want is the radioactive gas to spread through the air, the vegetation and water to be contaminated in the process and no sooner than it begins than the whole population of the area are going to be affected. In its pure form uranium is very dense and weighs about 19 grams per cubic centimeter. A 1,000 kg of ore would have to be processed to produce 1 kg of the element.

What this means is that a huge quantity becomes waste and because of their chemical composition the reality of pollution is that much more pronounced. The mill tailings, which are the discarded wastes, are contaminated with some of the most toxic heavy metals and radioactive elements. One of these radioactive materials happens to be radium-226 and it decays into radioactive gas.

Is this a classic example of the government flexing its muscle against a community too poor to know the difference between superficial talk and harsh realistic consequences? The sheer disregard for human lives means that officials who would have otherwise been too lazy and too ignorant to lift a finger are now going out of their way to pave the way for the mining of uranium and leaving no stone unturned at that.

On 24 December, 2006 in Jaduguda, Jharkhand, an accident occurred when one of the pipes carrying radioactive wastes from the uranium mill to a tailing pond burst, and thousands of liters of radioactive waste spilled into a nearby creek for nine hours before the flow of the radioactive waste was shut off.

The proceedings of an International Workshop in Lisbon, Portugal in 2004, on a study of Environmental Contamination From Uranium Production Facilities And Their Redemption by the International Atomic Energy Agency produced rather alarming results. A study of miners who worked in poorly ventilated mines at a time when the hazards of radon were not known and thus had been exposed to high levels of radon, demonstrated that this group had an excess of lung cancers and that the risk of cancer increased with increasing exposure to radon gas.

There is also the added fear of not knowing what to actually look out for and be careful of. The fight against the mining of uranium in Meghalaya has non-governmental organisations at loggerheads with the state and opportunistic associations of people who cannot see beyond the promise of money. While the objective of the fight is to protect people and the environment, more often than not it does get clouded and eventually the focus shifts away.
Many years ago, when I had set myself the task of editing a collection of modern, edgy stories in Urdu, with none of the usual suspects who appear like tired old ghosts in most anthologies, called New Urdu Writings: From India and Pakistan, I had made the following dramatic assertion: It will make little difference if you read this book from back-to-front or the more natural front-to-back way. You may read it from cover-to-cover or you may dip into it, reading and resting, taking in its contents, mulling over them before reading some more. I can say with some certainty that the order or sequence will make very little difference because I have read and re-read these stories several times. Each time I was struck by the lack of difference.

It isnt as though I had set out to find and compile 30 similar stories; no, far from it. The stories dealt with vastly different subjects, their tone and tenor varied, as did their style and substance  not to mention the subtle individual quirks of the 30 different writers. Taken together  the sum of their parts  the 30 stories reflected shared common, almost similar concerns insofar as they traversed a terrain that was known and familiar and unmarked by artificial borderlines. No political fault lines, evidence of fissured landscapes or totemic poles of identity marred their territory. It would have been difficult to tell them apart if not for the necessity to group them under India and Pakistan. Having said that, the language itself has followed different trajectories in the two countries.

Shorn of official patronage in India, it has had to find new ways of adapting and surviving. In Pakistan it has exhibited the same hegemonic ascendance as the national language, Hindi has exhibited in India. Thrust down the throats of a country of non-Urdu speakers, at the stroke of midnight when a new nation was cleaved out of a subcontinent, it became the new language of a new nation. And given the politics that accompanies such knee-jerk decisions, Urdu in Pakistan assumed a power and ascendancy not commensurate with the number of native speakers, the somewhat grandly called ahl-e zubaan. This foisting of Urdu as the official language lead to language riots in places as distant as Balochistan and Sindh and Dhaka.

The politics of language is a never-ending debate that can be reserved for a different time. Here, let us talk of the form and shape Urdu took in its new homeland in the context of the literature it birthed, and more especially the genre of fiction it influenced. Also, let us look at some subjects that are unique to Urdu fiction from Pakistan  subjects that for instance do not find resonance among the Urdu writers from India.

Whereas Urdu has increasingly become a cosmopolitan language and has cut itself off almost entirely from its rural roots this side of the border, it is not the case in Pakistan. One can still find Urdu writers, most notably from the Punjab, who paint scenes from rural lives. From the time of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi the insistent pull of rural culture has drawn the Urdu reader. More recently, there is Ali Akbar Natiq who began life as a mason specialising in the building of domes and minarets in his native Okara and then moved to painting pictures of rural Punjab.

The fall of Dhaka in 1971 and the emergence of Bangladesh from the ashes of East Pakistan spurred writers like Intizar Husain, Masood Asher, Ibrahim Jalees, Masood Mufti, Umm-e Ammara, Shahzad Manzar, Altaf Fatima to view this human tragedy  the second that had befallen the new nation in its 20-odd years of existence  in different ways.

From anger and pathos to introspection, these writings stoked different emotions to varying degree. Zameen Zaalim Hai, a collection of 22 stories, edited by Basheer Mansoor, puts together some of the finest writings by Razia Faseeh Ahmed, Masood Mufti, Rasheed Amjad, Farkhanda Lodhi, Jameel Usman, Shahzad Manzar, A. Hameed, Akhter Jamal, Agha Suhail, Ahmed Zainuddin, Ghulam Muhammad and some others. Tariq Mahmuds Allah Megh De, Altaf Fatimas Chalta Musafir and Salma Awans Tanha show empathy and understanding with the people of East Pakistan, and acknowledges the wrongs of the Pakistani army in the brutal repression leading up to 1971.

Translations from other languages into Urdu and travelogues are two genres in which Urdu prose in Pakistan has borne fine fruit. Fahmida Riaz, a fine poet, a feminist and prose stylist has written Khana e Aab-o Gil, the first translation of the masnavi of Jalaluddin Rumi from Persian into Urdu, and also translated the works of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai and Shaikh Ayaz from Sindhi to Urdu. Baqar Naqvi is virtually a one-man industry when it comes to translating world literature into Urdu  be it the works of Nobel laureates (such as Gunter Grasss The Tin Drum, Herta Mullers The Land of Green Plums, among others) or Victor Hugos Les Miserables. Also, virtually every Urdu writer, worth his name, has penned one or more travelogues ranging from witty and luminous to philosophical and introspective: Ibn-e Inshas marvelously funny Dunya Gol hai, Mahmood Nizami inner journey in Nazarnama, Begum Akhter Riazuddins wide-eyed Dhanak par Qadam, Mustansar Husain Tarars insatiable wanderlust in Nikle Teri Talash Mein take the genre of the safarnama to new heights.

The genre of the novel, on the other hand, offers slim pickings in India whereas in Pakistan, the Urdu novel has truly come of age. The galaxy of greats includes names such as Abdullah Hussein, Shaukat Siddiqui, Intizar Husain, Fahmida Riaz, Khadija Mastur, Bano Qudisa, Razia Butt, Mumtaz Mufti, Anwar Sajjad, Anis Nagi, Jamila Hashmi, etc. However, it is the popular literature section that enjoys, by far, the largest readership. Umera Ahmed, the queen of the social romance, is the author of Pir-e Kamil, Meri Zaat Zarra-e Benishaan, Laahasil, etc. many of which were turned into equally popular tele-serials. Taken together, the literature coming out from Pakistan bears Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns assertion: Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
Egyptian investigators have fit together some of the fragments of a Russian passenger jet that crashed over Sinai last October and identified the area where the plane's disintegration most likely began, the commission probing the crash said Thursday.

The Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the October crash, which killed all 224 on board, saying it had smuggled a bomb onto the plane.

Russia said a bomb destroyed the airliner, which was en route to Paris from Sharm El-Sheikh and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi suggested in February that the plane was downed due to "terrorism." The investigating committee looking into the causes of the crash has yet to release a report.

"The committee has concluded that a specific part is most likely to have been [the point] where the plane's body began to come apart," a statement by the committee said

Members of the investigation commission and representatives of countries taking part in the probe met Thursday to draw up a preliminary report about the latest findings.

Russia is taking part in the investigation as the airline's country of origin, Germany as the manufacturer, France because it is where the plane was designed, Ireland as the country where plane was registered, and the United States as the engine-maker's country of origin.

"Accurate and specialised laboratory studies will be conducted on parts of the wreckage identified by the assembly process, which will help reach most likely causes for the disintegration of such parts," the statement added.

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As the lead counsel in Public Interest Litigation No. 106 of 2014, better known as the Haji Ali case, I am privy to the pleadings and proceedings on the record that led to the much-lauded 56-page judgment. Indeed, all these documents are now a part of the public record in case any researcher wishes to delve into them in future.

As everyone knows by now, the crux of the case was the ban on entry of women, some time after 2011, inside the sanctum sanctorum housing the mazaar or tomb supposed to contain the body of a saint known as Peer Haji Ali Shah Bukhari. This decision was taken after the trustees of the Dargah Trust were made to realise through various Muslim Clergys and Teachers that the act of allowing the women inside the sanctum of the Dargah is a sin. (sic). (This is quoted verbatim from paragraph five of the Trusts affidavit in reply to the PIL).

Very little is in fact known about this saint Peer Haji Ali.

According to the official website of the Haji Ali Dargah Trust, Whatever is known about Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari (R.A.) is learnt from the caretakers and trustees from generation to generation as the saint never married and has no descendants.

The information provided on the website states that the Pir had travelled to India from his hometown with his brother. They finally reached the shores of Mumbai  near Worli or at some place opposite the present Dargah site. His brother went back to their native place. However, the Pir had decided to reside at that place permanently for the spread of Islam.

The official website further states that Till his death, the Pir was praying and giving knowledge about Islam to the people and devotees regularly visiting him. Before his death he had advised his followers that they should not bury Him at any proper place or graveyard and should drop his shroud (kafan) in the ocean, such that it should be buried by the people where it is found. His wish was obeyed by his followers. That is why the Dargah Sharief is built at the very site where his shroud came to rest in the middle of the sea where it was perched on a small mound of rocks rising above the sea.

The official website then acknowledges that the tomb and Dargah Sharief were built in the years to come.

No particulars regarding the date (even approximate) of the demise of Peer Haji Ali Shah Bukhari are given, nor any information given on this website about the years in which the tomb and Dargah were constructed.

The most important aspect of this narrative is the acknowledgment of the fact that there never was any physical body in the tomb!

Yet, the religious justification for banning women predominantly included an argument about the embargo on women visiting graves, which is supposed to be a sin.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a tomb as an underground vault for the burial of the dead or an enclosure cut in the earth or in rock to receive a dead body. Therefore, to call Haji Ali Dargah the tomb of a dead saint knowing full well that there never was any body laid to rest in it seems to stretch the meaning of the word too far.

The official website does not deny that all the stories about miracles of the Peer are from rivayat (legends). So what are the historical facts?

According to a letter written by the Trusts solicitors on 2 January 2013 to the principal secretary of the Minorities Development Department of the Government of Maharashtra, the Haji Ali Dargah was constructed and came into existence in or about the year 1900 and is managed and maintained by a charitable and religious trust which was formed in or about the year 1916 under a decree passed by the Honble High Court of Judicature at Bombay.

Thereafter, according to the Trusts solicitors, at the request of the then trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah, the Collector of Bombay in or about the year 1927 demised the present lands to the Haji Ali Dargah Trust on a lease of 999 years on a nominal rent and the trustees have been using these demised lands for the specific purposes for which the same have been let out. The pathways leading to the Dargah Complex were laid in or about the year 1944.

During the course of the hearings of the PIL, the entire record and proceedings available with the Charity Commissioner were summoned and filed in the High Court. These vital documents contain the relevant proceedings of Suit No. 1337 of 1916 filed in the Bombay High Court by The Honourable the Advocate General of Bombay (Plaintiff) versus 1. Abdul Karim Haji Essa Haji Fadla and 2. Haji Jan Mohamed Haji Mohamed (Defendants)". In that suit, by consent of parties and after calling for a Commissioners Report, a consent decree was passed by Justice Macleod of the Bombay High Court and a Scheme for the Management and Administration of Haji Ali Durga and the properties appertaining thereto was framed on 22 January 1919. For those with a penchant for history it would be of interest that at that time, King George V was the Emperor of India.

The scheme contained in the consent decree has recorded that it is for the Management of the Charitable Trusts created by Haji Essa Haji Fadla in or about the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty Five in respect of a Durga erected by him at Worli over the grave of Haji Ali, a Mahomedan Pir, known as Haji Ali Durga and the Mosque and other properties appertaining thereto.

Thus it is clear that the High Court merely recorded what was agreed to in the consent terms in the suit based on the Commissioners Report. As a result, a record was created that the Dargah was erected over the grave.

Once again, if the definition of a grave is taken into account, it is a trench dug in the ground to receive a coffin on burial or the place where someone is buried, often marked by a mound or stone (Concise Oxford Dictionary). When it is an admitted fact that there is no body buried beneath the Dargah, can such a place even be called a grave? Even assuming the Legend of the Floating Shroud' (kafan) to be authentic, would burial of a piece of cloth be tantamount to clothing the monument in the garb of a tomb?

These are grave issues and we live in grave times. But when the better half of our populace is debarred from any place on the ground (among others) that to visit a grave is a grave sin, is it not worth considering the fact that the whole basis of the ban on women is misconceived? Visiting a place where some piece of cloth lies buried can never be a sin by any stretch of imagination.

The writer is an advocate practicing in the Bombay High Court
Editor's note: With yet another attack against an African national in India  a Kenyan woman was thrashed in a Greater Noida on 29 March 2017 by unidentified men, an incident that followed close on the heels of Nigerian students being beaten up in an NCR mall  we're republishing an interview with photographer Mahesh Shantaram, who has trained his lens on the community in India. Shantaram's quest was to research racism, and he has done this by presenting a series a portraits of African nationals living in India. The piece was originally published on 10 September 2016.

Mahesh Shantaram has trained his lens on African students living in India. His objective: to highlight the racism that the community faces. In an exhibition that is now travelling to major Indian cities, Shantaram uncovers the stories of discrimination that these students accept as part of their experiences living here. In this interview with Firstpost, the photographer talks about what inspired him to work on the series:

Most photographers would have opted for a more candid approach to doing this project. Why did you then choose portraits?

Youre right. There are traditional ways of approaching a photo project that wants to look at a community. But what Im interested in researching is racism, particularly in India. How do you photograph racism? You need something that can act as a visual metaphor or personify it. Anywhere in the world, Africans can tell you a thing or two about racism. That, and the fact that they are visually interesting led me to take the portrait approach to tackle this difficult subject. The project, when exhibited in a gallery, also seeks to put Africans in the consciousness of the Indian public. This is significant in cities like Bengaluru where Africans are practically invisible.

When I was reporting on a similar issue in June, a couple of African students told me that racism was worse in India than Europe. And they were surprised by it. Why do you think that is and why has India made it worse for African students?

Our nationalism is a cataract that clouds our ability to see the real issues facing our society. We are an extremely proud people. Often that pride is misplaced or baseless. For example, we grew up singing 'Saare jahaan se achha Hindustan hamara...' How can we be sure of this? We need to be more self-critical, have an open mind that is accepting of other cultures, and re-evaluate our place in the world of nations. Instead, we are quick to mouth homilies about how India has been a tolerant culture for centuries. In the course of my research, Ive found that African students insecurity in India is due to a cocktail of factors. Some are cultural, such as our legendary aversion to dark skin. Others are socio-economic in nature. For example, in the largely unregulated education industry, colleges play havoc with the future of foreign students. They want African dollars but they dont necessarily want the Africans!

A majority of these portraits have been clicked at night, or in artificial light. Was that a conscious choice? Are the dark and shadows here, essential elements?

All portraits are and always will be shot at night. (Im amused by the thought that if I had shot all the portraits by day, nobody would have asked me about that decision!) The problem with daylight is that it describes everything. We see things as they are. At night, I have the power to shape the light in interesting ways and to direct the imagination of the viewer while preserving the mood and mystery of the situation. The mood is dark as is the nature of what we are talking about.

Now that the collection is going to be exhibited (as part of Tasveer's eleventh season of exhibitions) what do you hope people take away from the exhibition? Could a person who calls these students 'habshi' etc be swayed by the project? Is that the power of the image over the written word that you hope will click with him or her?

I do believe good portraits have the power to make people stop and stare (which anyway is a national pastime) and also become genuinely curious about the life and condition of the subject. Through this project, I hope to put Africans into the Indian publics consciousness  or is it conscience? But that alone is not enough. The images need to be seen along with the stories to get real conversations going. When I say stories, I mean the big picture that emerges from looking at the connections between anecdotes Ive collected. This is what I share through my writings. As this show travels across India, it will bring together Indians and Africans in a space of art & culture. Imagine that. So far, Africans meet Indians only in hostile spaces  police stations, TV studios, and hospitals  when theres an "incident".

During the project you must have developed a relationship with a lot of the people you photographed. How do they react to your portraits of them and how difficult was it to get them to agree to do this?

Making portraits of vulnerable people and preserving that vulnerability within the image is a challenging task. But if the intention is genuine and the communication is clear, they will readily agree to become collaborators in the process. I think the kind of intimacy that Ive shared with my subjects comes across in the pictures. I let them know that Im there to listen and that racism is a shared pain. In a sense, I have the luxury of time that is simply not there in the world of traditional journalism.

What did you learn from this project that is not only limited to photography but also the wider political subject that you are considering here? Is there hope in your mind, that if we humanise issues like you have done, things might change?

For many in the world, the seriousness of the Syrian refugee crisis hit home only when they saw the baby Aylan Kurdi washed ashore. Seeing the human side  rather than the plain political or economic side  of any problem gives us perspective. Six months ago, I started this project not knowing what I was getting into. All I knew was that India has a racism problem, that racism is wrong, and we need to talk more about it. Working on this ongoing project is all about giving flesh to that beast. It's a pity that people in government and administration are largely clueless about addressing matters of racism. I met up with a diplomat friend  a former Indian high commissioner to Ethiopia  and told him I was working on this project. He said, The Africans seem to have a lot of complaints lately. Are they really having such a hard time here? Thats why I need to work on this project and build it up to a crescendo.
When Annette Philip graduated from the Berklee College of Music, she was offered a faculty position, and a challenge: Although there was Indian music being taught on campus, how would she like to do something new with it?

"There was no Indian performing ensemble at the school. I immediately thought, 'Why not start one and see how it goes?'" said Philip, speaking to us earlier this week. Thus, the Berklee Indian Ensemble started performing in 2011.

This week the six-year-old musical troupe had their first concert outside the US  in Bengaluru, at the 54th Bengaluru Ganesha Utsava organised by Shree Vidyaranya Yuvaka Sangha.

The glitzy show was a long way off from their maiden performance, which took place in a classroom with 50 people, even as Indian music enthusiasts from Harvard, Cambridge, and the larger New England area crowded outside for two hours as the ensemble went through their repertoire.

Since that time the ensemble has gone from strength to strength, while continuing along their path of incorporating global musical influences with Indian melodies. The troupes biggest gig was a couple of years ago at the Boston Symphony (Hall), which had 109 performers. The ensemble has garnered such a popular reputation that the show was sold out six weeks prior to the performance.

Philip remembers how, in the ensemble's first year, there were only 18 students from 14 countries in the group. Now, 42 students from 22 countries are part of it. There are musicians from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Israel, even Puerto Rico. Philip describes the BIE as a place for young musicians to come and find themselves. The group's essence is for musicians to join and create music that is timeless, historic and coming from a place of love. The BIE is a platform for people from all cultures to come together, study, explore and experiment within the Indian cultural context as well as the Indian musical traditions like Sufi, Qawwali, Indo-Jazz, Folk, etc, says Philip.

The BIE first burst into limelight with their rendition of AR Rahmans songs like Jiya Jale and Dil Se Re on YouTube. The videos amassed more than 22 million views, and came to the attention of Rahman himself.

Incidentally, Rahman himself has a curious connection with the BIE's alma mater. Just before he broke into the Indian film industry with his award-winning score for Roja, he had to make a choice: Take up the Mani ratnam film, or apply to Berklee.

Life came full circle when Rahman received an honorary doctorate from the college in 2014, and performed with the ensemble. The proceeds from the performance were used to start a scholarship fund in Rahmans name to support Indian students wishing to attend Berklee.

For what is essentially an Indian music class to have students from across the world enrolled in it, and performing to packed auditoriums at important musical events in the US is indeed laudable. Philip says this is possible because we perform like a professional band, so every member joins with the expectation that they have to bring their best every day, all the time.

The way the class goes about constructing an original or giving their own spin to a cover is an intensely creative process. Somebody picks a song of their choice, the class listens to it. Then they begin to question what element is relevant to their philosophy, what makes it appropriate for the group. From there, the music evolves organically. Sometimes, the BIE chooses a specific person to arrange a song. For their Bengaluru performnce, BIE was joined by Vijay Prakash and Raghu Dixit. The troupe's Israeli guitarist took up one of Dixits songs ('Kodagana Koli Nungitha'), and everybody else followed, pitching their creative inputs. The result was a highly energetic twist to an old Kannada folk song.

For a troupe that has become famous for covering Rahmans songs, such experiments add to their growing repertoire. Philip says labelling the group would be incorrect as "we were doing music videos before the Rahman videos went viral. She points out that also score original numbers, and have done Sufi and Bangladeshi songs in the past. In the future, Philip hopes the group's musical horizons will broaden further; they would like to add a Pakistani element to their music, for instance. Although Rahman will always remain an inspiration, Philip would also like to try a global twist to an Ilaiyaraaja song, study Shreya Ghoshal's roots. The BIE would also like to host a qawwali group, a folk night, even a bhangra night". "The sky is the limit, says Philip.

For students like Shilpa Ananth, the BIE is a home away from home. Shilpa is a vocalist with the ensemble, and hails from Chennai. As an independent artiste in the US, she is currently working on her second album. She thinks if one wants to be a musician then Berklee College is the place to be. For Dan Laine, who plays the viola in the troupe, the energy and the beats of Indian music are what attract him to the ensemble.

In such a large group of people with diverse nationalities some of friction can only be counted natural. Philip is mindful of such interactions as she thinks it could be counterproductive to their music as also to her idea of being a family. She counts on everyday communication, pinpointing problems and solving them as measures to counter friction. There is no right or wrong, just different choices. If you come from that perspective, you are less judgmental about each other, she says.

It is a philosophy that would serve all of us well in these troubled times.

Watch the BIE perform Rahman's 'Kun Faya Kun':
New Delhi: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani will be arriving in India on 14 September on a two day visit to hold "close consultations" on key issues with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during which India is likely to accede to Kabul's demand for increased military assistance.

Announcing the visit, External Affairs Ministry said the discussions between Ghani and Modi will cover a wide range of "matters of mutual interest".

"The upcoming visit will provide an opportunity to continue the close and frequent consultations between the two friendly neighbours, including at the highest level." the ministry said in a statement. "Such interaction is the hallmark of their strategic partnership and has guided the strengthening of all-round cooperation between the two countries," the statement added.

Afghanistan has been demanding increased defence supplies, including lethal weapons from India, which for the first time gave four Mi-25 attack helicopters to the war-torn country last year. According to sources, India may accede to demand and announce such assistance.

Apart from holding discussions with Modi, who will also host a lunch in his honour, Ghani during his working visit will also interact with business community and deliver an address at a prominent think tank in New Delhi.
Srinagar: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has invited chairman of hardline Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the annual coordination meeting of the Foreign Ministers as well as the meeting of contact group on Jammu and Kashmir in New York later this month.

Geelani is the second separatist leader invited by the OIC for the meetings scheduled to be held during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters from 19 September to 22 September.

OIC Director General of Cabinet Dr Yusuf Al-Othaimeen extended separate invitations to Geelani and chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to attend the meetings in New York as invitee.

While Mirwaiz led Hurriyat released the letter from OIC Director General of Cabinet to the media here yesterday, Geelani's Hurriyat released the letter today.

Geelani and Mirwaiz along with JKLF chairman Mohammad Yaseen Malik are spearheading the ongoing agitation in the valley which has claimed the lives of 75 people and rendered thousands of others injured over the past two months.

While Mirwaiz and Malik are arrested, Geelani continues to remain under house arrest at his Hyderpora residence here.
Mecca: From Asia, Africa and points in between, nearly 1.5 million Muslims begin the annual hajj in western Saudi Arabia on Saturday, undeterred by a stampede which last year killed around 2,300.

Tens of thousands of Iranians are absent because of long-running tensions between their Shiite nation and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, friction exaggerated by the stampede.

After preliminary rituals this week in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, the pilgrims will move on Saturday in buses, by train or even on foot in debilitating temperatures exceeding 40 C (100 F) to Mina, about five kilometres east.

They are following in the footsteps of their Prophet Mohammed who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago.

The first day of hajj was traditionally the chance for pilgrims to water their animals and stock up on water.

Then they proceed to Mount Arafat, several kilometres away, for the peak of hajj on Sunday.

Mina becomes their base, where an expanse of white fireproof tents can accommodate 2.6 million pilgrims.

Last 24 September, Mina was the scene of the worst disaster in hajj history, when the stampede occurred as pilgrims made their way to the Jamarat Bridge for a stoning ritual.

This year's stoning will start on Monday.

Although Riyadh stuck with a stampede death toll of 769, data from foreign officials in more than 30 countries gave a tally almost three times higher  at least 2,297.

"What happened last year is unacceptable. I saw dozens of bodies," said Oumar Kante, a Malian army colonel who survived the crush and says better organisation would have prevented the suffering.

Saudi Arabia announced an investigation but no results have ever been released.

Still, a number of safety measures have been taken.

Government facilities were moved out of Mina to free up space, the Saudi Gazette reported, while roads in the Jamarat area were expanded, the Arab News said.

Officials have been issuing pilgrims with bracelets that store their personal data, after some foreign officials expressed concern about difficulties in identifying the stampede dead.

AFP found pilgrims wearing the new bracelets which authorities aim to give to each of the more than 1.4 million faithful from abroad.

But there has been no figure for the number of bracelets distributed so far.

Libyan pilgrim Abdelati Abu Zayan, 44, expressed confidence in the Saudi organisation after attending the main weekly prayers at the Grand Mosque on Friday.

White-clad worshippers filled the sprawling mosque, its courtyard, and spread through the surrounding streets.

"It was an incredible feeling. Millions came to pray at the mosque and, thanks to God, all went well," Zayan told AFP.
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday faced growing criticism after he called the Palestinian refusal to let Jews live in their future state "ethnic cleansing".

In a video released on Friday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that West Bank settlements were "an obstacle to peace", drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted "Israel's diversity" which manifests in "the nearly two million Arabs living" in the Jewish state and reflects its "openness and readiness for peace".

"Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews," he said.

"There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."

The US State Department called the video "unhelpful" and "inappropriate".

"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said yesterday.

"We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.

"Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties."

Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of "trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage".

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

"After Netanyahu's video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised," she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating "an imaginary reality" and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of "ethnic cleansing".

"Netanyahu doesn't care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited erritories around the major cities," he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahu's government, considered to be the most right-wing in the country's history, has nonetheless continued with the policy.
Seoul: North Korea on Saturday sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear "blackmail" as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from Friday's test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons  almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.

The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

"It is believed that the North's nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace," Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for "more and stronger sanctions".

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that  even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North's drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and called for "strong retaliation", including pre-emptive attacks on the North's nuclear complex.

"Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!" and "Destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons!" the elderly activists shouted.

Some newspapers were equally scathing. "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac," read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

But the North's ruling party newspaper vowed Saturday not to submit to US nuclear "blackmail", and described the South's President Park Geun-Hye as a "dirty prostitute" for working with US forces.

"Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK," said Rodong Sinmun, using the country's official name.

"The US is exasperated by the strong military steps being taken by the DPRK in a phased way."

'Holding the world hostage'

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South. The Joongang Ilbo newspaper recommended they should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, as they were until the early 1990s.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang's sole ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US ambassador Samantha Power said.

"North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike," Power said.

Pyongyang's state media said Friday the nuclear test had realised the goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket.

"Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country's northern nuclear test site," a TV presenter said.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test.

The nuclear programme has accompanied a series of ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China.

Challenge for China

China has long been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbour.

Beijing strongly condemned the test. But its priority is to avoid the regime's collapse, which would create a crisis on its border and potentially shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula toward the United States.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for further pressure on North Korea, but said China bore responsibility for tackling the problem.

"China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it," he said.

"It's important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going."
By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test on Friday morning at 9 am local time in yet another defiance of UN resolutions. The South Korean government reported that this was possibly the biggest explosion so far and it appears that Pyongyang is beginning to make serious nuclear advances. South Korean President Park Guen-hye termed the test an act of "self destruction"; the US issued a warning of serious consequences. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted to the test saying it "absolutely cannot condone" the test and would "protest adamantly" to North Korea. He added that Pyongyangs "nuclear development is becoming a graver threat to Japans safety and severely undermines the peace and safety of the region and the international community".

China too called upon the North Koreans regime to exercise restraint and avoid further action, though it appeared to justify Pyongyangs action by suggesting that it was possibly a response to the deployment of the US anti-missile defence system THAAD. Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency too stated that test was in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions and that it is "a deeply troubling and regrettable act".

Given the nature of the regime in North Korea, there is no clear information on the kind of yield and the type of weapon, among other things. South Korea reported that it may be a 10 kt (Kiloton, or the explosive equivalent one ton of TNT) weapon, although others have suggested that it may be a 20 kt. Just to offer a sense of the magnitude of the yield, the bomb that the US dropped in Hiroshima was 15 kt. But the yield suggests that this was not a hydrogen or a fusion bomb.

The test might also indicate North Koreas success in miniaturising their weapon to mount it on top of a long-range ballistic missile. North Korea claimed this after their last nuclear test in January. US military officials also suggest that Pyongyang may have managed to miniaturise the warhead, though US civilian officials appear to be more skeptical. It must also be added that North Korea has carried out a series of ballistic missile tests as well in the recent months, the most recent one in the beginning of the week as world leaders gathered in Hanzhou for the G20 Summit.

What motivates the North Korean regime is of course the key question. Ever since Kim Jong-un took charge in Pyongyang, one has seen a much more belligerent North Korea. No amount of UN sanctions seemed to have had any impact on the regime. So how can the world respond to Friday's test? North Korea is already isolated, especially after the tough sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after the January 2016 nuclear test. What more can be done to isolate an already isolated regime?

One can debate additional means to put pressure on the regime, but it is more important to ensure that existing sanctions are fully implemented. This brings to particular focus the role of China. Has China been on board in implementing the last round of sanctions? China remains the only country that has offered political and economic support to the regime. It is understandable that Beijing does not want to see the North Korean collapsing, which would mean that the power vacuum could possibly be filled by South Korea or even the US.

This test also affects Asian security dynamics. There have been continuing debates within South Korea and Japan on whether they should develop their own nuclear weapons. Japans debate is particularly noteworthy. Given the strong domestic opposition to nuclear weapons, the fact that these debates are taking place at all says a lot about the new security dynamics in play. Tokyo has all the technological wherewithal to build nuclear weapons, but the question has been about its willingness to go down this path given its strategic culture and how it might upon Japan-US security equations. Clearly, on the first question, the indication that the rest of the world will not do much to control North Korean nuclear weapons is increasing support for a Japanese nuclear arsenal, though this is, as yet, by nowhere near the majority opinion. But unless the rest of the world does something about North Korea, Japanese domestic opinion could continue to swing towards exercising its own nuclear option.

What motivates the North Korean regime is of course the key question

The second issue is about US support. There has always been also the question of the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella. The recent talk of a US No First Use (NFU) policy triggered fresh debates in this regard. The US debate on the NFU has been shelved for the time being, but the need for independent security capabilities is not going to go away, at least in the minds of US allies. Japan has also worried about a possible Iran-like solutions worked out sometime in the future between the US and China, which leaves North Korean nuclear capability in place, leaving Tokyo to fend for itself. But should Japan go nuclear, South Korea will follow suit and the situation would become rather dire.

Lastly, the North Korean nuclear belligerence is also a reflection of the lack of effectiveness of the global non-proliferation regime. NPT has been in a crisis mode, and the failure to tackle cases such as North Korea either through the non-proliferation regime or by the great powers will leave the neighbouring countries to fend for themselves.

This article first appeared on ORF and is being reproduced with permission
Egyptian police investigated the Italian student for three days in January two weeks prior to his disappearance and murder

A statement released by Egypt's top prosecutor Nabil Sadek confirmed that Egyptian police had investigat Italian student Giulio Regeni before his murder but suspended the operation after three days.

According to Al-Ahram Arabic website, the prosecutor's statement, which came during his two-day visit to Rome to meet with his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Pignatone and discuss the case, said that police investigations started into Regeni's activities after he was reported to the authorities in early January by the head of Egypt's independent union for street vendors.

Regeni, who was in Cairo conducting research on independent trade unions, went missing on 25 January. His body was found, bearing signs of torture, by a roadside on the outskirts of Cairo on 3 February.

The prosecutors discussed with the Itlalian side the details of the ongoing investigation, the statement said, and provided Rome with a log of the phonecalls Regini received on the day of his disappearance.

The investigations revealed doubts regarding a link between a reported gang, that were killed in confrontations with the police last March, and the kidnapping and murder of Regeni, the prosecutiojn said.

At the time, the interior ministry said the gang specialised in robbing foreigners and announced they found Regenis passport and university ID in an apartment belonging to a relative of one of members of the reported gang.

The police killed all four gang members in a shootout.

Sadek travelled to Rome on Thursday to hold talks with Pignatone in the latest round of meetings between investigators from the two countries probing the murder of the Italian student.

It is the third such meeting between Egyptian prosecutors and investigators looking into the case and their Italian counterparts, after previous meetings in Cairo on 14 March and Rome on 7 April.

Egypt has strongly denied claims that security forces were involved in Regeni's murder.

The Italian government recalled their ambassador to Cairo in April in response to Egypt's handling of the investigation, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said. Italian officials have publicly criticised what they described as a lack of transparency from the Egyptian side.

A new Italian ambassador to Cairo, Giampaolo Cantini, was appointed in May but has not yet taken up residence in Egypt.

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has repeatedly stated in various interviews that the Regeni murder should not affect Egypt-Italian relations.

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Egypt welcomed Saturday a US-Russia sponsored truce in war-torn Syria, and called on all parties to adhere to the ceasefire, scheduled to take effect across all Syria Monday, a foreign affairs ministry statement read.

Egypt called the deal "a first step towards reaching a comprehensive and permanent in all Syria cities, whilst still targeting terrorist elements."

"Abiding by the cease-fire deal would put an end to the human suffering that the Syrian population undergoes as a result of ongoing violence and fighting," the statement added.

Egypt said it also looks forward to the return of political talks, with all Syrian factions involved.

Cairo has repeatedly advocated for a political solution in the face of over five years of political turmoil in Syria.

Following the announcement of the deal on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the press that the deal is a potential "turning point" in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria's Russian-backed government and US-supported rebel groups.

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Apple announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus at its Keynote event in San Francisco this week. The phone is launching in the United States on Friday, September 16, whereas the India release date is also official and it will up for grabs from October 7th.

This time around Apple has killed the 16GB and the 64GB versions of the iPhone, and now the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be available in 32GB, 128GB and 256GB models. India pricing is also official from Apple and the phone will start at Rs. 60,000. Checkout the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus launch countries and roll out details here.

Apart from the silver, gold, rose gold colour options, there is new black finish and the new jet black finish variants introduced. The jet black will only be offered exclusively on the 128GB and 256GB models from Apple authorised resellers, said company.

The iPhone 7 has a 4.7-inch Retina HD display with 3D touch where as the iPhone 7 Plus has a 5.5-inch Retina HD display with 3D touch. Both the devices are powered by a new quad-core Apple A10 Fusion processor which is 40% faster than Apple A9 along with new hexa-core GPU and runs on the latest iOS 10.

The iPhone 7 has a new 12-megapixel iSight camera with 6-element lens, f/1.8 aperture, High-speed Sensor (60% faster, 30% efficient), support for 4K video recording and quad LED two-tone flash. The iPhone 7 Plus has dual 12-megapixel rear cameras one wide-angle with f/1.8 aperture

and a telephoto lens with f/2.8 aperture for new depth-of-field and has OIS along with Quad-LED True Tone flash. Both iPhones also have a similar 7MP Facetime camera, which is bumped up from 5MP on the iPhone 6S. Checkout our full coverage here.

Apple also unveiled Apple Watch Series 2 at the Keynote. It comes with a brighter display, improved processor and a built-in GPS.

The Watch features a new S2 chip with a faster dual-core processor and a new GPU with 2x graphics performance. Apple says this makes the next gen Apple Watch 50 percent faster than its predecessor. The new display is 2x brighter at 1000 nits, brightest for any Apple display. One of the most important additions to the Apple Watch Series 2 is the built-in GPS that does not require you to carry your phone while running or walking for your mapping needs.

Apple Watch Series 2 adds a new ceramic variant along with aluminum, stainless steel, and a special Nike Plus edition. Do check our Hands On from the Apple event.

LG announced V20, the companys latest top-end smartphone in the V series at an event in San Francisco. It has a 5.7-inch (2560 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD Quantum display, a 2.1 second (160 x 1040 pixels) screen, similar to the V10, but this is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with LG UX 5.0+.

It has a 16-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, 75-degree lens, f/1.8 aperture, OIS and Hybrid Auto Focus (HAF) integrating three AF mechanisms  Laser Detection AF, Phase Detection AF (PDAF) and Contrast AF  for both videos and photos along with a 8-megapixel rear camera with f/2.4 aperture and 135-degree lens for capturing wide shots. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with a 120-degree wide-angle lens.

The LG V20 comes in Titan, Silver and Pink colors and will roll out from this month starting from Korea. No word on the pricing yet.

The Moto G4 Play, finally got launched this week in India. It was first announced back in May, has a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD display, is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). It has a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It has dual-SIM support, 4G connectivity with VoLTE and has water repellent nano-coating.

It packs a 2800mAh battery with support for fast charging. Check our Moto G4 Play Hands On video below.

The Moto G4 Play comes in Black and White colors and is priced at Rs. 8,999. It is available exclusively from Amazon.in.

Sony finally announced its PlayStation 4 Pro. The company claims that the console will try to reach 4K visuals and in most cases should be able to reach about 90% of that. The CPU power on PS4 Pro is almost doubled to 4.20 TFLOPS, although the RAM remains the same as PS4 at 8GB. Check full details here. The PS4 Pro is priced at $399 and will be available starting 10th November. The PS4 Pro sits aside the PS4 Slim that will be priced at $299 and unlike the latter, the Pro model will retain Optical Out and will add a rear mounted USB port. Samsung announced the Galaxy Folder 2 (SM-G1600) its latest clamshell smartphone in China. The new smartphone surfaced in benchmarks couple of months back that already confirmed most of the specifications such as 3.8-inch WVGA screen, 1.4GHz quad-core Snapdragon 425 processor, 2GB RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel camera. It has dedicated dual SIM slots along with a microSD card slot and has support for 4G VoLTE. It has polycarbonate body that looks like metal. The Samsung Galaxy Folder 2 comes in golden color and is expected to go on sale in China soon. No details about the pricing yet. Intex launched Aqua S7, the companys latest smartphone in the Aqua series. It has a 5-inch HD 2.5D curved glass display with 69% screen-to-body ratio, is powered by 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735 64-bit processor and runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Read our Hands On Impression and Checkout the Intex Aqua S7 Photo Gallery. The Intex Aqua S7 comes with Jio 4G preview offer and in Rose Gold, Dark Blue and Champagne colors. It is priced at Rs. 9,499 and can be purchased from any retail store near you. Asus launched ZenBook Flip UX360CA, the companys latest laptop with 360 rotatable hinge so that it can be used as a traditional touchscreen laptop, as a convenient lightweight tablet, or any option in between. Check full specifications here. A comes in Icicle Gold and Mineral Gray color options, starts at Rs. 46,990 and will be available across leading retailers and Asus Exclusive Stores. Meizu announced M3 Max , the companys latest phablet at an event in China. It packs a 6-inch 1080p IPS display, is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Helio P10 processor and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Flyme UI on top. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with phase-detection auto-focus (PDAF) for fast focus in just 0.2 seconds, Sony IMX258 sensor and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The Meizu M3 Max comes in Champagne Gold, Silver, Gray and Rose Gold colors and is priced at 1699 yuan (US$ 254 / Rs. 16,910 approx.). Lava launched P7+, the companys latest smartphone and the successor of P7 that was launched earlier this year. It has a 5-inch HD 2.5D curved glass display, is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). It has a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 5-megapixel front-facing camera that also has an LED flash. The Lava P7+ 3G smartphone comes in Grey and Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 5699. Amazon introduced a new Fire HD 8 tablet in the U.S. It has the same 8-inch (1280800 pixels) IPS display, but this has more storage with 16GB and 32GB options, 1.5GB of RAM and also promises up to 12 hours of battery life. It also brings support for Alexa its own cloud-based voice service that lets you play music, launch games, read audiobooks, and more through voice commands. The new Amazon Fire HD 8 comes in Black, Magenta, Blue and Tangerine colors and is priced at $89.99 (Rs. 6000 approx.) for 16GB and $119.99 (Rs. 7990 approx.) for 32GB versions. Jabra launched Halo Smart, its latest Bluetooth headset it India. It has integrated wind-noise protection, enhanced voice capabilities via a dedicated Google Now/Siri button and promises full-spectrum sound through its 10mm speakers. It promises up to 17 hours talk time or 15 hours of music listening on a single charge. The Jabra Halo Smart comes in Impact Red, Electric Blue and Black colors and is priced at Rs. 3499.
Samsung has been going through a tough time with its flagship Galaxy Note7. The company which had announced a global recall of the Galaxy Note7 earlier this month over battery exploding issues is now working with United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for a formal and complete recall of the phone in the U.S

CPSC is a US government agency that handles official recalls of consumer products. The agency said in a statement that it is urging all consumers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note7 to power them down and stop charging or using the device. Samsung has confirmed that they will be expediting new shipments of the Galaxy Note7 starting this week.

Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America said,

Samsung continues to ensure that consumer safety remains our top priority. We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note7s and exchange them now. New Note7 replacement devices will be issued to exchange program participants upon completion of the CPSC process. In the interim, consumers can return their Note7 for another device.

CPSC said in a statement,

CPSC and Samsung are working cooperatively to formally announce an official recall of the devices, as soon as possible. CPSC is working quickly to determine whether a replacement Galaxy Note7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or their phone carriers to provide to consumers.

Just yesterday, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is urging its passengers to not to use the Galaxy Note7 nor charge it while they are on-board a flight for safety reasons. With an official CPSC recall on the Note 7 there are chances of speeding up the process. Samsung is also encouraging all Note7 owners to participate in U.S. Product Exchange Program. Information for which can be found here. Click here to find out whether you have a safe Samsung Galaxy Note7 or not.

Source
It has been rumoured for quite a while that Samsung is planning to make its own GPUs for their Exynos chipset lineup. This was supposed to be ready in time for the Note5 launch, however things did not materialise.

Now, apparently Samsung is planning to stop using ARMs Mali series of GPUs in their own chipsets in the future. Instead, they are planning to use Nvidia or AMD for the same.

They are already in talks with Nvidia and AMD to licence their GPU technologies. At the moment, it seems that Nvidia has an upper hand thanks to their superior Pascal architecture. But AMD also have a fair chance and should not be taken lightly since the Sony PS4 Pro too uses AMDs Polaris architecture.

Next year, we can expect to see an Exynos chipset with HSA support (Heterogeneous System Architecture) which will allow the GPU and CPU to be located on the same bus thereby allowing them to share memory and tasks. This will allow for improved performance and graphics. The first one would still feature a Mali GPU but by 2018 , Samsung is expected to replace it with their own.

Source | Via
While China's economic growth has been slowing, the world's most populous country is still experiencing much stronger growth relative to more developed countries. China's gross domestic product, or GDP, reportedly grew 6.9% in 2015.

Waves of consumers from China's population of 1.4 billion continue to pour into the middle class, including the upper-middle class, which is largely considered the "consuming class" that's responsible for much of any country's economic growth. Two companies poised to significantly grow their empires thanks to this long-term trend are Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and A.O. Smith (NYSE: AOS).

Shanghai Disney as a "gateway experience"

Image source: Disney.

Disney opened its first theme park in mainland China -- the massive Shanghai Disney -- on June 17. CEO Bob Iger's characterized the grand opening as "spectacular," and by all accounts, the opening went off without a major hitch. The pent-up demand among Chinese consumers to experience the one-of-kind experience that only a Disney theme park can provide was evident early on. Opening-day tickets were snatched up within a few hours of their availability in March, and the on-site hotels were quickly fully booked for the first two weeks of the park's opening.

Shanghai Disney's early results have lived up to the pre-opening hype. Iger said on the company's fiscal Q3 analyst conference call that "well over 1 million" guests have visited the park and that the overall hotel occupancy rate was holding steady at 95%. Those numbers were as of Aug. 9, so we're talking about less than a two-month period. Moreover, Disney's research indicates that more than 70% of the people of Shanghai -- or nearly 17 million -- intend to visit the park. The attraction isn't only drawing visitors from the Shanghai area, but throughout China and internationally. Shanghai ranked No.20 on Euromonitor's top international tourist destinations in 2014, drawing 6.4 million visitors from outside China.

Disney Shanghai should contribute nicely to Disney's future financial results in its parks and resorts business, which accounted for nearly 30% and 21%, respectively, of the company's revenue and segment operating income for the first nine months of fiscal 2016. Disney Shanghai, however, is much more than a magnificent park that is poised to be very successful. It should act as a gateway experience into the wonderful world of Disney, since it will be many Chinese consumers' first (or at least most intimate) experience with a Disney product or service. If these newbie Disneyites are delighted by their visits, they're not only likely to come back again, but to also be primed to devour other Disney offerings.

Bringing hot running water and cleaner water to China

Imagine what a miracle hot running water must seem like for many Chinese people who have only recently been able to afford it. Image source: Getty Images.

A.O. Smith's primary business is manufacturing water heaters and boilers for the residential and commercial markets. It's the market share leader in the U.S. for both residential and commercial water heaters.The innovative Wisconsin-based company also has a small -- but growing -- consumer water-treatment business that it started in China but has expanded into the United States.

A.O. Smith had the foresight to enter the Chinese premium water heater market in 1995, making it an early foreign entrant into the world's most populous country. The company's investments in its China business have earned it a strong brand name and a rising market share. A.O. Smith's China business has grown at a 25% average annual rate over the past 10 years and currently accounts for about 30% of its total revenue.

Image source: A.O. Smith.

In the second quarter, A.O. Smith'ssales in China continuedto power its revenue growth, rising 10%, or nearly 16% in local currency, whereas total revenue grew 3% in constant currency. Earnings per share jumped 24%, in part due to the company's pricing power. A.O. Smith expects 2016 EPS to grow between 13.3% and 15.2% year over year. This is great growth considering the company continues to invest heavily in its China business -- it's been expanding into tier 2 and tier 3 cities -- and is in the early stages of establishing a business in India, the world's second most populous country.

Wall Street analysts project that A.O. Smith will grow EPS at an average annual rate of 11.5% over the next five years. However, there's reason to believe that this estimate will prove too conservative. A.O. Smith continues to beat analysts' expectations,cruising by both first- and second-quarter estimates by about 9%.

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Beth McKenna has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. 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.
The lawsuit was filed by the chairman of NGO Caritas against the Ministry of Social Solidarity and a number of governmental institutions

An Egyptian administrative court ruled on Saturday that non-governmental organisations have the right to foreign funding to aid development work in the country.

The lawsuit was filed by Nabil Saad, the chairman of the Egyptian NGO Caritas, against the Ministry of Social Solidarity and a number of governmental institutions after they turned down a request to allow foreign funding.

Saad argued in his case that his NGO is registered, and that authorities have previously approved foreign funding but they have recently turned down a number of funding requests.

The court for its part reviewed the reasoning behind the authorities' denial of foreign funding, specifically from Germanys Caritas NGO.

The authorities, in a memo to the court, said they denied the funding from Caritas Germany because such funding compromises national security and does not serve Egyptian society and aims to destroy it.

But the court responded by stating that the authorities charges are unfounded, especially since the state previously approved foreign funding for these organisations before.

This is the second such verdict of this nature.

In April an Egyptian administrative court ruled that non-governmental organisations have the right to receive foreign funding in a case filed by Amal Abdel-Hady, chairwoman of the

New Woman Foundation, against the Ministry of Social Solidarity, after the ministry refused to allow the NGO to receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Similar cases are currently being reviewed by courts.

A number of Egyptian NGOs are currently being investigated for receiving illegal foreign funding, among them Nazra for Feminist Studies, a rights group focused on women's issues.

Also being investigated in the case are Hossam Bahgat, an investigative journalist and founder in 2004 of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and Gamal Eid, a lawyer and founder, also in 2004, of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).



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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is a global healthcare giant that's well known for top-selling consumer brands like Band-Aid, but it also generates billions of dollars in sales annually from the rheumatoid arthritis drug Remicade. In fact, Remicade is Johnson & Johnson's best-selling drug,with U.S. sales of $4.4 billion last year, and Q2 U.S. sales of $1.2 billion.

Remicade's tailwinds, however, could be about to end becausePfizer, Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is finalizing plans to launch a Remicade biosimilar before year's end. Pfizer's biosimilar to Remicade, Inflectra, isn't an exact copy of Remicade, but it works similarly to it, and importantly, it's going to cost less -- something that could result inbillions of dollars in Johnson & Johnson sales heading Pfizer's way over the next few years.

What's at stake

Remicade won FDA approval in August 1998 as a Crohn's disease therapy. Since then, its label has expanded to include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis. and ulcerative colitis, too. The drug is sold globally, with Johnson & Johnson owning the U.S. rights, and Merck & Co. and Mitsubishi Tanabe owning rights to it outside the United States. Merck and Mitsubishi pay J&J a royalty on Remicade's ex-U.S. sales.

Remicade is a biologic drug, which means that it's a complex medicine that's created in living organisms, and it's not easily replicated. Remicade's patent has already expired, but until now, its complexity has kept competitors at bay in the United States. Remicade biosimilars, however, are already available in Europe.

Over the past three years, Remicade's sales in the U.S. total $12.5 billion, and in Q2, Remicade's U.S. sales accounted for 55% of Johnson & Johnson's U.S. immunology revenue and nearly a quarter of Johnson & Johnson's total U.S. drug sales.

Preparing to launch

Pfizer's Inflectra won unanimous support for approval by a Food andl Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee in February. In April, the FDA officially gave Pfizer the green light to begin marketing it as a Remicade biosimilar in the United States.

Although the FDA's decision to approve Inflectra was announced months ago, Pfizer decided to delay launching Inflectra while it awaited a ruling on some patents that Johnson & Johnson argues still protects Remicade. Unfortunately for Johnson & Johnson, a federal judge in Boston recently ruled against it in that case.

The judge's ruling helps assuage fears Pfizer may have that it could be exposed to penalties if it launches Inflectra too soon. Previously,Pfizer has said it wouldn't launch Inflectra until Oct. 3, at the earliest.

In Pfizer's Q2 conference call, executive John Young said, "We're moving ahead with launch preparations, and launch timing will be impacted by the upcoming court decision." Pfizer's top in-house legal beagle Douglas Lankler added, "If the court rules in our favor, there would be no legal restriction on our ability to launch."

Given those comments and the judge's ruling, it would appear that a launch of Inflectra can be expected soon.

Looking ahead

Inflectra is already available in many European markets, and biosimilar competition overseas is a big reason why Johnson & Johnson's Remicade royalty stream is shrinking. In Q2, J&J's U.S. export sales of Remicade slumped 23%, to $185 million.

Pfizer has said it expects price discounting for biosimilars in the 30% to 50% range, which is better than the 80% to 90% discounting typical for traditional generic drugs. No one knows how much of the Remicade market share Inflectra can capture, or how quickly it can capture it. However, with that pricing, it wouldn't be shocking if Inflectra rapidly can become a nine-figure drug for Pfizer in the U.S. This would all come at Johnson & Johnson's expense.

A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, just click here.

Todd Campbell has no position in any stocks mentioned.Todd owns E.B. Capital Markets, LLC. E.B. Capital's clients may have positions in the companies mentioned.Like this article? Follow him onTwitter where he goes by the handle@ebcapitalto see more articles like this.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Johnson and Johnson. 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.
In the spring of 2013, I was a college sophomore at a university in New York City with a full, busy life: I was doing well in school, working two internships, hunting for my first apartment with my best friends, and six months into a new relationship with a great guy.

Then, out of nowhere, I started having panic attacks on the subway. Thinking it was claustrophobia, I brushed it off, and resolved to never ride at rush hour.

Around the same time, I began waking up with a headache every day. No big deal, I thought, Ill pop a Tylenol to take the edge off. My busy life awaited, and I couldnt afford to waste time. But weeks later, the headache still hadnt gone away, and I needed to take two Tylenol to handle my pain, then three.

Soon after that, exhaustion set in. I would sleep through the three alarms I set every night, and end up rushing to my morning classes and internships, which made my headache worse and left me even more tired.

One rainy April morning, my boyfriend found me asleep on my dorm room couch, still wrapped in a towel after my shower, because Id been too tired to walk the extra 10 feet to my bed. It had been a particularly long week, and I figured I was just beat. I promised myself I'd get more rest.

RELATED: 19 Signs Your Thyroid Isn't Working Right

But logging more sleep didnt help, and other bizarre things started happening. During two separate workouts, I nearly fainted. I felt hot all the time. So hot that one day I found myself sweating through a thin tank top even though it was 40 degrees out and windy. I was always hungry. I ate full meals and then got the shakes from low blood sugar just two hours later. I lost 15 pounds. My heart rate sped up every time I walked down the street, and I got winded after climbing one flight of stairs.

When my headaches no longer responded to the max daily dose of Tylenol, I finally went to my schools health center. The nurse put a gadget on my finger to take my pulse.

Did you run here? she asked.

"No," I answered.

Somethings wrong with this thing," she said. "Your heart rate is as high as if you just went on a run.

She gave me pain meds for the headaches. They didnt work. I finally called my parents, convinced I had a brain tumor. They told me to calm down, but they had no idea what could be causing my symptoms.

RELATED: 9 Things You Need to Know About Your Thyroid

I went back to the health center, and was referred to a neurologist. She ordered blood tests and an MRI. The MRI came back negative; the blood tests revealed my thyroid levels were especially high. So the neurologist sent me to an endocrinologist who, finally, had an answer: Graves' Disease.

When I heard the diagnosis, I started crying. I was so relieved to know what was wrong.

Graves' is an autoimmune disorder that results in hyperthyroidism, or the overproduction of thyroid hormones, which can cause everything from a racing heart to bulging eyes to anxiety (all three of which I had). Graves' is treatable, but incurable. I will have Graves' for the rest of my life.

My endocrinologist put me on medication to regulate the production of thyroid hormones, and almost immediately, my levels returned to normal. But I still felt anxious and continued to wake up with headaches. So I started seeing an acupuncturist, and decided to work with a naturopath to figure out what changes I could make to feel better on a daily basis.

Per her advice, I now eat as many vegetables as possible, avoid excess sugar and alcohol, steer clear of gluten, and sleep way more than the average 20-something startup employee. When I stray from these guidelines (which I admittedly do), my Graves' symptoms start to come back.

RELATED: 5 Foods That Are Good for Your Thyroid

Having an autoimmune disorder undeniably shapes my life. Four years after my diagnosis, every day is a balancing act between what I want to do (dance all night with my friends) and what I need to be able to do (work hard at a job I love). I focus a lot of energy on self-care, and that means I often have to say no to invitations and favor requests, or bail on previous commitments. I feel guilty sometimes, and have to remind myself that even on my good days, my Graves' is real, and Im not being lazy or selfish by setting boundaries and prioritizing my health.

Im deeply thankful for my friends and family who understand there are times I just cant go to that event, have dinner at the new Italian place, or stay out for one more round. Even though Graves' is incurable, Im very lucky that, thanks to my healthcare team and strong support system, I am able to live the life I want 95 percent of the time.

Editor's note: The writer's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

This article originally appeared on Health.com
Flying to Pittsburgh Thursday morning, I rested my head on the scratchy airline pillow and closed my eyes. It was an early flight after a late night, and I could have used another hours sleep, yet I couldn't rest.

Every time I closed my eyes, I pictured what the passengers and crew of Flight 93 went through fifteen years ago on September 11th. I imagined a flight much like the one I was on -- quiet, routine, some passengers reading, some working on their laptops until the very last second before the cabin door closes.

None of them suspecting that they would die in an hour.

I have a fascination with Flight 93. My emotions are mixed: awe; gratitude; fear; heartache; pride; even, in some ways, guilt.

In all the years I worked at the White House, my schedule never coincided with a trip to the memorial site. An assignment for "The Five" on Fox News Channel changed that for me this year.

The Flight 93 Memorial isnt that easy to get to. It isnt like the memorials in New York City or Washington, D.C., where you may go on a business trip or family vacation. No, in order to get to Shanksville, PA, you fly to Pittsburgh, make your way through the traffic and onto the highway that takes you through the beautiful wooded countryside.

As you drive up the road to the site, you see Americana at its finest -- the local diner, the auto repair shop, the Rotary club, the schoolhouse. And everywhere, American flags.

It is quiet. A nice place to raise a family. The locals certainly never expected to be home to the site of the first battle won in the war on terror, but they do it with great care and are proud to do so.

I encourage everyone to make the trip. It is important. And it is worth it.

The memorial starts off on the flight path. As you walk, you can see markings of the planes plowing into the Twin Towers. And then, huddled in the back of Flight 93, the passengers learn of the plane that hit the Pentagon. And they realized that the hijackers were lying to them -- they werent going back to an airport.

In just minutes, these passengers accepted their duty and made a plan. In an act of defiance against the terrorists who hated their way of life, the passengers held a vote (I love to imagine what that was like).

They decided to try to wrest back control of the plane instead of being used as a weapon against their own people. In those next few minutes, several passengers made phone calls to loved ones; three of those calls were recorded, and you can listen to them at the visitors center at the memorial.

I braced myself when I picked up the handset. They sounded so calm -- their worries not for themselves, but rather for the loved ones they believed they may never see again.

Go listen to those calls to better understand the story. Let yourself cry. It helps.

After the calls, the passengers come together in prayer. Bounded by their faith and their patriotism, they defied the terrorists and ultimately lost their lives. But they saved countless others.

Experts believe the plane was headed to the U.S. Capitol, where I first worked after graduate school and many of my friends still worked there at the time. Still do, actually.

I love that building and lived near it for many years. It is the symbol of freedom and democracy for people all over the world.

At the impact site, I spoke to Kenny Nacke whose brother Louis died on the flight. Louis would have been 57 on Friday, September 9.

Kenny is a Baltimore City police officer -- a strong man with a killer handshake that left me shaking my hand for about an hour after we met. But when we spoke of his brother, he let down his tough exterior and showed me the raw grief that he still walks with every day.

Before the interview, he told me hed be fine, that hed shed his last tear. Within two minutes, he and I were holding each other up and could barely speak.

The victims of the other three flights had no chance to fight back because they didnt know what was happening.

The passengers of Flight 93 barely had time to process the news, but they acted swiftly. They were brave. And selfless.

In that decision, they inspired a generation into public service and as Park Ranger Robert Franz told me, its our duty to keep telling the story because one day well be gone. And this story needs to be told.
My friend Karen Kingsbury, the author, sent me the most wonderful suggestion for a story the other day.

Its about woman named Hope Painter, from Lebanon, Pennsylvania and her nine-year old son, Kingston.

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Hope was in lower Manhattan on that fateful Tuesday morning -- 15 years ago.

She was being evacuated when the second plane hit the World Trade Center towers. She saw things -- unspeakable things -- that caused her unimaginable trauma.

The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months yet Hope was unable to escape from the memories of September 11, 2001.

Years later, someone gave her a copy of Karens novel about the events of that day called, One Tuesday Morning. Its a story about sacrifice and redemption.

That book saved Hopes life. She was finally able to emerge from the shadows of where those two towers once stood.

Now, some folks might wonder how a novel -- a work of fiction -- could have such a dramatic impact on a persons life. To truly understand the answer to that, you should consider reading a Karen Kingsbury novel.

When Kingston was about five-years-old, Hope told her son about One Tuesday Morning -- about how that book made such a profound impact on her life.

So moved, the little boy felt compelled to use his birthday money to buy a few copies of Karens book.

On the anniversary of the attacks, he joined his mother at Ground Zero and gave the books away to strangers.

Every person he encountered received a book, a smile, and a handwritten note:

Jesus told me to give you this book. Always rememberGod loves you always. Love, Kingston.

And oh, the stories that have resulted from Kingstons efforts.

Karen tells me that one lady had her hand on a friends name at the 9/11 Memorial when suddenly she felt a child tapping on her arm. It was Kingston.

The woman read the book all the way home and the clouds of darkness lifted, Karen said. Once home, she looked me up and wrote to me. She said she had never heard of me before and wondered if I could help her find the little boy.

She said the book changed her life, Karen told me.

Three years later, Kingston is still using his birthday money to buy copies of that book and on Sunday he will once again make the trek to lower Manhattan with his mother.

But this time, the little boy will be giving away nearly 300 books. You see, Karen told her readers about Kingstons project and they generously donated additional copies.

Among those donating a case of books was the lady Kingston first encountered two years ago at the Memorial.

Kingston loves New York City and he doesnt want anyone to be hurting the way I was hurting before I read Karens book, Hope said. He believes the book will help anyone. The way it helped me.

On Sunday in the midst of great sorrow and sadness a little boy will share a story of rebirth -- a story of how Hope found redemption one Tuesday morning.


Are we safer? That is the inevitable question being asked 15 years and a trillion dollars spent in the name of national security after 9/11, the most devastating foreign attack ever on American soil.

Yes. Of course we are safer.

The Freedom Tower rising over what was once rubble signals not only the reshaping of New Yorks skyline but the nations security and psychological contours as well.

In a cover article in the Atlantic, Steven Brill outlines the extraordinary progress and extravagant failures of Americas 15-year effort to ensure that terrorists will never again be able to inflict such carnage.

The search for safe spaces means something very different today than what it did in those sorrowful days after September 11.

Though gaping security gaps remain, Brill writes, Americans are far safer from the kind of orchestrated strike that shocked us on that September morning. Its harder for terrorists to get into the country, and harder for them to pull off something spectacular if they do, he argues.

New security touches every aspect of our lives. TSA officials at airports screen us and our luggage. Bio-sensors sniff our air and radiological detectors monitor our ports and major railway stations. Cameras capture ordinary, and extraordinary, movement in New York and other cities. New commercial buildings are designed with security in mind.

In Washington, the national security bureaucracy has been transformed. A single division in the Justice Department is now charged with consolidating and toughening counterterrorism litigation and decisions.

Our 16 intelligence agencies are now overseen by a single department and many barriers to information sharing have come down.

The FBIs budget has nearly tripled; its mission has shifted from prosecuting terrorists after they strike to preventing them from striking.

Before 9/11, FBI director James Comey told Brill, fewer than a quarter of the now more than 13,700 special agents were assigned to national security. Today, its about half.

Terrorism is now a major focus of academe. Whereas before 2001 only a handful of journalists and scholars at colleges and think-tanks worried about militant Islamists and terrorist threats, counter-terrorism today has become a virtual industry.

Some of the most dramatic transformation has occurred, understandably, in New York. Since 9/11, the NYPD has created the nations premier counter-terrorism division  over 1,200 cops and analysts strong. Some 16 terrorist plots of varying degrees of sophistication have been thwarted.

John Miller, the NYPDs deputy commissioner for intelligence and counter-terrorism, who as a journalist in 1998 heard Usama bin Laden warn of a black day for America, observed at a terrorism conference in New York last April that while terrorists have managed to conduct individual strikes -- in Boston, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, and Orlando, for instance -- there have been no more mass attacks like 9/11. Weve put together a global apparatus to fight terror, Miller said. Weve gotten a lot right.

Perhaps the most telling indication that Americans have psychologically shifted from 9/11 can be found on college campuses. While many post-9/11 students abandoned their studies to join the military, CIA, and other agencies to protect the nation from terror, students at colleges today fret more about micro-aggressions, trigger warnings and blocking politically incorrect speakers from lecturing. The search for safe spaces means something very different today than what it did in those sorrowful days after September 11.

Paradoxically, President George W. Bush, who urged us all to get on with our lives and go shopping, has prevailed. Our malls are filled. National park visitation has reached record highs. Americans have resumed normal life. Most have psychologically moved on from the tragedy inflicted on so many families in 9/11s wake.

Therein lies the challenge. Although the nations focus on the threat has largely receded, Islamic terrorists have not moved on. While the Islamic State has been battered and is on the retreat  having lost over 30 percent of its caliphate, the land it once held in Iraq and Syria, it has not yet been defeated. Usama bin Laden is dead, but Bin Ladenism, John Miller warned, is in some ways stronger than ever.

Counter-terrorism officials said last May that although the U.S. and its coalition allies had conducted over 8,000 air strikes in Iraq and 3,800 in Syria, disrupted communications, killed key leaders and inflicted heavy casualties on ISIS, jihadi groups still claimed an estimated 12,000 fighters in a dozen countries and 31,000 adherents in over 100 countries.

Though the number of recruits is declining and ISIS is preparing its followers for the eventual collapse of the caliphate it so proudly proclaimed two years ago, its leaders urge their adherents to continue their campaign of violence, wherever they are.

This month, according to MEMRI, which monitors Islamist postings, Al Qaeda's aging leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri hailed the blessed attacks of 9/11 and urged Muslims to continue targeting America and its allies, along with their own corrupt governments.

"The events of 9/11 were a direct result of your crimes against us, in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Somalia, Yemen, Islamic Maghreb, and Egypt [and] the result of your occupation of Muslim lands, theft of their resources, and support for the murderous corrupt criminals, who rule over them," he said. As long as your crimes continue, the events of 9/11 will be repeated thousands of times, by the will of Allah. And we will follow you  if you don't cease your aggression [against us]  until the Day of Judgment."

Though battered, jihadists have not lost focus. Neither must we.
Fifteen years after the horrific attacks, the pain of 9/11 is as fresh as ever in New York, Washington and across the United States. But sadly, extremist brutality did not stop that day. From San Bernadino to Yemen, Paris to Bangladesh the reach of a sophisticated and persistent enemy has only grown.

The effects of Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and their proxies reach far into Europe, America and Asia. But in the Middle East, in the heart of the Arab world, we face an existential threat from extremism. Our communities, our families, our livelihoods, our entire way of life are exposed and under constant attack.

As the reach of extremism has expanded so too has the challenge in confronting it. U.S. power and leadership in the fight against extremism remains indispensable. However, now at risk, as never before, it is the UAE and Americas other Arab allies who are shouldering a greater role in the struggle.

This means using military force. This means stopping the flow of funds and fighters. This means challenging radical ideologies.

9/11 was a wake-up call for my country. The fact that two of the hijackers came from the UAE was alarming and unsettling. We realized that the radicalization of our youth was becoming a grave danger to our country, to the region and to the world.

9/11 was a wake-up call for my country. The fact that two of the hijackers came from the UAE was alarming and unsettling. We realized that the radicalization of our youth was becoming a grave danger to our country, to the region and to the world.

We instinctively understood that Muslims  moderate Muslims  must lead this battle for the future. We started first at home, moving aggressively against radicalization by reforming schools and curricula, offering clearer guidelines to religious leaders and providing better opportunities for our young people.

The UAE and other like-minded Arab nations also knew that we needed to attack extremist safe havens around the region and that this needed to be a shared fight with the U.S. and other allies. Shortly after 9/11, the UAE military joined the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and we remained on the frontlines there with the US and NATO for more than 12 years.

Today, it is the UAE and other Arab forces spearheading the fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), perhaps the most dangerous of all the Al Qaeda franchises. In April, our coalition launched a major offensive against AQAP in Eastern Yemen with the US providing critical support. Earlier in the year, UAE-trained and supported local forces also retook Aden, Yemens second largest city, from Iranian-backed rebels and other AQAP elements.

Our intensive hunt for the extremists also continues on the horn of Africa, where UAE forces work closely with the U.S. and others to degrade and destroy Al Shabab. In Syria and Libya and in other places across the region, UAE and other Arab militaries continue to work closely with the U.S. and other allies to attack other ISIS and AQ-linked extremists.

But the fight on the battlefield is only one of the fronts in this multifaceted war. Working with the US and other international partners, we are attacking the ideology of the extremists.

A joint UAE-US initiative, the Sawab Center is confronting the spread of extremism in social media and online. In another collaboration, Hedayah is an innovation lab for diverting young people away from radicalization, testing new intervention programs and developing new training courses for community leaders.

Working with Arab partners, we are also amplifying the moderate voices of Islam through institutions like the Muslim Council of Elders and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies. These scholarly bodies work on the global stage to clarify and correct Islamic ideology hijacked by the extremists.

In the UAE, we are advancing moderation in both our schools and places of worship. Our education system is built to reinforce Islams true values based on dialogue, tolerance, moderation, and peace. And in our mosques, we are modernizing the way Islam is taught, developing new training programs for imams and updating Koranic commentaries.

We also recognize the vital importance of skills training and job opportunities for youth at home and across the region to encourage their entrance into the workforce rather than let them fall prey to terrorist recruitment.

Fifteen years after 9/11, the long war against extremism continues. It is now a global fight against a borderless plague. While every country is at risk, today it is Arabs who have the most at stake. And it is Arabs who must lead in this fight for tolerance and humanity, with force and with ideas, where we pray and where we live, online, in the classroom and on the battlefield.
As the United States on Sunday prepares to mark the 15th anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says terror plots, unbeknownst to the public, have been disrupted all of the time since he started running the agency.

We have prevented a number of actors from carrying out their intent at the very latest stages of their plotting and planning, Johnson told Fox News on Friday.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda high-jackers took down four U.S. commercial jets, including two flown into the twin World Trade Center towers.

Johnson also said the new wave of potential terror strikes is coming with little warning and in more undetectable ways.

9-11 was the prime example of a terrorist-directed attack, he said. We now live with the prospect of terrorist-inspired attacks in which ISIL, al Qaeda try to literally reach into our homeland through the internet, through social media.

Johnson made his remarks as federal employees for the first time in 15 years are working in offices at the Trade Center, rebuilt in Lower Manhattan with a memorial to the victims of the attack, which toppled the two towers.

It goes to our resilience as Americans, as New Yorkers, as people of the free world -- that we won't let somebody else dictate what we do," said Roger Parrino, a senior counsel for Johnson.

Johnson told Fox News that U.S. intelligence officials have no information about a specific or credible domestic threat Sunday. However, he suggested that such advanced warnings are no longer what they were to the intelligence community.

In this environment, it's important to, frankly, not get hung up on that -- when you're dealing with terrorist-inspired attacks that could strike with little or no notice, he said. The cop on the beat could be the one to detect the next terrorist attack on the U.S.

Johnson argued the new faces of domestic terror are people in the United States like husband-wife team Omar Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who last year fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., and Omar Mateen, who in June shot and killed 49 people inside an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

They struck with essentially no advanced notice and without direct support from members of a terror network.

All three also appeared self-radicalized, meaning they became radical Islamic terrorists via internet sites, compared to going to the Middle East or perhaps talking with radial clerics in the U.S.

Nothing can prepare you for that moment, Johnson said.

Still, Johnson acknowledges there were definitely signs that at least Mateen was preparing for an attack. And he urged members of the country's Muslim community and other Americans to notify authorities.

If people close to someone who carries out an act of terror can be encouraged to come forward and say something, that does make a difference, he said.

Johnson declined to say the whether the Obama administration bringing refugees from Syria into the United States increases the domestic terror threat, saying he doesnt comment on what the 2016 White House candidates say.

However, he suggested he opposes Republican nominee Donald Trumps plan in the wake of several terror attacks linked to Islamic terrorism to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

To vilify and isolate American Muslim communities is very much counter to our homeland security and national security efforts, said Johnson, who described the surreal, life-changing experience of seeing the 9-11 attacks while practicing law in New York.

It was a moment in my life when my brain did not believe what my eyes were seeing, he said. I kept thinking out of the rubble and the smoke would emerge the towers. But it didn't happen, and it changed our nation and our world.
The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan has been released from a Washington mental hospital for good, more than 35 years after the shooting.

A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia's Department of Mental Health said early Saturday that all patients scheduled to leave St. Elizabeths Hospital had been discharged. Hinckley was among those scheduled for discharge.

An Associated Press reporter saw a hired car pull into the driveway of the Hinckley home at around 2:30 p.m. Officers from the Kingsmill Police Department chased reporters away.

A federal judge ruled in late July that the 61-year-old Hinckley is not a danger to himself or the public and can live full-time at his mother's home in Williamsburg.

Hinckley had already been visiting Williamsburg for long stretches at a time and preparing for the full-time transition. He'll have to follow a lot of rules while in Williamsburg, but his longtime lawyer Barry Levine says he thinks Hinckley will be a "citizen about whom we can all be proud."
FBI agents arrested a Kentucky woman Thursday and accused her of sending threatening messages and making false statements to investigators.

Law enforcement officials said there is no link between the arrest of 55-year-old Marie Castelli and the upcoming 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. However, a grand jury indicment accused Castelli of taking part in a "matter involving terrorism."



Castelli maintained a profile on the Muslim social networking site "Ummaland," which describes itself as a lifestyle network for rediscovering Islam. Castelli's profile name on the site is "Jihad Marie Antoinette Castelli."



According to the indictment, Castelli posted the names, photos and addresses of three victims and "stated that others should locate and execute Victim 1."

The indictment also states that Castelli lied to federal agents about the number of phones she possessed. She appeared before a federal judge in Covington, Ky. Friday.

Witnesses told Fox19 that Castelli was arrested near her home in Maysville, which is decorated with Arabic lettering.

Maysville Police Chief Ron Rice told Fox News that Castelli had no prior criminal record locally and could frequently be seen walking her two dogs around town.



"Her world consisted of taking those two dogs and walking all over Maysville," neighbor Herbert Freeman told Fox19. "During the course of that, she got to know everybody and everybody got to know her."

Fox News' Matt Dean contributed to this report.

Click for more from Fox19.com.
A gay West Hollywood television editor has founded a local chapter of the national LGBT gun rights organization Pink Pistols in response to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida.

Jonathan Fischer, 47, told the Los Angeles Times that he started the chapter in the days after 49 people were fatally shot at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando because he wanted to do something to make his community safer.

If someone was to try and break into my home, and especially if someone were armed, I dont want to fight back with a kitchen knife, Fischer told the paper Friday. And I dont think thats extremist or crazy.

Fischer showed up a shooting range last month for a defensive handgun class in what he said was his gay-K-47 tee shirt, the Times reported.

He was with gun owner Elizabeth Southern, a bisexual 25-year-old, who joined the West Hollywood Pink Pistols this summer.

I had an unfortunate experience and it scared me to the point where I felt like I needed to defend myself and my family, she told the paper on video.

Pink Pistols has dozens of chapters nationwide but not everyone in the gay community has been supportive.

Pink Pistols national spokeswoman Gwendolyn Patton told the paper that the broader LGBT communitys response to her organization has been mostly negative.

She said some LGBT centers have even banned the Pink Pistols from using their facilities.

Click here for more from The Los Angeles Times.
Ahmed Saadeddin, the secretary-general of Egypt's parliament, unveiled Saturday the details of a one-day celebration aimed at marking the 150th anniversary of the inception of parliamentary life in Egypt.

Saadeddin told reporters that the celebration will be held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on 9 October.

"It will be held in the convention hall at Sharm El-Sheikh and speakers of key world parliaments will be invited to attend this big event," said Saadeddin.

On 6 September, speaker Ali Abdel-Aal told MPs that the celebration on 9 October will not be confined to marking parliament's 150-year legacy.

"It is primarily intended to honour parliament's historic significance in Egypt's public and political life while also drawing attention to Egypt's political stability and progress towards accountable and effective governance," said Abdel-Aal.

The history of Egypt's Western-style parliament, the first in the Arab, African and Middle East regions, dates back to 22 October 1866 when the 75-MP Council of Consultative Deputies (Maglis Shura Al-Nuwab) was formed.

The council, opened during the era of Khedive Ismail (1863-1879), held its first meeting on 25 November 1866.Saadeddin indicated that "speakers from the Russian, American, European, Chinese and Japanese parliaments will be on the list of invitees."

"Not to mention that speakers of the Arab parliaments and heads of the international, Arab and African parliamentary unions will be also invited," he said.

Saadeddin disclosed that the Sharm El-Sheikh celebration will be attended by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, and the country's 596 MPs.

"President El-Sisi and speaker Ali Abdel-Aal will deliver speeches, to be followed by a short documentary film on Egypt's 150-year-old parliamentary life," said Saadeddin.

Saadeddin added that a public relations exhibition will be held on the sidelines of the celebration.

"It will be organised by a number of Egypt's key tourist and commercial companies and aims to promote Egypt's tourist and business potentials among guests," he said.

Egypt's embassy in Washington also announced this month that it has launched an advertising campaign under the title "150 years of Egyptian parliamentary lifeMeet Egypt's new parliament."

The Egypt embassy in the US said the campaign - which is currently displayed on tourist buses across Washington - also coincides with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry's participation in the Fourth Nuclear Summit next month.

Speaker Abdel-Aal told MPs on 6 September that Egypt's new parliament, which opened 10 January, is the most empowered and diverse parliamentary body in Egyptian history.

"For example, women made extraordinary gains and now hold 89 seats in the House of Representatives, making the highest percentage of female representation (14.9 percent) in parliament's 150-year history," said Abdel-Aal, adding that "the same is also true about Christians whose number now stands at 39 (6.5 percent) while the number of political parties represented in parliament rose to 19, with 245 MPs (41.1 per cent)."

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Investigators searching for a California college student who disappeared in 1996 said Friday that they had excavated remains, but still needed to determine whether they were human.

Kristin Smart, 19, was last seen near her dormitory on the campus of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo on May 25, 1996. She was declared legally dead in 2002.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tony Cipolla said Friday that FBI agents and local sheriff's deputies searched three hillside locations on the university's campus and found many "items of interest". Cipolla did not elaborate on what the items were.

The remains will be tested by forensic anthropologists at the FBI's headquarters in Quantico, Va., he said.

A lead developed by investigators over the past two years "strongly suggested" that Smart's remains might be buried on the hillside near a large concrete letter "P'' that is the school's landmark, the Sheriff's Office announced when digging began Tuesday.

The three locations were then targeted with the use of dogs trained to detect old human remains.

The area was searched at the time of Smart's disappearance, along with most of the rest of the campus.

A male student, Paul Flores, told investigators at the time of Smart's disappearance that he had dropped her off at the dormitory following an off-campus party. Flores has never been arrested or charged in the case, but remains a "person of interest."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from The Tribune.
Yahoo is no longer an independent entity. Verizon has purchased the service for $4.8 billion in a purchase that makes Verizon even larger than it was before. This broadband and cell phone company has quickly grown to become a major entity in the world of online marketing.

Advertisers have to take note whenever Verizon makes a move because it impacts them. Last year, the company purchased AOL for $4.4 billion, which gave it access to a range of technologies that allowed it to better target its ads.

So, how does the Verizon purchase impact advertisers?

The context

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First, its important to understand the context of the purchase of Yahoo. The AOL of 2015 is much like the Yahoo of 2016. Both of these companies rose to become household names in the 1990s and early 2000s. When mobile arrived, however, they lost their relevance and were outmaneuvered by their most agile competitors. They still existed, but only as a shadow of their former selves.

Both websites focused on building content to drive traffic and deliver ads. Yahoo and AOL were the third- and sixth-most-visited web properties as recently as February 2016, for example.

With the range of web properties and brands acquired by Verizon through this deal, advertisers are going to have more opportunities to advertise than ever before.

Marketers can do deals directly.

Larger marketers previously had to make deals with brands through running their deal by multiple partners. This meant advertising deals could take a long time to carry out. Opportunities were lost and competitors were able to get a crucial advantage.

That will change because brands will be able to deal with Verizon directly. The fact that these brands are under Verizon means marketers and brands no longer have to deal with those specific brands.

For example, Google would no longer have to make a search deal with Yahoo. Were that deal formed today, Google would do the deal with Verizon, and that deal would likely incorporate the rest of Verizons brands, including AOL.

Now, Verizon fully intends on keeping its newly acquired Yahoo-associated brand alive, so there will be just as many advertising opportunities as before.

Mobile video will become even bigger.

When one looks at the rise of mobile, its easy to see why Verizon decided to make this deal. Marketers are taking advantage of mobile and they will soon be able to take advantage of a combined mobile network and content-marketing machine.

Yahoo comes with an enormous amount of content. And this is content people are still reading on a regular basis. With more and more people reading from a mobile device, an unprecedented opportunity presents itself for marketers to hit mobile browsers.

Verizon runs one of the largest mobile networks in the United States, and its widely expected that the company will combine its mobile network with a huge cache of content. The content footprint will be much bigger, as a result.

Advertisers will find it easier to track their results.

What a lot of people havent yet talked about is how Verizon has managed to gain control of the Yahoo Gemini ad platform and the mobile analytics suite Flurry. Flurry is the interesting acquisition for advertisers because its universally recognized as one of the better ones for tracking results.

Verizon hasnt made any announcements on the future of Flurry, but if it intends on appealing to advertisers, it will either keep or rebrand it.

Data that advertisers use will be cleaner.

Advertisers always want clean and accurate data when they deal with a platform. Yahoo has always had the problem of hosting thousands of Yahoo Mail accounts that are out of data and unused. Its widely expected that Verizon will clean these up to demonstrate to advertisers that the data it has is relevant.

This is good news for marketers because they will know exactly where they stand when it comes to the numbers they have at their disposal. Its not yet known whether these accounts will simply be deleted, though.

Will the new Yahoo acquisition provide another viable advertising platform for marketers?

Despite the coming together of two big brands like Yahoo and AOL, the number of regular users is still lacking compared to those on Facebook and Google. Theres still no competition there, but that doesnt mean marketers should completely discount using Verizon as an advertising platform.

Mobile advertising is continuing to grow at an exponential rate, and Verizon controls a huge amount of the mobile network in the United States. The leveraging of this huge network could make Verizon a "must have" for mobile advertisers in the coming years.

In the meantime, advertisers should continue to monitor the progress of Verizon, including any future acquisitions.
Serbian police say they have arrested a migrant suspected of stabbing a young Serbian man in a brawl.

Police said Saturday that the 35-year-old migrant faces charges of attempted murder for inflicting life-threatening injuries on the 27-year-old man.

The incident happened overnight in the town of Sid, near the Croatian border.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Serbia, looking for a way to cross into neighboring EU countries Croatia or Hungary. Many have turned to people smugglers to guide them through clandestine routes.

Serbian officials have said that most of the migrants in Serbia are young men from Afghanistan who have little chance of asylum in the European Union. Serbia has stepped up border patrols with Macedonia and Bulgaria to prevent a further influx.
Canadian airline WestJet says a flight from London to Edmonton has diverted to Iceland after the crew discovered a "potential mechanical issue."

The Boeing 767 declared an in-flight emergency about two hours after taking off from Gatwick Airport on Saturday. It landed safely at Keflavik airport, and the airline said "all guests and crew will be taken care of until we arrange new flights."

There were no immediate details on the nature of the mechanical issue.

WestJet spokeswoman Lauren Stewart said declaring an emergency "does not necessarily mean an actual emergency has occurred," and is a measure taken "out of an abundance of caution."
A Syrian opposition umbrella group said on Saturday it welcomed a complex truce deal brokered by Moscow and Washington provided it was honoured by the regime.

"We hope this will be the beginning of the end of the civilians' ordeal," leading High Negotiations Committee member Bassma Kodmani said.

"We welcome the deal if it is going to be enforced," she told the BBC, and said the HNC was "absolutely in favour" of a cessation of hostilities.

In comments to AFP, she said the HNC "cautiously welcomed" the agreement.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the truce, reached in Geneva late Friday, would come into force on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The two powers back opposing sides in the conflict, with Moscow supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Washington backing a coalition of rebel groups it regards as moderate.

But if Russia is able to pressure Assad to respect the ceasefire for a week, Moscow and Washington will set up a joint coordination unit and begin joint air strikes against agreed "terrorist" targets.

The two governments regard both the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival, former Al-Qaeda affiliate the Fateh al-Sham Front, as "terrorist" organisations and both are excluded from the ceasefire plan.

But Islamist rebel groups have been closely allied with Fateh al-Sham in fighting pro-government forces in northern Syria, drawing repeated rebukes from Moscow.

Kodmani said the rebels would break ranks with the jihadists if the truce deal held.

"The moderate groups will reorganise and distance themselves from the radical groups. We will do our part," she said.

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Turkey, which has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria in an unprecedented incursion, on Saturday welcomed a deal agreed by the United States and Russia for a ceasefire in its conflict-torn neighbour.

"We welcome the agreement," the foreign ministry said in a statement, saying it was essential that fighting was halted across Syria and humanitarian aid reaches those in need "from the first day" of the ceasefire on the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday starting Monday.

The statement said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had "closely followed" the process to secure the ceasefire, following talks with Russian and US counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 in China.

It said Turkey was already making preparations for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Turkey's northern Aleppo province and would make efforts to "ensure the effective implementation" of the ceasefire.

Turkey and Russia have been on opposing sides of the conflict, with Ankara backing the opposition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Moscow his key international supporter.

But there have been signs of greater harmony between Ankara and Moscow on Syria since a June deal to normalise their own ties following the crisis over the shooting down of a Russian war plane.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke to Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov late Friday ahead of the announcement of the deal, both sides said.

"They expressed mutual understanding of the importance of all parties concerned complying with the cessation of hostilities and the resumption of the inter-Syrian negotiation process," the Russian foreign ministry said.

The Russia-US agreement came as Turkey presses on with its Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, which is aimed at pushing both Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militia out of the Syrian border area.

Lavrov said the United States and Russia have agreed to carry out joint air strikes against "terrorists" in Syria if the ceasefire holds for a week.

Washington has applauded Turkey's actions against IS but is wary of its assault on the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which has been a US ally in the fight against the jihadists.

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A teenager who made national news earlier this year after being arrested for practicing medicine without a license, as well as other offenses in Florida, has been arrested again, this time in Stafford County.

Malachi A. LoveRobinson, 19, who is free on bond pending multiple charges in Florida and who was not supposed to leave the state, was arrested Friday evening in Stafford while trying to purchase a $35,000 vehicle from a county car dealership.

Love-Robinson is charged in Stafford with making false statements to obtain credit, obtaining money by false pretenses and identity fraud. He was booked into the Rappahannock Regional Jail early Saturday.

According to Stafford Sheriffs Maj. Don Lenhart, Love-Robinson went to Kargar Motors at 3316 Jefferson Davis Highway about 4:45 p.m. on Friday to complete a car purchase. He had already completed an online credit application using his real name. An elderly woman who was with him was listed as a cosigner.

Josephina Morris, the finance director at the dealership, said Love-Robinson told employees that the woman was his mother. The woman later told police that Love-Robinson was a distant relative who considered her to be his godmother and that she knew nothing about being a cosigner on this loan or any other.

Lenhart said that during the purchasing process for the Jaguar, dealership employees became suspicious of some of the things Love-Robinson was saying. They googled his name and found a number of stories regarding his criminal arrests in Florida, including one in which he is accused of setting up an office and practicing medicine.

Morris said Love-Robinson began acting squirrelly after being at the business for nearly an hour. He told employees he was leaving and to call him when the loan was ready for final approval.

The dealership called the Sheriffs Office and Deputy C.L. McCormick responded. Love-Robinson was called and told that his credit had been approved and he returned to the business about 30 minutes later. He had resumed the purchasing process when McCormick and another deputy came out of a back room and approached him.

Lenhart said Love-Robinson told the deputies that hed come to Virginia to buy cars for himself and his godmother. He said she had agreed to be his cosigner and he admitted that he was out on bond on Florida charges that include practicing medicine without a license.

Deputies then interviewed the elderly woman, an Emporia resident who employees said seemed confused. The deputies asked if she felt like she was in any danger or being taken advantage of, and she said she did not.

But Lenhart said the womans demeanor changed when she was shown a credit application with her name and social security number on it. She said she had not given Love-Robinson permission to use her as a cosigner.

The car dealership ran her credit history as a favor to the woman. It was discovered that two other loan applications had been taken out in the womans name in recent days. A check with her credit card company revealed there had been a $1,200 charge on Thursday for two iPads and a cellphone that she knew nothing about.

Lenhart said the iPads and other items were seized from Love-Robinson at the time of his arrest. Police said more charges are possible in Stafford and elsewhere.

According to court records, Love-Robinson was arrested in February for operating a fake medical practice in West Palm Beach. An undercover agent visited New Birth New Life Medical Center and Urgent Care and received a physical exam and medical advice, court records state.

Love-Robinson was arrested again about a month later and accused of stealing $35,000 from an 86-year-old woman. Police said he stole checks while making house calls to the womans home to treat her for stomach pain.

Love-Robinson is being held without bond. His arraignment in Stafford General District Court had not been scheduled as of Saturday.

Stafford Sheriffs Maj. Don Lenhart said that during the purchase process for the Jaguar, dealership employees became suspicious.
A teenager who made national news earlier this year after being arrested for practicing medicine without a license, as well as other offenses in Florida, has been arrested again, this time in Stafford County.

Malachi A. LoveRobinson, 19, who is free on bond pending multiple charges in Florida and who was not supposed to leave the state, was arrested Friday evening in Stafford while trying to purchase a $35,000 vehicle from a county car dealership.

Love-Robinson is charged in Stafford with making false statements to obtain credit, obtaining money by false pretenses and identity fraud. He was booked into the Rappahannock Regional Jail early Saturday.

According to Stafford Sheriffs Maj. Don Lenhart, Love-Robinson went to Kargar Motors at 3316 Jefferson Davis Highway about 4:45 p.m. on Friday to complete a car purchase. He had already completed an online credit application using his real name. An elderly woman who was with him was listed as a cosigner.

Josephina Morris, the finance director at the dealership, said Love-Robinson told employees that the woman was his mother. The woman later told police that Love-Robinson was a distant relative who considered her to be his godmother and that she knew nothing about being a cosigner on this loan or any other.

Lenhart said that during the purchasing process for the Jaguar, dealership employees became suspicious of some of the things Love-Robinson was saying. They googled his name and found a number of stories regarding his criminal arrests in Florida, including one in which he is accused of setting up an office and practicing medicine.

Morris said Love-Robinson began acting squirrelly after being at the business for nearly an hour. He told employees he was leaving and to call him when the loan was ready for final approval.

The dealership called the Sheriffs Office and Deputy C.L. McCormick responded. Love-Robinson was called and told that his credit had been approved and he returned to the business about 30 minutes later. He had resumed the purchasing process when McCormick and another deputy came out of a back room and approached him.

Lenhart said Love-Robinson told the deputies that hed come to Virginia to buy cars for himself and his godmother. He said she had agreed to be his cosigner and he admitted that he was out on bond on Florida charges that include practicing medicine without a license.

Deputies then interviewed the elderly woman, an Emporia resident who employees said seemed confused. The deputies asked if she felt like she was in any danger or being taken advantage of, and she said she did not.

But Lenhart said the womans demeanor changed when she was shown a credit application with her name and social security number on it. She said she had not given Love-Robinson permission to use her as a cosigner.

The car dealership ran her credit history as a favor to the woman. It was discovered that two other loan applications had been taken out in the womans name in recent days. A check with her credit card company revealed there had been a $1,200 charge on Thursday for two iPads and a cellphone that she knew nothing about.

Lenhart said the iPads and other items were seized from Love-Robinson at the time of his arrest. Police said more charges are possible in Stafford and elsewhere.

According to court records, Love-Robinson was arrested in February for operating a fake medical practice in West Palm Beach. An undercover agent visited New Birth New Life Medical Center and Urgent Care and received a physical exam and medical advice, court records state.

Love-Robinson was arrested again about a month later and accused of stealing $35,000 from an 86-year-old woman. Police said he stole checks while making house calls to the womans home to treat her for stomach pain.

Love-Robinson is being held without bond. His arraignment in Stafford General District Court had not been scheduled as of Saturday.
Israeli aircraft struck Syrian army positions on Saturday after fire from its war-torn neighbour hit the Israeli-occupied zone of the Golan Heights earlier in the day, the military said.

The Israeli strike targeted artillery positions of the Syrian regime in response to "a projectile" which hit the northern Golan, causing no injuries or damages, an army statement said.

"The Syrian government (is) accountable for this blatant breach of Israeli sovereignty, the IDF (Israel defence forces) will continue to act in order to safeguard Israel and its civilians," it added.

A military spokeswoman said the projectile was most likely unintentional "spillover" from the internal fighting in Syria.

It was the third such incident in six days, and came soon after Russia and the United States announced a deal on a new Syrian ceasefire, set to come into force on Monday.

There were similar events in July and previously.

Israel has sought to avoid being drawn into Syria's complex war which is now in its sixth year, but it has attacked Syrian military targets when fire from the conflict spills over.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online

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Scott Perry can still hear the scream of the airliners engine.

He could see the rivets on the bottom of the plane as it soared over his third-floor office at the old Navy Annex near Washington. It was that close.

Then he watched the plane crash into the Pentagon about a mile away, causing a shock wave that rattled the Navy Annex, Perry recalled. Smoke billowed from the Pentagon, polluting what had been a perfect September day with blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70s.

And it all happened in a matter of seconds.

It was like the fist of God just smashed the ground, Perry, 57, of Spotsylvania County, said in describing the moment of impact. His schedule later that day had included a meeting in the section of the Pentagon that was struck.

The phrase never forget has become a political slogan, but Perry said he truly will never forget that terrible day. He still cries at the memory as the nation commemorates the 15th anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Perry spoke with The Free LanceStar Thursday, his second interview with the newspaper in 15 years. The first took place on the day of the actual attack, with Perry telling a reporter at the time: Theres a picture in my mind that probably wont go away for a long time.

He said in the recent interview that he became more focused on his job with a U.S. Defense Department missile defense program after Sept. 11. What was previously unimaginable was now in the realm of possibility.

Its not so far-fetched to imagine anymore something devastating happening in the country, he explained.

Perry is married with two grown children, one of whom served in the Marines 2008-12. He retired two years ago, but still does consulting work.

Several memories have stuck with him over the years, including his drive home hours after the attack. He did not see a single car on his trip down Interstate 95, he said, reminding him of a scene from an apocalyptic movie.

He also remembers the rumors about car bombs after he and others evacuated the annex. Scores of people moved from a parking lot to Arlington Cemetery.

Years later, Perry said, he was contacted by someone who ran a 9/11 conspiracy website. Perry, an engineer, said he told the person that he knows what he saw from his office windowand it wasnt a cruise missile.

Conspiracy theories aside, most Americans came together after Sept. 11, and Perry said he thinks youd see that same sense of resolve and unity if the country suffered another similar attack. I think wed pull together, he said. I would hope so anyway.

These days, people dont ask him about Sept. 11 so much. But he said he still thinks about that day, about the victims and what those poor passengers must have been thinking as their plane flew toward the Pentagon.

It isnt an antiseptic memory to me, he said. Its real, and I guess its just something Ill never forget.
Syria's government Saturday approved a ceasefire deal brokered by its Russian ally and the US to end fighting in the war-ravaged country, but the main opposition group was more cautious.

The landmark deal, reached after marathon talks in Geneva Friday, could also lead to the first joint military operations by Moscow and Washington against jihadists.

But even as diplomats touted the agreement as a path to peace, a barrage of air strikes on the northwestern city of Idlib killed 24 people and wounded dozens.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear who carried out the raids, and said some bodies "were burned beyond recognition".

The truce deal negotiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to enter into force on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the "government has approved the agreement, and a cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons".

Citing "informed sources", it said "the entire agreement was reached with the knowledge of the Syrian government".

The opposition High Negotiations Committee said it had yet to receive the deal's "official text", however.

Leading HNC member Bassma Kodmani told AFP that her group "cautiously welcomed" the deal but was sceptical that Damascus would comply.

"We are waiting for Russia to persuade the regime that it is necessary to commit to this agreement" she told AFP.

Both Kerry and Lavrov said the complex plan is the best chance to end the five-year war that has killed 290,000 people and seen millions flee to neighbouring countries.

Under the deal, fighting would halt across the country at sundown on Monday and Syria's air force would stop attacking rebel-held areas.

A "demilitarised zone" would be established around the Castello Road leading into the battered second city of Aleppo so desperately needed aid can be delivered.

In turn, Washington must get opposition groups it backs to separate themselves from the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

If a cessation of hostilities holds for one week, the US and Russia -- which back opposing sides in the war -- could start joint operations against those jihadists.

Lavrov said Washington and Moscow agreed on zones in which joint "strikes against terrorists" would be conducted.

The HNC's Kodmani said the rebels would break ranks with the jihadists if the truce held.

"The moderate groups will reorganise and distance themselves from the radical groups. We will do our part," she said.

The question of Assad's fate remains a key sticking point: the HNC repeated its demand this week that he leave power, but Russia continues to back him.

And Syria expert Charles Lister said mainstream opposition fighters had not indicated a willingness to break their alliance with powerful hardliners, which they see as "a military necessity".

The rebel-jihadist alliance is most pronounced in Idlib province, site of Saturday's deadly air strikes.

The Observatory said that in addition to the 24 dead at least 90 were wounded in the raids on various neighbourhoods of Idlib city, including a market.

An AFP photographer in Idlib saw men clambering over rubble, in just slippers or sandals, to help evacuate wounded and dust-covered residents from a collapsing building.

Others tried to lift a bloodied shopper who had collapsed on the ground as a fire raged in an open-air clothes market.

A UN-backed truce agreed in February has been repeatedly broken by both sides.

The final hours of the US-Russia talks in Geneva dragged out as Kerry contacted the White House to get approval for the plan, but the top diplomat said both governments stand by it.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the deal but said it was "vital that the regime in Damascus now delivers on its obligations".

Key rebel backer Turkey also backed the deal, adding that it was essential that the fighting stop and aid start flowing from day one of the ceasefire.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said that the deal provided a "window of opportunity" and that he would begin consultations on a relaunch of peace talks.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "Everything now depends on rapid implementation."

The truce deal follows heavy fighting around Aleppo in recent weeks during which the rebels fought unsuccessfully to break the government siege.

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THE PRESIDENT of the United States lands with all the majesty of Air Force One, waiting to exit the front door and stride down the rolling staircase to the red-carpeted tarmac.

Except that there is no rolling staircase. He is forced to exitas one China expert put it rather undiplomatically through the ass of the plane.

This happened last Saturday at Hangzhou airport. Yes, in China.

If the Chinese didnt invent diplomatic protocol, they surely are its most venerable and experienced practitioners. Theyve been at it for 4,000 years. They are the masters of every tributary gesture, every nuance of hierarchical ritual. In a land so exquisitely sensitive to protocol, rolling staircases dont just disappear at arrival ceremonies. Indeed, not one of the other G-20 world leaders was left stranded on his plane upon arrival.

Did President Xi Jinping directly order airport personnel and diplomatic functionaries to deny Barack Obama a proper welcome? Who knows? But the message, whether intentional or not, wasnt very subtle. The authorities expressed no regret, no remorse and certainly no apology.

On the contrary, they scolded the press for even reporting the snub.

No surprise. Chinas ostentatious rudeness was perfectly reflective of the worlds general disdain for President Obama. His high-minded lectures about global norms and demands that others live up to their international obligations are no longer amusing. Theyre irritating.

Foreign leaders have reciprocated by taking this administration down a notch knowing they pay no price. In May 2013, Vladimir Putin reportedly kept the U.S. secretary of state cooling his heels for three hours outside his office before deigning to receive him.

Even as Obama was hailing the nuclear deal with Iran as a great breakthrough, the ayatollah vowed no change in his policy, which remained diametrically opposed to U.S. arrogant system. The mullahs followed by openly conducting illegal ballistic missile testscalculating, correctly, that Obama would do nothing. And when Iran took prisoner 10 American sailors in the Persian Gulf, made them kneel and broadcast the video, what was the U.S. response? Upon their release, John Kerry publicly thanked Iran for its good conduct.

Why should Xi treat Obama with any greater deference? Beijing illegally expands into the South China Sea, meeting only the most perfunctory push back from the U.S. Obama told CNN that he warned Xi to desist or there will be consequences. Is there a threat less credible?

Putin annexes Crimea and Obama crows about the isolation he has imposed on Russia. Look around. Moscow has become Grand Central Station for Middle East leaders seeking outside help in their various conflicts. As for Ukraine, both the French president and the German chancellor have hastened to Moscow to plead with Putin to make peace. Some isolation.

Iran regularly harasses our vessels in the Persian Gulf. Russian fighters buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea. And just Wednesday, a Russian fighter flew within 10 feet of an American military jet.

The price they paid? Being admonished that such provocations are unsafe and unprofessional. An OSHA citation is more ominous.

Add to that American acquiescence not just to ransoming hostages held by Iran, but to delivering the loot by unmarked plane filled with stacks of cold (untraceable) cash, like a desert drug deal. Why the stealth? Obviously to conceal the manner of the transaction from Congress and the American public. Some humiliations are so grotesque that even the Obama team cant miss it.

Now the latest. At the G-20, Obama said he spoke to Putin about cyberwarfare, amid revelations that Russian hackers have been interfering in our political campaigns.

We are more technologically advanced, both offensively and defensively, in this arena than any of our adversaries, said Obama, but we really dont want another Cold War-style arms race.

Instead, we must all adhere to norms of international behavior.

It makes you want to weep. This KGB thug adhering to norms? He invades Ukraine, annexes Crimea, bombs hospitals in Aleppoand we expect him to observe cyber-code etiquette? Rather than exploit our technological leadwith countermeasures and deterrent threatsto ensure our own cyber safety?

Were back to 1929 when Secretary of State Henry Stimson shut down a U.S. code-breaking operation after it gave him decoded Japanese telegrams. He famously explained that gentlemen do not read each others mail.

Well, comrade, Putin is no gentleman. And hes reading our mail.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group. His email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
AS THE ELECTIONS approach, heres a look at some recent news affecting the Fredericksburg region and our take on it.

A WELCOME NEWCOMER

Just in time for this overheated political season comes a new arrival in the Fredericksburg region: the League of Women Voters.

Area residents formed a local chapter of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization this summer and are busy signing up new voters. Good! (As we would say of most any get-out-the-vote group.)

Give thanks to Anne Sterling, the leagues past state president, who noticed the organization had a weak spot in our areaspecifically Fredericksburg and the counties of Stafford, Spotsylvania, King George and Caroline.

Now, every Saturday, members of the new chapter set up in the citys Hurkamp Park farmers market and register local people.

To me, it is important to see everyoneno matter who they vote forget out and vote, said Cathie Fischer Brayman, who leads the league in the Fredericksburg area. Everyone should get a vote and know where to cast a ballot.

We couldnt agree more.

Regularly, Americas threadbare turnout on Election Day is one of our nations great shames.

Not caring enough to participate is one thing. But nearly 1 in 4 Americans arent even registered to vote. Time to fix that situation is running out. The deadline to register to for the Nov. 8 election is Monday, Oct. 17.

And among those who are registered, 1 in 8 have inaccurate information on their registration card. If you recently changed addresses or your name changed, you may encounter difficulty when you appear at a polling place in November. Please fix that, now.

Appropriately, the new chapter will provide a special opportunity on National Voter Registration Day, Sept. 27, when it will host a meet-and-greet at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library headquarters featuring the rivals for Virginias 1st congressional district: Republican incumbent Rob Wittman and his Democratic challenger, Matt Rowe.

Leave it to the spiritual heirs of the suffragettes, who created the League of Women Voters in 1920, to enliven the political scene here in a constructive and healthy way.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

And speaking of political discourse, the 1st Districts two contenders will go toe-to-toe next month at the University of Mary Washington.

For any area resident who cares about their country, this debate by Rowe and Wittman will be a must-see occasion. The 1st District includes Stafford, Fredericksburg, parts of Spotsylvania and Fauquier, the Northern Neck, parts of the Middle Peninsula, Williamsburg and Gloucester County.

Jot down the date right now, and the time and place: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in George Washington Halls Dodd Auditorium on the Fredericksburg campus.

It ought to be a spirited discussion, judging by the views expressed in letters to the editor from each candidates supporters and critics.

Rowe, 35, a member of the Bowling Green Town Council in Caroline County, is trying to dislodge Wittman, 57, who has held the House seat since 2007. In addition to seeking re-election this fall, Wittman is seeking the GOP nomination for Virginia governor in 2017.

The Democrats backers seek to tie the congressman to the Republican Partys controversial presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Rowe has urged Wittman to denounce the standard-bearer after Trump criticized the Virginia parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, a U.S. soldier and a Muslim, who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq.

Wittman, a House Armed Services Committee member, told Trump supporters at the nominees recent rally in Fredericksburg that the businessman would make our military great again and name the right people to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Seeing and hearing the two congressional candidates share a stage and argue issues just two weeks prior to Election Day should make for great political theater and provide guidance that many may need to make up their minds as they plan a visit to the voting booth.
Pact & Partners Americas announcing new offices opening in Boston

Pact & Partners is proud to announce the opening of its new US office on the northeast coast at 50 Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Pact & Partners is one of the leading Executive search firm specialized in Life Sciences since 1987, operating in Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa and Middle East and recruiting the best talents for its clients' businesses.

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Pact & Partners announces the opening of its new office in Boston, MA. After Paris, London, Copenhagen, Denmark, Miami, New York and Dubai, the leading company in C-level and mid-management appointments in Life Sciences expands its activity in the United States of America. Located on 50 Milk Street in Boston, this brand new location with modern and elegant amenities in the heart of the City's Financial District, brings Pact & Partners even closer to its already numerous existing clients in the Massachusetts area.

The Pact & Partners teams operate on 3 continents. Its strategic locations allow these leaders in recruitment in Life Sciences to find the best talents for their clients in all of the following sectors: Biotech, Pharmaceuticals, Medtech, e-Health, digital health, Gene & Cell Therapy, Medical Devices, Hospital & Clinics, Bioenergy & Biofuels, Dermatology, Cosmetology, Nutrition and Animal Health.

With an international presence and a strong reputation since 1987, exclusive process and proven methods, Pact & Partners excels in all types of C-level to mid-management recruitments, from Business Developers, Regulatory Affairs specialists, Clinical Development experts and Clinical Operations Managers, but also CEOs, CSOs, CFOs and Board members. Pact & Partners' clients range from the small innovative biotech to the top pharma company.

With a growing geographical presence and the strengthening of its global top ranking, Pact & Partners intends to bring the most personalized and pragmatic approach to the market of talent acquisition for clients who are looking to hire their next talents in all Life Sciences sectors. For more information about Pact & Partners and to see how Pact & Partners assists life sciences companies through the executive search process, go to www.pactandpartners.com.

About Pact & Partners:

Pact & Partners was founded in 1987 and for over 30 years has been the leading global executive search firm, dedicated only to life sciences and have appointed thousands of professionals all over Europe, North America and South America. Those interested can get a quote online on their website: www.pactandpartners.com.

Contact Info:

Name: Pact & Partners Americas

Email: contact@pactpartners.com

Phone: 1 (617) 370-8138

Organization: Pact & Partners

Source: http://www.prreach.com/pr/25965

Release ID: 132080

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Young Adult Novel Reiki Magic Influence Connected Kat Stiles Report Launched

Kat Stiles, the young adult author of Connected, has launched a new report focusing on the importance of her Reiki master background in writing the novel. She explains that Reiki is where the original idea for the book came from.

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Young adult fiction author Kat Stiles has launched a new report focusing on how her Reiki master background helped her to craft a more comprehensive picture of healing in her novel, Connected. She explains that being able to draw on her Reiki skills allows the reader to get more immersed in the story, because the details help to provide a more accurate picture of the process.

More information can be found on the author's website at: http://katstiles.com.

Reiki is a Japanese technique for reducing stress and promoting relaxation, administered by laying on hands based on the idea of an unseen life force energy that flows through every person. Reiki is based on the idea that if someone's life force energy is low, they could be more likely to get sick, while if it's high, they are more likely to be healthy and happy.

Kat Stiles grew up as a fan of super hero movies, and has always loved the idea of having super powers. With her novel, Connected, she wanted to capture the magic of super powers but to keep them as organic as possible, describing them as something just a little beyond what an ordinary human could do.

The book follows Em, as she traverses the challenges of high school in Cannondale, where her freshman year introduces her to all the cliques, annoying teachers and tough homework assignments of reality, as well as the surprising fact that she has super powers and doesn't know how to control them.

Throughout the course of the novel, Em's best friend Roz also discovers unusual powers, and Tommy, her secret crush, realizes that he can hear the softest whispers in class. Into this mix, a telepathic serial killer is at work, and only Em and her friends are able to stop him, but if they don't catch him soon, one of them could be his next victim.

Connected is available for purchase at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2cGhNfD

Kat said: "Although Em's healing powers are more super-charged than Reiki, Reiki was the original idea for the book and the inspiration behind all the healing scenes within it."

Interested parties can get the latest news on Connected, as well as giveaway information, by signing up to Kat's newsletter at: http://katstiles.com/newsletter.

For more information, please visit http://www.katstiles.com

Contact Info:

Name: Kat Stiles

Organization: Kat Stiles



Release ID: 132067

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Gold Coast Pest Control Launches Site for Pest Elimination Services

New service offers residents of the Gold Coast area pre-vetted services for safe, odor-free elimination of pests such as insects or rodents.

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Gold Coast Pest Control announced the launch of its business today, offering residents of the Gold Coast area pre-vetted services for safe, odor-free elimination of pests such as insects or rodents. The company directs customers to reliable pest control, termite treatment, building and pest inspections and more. Their approach utilizes environmentally safe chemicals. Gold Coast Pest Control guarantees that their services will eliminate pests for up to 12 months or they will refund the customer.

"There are a lot of pest control providers on the Gold Coast," said a spokesperson for the company. "To save you the hassle of evaluating them, we've done it for you and picked the best." The company works with Amalgamated, Rentokil, Spinifex and others. The company's website, http://pesthqgoldcoast.com.au/, details their offerings.

Gold Coast Pest Control also provides useful building and pest inspection information for property owners. For example, their website tells readers that there are six ways to identify if they need pest control. Problems that deserve attention include seeing dead bugs inside a house and finding droppings indoors. Other signs of infestation are evidence of nest building, strange sounds and smells, gnaw marks and sagging floors from termites.

The company recommends - and implements - a complete pest control program. This approach enables the property owner to avoid costly infestations and the use of harmful chemicals in the future. For example, to avoid termite damage, it's best to prevent them from entering the property in the first place. Their programs help prevent, monitor and control any unwanted critters that might decide to call a property home. Integrated pest management programs involve five steps:

1. Monitoring phase - Carrying out regular inspections to check whether there is an infestation and how many pests have gotten into the building

2. Note taking phase - Establishing records in order to see the patterns, trends, and habits of the pests.

3. Pest control phase - Taking action against the pest population.

4. Prevention phase - Preventing further pest outbreaks are carried out so the problem doesn't recur.

5. Evaluation phase - Reviewing the whole procedure of pest management to establish the success of the program.

Gold Coast Pest Control is open from 07:00 - 19:00 (AEST) Monday - Friday

For more information, please visit http://pesthqgoldcoast.com.au/

Contact Info:

Name: Taj Blackham

Organization: Gold Coast Pest Control

Phone: 1300 790 557

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/gold-coast-pest-control-launches-site-for-pest-elimination-services/132058

Release ID: 132058

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Best Virtual Buy Will Be Releasing ALUMINUM SELFIE STICKS FOR I PHONE launch

Best Virtual Buy is celebrating the launch of ALUMINUM SELFIE STICKS PHONE CASE FOR I PHONE online by Releasing 500 red ballons. Further information can be found at http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/ and http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/products/aluminum-selfie-sticks-phone-case-for-iphone.

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In a exciting change of pace,E Commerce Store "Best Virtual Buy", will be celebrating the launch of their New Aluminum Selfie Stick by Releasing 500 red ballons. It's reported the event will take place on 12 September.

In a space where most competitors simply put banners up on their site and fail to cause much of a stir, Best Virtual Buy has opted to be a little more exciting with their ALUMINUM SELFIE STICKS CASE FOR iPHONE launch.

Rocco Gagiano, CEO at Best Virtual Buy, says: "They wanted to be exciting with Their New Aluminum Selfie Stick launch because they wanted to put their brand on the map.

It should be really worthwhile and they hoping it makes their new product as popular as their current best seller. It should go great unless they have a power cut!

Best Virtual Buy has always thrived on the idea of standing out and making a commotion. It's all part of the fun and it's going to teach people something they can really use, which they know is better than businesses who choose to do things the 'regular' way. This launch celebration is just one of the many ways Best Virtual Buy achieves their goal.

When asked about ALUMINUM SELFIE STICKS CASE FOR I PHONE, Rocco Gagiano said: "Their new product it's going to be a real hit because it is completely unique and they know their customers have been waiting for this a long time".

New Foldable PC Aluminum Selfie Sticks Phone Case for iphone 6 6S 6 Plus 6s Plus 4.7inch Self-stick 4 Colors 100% Brand New and High Quality Material: PC,Aluminum Color: Black,Blue,Pink,White

Phone Case back with integrated telescopic tubes, usually completely housed in the back of the phone shell, and when needed,you can pulled out the tubes and extended, eventually become a Selfie Sticks.Whole aluminum length range is big enough. The greatest feature is included with the pull when needed, wearing a Bluetooth remote control,you can use it Conveniently !

When using the self-timer function, just need to pull out the self-stick, rotate to a best angle, you can press the Bluetooth remote control to photograph.

Item include: 1 Piece Selfie Sticks Phone Case for iphone 6 6S 6 Plus 6s Plus, Selfie Sticks Size: 70.5cm/27.76?

ALUMINUM SELFIE STICKS PHONE CASE FOR iPHONE is set to launch 12 September. To find out more, it's possible to visit http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/products/aluminum-se...

For further information about Best Virtual Buy, all this can be discovered at http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/

For more information, please visit http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Rocco Gagiano

Email: support@bestvirtualbuy.com

Organization: Best Virtual Buy

Address: 463 Val De Vie Estate

Phone: 0833778812

Release ID: 132021

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Best Virtual Buy will be celebrating WATERPROOF iPHONE CASES launch

Best Virtual Buy is celebrating the launch of WATERPROOF iPHONE CASES online by Giving 50 % of launch day profits to charity. Further information can be found at http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/ and http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/products/waterproof-cases.

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In a Creative change of pace,E Commerce Store "Best Virtual Buy", will be celebrating the launch of their Waterproof iphone covers by Giving 50 % of launch day profits to charity. It's reported the event will take place on 14 September.

In a space where most competitors simply Advertise on Facebook and fail to cause much of a stir, Best Virtual Buy has opted to be a little more Creative with their WATERPROOF iPHONE CASES launch.

Rocco Gagiano, CEO at Best Virtual Buy, says: "They wanted to be Creative with their Waterproof iphone covers launch because they think its important to give something back.

It should be really worthwhile and they hoping it will give people something to talk about. It should go great unless their support desk blow up!

Best Virtual Buy has always thrived on the idea of standing out and making a commotion. It's all part of the fun and it's going to will boost their products value and give something back to the community, which they think is better than businesses who choose to do things the 'regular' way. Their launch celebration is just one of the many ways Best Virtual Buy achieves their goals.

Compared to the thousands of basic, rugged phone cases available, proper waterproof cases are much rarer and overly misunderstood. Unlike the past when people preferred impact protection only in a case, the threat of liquid damage is becoming more real with each passing day. This is why bestvirtualbuy.com is at the forefront of the Waterproof iPhone Cases craze, ready to provide their customers with the up-to-the-minute products and equip them with all the information they need to know about their phone. Here's what their vast array of waterproof cases can do for them.

Touch Screen Friendly Response

Ideally, they want an accessory that protects their iPhone while also allowing for easy access. Instead of losing daylight trying to unzip their phone from a dozen jacket pockets, their array of waterproof iphone cases lets them operate the phone just like normal. The crystal clear cases blend seamlessly with their screen to make them clean and effective surface. This means they can answer calls quickly and even text their pals through the touch friendly responsive iPhone cases without missing a keystroke.

Waterproof

This is the most important feature that they want in any waterproof case.Bestvirtualbuy.com only provides iPhone lovers with cases that have been tried, tested and proven fit in the harshest of environments. These days, everybody takes their phone everywhere, and deservedly so! They just make sure that their phone makes it through the ordeal without being any worse for wear. So go ahead, grab their favorite waterproof iPhone case and enjoy a stress-free day with their phone at the beach, while boating, or playing out in the rain or snow.

Compatible and Affordable

At Best Virtual Buy, they understand the importance of providing their customers with affordable waterproof cases. Unlike other stores which are so expensive that they have to sell their phone to afford the case, they like to be as flexible as possible. Whether they are looking for a stylish accessory for their iPhone or looking for the best protection against liquid damage, bestvirtualbuy.com opens its doors to everyone.When asked about WATERPROOF iPHONE CASES, Rocco Gagiano said: "They are going to be a real hit because it will finally put an end to peoples biggest complaint when using a product like theirs".

Shockproof Dustproof Underwater Diving Waterproof Cases Cover For iphone 6 6S 6 Plus 5 5S SE Phone Bag Shell Outdoor Case Cover.WATERPROOF iPHONE CASES is set to launch 14 September. To find out more, it's possible to visit http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/products/waterproof-...

For further information about Best Virtual Buy, all this can be discovered at http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/

For more information, please visit http://www.bestvirtualbuy.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Rocco Gagiano

Email: support@bestvirtualbuy.com

Organization: Best Virtual Buy

Address: 463 VAL DE VIE, PAARL

Phone: 0833778812

Release ID: 132034

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Romanian border police have found 10 migrants, including two children, hidden in a truck transporting paper that was crossing the border into Romania from Bulgaria.

A statement said that the migrants, nine Syrians and an Iraqi man, arrived at Romanian customs on Saturday morning.

The Bulgarian truck driver told border authorities he was transporting paper from Bulgaria to Germany.

Police checked the vehicle and found the migrants hidden in the back of the truck next to pallets loaded with piles of paper.

Police said they paid 4,000 euros ($4,050) each for transport and were had paid to be left in Vienna. The migrants and driver will be handed over to Bulgarian authorities.

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List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours.
Several thousand people demonstrated Saturday in the southwestern French city of Perpignan to demand their Catalan heritage be spelt out after nationwide territorial reforms.

Organisers said as many as 10,000 people gathered -- police put the figure at some 7,800 people -- to demand their newly-merged region contain the words "Pays catalan" (Catalan land).

The new region merging Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrenees is slated to be called Occitania following 2014 reforms shrinking the number of French regions from 22 to 13 in an administrative shake-up.

But, in a much smaller echo of the spat between Barcelona and Madrid across the border with Spain, where many Catalans support full independence, 450,000 or so French Catalans want to see their identity literally put on the map.

Many marchers wore badges urging "yes to Pays Catalan" badges as they converged on Perpignan's main Catalonia Square and waved a banners proclaiming "pride an honour to speak a language with a great history -- even if the Catalan tongue is spoken far more widely across the border.

Red- and yellow-striped Catalan flags fluttered in the capital of the Pyrenees-Orientales department as the protesters embarked on their rally a day ahead of Catalan national day, La Diada, marked on Sunday.

June saw a plenum of regional councillors vote for Occitania with the added subtitle of "Pyrenees-Mediterranean.

"We are waiting for the decree to be signed before appealing to the council of state," said Joan Becat, spokesman for a pressure group urging the addition of Pays Catalan to the new region.

Some locals see the choice of Occitania as wide of the cultural mark. Some people in parts of southern France as well as Spain and Italy speak Occitan, a Romance language derived from Latin albeit not dissimilar to Catalan.

"Occitania is all well and good -- but we don't want to lose our identity," said one protester, Marie-Cecile, 22, amid a chorus of boos for regional chamber of commerce head Bernard Fourcade.

Marchers then sang Lluis Llach's L'Estaca (the stage, but figuratively meaning without freedom) - composed in 1968 to underscore Catalan opposition to then Spanish dictator General Franco.

Feelings of Catalan identity on the French side of the border traditionally run less strong than in Spain where tens of thousands of Catalans were set to protest on Sunday to demand a speeding up of their drive to break away from Madrid, which has gained momentum in recent years.

After winning a clear majority in Catalonia's regional parliament last year, secessionist parties approved a plan to achieve independence in mid-2017 but internal ideological differences have hampered progress.

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Rick & Morty Season 3 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Adult Swim Airs S3 In December, Vin Diesel To Guest Star?

Many fans were expecting that "Rick & Morty" season 3 will air in August, however, until now, the network hasn't announced any official date for the original Adult Swim series. It is highly speculated that "Ricky & Monty" season 3 will air towards the end of the year with longer and darker episodes. More so, Vin Diesel is also rumored to guest star in season 3.

'Rick & Morty' Longer & Darker Episodes

The long hiatus of "Rick & Morty" season 3 is all worth it according to latest reports from Yahoo. The black comedy animated series will reportedly air longer and darker episodes as Rick (Roiland) escape from the Galactic Federation prison. This could only mean more laughs and more poignancy for "Rick & Morty" fans. To make sure the team will deliver, the show hired more writers to create more complex storylines and depth to the characters.

"Rick & Morty" season 3 will probably start with Rick's imprisonment from last season. To recall, "Rick & Morty" follows the story of Rick Sanchez, who returns to his estranged family to redeem himself to his daughter, Beth (Sarah Chalke). Setting up a laboratory in the garage, Rick creates all forms of gadgets and explores the universe. Rick often times takes his grandson Morty and occasionally his sister Summer (Spencer Grammer) with him. Season 2 will consist of 14 episodes, longer than season one's 11 and season two's 10.

Vin Diesel In 'Ricky & Morty' Season 3

As such, series creator Dan Harmon expressed his wish to have actor Vin Diesel to voice a character per Counsel & Heal. Fans may expect the "Fast & the Furious" star to voice a new character next season. Speculations suggest that he could voice the new Galactic Federation prison guard. More so, the showrunners are also hinting the return of Rick's ex-wife. Summer will also have more adventures next season.

"Rick & Morty" season 3 is believed to be the best season thus far, making fans eager to know the exact air date. Do you think Vin Diesel will render his voice as the new prison guard? Hit us with your comments below!
Apple Car Latest News & Update: Project Titan Hits Roadblock; Tech Giant Lays-Off Employees & Reveals Nothing at Apple Event

Apple has reportedly laid off several employees and has also shut down some elements of its self-driving car project, known as Project Titan. Although there has been no official statement from the tech giant, a source close to the company divulged these details. The company has also not publicly acknowledged that it is working on Apple Car.

Veteran Apple executive, Bob Mansfield applied these recent changes to Project Titan. He took over the project in July. Previous reports had revealed that the Apple Car project included hundreds of employees from diverse industries including software experts, automotive veterans and also autonomous-driving technology engineers.

However, if latest reports are to be believed, the Apple Car project has unfortunately hit a roadblock. News of the layoffs was first reported by The New York Times. Apple Car enthusiasts were surprised to the see the tech giant not mention the highly-anticipated car even once during the recent Apple event.

Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc, is also experimenting with self-driven cars. Apart from it Tesla, Uber and even traditional auto-makers such as BMW, Ford and General Motors are all working towards driverless cars. When Apple interest in Apple Car was made public, it sent a panic wave throughout the automobile industry.

In 2015, Apple was sued by battery-maker A123 Systems LLC for allegedly poaching high-level chemists and battery engineers to work on Apple Car's battery segment. The case was later settled without a disclosure of terms and conditions. Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk complained that Apple was trying to hire its automotive experts, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, a survey result was collected by Forbes revealed that people's interest in the Apple Car is pretty massive. A larger number of people are considering purchasing the self-driving car from Apple and even saving money for it. However, it seems that their desire to own an Apple Car will not materialize anytime soon.

We will keep you posted with latest Apple Car updates. Stay tuned at GameNguide.
One Punch Man Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Saitama To Lose Powers? Geno To Become An Enemy?

"One Punch Man" Season 2 release date is rumored to be announced soon. Once again, the millions of Saitama fans worldwide who have been eagerly anticipating the release of the second season will see their powerful hero in action.

'One Punch Man' Season 2 Spoilers - Saitama To Lose His Powers?

But everything might not be so peachy for Saitama with the arrival of "One Punch Man" Season 2 release date. Rumors and spoilers hint that the powerful hero could lose his awesome strength next season, according to University Herald.

With a drastically weakened Saitama, the hero could be targeted once again by villains he previously defeated. One such villain being eyed is Lord Boros who is expected to make a comeback in "One Punch Man" Season 2. If these two rumors are indeed correct, it could spell trouble for Saitama as he will have to find ways to defeat an even stronger Boros even in his weakened state.

'One Punch Man' Season 2 Spoilers - Saitama And Genos May Have A Falling Out

Here is another speculation that could be slightly disturbing to fans. According to recent rumors, the arrival of "One Punch Man" Season 2 would also mark the beginning of the falling out between Saitama and his loyal comrade Genos.

It is not exactly revealed what could be the cause of their misunderstanding. But apparently, the relationship between master and pupil will deteriorate to the point of open warfare. Fans might be used to seeing Genos asking for a fight with Saitama in order to improve his skill. However, when the "One Punch Man" Season 2 release date comes, fans will be seeing a fight for real between the two former friends, according to Vine Report.

'One Punch Man' Season 2 Release Date

If speculations are correct, the long wait could be finally over soon. Reports expect that the announcement of a definite "One Punch Man' Season 2 release date will happen anytime this month, with the actual launch expected to happen either this October or November. Be sure to stay tuned to GamenGuide for updates.




One Punch Man Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Saitama Loses His Powers; Faces Multiple Villains

Anime fanatics are already looking forward to the return of Saitama in "One Punch Man" Season 2. Although an exact release date has not been revealed, speculation is rife that the new season will air sometime after "One Punch Man" Season 1 English version completes its run.

It is estimated that the first season, currently airing on Toonami, will be over by October, Asia Starz reported. With that said, it has been rumored that the second season of the popular animated series will air sometime in November, with more details expected to be dropped within this month. Whether or not new episodes of "One Punch Man" Season 2 will be released before December is still uncertain. Fans will just have to wait for updates as season 1 English-dubbed version is ending soon.

Meanwhile, it was widely reported that "One Punch Man" Season 2 protagonist Saitama will have to face several opponents. One of them is Lord Boros, whom he defeated back in season 1. Rumor has it that Boros will seek revenge and he will make sure that Saitama gets defeated this time. Apart from Lord Boros, Garou and Amai Mask were also rumored to have a face-off with the hero.

Saitama may be known to have a super powerful punch, but recent "One Man Punch" Season 2 reports claim that his abilities will be put to the test, especially with several villains lining up to make sure he loses the battle. According to several media outlets, Saitama will lose his abilities and his enemies could overpower him. The reason behind Saitama's diminished abilities remains unclear but it is speculated that he will lose in his battle with Amai.

So far, nothing is set in stone yet so these plot theories might not end up being true. Fans should take the "One Man Punch" Season 2 reports with a pinch of salt and wait for more updates.
Commonly regarded, people give certain matters special worth. For some, it is tangible. For others, materialistic. Consequently, these special matters make way in times of ultimate concern. Humans do not know except that which they know. In this view, religion tends to provide a gateway to the unknown. Much of that material is found in religious texts.

The sacred manuscripts of world religions were, mostly, gathered and written in historical periods. They continue to be esteemed and honored by their respected caretakers. Consequently, with each holy text comes adherences. As the world develops with multicultural intertwinements, so does the study of world religions and texts regardless of your personal beliefs. One would assume good stems from such bridging. Nevertheless, with the age of accessible information, erroneous intent may also follow.

Unfortunately, through the study of other religious texts (with an honest eye) injustice, manipulation, and or (for some truthful researchers) misunderstanding occurs. Why? Lack of knowledge and understanding? Very probable. However for some, unfortunately, the saying what you look for you will find applies. Sincerity: How truly genuine are you when it comes to personal research and investigation?

A young energetic gentleman clasping a translated (English) version of the Quran, the religious text of the followers of Islam, stood before a group of students discussing Islamic beliefs. Overhearing his observations, I knew Muslims would not agree with his assertions. Grateful to be a student of historical religious texts, I found an opportunity to speak. Humble in listening, appreciative to the Almighty, I presumed he would eventually retract his deductions and carry on with a different outlook. However, which is important, before proceeding, I questioned his method of research and study, questioning in a sincere tone: "What website did you retrieve your quotations from? I knew his research involved missing ingredients. With a smile and a honest gesture, he replied and acknowledged his lack of holistic study but instead had retrieved his information from a particular website.

Question, Why stem potential growth? Sincerity and justice are an essential means for empathetic acknowledgment." Everyone is a philosopher and holds their personal views on matters. However, allow such strengths to be directed by a just outlook. Even if one disagrees, at least acknowledge correctness.

"My Lord hath commanded justice; (The Quran: 7:29)

In theistic traditions, God knows the status of the heart, its concealment, condition, and innermost existence (your thoughts, inner struggles, actions, and will).

Insincerity is doing righteousness and promoting a form of worship for a worldly materialistic gain. (Abu Bakr Ibn ul-Arabi al-Maliki, died 1148)

With an honest eye and sincere research, could world religions actually have much more in common than predisposed? Dont we share the same sky?

Consider these quotes from texts about God:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord (The Torah: Deuteronomy 6:4)

but one, that is, God." (The Bible, King James Version, New Testament: Mark 10:18)

God is One (The Quran: 112:1)

"He is One." (Hinduism:Chandogya Upanishad 6:2:1]

He is the Sole Supreme (Sikhism. Adi Granth, Japuji,: The Mul Mantra)

And consider these quotes about children:

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22.6)

"O my dear son! Establish worship, enjoin kindness, forbid iniquity, and persevere (Quran:31:17)

Children are the clothes of a man. (African Traditional Religions. Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)

Do not despise the breath of your fathers, But draw it into your bodyThat, clasping one another tight,

Holding one another fast, We may finish our roads together." (Native American religions, a Zuni rrayer)

Our society calls for equal respect in due right. Evoke that banner.
The World Bank has provided Egypt with the first $1 billion tranche of a $3 billion loan, as part of its support for the government's economic programme, the Ministry of International Cooperation said Friday.

The money will be used to create job opportunities and improve citizens living standards, Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said in a statement.

The loan is part of the government's effort to secure billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive the country's economy and ease a dollar shortage that has crippled recovery.

This includes a three-year fund of $4.5 billion from the World Bank ($3 billion) and the African Development Bank ($1.5 billion), Ithe minister added in the statement published on the ministry's website.

Cairo has now received $1.5 billion of the financing, the minister said--with Friday's tranche as well as the first $500 million of the ADB loan received late last year.

The funding will be directed at "labour-intensive projects and achieving sustainable economic debeploment," Nasr said.

The government is already working on finalising the second tranche of $1.5 billion from the World Bank, as well as from the African Development Bank, the minister said.

In August Egypt reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund to secure a three-year $12 billion loan facility. The deal requires Cairo to secure a further $6 billion in bilateral financing.

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Shop in your hometown : 90,000 paper bags to advertise

Bonn Local retailers want people to shop close to home and support their local businesses. The bags with Heimat Shoppen are meant to encourage that.

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Heimat shoppen means shop in your hometown and that is the message industry and commerce groups in Bonn and the region are sending out to customers. Posters and paper bags with the logo can be seen in store windows and on display in various shops. They have been up since Friday in Bonn, Beuel, Bad Godesberg, and Hardtberg and the initiative is planned to continue Saturday.

Claudi Justen of the Wunderbar shop in Friedrichstrae styled a mannequin with straw hat, Heimat Shoppen bags and matching T-shirt and put it on display in front of her shop. A lot of people come to us and say: I need this or that. We give them recommendations or look for an alternative. You dont get that on the internet, she said. It was up to small business owners to show that diversity makes a city more livable and to make shopping more attractive.

The theme was echoed by area retail associations. It was up to customers to retain the variety of merchants in the area by supporting them with their business. At the same time, the goal was not to create controversy about online shopping. In Bonn, there are 853 retailers registered, 1,309 in Rhine-Sieg County. As well, there are 273 larger restaurants in Bonn. To keep it that way, the retail associations printed 90,000 paper bags, 140,000 flyers and 1,300 posters to distribute to area merchants to help spread the word.

In Bonn city center, the posters and bags were not visible everywhere yet on Friday. They were at the smaller shops, but also at Kaufhof department store. Organizers say the goal is not to create more profit this weekend but to create a long-term awareness amongst consumers. A city is not just for shopping but its also a place to meet friends for a Cappuccino or attend a kids festival or other event. In Rheinbach, stores will be open on Sunday in connection with Heimat Shoppen.
Egypt's new value-added tax was officially implemented on Friday shortly after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ratified it, Egypt's finance ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The statement added that following Eid Al-Adha holiday this week, meetings would be held with business representatives to explain the mechanisms that the ministry would use to ensure correct implementation of the new law, as well as clarifying the needed procedures for companies paying the tax.

The ministry added that the law allows a three-month deadline as a transitional period so that companies and all those involved within the law can adjust their conditions, stressing that no fines would be imposed for a delay in payments of the due tax.

According to Article 9 of the VAT law, bylaws on the tax's implementation will be issued by the finance minister within 30 days from the law's ratification in the official gazette.

In August, Egypt's parliament approved the law at a rate of 13 percent for the 2016/17 fiscal year, to rise to 14 percent the following year.

It also increased the list of exempted commodities to 56 from 52 items.

The exemption list includes all essential food goods, dairy products, baby formula and all local and imported medicine.

Non-exempted goods and services falling under the new tax would include TV and radio production, taxed under the new VAT at a rate of 5 percent, imported vegetables, imported wheat products, cosmetic surgeries for non-medical causes, alcoholic drinks, and mobile phone services.

The VAT aims at reducing tax evasion, as it will be applied to each member of the production chain of goods and services, instead of the current sales tax that is imposed as a one-off on the final sale to customers.

The long-awaited VAT law is part of the government's fiscal reform programme, implemented in July 2014, through which energy subsidies are being cut and new taxes are being introduced to reduce the country's ballooning budget deficit  estimated at 11.5 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2015/16.

The reform programme, which has been endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, has lead to an initial agreement between the government and the global lender on a $12 billion fund facility over three years.

The initial accord is expected to be approved by the fund's executive board in the coming weeks.

President El-Sisi has strongly campaigned in recent months for his programme of economic reforms stressing on more than one occasion "that there is no time to postpone reforms that should have been put in place years ago."

Egypt, which relies heavily on imports, particularly of foodstuffs, has been suffering a severe shortage of US dollars in the wake of political and security unrest that has scared off tourists and foreign investors, two major sources of hard currency.

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The Same 1080p Display

As seen on the Galaxy A7 (2016), the Galaxy A7 (2017) will also feature the same 1080p display, which has become absolute for a mid-range smartphone. Also, the report shows that it will arrive a 5.5-inch display, same as its predecessor.

Powered by Exynos Chip

This is a big change as the Galaxy A7 (2016) arrived with a Snapdragon 615 chipset, but according to Galaxy A7 (2017) will feature an Exynos 7870 chip along with support with the same 3GB of RAM. It is still unknown why Samsung is going back to Exynos chip.

Doubled Expandable Storage

The benchmark listing shows that the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017) might come with 32GB of internal storage, however, it looks like the expandable storage space might be doubled and can support microSD cards up to 32GB.

Bumped Cameras

Samsung is trying hard to improve their cameras on mid-range smartphones. And, as a result, the previous leaked Galaxy A5 (2017) said to feature 16MP cameras on both front and back. And now, the Galaxy A7 (2017) is also said to feature the same 16MP camera setup both front and back.

Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow

This is interesting. When Samsung announces Galaxy A7 (2017) sometime in January, most of the devices from different vendors will be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat, but the GFXBench listing shows that Samsung is testing the smartphone with Android Marshmallow on-board.
'Feels Like Home Season 2' offers something real and tangible to think about; takes home a pertinent point - if your intentions are good, there is nothing in life that isn't achievable.
Carter Salutes Norway as Strong, Indispensable Security Partner

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2016  Norway is a strong, indispensable U.S. security partner bilaterally, within NATO, in the North Atlantic and Arctic, in Afghanistan and as part of the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today during a press conference in Norway.

Carter joined Norway's Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Sreide for a briefing with reporters at the Gardermoen Air Station near Oslo.

"Norway is taking seriously the challenges of this new strategic era and adapting its armed forces, some of whom I observed in action today up in Bodo. The United States appreciates this commitment, admires this skill and stands by [Norway] to assist in any way we can," the secretary said.

Norwegian Security Plan

Carter highlighted a recent long-term security plan published by Norway's defense ministry as an important step in this effort.

"I've read it [and] benefited from it," he added. "It's an impressive plan and one that will help Norway to continue to contribute to security in Europe and beyond."

The plan recognizes that as technology and threats change the optimal defense posture for everyone changes, Carter added, "and our nation -- speaking for the United States -- is also similarly striving to innovate to keep ahead of all the threats, and I appreciate the efforts here."

The secretary also observed that Norway's investments are trending in the right way.

"It's already one of eight NATO nations spending at least 20 percent of its defense budget on equipment  and it's investing in new capabilities that will strengthen both Norway's national defense and NATO," Carter said.

"For example," he said, "F-35s will replace the storied F-16s and help further improve our interoperability."

On the eastern flank and in the high north, Carter added, Norway's dedicated leadership has been a crucial part of NATO's response to and deterrence of Russian aggression and coercion.

For example, Carter said, "Norway will contribute a company to NATO's Persistent Enhanced Forward Presence Battalion in Lithuania. In Afghanistan, Norwegian personnel make important contributions to NATO's Resolute Support mission as mentors to Afghan security personnel and as first responders, especially after the recent attack on the American University in Kabul."

Vital Contributions to Counter-ISIL Campaign

And as a member of the counter-ISIL coalition, Carter said, Norway has made vital contributions to the campaign that will deliver a lasting defeat to ISIL.

In fact, he said, "Minister Sreide was part of a core group of members that I convened last year from the counter-ISIL coalition to make the campaign plan that you have seen unfold this year and to make the commitments that we all needed to make to accelerate  that counter-ISIL military campaign plan."

The secretary said Norway has consistently answered the call to do more, as the United States has tried to do, authorizing more than 150 personnel to enable and support the Iraqi security forces and authorizing Norway's personnel to take part in Syria operations.

Thanks to Minister Sreide's leadership, Carter said, "Norway's contributions and the work and sacrifice of our local partners and service members from the United States, Norway and across our coalition, our campaign has accelerated, pressuring and squeezing ISIL and rolling it back to Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria."

Also, "thanks to leaders like Minister Sreide and its professional and principled military personnel," Norway "will continue to play a leading role in bolstering collective security and making a better world for all of us."

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Ash Carter; Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Sreide September 09, 2016

Joint Media Availability with Secretary Carter and Minister Eriksen Sreide in Oslo, Norway

STAFF: I have the pleasure of introducing the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and Defense Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Soreide.

Welcome.

(APPLAUSE)

NORWEGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER INE MARIE ERIKSEN SOREIDE: Thank you.

I've had the pleasure of hosting Secretary Carter for a visit in Norway for almost two days. It's been wonderful to have him here. We have been discussing and also developing our already very close relationship. I call Ash a true friend and a very good colleague, and that's no coincidence.

The U.S. is our most important ally. And one of the things that we have been doing today is actually showing Secretary Carter a piece of what Norwegian armed forces is and what they can do. And we've had a wonderful trip to Bod, and we have been experiencing some of the things that we do with our armed forces.

We have also, of course, been discussing a range of issues from the security situation in the north, specifically challenges in the North Atlantic. We have been discussing in depth also the Middle East and our common endeavors in Operation Inherent Resolve. And we also have been going quite deeply into our new long-term defense plan.

It's important for us to take security and defense seriously. And we show that also through the new long-term defense plan with an historic increase in funding and also combined with necessary reform and also investments in strategic capabilities.

It's been great to have Ash here and I of course hope that he has -- is coming back with (inaudible) impressions and of course cooperation and relationship that we can build on even further. Of course, also other issues of pressing concern in the world have been on the agenda and I know that Ash will comment on them just a couple of minutes from now.

What we have is built on decades of strong cooperation; intelligence within the armed forces, we have been operating abroad for many, many years. And that solid relationship is what we're building on and we're now deepening it further.

So it's been a wonderful pleasure to host you, Ash, and I hope that some of the things that we have discussed also will be things that we will work on in the future together. I know that we have a couple of points that we will work through for the next couple of months, so thank you.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ASH CARTER: Thank you very much. Good afternoon everyone and thank you all for being here. It's a real pleasure for me to be here in Norway and I want to give a special thanks to my colleague and my friend, Minister Ine Sreide, for having me here and for everything she does for our common defense. And also, for showing me this beautiful as well as incredibly capable country and its military.

And I'm going to discuss that visit, but as she and I were talking about earlier today, and she just mentioned, I need first to provide you, if I may, with an update on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. I just spoke to the minister of Defense of the Republic of Korea, Minister Han, about the latest North Korean nuclear test.

This nuclear test constitutes a direct challenge to the entire international community. It is another destabilizing and provocative act by North Korea that further heightens anxiety on the Korean Peninsula and throughout the vital Asia-Pacific region.

I confirmed to Minister Han that we stand with our South Korean ally in strongly condemning this action, and I reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to the defense of South Korea and our other allies in the region.

As you know, U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula are always ready, and this is true every single day, to fight tonight. I assured Minister Han that the United States and the Department of Defense are standing with North Korea (sic Republic of Korea), standing guard 24/7 to deter and defend against the North Korean threat with all aspects of our extended deterrent capabilities, including conventional capabilities, missile defense and the nuclear umbrella.

We also agreed that the international community, the United Nations Security Council and especially the other Six-Party powers must hold North Korea accountable for this latest act and heighten the pressure on North Korea, especially through tightening of sanctions commensurate with the gravity of this act. I will continue to remain in close contact with Minister Han and our other allies and partners in the region and with our commanders as we monitor the situation and assess our next steps.

Now, as I said, this was an excellent visit for me, inspiring visit for me. North Korea -- North Korea (sic Norway), oh Jesus. Norway -- Norway is a --

(Laughter.)

Norway is a strong, indispensable security partner on many, many fronts to the United States. In the North Atlantic and Arctic, in Afghanistan as part of the counter-ISIL campaign and a strong partner in many ways bilaterally within NATO, and as I mentioned, in other ways like the counter-ISIL campaign.

Norway's taking seriously the challenges of this new strategic era and adapting its armed forces, some of whom I observed in action today up in Bod. The United States appreciates this commitment, admires this skill and stands by to assist in any way we can.

The ministry of defense's recent long-term plan is an important step in this effort. And I wanted to commend it. I've read it, benefited from it. It's an impressive plan, and one that will help Norway continue to contribute security in Europe and beyond. And it -- what it recognizes is that technology changes, and as threats change, the optimal defense posture for all of us changes.

And our nation, speaking for the United States, is also similarly striving to innovate, to keep ahead of all the threats. And I appreciate the efforts here.

We know and observe that Norway's investing in the right way. It's already one of eight NATO -- NATO nations spending at least 20 percent of its defense budget on equipment. That's important. And it's investing in new capabilities that will strengthen both Norway's national defense and NATO. For example, F-35s will replace the (inaudible) F-16s and help further and improve our interoperability.

On the eastern flank and in the high north, Norway's dedicated leadership has been a crucial part of NATO's response to and deterrence of Russian aggression and coercion. For example, Norway will contribute a company to NATO's persistent enhanced forward presence battalion in Lithuania.

In Afghanistan, Norwegian personnel make important contributions to NATO's Resolute Support Mission as mentors to Afghan security personnel and as first responders, especially after recent -- the recent attack on the American University in Kabul.

And as a member of the counter-ISIL coalition, Norway has been a stalwart leader, making vital contributions to the campaign that will deliver to ISIL the lasting defeat that it deserves. In fact, Minister Sreidewas part of a core group of members that I convened last year from the counter-ISIL coalition to make the campaign plan that you've seen unfold this year and to make the commitments we all needed to make to accelerate the accomplishment of that counter-ISIL military campaign plan.

And Norway's consistently answered the call to do more and more, as we have tried to do too in the United States, authorizing over 150 personnel to enable and support the Iraqi security forces and authorizing Norway's personnel to take part in operations in Syria.

Thanks to Minister Sreide's leadership, Norway's contributions and the work and sacrifice of our local partners and services members from the United States, Norway and across our coalition, our campaign has accelerated pressuring and squeezing ISIL, and rolling it back to Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria.

And Norway, thanks to leaders like Minister Sreide and its professional and principled military personnel, (inaudible) continue to play a leading role in bolstering collectively security and making a better world for all of us. And we appreciate it. Thank you.

STAFF: Thank you.

Then we'll open up for some questions. We'll start with alternating Norwegian and American press. And we'll start with NRK -- (inaudible). We've got a microphone. We have a live broadcast, so we ask that you use the microphone. Thank you. The floor is yours.

Q: So Mr. Secretary, Norway's traditional role in NATO has been to strengthen security in the North Atlantic. But we are also now engaged in the fight against ISIL. On which of these fronts do feel Norway has the most to contribute?

SEC. CARTER: I can't really say because their contribution -- Norway's contributions are invaluable in both cases. I'll just take the two and give you the reasons why.

In the case of the North Atlantic and the Arctic region, it is the part of NATO that is highly exposed because of the vast ocean area here, and of course, that affects Norway's territory and territorial defense of the country itself, as well as that part of NATO. So that's a very important part of geography for the NATO alliance.

And Norway has both the knowledge of this region, the proximity to it for purposes of deployment and so forth. And then amazing capabilities of maritime surveillance, maritime control, and so it has it all when it comes to that mission for NATO.

And as far as the counter-ISIL campaign is concerned, this is something we must do to protect our societies. We have to destroy ISIL in each of the ways that it needs that. We need to do that in Iraq and Syria because that's where it all started. And we need to destroy the fact and the idea that there could be a state based upon the ideology there.

And then we need to destroy it everywhere it has metastasized and then we need to protect our homelands. And we work very closely in all three of those and in no case can we do all that without the cooperation of others who bring to that capabilities that are necessary to do it.

So they're both necessary. I know that's a long answer, but that's because Norway does a lot.

STAFF: Next question from Phil Stewart with Reuters.

Q: Hello?

Minister, could you give us a sense of where discussions are at on the acquisition of P-8A aircraft? We have been told earlier this year that you were thinking about buying five to six of them. How are advanced are those discussions? And to the secretary of North Korea, you said that North Korea needs to be held accountable. Is a military response on the table?

MIN. ERIKSEN SREIDE: I can start with the P-8s. We have -- as you know, we are operating right now the P-3s and they are aging and we made a decision in the long-term defense plan to continue having that capacity, which means that we have to renew the capacity. And that's not only about the airframes, it's also, of course, about technology.

And we are not yet at a stage where we can say what kind of platforms we will require and the number of platforms, but that will be done in due course. We have presented to parliament a suggestion that we do still operate (inaudible) and it's important for the defense of Norway, it's important for NATO.

And we are, as we like to say, NATO in the north and that's why we have to make sure that we have eyes and ears, that we have a good situational awareness, and operating (inaudible) is one of those strategic platforms for us.

SEC. CARTER: Thanks. And Phil, if I can just comment on that as well, obviously it's -- it's Norway's decision, its own acquisition decision that I can't say anything about that.

I -- I will just say how much we appreciate the accomplishment of that mission by Norway, that maritime surveillance mission which carried out by those aircraft is very, very valuable to all of us who are partners and allies and it's just one of the many things that is done with very high levels of technology and skill by Norway.

But their -- their airframe, we obviously have chosen the P-8. We're very happy with it. But that's entirely their decision.

With respect to North Korea, the -- this test and other North Korean provocations confirm and -- and -- and strengthen our resolve to get on with all the things that we're doing to be able to defend ourselves from and deter North Korean aggression against both ourselves, South Korea, Japan and elsewhere.

And those things range from improvements to our deterrent capability on the peninsula to capabilities like missile defense capabilities of all -- against missiles of all ranges, to include THAAD, which we're adding now which has the particular mission of the defense of the southern part of the peninsula. We also have missile defenses oriented at the defense of the northern part and of Japan and the United States. All of those in the process of being modernized both qualitatively and quantitatively. And then, I mentioned the nuclear umbrella as well, which is always there.

I think we need to, as I said, redouble the pressure on North Korea and that connection in addition to the sanctions which are so important. I guess one other thing I'd -- I'd single out is the role of China. It's China's responsibility. China has and shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it.

And so it's important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and not the direction things have been going.

STAFF: Thank you. Then next on the list is (inaudible) -- (inaudible).

Q: This is to Mr. Carter. The Russians, they have decreased (inaudible) for this year between five and 10 percent. Isn't this a good opportunity for NATO to do the same, to sort of lower the level of tensions between Russia and NATO?

SEC. CARTER: No, it's time for NATO to stick with the commitments that it's made, and there are two reasons for that.

The first is that the Russian military buildup continues both qualitatively and quantitatively and simply must be checked in order for deterrence in Europe to remain stronger -- strong. And that's a trend that's been going on for quite some time and we need to take reasonable steps to do that, and that's what the goals that NATO and its individual members have set for themselves reflect.

Secondly, not everything that these nations do to protect themselves, whether in NATO or not, is about Russia. Sadly, we all have other things to be concerned about as well. I mentioned the campaign to protect ourselves against ISIL. That takes real capability. It takes commitment, it takes readiness of forces, it takes highly trained forces, it takes capable, technologically proficient forces.

All of that and those different things are foreseen in your strategic review. And as I said, I read it, I admired it and it seemed that it was laying forth a path for Norway that makes a lot of sense. But it is going to cost money to protect ourselves. And we need to do that in a reasonable way. We're all committed to do it in the most economical way possible, but there are a lot of dangers out there and we've got to protect our people.

STAFF: Next question comes from Paul Sonne of The Wall Street Journal.

Q: I have two questions.

One is for the minister, which is about -- would you consider a -- (inaudible) -- presence for NATO or the U.S. in Norway? Is that something you've considered in the past or is under consideration or would you consider that in the future?

And for the secretary, on North Korea, is it important that North Korea believe that there is a credible military threat in order to -- regarding these nuclear tests -- in order to induce diplomacy? The United Nations has imposed probably some of the most comprehensive and toughest sanctions that it's ever imposed and those seem to have not had an effect or have not -- the regime in North Korea has proved impervious to them.

So is it important that the regime in South -- excuse me -- in North Korea know that there is a credible military threat on the table?

MIN. ERIKSEN SREIDE : Well, we have considered and that's also laid out in the long-term defense plan is the fact that we see a need for and we want more allied presence during training exercises in Norway.

We have a biannual big exercise called Cold Response. We're very grateful for all nations participating, some of them like the U.S., with quite large contingents and that's something that we highly appreciate. It's a multinational exercise, so we have a lot of countries coming in.

And I think that when we now lay out the long term defense plan, one of the issues that we also have been discussing is more training exercises would be good for the defense of Norway, it would be good for NATO and it enhances what we actually are working on on a daily basis in Afghanistan or other theaters, the interoperability, which is so important for an alliance like NATO. If something were to happen, then it's important that we have that interoperability, we know each other and so forth.

And we have a long-standing close relationship, but also, amongst other things, a prepositioning program in -- (inaudible) -- Norway. It's been there since the beginning of the '80s. And it's been modernized and it's one of the important factors and -- and important milestones we have in our good and solid and constantly growing bilateral relationship.

SEC. CARTER: Well, let me just second that and just say, after having been in the beautiful high north personally, I would like a -- a permanent (inaudible) there, at least during the summer. But that's just me speaking about myself.

With respect to North Korea, we don't wait for developments to take military protective action. So I'll just remind you we have been working on modernizing the conventional deterrent on the Korean Peninsula for some time. There are a number of ways that is being transformed and improved as we speak.

I mentioned missile defenses. We embarked some years ago on the -- increasing the number and the quality of the ground based missile defense in the United States, specifically in anticipation that we always want to be ahead of the threat. That's why also we plan to position as soon as possible. And I'm sure this strength -- this development strengthens everyone's resolve to do that quickly.

The deployment of THAAD, Patriot and other capabilities, radars and so forth, in the Korean Peninsula aimed at missile defense. And then I've already mentioned the nuclear umbrella and a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent, which the United States is also investing in. So we don't wait for things to happen. We anticipate that things will happen. And one of the things we try to do always in the Korean Peninsula is stay ahead of the threat.

As far as pressure of the -- of other sorts, I mentioned the -- especially the importance of tightening sanctions and closing loopholes in sanctions enforcement, especially by countries that have -- the very few that have economic relations with North Korea. And then I also emphasize the importance of especially China, given its historic role there, applying pressure to North Korea and using the influence it has. Has -- it has great responsibility for these developments.

STAFF: Thank you very much.

SEC. CARTER: Thank you. Thanks again.

MIN. ERIKSEN SREIDE: Thank you.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/939736/

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NATO Builds Up Air Forces, Missile Defense, Naval Presence in Turkey

Sputnik News

17:33 09.09.2016(updated 17:40 09.09.2016)

NATO has build up its air forces, missile defense and naval presence in Turkey, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Stoltenberg is paying a two-day visit to Turkey. It is the NATO chief's first visit to the country following the coup attempt in the country in July.

"Just as you stand with NATO, NATO stands with Turkey. We have increased our military presence in Turkey with more assets in the air, naval assets and also defensive missile defense systems deployed in Turkey," Stoltenberg told journalists in Turkey.

The Incirlik airbase in Turkey hosts jets from the US, Germany, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are participating in the US-led coalition against Daesh.

Stoltenberg welcomed the increased efforts of Turkey and other allies in fighting Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

Stoltenberg also noted "the importance of training local forces" in countries where extremist groups are present.

"I believe that it is better to train local forces enabling them to fight terrorism, enabling them to stabilize on country instead of NATO deploying large number of combat troops in combat operations," the NATO chief added.

Turkey's Euphrates Shield operation started on August 24 in the northern Syrian city of Jarablus and was backed by a US-led international coalition. At the time, nearly 40 Turkish tanks backed by some 1,000 Syrian rebel forces entered Syria.

 Sputnik

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New al-Qaida Video Commemorates 9/11 Attacks, Urges Muslims to Fight US

By Jeff Seldin September 09, 2016

Al-Qaida is calling on Muslims to join the terror group's fight against the United States as it marks the 15th anniversary of the deadly September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In a video released Friday on the internet titled "The Defiers of Injustice," al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said the 9/11 attacks "returned the balance" between Islam and what it called its materialistic Crusader enemies, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Zawahiri said the attacks reminded Muslims of their power and their "potential to deter aggression." He also noted ongoing racial disparities in the U.S. and urged black Americans to convert to Islam.

U.S. intelligence officials said they were aware of the video, though at least one official sought to downplay the significance, calling Zawahiri a "marginal figure" fighting for relevance.

The official also said that while al-Qaida still poses a threat to the United States, core al-Qaida has been "decimated," with its leaders preoccupied by internal squabbling.

Threat factor

Other members of the U.S. intelligence community have been less inclined to dismiss the threat from al-Qaida, however, even though it has been overshadowed by the Islamic State terror group.

During testimony before Congress this past July, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen called al-Qaida and its affiliates "a principle counterterrorism priority."

"We would not tier our priorities in such a way that downgrades al-Qaida in favor of a greater focus on ISIL," he said in his written testimony, using an acronym for Islamic State. "When we are looking at the terrorism threats that we face as a nation, including to the homeland, al-Qaida still figures prominently."

Some U.S. counterterrorism officials also have voiced concern about al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen  al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)  which has taken advantage of 16 months of civil war to solidify safe havens in several provinces.

U.S. Homeland Security officials also have warned that al-Qaida still has its sights set on more 9/11-style attacks, again using commercial airplanes to hit symbolic targets.

"Al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIL continue to see an attack on aviation as an important part of their strategy," the undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, Brigadier General Francis Taylor, said last month during a talk in Washington.

"[We] have clear indications that our enemies are trying to perfect ways of introducing explosives and other devices onto aircraft for the purpose of destroying them in midflight," he added.

Jabhat Fatah al-Sham

Other U.S. intelligence officials also remain concerned about Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which recently formed out of what used to be known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the key al-Qaida affiliate in Syria.

While the new group has renounced its ties with al-Qaida, some intelligence officials and analysts remain skeptical the move was anything more than a stunt to shift public opinion.

Others point to al-Qaida's ability to survive the onslaught it faced from Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere as a sign the terror organization is anything but decimated.

"Al-Qaida has emerged from this having survived the challenge [from IS] definitively," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Lingering problem

He also said the new video from al-Qaida leader Zawahiri is neither "a sign of a collapsed organization" nor a sign of a group struggling for relevance.

"It's the kind of thing you would expect," said Gartenstein-Ross.

"Underestimating these foes can lead to terrible errors in policy," he warned.

VOA's Elizabeth Cherneff contributed to this story.

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Beijing Denies Reports of Stealth Fighter Jet Deployed on India Border

Sputnik News

22:18 09.09.2016(updated 01:56 10.09.2016)

The People's Liberation Army claims that keeping warplanes in the area makes no tactical or diplomatic sense.

Rumors first began circulating after a photo supposedly showing the J-20 stealth fighter jet on the tarmac at the Daocheng Yading Airport in Tibet appeared on Twitter, days after Beijing warned the Indian Army against deploying its Brahmos cruise missile.

New Delhi rejected the warning, telling NDTV, "Our threat perceptions and security concerns are our own, and how we address these by deploying assets on our territory should be no one else's concern."

The PLA released a statement regarding the J-20 stealth fighter accusations on its website saying, "In addition, the world's highest airport there does not have a complete set of supporting facilities and such shortage will impede the function of J-20J-20 will not be deployed in Daocheng Yading airport as the airport is too close to the border, and it is vulnerable to India's first wave hit. If India is to deploy BrahMos missile on the China-India border, then the Daocheng Yading airport will likely become its target."

The sighting came just days before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to meet Chinese leadership during this year's G20 summit in Hangzhou.

The Chinese statement also highlighted that tensions between Beijing and New Delhi are another reason to not deploy the J-20 from Daocheng.

"Experts pointed out that for India, China is undoubtedly its largest opponent and therefore every move of the Chinese military will touch the nerve of Indian media," it said, adding, "India is not yet the biggest threat for China and though confrontation events along the border would occur from time to time, the overall situation is rather stable."

Chinese statements also detailed that Beijing's main focus is strengthening its military and not antagonizing other nations.

"In this way, China does not put too much emphasis and focus targeting India. Chinese equipment deployment and drills along the border are mostly confirmatory, mainly to gain experience, improve high-altitude combat capability, and form deterrent ability," it said.

 Sputnik

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North Korea Draws International Ire With Largest Ever Nuclear Test

Sputnik News

11:33 09.09.2016

The UN Security Council is expected to hold a crisis meeting soon to address North Korea's nuclear ambition after it tested a nuclear technology on Friday in violation of UN resolutions.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The nuclear experiment is believed to be the fifth and largest since Pyongyang started pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs, drawing condemnation from the international community.

The presidents of the United States and Japan agreed, in an urgent phone call, that more steps, including additional sanctions, were needed to tackle the North's nuclear research.

Suspicious Seismic Activity

A jolt measuring 5.3 magnitude was detected by Russia's Hydrometeorological Centre at 12:30 GMT. According to the US Geological Survey, this was a ground-level seismic event that occurred near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

Elena Semenova, the head of the Russian seismological station in Sakhalin, said the quake appeared to be artificial and reminiscent of what they registered during the North's previous nuclear attempts in 2006, 2009, 2013, and most recently in January of this year.

A source with the Russian security agencies told RIA Novosti the new nuclear test carried the explosive power of 30 kilotonnes, twice as much as the energy emitted by the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA claimed the newest nuclear experiment was a success. It said the test, which was timed to the 68th anniversary since the republic's foundation, confirmed that "standardized" nuclear warheads can be mounted on "strategic ballistic rockets."

International Condemnation

South Korea was quick to condemn the North for a new provocation, with President Park Geun-hye warning Pyongyang that its pursuit of nuclear weapons would lead to deeper isolation and accelerate the nation's eventual "self-destruction."

Park said the nuclear test would invite stronger sanctions. This was echoed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama, who called for more steps to counter Pyongyang's nuclear ambition.

The United Nations has banned North Korea from developing nuclear and ballistic missile technologies and imposed fresh sanctions on it after the fourth nuclear test in January.

France urged the international community to stand up against Pyongyang's provocations, while North Korea's neighbor China said it "strongly opposes" nuclear tests by North Korea, which again demonstrated disregard for demands of the international community.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s chief Yukiya Amano slammed the test as "deeply troubling and regrettable act" but said his agency would be ready to contribute to the peaceful resolution of Korea's nuclear crisis by resuming verification activities in the North once a political deal is reached among countries concerned.

 Sputnik

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Latest DPRK nuclear test 'yet another brazen breach' of Security Council resolutions - UN chief

9 September 2016  Strongly condemning another underground nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon reiterated his call on the leadership of the country to reverse its course and commit to a path of denuclearization.

"This is yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council," underlined the Secretary-General, in his remarks to the press at the UN Headquarters today.

"Rather than pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology, the DPRK should be promoting the well-being of the country's people," he added.

Mr. Ban further underlined that in recent years this was the fifth time that the country alone had defied the international norm against nuclear tests.

"This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime," he stressed.

Further calling on the Security Council to remain united and to take appropriate action, the UN chief highlighted the urgent need to "break this accelerating spiral of escalation."

The Secretary-General also told the press that the UN is monitoring and assessing the developments related to the nuclear test in close coordination with concerned international organizations, including the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

Latest tests a frightening, unfortunate and serious breach of international norms

Earlier today, speaking to UN Radio Lassina Zerbo, CTBTO Executive Secretary called the tests a frightening, unfortunate and serious breach of the norms adopted by the international community.

Furthermore, in a statement today, Mr. Zerbo said the latest nuclear test by DPRK "underlines, yet again the urgent need for the international community to act on putting in place a legally binding ban on nuclear testing once and for all."

He urged DPRK to refrain from further nuclear testing, and to join the 183 States Parties who have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

"I sincerely hope that this will serve as the final wake-up call to the international community to outlaw all nuclear testing by bringing the CTBT into force," he said.

Also today, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano also spoke out against the test, calling it a "deeply troubling and regrettable act."

"This is in clear violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions and in complete disregard of the repeated demands of the international community," said Mr. Amano in a statement issued by IAEA.

Recalling Security Council's calls on DPRK to not conduct nuclear tests and to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, he urged the country "to fully implement all relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the IAEA."

UN rights chief appoints experts on human rights violations in DPRK

In related news, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein today designated two independent human rights experts, Sonja Biserko and Sara Hossain, pursuant to a decision by the UN Human Rights Council to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in DPRK, Mr. Tomas Ojea Quintana, his Office (OHCHR) said in a news release.

In March this year, the Human Rights Council had decided to establish a group of independent experts to explore appropriate approaches to seek accountability for human rights violations in the country, in particular violations amounting to crimes against humanity, and recommend practical mechanisms of accountability to secure truth and justice for victims, including the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The report of the group of independent experts will be presented to the Human Rights Council at its March 2017 session.

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Obama: North Korea Nuclear Test ' A Grave Threat'

By Cindy Saine September 09, 2016

President Barack Obama condemned North Korea's nuclear test Friday, calling it "a grave threat to regional security and to international peace and stability."

In a White House statement, the president said North Korea's "provocative and destabilizing actions" had served "to isolate and impoverish its people through its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities."

The U.N. Security Council met in a closed session Friday afternoon in New York. The council president, New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, told reporters that the 15 members strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and agreed to "work immediately on appropriate measures" contained in Article 41 of the U.N. Charter. That clause covers sanctions.

"The council must use every tool at its disposal to change North Korea's calculus," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters. She said Washington would work with its international partners "to vigorously implement" existing measures in four previous U.N. resolutions. "And we will take additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions."

Japan's envoy, Koro Bessho, said his government would seek "a fresh resolution, with fresh measures."

In March, the council passed its toughest and most extensive set of sanctions to date on North Korea. It remains to be seen what new and strengthened measures the council will be able to agree on.

China's U.N. ambassador, Liu Jieyi, walked away without answering a reporter's question about Beijing's support for additional sanctions. But he did say Beijing was "opposed to the testing and we believe that it is more urgent than ever to work together to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." He called on "all sides" to refrain from mutual provocation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, himself a former South Korean foreign minister, strongly condemned the underground nuclear test as a "brazen breach" of council resolutions.

"For the fifth time in recent years, the DPRK alone has broken the international norm against nuclear tests," Ban said. "This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime."

Ban said he was counting on the Security Council to remain united and take appropriate action.

'Consequences' for North Korea

The latest and possibly largest North Korean nuclear test ever occurred as Obama was returning to Washington from his trip to Asia. While aboard Air Force One, he spoke by telephone with both South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Obama said they all agreed to implement new sanctions. The president also reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend its allies in Northeast Asia through deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who was in Norway, also condemned the test at a news conference with his Norwegian counterpart.

Carter said he spoke with the South Korean defense minister, and they agreed the world needed to hold North Korea accountable. Carter said this test might strengthen resolve to get the THAAD system in place sooner. He added that it now was up to China to reverse the trend of North Korean nuclear escalation.

China responded to news of the test by saying it firmly opposed such actions by Pyongyang. A statement urged North Korea to adhere to its promises about nuclear non-proliferation, and it criticized the country for disregarding international objections.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, urged North Korea to "stop taking any actions that worsen the situation. Any actions solely in one side's interest will only escalate the situation."

China monitoring radiation

Meanwhile, Beijing said China had started emergency measures to monitor radiation rates and environmental pollution along its border with North Korea.

In announcing the nuclear test, North Korea called it "part of responsive measures to threats and sanctions from the U.S. and enemies denying our strategic position as a nuclear state." The White House statement reaffirmed the U.S. position on the issue: "The United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state."

The Obama administration has followed a policy of "strategic patience," knowing that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown no interest in negotiations over its nuclear program. At a news conference Thursday in Laos, Obama acknowledged that persuading Pyongyang to change its behavior had been difficult.

He pointed to unsuccessful diplomatic approaches during Republican and Democratic administrations over the past decade, and he said North Korea had not only failed to meet its international obligations but also had given no indication it was inclined to do so anytime soon.

Protection for U.S. allies

"We are going to make sure that we put our defensive measures in place so that America is protected [and] our allies are protected," the president said. "We will continue to put some of the toughest pressure that North Korea has ever been under as a consequence of this behavior. Can I guarantee that it works? No. But it is the best option that we have available to us right now."

On Capitol Hill, the Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, condemned North Korea for threatening U.S. allies, but also criticized Obama: "This destabilizing activity is also a consequence of the administration's failed policy of strategic patience and its hollow pivot to Asia. The president should immediately make full use of the sanctions authorities Congress gave him earlier this year, and he should join me in urging China, as Pyongyang's chief sponsor, to fully enforce the international sanctions on the Kim regime."

The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Ed Royce of California, said the North Korean test showed that Obama's efforts to enforce sanctions were falling short: "Most notably, the administration has yet to impose sanctions on any of the many Chinese companies and banks that, according to a recent U.N. report, continue to support the North Korean regime. This must change. We've seen before that China will only comply with sanctions if Chinese banks face real consequences for doing business in North Korea.

"The United States and our foreign partners should also act quickly to sanction North Korea's state-owned airline," Royce added. "Air Koryo continues to flagrantly violate the ban on luxury goods and has been implicated in the proliferation of SCUD missile parts. At the same time, the administration must also work with European governments to better block luxury items  including cars, watches and liquor  from reaching North Korea's repressive ruling elite."

Action 'threatens stability'

The senior Democratic member of Royce's committee, Representative Eliot Engel of New York, said: "North Korea's apparent fifth nuclear test is another reckless action that threatens stability in the Asia-Pacific and further isolates the rogue regime. As the president reiterated, our commitment to our alliance partners in Northeast Asia is unbreakable. If the Kim regime believes that the United States and our partners will ever accept its nuclear weapons program as legitimate, they have made a grave miscalculation.

"Yesterday's test is even more dangerous," Engel added, "because on Monday, Kim's regime tested three ballistic missiles, all landing within 250 kilometers of Japan. Escalation like this only adds to the reasons why deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea and close cooperation with our allies is so important."

Friday's explosion was the fifth nuclear test and thought to be the largest to date, estimated at 10 kilotons and causing a magnitude 5.3 earthquake.

The last serious talks with North Korea on denuclearization, the six-party talks, ended in 2009.

VOA's Margaret Besheer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

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India-Russia to Step Up Talks on Co-Production of Kamov Helicopters

Sputnik News

15:32 09.09.2016(updated 15:34 09.09.2016)

India and Russia will soon complete the final negotiation process for the co-production of Kamov choppers.

In view of the upcoming visit of Russian President Putin for the BRICS Summit and the India-Russia Summit level talks, the Indian Defense Ministry is busy giving a final shape to Indo-Russian defense projects. The Defense Ministry is in the process of finalizing the joint production of the choppers.

India and Russia had already agreed on the deal to manufacture Kamov Ka-226 helicopters during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow last December. Kamov Ka-226 choppers are being built in India under a technology transfer agreement with Russia.

In fact, agreement on the joint production of Kamov Ka-226 helicopters is the first project for a major defense platform under 'Make-In-India' program.

The joint helicopter company is now expected to be incorporated and will later rope in a private sector partner to share work. India needs more than 200 Kamov choppers.

Anil Ambani owned Reliance Industries or Pune based Kalyani Strategic Systems is likely to be private sector partner to manufacture the Kamov Ka-226 choppers.

"As per the agreement, out of the 200 Kamov Ka-226 Light Utility Helicopters, the first 40 are to be made in Russia and the rest 160 will be made in India with transfer of technology and license for production. These light utility Kamov Ka-226 choppers will ultimately replace the Cheetah and Chetak helicopters. In fact, India wants to become an export hub for the Kamov Ka-226 choppers as several countries have shown their interest in buying this most efficient chopper. I think president Putin's visit will definitely give a spur to Indo-Russian defense cooperation. India is still dependent on Russia for nearly 60 to 70 percent of its defense supplies and it will remain as such in the years to come despite our defense ties with US," former spokesperson of the Defense Ministry and Wing Commander (Rtd) Praful Bakshi told Sputnik.

 Sputnik

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A Turning Point': Russia All Set to Build Iran's Bushehr-2 NPP by 2019

Sputnik News

11:10 09.09.2016(updated 11:24 09.09.2016)

It could take Russia just three years to build two more reactor units for the Bushehr nuclear power station in southern Iran, Press TV political observer and nuclear energy expert, Hassan Beheshtipour, said in an interview with Sputnik.

Construction of the second and the third power-generating units for the Bushehr-2 nuclear power plant will begin on September 10.

The station will be built in keeping with European Utility Requirements and will utilize "unique technology and a new concept of safety," according to a statement by ASE, an engineering company operating as part of Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.

"This will be a turning point in the mutually-rewarding nuclear energy cooperation between our two countries, whose peaceful nature has been confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hassan Beheshtipour told Sputnik.

He added that that the 1,000 megawatts generated by Bushehr-1 accounted for a mere one-seventieth of Iran's overall consumption.

"However, Russia has already invested in the modernization of our Ramin thermal power station and is working hard to develop natural gas sector of this country's energy market," Hassan Beheshtipour noted.

He said that Bushehr-2 could take between three and five years to build now that most of the problems holding up the construction had already been solved.

"That's why I'm confident that the second stage of the Bushehr power station will have been completed by 2019-2021," Hassan Beheshtipour said.

An agreement to expand civilian nuclear energy cooperation and construct a total of eight additional nuclear reactors at Bushehr was signed between Russia and Iran on November 11, 2014.

The agreement for the construction of the Bushehr-1 nuclear power plant was finalized in 1995, but the project was delayed several times due to a number of technical and financial issues.

Bushehr-1 was launched in September 2011 and reached its maximum power generation capacity in August 2012.

In September 2013, Iran officially took over from Russia the first unit of its first 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant, and in November 2014 the two countries signed an agreement whereby Russia was commissioned to build an additional seven such units.

 Sputnik

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Lifting Arms Embargo Against Libya Impossible Until Country's Army Unites  UN

Sputnik News

18:17 09.09.2016(updated 18:18 09.09.2016)

The issue to lift the arms embargo against Libya can be raised when the country gets a single army, the United Nations' envoy told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The arms embargo against Libya will remain in place as long as the country does not have a single army which could ask for the restriction to be lifted, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya Martin Kobler told Sputnik.

"Only a Libyan Army, under the authority of the presidency council can request the lifting of the weapons embargo, and this army is not yet there," Kobler said.

According to the official, the Libyan national army is in the east of the country, but there are also separate armed formations in the east and the west of Libya.

"They all have to come together under one roof, and this roof is the presidency council, and then there must be an army structure for everybody the east, the west and the southern groups they have a role, and the presidency council can request the exemption of the weapons embargo," Kobler added.

The UN Security Council imposed arms embargo on Libya in February 2011, after the country became politically unstable. It requires all UN member states to prevent the sale or supply of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment and spare parts, to the country.

 Sputnik

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BMD-5: Russia Creating New Airborne Infantry Fighting Vehicle

Sputnik News

14:32 09.09.2016(updated 14:43 09.09.2016)

Russia' military industry has begun drafting technical specifications for a proposed new airborne infantry fighting vehicle design, the so-called BMD-5, a representative from the Volgograd Tractor Plant said on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The latest tendency in NATO countries and in East Asia is to design front-wheel drive tracked combat vehicles with the crew space located in the armored section of the body, the representative of the heavy equipment factory said, speaking at a roundtable discussion at the ongoing Army-2016 international military and technical forum near Moscow.

"Due to this, the design of a potential BMD [Combat Vehicle of the Airborne Troops] vehicle with a 100 plus 30 fighting compartment [a 30-milimeter cannon and a 100-milimeter gun/launcher] is proposed, which is currently being developed for the BMP-3 Dragoon [infantry fighting vehicle]," the representative said.

The proposed layout places the crew in the chassis of the vehicle behind the engine transmission compartment, which provides additional protection, he added, noting that the designs also provided for additional interior space for the crew and an enlarged hatch for easier troop deployment.

Russia's current newest infantry fighting vehicle is the BMD-4, which was designed in the 1990s and entered into service in 2004. Designed to transport Russian Airborne Forces, the vehicle has improved in firepower compared to its BMD-3 predecessor, but the crew positioning and ergonomics were left largely unchanged.

 Sputnik

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Russian Missile System, Submarine Engage Simulated Targets at Kavkaz-2016 Drills

Sputnik News

13:43 09.09.2016(updated 13:47 09.09.2016)

Russia's advanced S-400 Triumf missile system destroyed practice targets and the Novorossiysk submarine carried out a cruise missile training launch at the Kavkaz-2016 exercises, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Friday.

OPUK RANGE (Crimea) (Sputnik)  The announcer noted the system's efficiency in combating a variety of modern air attacks under jamming and adverse weather conditions.

"Pay attention to the monitors: the advanced S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile system is dealing a blow to the 'Southern' aircraft," the correspondent quoted the announcer as saying at the drills.

"You are observing on monitors a cruise missile launch from the Novorossiysk submarine at the 'Northern' main landing forces' naval formation. The target has been struck," the announcer added.

It was announced at the end of the drills that a self-sufficient group of forces capable of repelling an attempt to capture the Crimean peninsula has been formed in the region.

 Sputnik

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Russia's T-14 Armata Battle Tank Tests to Conclude in 2017

Sputnik News

12:03 09.09.2016(updated 12:43 09.09.2016)

State tests of Russia's T-14 Armata main battle tanks will wrap up next year, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Tuesday, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said that the ministry and the Russian Uralvagonzavod machine industry company signed a contract for the supply of over 100 T-14 Armata tanks to the Russian army.

"State tests will be completed next year, they will be put into service afterward," Alexander Shevchenko, head of the ministry's main vehicles and armor department, told RIA Novosti.

Shevchenko noted that preliminary tests are scheduled to be finalized this year.

The Russian Defense Ministry unveiled its next-generation Armata tank at the May 9 Victory Day military parade in Moscow in 2015.

The tank's turret is unmanned and is operated by the crew located in an armored capsule at the front of the vehicle. Its main armament includes a 125-mm smoothbore cannon and a 7.62-mm remote-control machine gun.

Five-percent cuts in state defense orders will not affect Russia's advanced combat vehicles built on the Armata platform, the Russian Defense Ministry's chief of main vehicles and armor department told Sputnik on Friday.

"The main armored vehicle department is primarily financed by long-term research and development programs. Perhaps the reduction in funding will affect something else, but not in the development of weapons and military equipment," Shevchenko said.

Shevchenko noted that work on the Armata, along with the Kurganets and Bumerang armored personnel carriers, are prioritized because they form the "basis for the future."

 Sputnik

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Syrian Army's Success in Aleppo Sparks New Round in 'Anti-Assad PR Campaign'

Sputnik News

21:16 09.09.2016

After long clashes and with massive support from the Russian Aerospace Forces the Syrian Army destroyed militants' positions in southern Aleppo. The military also delivered an ultimatum for terrorists in the eastern part of the city. Rivals of President Bashar Assad responded with a massive media campaign.

Earlier on Friday, the Syrian army and militias retook control over Aleppo's Ramuse region, secured and unblocked the southern entrance to the city. Terrorists were pushed to the nearby Sadkop oil storage facility.

Currently, engineering units of the Syrian Army are clearing the liberated areas of mines and shells. The area of the oil depots is the last defense line of the terrorists in Aleppo.

At the same time, the Syrian military delivered an ultimatum to terrorists in the eastern part of the city. Aircraft of the Syrian Air Force dropped leaflets calling for the terrorists to lay down arms.

The battle for Ramuse lasted for over 72 hours. Now, terrorists have lost their defense positions in southern Aleppo. During that time, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces attacked the area of the Khan-Tuman-Ramuse highway.

However, shortly after the Syrian Army took control over Ramuse reports of new chemical attacks appeared. The so-called Syrian moderate opposition accused both Damascus and Daesh of using chemical weapons. However, according to the Syrian government, chemical weapons have been used from positions of both moderate forces and al-Nusra Front.

Separating Syrian rebels from terrorists is one the most important step to resolving the Syrian crisis. This is also a serious obstacle for the United States and Russia to reach an agreement on Syria. However, no progress has been made, an article in the Russian online newspaper Vzglyad read.

"This is another part of the anti-Assad PR campaign. It looks like a new attempt to demonize the Syrian President. Washington still wants him to resign," the article read.

On August 24, the UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) published a report on at least two alleged cases of use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army. According to the report, containers with chlorine gas were dropped from helicopters in Talmenes in April 2014 and Sarmin in March 2015. In addition, the report read that Daesh militants were involved in sulfur mustard gas attacks in Syria.

Russian Envoy to UN Vitaly Churkin commented that the information contained in the report could have been falsified.

"At this stage, we have a number of questions in regard to the conclusions of the JIM as for several incidents. The grounds for the conclusions contained herein cause significant doubts. They could have been falsified by forces opposing to the Official Damascus and terrorist structures, possibly with the foreign assistance," Churkin said.

"There is always the same logic: reports on chemical attacks come after the Syrian Army gains another victory against militants. Moreover, after such reports international pressure is mounted on Damascus and so-called moderate forces have time to take a breath," the article read.

 Sputnik

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Remarks With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura at a Press Availability

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Geneva, Switzerland

September 9, 2016



SECRETARY KERRY: So thank you all for tremendous patience during the course of a very long day which obviously has required a lot of detail work, and we appreciate everybody's patience in hanging in there.

Today, the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering, and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria. And we believe that the plan as it is set forth  if implemented, if followed  has the ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change.

The suffering that we have witnessed in Syria over the course of more than five years now is really beyond inhumane. People have all seen the pictures  women, children tortured; barrel bombs, gas. And the world has been shocked on a constant basis by what we have witnessed. And we are  I say "we"  the Obama Administration, the United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia and my colleague have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace.

Working together, Russia and the United States and our teams have devised what we think is a more proscriptive and far-reaching approach than we have been able to put together to date. And if  and I again want to emphasize the "if"  if the plan is implemented in good faith, if the stakeholders do the things that are available to them to do and are being called on to do, this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table, the negotiations could take hold, and you could really provide the people of Syria with a transition.

Now, Foreign Minister Lavrov and I have had frequent conversations and face-to-face meetings, most recently in Moscow in July, here in Geneva two weeks ago, in Hangzhou this past weekend. And each time, we have worked together to try to build a consensus on the broad steps and then to develop specific ideas on how those steps could be implemented. As we have both stated several times, we did not publicly spell out these measures earlier because the details of how they would be carried out were crucial to be finalized and because each had an impact on the other. And we know that, especially in Syria, plans do not implement themselves.

So today, we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking but is dependent on people's choices. And it has the ability to stick providing the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we  and we expect other supporting countries  will strongly encourage them to do. Obviously, the Russians have an ability to be able to encourage Assad, and we have an ability together with other countries to encourage the opposition.

So what specifically have we agreed to?

First, we agreed on the steps through which the regime will come to a place where it will not fly combat missions anywhere where the opposition is present in an area that we have agreed on with very real specificity. Once this arrangement takes full effect, the regime would no longer be able to do in the future what it has been able to do so much in the past, which is go after Nusrah allegedly but hit moderate opposition and mask attacks against the legitimate opposition by claiming that it's going after Nusrah.

Now, I want to emphasize: This step is absolutely essential. It is a bedrock of this agreement. And by all accounts, the Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows and the most frequent violations of the hostilities. Halting all of the regime's military air activities in key areas, key areas that are defined  not all flights, because there are still Nusrah and ISIL, but that will be managed in a different way also. And that should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian neighborhoods, and it has the potential to change the nature of the conflict. Whether it does or not depends on compliance.

Second, the United States and Russia have agreed on steps which we will take, providing there is a sustained period of reduced violence. And after that sustained period of violence, we have agreed that we will then work together  providing both access and reduced violence have been provided for the period of time  we would then work together to develop military strikes against Nusrah.

Now, I want to be clear about one thing particularly on this, because I've seen reporting that somehow suggests otherwise: Going after Nusrah is not a concession to anybody. It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al-Qaida  to target al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, which is Nusrah, an organization that is opposed to a peaceful transition, an organization that is an enemy of the legitimate opposition, an organization that is currently plotting attacks beyond Syria's borders, including against the United States. So we must go after these terrorists  not indiscriminately, but in a strategic, precise, and judicious manner, so that they cannot continue to use the regime's indiscriminate bombing in order to rally people to their hateful crimes. It is our belief that, in fact, Nusrah and ISIL have grown stronger because of the bombing. Now, some might disagree, but that is our belief.

Now, third, in Moscow we also said before we could move forward with the steps that we have identified, we would need seven days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities in order to convince the people of Syria and the opposition that the actions of the regime and its supporters will be consistent with the words that we put on paper. And I've talked to you previously about the words on paper not meaning anything unless the actions follow them up. Now, of course, the opposition will also be expected to adhere to the cessation of hostilities, and that is why today the United States and Russia together are calling on all sides to recommit to a nationwide cessation of hostilities and to honor its previous terms. This will be effective at sundown on September 12th.

Now, this  I might add also that is the beginning of the Eid holiday, and we can think of nothing more appropriate than for all the parties to come together and make Eid more meaningful to the people of Syria and the region. Now, this requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments and any attempts to gain additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation. It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and the hard-to-reach areas, including Aleppo. And as we stand here, we know that Aleppo continues to be the besieged and bombarded city taken on by the regime and its allies. And if Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten; if Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and for its people are grim. Now, that is why this arrangement also requires forces from both sides to pull back from Castello Road  and we have agreed on that pullback. Castello Road is a major artery into Aleppo, and what this pullback will do is create a demilitarized zone around it, permitting as quickly as possible the resumption of humanitarian and civilian traffic along that road. And that will be achieved over a period of time by some monitoring, which is essential to the compliance.

Meanwhile, in the Ramouseh Gap area in southwest Aleppo, both pro-government and opposition groups will be required to provide safe, unhindered, and sustainable humanitarian, commercial, and civilian access to eastern and western Aleppo. Now, neither the opposition nor the government will be permitted to attack or to take territory held by the other, or, I might add, to obstruct the delivery of humanitarian goods.

Now, finally, beginning September 12th, we will then commence preparatory work for a Joint Implementation Center. And these preparations will include initial discussions and some sharing of information necessary for the delineation of territories controlled by Nusrah and opposition groups in the area of active hostilities. And then the more comprehensive process of delineation will be conducted by experts once the joint implementation group  the center, or so-called JIC  once the center is established. Now, once it is established after seven continuous days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities and increased humanitarian access, then U.S. and Russian experts will work together to defeat Daesh and Nusrah.

I want to emphasize these measures can only be implemented effectively if all the parties live up to their obligations. If groups within the legitimate opposition want to retain their legitimacy, they need to distance themselves in every way possible from Nusrah and Daesh. And we expect that Russia will ensure that the Syrian Government will adhere to all of its requirements about its air activities and about the access for humanitarian deliveries. No one is building this based on trust. It is based on a way of providing oversight and compliance through mutual interest and other things, and we are determined to explore every single avenue possible for progress.

If this arrangement holds, then we will see a significant reduction in violence across Syria. We'll see humanitarian aid deliveries go forward in Aleppo and wherever the need is the greatest. And after a period of reduced violence, then we will see the United States and Russia taking coordinated steps to isolate and defeat the terrorist groups that have added immeasurably to Syria's suffering and misery  and we will facilitate a political transition, which is the only way to bring about a durable end to this war.

In closing, I just want to emphasize that the crisis in Syria, obviously, is enormously complex and it is still, even as it's complex, relatively simple at the same time. It's complex for reasons that we all understand  the number of stakeholders with different agendas, the wounds that have been inflicted by years of fighting, the ideological and sectarian divides, the urban and suburban war zones, the brutality of extremists, and the unhelpful actions of some outside powers. But let me be clear: out of all of this complexity there is emerging now a simple choice between war and peace; between human agony and humanitarian relief; between the continued disintegration of an ancient society and the re-birth of a united and modern nation.

So I want to thank Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, whom we will hear from a little later, and the many governments in the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere who have been supportive, and especially the NGOs, the medical assistance organizations, and the religious and advocacy groups that have been working for years to aid victims and halt the fighting in Syria.

And today Sergey Lavrov and I, on behalf of our presidents and our countries, call on every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russia have reached  to back its implementation in good faith  and to continue the hard work of bringing this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process. Our goal is to find the day when this kind of round-the-clock diplomacy isn't necessary, frankly. And I want to thank Sergey Lavrov. He has been  he and his team today have been particularly patient as we work through a very long day to make sure that the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted and the legal standards were met. And I'm grateful to him for the efforts that he has joined me in trying to help provide this opportunity. It is an opportunity, and not more than that, until it becomes a reality. And both of us are going to do everything we can to help it become that reality. Thank you.

Sergey.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand how you can feel at this time of night, but as John has said, we are grateful to you for your patience, we are grateful to each other for our patience and the patience of our delegations demonstrated by them. And we hope that it is  was not in vain.

We have concluded a huge piece of work which began on direct instructions from our presidents in February this year, and which was ongoing, has been ongoing, without impeding by  which was taken on by experts and by the ministers. As John said, we were in regular contacts, both over the telephone and personally. And as you remember, a year ago when it all began, our proposal to organize a coordination met quite a cool response from our American colleagues, who were ready only to engage in a de-confliction; that is, the mechanism and procedures allowing to avoid unexpectable incidents.

But as I said, this February the presidents in their conversation put forward an initiative to make additional efforts in order, first of all, to ensure sustainable cessation of hostilities. And after that, on this basis, a number of meetings took place which culminated today, this night, and this long work is justified and explained by many factors of difficulty which exist on the ground, and the puzzle which the Syria situation is, with a lot of stakeholders involved inside and outside Syria  all that, of course, did not help us, as well as the deep lack of confidence and trust between Russia and American partners in the Syrian matter particularly, but not only in it.

And now, I have to say, the  some mistrust remains and some  there are some people who would like our  today's arrangement to be undermined. The recent example is, which we discussed with John Kerry, is an arrogant announcement on  of sanctions on the verge of the meeting of our presidents in China and another point and announcement of additional sanctions after our presidents met and before we met. But we are not offended easily. We are clearly stating our position, and we believe that the settlement of the Syrian crisis is not a topic which one can speculate on, unlike some.

We believe that it is the primary responsibility of the leading powers, first of all, Russia and the U.S. who are co-chairing the International Syrian Support Group, and it is our responsibility and obligation, together with our international partners inside the regime and outside the regime, to do everything to create the necessary conditions to settle this very difficult conflict. And despite all the problems that have arisen, despite all the mistrust that is still witnessed, despite their attempts to undermine our  today's arrangements, we have managed to develop a package of documents, because the  today's document is not the only one; there are five documents in total. It is a package of documents that allows to organize an efficient coordination in struggle against terrorism that allows to expand the humanitarian access to the population in need  first of all, in Aleppo mostly  and which allows to enhance the cessation of hostilities regime. And this all creates the conditions  necessary conditions for the resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a lot of time.

And the main thing about these arrangements is that the first step would be the reconfirmation of the cessation of hostilities regime will do everything to  for the parties of the conflict influenced by the U.S. and Russia to take the necessary step and confirm and reconfirm their commitment to the cessation of hostilities  first for 48 hours, then it will be extended for another 48 hours  in order to achieve the permanent cessation of hostilities regime adherence.

After the regime is fully functional for seven continuous days, we, as John has said, are to create a Joint Implementation Center  JIC  where the military men and the special (inaudible) representatives from Russia and the U.S. will be engaged in practical  in solving practical matters of delimitation and separation of terrorists from the moderate opposition. And there will be strikes agreed against terrorists  the strikes of the airspace forces of Russia and the air forces of the U.S. We have agreed on the areas where such coordinated strikes would be taking place, and in those areas, on mutual agreement shared by the Russian  by the  sorry, by the Syrian Government as well, only the air forces of Russia and the U.S. will be functional. The Syrian air forces will be functional in other areas outside those that we have singled out for Russian-American military cooperation.

I'd like to highlight that the task of separating terrorists and moderate opposition and physical separation of them on the ground is enshrined in the document which we have agreed upon today as a key priority. Another topic is, of course, humanitarian assistance, and the document which we have agreed upon today, we  in this document, we have enshrined the mechanisms of humanitarian assistance delivery, commercial and civil cargo as well, in cooperation with the UN and the Red Crescent, mostly in Aleppo, in western and the eastern Aleppo.

We have also agreed upon the procedures of response on violations of the regime of cessation of hostilities. The Day D, as John has said, is the 12th of September. Since that moment, a number of steps will begin to be taken in the antiterrorist context and in the humanitarian assistance context and in enhancement of the cessation of hostilities as well.

John has mentioned that the most important thing is not the paper itself but how it is implemented in practice, how the agreements are fulfilled. We and the United States take the obligation to do all of our best to engage and make the stakeholders comply with the arrangements in our documents.

As I said, the Syrian Government has been informed by us about these arrangements, and it is ready to fulfill them. It supports the initiative on which we agreed with United States, so we will do everything which depends on us, but it is understandable that not everything depends on us. And some leaks in the mass media about which is the real views of the opponents of the regime from some groups that call themselves supreme committees, et cetera  there have been ultimatums, the refusals to cooperate, et cetera, as well as threats for humanitarian convoys that we have received from the opposition who are now in Aleppo  some of the groups.

I'd like to remind that humanitarian convoy was ready to be sent on 26 of August already when we met last time with John here. The UN was ready, the Syrian Government was ready, but the opposition said that any convoy that would be going along the Castello Road would be shot at. And this attitude is actually  lingers in them. So many groups need to be influenced, and this process has had a lot of situations when someone could just slip away from the commitments and looked for the explanations why it was impossible to fulfill these or those obligations. But today, I repeat, we have developed a significant and practical and concrete package of documents. And due to the reasons mentioned by John, we cannot make these documents public because they contain rather sensitive and serious information and we do not want this information to come to the hands of those who would be trying to undermine the implementation of measures dedicated to humanitarian access and other parts of our arrangements. But those documents are already entering in force efficiently  officially since the 12th of September, or the so-called Day D.

And I'm very glad that John said a very important thing. He said that the U.S. is firmly aimed to fight Nusrah and those who believe that the fighting with Nusrah is a concession to Russia are wrong. That is a very important constatation, or statement, because a lot of people supposed that the United States are really not very desirable to fight with Nusrah; they just keeping Nusrah as Plan B for overthrowing of the regime. So today's statement of John is greatly welcomed by me.

And this is not the end of the road and the way; that is just the beginning of our new relations. And we hope that all those who dearly value peace and the integrity of the multinational and multi-confessional Syrian state will support our arrangements. We expect to have closest cooperation with our friends from the UN, Staffan de Mistura and his team, because we are convinced that since the beginning of implementation of these arrangements, there will be favorable conditions, as it has been said, to resume the inter-Syrian negotiations on the political settlement. And we will, of course, urgent promote Staffan de Mistura and his team to use this moment. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Sergey, thank you very much. I appreciate very much your underscoring that Russia has already talked to President Assad and he is prepared to live by these agreements, which is critical.

It's my pleasure now  we're going to just hear a word  he's not going to take any questions, but we do want  as you've heard tonight, the UN is a critical partner  critical partner  in all of this. We're very grateful for their many efforts with respect to Syria, and I'd like to introduce the UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura.

MR DE MISTURA: Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a long day and good results, so I will read a statement which is representing the position of the UN, with your permission, rather than talking off the cuff.

The UN welcomes the understanding announced today by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and by Secretary of State John Kerry. This understanding regards reinstating the cessation of hostilities in Syria so that the parties can return to talks with humanitarian access being delivered and clear rules in place for the management of the cessation of hostilities again. We also welcome the fact that the Russian Federation and the United States of America are prepared indeed to work together to defeat Daesh and al-Nusrah. The United Nations hopes and believes that the political will that led to this understanding is sustained. It creates a real window of opportunity  a real window of opportunity  which all relevant actors in the region and beyond should seize to put the crisis in Syria on a different path and reduce the violence and the suffering of the Syrian people.

Let me be clear  you have been asking me for that; I am ready to say it: The United Nations stands ready to deliver and to do whatever it can to support an early restoration of the cessation of hostilities. It also expects that all parties will facilitate UN efforts to indeed deliver humanitarian assistance to the population in need, including in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, according to our plan of September which you heard today. The UN will continue to exert all efforts to that end. It is vital that the real change is felt on the ground by the Syrian people.

And lastly, the UN hopes that the implementation of this understanding will facilitate renewed efforts to reach a Syrian-owned, Syrian-led political settlement of the conflict, as called for in the Geneva communique, Security Council Resolution 2254. I will personally now proceed to New York in the coming days to consult with the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ahead of the ministerial meeting that, as you know, will be taking place at the level of Security Council on the 21st of September, with a view to advancing this objective and discuss the date for the renewal of the next round of intra-Syrian talks.

So let me say thank you to both of you for allowing us to restart the work. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Both  yeah. I was just going to say Sergey and I both have flights that have been multiply delayed, so we're just going to take one question, and we apologize.

MR KIRBY: First question tonight comes from Elise Labott from CNN.

QUESTION: Thank you, Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov. You talk about implementation as being the most important thing about this agreement. The entire ISSG, along with the Syrians and the opposition, agreed to a ceasefire in February. It was endorsed by the UN Security Council. How is this different? How can you make sure your respective allies in Syria and others who support them, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, are ready to respect the terms of any agreement that you adhere to?

And Secretary Kerry, we have to ask you about North Korea. For seven years, you've  the Administration has attempted the same policy of increasing sanctions and strategic patience with North Korea. The Security Council, including Russia, passed what you called the most biting sanctions ever, and North Korea has only increased its weapons program and provocative behavior. Why is it not time to try either a harder embargo or new negotiations on the terms North Korea is laying out? Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Well, as far as the implementation of this arrangement is concerned, no one can give 100 percent guarantees, as I have said. There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this puzzle and there are quite opposite interests of a whole number of them, but the fact that we have managed to create the ISSG by the joint Russian-American efforts, and this group  in this group, all the countries influencing the situation are represented, including the Saudi Arabia and Iran mentioned by you. I believe this is a great achievement in itself.

Another thing that  is that the capabilities of these group  of this group must be used in a responsible and weighted manner, and the situation when we gather all the participants and receive just an emotional discussion should be avoided. Everything should be prepared in advance, prepared thoroughly and carefully, and the documents that we have approved today  I believe we will have to inform the ISSG and the UN Security Council on their essence and nature if we want to receive the support of these organizations. But there is no other way except organizing the inclusive dialogue. We have  we see no other way, and this inclusiveness must be extended to inter-Syrian talks and to the outside circle which is to be closely involved in assisting those talks.

And I would like to use this occasion to confirm that about the Korea and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, an official statement has been made by Russia expressing our non-acceptance of the actions that violate the resolutions of the UN Security Council, and we consider those actions as the neglect of the international law by Pyongyang. And we cannot allow that the line to undermine the nonproliferation regime which threatens the peace and security would not be noted and noticed.

On the other hand, you are right that the current situation shows that maybe diplomats should be more creative than just responding by sanctions, sanctions, and sanctions again on any aggravation of the situation. I'm convinced that by condemning those dangerous exploits of the Korean Government, we must refrain from steps that could lead to further escalation of tensions and put this region on the verge of, we may say, armed opposition.

We are for  well, as  in the similar situation as in  on the nuclear program of Iran and chemical demilitarization of Syria, there have been very creative approaches used by all the participants, including the U.S. and Russia. And I am convinced that here in the North Korea, besides the bat and  there is  and the stick, there is the opportunity to have a creative understanding of the situation and development of approaches that would allow to defuse tensions in the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeastern Asia as such.

We are working on that and we believe that the Six-Party Talks  it is too early to bury the Six-Party Talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: So the question was asked: What is different about this situation relative to the previously announced ceasefires? Obviously, we worked very, very hard to make sure we weren't just repeating the same thing. That doesn't mean that it's automatically going to succeed, but we've created an entirely different structure this time. What happened in the past is that, first of all, the Assad regime continued to fly and bomb, and bomb indiscriminately, and everybody knows the record of barrel bombs and hospitals and schools and children and so forth. And what happened was because of that continued bombing, those others who had signed up to the ceasefire felt compelled to fight to save their countrymen.

Number two, there was always a confusion with Nusrah versus a legitimate opposition group. And in some cases they became melded together  marbleized, as some people have used the term  so that the Assad regime could say, "We're going after Nusrah," but at the same time would be attacking those who had signed up for the cessation of hostilities. And that confusion lent itself to a complete ultimate fraying of the ceasefire structure.

And so the second thing  so you have the combination of the flights, the bombs, and the confusion with Nusrah. What we have just laid out to you, if it is implemented  and the implementation depends on the initial seven days of a genuine reduction in violence and calm that indicates seriousness of purpose. And when that has happened and the joint implementation group gets set up as a consequence of the increased humanitarian access and the reduction in violence, then we will be working together to be delineating and separating Nusrah and defining where they are, and working together using our knowledge and technology and assets to be able to do a more pinpoint/strategic set of operations to deal with Nusrah and/or ISIL.

So the warning we give to opposition groups who have up until now found it convenient to sort of work with them is it would not be wise to do so in the future. It's wise to separate oneself. And indeed, that will be different. There is a deterrence in that. There is also a deterrence in Russia holding Assad accountable for his promise. And so this is a new equation, and we believe that this new equation offers an opportunity  again, not a certainty, an opportunity  for people to be able to find a peaceful solution because we don't believe there is a military solution. And the current trend is simply creating more terrorists, more extremists, and destroying the country in the process.

So as I said earlier, folks, President Obama has gone the extra mile here in order to try to find a way, if possible, to end the carnage on the ground in Syria. And obviously I think it's a courageous decision, I think it's the right decision, and I hope likewise President Putin has made a decision to commit the resources of Russia to try to make sure the Assad regime lives up to its obligations and to work with us. So hopefully maybe this can turn some things around, and that's what we're working towards.

Now with respect to North Korea, we have made overtures after overture to the dictator of North Korea. We have made it very clear to him that we're prepared to talk about peace, about peace on the peninsula, about food assistance, about normal relationship with the world, about a nonaggression pact  I mean a host of different ingredients  if he will simply acknowledge he is prepared to come to the table and talk about denuclearization and his responsibilities to the world  not to us, to the whole world.

He has refused to do that again and again. And yes indeed the last round of sanctions was the most biting sanctions to date. But as you recall, it took a number of years and a fair number of ratcheting up of sanctions to bring Iran to the table. Ultimately Iran came to the table and negotiated because they realized it was the responsible thing to do. And our hope is that ultimately we can get back to the talks. We're prepared to go back right away. All Kim Jong-un has to do is say, "I'm prepared to talk about denuclearization." But unfortunately he takes the exact opposite tack, recommits to his program, and against all United Nations Security Council resolutions, continues to explode, continues to shoot missiles, and continues to threaten and be provocative in the region. Which is why every country in the region, every neighbor of his in the region and outside of the region  near neighbors  are opposed to what he is doing. He stands alone and he invites even greater isolation.

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) And the question from the Russian journalist live news channel.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Good evening. I have a question to Mr. Kerry. As far as the launching of the political dialogue of opposition and Damascus is concerned, when today you have agreed on the difficult issues, Russia and the U.S., will Washington now be able to fulfill its commitments to influence the opposition and return it to the negotiations table?

SECRETARY KERRY: We've had  thank you for your question. We have had discussions with the opposition. The opposition has indicated they're prepared, providing the regime proves that it is serious and there are the days of reduced violence to meet the standards that we have established. And if that happens and they're given access for humanitarian goods, as we have been discussing here today, then I know Staffan de Mistura, who has had conversations with them, is prepared to issue an invitation at the appropriate time for them to be able to return.

I have had personal conversations with the foreign ministers of each of the stakeholder countries. They have all indicated a readiness and willingness to go back to the table and to encourage the opposition to go back to the table. And I spoke with Dr. Hijab by video conference from Washington just the other day. He was in London and I talked to my fellow foreign ministers who had gathered there, and they all agreed that this idea of this ceasefire, if it could be implemented, would be extremely helpful, very welcome, and they all committed to try to urge all of the interested parties to be back at the table for the first really serious negotiation since this concept has existed. Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) I'd just like to add a couple of words. The beginning of negotiations as soon as possible is not a matter that Russia and the U.S. can solve. That is the demand by the UN Security Council. Resolution 2254 says that the negotiations must be inclusive, with participation of all the sides in Syria, in particular the group  groups that were formed on the meetings in Moscow, Cairo, Riyadh, and other places. Thus all the mandate from the UN Security Council is quite clear, and of course the UN must implement this mandate by providing the inclusiveness of the inter-Syrian talks which we hope will resume in the nearest future in Geneva.

There are attempts by separate countries to engage in provocations and represent or show one of the groups as the only opposition group that represents the whole opposition ready to engage in negotiations. And there have been even attempts to legalize such a group by inviting it to the UN Secretariat. We have been witnessing such attitudes and we believe that they fully contradict the agreements achieved within the ISSG co-chaired by the U.S. and Russia and the agreements enshrined in the UN Security Council resolutions.

The sponsors  countries  sponsors of these or those opposition groups should fully understand their responsibility not to pull the blanket over themselves and not to think about their own ambitions but think about the unity of the Syrian people and the Syrian state.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you.

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US-Russia conclusions on Syria could make a major difference, says Special Envoy

9 September 2016  An agreement between Russia and the United States could make a major difference in ensuring cessation of hostilities and in moving forward the political process  both considered necessary to ease humanitarian suffering and to end the conflict in Syria  according to UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan De Mistura.

Mr. De Mistura was speaking at a press conference in Geneva today, shortly after coming out of a meeting of the International Syria Support Group's Humanitarian Access Task Force, co-chaired by US Secretary of State, John Kerry and Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

"We are all hoping for positive conclusions," said Mr. De Mistura, who was accompanied, at the press briefing, by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien.

He noted that the discussions between the two major powers are addressing "complex, delicate, and difficult issues," with the UN actively supporting them, and hoping to support their conclusions as well.

"If they do succeed," Mr. De Mistura noted, "those conclusions could make a major difference on the renewal or the relaunching of the cessation of hostilities, which in turn, unavoidably, would have a major impact on humanitarian access, and in turn would be having a positive impact on the way the political process could be relaunched."

He stressed that the meetings between Russia and the United States are important, and that their outcome is expected to be heard today.

The UN Envoy expressed concern for the plight of civilians trapped in Syria's eastern Aleppo, saying it was greater than ever. He said it was a priority that the two super-powers agree on a way to halt the fighting, so that aid can get through to civilians caught up in the more than five-year conflict.

Speaking shortly after Mr. De Mistura, UN humanitarian chief, Stephen O'Brien said it was imperative that a way forward was found to meet the humanitarian needs of Syrians in what he described as "a man-made humanitarian crisis."

"We have to now see our way forward to try and meet the needs; the incredibly large-scale, deep, long-term needs of human suffering brought about by the continuing conflict circumstances," said Mr. O'Brien.

He stressed the demands of humanitarian partners, "under the humanitarian principles of impartiality, independence, and neutrality," adding that the UN, and its implementing humanitarian partners "are ready to be able to deliver for the people who have life-saving, life-supporting and protection needs and continue to suffer under the current circumstances."

"So the readiness of the UN was affirmed, the detailed plans are in place, with just the usual short-term notice of getting a green light, and then the reality of having trucks getting loaded, and making sure that the truck drivers feel safe enough to be able to get into their cabs and drive along secure routes to deliver to the people in need was affirmed," said Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. O'Brien also said he hoped their readiness to deliver humanitarian assistance will not be affected by the coming solemn religious holidays of Eid. "Of course some adjustments will have to be made," he said, while noting that they "would make sure that the readiness was equally in place during the Eid holidays, and certain arrangements are made for people to be able to make their proper celebration of that period."

Mr. O'Brien said it was also clear from the Humanitarian Task Force meeting, and from all the briefings, that the humanitarian situation in Syria has reached a new critical phase.

"It was absolutely clear that the needs of the people in Syria, wherever these needs arise, however they arise, whoever it affects, on whichever side of any line, or none at all, have become even more severe," stressed Mr. O'Brien.

Those needs, he noted, "were not only over the five years, but actually even in the last three weeks, and therefore the hope and wish for a comprehensive approach to the fight in Syria that would enable us to have the total humanitarian access was the paramount and necessary conditions that we need to get access."

He cited the situation in eastern Aleppo, which he said "remains extremely severe, to the point of it being de facto besiegement."

"We need to make sure that we continue to demand  whatever the circumstances of the larger discussions  we need to make sure that we continue to press for and to demand a 48-hour weekly humanitarian pause to reach the people in need by whichever route can be secured for those very brave and courageous aid workers, both from within the UN and our implementing humanitarian partners to reach the people in need," said Mr. O'Brien.

Statistics on the situation in Syria are staggering. According to the Syria Regional Refugee Response portal, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered some 4.8 million Syrian refugees to date  with Turkey hosting the largest population of 2.7 million people; Lebanon, 1,033,513; and Jordan an additional 655,990 individuals. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reflected that the violence within the country has displaced 6.1 million people internally and left some 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

The taskforces for humanitarian aid and a cessation of hostilities, created by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) which comprises the UN, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries, have been meeting separately since early this year on a way forward on the Syrian crisis.

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US, Russia Agree on Deal to Halt Syria Fighting

By Steve Herman September 09, 2016

The United States and Russia announced a complex, ambitious plan early Saturday in Geneva to halt five years of war in Syria, and for the two countries to cooperate on the fight against terror groups within Syria.

The deal calls on all sides to recommit to a nationwide cease-fire. Hostilities are to end by sunset September 12  the beginning of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

"We could think of nothing more appropriate than for all the parties to come together and make Eid more meaningful to the people of Syria and the region," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, standing alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Working together, Russia and the United States and our teams have devised what we think is a more prescriptive and far-reaching approach," Kerry said. "If the plan is implemented in good faith ... this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table, the negotiations, can take hold, and you could really provide the people of Syria with a transition."

Halt to Syrian air campaign

The two countries agreed on steps that would prevent Syrian government forces from flying combat missions where the opposition is present and over other agreed-upon areas.

"By all accounts, the Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows and the most frequent violations of the hostilities," Kerry said. "Halting all of the regime's military air activities in key areas  key areas that are defined  should put an end to barrel bombs and indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods."

Kerry said this would "change the nature of the conflict."

Lavrov said he informed the Syrian government about the arrangements, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad is ready to abide by them.

U.S., Russia to fight together

The United States and Russia will also establish a "joint implementation center" to coordinate attacks on the so-called Islamic State group and Nusra.

The two countries, which have strained ties in numerous diplomatic arenas, will work for efficient cooperation to fight terrorism, expand humanitarian access and enhance cessation of hostilities in Syria, Lavrov said, while standing beside Kerry.

There were intensive intra-agency discussions in Washington between the White House and the U.S. Defense and State Departments about terms put forward by Moscow, and that delayed the conclusion of the U.S.-Russian agreement, according to diplomats from both the United States and Russia.

Viability of plan, Assad's role unclear

There is considerable skepticism that a nationwide, sustainable cease-fire  the immediate goal as it has been repeatedly characterized by State Department officials  can hold for any period of time.

Lavrov noted there are those who would like to undermine the agreement.

Syria is fractured after five years of war. There are numerous client forces of questionable allegiance and discipline pitted against each other, in addition to the so-called Islamic State group.

Russia wants to see Syria's Assad stay in power, while moderate opposition forces and Turkey insist there can be no transition deal that retains him for any period of time.

The United States has long held that the Syrian leader cannot lead any future government, due to his brutal repression of his opponents. If the just-announced plans hold, Kerry said, it could lead to political transition.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, briefly joined Kerry and Lavrov at the podium. He endorsed their agreement and said he would consult with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before announcing a next round of Syrian peace talks.

De Mistura said he expected all parties would facilitate U.N. efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance to the populations in need, including in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

The U.N. Security Council also would need to make a decision on any no-fly zones in Syria.

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated there can be no military solution to the prolonged Syrian crisis, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced 12 million people from their home, according to U.N. estimates.

Opposition to the Assad family's four decades of rule over Syria broke into the open in early 2011, and the situation soon deteriorated into a complex civil war.

"Out of all this complexity is emerging now a simple choice between war and peace, between human agony and humanitarian relief, between the continued disintegration of an ancient society and the rebirth of a united and modern nation," Kerry told reporters.

The U.S. leads a coalition conducting airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State militants. Russia, a long-time backer of the Assad family, has also conducted airstrikes, which often target forces deemed an immediate threat to the Syrian government, some of them supported by the U.S. and its allies.

Turkey could prove an obstacle to the sustainability of a long-term cease-fire and transition deal, and it also opposes any arrangement that would allow Assad to stay in power. Turkey said its current military incursion into Syria was launched against IS, but Turkish forces also have clashed with Syrian Kurdish forces backed by the United States.

Moscow has said it is seriously concerned about the Turks' drive across the border, and its implications for Syria's sovereignty in the area.

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It was an opportunity for law enforcement and the community to interact in a peaceful setting.

Bibleway Cathedral and more than 50 local businesses and organizations teamed up with the Danville Police Department, the sheriffs office and fire department for Community and Law Enforcement Partnership Day at the church Saturday.

The event was organized by Bibleway Pastor Bishop Lawrence Campbell Sr. Its purpose was to build a stronger relationship between police and residents. It included live music, food vendors, games for children, horseback riding demonstrations by Griffin Sport Horses in Gretna and booths representing organizations in the region.

Anita Royster, who attended the event because her son was involved with Griffin Sport Horses, said it was important for fostering better relationships.

You want to make sure children and everyone knows that they dont have to be afraid of the police, Royster said.

The event is particularly important for young African-American men, and it enables the community to interact with police in a non-threatening atmosphere, she added.

The Community and Law Enforcement Day was created to:

 To create a reciprocal community relationship with the local police department and the community;

 To develop a continual active police partnership with the community, especially with the youth;

 To make the day a teachable moment by [police] extending themselves to the community; and

 To be proactive in preventing/avoiding the possibility of a Baltimore, Maryland; Ferguson, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; and similar incidents.

In other cities, the fatal shootings of African-Americans by white police officers  and those officers acquittal for the shootings  were followed by protests, riots and an increased distrust of police.

City Councilman Larry Campbell Jr., son of Bishop Campbell, said the event was necessary to forge a stronger bond between the community and law enforcement. Campbell also lamented the high number of homicides that have taken lives in Danville this year.

We need to establish a relationship with the police department and the community, Campbell said. We hate the loss of lives in the community.

The event is part of a process of communication, Campbell added, expressing thanks for attendance by local elected officials and concerned citizens.

Danville resident David Barksdale, who attends church at Bibleway, pointed out that Bishop Lawrence Campbell Sr. stresses unity in his vision. The problems faced in the community are not just a black or white issue, but affect everyone, Barksdale said.

The Rev. John Carroll, pastor at First Baptist Church in Danville, said his church partnered with College Park Baptist Church to help serve food at the event. There is a lot of division in the country, Carroll said.

Anytime we can bring folks together and build a stronger community, its important we be a part of that, Carroll said, adding that he wants his son to grow up in a country where everyone is treated the same.

Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot said Bishop Campbell approached him about the idea for starting the event. I agree wholeheartedly with the concept, Broadfoot said.

Its a wonderful opportunity for the community and law enforcement to interact on a friendly basis, he added.

A partnership between citizens and law enforcement is the only way a community can remain safe, Broadfoot said.

Bishop Campbell said he came up with the idea because it would be wise to be more pro-active in building a reciprocal relationship between law enforcement and the community.

It appeared that several hundred residents were at Saturdays event at around 3:30 p.m. Bishop Campbell estimated the event would draw at least 1,000 people.

Bishop Campbell said history has shown in Danville that the black community has been willing to join with the white community for its events. But its difficult to get the white community to partner with the African-American community, he said. Whites in the area have trouble accepting the leadership of a black leader, he said.

The majority of attendees at the event were African-American.

White faith leaders have not participated in organizing events headed by black leaders because their congregations may not agree with the pastor, Campbell said.

It has not been our intention to isolate it [events] to the black community, Campbell said.
Flags and banners saying Never Forget and Get Along festooned the Dan River Middle School gymnasium for the fifth annual Patriot Day of Remembrance event Friday afternoon.

The event is held every year to honor local first responders and military personnel and to remind students what they should learn from the attacks  a spirit of unity.

This nation banded together as one nation, said Pittsylvania County Sheriff Mike Taylor. We dug our heels in that day, and said This is not going to defeat the United States of America. And it did not defeat the United States as we know it.

Each group of military and first responders present was given a personalized plaque and student-made cards. Taylor was the guest speaker, joining Earl Glass and Principal Emily Reynolds at the podium to talk about how the World Trade Center attacks brought the United States together as a nation, and what students should do to remember the people who died that day.

I love the card. I dont know who did it, but you did a great job on it, Taylor said during his speech. These are the things that when we have dark days, we look at this and it brightens our day because we know we have the support of our community, and we greatly appreciate it.

It is about all the men, women and children who died on Sept. 11, 2001. It is about the first responders who responded to the call that day and losing 400 of them in the line of duty, Glass said. We should honor them by being concerned for each other, by looking our neighbor or a stranger in the eye with a smile or kind word. Stop by a military hospital, base or ambulance garage and say Thank you, shake a hand or write a note to show your appreciation.

Taylor offered a lesson to the students listening to his speech.

Young people, listen to me, Taylor said. As you go through your life, your generation will experience things that will test you just as they tested my fathers generation, in World War II in the attack on Pearl Harbor, just as they tested my generation in the World Trade Center attacks. Youre going to face trials and tribulations in your life. What will you do? Will you be determined? Will you be prepared? Its gonna be up to you.
VANCOUVER, Sep 9, 2016 - Skeena Resources Limited ("Skeena") (TSX VENTURE:SKE) and Sona Resources Corp. ("Sona") (TSX VENTURE:SYS) are pleased to announce that Sona received the overwhelming approval of its shareholders at the annual general and special meeting (the "Meeting") held today to consider, among other matters, the previously announced acquisition of Sona by Skeena by way of a plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia).Sona will be seeking a final order of the British Columbia Supreme Court to approve the Arrangement. The final order is expected to be granted on or about Tuesday, September 13, 2016 (or such later date as may be agreed upon by Sona and Skeena) with the Arrangement anticipated to become effective shortly thereafter. Completion of the Arrangement is subject to the satisfaction of certain other closing conditions customary of a transaction of this nature. Under the terms of the Arrangement, Skeena will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Sona in exchange for 0.5111 of a Skeena common share for each Sona share that is outstanding. It is further anticipated that shortly after the completion of the Arrangement, Sona's common shares will be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange and that applications will be filed for Sona to cease to be a reporting issuer under Canadian securities laws.Of the votes cast by Sona shareholders and Sona optionholders at the Meeting, 99.98% voted in favour of the special resolution approving the Arrangement. A total of 43.90% of the issued and outstanding shares of Sona and 97.38% of the issued and outstanding options were voted at the meeting.Details of the Arrangement and certain other matters are set out in the management information circular of Sona dated August 9, 2016 (the "Information Circular"). A copy of the Information Circular and other meeting materials can be found on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. Skeena Resources Ltd. is a junior Canadian mining exploration company focused on developing prospective base and precious metal properties in the Golden Triangle region of northern British Columbia, Canada. The Company's primary activities are the evaluation and development of the Spectrum gold project and adjacent GJ copper-gold project as well as exploration on the recently optioned past-producing Snip gold mine, acquired from Barrick Gold Corp. Skeena's management includes a highly experienced team of mine-finders, including Ron Netolitzky, Chairman of the Board.Sona's primary asset is the past-producing underground Blackdome gold mine, located in the Clinton Mining District in southwestern British Columbia. From 1986 to 1989 Blackdome produced 225,000 ounces of gold from a low-sulphidation, gold-and-silver-rich epithermal vein system at a head grade of 20 grams per tonne Au. Blackdome includes a permitted 300 tonne-per-day conventional gravity separation and flotation mill and tailings facility, a large land package, in addition to a series of known mineralized veins with excellent year-round exploration potential. Additionally, Sona has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the adjacent Elizabeth gold prospect. In 2010, Micon International Limited completed a Preliminary Economic Assessment on behalf of Sona (available on SEDAR under Sona's profile) based on the combined resources from both Elizabeth and Blackdome, under a proposal to truck ore to the Blackdome mill for processing.The technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Rupert Allan, P.Geol., Skeena's Vice President of Exploration, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101On behalf of Skeena Resources Ltd.,Walt Coles Jr., President and CEOOn behalf of Sona Resources Corp.Nick Ferris, Managing DirectorThis news release contains forward looking statements relating to the timing and anticipated receipt of required regulatory and court approvals for the Arrangement; the ability of Skeena and Sona to satisfy the other conditions to, and to complete, the Arrangement; and the anticipated timing of the closing of the Arrangement. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "intends", "anticipates", "expects", "plans" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the transaction may not close when planned or at all or on the terms and conditions set forth in the arrangement agreement entered into by Sona and Skeena; the failure to obtain the necessary court, regulatory and other third party approvals required in order to proceed with the transaction. There can be no assurance that any forward looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Neither Skeena nor Sona can guarantee that any forward looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities laws.



Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.







Contact



Skeena Resources Ltd.

Tony Perri, Investor Relations Manager

(604) 684-8725

tperri@skeenaresources.com



Sona Resources Corp.

Nick Ferris, Executive Chairman

(604) 684-6677

info@sonaresources.com


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Event to have music, dancing, more

By Staff Report

Celebrate Mexican Independence Day at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The free event, called Family Day Fiesta, will feature artwork celebrating "Grito de Dolores," performances by Lincoln Junior High School's Mariachi Band and Ballet Azteca and various cultural learning and education activities, organizers said.

Mexican Independence Day, which is officially celebrated Sept. 16, signifies the start of Mexico's 11-year effort to win its freedom from Spain.

On Sept. 16, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the Mexican War of Independence by issuing his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Dolores," named so because Hidalgo was in the town of Dolores when he called for the end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico. His declaration included the ringing of the town's bell.

After years of fighting, Spain finally relinquished its claim on Aug. 24, 1821.

To celebrate Mexico's Independence, the museum will offer visitors an opportunity to create their own castanets and pinatas, design their own loteria cards and create their own bell to ring in Mexico's independence.

Family Day is a free event held every second Saturday of each month, featuring a different theme every month.

The museum is located at 1 Love St.

IF YOU GO

What: Family Day Fiesta

When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday

Where: San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, 1 Love St.

Cost: Free

Contact: 325-653-3333
On the first page of the Bible, God creates people along with the rest of creation. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Men and women both bear the image of God equally. In the next chapter, it becomes apparent that men and women simultaneously bear God's image equally and in unique and complementary ways. Paraphrased, God says in Genesis 2:18 that man should not be alone because he needs a matching counterpart able to meet his deficiencies. So God made women. Pointing toward Adam's joy over meeting his wife for the first time, the Bible declares, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

God intends unity between the genders, each participating as part of a team to meet the other in their complementary strengths and weaknesses.

Often, when I counsel with an engaged couple, I like to warn them that once they get married, their relationship will change significantly. Even couples who have lived together and even have kids together find that after becoming officially married  and therefore one flesh  the relationship takes on a new essence. This "one flesh" unity is created by God and can work for good or for evil and operates in people who follow God as much as it does in people who hate him.

I offer the case of Jezebel and Ahab for evidence.

1 Kings 16:29-30 records, "In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri became king over Israel. ... Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him." The first thing we know about Ahab is that he was already, by himself, more evil than any other king in Israel before him. The phrase "evil in the sight of the Lord" doesn't mean he was particularly cruel or tyrannical  though he was  but that he had no interest in ruling according to God's Word. In fact, he had less interest in God's Word and ways than any other king before.

With his heart already in that condition, the Bible says, "It came about ... that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshipped him." (1 Kings 16:31) In marriage, Ahab and Jezebel became one flesh. In their unity, they walked away from God together and they enhanced each other's evil. Over the next several chapters of first and second Kings, we see a division of labor in the royal marriage. Ahab is consistently evil in foreign affairs, constantly engaging in wars God did not endorse. Jezebel is consistently evil in domestic affairs, acting as the nation's prophetess and high priestess of the false god Baal and the chief agent in persecuting the prophet Elijah. Ahab spurred Jezebel on as she persecuted Elijah, and Jezebel encouraged Ahab to have Naboth killed to take over his land. And they both worshipped a false god together.

For all the evil they did, Jezebel and Ahab had a model marriage. They were unified in their service to their god. Ahab served their god in ways only he, as the king, could, and Jezebel supported him in it. Jezebel served their god in ways she was uniquely qualified to serve as a priestess, and Ahab supported her in it. They just served the wrong god.

Instead of being more good together, Ahab and Jezebel became more evil together. Even in people who hate and refuse to follow the true and living God, we see the God's principle of the woman complementing the man as an equivalent and suitable helper in a "one flesh" union at work.

Consider how much more this principle works in favor of people who follow God. Jezebel's primary focus was not on Ahab, but on the false gods she worshipped. Her focus on her false god deeply affected her husband toward that false god. Similarly, a godly woman's focus on the true and living God can deeply affect her husband. This is why Peter tells believing women to "accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives." (1 Peter 3:1-2) This ministry of influence God has given wives has been one of the most formative powers on the planet, both for good and for ill.

Kyle Hooks is the associate pastor at Angelo Bible Church. Contact him at 325-716-4258 or kyle@lookingupfrombelow.com. You can like Looking Up at facebook.com/lookingupfrombelow.
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By Charlotte Anderson, Jr. Peace Ambassadors of San Angelo

Is your puzzle missing peace, and does your piece matter?

The Jr. Peace Ambassadors of San Angelo think so and invite elementary and middle school students to participate in the Expressions of Peace 2016 art contest, "Your Peace Matters," on Tuesday from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Angelo State University LeGrand Alumni and Visitors Center at 1620 University Ave.

As we celebrate the 2016 Season of Peace, we are partnering with The Children's Peace Pavilion to share their message of universal peace. The Children's Peace Pavilion is a unique interactive children's museum in Independence, Missouri, designed to teach concepts of peace to children. Their vision is to engage the pursuit of peace by promoting peaceful learning, living and action while they promote peace for the individual, peace for others, peace around the world and peace for the planet.

This event is free. Students are encouraged to submit a poem, PowerPoint presentation, piece of art, ceramic, food, music, dance, craft, photography, song or simply color the sheet at the event. Art and projects will be displayed at Stephens Central Library during Peace Week.

Participants will pledge to do random acts of kindness, promote peace and become Jr. Peace Ambassadors. They will also receive a commemorative T-shirt sponsored by Gandy's Ink, enjoy a barbecue slider from Texas Roadhouse and desserts from Sam's Club, participate in several activities/crafts with Esperanza Clinic, Boys & Girls Club and Girl Scouts, and win prizes from CCA.

"Being a Jr. Peace Ambassador was a huge responsibility. I was able to meet the Peace Ambassadors and serve as a real voice to my age group and express our needs for peace," Tore Anderson, a Jr. Peace Ambassador, said. "I will never forget my project when I sent necklaces, supplies and T-shirts to students in Matiri, Kenya! They joined me in my mission to spread peace around the world through random acts of kindness and became Jr. Peace Ambassadors. This was not only a lesson in peace, but also in patience, perseverance and paying it forward. Being a Jr. Peace Ambassador helped me become the successful and compassionate adult I am today."

Please join us as we empower students, through art, to realize they are unique and valued, to respect their friends, to acknowledge we live in a big world, and to cherish the planet. Because "your peace matters," and we all count on you to make a difference!
Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Dancers enjoy the tunes of a country band at the San Angelo Cowboy Gathering on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Pavilion.

SHARE Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times A musician plays for the crowd during the San Angelo Cowboy Gathering on Saturday. Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Dancers from all over Texas, several other states and even Canada came to dance and enjoy the music at the San Angelo Cowboy Gathering on Saturday. Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Dancers enjoy the tunes of a country band at the San Angelo Cowboy Gathering on Saturday.

By Adam Sauceda of the San Angelo Standard-Times

The San Angelo Cowboy Gathering was back in full "swing" for dancers from around the country to scoot their boots at the Wells Fargo Pavilion this weekend.

Dancers and Western swing fans from 92 cities in Texas, nine other states and Canada came to the event, which helped raise money for other nonprofits, said Terri Holland, director of the San Angelo Cowboy Gathering. This year Meals for the Elderly will receive proceeds from the event.

The gathering included shop vendors, food caterers and a live auction. The event raised $52,000 last year's.

This year, with 1,100 dancers in attendance  a sold out event  the organization is on track to raise $60,000, Holland said.

"We're very blessed. This is our fourth year, but we've won a lot of awards and that's really boosted those who want to come," Holland said. "The people that come follow this music, and we have great bands. They love San Angelo and the hospitality."

The organization plans to extend the event to two full days next year.
SHARE Julio Mendoza-Badillo

By Staff Report

A 25-year-old San Angelo man has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in a Labor Day weekend stabbing incident, according to a news release from the San Angelo Police Department.

About 2:30 a.m. Sept. 4, police responding to a report of a stabbing in the 400 block of West Avenue C found a man outside a residence suffering from an apparent stab wound to his abdomen and minor cuts to his face. The man was taken to Shannon Medical Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Investigating police learned the victim, 26, and Julio Mendoza-Badillo were involved in a physical altercation inside the residence, the news release states. The victim saw Mendoza-Badillo holding a knife but did not realize he had been stabbed until after Mendoza-Badillo fled the scene, according to the release.

The knife used in the assault was recovered near the scene.

Mendoza-Badillo was interviewed several hours later, then charged and taken to the Tom Green County Jail. He remains there in lieu of $75,000 bail.

Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years in prison and fines up to $10,000.
Karen Cody with the head game warden at an animal preserve near St. Louis, the colonial capital of northern Senegal. Contributed photo

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By Tom Nurre Jr.

Karen Cody's educational influence will soon reach well beyond her Angelo State University classes following her completion of a Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program this summer in the West African nation of Senegal.

An ASU faculty member since 2001, Cody teaches French, Spanish and linguistics. She was one of only 16 faculty from universities across the U.S. chosen for the Fulbright-Hays Seminar in Senegal.

"This Fulbright was to study linguistic, ethnic and religious diversity in West Africa," Cody said. "I've taught about West Africa all my career in French, I've taught about the diversity of language in my linguistics classes, and I've known about Islam from my own college classes. This was my opportunity to go to Africa and see it firsthand, so I couldn't have designed a better program for me personally or professionally."

"We are required to upload a curricular unit to the U.S. Department of Education website," she added. "My unit is on teacher education because that's one of the things I do at ASU. I'm teaching the future teachers of Spanish and of English as a second language."

Through the Department of Education website and its links to the U.S. State Department website, teachers all over the world will be able to access Cody's curricular unit, expanding her reach on a global scale.

Based at the West African Research Center in Dakar, Cody's Fulbright group traveled around Senegal visiting with scholars, government ministers, heads of NGOs, village elders and religious leaders to gather information and research for their curricular units. They also visited tourist sites and game preserves and attended an international conference.

"We were all looking at everything from different perspectives," Cody said, "and we all agreed that we learned so much more as a consequence of that. We think that as a country, Senegal has been spectacularly successful at setting up a society that will serve the majority of its citizens in the long run."

Cody also had the advantage of being the only one in her group who spoke French. Though it is not the native language of the region, it is the official language of the education system. That meant Cody could communicate with just about everyone except the smaller children who were not yet in school.

"I could work independently with the people," Cody said, "and I could go into the schools and look at what was happening in the classrooms and also how they were training their teachers. All of their teachers deliver their content in French, which is not the home language of any of their students, and they are doing it successfully."

Now that she has returned to ASU, Cody is hard at work completing her curricular unit for the Department of Education. But perhaps her biggest personal benefit from the trip is the reinforcement of ideas she had formed through previous sociolinguistic study and research.

"Essentially, we are a human family who all want the best for our children," Cody said, "and we do what we need to do to provide the most opportunities for the next generations. There are different factors that influence that, like politics and social advantages people may or may not have, and different environments. But we are a big human family, and we can't discount the role that access to education plays in that."

Students in Cody's ASU classes this fall will have first access to her African experience.

"They have always heard about these topics from me," Cody said. "What will be different is that I now have firsthand knowledge of things that I had been taught, read in books or seen in videos and movies. In my sociolinguistics classes, there will be additional firsthand things I can share. In my French classes, I'll be able to give more specific examples of different things. That will also carry over into my Spanish classes."

"The other requirement from Fulbright is that we disseminate the information we learned to as wide an audience as possible," she added. "So it's not just in my classes where I'm expected to share. I've also had requests to go talk to history, political science and security studies classes and to speak to the Honors Program students. There will also be some additional larger public forums where I will speak, including around Texas and out of state."

"Fulbright Fellowships are extremely competitive awards, so I'm extraordinarily grateful to have been given this opportunity."

Tom Nurre Jr. is a news and information specialist in the ASU Office of Communications and Marketing.
Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Bob Reece inspects a small plane he helps maintain.

SHARE Contributed Photo A 7-year-old Bob Reece (right) stands with his older brother after taking his first airplane ride costing $2. Bob Reece removes one of the spark plugs from a small plane's engine as part of its maintenance. Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times

By Adam Sauceda of the San Angelo Standard-Times

When one hears the words "Experimental Aircraft Association," images of tiny green men and flying saucers at the secretive Area 51 Air Force facility might come to mind, but fear not, there is no impending Martian invasion coming as far as we know.

The term "experimental aircraft" is used by the Federal Aviation Administration to classify and license aircraft that are assembled by private owners in garages or hangars as opposed to those that are built commercially.

The EAA was founded in 1953 by Paul H. Poberezny and a group of individuals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who were interested in building their own airplanes.

Since then the association's membership has grown to more than 170,000 members from 92 different countries worldwide, and more than half a million people and 12,000-16,000 aircraft attend a week long convention and fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, every year.

Bob Reece, of San Angelo, builds, repairs and flies his own airplanes and completed his 47th straight year of participating with the EAA this past summer.

"I had read about the EAA, and I was interested in buying my own aircraft," Reece said. "At that time in the mid-1960s, I didn't fly, have a license or own an aircraft."

That did not stop Reece, who first attended the association's first Oshkosh fly-in in 1970 and now serves as chairman of the EAA judging standards committee.

He both writes and revises the judging manual and is also chairman of the home built experimental judging group.

Reece did not just leave his passion in Wisconsin though. In 1972, he helped organize San Angelo's local chapter of the EAA that now has about 40 members.

Even after retiring from his career work, Reece has continued repairing, maintaining and inspecting planes for people.

"You can go out and buy an (aircraft) that's already built, but what have you learned? You've learned how to write a check," Reece said laughing. "But you don't really know anything about that aircraft. If you build it, you know every nut, bolt and rivet about that airplane."

So what does 47 years of hard work, service and dedication get you? Well, the very prestigious Lindy Award and one proud wife, of course.

The Lindy Award, named after famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh, who made the first solo transatlantic flight, is the highest award given by the EAA and takes the form of a "brick" at the historical Brown Arch at the flight line at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh. It's a path many aviators consider a gateway to aviation for attendees and visitors.

The brick reads, "Your leadership, integrity, and commitment to the aircraft judging program has made it the standard for all fly-in. The Lindy Award is recognized worldwide as the highest achievement in aircraft craftsmanship."

That commitment comes as no surprise to Beccye Reece, Reece's wife of 37 years.

"He's very devoted to aviation. Anything he does in and about aviation is not only interesting to him, but he's going to do it and do it right," Beccye said. "It's just wonderful to be with someone who's devoted to something that's not just a passing fancy."

When your heart is in something as much as Reece's is in aviation, it can help to overcome many obstacles, like triple-bypass surgery.

"When he had heart surgery several years ago, he was three weeks away from going to Washington for a fly-in there that he was also in charge of judging," Beccye said. "He was there then home for two weeks before he left again for Oshkosh. He got well from his surgery really quick because he was involved and focused though."

Reece said even though it has been a long time, he has no intentions of stopping any time soon, proving once and for all that if you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.

Anyone interested in the EAA can join the local chapter's meeting on the third Tuesday night of each month at 7 p.m. at Joe's Italian Restaurant, 1601 S. Bryant Blvd.
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Inequities from inactive vs. active status

By John M. Donnelly, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON  Every year dozens of families who lose a breadwinner who is killed in the line of military duty receive hundreds of dollars less in their monthly Pentagon survivor benefit checks than other families, CQ has learned.

The unlucky families get less merely because the deceased soldier happened to fall into the wrong payroll category on the day of his or her death.

The surviving spouses, who often have children to support after losing the family's primary earner, are typically unaware they have been receiving the smaller payments, which in some cases can be the difference between affording a mortgage or not.

"A gut punch is exactly what it felt like," says Rhonda Jahns, a widow who learned of the inequity only after Pentagon personnel told her they had accidentally been paying her too much money and would have to stop. "My kids were only 3 and 5 at the time, so it was hard in lots of different ways."

Few in the U.S. military and on Capitol Hill know about the problem  and those who know have only learned about it in the past few years. The issue has received no previous media attention.

At issue is a requirement that the Pentagon pay the survivors of some members of the National Guard and reserves more than others  sometimes nearly 10 times more. Those reservists who, on the day of their deaths, were either called to active duty or assigned to so-called active duty training get much more than those who happen to have been designated on their last day as being in a status called "inactive duty training."

But the distinction between active and inactive training status is a bureaucratic one, even random, experts say. Whether a service member is paid through one account or the other is typically a function of which of the two funds has more money on a given day or what kind of duty the service member needs to accrue, according to a previously unpublicized Pentagon budget document proposing that the rule be changed.

The distinction has little or nothing to do with the mission being performed. The same reservist, for example, could be considered active one day or inactive the next, even if he or she was performing the exact same task on both days. In fact, two reservists performing the same task on the same day could even be on different duty statuses.

"If you get killed in the line of duty, that should count enough, no matter what kind of status you're in," Jahns said. "That's the ultimate sacrifice."

The Pentagon agrees. It wants to change the law that covers the so-called Survivor Benefit Program. An average of 67 families are shortchanged every year because of the discrepancy, according to the Defense Department budget documents.

Now, key members of Congress appear willing to change the law. If they fail, it appears it will only be because of the cost of doing so, even though that is infinitesimal in the scheme of the annual national defense budget: less than $2 million of a $600 billion-plus total.

The problem was exemplified by a fatal Black Hawk helicopter crash on March 10, 2015. Eleven U.S. military service personnel died that day when their chopper went down amid heavy fog off the coast of the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola. Seven of those who died were Marines. The other four were members of the Louisiana Army National Guard; three were fathers, while the fourth had a baby on the way.

After the accident, the Pentagon provided the families of the fallen guardsmen considerably less in survivor payments than the Marines' families got  not because the guardsmen were reservists, but merely because they were reservists who were officially designated on that particular day as being on inactive duty training, an Army National Guard spokesman confirmed.

The Black Hawk crash was hardly the only example of the disparate treatment of those killed in the line of duty. In some cases, two reservists have died on the same day, in the same incident, performing the same mission  but under different duty status designations. As a result, their families received widely disparate benefits.

That was the case on April 2, 2004, when Judson B. Brinson and Thomas L. Moore were both killed after their T-6A Texan II turboprop training plane crashed at an airport in Georgia. Both men were Air Force Reserve captains who had served as flight instructors. One pilot had been designated as inactive that day and the other as active, according to the Pentagon budget documents. So the inactive captain's family received a far smaller survivor's check each month.

Outside of Defense Department human resources offices, the unequal payments based on an administrative categorization were virtually unknown for several years.

Then a relative handful of people in the U.S. military became aware of the discrepancy after hearing of it due to a clerical error.

Air Force Reserve Maj. Peter Jahns, who was Rhonda Jahns' husband, died in 2003 when his T-38 Talon training jet crashed on a runway in Texas. But it wasn't until 2012 that the Pentagon informed Jahns' widow and 94 other surviving spouses they had netted too much in survivor benefits. Officials hadn't noticed the decedents had been listed as inactive on their last day.

"This means you have been overpaid since you began receiving your annuity in March 2003," Thomas McKenna, head of the survivors program for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, wrote in a January 2012 letter. "Therefore, beginning with your next scheduled payment on February 1, 2012, your payment will stop."

Even today, many families of deceased reservists who died on inactive status are still unaware they are eligible for less than other survivors.

"I don't know of any benefits withheld," says Stephen Florich, the father of Staff Sgt. Thomas C. Florich III, the guardsman buried at Arlington whose survivors were entitled to less because he died on inactive duty status. The survivors of reservists who die on inactive duty are not only entitled to less money, but their children cannot receive it.

Advocates for the National Guard and reserves are pushing back against not only the survivor benefits inequity but also several other ways they say reservists remain separate and unequal within the U.S. military, even though they comprise a bigger share of the force than they did before 9/11  the majority of the Army, in fact. For example, the advocates are working to ensure that reservists with significant service time can, like their military brethren in the regular services, finally be considered veterans for purposes of receiving consideration in federal hiring. Reservists and guardsmen also feel they are given short shrift in Pentagon procurements.

"The guard and reserve have incurred the same risks and made the same contributions as the active forces, and they must not be treated as second-class soldiers," says Jeff Phillips, a retired two-star general who is executive director of the Reserve Officers Association, which advocates for America's reservists.

A House-Senate conference committee writing a final version of this year's defense authorization measure is looking to address the death benefits. The House-passed version would eliminate reservists' smaller payments based on duty status and would allow their children or dependent parents to receive the money.

"We must honor the memory of our fallen service members that have paid the ultimate sacrifice by ensuring that we take care of their families after their passing," says Rep. Marc Veasey, a Texas Democrat who sponsored the House language, in a statement for CQ Roll Call. "This change would ensure that families grieving the loss of a fallen loved one will have one less thing to worry about and will instead have the financial security to pay their rent, car notes, groceries and additional everyday expenses."
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With the current showing of what many critics say is a hundred-million-dollar bust of a film, I thought it would be proper to point readers to the original novel.

"Ben-Hur," a movie, is the third attempt to show on film what has been considered the finest story of Christianity of the 19th century. "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ," by Lewis "Lew" Wallace, was considered a classic from its first appearance by Harper and Brothers on Nov. 12, 1880.

The book became a best-selling novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1882) in sales. Ben-Hur remained at the top of the U.S. all-time best-seller list until the publication of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" (1936). After the 1939 MGM movie of "Gone with the Wind," book sales of Ben-Hur increased and surpassed Mitchell's book.

The novel had another first: Pope Leo XIII blessed this first work of fiction. The success of the novel and its many stage and film adaptations also helped it become a popular cultural icon.

While he was studying law in Indiana, the war with Mexico broke into Lew Wallace's life and he became a regimental adjutant under Zachary Taylor. He was a major general during the American Civil War.

When President Lincoln's assassination conspirators were tried, Wallace presided over the trial. He also tried Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prisoner of war camp.

Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory and later served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire.

He and his wife, Susan Arnold Elston, had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, born Feb. 17, 1853. Lew Wallace died in 1905.

If Hollywood wants to make a blockbuster of a film without spending $100 million, it should make "The Lew Wallace Story." (Cecil B. DeMille, I'm ready when you are.)
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Phyllis Schlafly died this week at age 92.

I had my disagreements with the legendary conservative activist, particularly of late. She died the day before publication of her last book, "The Conservative Case for Trump." The title alone should offer the reader a hint of at least one of those disagreements.

Indeed, the deep family squabble among conservatives over the question of Donald Trump gives Schlafly's death added poignancy because it played itself out in her own family. When Schlafly endorsed Trump last spring, six members of the board of directors of Schlafly's Eagle Forum, including her own daughter, tried to have her removed from the organization.

But the poignancy is broader than that. One common claim from Trump supporters is that the conservative movement has "failed to conserve anything," so why not take a flier on Trump?

Trump himself has played into this argument. At the California state Republican convention, he said, "I'm a conservative, but at this point, who cares? We've got to straighten out the country."

I'm sympathetic to some charges that the conservative movement has failed, though I put the blame more squarely on conservatives who've tried to monetize outrage and purity rather than fight for meaningful reforms. Many of these same conservatives today champion Trump, even though he has held positions that they would have denounced as liberal or "Republican in name only" if they'd passed the lips of any establishment politician. But that's a column for another day.

The notion that conservatives haven't conserved anything suffers from a number of confusions. Exhibit A: Phyllis Schlafly herself.

Even her harshest left-wing detractors concede that Schlafly almost single-handedly stopped the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. When she launched her effort, the ERA's adoption was seen as a foregone conclusion. Most historians agree she was indispensable in defeating it.

The battle over the ERA highlights a contradiction in the term "conservative." Generally speaking, a conservative is someone who resists unnecessary change. As Viscount Falkland said four centuries ago, "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." In this formulation, the conservative is the brake pedal and the progressive is the gas.

There's often much to recommend slowing revolutionary change to the pace of incrementalism. Still, politically, this has always put traditional conservatives at a disadvantage, because it implies they don't change the direction, just the speed. That is why the philosopher Friedrich Hayek rejected the conservative label, saying the "fate of conservatism (is) to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing."

There are two problems with this argument. First, conservatism's critics are often guilty of "Parmenides' Fallacy," named after the ancient Greek philosopher. We judge conservatives by the results of choices made, not by choices thwarted.

It's easy to second-guess when someone decides to enter door No. 2 if we don't like what lies beyond it. But that criticism has no bite unless we know what would have happened if he'd chosen door No. 1. If conservatism is futile, Schlafly should never have bothered.

The second problem highlights the contradiction in the term "conservative." American conservatives, unlike the ones Hayek had in mind, aren't merely opponents of change; they're champions of liberty.

This is why Hayek also said that America was the one country where you could call yourself a conservative and still be on the side of freedom: We are trying to conserve the classical liberal tenets of the American founding.

And on that score, conservatism has had quite a few successes. Without conservatives, the statism of Woodrow Wilson's war socialism and FDR's New Deal would never have been beaten back or kept at bay. Without Ronald Reagan and groups such as the Federalist Society, constitutionalism would be a dead letter or footnote to the cult of the "living Constitution."

The Heller decision affirming gun rights would have been unimaginable, as would be the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby rulings. Without conservatives, Bill Clinton would never have signed welfare reform, and "Obamacare" would certainly have had the public option the White House wanted. One can only wonder how the Cold War would have ended  if at all  if liberals had the run of the field since World War II.

A world where William F. Buckley, Robert Taft, Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Jean Kirkpatrick and, not least, Phyllis Schlafly never bothered to make the effort would certainly look quite different, but as a conservative, I find it hard to imagine it would look better.

Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Contact him at JonahsColumn@aol.com.
The trend of police body camera adoption appears to roll on in Boston. Although it has gotten off to a rocky start, Boston appears ready to begin a six-month pilot program for body-equipped cameras for police officers.Originally agreed to on July 12, the program would be voluntary. However, when Police Commissioner William Evans asked officers to volunteer, he was turned down repeatedly. In response he assigned 100 officers to wear the cameras and participate in the pilot.This action led the Boston Police Patrolmens Association to file an injunction that would have halted the program, which was to go live Monday, Sept. 12.A city attorney argued that the only reason the commissioner assigned the cameras to officers was because the police union deliberately did not encourage officers to volunteer, accusing the union of having unclean hands.On Sept. 9, Suffolk County Judge Douglas Wilkins put the program back on track by denying the injunction Both sides have agreed that the introduction of police body cameras is inevitable, and though union President Patrick Rose was disappointed with the ruling, he said he's excited to show the great work Boston Police Department officers do.
Naidu, A Puppet In Modi Hands?

Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu has become a puppet in the hands of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and mortgaged the interests of the state in Delhi only to save his skin.

This was the observation made by YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, while staging a dharna in front of the assembly in Hyderabad on Saturday.

He said Naidu had been caught red-handed with audio visual evidence in the cash-for-vote case and hence, to wriggle out of this case, he had compromised on special category status to AP, he alleged.

Immediately after the ACB court directive TDP minister Sujana Choudhary meets BJP national president, union ministers an flies to State capital to meet the Governor and tells media that he has come to discuss special status. In what way the Governor is concerned with the special status, Jagan wondered.

It is unfortunate that Naidu was still sticking to the stand that he would give a statement in the House on special package.

It is nothing short of bankruptcy and shows that there is a secret pact between the Centre and Chandrababu Naidu after the ACB court has directed for a reinvestigation into the cash for vote case, he said.
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Industry insiders said the Chinese are increasingly revealing their much-touted characteristics as born merchants as they acclimatize to Korea's shopping culture. As a result, they seem to be getting thriftier and more sensitive to information about sales than Korean customers.

As the numbers of Chinese tourists heading to Korea continue to grow by leaps and bounds, their spending trends are also changing. They have changed to become more selective shoppers, paying careful attention to products' country of origin and carefully cross-checking prices.

 No More Sweeping

According to the immigration office at Incheon International Airport, a record-high 53,342 Chinese tourists entered the country during China's National Day celebrations from Oct. 1 to 7. This marks an 18 percent increase from last year. At Lotte Department Store, sales made using China Union Pay, China's top cash and credit card, jumped 261.3 percent from the same period last year in those seven days. Hyundai Department Store saw an even bigger rise in profit as comparable sales more than tripled.

Insiders said that while sales rose quantitatively, the key difference was in their shopping habits. Unlike in the past when they tended to buy everything in sight, now they first check the price differences back home and in other countries before making purchases. Their brand preferences are also shifting away from an exclusive devotion to Chanel and Louis Vuitton to include various luxury watchmakers and brands of jewelry.

"They used to buy watches without asking any questions, but nowadays more people request a discount, saying they bought similar items at lower prices in Hong Kong," said an employee at Avenuel, Lotte Department Store's premium brand shop in Sogong-dong, Seoul.

A majority of Chinese shoppers also seem to become more conscious about products' country of origin. A survey of 1,100 Chinese customers of luxury brand shops by global marketing research firm Albatrose Global Solutions found that 84 percent of them cite country of origin as the most important factor when shopping.

"They don't just blindly pick up any foreign imports," said an employee at Lotte. "They check where they came from and purchase those made in countries like Italy or Korea."

 Merchant Mentality

The travel industry is also reeling at the Chinese merchant mentality. They say customers from cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen understand the profit structure of Korean travel agencies better than Koreans.

"As Chinese visitors are increasing, package tour groups are starting to negotiate the cost of a tour beforehand," said one travel agency insider. "Duty free shops give travel agencies a 15-percent commission, at most, depending on prices and what items tourists purchase, and more Chinese tour groups are now asking us to give them the commission."

"Until five years ago Chinese tourists had just followed a travel agencys itineraries without any complaint, but as younger tourists in their 20s and 30s are on the rise these days, more collect travel information through the Internet and ask travel agencies to include what they want to see," said Seo Dae-hoon of the Korea Association of Travel Agents.

"Moreover, travel agencies are willing to do anything to attract Chinese tourists because competition is becoming cutthroat as many new businesses join the industry," he added.
I doubt Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher has attended a Greenwich school board meeting, but I am convinced from reading about his landmark ruling this week that he live streams the sessions into his court chambers.

Moukawsher wrote that Connecticut "is defaulting on its constitutional duty" to provide a good education to all children, and described in a compelling, 90-page decision the many structural flaws built into the system that result in affluent kids doing well and poor kids getting screwed.

And while the inequitable distribution of state money was at the root of the case before the court, the judge highlighted the many irrational, ineffective and counterproductive ways towns and school boards spend educational funds. Every major fault identified by the judge is present in Greenwich Public Schools.

Like Connecticut, Greenwich is known for its good schools and for having students who score at the top of performance metrics. However, Greenwich also has bad schools that rank far down the states quality and performance lists, giving students an educational handicap that is rarely overcome as they get older. The judge criticized the state for not having the backbone to demand local school boards fix underperforming schools; for more than a decade Greenwich has made one half-hearted attempt after another to create magnet schools to correct racially imbalanced school populations and, presumably, improve school performance. Each time, the state has accepted the plan, even though the Greenwich Board of Education and GPS administrators have demonstrated no ability to create academic programs that will actually draw students to underperforming schools. All they give is the appearance of concern, and the state is willing to go along with the perception and not address the reality of failed programs.

Many people bristle at the thought of changing Greenwich neighborhood schools to achieve an artificial racial balance quota. But there is the reality of a strongly accepted correlation between academic performance and school demographics. If the school board does not believe it, or thinks it is wrong for Greenwich, then it should have tried to prove it wrong. That would have involved taking a deep dive into why students have underperformed in the bad schools and developing transparent, 3-5 year plans with publicly measured benchmarks unique to each school. But it did not. Instead it kept trying variations on the same theme, demonstrating that it did not really care about student performance in certain parts of town.

Judge Moukawsher also criticized the generous state reimbursement policy that pays for a substantial percentage of expensive new buildings in towns with decreasing enrollments and empty classrooms. Can you say New Lebanon School? The school board has planned a building that has at least nine more classrooms than needed, and probably more now that it seems New Lebanon enrollment is falling. It is twisted logic to build extra classrooms in a town system that has many empty ones in existing, high-performing schools. The school board says the new classrooms at New Lebanon will house some super magnetic program that will pull kids away from their already high performing schools. So apparently it is fine to bus kids from good schools to bad schools, but it is not good policy to offer students at underperforming schools a seat in a classroom at a high performing one.

The court also called out the states failed commitment to meaningful performance evaluations for teachers, principals and district administrators. Greenwich tried to implement new, relevant teacher evaluations in the early 2000s, which would have included bonuses for high performing teachers, training for poor performers and termination for those who just could not do the job. The teacher union refused and the town buckled. All our teachers are exemplary while not all our students can read at grade level; there is a complete disconnect between evaluation and results. And now Greenwich has school administrators who give themselves outsized raises while the school board dithers about inconsequential issues.

The court also criticized school initiatives that were started without well-defined expected outcomes (the Greenwich digital initiative, which was really a hardware grab for tablet companies), and vague mission statements for districts instead of a description of tangible results students and parents could expect from the schools (read the innocuous Greenwich "Vision of the Graduate" for a prime example).

The state has six months to address the many issues raised by the court ruling. However, Greenwich should start now to address some basic questions, the most obvious and immediate is whether a massive new building is really the answer to improving educational performance among New Lebanon students. But that is just the low hanging fruit.

The town needs a school board that represents all parts of town. Its membership is now, and has been historically, heavily weighted toward central and eastern Greenwich. The only sure way to cure this bias is to change from townwide voting to electing school board members by geographic districts. And the school board needs to get serious about its responsibilities and set specific achievement standards followed by a report card each year as to how the schools did.

And parents fortunate to have "good schools" in their neighborhoods need to really examine how "good" those schools are. My kids went to Old Greenwich, Eastern Middle and Greenwich High schools. Many parents at those schools spent thousands of dollars on tutors and other supplement educational services because they did not trust the schools to deliver what they promised. So this is not just a good school versus bad school debate, or affluent versus poor battle. It is a battle to fix a broken system.

But instead of seeing the court ruling as an impetus to change, I predict the school board will delay any and all actions until "our funding sources become clearer." School starting times will not change because "we dont know if well have the money to do it." Teacher evaluations will go untouched "until we get direction from the state." The excuses are predictable and endless.

Bob Horton can be reached at bobhorton@yahoo.com.
K-pop group Girls' Generation appeared on NBC's "Better Late Than Never," the U.S. version of Korean reality show "Grandpas Over Flowers."

In the third episode of the series, which aired early this week, the members taught the dance routine accompanying their hit song "Gee" to the cast of the U.S. show during their visit to Seoul.

The four-part series chronicles the experiences of a group of old folks -- comedian Jeff Dye, actors Henry Winkler and William Shatner, sportscaster Terry Bradshaw and former boxer George Foreman -- as they encounter new cultures on their travels to Seoul, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Kyoto and Tokyo.
From hologram to restaurateur. Photo: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Coachella

Some little-known Tupac trivia is that, before he died in 1996, he had vague notions of opening a restaurant specializing in musicians own recipes. He wanted to call it the Powamekka Cafe, and he even sketched out an ankh-symbol logo and drew a floor plan with bathrooms marked Playaz and Divaz. Sadly, things never progressed beyond those plans, but a burger spot in California is bringing them to life as a one-day pop-up on September 13, the 20th anniversary of his death.



On the 20th anniversary of 2Pac's death, a restaurant is bringing #PowaMekkaCafe to life: https://t.co/O8HOVCDoYH pic.twitter.com/RdmEevJ9lW  2DOPEBOYZ (@2DopeBoyz) September 8, 2016

The restaurant, Take 3 Burgers, is partnering with Sam Hansen, a marketing director for the Fresno Grizzlies. Powamekkas menu reportedly incorporates dishes conceived by Tupac and fellow musicians, plus some original items by Take 3 and Hansen. They include a California Love chicken sandwich, Hennessy apple-butter wings, the Mac-and-Cheeseburger, and something called Thug Passion Cake Pops that are gold and described as Champagne cakes with Alize booze frosting.

Take 3 already did a Notorious B.I.G. tribute brunch earlier year (T-bones, cheese eggs, and Welchs grape juice), and its going all-in with this pop-up. Festivities are supposed to include a Tupac art show and musicians performing their favorite Tupac tracks.


Galaxy Note7 replacements arrive in Portugal on Sept 19, the US may have to wait longer

The Samsung Galaxy Note7 was off to a great, but a quickly discovered battery defect caused Samsung to issue an unprecedented worldwide recall.

We now hear the replacement stock for Portugal is already on the way and should be ready for exchange for September 19.

The phablet has successfully launched in China and few other markets recently, where Samsung made sure the Note7 units don't pack faulty batteries.

There is some bad news for the USA though. The country is one of the biggest Samsung markets and the manufacturer is working hard to convince the Note7 buyers to return them via the official Exchange Program. Unfortunately, the users are concerned they will either have to wait too much for their new Note7, or if they opt for a trade-in phone (with cashback) they won't be able to get Note7 afterwards by trading back their replacement phone.

Indeed, the users will have to wait longer for their Note7 replacement because the Consumer Protection Safety Commission must inspect and allow the new units to enter the USA. To ease off the pain Samsung is giving the US owners two choices and urges them to return their faulty units as quickly as possible.

First, you may opt for a loaned Galaxy J phone upon returning the Galaxy Note7 and use it until the replacement stock is approved and ready for distribution.

Alternatively, you can get a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge trade-in and receive a refund for all Note7 accessories, the price difference between the two devices, plus an additional $25 gift card, in-store credit or bill credit. This ends the path toward receiving a proper Note7 unit, obviously.

But whatever you want to do, do it now, or you may get hurt as there are such cases already. This may help you identify if your unit has a faulty battery or not.

Samsung US  Samsung Portugal  Via
Clearly by now you've heard about the whole exploding Galaxy Note7 fiasco. Samsung's thankfully acted incredibly quickly on this one, and a recall has been issued for all units ever sold. In every country (except China, see more below) you'll be able to return your Note7 and get a safe replacement unit. These new devices that don't have the faulty batteries will arrive in most of Europe on September 19, and in Australia on September 21. After those who already have the phone have replaced theirs, new units will go on sale.

Now you may be wondering if there's any way to tell which are the newly produced safe units and which are those prone to having their batteries explode. The answer is yes, there is. In every market aside from China (where the faulty batteries were never used, so this was never an issue), if you see the label below on your Galaxy Note7's box, you're clear.

Note the small black square on the barcode label and the big blue "S" - supposedly short for "Safe". Again, if your unit has this label, it's fine. If it doesn't, then make sure you return it as soon as the procedure gets under way in your country. Seriously, don't put this off - you wouldn't want your car destroyed by your phone, would you?

If for some reason you don't have your new Note7's box around but still want to be sure it's safe, Samsung will have an online database of IMEI codes up starting on September 13. You can then enter your handset's IMEI into it and it will tell you if you need to worry or not. That's handy, because you can find out your IMEI on your phone, no box required. And if even that somehow doesn't work for you, then Samsung's call centers will be able to help you identify whether you have the safe model.

Source | Via 1  Via 2
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The Chinese enclave of Daerim-dong in southern Seoul has undergone a transformation over the last few years from slum to bustling commercial district.

The 200 m stretch from exit No. 8 at Daerim subway station to exit No. 12 now bustles with ethnic Koreans from China and Chinese migrant workers every night, crowding into the Chinese restaurants and karaoke bars that line the street.

Store owners say business is booming. Kim Soon-hee (54), an ethnic Korean from China, struck gold when she opened restaurants serving Chinese hot pot and sweet-and-sour pork.

Three years after opening her first two restaurants, Kim opened another two and invited her daughters to live with her in Korea. "There are a lot of merchants in Daerim-dong who made enough money to bring their families here," she says.

One estate agent in Daerim-dong said, "Stores in key locations here have seen the rent more than double over the last three years to rival those of Itaewon at W7-8 million per 99 sq.m (US$1=W1,108)."
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Friday that would allow families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi Arabian government for allegedly supporting terrorism, despite White House threats to veto the bill.

The Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) in May despite opposition from Saudi Arabia, a key ally to the United States. Fifteen of the 19 airline hijackers involved in the attacks were Saudi nationals, but Riyadh has denied allegations it had any role in the attacks or supported organizations with ties to terrorist groups.

The White House's opposition to the legislation stems from concern it could weaken U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, expose U.S. citizens overseas to legal risks and open the door to lawsuits against the U.S. from foreign countries. A White House veto can be overridden with votes from at least two-thirds of House and Senate members.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, has strong support from the victims' families. Nadler has said he wants the legislation brought to a vote before the 15th anniversary of the attacks, which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people when terrorists hijacked and crashed commercial airliners into New York City's World Trade Center, the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Published on 2016/09/10

Enjoy some beautiful landscape paintings from Yeong-A Yeo, Korea's biggest media art show is now on, pop art and political satire collide on the streets of Busan, and see how architects are redesigning rural homes through "idea-driven" design practices.

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"Yeoung-A Yeo"

Enjoy these six landscape paintings from South Korean artist Yeong-A Yeo whose work was on exhibition at The Brick Lane Gallery last month under the title, "Landscape: Rural Vs Rural". Yeong-A Yeo was born in the coastal city of Busan and has lived in Dublin for the past five-and-a-half years. Enjoy!

...SEE ON THE BRICK LANE GALLERY

"Seoul Media Art Biennale explores new languages to define future"

The Seoul International Media Art Biennale is the largest showcasing of media art in Korea and has been in operation since 2000. The event, which "emphasises the role of advanced technology in society", will be featured across four of the Seoul Museum of Art's branches from September through to late November. Catch it if you can!

...READ ON KPOP HERALD

"Pop Artist Tours South Korea in an Art-Truck to Satirize President Park"

One Busan resident, pop artists Lee Byeong-ha (aka Lee Ha), is using his artist talents to satirize South Korea's current president Park Geun-hye (as well as past political figures) with a modified truck adorned with caricatures. Lee Ha says, "It is an artist's destiny to criticize corrupt society, sing for philosophy and civilization, and connect with the people of the time".

...READ ON THE KOREA BIZWIRE

"STPMJ completes rural cabin with a swivelled roof in South Korea"

What do you think of architects Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim's project that aimed to "experiment with the traditional gable roof"? The "Shear House" is located in Yecheon Country, a rural village in North Gyeongsang province, home to around 52,311 residents, and is described as an "idea-driven design practice". Would you live here? Of course you would...

...READ ON DE ZEEN
Published on 2016/09/10

Lonely Planet gives 10 reasons why Jeonju should be your next travel destination, hear more about one teacher's experience of finding a job in South Korea, Living Nomads highlights some of the country's biggest shopping attractions, and would you stay a night or two in a luxury liner that didn't go anywhere?

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"10 reasons to put Jeonju on your bucket list"

Despite being one of South Korea's most popular travel destinations, Jeonju is sometimes overlooked as foreigners prefer to visit some of the bigger cities like Seoul or Busan, as well as particularly pretty places like Jeju. But Rebecca Milner has 10 excellent reasons why you should not pass on Jeonju: "With its historic architecture and buzzing food scene  the city was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2012  it's easy to see why. For foreign travellers it's still flying under the radar, but as word spreads, that's likely to change".

...READ ON LONELY PLANET

"How I Got a Job Teaching English in South Korea"

Are you planning on applying to teach in South Korea? Do you know exactly what you're in for and how to go about it? In this post on Just a Pack, Claire shares her experiences of how she went about securing a quality teaching job in Korea, something that led her to "a life-changing experience". There's a lot of great advice here, so if you are exploring the idea of teaching in Korea, be sure to click on through...

...READ ON JUSTAPACK

"The hotel that's ship shape! South Korea's wacky holiday attraction"

Okay, so it may not be taking you around the world, it's not going anywhere in fact, but if you're around Jeongdongjin, there's an unusual resort (the Sun Cruise Resort) that looks rather fun. "At first glance, it looks like millions of pounds of ocean liner has run aground on rocks", but thankfully this massive resort was intelligently designed as opposed to being precariously positioned about the shoreline after a storm of sorts. All aboard!

...READ ON NIUME

"Shopping in South Korea, We have a date"

South Korea is a thriving, twenty-first-century metropolis; so, of course, there's plenty of places to shop till you drop! Seriously, shopping in South Korea is a real treat, and with so many great places to browse, there's no reason not to take a whole day or three out of your schedule to explore their many malls and markets.

...READ ON LIVING NOMADS
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Published on 2016/09/10 | Source

Added episode 15 captures for the Korean drama "W" (2016)

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Directed by Jeong Dae-yoon

Written by Song Jae-jeong

Network : MBC

With Lee Jong-suk, Han Hyo-joo, Jung Eugene, Lee Tae-hwan, Park Won-sang, Cha Kwang-soo,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

A mysterious melodrama about a parallel universe which depicts a man and a woman who live in the same Seoul but in different environments.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2016/07/20

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Anonymous Letter Apparently Written Before the August 18 Dismissal of Grabauskas

As construction project professionals, we remain dedicated to the completion of the Honolulu Rail Transit Project (HRTP). It is out of deep concern that we must speak of what we believe to be the truth. We are asking for your help to successfully deliver Hawaii's largest CIP project. As public servants we are ultimately accountable to the people of this city, which is why we are coming forth. We are subjected to a hostile work environment where threats of firing and retaliation are regularly experienced by dozens of staff and even consultants, therefore regrettably this letter is submitted anonymously.

When the HART CEO Dan Grabauskas was hired in April 2012, he to promised the HART Board, the Mayor, the City Council and community that the project would be delivered "Safely: On Time and On Budget". He declared his commitment to full transparency, open honest leadership, a workplace with mutual respect- "let me hear the problems from you." Instead, lack of transparency and detailed information has been the norm to the HART Board, the Council, the Mayor and staff are not receiving timely project information needed to make fully informed decisions.

Is the HART board negligent of their fiduciary duties by not providing adequate oversight of their CEO and the project? Instead of asking the hard questions the Board's leadership and members have awarded Grabauskas an "exemplary" or "exceeds expectations" on managerial, and leadership skills, communication skills and transparency, his performance rewarded with financial bonuses, all while they are kept in the dark. Are the HART Board's leaders complicit in their communications to the Mayor and City Council?

Under Grabauskas's leadership the budget has increased multifold and the project delivery date is projected to be late well beyond what the CEO has told the public at this time. As a consequence, the government officials and public have been told the reasons are: the lawsuits delayed the construction; Honolulu is experiencing the most expensive and competitive construction climate in the nation, and the extra time needed to secure the General Excised (sic) Tax. However, has the HART CEO fully informed the HART Board about all the additional costs and delays, and what future risks lie ahead?

For example, much has been made about the cost savings resulting from bidding the first nine stations in three packages, of three stations each. However, does the public know that was the original plan before Grabauskas came aboard? With little written justification and cost analysis, he authorized the combination of all nine stations into one large bid package, which came in way over budget, because the package was too large for the construction industry's capability. Subsequently, the stations were superficially value engineered, separated back into three smaller packages and bid as originally planned. Naturally, these separate bids were lower that the previous combined bid. This resulted in additional time to repackage the station procurements and the expenditure of thousands of additional staff hours. Each decision made by the CEO to change project scope will likely result in project cost and schedule overruns.

What are some of the future risks that may impact the budget and schedule? The Airport guideway and stations were designed as a design-bid-build project. The preparation of the design-bid-build cost HART approximately $110 million to bring bid documents up to 80 to 90 percent level of completion. The CEO decided that it should be a design-build project rather than a design-bid-build. A design-build project requires the bid documents to include designs at only 30 percent level, which allows the contractor to design and construct with cost savings. The $110 million expenditure to bring the documents to the 80 to 90 percent level is typically not necessary for a design-build package. Therefore, a significant portion of the $110 million will be lost because the design-build contractor will not use all the designs that were initially developed. In order for the Airport portion to come in on budget, the bids must be lower by the $110 million that is already expended.

The Pearl Highlands Parking Garage and Transit Center (PHGT), was deferred by Grabauskas as a cost savings without informing the HART Board, the Mayor and Council. Deletion of the PHGT would not be acceptable to the FTA, as it is in the Full Funding Grant Agreement. The PHGT, provides parking and bus transit connections from central and north shore Oahu to the Pearl Highlands station; one of the highest projected riderships. Instead, the CEO decided to construct a 1,600 car gravel parking lot at Ho'opili station. This requires central and north shore transit patrons to "backtrack" several miles to Ho'opili to use this gravel lot to connect to the system. Additionally, the gravel lot is not acceptable to HART safety and security.

Further, the FTA's Project Management Oversight Committee (PMOC) in their January 2016 report states that the undergrounding of the HECO high-power electrical lines is the most significant risk to the projects. This risk could lead to additional costs in the hundreds of millions that is not in the current project budget, and could lead to further project cost of overruns. There are also safety concerns that should be addressed. While Grabauskas touts the accomplishments of miles of guideway built to date, he fails to mention the shoddy construction that raises safety and maintenance concerns when the system begins operations that may put the riders at risk. Has Grabauskas made full and timely disclosures to the HART Board, the Mayor and the City Council about Safety issues and concerns, and have these issues been reviewed and properly resolved?

1. Has there been settlement of the Westside guideway drilled shafts with columns sinking into the ground beyond acceptable engineering and construction tolerances that may result in safety and maintenance concerns if the settlement doesn't stop. How many columns does this involve, how much will the columns sink over time and when will it subside? This condition if not properly addressed will result in significant operations and maintenance costs, and passenger safety concerns.

2. Back in April 2015, media reported that large cracks had developed along the concrete segments now under construction, the most recent incident in February 2016. While minor cracking is to be expected, these major cracks are obvious structural failures that are not acceptable and extremely expensive to repair without the replacement of the entire involved segment. Does this present a safety and ongoing maintenance issue and what quality can be expected going forward for the next 14 miles?

3. The method that Kiewit used to attach the rail to the concrete guideway does not follow tested transit industry standards. Because of the way Kiewit designed the guideway, the rail attachment is subject to failure and expensive long-term maintenance, clearly a safety issue. Usually the rail is attached to a concrete curb on the guideway called a plinth. Kiewit eliminated this plinth claiming cost effectiveness, and HART agreed. However, the solution has resulted in a potentially unsafe condition. Kiewit has substituted plastic material to serve as a "shim" rather than concrete to support the rail on the guideway. While this plastic shim has been used in other transit systems, the height of the plastic shim on the HART project is beyond tested tolerances. The thickness of the shims may cause the bolts anchoring the rail to be subjected to excessive shear under the dynamic load of the train. The multiple layers of plastic shim required to level the tracks may shift. Was HART forced to accept the plastic shims to not delay the project further and what are the safety risks going forward?

4. Reportedly there has been failed weld inspections on track work being done by Ansaldo and two rail car wheel assemblies called a truck, were rejected due to cracked welds. Is Ansaldo delivering a quality product? The CEO had just returned from inspecting the rail vehicles and knew of the cracked trucks. Did he disclose the failed truck assemblies to the HART board at the February 18, 2016 meeting?

5. February 14, 2016, a portion of the traveling formwork at the balance cantilever toppled off the guideway and was hanging precariously from the concrete structure as reported in the news on February 18, 2016. Should HART investigate any damage that the guideway structure may have suffered from the shifting weight load? Does this affect the stability of this guideway portion?

Does Grabauskas possess the construction experience and expertise to make critical decisions going forward? As mentioned earlier, the CEO has created a hostile work environment. Since his hire there has been over a 60 percent attrition rate through firing and resignations of combined embedded consultants and city staff. This is exceedingly high, and is a consequence of his decisions and leadership style. The palpable culture of fear and intimidation has lead to ill-informed management decision-making, and keeps the HART Board in the dark on critical project issues.

An immediate change in HART leadership is required as the project is at a critical juncture. Further, we respectfully request an independent audit by qualified transit and construction industry professionals to review the project's safety, organizational structure, and governance. There is little transparency and proper accountability and the public deserves better. We remain as always committed and dedicate to the successful completion of the project.

cc:

The Honorable Brian Schatz

The Honorable Maize Hirono

The Honorable David lge

The Honorable Shan Tsutsui

The Honorable Ronald Kouchi

The Honorable Will Espero

The Honorable Jill Tokuda

The Honorable Lorraine Inouye

The Honorable Joseph Souki

The Honorable Calvin Say

The Honorable Sylvia Luke

The Honorable Scott Nishimoto

The Honorable Henry J.C. Aquino

The Honorable Matthew S. LoPresti

The Honorable Kirk Caldwell

The Honorable Ernie Martin

The Honorable Kymberly Marcos Pine

The Honorable lkaika Anderson

The Honorable Trevor Ozawa

The Honorable Ann Kobayashi

The Honorable Carol Fukunaga

The Honorable Joey Manahan

The Honorable Brandon Elefante

The Honorable Ron Menor

Related:

Feb 18 2016 HART Board Materials

Feb 18 2016 HART Board Attachments

Feb 18 2016 HART Board Agenda
US policies may hurt Micronesians more than they help

by Neil Mellen, Grassroot Institute, Sep 9, 2016

Many people in Hawaii care deeply for the plight of Micronesian immigrants arriving in the islands, but current efforts by the US government to fund education and healthcare initiatives may be hurting the people they are supposed to help.

To understand why these policies may be doing harm, its important to understand why Micronesians come to Hawaii in the first place. Immigrants from Micronesia come here for many reasons, including the promise of a better life, more opportunity and access to social services. This has been made possible because of a little known agreement called the Compact of Free Association.

This treaty gives Micronesians many rights and benefits similar to Americans, in exchange for United States military access in the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

In addition, Micronesians arriving in Hawaii cite three reasons for leaving their home islands: access to healthcare, education, and employment. However, US taxpayers spend a great deal to fund these issues, both locally and in Micronesia, and its not clear whether the money is spent wisely.

US FUNDED SCHOOLS AT HOME

Consider schooling in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). More than 90 percent of funding for K-12 public education within the Federated States comes from the United States. In 2016, these monies, mostly controlled by the US Department of the Interior, exceeded $24 million for the 29,000 public school students in Micronesia.

Public schools in Micronesia are also eligible for US Department of Education funding of Special Education, bilingual education, professional development, college transition and other initiatives. These total millions more beyond the annual grant payments.

Despite the money flowing for decades, more than half of Micronesian students perform below their K-12 grade level. The government reports that nationwide, fifty percent of adults never finished high school.

THE COLLEGE OF MAKE-BELIEVE

The post secondary situation is worse.

Although only 1/5th of students at the College of Micronesia complete their course of study, nearly all students receive full US tuition assistance through PELL grants. The College of Micronesias appetite for the scholarship money is so great that federal auditors have found over a million dollars in overpayment errors as well as academically disqualified students receiving scholarships.

The College of Micronesia

Beyond subsidized tuition revenues for students, the College of Micronesia also enjoys contracts and grants from the US funded Micronesian government. The college reported $20 million in total revenues in 2015 while enrolling less than 3,000 students. Roughly 500 of those students will go on to graduate or transfer.

Precious few private sector jobs exist for these young people either way. One former US instructor at the college famously described its lack of organization and outcomes by terming it The College of Make-believe.

CRUMBLING HEALTHCARE

A further $20 million will be provided by the US, under the management of the Department of the Interior, for Micronesian health care this year. The sum places the Federated States of Micronesia among the world leaders in healthcare spending as a percentage of total GDP. The money is not used for training, planning or capacity building, but primarily supports regular recurring operations of the four bare-bones state in-patient facilities.

A lab technician takes blood for a rapid HIV test, Yap State Hospital Laboratory, Federated States of Micronesia.

This healthcare spending is set to decline subtly, year by year, until 2024 at which point the Micronesians hope to negotiate a third round of aid. The Department of the Interiors own officials have described the immediate response to these modest annual reductions as, budget decline, congestion, and ad hoc cuts, noting an absolute unwillingness to, implement programs that trim inefficient and ineffective activities and raise fees for service.

TRANSPARENCY ISSUES

Lacking clear reporting on the tens of millions in annual aid, the US Government Accountability Office declared that data is so entirely absent and unreliable that Micronesia can neither demonstrate, nor assess, any progress toward goals in the fields of education or health care at all.

US money spent in Micronesia is supposed to, improve the quality of life, expand economic opportunity and promote efficient and effective governance, according to the Department of the Interior. But individual Micronesians dont need government reports to quantify the lack of development and opportunity in their home islands. They live that sad reality each day. Their tragedies far exceed the heavy costs borne by US taxpayers. That makes migration to Hawaii and other US jurisdictions an understandable choice, and seemingly the only measurable achievement of the DOIs costly work since the 1950s.

---30---
By Jessica Isaacs and Emily Willis

Photos by Jessica Isaacs

Whatever your thoughts on the power of social media, this story proves that beautiful things can happen when were connected to our family, to our friends and to our community. Its the story of one persons Facebook post, one familys heart for service and one awesome day at F.A.R.M. Cafe.

Established in 2012, F.A.R.M. Cafe is a nonprofit, volunteer operated restaurant that exists to Feed All Regardless of Means. Diners are invited to pay what they can for their food, whether its all, less than or none of the suggested price per plate.

The majority of restaurant goers pay full price, and many pay more to help cover the costs of those who cannot pay. Those who cant afford the full price are also given the opportunity to volunteer one hour of their time in exchange for a meal.

Last year, local resident Susie Long, a frequent flier at the cafe, shared information about the restaurant and its concept online with her out-of-state relatives.

One day, I shared an article on F.A.R.M. Cafe on my Facebook, she explained. Immediately, my family started saying, Oh, thats great. Oh, I love that. Oh, I want to come help F.A.R.M. Cafe.

Inspired by what they have been hearing since then, the clan pulled together two months ago and planned a special trip to Boone. Longs cousin, Steve Pariso from Boca Raton, Florida, organized the trip and planned for the group to volunteer at the cafe on Friday.

Steven decided to get friends and family together. He and his family and a couple other people flew in last night, said Long. Others drove in from Nashville, Flat Rock  from all over the place  just to volunteer here today at F.A.R.M. Cafe.

Making a Difference

Other members of the volunteer group included Noyes Capehart, Connie McSwain, Ron Rogers, Daniel Connor Brock, Barbara Bakich, Steve Bakich, Trevor Bakich, Tiffany Bakich, Rachel Durchslag and Vanessa Costillo, as well as Parisos wife, Shauna, and their to children.

McSwain traveled from Flat Rock, North Carolina to participate.

Its a wonderful thing that theyre doing here and its bringing folks from all different backgrounds together, she said. Our hope is that folks will see that we came to volunteer and that others will want to do the same, just to give back to the community.

Durchslag rode her Harley in from Asheville this morning to join the team.

I used to live in Chicago and I worked at a restaurant that served homeless people, and it helped me realize how important it is to have the community and that food and community can be a journey into healing for many people, she said. So, when I learned that there was a similar program here, I was really excited to help. I love that there is a blending of people who are living unstably and stably, because I think its important to bring all these people together.

Brock, a Boca Raton resident, said his goal in life is to start something similar to F.A.R.M. Cafe in another community.

Ive always had a passion for food and helping people. Everyone deserves to eat, he said. Last year, I went out and helped people down in our area that arent able to feed themselves. I dont care what their situations are, everyone deserves to eat.

A Lasting Impact

The group of 15 spent the day preparing for and serving the restaurants customers, then sat down for lunch after several hours in the kitchen. Following their work, the family had a surprise for the cafe and its executive chef, Renee Boughman.

As the crowd gathered around Boughman and the Rev. Tommy Brown, F.A.R.M. Cafes volunteer coordinator, Pariso shared about what motivated the family to be there:

We know that 22 percent of this countys residents live at or below poverty. We know that 35 percent of those below the poverty line dont qualify for government assistance, and that one in six people dont know where their next meal is coming from. One in four kids dont know if theyre going to get dinner tonight or tomorrow. Were super honored to be here with you guys  incredibly. We were so excited when we heard about you and weve been watching you. We all came from Tennessee, Alabama, from Florida and from right here in North Carolina.

Parisos five-year-old twins, Andrew and Sophia, brought their piggy banks along and donated their savings to the cafe.

I want to give them money so everyone can have healthy meals. Everyone in the world, actually, Andrew said. Meals are a lot more important than buying toys.

Soon after, Pariso handed a card to Boughman with another special gift: a $30,000 donation to F.A.R.M. Cafe.

You have no idea how much that means to us and how many people this will feed and how many people this will take care of, Boughman said. This is absolutely amazing.

The Parisos and company have also decided to contribute to the cafes renovation project by sponsoring 15 chairs, as well as eight tables in honor or memory of the following family members:

L.B. Dick and Inez Connor

Bud McSwain

Nannette Tribble & Zelma Bakich

Robert B Mayer & Robert N Mayer

Jack Pariso

Carl Marvin and Delores Connor

Stephen A Vineberg

Ken Zacharias

Its rare for me to say this, but Im kind of speechless, Boughman responded. I just want yall to know, this means so much to the cafe and to our community. You have no idea  that amount of money, the support, just having you here is phenomenal.

Long and her family members hope that their story will encourage groups, organizations and families in the High Country and beyond to spend some time lending a hand at F.A.R.M. Cafe.

If your family comes up to visit the mountains and they want to know what youre going to do, just put this on your itinerary, she said. Every family and all their friends can make a difference, not only with money, but with time and commitment.

There are people who just cant afford to eat. Its very important that we all look at everybody as our friends and acquaintances and not make any difference between those who pay and those who cant, and thats the whole concept.

The donated funds will be transferred to the cafe through a private charitable fund based in Florida thats dedicated to improving lives of people in various communities.

I have to tell everyone who has a group or organization, we have had the greatest time and you need to come out here, Pariso said. The food is delicious and the people are fantastic. Just pick up your phone and call Rev. Tommy. Its fantastic volunteering and weve had the greatest time ever.

Visit farmcafe.org to learn more about the restaurant and its mission and watch for an in-depth feature story in the next edition of High Country Magazine, which will hit the streets in early October.





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[SHSMD16 Speaker Podcast Series] Stewart Gandolf, CEO of Healthcare Success, talks with Tanya Andreadis, Associate Chief Marketing Officer and Robin Ward, Director of Customer Engagement & Marketing Analytics for Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System, about their upcoming presentation at the 2016 SHSMD Connections Conference on the topic: Marketing Automation, Oh My! Lessons from Leading Health Systems.

The concept of marketing automation is central to the digital age. In todays podcast, Stewart Gandolf and guests Tanya Andreadis and Robin Ward discuss how hospitals and private practices alike can benefit from marketing automation technology.

While many businesses outside of healthcare regularly use marketing automation, the healthcare industry is only just starting to explore this technology. Penn Medicine, however, is one of the first in the healthcare community to adopt a successful marketing automation system.

Weve been using a system for quite a while, explains Tanya. Weve gone through the ebbs and flows of the learning process and are at a point where we feel like weve had some level of mastery.

What is Marketing Automation?

To put it simply, marketing automation is the process of creating a series of emails that respond to user behavior. The end goal being a transaction of some sort, like scheduling an appointment.

Thats where the automation part comes in, Tanya points out. Youre automating segments which are based on something that you know about your clients or something that theyve done.

But marketing automation is so much more that. Marketing automation technology requires a significant investment on the data side; both in getting the right data and in building out the right algorithm and marketing assets, so you can do the things you want in the automation process.

Building Relationships

Additionally, marketing automation technology facilitates relationships. A strong and successful marketing automation program takes potential patients along a nurturing path. In their experience, Tanya and Robin estimate that it often takes three or more touch points to establish relationships that result in a transaction

In the podcast, Tanya and Robin discuss the surprising discovery that harder calls to action arent always the best path. Instead, they suggest that softer calls to action that didnt require commitment, like downloading a guide, proved to drive profitable business even better.

Using Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation technology is undoubtedly an essential tool, but creating a successful campaign takes time, careful planning and a dedicated team.

It takes a lot of thought to think through your strategy, explains Tanya. What do you want to achieve at the end of this? Whats the journey you want to take this audience on?

Currently, Penn Medicine runs marketing automation campaigns for many of its services lines. The open rate for most of the emails are above the national average and its most successful newsletter has over 40,000 subscribers.

For listeners attending the 2016 SHSMD conference, Robin will be presenting on Monday, September 12 at 9:45 a.m.

Stop by and visit members of our team at the Healthcare Success booth #612 in the exhibit hall. Our Marketing Strategist, Christine Rizza will be conducting free consultations. Be sure to make an appointment, so you dont miss your opportunity.

This article and podcast are part of Healthcare Success continuing education series featuring speakers at the Society of Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, 2016 SHSMD CONNECTIONS in Chicago, September 11-14.
Developers want to restore and regenerate Clerys Picture: Frank McGrath

Sixty-seven objections have been lodged against the contentious 150m Clerys redevelopment plan, with unions and politicians expressing their opposition in support of the sacked Clerys workers.

The plan by OCS Properties Ltd is to transform the property into a six-storey retail and office scheme, including a top-floor area with outdoor dining.

The precinct plan, total- ling 350,000 square feet, also includes a 176-bedroom hotel linked by a bridge to the O'Connell Street building.

Documents lodged with the city council by OCS show that the so called Project D1 will create 3,990 jobs.

Vibrant

Economic consultants employed by OCS state that over the first 20 years of Project D1, it would contribute 6.6bn to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 1.7bn to the exchequer.

Architects Henry J Lyons have told the council that the proposal "seeks to generate a vibrant quarter within the centre of the city which will see the repair, restoration and regeneration of the original Clerys building".

The lodging of the planning application comes 14 months after the abrupt closure of the department store after 162 years that resulted in the loss of 460 jobs.

The period for lodging objections is now closed.

Along with more than 50 former Clerys workers, the country's biggest union, Siptu, and the Communications Workers Union (CWU) have lodged submissions.

They have been joined by local politicians Brid Smith TD of People Before Profit (PBP), senator Kevin Hunphreys (Labour) and a host of council members including Dermot Lacey (Labour), Janice Boylan (SF), Gaye Fagan (SF), Andrew Keegan (PBP), Hazel De Nortuin (PBP), Tina McVeigh (PBP) and John Lyons (PBP).

Siptu divisional organiser Ethel Buckley has told the council that "the appalling treatment of the Clerys workers has been the subject of public outcry and left a lasting negative legacy over the Clerys building".

She said planning permission should only be granted to the new owners of Clerys if they agree to specific enforceable social clauses which should include a fair settlement for the former Clerys employees.

Former Dublin Labour TD Joe Costello made a joint submission with his wife, former Lord Mayor of Dublin Emer Costello.

They state that "the new proposals would . . . interfere with the character of Clerys building and impact negatively on the national monument, namely the GPO".

A decision by the council is due later this month.
Gerry Wall is now focused on caring for his child

A new father who stole a jacket from a supermarket was homeless and finding it difficult to survive, a court heard.

Gerry Wall (22) is now living in emergency accommodation in a Dublin hotel and his "circumstances have greatly improved", said his lawyer.

Judge Patricia McNamara ordered a probation report and adjourned sentencing to a date in November.

Wall admitted before Tallaght District Court to a charge of theft at Tesco, The Square Shopping Centre, Tallaght.

Sgt Michael Ahern said Wall entered the supermarket at around 1.30pm last January 30 and picked up a jacket worth 19.50.

Sgt Ahern said Wall tried to walk out of the supermarket without paying for the item, but was stopped by security staff and the jacket was recovered in a saleable condition.

The court heard the defendant, with a most recent address at The Laurels, Bluebell Avenue, Dublin 12, has 10 previous convictions, mostly for theft.

Baby

His last conviction was also for a theft-related matter, which happened three days before this theft.

Defence lawyer George Burns said Wall was homeless at the time of the incident.

He said the defendant is now living in emergency accommodation in the Regency Hotel and his "circumstances have greatly improved". He also said Wall has not been in trouble with gardai since the two thefts in January.

Mr Burns further told the court that Wall became a father four weeks ago, and he is focused on caring for the new baby.

Ordering a probation report, Judge McNamara said Wall went on a shoplifting "spree in January".

This was refuted by Mr Burns, who said Wall committed two thefts in the space of three days, at a time when he was homeless and trying to survive in difficult circumstances.

The judge further warned Wall that he faces going to prison if he comes to the adverse attention of gardai in the next two months.
A former Dublin city councillor who made hoax calls to a man and threatened that he would be "got" has been told to take part in a restorative justice programme.

Killian Forde made 40 calls consisting of "drunken gibberish" and threatening "adverse consequences" if the victim did not contact him.

Judge Patricia McNamara referred him to the programme and remanded him on continuing bail for three months.

She said she would look on the case "more favourably" when finalising it if the accused took part in the programme.

Resigned

Forde (46) made all the phone calls in the middle of the night, between 12.30am and 6am.

He was a councillor with Sinn Fein from 2004 to 2010 before switching to Labour.

He resigned his seat on Dublin City Council in 2011 after he took up a job helping immigrants and refugees.

Forde, with addresses at Carndonagh Park in Donaghmede and Sutton Park in Sutton, admitted to making 40 hoax telephone calls.

The calls were placed over a six-hour period to a house at Homelawn Drive, Tallaght, on October 7, 2014.

Forde had pleaded guilty on an earlier date and the case was back before Tallaght District Court for the production of a probation report.

Gda Stephen Neylon said the victim received 40 phone calls and voice messages from the accused. "The messages were generally of a threatening nature, demanding that the injured party make contact with him and outlining there would be adverse consequences if the injured party didn't," said the officer.

Forde, who had no previous convictions, attended Tallaght Garda Station on October 10, 2014 and made a voluntary cautioned statement.

He was co-operative and indicated that he had been intoxicated at the time he made the calls, said Gda Neylon.

The case had adverse effects on Forde, who had expressed his remorse, said his barrister, George Burns.

Judge McNamara said Forde seemed to have co-operated fully and that the probation report was positive.

She said the case was suitable for restorative justice, which would involve the victim attending if he wished to do so.

Nuisance

"If that is a positive report, I can look a little bit more favourably on the case," the judge said.

She adjourned the matter to a date in December.

A sergeant previously alleged that the phone calls were mostly "drunken gibberish", but Forde also told a victim that "you'll be got".

Gda Neylon said on an earlier date in court that he began an investigation after the victim complained about receiving a number of nuisance phone calls.

He said the mobile phone number was registered to the defendant.
Several members of the Independent Alliance believe junior minister John Halligan should quit the Government or drop his demand for an immediate second review into cardiac services at Waterford General Hospital.

TDs within the alliance have privately voiced concerns that Mr Halligan's campaign for a second catheterisation (cath) laboratory in his constituency has severely damaged their standing in the eyes of voters.

A large number of Fine Gael ministers and backbencherss also believe the saga is proving to be a serious distraction.

Mr Halligan, a minister for state at the Department of Jobs, was due to consult his supporters further this weekend over his future.

He has received strong backing from senior medical staff at the hospital, who are urgently seeking a meeting with Health Minister Simon Harris to provide him with the compre- hensive evidence they believe exists for a second cath lab.

The doctors say they disagree with the findings of an independent review by Dr Niall Herity that said there is no justification for a second cath lab.

Waterford cardiologist Dr Patrick Owens said the report's scope was too narrow and did not take into account the risks to patients who are on waiting lists because of demands on the current cath lab services.

He also said the calculations used in relation to patient flow skewed the findings because it did not include the patients who have to travel to Dublin and Cork from the south east because they cannot be admitted to Waterford.

Referring to recommendations that the cath lab in Waterford no longer provides percutaneous coronary artery intervention (PCI) to widen the arteries in patients, including heart attack victims, and move the service to Cork, he said the reasoning was again flawed.

Dispassionate

Dr Herity defended the report yesterday and said it was produced in an independent and dispassionate manner.

He also said the fact that the lab is open from nine to five does not make a difference.

"The vast majority of work done in cath labs is pre-planned, done on a nine-to-five basis," Dr Herity told RTE's Morning Ireland.

"Ninety-six per cent of the work done in Waterford is pre-planned, with 4pc emergency work. Only a tiny amount of cath lab work is done out of hours."

Dr Herity said the cath lab was not performing the minimum number of at least 100 procedures a year to make it sustainable.

However, Dr Owens said it carried out 62 procedures during its nine-to-five opening hours last year and an additional 77 patients had to be treated in Cork out of hours.

If they were allowed longer opening hours they would easily reach the 100 case threshold, he said.

As Mr Halligan remained in the Government, the issue continued to dominate the political cycle.

Such is the level of frustration among his colleagues that several Independent sources confirmed they would be prepared for Mr Halligan to leave the Government rather than allow the matter to drag on.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny urged Mr Halligan and other ministers to start "applying themselves".

Mr Halligan did not responded to calls last night.
Baby joy has filled the US ambassador's residence in the Phoenix Park following the birth in Ireland of a new grandson for delighted Kevin O'Malley and his wife, Dena.

Their son, Brendan, and daughter-in-law, Tara, welcomed their second child, Rowan, at the Rotunda Hospital.

"We're really thrilled that we're coming full cycle with this being the first birth here in Ireland in a hundred years for somebody from our clan," said ambassador O'Malley.

It was an "emotional" occasion for the whole family, but the new arrival has already settled in at the residence.

Refugees

"It all happened so fast. Everything went very, very well. Baby's fine, mom's fine," said the 69-year-old ambassador.

Brendan, Tara and their first son, 22-month-old Caelan, have lived with the ambassador and his wife since July last year. They will return to their home city of St Louis, Missouri, with their children in December.

"My grandfather was Michael O'Malley, from Westport," said the ambassador.

"It was the typical Irish immigrants' story. They didn't talk much, about Ireland. It was just too difficult for them," he said.

"They were economic refugees. I've seen the manifest from their ship and they had the equivalent of $20 with them when they left Ireland. It was around 1907.

"They had seven children that came over on the boat, then when they got to the US they had eight more."

The ambassador said the whole family were so happy following the birth of Rowan.

"There's something really emotional about it. This is the first O'Malley born in Ireland in over a hundred years," he said.

"It's a nice facet of our being here. We've had a great time with Caelan here and now with Rowan it's wonderful.

"I want Caelan and Rowan to have the same wonderful relationship with Ireland that I've had my entire life."
Transport Minister Shane Ross is refusing to intervene in the pay row at Dublin Bus because he believes it could be seen as a commitment to resolve the issue with exchequer funds.

Fianna Fail transport spokesmen Robert Troy has urged the minister to instruct Dublin Bus management to re-enter talks with unions and make an increased pay offer in return for productivity.

Around 400,000 people faced commuter chaos on Thursday and yesterday as drivers went on strike in pursuit of a 15pc pay increase.

In July workers rejected an 8.25pc increase suggested by the Labour Court.

Mr Ross has been criticised for his inaction by the Opposition as well as unions, who could escalate the row.

However, hopes that the minister might step in have been dealt a blow, with a spokeswoman saying he has no intention of intervening.

"Minister Ross is aware of calls for him to directly intervene in this dispute," she said.

"However, as any intervention by a sitting minister could be seen as a commitment to resolve this issue with additional taxpayers' funds, he believes it is inappropriate to do so.

"The only way this dispute will be resolved is if all parties re-engage to find a reasonable resolution, and they can use the state mechanisms available to facilitate this.

Dispute

"The minister empathises with commuters, students and local business owners who have all been adversely affected by this dispute and hopes it will reach a swift conclusion."

The statement is likely to further inflame the row, as the central argument by unions is that Dublin Bus has been severely under-funded.

While Mr Ross did not mention the striking drivers, Fianna Fail has offered the workers tacit support in their claim.

Fianna Fail's Robert Troy said Mr Ross ultimately had the power to instruct Dublin Bus to negotiate.

"I think to be fair the drivers. over the last seven or eight years, have made many sacrifices in terms of their pay and in terms of some of their conditions," Mr Troy said.

"They have shown their bona fides. They have shown their commitment to the organisation, and they just want to be acknowledged and rewarded for that.

"There's an opportunity based on further productivity to increase that pay claim further. I think there's room to increase that."

Mr Troy was extremely critical of Mr Ross's handling of the dispute.

"He has been very mute and absent in the last number of days," he said.

"I think he now needs to realise he is no longer a columnist in the Sunday Independent newspaper.

"He should instruct Dublin Bus to go back to the table," he said.

Dublin Bus has already been notified of further days of strike action - this coming Thursday and Friday and the following Friday and Saturday.

Dermot O'Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Railway Union (NBRU), told the Herald further action was being considered.

"It's next Thursday, and an all-out strike will be considered. Obviously, the decision is not mine and we will listen to the guidance of members," he said.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar said the chronic problems faced by commuters during the two-day strike were totally unacceptable and appealed to unions to accept the Labour Court pay recommendations.

Advice

The former Transport Minister said he personally favoured opening up bus lanes in a bid to ease gridlock around the capital during strikes, but received safety advice to the contrary.

"When it comes to bus lanes, when I had bus strikes during my time as minister I wanted to open the lanes," he said.

However, he said it was impossible for the reason that the lanes were still being used and it could lead to traffic collisions.
Dublin Bus drivers have revealed how they have been spat at, verbally abused, and had paint sprayed in their faces on their routes.

On the second day of their strike for pay increases, drivers say the fact that they have to interact with the public makes their job harder and they deserve a pay rise as a result.

At the Phibsboro depot, striking drivers told the Herald of their experiences.

"I was on a bus in Maynooth late one evening when a group of kids were getting off and one of them, without any provocation, turned and sprayed me in the eyes with a can of spray paint," said Cristian Tei (40), from Romania.

"I had to go to the hospital. The bus inspector was beside me when the doctor said I was lucky not to lose my eye. I was out of work because of it."

Drivers emphasised it was only a tiny proportion of the people they encounter who engage in such behaviour.

John Simons (54), who drives the 120 route, told a story of how an attack on him was so violent that the bus had to be taken out of service after it.

"A guy got on going to Cabra and wanted to pay 1.80 but I told him the fare was 2.50 and he started shouting abuse at me. I told him I would bring him as far as St Peter's Church and when I pulled in at the church there was more shouting and then he spat on me," he said.

"I was just on the radio to report it then when he threw a brick through the window and I was showered with glass as well. I couldn't believe it."

Ballybough man David Dempsey (52) has had similar incidents of spitting.

"I had a couple one time and the man was trouble from the moment he got on the bus. He was shouting abuse and giving out about having fallen on a bus the day before, so I told him he would have to get off if he didn't stop," he said.

"He stopped for a while but then started again, and when I opened the doors and told him to get off he came up to the screen and spat over it twice into my face."

Demanded

While drivers have said violence usually occurs at night, one driver had an experience three weeks ago where a man tried to smash the screen between him and the passenger at 7.30am.

"I was out at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre and this guy got on and said he had no money but demanded I take him to the city," said Dave Murray (54), from Crumlin.

"When I explained that I couldn't he tried to bash his way into the cab to get me. It's very frightening when that happens and I had to call the gardai."
Like most illustrations in childrens books, the image of Mother Teresa is quite simple, showing her kneeling in prayer beside her bed in a dark room, facing a bare cross and a single candle.

The tiny nuns eyes are open, and her expression is hard to read. The text on the opposite page is candid.

Mother Teresa experienced a great sorrow. Ever since she had moved to the slums, she no longer felt the presence of Jesus as she had before. She felt as though abandoned, rejected by him, according to Mother Teresa: The Smile of Calcutta, a storybook for young children. In her heart, she felt darkness and emptiness. She experienced the suffering of the poor who did not feel loved. She shared in the loneliness Christ suffered on the Cross.

Only the priests who worked with her knew about this dark night of the soul, an experience seen in the lives of some other saints.

Working with text by Charlotte Grossetete, originally written in French, Ignatius Press editor Vivian Dudro said she spent lots of time working on how to phrase that part. ... You picture a young child reading about this pain in a saints life or having this story read to them. How do you explain something like this in a few simple words?

This dark night is clearly a crucial part of the life of the Albanian nun who was canonized this past weekend as St. Teresa of Kolkata. The formal petition to Pope Francis concluded: Despite a painful experience of inner darkness, Mother Teresa travelled everywhere, concerned ... to spread the love of Jesus throughout the world. She thus became an icon of Gods tender and merciful love for all, especially for those who are unloved, unwanted and uncared for.

St. Teresas sense of spiritual loss was the mirror image of the intense spiritual visions that, in 1946, inspired her to plunge deep into the slums of Calcutta (now called Kolkata) to serve the poorest of the poor. This move eventually led to the founding of the global Missionaries of Charity.

Early in this work, in 1951, her private letters and journals indicate that she prayed to be allowed to experience the isolation and pain Jesus suffered on the cross. Her visions immediately stopped.

Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? The one  you have thrown away as unwanted  unloved, she wrote in 1957. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer. ... Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives.

It will be a challenge to explain this concept to young children, said Father James Martin, the author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage and many other popular works of apologetics. He has called Mother Teresa the greatest Catholic saint of modern times because of her faithful service to the poor  even while experiencing such a profound challenge in her prayer life.

Asked to explain this painful puzzle  as schoolteachers and priests will do in the years ahead  he said he would focus on the common experience of prayer.

Martin offered, by email, these thoughts for children: Do you know how sometimes its hard to pray? Well, believe it or not, Mother Teresa didnt feel like God was close to her. Even though she knew that God was close, she just didnt feel it. She felt very lonely. When she talked to a friend about it, though, he said that even Jesus felt lonely. And poor people feel lonely, too. So Mother Teresa started to understand that this was one way she could be closer to Jesus.

This is the key point, stressed Dudro. St. Teresa used her suffering as a motivation to continue serving the poor and abandoned, rather than as an excuse to flee to safety elsewhere.

She asked for this experience, and she got it, said Dudro. Thats a powerful and beautiful thing, but thats also the kind of beauty that strikes a chord of terror in me. But she wanted that sense of communion with her Beloved. ...

So be careful what you pray for. Right? ... But whatever happens, be faithful and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep going.
WASHINGTON  The president of the United States lands with all the majesty of Air Force One, waiting to exit the front door and stride down the rolling staircase to the red-carpeted tarmac. Except that there is no rolling staircase. He is forced to exit  as one China expert put it rather undiplomatically  through the ass of the plane. This happened Saturday at Hangzhou airport. Yes, in China.

If the Chinese didnt invent diplomatic protocol, they surely are its most venerable and experienced practitioners. Theyve been at it for 4,000 years. They are the masters of every tributary gesture, every nuance of hierarchical ritual. In a land so exquisitely sensitive to protocol, rolling staircases dont just disappear at arrival ceremonies. Indeed, not one of the other G-20 world leaders was left stranded on his plane upon arrival. Did President Xi Jinping directly order airport personnel and diplomatic functionaries to deny Barack Obama a proper welcome? Who knows? But the message, whether intentional or not, wasnt very subtle.

The authorities expressed no regret, no remorse and certainly no apology. On the contrary, they scolded the press for even reporting the snub. No surprise. Chinas ostentatious rudeness was perfectly reflective of the worlds general disdain for President Obama. His high-minded lectures about global norms and demands that others live up to their international obligations are no longer amusing. Theyre irritating.

Foreign leaders have reciprocated by taking this administration down a notch knowing they pay no price. In May 2013, Vladimir Putin reportedly kept the U.S. secretary of state cooling his heels for three hours outside his office before deigning to receive him. Even as Obama was hailing the nuclear deal with Iran as a great breakthrough, the ayatollah vowed no change in his policy, which remained diametrically opposed to U.S. arrogant system. The mullahs followed by openly conducting illegal ballistic missile tests  calculating, correctly, that Obama would do nothing. And when Iran took prisoner 10 American sailors in the Persian Gulf, made them kneel and broadcast the video, what was the U.S. response?

Upon their release, John Kerry publicly thanked Iran for its good conduct. Why should Xi treat Obama with any greater deference? Beijing illegally expands into the South China Sea, meeting only the most perfunctory pushback from the U.S. Obama told CNN that he warned Xi to desist or there will be consequences. Is there a threat less credible? Putin annexes Crimea and Obama crows about the isolation he has imposed on Russia. Look around. Moscow has become Grand Central Station for Middle East leaders seeking outside help in their various conflicts.

As for Ukraine, both the French president and the German chancellor have hastened to Moscow to plead with Putin to make peace. Some isolation. Iran regularly harasses our vessels in the Persian Gulf. Russian fighters buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea. And just Wednesday, a Russian fighter flew within 10 feet of an American military jet. The price they paid? Being admonished that such provocations are unsafe and unprofessional. An OSHA citation is more ominous. Add to that American acquiescence not just to ransoming hostages held by Iran, but to delivering the loot by unmarked plane filled with stacks of cold (untraceable) cash, like a desert drug deal. Why the stealth?

Obviously to conceal the manner of the transaction from Congress and the American public. Some humiliations are so grotesque that even the Obama team cant miss it. Now the latest. At the G-20, Obama said he spoke to Putin about cyberwarfare, amid revelations that Russian hackers have been interfering in our political campaigns. We are more technologically advanced, both offensively and defensively, in this arena than any of our adversaries, said Obama, but we really dont want another Cold War-style arms race.

Instead, we must all adhere to norms of international behavior. It makes you want to weep. This KGB thug adhering to norms? He invades Ukraine, annexes Crimea, bombs hospitals in Aleppo  and we expect him to observe cyber-code etiquette? Rather than exploit our technological lead  with countermeasures and deterrent threats  to ensure our own cyber safety?

Were back to 1929 when Secretary of State Henry Stimson shut down a U.S. code-breaking operation after it gave him decoded Japanese telegrams. He famously explained that gentlemen do not read each others mail. Well, comrade, Putin is no gentleman. And hes reading our mail.
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Social activist Anna Hazares disillusionment with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was once his follower, should be interpreted more in terms of what he didnt say than read on the surface. He said he had a lot of hope from Kejriwal, and in doing so he was referring to those days when they both participated in the movement against corruption. Hazares current lament is probably on account of the alleged misdemeanours of the minister just dismissed for his alleged sexual misconduct, and Kejriwals apparent inability to keep a check on who was being admitted to his party. If he is saying just that, Hazare is taking a narrow view of the scene. But if hes talking about the time of his falling out with Kejriwal because of the latters decision to form a political party and contest elections, and that partly put the purpose of the anti-corruption movement into reverse, Hazare has much to answer for himself.

Read: Kejriwal, AAP betrayed peoples expectations: Anna Hazare

Hazares view is that a movement thats kept perpetually alive provides stronger ballast to society than a party. This is the thinking of the high-minded. To this, however, Hazare appended something trite and grandfatherly: People are attracted to a party for the power it provides and hence corrupting influences are there.

This is why he is still advising Kejriwal to give up power.

What Hazare had led was more social than political. And movements with an anti-corruption content have a memory to them. When a language is corrupted, its implied it was once pristine. A CD does not die; it gets corrupted after it has run its course. The same holds good for society. To remove the blot of corruption, which had accumulated through years of misrule, Hazare sat below Gandhis bust in a meditative posture with his eyes closed, arousing peoples yearning for an age thats long gone and yet could be brought back. Though he had a specific issue such as the enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill, he grew around himself layers of thinking and emotions, and hence India Against Corruption could acquire a countrywide reach in a matter of days, something that had not been seen before. In this it was helped no doubt by television and the social media. Hazare was a man with a mission and who could carry his mission forward if not the doughty Kejriwal!

Read: AAP govt facing hurdles as it does not have any setting, says Kejriwal

Then why did Kejriwal leave Hazare? Though he has not given an answer to this, a fair surmise could be made. Kejriwal has grown up in an environment far removed from the idyllic world seen through Hazares eyes. It was a universe that comprised essentially honest and yet conservative human beings. In such an idyllic environment religion could be easily intertwined and that is precisely the reason the RSS supported the movement. To my mind it was the principal factor  these contrasting world views  in the movement coming apart. Hazare, perhaps in his innocence, could not capture the import of taking support from the RSS. Kejriwal did and chose for himself another path, maybe out of compulsion. So did some others who latched on to Kejriwal. Some couldnt and the usual hustle-bustle of politics took over.

Kejriwal did not share Hazares near-rejection of parliamentary democracy. His being in the higher echelons of government service could not allow him that space. He could not reconcile himself to the posture that the movement was superior to parliament when it came to law-making. We all know, and Kejriwal too does, that there is corruption in politics. But from that premise to say that politicians are all thieves, and Hazare said that, is a quantum leap that Kejriwal could not have taken.

Read: Hazare to set up gramrakshak dal to end illegal liquor business

Therefore, the balance of choice lay more with Kejriwal than Hazare. The movement that had generated millenarian hopes has all but tapered off and this is not just because of Kejriwal deserting ship. Hazare must now be a lonely man and his belief that he can still show Kejriwal the right path betrays his loneliness.

Hazare need not rue the fact that he is seeing in Kejriwal a changed person. Part of his message will always hold good. In consonance with that, his stance that his morality be given primacy over the peoples will in Parliament will have a place in the public mind and find expression from time to time. Men like Hazare appear from time to time, play their part and vanish.

Where does this leave Kejriwal? Is he secure in the fact that he has parted ways with Hazare? Such a sense of security may turn out to be illusory for him.

uddalok.bhattacharya@hindustantimes.com

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The separatists security is integral to Indias security interests in the Valley. That might seem an oxymoron. But thats how statecraft works.

What Chanakya propounded centuries ago is relevant still: saam (persuade), daam (purchase), dand (punish), bhed (exploit weaknesses).

The ground rules havent changed. Security is another name for surveillance  for it provides the State access to separatists. Money is the means to lure them. These instruments come in handy as much to penalise or to exploit their secrets and shortcomings.

Some indignant simplifiers  a phrase The Politico used for Donald Trump  have termed as unconstitutional and illegal the funding of groups acting against the countrys interests. That reminds one of former R&AW chief RN Kaos riposte to the then Premier Morarji Desai when he accused the agency of engaging in illegal activities in the 1970s. Theres no legal way of collecting intelligence abroad, he told the PM.

Over decades, separatist groups, be they in the north-east or in Kashmir, have been funded to win them over, play one against the other and to cultivate informants in their ranks. Veteran journalist Asoka Raina, who authored the book Inside RAW, quoted Kao to explain it all: The more expensive the sugar, the better the information

It isnt the best kept secret in intelligence circles that money sustained the third option  freedom from India and Pakistan  as a counter to the pro-Pak Hurriyat phalanx. Funds have been planted and recovered to show them as being destined to separatists from across the border.

Not that the separatists dont receive material support  besides moral and political  from Islamabad. Such hauls are orchestrated as an excuse to detain them or impede their moments, claimed an intelligence operative.

These shouldnt be a subject of discussion in public. Their complexities arent easy to follow, said Wajahat Habibullah, a former J&K cadre IAS officer who served in Rajiv Gandhis PMO. The demand may be there (for withdrawing security of separatists). But I dont see how effective it will be in opening dialogue thats the only way forward.

Raina for his part was more candid: Those whore raising it are playing to the gallery. Itll achieve nothing. You can monitor the separatists better if you give them protection. They either be asked to leave the country, which is easier said than done, or they be secured, he said.

The argument has weight. The Indian State will face the security fall-out from harm coming to any Hurriyat leader  one among whom, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is the head priest of Kashmir.

There are conflicting views on the traction the separatists have with the agitating youth. Elements among them have been used in the past by security agencies for covertly reaching out to militants, said an official.

If nothing else, the Hurriyat prevents a wholesale transfer of the insurgencys levers to Pakistan: theyre pro-Pakistan but they arent in Pakistan. Weve to ensure that they arent bumped off, the official surmised. Feeble or strong, they can be our line of communication to the protesters.
Actor Anupam Kher has strongly denied making disparaging comments about veteran actor Rekha after her husband, Mukesh Aggarwal, committed suicide in 1990. A biography  Rekha: The Untold Story  by author Yasser Usman quotes Kher as having said: She has become the national vamp. Professionally and personally  I dont know how will I react if I come face to face with her.

Anupam Kher, Subhash Ghai had said insensitive things about Rekha, after her husbands suicide. (Photo: Sachin Kadvekar/ Fotocorp)

However, Kher tweeted on Thursday:

Apparently in a book about Rekha ji, some lines r attributed to me. It is all RUBBISH & NOT my language. I have the Greatest regard for her.  Anupam Kher (@AnupamPkher) September 8, 2016

Read: New book on Rekha looks at the Bollywood divas life with sympathy and awe

Usman attributes Khers vamp comment in his book to an interview of the actor in Stardust magazine (issue Nov, 1990). He (Kher) wasnt the only one, many from the industry had said very insensitive things about her (Rekha). This was the time when she was going through a personal crisis, but her own colleagues didnt sympathise with her, says the author.

Mukesh Aggarwal and Rekha (photo: Mala Kumal).

Thats not all. Filmmaker Subhash Ghai had reportedly, said: Rekha has put such a blot on the face of the film industry that itll be difficult to wash it away easily. I think after this any respectable family will think twice before accepting any actress as their bahu.

Mukesh Aggarwal was found hanging in his Delhi house by Rekhas dupatta (1990). Those quotes are part of the chapter called Witch Hunt. In such tragic times, she was subjected to a witch hunt of sorts. Later, Rekha gave an interview saying that only Shashi Kapoor had sent a not to her offering condolences, says Usman, whose book has been published by Juggernaut. The biography also recounts how difficult it would have been for a teenager Rekha to work in an industry that branded her as a sex kitten all when she was 14 years old.

Read: Kirron Kher leads actor MPs with 85% attendance, Rekha finishes last

During the shoot of Anjana Safar, As soon as director Raj Nawathe said action, Biswajeet took Rekha in his arms and pressed his lips on hers. Rekha was stunned. This kiss had never been mentioned to her. The camera kept rolling; neither was the director ordering cut nor was Biswajeet letting go of her. For all of five minutes, Biswajeet kept kissing Rekha. Unit members were whistling and cheering. Her eyes were tightly shut but they were full of tears, narrates the book.

Rekha - The Untold Story by Yasser Usman (Publisher: Juggernaut; Price: 499) narrates the story of a 14-year-old girl who faced tough times in the industry to become the star that she is today.

The book is an attempt to present a more realistic picture of the star. Although, the writer has not been able to interview Rekha herself, he has managed to interview people who know Rekha, the person, and has collated the information from various published material or interviews which are already in public domain.

The book is a story of a woman who was dragged into films at a tender age of 13-14, and had to put up with a sexist industry. Her biological father, Gemini Ganesan, a star himself, never accepted Rekhas mother as his wife or the kids as his own. Rekha was forced to be the breadwinner for her family which was heavily in debt. Heres a woman who loved, lost and lived.

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Quite likely you havent heard of brothers, Pat and Lolly Vasquez-Vegas. I wouldnt have either if I hadnt ended up listening to Witch Queen of New Orleans, a song that references New Orleans storied voodoo culture. And thats how I learnt about Pat (bass and vocals) and Lollys (guitar and vocals) band, Redbone. The two brothers are native Americans tracing their ancestry to Yaqui and Shoshone tribes, which makes their band the first native American rock band when Redbone was formed in 1970. I heard Witch Queen... quite randomly on a podcast and on an impulse decided to check out Redbone.

For starters, I played a 1971 album by the band with the same name, Witch Queen of New Orleans. The original cover of the album depicts a 19th century scene showing native Americans on horseback with a large cluster of teepees in the background in what is clearly a settlement of Americas original inhabitants who were dispossessed of their land and livelihood systematically by European colonisers and later the American government, often with violence. The Witch Queen album doesnt have it but Redbone have a song titled We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee. Those having some familiarity with Native American history will know about the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in a reservation in South Dakota, when a US cavalry regiment shot and killed 150 men, women and children and injured many more. The incident was a controversy that raged for years, and only a century later in the 1990s did the US government formally apologise to the indigenous people for it. In We Were All Wounded..., a song that was not aired for years because of its lyrics, Redbone remember the victims and the horrors of that massacre.

The Vasquez-Vegas brothers and their band have another interesting connection. Jimi Hendrix. The legendary guitarist who traced in his ancestry some Cherokee blood, apparently encouraged and inspired the formation of Redbone and, according to some reports, had great regard for their music.

Redbone played a brand of rock that had many influences: rhythm and blues featured prominently; and although they were a California band, a strong New Orleans touch of jazz and blues. On the album I heard, some songs have tribal roots such as Chant: 13th Hour. But thats an exception. Most of Redbones music is very accessible and unalloyed rock  well, actually Id say rock that is alloyed with funk, soul and other influences. But the native American spirit always guided the band. Frontman Pat Vegas has said Redbone was not just a band but a movement to give a voice to Americas indigenous people.

Blo were likely the first band from Africa to play 1970s rock with psychedelic influences.

The second recent discovery came from my truffle-sniffing friend, Hemant (a man whos been referenced more than a couple of times in this column). First, a bit about him. An inveterate audiophile, Hemant does things that could make you wonder how thin the line between sanity and insanity that he treads is. He has more than a dozen amplifiers  from vintage tube amps to wooden 40-year-olds to stuff that has been customised and so on. He has more speakers than he has amps, of course, and makes it a point to permute, combine and play all of this as part of his normal regimen. Occasionally, Hemant sends me a new band or musician that hes sniffed out and what he sends is invariably a great discovery.

Last fortnight, it was an album by a band Id never heard of, Blo. They were a Nigerian band, active for 10 years: 1972-82. If Redbone were the first native American band of their kind, Blo were quite likely the first band to come out of Africa that played 1970s rock with strong psychedelic influences. I read that lead guitarist Berkely Jones, drummer Laolu Akintobi and bass guitarist Gbenga Odumosu were influenced by bands such as The Grateful Dead but also that before forming Blo the trio was part of drummer Ginger Bakers shortlived rock-jazz fusion project, Salt. Of course, we all know Baker  the famed drummer of Cream and Blind Faith and other projects.

Blos Phases 1972-82 (the album Hemant e-gifted) was an eye-opener. I had no idea that this was a band doing what it was doing during that decade, that is, playing brilliantly trippy rock. Funky beats, fantastic guitar solos and a sound that ought to have made them soar to the top. On Preacher Man, funk meets 1970s-style Bay Area psychedelia; on Miss Sagit, a vocal-less adventure, the guitar ascends heights that should have easily netted fame for the band. Sadly, that didnt happen. Not finding success outside of Nigeria despite a lot of touring, Blo experimented with other genres, disco even, before they disbanded. Pity. But the albums are there to explore.

Tailpiece:

(Getty Images)

For some strange (and I bet prudish) reason, iTuness store in India doesnt let you buy Frank Oceans Blonde. So one had to pursue other methods to get hold of his much-awaited album. Blonde had been awaited feverishly by the R&B sensations fans.

His previous album Channel Orange was unconventional and eccentric but a huge hit and before Blonde came out, social media and the Internet were abuzz with rumours, teasers and red herrings. Now that its out, was it worth the wait? Well, Blonde is as unconventional as Channel Orange was but in a different way. Drum less stretches on its 17 tracks can sound more intimate, emotional and intricate. And, like the previous album, its a grower.

From HT Brunch, September 11, 2016

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Did you know that there was a secret formula behind the fried chicken that KFC serves? Me neither. But apparently, there is one and for all of the last month the American media have thrilled to the revelation that this formula may now have been discovered.

If you are as baffled as I am, a little background may help. Fried chicken is a traditional dish from the southern part of the United States. Most southern states have their own signature versions, though sometimes these seem a little contrived. For instance, Chicken Maryland is the same old fried chicken served with a slice of canned pineapple.

But the version that has travelled around the world is Kentucky Fried Chicken, marketed by a fast-food chain that has had many owners.

Though the chain now calls itself just KFC and is owned by Yum Brands Inc, its heritage dates back to a man called Colonel Harland David Sanders. There was a time when pictures of a genial old codger used to appear outside every Kentucky Fried Chicken store. This was Colonel Sanders and the chicken was allegedly made to his original recipe.

KFC still makes a big deal about the Colonels recipe and keeps it locked up in a digital safe that is encased in two-feet of concrete and monitored day and night by video cameras and motion sensors.

I find all this giggle-worthy and hopelessly publicity driven. But judging by the way America has gone mad over the discovery of the recipe, perhaps I am just too Indian to understand the Colonels legacy. A Chicago Tribune reporter found a handwritten recipe in an old scrapbook and printed the list of 11 herbs and spices that went into the Colonels secret batter. Frankly, I found it unexceptional except for the use of white pepper, a spice that could not have been very popular in the American south in 1940.

Yum Brands Inc has been cagey about the recipes authenticity. The official version is that other ingredients also constitute the KFC formula. But one of those ingredients may well be monosodium glutamate, so unless the Colonel also had a secret commission in the Japanese army in 1940 with access to a stash of ajinomoto, theyve probably tweaked the recipe a little while trumpeting the Colonels legacy for publicity purposes.

But then, arent most secret recipes about hype? Take the most famous secret recipe in the world, the original Coca-Cola formula. This is also locked up in a vault somewhere and only a handful of people have access to the full recipe.

But ask yourself this: if the secret of Coke is so hard to find, then why do most Colas taste broadly the same? Yes, Pepsi does taste different from Coke. (One technical explanation is that the Pepsi formula uses vanillin while Coke uses vanilla. But who knows?) But is it necessarily any better or worse than Coke? In the 1980s, Pepsi conducted a taste test called the Pepsi Challenge across the US. It claimed that a majority of consumers picked Pepsi over Coke in blind tastings. The Coca-Cola companys response was to tweak the formula of Coke so that it tasted more like Pepsi and to relaunch the drink as New Coke. This was such a fiasco that they eventually brought back the old Coke.

The original Coca-Cola formula is perhaps the most famous secret recipe in the world. (Shutterstock)

So, I am never convinced by the claim that the Coca-Cola recipe is so valuable that it needs special security and protection. In the Indian market, for instance, Coke is routinely outsold by Thums Up, a drink invented in Bombay. This is despite Cokes refusal to spend much money to advertise Thums Up (which it now owns) while spending crores on the mother brand.

Most people in the food business will tell you that the only secret recipe they respect is the formula for Heinz tomato ketchup. As Malcolm Gladwell noted in a famous essay for The New Yorker, the Heinz ketchup is almost perfect with just the right umami kick and vinegar sourness. Though it is an industrial product, it always beats artisanal ketchups in blind tastings.

So, will anyone crack that formula?

Well, I think they already have. I wrote some years ago about organizing blind tastings that featured Heinz, along with another big name international ketchup and Indias very own Cremica. Lots of foreign hoteliers who swore by Heinz were unable to pick it out of the three and many preferred Cremica. Since then, Veeba, another domestic producer, has sent me early batches of their ketchup and it is also excellent.

All this leaves me a little sceptical about special formulas and secret recipes.

There is, however, one exception to this rule. And that is the Secret Masala Exception. It works like this: all Indian recipes ultimately stand or fall on the quality of the spicing. A great Indian chef is not necessarily the man who makes the best rotis or knows how long a chicken should stay in the tandoor. The top Indian chefs are the ones who understand how to create the perfect spicing for each dish.

Throughout the centuries, the great chefs have been possessive about their spice mixtures and have refused to share them with anyone. The recipes are only passed on from father to son.

I know of many catering college-trained chefs who have been excited to host traditional cooks in their kitchens. The chefs believe that once they watch these cooks in action, they will learn how to cook the perfect korma or to reproduce a great biryani. In fact, they never learn anything because the cooks either mix the masalas when no one is looking or come with masalas that have been pre-mixed and packed in little pouches.

In the popular imagination, this practice is usually associated with the great Avadhi chefs. And while it is true that they are unusually secretive, they are not the only ones to hold on to their recipes. The greatest living Goan chef is Urbano Rego and though hundreds of chefs have worked with him over the decades, I doubt if Rego has let any of them really learn the tricks of his trade. At Muthus in Singapore, famous for inventing fish head curry, I was surprised to learn that the family of the founder will not part with the secret of the masala. Early each morning, a member of the family arrives at the kitchen and mixes the masala for the day. The line cooks never have any idea of what it contains.

One reason why ITC has the best North Indian food is because it allows traditional chefs to keep their secrets. The great Imtiaz Quereshi turns into Pinocchio if you ask him what his recipes are. The Dum Pukht kitchens all over India are filled with Imtiazs relatives who will cheerfully dissemble when they are asked to explain what masalas they use.

Other chains have learnt this the hard way. In the 1990s, the Taj stole two chefs from ITC and opened Sonargaon at the Taj Bengal with a menu that relied on ITC favourites. Within months, ITC had lured the chefs back and the food collapsed. I remember going in for lunch one day and ordering the kakori kebab.

We cant do it, the manager told me sadly.

I was perplexed. Why not? I asked.

Weve made the keema mixture but we cant get the damn thing to stay on the skewer. It keeps falling off, he explained.

But didnt your guys learn how to make it?

No, those chefs never let us learn how they did it, he responded angrily.

Over time however, even the secrets of the great North Indian chefs will spill out. In the early days of Bukhara, Madan Jaiswal, the chef, would prepare the marinades for the kebabs in secret. But now, JP Singh, the current chef, has cracked Madans recipes and is happy to share them with chefs at Peshawaris (the Bukhara clones) all over India.

Thats a welcome development. Despite the romance of the Secret Masala Exception, food should not be about secrets. It should be about sharing and learning.

Lets leave the hype and the secrets to Colonel Sanders and Coca-Cola.

From HT Brunch, September 11, 2016

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Nimrat Kaur as Tasneem Qureshi, the nefarious ISI agent in Homeland and now, an architect in M Night Shyamalans Wayward Pines. Priyanka Chopra as FBI agent Alex Parrish in Quantico... Indian actors today are being recognised abroad for their talent and are not confined to playing characters hailing from the subcontinent. Also, foreign actors are comfortably fitting into the shoes and accents of Indian characters. Here is a curated list:

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon |The Simpsons

Voiced by: Hank Azaria

His first name is a homage to Satyajit Rays Apu Trilogy. Hes the workaholic owner of a convenience store in Springfield who, though genial, has no qualms in ripping off his customers. His trademark Thank you Come again in a thick stereotypical Indian accent is often slammed as racist. Yet he is one of the most prominent South Asian characters on prime time TV in the US. Hank Azaria, who voices Apu, gets the Indian accent spot on  it has got him three Emmy awards! The show airs on Star World.

Ellaria Sand | Game of Thrones

Played by: Indira Varma

Kama Sutra girl Indira Varma plays Ellaria Sand  a recurring character in the last three seasons of Game of Thrones. The bisexual bastard daughter of a noble man and the paramour of Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, shes a vengeful and conniving character who might show allegiance to Daenerys in the next season. The show is supposed to be back on Star World Premiere late next year.

CeCe Parekh | New Girl

Played by: Hannah Simone

CeCe Parekh is a model-turned-bartender who is best friend to protagonist Jessica Day. And apparently she had lost her virginity to Mick Jagger! Shes loving and protective, and always ready with good dating advice. Her parents are of Indian descent, she was born in Portland, Oregon, and shes pretty close to her LA-based dadi and her big, fat Indian family. Renewed for a fifth season, New Girl will soon air on Star World.

Kala Dandekar | Sense8

Played by: Tina Desai

Kala Dandekar is one of the eight sensates in this Netflix sci-fi drama series. A brilliant pharmacist and a devout Hindu, shes betrothed to a man she doesnt want to marry (Rajan Rasal played by Purab Kohli). She eventually falls in love with another guy. The show has a full-blown Indian track. It is speculated that shell be the focus of the second season, which is scheduled to return to Netflix later this year or early 2017.

Safar Khan | The Night of

Played by: Poorna Jagannathan

This HBO show follows a lawyers journey to save a Pakistani-American student, Naz, whos accused of murder. Its one of the most popular shows currently on air. (Even Shah Rukh Khan admits to being hooked!) Delhi Belly actress Poorna Jagannathan, earlier seen in shows like House of Cards and Law & Order, plays Safar Khan, Nazs mother. You can watch the show on Star World Premiere HD.

Vikram Singh | Castle

Played by: Sunkrish Bala

Sunkrish Bala, who has earlier played Dr Caleb Subramanian on The Walking Dead, is already winning hearts for his deft portrayal of a computer analyst for the NYPD. Since his is one of the most anticipated characters to be introduced this season, we will not reveal much. It starts airing on Star World this month.

Dr Ravi Chakrabarti | iZombie

Played by: Rahul Kohli

He is one of the main characters in this loose adaptation of DC Comics series by the same name. The show is about Liv, an over-achieving medical resident whose life changes drastically when shes turned into a zombie. Ravi is Livs friend and confidante. Its currently playing on Colors Infinity.

From HT Brunch, September 11, 2016

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Yoga guru Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurveda launched its mega food park on a 230-acre land at an industrial hub in Nagpur on Saturday, promising to employ 10,000 people and engage 50,000 farmers of the region in trade.

We are fighting to bring economic independence from multi-nationals by promoting indigenous and natural products, Ramdev said at the launch in the presence of Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, and a huge gathering of farmers.

The company plans to develop a Rs 1,000-crore food park at Multi-model International Cargo Hub and Airport, Nagpur (MIHAN), where juices would be made from famous Nagpuri oranges and for the first time packaged as a brand.

The plant would be Patanjalis first expansion from its facility near Haridwar in Uttarkhand.

Gadkari, who was instrumental in getting the yoga guru to invest in the region, claimed that Patanjali would be a boon to farmers of Vidarbha region, infamous for farmer suicides, and it would transform Nagpur.

He said tribals from Gadchiroli, Gondia and Chandrapur, who make a living collecting forest produce, like medicinal plants and herbs, will benefit tremendously.

Farmers will be trained by Patanjali to grow crops like orange, aloe vera, tomato and herbs and given a purchase guarantee. A team of scientists and experts would also provide help.

Fadnavis dismissed Congress leader Vilas Muttemwars allegations that the government has given MIHAN land to Patanjali at a throwaway price, saying there was a total transparency.

We floated tenders thrice and Patanjali Ayurveda was found to be the right choice as per central vigilance commission norms, he claimed.

He also said that Ramdevs company had also assured to procure raw materials worth Rs 100 crore from farmers and tribals in the region, and train at least 2,000 farmers a year across Maharashtra to improve productivity, quality and acquire market intelligence for agro business development.

Patanjali has assured to fulfill all these norms, he said.

The plant is expected to link nearly 50,000 farmers suppliers, create direct employment for over 10,000 people and eventually provide indirect employment to lakhs of families.

Muttemwar had demanded a CBI probe into the deal, accusing the state government of giving land at Rs 25 lakh per acre as against the market rate of Rs 60 lakh an acre.

He said the BJP-led state government had acquired land from farmers and was giving it on a platter to Patanjali as a special favour in return for Ramdev campaigning for 2014 polls.
Credit card major MasterCard is facing a lawsuit filed on Thursday seeking 14 billion (around $18.7 billion or Rs 1.23 lakh crore) in damages  the largest legal claim in British history  over allegations it overcharged 46 million consumers in the UK.

MasterCard said it would oppose the lawsuit.

Filed by law firm Quinn Emanuel in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the lawsuit relates to fees imposed by MasterCard on businesses that accepted its debit and credit cards between 1992 and 2008.

According to Quinn Emanuel, the fees  known as interchange fees  were set at an unlawfully high level and pushed up prices for British consumers. The claim was brought by Walter Merricks, the UKs former chief financial services ombudsman.

It is the first claim to be filed under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 on behalf of all UK consumers. The Act enables a collective damages claim to be brought on behalf of a class of people who have suffered loss.

MasterCard had the option to accept that its card fees were set at an unlawfully high level and reach a settlement with the European Commission to lower its fees. It chose not to do that and instead imposed these unlawfully high card fees for nearly 16 years whilst it engaged in a decade-long legal battle with the Commission. MasterCard lost this battle at every level and showed complete disregard for its cardholders and consumers at large, focusing instead on generating unlawful profits, Quinn Emanuel said.

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In his superb short book on Jawaharlal Nehru, Walter Crocker writes of our first prime ministers first visit to the United States, in 1949. There was a great reception thrown for the visitor in Americas greatest city, where a famous banker began his welcome speech by saying: Mr. Neroo, there are fifty billion dollars sitting around this table

These words were meant to impress the Indian prime minister, but they didnt. For Nehru had an aversion to business and businessmen. His disdain for commerce was a combination of his Brahminical background and his British education (first at the hands of British aristocrats, then at the hands of British socialists, both groups who disliked and distrusted businessmen in general and American businessmen in particular).

In his 17 years as Prime Minister, Nehru shunned businessmen. None of his close friends were entrepreneurs. That was a matter of personal choice, which one can understand. What was more damaging was how, as prime minister, Nehru consistently underappreciated the contribution, actual and potential, of business and businessmen to economic growth and the creation of jobs. While as a vulnerable, newly independent country, India could not have adopted a fully laissez-faire economic policy at Independence, by the late 1950s, when the countrys unity was secure and an industrial base was built, Nehru could (and perhaps should) have liberalised the economy, given freer play to market forces, and encouraged entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.

Nehrus aversion to businessmen was unwarranted and perhaps unproductive. But have Indian politicians, and even prime ministers, now gone to the other extreme in their too eager embrace of business and businessmen? I ask this question in the context of the recent Reliance Jio advertisement featuring a large photograph of Narendra Modi (this paper also carried that advertisement).

Read: Modi in Reliance Jio ad legal, but Twitter cant stop talking about it

The placement of the photo (dominating the full page ad) made it seem as if the prime minister was endorsing this new commercial scheme/product, as its brand ambassador. The text accompanying the photo tended to reinforce this impression. It read: In the journey of time, there come a few life changing moments. Our honourable Prime Ministers inspiring vision of a Digital India is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realising our Prime Ministers Digital India vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio Digital Life will give the power of data to each Indian, to fulfill every dream and collectively take India to the global digital leadership

When I first saw this advertisement, the morning it appeared, I thought  surely the prime minister does not know of this. The ad seemed an attempt to misuse the prime ministers name and image in pursuit of a private companys profit-oriented agenda. Hours passed, and there was no disavowal from the Prime Ministers Office. Then I phoned a journalist friend in Delhi, who checked with the PMO, who said that the consent for using the prime ministers photo in a commercial advertisement had been asked for, and granted, beforehand.

Read: 13 years later, Reliance set to disrupt Indias telecom market again

I spoke earlier of Nehrus distrust of entrepreneurs. Notably, this distrust was not shared by other nationalists of the time. Vallabhbhai Patel, C Rajagopalachari and Mohandas Gandhi all believed that some businessmen were true patriots, whose industry and enterprise could be harnessed for the welfare of the nation. These leaders also befriended individual businessmen. Patel was close to GD Birla, Rajagopalachari was close to JRD Tata. Gandhi was close to GD Birla, closer to Ambalal Sarabhai, and closest of all to Jamnalal Bajaj, whom he regarded as a fifth son. But none of these leaders (all of whom Modi has praised at one time or another) would ever have allowed themselves to be seen indirectly or directly endorsing a commercial product, even if this be made and sold by a company owned by a close friend.

Successive prime ministers images, however, have featured in public sector companies advertising.

In terms of personality and political style, Modi differs radically from his predecessor as prime minister. Yet there is one respect in which he is indeed akin to Dr Manmohan Singh; his reputation for personal honesty. Dr Singhs professional credibility suffered enormously because of the corruption of the second UPA regime, for which, as prime minister, he was rightly held responsible. But no one believed that he or his family profited from the underhand dealings of his government. Likewise, despite Modis perceived closeness to a few individual businessmen, not even his most bitter critics think that he is personally on the take.

Read: Kapil Sharma tweets bribery complaint to Modi, Fadnavis promises action

Which is what makes the prime ministers endorsement of Reliance Jio so unfortunate. For the message it shall send to less scrupulous politicians is that they can make themselves even more amenable to commercial interests and pressures. The interpenetration of business and politics has already gone far enough in India. Both regional and national parties have allowed businessmen to buy seats and even ministerships. It is known that some MPs are paid to ask questions on behalf of business interests in Parliament, and that other MPs often accept hospitality for themselves and their families from corporate houses.

The Reliance Jio advertisement may have been illegal, violating the Emblems and Names Act. It was certainly improper. Back in January 2015, the prime minister courted some controversy for wearing a suit bearing his name. But that was merely an act of individual vanity. The lending of his name and photo to this Reliance ad is a breach of public propriety.

Ramachandra Guhas most recent book is Gandhi Before India

Twitter: @Ram_Guha

The views expressed are personal

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Hallelujah praise the Lord! For once I agree with every thought the Prime Minister has expressed. Hes literally taken the words out of my mouth. In fact, I couldnt have put it better myself.

In an interview to Network18 the Prime Minister spoke of the need for media criticism of the government  Mera yeh spasht mat hai ki sarkaron ki, sarkar ke kaam-kaaj ka, kathor se kathor analysis hona chahiye, criticism hona chahiye. Warna loktantra chal hi nahi sakta hai (My clear opinion is that there should be the strictest possible analysis of the government and the work done by it. Otherwise, democracy cannot run).

In fact, Mr Modi went one critical step further. He defined clearly the outcome if the media ceased or failed to be critical  Sarkaron mein jo sudharna chahiye, jo ek dar paida hona chahiye, wah dar bhi nikal jata hai. Aur yeh dar agar sarkaron mein se nikal jayega tho desh ka nuksan bahut hoga. Isliye main tho chahta hoon ki media bahut hi critical ho (Whatever improvement needs to be brought about in governance and the fear that needs to be created, that fear goes. And if the fear goes, it will be a big loss for the country. Thats why I want the media to be very critical).

Read: Modi expresses unhappiness over media coverage of Kashmir protests

The question is: Do Mr Modi and his ministers practise what the Prime Minister has so perfectly preached? I dont wish to recall the fact he walked out of an interview in 2007, when he was chief minister of Gujarat. Thats history. It deserves to be forgotten and I have put it behind me. But what about today?

With one solitary and honourable exception, Mr Modis ministers seem to have stopped giving interviews. His partys spokespersons have stopped appearing on my programmes. One of them was good enough to admit they have been asked not to. The party doesnt like your questions and your attitude, was his explanation.

At least one senior minister has confirmed theres a problem. He offered to look into the matter and get it resolved. Four months have passed but he hasnt got back. I dont suppose he will.

A few months ago a BJP general secretary gave me an interview and, when I thanked him, laughed and said his colleagues wouldnt thank him. They would be upset hed spoken to me! Perhaps this is why several ministers have agreed to interviews and, on occasion, even fixed dates, only to postpone and never reschedule. One was frank enough to say that if his seniors dont give interviews how could he.

To be honest, I dont think my experience is unusual though the boycott may be more prolonged and more comprehensive. The common experience of most journalists is this government doesnt encourage questioning. It certainly doesnt welcome criticism. And, when its criticised, it doesnt take it on the chin.

So, now, you know why Im delighted by what Mr Modi has said. The only worrying thought, niggling at the back of my mind, is that this is the sort of thing politicians always say. It sounds right. Indeed, the Prime Minister could hardly have said the opposite.

Read: RBI guv Rajans reappointment shouldnt be of interest to media: Modi

However, having spoken and so forcefully, the onus is on Mr Modi  and his ministers  to live up to these sentiments. The Prime Minister can hardly welcome and encourage the harshest of criticism if his ministers continue to scuttle and run for cover each time a journalist asks an awkward question or presents an unwelcome fact. Mr Modi has made a loud and public claim and, now, he and his ministers have to live up to it.

So, are things about to change? Perhaps the countless letters Ive written to innumerable ministers, which have so far gone unanswered, will receive a positive response. I wait to find out. My fingers are crossed but I cant say Im confident of getting the long-awaited yes.

The views expressed are personal

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SAMAYPUR, FARIDABAD: Ankur Panwars family plans to move the Bombay High Court against the death sentence awarded to him for allegedly throwing acid at a Delhi nurse and killing her.

Ankur is the first person to be given death for throwing acid at Preeti Rathi at Bandra Railway Station in May 2013. She succumbed to her injuries a month later. After her death, the Supreme Court ordered to regulate the sale of acid.

Ankurs family claimed their boy is being framed by Mumbai Police. The police had framed another boy, Pawan, in the case, who served three months in jail and was honourably discharged, Ankurs father Narayan Lal Panwar, 52, said.

In Ankurs case, too, the police presented false witnesses in the court, he said.

To express their sympathies, Panwars friends are visiting him at his house in Samaypur village, Faridabad, 60 kilometres from Delhi. Panwar shifted to Faridabad from Narela after the Mumbai Police arrested his son in January 2014.

Lal, who heard the court verdict on television, shows several letters that he wrote to the local MP Udit Raj and Union home minister Rajnath Singh between 2014 and 2015, demanding CBI probe in the case.

He has a letter from the home minister in response to a recommendation from Udit Raj, promising to look into the case. The Mumbai Police said my son travelled to Mumbai on May 1 via Ga rib Ra th Express, the same train that Preeti and her family boarded, Panwar said.

They failed to show my sons name on the list of passengers and later claimed that he had bribed two ticket collectors, Rs 500 each, to travel on the train. It is surprising how Ankur managed to travel with a litre of acid in an AC compartment, he said.

He also doubted Preetis uncle, who told police that he saw Ankur throwing acid at her. The police said the man who threw acid had covered his face with a handkerchief, Panwar said.

Ankurs mother Kailash Rani asked why Preeti s father, who was also with her, didnt recognise her son and only her uncle saw him.

The Mumbai police alleged my son was in love with Preeti and murdered her because I often compared him to Preeti, Panwar said. But the charge is absurd. How is that even possible as he was studying at the Industrial Training Institute in Bhubaneswar for three years, he said.

According to the train reservation details that the police have, my son boarded the train on April 27 after his exams and reached Delhi on April 30, two days before incident, she said citing the police report .They alleged he left Delhi on May 1. Is it possible that he started liking her on April 30, I scolded him and he bought acid the same day and boarded a train on May 1 to kill her on May 2? Panwar told HT.

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NEW DELHI: Rakesh Bala was a bit nervous when she received a call in November last year. Bala was told she had been selected to undergo training to run all-women police patrol vans. The brief sounded rigorous but Bala was up for the task.

On Friday, after spending nine months at Delhi Polices Subsidiary Training Unit in Rajender Nagar, Bala was part of a team 20 women cops ready to take to the streets -- commandeering the capitals first women-only patrol vans.

The first batch of patrol vans, consisting five cars, was flagged off by Delhi police commissioner Alok Varma on Friday.

We had all received police training before being inducted into the force. The latest of our training was different, rigorous and challenging. We used to receive special commando training for six hours in the morning. We then had to go perform our regular police duties, before returning home and taking care of our families, said Rakesh Bala.

The training, she said, began with a driving course which lasted for 60 days, followed by live firing drills, lessons on how to enhance communication skills , briefings on Indian laws, traffic rules and classes on self defence. The officers were taught how to administer first aid.

Head constable Babita, who trained along with Bala, said she felt empowered to be an armed commando in a PCR van.

We have been taught how to administer first aid before rushing victims to a hospital. We will now be first responders and can save lives, Babita said.

The head constable, who was earlier posted at south-east range, said she needed to improve her communication skills.

I need to ensure that I calm down a person in distress. So I will be practising my communication skills at home. The training has however helped me polish them to a great extent, she said.

The patrol vans that were flagged off on Friday will be deputed at five locationsVigyan Bhawan, Jesus and Mary College, Khan Market Metro Station, American Centre - Kasturba Gandhi Marg and Moti Lal Nehru Marg. Each van will be will have three women personnela driver, a female officer in-charge and an armed woman commando. The vans will be stationed from 9am to 6pm daily.

These women officers have been trained to handle sophisticated MP5 assault rifles, Glock and 9mm pistols and have been provided high-level driving skills to chase down criminals.

San jay Baniwal, special commissioner( operations) said :This is a step towards women empowerment. This pilot project will build confidence among women. We will introduce more such patrol vans soon.

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court refused on Friday to stay a Delhi high court verdict declaring the lieutenant governor (L-G) the administrative head of the national capital territory.

The top courts order is viewed as a setback to the Arvind Kejriw al government, which is engaged in a turf war with the Centres representative over administrative control of the city-state.

A bench headed by justice AK Sikri also declined to stop the functioning of a three-member panel set up by L-G Najeeb Jung to scrutinise 400-odd files related to decisions taken by the AAP government without his concurrence.

The order comes a day after the HC declared the appointment of 21 parliamentary secretaries illegal in the absence of the L-Gs approval.

While issuing notices to the Centre and the L-G on the governments petitions against the HC verdict, the bench indicated that it might refer the matter to a larger bench. The top court said it will hear the six appeals filed by the A AP government on November 15.

Every day there would be some order, we cannot pass orders on a daily basis, the bench said but also did not agree with attorney general Mukul Rohatgis suggestion that the seven appeals should be dismissed at the threshold.

The Centre questioned the affidavit accompanying appeals because it was signed by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and not a secretary, which is the usual practice. This is against the rules of the business. The affidavit in the HC was sworn by the secretary, but here it is sworn by the deputy CM. Just because you are the deputy CM, you cannot flout the rules, Rohatgi said.

Represented by a battery of senior advocates, the AAP government complained that the secretary concerned refused to sign the appeals/affidavits under the L-Gs instruction, forcing the deputy CM to sign them.

No public servant is willing to sign the papers, Venugopal told the bench. He said the appeals were aimed at resolving the issue if an elected government could work independently. The LG has taken over the administration and tied the hands of secretaries, said KK Venugopal, one of the lawyers representing the state government.

He argued the LG was Centres employee, enjoyed a master-servant relationship and was not qualified to govern Delhi.

In his counter, Rohatgi said the appeal was not maintainable because a minster cannot represent a Union territory and added that a nine-judge bench of the supreme court has already decided the issue of whether Delhi is a state or UT.

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NEW DELHI: Delhiites may soon have to shell out more for travelling on the Metro system.

Government sources told HT that the Delhi Metros Fare Fixation Committee (FCC) has recommended increasing the minimum passenger fare from Rs 8 to Rs 10 and the maximum fare from Rs 30 to Rs 50.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporations (DMRC) board, headed by urban development secretary Rajiv Gauba, will take a final call on revising the fares based on the FCCs recommendation.

If the board wants, then they can reduce the fare that the FCC has recommended but not increase it, said a source.

The last time the Delhi Metro fares were revised was back in 2009, when the minimum fare was increased from Rs 6 to Rs 8 and the maximum fare from Rs 22 to Rs 30.

The FCC  that was set up in June 9 this year to recommend a revision in fares  submitted its report on Thursday night  after its request seeking a three month extension was turned down by the Union urban development ministry.

The fare panel was due to submit its report on September 8, but at the eleventh hour had written to the urban development ministry seeking more time. The request was turned down as there is no provision in the Metro Act to provide extension to FCC beyond the mandated three months, an urban development ministry official said.

The DMRC has been requesting a fare increase since 2009, but hasnt been able to do so as the Centre failed to set up a fare panel. Since 2009, electricity tariff has gone up by over 90%, accounting for almost 30% of DMRCs total operating costs.

The three member fare panel was headed by Justice ML Mehta, a retired judge of Delhi High Court. The other two members were Delhi chief secretary KK Sharma and additional secretary in urban development ministry DS Mishra.

The fare fixation committees are temporary in nature and are set up by the Centre only when a metro rail corporation requests a fare hike.

The fare panel had come in for a lot of flak after going on a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei to study the Metro fare structure prevailing there, barely a month after it was set up.

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Depressed over the death of their son, a couple and their daughter committed suicide in their home in southwest Delhi on Friday.

Neighbours found Bhagwan Dass Yadav, 50, and his daughter, Sarita, dead in the house. Yadavs wife, Sharda, 48, died in the afternoon at Rao Tula Ram (RTR) Hospital. An ex-serviceman, Yadav was a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) driver.

Two suicide notes, written by the couple, were recovered from their house in Khera Dabar area in Jaffarpur Kalan.

The family had committed suicide by consuming aluminium phosphide, an agricultural fumigant.

Twenty days ago, the couples son, Kuldeep Yadav, 23, had allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison, just a day after Raksha Bandhan, police said. His naked body was found in the bathroom. Kuldeep was studying MBBS at a college in Kyrgyzstan.

My brother was depressed over his sons suicide. The entire family was devastated by the incident, said Vinod, Yadavs brother.

Bhagwan Dass was a former soldier working as a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) driver, and his daughter Sarita, was studying a B.Com through distance education.

Police sources said the Kuldeep was struggling with his studies and was depressed that his parents had taken huge loans to educate him. In his suicide note, he mentioned the family had been duped of Rs 35 lakh two years ago by admission agents who promised a seat in a Madhya Pradesh medical college.

Upon failing to secure a seat, the agents returned only Rs 12.5 lakh, police said, quoting the suicide note.

Kuldeep took admission in Kyrgyz college this February after the agents failed to get him a seat in any medical college in India. His family invested several more lakhs of rupees for this. The medical student was visiting his family for the festival of Raksha Bandhan.

Kuldeep was trying to isolate himself ever since he returned from Kyrgyzstan, a senior police officer said.

Police were looking for two men  Alok Sinha and Nasim  whose names were mentioned in the suicide notes, police said.

Joint commissioner of police, Deependra Pathak said the family entered into a suicide pact. He said the incident came to light around 7 am after a woman heard Sharda crying for help. The woman alerted neighbours. They found Yadav and Sarita lying on the floor. All members of the family were rushed to the RTR Hospital. While Yadav and Sarita were already dead, Sharda died in the hospital in the afternoon.

We are questioning relatives and neighbours, said Pathak.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections held on Friday had the lowest voter turnout since 2010. The voting percentage stood at 36.9% for morning colleges. In 2010, the overall voter percentage was 36%.

This year, there has been a dip of 7.41% compared to last year when the voting percentage stood at 43.3%. There are a total of 1,23,241 voters in 51 colleges who voted in the DUSU elections.

While the polls result for individual colleges was declared on Friday itself, DUSU election results will be out on Saturday where the university with elect the president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. There are a total of 18 candidates in the fray. For the past three years, ABVP has been winning all the central panel post.

This year, too , the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the students wing of the Congress party, won in 33 colleges. Out of 18 colleges where it contested, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), managed to win in one or two posts in 11 colleges.

Ramjas College had the lowest voting percentage at 13.34% and the Campus Law Centre stood at 15%. There was a low turnout at these centres as the college/centre level election was postponed in these centres.

The Campus Law Centre used to have a lot of students. Due to the postponement of the centre election, not many students turned up here, said Vikrant Yadav, third year student of the centre.

The other reason for the low turnout was because the first year students without identity cards were not allowed to vote. This year, too, due to a lot of confusion in the admission process, there are still hundreds of seats lying vacant in many colleges.

I wasnt allowed to vote at first. Then I had to go to the office and get my identity card issued, said Neha, first year Political Science student at Miranda House.

Similarly, the second and third year students, who had paid fee online till August 31, had their names on the voters list for the elections.

The DUTA movement against the evaluation boycott could only be resolved towards the end of July. This meant that results and readmissions have not been completed till now. DU then issued the notification that only those who had paid fee till August 31 could vote, said Sunny Kumar, senior member of All India Students Association (AISA).

Overall the polling was peaceful, but there were protests by students in Aurobindo College, Miranda House and Hindu college as there were alleged attempts to cast multiple votes.

We voted for the party that didnt posters, said a student of the group, No Poster Party at Miranda House.

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SRINAGAR: Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani described India on Friday as Kashmirs occupier and thanked Pakistan for being a friend and well wisher during the ongoing spell of violence in the Valley that has left 62 people dead.

Hours after his press conference was blocked by local authorities, Geelani released a letter saying Kashmir has never been as close to freedom as it was now.

Since the martyrdom of commander Burhan, there is no village and no town where people have not made it abundantly clear the only relationship between India and Kashmir is that of the occupier and the occupied, he wrote. Pakistan and its people shared our pain and raised their voice in our support. Police surrounded his residence and didnt allow journalists, photographers or cameramen to proceed. Shortly after 11am, police asked journalists to leave.

I dont know why the press conference was not allowed, the decision must have been taken at the district level. If his statement has anything anti-national or against the law, it will attract action, said state director general of police K Rajendra Kumar.

Geelanis comments came after more than two months of violence following the killing of insurgent leader Burhan Wani. At least 62 people have died  unofficial estimates put the number at 75  and thousands injured. The government blames Pakistan for fanning the unrest.

(with agency inputs)

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NEW DELHI: A host of safety features such as speed warning beeps, seat belt alarm and rear sensors will be made mandatory for all passenger cars in India from April 2018.

The Union road transport ministry decided on these features to reduce fatal car crashes in a country where more than 1,40,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2015.

Road minister Nitin Gadkari approved the proposals on Thursday.

Most developed countries, including the US, UK, and those in the European Union, have made these features mandatory long ago, said Abdul Majeed, partner automobile leader, Price Waterhouse & Co.

The additional features will increase a vehicles cost between Rs 20,000 and Rs 60,000 depending on the model. But the price factor should not matter for the lives that will be saved, he explained.

Ministry officials dismissed fears about car prices shooting up because of these measures, saying only an incremental increase can be expected.

Manufacturers provide most of these features in mid- and high-end cars, while cheaper models  which are more popular and have a larger sales volume  come without these accessories. Buyers can get them retrofitted, but thats rarely done since there is no rule now barring people from driving cars without, say, speed warning beeps.

The proposed speed alert will start beeping for a few seconds when a car hits 60kmph, start again at 80kmph, and turn into continuous series of frantic beeps when the speed exceeds 90kmph. The government feels the alarm system will help cut the number of fatalities from people driving above the speed limit. Last year, 64,633 deaths from speeding-related accidents were recorded. Manufacturers will have to put these features in all new cars, while old vehicles will have to get them retrofitted, a ministry official said.

The driver cant deactivate the beep, and it will go off when the speed is reduced.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) praised the proposed measures, but cautioned that these features will help only if enforcement is strengthened alongside.

Over-speeding is an enforcement issue. The ministry is looking at technical solution to an enforcement issue. Unless that happens, having these features will not help, said KK Gandhi, executive director, SIAM.

The rear parking sensors will get activated if a person or object comes too close to a car when the driver is reversing it. Similarly, the seat belt alarm will keep blinking or sound a recurring ping until the driver and co-passenger in the front seat fastened the belt.

The measures will go a long way in ensuring safety of drivers and fellow travelers, said Abhay Damle, joint secretary (transport) in the road ministry.
NEW DELHI: Before the JNU went to the polls on Friday, everyone thought the fight was between Left Unity and RSS-backed Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). However, the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) has emerged as a strong contender in the JNU Students Union Elections.

Students came out in huge numbers to elect their new representatives. This years 59.6% voter turnout saw a significant jump from last years 53.3%.

The election is being closely watched after the university was rocked by protests early this year that snowballed into a political firestorm following arrests of some students, including outgoing JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, on sedition charges.

Two Left parties  All India Students Association (AISA) and Students Federation of India (SFI)  came together to consolidate votes and defeat ABVP. The alliance known as Left Unity was clear who their main challenger was, but Wednesdays presidential debate changed the dynamics. Many said that BAPSA presidential candidate Sonpimple Rahul Punarams speech in the debate was the turning point.

Students decide whom they want to vote for based on what the candidate says in the debates. Last year, Kanhaiya was elected mainly based on his speech even though his party isnt very popular on the campus. The fight is tough between BAPSA and Left Unity, said Shashank, an M Phil student.

On Friday, as students lined outside the polling booths to cast their votes, it became clear that the fight, at least for the presidents position, would be triangular.

ABVP supporters said that students are not very happy with the AISA-SFI alliance and this will help consolidate votes for ABVP. There is anger among students against the alliance. ABVP is raising issues of placement cell and hostels which are important for students, said Kavita, an MA student.

The results will be declared on September 12.

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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Amanatullah Khan resigned on Saturday from all the posts he held in the Delhi government, hours before a sexual harassment case was filed against him by a relative.

The Okhla legislator, who was the Delhi Waqf Board chairman and a member of the State Haj Committee, said in his resignation letter he was being framed in false cases. His resignation came amid the controversy surrounding his arrest and the alleged Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) raid at the Waqf board office.

Later on Saturday, an FIR alleging molestation, sexual harassment, dowry harassment and threat was registered against him and his relatives at the Jamia Nagar police station by a member of his extended family.

Maandeep Singh Randhawa, deputy commissioner of police (southeast), confirmed that the FIR was registered against Khan after they received a complaint on Friday.

Sources said Khan would be asked to join the investigation. If required, the MLA could be arrested, they said.

According to police, the complainant alleged she was being tortured and harassed for dowry, allegedly by her husband and in-laws. The woman claimed the MLA demanded sexual favours from her. She accused her husband of allegedly pressuring her to do as the MLA said.

Khan told reporters that the woman had no relations with him or his family and that she had given it in writing four years ago. Without investigating, police are registering cases on random complaints. I am being targeted for exposing corruption, Khan said.

The ACB had raided the Waqf office in connection with an alleged recruitment scam involving Khan.

In his resignation letter, Khan said he had run out of patience of issuing clarifications to the public, pleading his innocence over a number of allegations levelled against him and his family members.

Some people dislike my honesty and service and false allegations are being levelled against me and my family to frame us. I want to be free from all the responsibilities given to me by the government and therefore I tender my resignation from all the posts, Khan said.

Khan was appointed the Waqf Board chairman in March this year. Last week, he accused Delhis Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung of witch-hunt.

Khan said the ACB was targeting him because he was fighting against politicians who had usurped Waqf property.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) swept the Delhi University Students Union( DUSU) elections on Saturday, winning three of the top posts.

The National Student Union of India (NSUI) took one seat. The results were declared on Saturday.

In 2014 and 2015, the ABVP, affiliated to the right-wing RSS, won all four top posts. In 2013, the Congress-affiliated NSUI claimed one post, while the ABVP held three.

Read | Poll vault: Student union elections are all about promises and bonding

The left-wing All India Students Association (AISA) was also in the fray, but failed to make any impact.

In this years polls, three ABVP candidates were elected -- Amit Tanwar as the president, Priyanka Chabri as vice-president and Ankit Kumar Sangwan as the secretary. NSUIs Mohit Graid won the post of the joint secretary.

We have won and our vote share has increased because throughout the year, we have stayed amongst students and fought for them. This ABVP win is also a comment against anti-national activities happening across the country,said Tanwar.

Read | DU elections: Buddhism students seek nirvana in political pursuits

This years polls saw the lowest turnout since 2010, with only 36.9% students exercising their franchise.

Ninety-one candidates fought for the four crucial posts: 27 candidates for the post of president, 19 for vice-president, 24 for secretary and 21 for the post of joint secretary.

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Buoyed by the success of the food court and its commercial complex at the Nehru Place Metro station, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) plans to build another one in the vicinity.

According to DMRC sources, the existing parking site will be removed and a multi-storey complex with parking facility will be developed to generate more revenue.

Next year, we have planned to develop many properties in south Delhi. We have decent space at Nehru Place Metro station and the existing space was in huge demand. Keeping in mind the heavy demand, we will build a similar complex there, said a DMRC official.

Sources said that before the construction, the DMRC will come out with a brochure asking interested parties to book space in advance.

Another multi-storey commercial hub will come up in south Delhis Bhikaji Cama place Metro station, which is part of the 58.38km-long Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar corridor. The station will be underground and the floors above will be sublet for food court and offices.

Read: Metro fare panel suggests steep hike in fares

The station has a perfect location with so many offices and markets like Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, South Extension and Moti Bagh near it. We are expecting a huge demand for the space and planning to rent out the space has already started, said a DMRC official. The DMRC sources said that there will be four floors above the ground.

Each floor will have around 2,700 square metre area. Since the line is expected to be made operational by December 2016, we will start the marketing for the space in next 2-3 months, the official added.

The DMRC is also coming up with a commercial complex near Jantar Mantar where they will rent out space for offices. An internal analysis by the DMRC has revealed that almost one lakh square metre space, good enough to construct 1,000 shops, is lying unused at Metro stations across Delhi-NCR.

We have conducted analysis of 165 stations and a majority of space is lying vacant on the stations in Faridabad, Dwarka and on the Red Line towards Seelampur. At the IT Park in Shastri Park, we have space on many floors. We will soon reissue a tender at low rates, said a senior DMRC official.

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Vaibhav Agarwal loves to talk about cows. He proudly says he can identify the breed of a cow, its age and lactation cycle from a distance. Agarwal is not a cowboy, or a cow vigilante. He is a management graduate who co-founded a dairy farm with his brother Chirag, a software engineer educated in the US.

The Agarwal brothers belong to a new breed of milkmen  mostly management professionals and engineers  leading a new milk revolution in India. At their nine-acre farm, O Leche, in Kuchesar, Uttar Pradesh, about an hour drive from Delhi, the brothers are often seen pampering their cows  about 200 of the Holstein Friesian breed. Vaibhav says he supplies milk as pure as organic to 2,000 families in Delhi and its adjoining towns.

Delhi-NCR, which consumes 18 lakh litres of milk every day, is becoming a hub of modern, integrated dairy farms with their own cows, modern cowsheds with fans and sprinklers, milk parlours, vet clinic and milk-processing facilities.

There is adulterated milk in the market. We wanted to provide people pure, farm-fresh milk. Besides, I get to spend time in a rural area, away from Delhis pollution, says Vaibhav, 32, sitting at his farm, with cows mooing in the background.

The region has many other dairy farms run by engineers and management professionals, many of whom quit their plush jobs to become milkmen.

Sixty per cent of people who approach me for setting up dairy farms are engineers and management professionals in their early and mid-thirties, says Kuldeep Sharma, who runs Suruchi Consultants, one of the oldest dairy farm consulting firms. He organises dairy entrepreneurship development programmes across the country.

Delhi-based IIM graduate Chakradhar Gade gave up his investment banking job in 2013 to start a dairy farm at Sabrana near Sultanpur with 50 cows. Two years ago, he tied up with local dairy farms in Bhiwani, Rajasthan, and installed cold chains, milk-testing machines and chilling equipment.

I felt there was a big opportunity in this sector. I went door-to-door in Gurgaon to conduct a survey, and found a lot of residents complaining of adulterated or diluted milk. They were willing to pay more for premium milk, says Gade, 32. His brand Country Delight caters to 3,500 families. Most of our customers are young professionals.

He sees a great future and rapid growth for his brand as peoples quest for pure milk is rising. According to a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) survey, 68% of milk in India is adulterated. And 70% of the Capitals milk samples were contaminated. Water was the most common adulterant.

Pankaj Navani, a computer engineer, set up Binsar farm in Janti Khurd village in Haryanas Sonepat with his two engineer friends  Deepak and Sukhinder.

We knew next to nothing about dairy farming. We had to learn about nutrition, how fodder and animal behaviour change through seasons. We started with 50 heifers instead of milk cow so that we could understand as much as possible about the animals growth, says Deepak. He quit his job as an engineer with a multinational computer technology company.

We learnt from our co-founder from New Zealand that green fodder is key to the good health of animals.

Binsar harvests around 80 acres of land with fodder crops of maize, rye, grass, etc. We wanted to feed more natural greens to our cattle, says Deepak.

O Leche owner, Vaibhav Agarwal, says he supplies milk as pure as organic to 2,000 families in Delhi and its adjoining towns. (Saumya Khandelwal/HT Photo)

The Binsar farm, spread over 10.5 acres, has over 300 cows in sheds that have huge fans and sprinklers to wash them. There is a milk-processing unit. The farm produces 3,500 litres supplied in areas such as Rohini, Pitampura, Patparganj and Indirapuram. The milk of these new integrated farms costs `65 per litre, while branded pouched full cream milk costs Rs 49 a litre.

Sharma says many of these young dairy entrepreneurs have lived abroad and exposed to dairy farming practices and they want to replicate them in India. They are good at marketing and leveraging technology for their business, says Sharma.

Country Fresh, for example, has an app to schedule delivery of milk and make payment. Fifty percent of Country Freshs orders come through the app and the age-group of its customers is 25 to 40 years. The app makes managing your subscription quite convenient as an order can be placed, cancelled, and changed at the tap of your finger, says Gade.

Those buying milk from these dairies say they do not know if the packaged milk they consumed earlier was of cow, buffalo, goat or mixed. I prefer cow milk for my children. It is easy to digest and has more nutritive value. Packaged milk does not provide me that option, says Aditya Gupta, who recently subscribed to one of the many new-age dairy farms.

Rekha Sharma, former chief nutritionist, AIIMS, says adulterated milk can lead to a host of health problems depending on the nature of impurities. If milk is adulterated with contaminated water it can lead to many water-borne diseases... Water also reduces milks nutritional value. The government should spread awareness about adulteration. It is not enough to do so only during Diwali. It should strictly implement food adulteration laws, she says.

Read: When manjha was just about kite-flying

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Three minor boys, between 11 years and 14 years, drowned in the Yamuna near south Delhis Okhla on Saturday afternoon.

Their bodies were found after a two-hour operation by teams of the fire department and the local police.

The three are Danish (14), Faizal (11) and Varish (13) -- all residents of Batla House in Jamia Nagar. Police said the three had gone to swim in the river along with some other friends.

A police officer said the boys jumped over the fenced barriers enacted at the river bank. As they jumped, a strong current swept them away and within seconds they drowned.

Their friends raised an alarm and alerted locals.

A local resident called the police control room and informed the police. The fire department was alerted.

Soon, fire department rescue teams arrived and launched their operation. The bodies were taken to Holy Family hospital where doctors confirmed their death.

The fathers of Varish and Faizal are painters while Danishs father is a labourer, said police.
A four-year-old girl on Saturday triggered chaos at Delhis Indira Gandhi International Airport by climbing on to the conveyor belt near a check-in counter. The child was rescued without any injuries.

The girl crossed one level of the belt before security officers could rescue her.

The inline baggage system at Delhi airport has five levels and bags go through several screeners before being loaded on to a plane.

Around 7pm, the girls parents were waiting at the Go Air check-in counter, when the girl managed to climb on to the belt. Her mother tried to stop her but the moving conveyor belt took her to level two. The belt was then stopped and the child rescued, said an airport source.

The girl was rushed to the Medanta clinic at the airport where doctors told the parents she was unhurt. They were scheduled to travel to Mumbai by G8 342 at 8:50pm. The doctors declared the girl fit to travel, the source added.

Eyewitnesses said the event led to chaos and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) had to rush in to save the girl. Airport officials said they keep on sensitizing passengers to not leave their children unattended, especially near the check-in counters, as there have been cases of kids climbing on to the conveyor belt in the past also.
The Left Unity (AISA-SFI alliance) made a clean sweep on all the four posts of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) in the poll results announced late on Saturday.

The two parties  All India Students Association (AISA) and Students Federation of India (SFI)  came together in an alliance this year bagging the posts of president, vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary.

The Left alliance won despite tough competition from the two-year-old Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) on the presidents post. Also, the ABVP which secured a seat in the central panel last year,

could not make a comeback this year.

ABVP trailed behind the Left Unity on the posts of vice-president and general secretary by a huge margin. Yet again, the Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) did not make a mark in the JNUSU polls.

Mohit Kumar Pandey of the Left Unity won the presidents post securing 1,954 votes defeating his rival Rahul Sonpimple of BAPSA by a close margin of 409 votes. The other seats went to alliances Amal PP (vice-president), Satarupa Chakrabarty (general secretary) and Tabrez Hasan (Joint secretary).

Amal with 2,461 votes emerged as the strongest with only ABVPs Rajiv Ranjan Choudhary trailing him with 1,157 votes. Satarupa secured 2,424 votes. Tabrez Hasan won 1,670 votes.

All India Students Federation (AISF), to which former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar belongs, offered internal support to the AISA-SFI alliance without contesting the polls.

Even as ABVP student leaders claimed that their vote share increased this year, they also lost crucial councillor seats previously held in the School of Sciences, among others.

A total of 5,297 votes were polled on Friday on the campus. The voter turnout was 59.6%, a six percent high from last year. The university has an electorate of around 9,000.

JNU has always been politically charged. ABVP has been rejected by a major lot of students after their anti-JNU campaign and the entire February 9 sedition episode. The RSSs high-handedness was clear even in the Rohit Vemula case, said, Mohit Pandey of Left Unity.

BAPSAs Rahul Sonpimple, however, said, JNU has been a Left bastion for the last 40 years and if a two-year-old party can give them a good chase, I believe it is an achievement for us.

The SFI is affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). AISA is the student wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML).

Students Front for Swaraj  the student wing of Swaraj Abhiyan, AAPs splinter group  for the first time fielded one candidate for the presidents post. The party netted 257 votes, higher than the 143 votes that the much older NSUI won.
Mewat, a Muslim dominant district in Haryana, has been on the radar of cow vigilante groups ever since the state government enforced a cow protection act in March. But none of the vigilantes dared to tread into the interiors of Mewat, which allegedly has hideouts of cattle smugglers.

Police too do not enter those areas fearing attack from smugglers and their local supporters.

Cattle is smuggled from neighbouring districts and hidden in the hills in the interiors of Nuh, Ferozpur Jhirka, Nagina, Pingawa, Punhana, Rawali, Shikrawa and some areas bordering Alwar district of Rajasthan, a police official, who did not wish to be named, said.

The officer said cattle are slaughtered and skinned at these hideouts and the meat is sold.

The hideouts are guarded by informers of smugglers and raiding teams are often attacked from unexpected corners, the officer said.

Unable to reach interiors, cow vigilantes have tightened their surveillance to check smuggling of bovine on routes to Mewat.

Last week, personnel from Ferozpur Jhirka police station rescued 22 cattle from an oil tanker. The tanker body was modified in such a way that it was tough to detect the content inside, a police officer said. He said the tanker was stopped after they received a tip from cow vigilantes.

On August 29, cow vigilantes and Sohna police found 300 cow hides stashed between boxes of guavas in a mini-truck. The truck was going from Gurgaon to Mewat. The driver fled the spot.

Fuel tankers, car carriers and closed vehicles are used by cattle smugglers who travel at night. It is tough to detect from outside. We inform the police whenever we get a tip, Umesh Gupta, member of Sohna unit of Haryana Gau Raksha Dal, said.

Gupta said when the smugglers are chased, they throw chili powder and stones, and even open fire on raksha dal members. They are not even afraid of police, Gupta said.

He said three members of Sohna unit received bullets injuries last month. There are about 40 people involved in smuggling and they are being identified, he said.

Mewat is the hub of illegal beef trade. Raksha dal members keep vigil on routes leading to the region. Beef is often smuggled from there to Delhi and UP, Kuldeep Janghu, chief patron of Gau Raksha Dal Gurgaon, said.

Nuh MLA Zakir Hussain said the charges are manufactured to bring a bad name to Mewat. He asked why the police could not use extra force to bust hideouts. Authorities should trace and nab cattle smugglers, he said.

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Actor Dhanush, who is busy gearing up for his Tamil directorial debut Power Paandi, will start shooting for his maiden Hollywood film The Extraordinary Journey Of A Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Cupboard from January 2017.

The project was supposed to start much earlier, but got postponed due to some reasons. Dhanush will join the sets of the film from January. In the interim, he will complete shooting for Power Paandi and also finish major portion of Vetrimaarans Vada Chennai, a source aware of the developments, told IANS.

Based on the best-selling eponymous novel, the film will be helmed by Iranian filmmaker Marjane Satrapi.

Dhanush will play Aja, a conjurer from an Indian colony of artists, who is sent to Paris on a hush-hush mission by his mother. The shooting locations will include India, Paris, Morocco and Italy.

The film will also stars Uma Thurman and Alexandra Daddario.

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World leaders should put finding an end to the war in Syria at the centre of their discussions at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month, actor Angelina Jolie said during a visit to a refugee camp in Jordan on Friday.

Ask the fundamental question of what are the root causes of the Syrian conflict and what will it take to end it, she said at the Azraq refugee camp, which she visited in her role as a special envoy for the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Syrias five-year-old civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced 11 million, half the countrys pre-war population, including many who have fled overseas, sparking a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe.

Besides the millions trapped inside Syria whose lives are at risk daily, 75,000 Syrians are stranded in the berm, a no-mans land on the Jordanian border, including children, pregnant women and gravely ill patients. They have had no food since early August, there is next to no humanitarian access, she said.

US actor and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie talks to children as she arrives at a Syrian refugee camp in Azraq in northern Jordan. (AFP)

However, world powers are divided over how to end the crisis in Syria, with Russia giving military aid to President Bashar al-Assad and the United States and some Western European countries helping rebels seeking his downfall.

US actor and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie (C) talks to children during a visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Azraq in northern Jordan, on September 9, 2016. (AFP)

Within the Middle East, Iran and Shiite militias from Lebanon and Iraq back Assad, while Turkey and Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar support the rebels.

US actor and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie talks during a visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Azraq in northern Jordan. (AFP)

On Friday US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov resumed negotiations in Geneva aimed at finding a ceasefire deal to allow humanitarian access in Syria after two other meetings in the past three weeks.

UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie, centre, speaks to US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, as she attends a UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial meeting, in London. (AP)
Leonardo DiCaprio has unveiled his climate change documentary Before the Flood at the Toronto International Film Festival, saying the film is intended to give the scientific community a voice.

The film was directed by Fisher Stevens. It chronicles DiCaprios exploits around the globe to raise awareness about climate change.

Leonardo DiCaprio arrives on the red carpet with Fisher Stevens (R) for the film Before the Flood during the 41st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), in Toronto. (REUTERS)

DiCaprio is a United Nations Ambassador of Peace. He was greeted by fans outside the films premiere Friday.

The Academy Award-winning actor says, We are truly at a turning point in history. He says this issue depends on the education of the public and the evolution of our species to combat what is the largest crisis weve ever faced.

Leonardo DiCaprio arrives on the red carpet for the film "Before the Flood" during the 41st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), in Toronto. (REUTERS)

Stevens says the films release is intentionally timed to the US presidential election.

The film will air October 31 on National Geographic.

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Video cameras were barred from the red carpet premiere of The Birth of a Nation at the Toronto Film Festival, where the movies star and filmmaker Nate Parker smiled and greeted fans, despite recent headlines on his involvement in an old rape case.

Dressed in a black suit, Parker hopped out of a black car on to the small red carpet outside a downtown Toronto movie theatre, where about five or six photographers had queued to snap the cast.

After posing for a few minutes, a jovial Parker greeted fans gathered by the theatre entrance, shaking hands and waving, before returning to the carpet for more photos and heading into the venue.

Fridays premiere is Parkers first public event since it emerged last month that the accuser in his 1999 rape trial and acquittal committed suicide in 2012.

Parker, who did not mention the case in his red carpet appearance, is due to join the cast for interviews with journalists on Saturday, and participate in a festival news conference on Sunday.

Director Nate Parker arrives for the premiere of the film The Birth Of a Nation at TIFF the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto. (REUTERS)

Parker, 36, was little known before writing, directing and starring Birth of a Nation, which wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and was seen as a strong 2017 Oscar contender.

It tells the story of Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831.

Movie studio Fox Searchlight said it stands by the movie, despite speculation in Hollywood that the rape case will affect the films marketing and jeopardize its Oscar chances.

Toronto Film Festival officials increased security around the venue to counter protests, but the premiere went smoothly and no protesters were in sight.

Director Nate Parker gestures to the crowd as he arrives on the red carpet for the film The Birth of a Nation during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto. (AP)

The festival stood by Birth of a Nation, festival director and chief executive Piers Handling told Reuters on Thursday, adding that he hoped more filmmakers of colour come forward with similar stories.

Its a very, very good film and we invited the film before the personal issues came out around the director, Handling said.

We can hardly wait for audiences here in Toronto to actually see the movie (and) judge it as a film itself.

The audience gave the film a standing ovation, according to Twitter posts by film journalists from the Hollywood Reporter, Variety and USA Today who attended the premiere.

90-second ovation for THE BIRTH OF A NATION.  Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) September 10, 2016

Searchlight gambled in going ahead w/ BIRTH OF A NATION screenings/pressand won. The story out of TIFF will be film's tremendous reception.  Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) September 10, 2016

are we sure that people were giving BIRTH OF A NATION a standing ovation and not, you know, just clapping cause it was over & running away?  david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) September 10, 2016

Parker introduced the film and participated in a moderated question-and-answer session about it, they added.

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A troubled marriage, an errant husband, and the law as her only lifeline. This has been Amarjas life for the past few months now. A girl will act on trust; after all, he was my friend from college. I married because I trusted him, says the 28-year-old Panjim resident.

Today, after being estranged from her husband of less than a year, Amarja, who works as a lower division clerk with the state government, says she understands that the law works a tad differently in Goa. For instance, marriage in Goa entails a communion of assets.

What this means is that after marriage, everything that Amarja and her husband owned before  and after  marriage, becomes part of a common pool, and half of that belongs to Amarja. Now, if we divorce, he will have to part with half of everything, including the flat that we invested in together. I know from friends that this is only possible in Goa, she says. The marriage crisis has taught me a lot about laws in Goa.

A clutch of unique clauses such as the communion of assets, equal property rights for both sons and daughters, and the fact that the laws apply uniformly to all state citizens has made the Goa Civil Code a special case, now being hailed as a model for the Uniform Civil Code in the country. The Code, a remnant of the states colonial past, was enforced in 1870 in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, and is often touted by the ruling party as a model that guarantees uniformity and gender justice.

UNIFORM CIVIL CODE: A TIMELINE

As the demand for a UCC is being fiercely contested, at the heart of the matter is the objective of gender justice, that UCC supporters claim will only be achieved by securing a common set of family laws for everyone.

So, do family laws in the smallest state in India advance the cause of gender justice?

In Goa, the answer to that question is both yes, and no.

How the law rules

When Goa attained liberation from Portugal in 1961, all Indian laws were extended to the state, except family laws that fall under the Portuguese Civil Code. Under the PCC, everyone married under the civil law and both spouses had equal property rights, as did their children.

For the states Catholic population, however, an exception was made  they could solemnize their marriages in the Church after declaring their intent of marriage at the office of the civil registrar. The church would send the marriage document for ratification and registration by the civil registrar. For non-Catholics, however, only the registered marriage at the office of the Civil Registrar was recognised.

Read:Zakia and Noorjehan: Duo lead the movement for Muslim personal law reforms

Another exception was made for Hindus  the practice of bigamy was allowed in case there was no male heir.

F. Elgar Noronha, a well-known lawyer in the state, says the Portuguese made the exception to accommodate the concerns of Hindu businessmen, who wished to retain the concept of the Hindu Undivided Family to avoid fragmentation of land and ensure their lineage.

Bigamy was never practiced, says Noronha. Instead Hindus resorted to adoption when there was no male heir.

Panjim-based lawyer F Elgar Noronha feels that the Goa Civil Code can be a good model for the rest of the country. The Civil Code has helped shape Goas cosmopolitan character, he says. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

The contradictions in uniformity apart, the highlight of the Goa Code is the equal division of property between husband and wife. The husband cannot sell the property without the wifes consent, and neither can the children, in case the father dies. Despite these clauses that are meant to protect the woman, lawyer-activist Albertina Almeida, says that there are several loopholes in the law.

Sitting in her office in the town of Taleigao, a few minutes away from the city of Panjim, Albertina says that in Goa, ownership and control mean two different things. The property might be shared equally, but its management lies with the husband. As a manager the husband can, for instance, rent out the premises without the wifes consent. In Amarjas case, she and her husband jointly invested in a flat, which he has since given on rent, and Amarja claims that the rent was never shared with her.

Forms of property have changed too, says Albertina. Shares in a co-operative society, for example, can be easily transferred by the husband without the wifes consent without breaking any laws. Moreover, if the husband dies, the law puts the wife way down in the succession line of the husbands share. She only comes after his children, parents and siblings. This may endanger the widows rights, she says. Albertina says that she has also seen cases of husbands having willed away their share in the property without the knowledge of the wives, and at times, even fled the country.

Panjim-based activist Sabina Martins says equal property rights mean nothing in a marriage where the woman does not even have financial autonomy. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

Much like the way the law plays out in the rest of the country, in Goa too, womens rights activists contend that in a patriarchal society, women are seldom encouraged to seek their rights  first as daughters, and then as wives. Sabina Martins, a prominent activist in the state says that daughters, for instance, are pushed by brothers to relinquish their rights over parental property. Of late, however, some daughters have begun claiming their rights  only because their husbands are pushing them to do so, creating new grounds of conflict within the family.

Read:Rajiv was pressured by Narasimha Rao, Najma Heptulla during Shah Bano

Property rights apart, Sabina says that the womens story in Goa is pretty much the same as it is outside of the state. What do equal rights mean when there are women who cant even access their salary, or their jewellery in their marital homes? asks Sabina. She says that theres a perception that women in Goa are more liberated, and assertive. And Goans also want to keep up that image. But thats really misleading, says Sabina. She says that womens groups in Goa demanded for the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, to be extended to the state because the law was enacted before the liberation of Goa (laws enacted before Goas liberation in 1961 were not applicable to the state), and activists such as her felt that there was a need for it in Goa too.

Until recently, salaries were joint property too. But Goan residents were using the clause to evade taxes, (by showing only half of their salary as their own, and hence, taxable) and so, salaries were made individual property. But many women in Goa struggle to claim ownership of that too, she says.

Sabina says that for many women, an equal share in property has only meant equal liabilities. Many men took loans to spend money on Goan casinos, and left their wives to pay those loans off. Now, the women are trying to pay off that money that they didnt even know their husbands had taken! she says.

A case for legal awareness

For a Code that has been around since 1870, Noronha says that legal education and awareness on its several clauses has been lacking, at times, even among lawyers. One reason has been the fact that the Code was never properly translated from Portuguese to English  a few translations of important clauses being an exception, he says. Last month, the state Assembly has passed the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceedings Bill, 2012, which is an English version of the PCC.

Noronha, who translated marriage, property and succession laws recently says that the need for translation increased since the 90s, when a boom in land prices meant that litigation went up several fold.

There were now several claims on a single piece of ancestral property. Confusion ensued among lawyers as to how to resolve property matters, he says. One of the confusions was resolved by the enterprising builder industry who doubled up as arbitrators and got warring siblings to sell off their individual rights to the builders.

Awareness about other protections such as mandatory registration to avoid fake marriages also needs to be increased. Though Amarja feels that many Goan women insist on proper legal procedures, some do also end up being duped. Women assume that the first signature at the Civil Registrars office (the declararion of intent; confirmation follows after a few days) is enough. They do not know that a second signature is required. When they come to us, we realise that the marriage never happened. What use is the law then, says Sabina.

Goa-based lawyer-activist Albertina Almeida says that affirmative provisions must be provided in the Goa Civil Code so that women are able to claim their rights. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

uniqueness apart, the Goa Code also has some scope for improvement, says Albertina. Of course, the Domestic Violence Act enables women to get immediate relief, but more needs to be done when it comes to claiming property. If the rest of the country can take some lessons from the Goa Code, why cant Goans take the lead from other personal laws? she says. Albertina feels that Goan women should have the concept of mehr and stridhan too, apart from affirmative provisions for women to claim their rights.

But changes are hard to bring about, she says. For one, the Goa Civil Code is matter of pride and the states unique identity.

However, some such as Noronha feel that common laws in state have helped shape its cosmopolitan identity, and must be studied for the nation at large. In fact, during the Shah Bano controversy in 1985-86, Muslim women in Goa resisted the states conservative clergys attempt to impose Muslim personal laws in the state, and reinforced their adherence to the common family laws .

For ordinary women such as Amarja, however, the complex debates around legal uniformity, religious identity and gender justice are irrelevant. I know if I separate, I will get half of the property. But I want to reform him so I am using the Domestic Violence Act . That way I will get to stay in our flat and buy time. I hope he will learn his lesson. Do you know any other clause I could use?

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Senior ministers of the Narendra Modi government will travel to 68 countries in what is seen a big outreach programme by the NDA government.

These countries are the ones not visited by a senior Indian minister ever or at least in the past few decades.

Cabinet ministers and ministers of state with independent charge have been asked to travel to these countries. The Prime Minister wants India to develop a bond with these nations, a Union minister said. The exercise has to be completed by December.

Senior most among those travelling is home minister Rajnath Singh, who will travel to Hungary.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad left for Estonia and Latvia on Saturday. Parliamentary minister Ananth Kumar will be heading to Tongo, while BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party leader and food minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been asked to travel to Mauritius. Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh will go to Surinam.

Noting that by the end of 2016, the government will not leave any country where Indian ministers have not gone, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her ministry has identified 68 nations to be visited.

She also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

The aim of the visits, which are part of the governments massive outreach programme, is to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.
A painting by pioneering artist Akbar Padamsee that was bought for about Rs 1,000 in 1960 has sold for Rs 19.19 crore, possibly the biggest-ever jump in an Indian artworks price, experts said on Friday.

An anonymous bidder bought the 4.3 x 12 foot canvas painting -- Greek Landscape  at an auction in Delhi on Thursday evening.

This was the highest price ever paid for a work by Padamsee, considered one of the countrys foremost contemporary painters, and a sign of increasing interest in Indian art, experts said.

Greek Landscape was bought in 1960 by 92-year-old artist Krishen Khanna for his personal collection.

Akbar Padamsees Greek Landscape that was created when the artist was in his early 20s. An anonymous bidder bought the painting at an auction in New Delhi on September 8, 2016. (Saffronart.com)

To let the painting go was like parting with someone dear. But it is a huge work and requires maintenance. So I asked my son to let it go for auction, said Khanna.

Padamsee is a good friendthis is one of his best paintings.

Padamsee used plastic emulsion and home painters brush to create the work since acrylic wasnt available. It was an experiment, said Padamsee.

Indian artists appeared elated at the mounting price of art work from the country. It is very optimistic for Indian art, said artist Paresh Maity.

In a video interview to the auctioneer, Saffronart, Padamsee said, I have never seen this painting for the last 60 years. I am 89. And I made this painting at about 22 or 23.

Greek Landscape was estimated to go for Rs 7-9 crores but the winning bid surpassed the previous record for the artist set by his work, Reclining Nude, at Rs 9.3 crores, said Hugo Weihe, auctioneer and CEO of Saffronart. Its an extremely important masterpiece and the price only reflects its achievement.

Also read | Ive been a painter in my past births: Akbar Padamsee

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Asking his party workers to stay united, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, in his address to partymen in Ludhiana, accused the Badals of snooping on them.

Our internal fights will only make him (Badal) happy, he said, while speaking to party workers in his house at Jhande village located on the outskirts of Ludhiana. Badal will distribute laddus if he gets to hear that the volunteers are not united, he added.

Kejriwals message was aimed at keeping his party together in the wake of internal wrangling and a spate of allegations that has rocked the party, especially following the removal of the state convener Sucha Singh Chottepur.

You people are fighting among yourselves. Wo zonal in-charge kyu lagaya ji; use ticket kyu din; use kyu nahi di? (Why has he been made the zonal in-charge; why has he been allotted the ticket). Ladai jhagde band karo. Badal bahut khush honge. Intelligence hai wahan ek ek message ja raha hai. (Stop internal fighting, Badal has his intelligence network here. He is getting a minute by minute account of what is happening here), he said.

Kejriwal then went on to project the forthcoming assembly election as a golden opportunity for their party to work for the development of the state.

Agar humne Punjab ki janata ko toda, joote maarenge sub. (We should not betray the trust of the people or else they wont forgive us), he said.

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The Congress faced another khat loot embarrassment in Uttar Pradesh, this time in Ambedkarnagar district, as farmers took away stringed wooden cots after a rally addressed by Rahul Gandhi in the eastern belt of the poll-bound state.

Gandhi, the party vice-president, had just concluded his speech at Shiv Baba Dham and left the venue on Friday when villagers began jostling each other for the cots and grabbed them.

Read | People run away with cots from Rahuls UP khat sabha after his speech

All efforts of members of the Team PK members working under Congress polls strategist Prashant Kishor  to stop farmers from taking away the party-brought property proved futile.

This was the second such incident in Gandhis ongoing Kisan Yatra meant to strengthen the Congress in the run-up to the legislative polls early next year. The first took place at Rudrapur assembly constituency in Deoria district, from where the Delhi-bound Kisan Yatra started on September 6.

The march reached Ambedkar Nagar on Friday evening from Faizabad.

Party sources said the repeat incident might prompt the Congress to re-plan its strategy on khat sabha.

A khat sabha which the party was scheduled to organise in Allahabad district next week has been called off. The September 15 event at Sarpatipur village of trans-Ganga area was cancelled due to Eid-ul-Azha festival, party sources said.

Gandhi will, on that day, hold a road show in Allahabad.

As per senior Congress leaders, the programme schedule was changed on the advice of Ghulam Nabi Azad who suggested a days postponement to ensure better participation of people, especially from the Muslim community who would be presumably busy with the Eid-ul-Azha festival.

On Thursday, Congress office-bears and leaders had met to finalise the Sarpatipur village khat sabha aimed at wooing farmers. But the Special Protection Group reportedly objected, leading to the cancellation of the khat sabha, another source said.

Read | History, politics in the air as a Gandhi visits Ayodhya after two decades

As per the amended schedule, Gandhi will arrive in Allahabad on September 14, and not on September 13 as earlier planned. He will spend the night at Anand Bhawan where his great-grandfather Pt Jawharlal Nehru, the countrys first prime minister, spent his formative years.

The next day, Gandhi will hold a road show.

Gandhi was earlier scheduled to enter Allahabad from Bhadoi, but now he will reach the city via Mirzapur. UPCC spokesman Kishore Varshney said the road show will pass through various localities so as to allow members of different communities to interact with the leader.

As per the plan, the road show from Swaraj Bhawan will pass through Katra, Manmohan Park, Hanuman temple crossing, fire brigade crossing, Jhonstonganj, Vivekanand Marg, Chandralok cinema hall, Ram Bhawan crossing, Sulakhi crossing and Bahadurganj.

It will enter Loknath before stopping at Neem Ka Pedh in Chowk. Here, Gandhi will pay tributes to freedom fighters, many of whom were hanged from the Neem tree. The leader will head to Nakhas Kohna and, after passing through Khuldabad crossing, Chauphatka, Sulem Sarai, Mundera, Bamrauli and Sallahapur, enter Kaushambi.

Also read | Did BJP pressure force Rahul Gandhis visit to Ayodhya?

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Former Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Mohammad Shahabuddin walked out of Bhagalpur prison in Bihar early on Saturday to a grand welcome from his supporters.

Shahabuddin, who has been in jail for a decade over multiple cases, was granted bail by the Patna high court on Wednesday in connection with the murder of a man who witnessed the killing of two brothers in Siwan.

Read | Ex-RJD MP Shahabuddin gets life for murders of two men by acid

I have remained away from home for 13 years. Everyone knows I was falsely implicated in the case, the former parliamentarian said after leaving jail.

Shahabuddin faces more than 40 criminal cases, including those of abduction and murder, and has been in jail for the past 11 years. In the last 10 of them, the former MP was transferred thrice to different prisons  once to Bhagalpur jail and other times to Gaya jail.

From Bhagalpur, Shahabuddin will head to his native place Pratappur in Siwan where security has been scaled up, with reinforcements being sent from other places. Security in Bhagalpur has also been bolstered to manage the crowds.

MP for four consecutive terms since 1996, contesting from jail in 2004, the RJD member said party chief Lalu Prasad was his leader. The entire country knows which party I am with. Nitish Kumar became a chief minister due to circumstances, he said.

The release of Shahabuddin, a Siwan strongman, might turn out to be a show of strength of the RJD. All hotels and circuit houses were booked in advance, in both Bhagalpur and his home turf.

Read | 1,300 SUVs reach Bhagalpur ahead of Shahabuddins release

But not everyone is happy. Many complainants and witnesses in cases against Shahabuddin have already sought police security. Since 1990, the district has seen blood on the streets because of a brutal battle for supremacy between Shahabuddin and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.

Fear seems to have gripped locals.

Read | IB seeks help from Bihar Police to find missing Shahabuddin files

However, Shahabuddin said he did not want to be painted as a feared man.

I represented Siwan, which has a population of 22 lakh. How many people in Siwan fear me. It is not possible to keep everyone happy, but there is nothing called fear due to me, he said.

He also dismissed BJP leader Sushil Modis remark that the state government had facilitated his release, saying he didnt take it seriously.

I think my party also does not take him seriously. It is a legal process through which I have come out.

Read | Murdered scribe exposed wrongdoings of former RJD MP Shahabuddin: BJP

According to sources, of the cases he faces, Shahabuddin received judgment in 12, four of which have been acquittals, while he has nearly completed his sentence in eight cases. He has been convicted in 10 other cases, while in some, trial is incomplete. In some cases, the fact sheet is in compilation stage, while in some part judgements have granted temporarily bail as the cases continue.
Medical apathy continues to shock in Uttar Pradesh. In Mirzapur near Varanasi, a 70-year-old man was forced to carry his pregnant daughter-in-law on his shoulders from the district womens hospital to a private hospital and back where she died, allegedly due to negligence of the doctors.

Kapur Chand Pandey claimed his daughter-in-law Anshu Pandey, a resident of Geruwa village, was rushed to the district womens hospital early last Sunday. She was admitted to the emergency ward but none of the doctors attended on his daughter-in-law till 8am on Sunday despite her being in a critical condition. He then carried her on his shoulders to a private hospital around 100 metres away.

He said doctors at the private hospital examined her and said that the child in her womb was already dead. They referred her back to the district womens hospital. He brought her to the district women hospital on his shoulders again where doctors operated on her and took the dead child out of her womb. But Anshu also died as an infection had spread across her body, Pandey claimed.

Pandey said that his daughter-in-law died because of the doctors negligence.

Chief medical superintendent Dr Sanjay Pandey denied any dereliction of duty by the doctors but said he would look into the matter.

In another incident in Kasganj district, the relatives of a 42-year-old man almost ended up carrying his body on a motorcycle because the driver of the government-run ambulance at Kasganj district hospital allegedly asked for a bribe of Rs 1500.

The relatives claimed that they had to place body placed between the driver and the pillion rider before a few people came forward and arranged for a private ambulance. The driver was paid Rs 500 and the body was eventually shifted in the ambulance to the village.

The incident took place in Soron area of Kasganj district on Tuesday but the issue came to light only on Friday.

Kasganj district magistrate K Vijendra Pandian denied the allegations.

The matter happened on Tuesday. An enquiry was conducted at CMO level and the allegations were found to be baseless, said DM.

Pandian claimed the CMOs investigation found that the relatives had never asked for an ambulance to carry the body.

But Pappu, a relative of the deceased said the 42-year-old Raees Pal said, The patient was declared dead on arrival by doctors at the district hospital in Kasganj. We asked the driver of the ambulance at the district hospital to carry the body back to our village but the driver demanded Rs 1500 as bribe which we were unable to pay.
Zakia Soman still remembers Afsana, the young woman she met more than a decade ago at one of the several relief camps that were set up after the 2002 Gujarat riots. Afsanas husband had been killed in the riots.

She was a mother of two, though she barely looked old enough to be a wife. Afsana told Zakia that she wanted justice, and not aid. She told me that if need be, she was willing to go to the Supreme Court to get justice.

Zakia, then a professor of Business Communication in English at the Gujarat university, was battling an abusive marriage, and the young womans fortitude left a deep impression on her. A year later, when the Ahmedabad-based Zakia managed to walk out of her 16-year-old marriage, it occurred to her that among others, it was Afsanas resolve to get justice for herself that had inspired Zakia to change her situation too.

The personal setback led Zakia to several meetings with friends, one of whom was the Mumbai-based social worker Noorjehan Safia Niaz. As the two began discussing their personal struggles, they gradually started to connect with women in other states and realised that there was a need to raise awareness about Muslim womens rights.

Soon, the personal became political: if educated women such as Zakia werent aware of their rights within a marriage and couldnt assert themselves in an oppressive relationship, what chance did the poor, uneducated Muslim woman have? All we had were the self-styled spokespersons of Islam such as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), who were interpreting the Quran for us. We needed an alternative, a reading of the Quran from a womens perspective , says Zakia. If the Quran advocates reconciliation and mediation instead of oral divorce, why were Muslim women still being subjected to the practice, Zakia wondered.

Read:All in the family | Goa Civil Code a model for the rest of the country?

Together, Zakia and Noorjehan started the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), now in its tenth year, and boasting a membership of over a lakh. The agenda for the BMMA was equal citizenship rights for women, and gender justice within the framework of Islam.

Noorjehan, who has a doctorate in Sociology, says that the BMMA shares its ideological moorings with the work of Islamic feminists such as American scholar-activist Amina Wadud. A revered scholar, Wadud courted controversy in 2005, when she led mixed gender prayers in the US. She was opposed by conservative sections of the clergy who said this was against Islamic laws.

Members of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan at a protest against oral divorce at Azad Maidan in Mumbai in 2013. (Kunal Patil/HT Photo)

In India, the BMMA has also faced opposition from the conservatives, particularly the AIMPLB. But the founders say they are unfazed by the criticism. Instead, they are counting the recent Haji Ali verdict  the court order allowing women to enter the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai  as a personal victory. Many of us have grown up visiting the dargah, but were stopped from doing so since 2012. This, just because we are women! says Noorjehan.

Besides the Haji Ali petition, the BMMA has challenged triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala (after oral divorce, a woman cant go back to her divorced husband if she wants, unless she marries someone else, consummates the marriage and is divorced again). Even though in progressive judgments such as the one in the Shamim Ara case of 2002, the apex court dismissed arbitary talaq and laid down the procedure for divorce, BMMA founders argue that those judgments have little impact on the ground. Triple talaq is still a reality. By proposing a ban, we want to make sure that women dont have to go to the court or hire a lawyer to seek redress. Many women cant even afford a lawyer, says Zakia.

Read: Rajiv Gandhi came under pressure from Narasimha Rao, Najma Heptulla during Shah Bano

The organisation also provides education and livelihood training for poor Muslim women and holds Shariah courts that challenge a patriarchal interpretation of the Quran. The Sharia courts appeal to BMMAs core membership of poor women who are unable to negotiate for their rights. We get one case every day where a woman has been given oral divorce. However, at times, the men call us too, to find ways to save their sisters from this injustice, says Noorjehan, who has been working in the ghettos of Mumbai since 1992.

A nationwide survey by the BMMA revealed that more than 90 per cent women wanted oral divorce to be banned. A signature campaign to end the practice also got them 50,000 votes.

Even as the BMMA invokes the constitutional invalidity of gender discriminatory practices, one of their main demands is to codify Muslim family laws. If every community has its own codified law [for example, the Hindus have the Hindu Marriage Act, Parsis have the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act] then why not the same for Muslims? says Noorjehan. The demand for a codification of Muslim personal law  laws to fix age of marriage, matters of property, and guardianship of children  is in opposition to the ruling partys clamour for a Uniform Civil Code. BMMA founders argue that the need for a Uniform Civil Code doesnt arise because the country already has an optional civil code in the form of the Special Marriages Act, 1954. Under this law, couples from the same religious background too can have a civil, as opposed to a religious marriage. But instead of raising awareness about it, the BJP is harping on a Uniform Civil Code. Its just another stick to beat the Muslims with, says Noorjehan.

Thirty one years after the Shah Bano controversy, BMMA founders claim that much has changed, and the organisations demands reflect Muslim womens aspirations. I often joke that we still dont have a fatwa issued against us. That in itself means that we have the communitys support for changing the laws, she says.

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The landmark Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case in 1985, changed the course of Arif Mohammad Khans political career. Khan, a minister of state in the Rajiv Gandhi government, had passionately defended the judgment in the Parliament. However, when Rajiv Gandhi changed his position on the subject  under pressure from his ministers  and gave in to the Muslim Personal Law Boards (MPLB) campaign against the judgment. The MPLB managed to get the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act was passed.

The young minister, then in his 30s, resigned in protest.

Thirty one years after the controversy, Khan feels that not much has been done to ensure that people do not see a conflict between freedom of religion and enactment of laws that ensure gender justice and equality. Instead, Khan feels that after the Shah Bano case, a section of Indian women have been deprived of their just benefits on grounds of religion, and communal forces have stalled the process of moving towards a common civil law. Excerpts from an interview with Khan.

Thirty-one years after the Shah Bano case and the controversy over personal laws versus secular law, where do we stand in terms of implementing a Uniform Civil Code?

We are nowhere close to implementing a Uniform Civil Code; in fact, in the course of time, we have only moved in the opposite direction. According to the Directive Principles of State Policy, Article 44, the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India .The founding fathers were acutely aware that we need to do lot of groundwork, like providing education and imparting a sturdy sense of security. Because it is only a well informed and confident populace that can save itself from becoming victim of the slogans like religion in danger and can move forward to realise the constitutional dreams into reality.

In the case of Shah Bano, we laid the foundation for separate criminal laws. We should not forget that the Shah Bano case was decided under a provision of criminal law and when we agreed to the demand of Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB), we effectively deprived a section of Indian women on the grounds of religion from the benefits of section 125 of CrPC.

In this matter education is of vital importance as it is essential to ensure that people do not see a conflict between the freedom of religion and enactment of laws that ensure gender justice and equality. The equality of marital rights and obligations are in harmony with the higher ethical teachings of all religions. But unfortunately the governments somehow have not been able to address these issues.

Read:All in the family | Goa Civil Code a model for the rest of the country?

In the Shah Bano case, how did the conflict arise between the Criminal Procedure Code and the Muslim personal laws?

There was absolutely no conflict between the Shah Bano case and the Muslim Personal Law. Personal Laws are essentially of civil nature, whereas the Shah Bano case was decided under section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code which deals with the prevention of social vagrancy and destitution. The law of social justice steps in where the normal laws are found inadequate.

Section 125 does not deal with marital rights or right of maintenance. It deals with cases where someone has deserted a close dependent like father, mother, son, daughter or wife and the deserted person has no means to sustain herself. The law provides that such deserted person can approach the court and court may order a small amount as maintenance allowance. The words are important, it is not maintenance, which is decided in accordance with ones financial standing. Instead, it is maintenance allowance which is a bare minimum amount that is essential to keep her body and soul together.

From the religious viewpoint, Islam or for that matter any other religion, feeding a hungry person is something of utmost religious merit. But the Personal Law Board was saying that any such provision would violate the letter and spirit of Muslim Law. They have every right to their viewpoint, but to invoke state power to impose their opinion on others was a serious breach of both the liberal and secular spirit of the Indian Constitution.

Secondly, it must not be lost sight of that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to each person and not to the communities and it does not accept any self-appointed group as the sole spokesman of any religion. In fact, the moment you give such recognition to one group, you deny freedom of religion to all others who do not agree with the understanding and interpretation by this group. I think this was the basic mistake which we committed in 1986, when we ignored the opinion of many leading Muslim scholars and accepted the views of the MPLB as the basis for the legislation to overturn the Supreme Court judgment.

Read:Ram Guha on when progressives turn reactionary and the demand for a Uniform Civil Code

You defended the SC judgement in the Parliament, one that the government turned its back on later.

When I spoke, I spoke for a principle, for a constitutional ideal, a moral ideal. It was not a personal issue; it didnt affect me personally. But I felt strongly about it. Shah Bano was a poor old woman, who was first deserted by her lawyer husband after three decades of marriage and when she approached the court under section 125 of CrPC, he resorted to triple divorce. Shah Bano was no crusader for womens rights, but she needed that money to sustain herself.

The speech in Parliament was well received, and Sri Rajiv Gandhi, who was a modern, forward-looking person who always encouraged me a great deal, wrote me a sweet letter saying that it was a brilliant performance and was appreciated by many. But the MPLB people did not agree and they constantly asserted that the Supreme Court decision amounted to interference in religion and was a threat to the distinct religious identity of the Muslim community.

A file picture from January 1983. Seen in the picture is the then President Zail Singh, PM Indira Gandhi, Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, Sardar Buta Singh, Harinath, SM Krishna, Chandra Shekhar Singh, VP Singh, Arif Mohammad Khan (standing, third from left) and Dharam Veer. (HT Photo)

What made Rajiv Gandhi change his mind?

I know the kind of person he [Gandhi] was, he would have never done this. But the MPLB launched a vicious movement and used the language of violence and threat. Then there were senior Congress leaders like Sri Narasimha Rao and ND Tiwari who rightly thought that the Congress party could not take the responsibility for social reform among the Muslims, particularly when senior women leaders like Mrs Najma Heptulla and Mrs Abida Ahmad had thrown their weight behind the MPLB.

To be fair, Rajivji was left with little choice in the matter. But we must give credit the higher courts for having interpreted the law in accordance with the wordings of the law and not in accordance with the speeches made in Parliament. This interpretation surely defeated the purpose and objective of the MPLB.

And the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, was passed.

Yes. This law was enthusiastically welcomed by the Muslim Personal Law Board. In fact, in his autobiography, the then Chairman of the Board claimed that every provision of the law was discussed in detail by him, and his team with the Prime Minister and the Law Minister. But later when the higher courts started giving their decisions that went against the standpoint of the Board, they panicked and the Board Chairman declared that the whole agitation finally proved to be a case of digging a mountain and finding a mouse!

Here it is important to note that according to MPLB, the liability of a Muslim husband expires at the end of iddat, that is three months after divorce has been pronounced. But Mr. Ashok Sen, the Law Minister, a great legal mind, had written in the draft a reasonable and fair provision to be made and paid within the period of iddat. The important word was within and not for the period of iddat. The Courts accordingly held that the law does not prescribe payment for the period of iddat, rather the law requires that the payment should be made within the period of iddat and the amount should be adequate enough to meet all her future needs. So the liability of the ex-husband was extended beyond the iddat period through the instrumentality of one-time payment.

Why did you resign?

I had to. After a 59-minute speech defending the SC decision, how could I have continued when it was being asserted in Parliament that the purpose of the legislation was to overturn the Supreme Court judgment? There was no moral ground for me to stay. Sri Rajiv Gandhi as usual was very kind and tried to make me change my decision. But I knew I had to. He was doing his duty, I was doing mine. I resigned, but I could see the pain in his eyes.

The movement by the MPLB, the tone and tenor of the language that was used by Board leaders and the subsequent legislation did a lot of harm and caused tremendous backlash. It revived the memories of separatist politics that resulted in the vivisection of India. In 1946, the demand was to partition the country based on separatist two nation theory. In 1986, the demand was to enact laws based on separate religious identity.

This backlash forced the government to look for something to offset the blowback and the Ayodhya became a handy ploy to divert the attention. In a sense, Shah Bano and Ayodhya became part of a deal where the former triggered the later.

A file picture from December 15, 1991. Seen in the picture, Janata Dal leader Arif Mohammad Khan, speaking at a seminar on Ayodha. Khan quit the Congress party in 1986. Subsequently, he joined the (HT Photo)

Can you elaborate on the last statement?

The government had to divert the attention of the masses from the Shah Bano case. Anybody can check the records and find that when the application was moved for the opening of the gates of the disputed structure, the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police personally appeared before the court and submitted that they can handle the law and order situation without the lock. The locking of the gate was not part of the original suit, it was ordered by the court at the instance of the local administration to help them maintain peace. Now the administration through their affidavit and oral submission were asking the court that the lock may be removed. The lock was removed and the rest is history.

Further, the event of unlocking was widely covered by Doordarshan who had sent their team to Ayodhya. Do not forget that during those days there were no private channels and Doordarshan was under government control.

The Personal Law Board did not make any strong protest after the unlocking in Ayodhya. On the contrary, if you read the autobiography of the Board Chairman, you will see that he has used very strong words to denounce the leaders of the Babri Masjid Action Committee. It is on the basis of these grounds that I believe that it was a deal between the government and Personal Law Board.

A file picture from December 17, 1990. Arif Mohammad Khan is seen with former Prime Minister and Janata Dal leader VP Singh. (Rajiv Gupta/HT Photo)

What are you views about recent movements such as the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, their demands to ban triple talaq and polygamy and codify the Muslim personal law?

India is the only country in the world, where the Muslim man enjoys this special right of divorcing his wife instantly through three pronouncements of divorce. This right is not available to a Muslim man anywhere even in Muslim world. They have to go through some process of arbitration as prescribed in Quran. The divorce when executed strictly in accordance with the elaborate procedure laid down in Quran is described as the most odious among permissible things. How much more odious would it become when all procedures are jettisoned and three instant pronouncements are made to throw a woman out of her matrimonial home.

I feel that Muslim Mahila Andolan is absolutely justified to demand a ban on triple Talaq. Even Personal Board who uphold its legality admit that it is a sin and bad in religion. If it is a sin and bad in religion then why it should not be banned as it has been done in many other countries.

On the question of codification of Muslim laws, I feel it is a very legitimate demand. Today, in the absence of codification, the courts are forced to rely either on antiquated precedents which do not relate to the world in which we are living, or exercise their own discretion which is described by the clergy as interference in religion. Once the laws are codified then all the doubts and confusions would disappear and there will be very little scope for what is termed as interference.

In fact the Personal Law Board can use this as an opportunity to show that the Muslim law has the resilience and dynamism to meet the requirements of the twenty first century and can present their own draft that is sensitive to gender justice and present day requirements.

Read:Better to divorce a woman than kill her: Muslim law board to SC

What do you think about the suggestion that the Hindu Code Bill might be the basis for the UCC, and its implications for gender justice?

It must be remembered that many provisions of the Hindu Code, such as the provision of divorce, prescription of monogamy and equal property rights for son and daughter were not part of the traditional Hindu law. Where have they come from? Obviously, the Hindu code has benefitted from other sources like the Judaic law or Muslim law. In fact we can say that Hindu Code is largely a modern legislation but it was labelled Hindu to assure the minorities that it would not apply to them against their wishes. The religion is a sensitive subject and government was keen to ensure that no one in country feels unduly concerned about the protection of their religious freedom.

Interestingly, we have on record an interview of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru by Mrs. Taya Zinkin a British journalist. Mrs Zinkin asked him about the greatest achievement of his life and his reply was that I was able to secure for my Hindu sisters, rights which were denied to them for centuries. When asked about his greatest disappointment, Panditji said: I could not do the same for my Muslim sisters.

I feel that laws alone cannot ensure gender justice or social reforms in any society. The real instrument is education particularly of women. Problems like polygamy and triple divorce would become negligible if we are able to educate our girls. Education will make them more aware and empowered and they would demand that if more than 1400 years ago, the marriage contract of the daughters of the Prophet stipulated that the husband cannot contract another marriage during the lifetime of the wife, why the same condition cannot be incorporated in their marriage contracts.

As Indians we do not fear diversity of faith, thought, custom and ritual, rather we embrace it, we cherish it and we celebrate it. But this diversity should not used as an instrument to deny gender justice to a section of Indian women. Our founding fathers viewed UCC as a measure of empowerment of Indian women and not a ploy to deny or curtail freedom of religion.

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Crowds thronged Siwan roads in 2003 when Mohammad Shahabuddin surrendered before court in connection with two cases. Thirteen years thence, on Saturday, the criminal-turned-politician came out on bail to the reception of workers of the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal.

There was a huge deployment of personnel to avoid any untoward incident as the RJD strongman, who faces more than 40 criminal cases, walked out of prison.

The city this time was Bhagalpur, which is diagonally opposite Shahabuddins native place on the Bihar map. Thousands of his supporters and hundreds of vehicles were waiting to greet the 49-year-old strongman who was granted bail by the Patna high court in the Rajiv Raushan murder case. Mediapersons jostled to get his quotes and bytes.

Just keep watching. He is our leader, said a senior RJD functionary. Shahabuddin is a member of the partys national executive. He has come out of jail; he deserves a grand welcome.

Shahabuddin wasted no time in making it clear that the RJD remained his party and Lalu Prasad his boss.

Despite serving a jail term of over a decade, which snatched the prime from him and the childhood of his son Osama, the leader appeared cheerful, dressed in a kurta-pyjama.

In August 2003, Shahbuddin did secure bail, but he was again arrested. That was in Delhi, in 2005. This time Shahabuddin was to remain in prison for 11 years.

A senior police officer, who was at the helm of affairs in 2003, recalled on Saturday that raids were going on at that time in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and elsewhere to nab Shahabuddin. There was lookout notice for him at the airports. But a senior politician told me to allow him to surrender, as he would go with over 10,000 people to the court, he said.

The then Siwan SP apprehended trouble if Shahabuddin was arrested from the midst of a large crowd of his supporters, the police officer said. He alighted from a train and went to his house and then planned his surrender. It was indeed a scene out there, he added.

It was on August 13, 2003 that Shahabuddin surrendered, with thousands of his supporters swarming the Siwan court premises and its vicinity. Amid a cavalcade of over 250 vehicles, the leader covered the four-km distance between his native Pratappur village and the city in a cavalcade that had over 250 vehicles.

Cut to 2016. The police were facing a big challenge on Saturday to manage the crowd, as Shahabuddin was set to travel a distance of 260 kmthis time with a caravan of 600 vehiclesto reach Siwan from Bhagalpur.

We have got reinforcement, said a police officer. There is police deployment all along the route. We are guarded against miscreants possibly trying to take advantage of the situation.

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BJP on Saturday termed the release of RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail a well planned strategy of the Nitish Kumar government and said it would stage dharna across in Bihar on September 14 to protest against it.

It is a managed bail. It is a governments well planned strategy which cleared the way of Shahabuddin in securing bail, senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said.

The Patna high court on September 7 granted bail to former Siwan MP Shahbuddin in the murder case a man, Rajiv Roshan, who witnessed the killing of two brothers in Siwan in 2004.

Sushil Kumar Modi, the former deputy chief minister, said the government could neither begin trial of Rajiv Roshan murder case within nine months as per the high courts direction, nor engaged top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddins bail.

The Patna HC had on February 3 directed the state government to conclude trial of the case preferably within nine months, Modi said quoting the courts order, the copy of which was distributed among media persons.

If the state government wished to start trial, it could have done so via video-conferencing from Bhagalpur where Shahabuddin was lodged, he said.

But it did not begin trial through video-conferencing nor committed the case to sessions court when Shahabuddin was in Siwan before being shifted to Bhagalpur jail.

The governments failure to start trial led to Shahabuddin getting bail, Modi said while quoting the high courts September 7 order that there is no progress in the trial and considering the period of detention, petitioner (Shahabuddin) is directed to be released on bail.

The state government also did not engage any top lawyer to oppose Shahabuddins case as it had done in other major cases in the past, he said and named several cases and the lawyers the state had hired.

The government has powers to impose Crime Control Act on hardcore criminals if it feels that release of a particular person could disturb public order as it was done in the case of Independent MLA Anant Singh, Modi said.

On Shahabuddins statement that Nitish Kumar is a Chief Minister of circumstances, Modi said he was right as Kumar with less number of MLAs is the CM while RJD with more seats is the junior partner.

Shahabuddin probably meant to say that RJD could get the CMs post in future, he said.

BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party would protest Shahabuddins release across the state on September 14.
The release of Mohammad Shahabuddin, former RJD MP from Siwan, on bail after 12 years of imprisonment may set the tone for new power equations in northwest Bihar, with the strongman now likely to become active in the RJD and regain his position as a mascot of minorities.

His bail period has not been specified. The state government can challenge the bail, but that does not seem likely right away since Lalu Prasads RJD is a major partner in the coalition government in the state, .

Shahabuddins release nine months after the formation of RJD JD(U) Congress coalition government in Bihar has sparked euphoria and aggression among his supporters in Siwan. The state administration is forced to take precautionary measures by deploying police force all along the seven districts that he crossed to reach Siwan from Bhagalpur on Saturday.

The force was deployed after the administration, in a late night meeting, on Friday took into account the likely issues of law and order. The enthusiasm of his supporters clearly indicates that the 50-year-old politician facing close to 32 cases of murder, extortion and kidnapping remains a demi-god on his home turf.

The original bahubali symbolizing terror, especially in the mid- 90s and early 2000 when RJD was at the height of its powers, Shahabuddin was nominated vice-president by the RJD just five months ago. It clearly indicated his worth for the future of RJD which Prasad wants his sons to guide riding on Shahabuddins shoulders.

Shahabuddins bail came three months after he was shifted from Siwan jail to Bhagalpur central prison after one of his close aides Laddan Mian was arrested in connection with the murder of Hindustan scribe Rajdeo Ranjan. The former MPs name was dragged into the case by the opposition, which charged him with conspiring in the murder after a photograph Ranjan took of the former MP having a chat inside the jail with minority affairs minister Abdul Ghafoor, went viral.

Ranjans murder is still under probe. Shahabuddin was shifted out of Siwan jail to Bhagalpur jail to ensure that the investigations are not hampered.

The episode of a minister calling on the former MP inside jail and the RJD top brass keeping quiet despite the opposition BJPs protests was another instance that reinforced how Shahabuddin remains important for his party.

Shahabuddins clout has not diminished, and his support among minorities, which dominates the Siwan-Chapra and Gopalganj arc in north Bihar, makes him politically useful for RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who regained power in 2015 after 10 year in opposition.

Minorities in Siwan still regard Shahabuddin as a formidable figure who could stop the BJP in the area. The BJP won the Siwan parliamentary seat in 2009 and 2014 parliamentary polls.

Shahabuddin holds big clout in as many as 35-40 assembly seats in north-west Bihar districts where Muslims vote could turn the scales towards any combination. In 2005, the RJD lost badly as the Muslim votes were scattered because of various factors, including Shahabuddins arrest. It happened in 2010 as well, said former minister and relative of the former MP, Ejajul Haque.

The RJD was aware of this fact, the reason why the former MP was given a place in its national executive, the highest decision making body, prompting the BJP to call it a reflection of how Lalu still promotes musclemen.

Old timers recall how the former MP managed to put his own candidates from Muslim dominated seats at his own will and many times defied Lalu Prasads selections, arguing he commanded more support in the area and would ensure win of candidates of his choice.

Insiders say it was the Siwan strongman who had put his weight behind Darbhanga MP M A A Fatmi for his elevation as a union minister in UPA-I when RJD was an important ally.

With elections now far away, the former MP does not have a ready assignment for the RJD, but insiders say the party wishes to leverage Shahabuddins clout to salvage lost ground in north-west Bihar and Muslim dominated districts like Kisganganj and Katihar. The RJD clearly wants to be the dominant party in the state government.

It would also be interesting to see, whether the don asserts himself within his own party. The RJDs coalition partner, the JD(U) led by chief minister Nitish Kumar has always maintained an arms length from the Shahabuddin, especially when he was in power with the BJP between 2005- 2013.

There are also speculations that the former MP could put pressure on the RJD chief to accommodate more Muslim ministers in the cabinet to consolidate the partys base among minorities and could seek a berth in the state legislative council or Rajya Sabha for his wife, Hina Shahab.

For the government, it would be a tough call to keep musclemen like Shahabuddin in check. If that does not happen, it would give the coalition government a bad name on the law and order front, said a senior leader of the coalition on condition of anonymity.

The BJP senior leader, Sushil Kumar, Modi has accused the Bihar government of going soft on Shahabuddin to ensure bail for him.

The release of Shahabuddin has brought back dark days to Bihar. Why has the government not imposed Crime Control Act (CCA) on the Siwan don as it did with Mokama strongman Anant Singh? he said on Saturday.

Singh, a don and JD-U MLA of Mokama was arrested and sent to jail following killing of a Yadav boy earlier this year and CCA was imposed on him on August 6.

The RJD has rubbished Modis accusations stating that the former MP has got bail from the court and the state had nothing to do with it.

Under-trial stage

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Mohammad Shahabuddin, the former Lok Sabha MP who was released from prison on bail after 11 years, was first charged by the police in 1986 and allegedly began a criminal career when he was a college student.

Shahabuddin soon used his criminal antecedent as a short-cut to politics. He was elected as an MLA in 1990 on a ticket he got from Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad. Five years later, he again became a legislator.

From 1996, he went on to become a parliamentarian four times. His 2004 Lok Sabha contest was from jail.

In May 2007, Shahabuddin was convicted of kidnapping a far-Left activist Chhote Lal Gupta, who was missing for nine years then. The life imprisonment for abducting with an intent to murder jeopardised the RJD leaders political career, as law barred people sentenced to two years in jail from contesting polls.

RJDs Shahabuddin walks out on bail after a decade behind bars

In all, Shahabuddin faces around 40 criminal cases, including those of abduction and murder. For 11 years till Saturday, he remained imprisoned, having been shifted three times jails in Bhagalpur and Gaya. The release on bail follows a court order.

According to sources, judgment has come in 12 cases involving Shahabuddin. He was acquitted in four, while he has nearly completed his sentence in eight other cases. Shahabuddin has been convicted in 10 other cases, while in some cases the trial is yet to complete.

It was this Wednesday the Patna High Court granted him bail in a case involving the murder of a witness in the killing of Girish and Satish Raj by drenching the Siwan brothers in acid and shooting them.

Read | 1,300 SUVs reach Bhagalpur ahead of Shahabuddins release

Nine years ago, Shahabuddin was convicted in May 8, 2007 by a special court that gave him lifer for the abduction of CPI(ML) worker Chhote Lal Gupta in February 1999. Gupta was never seen thereafter and was widely presumed to have been killed.

In his heyday, Shahabuddin fought elections with practically no opposition. The locals lowered their voice when they talked about their Sahab, while the doctors in the area cut down consultation fee to Rs 50 at his tacit messages.

On August 30, 2007, Shahabuddin was found guilty of attacking Siwan SP Sanjiv Kumar Singhal. He faces a term of 10 years in the case.

Shahabuddin continued to wield cloutfrom behind bars. In 2014, RJD president Lalu Prasad gave ticket to his wife Heena Shahab from Siwan for a second time even though she had badly lost the 2009 polls. She was later speculated to be nominated to the state legislative council.

Shahabuddin was born on May 10, 1967, and has an MA and PhD, though his doctorate degree from the BRA Bihar University landed him in controversy.

On Saturday, Shahabuddins released from jail, sparked off a political debate. The main Opposition says it has much about to do with the RJD coming to power in the state nine months ago.

The state government worked systematically in paving the way for Shahabuddins release, says senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, a former CM. Isnt it surprising he is part of the RJDs top policy-making body even though he was in jail all these years?

The HC had, way back in February 2016, directed the state government to complete trial in the acid bath case. It never took off in an effort to facilitate his release, he said. Will Shahabuddin now share the dais with (chief minister) Nitish Kumar?

Modi wondered why the state government did not hire a senior lawyer, as it did in case of prohibition case, to allow law to take its own course in Shahabudins case.

Shahabuddin downplayed the attack saying he did not take Modi seriously.

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India is not likely to come to a resolution in transfer of technology in production of F16 and other fighter jets for at least a year and a half, a top Pentagon official said on Friday, days after the American defence body backed proposals to have fighter jets made in India.

Obviously technology transfer is something that India is really really hoping for -- looking for how much were able to work through -- will probably be a key determinant, US air force secretary, Deborah Lee James, told reporters on Friday.

Then a key determinant in what India ultimately ends up doing will relate to the Make in India part, how many jobs, what sorts of technologies might transfer, James said. The Indian government is not likely to come to a resolution on this for at least a year, a year and a half perhaps, thats my impression, she said.

Hindustan Times had reported that the Pentagon had backed proposals from US aviation giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin to manufacture top-line fighter aircraft as part of the Make in India initiative.Government sources said the two sides also discussed sharing of sensitive data related to top-end defence technology, and possible transfer of high-altitude long-duration drones for maritime surveillance.

James, who recently returned from India said, the country is thinking about manufacturing not just F-16s and F-18s.

Theyre also considering the Grippons and a variety of other aircraft.

James, however, said her discussions with respect to the F-16 and F-18 did not get into the actual details of what the industry proposed. My discussions related to the importance of interoperability, joint training, how we have and of course, many countries around the world have extensive experience with both the F-16, the F-18, she said.

She also clarified that the fighter jet proposals were not government proposals but had come directly from the industry. They are not FMS (Foreign Military Sales), she said.

In her discussion, the US Air Force Secretary said, she further discussed about modernisation programs, and Indias strong interest in co-production and co-development technology transfer.
Despite doctors raising doubts over a possible termination of pregnancy of a 32-week pregnant teenage rape survivor in Bareilly, her father is unwilling to accept this reality yet.

Medical terms like advanced pregnancy and developed features are beyond the comprehension of the 44-year-old man who can neither read nor write. We only want to terminate the pregnancy but the entire system is unable to do it, said the girls father, giving vent to his anger at the repeated delay and denials to the request for medical termination of pregnancy (MTP).

He is also worried about the future of his daughter and his family. The society we live in will never accept that child or my daughter after the birth. People will ostracise my family. Nobody will give us work and we will be forced to beg for a living, he said.

I will not rest till that child is separated from my daughter. I will not let that life destroy my family, said the man who is planning to submit an application in court to seek help in placing the child for adoption. My daughter is a child herself. She is not ready to give birth to a baby which will only harm her, he added.

Read | UP rape victim awaits medical test result on request to end pregnancy

Even as her family awaits a report from the district hospital in Bareilly, experts in Lucknow have said pre-term delivery is the only option.

There is no question of medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) or abortion in this case as the pregnancy has crossed 26 weeks, said Dr Neelam Singh, gynaecologist and head of a voluntary group Vatsalya in the state capital.

Hindustan Times spoke to leading gynaecologists who said MTP was not possible in such a case. They said abortion was considered usually if the pregnancy had not crossed 20 weeks or the weight of the foetus was below 500 grams. In this case, the weight was one kilogram, hence the child had the right to be born, the experts said.

The option in hand is pre-term delivery even if there are complications or congenital deformities of the heart, said Prof SP Jaiswar, senior faculty at King Georges Medical University and secretary, Lucknow Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society.

Read | Time running out for 14-year-old rape survivor seeking abortion

In a similar case that came up in 2015 in Lucknow, a minor rape survivor had delivered the child after an expert committee of the King Georges Medical University examined her and ruled out abortion.

The committee formed on the court directives had examined the rape survivor. The panel finally concluded that abortion in 32 or 33 weeks of pregnancy is not possible. They had then recommended a pre-term or full term delivery for the minor girl stating that abortion was not possible after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The foetus is capable of independent survival after 26 weeks of pregnancy. Hence, there is no question of abortion, said Prof Jaiswar, speaking about the Bareilly rape survivor case.

Experts said pre-term delivery too is decided upon by a few factors such as risk to the mother. If there was no risk, then full-term delivery is favoured. A full grown child has all the right to survive and abortion at this stage will be killing (it), said Dr Rama Srivastava, member of the federation of obstetric and gynaecological societies of India.

Also read | Maharashtra rape survivor stable after SC allows abortion of 24-week foetus
Controversial TV preacher Zakir Naiks NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) donated Rs 50 lakh to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) in 2011 but the home ministry found nothing wrong with the transaction. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi are trustees of RGCT.

The Congress owned up the donation, but claimed that the same was returned to IRF some months ago.

Both the organisations are registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) that allows them to receive foreign funding. Under the norms, there is no bar on one FCRA registered body to give money to another FCRA registered outfit if the purpose of funding is same, said an official source.

The transaction was known to the union home ministry since late 2014 when it inspected books of the IRF. The transaction was reviewed by the ministry officials but it was found that the donation cant be used against the IRF as any evidence of violation of the FCRA because it would not stand any scrutiny in a court, sources said.

Read | Bangladesh urges India to provide details on Zakir Naiks operations

There is nothing to hide about the donation to the RGCT. We donate to many NGOs doing work which is part of the charter of the IRF and like those NGOs, the RGCT was also given money. But we ensure that money goes to only those NGOs that are registered under the FCRA. These donations are mentioned in the IRF books and part of its annual reports, said IRF spokesman Aarif Malik.

The IRF spokesman said the money which had gone to the RGCT, was returned to the foundation sometime in July after the terror attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka.

Read | Zakir Naiks NGO banned from receiving foreign funds directly

The donation to RGCT is just one of the several donations the IRF makes to NGOs of similar nature for education of the girl child and higher education in medicine.

Naik and his NGO have become political hot potatoes and target of multi-agency probe ever since it came to light that two of the terrorists behind the July 1 attack in Dhaka were allegedly inspired by Naiks speeches.

Interestingly, the 2014 inspection report of the IRF was never acted upon by the home ministry.

When Zakir Naik came under renewed focus after the Holey Artisan Bakery attack, the then joint secretary (foreigners) GK Dwivedi found about the report and initiated disciplinary action against three junior officials for not acting on the report. But later Dwivedi himself was suspended as his division renewed foreign funding license of the IRF despite inquiry pending against it.

The ministry has now put the IRF under prior permission category under which all foreign donations to it will be first vetted by the government before being transferred into its accounts.

Read | Foreign funding for Zakir Naiks NGO renewed, 4 home min officials suspended

Also read | MHA orders probe into foreign funding license renewal of Zakir Naiks NGO
The wife of Rajasthans chief secretary O P Meena accused him on Saturday of sexually abusing their daughter when she was a teenager, but the top civil servant denied the charge as baseless.

Geeta Singh Deo told a press conference that their daughter, who is now 31 and lives abroad, sent an email about this to the Rajasthan high court in April, urging action against her father. She distributed copies of the purported email at the press conference. HT has a copy of it.

HT sent an email to Deos daughter to confirm the veracity of her mothers statement but had not heard back from her till the time of going to press.

Asked about the allegations, Meena dismissed them as baseless, saying he did not remember when he had last met his daughter.

I am not aware of any such matter. Anybody can say anything, he said.

The couple are estranged and have been living separately for three years. Deo filed a case of domestic violence against her husband in September last year, triggering a police investigation.

My husband sexually abused my daughter when she was studying in school but at that time I didnt report the incidents after thinking of the repercussions that she might face, Deo told HT. She said the alleged abuse started when their daughter was 13.

She said when she threatened to report him, her husband tried to buy their daughters silence by giving her credit cards. Deo did not clarify why she or her daughter had not reported the matter earlier.

Deo, an officer of the state administrative service, quoted her daughters purported email as saying Meena would go into her room and touch her at wrong places.

The alleged molestation stopped when her daughter told her about it, Deo said.

Deo also accused the police of dragging their feet on her domestic violence complaint under pressure from her husbands family. Meenas brothers are powerful politicians.

But Kavita Sharma, the investigating officer in the case, denied any political pressure and expressed surprise with Deos allegations of sexual abuse of her daughter.

I had taken the statement of her daughter in March this year and she didnt mention a single thing about sexual harassment, said Sharma.

It is surprising that she would write the letter to the court the very next month saying that she was molested.
A fire broke out at the central library of Presidency University, home to more than 3.73 lakh books and 1.5 lakh periodicals collected over a century, in Kolkata on Friday.

Smoke billowed out from the librarians room at around 1:30 pm. Within minutes, it engulfed much of the campus, forcing teachers and students out of their classes.

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A true bibliophile knows the value of a book and most would go to any extent to share the joy of reading. If you have a stock of abandoned old books, which once regaled you, helped you through a rough patch, or brought a smile to your face, then it is time to pass on the feeling.

Many NGOs Delhi urge people to donate old books and reading material for the underprivileged. And if one wishes to do something beyond donations of books, one can even volunteer for reading sessions. Professor Surinder Singh Jodhka, Social Sciences Centre for the Study of Social Systems at Jawaharlal Nehru University, says, Literacy is very important, and education need not be imparted in just schools. We must develop a culture of reading as it takes a child a long way. Books need to be made a part of the environment a child grows up in. What these NGOs are doing must be encouraged and recognised.

Read: Book banks | A step to preserve, spread knowledge

Developing Thought through Stories

Katha works with underserved children by bringing quality education and reading within their reach. They also publish books and have over 300 titles in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and storybooks. What sets them apart is the fact that they are bringing back the art of storytelling.

Children involved in a reading session.

Stories get students to ask questions. The mind grows when there is empathy, compassion and an understanding of the world around us. Stories help children and young adults achieve this, says Geeta Dharmarajan, founder.

I Love Reading, a campaign started by the NGO in 2004 urges people to donate books. Renuka Malaker, development director, says, I believe that children should have access to quality books, and the books should be in good condition when donated. The NGO welcomes participation of volunteers to take part in their programmes. Everyone is a storyteller, and we have volunteers who work with us in different capacities, says Dharmarajan.

Companion through Curfew

Uday Foundation not only works with an aim to provide shelter, food and basic amenities to the homeless and disaster-stricken, but also works towards imparting education to children. Through its book donation drives, the NGO manages to collect around 50,000 books annually.

Kids gather around actor Ranbir Kapoor as he reads out from a storybook.

We have deployed two vans under our Story on Wheels programme that visit hospitals everyday, where our volunteers read out from the books to sick children. We also have Bollywood actors like Ranbir Kapoor and Manoj Bajpayee on board. They have visited hospitals where reading sessions are held, says Rahul Verma, founder. In addition to sending dry ration and clothes for relief work, the NGO makes sure to send books for children in affected areas. Whats a child to do during a curfew? With no access to the outside world, books become their companions, he adds.

Read: For the love of books: The joy of reading, brought to you by publishers

The NGO has 138 schools in the city on board that collect books and drop them at their centre in Adhchini. You too can be a part of this initiative by donating books and study material, or as a volunteer.

A library for all

Deepalaya NGO runs a community library and a reading project, under which they operate two libraries that stock novels and storybooks. Our volunteers hold read-aloud sessions with the kids. The way a story is told is very important as it invokes curiosity and makes them ask questions. The children also take books home for further reading, says Jaswant Kaur, communications director.

Books, toys and puzzles aid a childs learning process.

People can donate books at the libraries or if there are books in bulk, then the NGO collects them from a centralised location. It is not possible for us to hold door-to-door pickup drives. So if you have a bulk collection of books from your neighbourhood, then we can arrange for a pickup, she adds.

Starting a dialogue

Hope Foundation started the Slum Children Education Programme in 2010, under which it runs schools for underprivileged children. They also have book collection centres spread over the city, where people can donate books.

We have a library of books which include storybooks and motivational books. We urge people to donate books, preferably in Hindi, says P Chandrasekaran, head, North India operations. Volunteers at the foundation engage the children in crafts, music, tailoring and other vocations.

Read: Book donor club in Noida, a hit among students

There are times when children dont understand things by reading alone. People can also join us as storytellers and read out the books to the children, engage them in conversation about various subjects, says Lalita Francis, senior programme manager.

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Indo-Canadian photographer Bhargavi Joshis latest project is going viral for shedding light on the violations faced by women across the world. Now, meet the artist.

nine women in white with stoic faces stare at us from Indian-Canadian artist Bhargavi Joshis (31) photo series, PRINTiED Violation. It went viral on social media last month. But more than the women, the black marks of oppression in the images speak of the violations women face.

Joshi has used black paint to suggest the oppressions faced by women (Photos: Bhargavi Joshi)

Joshi, who says she experienced a fair share of violations in her life, has used black paint to suggest the oppressions women across the world face  force, rape, genital mutilation, marital rape, female infanticide, and so on.

Read more: Author Meghna Pants new book deals with women, violence and feminism

Ive had to fight them growing up, and even today. Most people are aware of the problems depicted in this campaign. These crimes are happening all around us. But the extremely high occurrence of these issues has desensitised people towards them. I want this campaign to be a stark reminder that ignoring them doesnt make them disappear, says Joshi, who shuttles between Los Angeles, Mumbai, Vancouver and Toronto. Hailing from a family of visual artists, film-makers and architects, Joshi grew up in Mumbai and Toronto, in a creatively charged environment, and pursued a degree in Applied Photography from Sheridan College, Toronto.

The colour white is employed to shift the focus from physical traits, race and culture, to the commonality - that they are all women (Photos: Bhargavi Joshi)

A closer look at the photo project brings to the fore a series of subtle messages. The clothes worn by the women are made from medical gauze. This is to symbolise the wrapping of their wounds that society is adamant on concealing. The colour white is employed to shift the focus from physical traits, race and culture, to the commonality  that they are all women. The artist consciously wanted the women to look like delicate porcelain figures, to symbolise how our patriarchal society regards the female sex as weak.

Online warrior

Joshi feels that the ease of reaching a large number of people has become easy thanks to social media. But there are downsides as well. Theres limitless cyber bullying, slut-shaming and trolling. All this can have devastating effect on those trying to share a story, honestly hoping it might inspire and help others, says the artist.

Read more: I received lewd comments on Instagram: 17-year-old graphic artist who sketched feminist goddesses

Joshi is currently in the process of shooting around 12 more concepts. Her upcoming series addresses domestic, child and elderly abuse.

Log on

Check out the photo project, PRINTiED Violation, by Bhargavi Joshi on bhargavijoshi.com
Yoga guru Ramdev has claimed that the employment generated by his mega food park, launched on Saturday, would bail out debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha.

The announcement was made at the launch of the park in multi-model International Cargo Hub and Airport, Nagpur (MIHAN) in presence of the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Union minister for transport and shipping, Nitin Gadkari and a huge gathering of farmers.

Read: Ramdevs company to set up food park in Nagpur

Patanjali to set up orange juice plant in Nagpur

The proposed food park, spread over 230-acre of land would provide direct employment to 10,000 people, said Ramdev. We are fighting to make our country economically independent and freedom from multi-national companies by promoting indigenous and natural products, he claimed. He also said that it would bail out the crisis-ridden farm sector of Vidarbha that is infamous for farmer suicides.

The company plans to develop a modern food park by building a Rs 1000-crore plant, and manufacture juice made from the famous Nagpuri orange. This would be the first time that orange juice made from local fruit would be packaged as a brand, the yoga guru said.

Union minister Gadkari, who has been instrumental in getting Ramdev to invest in food parks and allied business in the region, claimed that the yoga gurus company Patanjali would be a boon for the farmers of the region and it would usher in modernization of the Nagpur city.

According to him, tribals from Gadchiroli, Gondia and Chandrapur who make a living collecting forest produces, like medicinal plants and herbs would benefit hugely from this initiative.

Farmers will be trained by Patanjali workers to grow orange, aloe vera, tomato and herbs according to the specification of the company and given a purchase guarantee. A team of scientists and other experts are also working on the project that is expected to change the farm economy of the region.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister, Fadnavis dismissed the allegations levelled by the former Union minister, Vilas Muttemwar that the government has given the plot of land to Patanjali at less than half of the cost that other investors have paid at MIHAN.

The process involved at giving the land to Patanjali was transparent. We had floated tenders thrice and Patanjali Ayurveda was found to be the right choice in the bidding as per the central vigilance commission norms, Fadnavis said.

The government wanted a commitment to procure raw materials to the tune of at least Rs 100 crore per annum from the farmers and members of tribal community within the surrounding area.

It also laid a condition that the bidder should commit to train minimum 2,000 farmers per year across Maharashtra to improve productivity, quality and market intelligence to get them ready for agro business development in consultation with agriculture department. Patanjali has assured to fulfill all these norms, the chief minister said. The plant is expected to link nearly 50,000 farmers suppliers, create direct employment for over 10,000 people and eventually provide indirect employment to lakhs of families.

Regarding the land deal, senior Congress leader Muttemwar had said that as against the running rate of Rs 60-lakh per acre, Patanjali has been charged only Rs 25-lakh an acre. He said that this deal was against all norms and hence should be probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the state-run MIHAN had acquired land from farmers and was giving it on a platter to Patanjali as a special favour.

Muttemwar alleged that the deal was nothing but the BJP government was repaying a favour to Ramdev who had campaigned wholeheartedly for the party during the 2014 general elections.
The fifth day of the Ganeshostav festival was a noisy affair with residential areas near Dadar being the noisiest at 112.7 decibel (dB).

Anti-noise activists from Awaaz Foundation and Shivaji Park based Wecom trust recorded noise levels from immersion processions between 8pm till 11.15pm from various parts of the city on Friday and found noise levels at all silence zones to be much above permissible limits.

Locations such as a silence zone at Juhu Tara Road recorded 109.6 dB, Bandra Talao at 104.9dB, near SNDT college Matunga at 101.5dB and areas such as Grant Road, Lamington Road and Lalbaug, all above 100 dB.

According to the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, residential and silence zones should have a maximum noise level of 55dB and 50dB in the day and 45dB and 40dB at the night, respectively.

Last year, noise levels were recorded after one-and-a-half day and seventh day of the festival by the NGO but not on the fifth day. On the other hand, Mahim was the quietest area on Friday with noise levels at 80 dB.

Noise levels were high this year owing to the use of drums, metal plates and loudspeakers coming from immersion processions, said Sumaira Abdulali, convener, Awaaz Foundaton. However, disc jockeys (DJs) had toned down the use of their loudspeakers as compared to previous years. There has been a certain amount of awareness at immersion sites such as Girgaum chowpatty that only had public address systems to help devotees immerse their idols this year.

Read more 10 Ganpatis we recommend you must visit in Mumbai

Abdulali added that while noise levels were high in certain parts of the city, a procession near Lamington road was led by a horse. This was a clear violation of laws against animal cruelty as an animal was being subjected to high noise levels during the fifth day. Unfortunately there was no police presence in the area at the time, she said.

Members of Wecom Trust and residents of Shivaji Park, a silence zone, recorded maximum noise levels at 100.2 dB on Friday as compared 100.1 on the one-and-a-half day immersions on Tuesday. With adequate police presence in the vicinity, noise levels remained high and the source was stationary procession drums, said Ashok Rawat, resident and member of Wecom Trust.

Meanwhile, anti-noise activist Dr Mahesh Bedekar recorded noise levels across Thane and found Ram Murti Road, Thane (West) to be the noisiest at 108 dB. While the lowest readings were 65dB at Gokhale Road, a Silence Zone, the average readings from various processions was between 80-90 dB on Friday.

The use of drums, banjos and loudspeakers amplified noise levels at some areas in Thane (West). There was heavy police presence this year. However, noise from busy traffic junctions with obstructions from processions added to ambient noise levels, said Dr Bedekar.

AUTHORITY SPEAK

We had asked various mandals to ban the use of loudspeakers this year, which is why they are not a main source of high noise levels, said Naresh Dahibhavkar, president of the umbrella body of Ganesh mandals, Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti (BSGSS). We will be making an appeal to mandals again on Saturday to restrict the use of drums, dhols and metal plates outside Silence Zones.

What the law says?

A recent comprehensive Bombay high court order from last month not only bans the use of loudspeakers at silence zones but even the use of drums, blowing horns, trumpets and playing of any music using sound amplifiers. Apart from prohibition on grant of license to use loudspeakers or public address systems in silence zones, there is a complete ban on beating a drum or tom tom or on blowing a horn, either musical or pressure, or trumpet or beats or sounds, using any sound amplifiers, read the order passed by division bench of Justice bhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed.

Noise standards as laid down in the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000.

Category of area Day time limit (in dB) (6.30am to 8.30pm) Night time limit (in dB) (8.30pm  6.30am)

Residential area 55 45

Silence zones 50 40

HOW MUCH NOISE IS TOO MUCH?

 Healthy hearing threshold - 0dB

 Pin dropping - 10dB

 Rustling leaves - 20dB

 Sound of river water - 40dB

 Light traffic, refrigerator - 50dB

 Conversational speech, air conditioner - 60dB

 Vacuum cleaner - 75dB

 Alarm clock - 80dB

 Discotheque/pneumatic hammer - 100dB

 Live Rock Band - 115dB

 Steel mill - 120dB

 Thunderclap, chain saw - 130dB

 Jet take-off (at 25 metres) - 150dB

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Leaving nothing to chance in the wake of sting operations that have put it on the defensive, the AAP stripped its volunteers of pens, watches and mobile phones before they entered Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwals temporary abode here on Friday.

Must read | Kejriwals Punjab outing: Big bungalow, rich host, aam aadmi leaders in SUVs

Women couldnt even carry their handbags. A group of Asha workers from Faridkot gaped in disbelief on being told about the restriction. Not trusting anyone with their purses, the four women left one of them to guard these, while the rest went in to meet Kejriwal. Had we known earlier, we would not have carried purses, said Faridkot Asha workers union vice-president Sarabjit Kaur. A party worker said: Cameras could be hidden in these pens, watches, and bags. Our rivals have planned sting operations and they might use our disgruntled members to target us.

Dont miss | Sukhbir Badal has 63 fake CDs to malign me: Arvind Kejriwal

With no seating arrangements outside the palatial house, visitors braved the hot-and-humid weather for more than two hours. Gurcharan Singh (70) who had come with a group of 30 from Maud Mandi in Bathinda, said he had been waiting for two hours in the sun.

Demand to sack Mansa sting man

High drama started when an AAP volunteer from Mansa, Preet Chahal, demanded sacking of the partys sting man Gurlabh Singh Mahal. He is blackmailing everyone. Why is he still with the party? Chahal asked another volunteer in a heated verbal exchange outside Kejriwals temporary residence.

Kejri consults Johl on farmer manifesto

Two days before he plans to release farmers manifesto, Kejriwal met Central University of Punjab (Bathinda) chancellor, agricultural economist, and policy adviser SS Johl at this house here for 30 minutes on Friday.

(With inputs from Tarsem Deogan)

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A clueless Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal has promised holy city status to Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib, which they have already.

Must read | Holy city status to Amritsar, Anandpur Sahib if AAP wins: Kejriwal

If the AAP forms the government in Punjab (next year), there will be complete ban on liquor, tobacco, cigarette, and meat in the walled city of Amritsar, Kejriwal said after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple on Friday morning. Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was quick to respond in Chandigarh that liquor is forbidden already in cities housing prominent gurdwaras, and Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib also continue to be official holy cities. Kejriwal and his team are clueless about Punjab.

They have no idea about its history, culture, and Sikh religion. They keep making these mistakes. They are dangerous for the state, Sukhbir said.

Kejriwals visit to the Harmandar Sahib and his promise on holy city status for Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib are part of his strategy to counter the anti-Sikh, anti-Punjabi charges that sacked state party convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur has laid against him.

Also read | Kejriwal wants to be Punjab CM: Sacked AAP state chief Chhotepur

To woo the poll-bound states Sikh majority, the AAP convener had even sent it a video message from Italy, of his raising the Jo Bole So Nihaal Sikh slogan. I find a lot of peace here, Kejriwal said after praying at the Golden Temple on Friday.

Dont miss | Kejriwals Punjab outing: Big bungalow, rich host, aam aadmi leaders in SUVs

Dip in support

Top brass of the party, including Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, Punjab convener Gurpreet Ghuggi, and Dakha candidate HS Phoolka, were with him but the dip in the number of party workers accompanying Kejriwal was evident. In all his past visits to Amritsar or the Golden Temple, this number has been very high; but on Friday it was different.

The split in the party over ticket allocation and the recent resignation of former Amritsar AAP chief Gurinder Bajwa along with more than 85 volunteers is seen as the reason behind this.
Ruling out any alliance with other parties for the upcoming assembly polls in the state, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee(PPCC) president Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the party is set to contest the elections on its own.

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the Halke Vich Captain programme at Rupnagar, Captain said he had advocated for a broad-based alliance of secular forces in the state, but that could not happen.

The Peoples Party of Punjab and Shiromani Akali Dal (Longowal) have already merged with the Congress. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has decided to contest all 117 seats and the Left parties have failed to take a decision on an alliance. So, we are all set to go it alone in the elections, he said.

The Punjab Congress chief ridiculed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal for his statement that Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib will be made as holy cities after AAP comes to power in the state. Kejriwal has no knowledge about Punjab. Anandpur Sahib and Amritsar have already been declared as holy cities, he added.

On the fourth front, he said it had no base in Punjab. He said a party could not be formed with three legislators.

Amarinder said winnability would be sole criteria for allotment of party tickets and those sitting members legislative assembly (MLAs), who were not in a position to win the election would not be allotted tickets.
A joint operation to curb the incidence of dengue was conducted by officials of the health department and the municipal corporation in dengue-affected areas of the city as 11 new cases were reported on Friday.

So far, 130 cases have been found dengue-positive out of the suspected 262. The number stood at 119 on Thursday. There has been a constant rise in the cases in the city for the past two weeks.

On Friday, challans were issued by the teams to owners of tyre shops in the Jahajgarh area of the city after the presence of larvae was detected in their shops.

The teams even ordered fogging in the areas such as Katra Moti Ram, Khu Suniarian, Katra Dal Singh, Gopal Nagar, Kartar Nagar and others.

The health officials visited the anganwadi situated in Ekta Nagar as well.

District epidemiologist Dr Madan Mohan said that people were informed about the reasons, symptoms and precautions to be taken to curb the epidemic.

He said, People themselves need to take precautions. We issued challans as we want people should realise their mistakes. Carelessness can lead to the spread of dengue and breeding of mosquitoes.

Sanitary inspector Rakesh Marwah of the corporation accompanied the members of the anti-larvae team.

In past too, the health authorities have been carrying out fogging exercise in the city. Interestingly, out 130 cases reported in the city, majority belong to the walled area of the city.

Doctors advise that one should wear full sleeve clothes and should watch out against stagnant water near their houses.

Deputy commissioner Varun Roojam had also held a meeting of officials and had directed them to take steps to curb the outbreak of dengue.

Jatinder Singh, a private company employee, said, The fogging process has not been initiated in many parts from where dengue cases have been reported.

Ritu Sharma, a school teacher, said, Everyday, new cases are being reported in newspapers. It is really risky. I make sure that I dont go near areas full of water.
The Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL), the venture running the operations at the airport, told the Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday that, for now, the facilities of Wi-Fi, money exchange, additional ATMs and duty-free shops will not be there at the airport. The first international flight takes off on September 15. The CHIAL also told the court that the deadlines for receiving such tenders have been extended.

After glancing through CHIALs documents, the petitioner, Mohali Industries Associations, advocate Puneet Bali told the court that in place of food plaza, what they have proposed are kiosks. They have proposed pigeon holes in place of food plaza where one would get tea and a burger only.. You are going international. Facilities should not be such that an international passenger come and decides not to visit again, he said asking the court to issue directions and fix deadlines. He emphasised that international airports ought to have certain facilities that were lacking.

Responding to it, the CHIAL counsels told the court that CITCO had been roped in for food plaza facility for now. Tenders have been floated. But deadlines had to be extended due to poor response in most cases, a CHIAL counsel said, adding that some facilities such as money exchange will be set up immediately after operations begin. Later, the high court issued direction to CHIAL to submit deadlines of various facilities to be provided at airport on September 22, the next date of hearing.

UT, CHIAL, Punjab asked to hold meeting again

The HC bench also directed the UT administration, the CHIAL, the Indian Air Force and Punjab to hold a meeting to discuss land acquisition for proposed parallel runway. The meeting will be held on Monday. The HC directed Punjab, CHIAL, AAI and IAF to hold a meeting in Delhi before September 22 to discuss modalities for land acquisition.

The HC also directed Air India to re-consider its decision on schedule given for international combo flight from Chandigarh. The court observed that it should be scheduled in such a way that passengers flying out and coming into Chandigarh to areas such as Europe can benefit.

The take-off schedule given by Air India is of past noon. During the hearing, it came to light that if pre-poned by two or three hours, passengers going to Europe will benefit.

Facilities that are provided

1) Escalators, lifts, air-conditioning

2) Retail shops: of leather bags and accessories, International SIM card shop, counter for foreign exchange

3) SBI ATM

4) Tourism counter, information counter, medical facilities
Dreaded gangster Davinder Bambiha alias Davinder Shooter, who was killed in a police encounter in Bathinda, was a headache for the Ludhiana police. The Ludhiana police was after him since he, along with his accomplices, had gunned down sarpanch Ravi Khwajke in a marriage function on February 20 this year.

Bambiha was spotted in Ludhiana many times. He had given the police a slip, when they raided at a house for his arrest on July 24.

Must read | Punjab gangster, Facebook villain Bambiha gunned down at Bathinda village

Later, the police registered a case of hatching conspiracy for executing dacoity against him and his accomplices.

Bambiha, who was active on social media, had updates his Facebook page few hours before he was killed in the encounter.

As the news of his killing surfaced, followers expressed grief over his death on Facebook. His accomplices have posted a status after his death warning his rivals that they will be taught a lesson.
Much to the chagrin of Aam Aadmi Party supporters and workers, city residents woke up to find unauthorised handbills (printed advertisements) levelling allegations against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in their newspapers.

The name and address of the printer and publisher was missing on these handbills. The pamphlets, however, hit a nerve with AAP supporters who said they will move court against the illegal distribution at a time when Kejriwal was staying in the city for a four-day tour.

The handbill does not have the name of publisher and printer on it. Both sides of handbill have allegations against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal. (HT Photo)

Claiming that the advertisement was fake, AAP leaders said the allegations were false and baseless.

Darshan Singh Shankar, state joint secretary, administration and grievance cell, and public relation officer of AAP, claimed that these handbills were illegal and it was an unethical act by rival parties.

The allegations levelled against the AAP convener are wrong. Frustrated political parties are trying to defame AAP which is getting a huge support from people in the state. We will take legal action in this regard, he said. Sources said these handbills were given to vendors by a team of youngsters in the city. They came in vehicles with the stickers of a national political party. The advertisements were kept in newspapers to be distributed in houses and offices, said a vendor.

RTI activist Kuldeep Singh Khaira said, The election campaign has begun but the election commission must be alert over election malpractices. I received this pamphlet inside a newspaper without the name of its publisher.

Publisher mandatory, says DC

Deputy commissioner Ravi Bhagat said, If the name of the publisher is not printed, I will ask the staff concerned to look into the matter, he said.

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The Punjab and Haryana High Court has struck down the provision that considered only students clearing classes 11 and 12 from schools in Punjab for admission to MBBS and BDS courses under the state quota.

The provision (Class 11 from Punjab) was incorporated by Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) from this session and as many as 85% seats to the said courses were reserved under the state quota. The condition of Class 12 from Punjab schools stays.

Also read | HC okays PMET result system, but merit to see tweak; counselling on Sept 16-17

The high court bench of justice GS Sandhawalia struck down the provision stating that it would affect students adversely as the provision had retrospective effect. The court also took note of an earlier judgment, wherein state had set the condition of passing classes 11 and 12 from state schools for admissions to the medical colleges in Punjab 2019-20 onwards.

The order came on the petition of a Bathinda resident, Simran Dhillon, who was born and brought up in Punjab, but had to shift for a year to Dehradun and cleared her Class 11 from there. The petitioner had cleared Class 12 from a school in Punjab. She had argued that in 2014, when she took admission in Class 11 at Dehradun school, there was no such eligibility condition in Punjab for admission to the MBBS course. The girl fulfilled all other eligibility conditions.
Tele-call centre to respond to queries, observers for surprise checks, videography of the polling process and multi-coloured 3D holograms on the ballot papers. This is the check list prepared by Panjab University (PU) election advisory committee, for the upcoming senate election.

Also read | Senators are vultures, Panjab University controlled by mafia: V-C

Registrar-cum-returning officer for the elections, Col GS Chadha (retd) gave this information on Friday, while briefing the media about various new initiatives being undertaken by the varsity for the conduct of free, fair and transparent Senate election.

Col Chadha stated that the polling process would be live streamed from the sensitive polling stations where pre-polling booth inspection of hyper sensitive and sensitive booths will also be conducted.

Election advisory panel formed

Election advisory committee has been constituted and a meeting was held here on Friday. The committee consists of retired Punjab chief election commissioner VK Singh, ex-registrars of PU and professors of PU and persons from neighbouring institutions of higher education.

Chadha added that varsity has also decided to appoint observers to carry out surprise checks during the polling hours and if any irregularity is reported, polling booth would be cancelled and a re-poll would be ordered.

Also, some special features for ballot papers have been introduced, which includes multi-colored 3D holograms, water marks, hidden marks on the ballot papers.

For this election, PU has sought help from Punjab administration and police of states where election will be held for maintaining law and order and for accommodation of polling parties.

Col Chadha informed the polling for the senate elections will be held in various phases. While some elections have already been conducted and the next phase of the elections for principal/staff of technical colleges would be held on September 12.

Another phase of the senate elections would be held on September 19 to elect PU fellow from the varsity teaching departments professors and associate/assistant professors constituency. The final phase of the elections would be for registered graduate constituency on September 25, from 8am to 5pm at 270 polling booths spread over in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi.

This year, a total of 3.21 lakh registered voters will be voting to elect the 15 senators for the 2016 senate. The elections for heads and professors/ associate professors of affiliated Arts Colleges constituencies would also be conducted on the same day to elect eight representatives from heads and professors/associate professors constituencies.

He informed that 35,931 voters have been enrolled in year 2016 and 2.85 lakh were registered earlier.
Expressing solidarity with Sikhs settled in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday said he would call on Union home minister Rajnath Singh to flag the demands of Sikhs living there.

Badal was interacting with a delegation of J&K Sikhs at his residence in Chandigarh on Friday evening.

The CM said the Punjab government would extend every possible help to the J&K Sikhs for setting up a technical educational institute in Valley or Jammu. Badal said he would also urge the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) to explore the feasibility for providing quota to Sikh students from J&K.
Unfettered by the protest of Opposition Congress and some of its own party councillors the finance and contract committee (F&CC) on Friday gave its final approval to the controversial sweeping machine project.

The two sweeping machines that are being hired at the cost of Rs 30 crore for five years, is meant for cleaning the main roads of the city.

Mayor Sunil Jyoti said that they will hopefully get the project inauguarated on September 24, along with other new machineries by inviting deputy chief minister Sukhbir Sing Badal for the event.

As the municipal corporation Jalandhar (MCJ) authorities were already aware of the protest plan of the Congress, that has been opposing the project since its initiation, police security was beefed in the MC office from 1 pm though the F&CC meeting started at 3:30 pm. Moreover, nine police officers were present throughout the meeting in the hall.

Congress councillors with party workers opposing the road sweeping machine project at the municipal corporation office in Jalandhar on Friday. (Pardep Pandit/HT Photo)

Besides Congress, some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) members also came to oppose the project.

At the time when the F&CC was clearing the controversial cleaning machine project estimate along with 99 other works costing Rs 18.37 crore, the Congress and SAD councillors sitting in the mayors office were chanting slogans expressing support to the project and the mayor.

While the BJP and SAD councillors sat in the mayor office throughout the meeting that lasted one and a half hour, two BJP councillors Gopal Gupta and Minta Kochar staged dharna at the second entry point of the meeting hall.

The two councillors also expressed resentment about the high police security for a routine F&CC meeting. The mayor has announced emergency in the MC office. What was the need for such a huge police force? said Gopal Gupta.

Both councillors also alleged that they were stopped by a police officer at the entry point of the MC office.

The councillors further said that they will now take up the matter with state BJP chief Vijay Sampla.

Mahendru, Bhatia get their dissent noted

Among the six members of F&CC, BJP councillor Ravi Mahendru and senior deputy mayor Kamaljit Singh Bhatia got their dissent noted during the meeting. While interacting with the press, the leaders said that they raised various points during the meeting but the mayor and the commissioner didnt reply to any of their questions.

They compared the sweeping machine model that will be hired by Jalandhar with that of Mumbai, Nagpur and Surat and stated they all these implemented the cleaning model at a lesser cost and in a transparent manner unlike MCJ.

Bhatia said that before Surat adopted the sweeping machine model, a demo was carried out for 15 days for the general public, councillors and press but in Jalandhar nothing of that sort was carried out.

Meanwhile, Mahendru said that a big city like Mumbai is investing `7 crore per year for seven road-cleaning machines while Jalandhar will be paying `6 crore for two sweeping machines. This is clear cut corruption, said Ravi Mahendru.

The F&CC members are mayor Sunil Jyoti, senior deputy mayor Kamaljit Singh Bhatia, municipal commissioner GS Khaira, deputy mayor Arvinder Kaur Oberoi, BJP councillor Ravi Mahendru and councillor Bhagwant Rai Prabhakar.

DGP forwards complaints to DC

Director general of police (DGP)-cum-chief director vigilance Suresh Arora has forwarded the complaint filed by Congress councillors on sweeping machines to deputy commissioner and him, seeking an inquiry into the matter.
On Sunday, the day of the Aam Aadmi Partys (AAP) rally at Baghapurana in Moga where party chief Arvind Kejriwal is to release a poll manifesto for farmers, district authorities in neighbouring Muktsar have called for all school buses to be off roads. The move was decried by AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, who saw in it a ploy to reduce the number of transport vehicles available to ferry people to the rally.

In a written order to private and unaided schools, Muktsar district education officer (DEO) Davinder Kumar Rajoria has directed their managements to keep school buses off road at any cost on Sunday, so as to avoid any strict action. The order says deputy commissioner Sumeet Jarangal will hold a meeting with the buses drivers at Red Cross Bhawan and the physical presence of the drivers is mandatory, at 11am. School managements must ensure that the buses are not used for private transportation on Sunday. Special checking will be conducted for compliance of the order. If any school buses are found plying, they will be permanently impounded, the order, an unsigned version of which was also doing the rounds online, says.

Sources told HT that the Moga district education department has issued similar orders orally, to attend a safety awareness seminar at a private school at 10am.

In Muktsar, Rajoria said the orders were issued on the directions of district transport authorities, who asked the department to inform school managements at the earliest. To a question about the AAP rally and the possible use of buses by the party to transport supporters, Rajoria said, I am learning of the rally from you.

But Kejriwal, and several other leaders of the party including state affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh, shared the orders unsigned version on Twitter. Badals scared. Trying every dirty trick, tweeted Kejriwal.

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A young dreaded gangster Davinder Bambiha, who was shot dead in an encounter in Rampur Phool town by the Bathinda police, had never returned to his village Bambiha Bhai here in Baghapurana constituency, about 40 km from the district after he was booked in a murder case in 2010.

Must read | Punjab gangster, Facebook villain Bambiha gunned down at Bathinda village

Bambihas mother Paramjeet Kaur has been living alone after his father Iqbal Singh died of cardiac arrest and his two sisters Rupinder Kaur and Pushpinder Kaur are married.

As per the information, in October 2010, Bambiha had accompanied his friend to solve the problem of his friends girlfriend. But his friend had opened fired on the rival resulting into his death.

(Top) Police conducting a search operation for another gangster after killing Davinder Bambiha at Rampura near Bathinda on Friday; and (above) bullet marks on Bambihas car. (Sanjeev Kumar/HT)

Along with his friend, the police had also booked him on the charges of murder. Villagers said that after that incident, he had indulged into the criminal activities and his mother had disowned him after his name started coming amongst the gangsters.

It had became a challenge for the Punjab police to nab Bambiha, who was reportedly facing over 15 cases including six of murder and others include attempt to murder and dacoity.

Headache for cops, Davinder Bambiha mourned by followers

Bambiha, also known as sharpshooter, was also wanted for killing student leader-turned-sarpanch Rajwinder Singh alias Ravi Khwajke. He gunned down Khwajke on February 20 at a marriage function, pumping 14 bullets into his body.

A relative of Bambiha seeking anonymity said that Bambiha was bright in studies.

He was in BA 1st year when his name came into a murder case and since then, he didnt return to the village, he said.

Kuldeep Singh, member block panchayat and neighbour of Bambiha said that he along with panchayat members were going to Bathinda to get Bambihas body.

Meanwhile, the cremation is expected to take place in Bambiha village on Saturday.

Third encounter in past four months

Bathinda district seems to have turned into hot bed for encounters as Davinder Bambihas was third such encounter taken place in its jurisdiction in past four months.

May 27: In a joint operation by Bathinda-Faridkot police, Ajmer Singh (24), an alleged liquor smuggler, was gunned down in an encounter on the border of both districts on Jeeda-Dabrikhana road, here. He was shot in the chest by police personnel after the police alleged that the car-borne two youth opened first opened fire at police party led by Jaitu SHO Lachhman Singh. The police had seized a 0.12-bore rifle and bullet from his possesa sion. Meanwhile, Ajmers family alleged that the police took Ajmer for gangster Devinder Bambiha, while police refuted such allegations.

June 2: The special team of Haryana police in assistance with Bathinda police killed wanted gangster Ajay Kumar alias Kannu at Jagaram Tirath village in Bathinda district on June 2. Haryana based gangster Kannu, a resident of Karawari village in Sonepat district, was evading arrest in a double murder case of army officer major Sushil Chikkaras father Jagbir Singh, 57, and brother Anil Chhikara, 25, on May 12, as they hadnt voted for him in panchayat elections. More than dozen of gun shots were exchanged between police and Kannu in a 30-minute-long operation, before two of the bullets pierced into Kannus stomach. Kannu along with his three accomplices had taken shelter in a temporary makeshift owned by Bhola Singh, a notorious person, whom Kannu met in Bhiwani jail years ago.

Other wanted gangsters

Gurbaksh Sewewala: He is close associate of Davinder Bambiha and was co-accused in many of the criminal activities carried by Bambiha in past four years. After Bambihas encounter, he is the front runner to take over Bambiha gang. Presently, he is fugitive and declared proclaimed offender by the police in many cases.

Jaipal Singh: Jaipal Singh is a son of former assistant sub-inspector in Punjab police and on the radar of Punjab police following murder of gangster-politician Jaswinder Singh Rocky on May 1. He is wanted by the state police of Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in more than 40 criminal cases.

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The city police, on Friday, claimed to have cracked a blind murder case with the arrest of two accused, including the wife of the deceased. The arrested have been identified as Parwinder Kaur, 32, wife of the victim Jaswinder Singh, 35, who was murdered on August 28, and her lover Amarjit Singh, 34.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP-City I) Harvinder Singh said, During the probe into the incident, the police zeroed in on the victims wife and arrested Parwinder Kaur on September 8. She admitted to have committed the crime during interrogation.

She told the police that she had illicit relations with one Amarjeet Singh and both wanted to get married. For this, both planned to kill Jaswinder Singh, said the ADCP.

On August 28, when Jaswinder was sleeping at his house situated near Chowk Jaisingh, she called Amarjit Singh to her home. First, she gave some adulterated tablets to Jaswinder in a cold drink and later the two tried to electrocute him. But, as Jaswinder woke up with shock and saw both, the accused attacked Jaswinder with sharp-edged weapons and killed him, the police officer said.

During questioning, it was also revealed that Jaswinder had an insurance of `14 lakh and his wife was the nominee. Both Parwinder and Amarjit had planned to run away after getting the insurance money.

The city police had registered a case against an unidentified person for allegedly murdering a person named Jaswinder Singh, 35, on August 28.

In a complaint to the police, Harjinder Kaur, mother of the deceased, had told the police that that she had gone to a gurdwara after leaving her daughter-in-law Parwinder Kaur and her grandchildren at home. At around 7:30 pm, her daughter-in-law and grand children also came to the gurdwara and Parwinder told here that Jaswinder had goem to sleep after dinner

But, she said, when they returned home later at night, the main door of the house was open and the body of Jaswinder Singh was lying in a pool of blood.
At least 25 people have been killed and 70 injured, many critically, in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a Bangladeshi packaging factory, officials said Saturday as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.

Around 100 people were working when flames tore through the four-storey building in the industrial town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka.

Parvez Mia, a doctor at the Tongi government hospital, told AFP the death toll was at 25, up from 22 previously reported, and said at least 70 people were injured.

The fire started in the boiler room at the Tampaco Foils Limited factory, which supplies foreign and domestic brands.

Firefighters and local people work together to put out the fire at a packaging factory in Tongi industy area outside Dhaka. (AP)

We still have not controlled the blaze and we fear some workers are still trapped in the factory, police inspector Aminul Islam told AFP.

Mia, the doctor, said seriously injured victims had been sent to hospitals in the capital Dhaka.

Several of them are very critical, he added.

Factory electrician Mohammad Rokon, 35, escaped with minor injuries.

I was working inside the office room when I heard an explosion and felt a tremor. Then suddenly the ceiling started to fall on me, he told AFP from his hospital observation bed.

I almost became unconscious. But I forced myself to go out with the help of my mobile phones flashlight.

Machine operator Rubel Hossain was two minutes away from entering the factory when the blast occurred.

I heard a huge explosion and saw smoke and fire coming out of the factory, he said.

I am simultaneously feeling lucky and heartbroken, he said, tears streaming down his face as he helped rush the many injured to hospital, blood staining his T-shirt.

A Bangladeshi man cries after losing a relative to a fire in Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka. (AP)

The tragedy struck as families were preparing to celebrate the major Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

My brother Delwar Hossain told us last night he would take us to our home district of Sherpur. Now he is going to be buried there, said Khaleda Begum, the sister of a factory worker killed in the accident.

Eid is ruined for our family.

Chemicals may have been stored on the ground floor of the factory, helping to explain how the blaze that began at 6 am local time spread so fast, said Tahmidul Islam of Bangladeshs industrial police unit.

What we have heard is that there were chemicals stored on the ground floor. As a result, the fire took no time to spread, Islam told AFP, adding scores of firefighters were still battling to bring the blaze under control.

According to the companys website, the packaging factory supplies multinational and domestic brands including British-American Tobacco Bangladesh Limited and Nestle Bangladesh Limited.

The head of Bangladeshs factory inspection department said a committee had been set up to investigate the fire.

Theyll probe why the fire occurred and whether the factory lacked proper fire safety measures. They will also suggest how we can improve fire safety of local factories, Ahmed said.

Rescue personnel work at the site of a fire in Tongi industrial area outside Dhaka. (AP)

Fires, accidents common

Fires and other accidents are common in the factories that make up the $27-billion garment industry in Bangladesh, the worlds second-biggest apparel exporter after China.

In November 2012, at least 111 workers were killed when a devastating fire engulfed a nine-storey garment factory in the Ashulia industrial area, outside the capital Dhaka.

The accident was followed by an even bigger tragedy six months later when 1,138 people died after another clothing factory complex collapsed, trapping over 3,000 workers.

The Rana Plaza tragedy triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

Bangladeshi firefighters work to put out a huge fire at the site of an explosion in a factory in the key Bangladeshi garment manufacturing town of Tongi. (AFP)

Western brands subsequently improved safety standards and inspections for suppliers, dramatically reducing incidents of fire and other accidents at export-orientated factories.

Fires in garment factories have dropped from 250 in 2012 to just 30 in 2015, with no fatalities that year, according to Bangladesh fire department figures.

But thousands of local factories supplying the domestic market have done little to address safety concerns.

Workers are often crammed in elbow to elbow, while fire escape stairwells are routinely blocked or padlocked closed, ostensibly to prevent theft.

Building regulations are rarely enforced and volatile chemicals are often improperly stored, while official safety inspections are few and far between.
Five explosions in and around Baghdad killed at least 12 people on Saturday and wounded 27 others, police and medical sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State regularly targets civilian areas and security forces in the capital.

The ultra-hardline insurgents have lost ground in the past year to US-backed government forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias, but such bombings show the group can still strike outside the territory its controls in northern and western Iraq.

The deadliest blast came in Arab al-Jabour, an area of date palm groves on Baghdads southern outskirts, when an improvised explosive device went off near a civilian vehicle, killing four civilians.

A bomb in a local marketplace in Taji, a northern suburb that hosts a large military base, killed three people and wounded nine, the sources said. A suicide bomber in the central Allawi district of Baghdad detonated his explosives vest, killing two and wounding eight.

Two roadside bombs in the northern al-Husseiniya district and in Yousifiya, south of the city, killed three and wounded 10.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced growing criticism Saturday after he called the Palestinian refusal to let Jews live in their future state ethnic cleansing.

In a video released Friday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that West Bank settlements were an obstacle to peace, drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted Israels diversity which manifests in the nearly two million Arabs living in the Jewish state and reflects its openness and readiness for peace.

Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews, he said.

Theres a phrase for that: Its called ethnic cleansing.

The US State Department called the video unhelpful and inappropriate.

We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank, spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said Friday.

We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful, she said.

Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties.

Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage.

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

After Netanyahus video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised, she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating an imaginary reality and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu doesnt care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major cities, he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahus government, considered to be the most right-wing in the countrys history, has nonetheless continued with the policy.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law and major obstacles to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.
North Korea Saturday sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear blackmail as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from Fridays test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons -- almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.

The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

It is believed that the Norths nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for more and stronger sanctions.

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that -- even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the Norths drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution, New Zealands ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the councils rotating presidency, told reporters.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the Norths leader Kim Jong-Un and called for strong retaliation, including pre-emptive attacks on the Norths nuclear complex.

Eliminate Kim Jong-Un! and Destroy North Koreas nuclear weapons! the elderly activists shouted.

Some newspapers were equally scathing. South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac, read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

Read| Four questions and answers about North Koreas latest nuclear test

But the Norths ruling party newspaper vowed Saturday not to submit to US nuclear blackmail, and described the Souths President Park Geun-Hye as a dirty prostitute for working with US forces.

Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK, said Rodong Sinmun, using the countrys official name.

The US is exasperated by the strong military steps being taken by the DPRK in a phased way.

Holding the world hostage

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South. The Joongang Ilbo newspaper recommended they should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, as they were until the early 1990s.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyangs sole ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Koreas trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US ambassador Samantha Power said.

North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike, Power said.

Read| Obama condemns North Korea nuclear test, promises new sanctions

Pyongyangs state media said Friday the nuclear test had realised the goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket.

Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the countrys northern nuclear test site, a TV presenter said.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test.

The nuclear programme has accompanied a series of ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China.

Challenge for China

China has long been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbour.

Beijing strongly condemned the test. But its priority is to avoid the regimes collapse, which would create a crisis on its border and potentially shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula toward the United States.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for further pressure on North Korea, but said China bore responsibility for tackling the problem.

China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it, he said.

Its important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going.

Read| Carrot and stick: How do you solve a problem like North Korea?
Pakistani forces have started a fresh wave of military operations across Balochistan, Baloch Republican Party representative at the United Nations Human rights council Abdul Nawaz Bugti claimed on Saturday.

He also stated that many people are being abducted in different parts of Dera Bugti.

Baloch civil populace have been attacked and more than 19 baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to the same family have been abducted. An innocent baloch man was killed in the operation in Dera Bugti. Similarly, many parts of naseerbabad district were also attacked and Baloch civilians were harassed and many of them have been abducted, Bugti said.

He further stated that in Turbat area, a political workers house is under siege since the past four days and his family, mostly women and children including an infant are starving.

Bugti also emphasised that Pakistani forces have denied access to them including their own human rights organisations, who are not being allowed to visit them.

Earlier, welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement on Balochistan in his Independence Day address, several Baloch activists claimed that the people of the region support him and he should take up the Baloch issue with the international community at the United Nations.

Last month, in a bid to highlight the ongoing Baloch genocide and human rights violations and the disappearance of Baloch people through the hands of Pakistani military and intelligence agencies in Balochistan, the Baloch National Movement (BNM) Germany chapter held demonstrations in different cities.

Many activists are asserting that since 2003, more than 23,000 activists, students, lawyers, women, journalists, writers and human rights defenders have been enforced disappeared by the Pakistani army and its death squads.
The deadly bus crash in Taiwan that killed an entire Chinese tour group was caused by a suicidal driver who intentionally set the vehicle on fire, investigators said Saturday.

Authorities had earlier said the driver Su Ming-cheng had been drunk when his bus caught fire and rammed through an expressway in July, killing himself and 25 others on board.

Minutes before the incident, Su -- who was driving the group to the airport -- poured gasoline over the drivers seat and on the floor near the exit before sparking the fire with a lighter, investigators said.

(Su), who was drunk driving, committed suicide by pouring gasoline and setting a fire, killing other passengers, local prosecutors said in a statement Saturday.

The probe uncovered dozens of phone records between Su and his family in the days before the crash, with relatives pleading for him not to commit suicide.

Dont you love the three children in your family? Dont let them be ashamed. If you do this, it will bring shame to us all, a text message from his sister read.

The Taiwanese driver was also described by authorities as a regular drinker with a violent history.

Su had been hit with separate lawsuits for scuffling with a tour guide and sexually assaulting an unnamed victim. In both cases, investigators said he was intoxicated.

Because of this, Su was depressed, prosecutors said.

In May, Su was briefly suspended by his employer for fighting with another tour guide.

Sus job driving the group from Chinas northeast city Dalian in July was his first after the suspension, according to officials.

The incident prompted Chinese authorities to demand the island take measures to improve safety for mainland visitors.

Taiwan saw a boom in tourism from China under previous president Ma Ying-jeou, who oversaw an unprecedented eight-year rapprochement with Beijing.

But numbers have slipped since Beijing-sceptic Tsai Ing-wen won a landslide victory in elections in January, with the number of mainland tourists dropping by almost 24 percent from May 20 to September 6.
OSLO: Facebook faced outrage on Friday for repeatedly deleting a historic Vietnam War photo, including in a post by Norways premier, which appears to be the first case of the social network censoring a government head.

An active social media user, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg defied Facebook early on Friday by posting the photograph, which the US behemoth says violates its nudity rules.

The 1972 picture of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack was taken by photographer Nick Ut Cong Huynh for Associated Press and is considered one of the wars defining images. It was honoured with the Pulitzer Prize. Solbergs post was taken down several hours later, deleted by Facebook, she said.

What Facebook is doing by deleting photos like this, as good as their intentions are, is to edit our common history, she wrote in a later post.

Late on Friday, Facebook said it would reinstate the censored photo.

The affair began several weeks ago after Norwegian author Tom Egeland published a post about war photos, illustrated by the iconic picture. It was promptly deleted by Facebook.

Norwegians rose to his defence and published the photo, posts which Facebook also deleted in line with its rules barring nudity. Earlier, a Facebook spokesperson said in an email to AFP: While we recognise that this photo is iconic, its difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.
NEW DELHI: Days before he arrives in New Delhi for an official visit, President Ashraf Ghani on Friday warned he would close Pakistans transit route to Central Asia if his countrys entrepreneurs were not allowed to trade with India via the Wagah border crossing.

The remarks reflected Kabuls growing frustration with Islamabad after the virtual collapse of a Pakistan-backed process to engage with the Afghan Taliban. Ghani has been angered by Pakistans failure to deliver on a commitment to bring the militants to the negotiating table.

Ghani, who is scheduled to visit India on September 14, issued the warning during a meeting with Britains special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Owen Jenkins, according to a statement from the presidential palace.

The tit-for-tat action was prompted by Pakistans persistent refusal to let Afghan traders do business with India through Wagah, he said. Afghanistan is no longer a land-locked country as it has access to multiple transit trade routes, he added. The remark was an apparent reference to the recent pact between India, Pakistan and Iran to develop a transit corridor centred round Chabahar port.

Ghani complained to Owen that Pakistan usually closes transit routes during the fruit-growing season, leading to losses of millions of dollars. On the other hand, India has agreed to exempt n Afghanistan from tariffs for fruit exports and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has allowed the airlifting of fruits, he added.

Besides the blocking of trade with India, Ghani raised Pakistans support for terror groups involved in destabilising his country. He told the UK diplomat that support for terror was a violation of good neighbourliness and global norms. This act of the neighbour was no longer acceptable to Afghans, he added.

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WASHINGTON: The House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would allow victims of the 9/11 attacks and their relatives to sue foreign governments suspected of backing acts of terrorism against the United States.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act  approved in the House by unanimous voice vote some four months after its Senate passage  is strongly opposed by the government of Saudi Arabia, the home nation of 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

It now heads to President Barack Obamas desk, just days before the 15th anniversary of 9/11. The White House has signalled its opposition to the measure because it would waive the doctrine of sovereign immunity that protects nation states from civil suits or criminal prosecution.

This legislation would change long-standing, international law regarding sovereign immunity. And the president of the United States continues to harbour serious concerns that this legislation would make the United States vulnerable in other court systems around the world, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said back in May, after the Senate approved the bill. The measure would allow 9/11 families to pursue cases in federal court against foreign governments, notably Saudi Arabia.
WASHINGTON: Pakistan came very close to being declared a state sponsor of terrorism in the 1990s, a CIA operative once posted as the station chief in Islamabad said during a hearing on Capitol Hill, home to US legislature which has actively considered that option in recent months.

Richard Grenier, the retired CIA operative, told the Senates foreign relations committee on Thursday that while he was posted to Islamabad on loan to the state department, an annual terrorism reviewnearly resulted in Pakistans being placed on the formal list of state sponsors of terrorism.

That would have been devastating for Pakistan, if it had indeed been put on the US list that currently has Iran, Syria and Sudan; past entries on the list were North Korea, Iraq, South Yemen, Libya and Cuba. Inclusion in the list would have meant an end to all aid and assistance at the very least.

Islamabad escaped then, Grenier didnt go into the details of it, and became a major beneficiary of US aid, both security and humanitarian, which has come under withering scrutiny in recent months, specially at the hands of lawmakers.

We have this policy where in effect we are working with Pakistan and yet the extreme duplicity that exists with the relationship is that on one hand they say they want to see a stable Afghanistan, on the other hand they are harboring people and through their own proxies are destabilising Afghanistan, Senate foreign affairs committee chairman Bob Corker, a Republican, said as he opened the hearing.

Corker, who prevented the Obama administration from subsidising the sale of eight F-16 jets to Pakistan earlier by denying funding for it, was joined by other senators in roundly criticising Pakistan, primarily because of its failure to act decisively against the Haqqani Network, a Pakistan-based terror group that fights US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Ben Cardin, the senior most Democrat on the committee, was equally angry, and demanded to know from experts deposing at the hearing what can we do to fundamentally change the relationship. Lawmakers wanted to know if there was a better way to administer the US aid that goes to Pakistan to get the best results.

At a hearing of the foreign relations committee of the House of Representatives in July, lawmakers went much further. If our current efforts in Pakistan are not producing the results we seek then what are our options, Representative Matt Salmon, a Republican, had said, adding, We could simply turn the money off  we could enforce sanctions or declare Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Lawmakers at the senate hearing on Thursday said they were equally frustrated Corker used the word duplicitous or a variation of it for Pakistan a few times  but he also conceded, agreeing with experts deposing at the hearing, that the relationship with Pakistan is important.

Grenier, for instance, said the US should not turn its back on Pakistan, and accept to work with it. Toby Dalton, another expert, said, Notwithstanding challenges posed by Pakistan to US interests, this means preserving to the extent possible patterns of cooperation and institutional relationships that facilitate US influence.
NASA recently launched its first mission into space to sample asteroids from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The scientists are hopeful that the new mission will help improve their understanding of the formation of the solar system and its early behavior.

NASA's new asteroid-hunting mission was launched on Sept. 8, Thursday, at 7:05 p.m. EDT. The team at NASA is particularly excited about the mission because of the numerous possibilities that lie ahead, including knowledge gain about the origin of the solar system.

This has been made possible through the launch of Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. According to NASA, the specialized spacecraft would reach an asteroid called Bennu, collect samples and return with them to Earth. Bennu and several other asteroids are considered to be the remnants from the formation of the solar system, which took place more than 4.5 million years ago.

Scientists believe that such asteroids could have been the source of energy, water, and organic molecules for the formation of Earth and several other planets in the solar system.

The team could have analyzed the asteroid samples that reached Earth in the form of a meteorite. However, they are often contaminated. OSIRIS-Rex will return with pure samples from asteroid Bennu, enabling researchers to conduct a precise analysis. The results would, therefore, have far more useful implications that what has been achieved so far by the study of meteorites and spacecraft-based instruments.

Bennu is similar to a mountain in size and OSIRIS-Rex is expected to approach Bennu in 2018, before studying and mapping the asteroid for sample collection. The spacecraft would launch a probe to identify a suitable site for collecting asteroid samples.

On July 25, the arm of the spacecraft would stir up the surface of the asteroid to collect small tocks and dirt in a container. The spacecraft is expected to return back to Earth with the container in September 2023.This is the first mission conducted by NASA that aims at collecting pure samples from an asteroid for further analysis on Earth.

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In an attempt to discredit Hillary Clinton, Eric Trump  son of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump  tweeted a photo of a rally of his father in Pensacola, Florida on Friday -- but it was a fake photo.

The reaction came after Clinton described the supporters of older Trump at a fundraisers event in Florida as basket of deplorables.

To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it, said Clinton.

Onto his Tweeter account, Donald Trump bounced back, saying: Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hardworking people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!

The younger Trump joined the bandwagon in chiding Clinton by posting a photo on Tweeter to show the strength of his fathers supporter, particularly during his Fridays rally in Florida.

Look at the #BasketOfDeplorables in Pensacola Florida last night! What a horrible statement. #CrookedHillary pic.twitter.com/GfevT0KUjd  Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 10, 2016

But the photo was faked and altered.

It was originally taken during a rally of his father in Dallas on Sept. 14, 2015. In an attempt to manipulate the photo, he cropped the "American Airlines Center" logo and the retired Dallas Stars jerseys hanging in the rafters.

The alteration of the photo was discovered when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban responded to the younger Trumps tweet, saying:

I'm pretty sure that's our arena in Dallas Eric. #WrongBasket https://t.co/rh8WGWuDO0  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) September 10, 2016



The photo, which has been shared over 7,000 times as of this posting, drew various reactions, including this one:

Attn. @EricTrump: The photo in your tweet about Deplorable Dad's Pensacola speech shows the Dallas Mavs' arena You're dumber than he is.  Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 10, 2016

Meanwhile, Clinton has expressed regret on the term she used against Trump supporters.

In a CNN report, Clinton was quoted saying, "Last night I was 'grossly generalistic,' and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half' -- that was wrong."

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Cash is the fuel that makes campaigns run and few places are better for candidates to find that gas than a large state like Texas.

That's one reason GOP nominee Donald Trump and his family are returning to the state starting Sept. 12 - to round up the money to make his campaign go in the final two months of the election.

But, if it seems like a traditionally conservative state would be prime hunting ground for Trump, that calculation would be a bit off this presidential election cycle.

READ MORE: Trump returns to Texas for fundraising swing

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and groups supporting her have raised $13,965,121 in campaign cash from Texas since Summer 2015 - about four times what Trump has brought in from the state through the end of July. For Trump, that means he and his backers took in about $3.5 million from Texas.

It fits a pattern nationally the folks over at OpenSecrets.org documented. Clinton and her backers have outraised Trump pretty much everywhere.

The cash advantage is likely a reflection of Clinton's organization and Trump's lack of same in many places.

READ MORE: Clinton allies set to open Houston office

While Clinton's numbers are impressive, they don't hold a candle to those for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who ended his bid for the Republican nomination earlier this year. Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, and associated groups pulled in $36 million from Texas, almost twice the amount raised by his nearest rival, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Texas native.

Even Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another failed heir to the GOP nomination crown, and his backers took in $4.4 million from Texas donors this go-round.

All that leaves Trump - who once pledged to fund his own campaign - trying to make up fundraising ground as he tries to keep the polls competitive before Nov. 8.
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Please do not use your Samsung Galaxy Note 7s on airplanes.

They might explode mid-flight.

Canadian airlines are falling in line with a directive by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to restrict the use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones on planes.

On Thursday, the FAA advised passengers not to turn on or charge the phones on planes, or to keep them in any checked baggage amid concerns the devices were exploding.

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Transport Canada has issued a similar directive, warning people to only carry the phones in airplane cabins "where an incident can be immediately mitigated."

Airlines are taking a number of approaches to the phones.

Porter Airlines has warned passengers not to turn on Galaxy Note 7s on board and to keep them only in carry-on luggage, CBC News reported.

Air Canada is urging its passengers to follow Transport Canada's instructions but WestJet hasn't changed its practices around the phones.

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Samsung has recalled 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s after as many as 35 phones overheated or exploded due to a battery cell issue, according to Forbes.

The "battery management system" in a phone can fail, causing the battery to keep charging after it's full, chemical engineer Donal Finegan told the website.

The battery can continue to charge and can become even more unstable and eventually just burst into flames itself, without any kind of external heating," he said.

He noted that "battery failures are exceedingly rare."

Samsung has suspended sales of the phones and is working to ship new ones with functioning batteries, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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This is Taraji P. Henson's year.

The actress, best known for playing the fierce Cookie Lyon on "Empire", was in Toronto for the screening of her newest movie, "Hidden Figures".

Henson slayed the Toronto International Film Festival wearing a silk, emerald-green shirt dress that tied at the waist with a pair of strappy sandals.

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The award-winning actress paired the ensemble with mauve lips and sultry eyes. Her angled bob was dyed platinum blond.

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During the question-and-answer period for "Hidden Figures", Henson teared up talking about the importance of the story, which is about three black women who worked with NASA to send the first man to the moon.

Taraji P Henson tears up at the #TIFF showing of scenes from "Hidden Figures." "This story is so important." pic.twitter.com/RfebTcFTdb  Cara Buckley (@caraNYT) September 10, 2016

Taraji Henson breaks down crying at Hidden Figs footage. "If I knew about these women maybe I'd have aspired to be a rocket scientist" #tiff  Steven Zeitchik (@ZeitchikLAT) September 10, 2016

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As the federal Liberals prepare for whats expected to be an expansion of Canadas foreign worker programs, a new study says businesses have been increasingly hiring foreign nationals without proving no Canadians could be found to do the job.

The report also says the new free trade deals negotiated by Canada will further increase the number of foreign nationals hired without seeking a Canadian, if the agreements are ratified.

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The Conference Board of Canada study released this week found that, between 2010 and 2014, there was a small decline in the number of people coming into Canada under parts of the foreign worker program that require proving the employer couldnt find a Canadian.

But from 2004 to 2014, there was a tripling in the number of workers who get permits that dont require seeking a Canadian for the job. More than 194,000 such permits were signed in 2014, roughly double the number of permits that require seeking a Canadian.

Overall, 360,000 temporary work permits were signed in 2014, an increase of 64 per cent from a decade earlier, the Conference Board report said.

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A recent Nanos poll found three-quarters of Canadians oppose or "somewhat oppose" allowing foreign workers to be employed while Canadians qualified for the same jobs are looking for work.

The previous Conservative government reformed the TFW program in 2014, following an outcry over reports that Royal Bank of Canada required staffers who would soon be laid off to train their foreign-worker replacements.

The Tories split the previous arrangement into into two parts:

A new, more restrictive TFW program that requires proof that an employer couldnt find a Canadian (known as a Labour Market Impact Assessment, or LMIA);

And various International Mobility Programs (IMPs), which dont have that requirement.

The new TFW program is aimed primarily at low-skilled workers, while the IMPs are targeted at higher-skilled workers, in general.

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The Conference Board study authors suspect that employers are using these IMPs to avoid having to prove they couldnt find a Canadian for the job  but they admit that the labour market data isnt there to prove it.

"There are substantially more opportunities for interested foreign nationals to obtain a temporary work permit in Canada under the IMP than the TFWP," the authors wrote.

"Therefore, it is possible that some workers and employers could be using the IMP to circumvent stricter TFWP requirements  though definitive evidence is lacking."

Dearth of data on foreign workers in Canada

The study criticized what it saw as a dearth of data on foreign workers in Canada, which "hinders policy-makers' ability to make informed decisions that are critical to the countrys economic performance."

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They called the IMPs "especially problematic" because those work permits are not subject to the same reporting requirements as those under the TFW program.

"Consequently, it is difficult to know the types of jobs open work permit holders are taking in Canada and what effect they may be having on the domestic labour market."

The federal Liberals have recently signalled that they plan to expand Canadas foreign-worker programs, pending a review scheduled to be released later this month.

During a trip to China last month, Immigration Minister John McCallum indicated his government wants to see a larger flow of migrants from China into Canada  not just temporary foreign workers, but students, tourists and others as well.

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In terms of the flow of Chinese nationals into Canada, we want to get it even bigger, McCallum said.

The Conference Board noted that two free trade deals the Liberals aim to sign would further expand the number of foreign workers allowed to work in Canada without proof a Canadian couldnt be found.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between 12 Pacific Rim nations, and the Canada-EU trade pact, known as CETA, would increase labour mobility between partner countries, allowing Canadians to work in those countries under certain circumstances, and allowing foreign nationals to work in Canada as well.

However, both free trade deals are on the rocks. CETA is facing grassroots opposition in Europe by opponents who call it a corporate power grab, and the TPP has ground to a halt, mainly due to the fact that both U.S. presidential candidates officially oppose it.

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The Conference Board of Canadas vice-president for industry and business strategy, Michael Bloom, said "balance" is the key to building a proper foreign worker program.

"The government has a legitimate role to monitor the TFWP to ensure domestic workers are given priority in the labour market," he said in a statement. "Employers across Canada would like enough flexibility to fill their temporary employment needs when domestic workers are unavailable to do the job."

But, he added, "The Canadian public wants assurance that foreign workers are supplementing, rather than supplanting domestic workers. And protections must be in place to ensure temporary foreign workers are treated fairly by employers."

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In a speech on Friday, Theresa May has pledged to bring back selection in our schools. The raft of new grammar schools the Prime Minister wishes to open will not provide parents with more choice about where to send their children. It is anti-choice.

The schools choose the children not the other way around. Grammar schools create a binary schools system. You either pass the test to get in, or you don't and go to the local non-selective school.

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Theresa May wants to return to an outdated system where children are placed in segregated schools depending on their exam results. And the devil take the rest.

She tries to hide her divisive approach by cloaking it in warm words, about allowing children from under-privileged backgrounds access to the best schools. However she dresses it up, this is still selection. Still winners and many more losers. Still a minority of schools classed as 'good' and the vast majority publicly branded as 'bad'.

The Prime Minister is setting education policy back decades with this pernicious initiative. And it's not just me who says this, but her own Chief Inspector of Schools, who said that we will "fail as a nation" if we return to the selective school system, and that the idea they will help the most disadvantaged is "palpable tosh and nonsense".

And he is joined by every other education expert in the country, every reputable think tank, and every sensible academic - never mind, I believe, the vast majority of both teachers and parents. Let us leave aside for the moment, the shambolic way in which the Tories have been forced to reveal they are turning their backs on the post-war educational consensus.

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The leaks, the snatched photographs, the Education Secretary being dragged to the House to utter mealy-mouthed uncertainty, and then being directly contradicted by the Prime Minister this morning. This stuff would do justice to an episode of The Thick Of It.

But the details are far worse than the presentational mess the Tories have served up. The return of selection and of the segregated education that will inevitably result, will be a disaster for millions of children.

How do we know this? Because we have been here before. For every child awarded a place at a grammar school, nine were left out and left behind. In fact, the evidence is so overwhelming that even the Tories used to agree with us. It was Labour's Anthony Crosland who first encouraged Local Education Authorities to convert their secondary schools to comprehensives.

But, it may surprise many people, no Education Secretary oversaw the closure of more grammar schools than Margaret Thatcher. Many modern Tories like Sarah Wollaston MP, understand the arguments and the evidence against them. Neil Carmichael, chair of the Education Select Committee, former Education Secretaries Nicky Morgan, and even Michael Gove, and last, but not least, the former Prime Minister David Cameron.

David Cameron, unlike his successor, understood that the idea that you could provide excellent schooling for all by opening a few extra grammar schools is, in his words, "completely delusional."

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All of them opposed any extension of grammar schools, which were outlawed by Tony Blair. Not only do they manifestly fail to encourage social mobility (an argument that Theresa May's rejigged proposals now seem to accept), but they stigmatise children, create a two-tier education system, and place a cap on every child's ambition.

Selection leaves young children scarred, sometimes for life. That's why I am so opposed to grammar schools. And I am guided by a few simple beliefs. That every child has value. That every child has potential, (whether it is realised at the tender age of 11 or not). That every child deserves an excellent, properly-resourced school with well-motivated, committed teachers. That no child should be left out or left behind. Because the country needs them. It is a positive, optimistic view of children, based on my values and my experience.

We don't need to separate out our children and divide them from their peers. We need to bring them together. So that they can learn from each other in a rewarding, challenging environment and become social, responsible adults. So that all can rise to reach their full potential, instead of being left behind, wasting their talents, skills and abilities.

If Theresa May wants to press ahead with this backward step, based on nothing other than blind faith, dogma and ideology, then I give her this warning - you will regret it.

You are meddling with our children's future and our country will never forgive you for it. We are richer for the contribution that every child, rich or poor, girl or boy, black or white, from every background and every corner of the land, can make to our country. The new Prime Minister has now set out the clear dividing lines between her backward-looking Tory party and Labour. She stands for the few, we stand for the many. She wants a tiny minority to get ahead. We want all children to succeed.

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At a time when schools are facing real term budget cuts for the first time in nearly two decades and there is a growing crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, bringing back academic selection is an abdication of her responsibilities to every child in our country.

Every child matters. Every child has ability. Every child has potential to reach for the skies. But instead of a glass ceiling, Theresa May is now building a concrete roof over the heads of an entire generation. And I, like many others, will fight her all the way.
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Today, on World Suicide Prevention Day, the focus is male suicide. Suicide is currently the single biggest killer of men aged under 45 in the UK, and men are nearly four times more likely than women to take their own life. And members of the National Suicide Prevention Alliance - 70 organisations from the private, public and voluntary sectors - are calling upon men to seek help when they're down or in crisis.

It is great that we are, finally and collectively, encouraging men to get support. But surely the big, currently unanswered question is why men.

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Various theories are bandied about, but the extraordinary truth is we don't know. There's lots of speculation, snippets of information, theories. But no actual nuggets. But unless we do understand why more men take their lives, then how can we possibly target and respond effectively? We need data to work effectively, hone our targeting, refine services so they fit the audience, ensure those who need help can access it. And if there are environmental factors impacting men, then take action to mitigate such factors.

The issue isn't much different than how it was ten years ago, when suicide was then the single biggest killer of aged under 35 and 75% of all suicides were male. It has taken a decade of relentless campaigning to get the issue raised publically. So now we've got awareness, or at least got a body of steam underway. But we've still precious little in the way of robust data and too many unanswered questions.

In 2012 the government announced a commitment of 1.5million for suicide research. This figure is less than the estimated cost of one single suicide in the UK. To put this in context, there were more than 6,000 suicides in 2014, so suicide is now costing us in the region of 10billion a year. The 1.5million spend on research was not unwelcome, of course, and many important initiatives were identified. But not a penny was spent asking the question "why men?".

The assumption is that it's all too easy to understand the gender bias in suicide. Remember those lazy truisms? Men drink more, visit the doctor less, and take more fatal methods. And yet the female suicide rate has halved since the early 1980s. The problem doesn't then appear to simply biological. We have to go beyond these surface indicators and ask what is really going on.

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We know the expectation that 'real men should be strong, silent and in control' is a huge barrier to men seeking help. But even still, just telling men to get help doesn't in itself take us very far. How do we actually prevent male suicide and what is driving these suicides? Poverty, divorce, being a breadwinner are good thoughts. But women face the same issues. So why men?

Is it more about society? Is at least in part biology? Are there environmental factors, such as testosterone reducing drugs, which might explain at least some of this? The problem isn't just that we don't know. The problem is that we're not even asking the question, which 10 years on from when CALM first started pushing on this, feels unreal.

Men all over the country have led the charge to raise awareness. In November last year, CALM reached more than 100million online with our #BiggerIssues campaign. Recently, we've been thrilled to support Luke Ambler, founder of Andy's Man's Club and his #itsokaytotalk social media campaign. And this week I sat around a table with the most influential organisations in suicide prevention - such as Network Rail and Samaritans - to pool knowledge and experience. And the big questions raised were about data.

Today is a wake-up call for male suicide to be taken seriously. Twelve men die at their own hands every day. 76% of lives lost to suicide in the UK are male. Telling men to reach out for help isn't enough. The question still lies unanswered. Why men?
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This Saturday is World Suicide Prevention Day, when we reflect on what needs to be done to prevent suicide. The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes that 800,000 people take their own lives each year across the globe. That's the equivalent of the population of Leeds dying a tragic and preventable death every year - one person every 40 seconds. It is a terrible waste of precious life, and leaves a devastating legacy for families, friends and loved ones.

In the UK, suicide remains the biggest killer of young men. There is a clear link between chronic mental health conditions and preventable suicide, and yet so often the mental health system fails to intervene in time.

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One aspect of this ongoing tragedy that deserves attention is the growing number of suicides in our prisons. Britain's prison system is in meltdown: understaffing, overcrowding and rising levels of violence. The number of self-harm incidents, assaults on inmates and deaths in prison went up over the past twelve months, according to the Ministry of Justice. There were 257 prisoner deaths compared with 153 in 2006. 95 of the deaths in prison in the 12 months leading up to September 2015 were self-inflicted. This is the highest level in 25 years.

Prisoners identified as being at heightened risk of suicide or self-harm are given additional support via the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process. However, 60% of those who took their own lives between September 2014 and September 2015 had not been identified as at heightened risk, and therefore did not receive this care.

The charity Inquest states that 'deaths in prison cannot be looked at separately from examining harsh and impoverished prison conditions, the use of segregation, poor medical care and prison overcrowding - all of which have implications for people's mental and physical health'. This is plainly right. Prison conditions create the environment where suicidal thoughts are allowed to germinate. The failure to identify those most at risk, and to provide the attention they need, means that prison suicides are taking place that could be avoided.

This represents a colossal failure of public policy, and ministers must be held to account. When I have pressed ministers on mental health and suicides in prison, the answers have revealed a lack of detail and urgency. As part of my #mentalhealthmatters campaign to highlight just how little information the Government collects when it comes to mental health, I asked ministers how many people with a mental health condition had received custodial sentences. They couldn't answer.

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And just this week in the House of Commons, I warned Ministry of Justice (MoJ) ministers that they were guilty of a dereliction of duty of care. The Minister, Phillip Lee MP, responded to say that "the system in place for mental healthcare and the continuity of care for people before, during and post their stay in prison is clearly not where it should be. I would argue that that has been the case for many decades." You can watch the video of the exchange below.

This is breathtakingly complacent. Yes, we have never done enough to provide adequate mental health services in our prisons, even though most prisoners have some form of mental illness. But the crucial point is that the situation is deteriorating. We are going backwards, not forwards. This is the point that Ministers seem to be unable or unwilling to address.

Today, we think about all the families affected by suicide, and recognise the role of those professionals and volunteers who provide care, counselling and support. We should also give some attention to people who the Courts have determined should be deprived of their freedom, because time spent in prison should not mean losing your life to suicide.

Luciana Berger is the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, and President of Labour's Campaign for Mental Health

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Rod Stewart had arguably one of the best rock albums of the seventies with Every Picture Tells a Story. Mandolin Wind, Reason to Believe and, of course, Maggie Mae. Now Rod Stewart puts out albums filled with American standards and wears a tuxedo. I get it, people changes over the years, they evolve and they slow down. Not that I was ever a rock star, but I have grown to value the safety that comes with routine. My friend Phil (Blind Dog) challenged that routine the other day when he called and asked me what I was doing that night. The usual, I thought: dinner, exercise, T.V., scotch.

"I have an extra ticket for Springsteen tonight," he said.

My first response was "No, thanks." Why? Because that is always my first response. Fortunately, Phil did not take no for an answer. After much prodding on his part, I took the rest of the day off and headed home to change my clothes. Not sure what to wear, I flirted briefly with the idea to put on an old Stone Pony T-shirt, but decided that would have been hokey. We get it, you like Springsteen, you know where he's from. So I went with a non-descript blue shirt and left the house. What I didn't realize then was that I might have been the only person that did not wear anything branded "Bruce." A sea of concert shirts, old, new, and bootlegged, surrounded me at the stadium. That included a group of 30 people who wore black shirts with the single word BRUCE emblazed across their chests in nauseating bright yellow.

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Forty-five minutes later Phil picked me up after I parked my car at the Cheesequake Rest Area on the New Jersey Parkway. We were on our way.

We arrived at the stadium and Phil impressed me with how quickly he set up our base camp. He pulled chairs and tents and tables and coolers out of the back of his SUV. His car was like the TARDIS-- it's bigger on the inside. In no time we had a beer in hand and food on the table. Shortly after that, a half dozen of Phil's neighbors joined us. Introductions were made and we drank and ate until it was time to go see the show.

We walked into METLIFE Stadium and quickly passed through the metal detectors (that was a change since my last concert) and headed toward our seats.

I should have thanked Phil at that moment for taking me to see God (no, not Bruce, actually God). Our seats were so high up I think I caught a glimpse of him just above the METLIFE sign. Do not take that as a complaint because what I witnessed next was the greatest concert I have ever attended. Springsteen sang for four hours, nonstop, no intermissions, no breaks. After expressing my admiration for such a feat Phil said, "Yeah, but Max Weinberg is playing the drums for the same four hours." I reminded Phil of what we used to say to our friend Dave, who also played the drums: "He's not a musician, he's a drummer."

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I first saw Springsteen (sort of) in 1974 when I was down the shore with my brother Joe and his friend Tommy. They noticed two men who stood alone, ankle deep in the water, as they just stared at the waves. One was a huge black man and the other a scrawny little white guy with long hair. Tommy starts singing to himself, "Rosalita, jump a little higher, Senorita, come sit by my fire." Apparently, they were very excited to see these two guys. Me? I had no idea who they were.

In the '70s, my musical taste was influenced by the songs that seeped into my room from whatever my brother or sister played on their stereos. Therefore, I was better prepared for the next time I encountered that scrawny little white guy with the long hair.

In 1977 I saw Springsteen in Philadelphia. He played for four hours, ran all over the stage, and periodically scurried up the stacked amps with ease and then jumped back down to earth. He told stories about growing up in Jersey and we cheered like idiots when he mentioned Route 9. I lost my voice for three days after the concert. I had screamed that much.

Some 40 years later Springsteen still performs for four hours while my biggest concern at the concert was wondering how many times I would have to get up and go to the bathroom.

Apparently, the only thing that changed over 40 years was me.

This 2016 show was simply incredible. I haven't been to a big concert since I saw Springsteen in 1999, but this last show puts even that one to shame. Springsteen will be 67 years old this year and he bounced around the stage like a kitten on crack. I'm 57 and was winded climbing the stadium steps to get to my seat.

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And I have to admit I did tear-up when Springsteen sang Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and a big silhouette of the big black guy and scrawny little white guy filled the stage when he sang, "...and the big man joined the band."



The show ended with Jersey Girl during which he called a young couple up on stage when he noticed the man had proposed to his girlfriend.

Also, fireworks, can't forget the fireworks.

My only real concern that night was about where I left my car. The New Jersey rest stop where I parked had a two-hour tow away parking limit of which I was heading into my ninth hour.

"The car will be there," Phil said as we neared the rest stop. "You worry too much."

Which of course only made me worry that Phil really doesn't know me at all.

But the perfect game continued and my car was right where I left it.

The next day I told my friend Boots what a great night I had.

"Did you meet a girl?" she asked.

I had attended a record-breaking Springsteen concert, hung out with my good friend, and my car had not been towed where by all accounts it should have been. If I had met a woman on top of all that, it would have thrown the universe completely out of balance. Who knew what horrible fate would have awaited me to get it balanced again.

For now, we'll just stick with great music, friends and a car.

Sounds like a Springsteen song.

I guess some things never change.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:
Worldwide air pollution caused 5.5 million deaths in 2013 from lung cancer stroke, bronchitis and other diseases -- more than malaria or AIDS; And the cost of pollution-related illness and deaths is $255 billion in lost labor last year, the World Bank said in a new report on Sept 8.

One tenth of all deaths in 2013 came from air pollution, said the World Bank.

But the real cost is even higher - more than $5 trillion in 2013 a year - when the Bank economists included what they call "welfare costs" - the money people would be willing to pay to prevent an early death.

One in ten deaths around world is from air pollution, said the Bank's report authors.

And even if London, New York and other wealthy cities have greatly cut pollution in recent decades, the toxic fumes have greatly increased in China, India and other growing economies.

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Regarding outdoor pollution, some 87 percent of world population lives in areas above World Health Organization guidelines, said the Bank report.

About half the deaths are from outdoor air pollution, often from cars, industry and clearing forestland. The other half comes from indoor pollution, mainly from billions of people cooking with wood, dung and other smoke-producing biomass, said Urvashai Narain, senior environmental economist at the World Bank and one of the report authors, in an interview.

U.S. and other aid agencies have pushed for many years for people to shift from biomass to gas and electricity; or to adopt efficient cook stoves with metal or clay vents to expel smoke.

For example, U.S. foreign aid delivered to rebuild homes in Pakistan after a 2005 earthquake included a sheet metal cooking stove plus a few feet of exhaust pipe per family.

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However, all the improvements from such new technology has been swallowed up, said the World Bank official, by the continued increase in population in developing countries. The planet is set to surge from seven billion today to 10 or even 15 billion in coming decades - depending on whether donor nations are willing to invest in family planning or not. In the United States and in Catholic countries such as the Philippines, providing birth control is a controversial political move.

Pollution causes respiratory disease, especially among children who stay close to their mothers in those smoky kitchens, as well as chronic bronchitis and lung cancer said the report authors said.

"We need to get the private sector to provide technology," said Ms. Narain. "Previous cheap fixes did not penetrate the market, or the technology breaks down and there is no support to maintain it."

The Bank works with a number of governments to develop policies and has made $6.5 billion in loans to cut all forms of pollution between 2009-2016. But the report does not say how to reduce air pollution and save those millions of lives lost each year.

"The report just shows the cost of pollution. It is a call to action," she said.

"We hope the report will lead to more resources to fight pollution."

However, the report confines itself to air pollution and ignores the huge number of toxic waste sources poisoning the soil and water.

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In addition, the Bank report should have made a plan of action that could begin to reduce pollution, said Richard Fuller, head of the non-governmental organization Pure Earth, which cleans up toxic waste sites in developing countries.

"What is needed is a plan that varies from city to city to fix this nonsense," said Fuller in an interview.

"For example, city X needs those three power plants converted. City Y needs to shut down burning biomass in winter. Another city needs to convert to stringent European diesel standards.
As I write this, the political world and internet are all abuzz over Hillary Clinton's statement, at a Friday evening fundraiser in New York, that, "To be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables.' Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it." Clinton's comments have received swift condemnation, not only from Trump supporters (for whom such condemnation requires a striking degree of cognitive dissonance about their own candidate's statements) but also from commentators across the political spectrum (such as President Obama's Director of Rapid Response Lis Smith).

I don't think candidates for office ever have much to gain by attacking significant swaths of the voting public, as Mitt Romney and many others have amply demonstrated. Yet at the same time, the challenge facing Clinton is distinct from those prior candidates have confronted. Donald Trump and his supporters have consistently expressed the most deplorable views we've ever seen in a national political campaign, and those comments demand response. To cite just a handful of such incidents:

Trump launched his presidential campaign with a press conference in which he said, of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., "They're not sending their best. ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." He later stood by and extended those comments, asking, "What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States."

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In the 15 months since that launch, Trump has used similarly deplorable language to describe any number of fellow Americans. That has included Clinton herself, to whom he has constantly referred as "Crooked Hillary"; he has also repeatedly called her "a pathological liar" and argued that she "does not look presidential," among many other insults. He has mocked a disabled Washington Post reporter. He has said, while watching video footage of primary opponent Carly Fiorina, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?" And he has repeatedly impugned entire American communities, such as his anti-Muslim American, false claim that on September 11th "thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."

Moreover, Trump rose to political prominence in the 2012 primaries by championing the Birther conspiracy, continuing to call President Barack Obama a liar, fraud, and con man for at least two full years after that campaign. It's no coincidence that over 60% of Trump supporters believe Obama was born outside of the U.S., while two-thirds believe him to be a secret Muslim. As illustrated by polls such as that one, fringe conspiracy theories seemingly define the worldviews of a majority of Trump's voting base.

Those extremist views are actually among the more moderate and less deplorable held and publicly expressed by Trump supporters, however. In one poll, nearly twenty percent of Trump supporters believed that the Confederacy's slaves should not have been freed by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (another seventeen percent were not sure). White supremacist groups such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan have explicitly identified Trump's candidacy as a unique opportunity for their movements and agendas. And Trump's campaign staff now includes CEO Steve Bannon, who while chairman of Breitbart News made the site into a haven for white supremacist bigotry and hate.

Finally, there are the thoroughly deplorable views of Hillary Clinton expressed by Trump supporters. At the Republican National Convention, the crowd responded to Trump's acceptance speech (and throughout the convention) with repeated chants of "Lock her up"; at recent events, the language has been ratcheted up even further, with documented, frequent refrains of "Kill the bitch" among other gems. Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson has publicly diagnosed Clinton with a rare form of brain damage. And on Friday, Congressman and Trump supporter Louis Gohmert joked that "whether you like her or not, Hillary Clinton has made clear she is mentally impaired."

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This is but a very small fraction of the comments and views we've heard from Trump, his staff and spokespeople, and his supporters over the course of this historically horrific campaign. I'm not sure deplorable is a strong enough word to describe such words and perspectives, but it certainly isn't inaccurate. It's entirely understandable that Hillary Clinton, herself the specific target of much of this ugliness and in any case the political opponent of the man at its epicenter, would respond. Indeed, it's imperative on her and her campaign to do so.

Yet precisely because the language and ideas being expressed by Trump and his supporters are so repugnant, it's vital for all of us who would challenge and oppose them to keep the focus on that debate, on why these comments are so unacceptable and un-American, and on what we would argue instead. As Hillary did so impressively in her August 25th speech in Reno, we must call out the "prejudice and paranoia" themselves, naming the extremist and dangerous views and making clear the consequences for our nation and community if they go unchecked.
Native Americans march to a burial ground sacred site that was disturbed by bulldozers building the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), near the encampment where hundreds of people have gathered to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's protest of the oil pipeline that is slated to cross the Missouri River nearby, September 4, 2016 near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.Protestors were attacked by dogs and sprayed with an eye and respiratory irritant yesterday when they arrived at the site to protest after learning of the bulldozing work. / AFP / Robyn BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

For the last few weeks many of the finest organizers in North America have been gathering in a remote camp near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation along the Missouri River. And yesterday they won a battle that -- though temporary and tenuous -- should stand with what happened at Selma and Birmingham in the annals of America's protest history.

The backstory is fairly simple. Oil companies wanted to build a pipeline to get some of the crude that they've been fracking out of the Dakotas to market. The pipeline originally was set to cross the Missouri at Bismarck, but people pointed out that a spill there would endanger water supplies for the state capitol. So they decided to endanger water supplies on the reservation instead. The Army Corps of Engineers -- which has a long history of doing bad things to Native Americans, not to mention the environment -- granted permits for the pipeline, over the objections of other federal agencies.

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The tribe went to court to block the construction -- and, as is usually the case, the tribe lost yesterday in a federal courtroom, where a judge did what judges have been doing for hundreds of years to Native Americans.

But happily that's not all the tribe did. Much more importantly they went to the court of public opinion. Native Americans from across the continent poured into the camp at Standing Rock, in a show of tribal unity not seen -- well, maybe not seen almost ever. And their protest began to resonate with the world outside.

That resonance increased last week, after the pipeline company did two very stupid things. One, it dug up a bunch of Sioux sacred sites, a day after the tribe provided the court with a list of those locations -- it was the rough equivalent of knocking over a couple of dozen churches and maybe a corner of Arlington Cemetery. And two, when protesters tried to put their bodies in the way of that desecration, the company used attack dogs on them.

The color pictures of those snarling German shepherds were almost identical to the black and white pictures from Birmingham in 1963, and they shocked people around the country. Even around the world. In Laos, three days ago, the president was holding a 'town hall' with young Asian students. I'm pretty sure the last question he expected to get was on why his government was wrecking Indian land and watching idly as Indian bodies were bitten and beaten.

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As a result of that activism and that courage, yesterday -- literally seconds after the court released its predictable result -- the federal government did something pretty unprecedented. It said it was not going to let the company build the pipeline under the Missouri River. Not for now, anyway -- not until there'd been far more consultation. It was the right thing for President Obama to do. Here are some of the things it means:

The rest of us now have the time to come to full support of the tribes in their battle. There are solidarity actions scheduled across the country on Tuesday -- Bernie Sanders will headline the one in D.C., in one of his first big speeches since the end of the primary campaign. They are more important now than ever.

We need to ask for much more than a temporary halt. The reason the Obama administration got in this mess in the first place was that they "fast-tracked" the review process for these pipelines. In an effort to appease oil companies and pipeline unions when they were forced to halt the Keystone pipeline, they started 'expediting' review of almost every other thing in the country. That has to end.

A real review would look not only at the impacts on water if something spills. It would look at the impacts on the climate when that oil gets burned. New federal rules announced a couple of months ago enshrines that 'climate test' as government policy; it should be followed here, since the same communities that will suffer from pipeline spills also pay an outsized price as our climate changes.

It sure would be nice if Hillary Clinton actually said something about any of this. So far she's been a cipher on it, apparently unwilling to buck the banks and oil companies that have poured more money into her campaign than even into Trump's. That is... sad.
By Christopher Michaelson and Jennifer Tosti-Kharas

When the first plane crashed on September 11, 2001, we were both management consultants living in Manhattan. One of us was leaving a Washington, DC hotel for a client while trying to get through jammed phone lines to his wife and baby. The other was still in bed after returning from the office at 3am.

For us, as for many, 9/11 prompted reexamination of our lives. We both embarked on new academic livelihoods, enabling us to explore meaningful work without presuming to have discovered it more than anyone else has. When we met five years later, we found our research was motivated by similar, persistent questions: Why do people work? Should it be for something more than a paycheck or promotion?

These questions take on increased significance in the context of 9/11, when so many people died at work. The Twin Towers were "a city within a city," a microcosm of those living and working in New York at the time. The rich and powerful worked alongside those struggling to make ends meet. Indeed, the victims of 9/11 spanned occupations from busboys to bond traders, firefighters to photographers.

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Was their work worth dying for?

We will never know the victims' own answers to that question. However, the New York Times' "Portraits of Grief" provide insight into their legacies according to those who knew them best. These brief journalistic profiles often relied on interviews with victims' loved ones to account for their subjects' work, while emphasizing what meant most in their lives. They contain clues to our social values about what work means within the context of a finished life. Our research is analyzing the Portraits to better understand the role of work in the victims' legacies. Consider three examples:

Christopher J. Blackwell was a fireman for 20 years in Rescue Company 3 in the South Bronx. He was a third-generation New York first responder. His wife described him as a devoted family man who loved his work. His mother added, "He lived and died with purpose."

For Yelena "Helen" Belilovsky, being named assistant vice president at Fred Alger Management was a source of pride. It was the latest step on her immigrant's journey in which she overcame language struggles to earn a Master's degree and a burgeoning livelihood.

"Crunching numbers" as a temp at Aon Corporation was Darren Bohan's "day job." His real love was music, especially banjo and guitar, which he played at night with his girlfriend. He dreamed of one day working in music full-time, perhaps as a teacher.

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These three Portraits map to the ways people can view their work: as a calling, career, or job. Work as a "calling" is a consuming passion of value in itself. Many firefighters, like Blackwell, were described as being born to do what they did. Work as a "career" is about advancing within an organizational or occupational hierarchy, as Belilovsky was demonstrating. Unlike some career stories, hers characterizes status as a symbol of security rather than as a vain pursuit. Work as a "job" is a means to other ends, such as Bohan's music.

In past studies, when working people were asked to choose how much they felt a description of work as a job, career, or a calling described their own relationship to their work, two interesting trends emerged. First, there was an even distribution of people across calling, career, and job. Second, people categorized themselves seemingly independently of their occupation or job title. A busboy can report a calling, and a CEO can report a job.

In the Portraits, loved ones consistently positioned work among other things that made the victims' lives worth living. Yet most loved ones indicated that other elements of the good life were more important than work, such as family, hobbies, and exploring the world.

When we examined just the Portraits in which work was presented as more than a job title and employer's name, the results were striking. They most commonly portrayed work as a calling, then as a job. Only a handful depicted careers.

Why were so many 9/11 victims called to work every day, and that fateful morning? Perhaps this is because so many attack victims represented helping professions, such as firefighting. Another explanation might be our tendency to romanticize, seeking meaningfulness in work that took a loved one away.

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Why, in a city marked by status symbols, were careers reported far less than usual? It appears that career concerns matter little for our legacies. What mattered more to victims' loved ones was that work was either worth dying for or enabled other things worth living for. What mattered less were corporate ladders climbed, performance reviews, and office politics.

This observation seems particularly bittersweet, since we expend much of our daily energies trying to do what it takes to get ahead in our careers. When you return to work on September 12, honor the victims by doing work that would be worth doing every day, even if it were your last.
This 15th Anniversary of "9/11" is an historically unique opportunity for our nation to pause and reflect about just kind of country we are.

Who would plot, plan and execute the use of commercial aircraft as "guided missiles" in to the World Trade Center Buildings in New York City? Why?

The "9/11 Commission Report On Terrorist Attacks Upon The World Trade Center" sought to answer that question.

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This week Congress enacted legislation authorizing potential lawsuits against the government of Saudi Arabia because 15 of the 19 persons who hijacked and guided the planes into the Tower Buildings were Saudi nationals. President Obama has said he will veto this legislation as contrary to the "sovereign immunity", that foreign governments enjoy in the United States.

It will help us, as we seek to gain some insight as to what kind of country we are, to stop for moment, and examine, up close and personal, the impact of this horrific event as seen and told by some of the immediate families of those killed on that day.

Accordingly, we share with you the written reflections about that day by Ms. Edie Lutnick. She and her brother, Howard, lost their brother Gary, who died on 9/11 trapped in the One World Trade Center building. Howard Lutnick is the President and CEO of the Financial Services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald. 658 men and women fellow employees of that company died on Sept 11, 2001.

Edie Lutnick raised her younger brother Gary when their parents died at an early age. She wrote a book about the loss of Gary and the other 657 Cantor Fitzgerald persons who were murdered on that day. Captioned AN UNBROKEN BOND, it is "The untold story of how the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald families faced the tragedy of 9/11 and beyond."

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We urge everyone who has not read this book, as part of your commemoration of this 15th Anniversary to purchase and read Edie's book ASAP.

We are blessed to know Edie and her brother Howard. We were especially honored to have been provided the privilege of writing the Foreword to Edie's book. Among other things, at the time, we wrote:

"There are some events past and present that challenge our ability to comprehend the magnitude of human pain, suffering and the destruction associated with them. The Holocaust, slavery in the United States, Hiroshima, genocide atrocities in Rawanda and Serbia, and terrorist killings in Mumbai -- it is difficult for us to wrap our minds around the enormity of pain and destruction associated with such events."

"The most challenging issue the book pose is not expressly stated. It is the same haunting question raised by Simon Wiesenthal in his book, 'The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness.'"

Additionally, on this 15th Anniversary of "9/11" we are reminded of the wisdom of the author, George Santayana who wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

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NEW DELHI (Sept. 10, 2016) -- In a keynote address to the 2016 East-West Center International Media Conference here yesterday, Indian Foreign Secretary Dr. S. Jaishankar said that India sits at an important geo-political crossroad, and that its ability to integrate more closely to the East has the potential to transform the Asian landscape.

In many ways, this eastward focus "has been the greatest change in my four decades as an Indian diplomat," Jaishankar said. Having served in Japan, Singapore and China, he said, "I have some advantage of developing insights from field experience. In my view, the strategic implications of the eastward interface of the Indian sub-continent are still unfolding ... and its quickening pace now certainly elicits greater attention."

Domestic developments along India's eastern seaboard are an important driving force behind the country's economic transformation, he said, and today trade with the east is a high-priority agenda with significant implications for regional economies. Its aims include port modernization along with industrial and coastal community development, with the goals of increasing coastal shipping five-fold, transforming inland waterways and creating the kind of maritime infrastructure required by a more industrialized India. Jaishankar said that physical connectivity across the region presents game-changing possibilities, not only for India's relationship with Southeast Asian countries, but also for the economic future of its own eastern states. Key infrastructure projects such as the Kaladan "multi-modal transport" development linking the Indian port of Kolkata to Myanmar by sea, river and road, and the completion of a highway that would extend to Thailand, could help accomplish this objective, he said. Recent diplomatic visits to Southeast Asia have also highlighted the interest of nations there in further road connectivity to Vietnam.

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Border agreements between India and Bangladesh have created a positive environment for the development of rail and road connectivity, inland waterways, coastal shipping and energy cooperation along the Bay of Bengal, he said, and India is also developing projects with southern Indian Ocean neighbors.

Expanding its maritime horizons has allowed India to emerge as a security provider and first responder to disasters in the region, he said, and this trend is likely to grow in the future for two reasons. First, India's own economic capacities are expanding and could well make a quantum jump as its "Make in India" initiative takes off, with both demand- and supply-side enhancement efforts. Second, there is a trend toward a larger rebalancing of the global economy toward Asia that is set to enhance the importance of Indian Ocean as an "economic highway."

"Being located at its center of gravity, India's responsibilities towards safe and unimpeded flow of commerce grow commensurately in an era of greater burden sharing," Jaishankar said. "It is likely that this role would itself become an additional binding force between India and its eastern partners, who are directly benefitted by a safer ocean."

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Political and security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries has expanded steadily and strengthened regional stability, he said, with India engaging the region through digital and physical connectivity projects, space technology initiatives and capacity building, including in information technology.

Japan and South Korea are also focal points of Indian "Look East" diplomacy. Both nations have already established strong credentials in India by virtue of earlier successful industrial ventures, Jaishankar said, but today with India's increased focus on transformational infrastructure development, the expectations of global partners are higher.

New projects with Japan include plans for the construction of India's first high-speed railway, expected to begin next year. There's also a focus on security interests, as reflected in new joint annual exercises, an agreed defense framework and discussions on equipment and technology transfers. Meanwhile, ship-building, industrial parks, steel production and smart grids are among the priority projects with South Korea.

While China-India ties have been limited historically, with frequent friction over border disputes, relations have transitioned to peace and tranquility on their shared border, Jaishankar said, even as negotiations continue. Additionally, a rapid rise of trade with China has had profound, if mixed, implications. While it has allowed for some new capacities in areas like telecom and power generation, it has also impacted negatively on others, he said, with fair market access to China remaining an issue for Indian companies, including in globally competitive areas like pharmaceuticals and information technology.

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Bilateral ties with Myanmar and Bangladesh are strong, substantive and rapidly expanding, according to Jaishankar. While there is still much work to be done, he said Myanmar has taken some important steps in its democratic journey, development work, national integrity and governance processes. Conversely, in Bangladesh, secularism and pluralism are under stress, he said, and must be supported without hesitation.
Can you imagine how well Jeb Bush would be doing right now? Jeb Bush would be crushing this thing. He'd be leading by double digits and we'd be talking about the possibility of a landslide. Instead the GOP has Trump. Which is the thought with which Democrats encourage themselves...except that I don't think they should feel terribly encouraged at the moment.

The reason is, I think Donald Trump has found his message. The Wall, the exclusion of Muslims, "bomb ISIS"--that was all just decorative specifics. Trump has discovered the underlying message that holds it all together: "what the hell do you have to lose?" This is the motto of the Politics of Despair, the successor to Newt Gingrich's 2012 Politics of Resentment. Trump unveiled (if that's the word I want) this message talking about African American voters.

The reaction was immediate and negative, of course: the sentiment was insulting, demeaning, unworthy of a candidate, and above all certain to be completely counterproductive. Only...this week a new poll from the Boston Herald indicates significant increase in support for Trump among African-Americans and Hispanics, with double digit approval ratings for the candidate among both groups for the first time.

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Now that's only one poll (and not a particularly good one), and no one expects Trump to become the favorite of African-American voters (well, at least until he runs for reelection to a second term and carries 95% as he promised). But in this election a gain of just a few point among minority voters could spell the difference in a number of battleground states

And make no mistake, those battleground states are close. In Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina the candidates are essentially tied (here's Quinnipiac, here's CNN). In Pennsylvania Clinton holds a 5 point lead, but that was 10 points in July. Overall, Fivethirtyeight.com still gives Clinton a 62% chance of victory...but that's compared with over 79% one month ago.

Why? Well we just watched NBC's risible "Commander in Chief Forum," so lets start there. The Politics of Despair might very well explain voters' willingness to roll the dice with a Trump foreign policy; seriously, what do we have to lose? Trump proposes mindless bombing campaigns and cynical deals with temporary allies. Would that approach really produce worse results than the current situation? The answer, of course, is "yes, absolutely!", but many voters don't see it that way and Clinton has not really explained the grounds for confidence in a different strategy. Clinton was supposed to have a huge advantage here based on her security and foreign policy strengths. Trade is one thing; Trump's approach to international trade deals always drew some support, and lately the TPP looks like a ship whose rats are taking shore leave. But still, voters who were concerned about Trump's weightlessness were supposed to turn to Clinton to bring professionalism to the formulation of American foreign policy, starting with our relationship with Putin's Russia.



Except that the Obama administration has announced a new agreement with Russia to cooperate in Syria to cosponsor a truce, and the announcement that Russia is seeking to take a new role in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. That was Trump's suggestion all along, wasn't it? And Clinton's performance on the Commander in Chief Forum was dismal in ways that cannot be entirely blamed on Matt Lauer. Her signals were mixed, she was particular where she should be guarded and guarded where she needed to be forthright and there was a distinct lack of what used to be called "the vision thing". Her remarkably poorly considered public commitment never to send troops to Syria or Iraq on national television made her look ... well, unprofessional. Both candidates sound as though they are making it up as they go along, which is not a good position for Clinton despite the endorsement from Paul Wolfowitz.

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Photo Credit: Fashion Week Los Angeles

There's been a resurgence of minorities featured on television and in movies with Fox's Empire and Fresh Off the Boat dominating the viewership charts. Inclusion, contrary to long-held beliefs, is leading to uncharted successes.

Just this year Conde Nast hired the second African-American Editor-In-Chief in the conglomerate's history to lead Teen Vogue. Even Facebook that due to the advent of InstaArticles became the world's largest publication overnight is establishing its international footprint--opening the first Facebook Office in the content of Africa late last year.

Companies are becoming more globalized. The shift has left much unsure of how to implement inclusive practices into their business model.

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The Fashion industry, in particular, has had a difficult time adjusting. White faces still largely manage the industry, and many assert that the business is becoming more homogenous even as markets become more diverse.

While some argue that fashion editors and publications are especially racist, Andre Leon Talley voiced a more complex reasoning. "It's the system that's racist. It's the system of intolerance. It's silent, it's asleep, it's dormant, and it's a nightmare. It's not a dream achieved."



This is largely due to groupthink. Margaret Thatcher stated that "consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes, and no one objects."

Fashion, contrary to assertions by many, is a collaborative and democratic effort. Rather than being run from a top-down model like most industries, fashion houses are constantly drawing from new talent to remain innovative and relevant to what is one of the most grassroots industries in the world.

However, its democratic nature and need to feed on the bottom for new and innovative ideas is largely restricted to design decisions. The leadership of the brands is typically run by industry strongholds whose business sense remains risk-averse.

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"While tried and true has its benefits, its inherent rigidity and fear of change can lead to quick and severe destruction, stated Fashion Week Los Angeles Executive Producer, Christina Iannuzzi. "Take Blockbuster, for example, whose management, instead of changing business models, remained arrogant in believing that the changing consumers and technology would not lead to their demise.

Consumers are becoming more political and more self-led. With more choices than ever before, consumers' taste are building and destroying industries at record speed. Many of their choices are based on political decisions with movements such as the pink (gay) and the black (African-American) dollar leading people to boycott or support industries that they feel affect their communities.
Imagine, if five years after penning the declaration of Independence the original signers were to meet back in Philadelphia to recreate that moment? Or, authentic members of Boston's Tea Party were to re-convene and make themselves available to historians and reporters five years later? Would anyone want to be there? Listen in? Take careful notes? Snap some pictures?

Occupy Wall Street, which history will prove to have been the pivotal point sharply redefining our nation's obsequious acceptance of Government/Corporate collusion, will be providing exactly that opportunity Zuccotti Park on Saturday, September 17 in NYC - Occupy's Fifth Birthday.

One of the highlights of a day in which scores of activist groups of all sorts will be there to once again let their grievances (and solutions) be known are efforts by one contingent to re-create the Zuccotti experience. Their plans call for OWS veterans to return to the park that day to appear at the same locations, booths, tents public areas to recreate that experience and to be there to answer questions and share their stories.

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What are we talking about?

We are talking about an opportunity for today's historians and journalists to hear the oral history of the Occupy experience first-hand. On display will be some of the original, hand-lettered posters (now collector's items), booth mock-ups, a few instances of people making use of the famous "public megaphones" - and perhaps a recreation of the boisterous "drum circle" that so annoyed the commercial neighbors and so energized the Zuccotti inhabitants.



Who are we talking about?

Sponsors and media outreach people are mum on this, and the word is that some people showing up will be a "surprise" to even the occupiers. Whoever shows, the intention is to create authenticity and inclusion and provide a cross-section of that original population. As example:

Sue DeGregorio Rosen. A 35+ veteran nurse advocate for the freedom to medicate with Cannabis, wife/mother/grandmother will be there.

Prior to Occupy, Sue had carefully watched the earlier movements and marches in Spain. At the time that Occupy broke, she was working for the NY State Nurses association on Wall Street and in her trips in from her home in New Jersey would often cut across Zuccotti Park to get to their offices.

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From September 17 forward, she visited the Park almost daily with camera in hand to record the evolving, sometimes chaotic scene.

"I spoke with others, like-minded people, regular people," she says. "We talked about healthcare, about how and why we were there and what we wanted. Today, I remain 'Occupy' even in the work I do with and for the American Cannabis Nurses Association."

Manny Cavaco (aka Manny Manhattan). Occupy didn't initially register with Manny, but when he heard that some trade unionists would be there on October 6, it caught his attention and he headed there that day.

"I thought it would be a half-dozen people, and it turned out to be wall-to-wall," he mused. From that point on, he was a Zuccotti regular who manned the Trade Unionist table (next to the Anarchist table and across from the library) and could be seen carrying a signs with Teamster quotes and one photo which became Internet buzz: Greed is NOT good!

Five years forward, he is running for Assembly in AD 65 and on the November 8 ticket as a member of the Green Party. He has incorporated Occupy into his campaign - especially that of supporting the creation of a New York State Public Bank and worker co-ops.

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Michael Pellagatti. Going by the handle Pella Libertas, Michael has turned the taunt made by tourists to Occupiers to "Get a Job" completely around - now employed full time as a Gray Line tour guide and independently as "Occupy The Tour."

"Pella" was employed nights at that time as a security guard for a securities firm in the Wall Street area and, as an early-on activist, had gotten wind of the proposed attempt to occupy Wall Street. He showed up there that morning to find Wall Street guarded and empty.

"But then," he remembers, "I heard the drums. And where there are drums, there is a protest" and followed the noise to Zuccotti Park. He figured it would fizzle out in a few days, and when it didn't he was "all in" and spent his days in the Media Tent.

Fully (but unofficially) deputized as the tour guide for S17 (he disputes the term - calling himself more correctly as a "Radical Docent"), you will find him escorting historians and journalists around the park to make sure they get their facts straight.

So, that's a taste of the line-up. If the attitude of the NYC Boys in Blue today is no different than it was five years ago - they just might appear in a police line-up. Let's hope that the barriers are down and that mutual respect is shown.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in Pensacola, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Donald Trump's interview with host Larry King Thursday on RT, the English language Russian television news network, was embarrassing. Trump's campaign was caught off guard by his comments and struggled for an explanation. "A former CNN superstar, Larry King, has a podcast, and Mr. Trump went on his podcast," explained campaign manager Kellyanne Conway Friday on CNN. "Nobody said it would be on Russian TV."

Trump has been under attack for his repeated praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a presidential forum on NBC Wednesday, Trump said that Putin has been a better leader that President Barack Obama. "Certainly, in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

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Trump has repeatedly made in clear throughout his campaign that he admires Putin. This has been especially true since Putin heaped praise on Trump at his annual press conference last December. "He is a bright and talented person without doubt," Putin said, "an outstanding and talented personality." Putin, a former KGB officer, knows how to manipulate egos, and no one has a bigger ego than Trump. Trump's response, in the form of a statement, was, "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond."

Respected? Putin's annexation of Crimea and military intervention of Ukraine led to international condemnation and the imposition of sanctions. Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of its tyrannical leader, Bashar al-Assad, has also drawn condemnation and prolonged the conflict. Russia is also looking to play a bigger role in Iran's nuclear program.

Putin rules Russia with an iron fist. Human Rights Watch, a non-government organization advocating human rights, harshly criticizes Russia. "The Kremlin's crackdown on civil society, media, and the Internet took a more sinister turn in 2015 as the government further intensified harassment and persecution of independent critics," the organization says on its website. Putin has turned the country against the West, especially the United States, in an effort to keep tight control. He has successfully shifted blame for Russia's struggling economy from government policies to Western sanctions. Putin has rigorously maintained a corrupt system of government where he and his loyal supporters reap great personal reward.

Punditfact reported earlier this year that 34 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 2000. The international watchdog Freedom House ranks Russia 180 out of 199 countries when it comes to press freedom. Perhaps Trump, who regularly denounces the American media, admires how Putin handles the press. Trump told King, "there's tremendous dishonesty with the media. Not all of it, obviously, but tremendous dishonesty."

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Larry King has a regular program on RT, and RT billed the interview as an "exclusive." RT, a Kremlin sponsored network, describes itself as, "an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints international audience with a Russian viewpoint." General Michael Flynn, the former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and now a national security advisor to Trump, attended an RT gala in Moscow last year, and has appeared on the network several times.

In his RT interview, Trump told King that he doesn't think Russia is trying to meddle in the American election. "I think it's probably unlikely. Maybe the Democrats are putting that out -- who knows," he said. "If they are doing something, I hope somebody's going to be able to find out so they can end it. Because that would not be appropriate at all." (However, last July Trump called on the Russians to hack Clinton's emails.) Nonetheless, Trump's views on the media and President Obama pretty much align with the Russian viewpoint.

The website Talking Points Memo reported in July, "Trump's financial empire is heavily leveraged and has a deep reliance on capital infusions from oligarchs and other sources of wealth aligned with Putin." Trump's tax returns might shed light on the extent of the investment, but he says he won't release them. Both Trump and Putin have spoken out against NATO, although for different reasons. TPM also reported that Putin has sought to prop up nationalist movements in Europe in part to sow discord in those countries.

Trump is running a nationalist campaign positioning himself as a strong leader, and he is certainly sowing discord. "I alone can fix it," he said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July. He has campaigned using bombast and bluster, while seldom offering specific answers to policy questions, like details of his "secret plan to eliminate ISIS." In his Wednesday appearance on NBC, he said, "Under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I think the generals have been reduced to rubble." He continued, "They have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing to our country." Of course, he would fire them.

Also in that appearance, Trump praised Putin for "having great control over his country." If elected in November, perhaps Tsar Trump will try to assert his control over this country.
The symptoms start seconds after I awake in the morning. Like an addict reaching for his pain meds, I fumble for my iPhone and scroll through my feeds for the latest news about Donald Trump.

I scan for words like "lies," "fledgling campaign," and "raccoon hands." Each time I see them a little pleasure center ignites in the frontal lobe of my brain.

But the high is fleeting. As I get ready for work, I flip through the morning news shows hoping for a juicy story on Trump's declining poll numbers. Left-leaning political podcasts are the soundtrack of my morning commute. At the office, I check my social media feeds again. I suffer from a psychological disorder nobody but me calls OTD or Obsessive Trump Disorder.

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Some signs and symptoms:

Impulsive thoughts and urges related to getting negative news about Trump.

Repeatedly checking to make sure Trump is screwing up

Compulsive "liking" and sharing negative posts about his campaign

It works like this: First, I must know what Trump did wrong. Then I need to know what other people think about what he did wrong--and how this will adversely affect his candidacy. When I'm not fully satisfied with that feedback, I need to hear more negative news about Trump.

And thus the cycle continues--an endless loop of joy and pain, sunshine and rain.

I wondered if I was alone in my OTD. Is it one of those silent diseases that sufferers are too ashamed to talk about, but actually cripples hundreds of thousands of people every day?

So I phone Eli Karam, Ph.D, a clinical therapist in Louisville, Kentucky. He's level-headed and sharp, with just the right amount of ambivalence towards Trump to be the objective voice I need to hear. To my surprise, he tells me that my self-diagnosed neuroses isn't so far from an actual real thing.

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"A true sign of OCD is that you have an obsessive thought that you can't get rid of," he explains. "So you develop a ritual to get that thought out of your head."

For a person suffering from germ phobia, that ritual is hand washing. For a person with OTD, it's obsessive checking and re-checking every available screen for bad news about Trump.Dr. Karam's explanation helped shed light on what I was doing, but I still didn't know why I was doing it. Germaphobes (like Trump, ironically) are driven by a fear of being exposed to germs. What was my fear? I didn't have to dig deep into my childhood to figure it out. The answer was right there for all to see, like a huge tuft of orange hair.

"The idea of a President Trump is so terrifying, that you look for negative things about him in the media to convince yourself that he's not going to be elected."
Like Paris But With A Wicked Sense Of Humor

If I were to choose one word to describe Paris, it would be romantic. If I were to choose one word to describe Prague, a city often compared to Paris, it would be cynical ... in a good way.

From the point of view of an architect or a city planner, comparing Prague to Paris is understandable. In its glory days, Prague, 14th-century capital of the Holy Roman Empire, was of greater and wider repute than the City of Light.

Czechs have spent an inordinate amount of their time, over their history, fighting, including two civil wars, one lasting 200 years. Much of the conflict has had to do with religion.

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Then, at the start of the 20th century, as one Czech put it, "This country was offered up to the Nazis.

"Here, have this land, the West seemed to say," my new Czech friend continued, "with the hope, I guess, that the submission would satisfy Hitler enough that he'd give up on any grander land-grab plans."

Then, as in Budapest, the Nazis were replaced immediately by the commies. The country's Velvet Revolution ended 41 years of Stalinist rule in 1989. This recent history is palpable everywhere, not only in city structures and museums, but also in the people themselves.

Czechs today don't take anything too seriously, including and especially religion or politics. Churches are empty, and the pope has little influence in this once solidly Catholic nation. Attitudes toward things like divorce, single moms, birth control, and abortion are liberal and laissez-faire.

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Attitudes toward most everything could be described the same way. We're tired of fighting, of being told what to do, what to believe, and how to behave ... we've had enough, modern-day Czechs seem to say. Leave us be, and we'll leave you be ...

Czechs I met during my visit delighted in showing me physical manifestations of their current live-and-let-live manifesto. From the nearly life-sized upside-down dead horse -- with good King Wenceslaus as the frustrated rider -- that hangs from the ceiling of a center-city shopping arcade ("You can't make a dead horse run, no matter how hard you try," our Czech guide explained, "and you can't make Czech politics run either...") to the Two Peeing Men statue (the two men so occupied are standing over a map of the Czech Republic) and the statue of Sigmund Freud hanging from the side of a four-story building ("Don't try to figure it out," our guide told us. "Freud had no connection to Prague, yet here he is just hanging out in Prague. When the wind blows, he swings back and forth. It doesn't have to make sense. It's very Czech..."), this city is delighting, it seems, in taking full advantage of its recently hard-won right to free speech.

"One activist artist," one Czech told me, "sculpted a giant pink middle finger that he placed, overnight, in view of the parliament building. He had no permit, so what he did was illegal. Everyone knew this, including the police, of course. But the big middle finger was left in place for three days. That's how much we Czechs really, really don't like our current president.

"But, oh, well ... this guy will be out soon enough and we'll have another guy ..."

The Czech Republic is struggling, like all former Eastern bloc countries, to get itself back on track. Driving to and from Prague we were delayed and detoured by constant road work. First things first, of course. That is, improving the infrastructure takes priority over rescuing and restoring historic structures, both in Prague and across the country.

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On my way from Prague to Krakow for an European tour, I stopped for lunch in the one-time royal city of Hradec Kralove. Its big 13th-century, central town square is today a parking lot, the pastel-colored facades of the formerly chic structures surrounding it decaying in real time.

This is the case across this country. Desperate for help to preserve what they can, the Czechs, I've been told, are making some properties of character and historical significance available for a crown (that is, a single Czech koruna).

Original Feature: The Czech City Of Prague Is Full Of Character And Quirks

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Earlier on Huff/Post50:
September 7, 2016

It seems that some who have the ears of U.S. elite decision-makers are at least shifting away from wishing to provoke wars with Russia and China.

In recent articles, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Thomas Graham, two architects of the U.S. cold war with Russia, have acknowledged that the era of uncontested U.S. global imperialism is coming to an end. Both analysts urge more cooperation with Russia and China to achieve traditional, still imperial, U.S. aims. Mr. Graham recommends a shifting mix of competition and cooperation, aiming toward a "confident management of ambiguity." Mr. Brzezinski calls for deputizing other countries, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran to carry out the combined aims of the U.S., Russia and China so that this triumvirate could control other people's land and resources.

It's surely worthwhile to wonder what effect opinions such as Brzezinski's and Graham's might have upon how U.S. resources are allotted, whether to meet human needs or to further enlarge the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and further enrich the corporations that profit from U.S. investments in weapons technology.

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If the U.S. might diminish offensive war preparations against Russia, when would DOD budget proposals begin to reflect this? As of April 15, 2016, the U.S. DOD was proposing that the U.S. Fiscal Year 2017 budget significantly increase funding for the "European Reassurance Initiative" (ERI) from $789.3 million the previous year to $3.4 billion. The document reads: "the expanded focus is a reflection of the United States' strong and balanced approach to Russia in the wake of its aggression in Eastern Europe." The requested funds will enable the U.S. "defense" establishment to expand purchases of ammunition, fuel, equipment, and combat vehicles. It will also enable the DOD to allocate money to airfields, training centers, and ranges, as well as finance at least "28 joint and multi-national exercises which annually train more than 18,000 U.S. personnel alongside 45,000 NATO Allies." This is good news for major "defense" contractors.

In the past year, the National Guard of my home state of Illinois has participated in the DOD reserve component. 22 U.S. states matched up with 21 European countries to practice maneuvers designed to build up the ERI. The IL National Guard and the Polish Air Force have acquired "Joint Terminal Attack Controller" systems that enable them to practice coordinating airstrikes with Poland in support of ground forces combatting enemies in the region. Members of the IL National Guard were part of NATO's July 2016 "Anakonda" exercises on the Russian border. As the state of Illinois spent an entire year without a budget for social services or higher education, millions of dollars were directed toward joint military maneuvers with Poland that ratcheted up tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

Many families in Illinois can relate to the impact of rising food prices in Russia while family income stays the same or decreases. People in both the U.S. and Russia would benefit from diversion of funds away from billion dollar weapons systems toward the creation of jobs and infrastructure that improve the lives of ordinary people.

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But people are bombarded with war propaganda. Consider a recent piece of propaganda-lite, just under 5 minutes, which aired on ABC news, showing Martha Raddatz in the back seat of an F-15 U.S. fighter jet, flying over Estonia. "That was awesome," Raddatz coos, as she witnesses war-games from the F-15's open cockpit. She calls the American show of force a critical deterrent to Russian forces. The piece neglects to mention ordinary Russians on whose borders, in June 2016, 10 days of U.S. / NATO military exercises involving 31,000 troops took place.

In the high plateaus of Afghanistan, peasant women provide a striking example of risk-taking in order to literally plant new seeds. The New York Times recently reported on women in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province who have formed unions, risking ridicule and possible physical abuse to form cooperative groups. These women help one another acquire seeds for vegetables other than potatoes and also for new varieties of potatoes. They manage to feed their families and to pool resources so that they can spend less on delivering their crops to the market.

These women are acting with clarity and bravery, creating a new world within the shell of the old. We should be guided by such clarity as we insist that lasting peace can't be founded on military power.

The end of U.S. empire would be a welcome end. I hope that policy makers will let themselves be guided by sanity and the courage to clarify the U.S.' vast potential to make a positive difference in our world by asking themselves a simple, indispensable question: how can we learn to live together without killing one another? An indispensable follow-up is: When do we start?

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence. www.vcnv.org Voices is organizing a small delegation to Russia in October 2016.

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Veteran journalist Rula Amin is no stranger to tough assignments in conflict zones, but she never imagined having to dodge legal bullets to retain custody of her daughter, and lose her source of income in the process.

"My ex-husband Mohammed Ajlouni took my 7 year old daughter Dina for visitation and won't bring her back to me as court decision says," Amin wrote in a long post making the rounds on Saturday.



Screen shot of Rula Amin's posted appeal

In a tweet she said the last time her "ex" took the girl and didn't return her, Amin didn't see Dina for 11 months.

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In another tweet, Amin appealed for help to get back her daughter and for the rule of law to prevail in Jordan.

According to the custody agreement the couple take delivery of Dina during visitations at a police station so that the transaction can be documented.



Amin tweets about 11-month disappearance



"We extended his (Ajlouni's) visitation hours under a revised agreement and I got permission to travel with Dina 18 days in summer and one week during Christmas vacation," she told me.

Come summer, Amin asked the judge to demand that her ex-husband hand over the child's passport so that they can travel.

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According to Jordanian law, a mother who even has custody has no right to apply for a passport for her child, or to keep it.

The judge's answer was that the passport was the father's right, but that the mother could keep the child's insurance card.



Screen shot of Amin's repeated appeal for help tweet



Throughout the summer Amin pushed and negotiated with the judge and ex-husband over the passport and for her to provide the required guarantor.

"I spent the whole summer trying to travel with my daughter but I failed to execute what I had the right to do, according to the same court and judge who issued the ruling," she added.

On Friday, Amin handed over Dina to spend the day with Ajlouni but he later sent a message saying he wouldn't return the girl.

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Total defiance, Amin said, adding that she spent most of Saturday going to different government departments to get back her daughter, with no luck.

"A journalist should be dedicated to the profession of journalism," Amin told my students in 2011, noting that the press was like a mirror reflecting hard news without adding or subtracting facts.

She's practiced what she learned at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

The gutsy Palestinian-Jordanian former Al Jazeera English correspondent (and one-time reporter for CNN) saw her dedication turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare in a custody battle with her ex-husband.

Ajlouni, a Jordanian-American media entrepreneur, reportedly "kidnapped" the child more than once before the latest incident and secured legal writ to bar mother and daughter from leaving the country.



Rula Amin (Abu-Fadil)

He had accused Amin of being too busy with her work as a correspondent to attend to their daughter.

He told Lebanese daily Annahar Amin had barred him from seeing his daughter when she took the child to Lebanon where he dared not go for security reasons.

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Amin disputes the contention, and says Ajlouni hadn't paid a penny for Dina's support since July 2011.



Screen shot of Rula Amin report about 5th anniversary of Syrian war

The travel ban on U.S. passport holder Dina caused Amin to give up her Beirut-based job to set up house and stay with the child in Amman, Jordan, so as not to lose temporary custody.

The shocker came when Amin's lawyers discovered that Ajlouni got an injunction from a Sharia (Islamic law) court also blocking her from travel. Amin and her "ex" are Muslims.



Screen shot of Amin with daughter Dina

"If my story highlights something, it's that if this happens to me, a woman with a high profile, good finances, (who) can afford to hire five lawyers, and (am) still vulnerable to all these violations, what happens to other women?" she asked rhetorically.

It also highlights how people in power, and secular people, don't dare confront arbitrary rulings of the Sharia courts and the influence of the religious establishment, she added.

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The court jurisdiction tug-of-war is not new but her 2014 travel ban, about which she wasn't even informed, prevented Amin from visiting her father who lives in the Palestinian town of Ramallah after he had suffered a heart attack.



Screen shot of Sharia Court order barring Rula Amin from travel

The ban was appealed on the basis it's unconstitutional and was later lifted. But the ban on Dina's travel remains.

In March 2015, Jordanian police picked up Amin and locked her up in a women's prison after a Sharia court reversed an earlier decision giving her temporary custody, and setting off a social media campaign after she had tweeted news of her incarceration.

Supporters set up a Facebook page to call for her release and got on all manner of media to denounce the jailing.



On Saturday, a friend of Amin's, Nisreen Alami, wondered online how anyone could override the law and judiciary and give himself the right to repeatedly violate all rulings and pledges before judges, courts and the police, and asked who would punish him.



Screen shot of Nisreen Alami post

"I was put in prison because I refused to hand over my daughter," Amin told me.

Under Jordanian personal status law, divorced mothers are allowed to keep their children until the age of 15.

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Amin was released a day after her detention, but the case demonstrated how existing laws and rulings could be overturned.



Screen shot of Rula Amin's tweets on arrest, release from jail
Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who according to the New York Times "has moved quickly to revolutionize his country's economy in ways that offer tantalizing hints at even broader reforms", is now establishing and spearheading "a new comprehensive, locally and internationally coordinated counter-terrorism strategy" based on a recently published report.

President Obama hosted Mohammed bin Salman in June, 2016 and discussed U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as well as expressed appreciation for Saudi Arabia's efforts in combatting ISIS and contributing to the campaign against ISIS.

The report by Salman Al-Ansari, Founder & President of the Washington DC-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC) sheds light on multi-faceted and modern approach to counter terrorism.

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The new strategy and tactical shift incorporates several facets including the establishment of a coalition of Muslim countries to eliminate any form of terrorism.

Accordingly and intriguingly "While the strategy is centered around conventional methods of countering terrorism, such as monitoring, tracking down and eliminating terrorist threats, it will do so by focusing on eradicating any terrorist cyber-presence, combatting extremist ideologies, and establishing a coalition of Muslim countries that will aim to eliminate any form of terrorism that claims to operate under the name of Islam. As the focal points of the Deputy Crown Prince's strategy, these particular aspects are emphasized in order to carry out and implement preemptive measures to not only prevent the occurrence of terrorism on Saudi Arabian soil, which is already surrounded by political turbulence and unrest, but the occurrence of terrorism anywhere in the world as well. However, even before this new strategy has been put into effect, Saudi Arabia has already been participating in an international coalition to combat terrorist organizations, chief of them being ISIS. In fact, ever since the International Coalition to Combat ISIS was formed under the leadership of the United States, Saudi Arabia has been an active member since day one. Saudi Arabia started out by participating heavily in the coalition's military operations that were launched in September 2014, with air strikes that targeted areas controlled by ISIS within Syrian and Iraqi territories. In fact, the total number of offensive sorties carried out by Saudi Arabia's Air Force up to July 25th, 2016 is 254 sorties. Saudi Arabia displayed its commitment to the International Coalition's military air campaign against ISIS even further by sending its Special Operation Forces to assist with the coalition's efforts. Additionally, on April 25th, 2016, Saudi Arabia carried out a massive military offensive against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that eliminated more than 800 Al-Qaeda militants in Al-Mukalla, paving the way for a legitimate Yemini government to liberate Hadhramaut's capital from Al-Qaeda's grip."

Based on the study, in addition, Saudi Arabia's participation in the United States-led global coalition constitutes a strategic aspect in the battle against ISIS. This occurs "by taking away every excuse for ISIS to claim that it is engaged in a war exclusively against the West, or what they often refer to as "Christian Crusaders". There are also deeply embedded reasons as to why the Kingdom's contributions makes this global coalition uniquely positioned to defeat ISIS, as Saudi Arabia is home to the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina, effectively making Saudi Arabia the de facto leader of the Arab and Islamic world. ISIS has targeted Saudi Arabia more than 20 times in order to discourage them from continuing to be active participants in the global coalition to combat it. This is because ISIS knows for a fact that the Kingdom's inclusion in this coalition greatly reduces the chances of ISIS resuming their recruitment efforts under the pretext of confronting those whom they refer to as "infidels". Recently, given the significant resources and capabilities that terrorist groups have been able to acquire, the current Saudi administration has recognized the need to adapt to the threats that these terrorist elements represent. It also believes that a new tactical approach must be implemented as part of a strategy that not only aims to encircle terrorist groups and completely impede their movements, but also to thoroughly cut off their sources of financial income. Some of the ways that will be used to monitor their movements include tracking their recruitment strategies that utilize online social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, or by keeping a close eye on extremist groups that encourage Saudis to commit to fundamentalism, which is subsequently used as a gateway to push Saudi youth towards extremism and intolerance."

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Accordingly, the nuances of the three-pronged approach are "As such, the Deputy Crown Prince pushed for three main directions towards the strategy that focus on tackling terrorism through multiple fronts that include (but are not limited to) digital, ideological and military fronts. Three centers have been established that take on each respective front, which are:

"1. The establishment of a specialized center called the "Digital Extremism Observatory" (DEO) that aims to monitor and track every possible online presence created by terrorist groups, whether it's social media accounts, survey sites or webpages created by these groups to promote their ideologies and goals. Even Twitter recognized the importance of keeping terrorists from accessing and abusing social media platforms, as they have shutdown nearly 250,000 Twitter accounts associated with terrorist groups and activities. Some of the center's efforts include frustrating any attempt to exploit any online platform that could be used for either recruitment or spreading extremist ideologies. It does so by enlisting the help of experts in online monitoring and data analysis, in order to develop a detailed map of intelligence information that can be provided to local or international authorities if requested. The center also has a dedicated team of specialists that respond swiftly to any attempt by terrorists to spread their ideology or to employ any of their digital recruitment strategies. This is all done under a framework of cooperation between the Kingdom and the global community for the purpose of collaborating effectively towards thwarting any terrorist operation that could be carried out using these platforms. Examples of such operations that relied heavily on online social networking sites include those that occurred in France and Britain. In addition, the terrorist group Al-Qaeda used several online media platforms on February 14th, 2003 to broadcast incendiary propaganda against the Kingdom titled "Between the Band of Horsemen". Elements of the terrorist organization consequently used this propaganda piece as one of the steps towards an infamous terrorist operation known as the "Pearl Harbor of Arabia", which occurred on May 2003. It targeted a residential compound in the Saudi capital Riyadh, killing eight Americans, Australians and many Westerners, as well as a number of Saudi security guards."

The second front to counter terrorism focuses on the establishment of an ideology research and advocacy center. It aims to "not only confront extremist ideologies, but also to promote a more moderate and welcoming version of Islam that is based on the religion's principles of tolerance and coexistence with others, no matter what their religion, belief or nationality. The center has just recently been established, and is currently being led and supervised by the former Minister of Justice and head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa. The Deputy Crown Prince assigned this responsibility to Dr. Al-Issa due to his other position as secretary general of the Muslim World League, where he also counters extremist ideologies and promotes a more moderate version of Islam. The league is recognized by the United Nations as an Observer in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In addition, the league's membership includes 60 Islamic states, and is known for being moderate and open to other cultures. It also utterly rejects all forms of extremism and terrorism. The center also plays a major role in efforts to quell any extremist religious discourse, as well as in pushing for new blood into some religious institutions in order to suppress and erase any aspect related to extremism and intolerance towards others. This responsibility has been fulfilled by Dr. Al-Issa during his tenure as Minister of Justice, by enforcing laws and regulations that contributed greatly to isolating and excising any extremist element that might hide and operate within these institutions or use them as a means to spread extremism or supporting fundamentalist ideologies. Dr. Al-Issa also toured the United States in January 2012 as part of his commitment to communicate with the international community, where he emphasized the Kingdom's centrist, moderate approach and its principle of tolerance towards others. Dr. Al-Issa was also keen on stressing the importance of combatting extremist ideologies during meetings with several U.S. officials, as well as his personal concern and goal to refute any excuse or justification for terrorists to conduct attacks in the name of Islam."

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The establishment of the "Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition" is the third front which includes "40 Muslim countries that will work within international conventions and laws in order to complement the regional and international efforts that are already underway for confronting terrorism in all of its manifestations. Additionally, it was recently announced that a joint operations center for the coalition has been created in Riyadh in order to unify, support and coordinate the efforts of all willing countries that want to offer help and assistance in combatting both physical and digital forms of terrorism. The Deputy Crown Prince faces what is possibly the most foreboding and relentless form of terrorism that Saudi Arabia and the world has ever seen. While it has been argued that Saudi Arabia hasn't been doing enough to publicize its counter-terrorism efforts to the international media, one can also argue that the country's current administration has formulated a far more comprehensive and methodical approach to fighting terrorism that aims to root out extremism wherever it may manifest by any means possible, whether its digitally, ideologically or militarily."

In closing, the three-pronged approach include establishing an ideology research and advocacy center, and a specialized center called the "Digital Extremism Observatory" (DEO), as well as forming the "Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition", which includes 40 Muslim countries. These are the multi-faceted fronts that include, but are not limited to, digital, ideological and military facets.

_______________________

Related stories, You can sign up for the newsletter for the latest news and analyses on HERE. Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.edu
Donald Trump's recent gains in some polls in the Middle West and Florida may prove to be a transient phenomenon if the Republican nominee's pro-Russian, anti-NATO stance is hammered home to the regions' large communities of Eastern and Northern European heritage.

The ethnic vote in several battleground states could be decisive in a close election. Nearly 10% of the populations of Wisconsin and Michigan is Polish American. In Pennsylvania the share exceeds 7%; together with the sizeable Ukrainian and Lithuanian American communities it approaches 9%. Polish, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian Americans combined comprise 5% of Ohio's population. Battleground state Florida is nearly 3% Polish American. Finnish Americans are numerous there and in Michigan and Wisconsin.

How much do these figures matter? Scholars have long debated the salience of ethnic ties in voters' preferences. Variables of age, gender, education, income, and generational and psychological distance from the homeland all play a role. As in many other ways, however, this year's presidential campaign is different. One of the two major candidates is propounding views that pose an existential threat to the ancestral homes of millions of Americans.

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Trump openly admires Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "strong leader," comparing him favorably to President Obama. Trump avoids condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including its annexation of Crimea. At the Republican convention in Cleveland his operatives forced a change in the party platform, stripping out a call for "providing lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine and replacing it with softer language calling for "appropriate assistance." Trump has pooh-poohed the U.S. intelligence community consensus that Russia hacked into the emails of the Democratic National Committee.

One of the many reasons that Trump refuses to make public his income tax returns may be that they would reveal extensive business interests in Russia. He has surrounded himself with pro-Moscow advisors, some of whom have their own intimate professional and personal ties to Russia. A few days ago in an interview with Russia's propagandistic network RT he blasted the American media for being "unbelievably dishonest."

Meanwhile, the object of Trump's admiration, Vladimir Putin, has utilized his invasions of Georgia and Ukraine as a threat to NATO members on Russia's western borders - especially Poland and the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- and to militarily non-aligned NATO partner countries Finland and Sweden.

Unsubtle tactics include a dramatic increase in Russian military probing along the borders of the Baltic countries. NATO fighter aircraft have scrambled hundreds of times to intercept Russian bombers and fighters over northern Europe. Last year Russia carried out a massive snap military maneuver of more than 80,000 troops, tanks, and aircraft. Russian military jets with their transponders turned off have buzzed commercial aircraft in flight near Copenhagen and have shot flares at Swedish Air Force planes. Russia has made submarine incursions into Swedish and Finnish waters and even simulated an attack on the Danish island of Bornholm.

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These provocations, along with extremely bellicose Kremlin verbal threats prompted NATO at its July summit in Warsaw to order the deployment of four rotating battalion-sized units to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, including American forces. At the Warsaw summit officials from Sweden and Finland were included for the first time in discussions of alliance policy toward Russia.

What is Trump's view of NATO? In a March 2016 meeting with the editorial board of the Washington Post Trump said that U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years. "We certainly can't afford to do this anymore," Trump said, adding later, "NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we're protecting Europe with NATO, but we're spending a lot of money."

In a Bloomberg interview Trump declared "I think NATO may be obsolete. ... NATO was set up a long time ago, many, many years ago. Things are different now."

To be sure burden sharing has been a persistent theme in NATO deliberations, but Trump's purely transactional approach to the alliance neglects solemn U.S. commitments and direct benefits to the United States, and understates European members' contributions to the organization.

Support for NATO has been a bipartisan cause in Congress since the organization's founding in 1949. After the Cold War, Republicans were in the lead in advocating NATO enlargement as shown by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's inclusion of it in his 1994 "Contract with America." In 1998 in the Senate's 80-19 vote for admitting Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to NATO both parties split 4 to 1 in favor, but Republican support was more solid; several Democrats came around only after strenuous lobbying by Joe Biden, who was the bill's floor manager.

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That was then; this is now. In July, Gingrich cynically dismissed NATO member Estonia as being in the "suburbs of St. Petersburg" -- a metaphor for the GOP's abandonment of principle at the altar of Trump. Meanwhile Trump continues his adulation of Putin. All this has led the Latvian journalist Dainis Ivans to fear a "Putin-RibbenTRUMP Pact."

Hillary Clinton, a longtime member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been a consistent and outspoken supporter of NATO and of U.S. solidarity with its allies. She has no illusions about Putin's threat to Eastern and Northern Europe countries, whose leaders privately are in despair over Trump's pro-Russian statements.

Many leaders of ethnic communities in the U.S. share these apprehensions, but the Central and East European Coalition, which represents more than 20 million Americans, wants to preserve its non-endorsement policy. Recently, however, it issued a policy paper welcoming the Obama administration's plans to increase funding for the region and to preposition military equipment in Eastern Europe, and calling for establishing permanent NATO bases in the alliance's eastern member states to counter potential Russian aggression.

In the next eight weeks the Clinton campaign would do well to target ethnic voters in battleground states, emphasizing the fundamental threat to the countries of their ancestors that a Trump presidency would constitute.
September 11, 2016 marks fifteen years since the horrific terror attacks that brought down the twin towers, killed thousands of Americans and struck at the heart of America.



It was "the day that changed everything" -- Including for Muslims like me.



On that day, there was tremendous concern that American non-Muslims, bent on revenge, might target Muslims, burn down our mosques and even lynch us.



Fifteen years later, there is plenty of "lynching" going on in America. But instead of Muslims getting lynched, politically correct enforcers are "lynching" those, like myself, who dare to speak out against radical Islam.



Today, in a post-9/11 America, if you utter a word of criticism -- not just about Islam, but even about radical Islam -- if you simply give terrorists credit for the attacks that they loudly and proudly take credit for, or if you even mention some of the radical things that radical Islamists say and believe -- you will be branded as a racist and an Islamophobe.



Even I -- a Pakistani-born, practicing Muslim woman -- have been called a racist and an Islamophobe, because I was featured in the Clarion Project film "By The Numbers -- The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions And Demographics," and because I dared to go on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher to have an open, honest conversation about the threat of radical Islam and how it impacts us all.



When they called 9/11 "the day that changed everything," little did we know what that change would look like.



A sad and worrying legacy of 9/11 is the emergence of a virulent strain of political correctness, and a war on America's free speech rights, waged by the likes of CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) and the "Islamophobia industry" backed by millions of petro dollars.



They have weaponized political correctness in a fifteen year war to scare Americans away from using common sense and exercising their right to free speech. They want to stop us from having an honest conversation about radical Islam by calling us racists, bigots and even Nazis. But they would never call radical Islamists those names. That would be Islamophobic. Instead, they paint them as the victims, even while terror attacks continue in America: most recently in San Bernardino and Orlando. Such is the upside-down world we live in, fifteen years after 9/11.



As a Muslim woman who left a truly bigoted and intolerant society to exercise my free speech rights in America, I find it morally debilitating to hear the apologists on the regressive left make excuses about the rise of radical Islam -- or worse -- to try to shut down debate.



We should not be afraid of debate. We should be afraid of a murderous ideology that inspires people to fly planes into buildings, shoot gays in nightclubs, burn women's faces with acid and behead Christians. And we should recognize the breadth and depth of this radical ideology, which is to destroy the West and its values.



Fifteen years after 9/11, let's at least have the courage to have a conversation about radical Islam. Maybe then, we can tackle the issue head on and find ways to defeat it together.
Hillary Clinton spoke the truth Friday night when she named the behavior of some Donald Trump supporters as "deplorable." In remarks to supporters, she called out the truth that there are among us the "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. Unfortunately there are people like that. And [Trump] has lifted them up."

It was a John 8:32 moment: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

If there is anyone left during this longest election cycle in the history of voting who has any doubt about the truth of that statement, then I commend to you this video entitled "Unfiltered Voices From Donald Trump's Crowds" - filmed by New York Times reporters over months on the campaign trail.

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And if there is anyone who needs a refresher on the definition of "deplorable" it is (according to Merriam Webster):

deplorable deserving strong condemnation synonyms: disgraceful, shameful, dishonorable, unworthy, inexcusable

The sad truth is that our nation is inarguably infected with the poisons of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and Islamaphobia. And the sadder truth is that those poisons have been fed, watered, fertilized and fostered by the rhetoric of the Trump campaign during this longest election cycle in the history of voting - creating fertile soil for the deplorable behavior in the video above to thrive.

It is long past time to speak the truth that will set us free as Americans - no matter what our party or politics, religion or ideology. And that truth is the one that Hillary Clinton spoke when she named the "basket of deplorables:" Those voices do not speak for us.

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The truth is that we are a nation founded on the aspirational value of "liberty and justice for all" - and that there is no asterisk after "all" that reads *unless you are Black, Latino, gay, lesbian, transgender, Syrian, Muslim, a woman or an immigrant.

The truth is we are better than that. And the other truth is if we cannot call out racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamaphobic behavior as deplorable then the danger is not that our candidate may lose an election.
At the Commander-in-Chief forum this week, Donald Trump expressed great admiration for Vladimir Putin. He has "an 82 percent approval rating," Trump gushed. "The man has very strong control over a country." Trump said that Putin has "been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader. We have a divided country."

That's right; we have a democracy. Obviously Trump prefers a system where the man at the top has "very strong control over a country." No division then. That position alone should disqualify Donald Trump from the presidency.

Trump bubbled about how much Vladimir Putin likes him: "Well, I think when he calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment, OK?" He added, "If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him."

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Mr. Trump's continued kissing of the posterior of the Russian strongman makes urgent a question I raised here in July. It is posted again with a few alterations:

Mole -- n. "A spy who achieves over a long period an important position within the security defenses of a country."

Even Vladimir Putin's former employer, the KGB, probably never dreamed that it could make a Russian agent president of the United States, but Putin is coming close to achieving that greatest infiltration in the history of espionage.

The evidence is growing by the day that Donald J. Trump is totally beholden to Russia. If elected, he would become the greatest mole in history.

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As a piece by David Frum in The Atlantic points out:

For a candidate with few consistent views on anything, this adds up to a very clear picture. Joined with other evidence of Trump's deep personal business obligations to people in the Putin ruling circle, and his campaign leadership's long-standing involvement with the former pro-Putin authoritarian leader of Ukraine, the picture becomes even more troubling--even sinister.

Trump refuses to release his tax returns, using the absurd excuse that he is under audit. There are many possible reasons for why he wants to hide his financial records, such as that he is not worth nearly as much as he claims and that he gives virtually nothing in charitable contributions. But it seems highly likely that the biggest reason why he refuses to release his tax returns is that they show his deep financial ties to Russian oligarchs and Putin cronies.

"I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump tweeted on July 26. Like most of what comes out of his mouth and from his tiny fingers typing tweets, this is a bold-faced lie. And the flow of money in the other direction--loans from Russians to keep Trump's empire afloat--are likely far greater.

Trump is ready to do Putin's bidding by undermining NATO and virtually inviting him to invade the Baltic nations.

Trump doesn't lie like a rug; he lies like a Russian agent

After asserting in November, "I got to know him [Putin] very well," Trump now says, "I have nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do, I never met Putin, I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever."

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Trump doesn't lie like a rug; he lies like a Russian agent.

In one of his infamous news conferences in July, Trump said, "I'm not going to tell Putin what to do. Why should I tell Putin what to do?" The real issue is whether Putin is--or will be if the Republican nominee becomes president--telling Trump what to do.

The Deafening Silence of Republican "Patriots"

Imagine what all Republicans would be saying if a Democrat had such a record of allegiance to a foreign power.

Why isn't the party of fear afraid of putting a Russian mole in the White House?

When will Republicans put patriotism above party and denounce this evil and extremely dangerous man? When will they, at the very least, demand that he release his tax returns so we can see if he is a potential Russian agent?
What does it mean to be interdenominational?

Why is it even important that I use this word to describe my religious beliefs? Couldn't I just say, "I believe in God." or something more generic?

Sure, I could, but it would be incorrect to. Why? Because there's something intentional behind this label.

To be interdenominational means that I subscribe to all denominations. I see something good in all of them and I want that good to be represented in my own belief system.

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It also means that I strive to be one who embraces (not tolerates) denominational plurality. I am overjoyed to have people in my church who identify as Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc.

Being interdenominational means that everyone brings something good to the table because of their differences, not just their similarities. It means that I am always absorbing more information and evolving, cherishing the wisdom that I learn from another's experience.

DEATHBEDS

As a pastor, I spend a great deal of time with the sick and the dying. As death approaches, many begin to sense that it is near.

There's a common behavior that I witness in people as I sit next to them in their final hours. They all have some final words that they want to share with those that they love.

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Sometimes these words are apologies. They may want to bring some closure or healing to a relationship that's been strained or damaged during there lifetime.

Other times they speak words of admonition, encouraging those that they love to live life to its fullest.

Still, others' final words are words of regret- sorrow for how they've conducted their lives or how they've missed the true meaning of this thing we call "existence."

What's my point?

My point is that as we get close to the end of our lives, the dust settles and all that is blurry becomes clear. We get a glimpse of what this was really all about.

DYING JESUS

Like the many I have sat with in their final moments, Jesus also wanted to say something to those that he loved just prior to his death.

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These were his parting words- a prayer that he prayed for all people.

He said,

"My prayer is not for my disciples alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the light that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one-- I in them and you in me--so that they may be brought into complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

- John 17:20-23

Jesus didn't pray for uniformity. He prayed for unity, and there's a big difference between the two. Uniformity means that we all look the same, act the same, think the same, and are indistinguishable from one another.

Unity, on the other hand means that we retain who we are. We have the freedom to think and the freedom to make our own choices. We also strive to work in harmony with others, embracing what is unique and special about them, partnering with them in the making of a better world.

This is why I call myself "interdenominational." I don't need to check my denominational leanings at the door when I enter church on Sundays or when I gather outside of church with friends.

We are each something "original" because of our experiences, and we have a lot to learn from one another.

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NINE ELEVEN

If you think about what really happened to our country on 9/11 in its crudest form, it was a lynching of people who believed in freedom and pluralism by those who didn't.

Our nation is built on the principles of freedom and plurality.

"E pluribus unum." Out of the many, one. It's on every dollar bill you've ever held in you life.

Fundamentalism, extremism, and absolutism spawn all manner of destruction in our world, and on September 11, 2001 that's exactly what happened.

9/11 happened because a small group of people truly believed that they were right and that everyone else was wrong. They believed it so deeply that they set out on a mission to put people to death who didn't believe the same things they did.

This is fundamentalism. This is extremism. This is empire.

Pluralism drives the fundamentalist absolutely crazy because it values the collective experience of people, instills freedom, and welcomes change.

IT MATTERS

Why does interdenominationlism matter? Because it has the ability to build bridges between different kinds of people. It breeds empathy, trust, and friendship.

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I am so grateful to be a part of faith community that values this.

When I look out at the world and I see destruction and tragedy happening, I begin to feel despair. However, in the same moment I am also filled with hope because I know that I have allies all over the world in every culture, religion, and country who long for peace.

I will courageously continue to embrace more than one idea.

I will joyfully welcome those who are different into my life and my faith.

With firm love, I will reject any system of reasoning or belief that says, "This person isn't welcome to be a part of my life because of their economic status, their religious beliefs, the color of their skin, their cultural background, their sexual orientation, or any of the other things that make us different from one another."

I will love my enemies.

I will do good to those who curse me.

I will pray for those who use me.

I will continue to champion the belief in a God that longs for the many to be one.

Selah.
In 1988 at the height of the AIDs epidemic and near-hysterical homophobia, my Aunt Barbara -- who'd once been married to a Paul Newman lookalike -- came out as gay.

The news hit my grandma Ellen (who we just called Gram) hard. She was a 78-year-old devoutly Christian woman born and raised on a farm in the Bible Belt by Czech immigrants.



But the way she processed this information, quite possibly saved her daughter's life and, by extension, the communal life of our family.

In a letter to her anti-gay church pastor my grandma wrote:

"I have two daughters. My younger daughter is Lesbian. As with most parents, I found this extremely difficult to accept. Denial was my middle name. I understand people who are homophobic because I was there -- I was wrong.

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"When homosexuality presents itself into your home, especially into your heart, it takes on a whole new meaning.

"About three years ago my daughter told me, 'Mom, I'm gay.'

"I remember saying, "Oh, Barbara, I can understand friendships, even strong friendships with women, but beyond that I cannot go. It's as though you tell me, I have this little red hen, she is so much company for me, I would miss her terribly if anything happened to her -- and she is also my lover. Barbara, it's that foreign to me.'

"We reached an impasse, the love never wavered, but the impasse was always there.

"To complicate it for me, quite a few years ago I had gone into an in-depth study of the Bible, which became a source of great strength and comfort as I dealt with my husband's six-year battle with cancer.

"I knew what the Bible said about homosexuality. I Cor. 6:9-10 places homosexuals among idolaters, adulterers, thieves and slanderers. These will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

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"So we continued with our impasse. I had no idea what a battle (Barbara) was waging. I was not aware that she had contemplated suicide more than once. She kept this from me.

"She called me one evening and she was crying (Barbara seldom cried or complained). She said something that reached deep inside me.

"She said, 'Mom, I feel so abandoned.'

"I thought about what abandonment means in the life of a homosexual: abandoned by family, the workplace, society, the church. I put myself in their place and felt a brick wall.

"After this I knew it was imperative for me to do something for her, for myself, for the whole family.

"I called a Christian counselor and went to her professionally. At our first meeting, like the good counselor she is, she let me talk.

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"I spoke not only of Barbara, but also how to reconcile all of this with my faith. At the end of the hour, she walked to her bookshelves, took down a book called, 'Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? -- Another Christian View,' and loaned it to me.

"I took an entire week to read and summarize it. When I finished, a question came forcefully to my mind:

"Is this Barbara's problem? Or is it mine?

"I am reading much about the research on homosexuality. I don't see how anyone can close his or her mind to these findings. Studies link the brain to sexual orientation. I have come to believe that homosexuality is not a choice.

"I hear of the tremendous oppositions and even dangers to Gays and Lesbians, I want to say: Learn about this, know the facts, be compassionate, it so easily could be your child."

My grandmother had hoped the letter might soften her church's stance on homosexuality, but it fell upon deaf ears.

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One Sunday after church, she received a hate note on the windshield of her car saying "her kind" was not wanted in the parish. We received our own letter from Gram shortly thereafter:

"My faith has not wavered, but I am searching for a place of worship that is more open and understanding and where not only I, but my entire family would feel comfortable."

My grandmother left her church of 40 years to join the Unity Church and happily attended my Aunt Barbara's wedding to her wife Suzanne many years hence.

(My Aunt Barbara, Grandma Ellen, and Barbara's wife Suzanne at lunch. 2008)

Ellen Allred, the beautiful, soulful matriarch of two daughters, one daughter-in-law, one grand-daughter and two great-granddaughters passed away on September 24th, 2012, nine months shy of her 100th birthday.
Buhler stopped the run but often got beat deep as Ark City wins 32-13

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The North Adams Community Dog Park held its official opening on Friday night. PreviousNext

North Adams Dog Park Offers Room to Run



Pierre was happy to find new friends at the dog park.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  A happy dog running in circles may be the epitome of unrestrained joy.



Now imagine two of them. Or three, four or five.



That's what you'll find at the new North Adams Community Dog Park that held its "grand opening" on Friday evening.



A pack ranging in size from miniature to gigantic were happily cavorting at the new park off Houghton Street. The 6,000-square-foot fenced-in space has proved a hit in the city with dogs and owners alike.



Madeleine Lord recalled how she'd take Pierre, her Bichon, to a dog park in Florida every winter. There's never been anything like that available in North Adams.



"We used to have a neighbor with a dog but now we haven't," she said, turning to Pierre, "you like other dogs, don't you. He likes to socialize. ...



"I'm so happy that we have this."



Pierre was playing with Charlie and Chewy in the small-dog park only open to pooches who stand below the "red line" on the rules board posted on the fence. On the other side, in the larger enclosure, more than a half-dozen large dogs were playing. Both play areas have bag stations donated by the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition for cleaning up droppings.



"This is the first time I've been but just following all the posts on the Facebook page, people are like scheduling times to meet up and making playdates," said Christa Abel, one of the organizers of the project and owner of Bark N' Cat. "They're also keeping people informed if something is off."



Owners began frequenting the park, the only dog park in North County, once the rules were posted. The city installed the fencing, using Community Development Block Grant funds, several weeks ago. The walking path that circled the Houghton Street park currently runs through the dog area. That will be relocated at a later date.


Imperial Valley News Center

NIST and Navy Tests Suggest Telecom Networks Could Back Up GPS Time Signals

Washington, DC - Precision time signals sent through the Global Positioning System (GPS) synchronize cellphone calls, time-stamp financial transactions, and support safe travel by aircraft, ship, train and car.

What if GPS goes down? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), which operate U.S. civilian and military time standards, respectively, have worked with two companiesMonroe, Louisiana-based CenturyLink, and Aliso Viejo, California-based Microsemito identify a practical backup possibility: Commercial fiber-optic telecommunications networks.

In GPS systems, transmissions can be disrupted unintentionally by radio interference or the weather in space, for instance. Various types of intentional interference are possible also. Federal agencies have long recognized the need to back up GPS, a collection of several dozen satellites that has provided users with time and position information since the 1970s.

To explore the possibility of using commercial telecom networks as a backup for time services, an ongoing experiment connects the NIST time scales in Boulder, Colorado, with the USNO alternate time scale at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs by means of CenturyLinks fiber-optic cables. The two federal time scales, 150 kilometers apart, are ensembles of clocks that generate versions of the international standard for time, Coordinated Universal Time (known as UTC), in real time.

In this experiment, time signals were sent at regular intervals in both directions between the two locations. Researchers measured the differences between the remote (transmitted) and local time.

The results, just presented at a conference (link is external), showed UTC could be transferred with a stability of under 100 nanoseconds (ns, or billionths of a second)thus meeting the projects original goal for this metricas long as the connection remained unbroken. Stability refers to how well the remote and local clocks remain synchronized. Because the signals were forwarded by various pieces of equipment along each path, they experienced significant unequal delays in the two different directions. This reduced overall performance, resulting in an accuracy that did not meet the stated goal of 1 microsecond (millionths of a second).* With the GPS available to calibrate (and thus correct for) the unequal delays, time transfer could be accomplished maintaining that calibration within 100 ns if GPS were to disappear, the study suggests.

The 100 ns stability level is good enough to meet a new telecommunications standard, said lead author Marc Weiss, a mathematical physicist at NIST. Well continue trying to meet the 1 microsecond accuracy level, which is needed by critical infrastructure such as the power industry.

The conference paper notes that if the fiber-optic network or its power source went down and had to be re-established, then GPS or some other alternative time reference would be needed to recalibrate the fiber-optic circuit. The authors suggest the fiber network could serve as a partial backup to the GPS, and the GPS could be used for calibration to correct timing delays. Or, to provide a more reliable backup for the GPS, two independent telecom network paths could be used.

In the experiment, fiber-optic cables run from NIST and USNO to their respective nearby CenturyLink offices, where the signals are multiplexed into the network on a dedicated wavelength not shared with any other customers. The experiment began in April 2014 and will run through the end of 2016.

It appears that there is at least one commercial transport mechanism that could serve to back up GPS for time transfer at the 100 ns level, the paper concludes. We have some certainty that similar results will apply if this technique were used as a service across the country.

The need for precision timing backup has grown along with the importance of GPS. According to a 2013 study by the Government Accountability Office (link is external), GPS is essential to U.S. national security and is a key component in economic growth, safety, and national critical infrastructure sectors. An inability to mitigate GPS disruptions could result in billions of dollars in economic losses, the study found.

The NIST research is being carried out under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement among NIST, CenturyLink, and Microsemi, which, in addition to collaborating on the research, is providing equipment that transmits and receives timing signals. The project has been extended to January 2017, with the possibility of testing the technique in a time transfer experiment spanning the nation.

Paper: M. Weiss, L. Cosart, J. Hanssen and J. Yao. 2016. Precision Time Transfer using IEEE 1588 over OTN through a Commercial Optical Telecommunications Network. Paper presented Sept. 7, 2016, at the 2016 International IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization for Measurement, Control, and Communication (link is external), Stockholm, Sweden.
California slated to receive nearly $6 million in USDA grant program for Ag innovation

Sacramento, California - The USDA has announced the investment of $26.6 million into 45 projects that will spur innovative conservation initiatives on both rural and urban farms across the country, including nearly $6 million for projects benefiting California. Public and private grantees will provide matching investments, bringing the total value of support across the country to $59 million.

The USDA investment is made through the agencys Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program, which fosters innovation in conservation tools and strategies to improve things like on-farm energy and fertilizer use as well as market-based strategies to improve water quality or mitigate climate change.

The projects connected to California are:

Kings River Watershed Coalition Authority  $2 million for conservation practices to protect groundwater quality

Resource Conservation District of Monterey County  $1.37 milion to improve water quality on irrigated lands

Sustainable Conservation  $833,250 for demonstration of a subsurface drip irrigation system utilizing dairy manure to improve water use efficiency and nutrient application uniformity

American Rivers  $498,888 for pay-for-success conservation programs in the Central Valley

The Nature Conservancy  $169,716 for an impact investing loan program offering reduced interest rates in exchange for conservation practices

The American Forest Foundation  $750,000 for the development of a forest resilience bond on private forest lands

KCOE Isom  $433,807 to catalyze private investment in habitat mitigation markets

The 2016 projects focus on water quality, conservation finance and assistance to historically underserved USDA customers. Approximately 25 percent of the funding will go to projects that benefit historically underserved producers, military veterans, and new and beginning farmers. A full listing of this fiscal years selected projects is available here: www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/cig.

CIG is funded through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The maximum grant is $2 million per project and the length of time for project completion is three years. The CIG projects are designed to engage EQIP-eligible producers in on-the-ground conservation activities that accelerate transfer and adoption of innovative conservation technology and approaches.

CIG awards competitive grants to local and state units of governments, American Indian tribes and individuals. Through CIG, USDA works with other public and private entities to accelerate transfer and adoption of promising technologies and approaches to address some of the nations most pressing natural resource concerns.
Yosemite National Park to Host Annual Facelift Event in Honor of National Public Lands Day

Yosemite National Park, California - Yosemite National Park and the Yosemite Climbing Association invite the public to participate in the Yosemite Facelift, an annual event held to clean up trash and debris from around the park after the busy summer season.

Volunteers will be working throughout Yosemite National Park, including along roadways, in the river corridor, on trails, near climbing routes, and in parking, camping, and lodging areas. The event starts on Wednesday, September 21 going through Sunday, September 25, 2016.

Last year, over 1,400 Yosemite Facelift volunteers cleaned up 14,762 pounds of trash and debris found throughout Yosemite National Park. Volunteers worked 9,692 hours throughout the event and throughout the park to help clean up heavily visited areas and along park roads, trails, and riverbanks.

Facelift is an important event that brings our community together. We are proud and grateful to the dedicated volunteers who donate their time and help clean up Yosemite after a busy summer season, said Don Neubacher, Superintendent Yosemite National Park. We are grateful to all of the volunteers who come out each year and help clean up the parks trails and climbing routes.

Interested volunteers can sign up at the booth in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center and in front of the Tuolumne Meadows Store. Registration in Yosemite Valley will be open from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm Wednesday, September 21 through Sunday, September 25, and 8:00 am to 2pm Sunday, September 25. In Tuolumne Meadows, registration is open from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm Wednesday-Saturday, and 8:00 am to 2:00 pm Sunday.

Crew leaders will be at the booths to organize work groups and hand out trash bags, gloves, and litter sticks. Trash must be returned to the booths each day by the registration areas closing time to be weighed and sorted. All volunteers must register prior to participating in the event.

On Saturday, September 24, the park will celebrate National Public Lands Day. In order to help celebrate this special day and the Facelift events, the park will waive entrance fees for Saturday, September 24. The fee waiver includes entrance fees on Saturday only. All camping and other amenity fees will be in effect.
Bureau of Reclamation Launches American River Basin Study in Northern California

Washington, DC - Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Estevan Lopez announced that Reclamation is launching a new basin study in the American River Basin in Northern California. This comprehensive water study will help inform water management in the Central Valley Project.

"Understanding the growing imbalances between water supply and demand in the West is important for Reclamation and its partners," Commissioner Lopez said. "Working together and using the latest science and data we can develop options that will help us achieve a sustainable water supply."

The American River Basin Study will include the development of detailed hydrologic analysis and models for the basin, which will include consideration of the impacts of climate change. It will also leverage existing stakeholder groups to identify and evaluate adaptation strategies specific to the American River Basin. To complete this study, Reclamation is partnering with the Placer County Water Agency, El Dorado County Water Agency, City of Sacramento, City of Roseville, City of Folsom and Regional Water Authority.

The basin encompasses 2,140 square miles in California from its headwaters in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe to the city of Sacramento where it meets the Sacramento River. It is highly populated and the population is expected to grow 47 percent to nearly 3 million people by 2060. The basin supports salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act and provides water to support the Bay-Delta ecosystem.

Reclamation will also be collaborating with partners to update the St. Mary and Milk River Basins Study in Montana and Santa Fe Basin Study in New Mexico.

The St. Mary and Milk River Basins straddle the U.S./Canadian border. The basin study update will improve the modeling used in the initial basin study, which was completed in 2012. At that time, the basin study projected a 27 percent increase in irrigation depletion by 2050. Currently the basin is experiencing an annual shortage of 71,000 acre-feet, which represents 36 percent of the overall irrigation supply. The new modeling will support efforts to meet current and future water demands.

The Santa Fe Basin Study covers a 285 square mile sub-basin of the Rio Grande located in New Mexico. The original basin study completed in 2015 projected that shortages may reach up to 9,323 acre-feet by 2055, about 40 percent of projected demand within the basin. The update to the basin study will include an analysis to better understand the progression of shortages leading up to 2055. This update will assist the city in evaluating strategies to meet future water needs and evaluate strategies including water reuse, enhanced conservation, and grey water and rooftop catchment programs.

The Basin Study Program is part of WaterSMART. WaterSMART is the Department of the Interior's sustainable water initiative that uses the best available science to improve water conservation and help water resource managers identify strategies to narrow the gap between supply and demand.
Photographer Looks Back on 9/11 Memories

Washington, DC - In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one 30-year-old combat camera sailor took a photograph that leapt out of news coverage to deliver a needed jolt of hope: A huge American flag draped down the side of the damaged Pentagon.

That sailor, Michael Pendergrass, is now 45 and retired from the Navy, but he recently revisited the Pentagon to discuss his experiences there with DoD News.



The day of the terrorist attacks that struck the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Pendergrass was at a command-sponsored pancake breakfast with his combat camera unit in Norfolk, Virginia.



"I was eating some pancakes with a couple buddies of mine when somebody mentioned that, 'Hey, turn on the news, something happened in New York,'" Pendergrass said. "And we turned on the news and they were talking about a plane had struck the twin towers."



Those present gathered around the television to watch, and when the second plane hit, Pendergrass said, "I remember looking at my friend and saying, 'That's terrorism.' I said, 'That's not an accident.'"



A little over a half hour after the second strike on the World Trade Center, a third plane struck the Pentagon.



Following the strikes, Pendergrass was part of a seven-person team of photographers and videographers who headed to the Pentagon.



"It was a little bit of chaos when we got there," he said.



Pendergrass said a key lesson in both the military and combat camera is to adapt to situations.



"It's ever-changing, so you know that the core thing you're down there to do is to assist, in any way possible -- to document what's going on, because your images might help in either the investigation [or] it might help answer questions to the public of what just happened," he said. "So I shot reactions of people, I shot people that were assisting on the ground, I shot damage."



When he got to the Pentagon, he said, "They were still trying to figure out what was going on, [the building] was still on fire. We just documented what we saw that first day, came back with the imagery and made a game plan for the next day."



One day didn't go according to plan. When President George W. Bush toured the Pentagon and delivered remarks, Pendergrass found himself at the wrong place.



"I had heard what area his motorcade was supposed to come in on, and set myself up to be in position for when he came in," Pendergrass said. "At the last minute I received word that his motorcade had changed and come in the opposite side of the compound, so I was in completely the wrong position."



Security locked down the compound once Bush arrived, Pendergrass said, so he couldn't make his way to where the president was speaking.



"He came in, he started speaking, and I'm standing there with my camera thinking, 'They're going to kill me.'"



It was then he noticed some commotion at the top of the building, Pendergrass said.



"So I picked up my camera and I shot a picture, and then I changed lenses and got in closer on it, and it was a flag. It was a huge flag," he said. "It was going across the top and I kind of shot the progression, and then they came out to the front and then music played across the whole compound and they dropped down the flag and I shot as it was unfurling."



Pendergrass returned to work and brought his imagery in later that day. He said his boss, Christopher Madden, took one look at the final flag photo and told him, "Get a caption on that, right now."



The photo shows the flag just reaching its full length down the scorched side of the Pentagon. Lined up on the building's roof, a group of firefighters and a sprinkling of people in uniforms stand above the flag, saluting.



Days went by after the photo's release, and it kept appearing in 9/11 coverage. Pendergrass said a naval historian told him he had "captured a moment of how a nation was feeling. That we were hurting, and we were looking for something to rally us, let us know there was hope. And that photo did it."



As he continued work at the Pentagon in the days and weeks after 9/11, Pendergrass said he felt that "the whole nation rallied together and was determined to bounce back from this, that this wasn't going to beat us, and it unified us."



Meanwhile his flag photo kept showing up -- and still shows up in some surprising places, he said.



"I've seen it in a lot of different places," Pendergrass said. "Every once in a while it will pop up in a new place. . I saw it in the Pentagon, I saw it on websites. . Just a few months ago I saw it at the Marine Corps museum at Quantico. I was going through with my wife and it was right there at the end."



"I'm just proud to know that I left a little mark that will live longer than my time here," he said. "I would hope that every photographer gets the chance to shoot a shot like that -- not that situation, but to have taken and captured a moment that will go longer than their time."



Pendergrass said as a proud American, he is happy to have "done something that helped us heal from such a horrible situation. In all the pain and suffering that was going on in the nation, there was this shot that kind of helped us bounce back."



When he took the 9/11 photo he was a petty officer first class, Pendergrass said, and he retired from the Navy as a chief petty officer in 2010. He now works for the Justice Department.



"[The memorial is] an amazing tribute to the tragedy that happened here," he said. "A lot of thought and respect went into designing it. It's very, very different from what it looked like when I got here [on 9/11.]"



Pendergrass said his experience at the Pentagon led him to do more forensic photography.



"Not everybody can function in that [crisis environment] and it's something that I've found that I could do," he said. "And it's necessary to have people like that, I think, to document and try to capture the scenes, to try to make sense of the madness."
Tajikistan Independence Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State John Kerry: "On behalf of President Obama and the American people, I congratulate the people of Tajikistan as you celebrate the 25th anniversary of your independence on September 9.

"As one of the first countries to recognize Tajikistan, the United States affirms its support for Tajikistans independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Last November, President Rahmon graciously hosted me in Dushanbe, where I emphasized the United States commitment to working with Tajikistan on security, energy policy, and economic connectivity. The United States is committed to a long-term relationship that continues to support Tajikistans political and economic development by enhancing civil society, democratic engagement and economic opportunities for its citizens.

"I extend my best wishes to the people of Tajikistan on this historic day marking a quarter century of independence. The United States congratulates you and looks forward to a future of friendship and continued cooperation for the benefit of both our peoples."
President Obama on North Korea's Nuclear Test

Washington, DC - President Barack Obama: "The United States condemns North Korea's September 9 nuclear test in the strongest possible terms as a grave threat to regional security and to international peace and stability. North Korea stands out as the only country to have tested nuclear weapons this century.

"Today's test, North Korea's second this year, follows an unprecedented campaign of ballistic missile launches, which North Korea claims are intended to serve as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons targeting the United States and our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan. As Commander in Chief, I have a responsibility to safeguard the American people and ensure that the United States is leading the international community in responding to this threat and North Korea's other provocations with commensurate resolve and condemnation.

"To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state. Far from achieving its stated national security and economic development goals, North Korea's provocative and destabilizing actions have instead served to isolate and impoverish its people through its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities. Today's nuclear test, a flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions, makes clear North Korea's disregard for international norms and standards for behavior and demonstrates it has no interest in being a responsible member of the international community.

"Last night I returned from the G-20 and East Asia Summit meetings in Asia, where my counterparts and I were united in our call for North Korea to return to the path of denuclearization. Upon hearing the news of the test, I had the opportunity to consult separately via phone with Republic of Korea (ROK) President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We agreed to work with the UN Security Council, our other Six-Party partners, and the international community to vigorously implement existing measures imposed in previous resolutions, and to take additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions. I restated to President Park and Prime Minister Abe the unshakable U.S. commitment to take necessary steps to defend our allies in the region, including through our deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to the ROK, and the commitment to provide extended deterrence, guaranteed by the full spectrum of U.S. defense capabilities."
Secretary of State John Kerry Announces Partnership To Support Gilman Scholars in China

Washington, DC - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky will co-host a reception at the U.S. Institute of Peace at 12 p.m. on September 12, 2016, to highlight a new partnership to support the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program in China.

The collaboration between Airbnb and the Gilman Program, an outcome of the June 2016 Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) that was mutually agreed upon by the United States and China, supports the State Departments goal of expanding opportunities for students of limited financial means to study abroad. The State Department is working through public-private partnerships like this one to provide more opportunities for American students to study abroad.

The State Departments Gilman Program, implemented in collaboration with the Institute of International Education, provides need-based scholarships to U.S. undergraduates who have been traditionally underrepresented in study or internships abroad. Additional funding support is available for students studying critical languages, including Chinese.
The United States Welcomes the Release of Natig Jafarli

Washington, DC - The United States welcomes yesterdays release of Natig Jafarli, the Executive Secretary for the Republican Alternative Movement in Azerbaijan.

We urge the government to release other individuals who have been likewise incarcerated for exercising their fundamental freedoms. At the same time, we encourage an open and public dialogue ahead of the September 26 referendum on amending the constitution.

We look forward to working with the Azerbaijani government on additional positive steps.
Watch: Man's Fire Stunt Goes Horribly Wrong, Beard Up in Flames
The new rules provide for setting up appellate committees which can overrule decisions of the big tech firms on takedown or blocking requests.
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Thousands of people have visited the memorial site, conspiracy theories continue to proliferate and for many the sense of loss is still visceral. After 15 years, the terrorist attack that destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York continues to capture the imagination.

Over these 15 years, a diverse range of artistic and cultural responses have attempted to understand and give meaning to the events now known as 9/11. One medium that has had substantial critical attention has been the novel. And we can learn much from this attention. The ways in which these novels were anticipated, criticised and frequently linked to debates about the wider role of fiction in society evoke compelling questions about how we now see the attacks.

In some ways, the high profile critical debates that surrounded these novels and placed so much importance on them, actually reinforced George W Bushs assertion that on September 11 night fell on a new world. And in doing so, some argue that they undercut the complex prehistories and aftermaths of 9/11, giving it inflated importance in the world narrative.

Even before there were such novels, the apparent need for literary interpretations of the attacks reflected just how incomprehensible they felt for many. And perhaps because 9/11 was such a visual spectacle, newspapers and magazines sought literary authors  experts at exploring the human condition through the written word  to interpret or narrate the trauma.

Early essays by Ian McEwan, Don DeLillo, Martin Amis and John Updike spoke to other popular non-fiction responses, like the New York Times sombre Portraits of Grief profiles that appeared throughout the autumn of 2001. These literary authors also reflected on the difficulty of writing fiction about unimaginable events. This, of course, stoked anticipation for the inevitable 9/11 fiction to come: how would authors attempt to represent the incomprehensible?

When novels from DeLillo, Claire Messud, Jay McInerney and Ken Kalfus arrived, critics were quick to note striking similarities. These novels, all of which appeared between 2006 and 2007, focused on the ways privileged white New Yorkers dealt with trauma. And all of them did so through marriage or relationship narratives.

Discussing these novels in an article titled The End of Innocence, Pankaj Mishra asked with incredulity: Are we meant to think of marital discord as a metaphor for post-9/11 America? For Mishra, it was particularly galling that DeLillo  who has been so insightful about terrorism  was retreating like McInerney and Kalfus into the domestic.

Scholarly articles by Richard Gray and Michael Rothberg followed, similarly criticising those same novels for their failure to engage with otherness and the geopolitics of 9/11. Gray was trenchant: The crisis is in every sense of the word, domesticated.

Mishra, Gray and Rothberg all felt that fiction should be doing things that the mainstream media and US government responses were not  offering nuanced articulations of the geopolitics of the war on terror and the rise of fear and xenophobia in the US and the West.

But this position was challenged by scholars such as John Duvall and Robert P Marzec, who pointed to canonical novels like Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway (1925) and Ernest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises (1926), which registered the traumas of World War I precisely in this way  through domestic settings. Perhaps the strongest response came from Catherine Morley, who criticised the Mishra, Rothberg and Gray perspective that fiction is no more than a political tool.

Clearly, the debate about the 9/11 novel evoked larger ideas about what fiction is for and how it should deal with crisis or catastrophe in the 21st century.

However polarised the debate became, both sides ascribed great importance to the 9/11 novel  and in doing so they also reinforced the idea of 9/11 as a defining moment. In 2008, this was pointed out by Zadie Smith. Discussing a new novel by Joseph ONeill, Smith sardonically criticised the disproportionate interest in the 9/11 novel:

"Its the postSeptember 11 novel we hoped for. (Were there calls, in 1915, for the Lusitania novel? In 1985, was the Bhopal novel keenly anticipated?) Its as if, by an act of collective prayer, we have willed it into existence."

The reference here to the Lusitania sinking and the Bhopal chemical disaster in India, which took the lives of many more people than 9/11 did, is pointed. Smith is clearly voicing a suspicion that the intense attention attached to the 9/11 novel is linked to an American exceptionalism that shrouds other moments, events and perspectives in contemporary history.

Recent books like Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist, ONeills Netherland and Amy Waldmans The Submission have answered the calls of Mishra, Gray and Rothberg in their more politically engaged or international narratives.

In many ways, they have also retained aspects of the earlier texts and we can certainly now see the 9/11 novel as a genre. Marriages and relationships are at the centre of all of these novels and they also continue to explore the way privileged Americans absorb and respond to trauma.

Perhaps the book that most clearly aligns with Zadie Smiths position, though, is Thomas Pynchons Bleeding Edge. Bleeding Edge goes the furthest in challenging the singular importance attached to 9/11 in its intertwined historical narrative, weaving in the significance of the collapse of the dotcom bubble in 2000 and a history of the internets transition from an anarchic to a completely corporate space.

It is certainly the case that the reception and debates around the 9/11 novel have been as informative as the novels themselves. The genre continues to provide food for thought on how we remember the attacks.

Dr. Arin Keeble is a Lecturer in English Literature at Nottingham Trent University. This feature first appeared on The Conversation.
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Birth of a Nation, the slavery drama whose path to awards season appeared to have been blocked by a rape case from its creators past, has screened to a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The films director and star, 36-year-old Nate Parker, was applauded warmly as he introduced the film, which tells the true story of an 1831 slave uprising in Virginia, led by Nat Turner. It was, he told the audience in Toronto, a labour of love.

Birth of a Nation was touted as an awards contender after two years in which the Oscars were slammed for the stark lack of diversity among the top nominees. At Sundance in January, it won the festivals Grand Jury and Audience prizes, sparking a bidding war between distributors.

Fox Searchlight, which also released the 2014 Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave, eventually agreed to pay $17.5m (12.2m) for Mr Parkers film, a Sundance record. TIFF tends to be seen as the first stop on the awards season campaign trail.

Yet in recent weeks, the films merits have been overshadowed by the spectre of Mr Parkers past: As students at Penn State University in 1999, he and his co-screenwriter Jean Celestin were tried for rape.

Mr Parker was acquitted, while Mr Celestin was convicted but had the charge overturned on appeal. Last month it emerged that their accuser, who remains unnamed, had committed suicide in 2012.

Amid the controversy, the American Film Institute cancelled an August screening of Birth of a Nation in LA. In Toronto on Friday, Mr Parker walked the red carpet for the first time since the case hit headlines, but was not faced with protesters outside or hecklers in the cinema audience.

The topic was also absent from a cast and crew Q&A after the screening, which included Parkers co-star Gabrielle Union, who wrote recently of her stomach-churning confusion upon learning about the 1999 case.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film itself got a 90-second ovation, while the cast got a two-minute standing ovation as they emerged onstage afterwards, a rarity for TIFF, whose artistic director Cameron Bailey described Birth of a Nation as a story that needed to be told.

Mr Parker, who spent seven years trying to get the movie made, reportedly invested some $100,000 of his own money in the $10m production, turning down multiple acting jobs to pursue his passion project.
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The subject of women's clothing in France became a worldwide topic of discussion last month after images of a Muslim woman being forced to remove her burkini at a beach by armed police officers spread online.

The images focused attention not only on the recent bans on the full-body burkinis in some French cities, but also the nationwide ban on full-face Islamic veils in public spaces, implemented in 2011.

This week, a dispute about how women should dress has again erupted in France  but this time, the circumstances were notably different.

Recommended Read more French court sparks outrage after ruling burkinis can still be banned

According to initial reports published in the French press this week, two women wearing shorts were verbally assaulted as they made their way through an eastern neighborhood in the southern city of Toulon on Sunday afternoon. Local prosecutor Bernard Marchal told reporters a group of about 10 young men began insulting the women, who were out biking and rollerblading with their families, calling them "whores" and making other vulgar insults for their choice of clothing.

When the women's spouses confronted the men, a brawl broke out. The husbands and a male friend were severely beaten. The fighting, which was witnessed by children in the group, left one man with severe facial fractures and another with a broken nose, Marchal told Agence France-Presse. Two suspects, ages 17 and 19, were apprehended Tuesday; an investigation is underway to find the others.

 7 uncomfortable truths about the burkini ban

The idea that the women had been harassed simply because they wore shorts led some to dub it the "affaire des shorts." However, on Friday one of the women involved came out to say that was inaccurate. "We were not in shorts. We were in sportswear," the woman, named as Marie, told the Nice Matin newspaper.

Part of the reason the incident spread so quickly was that it followed a previous attack on a woman wearing shorts. In early June, an 18-year-old girl named Maude Vallet said she was insulted, threatened and spat on by a group of girls while on a bus in Toulon  all because she was wearing denim shorts. Vallet posted a picture of her outfit on Facebook afterward, arguing that men can walk around the city with their shirts off and not face the harassment she faced.

After that incident, about 100 women wearing shorts gathered in Toulon for a "short walk." The event was promoted with the hashtag #TousEnShort  or "all in shorts."

So far, there is little information about the motivations of the attackers in either instances  details such as their religious or ethnic backgrounds have not been publicly released. However, some in France linked the reports of attacks on shorts-wearers to the ongoing burkini controversy.

"The question of the burkini, the proliferation of full veils, assaults on women in shorts and the beating of their companions share the same logic," Celine Pina, a former regional councilor for the Paris area and the author of a book on Islamist extremism, wrote for Le Figaro on Thursday. "It's making the body of the woman a social and political issue, a litmus test for the progress of an ideology within society."

Officials of the far-right National Front shared the story widely on social media, often using the hashtag #TousEnShort. Many suggested a link between the assault and Islam. "Again, our freedoms are being severely attacked," Julien Leonardelli, the department secretary for the party in Haute-Garonne, wrote on Twitter. "Sharia is already installed."'

Copyright: Washington Post
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The Prime Ministers plan to reintroduce grammar schools is weird and could have a detrimental effect on the economy, former education secretary Nicky Morgan has claimed.

Confirmation of Theresa May's plan to lift a ban on new grammars and calls for the expansion of selective schools was met with strong criticism this week, including backlash from the prime minister's own party members.

Ms Morgan led criticism of the plans in saying the Ms May's policy would reduce social mobility and disadvantage children from poorer backgrounds.

Her comments reveal the scale of internal debate among the party and follow news that new Education Secretary Justine Greening is also believed to be resisting the policy.

Speaking to The Times, Ms Morgan said that the opening of more grammar schools would lead to resources being diverted from struggling areas and could hamper efforts to boost the economy by improving skills.

In a clear warning to the prime minister, who attended a grammar school, Ms Morgan said: Politicians have to be really, really careful about not making policy on the basis of our own personal experiences.

The Conservative MP, who was sacked from her position as Education Secretary upon the new Prime Ministers appointment, could not say hand on heart that she would vote for the plans and claimed that it was touch and go whether the Ms May would get the education bill through the Commons.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA 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

She said that she did not remember contributions from Ms May on education when the subject was previously discussed in cabinet, the paper reported.

Theresa May used Brexit-led uncertainties as part of her justification to lift the ban on the new selective schools on Friday.

The Prime Minister suggested the vote to leave the EU was triggered by a profound sense of frustration at a number of issues - including parents being unable to get their children into good schools.

In response to the announcement, Ms Morgan said in a public post that she welcomed any move to encourage greater collaboration across the Education sector, and that the Prime Minister was absolutely right to place creating a more meritocratic society at the heart of her agenda for Government.

However, she said, an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap and at worse risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform.

Critics of the selective school system argue the schools will do nothing to increase social mobility, since tough admission tests will be dominated by children from wealthier, supportive families with the money for private tutors.

Ms Morgan, who attended an independent school, later said: Far from actually having the One Nation education policy based on meritocracy, which is what they are talking about, actually we are going to have a more unequal education system.

The evidence for the overall benefits to social mobility, nobody has been able to find.

She added: Its very weird. The whole thing is a very strange battle to take on. [Theresa May] used the privileged few language again, it is clearly designed to signal a break with the previous Cameron government.

The MPs criticisms have been echoed by other senior Conservative Party members, including Sir Desmond Swayne, a former parliamentary aide to Mr Cameron, prominent backbencher Sarah Woollaston and Neil Carmichael, chairman of the education select committee.

Labour has pledged to fight the grammar school plans every step of the way, while the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron predicted the out-of-date, ineffective approach would be defeated in the House of Lords.
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After Comedy Centrals Roast of Rob Lowe filmed 10 days ago, word got out almost immediately: The event really became a roast of Ann Coulter.

While Lowe was clearly the target of many jokes, all of the comedians and roasters on stage (host David Spade, Nikki Glaser, Jeff Ross, Jewel, Peyton Manning, etc.) aimed especially vicious material at the conservative commentator and fellow roaster  so much that Coulter herself dubbed it the Ann Coulter roast with Rob Lowe.

While the Coulter jokes dominated headlines and stories about the roast last week, you never know how Comedy Central will present the telecast; the network has edited out jokes before. But after watching the televised version on Monday night, it was just as brutal as you may have read. (Warning: The following jokes may offend.)

How do I roast somebody from hell? comedian Jeff Ross pondered, calling Coulters voice like fingernails on a chalkboard inside an inner city school [Coulter wants] to defund.

Recommended Read more Ann Coulter booed and attacked at Rob Lowe Comedy Central roast

Ann Coulter has written 11 books  12 if you count Mein Kampf,' comedian Nikki Glaser said. Anns been called things like a racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, a white supremacist.  The only person you will ever make happy is the Mexican who digs your grave.

Its not too late to change, Ann. You could kill yourself, comedian Jimmy Carr said.

 and so on. Things got even more awkward when Coulter (who only showed up to promote her new book, In Trump We Trust) took the dais and offered her own zingers, many of which were met with boos, very light laughter or heckling. Comedy Central cameras also offered faces of stony silence in the audience.

I know its pretty shameless, but Im on stage with a guy who made two Joe Dirt movies, Coulter said about promoting her book, to many boos from the crowd as she mentioned the title.

Then there was the pained look from Peyton Manning when Coulter brought up his contribution to Jeb Bushs campaign. Thats a political contribution that will pay handsomely. Jeb got four delegates, which makes me laugh harder than any of the jokes tonight, she said.

I once thought Pete Davidson was just like Obama, a biracial goofball who ruined a once-beloved institution. But it turns out I was wrong. Petes not biracial, Coulter said, to which Davidson sarcastically yelled, Haha! Good one! Hahaha!

Unlike the other roasters and comedians, who mostly had an undercurrent of affection under their harsh lines, there appeared to be no love lost for Coulter.

You know, Ann, after seeing your set tonight, Lowe said when it was his turn to take the stage, I think weve all witnessed the first bombing that you cant blame on a Muslim.

Copyright: Washington Post
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Chelsea Manning has announced her decision to go on hunger strike in the Kansas military prison where she is currently being held.

The US whistleblower is serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth prison for leaking classified documents.

In a statement released on the Free Chelsea Manning website, Manning, who is transgender, said she will refuse treatment until she receives help for gender dysphoria which she says led her to try to kill herself in July.

She was hospitalised and released back into prison after receiving medical treatment.

Her lawyers have said she was charged with administrative offences after the suicide attempt which could result in her being placed in solitary confinement.

Protesters call for Chelsea Manning's release (Reuters)

In her statement, Manning said her repeated requests for help have been ignored delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.

Manning said her hunger strike will be peaceful and non-violent but will continue for a long time, quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death.

She has submitted a do not resuscitate letter with immediate effect.

I am ready for this, she said.

Manning sued the military for the right to receive hormonal treatment while in prison in order to continue her transition. In her statement, she said she would also no longer be voluntarily cutting her hair.

Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Show all 5 1 /5 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Edward Snowden 2014: The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been nominated by two Norwegian MPs for the Nobel Peace Prize, meaning the US contractor currently claiming asylum in Russia could be awarded the same prize accepted by President Barak Obama in 2009 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Vladimir Putin 2013: The Russian President Vladimir Putin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because the former KGB agent actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet, according to the advocacy group that nominated him, at least Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Barack Obama 2009: US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples, shortly before launching military airstrikes in Libya. The irony was not lost on Mr Obama it seemed, who during a press conference joked: "[Energy Secretary Steven] Chu's the right guy to do this, he's got a Nobel Prize in physics - he actually deserved his Nobel Prize" Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Henry Kissinger 1973: Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize for his work on the Paris Peace Accords jointly with Le Duc Tho, who turned the Prize down. The American humourist Tom Lehrer later quipped that Kissingers award represented the death of satire Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Josef Stalin 1945: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was nominated for his efforts to end World War II. Fellow nominee Vladimir Putin recently said there was no difference between him and Oliver Cromwell, when asked whether he would erect a statue of Stalin in Moscow

I need help. I needed help earlier this year. I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn't get any. I still haven't gotten any, her statement continues.

I am no longer asking. Now, I am demanding. As of 12.01 am Central Daylight Time on 9 September, 2016, and until I am given minimum standards of dignity, respect, and humanity, I shall refuse to voluntarily cut or shorten my hair in any way; consume any food or drink voluntarily, except for water and currently prescribed medications; and comply with all rules, regulations, laws, and orders that are not related to the two things I have mentioned.

Today, I have decided that I am no longer going to be bullied by this prison  or by anyone within the US government.

"I have asked for nothing but the dignity and respect  that I once actually believed would be provided for  afforded to any living human being.

"I will not physically resist or in any way harm another person. I have also submitted a 'do not resuscitate' letter that is effective immediately.

"This shall include any attempts to forcibly cut or shorten my hair or to forcibly feed me by any medical or pseudo-medical means.

The Department of Defence told the Independent it has no immediate comment to make.

Mannings lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
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Owen Smith believes he has what it takes to beat Jeremy Corbyn because he pulled his wife at a school where there were hundreds of teenage boys and just three girls.

The 46-year-old Labour leadership contender grew up in Barry in south Wales, where he met Liz, who is now a primary school teacher, in 1986.

1,200 boys, three girls and I pulled Liz. So I must have something going on. That must be leadership, he told the Daily Mirror.

Mr Smith, who has been MP for Pontypridd near his hometown since 2010, told the newspaper he had to win the leadership race as Labour was on the brink of disappearing as a serious party.

If, like me, you come from this part of the world and have friends who rely on public services, you know deep down you have to have a Labour government, he said.

And we are never going to have one with the current leadership.

 Owen Smith suggests Labour hustings audience might be entryists after they laugh at his praise for Kezia Dugdale

Mr Smith has been accused of sexism during his leadership campaign after he tweeted a picture of a gobstopper with a caption suggesting it would be the perfect present for SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.

But the politician said he did not regret sending the contentious tweet as it was meant as a joke and was a bit of political banter during an election contest.

Recommended Read more Corbyn reignites Labour internal row by failing to back single market

In July, he was also forced to defend his use of imagery after saying he wanted to smash Theresa May on her back heels as rhetoric.

He said: It pained me that we didnt have the strength and the power and the vitality to smash her back on her heels and argue that these our values, these are our people, this is our language that they are seeking to steal.

Mr Smith stood by his remarks after being challenged by Sky reporter Sophy Ridge, but added: I dont literally want to smash Theresa May back, just to be clear. Im not advocating violence in any way, shape or form.

Voting opened to Labour members in late August and closes on 24 September when the new party leader will be announced at a special conference.

Support for Mr Smith is currently lagging behind Mr Corbyns popularity, partly fuelled by a surge in new party members.

According to YouGov, 35 per cent of Labour members say they intend vote for Mr Smith as opposed to 57 per cent who say they will vote for the current Labour leader.

Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Show all 8 1 /8 Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith clash at a leadership hustings in Gateshead, where Mr Smith was scarcely able to answer a question without being booed by Mr Corbyns supporters PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy himself admitted he was seven out of 10 in terms of his faith in the European Union. He said it, said Mr Smith during his second live debate with Jeremy Corbyn Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Ballot papers are currently due to be sent out on 22 August and returned a month later, with the result being announced at a special Labour conference on 24 September Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn supporters cheer and wave placards as the Labour Leader addresses thousands of supporters in in Liverpool, England Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith poses for a picture with supporters during a picnic for young members in London Fields, Hackney in London Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith The Labour leader has a spring in his step at a leadership rally in Sunderland Screenshot Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contender Owen Smith delivers a speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, where he promised to reverse Conservative cuts set to leave millions of low paid workers thousands of pounds a year worse off PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has urged Owen Smith to distance himself from those saying they want to split the Labour party Getty

However, if a general election were to be called tomorrow, polls suggest Ms Mays Conservatives would remain in power, with 40 per cent of people saying they would vote for the Tories and 29 per cent for Labour.

At the moment we are fighting each other like ferrets in a sack so the biggest priority has to be uniting the party, Mr Smith told the Mirror in an interview that focussed on his home life and family history.

Then, second, we have to be absolutely clear on where we are going to attack the Tories. Right now they are destroying the NHS in England before our eyes.
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Actor Zachary Quinto has called for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be allowed to return to America without facing espionage charges.

The Star Trek actor said Mr Snowden had acted with great courage and it was absurd to brand him a treasonist while he remains in exile in Russia.

Quinto plays journalist Glenn Greenwald in Oliver Stone's new film Snowden, which tells the story of how the former NSA analyst leaked details of mass government surveillance in 2013.

Speaking at the film's premiere in Toronto, Quinto - known for his role as Spock in the rebooted Star Trek films - told the Press Association: I do think (Mr Snowden) should be able to come back (to America). I think it's a very complicated issue in terms of how that would happen.

Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Show all 5 1 /5 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Edward Snowden 2014: The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been nominated by two Norwegian MPs for the Nobel Peace Prize, meaning the US contractor currently claiming asylum in Russia could be awarded the same prize accepted by President Barak Obama in 2009 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Vladimir Putin 2013: The Russian President Vladimir Putin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because the former KGB agent actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet, according to the advocacy group that nominated him, at least Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Barack Obama 2009: US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples, shortly before launching military airstrikes in Libya. The irony was not lost on Mr Obama it seemed, who during a press conference joked: "[Energy Secretary Steven] Chu's the right guy to do this, he's got a Nobel Prize in physics - he actually deserved his Nobel Prize" Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Henry Kissinger 1973: Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize for his work on the Paris Peace Accords jointly with Le Duc Tho, who turned the Prize down. The American humourist Tom Lehrer later quipped that Kissingers award represented the death of satire Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Josef Stalin 1945: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was nominated for his efforts to end World War II. Fellow nominee Vladimir Putin recently said there was no difference between him and Oliver Cromwell, when asked whether he would erect a statue of Stalin in Moscow

The idea of him being charged under the Espionage Act or branded as a treasonist is absurd. I think he is someone of great integrity and great courage.

I think what he did is underestimated now, in a lot of ways, but I think will be looked back on with the magnitude it deserves.

Hopefully he can enjoy some freedoms again in his life. He deserves that in my opinion.

Mr Snowden faces charges in the US under the Espionage Act that could land him in prison for up to 30 years. He has previously said he would return to America if he was guaranteed a fair trial.

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt said he was honoured to portray Mr Snowden in the film and he had a valuable four-hour meeting with the whistleblower in Moscow.

Speaking at the premiere, he said: There were voices in my professional life who said, 'He's a controversial figure, you know this might not be the most commercially viable choice to make'. It's not how I made my decision.

In reading up on him and really learning about what he did and why he did it, I felt grateful for what he did and honoured I got to play him.

I don't think a single label is appropriate. Everyone tries to simplify this story. It's not simple, it's complicated.

I would encourage anybody to look into it themselves rather than taking one quick soundbite or tweet and thinking you have an understanding of what's really happening.

Snowden is to be screened at the London Film Festival on October 15.

PA
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A group of men on a stag-do has caused outrage after they allegedly took selfies with a blow-up sex doll at Ground Zero, the memorial to the 9/11 attacks on New York.

One member of the group, who are said to be British, reportedly said it was just a bachelor party when asked what they were doing.

The incident occurred just days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks.

Rosanne Hughes, 61, from the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation, lost her husband Thomas F. Hughes Jnr. in the attacks.

She told MailOnline if she saw the stag party in person she would say shame on you.

I'm speechless. I don't even have any words for that  that's a disgrace. That is sacred ground, I lost my husband and I don't even know what to say. It's disgusting, Mrs Hughes said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

We hear things like this and I honestly think it's disgraceful to take selfies of anybody there laughing and smiling when they haven't lived the life we've lived for 15 years and the people we've lost.

The group were asked to leave the memorial site by a police officer, and apparently replied with no comment to any further questions, MailOnline reported.
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Sir David Attenborough has been accused of being seduced by pseudoscience, as researchers hit back at his demand for an end to the use of certain types of cruel brain experiments on primates.

The highly respected naturalist and broadcaster joined leading scientists in signing an open letter to The Independent on Wednesday, saying it was time to stop funding some potentially painful or cruel types of neuroscience experiments on primates.

The letter, organised by Cruelty Free International, (CFI) formerly the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said there had now been enough progress in human-based alternatives to question the necessity of experiments subjecting primates to fluid deprivation and movement restraint.

Commenting on the letter he had signed, Sir David said: The recognition that apes, certainly, and to an extent other primates, are so akin to ourselves, and can suffer so much, as we can, has transformed our attitude, or should have transformed our attitude, to using them for our own benefit.

They are sentient beings that have mental lives comparable to ours, and sensitivities, and pain and deprivation mean things to them, just as they mean things to us.

Neuroscience researchers, however, have now hit back at his remarks.

The UK Expert Group for Non-Human Primate (NHP) Neuroscience Research criticised the open letter for citing "Non-human primates in neuroscience research: The case against its scientific necessity" - a March 2016 paper written by CFI scientists that appeared in Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments.

The UK Expert Group said: We are disappointed to see that David Attenborough and a number of scientists have been misled by the pseudoscience in the paper by CFI, an organisation intent on ending research with all animals, not just primates.

They have been deceived by the number of animals used in neuroscience procedures, which are a very small proportion of the numbers stated by CFI, and also by the erroneous claim that NHP neuroscience is useless and that recording from seriously ill patients as they are being monitored for surgery is somehow a replacement for research in non-human animals.

The groups statement added: NHP neuroscience is strictly regulated and ethically assessed, and is only used when there are no alternatives. NHP neuroscience has contributed to many advances in medical science benefiting human patients.

David Attenborough: Life in pictures Show all 35 1 /35 David Attenborough: Life in pictures David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1957 David Attenborough with his three-year-old daughter Susan, as they cover their ears while sulphur-crested cockatoo Georgie lets out a piercing shriek David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1950 David Attenborough with his wife Jane Oriel and older brother and film actor Richard Attenborough at St. Anne's Church, Kew Green David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1955 David Attenborough, holding his son Robert, whilst looking at an animal called a coatimundi, brought home from the combined London Zoo David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1955 David Attenborough and Jack Lester, curator of London Zoo's reptile house, plan their next expedition to British Guiana with the help of Gregory the parrot David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1956 David Attenborough with six-year-old Michael Webb of Kingsbury pets a Capybara after Sir David had lectured to children on the 'Zoological Expedition to British Guiana' at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1957 David Attenborough, with wildlife photographer Charles Lagus, preparing to depart for New Guinea to make 'Zoo Quest' at London Airport Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1958 Prince Charles with his sister Princess Anne meeting Sir David Attenborough and Cocky, the cockatoo brought back from his last Zoo Quest expedition, at the BBC Television Studios in Lime Grove, London David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1961 David Attenborough with two ring-tailed lemurs during a Christmas lecture at London zoo David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1963 David Attenborough with an armadillo from 'Attenborough's Animals' David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1965 David Attenborough after he was appointed the new head of BBC 2 David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1965 David Attenborough and Michael Peacock, Contoller of the BBC, with soft toy versions of Hullabaloo and Custard, the kangaroo mascots which were used as logos for the launch of BBC 2 David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1980 David Attenborough shows Charlie the Llama to schoolboy Patrick Flynn, the millionth child to attend London Zoo's educational lectures and tours David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1982 David Attenborough feeds orangutan David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1985 David Attenborough after being knighted by the Queen at an investiture at Buckingham Palace, London, with his wife Jane (right) and daughter Susan David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1985 David Attenborough signs his book 'the Living Planet' in a Sydney Bookstore in Australia 2004 Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1986 David Attenborough with Queen Elizabeth II filming the Christmas Message in the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1990 David Attenborough poses for a photograph David Attenborough: Life in pictures 1995 David Attenborough watches nature during the filming of Natural Curiosities David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2000 David Attenborough and his wife at the Tate Modern Art Gallery opening party David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2002 David Attenborough with meerkat on his shoulder being filmed for BBC series Life of Mammals David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2003 A python greets Sir David Attenborough during a photo opportunity at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney, Australia Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2003 Sir David Attenborough holds a baby salt water crocodile during a photo opportunity at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney, Australia Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2005 David Attenborough poses with The Swan Hellenic Oldie of the Year Award at the 'Oldie Of The Year Awards' honouring veteran notables together with Britain's oldest celebrity superstars, at Simpsons in the Strand in London. Sir David Attenborough was announced as the Swan Hellenic Oldie of the Year at the 13th annual awards Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2005 David Attenborough plants a Wollemei Pine at Kew Gardens in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2005 David Attenborough signs copies of his latest publication Life In The Undergrowth, published in relation to the BBC One series, at the Natural History Museum in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2006 Sir David Attenborough and Lord Richard Attenborough robe up, before they are awarded the title of Distinguished Honorary Fellowships from the University of Leicester at De Montfort Hall in Leicester Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2007 Sir David Attenborough launches National Moth Recording Scheme at London Zoo in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2008 Sir David Attenborough sits in The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace in the Amazing Rare Things exhibition in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2009 Prince William, Dr Michael Dixon and Sir David Attenborough host the opening of the The New Darwin Centre at The Natural History Museum in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2011 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II speaks with naturalist David Attenborough during a special exhibition of artefacts from the Royal Collection and Royal Archives at Buckingham Palace in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2011 Sir David Attenborough with the Specialist Factual award at the Philips British Academy Television Awards at the Grosvenor House in London David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2012 Sir David Attenborough poses with a floral sculpture of himself outside the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew Gardens in London Getty Images David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2012 Sir David Attenborough at the UKTV Showcase held at the Saatchi Gallery in west London David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2013 David Attenborough during the filming of "Micro Monsters with David Attenborough," a series about insects David Attenborough: Life in pictures 2016 Sir David Attenborough attends the launch of the London Wildlife Trust's new Flagship nature reserve Woodberry Wetlands in London Getty Images

Other scientists backed the expert groups criticism, while avoiding mentioning Sir David by name.

Roger Lemon, Professor Emeritus at University College London, who last year won the Fyssen International Prize for his work on neurocognitive mechanisms, insisted: Non-human primate research contributes fundamental knowledge about how the primate brain functions.

It has made, and continues to make, an essential contribution to research leading to the treatment of debilitating movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease, as well as to other forms of neurodegenerative disease.

To state otherwise, as CFI have done, is ignoring the long history of animal research in the fight against disease.

Dr John Isaac, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at Wellcome, the charity which offers funding to researchers, insisted that rigorous criteria had to be met before money could be provided for experiments on any type of animal.

He said: We only fund research involving any type of animal where there is no alternative, and where the benefits, either scientific or directly for human or animal health, outweigh the impact on the animals.

Dr Isaac added: Non-human primate research is essential for understanding more about the brain and neurological diseases that affect it, for example Parkinsons disease and Alzheimers disease. This is because certain important aspects of human brain function cannot be replicated by any other means. Non-human primate research is also crucial for testing whether new medicines, including vaccines, are safe and effective.

The criticism was rejected by Sarah Kite, the director of special projects at Cruelty Free International, who told The Independent: Sadly, yet again those defending primate research have chosen to attack other scientists instead of having an informed and intelligent debate about the future of primate research in the UK. This is a hugely controversial area of research with profound ethical and moral concerns, and increasingly scientific concerns, about subjecting non-human primates to such substantial levels of suffering - suffering that can involve invasive brain surgery, water deprivation, physical coercion and physical restraint.

No attack on any scientists credibility can detract from the profound sense of unease there is among many in the scientific community, let alone the public, in using non-human primates in experiments.

The extensive review of primate research (Non-human Primates in Neuroscience Research: The Case Against its Scientific Necessity) concluded that neuroscience research would be more relevant to and successful for humans should it be conducted with a human focus rather than the continued use of primates.

In particular, the review concluded: neuroscience experiments on monkeys are of only speculative value to humans; data collected from monkeys used in neuroscience research are misleading and of poor relevance to people due to the important differences between primates and humans in brain structure and function; the significance of results from ethical neuroscience research in humans is being underestimated by researchers.

Sir David was also backed in his criticism of experiments that deprived primates of water and restricted movement by Dame Jane Goodall, who is considered one of the worlds foremost experts on chimpanzees after spending 55 years studying them in the wild in Tanzania.

She said: To confine these primate relatives of ours to laboratory cages and subject them to experiments that are often distressing and painful is, in my opinion, morally wrong.

To restrain their movement and deprive them of water is inhumane and extremely cruel and we have no right to exploit them in this way for any reason.

Responding to the letter signed by Sir David, a spokesperson for the Medical Research Council, which funds some primate testing, said the licensing process for such experiments was robust.

Refusing to respond to the criticism of the UK Expert Group for Non-Human Primate (NHP) Neuroscience Research and others, Sir David told The Independent: I will just let my letter stand where it is.
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Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said he welcomes a peace deal made by Russia and the US over a ceasefire in Syria.

He praised US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to reach the agreement and said the Assad regime must "respond with convincing ideas of its own, not bombing, shelling and sieges".

A nationwide ceasefire between government forces and rebel groups is set to begin at sunset on Monday.

Speaking in Geneva in the early hours of Saturday, Mr Kerry said the agreement would be a turning point for the war-torn country if implemented, and suggested it could also lead to the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Kerry said the plan was intended to reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria.

In a statement, Mr Johnson said: I welcome the agreement that the US and Russia have reached to restore the Cessation of Hostilities and humanitarian access in Syria. I pay tribute to the tireless work of Secretary Kerry in bringing us to this point.

For years we have seen the indiscriminate targeting by the Asad regime of civilians and moderate groups, and heard only broken promises leading to sieges and starvation."

 Syrian government blamed for Aleppo chemical attack

Fighting between rebels and Assads forces has recently reached new levels of ferociousness in and around the divided northern city of Aleppo, where human rights groups report the conflict has claimed more than 700 civilian lives in the last 40 days, including 165 children.

The deal calls for unimpeded humanitarian access to all of Syrias worst afflicted areas, including Aleppo.

I hope this agreement will begin to unlock the flow of desperately-needed aid to Syria's people, particularly in and around Aleppo, and that it will create the necessary space for a credible political process based on the Geneva Communique," said Mr Johnson.

"It is only through a political transition that Syria will rid itself of the twin scourges of Asad and terrorism, and give the country and its people the chance of a peaceful future.

In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks driving to the Syrian-Turkish border town of Jarabulus yesterday AFP/Getty In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish-backed gather on the outskirts of Jarabulus, Syria, ahead of an offensive on 24 August 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks make their way towards the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, Syria August 24, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish soldiers return from Syria to Turkey with tanks after a military operation at the Syrian border as part of their offensive against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria, Karkamis district of Gaziantep, Turkey, 25 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces move toward the Syrian border as pictured from Karkamis, Turkey, AP In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks on their way to the Turkish-Syria border during an operation against Isis on 24 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Syrian opposition fighters being transported during preparations to enter Jarabulus in Karkamis, Turkey, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria An air strike hitting Isis-controlled territory near Jarabulus, near the Turkish border, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria A Turkish army tank and an armoured vehicle stationed near the border with Syria. Turkish media reports say Turkish artillery has launched new strikes at Isis targets across the border AP

I call on all parties to the Syria conflict and all countries with influence upon them to do what is needed to end violence and lift sieges," said Mr Johnson.

"In particular, it's vital that the regime in Damascus now delivers on its obligations, and I call on Russia to use all its influence to ensure this happens. They will be judged by their actions alone."

He added: The Syrian Opposition High Negotiations Committee set out in London this week a clear and detailed plan for securing that transition; the Asad regime must now respond with convincing ideas of its own, not bombing, shelling and sieges.
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Britain is expected to bask in a three-day heatwave, with the country's hottest September day for more than 50 years expected.

Temperatures are due to peak at between 30C and 32C in some areas on Tuesday, with the balmy weather set to begin on Monday

"A southern air flow will bring warmer air to the UK," a Met Office spokeswoman told The Independent. "Temperatures will rise markedly, turning hot in some eastern areas by Tuesday."

Monday promises to be bright for the majority of the country with temperatures in London and the South-east expected to rise to around 25C.

Northern Ireland and Scotland, however, will experience some heavy showers, which may become thundery. Hot and humid conditions will be felt across the country.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA 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

"Tuesday will be nice and sunny for much of the country," the spokeswoman said.

The heatwave will be felt most in London and south east where temperatures are set to rise to 30C  the highest for a decade with 30C temperatures last recorded in September in 2006.

If the mercury rises above 31.6C, which was reached at Gatwick on 2 September 1961, it will be the hottest September day for 55 years.

On Wednesday, temperatures will remain in the mid-20s and conditions promise to be humid and muggy with outbreaks of thundery showers promised.

The mini-heatwave will put temperatures around 10C warmer than the average for September, the Met Office said.

However, they will fall short of the hottest September day ever recorded, which stands at 35.6C on 2 September 1906 in Gravesend, Kent.

Thursday will mark an end to the summery conditions with temperatures dipping back down to 20C and fresher, showery weather continuing for the rest of the week.
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The bright banners, the wild vigour and the choral chanting being paraded here in a small North Bedfordshire village today would almost have you believe this is the site of a carnival. However, the motive behind this spirited display is far sterner, as hundreds of protestors have travelled the country to gather outside the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre and push for its closure.

Activists are angrily kicking the high, metal fence circling the controversial facility, where some 400 foreign nationals  predominantly women  are being held indefinitely awaiting immigration clearance or deportation. Surveillance cameras watch as some of the detainees do their best to join the protest by calling out of the windows and waving homemade banners.

This latest demonstration, organised by campaign group Movement for Justice, follows eight previous events protesting against British immigration rules.

A Home Office spokesperson said: We respect everyone's right to peaceful protest but we are clear that detention and removal are essential elements of an effective immigration system. Those with no right to be in the UK should return to their home country.

We will help those who wish to leave voluntarily but when they refuse to do so, we will take steps to enforce their removal. All decisions to detain are taken on the individual merits of each case and for the shortest period necessary.

Yet while flowers and rainbow placards are being strung up on the gates outside, inside the reality of life at the notorious and secretive centre is much bleaker. One detainee tells The Independent she cannot believe she is in the developed world as the culture of barbaric cruelty and racial prejudice allegedly taking place at the centre is akin to what made her flee her home country of Ghana in the first place.

Youd think youre in a third world country, says 44-year-old Sylvia*, who has been in Yarls Wood for one year and two months. This place is like Guantanamo Bay. Its a concentration camp. They dont let you finish your shower. The men video you. This is happening in the first world, here in England, under the noses of all the politicians who talk about freedom and human rights.

Coming to the UK in 2004 on a visitor's visa, Sylvia fled Ghana to escape the abuse and torture she was subjected to for being bisexual. She was later able to work here and was employed as a healthcare assistant in Bristol, but was then arrested in June 2014 for overstaying. She was jailed for six months.

It was after the completion of this sentence that she was taken to Yarls Wood. She says she was scammed by a false lawyer, who promised he had secured her British citizenship, but she remains in limbo, with her case pending  much to the detriment of her deteriorating mental health.

Protesters angrily kick and punch the metal perimeter fence surrounding the detention centre (Emily Goddard)

Im so depressed I have even taken an overdose, she explains. I am being kept in a cage. Sometimes I go three, four, five days without sleeping and I feel like killing myself. Im on suicide watch but instead of them taking care of me, you get punished when you are sick because you are giving them more work.

She says Yarls Wood does not take her mental illness seriously and they insist there is nothing wrong with her.

Sylvia says she has also been subjected to harassment and random searches of her room and the guards have taken away essential items, including sanitary towels, shower gel and creams that she needs to treat her eczema.

Demonstrators chant as they make their way to the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Milton Ernest (Emily Goddard)

If I had killed somebody I would know when my sentence would end, but here I dont, she adds.

Sylvia is by no means the first woman to make such damning allegations against staff at Yarls Wood. Since opening its doors in November 2001, the Serco-operated facility has been beset by a catalogue of accusations, including a number surrounding serious sexual abuse by staff.

Serco, which is paid 8.8m a year to run Yarls Wood, and the Home Office have faced repeated criticism about conditions at the troubled centre and there have already been five independent reviews into its practices to date.

(Emily Goddard (Emily Goddard)

An independent investigation, commissioned by Serco earlier this year, rejected claims of an endemic culture of abuse or incidents of inappropriate behaviour by staff, and only found serious concerns over staffing arrangements.

The independent report by Kate Lampard CBE, published earlier this year, concluded that there is no culture of abuse at the Yarls Wood, Marcus De Ville, group head of media relations at Serco Group, says. The NAO report published this summer also recognises that there has been significant progress made at the centre.

We understand and appreciate the vulnerability of the people in our care and the legitimate concerns that many people and organisations have about them. We will continue to work to ensure that the residents are well looked after at this difficult time in their lives.

We take the safety and respect of the residents at Yarls Wood extremely seriously and there are multiple complaints systems that ensure that any allegations are fully and independently investigated.

Responding to the claim that detainees are being filmed, he says the staff body cameras and CCTV are there to accurately record any incidents that do occur, for the benefit of both residents and staff.

Activists threw flowers over the fences into the facility (Emily Goddard)

After its most recent report on the facility in July this year, National Audit Office head Amyas Morse said the services for the vulnerable people at Yarl's Wood were not delivered right first time as they should have been.

The detainees at Yarls Wood are indeed often vulnerable, and many of them felt they had no choice but to come to the UK to escape traumatic events and severe threat of danger in their home nations.

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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. 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The youngest women currently at the centre are just 19 years old and found themselves here following life-shattering childhood incidents. Lucinda* travelled from Uganda with her brother when she was just 14 after both their parents died. She had been sexually abused at home as a child and went through the UK care system before entering Yarls Wood. Meanwhile, Anna*, also from Uganda, fled the country after facing numerous attacks for being a lesbian.

Both young women still believe a better life is to come for them, with dreams of studying at university and careers in paediatric nursing and project management, respectively.

Immigration rights activists wave to the Yarl's Wood detainees (Emily Goddard)

Despite her battle, Sylvia too is hopeful of starting a new life outside of Yarls Wood.

They want me to give up, but Im not going to give up, she says. Being here and enduring all these things makes me stronger. We are not criminals, even though they lock us up and take away our liberty. Each and every person has their own story and experience of this place. They pretend nothing is happening, but it is. Its my life and if I come out I dont think Ill be scared of anything as Ive seen it all here.

*names changed to protect identities
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The Crown Prosecution Service is to review allegations that Nigel Farage incited racial and religious hatred during the EU referendum campaign.

The move comes after 42,691 people signed an online change.org petition calling for the former Ukip leader to be prosecuted. It also follows an outpouring of so-called post-referendum racism which saw hate incidents reported to the police rise by 57 per cent in the four days following the June 23 vote.

Nigel Farage, however, told The Independent that he rejected utterly any suggestion that he or any campaign with which he had been involved had incited any sort of hatred. Speaking of those who had asked for him to be prosecuted, he said: I suggest they all get a life and recognise that this referendum is over.

The war is over.

So lets get on with building a happy, peaceable multi-racial society.

The petition cited the Breaking Point poster unveiled by Mr Farage which depicted mainly non-white refugees crossing a border in central Europe, thousands of miles from the UK.

The petition, handed in to a north London police station in July, stated: The law states that it is incitement to racial hatred when a person intends to stir up racial hatred, or makes it likely that racial hatred will be stirred up. This can include such things as making a speech, displaying a racist poster.

The law states that it is incitement to religious hatred when a person uses: words or behaviour that is intended to stir up religious hatred."

Petition organiser Zack Newman, 36, who - like Mr Farage in his former career - works as a commodities broker, albeit as a comprehensively educated one rather than an alumnus of the fee-paying Dulwich College, told The Independent: If mainstream politicians are allowed to get away with deliberately stoking up fear and hatred of minority groups to generate votes we are in trouble.

Unless a strong signal is sent now we will only see more of this type of campaigning in the next election. This must never be allowed to happen again.

Mr Newman revealed that after the call for a prosecution was passed to Westminster Police, officers initially rejected it, with the investigating detective saying that the Breaking Point poster cannot sensibly be interpreted as incitement or any other offence.

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Show all 12 1 /12 Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he unveiled that 'breaking point' poster during the referendum Mr Farage was accused of deploying Nazi-style propaganda when he unveiled a poster showing Syrian refugees travelling to Europe under the next Breaking point. Users on social media were quick to compare the advert to a Nazi propaganda film with similar visuals and featuring Jewish refugees. The poster was particularly controversial because it was unveiled the morning of the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox Rex Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said hed be concerned if his neighbours were Romanian In May 2014 Mr Farage was accused of a racial slur against Romanians after he suggested he would be concerned living next to a house of them. I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be, he told LBC radio during an interview. Asked whether he would also object to living next to German children, he said: You know the difference Bongarts/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the EU campaign was won 'without a bullet being fired' Nigel Farage has said the next Prime Minister has to be a Leave supporter AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he resigned as Ukip leader and came back days later After failing to win the seat of South Thanet at the general election, Nigel Farage stepped down as Ukip leader  as he had promised to do during the campaign. Days later on 11 May he un-resigned and said he would stay after being convinced by supporters within the party. Well see how long his resignation lasts this time AP/Matt Dunham Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he blamed immigrants for making him late Mr Farage turned up late to a 25-a-head meet the leader style event in Port Talbot, Wales in December 2014. Asked why he was late, he blamed immigrants. It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here - it should have taken three-and-a-half to four, he said. That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he wanted to ban immigrants with HIV from Britain Mr Farage has used his platform as Ukip leader call for people with HIV to be banned from coming to Britain. Asked in an interview with Newsweek Europe in October 2014 who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: People who do not have HIV, to be frank. Thats a good start. And people with a skill. He also repeated similar comments in the 2015 general election leadership debates Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he defended the use of a racial slur against Chinese people Defending one of Ukips candidates, who used the word ch**ky to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage said: If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you're going for?" When he was told by the presented that he honestly would not use the slur, Mr Farage replied: A lot would Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said parts of Britain were like a foreign land The Ukip leader used his 2014 conference speech to declare parts of Britain as being like a foreign land. He told his audience in Torquay that parts of the country were unrecognisable because of the number of foreigners there. Mr Farage has also previously said he felt uncomfortable when people spoke other language on a train Screengrab Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the British army should be deployed to France At the height of trouble at Britains Calais border Mr Farage proposed a novel solution. The Ukip leader called for the British army to be sent to France to put down a migrant rebellion. In all civil emergencies like this we have an army, we have a bit of a Territorial Army as well and we have a very, very overburdened police force and border agency, he said. If in a crisis to make sure weve actually got the manpower to check lorries coming in, to stop people illegally coming to Britain, if in those circumstances we can use the army or other forces then why not AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said breastfeeding women should sit in the corner Mr Farage sparked protests from mothers after he told women to sit on the corner if they wanted to breastfeed their children. I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isnt too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that's not openly ostentatious, Mr Farage said. He added: "Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be AFP/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the gender pay gap exists because women are worth less At a Q&A on the European Union in January 2014 Mr Farage said there was no discrimination against women causing the gender pay gap. Instead, he said, women were paid less because they were simply worth far less than many of their male counterparts. A woman who has a client base, has a child and takes two or three years off - she is worth far less to her employer when she comes back than when she went away because that client base won't be stuck as rigidly to her portfolio, he said Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he actually couldnt guarantee 350m to the NHS after Brexit During the EU referendum campaign the Leave side pledged to spend 350 million a week on the National Health Service  claiming that this is what the UK sends to Brussels. Nigel Farage didnt speak out against this figure and also pledged to spend EU cash on the health service and other public services himself. Then the day of the election result he suddenly changed his tone, saying he couldnt guarantee the cash for the NHS and that to pledge to do so was a mistake Getty

Mr Newman then investigated further and presented the police with much more inflammatory posters, videos and data linking the campaigning to actual hate crimes.

After Mr Newman emailed the detective and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, saying he and the others petitioners wanted to refer the lack of an investigation to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, he received a further reply from the police.

The investigating officer in Westminster has now told him: Whilst I maintain my view [against prosecution], and have senior management support for same, my management have asked that CPS review the decision.

A Scotland Yard spokesman explained to The Independent: On July 20 police received information, including a petition, alleging an individual had incited racial hatred during the EU referendum campaign.

Officers from Westminster continue to assess the information and have sought legal advice as part of this process. This work remains ongoing.

Characterising the CPS review as an investigation to see whether there should be a police investigation, Mr Newman said: This is a step forward. I was quite happy to get that email.

I still think there should be a prosecution. The Government and the CPS need to take this seriously. And if the CPS arent able to convict him [Farage] then the law needs to be changed.

Demonising Muslims and Eastern Europeans simply isnt legitimate politics.

In an outspoken rebuttal of all the claims against him, Mr Farage told The Independent: Of course, I am blamed for everything. But religion was barely mentioned in the whole referendum campaign, so that ones out of the window before you even start.

I dont recall race being mentioned once, because we were basically talking about white people from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Mr Farage, who during the referendum campaign tended to operate independently of Vote Leave, the official Brexit grouping, added: I would suggest the police and CPS deal with the truth. The Breaking Point poster was a factual picture, not doctored in any way, of mass movements of people within the European Union in response to Mrs [Angela] Merkel making the biggest policy error of any Western politician for 70 years.

Repeating that he had not incited hatred, he said: Certainly not, but we did point out, as that poster did, that the EU has failed us all.
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A free vote on whether to expand Heathrow Airport  proposed in a leaked Government paper  would be an absolute dereliction of duty, a senior Tory MP has told Theresa May.

Former party chairman Grant Shapps hit out at the suggestion that Cabinet ministers and other Conservative MPs would be able break ranks on such an enormous decision for Britains future.

It would be leaving the future of our infrastructure pretty much to chance. Who knows which way that vote would go? Mr Shapps said.

The criticism followed the revelation that the Prime Minister could seek to resolve her Heathrow headache through a potential waiving of collective responsibility  a free vote for her MPs.

Cabinet big-hitters Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and Education Secretary Justine Greening are among those fiercely opposed to expanding Heathrow to provide London with another runway.

A document discussing a free vote was filmed by a passenger on the London Underground and given to Channel 4 News, ahead of this autumns decision on expanding airport capacity.

Details of the proposal were contained in an email sent to Sue Gray, the director general of the Cabinet Office's propriety and ethics team.

The document suggests that one route for waiving collective responsibility would be a free... with the next few words then obscured by the thumb of the woman holding the printout.

The sentence continues ... allowing ministers to speak against the Government's position in the House.

The document goes on to refer to the differing positions held by Liberal Democrats and Conservatives during the Coalition government and to Cabinet colleagues being in opposing camps in the EU referendum campaign.

Recommended Read more Isis supporters threaten attacks on Heathrow and US airports

In July last year, the Davies Commission recommended the building of a third runway at Heathrow, but the Department for Transport announced that further investigation into noise, pollution and compensation would be carried out before a decision was made.

David Cameron was expected to announce which project would get the go-ahead  Gatwick is also seeking permission to build another runway  after the EU referendum, but his resignation following the Brexit vote left the decision to Ms May's new Government.

Mr Shapps said a free vote would be a terrible idea and a fudge, saying he did not believe the Prime Minister would embrace the suggestion.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA 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. 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He said: If it is being considered beyond the civil service, I think it would be completely wrong and a dodge on an enormous decision for Britains future.

A spokesman said: "The Government remains committed to taking a decision on airport expansion and delivering additional runway capacity as planned by 2030. We will set out next steps in due course."
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Donald Trump claimed it was faith in God that would lead a divided America back to unity as he attempted to woo US evangelicals at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington DC on Friday. Under a Trump administration, the Republican presidential nominee promised, Our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended like you have never seen before.

Recommended Read more Trump campaign policy wonks complain they were ignored and unpaid

The annual summit, one of the largest gatherings of social conservatives on the presidential campaign trail, is organised by the Family Research Council, a lobby group that touts itself as defending religious liberty, the unborn and families, but which its liberal critics consider little more than an anti-LGBT hate group.

Mr Trump wielded a Bible onstage when he attended the same event last year, a performance that failed to impress many Christian conservatives. At the time, polls suggested the thrice-married property mogul had attracted only around half of white evangelical Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters during primary season.

Yet a CNN/ORC poll released this week suggested 73 per cent of white evangelicals preferred Mr Trump to his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. That may have a lot to do with his choice of running mate: Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who is also due to speak at the summit, is a social conservative who last year signed a controversial religious freedom law in his state.

Appearing on Thursday before a receptive crowd, Mr Trump said one of the greatest privileges of his campaign for the presidency had been the time Ive spent with the evangelical community, boasting: A lot of people said, I wonder if Donald will get the evangelicals. I got the evangelicals.

Decrying the media and politicians for mocking or ignoring people of faith, The GOP nominee offered, as his headline pledge, the repeal of the so-called Johnson Amendment, a little-known, rarely enforced 1954 measure that threatens churches and other religious institutions with the loss of their tax-exempt status should they endorse or oppose a political candidate.

The amendment was named after former President Lyndon Johnson, who introduced it during his time as a US Senator. Its repeal would give our churches their voice back, Mr Trump said, insisting that he had come up with the policy personally, and joking: I figure its the only way Im getting to heaven.

Mr Trumps personal life and past pro-choice pronouncements  which he has since reversed  were thought to be major obstacles to his gaining the support of the Christian community. During his speech, the candidate did not mention abortion, gay marriage or his support for Israel, all issues that his socially conservative audience have traditionally considered crucial.

He won applause, however, for reiterating his vow to nominate great judges to the US Supreme Court, in the mould of the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Touting his campaigns list of 11 potential SCOTUS nominees, Mr Trump said he would ensure the next court would protect religious liberty."
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At least 23 people have been killed and dozens injured after a huge fire engulfed a food and cigarette packing factory in Bangladesh.

Emergency officials fear the death toll could rise after an explosion in the five-story Tampaco Foils Ltd factory's boiler room triggered the blaze at around 6am on Saturday.

The fire in the Tongi industrial zone, about 12 miles from the capital of Dhaka, spread quickly due to flammable chemicals stored at the site.

Firefighters attempt to extinguish a fire at a factory in the Tongi industrial area (Getty Images)

At least six of the 14 people being treated for burns at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital were in a critical condition, police official Mohammed Bacchu Mia said.

Local TV stations said about 50 people had been injured and footage showed smoke billowing from the factory.

It took 20 teams of firefighters nearly five hours to bring the blaze under control and vast quantities of burned materials and chemicals had to be removed from the building to prevent the fire from spreading.

A fire official said that although the blaze was under control, there were still flames inside the building so fire fighters had been unable to search the debris.

Authorities have ordered an investigation into the fire, which caused the partial collapse of the factory building.

Syed Mokbul Hossain, the owner of the Tampaco Foils factory, said around 75 people had been scheduled to work the overnight shift on the last working day at the factory before worker's went on leave for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha on Tuesday.

Firefighters work to put out a fire at a packaging factory in Tongi (AP)

Mohammad Nayan, a worker who was helping with rescue efforts, told reporters around 100 people had been inside the building when the fire broke out.

Mr Hossain, whose factory's clients include global brands such as British American Tabacco and Nestle, said he was not sure when the boiler was last inspected.

He said: "My company is fully compliant and I've never sacrificed on quality, as my clients are mainly multinational companies.

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"Now my only focus is on my workers who were injured and on those who died.

Factory safety has been a major concern in Bangladesh, which has thousands of garment and packaging factories, following a number of industrial disasters in recent years.

A fire at a garment factory in a Dhaka suburb killed 112 workers in 2012 and a year later, a commercial complex near Dhaka housing five garment factories collapsed, killing 1,135 people - Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster.

The disaster led to the creation of two international coalitions designed to help fund improvements to building and fire safety at thousands of garment factories across Bangladesh.

Syed Ahmed, the head of the Department of Inspection for factories in Bangladesh, told Reuters: "So far our focus was only on readymade garment factories, but now this disaster has opened our eyes to the fact that we should also focus on other factories,"

Additional reporting by agencies
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In the heat of celebration after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, sailor George Mendonsa pulled unsuspecting nurse Greta Friedman into an embrace in New Yorks Times Square. Their impromptu kiss is believed to be the one captured that day by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, whose image would go on to symbolise the longed-for end of the Second World War.

Recommended Read more Female WWII pilot finally laid to rest in Arlington after ban lifted

On Thursday, Ms Friedman passed away aged 92 at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, more than 70 years since her picture passed into history. Her son Joshua Friedman told the New York Daily News that his mother had been in an assisted care facility for the past two years, and that she died of health complications related to her old age.

The end of the war would have been deeply felt by Ms Friedman, who was born Greta Zimmer in Austria in 1924, and who fled from the Nazis to the US with her sisters in 1938. By 1945 she was working as a dental assistant on Manhattans Lexington Avenue. On 14 August, when the world learned that the war was over, she walked to Times Square to join the celebrations.

Mr Mendonsa, now 93, had been celebrating, too. The excitement of the war being over, plus I had a few drinks, so when I saw the nurse I grabbed her, and I kissed her, he told CBS News in 2012, when the channel reunited the pair in Times Square. I did not see him approaching, and before I know it I was in this vice grip, Friedman recalled.

CBS News reunited Friedman (left) and Mendonsa in Times Square in 2012 (CBS News) ((CBS News))

Some have suggested the story smacks of sexual assault, but Joshua Friedman said his mother would respectfully disagree. My mom understood the premise that you dont have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street, he told the Daily News, but added: She didnt assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.

Mr Eisenstaedt, a photographer for Life magazine, snapped the photo without asking the names of his subjects, who went their separate ways after the brief clinch. But the image only grew in reputation and reach, and is recreated by visitors to Times Square each year to commemorate VJ Day. So in 1980, Life put out a call for the pair to identify themselves.

Several couples came forward, and their competing claims have only been considered settled since 2012, when historian Lawrence Verria claimed to have proved the people in the photo were Ms Friedman and Mr Mendonsa in his book The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II.

Greta married Mischa Friedman, a doctor, in 1956. Mr Friedman died in 1998. The couple are survived by their two children, Joshua and Mara, and two grandchildren.
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An airstrike on the rebel-held Syrian city Idlib has killed at least 58 people, including a number of children, according to a reports.

Warplanes attacked a busy market place with suggestions that up to 80 people had been injured, Middle East Eye said.

Two civil defence workers said bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble of collapsed buildings in the area, so the death toll may continue to rise.

One resident and rescue worker said the high altitude of the jet would indicate the attacker was most likely a Russian plane, as Syrian helicopters fly much lower.

This claim had not been independently verified.

The attack comes only hours after the US and Russia announced a landmark peace deal.

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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. 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The two superpowers announced an agreement that included a ceasefire from sundown on Monday.

In recent weeks a series of bombings on villages in the province run by a coalition of Islamist brigades have increased, leaving dozens dead and injured, according to local residents.

Additional reporting from Reuters
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The Syrian government has approved the peace deal agreed by the US and Russia, according to state news agency SANA.

A nationwide ceasefire is planned to begin at sunset on Monday after lengthy talks between the two world powers in Geneva.

The state media outlet said the "cessation of hostilities" would begin in Aleppo "for humanitarian reasons", reported Associated Press.

It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the US-Russia agreement was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government.

Syrian government warplanes continued to bombard rebel-held areas around the country on Saturday while insurgents shelled government-held neighborhoods in violence that left dozens killed or wounded.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said the agreement could be a turning point for the war-torn country if implemented.

Mr Kerry said the plan was intended to reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria.

 Syria: HNC's Bassma Kodmani reacts to ceasefire deal

The Syrian government has approved the agreement, and a cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons, wrote SANA, citing "informed sources".

A mainstream rebel group has said the new ceasefire could signal the beginning of the end of the civilians' ordeal in Syria.

High Negotiations Committee spokesperson Bassma Kodmani said the body welcomed the deal if it is going to be enforced.

The onus was on Russia as its influence was the only way to get the regime to comply, her statement added.

Recommended Read more US and Russia could force allies to keep this Syria peace deal

However, not all rebels fighting in the war-torn country shared Dr Kodmani's optimism, with some saying there was little chance of the new agreement succeeding.

Free Syrian Army regional leader Fares al-Bayoush said Russia and Damascus had not observed the last agreement, and the chances of the new deal succeeding were the same as the last one.

A ceasefire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Show all 10 1 /10 Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Graffiti on the ancient stones reads in Arabic Shooting without the permission of the chief is prohibited Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Damaged artefacts lay inside the museum of the historic city of Palmyra Reuters Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Syrian pro-government forces rest by Palmyra Citadel as they take control of the city from the hands of Isis Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The UNESCO world heritage site appears surprisingly intact after its recapture from the militant group Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Many had feared the ancient city would be destroyed following its capture by Isis in May Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Smoke billows from the Palmyra Citadel as Assads forces drive the Jihadist group from the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Palmyra is one of the most important cultural centers of the world Unesco says Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Pro-government forces play football in the streets following the recapture of the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The extent of the destruction caused by Isis 10 month occupation of the city has yet to be fully realised Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The City Council of Palmyra building in ruins Reuters

Russia is a main backer of Assad's government while the U.S. has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power.

Syria's conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try end the violence. At least a quarter million people have been killed and half the country's prewar population displaced.

Additional reporting by agencies
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A new peace deal agreed by the US and Russia could signal "the beginning of the end of the civilians' ordeal" in Syria, a mainstream rebel group has said.

High Negotiations Committee spokesperson Bassma Kodmani said the body welcomed the deal "if it is going to be enforced."

The onus was on Russia as its influence was the only way to get the regime to comply, her statement added.

However, not all rebels fighting in the war-torn country shared Dr Kodmani's optimism, with some saying there was little chance of the new agreement succeeding.

Free Syrian Army regional leader Fares al-Bayoush said Russia and Damascus had not observed the last agreement, and the chances of the new deal succeeding were the same as the last one.

 Syria's civil war: New ceasefire begins start of Eid

A nationwide ceasefire is set to begin at sunset on Monday after US and Russia came to an agreement in Geneva which US Secretary of State John Kerry said could be a turning point for the war-torn country if implemented.

Mr Kerry said the plan was intended to reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria.

But the potential breakthrough deal will hinge on compliance by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed forces and US-supported rebel groups, plus key regional powers such as Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Syrian rescue workers search for victims through the rubble of a building destroyed during a reported barrel bomb attack in a rebel-held neighbourhood in eastern Aleppo on August 27, 2016 (AFP/Getty Images)

According to a military spokesman for the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, the deal could worsen the ferocious fighting between rebels and Assads forces in Aleppo.

Human rights groups report the conflict in the divided northern city has claimed more than 700 civilian lives in the last 40 days, including 165 children.

Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak said the deal give the Syrian army a chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into the main battles raging in the city.

The deal, at least publicly and for now, appears to overcome months of distrust between Russia and the United States that President Barack Obama had cited less than a week ago.

Now, the two powers are lining up in an unexpected new military partnership targeting the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaida-linked militants, while trying to prod Assad and opposition groups to end a civil war that has killed up to 500,000 people and displaced millions.

In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks driving to the Syrian-Turkish border town of Jarabulus yesterday AFP/Getty In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish-backed gather on the outskirts of Jarabulus, Syria, ahead of an offensive on 24 August 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks make their way towards the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, Syria August 24, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish soldiers return from Syria to Turkey with tanks after a military operation at the Syrian border as part of their offensive against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria, Karkamis district of Gaziantep, Turkey, 25 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces move toward the Syrian border as pictured from Karkamis, Turkey, AP In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks on their way to the Turkish-Syria border during an operation against Isis on 24 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Syrian opposition fighters being transported during preparations to enter Jarabulus in Karkamis, Turkey, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria An air strike hitting Isis-controlled territory near Jarabulus, near the Turkish border, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria A Turkish army tank and an armoured vehicle stationed near the border with Syria. Turkish media reports say Turkish artillery has launched new strikes at Isis targets across the border AP

The ultimate hope is to silence the Syrian guns so that the long-stalled peace process under UN mediation can resume between Assad's envoys and representatives of the opposition, while the two world powers focus on battling jihadis.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said he welcomes the deal, and said the Assad regime must respond with convincing ideas of its own, not bombing, shelling and sieges.

Additional reporting by agencies
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The ceasefire agreement in Syria between the US and Russia is the most important development in Syria since the Russian military intervention on 30 September last year.

It is so significant because it is an accord reached after 10 months of negotiations between the heaviest and most influential hitters in the conflict.

They should be in a position to persuade or compel their allies and proxies to abide by a truce, however reluctant they may be to do so.

There is a further reason for guarded optimism: this is agreement between the US, a superpower under challenge, and Russia, seeking to regain its superpower status which it lost with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Neither side can easily afford the failure of their gargantuan diplomatic efforts for peace in Syria. If the peace initiative does collapse, as happened with a previous less-detailed effort in February, then the international authority of both countries will be diminished instead of being enhanced  as it will be if they end the war.

The ceasefire is to begin at sunset on Monday, 12 September. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has been informed about the agreement and will comply with it.

 Syria's civil war: New ceasefire begins start of Eid

His forces will cease bombing and ground attacks. He does not have a lot of choice because, though his forces are advancing and last week re-imposed a siege on rebel-held East Aleppo, his military superiority over the rebels is not overwhelming and depends on Russian air support.

United Nations aid convoys should now enter East Aleppo where it estimates there are between 250,000 and 275,000 people who are not yet starving, but might be so in future after the Syrian Army and its Shia allies regained control of the Ramouseh road a week ago.

This had been temporarily captured by a rebel counter-attack led by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra and the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

Recommended Read more Boris Johnson welcomes US and Russia agreement over Syria

The UN has supplies positioned in East Aleppo, but these are being run down and, even before East Aleppo was first isolated on losing control of the Castello Road on 17 July, prices in the opposition enclave had risen by 42 per cent in June alone.

Government-held West Aleppo has a population of about 1,550,000, who have never been entirely cut off, though 485,000 of them depend on UN food rations to fend off hunger.

Under the terms of the agreement reached overnight in Geneva, the Syrian air force and ground troops will cease attacks in all parts of Syria except against Isis (also known as Islamic State).

The Syrian government may not be pleased about this because its recent military successes in Aleppo and Damascus. But the course of the civil war in the months since the first Russian airstrikes on 30 September 2015, shows that, though the government may have got stronger, it does not have a decisive advantage over the opposition.

Overall, the military stalemate continues because each side can bounce back after a defeat by asking for more aid from its foreign sponsors. Thus the rebels got more weapons, financial support and logistical help from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar this year to counter-balance the Russian intervention.

The obvious priority after the ceasefire goes into effect will be for all sides to cease firing. US-backed moderate armed groups are supposed to separate themselves from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (al-Nusra) whose relabelling is dismissed by the US as a PR ploy.

Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them Show all 13 1 /13 Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office Syrian children hold Pokemon Go pictures in the hope people will find them and save them RFS Media Office

After a week, supposing the ceasefire holds, al-Nusra and Isis forces will be targeted by US and Russian airpower whose actions will be coordinated by a Joint Implementation Centre. This body will divide Syria into three boxes: those dominated solely by al-Nusra and Isis; those that also contain moderate opposition; and those that contain only the latter.

This looks complicated and is even more complex than it looks. One problem is that the armed opposition in Syria is dominated by Islamists and primarily by Isis and al-Nusra, with the latter unlikely to sit still while its former partners make themselves scarce and seek safety under a US-Russian air umbrella. Keep in mind that al-Nusra is not only strong and well-disciplined, but is popular in many Sunni Arab areas, particularly in northern Syria. The movement will be all the more difficult to isolate politically and militarily as it is likely to have prepared itself for this moment.

The US and Russia are today the main players in the Syrian conflict which has been progressively internationalised over the two years since Isis captured Mosul, declared a Caliphate and swept through western Iraq and eastern Syria. The rise of Isis and its terrorist attacks across the world meant that the US and Russia could no longer remain on the side lines, but became more engaged militarily and politically. A significant event that did not happen was effectual engagement in Syria any of the EU states, with Britain and France failing to develop practical policies or risk quarrelling with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies.

Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Show all 11 1 /11 Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey's two million Syrian refugees There are already over 2.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, but their current camps can only hold 200,000 people ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish citizens protest a new deal, also criticised by human rights activists, which will see refugees who arrived in Greece after March 20 be sent back to Turkey AP Photo/Emre Tazegu Turkey's two million Syrian refugees An estimated 80% of Syrian refugee children already in Turkey are unable to attend school BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Refugee children beg for water near the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey has been accused of illegally deporting asylum-seekers back to Syria BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees In Turkey, no-one from outside Europe is legally recognised as a refugee, meaning the 2016 deportations may not meet international legal standards for protecting vulnerable people BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A refugee child cries as she is searched by police at the Syria-Turkey border, where 16 refugees (including three children) have been shot dead in the last four months BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Many refugees are living rough on the streets of cities such as Istanbul or Ankara (pictured) ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish soldiers use water cannon on Syrian refugees BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Syrian refugees shelter from rain in the streets of Istanbul BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A derelict building housing Syrian refugees in Istanbul Carl Court/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey houses around half of all the refugees who have currently fled Syria Carl Court/Getty Images

The greater involvement of Washington and Moscow has displaced and reduced the influence of regional powers  notably Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar  in Syria. They will presumably be expected to help control those parts of the armed opposition that are not Isis or al-Nusra. Another important question will be the attitude of Iran and the Shia axis that includes Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon who want Mr Assad to win a conclusive victory.

Another complication in ending the Syrian war is that different parties and factions are not as neatly divided as might appear from maps published by the media. Local warlords change allegiances as do the larger groupings.

For instance, Isis fighters are reported to have fled Jarabulus on the Syrian-Turkish border after Turkish military intervention, but a source within Isis told The Independent that they had simply shaved off their beards and stayed in the town.

Further south at Manbij, the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have supposedly withdrawn east of the Euphrates on Turkish insistence and under American pressure. But other accounts suggest that the YPG fighters have simply changed out of their uniforms and are still in Manbij.

But, for all these obstacles, this ceasefire has a good chance of succeeding because of the political and military power of the US and Russia.

This will have an immediate benefit for besieged towns and districts with a population of 592,000 of whom about one third are in dire need and where people suffer from malnutrition.

For the first time since 2011, the Syrian crisis is moving towards a significant de-escalation of violence though not perhaps yet towards a permanent end to the war.
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The proposed ceasefire in Syria is the outcome of a new balance of power in that country that has developed over the last two years. During this period, the US and Russia became militarily involved in the civil war in Syria and Iraq, providing devastating fire power to their chosen allies on the ground. As main players in the conflict  part rivals and part allies  they should have enough influence on their local proxies and regional friends to bring the war to an end or, at least, to limit and de-escalate the violence.

As US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the historic deal, they were still sounding more than a little uncertain as to whether they could deliver the desired outcome. Mr Kerry said the bedrock of the agreement, spelled out in detail in five unpublished documents, will be Russias ability to put pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to stop using his air force to fly combat missions against the opposition. He said that Syrian air force bombing was the main cause of civilian casualties and the ceasefire should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighbourhoods.

This may well be true of Russian pressure on Assad, but equally significant will the ability of the US to put pressure on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar not to supply Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda Syrian affiliate recently relabelled as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and other Salafi-jihadi armed groups, with the weapons and money necessary to launch another offensive. Turkey welcomed the ceasefire, but is unlikely permanently to weaken the very groups through which it exercise its power in northern Syria.

Recommended Read more US and Russia could force allies to keep this Syria peace deal

The hours prior to any ceasefire, which in this case begins at sunset on Monday, are usually peculiarly dangerous. The temptation for all sides is to indulge in one last spasm of violence or gain some essential piece of ground while this is still possible. The Syrian ceasefire is unfortunately proving to be no exception to this rule: within hours of Mr Kerry speaking in Geneva, Russian or Syrian jets hit a crowded market place in the rebel-held city of Idlib, killing 25 people and turning buildings into heaps of shattered masonry.

One of the problems in implementing the ceasefire is that it is meant to usher in a seven-day truce at the end of which Russia and the US will conduct a joint air war against Isis and Nusra, which are together far the most powerful organisations in the armed opposition. The moderate armed opposition is supposed to separate itself from Nusra during this period and seek shelter under a US-Russian air umbrella. A Nusra official said that, if its forces were attacked by the US and Russia, then we have holy warriors who will burn the ground. He said that Nusra looked forward to fighting the coalition of the Crusaders using a large number of suicide bombers who were available. This threat is unlikely to be mere bravado.

John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov reached the deal late on Friday night (AFP)

The ceasefire is meant to open the way to negotiations by Syrias moderate mainstream but largely unarmed opposition to talk about Assad leaving power. But the lowly status and lack of influence of the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, the main opposition body, was underlined when the group admitted that it had not even received a copy of the US-Russian peace deal and could only react when it had done so. It did say, however, that it welcomed an accord which would spare lives that would otherwise be lost to Syrian and Russian bombs.

In addition to an end to the fighting, the first priority of the truce will be to allow UN aid convoys to reach besieged areas, notably in Aleppo. The Syrian army is to withdraw from the Castello Road north of the city, which will be used to supply the estimated 250,000 to 275,000 people in rebel-held east Aleppo. Though the case of Aleppo is highly publicised, it is by no means the worst case and people in the east of the city are not starving, though they are living off pre-positioned UN supplies that are being run down and would eventually give out. There are a further 485,000 people in government-held west Aleppo, with a total population of about 1,550,000, who are also receiving food aid. UN supplies to east Aleppo have been held up because the rebels had wanted the aid to come through the Ramouseh Road in the south of the city which they lost control of in fighting last week.

The politics of aid supply in Syria is complex and usually involves one side wanting to use the aid issue to their own political or military advantage with scant concern for those who are not getting enough to eat. Opposition military forces in Syria and Iraq are well aware of the utility of human shields against air attack so that in an apartment block of six floors, the top two and lower two will be home to civilian families, but the middle two will provide living quarters for fighters. In many cases, the defenders will not allow the civilians population to depart and thereby rob them of a human shield and leave them vulnerable to unrestrained air attack. In Raqqa and Mosul, Isis has executed civilians who left the cities without permission and many have paid large bribes to escape.

Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Show all 11 1 /11 Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey's two million Syrian refugees There are already over 2.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, but their current camps can only hold 200,000 people ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish citizens protest a new deal, also criticised by human rights activists, which will see refugees who arrived in Greece after March 20 be sent back to Turkey AP Photo/Emre Tazegu Turkey's two million Syrian refugees An estimated 80% of Syrian refugee children already in Turkey are unable to attend school BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Refugee children beg for water near the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey has been accused of illegally deporting asylum-seekers back to Syria BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees In Turkey, no-one from outside Europe is legally recognised as a refugee, meaning the 2016 deportations may not meet international legal standards for protecting vulnerable people BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A refugee child cries as she is searched by police at the Syria-Turkey border, where 16 refugees (including three children) have been shot dead in the last four months BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Many refugees are living rough on the streets of cities such as Istanbul or Ankara (pictured) ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish soldiers use water cannon on Syrian refugees BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Syrian refugees shelter from rain in the streets of Istanbul BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A derelict building housing Syrian refugees in Istanbul Carl Court/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey houses around half of all the refugees who have currently fled Syria Carl Court/Getty Images

There are some 590,200 Syrians besieged to a greater or lesser degree in different parts of the country who will now be looking forward to receiving relief aid. But each siege is different, with about a third of the total in dire need, including some 43,000 people in Madaya completely isolated and with no vegetables or fruit available in the town even for those who have money to buy them. Surprisingly, there is mutton for sale because butchers are killing sheep which have no fodder to eat. Eastern Ghouta is the one remaining large opposition enclave in greater Damascus with a population of 282,000 but it includes fertile agricultural land that produces potatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, fava beans and cauliflowers. There is no malnutrition but there is a shortage of seeds and agricultural machinery as well items like surgical kits and school textbooks. By way of contrast, people in Madaya are not only starving, but medical attention is provided by a single dentist.

The success of the ceasefire will depend on just how much pressure the US and Russia are prepared to put on their regional and local allies. Some of these will applaud the deal publicly, but look forward to it failing or do their utmost to sabotage it. But it is easy to be too cynical and pessimistic: the Geneva accord between Russia and the US means that ceasefires, aid convoys and negotiations are now at the top of the international agenda when it comes the Syrian crisis. The turning point announced by Mr Kerry will not be easy, but that does not mean that it will not be real.
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The last 15 years have seen several attempts by the West to grapple with rogue regimes that are or were regarded as a threat to the wider world. Military action, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, may have made current administrations in the US and Europe wary of foreign ground wars. In the meantime though, Syria seems broadly immune to a diplomatic solution and has become a proxy conflict involving the air forces of Russia, America, Britain and Turkey, among others. Special forces have made incursions on the ground too, despite concern over committing troops to foreign soil. Less explicit support of the various factions has come from several directions.

One way or another then, it is the Middle East which has been at the centre of the Wests focus since the September 11 attacks: inevitable, perhaps, bearing in mind the terrorism inspired by extremist groups in the region against targets in Europe and the United States.

Yet throughout this period, the rogue regime which has the greatest potential to damage global security  North Korea  has remained largely unaffected by attempts to bring it to heel. Indeed, since George W Bush identified the country among his list of rogue states, it has become more closed, and more hostile, to the rest of the world than ever.

The falls of Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and Colonel Gaddafi have done nothing to convince Pyongyang of the need to find a roadmap towards peaceful relations with perceived enemies. Instead, foreign military adventures by America have spurred on North Koreas desire to develop nuclear weapons. In the paranoid mind of Kim Jong-un (who turns out to be even more maniacal than his father), it is only by strength of arms that his nation can meet real and imagined adversaries.

Yesterdays apparently successful nuclear test is proof  if it were needed  that North Koreas atomic ambitions are resolutely undiminished. Claims in January that it had exploded a hydrogen bomb were greeted with scepticism; there is little doubt this time that the test represents a dangerous advance of the states military capability. The seismic repercussions of the explosion have been matched in their seriousness only by the degree of condemnation from global powers, including North Koreas neighbours. Japans Prime Minister has described Pyongyangs nuclear weapons programme as a grave threat. Most tellingly of all, North Koreas traditional ally, China, has said in no uncertain terms that it is firmly opposed to the test.

For the past two decades there has been a degree of certainty that North Korea would ultimately step back from the brink of any conflict, held by the constraining hand of Beijing. Paradoxically, unilateral action by the West to halt Kim Jong-uns weapons programmes has always been unlikely because of concern an adverse Chinese reaction (quite aside from any other considerations). A delicate balance has been preserved.

The danger now is that advances in the nuclear technology available to Pyongyang, allied to improvements in its militarys missile delivery systems, has disturbed the status quo. It has been apparent for some time that Kim Jong-un is capable of both decisive and vindictive violence. The brutal purging of traitors  one by artillery round, another by anti-aircraft battery and so on  has provided ample, grim evidence. The question for the rest of the world is whether he is intent on inflicting a different type of violence beyond North Koreas borders.

Chinas note of concern over the latest test may be sufficient to make its dictatorial neighbour change tack. What some in the West will wonder is whether Beijings unusual firmness is indicative of a new anxiety that an increasingly weaponised Kim Jong-un is no longer as controllable as once he was.

If that proves the case, the West and China will need to work together to determine an effective response to what could soon become a perilous situation.
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The Syrian civil war has now lasted almost as long as the Second World War. It has seemed so hopeless for so long that scepticism about the agreement reached between the US and Russia in Geneva in the early hours of Saturday would seem justified. However, as Patrick Cockburn, our award-winning foreign correspondent, writes, it offers at last a real chance of the de-escalation of violence.

What is most important about the ceasefire that is supposed to come into force on Monday night is that the former cold-war superpowers have agreed it. The US and Russia both have a strong interest in making the agreement work. Barack Obama wants to expunge the idea that his weakness and passivity contributed to the Syrian bloodbath. Vladimir Putin wants to restore Russias prestige as Americas equal. Their plenipotentiaries, John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, have invested 10 months in negotiating this deal: they need it to work. The US and Russia will, therefore, put pressure on their clients in and around Syria to deliver.

All those hopes that the end of the cold war would mean the end of history, the triumph of liberal democracy and the end of proxy wars, seem a long time ago now. Not that the Syrian civil war is like the proxy wars of the cold-war era. It is a more complicated impasse than that. Five years ago, the Assad regime, which looked as if it might be toppled by an Arab spring uprising, was sustained by Russian support  support which finally became explicit by the Russian intervention a year ago. Meanwhile, the forces arrayed against Assad quickly became dominated by the most ruthless Islamist fighters, including Isis and the local al-Qaeda franchise. Recently, Isis has been pushed back by an assortment of forces, many of whom are hostile to each other.

Then there were the complications of regional players with interests in the civil war. Turkey has borne a burden of refugees, while also wanting to constrain the power of the Iraqi Kurds, who are the most effective anti-Isis force on the ground. Assad has also been supported by Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar have an interest in supporting the so-called moderate opposition.

No wonder, as Cockburn says, the ceasefire agreement looks complicated and is even more complex than it looks. It may be some time, therefore, before we know whether or not the situation is stabilising. But at last the greater forces exerted on the conflict are aligned and offer the prospect of progress in the right direction.

After so long when western military intervention and non-intervention have seemed equally disastrous, it is to be hoped that the intensive diplomacy of the past 10 months is finally paying dividends.
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I cannot believe anyone with the slightest sense of sanity would trust Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States. I just cant believe it.

It is like watching a comedian trying to make the audience laugh. I cannot believe the media is taking him seriously.

The man is not real. It is like a fictional character. Perhaps what we are witnessing isnt real election madness. We are duped. We are being hypnotised. We are being deceived into believing something which isnt real.

In one way, he has encouraged me not to give up in life. If a man like him has managed to make billions, then, anyone else can try. And if a confused character like him can become the president of the United States, even Homer Simpson can.

He is the embodiment of President Obamas famous phrase of yes we can. Yes we can no matter how the odds are against us. Yes we can achieve anything.

Perhaps Trump has been sent to instil hope to the hopeless. No need to look down upon yourself. Yes, you can accomplish anything. If Trump can achieve so much, everyone else can.

Abubakar Kasim

Toronto

There is a correlation between smart uniform and attainment

I'm currently in Kyrgyzstan, one of the poorest countries in Central Asia. Last week saw the start of the new school year, with the streets full of children on their way to school, carrying flowers for their teachers. Most people in Kyrgyzstan live on incomes far below the UK, raising families on an annual income less than the cost of a second-hand car in the UK. But all the children are immaculately turned out: white shirt or blouse, black skirt or trousers, white tights for the girls. For parents, it is a matter of pride, respect for the school and for their society. You probably won't be surprised to learn that the country has a very high literacy. Could there be a connection?

Tom Callaghan

Address supplied

How can Theresa May guarantee that working class children will go to grammar school?

How will Theresa May's assurances that she intends to introduce measures that ensure that the new Grammar Schools will take a proportion of children from deprived backgrounds work? Presumably those from deprived families will have to pass the entrance exam for entry to a Grammar School? As we know the damage has already been done before secondary education and so only a few are likely to meet the criteria for entry. Unless Mrs May intends to set quotas so that a fixed proportion are allowed into the new schools. This would mean accepting pupils from deprived backgrounds with lower scores and rejecting others with higher scores. Well, I can see the middle classes putting up with that. Unfortunately selective education is a zero sum game.

Chris Elshaw

Headley Down

The BBC has made the right choice imposing the TV Licence on iPlayer viewers

We should congratulate the BBC on closing the legal loophole which has previously allowed the small minority of British households to watch iPlayer without possession of that illustrious document, the Television Licence.

In particular we should commend them for the means by which they are enforcing this Law, in that every iPlayer viewer, in affirmative response to the question of current licence possession, is immediately given passage to the desired viewing content, without requiring confirmatory current licence details  nor even name or address.

However, it was rather disappointing to see that, for those who must now purchase a licence, the BBC does not include an option recognising those whose only desire is to watch iPlayer in monochrome: iPlayer viewers for whom a colour licence is clearly inappropriate. But, although this omission represents a further loophole that should promptly be addressed.

David Anderson

Dundee

School blazers should be banned

Amidst the condemnations/congratulations to the Kent Headmaster who insisted upon the pupils should wear precisely the uniform items as described - with no deviation from the list of approved garments and footwear - I should like to put forward the following; why do children have to have embroidered school-crest logos on their clothes? Why the expense of having to source from a limited set of retailers? What contribution does branding make to a child's education? If they are out on a school trip and need to be identified as a group (which should be obvious from the colours of the garments) then issue tabards with the school logo printed clearly upon them.

Whilst within school grounds, the children merely need to be wearing comfortable clothing appropriate to the weather conditions, PE environment or playground. In the science laboratory I can agree that enclosed shoes, made of a non-flammable textile, might be advisable. I fully comprehend why "fashion" additions in the form of foot-crippling shapes, or raised heels, and even tassels, large buckles or long shoe laces can cause injury  but why not single-coloured training shoes? Surely by now, the link between rigid soled shoes providing "support" to children's growing bodies has been superseded by sport shoe technology?

My final appeal is to all school governors, academy administrators and local authority councillors is to have blazers outlawed. What a stupid item of clothing! They are not as warm as fleeces or jumpers in the winter and in the summer they are destined to become lost property  with many left over the backs of chairs in assorted classrooms. Blazers are often badly tailored (one size fits none) and look like clown jackets if bought to include "growing room" and even more ridiculous when sleeves are too short or the shoulder width is too tight to allow free movement.

Worse is the fact that they are gender specific! Most blazers cost more than a decent pair of leather shoes  definitely if they have coloured linings, ribbon braid or an embroidered school crest on the pockets. Laundry is an issue if the blazers are wool-based. The pockets are the wrong size for notebooks or pencil cases and the inner pocket (which may have a zippered fixing, or not) is not reinforced to take dinner money.

If anyone wished to design a more superfluous item of clothing I'd like to meet them. It is an insult to expect parents to pay almost a whole day's minimum wage salary annually for a non-raincoat. I guarantee that not a single pupil will lament their demise.

Carole Anne Benton

Bexhill-on-Sea

How is renegotiating a deal with Australia an achievement?

Much has been made of the possibility of a post-Brexit UK negotiating a "free trade deal" with Australia.

Quite apart from the ambivalence shown by Australian ministers, is it not the case that the EU already has such a deal in place?

Can anyone explain why having to renegotiate an agreement upon leaving the EU is hailed as an achievement?

Peter Brown

Kingston upon Thames
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President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines uses crude and offensive language (son of a whore) to insult the most powerful man on Gods earth; President Obama is, rightly, offended; an important bi-lateral meeting between close allies is cancelled. The whole world has a laugh.

Understandable, I suppose. But the damage done by Duterte to his own nation and people is less well appreciated. I admit he won an election to gain power, but I do wonder how free and democratic the Republic of the Philippines is these days, and for how long. This is a man who sanctions mass extra-judicial killings  or murders, to use plain language. In his (undeniably popular) war on the Philippines rampant drugs trade, he has promised medals to any member of the public who shoots a drug dealer. Since he took office in June, some 650 people have been killed by police, with as many as 900 more thought to have been slain by vigilantes. Human rights in the Philippines?

The UN Special Rapporteur on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, has urged the Filipino authorities to adopt with immediate effect the necessary measures to protect all persons from targeted killings and extrajudicial executions, adding: Claims to fight illicit drug trade do not absolve the Government from its international legal obligations, and do not shield State actors or others from responsibility for illegal killings.

So not so funny, then  the execution of many hundreds, and thousands in their families bereaved, and all denied justice or due process of law. Nor is the increasing threat the Philippines faces from an ambitious China terribly humorous. The Philippines, along with its neighbours in the region such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, is engaged, though we dont hear much about in our news, in a tense stand-off with China, over territorial claims in obscure archipelagos of natural and man-made islands in the South China Sea, a proxy for potentially valuable oil and gas reserves and a potential spark for war. This is a subject which demands close co-operation between the South-East Asian nations allied to the United States, and has not gone viral on social media. And yet the best that President Duterte has secured for his peoples national security with their own friendly superpower is a very brief and begrudged chat with Obama on the edges of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Laos. That political and geopolitical damage, and not his casual insult toward the presidents mum, is the real problem with Duterte the buffoon  and with our attitude to him and his like.

 Duterte regrets insulting Obama after meeting cancellation

It prompts the question: why do we regard so many despots and dictators as jokes? Why do we remember Benito Mussolini as a posturing fat fantasist rather than the man who dropped blistering mustard gas on 100,000 Ethiopians?

Well, in many cases it is easy to see why. It helps trivialise them, and if we can mock them we score a little victory: sadism is often accompanied by a thin skin. When Kim Jong-un learned that one of his ministers was carousing round Pyongyang during the official mourning period for his father, he ordered him to be put to death and with "no trace of him behind, down to his hair. This unfortunate servant of the Korean people was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and obliterated. More recently, Kim suspected another official had dozed off in his presence. This time, a battery of anti-aircraft guns was deployed for another literal vaporisation. We know all this is evil and appalling, and yet we find the inventiveness of the Kim mind blackly funny, and these atrocities were reported in the western media in the manner of after-dinner anecdotes from the late Peter Ustinov or Richard Attenborough.

One of the great hit movies of the Second World War was Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, playing a facsimile of Hitler as a comical little man, and the most popular ditty based on the notion that Hitler has only got one ball (and Goebbels has got no balls at all); and most western cartoons of Mugabe, Kim and, now, Duterte, portray them more often than not as global village idiots. And that they do seem. After all these characters , and their more distant forebears such as Robespierre, Ivan the Terrible or Genghis Khan, didnt get where they got to without being vainglorious, pompous, foolish looking, sometimes illiterate, and always eccentric  and thus figures of fun, if youre at a sufficiently safe distance in time or space.

The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Show all 9 1 /9 The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On killing drug addicts These sons of whores are destroying our children. I warn you, dont go into that, even if youre a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Message to China I will go there on my own with a Jet Ski, bringing along with me a [Phillipino] flag and a pole, and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, Kill me  AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Christmas message to law-breakers If you do not want to stop, and just continue committing crimes, then this would be your last Merry Christmas AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On sex life I was separated from my wife. Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On the drugs trade None of my children are into illegal drugs. But my order is, even if it is a member of my family, kill him'" AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting the Pope We were affected by the traffic. It took us five hours. I asked why, they said it was closed. I asked who is coming. They answered, the pope. I wanted to call him: Pope, son of a wh**e, go home. Do not visit us again AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Joke about rape I saw her face and I thought, 'What a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first AFP/Getty The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting Barack Obama "Mr Obama should be respectful and refrain from throwing questions at me about the killings, or son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum" REUTERS The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants "If I have to face them, you know I can eat humans. I will really open up your body. Just give me vinegar and salt, and I will eat you. If you annoy me to the fullest... I will eat you alive. Raw" EPA

They often have extravagant or unusual facial hair  Saddam Husseins Village Person moustache so much more luxuriant than Mugabes mean-looking smear on his upper lip, or Hitlers trademark Chaplin-esque tache, archaic even in the 1930s. Then there was Kim Jong-Il's crazy hairdo, apparently inspired by the bloke in the cult movie Eraserhead; Idi Amin, president of Uganda, declaring himself the king of Scotland and CBE (Conqueror of the British Empire); Pol Pot abolishing the family unit as some sort of bourgeois capitalist construct; Fidel Castros seven-hour long speeches; Gaddafis uncontrolled farting; Nicolae Ceausescus silly 1,100- room marble palace in run-down Bucharest, the heaviest building in the world. Nutters, the lot of em, and Duterte, a modest adornment to the pantheon of monsters, falls easily into the stereotype.

One of the few common ideological themes all those names share is homophobia, with Duterte declaring not so long ago to a gathering of religious leaders, as you might expect: It's good I didn't join the priesthood, or else now I would be a homosexual. That isnt quite as extreme as Comrade Robert Mugabes statement, referring to the western press, that in their newspapers, thats one of my sins. That I called gays worse than pigs and dogs because pigs know there are males and females. I wont even call him a dog because my own dog will complain. You know that both chaps would benefit from attending a diversity workshop. Even in cuddly Castro's Cuba they were consigned to labour camps, though in recent times the Communists have grown more tolerant.

In fact, Duterte is, arguably, less murderous than one of his predecessors in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, who ran a vicious kleptocracy during his reign that ended after 20 years of pillage and corruption in 1986. The way he enriched himself and his cronies at the expense of his long-suffering citizenry was symbolised by the 2,700 pairs of shoes his spoilt wife Imelda famously left behind when they fled the country. We do not yet know what fancy footwear President Duterte and his immediate family possess.

And yet the buffoonery, the unconsciously ironic apercus, the daft uniforms with row after row of bogus medals, and the regal pretensions may sometimes let us conveniently forget, or leastways not confront, their true horror, rendering them cartoon figures inflicting their cruelties on cartoon victims. Even their worst acts of criminality sometimes take on a perverse comedy tinge. Take emperor (formerly president) Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central Africa. Here was a man even by the grotesque standards of his continent and his time who amused the world as much as he shocked it. The sight of him on a vast Napoleonic gold throne, with freshly mined crown jewels used for regalia instead of export to pay for food for the starving people, a quarter of the national GDP spent on an overblown coronation ceremony in 1977  it all remains outrageously camp and absurd, scarcely credible.

When Bokassa was overthrown paratroopers found human remains in the palace kitchen (AFP/Getty Images)

When he was overthrown a couple of years later, the legend goes that the French paratroopers who liberated one of his palaces discovered human remains in the kitchen, to be fed to his guests (unsuspectingly on their part). Much the same was said of Idi Amin, and President Banda of Malawi, a minor maniac and former west London GP, who deserves more notoriety than he has received, used to refer to his political prisoners as crocodile food, which they were, duly delivered into the river tied up in a Malawi Post Office sack. What was less funny were the bodies of schoolchildren also frozen by Bokassa, the mass murders of ethnic enemies by Amin, or the death camps, the starvation and mass cannibalism inflicted by Kim on the North Korean people, genocide by Pol Pot, let alone what we know so well about Hitler and Stalin.

It is interesting how easily, in this context, we dismiss the Blairite argument that the best reason for the war on Iraq was to rid the Iraqi people of a man, Saddam Hussein, who bombed and gassed them as readily as he did his Iranian, Israeli and Kuwaiti neighbours. Maybe we are content to just laugh at these impossibly ugly specimens, wishing away the thought of what they have done to the people living under them, and just wish that the whole thing would go away, or at least be not our responsibility to do anything about. Crimes such as Saddams are impossible to comprehend in their scale; as Stalin remarked, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic. We would also rather not have our consciences piqued, not least because it would entail real sacrifices for us to rescue those people. As we experienced in Iraq.

So thats part of the reason why Duterte became such a joke; we prefer to treat despots like that and, like President Obama, we would much rather ignore them. When their victims appeal to us for help, from Jewish emigres, for centuries in their case, to the Ugandan Asians in the 1970s, to Saddams victims, to todays millions escaping Syria, Somalia and Sudan, they too can keep their distance as abstract policy challenges, rather than people. It is also why the liberal interventionism of the Blair-Bush era has been so rejected, and why the doctrine of the illegal war in Iraq is so appealing  it gives us an alibi for not doing anything about a sadistic killer running an entire country.

We all know that we should use force to get rid of Mugabe and Kim, if not Duterte, but wed rather just poke fun at them and wait for them to die or be assassinated. Fine for us: no joke for their peoples.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the official opening of The Franchise Show at the Main Hall at the RDS in Dublin. Photo: Collins

Britain's vote to leave the EU has left doubts about the future existence of the United Kingdom, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told an audience in England.

During a debate in Oxford last night, Mr Kenny was asked directly if he believed the Brexit vote last June "would lead to the break-up of the UK?"

Mr Kenny said there was a lot of confusion - but he referred to the prospect of another independence referendum in Scotland.

"There is a great sense of confusion about where it is all headed.

"It's a matter not for me but for the different electorates in the United Kingdom in any event. Clearly, there are comments about further votes in Scotland," Mr Kenny said.

"Nobody can answer that question now," he added later.

Wide-ranging

The Taoiseach was addressing the conference of the British-Irish Association whose members gathered to consider the fall-out from the June 23 Brexit vote for Britain to quit the European Union.

In a wide-ranging address, Mr Kenny said he believed EU peace grants, which have contributed 1.5bn since 1995 to underpin the North's fragile peace, should continue.

Despite open rebukes last July from Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster, he again insisted any new EU-UK arrangements had to factor in the long-term possibility of a United Ireland by consent.

In such a case, the North should be absorbed into the EU like the former East Germany was in 1990.

Mr Kenny also returned to the idea of some sort of all-Ireland mechanism for groups from both North and South to discuss the Brexit implications. This again provoked negative reaction from Ms Foster when first floated last July as an "all-island forum."

This time, the Taoiseach avoided the term "forum" but stressed that all the governments in Britain and Ireland were now committed to this kind of dialogue.

"My Government strongly believes that there is a need for the widest possible conversation on the implications of the referendum result in Ireland, both North and South. It is an all-island issue," he said.

Mr Kenny said the prospect of majority consent for a United Ireland was a long way off.

But it could not be discounted in framing new arrangements between the EU and the UK.

The Taoiseach said he was happy the core relationship between Britain and Ireland was strong as detailed Brexit negotiations approached.

But these would fundamentally recalibrate a whole new set of relationships.

"We will have a new set of relationships within the UK, between Britain and Ireland, between North and South on the island of Ireland, and between Britain and a 27-member EU which includes Ireland," Mr Kenny said.

The Taoiseach said he would be the only leader from any of the islands of Britain and Ireland at an EU summit in Bratislava next Friday.

This was a first in 43 years and framing a new EU-UK relationship will be hard, he said.
'That's me f***ed," was the immediate reaction of one Dublin employee of a US investment firm after Tuesday's dramatic announcement that tax rules for so called vulture funds were being tightened with immediate effect.

The politics of the move are blazingly obvious. It is patently unfair that massive US investment funds pay little or no tax, especially at a time when the tax burden on ordinary workers has never been higher.

Worse, many of those funds stand to reap fortunes after snapping up Irish property assets at knock-down prices during a crash. That grates in a market where even a basic house is beyond the reach of many ordinary tax-paying workers.

By Thursday, my man at the loan fund was happily on his way to an investment meeting. The lure of big profits is still enough to maintain his bosses' interest in the market here, for now. But Ireland has suddenly become a colder house for investment funds, a place where unpredictable things now happen with dramatic speed.

Three years ago large multinationals got a similar jolt when the Irish Government moved, though far less rapidly and after far more prodding, to shut the so-called Double Irish tax loophole. It had allowed big companies to send billions of euro in profits from Ireland to subsidiaries that were tax resident nowhere. The Double Irish would have been laughable if it wasn't destroying Ireland's international relationships. It had to go.

Whether it's a result of the great crash and austerity, or simply that ordinary people eventually rumbled what was going on, campaigns for tax fairness are now a global phenomenon. Ireland has been under fire from politicians abroad for helping multinationals like avoid billions on taxes over decades. In the past three years the condemnation has run the gamut of US and European policy makers from the political left to right.

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Perhaps most embarrassingly that's included US President Barak Obama - who we all thought was duty bound to love our quirky ways. But even Obama drew the line as a trickle of big US companies reinventing themselves as Irish threatened to turn into a flood. When pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer looked like shifting its headquarters, and tax bills, to Dublin the US drew the line.

In the past month the European Commission launched its case insisting that Ireland provided illegal state aid for Apple. That looks shaky in the extreme, not because Ireland wasn't generous to multinationals but because far from special treatment the whole country knows a soft corporate tax regime was equally available to any corporate giant that sought it.

On the home front, its the zero and near zero tax rates applying to property investors that have provoked a tax backlash.

As this newspaper has noted in recent weeks, there is a fundamental unfairness in a system that insists accidental landlords can end up paying 55pc of their revenue in taxes while industrial scale investors don't even pay tax on their profits.

A general whiff that they have had it too easy, combined with a distinct hint of xenophobia, meant foreign so called vulture funds were first in the tax firing line.

The answer, from Government was shutting the controversial Section 110 tax treatment for companies that own loans backed by Irish property assets.

Financially it's a no brainer, the move levels the playing pitch by wiping out as much as a quarter of the profits expected by international investors who piled into the Irish market after the crash - and does so while diverting cash back to the State's coffers.

The vulture funds, among others, will spend this weekend licking their financial wounds. Some might cast their wings elsewhere. The recovery here means Ireland no longer throws up the once-in-a-life-time opportunities that brought them here in 2010 and 2012. Italy, Greece and potentially post-Brexit Britain are the next big things in financial distress. But they'll leave a changing Ireland.

Although described as a "loophole" Section 110 didn't happen by accident. The rules were deliberately created to draw funds, and jobs, to the IFSC. Like the Double Irish, most of us were happy enough with that, until the glaring contrast between tax winners and tax rules came too close to home.
The recent bout of optimism that lifted European equities to their highest levels since April faded, with the shares falling the most in a month as outflows from the region's funds deepened.

By the close in Dublin, the ISEQ Overall Index was down 1.7pc, or 104.11 points, to end the trading week at 6,182.62.

The leaders on the Dublin index include CPL Resources, which increased 0.9pc to 5.85, while Ryanair increased 1pc to 13.45.

On the other side of the board, the laggards included Kerry Group, which slipped 3.1pc to 74.17, while building materials group CRH dropped 3.1pc to 29.01.

Elsewhere, a 1.1pc decline in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index on took its weekly slide to 1.4pc. While the market has been the calmest in more than a year, investors are preparing for more turmoil ahead. Futures betting on volatility in the next three months trade at their highest levels since 2013 relative to the VStoxx Index.

The European stock rally has once again lost momentum, after US services data indicated on Tuesday the weakest expansion in six years, while European Central Bank President Mario Draghi downplayed the need for more stimulus on Thursday. Worries about economic growth have dragged down the Stoxx 600 for the first week in three, and a Bank of America report showed fund managers withdrew money from the region's equity funds for a 31st straight week - a record streak of outflows.

"People were expecting the ECB to do more," said Pierre Mouton, of Notz, Stucki & Cie in Geneva. "After a strong rally in the past two months, we have more volatility going forward, with the Italian referendum and the US election, so there are many things lingering that are making people nervous after the ECB meeting."

The Stoxx 600 rebounded 14pc from the June low.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Deutsche Bank is hiring 165 staff in Dublin, as Germanys biggest lender adds to an already fast-growing workforce here. Photo: Reuters

Deutsche Bank is hiring 165 staff in Dublin, as Germany's biggest lender adds to an already fast-growing workforce here.

The bank has opened a data lab in Dublin that will create 40 jobs. Known as 'The Hive', it will be a global centre of excellence for the bank.

The bank is also adding 125 technology and operations roles to support its global markets and corporate & investment banking divisions, which are largely based in London.

Deutsche Bank has been in Ireland since the 1990s - but ramped up its presence here three years ago when it announced a 700-jobs expansion.

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor welcomed the latest investment as a vote of confidence in the country.

"This project by Deutsche Bank represents a great vote of confidence in Ireland and its attractions for Financial Services companies. The new data lab builds on the bank's strong investment and job creation here over recent years and the provision of an additional 165 quality jobs is very welcome indeed.

"The Government has been making strenuous efforts to ensure that we have the right conditions in place in Ireland to continue job creation across the country. I look forward to a long and fruitful engagement with the company over the coming years and I am confident that this decision will be mutually beneficial for the company and for Ireland."

The IDA targeted the international financial services sector for new investments into Ireland, especially after the British vote to leave the European Union in June. With London-based banks and insurers set potentially to be locked out of the European single market, policy makers here are looking to capitalise.

However, Ireland faces strong competition from Paris, Frankfurt and elsewhere.
Phibsborough in Dublin 7 has been named as Ireland's property hotspot.

The north city suburb has been judged as the area likely to see the most value added to average homes in the coming year.

That's according to a survey conducted by the Irish Independent in conjunction with a panel of three experts, all with access to a nationwide property network.

The new combined DIT colleges site set to open at Grangegorman and the pending arrival of the Luas are key factors.

The area's central location with a supply of undervalued, affordable homes and the presence of the Mater Hospital all combine to make it the area most likely to surge in the coming 12 months. Three-bedroom period terraces in the area are currently priced at about 395,000.

Coming in second place in the capital is the Ringsend/ South Docks area, thanks to a concentration of multinational employers such as Google, a dynamic architect designed modern landscape at the Canal Basin and a clutch of more affordable smaller homes with a Dublin 4 address. Other locations mentioned in Dublin include Harold's Cross, City West, Ashtown and Dun Laoghaire.

The survey also named Blackrock/Ballinlough as the ultimate property hotspot in Cork city, with affordable homes in high demand in the latter area in particular. Douglas/Rochestown came second on Leeside.

Meanwhile, Limerick's hottest location was judged to be the North Circular/ Ennis Road district where a tight supply of top-end homes are being sought by wealthy locals alongside successful individuals returning from years spent abroad. Renmore has been identified as Galway city's hottest property location.

The results of the survey are published in 'House Hunter 2016' - our definitive home buyers' guide free with today's newspaper.
Reports indicate that more than 5,000 Wells Fargo employees have been fired as a result of a scandal involving employees that secretly set up new fake bank and credit card accounts in order to meet sales targets. Photo: Getty Images

Wells Fargo has long been the envy of the banking industry for its ability to sell multiple products to the same customer, but regulators yesterday said those practices went too far in some instances.

The largest US bank by market capitalisation will pay $185m (165m) in penalties and $5m to customers that regulators say were pushed into fee-generating accounts they never requested.

"We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request," the bank said of a settlement reached yesterday with California prosecutors and federal regulators.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will receive $100m of the total penalties - the largest fine ever levied by the federal agency.

"Today's action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programmes, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences," said CFPB director Richard Cordray.

Los Angeles officials and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were also party to the settlement.

In a complaint filed in May 2015, California prosecutors alleged that Wells Fargo pushed customers into costly financial products that they did not need or even request.

Bank employees were told that the average customer tapped six financial tools but that they should push households to use eight products, according to the complaint.

The bank opened more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorised, the CFPB said yesterday.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Eshet said the bank fired 5,300 employees over "inappropriate sales conduct". The firings took place over a five-year period, Eshet said, adding that the bank has 100,000 employees in its branches.

Wells Fargo regularly releases numbers about how many products it sells to customers, a practice it calls "cross-sell".

Its wealth and investment management unit, for example, sold 10.55 products per retail banking household in November 2015, up from 10.49 a year earlier, according to the bank's annual 10-K financial filing.

In the second quarter, however, the bank changed how it tallies up some of those numbers and said it was considering more changes.

(Reuters)
Whether you are staying in or going out, we pick the events not to miss this week.

Going out

The LOL

Bill Bailey

Perpetually befuddled comedy Viking Bailey closes his 18-month Limboland tour with a six-night residency at the Olympia. Buckle up for surreal humour, confessional asides and free-wheeling zaniness from the popular stand-up.

Olympia, Dublin, from Monday

The gig

Alexis Taylor

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Bespectacled pop nerd Taylor has a cult following as frontman of electro troupe Hot Chip. He returns to Ireland with his downtempo stand-alone album, Piano. As the title suggests,the Londoner will be performing heart-felt torch songs  an engaging contrast to Hot Chips dance-floor burblings.

Workmans Club, Dublin Thursday

The play

Mandela Trilogy

Video of the Day

Musical theatre with a sociopolitical twist, as Nelson Mandelas story is brought to life for the stage. The Cape Town Opera production takes us from the anti-apartheid campaigners cell in Robben Island to his childhood home in South Africas rural south east to his 1990 release from prison.

Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin, from Wednesday

Staying in

The book

SS-GB by Len Deighton

This lost classic from the late 70s imagines what Britain might look like under Nazi rule. Out of print for decades, Deightons cult thriller has just been republished, ahead of a lavish BBC adaptation starring Sam Riley. A page-turner that deserves to be rediscovered.

The TV show

Joanna Lumleys Japan

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The Absolutely Fabulous star is our eyes and ears on this intriguing odyssey to one of the most fascinating countries in the world. In the first of three episodes she travels by bullet train to Tokyo and visits the exclusion zone around crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

UTV Ireland, Friday 9pm

The box set

The Fall, seasons one and two

Before Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan was turning heads as a charming serial killer playing mind games with Gillian Anderson in the noir-ish streets of contemporary Belfast. Both return for series three of The Fall this autumn  in the meantime, fans can catch up with seasons one and two, now available as a box set bundle.
The winner of The Late Late Shows giveaway last week had everyone in tears last night.

Kathy Shine, from Walkinstown, won a car worth 20,000 on last weeks show, and visited RTE to give a thank you card to the host, Ryan Tubridy, during the week.

She told Ryan the story of how much the prize meant to her, and he subsequently invited her onto the show so she could share it with the audience.

Kathys ticket was pulled out of a drum of over 200,000 entries, however the prize wasnt for her.

She had entered the competition in the hopes of winning the car for her brother Michael, who has multiple sclerosis.

When Ryan was pulling out the winning ticket, Kathy said she prayed to her deceased mother that he would call her name.

I sat up bolt right in the bed, and I said Mum, I am begging you, please let him pick up my card so I can give it to Michael to update his disability van, she told the audience in tears.

Michael was diagnosed with MS when he was 29, and although medication helped the disease go into remission, it re-emerged after 20 years.

Michaels wife Joan gave up her job three years ago to care for him full-time in their home in Galway, but the disability van she drives to transport her husband is on its way out.

I thought it was a fiddle that she had managed somehow, said Michael of Kathys name being pulled out, despite the extraordinary odds.

Kathy entered the competition in the hopes of winning the prize and getting the cash instead, using it to buy Michael, who is wheelchair-bound, a new van and a mobile hoist.

However, upon hearing Kathy, Michael and Joans incredible story, Renault, the car dealership that had issued the prize, gave an additional 5,000 to either convert the car or upgrade to another vehicle.

Video of the Day

Viewers took to Twitter to share their delight at Kathy and Michaels win, with one user saying, Never a more worthy winner.
Dublin is one of the most dominant cities in the developed world and risks sprawling across much of the eastern part of Ireland.

A conference, held at NUI Galway, warned the capital and the east will continue to thrive at the expense of the rest of Ireland if action is not taken to address regional planning. The importance of the upcoming National Planning Framework (NPF) was laid out at the 'Planning For Regional Development: The National Planning Framework as a Roadmap for Ireland's Future' conference.

Paul Hogan, senior advisor of planning at the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, said officials hoped to present a draft of the NPF for political consideration by the first quarter of next year.

The influence of Dublin is also being explored.

It accounts for about half the GDP output in the country and 40pc of the population.

"Dublin is the same in size and population terms as the next 40 towns and cities combined in Ireland.

"Its influence extends from Cavan to Wexford. Outside of city states like Singapore, I think this is possibly unique," said Mr Hogan, describing the capital as "possibly the most dominant city in the developed world".

He said comparable small countries all had twice as many cities at levels below Dublin with three times as many the size of Cork.

Dr Edgar Morgenroth of the ERSI said existing projections suggested a continued sprawl and a move east of both population and of economic activity.

"I suspect that's not really what we want and I think it's up to us to develop a wave of policies that share this out in a different way," he added.
Junior Minister John Halligan is under mounting pressure to quit Government or drop his demand for an immediate second review into cardiac services at Waterford General Hospital.

Several members of the Independent Alliance have privately voiced concerns that Mr Halligan's campaign for a second cath lab in his constituency has damaged their standing in the eyes of voters.

A large number of Fine Gael ministers and backbenchers also believe the saga is proving to be a serious distraction.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny urged Mr Halligan and other ministers to start "applying themselves". He told reporters: "I'd like for everyone to apply themselves to their jobs and we have a big responsibility in uncertain times."

Such is the level of frustration among his colleagues, several Independent sources confirmed they would be prepared for Mr Halligan Inset below) to leave government rather than allow the matter to drag on.

Mr Halligan, a minister for State at the Department of Jobs, was due to consult his supporters this weekend over his future in Government.

He has received strong backing from senior medical staff at the hospital, who are themselves seeking a meeting with Health Minister Simon Harris to provide him with the comprehensive evidence they believe exists for a second catheterisation (cath) laboratory.

The doctors say they disagree with the findings of an independent review by Dr Niall Herity, which said there is not merit for a second cath lab.

Waterford cardiologist Dr Patrick Owens said the report's scope was too narrow and did not take into account the risks to patients who are on waiting lists because of demands on the current cath lab services.

He also said the calculations used in relation to patient flow skewed the findings. This is because it did not include the patients who must travel to Dublin and Cork from the south east because they cannot be admitted to Waterford.

Referring to recommendations that the cath lab in Waterford no longer provides percutaneous coronary artery intervention (PCI) to widen the arteries in patients, including heart attack victims, and move the service to Cork, he said the reasoning was again flawed.

Defended

Dr Herity yesterday defended the report and said it was carried out in a independent and dispassionate manner.

He also said the fact the lab is open from nine to five does not make a difference.

"The vast majority of work done in cath labs is pre-planned, done on a nine-to-five basis," Mr Herity told RTE's 'Morning Ireland'.

"96pc of the work done in Waterford is pre-planned, with 4pc emergency work. Only a tiny amount of cath lab work is done out of hours," he added.

Dr Herity said the cath lab was not performing the minimum number of at least 100 a year to make it sustainable.

But Dr Owens said it carried out 62 of these procedures during its 9-5 opening hours last year and another 77 patients had to be treated in Cork out of hours.

Threshold

If they were allowed longer opening hours they would easily reach the 100 case threshold, he said.

As Mr Halligan remained in government, the issue continued to dominate the politic cycle. Senior Government sources rejected calls for an immediate second review.

Health Minister Simon Harris is said to be "not for budging" and is instead open to reviewing services at Waterford in the new year.

In the meantime, the recommendations for increased resources, staff and facilities will be implemented.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, who previously held the health portfolio, warned that it would be a major step backwards to allow politics to again become involved in critical health decisions.

Meanwhile, his Cabinet colleague Simon Coveney rejected suggestions the Government is lurching towards a general election. "What I would say to people is look at what's in the programme for government in writing which is what John agreed to and what we agreed," he said.

Mr Halligan did not responded to calls last night.
A man wanted over a gangland murder at the Regency Hotel had stayed there overnight in preparation for his alleged role in the shooting, a court heard.

Gardai investigating the killing of David Byrne also claim Kevin Murray can be "clearly identified" on CCTV footage, a judge said.

The 46-year-old was refused bail in his fight against being extradited to face charges over his alleged part in the murder.

Murray was detained at his home in Townsend Street, Strabane, on Monday under a European Arrest Warrant issued by authorities in the Republic.

He is being sought in connection with the fatal gun attack at the Regency Hotel in Dublin on February 5.

Murray is wanted in connection with alleged offences of murder, possession of a firearm with intent, and possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances. He was not brought to Belfast Recorder's Court for yesterday's ruling on his bid to be released from custody.

Setting out reasons for denying bail, Judge Patricia Smyth referred to evidence contained in the arrest warrant. She said it identified Murray as an alleged part of the gang involved in the murder of Mr Byrne.

The warrant stated: "Following examination of CCTV footage and from photographic evidence obtained, the requested person was clearly identified by several members of An Garda Siochana."

Referring again to the warrant, Judge Smyth continued that Murray allegedly stayed overnight at the Regency Hotel where Mr Byrne was shot.

"The warrant alleges this was in preparation for his role in the murder the following day."

The judge stressed that a full hearing of the extradition case must be completed "in the very near future".

Another man, 24-year-old Patrick Hutch of Champions Avenue in Dublin, has already been charged with the murder.
Tributes have been paid to a star sixth-form pupil, courageous Rebecca Haughey, who this week lost her long battle with cancer.

The popular Lurgan teenager was described as "gifted and full of laughter" by her school principal at St Catherine's College, Armagh.

When she learned in late July that the cancer she was suffering from was likely to prove fatal, Rebecca vowed to fight the disease with all her strength, penning a heartbreaking letter on her Facebook page to share the dreadful news.

"Hi everyone, I guess there's no time like the present to give you guys an update on everything," she wrote.

"I got some bad news on Friday: my consultant told me that my white blood cell count was back up and it looked like the cancer was working too fast for my treatment to catch up with it.

"She doubted there was much she could do for me. Understandably, I was in a state of shock. I was basically just told that I was going to die.

"All I could say was, no. This can't be happening. No. There has to be something you could do. No. No. No. You need to do something. I need to do something.

"We can't let this happen. I'm not going to die. I need to do something."

However, Rebecca also told how she was determined to fight the disease.

"That news gave me the kick up the back side I needed to make me more determined than ever to succeed... to beat this ruddy cancer that had taken over my life," she wrote.

"I was determined to see the end of this. I told the doctor to put me back onto the steroids and other medications to keep my white cell counts under control."

She tried all she could think of - even hemp oil, which she described as "a non-hallucinogenic holistic remedy".

And she vowed: "It's going to be a long, difficult journey ahead, but through Hell or high water, I'm going to get through it all and prove to my consultant that this will not beat me."

Friends and family sent heartfelt messages of support and encouragement to Rebecca in her struggle, including her mum, Colette, who posted: "My beautiful brave daughter. It takes a very strong person to go through what you are going through.

"You deserve the best that life can give and I am going to do my best to see you through this."

But this week Rebecca lost her battle with cancer after the disease proved too strong for the teenager's body to defeat.

Paying tribute to Rebecca, Noeleen Tiffney, the principal of St Catherine's College told the Lurgan Mail that Rebecca would be remembered as "a delightful girl, multi-talented, gifted and full of laughter".

"She had kindness and compassion at her core and was a true friend to everyone," she said. "The loss of this precious member of our school community has left those of us who knew her deeply saddened. She gave so much of herself to St Catherine's College and we were all enriched by having known her.

"Our thoughts are with Rebecca's family at this time and we would ask that you would remember them in your prayers in the days ahead."

Kieran Corr, chairman of Moyraverty Arts and Drama Society (MADS), which Rebecca was a member of, told the paper that she was a highly valued and popular girl who had performed in a number of shows.

"I know a lot of members of MADS are going to be very upset at this news," he said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with her family."
Striking Dublin Bus staff at the Harristown Depot, near Dublin Airport. Photo: Collins

Commuters are being warned to brace themselves for an all-out Dublin Bus strike as Transport Minister Shane Ross is refusing to intervene.

Unions representing staff at the semi-state have scheduled a meeting for Thursday, at which they will discuss escalating the dispute and instructing workers to down tools indefinitely.

Fianna Fail transport spokesman Robert Troy has accused Mr Ross of "completely abdicating his responsibility".

He told the minister to instruct Dublin Bus management to sit down with unions and offer workers an improvement on the 8.25pc pay increase suggested by the Labour Court, in exchange for extra productivity.

There was transport chaos in the capital yesterday and on Thursday, as some 400,000 daily Dublin Bus commuters were forced to find alternative travel arrangements.

Increase

Dublin Bus has already been notified of two further days of strike action - this coming Thursday and Friday and the following Friday and Saturday.

Dermot O'Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Railway Union (NBRU), told the Irish Independent everything was now up for consideration.

"All-out strike will be considered. Obviously, the decision is not mine and we will listen to the guidance of members," he said.

Dublin Bus drivers have sought a 15pc pay increase, along with a payment in lieu of a 6pc increase they were due in 2008 and did not receive.

They roundly reject the 8.25pc increase suggested by the Labour Court in July.

In a statement last night, a spokesperson for the minister said he would not intervene.

"Minister Ross is aware of calls for him to directly intervene in this dispute.

"However, as any intervention by a sitting minister could be seen as a commitment to resolve this issue with additional taxpayers' funds, he believes it is inappropriate to do so," it said.

Fianna Fail has offered tacit support for the drivers and Mr Troy said the offer should be increased.

"There's an opportunity based on further productivity to increase that pay claim further. I think there's room to increase that," he said.

Meanwhile, drivers have been speaking about the difficulties on the job.

"Getting spat at is the worst, I think," Noel Gallagher, speaking on the picket line at the Coyningham Road depot yesterday, said.

Coupled with the bad weather yesterday, commuters were feeling downbeat.

One bus user, Ciara Power (25), a teacher living in Raheny, said she depends on the bus to travel to Killester. "I just want the strike to end," she said.
The EU's tax chief is giving two contradictory accounts of how Ireland could use the 13bn from the Apple tax ruling.

The development comes as Austria and Spain are understood to staking a claim for the tax from the US multi-national.

And Italy and France are also reported to be eyeing up a slice of the 13bn windfall.

European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici yesterday criticised the decision by the Government to appeal the Apple ruling as he claimed the money could be used to improve services.

"The Irish Government decided that it would go in front of the courts. We are, of course, respecting that," he said.

"It is a strange decision, in a way, to say 'I don't want your 13 billion' when you could have some social programmes or economic programmes in a country that has been damaged by a crisis.

"But that's their own will," he added at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Yet Mr Moscovici told Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin the money could be used only to pay down the national debt.

In a letter on Thursday, the Commissioner said, if recouped, there were clear rules on the use of a once-off windfall.

"It is correct that EU state aid rules place no restriction on the use of aid to be recovered by a member state following a ruling by the Commission," he says in letter seen by the Irish Independent.

However, the letter continues, the EU's recommendations on fiscal policy for Ireland was only to "use windfall gains from strong economic and financial conditions, as well as from asset sales, to accelerate debt reduction".

Contradiction

Mr Howlin said there is a contradiction in Mr Moscovici's public remarks and his letter.

"This letter from the Commissioner seems to fly in the face of what he has been saying to the public, and shows how political the actions of the European Commission have become," the former Public Expenditure Minister said.

During a dramatic day in the Europe, Finance Minister Michael Noonan was forced to defend Ireland's case, hinting that Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands - who are appealing similar EU decisions - were on Ireland's side.

"I wouldn't agree with him," Mr Noonan said of Mr Moscovici. "He's a Commissioner. Obviously the Commission will defend their ruling and we'll appeal it."

Mr Noonan said he was "not trying to drum up support" for Ireland's appeal at the meeting.

"In a court case, you don't drum up support. But there have been cases and rulings in the last 12 months or so in respect of Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland, and they have all appealed, and Ireland has associated itself with the appeals, and we are legally represented at the appeals," he said.

"I would assume something similar will happen in this case because interested parties will be very interested in the legal argument because of the similarities between the cases," he added.

France and Germany threw their support behind the Commission last week, a position Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem - who chairs the monthly meetings of eurozone finance ministers - took up yesterday. "I support that the Commission has a role to play here and, here again, a strong Commission is important," Mr Dijsselbloem said.

"We need to make sure that there is no state aid in the way we apply our tax policies, and certainly not on international standards in our tax policies."

Windfall

Austrian finance minister Hans Jorg Schelling said other countries were looking into whether they could benefit from the 13bn tax windfall.

"If what the European Commission says is legitimate, you can be assured that I, as finance minister, would take it,'' Mr Schelling said of the money.

Mr Schelling said the Austrian government was examining "intensively" whether some of the money was owed to Austria, and said Italy and France were doing the same.

"We are all checking at the moment," Mr Schelling said.

However, spokespeople for the French and Italian finance ministries denied such examinations were taking place regarding Apple.

The Irish Independent understands the Spanish government, which recently announced a corporate tax overhaul, is also looking into whether it might be due some back taxes from the US tech giant in the wake of the Commission ruling.
Ireland is a good place to do business and should not be a location for tax avoidance, Europe's Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said.

Ms Vestager said Ireland had an attractive corporate tax rate, which was not under threat. It has access to the single market and a highly skilled workforce.

But she said tax rulings were offered to companies that existed solely on paper, with no employees, premises or activities.

"Ireland has a very attractive corporate tax rate, and it's not up to me or anyone in the Commission to question that," Ms Vestager told France 24.

"Because Ireland is completely in their good right to say our corporate tax is going to be 12.5pc. It is very attractive. You're in the single market, you have highly skilled employees  it's a very good place to do business.

"It shouldn't be the place to do tax avoidance."

Ireland made global headlines last week after the European Commission ruled that Apple owed up to 13bn in back taxes to the State in a ruling handed down by Ms Vestager.

The ruling by the Brussels competition watchdog - described by Finance Minister Michael Noonan as bizarre and outrageous - found Ireland gave Apple a sweetheart deal which ultimately allowed the iPhone maker to pay as little as 0.005pc tax on its European and some international profits.

The tech giant's chief executive Tim Cook branded the numbers set out in Ms Vestager's ruling as untrue and maddening.

Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe recorded profits of sales made in international locations in Ireland, she said.

"Ireland gave Apple two tax rulings to allow them to book the huge majority of their profits in a head office that only exists on paper.

"It has no employees, no premises, no real activities and that of course makes no economic justification for no employees in no offices making huge amounts of money."
Waste not want not: Airfield Estate team members, from left to right, Kathy Conlan, Paul Nolan, Airfield Head Food Grower Kitty Scully, Airfield Estate CEO Grainne Kelliher, Head Chef Jose Carbajo and John O'Toole settled down to a special 'supper in a skip' to launch Airfield's Festival of Food. Photo: Leon Farrell

Imagine if you came home with your groceries and split them into three piles on your kitchen table," says Dee Laffan, food writer and Chair of Dublin Slow Food. "Now imagine putting the first pile directly into the bin." Who would be mad enough to do that? Erm, most of us, it turns out, given that the average Irish household bins a whopping one third of the food they buy.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, if just a quarter of the 1.3 billion tonnes of food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.

The statistics can be overwhelming. And when you consider the waste incurred by supermarkets with their unsold wonky carrots or hospitals with their untouched meals, it's tempting to interpret our own household habits as having minimal impact.

Besides, we Irish have made great strides in terms of our landfill waste reduction. Multiple retailers and processors are working with Irish food distribution organisations such as Food Cloud and Bia Food Initiative. Elsewhere, France has banned supermarkets from binning unsold food, and the world's best chef Massimo Bottura has run large scale soup kitchens to re-use surplus food from Rio's Olympics and Milan's Expo. Surely, then, we're all moving in the right direction?

Perhaps. But the average household discards 700 worth of food every year, some of us up to 1,000. Even if you shirk the personal responsibility that comes with wasting food that is so scarce in less advantaged parts of the world, and that contributes to climate change through the energy used to produce it and the emission caused from the landfill dumping of it, it's foolhardy to ignore the personal cost of our bad habits.

One simple way to re-pocket that money is to change how we think about the food we normally bin - and find ways to eat it instead.

That was the challenge that the team from Ireland's largest urban farm at Airfield Estate in Dundrum, Co Dublin gave themselves ahead of next weekend's sustainability themed Festival of Food (September, 9-11, airfield.ie). Their Food Rescue Team have transformed unwanted surplus food into the makings of a multi-course feast, which will be served up at tonight's Trash Bash dinner.

"We want to inspire people to think differently about their relationship with the food they consume," says Airfield's CEO Grainne Kelliher. "We're getting people to push the boundaries of what they consider food waste."

Their menu starts with a delicious pesto made from carrot tops and turnip tops, continues with lots of fermented and preserved foods, and finishes with a fruit crumble topped with end-of-day scones and brown bread that might have ordinarily been binned.

The challenge has opened the team's eyes to the small changes that they can make in their kitchen, she says. "We'll definitely be more creative with bin-destined food in the future."

Airfield's Food Rescue Team includes Limerick-based food writer Valerie O'Connor, a self-taught expert on fermentation and author of 'Val's Kitchen', which features lots of basic fermentation recipes. "It's such a simple process," she says, "it costs very little and doesn't require any specialist equipment."

O'Connor came to fermentation for personal health reasons, but one of the bonuses has been discovering a great way to use up surplus vegetables.

That half a head of cauliflower or broccoli that sits in the fridge getting more tired by the day? "Just wash them, pack them into a clean jar, add water and salt and leave it at room temperature, opening once a day to let the gasses out," O'Connor says. "They taste nicer when they're fermented and are great for snacks, or for heating up to serve with some meat if you don't want the fuss of preparing fresh vegetables every time."

She's amazed by the results you can achieve with everyday vegetables, such as turnip. "I hate turnip but if you grate it, add salt and leave it to ferment, it tastes amazing: sweet and juicy but with a crunch."

She's looking forward to tucking into the fermented carrots and parsnips that they prepared for the Trash Bash. "It's amazing what happens to the flavour: you can really taste the pepperiness of the parsnip."

O'Connor also swears by her trusty Nutribullet for preventing food waste at home. "They're great for making green smoothies: you can put in broccoli stems, half a cucumber, wilting salad leaves or bruised fruit."

Blackening bananas can be added to smoothies, or peeled, frozen and then churned in a food processor with some peanut butter into an instant vegan ice cream: churn for a minute and mix peanut butter.

And as for those pesky salad leaves wilting in the back of the fridge? O'Connor suggests adding them to smoothies, pasta sauces or stir-fries, while Dee Laffan suggests making a surprisingly delicious lettuce soup, maybe thickened with some leftover cauliflower.

You could base that soup on a stock produced from vegetable trimmings, although Laffan suggests investing in a vegetable brush to avoid the unnecessary peeling of vegetables such as potatoes.

"The most wasted vegetable in Ireland is the potato and that largely comes down to peeling them," she says, something she points out is "ironic, given our history".

We may live in a disposable culture today, but we can still learn a lot from our not-so-distant past, when frugality was a natural way of life.

TIPS FOR REDUCING FOOD WASTE

 Check cupboards and fridge before making a shopping list

 Avoid special offers on perishable goods, or consider freezing, fermenting or preserving

 Use stock control systems in your fridge and cupboards, placing items that need to be used first at the front of the shelf

 Store leftover food in see-through tupperware to avoid the pitfall of out of sight, out of mind

 Use websites like lovefoodhatewaste.com and StopWaste.ie for clever storage tips
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011: Fire and rescue workers search through the rubble of the World Trade Center. Photo: BETH A. KEISER/AFP/Getty Images

NEW YORK, NY: An aerial view of Lower Manhattan at dusk, September 8, 2016 in New York City. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 8: An aerial view the Oculus Transportation Hub and the September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, September 8, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

NEW YORK, AUGUST 17: A visitor to the 9/11 Memorial Museum looks up at the last foundation pillar that was standing from the World Trde Center site in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 22: People look out at Manhattan and beyond at One World Observatory at One World Trade Center on August 22, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

NEW YORK, NY: People walk through the Oculus Transit Hub at One World Trade Center on August 26, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

WEEHAWKEN, NJ - SEPTEMBER 5: The sun sets on Lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in New York City on September 5, 2016 as seen from Weehawken, NJ. Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

NEW YORK: An aerial view of the top of One World Trade Center and its spire, on September 8, 2016. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

NEW YORK, NY: An aerial view of Lower Manhattan at dusk, September 8, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after they were hit by two hijacked airliners in a terrorist attack September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images)

NEW YORK: in The Statue of Liberty stands in the foreground as Lower Manhattan is viewed at dusk, September 8, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

15 years since 9/11, Lower Manhattan has been 'reimagined' as a whole new destination for visitors and locals.

When Ground Zero smoldered following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with the Twin Towers gone and bodies trapped in mountains of pulverised steel and concrete, few could have imagined how the city would recover.

But recover it has, with true New York grit and determination.

Rebuilding Lower Manhattan hasn't always gone smoothly. There have been arguments, debates and controversies (many continue to rumble).

But 15 years since terrorists killed 2,996 people and injured thousands, the site of the former World Trade Center has undergone a "renaissance".

That's according to NYC & Company, the city's destination marketing organisation, which is using this week's anniversary to invite locals and visitors to discover a "re-imagined" neighborhood experiencing "an extraordinary moment in time".

Lower Manhattan, once mainly a financial hub, has become one of the city's top tourist destinations, thanks to a brand new mix of memorials, soaring skyscrapers, shopping malls, new hotels, restaurants, attractions and architectural landmarks.

Here's what's new (below and in our gallery, above).

Attractions, Memorials & Culture

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Whatsapp NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 22: People look out at Manhattan and beyond at One World Observatory at One World Trade Center on August 22, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Lower Manhattan now has a whole new hub of culture and attractions.

The crown jewel of the areas redevelopment is the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and home to One World Observatory (above), which opened in May 2015.

To honor the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum (below) will open a new exhibit Rendering the Unthinkable: Artists Respond to 9/11 on September 12.

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In spring 2015, the aqua-themed SeaGlass Carousel opened at Battery Park, along with the expansion of the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

South Street Seaport is currently going through a transformation with a new iPic luxury cinema opening on October 7, the reopening of the South Street Seaport Museum earlier this winter and 300,000 square feet of new retail space opening next year.

Just a ferry ride away from Lower Manhattan, Governors Island completed its transformation this summer into a cultural and educational hub with the opening of The Hills, four man-made hills that provide views of the skyline, featuring the tallest slide in the city.

New Hotels

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New hotels are springing up all over the neighborhood.

Historic Victorian architecture meets modern luxury at The Beekman, a Thompson Hotel, which opens to the public on August 23. The hotel features 287 rooms, including penthouse suites and an original nine-story glass atrium.

The luxurious Four Seasons New York Downtown, which opens late September, will 189 rooms and suites just a block away from the World Trade Center. The hotel will include an urban spa, as well as a new restaurant, CUT by Wolfgang Puck.

Business travelers and families looking for extra space can check out the newly opened AKA Wall Street (above), complete with 132 fully furnished extended-stay apartments, or the all-suite Conrad New York, featuring 463 luxury suites overlooking the Hudson River.

Shopping & Retail

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Lower Manhattan has become something of a shopping Mecca.

Fulton Center offers a variety of handcrafted products from retailers such as NYS Collection, Moleskine and Tiecoon.

Along the Hudson River waterfront, Brookfield Place, which opened in 2015, is home to contemporary luxury brands such as Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, Lululemon and an 85,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue opening next month.

The $1.4 billion Westfield World Trade Center shopping complex has just opened with around 60 stores, with 40 more stores opening by the end of the year to occupy the 365,000 square feet of retail space.

So far, stores include Apple, Under Armour, Kate Spade and Lacoste.

Restaurants & Food

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World-renowned chefs, new concepts and outposts of the Citys best restaurants are all among the new culinary experiences in Lower Manhattan.

At Brookfield Place, visitors can browse through a French-inspired market at Le District, featuring three restaurants and four districts selling quality meats, cheeses, breads and more.

Upstairs from Le District is Hudson Eats, serving up popular dishes from city mainstays including Mighty Quinns Barbeque and Num Pang sandwich shop. Another city mainstay, Shake Shack, has recently opened at Fulton Center.

The new Eataly NYC Downtown Italian marketplace (above) debuted at 4 World Trade Center this month and features tastings, a sit-down Southern Italian restaurant, bread bakery, Italian coffee bar and several to-go options.

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Pier A Harbor House, which opened last year in Battery Park, is an old immigration hall turned into a restaurant and beer hall, featuring fresh seafood and private event space with views of the Statue of Liberty.

Celebrity chef John-Georges Vongerichten plans to debut a food hall-style fish market and restaurant in Pier 17 at South Street Seaport in 2017. Additionally, David Chang is planning a dynamic new concept at the same location.

Transportation

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To support the new development efforts in Lower Manhattan, there have been several enhancements to the neighborhoods transportation infrastructure.

Fulton Center, which debuted in November 2014, is a retail and transportation hub that connects to nine MTA subway lines and five subway stations.

In October 2015, Mayor De Blasio announced that the free Staten Island Ferry service will run at least every 30 minutes, seven days a week between Lower Manhattan and Staten Island.

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which was completed in May, connects visitors to 11 subway lines, PATH trains to New Jersey, Battery Park City Ferry Terminal, Brookfield Place and the World Trade Center complex.

The hub creates an underground connection that stretches between Brookfield Place and Fulton Center. It's housed under the Santiago Calatravadesigned Oculus, serving 200,000 daily commuters and home to the Westfield World Trade Center shopping complex.

Lower Manhattans remarkable revitalization over the last 15 years is a cornerstone of the new New York City, said Fred Dixon, president and CEO of NYC & Company.

With tourism reaching record levels in New York City, visitors and locals have more choices to explore, shop, stay and dine than ever before in this newly reimagined downtown neighborhood.

Read more:
Brendan Keenan: 'Better laws and foreign money needed to overcome worrying homes shortage'

There is a district in Belfast known as the Holy Land. Not because of its religiosity, but because the streets - Jerusalem Street, Damascus Street and so on - are called after places in that region. Once, there were others; Little Crimea, India, and so on. Seemingly, houses were built so quickly for the city's huge expansion in the 19th century that it was too much trouble to think up original names. They eventually gave up altogether, so far as names were concerned. The Shankill area got First Street, Second Street etc, all the way up to Tenth.
Semple Stadium was decked out in blue and gold and Slievenamon was being belted out by a jubilant crowd who had gathered for the long-awaited homecoming of the victorious All-Ireland-winning hurlers, both seniors and minors.

But just a few streets away, in a house in Kennedy Park, so close that the celebrations would have been all too painfully audible, a family with a strong hurling pedigree of their own was reeling amid the devastation of the cruellest blow imaginable.

Nicola Kenny (26) was a grandchild of the former Tipp marksman Paddy Kenny, who won three All-Irelands in a row from 1949 onwards.

She was a popular, familiar face at the Tesco branch in Thurles where she worked, and was known for her love of fashion, as an Olly Murs fan, and as someone who would readily organise a trip to a gig at the drop of a hat.

A vivacious, fun-loving young woman, ordinarily she would have been at the heart and soul of the party - but she would have had no plans to attend the homecoming last Monday evening.

She had just given birth the day before, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

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Her daughter, Lily Rose, was born in South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel but later on Sunday, developed a temperature and was transferred to Temple Street Children's Hospital out of concern for her health.

Nicola was discharged from hospital and the worried new mum was on her way to Dublin with her own mother Ann Kenny and her aunt Irene Whelan. Her sole aim was to be with her tiny daughter in hospital on Monday, and they hoped to arrive before lunchtime.

But on the way, she had a phone call and the car pulled into the hard shoulder between Cahir North and Cashel South, near Rockwell College.

It was good news. Little Lily Rose was out of danger and was being transferred back to Clonmel hospital - there would be no need to make the trip to Dublin.

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Flooded with relief, the three women sat in the car for a moment, debating as to whether to continue their journey anyway.

But then tragedy. A truck ploughed into the back of their stationary car.

Nicola, who had been sitting in the back seat, was pronounced dead at the scene.

She had been a mother for just one day.

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Her mother and aunt were whisked to hospital, Ann by ambulance to South Tipperary General where she was treated for a broken arm, and Irene, who was much more seriously injured in the force of the collision, taken by helicopter to University Hospital Limerick.

She remains in a critical condition there in intensive care.

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A family spokesman said: "You can't imagine this, the family are devastated. They are in shock.

"They pulled in on to the hard shoulder and took that phone call.

"The hospital told her the child was OK and that they were going to transfer her back. They were making the decision to turn back.

"The set of coincidences is just unbelievable."

News of the sorrow quickly spread, reaching the Tipperary hurling team by their celebrations on Monday night.

Wing-back Paudie Maher told local TD Jackie Cahill that when the team got the news, it was "just a bolt out of the blue for them all".

"It was a perfect day the day before. It brought them back to earth, that someone whose brother they would be familiar with met their end in that way on Monday morning," Mr Cahill added.

Wednesday saw incredibly poignant scenes at Hugh Ryan's funeral home in Thurles, when Tipperary corner back Mickey Cahill presented the Kenny family with a jersey signed by the Tipp team which was then draped over Ms Kenny's coffin.

Her funeral on Thursday at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Thurles heard her described as a vibrant, fun-loving young woman with a great zest for life, who had lived for her family and friends.

Mourners held Minnie Mouse balloons as they followed her remains up through Thurles town on the way for burial, striking a note of cheerful hope in the midst of such grief.

Nicola's death had left a vacuum of the great love she would have bestowed on her daughter, said Fr Vincent Stapleton, celebrating the funeral mass.

That task now falls to her family and friends, he said.

"You must be Nicola's arms to hold her, her mouth to praise her and lift her up, Nicola's ears to listen to her," he said.

It is understood that the baby will be raised by Nicola's parents, brother Patrick and his wife Annemarie, who have children of their own.

The child will not want for love, former Senator Des Hanafin, a long-time friend of the family, attested.

"They're that kind of family," he said.
Universities made their pitches this week for more funding following their worrying fall in global rankings. Last week, Barnardos made its case for free primary education, which should really be a no-brainer for any government.

Next week, a new report from the international think-tank, the OECD, will confirm our class sizes are among the highest in the developed world. And the week after that, a conference in Killarney will hear that the further education sector is starved of funds.

No wonder Department of Education officials are scrambling to finalise spending plans for next month's Budget. At all levels of education, from pre-school to higher education, there is a growing sense of crisis and a hope that the Budget will address years of under-funding. But will it?

When we consider government spending, we often assume that the different departments get the same slice of the Budget cake year after year. But that's not necessarily the case. Let's take agriculture for instance. In 1950, it accounted for more than a quarter of government spending. Joining the EEC, as it was then in January 1973, changed all that with the release of massive funds from Brussels for Irish agriculture. Now, agriculture accounts for just 2pc of exchequer spending.

In 1950, spending on health, education and social welfare accounted for only a third of government spending. Today, the three biggies account for around four-fifths. But what's particularly interesting is how the relative spending between these departments has shifted over the years.

At the turn of the century, 26.7pc of current government spending went on social welfare, 19.6pc on health and 13.9pc on education. All three continued to increase their share for various reasons such as demographics, rising costs etc. Social welfare has gone up to 38pc, health has gone up to 26pc, while the smallest increase has been in education, which accounts for 17pc of current government expenditure.

This very dramatic shift in spending has taken place without any real discussion about our national priorities - perhaps it's time we initiated that debate. This is not just my view but that of the OECD, which has urged policymakers to take into account the wider social benefits of education when allocating resources across public policies. If we truly believe that investment in education pays off through better employment, health and social outcomes why don't we invest more in education?

Is it because the education system is not facing into daily emergencies, unlike other parts of the public service, particularly health? Every day, 4,000 schools, colleges, institutes of technology and universities open their doors - they teach over one million students, usually without some headline-grabbing crisis. There are no 'Prime Time' investigations into a daily education crisis which would catapult it into politicians' consciousness. The system does not seem to be breaking down. It's creaking for lack of funds but it doesn't stop operating. As one teachers' union leader put it: "We need the equivalent of a hospital trolley count every day to make politicians sit up and take notice."

The pressure on politicians to respond to the underfunding of the education system is not as immediate and intense as it is in other areas such as health, housing and social protection.

Politicians respond quicker to stories about emergencies elsewhere rather than listen to and respond to arguments about the long-term benefits of investment in education.

Our political system promotes short-term rather than long-term planning. We need to think of the long-term benefits of investing in particular areas of public spending. The recent Olympics gave a classic example of how investment and planning paid off for our neighbour. Twenty years ago, Britain had the dubious pleasure of pipping Belarus for 36th place in the gold medals table in the Atlanta Games.

It started making serious investment in training and preparation, which paid off when it came third in the Olympics in the gold medal ranks four years ago. This year, it came second.

What does that tell us? Well, we can't all be Olympians, obviously, but as a country we need to think more strategically about where we make additional investment now we have some fiscal space.

Ministers love making announcements about additional measures in response to some emergency but they don't always think of the medium-term outcomes, or of the long-term budgetary costs.

And it shouldn't be a question of robbing Peter to pay for Paul's basic education.

Instead of arguing for a bigger share of the limited education budget, the education partners should be campaigning for a greater share overall of the national Budget.
It's enough to make one take up acting. Daniel Craig has reportedly been offered $150m to star in two more James Bond movies, and he's thinking about it.

The man's either had one too many Martinis, or else is one of the cutest negotiators ever to stroll the Hollywood walk of fame. The 48-year-old, who's played 007 for the past decade, and made billions for the studios, famously announced he'd "rather slash my wrists" than do it one more time with feeling.

Created in the 1950s by author Ian Fleming as a hard-drinking, chain-smoking ladies' man with a penchant for international espionage, his Bond was the quintessential Englishman - a cool, clean hero complete with rough edges for the Cold War. Interestingly, Fleming's inspiration for 007 might have been influenced by, of all things, a Kerryman. William Melville, born in 1850 in the tiny hamlet of Direenaclaurig Cross, near Sneem, led a life packed with more villains and global intrigue than the Bond author could dream of.

Taking himself to London as a teenager, presumably because the local bartenders hadn't mastered the knack for a perfectly shaken martini, he joined the Metropolitan Police, going on to become one of the country's most decorated coppers. Melville played central roles in foiling the Jubilee Plot to assassinate Queen Victoria; tracking the man many believed was Jack the Ripper; and becoming chief protector of the Russian Tsar, who rewarded him with a Faberge egg. Ironically, Melville remained a proud Irish Catholic who named his house in South London Kenmare, but was unequivocal in his determination to prevent terrorism of all kinds - including attacks on the crown by the Fenians.

Capping off a glittering career, the Kerryman went on to construct the first European espionage network ahead of WWI, becoming England's top spymaster as head of the emerging Secret Service and MI6.

Melville was known only as 'M' - a shadowy title in an era of danger that would later inspire the many adventures of Fleming's agent 'with a licence to kill'. As a Kerryman at the very heart of the British Empire, he'd come a very long way from Direenaclaurig Cross.

But if it was a Kerryman who inspired Fleming's Bond in the novels, it was a Dub who took the world's most famous secret agent into a truly global orbit in the movies. Kevin McClory, born in 1926, led a life with touches of 007 himself as a screenwriter, producer, lover of Elizabeth Taylor, and one time owner of Straffan House, now the K Club. Rejecting much of Fleming's ruthless and austere creation from the books, McClory saw Bond as a more worldly, humorous icon, a man capable of pulling the trigger of a Walther PPK with one hand while effortlessly unfastening bikini hooks with the other.

Scenting the social and sexual liberation coming through in the 1960s, his hero was a man of steel with worldly tastes. Given his bloodline to the Bronte sisters, McClory was no slouch at penmanship, and went on to co-create with Fleming the script for 'Thunderball' - the film that catapulted Bond into an international legend. As well as the action sequences that grew more daring over the years, 007 had some killer lines added to his throbbing arsenal. "I was wrong about you," he tells femme fatale Christmas Jones. "How so?" she inquires. "I thought Christmas only comes once a year." Boom boom.

Proving his own worth as a tough adversary, McClory eventually took Fleming to court over ownership rights to 'Thunderball'.

Ranged against the old Etonian and former British Naval Intelligence operative, few gave the Dubliner much of a chance of success in the British legal system.

They didn't know the street-fighter they were tangling with - after just nine days Fleming's team caved in, giving the case to McClory.

So what is it about James Bond, what's this guy got that men want to emulate and women want towell, you know? Is it really a quintessential English quality? Not from where I'm standing.

Bond is hard-living, self-assured and confident. He talks a good game anywhere he's placed, and has a roaming bad-boy eye no lady can resist. He's as fast with his knuckles as he is with a cocktail shaker, and no matter how many times you knock him down, he keeps getting up. 007 is, more than anything, driven by those qualities most often found in John Bull's Other Island - a license to thrill, born and bred in Kerry and Dublin.
Michael Noonan is probably not used to being received at the EU table like a side dish that has not been ordered. It may be too early for frost, but there was definitely an autumnal chill in the air as the two-day finance ministers' meeting in Bratislava began. Ireland finds itself increasingly isolated over the appeal of the Apple tax ruling.

In the eyes of the EU tax czar Pierre Moscovici, it was a "strange decision", while Austria's finance minister, Hans Jorg Schelling, felt he would take the money, given the chance. Mr Schelling even said that the Austrian government is examining "intensively" whether some of the cash is owed to Austria. Italy, France, and Spain are apparently doing the same. This makes a nonsense of claims that a 13bn golden carrot was ours for the taking.

But Mr Noonan was always going to find himself on the back foot. France and Germany threw their support behind the Commission last week. Both countries have long had their eyes on Ireland's 12.5pc tax rate. They have two of the highest corporation tax rates with 30.2pc and 34.4pc respectively; although companies in France were found to be only paying a tax on profits of 7.4pc.

There has been a push towards EU tax harmonisation for a number of years. In 2011, a move was defeated which would have seen multinationals pay their tax for all the EU into a pool and the money would be doled out to states within the region according to a formula. Plans for further cross-border intervention on tax arrangements across the zone are not new. But that there should be a renewed push to achieve this in the immediate aftershock of Brexit when many countries are questioning their relationships with Brussels is ill-advised. Once more, Paris and Munich are calling the tune.

Now such moves are indeed in prospect it is vital that they be teased out, and voted upon, and definitely not decided by decree. Were we not told that acceptance of Lisbon II would ringfence our corporate tax rate?

Growing concerns about a democratic deficit, and a distinct sense of mission creep, as Brussels seeks to exert more and more control over government finances must be addressed. Even the most loyal of Europhiles are becoming disconcerted. Ireland's overreliance on Foreign Direct Investment is seen by some as a potential fault-line. A major international downturn would leave us overly exposed.

Yet, few expected any risk to foreign investment here would actually come through clumsy interference from Brussels. The critical driver of investment in a country is stability and certainty. The European Commission removed both with its Apple ruling.

State continues to come up short on housing plan

The fact rents have risen for a 50th month in a row speaks of the failure to tackle the housing crisis. The hopeless inability to cope with the shortage of accommodation is taking a terrible toll on households.

Now comes a warning that renters face a "rental timebomb" when a price freeze ends next year.

This means that one in five homes in the country is caught in a trap. With house prices surging and the lack of building guaranteeing that demand far outstrips supply, the only was is up in the cost of rent.

Because so few houses are coming on the market the 700,000 people in this country who rent are facing into a bleak future, according to Economist Dermot O'Leary.

Tenants are caught in a vice as Government measures to take the heat out of the market have failed hopelessly.

Clearly, the State needs to accelerate housing plans and regulation of rent rises must also be kept under review.
Fiddle player extraordinaire Zoe Conway has joined forces with legendary Irish musicians Donal Lunny and Mairtin O'Connor for a new album 'In Full Sail - Faoi Lan Seol'.

The trio, performing under the name Zodomo, recorded the album in the renowned Grouse Lodge Studios and will be embarking on a nationwide tour to coincide with its release, including a date in The Spirit Store on October 23.

This exciting line-up sees the combination of the dazzling talents of three of the country's finest traditional musicians; button accordion master Mairtin O'Connor, fiddle player Zoe Conway and guitar and bouzouki player Donal Lunny.

They first got together for a Music Network tour and enjoyed the experience so much that they decided to record an album of tunes and songs.
Dundalk Library is looking to the past this season with a number of events that will help lift a lid on local and family history.

For Culture Night/ Oiche Chultuir Dundalk Library will run an Irish related event on September 16 at 7.30pm. Fiachra Mac Gabhann will present a bilingual talk on the 'Placenames of County Louth'. A local traditional Irish music group will also perform. This event is free and booking is recommended.

Meanwhile, the Louth 1916/2016 Centenary Programme is continuing in Louth County Libraries with a number of events planned.

On Saturday, September 17 Dundalk Library will host a family history day from 12 to 4pm. An expert researcher from Eneclann (Irish Family History Centre) will be on site for people to have one to one sessions with.

A Findmypast representative will be available to help people look online at their records. They have millions of records you won't find anywhere else, including the largest online collections of Irish records and UK parish records, and the most comprehensive archive of British military records online. The 1939 Register, available only on Findmypast, bridges the census gap that exists between 1921-1951.

There will also be a talk on 'Irish Soldiers and Rebels: Tracing WW1 and Irish Revolutionary Ancestors'. The event is free and booking is recommended.

On Thursday, September 29 at 6.30pm Constance Short will deliver a lecture on Dorothy Macardle: 'Suffragette, Socialist, Playwright, Journalist, Humanitarian A Brewer's Daughter from Roden Place'.

For more information on any events phone 042-9353190 or email: libraryhelpdesk@louthcoco.ie. Follow on Facebook: Louthcountylibraries and Twitter: @louthcoco.ie.
Sinead Bradley MLA Margaret Ritchie MP, Fergus ODowd Louth TD and Colin McGrath MLA of the SDLP meet in Louth last week to discuss the cross border implications of Brexit

Fears over the impact of Britain's exit from the EU remain a key issue on both sides of the border when political parties north and south met in Louth last week.

Louth TD Fergus O'Dowd met politicians from the north, Margaret Ritchie MP, Sinead Bradley MLA and Colin McGrath MLA of the SDLP to discuss the continuing fallout from the Brexit result and the a joint parliamentary approach .

O'Dowd highlighted 'many major issues still to be clarified in the wake of the referendum result,' adding that one of the most important issues in County Louth is the future of Cross Border EU projects such as The Peace IV and Interreg Programmes.'

'We discussed at length the impact of funding being withdrawn on cross- border local projects if Article 50 is invoked.'

The future of the Narrow Water Bridge was also raised as 'critical for the future development of Tourism and Trade in the area.'

'The meeting also looked at the importance for continued co-operation within the Chambers of Commerce on both sides of the border, the free movement of people and goods, the major agricultural impact and the immediate impact on jobs in Counties Louth and Down.'

The Louth TD said: 'Working together with our Northern Irish counterparts is essential to effectively deal with the ever growing list of practical problems arising from the UKs proposed withdrawal from the European Union.'

'A simple question that arose from the meeting was what will happen to the European Health Insurance Card and Cross Border Healthcare agreements. There are so many people reliant on the HSE and NHS agreements and we must have a plan in place to continue those agreements long into the future regardless of the Uk's status within Europe.'

Meanwhile Sinn Fein's Matt Carthy MEP this week outlined the 'far reaching consequences of Brexit, as well as the possibilities that have arisen from the referendum's outcome.'

'Political partners, civic society and popular opinion must now work together to meet the latest political challenges by designing constitutional, political and economic arrangements that better suit Ireland's needs now.

He added that the 'current economic uncertainty is already damaging trade and investment and causing currency fluctuations which impact particularly on cross-Border business and exports.'

'But all of that will be overshadowed if we were to see the imposition of tariffs and the restriction of the free movement of goods, services and people on this island.'

He added that the feared creation of 'an EU frontier, stretching from Dundalk to Derry, would be extremely damaging to the political and economic interests of this country and all our people.'

Calling for an 'all island approach' to dealing with the challenges which include 'anything that will make it more difficult for businesses to operate on a cross-border basis, or for workers to move from one county to another without additional bureaucracy in dealing with taxation or social welfare issues, or anything that makes it less likely that students from one state can make the decision to study in the other.'

'There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of other aspects that can make a border real or 'hard' in people's everyday lives.'
The run-down nuclear plant at Sellafield is a 'clear and present danger' to the people of Dundalk and the surrounding areas, a local Green Party councillor has said, after a BBC Panorama exposed a catalogue of safety concerns at 'Britain's most hazardous nuclear site', just 50 miles from Louth.

Panorama found parts of Sellafield 'regularly have too few staff to operate safely and that radioactive materials have been stored in degrading plastic bottles'.

The programme was told that parts of the facility are dangerously rundown.

Sellafield told the reporters the site in Cumbria is safe and has been improved with significant investment in recent years.

The Panorama investigation was prompted by a whistle-blower - a former senior manager who was worried by conditions.

He explained that his biggest fear was a fire in one of the nuclear waste silos or one of the processing plants and said: 'If there is a fire there it could generate a plume of radiological waste that will go across Western Europe'.

The programme, aired on Monday night, renewed calls from politicians, including Green Party councillor Mark Dearey and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, for the Irish government to press their British counterparts to ensure the safety of the controversial plant, which is near the end of its life.

And Cllr Dearey, who was one of a number of Irish people who took a case against the British government over the Sellafield plant in the 2000s, says multiple changes in management at the site, which operates under a subsidiary of the British government, are to blame for the 'serious under-staffing in critical areas'.

Cllr Dearey said there are 100 tonnes of waste plutonium on the site, enough to make 22,000 nuclear warheads and there is 'a hundred years of safety management ahead, at the cost of 1.6bn a year'.

Mr Adams called on the government to 'demand the complete closure of the Cumbria Sellafield nuclear plant' and added that Louth 'is in the front line of any threat posed by Sellafield'.

The issues raised in the Panorama programme are just among a large number that have been exposed over the years, Cllr. Dearey said. He said: 'It has been underfunded for years and there has been under-staffing in critical activities on the site. There have been many changes in management at Sellafield over the past number of years, but it still a subsidiary of the British government.

'The nuclear storage tanks, in particular, represent a hazardous and unmanageable risk, according to Ian Fairlies, who today released his latest report on Sellafield. In it, he reiterates that one official view concluded that, at worst, an explosive release from the tanks could kill two million Britons and require the evacuation of an area reaching from Glasgow to Liverpool. If the wind is blowing in the other direction, that's Ireland, Dundalk right in the path of it.

'Our government needs to take this seriously and listen to this whistle-blower'.
An image from war-torn South Sudan, where Concern runs a huge camp with the UN

Word-war judges are needed in County Louth for 'the intellectual equivalent of the X Factor' - a national debating contest run by Concern Worldwide.

Ireland's largest humanitarian aid agency is recruiting volunteers to join their panel of adjudicators for Concern Debates, the country's biggest secondary schools debating contest.

In the All-Ireland competition, teenage debating teams go head-to-head on highly relevant and topical arguments such as the war in Syria, Brexit, climate change and refugees.

Each year around 150 schools take part in the war of words with the final held in The Helix in Dublin.

The winning team is taken to one of Concern's projects overseas, such as drought-hit Malawi.

Concern's Schools and Youth Programme Administrator, Geraldine Carroll, said: 'Concern Debates is no X Factor, but it is just as competitive with incredible teams of students debating the serious issues of today.

'And like any contest done in front of an audience, they all gain incredible levels of self-confidence and skills such as public speaking. We are looking for people from all walks of life in Louth to volunteer as adjudicators for these debates'.

Concern said its adjudicators should ideally be good listeners who are able to see both sides of an argument and who can keep an open mind - while also having an interest in development and human rights issues.

The aid agency trains all its new volunteer judges in September and October before competition begins.

Anyone who wants to volunteer and join Concern's panel of debates judges can contact Concern's Schools and Youth Programme Administrator Geraldine Carroll at 01 417 7733 or by email debates@concern.net.
New data from the Department of Social Protection shows that the number of young people in Louth in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance or Benefit is 1741.

This number is still far too high and investment to tackle the continued high level of youth unemployment are needed. Those are the messages from James Doorley, deputy director at the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), which represents youth organisations working with over 380,000 young people nationwide.

As part of its pre-budget submission published recently, the NYCI is calling for an investment of 30m in a renewed Youth Guarantee scheme and asking Government to incentivise education, training and work experience for young people by reversing the cuts in payments to young people on these schemes.

Mr Doorley said: "While youth unemployment has declined from the crisis levels of the 2009 to 2013 period, in Louth alone there are 1741 young people in receipt of Jobseekers payments. We need action now to support these young people on the path to employment'.
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A family-run company is celebrating six decades in business. Acme Blinds, manufactured all domestic and commercial blinds has its main headquarters in Cork but has a nationwide network of retail outlets, of which one of their shops is based in Mallow.

The company was founded by William Walsh in 1956 and has grown from its humble beginnings in Cork city centre to its current 50,000 ft premises on the Old Mallow Road employing over 50 people. The family run business which has been passed down from generation to generation is now headed by Williams's son Nick Walsh.

Managing Director Nick Walsh said: "We are delighted to be celebrating 60 years in business this year. Acme Blinds has been a family run business since the beginning and we all put our heart and soul into making it a success."

He said: "I think it's the personal touch and real care we have for our products and customers that makes us different. We have very helpful and experienced staff members who will go above and beyond for each customer to make sure their needs and wants are met and that's why I think we have not only survived for so long but achieved major success and growth even in the toughest of times."
Former Minister for State Martin Mansergh will deliver the graveside oration at the annual General Liam Lynch National Commemoration in Fermoy next Sunday

The memory of one of Ireland's most respected and revered patriots will be recalled at the annual General Liam Lynch National Commemoration in Fermoy's Kilcrumper Cemetery, Fermoy this coming Sunday. This year's oration will be delivered by noted historian, former Fianna Fail politician and government advisor Dr Martin Mansergh.

Dr Mansergh enjoyed a long and successful career in politics, initially serving in the Department of Foreign Affairs during the 1970's. He subsequently started working with Fianna Fail, serving three party leaders as Director of Research and Policy and Special Advisor on Northern Ireland, playing an important role in the peace process.

Appointed to the Senate in 2002 by the Agricultural Panel, Dr Mansergh was elected to Dail Eireann in the Tipperary South constituency in 2007 going on to serve as a Junior Minister with responsibility for the OPW and Arts. A former member of the Irish Council of State, Dr Mansergh lost his Dail seat at the 2011 general election.

He will join a long list of high-profile figures to have addressed the event over the years including former Taoisigh Jack lynch, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowan, civil rights campaigner Fr Joe McVeigh, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and former senator Eoghan Harris.

Cllr Frank O'Flynn of the Liam Lynch National Commemoration Committee said he was delighted that Dr Mansergh had accepted the invitation to deliver this year's graveside oration. "He is a noted authority on Irish history, a respected politician and a man whose diplomatic skills were instrumental in progressing the peace process in Northern Ireland," said Cllr O'Flynn. "He is an accomplished public speaker with an ability to draw from the lessons of the past giving them a new relevance to contemporary Irish society.

"He also has strong connections to the region through his service as a TD for Tipperary South," he added.

Proceedings will get underway at 10.30am with mass at St Patrick's Church in Fermoy after which a parade will assemble at the Queen of Peace Church before marching to Kilcrumper. Wreaths will then be laid at the Republican plot, the final resting place of Liam Lynch and other Republican figures including Comt Mick Fitzgerald, prior to Dr Mansergh delivering his oration at 12.30pm.

Cllr O'Flynn said the passing years had not diminished the memory of General Lynch and the sacrifices he and others made for Ireland.

"While it may be more than 90 years since his death, the legacy of Liam Lynch and the sacrifice he and other patriots made for their country is as relevant today as it was almost a century ago," he said.
You will remember Macroom Enterprise Town last November when 150 exhibitors showcased their businesses and clubs to almost 2,000 visitors from Macroom and surrounding areas.

The two day event was a resounding success. Bank of Ireland are delighted to announce that Enterprise Town will re-visit Macroom for one evening only on Friday, October 14.

To launch Enterprise Town and to accept Exhibitor registrations, they will hold a community meeting in the Castle Hotel at 6pm, this evening, Thursday, September 8.

As space in the Community Centre is limited they can accommodate only 100 exhibitors this year so to be sure of your space at this popular community event, please gather at the Castle Hotel this evening to register for your space.

Don't be disappointed, the first 100 registrations will be sure of a space so come and book your place at the launch.
The IBAL judges praised Pearse Square saying: "Grade A. The individual shops were well presented and the square was greatly enhanced by the substantial planting and lovely 'olde' style street lamps. It was a very clean and tidy environment"

A fine effort - but could do better. That was the subtext of this week's Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) report for Fermoy, which saw the town slip one place on the final standing on their litter league for last year to joint 15th place.

Perhaps just as disappointing was the fact that the town also missed out on regaining its coveted 'Cleaner Than European Norms' designation - despite what was for the most part a glowing judges report.

Speaking to "Fermoy's standing is disappointing given the tremendous amount of work that has been done by us and other bodies over recent years," said Cllr McCarthy. "We honestly believed that would be enough to get us back into the top 10. However, it just goes to show how fierce the competition is.

"Other towns have managed to raise their game, Fermoy must now do the same," he added. Cllr McCarthy said that while there were many positives to be taken from the judges' report, it was clearly evident that more work needed to be done in specific areas. "The fact that Pearse Square - one of the busiest areas of the town in terms of footfall - achieved the top grade shows what can be achieved," he said.

"However, the report has highlighted areas that need to be addressed. We will take stock of the report over the coming days and set out a strategy to address these sites.

Of particular concern were the Aldi site and the N8 Cork-Fermoy Link Road, both of which only achieved B grades - with the presence of litter raising the concerns of IBAL judges.

"It would be easy to blame Aldi for this, but that would be somewhat missing the point. The responsibility for this must lie with people using the site, it is simply not fair for them to expect other people to clean up after them," said Cllr McCarthy.

"The report highlighted the problem of litter along the road. Again, this is a problem that could be easily resolved if some people acted a bit more responsibly," he added.

Cllr McCarthy said it was clear from the IBAL report that while many people were making the effort to keep the town clean, "some were not", "If we all work together on this I see no reason why we could not get back into the top ten and even top the league as we have done in the past," he added.

"A resident in Sean O'Brien Park spoke of the great pride in all the activity taking place in Fermoy with regards to litter and the general built environment. An example of this can be seen at Clancy Street playground, winner of 'Best Municipal Project'. Another very well presented and maintained site was Pearse Square, and the approach roads were in a clean state."

Clancy Street Playground - Grade A:

"This was an excellent site. The area was surrounded by railings painted the colours of the rainbow; playground equipment was in very good order; seating was brightly painted and the grass was neatly cut."

Library Car Park - Grade A:

"This car park was very clean and tidy and the recycle facility within was spotless. Car park surface, markings and signage were all in good order."

Connolly Street - Grade B:

"Some colourful flowering at either end of this street (a mix of commercial and residential properties) adds a splash of colour to what is otherwise quite a grey landscape. There is very much an air of lack of care to some of the properties with some of them needing attention."

O'Neill - Crowley Quay - Grade B:

"This was a very mixed site. The quayside was in excellent order - lovely paving, seating, ornamental trees etc. The other side of the street wasn't in quite the same condition and it was this side of the street which harboured fast-food wrappers, sweet papers and cans."

Aldi - Grade B:

"The presentation of this site was excellent with attractive paving, road surface and planting throughout. However, some wrapping in the planted area and general litter in the car park took away from the overall appearance. It is not the first time in the IBAL Litter survey that this Aldi store has been littered."

M8 - N8 Cork to Fermoy Link Road - Grade B:

"A well presented route with the roadside well maintained and grass in good order. Let down by a variety of food related litter, especially close to junction with R614.
The state pension system needs to be reformed to ensure those who take time out to raise children or elderly relatives are not then denied access to a full pension.

That's the view of Cork North West TD Aindrias Moynihan (FF), who said the government must ensure that those people are not "unfairly disadvantaged" when it comes to retirement.

"A number of people have made contact with me to highlight concerns that they have regarding access to the full state pension. These people took time out of the workforce to care for their family members, and as a consequence of this they do not have enough contributions to qualify for the full state pension," said Deputy Moynihan. He said it was important to recognise that these people are actually doing the state an important service.

"It is imperative that we value and recognise the contribution that carers make to our society. We must put in place mechanisms that will ensure they do not financially suffer in later years because of their previous caring responsibilities.

"The issue of pensions and adequate financial resources in retirement can no longer be ignored. It is just not good enough for the Government to just talk about equality and fairness. They must put into practice what they preach."
Cork East Fianna Fail TD, Kevin O'Keeffe is calling for the Minister for Education and the ASTI to come together and reach an agreement to avoid the closure of Cork schools as a result of planned industrial action.

"The decision at the weekend by the ASTI to vote in favour of industrial action is deeply worrying. There are thousands of students in Cork starting off the school term, planning for their Junior and Leaving Cert exams next June, who can't afford their studies to be disrupted," said the Fianna Fail TD.

"The Minister, his officials, and the union, need to get around the table, and find a solution."

"It is clear that in principle an agreement effectively exists on the restoration of allowances for newly qualified teachers, and that ongoing negotiations are largely technical details that must be resolved.

"Dragging these talks to this stage has contributed severely to last weekend's ASTI announcement."

"However, the Minister needs to come out publicly and confirm that an agreement exists in principle for the restoration of allowances to newly qualified teachers. It would have provided reassurance to young and new teachers that the government is committed to pay equity," added O'Keeffe.

"Any ASTI action is not likely to be supported by parents or the general public and would cause unnecessary disruption to students. Meaningful talks are the only way to progress these issues.

"It's clear that Minister Bruton is going to be a hands-off Minister. Pupils, their parents and teachers can't afford a Minister who isn't proactively looking to find ways of keeping schools open."

"We need our schools in Cork open, and we want our teachers to be treated with fairness," concluded O'Keeffe.
Linn Duachaill Restaurant (The Glyde Inn), Annagassan, will host its fifth annual Taste of Togher Food Festival (www.tasteoftogher. com) on Saturday 24th September from 12pm.

Admission is free and there is a wide range of local products and produce to try, from cheese and honey to jam, cupcakes and more. Locally produced drinks to sample include cider, beer and poitin! Tara Walker of The East Coast Cookery School will stage cookery demonstrations and kids cookery workshops throughout the day.

The Chowder of The Year competition will be hotly contested by some of the Northeast's best restaurants.
#Walk4Families is a national 5K Fundraising Walk, which will take place on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September in various counties all over Ireland.

The fundraising initiative aims to raise vital funds for a new Ronald McDonald House that will accommodate 53 families alongside the New National Children's Hospital when it opens on the grounds of St James's Hospital in 2020.

To participate in a walk near you please register now: https://www.iregister.ie/v2/events/walk4families/ Registration is only 20 per family. If you would like to organise a walk in your county please contact Joe Kenny 014560435 / joe.kenny@rmhc.ie .

The Louth walk is at Naomh Fionnbharra GAA Club, Ballygassan (Start Time:12pm) on 11th September.
'It was a very special moment in my life.' These are the words of former mayor of Drogheda Cllr Frank Godfrey who this week spoke about his meeting with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was canonised last Sunday.

'She was an extraordinary woman who did so much for the poor,' he stated.

He met Mother Teresa on three occasions, in Dublin, London and in Calcutta, now Kolkata.

He spent a month working with her at her sanctuary in India.

He also met her in London with fellow Drogheda man Michael Clarke some years ago.

'Mother Teresa did so much for people and it was great to meet her.'

He descibed her as a 'living saint' back then and said she was very humble.

Indeed, he had arranged for her to visit Drogheda in the 1990s when she was staying in Dublin but illness prevented her from travelling.

'She was an extraordinary woman and it's great to look back on those days now.'

Mother Teresa was proclaimed a saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican.

Francis said St Teresa had defended the unborn, sick and abandoned, and had shamed world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created".

Tens of thousands of pilgrims attended the canonisation in St Peter's Square.
The centuries-old bells of St Peter's Church of Ireland are ringing loud again, thanks to the efforts of a group of dedicated bell ringers.

Balbriggan man David Taylor undertook the task of resurrecting the art of bell ringing at the church about 18 months ago and since then the bells have chimed and charmed at regular intervals.

His new team of ringers in Drogheda, many of whom are new to bell ringing, number about twelve, ranging in ages from 12 to 70. On the occasion of the new Rector's (Rev Iain Jamieson) institution last week, bell ringers from St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin assisted the new band of local ringers.

David is also President of the Irish Association of Change Ringers and is delighted with the reaction the bell ringing is getting.

The bells in Peter Street are the only ringing bells in the Archdiocese of Armagh and were installed in St. Peter's as far back as 1791. Except for a few periods of years, the bells in Peter Street have been rung by teams of ringers for most of that period. The team practice in Drogheda on Wednesdays from 6-7 p.m and new members are always welcome. They should contact Helen in the parish office for more details.

The ringers cross the faiths - and all take part for the love of the art.

'It can be a skilled art and I'd always try and get the ringers to perform automatically,' David states.

While many churches have have gone 'automatic' in terms of bell ringing, that's something David does not entertain.

'It might be technically interesting, but you can't beat the real thing,' he states. The bell ringers often visit other churches to perform, although the nearest bells to St Peter's are in Dublin.

Their big event last Thursday marked the beginning for St Peter's Church of Ireland of a new era, with the institution of new rector, Rev Iain Jamieson.

Formally based in Belfast, Rev Jamieson will be rector of the Ardee, Drogheda and Kilsaran unions of the Church of Ireland.

A number of people from Belfast travelled to wish him well, including members of the parish Church of St. George. The church rector, Brian Stewart, preached the sermon.

He replaces the Rev Graham who was a most popular figure in town.
A formal public consultation process is to commence in a bid to finally close St Laurence's Gate to traffic.

The main issue in respect of the closure is traffic flow, councillors were told at Monday night's council meeting at Barlow House.

It's believed the best option to divert traffic away from the gate will be to reverse the traffic flow on Francis Street and alllow vehicles to drive up Constitution Hill and on up to Scarlet Street or to use the Chord Road.

Engineer Pat Finn outlined the previous consultation process from 2011, stating that some of the proposals then included traffic flow on Shop Street being reversed, Dyer Street going two-way and traffic lights at the Tholsel.

A further option, not included then, is to reverse the flow up Francis Street. 'We could consider that as part of the public consultation,' he added.

The likes of the Laurence Shopping Centre access on Palace Street was also something that had to be considered.

'Any option will impact on others,' he explained.

Cllr Kevin Callan said he was delighted to hear from Mr Finn that the OPW, who are responsible for the gate, would be ooen to guided tours of the structure if traffic was diverted.

The issues that are presently obvious, including speeding on Scarlet Street, would also need to be resolved Cllr Pio Smith added, while Frank Godfrey said everyone wants it closed, but thousands of cars go under it on a daily basis and the main stakeholders in the area need to be consulted. 'People will be up in arms either way', he warned.

Sinn Fein will be backing the closure, Cllr Alan Cassidy confirmed, before suggesting that part of the King Street college grounds be secured to make Jim Garry Way two-way.

Cllr Tommy Byrne brought up the issue of what the project would cost, claiming it would run into the millions.

'This needs a proper plan. Everybody needs to be brought on board.'

Members of the Close the Gate committee attended on the night and expressed satisfaction with the outcome, feeling it will now be down to the people to decide on the gate's future.

The public will have a unique chance to sample life with the gate closed on September 16 during Culture Night.

Laurence's Street will close to traffic, as well as under the gate, from 7 to 8.30pm. Drogheda Brass Band and St Peter's Male Voice choir will perform for what should be a festival 90 minutes.
Living with Cancer is a event taking place at City North Hotel on September 17th. This is the third year of the gathering and this week, Prof Bryan Hennessy explains what makes the day so special.

What is the event about?

The day is essentially split into two parts - morning and afternoon. The morning is dedicated to Doctors and other medical professionals from across the Northeast. It is focused on latest developments, and discussions with our colleagues in primary and community care regarding various aspects of cancer care management. This year we will be welcoming leading Irish experts in the area in colorectal cancer known more commonly as bowel cancer.

In the afternoon we welcome people and their family and friends who have been affected by cancer. People also come along who may not have been directly impacted but wish to learn and know more about cancer.

It is very much an open forum where people can hear from some of the leading cancer specialists in Ireland about what are the latest developments in the different cancer areas and about new treatment available or emerging. We have people coming from not only across the northeast and Dublin but also other parts of the country.

One major benefit we realized is that at times people feel more comfortable asking a range of questions that they might not necessarily ask in the clinical environment.

It also for NECRET serves to raise awareness of what the charity is about which is raising funds used to keep cancer treatments at the cutting edge by funding activities that will improve the treatment and outcomes of people with cancer from across the Northeast including counties Cavan, Louth, Meath, Monaghan and North County Dublin.

Are there any other speakers attending?

Yes. Each year we invite well known people in the public eye who have themselves experienced cancer or have had a close relative suffer with cancer. We are delighted to have two wonderful speakers in former Rose of Tralee Elysha Brennan and RTE broadcaster Aine Lawlor join us as our special guests.

We will also be joined at the event by representatives of the Irish Cancer Society and other cancer support groups such as ARC, Cara and Gary Kelly Centre.

What are the aims of the Northeast Cancer Research and Education Trust (NECRET) ?

Our primary focus as a charity is to progress cancer research, and provides support in terms of education for our health care team delivering frontline care and also to support our clients and their families thus optimising their quality of life.

In tandem, another very important focus is education and general cancer awareness to the public be it through our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/oncologydrogheda/ or through our articles in the Drogheda Independent, an example being awareness of skin cancer and how to take precautions in the sun and being aware of possible early symptoms. Within this approach we intend to do more in terms of lifestyle education which is important in terms of reducing cancer occurrence.

Tell us about your background, where you studied and trained, anyone who inspired you during your studies?

I am originally from in Tramore, Co. Waterford where I went to UCD Medical School and then on to St. Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. I then moved to one of the leading cancer centres in the world, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, where I had the opportunity and honour to work with and be guided by a world expert in cancer research, Professor Gordon Mills, who is the Head of Molecular Therapeutics at the Centre.

Was there any particular motivation that lead you to specialize in cancer care?

As I was finishing medical school in UCD which is sixteen years ago now, my own father was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and very sadly passed away. This needless to say would have played a major impact in my pathway in medicine.

This form of cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Ireland with about 2,400 cases each year and it is the second most fatal cancer. As with most forms of cancer, bowel cancer is much more curable when it is picked up early and therefore the National Screening Service has introduced a bowel screen, the National Bowel Screening Programme which has been very important.

Our own charity, NECRET, has also funded successful research into bowel cancer and this research has been recognized by receiving an award from the prestigious American Society of Clinical Oncology.
A Gorey family has sent a sincere thank you to all those in the local area who showed such kindness to two children from Belarus who stayed with them for a month this summer.

Samantha and Sean Rath hosted 15-year-old Luibou and 12-year-old Maryia. They have lived in the Vesnova Orphanage all their lives.

When Samantha and Sean decided to something worthwhile and different for the summer, they set up a charity page. 'We got so much support from family and friends,' she said. 'We started to collect items for a nappy appeal first, and then we got involved with Chernobyl Children International's rest and recuperation programme with the Kilkenny Outreach Group. They are a fantastic group of people.'

She complimented the CCI's organiser Jim Kavanagh, and Rita and Carmel, who work tirelessly for the cause. In late July, Samantha went to Kilkenny to collect two very tired, scared -looking, malnourished children who had just arrived.

'They stayed with their carer Volha and my family for the month in my home here in Gorey,' said Samantha. 'They quickly settled into our lifestyle'.

She sent a special thank you to the businesses in Gorey that showed support, including: Dr Peter Harrington in The Palms Surgery who did a health check; dentist Jane Montague Peters of Gorey Dental who provided a dental check; Bailey's Toymaster which donated vouchers; the Art Box gallery for two mugs; Kool Kidz and Funges for their donations of stylish clothes and shoes; Primmy's Tearoom for treating the girls to cakes; and Boots pharmacy and Grants chemist for hampers full of vitamins and treats for the girls' stay.

'Both girls have only ever lived in Vesnova Orphanage so we had many firsts on their Irish holiday,' said Samantha, recalling their faces when in a supermarket for the first time, dipping their feet into the sea, and horse riding with Sandra McGuire in Ballycanew.

'I just want to thank everybody who helped give two beautiful Belarussian girls happy lifetime memories of their first holiday outside Belarus,' she said. 'They will always have a place in our hearts.'
Joe Keane has applied for outline planning permission on a narrow strip of land behind the new Irish Caravan and Camping Club campground which sits on part of the old Sands Hotel site

Joe Keane has applied for outline planning permission on a narrow strip of land behind the new Irish Caravan and Camping Club campground which sits on part of the old Sands Hotel site

An application for outline planning permission has been lodged with Wexford County Council to build three houses on land at the rear of the site once occupied by the Sands Hotel in Courtown.

Joe Keane is hoping to build three houses on a narrow strip of land behind a new campsite at Ballinatray Lower. The development would be accessed by a new site entrance opening onto the roadway at Oak Grove housing development.

The main section of the field, which fronts onto the main road, was sold at an Allsop distressed auction for 45,000 in December 2012.

The Irish Caravan and Camping Club later applied for and was granted permission for a club caravan and camping site for use by its members. Its plan is to build a club house with a communal room, toilets, showers, a kitchen, and a games and activity room. The site opened earlier this year but construction has yet to start on the clubhouse. Boundary walls, gates and fencing and a new entrance have been put in place.

The final granting of permission for the caravan and camp site came in October 2014 after an appeal by the former owner of the field, Joe Keane, was rejected by An Bord Pleanala because the appropriate fee had not been paid.

In a letter to Wexford County Council in September 2014, notifying the Council of his intention to appeal the granting of permission, Mr Keane said he intended to argue that insufficient information had been provided as regards ownership of the site.

He said that the site was the subject of a repossession order, but he could provide documentation which showed that a section of the land, a narrow strip to the rear, was not part of the repossession order. The appeal was deemed invalid because it wasn't accompanied by the appropriate fee. However, a strip of land behind the campsite is now subject to the application by Mr Keane.

The Sands Hotel was demolished in 2005 after it fell into disrepair. The same year, Mr Keane was refused permission for 42 apartments and 16 houses on the site.
Events have been organised to commemorate The Ullswater, a 247 tonne brig which was wrecked off Ballymoney on January 11, 1868, as part of a visit to the area of a descendant of one of the crewmen who lost his life in the tragedy.

The Ullswater with eleven men on board was sailing from Liverpool to Rio de Janeiro with a general cargo when she hit the Salt Rock off Ballymoney. She was a total loss, and ten men lost their lives.

Last year, Wexford County Council was contacted by Ken McQuhae whose great-grandfather, mate James Duff, was lost with the Ullswater.

Mr McQuhae, (74), who lives in the US, asked if he could visit Ballymoney and Salt Rock to lay a wreath, and if possible, erect a plaque listing the names of those lost. He said that this would be the only reminder of them as there were no bodies to send home for burial in a marked grave.

Wexford County Council worked with him to realise his wishes and a bronze plaque provided by Mr McQuhae has been erected at Ballymoney, the closest public location to the wreck.

As part of the commemoration, all are invited to a reception and evening with author Dermot Bolger will be held at 7.30 p.m. in Gorey Civic Offices on Monday, September 12. Dermot, author of 'The Lonely Sea and Sky' will give a talk on 'The Ullswater Memorial and Seafaring Tales'.

The unveiling of the memorial takes place at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, September 13. Those interested in attending are invited to meet at The Orphan Girl at 2.30 p.m.

After the unveiling, refreshments will be served in The Orphan Girl accompanied by sea shanties.

Dermot Bolger will also talk about his book, 'The Lonely Sea and Sky', published this summer. It tells the story of the courage of Wexford seafarers in 1943 who rescued 168 drowning German sailors in the Bay of Biscay while they were on a wartime voyage to Lisbon.
With thanks to a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, director Patrick O'Shea's account of the life and times of renowned Killarney-based artist Tighe O'Donoghue Ross is about to enter its post-production phase.

'Why is There Anything Instead of Nothing?' is the first feature-length documentary from Southernman films, and charts the Irish-American's journey from the hectic streets of New York to a quiet home overlooking Lough Guitane.

Patrick (inset) has forged close ties with the artist, and the production process was one that he revelled in: "Tighe's daughter, D'Ana, is my sister in law, and when she started going out with my brother she mentioned that her father was an artist.

"We delved a little deeper, and found his intriguing background. He'd been remarkably successful while living in New York, and couldn't produce enough work to match demand."

Since moving to Glenflesk with his family in 1986, some of his work could rightly be described as iconic.

The awesome 'An Capall Mor' that overlooks the N22 in Clonkeen is as impactful now as when it first appeared. Tighe is also responsible for a 16-foot statue of Saint Brendan in Fenit, and the 'Dawn and Dusk' themed stain glass windows in St Mary's Cathedral, Killarney.

To say Tighe has strong links with Ireland would be the height of understatement.

He is descended from the chiefs of Loch Lein, and his ancestors built Ross Castle, before they were exiled to the Burren in County Clare, and this connection was what pulled him towards Ireland, Tighe explains:

"They lost the castle because we were traitors to the English crown. More met the same fate, more or less, unless they chose to conform to the English politically, philosophically, and religiously."

Those roots have influenced his work, and Kerry has been a conducive environment for his independent approach to art. He now freely explores across all mediums, without interference from the commercial world.

"With Ireland free in the 20th century, I had an opportunity to leave behind my mark on the Kerry landscapes with examples of my work in celebration of my forefathers. Coming with my family about 30 years ago from New York City was a major change, but in truth you can become tired with anything and look for a change, and that's what happened to me" Tighe says.

Tighe has revelled in Kerry's surrounds, and his experience here far outstrips what he felt in New York.

"Living here in the still wild Mountains of Killarney has put me in touch psychologically with my grandfathers."

"New York was like a dream of success, but nothing compared to the association that I now have with my ancestors, those ghosts who haunt my mind. They were once at the top of the tree and then they suffered all the pangs of Hell", he said.

The documentary's online fundraising campaign reached its target last week, and Patrick can now apply a gloss he feels the work deserves, before moving on to post-production.

"I was surprised at how generous people were, but I'm glad, because there's a few things I want to include just to perfect it. For instance, I'm planning to take some drone shots over 'An Capall Mor', which should be effective. But the bulk of the work has been done over these last two years."

"I've had countless interviews with Tighe, and he's always fascinated with his great stories and superb art. I've thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience."

With work almost complete, Patrick is hoping 'Why is There Anything Instead of Nothing' will premiere in Killarney in January.
The man who penned the chart-topping hymn You Raise Me Up as well as our last two Eurovision winning entries, Rock 'n' Roll Kids and The Voice is on his way to Kerry to meet fans of a different aspect of his creativity.

Mayo man Brendan Graham is on his way to help A Novel Bunch - the Kilmoyley Book Club started by Mary Brick in 2006 - get an even finer understanding of their current reading list: Brendan's epic Famine/US Civil War trilogy of novels The Whitest Flower.

Just republished by Harper Collins, it's a sprawling tale - at 1,400 pages - of the life of Famine survivor Ellen Rua O'Malley and it's been keeping the bookworms of Kilmoyley rapt with weeks and months. Brendan can't wait to meet the gang on his Friday, September 23 visit, and to return to the county where he spent part of his childhood during the 1950s (in Castleisland where he knew the great Con Houlihan).
Last week the first school uniforms began to appear on our footpaths. For that first day or so they were a novelty. And now it's back to normal and the young people are heading to and from school as if there had been no long holidays.

For the first-timers it was and probably still is all excitement but for the regulars, one is reminded of the lines from the seven stages of man in Shakespeare's 'As You Like it': 'Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel/And shining morning face, creeping like snail/Unwillingly to school'

Modern technology has given us the possibility of learning so much from our own homes. Computer science has landed learning possibilities on our doorstep. But I can imagine the same computers must be the bane of so many doctors with patients calling to their GPs and telling them what's wrong with them. Everything has its drawbacks. Learning is a lifelong process. Albert Einstein said that intellectual growth ends only at death. The more we learn the more we realise how little we know.

In early August I was asked by The Priory Institute in Tallaght to give them some help in advertising the courses they have on offer. They felt that with my background in journalism I could point them in the right direction. I ended up writing small pieces for regional newspapers on the courses that the institute offers. In order to do that I contacted people who were either currently doing courses at The Priory Institute or had completed studies there.

Without exception every person with whom I spoke was genuinely delighted they had done the course. I spoke to a large cross section of people, young and not-so-young. One man I phoned explained how studying theology had given him a great insight to his faith. Someone else said about the course: 'There are times when I lift my head from the books and think, 'Why, when I was growing up, did no one ever tell me about this beautiful religion of ours''. A woman from West Kerry said: 'Weary of the shallows? Take the plunge and discover the treasure called theology.'

There is so much talk, dispute, controversy, scraps and disagreements about issues concerning religion and faith in Ireland that I often wonder what exactly do we know about our religion or about faith in God. What do we know about worldwide religions and their history? I'm inclined to think very little.

Theology is an exciting discipline. It is about exploring the mystery of God and God's interaction with us. Christian theology focuses on Jesus, 2,000 years of history and scholarship. It looks at how we try to speak about God. Ireland was known as a 'Catholic country'. That is changing at breathtaking speed. But the Ireland that is disappearing was never renowned for its theological expertise. Has there been an overemphasis on pious aspects of our faith, bordering on superstition?

The Priory Institute is affiliated to the Institute of Technology Tallaght and offers a wide range of courses, including degrees, diplomas and certificates. What makes The Priory Institute special is that learning is done from home, interspersed with study days and tutorials with support from a dedicated coordinator. For further information log on to www.prioryinstitute.com; email, enquiries@prioryinstitute.com; phone 01-4048124.
The death has taken place of Patrick Melia, husband of renowned Kerry-based artist, Pauline Bewick. Patrick, a retired psychiatrist, died peacefully this week at his home in Treanmanagh, Glenbeigh, surrounded by his loving family.

Patrick met Pauline when they were studying in Dublin in the early 1960s, marrying in 1963. Although the couple lived in Dublin for many years, they were very keen to return to Kerry to raise their two daughters, Poppy and Holly.

Pat turned 85 this year and had been suffering with Alzheimers for many years. Patrick's remains reposed at his home on Monday evening and he was cremated on Tuesday.
Dairymaster has scotched suggestions it is in a period of contraction following a court case in which a solicitor explained his client had been recently left go from the Causeway firm along with 29 others.

Far from contracting, the firm now employs a massive 370 at its plant in North Kerry - almost twice the number employed there just five years ago.

A handful of positions at the firm did come to an end last week, comprising 12 summer placement and tempoary contracts, however.

Solicitor Pat Mann informed Listowel District Court on Thursday that the firm was experiencing a downturn.

His comments came as he represented Matthew McCrohan, Apartment E2, Edward Court, Tralee, on a charge of possessing a controlled drug unlawfully.

Mr McCrohan pleaded guilty to the charge before Judge James O'Connor, who was informed by gardai that officers found 50-worth of cannabis herb behind a seat in a BMW apparently abandoned in Kiltomey, Lixnaw. The search was carried out on February 17 of last year and gardai established the car belonged to Mr McCrohan, who, they said 'made a full admission' when he was interviewed in relation to the matter.

Mr Mann explained his 18-year-old client had been working with Dairymaster until recently: "30 employees were left go at Dairymaster last week...because it has become so quiet on the dairy front."

Dairymaster said far from slashing full-time jobs at a 'quiet' period for the dairy industry, the firm had seen just 12 positions comprising student placements, seasonal work and temporary contracts wind up recently.

Contacted by The Kerryman, Dairymaster CEO Dr Edmond Harty said the firm has, in fact, never enjoyed such rude health as it currently does.

"As our profile grows so does our business, with major contracts in France and as far away as in Iran and even China won in recent weeks against intense international competition."

Mr McCrohan is to escape a conviction on payment of 250.
A young agricultural student who inadvertently chose the one tractor on the farm for which he was not insured in rushing to a calving emergency is to escape a conviction when his case comes before Listowel District Court again.

Eamonn O'Flaherty of Tubbertureen, Moyvane, was stopped by gardai in the tractor on February 20 of last year, while rushing to the aid of the calving heifer on the family farm. His case - of driving without insurance - came before Judge James O'Connor at Listowel District Court on Thursday.

Solicitor Pat Enright explained that his client, who is currently working in New Zealand on placement from his agricultural science course at UCD, was pleading guilty to the offence. Mr Enright explained that Mr O'Flaherty's parents were away from the farm and he was called into action. However, he inadvertently chose the one tractor of the three on the family farm on which he was not insured.

Gardai informed the court they accepted that Mr O'Flaherty was in the midst of an emergency at the time of the offence. Judge O'Connor indicated the State would withdraw the summons on the return date.
It's no surprise to those of us already in the know that Kenmare is a beautiful place. But now - thanks to an article in The Washington Post - Kenmare is that bit more popular stateside.

Kenmare was recently the focus of a glowing tribute in the famous US newspaper in which the writer conveys the beauty, warmth and ancient history of the area in spectacular fashion; so much so that it continues to resonate far beyond the tranquil waters of Kenmare bay.

Anne Calcagno is a freelance writer based in Chicago and she recently visited Kenmare to celebrate her 30th wedding anniversary in the company of friends living in the town. Ann's descriptions of Kenmare could not be any more captivating had she lived here her entire life and the article is so far going down a treat with Kenmare folk, especially on social media. Among the many descriptions include Kenmare's colour and character.

"Downtown Kenmare has a color palette straight out of a child's coloring box, overseen by the copper-covered spire of Holy Cross Church. Like an efficient and compact primer, Kenmare provides a bite-size view into Ireland's long history; its walking-distance attractions range from ancient Celtic to contemporary Irish."

Calcagno manages to construct a brief overview of Kenmare from the Bronze Age, to Cromwell, to the reign of Queen Victoria, capturing the market feel to the town as a place where "original artisanship continues to distinguish Kenmare" and is a "haven for shops offering cutting-edge crafts."

Kenmare's scenery wasn't lost on the writer either and with just a stroke of a pen, Calcagno was able to capture centuries of Kenmare's farming tradition and its alternating landscapes.

"As we approach Kenmare, five hours southwest of Dublin, hills smooth as brushed velvet are dotted with sidestepping cows. We catch sight of ewes and bleating lambs, their fleeces dabbed with blue, red or orange dye, indicating their owners. We're in the land of wool and dairy. We're also skirting the Atlantic Ocean. Road signs with a cheery turquoise wave point to Wild Atlantic Way".
The National Youth Council of Ireland is calling for the Government to take action and address the high numbers of young people on the dole.

New data from the Department of Social Protection shows that the number of young people - aged under 25 - in Kerry in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance or Benefit is 1202.

As part of its pre-budget submission the NYCI is calling for an investment of 30m in a renewed Youth Guarantee scheme and it is asking Government to incentivise education, training and work experience for young people by reversing the cuts in payments to young people on these schemes.

"While youth unemployment has declined from the crisis levels of the 2009 to 2013 period, the most recent figures indicate that we have almost 40,000 young people on the live register - of whom 16,000 have been on the register for one year or more," said NYCI Deputy Director James Doorley.

"In Kerry alone there are 1202 young people in receipt of Jobseekers payments. We need action now to support these young people on the path to employment," Mr Doorley said.

The training allowance for young people participating on VTOS, Youthreach, Community Training Centre Programmes and other SOLAS training has been reduced from 188 per week to 160 per week.

From January 2014, the payment to those participating on the Back to Education Allowance Programme has been cut to 160 per week.

JobBridge interns who were on 100 prior to participation receive 152.50 per week while working between 35 to 40 hours a week.

The NYCI is calling for these cuts to be reversed as a matter of priority.

"As a first step to reversing all the welfare cuts on young people, we are proposing that those on education, training and work experience programmes currently on reduced rates should have their payments set at the minimum adult rate of 188 per week," Mr Doorley said.
Every family is different, has their own definition of quality time and has their own way of ensuring that they respond to their childrens needs

A new report to be published by Minister for Children Katherine Zappone later this month is set to outline the effect that 'absent' parents is having on children.

It advises that busy parents are risking the health of their children by not being there and that research carried out concluded that many primary and secondary school children feel they are not being listened to.

As a working parent, I certainly find this disturbing but the question that most parents will certainly have is 'what are we to do?' Children have to attend school for a certain number of hours every day, and parents who have to or who choose to work also have to fulfil their commitments.

Being at work and trying to provide for your family is difficult enough without being deemed an 'absent parent'.

The report raises concerns about not enough 'quality time' being dedicated to children and family but I think this is a very individual thing.

Every family is different, has their own definition of quality time and has their own way of ensuring that they respond to their children's needs.

Equally, in families where both parents work, their routines can vary greatly from week to week as parents juggle the household responsibilities.

In a way it is positive if these needs have been identified but if the Government doesn't react and offer more support to working parents then what good is it?

It simply serves as a stick to beat already guilt-ridden parents with. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

As a parent, you second guess every decision you make and naturally you want to make the right ones for your family and that will serve your children well in the long run.

Providing for them is obviously key to this and whether you rely on childcare or are privileged enough to be in a position to do it all yourself then you must try and make every hour with them count.

This report is to feed into an overall drive to tackle childhood obesity in Ireland, something which has been a growing problem in recent years.

It highlights the need for issues such as nutrition and eating disorders to be addressed in schools as well as the approach towards physical education, both of which would be hugely beneficial to young students.
Shaws Department Stores has announced that Springfield Menswear is to launch in five of its stores from September 2016. The new Springfield Menswear department will be in Shaws' Wexford, Athy, Carlow, Dun Laoghaire and Dungarvan, with the brand already successfully established in many of the company's other locations.

The Spanish-based fashion brand is currently available in 67 countries across four continents.

Jonathan Shaw, Managing Director said the addition of Springfield Menswear to these five stores 'demonstrates our commitment to continually enhancing our product offering'.
The company employed to build the new 10m coeducational school in New Ross is facing delay charges running to thousands of euros per week from the Department of Education.

The school, which was due to open in late August to around 700 students, is not expected to be open to students until January.

Edmund Rice NS Principal Brian MacMahon said the Catherine McAuley and Edmund Rice schools were due to be completed in June, but work is continuing on site.

Mr MacMahon said it is very frustrating that after waiting 15 years for the schools to be built that the schools are not completed.

The new school classrooms were due to open to pupils from New Ross CBS, St Joseph's and Michael St national schools in late August, but work is still continuing on the senior school.

Junior and senior infants students are being taught as a temporary measure at Michael St school, while older students are being taught in St Jospeh's, including in a pre-fab.

Mr MacMahon said the amalgamation of the schools has gone to plan, with a lot of work going into closing New Ross CBS. He said: 'The feeling with everyone is that it will be completed by December. We have created a bit of history (with the amalgamation) and the kids have mixed in well together but it would have been better if we could have created history in the new building as planned. It's frustrating and it's a sickener.'

Mr MacMahon said there were delays with the project, in part due to the fact that the field where the schools are being was much rockier than anticipated and due to a wet winter. 'Some leeway was given and works were due to be completed by mid-August. The workmanship is excellent and we will get a perfect building,' he added.

Mr MacMahon said around half of the rooms are fitted out and the car parks are complete, as is the wiring. He said the company is facing penalties for every week the project is delayed and may also meet costs relating to the pre-fab and toilet blocks at St Joseph's. 'They tell us it will be completed by October 22. We are hopeful more than confident that this will happen. A lot of progress has been made on the junior school but the senior school is a couple of months behind schedule.

'There is nothing preventing them from finishing on time except themselves. We are cramped here in St Joseph's.'

He said the move into the new school has to take place either during the October mid-term break or Christmas. Three extra days on top of the timetabled holidays is being allowed for the move.

'We have complained to the department. We have done everything we were asked to do. We have delivered the amalgamation, but they haven't delivered the building.'

Mr MacMahon said he was informed at a meeting with the construction group in late August that the building would be completed by October 22. 'We are running out of patience. If they put enough people on the site they would get it done. We don't think they are putting in enough resources to get it done by October 22. My staff need to know. It's not fair on the staff, the pupils and the parents. It's not good enough to me. I need to tell the staff and the removals guy who has been contracted.'

A Sammon Group spokesperson said: 'We are in the process of reviewing our projected delivery date with the employers' representatives.'
Aoife Winterlich who died having been swept into the seat at Hook Head

Gardai have submitted a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in relation to the death of a 14-year-old girl scout.

Aoife Winterlich, from Walkinstown in Dublin, died after she was swept into the sea off Hook Head on a weekend scouting trip on December 6, 2015.

She was rescued from the sea by the Irish Coast Guard but subsequently died at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, on December 11, 2015.

Dublin Coroner's Court heard that a file was submitted to the DPP's office last week.

Detective Inspector Larry Brady of New Ross Garda Station told Deputy Dublin Coroner Dr Crona Gallagher that the file had been submitted on Wednesday last, August 31.

Gardai are awaiting directions from the DPP in relation to possible criminal charges. A three-month adjournment of the inquest was sought.

Aoife's mother, Ann Winterlich, who previously gave evidence of the formal identification of her daughter at Our Lady's Children's Hospital, was present in court.

Aoife was a member of the 55th South Circular Road scout group in Dublin.

She was on a scout trip when she and three other young people were swept into the sea during a heavy swell in the aftermath of Storm Desmond at about 2 p.m. on December 6.

Two of the four made it back to shore, while two were winched to safety by the Waterford-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter.

Aoife fell back into the sea as rescuers attempted to bring on her on board the helicopter.

She was immediately recovered from the sea and both teenagers were flown to hospital, arriving within 17 minutes of the initial call out. The coroner adjourned the inquest for three months until December 9.
Hook Lighthouse is set to host its first Harvest Moon celebration evening on Friday, September 16.

Ahead of the moon gazing, geologist Dr Matthew Parkes from Ireland's Natural History Museum will be on hand to host a talk on the Fossil Heritage of Hook Head at 4 p.m. on Friday, September 16, in The Conservatory.

Dr Parkes will host a free talk about the rich fossil heritage at Hook Head and the many different animal groups described by palaeontologists from this special place. The fossil evidence reveals how Hook was a shallow tropical sea, teeming with life, some 340 million years ago when these rocks formed. The talk will also explore how best people can enjoy seeing the fossils and also how they can be protected from damage and exploitation. Specimens will be available for people to handle and see close-up what they look like.

Following the talk, at about 5 p.m. there will be a guided walk on the rocks to see fossils in situ and enjoy the evening before the Harvest Moon celebrations commence from 6 p.m.

A full harvest moon is set to rise on Friday, September 16 and a large crowd of sun, star and moon gazers and photographers are expected. The Lighthouse Visitor Centre will open especially late with a limited number of tickets available for the moonlight visit to the lighthouse tower for sale. Food and refreshments will be served. A prize for the best harvest moon at Hook Lighthouse photograph is also up for grabs. Entries can be submitted via email to info@hookheritage.ie

For further details call 051 397055 or see www.hookheritage.ie
Staff from the Bank of Ireland with staff at the Dunbrody Visitor Centre on board the Dunbrody at the launch of the Bank of Ireland Big Blue Box Volunteer Challenge

Rossonians are being asked to get behind the Big Blue Box Volunteering Challenge cycle which is raising money for the Irish Heart Foundation this September.

Organised by Bank of Ireland and Failte Ireland, the route takes in many Ireland's Ancient East towns.

An item symbolic of New Ross, a framed photograph of John F Kennedy, will be placed into the box and donated to the next host town Thomastown on Thursday, September 15. The event got in gear on Friday from Wexford town and will conclude on Friday, September 16 at Nowlan Park, County Kilkenny.

The unique volunteering challenge sees Bank of Ireland staff and members of the local community travelling by bike across the route, which will involve communities from 29 towns.

Branch Manager with Bank of Ireland New Ross Marguerite Murphy said: 'We launched the New Ross Challenge on Wednesday morning with the help of Sean Connick CEO of the John F Kennedy Trust and some of the crew of the Dunbrody Famine Ship and a bicycle on loan from George in Pedal Revolution.

"The cyclists are arriving in New Ross from Borris on Wednesday, September 14, at 12.30 p.m. and will be greeted by the staff of Bank Of Ireland, local volunteers and staff from the Irish Heart Foundation.'

If anyone would like to get involved in either stage of the cycle please contact any member of Bank Of Ireland New Ross. All they need is a bicycle, helmet and hi-vis vest/jacket.

'We have organised a fun-filled day in the branch and would encourage people to come in. We have music, face painting for the children and a Happy Heart healthy eating corner where you can sample some fruit and we will have a raffle for some lovely prizes. Buy a line for 2 and you will receive a complimentary apple. Paul and the staff of Life Pharmacy are doing blood pressure checks in the branch and we will have a spinning bike from MJ Cooper in the Apex Leisure Centre.'
The 2016 Wexford Business Expo promises to be the event of the year for businesses right across the South East.

Presented by Wexford Chamber and Wexford County Council, this year's event will be centred around the theme of 'Maximising Your Online Sales' providing attendees with access to information that will enable their business to achieve their online potential.

Speaking about the upcoming event CEO of Wexford Chamber, Madeleine Quirke said 'Wexford Chamber is delighted to welcome Zurich as the new sponsor of the Wexford Business Expo and The Sunday Business Post as the official media partner.

'Both brands are market leaders in their respective sectors and are ambassadors for bringing local businesses online. ESET Ireland and RIKON are also valuable sponsors of the Expo and the continued support that we receive from Wexford County Council ensures that we deliver a first class event.'

Tom Enright, Chief Executive, Wexford County Council, said the Expo will provide business people from all backgrounds with new and inventive ways to help to grow their businesses.

'Expo 2016 supports the ambitious plans we have to develop the local economy in county Wexford and our staff will be on hand to provide business advice and supports.'

The event, which takes place on NOvember 10, will feature keynote speakers who have achieved business success both on a national and an international scale and will provide the 100 exhibitors and 2,000 visitors on the day with a unique opportunity to hear the innovative and proactive strategies that have enabled these speakers to develop their companies into leading ecommerce businesses in Ireland.

The Wexford Business Expo has become one of Wexford Chamber's flagship events.

Last year, the event took a new direction with more emphasis placed on interactive workshops and providing attendees with actionable strategies for their business and the organisers have made sure that this year's event will build on that success. Zurich Ireland CEO, Anthony Brennan said, 'Zurich is delighted to support the Wexford Business Expo, one of the highlights in the annual business calendar. Our centre in Wexford is at the heart of our operations. President of Wexford Chamber, Karl Fitzpatrick said Wexford has the opportunity to be at the forefront of harnessing ecommerce.
At the lace exhibition in St Mary's School were Ann Murphy, Kathie Earle, a member of the guild of Irish Lace Experts, Minister Paul Kehoe and Grainne Doran, archivist

An exhibition on the New Ross Lace Collection drew a crowd to St Mary's Secondary School during Heritage Week.

Organised by the members of Lacken Hill & Dunbrody Forest Trails the exhibition featured a stunning collection of the world famous lace.

Guest speakers Kathie Earle, a traditional Irish crochet and lace expert and Grainne Doran, the archivist at Wexford County Council told the story of New Ross lace and its place in the history of New Ross.

The Industrial Lace School was started in New Ross by the Carmelite Sisters in 1833 and it was here where the nuns taught lace making to the young girls of the town in an effort create employment and to help them become self-sufficient at a time when poverty was rife in the area.

The needlepoint lace - which was painstakingly produced by a needle and a single thread - provided an income which helped families to survive.

The lace won awards at many prestigious exhibitions and by the late nineteenth century New Ross lace was renowned for its quality throughout the world. The lace won awards at many prestigious exhibitions around the world including New York, Paris, London, Brussels and Milan and won a gold medal at the Edinburgh Fair and two gold medals at the Columbian World Fair in Chicago in 1893. These three medals are embedded in the foundation stone of St Mary's and St Michael's Parish Church in New Ross which was built in 1902. Ann Murphy of Lacken Hill & Dunbrody Forest Trails said: 'The story of the New Ross Lace Collection is a fascinating and inspiring story. It will be a momentous occasion when the long term goal of having the New Ross Lace Collection on permanent display in New Ross is finally realised.'
A hundred and ninety supercars will roar into Wexford on Sunday (September 11) when the Cannonball run comes to town for the second consecutive year.

Billed as the largest organised road trip in Europe, the convoy will be packed with motoring exotica, including Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Porsches, Maseratis, Rolls Royces and Bentleys.

The 900 km run begins at the Point Depot in Dublin on September 9, and travels to Westport, Salthill, Bunratty, Galway and Tullamore, before finishing on Wexford Quays at 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The spectacular convoy will be more impressive than ever with free family festivals all over the country and over 150,000 spectators expected to line the streets all over Ireland.

The start and finish line in each host town will have an electric atmosphere featuring Las Vegas showgirls, live music, DJS, the Monster Energy JAM Truck, local entertainers and dignitaries, confetti cannons, and plenty of popcorn from sponsors Manhattan.

Some of the cars in this year's event are coming from the UK, Europe and Dubai.

Now in its eighth year, the Cannonball has raised more than 850,000 for Irish charities over the past eight years and this year, proceeds go to Pieta House, the suicide and self-harm crisis service.

The benefit to the Irish economy of this event is estimated at 2,567,000 per year, most of which is spread evenly throughout the counties and towns visited.
Between 20 and 30 young pianists will perform at the New Ross Piano Festival concert on Thursday, September 22 in St Mary's Church at 7.30 p.m.

Students, aged from 8 to 18, get to play the superb Steinway D grand piano in front of a very appreciative audience on the day. There is no competition as this is purely a night where they can perform for pleasure.

Students of all standards have played at these concerts, from beginners to diploma candidates, the only stipulation being that their teachers are confident that they will be able to present the music properly. From the beginning the organisers have engaged with second level music students.

With the co-operation of the music teachers at Our Lady of Lourdes in Rosbercon, on the Friday morning of the festival, at 11.15 a.m. each year one of the professional pianists starring in the festival has gone into the school and played and talked to music students from the South East.

Invitations are sent to all the local second level schools in the district and places are on a first come, first served basis.

Connie Tantrum of New Ross Piano Festival said: 'A few years ago, New Ross Library offered to host sessions with children from local primary schools. The festival committee place a piano in the library for the duration, and on one of the mornings - this year it will be Thursday morning - a local piano teacher will explain the piano and play to pupils from three different schools in the area.'

Another important element of the festival is the public masterclass that takes place on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. in the Pastoral Centre.

'This is free to the public, but seating is very limited. The Artistic Director Finghin Collins, chooses two students that are showing exceptional promise, often up to degree level, from around Ireland. They then get a masterclass from one of the leading pianists at the festival.

'This is a very important gift to them, and a fascinating experience for the audience. This year one of the lucky duo is Joe O'Grady, age 10, who studies piano with Prof. John O'Connor and Prof. Reamonn Keary at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.'

The festival programme is detailed on www.newrosspianofestival.com. Bookings can be made at St Michael's Theatre, 051 421255.
A popular Italian travel magazine, called In Viaggio, has dedicated its entire August issue to the island of Ireland. The bumper, 126-page 'Irlanda 2016' edition will reach more than 39,000 Italian travellers - or potential holidaymakers for Ireland.

Tourism Ireland in Milan, in conjunction with Failte Ireland, invited journalists and a photographer from the magazine to visit last June. The resulting August edition features stunning photography throughout and some great articles - including "Gourmet itineraries along the Wild Atlantic Way", which mentions Lissadell House and Eithna's By the Sea restaurant in Sligo as must-sees while exploring the West of Ireland (below).

Niamh Kinsella, Tourism Ireland's Manager Italy, said: "Italy is an important market for tourism to the island of Ireland and we have seen excellent growth in Italian visitor numbers so far again this year, with the most recent CSO figures for January to June showing a 12% increase.
Bishop Emeritus Christopher Jones is pictured here with Mother Teresa during her visit to Sligo in June 1996, an occasion recalled this week following her Canonisation at the weekend.

Mother Teresa led 2,000 people in prayer at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo. She also received the Freedom of the Borough of Sligo during that visit. The honour was conferred on her by the Mayor of Sligo, Councillor Matt Lyons, following the prayer ceremony at the Cathedral. Mr Lyons said at the time that it was a great honour for Sligo to have such a "magnificent" person listed among its citizens.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was confined to a wheelchair as a result of an ankle sprain at the start of her visit to Ireland, was presented with a cluster of fuchsia and shamrock. She was also given a "Cross of Sligo" and a copy of the book Sligo at Prayer, both of which were specially produced for Sligo's 750th anniversary celebrations last year.

Her Canonisation Mass was celebrated by Pope Francis on Sunday in Rome. Bishop Jones celebrated Mass for her feast day on Monday at 7pm in Sligo Cathedral. The Missionaries of Charity was founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and they opened a house in Sligo in December 2000, in fulfilment of a promise she made on her Sligo visit. This is a contemplative order and is the first such order of nuns in the history of the diocese.

Meanwhile, the diocese of Elphin has offered its congratulations to Sr Mary Olivia Kelly from Carraroe, Sligo on the occasion of her Solemn Profession of Vows at the Carmelite Monastery, Knock at the week-end.

"We thank God for the gift of Sr Olivia's vocation and pray for an increase in vocations to religious life," said a Diocesan spokesperson.
News that Irish Water intends pressing ahead in the New Year with an upgrading of the sewerage plants in Grange, Strandhill and Tubbercurry has been welcomed by Deputy Marc MacSharry.

He stated: "While it is still not soon enough it is good news that we now have a start date. For years these communities have suffered from sub-standard sewage treatment facilities which hampered the natural growth of the community and led to intolerable air and water pollution.

"I met with representatives of Irish water on Wednesday who informed me of the January start date and that critically the upgrade will allow for 30% additional capacity and will provide for further modular additional capability to be added as required. I had expressed concerns at the rumoured limitation or down grading of the initial planned capacity and so it is something of a relief to learn that works will facilitate natural growth which can cater for the ambitions of communities for future development in line with their own wishes and those envisaged in zoning as defined in the forthcoming County Development plan"

Deputy MacSharry criticised the long number of years these communities have been forced to wait saying "there is little or no excuse for the Inordinate delay with these upgrades but I am pleased that following years of lobbying that the end is finally in sight. These works form part of the many additional resources we both need and are entitled to in order to begin to perform to our potential. Much more is required and our focus must be strategic and determined in pursuit of the resources our community needs."

Mayor of Sligo Municipal District, Cllr Marie Casserly has also welcomed the upgrading of the schemes.

Last July she had placed a motion on the County Council's agenda requesting a status update of the position in relation to the Waste Water Treatment Plants in Grange, Tubbercurry, Ballinafad and Strandhill.

"Since becoming a Councillor in 2014 I have regularly requested updates and investment in the upgrade of these treatment plants in particular Grange Waste Water Treatment Plant.

"The upgrade of Grange Waste Water Treatment Plant in particular has been due to take place for many years including periods from the mid 2000s when significant central government funds were available to carry out the work, but the urgent upgrades did not take place then.

"In 2015, following a request for progress details, Irish Water informed me that the upgrades would take place in early 2016. In the most recent correspondence from Irish Water (attached) they now state that these works will take place in early 2017. I will continue to keep the pressure on until these works are carried out.

I have once again proposed a motion for the September meeting of Sligo Council Council to continue this pressure to have these necessary works carried out by Irish Water," she said.
The Financial Plan agreed by Sligo County Council and the Department of the Environment last December is "no longer fit for purpose".

That's according to Council Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes. External factors such as Brexit are having an impact.

In its first meeting since before summer, the Council was discussing its monthly management reports for June and July.

Cllr Sean MacManus raised concerns of funding shortfalls for the county's sewerage treatment plants upgrades.

"It is my view that the Financial Plan is no longer fit for purpose given the change to the environment since it was signed last December," said Mr Hayes.

He told members that he intended to take the issue up this week at his meeting with the Department officials.

"It's critical to also take it up when the Council deputation meets with the Minister," he added.

Cathaoirleach of the Council Cllr Hubert Keaney said the Minister was due to meet with Council representatives later this month.

Cllr Sean MacManus said that major infrastructural projects were now being jeopardised by the Department. "We can't put up with this for too much longer," he warned.

Mr Hayes pointed to the new pressures on the Council since last December, such as the CSO figures which show a declining population here, Brexit and the potential drop in tourist numbers from its fallout.

He also pointed to the massive wage cut from Council employees totalling 8.5 million euro: "We're taking 8.5million out of the local economy because of wage reductions - that has a most negative impact on the local economy," he said.

Mr Hayes said that while it was saving money from the Financial Plan, it would also have "a downward spiralling effect" on the county's economy.

The Chief Executive also said the development of the IDA site at Oakfield was "critical, not just for Sligo but for the region."

"That's the case I am preparing for the Department later this week," he said.

"I wish you luck with that," said Cllr Sean MacManus.
President Michael D Higgins has said the deportation of socialist Jimmy Gralton was an abuse of the law.

The President was speaking at the unveiling of a monument to the late Leitrim man on Saturday last at Effrinagh, an event presided over by Councillor Declan Bree, chairman of the Gralton Labour History Commemorative Committee.

President Higgins said the Gralton family was due an apology. Gralton, born in 1886, became the only Irish citizen to be deported from this country in 1933, on the grounds that he was an "undesirable alien."

Jimmy's Hall, a 2014 film by British filmmaker Ken Loach was based on the life of Gralton who ran a dancehall at Effrinagh about six miles from Carrick-on-Shannon.

"He was, for authoritarian political purposes, mixed with clerical pressure, illegally deported from his own country for his political beliefs. What happened was an affront to basic civil rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom to organise and the freedom to hold meetings," he said.

President Higgins said the dancehall was a unique space which provided a focal point for communal organisation, for education and for popular pastimes. He went on to say that Jimmy Gralton's deportation was and must be seen unequivocally as an abuse of the Aliens Order 1925.

"It is worthy of note that the successor order to this legal instrument, the Aliens Order 1946 was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1999. On any reading, the issuing of the Deportation Order against Gralton was a misuse of the law. The fact that the legal basis for Gralton's deportation was subsequently struck down does not mean that it, or its consequences can be airbrushed from history.

"A wrong was done on behalf of the State and it must be acknowledged." Gralton died in New York on December 29th 1945.

The President said the treatment of Gralton was emblematic of a wider suppression of radical and emancipatory politics in the Ireland of the 1930s, a time when a moral panic was created, a whipped up fear of communism, coupled with clerical dominance sourced in authoritarianism rather than any spirituality, created an atmosphere of intolerance and oppression of the labour movement.

"The right of a person to remain in his or her country of nationality is now well established under international law.," said the President.

He stressed that Gralton was motivated at all times by a profound concern for social justice and the rights of the working people of Leitrim, be it on farms, in the trades, or in the shops and indeed we should not forget that he returned to Ireland primarily to assist his agin parents. His passion for justice should have been a great asset for the young Irish State, rather than something for which he would come to be expelled."

He added: "As a Head of State, I acknowledge that the State's authority was abused under undemocratic pressure. Church authorities have previously acknowledged the wrong done to Jimm Gralton. I do so now as President of Ireland," he said.

Cllr Bree told the gathering: "All of us who believe in truth and justice, who believe in freedom and democracy, have cried out over the decades at the injustice done to Jimmy Gralton.

"Today, you as Head of State, have clearly stated that Jimmy Gralton's treatment at the hands of the Irish State and its agencies in 1933 was wrong and indefensible, and that the State's authority was abused under undemocratic pressure.

"As Head of State have acknowledged the wrongful intimidation and ultimate deportation by the abuse of the law, of Jimmy Gralton , to whose memory, and whose family, an apology is due. As we stand here on this historic occasion, at the site of Jimmy Gralton's Pearse Connolly Hall, just a 100 yards or more from the homestead where he was born and reared, we commend you for saying what others feared to say, we thank you for your sincere and moving remarks and we know it will mean so much to the Gralton family, and to all those who have kept the memory of Jimmy Gralton and his principles alive over the decades.

"As you spoke, I thought of Packie Gralton, and others from this area who were members of the Revolutionary Workers Groups with Jimmy during those terrible days in the 30's.

"I know how important it was for them to ensure that Jimmy Gralton's name would be remembered. Packie and his wife Maggie certainly played a major role in the work of the Gralton Committee. It is fitting that we also remember former deceased members of the Gralton Labour History Committee who did so much to highlight the injustice done to Jimmy Gralton and to ensure that his sacrifice was not forgotten." The committee was established in 1985 to organise events to mark the centenary of Gralton's birth in 1986. In the intervening period many of its early activists have passed away.
Sligo undertaker and glamping entrepreneur David McGowan could pull off his big plans to move a train and a helicopter out to his site in Enniscrone on the same day.

The Easkey native told The Sligo Champion that he's close to having a date scheduled to moving the train from London and the RAF helicopter from Mullingar.

"Probably the helicopter and the train will come down the one day, at the end of September. The logistics are nearly as big as with the plane,"he said.

David is currently in negotiations with the authorities in London, Dublin City Council, Irish Ferries among others in a bid to safely manoeuvre the vehicles across land and sea to join his Boeing in Enniscrone.

"I have to submit Method Statements, Safety Statements - it has to come out of a railway station, be transported along the M1 in London, go to Holyhead, be placed on a barge and then be brought from Dublin port through Dublin city centre," he said.

"There's tonnes and tonnes of paperwork. That takes work and weeks to put together," he said.

One thing's for sure, it will "put the eyes of the world on Sligo again," according to David.

"It's lifting the spirits of people. That's the kind of thing we need in the West. There's nothing else exciting out there. It's all doom and gloom. If we can pull it off we'll bring the same attention to Sligo as the plane," he said.
Ireland shouldn't say no to 13 billion which the EU has ordered Apple to pay in back tax, according to MEP Marian Harkin

She said: "There is the carrot of 13bn being dangled in front of our noses. We shouldn't say no thank you and it is right that the money is set aside in an Escrow account while the issue is fully tested in the Court of Justice.

"We should reach an agreement with the EU Commission and the Court of Justice that this matter will be fast tracked because of its far reaching consequences.

"We should insist, however, that the case be prioritised and that the Court rules on the matter within 12 months."

The MEP said the decision by the EU Commission has profound implications for Ireland, for the EU, for foreign direct investment into the EU and, in that context, for Brexit.

"Should we take the money and run or go to the Court of Justice for a final decision, those are the hard choices we now face.

"Should Ireland challenge this decision? Because of its massive impact, I believe the Court of Justice should be the final arbiter in this case as it would set in stone all future EU policy decisions on State Aid and the taxation of multinationals.

"We must study the decision carefully, but it's important to remember that this is just the view of senior Commission officials, their legal advisers and the Commissioner herself.

"It needs to be tested to see if it is soundly based as its implications are so far reaching.

"We could find ourselves in three years time where the British Government could give State Aid of any kind to companies in the UK and Northern Ireland, while our hands might be literally tied by this ruling. That issue alone, is huge for Ireland.

"Multinationals must pay their fair share of tax and the EU Parliament has already been to the forefront on this issue with legislation calling for the sharing of information between EU countries and country by country reporting.

"However, we need to remember that the taxation of multinationals is a global issue and Europe must work with its partners to close off the loopholes rather than go on solo runs. Yes, we need to lead, but we also need to bring others with us.

"There are both reputational and hugely political issues at play here and we must recognise them for what they are," she said.
Since opening in 1958, Ardmore Studios in Bray has been the hub of much of the film production activity, not only in Wicklow but in Ireland as a whole.

Over 100 films have been hosted by the studios in the years since then, including Oscar winning productions such as 'Braveheart', 'My Left Foot' and 'The Lion in Winter'. It has also proved to be a winner with TV series producers, welcoming the cast of 'Raw' and 'Penny Dreadful' among others. One of the most successful series hosted by Ardmore was 'The Tudors', which saw hundreds of cast and crew members descend on the Wicklow studios from 2006 until 2010 for approximately six months each time. The surrounding areas of Wicklow, Killruddery and Powerscourt were also used to portray the meadows of Tudor England, London city in the 16th century and Vatican city.

Siun Ni Raghallaigh, CEO of Ardmore Studios, believes that several aspects of Ardmore Studios have made it attractive to film producers throughout the years.

'Ardmore Studio is uniquely placed in the Irish film and TV landscape - it is the only full service studio offering in Ireland. It has seven sound stages and all the ancillary production and post-production services required for film and television as well as access to crews and other film service providers - all on the one site in the one location a short distance from the capital city,' she said.

'It has a 50 year track record of world acclaimed film and television productions, has brand recognition throughout the world and, most importantly, is widely respected as a location in the key decision making markets where film locations are decided.'

The studios have a selection of hair, make-up, prop and costume facilities on site, making it a one-stop shop for producers. Lighting and camera equipment and production services are also available, while the on-screen extras company Movie Extras is based on site, offering a pool of film extras to anyone filming in the area.

These service providers, coupled with Ardmore itself, employ in excess of 50 people. However, according to Siun, when a large scale production is on site, it can create employment for an additional few hundred people who are part of the cast and crew.

'We know for example that over its three years filming at Ardmore and in Wicklow, 'Penny Dreadful' contributed some 65m to the local economy and provided employment for some 500 people whilst it was in production here,' she said, explaining that it is hard to put a firm estimate on the benefit that Ardmore provides to the local economy.

Although the pace at Ardmore has remained consistent, Siun said that they must remain aware of their competition elsewhere in Ireland and internationally.

'The business pipeline is steady - but we can never be complacent. There has always been competition from competing countries but none so close as the North of Ireland where significant proactive planning and cross stakeholder co-operation has resulted in a premium film and television location product being available,' she said.

Most recently, the studios upped their game by redeveloping and enhancing the existing facilities. The addition of the Film Factory provides an additional 30,000 sq ft of studio space and 11,000 sq ft of office space to the Bray studio.

'The Film Factory was the next step in expanding our footprint and creating additional studio capacity for potential productions whilst complementing the Herbert Road facilities,' said Siun.

At present, activity at Ardmore includes the filming of television series for AMC 'Into the Badlands' along with feature film 'The Professor and The Madman'. They are also involved with various productions around the county.
SOLAS, Ireland's Further Education and Training Authority, are launching a new national literacy and numeracy awareness campaign.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage people who have difficulties with reading, writing, maths or technology to 'Take the first step' and return to learning.

On Wednesday, September 14, the adult learning centres in Bray and Wicklow town will hold open information sessions for those who want to find out more about our services.

Visitors will be given a warm welcome, meet the tutors, hear from other adult learners and explore their options for returning to education. Drop into the learning centres between 10 a.m. and 12 noon to find out more information.

KWETB delivers a range of basic skills programmes to adult learners who want to improve their reading and writing, up skill or re-skill for work, gain confidence and work towards a recognised certificate. Courses are part-time and free of charge; they are available during the day and in the evening. Classes are small and supportive and students can work at their own pace to improve their skills for everyday life.

A spokesperson for KWETB says, 'at this time of year lots of people are thinking about returning to learning and brushing up on their reading, writing and maths skills. They are people who want to catch up on the skills they missed at school, parents who want to help children with their homework, workers who would like to go for promotion but don't have the confidence to sit an exam and those who would simply like to be more confident using new technology.'

You can contact Bray Learning Centre on (01) 2761350 or Wicklow Learning Centre at (0404) 64002.
Bank of Ireland is the latest in a long line of businesses to get behind Wicklow Hospice and is hoping that plenty of locals will be 'on their marks' for an upcoming fun run and walk.

The bank is hosting a special family-friendly 5k fun run and walk at 10 am on Sunday, September 18.

The event will start at the Assembly Hall in Wicklow town, with registration taking place from 9 a.m. The event is suitable for all ages and families are welcome to join in.

Bank Of Ireland decided to hold this enterprise fun run in aid of the hospice, having selected Wicklow Hospice Foundation as its charity for 2016.

Contact Sinead on (0402) 91310 for further information or call into the Bank of Ireland branch in Wicklow town.
Aspiring female entrepreneurs in rural Wicklow are being encouraged to apply for the free development programme ACORNS.

The six-month part-time key development programme is for aspiring female entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland who have recently started a business or who have taken concrete steps towards setting one up.

It is fully funded under the Department of Agricultur's CEDRA Rural Development and Innovation Fund and there is no charge for successful applicants.

'I believe that this programme could be of huge benefit to many female entrepreneurs living in rural areas of Wicklow and I would encourage them to apply,' said Deputy Andrew Doyle.'

'The objective of ACORNS is to equip these early stage entrepreneurs with the appropriate knowledge, confidence and networks to successfully start and develop sustainable businesses,' he said. 'It provides a safe, supportive, challenging, informative and highly collaborative environment, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs to learn from each other and benefit from positive peer pressure. A core element is the involvement of lead entrepreneurs, who have already started and successfully grown businesses in rural Ireland. These business women, on a voluntary basis, facilitate the interactive round table sessions, act as role models and mentor the successful applicants.'

The deadline for application is Thursday, September 22. To find out more go to www.acorns.ie.
The transfer of Wicklow Port to the ownership of Wicklow County Council has the potential to develop it further, both commercially and tourism wise.

The National Ports Policy published in 2013 stated that Ports of Regional Significance, such as Wicklow, would be placed within a local authority-led governance structure with local authorities taking shareholdings in the ports.

Last week, Minister for Transport, Tourism, and Sport, Shane Ross TD, signed an order transferring Wicklow Port Company to Wicklow County Council.

Ports of Regional Significance account for 8 per cent of national trade.

Minister for Agriculture, Food, Forestry and Horticulture, Andrew Doyle, has welcomed the transfer.

'This marks an important milestone for Wicklow Port and a new era for its growth and development.

'Wicklow Port has a lot to offer and great potential to expand. It is a thriving regional commercial port which contains two piers, with a freight distribution hub that caters for incoming and outgoing freight.

'In 2013 the port was identified as a Port of Regional Significance and Wicklow is the first port to transfer under The National Ports Policy, which was approved by Government and published in 2013.

'Wicklow Port is just 35 miles from Dublin and is open 365 days per year. It is directly linked by the port road to the N11 and the mainline rail networks.

'I believe the transfer of Wicklow Port to Wicklow County Council is an excellent opportunity for the port to further develop and grow both marine, marine leisure and regional freight activities. The port has continued to grow over the past decade and is vital to our county's future economic growth. It has always been well managed and I am confident it has a bright future.'

Chief Executive of Wicklow County Council, Bryan Doyle, maintains that the transfer will see the local authority placing a greater emphasis on the maritime sector.

'The Blue Economy is an important pillar of the County's economic development strategy. Realising the potential of the County's maritime assets is key to that strategy. We look forward to seeing Wicklow Port continue to thrive and grow under the stewardship of Wicklow County Council.'

Cllr Gail Dunne, who worked at Wicklow Port for ten years, thinks the council should establish a steering group for Wicklow Port, similar to the Burial Board sub committee which was recently set up.

'We need a strategy to go forward and stakeholders need someone they can go to. Wicklow County Council taking over Wicklow Port is a positive step for Wicklow town. There are some works required. The harbour was dredged a few years ago and it wasn't a great job, in my opinion. There's also a whole at the back of the East Pier. Now that the port is under the one body should, hopefully, make it easier to secure funding.'
Pictured at the 2016 Diageo Baileys Champion Dairy Cow Competition at the 75th Virginia Show. Garry Hurley from Co. Wicklow, winner of Champion Heifer-in-milk with his cow Clonpaddin Winbrooke Fame VG 87 is congratulated by Hazel Chu, Head of Corporate Relations Diageo Ireland and Martin Tynan, General Manager Glanbia Ingredients Ireland

A south Wicklow farmer is celebrating a triumphant win at a national livestock competition.

Garry Hurley from Arklow took top prize in the 'Heifer in Milk' category of the 2016 Diageo Baileys Champion Cow competition, which took place at the Virginia Agricultural Show in Co Cavan recently.

The competition, which dates back to 1983, rewards strength and form in body conformation as well as proven excellence in quality milk production and is sponsored by Diageo in partnership with its cream supplier Glanbia Ingredients Ireland.

According to this year's judge Kevin Wilson, 'They were tremendous cows, the standard was very high. They would grace any show in the world.'

Widely acknowledged as Ireland's top dairy livestock event, attracting the super-elite of the Holstein Friesian breed, the top awards in the 10,000 prize fund were presented by Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Heather Humphreys TD, alongside Breffni O'Reilly, Quality Director for Diageo Ireland and Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Ltd. Chairman Henry Corbally.

Speaking afterwards at the winners' reception, Hazel Chu Diageo Ireland's Head of Corporate & Trade Relations said that Diageo's production bases for Baileys in Dublin and Mallusk 'relied on a top quality cream supply and that the competition was an opportunity to reinforce the provenance of Baileys and the quality of its primary raw ingredient.'
Wicklow County Council has sought permission from An Bord Pleanala to fill a site at Rocks Valley in Kilcoole with material from works at the Dargle River.

It emerged last week that Wicklow County Council refused permission for earthfill to a private developer at the same site in March 1999.

According to the planning application lodged recently, the works would include clearance of vegetation from the site before up to 200,000 tonnes of inert dredging spoil material is deposited there.

Upon completion of placement and levelling of material, the site will be developed as an ecopark for public access and use, with an upgraded entrance and other ancillary infrastructure, including drainage and a dedicated council yard.

A waste licence will be required from the Environmental Protection Agency for the proposed development.

An Environmental Impact Statement and a Natura Impact Statement have been prepared.

The deadline for submissions to An Bord Pleanala, 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin, is Tuesday, October 11.

A spokesman for the 'Save the Rocks Valley' group said that they were under the impression that officials would inform them at least a week before sending in the application.

He also said that according to the County Development Plan 2010 to 2016, there should be retention of that green belt between Kilcoole, Greystones and Delgany.

'Bird nesting season ends shortly and we are concerned that workers will go in and start clearing land regardless of procedure,' he said.

The spokesman said that the group wishes to keep Rocks Valley, otherwise known as Pretty Bush, as a natural habitat.

'It's been there since the last ice age and is one of the last remaining natural habitats. It's untouched. Nobody ever built houses there or put a plough to the land.

Last July, members of Wicklow County Council adopted an amendment to the draft county development plan to preserve the Rocks Valley as it is. However, that development plan will not be finalised until October.
The 'thundering disgrace' that led to the resignation of a Bray man from the post of President of Ireland will be recalled on RTE next week.

At 7.30 p.m. next Monday, September 12, the Scannal programme will look back at the two-word phrase that brought about a constitutional crisis and led to the resignation of President Cearball O Dalaigh.

At the opening of a cookhouse at Columb Barracks, Mullingar, on October 18, 1976, the Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan told the massed army ranks that their Supreme Commander and President of Ireland was a 'thundering disgrace!'

This was in response to President O Dalaigh referring the Coalition Government's Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. The Bill proposed extending the period of time in which gardai could detain and interrogate certain suspects without charge from two to seven days.

The Supreme Court found no constitional objection to the Bill and President O Dalaigh duly signed it into law. But Minister Donegan, whose own pub had been bombed twice, insisted on having his say at Columb Barracks.

As the words 'thundering disgrace' echoed through the media, the Minister offered to resign, but then Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave refused to accept his resignation. Four days later, Cearbhall O Dalaigh became the first President of Ireland to resign from office.

After a distinguished and stellar career, it was an inglorious end for President O Dalaigh. From journalist to Ireland's youngest Attorney General, and from Chief Justice in Ireland to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, his career marked him out as exceptional.

He was appointed, with no election, to the presidency in 1974 following the sudden death of President Erskine Childers.However, relations between President O Dalaigh and the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition were luke-warm at best and O Dalaigh felt that he was denied opportunities to represent Ireland abroad.

The Minister for Defence's comments in Mullingar became the straw that broke the President's back.

'Scannal: Thundering Disgrace', which was produced by Bray man Sean O Mealoid, looks at the phrase that led to a President's resignation and would live in political infamy for decades to come.
This weekend America marks the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The United States has never been the same since. It once saw itself as Edenic, protected by the oceans from the world's madness. Overnight, it became vulnerable.

The quest for effective presidential leadership in foreign affairs is no longer just about projecting American power. It's about protecting the innocent as they sleep.

For Donald Trump, who is gaining on Hillary Clinton in the polls, security fears offer an opening - and this week he showed that he has the capacity to exploit it.

America has never recaptured its self confidence. It has blundered into too many wars. A man who projects ego dashed with pragmatism is an attractive prospect.

Defiance

Long has it been joked: "Do you really want this man's finger on the nuclear trigger?" But with North Korea actually detonating nuclear weapons in defiance of world opinion, the question becomes "why not?". It's hard to see how things can get any worse.

Before I make the case for Trump, let me quickly run through the litany of caveats: he's mean, disingenuous, ignorant.

Americans are not dunces; they value knowledge. Just ask Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, who was asked on TV what he thought could be done about Aleppo. He looked like he wanted to phone a friend. "What's Aleppo?" he asked. And one could hear the sound of his votes going up in smoke.

Trump would never admit that he doesn't know something. That's part of his genius. Last Wednesday, he did back-to-back interviews with Mrs Clinton, hosted by NBC's Matt Lauer, and displayed the qualities that could, in spite of himself, make him president.

One is that he says things that are so outrageous, so profoundly wrong that it's hard to know how to correct them. Talking about Iraq, Trump casually said that America should never have invaded but, when it did, it should have taken "all the oil".

Lauer asked how he'd do that. Trump replied: "You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils... I always said: Take the oil."

But... but how? With a massive straw? The idea that America could and should loot countries ought to have prompted Lauer to laugh. Instead, he left the point unchallenged and moved on. Thus by graciously treating Trump like a serious commentator, the mainstream media has helped transform him into a serious candidate.

They've been doing that for ages, reverently broadcasting remarks that should've been accompanied by a circus clown soundtrack.

At other times, however, Trump says things that are actually blatantly obvious - things that only seem shocking because political correctness has forced us to lie about them for so long.

These are the Trumpisms that strike a chord. Such as when he stood by his claims that throwing men and women together into military units would lead to sexual assault.

Isn't that simply true? And yet because we all want to live in a world in which integration works, we all pretend that it does when the evidence suggests it hasn't.

When Trump says such truisms, I can hear ordinary Americans punching the air with joy. Yes, having open borders does leave you vulnerable to terrorism! Yes, Islamic radicalism does have something to do with Islam!

And, yes, Vladimir Putin does look like a strong leader. Are we supposed to pretend otherwise?

Trump is in trouble for asserting that Putin is on top of his game - but that is how things look from a distance. Putin has managed to seize Crimea. His ally, Bashar al-Assad, has retained power in Syria and they have manipulated the West into an effective alliance against the Isil.

Trump told Lauer that "I don't happen to like the [Russian] system" but that within its peculiar context, Putin leads well.

Stooge

Clinton's allies have tried to suggest that Trump's views on Putin are errant and even unpatriotic: liberal economist Paul Krugman called him a "Siberian candidate", a charge not helped by Trump recording a podcast that ended up being broadcast on the pro-Kremlin Russia Today.

These innuendos are borderline McCarthyism. Trump is not a KGB stooge. He is a critic of a US foreign policy that picks fights with authoritarian regimes that many Americans feel isn't focused on US strategic interests. Why prod Putin, they ask, when Putin is helping to fight Islamism in Syria?

At the moment when Americans mark the 9/11 slaughter, they might reasonably wonder if the State Department has forgotten who the real enemy is.

This is how Trump can still win. He exerts campaign discipline and behaves "presidentially". He focuses on national security and jobs. Most of all, he allows himself to be contrasted with an opponent besieged by gossip about poor health and accusations of corruption.

Hillary Clinton's email scandal has invited only two interpretations: that she is, to quote the FBI, "extremely careless" or that she is deceitful. Either way, she represents orthodoxy in foreign affairs and continuation of the Obama doctrine.

She remains the Republican Party's real trump card.
US DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took aim at supporters of Republican rival Donald Trump by saying half of them belonged in a "basket of deplorables" as people who were racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, or Islamophobic.

But Clinton, in a statement on Saturday, walked back the remarks, saying she regretted using the word "half" and seeking to refocus on what she described as episodes of "deplorable" behavior by Trump and his campaign.

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Her remarks at a fundraiser Friday night unleashed a fierce response from Republicans and Trump supporters on social media on Saturday and threatened to distract from her efforts to paint Trump as unqualified for the presidency.

Speaking at a LGBT fundraiser in New York, Clinton said Trump had given voice to hateful rhetoric through his behavior as a candidate for the White House in the Nov. 8 election.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Clinton said. "Unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up."

Some of those were irredeemable, she said, but they did not represent America.

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The other basket of Trump's supporters constituted individuals desperate for change who felt let down by the government and the economy, Clinton added.

"They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different," Clinton said. "Those are people we have to understand and empathize with, as well."

Trump's campaign pounced on Clinton's candid views.

"Hillary Clinton's low opinion of the people that support this campaign should be denounced in the strongest possible terms," said Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana and Trump's running mate, speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington.

"So let me just say from the bottom of my heart: Hillary, they are not a basket of anything. They are Americans, and they deserve your respect."

In her statement on Saturday said: "Last night I was 'grossly generalistic,' and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half' - that was wrong," she said in the statement.

But, she added, it is "deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people."

Trump, a New York businessman who has never run for political office before, regularly says things that some consider insulting, racist or off-color. On Friday night, he told supporters in Pensacola, Florida, that Clinton could shoot someone and not be prosecuted.

"Because she's being so protected, she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn't be prosecuted, okay?" he said.

But Clinton's remarks got top billing on Twitter where the hashtag #BasketOfDeplorables was trending, with shows of condemnation and support for Clinton.

Twitter user Basketeer Vendetta, under the account Vendetta92429, tweeted a photo of Trump supporters wearing campaign T-shirts and hats, adding: "Proud to be part of the #BasketOfDeplorables with my fellow Americans."

And Trump himself tweeted: "Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!"

But some Twitter users agreed with Clinton, referencing remarks by Trump that have been called racist, such as when he described some Mexican immigrants drug dealers and rapists.

A RISKY COMMENT

Clinton's comment could nevertheless end up being a boon to Trump.

"As long as Trump stays out of the way and doesn't overshadow Hillary's comment, her 'basket of deplorables' comment should dominate the media in the coming days and runs the risk of negatively defining her campaign," said Republican strategist Doug Heye.

"The question is whether Trump can show a discipline thus far unseen."

Republican strategist Ana Navarro, who has been highly critical of Trump, said Clinton might have crossed an important line.

"When you are running for President, you are running to represent all Americans, even the ones you think are deplorable," said Navarro.

But Jamal Simmons, a Democratic consultant, said the remarks probably would not wrest voters from Clinton.

"We're moving to the part of the election process where there's a lot less persuasion of new voters and more persuasion of the people who like you to turn out and work to elect you," he added.

Many of Clinton's fundraisers have been closed to the media, but not the one on Friday night. While the fight between Trump and Clinton has been bitter and personal, Friday's remarks were unusually forthright for Clinton.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill noted a previous speech in which she accused Trump of embracing a brand of U.S. political conservatism associated with white nationalism and nativism known as the "alt right" movement.

"Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump," Merrill said on Twitter. "And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd, when you observe the tone of his events."

Some critics likened Clinton's observation to 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comment in which he said 47 percent of voters are dependent upon the government and would vote for President Barack Obama no matter what. His campaign struggled to recover after the remark leaked.

But Democratic strategist Jim Manley, who supports Clinton, pointed out that Romney was talking about all voters, and Clinton was specifically describing Trump supporters.

"I have no problem pointing out the fact that Donald Trump and his campaign is drawing on some of the worst impulses, whether it's racism or whatnot, that this country has ever seen," Manley said.
Kim Jong Un has overseen a robust increase in the number and kinds of missiles tested this year (AP)

North Korea says it now has the power to mount a nuclear warhead on ballistic missiles that could be aimed at its enemies, after conducting its biggest nuclear test yet, an explosion compared to the Hiroshima blast.

The test, the country's fifth, was condemned by South Korea as "maniacal recklessness" and prompted the US to warn of "serious consequences".

The test took place at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, in the north-east of the country, at around 9:30am as North Korea marked the 68th anniversary of the founding of the regime. Seismic monitors detected the blast immediately, recording it as a magnitude-five earthquake.

"The blast is believed to have been about 10 kilotons, the most powerful by the North so far", officials of the Defence Ministry in South Korea told Yonhap News. The previous test had a yield of between 6 and 9 kilotons.

North Korean state media confirmed it had carried out a nuclear test later in the day, with the Korea Central News Agency claiming the test "finally examined and confirmed the structure and specific features of movement of [a] nuclear warhead that has been standardised to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets.

"The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power," KCNA added.

"This has definitely put on a higher level the DPRK's technology of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets."

International condemnation of the test was swift, with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit of Asian leaders, saying Kim was showing "maniacal recklessness" in completely ignoring the world's call to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Hwang Kyo-ahn, the South Korea prime minister, called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.

"The nuclear test conducted by the North is a violent action against the international goal of denuclearisation," he said.

"Along with the international community, the government strongly condemns North Korea's grave provocation," added Mr Hwang, who chaired the meeting in the place of Ms Park.

US President Barack Obama said any provocative actions by North Korea would have "serious consequences" .

Just hours before the nuclear test, members of the regional forum adopted a statement calling on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in a manner that is "complete, verifiable and irreversible".

"North Korea will only get stronger international sanctions as well as diplomatic isolation from nuclear provocations," Mr Hwang said.

China, North Korea's only major ally, said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North Korean embassy in Beijing.

In Tokyo, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, vowed to impose further sanctions on Pyongyang for defying international warnings over its nuclear and missile programmes.

"We simply cannot tolerate that North Korea went ahead with a nuclear test," Mr Abe said in a statement.

He added that Tokyo is working closely with the US and South Korea to handle the situation. Japan has already called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to consider a unified response.

Chinese state media described the attack as "regrettable" and "another reckless act of Pyongyang".

"The blast is full of symbolism as it took place on the 68th anniversary of the country's founding," the Xinhua news agency reported.

"Yet, ironically, it has dealt another heavy blow to the foundations of regional security, its own security included.

The test also comes three days after the United Nations Security Council condemned the launch on Monday of three ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. The emergency meeting of the council in New York was the ninth statement so far this year against North Korea's missile tests, which are in breach of previous UN resolutions.

Pyongyang reacted furiously to the UN statement, with state media carrying a reply from the foreign ministry declaring, "The DPRK categorically rejects this as an intolerable act of encroaching upon its dignity, right to existence, sovereignty and right to self-defence.

"The more viciously the UN Security Council finds fault with the DPRK's legitimate measures for self-defence by siding with the US, arch-criminal harassing peace and security on the Korean peninsula, the more glaringly it will reveal its true colours as an unfair, good-for-nothing entity before the international community."

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Protests resulted when Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for sending classified information to WikiLeaks

A transgender soldier imprisoned in the US for leaking classified information to the WikiLeaks website says she is on a hunger strike until her treatment improves.

Chelsea Manning said she began the hunger strike because her pleas for better treatment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, had been ignored.

She says she will not voluntarily consume anything except water and prescription medication.

In the statement supplied by her American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Ms Manning said the hunger strike will continue until she receives the "minimum standards of dignity, respect and humanity" and she is prepared for the possibility of dying.

Ms Manning, who was arrested as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 in military court of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents.

AP
A judge has highlighted the City's "excessive" culture of drink and drug-taking as he jailed a trader for raping a young woman after a cocaine-fuelled office party.

Daniel Green (26) was found guilty of attacking the woman, in her 20s, after she had curled up to sleep under a desk in the early hours of May 16, 2015.

The pair had met during after-work drinks in the City of London and gone back with a group of Green's colleagues to the StratX stockbrokers' offices near Monument, where he had only just started work. While there, partygoers danced on desks to music, drank Champagne and took lines of cocaine into the early hours.

Most of the StratX men went home after the mood soured as the woman's companion complained her stash of cocaine had gone missing because she was reluctant to share it.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was left in the office with Green, her friend and another StratX employee who tried to rekindle the party atmosphere.

But she told jurors she became tired and decided to take a nap under a desk, intending to catch the first train home because she did not have enough money for a taxi.

Wiping away tears, she described how she awoke to find Green "tugging" her trousers down and asked him "What the f*** are you doing?".

"At that point I remember just trying to crawl forward to get away. I knew what was going to happen. I remember being pulled back," she told the jury.

"The next thing I remember was Daniel raping me.

"I was still trying to wriggle away, doing anything I could to stop that. I guess I was in a state of shock at what was happening. I was just trying to say no and get across this is something I don't want to happen.

"I just kept saying 'No, no, no, no, no, no' but it absolutely didn't stop anything.

"He was making sexual noises, making me feel horrible, so I burst into tears. After realising I was not going to get away and this was actually happening, I started crying, and at that point - it seemed so bizarre as he'd said absolutely nothing before - he said 'Oh shit, she's crying'.

"He got off then. I was just distraught. Then he was out of the office really quickly." The woman rang her best friend from the office and she alerted police, who arrested Green, of Walthamstow, east London.

Prosecutor Timothy Forster dismissed Green's account, saying he had treated his victim like a "piece of meat".

He told jurors: "You perhaps do not need to know the truth of what was going through Mr Green's mind. He was a new member of the company.

"He was suddenly in this world where everyone was drinking and taking cocaine. To a certain extent he might feel he wants to impress people."

The barrister said the defendant had been jealous that the victim's female friend was getting close to his co-worker and had acted because he was "frustrated and humiliated in front of his new work colleagues".

The jury took six hours to find Green guilt of rape by a majority of 11 to 1.

Jailing him, Recorder Michael Wood QC told him: "I do not punish you for what seems to be City culture of excessive drink and casual use of drugs when you go out socialising."

He said the defendant had shown no remorse and behaved with "a degree of arrogance" when he gave evidence in court.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Israeli soldiers take part in a training session on the Israeli border with Syria and the Golan Heights. Photo: Baz Ratner

Israel is bracing for an Isil terror attack along its southern border with Egypt within the next six months, a senior Israeli military officer has warned.

Wilayat Sinai, the jihadist group's affiliate in the Sinai desert, has been stealing armoured vehicles and anti-tank missiles from Egypt's military and Israel expects the weapons will soon be turned against its forces on the Egyptian border.

The Israeli officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Wilayat Sinai had stolen at least one Egyptian M60 battle tank and had amassed a supply of Russian-made Kornet missiles, which can strike targets more than 5km away.

"It could happen today, tomorrow, in a month but within the next six months we will come into an engagement with Wilayat Sinai," the officer said. "In the next six months they will try to carry out an attack and try to do something against Israel."

If the officer's prediction is borne out, it would be the first attack on Israel's southern border since 2012, when militants in Egypt launched a series of cross border raids.

The most dramatic was in August 2012, when jihadists overran an Egyptian base and killed 16 police officers before stealing two armoured vehicles and breaking through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

One of the vehicles exploded at the checkpoint but the second outmanoeuvered Israeli troops and tanks and raced towards a nearby kibbutz, apparently intent on carrying out an attack.

Israel's air force was forced to carry out an airstrike within its own borders in order to finally destroy the racing armoured car before it could reach a civilian area.

At the time of the 2012 attack, the group was known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the Supporters of Jerusalem, and was linked with al-Qa'ida.

But in 2014 the group pledged allegiance to Isil and to the leader of its so-called caliphate, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

It took up the name Wilayat Sinai, meaning the Sinai province of the Islamic State.

The group claimed responsibility for bombing the Russian Metrojet plane in October 2015, killing all 224 people aboard shortly after it took off from the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Isil claims it brought down the Metrojet flight with a bomb planted inside a drink can.

Israel believes that the group is significantly better equipped now than it was four years ago.

In the years since the 2012 attack, Wilayat Sinai has focused its efforts on attacking Egyptian military targets, although more recently it has also carried out attacks against civilians.

Egypt's military responded with a series of operations that have limited the group's operating space but it remains active in the eastern Sinai. Israel and Egypt work closely together on counter-terror operations in the Sinai.

Isil regularly threatens to carry out attacks against Israel and in August Wilayat Sinai said the group planned attacks against the Jewish state.

"Oh Jews, wait for us. The punishment is severe and soon you will pay a high price," a jihadist said in an online video.

But for all its rhetoric, Isil has so far not carried out any centrally organised attacks on Israel.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
US President Barack Obama said Americans will never give into fear

US President Barack Obama has honoured the nearly 3,000 people that were lost in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

In his weekly radio and internet address, Mr Obama said that while so much has changed in the years since 9/11 it is important to remember what has stayed the same.

"The core values that define us as Americans. The resilience that sustains us," he said on the eve of the 15th anniversary of one of the nation's darkest days.

He said the terrorists' goal is to frighten Americans into changing how they live, but "Americans will never give in to fear".

"We're still the America of heroes who ran into harm's way, of ordinary folks who took down the hijackers, of families who turned their pain into hope," Mr Obama said.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York City, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon when hijacked commercial airliners were slammed into all three locations in attacks that were planned and carried out by the al Qaida terrorist group.

Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed nearly a decade later by US forces during a May 2011 raid on his Pakistani hideout that Mr Obama authorised.

He noted in his address that the terrorist threat has evolved since September 11 "as we've seen so tragically from Boston to Chattanooga, from San Bernardino to Orlando," cities that suffered headline-grabbing, terrorist-linked, fatal shootings.

He pledged that the US will stay relentless against terrorism from al Qaida and the Islamic State group, which is spreading its mayhem across the Middle East and the West.

Mr Obama will mark Sunday's anniversary by observing a moment of silence in the privacy of the White House residence at 8:46 am EDT, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Centre, before delivering remarks at a Pentagon memorial service.

Earlier New York Police Department marked 9/11 with a parade to honour its 23 officers who died at the World Trade Centre.

The parade through lower Manhattan also commemorated 99 officers who died of illnesses after participating in the rescue and recovery operation. Thirty-seven members of a port agency police department also died in the attack.

Police departments from around the US and Canada joined the procession.

Bagpipers led marchers around the southern tip of Manhattan, ending near a memorial wall engraved with the names of the fallen NYPD officers.

Police Commissioner William Bratton thanked other police departments for their support. Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio also attended.

AP

The State Department is reminding US citizens about threats around the world and urging Americans to be vigilant about their personal security, ahead of the anniversary of the attacks.

The department said: "Current information suggests that terrorist groups continue to plan attacks in multiple regions" and that extremists "may use conventional or non-conventional weapons to target official government and private interests."

The US government said extremists remain interested in soft targets such as high-profile public events; hotels, clubs and restaurants; places of worship; schools; shopping malls and markets; public transportation systems; and events where Westerners gather in large numbers, including during holidays.

The department noted that US government facilities worldwide remain at a "heightened state of alert."

AP
Facebook has been forced to back down after being accused of an abuse of power by censoring one of the most famous images of the Vietnam war.

Norway's largest newspaper on Thursday published a front-page open letter to the social network's founder slamming the company's decision to remove historic photo the Terror of War.

The Pulitzer prize-winning photograph by Nick Ut shows children, including a naked nine-year-old Kim Phuc, fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam war.

But after the moved created a bitter row over censorship, Facebook said in a statement: "An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography."

"In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time."

Espen Egil Hansen - editor-in-chief and CEO of Aftenposten - called on Zuckerberg to recognise his role as the "the world's most powerful editor" of a site that has become a key player in the distribution of news and information globally.

"I am upset, disappointed - well, in fact even afraid - of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society," he said. "I am worried that the world's most important medium is limiting freedom instead of trying to extend it, and that this occasionally happens in an authoritarian way."

The comments arose after writer Tom Egeland shared the photograph as part of a post which discussed "seven photographs that changed the history of warfare".

The image was removed and Egeland suspended from the social network. When Aftenposten subsequently reported on the suspension - with the same image on its article - the newspaper was asked by Facebook to "either remove or pixelise" the photograph.

"Any photographs of people displaying fully nude genitalia or buttocks, or fully nude female breast, will be removed," the notice from Facebook said.

In his letter, Hansen highlights that the decision revealed Facebook's inability to "distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs" and "allow space for good judgement."

He said people, such as Mr Egeland, were punished for voicing criticism about the company's decisions.

The attack comes after Facebook recently fired the team of editors who managed the trending topics section and replaced them with algorithms - which then swiftly proved the difficulty of automating news editorial judgment by promoting a fake news story.

A study by Pew Research Centre this year found 44 per cent of US adults get their news on Facebook.

A Facebook spokesman had previously said: "While we recognise that this photo is iconic, it's difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.

"We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community."
A judge handed preliminary charges on Saturday to a 29-year-old woman whom authorities suspect is part of a female "terrorist commando" group in the service of the Islamic State group - one of five suspects in an aborted attack near Notre Dame Cathedral and another possible attack thwarted by police.

The discovery of an abandoned car early last Sunday led investigators to the arrests of three more women and a man that revealed links to two attacks this year in France claimed by the Islamic State group and underscored the overlapping nature of the terrorist web.

France, which is in a state of emergency, has been on tenterhooks with three attacks this year, including a lorry attack in Nice on Bastille Day. An abandoned car found on Sunday with its licence plates removed, its hazard lights mysteriously flashing and loaded with gas canisters set a frantic search in motion.

A woman identified by authorities as Ornella G., was the first to be arrested, on Tuesday with a companion at a road stop near the southern city of Orange.

Her companion was freed, the prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday that Ornella G's fingerprints were found inside the car. She was known to intelligence agents as someone who was looking to go to Syria.

The judge charged Ornella G. with association with terrorists to commit attacks and attempted murder in an organised group linked to a terrorist enterprise and ordered her jailed, the prosecutor's office said.

On the heels of Ornella G.'s arrest, police traced the person linked to the car to a house in the Essonne region south of Paris and descended on Thursday evening.

A confrontation with three women outside ensued, including the 19-year-old daughter of the car's owner, Ines Madani. She was shot in the leg as she lunged at a police officer with a knife - after another woman, Sarah H., 23, attacked and wounded a plain clothes officer with a kitchen knife through the open window of his car, Mr Molins said on Friday.

The third woman, Amel S., 39, who lived at the house, also was arrested along with her daughter, about to turn 16 but potentially implicated in the "terrorist project", according to the prosecutor. She was found in another Paris suburb.

Mr Molins said the investigation has led to the dismantling of a "terrorist commando (group) of young women" aligned with the Islamic State group.

"In the last few days and hours, a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly Daesh ideology," said Mr Molins, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group.

The prosecutor contended that the women were guided in their actions by IS members in Syria, "which shows this organisation intends to make women combattants".

Police found a handwritten pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi inside the purse of Ines Madani.

The note also stated that in answer to the call of the number two IS leader, killed in August, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, "I attack you in your lands to mark your minds and terrorise you", Mr Molins said in an account of the arrests.

The probe took on a wider scope with the arrest of Sarah H.

Investigators discovered she was to marry Larossi Abballa, the man who killed a police couple in June in their home in Magnanville, outside Paris, before being killed in a police raid.

She then was to marry Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, 85, during morning Mass in July in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Mr Molins said.

Mr Kermiche and another attacker were shot to death by police. Sarah H. was subsequently to marry Mohamed Lamine A., known to be radicalised and the brother of a man jailed in the Magnanville murders.

Those detained can be held for four days of questioning before going before a judge who will charge or free them.

AP
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, a Category 3 storm which formed on October 22, 2012 and caused $70 billion in damage in roughly two weeks as it moved from the Caribbean to Canada, $11 million of which came from its impact in Rhode Island. Do you believe Rhode Island is more or less prepared to handle a large storm in the decade since Hurricane Sandy? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
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You might already know that Anil Kapoor's son, Harshvardhan Kapoor, and model Siyami Kher are making their Bollywood debut in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Mirzya. The film is loosely inspired by the Punjabi folklore of 'Mirza Sahiban' and looks like a total romantic flick. And even before it's release, the films seems to have achieved a great feat. What? The film is all set to be featured on the international stage with the premiere of the film at the 60th BFI London Film Festival. Yes!

The premiere of the film is scheduled to take place on 6th October, while the film releases in India on the 7th. Along with Rakeysh, and the lead stars Siyami and Harshvardhan, the premiere will be attended by the entire cast of the film. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra stated that Mirzya now has the perfect partner in BFI with an added honour of having a European premiere at the LFF in October.
Hours after the US authorities banned air passengers from carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the Indian aviation watchdog has followed suit. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has banned the use of the device inside flights.

BCCL

"They will only be allowed to carry these devices in hand bags and keep them switched off during the entire duration of flights," DGCA Chief chief B S Bhullar said.

He said the decision was taken with safety in mind and would come into effect immediately.

The move comes after reports emerged that the battery of the recently announced high end device was frequently exploding.

Following the controversy the Korean tech giant had recalled millions of devices. Blaming the fault on a batch of batteries by one of its suppliers, Samsung has also offered to replace devices of all the existing customers.

Twitter

Later it said overheating was the reason behind the battery explosions.

"Based on our investigation, we learned that there was an issue with the battery cell. An overheating of the battery cell occurred when the anode-to-cathode came into contact, which is a very rare manufacturing process error".
Another big defence corruption probe is set to hit India. This time it's a joint US-Brazil investigation into bribery charges against Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer that has now been expanded to include the sales made to India.

While Embraer has also sold VVIP executive jets to the Indian Air Force, the deal likely to come under probe is a $210-million contract inked in 2008 with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a project to develop a new range of early warning and control aircraft. Read more

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Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag reviewed the security situation in the four worst-affected districts, asking jawans to remain vigilant towards the needs of the administration seeking to regain order after weeks of violence and protests that have left thousands of people and security personnel wounded. Read more

2. Pakistani Forces Target Balochistan Civilians In Fresh Crackdowns, Claims Baloch Activist

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An activist for a prominent Baloch political outfit has said even civilians have been attacked and abducted in the ongoing operations, and has called on the international community to take steps to stop Islamabad's human rights abuses in Balochistan. Read more

3. Facebook Pulled Down This Iconic Image From The Vietnam War, Restored It After Social Uproar

Associated Press Photographer Nick Uts Pulitzer Prize-winning image of a naked girl, Kim Phuc, running from a napalm attack is one of the most iconic and haunting images of the Vietnam War.

But the iconic image was at the center of controversy after social networking giant Facebook took down the image from a Norwegian author and journalist Tom Egeland's page, last month, saying it violated the social networks rules on nudity. Read more

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5. For The First Time In History, Nominations For Padma Awards Thrown Open To General Public

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The general public can log on to padmaawards.gov.in and nominate anyone for the awards. The nominators would be required to furnish their Aadhaar details for authenticity and accountability. Read more

6. After US, India Bans Flyers From Carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7 In Check-In Luggage

Hours after the US authorities banned air passengers from carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the Indian aviation watchdog has followed suit. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has banned the use of the device inside flights. "They will only be allowed to carry these devices in hand bags and keep them switched off during the entire duration of flights," DGCA Chief chief B S Bhullar said.

He said the decision was taken with safety in mind and would come into effect immediately. Read more
Another big defence corruption probe is set to hit India. This time it's a joint US-Brazil investigation into bribery charges against Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer that has now been expanded to include the sales made to India.

AFP

While Embraer has also sold VVIP executive jets to the Indian Air Force, the deal likely to come under probe is a $210-million contract inked in 2008 with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a project to develop a new range of early warning and control aircraft.

Authorities in the US and Brazil are probing charges that the company hired a middleman based out of England to bag the deal, a practice prohibited by Indian military procurement laws.

Besides the Indian deal, the company's contracts in Saudi Arabia are also being probed, Brazilian newspaper Folha de SaoPaulo reported on Friday.

AFP

The probe, which began in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 2010, has already led to the arrest of the defence minister of the Dominican Republic last month on bribery charges in a military deal with Embrarer.

This was a result of investigation launched on the basis of the information US Department of Justice shared with Brazilian authorities.

Embraer, which has not denied the charges, told ET that it is cooperating with authorities on alleged violations, and confirmed that it has expanded an internal investigation.

AFP

"The company voluntarily expanded the scope of the investigation, systematically reporting the progress of the case to the market," an Embraer spokesperson told ET.

When contacted, a defence ministry spokesperson said: "The DRDO is not yet aware of the developments."

Safe with shared keys

According to the Brazilian media report, Embraer allegedly drew up a contract that hired a representative for the Indian deal and a copy of the contract was kept in a safe in England, with one key held by the Brazilian company and another by the representative hired.

AFP

In July 2008, India signed a $210 million deal to acquire three Embraer 145 jets for its airborne early warning system programme. As per the deal, the radar and other systems would be developed by DRDO and the Brazilian firm would assist in integrating the system to the aircraft.
The nomination process for three of the four top civilian honours in India is now open to the general public.

PTI/ File

The government has made it possible for any citizen to nominate any achiever for Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan honours.

The general public can log on to padmaawards.gov.in and nominate anyone for the awards. The nominators would be required to furnish their Aadhaar details for authenticity and accountability.

The move is aimed at transforming the national awards into a truly people's award which will no longer remain restricted to elite rulers, PTI quoting sources reported.

It also aims at identifying unsung or lesser known people of excellence, who might otherwise go unnoticed and ending the crony culture of influence and lobbying.

The government has already received over 1,700 nominations and the last date of nomination is September 15.

Padma awards are given to individuals as a recognition for their works in the fields of Leadership, Literature, Civilian, Patriotic, and Particular.
How do various cities compare with each other in terms of crimes that come under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)? A data tiled Crime in India 2015 released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) last week answers this question.

BCCL/representational image

Crimes such as murder, kidnapping, crimes against women and children, dowry deaths, theft, dacoity, cheating, etc come under IPC classification.

Also Read: Decline In Rape Cases In India. UP, West Bengal Worst In Crimes Against Women Shows NCRB Data

In 2015, 25 percent of all crimes registered in major Indian cities that fell under the IPC took place in Delhi. After New Delhi (1.73 lakh cases) and Mumbai (42,940)  figures show  a total of 35,576 crimes were reported in Bangalore during 2015.

BCCL/representational image

It is followed by Kolkata (23,990) and Hyderabad (16,965). Chennai, which registered 13,422 cases last year, emerged as the safest metro city in the country, according to the NCRB data.

Notably, NCRB numbers are based on FIRs alone. Crimes for which FIRs were not registered are not accounted for in this data set.

Take a look at the comparison of big cities in cognisable offences

Murder

Delhi has to own up to the shameful fact that it witnessed the highest number of murders among 53 cities in the country in 2015 when it registered as many as 464 such cases despite claiming to have one of the most professional police in the world.

Bihars capital, Patna, stood second on the chart by registering 232 cases. Bengaluru had the third highest number of murders (188) last year.

With 464 cases of attempt to murder, Bangalore stands next to Delhi that saw 674 such cases the previous year.

When it comes to states, Uttar Pradesh topped the chart with 4,732 cases. Bihar came next with 3178 cases of murder reported last year.

Kidnapping

While New Delhi recorded the highest number (6,630) of kidnapping and abduction cases for murder, ransom and forced marriage, Mumbai saw an exponential rise of 192 percent in such cases in 2015.

With 1,583 cases registered last year as against 541 incidents in 2014, the city witnessed a three-fold increase over the last one year.

According to the statistics, Bangalore stood third with 777 cases of kidnapping and abduction filed last year.

Crime Against Women

Delhi saw a staggering 2,199 cases of custodial and non-custodial rapes in 2015, followed by Mumbai which recorded the second highest number (712) cases of such nature.

Bangalore looks better where safety of women is concerned as the number of crimes against them fell last year from 2014. The NCRB puts the city at 12th place where custodial and non-custodial rapes are concerned as well as in gang rapes and rape attempts. The city saw 112 such crimes last year.

Among Union Territories, Delhi was followed by Chandigarh (72) and Andaman and Nicobar Islands (36).

Lakshadweep is the only place where no case of rape was registered in 2015.

Overall, the year 2015 shows a 5.67 percent decline in cases of rape as compared to 2014.

The number of rape cases registered in 2015 slipped to 34,651 from 36,735 in 2014. The incidents of gang-rape have also gone down by 2,113 last year from 2,346 in the preceding year  a reduction of 9.93 percent.

BCCL/representational image

However, other sexual offences against women such as sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism, assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty witnessed a marginal increase of 2.5 percent. A total of 84,222 cases of these natures were registered in 2015, as against 82,2335 in 2014.

Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal fared worst in the NCRB report on crime against women. UP filed 35,527 cases of crime against women in the year 2015 and contributed 10.9 percent to the all-India total, followed by West Bengal with 33,218 cases and Maharashtra with 31,126. With 28,165 cases, Rajasthan stood at number four in the annual report.

Sexual Crimes Against Children

Bengaluru topped the chart of sexual crimes against children among all cities in the country in 2015. It registered 273 such cases followed by Ahmedabad which saw such 191 cases.

Indore stood at third position with 189 cases.

Dowry Cases and Dowry Deaths

Bangalore also tops in dowry-related crimes registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act, denting its image of a modern city.

With 714 such cases registered in 2015, the city left Jamshedpur in Jharkhand (157 cases) and Patna (151 cases) in second and third positions.

The city registered the third highest number of dowry deaths (54), coming next to Delhi and Patna, which saw 100 and 74 such deaths respectively in the year 2015.

Rioting

Patna tops the list of cities that witnessed maximum cases of rioting in 2015. With 725 cases, it beat Mumbai (396).

Bangalore ranked third, registering 373 cases of rioting in 2015.

Theft

Delhi left Bangalore and Mumbai far behind in registering cases of theft last year. While the national capital registered a whopping 96,924 theft cases, Bangalore reported 11,409 and Mumbai registered 10,422 cases in 2015.

Robberies

Delhi occupied the top slot here too with 6,766 cases of robberies, followed by Mumbai (1,708) and Pune (731) last year.

Bangalore recorded the fourth highest number of cases (707) related to robberies.

Maharashtra (8561) topped the list of states that witnessed the highest number of robberies in 2015. It was followed by Uttar Pradesh, which registered 3,637 cases, and Karnataka where 1,906 cases were registered last year.

Cyber Crime

Being an IT city, it is not surprising to see Bangalore securing first rank in cyber crime in the year 2015. It registered the highest number of cases (1,041) under the Information Technology Act.

With 459 and 354 such cases, Jaipur and Hyderabad stood at second and third positions respectively.

Overall, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number (2,161) of cyber crime cases. Karnataka came next with 1, 414 cases.
Launching a first-of-its-kind initiative in Madhya Pradesh, and anywhere in central India, Bhopal will become the first city to have toilets exclusively for eunuchs.

BCCL/ Representative Image

The toilets, which are expected to cost Rs 25-30 lakh, will be built under the Swachh Bharat Mission by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The decision was taken after observing the hardships they face, when it comes to public toilets, Bhopal Mayor Alok Sharma told PTI

"The eunuchs face lot of hardships in the absence of toilets for them. When males and females have separate toilets, why can't they?"

BCCL/ Representative Image

The authorities also plan to extend the facility to more places in the city.

"To start with we are going to build a toilet for kinnars (eunuchs) at Mangalwara area in the middle of the city. For this, a detailed project report (DPR) is being charted out," Sharma said.

The BMC has also roped in eunuchs to spread the message of Swachh Bharat. A eunuch has been assigned 15 villages to spread the message of cleanliness, sanitation and hygiene.

BCCL/ Representative Image

The eunuchs are not charging a penny from the government and are voluntarily working to make the state clean. In some villages, the problem of open defecation has been resolved after they campaigned against it, he further said.

There are around 500 eunuchs in Bhopal living in various parts of the city.
It is just another evening for Muskaan Ahirwar, a class III student who lives in a slum in Bhopal.

Just like every other day, she sets up a 'library' for slum children outside her house on a mat, after coming from school. These books are for her 'students' to read.

The 9-year-old is a 'teacher' to around 50 slum kids who have no option for a formal education.

Her library has around 120 books, provided by Rajya Siksha Kendra.

ANI

"I am very happy. My parents and my friends are also extremely happy. I want to be a doctor in (the) future. I had started the library with 121 books...now I have many books. Now around 50 kids come here. I would like to invite the kids who do not come here and tell them to be something when they grow up," Muskaan said.

Muskaan, who wants to be a doctor, was awarded the 'Thought Leader' award by NITI Aayog in Delhi on Friday. She is the youngest recipient of the award, and received the honour from wrestler and Olympic bronze medalist Sakshi Malik.

ANI

The online campaign was launched on International Women's Day this year by NITI Aayog, in partnership with MyGov and the United Nations in India, to crowd-source stories of women who make a difference.

Muskaan says she is a firm believer in Nelson Mandela's famous quote: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world".
This is Girish Mudigeres story, who after working and volunteering in America for a couple of years, returned to India to uplift government schools through the Develop School Project.

Author's own

What is the Develop School Project?

Girishs initiative, called the Develop School Project (DSP), is driven by a single objective, to help school children by facilitating the exchange of necessities such as knowledge, books and materials but only in kind. The project is a part of Open Schools, a non-money material organistion (NMMO).

DSP works alongside a group of volunteers and stakeholders. One group approaches government schools to find out what they need, volunteers come in to donate money and DSP networks, coordinate and facilitate the entire process.

Girish said, We are a set of very ordinary people determined to improve the state of government schools. We realised that resources are available in abundant but missing is streamlining, organising, channelising, planning and a methodical approach. And money isnt required to do this, hence the concept of Non Money Material Organization.

He adds that this concept helps to maintain transparency, which makes it easy for people to get involved.

The idea of the project came to him when he was watching snowfall one night in Michigan, USA. It was snowing very heavily, he said and it prevents people from getting any work done yet America utilizes resources and gets the work done all throughout the year.

In India, we do not have extreme weather and we have enough resources. But what we really need is focus so I thought why not get the work done rather than finding faults in the system.

On ground action

Author's own

So far schools in eight different locations with 10-40 schools in each area have been approached to list their requirements. Girishs team is focusing on 40 schools/Anganavadis in and around the Jeevanbhimanagara area in east Bangalore. They are focusing on eight schools plus anganavadis in south Bangalore, 15 schools in Koratagere Taluk and 10 schools in the Ramanagara area.

Coming back to the question about what prompted Girish to come back from the US and volunteer in the first place; the man himself accolades the effort very modestly. Giving full credit to his team, Girish said  I personally have put in 3000+ hours of volunteering in Non Religious, Non political, Non gender based work in USA, mainly focusing on food collection, segregation, highway cleaning, helping food distribution etc etc....From last 7 weeks in India, I have put in several hours daily to bring people together and spread the concept not by communication alone, but also through real work and also series of meetings all 100% free of cost (No money involved in these).

Attitudes need to change

Author's own

According to Girish, the attitude needs to change at all levels including administrators, staff, parents, SDMC, NGOs, government officers and so on.

He said, If we change our attitude slightly, we can transform all 125,000 institutions in Karnataka and it is definitely not money or the shortage of resources that is stopping us from reaching international standards.

How does the project work?

Author's own

Girish has built up a strong network of people and resources through social media. The website (www.developschools.org) has a lot of information such as excerpts from high school text books, tutorials on different subjects and a special section on Tulu grammar. The website also has advice for teachers on how to manage classrooms better. The team finds a group of volunteers who live next to the school being developed so that they can facilitate the upliftment process. For example, if a school needs its taps to be fixed, then they would lobby a plumber. Similarly teachers are lobbied to teach at school that require more attention.

So no money is used at all?

There are some problems such as infrastructure problems that need money to be fixed. So how does DSP secure funds? Girish said, No extra money is needed. We just utilise the government allotted money appropriately and bring transparency to the entire process.

Currently, he added, people are hesitant to invest in government schools because of the ambiguity in what happens with those funds. Schools can develop by miles if only money is used properly.

If you want to volunteer please visit, www.developschools.org.
It's always been said that India is a land of braves. And why not, when there are a number of stories of the valour and courage of our soldiers who have been fighting at our borders so that people like you and me can sleep peacefully? Well this story from 1965 Indo-Pak war is another such tale. The story of Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid of the Indian Army will not only make inspire you but also give you goosebumps.

Indian Army

So, what exactly happened on September 10, 1965?

During the war, Abdul Hamid, PVC, who was a soldier in the 4th Battalion, The Grenadiers, of the Indian Army, was given the job of holding the enemy in Asal Utar. On September 10, 1965, when Pakistani forces launched an attack with Patton tanks in the Khem Karan Sector, Abdul moved out to a flanking position, with a Recoilless Gun (RCL) mounted on a jeep, under intense enemy shelling and tank fire. The attack was preceded by intense artillery bombardment to soften the target and to garner a heavy fire in an attempt to draw Indian response. But an hour later, the Pakistani tanks had penetrated the forward company positions.

Hamid heard the rumble of armour and caught sight of a few enemy tanks that were heading in the direction of his battalion. The Grenadiers held their fire so as not to warn the enemy. Taking cover behind the tall crops, Hamid pointed his gun in their direction and waited.

Just as the tanks came within shooting distance, Hamid asked his loader to load the gun and fire.

Intense enemy shelling and tank fire did not deter him. Taking an advantageous position, he knocked out the leading enemy tank, and then swiftly changing his position, sent another tank up in flames. Undeterred, under the enemys concentrated machine gun and high explosive fire, Hamid kept on firing on yet another enemy tank from his recoilless gun.

1965-Stories from Second Indo-Pak War by Rachna Bisht Rawat.

By this time the enemy tanks in the area spotted him and brought his jeep under concentrated machine-gun and high explosive fire. He fired continuously knocking out three Pattons one after another but was killed by tank fire from the fourth before he could engage it.

Havildar Abdul Hamids brave action inspired his comrades to put up a gallant fight and to beat back the heavy tank assault by the enemy. His complete disregard for his personal safety during the operation and his sustained acts of bravery in the face of constant enemy fire were a shining example not only to his unit but also to the whole division and were in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.

Havildar Abdul Hamid was awarded with the Republic of India's highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra.

Wikipedia
The US House of Representatives passed a legislation that would allow the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia's government for damages, despite the White House's threat to veto the measure.

BCCL

The House passed the legislation on Friday by voice vote, about four months after the measure cleared the Senate despite vehement objections from Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

The White House has signaled President Barack Obama would veto the legislation over the potential for the measure to backfire.

The Obama administration cautions that if US citizens can take the Saudis to court, then a foreign country could in turn sue the United States. There also is apprehension the bill would undermine a longstanding yet strained relationship with a critical US ally in the Middle East.

Reuters

Votes from two-thirds of the members in the House and Senate would be needed to override a veto.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia, which was preparing for the annual haj pilgrimage beginning Saturday.

The legislation gives victims' families the right to sue in US court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in New York, the Washington, DC, area and Pennsylvania.

Reuters

Representative Ted Poe, R-Texas, said the US government should be more concerned about the families of the victims than "diplomatic niceties." Poe said he doesn't know if the Saudi government had a role in the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

"That's for a jury of Americans to decide," Poe said.

The vote came after House members from both parties briefly adjourned to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis, led a moment of silence on the Capitol steps, and lawmakers sang "God Bless America" in remembrance of 9/11, when lawmakers gathered in the same location to sing the song immediately after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Reuters

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act had triggered a threat from Riyadh to pull billions of dollars from the US economy if the legislation is enacted. But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir denied in May that the kingdom made any threats over the bill. He said Riyadh had warned that investor confidence in the US would shrink if the bill became law.

"In fact what they (Congress) are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities, which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle," Al-Jubeir said.

The House vote came two months after Congress released 28 declassified pages from a congressional report into 9/11 that reignited speculation over links at least a few of the attackers had to Saudis, including government officials. The allegations were never substantiated by later US investigations into the terrorist attacks.

Brian McGlinchey, director of advocacy website 28pages.org, said making the documents public "strengthened the resolve of 9/11 families and other advocates of justice to bring about the enactment" of the bill.

Reuters

A decision by Obama to veto legislation "that would give 9/11 families their well-deserved day in court would truly stain his legacy," McGlinchey said.

In a separate development, a bipartisan group of senators announced Thursday that they've introduced a joint resolution of disapproval to block the Obama administration's proposed sale of more than $1 billion worth of US weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Associated Press Photographer Nick Uts Pulitzer Prize-winning image of a naked girl, Kim Phuc, running from a napalm attack is one of the most iconic and haunting images of the Vietnam War.

AP

But the iconic image was at the center of controversy after social networking giant Facebook took down the image from a Norwegian author and journalist Tom Egeland's page, last month, saying it violated the social networks rules on nudity.

The move caused protest across the country, with many posting the image. Facebook kept on removing it.

On Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the image on her profile, Facebook deleted that too.

norway.org

Facebook defended its decision saying it was difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. But late Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.

"In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," Facebook said in a statement.

"To speak up and say we want change, it matters and it works. And that makes me happy," Solberg said after the image was restored.

Facebook's statement said it will adjust its review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward.

AFP

"We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward."
Residents of Christiania, a closed community in the Danish capital, used every possible tool to demolish a notorious open-air drug market popularly known as Pusher Street in Copenhagen after a shooting that injured two police officers and a bystander. They demolished makeshift stalls where hash and weed dealers used to gather as they were allowed to deal in drugs without a license.

newsweek.com

The upheaval was provoked after a police officer was left in a critical condition and two others were injured. Mesa Hodzic, a Danish national born in Bosnia, went all crazy and opened fire on the cops when they tried arresting him. He was later killed in the shootout with police.

The incident left the residents of Christiania brimming with anger, a community of almost 600 established by hippies in 1971. Though hashish and marijuana are illegal in Denmark, the area soon became famous for its tolerance for drugs. Criminals with time replaced the gracious locals as the main suppliers of drugs, which lead to frequent fights and attempts to destroy them by Copenhagen police.

In the video, you can see dozens of people gathering to overthrow plywood booths decorated with paintings of Bob Marley's face and other stoner iconography.

"It is important that we do this today with the wounded police officer in our thoughts," community spokesman Risenga Manghezi told the AP. "But we cannot guarantee that they won't pop up again, unfortunately."

vice.com

According to Danish news site The Local, the last determined effort to clear out "Pusher Street" is what made gangs cement their control over the drug trade. Authorities tried to flatten the area in 2004, but "hardened elements then moved in to fill the vacuum and the market was soon reestablished and larger than ever."

This time around, locals are asking Danes and tourists to help the cause by buying their weed somewhere else from now on.

"We can remove the [cannabis] stalls but we can't ensure that they don't come back. We need all of Denmark's help for that. If you support Christiania, stop buying your cannabis here," Manghezi said.
Pakistani forces have launched a fresh wave of military operations across the restive Balochistan province.

An activist for a prominent Baloch political outfit has said even civilians have been attacked and abducted in the ongoing operations, and has called on the international community to take steps to stop Islamabad's human rights abuses in Balochistan.

AFP

"In many parts of Nasirabad District (of Balochistan province), Pak forces have carried out attacks. Baloch civilians have been harassed and many have been abducted," said Abdul Nawaz Bugti, Baloch Republican Party's representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

"In different parts of Dera Bugti, Baloch civil populace have been attacked and more than 19 Baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to the same family have been abducted," Bugti told news agency ANI in a video message.

twitter

He also said Pakistani security personnel were practically laying siege to the house of a political worker in the Turbat area for four days. "His family, mostly women and children, is starving and Pakistani forces have denied access to them," Bugti said.

ALSO READ: India Talks Tough On Kashmir, PoK Is Ours, Says PM Narendra Modi

He had earlier tweeted that Pakistani forces use such tactics to compel Baloch political activists who have gone underground to resurface. They are then abducted, tortured or killed, he alleged.

"It is the time that international media raises their voices and helps save Baloch from the inhuman atrocities committed by Pakistani forces on a daily basis in Balochistan," he added.

AFP

Abdul Nawaz Bugti's Twitter timeline is filled with tweets that are updates of the actions of Pakistani security personnel in Balochistan.

Also on his timeline are discussions on whether the fresh wave of military operations against Baloch people is a result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mention of Pakistan's human rights abuses in Balochistan.

ALSO READ: Pakistan's Raw Nerve, Balochistan - A Story Of Occupation, Human Rights Violations And Genocide

struggleforthefuture

When questioned by some on whether PM Modi's mention of Balochistan has had a negative effect on Baloch people, Bugti tweeted, "It hasn't. Pakistani atrocities have always been there. The positive thing now is that the world knows about them"

PM Modi, in his Independence Day speech, had crossed a major threshold by mentioning Balochistan. He had said if Islamabad continued to arm and encourage violence in Kashmir, New Delhi would be forced to highlight its human rights abuses in Balochistan.

AFP

PM Modi's statement had been widely welcomed by Baloch political outfits and activists, some of whom even called on India to intervene militarily in their conflict with Islamabad.

PM Modi's mention of Balochistan had shaken the establishment in Islamabad, which has for long spread propaganda that the Baloch struggle for a separate homeland was funded and backed by India's Research & Analysis Wing (RAW).

India however has denied these allegations for decades and has even avoided commenting on the issue. But given Islamabad's continuing meddling in Kashmir, PM Modi took the battle to Pakistan

ALSO READ: Get Out Of PoK And Then Let Us Talk About Kashmir, India Tells Pakistan
Founder of fashion brand Zara, Amancio Ortega, has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world's richest man this week. His personal wealth increased by $1.7 billion (Rs 1,13,74,48,75,000) this week to $79.5 billion (Rs 53,19,24,56,25,000), taking him past Bill Gates' $78.5 billion (Rs 52,52,33,68,75,000). Europe, and now the world's, richest man who is now 80-years-old is expected to hand over the management of his business to his daughter Marta.

signalng.com

Marta isn't new to the business. The 31-year-old woman has gone training at the firm doing all kinds of jobs, including stacking shelves when she was young. Forbes reported Ortega became the world's richest man after his Inditex shares went up by 2.5 percent.

Europa Press

This isn't the first time Ortega has topped the list of the wealthiest. He was ahead of Bill Gates in October last year before a surge in Microsoft's shares saw Ortega claim the second spot, until now.

EPS

Ortega, known to be a private person, never gives interviews. He's even rarely photographed. He's such a shy person that he didn't even attend the inaugural ringing of the stock market bell at the Madrid exchange when Inditex floated in 2001. However, Ortega is also a persuasive and enthusiastic businessman who, even though has handed over day-to-day operations, still remains to be an active part of the business.
claiming that seven irregular migrants died while trying to clandestinely travel towards to the Greek mainland from the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos inside a truck trailer loaded onto a ferry boat  which proved to be false  was enough to generate a small-scale riot by third country nationals being temporarily housed in a hot spot on the isle.
The conference of Metallurgists programming will be hosted at the XXVIII International Mineral Processing Congress (IMPC) in Quebec City September 11-19, 2016. COMs contributions include:

Rare Earth Elements

4th International Symposium on Iron Control in Hydrometallurgy

Electrometallurgy 2016

Lightweight Metals and Composites: Production, Processing and Applications

Pyrometallurgy and Hydrometallurgy Extractive Metallurgy.

The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) is honoured to be hosting the XXVIII International Mineral Processing Congress (IMPC) in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Under the theme Processing for all: Meeting Technical, Environmental and Social Challenges, over 1,500 mineral processing experts, academics and industry professionals from more than 60 countries will gather to network, explore and discuss the important issues and trends currently shaping our industry and its future.

Over 16 technical topics, 8 short courses and 4 industrial visits are planned to enhance the learning experience.

Join us and plan to be part of the event where GREAT MINDS MEET.
Americas True Role in Syria By Jeffrey D. Sachs September 09, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Project Syndicate " - Syrias civil war is the most dangerous and destructive crisis on the planet. Since early 2011, hundreds of thousands have died; around ten million Syrians have been displaced; Europe has been convulsed with Islamic State (ISIS) terror and the political fallout of refugees; and the United States and its NATO allies have more than once come perilously close to direct confrontation with Russia. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has greatly compounded the dangers by hiding the US role in Syria from the American people and from world opinion. An end to the Syrian war requires an honest accounting by the US of its ongoing, often secretive role in the Syrian conflict since 2011, including who is funding, arming, training, and abetting the various sides. Such exposure would help bring to an end many countries reckless actions. A widespread  and false  perception is that Obama has kept the US out of the Syrian war. Indeed, the US right wing routinely criticizes him for having drawn a line in the sand for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over chemical weapons, and then backing off when Assad allegedly crossed it (the issue remains murky and disputed, like so much else in Syria). A leading columnist for the Financial Times, repeating the erroneous idea that the US has remained on the sidelines, recently implied that Obama had rejected the advice of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arm the Syrian rebels fighting Assad. Yet the curtain gets lifted from time to time. In January, the New York Times finally reported on a secret 2013 Presidential order to the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. As the account explained, Saudi Arabia provides substantial financing of the armaments, while the CIA, under Obamas orders, provides organizational support and training. Unfortunately, the story came and went without further elaboration by the US government or follow up by the New York Times. The public was left in the dark: How big are the ongoing CIA-Saudi operations? How much is the US spending on Syria per year? What kinds of arms are the US, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, and others supplying to the Syrian rebels? Which groups are receiving the arms? What is the role of US troops, air cover, and other personnel in the war? The US government isnt answering these questions, and mainstream media arent pursuing them, either. On more than a dozen occasions, Obama has told the American people that there would be no US boots on the ground. Yet every few months, the public is also notified in a brief government statement that US special operations forces are being deployed to Syria. The Pentagon routinely denies that they are in the front lines. But when Russia and the Assad government recently carried out bombing runs and artillery fire against rebel strongholds in northern Syria, the US notified the Kremlin that the attacks were threatening American troops on the ground. The public has been given no explanation about their mission, its costs, or counterparties in Syria. Through occasional leaks, investigative reports, statements by other governments, and rare statements by US officials, we know that America is engaged in an active, ongoing, CIA-coordinated war both to overthrow Assad and to fight ISIS. Americas allies in the anti-Assad effort include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in the region. The US has spent billions of dollars on arms, training, special operations forces, air strikes, and logistical support for the rebel forces, including international mercenaries. American allies have spent billions of dollars more. The precise sums are not reported. The US public has had no say in these decisions. There has been no authorizing vote or budget approval by the US Congress. The CIAs role has never been explained or justified. The domestic and international legality of US actions has never been defended to the American people or the world. To those at the center of the US military-industrial complex, this secrecy is as it should be. Their position is that a vote by Congress 15 years ago authorizing the use of armed force against those culpable for the 9/11 attack gives the president and military carte blanche to fight secret wars in the Middle East and Africa. Why should the US explain publicly what it is doing? That would only jeopardize the operations and strengthen the enemy. The public does not need to know. I subscribe to a different view: wars should be a last resort and should be constrained by democratic scrutiny. This view holds that Americas secret war in Syria is illegal both under the US Constitution (which gives Congress the sole power to declare war) and under the United Nations Charter, and that Americas two-sided war in Syria is a cynical and reckless gamble. The US-led efforts to topple Assad are not aimed at protecting the Syrian people, as Obama and Clinton have suggested from time to time, but are a US proxy war against Iran and Russia, in which Syria happens to be the battleground. The stakes of this war are much higher and much more dangerous than Americas proxy warriors imagine. As the US has prosecuted its war against Assad, Russia has stepped up its military support to his government. In the US mainstream media, Russias behavior is an affront: how dare the Kremlin block the US from overthrowing the Syrian government? The result is a widening diplomatic clash with Russia, one that could escalate and lead  perhaps inadvertently  to the point of military conflict. These are issues that should be subject to legal scrutiny and democratic control. I am confident that the American people would respond with a resounding no to the ongoing US-led war of regime change in Syria. The American people want security  including the defeat of ISIS  but they also recognize the long and disastrous history of US-led regime-change efforts, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. This is the main reason why the US security state refuses to tell the truth. The American people would call for peace rather than perpetual war. Obama has a few months left in office to repair his broken legacy. He should start by leveling with the American people. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.  1995  2016 Project Syndicate
Chelsea Manning Begins Hunger Strike

I Need Help. I Am Not Getting Any.





Until I am shown dignity and respect as a human again, I shall endure this pain before me.



By Mollie Reilly

September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Huffington Post " - Imprisoned Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning has begun a hunger strike to protest what she describes as high tech bullying at the hands of military and prison officials.

Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for providing a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010. The soldier, who came out as a transgender woman shortly after she was sentenced in 2013, sued the government for access to hormone therapy drugs while in prison so she could transition to living as a woman.

It has now been more than four years since I was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that I have struggled with my entire life, Manning wrote in 2014. I do not believe I will be able to survive another year or two  let alone twenty to thirty years  without treatment.

Her hormone therapy was approved the following year, but Mannings struggles with both prison authorities and the military have not ended. Last year, officials denied her request to grow out her hair, which her doctor recommended as part of her treatment for gender dysphoria.

In July, Manning was hospitalized after attempting suicide. While still under observation at the barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Manning received a letter from army officials saying she could face solitary confinement for alleged offenses related to her suicide attempt.

Manning is now on hunger strike, she says, until she receives a written promise from the Army to cease the constant, deliberate and overzealous administrative scrutiny by prison and military officials and to grant her full access to the medical treatments recommended by her doctor.

I need help, Manning wrote in a statement. I am not getting any. I have asked for help time and time again for six years and through five separate confinement locations. My request has only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration. ... I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didnt get any. I still havent gotten any.

Manning said from Friday on, she would refuse to voluntarily eat or drink anything but water, or cut her hair until she is given minimum standards of dignity, respect, and humanity.
Isis Fighter Reveals Group's Plan to Spread - Claims Collusion With Turkey Patrick Cockburn interviews an Isis militant who claims the movement will rise again in North Africa, that Turkey turned a blind eye to shipments of weapons across the border and that Isis fighters are still present in Jarabulus By Patrick Cockburn September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Independent " - Isis will flourish and survive even if it is defeated in the present battle for Syria and Iraq an Isis militant has told The Independent. In an exclusive interview, Faraj, a 30-year-old veteran fighter from north east Syria, says that when we say that the Islamic State [Isis] is everlasting and expanding, it is not a mere poetic or propaganda phrase. He says the group intends to rebuild its strength in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, adding that Isis has sleeper agents all over the world and their numbers are increasing. In his account of his life in Isis, Faraj makes plain that only a year after the caliphate was declared in the wake of the capture of Mosul in 2014, its leaders could foresee that it might be overrun militarily. He reveals hitherto unknown details of the apparent close cooperation between Isis and Turkey and the degree to which foreign fighters who flooded into Syria to fight for Isis alienated local people from the movement by ordering them about and interfering in their lives. Speaking through WhatsApp from outside Syria and asking for his real name to be concealed, Faraj says that when he first heard from my emirs [commanders] that Isis would win even if it had been defeated militarily in Iraq and Syria, I thought they were just energising and encouraging us or they were just hiding their defeats. But he soon found out that Isis leaders were taking practical measures early on to set up bases elsewhere in the world. A Libyan commander told him over a year ago that he was returning to Libya for a certain mission and would be back in two months. It is significant that as early as August 2015, when Isis was close to its maximum territorial expansion, after capturing Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria in May, it was already preparing for defeat. Faraj says that the world powers underestimate its resilience because they do not understand the attractiveness of Isis and its ideology to those who find the status quo unacceptable. He says: I, like my commanders and comrades, fight in reaction to the tyranny and injustice I had experienced before. Faraj comes originally from a Sunni Arab village between the cities of Hasaka and Qomishli in the predominantly Kurdish north east corner of Syria. He is better educated than most Isis members, having graduated from the Faculty of Education at Hasaka University. He joined Jabhat al-Nusra along with his extended family in 2012. Known as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra recently claimed to have cut any ties with al-Qaeda and rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. However, when Isis fighters entered Farajs village and offered the young men a choice of leaving or joining them, he opted to join Isis. His eyewitness account of developments within Isis and, in particular, its relationship to Turkey are revealing because they do not come from an embittered former Isis member trying to distance himself from his past. He says he is no longer a fighter, after differences with Isis that he does not explain, but I am still an Isis supporter because I strongly believe in the wisdom or purpose behind its existence. Interestingly, he finds Isis attractive not so much because of its extreme religious ideology but as an effective and well-organised vehicle for protest. He says: Isis is the best solution to correct the wrongdoings of the authoritarian regimes in the region. Speaking of the Turkish military intervention in Syria which began on 24 August, Faraj helps explain a mysterious development which took place at the time. As Turkish tanks and anti-Isis rebel Syrian units moved into the border town of Jarabulus on the Euphrates River, Isis appeared to know they were coming and made no attempt to resist them. This was in sharp contrast to the ferocious resistance put up by Isis fighters to defend the Isis-held town of Manbij a little further south from attack by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) whose fighting muscle comes from the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG). Isis may have lost as many as 1,000 dead in ground fighting and US bombardment from the air. It was reported at the time that Isis fighters had fallen back from Jarabulus towards their other stronghold in the area at al-Bab, but Faraj has another explanation. He says: When the Turkish army entered Jarabulus, I talked to my friends who were there. Actually, Isis didnt leave Jarabulus; they just shaved off their beards. He has compelling claims about the degree of complicity between Isis and Turkey a year earlier relating to the defence of Tal Abyad, another Isis-held crossing point between Turkey and Syria which was a particularly important supply route for Isis because it is 60 miles north of the Isis Syrian capital Raqqa. In the summer of 2015, the YPG forces advancing from east and west with strong US air support caught Tal Abyad in a pincer movement, which made it difficult for Isis to defend the town. Faraj was part of a 150-strong Isis force resisting the YPG attack. Turkey supported Isis a lot, he recalls. When I was in Tal Abyad in May, 2015, we received a lot of weapons and ammunition without any obstacles from the border guards. This has long been an accusation by the Kurds, but this may be the first time that allegations of Turkish complicity with Isis during a battle has been confirmed by an Isis fighter taking part in it. Turkish government officials have repeatedly denied any accusations of complicity in the actions of Isis, or that weapons are getting into the hands of the group via Turkey. Faraj, as a Syrian Sunni Arab, is critical of both Turks and Syrian Kurds. He expresses dislike for the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but adds he is much better than the Arab dictators. At the same time, he holds Mr Erdogan responsible for destroying Syria by pursuing a conflict with the Kurds in Turkey that spread across the border into Syria and by supporting Isis and pushing them into Syria. See also France: Female Paris attack plotters 'directed by ISIL ': French prosecutor says the three women arrested for planning an attack in Paris were being directed by ISIL in Syria.
Clintons National Security Advisers Are a Whos Who of the Warfare State





By Zaid Jilani, Alex Emmons, Naomi LaChance

September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Intercept " - Hillary Clinton is meeting on Friday with a new national security working group that is filled with an elite whos who of the military-industrial complex and the security deep state.

The list of key advisers  which includes the general who executed the troop surge in Iraq and a former Bush homeland security chief turned terror profiteer  is a strong indicator that Clintons national security policy will not threaten the post-9/11 national-security status quo that includes active use of military power abroad and heightened security measures at home.

Its a story weve seen before in President Obamas early appointments. In retrospect, analysts have pointed to the continuity in national security and intelligence advisers as an early sign that despite his campaign rhetoric Obama would end up building on  rather than tearing down  the often-extralegal, Bush-Cheney counterterror regime. For instance, while Obama promised in 2008 to reform the NSA, its director was kept on and its reach continued to grow.

Obamas most fateful decision may have been choosing former National Counterterrorism Center Director John Brennan to be national security adviser, despite Brennans support of Bushs torture program. Brennan would go on to run the presidents drone program, lead the CIA, fight the Senates torture investigation, and then lie about searching Senate computers.

That backdrop is what makes Clintons new list of advisers so significant.

It includes Gen. David Petraeus, the major architect of the 2007 Iraq War troop surge, which brought 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Picking him indicates at partiality to combative ideology. It also represents a return to good standing for the general after he pled guilty to leaking notebooks full of classified information to his lover, Paula Broadwell, and got off with two years of probation and a fine. Petraeus currently works at the investment firm KKR & Co.

Another notable member of Clintons group is Michael Chertoff, a hardliner who served as President George W. Bushs last secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and who since leaving government in 2009 has helmed a corporate consulting firm called the Chertoff Group that promotes security-industry priorities. For example, in 2010, he gave dozens of media interviews touting full-body scanners at airports while his firm was employed by a company that produced body scanning machines. His firm also employs a number of other ex-security state officials, such as former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden. It does not disclose a complete list of its clients  all of whom now have a line of access to Clinton.

Many others on the list are open advocates of military escalation overseas. Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, endorsed Clinton last month in a New York Times opinion piece that accused Trump of being an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation. The Times was criticized for not disclosing his current employment by Beacon Global Strategies, a politically powerful national-security consulting firm with strong links to Clinton. Three days later, Morell told Charlie Rose in a PBS interview that the CIA should actively assassinate Russians and Iranians in Syria.

During his time at the CIA, Morell was connected to some of the worst scandals and intelligence failures of the Bush administration. In his book, he apologizes for giving flawed intelligence to Colin Powell about Iraqs supposed weapons of mass destruction, but defends the CIA torture program as legal and ethical.

Jim Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander Europe on Clintons advisory group, told Fox News Radio in July, when he was being vetted by Clinton as a possible vice presidential nominee, that we have got to get more aggressive going into Syria and Iraq and go after [ISIS] because if we dont theyre going to come to us. Its a pretty simple equation. He said he would encourage the president to take a more aggressive stance against Iran, to increase our military forces in Iraq and Syria, and to confront Vladmir Putin over his moves in Crimea.

The New York Times reported in 2011 that Michael Vickers, a former Pentagon official on Clintons new list, led the use of drone strikes. He would grin and tell his colleagues at meetings, I just want to kill those guys.

Others on the list played a role in the targeted killing policies of the Obama administration, including Chris Fussell, a top aide to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and now a partner with him at his lucrative consulting firm, the McChrystal Group.

Fussell was aide-de-camp to McChrystal while he was serving as commander of Joint Special Operations Command. McChrystal oversaw a dramatic expansion in the use of night raids and assassinations, and would later be accused of condoning torture at JSOCs Iraq Base, Camp NAMA (code for Nasty-Ass Military Area).

Richard Fontaine, a former McCain adviser and president of the counterinsurgency-focused think tank Center for a New American Security, responded to the Paris attacks by writing an op-ed that advocated, among other things, a U.S.-backed safe zone in Syria. He has also proposed intensifying the bombing campaign against ISIS, and increasing the presence of U.S. special forces in Iraq.

Janet Napolitano, a former Obama DHS secretary, presided over a harsh immigration policy, where the department deported a record number of undocumented immigrants  although she did support Obamas recent executive actions designed to protect some migrants.

The closest thing the list has to a dissenter to the status quo would appear to be Kathleen Hicks, a think tanker who served in the Obama Defense Department. On a panel at the Charles Koch Institute with John Mearsheimer earlier this year, she denounced American military overreach. A big footprint in the Middle East is not helpful to the United States, politically, militarily, or otherwise, she said.
America's Hypocrisy on Foreign 'Provocations'

By Ted Galen Carpenter

September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The National Interest " - A new mini-crisis erupted in late August near the Strait of Hormuz when small patrol boats from Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intercepted and continued to sail within a few hundred yards of a U.S. destroyer, the USS Nitze. The Nitze responded by firing warning shots.

U.S. officials immediately condemned the incident as a terrible provocation, a theme that members of the American media obediently echoed. No one seemed to question why it was not provocative for the United States to sail a heavily armed destroyer (along with other warships) six thousand miles away from the American homeland to operate within a few miles of the Iranian coast. Yet Irans interception of that warship was automatically deemed provocative.

This is a theme that we have witnessed far too often: the assumption that whatever the United States does militarily in the international arena is not only acceptable, but should be beyond challenge or criticism. According to that reasoning, Washington and its compliant allies had every right to enforce a no-fly zone to influence the outcome of the internecine conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. Likewise, the United States had every right to impose similar restrictions in Iraq. When Serbian leaders and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein resisted such measures, they were the ones escalating the crises.

We see similar logic today as the United States meddles in Syrias civil war. Again, Irans involvement in the conflict roiling a neighboring state is considered evidence of nefarious goals. Likewise, American hawks consider Russias intervention as outrageous and an indication of odious motives, even though Syria is barely six hundred miles from the southern Russian border, and the governing Assads have been Russian political clients for decades. Even the Obama administration has seethed about Vladimir Putins audacity in sending Russian aircraft to back the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Throughout the American media, as well as the political and foreign-policy communities, Moscows military intrusion in Syria is considered utterly illegitimate. And yet Americas intervention from six thousand miles away is widely viewed as not only proper but inescapable, for both strategic and moral reasons.

The attitude that no U.S. military action is ever provocative emerges even when U.S. forces are operating in the immediate security environs of other major powers. Thus, the Navys so-called freedom-of-navigation patrols in the South China Sea, thousands of miles from the American homeland, are portrayed as perfectly normaleven though Beijing objects vehemently to them. Chinese naval and air operations countering those patrols are, of course, dangerous, provocative and unacceptable. That is the case even though the South China Sea is a lot closer to China than it is to the United States.

A similar double standard is evident regarding deployments involving U.S. and Russian warships in both the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. There are frequent U.S. complaints that Russian ships or aircraft have harassed American vessels. There is never any apparent awareness that Moscow might legitimately consider having U.S. military operations in waters so close to Russia as a security threat. Indeed, Obama administration officials summarily dismiss Moscows concerns and objections.

Yet all we would need to do in the cases of Iran, China and Russia is engage in a basic thought exercise. How would the United States respond if the naval forces of another power sailed uninvited into waters close to U.S. territorial watersand did so repeatedly despite Washingtons objections? It is unlikely that either U.S. officials or the American people would consider it a friendly act. Imagine the reaction, for example, if a fleet of Chinese warships routinely conducted ongoing freedom of navigation exercises in the Gulf of Mexico. Likewise, it is difficult to contemplate Americans remaining indifferent to the sight of Russian destroyers and cruisers in the waters off Cape Cod.

U.S. officials and the American news media need to become far more aware and sophisticated about how other governments and populations perceive U.S. military actions. The smug assumption that were the good guys, so nothing we do is wrong or provocative is both myopic and dangerous. From the perspective of other countries, reasonable U.S. actions may seem profoundly threatening. And despite the risks, some of those countries no longer seem inclined to simply cower before Washingtons might.
Most People Today Want to be Propagandized By Daniel Lattier Theres a principle in hypnotism that goes like this: A person cannot be hypnotized against his will. He must be a willing subject. He must be fully cooperative. So it goes with propaganda. For propaganda to be effective, it requires submissive subjects. As Professor Nicholas OShaughnessy wrote, propaganda is a co-production in which we are willing participants. Propaganda is typically defined as the dissemination of particularly biased information in support of a political or ideological cause. In his 1965 book Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes, philosopher Jacques Ellul provided us with some of the basic characteristics of propaganda: it thwarts dialogue, it is geared toward the masses, it utilizes various media, it is continuous, it is not intended to make one think. Disable the Brain If these are the characteristics of propaganda, then it is no exaggeration to say that we are surrounded by it today. Most news organizations have become partisan shills and propagandists. They provide viewers with a steady stream of videos, audio clips, images, and articlesmost lacking nuance and of dubious intellectual meritthat serve the intended purpose of promoting an ideology while fueling disdain for the opposition. And they have become very successful doing it. The reason they are successful, I fear, is that most people today want to be propagandizedthough they would never admit it. Most people want to be given ideological marching orders and talking points from an authority. Most people have zero interest, and see little value, in engaging with arguments put forward by those who hold differing positions, unless its to ridicule them. Most people want to simply choose the news media organizations that best fit with their selected ideological camps and immerse themselves in their informational streams. This realization is unfortunate, but not really surprising. Over the past few hundred years weve had a massive democratization of public discourse and higher education in the West. A continually larger percentage of the population has gone to school for longer and longer periods of time, and has been given the impression that, as a result of this education, they are enlightened critical thinkers whose opinions have as much value as the next persons. Yet, at the same time, we must confront the question raised by Dorothy Sayers in her famous 1947 essay The Lost Tools of Learning: Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? The fact is, though everyone goes through the education system today, most are not provided with the building blocks of thought. Most are no longer taught logic. Most are not shown how to engage in rational debate. Avoiding Complexity And even if these skills were better taught in todays schools, I highly doubt that our situation would be that much better. If history and experience are any indicators, the difficult reality is that most people either dont possess the intellectual chops for doing battle with complex and controversial ideas, or they choose not to undertake the discipline necessary to acquire this skill. In the past, when confronted with new or different ideas, people who did not achieve the heights of formal education had the values and traditions embedded in their communities to fall back on. These provided them with a foundationa common senseby which to assess the merit those opinions that may differ from their own. But today, hyper-individualism, increased urbanization, the breakdown of the family, and ideological divisions have caused a decline in the formative influence of community, and reduced our access to the common sense that it can provide. Intellectually insecure and socially uprooted, many people are now desperate for some authority to cling to, someone who will give simple expression to the inklings of thoughts and instincts to which they can neither give adequate voice nor adequately live out. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people would seek out propaganda today, and that its providers would be so happy to oblige? Dan is the Vice President of Intellectual Takeout. He received his B.A. in Philosophy and Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas (MN), and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You can find his academic work at Academia.edu. This piece originally appeared in IntellectualTakeout
Irish Disgrace Over Apple Tax Scam By Finian Cunningham September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Sputnik " - Many ordinary, wage-poor Irish workers, unemployed youth, neglected hospital patients and impoverished pensioners are also infuriated by what they see as the Dublin governments betrayal of their needs in order to suck up to the worlds richest corporation. The issue here is not merely an Irish domestic affair. It is about how servile governments choose to pander to capital and foreign investors while their own people are shafted. After three years of investigation, the EC  the EUs executive branch  ruled last week that successive Irish governments had given the American multinational firm unfair and illegal state aid by grossly undertaxing it to the tune of 13 billion ($14.5 billion). The EC concluded that Apples international sales subsidiary based in the Republic of Ireland was afforded an effective corporate tax rate of less than 1 per cent. Considering that rates in Germany and France are over 30 per cent the Irish fiscal take is a pathetic nibble, not a fair bite into the profits of a company that globally makes over $50 billion a year. Brussels has now ordered the US firm to pay back 13bn to the Irish state. But, incredibly, the Irish government has made the bizarre appeal that it doesnt want the money back. Dublin claims that Brussels is compromising Irish sovereignty by interfering in its tax affairs. Irish opposition parties do not agree with the government. The leftwing Sinn Fein party points out that Irish citizens have borne the brunt of economic austerity for years since the financial crash of 2008, and that, as a matter of basic justice, the people should avail of the huge tax arrears which successive governments have indulged foreign capital with. Putting Apples tax dues into perspective illustrates the importance of the sums involved. The 13bn would cover a full year of spending on public healthcare by the Irish state. This is at a time when thousands of Irish people are being denied medical treatment because the government claims there is no money in state coffers. Up to now, Irish governments have claimed that their low corporate tax policies over the past 25 years created a roaring economy driven by foreign companies setting up shop in Ireland. This gave rise to the phenomenon of the so-called Celtic Tiger in emulation of the East Asian economic tigers of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The Irish corporate tax rate was nominally set at 12.5 per cent, more than half the official rate elsewhere in Europe and in the US. And, of course, American multinationals like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook set up in Ireland to make enormous savings. Certainly in the case of Apple, the international sales subsidiary has all the appearances of a classic tax avoidance scam. The company clears its global business revenues through its puny Irish office, thus avoiding paying taxes in countries where it has points of sale. The EU investigation found that the Irish government was not even applying its nominally low rate of 12.5 per cent on Apple. The effective rate was less than 1 per cent, allowing the tech giant to amass record worldwide profits. Apple chief executive Tim Cook called the EC ruling maddening and claimed that his company had done nothing wrong. Apple has always tried to do the right thing, he maintains. Well, if thats so, then why has his firm relocated much of its production facilities out of its US home country to exploit cheap labor in China? Is that what Cook calls doing the right thing? Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, of the rightwing, pro-business Fine Gael party, may huff and puff about the sovereign rights of his nation. What is so sovereign and right about allowing foreign investors to trample all over Irish workers and deprive the Irish nation of its due taxes? The European Commission has certainly got a bad rap in recent years from EU citizens fed up with relentless economic austerity. It is partly this populist backlash across Europe that is now obliging the Brussels administration to crack down on corporate tax dodging. EC President Jean Claude Juncker is making something of a crusade to stamp out tax loopholes and to claw back money for the benefit of long-suffering EU citizens. The EU leadership knows that if it doesnt begin to act in a more democratic way, the forces of disintegration of the 28-member bloc may become unstoppable, as the Brexit vote earlier this year tends to show.  REUTERS/ Suzanne Plunkett Thus, the EU is pushing for greater tax justice out of an instinct for survival in the face of growing popular discontent. This inevitably is vexing US corporations like Apple who have long played off EU member states against another to extract favors like rock-bottom tax rates. The move is also causing friction between the EU and US government. Washington has angrily denounced the ruling on Apple to pay back 13bn in taxes. The US claims the EU is acting unlawfully as an international tax authority. More likely, the US wants to get a share of Apples profits by declaring, sometime in the future, a partial tax amnesty so that the company will bring back a portion of its astronomical cash pile. Surely though, the question is: governments should work together to ensure a level business field so that multinational companies like Apple are not allowed to exploit national differences? The case of Ireland is a particular disgrace. For decades, Irish governments have received billions of euro in EU development aid for building roads and other infrastructure. Yet, these same Irish governments have colluded with foreign corporations to cheat Europe and the Irish people out of billions of fiscal proceeds. For the Irish political class, the prestige of having top flight companies on their territory inflates their vanity and for a while the strategy may have seemed plausible. Soaring corporate profits artificially boosted headline growth figures of gross national product. But in the end, it is all a scam, for which the Irish people are paying bitterly. The supreme irony is that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising  the insurrection in 1916 that heralded Irelands freedom from foreign domination under the British empire. James Connolly and the other leaders of the Rising proclaimed that henceforth Irelands national wealth would be prerogative of the Irish people. A hundred years later, the crumby, unpopular politicians who sit in government offices in Dublin evidently believe the opposite. That the wealth of Ireland belongs to foreign capital. If we can learn one thing it is that the era of globalization and corporate dominance has to end. Otherwise, it is a futile race to the bottom whereby nations are held hostage to predation. Democracy means nothing if the people do not have democratic control over economic policies. That the Irish government claims to be acting as a guarantor of sovereignty is a contemptible disgrace  one that must have James Connolly and the other great Irish revolutionaries spinning in their graves with disgust.
Syria - Will The New Cessation of Hostilities Hold? By Moon Of Alabama September 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Moon Of Alabama " - Russia and the U.S. agreed to some new Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) in Syria. The general negative points: This CoH, like the first one in February, comes at a moment where the Syrian government forces have an advantage in the field and are on the verge of renewed offensives.

It gives the opposition the time to reorganize and rearm.

It severely restricts Syrian sovereignty. The general positive points: The Syrian government lacks the capacity for a fully military solution of the conflict. The agreement is a possible path to a political solution.

It gives the government time to rebuild its army and to issue and train on new equipment.

It has enough flexibility to allow for local escalation when and where needed. On the agreement itself. The Syrian government has, according to the Russians, agreed to it.

The parties agreed to keep many details secret to prevent other actors from spoiling it.

The agreement will start on sundown of September 12 The timeline, as far as announced or known: A general CoH for with a trial period of 48 hours.

If the CoH holds during the trial period it will be prolonged to one week.

After one week successfully passed, the U.S. and Russia will start common action against al-Qaeda in Syria. Some Details as AP describes them (there is some doubt that this is 100% correct): The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State. The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against Islamic State and Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups. The agreement excludes the area in south-west Aleppo where the recent attempt by al-Nusra and others to lift the siege on east-Aleppo failed. The Castello road in north-west Aleppo will be demilitarized to carry aid. (It is yet unknown who will supervise and enforce this by what means.) It looks as if there has been unseemly resistance to this agreement by parts of the U.S. government. This may have been just for show. But it may also be a sign that Obama lost control of the bureaucracy: The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions. After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead." If this deal falls apart, as it is likely to eventually do, all responsibility will be put onto Secretary of State Kerry. Indeed the military and intelligence parts of the U.S. government may well work to sabotage the deal while Kerry will be presented as convenient scapegoat whenever it fails. This new CoH is unlikely to hold for more than a few weeks: Too much is left undefined. This allows any party to claim the other side broke it whenever convenient.

The powers who agreed on the deal do not have control over main elements on the ground.

There are too many parties, inside and outside of Syria, who have an interest in spoiling the CoH.
More than two years after the alleged abduction of over 200 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents, a coalition of Christian women in Nigeria, under the aegis of Womens Wing of Christian Council of Nigeria on Friday in Abuja, described it as a big scam.

The organisation warned proponents of the campaign for the release of the Chibok girls to retreat, saying Nigerians should not toy with Nigerians because before they know it, women will arise and they will see the other side of women.

Before now, notable Nigerians, including a former President, had reportedly described the Chibok incident which took place on the night of April 14/15 April 2014, as a scam.

Meanwhile, a group, currently championing the release of the abducted girls under the aegis of Bring Back Our Girls (#BBOG#), has been clashing with pro-government forces.

The #BBOG#, led by a former Minister of Education, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, had been barred by security agencies from any form of protest.

The National President of WOWICCN, Rev. Mrs. Omatsola Williams, in an interview with journalists during the organisations 2nd biennial national convention in Abuja, themed: Women-Goodly Heritage, said people are now using the #BBOG# campaign to promote themselves and their pockets.

She said, For me, I dont believe that there is (any kidnapping of) Chibok girls. We should not use the lives of people to play Jambo (game) at all. Some people are using this to make money. How thick is the Sambisa forest that (military) people cannot penetrate? Food for thought; when you come to Niger Delta area, there is no secret. Nigerians should not toil with Nigerians because before they know it, women will arise and they will see the other side of women.

But the BBOG said it had no comment. We wont respond to the comment, its spokesman, Abdullahi Abubakar, said.

Speaking on the current economic situation in Nigeria, Williams said that it was high time we all returned to the drawing board and make use of our God-given talents.

The WOWICCN President said that the country had a lot of opportunities if well harnessed, which could turn around the fortune of the people for the better.

She said, Let all of us go back to the drawing board and forget about oil. Nigeria is a blessed country, a fertile land that has a lot of opportunities to tap. We have forgotten, even the talents given to us, we dont want to use it. Now is the time, the era of white-collar jobs is over.

Source: Punch
These are indeed difficult times as Buharis Change continues to bite harder on Nigerians.

As you read, a member of Saint Patrick Catholic Church, Idumaigbo, in Lagos Island, Elochukwu Nnoruga, was on Thursday sentenced to six months imprisonment without the option of fine for stealing N214,000 from the church tithe box.

The judegment was handed down by Magistrate Ade Adefulire of a Tinubu Magistrates Court, sitting in Lagos Island.

It is a pity that people do not see the house of God as sacred any more. This should serve as a lesson to the public; if you choose crime instead of hard work, the hand of the law will always catch up with you.

Nnoruga, you are hereby sentenced to six months imprisonment without an option of fine, Adefulire said.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Inspector Ben Ekundayo told the court that Nnoruga committed the offence on August 14 at about 2p.m., at Saint Patrick Catholic Church, Idumaigbo, in Lagos Island.

Ekundayo said the convict stole N214,000 from the tithe box. He said Nnoruga also stole from worshippers during mass, adding that the offence is punishable under Section 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
Former National Chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change, Prince Tony Momoh, in this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU, talks about his childhood as an Auchi, Edo State prince; and his career as a teacher and a journalist who rose to become an editor and manager at the Daily Times.

Looking back in retrospect, would you say you are fulfilled in life?

Oh yes! I am fully fulfilled because nothing happens by accident. Everybody should bear responsibility for whatever they do. What you do at any time is a sowing of seeds, which will grow and ripen for your harvest. So, everything happening to you at any time is a harvest of what you did before, which bore fruit that you are reaping.

As the 165th child of King Momoh I of Auchi, Edo State, how would you describe your childhood in the palace?

We grew up in a family of seven compounds and the compounds were headed by women. The most senior wives of our father headed the compounds; the youngest wives lived with them while the middle-level wives lived on their own.

So the wives were graded?

Yes. My mother was one of the youngest ones and she lived in the compound whose male head was Kessington Momoh, who was the most popular politician in the Momoh family and was an Action Group minister who followed (late Chief Obafemi) Awolowo.

All of us in the compound, growing up, knew all the women  about 48 of them  to be our mothers. We couldnt differentiate between the women. Every woman in my fathers house was a mother to every child in my fathers house. Every six months, they (the wives) took an oath not to do anything to undermine the husband, the children or one another.

Was the oath traditional or with the Bible or the Quran?

It was a traditional oath.

Was that the religion of the family?

No. Between 1921 and 1926, my father, as the district head of Kukuruku Division, spread Islam far and wide. But this oath was administered internally in the palace. We were told and we grew up to believe that if you did anything to undermine your brother, you would drop dead. Doing anything include thinking evil of the person, going to another person to prepare anything to undermine someone or even speaking evil of the person. Therefore, that followed us in life. I have never done anything to harm anybody by going to someone to prepare juju for me to undermine anybody. Since I started journalism and writing in 1962, I have written thousands of pieces, I have never used a curse word on anybody. Never! I have never been taken up for libel because I undermined anybody. We all grew up to honour women because women, in the knowledge in which I stand now, are spiritually higher than men and they should be respected, honoured and protected.

During the oath-taking period, was there any instance where a member of the family suffered or died for plotting evil against another member of the family?

How would I know? People were dying every day and people were being born every day. At the end of the day, my father had about 48 wives and 257 children between 1903 and 1944. I wouldnt know if anybody had evil thoughts about anybody and dropped dead. Incidentally, there was a clear case, which would point to the direction of the question you asked. Two of our brothers belonged to different groups, struggling for a political position. And they had people from the family who were supporting them and it, therefore, brought bad blood among them. Whether you believe it or not, there was a way our father was always intervening. If there was anything wrong with the family, he would ask that the familys posterity be put back on track. Those brothers died one after the other and many of their followers in town died terrible deaths.

Considering the size of your family, how true is it that yours is the biggest family in the world, such that the British colonial masters gave your father a medal to that effect?

Oh yes! They called him Evergreen Momoh and they said security report said Momoh had a very large family but did not seem to have family problems. It was the way the family was organised. The spiritual head of the family was Mallam Aliyu, who was born the same mother as my father. The administrative head of the family and the one who kept the family records was Abudah, who was the youngest member of the family and he kept familys records of deaths and births. The family record started from 1903 and he kept it from that 1903 to beyond 1944 when our father died. Our father died in December 1944.

Being from such a large family, how often did you see your father and were you close to him?

I was born in 1939. The encounter I had with my father between 1939 and 1944 was that those of us who were very young would go to him when he was eating, and when he had washed his hands we would rush to drink the water.

Why did you do that?

Dont you want to be as big as your father? We would struggle to drink the water he used in washing his hands, not to talk of the food he had not eaten (leftover). Very few children would get to his abode. I had a brother who was about the same age with me and we encountered our father and the lessons we learnt from how he treated us is still with me today.

Was there rivalry among the wives and children as it is commonly found in polygamous families?

We loved ourselves. For instance, I have never fought in my life. I have never exchanged blows with anybody in my life, apart from the case of one of our brothers who was always beating up people. And he would beat up anybody who touched me. We were in the same class and his name was Abdul. One day, he wanted to pounce on me and that day was the first day I remember I fought. And I beat him to coma.

What fond memories do you have of your mother?

My mother had four children for my father. I am number 165 of my fathers children. My mother was one of the brightest among my fathers wives. I didnt know but many of the women later told me that my mother was the one decorating the palace. My mother was doing masa (corn cake) and I was selling it before I went to school. People would wait for her corn cake to get done before they took their pap in the morning and I would be the one to supply. But some people (customers) would tell me when I got to them, Ah! Somebody brought it this morning and it was from your mother but I discovered that it was not as good as your mothers own. Some people were using my mothers name to promote their corn cake.

The great sacrifice my mother made after my father died while I was in school was that we had to pay the school fees of one shilling and three pence. The person, who was to pay our fees, the Otaru of Auchi, had gone to a meeting in Ibadan and he was away for a long time.

So who paid the fees?

Nobody would pay the fee. Did you know that I was out of school for 45 days? So, they (the school) put left beside my name. In other words, I was expelled. Later, my mother gave me one shilling, which was the capital for her corn cake business. My uncle added three pence and I went back to school. If I had not gone back to school, the story would have been different today because I was leading in every subject in every exam throughout my career. If it was not Abdul Momoh, it would be Sule Momoh (who would lead) in the exam in Government School, Auchi. I returned to school because of my record that, Such a clever boy, how could he leave school? So, the headmaster agreed that I should come back and I came back to school. Three days after, we sat for examination. I came third and I wept. That was the first time I would not come first or second throughout my career in primary school.

Did your mothers business survive after using the capital to pay your school fees?

Of course, it did. I wouldnt know how she was able to continue with her business. Of course, my mother had three boys and a girl. The girl died. I am the second child. My (elder) brother was the first Christian in the family.

How and why did he convert to Christianity?

When the Anglican Church came to Auchi, they said they wanted land in Auchi; that my father had Islamised the whole place because he didnt like Christians. So, he gave them a choice (piece of) land where they are till today in Auchi. Later they said, You gave us land but none of your children is in our school. Prove that you love us by giving us your child. So, he gave my elder brother to them and he became the first Christian. He was Aliyu Momoh but his name became Michael Momoh. The second person was me and the third was my younger brother  the first PhD holder in my family  Professor C. S. Momoh, who was Dean, Faculty of Art in University of Lagos.

Can you describe your days as a teacher and principal in the Western Region?

I attended Government School Auchi and St. Pauls Anglican School, Okpe in Akoko-Edo. When I went to Okpe in 1954 was the final year of those who were in Standard Six. They sat for examination with those who were in Standard Five so they could move into the new six-year tenure for primary school under Awolowos free education programme in the Western Region.

Those of us who were in Standard 6 sat for examination with those in Standard 5 in 1954. By 1955, under the free education programme by Awolowo, they wanted a lot of teachers.

There is a story to tell about my life spiritually as a result of my becoming a teacher. I led every class every year but I missed the entrance examination to secondary school because I rode bicycle to where I would take the examination and I discovered the examination had been taken the previous day. I was now supposed to go to secondary school the following year. But in my own pride I said no; I would not allow those I was leading in class to be ahead of me in secondary school.

So what did you do?

I decided to teach. I went to an Anglican school in Okpe where they offered (Christian) Religious Knowledge.

But you were a Muslim

Yes, and I had never touched a Bible in my life. When I was in Government School Auchi, they were giving us Islamic lessons and we were all reading the Quran. I didnt want to touch the Bible. The Bible to me  this is very serious and it is still happening today due to disorientation  was an evil book. Oh yes! We were thought that after Prophet Muhammad and Islam came, anybody who is living must be a Muslim; otherwise youre going to hell. I later read the Quran to discover that there was no such thing but that was what we were taught.

Anyway, I got to Okpe to discover that there was no single Muslim. That was the first shock I had. So, because I must teach Religious Knowledge, I started reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. All those Bible stories that people knew; I didnt know any of them. My brother who my father had donated to the Anglican Church was trained as a teacher and went to Owo for his teacher training. I was with him in Okpe but I didnt go to church throughout. He was going to church on Sundays; I was not going to church because I wanted to continue reading my Quran and I wanted to run away from Okpe to Auchi.

When we did mock examination, I beat everybody in Religious Knowledge and the headmaster had to give all students in Standard Six, six strokes of the cane each. He said, Look at this man, who is a Muslim, beating you in Religious Knowledge. At the end, I came back to Auchi in 1954. We all wanted to teach in Etsako Local Government and someone said we should pay 5 and all my colleagues borrowed the money and paid. But I said I wouldnt pay. I was shocked because the person who was asking us to pay 5 was a Muslim. I said, A Muslim? Islam? Asking for a bribe? I wont pay it. So, I went to the Christian Missionary School. They were all looking for teachers to populate all the schools that Awolowo built. But they (CMS) said there was a problem; that I was a Muslim and they were Christians. So, something whirled up in me; I was really angry. I said I would go to church. I had never gone to church. Then, they employed me as a teacher when I started going to church.

Was that how you stopped being a Muslim?

Yes. Because of the anger and the disappointment, I said I was no longer a Muslim because I judge institutions by those who run them.

I abandoned Islam in 1955 and started going to church. I taught in their school and they wanted me to be baptised. I agreed. By then, all of us used to answer guy names (nicknames). My nickname was Tony; my real name was Suleiman.

Why Tony?

I took Tony from Tony Enahoro of the Western Region and Tony Oseni, who was the first Auchi man to become a graduate; and there was Tony Hayden, who was the Prime Minister of Britain then. That was how I took Tony as my name. So, when they wanted to baptise me, they said I must take a Christian name. They asked why I didnt choose Anthony which I was already called. I said it was Tony and not Anthony, which was my guy name. I insisted that if they must baptise me, it must be with the name I came with, which was Suleiman otherwise there would be no baptism.

And did they?

Yes. They baptised me with Suleiman.

I went for Grade III teacher training, came back and started teaching as a headmaster because the headmaster didnt show up for health reasons. I was the headmaster for two years. Within the two years, I went for teachers training. I came back, taught for two years and went back for teacher training in Higher Elementary at the Teacher Training College in Abraka for two years. Within the six years, I earned salary for two years and also earned salary while in Abraka for two years. Totally, I had Teacher Grade III and Grade II. While I was teaching for two years, I read for GCE and had GCE OLevel, which is equivalent of School Certificate and I had GCE Advanced Level while I was in Abraka. I achieved all in six years. Those my colleagues who went to secondary school and were now going for HSE were now using my notes.

In 1962, I left Abraka and I was teaching in Anglican Modern School in Auchi. And with all my certificates, I applied to read Estate Management. When we were leaving Abraka, they said we (students) had to sign bonds for four years and I said I would not. When we got to Abraka, the council was to sponsor us and it sponsored those who paid 5. Then, we were paid 14.10. But the council said people from my area should pay 5, which was easy to pay when you earned 14.10 every month. But I said I wouldnt pay it. All my colleagues from my area paid the 5 but I said I wouldnt pay it because it was a bribe. At the end, they said we should sign bond and I said I would not sign the bond because they did not sponsor me. At the end, those who paid the 5 per month for two years got books; they got transport fare from Auchi to Abraka and they got pocket money, aside from the 14.10. I didnt get any of those (benefits) because I didnt pay the 5.

I signed a bond with Anglican church, so I went to teach in Anglican school in 1962. I applied to study Estate Management in Reading University in England but I had to be released from the bond. I applied to be released from the bond. The Anglican education secretary, a Christian in Benin, said because I signed a bond for four years I had to serve the four years. They didnt pay me a kobo. I was so embarrassed. But the mans daughter who did four years straight and had Higher Elementary, and who didnt have Higher Level or Advanced Level, signed a bond and he sent her to England to further her studies without serving the bond. I was so angry. I said, This is injustice. I know there is one sin the Almighty Allah will never forgive; that is injustice. Because of that, I said I was not teaching again. I resigned from teaching and I resigned from the church because I judge institutions by those who run them. In 1955, I resigned from Islam because I was asked to give a bribe. In 1962, I resigned from Christianity and the church and I went to Daily Times.

Oh, was that how your journey to Daily Times started?

One thing is, in 1971 or 72, I had attended a lecture given by Adeyemi Lawson at the Grail Land, Iju. He was speaking about how there was no group journey to paradise. And that you should read the Bible because the truth in the Bible is for you to live  live the truth in the Bible. You should read the Quran because the truth in the Quran is for you to live  live the truth in the Quran. Dont do what the pastor said or the Muslim said because you are on your own. That one shook and shattered me. I said (to myself), I resigned from Islam because of what the Muslim did. I also resigned from Christianity because of what a Christian did. And here is Adeyemi Lawson telling me I am on my own. In other words, dont do what others tell you, do what the book says. That changed my whole perception of life. I said what if I had died before then. Would I have told God what a Christian did to me was why I didnt follow the Bible; or a Muslim did something and that was why I didnt follow the Quran?

But the beauty was that when I said I was no longer a Muslim, I started reading the Bible and found Christ and discovered that all I was taught in Quran school  about killing Christians even when they have not committed an offence  was not true. There is only one God that the Christians and the Muslims have and must serve. I went back to (Islamic) fasting in 1975 and up till now. I am a Muslim and a Christian when they are not quarrelling because they have made Islam and Christianity political parties, instead of the religions that they are which should lead us to paradise.

Was that why you didnt swear by either the Quran or the Bible when you were being sworn in as a minister in 1986?

When I was being sworn in as Minister of Information and Culture, I said I wouldnt swear by the Bible or the Quran and I said, So help me God. When I stepped out, journalists asked me, They said you are an atheist. I said I was not an atheist. They asked why I did not swear by the Bible or the Quran but only said So help me God. I said, I am a Christian and a Muslim when they are not quarrelling, and neither when they are.

How did you become a journalist and work in the Daily Times?

After my resignation (at the Anglican school), I went to Lagos and applied for jobs, including a job in Daily Times.

Did you ever have the dream of becoming a journalist as a child?

I liked journalism. When I applied to the Daily Times, (Dele) Giwa, who was secretary to Alhaji Babatunde Jose liked me because I was coming there to know the situation (with my application). I went there one day and he said, They have written to you; havent you got your letter? I said no. I said, What did they write there? No job? He told me to talk to Alhaji (Jose). I waited and when Alhaji came out, I said, Sir, I came to find out about my application for a job. He asked, Havent you got a reply? I said no. He said they had written to me telling me there was no job. I said, Sir, please, let there be a job. He asked me what I was doing before and I told him I was a teacher. He said, Go back and teach. When there is an opportunity, you will come. I insisted I wasnt going back and I pleaded with him. I said, Sir, I know your headache. He said, My headache? I said, Yes sir. He asked me what it was and I said, I have no experience and that is why you wont give me a job. He said yes. I said, But you are known all over the world today; someone must have given you an opportunity. He was to tell the story much later that what I did to him was what he did to Zik (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) when Zik gave him a job in Pilot. I said, Just give me six months. Dont pay me. If I dont impress you, sack me. Then, he employed me. He asked where I wanted to start, I said, Train me. I want to start from the beginning. So, he employed me as a trainee sub-editor and that was where we started until I wanted to further my education.

How were you able to operate under a military government?

The editorial policy was there; it did not change. And we operated that way. You wont believe it: Daily Times was owned by the government that time but there was no interference in our operations. On one or two occasions when there were issues, I would just take responsibility; I would not expose the reporter to anything.

Source: Punch
Former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan has filed an application at the Federal High Court in Lagos laying claim to the sum of $31.4 million in an account being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The EFCC, in the course of investigating a former presidential aide, Amajuoyi Azubike Briggs, had taken over the account and imposed a debit/credit freeze on the account in Skye Bank.

According to the Guardian, Briggs is facing trial for fraud alongside a former Skye Bank official, Damola Bolodeoku, Pluto Property and Investment Company Limited and Avalon Global Property Development Company Limited.

Others also charged include Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Limited; Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Limited, Avalon Global Property Development Company Limited and Globus Integrated Services Limited.

Mr Gboyega Oduwole, the counsel to the first defendant in the charge with case number FHC/337C/16, on Friday informed the court that Mrs Jonathan had filed a fundamental application against the EFCC, claiming ownership of the money.

In the application which was filed on September 6, 2016, with file number FHC/L/C5/1233/16, Mrs Jonathan is asking the court to make an order for the enforcement of her fundamental rights, in terms of reliefs she sought, and naming as defendants, the EFCC and Skye Bank Plc.

The former first lady also asked the federal high court to make a declaration that the fund standing to the credit of four of the companies and an account in her own name in Skye Bank belonged to her.

She further asked the court to declare that the action of the EFCC in placing a No Debit/Freezing Order on the said accounts without any order of a competent court of law or prior notice to her, amounted to a breach of her fundamental rights as contained in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
***Her Sibling Allege Mohammed Babangida Sent Assassins to Murder His ex-Wife

Just days after Mohammed Babangida, son of former military ruler, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, initiated a legal battle over custody of his children with ex-wife, Rahama, another allegation has been made against the Generals son.

An Instagram user @tulip_bistro, who identified herself as a sibling to Rahama Indimi, has alleged that Mohammed, in connivance with his driver and aunt, sent assassins with guns to kill her sister.



The lady shared the image above with the caption:

I will not be intimidated by you or any member of your family, and yes your Aunty and driver are also in the video. Enough is enough.
By Donna Edwards

Marketing has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. The avenues that were once successful for self-storage operators have changed. Yellow Pages arent used by most people these days because everyone can use a smartphone to search for a phone number. Newspaper circulation has declined, radio stations are less popular due to online streaming, social media is constantly evolving, and direct mail has decreased as consumers go green. The tried and true marketing methods of yesterday simply arent as effective as they once were.

Todays marketing approach should include a broad reach, which is more effective than relying on a single channel. Older consumers may still use the Yellow Pages or read the newspaper, but many are reluctant to conduct online transactions. In contrast, the younger generation may never look at print media and only receive information online. This makes it a complex process to track your marketing programs. To build a superior marketing program, you first need to identify your target market, and then develop a quality tracking system.

Identify Your Target

Whos your typical customer? Whats their age, gender and proximity to your facility? Are they good tenants, or do you have a lot of problems with delinquency? Would you want more just like them or a whole bunch of new and different prospects? Answering these questions will help you determine where to spend marketing dollars. Each media-marketing representative will (should) have demographic information as to who his publication/media reaches. Once you know who your customer is and who youre trying to reach, you can target your media selections.

Which publications or media outlets are involved in the community? Do they have a local presence? Do they have businesses of the same quality that advertise with them? If youre interested in their success rate, contact some of the companies that advertise with them and ask how successful their advertising has been. How are they measuring success?

Another avenue to market your business is through the local chamber of commerce. Some chambers focus on tourism while others concentrate on business networking and promotion. Investigate your local organization to see if its efforts will generate leads. A small financial investment may give you the opportunity to network with other businesses that can send customers to your facility.

Track Your Efforts

Once youve decided on your marketing budget and where you want to spend those dollars, the next step is to set up a way to track the success of your program. Use different codes per outletYellow Pages, newspaper, magazine, radio, direct mail and television. For example, the code can be an abbreviation of your site name with a number, such as ABC1, ABC2, etc. If theres a special offer attached to a marketing campaign, customers must mention the code to get the discount, offer or other item, such as a free lock.

Set up a tracking sheet so you can see which programs bring in the most new tenants. Ask every new customer how he found your business. Some online-reservation programs have a feature to track marketing, so check to see if yours has this tool and update the options to fit your site. In some cases, customers may not remember where they heard about your facility. However, if they have a code to redeem an offer, you can track it.

Its important to place conservative goals on your program. For example, if you get a 10 percent return on a coupon, thats excellent! Most direct-mail or coupon offers get a less than 2 percent return. If you reach 500 potential customers, a 2 percent return is only 10 people; but a 10 percent return is 50. If you expand that count for the number of residents in an area who could see your marketing and respond to it, you can get excited about the possibilities. Remember, not everyone is going to need storage now, respond within a timely manner, or even see any of your marketing in the first place. Some people dont pay any attention to advertising.

Social media is another great tool that allows you to easily track your marketing programs. These platforms provide up-to-date information on how many people saw your posts. If you advertise with a social media website, it can also provide accurate counts. Facebook can break your followers down by age, gender, location and time of day they visited your page. You can even choose to receive a weekly report so you can see how your page is doing.

Change Up the Message

Advertisements can be targeted to a specific audience or have a different focus at various times of the year. Examples include advertising your vehicle storage in a boating magazine, or how to use storage while staging a home for sale in a home-decorating magazine. Consider emphasizing your climate-controlled storage during the summer months, or how to store camping gear, canoes or other sporting equipment during the long winter. Stagger your marketing efforts to test which medium works best. Some publications will have better success at different times of the year.

Also establish a referral program for existing customers. The reward could be credit toward their rental, a gift card or cash. Happy, existing tenants can be a wonderful marketing tool to increase occupancy and improve public perception.

Measuring Success

So how will you measure success  New rentals? Customers mentioning the ad? Attendees at an onsite event? Redemption of a coupon or discount? Do you want to create top-of-mind awareness or direct action as a result of your efforts? Determining what you consider a favorable outcome will help you evaluate if the method is successful.

In many cases, marketing doesnt result in immediate response. Even if a customer doesnt need storage right away, he may remember your facility if your name pops up from time to time in different advertising locations. Unlike a coupon for a particular product, top-of-mind advertising is much harder to track. As you decide on your marketing efforts, remember that tracking starts with setting goals, choosing the best medium to reach those goals, and then refining them throughout the year.

Donna Edwards is a manager at Plantation Self Storage in Bluffton, S.C., which is operated by Southeast Management Co. She joined the company in 2013 and has more than 10 years of experience in property management. Her marketing experience includes setting budgets, designing yearly marketing plans, and creating and writing all types of advertising. For more information, call 843.815.8000; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.southeastmanagementcompany.com.
Nel terzo trimestre del 2016 il prodotto interno lordo, espresso in valori concatenati con anno di riferimento 2010, corretto per gli effetti di calendario e destagionalizzato, e aumentato dello 0,3% rispetto al trimestre precedente e dello 0,9% nei confronti del terzo trimestre del 2015. Lo sostiene lIstat.

La crescita congiunturale e la sintesi di un aumento del valore aggiunto nei comparti dellindustria e dei servizi e di una diminuzione nellagricoltura. Dal lato della domanda, vi e un contributo ampiamente positivo della componente nazionale (al lordo delle scorte), in parte compensato da un apporto negativo della componente estera netta.

Nello stesso periodo il Pil e aumentato in termini congiunturali dello 0,7% negli Stati Uniti, dello 0,5% nel Regno Unito e dello 0,2% in Francia. In termini tendenziali, si e registrato un aumento del 2,3% nel Regno Unito, dell1,5% negli Stati Uniti, dell1,1% in Francia. Nel complesso, il Pil dei paesi dellarea Euro e cresciuto dello 0,3% rispetto al trimestre precedente ed dell1,6% nel confronto con lo stesso trimestre del 2015.

I dati Istat sul Pil sono in linea con le stime del governo ha commentato il ministro dellEconomia, Pier Carlo Padoan, arrivando alla Camera per lincontro con il gruppo Pd sulla legge di Bilancio. ll titolare di via XX Settembre in un tweet, poco prima, aveva sottolineato come i dati Istat confermano che leconomia e sulla strada giusta e le stime di crescita sono affidabili. Ma occorre spingere per accelerare
Myrtleville, Co Cork 595,000

Size: 4,500 sq ft on 1 acre

Bedrooms: 9

Bathrooms 3

BER: N/A

Best feature: Its history and setting

THERES an irony in the fact that a coastal building set up to watch out over the ocean waves, and monitor shipping at the mouth of one of the former British Empires most strategic ports, is under attack now..... by the sea itself.

As Ballinluska House comes up for sale, this place (which also boasts a family link to the Norwegian royal family,) not only needs a canny buyer with a vision for its re-use, but its also needs a King Canute-type of rescuer, to hold back the sea.

Coastal erosion is evident, at this propertys boundary it needs an engineering solution to address.

This substantial former coast-guard station dates back 125 years and lies by the entrance to Cork harbour, imperious above the sandy horseshoe of popular Myrtleville beach.

On a grassy acre by the sea, its quite a local landmark, but has been boarded up for years.

Built as a defensive, watchful sort of place in the 1890s for the customs service of the British Admiralty, it has highly distinctive gable-end projecting windows, called bartizans, used as a 19th century look-out eyrie, monitoring warships and marine threats, mindful of smuggling activity and, essentially, a bastion of Empire, on the edge of the Atlantic and by vital shipping routes.

It came into local family hands decades ago, owned by the Long family who have Crosshaven/Myrtleville roots and properties, and was used for many years as a holiday home property, within 100 metres of the beach by road, or 50 metres via a cliff.

Ideally set for idyllic long summer days at the beach, the tide also came in royally for a son, Aaron Long when he wooed and won the hand of Princess Ragnhild Lorentzen, daughter of the late Norwegian Princess Ragnhild, in 2003  going on to live in Brazils Rio de Janeiro, and swapping the sands of Myrtleville for the Copacabana.

Now, the Long family have decided to sell, and its a rare listing, full of local history, but boarded up, and in need of TLC, and a vision.

On an acre, facing south west and drenched in the sun when it shines, and in sea spray in the wildest of winter storms, Ballinluska House is walled and gated.

Its acre includes a long row of old service outbuildings, a boathouse, and a roadside site, of c 0.5 of an acre.

It is guided at 595,000 and selling agent is Steven Brown of Sherry FitzGerald ODonovan in Carrigaline, whos on something of a coastal property roll right now.

In July, he launched the evocative and ocean-scanning Atlantic House, on the other side of Myrtleville at Poulgorm at 650,000.

With roots going back to the Great Cork Exhibitions of 1902/03, it featured here as a cover story and and its already sale agreed at over 700,000.

Also gone sale agreed with SFOD, at an even quicker pace, was a small coastguard station and slipway at Roberts Cove a few miles west along the shoreline. It too featured here, and has gone over its 400,000 AMV.

Interest from overseas and from returning Irish, was particularly keen, says Mr Brown.

As he launches Ballinluska House on the open (and awaiting overseas) market, he again summons up the descriptive adjective unique, and once more hes on the money.

Despite being intimidatingly dark inside, with sealed up windows and doors, you can almost smell the potential within, and without.

The current layout of the main dwelling (cautiously viewed with aid of a phone/torch) shows up to nine bedrooms and four reception rooms, and internally it is a bit of gut job.

Its a five-bay structure, two-storey with box end bays and lean-to additions, with red-brick chimneys, quoins and window surrounds, with projecting oriel or bartizan windows and timber sash glazing.

Whatever becomes of it next, its going to be an expensive and somewhat challenging project.

Steve Brown say theres clear scope for further development, grounds for guests and/or boutique hotel, with a spot-on aspect, just a few miles from Crosshaven, and a 30-minute commute to and from Cork city and airport.

This convenient coastal area has seen some strong recent sales; individual sites with views can fetch up to 300,000, and older houses can get demolished and replaced, a la Kinsale and Ardbrack knock em trends.

One Poulgorm bungalow, Ceann Mara, with cliff frontage sold last year for 560,00 and may be replaced.

The beach is perennially popular, and the village has a shop, Pine Lodge bar/music venue, as well as the scenically set and thriving bar/restaurant Bunnyconnellans.

Myrtlevile also hosts a year-round swimming club of hardy souls.

First priority for a brave soul buying here at Ballinluska will be to gauge the rate of erosion and devise a suitable engineering solution, some revetments, gabions or rock-wiring perhaps, as the soft cliff appears to be mix of rock and sand, and is showing signs of having been eaten into, generously.

VERDICT: May the tides turn in favour of Ballinlusk House.
If he thought it would be easy to begin the task of justifying the Governments decision to appeal the EU Commissions ruling on the 13 billion Apple affair at a meeting with tax evasion on the agenda, he experienced what could be described as a rude awakening.

No sooner had he met his peers than the EUs economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici described the move to appeal the ruling as a strange decision. Posing the question that many people in this country have been asking since EU competition commissioner launched her multi-billion euro rocket with Ireland and Apple both in the line of fire.

As Mr Moscovici, the French commissioner, put it: It is a strange decision, in a way, to say I dont want your 13 billion when you could have some social programmes or economic programmes in a country that has been damaged by a crisis, but thats their own will.

Saying they will defend the ruling, he added: We know that we are right. Its not arbitrary.

Significantly, the commissioner has also expressed full support for the ruling of Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner who has been strongly attacked by the Irish government which claimed her decision was politicised and represented an assault on a small nation.

Throwing down a gauntlet, he said: We are a political commission with a political will, and this political will is clearly to fight tax evasion, tax fraud and aggressive tax planning.

With Ireland and the commission clearly at loggerheads, yesterdays relaunch of the Frenchled campaign for a common corporate tax base in Europe is particularly worrying.

It amounts to a direct assault on Irelands 12.5 % corporate rate, a sovereign policy of the Irish government which it must defend at all costs because it has drawn dozens of multinationals to Ireland and created tens of thousands of jobs here.

Ominously, the commission also intends drawing up a European black-list of tax havens.

Rebutting the Moscovici approach, Mr Noonan declared he expected other countries to support Irelands appeal in the European courts, reminding them that Ireland had been legally represented at similar appeals involving cases of state aid against Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.

With hostilities declared on all sides, the scene is set for an uphill battle if Mr Noonan is to gain the sympathy and support of fellow finance ministers.

Effectively, the challenge will be to convince them that Ireland has no other choice but to appeal the controversial ruling.

In reality, thats the kernel of the dilemma facing Ireland as it joins forces with Apple to contest the findings of Danish commissioner Vestager.

Contrary to attacking small nations, she has gained a formidable reputation for initiating investigations into the tax affairs of Fiat, Starbucks, and Amazon, as well as Apple.

Currently reopening an antitrust case against Google, Ms Vestager is no push-over.
The plan by OCS Properties is to transform the OConnell St property that housed the famous Dublin department store into a six-storey retail and office scheme, including a top-floor destination area with a glass roof and outdoor dining section.

The precinct plan, totalling 350,000 sq ft, also includes a 176-bedroom hotel linked by bridge to the main building. Documents lodged with Dublin City Council by OCS Properties  show that the so-called Project D1 will create 3,990 jobs.

Economic consultants employed by OCS have claimed that, over its first 20 years of existence, Project D1 would contribute 6.6bn to Irelands GDP and 1.7bn to the exchequer.

The projects architects Henry J Lyons has told Dublin Council that the proposal seeks to generate a vibrant quarter within the centre of the city which will see the repair, restoration and regeneration of the original Clerys building.

The lodging of the planning application comes 14 months after the shock and abrupt closure of the department store after 162 years trading, resulting in the loss of 130 jobs.

The period for lodging objections is now closed and along with over 50 former Clerys workers objecting, the countrys largest unions, Siptu, and the Communications Workers Union (CWU) have lodged submissions.

They have been joined by local politicians, Deputy Brid Smith of People Before Profit (PBP), Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys and a host of City Council members including Dermot Lacey, Janice Boylan, Gaye Fagan, Andrew Keegan, Hazel De Nortuin, Tina McVeigh, and John Lyons.

Siptu divisional organiser Ethel Buckley has told Dublin City Council that the appalling treatment of the Clerys workers has been the subject of public outcryand has left a lasting negative legacy over the Clerys building.

Ms Buckley added that planning permission should only be granted to the new owners if they agree to specific enforceable social clauses, including a just and fair settlement for the former Clerys employees.

The deputy secretary general of the CWU, Terry Delaney, echoed the sentiment of many who have objected when he expressed concern that there will be substantially more office accommodation than retail in the development.

The use of this property as a retail destination has been integral to the OConnell St area for nearly a century, he said, adding that the plan proposes 9,000 sq m of office space compared to 3,500 sq m of retail.

He said that changing Clerys department store from a retail destination to a majority office development must be rejected on these grounds. Former Dublin Labour TD Joe Costello has made a joint submission with his wife and former Dublin City Lord Mayor, Emer Costello.

In their submission, the couple said: Our concerns are that the new proposals would constitute over-development, would interfere with the character of [the building] and impact negatively on the national monument.

A decision on the plan is due from Dublin City Council later this month.
On a rolling quarter-by-quarter basis, the second three months of the year saw a 6.3% increase in building work. On an annualised basis, the value of construction production grew by 17% in the quarter, according to the CSO.

The growth was mainly driven by the residential sector, but was only cautiously welcomed by analysts.

These exceptional growth rates must be seen in the context of activity bouncing back off a low base. Housing completions are still averaging just 13,500 a year at present; well below demographic demand, said David McNamara of Davy Stockbrokers.

Monday sees the publication of the latest Ulster Bank construction purchasing managers index  seen as the main barometer of health for the sector in Ireland  which will give a more up-to-date picture as it will measure progress made in August.

Meanwhile, British construction output held steady during the first full month after the countrys June vote to leave the EU, bucking expectations for a fall, while the countrys trade deficit narrowed slightly, official data showed yesterday.

UK construction volumes were unchanged in July after a 1% drop in June, a smaller fall than the average 0.8% decline forecast in a Reuters poll, the UKs Office for National Statistics said.

However, compared to a year earlier, volumes were 1.5% lower, the biggest drop since April 2013  though a smaller decline than the 3.2% economists had forecast.

Yesterdays figures are the first official numbers on Britains construction industry, which makes up 6% of the countrys economy.

They follow a closely watched survey of purchasing managers which pointed to the steepest decline in seven years in July, before rebounding in August.

Construction output remained steady in July with growth in infrastructure offset by falls in repair work and commercial buildings, said ONS statistician Nick Vaughan.

There was strong growth in construction orders, led by housing, after nearly two years of orders remaining relatively flat.

The ONS said there was very little anecdotal evidence that the vote to leave the EU had affected construction output.
The global investment, commercial and retail banking group yesterday officially opened a new data lab in Dublin.

Formally known as The Hive  which will be a global centre of excellence employing data science, visualisation, analytics, and technology specialists  it is already operational and houses a staff of 70.

An additional 40 staff will boost the labs workforce to 110 by the end of the first quarter of next year.

Deutsche selected Dublin as its location on account of the capitals position as an established financial services centre for data analytics and technology and said the new lab will complement its existing infrastructure activities in the city.

According to Deutsche Bank group chief operating officer Kim Hammonds, the lab will also generate insights enabling the bank to better understand and serve its clients.

It will also enhance our ability to comply with regulatory requirements, further strengthen controls and reduce costs, she added.

IDA chief Martin Shanahan said Deutsches choice of location for its new data lab represents a great endorsement of the technology talent and expertise available here.

A key part of IDA Irelands international financial services strategy is to attract more investment in the fintech [financial technology] space, said Mr Shanahan.

Dublins track record in international financial services and technology cluster creates a business environment for companies to develop and implement their innovation strategies. IDA is determined to win more investment for Ireland in this area.

Deutsche also plans to create a further 125 technology and operations roles in its Dublin operations  again over the course of the next six months  that will enhance its global markets and corporate/investment banking divisions.

The two job announcements, combined, will expand Deutsche Banks Irish-based workforce to well over 800 by the end of next March.

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell-OConnor called the new investment a great vote of confidence in Ireland and its attractiveness as a financial services hub.

The new data lab builds on the banks strong investment and job creation here over recent years and the provision of an additional 165 quality jobs is very welcome indeed, she said.

The Government has been making strenuous efforts to ensure that we have the right conditions in place in Ireland to continue job creation across the country.
The groups boss, Tim Martin, said two months ago that volatile commercial property prices had effectively put the brakes on Wetherspoons Irish growth plans.

He said the aim of growing its Irish pub portfolio to around 30 outlets will take longer than expected, while progress is slowing regarding new site acquisitions.

A spokesperson for the group yesterday said management was very happy with trading levels at the Irish operations in the last year and that the group remains on the lookout for new sites around the country.

On a group-wide basis, JD Wetherspoon yesterday reported a 12.5% increase in pre-tax profits to 66m (78m) for the 12 months to the end of July; with revenues for the year rising by 5.4% to just under 1.6bn.

Wetherspoon has five pubs operating in Ireland  four in suburban Dublin and one in Cork city centre. It has another four  two in central Dublin and one each in Waterford and Carlow  either in varying stages of development or awaiting planning approval.

In July, Mr Martin said final approval for the two Dublin sites  a bar/hotel in Camden St and a pub in Rathmines  would provide a major boost for the company here.

The spokesperson said yesterday that development of these two projects is the current chief focus of Wetherspoons Irish agenda.

The group has previously stated its confidence in succeeding with its 4m hotel and bar plan for Camden St  despite objections from locals and a planning hold-up over council concerns about the high number of late-night venues in the vicinity.

The group said it believes the development will benefit the city in terms of investment, jobs, and the refurbishment of a disused site.

Earlier in the summer, Mr Martin stopped short of saying Wetherspoons Irish plans were officially on hold. He said the group remains committed to growing its Irish business and recently had a bid for a third central Dublin site turned down.

A dedicated supporter of Brexit, Mr Martin also said Britains eventual exit from the EU will have no negative bearing on Wetherspoons expansion plans for Ireland.

Regarding the next step in the Brexit journey, Mr Martin said: Common sense suggests that the worst approach for the UK is to insist on the necessity of a deal  we dont need one and the fact that EU countries sell us twice as much as we sell them creates a hugely powerful negotiating position.
A 263m (311m) overstatement of Tescos first-half profits in 2014 led to the suspension of eight senior members of staff.

Carl Rogberg, Christopher Bush, and John Scouler have been charged with fraud by abuse of position, the SFO said in a statement yesterday.

Mr Bush, 50, was managing director of Tesco UK, Mr Rogberg, 49, was finance director of Tesco UK and Mr Scouler, 48, was UK food commercial director.

The three have been asked to appear in court on September 22, the SFO said, adding that the investigation is ongoing.

Tesco said it has introduced a programme of extensive change in the last two years and could not comment further.

The SFO opened its criminal investigation in October 2014 into accounting practices at the supermarket between February and September of the same year.

Tesco agreed to pay $12m (10.7m) in November 2015 to settle a US shareholder lawsuit alleging that accounting irregularities inflated the share price of the company.

Last month the UKs Financial Reporting Council, which polices accountants, closed its investigation into Laurie McIlwee, former chief financial officer at Tesco.

The FRC is still investigating accountants PwC in how the company prepared, approved, and audited Tescos accounts in the run-up to the scandal.
At least 151 people have been killed and 82 others injured in a deadly stampede in Seoul's Itaewon district as huge crowds of partygoers, many in their late teens and 20s, converge...
The airports managing director Niall MacCarthy said the Irish Aviation Authority figures proved Cork was the fastest growing airport in the country in terms of aircraft movements.

Overall, Cork handled 2,060 terminal movements last month, an increase of 24%. Dublin handled 19,872, up 9.6%, and Shannon handled 1,834, up 6.1%.

Cork Airport said August was its busiest month to date in 2016, with an average of 66 daily movements.

These results are on the back of our new routes to Dusseldorf, Madrid, Leeds, Southampton, La Rochelle and Nantes, and increased frequencies on a number of other routes, said Mr MacCarthy.

We know that hoteliers, publicans, restauranteurs, and other businesses throughout the region are noticing the additional British, German, Spanish, and French visitors spending locally in what was a good season.

We work very closely with Tourism Ireland and co-fund a number of collaborative marketing campaigns in these markets and that is an important part of our strategy to grow inbound visitor numbers.

That strategy is yielding great results.

He said, separately, the airport was pleased with last weeks Ryanair announcement flagging growth in Cork next year when they intend to carry 860,000 passengers on 17 Ryanair routes.

We are working with other airlines now on their 2017 summer schedules and plan to continue the growth momentum in Cork in 2017.

Overall, the Irish Aviation Authority said the amount of traffic safely handled by air traffic control climbed by 7.4% in August to 107,895 flights, compared to the same month in 2015.

Total air traffic handled by the IAA from January-August to 745,744, up 9.1% against the same period in 2015.

Eamonn Brennan, chief executive of the IAA, said: We are delighted with these figures. We continue to see strong growth on transatlantic routes handled safely by our air traffic controllers.

All the State airports performed very well with Cork and Shannon reporting great results. Dublin, which accounts for 84% of the total State airport traffic, grew 9.6% in August, and has grown by nearly 10% in total so far this year, with over 140,000 movements.

This is a very strong indicator of our economic recovery  2016 looks set to be a record year for air traffic across Ireland.

The statistics from the Irish Aviation Authority also showed there was an increase of 6.8 % in Irelands over-flight traffic movements (flights, which do not land in Ireland) to 33,940 during August as well as a 4.9 % increase in North Atlantic communications flights (Europe /US flights) to 46,050.

Meanwhile, the outcome of a ballot of Irish-based pilots at CityJet for industrial action is expected to be counted on Monday by their union Unite.

The ballot is over the issues of pay and union recognition at the airline.
The campaign will encourage family members, friends, and bystanders to take action to stop the abuse.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald yesterday said the campaign will be launched shortly.

She said a Domestic Violence Bill will be published in the coming months that will make it possible to get an emergency barring order.

Speaking at the AGM of the National Womens Council of Ireland, Ms Fitzgerald said she had secured funding for a six-year national awareness campaign.

Its aim will be to change behaviours and attitudes in relation to domestic and sexual violence, she told the conference.

It will encourage family members, friends, and bystanders to take action to combat domestic violence.

I want the message that domestic violence must stop to reach into households across this country. I want women to feel that they can reach out and ask for help.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald

The Department of Justice declined to reveal the budget for the campaign, but department documents seen by the Irish Examiner

show that 950,000 has been allocated to it.

Ms Fitzgerald said she expects to publish the Domestic Violence Bill later in the year.

She said the bill contains key improvements in the law, such as:

Making it easier to get barring, safety, and protection orders;

Making it possible to secure an emergency barring order;

Enabling a victim to give evidence at trial by video-link;

Allowing victims to bring a person, such as a community worker, to support them during the case.

Ms Fitzgerald told the conference her department was developing the National Womens Strategy for 2017-20, but indicated that abortion would not be included.

NWCI director Orla OConnor said its Strategic Plan 2016-20 sets an immediate priority of the repeal of the Eighth Amendment and the provision of abortion services here.

NWCI director Orla OConnor

She said it also highlights the gender pay gap, women in leadership roles, and recognition of womens caring role.

Commenting on the feminist agenda of the conference, Ms Fitzgerald said she was particularly pleased that feminism is being reclaimed by young women, and cited the impact of comedian Amy Schumer.

Indeed feminism is becoming dangerously fashionable, she said. When Amy Schumer says that anyone who is not a feminist is an insane person, you know that feminism is becoming hot.

nwci.ie; Womens Aid national freephone helpline: 1800 341900; safeireland.ie
The Winter Initiative Plan, published yesterday by the Health Service Executive (HSE), commits to providing just 55 additional acute beds nationwide  too few to meet demand in Cork University Hospital (CUH) alone, where an additional 70 are needed, according to emergency medicine consultant Stephen Cusack.

Since the end of August CUH has had to cancel 40 surgeries, with another 40 cancelled at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH).

University Hospital Galway also began cancelling scheduled non-urgent surgery this week. MUH will gain 18 step-down beds under the winter plan.

The HSE plan also promises 58 additional transitional care beds and 950 additional home care packages  although just last month the HSE conceded that in the south east, new clients could only get access to home care packages when existing clients no longer required them.

The home care packages will target 10 specific hospitals including CUH, University Hospital Waterford, University Hospital Limerick, and St Jamess Hospital in Dublin.

Efforts to prepare for the traditional winter hospital chaos include pumping money into community initiatives with the expansion of community intervention teams which the HSE says will benefit 6,643 additional patients.

These are nurse-led teams that operate in the community and are designed to keep patients out of hospital.

The HSE has also promised a targeted waiting list programme for orthopaedics, spinal, and scoliosis to be implemented in designated sites by year end.

The HSE said the plan will take effect from late October/early November, with director general Tony OBrien describing the measures as carefully considered and targeted.

Hospital groups and community healthcare organisations must produce their own winter plans for validation by the end of September and the special delivery unit will monitor implementation.

Health Minister Simon Harris said he would be closely monitoring progress to ensure that the expected improvements will be achieved. He said he had requested a weekly update report.

Health Minister Simon Harris

Both the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM) described the plan as a drop in the ocean.

IMO president Peader Gilligan said 55 extra beds went nowhere near addressing lack of capacity in a system which lost 1,600 beds during the recession. He described the winter initiative as more about PR than reality.

IAEM spokesman Fergal Hickey said lack of capacity was a 12-months of the year problem, eg trolley figures hit record highs in July.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, whose secretary general, Liam Doran, is joint chair of the ED Task Force Implementation Group, welcomed the initiative but said many of the 300 beds opened under last years winter initiative are now closed due to staff shortages.

INMO secretary general, Liam Doran

The INMO said success of this plan will depend on the ability of the HSE to recruit sufficient staff to open all available beds.

The INMO said the plan also included a target of no more than 236 patients on trolleys each morning.

Mr Hickey said: Thats just unacceptable. The only acceptable figure is zero.

Fianna Fail health spokesman Billy Kelleher said the initiative would not make a meaningful difference and Sinn Fein health spokeswoman Louise OReilly said it was doomed to failure.
Conradh na Gaeilge spoke out yesterday after The Flying Enterpriseon South Gate Bridge warned native Irish speaker, Cormac O Bruic, against speaking Irish while at work because it was an English-speaking business.

Mr O Bruic, from the Kerry Gaeltacht Corca Dhuibhne, said he felt he had no option but to walk away from the job: In my mind, I have to stand up for the language. I love it and that there are still people who dont want to hear the language at all, I cant understand it.

Mr O Bruic, who worked in the bar for eight months, said he chatted in Irish to colleagues interested in the language, and to several customers. Lots of customers would tell us that it was lovely to hear the language spoken, he said.

But when management told him there had been complaints from customers and he would have to stop speaking Irish, he felt he had no option but to quit. Bar owner Finbarr OShea said he wanted English as the working language because its a hospitality business.

Last night, Conradh na Gaeilge president, Coilin O Cearbhaill said the case highlights the urgent need to include an Irish-language provision in the relevant legislation to protect the Irish-speaking and Gaeltacht community from discrimination on the grounds of language in the workplace.

Its unfortunate that a company is prohibiting an employee to deal with the public in an official language of the State, if that is their wish, he said.

The organisations general secretary, Julian de Spainn also said the Language Commissioner should be given powers to investigate language discrimination in the private sector.

Conradh na Gaeilge will put the matter of protecting the right to use Irish in the workplace before the members of the Oireachtas this autumn, he said.

In a statement yesterday, The Flying Enterprisesaid it was surprised by Mr O Bruics comments, first aired on An Saol O Dheas on RTE Raidio na Gaeltachta.

This matter is certainly not about the Irish language, it said.

We employ up to 70 people and, of them, there are six different nationalities who all speak their native language. They respect that, while at work, the most sensible and practical language to speak is English.

Our Official Statement in relation to recent comments made about The Flying Enterprise pic.twitter.com/U6jDfAr0HD  theflyingenterprise (@theflyingenterp) September 9, 2016

The business said the initial dispute was being handled by its external HR company and that while Mr O Bruic engaged initially with the process, he left before the process was concluded. The company said it would be unfair to Mr O Bruic to discuss an internal HR matter publicly.

Irish language campaign group Misneach Chorcai protested outside the bar yesterday, with spokesman Diarmaid O Cadhla saying the bar owners have no right to curtail a persons right to speak their native language.
Pierre Moscovici also insisted Brussels knows it is right on the 13bn ruling, during a meeting of EU member states finance ministers in the Slovakian capital Bratislava yesterday.

Speaking to reporters as the two-day meeting began, the former French finance minister stressed the EU is not trying to attack Irelands corporation tax system and is simply seeking to fight tax evasion in the bloc.

However, Finance Minister Michael Noonan reiterated Ireland has no intention of backing down on its plans to appeal the ruling, saying he expects other smaller states to support the case.

It is a strange decision, in a way, to say I dont want your 13bn when you could have some social programmes or economic programmes in a country that has been damaged by a crisis  but thats their own will, Mr Moscovici said.

We will defend our point of view. We know that we are right. Its not arbitrary.

We are not a politicised commission, we are a political commission with a political will, and this political will is clearly to fight tax evasion, tax fraud and aggressive tax planning.

We are going to go further, with proposals such as a relaunch of the CCCTB [common consolidated corporate tax base] and the establishment of a European black-list of tax havens.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan

The remarks  and similar comments yesterday from the commissioner at the centre of the Apple ruling, Margrethe Vestager, that EU member states tax systems must benefit everyone not just large firms  continued to place pressure on Ireland over the issue.

However,Mr Noonan yesteday said he has no intention of backing down on plans to appeal the case.

He expects smaller nations such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium to back Irelands claim due to the similarity of rulings involving the other countries.

Because its a judicial process, we are not trying to drum up support, but there have been cases and rulings in the last 12 months or so in respect of Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland, he said.

They have all appealed and Ireland has associated itself with the appeals and are legally represented at the appeals. I would assume something similar will happen in this case.

While the Apple tax issue is not officially on the agenda this weekend , it is expected to be discussed in depth during side discussions.

Today, the meeting will also discuss plans from Brussels to seek new powers to force multinationals to provide more transparency on their tax bills.

The commission is also pushing for further cross-border harmonisation of tax rules across the EU bloc, an issue which could potentially impact on Irelands 12.5% corporation tax rate, and to train tax officials in how to tackle the changing international nature of tax transparency.

It will also include contributions from independent group, the OECD, on the tax situation in the bloc.

Asked for clarity on the issue yesterday, Mr Moscovici said the EU is not targeting any particular nation and is keen to respect different countries views.

However, he said Brussels feels there is a need for common rules to address tax avoidance in the bloc and that outstanding controversies surrounding multi-nationals must be addressed.

We are an open economy. We need to have free trade, he said. :We need to have investment from abroad, but we also need to have common rules. The message must be heard  no more tax evasion, no more tax fraud, no more tax avoidance, no more aggressive tax planning.
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day and the Psychological Society of Ireland said the country needs to focus on the range of methods and therapies which help people who are experiencing behavioural, psychological and emotional issues.

It said preventative measures for teenagers and adolescents were particularly important as Ireland has the fourth highest rate of suicide in the EU. Only Lithuania, Estonia and Finland had higher rates of teenagers taking their own lives.

The World Health Organisation asserted suicide was the second leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds globally.

Terri Morrissey, chief executive of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), representing approximately 3,000 psychologists, said depression and suicidal thoughts among teenagers was a major health problem in Ireland but, through early intervention and the promotion of well-being and resilience, it was possible to prevent such issues.

Far too often we hear about such issues when it is already too late and we have to deal with the consequences and aftermath. Intervening at an early stage would have been effective, Ms Morrissey said.

There is a range of methods and therapies that have been demonstrated to have been effective and which can be used to prevent behavioural, psychological and emotional problems.

She said techniques should begin at an early age.

Well-being and resilience can be promoted through sport, exercise, healthy eating, parental support and other forms of physical, emotional and mental development.

The first World Suicide Prevention Day was held in 2003 and was an initiative of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Since then, World Suicide Prevention Day has taken place on September 10 yearly.

It is estimated 800,000 people die by suicide each year around the world  one person every 40 seconds. Up to 25 times the number make a suicide attempt.

Clinical psychologist Dr Gary Diamond, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, will give a public talk on the subject on behalf of the PSI on September 22 at Chartered Accountants Ireland, Pearse Street, Dublin at 6.30pm.

His talk will focus on outlining the ways in which parents can work to reduce some of the risk factors associated with adolescent depression and suicidal thoughts among teenagers.
Almost 500 social care professionals were surveyed since 2014, with the study finding nine out of 10 workers were subjected to abuse, threats, and physical assault regularly.

Social Care Ireland (SCI) launched the report last Wednesday but a representative from the HSE was unable to attend, despite being notified several weeks previously.

The HSE employs approximately 2,500 social care workers either as direct employees or through funded services.

We are still very disappointed about that given that the report has huge implications for the HSE and its funded services, said Noel Howard, of SCI.

We wait with interest for their response.

The Irish Examiner asked the HSE about their absence at the launch and also about their lack of response to its findings.

The HSE is carefully examining the report issued by Social Care Ireland  Violence in the Workplace  and will respond directly in due course, a spokesperson said. They added that the HSE supports healthcare workers who experience violence at work.

Health service employers support healthcare workers who have experienced workplace aggression and violence and encourage immediate reporting of any incident, the spokesperson said.

The report entitled Crisis, Concern, And Complacency, and its authors Phil Keogh and Catherine Byrne said the responses led them to believe that a culture of violence was now accepted in the profession.

Three out of four social care workers in this study had experienced physical assault, 60% were threatened weekly or more often in their workplace, and 84% had lost a belief in the effectiveness of this profession, said Ms Byrne.

This all led us to identify that there is a culture there; there has been a culture there that accepts workplace violence and it is apparent in organisations and service, she added.

The profession in Ireland had been aware the research was being carried out since 2014, when the authors first requested responses to the survey.
My daughter [Jennifer Pheasey, 41] had a cardiac arrest at 4.30pm on a Friday. We were told that if it had happened an hour later she wouldnt have survived. Id be less a daughter, her children would be less a mother, and her husband would be less a wife, he told the Irish Examiner.

She had been moving things earlier in the day and thought it was just a muscle pain but she went to her GP. The GP sent her straight over to casualty in Waterford hospital.

We got a call to say our daughter was dying and to come straight down. She was attended to straight away and had a stent fitted.

This was two years ago now and, ever since, the family has campaigned as the 24/7 Cardiac Cover for the South East group.

At the moment, the cardiac unit of University Hospital Waterford (UHW) only operates on a 9am-5pm basis, Monday to Friday.

If you have a cardiac arrest, it means the blood supply to your heart is interrupted. You need a stent fitted, and you have 90 minutes maximum in which to do that, said Mr Doyle.

So if youre in Dublin, Cork, Galway, or Limerick and you have a cardiac arrest you can be treated 24/7, 365 days of the year.

But if youre in the south-east and UHW is your nearest hospital, you can only have a cardiac arrest Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, thats when the unit is open.

When it comes to 5 oclock, youve to go down to Cork. They say you can get down in an ambulance but, to get from the hospital out onto the dual carriageway, the ambulance has to negotiate 14 roundabouts.

They also say you could go by helicopter but that means having a helicopter on standby from 5 oclock. And furthermore, there isnt a helipad in UHW or in Cork.

Mr Doyle also explained the lack of services is not just an issue for the entire south-east region.

If you look at the south-east  thats Wexford, Waterford, city and county, Kilkenny, and south Tipperary; thats a population of half a million for UHW to cater for. Thats the region, he said.

Its about saving lives in the south-east and it doesnt matter if you save one life or 10 lives  every life counts.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny tried to take the heat out of the standoff yesterday by calling on his ministers to knuckle down to work, ahead of budget preparations and Brexit negotiations.

However, the row over Mr Halligans demands for a second catheterisation lab at Waterford Hospital looks set to rumble on despite new Government commitments for staff at the hospital and a fresh review of cardiac care.

The Independent Alliance TD has effectively left the decision on his political future in the hands of local clinicians at the hospital, who he wants to meet Mr Harris.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner yesterday, Mr Halligan put talk of his resignation to bed for the moment. He said the vast majority of views expressed to him by local people in Waterford was that they want him to remain in government, and that he has met with consultants in the region and they, too, asked him not to leave government for the time being.

I would prefer to stay in Government, said Mr Halligan. It is the consultants in the South-East who are up in arms, all of them.

What I am saying is I am convinced that once [Health Minister Simon Harris] meets the consultants, I dont think he will have any alternative but to have a quick review, and it will have to be a quick review, because I think he would have to reverse the decision and guarantee the second cath lab.

I will see what happened over the next week. I am trying to be as reasonable as I can here. I made an honorable commitment to government to stick with them.

Health Minister Simon Harris

However, he said that the current position would have to change: It has to happen.

Mr Halligans future in government remains up in the air over alleged broken promises around a second catheterisation laboratory in his constituency.

The Waterford TD also claims Fine Gael ministers, who persuaded him to enter government, gave him a private promise that the second cath lab would go ahead.

Mr Halligan has also said a review of cardiac services at Waterford is flawed and, after demands, has now received a commitment from Mr Harris for a second fresh review.

The row over the cath lab consumed the joint Fine Gael-Independent coalition this week. This follows several previous confrontations between the alliance and Fine Gael over abortion legislation and the Apple tax judgment.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny tried to calm tensions yesterday: Id like for everyone [ministers] to apply themselves to their jobs and we have a big responsibility in uncertain times. Everybody get down to business and apply ourselves to what have to as a people and as a country.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Galway-Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice, who left the Independent Alliance after refusing to support the Government, suggested Mr Halligan should not have become a minister without getting a solid commitment for the second lab.

If it was me, I wouldnt be [in], he told Newstalk.
Patricia Brazil, a barrister, and Averil Deverell assistant professor in law at Trinity College Dublin, said that there had been cases where people pretend to be the parent or guardian of a minor seeking asylum, where in fact there is no family link and the child may have been trafficked into the country.

Dr Brazil also said minors seeking asylum were also denied aftercare once they turned 18, and that some asylum-seeking minors who were in the care of the State until they reached 18 then faced being put into direct provision.

She also raised another issue regarding immigration.

On the immigration side, while every non-Irish citizen must have permission to be in Ireland, only people over 16 are subject to the requirement to register with the immigration authorities, said Dr Brazil.

This can cause issues where a child goes to register at 16 having been under the mistaken belief that they had permission to be in Ireland, and can suddenly find themselves in a precarious situation, possibly facing deportation.

Dr Brazil said that issues raised in an article written in 2005 by Sunniva McDonagh BL in The Bar Review had still not been addressed.

These concerns are not new, but nothing has been done to address them, and the new International Protection Act 2015 was a missed opportunity to introduce more robust standards and procedures around these issues, said Dr Brazil.

She said current arrangements were very ad hoc.

She said that the Department of Justice appeared to be quite resistant to change and that there were still gaps in the law and in terms of information available on the children affected.

What is happening in these gaps  what I think is happening is these children are being left very vulnerable, she said. Who is looking after these children? Who is looking after their interests? Nobody.

The Government deliberately chose not to adopt a universal best interests requirement in the Childrens Rights referendum, probably in part because they did not want decision-making in the asylum/immigration field subjected to that standard, but the consequences for migrant children of the failure to recognise their individual rights, and the failure to ensure the law adequately protects them from abuse such as trafficking, is a serious problem.

Dr Brazil was among the speakers yesterday at a conference on State Accountability for Vulnerability held at the School of Nursing in Dublin City University.
A boy, aged 16, charged with the robbery in Balbriggan on August 30, 2015, appeared at the Dublin Childrens Court .

Garda Kevin Fitzpatrick told Judge John OConnor the woman, aged 31, was walking through a housing estate when she noticed a small group of teenagers behind her. It would be alleged a girl asked her for a light and tried to grab her handbag as the woman turned around.
HMVs store presence here ended last week with the closure of their remaining outlets in Limerick, Dundrum, Henry Street, and Liffey Valley.

As recently as last week, workers were told they would receive their payments yesterday. Workers were advised they would be receiving severance and holiday pay on Friday, which was confirmed by letter issued by the company in July.

However, they were then told that the stores were being put into liquidation on Thursday night and they did not receive the payments owed to them yesterday.

One staff member described this as a despicable move on the companys behalf. Robyn Long who had been with the company for three years said: Its all legal, what can we do? Its a despicable move on their behalf. Ms Long said that one of the affected workers received the news just days before she was due to get married this weekend.

Another former employee, Brendan Miller, said: We dont have any leverage the way it stands.

A message was widely spread on twitter from an account which appears to be run on behalf of former staff members. It said as far back as July 17 that workers were advised they were being made redundant and that they would be receiving their pay on September 9.

It said news of the liquidation means Hilco, or HMV Ireland no longer have to pay the staff what is owed and the staff have to apply for state redundancy.

Meanwhile, the staff are left with money owed again while HMV Ireland is still tweeting rubbish about celebrities birthdays, the account also read.

The Twitter account has since been suspended. The Rubberbandits later retweeted he picture with the message Irish HMV staff are still getting fucked over.

A spokesperson for Hilco gave no reassurance to the affected employees, other than to say: All employees entitlements such as holiday pay and redundancy are protected by the State, and claims will be progressed as soon as a liquidator has been appointed.

This implies staff will have to apply through the Governments insolvency payment scheme to secure monies owed.

Staff in the Limerick store had arranged a sit-in to protest the sudden closure of their shop and the withholding of payment in 2013.

In January 2013, HMV announced it was closing its 16 locations, and making 300 staff redundant after a receiver was appointed. However, eight months later its new owner, Hilco, reopened stores in Dublins Henry Street, Liffey Valley shopping centre and Dundrum town centre as well as Limericks Crescent shopping centre. As well as buying HMVs retail outlets in Ireland and Britain, Hilco also bought DVD chain Xtravision. In January of this year, Hilco placed Xtravision into provisional liquidation with the loss of 580 jobs.
Members of the Irish Postmasters Union (IPU) claim there is no commitment by the Government to use the network and promises to deliver services such as motor tax through post offices have not been progressed.

This compounds the removal of Department of Social Protection cheque payments from the post office network earlier this year and the insistence by some government departments that payments due to them from members of the public, are made by bankers drafts rather than using post office services, a spokesman said.

IPU general secretary Ned OHara said the union, along with the Government and An Post, had been involved in the Bobby Kerr-chaired post office network renewal working group since early this year.

This group was mandated to report by mid-summer with a blueprint  including policy, services and investment commitments  for the future of post offices, said the spokesman. However, postmasters are now highly dissatisfied with the progress being made and remain to be convinced that the process will provide the level of response required.

Mr OHara said: We have run well past the agreed deadline and as it stands we have few details of figures, numbers or commitments which may emerge.

We really do not know what this working group will deliver for the network, without Government support. Meaningful action on post offices is urgent as many offices are at breaking point.

Postmasters are very frustrated and want to fully consider all options, as a continuance of the current situation will result in a breakdown of the process.

He said postmasters are also involved in a second working group, chaired by minister of state for regional economic development Michael Ring, which is looking to develop community hub post offices which provide an extended range of citizen services for people living in isolated rural areas.

This group was announced last spring and was due to have pilots in place this year, but has only met once to date, he said.

The IPU represents more than 1,000 postmasters who operate the vast majority of Irelands 1,100 post offices.
Between 2007 and 2011, 100 birds were brought from Norway to the Killarney National Park. To date, 13 chicks have survived.

The aim is to get at least 10 chicks flying from their nests each year. In fact, some of the breeding pairings this year actually involved three eagles. On the Iveragh peninsula on the Ring of Kerry, a male and two females were involved in one site; and on the Beara, a female and two males got together.

Although the start has been slow, it is on par with that of the Isle of Mull in Scotland, where a similar introduction 40 years ago has hugely succeeded, Clare Heardman, conservation ranger on the eagle project in West Cork, said.

Three of the 2016 eagle chicks were hatched and reared in Co Kerry, one in the Killarney National Park, where the sea-eagle introduction project from Norway was centred. There are two Galway fledglings and one in Glengarriff.

More than 30 of the Norwegian eagles have died and the National Parks and Wildlife Service recently told An Bord Pleanala the re-introduction has cost over 1.5m and is at a critical stage.

Ms Heardman said long-term, the benefits were not just for conservation but were also economic, particularly for remote areas, like west Cork and the Ring of Kerry.

It is third time lucky for Glengarriff, where a pair of eagles there have finally fledged a chick  the first eagle chick in Cork in 120 years.

Its been a long wait, not just for County Cork but for the pair themselves, said Ms Heardman, who also paid tribute to local ferrymen who have taken the young eagle to heart.

She said the Glengarriff fellow was slower leaving the nest than expected: However, hes been flying around the bay for six weeks now and looking strong. His parents are still feeding him but before the year is out, he will become independent and leave the area.

It is hoped that Irish-born chicks will themselves start breeding in the coming years, said Allan Mee of the project partners, Golden Eagle Trust.
Oba Olatoye Aladunjoye of Belmont Court, Rochestown, Cork, pleaded not guilty at Cork District Court to a charge of assault. Judge Olann Kelleher had heard the contested case previously and said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the teenager was assaulted.

The judge had found the facts proved but, at the time, did not record a conviction. The judge had accepted the accused was under extreme provocation from another man, present that night. He had suggested to solicitor Joseph Cuddigan, previously, the defendant should consider gathering some money as a gesture of compensation.
The HSE is to carry out detailed research on the experience of post-primary schools of how relationships and sexuality education (RSE) is being delivered in the classroom.

It follows reports from the Department of Educations inspectorate in 2013 which found that students were expressing dissatisfaction with the RSE programme.

RSE was introduced in secondary schools in 1997 to promote a positive attitude of ones own sexuality and in ones relationship with others as well as to provide knowledge and respect for reproduction.

Students are meant to receive six classes of sex education each year between first and sixth year.

In junior cycle, RSE is taught as part of the social, personal, and health education (SPHE) programme. Although SPHE is not a required subject in the senior cycle, schools are still required to teach RSE during the school year.

An earlier study carried out between 2004 and 2006 found that one in ten schools had no classes in RSE, while another 30% of schools were only implementing the programme to a low level.

The research concluded that less than a third of all schools were fully implementing RSE.

One of the main barriers to implementation of sex education classes was curriculum and time constraints. Other factors were the status and perception of RSE, teacher comfort levels, discrepancies in training, and teacher selection issues.

Another study asked the general population in 2010 of their experiences of sex education; it suggested RSE implementation had improved over time as young people in their 20s were more likely to have received sex education.

They were also more likely to have found sex education useful compared to people in their 30s and 40s.

These findings suggested that RSE was becoming more mainstream among younger people, said the HSE. A very positive finding to come from this study was that those who received RSE in school or at home were more likely to display safer sex behaviours at sexual debut.

A separate survey of the principals of post-primary schools carried out by the Department of Education last year, whose findings are still to be published, indicates very high levels of schools having an RSE policy in place or in the process of developing one.

The vast majority of schools reported teaching RSE at junior and senior cycle, said the Department of Education.

The new study, which has a budget of 110,000, is expected to be completed by December 2017.
Clifford and Lorna Dunlea; Sinead Furlong and John Doherty; and Lavina Higgins and Liam Sexton are among the first 16 tenants to get the keys to their new three-bedroom homes in Ashmount Mews, in the Silversprings/Mayfield area on the north side of Cork City.

The 130-home estate will by the end of the year have 34 social housing units, delivered through Namas social housing special purpose vehicle, which works with approved housing bodies, such as Respond! Housing.

Housing Minister Simon Coveney visited the first families to move in under phase one of the scheme yesterday. Once phase two is completed by December, the housing units will be home to 44 adults and 70 children.

We are absolutely thrilled to move into these beautiful new houses. We dont ever have to worry again about where we will raise our kids, Lavina and Liam said.

Sinead and John said Respond! has changed their lives: We would like to see the Respond! values of building communities as the standard for allocating houses, and the creation of real neighbourhoods as the standard for future developments for people in the same situation as ourselves.

Mr Coveney hailed the project as an example for completing an unfinished estate and delivering social housing at the same time.

Nama chief executive officer Brendan McDonagh said the agency has delivered more than 2,200 such houses and apartments for social housing since 2012.

Individuals and families get access to high-quality housing, local authority housing lists are reduced, and properties that werent being occupied are brought into the use they were intended for, which is good for Nama and for taxpayers, and especially for the new occupiers, he said.

Ned Brennan, chief operations officer of Respond!, said Ashmount Mews is the type of integrated development envisaged in the Governments new housing strategy, Rebuilding Ireland.

Our tenants will be alongside the wider Ashmount private development, he said. All our tenants will have the benefit of our resident support workers to assist them in their new homes and to work with them in terms of improving their employment prospects and educational opportunities. That is the Respond! model  we are always there for our tenants whenever the need arises.

Respond! has ambitious plans for further development in Cork city and county, with about 240 social housing units at various stages of negotiation.
Irish food and drink producers were honoured at the fourth awards during a ceremony hosted by Ballymaloe chef and cookery writer Rachel Allen at the Mansion House in Dublin last night.

Taking the top prize of the Gold Q was Clonmels James Whelan Butchers with its Dry Aged Angus Striploin Steak.

Winning the Gold Q award was fantastic recognition, said Pat Whelan, chief executive of James Whelan Butchers.

Not only for our business and our products but most of all for our wonderful team of dedicated professionals who work so hard every day sharing great Irish food with our loyal customers.

The judges said of the winning product: The steak looks good, it is juicy and succulent, the flavour is unreal, and its strong yellow colour indicates that it is well matured. This is an excellent steak.

Dunnes Stores was named retailer of the year, including winning gold in the Value Q category for Dunnes Stores My Family Favourites Mature White Cheddar, produced by Bandon Vale.

The Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards have become a major part of the Irish food calendar, said Helen Lyons, group publisher at Metropolis Media, which organised the event.

Once again we received a huge number of entries, and spent four weeks testing and judging the most delicious products. We had another wonderful night celebrating the success of our winners  huge congratulations to everyone.

Picking up an Irish Quality Food and Drink Award is a powerful marketing tool, with many past winners using the awards logos on their packaging and in national press, television, and outdoor advertising.

Mairead Finnegan runs and owns Roll It Pastry, whose Sweet Shortcrust Pastry won the frozen food (sweet) category last year. Winning in my category two years in a row has not only allowed me to grow in confidence but sales increased quite significantly in 2015 and particularly in the last quarter following the awards being announced.

The publicity surrounding the awards resulted in my products going into trial with a major Irish retailer and that along with a growth in sales in existing retailers meant that my turnover in Q4 2015 was almost equal to my entire turnover in 2014.

The awards themselves are organised into two distinct sections: Irish Quality Food Awards  products for the multiple and independent grocery retail market  and the Irish Quality Drink Awards: Alcoholic drinks for the retail sector.

The Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards are partnered with trade magazine Easy Food. The awards are also sponsored by the Coeliac Society of Ireland, Dairymaid, Invest Northern Ireland, and the Italian company Sacla.
A review into the hospital by Niall Herity found that it did not need a second cath lab (used for heart examinations) and that it should cease its emergency cardiac service.

The primary issue is about PCI [percutaneous coronary intervention], but that is a very important component of the service that we provide, Dr Owens said yesterday.

Currently we provide it nine-to-five. The numbers of patients that we did, in the last calendar year, which was 62, is nowhere near the 100 thats seen as the minimum standard.

However, those 62 patients were done during working hours nine-to-five. Out of hours, which is a further 128 hours, there were 77 acute cases transferred to Dublin or Cork from within our catchment area. When you add those together, we are then comfortably above the primary PCI minimum requirement.

Dr Owens was speaking on RTE News at One after the clinical review was published.

He argued that the half a million people who live in the areas of Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford, and South Tipperary want to have their cardiac service provided as close to their homes as possible.

The patients in the South East do not want to go out of the region, they dont want to travel to Dublin, they dont want to have to go to St Jamess or to St Vincents or to Cork.

They want to have their care in the region, he said.

Referring specifically to the finding that a second cath lab was not needed for UHW, the consultant stated that the finding affected people far beyond Waterford.

This is not a second cath lab for UHW, this is a second cath lab for the South East region and that is critical, he said.

This has been described as parish pump politics, as a crusade on Johns [Independent TD John Halligan] part. That is not the case. This is something that directly affects the welfare of half a million people in the South East of Ireland, he stated.

Niall Heritys review found University Hospital Waterford did not need a second cath lab and should cease emergency cardiac service.

Dr Owens said the issues now need to be resolved in a professional discussion with the Minister for Health, as opposed to in the media, in order to move forward.

The cardiologist said the issue demands revisiting.

I think the review was very good, however I think the population calculations, the risk piece and the primary PCI, these are all relevant, but I think our arguments hold water and do demand a revisiting, he said.

Meanwhile, Unite trade union, which represents thousands of workers in Waterford, said it fully supports the campaign for full coronary care for the region.

The trade union said that its members are angry at what they see as a further sidelining of the city.
It is that time of year once more when a brand new cohort of Irish mammies commences an age-old ritual, that perilous teetering around the edge of a nervous breakdown that comes with sending progeny off to college, to live away from home for the first time.

And, to further compound this great anxiety is the dawning realisation that a lifetime spent dancing attendance, catering for every whim and fancy, has actually been their greatest folly, that these near-adult offspring have no more ability to look after themselves than the average toddler, able to wipe their own bums but rather vague as to which plant toilet paper comes from.

And, when it comes to cooking for themselves, well, the first lesson might well be, how not to burn water.

Actually, it may not be as bad as all that.

Most campuses have restaurants and cafes offering some reasonable form of sustenance and, providing youve trained him or her to open a box and make a microwave go bing, Precious wont starve.

However, convenience food comes at a price, quite literally.

While a jar of pasta sauce or a frozen pizza may appear a quick and painless means of compensating for a lack of culinary skills, convenience food is far dearer than, and also nutritionally inferior to, home-cooked food.

The latter will mean diddly squat to a young student in the prime of life but the possibility of reducing the housekeeping budget in favour of increasing the social budget will cause most young ears to prick up.

Cooking isnt actually that hard and learning to cook well eventually comes with practice  all you have to do is make a start.

Weve asked, Ali Honour, chef and proprietor of the very popular Alis Kitchen cafe and restaurant in Cork city and herself a recovering student, for some recipes that are flexible and easy to get the ball rolling.

I went to university in Newcastle to do law. The plan was to become a barrister but I had been working in professional kitchens since the age of 13 so while all the other students were scrambling for bits of part- time jobs, I was almost immediately offered a part-time commis chef position in a lovely restaurant in Newcastle, says Ali.

At the end of first year, I switched from Law to Arts and also went to catering college and earned my paperwork.

My first year had been typical student life but after that it was just hard graft for the next four years until I got my degree.

I was fairly unusual in that I was well able to fend for myself whereas all the people I lived with were a disaster.

I did a lot of cooking for people and as long as they did the wash-up, I was happy.

There was six of us in a shared house and most people fended for themselves eating very basic stuff, usually pasta with cheap cheese or with a jar of sauce.

Most people seemed to have one substantial main meal a day rather than three but we would pull together at least twice a week for a shared meal which made us a right little family sitting around the table.

Obviously, students are going to do their own thing but if they have a bit of sense they will try to eat something healthy every day.

Student shopping is usually random and unplanned.

But if they work off a planned budget and list they will do much better than buying cheap, processed foods on a whim.

Having a basic stock cupboard of essentials means you can at least turn some rice or pasta into a cheap and nutritious meal.

In the house I was in, everybody would give me something from their cupboard and ask me to work it into a meal.

Ive always loved that. It was like Ready, Steady, Cookand it was a good way of getting a drink off everybody as well!

Alis Essentials for the store cupboard: Flour, eggs, salt, pepper, milk, chilli sauce, soy and some frozen veggies will save time & money!

Oops, I Missed-My-Morning-Lecture Pancakes

Can be supplemented with any additional ingredients you may have to hand. In Alis Kitchen, we are currently obsessed with avocado and bacon but use whatever you like best.

Basic Pancake Mix

170g self-raising flour

150 ml milk

2 medium eggs

Good pinch sea salt

Topping

Tin of sweetcorn drained

30g cheddar/ feta/ halloumi/Brie

8/10 smoked streaky rashers

1 lime zest & juice

1 ripe avocado

5 tbs natural yoghurt

2 tomatoes sliced

1 chilli finely chopped or pinch of chilli flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Hot Rebel chilli sauce to spice things up a bit!

Method Pancakes

Add the flour, salt, egg and milk to large bowl and whisk to a smooth batter.

Add the sweetcorn and chilli and crumble/small pieces of cheese. Set aside.

Fry bacon until crispy and cut in half. Reserve bacon fat in the pan. Destone and peel avocado and slice. Grate lime zest and then squeeze out juice and pour both over avocado along with a good pinch of salt and a grind of black pepper. Fry pancakes

Reheat pan to medium-hot and cook pancakes, two at a time, two minutes either side or until done.

To serve: Two pancakes per person on each plate. First add avocado, then two or three rashers, tomato slices, dollop of yoghurt and drizzle with chilli sauce.

Noodle Cure For The Morning After

Noodles are so cheap and versatile. This recipe is a great pick-me-up if youve slightly overdone it the night before.

Ingredients

Thumb-size piece of fresh ginger

1 large clove of garlic

4 tbs soy sauce

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

1 head cabbage (Chinese or savoy)

600g frozen broccoli/peas/corn

300g egg noodles

4 eggs

Sesame oil

Hot Rebel chilli sauce to serve

Method

Peel ginger and garlic, grate into large bowl, add soy, sesame oil, vinegar. Shred cabbage and blanch in boiling salted water with the frozen veg and noodles for few minutes. Drain well then add to bowl and mix well.

Fry eggs. Divide noodles and veg mix into serving bowls, top with fried egg and a good lash of chilli sauce!

More Money-For-Beer Flatbread Pizza

Quick, easy and so much better than any cheap frozen pizza. Depending on toppings, you can serve as pizza, garlic bread, an open sandwich or even just with a bowl of soup.

Flatbread

400g self raising flour (with extra for dusting)

Large pinch of sea salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

375g natural yoghurt

Method

Place all ingredients in a large bowl, mix with hands and bring together to form a rough ball.

Dust work surface with a little flour and knead for just two minutes to bring dough together. Dust a clean bowl with a little flour, place dough in bowl and cover with a plate. Set aside for 35 minutes.

Divide dough into eight to 12 balls, flatten with hands first then, using rolling pin (or wine bottle if rolling pin isnt available!) and roll into 10-12in rounds.

Heat frying pan to medium-hot, drizzle teaspoon of olive oil over each round and cook for two minutes on each side. Transfer to plate to cool or baking tray if progressing to pizza.

To make pizza, add your choice of toppings and bake in heated oven (200C) until cheese is melted and base is crispy. To make garlic bread, top with garlic butter.

Garlic Butter

50g softened butter

As much chopped garlic as you fancy

Some chopped fresh parsley/ tarragon, if available or sprinkle of dried mixed herbs.

Mix together and add to flatbread or even cooked pizza for extra flavour.
Making Ireland Modern opened at the St Peters Cork exhibition space on North Main Street on Thursday night and runs until October 1.

Its the brainchild of architects John McLaughlin and Gary Boyd who developed the idea over lunch one day in a cafe in Anglesea Street back in 2013 while both were teaching at UCCs Cork Centre for Architectural Education.

The initial outcome of the idea became a proposal to the Arts Council to represent Ireland at the Venice Architectural Biennale in 2014, successfully manifesting as Infra-Eireann, of which Making Ireland Modern is a remaking as part of the Arts Councils programme, ART: 2016.

A close-up of the Making Ireland Moderns pavilion, showing one of the exhibitions ten components.

Its timely  and not without intention  as it explores the development of our State since the Easter Rising up to the present day, showcasing ten infrastructural developments, one for each decade, and covering the topics of electricity, health, television, aviation, motorways, data, negation, education, transportation and telecommunications.

At the root of the concept are two cultural references: One, a quote from Padraig Pearse, someone we identify as a poet, a pedagogue and a revolutionary, though not particularly as an observer of how to build and develop our infrastructure as he describes in From a Hermitage in 1913.

He says: A free Ireland would drain the bogs, would harness the rivers, would plant the wastes, would nationalise the railways and the waterways, would improve agriculture, would protect fisheries, would foster industries, would promote commerce, would diminish extravagant expenditure.

The second reference is a work by nationalist visual artist Sean Keating, whose painting Nights Candles are Burnt Out is one of a series painted in the mid to late 1920s, dealing with the development of the Ardnacrusha electric power plant.

The building of Ardnacrusha power plant represents the exhibitions electricity project and the decade o f the 1920s.

It was later described by the artist as representing a new dawn for Ireland, where electricity was the means to progress from the dim candlelight of colonialism to a bright future made possible by rural electrification and what that would mean for the development of our culture.

Together, such ideas did help expand Ireland culturally, helping to create a new identity where so much had been lost, like language, through colonialism.

Curiously, it was this which resonated with an international audience when the exhibition showed in its original format at the Venice Architectural Biennale, especially among visitors and fellow exhibitors from other previously colonised nations from Asia and Africa.

When the exhibition formed part of the Galway International Arts Festival recently, its component dealing with health cited Galway Regional Sanitorium which was built in the 1940s at a time when tuberculosis was rife.

It too resonated strongly with visitors, this time on a local level among those who recollected family members who had been treated there for TB.

Artifacts and ephemera also feature in the exhibition and include references to the earliest years of the Irish Free State.

In 1921 and 22 there were no postage stamps available except for those bearing the silhouette of the then British monarch, so the State commissioned the London printer who made those stamps with the head of George V to overprint them with the words Saorstat Eireann, some of which An Post has now lent to the exhibition.

Surprisingly close to home for Gary Boyd, it was his mother-in-law who stepped in when he sought some of the WD & HO Wills tobacco companys cigarette card collection from the 1920s depicting the Ardnacrusha power plant.

An enquiry to the ESB to borrow some to include in the exhibition yielded a reply that they were very rare but it turned out they werent quite so rare as Garys mother-in-law had her own fathers collection which she has now lent to the exhibition.

Making Ireland Moderns pavilion is a 3D matrix with ten different components featuring an infrastructural development that took place in each decade since 1916.

In the aviation section, a series of postcards written by airline passengers stopping over at Shannon Airport in the 1950s gives the viewer a very real and immediate engagement with the topic, a sort of personal potency, if you will.

But theres also a social, political and educational potency to the exhibition as a whole, where all of the ten topics included are linked together by the necessity of architecture and its development across the ten decades through the primary concern of building a nation.
Before I start chattering on about some gorgeous pretty things appreciated in the vintage market, lets get a bruising punch-line right out of the way this week.

Amongst the victims of the Nazi death camps were many accomplished visual creatives. Probably most famous of them was Josep ?Capek, the Czech artist, writer and poet, who coined the world robot and perished at Bergen Belsen in 1945.

Jessurun de Mesquita, also a victim of Auschwitz, and a hitherto largely forgotten Portuguese/Dutch graphic artist, is now gaining a following for the serene simplicity of this striking woodcuts and etchings.

There were of course many, many others  amateur, professional, student and practicing artists and designers whose names have collapsed into dust and worthy mentions at Holocaust memorials and exhibitions.

Anyone who takes an interest in the finer end of vintage costume jewellery will discover another family name  that of Neiger, or more properly the Neiger brothers, who were also murdered with an entire generation of their Jewish brethren at Auschwitz in Poland.

Art Deco Neiger brooch featuring floral Peking glass panels layered under unusual decorative metal fish. The brooch is finished with a secure hook clasp. 111, www.claricejewellery.com

The 12th century market town of Gablonz (Jablonec) now part of the Czech Republic, in Northern Bohemia, was at the centre of a glass bead making industry established in the 16th century.

Prosperous and multi-cultural with a strong German culture, the town was linked to the world by 1897 with a railway and the Great Mountain Road.

Hundreds of small factories produced pieces for chandelier making during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire serving clients all over Europe and the Americas.

In the 18th century many firms began to turn their attention to what was termed synthetic jewel making, pieces in glass and base metals that flashed in candlelight like diamonds and precious stones, ideal for the growing middle class at play.

The elder Norbert Neiger, following dedicated training at the Gablonz School for Applied Arts in bijouterie (trinket-making), set up just such an enterprise in the basement of the family home.

His brother Max joined him and proving to be the more creatively brilliant, Norbert happily withdrew from the workshop to run the company.

The Neigers were so successful by the mid 1920s, they had to employ extra home-workers to assemble their signature beads, brooches, scent bottles and dress clips.

Magnificent Egyptian revival necklace from a regular selection at www.claricejewellery.com.Quality rare pieces start in the 200-400 range.

Local metal stampers tuned out the parts for their pieces, streamlining production.

Bohemian vintage jewellery has a huge following. Not only is there lots of it, but its affordable and in good condition and can still be worn and enjoyed.

The work of Max Neiger stands out for its imagination and wholly unexpected moments, and was imitated by other Czech firms.

To get some idea of how these exotic pieces would have been best seen  imagine a flapper, with her snake-skin close couture in the underwater light of a night-club, long beads swaying through her decolletage  or a young housewife applying one gorgeous flashy clip to the neckline of a lovely day dress.

These women (and doubtless plenty of men), were fascinated with the mysterious jewels and iconography from the tomb of King Tut that appeared all over the print news editions from 1922.

Designers across the world soon made the ancient the avante garde, and the Neiger brothers attempts at light hearted cultural cartooning were a smash hit, especially in America.

Glass was coloured to represent jade, jet, coral and other fine and semi-precious stones, rhodium plating was at a distance, perfect as rubbed gold.

The Chinese and Egyptian themed brooches of Neiger, dense with script, characters, gilding and bundles of glass reeds in tiny dioramas, are extremely popular today and survive in good numbers due to the weight and quality of the metal mounts.

My personal favourite are the plainer carved glass beads in opaque orange and green glass which feature all-round faces and ornamental Ikat cuts, rubbed with black tint. Very Bloomsbury Set.

Strings of beads are often re-strung following damage from wild partying, so ensure they are at or close to their original length before you buy.

Lighter elements like tubes of glass threaded on silk ribbon and hanging in panels or fans are prone to chipping, reducing the value of the piece. Identification can be difficult, as many Neiger pieces are not marked.

The best way to further your knowledge is to study known Neiger Bros jewels offered by reputable dealers. Look Neiger Bohemian jewellery up in Google images, as they are so varied they really do defy description.

Pininteret has over 1,000 pictures from collectors and dealers to pore over. Prices range from less than 100 for some simple beads attributed to Max Neiger, to over 1,000 for a fabulous Egyptian revival brooch or necklace with mint enamel work.

Following the Munich Pact, and the hand-over of area of Gablonz to the Third Reich for the Sudeten Germans in 1938, the synagogue in the Gablonz was burned to the ground.

Despite fleeing with their family in the hope of escaping notice, the fate of the Neigers was sealed.

Their highly accessible and respected creations stand as a testament to the loss of all talented young lives across the world.
FOR a time, it felt like the attack that shattered America had also brought it together.

After September 11, signs of newfound unity seemed to well up everywhere, from the homes where American flags appeared virtually overnight to the Capitol steps where lawmakers pushed aside party lines to sing God Bless America together.

That cohesion feels vanishingly distant as the 15th anniversary of the attacks arrives tomorrow. Gallups 15-year-old poll of Americans national pride hit its lowest-ever point this year. In a country that now seems carved up by door-slamming disputes over race, immigration, national security, policing, and politics, people impelled by the spirit of common purpose after September 11 rue how much it has slipped away.

Jon Hile figured he could help the Ground Zero clean-up because he worked in industrial air pollution control. So he travelled from Louisville, Kentucky, to volunteer, and it is not exaggerating to say the experience changed his life. He came home and became a firefighter.

Mr Hile, who now runs a risk management firm, remembers it as a time of communal kindness, when everybody understood how quickly things could change ... and how quickly you could feel vulnerable.

A decade and a half later, he sees a nation where economic stress has pushed many people to look out for themselves. Where people stick to their comfort zones.

I wish that we truly remembered, he says, like we said, wed never forget.

Terrorism barely registered among Americans top worries in early September 2001, but, amid economic concerns, a Gallup poll around then found only 43% of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going.

Then, in under two hours on September 11, the nation lost nearly 3,000 people, two of its tallest buildings and its sense of impregnability. But out of the shock, fear, and sorrow rose a feeling of regaining some things, too  a shared identity, a heartfelt commitment to the nation indivisible.

Stores ran out of flags. Americans from coast to coast cupped candle flames and prayed at vigils, gave blood and billions of dollars, cheered firefighters and police. Military recruits cited the attacks as they signed up.

Congress scrubbed partisanship to pass a $40bn anti-terrorism and victim aid measure three days after the attacks, and approval ratings for lawmakers and the president sped to historic highs. A special postage stamp declared United We Stand, and Americans agreed: A Newsweek poll found 79% felt 9/11 would make the country stronger and more unified.

I really saw people stand up for America. ... And I was very proud of that, recalls Maria Medrano-Nehls, a retired state library agency worker in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her foster daughter and niece, Army National Guard Master Sgt Linda Tarango-Griess, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004.

Now, Ms Medrano-Nehls thinks weariness from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and combative politics have pried Americans apart, and it pains her to think of the military serving a country so torn.

Larry Brook can still picture the crowd at a post-9/11 interfaith vigil at an amphitheatre in Pelham, Alabama. The numbers seemed a tangible measure of an urge to come together.

Now? I dont think were anywhere close, says Mr Brook, who publishes Southern Jewish Life magazine. To him, political partisanship and clashes over Middle East policy are walling off middle ground.

Three days after 9/11, Joseph Esposito was at a smouldering Ground Zero as Republican President George W Bush grabbed a bullhorn and vowed the attackers will hear all of us soon. The moment became an emblem of American strength and resolve, and Mr Esposito, then the New York Police Departments top uniformed officer, was struck by the camaraderie, the unity of those days.

He remembers the support police enjoyed then, and how much the tone had changed by the time of the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, when police arrested hundreds of demonstrators, many of whom said cops unjustly rounded and roughed them up.

Now the citys emergency management commissioner, Mr Esposito has watched from the sidelines as a national protest movement has erupted in recent years from police killings of unarmed black men, and as police themselves have been killed by gunmen claiming vengeance.

These days, Mr Esposito hopes his job can be unifying. He wants people to feel that the city helps neighbourhoods equally to handle disaster.

The 1 percenters should not be better prepared than the 99%, he says.

If everyone feels theyre getting their fair share, it fosters better feelings toward one another.

For all the signs of kinship after September 11, the first retribution attack came just four days later, authorities said.

Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead while placing flowers on a memorial at his Mesa, Arizona, petrol station. Prosecutors said the gunman mistook Sodhi, an Indian Sikh immigrant, for an Arab Muslim.

Seeing hundreds of people gather in solidarity on the night of his brothers death showed me the greatness of unity, says Rana Singh Sodhi, of Gilbert, Arizona. However, in the last two years, hes felt a change toward hatred again.

He worries that politicians are stirring up animosity toward immigrants and minorities.

Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali feels the same.

After 9/11, he invited first responders for tea and coffee at the Northeast Denver Islamic Center to show appreciation and emphasise that Muslims are regular Americans.

Now, Mr Ali, who is African-American, believes Muslims and people of colour are being demonised with incendiary and divisive remarks.

We cant act like racism hasnt been a part of all this, he says.

But can the US feel united again?

Some Americans fear that it will take another catastrophe, if even that can shift the climate.

Others are looking to political leaders to set a more collaborative tone, or to Americans themselves to make an effort to understand and respect one another.

When Sonia Shah thinks about the push and pull of American unity since the attacks that killed her father, Jayesh, at the World Trade Center, she pictures a rock hitting a pond.

The innermost ripple, thats the tight circle of support that came together around the people most directly affected by tragedy. Outside it, bigger and more diffuse, are bands of debate over policies and politics in the wake of 9/11.

We usually see the outer rings of the arguments, says the Baylor University senior. But I think there always is a current of unity that goes underneath things.
THE recent case of 13-year-old schoolboy Paddy Flynn shows the value of public shaming. The boy from a Traveller background was denied a place in his local second-level school until pressure from the story, broadcast by RTE, became too much for the school authorities.

The stations Emma OKelly broke the story and then followed up with detail which showed the line being spun by De La Salle secondary school in Dublins Ballyfermot didnt really stack up. The school said that the childs application was too late. No provision was given to the fact that Paddys parents cant read or write and therefore didnt respond to the initial application form.

OKelly kept at the story, following up her initial broadcast with news that the school had enrolled 77 pupils in 2014; 67 last year; and only 38 this year. While the number of classes were being reduced that didnt suggest that overcrowding was an issue. Last Tuesday members of the schools management board looked into their hearts and found room for a boy from a minority background to continue his education. Would anything have happened without the intervention of OKellys journalism?

The story illustrates how as a last resort citizens feel the only way to have an injustice addressed is to drag it out into the full public glare. The outcome, however, is not always guaranteed.

Another case involving a 13-year-old whose parents despairingly went to the media over a severe injustice didnt finish so well. As reported in this newspaper on August 24, teenager Luke Kelly-Melia was awarded 5,500 for discrimination by the Workplace Relations Commission. The detail behind that story is quite shocking.

Luke has cerebral palsy. When he was in sixth class at Knocktemple National School in Virginia, Co Cavan, he was denied a request to bring an assistance dog into the school. The dog, Aidan, was described as his zimmerframe, providing Luke with stability, preventing falls that could have been serious.

The WRC ruling stated that after Lukes parents had despairingly gone to the media, the board of management allowed the red mist to affect their judgement and lost sight that there was a 13-year-old boy with special needs at the heart of this case. The school, through its various agents, acted in a callous manner towards the boy, it found.

Early in the school year of 2011-2012, Lukes parents had requested he be allowed bring the dog. They provided medical opinion that it would improve his situation. The school response was that the dog could not be brought into the classroom. Lukes parents werent willing to, as they saw it, continue to put him at risk. They began homeschooling him in December 2011.

In January, the story appeared in the media. There was coverage in the national daily press, along with TV3, Northern Sound radio, and the Meath Chronicle. The schools board regarded the headlines as sensational, resulting in adverse publicity for the school.

Quite obviously, the ventilating of the story in the public domain did not give pause for reflection. Instead of viewing their predicament in a new light, the people involved decided to circle the wagons. What was now at issue was the parents of a boy with special needs having the temerity to run to the media, rather than whether or not that boy was accorded fair and proper treatment by a body charged with educating children.

Instead of retreating or reflecting, the school opened up a new front in its dispute with Luke and his family. A questionnaire was circulated to parents and staff as to their views on whether the presence of an assistance dog in the school would cause difficulties.

The questionnaire was loaded with the following queries. If you have concerns in relation to the use of assistance dogs on school grounds which of the following do your concerns relate to? A choice of four boxes to tick were provided. The same applied to the second question: How would you articulate your concerns?

As the WRC noted: There was no box to tick if parents or staff did not have an issue with an assistance dog in the school. As with all these matters, the quality and direction of the questions can be directed to load the answers. Quite obviously, the board didnt want to know about parents who had no concerns. In any event, disseminating a questionnaire about the matter was a curious way to attempt to facilitate a child with a disability.

Sending a questionnaire to other parents was putting the cart before the horse, according to the WRC. When a request for reasonable accommodation is made, the starting point should be the person with a disability seeking it. Careful attention should be paid to what has been recommended by his doctors. No attempt was made by the school to contact his physiotherapist, GP or consulting physicians.

Worse was to come. At the end of school year, his friend called and showed him a yearbook created for the class as they were leaving primary school education. Luke was reportedly highly upset at his exclusion. Neither was he invited on the school tour.

The WRC found this attitude towards the boy to be callous.

He was seven and a half years in the school and should, at least, have been invited back on the last day, it ruled.

Things are different today for Luke. The principal in his secondary school investigated how an assistance dog operated in another school and returned excited by what he saw. Lukes request to be accompanied by Aidan was immediately granted.

He has shown a remarkable improvement with his mobility since the introduction of his disability dog, the WRC found. His gait has improved significantly.

The episode demonstrates how those in power, at whatever level of society, can so easily lose the run of themselves. Educators and volunteers who assist in running schools are primarily concerned with doing their best for children.

In the case of Luke Kelly-Melia, priorities got smothered somewhere along the way. A case concerned with how to improve the quality of life of a boy with special challenges got confused with an instinct of righteous indignation that the matter was not kept behind closed doors, within strict pararmeters of control.

What it also highlights is the requirement for an Education ombudsman, who could intervene in situations such as the one above and find a speedy resolution. Luke Kelly-Melias case took three years to process and come to a determination.

Fine Gael TD Jim Daly, a former school principal, has long been beating the drum for an Education Ombudsman and last year he introduced a private members bill to establish such an office. The bill is currently going through the Oireachtas unopposed by Government or opposition. Its enactment cant come soon enough.
Commentary Now Is the Time to Act in Arakan State

Displaced individuals staying in Thae Chaung IDP camp are pictured during the Arakan State Advisory Commissions visit to the area. / Maung Kyaw Hein MPA / The Irrawaddy

As the chairman of the new nine-member Arakan State Advisory Commission, Kofi Annan might have had a powerful message after visiting displaced peoples camps in Sittwe, where he met many individuals who, after five years, have yet to return to their homes in the region.

But, upon his return to Rangoon, he did not speak about what he saw there, reminding members of the press and the public that the commission would not be investigating human rights abuses, and instead promised to write an impartial report on the situation.

Since riots broke out in 2012 between the majority Buddhist Arakanese and the minority Muslim Rohingya, the two groups have lived separated in the regions cities, with the Arakanese laying claim to the more developed urban areas, and the Rohingya relegated to the outskirts.

Reportedly, during his two-day trip, Annan could not meet with local Arakanese community leaders, who are upset by his reaching out to figures from within the self-identifying Rohingya communitya group which most Arakanese Buddhists, and the Burmese public, recognize as Bengali, implying that they are migrants from Bangladesh.

Annan visted Thae Chaung IDP camp on Wednesdaywhich houses some of the estimated 140,000 people displaced by the violence of 2012and also visited the Rohingya community of Aung Mingalar ward in the state capital.

He may at some point speak about the conditions he witnessed at the camps. But, if and when Annan reveals what he has seen on the ground, he risks the condemnation of Buddhist Arakanese, who will accuse him of taking the side of the Rohingya. They will likely say that he does not understand the history of the regions conflict and communities.

Hundreds of locals protested the former UN chiefs arrival and departure from Sittwe, stating that they resented international interference in what they consider to be an internal problem.

The fact that the same local Buddhist Arakanese have never agreed to return displaced Muslims to their homes is one reason why the conflict remains unsolved. The international community criticized the current government for an insufficient response to the conflict and for allowing the displaced to continue languishing in camps. On this issue, they are being designated the same negative image earned by the previous military-backed government for their handling of the situation.

In response to the criticism, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi formed the new commission in search of a solution. It was a smart moveher government could potentially receive practical advice about what needs to be done to address the problems in Arakan State.

But she is not immune to backlash in the region: the Arakanese public largely turned against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), during the 2015 electionchoosing the Arakan National Party (ANP) for the majority of seats in their state legislature instead of the NLD, which otherwise won nationally by a landslide.

Even if the widely popular State Counselor herself were in Kofi Annans position and visited the regionspeaking openly about what she sawit is likely that she would receive the same criticism he is facing.

Some ANP lawmakers have accused the State Counselor of violating Burmas sovereignty by inviting international players to examine what they maintain is an internal issue. But in fact, by inviting Kofi Annan to take part in the Arakan State Advisory Commission, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not compromising the countrys integrityshe is demonstrating how she believes that now is the time is to act in solving this conflict.
Dateline Dateline Irrawaddy: The Conference is the Initial Step Toward Peace but There are Still Many Challenges

Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe discusses the peace conferences potential with Ko Ye of the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies, Tar Hla Pe, CEC member of the Taang National Party, and Nang Phyu Phyu Lin, AGIPP chairwoman.

The Union Peace Conference or 21st Century Panglong Conference took place in Naypyidaw from August 31 to September 3. On the second day of the conference, Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe discussed the peace conferences potential with Ko Ye, who studies civilian-military relations and political transitions at the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies, Tar Hla Pe, central executive committee member of the Taang (Palaung) National Party and Nang Phyu Phyu Lin, chairwoman of the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process (AGIPP).

KZM: Seven dignitariesincluding ethnic leaders, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the military chiefdelivered speeches at the opening of the conference. Ko Ye, do you think the conference can fulfill the peoples expectations for peace?

Ko Ye: As KIA [Kachin Independence Army] vice chairman General NBan La has said, the conference is the initial step toward peace. But there are still many challenges.

KZM: What do you think is the most pressing challenge?

KY: The fact that the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups have not yet reached an agreement.

KZM: Seventeen ethnic armed groups attended the peace conference, but three groupsthe MNDAA [Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army], Taang National Liberation Army [TNLA] and Arakan Army [AA] could not. What barred them from attending the conferencethe government or their relations with the military?

Tar Hla Pe: The government and the military were not satisfied with the wording of the statements of those [three] groups about their commitment to lay down arms. A great deal of understanding has yet to be built between the two sides.

KZM: Until the eve of the conference, it was unclear if KIA vice-chairman NBan La would be allowed to give an address during the opening of the conference. Some said that the government barred him while others said it was the military. What do you think?

THP: Much remains to be done by the government and the military for the sake of national reconciliation, which they have been talking about.

KZM: Women participants also participated in the peace conference. In his address to the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that womens participation [in the peace conference] should be increased to 30 percent. What do you think about the low level of womens participation in the conference? What are the disadvantages?

NPPL: According to research and survey results, the involvement of civil society and women in the peace process could contribute to building more sustainable peace. Women only accounted for about 12 percent of peace conference attendees. Of that 12 percent, many were attending the conference as facilitators, technical team members and observers, and the number of real participants who were invited or elected [by concerned stakeholders] to attend the conference was low. While everyone else is pushing for all-inclusion, I would like to stress that gender equality and womens participation is extremely important.

KZM: The military occupy a very powerful role in the country. The civil war has been going on for nearly 70 years now. Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing has said the military will uphold its six peace principles and our three main national causes [non-disintegration of the Union, non-disintegration of national solidarity and perpetuation of sovereignty]. Will his statement be a big hurdle for other ethnic groups to sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement [NCA] or could it be negotiated?

Ko Ye: He did not mention the words civil war in his address. He just said internal instability and lack of peace and development [that has existed] along with 68 years of independence. We need to accept the fact that the military is involved in the civil war as a stakeholder. He also did not mention the words federal democratic Union. Both the government and all ethnicities have been demanding this and the military needs to accept it. The military chief called for working within the framework of the NCA, six peace principles of the military and multi-party democracy system that emerged according to the [military-drafted] 2008 Constitution. But ethnicities might have quite different views on the peace process.

KZM: General NBan La also talked about the three demands made by ethnic groups. He said ethnic groups took up arms because they did not have equality or self-determination. Do you think they cant achieve these because the military refuses or is there a way to negotiate?

THP: I discussed this at a meeting of the UPDJC [Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee]. Political parties as well as EAOs [ethnic armed organizations] have continuously called for all-inclusion in working toward our ultimate goaldemocracy, a federal Union and peace. I asked if all-inclusion should be rejected due to the refusal of a particular individual or group. I said that we could not be on the wrong side of history just because of one groups opposition.

It is one of the duties of the UPDJC to invite [ethnic armed groups to the conference]. I said that if we did not invite all groups, not only the two major actorsEAOs and the militarybut also the supporting players [political parties], we would be the guilty party. I called for all-inclusion at the peace conference.

My argument was based on the state counselors statement, which spoke of all-inclusion. When I asked about all-inclusion [at the UPDJC meeting] on August 15, [government peace negotiator] U Khin Zaw Oo promised all-inclusion. So, it was upsetting that three groups were excluded days before the conference. This was a sad case for ethnic groups and the entire country. Continued efforts must be made to ensure the NCA is real and that the next steps of the peace process are all-inclusive.

KZM: Ma Nang Phyu Phyu Linn, to what extent do you think the government and the military are willing to cooperate and listen to advice regarding gender and ethnic issues?

NPPL: Before the conference, representatives from the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process called on [government chief peace negotiator] Dr. Tin Myo Win at the National Reconciliation and Peace Center [NRPC]. He received us and allowed us to attend the peace conference as observers. The government listened to our recommendations somewhat, but not fully. It allowed us only to submit our paperwhich was about the role of women in five major sectors, including political dialoguebut not to read and discuss it at the conference. I hope that we will be granted greater participation in the future.

KZM: The second round of the Panglong Conference will be held in the next five or six months. Do you think the percentage of womens representation that you expect will be realized at that time?

NPPL: It is unlikely without a policy in placelike a policy that reserves a 30 percent quota for womenand without budget allocation, political will and mutual respect. But we dont feel downhearted. We will continue trying.

KZM: Ko Ye, we have discussed the disagreements between the military and ethnic armed groups. The military and the current government are cooperating to some extent. But there was even some friction between the military and the previous government led by former General U Thein Sein. How is the current collaboration between the government and the military?

KY: I see it in three parts: first, civil-military relationsbetween the military and the government elected by the people; second, military-ethnic relationsbetween the ethnic groups and the military; and third, relations between ethnic groups and the government. Trust has yet to be built in all of these relationships. This is normal in any country that undergoes transition. So we need to rebuild the country with trust and dialogue.

It has been suggested that the country solve political problems through political means. But to do that, the politics should be politics that everyone trusts. To create such politics, a political framework that everyone trusts is necessary. The key to solving the problem is [to change] the 2008 Constitution. Because the framework of the 2008 Constitution is not a politically acceptable framework, the problem lies therein. These problems are to be solved through collaboration and cooperation. In so doing, politicians need to display greater capability and shrewdness. Only when politicians exhibit these characteristics, will we be able to overcome those problems politically.

KZM: Ma Nang Phyu, Karen National Union chairman General Mutu Sae Poe criticized the process of selecting conference attendeessaying it was top-down and not bottom-up. To what extent do you think it was top-down?

NPPL: It is obvious how much the organizing process lacks a bottom-up approach. But I am sure a bottom-up approach will be taken when holding the civil society organization (CSO) forum [which was supposed to be held in parallel with the peace conference].

There are deep-seated practices in our countryit has been a practice in our society for more than 60 years to follow the orders of superiors [without complaint], even in CSOs. It would be very difficult to mend this practice. If it is difficult to change that practice in CSOs, it will be more difficult for formal institutions such as the government, the military and ethnic armed groups, which are used to following hierarchical orders, to suddenly change this practice. The question is whether freedom of speech will be allowed and if it will be recognized. If and when peoples concerns about possible punishment for what they say are eased, a bottom-up approach will finally happen.

KZM: As a Myanmar citizen, who would you like to give your advice tothe State Counselor, the military or ethnic armed organizations? And what is your advice?

NPPL: We would like to initiate a system. We want the government to form a commission that will take care of the peace process from a gendered perspective or form a gender advisory group with advice from local CSOs. Whats more, we want the government to allot a certain percentage of the Union budget to gender equality.

KZM: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders talked about the importance of the ceasefire. If NCA non-signatories still cant sign the ceasefire and if those groups [MNDAA, AA and TNLA] that were left out still cant join the conference in next five or six months, the peace process will be in big trouble. Regarding this, whom would you like to give advice to and what is it?

THP: I think the government and the military have to build trust and reconciliation first. A landscape that allows for the participation of ethnic armed groups must be created. There must be genuine goodwill, equality and justice for our country to see development.

KZM: Goodwill and trust are the most crucial things?

THP: Yes, they are.

KZM: Ko Ye, what is your advice for improvement of tripartite relations between the military, government and ethnic armed groups. Who would you like to give advice to directly?

KY: At the present time, we would like to give advice to the political community. Politicians need to be stronger than they are now. From the papers read by ethnic armed groups at the conference, it can be concluded that ethnic groups were prepared. Politicians need to drive our country more stronglyonly then will we be able to push ahead with the democratic political process that everyone aspires to.

KZM: Thank you for the discussion. We hope to see the fruitful results of the Union Peace Conference in the coming months and years.
It looks like Brendan Dassey won't be making it to Wrestlemania any time soon, sadly.





Convicted along with his uncle, Steven Avery, of the murder of Teresa Halbach, Dassey's case has sparked international recognition thanks to Netflix's Making A Murderer and the various online communities who have added to the investigation's manpower.

As we reported a few months ago, Dassey's conviction was overturned by a federal judge and severely admonished Dassey's court-appointed attorney, Len Kachinsky. Many believed that Dassey would be freed soon enough as the State of Wisconsin had a 90-day period from the federal judge's decision to appeal.

Last night, Wisconsin's Attorney General, Brad Schmiel, announced that an appeal has been made on the oveturning of Dassey's conviction. In a prepared statement, Schmiel said that the Attorney General of Wisconsin's office "believe the magistrate judges decision that Brendan Dasseys confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law."

Schmiel went on, saying that "(two) state courts carefully examined the evidence and properly concluded that Brendan Dasseys confession to sexually assaulting and murdering Teresa Halbach with his uncle, Steven Avery, was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics."

Had the Wisconsin's Attorney General's office not appealed this decision, Dassey would have been freed within a matter of weeks. As it stands, Dassey will have to remain behind bars until the matter comes before an Appeals Judge. Meanwhile, Steven Avery's lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, took to Twitter late last night to speak about the appeal, saying that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals were "not friendly to frivolous appeals."

Cannot wait for Wisc. AG to face the 7th Circuit trying to defend this confession. Not friendly to frivolous appeals.#MakingAMurderer  Kathleen Zellner (@ZellnerLaw) September 9, 2016

No date has been set for the appeal hearing.
Samsung has ordered to have all Galaxy Note 7 units recalled or sent back by those who have purchased one. However, it appears like buyers aren't exactly going to hand over their new smartphone just yet.

When these instances happen, the result can prove to be hazardous, such as what happened in Florida when a Galaxy Note 7 left inside a Jeep to recharge exploded, leaving the vehicle a burning wreck.

Nathan Dornacher and his wife Lydia of St. Petersburg, Florida had just been to a yard sale and were unloading what they bought into their home. While unloading, Nathan left his Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to recharge inside their Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Lydia wanted to send their eight-year-old daughter along with their service dog back into the vehicle. Before they could do so however the Jeep had already been in flames.

According to Fox News 13 St. Petersburg, firefighters came to the scene to put out the fire on the burning Jeep. Dornacher ha posted several photos of the burned Jeep on Facebook.

"It was surprising to me how quick the dash caught on fire," Dornacher stated.

He also said that he wasn't aware about the recall notice given by Samsung. He also posted on Facebook that he tried to talk to the company but never got a callback, as stated by Phone Arena. Samsung said that they are investigating the incident.

An incident that involves the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 had also occurred in Australia. The incident happened while the Galaxy Note 7 was being charged in a hotel room when it exploded. Damage to the hotel was reportedly at $1,400, CNet reports.

As consumers are slow to respond to the recall notice given by Samsung, such incidents might likely still happen. The timing for Samsung is also quite bad as the Galaxy Note 7 had been released earlier than the Apple iPhone 7. The battery incident and recall might dampen sale of the Galaxy Note 7 even after Samsung has said that the replacement units will have new batteries coming from another supplier.

There are more news about Samsung on iTechPost, such as the latest on the Samsung Gear 3 smartwatch.
Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, might spearhead an innovation of drone-delivered food. Its drones are set to deliver burritos to Virgina Tech thru the air. Test deliveries will start this month.

Drone-delivered Burritos

Alphabet Inc., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Virginia Tech will work together in this said project. It has already been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Project Wing, a unit of Alphabet, will use drones to deliver food from a Chipotle food truck to a small number of staff and students at Virginia Tech, according to the Wall Street Journal. The self-guided hybrids can fly like a plane and hover like a helicopter. The food will be lowered with a winch, according to Bloomberg.

Project Wing will be the one to evaluate the response of the people. They will also look into the accuracy of the drones' navigation systems. Though human pilots will still be needed to monitor the drones according to Dave Vos, the head of Project Wing. This is to ensure that they will not break FAA rules. Apparently, drones are not allowed by FAA to fly over people.

Hurdles And Benefits of Drone Delivery

Vos mentioned that they need to work with National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They have to develop the framework of a low-level air-traffic system. This system will be used to maintain order in the skies. It will also help to avoid on-air drone collisions. He admitted that this hurdle of drone deliveries can't be assessed yet by this experiment.

He added that FAA will be able to access the data from the said tests. This will serve as the basis for new rules in drone deliveries. If this kind of delivery will pursue, it might help be beneficial to the environment. Carbon emissions will be reduced. Depending on the response of the subjects in these tests, it may also bring innovation to the economy.
Some reputable business airlines such as Virgin Australia and Jetstar have asked customers not to charge or use their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones during flights.

This comes after reports of battery problems with the unit surfaced due to some units catching fire during or after charging.

The FAA have included in a statement that following the concerns about the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the agency greatly advised passengers not to turn on or charge these devices on board aircraft and not to stow them in any baggage that are checked in.

There's also been numerous reports of the smartphone batteries exploding while en route to customers.

Images of burned Galaxy Note 7s have been posted on social media, and according to the company, 35 seperate incidents have resulted in the smartphone catching fire.

After Samsung recalled 2.5 million of the warerproof smartphones in ten countries last week due to faulty batteries, they said they would speed up the process of replacing these units to ease safety concerns.

This unusual singling out of the smartphone as a potential airborne fire hazard had investors wiping off more than $10 billion from Samsung Electronics Co.'s market value. While shares in South Korea went down 3.9 percent and despite the safety concerns about the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung has been holding up relatively well.

As the result of the event, Samsung said it plans to expedite new shipments of Galaxy Note 7 with safe batteries. The company is also offering $25 gift cards to U.S. Galaxy Note 7 owners .

Some people have stayed faithful in South Korea, where the phone was launched on August 19. Carrier shops claimed no cancellations of Galaxy Note 7 orders have been made despite the recalls. A staff member at an SK Telecom Co. shop in Seoul says only calls from customers asking to exchange their devices have been made, but no cancellations so far.
North Korea has carried out its biggest nuclear test on Friday. It has already been their fifth nuclear test and many countries have expressed outrage about it.

The latest nuclear test done by North Korea has allowed for the communist country to learn the technology of mounting a nuclear warhead on medium-range ballistic missiles. It was done last Monday, September 5, when other world leaders were gathered in China for the G20 Summit.

The nuclear test produced shocks stronger than the Hiroshima bombs, according to estimates. This was specifically done on the 68th National Day of North Korea, a day fit to exemplify military strength.

Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation and geopolitics from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies has estimated that the seismic magnitude of this test can be considered as the most powerful test conducted by North Korea to date.

According to the California-based expert, the magnitude and surface level of the blast is equivalent to 20 to 30 kilotonnes - larger than the bombs dropped in World War Two.

Kim Jong Un has approved the development of nuclear programs despite many sanctions of the U.N.

The 32-year-old dictator considers South Korea and U.S. as North Korea's main enemies. Kim Jong Un said its "scientists and technicians carries out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead," according to KCNA, the country's official news agency.

North Korea obviously detested the plans of U.S. and South Korea to install anti-missile defense systems in the South, this is on top of the annual US-South Korea joint military exercises.

Russia and US have agreed that there will be more discussions in the U.N. If no nation on the Security Council will oppose, the resolution would be condemnation as one course of action.
According to rumors based on a new report from behind the scenes, Samsung is negotiating with both Nvidia and AMD as suppliers of the design for its future GPU tech.

AMD Or Nvidia To Make Samsung GPUs

GMS Arena reports that the South Korean company plans to stop using the ARM-developed Mali GPUs in its upcoming Exynos chipset designs, and use instead chips designed by Nvidia or AMD. At the moment, it seems that Nvidia could be the preferred winner of the deal with Samsung thanks to its "superior" Pascal architecture, but AMD is still a powerful competitor with its Polaris architecture that is powering the PS4 Pro.

In the past, previous speculations suggested that an Exynos chipset with a Mali GPU will still arrive in 2017, but based on the new Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA). This new technology would allow the CPU and GPU share tasks and memory and sit on the same bus, improving overall performance. In case that these speculations prove to be exact then we will see in the year 2018 either a licensed GPU from AMD or Nvidia if the negotiations are successful or a Samsung-developed GPU.

According to Android Headlines, there is no official confirmation yet of Samsung's negotiations with AMD and Nvidia. However, considering that Samsung was reported early this month to be the winner of a manufacturing contract of Nvidia's Pascal GPUs, it seems probable that the company will go with Nvidia for its future GPUs. It would be easier for Samsung to use these GPUs inside of their Exynos chipsets with a partnership with Nvidia already in place.

Tech analysts expect only one Galaxy S9 model in early 2018. Will be no more Snapdragon versions for various markets and all the Galaxy S9 smartphones will be powered by an Exynos chip. In is also reported that the South Korean high-tech company is developing its CDMA modem tech.
As concern mounts over smartphone's safety after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a warning, Samsung shares drop significantly.

Galaxy Note 7 FAA Warning Wipes Out Samsung's Market Value

According to The Wall Street Journal, on Friday, Sept. 9, after the FAA air-safety regulators issued a warning to passengers on the company's Galaxy Note 7 fire risks, smartphone investors wiped more than $10 billion off the market value of Samsung Electronics Co. In early Friday trade, shares of Samsung Electronics listed in South Korea were down close to 3 percent.

U.S. authorities have warned airline passengers to not charge or switch on their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones when on board the plane as well as not packing the smartphones into any checked-in luggage. According to BBC News, the South Korean high-tech giant was already aware of fire risks posed by its Galaxy Note 7 mobile device. After several reports emerged of the device exploding during or after charging, Samsung recalled the phone last week.

The US trade group Airlines for America announced that the Note 7 safety issue is closely monitored. Aside the FAA, flight companies such as Virgin Australia and Qantas have also told customers not to use or charge the Samsung smartphone during flights. U.S. TV channel Fox 10 reported earlier this week that a faulty Galaxy Note 7 has provoked a fire in a family's Jeep.

Samsung assured its customers that it would speed up shipments of replacement Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in order to ease the growing safety concerns. According to the South Korean high-tech company, battery problems were behind the phones catching fire.

The Galaxy Note 7 smartphone was launched last month. Critics and consumers have otherwise generally well-received the new mobile device. Samsung shipped globally already around 2.5 million Note 7s. The company announced on its website that those customers who have already bought the smartphone will be able to have it replaced with a new one in about two weeks.
"W- Two Worlds" will end next week and fans are getting curious if Kang Chul and Yeon Joo will get their happy ending. Will Kang Chul die? Or will the two be able to live in the real world? Following the drama's ending on September14, a special episode will also be aired to fill the one-episode gap.

Plot

For those who are not familiar with "W- Two Worlds," the drama revolves around a doctor Oh Yeon Joo, who was able to travel inside the fiction world of webtoons. His father, a webtoon artist suddenly decides to end his series by killing the main character, Kang Chul but Yeon Joo saves him. The two fell in love but, how can their love withstand the barrier of living in completely separate worlds.

Quick Recap

In Episode 15, the two found out that they won't be able to escape the "W" world until the webtoon is completely finished. Kang Cheol was taken hostage by Assemblyman Han and Yeon Joo was confirmed alive in the new chapter his father uploaded.

There was a huge time leap in the webtoon world, a whole year has passed. Yeon Joo learned from So Hee that Kang Cheol was arrested by the police. The episode ended as professor turns on his computer to read the last "W" chapter.

The preview of the last episode for "W- Two Worlds" shows a shocking scene of Kang Chul collapsing after being shot in the chest by Assemblyman Han. Is it the end of Kang Chul's life? Is it even possible for a fictional character to live in the real world?

New stills from MBC shows Kang Chul in trial as Yeon Joo pushes her way through.

"Kang Cheol wearing a prisoner's uniform signals a crisis for the main character, and is raising anticipation for the finale of 'W.' We hope you continue to tune in to 'W' to see if it really ends with the happy ending that everyone is hoping for," a production officer said, according to Soompi.



View on YouTube
Consumers might want to hold off on buying the iPhone 7 from AT&T. If ever they want to switch from one carrier to another in the future, AT&T might not be the best choice.

Apparently, AT&T's iPhone 7 has integrated intel chip that locks it exclusively to the carrier. Whether it is intentional or not, the reasoning behind this permanent decision is still unknown for now. Even though Apple's iPhone 7 is one of the hottest topics online even before its release, many have bombarded the flaghship phone with criticisms just weeks away from its launch.

However, since its official release, everyone seems to be singing a different tune. In fact, most iOS users found the new design to be so sexy, according to a report published on CNET.

The intel chip integrated into the AT&T iPhone 7 does not allow the sexiest smartphone to function with other GSM and CDMA network even if the gadget was already unlocked. Although PC World reports, the iPhone 7 is purchased directly from Apple's website and customers can choose Verizon as their carrier. iPhone 7 units purchased through the official Apple website still function well even if a customer were to decide to switch network providers in the future. It's no secret that other than Verizon, the next best choice is AT&T and the rest just follow in random order.

The main reason for this headache is due to Apple's decision to switch to intel for select iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus models. By this, it means that AT&T models are included as well. Unfortunately, CDMA standards in the United States aren't supported by intel modems. This is also likely to be the reason why T-mobile and AT&T phones are usually limited only to GSM networks.
Finn Jones, the actor who will play the lead in the upcoming Netflix show Marvel's "Iron Fist", may have given us a massive spoiler on his Instagram account regarding the identity of one of the characters.

You will probably miss it, as the post was immediately deleted by Finn Jones afterwards. But luckily for you, we have transcribed it word by word, so here you go:

"Daniel, wait. Do you know the secret of forever? I want to tell you something my father once told me. Decapitation, asphyxiation, blunt trauma, strangulation...any number of paths to a single result. Your heart stops beating. Don't you see? All death comes from the heart. Armor yourself...make your body hard and keep your heart soft. If you can protect your heart, you will never die. This is the secret of forever. You may feel like an outsider now...but one day, if you earn it, you will be invited to eat the fruit of immortality. And then you will truly be among us."

For hardcore Marvel fans, these words would be familiar as it is from the fictional quote of weapon master of K'un-L'un, Lei- Kung the Thunderer. The story goes that when young Daniel Rand's (Iron fist) father found the city of K'un L'un when he was a young boy which became his home until he left for the United States. It is here where he married and had a son they named Daniel. Long story short, Daniel's father returns to seek Ku'n L'un again, this time with his family. But things went awry as his parents both die horribly during the trip while a young Daniel makes his way to K'un Lu'n. He was then apprenticed by Lei Kung the Thunder.

There are only two possibilities with that Instagram spoiler post. One is that Finn Jones probably just quoted a post he just happens to like or we could just get one of the juiciest and mystical origin story on TV.

Marvel's "Iron Fist" is slated to premiere in 2017 on Netflix.
Facebook received major backlash from the public when it took down a photo of a Napalm girl captured during the Vietnam War. Social Networking giant censored the image as they thought the photo was a product of child pornography.

Just weeks ago, Facebook was called out for abusing their power when gathering WhatsApp users' information. Now, the company has gone lengths to prove that it respect users by taking down an innocent photo telling a heartbreaking story in 1972 Vietnam.

The image of a naked 9-year old girl, Phan Thi Kin Phuc, was captured as she was fleeing the area where the bombs exploded during the Vietnam War. The said photo has received awards and has been dubbed an iconic masterpiece, but Facebook thinks otherwise. Nick Ut's Pulitzer prize-winning photo was quickly censored and deleted by Facebook just because they thought it was child pornography, as reported by NBC News.

It wasn't long when keyboard warriors got fired up and aired their strong opinions regarding the censorship. Telegraph.co.uk reports, a Norweigan newspaper cried foul over the censorship and expressed his disapproval by committing a virtual act of disobedience.

"Aftenposten," the Norwegian newspaper, reposted the image of the child and demanded that it should be reinstated as soon as possible. The picture was taken in 1972 during the horrendous war in Vietnam and it has been displayed and admired over the years .

In Facebook's defense, the company did not mean to offend anybody when it decided to take down the photo. They were just following protocol in case it violated their community guidelines. Hours after receiving a storm of criticism, Facebook reinstated the photo and all was right in the world again.
Many have celebrated when the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently took the pandas off its endangered list last September 5. For a conservationist, however, the decision was too rushed.

Pandas Are No Longer Endangered

IUCN has decided to downgrade the conservation status of pandas from endangered to vulnerable. It has become evident that the reason for this change is the increase in the population of pandas in the wild. According to Reuters, the number of pandas grew from 1,100 to 1,864 by the end of 2015. The government also revealed that 422 of them are in captivity.

A factor that contributed to this is they were able to improve the habitat of the pandas. There are now 67 protected panda reserves. According to the Economist, two-thirds of wild pandas live in these reserves. This is after decades of conservation efforts by the Chinese government. They have to be lauded for this. In fact, Lo Sze Ping of WWF-China has stated that everyone should celebrate.

However, some conservationists say that IUCN's move is not very well thought of.

The Vulnerable Status Might Be Harmful

China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda conservationist Zhang Hemin has expressed his concern. He said that the protection work done on the pandas might slacken off. The pandas and their habitat will more likely suffer irrevocable loss.

The 'father of pandas' also added that the lives of pandas are still threatened by severely fragmented natural habitat. Even if genetic transfer between different populations will improve, it will not be satisfactory.

It's not yet the right time to relegate pandas as a species that is no longer endangered. He explained that as long as the wild population of pandas is not growing steadily, excluding the captive-bred ones, the species should still be maintained as endangered.

Wolong National Nature Reserve conservationist Shi Xiaogang also agreed by saying that the situation of the wild pandas is still very risky.
Pokemon Go hackers were able to data mined a huge list of Pokemon spawn points, Poke Stops and battle gyms. This global list is a treasure trove of information to any Pokemon Go player.

Pokemon Go Data Mine List - Where to Get It

The Pokemon data mine list could be downloaded in Dropbox or here. Reddit user aaticle said that the database covers 500,000 Pokemon Go spawn points or encounters and the list keeps growing by the day. The spawn points were reportedly taken from all over the world. However, most of them were taken in North America and Europe.

In addition, the Pokemon Go database also listed more than 400,000 Poke Stops and almost 60,000 battle gyms.

How To Use And Interpret Pokemon Go Data Mine Results

The date files are presented in JSON, CSV and Excel format. The Pokemon Data report is divided into several sections including Encounters by Species, per minute, hour and day as well as the frequency of Spawn points.

The Pokemon Go data mine results suggest that the spawn points occur all over the world at the same time, regardless of the time zone. It was also noticed that there were peaks and lows during the hourly Pokemon spawns.

Most of the spawn points generate one to five Pokemon which is 93 percent. Four out of ten spawn points can generate at least five to ten Pokemon. Two out of ten spawn points can generate as much as 30 Pokemon. Only one percent of the spawn points can generate the most Pokemons.

Pokemon Go players should keep in mind though that the data mine list is global one. Pokemon species encounter may differ depending on the locality. This data mine list will certainly come in handy once the trading feature is activated in Pokemon Go any time now.
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Vice-premier urges solid efforts to propel supply-side reform Updated: 2016-09-10 09:38 (Xinhua)

BEIJING - Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli on Friday called for solid supply-side reform efforts in a bid to adapt to the current economic climate, known as the "new normal".

The reform is a "major innovation" to meet new changes following the global financial crisis and an "inevitable choice" of China to fit into new economic circumstance that feature slower but higher quality growth, Zhang said during a meeting with the country's senior officials.

Given a prolonged slowdown and entrenched economic problems, China's policymakers are counting on structural reform to inject vitality into the economy.

Zhang described the reform as a "significant and urgent" matter.

He stressed five major tasks of the reform: cutting excess industrial capacity, reducing housing inventory, lowering corporate leverage, relieving corporate burdens and fixing economic weaknesses.

Overcapacity reduction in bloated steel and coal industries should be highlighted, Zhang said, adding that governments should make proper arrangements for laid-off workers and handling corporate debt.

Zhang said different policies should be taken to resolve excessive housing stock in a variety of areas. Helping 100 million rural residents to integrate in cities will be part of the efforts, as will the renovation of dilapidated residences. Affordable housing should also be improved.

To lower corporate leverage, authorities will encourage mergers and acquisitions, help companies liquidize remnant assets and promote equity financing, Zhang said.

China will also reduce corporate burdens in several areas, including tax, financing, labor, land use and logistics, as well as introduce significant spending on weak economic links, such as poverty relief, agriculture, new industries and infrastructure, Zhang said.
Vice-Premier urges supply-side reform to upgrade manufacturing industry Updated: 2016-09-10 10:59 (Xinhua)

BEIJING - Vice-Premier Ma Kai on Friday called for more to be done to promote supply-side reform as a tool to move the manufacturing sector up the value chain.

Although solid progress has been made over the past three decades, challenges remain for the sector, such as overcapacity and a shortage of high-end products, Ma said at a forum.

He called for efforts to propel supply-side reform and the efficient implementation of the "Made in China 2025" initiative to upgrade the manufacturing industry.

Authorities at all levels should try hard to eliminate overcapacity and enhance innovation in all areas, Ma said.

He said the future was in the integration of manufacturing and the Internet, and measures that would help establish modern corporate systems and a salary distribution system.

Ma also called for a more friendly business environment to better protect intellectual property rights and help ensure orderly market competition.
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte said on Friday that he had told the US President Barack Obama he never cursed him. After the said "insult" has been made, Obama then called off the bilateral talks with the Philippines.

Duterte in a press appearance on Monday, prior to his presence in the ASEAN summit where he got elected as 2017 Chairman, has stated that he cannot be questioned by anyone. In that said speech, Duterte added the phrase "son of a whore" while undisruptedly lecturing about "respect" and since the person he was referring to was Obama, it came out easy to throw out that the former's curse was intended for the latter.

The video below shows what Duterte has said in the conference:

According to a report by Aljazeera, Duterte has expressed his regrets on saying such dirty words in the conference. "While the immediate cause was my strong comments to certain press questions that elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the US president," a statement from Duterte said on Tuesday. However, the damage has been done as the White House already cancelled the first ever meeting there could have been between US' outgoing president and the Philippines' new leader, immediately after the cursing was made, which was due that same day the disclaimer was released.

But in a visit to a Filipino group at Shangri-La Jakarta, Duterte shared that he has personally told Obama the curse was not for him. Duterte allegedly said, "I told him in a holding room, 'President Obama, I'm President Duterte. I never made that statement. Check it out,'" reports Inquirer.net. Obama reportedly replied that his men would later on talk with Duterte. The PH leader simply responded with "OK."

No Turning Back

In the East Asia Summit meeting held in Vientianne, Laos with Obama and the rest of the leaders from Asia, Duterte has prepared a dramatic speech on Human Rights. The sharp-tongued president probably knew that this issue would be fired on him, with that of the hundreds of death in the Philippines when he took over his seat as a result of his "war on drugs." He perfectly had a strike back.

Although no one has dared to question his ways in the meeting, Duterte still showed off his ace. In a report made by The Seattle Times, the PH president showed a picture where hundreds of dead Filipino bodies were piled up in a hollow and American soldiers were standing, atop them holding their rifles. This particular photo was taken during the early 1900's where the US had a pacification campaign in the Southern part of the Philippines. This campaign had taken the lives of about a thousand Filipino Moros.

Duterte then told the leaders that: "This is human rights, what do you intend to do?" He also added, "Human rights violations whether committed by Moses or Abraham, is still violation of human rights."

Basing on this statement and act, the PH president just showed his immovable stance on his "war on drugs." He and his allies continuously believe that when these drug users, dealers, and lords choose drugs over change, then whatever's happening in the Philippines today would likely to continue until the last bit of them are gone.
Over the past month, the issues raised that involves the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catching fire is alarming. After months-on-end in waiting for this smartphone to be out, an unexpected curse lies along with it. How, in the long run, will this affect the future of the Galaxy Note 7 and of Samsung?

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, an agency committed to the safety of products--most especially those with units that are run by batteries and are prone to catching fire, stated on Friday their urgent advisory to Galaxy Note 7 owners. The commission asked users, if possible, to turn off their phones and stop using them. Do so while the issues of sudden fire eruptions still persist.

According to The New York Times, the statement by the CPSC was the "latest blow to Samsung and the Galaxy Note 7." However, the Samsung management has already confirmed that it is working with the agency and has already initiated in recalling about 2.5 million units within the past weeks since the smartphone was released.

Samsung is apologetic over the case and to compensate, they have issued a $25 gift card and offered the consumers to have their units replaced with other Samsung model units. Although the sudden fire-catching cases were not intended to happen, the Korean company still experienced a sudden, but minimal, drop in their stocks due to the said accidents.

Aside from the CPSC warning, some Australian airlines have already banned the use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 while aboard their airplanes, Yahoo News reports. No charging is allowed and phones must be shut down, battery out if possible, to avoid unnecessary accidents.

Owners of this highly anticipated device should and must abide by the warnings stated above to ensure utmost safety. If not, the happiness they get from using this modern smartphone could outsmart, and even end, their lives forever.

Always tune in to Jobs & Hire for more updates on these hottest issues.
'ASIAN' = MUSLIM 99% OF THE TIME





The politically correct term 'Asian' is used by the leftist UK media as a way to cast suspicion on a wider group of people and take some of the negative attention away from the group usually responsible for committing the heinous acts.

A perfect example would be the Muslim grooming gang epidemic which are constantly referred to by the press and authorities as 'Asian' grooming gangs.

It isn't people from China, Japan or any Far Eastern Asian place.

Nor is it Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists,Christians Etc....

They are Muslims!!!!
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Mohammed Hussain and Mohammed Rohaman sent cash to Lebanon

The money was destined for Musadikur Rohaman who is in Raqqa, Syria

Rohaman fled to Syria along with his wife after their young son had died

The gang have been jailed for terms ranging from 18 months to four years

Two ISIS sympathisers who sold a BMW and jewellery to raise 10,000 to fund their brother fighting for the terror group in Syria have been jailed.

Mohammed Hussain, 26, and Mohammed Rohaman, 33, sent the cash to Musadikur Rohaman, 27, who travelled to the war-torn country in December 2014 with his 27-year-old wife Zohura Siddeka.

The brothers recruited family friend Mohammed Khan, 27, who worked in a Tesco warehouse, to help.



+7 Mohammed Hussain, left, and Mohammed Rohaman, right, were both jailed at the Old Bailey for their part in trying to raise funds of Musadikur Rohaman who ran away to join ISIS in Syria

The gang, two of whom who worked at this dry cleaners in Walsall in the West Midlands, raised funds which they sent by Western Union to the Middle East in order to fund Musadikur's jihad

The court heard the cash was sent to Rohaman, who is believed to be in Raqqa, out of 'misguided loyalty'. They sent funds to the couple in Syria from a Western Union bank next door to the family launderette in Walsall in the West Midlands.





To raise money, they sold Musadikur's BMW for 4,000 and made 1,500 from selling gold that belonged to the couple.





The trio, all from Walsall, also tried to sell a wedding dress and watch on eBay, but were unsuccessful.





+7 The gang enlisted Mohammed Khan, pictured, who attempted to take out credit cards on behalf of Musadikur Rohaman

Last month, all three were found guilty of funding terrorism.





Khan, the court heard, applied for credit cards to provide money for Musadikur.





A fourth man, Maruf Uddin, 26, was acquitted of entering into a funding arrangement.





The court heard Musadikur had worked at the family laundrette in Walsall, Birmingham, before heading off for a week's holiday to Turkey with his wife in December 2014.





The couple's son had died at just a few months old the previous September, and they told their relatives they needed a holiday to get over their grief.





But the family did not hear from him again until late January 2015 when he got in touch via Whatsapp.





Older sister Nargis Ali, 42, told him: 'Please, please don't do anything stupid and go fighting'.





When he replied 'Lol Mez, at least use code words', she responded: 'Don't 'lol' me young man, there's nowhere to hide from us [the family] no point using codes.'





Hussain, who became the boss of the family dry cleaning business after his father's death, supported ISIS and had even considered travelling to Syria himself, the court heard.





He asked his fiance if she would go with him to Syria once they were married, telling her that travelling to the caliphate would be rewarded with 'the wiping of all sins'.







+7 Musadikur Rohaman, 27,travelled to Syria in December 2014 with his 27-year-old wife Zohura Siddeka, right, after claiming they were going on a short holiday to Turkey



Nigel Lambert QC, for Hussain, said he only sent money on one occasion, and did not send any of his own cash, only that of his brother.





'His plans to become a solicitor have been dashed, I expect for ever, and any plans to marry have to be put on hold.





'This all came about because of a misguided loyalty to and under the instruction of his older brother at a time when his brother was in a state of emotional turmoil after the loss of his father and the loss of his baby son.





'Coupled with that there's the string cultural element within the family to the effect that if your brother asks you to do something, with in reason, you do it.





'Now that brother recognises, as all the family knew he would, the appalling decision he's made and has made efforts to return home with his wife and his new baby.'





Hussain was jailed for four years, Rohaman was imprisoned for two years and nine months, and Khan was handed an 18-month sentence at the Old Bailey.





In March last year, a total of 10,000 was sent via Lebanon, including maternity payments Siddeka was still receiving from her job as a teaching assistant.





The sum also consisted of proceeds from the sale of the BMW, and money from the couple's bank accounts after they sent across their details.





Musadikur Rohaman and his wife had travelled to Syria via Turkey with Abul Hasan, also from Walsall, who is believed to have been killed.





While they were in the Middle East, Rohaman kept in touch with his family in the UK online, including through Skype.





In one message he said: 'Unlikely you will see me again, hope you are all praying for us. It's amazing over on this side of the world.'





And in another he warned them, 'at least use code words', after a sister pleaded with him not to fight in Syria.





Sentencing the trio, Judge Mark Lucraft QC said: 'In my view, it would have been obvious to each of you that Musadikur and Siddeka were in Syria, and they were there in support of the so-called Islamic State.





'We are all only too well aware of the many terrorist atrocities carried out by those said to be fighting for the so-called Islamic State.





'Whilst the trial was ongoing, there were a number of incidents going on around the world.





'Any form of support, financial or otherwise, fuels that fight and encourages those engaged to carry out atrocities.'





An investigation was launched into the trio following a probe into another terror cell in Walsall.





+7 The gang used a Western Union agent near their dry cleaners to send over the illicit cash



Police searched Hussain and Rohaman's home last June, following the disappearance of their brother and sister-in-law.





They found he was fighting in Syria, and that his two brothers knew what he was doing.





Hussain was found guilty last month of five counts of funding terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, and Rohaman was convicted of one count.





Khan was convicted of two counts of funding terrorism.





Hussain was jailed for four years, while his brother Rohaman was jailed for two years and nine months.





Khan was handed 18 months for his role in helping the brothers apply for credit cards for Musadikur





In mitigation, Nigel Lambert QC, defending Hussain, said: 'This is a decent, hard working and very close family, now fractured, ruptured and devastated by all that has happened.





'Thy spoke of his commitment to, and his love for, his friends, family and community - the community here in the UK, and nothing about this trial has changed that.





'When his brother left on holiday for Istanbul, Mr Hussain, like the rest of his family, had no idea that his plan was then to go to Syria.





'Mr Hussain himself had no time for, or any interest in, terrorism. And this has wholly come about because of his brother.'





Richard Thomas, defending Khan, said: 'Certainly he has been reckless. He has also been extremely fortunate, fortunate because on this occasion his recklessness did not cause any harm.





'This arose because of a request from someone he had grown up with, a family he had grown up with.





'This has been a huge blow, these proceedings, for a man of good character, a man who plainly has no sympathy for terrorism, who plainly the ideas of ISIS are anathema to his own existence.'






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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

The Pentagon isnt going to be happy about this.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced an agreement on a Syria plan between the US and Russia late on Friday, which they said the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad had agreed to.

The agreement seems to have the main ingredients I talked about last Saturday:

1. Syrian Air Force stops bombing cities, including Aleppo and Homs 2. Humanitarian aid allowed to reach millions of civilians 3. Russia will also stop its bombing campaign on all groups except Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) 4. Once these steps have been taken, the US will join Russia in bombing positions of the Army of Syrian Conquest (Jabhat al-Nusra), whose leader is loyal to al-Qaeda

What is now elaborated and a little unexpected is that if the agreement holds for a week, the US has agreed to establish a joint Air Force operations center to coordinate air strikes on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) and on al-Qaeda in Syria (the Army of Syrian Conquest [ASC] or the Nusra Front).

As I noted last Saturday, a lot of officers in the US military do not like the idea at all of coordinating with Russia, and feel that Russia has taken advantage of past ceasefires to advance its interests and those of al-Assad on the ground.

Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein has complained bitterly that Russian pilots in Syria have been reckless and endangered the American pilots. But Gen. Goldfein is just going to have to spend some time doing joint planning with the commander of Russian Aerospace Forces, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev.

With regard to broken ceasefires, to be fair, Russia holds that US-backed fundamentalist guerrilla groups have often broken past cease-fires and actually joined in with al-Qaeda to attack Russia and its allies and to grab up new territory.

One implication of the agreement is that the 30 or so CIA-vetted rebel groups, mostly Muslim Brotherhood, to which the US has funneled money and arms through Saudi Arabia, are being forced to break their alliance of convenience with Abu Muhammad al-Julani, who has pledged allegiance to 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri, and who leads ASC/ Nusra. Since both Russia and the US will be bombing the positions of al-Julanis ASC/ Nusra Front, the remnants of the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups such as

If the rebels keep their battlefield alliance with it, theyll be bombed alongside the al-Qaeda affiliate.

(Why the US is supporting allies, even allies of convenience, of al-Qaeda 15 years after 9/11 Ill never understand; apparently youd have to ask John Brennan at the CIA).

In return for joint US-Russian air action against Daesh and al-Qaeda, Russia agreed to a kind of no-fly zone in Syria there are areas of Russo-American air dominance where the Syrian regimes planes will not be allowed to fly. Hence Damascus wont be able to send down barrel bombs on rebel-held areas at will anymore.

Moreover, the regime will have to let food and supplies into besieged urban quarters. Al-Assad and his henchmen have been starving rebel groups out and forcing them to relocate.



Related video:

RT: Syria ceasefire: Kerry, Lavrov agreed on a new plan on Syria
[JURIST] The Obama administration on Thursday shut down a Guantanamo Bay prison camp to expedite the permanent closing of the detention center. Camp 5 was a 100-cell maximum security prison that was known for receiving problematic detainees [Fox News report] such as hunger strikers and war criminals. The prison staff began moving detainees out of Camp 5 last month, and all of its detainees are now being consolidated into the detention centers remaining camps. The staff plans to repurpose Camp 5 into a medical clinic to meet prison needs. As the Obama administration struggles with Congress to close the detention center, only 61 detainees remain in Guantanamo Bay. Officials are hoping to cut down the staff of 2,000 members by 400 by canceling future deployments.

Last month Vice President Joe Biden stated at a press conference in Sweden that he hoped and expected [JURIST report] that the Guantanamo prison will be closed before President Barack Obama leaves office. Also last month the US Department of Defense announced the transfer [JURIST report] of 15 Guantanamo detainees to the United Arab Emirates. Earlier in August a US Senator released a Pentagon Report [JURIST report] detailing the profiles of those currently detained in and recently released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) concluded that closing the facility would not be in the US best interests and would pose a safety risk. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told Fox News in January that US President Barack Obama intends to fulfill [JURIST report] his promise to close the Guantanamo detention facility before leaving office. Last November the US Senate passed [JURIST report] the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA), which prohibits Guantanamo detainees from being transferred into the US. Obama signed the bill into law, despite the fact that it could delay his plan to close the prison. The NDAA comes after the DOD said [JURIST report] they were sending teams to review three Colorado prisons as part of Obamas efforts to close the facility in October. The Guantanamo Review Task Force was created in response to a 2009 presidential executive order to review the status of all detainees. In September White House Spokesperson Josh Earnest said Obama was considering a wide array of options [JURIST report] for closing the prison.
[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Friday rejected [order, PDF] Michigans appeal of an injunction [text, PDF] that would not allow the state to ban straight-ticket voting. The ban [text, PDF] had been passed [WP report] by the legislature in 2015 and was heavily supported by state Republicans calling for the same modern ballot system already adopted by 40 other states. State democrats argued that the Republicans support of the ban was meant to inhibit minority voters that typically choose the Democratic Party. In July a district judge enjoined [JURIST report] enforcement of the law, stating that the ban on straight-ticket voting, which violates Equal Protection and the Voting Rights Act [law, PDF], is caused by or linked to social and historical conditions that have produced or currently produce discrimination against African Americans. The judges decision relied upon a report which links straight-ticket voting, generally for Democrats, to higher populations of African Americans within a community. Though the Supreme Court denied Michigans appeal of the decision, the justices did not offer any reasoning for their determination. Two justices stated they would have supported the state yet similarly decided not to voice their opinions. The courts decision suggests that future legal challenges regarding voting controversies will be similarly treated as the presidential election approaches.

Voting rights remain a controversial legal issue in the US. Last week the Supreme Court denied a motion to reinstate [JURIST report] North Carolinas recently overturned law that limited early voting to 10 days and required voters to present approved identification cards. Also last month the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit [official website] denied [JURIST report] an emergency petition for a rehearing regarding the Wisconsin voter ID law. The Illinois Supreme Court concluded [JURIST report] last week that placing a redistricting proposal on the ballot this fall would be unconstitutional. Earlier this month an Oklahoma County judge upheld a controversial voter identification law [JURIST report] allowing the law to be in place while early voting commenced for a primary run-off. Last month voter restrictions were overturned not only in North Carolina, but in Kansas and Wisconsin [JURIST reports]. Also last month Michigan Attorney General spokesman John Sellek said [JURIST report] that Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson plan to appeal an injunction on the states law eliminating straight-ticket voting. Also Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane Larsen blocked [JURIST report] a ballot measure proposing an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that aimed to eliminate the General Assemblys power to draw legislative district boundaries.
Excellence in student learning assessment earns Kansas State University national designation

Friday, Sept. 9, 2016



Kansas State University is one of 10 exemplary college and universities to be named in the inaugural class of Excellence in Assessment designees, the first national designation of its kind to showcase institutions at the leading edge of integrated student learning outcomes. | Download this photo.





MANHATTAN  Kansas State University is one of 10 exemplary colleges and universities recently recognized for a commitment to the comprehensive assessment of student learning outcomes.



The Excellence in Assessment program, which offers the first national designation of its kind, spotlights institutions successfully integrating assessment practices across campus, providing evidence of student learning outcomes, and using assessment results to guide institutional decision-making and improve student performance.



Kansas State University was selected because its approach to assessment emphasizes faculty ownership  the foundation on which internal improvement and student achievement are built, according to Brian Niehoff, associate provost for institutional effectiveness.



"At many research universities, faculty focus most of their attention on their research and place less priority on their classroom efforts," Niehoff said. "But at Kansas State, we look for faculty who are truly scholars in their respective fields, and who also have a passion for students and learning. It is a very unique blend of research and teaching that we have here."



Kansas State University's assessment culture is focused on improved learning within disciplines. The university's assessment systems have led to many substantial changes, including instructional and curricular adjustments, clarification of expected learning, and deeper analysis of the universitywide experience.

"The value of this intentional commitment to assessing student learning can also be measured in our job placement rates, professional school acceptances, record freshman-to-sophomore retention rates and the tremendous affinity for our school," said Pat Bosco, vice president for student life and dean of students. "Our faculty and scholars work extra hard to make the connection from the classroom and labs to the real world and to provide proof of that learning through thoughtful assessment."

The Office of Assessment has assisted in the process of gathering and evaluating data on improving student learning by developing an online reporting system that program directors and faculty can access to better analyze and understand their assessment data. The university assesses student learning based on six outcomes: knowledge, critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, diversity and professional integrity.

The office created the annual Student Learning Assessment Institute, in which Kansas State University programs and others throughout the state and region can share best practices. Niehoff said this process is a model for other universities.



"Kansas State University's student learning assessment process is focused on students' application of learning within authentic contexts, enabling ownership by programs, units, faculty and staff," said Fred Burrack, director of the Office of Assessment. "All programs clearly define the specific ways students must demonstrate having learned program-specific outcomes, some of which are aligned with the university outcomes. These outcomes are assessed on an annual cycle to guide programmatic discussions for improvement."



Several associations sponsor the Excellence in Assessment program, including the Voluntary System of Accountability, a public college and university transparency initiative led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in partnership with the Association of American Colleges & Universities and the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.



The evaluation process for the designation included a rigorous and systematic self-study and peer review by faculty members who are assessment experts. The process also includes feedback that enables campuses to improve their effectiveness and sharing of best practices.






LINCOLN (AP)  Nebraska state Sen. Bill Kintner is the kind of unabashed conservative whose comments on immigration, gay rights and fellow legislators have made even supporters cringe.

If colleagues needed a reason to boot the married, family-values lawmaker out of office, they got one when he admitted last month to having cybersex on a state laptop computer with a woman who later tried to blackmail him.

Despite bipartisan calls for his resignation  even from Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts  Kintner appears to be surviving the kind of scandal that has toppled lawmakers in other states. Conservative groups, worried about losing one of their strongest allies, are rallying behind the senator, even as they condemn his behavior as disgraceful.

The push to remove Kintner is a political witch hunt designed to remove an obstacle to growing government in Nebraska, said Joe Herring, a conservative activist from Omaha who organized a rally to defend the lawmaker from Papillion.

Herring and other activists in the state say removing Kintner from office is a step too far, despite his indiscretions and long history of inflammatory remarks. Since taking office in 2013, Kintner has worked aggressively to organize conservative Republican senators in a Legislature that takes pride in shunning formal party leadership.

If we were to lose him as a state senator, it would cause major problems for conservatives, said Doug Kagan, president of Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, a tea party-backed organization based in Omaha.

Kagan called Kintners behavior disgraceful but said the overwhelming majority of his groups members voiced support for keeping him in office.

Sen. Galen Hadley, speaker of the GOP-dominated unicameral Legislature, said he doesnt believe Kintners critics have enough votes to oust him. The effort would require a special session at an estimated cost of $62,000.

I just have the feeling that expulsion is a very drastic step, said Hadley, a Republican who has asked Kintner to leave office.

Kintner has said little about the scandal but noted he no longer uses a state laptop. He said he decided not to quit after extensive prayer and consultation with pastors and his wife, who works as a senior policy adviser for Ricketts. He said he apologized to his wife and God.

Any time I make a major decision in my life, I pray about it, he said in an interview. Thats how we do it in my family.

Kintners apology rang hollow to Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, who chairs the Legislatures 10-member, bipartisan Executive Board that sent Kintner a letter urging him to resign. Krist noted the lawmaker didnt initially express remorse to his constituents or lawmakers.

Im not at all surprised. It goes to his character, said Krist, a Republican. Most sensible people would not have put their wife or family through this kind of thing, but Mr. Kintner has decided thats what he wants to do.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a left-leaning independent who frequently clashes with Kintner, blasted his rival for having no sense of shame and no common decency. The longtime maverick senator has already produced a series of long poems on state letterhead, dubbed Kintner-grams.

Kintner was fined $1,000 last month after admitting he engaged in mutual masturbation in July 2015 with a woman using Skype, an online video-chatting service. The woman, who the Nebraska State Patrol believes to have ties to an Ivory Coast crime syndicate, threatened to expose the encounter unless Kintner paid her $4,500.

Kintner reported the threat to the Nebraska State Patrol. The attorney generals office declined to take action, but a review panel levied the fine against Kintner for misuse of state property.

Last year, the state Latino American Commission condemned Kintner for repeatedly using an ethnic slur during a debate over allowing drivers licenses for certain youths brought to the country illegally.

In 2013, he criticized legislation that would allow same-sex couples to adopt, calling such measures homosexual bills. He referred to men in dresses when defending his vote against a bill that would have outlawed anti-gay discrimination and assailed social programs as government cocaine during debate on a Medicaid expansion proposal.

Some were bemused and others offended by his 2013 comment to a newspaper, which asked him what he considered the biggest mystery. Kintner responded, Women. No one understands them. They dont even understand themselves. Books and books and books have been written about it, and no one understands it.

Some of his most pointed criticism is aimed at fellow lawmakers. In one column he wrote for a weekly newspaper, Kintner claimed senators are like monkeys who attack those who try to disrupt the status quo.

In June 2015, he briefly posted a photo of a beheaded woman on his Facebook page to show his opposition to the Legislatures vote to abolish the death penalty.

Kintners latest problems follow a spate of cases in which elected officials found themselves in trouble for online interactions.

Anthony Weiner resigned his congressional seat in 2011 after acknowledging he had texted sexually explicit photos of himself to several women, and his campaign for New York City mayor was torpedoed in 2013 when it was revealed he was still sexting with other women.

An Indiana lawmaker apologized after a website reported hed been sexting with a woman who also had exchanged explicit emails with Weiner. A Missouri legislator resigned in 2015 after a newspaper reported hed sent sexually charged text messages to a Capitol intern, and a New Hampshire state representative was indicted earlier this year on charges of using a computer to solicit what he thought was a teenage girl for sex.

Herring said it is a hideous double standard for lawmakers to attempt to expel Kintner. He noted that Nebraskas Legislature has no formal ethics code and that even senators convicted of drunken driving havent faced expulsion threats.

Sen. Mike Groene, a conservative Republican from western Nebraska, said Kintners constituents should decide his future when he faces re-election in 2018.

What he did was wrong, but its not my responsibility or my fellow senators responsibility to decide who represents that district, he said.
I am the proud aunt of Kearney Police Officer Derek Payton. I was informed by my sister, Dereks mother, what had occurred on June 5, but she was not given any of the details due to it still being investigated. I have recently read some articles in the Kearney Hub and other media sources stating the details.

I am writing to share with the public the compassion, hard work, dedication, self-sacrifice and many other positive character traits that I have seen in my nephew for the 35 years that I have been privileged to know him. I want the community of Kearney to see what my family and friends see, not what is splashed all over the media.

After graduation from high school in South Dakota, Derek enrolled in the Marine Corps and attended Basic Training in San Diego, Calif. As a result of that and the unrest in the Middle East, he was deployed to Iraq before the war even started. He was one of the first ground troops deployed over to that region. He continued to stay there after the war began. After his first deployment, he came back to the states to see his family for two weeks and then went back for a second assignment in Afghanistan. He remained in the Marine Corps for four years to complete his service.

He put his life in danger on a daily basis for us, for our country and our freedom. I have never asked him what he went through or saw over there. Most members of our military dont want to talk about details of war that they have been through. Im sure many of us are glad we have never had to experience that.

The love for his country and helping others in need compelled him to want to be in law enforcement, so he became a police officer for the KPD. Again, he put his life on the line daily to help protect others in the city of Kearney because of his willingness to ensure the safety and well-being of others.

Derek has done many volunteer activities to help others. For several years he was the Cop on Top of the Kearney Walmart raising funds to help Special Olympics of Nebraska. He has participated in bike rides to benefit the MS Society. He was recently inducted into the Combat Veterans Association. Most recently, he was involved in stuffing school supplies into backpacks for kids unable to afford needed items.

Derek is married and has two small, beautiful children. He is a wonderful husband and father.

Derek is a Christian, and because of his love for God and the Lord Jesus Christ, he is called to live a life of obedience to the principles of our faith and follow the word of God (The Holy Bible). Matthew 22:37-39 states Love the Lord your God with all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

I live in a suburb of Denver. I all too frequently see on the news other members of law enforcement or security personnel getting shot and critically wounded or dead. Is that what we expect all our protectors of the law and our freedom to do is to take a bullet and not protect themselves if they feel their life is in danger? I know that my nephew, Derek Payton, would not harm another human being if he didnt feel that his life were in danger.

I think that our country needs to really take a look at whose rights are being protected. Is it really the law abiding citizens or those who perform criminal acts?

Lou Ann Tuzson, Broomfield, Colo
McCOOK  World War II history will be the topic of meetings Sept. 24 in McCook.

Dale Cotton of McCook will talk about military history, Nebraska air bases and what is unique about what remains on those sites, and also what is unique about the towns that surround them. Cotton would like to promote tourism in the small towns and in that area.

The McCook Army Air Base was activated on April 1, 1943, and closed Dec. 31, 1945, according to the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Kearney Army Air Field was open from 1942 to 1949.

Meetings will take place at 11 a.m. at Pizza Hut and at 6 p.m. at Fullers Family Restaurant. Attendees will pay for their own meals. At 2 p.m., the group will travel to the site of the former McCook base and take time to remember military personnel who died in WWII.

Meeting attendees may bring World War II photos or memorabilia to share.

RSVP is requested by Sept. 19 to Dale Cotton, PO Box 1082, McCook, NE 69001-1082 or call 308-737-9470.
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Are you 100 percent sure your customers know where you are located? If you are like me, you think the answer is an obvious yes. But in reality, I did not have a clue because I wasnt aware of local SEO.

SEO, traffic and ranking on the first page of Google are what marketing agencies stress to physicians, but I found out there is a side branch of SEO called local SEO.

So, I started asking questions like:

Why doesnt my hernia practice ever show up in that map box on Google?

Why am I getting such a small amount of phone calls when I am the top website hit on Google?

The short answer: Google (and people searching for hernia and Utah) couldnt tell whether I fix hernias or sell mobile homes.

Can you imagine people thinking you are a plastic surgeon, but wondering why Google says you sell plumbing supplies?

I would consider that a good example of flushing your marketing efforts and potential patients down the drain  literally.

How did it happen to me?

It is simple: Google does not actually know for sure where my practice is located.

Youre probably wondering how is that even possible?

The problem started years ago.

Many moons ago the site the Hernia Center of Utah was born. Someone had the foresight to see a niche, which was wide open in Utah, and they took advantage of it.

It started when doctors at the Hernia Center (before me) started practicing in different locations around Salt Lake. So, one of our employees started listing multiple locations for the Hernia Center.

Now, I only practice in one location. But nobody ever updated that information with Google.

So, what does this mean exactly? It means no one ever updated the business name, address, and phone number with an automated listing service like Yext.

Yext does exactly what it says: You can now sync your location information with Google directly from Yext!

Put simply there are hundreds of listing services and directories which need to know your business name, address, and phone number. Imagine if you change your address, name, or phone number. Youd have to go to every directory and update your listing.

Luckily certain directories like Infogroup, Acxiom, Factual, and Localeze feed information to many other directories. So if you want to find the source of the problems it usually goes back to those four directories.

If these directories dont know where you are, then no one will! This is because Google is where most people start their search for anything. And Google relies on these local directories when it comes to discovering information about local businesses. Here is a great diagram from Moz on how these directories are connected:

What are the consequences of not fixing this issue?

There are a couple of major consequences to not addressing this local SEO problem.

The first is that your practice, like mine, will not show up highly on the Google map box (called the Google map pack by SEOs), and therefore you wont get as many patients as you could.

Do just about any local based search on your mobile phone, and youll notice the Google ads and the Google map pack are about all you can see. So if you arent paying for Adwords, and you arent in the map pack, its like you almost dont exist.

Today 60 percent of Internet traffic is coming from mobile. By 2019 it will be 75 percent. So this means 60 to 75 percent of your audience when searching Google would have to scroll down on their phone in order to find you.

The second consequence is that people may not come into your practice because they dont trust the information about you.

For example, Google tells people I sell mobile homes, and that plants a seed of doubt about me. I never know how many people search, find me, and never contact me because of this error.

Finally, the third and most annoying consequence is that people will call the wrong number or drive to the wrong address for your practice.

Imagine how frustrating that would be to call a doctors office phone number and it is not the right number. Again I have no way of knowing how many people have silently turned away from doing business with me because of these simple local SEO errors.

Each of these consequences leads back to this: potential patients will go elsewhere since they cant find and/or trust the information about you.

How do you fix it once and for all?

Yext seems like a great service to fix this problem. You pay the fee, and all your directory listings are synced with the right information. I found out there are two problems with that.

The first is if you stop paying Yexts yearly fee, your listings will no longer be synced.

Second, Yext doesnt always fix the other incorrect listings on the directories. Yes, you read that correctly: You can have multiple incorrect listings on each directory (I know I do). Incorrect information can crop up from Infogroup, Acxiom, Factual, and Localeze among other places.

OK, so if Yext isnt the answer, do you have to manually correct every listing? The answer is yes. Now I dont have the time to sit there and correct five listings let alone 100. So I have begun the search for the best listing corrections company and will post an update when I find them.

Local SEO isnt the end of the road.

This whole process of discovering local SEO has opened my eyes to all kinds of things. For example, local reviews of me on directory sites, semantic markup on Google, and the search results on my own name when searching in Google.

For years, marketing agencies have been knocking on my door to do SEO. However, none of them ever explained my problem clearly, what the consequences were, and how to fix it.

If they had, I would have gotten out of the mobile homes business a long time ago.

Jeff Eakin is a surgeon.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com, Jeff Eakin, Moz
The kind-hearted actions of a group of youngsters who cut their hair to make wigs for children affected by cancer were welcomed into City Hall last Wednesday evening.

Mayor Patrick O'Neill held the reception in honour of Emma (10) and Hannah (7) Clancy. Celia Dowie (10) and Gwen Condon (11) who all had their hair cut at the Relay for Life event in aid of the Irish Cancer Society in July.

The Clancy sisters raised over 3, 300 for the charity and cut their hair to support people who are diagnosed with cancer.

My Mum had cancer and it was great to be able to do something and give our hair to people who need to use a wig, said Hannah.

Mum, Veronica said she was 'very proud' of her daughters' endeavours.

Brenda Cooper, on behalf of the Relay for Life Committee, thanked all the girls for being 'so generous and kind in donating their hair'.

Mayor Patrick O'Neill said that the girls actions were 'outstanding' and presented each of them with a Mayoral certificate.

We need more young people in the world like you, he added.
TAIPEI, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Taiwan's overnight interbankrate opened lower on Saturday, at 0.176 percent, from itsprevious session open of 0.177 percent.

The overnight interbank rate is closely watched by marketparticipants because it is guided by the central bank and isseen as a signal of its monetary policy bias.

The overnight interbank rate has been guided to between0.173 percent and 0.180 percent, from 0.20 percent since thecentral bank cut policy rates in late June.

The central bank has said monetary policy is accommodative.It has cut policy rates four times in a row at quarterly policymeetings since September last year to bolster a weak economy.

(Reporting by Emily Chan; Writing by Faith Hung; Editing byClarence Fernandez)
(Adds comment from Minneapolis Fed, recasts lede)

By Ann Saphir

DALLAS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bankis seeking a new research director after Sam Schulholfer-Wohl,who ran the bank's research department for the last three years,left to take a job at the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank.

"After six years at the bank, Sam Schulhofer-Wohl decided toleave the bank in late August," Minneapolis Fed spokesman DavidWargin said in response to a query from Reuters.

"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to theresearch department and to the bank and wish him every successin his future endeavors."

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who took the topjob at the bank in January, wants a new research director whowill also advise on monetary policy and attend policy-settingmeetings in Washington, an ad for Schulhofer-Wohl's replacementshows. The ad, posted on the Minneapolis Fed's website, statesthat the application review will begin on Monday.

Fed policymakers, who next meet on Sept. 20-21, are mullingthe timing of their next rate hike.

Many regional Fed presidents bring their research directorsto the meetings. Kashkari, who does not have a background ineconomic research himself, has not brought his research chief toa policy-setting meeting since April.

Kashkari ran the U.S. Treasury's bank bailout program duringthe financial crisis and later ran as Republican candidate forgovernor in California. He has sought to put his mark on theFed's smallest regional bank with a project aimed at solving theproblem of too-big-to-fail banks, and does not often speakextensively about monetary policy matters.

Schulhofer-Wohl's published research has been on issuesrelated to monetary policy and the macroeconomy, rather than onregulatory or banking issues.

His new position at the Chicago Fed is senior economist andresearch adviser.

Schulhofer-Wohl and a spokesman for the Chicago Fed did notimmediately respond to an emailed query after regular businesshours on Friday.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; editing by Diane Craft and HimaniSarkar)
(adds quotes)

BRATISLAVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A rescue plan for Italianbank Monte dei Paschi will not be modified followingthe resignation on Thursday of its boss, the country's economyminister said on Saturday.

Chief Executive Fabrizio Viola resigned as the Italian bankis working to complete a 5 billion-euro ($5.6 billion) capitalraising needed to stave off the risk of being wound down.

"I am convinced that the appointment of a new chiefexecutive officer (..) will strengthen the plan and will notmodify it," Pier Carlo Padoan told reporters after a meeting ofEuropean Union finance ministers in Bratislava.

He said he was confident the plan will be successful andcalled for a quick appointment of a new boss.

The bank could hold a board meeting to name a replacement asearly as Sunday, a source close to the matter said on Friday.

Asked whether the resignation of Viola may delay the bank'scash call, Padoan said: "the timing will be decided by the boardtogether with the advisers that have to take into account ofmarket trends".

He also said that the issue was not discussed by EU financeministers during their two-day meeting ending on Saturday.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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By Kitsap Sun Staff

SUQUAMISH  Suquamish Elementary students were brought in early from recess Friday after reports of a bear sighting in the area.

The bear was seen at about 2:50 p.m. on Geneva Street.

The Suquamish Police and state Department of Fish & Wildlife officers investigated, later informing the school that is was safe to release students as usual at the end of the day.

Students were advised to walk home in pairs.

"This time of year, bears are preparing themselves for winter," Principal Gwen Lyon told families in an email. "Families that are walking in Suquamish should stay alert."

People should not feed wildlife or approach a bear if they see one, Lyon advised.
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By Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun

PORT ORCHARD  A man accused of torturing a disabled man, stealing his state-issued benefits and leaving him naked on the ground for more than a day apologized to the victim and was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery and assault charges.

"I hurt so many people and I know better," a tearful Julian Franco Jr., 43, told Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leila Mills. Franco said after the death of his father and his best friend he descended into meth addiction. "The year-and-a-half I did meth was the worst 10 years of my life."

Before sentencing Franco, Mills told him the facts in the case were "horrible" and said the police reports were "probably some of the most horrific ones I've read," but said she believed he was remorseful.

"The person I see today is, I hope, the real person," Mills said.

Franco also apologized to the deputy prosecutor on the case, Phil Bacus, saying he was sorry that Bacus had to read the gruesome details that Kitsap Sheriff's deputies found when they arrived at the driveway of Franco's Central Kitsap rental house in June 2015. The victim was found lying on the ground, with cuts, burns and broken bones.

An advocate read a letter dictated by the victim, who has Huntington's disease, a rare disorder where the nerve cells in the brain break down.

"I thought I had a friend to trust," the statement began. "I thought I found a safe place to live. Franco broke that trust. He threatened me with a gun. He made me give him my P.I.N. and he took money from me. He held me hostage and trapped me for 30 days. I thought I was actually left to die. I thought I would be dead."

Franco's lawyer, Michael Austin Stewart, told Mills that Franco had suffered greatly in his life and that the best thing that happened to him was the deputies arriving.

"This was a bizarre group who robbed and assaulted each other back and forth," Stewart said. "It was an unbelievably sick, putrid world."

Franco pleaded guilty last month to a count of first-degree robbery and two counts of second-degree assault. He had been charged with a count of first-degree rape for an alleged sexual assault on the victim and because Franco already has a conviction for rape of a child, if convicted of the latest count would have faced life in prison under the state's "two strikes" law for sex offenses.

However, Bacus told Mills that prosecutors were not confident they could have secured a conviction on that count in trial and had negotiated the plea deal.

"The rape count would have been an extremely difficult count," Bacus told Mills.
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By Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun

PORT ORCHARD  A Kitsap County Sheriff's deputy, who retired last month amid an investigation into an off-duty hit-and-run, was charged Thursday with felony perjury after signing a statement claiming he was not in the parking lot where the collision took place.

Surveillance camera footage shows Kenneth Harry Mahler, 62, a 15-year veteran of the office, was in the parking lot at the Silverdale Costco on Aug. 4, according to court documents. No one was injured in the collision.

The Sheriff's Office turned the investigation over to the Washington State Patrol, which sent troopers to Mahler's Bremerton residence Aug. 4, but nobody answered the door. The next day troopers returned.

Upon arrival they found Mahler inside his patrol car. Mahler said he was preparing for work the next day, and the investigators said he was obviously intoxicated, according to court documents. He signed a statement saying though he was at the parking lot in Silverdale Aug. 4, it was earlier in the day, and he was not driving his white truck.

He signed a statement, under penalty of perjury, maintaining his innocence, according to the documents.

Investigators wrote in reports that after striking the other vehicle in the Costco parking lot, Mahler immediately drove away and parked in the nearby Lowe's parking lot. He then walked to Costco and later returned to his truck, pushing a shopping cart. The owner of the car Mahler allegedly struck found Mahler's vehicle in the Lowe's parking lot but Mahler then sped off, nearly striking another vehicle head-on, a trooper wrote. Investigators wrote they obtained surveillance footage from both the Costco and Lowe's parking lots, showing that Mahler was there driving his white truck.

The owner of the car that was struck took a photo of a white truck, which showed license plates that were issued to Mahler, according to documents.

During the visits to Mahler's residence, the investigator noted Mahler's truck had its license plates and a sticker removed. Mahler said the plates had been stolen.

The trooper also noted damage to the front of the truck that corresponded to the vehicle Mahler allegedly struck in the parking lot, according to the documents.

On Aug. 11, Mahler contacted the trooper and asked if investigators were certain it was his truck in the parking lot. After being told that investigators were certain, Mahler said he wanted to provide his insurance information to the person whose vehicle was stuck and said he no longer wanted to report his license plates as stolen.

Mahler is scheduled to appear for arraignment Oct. 6 in Kitsap Superior Court and will be booked into the jail and then released, according to court documents. He is charged with a count of hit and run of an unattended vehicle and a count of second-degree perjury.

A representative of the sheriff's deputy union attempted Friday to contact Mahler at the Kitsap Sun's request to offer him an opportunity to comment, but Mahler did not immediately reply.

If convicted, Mahler will not face any discipline from the office, having retired Aug. 22 after being placed on administrative assignment Aug. 7.

Mahler already had a ding against his credibility. According to documents obtained by the Kitsap Sun through the state's Public Records Act, in cases in which Mahler was involved, prosecutors routinely disclosed documents to defendants about a 2012 letter Mahler wrote to a Kitsap Superior Court judge claiming he was aware of lawbreaking in the criminal justice system.

"I know that law enforcement violates the law and principles that it is suppose to uphold in order to achieve arrests and prosecution," Mahler wrote, and later stated: "I have first-hand knowledge of abuses in the judicial system; I am ashamed of this profession."

The State Patrol investigated the claims in the letter, which Mahler wrote on behalf of his son, who was facing extortion charges.

In a transcript provided to the Sun of the State Patrol's interview with Mahler, he claimed he was worried about his son and was upset by what he saw as heavy-handed tactics by the county prosecutor to persuade his son to plead guilty.

However, Mahler backed off his claims and denied being aware of any wrongdoing by law enforcement.
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By Ed Palm

It's me again, the ghost of a community columnist past reflecting on grandparenting and fish stories.

It's the responsibility of a grandparent  is it not?  to pass on family traditions. I'm responsible for passing on those traditions to my two grandkids, little Hudson, 9 months, and Danica, 3. Hudson will have to wait a couple years, but I've already started with Danica.

Whenever Grandma and I invite the grandkids and their parents over for dinner, or offer to take them out, I tell Danica we'll be having "apple pie and codfish." That always gets a rise out of her  a vehement "NO," followed by "Stop it, Grandpa!"

When Danica is old enough  provided I'm still alive and still lucid  I'll share the backstory with her. My maternal grandfather, Joseph Masarik, used to invite me over for apple pie and codfish when I was little. I was all for the apple pie. In fact, my grandmother made wonderful apple pie. (Her secret was using lard in the crust.) But like most kids, I was out of sympathy with codfish.

Eventually, my grandfather, a master leather tanner, shared his backstory with me. He grew up in the town of Bosany in the Slovak region of what was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Bosany at the time had one of the best leather tanneries in Europe, and it was there that my grandfather learned the trade. Meanwhile, here in the states, Newark, New Jersey, had become the leather tanning center of the United States. In 1910 a Newark tannery lured my grandfather to America.

Initially, he came over without my grandmother and with another Slovak tanner. Both struggled to learn English, especially the other tanner. They always ate dinner together at the same diner, and the only thing my grandfather's companion knew how to order was "apple pie and codfish."

The irony is that Danica wouldn't refuse apple pie, especially if it came a la mode. And while she doesn't know it, she has already eaten her share of codfish. She happens to like fish sticks.

All of which brings me to this week's fish story.

Make no mistake about what I'm about to share. In the words of the bard, "I come to bury [Trump] and not to praise him." But I do think that Adam Davidson, writing in "The New Yorker" daily feed of September 3, doesn't give Trump enough credit for what he terms "Trump's Almost Sensible Immigration Plan." The "almost sensible" point, according to Davidson, is that we should cherry-pick the immigrants most likely to "flourish" in America.

Davidson assumes that Trump, in his recent immigration speech, was proposing the kind of economic engineering that has already been tried in the United Kingdom. They long ago set up a panel charged with determining which occupations and professions are most needed and which would not negatively affect the job prospects of UK workers. It didn't work, according to Davidson, for two reasons: First, there are no economic models that can accurately predict workforce needs long-term, and second, the politicians tended to ignore the recommendations of the panel. Economic engineering, he concludes, never works.

Be that as it may, I don't think that was what Trump really had in mind. I think he was talking about those most likely to "assimilate"  a term he actually used and stressed. As I heard it, Trump's main concern  and I have to give credit where credit is due  was that those we admit will respect our core values and laws and not try to impose their own ideology  the ideology of Islam, for instance  on us.

There was a time when that was a given. When my maternal grandparents came here from Austria-Hungary, they expected to become Americans in fullest sense of the term. The same can be said of my paternal great-grandparents, who came here from Germany and Ireland. What's wrong with trying to determine that today's immigrants also want to become as American as apple pie?

Of course, it is also a given that those who would come here can lie about their intentions. Therein lies the rub. But I do think that, for once, Trump has stumbled on to a valid concern. The old cliche about a stopped clock being right twice a day comes to mind.

Still, I can't vote for the man. He is offering codfish  spoiled codfish at that!  without apple pie.

Readers may recall that I closed my column of August 28 with a promise to ask the University of Washington who investigates and adjudicates should a sexual-assault victim seek recourse through the university rather than the legal system. I did ask and so did Rep. Sherry Appleton. As of this writing, the UW has not responded.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low near 40F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low near 40F. Winds light and variable.
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By Kathryn Justice Leache, Chapter16.org

Fans of Robert Hicks's debut novel, "The Widow of the South," will revisit some familiar characters in his latest work, "The Orphan Mother." Mariah Reddick, the "orphan mother" of the title, is the former slave of Carrie McGavock, the "Widow of the South" and mistress of Carnton Plantation. (Both women are fictionalized versions of historic figures.) "The Orphan Mother" takes place in the summer of 1867 in Franklin, Tennessee, a town experiencing the same seething post-emancipation tension as the rest of the South.

Mariah Reddick is a world unto herself. She is well-loved in her community of former slaves and well-respected in Franklin, even among a handful of its white citizens. But despite her warm relationships with neighbors and friends, she is a stoic woman who keeps her thoughts and feelings close. She has difficulty negotiating the murky sea of resentment, loyalty, and contempt she feels in the presence of Carrie, her former mistress, who seems to assume they are friends. Mariah has a dimmer view of their relationship.

Mariah's 24-year-old son, Theopolis, is a cobbler by trade but holds political ambitions. One day he asks his mother to attend a political meeting where he will be giving a speech. Proud as she is of her accomplished son, Mariah is none too pleased with his plans: "No one could say that Mariah acted like a slave: she held her head up and met every white man's gaze with a clear, gray-eyed stare. But no matter how she acted, she knew one thing: Negro folk did not speak. They raised their voices in a chorus only to praise the Lord and pray for a better time to come. They did not stand before white folk and try to change their minds, try to understand them, try to make the white folk see them. And now, this afternoon, Theopolis would be seen."

Mariah isn't wrong to fear her only son's foray into oratory. While she is building her resolve to find out the truth behind the violence that breaks out that day, she meets George Tole, a free black man from New York. Haunted by alcoholism and a terrible family tragedy, Tole is a sharpshooting contract killer, but he has come to Franklin to shed the violence of his past. He meets Mariah and is captivated by the midwife's steely dignity and sense of humor. He is roused by a new sense of purpose: If he stays "in this miserable town with its backbiting neighbors and terrible plots," he thinks, perhaps he can redeem his own life"perhaps he could make a difference to her."

Filled with beautiful dialogue and finely-wrought characters, the novel is a must-read for fans of Hicks's "The Widow of the South" or for any reader whose interest is piqued by a Reconstruction-era story told from the perspective of a former slave struggling to reconcile the oppression of her past with the promise  and terror  of a post-emancipation future.

For more local book coverage, please visit http://chapter16.org/, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

FICTION

The Orphan Mother by Robert Hicks (Grand Central Publishing, 320 pages, $26)

DISCUSSION

Who: Robert Hicks

Where: Southern Festival of Books in Nashville

When: Oct. 14-16

Admission: Free
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By Jennifer Puryear, Chapter16.org

Ann Patchett's new novel, "Commonwealth," asks a question to keep you up at night, a question to trouble your soul under certain moons: What if?

In this case  what if things had gone just a little bit differently on the day of baby Franny's christening party? It's 1963, and Los Angeles police officers and their families fill Beverly and Fix's home. Bert, an attorney at the local D.A.'s office, hears about the party and shows up uninvited. As Patchett writes in one of the best opening lines to be found in any novel, "The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin."

From this, all else follows. Bert and Beverly fall in love, leave their spouses, marry. Together they bring six children to the marriage, but they're no Brady Bunch. The newly married couple leaves California for Virginia, dragging Beverly's two daughters along. Bert's four children stay behind with his ex-wife, Teresa. Every summer the California kids join the family in Virginia, where they enjoy hours of unsupervised time (as children did in the 1970s). Perhaps an accident was bound to happen.

The novel plays out over half a century in the lives of the siblings and their parents. Love withers, love grows. Patchett has said that "Commonwealth" is more overtly autobiographical than her other novels. Her own father was a police officer in California; her parents also divorced and remarried, bringing stepsiblings into the mix; and she too grew up in the 1970s. But the book is autobiographical only in its vaguest outlines. "Most of the things in this book didn't actually happen, but the feelings are very close to home," she told the house literary journal at Parnassus Books. "Or, as my mother said, 'None of it happened and all of it's true.'"

As we watch the children in "Commonwealth" grow up, one of Patchett's main themes emerges: the greatest dangers in life are not external but those that lie within us. It's not the car wreck or the criminal we should fear, but the disease or genetic anomaly that lies in wait and emerges in the fullness of time. Our own decisions  those made and not yet made  are perhaps even more to be feared. "There's no protecting anyone," Fix says. "Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves." The best thing you can do, Patchett seems to suggest, is hold the hand of the person next to you when life puts you side by side. That's what you do in a commonwealth.

But what if, in the commonwealth of a blended family, one person tells the family's secrets to an outsider? Baby Franny, all grown up, falls in love with Leon Posen, a famous novelist 30 years her senior. She tells him about Bert and Beverly, the siblings, the summertime tragedy and its aftermath  a story he fictionalizes in what becomes a bestselling novel. The characters in Ann Patchett's "Commonwealth" struggle with the way they are portrayed in Leon Posen's "Commonwealth" and Franny fears that she has betrayed her family.

Patchett's seven novels all consider the question of what it means to live in commonwealth with others. "I've got one book in me," she told Publishers Weekly. "I take it to the jungle, I take it to the opera, I take it to a home for unwed mothers, but it's always the story I can't get away from: a group of strangers are thrown together by chance and form a society." Nevertheless, to create a story with 10 protagonists that spans 50 years  and at least five settings spread across the globe  is a balancing act that requires immense narrative skill, and Patchett never falters.

Even when everyone is doing the best they can in Patchett's newest commonwealth, there is a certain resignation in these pages. As Patchett writes of the wife Bert left behind in California, "Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other things, too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself." Late in life, Teresa's share of happiness brings her to tears  of joy and surprise  shed quietly by herself in the bathroom before she returns to her family. "It was what she had hoped for," Patchett writes, "but never for a minute what she'd expected." This novel is everything readers hope for and expect from Ann Patchett: a rich, complicated story full to bursting with heartache and heart.

For more local book coverage, please visit http://chapter16.org/, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

FICTION

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, 336 pages, $27.99)

DISCUSSION

Who: Ann Patchett

Where: Southern Festival of Books in Nashville

When: Oct. 14-16.

Admission: Free
Rhonda Lynnese Gallman, who is known as "Mousie" and often demonstrates on behalf of justice and unity on Sundays along Martin Luther King Avenue, is running for the 15th District state House seat as a write-in candidate in the Nov. 8 election.

On the certificate she signed requesting that her ballots be counted, Gallman said she was running in a Democratic primary and a general election. Cliff Rodgers, Knox County elections administrator, said it is "fine" for her to do that, since she apparently identifies with the Democratic Party, but this is not a primary election and only a general election.

The ballot will list Rick Staples, whom the Knox County Democratic Party chose as its candidate after a felony conviction disqualified incumbent state Rep. Joe Armstrong from running, and Independent Pete Drew.

Armstrong was found guilty by a federal jury of filing a fraudulent income tax return on Aug. 8. His attorney, Gregory P. Isaacs, has asked a judge to either throw out the conviction or grant him a new trial.

Armstrong said Friday he had filed retirement papers on Thursday, his anniversary date from when first elected in 1988, with his retirement becoming effective the same day as the special legislative session that begins Monday to resolve an issue on federal funds that are jeopardized.

Gallman listed 2431 Hoitt Ave. as her address, which is in the 13th District. Rodgers said as long as Gallman lives in the 15th District on Election Day, she is eligible to be a candidate.

Knoxville lawyer Ursula Bailey, who said she has known Gallman for almost two years, said Gallman's family owns property in the area, so residency will not be an issue for her. Bailey had made some inquiries with the Election Commission about write-in campaigns.

Gallman did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Staples said Gallman's mother is a supporter and her sister is a campaign worker.

"I welcome her to the political process. I hope she learns a lot about being a write-in candidate," he said.

Cameron Brooks, Democratic Party chairman, said he knows Gallman and "she's a very nice person."

"We support the Democratic nominee and she's not the Democratic nominee. Democrats should get behind Rick Staples and she should, too," he said.

TRUMAN DAY: Democratic House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley will be the keynote speaker at the Knox County Democratic Party's Truman Day dinner at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at the Foundry at World's Fair Park. For more information, go to https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/trumanday2016.
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By Lynda Edwards, lynda.edwards@knoxnews.com

KINGSTON  The family of a 15-year-old Harriman High School student charged with killing a soldier must come up with $50,000 bond to secure his release from juvenile detention  but even then he might not be able to go back to school.

Jacob Kinney faces charges of second-degree murder in the Aug. 28 death of MarStratton Gordon, 23. Kinney told police he fatally shot the soldier, who was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., with a .357-caliber revolver during an argument at Kinney's family home in Harriman, according to a Roane County Juvenile Court petition.

Judge Terry Stevens set bond for Kinney at $50,000 Friday and ordered him to wear an ankle monitor, stay away from guns and enroll in school if released from the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Detention Center in Knoxville. Kinney's attorney, Pat Cooley, said Kinney might not be able to return to Harriman High, where he was enrolled in honors classes, due to concerns the case had caused a racial divide among students.

Kinney is white. Gordon was black.

"The two families are absolutely race blind and would never want that sort of division," Cooley said. "This has been a tragedy for both families."

Kinney told police he shot Gordon in an attempt to protect his 23-year-old sister, Amber, who was dating the soldier and was being assaulted by him, according to the court petition. In a call to E-911 placed by Kinney and played in court on Friday, the boy sounds dazed and panicked. In the background, his sister could be heard crying loudly.

Forty neighbors and friends  including the boy's pastor, his piano teacher and his boss at El Cantarito Mexican restaurant came to court Friday morning to testify on Kinney's behalf and praise his integrity and compassion for others.

"Everyone loves Jacob," Tommy Killbey, his pastor, said before the hearing began. "He has such kindness, such a loving spirit. ... I would be willing to take him into my home and let him live with my family."

Killbey led the family and their supporters in a quick, quiet prayer before court opened.

Kinney's mother, Sherry, told the judge he's being held in solitary confinement at the juvenile detention center and wants to get out so he can do his classwork.

"He wants to do his homework," the mother said. "He wants to go to (college)."

Lauren Bennett, an assistant district attorney general, asked the mother how many guns were kept in the house. The mother said her son kept guns in his room that were registered to her that she had bought him for target shooting and hunting.

She said all the guns were out of her house now and locked in her brother's safe in his home.

Prosecutors haven't said whether they plan to try the boy as an adult.
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Everyone agrees preparing for death is important.

But fewer people want to talk about the best way to do it.

Tennova Healthcare is opening a conversation by offering free end-of-life planning seminars, "Getting Your House in Order," this fall.

The seminars, suitable for all ages, focus on how to leave an organized estate to help reduce the stress on loved ones during an emotionally difficult time.

From practical financial matters to making your final wishes known, the seminar provides a step-by-step approach to collecting critical information and organizing it in one place.

Those who attend will receive a "House in Order" workbook that provides guidance on items to consider gathering, such as medical history, estate and financial information, funeral plans and advance directives.

Seminars are scheduled at:

LaFollette Medical Center, 923 East Central Ave., LaFollette, Tenn.: 1:30-2:30 p.m. Monday.

Newport Medical Center, 435 Second St., Newport: 10-11 a.m. Wednesday

Lakeway Regional Hospital, 726 McFarland Street, Morristown: 9-10 a.m. Oct. 5

Tennova North Knoxville Medical Center, 7565 Dannaher Drive, Powell: 2-3 p.m. Oct. 13

Turkey Creek Medical Center, 10820 Parkside Drive: 10-11 a.m. Nov. 8

Space is limited, so registration is required for the seminars, at least one day in advance.

To register, call 1-855-TENNOVA (836-6682), or visit Tennova.com.

For a complete listing of Tennova classes and programs, visit tennovaeast.com/classes-and-programs.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivers remarks at a campaign rally in Fredericksburg, Va., on Saturday. EPA/SHAWN THEW

So Ive made no secret of being unhappy with my choices in this presidential election, a feeling that I share with most voters, judging by the polls.

Trump is a blowhard who seems to have something of a man-crush on Vladimir Putin. His business dealings are as shady as youd expect a New York real-estate developers to be, his campaign has been a madhouse, and even on the positions of his that I like, I dont have a whole lot of confidence that hell actually deliver.

Hillary, on the other hand is, well, a crook. Her period at the State Department was marked by pretty much out-and-out influence peddling, the Clinton Foundation seems to be little more than a money laundry, and when shes asked to explain herself, she sounds like a Mafia bosss lawyer, only less believable.

I could vote third-party of course, as I have in the past, but thats not super-appealing either. I would ordinarily lean toward the Libertarian ticket, featuring former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, but their positions on a lot of issues I care about arent especially libertarian  Weld on Second Amendment rights sounds, well, like a Massachusetts governor, and Johnson seems to care more about marijuana rights than religious freedom. Besides, its hard to see them carrying a single state.

The quixotic candidacy of Evan McMullin, backed by some NeverTrump Republicans, seems even less likely to accomplish anything (except maybe keep some consultants employed). And I interviewed Green Party nominee Jill Stein last election cycle and shes a nice lady, but her chances look even poorer, and her outright-socialist platform would be a disaster in the unlikely event she won.

So what to do? Well, the answer to me comes from a column by Bill McGurn in the Wall Street Journal, noting that the worst scandal in Hillarys email scandal isnt what Hillary did  we expect her to act like a crook  but rather that the supposedly professional, nonpartisan civil service rolled over for her, and even offered cover. As McGurn writes:

Even today her former department is still resisting efforts to make public the emails she tried to hide. Groups such as Judicial Watch have done yeomans work in forcing the emails into the sunlightbut they have also had to get court orders to pry them out of an obstructionist State Department.

Its a disturbing pattern, and unfortunately its not limited to State. There have been similar questions about the integrity and professionalism of the IRS ever since the American people learned in 2013 that it was unfairly targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Three years, many congressional hearings and disappearing hard drives later, there is still no evidence the IRS has ended the practice.

And the FBI and Department of Justice have seemed curiously uninterested in going after people for behavior that, in other circumstances, would be a surefire ticket to federal prison.

The reason, of course, is that the civil service, though supposedly professional and nonpartisan, has become a Democratic Party monoculture. Federal employees overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, donate to Democrats, and, by all appearances, cover for Democrats as a routine part of doing their job.

When Richard Nixon tried to weaponize the IRS, top officials at the Service made a stink. Under Obama, the IRS weaponized itself.

And, of course, the press is in the tank for the Democrats as usual. Bad news about Obama and Clinton has been soft-pedaled, with reporters sometimes admitting that they dont want to help Trump.

So if the choice in 2016 is between one bad candidate and another (and it is) the question is, which one will do the least harm. And, judging by the civil services behavior, thats got to be Trump. If Trump tries to target his enemies with the IRS, you can bet that hell get a lot of pushback  and the press, instead of explaining it away, will make a huge stink. If Trump engages in influence-peddling, or abuses secrecy laws, you can bet that, even if Trumps appointees sit atop the DOJ or FBI, the civil service will ensure that things dont get swept under the rug. And if Trump wants to go to war, hell get far more scrutiny than Hillary will get  or, in cases like her disastrous Libya invasion, has gotten.

So the message is clear. If you want good government, vote for Trump  hes the only one who will make this whole checks-and-balances thing work.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
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A new report from the National Safety Council lists Tennessee as one of just four states "making progress" in the fight against prescription drug abuse. Tennessee meets five out of six positive indicators, according to the report.

The Tennessee Medical Association and other concerned stakeholders in and outside of the health care community have helped create rules requiring pain management education for prescribers, issued state-sanctioned opioid prescribing guidelines and strengthened laws regulating pain clinics or pain management services.

We have made good progress and can point to some measurable results.

The Controlled Substance Monitoring Act of 2002 allowed the state to implement a database to monitor the dispensing of certain controlled substances. The database has reduced the incidence of doctor shopping, the practice of visiting multiple doctors to obtain controlled prescription drugs, by 50 percent since 2011.

Data also show a nearly 8 percent drop in the total amount of opioid prescriptions for pain, and a more than 14 percent decrease in Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MME) from 2012 to 2015. Among Tennesseans between the ages of 20 and 30, MME prescriptions have declined nearly 55 percent since 2011.

But we still have a lot of work to do.

As the number of prescriptions goes down, the number of overdose deaths continues to rise. The Department of Health reported that 1,263 Tennesseans died from overdoses in 2014, compared to 1,062 in 2011, a 19 percent increase.

Leading physicians in the TMA have long advocated for increased funding for addiction treatment, which is sorely lacking across the state. The need for treatment is perhaps most vivid in the neonatal units of hospitals around our state, where, in 2014, more than 1,600 babies were born addicted to prescription drugs because their mothers abused drugs during pregnancy. According to the Department of Health, the number of babies born in Tennessee with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome increased 285 percent in the most recent five-year period for which data are available.

We have to continue identifying, educating and even penalizing health care providers who are overprescribing, and keep "pill mills" out of operation. The monitoring law, along with stronger regulations for pain clinics and pain management services, has helped, but the more we can educate doctors, nurses and physician assistants on safe and proper prescribing, the better we will control the supply of opioids.

Patients also play a role. According to the state's "Prescription for Success" report, 71 percent of addicts said they get their drugs from a friend or relative. More than half the time they are simply given away for free. Government-run take-back programs are a safe, convenient way to dispose of unused or unwanted drugs and avoid contributing to this growing statewide and national problem. Many local law enforcement agencies coordinate take-back programs throughout the year.

We are making progress, but we are far from winning. We must stay the course on the things that are working, fix or replace the methods that aren't and continue to look for new strategies to combat this public health plague.

Tennesseans' lives depend on it.

Dr. Keith G. Anderson is president of the Tennessee Medical Association.
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A look at recent events in the news that pleased us ...

New stage: A company owned by three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond soon will open a manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge's Horizon Center Industrial Park.

LeMond Composites will make innovative high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber with global applications in transportation, renewable energy and infrastructure markets.

The company has secured a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which developed a production method researchers estimate will slash the cost of carbon fiber in half while using 60 percent less energy.

LeMond said his company will initially employ about 125 people, with projections of rapid growth.

Park leader named: Kris Kirby, a 20-year career employee of the National Park Service, has been selected as superintendent of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. Kirby will assume her new duties Oct. 16.

Kirby currently serves as the chief of business and revenue management at Yosemite National Park in California. Before her assignment there, she served as chief of commercial services at Lake Mead National Recreation Area and previously worked in concessions management at Glacier National Park, according to a news release.

Midway approved: Knox County gained approval Thursday for subdivision and development plan requests for its proposed Midway Business Park.

By an 8-4 vote, the Metropolitan Planning Commission approved the requests despite objections by the 8th District Preservation Association.

Opposition to the East Knox County business park initially was successful in blocking its development. The project got back on track after Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett and Knox County Commissioner Dave Wright, who represents the area, lent their support.

Texting, driving: Knox County school bus drivers continue to text while driving, despite a deadly crash in December 2014 that killed two students and a teacher's aide. Knox County Schools dismissed one driver last week and is investigating another for texting while behind the wheel.

The problem is not limited to bus drivers, of course. The Associated Press, citing National Highway Safety Administration figures, reported that the number of deaths attributable to cellphone use rose from 406 in 2014 to 476 in 2015.
Photographer Looks Back on 9/11 Memories

By Karen Parrish, DoD

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016 at 12:03 p.m.







Military service members salute as fire and rescue workers unfurl a huge American flag over the side of the Pentagon, Sept. 12, 2001, during rescue and recovery efforts following the 9/11 terrorist attack. At approximately 9:40 a.m. a hijacked commercial airliner, originating from Washingtons Dulles airport, was flown into the south side of the building. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Michael W. Pendergrass





WASHINGTON  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one 30-year-old combat camera sailor took a photograph that leapt out of news coverage to deliver a needed jolt of hope: A huge American flag draped down the side of the damaged Pentagon.



That sailor, Michael Pendergrass, is now 45 and retired from the Navy, but he recently revisited the Pentagon to discuss his experiences there with DoD News.





From Pancakes to Disaster



The day of the terrorist attacks that struck the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Pendergrass was at a command-sponsored pancake breakfast with his combat camera unit in Norfolk, Virginia.



I was eating some pancakes with a couple buddies of mine when somebody mentioned that, Hey, turn on the news, something happened in New York, Pendergrass said. And we turned on the news and they were talking about a plane had struck the twin towers.



Those present gathered around the television to watch, and when the second plane hit, Pendergrass said, I remember looking at my friend and saying, Thats terrorism. I said, Thats not an accident.



A little over a half hour after the second strike on the World Trade Center, a third plane struck the Pentagon.



Following the strikes, Pendergrass was part of a seven-person team of photographers and videographers who headed to the Pentagon.



It was a little bit of chaos when we got there, he said.



Pendergrass said a key lesson in both the military and combat camera is to adapt to situations.



Its ever-changing, so you know that the core thing youre down there to do is to assist, in any way possible -- to document whats going on, because your images might help in either the investigation [or] it might help answer questions to the public of what just happened, he said. So I shot reactions of people, I shot people that were assisting on the ground, I shot damage.



When he got to the Pentagon, he said, They were still trying to figure out what was going on, [the building] was still on fire. We just documented what we saw that first day, came back with the imagery and made a game plan for the next day.





Capturing a Moment



One day didnt go according to plan. When President George W. Bush toured the Pentagon and delivered remarks, Pendergrass found himself at the wrong place.



I had heard what area his motorcade was supposed to come in on, and set myself up to be in position for when he came in, Pendergrass said. At the last minute I received word that his motorcade had changed and come in the opposite side of the compound, so I was in completely the wrong position.



Security locked down the compound once Bush arrived, Pendergrass said, so he couldnt make his way to where the president was speaking.



He came in, he started speaking, and Im standing there with my camera thinking, Theyre going to kill me.



It was then he noticed some commotion at the top of the building, Pendergrass said.



So I picked up my camera and I shot a picture, and then I changed lenses and got in closer on it, and it was a flag. It was a huge flag, he said. It was going across the top and I kind of shot the progression, and then they came out to the front and then music played across the whole compound and they dropped down the flag and I shot as it was unfurling.



Pendergrass returned to work and brought his imagery in later that day. He said his boss, Christopher Madden, took one look at the final flag photo and told him, Get a caption on that, right now.



The photo shows the flag just reaching its full length down the scorched side of the Pentagon. Lined up on the buildings roof, a group of firefighters and a sprinkling of people in uniforms stand above the flag, saluting.







Cleanup and recovery efforts are in progress as a portion of the Pentagon lies in ruins, Sept. 12, 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attack in which a hijacked commercial airliner was crashed into the Pentagon. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Michael W. Pendergrass.





A Historic Photo



Days went by after the photos release, and it kept appearing in 9/11 coverage. Pendergrass said a naval historian told him he had captured a moment of how a nation was feeling. That we were hurting, and we were looking for something to rally us, let us know there was hope. And that photo did it.



As he continued work at the Pentagon in the days and weeks after 9/11, Pendergrass said he felt that the whole nation rallied together and was determined to bounce back from this, that this wasnt going to beat us, and it unified us.



Meanwhile his flag photo kept showing up -- and still shows up in some surprising places, he said.



Ive seen it in a lot of different places, Pendergrass said. Every once in a while it will pop up in a new place.  I saw it in the Pentagon, I saw it on websites.  Just a few months ago I saw it at the Marine Corps museum at Quantico. I was going through with my wife and it was right there at the end.





Leaving a Mark



Im just proud to know that I left a little mark that will live longer than my time here, he said. I would hope that every photographer gets the chance to shoot a shot like that -- not that situation, but to have taken and captured a moment that will go longer than their time.



Pendergrass said as a proud American, he is happy to have done something that helped us heal from such a horrible situation. In all the pain and suffering that was going on in the nation, there was this shot that kind of helped us bounce back.



When he took the 9/11 photo he was a petty officer first class, Pendergrass said, and he retired from the Navy as a chief petty officer in 2010. He now works for the Justice Department.



[The memorial is] an amazing tribute to the tragedy that happened here, he said. A lot of thought and respect went into designing it. Its very, very different from what it looked like when I got here [on 9/11.]



Pendergrass said his experience at the Pentagon led him to do more forensic photography.



Not everybody can function in that [crisis environment] and its something that Ive found that I could do, he said. And its necessary to have people like that, I think, to document and try to capture the scenes, to try to make sense of the madness. Published September 10, 2016
By Choi Sung-jin



"From Section Chief Lee: None of you have replied to words from the department manager yet." That was the embarrassing message that Park, a third-year marketer at a midsize company, read at 10:43 p.m. Tuesday, in the group chat room on Kakao Talk, the mobile instant messenger service started in Korea.



About 10 minutes earlier, the manager left a message rebuking the poor performance of his department last month but only four of the eight coworkers in the chat room responded, prompting the section chief to lament about the lack of participation.



"I can hardly understand why my manager would send a message after 10 p.m., but even more confounding to me is that the section chief urged us to reply to his message at such late a hour," Park said. "A top-down ggondae' culture is dominating my office like in military barracks." Ggondae is Korean slang meaning old man with a bossy, authoritarian attitude.



This episode illustrates how young workers are suffering from "ggondae culture" that grips most Korean offices. A 20th-century corporate culture, marked by the insistence of absolute obedience, frequent but irregular office dinners (called "hoesik" in Korean) and authoritarian bosses, all to often remains in 21st-century workplaces. Most young workers believe that "ggondae" culture is an essential element of "Hell Joseon."



Yoo, 32, a worker at a large trading company, has to knit together a task force (TF) two or three times a week. In Yoo's office, the term TF means a group of workers who attend, voluntarily or not, flash mob-style office dinners proposed by their boss. When the workers are about to leave for the day, the boss will suggest to Yoo, "How about some spicy stew tonight?" to which Yoo must recruit a TF of her fellow workers who must go to dinner with the boss.



"My boss seldom notifies us about office dinners beforehand but decides to have these dinners at his whim," Yoo said. "He thinks such abrupt dining and wining helps enhance our friendship and communication, but that is a huge delusion."



For most young workers, a far scarier type of boss is the one who makes little of his or her people's free time, including weekends and holidays.



A 29-year-old office worker, also wanting to be known only by her family name of Chung, was joyous last Friday as she left her office at the regular hour for the first time in a long while. Her happiness about this ended, though, as she received a message from her boss the minute she walked out of the building, telling her she had to complete a report by Monday morning.



"The boss was giving looks of dissatisfaction to all of the workers leaving the office ahead of him, and took revenge upon those who did so," Chung said. "Many of my friends also have bosses who want work done over the weekend."



These young workers say the harm of "ggondae culture" does not just stop at annoying underlings but hampers in-house communication and erodes corporate competitiveness.



In a February survey of 304 office workers by Job Korea, a job-seeking portal, 60.9 percent of the respondents said office communication is not smooth. As to why, the largest portion of 48.1 percent cited "top-down organizational culture." Among the185 people who made negative replies, 50 of them cited as their reasons the reluctance of workers to express their opinions, 26 percent pointed to the failure of discussing issues.



Asked whether workers express their views at the office, 173 respondents, or 56.9 percent, said "no," As to why, 50 of them said, "The boss won't listen to my opinion anyway," 43 of the respondents cited "top-down organizational culture," and 15 of them even pointed to "possible retaliation and disadvantages."



In another survey conducted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry of 500 people who attended a business conference it organized in June, 91 percent of the 500 respondents said, "Korea can hardly expect to improve national competitiveness with its current corporate culture."



"The older-generation executives armed with the can-do' spirit of the 1970s and '80s ignore young workers as thoughtless, while the younger generation who seek a higher quality of life distrust executives of the ggondae generation,'" said Choi Won-shik, CEO of McKinsey Korea, who attended the conference. "It is necessary to improve leadership and establish a more competitive corporate operational system."




More and stronger sanctions should be in place against North Korea as its nuclear capability has been upgraded to a "considerable level" in the past decade, South Korea's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said Saturday, calling on the international community to make concerted efforts to put further pressure on the communist state.



His remarks came as Pyongyang conducted its nuclear test in its northeastern region early Friday claiming that its detonation test was "successful."



"Over the past decade, North Korea's nuclear capability has highly advanced, and (the latest nuke test) clearly shows that its leader Kim Jong-un does not intend to change," South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said during a meeting with his staff.



"We need more and stronger sanctions and pressure (against North Korea) to create an environment where they are left with little option but to change themselves," he said, vowing to impose a comprehensive set of sanctions led by the U.N. Security Council.



The foreign ministry said South Korea will seek support in the coming weeks for a new set of sanctions by the United Nations in response to North Korea's latest nuclear test by stressing that concerted and stronger sanctions by the international community are necessary to deter Pyongyang's nuclear threat.



Yun is scheduled to attend the week-long U.N. General Assembly meeting that starts on Sept. 17 where he will urge cooperation in formulating a new set of U.N. Security Council-led sanctions against the communist state.



During his stay in New York, the country's top diplomat will hold a meeting with his counterparts from the U.S. and Japan to discuss how to impose stronger sanctions on Pyongyang, the ministry said. Yun is also to deliver a speech at the U.N. General Assembly meeting on Sept. 23.



Meanwhile, Yun has asked for cooperation from France in orchestrating new U.N.-led sanctions against North Korea's fifth and largest-ever nuclear test in defiance of continued calls from the international community to stop its nuclear program.



He talked with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault on the phone on Friday and demanded the U.N. Security Council to join a cooperative move to enact additional bold, strong sanctions in response to the latest provocation by Pyongyang, according to the ministry.



Yun expressed hopes that France, a permanent member of the U.S. Security Council, would actively engage in enacting strong resolutions against the North's nuclear threats. The South Korean minister also demanded France and the European Union make concerted efforts to impose sanctions against North Korea in close cooperation with Seoul.



The South Korean minister emphasized that Friday's nuclear test by Pyongyang is a crucial violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2270, calling the nuclear fiasco "a grave provocation."



In addition, Yun hoped that strong South Korea-France ties will lead to a solution to handling human rights infringement issues in North Korea.



The U.N. Security Council has expressed strong condemnation of North Korea's latest nuclear test. The Council proclaimed to immediately set out preparations for putting together a new resolution of sanctions against the communist nation.



On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama also condemned the North Korean nuclear test, restating to South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "the unshakable U.S. commitment" to take the necessary steps to defend U.S. allies, including by deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea to provide extended deterrence against the North Korean use of nuclear threats.



South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo also held a phone conversation with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, vowing to strengthen cooperation in sanctioning North Korea.



During a phone conversation with Han late Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stressed the "ironclad" alliance among the U.S. and its allies including South Korea, pointing at various means such as the nuclear umbrella, traditional deterrents and missile defense measures that can deter North Korean nuclear ambitions, according to the defense ministry here.



Earlier in the day, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan also held a three-party video conference to discuss ways to beef up cooperative measures and the mutual exchange of information regarding North Korea.



Despite rising anxious calls to deter North Korean nuclear ambitions among international community members, the communist's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam has vowed that the reclusive country will increase its presence in international society to meet its "status as a nuclear power," according to the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).



Kim, the president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), said "(North Korea) will secure the world peace and safety and continue to expand and develop international relations in a way that fits its status as a nuclear powerhouse," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported earlier in the day. The remarks were made in a celebratory address at a banquet marking the 68th anniversary of the regime's foundation. (Yonhap)




Japan responded quickly to the suspected nuclear test carried out by North Korea earlier in the day Friday by convening a national security meeting to discuss countermeasures.

A magnitude 5 earthquake was detected near North Korea's nuclear test site in its northeastern region at around 9:30 a.m., raising suspicions that Pyongyang may have conducted its fifth nuclear test.

If confirmed, this would be the latest nuclear provocation since January when it carried out its fourth nuclear test detonation, which drew strong condemnation from the international community and the toughest resolution ever by the United Nations Security Council in March.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that he has set up and is running an emergency team dedicated to monitoring related developments.












Note: This article is courtesy of Iris.xyz

By Frank Holmes

Total political crap.

Thats how Apple CEO Tim Cook described the European Commissions ruling that the iPhone maker must pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), plus interest, in back taxes to Ireland, its longtime European host. Meanwhile, the island-nation is being accused of giving Apple an illegal sweetheart deal in exchange for jobs.

Political crap, indeed. I hate to say it, but I told you so.

Junes Brexit referendum, Ive argued, was about so much more than immigration. U.K. citizens and businesses are fed up with mountains of rules and regulations from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, controlled by French and German socialists, that trample on basic personal freedom. There are ludicrous laws on the books legislating everything from the kind of lightbulbs you can use to the wattage of your vacuum cleaner to the curve and length of your bananas and cucumbers to the color of your olives.

Now, Ireland is learning a similarly hard lesson on Brussels policies of envy.

Its a plotline that should be reserved for the Theater of the Absurd: Party A is forced by Party B to pay Party C, in a transaction that neither Party A nor Party C had a hand in creating.

Apple insists it has no outstanding taxes. We never asked for, nor did we receive, special deals, Tim Cook wrote in an open letter last week. And yet an authoritarian, nontransparent Commissioner of Competition is ordering the company to shell out an arbitrarily exorbitant amount to the government of Irelandwhich doesnt even want Apples money.

And why would it? As you might imagine, Ireland fears risking a stain on its tax advantaged status that has succeeded in attracting hundreds of billions in foreign direct investment.

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Eurocrats Envious of Irelands Competitive Advantage and Americas Ingenuity

Over the last 50 years, the country has carved out a reputation as a prime destination for multinationals seeking a competitive corporate tax rate. At 12.5 percent, Irelands rate is much more attractive than the U.S. rate, 35 percent, one of the highest in the world. (Other countries with similarly high rates include Argentina, Brazil and Venezuelanot exactly model examples of business-friendly regimes.)

Click here to read the full story on Iris.xyz.
Bill Cosby is seen here walking unaided down the steep steps of a private jet  the same day a court heard he was blind.

Cosby was caught on film after landing in Massachusetts where he is holed up in a 21-acre private compound on Tuesday, the same day he appeared in a Pennsylvania court for a pre-trial hearing on a rape charge.

And despite the judge in that hearing acknowledging that Cosby, 79, is blind, he seemed to require little help  not even his cane  stepping down from the aircraft.



Cosby had arrived in the Montgomery County Courthouse earlier that day looking considerably more vulnerable, walking arm-in-arm with spokesman Andrew Wyatt.

He was there for a hearing ahead of his June 2017 trial, which sees him accused of drugging and raping Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004.

He also had his brown wooden cane stretched out in front of him, seemingly to detect objects in his path.

But his attitude in these pictures seems a world away: He can be seen laughing with his cane and coat hooked over his arm as he descends the steep metal steps.

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A mum with HIV and her daughter who had been told to leave Britain may have been starved to death in desperate poverty, an inquest heard.

Lillian Oluk, 36, and her two-year-old daughter Lynne Mutumba were found dead in their one-bedroom flat.

A harrowing inquest was told there was no medical reason for their deaths but various examinations suggested Lillian was suffering from malnutrition and starvation and little Lynne had been dehydrated.

They had no food in the house and no possessions other than the clothes on their back, the court heard.



Lillian was also not taking her medication for HIV and sickle cell anaemia when they were found at their flat in Gillingham, Kent, on March 14.

Coroner Kate Thomas recorded open verdicts into their deaths following the inquest at Old Gravesend Town Hall. She said there was not enough evidence to say for certain how they had died.

The coroner had been told that Lillian and Lynne had moved to Gillingham on December 10.

Until the middle of February, Lillian was buying healthy food for the pair of them using a money pass from social services, but this seemed to have stopped by February 14.

After that, she did not buy groceries and for two weeks they appear to have existed on takeaways, visiting McDonalds or KFC twice a day.

The inquest was told there was no evidence of the mother having bought any food after February 28.

CCTV footage shows Lillian leaving the flat and going to the communal bins but there were no sightings of her after March 7.

Lillian was last seen with Lynne on February 28 coming back from a local church and she was last seen on her own on March 7 when she met her key worker. When the bodies were discovered, Lynne was in bed and her mum was on the floor of the bedroom.

Lillian originally came from Uganda and used to work for LSG Sky Chefs, a company that supplies catering and supplies for airlines, based near Gatwick Airport.

The inquest was told that in mid-February she received a letter telling her she was no longer entitled to stay in this country.

She came to the attention of social services in Croydon when she and Lynne were camping out at the local hospital for two weeks.

She was found a home in Wolverhampton but the flat was unsuitable and she was moved to Gillingham in December.

At the end of the inquest, Ms Thomas said it was a tragic set of circumstances whatever they were.

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A New York State Assemblyman committed suicide this morning, just as he was scheduled to turn himself into the FBI on a fraud charge.

Officials say Bill Nojay, a Republican representing the 133rd Assembly seat in Upstate New York, shot himself near his brothers grave in the family burial plot at Riverside Cemetery in Rochester, around 9:22am.

Nojays brother Robert was severely disabled and died in 1999.

The 59-year-old politician reportedly called his lawyer this morning, saying he planned to take his life.



A police officer tracked Nojay down to the cemetery but he pulled the trigger before the cop could stop him.

Nojay is survived by a wife , Debra, and three children. They live in Pittsford, New York.

Nojay was up for re-election this Tuesday in the GOP primary, and Bill Reilich, the Republican chair for Monroe County, told the Democrat and Chronicle that he appeared upbeat ahead of the election and always anticipated he would do well.

Nojay was reportedly due in court on Friday to discuss a case regarding a woman in Cambodia, who claims that he and two other men scammed her.

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The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

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One of three Hanjin ships idled for days off the Southern California coast was allowed to dock in Long Beach and begin unloading cargo early Saturday, a sign that a crisis sparked by the Korean shipping companys bankruptcy may be easing.

The Hanjin Greece, which had been at sea since leaving Busan on Aug. 21, docked at Pier T in Long Beach at 6:50 a.m., according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a traffic controller for the L.A. and Long Beach port complex. The ship is expected to depart on Monday after unloading.

Its not clear when two other ships, the Hanjin Montevideo and Hanjin Boston, will be able to dock and be unloaded, but Carson freight forwarder Robert Krieger said any movement after more than a week of waiting is a good sign.

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The gridlock of nothing happening has stopped, said Krieger, president of Krieger Worldwide. If theres been an agreement worked out for the Greece, I feel very optimistic other ships are going to come in.

The Greece was allowed to dock after U.S. and Korean bankruptcy courts allowed Hanjin to spend $10 million to unload that ship and others, according to Reuters.

Hanjin filed for receivership on Aug. 31 after the debt-laden companys creditors rejected a restructuring plan. Since then, Hanjin cargo ships have been idling outside ports around the world waiting on action in bankruptcy courts. The company didnt want to bring any ships to dock because it feared they would be seized by creditors. Port terminal operators, meanwhile, feared the bankrupt shipping giant wouldnt be able to pay the longshore workers and truck drivers needed to unload and deliver Hanjin cargo.

Those delays have hamstrung companies awaiting cargo deliveries. Alex Rasheed, president of downtown Los Angeles clothing importer Pacific Textile, said he has 16 cargo containers trapped on Hanjin ships, including two containers on one of the vessels still waiting to dock in Long Beach.

In those 16 containers are about $2 million worth of T-shirts, sweatshirts and polo shirts bound for Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney and other big retailers. Rasheed said if cargo stranded on Hanjin ships isnt offloaded and delivered soon, those goods might not make it to retailers before the holiday shopping rush begins.

It takes time for goods to move through distribution centers and then in to every store, Rasheed said. If this thing is not resolved quickly, theres going to be empty store shelves.

As Hanjin ships have been idled offshore, that also has meant fewer hours for longshore workers who unload ships and truck drivers who haul goods from the port complex to inland rail yards and warehouses.

The shipping company accounts for about 4% of all cargo coming into the Port of Los Angeles and 12% of cargo coming into the Port of Long Beach. Hanjin is the majority owner of Total Terminals International, which operates Long Beachs largest shipping terminal.

There are a lot of people suffering, said Patrick Kelly, executive officer of Teamsters Local 952, speaking at a news conference in Wilmington on Saturday morning.

He said the situation has been particularly hard for truck drivers, as many of them are classified as independent contractors, not as company employees, meaning they cannot claim unemployment benefits when work dries up.

james.koren@latimes.com

Follow me: @jrkoren

ALSO

Officials call for action on cargo delivery crisis at ports

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Stranded Hanjin ships to unload in Long Beach this week, South Korea says
(Updates with one ship scheduled to unload on Saturday)

By Tom Hals

Sept 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday signed an order granting Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd provisional protection from creditors in the United States, enabling some vessels to dock and unload at U.S. ports.

South Korea's Hanjin had asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood to issue an order to prevent creditors from seizing Hanjin ships or property, and to allow cargo owners to make arrangements to retrieve goods stranded in warehouses.

Earlier, the company received authority to spend money needed to dock at U.S. ports and begin unloading four vessels that have been stranded at sea by the company's failure last week, a company lawyer told a U.S. court on Friday.

"We have the money," said Ilana Volkov, an attorney for Hanjin, told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Newark, New Jersey on Friday. "We want to call these ports and say, please accept our ships and we want to pay for the services to work the ships."

Volkov said at least $10 million was authorized by a Korean court to begin servicing the four ships. Hanjin identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in court papers, but Volkov said she did not have information about the other vessels.

One of the four, the Hanjin Greece, was scheduled to dock and unload at the Port of Long Beach early Saturday morning, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a group that tracks cargo ship traffic.

Hanjin said that some ships may not dock at their original destinations, which could become an issue for companies like HP Inc, Samsung Electronics and Home Shopping Network, who said in court records or in court they had cargo on those ships.

The other three U.S.-bound ships are the Hanjin Boston, Hanjin Jungil and Hanjin Gdynia.

Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tugboat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin, the world's seventh-largest container carrier, which filed for receivership in a Seoul court last week.

Story continues

HAVOC FOR GLOBAL TRADE

Hanjin has been struggling to arrange financing to resume normal operations. Korean Air Lines, the biggest shareholder in Hanjin, delayed on Friday a decision on a funding plan.

Hanjin's collapse has caused havoc in global trade networks and a surge in freight rates, as more than half of the company's 141 ships have been blocked from docking at ports. Four vessels have also been seized as of Thursday, according to Hanjin Shipping.

As ships await at sea, anchored off various ports from Long Beach, California, Mexico to Panama City, problems for the financially-strapped company mount as fuel suppliers also demand payment and provisions run low on the ships.

An arrest warrant was entered against the Hanjin Montevideo, currently anchored off Long Beach, and the ship was seized. The parties pressing for arrest were World Fuel Services Inc and OceanConnet Marine PTE Ltd, and Hanjin's attorney said the company expected to work out an arrangement to release the ship next week.

The judge asked companies along the supply chain to hammer out a protocol agreement over the weekend that would get goods moving again. Hanjin has suggested cargo owners were free to pay cargo handling fees owed by Hanjin, which Samsung Electronics called ransom payments.

Hanjin's woes were having wider knock-on effects. Sherwood was told that port terminals were not accepting the routine return of empty Hanjin shipping containers from retailers, forcing stores to spend to store them.

Uncertainty about freight fees was leading to vast numbers of containers clogging warehouses at port terminals. As containers piled up with retailers and on docks, the available pool of chassis used to transport containers was dwindling.

Sherwood repeatedly urged the parties to "self-help" and work out the problems as best they could.

Hanjin's collapse could also hit the bottom line at several companies as it came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season.

But import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports should be at near-peak levels for September, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

"Hanjin should not significantly affect volume for the month since alternative arrangements to unload those containers or shift cargo elsewhere should be dealt with by the time the numbers are tallied," NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

"Merchandise is in limbo at the moment and retailers are working hard to make sure it ends up on store shelves in time for the holidays."

The shipping line has filed for so-called U.S. Chapter 15 bankruptcy, which allows a company to seek recognition by U.S. courts of orders issued overseas.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Samsung Electronics on Saturday urged consumers to stop using Galaxy Note 7 smartphones immediately and exchange them as soon as possible as more reports of the phones catching fire emerged even after the companys global recall.

The call from the South Korean company, the worlds largest smartphone maker, comes after U.S. authorities urged consumers to switch their Galaxy Note 7 phones off and not to use or charge them during a flight. Several airlines around the world asked travelers not switch on the jumbo smartphone or put it in checked baggage, with some carriers banning the phone on flights.

In a statement posted on its website, Samsung asked users around the world to immediately return their existing Galaxy Note 7s and get a replacement.

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We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note 7s and exchange them as soon as possible, Koh Dong-jin, Samsungs mobile president, said in the statement. We are expediting replacement devices so that they can be provided through the exchange program as conveniently as possible.

Consumers can visit Samsungs service centers to receive rental phones for temporary use. Samsung plans to provide Galaxy Note 7 devices with new batteries in South Korea starting Sept. 19, but schedules for other countries vary.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced an unprecedented recall of 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s worldwide just two weeks after the phone was launched. That move came after Samsungs investigation into reports of fires found that rechargeable lithium batteries manufactured by one of its suppliers were faulty.

The U.S. was among the first countries to take a step following the recall. Late Friday, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urged owners of the phone to turn them off and leave them off. It also said it was working with Samsung and hoped to have an official recall as soon as possible.

The recall by the safety commission will allow the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to ban passengers from carrying the phones on planes. The FAA already warned airline passengers late Thursday not to turn on or charge the Galaxy Note 7 during flights and not to put the phone in their checked bags.

Scandinavian Airlines said Saturday that it has prohibited passengers from using the Galaxy Note 7 on its flights because of concerns about fires. Singapore Airlines has also banned the use or charging of the device during flights.

Samsung said it had confirmed 35 cases of the Galaxy Note 7 catching fire as of Sept. 1, most of them occurring while the battery was being charged.

There are at least two more cases that Samsung said it is aware of  one in Perth, Australia, and another in St. Petersburg, Fla., where a family reported that a Galaxy Note 7 left charging in their Jeep had caught fire, destroying the vehicle.

Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7 on Aug. 19. The Galaxy Note series is one of the most expensive lineups made by Samsung.

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Despite a blockbuster settlement announced Thursday, Wells Fargo isnt done fighting allegations that its aggressive sales culture pushed employees to create accounts that customers never authorized.

The San Francisco banking giant still faces lawsuits from customers who say they were harmed by the banks practices, as well as from former employees who claim that they were were fired or forced to quit when they wouldnt resort to breaking rules to meet the banks strict sales quotas.

Thursdays settlement included consent orders from regulators that laid out a damning case against Wells Fargo and its practices  and might seem to strengthen the civil suits. In fact, attorneys for customers in one case announced a settlement with the bank the same day the deal with federal regulators was announced.

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But in other cases  and its not clear how many there might be  the settlement may play no role at all. Although Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in penalties, the bank did not admit wrongdoing. Whats more, parts of the settlement might not be admissible in court.

From a legal standpoint, it probably doesnt help, said Bruce Simon, a San Francisco attorney who specializes in financial cases but who is not involved in the Wells Fargo cases. But from an optics standpoint, it makes it sound like where theres smoke theres fire.

Michael P. Kade, a Los Angeles attorney representing nine former Wells Fargo employees in a case filed in 2014, agreed that elements of the settlement may not be admissible.

Still, he said, if a judge allows some parts of it to be considered, it could influence jurors.

The jury can make up their minds as to why a party that was so adamant it did nothing wrong all of a sudden decides to pay millions of dollars in fines, he said.

Kades clients have accused the bank of a handful of labor law violations, including wrongful termination and failure to pay overtime, all related to the aggressive sales practices detailed in a 2013 Los Angeles Times investigation and later seized on by regulators.

In the suit, the workers allege that they were encouraged by Wells Fargo regional executives to open unneeded ghost accounts for customers, to order credit cards without customers permission and to forge clients signatures on paperwork in order to meet their sales quotas.

The former employees say they werent paid for overtime hours they put in as they tried to meet unrealistic sales goals handed down by the banks higher-ups. Whats more, the employees say they were fired or forced to quit when they did not meet those sales goals and refused to create fake accounts or use other fraudulent means to do so.

Those practices were also cited in a lawsuit filed last year by L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer and further detailed in regulatory orders released Thursday by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal bank regulator, as part of the $185-million settlement.

Regulators, citing figures from a Wells Fargo internal investigation, said bank employees may have opened more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts without customers authorization, a staggering sum that regulators said was the result of incentives that encouraged workers to open more accounts at all costs.

The banks attorneys in the case filed by former employees did not return calls for comment, but in court filings have denied all of the employees allegations.

The case is expected to go before a mediator later this year and, if the parties cannot agree on a settlement, could go to trial next year.

Although that case may eventually go to trial, suits filed by Wells Fargo customers over fake accounts have not made it that far. As at many other banks, Wells Fargo customers sign a contract requiring them to bring any disputes with the bank to a private arbitrator rather than to court.

Those arbitration clauses have stymied customers attempts to sue the bank, even over accounts they never agreed to open.

But one such case, rejected by a federal district court in San Francisco and later appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, could soon be headed toward a settlement rather than to arbitration.

After regulators announced their settlements with Wells Fargo on Thursday, attorneys that have brought a class-action against the bank on behalf of customers said they had reached a settlement of their own with the bank.

Details of the settlement, which must be approved by the lower court, were not disclosed. Attorneys representing Wells Fargo did not return calls for comment.

Our clients  are pleased Wells Fargo decided to make things right with its customers, Derek Loeser, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, said in a statement late Thursday.

james.koren@latimes.com

Follow me: @jrkoren

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Is a repressive 19th century drama from a newbie director the most radical movie of the season?

Ever since his Lady Macbeth  a 19th century re-imagining of a Russian novella about an arranged marriage  became one of the conversation pieces at the Toronto International Film Festival, director William Oldroyd has found himself having an unusual conversation.

Filmgoers whove seen his movie and expected (or apparently dont know much about) William Shakespeare have been wondering what happened to Duncan, Banquo and the rest of the gang.

I know it sounds funny, but Ive had people come up and say to me, This isnt anything like the play,  Oldroyd recalled in an interview. And I have to pause and think about what to say. I mean, its not an adaptation of the [Shostakovich] opera either. Its not really anything traditional.

The director isnt kidding.

This is already shaping up as a film year of a particular trend: complex female characters reacting provocatively to sexual repression and assault. Movies such as Elle, with Isabelle Huppert, and Una, with Rooney Mara, both confound simple victim narratives in ways that are honest or dangerous, depending on your point of view.

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For Sale: Historic Country Estate, fixer upper but comes with all furnishings and antiques intact. Perfect for a young family looking to get away from the stresses of city life after a rough year. Notable features include waxy mustard walls, imposing spiral staircase, medieval light fixtures and a secret attic chamber for imprisoning deformed children known as a disappointments room. Sure to drive your traumatized, grieving and mentally unstable wife mad.

Prison Break star-turned-screenwriter Wentworth Miller and director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) have penned a decidedly retro haunted house vehicle for star Kate Beckinsale in The Disappointments Room  down to the Stephen King-inspired font of the title sequence. Playing on the tried and true themes of motherhood and female mental illness, The Disappointments Room is a grief story masquerading as a ghost story.

Seeking a respite and stability after a tragedy, brilliant but troubled architect Dana (Beckinsale) and her family relocate to the creepiest country estate on the market. Though shes instantly troubled by visions and nightmares, she is pressured into ignoring her instincts by her husband David (Mel Raido), like John Cassavetes in Rosemarys Baby.

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Is it all in her head? The film would like you to question that. The country home certainly seems haunted, with its horrific history and spectral visions of young girls in yellow dresses and stern old-timey men. But an inconsistent perspective fails to adequately argue that these are just hallucinations rather than a real haunting.

The script telegraphs things, but also often descends into incoherence. It tries to be too many things at once, and ends up being nothing. Beckinsale brings star power to a rather flimsy role, but this spooky house flick would be better off locked up in the attic and forgotten for good.

-------------

The Disappointments Room

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

MPAA rating: R for violent content, bloody images, some sexuality and language.

Playing: In general release
Devon Terrell had spent the previous 24 hours in epic transit  from Australia to Abu Dhabi to New York and, finally, to Toronto  but fatigue is never an impediment to a good Barack Obama impersonation.

My grandmother, Toot, he said, launching into perfect Obamacadence of a bit from the not-yet-politicians 1995 book-tour stop.

Ill do them all the time, Terrell said, back in his native Australian accent as he finally relaxed, sans drink, at a Toronto hotel bar late Friday. No matter who asks. Literally anyone on the street. No amount of times is too much.

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Terrell may feel differently soon. On Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, the 23-year-old will be seen for the first time as a young Obama in the new scripted biopic Barry. The screening is likely to generate attention both for itself and its unknown actor; Terrell pulls off a performance of such ease and nuance that audiences may briefly flicker with the thought theyre watching archival footage.

Directed and co-written by the Vice reporter Vikram Gandhi, Barry centers on several key, if imagined, months in the Columbia University juniors life circa 1981, after he transferred from Los Angeles Occidental College. More Linklaterish identity quest than audience-congratulating prequel  Boyhood star Ellar Coltrane even turns up for a supporting part  the film is a study in race and belonging at a moment when both issues are riding high in the public consciousness.

FULL COVERAGE: Toronto International Film Festival 

A post-adolescent Obama can be seen reluctantly debating Young Republicans in a political theory class. Ditto for him edging slowly into a playground hoops game, visiting a blue-blood Connecticut wedding of his new white girlfriend (Anya Taylor-Joy), verbally jousting with street-corner preachers, standing up to a hyper-vigilant security guard and trying to figure out how he fits in on the privileged campus  all in what might be described as a roiling but stoic quest.

Its not my scene, a young Obama tells someone outside a frat party.

So what is your scene? hes asked.

Im still trying to figure that out, he replies.

Gandhi was motivated to make the film because he felt Obama was a perfect vehicle to explore notions of self; both the presidents mixed-race background and the mystery surrounding that period of his life made him conducive to investigation. For Gandhi, a New Yorker of Indian extraction who himself attended Columbia, Barry was a natural fit for his second feature.

Terrells route to the movie was more circuitous. To learn how to portray dislocation he first had to experience it himself.

On his first night in New York, the apartment key Gandhi gave him didnt work, an event parallel to Obamas displacement when he first arrived in the city. It really could have been like 'really, theres no movie, and its just a reality show to see how youd react, Terrell said. Yes, it was all a big prank, deadpanned Gandhi, sitting across from him.

Other manner of disorientation soon followed. Terrell, a good hoops player, went to a nearby playground for a kind of informal rehearsal of several of the movies scenes but found himself afraid to shoot because he felt like an outsider. (A Columbia sweatshirt he made a point of buying and donning probably didnt help; the regulars called each other family and him Blue Sweatshirt.)

Terrell then sat next to students in the library at Columbia  he secured a temporary ID that allowed him to roam freely  and was struck by their studiousness. The idea of so many people so glued to books was intense, said Terrell, who attending acting school but not college after graduating from high school. He pressed on, sometimes even speaking to them as Obama; he would soon meet students whose parents had been in classes with the future president.

I felt a little out of place. But it was OK, because it made me imagine how Obama felt.  Devon Terrell

I felt a little out of place, Terrell said. But it was OK, because it made me imagine how Obama felt.

Gandhi saw in all these actions a peculiarly intense commitment. Devon was pretty jacked when he came to New York. One day I saw him drinking potassium and asked him why. He said it was because it could help with lankiness, and he knew Obama was lankier. Gandhi paused. I mean, who does that? Takes vitamin supplements so he could walk more like a president?

The son of an African American father and Anglo Indian mother, Terrell spent his first five years in Long Beach, but moved to Perth, Australia, where he still lives. His arrival in New York to shoot Barry was, he thought, a homecoming of sorts after a childhood in which African Americans, especially those of mixed race, were not common. But he said he soon found racial politics abounded in the U.S. too  on all sides, including with darker-skinned African Americans who sometimes would treat him warily.

Terrell wears glasses and something of a 5 oclock shadow, and in person he both radiates charm and suppresses uncertainty in a manner one might expect from an Obama-esque ethnic hybrid. Like Obama, Terrell also seemed to come out of nowhere. His one previous acting gig was as the lead in a Steve McQueen HBO pilot, Codes of Conduct, that never aired; Gandhi and other independent directors have just heard whisperings about the role. Before Barry, Terrell had never been seen onscreen. Hes barely ever done an interview. (He is not to be confused with Devvon Terrell, a burgeoning R&B artist.)

Terrell had said he actually dreamed about playing Obama for years, even telling a family member a long time ago that, perhaps because of his mixed background, it would be an ideal role.

To prepare every morning, he watched the 56-minute speech at a Cambridge, Mass., library from which the My grandmother, Toot bit comes. Hed sometimes talk to people on the subway in character as Obama, just to see their reaction.

Still, he was aware that it all could play as mythmaking, especially in the likely gauzier post-presidency period in which the currently undistributed film will come out  and said he consciously sought to avoid going too larger-than-life.

You dont want it to be like this is an iconic guy, and you know it, because of course he didnt know that. He was just like so many young people who come to a big city, trying to figure out who they are.

Asked what, given the opportunity, he might ask of the real-life present-day Obama, Terrell paused and then said with a grin: Was I close enough?

On Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT

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For The Birth of a Nation director Nate Parker, the past month has been one of the most turbulent an Oscar contender has ever faced. New details involving Parkers 15-year-old sexual-assault trial have spurred a flood of op-ed pieces  including our own, by Birth actress Gabrielle Union  along with questions about the Oscar race, not to mention his character.

But if such tribulations were on Parkers  or audiences  minds Friday night, you wouldnt know it from what unfolded. In two high-profile screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, the filmmaker and his ensemble faced audiences with all of the spirit they possessed before the scandal, and none of the questions since.

Nina Simone has this quote where she says the artists job is to reflect the times, and I think as artists we all got together and understood the possibility that could come from a film like this, and then we all worked hard to make it happen, Parker said, one of several triumphant comments amid a very enthusiastic reception.

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FULL COVERAGE: Toronto International Film Festival 

Of about a dozen audience and moderator questions during the course of two screenings, none were about the allegations from when Parker was a student at Penn State; many were of the What message do you want people to take from this film? variety. Im not saying we should all go out and do what Nat Turner did, he said. He had an ax and a broom. We have more tools. But he stood against a system thats oppressing people. What are we willing to give up for our children and our childrens children?

Indeed, very few moments at either of the screenings, both of which included standing ovations, felt very different from what might have transpired before the scandal broke, validating at least for the moment distributor Fox Searchlights choice to pursue a business-as-usual promotion strategy with its chief Oscar contender.

TIFF is known for its generous audiences. And artistic director Cameron Bailey, who moderated both post-screening Q&As, seemed determined to plow ahead with questions about race and the movie as one would after any other festival screening.

Still, the absence of any protesters in the room or sign that ordinary viewers were thinking about the directors character offered a striking contrast to the spirited online conversation of the past month, even as that silence in a way only seemed to underscore questions about whether Parker can, or should, carry on with the months-long Oscar tour that follows the Toronto kickoff. (Those questions will be answered more immediately at the festival with a print press conference Sunday.)

If there was a shift in strategy in evidence on Friday night, it was that Parker seemed to focus on his team a little more than in the past. Several times in each Q&A, Parker turned to the group of some 20 cast and crew onstage with him and asked them to weigh in  a switch of sorts from the press of Sundance and other times before the controversy, which focused far more on Parkers long odyssey to make the film.

At one point, when he was talking about the importance of Turners story, Parker threw a question to co-star Aja Naomi King, with Aja, do you want to speak to this? The actress then said, I wish I could have seen this [film] when I was in high school when I was feeling inadequate and just not enough, noting that she was proud to be a part of something that could give that story to some other young child.

On the question of Turners legacy, co-star Roger Guenveur Smith weighed in. I think we should know that Nat Turner wasnt an anomaly and was part of a tradition of resistance which began in the Western Hemisphere in the year 1492, he said,. Nat Turner and his comrades recognized in 1831, a long time ago, that indeed, black lives do matter.

The strategic thinking was clear: The film contains an eloquent and diverse cast, so why not put it front and center both to broaden the movies appeal and take some of the scrutiny off Parker?

To what extent that pivot is possible for a man who  as outspoken director, lead actor, producer, fundraiser and all-around champion  is so bound up with this movie remains to be seen.

In one case, at least, such a pivot could have been delicate. When Parker turned to Union on a question, she used it to describe a potential moment of atonement for the director. In comments that were ostensibly about Turner and racial consciousness but seemed also to be aimed at our feelings about the director, she said,. Were all capable of evolution, adding, until he knew better he didnt do better.

(Union also had the most political moment of the night when she connected the film to a different set of headlines: If youre wondering about Colin Kaepernick and if hes [on] the right side of history, she said, theres nothing more patriotic than resistance  thats the story and legacy of Nat Turner.)

To anyone with even a remote knowledge of Parkers rape trial and its aftermath, the fact that it wasnt addressed at all played out like a slightly surreal alternative universe, portending an award season in which questions will hover over many of Parkers many appearances even when no one brings them up.

Meanwhile, whenever Parker brought up faith or the Bible, it cast him on the moral high ground, a position that inadvertently but inevitably leads listeners to thoughts of the directors own character.

Parker did steer the conversation back to himself at one point  sort of.

The director is black, the filmmaker said. That speaks to something about whos telling the story, whos controlling the narrative.

With the Birth tour set to roll out, who will get to control its directors narrative still remains to be seen.

Mark.Olsen@latimes.com

Steve.Zeitchik@latimes.com

@ZeitchikLAT

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In a world brimming with beautiful women of all races, shapes, sizes and colors, why cant the fashion industry  one of the worlds more creative and forward-minded industries  move past its stubborn beauty standards of super skinny, super young white women?

With many eyes glued to coverage of New York Fashion Week, it will be surprising to see which models walk the runways in one of the most diverse cities in the world.

Fashion designer Zac Posen, a leader in the push toward a more diverse fashion industry, staunchly promotes the inclusivity ideal.

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For me, it has never been a fight as Ive always found women of all races, sizes and ages beautiful and inspiring, says the 35-year-old designer whos scheduled to show his spring/summer 17 collection on Sept. 12 during fashion week.

Posens fall/winter 16 show was championed as successfully diverse, and he also made a bold populist statement with a Black Models Matter tote bag slung across his shoulder, a photo of which was posted on Instagram to social media cheers.

Its always been natural to me as I grew up in New York City in SoHo in the 80s so diversity was and is normality, he says. Its essential to me because its part of my company and design DNA.

However, many brands are not as culturally diverse as Posens. Though improving, the fashion runways statistics on inclusivity remain bleak. According to the popular website the Fashion Spot, which collected data on the global spring 2016 season, of the 373 shows and 9,926 model appearances in New York, London, Paris and Milan, 77.6% of the models were white.

Plus-size fashion blogger Marie Denee, left, hosts a fashion show at Nordstrom in Costa Mesas South Coast Plaza mall. (Christina House / For The Times )

Plus-size models trailed far behind with only .1% of the total  or just 14 plus-size models on runways across all cities. Five models older than 50  or a slim .05% of models  walked the runways, lower than the transgender model category, which made up .06% of the runway models for those shows.

How did the fashion runways become so uniform? They havent always been so, according to former top model Bethann Hardison, who was one of the first black models to walk a runway in Europe, including at the Battle of Versailles fashion show in 1973.

Hardison, a fashion industry activist, says, If you knew us back in the 1960s and 1970s  and even into the 80s and early 90s, you wouldnt ask that question. There were so many girls of color working back then. There was so much diversity. But then the business changed.

Hardison says she noticed the change on the runways during the 90s, when aspirational marketing aimed at white consumers gained a stronger footing in the fashion scene, particularly with the rise of European luxury brands such as Gucci and Prada.

At the same time, she says casting agents and stylists took over the job of hiring runway models from the designers and their teams, who once directly hired models. Think of it like a casting system now similar to Hollywoods, another creative industry with diversity problems.

Hardison says that as liberal as new casting agents and stylists appeared to be, they didnt include many people of color. As a result, she says, [Casting agents and stylists] went looking for models [who looked] like themselves.

Tyra Banks, a top model of the 1990s who went on to TV reality fame, is shown at the 97 Grammy Awards (Kathy Willens / Associated Press )

The 90s also were a time when top models of color such as Tyra Banks and Karen Alexander began pursuing other career goals without too many younger women of color stepping into their runway footsteps. (Vogue reported this week that Alexander, now 50, recently signed with IMG Models.)

At the same time, magazine editors scaled back on using models on covers and began replacing those cover girls with celebrities. With fewer magazine covers given to models, particularly models of color, the diversity just dried up, says Hardison.

Replacing models with celebrities has continued ever since. Look no further than some of the fashion advertising that features well-known names  several belonging to people of color. For example, Rihanna fronts Dior; shes the first black woman used in the Parisian houses 70-year history. Other celebrity/fashion tie-ins have included Alicia Keys and Givenchy; Lupita Nyongo and Miu Miu; and Kanye West and Balmain. (On a side note, Wests Yeezy label, a collaboration with Adidas, had a fashion show on Sept. 7 that primarily used models of color.)

But is that enough to spur real industry change or does having a celebrity of color in a few fashion campaigns mask the bigger diversity problem plaguing the fashion scene?

Perhaps better answers will come from younger industry leaders. Theres hope especially with designers such as Posen, Christian Siriano and Brandon Maxwell showing diverse women in their ads and social media posts and on their runways.

Not all women want to be skinny, young and white.  Melinda Parrish, model

The fashion industry might also address the need for a wider range of ages and body types on runways and in campaigns. While the industry promotes notable women such as Joan Didion for Celine and Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent, the message is still clear: If youre old, youre out.

Says Ari Seth Cohen, a Los Angeles-based photographer and blogger of older street-style fashionistas under his Advanced Style brand: [Fashion] is a product of ageist ideology and the pervasive idea that once we hit a certain age we become invisible; that we should give up, stop dressing up and fade away. I never understood why brands entirely ignore older women.

However, he says social media is helping to change this although more can be done.

Social media has been a bright spot when it comes to exposure for models of color as well as older and plus-size models, who are spurred on today via Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. As a result of the popularity of some plus-size models, for example, fashion brands are starting to recognize that women of all sizes want to buy clothes that arent an afterthought. After all, theres an estimated 67% of women in the U.S. who wear a size 14 or larger.

Social media has also helped level the playing field for women traditionally left out of the mainstream and luxury fashion markets. Online, women see a bold and global cocktail of races, cultures, ethnicities, sizes, shapes and sexual orientations in other women who appear beautiful, who love fashion and yet exist outside the tightly controlled runway, editorial and advertising visions of what constitutes beauty.

Not all women want to be skinny, young and white, says Melinda Parrish, a Washington, D.C.-based plus-size model signed to Ford Models agency in Chicago and Miami. What were starting to see now is: What do plus-size women think of as fantasy and what [do they] define as aspirational?

Hardison says continuing to address the topic of diversity likely will be a struggle for society, but she believes there will be a shift in the fashion industry in the years ahead. (After all, according to U.S. Census statistics, the countrys population is expected to include considerably more people of color by 2060, and millennials are generally regarded as more open-minded than previous generations.)

Everything has a tipping point  including the fashion industry, Hardison says.

image@latimes.com
The odds were not on the side of citizens who wanted to save 401 acres of coastal Orange County land from being turned into a small city with more than a thousand homes, a resort, commercial properties and open space.

They were up against Big Oil and real estate companies with clout, pockets as deep as oil wells, and teams of high-priced lawyers and lobbyists.

They were up against a Newport Beach City Council and Chamber of Commerce that cheered on the oil company and its real estate partners.

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They were up against a Coastal Commission that had fired the director who said a big development would deliver a crushing blow to plant and wildlife on a critical, fragile environment.

And as they tried to recruit fellow citizens to their cause, they were up against a lack of awareness.

But last week, David smacked Goliath in the chops.

The citizens brigade broke into applause late Wednesday evening when coastal commissioners rejected the roughly $1-billion Newport Banning Ranch project on a 9-1 vote that left several members of the development team stricken.

I dont generally show a lot of emotion, said Steve Ray, executive director of the Banning Ranch Conservancy, which fought the project for years. But I kind of stood up and let out a big whoop! and turned around and fist-pumped the crowd, and the cheering just got louder.

This is the last large, undeveloped, privately owned space on the Southern California coast, and Ray and his allies have a radical vision that it ought to remain that way. Instead of million-dollar homes and a luxury resort, they want the oil-damaged brownfield overlooking the Pacific Ocean restored, with plant and animal life protected.

Ray and his cohorts expect more challenges ahead. The developers might contest the rejection in court, or try to push through a revised development on the partially-functioning, partially-degraded oil field they own. Despite the lopsided vote against the project, some coastal commissioners indicated they think there should be some type of development there. So what the opponents celebrated Wednesday was a significant victory in an ongoing war.

The opposition had to have figured into the decision, though we dont know how big a factor it was. Still, looking back to the beginning of the citizen uprising, there are lessons in how to take on powerful forces.

It all began with Terry Welsh, a young physician who played a minor role in helping to save the nearby Bolsa Chica wetlands from a massive development pitch. Among Welshs mentors was fellow physician and revered environmentalist Jan Vandersloot, who was soft-spoken, hard-working and passionate about conservation.

In 1999, Welsh learned of a plan to develop Newport Banning Ranch, and he set up a monthly task force with the help of a local Sierra Club chapter.

Things did not begin particularly well.

There were at least two times where it was just me and one other person in the room, said Welsh.

But he did what theyd done in Bolsa Chica. He kept at it, modeling the late Vandersloots calm, steadfast resolve.

If I could tell anybody anything about trying to preserve open space, you have to have monthly meetings and stick with it, and youll create a movement, said Welsh. Itll start taking on a life of its own. Critical mass.

Soon the gatherings were held at local restaurants, including the Spaghetti Bender. And then the Mesa Verde United Methodist Church joined the cause and offered space for the monthly meetings.

Ray, who had also volunteered at Bolsa Chica, was winding down his career as a movie producer and hooked up with Welsh in 2008, when they designed a strategy for the nonprofit Banning Ranch Conservancy. Ray, whod been a Marine Corps special operations officer, helped draw up a plan whose objective was not just to stop development on Banning Ranch, but to buy, restore and conserve the property. While Banning Ranch is private property, they argue the states coastal act prohibits development there, a point the landowners strongly dispute.

One lesson Ray had taken from the Bolsa Chica victory was that you gotta do the science, so you have some credibility when you appear before regulators or challenge developers claims about whether the property is an environmentally sensitive habitat.

If you talk to Terry about the science of vernal pools or burrowing owls, said Ray, youll think youre talking to a guy with a PhD.

Welsh wasnt the only one who educated himself well enough to speak with authority about what  despite the environmental damage caused by the owners  has been called an invaluable mesa and wetlands ecosystem that is one of the last of its kind in California.

Software company owner Kevin Nelson, whod grown up riding his bike past the property on his way to the beach, studied and challenged developer claims about the ecology, and whether the land owners were destroying habitat by mowing vegetation down to the nub.

When the amateur scientists needed backup, they went to pros including Robb Hamilton and Pete Bloom, who offered expertise on the threatened owl habitat, among other things.

Cindy Black, a retired federal agricultural technician, pulled records on the exact location of active and abandoned oil wells and their proximity to wildlife. She bought a used camera on Craigslist for $125 and began photographing owls and their burrows.

Suzanne Forster, Wendy Leece and Dorothy Kraus began what they called the Quality of Life Coalition and went door-to-door to warn of the noise, toxic dust and gridlock the project would cause.

The Banning Ranch Conservancys supporters havent always agreed on strategies, Welsh said, and some have formed their own groups. But thats often been complementary, he added.

Last fall, as developers moved forward with their plans, Costa Mesa resident Olga Zapata-Reynolds, an elementary school teacher, started Saving Banning Ranch Together and began knocking on doors to make her pitch. She challenged the developers claims that they couldnt afford to provide public access, restore habitat and clean up the mess theyd caused on the oil field unless a huge money-making development was approved.

Zapata-Reynolds field marshals included Nova Wheeler, Bill McCarty and Isabelle Phillips. Together they produced educational videos, joined a boat parade to market their mission, set up a phone tree and spent long hours handing out leaflets on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Olgas daughter Arlis Reynolds, a mechanical engineer, helped launch a social media campaign to pull young people into the brigade, and the new recruits spread the word that the project would bring more million-dollar homes to an already-cluttered and congested coast with limited open space and little affordable housing. The mother-daughter team also reached out to Angela Mooney DArcy of the Sacred Places Institute to tell the story of Native American history on Banning Ranch.

I can honestly say we talked to thousands of people, said Olga, who now counts surfers and young Greenpeace members such as Matthew Forth and Linda Rodriguez among her friends.

The future of Banning Ranch remains in doubt, as the developers decide what to do next.

The tireless citizens brigade is prepared to march again, if necessary, in the spirit of like-minded activists who rose up statewide four decades ago in support of the proposition that protects the entire coast of California.

But on Wednesday night, Terry Welsh, Steve Ray, Olga Zapata-Reynolds and hundreds of others stood and cheered as the vote was counted and the little guys won.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez

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Republicans went on the attack Saturday after Hillary Clinton, during remarks at a fundraiser late Friday night, said that you could put half of [Donald] Trumps supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, which she referred to as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic  you name it.

In tweets, speeches and press statements, Trump, his running mate Mike Pence, and Republican officials accused Clinton of elitism and disrespect. Pence, the Indiana governor, said Clinton had insulted hardworking Americans.

Hillary, they are not a basket of anything. They are Americans, and they deserve your respect, Pence said during a speech to the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.

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The dueling statements increased the focus on racial and ethnic tension that already has dominated the 2016 campaign, often to Trumps detriment. This time, however, it was Republicans who thought their opponent had wandered into political damaging territory.

Pence said Clintons low opinion of the American people disqualified her from being elected president. The men and women who support Donald Trumps campaign are hardworking Americans  farmers, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community  members of every class of this country, who know that we can make America great again, he said.

The Republican criticism prompted a quick, but partial, apology from Clinton, who said in a statement released early Saturday: Last night I was grossly generalistic, and thats never a good idea. I regret saying half -- that was wrong.

But Clinton went on to say that Trump had nevertheless repeatedly engaged in deplorable behavior throughout his campaign. She cited his attacks on a federal judges Mexican heritage, his comments about the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq, and his role as a leader of the birther movement that wrongly claimed President Obama was not born in the United States.

I wont stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign, Clinton said.

In a call with reporters organized by the Republican National Committee, Trump supporters said that Clinton had been caught saying in private something she would not have said in public.

Her comment was reprehensible, despicable, yet revealing, said Cleveland Pastor Darrell Scott. She was basically caught. She wasnt expecting this to get out, he said. It demonstrates the type of person she really is.

In fact, however, Clintons aides had invited reporters to watch her remarks at the fundraiser  something they often do not do (and Trumps campaign almost never does)  and she had previously used a version of the deplorable remark in an interview.

All that suggests the remark may not have been one the campaign was trying to hide.

Indeed, some Republican strategists suggested that a campaign discussion of whether some of Trumps supporters are racist  and, if so, how many  might be advantageous to Clinton.

This has to do with really trying to make swing voters uncomfortable with the idea of associating with the racist and anti-intellectual voters that make up the energy of the Trump base, said GOP operative Rob Stutzman, who is supporting neither Clinton nor Trump.

He said that at first blush Clintons comment appears mildly stupid, but added: I dont think its damaging at all.

Whats most telling is her apology where she apologized for saying half. When you get into swing-voter world, I think it makes sense for her to make swing voters uncomfortable with the racist and uneducated hue of the voters that are part of his base.

Trumps camp clearly hoped the remark would be this years version of the 47% of the people line that clung to Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

In a recording from a private fundraising event that year, Romney could be heard saying that 47% of Americans would automatically vote for President Obama because they were dependent on government.

But the impact such events can have on a presidential campaign is often overstated.

The 2012 campaign, for example, also featured a remark by Obama  that entrepreneurs who created a successful business didnt build that on their own  which Republicans believed would help them.

Party strategists felt so strongly about that remark that they structured an entire day of their nominating convention around it. In the end, you didnt build that had no noticeable impact on the outcome.

Even the 47% remark had less impact on the final vote than it appeared to have at the time, public opinion research has found.

Moreover, part of the sting of the 47% remark was that it disparaged people whose votes Romney was seeking  working-class Americans who might at one point have received government benefits and might resent being referred to as being dependent. Clinton, by contrast, hasnt been actively trying to get votes from Americans who harbor strong racial animosities.

The comments in question came as Clinton introduced Barbra Streisand during Friday nights fundraiser with gay and lesbian supporters in New York. During her remarks, she talked about the years volatile political environment and said that to be grossly generalistic, Trumps supporters could be put into two categories.

One, she said, was the basket of deplorables.

Unfortunately there are people like that, she said, and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people  now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.

The other group, she said, are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and theyre just desperate for change.

They dont buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different, she added. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Trump turned to Twitter to broadcast his response to Clinton, predicting that her words would harm her standing in the election.

Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard-working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls! Trump tweeted Saturday. While Hillary said horrible things about my supporters, and while many of her supporters will never vote for me, I still respect them all!

Clinton responded by tweeting back at Trump a list of groups he has disparaged.

Except for African Americans, Muslims, Latinos, immigrants, women, veteransand any so-called losers or dummies,  she tweeted.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

For the latest on national and California politics, follow @LATSeema on Twitter.

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5:15 p.m.: This article was updated with changes throughout.

1:55 p.m.: This article was updated with more comments by GOP operative Rob Stutzman.

This article was originally published at 1:35 p.m.
Los Angeles police are seeking two men in connection with the slaying of a 19-year-old Canadian woman who was stabbed to death in 1969, just a few miles from the most infamous of the Manson family killings.

Sketches of the men were released Friday by the Los Angeles Police Department and are based on new information collected from a witness in Montreal.

The drawings show how the men might have looked in 1969, when the body of the then-unidentified woman  stabbed 150 times in the upper torso and neck  was discovered by a child on Mulholland Drive, not far from the Benedict Canyon home where actress Sharon Tate and four others had been stabbed to death a few months earlier, in August 1969.

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The Canadian womans slaying has long been suspected of being tied to the Manson family murders, but as of April of this year, police still had no concrete evidence linking the killings.

We believed that Reet was probably in search of more autonomy, and therefore we waited for her to get in touch with us.  Anne Jurvetson, sister of Reet, who was slain in 1969

Detectives began reinvestigating the killing in 2003, after a retired LAPD cold-case investigator turned up a DNA sample, said LAPD Det. Luis Rivera. That sample, along with photographs of the victim, led investigators to her sister, and eventually, a positive ID was made.

Little was known about the young woman, Reet Jurvetson, after she traveled to Los Angeles in 1969. She came to meet a friend named John or Jean, Rivera said. She initially kept in sporadic touch with her family. As time passed without contact, her relatives became concerned, but they never filed a missing persons report, he said.

Her sister, Anne, the only remaining relative in Jurvetsons immediate family, recently created a website to help solve her sisters killing. She posted photos of Reet as a teenager: celebrating her church confirmation, lounging on a sofa, smiling in a family portrait.

She describes the young woman as adventurous but naive, part of an Estonian refugee family who fled to Canada during World War II.

Attempts were made to reach her, but they proved fruitless, she wrote. Initially, we believed that Reet was probably in search of more autonomy, and therefore we waited for her to get in touch with us.

As years passed, Anne said, the family imagined her sister had made a new life for herself. No one suspected the young woman had been killed, she said.

When Anne found out about her sisters slaying, it was devastating, she wrote.

The witness in Montreal provided new details in July about the friend named John or Jean.

The witness remembers meeting Reet Jurvetson and the man at a cafe in Montreal, police said. The witness also provided information on an associate, a shorter man with a Beatles-type haircut who might also have been named Jean.

Authorities said Friday that Anne Jurvetson had recently found a postcard sent by her sister about two weeks before she was killed.

Dated Oct. 31, 1969, it read:

Dear Mother and Father, The weather is nice and the people are kind. I have a nice little apartment. I go frequently to the beach. Please write to me. Hugs, Reet.

The postcard was sent from an apartment in Hollywood. The building, on Melrose Avenue, used to be the Paramount Hotel, but it was demolished in 1989 and replaced with a new structure.

Detectives initially suspected the Manson family of Jurvetsons killing because their other victims had been stabbed to death, Rivera said, and Jurvetsons death occurred about the time of the cult killings.

Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi said in his 1974 book Helter Skelter that he believed Jane Doe No. 59  as Jurvetson was then known  was killed because she had witnessed another suspected Manson family slaying, the death of John Phillip Haught.

Investigators initially believed Haught died playing Russian roulette in Venice in November 1969. But Simon Wells, author of the Manson biography Coming Down Fast, found out that Manson family members were present when Haught died.

Manson and his followers eventually were convicted of killing nine people during a bloody rampage in the Los Angeles area in August 1969. Prosecutors said Manson and his followers were trying to incite a race war that he believed was prophesied in the Beatles song Helter Skelter.

Last year, LAPD investigators interviewed Manson at Corcoran State Prison, where he is incarcerated, but Manson did not provide any additional information, according to Capt. Billy Hayes, commander of the Robbery Homicide Division.

Talking to Charlie is like talking to a wall, Hayes said.

Prosecutors and Manson scholars have always believed the group was responsible for slayings beyond the nine for which they were convicted.

Manson is eligible for parole in 2027. Most of his followers remain jailed or have died.

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

@LATBermudez

Times staff writers James Queally and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

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This article was originally published at 6 a.m.
A woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles, on September 10, 2016, during the third and final day of the election (AFP Photo/)

Victoria (Seychelles) (AFP) - Voters in the tourism-dependent nation of Seychelles cast their ballots Saturday, the third and final day of a poll that may see the opposition win control of parliament for the first time in two decades.

Polls in the Indian Ocean nation kicked off Thursday to allow the roughly 70,000 registered voters of the archipelago nation of 115 islands to choose their representatives.

Voting began on the islands furthest away from the main island of Mahe, and its capital Victoria.

Mahe voted on Saturday, along with the two other main islands Praslin and La Digue. The three account for 98 percent of the archipelago's 90,000 people.

Voting appeared to have taken place peacefully though some booths closed behind schedule, possibly delaying first results, which are expected in the following hours.

"I hope that the process continues to be peaceful, that everyone goes to exercise their rights and goes home to await the final results, President James Michel told the Seychelles News Agency.

The main opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP) shunned the 2011 election claiming it would not be fair but is contesting this time.

SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in presidential elections in December 2015, losing to Michel by just 193 votes.

It marked the first time a candidate from the dominant Parti Lepep (meaning People's Party in the local Seychellois Creole language), in power since 1977, was forced into a second round.

Lepep has maintained a majority in parliament since the return of multiparty politics in 1993, but now the ascendant SNP hopes to take control.

In a bid to strengthen its showing, the SNP has partnered with four smaller opposition parties -- together known as The Seychellois Alliance and made up of former Lepep leaders -- to form the Seychellois Democratic Alliance (known by its creole acronym, LDS, standing for Linyon Demokratik Seselwa).

Together, opposition candidates won 52 percent of votes cast in the first round of December's presidential vote, but were then beaten in the run-off after failing to coalesce around a single candidate. They now hope to emulate that first round majority in this week's parliamentary vote.

Story continues

"If the voters vote as they did in the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition would have won. But if it is like the second round, there will be districts that will be in the balance," said Paul Chow, an economist and former MP.

Voters this week will choose just 25 directly-elected members of the National Assembly.

The remaining 10 members are allocated to each party according to its proportional representation in the parliamentary elections.
Good morning. It is Saturday, Sept. 10. Heres what you dont want to miss this weekend:

Violent city: San Bernardino has seen a major surge in violence this year, with 150 shootings and 47 slayings. The city is on track to have more murders than a year since 1995. Our city right now is bad. Its like everyone is on edge, and nobody really knows how were going to fix this, said one resident. Los Angeles Times

Day of terror: Graphic new details about the San Bernardino terrorist attack last December. Los Angeles Times

Charges for officers: Seven Northern California police officers will be charged with having sex with a teenager. The Alameda County District Attorneys Office is filing charges against officers with the Oakland and Livermore police departments and Contra Costa County Sheriffs Department. We left no stone unturned, Dist. Atty. Nancy E. OMalley said of the investigation into allegations a 19-year-old woman had sex with the officers in exchange for information on prostitution raids. Los Angeles Times

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Fireball investigation: Last weeks explosion of a Falcon rocket is still under investigation, said SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years, Musk wrote in a Twitter message. Reuters

Dark stories: There are some pretty dark things happening in Kern County. Its police force is one of the most dangerous in America. Its water supply is disorganized and widely contaminated. Many of its residents  particularly its immigrant farm-working population, many of them undocumented  lack access to adequate health care. Fusion

Future uncertain: An Orange County pediatrician who has become a nationally-known critic of vaccinations could lose his medical license. Dr. Bob Sears is accused of improperly excusing a toddler from immunizations. Los Angeles Times

Tagging a landmark: Someone tagged Angels Flight, the tiny rail line thats been out of service since 2013. The president of the Angels Flight Railway Foundation called it a tragedy. Curbed LA

Fire danger: Do you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7? If so, federal safety regulators say you should stop using it. The phones lithium-ion batteries have caught fire and exploded during normal use. Los Angeles Times

Closing act: Anaheim native Gwen Stefani will play the final show at the Irvine Meadows. For me to get up there and have this record and to have gone through what I went through last year, to end up back in Orange County and closing Irvine Meadows, its such a triumph for me, she said. Orange County Register

This weeks most popular stories in Essential California:

1. This photographer was in the right place at the right time to capture a gorgeous image of a bride and groom in Yosemite. NBC Bay Area

2. Kristin Smart disappeared 20 years ago from the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus. This week, FBI agents and sheriffs deputies announced they would excavate three sites near the universitys dorms. Its unclear whether this weeks activity will lead to a break in the case. Los Angeles Times

3. Brock Turner received a cold reception when he arrived in Ohio from jail. Buzzfeed

4. How did this family rack up $49,000 in fees and fines on an Orange County toll road? Orange County Register

5. The new Wilshire Grand points to the future of downtown L.A.s skyline. Los Angeles Times

ICYMI, here are this weeks Great Read

Danger zone: San Francisco is building massive amounts of new housing in areas that experts say could be in danger of a sea-level rise from the San Francisco Bay. Heres how developers and city officials are dealing with the threat. San Francisco Chronicle

Big fans. Yuge: Meet the real Trump housewives of Bel-Air. Donald Trump might not be that popular in California, but he has some outspoken friends in one of L.A.s richest communities.The group is largely dismissive of criticism that Trumps campaign has played off racial tensions (Black Lives Matter and all that bullshit) or that some of his supporters are motivated by bigotry (I was raised by a black nanny, theres no prejudice on my side). Politico

Cruise control: How Los Angeles, the birthplace of car culture, is planning to deal with the next transportation revolution: Self-driving cars. Curbed LA

Looking Ahead

SUNDAY: Various events across the region marking the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

MONDAY: A town hall meeting in Canoga Park on the issue of homelessness in the San Fernando Valley.

SATURDAY: The Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa celebrate its 30th anniversary; the third-annual LA River Boat Race takes place.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad.
The Labor Day weekend saw another major rave in Southern California. While no deaths were reported, more than 400 people were arrested at and five people were sent to hospitals from Nocturnal Wonderland, which drew more than 67,000 people at the San Manuel Amphitheater.

Earlier this summer, three people died of suspected drug issues at a rave in San Bernardino County.

The problems have prompted criticism from medical professionals and calls for stronger regulations. Some jurisdictions have cracked down with new laws. And rave operators said theyve taken steps to make the events safer by adding security personnel.

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But the continued overdoses frustrate many, with officials still grappling for solutions to reduce to drug-fueled problems.

Its heartbreaking to me, said Grace Rodriguez, whose 15-year-old daughter, Sasha, overdosed on Ecstasy while attending the Electric Daisy Carnival rave in 2010 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and later died.

Sashas death was the inspiration for the state bill known as Sashas Law. Rodriguez said she had hoped the state law would end the tragedies, but is now acutely aware of the limitations of the laws reach.

I just feel really bad for the parents, Rodriguez said. I know exactly what theyre going through. Exactly. And I feel so bad for them, because I know it could have been prevented.

In Los Angeles County, new laws regulating raves havent been tested  instead, the concerts have moved elsewhere, just beyond county jurisdiction.

California legislators and Los Angeles County supervisors have passed new laws that regulate events where theres a strong chance that attendees could die. It applies on land owned, managed or otherwise governed by the state or county.

But that means the laws dont apply on, say, property governed by the city of Los Angeles, or in San Bernardino County, which has increasingly become the home of massive raves in Southern California.

How many people have died after attending raves?

There have been at least 25 confirmed drug-related deaths nationwide since 2006 among people who went to raves organized by Los Angeles-area companies Insomniac, Go Ventures, and Hard. Insomniac and Hard are now both subsidiaries of Live Nation, which dominates the electronic dance music festival scene in the region.

Of the 25 deaths, 12 were recorded in Southern California.

How does the L.A. County law regulating raves work?

The L.A. County law, passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors in March, regulates any mass event expecting more than 10,000 people a day that poses a strong probability of loss of life to participants.

It allows a panel of sheriffs, fire and public health officials to limit attendance, ban alcohol sales and require promoters to provide free water, impose a minimum age requirement of 18 or 21, offer onsite medical care and increase security, such as ordering the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

This sends a message to promoters that Los Angeles County will not tolerate any event that does not comply with the countys requirements in order to protect the public, said a spokesman for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

The law affects land owned by the county and unincorporated areas directly governed by the Board of Supervisors.

Similar rules were put in place voluntarily for a Halloween-themed Hard Day of the Dead rave at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds last year. What was the reaction among the fan base?

One reviewer for consequenceofsound.net called some of the changes the mans best efforts to suck the life from the party. And according to an L.A. Weekly review, the new measures took what was once a great dance-music event and neutered it, and led to an all around-sense of buzzkill.

How has the state law targeting raves worked?

The law has not meant an end to such events on state-managed property. Last August, Houa Lai Hue of Fresno, a 15-year-old girl who had attended the Zoo-Tronic rave at the Fresno Fairgrounds, died of Ecstasy poisoning, according to police and the coroner.

But that rave did not require the added level of scrutiny required under Sashas Law because only about 800 people attended, far under the 10,000 threshold spelled out in the law. This summer, the fairgrounds barred the promoter of that from returning after an event in June left the venue with damage and vandalism, a spokeswoman with the fairgrounds said.

The promoter then held another rave in July at the Crest Theater in Fresno, according to police. Ravegoer Debbie Yang, 18, of Merced later died from an Ecstasy overdose, according to the coroner.

This summer, three young ravegoers died after attending the Hard Summer rave at the Auto Club Speedway in San Bernardino County. Is that county considering regulations?

The deaths have renewed a controversy over holding raves at a county-owned facility, the San Manuel Amphitheater in Devore.

In June, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors narrowly rejected an effort to end raves at the amphitheater. But one of the supervisors absent at that meeting, James Ramos, said in an interview last month that he would consider a moratorium on raves at the amphitheater.

Ramos expressed support to create a task force to study rave safety, much like what Los Angeles County supervisors did before passing their law.

I would not be opposed to a moratorium on any future [rave] contracts until a study is completed, Ramos said. Were going to look at everything.

Supervisor Janice Rutherford continues to advocate for a ban on raves at the amphitheater, reminding her colleagues that two young people  Arrel Christopher Cochon, 22, a Los Angeles City College student. and John Hoang Dinh Vo, 22, a UC Irvine student  have lost their lives from drug overdoses after attending raves at the venue.

The financial liability to the county, and the potential for more tragic deaths, are too great, Rutherford wrote in a Facebook post.

Rutherford wrote that she supports allowing private venues to host whatever events they wish, including electronic dance music festivals, so long as those events are done legally, i.e., obeying noise restrictions, proper security and medical care.

What does Live Nation have to say about the controversy?

A spokeswoman for Live Nation declined to comment. On its website, Insomniac calls on its fans to be safe, responsible and respectful to yourself and others, and urges attendees to stay together with buddies, and said they provide medical stations and roaming medical teams to watch fans.

What do rave fans think about the controversy?

Rave fans defended the festivals, saying promoters should do whatever they can to make events safe, but emphasized that people need to take personal responsibility for decisions to take drugs.

Its all over the media that at these events, people pass away from taking Ecstasy. And if someone knows that full well, and still decides to proceed, of course its a sad situation if theres a bad result. But that doesnt seem to be a reason to punish the promoters when someone chooses to do that, when everyone is telling them not to, said Greg Wasik, editor of EDMLife.com.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people walk out of there happy, and have an amazing time, Wasik said. You could be taking away an experience that tens of thousands  and in the case of Electric Daisy, hundreds of thousands  enjoy.

ron.lin@latimes.com

Twitter: @ronlin

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A wealthy Mexican businessman accused of making illegal campaign donations to candidates in San Diegos 2012 mayoral race was convicted Friday of 36 counts, including conspiracy to make campaign donations by a foreign national.

Jose Susumo Azano Matsura also was found guilty in federal court of making contributions in other peoples names and falsifying records related to campaign finance.

The jury, which deliberated about a week, was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether Azano unlawfully possessed a firearm, as well as several other charges related to the other defendants in the high-profile case.

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U.S. District Judge Michael Anello declared a mistrial on those counts.

Federal prosecutors had also charged campaign services specialist Ravneet Singh, lobbyist Marco Polo Cortes and Azanos son Edward with the same charges of conspiracy and falsifying records.

Singh was found guilty of all four counts with which he had been charged.

Edward Azano Hester was convicted of conspiracy and donations by a foreign national, but the jury acquitted him of six counts related to falsifying records and deadlocked on five others.

Cortes was acquitted of four counts related to falsifying records. The jury did not reach verdicts on other charges, including conspiracy.

The case focused on more than $500,000 of Azanos money that was funneled into the campaigns of Republican Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis and Democratic Rep. Bob Filner when both were running for San Diego mayor in 2012. Filner won the race but resigned several months later amid a sexual harassment scandal.

Azanos money also went to the county Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, prosecutors alleged.

As a foreign citizen without legal status in the U.S., Azano was prohibited by law from donating to domestic campaigns. Although he lived in a Coronado Cays mansion and both his wife and son are U.S. citizens, prosecutors said Azano did not have a green card or any immigration status that would allow him to financially support political campaigns in this country.

The evidence included numerous bank records, emails and billing invoices that prosecutors said showed the route the money took from Azano bank accounts. The money made it into the campaigns via straw donors  friends or family members who made donations to the Dumanis and Filner campaigns and were reimbursed by Azano, sometimes on the same day.

Prosecutors said Azano secretly paid Singhs company, which specialized in political social media campaigns, to work for Dumanis and later Filner. The largest contributions went to PACs or independent committees, via a shell corporation owned by Azano, and through businesses owned by La Jolla luxury car dealer Marc Chase.

Chase testified that Azano asked him to make the donations during a meeting in the business tycoons Coronado kitchen. He said Azano reimbursed him for the contributions. Azano, a car buff, had purchased more than 20 luxury vehicles, including Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces, from Chase, who pleaded guilty earlier in the case and agreed to testify against Azano.

Another key conduit was retired San Diego police Det. Ernie Encinas, who was Azanos security chief. Prosecutors said he was the go-between who got Azano and his money to the campaigns and political professionals.

Encinas agreed to cooperate during the investigation and pleaded guilty after Azano was arrested in January 2014. Though he was expected to be a star witness, the former police officer was never called to testify  either by the government or the defense.

But the trial did have several high-profile witnesses, including Dumanis and Sheriff Bill Gore. Dumanis testified that she had little memory of her interactions with Azano, other than that she believed he was a legal resident and allowed to contribute to her campaign.

Azanos lawyer, Michael Wynne, argued that his client was targeted and victimized by Encinas and Chase, who used his money to elevate their own statuses and businesses, then turned on their benefactor to aid the government investigation.

Wynne said after the verdicts that he and his client would continue the fight the case, even all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

I am absolutely confident that we will win on appeal, he said outside the courthouse.

The judge set sentencing hearings for Azano, Singh and Cortes for Dec. 12. Azanos son will be sentenced on Dec. 5.

Meanwhile the judge has allowed the elder Azano to remain free until the sentencing date. Prosecutors had asked for him to be placed in custody in light of the verdicts, arguing that he is a flight risk.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @gregmoran

Littlefield and Moran write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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Some school districts had only a smattering of foreign-language speakers, so maybe thats why no one tried to teach them English.

In others, perhaps, it was difficult to find qualified staff  or these students werent the highest priority.

But up and down the state, for at least a decade, according to the federal government, tens of thousands of English learners in elementary, middle and high school received no services to help them learn the language and keep up academically while they did, even though the law required that they get it.

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Under pressure from a lawsuit and federal authorities, California pledged Friday to make sure that all 1.4 million students who are English learners receive special academic help.

The settlement with the U.S. Justice Department echoes the earlier resolution of a lawsuit covering the same ground, but goes further in establishing the states role to ensure that these students receive high-quality instruction.

For years, California had been allowing school districts to avoid giving needed and legally required help to thousands of students with a limited ability to speak English, according to the Justice Department and civil rights advocates. The school districts even acknowledged the problem in documents routinely filed with the state.

When challenged on why California tolerated these violations, state officials insisted they had met legal oversight obligations by collecting data and by directing districts to comply with the law.

Under the settlement, state officials continue to deny that they ever did anything wrong, but they have agreed to change.

The state now commits to notifying school systems and independently operated charter schools within 60 days when it determines they are failing to serve English learners properly. It also promises to follow up in a timely fashion, with set deadlines. It isnt clear what sanctions schools would face for failing to comply, but the federal government reserves the option to take the state to court if it doesnt do its part.

We applaud the state of California for working cooperatively with the Justice Department to ensure that all English learner students can access the language services they need to learn, Principal Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen. Vanita Gupta said in a statement.

Without saying why, the department agreed to especially close monitoring of six school systems: Burbank Unified, San Gabriel Unified and Santa Monica-Malibu Unified in Los Angeles County; Menifee Union Elementary in Riverside County; and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Sequoia Union High School District in the Bay Area.

About 1 in 5 California students is learning English. In a lawsuit filed in 2013, advocates determined that at least 20,000 students in 251 school districts were receiving no language-related services at all.

The suit included examples, such as that of a Compton student identified as F.S., who was allegedly denied language help in third grade, failed most of his classes and ultimately was held back. The next year, the child received help and finally showed progress in his classes, according to the suit.

California clearly fell down on its job here, said John Affeldt, managing attorney of Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization. Todays settlement is an important reminder that, even in this era of renewed interest in local control, the state has the ultimate responsibility to ensure equality of educational opportunities.

The first settlement, which resolved the lawsuit, came after a court ruling against the state. That agreement established the states role in making sure that students received at least some level of service, said Mark Rosenbaum, director of the Opportunity Under Law project at L.A.-based Public Counsel, one of the organizations that sued .

The latest settlement adds to the states responsibility for the quality of instruction and the progress students are making, Rosenbaum said.

A milestone settlement that, if faithfully executed, widens access to the American dream, he said.

A state spokesman called the new agreement similar in many ways to the previous one. But under it, the Legislature has agreed to pay for three new positions to monitor school districts, said Bill Ainsworth, communications director for the Department of Education.

Local school districts also must do their part, said Hilda Maldonado, executive director of Multilingual and Multicultural Education for Los Angeles Unified, which has more English learners than any other school system in the state.

We have been working to tighten our own monitoring system with a new online tool that will enable us to better monitor our English learners as they make progress in overcoming their language barriers, Maldonado said.

howard.blume@latimes.com

@howardblume

To read the article in Spanish, click here

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A man is believed to have committed suicide after attacking another man and barricading himself inside a Paramount home for several hours overnight, authorities said.

Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies were dispatched to the 6600 block of San Carlos Street in Paramount at around 9:30 p.m. Friday in response to a call about an alleged assault with a deadly weapon.

They found an armed man hiding in the crawl space of a house, refusing to surrender, said sheriffs spokesman Deputy Mike Baraza. Police say the man had attacked an older man, who was transported to the hospital in good condition. The nature of his injuries were not clear, Baraza said.

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Tactical weapons teams and crisis negotiators arrived around midnight. They spoke with the man for several hours, but they were unable to convince him to come out.

At around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, authorities sent a robot equipped with a camera into the house and found the man dead from what they believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The mans age and identity are being withheld until authorities can notify his next of kin, Baraza said. Its not clear why the attacked the other man, the spokesman added.

frank.shyong@latimes.com

Twitter: @frankshyong

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After a decade working on Bunker Hill, Virginia Franken has grown accustomed to taking the stairs.

Angels Flight, the citys historic two-car funicular, has sat idle between Hill and Olive Streets since it derailed in 2013. So to procure an iced almond-macadamia milk latte during lunch, she must scurry past an assemblage of dirty socks, plastic gloves and cigarette butts on the steep staircase that runs parallel to the rail.

None of the debris gives her much pause anymore. And the two motionless cars stuck midway up tiny tracks now represent the status quo.

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But on Fridays walk back to the office, Franken peered up at the cars, stopped midstride on the staircase and recoiled.

Look at that, Franken, 39, said. This amazing thing ... is covered in graffiti.

 Graffiti vandals target Angels Flight.

A cavalcade of problems -- including the death of a tourist -- have plagued Angels Flight for more than a century, forcing the tiny downtown railway to perennially close and then reopen -- only to close again.

But operators, officials and locals alike say they were aghast to discover that the Olivet car had been defaced earlier this week. On Friday, the cars windows were covered in white scrawl, its pumpkin facade covered by a cartoonish animal, resembling something between a whale and a cat.

The foundation and the community are very disappointed that someone would choose to denigrate a city landmark, said Hal Bastian, president of the Angels Flight Railway Foundation.

Bastian said he became aware of the graffiti Thursday, and was working with the mayors office and other partners to abate it. He would not provide a timeline for when the graffiti would be removed.

Mayor Eric Garcettis office directed the Board of Public Works to remove it, spokeswoman Connie Llanos said. However, workers will have to wait until Monday to access the tools they need to clean it safely, she added.

Pedestrians walk down the 153 steps of the stairway parallel to Angels Flight, now covered in graffiti. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

Because Angels Flight has been designated a historical cultural monument, the cleaning process could become complicated, said Jimmy Tokeshi, a spokesman for the citys department of public works. When dealing with such monuments, crews must concern themselves with color schemes and be careful not to do harm, he said.

The cars and the rest of the facility are technically the responsibility of the foundation, Tokeshi said. Various city agencies will work with the foundation, he added, but theres a process.

In Angels Flights absence, the 153 steps that run parallel to the railway serve as a critical pedestrian walkway connecting urban apartment dwellers and well-appointed accountants to Grand Central Market and other lunchtime escapes.

On Friday afternoon, Hill Street also bustled with out-of-towners. One pair of Polish tourists stopped to pose in front of the orange netting that snaked around the twin pillars at the railways base.

Locals, meanwhile, complained about the smell of urine that wafted over the staircase and speculated that the rails years-long closure made it a more alluring target for crime. Its pumpkin facade had faded to peach, and its way-finding sign has been fenced in by chain links.

Enrique Martinez, 45, who works for a privately owned graffiti-removal company, said he spotted the defaced train car while driving downtown. As an Angeleno, he thought he had no choice but to climb the stairs, take a picture and send it to the city.

Hundreds of people cross this walkway every day and they see this, Martinez said. Its terrible.

matt.stevens@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByMattStevens

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When a masked, black-clad gunman stormed into a training session and holiday party for San Bernardino county health workers in December, only a handful knew instantly to run for the exits.

In a terrible twist of fate, some of the workers had previously been trained on how to deal with an active shooter in that very same conference room, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released Friday about last years terrorist attack in San Bernardino.



For the record: An earlier version of this story stated the attack occurred Dec. 15, 2015. It occurred Dec. 2.

They thought this must be more training and just stood there, until the carnage became starkly real.

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A second assailant entered the room and joined the first, shooting anyone they could. In two to three minutes, they shot over 100 rounds, killing 14 people and wounding 22, in what was at the time the third deadliest attack in the U.S. since 9/11.

The report, Bringing Calm to Chaos, reviewed the police response to the shooting, seeking lessons for future attacks, and provided new details about what occurred in the conference room. It described victims pleading for their lives and first responders having to step over bodies to reach the wounded.

The killers, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, had been inspired by Islamic terrorists but had no direct ties to them.

Farook, raised in Riverside, was a health inspector in the department, known as a tech-savvy and diligent worker who helped his colleagues with computer problems. According to the report, some of them thought he became more stoic after he traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with Malik, a native of Pakistan, as his new bride, the report said.

Still, just months before the shooting, they threw him a baby shower at the office.

On the morning of Dec. 2, about 80 staff members from the Environmental Health Department arrived at the Inland Regional Center on the south side of town for the training and holiday party. A large Christmas tree with ornaments stood in the corner.

They watched a training video and then moved on to a team-building exercise as a way for staff members to get to know one another better, the reports authors wrote.

Around 10:30 a.m., one of the employees, Rizwan Farook, an environmental health inspector, got up from his chair and left the meeting. Colleagues noticed him looking at his phone before he departed, but no one thought much of it. He had left his bag on the table, and they expected he would be back to retrieve it.

A technical problem caused an unscheduled break at 11, with staff going to the bathroom, checking phones, grabbing food.

Suddenly, they heard sharp pops outside, and the door swung open. Farook and Malik wore masks. They walked between the tables gunning down Farooks co-workers, some who considered him a friend.

If someone moved or made a sound, the shooters fired one or multiple shots into their body, according to the report.

In the chaos, one round pierced a fire sprinkler pipe, causing water to gush from the ceiling. The gun smoke made it difficult to see. Many got out the doors, and escaped outside or barricaded themselves in other rooms in the building. One woman was hit by a bullet that penetrated a wall. Some of the fleeing survivors crossed the bodies of the two people he killed before entering the conference room.

Two or three minutes after they entered, Farook and Malik fled the scene in a black SUV. (They would be killed nearby in a shootout with police that afternoon.)

Four San Bernardino police officers arrived within minutes of the attack, followed by detectives from Fontana. A lieutenant had just eaten lunch and was headed to get gas, a detective had stopped at headquarters to use the bathroom, and motor officer had just picked up a sandwich.

If you were picking a team, the four of us were not the ones that would be picked first, but we have all had active shooting training, said Mike Madden, the San Bernardino police lieutenant who led the initial charge into the building, told the Justice Department. It just seemed like we knew what our roles were and what we were supposed to do.

Madden said the first radio calls for shots heard in the area did not cause any particular alarm  its a frequent call in San Bernardino, one of the highest-crime cities in California.

But a third caller had made it clear not only that this was real but also that there were multiple shooters and they were still there.

More than three miles away, the homicide detective was filling in on patrol when he heard the call. He flipped on his lights and siren and raced to the Inland Regional Center, then cursed at himself for leaving without his go bag filled with a helmet and tactical gear, and forgetting his patrol rifle.

The four officers gathered outside the three-story compound.

The lieutenant told them to stay in a diamond formation and to look for explosive devices.

As they approached the building, one of them said: Okay, its time to go. 

The first officers to arrive in the conference room were horrified by what they saw.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. Bodies were strewn across the floor. Many had devastating wounds. Blood was everywhere, the report said. The smell of gunpowder filled their nostrils, and the sprinklers sounded like they were hissing. Wounded victims pleaded with them to stop, taking hold of the officers legs in hopes of receiving aid.

It was the worst thing imaginable  some people were quiet, hiding, others were screaming or dying, grabbing at your legs because they wanted us to get them out, but our job at the moment was to keep going, one patrol officer said in the report. That was the hardest part, stepping over them.

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An organization that weighs fire risks has determined that San Diegos backcountry is safer after years of investments, a declaration that may make it possible for property owners in the countys rural stretches to buy fire insurance for the first time or to pay lower premiums on existing policies.

The improved rating from the Insurance Service Office came after the Board of Supervisors created the San Diego County Fire Authority in 2008 and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve fire protection in 1.5 million acres of the backcountry after major fires in 2003 and 2007.

The county put various fire agencies under one command, and added more career firefighters, staffing, equipment, training and communication systems. The investments cut response times by 30%, the county said.

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The fire protection and the improved rating is a big deal for people who live in rural parts of the county, according to Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

What this means is not only can they get fire insurance, it lowers the cost of fire insurance in much of this area, she said.

The $350 million worth of improved rural fire protection is also important for people who live in more populated areas, she added.

We know that fires that start in the backcountry dont stay in the backcountry. It affects everyone in the entire region, Jacob said.

While the rating could make it possible for some property owners to buy their first fire insurance policy and for others to pay less for insurance, its not clear how much they could save. The Insurance Service Office does not determine premium prices, said Robert Andrews, vice president of Community Hazard Mitigation at ISO.

The organization uses a standardized rating system across jurisdictions to evaluate fire protection levels, and has evaluated more than 48,000 areas. Using a point system, it considers emergency communications such as 911 systems and dispatchers; firefighting equipment; training, staffing and location of fire stations; and water resources, including fire hydrants and alternative water supplies. The system emphasizes the ability of a fire department to respond to a structure fire, Andrews said.

The county scored a three on a 10-point scale across the backcountry, with a one being the best possible mark. The county said its classification puts it in the top 10% of rated jurisdictions. Previously, parts of the backcountry scored between a 10 and a four.

The rating program recognizes the efforts of communities to provide fire protection services for citizens and property owners, Andrews said in an email. A communitys investment in fire mitigation is a proven and reliable predictor of future fire losses. Therefore, many insurance companies offer reduced premiums in communities with better fire protection as measured under the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule.

Since May 2014, San Diego County has improved its aerial firefighting capabilities and can now fly firefighting helicopters at night. The fire agency also has thermal-imaging sensors to see fires through smoke and from a distance, as well as a series of new firefighting engines.

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @jptstewart

Stewart writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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A Carlsbad woman and her gun-range instructor were arrested this week, accused of conspiring in a Sept. 1 sniper attack that injured the womans estranged husband and terrified an upscale Carlsbad neighborhood.

Diana Lovejoy, 43, and Weldon McDavid Jr., 49, face charges of attempted murder and conspiracy. They are set to be arraigned on Monday.

McDavid made a brief appearance in a Vista courtroom Friday, where San Diego Superior Court Judge James Mangione agreed to postpone his arraignment so that McDavid could hire his own attorney.

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During the short hearing, Mangione ordered both Lovejoy and McDavid held on $2 million bail.

McDavid works at Iron Sights shooting range in Oceanside, where Lovejoy took lessons, according to Carlsbad police spokeswoman Jodee Sasway.

Prosecutors allege the pair began conspiring on Aug. 1 to kill Lovejoys estranged husband, with whom she is locked in a custody battle over the couples young son.

The two had been married for nearly seven years when Lovejoy filed for divorce in 2014.

Sasway said detectives suspect Lovejoy called her 45-year-old husband and arranged to meet him late at night on Sept. 1 on an access road off Avenida Soledad near Rancho Santa Fe Road.

McDavid hid in nearby bushes and shot the victim sniper-style, prosecutors allege.

The shooting was reported around 11:15 p.m. Police shut down Rancho Santa Fe Road for about a mile and alerted residents through reverse 911 calls to stay indoors until 3 a.m. as SWAT officers searched for the shooter. The all-clear was sounded about 6 a.m.

Lovejoys husband underwent surgery at a trauma center and survived the shooting.

On Thursday, police arrested Lovejoy at her home in Carlsbad and McDavid near his home in Fallbrook.

Lovejoy faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted, while McDavid faced 50 years to life because he is accused of pulling the trigger; an allegation of personal use of a gun can add 25 years to a sentence.

Figueroa writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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A U.S. lawmaker has accused Yosemite National Park of breaking federal law by adding 400 acres for a wildlife preserve without clearing it through Congress, but federal officials said Friday that hes misinterpreting the law.

The addition of wetlands, grassy meadows and forest on Yosemites western boundary marks its largest expansion in nearly 70 years. Any significant amount of land added to a national park needs congressional approval, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said in a statement to Associated Press.

The Park Service acted outside of its authority, and we will require them to account for their actions, said Bishop, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, which has oversight of public land.

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Bishops staff says inquiries have just begun into how Yosemite acquired the land without oversight and what steps Congress will take next.

National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson said the congressman is misreading the law. The land was donated, so it doesnt require congressional approval like acquisitions using federal funding, Olson said in a statement.

Yosemite announced this week that the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit conservation group, bought the land from a private owner for $2.3 million and donated it to the park.

Officials said they will preserve the land as habitat for wildlife such as the great grey owl, the largest owl in North America and listed as endangered by California wildlife officials.

Bishop said he does not want Yosemite to give back the land but wants answers. He said federal law requires approval of additions to a national park that are more than 200 acres and worth over $750,000.

The Park Service pointed to Land and Water Conservation Fund documents, saying the requirement applies only to acquisitions using that funding.

Bishop says whenever the agency changes its boundaries on this scale, Congress must sign off, even if the land is donated, said Parish Braden, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Committee.

Bishop has long sparred with environmentalists and criticized limits on energy development and grazing in favor of wildlife protections.

Hes condemned Obama administration bans on new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and fought national monument declarations or proposals in at least half a dozen states.

Local cattle ranchers, loggers and the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors late last year objected to adding the area, called Ackerson Meadow, to Yosemite. They said it took away land used for more than a century to graze cattle and harvest timber, among complaints.

When you take land and put it into the National Park Service, they dont do anything with it, said Randy Hanvelt, a Tuolumne County supervisor. Itll be fenced off from grazing.

The expansion brings Yosemite to a total of nearly 750,000 acres. The parks boundary has seen some minor changes over the years, but the addition is the largest since 1949.

More than 4.5 million people are expected to visit Yosemite this year, which officials said would set a record for the park that celebrated its 125th anniversary last year.

Draws to the park include the massive Half Dome rock and the sheer, granite face of El Capitan -- both admired by visitors from the floor of Yosemite Valley. Elsewhere in the park stand groves of giant sequoia, some of the oldest and largest living things on Earth.

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The woman who was kissed by an ecstatic sailor in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II has died at the age of 92.

Greta Zimmer Friedmans son says his mother died Thursday at a hospital in Richmond, Va. She died from complications of old age, he said.

Friedman was a 21-year-old dental assistant in a nurses uniform on Aug. 14, 1945, known as V-J Day, the day the Japanese surrendered. People spilled out into the streets from restaurants, bars and movie theaters in New York when they heard the news. Thats when George Mendonsa spotted Friedman, spun her around and planted a kiss on her. The two had never met.

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In fact, Mendonsa was on a date with an actual nurse, Rita Petry, who would later become his wife.

The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt is called V-J Day in Times Square but is known to most the world over as simply, The Kiss. Mendonsa says that in some photos of the scene, Petry could be seen smiling in the background.

The photo was first published in Life, buried deep within the magazines pages. Over the years, the photo gained recognition, and several people claimed to be the kissing couple. In an August 1980 issue of Life, 11 men and three women said they were the subjects. It was years until Mendonsa and Friedman were confirmed to be the couple.

Joshua Friedman says his mother recalled it all happening in an instant.

It wasnt that much of a kiss, Friedman said in an interview with the Veterans History Project in 2005. It was just somebody celebrating. It wasnt a romantic event.

The photograph has become one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.

Both of Friedmans parents died in the Holocaust, said Lawrence Verria, co-author of The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II. Friedman, who had escaped Austria, got to the U.S. when she was 15.

Friedman will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to her late husband, Dr. Misha Friedman.

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The customer needed a radiator for a minivan, and the job gave Terry Butler an excuse to get away from the shops TV, which was blaring live news about planes smashing into the World Trade Center and leaving the Pentagon smoldering.

I like to keep busy, Butler said. Because I knew what was going on, I didnt want to believe it.

No one did on that day, 15 years ago Sunday.

Butler, a burly yet soft-spoken man, willingly serves as a witness to the world events that flew over his head on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed at 10:03 a.m. in rural Somerset County, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

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This story has to be told, Butler said, his voice cracking with emotion. Thats my job, thats what I feel I need to do.

This story has to be told.  Terry Butler, witness to Flight 93 crash

If you travel to the Flight 93 Memorials 15th anniversary events, you may run into Butler and hear his story in person. He is one of many local residents who volunteer their time helping National Park Service rangers keep alive an interlocking story of terrorism, heroism and small-town pride that speaks of the briefness of human life and the importance of American history.

It changed me to appreciate life and what it means, Butler said with a sigh.

Heres his story:

Moving away from the TV, Butler got back to work, tracking down a 1995 Dodge Caravan in Stoystown Auto Wreckers. Under the hood, prying off the radiator, he heard engines roar somewhere above.

He turned to the left. Nothing. He turned the other way, and there it was.

It was a plane, Butler said.

He would learn later it was United Airlines Flight 93. But on this cloudless day all Butler knew was that the airliner seemed too close to the trees and Allegheny Mountain hills that rise and fall around Stonycreek Township and the borough of Shanksville.

I just watched, he said.

The plane pulled up. Then just as fast, it banked sharply right and disappeared behind trees.

I saw the mushroom cloud, and heard explosion after explosion, he said.

Visitors at the Flight 93 National Memorial look over the flight path of the plane that crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. (Jeff Swenson / Getty Images )

As Butler radioed for his disbelieving co-workers to call 911, an invisible concussive force sped 4 miles down the hillside and slammed into Shanksville-Stonycreek School Districts only building, which serves preschoolers through high-schoolers.

In a fourth-grade classroom, Ben Eisler watched the shock wave rumble across the drop ceiling. Now 24 and a volunteer firefighter, Eisler said the image is seared in his memory. I dont think anyone can forget.

That sentiment is echoed across the country, but here, its more personal. The sight, sound and feel of the hijacked Boeing 757 smashing into a vacant strip mine at 563 mph reverberate in this community. And so does the knowledge that the passengers and crew died fighting their captives, as messages relayed in phone calls and the planes data recorders show.

We got the call around 10:06 am that morning to respond to an aircraft down, said Terry Shaffer, the now retired chief of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Co. At the time we knew what was going on in New York City, but we never expected to have something like this in our area.

All 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers died. No one on the ground did. Residents here know the difference between life and death was measured in heartbeats that day. If the plane had traveled just a few seconds longer, it surely would have hit our town or the high school, Shaffer said.

That knowledge  captured soon after the crash in an aerial photo of students and teachers holding hands to spell Thank You toward the heavens  is why so many residents here have embraced their unfortunate celebrity not as a curse but as a blessing.

Often not seen in pictures are stories of residents who manned the crash site in two-hour volunteer shifts to ensure it was respected and not vandalized. Using notebooks to keep track of the facts, they relayed to tourists and mourners alike how the hole smoldered and the crash left little wreckage above ground except scattered papers and pieces of engine and fabric.

We were just neighbors and friends, said long-time volunteer Chuck Wagner, 67, of Stonycreek Township.

They helped bring to fruition the Flight 93 National Memorial, which grew from barrels and a chain link fence holding small mementos into a stunning feat of architecture that embraces the beauty of nature and the resolve of mankind.

Former Gov. Tom Ridge remains in awe of the communitys effort in embracing its part of history.

From the day that plane went down to today and, I think, evermore, they have been the volunteer security team, the volunteer docents, Ridge said. I dont think any story about the memorial should exclude a warm, grateful embrace of the people of Shanksville and that region, who for years and years have treated it as a sacred ground that its proven to be.

The Flight 93 Memorial has attracted thousands of visitors each weekend since it officially opened last year.

Inside the Visitor Center Complex a wall-size display uses images, text, sound and video to tell the story of Sept. 11, 2001. One display plays the last recorded moments of Flight 93s passengers as they used airfones and cellphones to call 911 and loved ones.

Honey, are you there? Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas preserved voice says to her husband, Jack. Wake up, sweetie. OK, I just wanted to tell you I loved you.

Other displays tell of investigators search for clues in the strip mine and surrounding woods, which retired state police Capt. Frank Monaco said yielded little because the plane hit the soft ground so fast the bulk of it burrowed underground.

It was surprising to me because you never would have known there was a plane crash, Monaco said. It just looked like a flaming hole with smoke coming out.

Today, the crash site resembles a park.

The outside of the memorial features towering walls on either side of a walkway that follows the final path of the doomed flight that was forced off its Newark-to-San Francisco course. The walkway ends on a coal-black platform that overlooks the crash site, which has been given new life as a field of grasses, trees and wildflowers.

One day a tower of wind chimes will rise here, too, adding a perpetual voice to the mountain winds that on a September morning scattered paper and debris for miles.

Esack writes for the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.

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Transcript: Clintons full remarks as she called half of Trump supporters deplorables

(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is under fire and has expressed regret for part of a statement she made about GOP nominee Donald Trumps supporters during a fundraiser on Friday.

Here is a full transcript of her remarks in New York City, with the controversial portion in bold:

Thank you all so much. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Its sort of like the seventh inning stretch. Thank you all. You know, Ive been saying at events like this lately, I am all that stands between you and the apocalypse. Tonight, Im all that stands between a much better outcome! I want to thank Laverne [Cox] for being here at her first political event. Her endorsement, her strong words, her passion, her example, her advocacy on behalf of the transgender community, particularly transgender women of color, is just so extraordinary, and I love the way she wove in so many of the issues that are up for grabs in this election.

I think we know what were up against. We do, dont we? Donald Trump has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn marriage equality, and if you have read about the ones he says hes likely to support, hes not kidding. In fact, if you look at his running mate, his running mate signed a law that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBT Americans. And theres so much more than I find deplorable in his campaign: the way that he cozies up to white supremacists, makes racist attacks, calls women pigs, mocks people with disabilities -- you cant make this up. He wants to round up and deport 16 million people, calls our military a disaster. And every day he says something else which I find so personally offensive, but also dangerous. You know, the idea of our country is so rooted in continuing progress that we make together. Our campaign slogan is not just words. We really do believe that we are stronger together. We really do believe that showing respect and appreciation for one another lifts us all up.

And its a special commitment that I feel to continuing to fight alongside the LGBT community. Because this is one of the continuing struggles. Were filled in this great hall in Cipriani tonight with successful people, raising your glow sticks, thank you so much for contributing a little bit more to get the campaign over the finish line. But somewhere right now in this city is a kid has been kicked out of his house. Somewhere not far from here, maybe a suburb or across state lines, is a young girl who is just not sure what her future holds because she just doesnt feel like shes herself and no one understands that. Some kid getting off the bus at the Port Authority and somebodys waiting to take advantage of that scared but brave kid looking for a different life and a future that actually belongs to him or her.

We still have a lot of work to do. And if you think of the work we have to do in our own country, it pales in comparison to the work we have to do around the world. And Im grateful that in this room are so many people who have broken down barriers, stood up to discrimination and bigotry, fought for the rights of everyone. I was in North Carolina just yesterday and I told them, its not only that discrimination is wrong. Its bad for business. That state which was led down a pathway of discrimination is seeing the results -- losing jobs, losing the NBA all-star game. Who wants to be associated with a governor and a legislature who set out to hurt the people theyre supported to be representing and protecting?

In too many places still, LGBT Americans are singled out for harassment and violence. You can get married on Saturday, post your pictures on Sunday and get fired on Monday. Thats why weve got to continue the forward march of progress.

And we cannot do it alone. I cannot do it alone. Im not like Donald Trump, who says, I alone can fix it. Ive never quite figured out what it is he alone can fix. But thats not what youll hear from me. I think we have to do this together. So, together were gonna pass the Equality Act to guarantee full equality. Were going to put comprehensive quality affordable healthcare within reach for more people, including for mental health and addiction. Were going to take on youth homelessness, and as my wonderful, extraordinary, great daughter said, we are going to end the cruel and dangerous practice of conversion therapy. Were going to keep working toward an AIDS-free generation, a goal that I set as secretary of State, and with your help were going to pass comprehensive gun laws....

I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and dont get complacent, dont see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, hes done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trumps supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and theyre just desperate for change. It doesnt really even matter where it comes from. They dont buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They wont wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like theyre in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

And what I hope is that in addition to your extraordinary generosity, you will go to our website, hillaryclinton.com, or text to join at 47246 to see how else you can get involved.

And I want to echo what Chelsea said. We are trying to register 3 million more voters and get those voters to commit to vote. We will win if people turn out to vote. There is no doubt in my mind that we will win. But we cant take anyone or any place for granted. And therefore I am asking you to volunteer for a phone bank, for a canvass -- at the very least if you know anybody whos even thinking about voting for Trump, stage an intervention! That may be one conversion therapy I endorse. Just remember: Friends dont let friends vote for Trump.

So were going to have a great night tonight because we are so blessed. You know, we all love this woman either from afar or luckily enough up close -- and for my family, its been up close. We know shes the great talent of our time. We know that remarkably shes had a No. 1 album in each of the last six decades. We know that. But we also feel and see her heart and her passion. And shes, of course, been a great ally and supporter of the LGBT community -- but of progressive causes and candidates, shes been on the front lines repeatedly, bravely, never giving up or giving in to all of the incoming criticism that any of us who stick our necks out often attract. So were in for a great treat tonight. I could not be happier, more grateful, or excited, than to introduce a woman of such extraordinary presence, that really just her first name -- spelled correctly -- is more than enough. Please welcome, Barbra Streisand!
Hillary Clinton on some Donald Trump supporters: a basket of deplorables

(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Even as shes hurled criticism after criticism at Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has avoided slamming his fans.

But that changed Friday night.

During brief remarks at the LGBT for Hillary Gala in lower Manhattan, Clinton called half of those supporting the Republican nominee a basket of deplorables.

Right? she said to laughter from attendees, which included entertainer Barbra Streisand. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

Clinton assailed Trump for emboldening such individuals through social media and his own rhetoric. In a deluge of television advertisements in battleground states, Clinton and her Democratic allies have cast Trump as divisive and lacking the even temperament required of a president.

Still, recent national polls show support for Trump, as Clinton outpaces him by about 3 percentage points, according to an average of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. Moreover, in several swing states, such as Florida and Ohio, Trump has gained ground in recent weeks.

Clinton didnt slam all Trump supporters. While she called some irredeemable, she said that others are just seeking a better future for their families.

They dont buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They wont wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like theyre in a dead-end, she said at the gala. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Counties form the front lines of child protection in California, but it is Congress that provides much of the funding and the rules for spending it, so legislation shaped in Washington has an outsize impact on children and families here  for good or for ill.

As it begins its final weeks in session, the 114th Congress is taking up a bill known as the Family First Prevention Services Act that, if passed, would help keep children with their parents, or with extended families when their parents become temporarily unable to care for them. It would take an important step away from an outmoded and largely discredited funding model in which federal reimbursements for foster care gave states and counties a perverse incentive to remove as many children as possible from their homes despite mounting evidence that they do better in school  and in life  when kept with family.

Proponents of the bill are pressing for quick passage, with no amendments. Any flaws, they argue, can be corrected with follow-up bills in a future Congress.

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It is tempting to hold firm to the admonition to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and to urge lawmakers to pass this bill. But as correct as the philosophy behind the proposed legislation is, its flaws are glaring and would undermine progress that California and a handful of other states already have made toward better care for abused and neglected children. If the choice is between passing or rejecting the bill as is, it would be better if it were rejected. But that need not be the choice. Although time is short, there remains enough of it to make thoughtful adjustments and to adopt a properly amended version.

At its core, the bills focus is correct. It would allow states and counties to spend more federal foster care dollars on services to help parents better care for their children  something that few jurisdictions do today. For example, a years worth of money that currently can be used to pay only for removing a child from home and placing him or her in the care of strangers could be used instead to help parents deal with mental illness, drug addiction, a simple lack of basic parenting skills or whatever other problem is preventing them from properly caring for their children. If a child still has to be removed, the bill would roll back a current incentive for states and counties to dump children in group homes, many of which have earned reputations for inflicting abuse or neglect that is worse than what the children experienced with their parents. It also would make services available to grandparents and other family members who are willing to step in when parents arent up to the task.

So whats the problem? There wouldnt be one in many states, where lawmakers are stuck in a mid-20th century mindset about foster care and have turned deaf ears to more recent developments in child welfare. This legislation could finally push those jurisdictions into smarter and more cost-efficient practices that emphasize preventing the need for foster care while blunting the impulse to remove children from home whenever the parents get into trouble.

But California is one of several forward-looking states that already have made great strides in prevention and finding productive alternatives to foster care. In fact, California is on the verge of further reforms, many years in the making, that are due to begin in a matter of weeks. The bill, if adopted as is, could negate many of those improvements and unnecessarily lock in high costs.

For example, the well-meaning provision that restricts funding for group homes could undermine Los Angeles Countys programs for juveniles with behavioral problems. The proposed new standards are based on the assumption that special-needs kids who do need to be in group homes are suffering from severe mental illness. The law would require a physician or registered nurse in every group home  a mandate that makes little sense in L.A. County homes where juvenile residents are not ill, but instead need to be coaxed or otherwise extricated from commercial sex traffic or street gangs.

As for the child who might go to live with a grandparent (or other relative) under this bill while federal money is helping his or her parents get treatment for addiction, there is a different problem: Once the child is out of the house for a year, he or she no longer is eligible for foster care funding when the grandparent cant keep up the care. So when the child is first removed from his or her home, the family and the childs social workers have to choose  go right away to stranger care with a foster family, or go live with a relative and risk the loss of future foster care.

The fact that relative care is often (but not always) preferable to foster care is no knock on foster families, who should be considered heroes for opening their hearts and homes to children whose own families fail them. But foster parents are in short supply, and they should be a backstop rather than a first resort.

The problems with the Family First Prevention Services Act are readily solvable. They should be solved now, before a vote. Congress turns its attention to foster care overhauls on rare occasion, and it is not reasonable to expect that needed amendments would be high on the priority list of a new Congress next year.

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Good Saturday to you all. This is Matthew Fleischer, digital editor of The Times Opinion section, filling in once again for Paul Thornton.

It was not a good week for those holding out hope of breaking Americas two-party grip on our democracy. Despite what are undoubtedly the least popular major-party candidates in our electoral history in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Americas alternative party hopefuls found a way to effectively kill any lingering belief in their abilities to mount outside challenges.

Green Party nominee Jill Stein showed questionable judgment at best when video surfaced that appeared to show her spray-painting a construction vehicle at a protest of the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline. She was charged with criminal trespass and criminal mischief by local authorities.

Then there was Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, who, when asked about his plans to handle the Syrian refugee crisis, responded, What is Aleppo? Several dozen Internet memes later, Johnsons once-promising hope for sharing a prime-time stage with Clinton and Trump now seem  distant might be putting it too politely.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there are plenty of undecided voters in this election. And now theyre having an even harder time deciding which candidate theyre going to select in November.

Opinion columnist Doyle McManus was privy to a recent discussion with a 12-person focus group in the swing state of Wisconsin, conducted by pollster Peter D. Hart. The results were an illuminating study in misery.

Four of the 12 said they leaned toward Trump. Four said they leaned toward Clinton. Four said they were completely undecided. Almost all said they were still open to persuasion by both candidates. All said theyd been disappointed by the campaign; they said they wanted to hear about issues, not mudslinging. Asked to describe the contest with a smell, their answers included garbage, manure, skunk  and skunk fart. But when asked what more they wanted to learn about each candidate, their questions were mostly about character: What are they like behind closed doors? Can we trust them with life-or-death decisions? Asked to describe [Hillary Clinton] as a member of their family, the most frequent choice was stepmother  a loveless relationship. When Hart asked how the voters would finally make up their minds, he was met with mostly blank looks. Its going to have to be the debates. said one voter. What can Trump do to win their votes? Tone it down, said another. Trumps been getting that advice from his aides, but its not clear hes taking it. What can Clinton do? Take down the mask and show shes human, another member of the focus group suggested. Its obviously not easy to rebuild trust amid the noise of a campaign, but these voters said they were willing to give the candidate another chance if she makes an effort to be more transparent (their words) and to connect with ordinary people.  Click here to read more.

Before she got herself in legal hot water for her graffiti-laden pipeline protest, Stein was in Los Angeles for a detailed policy discussion with the L.A. Times editorial board. L.A. Times

Johnsons Aleppo gaffe was embarrassing, but at least he owned up to it. When are we going to see the same from Trump over his Obama so-called birther accusations? Even a sheepish Rick Perry-esque Oops would be an improvement on his continued silence. L.A. Times

Americas two-party system likely will remain firmly in place for the foreseeable future, but one stranglehold on the American public is about to be loosened. The average consumer pays $231 a year to rent a set-top box from his or her cable provider  a service that currently allows for zero outside competition. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler outlines his long-awaited proposal to unlock the box and make sure consumers no longer pay a dime. L.A. Times

Essays, transcripts, interviews: Colleges make prospective students jump through hoops to learn about who they are. Dont students deserve the same openness from colleges? In an op-ed, high school senior Simon Kuh slams the underwhelming college tour experience. L.A. Times

L.A. is thrilled for the return of the Rams, but that doesnt mean we should foot the teams security bill. L.A. Times

Californias drought continues to devastate the states wilderness areas. But not all the catastrophes in our wildlands are due to natural causes. On her podcast, Patt Morrison speaks with arson investigator Ed Nordskog about the case of Harry Burkhart, the German-born arsonist who was convicted of setting dozens of fires around Los Angeles over a single holiday weekend. L.A. Times

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To the editor: I strongly agree with your editorial. In fact, bilingual education is even more effective than the Times sources indicate.

( Return to bilingual education, Editorial, Sept. 7)

The most rigorous research design is to compare the progress of children in bilingual programs and children in all-English programs with similar backgrounds.

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In general, these studies have shown that children enrolled in bilingual programs do better than children in all-English programs on tests of English reading.

Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English  they facilitate it.

Stephen Krashen, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: In my experience as an educator, teachers  even previous bilingual education teachers  who observed Prop. 227 from Day 1 of kindergarten were almost shocked to see how much students from Spanish-speaking communities understood when immersed in English, and became fluent far more quickly than those starting in Spanish and gradually transitioning to English.

Regrettably, there are too many people in education and politics who have a vested interest in keeping these kids in their place while espousing that they have their best interests at heart.

Prop. 227 failed to meet the students needs only because too many schools failed to follow the law, and Prop. 58 would only legalize what is already under way.

Prop. 58 should fail and a serious expose of current practices is long overdue.

Wayne Bishop, Altadena

::

To the editor: Changing the law is just a smoke screen for the real problem: a lack of budget for training parents to speak English, because students lose the benefits of immersion learning when they do not speak English at home.

If you want to find great charter school, just pick one that funds adult education to learn English. If you want a great LAUSD school, find one where the principals support adult education, instead of lobbying the neighborhood to go back to the old system for their own personal benefit.

Harold Walter, Northridge

::

To the editor: To be clear, parents are continuously fighting to have their voices heard in the education conversation, so I doubt that Prop. 58 would empower them overnight.

The new accountability system for schools seems to be unclear and confusing. Furthermore, the editorial goes on to state that immigrant parents and their school districts should be trusted to work this out together, but I believe often times immigrant parents cant get translators at district meetings.

No, I dont trust Prop. 58. Lets first work to improve our current education system, and encourage school districts to find ways to further dual language immersion programs that work.

Evelyn Macias, Reseda

::

To the editor: Theres another hugely important point: How vital it is for English-only children to learn at least a second language, if not more. There is no better way to learn about the culture and history of another group of humans than through the study of their language.

Luckily for me, back in the 1950s, I was sent to a private school. Beginning at age six, every one of us was immersed in German, every day of our lives; Spanish and French, frequently and later on, Greek and Latin. I became fluent and comfortable in the cultures and histories that were taught as a natural accompaniment to the language classes.

Kristene Wallis, Valley Village

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To the editor: To say the 2016 election offers a choice between the lesser of two evils is to suggest that the candidates are equally flawed, albeit in different ways. They are not.

One has shown bad judgment, certainly, but boasts a laudable resume in public service, demonstrates a thorough understanding of all the issues, and exhibits consistency in her campaign messaging.

( What undecided voters are waiting for, Opinion, Sept. 7 and Voters are struggling to commit, Sept. 8)

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The other has voiced opinions on both sides of most issues, and according to at least one respected source, speaks the truth only a small percentage of the time.

More troubling, however, is the GOP candidates petulant and vindictive nature.

Doyle McManus cites an undecided voter who hopes Donald Trump might get his personality under control. She refers to a man who famously said, When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, Im basically the same. The temperament is not that different. Sadly and frighteningly, that statement rings irrefutably true.

Mike Diehl, Glendale

::

To the editor: Undecided voters shouldnt focus solely on the presidential candidates personalities. There are also the implications of a victory by the candidates political party.

My take: if the GOP wins, it would hold not only the White House, but almost certainly the House of Representatives. A presidential victory would help Republicans retain control of the Senate as well. And their nominee for Supreme Court justice would tilt the court to the right once again.

Potentially all branches of government under one party, one ideology. An outcome that I think undecided voters should definitely worry about.

And then imagine an authoritarian personality as commander-in-chief operating virtually free of checks and balances.

Howard Hurlbut, Redlands

::

To the editor: Good article, but no one one seems to be talking about the 800-pound elephant in the room: do people really want to vote for a woman? Beyond that, I agree that Hillary Clinton is not warm and fuzzy, but other than helping her win the election, how important is that going to be in dealing with issues in the Middle East, or meeting with the foul-mouthed president of the Philippines?

Judi Jones, San Pedro

::

To the editor: Trump may the best ever at articulating concerns that resonate with Americans. He is possibly the worst to address those concerns. I am troubled with Trumps ego, temperament and business conduct. He can create international division and financial crisis.

Clinton generates concern regarding Benghazi and emails but her experience and history of serving is a more-than-sufficient counterbalance.

Sid Pelston, Beverly Hills

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The Summer Olympics are over, but theres one competition Laguna Beach almost always wins: number of car accidents involving pedestrians.

For a community its size, Laguna consistently ranks in the top five most dangerous walking cities in the state. To call it a walking city is an overstatement.

In 2014 it wasnt even a contest.

We had almost triple the number of accidents involving pedestrians as in 2013, including two fatalities.

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In an extensive review of police accident records going back to 2007, its clear that the city is getting more dangerous for pedestrians. Not only that, we are hitting and killing our own.

Contrary to popular belief, most pedestrian accidents happen in the non-summer months.

There is a wrong-headed perception among city officials  and some City Council candidates  that Lagunas traffic issues happen only during the summer.

Its only three months out of the year, they say.

Its the tourists, they say. Its the day trippers.

It is not.

Tell me, exactly, what are the nine months of bliss? Do they start in September?

Tell that to the person who was killed on Sept. 26, 2012, at High Drive and Allview Terrace, a residential area. It was a Wednesday at 5:29 p.m.

Or how about January 2010 when another person was killed in the canyon? Or what about back-to-back months in 2014, April and May, when two more pedestrians were killed.

Out of the six pedestrian deaths in Laguna Beach since 2007, only one happened during the height of the summer.

More cars hit pedestrians from September to December than from May to August in Laguna, according to police records.

The reality is we have a problem year-round, and its because the city is in denial. It has not done anything substantial to reduce pedestrian accidents for nearly 10 years.

The facts speak for themselves.

Bucking national pedestrian trends, Laguna drivers do not hit pedestrians on Fridays and Saturdays. We do it on Wednesdays. Why? Because were not paying attention and our roads are poorly designed.

Wednesday is the worst day, by far, for pedestrian accidents in Laguna. More than 40 people have been hit on a Wednesday, compared with less than 25 on a Friday.

And were hitting people at 3 in the afternoon, not 3 in the morning.

What that means is the victims are not drunk day trippers spilling into the streets on Friday nights and getting hit.

They are Laguna workers crossing in front of Surf and Sand, just trying to catch a bus.

They are moms in yoga pants running across the Thalia and Glenneyre intersection.

They are grandfathers trying to get their medicine refilled at the downtown pharmacy.

Lagunans are getting hit on Forest. Lagunans are getting killed on PCH. Lagunans deserve more.

Worst month of the year? December.

Worst year ever? 2014.

This year is shaping up to be worse than last year.

On average since 2007, about 22 pedestrians are hit every year.

If you dont think thats very much, consider that Aliso Viejo  with more than twice our population  has maybe three a year.

That bad year, 2014, we had 35 pedestrian accidents. According to the California Office of Traffic Safety, we beat Irvine. Irvine has nearly 240,000 people, about 10 times Lagunas population.

Irvine. The only thing we should be beating Irvine at is number of cool art galleries.

And in case youre wondering, because of some odd statistical fluke, the most dangerous date of the month in Laguna is the 18th.

So if the 18th of the month falls on a Wednesday, do not leave your house  or at least dont walk.

Plus, summer has now ended in Laguna, so watch where you step. It has suddenly gotten more dangerous.

Dont assume anything.

Dont feel safe at a signal.

And dont assume the city will help you win the right of way.

DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.
Authorities have identified a man who they say died in a fiery crash last month after shooting a Huntington Beach police officer, whose life was saved by his badge.

Richard Brent Lund, 59, died in the single-car crash in the Cajon Pass after taking officers on a three-county pursuit on Aug. 26, according to Lt. Mark Stichter, Orange County Sheriffs Department spokesman. Stichter said he didnt have a city of residence for Lund.

Just after midnight, Huntington Beach police responded to a domestic violence call at a home near Bushard Street and Yorktown Avenue. As two officers in two separate cars were pulling up, a man was getting into his vehicle to leave the residence, said Officer Jennifer Marlatt, a spokeswoman for the Huntington Beach Police Department.

The officers followed the man, who made a U-turn, drove toward the officers and started firing at them from his vehicle, Marlatt said.

A bullet ricocheted off the police badge worn by one of the officers, who was treated at a hospital and released.

The other officer returned fire, and the man kept driving, initiating the pursuit.

He drove through Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, then got onto the freeways, leading California Highway Patrol officers through Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

For reasons that are still under investigation, the man drove off the Cleghorn Road offramp on the northbound 15 Freeway, said CHP Officer Steve Carapia.

The driver veered to the right and went down into an embankment, where his white Nissan Altima burst into flames, Carapia said. The car was consumed by the fire, and the man died. He was the cars only occupant, authorities said.

Times Community News staff reporter Brittany Woolsey contributed to this article.
The Laguna Beach City Council on Tuesday night will discuss whether to add to existing rules regarding the trimming and removal of city-maintained trees.

The most recent rules, adopted in March, require a thorough vetting of a trees health before deciding whether it should be removed, such as an arborists analysis and an on-site meeting to gather public input. Tree advocates cried foul when the city removed a eucalyptus tree in the Lumberyard mall area that experts said was at risk of falling.

But the test case for the beefed-up rules is a 50-foot eucalyptus tree next to Urth Caffe at 308 N. Coast Hwy.

Despite an arborists recommendation that the tree be pulled out because of deteriorating health, and the possibility that it could injure passersby, the council in May gave the tree a few more months to see if it could be revived. An arborist is scheduled to see the tree next week to gauge any progress it may have made, city public works director Shohreh Dupuis said.

The city staff, responding to the councils request, prepared two tree proposals for consideration.

One deals with maintenance requests for trees in areas that may appear on maps but have not been the responsibility of the city, according to a staff report.

Under this proposal, a person would submit a request to the city, after which an arborist would inspect the trees overall health and the council would decide whether it should be maintained by the city or the adjacent property owner.

If the council decides that the tree should be added to the citys list, the person requesting maintenance would pay for the first trimming.

The other proposal addresses requests to trim or remove public trees that may have overgrown to the point of blocking views of the surrounding landscape.

In this situation, a resident or business owner would submit a request to the city, which then would review the complaint and make a suggestion. If excessive trimming is required, an arborist would be brought in to handle the work.

The person making the request would foot the entire bill, which the city said could range from $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the tree type, age and size, the staff report said.

These rules would not preclude the city from removing a tree immediately if staff deems that it is a hazard to people, according to the report.

The city has a view preservation and restoration ordinance, but that policy addresses complaints from private property owners concerned about views lost because of neighbors overgrown vegetation.

Lagunas list of city-maintained trees, which it started keeping in 1980, notes 2,745, featuring 96 varieties. The three most prevalent species are Mexican fan palm, California sycamore and coast live oak, the staff report said.

Trees are trimmed either yearly or biannually, depending on the species and growing characteristics.

The next step for the eucalyptus tree near Urth, which stands in the middle of a sidewalk in the citys public right-of-way, is to be seen by an arborist, who would report to the council next month, Dupuis said.

On the earlier advice of experts, crews have removed some mulch, giving the trees roots more space to grow, Dupuis added.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
Several local events are scheduled this weekend to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed a total of 2,977 people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and near Shanksville, Pa.

Huntington Beach

The city will premiere its Sept. 11 memorial during a ceremony from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday outside City Hall, 2000 Main St.

The $200,000 monument, whose centerpiece is two 91/2-foot-tall granite pillars paying tribute to the fallen World Trade Center towers in New York, features two pieces of steel from the towers. It sits atop a pentagon with the words We Will Never Forget and is accompanied by plaques listing donors and describing what happened that day.

For more information, visit huntingtonbeachca.gov.

Also in Huntington Beach, American Legion Post 133 will hold its Patriot Day memorial event at 6 p.m. at Pier Plaza, 325 Pacific Coast Hwy.

The Huntington Beach police and fire departments will participate in the event, which will include a rifle salute, a flyover and guest speakers.

For more information, call (714) 536-3855.

Newport Beach

A Tunnels to Towers 5K run/walk will begin at 8 a.m. Sunday at Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort & Marina, 941 N. Bayside Drive.

The event will benefit the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, named after a New York firefighter who died while trying to rescue people from the Twin Towers. Funds raised will support first-responders and wounded combat veterans.

For more information about the event and to sign up, visit t2trun.org.

Costa Mesa

Costa Mesa residents are invited to visit any of the citys fire stations between 8:45 and 9 a.m. Sunday to listen to a public safety radio broadcast to honor those who died in the attacks.

The Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Department will join law enforcement and emergency response personnel from around Orange County to pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and to those who put themselves in harms way so that others may live, according to a statement from the city.

Costa Mesas fire stations are at 2803 Royal Palm Drive, 800 Baker St., 1865 Park Ave., 2300 Placentia Ave., 2450 Vanguard Way and 3350 Sakioka Drive.

Crystal Cove State Park

The 19th annual Kiwanis Pacific Coast Triathlon and Duathlon on Sunday at Crystal Cove State Park will honor those who lost their lives on 9/11.

Organizers Scott and Kari Davis will present two commemorative medals to the city of Newport Beach during the event to honor the work of local firefighters and the citys longstanding support of the race. The medals were a gift in 2011 from Washington, D.C., firefighters to the original race directors, Bill Leach and Bob Cuyler.

The event, which begins at 7 a.m., consists of a triathlon  a 750-meter swim, 20K bike ride and 5K run  and a duathlon  a 1.5K run, 20K bike ride and 5K run.

Registration is available Saturday at the Race Expo at Crystal Cove, 8471 Coast Hwy. For more information, visit octriseries.com.

Laguna Beach

The public is invited to join members of Laguna Beachs police, fire and marine safety departments on Sunday at Heisler Park for a memorial service.

The service, organized by the Orange County Fire Chiefs Assn., will begin at 8:46 a.m.  the time when the first hijacked plane plowed into the World Trade Center  at Lagunas Sept. 11 memorial sculpture Semper Memento by artist Jorg Dubin, according to a news release.

Laguna will join other public safety agencies in Orange County for a moment of silence and reflection.
Huntington Beach will unveil its Sept. 11 memorial Sunday afternoon on the 15th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The $200,000 monument pays tribute to the World Trade Center towers in New York City that fell after being struck by hijacked airliners. The centerpiece consists of two 9 1/2-foot-tall granite pillars featuring two pieces of steel from the Twin Towers. It sits atop a pentagon with the words We Will Never Forget and is accompanied by plaques listing donors and describing what happened that day.

The memorial is set to premiere at a ceremony from 2 to 4 p.m. outside City Hall at 2000 Main St.

Activities will include the posting of a 1 World Trade Center flag, a flyover by the Orange County Sheriffs Departments Air Support Unit, a pipe and drum corps playing Amazing Grace and the singing of the national anthem by students with the Huntington Beach High School Academy for the Performing Arts.

Several other 9/11-related local events are scheduled for Sunday:

 Kiwanis Pacific Coast Triathlon and Duathlon: 7 a.m. at Crystal Cove State Park, 8471 Coast Hwy. Organizers Scott and Kari Davis will present two commemorative medals to the city of Newport Beach to honor the work of local firefighters and the citys longstanding support of the race. Information: octriseries.com.

 Tunnels to Towers 5K run/walk: 8 a.m. at Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort & Marina, 941 N. Bayside Drive, Newport Beach, benefiting the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, named after a New York City firefighter who died while trying to rescue people from the Twin Towers. Funds raised will support first-responders and wounded combat veterans. Information: t2trun.org.

 Public safety radio broadcast: 8:45 a.m. at any Costa Mesa fire station, honoring those who died in the attacks.

 Laguna Beach memorial service: Heisler Park, beginning at 8:46 a.m.  the time when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center.
With the pop of the cork on a large bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and a quick pour onto the bow of the school-bus-yellow vessel, ExplorOceans new pontoon boat was welcomed to Newport Harbor on Wednesday evening.

ExplorOcean runs a nonprofit ocean literacy center in Newport Beachs Balboa Village that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math. Its chief executive, Tom Pollack, said the boat, which seats 49 passengers in bench-style rows, will help the centers teaching staff get more students out on the water for a hands-on experience with marine life that would be nearly impossible to replicate inside a classroom. The center serves about 75,000 students from across Southern California each year.

On Wednesday, more than 50 people filed onto the dock at the Balboa Bay Club for the vessels unveiling.

We wanted it to be a school bus on steroids, Pollack said of the boats design. Its an important arrow in our quiver.

ExplorOcean has raised $140,000 since November to help purchase the 45-foot pontoon boat, which last year was estimated to cost about $160,000. The organization also has a $30,000 matching pledge by ExplorOcean board members Doug Pasquale, Tim Collins and Scott Calder, which will be in effect until the end of the year to pay the rest of the cost.

The twin-hulled boat will take children to the Newport Back Bay estuary and the California Institute of Technologys William G. Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory in Corona del Mar, where students can meet with scientists to learn about the latest oceanographic studies.

It also will act as a floating laboratory for exercises such as studying plankton and launching student-made underwater robots to gather data about sea life and the ocean environment. Many of ExplorOceans students have limited experience with the ocean. Some have not been out on a boat, said ExplorOceans director of education, Wendy Marshall.

This vessel is going to be the best classroom, Marshall said. Even though the students know theres fish down there, theyre always so surprised to see them in person.

Newport Beach resident Marian Bergeson, a former state legislator and California secretary of education who made one of the first donations to the project, emphasized the importance of interactive learning.

This boat will provide kids with an opportunity to develop the passion needed to pursue education and careers in marine science and oceanography, she said. I dont know where youre going to be able to find a comparable experience.
Huntington Beach police are seeking the publics help in finding a man who carjacked a vehicle while attempting to run over its owner outside the Hoag Health Center on Tuesday.

Officers arriving at the center, at 19582 Beach Blvd., just after noon said the victim told them he had left the car running when he walked his mother into the facility, said Jennifer Marlatt, public information officer for the Huntington Beach Police Department.

Another man walked up to the vehicle, got in and began to drive away, but the cars owner attempted to stop him by standing in the way, Marlatt said. The suspect then drove toward the man, who was thrown off the hood of the car, and proceeded north on Beach Boulevard, she added.

The car was discovered about two hours later, unoccupied in a residential area about a mile away, Marlatt said.

Police waited for the suspect near the car for a while, but when no one showed up, they returned it to the owner, the spokeswoman said.

The owner of the car sustained minor injuries but did not need to be taken to the hospital, she said.

Authorities described the suspect as a white male, 30 to 35 years old, 5-foot-9, 140 pounds with brown hair and a gray stubble beard. He was last seen wearing a red flannel shirt, what appeared to be a black flat-bill-style hat and slipper-style shoes.

Because of his appearance, police believe the suspect may have been homeless.

Police are asking that anyone with information call the Huntington Beach Police Department hotline at (714) 375-5066.

--

Brittany Woolsey, brittany.woolsey@latimes.com

Twitter: @BrittanyWoolsey
They made sure to study hard before the first day of school this week. They also worried a little about getting lost on campus and remembering names of their peers.

Theyre the new kids in school or, rather, the new teachers to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

While the district welcomed back around 22,000 students this week after summer break, it also filled 120 teacher vacancies.

I told the students that were all in the same boat, said Megan Kravets, a language arts teacher for special education students in grades 7-10 at Corona del Mar Middle and High School. I dont know anyone, or where everything is, but its something that you figure out as you go.

This year will be the first for Kravets teaching career.

After student teaching at Eastbluff Elementary School in Newport Beach while completing her credentialing program and teaching summer school at Kaiser Elementary School in Costa Mesa, she locked in her position at Corona del Mar.

Her classroom is tidy, with different colored pens separated in old-fashioned milk bottles and stacks of Lord of the Flies with clean white book covers.

Back when the educator was a student, Kravets said her preparation for the first day of school involved talking to friends to see what classes they all had together and getting school supplies ready.

The only thing I would really organize was my binder and that was before it even had anything in it, Kravets said. Id just arrange the dividers in it. But that organization is something I still need for school.

Now that the student has become the teacher, instead of organizing course schedules with classmates and sections of a binder, Kravets has been organizing lesson plans for each school day and studying the different needs and learning styles of each of her students.

Shes hung up motivational posters around her classroom, including one at the front of the class that reads: I have not failed. Ive just found 10,000 ways that wont work  Thomas Edison.

Armando Aguilar, a new teacher at Rea Elementary School in Costa Mesa, also adorned his front classroom wall with a poster. Its message  Im not here to be average. Im here to be awesome.  is one he hopes his new second-graders at Rea will believe in.

Thats why hes decorated his classroom with faces of superheroes, like Thor and Wonder Woman, hanging from the ceiling and taped 21 masks each with the names of all his students to the front door.

I wanted it to look like a party because we should celebrate learning, said Aguilar, who came from the Santa Ana Unified School District, where he taught two years of third grade and one year of fourth.

This year, at Rea, will be his fourth year of teaching.

For Aguilar and the rest of Newport-Mesas teachers, the first day of school began last week. Reas teachers returned having completed some summer homework.

Aguilar said he and the instructors read various articles, including one about the different skills an entrepreneur needs.

On their first day back at school, the educators did a team-building activity where they had to split into groups and present a list of those skills, but they needed to present it in a fun and unique way, Aguilar said.

I told them I liked to rap and another person in the group said she rapped too, the second-grade teacher said. Thats what we ended up doing together.

He then made a new friend on that first day of school last week.

We got to remember, were here to have fun, Aguilar said of his new peers at Rea.

He added: I was one of the shyest kids but school was a second home. I always looked forward to the first day of school.

alexandra.chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
As a member of the Assembly Republican Caucus, I have fought for everyday Californians all year long.

Now that we are closing out the second half of the 2015-16 legislative year, I would like to share some of the achieved victories that will make our elections and educational environment better for all. Both Assembly Bill 2071 and 2212 have passed the Legislature unanimously and are on the governors desk awaiting signature.

AB 2071 provides a missing definition and clarifies that a bona fide private mail delivery company is a courier service in the business of accepting and delivering parcels, not from a political machine that harvests Vote by Mail (VBM) ballots from voters.

In 2014, this Legislature passed Senate Bill 29, which requires elections officials to count VBM ballots that are delivered up to three days after the election, if they are delivered by either the U.S. Post Office or by a bona fide private mail delivery company.

Unfortunately, SB29 did not define what a bona fide private mail delivery company is, and therefore there is no uniform understanding as to what kinds of entities are allowed to handle and deliver VBM ballots on behalf of voters after Election Day.

This omission is very important, because election experts agree that that VBM ballots are far more susceptible to fraud than traditional ballots. In fact, the author of SB29 claimed that he himself was a victim of a VBM fraud scheme after he narrowly lost an election for local office in 2015.

AB 2071 will provide clarity to elections officials, and will help safeguard our elections system.

Also on the governors desk, is AB 2212. This bill changes the definition of bullying in the Education Code to include the posting of a harassing video online. According to a study by Yale University, victims who have been bullied can be up to nine times more likely to consider suicide.

Almost every teenager has a smartphone that has the ability to record video. It is wrong to allow students who post harassing videos to go unpunished. They need to understand that these tools should not be used for bullying.

AB 2212 is a no-nonsense effort to make sure bullies are held accountable for their actions. This bill would allow the superintendent or principal of a secondary school to recommend suspension or expulsion if a student posts a harassing video amongst students on the Internet.

This bill sends the message that bullying is wrong and will not be tolerated.

Democrats refused to pass my other common sense legislation. My bills would reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and bring awareness to the issue, make higher education more affordable, and create safeguards for our local and state elections. I will continue fighting for your interests in Sacramento and advocate for transparency, accountability, and rationality.

--

MATTHEW HARPER is a state assemblyman who represents the 74th District, which includes Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.
Whoopi Goldberg was (almost) everywhere at New York Fashion Week

Juicy J and Whoopi Goldberg attends the Hood By Air fashion show. (Nicholas Hunt / Getty Images for New York Fashion Week: The Shows)

For New York Fashion Week  and the celebrities who often fill the front row seats at the shows  things have just been getting started. Take this past weekend for example.

Saturday afternoons colorful Capri-themed show saw such notables as Christina Hendricks, Pamela Anderson and Neve Campbell sitting elbow to elbow, with Kelly Osbourne (dog in lap) a few seats away.

Later that evening, Alexander Wangs show at the cavernous Pier 94 drew the likes of Rami Malek (Mr. Robot), filmmaker Baz Luhrmann (seated at the left hand of Vogues Anna Wintour, Kylie Jenner (whose sister Kendall walked the show) and Madonna. And those were just the sightings before the runway show concluded with a surrpise street-party-on-the-pier dubbed the Wang Fest to celebrate the designers collaborative collection with Adidas Originals that saw performances by Fetty Wap and Skrillex.

Sunday was no day of rest for the celebrity set which turned out in force for Hood By Airs Handkerchief runway show (sponsored by, of all things, the website PornHub). Among the notables in attendance were Jaden Smith, Rick Ross, Naomi Campbell, Jussie Smollett (we also spotted the Empire star at Altuzarra later that afternoon) and Whoopi Goldberg.

The last on that list, Academy Award winner and The View panelist Whoopi Goldberg, wins the weekends star-turn derby by not only turning up at the J. Crew Spring/Summer 2017 presentation less than a half-hour later, but by ending the day at Opening Ceremonys show -- as one of the high-profile people to walk the runway for a free-form Pageant of the People hosted by Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein that also and included Aidy Bryant, Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones and Natasha Lyonne.

That time you found yourself chatting with @WhoopiGoldberg in an elevator after you both checked out the @jcrew collection. #NYFW  Adam Tschorn (@ARTschorn) September 11, 2016
Syrian government warplanes bombarded rebel-held areas around the country Saturday, while insurgents shelled government-held neighborhoods in violence that left dozens killed or wounded hours after a new U.S.-Russia agreement was reached to try to reduce the bloodshed in the war-torn country.

The United States and Russia announced a deal that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting Monday, followed a week later by an unexpected military partnership targeting Islamic State and Al Qaeda militants, as well as the establishment of new limits on Syrian President Bashar Assads forces.

State news agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the countrys largest, for humanitarian reasons. It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the U.S.-Russia agreement was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government.

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The violence shows that it might be difficult to implement the U.S.-Russia agreement, as both countries enjoy limited influence on the government and insurgent groups to cease the bombardment.

A cease-fire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Russia is a main backer of Assads government, while the U.S. has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power. Syrias conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try to end the violence. At least a quarter-million people have been killed, and half of the countrys prewar population has been displaced.

Saturdays air raids were mostly in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Aleppo has been the center of violence in Syria in recent months, where 2,200 people, including 700 civilians, have been killed since July, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in Syria.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees also reported an airstrike in the Damascus suburb of Douma, where the dead included four children.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

The Observatory said the deadliest airstrike occurred in the northwestern city of Idlib and struck near the main market, killing 24 people and wounding dozens. The LCC said the airstrikes were carried out by Russian warplanes, adding that they left a number of civilians dead or wounded.

An amateur video posted online showed wounded people being rushed away, as debris filled a street, and fire blazed in some shops and apartment buildings. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events.

State TV said insurgents shelled government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, killing one and wounding others. The channel also reported shelling by the Islamic State group on a government-held neighborhood in the eastern city of Dair Alzour, saying it killed nine and wounded 26.

The agreement comes at a time when Assad is in a much stronger position than where he was a few months ago. Rebel-held parts of Aleppo are under full siege, and two major suburbs of Damascus have been taken out of rebel control after an agreement was reached with the government.

A senior member of the main Syrian opposition umbrella group said Saturday it hopes a new U.S.-Russian agreement will be enforced in order to ease the suffering of civilians, while an official with Al Qaedas affiliate in Syria vowed to retaliate throughout the world if the Americans and Russians target them.

Bassma Kodmani, of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told the AP that Russia should pressure Assads government to abide by the agreement reached early Saturday.

We are closely following this agreement and are waiting for its details to know the conditions of its implementation, Kodmani said by telephone. She said mechanisms will be needed for the enforcement of the deal, including the cessation of hostilities and the grounding [of] regime air forces.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries to besieged areas around the country.

Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assads air and ground forces no longer would be permitted to target the Al Qaeda-linked militant group of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as Al Nusra Front. They would be restricted to operations against Islamic State.

Very big questions remain surrounding how exactly the U.S. and Russia plan to determine areas where the opposition is sufficiently distant from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and where they are in fact too close and thus legitimate counter-terrorism targets, said Charles Lister, a Middle East Institute fellow who has written a book on jihadist dynamics in the Syria conflict.

Lister said there is no hiding the fact that mainstream opposition forces are extensively marbled or coupled with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham forces on front lines in southern, central and northwestern Syria. This is not a reflection of ideological affinity as much as it is merely a military necessity, he said.

Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, one of the most powerful factions in Syria, is part of the Fatah Army coalition that played an instrumental role in the fighting against Assads forces over the past year in northern Syria.

An official for the group told the AP that if they are hit by Russians and Americans, they will strike back immediately.

We have holy warriors who will burn the ground, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He added that the group enjoys fighting the coalition of the Crusaders, saying they have a large number of suicide attackers for the mission.

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Two separate shootings early Saturday outside an Allentown nightclub sent three people to area hospitals with gunshot wounds, according to city police.

One person was in custody, facing attempted homicide and related charges in the second incident, police Capt. Bill Lake said. Police asked for help from the public as they continued to probe the violence.

Police were investigating the first incident when they heard the second round of gunfire, Lake said. Both incidents came amid reported disturbances outside Dubai Cafe-Lounge, 233 Hamilton St. in the American Plaza at American Parkway and Hamilton Street, according to police.

City police called in law enforcement agencies from around the area to assist with crowd control during the response, Lake said.

The club plans to continue with business as usual Saturday night.

"The only thing I can say is that the shooting, we feel sorry for everything that happened," said Jona Villar, floor manager for Dubai Cafe-Lounge. "But, Dubai is still in full effect and we're looking forward to continuing what we have to do to bring the nightlife to Allentown."

Police first responded at 1:51 a.m. to the report of shots fired outside the nightclub and arrived to find evidence of gunfire, police said.

A short time later, police learned a 23-year-old woman had been driven in a private vehicle to an area hospital for treatment of a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, Lake said.

"As the police were investigating the first scene related to that shooting, they heard gunfire from the other side of the building, closer to American Parkway," Lake said.

Police found two Allentown men, one age 34 and other 25, suffering from serious gunshot wounds to their bodies. Both were stabilized and remained hospitalized late Saturday morning in area facilities, police said.

The investigation quickly led to the arrest of 20-year-old Raymond J. Clavell, of Allentown, in the second round of shootings, according to Lake. Police are charging Clavell with two counts each of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

No one was immediately in custody in the shooting that injured the woman, Lake said.

Both shootings remained under investigation.

Police ask anyone with information that may aid in the investigations to call city detectives at 610-437-7721.

Editor's note: This article has been updated from its original version to correct the first name of the suspect provided by police.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A police investigator in Northampton County has spoken with the man believed to have been behind the wheel in a May crash that killed all three passengers in the car.

Terrell Barclay, 27, of Orange, New Jersey, and his legal counsel are arranging for his surrender to Bethlehem Township police, said Cpl. Shaun Powell with the department.

Bethlehem Township police Investigator Tony Stevens has been in touch with Barclay via telephone, Powell said.

"Right now he's in New Jersey, as far as we know," Powell said Saturday afternoon. "So far all the arrangements are still in the process basically."

Barclay could turn himself in to police as early as next week, according to police.

Barclay was the lone survivor when he allegedly crashed a rented 2015 Chrysler 200 into three parked vehicles at 1:22 a.m. May 6 in the 1800 block of Willow Park Road in the township. He emerged from the sedan on fire, and was so severely injured that he remained in a medically induced coma for months at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Salisbury Township.

Killed in the crash were Amanda Martin, 26, of New Ringgold, Schuylkill County; Ashlee Mosher, 29, of Easton; and Joshua Edwards, 28, of Easton.

Barclay left the hospital prior to charges being filed Friday. He faces 16 charges, including three counts of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence.

Blood testing put Barclay's blood-alcohol content 90 minutes after the crash at 0.19, according to court records. Penalties begin for most drivers at a BAC of 0.08. He allegedly also had THC, the intoxicant in marijuana, in his system. Responders trying to help him remove his burnt clothing found on him a bag of marijuana, police said.

Stevens in court records sad Barclay at the scene was "being extremely uncooperative and kept attempting to get up and leave the area."

Barclay was driving while his New Jersey and Pennsylvania licenses were both suspended, police said. A .40-caliber Taurus Millennium handgun found in the road where Barclay had exited the burning car was found to have been stolen from Plainfield Township, according to police; Barclay had bought it for $100 in Room 273 of the Scottish Inn in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
hk16_04-Heather_RM0270-rt_f_hires2.jpg

Heather Williams, an Easton area resident, is competing in the latest season of Fox's "Hell's Kitchen." (Courtesy Fox Broadcasting Company)

An Easton area woman is among the 18 contestants who will compete in the latest season of the Fox reality show "Hell's Kitchen," the network announced Friday.

Heather Williams, of Forks Township, works as a sous chef at Marblehead Chowder House in Palmer Township.

Her signature dish is a dry-aged ribeye with Hasselback potato and roasted Brussel sprouts, according to the network.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay hosts the show, which pits contestants against each other in cooking challenges. Ramsay eliminates the contestants one-by-one based on their performances in the kitchen.

The last contestant remaining wins the competition. This season's prize a head chef position at Ramsay's Yardbird Southern Table & Bar at The Venetian Las Vegas, the news release states.

Williams isn't the first local resident to appear on the show, which is now in its 16th season.

Phillipsburg's Christina Wilson not only competed in season 10, but won the whole thing in 2012. It earned her a head chef gig at Gordon Ramsay Steak, also in Vegas.

Palmer Township's Ashley Sherman also competed in season 13 back in 2014, but she was the first eliminated.

Season 16 of "Hell's Kitchen" premieres at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23 on Fox.

Word of Williams' appearance on the show was cause for celebration at Marblehead Chowder House.

General Manager John Reichard said Williams has worked at the restaurant about a year and is a hard worker and skilled chef.

"She's great," he said Friday night. "She comes up with all kinds of different specials. We're very happy to have her. She has a bright future and I can't wait to see how she does on the show.

"It's nice to have somebody from the Lehigh Valley in the national spotlight."

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Sept 9 (Reuters) - Wisconsin on Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling to overturn the conviction of one of two Wisconsin men serving life sentences for the 2005 slaying of a freelance photographer in a case spotlighted in the popular Netflix television documentary "Making a Murderer."

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel appealed the case to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin on Aug. 12 ruled that a jury's 2007 guilty verdict against Brendan Dassey was based on a coerced confession the defendant gave as a 16-year-old with a learning disability.

Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, were convicted in separate trials of killing freelance photographer Teresa Halbach at Avery's home in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.

In a statement explaining the decision to appeal, Schimel said two state courts "properly concluded that Dassey's confession was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics."

"The Halbach family has been notified of the appeal and fully supports the state's decision to seek justice on behalf of their daughter," Schimel added.

The case was the subject of the 10-part Netflix-released documentary "Making a Murderer," which questioned the handling of the investigation and the motivation of Manitowoc County law enforcement officials, who had sent Avery to prison in 1985 for a rape he did not commit.

Halbach's charred remains were found in an incineration barrel and a burn pit on Avery's property, about 80 miles (130 km) north of Milwaukee.

Laura Nirider, one of Dassey's post-conviction attorneys, said in a statement she was disappointed in the state's decision to appeal.

"We look forward to continuing to defend his rights in court," Nirider said.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Will Dunham)
A federal appeals court has rejected Northampton County's challenge of damages and attorney fees awarded to a former assistant solicitor, who claimed the elimination of her job was politically motivated.

Jill Mancini, then an assistant solicitor for Northampton County, leads a naturalization ceremony in November 2011 in Northampton County Court. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Friday upheld the January 2015 ruling in Jill Mancini's favor from a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania jury.

Both courts found Northampton County wrongfully dismissed Mancini from the solicitor's office in violation of the 14th Amendment right to due process. The rulings cleared county Executive John Brown and then-Solicitor Victor Scomillio of any individual wrongdoing.

"We will therefore affirm the orders of the District Court denying Northampton's motion for summary judgment and denying its post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial," the Third Circuit ruling states.

Mancini had cross-filed before the Third Circuit to pursue the First Amendment claim. She claimed the 2014 loss of her full-time assistant solicitor's job was politically motivated in that she openly supported Democrat John Callahan for county executive in 2013, a race won by Brown.

She dropped the First Amendment appeal during oral arguments, agreeing it would be redundant to argue the point before a second court, records say.

Her position was eliminated as part of a reorganization of the solicitor's office after Brown was elected. Scomillio testified in court to having "concerns about the competency of the solicitor's office in general, and about Mancini in particular," court records say.

"Northampton is incorrect in its view that the jury found that the reorganization of the solicitor's office was legitimate," the Third Circuit judges wrote. "The jury found that Mancini's political affiliation was not a substantial or motivating factor in the elimination of her position.

"However, this does not rule out a multitude of other improper bases for her termination, including the possibility that Northampton orchestrated a sham reorganization to target Mancini and circumvent the process she was due as a member of the career service."

As a career service employee, Mancini should have been afforded a hearing over the loss of her job under the county's Home Rule charter adopted in 1978.

"The local rules are simple, clear and specific and somehow or other we have almost three years between the time of my unlawful firing and the time of this decision of the Third Circuit, at enormous expense to taxpayers, and that will only continue to rise," Mancini said.

Brown said Saturday he could not comment on the ruling because the case remains pending and he had not had a chance to review the decision with legal counsel.

Scomillio, who resigned as solicitor for an unsuccessful bid to become a county judge, said he was disappointed by the ruling.

"We were hoping for a different outcome," he said. "I am pleased that the court upheld the jury verdict that neither myself nor John Brown did anything in appropriate."

The District Court had awarded Mancini damages of $94,232 and attorney fees totaling $186,019, though the latter amount was later reduced by $1,754, according to court records.

Mancini said she expects to see another adjustment in her attorney fees award to account for her expenses in the Third Circuit appeal.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The 39-bedded acute medical unit is one of the busiest, providing a 24-hour service that admits patients with a variety of conditions, including heart diseases and diabetes.

Attendances shot up to 4,000 in 2015 and it is fully occupied, with unacceptably high numbers who should be in the unit on trolleys in A&E. On average, this year, up to 14 patients were boarded overnight in A&E.

Apart from capacity, it is faced with a variety of problems varying from a lack of funding and cuts, to a lack of access to beds in bigger hospitals due to the A&E crisis.

The doctors reject Dr Susan O'Reilly's downgrade plan as they say it will lead to patients having to go to hospitals elsewhere, that do not have the capacity.

The network idea proposed by Laois doctors would mean that care provided by patients attending Portlaoise hospital is on an equal footing with a bigger unit which would share resources and staff with Portlaoise.

Another key department is ICU and it is an area where doctors believe there can be a scaling back of services with out the need for a shutdown.

The critical care resource is an essential safeguard; were it to cease, acute care could no longer take place on site, said the plan.

Laois doctors believe services could be changed to suit the services provided.

As a Category 1 ICU the unit would continue to provide life-saving treatment on a 24-7 basis for patients who become critically unwell while in hospital, or who present critically ill to the hospital.

However, the focus would change. No longer would the patients ICU stay in its entirety be expected to be completed at Portlaoise, said the plan.

The plan also calls for networks and pathways in ICU.
Every time I hear the word Mosborough, it makes me smile. What a brilliant result. From 14% and 4th place just 4 months ago, the Liberal Democrats took a stunning victory in a local by-election on Thursday night. Im told Mosborough is a bellweather ward in Sheffield so it may well reflect how voters across the city are feeling.

This takes me back to the 90s when we were routinely winning by-elections against Labour in Sheffield and Chesterfield. Lets hope that Thursdays victory is a big leap forward to getting that sort of success again.

The Sheffield Star has some great coverage, including one of returning Cllr Gail Smith and the Lib Dem Leader on Sheffield City Council. Shaffaq Mohammed, looking very pleased. Shaffaq said of Gails victory:

In 2008, we actually took control of the council by winning Mosborough. This is a huge victory, it shows the Lib Dems in Sheffield are back and actually, all those seats we lost during the coalition years are there up for grabs. This arrogant Labour council has been sent a very strong message that they cannot take the people of Sheffield for granted. Mosborough has spoken on behalf of Sheffield  well done to the people of Mosborough for electing Gail Smith who is going to be an outstanding councillor.

Elsewhere, just like the losing team on the Apprentice, Labour are sobbing into their tea and kicking lumps out of each other. I saw on social media yesterday that some of them were saying that the candidate wasnt a Corbyn backer, which is why the local Corbynista were to be found phoning for Corbyn, not their candidate on polling day. The voters, of course, didnt know the candidate wasnt a Corbyn fan so she was, they said, caught between a rock and a hard place. The Sheffield Star reports on that angle and on Sheffield MP Angela Smith blaming Corbyn for the terrible result. Isnt it funny how none of them blame their awful local council?

It is clear that Sheffields Labour voters are looking for somewhere else to go. That may well be the case across all Labour seats. It is our responsibility as a party to get out and speak to these people because we have a lot to offer them. We have very strong policy on low pay and housing and inequality that, if communicated properly, could address the things that worry them most. We want people to look to us, not the nasty, spite-filled, divisive rhetoric of UKIP.

Our victory in Mosborough was won by us, not lost by Labour, though. We had an amazing candidate with a strong record of delivering for the ward when she was a councillor before. We had an ace campaign team delivering strong local messages. And we had our secret weapon, Charlie, who drove them on to work even harder.

Charlie was their mascot.

Isnt he gorgeous? Here he is with winning candidate Cllr Gail Smith and some bloke whose name escapes me.

People would turn out in droves to help the campaign and then get their photo taken with Charlie. What a good dog he is. My Hazel looks away whenever she sees a camera.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
The recent increase in hate crimes against Eastern Europeans in the UK has rightly been met with condemnation from across the political spectrum. Some dismiss this is a post-referendum spasm which will quickly ebb away. I fear that may not be the case and the Brexit decision may cause long-term damage to community cohesion and open a Pandoras box of nasty populist politics. Let me explain why.

Brexiteer leaders  Farage, Fox, Johnson  made promises which are already unravelling. They told voters that leaving the EU would lead to better NHS services, improved job prospects and smaller class sizes. Those promises were largely based on migration myths which, unfortunately, many people believed.

Voters were promised that leaving the EU would lead to an improved NHS. Migrants were (wrongly) blamed as a drain on scarce NHS resources and that the UK cash contribution to the EU would be redirected to the NHS.

The reality is that the NHS is struggling because people are living longer, but often with multiple medical conditions and there has been a huge increase in conditions resulting from lifestyle choices. Neither of these is related to migration  these are home-grown problems  so leaving the EU will not resolve them and may make matters worse as it could discourage medical professionals from coming to work in the UK.

As regards more money for the NHS, that promise has already been broken. The Government has stated it will instead guarantee existing EU funding for the science and agricultural sectors which means no cash injection for the NHS.

With regard to class sizes, as a former school governor for many years, I can say that has always been an issue. The problem is not migration, but underinvestment over many decades in the education system.

Brexiteers promised that less migration would mean more job opportunities for UK citizens. Yet, in reality it is Government underinvestment in education, training and apprenticeships  not migration  which has resulted in school leavers lacking the skills they need to secure employment.

Secondly, Brexiteers argued for a points based immigration system. The Prime Minister has rejected that, but offered no alternative. Whatever model is eventually proposed it is unlikely to meet the expectations of ultra-Brexiteers as the whos allowed in list is likely to be long: from bankers to seasonal agricultural workers to qualified construction workers which the housing sector needs.

Ironically, if the Brexiteers promise that the UK economy will boom comes true then demand for migrants to meet that economic expansion will increase.

Also, any Brexit deal with the EU will almost certainly protect the residency rights of Brits living on the mainland as well as those from the mainland living in the UK.

Brexit migrant myths will be exposed, but will not disappear overnight. Failure to deliver Brexit promises will lead to a lot of angry voters which creates fertile ground for populist politicians even more extreme than Farage.

There is now a fight for the heart and soul of our nation. The Liberal Democrats must continue to be the standard bearers for an open, inclusive and multi-cultural society which is part of the EU. We need to be loud and proud about those values and not, as some have suggested, adopt a Brexit-light policy.

Knowingly or not, the Brexiteers have unleashed a xenophobic genie and it is our job to put it back in the bottle.

* James Lindsay is a Lib Dem member in Harborough.
On 3rd June 2016, Michael Gove drew ridicule when he stated People in this country have had enough of experts. However, Theresa Mays announcement that her government are now seeking to actively support1 the reintroduction of selective schools goes against all evidence-based expert opinion.

We mocked Mr Gove but the reintroduction of selective schools may well prove he was right. There appears to widespread support across the right-wing press and the Telegraph website is currently indicating 77% of their readership support the policy.

To make such an argument, I accept that I do need to present credible evidence undermining the case for selective schools. As noted by Branwen Jeffreys, the BBC Education Editor:

Many thought the debate about grammars had become almost irrelevant.

and it is therefore not surprising that recent academic research regarding the impact of selective schools has been limited. Ironically, I suspect that this may have allowed such an antiquated policy to get its foot in the door.

However, digging through the archives, there are multiple articles and data sets that undermine and contradict the proposal that selective education improves education outcomes for communities. For a quick summary, in 2013 Chris Cook of the FT presented compelling analytical data that deprived families do dramatically worse in selective areas, that introducing selection is not good at raising school productivity and that as a way to raise standards or to close the gaps between rich and poor, it is hard to find evidence that [selective schools] are effective. There have also been more specific studies focussed on selective areas such as Buckinghamshire, which concluded that the low prevalence of FSM eligible pupils in the grammar schools casts doubt on their ability to aid social mobility.

In light of such evidence, Professor Stephen Gorard recently concluded in a Guardian article that selection by ability is currently the very antithesis of an evidence-informed policy. Even more pointedly, Sir Michael Wilshaw (the outgoing Chief Inspector of Schools) recently stated that the idea that poor children will benefit from a return of grammar schools is tosh and nonsense.

So why do so many people appear to support the reintroduction of grammar/selective schools?

Undoubtedly, most people are emotionally compromised when it comes to education. The only objectively credible argument for selective education I can find revolves around efficiency. There seems to be a certain truthiness in the idea that is easier to teach groups of similar abilities so that strong pupils can be stretched and challenged and others provided more time and support.

However, the teachers I know are more than capable of teaching a mixed-ability class and just require the time to prepare various differentiation methods. The idea also overlooks the importance of peer interactions with massive benefits in most subjects for working alongside a variety of abilities. Where needed, setting of subjects is also obviously much more flexible (and changeable) than segregation at a school level.

Fundamentally a lack of good schools in certain areas and potential lack of time for teachers to prepare a fully differentiated lesson schedule can both be solved by one thing; recruitment, training and retention of more excellent teachers. Another disruptive and unmandated change to the schools system will just do even more damage (as evidenced by Englands deterioration in results compared to Scotland and Wales, which have not faced Govian academisation).

I am very glad to see Tim Farron has committed to opposing these plans in all ways possible and I hope to see Lib Dems in the House of Lords unanimously vote against any legislation that supports the entrenchment of social divides. I hope as a part we can unite to defeat such archaic ideas and we can also prove Mr Gove wrong and place evidence and experts at the centre of policy-making for our nation.

* Jamie joined the Lib Dems in 2014 and was elected as City Councillor for West Chesterton in May 2018.
EXPECTATIONS are running high in Newcastle West that next Monday will be a red-letter day for the town and open a new era in employment for the area.

On Monday, a pharmaceutical company from North Carolina is expected to announce it will open a new plant in the town, creating up to 100 jobs.

Details about the company and what exactly will be manufactured in Newcastle West and what kind of staff will be employed there are being kept under wraps until the press conference next week.

But the company is taking over a 13,000 square foot building in the Newcastle West Industrial Park which is owned by three local businessmen.

The building was erected almost ten years ago under the Business Expansion Scheme but securing a suitable client has proven to be more drawn-out than initially hoped.

An announcement was expected earlier this year and was flagged by the Limerick Leader. But it has taken until now to copperfasten the deal.

The new company will be the first new industrial development in Newcastle West for the past two decades. But the US pharma company will be joining another US-owned company in the town, Pallas Foods which were bought out in 2009 by the multinational Sysco corporation.
PARENTS of boys - as young as six-months-old - are contacting Glenstal to express an interest in sending their sons to the Murroe school in the future.

Noelle OBrien, director of admissions and development, confirmed to the Limerick Leader that they have had some enquiries for as far into the future as 2028.

The secondary school welcomed its largest number of boys in its 80 year history last week with 249. In a sign of the improving economy numbers have increased by almost 37% in four years. Following their expansion in 2013 they have extra scope for additional classes.

This year we will have 249 boys in the school, thats an increase of 67 since the start of our journey four years ago. Growth is steady and demand for places remains strong. Of this years 249 students, 189 will board and the remaining 60 will day board.

Students continue to convert from day boarding to boarding as they move up the years.

Daily buses operate from Nenagh and Adare and pick up at various locations en route to the school. Our commitment to developing the school continued this year with the redevelopment and expansion of the school theatre and the refurbishment of the senior boarding house, said Ms OBrien, who encourages the parents of prospective pupil to contact them.

Currently the seven day boarding fee stands at 18,950, which includes a 1,000 capital development levy. The cost of day boarding is 11,350 and there is a reduction of 10% for every subsequent brother.

While Glenstal Abbey School is always amongst the top secondary schools in the Sunday Times annual survey, Fr William Fennelly, headmaster, said: While many measure success on points attained - not every child can attain six A1s and therefore success takes on many different hues.

Glenstal has always sought to educate the whole person and not merely to be a faculty for the delivery of points, said Fr William.

We were very happy with this years results, each of our students clearly reached his potential and is now adequately prepared to move on to third level. The class of 2016 are now embarking on courses of study such as Nano Science, Law, Medicine, Business Studies, Agricultural Science, Engineering and Classical Studies in colleges throughout Ireland and one in the USA.

With the new marking system for Leaving Certificate we shall be entering unknown territory to a certain extent but we are confident that our students level of attainment will continue to be as it always has been and for that to be replicated in the students points score, said Fr William.

Great store is placed in trying to get students to reflect on their learning and behaviour.

This practice is rooted in the schools ethos of reverence for God and each other, respect for oneself and this beautiful place, and responsibility for ones actions and the world.

Young people - no less than the rest of us - are living in an increasingly interdependent world and this summer a group of our students were fortunate to go to Kenya to work with students in a school there.

We have a reputation for academic and sporting achievement of which we are very proud but the most important thing is that in this school boys are transformed into men of soul. This is the best we can hope for them and we work towards that on a daily basis, said Fr William.

It is a busy time in the monastery as significant renovations to the church - the first Benedictine one built in Ireland since the Reformation - is nearing completion and they look forward to the abbatial blessing of new Abbot of Glenstal, Fr Brendan Coffey.
Police officers patrol around Notre Dame on September 10, 2016, a few days after the arrest of three women suspected of having abandoned a car laden with gas cyclinders near the cathedral (AFP Photo/Miguel Medina)

Paris (AFP) - French anti-terror judges charged a woman Saturday over a failed jihadist attack near Paris's Notre Dame cathedral, where a car full of gas canisters was found last weekend.

The mother of three, named as 29-year-old Ornella G., is one of several women detained in the past week on suspicion of planning new attacks in France, a country on high alert after a string of jihadist assaults in the past 18 months.

According to investigators, her fingerprints were found in the Peugeot car that was abandoned last Sunday a few hundred metres from Notre Dame in an area thronging with tourists.

The car contained five gas cylinders, three bottles of diesel and a lit cigarette.

Ornella G. was remanded in custody after being charged with association with a terrorist group and attempted murder by an organised group, prosecutors said.

Known to authorities for previously planning to go to Syria, she was arrested in southern France on Tuesday with her boyfriend, who has since been released.

Three other women, named as 19-year-old Ines Madani, 23-year-old Sarah H. and Amel S., 39, were detained on Thursday before they could carry out an attack, investigators said.

The trio were looking at train stations in Paris and south of the capital as potential targets, as well as the police, according to sources close to the investigation.

Madani, the daughter of the car's owner, had allegedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. She was also known to authorities for seeking to travel to Syria.

Ornella G. told police that she and Madani tried to set the car alight but "fled when they saw a man they believed to be a plain-clothes policeman."

- Jihadist fiancee -

Investigators are seeking to determine whether Sarah H. was with the pair at the time.

She was the fiancee of Larossi Abballa, a jihadist who knifed to death a senior policeman and his partner at their home in a Paris suburb in June before himself being shot dead.

Story continues

Sarah H. had since become engaged to Adel Kermiche, one of two jihadists who killed an elderly priest in July near the northern city of Rouen and was subsequently killed by police.

Anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday that the women were inspired by IS, which has called on its followers to attack France in revenge for air strikes on the group's bases in Syria and Iraq.

"A terrorist cell made up of young women totally receptive to the deadly ideology of Daesh has been dismantled," Molins said at a news conference, using another name for IS.

The extremist group claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people, among a series of recent assaults attributed to its followers including the Nice truck attack.

Security is a hot issue in early campaigning for next year's presidential elections.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that police had arrested 293 people this year for "links to terrorist networks."

"This amounts to networks that have been dismantled and attacks that have been prevented," Cazeneuve said, giving no further details about the arrests.

"We are involved in an extremely intense, round-the-clock mission to protect the French public, and we are getting results," Cazeneuve said.

He added that 17 foreigners had been expelled this year for posing a "serious threat to public order."

The latest was a Russian national, Mansur Kudusov, who was extradited to Russia on Friday after being jailed for breaching house arrest.

Kudusov's lawyer said he was a Chechen born in 1991 who had arrived in France as a child and had been placed under house arrest in 2012.
LIMERICK City and County Council says it will continue to investigate and prosecute incidences of illegal dumping.

It comes after an area to the southside of the city centre, Galvone, was criticised in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (Ibal) anti-litter league.

The inspectors, sourced from An Taisce, named Galvone among the dirtiest areas in Ireland, with land there described as being subject to abuse and neglect.

Illegal dumping due to a cut in the bin waiver scheme was blamed for the poor performance, with Gerry Kennedy, Tait House, saying: There is a perception among locals that people who do not have a waiver anymore are taking an easy option when it comes to dumping.

But he admitted surprise about the poor ranking of the Castle Oaks View area, which the inspectors gave a grade D mark to, describing it as being in a terrible state and characterised by widespread dumping, boarded up houses, burnt out areas and general vandalism.

Mr Kennedy said clean-ups take place there every day.

In a statement, Limerick Council said: There are issues with litter and illegal dumping [across the city], however the council and the local community have pulled together and combined their efforts to make improvements to this area. We will continue to work with people and communities to improve their areas.

Another part of Galvone, the Bawnmore Road, had, the inspectors said, a constant stream of litter along the road and pavement.

Litter emanated from the adjacent roads to Kennedy Park, including Walnut Court Road, while Roxboro Shopping Centre was criticised for creating the impression of an untidy environment.

The only area in Galvone to achieve a grade A mark was Woodlawn Park, where it was noted there were plenty of trees and some colourful flower pots.

Although Galvone was criticised in the anti-litter league, released this week, there was better news for Limerick City, which was ranked in joint 21st place out of 40 towns, suburbs and cities surveyed  a marginal drop of two places from the first league of 2016 in January.

Fifteen of 25 sites surveyed in the city secured the top grade A, while there were just two areas awarded the lowest mark, a grade D.

The Parkway Shopping Centre was praised for a lack of chewing gum, while there was a virtual absence of litter along Patrick Street.

Newenham Street looks very fresh, with its bike station spotless, while the new floral displays in OConnell Street added a lovely splash of colour.

Henry Street, Bedford Row, and Harveys Quay were praised, as was the Peoples Park, which inspectors described as a wonderful city centre park amenity.

There was criticism for a lane at Parnell Place, which was described as being in a shockingly bad state, with dumping, and debris.

And a derelict site at the junction of Pennywell Road and the Dublin Road was also criticised.

Kilkenny was named Irelands tidiest town, with the Cork suburb of Farranree bottom of the table  one below Galvone.
A LIMERICK woman who contracted a rare illness at her job in a pet store and spent more than 1,000 days in hospital has written a book about her experience.

I Am Free by Patricia Ingle was launched in OMahonys bookstore on Monday by broadcaster Miriam OCallaghan.

Patricia, 28, was left paralysed and brain damaged after contracting a disease in 2008, just a week shy of her 20th birthday.

The illness has had an extreme effect on Patricias quality of life  she is now fed through a tube, uses a speaking valve and relies on a ventilator at night.

Patricias father Pat said that the book was one of Patricias three goals after emerging from hospital; her two other goals were to have a party and build a house.

He recalled that she had been in an intensive trauma unit in Cork on her 20th birthday, which made her 28th birthday on Tuesday all the more special.

We are very very proud. Its unbelievable, the stuff that we went through. Its an emotional day, he said.

Patricias mother Annette said: We are just so happy to have her here with us  she still has her problems, but shes overcoming them.

The book was written with the assistance of ghostwriter Mary Malone, who thanked the Ingle family for their trust. Mother Annette said that the book has been in the works for almost two years, with the whole family contributing to the story.

Ms OCallaghan said that she was honoured to be launching the book, and that more people should know about Patricias story.

I heard about it on my radio show, and I found it quite inspirational that a young woman had been through this extraordinarily difficult experience and came out the other side to be so inspiring, so I came down and interviewed her in her home about a year ago, she said.

Patricia contracted the disease from inhaling dust from the faeces of parrots who were infected with chlamydia psittacosis while working at a pet shop on the Ennis Road.

She then spent almost three years in hospital.

In 2011, after a lengthy legal battle, the high court awarded Ms Ingle 7.5m over her lifetime.

Her solicitor Susie Elliott spoke warmly of Patricias determination over the past eight years.

As a lawyer, youre supposed to be detached, but it is difficult to stay detached when youve got this remarkable human story, an incredible tragedy as to the injury that Patricia suffered, she said.

It was a difficult time, but every step of the way she was determined. I would have thought when I first met Patricia that getting any answers would be close enough to impossible, but it wasnt for her.

Several people at the launch commented on Patricias smile, a constant throughout her ordeal.

There have been very hard times, but its easy with Patricia because the smile says everything, her dad said.

Annette said that its a sad book but a happy book too.

At the launch, Patricia sincerely thanked all of her family and friends for their constant support in the writing of the book.
Sep 10, 2016, 10 AM

Star Trek pictorial postmarks featuring a starship are being offered by several post offices to commemorate the new Star Trek forever stamps.

By Michael Baadke

The United States Postal Service has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Star Trek with the Sept. 2 release of four forever stamps showing elements of the popular science fiction television and film series.

Several post offices are also offering pictorial cancels with a Star Trek theme.

These postmarks all feature the same design of an overhead view of a Federation starship, presumably the USS Enterprise, whose five-year mission launched the Star Trek saga in 1966, plus the series name in distinctive lettering.

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The station addresses are listed together here, along with the date or date range that will appear on the postmark.

TUCSON, AZ Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 920 N. First Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719-4818, Sept. 2-3.

LUBBOCK, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 4901 S. Loop 289, Lubbock, TX 79464-9998, Sept. 8.

DALHART, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 702 W. 7th St., Dalhart, TX 79022-9998, Sept. 9.

MINERAL WELLS, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 200 SW First Ave., Mineral Wells, TX 76067-9998, Sept. 9.

RISING STAR, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 124 N. Main, Rising Star, TX 76471-9998, Sept. 9.

GRANBURY, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 5561 Northgate Road, Granbury, TX 76049-9998, Sept. 9.

RIVERSIDE, IOWA Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 81 Green St., Riverside, IA 52327-9998, Sept. 10.

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 7001 S. Central Ave., Room 337a, Los Angeles, CA 90052-4200, Sept. 10.

FLOYDADA, TEXAS Station STAR TREK, Postmaster, 226 West Missouri St., Floydada, TX 79235-9998, Sept. 13.

A 10th postmark with a Star Trek theme has a different design that incorporates the Star Trek lettering along with the 50-year Federation insignia, and a smaller starship streaking across the postmark. For this postmark, which has been granted a 30-day extension, send your request to:

STAR TREK: MISSION NEW YORK Station, Stamp Fulfillment Services, Cancellation Services, 8300 NE Underground Drive, Pillar 210, Kansas City, MO 64144-9998, Sept. 2-4.

The following cancels are also available:

BICENTENNIAL Station, Postmaster, Box 9998, Jackson, OH 45640-9998, Sept. 3. (Large 200, Celebrating, star signifying location of Jackson County, Jackson County, Ohio, Bicentennial, 1816-2016, wavy lines.)

DUFFIELD DAZE Station, Postmaster, 466 Duff Patt Highway #101, Duffield, VA 24244-9998, Sept. 3. (Floating toy balloon, 35th annual, date in ribbon.)

JMJ Station, Postmaster, Box 9998, Weston, WV 26452-9998, Sept. 3. (Circular postmark with wavy lines, Jacksons Mill Jubilee.)

RAILWAY POST OFFICE #20 Station, Postmaster, 2600 Bristlecone Ave., Ely, NV 89301-9998, Sept. 3. (Railroad car, Nevada Northern Railway, Celebrating 110 years of Rail to Ely, circular marking with Cobre & Ely R.P.O.)

COLLINWOOD DEPOT Station, Postmaster, 101 Fourth Ave. S., Collinwood, TN 38450-9998, Sept. 3. (Train depot and locomotive, Collinwood Depot Celebrating 100 Years, Old Timers Day, 1916-2016, Built in the past, Restored in the present, Preserved in the future.)

EARLY AMERICAN DAYS Station, Postmaster, 182 W. Front St., Killbuck, OH 44637-9998, Sept. 4. (Killbuck Post Office, POW-MIA insignia with prisoner silhouette, guard tower, barbed wire strand, chain links, You are not forgotten.)

SANDWICH FAIR Station, 22 N. Eddy St., Sandwich, IL 60548-9998, Sept. 7-11. (Small building, Grandstand Ticket Office 2016, Sandwich Fair, DeKalb County, IL.)

SEPTEMBERFEST Station, Postmaster, 220 S. Broadway, Pennsville, NJ 08070-9998, Sept. 10. (All text postmark, Greetings from Septemberfest XXXX.)

WINDMILL WEEKEND Station, Postmaster, 2365 State Highway, Eastham, MA 02642-9998, Sept. 11. (Windmill, 39th Eastham Windmill Weekend, Bayshore to Seashore.)

FLIGHT 93 NATIONAL MEMORIAL Station, Postmaster, Box 9998, Shanksville, PA 15560-9998, Sept. 11. (Memorial wall with four silhouette figures, National Park Service Centennial.)
May 3, 2021, 5 PM

The six stamps in Royal Mails Great Fire of London set tell the story of this 1666 catastrophe in the style of a graphic novel. The stamps were issued Sept. 2 in se-tenant (side-by-side) pairs.

By Denise McCarty

Six new stamps from Great Britains Royal Mail illustrate the start, spread, and end of the Great Fire of London. The stamps were issued Sept. 2 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of this catastrophe.

Royal Mail said: In the early hours of Sunday 2 Sept. 1666 a fire breaks out in bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane, London. Over the next few days the fire spreads through the city, the close-packed wooden houses, with thatch, stored materials like pitch and tar plus strong westerly wind making a perfect storm. 

The stamp designs are in a graphic novel style, according to Royal Mail. In general, graphic novels use comic-book style art and text to tell a story.

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Comic book artist John Higgins created the illustrations for the stamps. They were printed in se-tenant (side-by-side) pairs.

Higgins, whose other works include Judge Dredd, 2000 AD and Watchmen, said: It is an honour to illustrate these stamps and to commemorate this moment in history 350 years on. Capturing the story of the Great Fire of London in just six Special Stamps was a wonderful challenge, I am thrilled to have been chosen to bring the graphic-novel style to Royal Mails Special Stamps for the first time.

This illustrated story of the 1666 fire that destroyed approximately 80 percent of London and left 100,000 people homeless begins on the pair of nondenominated first-class stamps. The stamp on the left shows the start of the fire around 2 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 2, in Farriners bakery, including a scene of Farriner and his daughter escaping through a window.

The images are separated by a drawing of the intersection of Pudding Lane and Thames Street. A similar street-map technique is used on all of the designs.

The other first-class stamp depicts the rapid spreading of the fire and people fleeing to the River Thames with their possessions.

Diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) described the scene: Everybody endeavoring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another.

The two 1.05 stamps show the spread of the fire on Sept. 3-4 and efforts made to stop it. On the left-hand stamp, houses are being pulled down to create firebreaks, and three men are using a fire squirt.

The Museum of London website describes this equipment: Made of brass, this squirt is like a very large syringe. The nozzle is dipped into a bucket of water and the rod is pulled out, sucking the water up. At least two people are needed to use it: one to hold the handles on each side and another to push the rod in, squirting the water out into the fire.

On the other 1.05 stamp, the fire has reached Paternaster Row on Sept. 4, and a crowd watches as the flames engulf St. Pauls Cathedral, one of more than 80 churches destroyed by the fire.

During the night on Sept. 4, the wind dropped, helping those fighting the blaze. By the morning of Sept. 6, the fire was extinguished, though some areas of London smouldered for another few months.

The aftermath of the fire is illustrated on the 1.52 pair.

The first of the two stamps shows the homeless camping in tents at Moorfields on Sept. 5. Temporary food markets that have been set up around the city also are pictured.

The final stamp depicts a scene almost a week later, on Sept. 11, when architect Christopher Wren presented his plan for rebuilding London to King Charles II. John Evelyn and Robert Hooke later presented plans as well.

The Chase designed the stamps, using the illustrations by Higgins. International Security Printers printed them by offset in sheets of 60 (sold in panes of 30 at most postal outlets). The stamps are square, 35 millimeters by 35mm, and are perforated gauge 14.5 by 14.5.

The current first-class rate is 64 pence. The stamps denominated 1.05 pay the rate for mail to Europe up to 20 grams and to international countries up to 10 grams, and the 1.52 stamps pay the rate for mail to Europe weighing mail up to 100 grams.

Royal Mails other products for the Great Fire of London set include first-day covers; a presentation pack with illustrations by graphic-novel artist Leigh Gallagher; and six postcards reproducing the designs of the stamps.

Ordering information is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland.

Royal Mails two agencies in the United States are Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557; and the British Stamp Service in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008.
Sep 10, 2016, 5 AM

Albanias stamp for the canonization of Mother Teresa shows the white and blue sari she wore.

India issued a souvenir sheet Sept. 4 to honor Mother Teresa being declared a saint. The 50-rupee stamp from that sheet is shown.

By Denise McCarty

Three postal administrations closely associated with Mother Teresa issued stamps to commemorate her recent canonization.

Pope Francis declared her St. Teresa of Calcutta (Kolkata) before an estimated crowd of 120,000 Sunday, Sept. 4, at St. Peters Square in Vatican City.

The Vatican City issued a single stamp Sept. 2 to celebrate the canonization. India issued a souvenir sheet Sept. 4, and Albania issued a stamp and a souvenir sheet on that date.

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Born Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, to parents of Albanian heritage, Mother Teresa spent much of her life in India, where she founded the congregation of the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 in Calcutta to serve the poorest of the poor.

She once said: By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.

The 0.95 Vatican City stamp shows two images of Mother Teresa with a large church in the background.

The new-issue announcement from the Vatican Citys philatelic and numismatic office doesnt identify the church. However, Matters India, a website for religious news, says it is St. Pauls, the Anglican cathedral in Calcutta, not the citys Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary.

The souvenir sheet from India contains a 50-rupee stamp featuring a photograph of Mother Teresa. The selvage includes another photograph of the new saint and a view of a crowd in St. Peters Square.

Albanias 120-lek stamp depicts the white sari with three blue stripes worn by Mother Teresa. According to an article by Stuti Das on the Mother Teresa Center website, the color white represents truth and purity, and the three blue stripes signify the vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity and service to the poorest of the poor.

Albania issued this stamp in panes of nine and in a souvenir sheet of one with a picture frame in the selvage.

To learn more about these stamps, visit the websites of the postal administrations of Albania, India, and Vatican City.
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Extract from Lagan Love

Extract from Lagan Love

by Thomas Kiernan

I have to leave you know.

Every party has to end, I suppose.

My drinking has become a problem.

In Dublin it might be a problem. Up here its an asset.

Dead right, Archie, but my body wont take much more. As for my head, just dont ask.

Granard-born author, Thomas Kiernan, is set to return to his native north Longford for the launch of his second anthology, Someone I Never Knew. The event, which will be officiated by Noel Monahan, takes place on September 8 (Saturday) next at the Boomerang Lounge, Granard, at 9pm.

Each of the stories has a similar theme running through them. The characters make painful discoveries in each story, e.g. in the title story there is a married couple living together. Aspects of the wifes character are unveiled to him and he sees a side of her that he never saw before and he doesnt like it, said Mr Kiernan speaking to the Leader.

The 15 stories are situated in different locations throughout Ireland including Belfast, Kilkenny, Dublin and Longford. Mr Kiernan admitted that he often returns to Longford in his writing and recalls some characters he grew up with.

My father always liked the local characters in Granard and I think I have inherited that from him, said Mr Kiernan, a son of Tommy Kiernan of Granada Ballroom, and Rose (Cooke) of Bawn, Mullahoran.

A father of two, Mr Kiernan has lived in Kilkenny since 1984 and is married to Alice. Although he is involved in writers groups in that city, it was his six-year-period in Paris that set the creative flame alight within him.

One day I was off work and I was wandering around the Latin Quarter. There I picked up a second-hand book. It was Oliver Goldsmiths Vicar Of Wakefield. That same day, I also started talking to a couple. They were Americans and they were writers. They were very interesting people. I suppose a seed was sown that day, said Mr Kiernan.

He added: It was a long road to learn the craft though, and at times I wasnt writing at all. There simply wasnt time. Particularly when we had Tommy and Mairead.

Most writers will agree that in order to be a successful writer, you must be a reader. Mr Kiernan agrees with this and among his most influential writers are Hemmingway, Cormac McCarthy and James Joyce.

Id always see something that says something in a way I like and I would try to see how they did that, explained Mr Kiernan.

Working as a taxi-driver, Mr Kiernan is also a fan of folk music, singing and playing the guitar.

He said: I like the vagabond culture that one finds in folk songs.

Mr Kiernans first book, The Hall And Other Stories, was a collection of sketches based upon stories his father had told him and his family background. It was published 10 years ago.

His most recent work, Someone I Never Knew, was published by Galway-based publishing house, Sixth House.

Im hoping that this will open doors for future novels to be published, said the aspiring novelist.
By Alan Walsh alan.walsh@longfordleader.ie

Nicole Turner finished fifth in the S6 50m Butterfly Final at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro tonight and in the process she set a huge new personal best of 37.31 seconds.

14-year-old Nicole, the youngest member of Team Ireland, produced a superb performance as she finished behind Great Britain gold medal winner Ellie Robinson 35.58, second Oksana Khrul (Ukraine) 36.45, third Tiffany Thomas Kane (Australia) 38.81 and fourth place Lu Dong (China) 37.06.

Nicoles finishing time in the final was 1.13 seconds faster than the 38.44 she recorded in the heats earlier this afternoon (Friday, September 9).

Nicoles dad, Jason, is the warehouse manager at C&D Foods in Edgeworthstown and he, along with mum Bernie, were cheering on their daughter from poolside at Rio.

While employees of C & D, who held a number of fundraisers for Nicole prior to the Paralympics, watched her race live on RTE2 on TV screens across Longford and beyond.

Portarlington native Nicolestill has plenty to look forward to over the days ahead in Rio as she competes in five other competitions - the 50m freestyle tomorrow (Saturday, September 10), the 200m Individual Medley on Monday, 400m freestyle on Tuesday, the 100m breaststroke on Thursday and the 100m freestyle next Saturday week (September 17), before the Paralympics come to a close on Sunday.

Congratulations to Nicole on her fantastic performance tonight and we wish her well over the coming days.
By Alan Walsh

alan.walsh@longfordleader.ie

Talented swimmer Nicole Turner has qualified for her second final appearance of the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

14-year-old Nicole, the youngest member of Team Ireland, finished 2nd in her S6 50m Freestyle heat this afternoon.

Her time of 36.70 ensured she qualified 7th overall to book her place in the final which will be screened live at 9.50pm tonight (Saturday, September 10) on RTE 2.

Last night, Nicole finished fifth in the S6 50m Butterfly Final in new personal best time of 37.31 seconds.

Swimming from Lane 6, Nicole looked very strong throughout but missed out on the medal by just 0.5 of a second.

The teen sensation was delighted with her performance. Its amazing, when I saw the clock it was unbelievable that I took nearly a second off my best time. After watching London four years ago I never thought Id be at the next Paralympic Games, its incredible, she sai.

Nicoles dad Jason is the warehouse manager at C&D Foods in Edgeworthstown and no doubt employees of C & D across Longford and beyond will be glued to their TV screens as Portarlington native Nicole swims in a final for the second time in her debut Paralympics.

A truly phenomenal achievement! Go Nicole...go Team Ireland!
Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com

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Stock Market Hard Gap Down And Run.... Fed Governor's Talking Rate Hike...

When you have negative divergences on an index chart, or any chart for that matter, you're waiting for a gap down to occur in order to get that negative divergence to kick in and create real down side action. The gap down we saw today was quite powerful, but what was even more impressive was the gap and run lower. Many times we get a gap down, but most of the damage is done in the first few minutes. After that the market starts to recover and all is forgiven. This gap down didn't have those characteristics. Quite the opposite. It gapped down quite nicely and kept running lower. A sign of real selling from the big boys and girls who rule price. A negative divergence can be in place for weeks or months before the right candle stick hits and carries it appreciably lower.

The gap down is always the best news for the bears when this situation exists. Today's action with the gap and run is truly important, because it's a change of character. It's essential to focus in and recognize a change in market character as it can tell us what to expect for the short-term at the very least. A gap and run with force hasn't taken place in a very long time, and since it came from near an all-time high, you have to take notice. It's telling us that the negative's out there are for real, and that the market is respecting them. For a long time, the market hasn't respected the real world, but the culmination of bad news recently on the economies globally are starting to take hold. The red flag is up with today's technical action. We're still above 2134, but we're now nowhere near 2194. Oh so close, but no cigar.

Germany had a report last night that said their imports and exports were going in the wrong direction. Increases of 0.8 and 0.3 respectively were met with readings of MINUS -0.7 and -2.6 respectively. Huge misses, and yet another sign of how bad things are not just here at home, but all over the world, especially in key hot spots of supposed growth. Areas of the world that contribute mightily to the well being of the global economies. The Euro zone, especially Germany, are looked upon to help carry the burden of growth, but the numbers that are coming in are painting a very different picture.

We have had huge problems here at home just recently with our ISM Manufacturing Report and services numbers. Jobs also pulled back. The real problems were those two ISM readings. Services, which are now nearly 80% of our economy fell from near 58% to just above 51%. A gigantic fall. There doesn't seem to be any areas of growth. In fact, Japan announced just two days ago that they are seriously considering lowering already negative rates. Are you kidding? The reality of where the global economy is heading is not a pretty picture. The trend is south and doing so quite rapidly. Something that needs to reverse soon or a recession isn't too far behind.

The most interesting thing out there is how many fed Governor's are coming out and saying it's time for a rate hike. You have fed Governor's coming out it seems almost every day trying to prepare the markets for a rate hike even though the economic reports aren't any good. I think they're starting to understand the bubble they've created. I think they understand that the nonsense has to stop somewhere and maybe, just maybe, that time is finally upon us as housing prices soar for no good reason while the economy is weakening.

The bubble created is an all timer as earnings are on a massive decline while P/E's are soaring. The disconnect just about as bad as I've ever seen it. The madness has to stop somewhere but knowing the fed it may not have stopped. Who knows what else they'll do. That said, Ms Yellen does seem to be thinking harder about actually raising rates. The market will now focus endlessly on September 21 when she announces whether she's raising or not. The way she's sending out so many of her crew to talk up rate hikes, she may actually just do it. Interesting times as maybe we're about to finally see rate hikes in our future. The real world needs it. The bubble will burst someday.

Finally, let's focus on the monthly S&P 500 chart, which recently hit its trend line top. The question was whether it would break out above the trend line or reverse lower. With oscillators at very high levels, and with negative divergences in place, it seemed most logical for failure to ensue. The market has ignored all negatives, so there was no guarantee, but it seems as if the reversal has taken place and now we have plenty of room to fall if the market wants to do it. Of course, we'll see if 2134 holds or not and over time whether 2100 holds, but, for now, all we know is that the trend line top has caused the reversal. The catalyst being the rate hike talks. It takes only one piece of news to reverse things when you're in a bubble.

We watch and learn over the days and weeks to come.

Have a great weekend.

Peace,

Jack

Jack Steiman is author of SwingTradeOnline.com ( www.swingtradeonline.com ). Former columnist for TheStreet.com, Jack is renowned for calling major shifts in the market, including the market bottom in mid-2002 and the market top in October 2007.

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Mr. Steiman's commentaries and index analysis represent his own opinions and should not be relied upon for purposes of effecting securities transactions or other investing strategies, nor should they be construed as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy any security. You should not interpret Mr. Steiman's opinions as constituting investment advice. Trades mentioned on the site are hypothetical, not actual, positions.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Carilion Clinic expects soon to prescribe less traditional ways to treat pain, including Reiki, massage, art and acupuncture.

From a comprehensive pain management perspective, were introducing multiple therapies within the hospital in the next six months, Dr. Donald Bivins, Carilions medical director of inpatient management, said Friday.

We hope to have a Reiki master available, acupuncture available, massage therapy, music therapy increasingly available. We already have pet therapy available, just not much. So there are several things that we hope that will help you in taking care of patients.

Bivins was talking to doctors, nurses, therapists and pharmacists during a day-long pain conference in Roanoke. While treatments such as mindfulness, meditation and therapeutic touch will be new to health care providers and patients, Bivins said, the intent is that they become the standard in treating pain.

Its such a different mindset, not just for physicians but for the community, he said.

Interest has been growing by health care providers to look at more holistic ways of treating pain rather than relying only on prescriptions.

Conferences on pain have been held periodically in Roanoke since 1999. Back then, health care providers were learning that they needed to treat pain as though it was the fifth vital sign. In assigning a number on a 10-point scale, pain has become a number, and is treated like high blood pressure: lower the number quickly.

There are so many charts I get to review, and Im impressed by how little we as providers of care actually document where the pain is coming from, Bivins said. We will comment pain is a 9 or a 10 or patients say, Im hurting, or, My pain is worse.

I can go through 20 days of chart records from physicians and nurses and therapists, and never once do I see where the pain is. I have to walk into the room and say, Im sorry. Im here to treat your pain but I dont know where it is. 

Bivins is part of a Carilion team that has been looking at more effective ways to treat pain than reaching for the prescription pad.

Carilion used the pain conference to bring in speakers to talk about evidence-based nontraditional approaches to treating pain and share information about regulatory changes that are meant to address the prescription and use of potentially addictive opioids.

More than 1,000 Virginians died last year from legal and illegal drug overdoses, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Between July 2015 and July 2016, a dozen people in Roanoke, Roanoke County and Vinton died from overdoses, and 76 people overdosed but survived.

The rising number of deaths and concerns over addiction are also causing some health care providers and patients to shun opioids even when they are indicated.

We have many patients who are afraid of addiction, said speaker Ann Quinlan-Colwell, a pain specialist at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina.

One of the things that is happening in our country, is in the 90s we were well over here with pain that was not resolved, she said. We then swung that pendulum way over here, and now were at a risk of swinging it way back again.  We need to get the pendulum back in the center so we have safe and effective pain management.

Quinlan-Colwell said patients are looking for comfort, and that is best achieved by using many approaches that mix medication with nonpharmaceutical practices.

Also, the act of listening and understanding what patients say about their pain is often itself a tonic, she said.
MARTINSVILLE  One room in the Martinsville-Henry County Heritage Center and Museum, formerly the Henry County Courthouse, looks like a little girls dream come true. On loan from Cathy Stone, an entire collection of Madame Alexander First Lady dolls reside at the museum.

Theres a bunch of them, Johnny Nolen, an employee at the museum said.

Stones collection consists of dolls ranging from Martha Washington to Pat Nixon. Some noticeable ladies currently on display include Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams; Adams daughter-in-law, Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams; and Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln. A poster board beside the collection tells facts about each doll displayed.

Just over half of the 14 inch figures in the collection greet visitors in the upstairs room adjacent to the courtroom. Each doll wears a replica of a period inaugural gown.

The doll company started producing the First Lady collection in 1976. However, Madame Beatrice Alexander made dolls long before the presidential wives series. Growing up in her fathers doll hospital, Alexander often saw children crying over broken dolls. In the early 1900s, many companies made dolls out of bisque, a material similar to porcelain. Unlike today, many girls only had one or two dolls their entire childhood. If children did not play carefully or if an accident occurred, the babies they loved to pieces often ended up in pieces. Witnessing devastated children as they brought their most prized possessions to her fathers workshop, Alexander vowed that she would create an indestructible doll  or at least one that wouldnt break as easily as bisque.

In 1923, at the age of 28, Alexander established the Madame Alexander Doll Company. Her business made dolls out of a revolutionary material called composition. A variation of papier mache, composition dolls generally consisted of glue mixed with sawdust or wood pulp. Marketed as unbreakable and given childlike features, composition dolls flew off of the shelves in America.

Composition dolls dominated the American doll market until the late 1940s when Madame Alexander partnered with DuPont. Together, they created dolls made out of hard plastic, which changed the industry forever. Now, most dolls made for children are some variation of plastic, be it hard, soft or vinyl. Most collectible Madame Alexander dolls are vinyl, like the First Lady collection.

Also in the space adjacent to the courtroom sits a doll house with furniture and figurines depicting days gone by. Keeping with the childhood theme, Dr. Mervyn King and wife Virginia King display two antique tricycles in the room.

While that specific room unlocks the child in each person, the museums downstairs takes a look at the adult-driven history of Martinsville and Henry County. Area-related collections include tobacco artifacts, largely on display by Doug Stegall and Will Gravely, furniture from Bassett Furniture and Bassett-Walker and DuPont memorabilia.

One area of the museum focuses on Civil War artifacts, some of which the Kings display.

One War Between the States item has a personal connection to Nolen.

Isaac A. Nolen, Nolen read. Thats my great grandfathers tombstone.

The headstone features an intricate carving of the Confederate battle flag along with the soldiers birth and death dates.

Nolens favorite feature of the stone appears at the very bottom. An inscription reads, A friend to his county and a believer in Christ.

As a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society relies largely on community support in the form of monetary donations and fundraisers. The museum invited the community to Blue Jeans n Bling, a fundraiser set for September 24 at the Historic Henry County Courthouse Plaza from 6:00 p.m.  9:00 p.m.

Attendees will enjoy barbecue from Pigs R Us, a cash bar and a silent auction. Tim Martin and Friends will provide mountain music. A 50-50 raffle will also be available.

Advance tickets for $30.00 per person may be purchased from any board member by calling (276) 403-5361 during business hours, Wednesdays through Fridays from 2:00 p.m.  5:00 p.m., and online at Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets are $35 at the door the evening of the event.

Proceeds will allow the Historical Society to install new exhibits and provide lectures and activities on Martinsville and Henry County history.
9:.jpg

The monument at the Raymond M. Sullivan Public Safety Complex as the Springfield September 11th Remembrance Ceremony in 2014. Ceremonies are being held Sunday in Amherst.

(Republican file )

AMHERST -- The Fire Department will hold its annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony, but this year it will be at the North Amherst station and paired with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation road race.

The department has held a ceremony every year since 2002 to remember and honor all those public safety personnel who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fire personnel will gather at 9:30 a.m., and the short ceremony will begin at 9:59, the time the first World Trade Center tower collapsed.

The Tunnel to Towers 5K road race is held in New York City and in communities around the country in honor of Stephen Siller, one of the New York City firefighters who died that day trying to save others.

The race is a benefit to raise money for the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which builds custom smart homes for catastrophically injured service members.

The race will begin behind the Sylvan residential area at the University of Massachusetts, and the finish line will be at the North Fire Station, where awards will be presented.

The public is invited to attend the ceremony and the road race finish line activities.



Information about the race is available at t2trun.org.
NORTHAMPTON -- Five more jurors were selected Friday for the third murder trial of Cara Rintala, the Granby paramedic charged with killing her wife in 2010.

The selections bring the number of jurors to 11, or five short of the total Judge Mary-Lou Rup has required for the trial.

Following mistrials in 2013 and 2014, Rintala was back in Hampshire Superior Court this week, charged with killing Annamaria Cochrane Rintala in the basement of their home in Granby.

She has been free on $150,000 bail since March 2014, after a second mistrial was declared due to a deadlocked jury. In both cases, eight jurors reportedly voted to convict Rintala and four voted for acquittal.

Rintala, 49, is the first woman in Massachusetts charged with murdering her wife, and one of the relatively few defendants nationwide to be tried three times for murder.

Addressing the first group of potential jurors Tuesday, Rup said the trial should take four or five weeks, depending on how quickly a jury can be selected. Jury pool members not excluded for medical, family or professional reasons were required to fill out a 20-page questionnaire related to the case.

On Thursday, six jurors were chosen as Rup and lawyers for both sides began interviews with individual jury pool members.

The interviews continued Friday, with dozens of prospective panelists being dismissed along with the five who were selected.

Mary Carey, communications director for the Northwestern District Attorney's office, said the interviews will resume on Monday.

In the first two trials, Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne asserted that Rintala strangled her wife following years of abuse, mounting debts and custody disputes over their adopted child.

Defense lawyer David P. Hoose argued that investigators concluded that Rintala was guilty early in the investigation and failed to pursue other suspects.
drugbust1.jpg

Boston police seized drugs, weapons, and $39,000 during a raid in the city's Mattapan neighborhood on Thursday afternoon.

(Boston Police Department photo)

BOSTON  One man was arrested and a variety of weapons and narcotics  including heroin and cocaine  were seized, along with $39,000, in a police raid in Boston on Thursday, according to The Boston Globe.

Police say Jose Zoquier, 29, of Mattapan, was taken into custody by authorities at approximately 1 p.m. Thursday, after a search warrant was used in the vicinity of 5 Fairmount St, according to the paper.

Police discovered a total of 262 grams of cocaine and 23 grams of heroin at Zoquier's residence, as well as two loaded firearms  a loaded 9mm Jimenez Arms Model J.A. handgun and a 9mm Millennium PT-111 handgun. They also found 150 rounds of ammunition.

Zoquier has been charged with trafficking Class A and B drugs, as well as two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.
ST. STEPHEN, NEW BRUNSWICK  A man from Maine was arrested Wednesday after he used an air mattress purchased from Walmart to paddle across the St. Croix River and into Canadian territory, according to the Portland Press Herald.

John Michael Bennett, 25, of Calais, Maine, claimed he was very concerned about his pregnant fiancee, who, he said, was in danger because of a violent ex-boyfriend.

After attempting and failing to enter the country through an official border station, Bennett went to the local Walmart and bought both an air mattress and a paddle that he subsequently used to cross the river into Canada.

Authorities say Bennett was rejected from the border station due to a pending criminal mischief charge he has in Calais.

Bennett took the air mattress to a riverbank and inflated it, before getting in it and paddling across the "1,000 to 2,000 feet wide" section of river.

Bennett's crossing was reported to authorities by a Canadian resident, after which Bennett was picked up by border patrol agents and police on Ledge Road in St. Stephen.

Bennett appeared in court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to crossing into Canada illegally. As a result, he was sentenced to two months in jail and will also be deported to the U.S. after his sentence is over.

"Although this was somewhat comedic in terms of how he came across, the larger message needed to be sent out to the public on both sides of the border that the penalties will be significant no matter what the circumstances," said Peter Thorn, a lawyer representing the federal Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
Montanas wages are still among the lowest in the nation, but they are rising faster than the national average despite declines in the energy industry, according to a report released Tuesday.

Jobs and wages have emerged as key issues in this years governors race between Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock and Republican challenger Greg Gianforte. Both candidates addressed jobs and wages in separate public appearances Tuesday as their campaigns kick into high gear two months before the Nov. 8 election.

By MATT VOLZ  Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/6/jobs-report-montana-wages-low-but-rising/
This September, Fall for Print

Back to school, crisp mornings and leaves starting to change color  theres no denying that autumn is just around the corner. This September, get ready to "fall" in love with print all over again.

Whether youre well down the path of year-end promotion or just ramping up your outreach, were here to help you make your print projects a success. If you are thinking about using Direct Mail to promote your business this season, check out our blog on "The Numbers Behind Direct Mail."

Need custom hang tags for jewelry, clothes, or just about anything else? Weve got you covered. And for those trying to get out the vote this election season, check out our post on using postcards for political mailing.

No matter what the last few months of 2016 look like for you, wed like to help you make it the best part of the year. Call us today at 800-930-7978 to talk with your personal team of print experts. Get your projects started and get ready to love your print.

Direct Mail Stats

The Numbers Behind Direct Mail

Direct mail is a tested channel that still makes a huge impact on businesses of all sizes. Weve got the numbers to prove it.

Read The Blog http://www.printingforless.com/blog/direct-mail/numbers_behind_direct_mail

Hang Tags are a Hit

Looking for that special piece to add some punch and flair to your business? Look no further  hang tags are a great way to showcase your brand and and value while keeping your customers interested. Get your hang tags with a custom die cut, special paper, specialty ink, or a custom size, and make an impression with everyone who sees them.

Ready to start your hang tag project? Call us at 800-930-7978 or get a quote below.

Get a Quote http://www.printingforless1.com/ps/Request/Quote

Postcards for Politics

Political Postcards: Your Key to Constituents

Postcards are part of every great political campaign. Connect with voters quickly and easily with these political marketing tips.

Read the Post http://www.printingforless.com/blog/postacards/use-a-postcard-mailer-to-get-more-voters
Steve Running http://www.ntsg.umt.edu/user/9 shared in a Nobel Peace Prize for his smarts on climate change, and that same knowledge helped him save a special event headed for disaster.

"I saved a wedding once with this theory. This is a fact," Running said to some 80 students the first week of school.

KEILA SZPALLER [email protected]

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/if-you-re-studying-climate-change-at-um-you-re/article_fb23a2bd-69ba-54fd-a3ac-bfbfc4de61de.html
Le gouvernement a donne son feu vert pour la signature dune accord de principe entre ses deux institutions dans le domaine pharmaceutique et la biotechnologie.

Cabinet has agreed to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Mauritius Institute of Biotechnology Ltd and the Department for International Trade of the United Kingdom on cooperation in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. The Memorandum of Understanding would, inter alia, cover the following areas of cooperation:

(a) promotion, development and acceleration of manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines and other drugs;

(b) facilitation of business opportunities for bilateral investment including joint commercial ventures and partnerships;

(c) negotiations for securing licensing agreements with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; and

(d) training and human resource development, as well as technology transfer and innovative practices.

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iHeartMedia has expanded its Spanish-language business.

The mainstream radio company, with a quarter of a billion monthly U.S. listeners, has teamed with Hispanic radio personality Enrique Santos to jump-start a new Latin unit.

Santos has been named Chairman/Chief Creative Officer of iHeartLatino. Previously, he was at Univision Radio, where he hosted the popular "Enrique Santos Show."

In addition to overseeing programming and content strategies, he will also create and host an English-language programming on iHearts broadcast, digital and social platforms. The move, by the largest radio company in the U.S., underscores the power of the Hispanic marketplace.

Born in Illinois to Cuban parents, Santos is bilingual and an established media personality who has been on air for two decades.

Santos first assignment is to anchor iHeart's Miami station, Mega 94.9, the new home of The Enrique Santos Show. It is being renamed TU 94.9 today.

Bob Pittman, Chairman/CEO of iHeartMedia, called Santos a one-of a-kind talent, able to communicate equally as well to the Spanish- and English-speaking audiences. He touted Santos ability to maximize the crossover potential for Latin artists, and to develop new opportunities for advertisers.

The company is building on its strong Hispanic presence, with 20 Spanish-language broadcast stations and the iHeartLatino Radio Festival.
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Discoveries about how the brain detects and responds to threats have guided research aimed at improving treatments for fear and anxiety disorders.

But many promising new treatments either have turned out to be not useful in patients or may cause adverse effects that limit their use to severe disorders.

Contrary to existing views, the brain circuits that underlie the conscious feelings of fear and anxiety are different from those that underlie the behavioral and physiological responses associated with these feelings.

Both sets of symptoms, the conscious and the behavioral/psychological, must be understood and treated but they must be addressed differently.

Behavioral and physiological symptoms are treated with either medications or certain psychotherapies, such as cognitive behavior therapy

Conscious feelings are addressed with psycho-therapeutic treatments that are specifically designed.

You cannot stop worrying, but you could try postponing it. Make a worry time. List out your worries during that worry time.

Distinguish your worries into those that have solutions and those that require brainstorming.

Do not label yourself as a failure or a loser.

Be good to yourself; do not be strict with yourself.

Be aware of your thoughts, don't resist them. Not resisting will help you get over them.

There is no strict way of conduct of life. Consider yourself a work-in-progress and move ahead with positive thoughts.

Try to be in the company of those that energize you and not with those that add to your worries. If that's not possible, keep the discussion of certain topics off limits.

Accept uncertainty.

Fear is a natural response to a threat that can be either perceived or real. Fear differs from anxiety as it has a specific object. It is often associated with a strong flight or fright response to this object which may be something dangerous like a fire emergency in your house or a phobia Fear and anxiety can last for a short time and then pass, but they can also last much longer and affect your health."Our ability to understand the brain is only as good as our understanding of the psychological processes involved," state the authors Joseph LeDoux, a professor in New York University's Center for Neural Science, and Daniel Pine, who leads the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, at the National Institute of Mental Health's Intramural Research Program."If we have misunderstood what fear and anxiety are, it is not surprising that efforts to use research based on this misunderstanding to treat problems with fear and anxiety would have produced disappointing results.""Going forward, recognition of this distinction should provide a more productive path for research and treatment."The researchers observed that:The researchers developed a framework which indicates that the processes that give rise to conscious feelings of fear or anxiety and the non-conscious processes that generate behavior and physiological responses have differences.The authors also suggest that treatment must move towards a dual approach where:The researchers feel that research in humans is essential to understand the conscious feelings in the brain while animal research is required to understand the brain mechanisms that underlie the non-conscious processes that control behavioral and physiological responses.The analysis is published in the latest issue of theSource: Medindia
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N. KOTZIAS: We opted to have this meeting in Rhodes because of the islands long history. The first Israelo-Palestinian meetings, an armistice agreement and international Middle East conferences aimed at finding a solution to the issue back in the 1940s were actually held here, in Rhodes. Moreover, there were many meetings with regard to this region back in the 1950s, the 1970s and the start of the 1980s. It is not accidental nor is was it random as Rhodes brings together various styles and cultures, spanning a wide historical range from ancient Greece to Italian architecture at the heart of the city of Rhodes.



Rhodes is where various civilizations and cultures meet: North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, especially S.E. Europe. It is a crossroads, a hub connecting East and West, South and North.



I wish, on that note, to extend my thanks to the city of Rhodes, the Mayor and the Regional Governor who will be hosting us for lunch today. Thank you for taking such great care of everything and everyone. I wish to also express my gratitude to the departments of the Ministry of Public Order who made sure our visitors felt at ease.



Let me, moreover, acknowledge and thank the directorates and departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because tasks like this might seem self-evident and easy, still they call for hard work, a lot of workload, especially for A6, the Directorate for Arab countries and the Middle East, the Protocol Department and, last but not least, the Information and Public Diplomacy Department which is working really hard and you, in particular, are aware of that.



Now, why did we undertake this initiative? As you know, we have already established five tripartite partnerships with Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and we are also working on another, among Cyprus, Greece and Palestine, which is due in the next UN General Assembly.



This is also quite telling and revealing of our excellent relations with countries in the region and the upgraded status of Greece as a country working for security and stability in the region.



On top of that, we believe in the continuity of history and traditions in SE Europe, in particular the Balkans, and MENA.



The world community has been dealing with this region mostly as a place of conflict and warfare rather than because of its positive prospects, energy and scope for positive action.



The objective of this Conference was to look for and into positive actions to help our countries. Thus, we agreed to have the Rhodes Conference every year and invite the rest of the Gulf countries to attend. We also agreed to work on the basis of the following principles:



First, we do not wish for third party intervention in the region. We can work together and capitalize on help from the outside, nonetheless, this region has to build and develop its own relations based on trust and a positive agenda. That is an agenda in favour of networking and protecting public goods for the sake of the region including, for instance, culture, combating corruption, working on energy, transport, institutions, education, with particular emphasis and attention to what young people need.



We also dealt, though not to a great extend, with the migrant and refugee issues since all of us in this region agree it is others that are causing the flows of refugees, but then again someone else ends up paying the price. Some are bombarding places and others are eventually called upon to deal with the refugee issue.



We also tackled issues of geostrategic importance, especially for the Arab countries: the fight against terror, Syria and Libya, ways to contribute and help deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as we are all in favor of a two-state solution and we talked about growth and development in the region.



Moreover, we agreed on a number of practical measures, as I am a practical man myself. Each country taking part in this Conference has already agreed to undertake the preparation of one action each and get all the other participants on board. We are inaugurating our common actions through cooperating in the field of green technologies, with Libya and Italy in charge.



We have also agreed that our universities should be working together. On the occasion of the centenary of failed agreements which set the colonial borders of this region, we are going to have an international conference with universities from the entire region.



We are also looking into possibly having a motion pictures festival with movies from the whole region.



Therefore, this is a series of practical issues we agreed on and a number of common actions to somehow make a difference and change the regional agenda on the core premise that we do not wish for interference from the outside. We can foster cooperation from the inside, which can actually come in many forms and prove beneficial for everyone and all sectors, starting with the economy through education and culture.



Let me inform you of the fact that, and as you know I am quite sensitive to cultural diplomacy myself, all parties to this Conference came up with proposals and suggestions with regard to it. Needless to remind you of ties: cultural, historical but also personal, connecting us in this region.





REPORTER: Minister, how easy was it for countries having such varied and different perspectives on politics and democracy to work together? Yesterday and today, here, you had a gathering of countries from Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East. Is this an easy venture?



N. KOTZIAS: When it comes to our foreign policy, the main criterion is not about what is easy or what is difficult but rather what is necessary, and in our opinion this is necessary. Cooperation is necessary, this type of cooperation.



And there is a second criterion: on the one hand, we have different political systems and setups, they may be different but we stand united in our shared interest and concern to ensure security and stability for our people.



As I often say, and this indeed had been subject to controversy but now the EU is starting to get the point, there are some who seem to think it may be ok if, for instance, there is instability in Egypt, but they do not realize what it really means to have a country of 97 million people destabilize, when 65 million of the population is under 28, most of them jobless in a state sharing a border with Sudan. Sudan is where officially the civil war may be over, it is not really over though. And further south there is Somalia, and Ethiopia where there have been clashes and conflicts in recent months and on the left hand side, on the map, there are other states and terrorist organizations acting, for example, in Chad and so on.



And so from that point of view, when it comes to stability and security, it is to the shared interest of us all, states in the region, to work together and encourage networking and contacts. Let me reiterate my basic claim, which I always make before European organisations and institutions: it was someone else that started bombarding Syria and Iraq but it is others that are called upon to receive and accommodate economic migrants and refugees.



So, you see, this is something we all concerned about and we do share our interests with the rest of the countries here.



Last, we want to have joint actions and activities in numerous sectors, from the field of energy to academia. It is all about the needs of communities and people in the region; it does not depend on how one government treats another.



REPORTER: I am here on behalf of Egyptian media and TV. I would like to know whether this conference has something to do with the Arab-European Summit, due in Athens on 3-4 November, and what it means for Greece to be playing a major role, act like an ambassador, if you will, for both Europe and the Arab world.



N. KOTZIAS: The upcoming business meeting of Arab and European countries in November is something entirely different to this Conference where we have been discussing security and stability. To be sure, both are related to the wider context of efforts Greece has been exerting to foster relations with the Arab world.



As regards the EU, it is a well-known fact we see ourselves as the representative of our regions interests and culture in the European Union. We have participated in long and hard talks to prevent interventions in states in the region, and we perceive ourselves as a state, a society, a government that understands, much better than others, all that is happening, what is brewing, and what the needs of the region may be.



I sometimes tell our partners you are too far off and cannot sense nor "smell" what is happening in the region. You cannot understand, respond or may be you do not care enough to respond and cater to the needs and the interests of this region. So, we see ourselves as a friend and an advocate of the interests of the Arab states when dealing with European institutions.



REPORTER: Minister, what differentiates this Conference from other permanent setups and fora, such as the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue or others? And what if there are common actions, will EU funds be used to fund them? Or national funds? How do you see the financing of such actions going through?



N. KOTZIAS: The Euro-Mediterranean conference, or the EuroMed, where EU- members from the South gather, and they are having a meeting of heads of state and government today in Athens as we speak, is an institution. It is a regular, international gathering dealing with the Mediterranean, about its overall problems and affinities with the EU. In our case, here, we are proceeding with multilateral diplomatic action aspiring to bring together SE Europe, N. Africa and the Middle East, which for thousands of years have been, to a certain extent, one single cultural, social and economic area. We want to reinvigorate the internal relations of this space. Other setups are working on the relationship of the European Union, or some European partners, with the rest of the Mediterranean countries. They are not focused on fostering and developing a special privileged relationship for countries in this area. We, as a state, are present in various international bodies, but we are also promoting multilateral partnerships.



REPORTER: Minister, the Slovak Minister and representative of EU presidency welcomed this initiative, and indeed said this could be a new path for peace. What can the significance thereof be for Greece, both in the context of the EU and that of the European presidency?



N. KOTZIAS: First, I am afraid I forgot to respond to the question about funding. Financing will be found by means of our interstate relations and we will try to capitalize on international scope, including UN and EU programs. So far EU programs are being mostly utilized by the rich countries of the European Union. It is high time we, in this region, manage on our own what we receive ourselves.



The Slovak Presidency is friendly towards Arab states. I would say that Slovakia stood by our side, and so did a number of other countries, in trying to develop EU relations with the Arab states, without the elements of intervention, interference and tutorship, since there are many from Europe who tend to talk to countries by waving their fingers. And I am pleased because after 20 months in my capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece I am no longer alone in suggesting that this region be assisted and supported to achieve growth. Still, some have to stop waving their finger much like preachers as they are the ones who nonetheless blatantly interfere, and they at times even violate international law in the region.



From that point of view, the Slovak presidency is a positive one, and it also intends to invite Egypt to a discussion on a European level. I personally sent a letter to the European Commission to request that past decisions be changed, decisions previous Greek governments had actually endorsed to the detriment of Arab states, especially Egypt, for example.



REPORTER: All that you have discussed in the past few days, Mr. Minister, has to do with regional forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Turkey and Israel. Did you actually refer to these two countries at all during the meeting? And how do you intend to move forward with the implementation of all that you are decinding here? Will you do so in cooperation with Turkey or Israel or without them?



N. KOTZIAS: Turkey was not discussed at all. Some participants referred to Israel, but it was not the main topic since this Conference mainly tried to draft a positive agenda. Israel and the Palestinian issue as well as the war in Syria are on the agenda; still, I have to acquaint you with the fact that, as I said in my opening statement, we should not exhaust our discussions about this area by confining it to war and conflict. We need to have a positive agenda for cooperation and common development in the region and Greece has taken the lead. Of course, an parameter to this common effort for growth is that the Palestinian issue should be resolved with the creation of two states in the region.



REPORTER: Good afternoon, Minister. In what areas of synergies, if you could possibly list them, could there be common ground for cooperation after the Conference and is there a timeline? Because we are hugely experienced and aware of conferences that started with good intentions and at the end they got nowhere.



N. KOTZIAS: Let alone the fact that, in the end intentions turn sour and bad

What I have here, in detail, is a list of issues including security and cooperation of scientific centers on region-related issues. We are faced with this outstanding phenomenon where our region is being researched and studied by scientific centers outside the region with the UN and the EU funding them. These funds should come here and research centers in our area need to cooperate for that.



Fields that we have earmarked include history, culture and technology in the region. The Arab world is highly interested in technological cooperation. There was a long discussion on green technologies. Then, there should also be partnerships between universities. A proposal we eventually agreed upon yesterday is about establishing a network consisting of at least one university from each of the 12 countries represented in this Conference.



The next point is culture. A series of actions was considered, music festivals, cinema festivals, etc. What we agreed on, in principal, for this year was for a motion pictures festival to be held, not in Cairo, as I originally proposed, but in Alexandria, like our Egyptian peers proposed.



Another important point was energy. I have to say that states like the United Arab Emirates have developed high technology, not natural gas and oil, but RES. We think that as a region we can come up with our own perception, production and trade around renewable energy source forms.



We had discussions on transportation and especially mercantile marine. There are many discussions, and not just today, with regard to the creation of a corridor linking Eastern Africa through the ports of Egypt to Eastern Europe through the ports in Northern Greece, Macedonia and Eastern Thrace.



We discussed protection of populations and I have to avow that participants were very strict with regard to human rights, because wars have been waged in their name which ended up violating every human right. The death toll of the last war was 450,000 people, 20 million people have been uprooted, people are drowning in the Mediterranean: what sort of human rights protection is this?



There was discussion on good governance and how it can be defined, as well as ways to develop various forms of institutional cooperation, exchange data and intelligence. Special reference was made to combating human trafficking and yet another field of special concern is the young.



We have made six decisions and agreed that in the next quarter we are going to have preparatory work done by each country that was allocated a task.



As you know, last year we had the International Conference for the protection of religious and cultural minorities in the Middle East since what the West is projecting as a standard, i.e. the coexistence of people with different cultures and different religions, existed for millennia and has a long history in the East. We have set up a center that gets to work with many EU entities and the Arab world and it is our pleasure to be joined by its Director. He is, and I am stating this as an Professor, not as Minister, a top expert on the Arab World, and that is Sotiris Roussos, sitting right there, behind you. He teaches at the University of Peloponnese and will be coordinating such matters, which I hope materialise.



It is apparent here, there is volition on all sides to make this Conference a regular institution. This is the third international institution we have put in place in Greece over the past year, with regard to the wider region and actually with the Middle East. We had the conference on Balkan cross-border cooperation, the Conference on protection of religious and cultural minorities and so now the Rhodes Conference is the third institution we are ushering in.



REPORTER: You said that energy is among the top issues on the Conferences agenda. Could you elaborate on that? Have there been bilateral meetings? Is there more on energy cooperation and countries participating to this Conference?



N. KOTZIAS: The issue of energy cooperation is very wide and has to do with tripartite agreements and respective tripartite partnerships between Greece-Cyprus-Egypt and Greece-Cyprus-Israel in particular. We have developed alternative energy corridors. We did not go into great depth or detail. Yesterday and today reference was made to other energy forms, especially RES. Let us not forget that the International Renewable Energy Agency HQ is in the United Arab Emirates. And we had a discussion especially on how this can be utilized.



REPORTER: I wanted to ask about the refugee issue, about intentions and views aired and whether any decisions were made. And the second part of my question: within the framework of strengthening Greece's bridge-building role, what are the next steps and initiatives that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intends to take?



N. KOTZIAS: Well, the refugee crisis was discussed extensively, notably by Ioannis Kasoulides from Cyprus, who made a very interesting classification of the refugee issue and its course, i.e. what problems there are where it begins, what is there in transit and the host country, integration-wise. We talked about how the states that bear the greatest burden could be helped out. These countries are, on the one hand, Turkey, which was not discussed, but, on the other hand, there is Jordan and Lebanon. Lebanon is the country with the biggest refugee population as a percentage of its population, the world over. When I became Minister of Foreign Affairs there were long discussions and great controversy at a European level regarding the assistance to these countries.



Let me remind you that the United Nations had stopped backing areas in Lebanon and Jordan packed with refugees. This has now changed thanks to our efforts; now, there are industrial areas, which our Conference props up, and agricultural areas developing in Jordan and Lebanon, especially in Jordan, which is creating five zones, where refugees are being integrated with part of the local population. We also had a brief discussion on the large refugee flows Egypt has been getting and its overall experience. Quite possibly not everyone is aware of that, but Egypt has over 5 million refugees it has managed to integrate to a great extent, which is why international media are not focusing that much on it, in comparison.



Yet, the example of Egypt, which we discussed, is very interesting, because many researchers and statespeople expect new refugee flows to come not only from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, but Sub-Saharan Africa. There are two reasons why.



First, the population there has doubled. It currently amounts to one billion in Africa, but it will be in excess of two billion in a few years. And secondly, climate experts are expecting huge climate changes and the desertification of regions that are currently being used for agricultural economy purposes and production of foodstuff in Africa. In addition, the water shortage will shift refugee flows to the North. Egypt has acquainted us with its own experience and that is what Europe will experience next.



Our upcoming initiatives are numerous. In October we are going to host the initiative I mentioned. It is my pleasure to announce that in my recent visit to Beijing with the Prime Minister China agreed to start implementing, as of 2017, the dream that I have had for the past 20-25 years, which is about establishing the GC10, namely the group of the leading world cultures and peoples. China played a decisive role due to its history, size and cultural tradition. Participants shall consist of China, India, the old Mesopotamia which is todays Iraq, Egypt of course, Greece, amongst the European countries Italy, Mexico and Bolivia.



We have more initiatives in store but unfortunately not enough time to elaborate on all today.



REPORTER: The refugee issue is very important, because our islands have received a huge number of refugees. According to the Commissioner, at least, but also the EU, if we had the hot spots, we would have received respective funding. So far, we havent seen much happening there.



Now, here is my question. Since you have had this discussion in the framework of your Conference, can you somehow exert pressure to have commitment made for more? There is the refugee issue; beyond what is discussed on all levels and we all know it, it seems that



N. KOTZIAS: The refugee issue is an issue that brings together the Arab countries and us in this region, because as you probably know Bulgaria is also receiving refugees, Albania is quite insecure with regard to this matter and Italy has been receiving flows from Libya. Slovakia is called upon to deal with this, because it is one of its priorities in exercising the Presidency, so both sides care about this.



Thus, we did say we are going to have further discussions on this issue. What all agree on is that we need to help put an end to the war in Syria which is the main source of origin for refugees. The phenomenon of Syrian refugees opened the door to more coming from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maghreb countries. Some are flows are direct, they just cross over to the coasts of Europe, and others are coming via Turkey.



Indeed, we are faced with a new phenomenon, it is quite singular as there are refugees coming, not in great numbers but these are steady flows nonetheless, to Cyprus. These are Syrian refugees, who they are not coming straight from Syria, despite the fact that the distance is not that big, they are coming via Turkey. So, this is one thing, putting an end to the war in Syria. Secondly, it is important to provide financial assistance to Jordan and Lebanon where there are between 3.5 million and 4 million refugees.



Therefore, this type of cooperation is much more elaborate and complicated than the EU-Turkey agreement. Thoughts were aired about working between us, the countries of North Africa and the EU, but we have not finalised that framework. It calls for discussion, on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Arab countries.



REPORTER: Are you happy with what your colleagues have told you, their assurances, or is it possible that maybe a few months down the line you will be the one who tried but was left hanging? Are you feeling secure and reassured given the conversations you had?



N. KOTZIAS: Well, just like I always say, there was no other prophet after Christ and Mohammed. When it comes to politics, you can use two verbs: can and/or want. In my opinion, there is no such thing as cannot, not being able. It is either about you wanting to do things or not. So, I was really pleased to notice everyones clear volition to have this region develop in a new way.



So, time will tell and hopefully we will be instrumental in that, because we will be there to push things. There is no infinite power or resources on the part of the Ministry, but there is a will.



REPORTER: How do you plan to tackle extremism in some of the partner countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt? We heard that a good counter to extremism is an open society and democracy, and I would like to know how you plan to encourage that in these places.



N. KOTZIAS: This was not a specific issue in our discussions. It was certainly referred to by some interlocutors. Terrorism is linked to various social problems, the sense of an impasse that dozens of millions of young people have and practical socio-economic measures but it is also about an ideological war about whether problems need to be dealt with in this life or in the afterlife, in heaven.
As our national election draws near and people gather together, discussions may turn to politics. Candidates statements, quoted in the media, are often repeated.

Lets make America great again, and I can do it because I am great and can do anything I want are announcements made by a self-proclaimed great man running for president. I wonder if Donald Trump ever reads a newspaper and if so, does he read anything other than articles about himself?

Throughout our country, newspapers are full of articles describing shootings, often involving innocent children just playing in their yards or sleeping in their beds. Other articles describe deaths that occur due to drug overdoses or alcohol-related accidents. Its time for the noon news report on my local radio station as I write this column and at the top of the broadcast are details of two separate shooting events within one block.

As I see it, if Trump doesnt read a daily paper, he should. When he addresses the public at his scheduled rallies; he should describe his plans, in detail about how he will help our country become great. Perhaps Trump has a plan to remove the proliferation of large automatic weapons and their ammunition from the market and off the streets of our country. His constant reminders of the wall he will build leave many doubts, especially after reports of his meeting with Mexicos Enrique Pena Nieto.

This column is not about bashing Trump. I am, and always have been, non-partisan. I have questions for Hillary Clinton: can she restore our middle class? How does she intend to raise taxes paid by the top 10 percent of individuals, those whose incomes exceed the total of all of the disappearing middle class? Can she give details, explaining how she will tax those principal contributors to her campaign? If she cannot, her words are just empty promises that will be forgotten after the election.

Our great country, that the two candidates keep referring to, one saying it will be great again, the other insisting it is already great, is deeply troubled. The world watches, as we all do, the failed political party process that did not provide reputable candidates to choose from. We are a great country, I believe the greatest, and we deserve a great leader. Why couldnt either of our political parties find one?

We listen to Trump explain he was financially brilliant when he filed numerous bankruptcies and his tax filings are so sensitive he is unable to provide them. He must know we are not buying it. All previous and a current presidential candidate were able to comply with the request. There is no other assumption except  something is being hidden.

Hillary Clintons use of a BleachBit to destroy emails so thoroughly even God could not read them is another example of a candidate who wanted to hide something that would harm them politically. According to Wikipedias description regarding the FBI investigation, Director James Comey stated: Clinton was not technically sophisticated enough to understand classified markings in her emails. How could she possibly serve as commander in chief with so little skills in our tech-driven world?

Polls change daily which indicates the publics reluctance to decide. Many people are saying they will not vote but that will do nothing to solve our problem of no choices. We still have two months to examine the daily revelations presented regarding our presidential candidates. Who knows what might be discovered. Maybe Clinton will come clean and bury her past. Trump may actually get his brain in gear before his mouth opens. One of them could actually begin to act presidential.

We need to vote because state and local leaders are looking for support and deserve it.

Capt. Fred Davis is a retired charter captain and nationally published author of boating articles. As I See It columns appear Saturday in the Huron Daily Tribune and his Boat Smart articles are published online at www.captainfredsboattips.com.
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A retired airman was kicked out of an acquaintance's retirement ceremony because he didn't follow a commander's order to avoid participating in the event -- not because he referenced religion in his remarks, according to a new report.

Retired Master Sgt. Oscar Rodriguez was forcibly removed from Master Sgt. Charles Roberson's retirement ceremony April 3 at Travis Air Force Base, California. The incident was captured on video and spurred an investigation by the Air Force Inspector General's Office.

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In its report released Friday, the IG concluded Rodriguez was "not removed from the ceremony because he intended to use a script with religious content. Evidence indicated that Mr. Rodriguez was removed by members of the squadron because he attempted to participate in the ceremony even though his participation had been disapproved by the hosting squadron commander."

Lt. Col. Michael A. Sovitsky, commander of the 749th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, allowed Rodriguez to attend Roberson's ceremony as a guest but not as a participant apparently because of the circumstances in which Rodriguez left the Travis Honor Guard, a ceremonial unit at the base.

One witness told investigators, "The only thing that came up was  he was fired from the Honor Guard  and he is not to perform in that ceremony."

Roberson said he invited Rodriquez to speak at his retirement ceremony after seeing him deliver an inspirational speech a month earlier.

"He has so much passion for the flag and country, and that is what I wanted to be a part of my own ceremony," Roberson has said. "That the Air Force would do this to myself, as it was my retirement  I was very embarrassed and humiliated in front of all my family and friends."

Even so, the IG report said Roberson warned Rodriguez ahead of time that Sovitsky had nixed his request for Rodriguez to participate in folding the flag during the event.

Afterward, Rodriguez argued he was removed as he began making a flag folding speech that referenced God several times. Represented by attorneys with the First Liberty Institute, Rodriguez alleged he was assaulted by fellow Air Force members and that his 1st, 4th and 5th amendment rights were violated.

The IG concluded, "The inquiry found no evidence that the NCOs were motivated to impair Mr. Rodriguez's constitutional rights of freedom of speech or religion."

Witness testimony provided to the IG said Rodriguez was removed because it became clear he was "act[ing] inconsistent with the commander's restrictions." One witness testified, "We had a chaplain there.  It has nothing to do with the religion, sir."

The Air Force removed religious references to its official flag folding script in 2005 but allowed personnel to continue using a religious script for retirement ceremonies if they wished. As a result of this incident, which highlighted confusion over whether airmen could recite their own scripts or had to stick to the official procedure, the service rescinded the official language altogether.

"Since retirement ceremonies are personal in nature, the script preference for a flag folding ceremony is at the discretion of the individual being honored and represents the member's views, not those of the Air Force," the service said in a statement in June.

-- Bryant Jordan contributed to this article.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@Oriana0214.
On Sept. 3, days before sheriff's office officials announced Marine Staff Sgt. Cody Wade Smith had been killed in self-defense after killing his estranged wife's boyfriend, a retinue of motorcycles bearing American flags gave him a ceremonial funeral escort to his final resting place in Crossville, Tennessee.

Smith, 33, had an honorable 15-year military career that was cut short in what appears to be a horrific crime of passion.

According to official accounts, he was served with divorce papers Aug. 11 after returning home to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from a deployment to Europe. Some two weeks later, on Aug. 27, he came to his wife's new home near Richlands with intent to kill her and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Gregory Pearce.

Official accounts say he tied up his wife, Monica, fatally shot Pearce and set the house on fire before she broke free and shot him with his own handgun. Onslow County District Attorney Ernie Lee said in a Sept. 7 press conference that the county did not plan to charge her, as officials had found she acted in self-defense.

The tragic situation creates a philosophical dilemma: How does one honor a decorated service member whose life ends, not on the battlefield, but in the commission of a crime?

For the Patriot Guard Riders, a veteran-led organization of volunteers who provide thousands of honor escorts for troops' funerals each year, the lines are simply drawn.

David Westhorp, the Patriot Guard Riders state captain for Tennessee, told Military.com the riders attend funerals only at the request of family members. They accommodate requests with only one exception: if the deceased service member is a veteran who was discharged from the service under less-than-honorable circumstances.

That happens very rarely, Westhorp said.

"If we get a request, we don't go into a background check or anything in depth," he said. "We did do one [escort] for a veteran who died in a bar fight. And we didn't investigate whether or not he provoked the fight or anything else. The fact is, he died."

Westhorp said he had been made aware of the circumstances of Smith's death after the Sept. 7 announcement from the Onslow County Sheriff's Office about their findings. But even if he had had full information prior to getting the request for an honor escort, he said, the guard would have likely accommodated the request.

"We came to honor his military service, not whatever might have happened subsequently," he said. "We are not here to stand in judgment on this."

Smith's family, still reeling from grief and in disbelief about the circumstances surrounding his death, described him as an honorable Marine and a leader who had always wanted to be a Marine. Smith's father, Delbert Smith, of Smyrna, Tennessee, told Military.com he entered boot camp out of high school, just months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

A platoon sergeant attached to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, he had completed 11 deployments, including two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

"He's been shot at, he's been blown up in a Humvee," Smith said. "And then for him to come home and to die this way, there's just, you never expect it to end like this."

Delbert Smith said hundreds of Marines who had served with his son at various points in his career had traveled to Tennessee to attend the funeral. Smith had been approved for promotion to gunnery sergeant, he said, and his new rank insignia were buried with him.

He said he didn't personally request the Patriot Guard Riders -- it's unclear who did -- but he was thankful for their presence.

"They were wonderful. They came out, showed up, paid their respects," he said. "It was a beautiful addition to the funeral. That's something that we will be forever grateful for."

Delbert Smith said a sheriff's deputy had called him personally and described the same account of the double-killing that was later made public. It's an account he said he can't and doesn't believe.

But even if the events of Aug. 27 unfolded just as described in the official account, he said they should not detract from his son's military service.

"Absolutely not," he said. "It has nothing to do with him and his service to the country. That's what bothers me the most."

--Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
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.
Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri issues list of 50 Indians along with their visa numbers

Addressing a heavily attended press conference here in Lahore today, PAT Chairman Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri issued the list of 50 Indians out of 300 working in the mills of the Sharif family who came on the visa of engineers, technicians, and welders. He also shared the details of passport numbers along with the list. He revealed that more than 300 letters from Ramzan Sugar Mill were sent to Pakistan High Commissioner in India and he was directed to ensure exemption from reporting with the police and checking. He said that capital to the tune of Rs. 100 million flew from Pakistan to India by 2010, adding that after the Sharif government took over, Rs. 470 billion is being transferred to India on yearly basis.

Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Basharat Jaspal, Shahzad Naqvi, and Sajid Bhatti were present on the occasion. Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that one of the Corps Commanders opined in the meeting of the Apex Committee held on November 26, 2015 that the Punjab police does not have the capacity of an operation against terrorists. He demanded that Rangers should be allowed to carry out operations in Punjab. He said that if 200-250 terrorists are arrested from Punjab, the cue of terrorism in Model Town will be easily traced to the government ministers and ruling family. He said that there is a tension on the border but the ruling families across the border enjoy pleasant relationship. He said that no one has the word spy written on his forehead, adding that word spy was not written on the forehead of kulbhushan. He said that issuance of the list of 50 Indians names along with their passport numbers is the first episode, stating that if the rulers reject it, he would issue the second episode too.

The PAT Chairman asked, do the visa laws allow the Indian engineers, technicians, and IT experts? He further said if those coming from India are not spies, then why have been exempted from reporting with police and verification? He said that the revelations he made during his speech at the Qisas and Solidarity March in Rawalpindi on September 3 have not been officially refuted to this day. He said that silence is an admission of a crime. He said that record is burnt to ashes to erase all signs of culpability and proofs. He said that record of LDA plaza, metro bus and Nandipur power project has been burnt, adding that burning of record of Ramzan sugar mill is meaningful.

Dr Qadri said that there is enmity between two countries, but the ruling family is providing shelter to the Indians in their sugar mills. He said that the Sharif family calls the special Indian personnel on special visas, adding that these are multiple visas and stamped by suspending the prevalent laws. The security institutions are kept away from the process of clearance because all institutions are beholden to them. He said that the people have to decide whether they want country or the corrupt ruling family. He said that wherever terrorists, their facilitators or supporters are holed up whether in Waziristan, Karachi or Lahore, they should be eliminated forthwith.
On Tuesday 6th September 2016 President John Dramani Mahama who had the title Nana Ahobrasehene Toaso I confered on him by the Agonaman Traditional chief was ones again at his usual best as an expert in communication on the flagship program Good Evening Ghana of Metro TV.

He exhibited his prowess with dexterity over issues that concerns Ghana. On economy he said Ghana was ranked second to Nigeria in West Africa, also Ghana is ahead of Ivory Coast according UN indicators. Currently Ghana is ranked second again to Cape Verde in terms of social amenities.

All these indeed can be experienced in the confidence many international monetary bodies and investors have shown in our economy In the area of power and water he stated that  we have taken access to water from 58% in 2008 to 76% as at 2015, currently Accra accessibility to water is 50 million gallons which has curtailed the issue of yellow gallons.

On rural electrification project management Ghana is second to South Africa and he said Ghana is in the era of energy security to even export gas to earn as more revenue.

This is obvious baring all technical hitches that confronts the nation. He passed the integrity test by saying  I havent made Ghana a paradise but Ive taken us higher from the point my predecessors ended President made profound submission on rule of law but state that he swore an oath by the constitution always take decision in line with the constitution.

It is same he did with the Montie3 saga havent been petitioned and had the Council of State give their recommendations before providing remission of sentence. He did this also to promote freedom of speech with responsibility, he admonish the media to go beyond the propaganda of politicians.

He stated he is always guided by rule of law hence his approach to the Ford gift was to use appropriate lawful medium. Due to few sighted lapses he instructed CHRAJ to come up with a legal frame in receiving such gifts in the future for all public workers.

On petition over the Ford saga at CHRAJ he has asked his lawyers to respond and act on his behalf. His achievement in health sector is enormous, aside over 1000 CHPS compounds, Ridge Hospital upgrade and expansion, building from scratch another 37 Military Hospital in Ashanti region he said  more professionals are being trained so that we can stack the new facilities like ongoing works at Bolga, Wa and Takoradi Hospitals.

He said that funding is being sort to build 5 polyclinics in Volta and Eastern Regions. On his health, he stated that If Ghanaians indicate that they want to know of the health records of candidates, I will readily give mine.

But he was quick to admonished his fellow compatriots not to run on the health of their opponents. On his opponents, he said again that Ghana at the moment need a leaded who will keep fostering the unity of purpose of the nation.

Among the lot we can without mincing words that he is the obvious choice to have exhibited the spirit of unity and good will. On roads construction our president admitted not to have constructed all roads but his achievements is there for all to see.

During his terms 22 contractors have asphalt plants and about 16 them are Ghanaians. This is a good strategy to grow our own expertises On Education, he said  we are not satisfied with WASSCE performance but they have been getting better .

He clarified that teacher trainee allowance was not redrawn but rather replaced with student loan scheme haven risen to tertiary classification. And that admissions have risen to 63% since the new policy direction.

In infrastructure, so far 123 of the 200 community day SHS have been given to contractors to build, by 2021 all should be done, though there are evidence of completed ones commissioned.

He directed GES to make intake of new admissions into all completed ones and no waiting for commissioning during his campaign tour at abodom in the central region. On his international relations, he state that he has a lot of friends among the African head of state.

To us this comes as no surprise after his role to bring military take over of other countries to managed situation and understanding not forgetting the role he played in the ebola pandemic. Indeed all these got him to be awarded by Pan Africa Students Association. All these exemplifies the man John Dramani Mahama seeking to stand tall among all candidates.  Greenbook Ghana Initiative
Mr Andrew Karas (second left) presenting the items to Alhaji Mohammed Muniru. With them are the deputy minister of MoFA in-charge of Livestock (second right), the Chief Director of the ministry (right) and official of SRID.

THE UNITED States Agency for International Development (USAID) has through its Agriculture Policy Support Programme (APSP), donated Computer-Assisted Interviewing (CAPI) System Equipment to the Statistics, Research and Information Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).

The equipment donated included 200 pieces of 3G tablets fitted with global positioning system (GPS), other information and technology gadgets, weighing scales, wellington boots and raincoats.

The electronic devices and software were to help enhance the collection of agricultural statistics.

They are also expected to minimize human error in agriculture data collection and analysis, as well as improve overall data quality and credibility.

APSP has reportedly assisted SRID to design, develop and implement a Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing data collection system in support of the Ghana Agriculture Production and Market Price Surveys.

CAPI, DAILY GUIDE understands, provides a holistic approach for quality agriculture data collection, including geographical information system plotting, analysis and management.

According to information from USAID, the donated equipment would allow SRID to move from collecting data using a pencil and paper, to real-time mobile data collection using the CAPI system on 3G tablets to conduct Ghana Agriculture Production and Market Price Surveys.

In a statement at a short handing-over ceremony of the equipment at the forecourt of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture on Thursday, Mission Director of USAID, Andrew Karas, explained, We (USAID) have been working closely with the ministry to strengthen its data collection systems and support evidence-based decisions and policies.

According to him, the equipment and the software would enable the ministry to store vast quantities of data and to access information on demand.

The equipment and software would modernize the ministry's approach to data collection with cutting-edge technology and systems, enabling real-time mobile data collection on 3G Android tablets, Mr. Karas explained.

He stressed, It will significantly improve the ministry's capacity to undertake field surveys and collect, secure, and analyze data.

He disclosed that USAID was helping with the training of 150 officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture at the district, regional and national levels to effectively collect data for Ghana's annual general agriculture production and marketing surveys.

Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in-charge of Food Crops, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru, who received the items on behalf of the ministry, said with the introduction of the CAPI system, including the use of Android-based tablets to administer electronic questionnaires and the direct transmission of data to servers, the ministry had been ushered into a new and improved phase of agricultural data collection that should make available reliable, accurate and comprehensive data for decision-making within and outside the ministry.

BY Melvin Tarlue
Sir William Edward Maxwell

10.09.2016 LISTEN

I love the history of the Gold Coast especially the relationship between the colonialists and their unwilling hosts. I regret not talking to as many elderly men and women who knew a lot about the Gold Coast before they passed on.

I met a few of such persons especially the ex-servicemen who fought alongside their British colleagues during the Second World War. I wonder how many of such veterans are living today.

I recall some veterans remembering how Japanese snipers made things difficult for them in their positions and the Kaladan campaign.

I do remember vividly a book a veteran, the late LA Brimah possessed which was about the Second World War. It said a lot about the role of the Royal West African Frontier Force, Gold Coast Regiment and others from the Commonwealth. The book Our War was authored by a certain Christopher Somerville. It is missing and the owner dead but I do remember some interesting aspects about the discrimination which the blacks suffered through the bad policy of the Colonial administration.

Lt. Seth Kobla Anthony the first man from the Gold Coast to be commissioned into the Gold Coast Regiment was denied the privileges which went with the status. It for instance took, according to the publication, flurry of correspondences between the authorities of the Royal West Frontier Force in Accra and the Whitehall in Britain to alter the oddities.

During my foraging activities at the National Archives of Ghana now Public Records and Archival Administration (PRAAD), I chanced upon troves of stuff about the Gold Coast some of them works of history scholars. I am unable to mention their names. So much time has elapsed and I can remember such details suffice it to point out that I am indebted to the unmentioned persons for their academic efforts without which important details which today form the central point of this issue could not have come about.

Most of us remember only the names of a few of governors of the Gold Coast. Some of them left indelible marks in the history of our country.

Besides Gordon Guggisberg, there are many others who represented the Colonial Office in the Gold Coast. In 1874, for instance, there was a gentleman called Sir William Edward Maxwell who served as the Governor of the Gold Coast having earlier served in the British Army between 1854 and 1867.

Records have it that he was the Collector of Customs in Lagos and later Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast in 1873, a very important position.

He also became an administrator and Lt. Gov. of the Gold Coast until 1879.

On 14th July 1874, he proceeded to Kumasi where he successfully averted a war between the Ashantis and the Juaben. He is said to have played a critical role in the independence of the Juaben from the former.

He is credited with ensuring that the two maintained peace, keeping trade route open and releasing the prisoners of war each of them was keeping.

Captain G.C. Straham 1874-1876

This Captain is noted for the promulgation of two important ordinances in the Gold Coast in November 1874- the prohibition of slave dealing, the emancipation of existing slaves and a declaration that all children born after 5th November 1874 were born free. The laws were duly published and slaves left the bondage in which they were before the law came into force. Majority of the freed slaves decided to remain where they had been even though as freemen.

Sir Sanford Freeling 1876-1878

He was appointed Governor and Commander-In-Chief of the Gold Coast in 1876. Upon his recommendation, a Native Jurisdiction Ordinance was passed and this made for effective governance of the Gold Coast colony and the Protectorates. The commencement of mining in the Western districts in about 1875 was a source of worry to Sanford Freeling who foresaw land disputes in the future. European commissioners were sent down to Tarkwa and Odumasi which at the time were centres of British activities.

Brandford Griffith 1886

He was appointed in 1886 and is credited with massive infrastructure development in the Gold Coast. He was against the direct system of taxation and rather opted for ad valorem. When he visited England in 1889, he convinced the Secretary of State about his idea of taxation and in 1890 a new system of collecting duties was adopted. He encouraged educated Africans to show interest in the development of the country. Under his tenure, important strides were made with the creation of departments of sanitation 1888-Roads, Education-1890, Telegraph-1891 and Prisons-1891. During his tenure, an important development took place when the cocoa pod was smuggled into the country from Fernando Po, now Equitorial Guinea by a native of the Gold Coast, Tetteh Quarshie who had gone to work in the Portuguese territory.

Sir Samuel Rowe 1881- 1884

He became Governor in 1881 and did a lot of work in the area of communication. He is credited with linking up through trade between tribes in the North and others in the Southern parts of the country.

Sir C.A. Maloney

He was appointed acting Governor during which period he called the attention of the British Government to an Indian product which, in his estimation, could fetch a lot of money for the Gold Coast. It was being tried in Cape Coast by a certain F.C. Grant and by 1889 it was fetching some forty thousand pounds per annum. In 1875, he settled an important dispute between the Ashantis and the Adansis.

W.A. G. Young 1884- 1885

It was during his tenure that the French were moving deeper into the sub-region for which reason the British sought the support of the chiefs. In June 1884, he negotiated and secured a provisional agreement with the chiefs of Togoland to cede to Her Majesty, part of the seaboard of the country. In July 1884 the Germans appeared off the beach of Togoland and proclaimed a German protectorate of that country.

Sir F.M. Hodgson

He was appointed in 1898. In 1894 while acting as governor, he sent a message to the Asantehene requesting him to accept a British agent to discharge certain functions in Kumasi for the preservation of peace, promotion of development and security of trade. The request was turned down. In 1899, he searched for the Golden Stool. On 28th March 1900 at a meeting of chiefs held in Kumasi, he demanded the surrender of the stool. Three days after that the Ashantis led by Asantewaa declared war which they lost anyway.

Sir William Edward Maxwell

He was appointed Governor in 1895 and soon after this, he was instructed by the Secretary of State to send a message to the Asantehene to receive a British agent as demanded earlier by Hodgson.

He was still adamant and the British government arrested him (Asantehene) and others and sent them into exile in the Seychelles Island. On 30th January 1896, Maxwell signed a treaty of friendship and protection with Nsuta. He introduced a Lands Bill in 1897 which made all available lands, not in visible use, to be vested in the Crown.

A strong opposition followed this and the bill was withdrawn subsequently. He was succeeded by Governor Nathan.

By A.R. Gomda
We have too many peace envoys in the country that a first timer would bet the country was on the verge of belligerence.

By and large, the people of this country love one another.

They have over the years crossed tribal and religious lines to marry each other which have bonded them even stronger.

Politics is the only snag which has in recent times divided them and created a schism between them in a manner which never fails to amaze us. The polarization has been aggravated because of the ease with which money is made through bad governance.

Many easily point at their school mates who became rich overnight: their political parties having hit the jackpot with electoral triumphs.

As a result, politics is considered not as a source of rendering service to their people but to make money for themselves and their families.

The winner-takes-all phenomenon has not helped matters over the years. No wonder the subject has formed the theme of many a civil society forum.

Be it as it may, smart Ghanaians have found opportunity in the idea of spreading the fear of an imminent bloodshed during elections so their project of seeking peace can blossom.

We are unable to doff our hats for the thriving peace industry. In Ghana when one person tries out an occupation and it flourishes, others jump into it with so much gusto that their real intention for doing so soon becomes too vivid to be ignored.

Today we have all manner of peace envoys junketing from one part of the country to the other, drawing money from a plethora of organizations which are made to believe that without their efforts the country will burn.

The source of tension in the country is the inability of the Electoral Commission (EC) and such institutions, such as law enforcement agencies, to remain neutral and exhibit appreciable level of professionalism.

What we all as Ghanaians, especially those who want to become extra busy and attract the headlines and some bucks from international organizations should be doing therefore, is to serve as pressure groups to ensure that the electoral playing field does not favour one group against the other.

The electoral process should be bereft of blemishes which can raise integrity questions and therefore serve as potential sources of confusion and strife. That is the issue and not the occasional marching in the streets to call on Ghanaians to maintain the peace. We do not need any peace envoys. We need best practices from the relevant state institutions. The so-called peace marches are nothing but fear mongering when there is no need for it.

Mark our words; when the police show professionalism and the EC shows integrity in its work, nobody would raise a voice against the other, let alone throw punches.
LOGOS HOPE, the world's largest floating book fair, berthed at the Tema Port on Wednesday on its second visit to Ghana.

The famous vessel, with her crew and staff of approximately 400 Christian volunteers from 60 nations, docked at Clinker Ghacem Gate to begin the 31-day book fair in Tema.

MV Logos Hope will depart Tema Port on October 2 after which she will head to Takoradi for another fair from 6 October  23 October, 2016, which opens from Mondays through to Saturdays before the ship heads for the Caribbean.

The on-board book fair  a selection of over 5,000 quality different titles at affordable prices  covers a wide range of subjects including science, sports, hobbies, cookery, arts, medicine, languages and philosophy with children's titles, academic texts, dictionaries, atlases among others.

Speaking at the official opening of the fair in Tema, Mr. Seelan Govender, Director, Logos Hope, expressed his excitement about their return to Ghana after they had concluded their tour of the West African sub-region.

According to him, they were determined with their vision to improve the lives of Ghanaians.

He stated that the aim of the visit was to give hope to people through missionary works, saying that We are determined to bring knowledge, help and hope to wherever we visit in this world.

Mr. Govender further stated, We are excited for the return of Logos Hope to Ghana. We remember the welcome and hospitality received at our last visit in July and August 2010.

The Director of Logos Hope expressed appreciation about the warm reception given to them by Ghanaians and called for continuous relationship.

Mrs. Matilda Amissah-Arthur, 2nd lady who launched the book fair, urged Ghanaians and foreigners in Ghana to take advantage of the visit to enrich their knowledge by their visit to the ship to find suitable books to read.

According to her, Books are magic and do to the mind what food does to the body hence the need for everyone to take books serious with a visit to Logos Hope.

MV Logos Hope is operated by GBA Ships e.V., an international, charitable organization registered in Germany. Since 1970, the organization has welcomed over 45 million visitors up the gangways in over 150 countries and territories around the world.

From Vincent Kubi, Tema
Wontumi, Eugene Boakye Antwi and other NPP members during the campaign launch at Subin on Sunday

Bernard Antwi Boasiako, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP, says Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of the NPP, has already been elected as Ghana's next president in the spiritual realm.

Mr Boasiako, who is popularly known as 'Wontumi', made the prophecy while addressing NPP members on Sunday in the Subin Constituency during the launch of the campaign of the largest opposition political party in the area.

According to him, God revealed to him that Nana Akufo-Addo would be elected as Ghana's next president in the December polls.

He stated that God would never lie to him, reiterating that in the spiritual realm, Nana Akufo-Addo has been elected by Ghanaians.

According to him, the opponents of the NPP would implement different diabolical strategies to prevent Nana Akufo-Addo from becoming president but their efforts would be in vain.

Wontumi, who is noted for always quoting Bible verses to buttress his arguments, stated emphatically that absolutely nothing can stop Nana Akufo-Addo from winning the December polls.

He therefore urged NPP members not to give up hope, stressing that electoral victory had already been secured for the party in the spiritual realm so the NPP members should make it a reality.

NPP parliamentary candidate for Subin, Eugene Boakye Antwi, Peter Mac Manu, NPP National Campaign Manager and other party stalwarts of the party attended the event.

Wontumi stated that the NPP would capture power in the December polls to implement programmes and policies to reduce corruption and hardship in the country.

From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi
The founder and leader of Faith Word Church International at Nii Boi Town in Accra has been arrested by the police for allegedly rubbing Olive oil in the vagina and on the clitoris of his church member.

Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei, according to the Tesano police, claimed he was casting evil spirits that had possessed the victim by applying the oil in her private part.

After the act, the pastor allegedly attempted to rape the victim but she reportedly shouted for help and managed to escape.

Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei has provisionally been charged for indecent assault and breach of trust.

The Tesano Divisional Crime Officer, DSP Aba-Afari, who confirmed the incident to DAILY GUIDE, said the victim is an 18-year-old Senior High School graduate who fellowships with her parents in that church.

The pastor confided in the victims mother (named withheld) after church service on Sunday, August 28, 2016 that God had revealed to him through a vision that her daughter was possessed with an evil spirit.

He requested the woman to allow the girl come for deliverance service on Tuesday, August 30.

On that Tuesday, the mother of the victim asked her daughter to go for service but when the victim got to the church, the pastor requested that they go to his house for the said deliverance to be carried out and the victim obliged.

At his residence, the pastor allegedly asked the victim if she had ever accepted any love proposal from a man but she answered in the negative.

Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei again asked the victim if she had experienced menstrual pains before and the victim answered in the affirmative, DSP Aba-Afari narrated.

The police officer said the founder of the church then told the victim that the menstrual pains were the work of the devil and that he could deliver her by smearing anointing oil on her navel.

The pastor then ordered the victim to lie down and remove her dress while he rubbed the oil on her naval and parts of her abdomen.

The suspect further asked the victim to remove her pants and he rubbed the oil on the victim's vagina and clitoris.

When the victim asked him to explain his actions, the pastor allegedly said he was being directed by the Holy Spirit to do so.

The 18-year-old victim resisted and attempted to stand up.

Pastor Agyei at that point grabbed the victim and forcefully kissed her and it was at that point that the victim raised an alarm for help.

The victim overpowered the pastor, came out of his room and reported the matter to her parents in the house.

A compliant was later lodged with the police which led to his arrest.

By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey

( [email protected] )
Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has lauded the chiefs and people of Bolgatanga for keeping the peace of the area.

Despite the difference and misunderstanding surrounding the selection of the next Bolga Naba, he says the people have remained peaceful and gone about their activities with no challenges.

We know the selection of Bolga Naba is going through the judicial system but despite the little difference people are peace and we hope this will continue, he said.

The Vice President made these remarks when he addressed paid a courtesy call on the Bolgatanga Traditional Council on as part of his campaign tour of the Upper East Region.

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Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU) says the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) has acted in bad faith in announcing that the Ghana Power Compact has entered into force despite objections raised to some aspects of it.

According to the General Secretary of PUWU, Micheal Adumatah Nyantakyi, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) can be made profitable without necessarily handing over the company to a private partnership arrangement under the compact two.

Speaking to Citi Business News Mr. Nyantakyi explained that handing over of a state asset like ECG into foreign hands must not be lauded as an achievement.

Let me mention that the way MiDA went about announcing this for us we think that they have demonstrated a lot of bad faith and it is also so surprising that measures that are being carried out basically to handover a vital national asset of this nature to a private foreign investor is being seen as such a big major achievement. It's a little regrettable, he said.

He told Citi Business News that in the union's view, the objective of the compact two can be achieved without necessarily giving out ECG on concessionary bases as that is not the only way to make ECG functionally, and financially sound.

Compact II enters into force

The Ghana Power Compact, also referred to as Compact II, entered into force despite a law suit against the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) over the concession of the ECG.

A press statement released by MiDA and copied to Citi Business News explained that by the action, the treaty which was signed on August 5, 2014 between the Republic of Ghana and the United States of America, represented by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has become effective and Ghana now has access to the Program's funds.

The Compact II

Under the Power Compact, six projects will be implemented to address the the root causes of the unavailability and unreliability of power in Ghana

The project include ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, NEDCo Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, Regulatory Strengthening and Capacity Building Project, and Access Project.

The rest are Power Generation Sector Improvement Project and Energy Efficiency, and Demand Side Management Project,.

The Government of Ghana signed the Ghana Power Compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent United States government agency, on the sidelines of the US Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington on August 5, 2014.

Ghana to get over 498m dollars

Ghana signed the Power Compact with the United States of America acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent United States government agency, on the sidelines of the US Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington DC on August 5, 2014.

The Ghana Power Compact would provide Ghana with a grant sum of four hundred and ninety eight million, two hundred thousand United States Dollars (US$498,200,000) to improve the performance of Ghana's power sector, unlock the country's economic potential, create jobs, and reduce poverty.

About US$350 million of the grant is being invested in ECG to make the country's power distributor operationally and financially more efficient.

The Compact is being implemented by the Government of Ghana through the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA).



By: Norvan Acquah  Hayford/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) Taoyuan prosecutors said Saturday they have determined that the death of all 26 people on board a tour bus in July was caused by the driver, who was found to have deliberately set fire to the vehicle, and they are now closing the case since the driver also died in the incident.
Members of the Ghana Police Ex-Service Personnel Association UK/Ireland presenting the laptop and the printer to officials of NARPO

THE ASHANTI Regional branch of the National Association of Retired Police Officers (NARPO), which also includes widows of personnel who had died in service, has taken delivery of valuable equipment to boost its operations.

They include a brand new laptop and a printer, intended to improve the daily administrative duties of NARPO Ashanti, in their newly constructed ultra-modern office, located behind the Police Church in Kumasi.

The laptop and the printer were presented by the Ghana Police Ex-Service Personnel Association United Kingdom (UK/Ireland branch), during a short ceremony in Kumasi.

Nana Agyeman Prempeh and Nana Osei Tutu, Vice Chairman and Secretary of the association respectively, came to Ghana to present the items.

Nana Prempeh, who is also the Kontihene of Wawase Kwabre in the Ashanti Region, said his group received a request for equipment support from the Ashanti Regional branch of NARPO recently.

According to him, members of the association contributed to raise 600 to purchase the laptop and the printer to help improve the administrative work of the beneficiary group.

Nana Prempeh said his association, which was formed in 1991, now has a membership of 45, and their main objective is to help one another and their colleagues in Ghana.

He stated that the gesture would not be a nine-day wonder and gave the assurance that his group would continue to support the Ashanti Regional branch of NARPO in diverse ways.

ACP Edward Oppong Anane, Ashanti Regional NARPO Chairman, commended the benefactor group for its display of love, and gave the assurance that the items would be put to good use.

He appealed to the public to support them with a vehicle to boost their operation, adding that the association is currently made up of 593 ex-police officers and 104 widows of personnel who died in service.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi
Victoria (Seychelles) (AFP) - Voters in the tourism-dependent Indian Ocean nation of Seychelles cast their ballots on the last day Saturday of a three-day vote with the opposition tipped to win control of parliament.

The polls kicked off Thursday to allow the roughly 70,000 registered voters of the archipelago nation of 115 islands to choose their representatives.

Voting began on the islands furthest away from the main island of Mahe, and its capital Victoria, which voted on Saturday, along with the two other main islands Praslin and La Digue.

Voters lined up quietly to cast their ballots even before booths opened at 7am (0300 GMT). Polls close at 7pm and first results are expected in the following hours.

The main opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP) shunned the 2011 election claiming it would not be fair but is contesting this time.

Seychelles' opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in the December 2015 presidential elections, losing by 193 votes

SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in presidential elections in December 2015, losing to President James Michel by just 193 votes.

It marked the first time a candidate from the dominant Parti Lepep (meaning People's Party in the local Seychellois Creole language), in power since 1977, was forced into a second round.

Lepep has maintained a majority in parliament since the return of multiparty politics in 1993, but now the ascendant SNP hopes to take control.

In a bid to strengthen its showing, the SNP has partnered with four smaller opposition parties -- together known as The Seychellois Alliance and made up of former Lepep leaders -- to form the Seychellois Democratic Alliance (known by its creole acronym, LDS, standing for Linyon Demokratik Seselwa).

Together, opposition candidates won 52 percent of votes cast in the first round of December's presidential vote, but were then beaten in the run-off after failing to coalesce around a single candidate. They now hope to emulate that first round majority in this week's parliamentary vote.

"If the voters vote as they did in the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition would have won. But if it is like the second round, there will be districts that will be in the balance," said Paul Chow, an economist and former MP.

Voters this week will choose just 25 directly-elected members of the National Assembly.

The remaining 10 members are allocated to each party according to its proportional representation in the parliamentary elections.
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A 22-year-old man has removed one eye of an older man by name Kwabena Ofori popularly known as Alakpe in Kwabena Kumi, a village in Suhum in the Eastern Region.

The attacker known as Abode pounced on Mr Ofori, 55, during a feud and gouged one of his eye balls.

Maxwell Kudekor of Adom FM told Joy News the incident occurred at 10:30 pm after Abode and two of his colleagues were done smoking an Indian hemp.

Suddenly, Abode began complaining about headache and started uttering unintelligible words. His friends tried to overpower him but he was too strong for them.

He later strayed into the home of Mr Ofori and began wasting away water stored in the household.

According to Kudekor, when Mr Ofori attempted to talk him out of his behaviour, Abode was peeved, shoved him to the ground and pounced on him.

He physically assaulted him. Before some neighbours could separate them, Mr Ofori's eye was found totally removed and lying on the ground.

He was rushed to the Suhum Government Hospital where he is receiving treatment.

Abode and his colleagues have been apprehended by residents and handed over to the Suhum District Police for investigation and subsequent prosecution.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Residents of Warizehi community in the Tamale Central constituency of the Northern Region have asked political parties contesting the 2016 polls to prioritize sanitation in their manifestos.

According to them, much is desired of Members of Parliament and local government authorities in the area of sanitation to completely rid the nation of filth leading to the potential outbreak of communicable diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.

They raised this concern during a major clean up exercise carried out at some public toilets in the Warizehi community masterminded by a registered Nurse called Afful Daniel.

Afful Daniel in a Citi News interview said he was alarmed by the rate of unsanitary condition in the community, hence his voluntary intervention.

He disclosed that the community had produced scholars including MPs and yet the area had been neglected for ages.

He decried waste management company, ZoomLions failure to support the clean up exercise with dustbins and tools even though the organizers officially wrote to the company.

Afful Daniel admonished the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly to support such communal labour exercises to keep the metropolis clean.



By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
NPP Parliamentary candidate Kojo Oppong Nkrumah wants IMANI to properly study Dr. Bawumias an economic analysis before offering a critique of the vice-presidential candidates work.

Suggesting that IMANIs response was not thorough enough, the NPP candidate for Ofoase Ayirebi constituency in the Eastern region observed that it appears as if they are in a hurry to punch holes.

I dont want to be uncharitable to my good friends IMANI...[it] is an organisation I very much respect. If you look at the speed they delivered this responsethey are in a hurry, the former broadcaster noted.

Less than 24 hours after a lecture addressed by the 2016 NPP Vice-Presidential candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, IMANI Ghana released a 4-page response.

It pointed out seven claims it believes are an unfair interpretation of data for partisan advantage and also endorsed 12 claims as accurate.

The think-tank also stated its position on five policy pledges made by the former deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr. Bawumia.

IMANI President Franklin Cudjoe

In one of the criticisms, IMANI challenged Bawumias claim that average lending rate is now about 40%, which is worse than the situation under the NDC.

IMANI believes that this is another claim that is rather hard to ground without complex mean rate analysis over aggregate periods. The CEPA graph below depicting average lending rates between the beginning of 2006 and the end of 2014 shows that on average the rate dynamics have been tepid and hard to compare secularly

But responding to the critique, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah indicated that it is not enough for IMANI to question the model or formula used by Bawumia to arrive at his conclusion.

He wants the policy think-tank to also demonstrate that Bawumia was wrong by offering what it believes is the correct figure or formula.

When you use this formula, what was the answer they got and does that answer depart from the substance the argument Dr. Bawumia is making?

When they mention the mean rate variable, did they do the computation for you? he asked host of Joy FM/Multi TV news analysis show Newsfile.

According to Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, he has used some of the computations adopted by IMANI Ghana and has arrived a similar conclusion that Ghana is on the wrong path.

The way they have managed things, the results today is at variance with what they set for themselves he said referring to governments failure to meet its own fiscal objectives spelt out in GSGDA II medium term strategy for 2014 to 2017.

According to Bloomberg report, Ghana cut its economic growth forecast for 2016 to the lowest rate in more than three decades as the country reduced its targets for oil and gold production.

West Africas largest economy after Nigeria will likely expand 3.2 percent this year after growing 3.9 percent in 2015, Finance Minister Seth Terkper said in a statement on the ministrys website. That will be the slowest rate since 1983, when the economy contracted 4.6 percent, according to World Bank data.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]
Africas fight against poverty, hunger and unemployment will be won or lost in rural areas, according to the NEPAD Agency of the African Union.

Director of Programme Implementation and Coordination Directorate, Estherine Lisinge-Fotabong, says Africas high economic growth rates have not translated into high levels of employment and reductions in poverty for the youth and those in the rural areas of the continent

Africas fight against poverty will be won or lost in rural areas, because this is home to about 63% of the population; 73% of the poor live in rural areas. Agriculture and agroprocessing account for 30-60 percent of GDP, and an even larger share of employment, she said.

Mrs. Lisinge-Fotabong was addressing the 2nd Africa Rural Development Forum holding in Yaounde, Cameroon, with the objective to raise awareness of the magnitude of the challenges that Africa is facing in coming decades.

Under the theme Transforming Africas Rural Area through Skills Development, Job Creation and Youth Economic Empowerment, the meeting is exploring the need for transformational development strategies based on multi-sectoral, place-based and participatory approaches, for job creation.

The NEPAD Agency believes Africa is highly unlikely to escape the poverty trap by giving public expenditure priority to urban-based economic solutions such as import substitution industrialization, export-oriented industrialization and open- economy industrialization.

Rather, rural transformation succeeds only when driven by entire economy, meaning there is need to: expand the domestic market; create backward and forward linkages within and between rural and urban sector; and pursue a multi-sector approach to rural transformation.

CEO of the NEPAD Agency, Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, noted that attaining Aricas Agenda 2063 aspirations and goals, to a large extent depends on the change or transformation in Africas rural areas  both in location and people terms.

Advancing rural transformation is not pity or charity to the rural populations. It is critical and integral success factor for Africas sustainable economic growth and inclusive development agenda, he stated.

The AU/NEPAD Rural Futures strategy and agenda for Africa is about driving every nation on the continent towards full employment in both rural and urban areas.

The Africa Rural Development Forum provides a platform for exchange and peer learning on experiences and insights in catalyzing and fostering job creation and skills development in rural based agri- and non-agri-systems as key components to advance rural development.

Thematic areas of discussion include sectoral policies and conditions for job creation including ICT in rural areas of Africa; Rural Finance and Youth Empowerment; Skills, training, empowerment in formal and informal sector for youth economic empowerment; and Green Economy and job creation in advancing Rural Development in Africa.

The Forum is being attended by Ministers of states, experts, civil society including youth and private sector, development partners and local authorities.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh, in Yaounde, Cameroon.

http://developmentarena.blogspot.com/2016/09/rural-economies-to-define-fight-against.html
It was supposed to be fun and fun it was when hundreds of Multimedia Group staff took to the streets Saturday, for a team bonding programme, an opportunity to have fun and shed some excess kilos.

The walk was fun and it was great doing so alongside other members of the Multimedia family, was the view of a staff member.

Members of staff converged on the Accra Technical Training College (ATTC) campus at Kokomlemle at 5:30 a.m. for the walk, which started at 6:00 a.m.

Amidst brass band dishing out good songs to motivate the staff and spice things up, it was pleasurable to see the staff led by founder and Chief Executive Officer Kwasi Twum embark on the over 20 kilometers walk.

The walkers consisted of workers from Joy FM, JOY NEWS, Adom FM, Myjoyonline, Hitz FM, Asempa FM, Adom TV, JOY PRIME and AdomOnline.

Starting from the ATTC campus, ambitious young men and women walked through the Multimedias premises at 355 Fanofaa Streets where some staff members were waiting to join the team before together they hit the main Achimota to Accra road at Avenor Junction.

Programmes managers, news editors, market and sales executives, presenters, camera handlers, technicians, engineers as well as administrative staff were drenched in pools of sweat as they walked and dance through the streets.

Once on the main road, it was a brisk, pacy and energetic walk amid people talking as many selfies as their mobile phone and tablet batteries would allow them.

Although it was not a competition, one would find some exuberant staff members jog pass as the walkers' and the brass band catch up.

The walkers got to Adabraka before taking a turn onto the Accra Workers College road.

From the Barnes Road, through to the Cathedral Square, the walkers descended onto the Farrar Avenue and walked in front of Trust Towers down the road to the Niagara Hotel junction.

While some walkers who were dehydrated were served with bottled water, the team negotiated the junction down towards Kokomlemle through the Circle overhead bridge.

After some two hours and thirty minutes, the team was back to ATTC at Kokomlemle at the convergence point.

Although many walkers thought that was the end after they were treated to some fresh coconut water, the loud music, and the aerobics instructor soon called the team onto the field.

Soon, the field was a sight to behold as Kwasi Twum joined the team to start the aerobics session.

With the speakers blaring current hit tracks, the instructor took staff through various intricate aerobics and dance moves.

After aerobics came the time to socialize as staff lined up to enjoy gourmets brunch and drinks.

Then, came the awards. Some staff members who invited their families received awards amid cheers and congratulatory clapping.

Awards were presented to the first person to get to the convergence point; best-dressed walker, the hard working walker, best young and old walker as well as the last person to get to join the team at the convergence point.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim
Bolgatanga, Sept 10, GNA - Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has inaugurated the Upper East Campaign Taskforce of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and charged it to work hard to galvanise more votes for the Party to retain power.

Inaugurating the 15-member Taskforce in Bolgatanga, the Vice President said it was crucial for it to ensure that the Party won the Presidential contest and more parliamentary seats to enable it to complete its unfinished agenda.

Mr Amissah-Arthur, who urged the team to devoid their campaign of violence and insults, stated that the 15 Parliamentary nominees in the Region were competent individuals who would be utilised to propel the development of the nation.

Mr Dominic Azembe, the Coordinator of the Taskforce, assured the Vice President and the leadership of the Party that they would work towards winning 80 per cent of the votes as against the 66 per cent in 2012.

He said the Team would campaign based on a good track record in view of the massive infrastructural development undertaken by the NDC Administration over the years in the Region.

These include the Bolgatanga Regional and Garu District hospitals and the expansion of the Rural Electrification projects.

'One of the most remarkable achievements of the NDC in this Region is the creation of the four new Districts, which are the Nabdam District, Binduri District, Pusiga District and the Kassena-Nankana West Districts,' he said.

Mr Azembe urged the Parliamentary candidates to take their campaign at the polling stations very serious, explaining: 'Polling stations are the areas where elections are won and you must, therefore, be very humble and listen to everybody during your campaign.'

Other members of the team are the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Albert Abongo, who is also the MP for the Bongo Constituency, Mr Opam Brown, the MP for the Bolgatanga Central, Mr Donatus Akamugre, the Regional Secretary of the Party and Dr Stanislaus Alu Kadingdi, the Municipal Chief Executive of the Kassena-Nankana.

The rest are Mr Baba Kumasi, Mr Bernard Bugzor, Hajia Zenabu Ayariga, Madam Faustina Abagre, Madam Bawa Lardi, Hajia Christiana Alhassan and Mr Haruna Yel-oni

The event was attended by the Parliamentary nominees, Municipal and District Chief Executives, Party Elders, and other functionaries.

GNA
By Francis Ameyibor, GNA Correspondent, Arusha, Tanzania

Arusha, Sept. 8, GNA - The African Court for Human and Peoples' Rights (AfCHPR) has advocated for ethical journalism since freedom of expression, though an absolute basic human right, is not without limits.

'Ethical journalists can contribute to a better society through genuine professionalism,' Justice Sylvain OrA, the AfCHPR President, stated at the opening of the media training for senior editors and journalists from Southern, Western, Central and Northern Africa in Arusha, Tanzania.

Justice Ore recounted vivid memories of how the media had exposed human rights violations and offered an arena for different voices to be heard in public discourse which befits the name the Fourth Estate.

'However, the power of the media can also be misused to the extent that the very functioning of democracy is threatened or undermined,' he said.

The AfCHPR President said: 'It also happens that the media unnecessarily and unfairly abuse the privacy and integrity of ordinary people through sheer carelessness and sensationalism and, thereby, cause considerable damage to individuals for no good purpose at all'.

Ms Karin Pluberg, the GIZ Representative to the African Court, admonished journalists to take keen interest in the mandate of the court which seeks to strengthen the human rights protection system in Africa.

The African Court also seeks to ensure respect for and compliance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as other international human rights instruments, through judicial decisions.

Ms Pluberg stressed on the need for journalists across the continent to show interest in the protection and promotion of human rights.

Mr Nouhou Diallo, the Deputy Registrar of the African Court, said the court operated on five main strategic objectives: to exercise jurisdiction in all cases and disputes brought before it concerning the interpretation and application of the Charter, the protocol and any other relevant instrument relating to human rights ratified by the states concerned.

Other objectives are to collaborate with sub-regional and national judicial bodies to enhance the protection of human rights on the continent and to enhance the participation of the African people in the work of the court among other things.

Mr Diallo said the African Court also hinges on nine core values of the African Charter and other internationally recognized principles of human rights and the promotion of the rule of law.

The African Court also operates on the basis of non-discrimination and equality in the performance of its work based on the integrity of the judges and staff, provide equal access to all potential users and is responsive to the needs of those who approach it.

The media training is to sensitise participants on the broad framework of the African Union agenda on integration, development and shared values captured in the Agenda 2063 initiative and the African Governance Architecture (AGA).

Within the framework of the strategic module the scores of editors and journalists attending the programme would be trained from September 7 to September 10 in Arusha, Tanzania.

The pool of skilful and knowledge-based journalists would be ready to publicise the mandate of the court within the broad framework of the African Union.

It would focus on enhancing the professional skills of the journalists on how to report African Court stories for improved coverage and public awareness as well as establish a specific pool of journalists tagged as; 'Champions of AfCHPR''. GNA
10.09.2016 LISTEN

By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA

Cape Coast, Sept. 10, GNA - The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) dragged 200 companies and organisations in the Cape Coast Metropolis to court over the nonpayment of workers' contributions to the Scheme.

The companies were also charged with other offences such as non-registration of workers, concealment of information about the operations of their companies and non- registration of their establishment, contrary to Act 142 of the PNDC Law 247.

Mr Alex Appiah, the Cape Coast Branch Manager, who told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview on the sidelines of a 'Customer Clinic', said 142 of the organisations upon receipt of the writ of sermons went settle their debts.

However, the others who had proved difficult, he said, were still standing trial.

The Clinic is aimed at improving service delivery to the Trust's clientele to enable the contributors to assess their status on the Scheme and seek prompt redress to challenges.

Mr Appiah explained that every year, five days were set aside for the working teams to visit selected establishments in their operation area.

The office pitch tents within densely populated areas with high pedestrian traffic to bring the Trust's service to the doorsteps of customers.

'In order to achieve organisational transformation and operational excellence, superior customer service is needed, that was why we introduced the SSNIT Customer Clinic Exercise,' he said.

He said whenever there was an employee - employer relationship, it was mandatory for the employee to pay social security on behalf of the employee, but some business owners intentionally failed to do so.

The majority of the defaulters, he said, were exposed through whistle blowers, and urged the workers whose contributions were in arrears to report their employers.

He said in spite of the education programmes by SSNIT, many of them continued to flout the laws.

Mr Appiah announced that SSNIT would soon roll out a facility, which would allow employers to capture their contribution reports and pay electronically through Bank of Ghana Automatic Clearing Housing System without necessarily going to their office.

This, he said, would enhance the social security culture as part of its developmental reform processes.

Ms Stella Annan, the Corporate Affairs Representative at the Takoradi Branch, reiterated that SSNIT was not for formal sector workers alone but for all workers.

She advised the informal sector workers to register and contribute because it provided members with benefits that were based on exclusive contributions.

She said they could face severe hardships in the future when they were no longer strong to work if they did not have any pension.

GNA
10.09.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Sept. 10, GNA - Canada would offer USD 1.4 million as part of a joint initiative by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to strengthen Ghana's 2016 Electoral Process.

The Ghana Electoral Process Strengthening Initiative would work with the Electoral Commission (EC) to strengthen electoral administration mechanisms to improve results transmission and dispute resolution.

A statement issued by the Canadian High Commission in Accra, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the initiative would provide professional and technical training to national, regional and local media, civil society and independent observers to provide objective, balanced and gender sensitive media coverage of election-related issues and events.

'Canadian assistance will largely focus on supporting the political participation of women and activities to promote peaceful elections with the aim to enhance the participation of women and the political parties in the electoral process,' the statement said.

Local elections officers in all 275 constituencies, political party agents and candidates will be trained and the public sensitised on the importance of a gender balanced inclusive and peaceful electoral process.'

The initiative is also expected to develop a conflict mediation strategy for outreach to the national police, regional peace councils, traditional authorities, religious leaders, civil society, the judiciary and women and youth, and support the development of a Peace Accord.

Ms. Tina Guthrie, the ChargA d'Affaires of the Canadian High Commission, stated in the statement: 'Canada is very pleased to support this multi-donor initiative. 'Engaging women in all aspects of the electoral and political process, and ensuring peaceful and fair elections are core values for Canada. Canada encourages all Ghanaians to get out to vote and wishes you much success with the elections.'

GNA
10.09.2016 LISTEN

By A.B. Kafui Kanyi, GNA

Adaklu-Waya, Sept. 10, GNA - Mr Kwame Agbodza, Member of Parliament for Adaklu Constituency has assured that work would start on roads in the Adaklu District before the end of 2016.

He said some 72 kilometres of 'virgin roads' in the District would be opened soon by the Department of Feeder Roads, with the main Abuadi-Waya-Mafi Kumasi to Keyime to be fixed by the China Railway Group Limited.

Mr Agbodza was speaking at the inauguration of a taskforce to spearhead the 2016 Election campaign for the National Democratic Congress in the Adaklu District.

He said the Adaklu Abuadi to Kodiabe road had also been approved for construction by a local construction company and urged the electorates in the District to retain the NDC in power to complete development projects.

Mr Agbodza said the Government was also taking steps to address issues of access to potable water in the more than 70 communities and called for support from the chiefs.

He enumerated interventions by the Government in the education and health sectors and described the District as among the fastest growing in the country.

Mr Francis Ganyaglo, the Deputy Volta Regional Minister, urged the electorates to vote massively for President John Dramani Mahama and Mr Agbodza for the rapid socio-economic development of the area.

GNA
Dar es Salaam (AFP) - At least 13 people were killed and 203 injured in northwest Tanzania when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit the country Saturday, local authorities told AFP.s

"The toll has climbed from 11 people dead to 13 and from 192 injured to 203," said Deodatus Kinawilo, District Commissioner for Bukoba, the town close to the epicentre of the quake.

"For now, the situation is calm and under control," said Kinawilo, who was reached by telephone.

"Some people have been discharged from hospital," he told AFP. "We don't expect many more injuries. We'll see tomorrow."

Residents of Bukoba said earlier that some houses there had caved in, and Augustine Ollomi, the Kagera province police chief in charge of the Bukoba district said "rescue operations were ongoing".

The earthquake was felt as far as nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said.

"The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards," said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of the north-western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity.

An AFP correspondent in the Tanzanian capital whose mother's family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed and that the regional hospital was overwhelmed and could not handle any more patients.

"My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people starting running around and buildings collapsing," he said.

No damage had been reported in the capital, Dar es Salaam, he added.
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business Underweight on IT sector, risks still remain: Abhay Laijawala Abhay Laijawala, Head - India Research at Deutsche Equities is of the view that IT sector biggest underweight and the risks still remain with it.
Earnings season can be one of the most frustrating times of the year for many investors. Frustrating because your positions can fluctuate on performance or sentimentor for no particular reason at all

Earnings are important  lets not play that down too much. But when it comes to microcaps, financials arent the be all and end all of a stock.

However, a particular type of investor puts great importance on company financials. For these investors, its the only thing they really look at. These are value investors.

They pay little to no attention to market noise. It doesnt matter if the ASX 200 drops by 50% tomorrow; they care only for the financials of individual companies.

They use a methodology that we call a bottom up approach.

This is when you analyse the company first, before looking at the overall industry. The last thing they consider in their analysis is the wider economy.

For example, the ASX 200 has lost 1.31% of its value over the last month. This will typically have no effect on the decisions of value investors. The RBAs recent decision to cut rates will barely even register on their radar.

But a lacklustre earnings seasonnow thats something that weighs heavily for a value investor.

The biggest stocks on the ASX are battling for earnings growth. BHP Billiton [ASX:BHP], still Australias second biggest company, recorded an $8.3 billion loss. And the Commonwealth Bank of Australia [ASX:CBA], Australias biggest company, recorded net profit growth of just 2% over the previous year.

Things arent expected to get any better anytime soon for the big boys on the ASX.

The Australian Financial Review asked six top fund managers about their thoughts on Australian equities. Their concerns focused on two things: slow economic growth and sluggish revenue generation.

Anton Tagliaferro, fund manager at Investors Mutual, told the AFR:

It remains very difficult for many companies to grow their revenue line given the sluggishness of most economies around the world as well as the intensity of competition in many sectors such as retail, telecommunications and banking.

Olivia Engel, fund manager for State Street Global Advisors, said:

Theres not much real growth around. We see a slight fall in dividends but not because investment is picking up, its just to bring payout ratios back to earth amid subdued earnings.

So why are we talking about large-cap stocks, when my headline was about microcaps?

Microcap Stocks

Well, sometimes it pays to remember why microcaps are so much more exciting and full of potential than the safe companies most people refer to as blue chips.

We dont mean to slam large-cap stocks. After all, most of Australia owns them through one superfund or another. But its times like this, during the Aussie earnings season, when were thrilled to be advising you on tiny, fast-moving stocks in our premium services, Australian Small-Cap Investigator and Microcap Trader.

The largest stocks on the ASX are petrified about growth. Yet microcap stocks often care little about the sluggishness of the overall market or blue chips stocks. Share price movements for microcaps are more likely to be correlated to company action rather than the woes of the market.

While the broader market slowly grinds along, some of our Microcap Trader tips are thriving. Not every microcap will pay off, but the sheer size of the explosive growth when some do can more than make up for those that dont.

And meanwhile, the stocks we look at in Australian Small-Cap Investigator may not be quite so small or volatile, but the story is similar. I recently recommended that my readers sell a small-cap stock that had brought us better than 1000% gains.

When moves like that are on offer, its hard to get too worked up about a few percentage points gained or lost in the big end of town.

Regards,

Sam Volkering,

Editor, Money Morning

Editors note: Sam Volkering and Kris Sayces Microcap Trader looks at the tiniest of the tiny stocks on the ASX. In order to avoid excessive volatility in such tiny stocks, Microcap Trader is limited to 500 subscribers, and is currently closed to new members. Sams Australian Small-Cap Investigator also looks at the small end of town, but not quite so small, volatile or risky as Microcap Trader. You can learn more about Australian Small-Cap Investigator here.

The above article is an edited extract from Microcap Trader.
A new program will use public art as a way to connect local artists with the community and engage downtown Dayton residents, workers, and visitors with their city in a unique way. This new civic engagement project, Urban Art Intersections, will enliven downtowns streetscapes and build upon the success of other recently completed public art projects.

Local artists are invited to submit their ideas to activate blank or otherwise inactive outdoor wall space downtown. The project scope includes identifying potential mural sites and color scheme. These locations could include downtown buildings, bridge underpasses, or other blank surfaces.

Urban Art Intersections supports initiatives identified by the community in the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan, said Downtown Dayton Partnership (DDP) President Sandra Gudorf. Urban vibrancy has long been a part of our citys strategic plan for attracting investment and create a thriving downtown.



Urban Art Intersections is a joint program with the DDP, the Dayton Visual Arts Center (DVAC), and K12 Gallery and TEJAS. Similar to another successful public art project featuring the River Run Mural at RiverScape MetroPark, DVAC is coordinating the artist submission process, using the Call for Entries website. K12 Gallery and TEJAS will execute the application of the selected design(s).

An information meeting has been scheduled for 11 am to 12 pm on Saturday, Sept. 17, at DVAC, 118 N. Jefferson St. in downtown Dayton. Anyone who has questions about the project, how to apply, or any other inquiries about the program may attend the free session.

Submissions are due by 11:59 pm. EST on Tuesday, Oct. 4. Heres the link to submit.

For details on the proposal requirements, eligibility, site selection, guidelines and evaluation criteria, and other specifics about Urban Art Intersections, visit the Call for Entries site. Urban Art Intersections was made possible with support from a grant from the Ohio Arts Council as well as support from project partners DVAC, K12 Gallery & TEJAS, and the DDP.
The largest oil traders are anticipating little relief to what has become the worst market slump in a generation.

All but one of 15 senior oil traders and executives interviewed this week at the annual Asia-Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore expect crude to remain between $40 and $60 a barrel over the next 12 months. Brent crude has traded in that range for the past five months.

Oil and natural gas companies have cut more than 350,000 jobs since crude prices started to fall in 2014 as explorers slashed hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to weather the rout. While crude has climbed from the 12-year lows reached at the start of 2016, a supply glut caused by the U.S. shale boom is pinning prices at half the levels of two years ago.

The issue is that once prices go up too fast, American drillers start to produce more, Arzu Azimov, head of Socar Trading, said. The market will stay in the corridor of $40 to $50, max $55.

The majority of oil traders said market re-balancing has been pushed back by at least six months from their projections in early 2016 because of higher-than-expected production from Iran and Saudi Arabia, coupled with the resilience of U.S. shale output.

The oil market isn't yet balanced, Saad Rahim, chief economist at oil trading house Trafigura Group said. The market has yet to start working through millions of barrels of inventories accumulated during the downturn.

The bearish tone at Asia's top energy conference reflects skepticism that OPEC nations and other producers can agree to cap output and shrink a global glut when they meet for talks later this month in Algiers.

While oil prices have jumped more than 10 percent since early August amid speculation that Saudi Arabia and Russia can marshal an production freeze, their actions point in a different direction. Riyadh is pumping the most crude on record, while Russian oil output climbed above 11 million barrels a day for the first time since at least 1991, according to data published on the website of Energy Ministry's CDU-TEK unit for start of September.

Oil prices are likely to stay around current levels for the next two years, said Christoph Ruehl, chief economist at the $800 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Abu Dhabi produces most the oil in the United Arab Emirates, OPEC's fourth-ranked producer.

Prices may well be capped around current levels for another year, rather than rising gradually through 2017, said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultants Energy Aspects Ltd.

Brent, the global benchmark, traded at $48.73 as of 11:10 a.m. in London Thursday, below the most recent peak of $52.86 set in June. Brent hit a 12-year low of $27.10 a barrel in January.

Freezing output would have a limited impact on prices with the biggest producers pumping at close to record levels. Higher prices over the coming months would require production cuts to change supply and demand balances. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could also lose credibility with too much talk and no action.

There's a risk of crying wolf, David Fyfe, head of market analysis at oil trader Gunvor Group Ltd., told the conference in Singapore.

Traders said the risk of a significant decline in prices is limited as the gap between supply and demand narrows. Global oil markets will continue to re-balance this year as a pick-up in demand from refiners absorbs record output from several Persian Gulf producers, the International Energy Agency predicted last month.

In general, we believe we are getting closer to balance, Eiong Tan, head of crude trading in Asia at BP, said in an interview. Consumption is catching up with supply.

Even when the market moves into a deficit, it will have to work through millions of barrels accumulated as inventories since 2014. Keisuke Sadamori, director of energy markets and security at the International Energy Agency, told conference delegates that petroleum stocks haven't substantially declined yet.

The huge stockpile accumulated over the past two years, will serve as a lid on prices in the near future, he said.
What could be a record amount of crude oil is set to make its way from the U.S. to Europe this month and next following the end of the ban on exporting domestic crude. And much of that crude was produced in the Permian Basin.

What could be a record amount of crude oil is set to make its way from the U.S. to Europe this month and next following the end of the ban on exporting domestic crude. And much of that crude was produced in the Permian Basin.

Global trading company Trafigura reports it will move 5 million to 7 million barrels of crude from the U.S. to Europe and has booked three ships to transport 2 million of those barrels from Texas and Louisiana. Those ships are destined for The Netherlands and Great Britain.

Trafigura, headquartered in Geneva, opened an office in downtown Midlands Bank of America building this spring. The company has been buying Permian Basin crudes from New Mexico, the Delaware Basin, Midland Basin and Cline Shale. Paul Vega, director, West Texas marketing, told the Reporter-Telegram when the Midland office opened in March that the company has been moving 30,000 to 35,000 barrels a day and expected that figure to rise to 40,000 barrels a day.

Jeff Kopp, Trafiguras director of North America operations, said at that time that the companys goal is to move product around the globe to the best market.

The rise in exports from the U.S. just nine months after the 40-year ban was lifted is good news to local officials who supported the bans end.

Lifting the antiquated ban on oil exports was a critical step in bringing our nation's energy industry to the world table, U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway said in an email. Im glad to see West Texas producers leading as we start to export oil to our allies, creating jobs and economic growth here at home while helping our friends around the world reduce their dependence on unstable Russian and Middle Eastern energy sources.

The congressman from Midland had been a leading supporter of lifting the ban, and filed legislation in 2015 to end the ban.

Yet another strong supporter of lifting the ban was Scott Sheffield, chairman and chief executive officer of Pioneer Natural Resources. He had testified before Congress last year about the impact of the ban and the benefits its end would bring.

Sheffield said in an email that Trafiguras announcement confirms the importance of last years lifting of the crude oil export ban. Local economies  and particularly Midland  benefit thanks to increased demand from outside the United States. The lifting of the ban, combined with sufficient new pipeline takeaway capacity to reach the Gulf Coast, now allows the industry and companies like Pioneer to clear these barrels to the global marketplace.

Midlander Jared Blong, chief executive officer of Octane Energy LLC, even traveled to the nations capital in the summer of 2014 to testify before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy and Trade on how the export ban was hindering the growth of small energy businesses and thus, job creation and business opportunities.

It was a good thing to participate in the process, as lengthy as it was, he told the Reporter-Telegram in a telephone interview. It was good to initiate the conversation on Capitol Hill as a small business.

Blong continued, It supports the need for folks out here to participate in the political process.

He said he is pleased to see events unfolding as they are in the aftermath of the bans end.

Its exciting, not just for the Permian Basin but for the U.S. and its good to send this great Permian Basin crude across the pond. Our brand of crude is premier and there are places (overseas) that can process it, Blong said.

Beyond helping Permian Basin producers, exports will help other nations, especially developing countries, he said.

The great thing I think were doing is, were facilitating an energy renaissance not just in the U.S.. but globally, providing energy for developing countries, Blong said.

He said there are three pillars needed to support a strong economy: Energy, education and health care. When those three are in place, it makes economic development easier, he said.

Despite the potential offered by exports, John Christmann IV, chief executive officer of Apache Corp., is keeping his eyes on the domestic market, at least for now.

Apache just announced a major resource discovery, the Alpine High, in the southern Delaware Basin and estimates it holds 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 3 billion barrels of crude in the Woodford and Barnett formations alone.

Were selling at a premium West Texas Intermediate price, Christmann said. This is such a strong crude, such a unique crude, right now were selling into traditional markets.
The price of oil was up 3 percent in a holiday-shortened week, snapping two consecutive weeks of declines.

West Texas Intermediate futures contracts for October delivery closed Friday at $45.88 a barrel, down $1.74 (3.65 percent) for the day but up $1.44 (3.24 percent) for the week. The week-high of $47.62 was recorded Thursday. The week-low was $44.83 on Tuesday. Friday was the only day to finish lower.

In 174 trading days, WTI has settled in the $40s 103 times. Eighty-two day-to-day settlements were higher, while 92 were lower. WTI is up $9.12 (24.81 percent) for the year. The year-high is $51.23, while the low is $26.21.

Plains Marketing posted prices also were up this week, with WTI posted and West Texas sour each rising $1.25. By percentage, WTI was up 3.24 percent and sour was up 3.47 percent. Sour fetched $37.85 a barrel Friday, down $2 (5.02 percent) for the day. WTI was also down $2 (4.52 percent), dropping to $42.25.

Thursday marked week-highs for WTI and sour at $44.25 and $39.85, respectively. Their week-lows were recorded Monday, sour priced at $36.60 and WTI at $41. Both are up for the year. WTI has gained $9 (27.07 percent), and sour has risen $5.85 (18.28 percent). WTI has spent the past five days in the $40s; sour has been in the $30s the past nine days.

The year-high for sour is $44.15, and the low is $19.55. WTI posted has fallen as low as $22.75 and has risen as high as $47.75.

In other futures trading Friday, November contracts fell $1.80 to $46.46 a barrel, December dropped $1.84 to $47.07 and January declined $1.88 to $47.69. The nearest contract in the $50s is July 2017, which fell $1.80 to $50.15. There werent any contracts in the $60s.

Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes.
The Permian Basins run of 12 consecutive weeks of rig count gains ended Friday, but the loss was only slight.

The Permian idled two rigs, lowering the basin-wide total to 200, according to data from Baker Hughes. The net loss of rigs happened in New Mexico, where Eddy and Lea counties each shed a rig. District 7B was unchanged at five, District 7C fell one to 21; District 8 gained one to 131 and District 8A held steady at 15. The Texas total for the Permian was 172.

Midland County still leads all counties nationwide in rig count. The county, which sits at the core of the Midland Basin, saw one fewer rig this week, lowering the total to 36. Reeves County, which is in the heart of the Delaware Basin, finished the week with 23 rigs, down three.

There werent any rigs in the Permian that saw renewed activity or ceased all activity.

The Permian is almost back to where it started. The count on Jan. 8, the first full week of the year was 209. The Sept. 2 count snapped a 32-week streak of sub-200 rig counts.

The nations most-active basin recorded 250 rigs a year ago this week.

TEXAS & NEW MEXICO

Texas added four rigs, raising the statewide tally to 245. Aside from the Permian, all of Texas major basins were unchanged. The Eagle Ford had 38 rigs, the Haynesville marked 14, the Granite Wash held steady at nine and the Barnett stayed at three.

There was one offshore rig in Texas, and there werent any rigs in inland waters.

All of New Mexicos rigs were operating in the Permian, which totaled 28.

At this time last year, there were 366 rigs in Texas and 48 in New Mexico.

UNITED STATES

The U.S. added both oil and natural gas rigs this week. The number of rigs searching for oil rose seven to 414, while natural gas rigs climbed four to 92. The tally of miscellaneous rigs was unchanged at two.

In total the U.S. had 508 rigs, up 11. The count marked the first time since Feb. 26 that the count nationwide was in the 500s.

All offshore rigs were in the Gulf of Mexico, which rose eight to 18. Rigs in inland waters held steady at five, while rigs on land rose three to 485.

By drilling trajectory, there were 396 horizontal rigs, up one; 64 vertical rigs, up four; and 48 directional rigs, up six.

The U.S. had 848 rigs at this time last year.

MOST-ACTIVE

The basins with the most activity this week were the Permian, the Eagle Ford, the Cana Woodford (31), the Marcellus (29) and the Williston (28).

States with the most activity were Texas, Oklahoma (62), Louisiana (43), New Mexico, North Dakota (28) and Pennsylvania (21).

CANADA & NORTH AMERICA

Canadas rig count fell three to 134 after three oil rigs and one natural gas rig went offline and a miscellaneous rig was added. There were 74 oil rigs nationwide and 59 natural gas rigs. Canada had 185 rigs a year ago this week.

The total number of rigs in North America rose eight this week to 642. At this time last year, there were 1,033 rigs in North America.

Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes.

***

The following are county-by-county Permian Basin rig counts for the week of Sept. 9, with changes in parentheses.

DISTRICT 7B

Nolan 2

Stonewall 3

Total 5

DISTRICT 7C

Irion 2

Reagan 9 (-1)

Upton 10

Total 21

DISTRICT 8

Andrews 4

Culberson 5

Ector 2 (-1)

Glasscock 7 (+1)

Howard 10

Loving 14 (+1)

Martin 13 (+2)

Midland 36 (-1)

Pecos 5 (+1)

Reeves 23 (-3)

Sterling 1

Ward 7

Winkler 4

Total 131 (+1)

DISTRICT 8A

Borden 2

Crosby 1

Gaines 2

Garza 1

Hockley 1

Scurry 3

Terry 1

Yoakum 4

Total 15

NEW MEXICO

Eddy 9 (-1)

Lea 19 (-1)

Total 28 (-2)
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Cayden swings high, runs to the slide and then plays with the music wall -- all in the new playground. Hes there with neurotherapist Lusi Aleman, who is watching him. Cayden is enjoying a reprieve from a therapy session. As a child on the autism spectrum, hes been benefiting from services by MARCs Spectrum of Solutions. Only now, he and his counselor are doing so in a new and larger space.

On Monday, MARC will celebrate the grand opening of its new Spectrum of Solutions resource center. As the agency has embarked on serving the population -- particularly children -- it quickly outgrew the original space of two rooms in its home building on A Street.

We were just in two rooms over there so this is a great improvement, executive director Charlotte Bosecker said with a laugh. We quickly realized there was a need far beyond what we thought.

Through MARCs capital campaign, $2.5 million was raised to purchase and remodel the building. Seed money was left over to help with building maintenance.

The committee raised the money in a short time and we purchased the building at the end of 2015, Bosecker said.

With already more than 5,000 hours of service provided for this year, the organization was ready for the space to expand its reach.

Located in the former Midland Pediatricians space on West Illinois Avenue, Spectrum of Solutions is now a hub of services for families and children living with the disability. The facility offers counseling, support groups, music therapy, speech therapy and neurotherapy by Archway Support through a grant by the Henry Foundation.

We work with the brain and body to balance energy to help peoples functioning to be higher, counselor Allison Hartzoge said.

With such a catalog of services, the center has already seen families from surrounding cities such as Fort Stockton and Iraan. Hertzoge explains that this is much better option than having to travel to major cities for treatment.

They will go to a pediatrician, then have to go to a music therapist and then another therapist, and its exhausting. Here, they can get everything they need and be done, she said.

Bosecker sees it as a collected effort.

We want to treat the whole child and do it as a team, she said.

Inside, the building is calm and comforting but with a colorful decor designed for children on the autism spectrum. Counselors work with children in individual rooms and log in data on iPads while parents can wait in three different areas.

The center also offers a resource library and computers for families researching their needs.

If we dont have what they are looking for, we can help them find it, Bosecker said.

Language can also be a barrier in therapy, but Spectrum also has Spanish-speaking counselors on board.

The center isnt just for clients, either. Parents who may not have children in the center can participate in the support groups. The center even offers classes on a variety of topics for parents.

Well invite people to come in and speak on topics like nutrition or financial planning, center director and music therapist Kayla Minchew said.

Because parents may be busy tending to their childrens issues, these classes can help them with daily issues. In some ways, its also me time for the parents.

Parents seek each other out, marketing and development director Melanie Saiz said. To have someone who can empathize with you is a huge thing.

Like any organization, Spectrum always looks for more volunteers. After a vetting process, volunteers can read to children or help with the social skills classes. And theyre always open to scholarship donations.

We provide scholarships for those who may not have the means or the insurance to cover their needs, Bosecker said. It can be pretty scary when parents hear their diagnosis. To be a guidepost or a light at the end of the tunnel for them -- or anyone in the community -- can be huge.

With its larger space, MARCs Spectrum for Solutions will surely shine bright for those families.
Colpy said:



Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is Mental Disorder;' Sex Change Biologically Impossible | CNS News



Look in your pants. What is in there will tell you what gender you are.



Simple as that.....in 99.99% of cases.



Once in awhile there is a hormonal or genetic fault, but they are rare, and that is (once again) a medical issue.



What anyone does with another consenting adult is absolutely none of my business......but when idiots in the school board (for example) start telling kids in grade three they can "choose their gender", they are threatening the mental health of my family, to say nothing of the society at large. That makes it my business.



Run around pretending to be Napolean, I don't care.



Just don't expect me to cater to your insanity.



Same thing. According to the head of psychiatry at one of the world's best teaching medical centers it is exactly a "that person is crazy" issue.Look in your pants. What is in there will tell you what gender you are.Simple as that.....in 99.99% of cases.Once in awhile there is a hormonal or genetic fault, but they are rare, and that is (once again) a medical issue.What anyone does with another consenting adult is absolutely none of my business......but when idiots in the school board (for example) start telling kids in grade three they can "choose their gender", they are threatening the mental health of my family, to say nothing of the society at large. That makes it my business.Run around pretending to be Napolean, I don't care.Just don't expect me to cater to your insanity.Same thing. Click to expand...

as many times as they want

Everything these days can be chalked up to being a mental illness, including simply not bothering to pay attention in class.means pretty much jack and sh*t. It wasn't even a few decades ago when the same knowitalls in the world's leading whatever said the same things about homosexuals and those who decide to have relationships outside of their own race, in fact, many people around the world still believe those things.At one time, people believed homosexuality could be cured through various screwed up means.For every one study or expert who says one thing, there's several others who will claim the opposite.Now in saying that, while I do believe their is a legitimate position for these people who have and I can understand them wanting to have some sort of procedure to be able to help them be more towards what they think they should be, I absolutely do not agree with the following:No they don't.... you figure your sh*t out when you can and you make a serious and critical decision on which way you want to go... you then go through with it and regardless if you think you made the right decision or not for your life, you're fk'n stuck with it and should live the rest of your life with that decision. You don't get to simply pick and choose what you want on a whim just because you think you can.If you screwed up your decision and your life by picking the wrong gender, then go for the last option above and turn yourself into a damn vegetable, take a hammer to your head and stop wasting our time.
Airbnb apologizes for racism complaints, outlines changesBeth J. Harpaz, THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFirst posted: Friday, September 09, 2016 10:25 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, September 09, 2016 10:31 AM EDTNEW YORK  Airbnb on Thursday apologized for its slow response to accusations of racism and outlined new policies to combat the problem, including reducing the prominence of photos in the booking process.The company also plans to automatically block future reservations for dates where a host has told someone that a property was unavailable.Numerous anecdotes on social media with the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack recounted incidents in which African-American guests were told listings were unavailable for the dates they wanted, only to see those same listings re-advertised later for the same dates.We have been slow to address these problems, and for this I am sorry, said Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky in a message published on the vacation rental websites blog.The new calendar-blocking policy, being implemented in the first half of 2017, is designed to stop hosts from discriminating against guests by falsely claiming that a property is booked, then re-renting to others.Airbnb did not bow to critics requests that they remove profile photos entirely so that hosts cant reject guests based on appearance. The company has said that photos are an important security features so hosts can recognize guests when they check in.But the report published on the companys website Thursday, titled Airbnbs Work To Fight Discrimination and Build Inclusion, said new policies will experiment with reducing the prominence of guest photos in the booking process.Among other things, new policies will expand Airbnbs Instant Book program, which allows hosts to offer homes without approval of specific guests, as long as they meet basic qualifications, with a goal of 1 million listings by Jan. 1.Users had also said their complaints of discrimination were ignored when they reported them to Airbnb. The report says the company has developed new tools to reliably route concerns to specialists.In addition to expanding Instant Book and blocking calendars from accepting reservations for a given time period once hosts state their property is unavailable, Airbnb will:Require all users to agree, beginning Nov. 1, to a stronger, more detailed nondiscrimination policy. Chesky said the new Airbnb Community Commitment wouldnt just be checking a box on a long legal document, but would involve agreeing to treat others without bias.Find comparable accommodations, starting Oct. 1, for any guest who reports discrimination in booking a listing, having a booking cancelled or in interacting with a host. The policy will apply retroactively to guests who reported discrimination in the past, and all of those guests will be given help booking their next trip.Provide anti-bias training by Jan. 31 to all Airbnb employees.Improve technology to root out bias with a team of dedicated engineers.The company brought in former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Laura Murphy, former head of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., to review complaints and develop new policies.Accusations that Airbnb has been ignoring complaints of racism have led several black entrepreneurs to create two new vacation rental websites where they say racism will not be tolerated. The new sites include Innclusive.com and Noirbnb.com
We have been cursed with leaders ...
MHz said: The militant group, which has evaded being labeled a terrorist organization thanks to US veto in the UN Security council Click to expand...

Amazing how many times the US has vetoed stuff like this. They have a 100% record of vetoing any resolution against Israel. That's how useless the UN really is.39 times from 1972 to 2004 and usually the only vote againstSept. 10, 1972Condemned Israels attacks against Southern Lebanon and Syria; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstentionJuly 26, 1973Affirmed the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections; vote: 13 to 1, with China absent.Dec. 8, 1975Condemned Israels air strikes and attacks in Southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent civilians; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstention.Jan. 26, 1976Called for self-determination of Palestinian people; vote: 9 to 1, with 3 abstentions.March 25, 1976Deplored Israels altering of the status of Jerusalem, which is recognized as an international city, by most world nations and the United Nations; vote: 14 to 1.June 29, 1976Affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people; vote: 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.April 30, 1980Endorsed self-determination for the Palestinian people; vote: 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.Jan. 20, 1982Demanded Israels withdrawal from the Golan Heights; vote: 9 to 1, with 4 abstentions.April 2, 1982Condemned Israels mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its refusal to abide by the Geneva Convention protocols of civilized nations; vote: 14 to 1.April 20, 1982Condemned an Israeli soldier who shot 11 Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount of the Haram al-Sharaf near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem; vote: 14 to 1.June 8, 1982Urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.June 26, 1982Urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Beirut, Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.Aug. 6, 1982Urged cut-off of economic aid to Israel if it refused to withdraw from its occupation of Lebanon; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.Aug. 2, 1983Condemned continued Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip, denouncing them as an obstacle to peace; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstention.Sept. 6, 1984Deplored Israels brutal massacre of Arabs in Lebanon and urged its withdrawal; vote: 14 to 1.March 12, 1985Condemned Israeli brutality in Southern Lebanon and denounced Israels Iron Fist policy of repression; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.Sept. 13, 1985Denounced Israels violation of human rights in the occupied territories; vote: 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.Jan. 17, 1986Deplored Israels violence in Southern Lebanon; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.Jan. 30, 1986Deplored Israels activities in occupied Arab East Jerusalem which threaten the sanctity of Muslim holy sites; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstention.Feb. 6, 1986Condemned Israels hijacking of a Libyan passenger airplane on Feb. 4; vote: 10 to 1, with 1 abstention.Jan. 18, 1988Deplored Israeli attacks against Lebanon and its measures and practices against the civilian population of Lebanon; vote: 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining.Feb. 1, 1988Called on Israel to abandon its policies against the Palestinian uprising that violate the rights of occupied Palestinians, abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention and formalize a leading role for the United Nations in future peace negotiations; vote: 14 to 1.April 15, 1988Urged Israel to accept back deported Palestinians, condemned Israels shooting of civilians, called on Israel to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention and called for a peace settlement under U.N. auspices; vote: 14 to 1.May 10, 1988Condemned Israels May 2 incursion into Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.Dec. 14, 1988Deplored Israels Dec. 9 commando raids on Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.Feb. 17, 1989Deplored Israels repression of the Palestinian uprising and called on Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinians; vote: 14 to 1.June 9, 1989Deplored Israels violation of the human rights of the Palestinians; vote: 14 to 1.Nov. 7, 1989Demanded Israel return property confiscated from Palestinians during a tax protest and allow a fact-finding mission to observe Israels crackdown on the Palestinian uprising; vote: 14 to 1.May 31, 1990Called for a fact-finding mission on abuses against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied lands; vote: 14 to 1.May 17, 1995Declared invalid Israels expropriation of land in East Jerusalem and in violation of Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva convention; vote: 14 to 1.March 7, 1997Called on Israel to refrain from settlement activity and all other actions in the occupied territories; vote:14 to 1.March 21, 1997Demanded Israel cease construction of the settlement Har Homa (called Jabal Abu Ghneim by the Palestinians) in East Jerusalem and cease all other settlement activity in the occupied territories; vote: 13 to 1, with one abstention.March 26, 2001Called for the deployment of a U.N. observer force in the West Bank and Gaza; vote: 9 to 1, with 4 abstentions.Dec. 14, 2001Condemned all acts of terror, the use of excessive force and destruction of properties and encouraged establishment of a monitoring apparatus; vote: 12-1, with 2 abstentions.Dec. 19, 2002Expressed deep concern over Israels killing of U.N. employees and Israels destruction of the U.N. World Food Program warehouse in Beit Lahiya and demanded that Israel refrain from the excessive and disproportionate use of force in the occupied territories; vote: 12 to 1, with 2 abstentions.Sept. 16, 2003Reaffirmed the illegality of deportation of any Palestinian and expressed concern about the possible deportation of Yasser Arafat; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.Oct. 14, 2003Raised concerns about Israels building of a securiy fence through the occupied West Bank; vote 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.March 25, 2004Condemned Israel for killing Palestinian spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a missile attack in Gaza; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.Oct. 5, 2004Condemned Israels military incursion in Gaza, causing many civilian deaths and extensive damage to property; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
As Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump prepare to square off in a televised debate later this month, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is hoping to attract voters dissatisfied with both parties by running for president on the Libertarian Party line.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson

Hopes to get enough support in the polls to make it to the first presidential debate

FLORIDA DECIDES COVERAGE: Latest headlines | How to vote in Florida

Sister station NY1 interviewed Johnson on Friday.

Among the questions asked: Could Johnson explain the high-profile gaffe he made on national television on Thursday?

During an MSNBC interview, when asked what he would do about the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, Syria, Johnson blanked on the name of the city and had to be reminded about why it's important.

A day later, Johnson says he should not be judged by a momentary goof.

"You're going to make a mistake, and I did, and I completely own up to it," Johnson said. "I sat down, I didn't know the context in which the conversation was taking place.

"And when I heard the question "Aleppo," I'm thinking in terms of acronym - what does that stand for? American Latin going through my mind. OK, Aleppo. But I think more important is understanding the policies that underly Syria right now."

During the interview, Johnson also talked at length about the Libertarian philosophy of dialing back American troop commitments around the world.

"We inject ourselves in situations that are horrible," Johnson said. "But we reverse the roles and the regime we put in or support end up with atrocities that are the same or worse at the end of the day. And you can't make this stuff up and in my lifetime I can't think of one single instance where we have supported regime change where it's resulted in a positive and not a negative."

Additionally, he got into his belief that medicinal and recreational marijuana should be fully legalized.

Johnson was also asked about whether that stance presented a conflict of interest, as he once ran and still owns stock in a company that markets marijuana products.

"I've never viewed this from a standpoint of financial advantage and I never believed I would have the opportunity to serve as the CEO of a publicly traded company, but was given that opportunity and I jumped on it," Johnson said.

Johnson's hoping to get to 15 percent in the polls in order to participate in the first presidential debate later this month.

The rest of the interview can be viewed on the NY1 News website.


Sales tax payments for the six counties in the Heralds circulation area, as well as statewide, are trailing the blistering pace set in 2015. But that shouldnt be a major cause of concern.

During 2015, we saw double-digit increases almost every month, recalls Mike Fox, executive director of the Plainview/Hale County Economic Development Corporation. Fueling the economic activity was all the roofing activity on top of two very busy wind distribution centers moving out a lot of wind turbine components.

At this point, the roofing activity has slowed significantly and only the BNSF Logistics facility is currently active. Still, our sales tax numbers are just slightly down from last year, Fox said. Its hard to keep pace with such record activity, but considering those two factors we are doing quite well by keeping our numbers up.

For the 15 area entities which collect local sales taxes, payments for September are down 4.2 percent when compared with payments in September 2015. For the year-to-date, payments are down just 0.98 percent.

Those figures are based on retail sales during July for businesses that report to the State Comptrollers Office on a month-to-month bases.

Overall, area taxing entities received $626,561.38 in local sales tax payments this cycle, compared to $654,199.20 in September 2015. For the year-to-date, payments are $5,765,216.71, compared to $5,822,313.07 through the first nine months of 2015.

The sharpest decline was recorded by Edmonson, which saw its payment plummet 82.51 percent, followed by Swisher County, down 37.92 percent, and Floydada, down 26.14 percent. Abernathy was off 14.96 percent while Tulia fell 7.93 percent. Hale County saw its tax collections decline 6.82, with Plainviews payment down 1.91 percent. Also down was Lockney, which saw a payment decline of 0.6 percent.

The largest increase was posted by Castro County, up 42.14 percent, with Kress up 23.3 percent. Also posting double-digit gains were Silverton, 11.8 percent, and Hale Center, 11.21 percent. Harts payment was up 5.29 percent; Petersburg, up 0.51 percent; and Olton, up 9.34 percent.

After analyzing the city and countys allocations from the state over the past two years, Dr. Charles Starnes, professor of economics at Wayland Baptist University, observed, The Sales and Use tax receipts have been trending downward at a 1.6 percent annual rate for Plainview and a 2.7 percent annual rate for Hale County since October 2014. Plainviews average monthly receipt was $348,940 and Hale County had an average of $133,809. These averages give the two governments an expected annual receipt of $4,187,286 and $1,605,704 respectively.

The expected annual totals are key drivers of the city and county budgets, Starnes notes. I dont know the details for the county budget, but for the City of Plainview, Sales & Use tax receipts support 16 percent of the annual revenue sources to support the $23,718,650 projected city budget for the upcoming year. Its wise that we budget below expected receipts. For example, the Citys 2016-2017 budget is based on Sales & Use tax receipts of $3,870,000 or 7.5 percent ($317,940) less than the expected receipts.

This wise move allows for unforeseen circumstances to ensure that Plainviews city government can provide the services expected by its residents. If receipts fall into the expected range, we can use the additional money to save for some worthwhile projects in the city such as the upcoming improvements to the Travis Trussel Duck Pond, said Starnes, who is Plainviews mayor pro tem.

According to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, payments local sales tax payments in September totaled $629.2 million, which is down 1.4 percent from a year ago.

Current payments for area taxing entities and their change from a year ago include:

--Abernathy, $15,830, -14.06%

--Castro County, $26,684, 42.14%

--Edmonson, $239, -82.51%

--Floydada, $25,172, -26.14%

--Hale Center, $9,213, 11.21%

--Hale County, $128,186, -6.62%

--Hart, $3,400, 5.29%

--Kress, $770, 23.3%

--Lockney, $10,635, 0.6%

--Olton, $14,591, 9.34%

--Petersburg, $4,046, 0.51%

--Plainview, $343,151, -1.91%

--Silverton, $5,625, 11.8%

--Swisher County, $12,407, -37.92%

--Tulia, $26,613, -7.93%
MERIDEN  Officers employed by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will be equipped with naloxone, a medication that blocks the effects of opioids, after receiving training at the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden.



DEEP employs 50 environmental conservation officers, all of whom will receive training on administering naloxone at the police academy on Preston Avenue. The medication, in the form of a nasal spray, was provided to DEEP by the state Department of Public Health, said environmental conservation police Col. Kyle Overturf. DPH will cover the cost of replacing the medication, he added.



Ten conservation officers went through classroom and practice sessions at the academy on Wednesday. Naloxone is used to reverse the effects of a drug overdose. State police began using naloxone in October 2014 and have had tremendous success, state police Col. Alaric Fox said during the training session.



115 calls for service, 116 administrations. There have been 104 people that have been revived, another four people for whom the drug had no effect, Fox said. The presence of more people that have this life saving measure available to them allows us a second dose if necessary or additional assistance if its necessary.



Fox said environmental conservation officers will receive classroom instruction and practical application using a dummy. During the training session, officers were taught to recognize the symptoms of someone suffering from a drug overdose, such as breathing problems, and what questions to ask the person to determine what they ingested.



The officers were also informed about the various opioids they were likely to come across. Overdose cases are not always someone using too much of an illicit substance, the instructor told the officers. For instance, a small child could accidentally drink prescription cough medicine.



Rob Lanouette, an instructor at the academy, said he has been training officers in the use of naloxone since 2014, but has used it in his work as a paramedic since 1993. Lanouette instructed the conservation officers step-by-step in the use of the product, including how to assemble the atomizer and how to administer half a dose in each nostril. He noted the importance of ventilating the patient before and after the application.



Overturf said the initiative to equip conservation officers with naloxone came from governors office. While DEEP was investigating the value of equipping officers with naloxone, Overturf said he witnessed a police officer administer the medication to a woman suffering from an overdose at an accident scene.



To watch him be able to save that womans life using this product, it brought home the necessity for our officers to carry it, Overturf said.



Training and equipping conservation officers with the product is a proactive step, he said.






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Sophie Kocher, a bubbly 6-year-old sporting flower-covered jeans and pink sneakers to match, overpaid for someones old dog food jar covered with black paw prints. She had been squirreling away coins here and there all year for this, and now it was her time to spend big.

This costed only a quarter, but I gave them a dollar instead, Sophie said to her mother, Helene Kocher, holding the jar high overhead.

It just cost a quarter? Kocher asked. Good find.

The 6-year-old wasnt the only one to overpay at the 19th Annual Duboce Triangle Tag Sale at Duboce Park Saturday. Passersby picked over an assortment of hundreds of items: a Janis Joplin CD for a quarter, a pack of floppy disks to the highest bidder.

Proceeds from this years sale will support a needed coat of paint for the parks playground equipment, which the community group that organizes the sale, Friends of Duboce Park, raised the funds to build in the late 1990s, with the blessing of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. Organizers hope to raise a couple of thousand dollars from the Saturday sale.

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The park used to be a drug dealers trash-covered haven, and an earlier playground was nothing short of disgusting, said Janet Scheuer, who organized the first Tag Sale in 1997. Over the years, her group has taken on a number of projects at the park, including a labyrinth and lighting.

This year, Scheuer, 71, ran one of many tables, hers covered with a jumble of jewelry  some from another era, other pieces looking like they popped out of a Claires catalog  for bargain-basement prices. In a stage whisper, she let on a trade secret, Also, how much something is worth depends on what I think people will pay for it.

Many of the most prolific shoppers  and often the shrewdest bargainers  are children, their parents pocketbooks close behind. Across from Scheuer, Stella Monberg, 8, closed a deal on her first purchase of the day: a wicker basket she negotiated down to 50 cents.

Youre making out with a lot of stuff, kid, said her dad, Jason Monberg, who has lived near the park for 14 years.

I know, Stella said, briefly flashing a toothy satisfied smile.I only have $7, and I dont like to waste money.

The annual sale brings out the best in the community, said Doug Woo, president of Friends of Duboce Park. Woo meandered through the sale area, past a row of mini-mountains of clothes strewn on giant tarps across from picture frames propped up against the fence lining the playground.

A neighborhood resident who moved onto nearby Scott Street in 2005 walked past a bookshelf fixed with a tag reading Sold, $9, Maggie, a giant plastic container labeled 100 Grain White Wine Vinegar from Blossom Valley Foods in Gilroy, and a FoodSaver vacuum sealer.

Woo has seen it all over the years, from adult videos to lingerie, and everything has its price. Its for a good cause, after all.

There are people who bring stuff that I quite personally wouldnt want my neighbors to know Im bringing, Woo said. Hey, everybody has their own level of discretion, I guess.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
LOUISVILLE  Louisville students paid tribute to those who lost their lives on 9/11 during a memorial service at the high school Friday morning.

Hundreds of students and community members filled the LHS gym for the public event. The service included a keynote speech from United States Air Force Master Sergeant Joshua D. Hammerling and two memorial videos. The ceremony took place two days before the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Hammerling has served in a variety of locations throughout his military career. The California native has spent time in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and the Philippines and has earned multiple commendations and honors. He is currently stationed at Offutt Air Force Base and leads 160 people in a military intelligence division.

Hammerling told the audience he had just moved to the local area when the 9/11 attacks took place. Two airplanes struck the two tallest towers of the World Trade Center in New York and another plane struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth airplane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers stopped terrorists from reaching their intended target in Washington, D.C.

I had been in Nebraska for three days and was in a hotel when I watched the events of 9/11 unfold on a television, Hammerling told the audience. I was confused and horrified as I watched, because I knew it wasnt an accident. I knew it was an act of terrorism.

Hammerling said he and other military personnel watched the nation come together in the days following the attacks. He said citizens supported each other and built strong bonds through their emotional response to the tragedies.

The United States of America truly felt united, Hammerling said. This was not an attack on this one location, but it was something that was felt all across the country.

Hammerling shared several stories with the audience about his time in war zones in Afghanistan. He said it was important for students to realize that most people across the world share similar desires for peace and prosperity regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion or place of birth.

Most differences among people are byproducts of geography or history, Hammerling said. These differences are superficial. I would encourage you to not judge people by the way they look or talk or where they come from. I would encourage you to judge people only by their actions.

Students also watched two videos about the 9/11 attacks during the ceremony. The first video showcased television news coverage of the first several hours of the morning of Sept. 11. The second video featured the Alan Jackson song Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) and additional 9/11 footage.

Louisville High School Principal Brett Schwartz told students at the end of the ceremony that he was grateful for their attentiveness to Hammerlings speech and both of the videos. Nearly all of the students in grades K-12 were either too young to remember the events of 9/11 or were not alive at the time.

Members of the Louisville and Irvington fire departments parked their emergency vehicles next to a 9/11 artifact displayed in the schools parking lot. The artifact was a core support column from a sub-level parking structure of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The column was from Parking Section J5, Row 9. Students and community members viewed the artifact at the conclusion of the indoor ceremony.
MARFA  Our recent trip to Marfa was just a quick detour south off Interstate 10 en route to El Paso for a conference. After making that trip too many times as former El Paso residents, we welcomed the diversion, however brief.

We pulled our luggage to our second-floor room of the historic Paisano Hotel designed by architect Henry Trost of El Paso and built in 1930. The hotels renovated rooms (41 including suites) didnt include adding an elevator, but the decor is so charming we didnt mind.

We couldnt tell if the big colorful paper flower arrangements over archways and hanging on courtyard balconies were a permanent thing or something added for a big wedding coming up the next night. But we loved the festive touch, the lobbys tile floors and big leather chairs overlooking the courtyard, in this hotel called the towns social hub on the visitmarfa.com website.

Since we arrived too late in the afternoon to consider gallery hopping, we hit the shops in the hotel  3,000 square feet of retail space that includes art, home decor, clothing, books, toys and much more. A Giant movie memorabilia room pays homage to the 1956 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean, who stayed at the hotel during filming nearby. Since then, plenty of other productions have come to this quirky spot in the high desert of the Trans-Pecos in West Texas.

More Information If you go Hotel Paisano: 207 N. Highland Ave., 432-729-3669, featuring a variety of rooms including the Rock Hudson Suite. hotelpaisano.com The Get Go: 208 S. Dean St., 432-729-3335. thegetgomarfa.com Marfa Brand Soap Factory and Shop: 107-117 S. Dean St., or P.O. Box 441, Marfa, TX 79843. Soap maker Ginger Griffice, a Texas native who moved to Marfa from New York, offers about 10 fragrances using natural materials - some custom made for local shops such as El Cosmico. Soap sold in muslin bags, $10 each. Available from the website, Marfabrands.com See More Collapse

We wandered out to the courtyard for a drink and learned that the wrought-iron tables were color coded  white or black  depending on whether they were intended for just drinks or ordering dinner. We took the last open table for dinner and enjoyed a yummy meal and drinks while people-watching at Jetts Grill.

I did have one intended destination I wanted to make while we were in Marfa  the Marfa Brand Soap Factory and shop, spotted on one of Bob and Kelli Phillips Texas Country Reporter TV segments recently. Alas, it was closed and the owner was out of town, according to a sign on the door. But a woman working in the hotel shops told us that the Marfa soap could be found at various shops around town, some with their own special custom fragrance.

We found snacks for our drive and two types of Marfa soap  rosemary peppermint and rose clay with lavender, patchouli and licorice tea  at The Get Go grocery, which offered an interesting mix of organics, staples, upscale cheeses and a nice selection of wine. In a fun local philanthropic touch, customers could vote on which local charity should get a donation from the store that month by tossing a bottle cap into one of a few carafes labeled with charity names by the front door.

Follow Bertling on Twitter or Instagram: @TerryBertling.
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Amsterdam

Police have released the names of three men arrested Friday after a raid on a major marijuana growing operation inside an abandoned Amsterdam glove factory, authorities said.

The men arrested were: Ruslan Blahiy, 43, whose address was listed as that of the searched property at 26 Elk St.; Dane Cooper, 34, of 84 Spruce St. in Tannersville; and David Locket, 37, of 217 Street in Cambria Heights, Queens.

Although the men had addresses listed in New York, police said at least one of them has ties to Ukraine.

They were each charged with unlawfully growing cannabis, third-degree criminal possession of marijuana, and fifth-degree conspiracy. They were being held in Montgomery County Jail. Arraignment details were unavailable.

The growing operation was on the top floor of the old, massive Fownes glove factory on Elk Street. Fownes Brothers & Co. ceased operations in the six-story building in 2010, though the large sign adorning the mill keeps it a recognizable landmark visible from the state Thruway.

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Amsterdam police, working with State Police Community Narcotics Enforcement Team, executed a search warrant at the factory Friday morning, authorities said. Because of the size and complexity of the building, the Montgomery County Regional SWAT Team and State Police SWAT Team were used to search and clear the building.

According to multiple media reports, police became suspicious of a possible operation Thursday night, after neighbors noticed lights on the building's sixth floor during a power outage. When police arrived at the scene and heard dogs barking, they initially suspected a possible dog fighting ring. The next morning, they executed the warrant.

An investigation into the operation is ongoing. District Attorney James Conboy is assisting.

Police Chief Greg Culick told The Daily Gazette the operation was the largest he's ever seen in the city, and said investigators had reason to believe nearly $500,000 had been invested in it.
Troy man indicted on weapon charges

TROY  A Rensselaer County grand jury indicted a city man on weapons charges Friday in state Supreme Court.

Tyshaun Purvis, 24, was indicted on two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon for a May 19 incident in Troy.

Purvis allegedly threw two handguns  a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver and a loaded Kel-Tech .380 semi-automatic handgun  out a window during a 5:30 a.m. police raid at 217 Fourth Avenue. The raid was the result of an investigation by the State Police Community Narcotics Enforcement Team.

First Assistant District Attorney Jessica Hall informed state Supreme Court Justice Richard McNally that Purvis would be prosecuted as a predicate felon for convictions of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon in April 2010 and fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

 Kenneth C. Crowe II
Troy

The city and its firefighters union have reached a deal on a new tentative contract, city officials said.

The Troy Uniformed Firefighters Association Local 86 and Mayor Patrick Madden's administration agreed to the proposed contract Wednesday.

The firefighters have worked under the terms of their previous contract for the last four years. The agreement would be the first the city has reached with any of its six unions over that time span.

Firefighter Frank Razzano, the UFA president, declined to discuss the details of the tentative agreement, which will be presented to union members Monday. Razzano said he would speak about the contract Tuesday.

The tentative agreement creates a new step in the pay scale for firefighters, according to a city source familiar with the tentative agreement but not allowed to speak publicly about it. Firefighters with eight years of experience will receive an additional pay increase of $3,000, the source said.

The current top base salary for a firefighter is $55,583, according to the 2016 city budget. For an eight-year veteran, an annual increase of $3,000 would be equivalent to a 5.39 percent raise.

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John Salka, a spokesman for Mayor Patrick Madden, said the administration was optimistic about the talks this past week. He said details would be available next week.

If the union approves a new contract, the City Council would still have to ratify it.

The tentative agreement came together the day after the Republican council majority released its budget proposals to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the fire department ambulance service and to cut overtime expenditures by 10 percent in the 2017 budget. Republicans and Democrats united Thursday night to vote 9-0 to adopt the budget program.

Council members have learned there is a tentative pact, but do not know any details.

"What is the impact on our budget and how are we paying for it," Council President Carmella Mantello, a Republican said will be the council's concerns. She confirmed a tentative deal was reached.

Councilwoman Lynn Kopka, who leads the council's Democratic minority, said the issue of paying for raises is a concern of council members given the woeful state of the city's finances.

Councilman Mark McGrath, part of the Republican majority, was critical that the council hasn't been told more. "There's not a lot of transparency," McGrath said.

There has been grumbling across the city workforce regarding the lack of pay raises. Even the state comptrollers office has cited the open contracts in its audits of the city finances.

The firefighters union had joined with the Troy Police Benevolent Association to bargain with the city but the two unions split. Sgt. Tom Hoffman, the PBA president, said the police have not yet reached a new contract.
PBS has lost one of its true champions with the passing of longtime Delta College Broadcasting leader Barry Baker. The Bay City resident, who guided the colleges public television and radio stations with a firm but fair hand for nearly 20 years, passed away on Aug. 30, 2016. He was 67.

Whether it was his on-air presence during Q-TV pledge drives, vision to lead Delta public television into the digital age or his fund raising acumen, those who knew and worked with Baker said one thing always shined through: his passion for public broadcasting, a calling he found early as a teenager when he was a student worker at WTVS-TV, Detroits public broadcasting station.

Yet for all his professional accomplishments  and there were many  Delta retiree Tom Garnett was most impressed by something else.

Barry did have a passion for public broadcasting, no question, said Garnett who worked for Baker for 13 years before he retired as Delta Broadcastings chief engineer in 2010. But the thing that probably most impressed me was his devotion to his family, including his grandchildren. I, too, have grandchildren and we were always sharing stories with each other. I liked Barry. We talked a lot.

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Delta President Jean Goodnow expressed shock and sadness over the sudden loss of Baker  and longtime English Professor Neville Britto who also passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 30. It cast a huge pall over Delta as it began its 2016-2017 academic year.

Many of us are at a huge loss after learning of the tragic passing of two longtime employees and close friends, Barry Baker and Neville Britto, she said. Both of these outstanding individuals, who leave such significant legacies at Delta and on the lives of so many, will be truly missed.

PBS stations invariably face funding challenges. Baker faced these head-on, adroitly articulating the value of PBS to legislators, school administrators and anyone else who cared to listen.

During his years at Delta, he made continuous efforts to keep Delta Broadcasting solvent in a time when resources for both public radio and public television were dwindling, said Peter Boyse, who served as the community colleges president from 1993 until his 2005 retirement, in a statement. He led Delta into the digital age, which included an aggressive capital campaign for the equipment necessary to accomplish that goal. Delta was one of the first television stations in the state to broadcast a digital signal. He will be missed.

Dave Nuechterlein, a veteran broadcasting engineer at Delta, said Baker was ahead of the curve on implementing technology-related advances. The analog to digital conversion was a huge deal, he noted.

Barry was instrumental in this conversion, Nuechterlein said. That was a multimillion dollar endeavor. He had the foresight to add services before other PBS stations even considered it. Thats why we are the only PBS station in Michigan to carry four different program services.

It was a high priority of Barrys to keep broadcasting financially solvent, Garnett recounted. He emphasized fundraisers. Not a lot of people know this but Delta Broadcasting, under Barrys leadership, raised a considerable amount of money by renting space to cell phone providers and radio stations on its towers on the main campus and in Guilford Township. Even the Coast Guard had equipment on our tower in Guilford. He could come up with ideas.

To Baker, programming was more than simply purchasing national programs from PBS. He wanted to connect with the community by producing local programs. He had a special affinity for musical productions and, as a thespian in local theatre, sometimes sang in productions as well.

I remember one time Barry was performing in a production of South Pacific at the Midland Center for the Arts, Garnett said. He twisted my arm and I went to see the show. He had acting talent, and I didnt know it until I saw him perform but he could sing too.

Nuechterlein said of his longtime boss and sometime political foil: Barry was truly engaged in the world of broadcasting and theatre from way back. He would tell me stories of when he worked for one of the Big 3 Networks, before cable TV. I always remembered a picture in his office. It was Barry at a younger age interviewing President Ford at the White House.

Baker began making a name for himself in the industry after successful PBS stints in New Hampshire and later Minnesota, where he was credited with launching two PBS stations. After moving to Bay City in 1997 to become general manager of WDCQ-TV, Deltas public television station, Baker faced the challenge of ensuring the station, technically and financially, was able to meet a 2003 deadline to convert from analog to digital. His emphasis on promoting local productions helped build support for the conversion, officials said.

His big push was always to do local productions that involved and engaged the community with the station, Nuechterlein said. Because of this we had many award-winning documentaries that set TV-19 apart from the rest, as well as many fund-raising successes. He wanted and succeeded mightily at distinguishing Delta Broadcasting as more than merely a repeater of PBS programming.

Baker had opportunities to make more money working in commercial television, but his love of public broadcasting that first surfaced as a high school student in Metro Detroit would not allow him to leave for greener pastures.

There were many times he expressed to me how proud he was that PBS served as a safe haven for childrens viewing, while remaining a free service to the entire community, Goodnow said. I, too, shared his passion for the programs on Q-TV and Q-91.

One of Nuechterleins fondest memories of the nearly 20 years he spent working under Baker was the good-natured political discussions the two frequently engaged in. Nuechterlein coming in from the right and Baker weighing in from the left.

That was one of the more interesting and amusing things I used to do with Barry, Nuechterlein said, smiling. We liked to debate politics. Barry had a tendency to lean left, while I leaned right. It made for some good debates. Through it all, we both usually came to the same conclusion, smiles on both our faces, that both sides were broken.

Baker, Garnett said, also taught broadcasting history, a subject he was well-versed in.

He had an encyclopedic knowledge of old-time television shows, Garnett said. I remember old shows like the Lone Ranger but Barry could remember dialogue from programs. It got to the point that I used to joke around and ask him if he ever went outside as a kid.

Barry had a tremendous amount of vision for Delta Broadcasting, Nuechterlein said. His legacy is that he was committed to making Delta College Broadcasting the standard in our industry. He was a tireless advocate for public television and knew the business side of things. He reigned in an unsustainable broadcasting operation and made it more efficient and more attractive for Delta to keep it operable.
Newark, N.J.

A new trial was ordered Friday for a former Rutgers University student whose roommate killed himself after being captured on a webcam kissing another man, with a New Jersey appeals court throwing out his 15-count conviction.

The three-judge panel dismissed four bias intimidation counts against Dharun Ravi because of a change in state law since Ravi's 2012 trial after the death of Tyler Clementi, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

The judges ordered a new trial on other counts including invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension because, they wrote, the evidence prosecutors used to prove the bias charges "tainted the jury's verdict on the remaining charges, depriving defendant of his constitutional right to a fair trial."

Ravi faced up to 10 years in prison but was sentenced to 30 days in county jail plus three years' probation and community service. He ended up serving 20 days.

Prosecutors had argued before the appeals court that the sentencing judge overstepped his authority by imposing a sentence that was too lenient. Friday's ruling rendered that argument moot.

More for you Man charged with stalking Black Rifle Coffee employee

The case against Ravi prompted a national conversation about anti-gay bullying and teen suicide, and highlighted the pervasive effects and potential harm of social media.

Friday's ruling strongly criticized the acts that led to the charges against Ravi.

"The social environment that transformed a private act of sexual intimacy into a grotesque voyeuristic spectacle must be unequivocally condemned in the strongest possible way," the judges wrote. "The fact that this occurred in a university dormitory, housing first-year college students, only exacerbates our collective sense of disbelief and disorientation."

Clementi's parents, who formed a foundation that addresses bullying and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, said in an email that the ruling "shows us how much more work there is to be done, and will push us forward with stronger determination to create a kinder, more empathic society where every person is valued and respected."
San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the nation, but its still a city with many needs. Because of local philanthropists, the hard work of many non-profit organizations and selfless volunteers who give generously of their time and energy, however, San Antonio is known for helping others and making a significant difference in the quality of life for fellow residents.

Do you know someone who embodies the spirit of giving in San Antonio? The San Antonio Express-News is looking to write about for generous people who donate their time, money or both to benefit our city and its residents. The paper also is looking for non-profit organizations doing great work that havent been profiled recently.
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SAN ANTONIO -- Law enforcement officers exchanged gunfire Saturday morning with a murder suspect after they found him packing his car at a motel parking lot on the city's North Side.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said three officers with a fugitive task force shot at a 37-year-old man wanted on felony charges of capital murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm and possession of narcotics.

He was later identified as Rudy Smith and was transported to San Antonio Military Medical Center and is in critical condition.

Smith is facing multiple charges of attempted capital murder of a police officer, SAPD said in a news release late Saturday.

He had been wanted for capital murder in the fatal shooting of Ruben Sanchez in the 300 block of E. Crane Street on Aug. 12. He was also wanted for an aggravated assault on July 28th in the 2800 block of Jane Ellen St.

No officers or bystanders were injured in the gun battle at the Mid Towne Inn & Suites at 9603 Interstate 35 North. McManus said the man was with other people, including a child.

"I don't know who the child was, " McManus said. "The child's OK."

More for you Man charged with stalking Black Rifle Coffee employee

A guest at the motel, who asked not to be quoted by name, said she heard about 15 gunshots.

Three officers who shot at the man were a San Antonio police officer, a Bexar County sheriff's deputy, and an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service, McManus said.

The SAPD officer will be placed on administrative duty, which is standard practice after an officer-involved shooting.

jtedesco@express-news.net
The story of how America came to be has been taught to generations of Americans from one oversimplified starting point:

The Pilgrims started it all.

The Pilgrims sailed from England on the Mayflower and landed in Massachusetts back in 1620. Then they built 13 colonies, raged against taxation without representation, and fought hard for independence from Britain.

Shortly thereafter, it was all about going west, creating America as they went along.

Estuardo Rodriguez, who grew up in northern Virginia, remembers learning this narrative  one that is, at best, incomplete.

He refers to the lack of mention of the indigenous people who lived in North America for generations before the Pilgrims showed up.

There were, after all, native people living in America way back when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. There was also the community of San Agustin, in Florida, settled in 1565 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Menendez de Aviles. People still live there, only now San Agustin has been translated; its known as St. Augustine.

There was so much already there, Rodriguez says, using the landing at Plymouth Rock as a jumping-off point to illustrate gaps in Americas story.

Rodriguez is the executive director of the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, a group whose mission is to create a national museum dedicated to educate, inspire and encourage respect and understanding of the American Latino experience by spotlighting the contributions of Latino leaders, pioneers and communities.

And that museum, Rodriguez says, needs to be on the National Mall alongside the core presence of the Smithsonian Institution, the worlds largest museum, education and research complex.

This is not a big surprise to the Washington-based keepers of our nations history. In 1994, a Smithsonian-appointed task force found that the institution had established a pattern of willfull neglect toward Latinos in America through under-representation in governance, personnel, collections, programs and allocations.

The chairman of the task force  South Texas native Raul Yzaguirre, then-president of the National Council of La Raza  told the New York Times that such a lack of interest by the countrys best-known museum complex meant Americans would get a warped, distorted view of America.

The Smithsonian didnt dispute the commissions findings.

Of course, the world has turned since the study. In 1997, the Smithsonian Latino Center was introduced, a body dedicated to curating exhibitions throughout the web of museums, such as last years One Life: Dolores Huerta exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, a Dia de Los Muertos altar installation by author Sandra Cisneros in the Museum of American History, and a still-traveling exhibit titled Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964, which brings a spotlight to the difficult experiences of agricultural workers who provided manpower at a time when Americans really needed it.

The center also curates a virtual museum, which brings the institutions exhibits to anyone with a computer.

But there is no brick-and-mortar presence to tell the stories to the millions of tourists who visit the National Mall, where millions of vacationing Americans learn the most interesting things they never knew about their nation. And while cultural centers and museums across America focus on their regional stories  with museums in Texas focusing on Mexican-American history and museums in Florida putting an emphasis on Cuban-American contributions  Rodriguez points out that the totality of Latinos impact needs to be housed in one building.

In 2004, the National Museum of the American Indian opened its doors in D.C. A sandstone building set apart by its sweeping curves and landscaping, the museum tells the story of the Western Hemispheres native cultures.

And on Sept. 24, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is set to open its doors to the public 13 years after Congress gave it the nod in 2003.

While such museums focus on the contributions of specific groups with pieces of history that were once left out of the systems facilities, they are there to tell a more complete story of America to all Americans at a place Americans like to visit.

Thing is, finding a spot on the nations front yard isnt easy.

Rodriguez explains that because of a ban on building on the National Mall, a museum would have to go into an existing building, and the only available building is the Arts and Industries Building, the second-oldest in the Smithsonian complex. Despite recent renovations, the building  now used for pop-up exhibits  still needs millions of dollars in repairs. Even so, a couple of other groups angling for a museum spot also want the space, and earmarking the building will take an act of Congress.

And thats what Rodriguezs group has been working toward. This year marks the fifth anniversary of a commission that was formed to study the viability of an American Latino Museum. It determined that this carried a $625 million price tag, half of which would have to come from the private sector. But the legislation  the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act, which if passed would determine site designation, development and allow fund raising to begin  appears to have gotten caught up in committees.

Nothing came of the House bill, HR 1217, sponsored by Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., or the Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group that includes Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Marco Rubio.

Much to our frustration, said Juan Pachon, deputy communications director for Sen. Menendez, we have not been able to get much traction during this Congress with Republicans setting the agenda of what is prioritized and debated. That being said, this is a priority for Sen. Menendez and he is already looking ahead to find a path forward to calm all concerns and organize a bicameral introduction of this legislation in the next Congress.

So, the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino are looking to Americans for help. Rodriguez believes voters need to point fingers and press lawmakers.

In order for the effort to survive, we have to build coffers, Rodriguez said. Congress is incentivized if they see we can raise the money.

Corporate sponsors  such as Target, which sponsored the groups poster contest  also need to materialize. These things happen through the support of celebrities such as Eva Longoria and Emilio Estefan, both of whom have served on the Friends commission. It also happens through grass-roots efforts, including small donations and word of mouth  or keyboard.

To that end, the group is looking to gather steam through social media. This week, the Friends plan to launch an online-media-driven campaign based on building museums, not walls. In the digital world, just sharing Facebook posts or retweeting gets results.

A national museum communicates to America what its Latinos are all about. Without it, a huge swath of the American public will continue to be mischaracterized by Hollywood and political opportunists. And our story  the story of America  will remain warped, distorted and incomplete. But Americans have to demand change.

If the community is not invested, Rodriguez said, its not going to work.

mariaanglin@yahoo.com
Every once in a while, the curtains part and we get a glimpse of the ugliest, most shameful spectacle in American politics: the Republican Partys systematic attempt to disenfranchise African-Americans and other minorities with voter ID laws and other restrictions at the polls.

Fortunately, federal courts have blocked implementation of some of the worst new laws, at least for now. But the most effective response would be for black and brown voters to send the GOP a message by turning out in record numbers.

The ostensible reason for these laws is to solve a problem that doesnt exist  voter fraud by impersonation. Four years ago, a Republican Pennsylvania legislator let slip the real reason for his states new voter ID law: to allow Mitt Romney to win the state. In the end, he didnt.

Now, thanks to documents that surfaced in a lawsuit, we have an even clearer example of attempted disenfranchisement, this time in North Carolina. As the Washington Post reported, the documents show that North Carolina GOP leaders launched a meticulous and coordinated effort to deter black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

The story continues, The law, created and passed entirely by white legislators, evoked the states ugly history of blocking African-Americans from voting  practices that had taken a civil rights movement and extensive federal intervention to stop.

Post reporter William Wan backs up that assertion by quoting from the documents. In one email, written while the GOP-controlled Legislature was crafting what has been called the most onerous voter ID law in the nation, a staffer asks for a breakdown of the 2008 voter turnout showing whether blacks and whites differed in their preference for early voting. In another email, a Republican lawmaker wants to know if Hispanic voters tend to vote outside their home precincts. In another, an aide to the House speaker asks for a breakdown, by race, of those registered voters in your database that do not have a drivers license number.

Wan writes that months later, the North Carolina Legislature passed a law that cut a week off early voting, eliminated out-of-precinct voting and required voters to show specific types of photo ID  restrictions that election board data demonstrated would disproportionately affect African-Americans and other minorities.

A panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals recognized the Legislatures discriminatory intent and struck down the law. It wont be in effect for this years election.

Federal courts have also struck down new voting restrictions in Texas, Wisconsin, Kansas and North Dakota. In all cases, the laws were enacted by Republican legislatures and governors. And in all cases, discriminatory impact on minority voters is at issue.

Some might argue that these laws are a matter of politics  that Republicans may be trying to discourage Democrats from the polls but are not targeting minorities. Thats a distinction without a difference given the GOPs estrangement from minority voters.

North Carolina puts to rest any notion that these restrictions are colorblind. The law began as a 16-page bill mandating voter IDs. But in June 2013, while the legislation was being worked on, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which compelled Southern states with a history of voter discrimination to obtain Justice Department approval before making changes in election laws.

Now we can go with the full bill, the Republican chairman of the state Senates rules committee told reporters. The legislation grew to 57 pages, with new provisions that shortened early voting, eliminated same-day registration and took away counties ability to extend poll hours to accommodate long lines, among other curbs.

Republicans claim they want support from minorities. They dont deserve the time of day until they stop this appalling effort to keep us from voting at all.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com
Something revealing happens if you criticize Donald Trump.

His supporters mostly respond not by defending him but by attacking Hillary Clinton.

It is, of course, partly about this whole lesser-of-evils thing that has saturated the election. Both candidates have deplorable unfavorability ratings, though Trump wins that particular race at the moment, particularly with certain demographic groups.

Yes, there are clearly those who dont think what Trump has said is at all racist, misogynist, nativist, xenophobic or ignorant. They know, however, that there is a good measure of consensus  evidenced by those politicos who endorse him but cant quite embrace him  that his comments have been precisely that.

But theyre not offended and believe the rest of us are being just so darn politically correct. And then there are those who are indeed racist, nativist, etc., and favor Trump precisely because he sounds like he is, too.

Lets focus on the cant-vote-for-Hillary-to-save-my-life folks. You know, shes crooked and corrupt. And a liar.

OK, but being crooked and corrupt would surely  after a quarter-century of intense scrutiny, investigation and hearings  result in an arrest, indictment, conviction or hefty civil sanction. There are none of which Im aware. Not even violations of ethics regulations in her latest scandals  private server emails and the Clinton Foundation.

Investigations that are arguably politically motivated  Benghazi, the prime example  are not proof of guilt.

The likely retort: Big whoop, this doesnt mean she isnt crooked or corrupt. In other words, arrests, etc., havent happened because the system is rigged for her.

Which reminds me of that joke about the two conspiracy theorists being chastised in heaven by St. Peter for their reckless utterances on everything from JFKs assassination to President Barack Obamas birthplace to the moon landing and 9/11. He sets them straight. Midlecture, one turns and whispers in the others ear, See, what did I tell you? It goes all the way to the top.

So, the FBIs failure to recommend prosecution for the private email servers and the continuing seepage of emails are allegedly corruption all the way to the top.

Not even an ethical violation for access for Clinton Foundation donors to Secretary of State Clinton or her office? It doesnt make it right, but if favored access were a crime, all of the Beltway would be in jail.

Ask someone to produce evidence of something gained aside from access and the answer is, Well, none that we know of  , the sentence trailing off ominously. No evidence is evidence.

Benghazi? How many investigations that dont lay a glove on her do there have to be? But Id feel more sympathetic about this if people had held Ronald Reagan to the same standard  for the more than 200 Marines killed in Beirut in 1983 and for Iran-Contra.

Lying under oath to Congress? So, where is the contempt of Congress citation?

Lying? Lets see how the respected PolitiFact ranks the two.

Clintons statements have been rated true, mostly true or half true 179 times, and 69 times mostly false, false or pants on fire, the flaming-trousers rating happening six times. Trump has 62 instances of true, mostly true or half true statements, and 173 mostly false, false and pants on fire  44 of the latter.

The media are biased? Facts arent.

There are plenty of people who are going to vote for Clinton who wish they had other viable options that dont help Trump. Her vote in the U.S. Senate for the Iraq War is reason enough for many. But elections are about comparisons, and Trump, of course, supported the war before he was running and then he was against it.

If truth-telling is the gauge, there is no comparison. Trump wont even release his tax returns. If ethics is the measure, Trump wins only if you believe its just business excuses a host of sins.

There may well be an October surprise that even those holding their noses for Clinton cant abide. But, absent that, all we have is the current comparison.

And many of Trumps remarks dont even rise to the level of comic Stephen Colberts truthiness, things people think sound true but arent necessarily so.

o.ricardo.pimentel@express-news.net

Twitter: @oricardopimente
BRIDGEPORT  Police were searching for a gunman Friday night after a reported drive-by shooting on East Avenue.

The male victim was treated for two gunshot wounds after being rushed to Bridgeport Hospital by a family member, according to police dispatch reports.

The victim said he saw the shooter, driving by in a newer-model, maroon Honda Accord, look at him, Bridgeport Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said. Then the gunman allegedly shot the victim twice in the back, at about 9 p.m.

The victim, who police did not identify, was in stable condition, Fitzgerald said.
Russell Yip/The Chronicle

SACRAMENTO  California counties scrambling after a shortage of a particular security-enabled paper used to print vital records will find some relief under a bill Gov. Jerry Brown signed Friday.

California has been in short supply of the paper since an Ohio business that produced it suddenly closed last year, forcing some counties to ration how many birth and death certificates people can buy. The Ohio company was the only firm able to produce the type of security features required under California law for the paper.
By Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives.

Contents

Conventional Hard Climate Denial A Web of Soft Climate Denial The Foundations of Soft Climate Denial in Economics Settling on Neoliberal, Market-Based Carbon Gradualism Soft Climate Denial, Fossil Fuels, and the Hedonic Self

1. Conventional Hard Climate Denial

The Rio Olympics opening ceremony highlighted global warming as a major theme of international concern even on an occasion of diversion from the cares of the world. That most Brazilians understand intuitively and uncontroversially that climate change is a real threat contrasts with the still substantial fights that occur in parts of the Anglophone world regarding the reality of human caused climate change. A powerful minority in that world, strongest in the United States and Australia, holds to the idea that climate change is a hoax. The Republican governor of Florida, a state that almost certainly will lose population centers and land area to rising seas, has, for instance, banned the use of the words climate change by state employees. Meanwhile we are, due to a strong El Nino and climate change combined, experiencing record average global temperatures and are seeing signs that we may be approaching tipping points in the destruction of the habitable biosphere to which we are adapted as a species and civilization. Due to the ravages of 2016s heat, the Anglophone world even might now eject climate deniers from the arena of legitimated public discourse.

When encountering the writings or public presentations of vociferous, activist climate deniers directly, it is not too hard to recognize them because they will announce various conspiracy theories about climate science and climate action, usually pairing these attacks with paeans to the free market or other institutions they claim to hold dear. Alternatively they will express doubts about climate science unsubstantiated by scientific analysis and conscientious review of the scientific data. Another group are less strident, more strategic, wealthier deniers, such as the Kochs, who are funders of a climate denial industry. That industry, a combination of doubters and fanatical, florid deniers, spreads a fog of, for some paralyzing, uncertainty and traffics in smears of scientists and well-known climate action advocates. The climate scientist Michael Mann has now chronicled in two books, most recently in The Madhouse Effect, how climate science has been twisted and climate scientists have been harassed by a generally well-funded campaign of climate denial.

Donald Trump has in the last few years converted to climate denialism, perhaps to garner right-wing fanatic votes and shock the liberal intelligentsia with whom he as a New Yorker has had so much contact. His earlier concern about global warming was probably a means for Trump to conform to elite opinion in New York City, also the headquarters of the UN, rather than a deeply held conviction, of which Trump apparently has very few. The Republican Congressional delegation has been in recent years very solidly in favor of climate denial, aided by fossil fuel company lobbyists that fund think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute. The alliance of the Republican Party with the fossil fuel and extractive industries remains very strong, even as the evidentiary basis of their campaign to throw up doubts about human-caused climate change completely disintegrates.

The GOP and further-right denialists and the supporting infrastructure for their denial, I am calling here hard climate denialists. Hard climate denialists stubbornly and publicly proclaim a belief that anthropogenic climate change is either unsupported by scientific evidence or, more frequently, an elaborate hoax. Hard climate denialists demonstrate a soft or slippery relationship to physical and scientific reality because they will clutch at almost any piece of information that seems to them to disconfirm or discredit climate science and climate action. Hard climate denialists continually spin various stories to support their fixed or proclaimed (but insincerely held) belief that humans are not responsible for the upcoming climate catastrophe. Alternatively, the cleverer deniers that want to retain their own respectability in the public sphere, such as MIT-educated Charles Koch, allow others to do the tale-spinning or funding of climate denial from their extensive donor network. The deniers belief that humans have no responsibility for climate catastrophe then is, in the terminology introduced here, hard and fixed around which these climate deniers construct a tissue of lies and attacks on others who challenge their beliefs. There is nothing hard about the evidentiary basis in reality of their beliefs, which is exceedingly soft, but hard describes only their stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality.

While hard climate denial is without basis in scientific and, increasingly, observational reality of the hundreds of millions of people experiencing a changed climate over the past several years, climate denialists have been extremely well-funded and have targeted their efforts at slowing recognition of the negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the global climate. Recent revelations of the degree to which oil-company scientists knew in the 1970s and 1980s , before many academics did, that fossil fuel combustion would lead to likely alterations of the global climate, and then obstructed public understanding of global warming, give us an important historical perspective on how we have arrived at our current situation. Recently, 19 Democratic US Senators have created a series of presentations and a campaign called Web of Denial that exposes the links between various hard climate denial organizations and fossil fuel interests in contemporary politics. Efforts to expose hard climate denial should continue and be intensified given the magnitude of the climate crisis.

2. A Web of Soft Climate Denial

But there is another, perhaps more troubling web of climate denial, that is far more widespread both within and outside the Anglophone world. I will call this type of climate denial soft climate denial and it is now a few orders of magnitude more common than hard climate denial. While hard climate denialists can be fingered and excoriated, soft climate denial represents a wide-ranging diffuse climate that surrounds much of our lives in the developed and rapidly developing worlds. There are relationships between hard and soft climate denial but the latter is not entirely a product of the former.

Soft climate denial takes a few different forms but it is remarkably easy to define: soft climate denial means that one acknowledges in some parts of ones life that climate change is real, disastrous and happening now but in most other parts of ones life, one ignores that anthropogenic global warming is, in fact, a real existential emergency and catastrophic. Soft climate denial can be practiced by individuals and groups alike, in fact, it is as much a group phenomenon as it is an individual defense mechanism.

The critical defining feature of soft climate denial is the pairing of recognition of a dire state of the global climate with inadequate means to address that dire state or humanitys impact on the climate. Soft climate denial is defined by the disconnect between the recognition of an apparent climate emergency and the psychological repression or the dismissal of appropriate responses to that emergency. There are many political positions that fit into this space, including the embrace of various carbon pricing systems as the single silver bullet to address climate catastrophe. Other political positions emblematic of soft climate denial are those that maintain a narrow focus on divestment from or removal of subsidies for fossil fuel companies.

A pragmatic but slightly cynical view of soft climate denial is that it allows people to enjoy both the benefits of appearing smart, well-informed and ethically sensitive, with acceptance in the broader society, while still living the lifestyle of the high-consuming middle and upper classes in the developed and rapidly developing worlds. Soft climate denial enables people in the developed and rapidly developing world to have their cake and eat it too: to appear responsible and concerned without, in my view, taking political and personal responsibility for shedding our fossil fuel dependence. In individual psychological terms, much everyday soft climate denial is a form of the defense mechanism called isolation, where emotionally freighted matters and disturbing thoughts are cordoned off from other thought processes. This defense mechanism has developed as an adaptive response to trauma and disturbing thoughts but it is, in the current climate crisis, potentially killing our species.

Right-wing, hard climate denialists are likely to claim that soft climate denial is simply a form of elite liberal hypocrisy but I dont think, at this time in history that label exactly fits. Hypocrisy denotes a set choice between right and wrong: a hypocrite claims that they are doing the right thing or are good when they do the wrong thing and dont admit they are doing that thing. With action on climate change, the right or effective choice has been covered over by decades of misinformation, so we dont have yet a set right choice that is being avoided. Also action on climate is a collective action, so there would need to be a comprehensive movement for change in a large group of people for the right choice to be available. So, while a personal sense of guilt should come into decision making on facing climate change, hypocrisy is, still, too strong an accusation, especially as it triggers a moral perfectionist framework that is unhelpful and paralyzing for many people.

The fundamental danger associated with soft climate denial is not that individuals at times use various inevitable psychological defense mechanisms but rather soft climate denials macro effects on political discourse, social movements for change in civil society and of government policy on climate itself. What soft climate denial has enabled is that a massive, world-wide social/political/environmental problem has been yoked to a set of inadequate responses to that challenge. Soft climate denial enables weak and ineffectual climate policy to continue largely unchallenged in the public sphere, thereby delaying effective climate action. I have called one of the results of soft climate denial, carbon gradualism. Soft climate denial is as or more dangerous than hard climate denial, though both are to be vigorously combatted and, step-wise, overcome.

To begin to escape from both soft and hard climate denial, people in concert need to work together, mobilizing via social movements, and invent new and revitalize existing political and government institutions, i.e. use all relevant social resources, to cut emissions to zero within a decade and stabilize climate processes via a variety of technological and practical interventions. Such effective climate action must draw from our roles in civic life, in work, in leadership of public and private enterprises, and in consumption.

Hard climate denial can potentially be discarded by individuals: it is an individual choice. But stickier soft climate denial requires a widespread, concerted effort to overcome. That effort is increasingly described now as a war on climate change or a wartime-style mobilization of social and economic resources. The degree to which we as individuals, social movements and a society as a whole can mobilize ourselves to fight climate change (via a number of distinct changes in our society and government policy), is the degree to which we can overcome both soft and hard climate denial. Whether war is the best metaphor or description for the actions we must take is debatable. Yet it in our current conceptual world expresses the priority, funding mechanisms, and urgency of the actions required.

It was Paul Gilding and Joergen Randers, who in 2009 first used the wartime metaphor in relationship to climate action, in drafting a One Degree War Plan. In Australia, where Gilding is based, there has since then developed a community that sees climate warming and destabilization as an emergency, a code red situation. Though I was unfamiliar with Gilding and Randers work in 2013, I moved from a position that might be called Climate Keynesianism that I held since 2008 to in 2013 calling for a full-scale government-led mobilization called The Pedal to the Metal Plan and then the US Climate Platform. In the United States, the first political group to push for a wartime-style climate mobilization, the Climate Mobilization, was founded in 2014 by Margaret Klein Salamon and has just published a comprehensive draft Victory Plan, authored by Ezra Silk, which is the groups proposal for government action against climate catastrophe. I am an activist with and offer strategy and economic advice to the Climate Mobilization. Australian and American groups are also petitioning for a declaration of a climate emergency by their respective governments. A full-scale mobilization of social resources is not thinkable without a widespread recognition of a climate emergency.

The idea of a war on climate change and wartime mobilization has received two very significant boosts recently in the United States, one of the homes of hard climate denial. Several Bernie Sanders delegates to the Democratic Platform Committee, including Russell Greene, introduced language into the Democratic Platform that calls for a national mobilization against climate change which was accepted into the platform. Perhaps inspired by these actions, the veteran and one of the most famous global warming activists and authors, Bill McKibben, came out in favor of treating climate change action like a war. In an article for the New Republic, a magazine close to the Democratic Party, McKibben said that wartime mobilization was the only hope for our civilization. With this article and turn towards government-led action, McKibben now joins a small but growing community that sees that rapid government policy change and leadership is a critical component to in time action on climate change. The large 350.org network of activists and organizations, closely associated with McKibben, may add this call for a war-time style mobilization to its campaigns.

All of these writings, including my own and to-date small-scale, political actions remain only beginnings in building a road out of soft climate denial.

3. The Foundations of Soft Climate Denial in Economics

When climate change burst into public consciousness and the news cycle in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the neoliberal era was still in its early development as a governing philosophy. Yet, already, with the global warming challenge, neoliberals seized on this new social/environmental problem as a testbed for their economic policy ideas. Neoliberalism is the political-economic philosophy that attempts to solve social and economic problems by inventing new markets or reintroducing old ones. It is distantly related to American political liberalism and therefore the label liberal thrown about in political discourse in the United States and other parts of the Anglophone world.

Neoliberals, often of the right-wing but also of the center-left, see the abstract ideal of markets as the optimal form of social organization and would, as political leaders, use government institutions and changes in laws as disposable supports for market processes and to serve private businesses, particularly, in actual practice, the financial sector and large established corporations. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Barack Obama are political leaders who have governed according to neoliberal assumptions despite their different political and personal styles. Hillary Clinton, like her husband, appears to be almost completely enmeshed in neoliberal ways of thinking but we can only hope that pressures from social movements and reality will pull her likely Presidency away from neoliberal dogma.

The common but lazy use of the term market for the private sector as a whole, adopted by neoliberalism, is an ubiquitous ideological mislabeling, that enables the diverse assemblage of economic actors in the private sector to claim that they represent the virtues of the supposedly optimal economic organization of free markets. The conception of society embedded in neoliberal ideas is based on the ahistorical abstractions of neoclassical and Austrian economics in which society is either already or should soon be a free or minimally-regulated market. The simultaneous, paradoxical assertion of the not-yet-achieved model ideal and the already-existent reality of an all encompassing market, in real political practice, tends to hide from public view, the dealings within the private and public sectors of the wealthy, the financial sector and non-market and quasi-market corporate monopolies and oligopolies.

Market institutions, in their abstract and misleading form found in neoclassical economics, are imagined to be the composite of ideally independent rational, entirely self-interested economic decision-makers, both households and businesses. These economic actors are thought to meet in a quasi-democracy of the market place where no one actor or group of actors will dictate the terms of exchange to other actors. The ideal market actors are thought to behave entirely according to a system of incentives and disincentives, most often the relative prices of goods and services. To those indoctrinated in the economics 101 (neoclassical) view of the world, market processes are thought to be the sole and/or solely important and solely desirable social institutions and forces. The political tendency libertarianism to which the Koch Brothers, Peter Thiel and Ron/Rand Paul adhere is thoroughly dependent on either naively or cynically holding up the ideal of the never-achieved yet assumed-to-be-really-existing market-society.

Entirely missing from this conceptual universe are any realistic assessment of the roles of government, of collective or group actions, and of moral or emotional bonds with others and with humanity as a species as a whole. Furthermore, missing is any conception of human economies resting on and thoroughly dependent upon an external geophysical world and biosphere. That real physical context, the biosphere and geophysical climate systems, represent the interactions of complex systems constituted by irreversible thermodynamic processes, which push the arrow of time always in one direction, i.e. forward into the future. Ahistorical neoclassical models suggest an economic universe composed of abstract entities with no history and where all processes are unrealistically reversible, i.e. entirely unlike physical biological beings in a complex, chaotic world.

Also missing in the worldview imparted by Economics 101, critically, is a workable macroview of the economy and of the world as a whole that supports and surrounds human economies. Within academic economics, the independence and integrity of the discipline of macroeconomics has lately been fragmented and politically undermined by the neoliberal/new neoclassical emphasis on microfoundations meaning the attempt to adduce the behavior of the whole as simply the summation of individual households or businesses acting independently of each other, i.e. microeconomics. Utilizing this particulate view of reality, a recognition of the economic and social role of, for instance, ecological support systems for an economy is nearly impossible to include or value highly, except, in some variants like carbon pricing, as a source of external costs and benefits to individual market actors. All of these systemic or aggregate features of existing reality are thought by adherents to neoliberalism/neoclassical economic thinking to becloud or impede the ideal functioning of market forces and individual household or individual business action. Systemic operations, the role of ecological systems in supporting an economy as well as the behaviors of collectivities of people are then mostly ignored, almost always misrepresented, and often disparaged as not living up to the fetishized market ideal.

4. Settling on Neoliberal, Market-Based Carbon Gradualism

With the public discovery of global warming in the late 1980s, during the early 1990s there was still little public alarm about global warming and reactions to global warming would conform to the spirit of the times rather than to the specific requirements of the challenge of making fossil fuels obsolete while rescuing civilization. The concrete negative effects of global warming still seemed distant so the outsourcing of climate action to the United Nations, to a specialized set of international bureaucrats, and in turn to neoliberal market-based ideas about the economy didnt seem like such a violation of ethical standards in what was predicted to be a slow-moving but accelerating existential emergency. Furthermore with 1989-1991 the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet system in all countries except North Korea, the notion of viewing government and large-scale collective action led by government as a positive force in the economy were seen as either dangerous pro-Communism or simply passe. Even those countries that maintained Communist one-party rule, like China and Vietnam, were quickly marketizing their economies, even as their ruling parties kept a tight hold on political power.

When the UN settled on an international framework and targets for addressing global warming, the resulting policy framework, the Kyoto system based on a cap and trade mechanism, turned out to be inadequate and ineffectual though tuned to neoliberal preconceptions. Kyoto measures were, at the beginning, supposed to operate in the background and remain distant from everyday life for most inhabitants of developed and rapidly developing countries. The Kyoto mechanisms, with the target of reaching 80% reduction of 1990 emissions by 2050, now instantiated in ineffectual cap and trade systems in a number of regions, remained ultimately unchallenging to the fossil fueled status quo in all high-emitting countries. The central mechanism of the Kyoto protocol, emissions trading and carbon offset farming, has become, in practice, a means of postponing the hard task of transitioning off fossil fuels.

Some pundits embedded in the neoliberal market ideology protest that these systems were never properly implemented yet, contrary to this view, postponement of hard decisions has always been explicit features of emissions trading: private sector actors are to lead the push to cut emissions (not government) and these cost-constrained actors are supposed to engage only in the most cost-effective measures to cut emissions. No moral imperatives, based on addressing existential threats, in the form of direct regulation by government or direct government creation of public assets were allowed into the high church of what was thought to be climate policy. Market-based has always been a term of both approval and also a standard of admission, perversely, to the high church of climate policy. Climate policy has in reality been alternately an occasion for delay of emissions cutting as well as substantial intellectual self-congratulation and self-gratification by policy analysts and economists, whose thinking had already been shaped and limited by neoclassical economics and neoliberalism.

The theoretical engine of Kyoto and similar frameworks has been that private sector actors, mostly businesses, would continue to invent and refine over time, lower and lower carbon technologies in response to the increasing price of carbon in the permit trading markets. The effect of permit-trading markets under a descending cap (cap and trade) was supposed to be analogous to the never-tried, more theoretically pure alternative of a rising carbon tax, which was the preferable but by no means complete solution to the impending carbon crunch and climate chaos. Businesses would become more inventive as the cap tightened and permit prices rose. In turn consumers would favor the lower-carbon technologies until such time as only lower- and then eventually zero-emitting technologies and processes would dominate markets for all goods and services.

This idealized picture of how markets and innovation work left out some of the key sites and sources of innovation in capitalist economies: the role of research and development facilities funded by government or by some large corporations that are insulated from market competition, either oligopolies, monopolies, or those subsidized directly by governments to innovate. The photovoltaic panel, for instance, was invented in the 1950s by a lab funded by the US private telephone monopoly, a non-market private sector institution/corporation. Neoliberal and neoclassical economic orthodoxy would tend to falsely attribute all private sector invention, such as the photovoltaic panel, to the market; they have little concerned themselves with the actual reality of businesses and government in the economy and, alarmingly, seem untroubled by this lack of attention to reality. Green innovation has, more than most other forms of innovation, been produced almost entirely via these forces that are not accounted for in the market-based vision of climate action offered by advocate of carbon pricing.

In addition, as the real, geophysical climate has heated, become more destabilized and emissions have not peaked or declined, the inadequate nature of targeting 80% of 1990 emissions (or 2005 emissions) by 2050 has been exposed. We would need to cut emissions by 10% or more per year in an emergency program that would achieve net zero emissions for developed societies within a decade or less, for all uses including agriculture, forestry, international travel and transport. Increasing extreme weather events and signs that we are closing in on tipping points for positive feedback loops for warming, like the release of methane from the oceans and permafrost, all point to the need for an emergency program in cutting emissions very quickly. The only instruments capable of designing and leading such a program are governmental institutions, backed by a majoritarian political and ethical sentiment that we have no higher duty and mission than to preserve a habitable biosphere for children and for those who have not yet been born.

The most powerful social institutions, including governments, during the 1990s to the present seem so far to be uninterested in actually moving quickly and decisively to cut emissions and countenance the, some temporary and some permanent, lifestyle and economic changes required to achieve those ends. I dont want to minimize here the difficulty of decisive action and the challenges to our current culture and politics that it presents. While some in the climate movement and on the Left would tend to locate the resistance to change exclusively in powerful private sector actors, like oil and coal companies, I believe responsibility is broadly but quite unevenly distributed among both the elite in the developed and rapidly developing world and consumers/citizens in those worlds, intent on immediate or short-term gratifications over long-term sustainability. I have elsewhere suggested that there are three levels of responsibility for our climate catastrophe: primary, secondary and tertiary responsibility. One can say that the first movers in terms of suppressing climate action have been the major fossil fuel industry corporations but they have had many more or less willing followers, even those who now condemn their climate denying actions and encouragement of climate inaction.

The economic common sense of climate policy to date has meant that individuals and societies as wholes have outsourced climate action to others, without major political confrontations at home or within national political institutions. Furthermore these others, UN or other bureaucrats, have relied on a mythicized and little understood impersonal mechanism, the market, to deliver the emissions reductions that have almost never been delivered. The intentional dismantling of our fossil fuel dependence in a planned and step-wise manner was ruled out because of this familiar but misleading, theory-based, economic common sense, which, as it turns out, is misguided as a guide to many kinds of policy both in ordinary and, now, extraordinary times.

Thus, it has become a matter of right-thinking common sense to endorse the stand-in for effective climate policy developed to conform to neoliberal ideas about markets and innovation as well as the preferred carbon gradualism. That stand-in, various carbon-pricing frameworks, would then let politicians and citizens think that they had already taken care of or addressed climate by endorsing the feeble instruments that had emerged from this intellectual and political history.

Conventional neoliberal/neoclassical economic approaches to climate change have then helped undergird soft climate denial. The notion that by simply acknowledging that climate change is a problem and voicing general support for some form of climate policy vs. the evil or willfully-ignorant hard climate denialists, soft climate denialists feel that they have discharged their duty towards posterity and maintaining the integrity of the biosphere for human life. That climate policy has been next to useless and an obstruction to decisive action has not been troubling to elites or large swaths of the population, until region-by-region we are confronted by extreme weather, flooding, droughts, rising seas, the effects of disturbed ocean chemistry and high temperatures. These in turn will produce famines, deaths by drowning and hyperthermia. The notion of impersonal market forces achieving climate stabilization without messy political confrontations or personal struggle allows people to remain comfortable as long as possible with the fossil-fueled status quo. Soft climate denial is a moral alibi for inaction.

5. Soft Climate Denial, Fossil Fuels, and the Hedonic Self

The effective fight against climate change requires a new understanding of the connections between macro-scale policy and our micro-scale subjective experience. One access point to these connections is to look more closely at economic demand and its components.

One of the primary components of economic demand, with increased importance within our consumer-focused society, is human desire, which has both biological and sociocultural determinants. A tendency in the current social epoch is to treat our selves, as given by biology or as in some way natural, invariant, and ultimately inscrutable. Neoclassical economics treats the individual as an insatiable, desiring black box oriented towards the consumption of goods and services though this is for the most part an abstraction of limited usefulness.

However, in world of actual economic practice, marketing and business management as well as the macroeconomic management of economies by governments must pay attention to the various conditions in which our desiring for goods and services is enhanced or is stultified. Marketers and managers of businesses focus on the desire for their particular sales offerings while government officials and political leaders focus on the general conditions that enhance economic welfare as that is variously and politically defined, including the aggregate desire for goods and services and the economic tools to satisfy those desires within their economies.

In consumer societies, one could say that a primarily pleasure-seeking self, a hedonic self, is encouraged both by business leaders and government macroeconomic managers. The more occasions and social situations at which an individuals desires can be realized by monetary transactions with corporations or, as a support of basic needs, governments, the higher the gross domestic product, as a general rule. This has led to an emphasis since the 1920s in the developed world, on the development of hedonic selves in consumers that respond more readily to the possibilities of pleasure in the market. Adam Curtiss great documentary Century of the Self is one access point to this history. A wide-ranging infrastructure has been built in business and the culture more generally that has arisen from consumer society that educates and draws out desires from individuals, hoping to direct them in one way or another.

There are some countermovements to the development of the hedonic self within consumer societies but these are often, in my view, based on misleading or ultimately unhelpful critiques that are still in some way embedded in consumption-driven capitalism or a naive conception of our desiring natures. Anti-consumerist conservatives, who support the fantasy of a civilization with minimal government, of reducing government spending, and resulting austerity, like to blame Keynes and government welfare policy, viewed by them as socialism or, worse, Communism, for the focus on pleasure, ease and spending as integral to the economy. Contrary to the pearl-clutching of these anti-Keynesians, Keynes, was proposing humane adjustments by government to an economy, that already in the 1920s and later, had committed itself to stimulating the consumer and thereby growing the economy. Keynes was saving capitalism from itself, but incorrigibly vain, pro-rentier-capitalist reactionaries have never been able to forgive the suggestion that capitalism needed help from government.

These reactionaries and deficit hawks counterposition against rise of the hedonic self, is the repeating call to austerity and government frugality, as these austerity advocates neither understand government budgets nor understand the hedonic basis of both private and public sectors. Meanwhile, such self-styled conservatives are only too happy to harvest or celebrate the harvest by the already-wealthy of the savings/income that comes from selling consumer products to others and trading in assets that increase in price due to favorable government policy yet with little added value from their work or enterprise. Preserving or enhancing the private opulence and political power of the rentier class seems to be the political motivation behind the false virtue of austerity advocates. Right-wing anti-consumerists hold the business sector harmless while blaming government for all the personal and social failings associated with consumer society.

There is also a left-leaning green anti-consumerism, which points out the damages to the environment and non-human species associated with a throwaway consumer society. This green anti-consumerism supports its own forms of consumerism, some of which is better and lower impact and some of which is simply alternative fairly high impact forms of consumption (think jet or offroad vehicle travel to exotic or remote locales to commune with non-human nature and tribal-based societies and thereby disturb or distort them). Rather than lower impact, much green alternative or anti-consumerism is a set of niche markets within the broader consumer culture, appealing to perhaps a more introverted and biophilic customer. One of the hallmarks of green anti-consumerism/alternative consumerism is an embrace of the small is beautiful philosophy and localism both in physical/technological arrangements and in sociopolitical preferences. Green anti-consumerisms fetish of the small and local may doom it as a guide to the massive coordinated actions and technological achievements required to stabilize the climate.

But our mixed-up-ness about our own desires extends beyond membership in these counter-movements to consumerism (either right-wing austerian or green campaigns against waste and overconsumption). There are secular waves of permissiveness and then repression of individual wishes and wishfulness pulsing through our global civilization. These cultural waves are based on our own difficulties in identifying and regulating our desires, which tend to drive us and our courses of action into the future. An accounting of, reflection upon and modulation of our own desires is difficult or maybe impossible for any individual but it seems consumer societies are particularly conflicted about desiring, with a pendulum movement swinging for and against both within individual lives as well as between social epochs of indulgence (booms) and contractions in demand (busts).

In early capitalist/Victorian times it was easier to create a conceptual framework around desire, when Freud conceptualized psychoanalysis as the means to unearth, express, and modulate desires. The early capitalist era in which Freuds ideas emerged were a time when socially repressive mores, sexual and otherwise, were the norm; people were encouraged to keep their insides to themselves.

From the mid 20th Century to now, the early 21st century, the bias, contrary to early capitalist/Calvinist repression of desires, is towards harnessing more aspects of internal life to commerce and public expression. Now, via mobile phones and the Internet, our interests and possible desires are tracked or anticipated almost before we become aware of them. Yet, at the same time, countermovements to the expression of individual and consumer desires emerge, sometimes as vicious and destructive as ISIS and other religious (of all religions) extremists, that see as their nemesis a life lived purely according to hedonic precepts. Our global civilization then is caught on the one hand, between an economic system that seeks to stimulate desires and regulate them in favor of accumulation of capital, which advantages the already wealthy, the holders of capital, and, on the other, various movements that condemn, in the name of established pre-capitalist religious doctrines to move against human desiring for material goods and consumer culture, often in ways that are themselves confused and contradictory. Many modern cultures, even before we consider our self-made climate catastrophe, are, to say the least, conflicted about our desiring natures.

In our current wasteful society, critical for the realization or satisfaction of a vast majority of desires that involve the material world and human interaction is the use of fossil fuels and resulting carbon emissions. Transportation of people and goods is largely dependent on fossil fuel use and the fabrication/preparation of goods, services and the capital goods that produce them is also largely dependent on the combustion of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have become the great enabler of human desires for now the last two hundred years at least (and reaching back to the 16th Century in England and Scotland). Yet we are now facing an enormous precipice upon this route for realizing human wishes; it is therefore quite understandable on an emotional level that carbon gradualism and soft climate denial would be very popular and widespread.

Beyond politicians protection of the interests of large fossil fuel companies and other major stakeholders in the fossil-fueled status quo, it appears as though all attempts at climate policy have fallen far short of making the v-turn towards sustainability and lowered emissions that is required. One reason may be that we, the citizenry, are, in advanced consumer societies, treated by political leaders and, in addition, we treat ourselves as fragile hedonic vessels which produce via our work and our desiring, the economy in which we live. No one wants to get off the carousel or yell stop, challenging the fragile hedonic balance of our individual lives and the economy and society more generally. Alternatively, some yell stop at others, without looking at their own contribution to the mess that we are in.

That required v-turn away from fossil fuel use endangers our satisfactions in the developed and rapidly developing worlds. Faced with a meaningfully decisive climate policy, it will not be lost on people that some sacrifice and bargaining with oneself and others is necessary to reduce fossil fuel use substantially and quickly. Even acts expressing the best intentions and realizing the most cherished values of our societies depend on the use of fossil fuels currently. Very little will remain untouched by the necessary turn away from the use of fossil fuels and the wasteful use of the natural world of which fossil fuel use is one instance. By contrast, especially without serious, reality-based public discussions of these themes, soft climate denial seems like a good solution.

A transformation and reordering of some of the values that are currently dominant in our society is inevitable if we want to preserve a habitable planet for human beings. We will need to cultivate our agapean (from the Greek agape love or duty-based love of others/humanity) selves, a more duty-driven personality than a primarily hedonic one that seeks fulfillment mostly in sensual pleasures. Such a commitment to agape over a commitment to maximizing individual utility, would enable us to be able to anticipate the accelerating catastrophe we are causing by continuing the fossil-fueled status quo. We must, among other things, learn to define happiness in a way that emphasizes longer term and relational satisfactions rather than ego-driven, narcissistic, pleasures. Still, we cannot in the long run place ourselves completely in opposition to our own pleasures, as has been encouraged by Calvinism and anti-hedonic countermovements. Instead, we must very quickly move to put our own pleasures into a realistic geophysical and macro-social context, while accepting that they must find some form of expression and satisfaction.

A long road is ahead for humanity in adjusting to our new circumstances but we must now act at times before we are comfortable doing so. Such is the nature of our climate emergency.
Kathleen Beston, a nurse from Brenshamore, Tipperary Town, is embarking on a journey of a lifetime trekking to the Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal in March.

Kathleen Beston, a nurse from Brenshamore, Tipperary Town, is embarking on a journey of a lifetime trekking to the Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal in March.

Her purpose is to raise money for the Irish Defence Forces charity, Childaid, with particular focus on the Katie House orphanage in Kathmandu.

I choose this charity because there are no overheads or wages paid to any member of the charity and all participants doing the trek are paying their own way so 100% of money raised will go directly to funding this much needed Orphanage, said Kathleen.

Childaid was founded by members of the Irish Defence Forces and friends who had first hand experience of the dire conditions experienced by children in the slums of East Africa, especially Kenya and Rwanda. The charity is run by a 5-man board of directors, of all of whom are volunteers.

Kathleens trek to the Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal involves 11 days climbing from the Nepalese side of the Himalayas after flying into Lukla, which is an airstrip on the side of the mountain. The starting altitude is 2900m and the terrain and scenery is varied on the trek going through: Sagarnatha National Park, through alpine forest, passing raging glacial rivers and waterfalls with many steep climbs, massive ravines and crossing suspension bridges some over 350ft high.

On route we will visit Buddhist monasteries and see the locals go about their daily business and will stay in teahouses in the local villages, said Kathleen. After reaching base camp (5365m) on day seven, we set out at 5.30am the next morning to reach the summit of Kala Patthar (5545m) for sunrise to get a 360 degree panoramic view of Everest.

The weather for this trip is expected to be warm for the first few days but there is always the threat of rain and temperatures getting progressively colder and windy with the ascent. Night time temperatures drop as low as minus 10 at night from 4900m, but quickly warming up when the sun rises.

I have always wanted to do this trek and after successfully summiting Kilimanjaro in March 2012 I decided my goal for 2013 was to trek to Everest Base Camp and raise money for charity as well, said Kathleen.

As a nurse one of my personal goals is to spend time helping out in an orphanage. So when I saw the money from this trip going to an orphanage in Katmandu, this made it even better as I will be able to spend a few days helping out whilst I am there.

Training for Kathleen has involved many long hikes on the mountains in Tipperary since Christmas and although this cannot prepare her for walking in altitude, it does help to build up her endurance and stamina. She also embarked on strength training, using weights and spin classes in gym during the week and also practicing Yoga and Pilates to keep her joints supple; as this is an important part to prevent injury.

Doing a trek like this is more a mental challenge than a physical one, said Kathleen, and as long as you have good level of fitness it is achievable for anyone.

So far Kathleen has raised 5186 between a big raffle, events, donations and her own contribution of 2150. With over three weeks to go and donations still coming in she is confident that will reach her target of 5500.

I really want to thank all those who have supported me, including family and friends and everyone who bought tickets, sold tickets or gave a donation. When I went around the pubs before Christmas selling raffle tickets, I received so many kind words and encouragement and that was really helpful, added Kathleen.

The raffle raised 2,468.50. The prize sponsors were: Tipp Mid West Radio, pubs in Tipp Town, Cashel, Bansha, Galbally, the Top House in Lattin and Canon Hayes Recreational Centre. My Mother, brothers, sister in law, nephew Sean, Catherine Heffernan, Sr. Rosemary McCarthy, Kate Power and others who helped sell tickets. Suz McGrath for giving up her New Years eve, Diarmud OHalloran, Pat Power and Libby ODwyer for your exceptional sales skills at the Top house. Local business man, Patrick Dawson of Munster Renewable Energy, Galbally and Henry Frasier (Pub), Galbally, for your very generous donations. To everyone who bought tickets or gave a donation and those who promoted the sale of tickets and all the kind words, encouragement and support I received as I went from pub to pub over the Christmas period selling tickets.

Congratulations to raffle winners: 1st Prize, Munster jersey went to James Shelly, Rosegreen. 2nd Prize, 150 BT voucher was won by Maurice Leahy, Lattin. 3rd Prize, a meal for two at Chez Hans went to Mary Beston, Brenshamore. 4th Prize, a Swedish massage at Ballykisteen Hotel, won by Jo Breen. 5th Prize, a 50 voucher from Tommy Byrnes Spar, Tipperary Town, won by Michael McGrath, Station Road, Tipperary Town.

n If you would like to make a donation, please go to www.mycharity.ie and type in Kathleen Beston. Wishing you a safe and successful journey.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg commended Turkey for its contributions to the Alliance and to the international fight against terrorism in a visit to Ankara on Friday (9 September 2016). At a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Mr. Stoltenberg stressed that ''a democratic, strong and stable Turkey is important for our shared security.''

The Secretary General welcomed that Turkey plays key role in the fight against ISIL, helps build stability in Afghanistan, and is central to NATOs efforts to cut the lines of human trafficking in the Aegean Sea. He stressed that the Alliance supports Turkey with increased naval and air assets, and defensive missile systems on the border with Syria.

Mr. Stoltenberg reiterated NATOs strong condemnation of Julys attempted coup and support for the Turkish people and their democratic institutions. Any attempt to undermine or attack democracy, in any of our countries, is an attack on the very foundation of our Alliance, he said. The Secretary General also expressed condolences for those who lost their lives, and respect for the courage of the Turkish people. He added that those involved in the failed coup should face due legal process. I am confident that Turkey will keep its commitment to the rule of law and the democratic values at the heart of our Alliance, he said.

On Friday, the Secretary General also met with Prime Minister Binali Yldrm, Defence Minister Fikri Isk, several parliamentary leaders, and other senior officials. He also toured the Grand National Assembly, damaged by the failed coup. Mr. Stoltenberg met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday evening, at the start of his visit to Ankara.
An estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people develop GBS in the U.S. each year

A surgical technician in the care of her employer was robbed of oxygen for 35 minutes

Victim's primary care physician ordered to pay $19.7 million settlement

(NaturalNews) Last month, a medical practice located in Plano, Texas was ordered to pay a costly settlement over the death of one its employees, who a jury determined received negligent care. Katina Clark, of Burleson, Texas, was employed by Acute Surgical Care Specialists LLP for eight years as a surgical technician.During the summer of 2013, Clark began experiencing numbness in her legs, leading to her admission at Medical Center Arlington where she had worked since 2005.The staff there diagnosed Clark with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare but serious autoimmune deficiency that causes the immune system to attack and damage nerve cells.While the majority of those with GBS recover, the disorder may cause muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, paralysis and sometimes death.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the condition may follow respiratory illness, a bacterial infection, the flu or in the days and weeks following vaccination.While it's unclear whether Clark had recently been vaccinated, it's noteworthy to add that hospital employees in Texas are subjected to mandatory immunizations , including hepatitis B, influenza, MMR, varicella and pneumococcal.Hospital employees are not permitted exemption to the aforementioned vaccines for any reason.Reports confirm that Clark was having difficulty breathing as a result of her GBS diagnosis, prompting doctors to insert a breathing tube that was later changed to a tracheostomy tube inserted through an incision in her neck."Although Ms. Clark could not speak because of the procedure, she initially was awake and functioning normally otherwise," according to. "Trial evidence showed that the trachea insertion caused Ms. Clark to receive less than half of the air that was intended."Her doctor reportedly failed to monitor Clark or fix the leak. The breathing tube became dislodged the following morning, causing the surgical technician to go without oxygen for 35 minutes. As result, she suffered severe brain damage.The medical error left Clark in a "permanent vegetative state" for more than a year until she eventually succumbed to her injuries, leaving behind a doting husband and two year children. Clark spent the remainder of her days at a local nursing home before passing away in January 2015.Following a two-week trial and just three hours of deliberation, a jury delivered a $19.7 million verdict against Clark's medical care provider, Dr. Jennifer Marye Burris and her employer, Acute Surgical Care Specialists PLLC.The ruling was issued on August 31, 2016."We are thankful to the jury and the court for their hard work in this case, which ended with the right result," said the deceased's attorney, Chris Hamilton with the Dallas law firm Standly Hamilton."No amount of money will bring back Katina, and she never should have died. Our hope is that this verdict will cause other health care professionals to take better care of their patients," he said.The case iset al., No. CC-14-06294-C.Death as a result of hospital error is now the third leading cause of mortality in the U.S. with roughly 250,000 Americans dying each year. Approximately 7.3 million Americans have died from hospital error since the year 2000.Sources:
How did these bacteria end up on the veggies?

Who is at risk

How to prevent infection

(NaturalNews) Recently, Country Fresh recalled nearly 30,000 cases of various precut vegetables after one of its products being sold in a Georgia-based grocery store tested positive forbacteria.The recall affected several of its vegetable products  including sliced onions, mushrooms, and peppers  that were distributed to many Southeastern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.All affected products were wrapped in clear plastic containers or packaged in Styrofoam trays covered with clear plastic film and sold at Publix, Wal-Mart, Winn Dixie, Harris Teeter Supermarkets and BI-LO.A full list of the recalled products from the Texas-based company is available at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website is a natural occurring bacteria in soil and water. Animals can carry the bacteria without showing signs of illness. Through contact with contaminated soil or animal manure that is often used as a fertilizer, the bacteria can end up on raw vegetables and equipment of food processing factories.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),can live for years on the surface of equipment. It even survives the colder temperatures of refrigerators and freezers."It's a pathogen that's particularly problematic in food-processing plants because it really likes cold, moist, dark environments," Benjamin Chapman, a food safety expert at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, toldIllness fromcan be rather serious and in some cases lethal, especially for elderly people, young children, and immunosuppressed people. Healthy individuals will probably only suffer short-term symptoms such as high fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, while infections among pregnant women can cause miscarriages and stillbirths.According to the FDA, the company hasn't received any reports of illness linked to the contaminated products from Country Fresh. However, if you have eaten any of the recalled vegetables with best-by dates between August 7 and August 19 you should closely monitor your health. Children who have consumed these foods should be closely monitored as well as the elderly and people who are otherwise immuno-compromised, as they are more prone to infection.Listeriosis, caused by the listeria bacteria , can take up to 70 days after exposure before causing symptoms.Make sure to check your freezer too. If you froze any of the products on the list, you should return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.Thanks to the quick decision of Country Fresh to recall its products the contamination was caught before any illness was reported. However, listeria outbreaks are not uncommon in the food industry.Other food items prone to listeria contamination include raw milk, unpasteurized soft cheese, and deli meats.Therefore, the CDC recommends to thoroughly wash or scrub fruits and vegetables before eating, cutting or cooking. Always separate uncooked foods from the cooked ones and wash your hands afterward, as well as the knives and cutting boards you used for the foods. Furthermore, they advise people to drink pasteurized milk and only consume ready-to-eat foods if they are steaming hot.
A new study from the University of Adelaide revealed that the complex mix of plant compounds used in Traditional Chinese Medicine could kill cancer cells.

The study, published in the journal Oncotarget, showed that the Traditional Chinese Medicine called Compound Kushen Injection (CKI) could trigger the patterns of gene expression that affects the same pathways as western chemotherapy. However, CKI acts on different genes in the same pathway.

"Most Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on hundreds or thousands of years of experience with their use in China," explained Professor David Adelson, Director of the Zhendong Australia - China Centre for the Molecular Basis of Traditional Chinese Medicine and lead author of the study, in a statement. "There is often plenty of evidence that these medicines have a therapeutic benefit, but there isn't the understanding of how or why."

For the study, the researchers applied CKI to breast cancer cells grown in the laboratory. Using high-throughput next generation sequencing technologies, the researchers identified the genes and biological pathways targeted by CKI.

The researchers discovered that the CKI could alter genes that regulate the cell cycle of division and death. By doing so, CKI could change the cell cycle to push cancer cells down to the cell death pathway, therefore killing the cancer cells.

Compound kushen injection is a well-known Traditional Chinese Medicine that is composed of queous extracts from the roots of Kushen (Radix Sophorae Flavescentis) and Baituling (Rhizoma Smilacis Glabrae). CKI contains numerous chemicals including alkaloids, such as matrine and oxymatrine, flavonoids, alkylxanthones, quinones, triterpene glycosides, fatty acids, and essential oils.

Like other Traditional Chinese Medicine, individual compounds of CKI don't have much effect on their own. However, when the compounds are combined together, it can be effective in treating myriad of diseases with potentially lesser side-effects,

The Zhendong Australia China Centre for Molecular Traditional Chinese Medicine was established at the University of Adelaide in 2012 in collaboration with the China-based Shanxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and funding from Zhendong Pharmaceutical Company.

Since its establishment, the Centre is dedicated in determining how Traditional Chinese Medicine works and how can it be used in conjunction with western medicine.

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Many meteors streak across the sky, but few explode thunderously the way it did last Thursday in Cyprus. The mysterious outburst baffled and alarmed the locals who felt the ground shake at the force. How common and dangerous is this phenomenon?

According to a report from New York Times, Cypriot eyewitnesses saw a glowing bluish object in the sky over the east Mediterranean island's Troodos mountain range before midnight on Tuesday.

A police official reported that that the witness accounts said there was a loud explosion and shaking of the ground.

"It had a 45 degree tilt and a bang was heard as it passed over Cyprus," Cyprus astronomical society honorary chairman Ioannis Fakas told Reuters. He explained that parts of the meteorite are believed to have hit the sea north of Cyprus, adding that the object likely didn't weigh over a few kilos.

However, Cyprus Geological Department official Iodanis Demetriades pointed out that there's no indication that the meteor - or whatever object it was - hit the ground, the New York Times revealed. He said that it likely exploded in the sky.

Although these types of impacts typically scare witnesses, a report from the Christian Science Monitor revealed that it is more common than people believe. Although Forbes has said that about 30 meteorites hit the planet annually, it usually goes unnoticed by people because most of Earth's surface is made up of water.

Data from NASA revealed that catastrophic events relating to space debris hitting the Earth are quite rare. Little damage to property have been reported from falling debris and even lives that have been lost are minimal outside of the destructive incident in India.

Tulane University environmental sciences professor Stephen A. Nelson computed that the odds of getting killed by a meteorite is roughly one in 250,000. This is even lower then one's chances of getting killed by a tornado at one in 60,000.

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SpaceX was shaken by an unfortunate event on Sept. 1 when a Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to bring Facebook's Internet satellite to space, exploded while being fueled. It is definitely a big loss to SpaceX, Facebook and the satellite developer, but to add to that, Elon Musk's commercial space flight company might be suspended for up to one year due to the incident.

The explosion that took place in Cape Canaveral Air For Base launch pad in Florida is a shock not only to SpaceX but also to everyone involved with the Falcon 9 scheduled flight. Although CEO, Elon Musk still hasn't revealed the full extent of damages incurred because of the incident, it could be undeniably huge.

After the confirmation of the explosion, Musk revealed that the cause of the incident remains unknown. The company is conducting an investigation to identify the cause of the "anomaly."

"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a Tweet.

Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2016

Musk insisted that during the routine filling operation, none of the engines were turned off and there was no apparent heat source. The commercial space flight company is digging deeper into the incident by saying that investigators are now looking at a bang that was heard few seconds before the blast. According to Musk, the origin of the sound may be from the rocket but may also be from something else.

To aid with the investigation, SpaceX is also calling out to anyone who has a recording of the operation when the explosion occurred to further analyze the incident. But it seems like the company is also receiving help from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force as the CEO expressed his appreciation for the said agencies, according to BBC.

However, SpaceX may be facing a bigger problem as one of its competitors, United Launch Alliance told reporters that the commercial space flight company may face suspension while authorities investigate the incident. "It typically takes nine to 12 months for people to return to flight. That's what the history is," Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance said in a statement. "It's a small community and issues especially around safety -- but even mission success -- kind of transcend the competitive piece of this."

Bruno added that the damage to the launch pad is not the issue. That is why a lot of people are waiting for the official report on how much the damage was to SpaceX and it's Falcon 9. The Israel-made Facebook satellite destroyed in the explosion amounts to $200 million.

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SpaceX Explosion Aftermath: First Look at the Damaged Launchpad

How the SpaceX Falcon 9 Explosion Will Affect the Space, Telecom Industries, According to Experts

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Just like Earth, Mars is also a thing of beauty, especially when it comes to rock formations. Recent images from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover reveal stunning layered rock formations in the "Murray Buttes" region of the red planet.

Rock Formations that Rival US National Parks

According to a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Curiosity took the photos using its Mast Camera on Sept. 8. The said rock formations in the Murray Buttes are remnants of eroded ancient sandstones from the formation of lower Mount Sharp.

Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said that Curiosity's science team is "thrilled" about the discovery. The team is planning to assemble the images taken by the rover in the southwest desert region of Mars.

This is the last stop in Curiosity rover's road trip in the Murray Buttes. The rover will continue its discovery to the south of the Red planet, exploring the higher areas of Mount Sharp.

"Studying these buttes up close has given us a better understanding of ancient sand dunes that formed and were buried, chemically changed by groundwater, exhumed and eroded to form the landscape that we see today," Vasavada said.

Humans Polluting Martian Waters?

Despite the stunning discovery on Mars, NASA has expressed its concern of space explorations polluting the planet's water resources. Smithsonian Mag notes that the volume of interplanetary visitors going to Mars might contaminate the planet's water with microbes from Earth.

Catharine Conley from NASAs Office of Planetary Protection explains that contaminating Mars' waters could lead to big problems because we don't know what the effects would be to Martian life. The problem is especially high because Mars is a likely candidate to support life, unlike other extraterrestrial environments such as meteors where contamination might not be a problem.

To avoid Mars contamination, planetary protection officers urge more research about Mars and its environment before sending humans to the red planet.

Theres still fundamental data that we would need before we start to evaluate whether or not it would be acceptable at any risk level to introduce an organism into that environment, says NASA planetary protection engineer James Bernardini. Its about being good stewards of the world and the universe that we live in.

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A group of nine female chimpanzees has retired from being test subjects in lab research and made a 16-hour journey to Project Chimps, a new animal sanctuary in northern Georgia as part of their #RoadtoRetirement journey.

The nine chimpanzees were previously housed at the New Iberia Research in Lousiana for medical research. The decision to move the animals was after they were declared as endangered species in the US last year. The National Institutes of Health also declared in November that using chimpanzees in medical research has no "justification" and that it would let these animals retire, The Guardian reports.

"In general, chimps are used in human health research. They have given their lives for us and our health, and now is their time to be chimpanzees and retire here," sanctuary director Sarah Baeckler Davis told Inside Edition.

Sprawling on a 236-acre facility, Project Chimps is a gorilla sanctuary that can house over 80 chimpanzees. However, the facility is still aiming to expand its area through donations from individuals and animal rights groups.

In the facility, the chimps will get the chance to live in packs of 10 to 20 and have access to a forested area. They will also get a chance to play with toys, puzzles and magazines as well as lie down on hammocks. Meals of bananas, apples and biscuits will also be served. But most importantly, Baeckler Davis said that the sanctuary will let chimps "make their own choices about how they'll spend their day."

The move is welcoming news to animal rights group who have raised ethical concerns in using chimpanzees for human experiments because of their 98 percent similarity to human beings.

There has been a watershed moment where the public, the scientific community and the government were aligned that this research wasnt to be done any more, Baeckler Davis told The Guardian. The arrival of the chimps was an overwhelming moment for a lot of us, we have been working on this for a long time. There were tears."

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Flying burritos will soon be a reality over Virginia Tech.

Chipotle is taking part in a test this month that will let some of the university's students and staff have their favorite tortilla-wrapped meal delivered by drone.

Virginia Tech is conducting the test with Project Wing, a unit of Google owner Alphabet Inc., which makes self-flying devices that deliver food, medicine and other goods.

Chipotle's burritos will be put together at a food truck and then loaded on a drone.

The flights will take place at an undisclosed site on Virginia Tech property, but not at the main campus in Blacksburg, said Mark Blanks, director of Virginia Tech's Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership.

"It's real customers that are working and need lunch and want it delivered by drone," Blanks said.

Only a select group of people from Virginia Tech will be able to make orders. Hundreds of flights and burrito deliveries are expected to take place over several days, Project Wing said.

It will just be burritos, though. Other menu items won't be delivered by drone, said Chris Arnold, a spokesman for Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

Many companies see drones as the future of delivery. Several are currently testing them, including online seller Amazon.com Inc.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved the Virginia Tech site for drone testing in 2013.

Virginia Tech announced the food delivery test on its website Thursday, and Chipotle's role was first reported by Bloomberg News.
Health officials in San Diego are teaming up with a Carmel Valley mother who knows first-hand the importance of making sure every child wears a helmet while skateboarding.

Rady Children's Hospital released statistics for pediatric injuries Thursday. Of the patients treated for falls while skateboarding, 80 percent were not wearing a helmet.

That was the case with Paige Hargis and her son, Alex, who was 13 at the time of his injury.

Alex and his friends were just hanging out on the day he was hurt in September 2013.

"He was skateboarding in front of our home," Hargis said.

Usually Alex would grab a helmet on his way out, but this day he didn't, and it proved to have some major consequences.

"He fell off his skateboard, nobody saw exactly how, hit the back of his head, and had a severe skull fracture which then caused him to have seizures where he repeatedly banged the front of his head," she explained.

Alex was immediately knocked unconscious. Once at the hospital, it was determined he needed to be put in a medically-induced coma. For 24 long days, family and friends waited for any sign of hope.

"We were told that he may remain in this vegetative state forever or he could make a full recovery," she said.

Alex started improving; day by day, getting stronger, almost making a full recovery from the nearly traumatic injury. Doctors said the extent of his injuries would've been much less if Alex had been wearing a helmet.

"He would've definitely hit his head. He could've had a concussion but the severity of his accident would not have occurred," Paige explained.

It's just one of many accidental injuries treated each year by the staff at Rady Children's Hospital.

The top threats to children and teenagers are drowning, vehicle crashes, falls and head injuries.

"Out of our skateboarders that come in, an extremely small percentage were wearing helmets, so that's definitely a target population for us," said Renee Douglas, Trauma Program Manager.

Rady Children's continues to add programs to help educate parents and kids on safety, saying even one child's life that's lost is one too many.

Hargis is teaming up with local skateboarding shops to help spread the word on the importance of wearing helmets.

The review of 2015 cases released Thursday shows death by drowning is also a major problem among children in San Diego.

In 2015, seven children died from drowning. Three of those deaths occurred in the month of August.

Rady Childrens Hospital also offers programs to help educate parents and children on the importance of water safety.
KABUL -- Ahmad Masud was 12 years old when his father, the legendary anti-Taliban military commander known as the "Lion of Panjshir," was killed by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers in northern Afghanistan on September 9, 2001.

The assassination of Ahmad Shah Masud, who also fought for a decade against Soviet invaders, removed a natural U.S. ally from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Two days later, Al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.

The tumultuous events thrust the young Masud into the public eye -- making his first public appearance at his father's funeral in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a historic event attended by hundreds of thousands of the slain ethnic-Tajik commander's supporters.

Standing beside his father's coffin with poise and dignity in one of the few parts of Afghanistan that was not under Taliban control at the time, the 12-year-old Masud provoked an outburst of hysterical grieving by announcing: "I want to follow in my father's footsteps. I want to secure our country's independence. I want to be my father's successor."

Since then, alongside his father's status as an iconic national hero, the young Masud has been revered by many Afghans who see him as a symbol of hope for Afghanistan's future.

Today, 15 years later, he says he remains committed to his vow of making his father's dreams become reality -- to make Afghanistan a "united and free country" with leaders chosen by the Afghan people through democratic elections.

Now 27, Masud has nearly completed a degree in international relations at King's College London.

But he returns to Afghanistan each year to be with his family as the country commemorates Masud Day, a national holiday, on September 9 that launches Martyrs Week, honoring Afghan victims of more than three decades of war.

Criticism

Ahmad Masud refers to his father as "the Martyr," telling RFE/RL that at least one of the assassinated commander's dreams for Afghanistan is starting to come true.

"The elections that were held in the past several years -- regardless of their results, just the fact that there were elections -- that's one of the key factors of a democracy, and it demonstrates that one of the wishes of the Martyr is slowly coming true," he told RFE/RL.

But Ahmad is critical of the failure of Afghanistan's government to safeguard people from militant attacks, ethnic strife, and sectarian violence or to create the economic opportunities needed to prevent young Afghans from fleeing the country.

"Without any doubt, these circumstances and the emigration are frustrating," he told RFE/RL.

"Our young generation considers the situation so dire that they do all they can to leave," he said. "It's really frustrating and disturbing."

Masud said he thinks refugees who flee Afghanistan "still love their country."

But he says the government must do more to "fight insecurity and work to bring security and stability" if it is going to end an exodus that already has been joined by millions of Afghan refugees.

"I hope the government comes up with a plan to create jobs," he told RFE/RL. "One of the important reasons for the emigration is that people are looking for a better life, a more stable future. It all goes back to the issue of employment and security."

As for himself, Masud says he will return to Afghanistan permanently after he completes his education in London.

He says the reason for his university studies is to "come back" and fulfill the vow he made at his father's funeral.

He insists that he is "completely devoted" to Afghanistan and has no property outside of the country.

Asked about his political ambitions, Masud said he would take on the duties of public office "if it is the will of the Afghan people."

If he failed to be elected, Masud said, he would still stay in Afghanistan and work as a teacher.

Written by Ron Synovitz with reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Hamid Mohmand in Kabul
An amateur prospector struck gold  literally  when he discovered a nugget the size of a T-bone steak in Central California.

Oscar Espinoza of Modesto was panning near the town of Jamestown in Tuolumne County when he made the discovery, according to NBC affiliate KCRA. The gold nugget weighs about 18 ounces and is estimated to fetch as much as $70,000.

He had a grin from ear to ear," Espinozas friend Charlie Morgan told KCRA. "He was in heaven."

Espinoza wants to keep a low profile after his find so he has entrusted Morgan with safeguarding the gold nugget.

He felt a little bit more secure with it being out of his hands and that way no one will know exactly where it is, said Morgan, who has some canine help.

Some in Jamestown believe the find could spur a modern day gold rush.

"It's going to put Jamestown on the map," Morgan said.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More
A Los Gatos mother who lost her son on 9/11 rebuked President Barack Obama on the cusp of the terror attacks' 15th anniversary.

Alice Hoaglands son Mark Bingham died on United Airlines Flight 93.

Its too horrible to contemplate what happened that day, she said.

Now, Obama is adding to the grief of the victims families, the California mother said, by promising to veto a Congressional bill that permits them to sue the Saudi Arabian government.

It's been daunting and discouraging to realize that the present administration not only doesn't want to help the 9/11 families, but keeps touting Saudi Arabia as our ally, Hoagland said.

Considered heroes, Bingham, the flight crew and other passengers charged the terrorists who hijacked Flight 93 with the goal of striking the U.S. Capitol. Their effort to regain control of the plane ensured that it missed its intended target, but it crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field.

[NATL] Sept. 11: Day of Mourning and Remembrance

All 44 passengers were killed, including the four Al Qaeda hijackers. No one on the ground was injured and by deviating the airplane, Bingham and others likely saved countless lives in Washington D.C.

Nearly 3,000 people who were at the World Trade Center in New York City were killed on Sept. 11 and more than 6,000 were injured. Another 125 people were slain at the Pentagon.

More than a decade later, in an action to name blame, Congress has approved a bill that paves the way to suing the Saudi government. Most of the 19 attackers were from that country.

Obama, however, has given the bill a thumbs-down, saying the United States should not get into the business of suing foreign nations.

His decision has ignited a firestorm among victims families.

For her part, Hoagland is determined to hold responsible those who robbed a mother of her child.

The family of Mark Bingham has not been the same, she said. I miss Mark every day and feel so much empathy with the others who also lost loved ones on 9/11.

Even prior to Fridays Congressional approval, Hoagland and several other victims families had filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. Theres been no progress on that front either.
A San Francisco woman trying to make it into the record books for a second time has aborted her mission.

Kimberley Chambers was attempting the longest solo swim recorded in California. She began the challenging feat at the Sacramento Yacht Club at 2 p.m. Friday and was hoping to finish in Tiburon on Sunday, but high winds and unsafe conditions put an end to the record attempt Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

The New Zealand native, who now calls the Bay Area home, was poised to swim over 93 miles in about 48 hours. Worth mentioning is that Chambers timed her swim to end on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

Chambers, who is a member of a nonprofit called Night Train Swimmers, was swimming with the goal of raising funds and awareness about the Warrior Canine Connection, which uses therapy dogs to help wounded veterans.

Since Chambers is not allowed any physical contact with her support crew or boat, she will be unable to rest until the conclusion of her swim.

Chambers, however, is no stranger to the dangers of long-distance swimming.

In 2015, she was the first woman to complete the record-breaking 30-mile swim from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge. Four men have accomplished the task.

Chambers, 38, spent 17 hours and 12 minutes in a stretch of water notorious for its great white shark population  but didn't encounter any, she told reporters at the time.

"I guess they don't like Kiwis," she quipped after what she deemed the "toughest swim in the world."
A new independent feature film set and shot in the East Bay explores violence, manhood and status sneakers in Richmond and West Oakland. "Kicks" is written and directed by Justin Tipping, who grew up in El Cerrito and was inspired by a real-life incident.

When Tipping was 16-years-old, he got jumped in a lonely parking lot in Emeryville. He got two black eyes and a split lip, plus teasing from friends. His brother tried to console him.

"He looked me in the eyes and said, 'It's OK. You're a man now.' And it was that exact moment that Ill never forget. Because it did make me proud, and then it made me deeply saddened, he said. Why is masculinity always synonymous with violence? Why is violence always this defining factor of manhood?"

The film inspired by that real-life beating and that memorable conversation opened Friday at the Grand Lake Theater and the AMC multiplex in Emeryville, not far from where Tipping escaped with his Nike Air Prestos in 2001.

The main character, Brandon, hasnt hit puberty yet and is too shy to talk to girls. He spends a lifetime of birthday money and candy bar sales on a pair of red and black "Bred One" Air Jordans.

In his new shoes, he has confidence, swagger and attention from the ladies. But then theyre stolen, and Brandon embarks on a journey from Richmond to West Oakland to find his shoes and get them back.

For the lead role, Tipping cast non-actor Jahking Guillory, who was 13-years-old when the movie was shot. He spends much of the film looking up to his best friends, played by Christopher Meyer and Christopher Jordan Wallace (who is the son of the Notorious B.I.G.).

"The character is this prepubescent kid who wasnt yet as mature as his friends so the dynamic worked out perfectly," said Tipping. "There was an older brother-younger brother kind of friendship that developed on set. He constantly wanted to be like them just naturally."

Tipping said Guillory had his first kiss on set, but wouldnt admit it at the time. His age proved problematic later, when three years after shooting, it was time to record the voice-over and his voice had changed.

He spent months during pre-production visiting after-school programs for teens to find other non-actors who to fill out the rest of his cast.

The director relied on friends and family to scout locations in Richmond and Oakland, and "show the other side of the Bay Area," he said.

Brandon roams ball courts and streets, homes and sideshows in the rougher neighborhoods of the East Bay, shuffling around in his mothers slippers, because he doesnt have another pair of shoes.

The man who sells him the coveted sneakers out of a van tells Brandon, These are worth more than your life.

The cast is almost entirely young people of color. The soundtrack is mostly hip-hop with a few local stars for those in the know.

"It was really important to be authentic to what I knew, to the world and kids I grew up with. To show Richmond and Oakland and the East Bay that doesnt get representation on the big screen," Tipping said.

"Kicks" opens Friday in select cities. Tipping is taking questions about his film at the Grand Lake Theater after 7:30 and 10pm shows.
The legalization of recreational marijuana in California was a hot topic at a South Bay conference.

Prop 64, which would legalize pot for recreational use for people over 21 in California, is among 15 state measures on the November ballot.

On Friday, undercover drug agents from the Bay Area, along with health experts and prosecutors examined what legalized marijuana has done to states like Washington, Oregon and Colorado, which legalized pot four years ago.

"If you look at the data, it's absolutely causing problems," said Chelsey Clarke with the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a federal agency.

The Rocky Mountain HIDTA just published its fourth report on the Colorado impact of legalized marijuana.

"You look at all the categories regards to impaired driving, traffic fatalities, ER hospitalization," Clarke said. "All are starting to show toward the negative with the legalization."

Patrick Vanier, who heads the Santa Clara County District Attorney's drug prosecution team, said "the data is very troubling and something that California should take a look at."

Sean Kali-Rai, a pot dispensary consultant, attended the conference to represent most of San Jose's legal pot dispensaries.

"I think its good," Kali-Rai said. "Education at all levels for police officers, city staff, anyone in the industry. It's all about educating."

Proponents of Prop 64 said it creates a safe and comprehensive system for adult use of pot, while protecting children. In addition, Prop 64 would generate lots of tax revenue for the state, proponents said.
The iconic "Mrs. Doubtfire House" in San Francisco may soon hit the market, according to SocketSite, a website covering real estate in the city.

The home, which has yet to be listed for sale, sits at 2650 Steiner Street in Pacific Heights.

SocketSite reports the home "last traded hands for $1.395 million in 1997."

The home made headlines in January 2015 when the door was set ablaze by an arsonist.

The "Mrs. Doubtfire House" also served as a temporary shrine to Bay Area actor Robin Williams, who starred in the 1993 movie, after he committed suicide in August 2014.
The nurse kissed by an ecstatic sailor in New Yorks Times Square celebrating the end of World War II, has died, her son Joshua Friedman confirmed to NBC News. She was 92.

Greta Zimmer Friedman died Thursday at a Richmond, Virginia, hospital of what her son called complications from old age.

Friedman was thrust into the spotlight in 1980 when Life magazine published the iconic photo in an issue asking for the sailor, later identified as George Mendonsa, and nurse to come forward. Mendonsa, a sailor on leave overjoyed that Japan surrendered, grabbed Friedman as she entered Time Square. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant at the time.

Unbeknownst to either, noted Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the moment on Aug. 14, 1945, and published it a few weeks later. It became one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.

"I realized the photo means a lot to so many people," Joshua Friedman said. "My mother always felt like it wasn't anything she did, it was something that happened to her."

She married Misha Friedman who served as a general infantry in the military and is interred in Arlington Cemetery, her son told NBC News.

"She'll be put in there next to him," Joshua said. "It seems fitting."
A Glenview man who once beat the rap in a controversial drug case, was ordered held on $200,000 bond Friday in connection with a violent August 26th accident which killed a 48-year-old Chicago woman.

Joseph Sperling, 26, was accused of slamming into a car driven by Denise Cavada, at speeds in excess of 90 miles an hour. Cavadas car was split in half and burst into flames, killing Cavada, who was on her way home from a night of bingo.

Sperling was further accused of fleeing the scene, hiding out for the last two weeks before turning himself in to Morton Grove police on Thursday.

Witnesses attempted to aid Denise, but the fire was too consuming, prosecutor Diane Sheridan told Judge Alexandra Gillespie. His goal was to go out to bars, drink alcohol, and drive really really fast!

Two years ago in the same Skokie courthouse, Sperling was freed from drug charges, after a group of police officers were confronted with evidence that they had lied in open court.

The dramatic revelation that the officers had allegedly lied during testimony came in April of 2014, when the officers, from Chicago and Glenview, testified in a case where a bag of marijuana was found in Sperlings car. The pot was never in dispute. But the officers testified that they pulled Sperling over under the pretense of a traffic stop, asked for his license and insurance, allowed him to exit his vehicle and walk to the rear, then removed the bag. Only then, they said, did they arrest and cuff him.

But during the rebuttal case, Sperlings lawyer Steven Goldman confronted one of the officers with dashboard video from her squad car, which clearly showed the officers approaching Sperlings car and immediately taking him out of the car and putting him in handcuffs. The video showed that was when they began searching, finding the bag in the back seat.

Obviously this is very outrageous conduct, an angry judge Christine Haberkorn said at the time. State, I expect you to do something about this, and to talk to all the superiors involved in this case. All of the officers lied on the stand today!

The officers ultimately faced charges of perjury and official misconduct. The charges against Sperling were dropped, he sued the officers and eventually reached a $195,000 settlement.

In the latest case, Sperlings bond was set at $200,000, with a provision that he be held on electronic monitoring and that he not drive a car if he is able to post bail.

I think the facts will come out that the actions of my client were not as egregious as they claimed, attorney Goldman said after court. They claim that my client was intoxicated and I think its going to come out that he really was not.

Asked why his client fled such a violent accident, Goldman said it was a combination of fear and shock.

Sperling faces charges of reckless homicide, aggravated driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal crash. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Chicago police officers shot and wounded a man late Friday night after witnessing a homicide on the citys West Side.

Officers were on patrol around 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of Maplewood Avenue and Division Street in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, police said in a statement.

They witnessed a shooting and intervened, police said, engaging a male subject and firing shots.

One witness said he was sitting at Guerrero's Tacos & Pizza, a popular late night restaurant in the area, when he saw a gray vehicle drive slowly through the area several times before someone inside the car opened fired in the direction of the restaurant. A man was standing on the street nearby and talking with a woman when the shooting occurred, witnesses said. He pulled out his own weapon and fired shots into the car, fatally striking one of the occupants, according to the witness. It was unclear if the person killed was the shooter.

The Cook County Medical Examiners office identified the man killed as 18-year-old Louis Rodriguez, of the 1300 block of North Oakley Blvd, in the citys Wicker Park neighborhood.

The officers on patrol pulled up in an unmarked squad car, witnesses said, and opened fire on the man on the street. He sustained non-life threatening injuries and was taken to an area hospital, according to police. No officers were injured in the shooting.

Authorities are treating both shootings as two separate incidents, according to police, and the Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the incident. The officers involved will be placed on administrative duties for 30 days per department policy.
One man was killed and seven other people were wounded in shootings on the West and Northwest Sides from Friday night to Saturday morning, according to police.

The fatal shooting happened about 11:30 p.m. Friday in the West Side Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The victim of the initial shooting, an 18-year-old man who had been driving around the block and engaging a group of males at the corner of Division and Maplewood before he was shot, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police and the Cook County medical examiners office.

Authorities identified him as Louis Rodriguez, of the 1300 block of North Oakley Blvd.

One person was injured by a police officers gunfire, police said.

A male subject sustained non-life threatening injuries and was taken to an area hospital,  said Chicago Police Coordinator Glen Brooks during a press conference at the scene of the shooting. The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the shooting.

The weekends first shooting happened about 10 p.m. in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. A 28-year-old man was in the gangway of a building in the 1100 block of South Troy when a male with a gun walked up and announced a robbery, police said. He was shot in the chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.

Two men were shot about 10:45 p.m. Friday in the Northwest Side Irving Park neighborhood. The men  25 and 33  were shot in the 3300 block of West Addison, according to police. The 25-year-old was shot in the head and the older man was shot in the right hand. Both were taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center where their conditions were stabilized.

Just over an hour later, a man was shot in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side. The 30-year-old was sitting in a vehicle about 11:55 p.m. Friday in the 5900 block of West North Avenue when a male standing outside the vehicle pulled out a gun and shot him in the left arm, police said. He took himself to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park where he was listed in good condition.

Around the same time, a man was shot in the Southwest Side Little Village neighborhood. The 20-year-old was a passenger in a vehicle driving south about 11:55 p.m. in the 3200 block of South Pulaski when a black vehicle pulled alongside and someone inside began shooting, according to police. He was shot in the right arm and driven to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

At approximately 1:12 a.m., a man was shot in the Cragin neighborhood on the Northwest Side. The 19-year-old left a party and was standing on the corner in the 2200 block of North Laporte when a black car drove up to him, according to police. A male got out and shouted gang slogans before firing shots. The man, who has no gang affiliation, was shot in the left arm and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition.

A 26-year-old man was shot in the knee about 11:30 a.m. in the 1000 block of North Keystone in the city's Humboldt Park neighborhood, according to police. He transported himself to Norwegian American Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.
Four confirmed tornadoes touched down in east central Illinois Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service.

The tornadoes touched down three miles south of Sidney to one mile southeast of Homer in Champaign County, two miles southwest of Bismarck in Vermilion County, two miles south of Case in Clark County, and another 2 miles northwest of Catlin in Vermillion County, all between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., the weather service said.

"Staff members from the Lincoln (National Weather Service) will be going over to Champaign and Vermilion counties on Saturday morning to conduct storm damage surveys," the weather service said in a statement. "Tornado intensity values will be assigned after these surveys are complete.

Significant damage to homes has been reported near Homer.

The Champaign County Sheriff's Office said on its Facebook page that two residences and a corn crib were destroyed but no injuries were reported. The exact location of the buildings was not immediately clear.

Major tornado ongoing champaign county il #ilwx pic.twitter.com/ymaz7lnZkn  Andrew Pritchard (@skydrama) September 9, 2016
Vernon police have arrested a man accused of choking his girlfriend while intoxicated.

Police said Tyree Alford, 23, of New York City, showed up at his girlfriends apartment on Terrace Drive intoxicated around 4:52 a.m. Saturday. Alford allegedly became upset with his girlfriend and choked her. He also told her he wanted to kill her, police said.

The victim was able to call 911 and when officers arrived Alford confronted them outside the apartment. Police said he was intoxicated, agitated and yelling at officers. Alford was also found with a large kitchen knife in his hand, police said.

According to police, Alford resisted arrest and had to be tackled to the ground before they took him into custody.

Alford was charged with second-degree strangulation, first-degree unlawful restraint, first-degree reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a minor, disorderly conduct, second-degree threatening, interfering/resisting an officer, and carrying a dangerous weapon. He was held on a $150,000 bond and scheduled to appear at Rockville Superior Court on Sept. 12.
A Maine man was arrested after authorities say he tried to cross into Canada without legal authorization on an air mattress, according to multiple reports.

Border patrol officials detained 25-year-old John Michael Bennett after he took an inflatable mattress across the St. Croix River to New Brunswick Wednesday, the Portland Press Herald reports.

Bennett was reportedly found walking down a road, dripping wet.

The Calais resident plead guilty Thursday to crossing into Canada illegally. He says he was motivated by love and that he was trying to protect his pregnant fiancee from a violent ex-boyfriend.

Bennett attempted to travel across to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, from Maine legally Wednesday, but was turned away because of a pending criminal mischief charge in Calais, the Press Herald reports. He then returned to the U.S., bought a mattress and paddle at Wal-Mart and set sail across the river.

According to the Press Herald, Bennett was sentenced to two months in a Canadian jail and will be deported when he is freed.
New London police have arrested three people accused of attacking a man Friday night.

Twenty-five-year-old Rachell Garcia, of New London, 28-year-old Domonique Shankle, of New London and 30-year-old Joseph Mendoza, of New London all face charges in connection with the incident.

Police said around 9:30 p.m. they received a report of two females and one male attacking an "elderly" man near 78 West Street. When officers arrived they found the suspects nearby on Connecticut Avenue.

Police allege that the 58-year-old victim got into a verbal argument with one of the women at a convenience store at 255 Broad Street. The argument turned physical when the suspects began assaulting the victim, according to police.

The man fled the scene and ran into an apartment at 78 West Street, but the suspects pursued him. One of the female suspects, later identified as Garcia, kicked open the door and the group dragged the victim out of the apartment to continue the beating, police said.

The victim was transported to Lawrence an Memorial Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

Garcia was charged with home invasion, first-degree burglary, first-degree assault, interfering with police and breach of peace. Shankle was charged with first-degree assault, interfering with a police officer and breach of peace. Mendoza was charged with first-degree assault, breach of peace and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. Each was held on a $50,000 bond.
Students on are on alert at Wesleyan University with a burglar on the loose, snatching pricey electronics from students homes.

Theres been nearly a half-dozen thefts since the school year started last week.

It was definitely kind of shocking to see how many break-ins there were, said freshman Emily Koh.

Just nine days since most students started arriving at Wesleyan University and the number of burglaries is adding up around the Middletown campus.

Public safety reports at least five break-ins since last Wednesday including at homes on Church Street and Lawn Avenue.

I think one of them or maybe even two of them people were asleep when it was happening, said freshman Dani Vaamonde.

Police said several the cases the thief or thieves struck late at night.

The targets included laptops and an iPad.

Each time the crook snuck in through an unlocked window or door.

Im closing my door but I live on the third floor so Im not that worried about someone coming in through my window, said freshman Rachael Crunkleton.

Securing doors and windows were just part of the steps urged by public safety.

Theyre also advising students to never prop open a door and keep a light on above outside doors and a light on in common rooms.

They were telling us to just remain alert essentially in our living areas, said sophomore Noah Kahan.

Police have not yet released information about a possible suspect.

Anyone who sees something suspicious or knows anything about the break-ins is asked to call authorities.
The United States Consumer Products Safety Commission is urging all consumers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to power them down and stop charging or using the device a week after the company issued a recall of the smartphone and suspended sales worldwide.

The CPSC warning issued on Friday comes amid mounting reports of lithium-ion batteries in certain Note 7 devices that have resulted in fires.

On Monday, a Florida man said his Galaxy Note 7 that was left charging inside his Jeep ignited a fire and charred the vehicle. Nathan Dornacher, of St. Petersburg, said he was not aware of the recall and urged "everyone to take this recall seriously."

Last Week, Samsung's Note 7s were pulled from shelves in 10 countries, including South Korea and the U.S., just two weeks after the product's launch. Customers who already bought Note 7s will be able to swap them for new smartphones, said Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile business.

In the U.S., Samsung said it will let customers downgrade to a Galaxy S7 and refund the price difference.

The recall, the first for the new smartphone though not the first for a battery, comes at a crucial moment in Samsung's mobile business. Apple announced its new iPhone earlier this week and Samsung's mobile division was counting on momentum from the Note 7's strong reviews and higher-than-expected demand.

The company said it has not found a way to tell exactly which phones may endanger users out of the 2.5 million Note 7s already sold globally. It estimated that about 1 in 42,000 units may have a faulty battery.

Consumers who complained publicly said the problem came while the phone was being charged.

U.S. aviation safety officials took the extraordinary step late Thursday of warning airline passengers not to turn on or charge a new-model Samsung smartphone during flights.

The Federal Aviation Administration also warned passengers not to put the Galaxy Note 7 phones in their checked bags, citing "recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung" about the devices. It is extremely unusual for the FAA to warn passengers about a specific product.

"The ball is in Samsung's court to make this right. Consumers want information about what's going on and peace of mind that this is not going to happen again," said Ramon Llamas, who tracks mobile devices at research firm IDC. "No one wants to wake up at 1, 2 or 3 (in the morning) and find out your smartphone's on fire."

He added that while phone combustions are unusual, "35 instances are 35 too many."

This summer, Samsung ran into a quality-control issue with another smartphone, a niche model called the Galaxy S7 Active. Consumer Reports found that the phone didn't live up to its water-resistance promises. Samsung said that relatively few phones were affected and that it had identified and fixed the manufacturing problem. Samsung said it would replace devices under warranty if it failed, but it declined to let customers swap phones otherwise or to issue a broader recall.

On the Note 7, after complaints surfaced online, Samsung found that a battery cell made by one of its two battery suppliers caused the phone to catch fire. Koh refused to name the supplier.

"There was a tiny problem in the manufacturing process, so it was very difficult to figure out," Koh told reporters at a news conference. "It will cost us so much it makes my heart ache. Nevertheless, the reason we made this decision is because what is most important is customer safety."

Customers' reports of scorched phones prompted Samsung to conduct extra quality controlling tests and delay shipments of the Note 7s this week before the recall.

South Korean high school teacher Park Soo-Jung said she had rushed to buy the new phone, pre-ordering and then activating it on Aug. 19, its official launch date.

The 34-year-old living in the port city of Busan said that she was bruised when she rushed out of bed after her phone burst into flames, filling her bedroom with smoke stinking of chemicals.

She's having second thoughts about buying another newly released device, especially after losing all her personal data stored in the destroyed Note 7, she said.

"If the exploded phone had burned near my head, I would not have been able to write this post," she said in a popular online forum Thursday, where she shared a photo of the scorched Note 7 and described dousing the flames.

China is not affected by the sales suspension. The company said it used a battery made by another supplier for the Note 7s sold in China.
It is a mapping misery in Milford.

"Someone needs to get in touch with Google (and) fix Google Maps," Marie Sweetman tells NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters.

Sweetman is passing out her own set of directions to Walnut Public Beach in Milford.

"I stick these in the back of my windshield and when my sister is here, she gives them out. These are our directions to Walnut Beach," Sweetman added.

Residents in a quiet section of town are asking the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters to play traffic cop with Google.

The homeowners say beach-goers looking to catch some rays at Walnut Public Beach are instead. Ending up in their neighborhood.

Dan Perrone said the problem has been persistent for months. "All summer long, weve had cars coming by. A lot of people are confused."

Eileen Jess lives in the neighborhood as well. "They just keep asking where Walnut Beach is."

Sweetman added, "And theres clearly no beach!"

Its been a busy summer for neighbors near Milford Point, in the quaint, quiet, Devon section of town.

But not in a good way.

Perrone stated, "People seem generally confused. They know something is wrong, but they dont seem to understand why theyre getting bad directions."

Sweetman told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters, "Weve given out more directions to Walnut Beach then you could imagine... they tell us the GPSs are directing them to down the street there.

Jess added, To Rons garage, on Fairfield Street.

Turns out the unwanted traffic, according to residents, is caused by a gaff on Google maps.

"On the weekends, my little niece and nephew visit and run around and the traffic, theres maybe four houses on the street and the traffic is just unbelievable," Sweetman said.

Drivers are telling these homeowners when they type in Walnut Beach on Google maps, they wind up here.

"And Im usually outside, so I decided to put a sign at the end of the driveway. And Ive actually printed out some directions that I occasionally give out," Sweetman said.

Others have signs posted too.

"Its funny, because they cant find it, but its just dangerous because its a dead end and the kids are around," Jess said.

The drivers end up right here on the corner of Fairfield and Vincent streets, when in reality Walnut Public Beach is about a mile away.

And while these folks dont mind doling out directions, they want the issue fixed.

"Ive tried to actually correct it on Google instructions, how to send them information so they correct the GPS point, but it hasnt worked," Sweetman said.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters reached out to Google multiple times but the company has not responded.

Residents just want for Google to get it right on the maps.

"I tell them look around, do you see water? It doesnt look like theres a Beach around here to me. But usually its a pleasant conversation after that and they move on," Perrone said.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters checked a number of different mapping systems that bring you to the right address.
Bobby Shmurda, an up-and-coming rapper featured in a viral music video that popularized the "Shmoney dance," pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring with a drug gang responsible for several shootings.

Under a plea deal, Shmurda will face a minimum seven years in prison at sentencing on Oct. 19. The plea allowed him to avoid going to trial starting next week on multiple counts carrying penalties that could have put him behind bars for decades.

The Brooklyn-born Shmurda, whose birth name is Ackquille Pollard, is best known for "Hot Boy," a gritty hit song with rhymes about street violence. He and Chad "Rowdy Rebel" Marshall - another aspiring hip-hop artist who also pleaded guilty in the same case - gained notoriety with their performance in the "Shmoney dance" video, which has nearly 15 million YouTube views.

The two were among four co-defendants who were brought into a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs on Friday and put side-by-side in the jury box, where they squabbled with their lawyers over whether to take the plea offer. After three accepted, Shmurda slumped down, stared toward the ceiling and, when prompted by the judge, mumbled "guilty."

Shmurda, 22, could get enough credit for time served and good behavior "to be home in approximately 3  years and resume his remarkable career," defense attorney Alex Spiro said in statement.

Authorities arrested Shmurda in late 2014 after he left a recording studio near Radio City Music Hall, only days after he performed "Hot Boy" for a national television audience on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Investigators found two handguns and a small amount of crack cocaine in a car in which he was riding, authorities said.

An indictment charged Shmurda and more than 15 defendants with a variety of crimes including murder, attempted murder, assault and drug dealing. Shootings by the gang left one rival dead, injured an innocent bystander sitting on folding chair outside a Brooklyn home and caused pandemonium outside a nightclub in Miami Beach, Florida, authorities said.

The court papers alleged that Pollard once fired a gun toward a crowd of people outside a barbershop in Brooklyn. They also said he was present last year during a confrontation between rival drug gangs outside a Brooklyn courthouse where shots were fired.

In a jailhouse interview last year with The New York Times, Shmurda criticized his label, Epic Records, for not helping him pay his $2 million bail. Epic hasn't commented on the case.

He also claimed his lyrics about gunplay were "fabricated," because "that's what's selling nowadays."
An Orange County pediatrician and outspoken critic of mandatory vaccinations faces possible discipline by California's medical board.

The Orange County Register reports Friday that Dr. Bob Sears is accused of failing to obtain a detailed medical history before writing a 2014 letter excusing a toddler from immunizations.

The board says Sears wrote the letter after the 2-year-old's mother described an adverse reaction to an earlier vaccination.

If Sears is found negligent, he could face a public reprimand or lose his medical license.

Sears declined comment to the newspaper. The Associated Press also sent an email seeking comment Friday.

Sears has authored a popular book on vaccines and advocates a staggered, alternative vaccination schedule that contrasts with recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Dallas County Sheriff's Department is ready to roll out a new tool when working at the scene of major accidents on the highways.

It's called a "Scorpion Truck"  a large vehicle with a fold-out buffer that helps keep deputies safe, when they're at their most vulnerable.

The department recently purchased two Scorpion Trucks at a cost of about $180,000 each. One is being kept at a south Oak Cliff storage facility near interstates 45 and 20, and the other is near downtown Dallas.

Deputies say it's an investment in their safety, and also a way to get other first responders to clear from a wreck scene faster and allow them to respond to other emergencies.

Every night, Deputy Gary Aven is worried that the next big highway crash he works will be his last.

"I fear for my life every time, and for my partners life, every time we go out there on accidents," he said. "Especially at night time, when we have to put out those flare lines and make the scene safe, and you're standing out there on the highway while you got cars whizzing by you 70 or 80 miles per hour at a time."

For the last five years Aven has been assigned to the sheriff's department's Traffic Division.

He mostly works big pileups on the highways or deadly wrecks. He helps investigate the crashes, takes witness statements and contact information, and helps piece together the events leading up to the incident. The events he works sometimes takes hours to clear.

"Mainly I'm thinking about my safety," he said. "We're still in the danger zone. You got 3,000 pounds of metal coming at you, at 70 or 80 miles per hour."

Long before fire trucks or other secondary squad cars arrive, the first thing deputies have to do is lay down flares to set a buffer zone. On many wrecks, distracted drivers end up barreling through that buffer zone.

"It definitely happens probably a lot more than people think. Probably about every other accident at night, you have one or two cars coming through the flare line," Aven said.

The risks for first responders is very real.

Two years ago, veteran Dallas firefighter William Tanksley was helping a stranded driver when he was struck by a car and thrown off an interstate overpass. He fell more than 40 feet and died.

Fort Worth Police Officer Dwayne Freeto was also helping a driver when a drunk driver slammed into his squad car 10 years ago, killing him.

There are close calls every night.

"I'd say every night it'll happen  that you'll see cars going through a flare line. They'll either be nosy or distracted by their cell phones and not paying attention to what they're doing," said Traffic Division Deputy Joe Juarez.

The Scorpion Tucks also allow fire engines and other emergency vehicles to clear a scene faster.

"Once this truck gets out there, it can free up more squad cars to be back on the streets, it can free up the fire department to be back at the station ready for another call. It relieves a lot of people from having to come out here, they can be ready for more calls," Aven said.

Currently, just eight deputies are trained on the vehicle. The plan is to hold two classes every week for the next few months until another 100 Traffic Division deputies are trained, as well.
FOREST CITY  Theyre bringing The Lodge back.

When I saw the place, its still a really great building. There is a good history here. I want to make it a success again, new owner Peter Yang said.

Yang and his wife, Shari, took over The Lodge Hotel and Restaurant in July.

Peter Yangs family is involved with real estate in China. He met his wife while attending Iowa State University. The pair wanted to invest in Iowa and the Forest City property came up in a search.

We love the town, too. The people are positive, they want to make their town better. We wanted to work with those people, that is why we wanted to invest here, Peter Yang said.

Vincent Applegate will be the general manager. Applegate previously managed Riverview Restaurant at The Lodge in 2014.

He came back to Forest City after hearing the Yangs vision for The Lodge.

They wanted to bring it back, Applegate said.

Because in the past, it was popular. People loved coming here. Some stopped coming here and we want people to come back, Yang said.

That will start with a renovation of the hotels front lobby and dining area.

Yang said phase one of the renovations include changing the front guest room into a gift shop. A bar and lounge will be added to the restaurants dining room.

The restaurant had previously been rented out as Riverview Restaurant. The restaurant will now be part of the main hotel.

Work had already started with the opening of the sun room last week.

More people will have the view, Applegate said of the back of the property, which looks out over the Winnebago River and woods.

The restaurant is currently closed during the renovations. It will reopen on Sept. 15. Food will be served downstairs while work continues upstairs on the restaurant, lobby and gift shop. A private dining area will also be added.

Yang anticipates work on phase one will be completed within six to eight weeks.

Phase two wont start until early next year.

We want to run the restaurant first and make sure it runs well, Yang said.

The next phase, he said, will then focus on the renovation of the guest rooms. That will include adding sound proofing and updating the wallpaper, paint and furniture.

The hotels family room, located where the pool used to be, will also be updated. The room can then be used for private meetings.

Yang said landscaping around The Lodge property will complete phase two.

He hopes to use as many local businesses to complete the renovation work. Kingland Construction is currently working on the dining room renovations.

We want to be a part of (the community), Yang said. The Lodge joined the Forest City Chamber of Commerce this summer.

Forest City, Applegate said, has been very supportive.

People are excited now that construction has started, he said.

He hopes that excitement continues throughout the renovation process.

Im really looking forward to it growing. Theres no other place in town like it. Its definitely a place to bring people together, Applegate said.
A North Texas family is on a mission to get infants tested for a rare genetic disease, to buy other families time they don't have.

Julian Kampfschulte should be in second grade. Instead, the 8-year-old is on home hospice care. His family is cherishing every day they have with him.

"If I stay right here in this moment I can just love on him instead of remembering what he used to be like," his mother, Jenna Kampfschulte, said rubbing Julian's arm. "Or thinking about what he will be like."

Julian has adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD. It's a genetic, degenerative brain disease for which there is no cure.

"It takes away a lot," his mother said, pointing to a photo of her three children. "It takes that picture and turns it into two instead of three."

Julian first lost his hearing, then his sight. He can no longer walk, and hardly speaks. "When it goes, it goes pretty quick," Julian's father, Kurt Kampfschulte, explained. "He's in there somewhere."

Julian's family and caregivers use touch sign language to communicate with him.

Julian's parents didn't know he carried the gene for ALD until she started to show signs of hearing and vision loss. By then, they say it was too late for a bone marrow transplant or gene replacement therapy to help extend his life in any meaningful way.

"What we want is to give every other parent who comes after us a shot," explained Kurt Kampfschulte, who has been lobbying to have infants screened for ALD at birth. "It's hard, but if it results in our state funding screening for other kids, then at least it won't be for nothing."

There is a Crossfit fundraiser for Julian on Sept. 24 at Lake Highland Strength and Conditioning.
Dallas police are still pursuing animal DNA science for a possible criminal case in the fatal May 2 mauling of a U.S. Army veteran.

Relatives said Antoinette Brown, 52, was bitten more than 100 times in a vacant lot near Dallas Fair Park and advocates have sought answers ever since about the police investigation.

"Nothing is more terrifying than to think somebody's life was given over a loose dog," said Maeleska Fletes, with the Dallas Companion Animal Project.

Fletes is also a member of the Dallas Animal Shelter Advisory Commission, which has been reviewing Dallas Animal Services problems.

A consultant report prepared for they city since the attack on Brown estimated more than 8,000 loose dogs are on Dallas streets each morning. The report recommended sweeping changes and more funding for Dallas Animal Services. But the investigation of Brown's death remains unfinished.

"I always ask, why has there been no arrest made in that case?" Fletes said.

Soon after the attack, police said dogs suspected of causing the wounds were surrendered from a home near the attack location and the dog owners received code citations for loose dogs. Police said DNA samples were taken from the animals as potential evidence that those dogs caused the woman's wounds.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown on Thursday confirmed the investigation is still ongoing. He said DNA testing has been difficult.

"We tried to exhaust every expert DNA lab to get that. There was some analysis here at Dallas County, and then we sent out to other labs outside the state. We're making sure that there is no saliva or anything else on Miss Brown's clothes that we can match. It has been a very meticulous investigation," the police chief said.

An animal DNA expert at the University of Texas at Arlington said the case may be impossible.

Assistant Biology Professor Dr. Todd Castoe said DNA matching science is far more time consuming in real life than it is on TV crime shows and far more advanced for humans than it is for animals.

"There are a number of cases, where they have done exactly what they claim they are aiming to do here, and it has worked," said Castoe. "The level of patience that's required here is different because what you are asking is not run of the mill every day forensics on systems that are well worked out. This is really specialized work and its going to take a lot more careful consideration."

Chief Brown, who is not related to the victim, said he could not recall another fatal dog attack in his 33 years with the Dallas Police Department.

"Our investigators are really aware of the seriousness, making sure that we follow the evidence. And if we can prove a case we will. If we can't, we will let you know that we can't," Brown said.

A city of Dallas town hall meeting is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 12, on the consultant recommendations for Dallas Animal Services and the city's loose dog problem. It will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Park South YMCA, 2500 Romine, Dallas,TX, 75215.
Police confirm to NBCDFW that the wife of University Park Fire Captain Robert Poynter is in custody in connection with his shooting death.

The Royse City, Texas police department said Chacey Tyler Poynter was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. She is now in the Rockwall County Jail.

In a statement, Royse City PD reported officers were called to FM 35 near Hunt County Road 2595 around 10:40 p.m. Friday. Officers said Chacey Poynter told officers her husband had been shot. Officers then found Robert Poynter dead of a single gunshot wound in a vehicle.

Royse City PD said information provided by Chacey Poynter was suspicious and conflicting, leading to her arrest.

Police are also seeking a third person of interest in this case. The University Park Fire Department is located about 7 miles outside of Dallas.

On Saturday afternoon, University Park issued this statement about Robert Poynter:

The members of the University Park Fire Department were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Captain Robert Poynter. Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the family at this difficult time.

A long-tenured firefighter/paramedic, Captain Poynter began his service with the department in 1997. A firefighter/paramedic, he was promoted to Lieutenant in April, 2002 and became a Captain in May, 2012.

Because this is an ongoing criminal investigation, at this time, the department will not comment further.

A long-tenured firefighter/paramedic, Captain Poynter began his service with the department in 1997. A firefighter/paramedic, he was promoted to Lieutenant in April, 2002 and became a Captain in May, 2012.

Because this is an ongoing criminal investigation, at this time, the department will not comment further.
Two years after the death of their son, a family is seeking justice as new evidence emerges in the homicide of 26-year-old Jacoby Plummer, who was killed in drive-by shooting outside of his home in South Los Angeles.

On May 10, 2014, Plummer was just outside of his home on East 116th Street near Avalon when a white sedan drove by and a person in the passenger seat started firing at him, according to detectives.

Crime scene photos showed Jacoby's body lying on the driveway.

"I called home and I said, 'Granny, please tell me my brother is breathing. Please tell me he's breathing,'" said Jacoby's sister Raishawn Watson. "And she said, 'I can't tell you that.'"

Newly-uncovered surveillance footage shows a white sedan police believe the shooter may have been in, in addition to another vehicle following suit -- leading investigators and family to believe that there were a number of people who know what happened that night.

Det. Gerardo Vejar of the Los Angeles Police Department South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division said witnesses have not come forward because there may have been gang-related motivation behind the shooting.

Revel Plummer, Jacoby's father, said his son was not a gang member and the killers targeted the wrong person.

"I guess they figured because of the neighborhood, and they were feuding with the Bloods and the Crips, so if he lived over here, I guess they figured, well, we'll just get him anyway," Revel Plummer said. "Just to get him off the streets."

Chris Burleson was Jacoby's best friend, and they grew up in the same neighborhood.

"Wherever you grew up at, they tie you to that neighborhood so I feel like it was senseless," he said.

Watson said it's as though their own neighbors have turned their backs on the family.

"I hate this stupid code of silence," she said. "I hate it. Because if that happened to your family, you would want somebody to say something."

Jacoby's family wants justice and believes the killer might still be out there.

"And they're walking around living their life," Watson said. "And I have to go to the cemetery. That's the worst feeling in the world. I have to go and talk to my brother through a slab of marble. That's the worst feeling in the world."

A $50,000 reward is offered for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD Criminal Gang Homicide Division at 213-485-4341. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Crime Stoppers or by calling 800-222-8477.
A grandmother and her 2-year-old granddaughter were killed in a crash on Interstate 15 early Saturday morning after a DUI suspect plowed into their family vehicle.

California Highway Patrol (CHP) officials said the deadly crash happened around 1:45 a.m. on southbound I-15 at Scripps Poway Parkway, near Mercy Road.

A family  including a 64-year-old grandma, a toddler, a 5-year-old girl and the 35-year-old mother of the children  were in a Honda when a silver Cadillac CTS crashed into them.

The driver of the Cadillac -- now identified by officials as Grant Stewart Thoren, 31 -- stopped momentarily on the right shoulder of the freeway, but then fled the scene.

CHP officials said that due to the damage from the hit-and-run collision, the Honda became disabled in the traffic lanes.

Moments later, a man driving a red pickup truck, accompanied by a passenger, failed to see the disabled Honda and slammed into the vehicle. That drive remained at the scene.

When emergency crews arrived, the Honda was so mangled they had to extricate the family from inside.

The grandmother and 2-year-old girl did not survive, CHP said.

The 35-year-old woman the 5-year-old girl were rushed to local hospitals with major injuries. The girl suffered a concussion and is currently being treated at Rady Children's Hospital, while her mother is hospitalized at Sharp Memorial.

The passenger in the red pickup truck was also taken to a local hospital with unspecified minor injuries. Officials said the driver of the truck was not injured.

Investigators shut down several lanes along the freeway following the deadly hit-and-run. They also launched a search for the driver of the Cadillac who fled the scene.

By 7:15 a.m., CHP officials confirmed Thoren had been arrested at his home in Vista on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Thoren is facing several charges including DUI, felony hit-and-run and homicide, the CHP confirmed.

Investigators said Thoren told them that after the crash, he exited the freeway on Mira Mesa Boulevard, drove to a gas station, called a towing company and had his car towed to his home in Vista.

CHP officials said the driver of the tow truck did not know Thoren had been involved in the deadly hit-and-run when he towed him to Vista. The tow truck driver later heard the story on the news, and then called CHP to report that he had driven the suspect home.

NBC 7 reached out to the towing company where the driver works, but they declined an interview Saturday morning.

The investigation is ongoing.

On Saturday morning, Thoren's Cadillac remained in the driveway of the home in Vista. Investigators collected evidence from the vehicle.

CHP officials said it appears the home where the DUI suspect lives may be some type of "sober living" home.

Investigators said the driver of the red pickup truck involved in the second collision with the family's Honda was not driving under the influence.

Well into Saturday, all lanes, except for the carpool lane, along southbound I-15 near the crash site remained closed to traffic.

A SigAlert was issued in the area, and traffic was backed up for miles, with single-digit speeds from Carmel Mountain Road. Motorists were advised to use State Route 56 as an alternate route to get around the area but traffic on that freeway was also sluggish. CHP expected to have all lanes cleared by the afternoon.

At 12:40 p.m., Caltrans said all lanes on southbound I-15 had re-opened to traffic. Get traffic updates here.

The names of the grandmother and toddler killed in the hit-and-run DUI crash have not yet been released. Investigators said the mother and children are from Temecula, just north of San Diego County, while the grandmother was from Fairfield, California.
Police Friday sought additional possible victims of a 63-year-old man arrested this week for allegedly sexually assaulting three children at a Santa Ana daycare center.

Larry Montanez of Santa Ana was arrested on Wednesday, according to Santa Ana police.

Each assault occurred at Anne's Daycare, located in the 2100 block of South Cedar Street, according to a police statement. The victims, all under the age of 10, were allegedly assaulted between 2013 and Tuesday, when Montanez is suspected of assaulting a 6-year-old child.

Montanez lived at the daycare center from 2001 through 2008 and from 2010 through this year, according to police, who said he had access to children for many years, "raising the possibility of additional victims."

Anyone aware of suspicious or criminal behavior committed by Montanez was urged to contact Santa Ana Police Department special crimes detectives at (714) 245-8351.
An armed man barricaded inside a Paramount home for more than three hours apparently died Saturday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

The man apparently shot himself at 4:40 a.m., according to Deputy Mike Barraza of the Sheriff's Information Bureau.

The incident stemmed from a "shots fired" call at 9:30 p.m. Friday in the 6600 block of San Carlos Street, according to Deputy Tony Moore.

The sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau and Crisis Negotiation Team personnel responded to the barricade at 12:20 a.m., Barraza said.

"Special Enforcement Bureau deputies deployed the Andros robot with a camera attached to it into the location, which located a male adult inside the residence deceased," said Deputy Grace Medrano of the Sheriff's Information Bureau.

"Homicide investigators have assumed command of the investigation, where it appears the armed barricaded suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Medrano said.

Sheriff's homicide detectives asked anyone with any information regarding the incident to call them at 323-890-5500.
A man who crashed a go-kart into a parked car Friday night died at the hospital hours later, authorities said.

Police received a call about the crash at 9:18 p.m., and responded to 16th Street at Pennsylvania Avenue in San Bernardino where a blue go-kart had struck a parked car, San Bernardino City Police said.

The 27-year-old man driving the go-kart was transported to the hospital and was listed in "extremely critical condition," according to police.

Charles Nichols said his father lives down the street from where the crash took place, so Nichols saw the scene after the crash happened.

"I was traumatized and really shocked, nobody wishes that on anybody" Nichols said. "We all held hands and we prayed for him"

Two hours after the man was transported to the hospital, he died at the hospital from his injuries late Friday night, said Sgt. Vicki Cervantes of the San Bernardino Police Department.

Whether or not alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash was still unknown, Cervantes said.

The mans identity had not yet been released, according to Cervantes.
City leaders joined with police and fire officials Friday for an annual ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead.

Held in the shadow of a large piece of metal from the World Trade Center, the ceremony included bagpipes and ringing of a bell to honor those who died -- including a large number of first responders -- in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, fire Chief Ralph Terrazas and police Chief Charlie Beck were among those taking part in the annual remembrance ceremony at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center in Elysian Park.

"We see it every single day in our fire services, in our military and Coast Guard," Garcetti said. "We understand that when people put on a uniform and wear a badge, it's just theirs for a temporary moment in time.

They become the guardian angels for each one of us, not knowing what may happen. "And every one of them steps forward voluntarily," he said.

A series of additional remembrance ceremonies marking the 15th anniversary of the attacks are planned for Sunday, including one at the Los Angeles Fire Department's Sherman Oaks station, which includes a 9/11 Memorial Fountain. Ceremonies are also scheduled in cities including Burbank, Manhattan Beach, Beverly Hills and Carson.
The American bison is the largest land animal in the western hemisphere. Ive never heard of anyone who didnt find the giant prairie icons fascinating, and some buffalo watchers enjoy the creatures to the point of obsession.

I fall into the latter category. When it comes to bison, I can never ever get enough viewing. Given the chance, I can literally sit and watch them from sunrise to sunset, day after day.

One of my favorite viewing areas is located in western South Dakotas Custer State Park, where a 71,0000-acre mix of ponderosa pine and open prairie are more than enough to provide the illusion of free range.

I first laid an eyeball on the Custer herd when my parents brought me here in 1958. Ive been returning ever since.

Early September is a prime time to visit the Black Hills. By now, the noise and congestion of the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally is nearly forgotten. On the sidewalk racks of Hill City, brand new 2016 Rally T-shirts can be had for three bucks  cheap enough to use for paint rags. Better still, the carnival-like atmosphere of the Hills next big event  Custers Annual Buffalo Roundup  is still weeks in the offing.

For now at least, tranquility reigns supreme. The sound of gasoline engines has been replaced by the whisper of pines and the deep guttural roaring of mature bison bulls.

Bison can be as deceiving as they are interesting. Most people realize buffalo are large, they just dont realize how large. Big-boned and unimaginably solid, a mature bull is a locomotive on legs.

By the time a bull reaches 5 years of age, he may stand more than six feet at the shoulder and weigh in excess of a ton. Some folks will tell you that bulls dont really get that large, but they do.

On a paved road inside Custer Park, a mature bull wandered into the path of an oncoming four-wheel-drive pickup. The driver survived. The bull and truck did not.

The bisons carcass weighed in at 2,200 pounds; its head now hangs on a stone fireplace at the parks Game & Fish Headquarters. Stand next to that head, and you will get a true feel for just how massive these animals can become. Its also the only safe way to obtain a really close up view of an American bison.

Although grazing bison may appear as docile as Elsie the Cow, they remain potentially dangerous. Even in the heart of tourist country, bison are still wildlife. They may be conditioned to seeing people wearing colorful Bermuda shorts and funny hats, but they are not tame.

When incited to riot, these not-so-gentle giants can move with cat-like agility and the consequences can be dire.

In spite of numerous warning signs, people continue to invade the personal space of loafing bison. Sometimes they get away with it; sometimes they dont.

Earlier this season, a 50-year-old woman from Missouri approached a 5-year-old bull for a close-up photo with her iPhone. The bull objected, charged and sent her flying.

Fortunately for the photographer, the bull decided to let it go at that. The severely injured woman was life-flighted to Rapid City, where, although listed in serious condition, she was expected to recover.

It should be noted that incidents like that are pleasantly uncommon. When it comes to bison, humans usually have the last word.

Travel through South Dakota and you wont hardly find a restaurant or pop stand that doesnt try to sell you a Buffalo Burger, not to mention bison roasts, sausage and bacon.

Once youve sampled all that, you can go up to the Sylvan Lake Lodge and enjoy a Dances with Wolves platter of buffalo ribs or treat yourself to a thick bison ribeye that is to die for.

I try to eat some form of bison every day that Im in Dakota. Like buffalo watching, I can never ever get enough.
Hours after North Korea tested new nuclear technology, Donald Trump's campaign chief refused Friday to outline the Republican presidential nominee's approach to rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula as both White House contenders increasingly focus on national security.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, pressed repeatedly on Trump's plan, said only, "He wouldn't do what's being done now."

"He's not going to reveal all of his plans, and he's made that very clear. And maybe someone can ask him in a debate," Conway told CBS "This Morning." ''But the fact is that this entire world would be put on notice that there's a strong leader in the White House."

Trump later suggested that Democrat Hillary Clinton and others are wrong to outline their national security policies because they could help the nation's enemies.

"Maybe we shouldn't be so honest when it comes to military strategy," Trump said in a speech to religious conservatives.

Clinton said North Korea's determination to develop a "deliverable nuclear weapon" represents "a direct threat to the United States."

The former secretary of state, in a statement, called for new sanctions in addition to those endorsed by the Obama administration and adopted earlier in the year with the United Nations. She also said the United States must ensure China applies increasing pressure on North Korea, and she noted that regional allies such as South Korea and Japan play a critical role in missile defense.

North Korea's latest test was its fifth atomic test, and the second in eight months. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North's biggest-ever in explosive yield, was an act of "fanatic recklessness" and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un "is spiraling out of control."

President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the U.S. would never accept the country as a nuclear power.

The development comes at the end of a week in which Trump and Clinton clashed repeatedly over national security.

The New York billionaire attacked Clinton's record as the nation's chief diplomat, yet he faced criticism from within his own party for refusing to outline his plans for combating foreign policy challenges, including threats posed by the Islamic State group. Trump said this week that he does indeed have a plan, but would convene military leaders in his first 30 days in office to craft another plan.

Trump has also faced criticism for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin during a high-profile national security forum earlier in the week. The Republican nominee also granted an interview to a Russian-backed television network on Thursday.

Trump used the North Korean development to attack his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton in an afternoon speech, describing the situation as "one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state." He did not say whether he had a plan to address the intensifying national situation.

With several prominent Republican national security officials already concerned about Trump's national security acumen, Clinton has tried to cast herself as the better commander in chief.

The former secretary of state attended a meeting with foreign policy and national security experts in New York City Friday afternoon to discuss ways to combat terrorism.

Participants, both in person and via remote video, included officials who have served in Democratic and Republican administrations, such as retired Marine General John Allen, former CIA director David Petraeus and Michael Chertoff and Janet Napolitano, both former Secretaries of Homeland Security.

Clinton has aggressively promoted her growing list of military endorsements from both parties.

On Friday, her campaign said the number of retired generals and admirals endorsing Clinton for president has grown to 110. Clinton stressed that she has more military backing than Trump, who touted endorsements from 88 retired U.S. generals and admirals earlier in the week.

Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, received his first intelligence briefing Friday, the vice presidential nominee saying that he was "grateful" for the "thorough and informative" briefing. He declined to offer any specifics since the information was classified, but said he and Trump would be "ready on day one."

Trump was set to appear at a Friday night rally in Pensacola, Florida, the latest in a handful of military-rich communities the Republican has targeted this week. He'll also address religious activists at a conference for social conservatives Friday afternoon in Washington.

Clinton, continuing her aggressive fundraising push, is also appearing at two fundraisers in New York City Friday. One of them is an LGBT event featuring Barbra Streisand.

Clinton is getting some help from another wealthy backer as well.

Billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz on Friday said he's giving $20 million to help defeat Trump. He called the Republican presidential candidate divisive and dangerous and his appeals to Americans who feel left behind "quite possibly a deliberate con."

Moskovitz said Democrats and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, are "running on a vision of optimism, pragmatism, inclusiveness and mutual benefit."
A man wanted in the shooting of a Miami mother of six has been arrested, authorities said Friday.

Terrell Jimmel Robinson, 30, was taken into custody Thursday, Miami Police said. Robinson was arrested in Oklahoma City by federal marshals, the Miami Herald reported.

Robinson was wanted in last week's shooting of 35-year-old Shaqueenia Hanna at her home on Northwest 73rd Terrace. Police said Hanna was shot more than a dozen times and was hospitalized in critical condition.

Family and friends said Robinson is Hanna's former boyfriend and the two have a child together.
Detectives are investigating a deadly police-involved shooting Friday night in Pompano Beach. The incident comes following another police-involved shooting in North Miami Friday.

Broward Sheriff's Office responded to a domestic disturbance call just before 10 p.m., involving a man armed with a knife at the 300 block of northwest 14th Street in Pompano Beach.

According to BSO, when deputies arrived, someone in the house directed them to the backyard where they encountered a man with a knife. Both deputies fired their weapons.

Family says deputies fatally shot 56-year-old Gregory Frazier. Pompano Beach Fire Rescue pronounced the Frazier dead at the scene.

"Words cannot explain how I feel because I feel like had I not called the cops he would still be here," said Deborah Frazier, sister. "I don't think it was fair, he only had a knife and I don't believe they should have shot and killed him."

Frazier's sister says she called police because they were having a fight, but says when deputies arrived Frazier was sitting outside of the home with a pocket knife in his hand.

"All of a sudden I here them say get down, get down and all of this happened in less than two minutes he was dead," Frazier said.

BSO says per policy, they were placed on administrative leave.

"They would have tried to constrain him or talk to him he would have still been alive," Frazier said.

Anyone who has information that will assist detectives with their investigation or may have witnessed the shooting is encouraged to contact authorities at 954-321-4210.

The investigation ongoing. No other injuries were reported.

Check back with NBC 6 for updates.
Police say they were investigating a suspicious vehicle on the departure level at Miami International Airport Saturday.

According to a Miami International Airport official, the security incident on the Concourse D departure level caused roadway, traffic and baggage area delays.

Miami-Dade Police Department say K-9 and bomb squad responded to the suspicious parked vehicle.

Police say the airport has resumed regular operations.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.
What to Know Robert Small, who survived the '93 bombing, was an office manager at Morgan Stanley on the 72nd floor of the south tower on 9/11

He is still haunted by the images of seeing people jumping from the burning towers after the planes hit

Small helped two people escape the towers that day, and, 15 years later, is still looking to reconnect

Somewhere out there may be a 14-year-old boy or girl whose mother's life was saved by Robert Small as the twin towers burned on Sept. 11, 2001.

Small was an office manager at Morgan Stanley on the 72nd floor of the south tower, and as a survivor of the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center, he'd become the company's fire safety warden.

"There was this boom and a vibration, and I thought, 'Not again,'" Small said, telling his story in a video for visitors to the 9/11 Tribute Center.

Confident he could walk 72 flights down to safety, Small guided others along the way with encouragement and water.

"My friend and I had two backpacks full of water. The reason why I had so much is in '93, I wished I'd had water," he told NBC 4 New York.

Small still remembers watching victims jumping from the burning towers.

"The flames, I'd never seen such an orange color before," he wrote in a 44-page account of the day after his therapist advised him to recall every detail.

"I remember calling out, 'Oh, God' over and over," he wrote. "It was a person. Who was going to help this person? This person is going to hit the ground. This person is going to die."

"As much as you want to look away, you really can't," he said.

The twin towers, shown in all their beauty, before 2001. This is how we want to remember the World Trade Center.

But the sight somehow gave him strength.

"And then this woman fell. She seemed to have accepted her fall. She made a star-like pattern," Small told NBC 4 New York. "From that moment on, everything went my way. She was a calming feeling. She got me out."

Small journeyed down the stairwell, counting the floors every so often as he passed it: "Sixty more to go. Fifty-two more to go."

On his way down, he encountered a 4-month pregnant woman.

"I just encouraged her to keep going," he said. "Every time she wanted to stop, I'd ask her to give me one more floor."

After finally getting to safety, "as we parted, I just jokingly told her, if it's a boy, name him Robert."

Small never saw the woman again. But he's been looking for her.

"I just want to say hi, give her a hug and say I'm glad she made it," he said.

He also never saw the East Brunswick, New Jersey, man who gave him a ride home after the towers fell.

Each year, Small, who lives in Old Bridge, New Jersey, posts on Facebook to honor the day. Last year, he made an appeal to help find the woman and the man who got him home.

"Maybe, just maybe we'll find those two folks," he said in the Facebook video.

His first Facebook plea got 170,000 views. This year, Small will be overseas on the anniversary, but he's hoping someone watching or reading this story will remember him from the south tower stairs.

Perhaps the woman's child is walking around the city somewhere, Small thinks.

"I probably passed the kid a thousand times and never knew it," he said.
A 26-year-old New Jersey woman who mysteriously disappeared after a routine trip to her local coffee shop has been located, police announced Saturday.

After a 10-day investigation, Tammy Kim was located by a hunter in a heavily wooded area in Sussex County, The Franklin Police Department said. She was not assaulted, however detectives are still determining what happened to her.

We are extremely happy and relieved to announce that Tammy was found alive this morning by a hunter, thanks to the hunting season that began today, her family said in a statement. We are grateful for the law enforcement, family, friends, and volunteers who helped search for our daughter over the past ten days.

Tammy Kim was last seen near the Starbucks on Highway 23 in Franklin Borough at about 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, according to police.

The Starbucks cafe was a favorite hangout for Kim, and she often worked on her computer there. Kim, who does not drive, was supposed to be picked up by her parents at around noon last Thursday, her mother told NBC 4 New York.

Her laptop was found abandoned near the Sussex Bank corporate offices -- a mostly empty office building -- on Munsonhurst Road, police said. On the second floor of the building, in a room that's under renovation, police tracked her phone about 12 hours after she disappeared.

Because Kim does not drive, police thought she either suffered from some sort of medical episode and wandered into the woods in a rural area nearby, or she got into a car with someone.

Kim was taken to Morristown Medical Center where she is being treated by medical personnel, police said.
A judge has rejected a guilty plea by one of three men charged in a drive-by shooting at a western Pennsylvania birthday party earlier this year.

The Herald-Standard reports that 22-year-old Christian Cicconi was to enter a plea Friday in Fayette County Court to reckless endangerment and receive a sentence of two years of probation.

But Judge Linda Cordaro rejected the plea and scheduled the case for trial, saying Cicconi hadn't fully admitted his guilt.

State police said nine adults and seven children were in the Manheim Township house peppered with gunfire Jan. 26. Police allege that 23-year-old Patrick Dugan, of Uniontown, fired because he believed 19-year-old Zachary Helisek had been ripped off during a drug deal earlier in the evening. Dugan and Helisek are awaiting trial.
A gunman opened fire on a woman believed to be his sister inside a West Philadelphia home Friday as officers were speaking with her, police said. The shooting then devolved into a hostage situation with six people, including children, were held against their will until SWAT officers moved in.

The incident began around 4:20 p.m. when officers were called to the home along the 200 block of S. Millick Street because of an argument between a man and woman, police said.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said officers were invited into the home and were speaking with a woman who said her 24-year-old brother was assaulting their mother. Moments later, police said he appeared in the kitchen and began shooting.

"They initially had a conversation with the female and then he appears in the rear of the home and he starts discharging and thats when it all jumps off," Ross said.

An officer returned fire as he and his partner took cover behind a parked car. Ross said the 28-year-old woman then escaped the home, nursing a gunshot wound to the arm, and moved next door. Officers were able to get her away from the home.

She was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The gunman, identified by police as Kadeem Nelson, remained inside the home, along with two adults and four children, as police called in the SWAT unit to negotiate with him.

Nelson was hit several times by police gunfire, officials said.

Ross said the two adults helped provide police with information as the barricade carried on.

SWAT officers moved into the home around 5:40 p.m. and a short time later secured the scene. The children and two adults were spotted milling on the home's porch as the alleged shooter was taken out of the home on a stretcher. His wounds aren't believed to be life-threatening, Ross said.

No one else was hurt, police said. A .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun was recovered in the home.

The incident remains under investigation.
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MASON CITY  As troops set up camp at East Park, their annual Civil War re-enactment got off to a soggy start.

The Mason City Civil War Councils 23rd annual Civil War Battle and Encampment is set to run through Sunday.

This year volunteers portraying Union and Confederate soldiers, sympathizers and neutral parties will help recreate the Battles of Carthage and Lexington, Missouri.

On Friday both camps were set up under intermittent rain and flash flood warnings in the early evening. School Days  where 500 students participated last year  was cancelled.

Organizers said Friday evening they believe the encampment along Willow Creek and the Winnebago River was safe from flooding from heavy rains. However, they planned to relocate to higher ground if flooding was worse than predicted.

Were keeping an eye on it, Mason City Civil War Council President Jerry Hewitt said of the water levels. We are. The police are.

As they endured the rain, volunteers spoke of the event as an annual way to reconnect with a like-minded community.

Re-enacting battles is a more effective way to teach about history, said Mark Smith, who is portraying a Union provost this year.

You will learn more about the Civil War by watching somebody fire a cannon than you will about six months of somebody droning on the Anaconda Plan, he said.

Each year, others recreate an actual bit of Mason City history  the dunking of Mary Regan.

Regan, then 17, allegedly as the story goes, was caught voicing sympathy for the Confederacy in a bar.

Supporters of the South that lived in the North were called Copperheads, said Smith, an Opportunity Village janitor.

When word drifted this far west that Lincoln had been shot, she stood up at the bar and said, Im glad hes dead and I hope my brother was the one who killed him, he said.

That didnt go over well, because a lot of the Mason City womens husbands had gone into the war and some of them werent coming back.

Regan was eventually targeted by a group of about 20 women and a teenage boy who grabbed her and took her to Willow Creek. They dunked her in the water and threatened to shave her head unless she swore a Union loyalty oath, he said.

When they were done, she swore a loyalty oath and to the best of everyones beliefs she kept it, Smith said. Regan later married a Union veteran.

We recreate this little piece of street justice every year, he said.

The Dunking of Mary Regan is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. Saturday in East Park.

Weather permitting, re-enactment events continue Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, infantry and artillery drills begin at 10 a.m., followed by the 2:30 p.m. Battle of Carthage.

On Sunday, infantry and artillery drills will be held 10 a.m. with the Battle of Lexington, Missouri, at 1:30 p.m.
Eric Feltyberger dedicated most of his life to the Pioneer Fire Co. in Jenkintown as a volunteer firefighter and spent his downtime listening to the Grateful Dead.

When it came to both of those dwindling, close-knit communities, Feltyberger, 43, was still relatively a kid.

His sudden death Wednesday has left his lifelong friends and firefighting colleagues in and around Jenkintown reeling from the loss of a guy who "was a part of everything" in the small Montgomery County borough.

Feltyberger, who lived a couple blocks from the firehouse on Greenwood Avenue, became a volunteer at 14. For the last decade, he was a lieutenant, according to Assistant Chief Joe Connolly.

"He didn't volunteer for the recognition. He did it because it needed to be done, which is a unique feature for a person in today's society," Connolly said Saturday morning as he and Chief Mike Brogan prepared for Feltyberger's funeral next week.

Brogan called him "a one of a kind guy."

Feltyberger died Wednesday evening just a block from the firehouse when he fell accidentally from the third-floor balcony of a friend's apartment on Greenwood Avenue, according to Jenkintown police Chief Albert DeValentino.

He and the friend were making dinner when Feltyberger went out for a smoke and sat on a railing, DeValentino said. He somehow lost his balance and fell, the chief said.

"It's tragic," DeValentino said. "He was a really nice guy, a hardworking kid."

Mayor Ed Foley said he didn't know Feltyberger well, but knew him as a long-serving servant to the community.

"Volunteer firefighting is a lot of times a thankless job. But in doing it, he was well-known to the company and to the borough," Foley said. "This is a tragedy that wasn't meant to be."

Connolly said Feltyberger's mother and sisters visited the firehouse Friday evening and told of their wishes that in lieu of flowers, well-wishers donate to the fire company. But Connolly said Feltyberger would have also wanted donations to go to The Burn Foundation.

"That's the type of guy he was. Always giving, giving, giving," Brogan said.

Visiting hours will be 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday and 9 to 9:45 a.m. Friday at McGoldrick Funeral Home, 507 West Ave., Jenkintown. A funeral procession with full firefighter's honor guard will go from the funeral home to Grace Presbyterian Church, 444 York Rd., Jenkintown. Burial will be in Hillside Cemetery in Roslyn.
A woman is facing charges after police say she tried to run down a Philadelphia officer while driving a stolen vehicle.

Police said 33-year-old Erika Avila, also known as Erica Lopez, was driving towards officers on East Clearfield Street in the city's Kensington neighborhood Thursday night.

Thinking she was going to hit their patrol car, an officer sitting in the passenger seat jumped out of the car and ran onto the sidewalk. Avila then jumped the curb and drove down the sidewalk towards the officer, police said. He opened fire and hit her in the left hand.

Avila fled the scene before crashing into a concrete barrier blocks away in Port Richmond. The vehicle she was driving was reported stolen earlier in the day, police said.

Avila was transported to Temple University for treatment. She is charged with driving under the influence and aggravated assault among other charges.
A public Celebration of Life has been planned for Ryan Wilcox, an 18-year-old student at Grossmont High School who lost his heroic battle with cancer on September 3.

The celebration is planned for Wednesday, September 21 at Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon at 2:00 p.m.

A vigil was held on Monday at Grossmont High School in his remembrance, bringing together students who said that Ryans story dismantled cliques and brought everyone together.

NBC 7s Steven Luke is at Grossmont High School where students, teachers and community members are gathering for a vigil to remember 18-year-old Ryan Wilcox who passed away on Saturday.

Usually in high school theres a bunch of separate groups and not much unity, one student said at the vigil. When everyone heard what he was going through, what he was battling, the strength that he had, it broke down walls.

Grossmont High School and all of the other schools in the district are asked students to wear red, white, and blue on Tuesday to honor Wilcox.

Ryans fellow students showed an enormous amount of support when they learned what he was up against. The ASB coined #RyanStrong across social media and started a campaign to get Chris Evans, the actor behind Captain America, to pay a visit to Ryan.

The school put on a rally where students held signs and cheered as Ryan stood on stage. He was then surprised with a video from Evans telling him to stay strong.

Its people like you with strength like yours that inspire people like me, Evan says in the video posted to YouTube.

Weeks later, major members of the cast, Evans, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr. paid a visit to him at his home.

Images: Avengers Stars Visit Ryan Wilcox in San Diego

In lieu of flowers, Ryans family asks that memorial contributions in Ryan's memory be made to the foundations that directly impacted his life:

The Seany Foundation, known for "Camp Reach for the Sky", a camp for kids affected by cancer.

Friends of Scott, known for the "Unforgettable Prom".
A long-running legal debate over a religious symbol on public property has finally come to an end.

The cross on Mount Soledad in La Jolla will stand for good, ending one of the countrys longest legal debates surrounding the issue.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a one-page ruling on Wednesday dismissing the latest case that claimed the display of the cross contradicted laws refraining governments from endorsing a religion.

The court remanded the case, Steve Trunk v. the City of San Diego and the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, to the district court with instructions to dismiss it as moot.

For some time the cross and the land it stood on was owned by the government, and by the city before that. The Mount Soledad Memorial Association purchased from the Department of Defense in 2015 nine years after it was given to the department after being claimed as eminent domain by the government.

Plaintiffs in the latest suit opposing the cross
Harriet Tubman and the P-Funk Mothership grace two of the new commemorative SmarTrip cards celebrating the new Museum of African American History, Metro announced Friday.

The four designs of the reusable plastic cards depict icons of African-American history -- and what patrons can expect from the museum's exhibits once it opens Sept. 24.

Another card shows the design of the museum; its metal exterior is meant to celebrate ironwork crafted by slaves in places like Louisiana and South Carolina. The fourth features Frederick Douglass, leader in the anti-slavery movement.

Lonnie G. Bunch III is the director of the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is now filling up with historic artifacts in advance of its Sept. 24 opening.

Tubman's card is a replica of an albumen print of her likeness that will be on display in the museum.

FilmMagic

These limited-edition SmarTrip cards commemorate the significance of having a museum on the National Mall that celebrates the richness of black culture and the vast contributions made by African Americans to our society, said Metro General Manager and CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld.

The cards will be available Saturday online, and at Metro stations Friday Sept. 16. For those who can't wait, the cards will be available for purchase on Monday Sept. 12 at the following offices:

Metro Headquarters (Main Entrance)

600 Fifth Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Open Weekdays 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Metro Center Sales Office

12th and F Street, NW

(Metro Center station)

Washington, DC 20005

Open Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Bulk Sales pick-up only Monday  Friday 8 a.m.  3:30 p.m.

Metro Pentagon Sales Office

Pentagon Transit Center

Upper level bus bay

Arlington, VA 22202

Open Weekdays 7:30 a.m. - 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Metro Anacostia Sales Office

Anacostia Metrorail Station, Mezzanine Level, Bus Bay Exit

1101 Howard Road, SE

Washington, DC 20020

Open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursdays 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Northern Metrobus Garage

4615 14th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20011

Open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Thousands of graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy are returning to Annapolis this weekend for their class reunions.

At least one of them is walking onto campus as an openly gay man  something he never could be in college.

I was really worried about being found out, said Lt. Lou Feuchtbaum, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1986. Back then the Navy treated allegations of homosexuality, they treated investigations of people suspected of being gay, the same way they did large crimes.

Feuchtbaum continued to hide his sexuality after graduating, throughout the seven years he served in the Navy. When I would muster up the courage to go out to social places, clubs in D.C., I would always lie about where I was from, what my name was, he said. I was so paranoid.

He added that his anxiety went beyond paranoia. There were rational reasons for being worried about being discovered.

Even years after leaving the Navy and getting married to his husband, Lorenzo, he was afraid to return and be himself on campus.

Once, while visiting the campus, Lorenzo tried to hold his hand; Feuchtbaum brushed it off and walked away from his husband.

But Feuchtbaum loved the Academy, and stressed that though hiding was painful, he held no grudge against the school or the service.

The hard part of coming here and being gay, theres an implicit part in doing that where you are lying to people who you are close with, he said.

Im just an ordinary guy who was lucky enough to come to the Naval Academy. My classmates, they are impressive. That I had to lie to them  that really bothered me, he said.

Thats why this year is so special for Feuchtbaum. Since 2011, gay men and women have been able to serve openly in the U.S. armed forces. And the Defense of Marriage act is no more, meaning same-sex couples who work for the government  including the military  get full federal benefits.

Now, Feuchtbaum  who is an attorney who lives in San Francisco  feels he can come to homecoming and be himself on the campus he loves.

This is something I never expected  I would be standing outside the main gate of the Naval Academy talking about what it was like to be a gay midshipman, he said.

Its not an issue anymore. This is our homecoming, and for me it truly is a homecoming.
A Florida teen previously arrested for posing as a doctor was arrested in Virginia for allegedly trying to defraud a woman while buying a car, according to the Stafford County, Virginia, Sheriffs Office.

Malachi Love-Robinson, 19, from North West Palm Beach, was arrested and charged with false statement to obtain credit, obtaining money by false pretenses and identity fraud. He is being held in the Rappahannock Regional Jail on no bond.

Detectives said Love-Robinson tried to buy a $35,000 Jaguar from Kargar Motors Car Dealership, located at 3316 Jefferson Davis Highway in Stafford, Virginia, on Sept. 9. They said Love-Robinson filed out an online credit application and used the name of a female as a co-signer on the form.

Police said employees became suspicious after some things Love-Robinson allegedly said. The employees were concerned Love-Robinson may have been trying to buy the car and stealing money from the woman he claimed was his mother. The dealership told Love-Robinson they would call him when his credit was approved, and he left the dealership.

The employees notified the Sheriffs Office and called Love-Robinson to have him return to the dealership. Two deputies were waiting in a back room when he arrived and began the purchase of the car.

The deputies came out and spoke to Love-Robinson, who told them he was in Virginia to purchase a car for himself and another for his godmother, who was with him. Love-Robinson told the deputies his godmother had agreed to cosign for the loan on the Jaguar.

Deputies then spoke with the woman with Love-Robinson. She said he was a distant relative of hers through her sons wife and Love-Robinson considered her to be his godmother.

She told deputies that she did not give Love-Robinson permission to use her as a co-signer for the loan. A credit history run at the dealership showed two other loan applications with her information that she said she did not approve. A check with her credit card company revealed there had been a $1,200 charge the day before for two iPads and a cellphone that she had not purchased.

Love-Robinson was arrested by the deputies and charged. At the time of the arrest, he was out of jail on bond from Florida for practicing medicine without a license. He was also recently arrested in Florida for allegedly stealing money from a woman, who said he posed as a doctor to treat her in her home.
A small business owner -- whose gift shop was among the many Main Street businesses heavily damaged in flooding in Ellicott City in July -- died Friday after he fell from the scaffolding that still covered the rear of his store.

John Peter Pacylowski Jr., 67, of Columbia, Maryland, apparently fell after 3:30 p.m. Friday.

Police said they had gotten a report that a man working behind the store had fallen from the scaffolding.

Pacylowski was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the fall appeared to be accidental.

Pacylowski was the owner of Precious Gifts, a store on Main Street that specialized in collectible figurines. The store's Facebook page has pictures of Pacylowski working to reopen the store, and posts describing the store's efforts to reopen after the floods.

A wall of water washed through Ellicott City on July 31, killing two people who were stranded in cars and devastating Main Street. Many of the businesses there, and parts of the street itself, remain closed.
Theres now a special place for all those bobbleheads you collect during Nationals games. Or Caps games. Or even Red Sox games.

Ashburn, Va. resident Brad Wheedleton spends hours in his garage every day creating homes for the little guys.

He got the idea at the end of the 2014 Nationals season, after acquiring his newest bobblehead.

"Just looking at it and saying, this guy needs a place to go, instead of just piling up on a desk," Wheedleton said.

Wheedleton went to Home Depot to pick up the supplies and built what he dubbed the first Bobblehouse, a mini dugout for the bobbleheads to hang out in.

Wheedleton posted his creation on Twitter and by the end of the night had 30 orders.

Today, Wheedleton has made more than 400 Bobblehouses and has patented his designs. His company is called Bobblehouse Industries.

It's motto? "Protecting, organizing and providing houses for homeless bobbleheads everywhere."

The job became full-time for Wheedleton when he was laid off his his job shortly after starting to make the Bobblehouses. The layoff made the decision to do Bobblehouses full-time easier.

Customers of Bobblehouse Industries can choose a design or get one customized. The most popular model runs for about $130.

Wheedleton has made customized Bobblehouses for Dodgers fans, Cincinnati Reds fans, and more. His next design: a Fenway Park Bobblehouse.

I'm gonna call it the Bobblemonster," he said.

Wheedletons wife says that before the Bobblehouses, she rejected many of his product ideas. Today, she understands better.

He was showing me the Green Monster and I said, 'That's my favorite product,' and he was like, 'You say that every time.'" Cris Sgrott-Wheedleton said. "Well, I am a fan."

Wheedleton intends to find a bigger manufacturing partner so that he can focus more on custom orders.

I just love loving my job," Wheedleton said.

Staff writer Chelsea Cirruzzo contributed to this report.
MASON CITY  A man suspected of fleeing a traffic stop last month and abandoning his motorcycle in downtown Mason City has been arrested.

Troy Wiebke, 41, of Mason City, was arrested about 10 p.m. Thursday for misdemeanor eluding and a number of traffic and license-related violations from an alleged chase on Aug. 22.

The pursuit allegedly began when Wiebke pulled over for a state trooper in Mason City.

Iowa State Patrolman Ted Benda said Wiebke wasnt initially his intended target  he was trying to pull over a vehicle in front of Wiebke  but that changed when Wiebke quickly sped off on his motorcycle.

He took off at a high rate of speed, said Benda, who conducted the traffic stop. We initiated our lights and started to pursue him, and from there speeds kept climbing.(tncms-asset)03b926a6-6943-11e6-b8da-00163ec2aa77(/tncms-asset)

Wiebke drove on the city streets, county roads and a walking trail in the Mason City park system in order to elude officers, Benda said.

The State Patrol quit the pursuit in a park.

Wiebkes motorcycle was later found at Fifth Street Northwest and North Washington Avenue.

Local police and sheriffs deputies assisted with the investigation.

Wiebke was arrested without incident at his home Thursday night and booked into the Cerro Gordo County Jail for misdemeanor eluding, unsafe passing, failure to stop at a railroad crossing, failure to respond to a steady red light and driving on the wrong side of the road.

He also was arrested on misdemeanor driving-related warrants unrelated to the alleged chase.
One person was killed and two others were injured Saturday during a boat collision in Taunton, Massachusetts.

State police said the collision happened at 1:30 p.m. during the Bill Giles Memorial Regatta on Watson Pond.

Police said one boat had spun out of control while going 65 mph and caused a pileup. The second boat then collided with the first, causing the third boat to crash into the second.

Authorities said all three boaters were ejected.

Police said members of the Taunton Fire Department's Dive Team were on scene at the time of the incident and were quickly able to pull all three victims from the water.

The driver of the second boat, Mark Green, 39, of Moultonborough, New Hampshire, was pronounced dead on the scene.

The driver of the third boat, Stephen Joy, 67, of Bangor, Maine, was taken to Rhode Island Hospital where he is said to be in critical condition. The driver of the second boat, Alex Poliakoff, 72, of Richmond, Maine, was treated for minor injuries.

State and Massachusetts Environmental Police are handling the investigation but at this time, no foul play is suspected.
The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office said Saturday that an arrest has been made in the murder of a Danville woman earlier in the week.

Authorities said 51-year-old Jo-Anne Boucher was stabbed multiple times. Her body was found Monday night inside her Caramel Drive home.

The attorney general's office said Richard Moore, 37, of Danville, has been arrested in connection with Boucher's death.

According to records necn found on the New Hampshire Registration of Criminal Offenders, Moore is a registered sex offender and was previously convicted for an assault on someone under the age of 13.

Neighbors said Moore had been staying with Boucher since sometime around March but no one knew there were problems until her death.

"We knew there was a registered offender there so we thought maybe it had something to do with him and turns out that it did," said an unidentified neighbor.

The attorney general's office would not comment on the connection between Moore and Boucher.

Moore is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday on one count of second-degree murder.
With just three days until the primary in New Hampshire, Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard tells NECN it's time to clarify the facts that may be getting muddy in the political back and forth.

Chief Willard and other public safety officials sent an open letter to residents, to "set the record straight."

Willard says the letter comes after several gubernatorial candidates used inaccurate crime statistics and called his city "lost" in it's efforts to combat the heroin epidemic.

"To say a city is lost, that's hard to hear when you're literally on the front lines," Chief said in an interview Friday. "We have been working through the heroin crisis and the drug crisis for a long time, long before the political process started to play itself out."

More than 70 people have died of overdoses in the city so far this year, but for the first time in nine months, overdoses were down in the month of August.

Kristen Stoddard struggled with addiction for five years.

"I overdosed several times," she said.

Friday, the Manchester resident told NECN she's been clean for more than a year.

"I've been going to school for my GED and I wake up every morning refreshed," Stoddard said.

And regardless of what's being said, she's just glad that state and local leaders are talking about it.

"I think they need more services for people, more people out there to help," Stoddard said.

Chief Willard says the letter, like one of his recent tweets, isn't meant to impact elections - but to give people the whole truth without any political spin.

"I understand they're running for office and I understand they want to counter point one another, but it shouldn't get done at the expense of vilifying an entire community," the Chief said.

Voters seem to appreciate the honesty.

"I do like the fact that he is standing up and trying to set record straight and make sure people know what they are trying to do," said Manchester resident Ray Miclette.

The letter ended by asking the candidates to stop mis-characterizing the city's efforts.

It was signed by the Police Chief Nick Willard, Fire Chief Daniel Goonan, and AMR Regional Director Chris Stawasz.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, state officials and MBTA officials gathered in Braintree Friday to kick off the second phase of the Red Line Winter Resiliency Improvement Program.

The last 10 miles of the Red Line in Braintree and Ashmont will get upgraded beginning this weekend.

"It's mostly about the third rail, cleanup work around the stations, and a very significant amount of railroad ties," Baker explained. "Probably as much as 4,000 that will be replaced, as well as digging some new ditches."

The $30 million phase will compete the first part of the renovation. Upgrades were made on the Red Line from South Boston to Quincy last year. Renovations during the second phase will take the next nine weekends to complete.

The program is in an effort to avoid the same problems riders had to deal with two winters ago. Severe weather shut down lines and disrupted service routes for weeks.

Braintree got the worst of it. Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said the new upgrades will not only fix winter issues, but many problems altogether.

"When we're done not only we be ready for the coming winter, but the overall T equipment will be in much better shape on this part of the Red Line for a very long time," she said.

MBTA officials say buses will replace train service for the next nine weekends. Renovations are expected to be completed in December.
Police in Walpole, Massachusetts, are searching for the suspect who vandalized Walpole High School and a nearby store early Friday morning.

Authorities said a surveillance camera captured a person dressed in black at 2:45 a.m. walking through Common Street holding a can of spray paint. The person proceeded to spray graffiti on the high school and the Cumberland Farms on Washington Street.

One message read, 'Don't cancel our dances' and another was a derogatory message towards police.

Recently, Walpole High School canceled its dances due to underage drinking.

Anyone with information on who might be behind the graffiti is asked to contact Walpole Police at 508-668-1212.
Police are asking for the public's help in locating the man they say robbed a bank Saturday morning in Canton, Massachusetts.

Authorities said the man entered the Bank of Canton on Washington Street at 11:50 a.m. and handed the teller a note. No weapon was shown.

The man then fled the bank in an unknown direction.

The suspect is about 6 feet tall with a small amount of facial hair. He was wearing a grey long sleeve T-shirt, black sweat pants with a red stripe on top and three white stripes on the bottom and a Bruins hat.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Canton Police at 781-828-1212.
The tree trunks on the town common in Royalston, Massachusetts, are now bare. The blue ribbons that had recently dotted the landscape had to be taken down by Friday evening.

"We have no hidden agenda here," said Kimberley Watson of Massachusetts State Police Wives. "This is just to support law enforcement, that's it. They've had a horrible year."

Watson and the organization have been placing blue ribbons in communities across the state, in more than 40 cities and town so far. But they ran into roadblocks in Royalston when two local residents complained to town officials.

"They said it wasn't the consensus of everybody in town," said Linda Alger, who sits on the board of selectmen. "That with all the controversy in the world, they didn't feel it was appropriate to post blue ribbons on town property."

Alger says she's been threatened with stoning after voting to take down the ribbons. She says she supports the wives, but has to represent everyone in town, even if only two people voiced concern.

"I wanted to show the support for my local law enforcement but people have passionate feelings," said Alger.

The town told the wives to take the 60 or so ribbons down. Several local residents came to pick up the ribbons so they can display them on their own property.

"Everyone is allowed their freedom of speech, that's fine," said Royalston resident Marie Lajoie. "I just feel there's a respect that was forgotten about."

The group packed up their ribbons Friday, and they'll head for the next community on the list.

"In this day and age, two people's voices overtake and overpower an entire town," said Stephanie LeBlanc, a member of the Massachusetts State Police Wives.
A teenager was seriously injured when she was hit by a car Friday night in Ashland, Massachusetts.

The victim, an 18-year-old Milford woman, was struck while crossing Pleasant Street around 8 p.m.

A medical helicopter took the victim to a Worcester hospital.

Ashland Police say the driver remained on the scene and was cooperating with police.

Speed and alcohol are not believed to have been factors in the crash.
Editors note: The Globe Gazette asked the eight candidates in the Sept. 20 Mason City Council special election why they decided to run for the open at-large seat. Today we feature the response of Scott Peterson.

I am running for City Council because Id like to see Mason City grow both in population and as a community filled with activities. As a community, we need to work harder to create a better environment to attract more citizens.

Economic growth is important but you also need infrastructure to support that growth. Currently Mason City has a low unemployment rate with a surplus of positions throughout the community to fill.

We need to give people a reason, not only to move here, but to stay here.

Mason City has been off to a good start but needs to continue on the path. I will bring new ideas and ways of thinking to the City Council to help build a better Mason City.
MASON CITY | Trinity Lutheran Church will host Wellness Wednesday on Sept. 14.

The event is part of Wednesday Night Alive at the church.

The evening begins with a meal from 5:15 to 6 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall. A free will offering will be accepted for the meal.

From 6 to 7 p.m. the focus will be on prayer, with opportunities to try different ways of connecting with God in three 20-minute sessions.

Pastor Dan Gerrietts will lead a session on the Faith5, which is a simple way to connect home, life, and faith through conversation and prayer.

Pastor Tom Dettmer will share ways to use hymns as a form of prayer. Pastor Kathy Graves will facilitate a session on meditative prayer using finger labyrinths and more.

This will be a multi-generational experience for adults and children of all ages.

A nursery will be available.

Wellness Wednesday events are open to the community.

Trinity is located at 213 N. Pennsylvania Ave.
NEW YORK, Sept. 09, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Goldcorp Inc. (Goldcorp or the Company) (NYSE:GG) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Central District of California, and docketed under 16-cv-06436, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Goldcorp securities between March 31, 2014 and August 24, 2016 both dates inclusive (the Class Period). This class action seeks to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act).



If you are a shareholder who purchased Goldcorp securities during the Class Period, you have until October 24, 2016 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Goldcorp engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of precious metal properties in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America. The Company primarily explores for gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) levels of the mineral selenium rose in one groundwater monitoring well near the Penasquito Mine as early as October 2013; (2) in October 2014, Goldcorp reported a rise in selenium levels in groundwater to the Mexican government after the contamination near the Penasquito Mine waste facility intensified; (3) in August 2016, Goldcorp told Mexican regulators that contaminated water had also been found in other areas near the Penasquito Mine; and (4) as a result, Goldcorp's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On August 24, 2016, Reuters reported that Mexican regulators are investigating whether Goldcorp broke any regulations in its handling of a contaminated water leak at Mexicos biggest goldmine, previously undisclosed to the investing public by the Company.

On this news, Goldcorp stock fell $1.64, or 9.27%, to close at $16.05 on August 24, 2016.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com
NEW YORK, Sept. 09, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Quorum Health Corporation (Quorum or the Company) (NYSE:QHC) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Middle District of Tennessee, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons other than Defendants who purchased or otherwise acquired Quorum securities: (1) pursuant and/or traceable to Quorums false and misleading Registration Statement issued in connection with the Companys spinoff from Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS) effective on or about April 29, 2016; and/or (2) on the open market between May 2, 2016 and August 10, 2016, both dates inclusive, seeking to recover compensable damages caused by Defendants violations of the Securities Act of 1933 (the Securities Act) and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act).



If you are a shareholder who purchased Quorum securities during the Class Period, you have until November 8, 2016 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Quorum is an independent operator and manager of general acute-care hospitals and outpatient services in the United States, with facilities in 16 states. Quorum was spun off from CHS effective April 29, 2016. Under the terms of the spin-off, CHS stockholders who held CHS common stock as of April 22, 2016, the record date, received a distribution of one share of Quorum common stock for every four shares of CHS common stock, plus cash in lieu of any fractional shares. CHSs stockholders owned all of the outstanding common stock of Quorum upon completion of the spinoff.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) a number of Quorums hospitals were underperforming at the time of the spin-off from CHS; (ii) various other indicators of impairment existed at the time of Quorums spin-off from CHS; (iii) Quorum disregarded and/or failed to advise investors of the foregoing issues; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, Quorums public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On August 10, 2016, Quorum issued a press release and filed a Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q with the SEC announcing the Companys financial and operating results for the three months ended June 30, 2016 (the Q2 2016 10-Q). In the press release and Q2 2016 10-Q, Quorum reported a substantial net loss and an operating loss for the quarter. Defendants blamed the large operating loss on the $250.4 million in impairment charges Quorum had taken in the quarter, including $45.4 million to reduce certain long-lived asset values in property, equipment and software; $5 million in goodwill based on managements decision to divest certain hospitals; and $200 million related to the carryover allocation of goodwill at the time of the spin-off from CHS.

On this news, Quorums share price fell $4.99, or 49.8%, to close at $5.03 on August 11, 2016.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com
MONTREAL, Sept. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Haivision, a market leader in enterprise video and streaming solutions, and Sales Cube, a specialist in professional and innovative video transmission systems for media and broadcast productions, today announced that they powered the first 4K 360-degree VR live stream for Deutsche Telekom's Street Gigs Red Hot Chili Peppers' concert.



Filmed live on Tuesday this week in Berlin, the virtual reality online streaming experience was fueled by Haivision's KB 4K HEVC/H.264 encoder  an essential part of the live video workflow  streaming the Nokia OZO Professional Virtual Reality camera feed to more than 675,000 viewers on YouTube Live.



"In a high-profile live event like the 360 live stream for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you really need to know that you're working with most reliable systems that will not fail when your stream goes live," said Tobias Vees, CEO of Sales Cube. "Haivision's KB 4K encoder fueled the highest quality streams and supported a spectacular 4K viewing experience."



"It's rewarding to be involved in innovative projects like this," said Peter Maag, chief marketing officer, Haivision. "Our 4K encoder is our highest performance appliance in our KB series, providing broadcasters with flexible and reliable options for live event streaming, and helping deliver the highest quality live video to global Internet audiences, regardless of device."



To learn more about Haivision video solutions, visit Haivision (stand 14.L16) at IBC 2016.



About the KB Encoder/Transcoder Series



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Gegeyan wrote:

AdityaHongunti wrote: A United States manufacturer of farm equipment reported a 1988 third-quarter net income of $32 million, compared with $25.5 million in the third quarter of 1987. This increase was realized despite a drop in United States retail sales of farm equipment toward the end of the third quarter of 1988 as a result of a drought.



(B) In the third quarter of 1988, the manufacturer paid no wages during a six-week strike, but stocks on hand were adequate to supply dealers.



GMATNinja

b]mikemcgarry[/b]

chetan2u

sayantanc2k



the difference between 2 incomes is around 6 million . which is a HUGE amount.

and ption B says wages werent paid for 6 weeks . SO are we supposed to say that the wages which werent paid for 6 weeks made up for 6 million? i mean are we supposed to accept such huge leaps?? 6 weeks of wages make up for 6 million???? though i understand that other profits may also be there. But shoudl we be satisfied with just one source of profit?



That's the exactly what I thought, so I ruled out B.

Help, please? That's the exactly what I thought, so I ruled out B.Help, please?

Skywalker18 wrote:

Income = Revenue - Expenses

The sales decreased towards the end of the third quarter, but income increased

Quote:

In the third quarter of 1988, the manufacturer paid no wages during a six-week strike, but stocks on hand were adequate to supply dealers.

Income = Revenue - Expenses. We're trying to explain how income could go up.

Revenue for this company presumably went down by some amount, but we don't know by how much.

went down by some amount, but we don't know by how much. Expenses definitely went down because the company paid no wages for six weeks. We don't know how big the savings were, but knowing that absolutely $0 were paid out to workers for half of the quarter is not trivial. And even if we don't have a specific figure here, knowing that a core expense of manufacturing disappeared for half the quarter goes a long way towards explaining the logical paradox. Bottom line: A key expense went down.

went down because the company paid wages for six weeks. We don't know how big the savings were, but knowing that absolutely $0 were paid out to workers for half of the quarter is not trivial. And even if we don't have a specific figure here, knowing that a core expense of manufacturing disappeared for half the quarter goes a long way towards explaining the logical paradox. Bottom line: A key expense went down. Because stocks on on hand during the strike were adequate to supply dealers, we also know that the company did not incur additional expenses specifically to make up for the lack of labor during this time.
Cranston East no match for Portsmouth

With their 36-6 victory on Friday night, the Patriots clinched the top seed in their half of Division II.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low near 45F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low near 45F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.
Estimados amigos,

Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia.

Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro.

Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras.

There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

No soy alguien que sabe, sino alguien que busca.

Only Gold is money. Everything else is debt.

Las grandes almas tienen voluntades; las debiles tan solo deseos.

Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
A study led by Loyola Medicine researchers found that female triathletes are at higher risk for pelvic floor disorders, among other health issues.

The study, published in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, found that female triathletes suffered from a high rate of stress urinary and anal incontinence.

"We expected the high rates of urinary incontinence, but did not expect to find such high rates of anal incontinence," said senior author, Colleen Fitzgerald, MD, MS. Dr. Fitzgerald is the medical director of the Chronic Pelvic Pain program and an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

"These findings generate a new question as to address the mechanism of injury for why this is occurring, whether it is metabolic or digestive, or due to prolonged impact on the pelvic floor from biking or other unexplained causes," Dr. Fitzgerald said.

Researchers conducted an internet survey of 311 self-identified female triathletes. Results showed a significant prevalence of pelvic floor disorders, with urinary incontinences (37.4 percent) and anal incontinence (28.0 percent) being the most common.

Urgency urinary incontinence (16.0 percent) and pelvic organ prolapse (5.0 percent) were less common. Pelvic girdle pain was noted in 18 percent of these triathletes, but was not indicated as disabling or preventing exercise.

Nearly a quarter of respondents also screened positive for at least one arm of the female athlete triad, a condition characterized by decreased energy, menstrual irregularities and abnormal bone density from excessive exercise and inadequate nutrition.

Loyola researchers conducted a similar study on female athletes in 2014, focusing on runners. In that study, researchers found a similarly high percentage of women complained of urinary incontinence symptoms. The goal of this study was to expand on previous results, incorporating the low impact sport of swimming.

Along with Fitzgerald, co-authors on the study were Johnny Yi, MD, FACOG, then a urogynecology fellow at Loyola and now with Mayo Clinic Arizona, Sandi Tenfelde, PhD, RN, APN, Dina Tell, PhD, and Cynthia Brincat, MD, PhD, FACOG.

"Our goal of this study was not to deter triathletes from participating in their training," Dr. Fitzgerald said. "Exercise in all forms can be healthy and should be encouraged. However, we would recommend that if women are bothered by these symptoms, they should seek medical care from a urogynecologist or female pelvic reconstructive surgery specialist."
Many states are talking about its success, some like Madhya Pradesh are even set to launch one on similar lines. But Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's popular Amma Canteens scheme has been questioned by the the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the way it is run.



The CAG report, tabled in the state Assembly, focuses on administrative and financial lapses including the purchase of chappati-making machines.



The audit carried out between Feb 2015 and June 2015 says that though 15 chapathi-making machines were purchased to make four lakh rotis every day, nine of them were still unutilised due to repair costing an additional expenditure of 1.33 crores.



Even as the CAG report lauds the scheme which provides the cheapest, hygienic and nutritious food for Rs 5 to Rs 10, it also finds major lapses in the implementation and running.



The CAG report said there was a lack of adequate planning and that no survey was conducted to identify beneficiaries in each area of the city - including daily wage labourers - before setting up Amma Canteens. The scheme initially was targeted at the poor but its used by all people, resulting in extra financial burden to scheme-implementing units.



Canteens were set up in existing buildings of Municipal Corporation area without asking for additional funds from the government.



The state government has replied that a survey was conducted and the areas were chosen based on the survey; but the CAG report says the reply is not acceptable as no evidence was submitted.



Secondly, the CAG objected to setting up of canteens without assessing manpower requirement. Amma Canteens till date are managed by existing staff from health, engineering and revenue but as this affected work in these departments, the Municipal Corporation sent a proposal to the state government to form a separate department comprising 111 employees.



Criticising the financial management, the report underlined that the expenditure on Amma Canteens in 2014-2015 crossed Rs.100 crore in Chennai, causing the city corporation's deficit from going up from Rs 303.1 crore to Rs 471 crore that year.



It also pointed out that the state government did not issue guidelines or instructions on financial transactions such as purchase and sales in Amma Canteens. It also found that, due to lack of uniform procedure, municipal corporations adopted varying methods in recording financial transactions of the canteens.



The DMK immediately hit out at the government, with party leader TKS Elangovan saying, "Mismanagement of Amma Canteens has been happening over the last six years. Every CAG report had indicated this, but the state government does not care. There should be a thorough investigation and the culprits should be booked. "



Political observers however say the government auditor should focus on other things than on a scheme that has benefited so many people. "You can point out discrepancies but its early days. For instance, chappati machines not working, procurement not being uniform - all can be rectified.



I'd say the CAG can look at other issues like infrastructure projects. Amma Canteen scheme is doing well and as days go by, an accounting system will be in place, says Radhakrishnan, a political analyst.


Devotees carry an idol of Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, for immersion into the Arabian Sea on the last day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India, September 27, 2015. Ganesh idols are taken through the streets in a procession. REUTERS (Representative Image)

Mumbai: Coast Guard is undertaking Operation Utsav to provide seaward security and safety cover to people during Ganesh Visarjan days.



The cover was in force during visarjan days on September 6 and 9 and will be in force tomorrow and September 15-16.



Coast Guard Regional Headquarters (West), Worli is deploying Fast Patrol Vessel, Interceptor Boat, Hovercraft and Helicopter on random patrol off Mumbai coast.



This is for being extra vigilant and provide surveillance against seaward threats and assisting civil authorities during Ganpati Visarjan, a CG official said.



The operation forms part of Coast Guard efforts towards realizing its motto of 'We protect' at Sea, the official said in a statement.






Srinagar: Suspected militants attacked a CRPF camp in south Kashmir's Pulwama district late last night but there was no casualty or damage.



A group of militants fired at a CRPF camp in Tahab area of Pulwama late last night, a police official said on Saturday.



He said the CRPF personnel retaliated, forcing the militants to flee.



There was no casualty on either side, the official said.



This is the second such attack on the security forces in the district in the last four days.



Militants had fired a few rounds towards police station Pulwama on the night of September 7 but there was also no damage.
Jammu: Justifying the security extended to separatist leaders of Kashmir Valley, Union minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said they faced threat from Pakistan which might attack them to blame it on India.



Singh said the Kashmir unrest was first such turmoil in the world in which number of the civilians injured are more or less equal to those in security forces and policemen. It clearly shows how much restraint the security personnel exercised.



He said as soon as the situation improves, there is a need to engage with the youth of the state.



"We keep blaming Mehbooba (Mufti, Chief Minister), but miss the sight of those forces engaged in it. Pakistan and separatists are threat," he said at a function organised by Sanjeevni Sharda Kendra.



"Pakistan is not only threat to us but also to separatists as well. Separatists have no threat from us (India) but from Pakistan," he said.



Justifying their security given by the government, Union Minister said "why security has been given to them, because Pakistan backed people will kill them blame us (India)".



"What has happened to Moulvi Farooq... what has happened to Abdul Gani Lone... They have fear and threat from their own people," Singh said.



The Union Minister further said that Pakistan has a threat from Pakistan itself. "See what is happening in Peshswar...What is happening in Balochistan."



"Pakistani is trying to engineer terrorism selectively. These forces who have upped its ante fear from their own people. We have to prepare ourselves," he said.



On the situation in Kashmir, he said, "We will have to move forward on three basic ideologies (sidhant). First, there will be no compromise with violence whatever may be the aim of violence, violence is a violence and we have to put an end to circle of violence and it has no place in the society and all political parties agree to it."



"Second, as the situation will improve there is a need to engage with the youth of the state and the beginning of chain of several schemes by the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for last two years. The youth of the country are taking benefit of these and we do not want that the youth of Jammu and Kashmir are deprived of it. The youth of Kashmir valley also wants to become stakeholder of the journey of development but due to some reasons they are not fully coming forward," he said.



"And third, there should be no premium on anti-India activism. It should not look that if someone raises anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans, I will get glorification", he said.
New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that the Pathankot attack probe report will be made public.



The decision came after members of the opposition accused Sharif of misleading the Senate by deliberately concealing information from them on Pathankot attack probe.



Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar on Friday alleged that the government was patronising militants and questioned, "Why Pakistan government did not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House?"







On January 2, 2016, six terrorists, believed to be from Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed attacked the Pathankot IAF airbase and held security forces in an encounter for four days before being killed.






The Prime Minister said, "Only one nation in South Asia is responsible for the export of terror. This use of terror as an instrument of policy has reduced the space for peace and dialogue."



Pakistans iron brother China would not even entertain such a resolution if it came before the Security Council. So then why is Modi going hammer and tongs at Pakistan?

The Afghan NSA has even accused the Pakistanis of "lying and betrayal". In Bangladesh, immediately after the Dhaka cafe attack in early July, the countrys information minister pointed fingers at the ISI helping the Jamaat E Islami through home-grown terrorists as being behind the attack.

This letter, if authentic, completely flies in the face of Pakistani claims that AQ Khan was acting like a rogue agent and selling nuclear secrets to Libya, Iraq and North Korea.

On Friday, all countries including India, expressed shock at North Koreas latest nuclear test. Even China, which at one point was thought to be the country with the most leverage on Pyongyang was shocked at the news of the nuclear test.



The government of India has unveiled a definitive change in tactic over the last few weeks in its Pakistan policy.It was revealed first in Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's letter to his Pakistani counterpart in the last week of August where India said it was willing to discuss all terror that emanates from Pakistan - not just the terror that targets India but also the terror that targets other countries in South Asia, most notably, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.It was better articulated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the course of the last week, first at the G20 and later at the East Asia summit.Then he followed that up with a position India hasnt taken in many years unless we were at war or in situations of extreme diplomatic strife. The PM said, "the time has come for the international community to isolate such exporters and sanction such instigators of terror."Make no mistake, the international community is in no mood to sanction Pakistan just yet. US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said twice in two days that America "wasnt even contemplating" such a move.The attempt is to create a narrative that India is not the sole victim of Pakistan-sponsored terror. The Afghans have repeatedly pointed to the safe havens given to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network inside Pakistan.Most recently, after the American University attack in late August, the very next day Afghan President Ashraf Ghani spoke to the Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif saying very clearly that Pakistan needs to stop providing support to the Haqqanis.All of this is only helping bolster Indias case that the source of all terror in South Asia is one, the deep state of Pakistan.And now here's the latest story that will help India build its case in mission Isolate Pakistan. The Washington Post on Thursday published a letter which was given to it by the scholar Simon Henderson who says it was given to him by the Father of Pakistans nuclear programme Abdul Qadeer Khan back in 2007.The letter is purported to have been written by Jeon Byung Ho, just a month after Pakistans first nuclear test in May 1998. In the letter Jeon, who at that time was the head of North Koreas nuclear programme, claims his country had paid upto 3 million dollars to the then Pakistan Army Chief Jehangir Karamat to put "agreed documents and nuclear components" on a plane that was returning to Pyongyang after delivering missile parts to Pakistan.This letter shows how no less than the army chief at that time knew about this nuclear black market trade that was going on in his country. The letter was reportedly provided to Simon Henderson in 2007 by AQ Khan. Henderson feels Khan kept these letters as "some kind of insurance policy" if he were hung out to dry by the Pakistani military establishment.The release of the letter couldnt have come at a worse time for Pakistan. Already feeling the heat from Modis strategy to highlight human rights violations in Balochistan and POK, now the worlds gaze will be on Islamabad and its dark record in nuclear proliferation.When the world is increasingly concerned about North Koreas nuclear capabilities, to know that some part of its programme was actively sourced from Pakistan only deepens mistrust and suspicion towards Islamabad.Nawaz Sharif's 22 envoys will have some tough questions to answer as they criss-cross global capitals hoping to rally support for the Kashmir cause. As Hillary Clinton famously said, "when you breed snakes in your backyard, someday they will come back to bite you." From the example of Pyongyang it is clear that Pakistan bred snakes well beyond its backyard.
Mumbai: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, facing the allegation of 'radicalising' youths, on Saturday asked the government what exactly has he done to get the tag of "Dr Terror" and sought "logical answers" to charges leveled against him.



In a four-page "open letter" released here, Naik posed five questions to the government as to what he has done to earn the tags of "terror preacher", "Dr Terror".



"Why now? I have been preaching for 25 years not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr Terror'? Of 150 countries where I am respected, I am called a 'terrorist influencer' in my own country. What an irony!," the 50-year-old televangelist asked.



"Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigators are being asked to repeat and continue the probe. Why?" he sought to know.



On the government's action against his NGO, he asked why would the government renew IRF's FCRA registration and then cancel it? And that it seemed "illogical".



"Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA? Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media?" the letter said.



Naik, a medical doctor-turned Salafist preacher, said the entire row in the last few months have come as a "shock" to him and termed it as "murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights".



"This is not just an attack on me, it is an attack against Indian Muslims. And it is an attack against peace, democracy and justice," Naik wrote in the letter.



On allegations of forced conversion, Naik, who has been away from the country for over two months, said, "While chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement? Isn't this person the most basic proof of forced conversion?"



The founder of Peace TV, run by his Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Naik has come under the scanner of security agencies after a Bangladeshi newspaper had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka was "inspired" by his speeches.
Mumbai based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), the NGO run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik who is under the scanner for allegedly inspiring terrorists, had made Rs 50 lakh donation to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) in 2011.



Congress has confirmed the donation but claimed that it had returned the funds about 5 months back. "We returned the fund after it came to light that the NGO was involved in conversions and other activities," Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said.



Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.



The government has already banned IRF from receiving foreign funds directly and the Home Ministry has asked RBI to seek prior permission from it before releasing any money to the NGO.



The decision has been taken after a preliminary inquiry conducted by the Home Ministry found that the NGO was carrying out activities contrary to the Foreign Contribution Regulations Act (FCRA) under which it has to function.



Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions.



He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia. He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects.



(With PTI inputs)








New Delhi: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused "vested interests" within the UPA government of "protecting" Naik as he showed a purported reply by then I&B Minister Manish Tewari in the Lok Sabha in 2012 where he had named Naik's Peace TV as among 24 illegal foreign channels whose contents were not conducive to India's security environment.



He asked why the Congress did not return the donation given to it in 2011 when its own government had expressed security concern with regard to Naik's TV channel.



Rejecting the BJP's charges, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, "The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has not taken any funds. Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust did receive unsolicited funds, but when it came to know it was associated with a wrongful NGO, the money was returned."



But Prasad raised doubts over Congress' claim that the money was returned a few months ago, saying the NGO has denied having received the money.



At a press conference, Prasad also quoted from the then Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan's letter to Tewari in February 2013 in which he termed Naik as a "renowned Islamic scholar" and sought the government's protection for him from campaigns run by a regional channel and a Hindu group.



"Those lobbying for him were at high positions in Congress. Why should not this apprehension be raised that this Rs 50 lakh was a bribe to powers that be to shelter its illegal, anti-national activities," he said.



He noted that besides Sonia Gandhi as RGF's chairperson, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were among its members.
Donald Trump made a move that will either go down as sheer genius or utter idiocy.



Trumps problem is that he is continually behind Hillary Clinton in the polls by about five points. He is also substantially behind her in the electoral college. This has been roughly the situation since the Democratic Convention, although there has been a small move toward Trump in the national polls, but almost none in the electoral college. He has a substantial base of voters , about 40 percent, and he must move about 6 to 7 percent to win the popular vote and eke out the electoral. That should not be impossible. But Trump has little room to grow. The number who say they have negative views of him are most of the rest of the electorate. Clinton is also disliked intensely, but her negative numbers, while substantial, are less than his. If this were election day, he would lose. He has to find a strategy that would allow him to roll back his negatives somewhat and win over a few of those who are voting for Clinton only because she isnt Trump. His problem is that what he did in order to win the Republican nomination was what created these negative feelings. To make inroads there, he had to do two things. First, he had to alleviate the sentiment that he was unable to serve as president because of profound character flaws. Second, he opened his campaign by attacking Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslims, as well as free trade and the U.S. alliance system . He wound up in a position where he either reduced the negatives or gave up the election. Clinton reportedly already started choosing her Cabinet. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto threw Trump a lifeline, which was extraordinary, given the things Trump said about Mexico . Nieto invited Trump and Clinton to meet with him in Mexico. Now, for Clinton this didnt mean much. She hasnt got a Mexico problem. For Trump it offered a possibility to go into hostile territory, demonstrating self-control and shifting stance a bit. If he failed, he was in no worse condition than before  losing. If he succeeded in winning over voters he could change the race. As I said, Clinton didnt play in this game, so the question is why Nieto offered Trump this chance. Nieto cant run again, his own favorability ratings are in the 20 percent range, and he knew inviting Trump would create a collective rage attack in Mexico. Given that his own numbers can only rise, and he is barred from running for re-election, the answer might actually be statesmanship. If Clinton wins, Mexicos relations with the United States stay the same. If Trump wins, relations can turn disastrous. Mexico needs the U.S. far more than the U.S. needs Mexico. By reaching out to Trump, he might be able to soften Trumps positions and create a personal relationship, based on the assumption that Trump isnt actually committed to the things he says. This would infuriate Clinton, but Nieto calculated that it didnt matter, as she was locked into her position on Mexico. Trump jumped at the chance. First, he got to stand side by side with the president of Mexico and show that he could speak coherently. This was a double win. Second, it gave him a chance to refine  or moderate, depending on your point of view  his position.

Trump Goes to Mexico
New Delhi: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), backed by the ruling BJP, has won three out of four posts of the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) on Saturday.



Congress' NSUI made a comeback by winning the Joint Secretary's post. Last year, ABVP won all the top four posts.



Amit Tanwar is the new President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) while ABVP's Priyanaka and Ankit Singh have been elected as Vice President and Secretary respectively, according to the Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, D S Rawat.



NSUI candidate Mohit Garid won the Joint Secretary's seat, preventing a hat-trick by ABVP which had bagged all the four seats in the DUSU polls last year as well as in 2014.



AAP's Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, which was defeated last year in its debut, did not contest the polls this year.



A significant number of 17,712 NOTA votes which were introduced for the first time in DUSU polls, were also exercised by the students.



In the keenly contested President's post, Amit Tanwar got 16,357 votes defeating NSUI candidate Nikhil Yadav by a margin of 4,680 votes, Rawat said.



Priyanka, who is the lone girl in the elected panel, obtained 15,592 votes. She defeated her closest rival by a margin of 2,455 votes votes.



Ankit Singh Sangwan, who won the Secretary's post got 15,518 votes. He won by a margin of 1,383 votes.



NSUI's winning candidate Mohit Garid garnered the maximum votes in the elected panel at 16,526 votes, winning the seat by a margin of 2466 votes.



The DUSU polls were held yesterday in two phases for electing representatives from 17 candidates of ABVP, AISA and NSUI.



While seven candidates were in the race for the post of President, 4 nominations were validated for the post of Vice-President



Over 36 per cent out of a total of 1,23,246 voters had cast their votes at 117 booths in 51 colleges.







Celebrations broke out with supporters of the winning candidates dancing to the drumbeats and distributing sweets outside the counting centre.



The winners were garlanded and processions were taken out by ABVP supporters who paid tributes at Swami Vivekanand's statue in the Arts Faculty of the university.



The elections also took place in 44 other colleges where Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) won the five-member panels in 33 colleges while the BJP's student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parsihad (ABVP) emerged victorious in 11 colleges.



(With PTI inputs)




We all know I was framed. But it was Court who jailed me, Court has released me: Mohammad Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/KqWBM8pUvu  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

#FLASH Mohammad Shahabuddin released from jail after 11 years in Rajiv Raushan murder case. pic.twitter.com/gDXKk2UKgL  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

Bihar's don-politician Mohammed Shahabuddin who was released on bail on Saturday after 11 years in jail told CNN-News18 that Nitish Kumar may be the chief minister but his leader will always be Lalu Prasad Yadav.Asserting that he is loyal only to Lalu, the dreaded don also made a few observations about the generational changes that have taken place in his party RJD since he was sent to jail on a battery of charges including multiple murders.Asked about Bihar deputy CM and Lalu's son Tejaswi, Shahabuddin had this to say "People may accept Tejaswi as a leader, but for me he is a kidHis father is my leader."Shahabuddin, who lorded over Siwan for decades, was sent to jail in 2005 after Nitish Kumar came to power. If his arrest was then hailed as an example of law being finally allowed to take its own course, Nitish's political opponents point to his release now as an example of the "return of jungle raj" to the state.Shahabuddin who represented Siwan in Lok Sabha for four times as an RJD candidate was granted bail by the Patna High Court in the Rajiv Raushan murder case. Rajiv Raushan was shot dead in Siwan in June 2014 when Shahabuddin was still in jail.Among the other high profile cases where the former MP is an accused is the murder of former JNU chairman Chandrashekhar Prasad.Walking out of jail on Saturday, Shahabuddin dismissed the allegations. "Even when I was inside jail, there were murders happening. Why blame me for all those," he said.
BJP's election preparations in the hill state of Uttarakhand have hit an impediment of its own making. In assessments done by both the BJP and RSS, former CM Maj Gen BC Khanduri continues to ride high on his incorruptible image to emerge as a credible face to take on Harish Rawat.



But the octogenarian MP from Pauri is well past the 75-year lakshman rekha set by the party; and his nomination may upset a well established norm which has been used to send many a politician to retirement.



The age rule now firmly in place in the current dispensation in the BJP had been used on many occasions in the last two years to superannuate many leaders to ceremonial posts or oblivion - as the case may be. While veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have been shunted to a defunct Marg Darshak Mandal, Anandiben Patel and Najma Heptullah had to relinquish office recently for having crossed the 75-year threshold.



Kalraj Mishra has been the only exception, who seems to have survived in the union council as the party did not want to disrupt the applecart in poll-bound UP.



Coming back to Uttarakhand, it is not that the BJP does not have a senior leader to don the mantle. The problem, ironically is quite the opposite. There is infact a glut of CM candidates and aspirants in the party.



Three former CMs - and all three are currently MPs - Khanduri, Bhagat Singh Koshiari and Ramesh Pokharial Nishank are natural claimants. Among the recent entrants into the saffron fold, VIjay Bahuguna (again a former CM), Harak Singh Rawat and Satlap Maharaj have been nursing their own ambitions for long.



The aspiring lot also includes Jharkhand in-charge Trivendra Singh Rawat, state president Ajay Bhatt and national spokesperson Anil Baluni are considered strong contenders in the second line of leadership. Baluni, sources say, is also planning to move closer to the capital and shift base to an assembly segment in capital Dehradun.



That takes the total count of CM candidates to nine. Nine in an assembly of 70.



As it prepares to take on the Congress in a direct fight, dilemma thus before the BJP is that of plenty. But of all these options, the choice has narrowed down to just a few. Willy-nilly, Khanduri with a high probity quotient is again emerging as a strong contender.



But, and it's an important but, for the ground rules set by the party on retirement age, he was almost through.



"He still has strong credentials to take on Harish Rawat on the issue of corruption"; admitted a party leader from the state.



The other strong contender in the race remains 74-year-old former CM Bhagat Singh Koshiari. Despite 27 out of 32 standing by him after 2007 elections, Khanduri pipped the Kumaun heavyweight to the top post with both Vajpayee and Advani backing his candidature.



Of late, the Nainital MP has been sulking for being overlooked in the recent cabinet rejig. He's skipped a few core group meetings called to discuss the party strategy for Uttarakhand elections. Koshiari who is currently the vice-chairman of the government-nominated seven-member Eminent Persons Group on Nepal recently expressed his disappointment with the state of affairs.



"Na Nai Dilli Na Nainital, ab to Nepal"; he observed speaking to his close aide recently. (Neither New Delhi nor Nainital, let's focus of Nepal).



For the BJP thus, it's a tough choice to make. One of options being considered to wriggle out of the impasse is to announce a campaign committee headed by Khanduri.



Depending on the election outcome, the field would be wide open for claimants to indulge in another round of politicking for the top post.








Dhaka: At least 15 people were killed and 70 others sustained burn injuries on Friday in a massive fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a packaging factory in Bangladesh's industrial area, just north of the capital Dhaka.



The fire broke out due to boiler explosion at the four-storey Tempako Packaging Factory around 6:15 AM in Bisic industrial area of Tongi, said Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence Deputy Assistant Director Akhtaruzzaman.



Fifteen people have been killed and 70 others injured, many of them critically, said doctors at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital.



Ten of the injured are struggling for life with critical burn wounds, they said.



"The bodies of 10 people were kept in the hospital," Md Parvez Mia, a residential doctor of 50-bed Tongi Government Hospital, was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune.



A part of the building collapsed as the rage of the blaze spread despite frantic efforts of the fire fighters. Twenty units of firefighters were trying to douse the fire.



The factory produced and printed the plastic packaging for food items like potato chips and small household goods including mosquito coils.










Former Gov. Bob McDonnell still owes more than $10 million to the lawyers who worked to overturn his conviction.

A day after federal prosecutors moved to drop their case against the former governor and first lady, McDonnells sister Maureen C. McDonnell said at a news conference in Virginia Beach that the bills have accumulated, according to The Associated Press.

On Thursday evening, the former governor thanked his legal team, headed by three partners at prominent Washington law firms: Hank Asbill and Noel J. Francisco of Jones Day and John L. Brownlee of Holland & Knight.

The Restoration Fund, which McDonnell supporters started to help him pay for his legal defense, took in $578,335 in contributions between July 1, 2013, and June 30 of this year, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics.

McDonnell and his wife, also named Maureen McDonnell, were convicted in September 2014 of corruption charges stemming from their acceptance of more than $177,000 in gifts and loans from Jonnie R. Williams Sr., then-CEO of Star Scientific, in exchange for promoting the companys dietary supplement, Anatabloc.

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Bob McDonnells convictions in June, unanimously ruling that the trial court judge had given jurors too broad a definition of what constitutes an official act under federal bribery law.

The Restoration Fund has made a number of appeals for donations throughout the former governors legal case.

In February 2014, it said in an email that the trial alone will cost approximately $500K for legal fees, housing, experts, transcripts etc. It said it needed to make sure that the legal team has the resources to prepare and defend Bob at trial.

In October 2014, after the McDonnells convictions, the Restoration Fund said that the cost of their defense was in the millions.

In February 2016 it said that it had set a $1 million goal to fund the critical briefs and arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court this April.

As of June 30, the Restoration Fund had $35,675 in cash on hand, according to VPAP.

To date, the Restoration Funds top donors are Richard Baxter Gilliam, founder of Abingdon-based coal company Cumberland Resources, who gave $50,000; Washington Redskins part-owner Dwight C. Schar, founder of homebuilder NVR Homes, who donated $25,000; and Fred Malek, a former president of Marriott Hotels and Northwest Airlines who served as an aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, who has donated $20,000.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, donated $10,000 to the fund in March 2014.

Del. Jason S. Miyares, R-Virginia Beach, a longtime supporter of Bob McDonnell, attended the news conference Friday in Virginia Beach.

I dont think anybody is celebrating, he said in a telephone interview.

This has been an emotionally draining couple of years, he said, adding that it is exorbitantly expensive to mount a defense against the federal government in such a case.

The McDonnells 5,099-square-foot home in the Wyndham section of western Henrico County went on the market in March 2015 at a list price of $944,000. It was under contract two days later.

Bob McDonnell has been living in Hampton Roads, and Maureen McDonnells lawyers say she plans to live in that area as well.

Also Friday, Bob McDonnell did a television interview with NBCs MTP Daily.

Among other things, the former governor said he probably shouldnt have taken some of those gifts from Williams, but asserted that the gifts were fully legal, fully reported.

The gifts were legal under Virginia law at the time, but McDonnell did not disclose many of the gifts from Williams.

State law required McDonnell to disclose gifts or entertainment valued in excess of $50 from any business or individual other than a relative or a close personal friend.

McDonnell left many of Williams gifts off his Statements of Economic Interests. He later said he had considered Williams a close personal friend.
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Help TT to heal, move on

And this fear, she said, is crippling the forward movement of society.

Maharaj made these statements during her feature address at the launch of the Rio Claro Heritage Festival last Wednesday. Describing TT as a near psychiatric ward, Maharaj said that close examination of history could help the nation heal.

For our healing, I can see no other way than for us to go back and sort out. We as a society have to go back to those points of trauma that we have experienced and untangle them, make sense of them, then move forward. That is what is blocking us from moving into the future, she added.

As an example, Maharaj pointed to the horrific living conditions of labourers before the 1937 riots and the birth of the trade union movement.

Applauding the Rio Claro Heritage Festival Committee (RHFC) for taking up the mantle of investigating history in their area, Maharaj encouraged residents to be active participants in the process.

This is an initiative designed to unlock everything that is in you as an individual; to release you and to validate who you are and what you bring to the rest of the community and the country, she told the audience adding that it is the people filled with passion who are not aspiring to any office that make the history of this country. The month-long festival includes a range of activities such as a book fair, film festival and youth symposium. The Rio Claro Heritage Festival is a continuation of centennial celebrations held in 2014, which recognised both the 100th anniversary of the town and the arrival of the train to the community.

This years theme is: Remembering Our Heritage, Creating Our Legacy. A new addition to the festival this year is a workshop focused on indigenous medicine.

Maharaj, who is director of the Lloyd Best Institute, will be partnering with RHFC and Caribbean Campus Yard to host the workshop. That event is one of many initiatives to promote holistic education that ventures outside of the traditional classroom.

Maharaj advised RHFC to formalise its commitment to education. The heritage committee should get into a structured and organised relationship with the education system in the community. A structured relationship from the education system side is for the education system to admit that it cannot do the job of fully educating people in the community. The involvement of organisations such as the RHFC in educational outreach is important due to the failure of the present system to be holistic, she added.

It (the education system) is teaching people to read and write and use formulas and get your certificate, but in terms of educating the entire person that is just one strand of the education that we all need to function as full citizens. Involving schoolchildren in historical research, she said, could be inspirational. They might become different people when they understand the legacy that they inherit. Other speakers at the launch included Susan Corbett, Director of Community Development Ministry of Community Development, Culture & the Arts; Mayaro Rio Claro Regional Corporation councillor Ramkissoon Nagassar; political advisor David Law, who spoke on behalf of Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, and RHFC chairman, Ako Mutota.

For more info about the festival, contact the Rio Claro Heritage Festival Committee at 644-0849 or 466-2416. You can also like their Facebook page: Rio Claro Heritage Committee.
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A new public artwork by British artist David Shrigley popped up near an entrance to Central Park this week, and it's...a giant grocery list.

Visitors can check out "Memorial" at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at 59th Street near 5th Avenue until February 12th. The 17-foot-tall granite sculpture plays with the idea of using a civic monument to honor something as trivial as a grocery list. "Public monuments are familiar features of parks and plazas across the world and enable communities to celebrate, remember, or pay homage to great endeavors or individuals," Public Art Fund Associate Curator Emma Enderby said in a statement. "By memorializing a list in this way, the work pays homage both to no-one and to everyone its a simple ode to humanity." Plus, it's pretty cool to see the word "tampons" set in stone.

Shrigley, who is based in Brighton in the U.K., has two more installations going up this month. A giant "thumbs-up" sculpture called "Really Good" will go up in Trafalgar Square in London at the end of September, and a new participatory exhibition at the Rose Art Museum, at Brandeis University will open as well.
(Newser)  Chronic fatigue syndrome is a debilitating but still mysterious ailment often marked by long-term fatigue, pain, and memory loss. But symptoms of CFS, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, vary considerably and no cause has been determined or diagnostic test developedleading to the widespread notion that patients are dealing with a mental, rather than physical, illness, notes Pacific Standard. Now a study out of the University of California at San Diego published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences could change that in a big way. As the Washington Post explains, the research suggests that the bodies of those with CFS have gone into a hibernation of sorts. And while hibernation can be of great benefit to creatures in the wild, it has awful effects in humans.

The scientists found that those with the syndrome have lower levels of metabolites, defined by PS as "the waste products of chemical reactions inside cells." The resulting "metabolic signature" was strikingly similar to animals in hibernation mode, suggesting that patients' cells went into defensive mode to ward off trouble and never quite came out of it. One professor out of Stanford is so impressed by the potential "game-changer" that he's collaborating with other scientists to try to replicate the findings in a larger study. What they found is that there may be an ancient pathway, and maybe in humans its not working very well," he tells the Post. It holds the promise of a diagnostic test and treatment in the foreseeable future. (One panel wants to change the name of CFS.)
(Newser)  Can robots be racist? It appears that way, per results from Beauty.AI, a beauty competition designed to take prejudices out of the mix by having algorithms do the judging instead of humans. But results from the competition indicate that even 'bots have biases, the Guardian reports. Forty-four winners were chosen out of about 6,000 entrants from all over the globe who uploaded pics to Youth Laboratories' site, allowing the "robot jury" to make its assessments based on supposedly objective criteria such as facial symmetry and how many wrinkles and pimples a person had, TNW.com notes. But the winners had one thing in common: They were mostly white.

The five-robot panel selected only a few Asian contestants and just one dark-skinned entrant in the women's 40-49 age category. So what gives? Alex Zhavoronkov, chief science officer for the Microsoft-supported project, says there simply weren't enough models of minorities to contribute to the attractiveness-measuring algorithmsand that lack could have been caused by deep biases the engineers didn't even realize they had. A computer science professor at Haverford College says there are ways to cut down on droid bias (keeping a closer eye on entered data, for one), and Beauty.AI says it's going to work on the issues for the next contest. (Microsoft's chatbot went berserk earlier this year.)
(Newser)  Russia and the US announced plans for a ceasefire in the five-year Syrian civil war Friday, CNN reports. Under the agreementwhich both the Syrian government and opposition groups have tentatively agreed tocalls for an end to hostilities starting at sundown on Monday. Secretary of State John Kerry says the "bedrock of the agreement" is the government's cessation of air force missions in any areas occupied by rebel groups. "That should put an end to...the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods," Kerry says. According to the AP, Kerry calls the ceasefire a possible "turning point" in the war that has killed more than 500,000 people.

The announcement came after "intensive" talks in Geneva, the BBC reports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave journalists waiting for the end of 13 hours of negotiations pizza "from the US delegation" and vodka "from the Russian delegation." The ceasefire will allow the UN to deliver humanitarian aid to hard-hit areas, including Aleppo, where nearly 700 civilians160 of them childrenhave been killed in the past 40 days. If the ceasefire lasts a week, the US and Russia will start planning joint military operations against al Qaeda and ISIS fighters in Syria. But such ceasefire agreements have failed in the past. "We think [the arrangement] has the capability of sticking, but it's dependent on people's choices," Kerry says. "It is an opportunity and not more than that." (Read more Syria stories.)
(Newser)  Talk about penny pinching: A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing about 300,000 pennies from his employer. Police in Taylor, just outside Scranton, have charged 34-year-old Robert Napolitan with burglary and related offenses. He's accused of taking a steel drum filled with $3,000 worth of pennies from Pyne Freight Lines, where he worked as a mechanic, the AP reports. A criminal complaint says he loaded the 1,600-pound drum onto a hand truck at the company building Monday and rolled it to his Jeep.

Police say the company owner used the drum like an enormous spare change jar for his pennies. The Scranton Times-Tribune reports that tracks through the dust and a trail of pennies marked Napolitan's path through the building. Police searched his Jeep and found pennies underneath the seats and floor mats. Police say he admitted to taking the drum. Napolitan was jailed in Lackawanna County in lieu of $50,000 bail, which he would need 5 million pennies to cover. (This Texas man paid a speeding ticket with 22,000 pennies.)
(Newser)  America is preparing to mark 15 years since one of the most devastating days in its history. Ahead of Sunday's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times spoke to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who oversaw civil lawsuits filed by the family members of dozens of 9/11 victims. None of the cases ever went to trial and although some families wanted to hold the airlines and others accountable and air information in public instead of reaching a settlement, the judge says he has no regrets about the outcome. In other coverage:

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama praised the country's resilience and vowed that "America will never give in to fear," the Guardian reports. "Were still the America of heroes who ran into harms way, of ordinary folks who took down the hijackers, of families who turned their pain into hope," said the president, who will deliver remarks at a Pentagon memorial service on Sunday.

NPR speaks to Vaughn Allex, a former American Airlines ticket agent who has been haunted for 15 years by the fact that he checked in two of the hijackers who arrived late for their flight at Dulles International Airport. They crashed the plane into the Pentagon and Allex says he blamed himself for the attack for many years and he has never been able to get over the guilt .

NBC News looks at New York City's only homicide on 9/11 that was unrelated to the attacks. The NYPD could only spare one officer that day to investigate the shooting death of recent Polish immigrant Henryk Siwiak. Investigators still hope to crack the case someday.

Time looks at the story behind Falling Man, one of the most haunting photos from 9/11. The man seen falling from the Twin Towers has never been identified.

The New York Daily News reports that a mattress store in Texas says it will be closed indefinitely amid the backlash from a tasteless 9/11 ad. Miracle Mattress owner Mike Bonanno says there will be "accountability actions" for those behind the ad. He says the company will make a donation to a memorial fund.

The CBC looks at the "9/11 Truth" conspiracy theories, which are still going strong 15 years after the attacks. Analysts say such movements tend to thrive in times of uncertainty.

(Read more 9/11 attacks stories.)
(Newser)  A New York state lawmaker running for re-election killed himself Friday, four days before the state's Republican primary, the Democrat and Chronicle reports. Police were called about a distraught man at an area cemetery and arrived to see Bill Nojay shoot and kill himself. He died next to his brother's grave in his family's burial plot. It's unclear what led Nojay to kill himself, but the lawmaker had recently become embroiled in a number of controversies. According to the New York Times, he was accused of embezzling $1.8 million from a legal client and was supposed to be in court on those charges Friday. And federal investigators are looking into an agricultural business Nojay started in Cambodia after he allegedly took a $1 million donation from a Cambodian dentist and had nothing to show for it. He was also being investigated for his role in a $1.3 billion deal to modernize schools, the Albany Times Union reports.

The 59-year-old father of three was first elected to the state assembly in 2012. Nojay was known for going against Democrats and Republicans alike and for his anti-gun control work. He hosted a local radio show and had been championing Donald Trump for president since 2013. He also worked on elections in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Nojay will remain on the primary ballot. If he ends up winning Tuesday, party leaders will have to nominate a replacement for the general election. Nojay's Republican challenger, Richard Milne, says he's "devastated" by the news and is "suspending all political activity until further notice." (Read more suicide stories.)
(Newser)  Donald Trump made a pretty bold claim about Hillary Clinton during a rally Friday night in Florida, NBC News reports. "She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching...and she wouldn't be prosecuted, okay?" he told the crowd. Oddly, Trump made a nearly identical claim about himself earlier this year. "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn't lose voters, okay?" the New York Daily News quotes Trump as saying at a rally in Iowa last January. At Friday's rally in Florida, Trump went on to call Clinton an "unstable person." (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
(Newser)  On the heels of major defeat comes surprising victory: Shortly after a federal judge denied a request from the Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, the federal government stepped in and did exactly that. ABC News reports the Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, and Army jointly announced a temporary injunction against construction of the oil pipeline under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. It's also asking the company behind the pipeline to voluntarily stop construction on either side of the lake, according to the Wall Street Journal. The tribe relies on the lakedirectly upstream from its reservationfor drinking water, religious practices, fishing, and more. It claimed construction would damage sacred sites and possible leaks would ruin its potable water.

The Army Corps of Engineers will now "reconsider" whether the pipeline breaks federal law, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Atlantic reports. In its announcement, the government acknowledged the thousands of people that joined in protest of the pipeline. The tribe calls the decision a "game changer." In addition, the government says tribes will be invited to take place in consultations about potential reforms to the way infrastructure projects around the country are approved. Native peoples have suffered generations of broken promises and today the federal government said that national reform is needed," the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tells the Journal, calling the government's decision "historic." (Read more Dakota Access Pipeline stories.)
(Newser)  The Los Angeles Police Department has released sketches of two men considered persons of interest in a 47-year-old murder possibly connected to the Manson family, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to People, Reet Jurvetson, 19, flew from Canada to LA in 1969 to see a man named Jean she met in a Montreal coffee shop. Weeks later, she was deadstabbed 150 times. Jurvetson's body was found on Mulholland Drive, near where Sharon Tate and four others had been stabbed to death by the Manson family a few months earlier. One Manson prosecutor believes Jurvetson was killed because she witnessed another killing, but no solid evidence has ever tied her death to the Manson family.

Jurvetson's family never filed a missing persons report, figuring she had started a new life in the US, and Jurvetson wasn't even identified until last April. Earlier this summer, a friend from Montreal called the LAPD. She remembered seeing Jurvetson with a man named Jeanand a second man named Jeanat a coffee shop. She helped police develop a sketch of the Jeans, who may have been roommates, and now detectives are looking for the pair. One LAPD investigator calls Jean "the best lead we have." Police also got another lead recently when they discovered where Jurvetson had been living in Hollywood before her death, CBC reports. While the apartment building has since been demolished, investigators are looking for anyone who used to live there. (The youngest member of the Manson family lost her bid for parole this summer.)
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New Delhi:

Siwans strongman and former RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin on Saturday walked out of jail after 11 years. The Patna High court has granted him bail in the much-publicised Rajiv Raushan murder case. From a normal activist to an MP, he has walked into the political corridors with a stature of his own. Notorious for his Bahubali image, he is just the kind of antagonist Bollywood portrays in various films based on political issues.

Political Career



The former parliamentarian started his career as a low-key worker in the Janata Dal youth wing under Lalu Prasad Yadav in early 90s. He won the 1990 and 1995 elections to the Vidhan Sabha (state legislative assembly) from Siwan district of Bihar, and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 on the JD ticket. A new party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), under the leadership of Lalu Yadav, was formed in 1997 and he was one of Lalus general. It was the golden phase of Lalu Yadav, which helped the growth of Shahabuddin's power in his native district and nearby areas.



Also read:

Shahabuddin to walk out of jail: 1300 SUVs, thousands of supporters to welcome political strongman



Since 1996, he has been winning Lok Sabha elections from Siwan. Few opponents dare campaign publicly in fear. He is believed to have rigged many polling stations. In May 2007, Shahabuddin was found guilty in a case of "abducting with intent to murder". He was sentenced to life imprisonment which further debarred him from contesting polls. In the 2009 general elections, the RJD party had put up his wife Hena Shahab from Siwan constituency, but his long-time opponent Om Prakash Yadav defeated her by massive vote margin.



Shahabuddin fought the 2004 general elections from jail and won it comfortably. In late 2003, eight months before the 2004 general elections, Shahabuddin was arrested on charges of abducting a CPI(ML) worker, who was never seen again. Instead of staying in prison, he managed to get himself shifted to the Siwan hospital on medical grounds.



Criminal Career



There are more than 30 criminal cases pending, including eight of murder, and 20 of attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, etc. of these, charges were initially framed in eight cases.



Besides these police-registered cases, many other were unreported, which include a large number of "disappearances" from Siwan. Reports in the media allege that as many as a hundred bodies may be buried on the grounds of Shahabuddin's well-fortified Pratappur palace, the venue where the entire Bihar state police had to retreat after a fierce firefight while attempting to serve a warrant in 2001.



In May 2007, he was convicted of the abduction of the trader and CPI(ML) worker, Chhote Lal Gupta, in February 1999, who was never seen thereafter and is widely presumed to have been killed. He has been convicted in a number of other criminal cases, including a 10 years rigorous imprisonment for attempted murder on the then Superintendent of Police, SK Singhal, in 1996.



Charges under different sections of IPC have been imposed on former MP. These include 302 (punishment for murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting with intent to murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person), 379 (punishment for theft), 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means).



Prakash Jha directed Apaharan in 2005, which was a take on Shahabuddin's parallel government in Siwan and his kidnapping industry. Nana Patekar played the character which was inspired by Shahabuddin and won Filmfare's best villain award.

Also read:

Shahabuddin released from jail, says 'Lalu is his leader and Nitish Kumar is chief minister by circumstances'



Bihar journalist murder: Key accused Laddan Miyan, a close aide of Shahabuddin, surrenders before court

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New Delhi:

Former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP from Siwan, Mohammad Shahabuddin, on Friday said that Nitish Kumar is a chief minister because of circumstances, clearly hinting at the 'super CM' status of RJD chief and his mentor Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Shahabuddin walked out of jail in the morning after the Patna High Court granted him bail in Rajiv Raushan murder case. He was in jail for the last 11 years.

Speaking to media after his release from Bhagalpur jail, Shahabuddin said that the politics has nothing to do with his jail term. "We all know I was framed. But it was Court who jailed me, Court has released me or release," he said.

"I will not try to change my image. People have accepted me the way I am for 26 years," said the former RJD MP.

According to reports, about 30 RJD MLAs and four Ministers of the coalition government along with thousands of supporters were also a part of his jail release procession.

Here are the live updates:





Why would I try to change my image? People have accepted me the way I am for 26 years: Mohammad Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/Ky3xwHu4Oy  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

This has got nothing to do with politics, judicial has its own procedures: Mohammad Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/ijAkc3O2de  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

We all know I was framed. But it was Court who jailed me, Court has released me: Mohammad Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/KqWBM8pUvu  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

#FLASH Mohammad Shahabuddin released from jail after 11 years in Rajiv Raushan murder case. pic.twitter.com/gDXKk2UKgL  ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

According to reports, most of the hotel rooms in Bhagalpur town have been booked by supporters of Shahabuddin, who have come from Siwan, Vaishali, Banka, Patna, Darbhanga and Champaran districts.

Also read:

Shahabuddin released from jail, says 'Lalu is his leader and Nitish Kumar is chief minister by circumstances'



A brief profile of Mohammad Shahabuddin: A man who defines political strongmen

Bihar journalist murder: Key accused Laddan Miyan, a close aide of Shahabuddin, surrenders before court

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Home Ministry on Friday banned controversial preacher Zakir Naiks NGO Islamic Research Foundation from receiving foreign funds directly and asked RBI to seek prior permission from it before releasing any money to the NGO.



The decision has been taken after a preliminary inquiry conducted by the Home Ministry found that the NGO was carrying out activities contrary to the Foreign Contribution Regulations Act (FCRA) under which it has to function.



Sources said with IRF being put into prior permission category, the Reserve Bank of India, henceforth, has to inform the Home Ministry about all funds coming to the NGO and permission has to be taken from the ministry before releasing them to IRF.



They said that last month the Home Ministry had renewed the FCRA licence of IRF despite several ongoing probes against the NGO and its founder Naik including one by the Home Ministry itself.



Taking strong exception to the goof-up, the Home Ministry suspended Joint Secretary G K Dwivedi, who was heading the foreigners division of the ministry looking after the FCRA-related issues, and three other officials.



Naik was accused of radicalising and attracting youths for terror acts.



Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.



He, in a lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly urged all Muslims to be terrorists.



Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.



He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan on Saturday wrote to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and resigned from all posts.

Two-days after the Anti-Corruption Branch raided the Delhi Waqf Board office, AAP MLA Amantullah Khan on Saturday resigned as its chairman claiming that he was being framed in false cases. The Okhla legislator, who was also a member of the State Haj Committee, sent his resignation letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

His resignation came two days after the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Delhi government raided the Delhi Waqf Board office here in connection with an alleged recruitment scam involving Khan.

In his letter, Khan stated that he has run out of patience of issuing clarifications to the public pleading innocence over a number of allegations levelled against him and his family members.

(Read More: Case of sexual harassment registered against AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan)

Some people dislike my honesty and service and false allegations are being levelled against me and my family to frame us. I want to be free from all the responsibilities given to me by the government and therefore I tender my resignation from all the posts, Khan said.

Speaking in the Delhi Assembly yesterday, Khan defended himself saying he had made the contractual recruitments following due procedures. Waqf Board was reeling under shortage of staff which necessitated the appointments, he said.

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New Delhi:

Former TERI chief R K Pachauri, accused in a sexual harassment case, has been permitted once again to travel abroad by a Delhi court which noted that he has been allowed to go to foreign countries on various occasions in the past and has complied with terms and conditions set by the court.

The court allowed Pachauris application seeking its permission to travel to Kazakhstan, Guyana and Mexico till October 5 to attend various meetings, conferences and a film festival.

Counsel on behalf of the applicant/accused submitted that accused has already been granted permission on various occasions in the past as well and complied with the terms and conditions led by the court. Perusal of record confirms the submissions...

In view of the above facts and circumstances and compliance of accused on previous occasions, the application of accused for travel abroad from September 12 to October 5 is allowed... Metropolitan Magistrate Archana Beniwal said, while also considering the same relief granted to him on August 17 by a magisterial court here.

Pachauri, who is currently on bail, moved the application through counsel Ashish Dixit.

The court had on July 11 granted bail to Pachauri and allowed him to travel abroad after he appeared before it pursuant to the summons issued against him.

Pachauri, who has been allowed by the court to travel over a dozen times to various countries including the USA, UK, China, Japan, France, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Kuwait, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, during pendency of the probe and proceedings, was summoned as accused by the court on May 14 after it took cognizance of the charge sheet filed against him for allegedly sexually harassing an ex-colleague.

The court, while taking cognizance of the charge sheet, had said there was sufficient material to proceed against him under sections 354A (sexual harassment), 354B (assault against woman with intent to disrobe), 354D (stalking), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of woman) and 341 (wrongful confinement) of the IPC.

The charge sheet, filed by Delhi Police on March 1, had arrayed 23 prosecution witnesses, many of whom are present and former employees of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Pachauri was granted anticipatory bail in the case on March 21 last year. On February 13, last year an FIR was registered against Pachauri on charges of sexual harassment under IPC sections 354, 354(a), 354(d) (molestation) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

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New Delhi:

Home Minister Rajnath Singh will travel to Hungary, which is among the 68 countries not visited by any minister in the Modi government, and will be covered as part of the massive outreach programme to be undertaken by it by the end of the year.

Apart from Singh, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will be will visit Estonia and Latvia and Parliamentary Minister Ananth Kumar will be heading to Tongo, while BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party leader and Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been assigned to travel to Mauritius.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where Indian Ministers have not gone, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her Ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

The aim of the visits, which is part of governments massive outreach programme, is to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.

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New Delhi :

The Jawaharlal Nehru University has been painted red again. The Left alliance of CPM and CPI (ML) on Saturday won all the four seats in swept the JNU Union elections.

The ABVP after winning three seats in DU polls have failed to bag any seat in JNU.

A AISA-SFIas Mohit has been elected as the president and Amal PP won seat of vice-president of the students' union.

A Tabrez Hasan and Shatarupa Chakarborty have been elected as joint secretary and general secretary.

A The polls were closely watched in the aftermath of the Afzal Guru event which created row across the nation.

A total of 18 candidate tried their luck in the polls and it was a contest between ABVP and Left.

For the first time, the CPI(ML)'s student wing All India Students' Association (AISA), which has enjoyed a strong hold on the campus for years, formed an alliance with the Student Federation of India (SFI) of the CPI(M).

The alliance also emerged victorious on 30 out of 31 seats for councillors. ABVP won only one councillor seat from Department of Sanskrit.

Celebrations broke out on JNU campus as soon as the results were announced where students danced to the beats of traditional daflis with gulal smeared over their faces amid chants of "azaadi".

A

Delhi: Celebrations in JNU campus after AISA-SFI candidates sweep all 4 seats in #JNUSUPolls pic.twitter.com/jJlDUeHa2T a ANI (@ANI_news) September 10, 2016

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Rudy Giuliani's star turn as America's Mayor happened 15 years ago, and the further we get from it, the more it feels like some kind of huge collective dream or hallucination. Was the man who's spent the last few months telling us that black kids were dangerous; that Vladimir Putin seems like the kind of guy you can have a beer with; that Google would unlock the secrets of Hillary Clinton's poor health, really the guy who was such an important calming influence in the days following September 11th? There's no doubt he was a source of strength and comfort then, but it's been a long time since we've seen him, and though today, the New York Times wondered if Rudy's embrace of the Trump campaign could eventually tarnish his legacy, it's hard to know exactly what "legacy" they speak of.

To people who wouldn't let their kids come to New York without carrying a concealed weapon, Rudy Giuliani will always will be the man who saved Bad Old New York. He's the guy who personally chased the squeegee men out across the Holland Tunnel and made Times Square a safe space for the M&M store and Anti-Semitic Elmo. This is all at risk, according to the Times, which writes:

[H]is ardent support for Mr. Trump could, alternatively, come at a cost to his legacy, as it has put Mr. Giuliani starkly at odds with other right-of-center Republican figures who have described the nominee as a dangerous threat to the nation and have refused to support him. This is a source of deep concern to a large cadre of former Giuliani aides, people who recall him as the steely, compassionate leader of post-9/11 New York, and as the mayor who presided over a historic reduction in crime in the decade before  a period when he also denounced the most extreme elements of the Republican Party, advocated stricter gun control and signed a landmark domestic partnerships bill.

But Giuliani wasn't a socially liberal bulwark against right-wing culture war nonsense. He was the man who went to war with the Brooklyn Museum over an exhibit. Giuliani is remembered by his friends as the man who brought order to the city, and not the man who egged on a police riot during his predecessor's term. Giuliani is remembered by those closest to him as a man who called for calm in the days after 9/11, but not as the man who failed to adequately take part in anti-terrorism briefings after the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and was accused, among other things, of failing to provide the World Trade Center's first responders with adequate equipment. He also cut the public school budget; saddled the city's economy with debt; and his administration was the subject of 26 civil liberty violation cases, 22 of which it lost. And never forget that it's been widely disputed that Giuliani's policies were solely responsible for a drastic reduction in crime.

If you're going to inquire about someone's legacy, you should be careful who you ask. Much like asking Howard Wolfson for quotes about "both sides" being bad, or asking someone from the Cuomo-created Women's Equality Party for quotes about how vulnerable Mayor Tall is to a primary challenge, asking Giuliani aides to talk about the kind of leader their boss was is an easy way to get self-serving quotes that feed into a mythology they want to build. If you resurrected some of James Buchanan's aides, they'd no doubt tell you that he isn't one of the worst presidents of all time.

If the legacy of Giuliani's time as America's Mayor has been tarnished or washed away, all the better. His legacy as the man who got into a shouting match with a ferret owner is the real one, and thanks to the Trump campaign, it will be preserved forever.
A Brooklyn woman was arrested this week after she allegedly attacked two Muslim women pushing their babies in strollers in Bath Beach. Prosecutors say she attempted to rip off their hijabs and told them, "Get the fuck out of America, bitches."

As first reported by the Daily News, Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, is accused of attacking the two women, ages 23 and 24, at around 1:30 p.m on Thursday, as they walked with their babies at Bay 20th St. and Cropsey Aves. Xhelili allegedly punched one of the women, attempted to kick both of them in the legs, and tried to tear off their hijabs, all while yelling Islamophobic statements at them and telling them, This is America  you shouldnt be different from us."

Xhelili, who is identified on social media as Mary Magadalene, has apparently posted a number of anti-Muslim sentiments on her Facebook account. Your f**king alll llah is so powerful that you need to rent houses near me, have stores near me and be visible to me nobody sees you, notice you or cares you are alive or your f**king all ah,you are worshipin (sic) a horny piece of sh*t, she posted on Thursday, according to the Post. A day earlier, she posted, "From this moment on, every woman that waers (sic) the jihab/hijab will go to hell!! I cant stand you fing hypocrites. You have been warned."

She also reportedly referred to "aliens with black skins" and You lucky for a time that is left, for I have counted your days!

Prosecutors say Xhelili went as far as to attempt to tip over a stroller carrying a 15-month-old baby. She's been charged with misdemeanor assault as a hate crime, and was ordered held on $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail.
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The judge whose ruling on reforming the state education system sent shock waves across Connecticut last week is known best as a politically connected former trial lawyer who recovered hundreds of millions in pension money for defrauded workers.

But while observers marveled at the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of Supreme Court Judge Thomas Moukawshers decision, issued in Hartford on Wednesday, his friends said they expected nothing less from a man whose passion for history and art inform his written rulings as much as his experience in trial law.

When I read about his decision and I saw those metaphors, I knew that was Tom, said U.S. Rep. John Larson, who hired Moukawsher as his outside counsel when Larson was chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

Larson was referring to passages in Moukawshers 90-page decision where he describes state standards for teachers as uselessly perfect and like cotton candy in a rainstorm.

The juxtaposition of the phrases is like reading F. Scott Fitzgerald when he describes someone eating with salacious delicacy,  Larson said. John has always been known as somewhat of a Renaissance man and a scholar who brings his compassion and a broad depth of understanding to the bench, and that is exactly what you want from a judge in a case like this.

Moukawshers decision followed a 60-day trial where he heard testimony from 50 witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of briefs. He made over 1,000 findings of fact in a 160-page appendix to his decision.

Moukawshers ruling declared parts of Connecticuts public education system irrational and unconstitutional - partly vindicating the claim of Bridgeport, Danbury and other members of a coalition who sued the state in 2004 for a bigger share of school money.

The 53-year-old father of four, well-known in his Groton hometown as a former statehouse representative, gave the state six months to:

 Create a rational system for distributing state education aid

 Define standards for grammar school and high school

 Revamp special education funding

 Overhaul the teacher evaluation system

It is too soon to say what move the state will make first. While an appeal is a good bet, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy agreed with Moukawsher about the need to challenge the status quo and take bold action.

It was Malloy, a two-term Democrat, who appointed Moukawsher to Superior Court Judge in 2013.

Some lawmakers in Hartford have objected that six months isnt enough time to fix decades-old problems. But Moukawsher is adamant that Connecticut cannot continue leaving learning to chance.

The judge noted, for example, that in the last budget year alone, state aid to poor districts was cut by $5 million, including a $900,000 cut to Bridgeport alone. At the same time, the state increased aid to wealthier districts by $5 million.

During the recent budget crisis, this left rich schools robbing millions of dollars from poor schools, Moukawsher wrote. (I)n struggling cities, the neediest are leaving schools with diplomas but without the education we promise them.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, whose school district claims to have been underfunded by $30 million, is one of the local officials who sat in Hartford Superior Court listening with great interest to the judge read his verdict over the course of three hours.

This judge has issued probably one of the most thoughtful and profound rulings I have heard anywhere for any reason, Boughton told the City Council during a televised meeting the night of the judges decision. It is a far-reaching redefinition of public education, and I think schools in Connecticut will never be the same.

A crusader

As impressed as some observers are about how far Moukawsher reached in his call for systemic change in Connecticuts public education system, his decision is also something of a personal manifesto that reveals the heart of a crusader.

I have always thought of him as a champion in the legal field, says his wife, Betsy Moukawsher, Grotons Town Clerk, who like her husband grew up in a home full of books, with parents who encouraged public service. I have always thought of him charging in on the white horse to save the day, because he is always looking out for the little guy.

The man she married is also a painter who is inspired by Renaissance art and a student of Winston Churchill, she said. And she hopes policymakers give her husbands decision careful attention.

Moukawsher himself declined to be interviewed last week, with the case pending. But his decision speaks plainly of the complications that led to the lawsuit, and the intense deliberations that led to his decision, issued only 28 days after the six-month trial concluded.

[The] state is torn between the need for communal and objective standards and the apparently irresistible pressure for the idiosyncratic status quo, he wrote. Instead of the state honoring its promise of adequate schools, this paralysis has left rich school districts to flourish and poor school districts to flounder.

The judge concluded that the state has to accept schools as its blessing and its burden.

The court knows what this ruling means for many deeply ingrained practices, but it also has a marrow-deep understanding that if they are to succeed where they are most strained, schools have to be about teaching children and nothing else.

Michael Walsh, Moukawshers former law partner, said the judge was not only well suited for a case of this complexity because of his multi-disciplinary background, but also because of his disposition for challenge.

Moukawshers tenacity is a trait he took from his father, Joseph Moukawsher, Walsh said. That trait was evident in 2008, when Thomas Moukawsher represented Cigna employees, who won a class action case when a federal judge ruled they had been misled about a change in their pension plan.

Last weeks ruling was vintage Tom Moukawsher, Walsh said.

This was a challenge for any judge, but Tom is smart and hard-working and he welcomed the challenge, said Walsh who a founded a Hartford law firm in 1996 with Moukawsher and Moukawshers father, who died in 2006. Tom put 150 percent into this trial and this opinion, and that is evident in the end product.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342
Ignore search-engine optimization (SEO) and focus on content.

Worst. Advice. Ever.

SEO still is kicking. The rules have changed and some of the starting lineup were in the minors a few years ago, but you need a plan.

Look at just a few recent stats:

93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine

75 percent of users never scroll past the first page of search results

70 to 80 percent of search users ignore paid ads

Is SEO necessary? Yes, it is.

SEO simply "translates" your website into language that's easily understood by search engines -- so users see your pages when they go hunting for offers, products, services, information or answers to specific questions. The "how" is SEO, and even a beginners guide can seem overwhelming.

The exact formula used by Google and Bing is subject to debate. RankBrain, content and links that point to your site are three of the biggest ranking signals. But other factors play their role, too.

Ive seen businesses make the same mistakes over and over again. Here are the three most frequent offenders.

1. Keywords.

Keywords used to be ... well, key. But then content became king.

You still need keywords. Two mistakes that novices and experts alike continue to make? Stuffing keywords and targeting the wrong words.

Stuffing aims to trick the engines by using an exact keyword phrase in an unnatural frequency. Observe:

Our car polish is the best car polish on the car polish market. If youre looking for the best car polish, then look no further than our best car polish. Its the best car polish money can buy!

Horrible. Do that, and the engines will penalize you. It sounds stilted, it offers nothing of value and its obviously meant to game the system.

Google uses Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to analyze your page's intent and determine keyword variations. Trust it. Use naturally occurring synonyms and alternatives instead of word-for-word repetition.

Have a keyword focus, but dont force it. Include the keyword and its variations in the title, opening paragraph, meta-description and throughout the body of the text (within reason).

Use the Keyword Planner to identify words that pop in searches, but resist the automatic urge to go after those with the largest search volume. Instead, find the relevant long tail keywords (three- to four-word phrases that make up the bulk of searches) with a decent volume. Use Trends to determine whats popular and whats so last year.

A little homework goes a long way.

Related: How to Master Keyword Research, Production and Promotion for Your Content Marketing Campaign

2. Anchor text.

Anchor text -- the clickable words in a hyperlink -- can land you in hot water.

You want your page links to point toward other content on your site as well as relevant material on external sites. Businesses used to get away with exact-match or keyword-rich anchor text. Not anymore.

Your best bet is a healthy mix:

Branded text, as in "QuickSprout has a great user guide"

Naked links, as in "www.entrepreneur.com"

Long tail links, as in "use a wide variety of anchor types to stay safe

Just dont rely on anchor text as your anchor text in a piece about anchor text.

3. Image optimization.

We love visuals, and they increase engagement. Visually charged content gets more clicks, likes and shares.

But there's a problem: Search engines cant see images. Engines need textual explanations to understand what the image represents and how it connects to your topic.

Include a highly relevant file name, alt-description (a description of the image, as if you were telling a friend what the image depicts), caption, and image title. Some studies found captions are read 300 percent more than body text.

Consider a compression tool such as PunyPNG or JPEGmini to reduce file size and load time, with very little loss of quality. Faster page = better SEO.

4. Link strategy.

Backlinks matter. In the 2016 State of Link Building Survey, 90 percent of respondents reported they use content publication/promotion and guest posting as part of their link-building strategy. And 78 percent of survey participants believe it's the most effective SEO-boosting strategy.

It's still a case of quality over quantity. You run the risk of Google's wrath if you include links from penalized sites or those with a domain authority less than 20. Populating with too many backlinks, too quickly, also could have negative effects.

Spammy guest-blogging or link directories will hurt you. Instead, write high-quality content. Share it with influencers in your niche, and promote it on social media. Establish relationships with influential sites so you can pitch useful ideas that fit with their subject and theme to offer real benefit to their readers.

Yes, it will take longer. But three to four relevant, high-authority/high-quality backlinks are infinitely better than 100 backlinks from questionable sources. Commit yourself to playing the long game.

Read This: Ultimate Guide to Link Building by Eric Ward and Garrett French | Amazon | eBooks.com | Barnes & Noble

5. Fans and followers.

Social media is fantastic, but your number of fans is irrelevant.

Its about engagement: How are you connecting and interacting with people, and how are they engaging with you?

Googles Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, would tell you that your social-media following has no direct affect on your SEO. All the same, an active community of members who share your content and link back to your site can spread your brand awareness and authority. In turn, this increases your site traffic. Social activity signals to Google that people are interested in your site and spreading its message.

Remember this mantra: It's not about numbers, it's about activity -- the actions you generate and the engagement your audience takes forward.

Mistakes are bound to happen. SEO is a complicated beast, after all. Avoiding these common pitfalls will help you play it smart and pay off in the long-term.

Related:



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AN Enugu State-based Fulani herdsman, Alhaji Sodu has claimed that over 100 cows belonging to him were missing as a result of an alleged...

AN Enugu State-based Fulani herdsman, Alhaji Sodu has claimed that over 100 cows belonging to him were missing as a result of an alleged attack on a Fulani settlement in the state. He also accused the youths of Aku community in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of masterminding the attack, adding that a herdsman sustained three gunshot wounds following the incident while three others were claimed to be missing.Sodu gave the name of his injured son as Wareri ,17, while Musa, Buba and Mohammed were said to be missing. This came on a day, youths of Attaukwu community in Nkanu-West Local Government Area where herdsmen had on August 25, 2016, invaded the community slaughtering a Catholic seminarian,Lazarus Nwafor, and Ifeoma Agbo embarked on a protest over the continued stay of herdsmen in their community.Visit to hospital A visit to the to the Refuge Hospital, Enugu in the company of the Chairman, Enugu Constituted Security Committee, Brigadier General Fred Eze ,retd, where injured Wareri was receiving treatment showed the latter was in high spirit. However, Sodu appealed to security agencies to quickly arrest the masterminds of the attack. He said: I am too old now to go into the forest in search of my three sons.I am appealing to security agencies to rescue my sons unharmed. The youths have slaughtered seven of my cows. Over 100 cows are missing now. Security committee chair allay fears Chairman, Enugu Constituted Security Committee, Brigadier General Fred Eze ,retd, who confirmed the incident, appealed for calm adding that the committee was on top of the situation. His words: We want to allay fears generated by this incident. The Army have moved to forestall any breakdown of law and order. The Garrison Commander, O.T Akinjobi has dispatched a search party for the missing kids. Another combined team of Police and Army have equally moved into the area to avert any breakdown of public peace.This incident is already under investigation and authorities will unravel the remote causes of the incident and ensure that appropriate actions are taken.
Blessed be the name of the Most High God, the God whose I am and the God whom I serve, blessed be His holy name forever. Mr. Chairman,...

Blessed be the name of the Most High God, the God whose I am and the God whom I serve, blessed be His holy name forever.Mr. Chairman, our Royal fathers, my Lords spiritual and temporal, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, all protocols observed.Let me begin by thanking you for your invitation and for all your love. It is indeed a privilage and an honor for me to be here today and I am deeply humbled and touched.I crave your indulgence to permit me to share a few things with you before I get to the main thrust of my speech in an attempt to explain precisely what my links with the northern minorities are and to show you why I can never leave you.My home is in the north. I have lived here for the last 14 years of my life.I know the history of the north, and indeed the history of every part of Nigeria, very well.This is because I made a point of studying and researching that history over the last 35 years.That is why I know and understand the mindset of, for example, the Fulani so well.I know that they are not indigenous Nigerians like you and I but rather strangers and aliens that, approximately 211 years ago, came from a distant and desolate land called the Vulture Mountains in Futa Jalon, which is in modern-day Guniea.It is because I know and say these things that some of them hate me so much and will do anything to stop, silence, discredit, destroy or even kill me.Yet I know that I cannot die before my time or before work on earth is done and neither can I be destroyed because I am covered by the blood of Jesus.Despite their obvious malice and evil intentions for me I do not hate them because we are compatriots. Hate is a corrosive and self-destructive quality: it wounds and ultimately destroys the hater far sooner and in a much more profound way than it does the object of his hate. I therefore choose to return their hatred with love.It is not the Fulani that I hate but rather what they are doing to our people in Nigeria today and indeed what they have been doing to us over the last 211 years since they arrived in this country.In any case we are all Nigerians, even though some of us came to these shores much sooner than others.We must endeavour to live in love and peace with one another, including the Fulani, and that has always been my position.Permit me to make a confession to you today: I actually have Fulani blood running through my veins because my great grandmother was a pure Fulani woman from Sokoto.She married my maternal great grandfather, who was a Yoruba Muslim from Ilesha, and she moved to the southwest with him. How can I then hate myself?I may not have much Fulani blood in me but I am very proud of the little that I have and I would be the last to deny it. I am even prouder of my Yoruba bloodlines and heritage which are Ile-Ife, Ijesha, Egba and Isale Eko.The way the average Fulani man feels about his Muslim faith is the way I feel about my Christian one.I have no apology for that. Just as he fears ethnic and religious domination and he rejects subjugation, intimidation and marginalisation, sometimes with aggression and passion, is the same way that I do.That is why I can boldly say that I consider it a solemn duty to point out the consistent excesses of the Fulani in Nigeria and particularly their ill-treatment of the northern minority groups over the years.My history and link with the northern minorities did not begin with me. It started a generation before me.I say this because my late father of blessed memory, the Balogun of Ife and the former Deputy Premier of the old Western Region of Nigeria, Chief Remilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode QC, SAN, CON had a unique, deep and profound relationship with the northern minorities throughout his long and distinguished political and legal career.For example he represented them and spoke for them under the banner of the Action Group at the famous Willicks Commission in 1957 when they were agitating for the creation of a Middle Belt region which was to be carved out of the old Northern Region.It was my father, as lead counsel, that argued the case for the northern minorities at the public hearing.Sadly the British authorities refused to grant it as a result of strong pressure from the Fulani ruling class and traditional rulers and their political allies in the old Northern Peoples Congress.Yet ever since that time my family ties and passion for the horrendous plight of the people of the Middle Belt has been very strong.This was why my father forged such a strong bond and deep relationship with the late Governor Aper Aku of Benue state in the Second Republic and indeed represented him in court on numerous occassions, pro bono, when his gubernatorial mandate was challenged.My second link with the northern minorities is of a more personal nature and it is as follows. Madame Saratu 'Baby' Atta, who is the mother of my first child Folake, is the daughter of the late Alhaji Adamu Atta, the former Governor of the old Kwara state, who was a distinguished elder-statesman and proud Ebira man.The Attas are indeed the royal family of the Ebira people of the Middle Belt and it is an honor for me to be associated with them in this way.My third link with the northern minorities is the fact that the principal of the Action Faith Bible Seminary in Accra, Ghana, where I studied for my degree in theology 23 years ago, was a distinguished and well-respected northern Christian from Kaduna state by the name of Pastor Abubakar Bako.Bako, who was a lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University in the 1980's, was compelled to flee from Nigeria to Ghana (where he lives till today) when the Muslim fundamentalists tried to kill him and his entire family for daring to share the word of God and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ on campus.They accused him of blasphemy, attacked him and left him for dead. Thankfully he survived the attack and he lived to continue to do God's work.He is a deeply courageous man who has suffered many tribulations and made great sacrifices over the years for the Body of Christ and the Christian faith and he is undoubtedly one of God's "end-time generals".He is also a great Prophet, an extraordinary teacher and a living legend in Pentecostal and Evangelical circles.He was my mentor when it came to the things of God and, like Paul did with Gamaliel, I learnt the scriptures at his feet.I lived in his house in Accra for two years whilst I studied at the Bible seminary where he was Principal and he taught me much of what I know about the Living God.My fourth link with the northern miniroties is rooted in the ugly and sad events surrounding the first coup d'etat that ever took place in our country during the First Republic.It was a northern minorities officer (from present-day Taraba state) by the name of Captain Takoda, under the command and instruction of another northern minorities officer (from present-day Plateau state) by the name of Lt. Col. Yakubu Jack Gowon, that saved my fathers life during the bloody mutiny and military coup of Jan. 15th 1966.It was also a northern minorities officer (from present-day Kogi state) by the name of Lt. Col. Dixon, who was the Airport Commandant at Lagos Airport in Ikeja in 1967, that smuggled my father on the plane and safely out of the country into self-imposed exile in the UK, after orders were issued to "shoot him on sight" by the Military Governor of the old Western Region, Lt Col. Adeyinka Adebayo.In view of all of the foregoing it is clear that I owe the northen minorities so much and I love them as much as I love the south where I come from.I also identify strongly with their suffering and I appreciate the barbarity and injustice of the ruthless persecution that they have been subjected to from those that have kept them in bondage and subjugation for over 200 years.As a matter of fact I regard myself as being as much of a northern Christian as anyone else in this forum and when one of our own is killed by the islamists and terrorists in our country it hurts and pains me to the very marrow.These are my people that are being slaughtered as much as they are yours.If Nigeria were ever to break up we will ensure that the northern minorities and the Middle Belt come with the south.We will never leave you in the hands of our collective enemies and we will never abandon you.When Nigeria is either redefined or restructured: that is when your true liberation begins.When it comes to suffering injustice, marginalisation, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide you have suffered more than any other.It is only the Igbo people of the south-east that have been subjected to the kind of wickedness that your people have been subjected to by the Nigerian state and those that have controlled it since independence.The only difference is that they literally took your identities away from you whilst they couldn't do that to the Igbo who, till today, are still fighting hard for self-determination.It is our intention to right the wrongs of the past and to help to liberate you. It is our intention to encourage and support you in your quest for emancipation and freedom in this historic fight.My links with the northern minorities are deep, spiritual and unbreakable. As I said earlier, it did not begin with me but with my father.My family owe you everything because your leaders and forefathers saved my fathers life on at least two occassions.My links with you cannot be broken by any force on earth and I will always stand for you and defend you as much as I will stand for and defend the rights of the oppressed and marginalised people of the south.We are together in our struggles and we must never forget that or allow our collective adversaries to divide us.It is self-evident that the Christians of the north need our help and support and more importantly they deserve it.They deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and decorum by all, including their northern Muslim brothers.They deserve to he able to live in peace anywhere in the north and to be able to buy land and build their churches and schools where they please.They do not deserve to be treated with contempt and disdain and to be referred to as "arne" or "infidels and unbelievers" at every point in time. This is all the more so because they are the true believers and the sons and daughters of the Living God.They must no longer be subjected to persecution, discrimination, ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass murder by those that wish to wipe out their faith and subject them to bondage, servitude and slavery in perpetuity.The people of the south particularly have a duty to step up to the plate and reach out to them in love and with compassion.There can be no gainsaying the fact that when we go out of our way as a people to care for the weakest, the most vulnerable, the most deprived, the most abused, the most traumatised, the most villified, the most cheated, the most ridiculed, the most persecuted, the most misunderstood and the supposedly most "undeserving" in our society it says a lot about us.When we kill them like flies and treat them with contempt, hate and insensitivity or like animals it means that we are no better than beasts ourselves.No matter how you may feel about an individual or an entire race of people and no matter what challenges they may be passing through, we must show them love and treat them with the compassion and kindness that they deserve. That is God's law and that is what distinguishes us from animals and makes us human beings.Permit me to share the profound and prophetic words of Mrs. Love Zidon who is one of the members of this distinguished forum. She said,"We have decided to raise our heads up high in this country to walk as Christians. The law of retribution shall be activated on anyone that touches God's own".What a lady! She is indeed a true Daughter of Zion and she is absolutely right.God shall punish and destroy those that seek to kill our people and torment our lives.Yet together we shall prevail and God will shame our collective enemies, bring them to their knees and strip them bare.Finally please bear the following in mind. If you remember nothing else that I have said here today at least rememember this: that we, the oppressed, despised and marginalised people of Nigeria who our internal colonial masters regard as being nothing more than chattel and slaves, are with you and we feel and share your pain.We are bound together by the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ and therefore we feel and share your suffering. We feel and share your shame.We feel and share your consistent humiliation and persecution. Yet no matter how dark the night, joy comes in the morning.No matter how bad things get, always hold your heads up high, never bow before them, never show them fear, never let them break you and always remember that our God is mighty and that it shall be well.No mattter what violence they inflict upon you, no matter what indignities they subject you and yours to and no matter who or what they take away from you never forget that on Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand: all other ground is sinking.Never forget that He who created the universe and holds it together by the power of His word and that He that is known as the Alpha and the Omega, the Ancient of Days, the Lord God of Hosts, the Elohim, the Adonai and the King of King is with you.He has made us the head and not the tail. He has removed our rags, placed a crown on our heads and dressed us in purple and gold.We are Kings and Queens and warriors of the faith. We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.We are a Royal priesthood, a holy nation and, at the appointed time, we shall have the fat of the land, we shall rule over the Amalekites and the uncircumcised Phillistines and we shall prevail.God bless you all. God bless this forum and be rest assured that I shall never leave you.Shalom.
A former governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko, has called on Nigerians to seek divine intervention for solution to the current economi...

A former governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko, has called on Nigerians to seek divine intervention for solution to the current economic recession facing the country.Mr. Wamakko, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress and a serving senator, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto on Saturday.He specifically urged Muslims to take advantage of Eid el-Kabir period to pray for peace and unity as well as economic growth and development of the country.According to him, fervent prayers for Gods intervention will pave way for the restoration of vibrant economy in the country.Mr. Wamakko said seeking divine intervention will enable the country to overcome the present economic challenges.He said with genuine prayer to Almighty God, Nigeria would come out of the current socio-economic crises, militancy, cattle rustling and insurgency among others.The former governor of Sokoto State advised businessmen and women against rampant increase in prices of food items.He also called on Nigerians to support the present administration to enable it implement its programmes for the development of the country.Mr. Wamakko expressed optimism that the nation will be great under the present administration and urged Nigerians to continue to be patient with the government. (NAN)
Nigerian starlet Kelechi Iheanacho says he is living his dream after scoring the winner in Saturday's Manchester derby.The Super Eagles striker, who got into the Manchester City side due to Sergio Aguero's suspension, scored one and assisted the other as his club defeated local rivals Manchester United 2-1 at Old Trafford."It is a dream come true to score in the Manchester Derby," Iheanacho said moments after the match."I am very happy and very happy for the fans."Iheanacho tapped in a rebound off the post after Kevin DeBryune's shot. He had set up the Belgian for the opening goal with a clever header.Incidentally, Iheanacho had said just before the match that he was looking forward to getting the winner in the big derby.
Like Kayode Fayemi, minister of mines and steel development, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is planning tax holidays and pol...

Like Kayode Fayemi, minister of mines and steel development, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is planning tax holidays and policy incentives to woo foreign investors.Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman of the NCC, disclosed this in Lagos while speaking at a forum for stakeholders ahead of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Telecom World 2016.Although the ICT sector has recorded very significant growth in the last 15 years when we moved from a little below 500,000 active lines to the current 157million and surpassed the 100 percent threshold for teledensity, it stands at 107%, internet connectivity climbed up from 50,000 in 2001 to its current 97million, he said during the week.We have over $35b from Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and local investments are also in billions of dollars. Our story of successes is very long but we as regulators are not resting on our oars believing that we are already there.No, we are not there yet. What we have is work in progress. We are here to restrategise on how we can attract more meaningful investments into our country.We are here to fine-tune our story about the growth and attraction of our sector. We are here to think of ways to convince would-be investors on the potentials and capacity of our country.On convincing investors, the NCC boss said: Several investors have been here and many more are on their way. We will tell them that Nigeria is safe for investors and Return on Investments (ROI) is assured.We will tell them that our regulatory processes are open, effective and transparent.We will tell them about the growing demand for fast, stable and reliable internet connectivity, we will tell them how the country has been receptive to investors through policies that include tax incentives and holidays, and that investors have been so encouraged that those who invested heavily in our Digital Mobile Licences (DMLs) since 2001 have never known a better yesterday.BROADBAND REVOLUTIONWe will tell them about the revolution that is brewing in broadband, since 2013 when the National Broadband Plan (NBP) was inaugurated by government, there have been spirited efforts by the Commission to raise the level of broadband penetration.As we speak, we have 14% penetration and over 100 percent thirst for internet. We are convinced that by 2018, the anticipated 30% penetration is not impossible to achieve.Bitflux Consortium has rolled out on its 2.3GHz services. Two Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) have been licenced for Lagos and North Central including Abuja. Five more licences are underway for North West, North East, South West, South South and South East. Our processes are being fine-tuned to actualize the licensing rounds. You are invited to join the revolution.There is a gap, no doubt which these would-be and existing investors will bridge. The Quality of service is not robust yet, but we are assured that we will get it right with more investments.This is the story we are taking to ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand from November 14-17.Fayemi has offered a three-year tax holiday and waiver on import duty for investors eyeing the Nigerian mining industry.
The Co-ordinator of the Niger Delta People Volunteer Front (NDPVF), Mr Asu Simeon Mbi, popularly known as General Simba, has told the N...

The Co-ordinator of the Niger Delta People Volunteer Front (NDPVF), Mr Asu Simeon Mbi, popularly known as General Simba, has told the Nigerian military to stop tagging them as criminals and economic saboteurs.General Simba said that using derogatory words to describe them was provocative.Speaking yesterday on the heels of the Defense Headquarters vow to sustain the military onslaught in the Niger Delta and purge the region of criminals and economic saboteurs, the militant leader also vowed that they would sustain their agitations.The militant leader, who claimed to be speaking for other militant groups in his region, said Niger Delta militants were not criminals, describing themselves as freedom fighters, fighting the Federal Governments unjust leadership.He said:We are freedom fighters and not criminals and nobody, no authority should call us criminals or economic saboteurs. We are fighting a just cause and no amount of threat from any quarters would dampen our spirit.The Niger Delta struggle is a collective one, and there is no way we can be subdued. There is no going back and everybody should sustain the struggle.We are still very strong in this fight. We are up and doing and will not bow to any threat by the military. We have long been totally neglected and enough is enough.
Nollywood actor, Prince Eke, has just come out to speak the minds of many parents and youths after he bemoaned the high school fees charge...

Nollywood actor, Prince Eke, has just come out to speak the minds of many parents and youths after he bemoaned the high school fees charged by Christian schools.The actor pointed that people attend these churches and pay tithes with other donations yet the common man cannot afford to send their child to such schools.Eke pointed out that some of these Christian schools have failed even with their preaching yet they fail to help their own on earth but expect heavenly grace.In his words, How can a church own a school and the poor can't attend it? How can you be teaching people how they can make it to the kingdom of God when they can't enter your own earthly 'kingdom', built with people's tithes and donations? How can Christian schools be the most expensive schools in Nigeria now? How can one relate this to the term "Christianity" with regards to the "Early Christian CommunityNote: Most of the good people in the world now have nothing to do with christianity, just like most Christians are far from it too. Another academic session, and parents are paying through their noses to send the kids back to school. A word will always be enough for the wise!
Dr Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir, who had been orphaned since age six, has emerged the overall best graduating medical student at the In...

Dr Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir, who had been orphaned since age six, has emerged the overall best graduating medical student at the International University of Africa, Khartoum, Sudan.Abdulkadir, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN), in a telephone interview from Sudan, said her academic achievements so far, seemed like a miracle.My academic achievement so far till today, seems like a miracle to me. Not only that, my life as a whole, is a pack of miracles, she said.Abdulkadir said that her late mother, having lost her husband when she was barely three, enrolled her at the Ad-din International Group of schools to start her primary education.She said her mother later died when she was six years old.She was then in primary school and was left in the care of her grandmother, with no hope of furthering her education again.Thinking that was the end of schooling for me, my grandmother withdrew me from the school but the founder, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola , gave me scholarship for my primary and secondary education.I emerged best student in my primary and secondary schools and even in my WASC and had a high score of 274 in my JAMB examinations.I have always had passion to be a medical doctor, but because I was not sure of my chances I filled Bio-Chemistry in my JAMB form and came out with a high score of 274.This score was high enough to get me into the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and with the hope of changing to medicine later.I had to jettison this dream because of the financial commitment involved in studying medicine.It was at this time that an admission team from International University of Africa, Sudan came to recruit Nigerian students into their school of Nursing.I presented myself for the written and oral interview and luck once again smiled on me as I emerged the best student and a scholarship was awarded me for my admission in their school of nursing.After the end of the first semester examination I emerged the best student, and the opportunity I had been waiting for presented itself.I approached the Schools Faculty of Medicine for a cross over from Nursing Faculty to Medicine, and the request was granted.So through thick and thin of financial difficulties, culture shock,hunger and loneliness, I braved it through and emerged the best graduating student, of the medical school on September,2, 2016.For me to clinch the overall best student, I had a CGPA of 3.37/4.00, making a ground breaking record in the history of the faculty by scoring above 3.24, the last highest grade, she said.Abdulkadir said her graduation speech was full of emotions and gratitude to Almighty Allah, who brought her from nothing to something.She added that her dead parents would be happy in their graves with her achievements.One certain thing I know about myself which can not be disputed, is that I am a living miracle of Allah.If you have searched for a proof of miracle but to no avail, look no further as I am here to testify to the miracles of God.I want to seize this opportunity to thank my God- send angels, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, founder, Proprietress of AD-din International Group of Schools for the good background I got in the school.I also wish to thank my academic mentor, Dr Adefemi Afolabi, Senior Lecturer and Consultant General Surgeon, Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, UI and UCH, Ibadan, Nigeria, she said.Abdulkadir said one of her aims, was to give back to the society where she came from; Oyo state, Nigeria as a whole and most especially, the children.I believe that the definition of success is incomplete without giving back to the society, she added.Dr Adefemi Afolabi, a Consultant General Surgeon and also the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, (CMAC), University College Hospital(UCH), Ibadan, said he met the young doctor on Facebook.Mark Zuckerberg provided the medium Facebook, through which I accepted to be her mentor at a critical stage in her education career.I am proud to describe her as as my princess, daughter, mentee; I know she is meant for the top of her medical career.She told me she is highly motivated to give back to children who are growing up in difficult circumstances through her social entrepreneurial skills in the future.I enjoin all well meaning Nigerians and Philanthropists to reach out to many of the indigent students who are still struggling to accomplish their dreams of a better future, he said.In a similar reaction, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, the Founder of the Ad-din group of schools and also the Iya Adinni of Yoruba land said all glory should go back to Allah.I am happy to be part of her success story through the grace of Allah. I charge other less fortunate children to always accept their lot with Allah.They should be focused and determined in achieving their aims and purpose in life ; Islamiyah was very determined to make it in life and she is making it.International women join the Nigerian women in congratulating Islamiyah Abdulkadir in achieving this feat.Also your alma mater, all Addinians and Addinites, join me in felicitating with you in this land mark of yours.My gratitude goes to Dr Afolabi, the CMAC of UCH, for his fatherly role throughout her stay in the medical school.I hope she will be lucky to be absolved in the UCH as a doctor after passing all required examinations necessary for her to practice as a medical doctor in Nigeria, she said.
The Anambra Commissioner of Police, Mr Sam Okaula, has assured the people of the state of a peaceful Eid-El-Kabir celebration.

The Anambra Commissioner of Police, Mr Sam Okaula, has assured the people of the state of a peaceful Eid-El-Kabir celebration.Okaula made the promise in an interview in Awka on Saturday.He said that adequate measures had been put in place to prevent breakdown down of law and order during the festival.He described as baseless, speculations of a possible herdsmen attack on the state during the period.The commissioner of police said that there would not be any of such attack.We have held a meeting with the Fulani leaders in the state, and we all agreed that there is no threat to peace in the state.We do not envisage any problem in Anambra during the ceremony and even after the ceremony because we have put measures in place to have peace.We have intelligence reports all through the state, and all indices point towards a peaceful celebration, Okaula said.He urged residents of the state to go about their lawful businesses without fear, saying that the police would provide adequate security.Okaula said that the flash points at Ufuma, Awgbu and Umunze had been guarded.Meanwhile, the Vice President of the Supreme Council for Islamic in Affairs in Anambra, Alhaji Dauda Ajagu, has called for sober reflection during the festival.In a statement in Awka, Ajagu said that Nigerians should reflect on their lives with a view to finding solutions to Nigerias challenges, instead of blaming President Muhammadu Buhari for the current economic downturn.He urged Fulani herdsmen to be careful with their cows to forestall invasion and destruction of peoples farmlands.We have fought a tribal war before; we do not want to fight again. All we need at this point in time is absolute peace, Ajagu said.
Members of the British House of Commons, the United Kingdom, have said that time is running out on the need to rescue the abducted Chibok...

Members of the British House of Commons, the United Kingdom, have said that time is running out on the need to rescue the abducted Chibok girls.They said on Thursday at a debate on the plight of the missing schoolgirls, that decisive action needed to be taken to secure the release of the girls, reiterating their pledge not to forget about the girls or those campaigning to highlight their plight.At the meeting held at Westminster Hall, the lawmakers, some of whom had earlier visited Nigeria, therefore called on the British government and governments of other countries to increase their funding of efforts to free the abducted girls.A member, Mrs. Helen Grant, said, We need governments and agencies around the world to share credible intelligence and all the latest eye-in-the-sky technologies to find these girls and to bring them back home. Time is running out. Every single day, there is more suffering. Decisive action is needed now, and terrorism cannot be allowed to succeed.Another member, Dr. Lisa Cameron, urged the Prime Minister to keep the girls at the forefront of our minds.Cameron noted that pressure from international governments to secure the release of the girls appeared to have dissipated over time. He said the pressure must be resurrected to give hope to the Chibok girls and to girls across Nigeria and the developing world.Stephen Twigg, on his part, said apart from counter-terrorism support and advice on hostage negotiation and victim support capabilities for Nigeria, the UK had invested about 5m in supporting the multinational joint taskforce set up by Nigeria and its neighbours to combat Boko Haram insurgency, noting that the UK government, and those of the United States, France, China and Israel had all contributed significant military and economic resources to support efforts aimed at rescuing the girls.Twigg, however, called for more funding from the UK government and other countries.He said, The United Nations appeal for Nigeria is not fully funded and we urge the governments to do all they can to ensure that the appeal is funded, including by other countries. At the world humanitarian summit in Turkey in May, commitments were made to address education in emergencies.We think it is crucial for the UK government and for the Department for International Development, in particular, to use their resources and influence on other donors to ensure that the Education Cannot Wait fund is properly supported and quickly operationalised so that interruptions to education caused by conflict are minimised to no more than 30 days.
Three members of a gang of armed robbers emerged from various sentences at the Kirikiri Medium Prison in Lagos with vengeance and a penc...

Three members of a gang of armed robbers emerged from various sentences at the Kirikiri Medium Prison in Lagos with vengeance and a penchant for the bizarre. Noted for terrorising the Lagos suburbs of Ijesha and Ikotun and Aguda, Surulere, the suspects identified as Francis Ogbonna, Chisom Joseph and Oloko Raheem identified a desire to right perceived economic inequalities in the society and the impact of economic recession as reasons for embarking on a car-snatching spree.Once their activities gained the notice of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, he ordered his Special Intelligence Response Team, (IRT) led by Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Abba Kyari, to swoop. IRT operatives swooped on the three gang members, arrested them and recovered four exotic cars and a locally made gun in Lagos.The gang, which formed at the Kirikiri Medium Prison, robbed six owners of their cars at Ajao Estate, Surulere, Ijesha and Ikotun areas of Lagos State. A police source disclosed that the suspects were rounded up in a popular hotel by the police while they attempted to sell the stolen cars to a buyer.Their activities were said to have prompted the IGP to deploy the IRT operatives.Narrating the gangs origin, its leader, Ogbonna, disclosed that he left prison an angry man on a mission to right the initial mistake of not making enough money from armed robbery while relieving the rich of their cars. I am 27 years old, he said. I am from Umuahia South Local Government Area of Abia State. After I finished my secondary school, I came to Lagos and I lived in Surulere. It was there that I started my taxi business. I worked until 2013 before relocating to the east.I went into crime last November. One of my friends, who was my secondary school classmate known as Uchenna, called me and asked that I should help to drive a stolen car from Lagos to Owerri. I knew Uchenna was an armed robber and I also knew that the car I was to drive was a stolen car. We move mainly at night, and he paid me N50, 000 for each of the cars. I delivered a Camry tiny light, and the second was a sequoia SUV. The third one was a Lexus 330, but I was arrested by some custom officials.I came to Lagos State on December 13 and we started going back on the 14th of the same month. At Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, some customs officials stopped us. I showed them the papers and they saw a telephone number on the customer license paper, and the owner identified the car that he was robbed of. I was arrested. Uche (Uchenna) ran away and I was taken to customs office in Ikeja.I was brought to the police station and I took them to Uchennas house in the village. They saw him but he managed to escape through the bush. I was charged to court afterwards and remanded in prison. We had two cars on the day I was arrested but I managed to escape with one of the vehicles. I asked him to get me fully involved.When I got to prison, I met Chimobi and Raheem. I knew them at Aguda, and we normally smoke at the canal. They knew me as a taxi driver, and when I saw them in prison, I was shocked. They told me that they went to rob and there was a Hausa guy known as Steven that they gave a car to but he was arrested and he led policemen to arrest them in a hotel. Since we came from the same area, we became very close.In May 2016, Chisom and Raheem were released on bail and they left the prison, while I also regained my freedom in July. When I was in prison, I tried to connect with Uchenna. He told me that he was travelling out of the country because his guys were killed and he did not want to stay in the country again. I told him that he was the one who got me into trouble and when I persisted, he switched off his line and changed his number. I became angry because I was the only one facing the case. Then I decided that I would go fully into armed robbery. I met a guy called Amos, and he linked me to one Alhaji that buys stolen vehicles.I called him when I was in prison and he said he would wait for me until I was released. I also met one Tosin, who was a buyer. When I was released, I called Tosin and Alhaji that I had been released and I was heading for village. A few weeks after I was released, Tosin and Alhaji started calling me. I told Tosin that I had no gun. He asked me to come to Lagos and that he would organise a gun for me.I informed Raheem about it and he told me that he was ready. I came into Lagos and I lodged at Hotel 36 in Aguda, Surulere. The next day, he brought a double barrel locally made pistol with five cartridges. I called Raheem, Chisom and one David who is from my state, and I asked them to meet him in my hotel.We went out. When we got to Ojuelegba, we collected a cab from the owner and we went to Ago Palace area where we snatched a Toyota Corolla from a guy. Alhaji was at Cele (Bus Stop) waiting for me with money and the moment I snatched the car, I went to Alhaji and handed over the car to him. I parked the taxi in Surulere and went away. The next day, I called Alhaji for our money and he refused to pick my calls.The next day, Tosin came around and I went to take the taxi from where I parked it. I snatched a Honda Discussion continues at Kilo area and gave it to Tosin. We also snatched a Camry Big for nothing inside Aguda. After that operation, we went to sleep and we then abandoned the taxi in a street. We parked the Camry in another street where we thought it would be safe.By Friday, we used the Camry to snatch a Honda car in Akerele area of Surulere. We also went to Ajao Estate and we snatched a Toyota Mosul. At that time, I had three cars in my possession. Later, the Alhaji answered my call and told me that the car has been tracked but I was angry that he didnt tell me when the car was tracked.The next week, I checked into another hotel in Ikotun. Later, Tosin came with policemen and I was arrested. They found the guns and the car keys with me. Now I feel very bad. Now I know that crime does not pay.I want to join the police force to fight crime.Joseph stated that poverty pushed him into a life of crime. He explained that he lost his parent at a very young and he was left to fend for himself. He said that one Tigana, who was killed recently by the police, led him to crime. He said: I am 22-years-old and I stay in Ijesha area of Surulere. I met a friend, Ifeanyi, whom we call Tigana, and he was spending money. I am a barber. I was also cutting Tiganas hair and he liked me so much. He was always giving me money, and one day when I was with him at the place where we smoked, I told him that I wanted him to teach me how to fish.I met him again. He took my phone number and called me and asked me to meet him in a hotel. He bought drinks for me. He later called Raheem and two others. We drove to Victoria Island, and Raheem was the one driving a taxi. We robbed a man of his car, money and phones. They gave the car to the Hausa guy called Steven and he took it away.In September, he called me that he was in a hotel and Raheem and the two other guys came again. We robbed a taxi and we used it to rob two cars. Tigana had a Toyota Corolla in his possession and while we were waiting for Steven to come pick the cars, he brought policemen to our hotel room and they arrested all of us and charged us to court. We were remanded in Kirikiri Medium Prison. In June 2015, Francis came to prison and we became friends. When I was released, I regrouped with Francis and we robbed five cars together.Raheem, a native of Epe, Lagos State, said: I am a driver, and I was introduced into armed robbery by my bad friends. It was the situation of the country that led me into crime. I was into the business of car wash and we werent making much money. I am a family man with three children. It was the hardship and the bad company that led me into armed robbery. I was the one driving the gang around because I worked with Tigana in all the robberies and after I was released from prison, I joined Ogbonnas gang.
Borno state Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima has asked why the #BringBackOurGirls Group has never visited Chibok community where the schoo...





Borno state Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima has asked why the #BringBackOurGirls Group has never visited Chibok community where the schoolgirls were kidnapped.Shettima asked the question when Minister of women Affairs, Aisha Jumai Alhassan paid him a courtesy visit. The Governor said, ''Just last week, we spent a whopping sum of N25 million for the education of the 56 Chibok school girls that escaped from Boko Haram and none of the members of BBOG has visited Chibok to know about the feelings of the parents of the girls.''They can make a whole lot of noise from the comfort of Abuja, They can dramatize the whole thing. Some of them are former minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and know the protocol of visiting the President, but choose to dramatize their visit.''Majority of victims of Boko Haram are women and children. In Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno state, we have over 39,000 orphans and in Monguno local government area of the state, we have over 38000 of them and the same applies to other parts of the state. And yet no group or pressure group nor characters in the social media cares to know about this,'' Shettima said.
Child shoebox fundraiser today

A gift basket sales fundraiser with the proceeds going to the Samaritan Purses Operation Christmas Child Shoebox program, will be held in conjunction with the First Baptist Church of Montana garage sale on Saturday, Sept. 10, from 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The events will take place in the Fellowship Hall and everyone is invited and welcome.

The church is located at 201 8th Ave., across from Central School, where there is ample parking.

Rally, picnic at Spring Meadow Lake

St. Peter's Episcopal Cathedral will celebrate the beginning of the fall program year with a 10 a.m. Mass and Rally Sunday picnic on Sunday, Sept. 11, at Spring Meadow Lake.

The liturgy will be at the Pavilion (no services at the church that day). Afterwards there will be a picnic, music and games. All are invited.

Call 442-5175 for more information.

Register for Bible study group

Bible Study Fellowship is studying the book of John from September to May. This city-wide interdenominational Bible study is open to women and children (first through 12th grades). The Monday night class is hosted at Hannaford Street Bible Church, 830 N. Hannaford St. Join us Monday, Sept. 12, at 6:40 p.m. to register. Call Kristin Connolly at 431-9719 or visit www.bsfinternational.org for more information.***

Organ recital at Covenant United

Joe Munzenrider will be performing the Organ's Greatest Hits II on the Rodgers Infinity-II 361 digital pipe organ on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. at the Covenant United Methodist Church, 2330 E. Broadway. Admission is free.

Rummage, cookie sale Sept. 17

Covenant United Methodist Church of Helena will hold their annual rummage and home-baked cookie sale on Saturday, Sept 17, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., in the Fellowship Hall. Everyone is welcome. Proceeds are for missions.

The church is located at 2330 E. Broadway, across from St. Peter's Hospital.
applie pie hill

A view of land from the top of the fire tower on Apple Pie Hill. (Star-Ledger file photo)

(file photo)

TABERNACLE TWP. -- The fire tower at Apple Pie Hill, which at 205 feet tall provides glimpses of both Atlantic City and Philadelphia, is being fenced off to restrict public access.

Larry Hajna, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman, said Saturday that those wishing to climb the 60-foot-tall tower will only be able to do so when New Jersey Forest Fire Service Division B staff are present.

Saying "progressive problems at the fire tower" resulted in the decision to close it to the public, Hajna cited incidents such as televisions being tossed from the top of the structure and fire fighting equipment being stolen or damaged.

To reach New Jersey Forest Fire Service Division B and require about access, readers may call 609-762-9010. However, Hajna said, there's "no guarantee" that you'll be allowed it.

"All you see is a sea of green and the casinos in Atlantic City but everything in front of you is just part of the Pinelands," Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, previously told NJ Advance Media of the view the tower provides.

Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Sure, there were FX in the 1956 sci-fi film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." (Who can forget those pod people flopping around in bubbling goo?) But director Don Siegel's Cold War classic was more about paranoia than spaceships or tentacled beings.

Plot: A small-town doctor, Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), returns from a trip to find that things have taken an odd turn in bucolic Santa Mira. A child claims his mom isn't his mom anymore. (Miles prescribes a sedative.) A woman claims her uncle isn't her uncle anymore. (Miles prescribes a psychiatric examination.)

A colleague calls it "an epidemic mass hysteria" brought on by "worry about what's going on in the world, probably." Whatever. Miles has more important things on his mind. He's trying to make time with Becky (Dana Wynter), a brunette beauty with one chic wardrobe. Miles scores a dinner date with Becky, but the restaurant is devoid of patrons -- another symptom of this pesky mass hysteria. Just as the martinis are served, Miles' romantic evening is interrupted by an urgent call.

He and Becky race to the home of a couple they know socially, Jack and Theodora Belicec (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones), who have a peculiar problem. A non-living (as opposed to dead) body with no hair, no fingerprints and precious few facial features has inexplicably turned up in their home. And it kinda looks like Jack.

Despite its sensational title, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" relies on suggestion and suspense. The scene in which body-snatched citizens of Santa Mira walk, as one, toward the town square for the purpose of trafficking abnormally large seed pods is more creepy than all of the giant ants, tarantulas, grasshoppers and praying mantises that typified 1950s science fiction.

Though Siegel and McCarthy denied that "Invasion" was intended as an analogy for the then-current Red Scare, the film's central theme -- non-conformity is under attack -- resonated during the politically charged time of its release.

Twenty-two years later, Philip Kaufman's remake put more emphasis on special effects, without a doubt, but judiciously retained key aspects of Siegel's original. Like its predecessor, the 1978 model achieved an aura of paranoia, but punched up with moments of dark, elegiac humor. And its superb cast worked wonders.

Shout! Factory has released the 1978 film in an extras-rich Blu-ray package, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Collector's Edition" ($24.93), under its Scream Factory imprint.

Plot: In San Francisco, health inspector Matt Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is happily fixated on small details. What is the suspicious ingredient he finds in a sauce at a French restaurant? Is the "butter" used in a baked potato real? But these problems are nothing compared to the goopy alien microorganisms that have blanketed the Bay Area.

Matthew's crush is his work buddy, Elizabeth (Brooke Adams), who wakes up one morning to find that her live-in boyfriend, Geoff (Art Hindle), is not himself. Geoff is suddenly aloof; has mysterious rendezvous with strangers; and, most troubling of all, no longer watches ballgames.

This is fine with Matt -- now he can move in on Elizabeth -- until everyone around him starts getting body-snatched. Matt and Elizabeth's friends the Bellicecs -- frustrated poet Jack (Jeff Goldblum) and spa operator Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) -- have been noticing it, too. Author and pop psychologist David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy) explains the trend away as ... mass hysteria.

The love fest with the original continues via cameos by McCarthy, who practically reprises his role of Miles, and Siegel, as a cab driver who, after picking up Matt and Elizabeth, calls his dispatcher to identify his passengers as "Type H."

The '78 "Invasion" is the best of both worlds -- reverent remake, modernizing update -- and touches on the same virtually universal themes: the messiness and weirdnesses of reproduction; the unsettling phenomenon of a familiar person who, for whatever reason, "changes his spots"; and the terrible feeling that the world is out to get you. We've all been there.
NEWARK -- The vast expanse of well-worn carpeting has been replaced by a shiny, white epoxy finish, and the drop-ceiling has been removed to create more space overhead, exposing the steel support girders, now freshly painted.

Those and many other changes to the building that once housed The Star Ledger newsroom and business offices give the big, wide open areas the eager, if still-unfinished look of a new box store waiting to be stocked.

And stocked it will be, but not with the toys, clothes or patio furniture of a Walmart or Target. Rather, the space is being remade into an energy efficient, climate-controlled and hushed warehouse for works of art.



Manhattan-based Crozier Fine Arts, which stores, maintains and transports paintings and sculpture around the world, bought the building in June 2015 for $7.5 million from Maddd Equities of Floral Park, N.Y., the real estate firm that had purchased it from The Star-Ledger's owner, Advance Publications, a year earlier for an undisclosed sum.

The 177,000-square-foot grey brick building at the corner of Washington and Court streets, was the newspaper's headquarters and main location from 1966 to 2014.

(The Star-Ledger remains New Jersey's largest-circulation newspaper. The Star-Ledger still maintains a presence in downtown Newark, at the Gateway Plaza complex near Penn Station. The newspaper's publisher, other executives and some editorial employees work in that location.)

Crozier is now spending another $10 million to $12 million to knock out old walls and erect new ones, revamp the air circulation system and surfaces, and otherwise remake the building to suit its needs. It will be Crozier's third facility in New Jersey, after two other Newark locations, on Johnson Avenue and Irvine Turner Boulevard.



"We want to make it as secure and air-tight a facility as possible," said James Pantoleon, Crozier's director of facility maintenance and engineering. "We have custom climate control systems we install in the spaces. We maintain 70 degrees and 50 percent relative humidity. And we do it with very little real energy."



People and portraits are not the same, and it's more demanding to accommodate a large workforce than a large collection.



"The building was constructed to house 1,200 people and keep them comfortable. Art storage is a different concept in itself," Pantoleon added. "We don't bring in a lot of outside air. Whereas for people you need a lot of oxygen, we don't want a lot of oxygen in our air." (Oxygen degrades a variety of materials, and is unwelcome in many storage environments.)

Crozier said about 50 people will work in the facility once it's fully operational later this fall. And it's that modest human traffic and occupancy that will allow the building to remain at a constant temperature and humidity with little effort by the heating and air conditioning system, Pantoleon explained, because there will be relatively little walking -- or breathing -- in and out.



Mayor Ras Baraka welcomed Crozier's reuse of the building, noting it will provide employment including entry-level jobs, as well as tax revenues.



"It's great," Baraka said. "It actually speaks to whats going on in the city of Newark in bringing in terms of warehousing and manufacturing."



Crozier's clients include artists, galleries, museums, private collectors and others who need their valuable works stored in a secure place, under precise atmospheric conditions, and handled with the utmost care.



Newark was an ideal location for the company, located just 5 miles west of Manhattan, the world's main intersection of art and commerce, and with easy access to several major highways and Newark Liberty International Airport.



"It takes me 22 minutes from Chelsea to get here," on the PATH train, Pantoleon said, referring to the Manhattan neighborhood where Crozier's headquarters are located.



The Newark building's size, its large, open spaces, high ceilings and its availability for immediate occupancy, made the old Star-Ledger building attractive to the company.

In addition to its larger storage areas, the facility will include smaller spaces that can be leased and controlled by individual galleries or artists, doubling as viewing areas to show pieces to potential buyers.

A bar-code system will track every work that enters the building, allowing it to be retrieved in a matter or minutes.



Crozier declined to identify any recognizable artists or institutions among its clients, citing confidentiality agreements. Company officials said they could not provide even a range of dollar values for individual pieces they store, because their clients don't tell them.



Like Observer Highway in Hoboken or Journal Square in Jersey City, the newspaper's name will outlast its physical presence on the spot. The address of the building, at the intersection of Court and Washington streets, a few blocks from City Hall and the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse, will continue to be 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, said Simon Hornby, Crozier's president and CEO.



"Star-Ledger Plaza holds a special place in the heart of Newark, and we want to maintain that," said Hornby, the Louisiana-born son of Britains whose dual citizenship and posh accent reflect the international art world he trades in.



Hornby said Crozier makes a point of hiring locally. Apart from corporate public relations, he said, it's simply good business to have your workforce handy.



Many employees are artists themselves. Andrew Deock, a Newark native who is director of storage operations in New Jersey, is a painter. Shoshanna Weinberger, Crozier's director of administrative operations, is a multi-media artists with pieces in the permanent collection of the Newark Museum.



"There's an affinity for the product their dealing with," Hornby said.



Angel Rodriguez and Ralph Austin are both local hires, Newark natives who still live in the city. The two were installing electrical lines in the old newsroom, a space Crozier people have dubbed, "the loft," because it will be filled with stacks of oil paintings, lithographs, silk screens and other works.



"It's exciting," Austin, 32, a Star-Ledger reader, told a reporter. "It's a big transformation, going from being used for news to a big art site. It's interesting. And fun for me. I enjoy it."



"It's pretty interesting, the history here," added Rodriquez, 31, who also reads the Ledger. "We found some old papers from you guys."

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
More doctors asked about delaying or refusing childhood vaccines, study says

The American Academy of Pediatrics said if pediatricians cannot convince parents about the safety and importance of vaccines, it's okay to drop the families as a last resort. (Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times/TNS)

(Erika Schultz)

TRENTON -- The number of New Jersey school children who skipped vaccines for religious reasons topped 9,500 in the 2015-16 school year, according to the state health department.

That number has been steadily climbing but represents just 2 percent of New Jersey's the 506,000 preschool, kindergarten, first and sixth graders in the state, according to state data. It's nearly 600 percent higher than the 1,641 whose parents requested a religious exemption a decade ago.

Medical exemptions have steadily declined, with 1,303 requested in the 2014-15 school year compared to 1,592 the previous year.

Under New Jersey's religious exemption policy, parents and guardians can submit a signed statement indicating "immunization interferes with the free exercise of the pupil's religious rights." No other documentation is required.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued a statement saying that as a last resort, it's OK for doctors to stop seeing patients who refuse their shots. The Academy also urged states to repeal laws that have allowed parents to use religion as an excuse for not getting their children inoculated, saying this poses a health risk.

An attempt to make it tougher for New Jersey families to get the religious exemption by requiring they explain how vaccines "would violate, contradict, or otherwise be inconsistent" with their religion failed in the last legislative session. It was opposed by the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice, which said lawmakers should not judge a parent's religious beliefs.

Among New Jersey counties, Hunterdon had the highest percentage of religious exemption requests (4.8 percent), while Hudson had the lowest (0.9 percent).

Here is a county-by-county breakdown of how many school children have been granted exemptions from vaccines:

Atlantic: 264, representing 1.8 percent of all students

Bergen: 1,367, 2.5 percent

Burlington: 397, 1.6 percent

Camden: 343, 1.2 percent

Cape May: 115, 2.8 percent

Cumberland: 145, 1.5 percent

Essex: 770, 1.5 percent

Gloucester: 244, 1.6 percent

Hudson: 349, 0.9 percent

Hunterdon: 294, 4.8 percent

Mercer: 247, 1.1 percent

Middlesex: 545, 1.2 percent

Monmouth: 1,189, 3.5 percent

Morris: 783, 2.7 percent

Ocean: 715, 2.5 percent

Passaic: 520, 1.7 percent

Salem: 42, 1.3 percent

Somerset: 410, 2.2 percent

Sussex: 226, 3.4 percent

Union: 402, 1.2 percent

Warren: 139, 3.0 percent

State total: 9,506, 1.9 percent

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
SECAUCUS -- Thousands of people checked out body art, tattoo equipment and more at the Inked Out New Jersey tattoo convention today at the Meadowlands Exposition Center.

Organizers of the event at 355 Plaza Drive expect 20,000 visitors at the three-day convention, which began Friday afternoon and will run until Sunday. The show will run until 10 p.m. today and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

The convention features 100-plus tattoo artists, musical performances, a book-signing with tattoo artist Freddie Negrete, and appearances by legendary artist Paul Booth and the Last Rites Tattoo and Art Gallery Team.

Kids under 12 are free all weekend. A one-day pass is $20 and the weekend pass -- which includes a free pass for a friend -- is $50, according to the Inked Out website. The convention also offers piercings, art and other merchandise like clothing and jewelry. There are tattoo contests on the main stage all weekend.

Jonathan Lin may be reached at jlin@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @jlin_jj. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Republican-leaning websites Friday posted stories questioning trips that Gov. Steve Bullock and administration officials have taken to Missoula and the Kentucky Derby.

The governors office says the trips were, respectively, to conduct state business, and to fulfill Bullocks role as head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Newstalk KGVO's assertion that Bullock also traveled to Puerto Rico is wrong, said Bullock's spokeswoman.

It did not happen, Ronja Abel, the governors spokeswoman, said. She said the governor has never been to Puerto Rico.

The website posted photos of the governor and some of his staff members at the Kentucky Derby in 2015 and claimed the governor also took another trip in March 2015, "most likely to Puerto Rico."

Bullock and state Commerce Director Meg O'Leary attended the Kentucky Derby last year as part of a Democratic Governors' Association event hosted by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Bullock was head of the DGA in 2015.

Each time the governor goes to a DGA event, he is staffed by a senior-level member of the administration, Abel said. In a total of three trips to the Derby, he has traveled with Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Bovingdon, former Deputy Chief of Staff Kevin OBrien, former Chief of Staff Tim Burton, current Chief of Staff Tracy Stone-Manning and OLeary. The senior staff was there to represent the states interests and meet with counterparts from other states, Abel said.

Travel costs were paid for by the association, Abel said, and the state plane was not involved in any way. Abel said an employees time on trips like this is a mix of work and comp time. If time is spent on political activities, the employee is not on the state dime, she said.

Montana law bars state officials from political activity at taxpayers' expense.

DGA tax documents show OLeary received a $1,900 travel check cut by the PAC in March 2015 -- one of more than a dozen such payments, totaling nearly $26,000, the group reported sending to Bullock and members of his inner circle since 2013.

As evidence for its suggestion of a trip to Puerto Rico, KGVO cited an Independent Record story that pointed out that in March 2015, the month O'Leary got the reimbursement, the only DGA activity was in Puerto Rico.

The March payment from the DGA to O'Leary was a reimbursement for the tickets she bought to go to the upcoming Kentucky Derby, and there was no other trip.

Bullock was invited to attend a Paul McCartney concert in August 2014 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula by University of Montana President Royce Engstrom.

Of course (the governor) is going to attend an event where hes in the room with people like Larry Simkins, the co-chair of his Main Street Montana project. He met with other economic development offices, Abel said.

OLeary flew to Missoula for the concert because of her role as commerce director; Main Street Montana falls under her department, Abel said.

Another website, Republican Uprising, run by Matthew Monforton, a state lawmaker from Bozeman who did not seek re-election, also published a post Friday questioning Bullocks travel.

Questions surrounding the trips come six months after Bullock first announced he would refund the state for the cost of oft-criticized plane trips hed taken to campaign stops. And in recent weeks, Montana Republicans have called on Bullock to further reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the Missoula trip.

GOP critics who slammed Bullocks concert appearance wasted little time in blasting his Derby trip.

We've seen a governor and now a member of his cabinet abusing state resources to fly to rock concerts, birthday parties and campaign fundraisers, said Amy Lunde, campaign manager for Republican governors office hopeful Greg Gianforte. What is a cabinet member doing at a dark-money DGA function?

Meanwhile, revenues are in steep decline, our economy has seen negative economic growth for the last two quarters, and the commerce director is unfairly outsourcing $7 million a year in business to an out of state firm as a gift to a family member of a staffer.
At SWAT roll in Harvey: 'Come on out!' and loud bangs, but no arrest
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.
Many who want to preserve the way of life in a small southeastern Montana town after a coal-fired power plant there is partially shuttered lined up to support a slew of proposed bills aimed to help offset social and economic losses, while some questioned if several measures exacted too harsh a toll on utilities and ratepayers.

One after another in a packed hearing room Friday, people told a legislative interim committee Colstrip and its 2,300 residents need assistance from the state after Units 1 and 2 of the electric plant close by 2022, or else the community could turn into a ghost town.

Plant operator Talen Energy has agreed to shut the two older units at the plant as part of a settlement brought by the Montana Environmental Information Center and the Sierra Club over Clean Air Act violations.

The social costs of sudden layoffs of a sizable group of workers with no future in sight are very steep, said Chuck Dalby, a geologist in Helena who is from Forsyth and helped build housing in Colstrip before the plants were constructed in the 1970s.

The Energy and Telecommunications Interim Committee moved forward six of seven proposed bills, most unanimously, that in some way or another divert money to those that will be affected by the partial shutdown of the power plant.

The bills were all requested by Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, who has become one of the most public faces in the fight to keep Colstrip operating and mitigate any losses resulting from layoffs.

Lawmakers and commentators clashed over if knee-jerk regulations and taxes would unfairly punish utilities in Oregon and Washington, who have been directed by their state lawmakers to move away from buying electricity generated by coal-fired plants, and scare off business or if the-out-of-state owners who are pulling out of the plant should be held responsible and Montana should have as much control over the process as possible.

A bill that would take $50 million from the states coal severance tax trust fund and split the money between grant programs for local governments, economic development organizations and work retraining touched off a battle over who should pay for the social and economic costs of of shutting down part of the plant.

Dalby said no one deserves access to the coal tax trust fund, built with taxes on coal mining in the state, more than soon-to-be former coal workers. In 2014 the coal trust fund had $952 million.

Anne Hedges, with the Montana Environmental Information Center, opposed the draft, saying costs would be passed along to ratepayers. Busting the trust should not be one of the things we are depending on to help the works in Colstrip, she said.

Neal Ullman, with Montana Conservation Voters, said he supported the idea of supporting laid-off workers but not the bill that pays for it.

Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstirp, instead proposed to pay for the programs by doubling a tax on transmitting power from the plant. The amended bill passed, though it started debate about if punishing the utilities who buy power from Colstrip is the best approach, since these companies can pass the costs onto customers,including Montanans, in the form of higher electricity prices.

Montana AFL-CIO political director Chris Cavasoz said corporations should be held responsible for the decisions they make. There should be a cost for shutting down these plants and that money should go to supporting workers in the community, he said.

Draft bills passed Friday propose to:

Set aside money so Montana can participate in rate hearings in Washington state participate in out-of-state proceedings involving companies that own parts of Colstrip;

Establish remediation requirements for companies that decommission power plants. This bill was heavily amended with suggestions proposed by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, who will continue to refine the bill before the 2017 Legislature convenes in January. Some criticized the bill, saying it wasnt clear how it fit in with existing agency rules governing decommission and remediation and the unclear regulations would deter other businesses from locating in Montana.

Double a transmission tax paid utilities that transmit power out of Colstrip to 30 cents a megawatt and use the money to pay for programs that support local governments, economic development organizations and displaced workers. A bill tied to this was dropped after this one was amended.

Establish an impact fee that must be paid by utilities that intend to retire coal-fired plants or parts of one and split the fee, which would be millions of dollars, between school districts, counties, worker retraining programs and the state's general fund;

Create a task force to look at benefits and retirement security for employees affected by the bankruptcy of any natural-resource based company in Montana;

The only draft bill not to move forward was one that would have allowed large-scale users who currently get power from Colstrip to divert funds that go into energy efficiency program to offsetting the cost of entering into new power contracts.

Draft bills are assigned a sponsor who will then carry the bill when the 2017 Legislature meets starting in January.
CLINTON  A two-month-old Clinton girl died Friday afternoon after the driver of a westbound Chevrolet pickup apparently lost control and rolled her truck on Interstate 90 west of Clinton.

Missoula County Sheriff T.J. McDermott said Cia Cleary was killed in the crash. A 1-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl were treated at a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries, and the woman who was driving also was hospitalized.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to this family who suffered a terrible loss today," McDermott said in a news release issued early Friday evening.

Trooper Nicholas Navarro of Montana Highway Patrol said the crash happened "pretty much right on top" of a single-vehicle accident early Thursday morning between Turah and Clinton that claimed two lives. Both were near mile marker 116.

Friday's wreck was reported at 1:23 p.m. Navarro said the Chevy truck came to rest in the median after apparently rolling several times.

The infant was ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Chris Newman, deputy chief of Missoula Rural Fire, one of several responders to the wreck.

Newman said while on the scene, authorities were dispatched at 1:58 p.m. to another accident near mile maker 117 on I-90, where a "box type" delivery truck had rear-ended a tractor trailer towing a pup trailer loaded with hot asphalt.

The pup trailer had rolled on its side, Newman said, but only a small amount of asphalt leaked from the top fill cap.

"The driver of the delivery truck was pinned in the vehicle and required extensive extrication by MRFD firefighters," Newman said in a news release. "Once extricated, the driver was transported to the hospital in serious condition."

Both westbound lanes and one eastbound lane were closed until 6:20 p.m. Westbound traffic was diverted to a frontage road at Clinton exit 121.

Newman said 10 minutes after report of the second accident came in, Missoula Rural Fire was dispatched to Twin Creek Road off Montana Highway 200 in the Blackfoot River valley for a single-vehicle accident with possible injuries. East Missoula Rural Fire Department responded to assist with that call.

On Thursday, Brandon Zuleger, 26, of Missoula and his 3-year-old daughter Payton died in a rollover crash near mile marker 116 that was reported at 4:18 a.m. A 21-year-old woman who isn't related to the Zulegers was hospitalized. None of the occupants wore a seat belt and all were ejected from the vehicle.

The three mile marker 116 deaths raised the Montana highway toll to 141. There were 151 fatalities on state roads last year through Sept. 6.
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Apparently there are talks between Samsung, AMD and Nvidia to integrate more powerful graphics into the mobile Samsung silicon starting 2018. Samsung also wants to have a CDMA capable modem ready by then.

4 Reviews

Sammobile has been able to gather information about talks between Samsung, AMD and Nvidia about integrating the GPU-giants technology into Exynos processors in 2018. As an alternative Samsung is said to be working on their own inhouse graphics technology as well. Apparently Samsung is currently in favor of Nvidia's solution thanks to their advanced Pascal architecture. We could see Exynos chips using AMD or Nvidia GPUs in the Galaxy S9 first, if Samsung sticks to its previous yearly Galaxy upgrade cycle in the future.

Currently Samsung is using ARM's Mali GPU technology. Next year, Exynos chips will improve on that by using Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA, which should result in performance improvements due to the fact that GPU and CPU can share a common bus. Apart from the GPU tech, Samsung is also working on a CDMA capable Modem for release in 2018. That would enable Samsung to source all high end mobile processors from their own factories instead of using Qualcomm technology in some markets like the US.
The Roosters have stormed into the second week of the Holden Cup finals with a clinical 48-0 win over the Canberra Raiders in slippery conditions at GIO Stadium.

With Jackson Hastings unavailable for the Holden Cup finals, many people had written off the Roosters as genuine threats but the Tricolours showed they are much more than a one-man team to end the Raiders' season.

While the Roosters were brilliant, the Green Machine failed to take advantage of their home-ground advantage - despite finishing the regular season in eighth  to be held scoreless in what was a disappointing way to finish their year.

It took just four minutes for the Roosters to crack Canberra's defensive line as Joseph Manu powered through some would-be defenders to show why he is regarded as an NRL star in the making.

The good times kept coming for the Tricolours when their other centre, Jarred Anderson, latched onto a deflected Grant Garvey grubber to double the lead.

The Raiders looked to be getting back into the contest on the back of Zac Woolford's kicking game, but the Roosters wrestled back momentum through their own No.9 with Garvey burrowing over from close range to make it 18-0.

There was simply no stopping the Roosters in the first half as Victor Radley charged onto a flat ball from Nat Butcher to give his side a huge 22-point lead at the break.

If the Raiders were to have any chance of a miracle fightback then they needed to strike first in the second half. Instead, they fell further behind as Bernard Lewis reeled in a high kick and offloaded inside for Anderson to complete his double.

Butcher then continued his stunning season to break several tackles to position fullback Kiah Cooper for another try under the posts before Jarrett Boland steamrolled his way over to make it 38-0.

Nothing could stop the Roosters, and even when Sitili Tupouniua was denied by the on-field officials, they still struck gold as a captain's challenge saw the decision reversed by the Bunker.

Winger Johnny Tuivasa-Sheck capped off a five-star performance from the 'hosts' with a try at the death, but Jesse Marschke's conversion sailed wide to deny the Roosters a half-century of points.

Roosters 48 (Jarred Anderson 2, Joseph Manu, Grant Garvey, Victor Radley, Kiah Cooper, Jarrett Boland, Sitili Tupouniua, Johnny Tuivasa-Sheck tries; Jesse Marschke 6 goals) defeated Raiders 0 at GIO Stadium. Half-time: 22-0 Roosters.
NEAR THE STANDING ROCK SIOUX RESERVATION, N.D. (AP)  An American Indian tribe's attempt to halt construction of an oil pipeline near its North Dakota reservation failed in federal court Friday, but the government ordered work to stop on one segment and asked the company to "voluntarily pause" work on a wider swath that tribal officials say holds sacred artifacts.

The Standing Rock Sioux, whose cause has drawn thousands to join their protest, had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits at more than 200 water crossings for the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Tribal leaders say the project violates several federal laws and will harm water supplies. The tribe also alleges that ancient sites have been disturbed during construction.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington denied the tribe's request for a temporary injunction in a 58-page opinion.

A joint statement from the Army and the Departments of Justice and the Interior said construction "bordering or under Lake Oahe will not go forward at this time" and asked the pipeline builder, Energy Transfer Partners, to "voluntarily pause" work 20 miles to the east and west of the lake while the government reconsiders "any of its previous decisions."

The statement also said the case "highlighted the need for a serious discussion" about nationwide reforms "with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects."

Attorney Jan Hasselman with the environmental group Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit in July on behalf of the tribe, said before the ruling that any such decision would be challenged.

"We will have to pursue our options with an appeal and hope that construction isn't completed while that (appeal) process is going forward," he said. "We will continue to pursue vindication of the tribe's lawful rights even if the pipeline is complete."

Tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard said the ruling gave her "a great amount of grief. My heart is hurting, but we will continue to stand, and we will look for other legal recourses." She said the protests would continue.

Energy Transfer Partners officials did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The judge's ruling said the court "does not lightly countenance any depredation of lands that hold significance" to the tribe and that, given the federal government's history with the tribe, the court scrutinized the permitting process "with particular care."

Nonetheless, the judge wrote, the tribe "has not demonstrated that an injunction is warranted here."

The 1,172-mile project will carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois.

The company plans to complete the pipeline this year. In court papers, it said stopping the project would cost $1.4 billion the first year, mostly due to lost revenue in hauling crude.

"Investor appetite for the project could shift and financing may no longer be available," the company said. "Construction of the entire project would cease and the project itself would be jeopardized."

A status conference in the Standing Rock Sioux's lawsuit is scheduled for Sept. 16.
Green Sense Farms, an indoor farm company based in Portage, has raised more than $120,000 in a crowdfunding campaign on startengine.com.

The market-leading company, which raked in $788,000 in revenue last year and just opened its first farm in China, reached its minimum goal of $100,000 on the first day but hopes to raise up to $1 million to build a network of indoor vertical farms. These would be built at perishable food distribution centers owned by large grocery stores and institutional campuses that serve a lot of food daily, such as at hospital cafeterias.

Were not subject to rain or drought," Founder and CEO of Green Sense Farms Robert Colangelo said. "We precisely control the indoor environment, to create the perfect conditions for our plants to grow year-round, every single day.

Last year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules that allow companies to sell securities through crowdfunding, which SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White said would give smaller companies a more innovative way to raise capital while protecting investors.

Companies can go online to raise up to $1 million through crowdfunding over a 12-month period. They're required to disclose independently audited financial information, including from tax returns, and the crowdfunding platforms have to provide investors with disclosures and educational materials.

Green Sense Farms, which reports having $2.6 million in assets, grows GMO-free leafy green vegetables indoors, using less water and land than traditional agriculture. The company says more sustainable farming practices are needed because climate change is reducing the amount of arable land and the world's population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

"Green Sense Farms has been the fortunate recipient of numerous stories about our exciting innovative indoor vertical farming technology," Colangelo said. "All this press has generated many inquiries from individuals asking how they can invest in our sustainable farm. Were pleased to announce that the recently released crowdfunding regulations now allow for individuals to make direct equity investments in growth companies like ours."

The company, which started with a 20,000-square-foot farm in Portage, is seeking investments of at least $100 to fund R&D for new farm designs and to expand its network. It's eyeing indoor farms near colleges, hospitals, military bases and corporate campuses, including abroad in Canada, Scandinavia and China.

"Just as Green Sense Farms has disrupted produce distribution and cut out the middleman, the new crowdfunding regulations have democratized the capital markets, allowing individuals the opportunity to take advantage of public offerings without the use of traditional stock brokers," Colangelo said.

For more information, visit www.startengine.com/startup/green-sense-farms-llc.
* Todd Meyer was living on Long Island and first heard about it after waking up and turning the radio on to the Howard Stern show. Linda Stahulak was on the 84th floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago when she was told to leave the building. Alice Smedstad was also in downtown Chicago, and she recalls an eerie silence in the city and on the train. Steve Zavesky was attending a U.S. Postal school in Norman, Oklahoma, and was pulled out of classes after the first plane hit. Lynn Phillips remembers how somber everyone was that day. But she also remembers how everyone was filled with pride and unity at being an American.
SAN FRANCISCO  When ex-Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner became a registered sex offender for life last Tuesday, he joined a nationwide list of registered sex criminals that has grown dramatically in recent years to more than 800,000.

Even some who have denounced Turners six-month jail sentence as too lenient for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman question whether he should spend his life with the stigma and onerous restrictions of a registered sex offender.

They join a growing number of defense attorneys, advocates and judges who are questioning the fairness of applying lifetime, blanket restrictions to expanding definitions of sex crimes that frequently treat first-time offenders the same as serial rapists.

In California, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama its impossible for people convicted of any sex crime to be removed from the online registries showing their pictures, addresses, convictions and probation details. Offenders have been turned into victims themselves when they are targeted in vigilante attacks or cant find jobs or places to live, critics say.

Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, who lambasted Turners sentence as too lenient and is leading a campaign to oust the judge who imposed it, said requiring the 21-year-old man to be registered as a sex offender until he dies may be too harsh.

No one should be defined by their worst decision for the rest of their life, Dauber said in an interview. Deciding who should be removed, which cases or crimes should qualify would require thoughtful legislation, a fair process and, of course, an unbiased judge.

Dauber stressed there are many criminals who deserve lifetime registration, but said at some point after at least 10 years on the registry Turner should be given a chance to get off it by proving he has successfully rehabilitated himself.

Turner was released from jail Sept. 2 and moved to his parents home in Bellbrook, Ohio, registering as a sex offender at the Greene County sheriffs office four days after his release from a California jail for good behavior after serving half his sentence. Protesters demonstrated in front of the home before and after his arrival and Turners parents told police eggs were thrown at the house.

Advocates for sex crime victims insist that lifetime registries make the public safer by preventing offender recidivism and giving citizens and police access to crucial information on the whereabouts of sex offenders and where they are prohibited from going  like schools and other areas frequented by children. Access to that information in 50 state registries plus a federal government registry, they say, far outweighs complaints about the registry burdens for criminals who have served their prison sentences.

Sex offender registries are an important part of the criminal justice system, said Staca Shehan of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Registries assist law enforcement and the public  to keep track of the locations of convicted sex offenders.

But some defense attorneys say registration has turned into such a harsh punishment that they now negotiate longer jail terms for their clients in return for prosecutors dropping sex offender registry requirements, trading incarceration for pleading guilty to charges that dont require registration.

At least a prison sentence ends, said Gary Goodman, a public defense lawyer from Palo Alto, California. Registration is forever.

Most states allow peeping toms and people convicted of crimes like indecent exposure to have their names removed from registries after 10 to 30 years of good behavior, while more serious sex crimes like rape and the sexual assault Turner was convicted of are punishable with lifetime registration whether they are committed by first time offenders or people with a history of sex crimes.

California attorney Janice Bellucci has filed more than 50 federal lawsuits challenging sex offender registration conditions in cases that have forced cities to amend or eliminate residency restrictions imposed on criminals listed in in the registries, rescinding prohibitions for them to be physically present in public places like street side bus stops and parks.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 upheld the legality of sex offender registries, but the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that changes to Michigans sex offender registry law cannot be applied retroactively to offenders convicted before the changes were put in place.

Calling Michigans residency and loitering prohibitions for registered sex offenders similar to the ancient punishment of banishment, the appeals court panel wrote that the state brands registrants as moral lepers solely on the basis of a prior conviction.

Federal officials have been trying with mixed success for a decade to get all 50 states to adopt uniform registration requirements as part of a single national database they say would make the system uniform and improve tracking of sex offenders who move from state to state. But only 17 states have substantially compiled so far.

The federally registry has helped investigators quickly identify potential sex crimes suspects and capture offenders who have fled their home states, said Luis deBacca, the U.S. Justice Department official in charge of the federal sex offender registration and tracking office.

We really do see this as making a difference in the community, deBacca said.
VALPARAISO  Porter County Juvenile Court Magistrate Gwenn Rinkenberger was upset to learn Rodney Wood may soon be released after serving less than half of the 60 years he got for his role in the gruesome 1990 abduction, rape and murder of a 19-year-old convenience store clerk.

Rinkenberger was at the heart of the high-profile case that sent shock waves across Porter County. As a new county prosecutor, she helped put away Perry Miller, who was accused of directing Wood and another young man in carrying out the grisly slaying.

It was the most heinous crime I heard of, she said.

I think about her all the time, Rinkenberger said of the young murder victim, Christel Helmchen. Thats the kind of crime you never forget.

The painful memories were stirred recently when Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford, who presided over the original case, was notified that Wood was eligible to be released Oct. 12 to a community transition program.

The judge blocked the move, but Wood, who went into prison at 16 and is now 42, is set for release on Feb. 9.

Wood, Miller and Millers then-19-year-old stepson, William Harmon, all of LaPorte, were convicted of abducting Helmchen on Nov. 14, 1990, from her overnight job at the former White Hen Pantry store at the southwest corner of Calumet Avenue and Glendale Boulevard in Valparaiso.

The trio took Helmchen to a rural Jackson Township construction site where she was tied to a wall, beaten with a two-by-four, attacked with a tire iron, repeatedly raped and shot in the head.

Harmon said he pulled the trigger at the direction of then 43-year-old Miller, who had been released from prison just two years prior after serving 19 years of a life sentence for rape, kidnapping and sodomy.

Wood confessed to taking part in the assault and testified against Miller as part of a plea bargain agreement that resulted in a 60-year prison sentence. Inmates are eligible to significantly reduce the amount of time actually served with good behavior and participation in various prison programs.

He was young and he cooperated. Thats why he got what he got, Rinkenberger said of Woods lighter sentence.

A jury took just five minutes to sentence Miller to death for his role in the crime, but a federal court later reversed Millers conviction and death sentence. He pleaded guilty a month later and was sentenced to 138 years in prison.

Harmon pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 280 years behind bars.

Joey Larr was a young detective with the Porter County Sheriffs Department when he joined other officers in traveling to Kentucky to pick up Wood and Harmon in the wake of the murder.

Was it an awakening to some extent? he said of the impact of the crime on the way 24-hour stores conduct business. Probably.

Rinkenberger voiced hope for Woods rehabilitation after so many years behind bars.

But, I dont know, she said.
WINFIELD  Police are seeking the publics help in identifying a man suspected Saturday of robbing First Midwest Bank off 109th Avenue.

Lake County Sheriffs Deputy Chief Dan Murchek said the suspect, a black male with a medium build and wearing a gray athletic jumpsuit with black stripes down both sides, robbed the bank about 11:45 a.m. No weapon was displayed.

The suspect then fled on foot but also was seen driving a beige Buick Century with whitewall tires.

A Lake County sheriffs helicopter hovered over Doubletree and Country Meadows subdivisions in Winfield shortly after noon Saturday looking for the suspect.

The Winfield town marshall and Lake County sheriffs officers were searching the area near the bank, including the subdivisions, as of about 1:10 p.m.

Murchek said Merrillville, Hobart and Crown Point police joined in the search later in the afternoon, and officers attempted to use a police dog to pick up the suspects trail.

Some officers were stopping vehicles and questioning drivers near the scene while others fanned out throughout the subdivisions.

Anyone with information can contact Lake County Sheriffs Detective Michelle Dvorscak at (219) 755-3346.
CALUMET CITY  Tempers flared, insults were hurled and a resident was escorted out by police Thursday during a Calumet City Council meeting amid ongoing discussions of term limits and salary reductions.

Third Ward Alderman Thaddeus Jones and Mayor Michelle Markiewicz-Qualkinbush have each attempted to harm the other politically with ballot referendums and salary ordinance amendments over the last few months.

At one point Thursday, Jones and Sixth Ward Alderman Nick Manousopoulos pointed fingers and loudly insulted each other. Mia Cole Nelson, a Calumet City resident in attendance, screamed at Manousopoulos and had to be removed by police.

You people do not care about whats going on in our community, Nelson said.

Tensions began in June, when the Council voted to add questions about pensions and term limits for the mayor to the April 4, 2017 ballot. The term limit referendum would limit elected officials to only four terms in office, while the pension question would disallow an alderman or mayor receiving two pensions through both the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and the Illinois General Assembly Retirement Fund.

Another ballot question, added two weeks ago, asks if any elected official should be permitted to hold more than one paid elected office.

All of these would directly affect Jones, who represents the 29th District in the Illinois House and is expected to run for mayor but would be disqualified if the term limit referendum passed.

I havent even announced that Ill run for mayor and I may not even run for mayor, but I should have the right to run, Jones said. They spend taxpayer dollars telling voters that theyre going to limit their choices.

Qualkinbush, who would only be allowed one more term if the referendum passed, said a petition was circulated by Jones and his crew asking for term limits. That petition asked for a limit of three terms in office.

I find it very interesting that they would condemn us for referendum questions when they started it, Qualkinbush said.

A pair of ordinances were passed during a committee of the whole meeting prior to the regular meeting Thursday. The first eliminates additional compensation for aldermen chairing a committee and the second adds another referendum question to the April ballot asking whether or not aldermen should be limited to four terms.

The salary ordinance would go into effect in the next term, beginning May 1, 2017. Both Jones and First Ward Alderman Eric Schneider voted against the ordinances. Schneider later called them purely political.

When pressed by Jones, Qualkinbush said the ordinances were her idea.

Jones added items to Thursdays agenda asking for requests for proposal for legal services and for an audit of legal bills from Odelson and Sterk dating back to 2005. Manousopoulos tabled those ordinances and two others from Jones asking for the mayors position to be made part-time and to cut its salary.

(Jones is) running for mayor. This is clearly political. Im in favor of term limits, just not his, Qualkinbush said. He wants term limits to cut me off so I cant run, so he gets to run and not have me for his opposition.
GRIFFITH  YingJie Zhang, Tianzhu Liu and Shuai Li are learning to become pilots at the Griffith-Merrilville Airport and will take that training back to China where they will fly commercially.

Zhang, who calls himself Craig while in the United States, said many people in China want to become pilots, but it takes much more time in China to get the training. Zhang, 21, said he has wanted to be a pilot since he was a boy.

We come here. We get the knowledge and thats good, he said. I love to fly. In China, the airspace belongs to military. We cant just go out and do the different maneuvers we do here without getting permission from the military. That takes time.

Liu, who chose the name Norman, said he is enjoying his time in the United States. He already is contracted to work for Hainan Airlines, the largest privately owned air transport company and the fourth-largest airline in terms of fleet size in the Peoples Republic of China.

Li, known as Sam, arrived in mid-July and is just beginning his classes. (It has been a tradition since the training school opened that students adopt American first names because their own are difficult to pronounce, according to Craig Anderson, director of Griffith Aviation Inc., which has operated the airport since 1984. They choose names from movies or someone they like and admire.)

Zhang, Liu and Li are among 45 Chinese men currently learning to become pilots at the Griffth-Merrillville Airport through an agreement between the airport and the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, at which all are students.

Growing need







The Civil Aviation Flight University of China is the largest civil aviation university in Asia and the worlds largest flight training institution. It is under the direct leadership of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, a government agency.

The airport made the arrangement with the flight university in 2007, and the first group of Chinese students began classes in the spring of 2008. Since that time, they have trained nearly 300 Chinese men to be pilots, Anderson said. To date, no women have enrolled in the flight school.

As global economies expand and airlines take delivery of tens of thousands of new commercial jetliners over the next 20 years, there is extraordinary demand for people to pilot and maintain these airplanes, according to Boeings website, www.boeing.com. To meet this growth, the 2016 Boeing Pilot and Technician Outlook forecasts between now and 2035, the industry will need more than 2 million new aviation personnel  617,000 commercial airline pilots, 679,000 maintenance technicians and 814,000 cabin crew.

The largest growth is expected to be in the Asia-Pacific region where the demand for pilots is estimated at 248,000, according to the website. North America will require 112,000, Europe 104,000, the Middle East 58,000, Latin America 51,000, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)/ Russia 22,000 and Africa 22,000.

Anderson said the need for pilots in China and the lack of airspace for training there creates the need for commercial training in the U.S.

When students come over here they havent flown in China, he said. They get physicals here. They earn their pilot certificates here. They attend ground school here and earn a private pilots license, too. They attend classes for 10 to 12 months from 7:30 a.m. to about 6 p.m. each day.

Time for flight, time for fun







The students live in an apartment complex in Crown Point. While here, they fly to Midway in Chicago, Michigan, Indianapolis and other areas.

When the Chinese students graduate from the program at Griffith, they will have commercial pilot certificates with instrument and multi engine ratings. All of them already are contracted to work with an airline in their home country.

The airlines pay the cost of the education for the Chinese students in the U.S. Anderson couldnt release the cost because it is confidential. However, he added, that money keeps small airports like the Griffith-Merrillville Airport solvent.

Ying said his employer, China Eastern Airlines, which operates international, domestic and regional routes, will require him to do additional ground training when he returns home and will convert his certificates to Chinese.

It hasnt been all hard work and study for the Chinese students. Theyve also visited nearby communities.

Ying said they go to Chicago monthly and stop in Chinatown to buy food and meet other Chinese locals.

Its beautiful here and the skies are blue, Ying said. In China, its rare to see the blue skies because of the pollution. We see the Gary Air Show and the Chicago Air Show. It was cool.

Li said he didnt expect to see such a big city like Chicago. Its all very interesting, he said. Everything is fresh to me.
VALPARAISO  Diane Price clapped her hands and played games Saturday with her smiling, curly haired 11-month-old grandson while watching the ChicagoLand Popcorn Parade.

The parade, which the Valparaiso woman hasnt missed since 1982, holds a special place in her heart and that of her husband, Dale Price.

I met Dale on Sept. 8, 1983, at the popcorn parade, Price said.

The Prices, along with their son, Dustin, and daughter-in-law, Brenda, claimed with chairs their usual space to watch the start of the parade near the Morgan Boulevard and Lincolnway intersection.

The 2.5-mile parade procession, which started at noon, is one of the bestattended events of the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival, said Jennifer Peek, marketing director for Valparaiso Events. Peek estimated about 25,000 watch the parade each year.

Valparaiso resident Dayna Zell waited for the parade to start while watching her 4-month-old girl, Mackenzie, who was sleeping in her stroller.

Its her first parade, but Ive been coming to the parades for the last 25 years, Zell said. My dad used to work at the festival.

Bob and Marilyn Sheridan, of Valparaiso, arrived by 8:30 a.m. to claim one of the citys benches and view the 100 parade entries heading west on Lincolnway.

This is my first time to watch the parade. Usually I come to the craft events with my daughter, then leave before the parade, Marilyn Sheridan said.

Valparaiso resident Debbie Greiner hailed the festivals hometown feel.

Her granddaughter, Liliana Greiner, 3, who had participated in the Litl Kernel run earlier in the morning, held a bag in anticipation of gathering candy from parade participants.

Lilianas father, Nicholas Greiner, chatted with friends while waiting for the start of the parade.

He lives in Skokie (Illinois) but comes back to town every year for the parade, Debbie Greiner said.

The first Valparaiso Popcorn Festival was staged in 1979, with the city capitalizing on its famous bow-tied namesake and TV popcorn pitchman, Orville Redenbacher.

The event draws in excess of 60,000 people from throughout the Midwest, a city marketing official said.
GENEVA  The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unlikely new military partnership targeting the Islamic State and al-Qaida as well as new limits on President Bashar Assads forces.

After a daylong final negotiating session in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight Saturday that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential turning point in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syrias Russian-backed government and U.S.-supported rebel groups.

The cease-fire begins at sundown Sept. 12, Kerry said, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria, Kerry said. We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on peoples choices.

It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we  and we expect other supporting countries  will strongly encourage them to do, he added.

Kerrys negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counterterrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians under U.N. auspices that have been stalled for weeks. He said Syrian President Bashar Assads government was informed of the accord, and prepared to comply.

The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague, have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace, Kerry said, citing a number of recent meetings with Lavrov.

This is just the beginning of our new relations, Lavrov said.

The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assads government to halt all offensive operations against Syrias armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed. Washington must persuade moderate rebels to break ranks with the Nusra Front, al-Qaidas Syria affiliate, and other extremist groups.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assads air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.

The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the worlds most powerful militaries against Islamic State and Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.

Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.

But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.

Russia, in response, has chafed at Americas financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be wise for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.

Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody, Kerry said. It is profoundly in the interests of the United States.

The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions.

After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead.

At one point, Lavrov said he was considering calling it a day on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a U.S. response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, This is from the U.S. delegation, and two bottles of vodka, adding, This is from the Russian delegation.

The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the U.S. and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.

Getting Assads government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syrias most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people.

Assads government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.

Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries  notably into Aleppo.

If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten, he said. If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim.

But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturdays plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the U.S. is unlikely to take any action against him given Obamas longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.
Hillary Clinton was in Manhattan Friday, meeting with national security figures ahead of the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, while her Republican rival, Donald Trump, faulted her for another nuclear test in North Korea. Josh Robin filed the following report.

The Democrat met for nearly two hours with former counterterrorism experts from both Democratic and Republican administrations.

"When it comes to questions of war, peace and the security of our country, we can't let party affiliations stand between us," Hillary Clinton said.

Clinton calls it a way to prepare for the presidency.

It was also a visual tool to differentiate herself from Donald Trump.

On Russia, for instance, Trump is praising leader Vladimir Putin and appearing on Russian state TV.

"Can I say I was surprised? I'm not sure anything surprises us any more. But I was certainly disappointed," Clinton said.

Clinton and her advisors add that Trump is also undermining counterterrorism by remarks on Muslims like a ban he's since inched away from.

"If we have a Muslim community in the United States that is unsettled, that is not feeling secure ,than those people are not going to be good partners for the for the authorities as we try to identify people who are being radicalized," said Daniel Benjamin, former coordinator for counterterrorism for the U.S. Department of State.

Trump spoke before Evangelicals at the Values Voters Summit.

"A Trump administration, our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended like youve never seen before," he said.

He also tied Clinton to another nuclear test by North Korea.

"It's just one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state," Trump said.

Clinton calls for a rethinking of the strategy.

As for September 11th, Clinton was New Yorks senator then. Its memory hung over the room.

"I think it's one of those things that's always present in how we think about the terrorism fight," said Matt Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Trump's plans for the 15th anniversary were unclear. A spokeswoman did not get back to NY1.

Clinton will again be in New York on September 11th. An spokesman says she will pay respects at the memorial in Lower Manhattan but not speak publicly. The aide stressed it's not to be seen as a campaign event.
DECATUR  Clergy members have a popular saying among themselves. You don't retire from the ministry.

And Jim McClarey has tried.

Jim and his wife Kay moved to Decatur's Primrose Retirement Community in May 2015 after various attempts at retirement. You can still serve churches, but on a different basis than before, usually being an assistant of some sort, he said.

Now Jim, 83, has a Sunday afternoon service attended by members of the retirement community. The ministry continues throughout the week with the help of Kay, 80. Bible studies and nondenominational discussion groups form wherever they go.

Primrose offers other spiritual outlets throughout the week. But the most well attended is the Sunday afternoon services, said Primrose Sales Director Kate Stankovic. Another thing about Jim and Kay that is wonderful is that they are Christian, and they are open minded.

The staff at Primrose learned early the couple were social butterflies. Stankovic feels she has been able to welcome other prospective residents of different faiths and backgrounds with the help of Jim and Kay. They have a gift in talking about faith and making people feel welcome. she said.

The McClareys moved from Woodstock, a city almost 200 miles from Decatur. They have lived in several Central Illinois towns, from Champaign to Quincy, during the ministry. They found it hard to leave their last home, but knew the time was best for the retired couple. We have five great-grandsons in the Woodstock area and I did a lot of babysitting, Kay said. It's hard to say no when you are that close.

The couple wanted to move into a retirement home while they were still able to make the decision for themselves. They also felt they were still young enough to become acclimated to the community and get to know people. When we first moved here we were one of the younger people, Kay said. Well, we still are.

Moving closer to their children was not an option since their son is also a minister and often moves. And their daughter was planning on moving to Washington D.C.

They researched other vicinities as well as other retirement communities. Only Jim's brother lived nearby in rural Decatur, but the family was not unfamiliar with Central Illinois, having started Jim's ministry at Forsyth United Methodist Church during the 1960s. As children, their families had traveled around the area throughout their lives including Sullivan and other parts of Macon County. And we often went through looking for peaches in Southern Illinois.

They found Decatur met their needs, such as appropriate medical facilities, shopping centers and easy transportation. Decatur has a lot going for it, Kay said. It is big enough you can get pretty much anything you need and it's not so large that it is intimidating to older people.

As soon as the McClareys moved into Primrose, Stankovic began asking Jim to conduct the chapel services. He suggested they wait until the couple had adjusted to their new surroundings. We were planting the seed. Stankovic said. I knew Jim was one of those people that would think on it.

Six months later, Jim offered to conduct his first Sunday afternoon service in the facility's chapel. Although 14 residents joined them, the small room was overflowing. The congregation grew and the group moved to the activity center allowing for their current group of 30 members. We try to make the center work for our chapel, Jim said.

Since their first service, Jim and Kay have created relationships with others, many from other denominations.

Primrose has a healing community, Jim said. You can't put the name religious on everything.

Kay is one of the people who have experienced the support and healing. Diagnosed with stage-3 ovarian cancer nine years ago, she has had many opportunities to speak openly about her journey. My first prognosis was not good, she said.

After moving to Primrose, Kay was able to become part of a local cancer research treatment. God must have something for me to do or I wouldn't still be here, she said.

Her husband knows what the plan is. Although Stankovic asked Jim to come out of retirement again, they both know Kay is a factor in the success of the ministry. She is a fine communicator, Jim said. Some people are waiting for her to preach.

The couple's job is a natural part of their personalities. Together they communicate with all residents of the community. Since Kay and Jim have similarities to the residents at Primrose, they find others are willing to listen. Conversations take place and people find the courage to do things, Jim said. We try to look upon everyone as God's children. We want to serve the servant; that's what Jesus did.
One day before the city marks 15 years since the September 11th attacks, the FDNY held a special service at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday afternoon to commemorate the members who died that day.

343 FDNY personnel died fighting the flames at the World Trade Center.

127 have died in the years since because of illnesses they contracted during the rescue and recovery effort.

Friday, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and other top brass marched alongside bagpipe bands in honor the NYPD officers who died on September 11th and in the years after because of those same illnesses.

Active-duty officers and family members of those killed in the line of duty also joined the march through Lower Manhattan.

NY1 spoke with some people from outside the city who came to pay tribute to the fallen.

"My daughter and I decided to come up this weekend and visit the museum," one attendee said. "We had been here when Ground Zero was under construction and had not been back for its completion, so we decided to come up today."

"I saw when the plane actually hit the building. I actually saw it with my eyes, yes," said one woman who saw the attack unfold from Brooklyn. "Don't take me there."

Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio also attended a wreath laying ceremony at the Police Memorial Wall.

A memorial service for those killed in the September 11th attacks is also scheduled to take place on Staten Island on Saturday night.
A woman faces hate crime charges after she attacked two Muslim women in Brooklyn who were walking with their babies in strollers, according to the city police department.

Prosecutors said Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, approached the women Thursday around 1:31 p.m. at the corner of 20th Ave. and Cropsey Ave. in Bath Beach and yelled anti-Muslim insults at them.

She then allegedly punched them in the face, kicked them in the legs, and attempted to rip off their hijabs.

She also tried to pull the strollers away from them while the babies still inside, according to the police report.

NY1 spoke with a gas station attendant who knows one of the victims. He said violence is unusual in that area.

"Peaceful neighborhood," he said. "I never heard of anything like this happening in the whole area."

The alleged attacker faces several other charges including harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.
Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda will spend more time behind bars after pleading guilty to gun charges.

The 22-year-old rapper, whose real name is Ackquille Pollard, was handed a seven-year prison sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to illegal weapon possession and conspiracy charges.

Shmurda was arrested along with a dozen others in December of 2014 for their involvement in drug trafficking and several gang-related shootings in the city.

The rapper rose to stardom in July of 2014 after a dance craze from one of his music videos went viral.
As Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump prepare to square off in a televised debate later this month, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is hoping to attract voters dissatisfied with both parties by running for president on the Libertarian Party line.

NY1 Political Anchor Errol Louis got an exclusive interview with Johnson on Friday.

Among the questions asked: The high-profile gaffe he made on national television on Thursday. When asked what he would do about the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, Syria, Johnson blanked on the name of the city and had to be reminded about why it's important. A day later, Johnson says he should not be judged by a momentary goof.

"You're going to make a mistake, and I did, and I completely own up to it. I sat down, I didn't know the context in which the conversation was taking place. And when I heard the question Aleppo, I'm thinking in terms of acronym - what does that stand for? American Latin going through my mind. OK, Aleppo. But I think more important is understanding the policies that underly Syria right now," Johnson said.

During the interview, Johnson also talked at length about the Libertarian philosophy of dialing back American troop commitments around the world, and about his call to abolish the IRS and do away with income taxes.

Additionally, he got into his belief that medicinal and recreational marijuana should be fully legalized. Johnson was also asked about whether that stance presented a conflict of interest, as he once ran and still owns stock in, a company that markets marijuana products.

"I've never viewed this from a standpoint of financial advantage and I never believed I would have the opportunity to serve as the CEO of a publicly traded company but was given that opportunity and I jumped on it. From the standpoint of making the world a better place and believing a better place from the standpoint of the medical side of cannabis and from the recreational side," Johnson said.



Johnson's hoping to get to 15 percent in the polls in order to participate in the first presidential debate later this month.
BROOKLYN - A wake was held Friday for the Ithaca College sophomore from Brooklyn who was stabbed to death last month.

Friends and family of 19-year-old Anthony Nazaire gathered to pay their respects at the Harmony Funeral Home in Flatbush.

Nazaire was stabbed to death in August on the campus of Cornell University during a student-organized event.

No arrests have been made.

His father and girlfriend are pleading for anyone with any information to come forward.

"We want the justice for Anthony," said Reginald Nazaire, the victim's father. "Forget about us. We will cry and cry and cry, and one day, we will be alright. But Anthony will never be alright."

"I really just hope they come forward and they get justice for him. It's all I hope for. So he can sleep in peace," said Kayara Lisle, the victim's girlfriend.

Nazaire was a graduate of Brooklyn Theater Arts High School.

His family says he was attending Ithaca on a full academic scholarship, studying business administration.

His funeral will be held Saturday morning.
But that elusive magical realist quality is more delicately applied to a sequence where Escobar decides to slip on a pair of sunglasses and drive himself for strawberries and cream in a crowded public square. He leaves on the thin rationale that the city of Medellin would never betray him, but his adventure plays out like a wistful dream, as if Escobar is already imagining himself as a ghost before hes been shot dead. He picks up a dropped lighter for an armed forces member without fear of recognition. He takes off his sunglasses. He enjoys his treat on a park bench while doing a little people watching. Its a more audacious and defiant last stand than a shootout with the authorities could ever be, affirming Escobars deep connection with the city and perhaps a resignation over his inevitable and imminent death.

So what have we learned? Thats the big question at the end of the Coen brothers C.I.A. comedy Burn After Reading and it applies here, too, after the dust settles over more lives inexplicably lost. The killing of Pablo Escobar involved enemies working jointly toward the same goal but for opposing motives. Colombian forces wanted to take the country back from Escobar, whod taken thousands of lives while corrupting the institutions of government at every level. Their American allies at the D.E.A., the C.I.A. and the State Department identified Escobar as a prime target in the drug war. Los Pepes and the Cali cartel seized on the opportunity to knock off Escobar and take over his business like corporate raiders.

From this ugly confluence of good guys and bad guys, Narcos arrives at the sobering punch line of Agent Pena sitting in front of what he initially assumes is a disciplinary committee. Instead, the committee reports that cocaine imports have only gone up during the period Escobar was on his last legs and wants to know if Pena has any information to share about the Cali cartel. Killing Escobar has done nothing to affect the supply and demand of the cocaine business; if anything, the single-minded obsession with Escobar has allowed his chief rivals to flourish as they never would have otherwise.

Al Fin Cayo! doesnt need to hit this conclusion any harder than the scene with Pena, because Narcos has spent the entire second season laying out the devastating shortsightedness of hunting Escobar. If its missing anything, its a fuller evocation of the aftermath in his native city, where many revered him for the housing projects, hospitals, churches and other philanthropic ventures that met their needs more effectively than the Colombian government. In a story rife with ironies, where the bizarre shakes hands with the inexplicable, the mourning of a mass murderer is the capper.

Parting Shots

 Narcos was intended to tell the Escobar story in full, but the final episode teases the story of the Cali cartel, which should occupy some portion of seasons three and four. Any notion that Cali might share Escobars generosity is squelched in an icy exchange between Gilberto Rodriguez and Tata, who appeals to her late husbands rival for assistance. Gilberto asks Tata how much cash and property she has left. She says shell look into it. Good, he replies. Because I want all of it.
Wells Fargo was flowing with regrets on Friday, taking out ads in nearly a dozen newspapers saying the bank took full responsibility for creating sham bank accounts without its customers permission.

The banks chief executive officer, John Stumpf, even called one prominent Democrat in Congress to express his willingness to assume personal responsibility for the mess. The bank fired at least 5,300 employees and refunded millions of dollars to customers.

But with its banking regulators, Wells Fargo was not as contrite. The bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines and hire an independent consultant to review its sales practices, but it was able to settle the investigation into the questionable accounts without officially admitting to any of the suspected misconduct.

It was classic Wall Street. Since the financial crisis, regulators have brought dozens of cases against banks and other financial firms, hitting them with tens of billions of dollars in fines and requiring the companies to overhaul their business practices. But frequently, regulatory cases are settled without a bank having to admit doing anything wrong.
[Rapper Bobby Shmurda to be eligible for release in February]

After spending over a year and a half in jail awaiting trial, the Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy and weapons possession in a deal with prosecutors three days before jury selection was to start.

Justice Abraham Clott promised Shmurda, whose legal name is Ackquille Pollard, a sentence of seven years in prison in return for his guilty plea. Two co-defendants, Chad Marshall, 25, and Nicolas McCoy, 21, accepted the same offer.

As he entered his plea, Mr. Pollard, 22, leaned far back in his chair, his head rolling and his eyes nervously skipping around the audience in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Justice Clott asked him whether it was true that he had possessed a loaded 9-millimeter handgun on June 3, 2014, in an apartment in Brooklyn and meant to use it unlawfully.

Yes, your honor, Mr. Pollard said.

Mr. Pollard was arrested outside Quad Recording Studios in December 2014 in Manhattan and accused of being a leader in GS9  or G Stone Crips  a violent street gang in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, that the police said was responsible for one murder and several shootings. Fourteen other reputed members of the gang were arrested in sweeps that day or later in the month.
The government also knows more today about the 16 hijackers who lived outside California than when the 28 pages were classified in 2003. Much of that information remains secret but should be made public. For example, the F.B.I. for a time claimed that it had found no ties between three of the hijackers, including their leader, Mohamed Atta, and a prominent Saudi family that lived in Sarasota, Fla., before Sept. 11. The family returned to the kingdom about two weeks before the attack. But in 2013, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by investigative reporters led to the release of about 30 pages from an F.B.I.-led investigation that included an agents report asserting many connections between the hijackers and this family. The F.B.I. said the agents claim was unfounded, and the family said it had no ties to the hijackers. Still, a federal judge in 2014 ordered the bureau to turn over an additional 80,000 pages from its investigation, and he is reviewing those for possible public release.

There is one more thing our government could do to shed light on the attack. For more than a decade, the families of Sept. 11 victims have been litigating against the kingdom and Saudi interests, asserting that they facilitated the murder of their loved ones. With the support of the Justice Department, the Saudis used a 1976 law providing foreign nations some immunity from American lawsuits to block those efforts to secure justice. Now, both the Senate and House of Representatives have unanimously passed a bill, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, that would allow a thorough judicial examination of the Saudi role.

Some might ask, 15 years later, what difference does all this make?

In fact, a lot. It can mean justice for the families that have suffered so grievously. It can also mean improving our national security, which has been compromised by the extreme form of Islam that has been promoted by Saudi Arabia.

But the most important reason is to avoid the corrosive effect that government secrecy can have on a democracy. The nation that denies its people information about what it is doing in their name is a nation slogging down a dark alley of public suspicion toward decline and mediocrity. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it, Secrecy is for losers.
So now Chinas ambivalence has led to this crisis: North Korea has enough fissile material for perhaps as many as 21 nuclear bombs and, after a flurry of missile tests, is approaching the day when it can produce a warhead small enough to fit on a missile and threaten the United States as well as American allies in the region.

With each advance of the Norths nuclear capability, the solution to the threat gets harder and more elusive. For a long time, it was widely assumed that North Korea pursued nuclear weapons to ensure its survival as a state. Now, some experts suspect that Mr. Kim is preparing to fight and win a limited nuclear war.

It was because of this growing threat that the United States and South Korea agreed recently to deploy an American-made advanced missile defense system in South Korea to protect against a North Korean attack. That decision, which has angered China, makes it harder for Americans and the Chinese to cooperate on North Korea.

On Friday, President Obama called for vigorous implementation of existing sanctions and the imposition of new ones. Its hard to be optimistic. Success will depend on Chinas cooperation in cutting off trade to the North. That is unlikely, even though it should be obvious to Beijing that allowing North Koreas nuclear program to continue is a real threat to China and its interests in the region. The United States has its own options, like working with allies to block shipping in and out of North Korea or cutting off access to banks, but such steps would pose their own risks.

Beyond sanctions, any lasting solution will almost certainly require some kind of negotiations, though Republicans in Congress are certain to resist such a move. The Kim government issued a statement in July that some viewed as an overture for starting talks. Most experts say the only realistic goal at this point is a halt to the Norths nuclear and missile testing, not an abandonment of the entire program. Since far too little has been done to contain North Koreas nuclear ambitions in the past decade, this accelerating threat will require the urgent attention of Mr. Obamas successor.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)  Carlos Parra used to love waking up to see his pet albino boxer, Nina. Now, seeing her skeletal body on the floor next to his bed has become a daily reminder of the economic crisis engulfing Venezuela.

His other dog's thick fur barely hides her ribcage as Parra struggles to feed his pets after losing his job at a shoe store.

"It's terrible to sit and eat, see them watching me with hunger, and not be able to do anything," said the 30-year-old.

As Venezuela's economic crunch worsens, food shortages and rising poverty are forcing once middle-class Venezuelans to do the unthinkable: let their pets starve or abandon them in the streets.

No figures are available, but activists and veterinarians say they are seeing a growing number of dogs and cats abandoned at parks, shelters, and private clinics.

In Caracas it has become common to see purebred dogs rummaging in the trash or lying outdoors, filthy and gaunt, in posh neighborhoods.

The animal protection and control center in the capital's Baruta neighborhood saw as many as 10 animals abandoned each day this summer, head veterinarian Russer Rios said. Up to about a year ago there were almost none.

"Now people just leave them here because they can't take care of them," Rios said.

Shelters are running classes teaching pet owners to look for food substitutes in the hopes of helping them maintain their pets through the crisis. At one private shelter in the working-class Caracas neighborhood of El Junquito, a popular alternative for dogs that would never have been considered in better times is chickenfeed.

"We have to give it to them because there's nothing else," Katty Quintas, a part owner of the Funasissi shelter, said as three skinny cats looked on hungrily from the top of a refrigerator. The shelter is now home to more than 200 cats and dogs.

One of the country's largest animal shelters is run by Mission Nevado, a government program set up by socialist President Nicolas Maduro and named in honor of independence hero Simon Bolivar's four-legged sidekick, dubbed "Nevado" for its white, snow-like fur. Program veterinarian Angel Mancilla said the shelter, which currently houses about 100 cats and dogs, has collapsed under the influx.

"We're crying every day. You leave each day feeling traumatized," Mancilla said.

Pet owners say the price of dog food has more than doubled in recent months to $2 a pound, more than a day's pay for those earning the minimum wage.

In August, as Parra and his parents in the central city of Barquisimeto struggled to get by on his father's $23 monthly pension, he turned in desperation to a Facebook group that donates dog food to families that cannot afford it. But he received just one bag of food, enough to last a few weeks. He said he feels like he's choosing each day between feeding himself and his parents, or his beloved pets.

"Sometimes we go to bed with empty stomachs," he said. "It's really hard."

The problem is also affecting zoos and racetracks. Zoo workers in Caracas say they do not have enough food for large mammals like tigers and tapirs.

This spring 72 horses died from starvation or malnutrition at the Santa Rita racetrack in the western city of Maracaibo, which was closed due to problems with criminal gangs.

The National Institute of Racetracks said the horses died because owners and trainers were not feeding them.

Some pet owners who can't bear to watch their animals waste away are looking for others to take them in.

Caracas homemaker Maria Galindo is offering Princess, her 5-year-old golden retriever, for adoption. So far the dog has survived on scraps the neighbors give her.

"We're very sad to have to give her up, but the crisis is not giving us another option," Galindo said, looking at Princess' bones sticking out from her yellow fur. "You're thinking, 'If I give the dog something to eat, what will I feed the children?'"

___

Fabiola Sanchez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fisanchezn . Her stories can also be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/fabiola-sanchez .
Are Donald Trumps attacks on Hillary Clinton sexist? To be fair, Trump is a guy who makes insulting personal remarks about everyone he disagrees with, regardless of gender. Lets not jump to conclusions. This deserves a serious breakdown.

YELLING

Trump frequently complains that Clinton yells too much. Thats why I turned her off last night  I just couldnt stand it. I got such a headache, he told a rally earlier this year. But I wont say it, because Im not allowed to say it, right? He added that he had great respect for women, believe me.

Rule No. 1: When grading a candidates level of sexism, add one point for every time he says that what he just said is not politically correct. Add two if he interjects that he has great respect for women.

Voice is a sensitive issue. We heard for decades and decades that a woman could never be a TV news anchor because viewers would not  in the words of one NBC executive  accept the news from a womans voice. And Trump yells all the time. If this were coming from someone like, say, Mitt Romney, we could have a discussion about whether the comment was sexist, or just irritating. But Trump is basically saying that only guys get to holler.
North Koreas fifth nuclear test is ominous not only because the country is slowly mastering atomic weaponry, but because it is making headway in developing missiles that could hurl nuclear warheads halfway around the globe, threatening Washington and New York City.

The reclusive, hostile nation has been rushing to perfect missiles that are small, fast, light and surprisingly advanced, according to analysts and military officials. This spring and summer, Pyongyang successfully tested some of these missiles, while earlier efforts had fizzled or failed.

Theyve greatly increased the tempo of their testing  in a way, showing off their capabilities, showing us images of ground tests they could have kept hidden, John Schilling, an aerospace engineer and expert on North Koreas missile program, said in an interview on Friday. This isnt something that can be ignored anymore. Its going to be a high priority for the next president.

Military experts say that by 2020, Pyongyang will most likely have the skills to make a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile topped by a nuclear warhead. They also expect that by then North Korea may have accumulated enough nuclear material to build up to 100 warheads.
The state boards actions were among a spate of decisions this week affecting voters in the general election. In Washington, a federal appeals court overruled a lower court on Friday, blocking Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from demanding proof of citizenship from residents registering to vote in federal elections. The ruling lifts the citizenship requirement until the ongoing lawsuit over it is decided.

Also on Friday, a host of Democratic organizations said they had secured an agreement from Maricopa County, Ariz., to change policies that caused hourslong waits to cast ballots at metropolitan Phoenix polling places during Marchs presidential primary. The groups, including Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, had claimed in a lawsuit in April that county election practices disenfranchised voters, especially minorities.

In North Carolina, voting-rights advocates generally praised the state election boards work, although some said the expanded voting plans still fell short of what was needed.

Over all, it was pretty good, said Bob Hall, the executive director of the advocacy group Democracy North Carolina. But he noted that it would take much longer for voters to complete their ballots this fall because the state has abolished straight-ticket voting  one aspect the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit did not rule on in July when it struck down much of North Carolinas 2013 election law.

By law, the state board writes new election rules whenever a county boards members cannot agree. North Carolinas 67 other county boards unanimously approved their election guidelines.
A prosecutor in California said on Friday that criminal charges would be filed against seven current or former police officers in the San Francisco Bay Area, capping a monthslong investigation into allegations of officers having sex with a teenage prostitute.

The allegations had roiled the Oakland Police Department, and five of those being charged were from that agency.

The charges include obstruction of justice, engaging in an act of prostitution and engaging in a lewd act in a public place, Nancy E. OMalley, the district attorney for Alameda County, Calif., said in a statement.

A former deputy from the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Office and a former officer from the Livermore Police Department also face charges, the statement said.
PENSACOLA, Fla.  Donald J. Trump, in escalating attacks against Hillary Clinton, suggested on Friday that his opponent was so immune to prosecution that she could shoot someone in front of thousands of witnesses and not be prosecuted.

She is being so protected, Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said to a crowd of more than 10,000 at an evening rally here. She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldnt be prosecuted. O.K.? Thats whats happening.

Mr. Trumps comments followed an extended, and at times vicious and unscripted, criticism of Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, whom he called an unstable person. He repeatedly criticized the decision not to prosecute her over her email scandal, and also her record as secretary of state.

Mr. Trumps remarks seemed to play off a line he used during the primary race, in which he said that his supporters were so devoted to him that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any of them.
A billionaire co-founder of Facebook is committing $20 million to help elect Democrats this fall, saying the campaign of Donald J. Trump has raised such fundamental questions that he and his wife felt compelled to intervene.

The co-founder Dustin Moskovitz made the announcement with his wife, Cari Tuna, in an 800-word essay posted on the website Medium. The Republican Party, and Donald Trump in particular, is running on a zero-sum vision, stressing a false contest between their constituency and the rest of the world, Mr. Moskovitz and Ms. Tuna wrote in the post. We believe their positions, especially on immigration, which purport to improve the lives of Americans, would in practice hurt citizens and noncitizens alike.

Until now, Mr. Moskovitzs grand total of political giving to federal candidates had amounted to roughly $10,000, most of it to the congressional campaign of Sean Eldridge, the husband of a fellow Facebook founder.

But his $20 million in donations will, when consummated, instantly catapult Mr. Moskovitz to the top tier of political donors in the United States. Only one other individual in the country  the environmentalist and hedge fund founder Tom Steyer  has given more in disclosed contributions during the 2016 cycle, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.
He accompanied Mr. Trump to Mexico on Aug. 31, and then introduced him before his immigration speech the same night in Phoenix, even donning a white Make Mexico Great Again Also hat for the occasion. Mr. Giuliani has played a significant role behind the scenes, too, urging Mr. Trump to tone down his remarks and rethink his immigration plan. He also took control of a private campaign round-table discussion of national security recently, in which he addressed the room as often as Mr. Trump did, according to someone in attendance.

Former Giuliani aides discern other imprints on the Trump campaign: Mr. Trumps policy addresses about school reform and his recent outreach to black voters in Detroit, they said, contained echoes of Mr. Giulianis mayoral re-election campaign in 1997, when he argued with black New Yorkers that Democrats had let them down.

Mr. Giuliani still has his defenders.

Rudy Giuliani presided over the single greatest transformation of a major American city in our history, said Anthony V. Carbonetti, a longtime adviser. It sickens me to hear people diminish that simply because they disagree with his politics.

Mr. Giuliani said that he did not share all of Mr. Trumps views, but that on the issues that mattered most, the economy and foreign policy, they were in sync. He said he believed that Mr. Trump had made adjustments in his approach, including on immigration.

On paper, at least, the two men have much in common. Both are relatively socially liberal and twice-divorced products of neighborhoods outside Manhattan, where they eventually gained fame. Both are pugnacious, with hearty appetites for conflict and for attention from a news media they often condemn as biased.

But there are significant differences. Mr. Giuliani is a well-read student of history who absorbs himself in the details of policy debates. Mr. Trump skims briefing books and prefers to get his information from cable news.

Mr. Giuliani waited until the New York primary to declare his support for Mr. Trump, then did so cautiously, saying he was troubled by some of the candidates more personal attacks on his rivals. But once Mr. Trump won the nomination, Mr. Giulianis tentative embrace became a bear hug.
A British-Iranian employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, who was arrested more than five months ago while she and her daughter, a toddler, were visiting family in Iran, has been sentenced to a five-year prison term for unexplained charges, the foundation said Friday.

Irans incarceration of the employee, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, and her secretive prosecution by a revolutionary court have created new tensions with Britain, just as the two countries have taken steps to improve their troubled relationship.

On Monday, Iran and Britain announced they had agreed to raise diplomatic ties to the ambassador level for the first time since 2011, when relations were strained after an Iranian mob attacked Britains embassy in Tehran.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the independent charitable arm of the Thomson Reuters news agency, said in a statement that it was outraged by the sentence imposed on Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, which was communicated to her family but was not publicly announced in Iran.
For example, if the bombing of Nusra sites kills civilians  almost inevitable given the proximity of militant extremist groups and civilians  there are bound to be accusations about who is responsible. Pentagon officials are also concerned that Russia will use the targeting data to learn more about how American forces identify and attack targets, at a time when forces from the two countries are often near one another around Europe.

Mr. Lavrov took a few shots at the United States even while celebrating the arrangement, denouncing arrogant sanctions levied against Russia for its annexation of Crimea two years ago.

Late on Friday, he suggested the United States could not decide about the deal, sending pizza and vodka to reporters to ease the wait, and coming by to joke about how long it took Mr. Obama and his team to make decisions.

But for Mr. Kerry, reaching this deal has become a personal mission, one that at times put him in conflict with the White House. He has pressed for a stronger military commitment in Syria and support for some opposition groups, along with a series of more aggressive covert actions, according to administration officials. Mr. Obama has been reluctant, as have others in the White House who fear that, even if they could engineer a transition in Syria, it could create a power vacuum that Iran, Russia and militant terrorist groups could exploit.

The American skepticism is partly rooted in the failed agreement for a cessation of hostilities reached with the Russians in February. That arrangement collapsed weeks later when Russia moved heavy artillery into the Aleppo area to help Mr. Assads forces.

Among the Syrians, the latest plan was greeted with wariness, particularly from armed opposition groups and their supporters, who, broadly speaking, have come to believe that the United States has lost interest in ousting Mr. Assad, and is willing to see them wiped out.

It is a measure of how little trust the Syrians have in the international community  especially after the short-lived cease-fire in February  that initial reactions were lukewarm, even though the deal holds out the possibility of at least a temporary calming of the violence.
SPRINGFIELD  Illinois fiscal health and its bond ratings arent the only things about the state that have been on the decline in recent years.

So has the population of the state insect: the monarch butterfly.

The distinctive orange and black butterflies, which make a 2,500-mile, multigenerational journey between Canada and Mexico each year, are facing a host of threats, including habitat loss along their migration path due to development and the proliferation of herbicide-resistant crops and in their overwintering sites in Mexico due to illegal logging.

A group of conservation organizations has petitioned the federal government to add the monarch butterfly to the endangered species list, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to make a decision by summer of 2019.

In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is working to develop a plan to help boost the population of this important pollinator species.

The department gathered participants from agriculture, transportation, education, conservation, utility companies and other fields Friday at its headquarters on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield. The purpose of the first-ever Illinois Monarch Butterfly Summit was to take stock of the efforts that are already occurring across the state and to begin laying the groundwork for a cohesive statewide strategy.

Monarchs have become not only a national and a state issue, but its an international issue, DNR director Wayne Rosenthal told the summit attendees.

Illinois has had many conservation success stories, Rosenthal said, and the monarch butterfly very easily could be the next success story.

The monarch butterfly became the state insect in 1975 thanks to the efforts of third-graders at Dennis School in Decatur. The school has a monarch sculpture outside the building that was dedicated as a city landmark in 2015 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the law's signing by Gov. Dan Walker.

A survey that the Prairie Rivers Network conducted ahead of the summit showed many efforts already underway, such as a variety of groups working to restore native plants, including milkweed, which is vital to the monarchs life cycle.

The Rock Island County Soil & Water Conservation District has been involved with the annual Quad Cities Pollinator Conference. Nine Illinois mayors, including Normals Chris Koos, have taken the Mayors Monarch Pledge from the National Wildlife Federation, committing to taking steps to help with the conservation effort.

Ann Holtrop, acting chief of the Department of Natural Resources Division of Natural Heritage, said there now needs to be a coordinated plan to maximize habitat for monarchs and minimize threats.

We really have a pivotal role here, said Holtrop, who helped coordinate the summit.

Illinois strategy will also have to fit into regional, national and international monarch conservation efforts, she said, including major increases in milkweed plantings along the butterflys migration path.

Dave Lamb, Bloomingtons assistant superintendent of parks, was among the summit participants.

The city has converted roughly 200 acres of parkland to native prairie over the past decade or so, Lamb said.

Were also looking to convert some of the city right of way areas to monarch habitat, he said, adding that this would also provide the long-term financial benefit of reducing mowing expenses.

Participants spent much of the day in small-group discussions among people in four sectors: agriculture, education and outreach, natural and conservation lands, and rights of way, which included representatives from organizations such as Ameren Illinois and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Throughout the discussions, it became clear that coordinating local efforts such as those in Bloomington into a statewide strategy will be among the challenges faced by those implementing the plan. Developing clear goals and identifying methods to meet them will be among the next steps, Holtrop said.

We have so much energy regarding this species, she said.

Matthew Lechner, DNR program manager at Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois, was another participant at the summit. Shawnee, which the U.S. Forest Service manages, has about 3,500 acres of open land suitable for monarch habitat, Lechner said.

He said he believes getting interested parties together to come up with a plan to maximize habitats and minimize threats for monarchs in Illinois is the right conservation thing to do.

Im not smart enough to know whether its going to solve the bigger problem or not, Lechner said.
Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld were wedged into the bedroom belonging to their friend Russell Gregory on a cold and rainy February day, shooting a scene for the television series High Maintenance. Mr. Gregorys railroad apartment was crawling with people  sound guys, assistant directors, camera operators  and the atmosphere was as tense as the working conditions (and schedule) were tight.

It wasnt the first time that Mr. Sinclair and Ms. Blichfeld had commandeered the home of Mr. Gregory, an executive producer of the show. An early episode of High Maintenance, which debuted as a web series in October 2012 on the video-sharing website Vimeo, was also set in the Chelsea apartment, back when the show was simply the creation of a group of friends eager to collaborate.

Things are different now. The once proudly D.I.Y. operation is an HBO series (new episodes begin Friday, Sept. 16), with a bigger budget, cast and crew  and the additional pressures that come with the higher profile of premium cable. The shows creators worried that, while working with and on behalf of strangers, the sense of intimacy and trust that had informed the web series might slip from their grasp.

But even as Ms. Blichfeld and Mr. Sinclair, who were married on New Years Eve 2010, insisted on doing many things the same way they always had, they recognized that they couldnt be quite as self-reliant as before.
SUNDAY PUZZLE  Ive had a very busy workweek, so Im very tempted to take Ned White and George Barany up on their advice. The theme elements in their grid look so comfy.

Yes, I could definitely use some rest, so lets get right to the puzzle and their notes.

Todays Theme

The title is Sack Time and the theme elements in todays puzzle have to do with going to bed to get some rest (yes, please). There are a lot of theme entries in this puzzle, as well as a visual clue in the center, in the form of black squares that look like a bed.

What I liked about this particular design is that most of the bed clothes (the COVER, PILLOW and BLANKET), as well as SLEEP OVER and SAW LOGS are on top of the bed and the things that typically live under the bed (a MONSTER and DUST BUNNIES) are also represented. The only other thing that wound up on the floor are the SHEETS (101A).

The last theme entry, AND SO TO BED, wraps the theme up nicely.

Tricky Clues

 39A: Ah, SPELEOLOGY, the Study (and exploration) of caves. Its where I would imagine the word spelunking is derived.
SANTA MONICA, Calif.  Can you help me clear something up?

Gwyneth Paltrow made an exasperated face, gave her ponytail a censuring shake and continued. Im not leaving Goop, she said, referring to her mushrooming wellness-apparel-skin-care-cooking-travel business. I run this company. Im here every day. Its all I do. I have a laser-sharp focus on what Im trying to build.

Ms. Paltrow had invited me to Goops stylish headquarters here to discuss an initiative: A clothing line called Goop Label  based on everyday items in her closet and fashion archives, including a trench coat she bought in the eighth grade  will arrive on Goop.com on Monday. But our chat, like Ms. Paltrow herself, moved in multiple directions at once, starting with a rash of recent articles that found her consciously uncoupling from the polarizing lifestyle brand, which she founded in 2008.

The mix-up arose when Ms. Paltrow spoke at a Chicago conference and said that Goops scalability is limited if I connect to it. She added at the time, My dream is that one day no one will remember that I had anything to do with it. Tabloids decided that meant a departure (Goop riddance), but what she had meant was this: To thrive over the long term, brands like Goop must stand on their own. Tightly trading on a single persona is the surest route to degeneration. (Just ask Martha Stewart.)

But striking that balance is tricky, with Goop Label as the latest example. The new clothing line  initial prices start at $195 for a chambray button-down shirt and go up to $695 for a gray tweed belted blazer  is not particularly captivating because it comes from Goop, which already sells a wide variety of designer clothes. The effort is interesting because it comes from her.
If anything is likely to pierce the seemingly impenetrable fashion week bubble, surely it has to be this wacko election season. Not even the most frivolous catwalk devotee remains untouched by a presidential race as unprecedentedly weird as this one.

That, anyway, is how Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, the designers of Opening Ceremony, felt as they surveyed the landscape of yet another fashion week, concluding that instead of the usual predictable runway presentation they would stage their show as a Pageant of the People.

As the children of immigrants (Ms. Lim is of Korean ancestry, Mr. Leon Peruvian-Chinese), the Berkeley-educated designers grew up as loud and proud Americans, Mr. Leon said last week at the pairs Chinatown headquarters.

Were pro-gay rights, pro-immigrant, pro-Black Lives Matter, he said. And were in a place where we question a lot of whats happening and are not afraid to talk about it.
Nora Rose Mendis and Samuel Noah Lindsay Ellison were married Sept. 10 in Dummerston, Vt. Joshua Bauchner, a friend of the couple who received authorization from the State of Vermont, officiated at Full Plate Farm, a vegetable farm owned by Laura Hecht and Matthew Crowley, friends of the couple.

The bride, 31, works from Brooklyn as a production designer for independent films. She created Senal, a short experimental film shown last year at the Oaxaca FilmFest in Mexico and Ae Film Festival in Minneapolis. She was the set decorator for Listen Up Phillip shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, and People, Places, Things shown there in 2015.

She is a daughter of Robin Rosen Mendis and Brian L. Mendis of Homewood, Ill.

The groom, 31, is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in documentary film at Stanford, and until August worked as a cameraman. He worked this summer on Breakthrough, a science series on the National Geographic channel, and in 2015 on Manchester by the Sea, which was shown in January at the Sundance Film Festival. He graduated cum laude from Harvard.

He is a son of Pippi L. Ellison and Peter T. Ellison of Cambridge, Mass.

The couple met in 2006 when he got a job at Darwins, a sandwich shop in Harvard Square, where she was a manager while studying experimental film at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Albert Ogletree, a food handler with Forte Food Service, was working in the cafeteria at Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower of the World Trade Center when a hijacked jetliner careered into the skyscraper. He is one of the 2,983 people killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993, when the trade center was bombed.

He is also one of only 10 victims whose portraits are not in the vast gallery at the National September 11 Memorial Museum, on the trade center site in Lower Manhattan. Museum officials have tried for years, without luck, to find someone who can furnish a picture of Mr. Ogletree  on vacation, perhaps; under a mortar board at graduation; beaming with happiness at his wedding; or hunched over a sketch pad drawing cars, something he loved to do.

Faces have defined the events of Sept. 11 since the earliest hours. On lampposts, bulletin boards and hospital walls, Missing posters beseeched passers-by to recall whether they had seen this face or that. Faces filled the pages of The New York Times and other publications and websites. Portraits were carried, facing the public, by survivors at memorial services and protest gatherings.

The museums goal is simple and increasingly challenging: to gather every face and weave it into the overwhelming tapestry of grief, loss, life and joy on display in the memorial gallery.
Greta Friedman, who said she was grabbed and kissed by a sailor in a euphoric moment that made for one of the most defining American photos of the 20th century, died on Thursday in Richmond, Va. She was 92.

The cause was pneumonia, her son, Joshua Friedman, said.

The black and white image of a woman and an American sailor was shot by the renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on Aug. 14, 1945, after the news of Japans surrender effectively heralded the end of World War II. The photograph ran as a full page in Life magazine shortly after.

Yet the identity of its subjects  a dark-suited sailor and a woman in a white nurses outfit captured in what seemed to be mid-embrace amid a celebration in Times Square on V-J Day  has long been debated. At least 11 men have claimed to have been the sailor in the photo, while three women, including Ms. Friedman, had prominent claims that they were the nurse.

Ms. Friedman said that she did not see the photo until the 1960s, when she came upon a book of Mr. Eisenstaedts images and found the moment immortalized on the page. She wrote to Life and was told that another person had been identified as the woman in the photo.
There are so many ways to be a bitch when youre Hillary Clinton. You can refuse to give up a thriving law career when your husband is elected governor of Arkansas. Later, when he becomes president of the United States, you can infuriate housewives across the nation with a dismissive reference to baking cookies.

You can be too loud, too ambitious, too emotional, not emotional enough. You can say things and do things that are still considered the exclusive realm of white men. You can rally millions of people to vote for you. You can do anything and everything, and it doesnt matter: The word bitch, more than almost any other, will cling to the back of your smart pantsuits forever.

But what if thats not a bad thing?

The fact that bitch has become both an epithet and an honorific for Mrs. Clinton has turned out to be one of the least weird things about this election year. In a race that is indelibly colored by gender and sexism, its also potentially transformative. Few of the women who choose to venture into the male-dominated sphere of American politics are hothouse flowers, of course, but Mrs. Clintons long journey to the center of presidential contention mirrors a larger impatience with a time-honored tradition of going along to get along. This is not just in politics either: From film stars to athletes to teenage activists, outspoken women from all arenas are increasingly visible, much to the concern of sexists everywhere.

Bitch has long been an effective way to silence women because so many of us have been brought up to believe that remaining likable to others  even those we ourselves dont like  is paramount. For instance, after the candidates forum on national security on Wednesday, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, included this in his criticism of Mrs. Clintons demeanor while she answered questions: No smile.
Walk onto the plaza in Lower Manhattan and you hear the memorial before you see it  a whooshing through the oak trees. You soon realize its not the wind, but water. At the footprint of each tower, north and south, a vast square emptiness is bound by four walls of falling water, the pool below pouring into a smaller central void that flows out of sight. The memorial is black upon black, but the water casts reflections. Sunlight and mist make fragmentary rainbows that flicker as clouds go by.

Tourists are milling about and buying souvenirs, guides are explaining, construction workers on the perimeter are relaxing. Though it is a murder scene, the memorial is not a morbid place. The trees soften it, as does the presence of children who have no memory of that morning, 15 years ago on Sunday.

There is an underground museum nearby, if you want to immerse yourself in that day. But the event is hard to grasp in full if you never saw the towers intact, if you never gazed straight up between the two pinstriped columns and got dizzy at the scale. And if you were not downtown that day, and did not have to flee uptown or across a bridge, did not have your memory seared by the smoke, the dust, the smell, the incomprehension.

The memorial has the power to gently push you back  not to horror, but maybe to tears. This is the effect of seeing the thousands of names, incised in bronze rows, five deep, encircling the fountains. Each row is like a lei of five strands, lives linked by work or some other related or random circumstance, and one awful fate.
Why are Michigans prosecutors ignoring the Supreme Court?

Across the state, they are flouting the justices clear message in two recent decisions. The first ruling, in 2012, banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles in homicide cases. While the court did not prohibit life-without-parole sentences for juveniles completely, it has said that punishment should be used only in the rarest cases  when the defendant exhibits such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible.

In January, the justices clarified that this rule applies not just going forward but to every inmate already serving such a sentence, or about 2,500 people nationwide.

Michigan prisons house 363 of these inmates. All but a very few should be resentenced to shorter terms, with the possibility of parole. Yet prosecutors are seeking to keep more than half of them locked up forever.

In Wayne County, which includes Detroit and is responsible for about 150 such inmates, the county prosecutor, Kym Worthy, wants to resentence at least 60 of these people to life without parole. In Oakland County, outside Detroit, the county prosecutor, Jessica Cooper, is seeking life without parole for 44 of the 49 currently serving life without parole. These cases involved heinous, heinous crimes, Ms. Cooper said.
RUSSIAS place in American politics used to be (relatively) simple. The further right you stood, the more you feared Ivan and his Slavic wiles. The further left, the more you likely thought the Red Menace was mostly just a scare story.

Now things are more complicated. In just 15 years, the Republican Party has had a president who famously claimed a soul-to-soul relationship with Vladimir Putin  followed by two consecutive nominees who took a starkly hawkish stance on Russia  and now a presidential candidate in Donald Trump who has a palpable man-crush on Putin and promises closer ties with his regime.

Over the same period, Democrats have gone from mocking George W. Bushs naivete about Putin  to mocking Mitt Romney for describing Russia as Americas main geopolitical foe  to spinning theories about Trump being an agent of Russian influence that seem ripped from a right-wing periodical circa 1955.

The ideologues, too, have lost the plot. Sean Hannity is hosting the Russian cats-paw Julian Assange because he might have dirt on Hillary. The Nation is defending Donald Trump against what it calls the neo-McCarthyism of mainstream liberalism. Team-player conservatives are tying themselves in knots explaining or defending Trumps Putin crush; liberal pundits are trying to memory-hole everything they wrote about Romney and Russia in 2012.
SABRINA S. FU

Ellicott City, Md.

The writer is a professor of science and environmental management at the University of Maryland University College.

To the Editor: Your article clearly laid out the imminent perils of rising sea levels for the Atlantic Coast states. Flooding has become the norm in cities like Miami Beach and Norfolk and Alexandria, Va. Recounting the enormous efforts underway and the billions upon billions of dollars it will take to shore up infrastructure, elevate homes and raise sea walls, it becomes clear that such efforts to keep these areas habitable would be in vain. Since that is the case, then why throw away billions of dollars trying to fight the momentous forces of nature just to buy a little more time? With foresight and understanding about rising sea levels, use that money to gradually depopulate the coastal areas that will be affected and discourage new development there. If people want to live on the water  like the rich  they can do so at their own risk and on their own dime. They will be hard pressed to find insurance companies willing to cover their properties.

Ordinary people who own homes and small businesses can be gradually bought out and relocated when disaster strikes and federal funds are dispensed, as New York is doing with some areas of Long Island that are being lost to erosion and suffered irreparable damage from Hurricane Sandy. There is time to do this in an intelligent and economical manner if the political will is there. It is foolish to waste precious resources on a losing game.

JENISE R. DEPINTO

Albany

To the Editor: Your article on rising sea levels prompted several questions that I think need answering or further explanation. What would be the cost for sea walls and other measures to mitigate the rise in sea levels and the cost of moving large populations away from coastal areas, versus the cost to reduce the use of greenhouse gases and switch to alternate fuel sources? Given the current output of greenhouse gases, how high are the seas expected to rise? What areas, globally, would end up underwater? How long would this likely take to occur? What would it cost to protect low-lying areas, both in the United States and globally? Should property owners in low-lying areas be compensated with public funds for damage to their properties or the need to abandon them as a result of the rise in sea levels? What claim for restitution, if any, would other countries have against the developed nations that produce most of those emissions today?

JEFF KONDRAT

Brooklyn

To the Editor: Now that many coastal towns are flooded by the sea-level rise that scientists have been warning about for many decades, some Republicans directly affected by the high waters are asking for federal help in the form of money for pumps, levees and road improvements needed to combat the floods. How ironic, after decades of denial of the problem by this political party. And still to this day Republicans refuse to help solve the problem by cutting back our fossil-fuel emissions with a whopping carbon tax. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Birds and Air-Conditioners

I live in a condominium with beautiful landscaping, trees  and lots of birds. The air-conditioning and heating units in the apartments are vented outdoors through louvers built into the buildings brick facade. Birds nest in the spaces between the louvers and the cooling-and-heating units, leaving behind droppings and nesting material. It is messy and a health hazard, but does not damage the appliances. The board says condo owners are responsible for cleaning and removing the nests. But shouldnt this be the boards responsibility, since the nests are in the facade and not in the appliances?

Larchmont, N.Y.

In The Best Nest, a childrens book by P. D. Eastman, Mr. and Mrs. Bird explore all sorts of terrible ideas for places to build a nest  in a shoe, a mailbox, a church bell  only to be promptly evicted each time. The birds that have settled in your building have found an equally logical place to call home, albeit one that is inconvenient for you.

Theyre finding shelter, said Dan Brady, a project manager at Bell Bird Control, of Fairfield, N.J. They build their nest and lay their eggs, and nobody can get them.

A birds nest is dirty, attracts bugs and could pose a health hazard if spores from the droppings get sucked into the ventilation system, Mr. Brady said. He suggested using bird netting or mesh cloth to keep the birds out of the louvers. A handyman could reach the louvers from inside your apartment to install the netting.
Mike: Have you seen all the gymnastics it takes to plug the adapter and analog cord in, not to mention if you want to charge your phone and listen to music at the same time? Its like trying to plug my old Nintendo into a spaghetti pile of cables behind my TV. I dont like it one bit.

Speaking of Nintendo, today Id like to focus on something that got a little bit less attention during the Big Apple keynote: Super Mario.

Yes, thats right, the worlds most beloved plumber is coming to the iPhone rather soon  before the end of the year, Nintendo said  in the Japanese video game giants first ever Mario franchise on iOS. Its called Super Mario Run, and its a neat-looking side-scroller you can play with one hand, even on the subway.

This is a watershed moment for Nintendo, long considered a laggard in its approach to mobile gaming. As you may well know, the advent of the iPhone  and Android  was kind of a big deal. The mass adoption of smartphones upended entire industries, like GPS navigation companies, mapping sites, and yes, even video game makers. More and more people who once looked to consoles, desktop PCs or even hand-held devices to get their gaming fix are now playing iPhone games, downloading them directly from the app store without the hassle of going to buy a new video game DVD or another console.

Thats a massive shift in a mega-market, something that came virtually overnight. And Nintendo, the worlds pre-eminent legacy video game company, has really struggled to recalibrate.

I take this Mario thing as a big deal. But tell me your thoughts on the matter.

Farhad: I agree. Its a big deal for Nintendo, which now has a plausible path to sell all of its old content to a new audience, and its a big deal for Apple, which can once again point to an app that is available only on iOS, and will come to Android at some point down the line.

But really the deeper story here is that smartphones are unstoppable. Everyone in tech keeps looking for the next big thing, but to me the biggest story in tech continues to be the way smartphones keep swallowing up every other gadget. The best smartphone cameras are now much better than any snapshot camera you can buy, and for most people, a phone is the only camera they need. The Nintendo announcement shows that phones have now completely consumed mobile gaming, too.
But it also has invited criticism from those who say Pittsburgh is giving too much power to tech companies, all for a sheen of innovation. Some residents are on edge about Ubers self-driving vehicles and complain that they have been thrust into an experiment with potential safety risks.

I feel like we were pushed into being part of this by the city, said Montana Michniak, a recent college graduate who works at a cafe in the citys South Side neighborhood.

How Pittsburgh handles the unveiling of Ubers self-driving fleet is being closely watched by other tech and auto companies that are doing their own driverless experiments in places like California and Michigan (although Apple is said to have laid off dozens of employees in its self-driving car project and to be rethinking its strategy). Depressed cities around the nation are watching to see if the Pittsburgh story can be a blueprint for their own transitions into tech hubs.

This is the first mayor in Pittsburgh to really get it, and thats a big reason why the city has become the best case of Rust Belt revival, said Richard Florida, a professor of urban studies at the University of Toronto, who previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He said he was frankly surprised at how long a leash Uber got.

Mr. Peduto said Uber did not have too much power in Pittsburgh and said the city would be safe because there would be a human monitor in the Uber test cars. The mayor also has his eye on a bigger safety goal.

There is no technology that is fail-proof and there is no tech that can guarantee there wont be accidents, but right now there are 3,287 people who die in automobile-related accidents around the world each day, and there has to be a better way, he said.
MANDEVILLE, La.  It has so far been a mostly humdrum race for Louisianas open United States Senate seat, likely to end in a victory for some veteran officeholder: the Republican state treasurer, one of the congressmen, maybe even, in a surprise, a Democratic public service commissioner.

But there have been gritted teeth across the state that the one candidate who has drawn by far the most attention, nationally and even internationally, is the one whom pollsters give virtually no chance, whose own party has publicly dismissed as a hate-filled fraud and whose unfavorability ratings approach those of North Koreas. That candidate is a previous nine-time political contender, and eight-time also-ran, David Duke.

Mr. Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and open Nazi sympathizer, relishes his fame and the conundrum facing his critics, who insist on ignoring him but have been forced not to. At a time when the openly white nationalist alt-right has rallied to the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Dukes reappearance on the scene seems practically inevitable.

After four decades, the issues that Ive spearheaded and fought for are now mainstream, Mr. Duke said at a seafood restaurant here, sitting across from a large, taciturn diesel mechanic turned bodyguard. Talking of what he called the egregiousness of large-scale immigration, the war on Christmas, the nefarious plotting of the Jewish elite and the cultural destruction of white America, Mr. Duke was already declaring a sort of victory on the issues: Ive won, in the sense that these are now mainstream.
Dr. Greene offered this analogy: It is easier for a person who runs a mile in 12 minutes to reduce the time to 10 minutes than for a five-minute miler to break the four-minute barrier.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock is the main teaching hospital for Dartmouths medical school, of which the Dartmouth Institute is part.

Since accountable care organizations began operation in 2012, a number like Dartmouth have dropped out of the program, citing financial uncertainties and unrealistic benchmarks for spending. Organizations with higher levels of prior spending had a greater ability to achieve cost savings in the first years of the program, by reducing unnecessary services, so they were more likely to qualify for financial rewards, according to the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

The idea of accountable care organizations and the name are generally traced back to a paper in 2006 by Dr. Fisher and colleagues at Dartmouth and its medical school. Writing in the journal Health Affairs, they reported that Medicare beneficiaries received most of their care from doctors who were directly or indirectly affiliated with a local hospital.

Rather than trying to measure the performance of individual doctors, they said, Medicare should assess the hospital and the doctors together and hold them jointly accountable for the cost and quality of care provided to a defined group of Medicare patients.

In effect, this was an effort to overcome the fragmented nature of most American health care and to replicate some of the benefits of managed care while still allowing Medicare patients to visit any doctors they wanted.

The new entities, unlike health maintenance organizations, cant tell you which health care providers to see and cant limit your Medicare benefits, the Obama administration tells beneficiaries. But, it says, doctors and hospitals working together in an accountable care organization can share information, including test results and prescription drug data, so it is easier for them to coordinate care for patients.
PALO ALTO, Calif.  For decades, news organizations have refrained from releasing early results in presidential battleground states on Election Day, adhering to a strict, time-honored embargo until a majority of polls there have closed.

Now, a group of data scientists, journalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is seeking to upend that reporting tradition, providing detailed projections of who is winning at any given time on Election Day in key swing states, and updating the information in real time from dawn to dusk.

The plan is likely to cause a stir among those involved in reporting election results and in political circles, who worry about both accuracy and an adverse effect on how people vote. Previous early calls in presidential races have prompted congressional inquiries.

The company spearheading the effort, VoteCastr, plans real-time projections of presidential and Senate races in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It plans to publish a map and tables of its projected results on Slate, the online newsmagazine.
As criticism rained down on Matt Lauer, the NBC anchor whose handling of a prime-time presidential forum on Wednesday received an onslaught of poor reviews, there was one select group of television journalists whose reaction ran along simpler lines:

Gulp.

For the anchors chosen to preside over this falls presidential debates, the excoriation of Mr. Lauer was a wake-up call signaling what modern viewers now expect from a moderator  and a stark example of how media figures can become partisan flash points in a hyper-polarized election.

On Friday, for the second straight day, aides to Hillary Clinton accused Mr. Lauer of being unfair to their candidate, blasting out a fund-raising email saying he let Donald Trump walk all over him. Borrowing a page from Mr. Trumps media-bashing playbook, Mrs. Clintons campaign asked supporters to donate because we have to do what the press wont.

Conservative websites like Breitbart News portrayed the attacks on Mr. Lauer as a left-wing pressure tactic, saying that the criticism could encourage future moderators to go easier on Mrs. Clinton  and be tougher on her opponent. Mr. Trump, for his part, declared at a rally, I thought Matt Lauer did a very good job.

All this foreshadows more scrutiny, and perhaps anxiety, for the debate moderators  Anderson Cooper of CNN, Lester Holt of NBC, Martha Raddatz of ABC and Chris Wallace of Fox News  whose encounters with the candidates could draw record audiences.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP)  A news anchor on a state-run TV station in Guyana who said she was removed from her position because she is pregnant is being reinstated thanks to the prime minister of the South American country.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo directed the National Communications Network late Wednesday to put Natasha Smith back on the air and told the CEO to apologize to her.

"I am in no doubt that the removal of Ms. Smith was due to her state of pregnancy, and that the act is an attack on her as a woman and as a professional journalist," Nagamootoo, whose Cabinet duties include responsibility for the government communications, said in a statement.

Smith said camera operators were initially directed to hide her pregnancy from viewers. She said later she was told by supervisors that she was being removed from her news-reading duties at the direction of CEO Lennox Cornette.

The NCN issued a statement denying she was fired for being pregnant or unmarried, as some media had reported, and said it only addresses personal issues if they affect an employee's job performance.

The prime minister, a former journalist and attorney, said the government supports the "free choice to be married or to remain single, or to bear or not bear children," which compelled him to reinstate Smith.

"It agonizes me to get involved in what is an NCN management matter but, as a journalist and as a parent, I refuse to be silent on this occasion," he said.
As a police officer in a small Oregon town in 2004, Sean Sullivan was caught kissing a 10-year-old girl on the mouth.

Mr. Sullivans sentence barred him from taking another job as a police officer.

But three months later, in August 2005, Mr. Sullivan was hired, after a cursory check, not just as a police officer on another force but as the police chief. As the head of the department in Cedar Vale, Kan., according to court records and law enforcement officials, he was again investigated for a suspected sexual relationship with a girl and eventually convicted on charges that included burglary and criminal conspiracy.

It was very irritating because he should never have been a police officer, said Larry Markle, the prosecutor for Montgomery and Chautauqua counties in Kansas.

Mr. Sullivan, 44, is now in prison in Washington State on other charges, including identity theft and possession of methamphetamine. It is unclear how far-reaching such problems may be, but some experts say thousands of law enforcement officers may have drifted from police department to police department even after having been fired, forced to resign or convicted of a crime.
The money invested by the administrators bolstered Chiles capital markets, which stimulated economic growth and yielded reasonable returns. Today six A.F.P.s  half of them owned by foreign companies  manage $171 billion in pension funds, equivalent to about 71 percent of Chiles gross domestic product, according to the office of the supervisor of the pension funds.

But the pioneering privatized system has failed to provide livable pensions for most retirees. If the stock market dips or investments go awry, workers savings and retirees pension checks decline.

The pension system is unfair, said Romina Celis, a 28-year-old teacher who marched in one of the protests. I dont know what formula we can use, but there has to be more state participation. We must continue protesting. The thought of reaching old age so precariously is scary.

Women fare worse than men do because they earn less, are more likely to work intermittently, retire earlier (the retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women) and have a longer life expectancy.

A commission on pension reform, appointed in 2014 by President Michelle Bachelet, found that the median A.F.P. pension was equivalent to 34 percent of a retirees last average salary (24 percent in the case of women and 48 percent for men). The overall figure rose to 45 percent with supplements from a federally funded safety net established during Ms. Bachelets first term in office.

After warning that the pension system was in crisis, her government in 2008 introduced a minimum pension of about $140, funded by the state, for those who were unable to save for retirement during their working lives, and additional payments for retirees whose pensions did not reach that amount. More than 1.3 million Chileans, two-thirds of them women, receive such benefits.

But when examining projections for the next 10 to 20 years, the commission found that it only gets worse, said David Bravo, the director of the Catholic University of Chiles Longitudinal Survey and Study Center, who presided over the commission.
And any coercion or sexual abuse that occurred, both mens defense teams have suggested, was the result of decisions by midlevel Khmer cadres, not state policy.

The tribunal was established in 2006 to examine the effects of the Khmer Rouges radical policies, which historians say resulted in the deaths of some 1.7 million people.

In 2014, Mr. Khieu Samphan and Mr. Nuon Chea were each sentenced to life in prison, primarily for crimes committed during the regimes drive to move people out of cities to work in rural communes. That judgment is under appeal, and the court has moved on to crimes at detention centers and forced labor sites, and against two ethnic minority groups.

The charge of forced marriage was included late in the development of the sprawling indictment, at the insistence of victims lawyers and womens rights groups pushing for greater recognition of sexual violence and gender-based abuses in international criminal law. But the tribunal has heard evidence of the policys effects on men as well.

One man with broad shoulders and a deep frown, known as 2-TCCP-232, told the tribunal how he had been forced to marry someone other than his fiancee. Speaking with his head down, he recalled that they had worked in separate mobile units in the same district, digging canals and carrying dirt. But they were politically suspect because he had been a police officer, and some of her relatives had been smashed  taken away and presumably executed  as enemies of the revolution, he said.

A unit chief warned that he, too, would be smashed if he tried to marry his fiancee. When he was told one day in 1978 that the Khmer Rouge would arrange a family for him, he did not dare protest. A group wedding was held, in the dark, for about 50 men and 50 women.

Some, perhaps people with good biographies, seemed to have some say in choosing their partners, he said. But that night, he was afraid to even look at the woman he was marrying. They were couple No. 42.
Is North Korea irrational? Or does it just pretend to be?

North Korea has given the world ample reason to ask: threats of war, occasional attacks against South Korea, eccentric leaders and wild-eyed propaganda. As its nuclear and missile programs have grown, this past week with a fifth nuclear test, that concern has grown more urgent.

But political scientists have repeatedly investigated this question and, time and again, emerged with the same answer: North Koreas behavior, far from crazy, is all too rational.

Its belligerence, they conclude, appears calculated to maintain a weak, isolated government that would otherwise succumb to the forces of history. Its provocations introduce tremendous danger, but stave off what Pyongyang sees as the even greater threats of invasion or collapse.

Denny Roy, a political scientist, wrote in a still-cited 1994 journal article that the countrys reputation as a crazy state and for reckless violence had worked to North Koreas advantage, keeping more powerful enemies at bay. But this image, he concluded, was largely a product of misunderstanding and propaganda.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  On the swirling battlefield in Syria in the past month alone, Turkey has sent in tanks, incendiary bombs have charred children and whole towns have been emptied in surrender deals that could change the countrys demographics.

All that is a stark reminder that for all the talk of diplomacy from Geneva, the war has been accelerating and shape-shifting, as unpredictable as it has ever been in its five and a half years.

Hours after the United States and Russia announced, with great fanfare, a cease-fire to start Monday in Syria, an airstrike hit holiday shoppers in insurgent-held territory on Saturday, just another day in the governments Russian-backed air war.

The wars myriad combatants met the diplomatic developments with skepticism, as government warplanes pounded multiple areas, killing at least 85 people, insurgents declared new offensives and Turkish tanks  which plunged for the first time into Syria just weeks ago  rolled along the border.
Outsourcing the messier religious duties

Usually, the post office is where you send mail or pay your bills. In Saudi Arabia during the hajj, its where you pay for your animal sacrifice.

It costs 460 riyals, or about $120, to have a sheep slaughtered. The sacrifice, known as the hadi, is incumbent on all pilgrims, who must donate at least two-thirds of the meat to the poor.

Modern pilgrims usually have a slaughterhouse near Mecca do this for them, via the local post office.

How do you know your animal was sacrificed? By text message, of course.

Outside Saudi Post in Mina, the sprawling tent city where pilgrims live for part of the hajj, Marwan Nabil, 22, who is from Yemen, began to worry when he had not received his confirmation.
The company advertised through a number of Facebook pages, but there is one Hero Tees-related page that it did not set up. Its called Hero Tees Ripped Me Off Too!

Did these people, and their anger, lead to Mr. Slatons stay in the Calhoun County jail?

The county sheriff, Larry Amerson, doubted it but said he wasnt the guy to ask. I just know hes a federal prisoner, he said. You need to call the Marshals Service in Birmingham. Were a holding facility for the marshals.

The Marshals Service referred the Haggler to the United States attorneys office in Birmingham. A spokeswoman in that office explained that Mr. Slatons troubles long preceded his creation of Hero Tees. A few court documents tell the story.

It begins in 2001, when Mr. Slaton was a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service and a vehicle hit his truck. After the accident, he reported pain levels that severely limited his physical activity. He would eventually turn down even limited-duty jobs offered by the Postal Service. For more than a decade he was unemployed and received workers compensation, according to court filings.

In 2011, the inspector generals office at the Postal Service took notice of Mr. Slatons case and surveilled him for four months. The guys life did not seem curtailed by pain. On the contrary, he regularly went to a gym and was caught on video lifting well over 100 pounds, according to a court document. He took long drives. He remodeled his house.

In 2013, he was tried and convicted of 33 crimes, including eight counts of making false statements to obtain federal workers compensation. The government thought the judges sentence  three years of probation and restitution of $100,000  was a tad lenient, and appealed. In September of last year, citing procedural issues, an appeals court sent the case back for resentencing.

A few weeks ago, before the resentencing hearing, the government got some added ammunition when it was contacted by the Better Business Bureau, which told prosecutors all about Hero Tees. The story of the company and its many livid customers became part of a recent motion by prosecutors that argued, essentially, that Mr. Slaton should have his bond revoked. At a hearing in late August, he was taken to Calhoun County jail.
The female bonobo apes of the Wamba forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo had just finished breakfast and were preparing for a brief nap in the treetops, bending and crisscrossing leafy branches into comfortable day beds.

But one of the females was in estrus, her rump exceptionally pink and swollen, and four males in the group were too excited to sleep. They took turns wildly swinging and jumping around the fertile female and her bunkmates, shaking the branches, appearing to display their erections and perforating the air with high-pitched screams and hoots.

Suddenly, three older, high-ranking female bonobos bolted up from below, a furious blur of black fur and swinging limbs and, together with the female in estrus, flew straight for the offending males. The males scattered. The females pursued them. Tree boughs bounced and cracked. Screams on all sides grew deafening.

Three of the males escaped, but the females cornered and grabbed the fourth one  the resident alpha male. He was healthy, muscular and about 18 pounds heavier than any of his captors. But no matter.
Alabama may have to pay approximately $96.5 million back to the federal government after two federal audits found the state miscalculated Medicaid costs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General published two audits in July that said the Alabama Medicaid Agency miscalculated Medicaid public assistance administrative costs from 2010 to 2012 by $75.2 million and made errors in calculating public expenditures by at least $21.3 million in 2010.

The Alabama Medicaid Agency announced in July it was cutting $14 million in payment bumps to primary care doctors, sparking concern from doctors over availability of care for many residents.

The agency had requested an additional $85 million to be fully funded in 2017.

Gov. Robert Bentley signed a bill into law Thursday allocating $120 million of the $640 million in BP oil spill settlement money to the Alabama Medicaid Agency over the next two years.

The new law also repaid $400 million to state rainy-day funds that the Legislature had barrowed to cover previous budget shortfalls, and provided $120 million for roads in Mobile and Baldwin counties.

State Auditor Jim Zeigler publicized the failed audits with a post on his Facebook page.

(The Bentley administration) ignored the failed audit and the federal directive to refund $75 million, Zeigler said in the post. Lets do the math. $60 million of new BP money for 2017. Minus $75 million ordered refunded due to a failed federal audit. I come up with  minus $15 million.

Yasamie August, press secretary for Bentley, said the audit was a recommendation to the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Alabama Medicaid Agency is working with HHS to resolve any issues found in the audit.

Alabama has not received a demand letter for a refund, and the state will not have to pay anything until it receives a demand letter, August said.

The audit on public expenditures was conducted after Alabama made an adjustment to its certified public expenditures amount in 2011 of $123.5 million that doubled the amount for 2010, the HHS inspector general said.

The Alabama Medicaid Agency disagreed with the amount of the refund and said it would work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on calculating the correct amount.

The HHS inspector general said its findings were valid and added the state should work with CMS to determine if an additional $42.8 million in federal funds should be refunded.

The audit on public assistance administrative costs was triggered after Alabama claimed $150.5 million in administrative costs without having an approved public assistance allocation plan, according to the HHS inspector general.

Alabama also disagreed in a written comment to the HHS inspector general that said the state had filed everything that was required.

We disagree with the state agencys comments, and the state agency did not provide any additional documentation that warranted changing our findings, the HHS inspector general said in the report. Therefore, our recommendations remain unchanged.
More than 18 years after a state corrections officer was ambushed and killed in Anaheim, the last defendant to answer for the crime pleaded guilty Friday and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

In March , authorities tracked down 41-year-old Guillermo Espinoza in Mexicali, Mexico, where he was arrested and brought back to the United States in connection with his role in the shooting death of Elizabeth Wheat Begaren in January 1998, according to Anaheim police.

Espinoza, a U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and admitted to a sentencing enhancement for the use of a firearm. In return, felony murder and conspiracy charges were dropped as was a special circumstance for robbery and murder for financial gain.

Begaren was gunned down in a car on the on-ramp to the eastbound 91 freeway from East Street in Anaheim.

The victims newlywed husband, Nuzzio Begaren, told authorities that he pulled over from the freeway after noticing that several men were following them. Elizabeth was shot as she tried to get away from the suspects. It was later discovered Begaren had hired them to kill her so he could collect the $1 million life insurance policy.

The widower was convicted in 2014 of orchestrating his wifes murder and is serving 26 years to life in prison. Jose Luis Sandoval and Rudy Duran, both fellow Los Angeles gang members of Espinoza, were also convicted for their roles in the murder.

Its always good when we can successfully resolve a homicide case, Sgt. Daron Wyatt said.

Wyatt was the lead detective on the case and was accused of having coerced a confession out of one of the suspects. A jury found that those allegations were not true.

Hopefully it can give a little relief (to the family) but we need to be sympathetic because they still have that void, Wyatt said.
A San Juan Capistrano woman accused of mistreating a domestic worker has called the complaint by the U.S. Labor Department meritless.

Himanshu Bhatia is the chief executive of Missouri-based Rose International and IT Staffing, which has offices in Irvine. The Labor Department in a complaint filed Aug. 22 said Bhatia mistreated a former employee, forcing her to sleep with the family dogs and work 15-hour days seven days a week.

Bhatia said the agency failed to use basic common sense, in its investigation.

It is shocking and disappointing that the U.S. Department of Labor has recklessly filed a complaint without doing an ounce of due diligence, or bothering to understand the basic facts in this matter, said attorney Navneet S. Chugh in a written statement emailed to the Register. The sole purpose of the lawsuit seems fomented by some fledgling lawyer crowing to get publicity by filing a meritless complaint filled with lies against Ms. Bhatia, who is no doubt a kind, respected and generous individual.

The complaint said Bhatia forced Sheela Ningwal to work and live in servitude

Ningwal, who worked for Bhatia from July 2012 to December 2014, is seeking back wages and damages.

According to the complaint, Bhatia paid Ningwal, an Indian national, $400 a month plus food in exchange for housework performed seven days a week at Bhatias homes in San Juan Capistrano, Miami, Las Vegas and Long Beach.

Bhatias daughter, Sabina Bhatia, said her mother felt betrayed by her employee.

There is not a morsel or even a nugget of truth to Sheelas claims. Her story is complete fiction, Sabina Bhatia said in a statement. I cant tell you how shocked, saddened and betrayed my mom is that Sheela Ningwal would say these things that are completely false. My mom and dad  all of us in fact  treated Sheela like family. She ate with us and socialized with us. There are tons of photos and videos of these memories. My mom even cared and cooked for her when she was sick.

For Sheela to say these completely false, awful and hurtful things to the U.S. Department of Labor, and use the government like this, is beyond words. People like Sheela should not be allowed to manipulate a system that was designed to help real victims.

The Labor Departments complaint said Ningwal was forced to sleep in the garage on a piece of carpet near Bhatias dogs while she was sick and was without food if Bhatia left her home. Ningwals passport also was confiscated.

Chughs statement contended Bhatia often took care of Ningwal.

Whenever, Ms. Ningwal was sick  which was often  the Bhatias arranged for Ms. Ningwals visits to the doctors and took care of her. As no good deed goes unpunished, it was Ms. Bhatia who cooked and cared for Ms. Ningwal on multiple occasions while Ms. Ningwal was too ill to work. Further, because Ms. Ningwal was at times an emotionally distraught person, the Bhatias took added care of her for over two years.

The DOL said Bhatia fired Ningwal after she researched labor laws on a computer. The worker also refused to sign a document written by Bhatia claiming a fair salary.

Orange County Human Trafficking Task Forces 2016 Human Trafficking Victim Report, released Friday, found that Orange County is a destination for sex and labor traffickers. Last year, the organization helped 225 human trafficking victims.

Although local law enforcement and prosecutors have made extraordinary efforts to pursue justice for the victims, Orange County remains a place where acts of violation and violence exist as an underground phenomenon, Lita Mercado, director of Victim Assistance Programs, Community Service Programs, said in a statement.

Of the 225 victims, the majority were female, 79 percent were adult and 75 percent were exploited for sex trafficking. Labor victims represented 22 percent of human trafficking, while 2 percent were trafficked for both.

The group also found that only 22 percent of trafficking victims originated in Orange County.

Susan Seletsky, regional counsel for FLSA Litigation, said the case was a civil matter and criminal charges had not been filed.

This case to me is about a vulnerable worker who wasnt paid properly, Seletsky said. In most instances its not a domestic worker at someones home, but at restaurants or in construction or in car washes or warehouses. There are a lot of industries where particularly vulnerable workers work.

Ningwal declined to comment for this story. An individual on Facebook matching her name with San Juan Capistrano listed as her hometown is shown as being in high school, starting at a college in India and working at Shell in 2014.

Contact the writer: hmadans@ocregister.com or Twitter: @HannahMadans
For the nearly three dozen passengers who dangled in cable cars 12,500 feet over the glaciers of Mont Blanc, it was a long, cold and  in most cases  sleepless night.

Their ordeal began around 2 p.m. local time Thursday, in the Mont Blanc massif near Chamonix, in the French Alps, when 12 cable cars abruptly halted in midair, after their cables became tangled between the Aiguille du Midi in France and Pointe Helbronner in Italy.

The system of cable cars can carry up to 140 people, who can enjoy a spectacular panoramic view. Some are climbers trying to scale the areas snow-capped mountains. The trip takes 30 minutes, and Thursday there were passengers in nine of the cars.

All together 110 people were trapped, including Koreans, Britons, Americans and Italians, among them several children and an older man. After efforts to untangle the cables failed, rescuers were able to retrieve 65 people by winching them up into helicopters starting around 5:30 p.m.

A dozen more passengers were evacuated by an Italian rescue team, which helped them to descend vertically by rope to safety, which they were able to do since their cable car was close to the ground.

But when night fell, making it perilous for the rescue helicopters to operate, the emergency operation was suspended. That left 33 people, including a 10-year old boy, suspended over Mont Blanc in seven cars, French officials said Friday. Thus began a seemingly interminable night that the stranded passengers described as one of fear, boredom and panic.

One of the passengers, who identified himself only as Clement and spent the night in the cable car, told the French television channel BFMTV that he and his fellow passengers had fought off the fear and the cold by playing games and chatting.

In the beginning, we were very confident because we knew we had the survival blankets, he said. Around 2 or 3 a.m., we realized that it was quite cold and then around 4, 5 a.m., it got quite hard because even the survival blankets were not enough.

As the night went on, they started to play Pyramid, a word game. It got boring after a while, then we chatted with the other people, he told the broadcaster. We also called a lot on the phone to get information or updates and we were a little scared. We got bored a lot.

He said his fear was magnified by the sight of a Korean family in the cable car ahead of his, who seemed in distress and unable to communicate. He said people in his cable car yelled to tell them where they could find survival blankets.

Rescue workers remained with passengers in five of the cars, and provided the passengers with food and blankets to fend off the chill. The rescue workers reached the area by snowmobile before flying by helicopter over the cable cars, harnessing themselves to the cables, climbing along to the cars and then dropping through the cars hatches, French authorities said.

Mathieu Dechavanne, the chief executive of the company that manages the cable cars, said the helicopters were necessary because the glacial ground underneath was fragile.

We had to do it by helicopter and not vertically like we can do it in other places because the ground underneath is of a glacial type, so there is a risk of crevasses and it could lead to accidents, he said.

Dechavanne said that each of the cars had a survival kit with cereal bars, water and survival blankets, and that the company had contacted the passengers by phone to keep them informed of what was happening. He said that two of the cable cars did not have rescue workers with them.

The rescue effort resumed Friday around 6:30 a.m., when technicians untangled the supporting and towing cables that had become crossed in several places. The cable cars were back in service about 8:30 a.m., officials said. They also said that without the added weight of those passengers rescued the day before, it was easier to untangle the cables.

All the occupants of the cable cars are safe and sound, the French Interior Ministry said in a statement Friday, adding that the passengers who were trapped overnight had French and Italian rescue workers by their side throughout the ordeal.

Mario Mochet, 63, an Italian mountain guide who assisted with the rescue effort, said that the passengers were never in a huge amount of danger.

People panic at first but after a few hours theyre just very happy to be rescued, he said. We explained that this was an exceptional situation, that everything would be fine, that we would do everything necessary to bring them down safely, without problems.

Antoine Burnet, the marketing director for the Mont Blanc Co., which manages and operates ski lifts and the cable-car service for ski areas and tourist sites there, described the rescued passengers as tired but calm on Friday. An older man was taken to the hospital with hypothermia, he said, but was not in danger.

Burnet said that the reason the cables had crossed was unclear. It can be caused by strong winds, which can stop the process, but there will be an investigation, he said.

Mario Mochet, 63, mountain guide and member of the Aosta Valley rescue team, who has been on the job for 40 years and whose team helped rescue some of the passengers, said such incidents were rare.

The cable cars work pretty well, he said. But every now and again, this can happen.
During a 1997 speech to the American Planning Association in Monterey, Peter Douglas, the longtime executive director of the California Coastal Commission and main author of the 1972 initiative that created it, argued that private property rights were on a collision course with the environmental movement.

He warned of the clear and present threat to the health and well-being of the public flowing from the property rights debate and expressed concern about the direction in which the debate is being driven by the courts. Douglas gave a tongue lashing to the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based group that litigates on behalf of property owners fighting against government agencies.

Douglas died four years ago, but the agency he guided for several decades continues to implement his  and the ensuing 1976 coastal acts  vision in an oft-times heavy-handed manner. The agency has broad powers to control land use along Californias 1,100-mile coastline. If he were alive today, Douglas would be appalled at an Orange County court ruling late last month in a San Clemente case.

Those of us who believe in limited and accountable government, and who bristle at the thought of bureaucrats shaking down property owners for unfair concessions, should celebrate. Douglas was right in this much, however: The courts have found constitutional property protections sometimes are at odds with the goals of environmentalists. Even sweeter: The winning property owners were represented by the same group he chided.

The case is Capistrano Shores Property LLC v. California Coastal Commission. The main issue is fairly simple. Eric Wills and his family moved a mobile home to a beachfront park in 1977 as a second home. After 38 years, they sought a permit to replace the aged structure. The commission agreed to the request for a slightly smaller one after requiring the owner to provide a geological study of the sites risks based on predicted rising sea level. And there were hearings.

But there was a catch, PLF attorney Larry Salzman wrote in a Register column in April. The permit was subject to the condition that the Wills forever waive their rights to future shoreline protection of their property, including the right to maintain, repair or enhance the existing seawall. The commission is requiring any park lessees to do the same thing if they seek to replace their old trailers with nicer and newer ones.

The owners are not asking the government to maintain a seawall  but only for the right for the community to maintain the wall its responsible for. That demand that they give up future rights seems Orwellian, except that this is common procedure for an agency that doesnt seem to care much for the current rights of property owners.

For years, the commission has reflexively opposed shoreline protection for private property wherever it can.  Instead, the commission has insisted on a controversial policy of managed retreat from the coast, Salzman explained. Basically, environmentalists would like owners to retreat from the coastline over time and let nature take its course. In this case, the commission wanted to stop any future seawall expansion from the mobile-home park to protect the size of the beach.

The problem, for those who echo Douglas mindset, is that in the United States public officials are limited in their ability to simply deprive the rightful owners of the legitimate use of their property. So unless we amend our national Constitution to give Americans a constitutional right to a high quality of life (as is the case in India) or to give standing and protection to the environmental commons of the country, it is the courts that will be the arbiters of the debate over property rights and the protection of environmental values, Douglas once said.

Fortunately, no such constitutional revision has occurred. Douglas also complained that property-rights advocates base their cases on horror stories that have sympathetic plaintiffs. Well, they do that because there are indeed many horror stories and these are sympathetic plaintiffs who often are stuck fighting with an intractable agency.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Theodore Howard nixed the commissions condition banning the seawall update, finding it unreasonably broad. He said the commissions demanded pre-emptive waiver of rights appears to be less closely related to the project at hand and instead related to a broader project which the commission anticipates will become necessary in the future.

The coastal act allows property owners to protect their property from natural hazards. The judge found it relied on unrelated cases to make its case. What if there is a major disaster? he wrote. The applicant will have in hindsight lost any rights to advocate for repair or maintenance of the seawall/revetment by accepting the present condition.

Even agencies with high-minded goals of environmental stewardship should be bound by other high-minded goals  i.e., ones that constrain officials from trampling on peoples liberty in the name of the greater good. Yes, the courts are the last arbiter of such matters. That fact seemed to bother Douglas, but it should be a relief to the rest of us.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He was a Register editorial writer from 1998-2009. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.
SANTA ANA  A 63-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting three children at a day care center dating back to 2013 and as recently as this week, Santa Ana Police said Friday.

On Tuesday, police received a report that a 6-year-old was sexually assaulted that day at Annes Daycare, a residential center in the 2100 block of South Cedar Street. Larry Montanez, who lived at the center, was arrested Wednesday after the allegations were investigated, said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana Police Department.

Investigators soon learned that there were another two victims. All three were under the age of 10 when the known assaults began in 2013. Bertagna said the center was licensed from 2001 through 2008 and again from 2010 through 2016.

It is unclear why there was a gap in the licensing years and what Montanezs role was in the family-operated day care.

Montanez was being held Friday on $100,000 bail, jail records showed.

Hes had access to children the whole time and investigators are looking to see if there are more victims, Bertagna said.

Anyone with information about Montanez or more crimes is asked to call Santa Ana police detectives at 714-245-8351.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
Brock Turner is a free man, and now Californias justice system is on trial.

When the former Stanford student was sentenced in June to only six months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, a sickening thud landed like a punch to the gut of millions of people who were following the high-profile trial.

Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky could have sentenced Turner to 14 years in prison and prosecutors asked for six. But despite the prosecutors recommendation and an impassioned letter from the victim describing her life-destroying ordeal, read aloud in court, the judge sentenced the young man from a wealthy family to just half a year in prison. A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him, Persky explained.

In the uproar that followed, Persky moved to civil court and no longer hears criminal cases, a recall effort was launched against him, and the California Legislature sent two bills to the governors desk.

AB701 modifies the definition of rape to include selected acts that under current law are charged as sexual assault and forcible sodomy.

Assembly Bill 2888 ensures that sex crimes against an unconscious or severely intoxicated victim trigger mandatory prison sentences without any argument over whether force was used to commit the crime.

Another, Senate Bill 813, removes the statute of limitations so rapists can be charged no matter how long ago the crime occurred.

Do these laws heighten the risk of wrongful convictions?

Try this test: Instead of thinking about Brock Turner, think about the three Duke lacrosse players who were wrongfully accused of gang rape in 2006. After a year, North Carolinas attorney general declared the three men innocent. The Durham district attorney was convicted of contempt and disbarred.

The challenge is to get the law right so innocent defendants can clear their names and innocent victims can get justice, sometimes in cases where only two people were present, and one was unconscious or close to it.

Perhaps the law should address what happened to Turners victim after the crime.

In her statement to the court, the victim said she originally thought Turner would formally apologize, and we will both move on. Instead, he hired a powerful attorney, expert witnesses, private investigators who were going to try and find details about my personal life to use against me.

Thats what happens to victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is wealthy or powerful enough to use character assassination as part of a legal or public relations defense.

Should it be a crime to smear a victim of sexual assault or harassment? Currently, victims have no recourse other than to file a lawsuit charging defamation.

At least half a dozen of Bill Cosbys alleged victims have done exactly that. One said she spent $80,000 of her own money to sue the comedian after his attorney called all the women liars.

Bill Clinton paid $850,000 in 1999 to settle Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, but not before she and others were subjected to vicious attacks on their character. As The New York Times explained in January, Over the years, the Clinton effort to cast doubt on the women included using words like floozy, bimbo and stalker, and raising questions about their motives.

Brock Turner is already out of prison.

Thud.

Susan Shelley is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.
In Armenia, when a soldier dies in a non-combat related incident, oftentimes the army brass registers it as a suicide.

There have been many cases when relatives of soldiers who have died in such suicide incidents have protested the claim, arguing that the army is merely attempting to cover-up criminal acts.

Nevertheless, soldiers do commit suicide, or attempt to, due to hazing, misconduct by officers, and merely because some conscripts are just not ready for army life.

Yesterday, in Yerevan, the Ministry of Defense organized a meeting to discuss ways to minimize suicides in the army.

Deputy Defense Minister Ara Nazaryan a set of programs, in cooperation with interested parties, designed to create conditions within army ranks that would mitigate the underlying causes of military suicides.
PARIS  On Friday, President Franois Hollande praised French security forces for apprehending a group of suspected terrorists believed to be plotting another major attack.

On Friday morning, an Interior Ministry official told the Reuters news agency that this foiled attack had been planned for the Gare de Lyon, a train station in the southeast quadrant of the city that is one of the busiest in Europe.

Theres a group that has been annihilated, but there are others, Hollande said. Information we were able to get from our intelligence services allowed us to act before it was too late.

Still reeling from two major attacks in 2015, the French capital has been on edge since Sunday, when authorities discovered an abandoned Peugeot 607 full of gas cylinders parked near Notre Dame Cathedral, in the geographic center of the city.

The area is a major tourist destination that frequently draws crowds to its pedestrian streets and sidewalk cafes, places similar to those near the seaside promenade struck in the Nice attack in July, which killed 86 and injured hundreds more.

On Thursday, authorities arrested three women outside Paris in connection with this suspected plot  aged 19, 23 and 39, respectively. The youngest of them, identified by The Associated Press as Ines Madani, stabbed a police officer during the confrontation, officials told French media.

According to the RTL radio network, Madani had written a letter pledging her support to the Islamic State. The three women were apparently attempting to avenge the death of Abu Muhammad al-Andani, the Islamic States lead propaganda officer killed in Syria in late August, RTL reported.

Before his death, Andani had called on followers of the self-proclaimed caliphate to carry out small-scale attacks on nonbelievers in Europe and the United States, an injunction that became a reality in France and Germany this summer. In July, Islamic State-inspired attackers slit the throat of a French village priest, stabbed tourists on a German train, and shot at random in a Munich shopping mall.

According to the Le Monde newspaper, Ines Madani had been known to authorities since 2015, when she attempted, unsuccessfully, to leave France for Syria, where thousands of foreign-born fighters joined the Islamic State in previous years.

Earlier this week, Frances Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, announced that the flow of French citizens and residents decamping for Syria has significantly decreased, raising concerns about the possibility of more domestic attacks by would-be fighters who have opted to stay home as the Islamic State loses territory.

As the country struggles to formulate a plan to prevent future attacks of the type planned on the Gare de Lyon, analysts argue that a stronger intelligence infrastructure must be the primary focus of any policy or plan.

Jean-Charles Brisard, the director of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, argued that an increase in the number of visible military officers, such as those dispatched in the French governments newly minted Operation Sentinel, pales in comparison to intelligence improvements that have largely been ignored.

In June 2015, largely in response to the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office, the French parliament passed a new intelligence bill that increased the governments powers to monitor its citizens communications.

But, Brisard said in an interview, certain key provisions in this bill  such as the pledged use of ISMI telephone eavesdropping technologies and black boxes designed to catch specific threats sent over communication channels  have not yet been enacted, more than a year after the bill was passed.

In this particular foiled plot, investigators only noticed the abandoned Peugeot when a shopkeeper happened to report it. It sat there, lights flashing, for at least two hours, Florence Duthout, the mayor of Pariss Fifth district, where Notre Dame is located, wrote in a letter to the Paris Police Prefect earlier this week.

In total, seven suspects  two men and five women  have been arrested in the ongoing investigation into the foiled Notre Dame plot. According to an unnamed official quoted in an AP report, one of the men arrested had ties to Larossi Abballa, who live-streamed the murder of a French police officer in June.

The car belonged to the father of Ines Madani, who later reported his daughter to French authorities.
LOS ANGELES  A leader of a South Los Angeles street gang involved in two decades of killings, robberies and other crimes has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and selling crack cocaine near schools, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

Tyrine Martinez, 36, entered pleas Wednesday to racketeering, drug and weapons charges and could face 15 years to life in federal prison, prosecutors said.

In a plea agreement, Martinez  who went by the gang name Lil C-Bone, acknowledged being a supervisor of the Five Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips, which controlled drug sales in an area just west of Skid Row, according to a U.S. attorneys office statement.

Martinez acknowledged that he was a leader of the gangs hit squad, which was called the Gremlin Riderz and whose members had tattoos of characters from the 1984 movie Gremlins, according to the statement.

Martinez also acknowledged conspiring to murder another gang member who gave police information about a 2012 shooting that killed an unarmed teenager and wounded three others, including a 10-year-old girl, prosecutors said.

He was among 72 people charged in a federal indictment targeting the gang.

Two other high-ranking gang members pleaded guilty in July and August to racketeering and drug charges and could face potential life sentences, prosecutors said.

The gang leaders orchestrated a campaign of violence and drug trafficking that included preying on vulnerable Skid Row residents through illegal drug sales, U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement.

The indictment followed an investigation by the FBI and Los Angeles police, with help from state prison officials, the Los Angeles County district attorneys office and other local police departments.
Much is being said these days about housing affordability  particularly here in the Golden State  and with good reason.

Rents in California are 50 percent above the national average. The cost of a new home is 2.5 times what it is elsewhere in the U.S. And the chances of being house poor are significantly higher here than in any other state in the country.

How did we put ourselves in this position?

As you can imagine, there is no one answer, but at or near the top of the list is a political and regulatory environment at the community level that increasingly treats new housing as a liability rather than the asset that it is. A well-conceived, well-executed mixed-income housing strategy increases a communitys property values and tax base, creates rooftops that support local businesses and provides much-needed attainable housing for current and future generations.

Ironically, the same resistance weve seen to this kind of approach has given birth to a host of far more serious problems that cities across the state are now having to confront: Overcrowded living conditions, illegal garage conversion and homelessness, to name a few. This, in turn, is forcing communities, and taxpayers, to spend significantly more money on code enforcement, social services and public safety at a time when we can least afford to do so.

It would be too easy to blame the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) movement for all of this. While it is true that community opposition to new housing projects has become louder and more confrontational over the years, it is the responsibility of those with decision-making authority to differentiate between a noisy council chamber and sound, strategic thinking thats in the best long-term interest of the community.

This topic will take center stage next month when the Southern California Association of Governments hosts the California Housing Summit in Los Angeles. Stakeholders at the local, regional and state level will participate in an effort to come up with actionable strategies to encourage the much-needed development of new housing.

SCAG notes that while real median income in California has declined by 8 percent since 2000, median rents have increased by 28 percent. The agency also reports that more than half of all California renters are overpaying for housing, and that Californians are four times more likely to live in overcrowded housing than residents of any other state.

None of this is terribly surprising to those of us who live, work or run businesses here, but it does underscore the need for mixed-income housing strategies at the municipal level. State or federal mandates arent the solution. The real difference can and must be made locally, by Planning Departments, Planning Commissions and City Councils.

The housing industry, too, must be better prepared than it has been in demonstrating how access and affordability at every income level benefit entire communities.

Its time to stop talking, start acting and make YIMBY (yes-in-my-backyard) the new order of the day.

Steve PonTell is president and CEO of Rancho Cucamonga-based National Community Renaissance, one of the nations largest nonprofit community builders. The Southern California Association of Governments California Housing Summit, The Cost of Not Housing, will be held Tuesday, Oct. 11, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. at the L.A. Hotel, 333 S. Figueroa St. in Los Angeles. More information is available at www.scag.ca.gov/housing summit.
Loretta Sanchez on Friday accused state Attorney General Kamala Harris, her opponent in Californias U.S. Senate race, of failing to safeguard residents from Donald Trumps now- defunct for-profit university, drawing a sharp rebuke from Harris camp.

Seizing on a story in The Mercury News about the $6,000 in campaign contributions Harris received from Trump and later donated to charity, Sanchez, an Orange County congresswoman, called on Harris to immediately produce all documents regarding Trump University.

Trump donated to several state attorneys general in recent years, including New Yorks Eric Schneiderman, who filed a lawsuit against the school alleing it ripped off students. Harris office has also investigated the school, but so far has not filed charges. Several Trump University students filed a still-pending civil suit six years ago, which Sanchez insisted should have been enough for Harris to have immediately rejected Trumps donations in 2011 and 2013.

Again, we see that Attorney General Kamala Harris fails to protect the people of California, Sanchez said in a statement. It is shameful that she accepted campaign contributions from Donald Trump long after a federal lawsuit was filed by California consumers against Trump University in April 2010.

The Harris camp shot back, pointing to a Sacramento Bee article about Sanchez siding with for-profit colleges against the Obama administration, while Harris secured a $1.1 billion judgment from the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges.

This is an outrageously hypocritical attack from Loretta Sanchez, one of the top congressional defenders of predatory for-profit colleges, Harris spokesman Nathan Click said in a statement. While Kamala Harris has been a national leader prosecuting these institutions in Congress, Sanchez received thousands in campaign contributions from predatory for-profit colleges, shilled for their campuses and even fought against rules to protect California students from the same bad actors.

Trumps donations to Harris attracted new attention this past week after reports surfaced that he had donated $25,000 to a group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013 at the same time her office was considering joining Schneidermans lawsuit.

Harris continues to lead Sanchez comfortably in polls, including a survey released this past week in which 51 percent of respondents said they were leaning toward Harris, compared to 19 percent for Sanchez. The internet poll, conducted by California Counts, a consortium of a public radio station and Sacramento State University, was conducted only in English from Aug. 15 to 24. The poll, which was fully completed by 915 people, has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
State Sen. Ed Hernandez and his wife, Diane, are optometrists.

Diane handles some insurance matters for their practice, and she recently told him that a health plan had emailed to request more information: It wanted confirmation that they were both participating providers, he says.

I didnt say anything because I was afraid shed be mad at me, says Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina.

Thats because the additional paperwork was probably his doing.

Ed Hernandez, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, is author of a newly enacted state law that aims to improve provider directories, long riddled with outdated and inaccurate information.

Under the law, insurance companies  and health care providers like the Hernandezes  must comply with new requirements to keep directories updated and accurate.

The law, which took effect July 1, also gives you some firepower to fight surprise medical bills that result from directory errors.

The laws reach is broad: It applies to Covered California and private market plans, as well as Medi-Cal managed care and most job-based insurance policies.

The inaccuracy of directories, Ed Hernandez says, has been and  seems to continue to be a problem that needs to be rectified.

A recent study in the journal Health Affairs found that provider directories for some health plans sold through Covered California and in the private market are so inaccurate that they create a disheartening situation for consumers trying to find doctors.

That finding was confirmed this month when the Department of Managed Health Care announced that Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California  which previously were fined for inaccuracies in their Covered California provider directories  still had disappointing directory problems.

We are optimistic and hopeful that the law  will help, says department director Shelley Rouillard.

Among the laws new rules:

 Health plans must update their printed directories at least every quarter and their online directories at least every week if providers report changes.

 Provider directories must be posted online and be available to anyone, not just enrollees. Print directories must be available upon request.

 The directories must prominently display directions for consumers who want to report inaccuracies. Upon receiving complaints, plans have 30 business days to makes changes, if necessary.

 Providers must inform plans within five business days if they are no longer accepting new patients  or, alternately, if they will start accepting them.

 Health plans can delay payments to providers who fail to respond to attempts to verify information.

The law also gives consumers recourse. Lets say you use a provider directory to find a doctor but youre billed the out-of-network price because the directory was wrong.

In that case, health plans must reimburse you the amount beyond what you would have paid to see an in-network doctor.

If you find yourself in this situation, first take your complaint to your plan, advises Rouillard.

You will have at least 180 days from the date you received the bill to file a grievance.

Youll probably have to make a case to the plan, Rouillard says. You should explain what you did, when you looked at the directory and that you relied on that information.

Documentation could help your case.

Thats something to consider when youre searching for a provider in the first place. It wouldnt hurt to save a screen shot from the online directory showing the doctor is in network, or take detailed notes if you call your plans customer service line.

Keep copies of everything, and note the date, time and name of anyone you speak to, says Nancy Kincaid, spokeswoman for the state Department of Insurance.

Plans have 30 days to investigate and respond to your complaint. If the situation isnt resolved to your satisfaction, your next step is to take your grievance to a regulator.

The correspondence you receive from your plan during the grievance process will explain who your regulator is.

Or start with the DMHC, which regulates most health plans in California. You can submit an online complaint at HealthHelp.ca.gov or call the departments help center at 888-466-2219.

The states other health insurance regulator is the Department of Insurance. Its consumer hotline is 800-927-4357, or you can file a complaint at insurance.ca.gov.

Though most Californians with job-based insurance are covered by this law, some arent. If you have a plan through your employer and are struggling with directory errors, the regulators  or your human resources department  can tell you where you stand.

Since the law went into effect, the DMHC has helped one consumer get reimbursed as a result.

But Im hoping consumers dont have to go through process. Im hoping the directories are accurate, Ed Hernandez says.

It might take time to get there as health plans implement the new requirements  as well as others that will take effect in the coming months  and work with providers to update the information.

This is so early and there are so many errors, Rouillard says.

Email questions for Emily

to AskEmily@kff.org.

This story was produced

by Kaiser Health News,

which publishes California Healthline, a service of the California HealthCare

Foundation.
GENEVA  North Koreas latest test of an atomic weapon leaves the United States with an uncomfortable choice: stick with a policy of incremental sanctions that has clearly failed to stop the countrys nuclear advances, or pick among alternatives that range from the highly risky to the repugnant.

A hard embargo, in which Washington and its allies block all shipping into and out of North Korea and seek to paralyze its finances, risks confrontations that allies in Asia fear could quickly escalate into war. But restarting talks on the Norths terms would reward the defiance of its young leader, Kim Jong Un, with no guarantee that he will dismantle the nuclear program irrevocably.

For more than seven years, President Barack Obama has sought to find a middle ground, adopting a policy of gradually escalating sanctions that the White House once called strategic patience. But the test Friday  the Norths fifth and most powerful blast yet, perhaps with nearly twice the strength of its last one  eliminates any doubt that that approach has failed and that the North has mastered the basics of detonating a nuclear weapon.

Despite sanctions and technological backwardness, North Korea appears to have enjoyed a burst of progress in its missile program over the past decade, with experts warning that it is speeding toward a day when it will be able to threaten the U.S. West Coast and perhaps the entire country.

This is not a cry for negotiations, said Victor Cha, who served in the administration of President George W. Bush and now is a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. This is very clearly a serious effort at amassing real nuclear capabilities that they can use to deter the U.S. and others.

Cha said the usual response from Washington, Seoul and Tokyo  for another round of sanctions  was not likely to be any more successful at changing the Norths behavior than previous rounds. That means Obamas successor will confront a nuclear and missile program far more advanced than the one that Obama began grappling with in 2009.

Obama has refused to negotiate with the North unless it agrees first that the ultimate objective of any talks would be a Korean Peninsula without nuclear arms. But Kim has demonstrated, at least for now, that time is on his side. And as he gets closer to an ability to threaten the United States with a nuclear attack, and stakes the credibility of his government on it, it may be even more difficult to persuade him to give up the program.

In a statement Friday, Obama condemned the Norths test and said it follows an unprecedented campaign of ballistic missile launches, which North Korea claims are intended to serve as delivery vehicles intended to target the United States and our allies.

To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state, he said.

Many experts who have dealt with North Korea say the United States may have no choice but to do so.

Its too late on the nuclear weapons program  that is not going to be reversed, William Perry, the defense secretary under President Bill Clinton during the 1994 nuclear crisis with North Korea, said in August at a presentation in Kent, Connecticut.

The only choice now, he argued, is to focus on limiting the missile program.

Yet the latest effort to do that, an agreement between the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced missile defense system in the South, has inflamed China, which argues the system is also aimed at its weapons. While U.S. officials deny that, the issue has divided Washington and Beijing so sharply that it will be even more difficult now for them to come up with a joint strategy for dealing with the North.

China has been so vocal with its displeasure over the deployment of the U.S. system  some Chinese analysts have argued it is as much or more of a threat to Chinese security than a nuclear North Korea  that Kim may have concluded he could afford to upset Beijing by conducting Fridays test.

Fueling that perception were reports that a North Korean envoy visited Beijing earlier this week.

North Korea almost certainly sees this as an opportunity to take steps to enhance its nuclear and missile capabilities with little risk that China will do anything in response, Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department official and North Korea specialist, said in a speech in Seoul on Friday.

The breach between China and the United States was evident during Obamas meeting with President Xi Jinping last week.

I indicated to him that if the THAAD bothered him, particularly since it has no purpose other than defensive and does not change the strategic balance between the United States and China, that they need to work with us more effectively to change Pyongyangs behavior, Obama said, referring to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, as the advanced missile defense project is known.

But Obama noted that sanctions had failed at having much effect. That is largely because the Chinese have left open large loopholes that have kept the North Korean economy alive and, by some measures, enjoying more trade than anytime in years.

In a recent paper, two researchers concluded that sanctions so far have had the net effect of actually improving North Koreas procurement capabilities for its weapons program. To evade sanctions, the Norths state-run trading companies opened offices in China, hired more capable Chinese middlemen and paid higher fees to employ more sophisticated brokers, according to Jim Walsh and John Park, scholars at MIT and Harvard respectively.

The sanctions, Cha noted, are supposed to inflict enough pain so the regime comes back to the negotiation table, and thats clearly not working; or its supposed to collapse the regime until it starves, and thats not working either.

Unless China is willing to cut off everything, which they dont appear willing to do, the sanctions may be politically the right thing to do and a requisite response, but they are not the answer to the problem, Cha said.

That means the choices facing Obamas successor will be stark. One option is to choke off all trade, in part by telling banks that conduct transactions with North Korea that they will be shut out of dealing in dollars around the world  an effective tactic against Iran before last years nuclear deal. But that would enrage the Chinese, and probably cut into cooperation on other issues.

At the same time, an attempt to intercept all shipping could quickly escalate into a full-blown conflict, something neither Obama nor the South Koreans and Japanese have been willing to risk.

On the other hand, reopening negotiations, which Donald Trump has indicated he is willing to consider, could mean paying North Korea again to freeze nuclear activities that the Bush administration and the Clinton administration had already rewarded them for stopping years ago.

The nuclear program dates back to Kims grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the countrys founder, who emerged from the Korean War more than 60 years ago mindful that the United States had considered using nuclear weapons in that conflict and determined to get his own arsenal.

The missile program also has a long history, mostly to deliver conventional arms. But now the two are converging, as the North races to develop a weapon small, light and durable enough to be launched into space and survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

The explosive energy unleashed during the test Friday, estimated at 10 to 12 kilotons of TNT, was nearly twice that of the Norths last test, conducted in January, said Yoo Yong-gyu, a senior seismologist at South Koreas National Meteorological Administration, referring to an estimate by the Souths intelligence agency that put the power of that explosion at about 6 kilotons.

And the fact that North Koreas fifth test came only eight months after its fourth is another indication that it is making fast progress toward fitting its ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, said Choi Kang, a senior analyst at the Asan Institute. The North had waited about three years between each of its previous tests.

North Koreas advances have unnerved its neighbors in South Korea and Japan, and Trumps suggestion that the two nations should pay more for the United States to defend them has not helped.

The establishment is rattled, and I think they are frustrated that they dont have any really good options to respond, other than to condemn it, said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple Universitys Japan Campus in Tokyo. Clearly this makes Japan more dependent on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but the thing is, how reliable is that umbrella?

In both South Korea and Japan, a small but increasingly vocal minority has begun to advocate developing nuclear weapons to counter the North instead of relying on the United States.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seongnam, south of Seoul, argued that a South Korean nuclear program might distract the North from its efforts to build a long-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the mainland United States.

If South Korea arms itself with nuclear weapons, North Korea will regard the South Korean nuclear weapons, not the distant American nukes, as the most direct threat to its security, Cheong said.
OAKLAND  Prosecutors said Friday they will charge seven current and former Bay Area officers in a sexual misconduct scandal involving a teenager.

The wide-ranging scandal surfaced when a teenage girl who described herself as a prostitute said she had sex with about 30 law enforcement officials in Oakland and elsewhere in the region.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley said she was waiting to formally file charges until the teen could be returned to California from Florida, where she has been jailed in an assault case.

The prosecutor said she needs the teen to provide testimony in the case.

OMalley said the officers who will be charged are former Contra Costa sheriffs Deputy Ricardo Perez; former Livermore police Officer Dan Black; Oakland police Officers Brian Bunton, Giovani LoVerde and Warit Utappa; and former Oakland police Officers Tyrell Smith and Leroy Johnson.

The officers will be charged with a range of felonies and misdemeanors, OMalley said.

The teen, now 19, said she had sex with four officers before she turned 18 and sometimes traded sex for protection from arrest or tips about planned prostitution stings.

The Associated Press generally doesnt identify people who say they are victims of sex crimes.

OMalley said she found much of the conduct morally reprehensible but noted the actions of the officers on social media did not violate criminal statutes.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf previously said disciplinary action has begun against a dozen officers, including dismissal proceedings against four.

Seven will serve a range of unpaid suspensions before being allowed to return to duty and another will be required to attend training classes.

The Oakland department previously said two officers implicated in the scandal had resigned and another killed himself last year.

The department cycled through three chiefs in 10 days in June after the allegations were first reported in the media.

Six Richmond police officers and personnel at other law enforcement agencies have also been implicated.

A Livermore officer who had been on administrative leave resigned Thursday after seeing the results of his departments investigation.
Knowing that police officers are patroling K-12 schools makes many parents feel better about sending their children off to class each day.

But how much safer do the school police make students, staff and campus property?

A real answer to this big question is hard to come by.

Thats the worrisome take-away from a new look at the subject by The Christian Science Monitor, which cites experts and anecdotes to lay out the national issue: At a moment when officers in schools are seen by some as a solution to the threat of violence in school, the debate has been turned on its head: Are these so-called school resource officers (SROs) actually the cause of too much violence? Instead of making schools safer, are they ramping up a disciplinary arms race  unnecessarily turning typical bad behavior into criminal offenses?

This is known: SROs are increasing in number, with the National Center for Education Statistics saying the percentage of U.S. schools having them rose from 1 in 1975 to 40 in 2014.

Among questions raised: How well are campus officers trained for tasks that often go beyond security, law and rule enforcement to include mentoring and counseling? Does aggressive campus policing leave kids with criminal records for misbehavior that would have been addressed by parents and teachers in years past? Are minorities disciplined disproportionately?

The massive Los Angeles Unified School District has the nations largest school police force, including more than 400 sworn officers and 100 safety officers. Speaking with an editorial writer, L.A. Schools Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Julie Spry could provide no data attesting to the forces effectiveness.

Anecdotal reports indicate officers do many wonderful things for kids.

But The Christian Science Monitor quoted Sheri Bauman, a University of Arizona education professor: Theres such a widespread belief that [SROs] make kids safer, yet we dont really know that.  We need to have some scientific analyses that answer those questions.

In an era when the public expects city and county law-enforcement agencies to provide specific data on trends in crime and officer deployment on our streets, no less should be expected from the departments protecting our schools.
SANTA ANA  An armed fugitive is accused of leading police on a wild chase, injuring three people when he crashed into a festival stage before a police dog pulled him from the attic of a Santa Ana familys home.

Miguel Umana, 30, was arrested on suspicion of having a loaded firearm, drug possession, evading police and felony hit and run, Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said Saturday.

The pursuit started at around 8:30 p.m. Friday when a Santa Ana Police officer tried to pull Umana over in the 800 block of South Cypress Avenue after identifying him as a parolee at large.

Police say Umana, who had a female passenger in his white PT Cruiser at the time, refused to stop. He sped off, Bertagna said, briefly losing the officer before a police helicopter spotted him as he headed toward downtown Santa Ana.

Residents were busy getting the downtown area ready for this weekends Fiestas Patrias festival, celebrating the independence and heritage of several Latin American countries.

Umana tore through the area, according to Bertagna, crashing into the corner of a stage that was being put up at the corner of 4th Street and French Street.

A portion of the stage collapsed, hitting a 17-year-old boy in the head and knocking him unconscious. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital to check on his head injury and treat other abrasions. Two other people were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

Umanas car was jammed under the collapsed stage. But Bertagna said he managed to back out and continue to flee.

He soon crashed again in a nearby residential area. He and his passenger took off on foot, so authorities blocked off the neighborhood and began searching homes one by one.

A police canine found Umana hiding in the attic of a home in the 1500 block of East 4th Street, near Eastside Avenue, shortly after 11 p.m. He had to be treated for dog bites as he was taken into custody, with blood flowing from his face and arm.

The family told officers that Umana had forced his way in and offered them money to let him hide, according to Bertagna. They ran, managing to get out of the home without being injured.

Umanas female passenger also fled. She hasnt been located, Bertagna said.

Inside Umanas abandoned PT Cruiser, Bertagna said, officers found a loaded handgun and narcotics.

Court records show the 30-year-old  who goes by aliases including Little Stomper  had a warrant out for violating his parole and multiple prior arrests for drugs, stealing a vehicle and fleeing from police.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7963 or bstaggs@ocregister.comTwitter: @JournoBrooke
Law enforcement personnel were praised for their actions in a Justice Department report released Friday that detailed the police response to the Dec. 2 terror attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

The report, by the Justice Department and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, looks at the actions and decisions law enforcement made during the crisis and says police went above and beyond their standard call of duty.

I commend the efforts of the members of San Bernardinos public safety team for risking their lives to ensure the safety of others and for their willingness to relive these experiences to provide lessons learned to help other agencies prepare for future unimaginable events, COPS office Director Ronald Davis said in a statement.

On the morning of Dec. 2, Syed Rizwan Farook, a San Bernardino County environmental health specialist, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, entered a conference room at the Inland Regional Center and killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in a shooting the FBI declared the deadliest terrorist strike on U.S. soil since 9/11.

The 162-page report analyzes multiple facets of the attack, including police response, leadership, command and control, and community engagement and public information.

The report concludes that San Bernardino-area public safety organizations responded to the attack with bravery and professionalism.

Their actions that day saved lives, the report states. Many of the decisions made by organizational leaders and steps taken by responders to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the incident can set an example for other organizations as they plan to protect their communities against a similar type of attack.

San Bernardino police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in a telephone interview Friday that if there was one thing he could stress as to the timeliness and efficiency of his departments response to the attack, it was training.

Weve been asked to make a number of presentations on our lessons learned. There have been people from our department and the Sheriffs Department and the FBI who have traveled all around the country and speaking at conferences and a whole number of venues, Burguan said.

The things that we talk about most is that training works. We talk about the importance of training, and we talk about how most of the officers who responded that day went through several instances of active shooter training.

Immediacy in response, Burguan said, is one of the most crucial components of that training.

In our particular case, the 22 people who survived this incident, every single person we were able to get to on time, get them into an ambulance, get them into a helicopter, they survived that day, and the only reason we were able to do that, the only reason that happened, is because people had trained and people had learned from other incidents, he said.

While Burguan certainly appreciates the praise and attention his officers have received for their response to the tragedy, he said what really matters is keeping the attention focused on those who need it the most: the survivors of the shooting and the families of those who died.

Theres a lot of people who reacted, responded, and did good work, but theres also that larger issue that this was a tragedy and it changed a lot of lives, Burguan said. We have to provide wraparound services to those folks. This is about the victims, and this is about trying to try as hard as we can to prevent future loss of life and future tragedies.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said the report shows that the immediate response to the attack was stellar.

Clearly the one thing that strikes me was how immediate the response (was), and thats so incredibly important, he said. The fact that the assailants felt the need to leave quickly made all the difference.

The first responders, Levin said, faced an incredibly difficult task in trying to neutralize the shooters while at the same time dealing with victims who needed immediate aid.

The report quotes a patrol officer: It was the worst thing imaginable  some people were quiet, hiding, others were screaming or dying, grabbing at your legs because they wanted us to get them out, but our job at the moment was to keep going. That was the hardest part, stepping over them.

Since the 1999 massacre at Colorados Columbine High School, law enforcement personnel have raised the bar in how they deal with mass shootings.

Bottom line, you had an immediate response, and those that were injured nonfatally were taken to a hospital within an hour with a chaotic scene and multiple assailants, said Levin, a former New York City police officer.

It shows the value of training and interagency coordination as well as preparation by the public employees.

The report also shows that when you have multiple agencies responding to chaotic scenes, sometimes noncritical information will be communicated at peak times when its important to leave radio traffic with the most essential broadcasts, Levin said. And its thoroughly understandable.

The report also shows how potential explosive devices were not discovered until well after the shooting, Levin said.

There was a constrained capacity to label which areas and rooms were already searched, he said. This is all really useful.

Riverside Countys Environmental Health Department was conducting a training meeting at the IRC when the shooting began just before 11 a.m.

The first officer, a San Bernardino police officer, was on scene three minutes and 32 seconds after the first call about the shooting went out, according to the report.

SWAT officers, who were undergoing active shooter training 9 miles away at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, arrived on scene within 11 minutes of the first dispatch.

According to the report, both shooters  dressed in black  walked into the conference room and in less than three minutes fired more than 100 rounds with the sole purpose of killing. If someone moved or made a sound, the shooters fired one or multiple shots into the body, the report says.

The Environmental Health employees had undergone active shooter training a year earlier, in the same room, and several of those employees used what they had learned during the attack.

Many victims werent willing to come out at first because they were worried the cops were the shooters.

The wounded survivors were taken to hospitals within an hour of the shooting.

It was a rookie cop who discovered the name of the shooter, sending swarms of law enforcement officers to the Redlands home where he lived.

Just as the officers arrived at the home, they saw the suspects SUV leaving. Narcotics officers followed in unmarked cars as the SUV traveled through Redlands before the chase began.

They stayed off their police radios, turning to cellphones for communication to keep conversations from the public, the media and the terrorists.

A trail of red and blue lights could be seen chasing the shooters on city streets before coming to a stop in San Bernardino less than a mile from the IRC.

As soon as the siren stopped and I put it in park, we were shooting at each other, the report says a deputy recalled, explaining that in the end, he was driving with his knee while holding his rifle pointing forward.

As gunshots continued, Malik opened the side door of the SUV, laid down on the back seat and fired at the deputys car. Farook jumped out of the drivers door and stood between the two open doors shooting at anyone with a badge.

The final tally of bullets exchanged in the battle between police and the terrorists: 24 officers fired at least 440 rounds; the suspects fired at least 81 rounds.

When I saw him (the male assailant) moving  he was pointing at me and I didnt know if he was shooting, the report says one deputy recalled. Later, I learned he was. He went down ultimately where he was killed, but before that, he switched to a handgun, and I kept shooting. I saw a bunch of blood coming out. I knew he was out of the fight.

Malik died after she was struck 15 times.

As SWAT members searched the IRC for victims and the shooters, they discovered improvised explosive devices.

Shortly after 5 p.m., a backpack later determined to be a secondary explosive device was found in the conference room where the massacre took place. Bomb technicians trained in disarming and detonating explosives arrived on scene to remove the devices.

Bomb squad officers detonated three pipe bombs individually, the last one shortly after 8:30 p.m. Once the crime scene was cleared of danger, San Bernardino police officers were able to continue the investigation.

Lessons learned from the Police Foundation review of the Christopher Dorner shootings in 2013 contributed to the response to the mass shooting at the IRC, the report says.

In February 2013, former Los Angeles police Officer Christopher Dorner stalked and executed family members of Police Department staff for what he claimed was unfair treatment resulting in his eventual termination.

His first victims in Irvine included the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance, also a police officer.

Dorner eventually wounded three officers and killed two law enforcement personnel  a Riverside police officer and a San Bernardino County sheriffs deputy  in three separate ambushes before he died in a cabin in Barton Flats.

After the Dorner shootings, San Bernardino-area law enforcement leaders met monthly to work through some of the challenges identified in the critical incident review.

Those challenges included self-deployment, disparate training and poor communication, according to the report.

The relationships built thereafter remained strong and contributed to smooth collaboration among multiple agencies during the Dec. 2 terrorist attack.

Many of the public safety leaders involved in both incidents found that because they had thoroughly studied and addressed the challenges identified in previous reviews, their response to the terrorist attack was improved.

The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Eileen M. Decker, said the report proves those who responded in San Bernardino did so heroically.

The report highlights the work of the first responders who put their lives on the line in the midst of a terrorist rampage, Decker said in a statement.

It also underscores the horror and suffering of the many victims during this calculated and vicious attack. These victims had no chance to protect themselves as a result of the callous perpetration of violence, while others heroically sacrificed themselves in an attempt to stop the shooting.

In the face of this unfathomable suffering, the law enforcement personnel and citizens who put themselves in harms way to help others exemplifies the very best that our country has to offer, she added.

Staff writer Joe Nelson contributed to this report.
By Markar Melkonian and Hrant Gadarigian

A Visit with Boris Kharatyan, Deputy Chairman of Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia (HAMK)

Ask a waitress or a supermarket clerk in Yerevan if she and her fellow workers are members of a labor union (arhmiutyun). Judging from our experience, she will either give you a blank stare or she will look alarmed, as if you had just asked if there were an epidemic of herpes in her workplace.

Many wage earners in Armenia, especially young ones, do not know what a labor union is. This might sound strange to a casual observer who has been introduced to the facts of unemployment, low wages, forced overtime, and appalling workplace safety in the Republic of Armenia.

HAMK: The Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia

On August 19, Boris Kharatyan, Deputy Chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia (HAMK), made time in his busy schedule to meet with us at the Confederation headquarters just off Sargsyan Street in Yerevan, to talk about prospects for union organization in Armenia. Kharatyan comes off as a competent, no-nonsense trade union official who is genuinely concerned about his constituents. He was also very patient with Markar Melkonians dismal Armenian language skills.

The Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia (  ) is the successor to the Soviet-era Council of Trade Unions of Armenia. Today, it is the only republic-level representative of unionized workers in Armenia, encompassing twenty affiliated branch unions that represent some 197,000 workers, out of an estimated total labor force of 1.194 million (2011 estimate). HAMK, then, represents about one-sixth of the total labor force in the country. Branch unions affiliated with HAMK include organizations of agro-industrial workers, healthcare workers, teachers, employees of banks and financial institutions, construction workers, transport and communication workers, and an oddly sorted Trade Union Organization of Miners, Metallurgists, and Jewelers. The largest union in the country that is not affiliated with HAMK is the ArmenTel workers union, a sweetheart union of the privately owned telecommunications company.

Article 28 of The Constitution of the Republic of Armenia (the RA) guarantees that Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions. Accordingly, the Labor Code of the RA (Article 23) states that rights and interests of workers may be represented by trade unions. Article 32 of the Constitution of the RA further guarantees that employees shall have the right to strike for the protection of their economic, social and employment interests

On paper, then, workers in Armenia (with the exception of civil servants and those serving in the armed forces and law enforcement agencies) have the right to form and join independent trade unions of their choice. Moreover, they have a constitutional right to strike--at least against privately owned firms under unexceptional circumstances.

In practice, though, most workers are unable to exercise the right to unionize and to engage in collective bargaining, due to vagaries of the labor code and the governments tolerance of high levels of employment in the informal sector. When it comes to the right to strike, the legal requirements for ratification of a strike vote by a general meeting and a two-thirds vote in favor of a strike poses a big impediment to the exercise of that right. Thats a very high [hurdle], Kharatyan noted, with reference to the strike vote requirements: We must lower it, lower it.

According to figures published by the Central Bank of Armenia in June 2016, unemployment in the first quarter of 2016 was 18%. (As a point of reference, unemployment in the United States in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, was 25%.) It is important to note, though, that the Central Banks unemployment figure purports to measure unemployment within the Republic; it does not take into account the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have permanently left the republic in search of jobs.

The latter consideration makes a difference. The question of the population of Armenia is a highly charged topic, one that stokes a narrative of national diminishment. Between 1991 and1996, nearly 650,000 people left the country, and in the twenty years since then, hundreds of thousands of others have emigrated. Armstat, the National Statistical Service, recently (2016) put the current population of the republic at 2.9 million, although opposition leaderswithout offering much in the way of convincing evidence--have publicly claimed that the figure is closer to two million. Whether the truth is closer to the Armstat figure or the two million figure, one should keep in mind that Armenias population has registered a net decline from the 3.5 million figure in the final years of the Soviet period; that is to say, a decline in total population, even after the influx of tens of thousands of refugees from Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh in the early 1990s. The number of Armenians in the larger Southern Caucasus region has dropped by perhaps one-third.

The most common explanation for the demographic outflow is unemployment, as Armenians have left the RA in search of jobs. The main destination of the emigrants has been Russia, where nowadays almost as many ethnic Armenians reside as in the RA.

The International Labor Organization: An Impartial Umpire?

HAMK participates in the International Labor Organization (IKO). Founded in 1919 with the announced aim of raising labor standards internationally, the ILO became a specialized UN agency in 1946. Soon after the demise of the Soviet Union, the RA, along with the Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and other former Soviet Republics, became member states of the ILO. From the ILO website, we learn that the organization brings together governments, employers, and workers representatives of 187 member states, to set labour standards, develop policies, and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men.

Kharatyan observed that, the ILO in 1919 was to a certain extent an answer to 1918: it arose as a response to the rising waves of revolutionary activity in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. (See, for example, Guy Standing, The ILO: An Agency for Globalization? in Development and Change 39(3), 2008, p. 356.) The message of the ILO was that, instead of class struggle and a contest for state power, representatives of capital and of labor should come together, to argue with each other and come to an agreement, as Kharatyan put it.

Social Partnership or One-Sided Class Struggle?

The ILO presents social partnership (sotsial kordzungerutyun) as an alternative to what Kharatyan described as the old Marxist idea of class struggle, which views the interests of workers and employers as 100% opposed. The Labor Code of the RA defines social partnership as a system of interrelations between the representatives of workers, the representatives of employers, and the Government of the Republic of Armenia, a system aimed at representing the interests of workers and employers, as equal parties in collective bargaining.

The ideal of social partnership is embodied in the ILOs celebrated tripartite structure. HAMK is bound to abide by the mandate of the ILO, to give "an equal voice to workers, employers, and governments to ensure that the views of the social partners are closely reflected in labour standards and in shaping policies and programmes."

HAMK does not have enforcement power. That power, rather, falls to the state, which is connected to this tripartite structure through the Ministries, notably the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of the RA and the Ministry of Health. These ministries have the power to enforce the Labor Code of the RA and ILO directives. There is no specialized labor court system in the ROA: labor disputes, including collective bargaining disputes, are dealt with in the civil judiciary system.

The idea of social partnership and the raft of assumptions upon which it floats fit into the official picture of the state as an impartial umpire, or a level playing field where various interest groups, including labor and capital, compete for their share of limited resources. One may search the HAMK website (hamk.am) in vain for a critical view of this official picture, and at no point in our conversation did Kharatyan express doubt about it, either. Accordingly, he put much emphasis on legality (orinakanutyun), as opposed to class struggle.

When asked how the social partnership has been working out in the RA, the Deputy Chairman said, Its working to a certain extent, adding: Im not saying that its working at a high level. The statement could be taken as an expression of a long-lingering feeling of diminished aspirations for unionized workers, as if their representatives have their hands full just trying to stem the trend of falling living standards for their members.

The State Labor Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs is supposed to defend the rights of workers and to settle disputes between employers and employees. It is not entirely clear, however, that it lives up to its mandate. As one writer recently observed, the Inspectorate, rather than being created to defend employees rights under the law, is engaged in seeking loopholes to the law that can be conveniently used when necessary. (Sara Petrosyan, State Labor Inspectorate Fails to Protect Workers, Hetq.am Online, 21 Feb., 2016.) In any event, the same writer added, it is clear that inspections carried out by the agency are not motivated by any desire to defend workers rights.

We discussed industrial safety and the high rate of industrial accidents in the country since 1995, notably in mining. We did not have time during our visit to discuss working conditions overall, nor the related problem of industrial pollution, which disproportionately affects workers. But we did briefly discuss prospectsor the lack of prospectsof building an institution to represent the large part of Armenias population that is unemployed or unemployed: could Armenia follow the example of the Irish National Organization of the Unemployed, the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, or the UR Union of the Unemployed (U-Cubed) in the United States?

The idea is that workers, whether employed, unemployed, or underemployed, share a common interest in cutting the length of the work day, and on the basis of this common interest it may be possible to unite the large part of the population that is unemployed and underemployed.

After a brief discussion, Kharatyan asserted that it is the states responsibility to provide support to the unemployed, and as for organizing that part of the population, that too is the states problem.

The Fairy Tale of the Neutral State

So social partnership within the ILO is supposed to involve joint agreement among business, labor, and a state that is imagined to be neutral as between the competing interests of labor and capital. As a participant in the ILO, HAMK is dedicated to this agreement, and its work takes place entirely within this tripartite structure.

Business, by contrast, is not constrained by this structure. Employers have produced a profusion of organizations to determine and pursue their own interests, both particular and collective.

In the first place there is, of course, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of the RA, a well-connected, well established, and well funded organization dedicated, according to their mission statement, to the improvement of the business environment, promotion of export and investments, support to small and medium enterprises The CCI describes its purpose as serving as a bridge between business organizations and state bodies.

And then there is the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen (Employers), an NGO founded in 1996 to protect the interest of local manufacturers, development of international business co-operation, creation of mutually beneficial relations for companies inside Armenia and abroad. (umba.info.am)

There is also the Association for Foreign Investment and Cooperation (AFIC) and the Republican Union of Employers of Armenia (est. 2007), as well as many bilateral commercial, industrial, and import-export associations. And then of course there are many large NGOs in Armenia concerned with civil society developmenta phrase signaling devotion to the interest of employers, private firms, and corporations.

Employers and manufacturers, then, have their own well-funded, well-connected and influential organizations, to determine their collective aims and to pursue them. Through their own institutions, and in consultation with the Ministries, the National Assembly, the executive branch, and the judiciary, capitalists collectively engage to determine policy, which is enforced by the police and courts. They work hand-in-hand with state institutions, outside of tripartite structures and social partnership, and they all line up against a mass of mostly unorganized workers with their backs to the abyss of unemployment.

One-Sided Class Consciousness in Armenia

The capitalist class in Armenia is quite evidently an organized and self-conscious class, a class for itself, with a near total monopoly on political power and influence within the state. Workers in Armenia, by contrast, are subject to constant discipline and repression emanating from labors supposed social partners, the state and private capital. There is little in the way of practical recognition among workers or from the Confederation that workers constitute a class in itself. Thus, the suggestion that workers should form themselves into a class for itself never arises.

When it comes to capital and labor, then, there is an enormous asymmetry of class consciousness, resources, and power. Evidently, employers understand very well that they constitute a class; not so in the case of workers.

The consequences of this asymmetry are obvious in Yerevan and throughout the RA, from unemployment rates and emigration, to industrial safety, mining pollution, and nonpayment of back wages. Just two randomly selected illustrations of this point, from the hundreds that could be cited: (1) In the RA, an average of two fatal mining accidents has taken place every year since1995, while hundreds of miners have been seriously injured and left with entirely insufficient compensation; (2) at the end of the second quarter of 2016, Armenia's monthly subsistence level (calculated according to the cost of a monthly per capita food basket) fell to 55,703 dramsa 6.5% decrease from the same period in 2015. (National Statistical Service)

And yet only one-sixth of the working population is organized, and their union confederation, HAMK, denies the reality of class struggle.

The Confederation Does Not See Workers as a Class

HAMK is what it is - a confederation of labor unions trying under adverse conditions to increase income and improve working hours for its membership. Or at least to fight against further wage cuts and forced overtime. Men and women like Deputy Chairman Kharatyan pursue the interests of their members. Their perspective is an accommodation to conditions that are hostile to organized labor: high unemployment and emigration, and correspondingly low rates of unionization--as well as the continuing acceptance of neoliberal assumptions as the Gospel Truth.

HAMK has an interest, of course, in increasing its membership. However, there does not appear to be any ambition on the part of the Confederation to represent workers as a class.

Indeed, it was not clear from our conversation that there is a recognition, either on the conversational level or on the practical level, that workers in Armenia--both those who are employed and those who are unemployed or underemployedeven constitute a class in itself. And this lack or recognition is yet one more obstacle in the way to forging workers in the RA into a class for itself.

Top Photo: Boris Kharatyan (@Markar Melkonian)
It was called the white cloud.

The white cotton dress, purchased in the spring of 1959 at a shop in Mason City, Iowa, has been worn at high school and college graduations and graduation-related occasions by three generations and at least 10 women in Sue Wheelers family.

The tradition of the dress began with the familys matriarch, Pearl Whyte, and in its 57 years the dress has traveled to family members across the country. Despite its age, it looks practically new.

Most recently, it was worn by Sues daughter, Mia Wheeler, 18, at her high school graduation party in May. It will be kept in storage at Sues Council Bluffs house until the next person in the family, her 16-year-old daughter, Macy, graduates in 2018.

Though Grandma Pearl died in 2004, Sue said her legacy, like the dress, continues.

* * *

White cloud was a surprise from Pearl to her daughter, Maureen, who was preparing to graduate from high school in the rural community of Goldfield, Iowa. It was 1959, and Pearls daughters  in birth order: Maureen, otherwise known as Mimi, Margaret and Nancy  had been raised on clothing that was handmade from their grandmother, Gertrude. A store-bought dress was a treat.

In 1995, Pearl wrote out the history of the dress for her family, and included pictures of everyone who had worn the dress up to that point:

It was almost closing time and we saw it hanging on the rack; one lovely white cotton fluff with tucks and lace running all around. She tried it on. It fit. She loved it. It was perfect except for one thing: the price. It was $25. Outrageous. (Im sure Grandma had blinded me to the real world.)

 Im so sorry, Maureen, its just too much, I said.

She looked lovingly at the dress, twirled around a few times  looking in the three-way mirror, and then said, I know it. She took it off and hung it back on the rack.

When Pearl sent Maureen out of the store to feed the parking meter, she took the dress to the sales clerk and asked to put it on layaway. She put down $1 to hold the dress and never mentioned it to her daughter. Several payments later, the dress was delivered to Pearl.

I pressed up every tiny tuck and hung it by the door, ready for (Maureens) surprise. That dress would have been cheap at twice the price. Hugging the dress, she screamed and cried and danced around the room.

Proud and beautiful, (my) first born graduated.

Two years later, Margaret prepared for her graduation. She, too, would wear the white dress.

It required a little altering, a hem here and tuck there, but was otherwise in perfect condition.

Grandma (Gertrude) had spoiled us, said Margaret, Sues mother and a Council Bluffs resident. We had lots of handmade things from hats to coats to dresses to probably pants. Everything she made, and she was excellent. But when that dress became available to me, I wanted to wear it, because it was store-bought. I never got a store-bought dress.

The dress came out again in 1962, for Nancys graduation. By that time, the dress had been worn by Maureen and Margaret not only for their graduations, but also for their turns as Queen of Goldfield.

Nancy and the white dress graduated. They both looked lovely, Pearl wrote.

With no graduations left, white cloud went into the attic.

* * *

The dress was a legend, Sue said. Growing up, visits to Grandma Pearls house always included attic shows, where Sue and her siblings would dig through the treasure troves of family history.

Grandma saved everything, so she had all of these prom dresses, wedding dresses, and we would go up there and have a fashion show, Sue said. We would try on our parents and uncles and aunts clothes and come down. Everyone would sit in the living room while we paraded around and they would ooh and aah and talk about their memories of the outfits.

As a child, Sue  the oldest of Pearls granddaughters  remembered her grandmother talking about the white dress, and, at some point in her youth, she became determined to carry on the tradition.

In 1987, Sue was a senior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, and she wanted the dress. In the history of the dress, Pearl recounted her surprise at Sues request:

 Honey, its old  really old. Must be 25 years, maybe more. Is she kidding me?

 I dont care, I want to wear it.

I made fast tracks to the attic and found (the dress).

 You poor thing, I said as I held it up. Can you make it one more time?

Washed and pressed, it really looked lovely. Off to Council Bluffs it went.

And of course, Grandpa Conger and Grandma Pearl were there to watch the unbelievable. The heirloom was in action again and Susan was beautiful.

The dress returned to the attic in Goldfield. But it didnt stay there long. In 1989, Sues sister, Sandy, wore it for her high school graduation. In 1991, it was Nancys daughter Leslies turn to graduate, and she too, wanted white cloud. This time, it was sent to Florida.

That dress is alive. I didnt even argue with her. Just shook my head in utter amazement and went back to the attic, Pearl wrote.

After that, Pearl was convinced white clouds run was over. But rather than put the dress back in the attic, she wrapped it in tissue and packed it in a cedar chest. It wouldnt stay there long. Sandy wanted to wear it for her college graduation. At that point, the dress was 34 years old and had lasted longer than Pearl had expected.

I talk to it, You poor thing. Did you ever dream it would come to this? Crazy, isnt it?  Pearl wrote.

A year later, and Pearl received a call from her son Georges daughter, Andrea, requesting the dress. It would now travel to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for graduation number eight. Following that, it would go back to Florida for Leslies college graduation, with a few other stops along the way before returning to Council Bluffs in 2001 for Sues sister Marcias high school graduation.

Looking back on it, it was really cool, Marcia said. At the time, I didnt think that, but Im glad to be part of that tradition in our family.

Margaret said her mother was continually amazed when one of her granddaughters would call for the dress.

She was sure each time was the last, she said.

* * *

With 14 grandchildren, all with their own children, the dress would continue to be shared among family members long after Pearl died.

When Sue began preparing for Mias graduation, she reached out to family members to track down the dress. A cousin in Virginia had it and sent it to Council Bluffs.

At first, Mia was resistant to wearing the dress. While she chose to wear something more modern for her graduation ceremony from Abraham Lincoln High School, she did put the dress on for a while during her graduation party.

I didnt expect it to fit as well as it did, she said. It fit me perfectly, which was weird. I guess the same bodies run in the family.

The dress, now a half-century old, was still bright white with no tears or stains. Years of machine washing and persistent care have kept it in good condition and ready for the rest of the graduates yet to come, Sue said.

I know its just a dress, a white piece of cotton, some stitches and some lace. And it wasnt for everybody  Pearl wrote. Tears come as I think of all the dear and loving grandchildren who have walked through our lives and have become a part of the history of this family.
A 73-year-old California man was arrested Thursday night on Interstate 80 in Omaha after deputies found 18 pounds of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

The Douglas County Sheriffs Office said a deputy pulled the man over in his 2016 Toyota Camry about 11 p.m. The Toyota, which was eastbound on I-80 near 84th Street, was following another vehicle too closely, the Sheriffs Office said.

The Sheriffs Office said the deputy was suspicious of illegal drug activity by the man, so a drug-sniffing dog, Fletch, was brought in. The dog indicated that there may be narcotics in the cars trunk, the Sheriffs Office said.

A search of the trunk turned up a duffel bag and two suitcases containing 18 vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana weighing a total of 18 pounds, four boxes of THC chews and eight containers of suspected hash butter weighing a total of one pound, the Sheriffs Office said. Also found were six THC vaporizer cartridges and 22 disposable vaporizers.

The Camrys driver is from Fort Bragg, which is about 150 miles northwest of San Francisco.

The Sheriffs Office said the man was en route to Indiana. He was booked on suspicion of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver; possession of a controlled substance, hash; and failure to affix a drug tax stamp, the Sheriffs Office said.
Fractured inmate-corrections officer relations at Tecumseh State Prison again flared violently on Friday when three of its staffers were injured in an assault, an official said.

The assaults occurred in a housing unit while the inmate was being allowed to shower and use a telephone.

The inmate assaulted a staffer, and during an effort to restrain him, he struck two other staffers, State Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith wrote in a statement. The staff members were treated for injuries that were not life-threatening at Johnson County Hospital and released, she wrote.

The assaults occurred as the prison, where two inmates died in a riot last year, had begun to resume normal operations after a lockdown a week earlier amid threats of violence.

The department was working to determine whether Fridays assaults were the action of one person or if this was a continuation of the threats from last weekend, Smith wrote.

Two housing units at the prison were locked down on Sept. 2. In the third unit, inmates movements were pared. Out-of-cell time, including visits and dining, had begun to be restored in some parts of the prison.

Stopping staff assaults is my highest priority right now, Corrections Director Scott Frakes wrote in a statement. Locking facilities down for a period of time assists, but it will not completely erase the opportunity to assault staff. These are deliberate decisions made by individuals set on harming others.
University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds is expected to receive a 6.3 percent raise, to $510,400, at the NU Board of Regents meeting Friday.

The regents executive committee has recommended the increase for Bounds, who started work as president of the NU system in April 2015. The raise would be retroactive to July 1, 2016.

Bounds currently makes $480,000 a year. His compensation also includes a $20,000 salary supplement from the NU Foundation, a presidential residence, a membership to the Country Club of Lincoln and a vehicle allowance of $800 per month. The NU Foundation also funds a deferred compensation package for Bounds.

The regents will meet at 10:15 a.m. next Friday at NUs Varner Hall, 3835 Holdrege St. in Lincoln. The regents academic affairs committee will meet at 9 a.m.

Bounds will report raises for the chancellors, as well. He has the authority to set those salaries, and they do not require the regents approval, an NU spokeswoman said.

The chancellors raises, effective July 1 of this year:

 UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey Gold, total salary of $838,661, a 3 percent increase from $814,234.

 UNO Chancellor John Christensen, total salary $296,039, a 2 percent increase from $290,234.

 UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen, total salary $257,364, about a 2.8 percent increase from $250,404.

Regent Kent Schroeder of Kearney, chairman of the executive committee, said he expects his panels recommendation on Bounds raise to have the support of the board.

I feel extremely fortunate that we were able to convince Hank Bounds and his family to come to Nebraska, Schroeder said in a telephone interview. He said Bounds has conveyed to the NU system that it has the potential of a rough diamond.

You dont know how good you can be because you dont know how good you are is a message that Bounds has conveyed, Schroeder said.

Bounds had been the commissioner of higher education in his home state of Mississippi when he was recruited to serve as president of the NU system.

Regent Hal Daub of Omaha said he hadnt read the executive committees proposal because he doesnt serve on that panel. But he will support a reasonable raise for Bounds, he said.

He is thoughtful and he is always prepared and he is wonderfully accessible, Daub said Friday afternoon.

Regent Jim Pillen of Columbus said he hasnt met a Nebraskan who wasnt impressed by Bounds.

Pillen, who is on the executive committee, said Bounds has clear expectations of the campus chancellors, holds people accountable and doesnt micromanage.

I actually thought we should give him more of a raise, Pillen said Friday. I want to make sure he stays in Nebraska.
Super Bee Orchards Applefest

What: Pony rides, dance performance, alpacas, face painting, bounce house, apple picking, food and more.

When: 1 to 5:30 p.m. Sept. 10

Where: Super Bee Orchard, 4571 U.S. Highway 75, Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

Plattsmouth Harvest Festival

What: Carnival, parade, karaoke contest, chicken chariot races, tractor races, fireworks and more.

When: Through Sept. 11

Where: Throughout downtown Plattsmouth

River City Antique Festival

What: Antiques, collectibles, toys, jewelry, furniture and more. Admission is $6 for adults, free for children ages 12 and younger.

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 10; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 11

Where: Mid-America Center, 1 Arena Way, Council Bluffs

German Day/Oktoberfest

What: Food, beer, singing, dancing, music

When: Sept. 16-17

Where: German-American Society, 3717 S. 120th St.

AppleJack Festival

What: More than six craft fairs, parade, street dance, classic car show, live music, carnival and lots of apple-related foods. Special events at the Kimmel Education and Research Center on Sept. 17 and 18.

When: Sept. 16-18

Where: Nebraska City, Nebraska

Gifford Farm Fall Festival

What: Hayrides, farm animals, special presentations

When: Sept. 17-18

Where: Gifford Farm Education Center, 700 Camp Gifford Road, Bellevue

Baconfest

What: Music, bacon tastings, chef competitions, bounce houses, pony rides and activities for children.

When: 1 to 5 p.m. Sept. 18

Where: Salvation Army Omaha Kroc Center, 2825 Y St.

Lauritzen Gardens Antique & Garden Show

What: Antiques exhibits, gardening, art

When: Sept. 22-25

Where: Lauritzen Gardens, 100 Bancroft St.

Aksarben Stock Show and Rodeo

What: Rodeo, live music

When: Sept. 22-25

Where: CenturyLink Center Omaha, 455 N. 10th St.

Fort Omaha Intertribal Powwow

What: Powwow with dancing

When: 1 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24

Where: Metropolitan Community College, Fort Omaha Campus, 30th and Fort Streets

Artsarben

What: Art marketplace, food, street performers, live music

When: Sept. 24-25

Where: Aksarben Village, 67th and Center Streets
 At the stunning National September 11 Memorial & Museum this year in New York, I came across the south towers survivor stairs.

I immediately thought about Jason Quinn. He survived 9/11 by descending 36 floors in the south tower of the World Trade Center and exiting minutes before the second plane struck.

The graduate of Westside High and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln had heard a thud  the plane striking the north tower  and left his Frenkel & Co. insurance office without bothering to grab his wallet and keys. On his 14-minute descent, he ignored an announcement that people could return to their desks.

When I opened the door and got out, he recalled Friday, it was like winter  a coating of dirty white stuff. Someone told me people were jumping from the north tower.

When the second plane hit, I was directly below the south tower. I ran to the corner of Brooks Brothers and took shelter under an overhang.

Today the survivor stairs remain in place, with the museum built around them. The faces of the 2,977 who died on 9/11 are on large screens, and the victims will be remembered anew this weekend on the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attack.

The museum tells the long story, starting with construction of the World Trade Centers twin towers, which opened in the early 1970s. Damaged FDNY and NYPD vehicles and other memorabilia are displayed. You can hear recordings of phone calls to loved ones from passengers on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

Jason stayed in New York for three more years before returning to his familys Quinn Insurance Co. in Omaha.

He had nightmares about 9/11 for a while, but said its therapeutic to talk about it. Sometimes people learn that he lived in New York and innocently ask, Where were you on 9/11? When he tells them, he said, the response is usually an OMG.

He doesnt mind people asking. Im not the type to bottle up my emotions. I feel very lucky to have survived.

 During the Cold War, Omaha feared the day would come that Air Force One would land at Offutt Air Force Base and the president would go to its storied underground command post.

That remarkable event happened on 9/11, though President George W. Bush left after less than two hours to address the nation from the White House.

Something else remarkable happened that day: Rabbi Aryeh Azriel of Temple Israel gathered members of his congregation to help guard the mosque at 73rd and Pinkney Streets. With tensions high after the terrorist attack, the kind gesture wasnt lost on Muslims in Omaha.

What followed were joint meetings and picnics and then plans for a tri-faith campus. Sunday at 1 p.m., the Tri-Faith Initiative welcomes the public to the 9/11 Circle of Peace, at which Christians, Muslims and Jews will assemble in the amphitheater at Temple Israel on the campus southeast of 132nd and Pacific Streets.

On this site, a statement says, we will join hands forming a circle of peace, showing the world that new hope arises from the ashes, igniting healing and wholeness between neighbors of the Tri-Faith Initiative.

A mosque is under construction to the west of the temple, to be followed by a Christian church and an interfaith center.

 The First Responders Association of Omaha, which grew out of 9/11, welcomed 450 to an event that raised $100,000 Thursday evening at the Omaha Police Departments mounted patrol barn at Sixth and Leavenworth Streets.

Gov. Pete Ricketts and Mayor Jean Stothert were among the speakers honoring the work of police, firefighters and others.

Over the years, the association has raised $2.5 million. Among other things, that has paid for an infrared camera on the police helicopter and 240 personal accountability system units for firefighter safety.

The association will hold a minute of silence at 9:11 a.m. Sunday at Stinson Park at Aksarben Village, 67th and Center Streets.

 World-Herald editorial cartoonist Jeff Koterba and his Prairie Cats band played at the top of the World Trade Centers north tower two months before 9/11.

On that New York trip, he met for the first time in years with his cousin, Ed Koterba Morgret, a school psychologist then living in West Virginia.

Today at 3 p.m. the cousins will sign books at the Bookworm, north of 90th Street and West Center Road. Jeff will have his memoir, Inklings, and a book of his cartoons. Ed will sign The Essential Ed Koterba, about his journalist father.

In 1961, Ed Koterba died at 42 in a small-plane crash. The next day, President John F. Kennedy opened a press conference by sorrowfully calling him a most outstanding newspaperman.

The younger Ed was 9, and his mother later married Charles Morgret. About a decade ago, the son began looking through his fathers newspaper clippings, stored in an attic.

Ed Koterba, who grew up in Omaha and worked as a newsroom copyboy at The World-Herald, became a columnist syndicated in 100 newspapers, as well as a White House correspondent.

His writing style was compared to that of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle. He traveled the country and wrote of people in the style of later CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt.

Morgrets book includes his own commentary as well as 363 of his fathers columns reporting on civil rights, McCarthyism, the Cold War and everyday topics. A review by Gerry Lanosga, assistant professor at Indiana Universitys Media School, calls the book a fine time capsule of the nations and journalisms story in the 1950s.
Mayor Jean Stothert has withdrawn a request that the Omaha City Council approve a $50,000 contract to look at the citys snow plan.

Stothert had wanted to hire an Ohio-based consultant to take the results of a recent survey and provide recommendations to the city about how its snow procedures should change.

We always strive to do better, Stothert said Friday on The World-Heralds 10 Minutes With the Mayor, available on Omaha.com. And a fresh set of eyes is something that I think is very worthwhile and its a good investment.

The council was supposed to vote on the contract Aug. 30. But council members and constituents had raised questions and concerns about the proposal, asking whether the citys Public Works department could accomplish the same thing.

So the council voted to delay final approval until Tuesday.

Stothert said Friday that she thought a $50,000 contract to help improve the citys $7.5 million snow removal efforts seemed worth it.

But she said she asked the council to table the issue because she thinks the scope of the contract could be reduced and Public Works employees could be more involved.

Earlier this year, the city faced criticism about the snowplowing during a Jan. 19 storm, which temporarily closed West Dodge Road near 90th Street and otherwise slowed movement around the city.

In response, Stothert said she would review and update the citys snow plan.

Cant see this video on your mobile device? Watch on Omaha.com.
Federal authorities are launching an investigation into the Thursday death of a truck driver at an Omaha meatpacking facility.

The U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, said Friday that the man was working at a loading dock at Greater Omaha Packing, 3001 L St., when the death occurred.

The preliminary indication was the brakes were not set on the tractor, and the victim was pinned between the trailer and an adjacent trailer, said Scott Allen, an OSHA spokesman.

We firmly believe these types of incidents can be prevented if all OSHA standards are being followed, Allen said.

OSHA investigates all fatalities under its jurisdiction, Allen said. The federal agency has up to six months to complete an investigation.

The man who died was Robert Williams II, 29, of Aurora, Colorado, said Mark Theisen, Greater Omahas general counsel. Williams joined Greater Omaha Express, a trucking company that is a subsidiary of Greater Omaha, about a year ago.

Greater Omaha Packing declined to comment on the OSHA investigation.

The company said that several regulatory bodies would investigate the cause of the accident, and that it wouldnt speculate on a cause before the investigations were complete.

The trucking divisions president said the company was deeply saddened by the event.

Omaha police were investigating the death as an apparent accident, said Officer Michael Pecha.

Authorities were summoned to the dock at 3:01 p.m. and found a man next to a semitrailer truck. He was pronounced dead at 3:27 p.m.
The White House has nominated Air Force Gen. John Hyten to take over as chief of U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base when the tour of Adm. Cecil Haney is up later this year.

If the nomination is confirmed by the Senate, Hyten will be elevated from his current position as head of the Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Pentagon insider publication Breaking Defense has called him Americas pre-eminent space warrior.

At a time when fighting in space has become a dominant theme of U.S. policy and spending, Hyten brings a powerful strategic intellect and a proven ability to win money for space, and to manage the enterprise well, Colin Clark, the publications editor, wrote in April.

Hyten was commissioned in 1981 after completing a bachelors degree in engineering and applied sciences at Harvard University, which he attended on an Air Force ROTC scholarship.

He has spent most of his career in space-related Air Force or joint military commands and has not flown traditional fighters or bombers, Clark reported. He served a combat deployment in 2006 as director of space forces for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hyten served one previous tour at Offutt from 1996 to 1998 as the final commander of the 6th Space Operations Squadron, which flew a constellation of military weather satellites. After his departure, that responsibility was turned over to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, costing Offutt about 140 jobs.

Its kind of a sad thing to see this history coming to an end, Hyten told The World-Herald in 1998.

As commander of Air Force Space Command, Hytens responsibilities included organizing, equipping, training and maintaining space and cyberspace forces for the North American Air Defense Command, according to his Air Force biography.

He was SpaceComs vice commander from 2012 to 2014 before stepping up to the top job.

If confirmed, Hyten would step into StratCom at a time when many of the nuclear weapons systems and platforms under the commands operational control are due for expensive replacement or modernization, including a new long-range strategic bomber, a new ballistic missile submarine, new intercontinental ballistic missiles and an upgraded B-61 gravity bomb.

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office pegged the cost of maintaining and upgrading the nuclear force at $348 billion over the next 10 years. Haney has warned congressional leaders not to trim these programs, and Hyten will likely do the same.

U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Nebraska, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement welcoming Hytens nomination.

Gen. Hyten is well-respected and brings great experience from his time commanding Air Force Space Command, Fischer said. I look forward to meeting with him soon to discuss his nomination.
Pentagon officials confirmed that a WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft from Offutt Air Force Bases 55th Wing will gather air samples off the Korean peninsula to determine whether any radioactive particles or gases have gotten into the atmosphere following North Koreas latest nuclear test.

I think you can expect to see that aircraft flying in the region soon as part of our efforts to assess what happened, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman, in a statement released Friday.

The Constant Phoenix program supports the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which bars above-ground nuclear testing. The WC-135 aircraft have been equipped with on-board collection gear capable of detecting radioactive clouds and collecting air samples since 1965.

Two aircraft are dedicated to Constant Phoenix and are flown by crews from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron. The testing equipment is operated by airmen from Detachment 1 of the Air Force Technical Applications Center, also based at Offutt.

Ryan Hansen, a 55th Wing spokesman, said one of the aircraft already had been deployed to the Pacific region when the nuclear test occurred Thursday.
LINCOLN  The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld a $259,218 judgment against the City of Lincoln for wrongly accusing a woman, both online and in a television broadcast, of stealing money.

In an opinion published Friday, the high court rejected the citys argument that the damages for slander and libel should be negated. The court did, however, reverse the lower courts order that the city publish a retraction.

Shayla Funk sued the Lincoln Police Department after her image appeared on the Lincoln-Lancaster County Crime Stoppers website in 2013 with claims that she was a crook who ripped off an ATM with a stolen debit card. Police also featured the case in two TV news broadcasts.

But the bank had provided police the wrong segment of surveillance video. Months after the city had been notified of the mistake, Funks image remained on the Facebook page of Crime Stoppers.

Vince Powers, Funks lawyer, argued that the police could have easily ruled out his client as a suspect by checking her banking records.

What this case really demonstrates is the power the government has when they say youre guilty, Powers said. Nobody will believe otherwise.

A message left Friday afternoon with City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick was not immediately returned.

Funk said the false accusation humiliated her, damaged her reputation and cost her a job as an occupational therapist. Her employer placed her on unpaid leave after learning about the allegations by Crime Stoppers, and she resigned after she concluded they would no longer trust her.

Lancaster County District Judge Steven Burns ruled in Funks favor and ordered the city to pay her $259,218.

The citys lawyers appealed, arguing the city should have been shielded from civil damages because the mistake occurred as police were trying to solve a crime. Police acted in good faith, not with malice toward Funk, the citys lawyers said.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the citys position and ruled the damage award in the case was proper.

Sufficient evidence supports that Funks reputation was harmed as a result of the citys defamatory statements, said the opinion written by Supreme Court Judge Max Kelch. Not only does the evidence show that the statements affected Funks personal reputation in her hometown of Ewing, but it is also clear that Funks reputation was harmed in the context of her employment.

Because Funk did not specifically demand a retraction in her lawsuit, the Supreme Court reversed an order by the trial judge ordering the city to publish one.
LINCOLN  The Nebraska Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of Erica Jenkins for the robberies of two men who were murdered by her brother.

It marked the second time in the past three weeks the high court has rejected appeals by Jenkins, 26. Last month, the court upheld her conviction and life sentence for the 2013 murder of Curtis Bradford.

In Fridays ruling, Jenkins challenged the 60 to 100 years in prison she was ordered to serve for the 2013 robberies of Juan Uribe-Pena and Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz. She helped lure the men to Spring Lake Park, where they were shot and killed by her brother, Nikko Jenkins.

Among other issues, Jenkins contended the prosecution should have been prevented from using records tied to her cellphone. Lawyers for Jenkins argued that obtaining the records amounted to an illegal search because Jenkins had an expectation that the records were private. They also asserted investigators failed to establish probable cause before obtaining the records.

The cellphone records showed Jenkins made calls that were routed from cell towers near an apartment of one of the victims as well as the park at the time of the killings.

The Supreme Court disagreed with her argument. The court said the records did not reveal the content of text messages or conversations of Jenkins, only the time and routing information of calls.

In addition, the records were kept by Jenkins cellphone carrier, not the government. And they were not obtained through secret government surveillance. Therefore, the high court said, obtaining the records did not involve a search as defined under the state and federal constitutions.

The court upheld the convictions and sentence pronounced by Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon.
LINCOLN  Nebraska property owners will get a slightly smaller break on their property taxes this year, compared with last years record amount.

State tax officials announced Friday that this years property tax credit will be $89.57 for every $100,000 of valuation.

That means the owner of a $150,000 house will get $134.36 subtracted from his or her tax bill.

Last year, the credit stood at a record $94.09 per $100,000.

The decline in credit size results from an increase in the value of the states taxable property.

The Department of Revenue calculates the credit by dividing the amount in the Property Tax Credit Fund by the total valuation of taxable property in Nebraska.

The fund remained at $204 million this year, the same size as last year. But the value of taxable property across the state grew 5 percent, to $227.7 billion, meaning the tax credit fund has to stretch further.

Gov. Pete Ricketts defended the program, while saying he wants to see further property tax reform.

Working with the Legislature, we have been able to deliver over $408 million worth of property tax relief over the last two years, he said. This is meaningful property tax relief for Nebraska families, and I will continue to support structural relief.

State Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island, the Revenue Committee chairman, said the states commitment to the tax credit program has not diminished, even if individual credits may have shrunk.

We did what we felt we could afford to do from a dollars and cents standpoint, he said.

He said the credits could offset as much of a property owners tax bill this year as last year if local governments control their property tax spending and reduce tax levies to account for higher valuations.

Property taxes are locally assessed, locally collected and locally controlled, he said.

Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, another Revenue Committee member, said he doesnt think property tax credits are the most effective way to provide property tax relief because of the disconnect between state efforts and local government decisions.

He said he hopes to work on a broad tax policy next year that provides both incentives for economic growth and stable property tax relief.

The property tax credit program began in 2007, with a budget of $105 million. State lawmakers and the governor have added to the fund in past years, with the latest bump coming in 2015.

Money for the credits comes from state sales and income tax payments.

Beginning next year, owners of farm and ranch land will get additional tax credits. Lawmakers passed a bill this year that directs $20 million into ag land property tax credits.

The credits appear as a line on the annual property tax statement.

The property tax credit does not alter property tax levies, which are set by school boards and other local governments. Rather, the credit reduces the amount of tax that homeowners and other property holders have to pay.

Individual property tax bills are determined by the spending of local schools and other government subdivisions, the valuation of the persons property and the valuation of all other properties in each subdivision.
A united front and a strong sales pitch have succeeded in landing Offutt Air Force Base in the finalist pool for hosting the mission control element of the Air Forces new drone wing.

Offutt and four other Air Force bases made the cut, narrowed from 19 bases under consideration. The base near Bellevue will now advance to the finals, competing against Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Moody in Georgia, Mountain Home in Idaho and Shaw in South Carolina.

The drone wings headquarters and launch and recovery element will be housed elsewhere. The mission control segment is where drones would be piloted remotely, using a satellite link. Local supporters consider that mission the best fit for Offutt among the three prongs, meshing well with the bases current roles and with the community.

Consider the excellent points in favor of housing the unit here, as detailed by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce:

 Offutt is already home to the 55th Wing and U.S. Strategic Command, the nations largest concentration of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and infrastructure.

 A new headquarters is currently under construction for StratCom, which would support the new unit with accurate, timely information for its commanders.

 The base has about 134 acres of available land and structures that could be developed to house the new mission.

 Area colleges and universities already offer academic degrees that support the missions at the base. The Pentagon has recognized the value of the University of Nebraska by establishing a military-focused think tank here that works directly with NU faculty.

 Offutt is centrally located geographically. Its also close to a civilian airport and a thriving metropolitan area that boasts strong fiber connectivity and communication networks.

Siting the mission at Offutt would resolve some challenges seen at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where Air Force drone operations are now housed. Creech is 50 miles from the nearest big population center in Las Vegas. Thats a bad fit as the Air Force works to increase its drone force personnel numbers and new options for drone operators. The isolation was cited as a reason drone teams were so strained that the Air Force cut back the number of drone missions it flew last year.

Gov. Pete Ricketts praised the local, state and congressional collaboration that has lobbied on the issue. This new mission could help position the base to thrive for years to come, he said.

Now supporters need to roll up their sleeves and prepare for the next phase. All five finalist bases will be subject to site surveys by the Air Combat Command. Theyll be graded on how well they meet wing requirements, as well as the impact the new unit would have on existing military missions, infrastructure and manpower.

Cost estimates  and the potential economic impact of the new facility  have yet to be calculated. But the unit would be, as U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford told The World-Herald, a tremendous opportunity. ... Its another significant mission, and its a mission thats only going to get more robust in the coming years as drones become a larger part of the U.S. air mission, defensively and offensively.

Its encouraging that Offutt has this potential opportunity to contribute in a significant new way to our nations defense.
Mello has a vision for Omaha

Omaha is known as a strong business community, thanks to its strong workforce, low cost of doing business and reliable support for local businesses.

If we desire for our emerging startup ecosystem to further diversify our employer base and provide the type of jobs that will attract and retain unique talent, well need the help of a sophisticated coalition of stakeholders.

Startup hubs enjoy support from not only economic development entities and educational institutions but also elected officials who recognize the positive impact of entrepreneurialism, have formed meaningful relationships with startup leaders and are willing to leverage their bully pulpits and valuable networks to advance the cause.

Im proud to support State Sen. Heath Mello in his campaign for Omaha mayor. Im impressed with his record of putting good policy before good politics.

Mello has challenged Omahans to come together to craft a vision for our city where our full potential becomes a reality. Citizens should expect their leaders to articulate a vision that inspires them to do more.

Mello is the rare type of politician whos capable of moving his constituents forward while still keeping his eye on the less glamorous side of public service. We know this because thats exactly what he has done for the past eight years in the Nebraska Legislature.

David Arnold, Omaha

Congress must act against Big Pharma

The EpiPen story should be a wake-up call for consumers, voters and lawmakers (People who need EpiPens are stuck as the price soars, Aug. 24 World-Herald).

Mylan, based in the Netherlands for tax purposes, pays its CEO $18.9 million a year. It charges patients $640 for two pens, which use 1970s injection technology and contain a dollars worth of epinephrine.

Allergy patients can avoid this price-gouging by ordering EpiPens from Canada, using generic Adrenaclick devices or using ordinary syringes filled at clinics or pharmacies.

Meanwhile, lawmakers should address drug pricing overall. States could consider copying Californias Proposition 61, which would limit state agencies drug prices to those negotiated by the Veterans Administration.

Congress could ban direct advertising of prescription drugs and allow Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate drug prices, as the VA does.

Banning TV ads could save companies revenue that could be used for commercial research. And a sliver of Medicare and Medicaid savings could greatly expand federally funded research on life-saving new drugs and comparative effectiveness research.

B.K. Chaney, Omaha

Carrying a weapon a constitutional right

I believe that the right to carry a handgun should be legal in every state. The Second Amendment grants Americans the right to bear arms, and saying they cant carry them violates that right.

I believe that we should be allowed to carry a gun with us for our own protection and safety.

Taylor Stupka, Chappell, Neb.

We should expect better

I recently was up all night watching programs that retold the tragedy of 9/11. Lots of tears here, comforted only by my two wonderful dogs.

I asked myself how we have spiraled so far down since those tragic days. We are about to elect the lesser of two evils to lead our once-great nation for the next four years. Is this the best we can do? Are these two people the best America has to offer?

We are the laughingstock of the world; nations look at us agape because of this tragic comedy called the election process.

Millions upon millions of dollars are being spent on campaigns that have resorted to playground name-calling and slanderous accusations.

We need to link arms, stand up and call a timeout. America, we can do better and we can be better. And I still believe we are better. Time to hit the floor with our knees.

Sunny McComber, Omaha

Honoring the man who started it all

Omaha is fortunate to have an abundant pool of very talented musicians. Each and every weekend, venues all over this area feature outstanding music of all genres.

One group of musicians, the McGuigan brothers  Billy, Matthew and Ryan  are known not only locally but nationally as well with their Yesterday and Today Beatles tribute, Rave On Buddy Holly tribute and Rock Legends shows, not to mention their various side projects.

The talent and love of music that emanates from these siblings is a direct result of their late father, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Bill McGuigan Sr. He was taken at a young age by leukemia, but his love of music  particularly the Beatles  was instilled in his sons and has proven to be a lasting gift to us all.

Because of William McGuigan Sr. and the legacy that he has left to the city of Omaha, Mayor Jean Stothert has proclaimed today, Sept. 10, William McGuigan Sr. Day.

Thank you, Bill McGuigan Sr., and thank you, Billy, Matthew and Ryan.

Bruce Karlquist, Omaha
Shiela Bywaters is one tough cookie.

She owns weapons, rides 1,200-pound horses and cares for her ailing dad, a former wrangler who used to break racehorses. And she raises her daughter, now a college student, to be just as strong.

She would need all of that fortitude a year ago this month when four teens  including the son of former Nebraska State Treasurer Shane Osborn  barreled into her home near 122nd Street and West Dodge Road.

Chaos ensued. In mama-bear mode, Bywaters shoved one intruder to keep him from her daughter. He punched her in the chest. She kept pushing back until, finally, he lowered his shoulder and rammed her down a flight of stairs.

A concussion and a nearly-broken back later, Bywaters survived that night.

And then, in court this week, the plucky 52-year-old did the strongest thing she could: She forgave the teens, one by one, calmly telling them she hopes they straighten out their lives.

I hate seeing them get prison, Bywaters said. I mean, I understand why. They caused a lot of pain and heartache. But in order to rehabilitate yourself, you have to be forgiven. I wanted them to know that.

Bywaters wasnt the only forgiving soul in court Thursday.

In the bizarre crime spree  which saw Osborns son wearing a rainbow-colored wig of dreadlocks  the same group of teens had broken into another house less than an hour before they ransacked Bywaters home.

That Sept. 3, 2015, evening, the other homeowner, Scott Chandler, fought off the group of intruders at his front door near 152nd Street and Bauman Avenue in northwest Omaha. They left but not before smashing the glass of his front door.

Like Bywaters, Chandler forgave each teen. He urged them to get faith-based substance-abuse treatment.

Douglas County District Judge Horacio Wheelock was a little less forgiving.

Wheelock noted that the teens could have come to their senses after their first home invasion. Instead, they doubled down on their crime spree  terrorizing Bywaters in her home.

There was no excuse for this level of violence, Wheelock told one of the teens. This could have been way worse.

The then-18-year-olds shared tenuous bonds. Some attended Douglas County West High School; some, including Osborn, grew up in Norfolk; some met at Boys Town.

One teen, Brandon Godden, developed a grudge over a series of texts he had exchanged with Chandlers teenage son.

So Godden rallied his friends  Avery Osborn, Brandon Nicholls, Erik Griffith and Rolf Ngudia  to ambush the younger Chandler. They stopped at Walmart and bought gloves and rags to cover their faces.

The teens rang the doorbell at the Chandlers home. Chandler yelled, What are you doing? and blocked the entryway.

The young men fled. During the confrontation, Nicholls broke the glass in Chandlers storm door.

Instead of realizing the futility of what they were doing, prosecutor Jameson Cantwell said, the teens decided to try to settle another grudge.

Bywaters teenage daughter had broken off a relationship with Ngudia the year before.

So, led by Ngudia, the boys headed to her house. The teens later told investigators they thought they might find marijuana there.

They parked about a block away, climbed on Bywaters garage roof and broke into an upstairs bedroom.

From the basement, Bywaters and her then-17-year-old daughter raced upstairs only to be shouted back down by the masked intruders.

Bywaters then confronted Godden as he made his way down the stairs.

Bywaters said she was shocked but tried to stay calm, fearing for her daughter and her 74-year-old father, who suffers from dementia and was in his upstairs bedroom.

So Bywaters played dumb, continually asking, Whats going on here?

Godden punched her in the chest. She pushed him back up the stairs.

He then bum-rushed her  knocking her off her feet and into a low-hanging ceiling over the stairs.

She lost consciousness as she fell down seven steps, flat-backing onto a basement landing.

Before anything else happened, I was up again, she said. And thats when I really got upset. Im thinking, OK, now were not pretending anymore. Were fighting. 

Godden, strung out on drugs, kept telling Bywaters daughter, Were not going to hurt you. 

He then cornered Shiela Bywaters, clenched his fist and punched his hand through a door behind her. Bywaters and her daughter started pushing him up the stairs again.

He was pretty mad that he was literally being forced out by two women, Bywaters said.

Meanwhile, the other teens were rifling through the house. They stole the daughters backpack, then smashed doors, sliding glass doors and flat-screen TVs.

They then took off. Thats when Bywaters daughter channeled her moms pluckiness.

She chased after the teens and saw them hop into a gold-colored SUV with distinctive paper license plates with Norfolk on them. She later relayed that vehicle description to police.

Meanwhile, Chandlers son gave police Goddens name, noting that he had talked about burglarizing homes before.

The next day, Douglas County sheriffs deputies traveled to Norfolk to interview Godden and Griffith at the pizza shop where they worked. As they did, Osborn pulled up in a gold SUV with paper license plates.

Inside the SUV: bandannas, a hat with fake dreadlocks and the backpack stolen from Bywaters.

You just want to shake them, Bywaters said. If youre going to be a criminal, just dont be so stupid.

In court last week, each teen turned and faced Bywaters and Chandler. They all wore sheepish looks as they uttered some variation of Im sorry.

The teens  all of whom pleaded to felony attempted robbery or burglary charges  faced a maximum of 20 or 40 years in prison.

Only Osborns parents didnt attend his hearing. Parents and relatives of the other defendants packed the courtroom. The fathers of three defendants cried. One described himself to the judge as a failed father.

Avery Osborn, who was the first to fully cooperate with prosecutors, was sentenced to the equivalent of six months in jail and four years of probation.

Nicholls was sentenced to two to four years in prison  equivalent of one to two years.

Ngudia, who led the teens to Bywaters house, was sentenced to six to eight years in prison  which is three to four years under state law.

Godden was sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison  which is cut in half to four to five years.

Nicholls voice shook as he noted that he is now a father.

Im sorry for breaking into your home and violating your space, he told the victims. I regret it every day.

Bywaters said the violation is real.

It affects everything, she said. You know those little sounds in the house that just come with a house? You dont have the luxury of ignoring them anymore. Everything has to be investigated.

Bywaters praised Douglas County deputies and Omaha police investigators for nabbing all five teens. (Griffith, the fifth teen who stayed in the car during the robberies, is going through a court diversion program.)

Bywaters credits her daughter, too.

What this really is about is, How are you going to handle it  are you going to give into fear from now on?  Bywaters said. I wanted to use this bad experience to empower my daughter and make her stronger.

Strong enough to forgive.

Maybe it will put these guys on the right path, Bywaters said. Maybe they have seen a light. Im not sure. I hope so.
Karnataka to survey all Arabic schools to check if on same page as state board

Cauvery dispute: Anger against Nariman, but legal team calls it "rubbish"

Bengaluru

oi-Vicky

Bengaluru, Sept 10: Each time the Cauvery waters dispute erupts, the favourite target for the protestors is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa. This time around there has been a lot of fun being made about senior counsel, Fali S Nariman who represents Karnataka in the Cauvery case.

There are activists from Mandya who say that they will file a complaint against him as he repeatedly loses the case in the Supreme Court.

CJI an "accused" in Cauvery case? Karnataka Bandh ends with a farcical plea

Petitions to the Chief Minister too are being sent from farmers in Mandya and other areas to replace Nariman as he has not been able to get any relief for Karnataka.

Recently Chief Minister of Karnataka too took a dig at the legal doyen and said that the goodwill offer made by Nariman in the Supreme Court did not have the approval of the state government.

Nariman had made an offer to release 10,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu. The Supreme Court, however, ordered the release of 15,000 cusecs for ten days as a result of which the state of Karnataka erupted in protest.

Karnataka's legal team is, however, not amused with such loose talk about Nariman. A member of the legal team, Mohan Katarki tells OneIndia that this entire issue started at the all party meeting. At the meet, KS Eshwarappa and YSV Datta joked and asked if Nariman had won any case for Karnataka.

"I would like to state here it is unfortunate that some who has contributed so much is being targeted," Katarki also added.

Legal team has its discretion:

Katarki also adds that so much is being spoken about the fee Nariman charges. "He charges Karnataka the lowest fee. In fact there are so many who are his juniors who charge much more," Katarki stated.

Karnataka CM to Modi: Intervene or we will have no drinking water left

On the allegation made by people that Nariman has appeared for Jayalalithaa in some other cases, Katarki rubbishes it by stating that advocate can appear for anyone. There is no bar on it. Nariman has never let all that affect the Cauvery case, he also adds.

There is also a rumour floating around that a lobby is behind this campaign because Nariman refused to appear for Jayalalithaa in the main appeal in the disporportionate assets case against her.

Katarki says that a lie is doing the rounds that is spread by some mischievous elements in Bengaluru that the legal team has never won any case for Karnataka.

It all started with a false message on WhatsApp that TN lawyers have been arguing the Cauvery issue free for their State. "We must know that primarily the legal team fighting the upper riparian's case faces an uphill task in court always because, the general perception in the world is test upper riparian can ruin the lower State by building dams or barrages and steal water."

"Despite this general bias, this legal team succeeded in reducing the liability to ensure in Tamil Nadu from 380 tmc to 192 annually. Hope to reduce further in SC in the pending civil appeal."

In Almatti case, this legal team devised a clear strategy and advised the State in 1996 to change its stand and accept Scheme B which finally helped in getting the Almatti dam for a storage at 524 Mts. Lastly, there is nothing like winning or loosing the case in water disputes. Every decision has some good and some bad parts, Katarki says.

Karnataka could not have argued that we don't share water with Tamil Nadu or we don't owe any water to Tamil Nadu. The only point was - how much we owe to Tamil Nadu and when we owe.

We said, what we owe should be determined by Supervisory Committee and until it determines, we propose as a good will gesture to ensure 10000 cusecs for ten days when already on an average 6000 cusecs was being released, Katarki added.

It was a wise proposal and when a same proposal was made in September 2012, the SC then had accepted and all in the State praised the legal team including the those who now taunt. Katarki says: "I would also like to remind the people that Nariman succeeded in the Baglihar and Kishenganga water dispute against Pakistan."

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Saturday, September 10, 2016, 12:09 [IST]
Karnataka to survey all Arabic schools to check if on same page as state board

Cauvery row: Reduce quantum of water to be released, Karnataka to plead

Bengaluru

oi-Shreyas

By H S Shreyas

Bengaluru, Sept. 10: Karnataka will on Monday plead before the Cauvery Supervisory Committee to reduce the quantum of water to be released to Tamil Nadu.

The committee was constituted by the Centre in 2013 to decide on the amount of water Karnataka would be required to release each year depending on the availability of water and the needs and demands of the two states.

Cauvery dispute: Anger against Nariman, but legal team calls it "rubbish"

A source close to Water Resources minister M.B. Patil told OneIndia that Patil on Saturday met Fali S. Nariman, who heads the Karnataka legal team on the issue, to decide on the next course of action after the Supreme Court ordered the state to release 15,000 cusecs of water everyday for ten days.

The Karnataka government is likely to file a modification petition in the apex court asking the court to reduce the amount of water to be released by at least 2,000 cusecs a day.

The Tamil Nadu government had on Sept 7 approached the Union Water Resources ministry and demanded 64 tmc-ft of water from Karnataka, rather than the 50 tmc-ft it had demanded earlier, claiming that the Siddaramaiah government was 'misrepresenting facts' on water availability in the two states.

Karnataka had earlier said that it was facing a crisis of even drinking water in the Cauvery basin while Tamil Nadu had enough water in the Mettur to meet the needs of its Samba crop.

The source said that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had accused Karnataka of concocting figures of rainfall and storage in the Mettur reservoir.

In response, Karnataka Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav has filed an objection to Tamil Nadu's fresh claims. In his letter, Jadhav has said that it was the unanimous opinion of all the political parties in the state that the order of the Supreme Court would have been different had an expert report on the ground realities in the Cauvery basin been available to it.

The source also said that while Siddaramaiah had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and call a meeting of riparian states to resolve the issue amicably, the Centre is unlikely to do so since the matter is subjudice.

But Karnataka is hoping that the Supervisory Committee will send a fact-finding team to study the ground reality in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the source added.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Saturday, September 10, 2016, 14:20 [IST]
The Wisconsin Council of the Blind & Visually Impaired is proud to welcome Denise Jess as the organizations new Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director, effective October 1, 2016. She succeeds Executive Director Loretta Himmelsbach who retires on September 29. A Madison resident, Jess brings to the Council an extensive background in elementary and adult education and small business ownership, starting her career more than 30 years ago as an elementary teacher. In 1995, Jess launched her own business, Denise Jess Consulting, helping organizations foster an atmosphere of uncompromising respect dignity and genuine acceptance. Jess has worked as an ad hoc instructor for the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies, facilitating popular workshops like Facilitating by Heart and The Art of Conflict Transformation.
Cauvery dispute; welcome if Centre intervenes: Karna govt

India

oi-PTI

Bengaluru, Sep 10: Karnataka government today welcomed the reported statement of Union Minister Uma Bharti about intervening in the Cauvery river water dispute, if necessary, but demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiate the process to solve the long-pending issue.

"If she has given the gesture that she will intervene (to resolve the vexed Cauvery dispute), we welcome it. It (step) will be towards solving the problem," Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here.

His response was to a question about reports quoting Uma Bharti as saying that the Centre would intervene in the Cauvery matter if necessary.

Asked about Tamil Nadu not even looking at a compromise solution, he said "Let's suppose it is initiated by the Prime Minister. We are in the first stage, let the Prime Minister initiate that.... then let us see the response of Tamil Nadu." Jayachandra also appealed to the BJP MPs from the state to take up the issue with the Prime Minister.

To a question that the consistent demand for the Prime Minister's intervention was politicising the issue further, he recalled that the PM had earlier on one occasion intervened on Supreme Court advice. It has to be done now also to solve the vexed issue, which needs to be resolved through an out-of-court settlement, he said.

Cauvery dispute: Anger against Nariman, but legal team calls it "rubbish"

"When the Supreme Court advised the then Prime Minister to intervene, it happened then. Now to resolve this, these are all to be settled out of court," he said. "However, whether they are coming (intervening) or not again is the question.

Injustice has been done to the state from Britishers' period. It is a long-pending and almost 200 year old dispute," Jayachandra said. Asked about changing Fali Nariman as the state's counsel, he said he wouldn't like to react as the matter was coming up for final hearing on October 16 before the Court.

"I don't want to react to that because the matter is coming up for the final hearing on October 16. The Supreme Court has specifically said it will be listed on that day. So let us hope for the best," he said.

PTI
Surat Model of natural farming can become a model for entire country: PM Modi

7 arrested for lynching ragpicker on suspicion of being thief

Chaos at Amit Shah event: Detained Patel agitators released

India

oi-PTI

Ahmedabad, Sep 9 The Gujarat Government today ordered the release of all 135 Patel agitators detained for creating ruckus at a function where Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and BJP President Amit Shah were booed.

Rupani and Shah were booed by quota agitation leader Hardik Patel's supporters at the grand event in Surat organised to felicitate Patel leaders yesterday.

"Our CM and party President Amitbhai Shah have a big heart and hence decided to release all those persons who were detained yesterday in Surat," said Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja.

As many as 135 protesters were detained by police for creating ruckus in and around the venue and ransacking furniture.

Upon receiving the order, all those detained were released this evening, said P N Patel, Inspector at Kamrej in Surat under whose jurisdiction the incident took place.

Shah, Rupani and other party leaders as well Ministers were booed off stage as the members of Hardik's Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) created commotion at the event.

Chaos prevailed outside the venue as well as in Mota Varraccha area, where Patidar community members from the locality hurled stones at police.

The function, billed as BJP's show of strength in the Patidar stronghold of Surat, wound up within minutes with Patel leaders cutting short their speeches. Shah could speak for hardly four minutes amid sloganeering.

The ruckus started even before the commencement of the function with the Patel quota agitators raising slogans like "Jai Sardar, Jai Patidar" and hailing Hardik.

The programme was organised by 'Patidar Abhivadan Samiti', an outfit floated by a local businessman, to felicitate Patidar leaders including the newly-appointed state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, Union Ministers Parshottam Rupala and Manshukh Mandaviya. The slogan shouting continued, forcing even Shah and Rupani to cut short their speeches.

PTI
He has the moves: Watch Rahul Gandhi shaking a leg at the tribal dance festival

Chhattisgarh inks MoU with Aviation Ministry to boost air link

India

oi-PTI

Raipur, Sep 9 Chhattisgarh Government today inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Civil Aviation to boost regional air connectivity within the state.

The MoU was signed at a function this evening at the secretariat in the presence of Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, a public relations officer said.

As per the agreement made under the Centre's Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), small airports and airstrips will be developed in phased manner in different cities to facilitate intra-state flight services, he said.

This scheme will cover those cities where flight services have been either discontinued for a long time or could not be started, he said.

In the first phase, Jagdalpur, Ambikapur, Raigarh and Bilaspur (all district headquarters) will get connected to state capital Raipur through air services, the officer added.

Besides, the Centre will provide an opportunity to various aviation companies to start flights on subsidised rates within the state, he said.

Earlier, Raju visited Jagdalpur, headquarters of the insurgency-hit Bastar district, and inspected an airstrip.

At the function, the state government also discussed the prospects of starting flights from Raipur to Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam via Bastar, and Raipur to Varanasi through Ambikapur with the Aviation Ministry officials, he said.

PTI
Make in India: Not Spain, Gujarat facility to build C-295 for Indian Air Force now

Gujarat ACB unearths disproportionate assets worth Rs 8.44 crore

India

oi-PTI

Ahmedabad, Sep 9 In a major operation, Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau today claimed to have unearthed disproportionate assets worth more than Rs 8.44 crore during searches at the premises of 11 government officials.

The searches were conducted at the houses and commercial premises in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Godhra, Jamnagar, Rajkot and Dahod districts, an ACB statement here said.

"We have lodged DA cases against these officials as per the Prevention of Corruption Act," it said. These officials include three class-1, one class-2 and seven class-3 officers.

"Haresh Vanzara, working as surveyor in town planning department in Panchamahal district, amassed a wealth of Rs 4.12 crore through his corrupt practises. His DA is 824 per cent more than his actual income," ACB said.

Class-1 officers whom ACB has accused of having disproportionate assets are Gandhinagar-based Joint Commissioner in Food and Drugs department Yogesh Chauhan, who is allegedly worth Rs 36.27 lakh (54.40 per cent in excess of legal income), Additional Labour Commissioner in Jamnagar Bhagirath Trivedi (Rs 67.13 lakh, 54.88 per cent in excess) and Town Planner in Narmada, Water Resources department Kirit Raval (Rs 30.48 lakh, 40.32 per cent in excess). Class-2 officer Nimesh Majmudar, who is a Range Forest Officer in Banaskantha, had DA worth Rs 1.68 crore, 418 per cent more than his legal income, stated the release.

Gujarat DGP P P Pandey, who is also the Director of ACB, said such operations will continue. "Recently, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani called a meeting of top police officials and instructed to eliminate corruption from all levels.

Today we have clamped down on 11 officials. Such operation by ACB will continue in future too," he said.

PTI
Gupta alleges AAP MLA threatens to 'cut him to pieces'

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Sep 9 Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta today alleged that AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan threatened to "cut him to pieces" during the House proceedings.

As Gupta spoke on the controversy surrounding sacked Minister Sandeep Kumar's sleaze CD, Chauhan intervened and was heard shouting at him.

A furious Gupta immediately staged a walkout alleging he was threatened by Chauhan. "I will complain to the police immediately," he said while storming out.

Later, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Gupta was deliberately evading the discussion and urged Speaker Ram Niwas Goel to initiate contempt of House proceedings against him if he takes up an internal issue of the Assembly with the police.

"If he goes out and calls 100 over an issue related to Assembly proceedings then it amounts to contempt of the House. He should have taken up the matter with the Speaker," Sisodia said. The Speaker also read out a statement where he said that he "wants the police" not to take any action pertaining to anything that happened inside the House.

"I am submitting the issue of contempt proceedings as raised by the Deputy CM to the House Committee," Goel said. Gupta said he had every right to do so as his "life was under threat". "The Speaker did not take any action against Chauhan while Deputy CM Sisodia indirectly supported him forcing me to call the police," he said.

In a letter to Goel, Gupta demanded an FIR against Chauhan so that the police could take necessary action to "safeguard" his life.

"As you and all the ministers and MLAs present in the House are a witness that during the discussion around 7.40 PM, I was threatened by Chauhan that he will kill me by cutting into pieces. Therefore, it is apprehended that there is serious threat to my life," Gupta said in his letter.

PTI
Deprivation point to be brought back for PhD students in JNU

Left leads in JNU polls, ABVP and NSUI far behind

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Sep 10: The AISA-SFI combine on Saturday evening led in three of the four posts in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) election, with the final results expected late at night.

The Students Federation of India (SFI) and the All India Students Association (AISA) appeared set to bag the posts of President, Vice President and General Secretary, informed sources said.

For the post of Joint Secretary, the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) was in the lead, with the AISA-SFI candidate in the second position.

The newly founded Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) was at the second spot in the top three posts.

The BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) were far behind in all four posts, the sources said.

JNU polls sees close contest between ABVP, Left alliance

The SFI, affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and the AISA, the student wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML), formed an alliance to fight the elections.

This was the first student election in the campus since the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar -- of the CPI-backed All India Students Federation -- on charges of sedition after a group of students allegedly raised anti-India slogans at an event in February.

IANS
Himachal was valued less on strength, more on Parliament seats before: PM Modi

People fed up with Congress' misrule in HP: Murlidhar Rao

India

oi-PTI

Shimla, Sep 9 Claiming that people were fed up with the "corruption and misgovernance of Congress" in Himachal Pradesh, BJP general secretary Murlidhar Rao today said his party will bounce back to power in the state and stay put for a long time.

Rao, who was addressing a conference of party workers here, said the situation was conducive for a change in the state and that BJP would not only bounce back to power after the next Assembly polls but stay in power for 25 years.

"From the feedback received during the visit to the state, it can be easily construed that people are fed up with corruption, misgovernance, anti-people policies and failure of the government on all fronts," he said.

He said that the governments changed every five years in the state, but expressed optimism that BJP would be able buck the trend.

"A trend has been set in Himachal that the governments change after every five years but this the trend would be changed and the party would stay in power for 25 years as a part of Congress-free campaign launched by the party," he said.

PTI
Shahabuddin's release a govt's strategy: BJP

India

oi-PTI

Patna, Sep 10: BJP today termed as "well planned strategy" of the Nitish Kumar government to ensure release of RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail and said it would stage dharna across in Bihar on September 14 to protest against it.

"It is a managed bail. It is a government's well planned strategy which cleared the way of Shahabuddin in securing bail," senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said.

The Patna High Court on September 7 granted bail to former Siwan MP Shahbuddin in the murder case of two brothers of whom the elder one, Rajiv Roshan, was a witness in the killing of two brothers in 2004 in Siwan.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said the government could neither begin trial of Rajiv Roshan murder case within nine months as per the High Court's direction, nor engaged top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's bail.

The Patna High Court had on February 3 directed the state government to conclude trial of the case preferably within nine months, Modi said quoting the court's order, the copy of which was distributed among media persons.

Mohammad Shahabuddin walks free after 11 years

If the state government wished to start trial, it could have done so via video-conferencing from Bhagalpur where Shahabuddin was lodged, he said.

But it did not begin trial through video-conferencing nor committed the case to Sessions court when Shahabuddin was in Siwan before being shifted to Bhagalpur jail.

"The government's failure to start trial led to Shahabuddin getting bail," Modi said while quoting the High Court's September 7 order that "there is no progress in the trial and considering the period of detention, petitioner (Shahabuddin) is directed to be released on bail."

The state government also did not engage any top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin's case as it had done in other major cases in the past, he said and named several cases and the lawyers the state had hired.

The government has powers to impose Crime Control Act on hardcore criminals if it feels that release of a particular person could disturb public order as it was done in the case of Independent MLA Anant Singh, Modi said.

On Shahabuddin's statement that Nitish Kumar is a "Chief Minister of circumstances", Modi said he was right as Kumar with less number of MLAs is the CM while RJD with more seats is the junior partner.

Shahabuddin probably meant to say that RJD could get the CM's post in future, he said. BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party would protest Shahabuddin's release across the state on September 14.

PTI
Substantiate your claim against Sukhbir: Amarinder to Arvind Kejriwal

India

oi-PTI

Patiala, Sep 9 Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today challenged Arvind Kejriwal to substantiate his claims that Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had prepared 63 CDs of alleged misdeeds of AAP leaders to defame the party.

"Or is it a preemptive admission on your part that you know more scandals are about to tumble out of your cupboard and you have decided to put the blame on someone else," Capt Amarinder asked.

"No doubt the Akalis and Sukhbir are capable of doing any dirty thing, but even he cannot make fake CDs unless you and your own people are not involved," he said.

Earlier while interacting with people, Amarinder promised to hold the Badal family including Bikram Majithia accountable for "all their sins of omission and commission".

"I will avenge all the excesses and injustice you suffered," he said.

Amarinder promised to continue with the aata-dal scheme if the Congress was voted to power in the next Assembly polls.

"We will also provide sugar and tea under this scheme. We will also ensure good quality wheat to the people and not the substandard as supplied by the Akalis," he said.

"Congress will not only continue with the free power to farmers, it will also ensure regular power supply," he added.

Besides, he said, the government will not charge anything from the farmers for their tubewell connections also "as currently they are made to pay a large amount by the Akali government".

PTI
Troops in Kashmir to foil infiltration bids: Manohar Parrikar

India

oi-PTI

Panaji, Sep 9 The Centre today said deployment of additional troops in Kashmir was aimed at foiling attempts by terrorists to enter India from across the border and the move has nothing to do with the ongoing unrest in the Valley.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the deployment of troops in J&K was meant for foiling infiltration bids and it has nothing to do with the protests in the Kashmir Valley which started after the killing of a militant Burhan Wani in an encounter on July 8.

"Army does not act in internal matter unless requested by the local administration. Our mandate is to seal the border and foil infiltration bids by terrorists," he said.

Parrikar was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function organised to commission Indian Coast Guard ship "Sarathi" in Vasco town, about 40km from here.

Union Home minister Rajnath Singh, who was also present at the event, said deployment of Armymen in J&K had nothing to do with the current situation in Kashmir. "The situation in Kashmir is being handled by district administration.

We are providing them all the support they want," Singh said. Responding to a question, Parrikar said India is taking necessary precautions in aftermath of the Scorpene submarine data leak episode.

The Defence Minister said the leak did not occur in an Indian naval area but on side of the French company which is a partner in the submarine project.

PTI
UP: Man films wife committing suicide, does nothing to stop her

UP: 5, including a child, killed and 5 seriously hurt as car hits electric pole

Azam Khan disqualified as UP MLA after conviction in hate speech

UP: Man begs to arrange vehicle to take daughter's body home

India

oi-PTI

Lakhimpur Kheri, Sep 10: A man here took to begging in a bid to arrange a vehicle to carry his daughter's body back home today even as a senior district official claimed he had not intimated hospital authorities for an ambulance.

The incident came to light after a photograph showing the girl's father, Ramesh, begging went viral on social media. Following which authorities swung into action.

The 14-year-old girl, a resident of Suatali in Mitauli area, was admitted to Mitauli health centre yesterday with high fever, hospital officials said.

Due to her serious condition she was referred to the Lakhimpur Kheri district hospital, where she was declared brought dead, they added. Ramesh pleaded several persons to help him arrange a vehicle to carry the body back home.

Man carries mother-in-law's body on bicycle for 20 km in MP

However, no one obliged him. Deeply perturbed, Ramesh put the body on a footpath outside the hospital and started begging from pedestrians. Chief Development Officer Amit Singh Bansal said he has sought all documents related to the girl's admission and treatment."

Virtually giving a clean chit to hospital authorities, he said, "If the girl's father had intimated hospital staff for the ambulance, the same could have been arranged."

PTI
China is key in N Korea nuclear crisis, says Pentagon chief

International

oi-PTI

Oslo, Sept 10: US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Friday called for further pressure on North Korea after the renegade state carried out a new nuclear test, but said China bore "responsibility" for tackling the problem.

"We need to... redouble the pressure on North Korea," Carter told reporters on a visit to Oslo. He pointed to moves to strengthen defences in the region, including the deployment of advanced anti-missile systems.

North Korea nuclear development: Here is chronology

"One of the things I'd like to single out is the role of China," Carter said, referring to North Korea's main ally. "China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it," he said.

"It's important that it uses its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going."

The underground test, the fifth and most powerful in North Korea's controversial nuclear programme, was announced by state media in Pyongyang earlier on Friday.

The explosion had a yield of 10 kilotonnes, according to experts. The UN Security Council was to meet later Friday to discuss a response. North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

PTI
About 100 passengers fall ill on Emirates flight from Dubai to New York

Emirates bans Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on its planes

International

oi-PTI

Dubai, Sep 10: Civil aviation authorities in the Emirates have banned the use of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 on all its national carriers because of the risk of batteries exploding in the "phablet" smartphone.

"The General Civil Aviation Authority has banned operating, charging and carrying in bags the Samsung Note 7 on board national carriers' flights," it said in a statement carried by the official WAM news agency today.

Samsung last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.

Since then, airlines or air safety agencies around the world have warned passengers against using them on flights. Yesterday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged Note 7 owners to stop using it.

Dubai's Emirates Airline, the largest Middle East carrier, said it will comply "immediately" with the instruction from civil aviation.

Samsung tells Korean customers to stop using Galaxy Note 7

"This measure is to avoid the possibility of these devices' batteries causing fires," it said. Another carrier in the United Arab Emirates, Etihad Airways, has already temporarily banned the use of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on board its flights, and the UAE also has two low-cost airlines, flydubai and Air Arabia.

Singapore Airlines, Australia's Qantas, and Virgin Australia have announced similar bans. US and Japanese aviation authorities have urged passengers not to turn on or charge the large-screen phones on aircraft, while the US Federal Aviation Administration has told passengers not to stow the device in checked baggage.

AFP
Indian prisoner in Pak shifted to another cell after attacks

International

oi-PTI

Peshawar, Sep 10: A 31-year-old Indian prisoner, sentenced by a military court here for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card, has been shifted to a separate cell after he was attacked thrice by fellow inmates.

Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online, was shifted last month by prison authorities after receiving direction from Peshawar High Court to adopt security measures for protecting him.

A division bench comprising Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan on August 4 had directed Prison Superintendent Masoodur Rehman to hold a meeting with human rights activist Rakhshanda Naz and find a solution for safety and security of Ansari, The Nation reported.

Ansari was attacked and injured three times over the last couple of months and shifted to the hospital for treatment, the counsel added. He said even the head warden would subject him to brutality and slap him on a daily basis without any reason.

Anwar said that Ansari lodged a complaint about this with the superintendent. Superintendent of the prison Masoodur Rehman confirmed the incidents but insisted they're of minor nature and that such incidents did happen in prisons.

Rehman also told the bench that Ansari, who was serving three years jail term, had been kept in the death cell. Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed on January 13 that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court.

He was convicted by the military court for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

PTI
TMC leader Madan Mitra released from jail

Kolkata

oi-PTI

Kolkata, Sept 10: Senior Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra, who is in jail in Saradha scam case, was released from prison early on Saturday morning.

Mitra was released from Alipore jail at around 6.45 am and taken to a hotel in the southern part of the city within the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction as per the conditions set by the court for granting him bail after over 21 months in prison.

Mitra could not be taken back to his residence as it is within Kalighat police station jurisdiction. "I'm very happy. I'm happy that I'll be with my family. I'm a civilised person and I'll abide all the conditions of the court. I'll not break the law. Now I'll take complete rest and enjoy my time with my family members and enjoy Durga Puja," Mitra said after his release.

"Time will prove my innocence," he added as his followers gathered outside the hotel and distributed sweets. Mitra's counsel said an appeal would be made to the court so that he could go to his residence.

"Because the court is closed today the plea will be made next week," his counsel Niladri Bhattacharya told PTI.

On Friday, Alipore sessions court granted bail to Mitra, a former transport minister, on two sureties of Rs 15 lakh each. He was directed to appear before the court on November 23, surrender his passport to CBI and appear before the CBI investigating officer once every week.

He was directed not to go out of the Bhowanipore police station jurisdiction area.

Mitra, who was arrested on December 12, 2014, was granted bail by a lower court last year. The TMC leader had surrendered before the court after his bail was cancelled by the Calcutta High Court on November 20 last year.

Former Union minister Matang Sinh is among those arrested in the case, while several TMC functionaries, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's close aide Mukul Roy, have been questioned. CBI had taken over the investigation in June, 2014 on the order of the Supreme Court.

PTI
A mother killed her four-month-old daughter as she wanted her second child to be a boy. Neha Goyal stabbed her daughter 17 times, slit her throat, wrapped her in blanket and hid her body in AC. During interrogation, she admitted that she was upset about having a second daughter.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has prohibited the use and carriage of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 smart phone on board aircraft. The decision has been taken after the news of its battery explosion or catching fire popped up. The ministry has advised airlines and passengers not to turn on or charge the smartphone during flights.
Mehbooba Mufti gets notice to vacate official bungalow 'meant for J&K CMs'

Accession Day: Valley lights up on this day when J&K became part of India

Kashmir Valley shut for 62nd consecutive day

Srinagar

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Srinagar, Sep 8: Authorities made heavy deployment of security forces in Srinagar and other areas of the Kashmir Valley on Thursday as life remained paralysed for the 62nd consecutive day, officials said.

A senior police officer said deployment of security forces in sufficient strength have been made in old city and uptown areas of Srinagar and other parts of the valley.

Government backtracks as J&K separatists raise "Go India Go Back" slogans

"Curfew has not been imposed anywhere in the valley on Thursday," the officer said.

The militants attacked Pulwama police station in the early hours of Thursday.

Police said there were exchange of fire between the militants and security forces for around 15 minutes after which the militants escaped.

The militants also snatched and decamped with four weapons from the residential guards of a regional National Conference (NC) block president in D.H. Pora village of Kulgam district.

For the last 62 days, educational institutions, main markets, public transport and other businesses have remained closed in Kashmir Valley.

Seventy-six people including 73 civilians and three policemen have been killed during the ongoing cycle of violence that started on July 9.

Separatists have been issuing weekly protest calendars during this period asking people to continue the protest shutdown. They have issued a fresh protest calendar extending the shutdown and protests till September 16.

They have asked people to march to the office of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) in Srinagar city on September 13, the day Muslims would be celebrating the holy festival of Eid-ul-Azha.

IANS
Accession Day: Valley lights up on this day when J&K became part of India

We will kill you after Eid: JeM's stern message to 25 Kashmiris

Srinagar

oi-Vicky

Srinagar, Sept 10: The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) has released a kill list. In a video released, the JeM threatens to kill 25 people in Jammu and Kashmir who are with the Indian government.

The militant names 25 people out of which 5 are members of the PDP, the party that rules Jammu and Kashmir along with the BJP.

Talking to J&K separatists not an option for Centre

While invoking the slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, the man in the video posing beside a gun with his face covered says that he will give a deadline until Eid following which the group would execute 25 people in the Valley.

He says that if these people do not stop associating with the Indian government, then they will all be killed.

We give you time until Eid, the terrorist in the video is also heard saying. He further states that the JeM will take the protests to a logical end.

Further the terrorist calls on the people of Kashmir to thwart the actions of the Indian government which he always refers to as the enemy. He says that those associated with the Indian government must immediately seek forgiveness of God and join the cause of the JeM failing which they will all be killed.

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Three older siblings bond with their teenage half-sister in the Japanese drama "Our Little Sister."
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Uber wants to build a border wall across the future--and it wants Uber drivers to pay for it!

(Image by Idobi (flipped)) Details DMCA



"Everything that can be automated, will be automated."

Once an edgy and shocking thing to say, this has become a truism today. Take, for example the relative lack of surprise shown in the media by Uber's recent announcement that it will be rolling out a fleet of driverless taxis in Pittsburgh in the near future. We've been hearing about the coming of self-driving cars so long that at this point, they just seem inevitable. Or, to give the reaction of an Uber driver, disappointed about her impending replacement:

"Wo-o-o-o-w," Cynthia Ingram said. "We all knew it was coming. I just didn't expect it this soon."

Scholars and journalists debate what the impact will be of the expected new wave of automation. Will there be a "jobocalypse," or "robopocalypse," in which every job "below the algorithm" is destroyed, the middle class eviscerated, and a greater divide is created between the haves and have-nots? Or more hopefully, will automation simply lead to the creation of more jobs, and a higher standard of living in a new "second machine age?" Or are we all being a bit too credulous, worrying about changes that will in fact be very slow, never actually happen, or even just turn out kind of lame?

(For the time being, ironically enough, Uber's driverless fleet will actually increase employment, by replacing your single UberX driver (an independent contractor who is lucky if they are bringing in minimum wage with their ridesharing "gig") with two test engineers (who will be better paid, and unlike all Uber drivers, will receive employee benefits).)

Futurists can debate until they're blue in the face; there's something important that they're all missing with this focus on what will happen in a fully automated future. It's time we paid more attention to something that all this concern about the future tends to obscure: the effect which all this planned automation has today, here and now.

The most dangerous effect which the threat of automation has today is as a border wall across the future.

You're all familiar with the nut-case US presidential candidate who wants to "build a wall" along the entire border with Mexico. His is only the latest in a long series of such plans to "keep out immigrants" by "securing our borders." But what does such border security really bring about? Border walls (and fences, and checkpoints, etc.) don't really keep out all the migrants. If they did, the effect on those sectors of the American that depend on migrant labor would be catastrophic. If border walls actually kept everyone out, they would be opposed, not just by bleeding hearts and leftists, but by powerful capitalist interests as well. Instead, what border walls are meant to do is to keep migrant workers desperate and intimidated--to make them more malleable and servile than they would be, if they could come and go more freely.

And that is exactly the effect which plans for automating work are having today. The point is not actually to replace actual human workers, but to threaten workers with replacement. Whatever the long-term effects of automation will be, right now it is all about undermining the will and determination of workers to organize and take control of their own working conditions.

It's no accident that Uber, of all tech companies, is leading the charge to automate their workforce. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has long been clear about his goal to get rid of drivers, who he dismisses as "the other dude in the car." And no wonder: almost all of the biggest existential challenges to Uber's business model stem from its strained relationship with drivers. Uber drivers are angry with the company for lowering rates, for refusing to include a tip option, and for giving more preference to passengers than to drivers. All across the country, there are moves to unionize Uber drivers. And most significantly, drivers have mounted court cases which may end up forcing Uber to recognize their protected status as employees instead of independent contractors, which at the very least would end up costing the company an expensive settlement, and at the most could completely undermine the already shaky belief of Uber investors that they will someday be getting back their money.

So you can be sure that that sense of disappointment expressed by the Uber driver above is all part of the plan. Like a border wall across the future, the threat of impending automation is being used to dissuade Uber drivers from seeing a future in their work, and to undermine their sense of purpose in organizing to gain greater power over their own workplace. If automation is inevitable, why bother? The result is just what Uber (and Target, and Lowe's) really wants: a more docile and less critical workforce, here and now.

(Article changed on September 10, 2016 at 12:15)
Reprinted from Empire Burlesque

(My latest column for the print version of CounterPunch.) O dark dark dark, they all go into the dark, the vacuous, vacuumous void of the imperial penumbra: the rock-ribbed dissidents, fiery oppositionists, staunch anti-imperialists, eminent afflicters of the unjustly comfortable; the lifelong exposers of ideological bullshittery, distinguished voices decrying repression and hate, chairmen of many activist committees, generous denouncers of profiteering, brave and battered souls who put their bodies upon the gears of the odious Machine again and again -- all go into the dark. They bow their heads and say to the Machine, at last: protect us.

This year has seen depressing recurrences of a syndrome first exhibited -- in typically brazen form -- by Christopher Hitchens in the first days after 9/11: stalwart figures of political dissent submitting reluctantly (or in Hitchens' case, gleefully) to the power of the militarist American state as the only force capable of mounting a last-ditch defense of humanist values against the imminent, overwhelming existential threat of Islam.

Some of these coat-turning figures are the usual "reformists" and careerists whose "dissent" was always epidermis-deep; their submission to the state rates nothing more than bemused scorn. But what of someone like Bill Blum, who has informed and inspired so many of us for decades with his uncompromising insights into the true nature of the odious Machine as it has chewed its way around the world, killing millions, spouting lies, fomenting extremism, repressing freedom at home and abroad? If Blum too could succumb to Hitchenitis, would such a blot not seem "like a second fall of man"?

And yet it has come to pass. The terrorist atrocity in Nice was apparently the last straw for Blum. After that horrific attack -- by a mentally troubled, wife-beating, doped-up wretch who, it seems, might have been preyed upon by Islamic extremists in the same way the FBI picks troubled souls to foment terror plots it can then "foil" (or not) -- Blum declared that it was time to drop "political correctness" and "support Western military and economic power to crush the unspeakable evil of ISIS."

Well, I suppose if the wielders of "Western military and economic power" were not actively pursuing -- with copious amounts of energy, arms and money -- strategies which they know exacerbate the "radical Islamic terrorism" that Blum apparently believes everyone but he and Pam Geller are too scared to mention, there might be the sliver of an argument in this position. A specious argument, to be sure -- "the problems caused by violent Western intervention can be solved by more violent Western intervention" -- but an argument nonetheless.

But as Blum himself has detailed with devastating accuracy over the years, the United States and its allies have enabled such forces for decades. And it has been evident for years that their main objective in Syria is regime change, not the defeat of ISIS. It's also been evident -- as Blum has documented -- that they don't give a rat's ass about "radical Islamic terrorism" except as a means to advance their foreign and domestic agendas: supporting it here, opposing it there, ignoring the monstrous consequences and laughing all the way to the bank.

But Blum doesn't stop with supporting military action against ISIS. He wants a full-bore campaign of domestic repression launched against all Muslims within reach of those ever-benevolent Western powers. Blum says Muslim culture "must be severely curtailed. The West must oversee the classes in Islamic schools in France, the UK, the US, et al ... Even if it means sending spies into the classes, outfitted with recording devices. The teachers of these classes, if they have any connection at all to anything smacking of radical Islam ... should be fired."

(Maybe these new civilization-saving spies can pass along the names of suspect teachers to the White House for consideration on those "Terror Tuesdays" when the president decides who will be arbitrarily murdered that week by the protectors of humanist values.)

And even if, as in many cases, "the perpetrator of some horrible terrorist act was not even religious or never attended a mosque," it doesn't matter, says Blum. The mere fact that they might have been "raised in the atmosphere" of "Muslim culture or environment" is enough to justify subjecting every Muslim to repression, surveillance or even "purging." (This despite the fact that Muslims are, overwhelmingly, the chief victims of radical Islamic terrorism -- and of "Western military and economic power" as well.)

Blum says he knows all about Western atrocities -- Iraq, Vietnam, Hiroshima -- but ISIS is worse than all of this, presumably because of that irredeemable "Muslim culture or environment." So we must now support the Machine -- the "culture or environment" of American militarism -- that perpetrated those atrocities in order to destroy a group that would not exist without the interventions of "Western military and economic power." We must take it on trust that after decades of the brutal, inhuman, murderous operations documented by Blum, this Machine, this murderous system, will now save our "values" from destruction.

I'll continue to read (and re-read) Blum's work with respect and attention, as always. But it's sad to see him enter this shadowland, where the shade of Hitchens is sitting by the wraith of Whittaker Chambers and chuckling, "What took you so long, Bill?"
World Trade Center building on 9/11 prior to its collapse

Tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

As we know it's led to the global war on terror, endless war, occupations, the "unitary" executive where by anything the president does is made "legal" by Justice Department memos but kept secret for reasons of national security, indefinite detention under the cover of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) that gives the president the sole right to detain anyone indefinitely-including American citizens-until the end of hostilities (essentially forever), extraordinary rendition, NSA surveillance of all electronic communications, to recite just a few of the terrible consequences brought about since that fateful day.

I recommend two timely articles, one by John W. Whitehead titled, "The Tyranny of 9/11, The Building Blocks of the American Police State A-Z" [1] and the other by Paul Craig Roberts titled, "The Tide is Turning, The Official Story is Now The Conspiracy Theory" [2] . These articles not only challenge the "official" story of that day but also what has happened to our so called "democracy" ever since. These are must reads. That is if one chooses to face reality, not retreat into a state of amnesia or become ostrich like keeping ones head in the ground because it's all too terrible to assimilate-which is just what the "deep state" wants the people to do.

Unless "we the people" come face to face with this reality there is no way we can change it.

We must see "official" government pronouncements- then regurgitated ad nauseam by the corporate MSM as unassailable truth- as simply propaganda meant to deceive us, particularly after some domestic act of terrorism -real or false flag-to make us fearful, demand the government protect us.

Of course all challenges to the "conventional wisdom" is ridiculed as conspiracy theory, from kooks, frauds, haters of America, radicals, anarchists all to make them seem fools to be dismissed out of hand.

Much of what's been done is often subtle, imperceptible-hidden surveillance cameras, "back doors" to computers, monitoring cell phones, emails, text messages et al.

This false idea, " Well I haven't done anything wrong so I don't have anything to worry about", say dismissing the NSA's data mining surveillance of all electronic messages is essentially ceding away your 4th Amendment right against "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government.

Now lately, the seeming obsession with the Smartphone provides what appears to be the perfect distraction. How about distracted from the sinister machinations the government pursues domestically and all over the world?

Whether these devices were intentionally developed as the perfect distraction is hard to determine but from all public visual accounts it seems to be the case.

Add to this "witches brew" the current presidential extravaganza, the current ongoing distraction between the "Hilleartor" Hillary Clinton and the "Donald" Trump whose outcome won't change anything, just a continuation of the same.

The government and its complicit enablers in the corporate MSM abetted by the financial/ security/surveillance/military/industrial/political complex "deep state" is doing everything to make us passively indifferent, insouciant and from all appearances seems to be "successful" in a Machiavellian way.

But there are "stirrings" of conscious awareness both here and abroad-"Occupy", the initial "Arab Spring", the recent "Bernie" campaign exposing much of the rot, the British "Brexit", the earlier-though failed- Greek referendum for "Grexit" rejecting austerity and debt peonage, apparent rejection of the TTIP and TPP trade measures that would have governments cede their sovereignty to corporations, rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, resistance to fracking by local communities nationally, now the ongoing protest and encampment at the Sacred Stones Camp at Standing Rock, North Dakota where indigenous native Americans from 80 tribes and supporters are camped out against the Dakota Pipeline for desecrating ancient burial sites of the Sioux nation on land that was granted to them by treaty in 1851-all this and other resistance against the reign of the 1%, their neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism, austerity and debt peonage and hegemony over the rest of us.

Meanwhile internationally Russia and China are provoked, Russia with NATO expanding to its borders and China in the South China Sea with the US ruse of protecting "freedom of navigation"-something China has never interfered with. Now close allies militarily but preferring economic development they present a formidable challenge to US imperialism.

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Portland's biggest literary name, Ursula Le Guin, has ascended to a rare level of authordom: She's now among a handful of living authors published by the Library of America, whose catalog primarily features historical names such as Herman Melville, Willa Cather, James Baldwin and Walt Whitman.

Library of America's publisher, Max Rudin, said its mission is to recognize writers "who are indisputably part of the American canon" and who "stretch our imagination of what great American writing is." He said, "Ursula Le Guin's writing has reconceived the literary aspirations, and redefined the expressive possibilities, of every genre she's touched."

Library of America this week released "Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Orsinia" (592 pages, $35), which editor Brian Attebery said will be the first volume of several collecting the 86-year-old author's most notable works, including her science fiction.

Attebery, a professor of English at Idaho State University who has known Le Guin since the late 1970s and was her co-editor on "The Norton Book of Science Fiction," said the publication of "Orsinia" coincides with a "real resurgence of interest in Le Guin's work."

"It may be the fact that she's moved away from writing fiction and people are starting to say, well, if she's not going to do more novels and stories, maybe it's time to assess the whole body of work," he said.

The "Orsinia" collection represents roughly the first half of that body of work. "Before she was a science fiction writer or a fantasy writer, this is what she was doing," Attebery said.

Orsinia is a fictional nation that Le Guin created while she was a student at Radcliffe College and whose history she traces from the Middle Ages to the time of the Soviet Union's collapse; the new book features her hand-drawn maps of the country. In her introduction to the new anthology, she describes how she began imagining Orsinia:

"An unimportant country of Middle Europe. One of those Hitler had trashed and Stalin was now trashing. ... A land not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland, but let's not worry about borders. ... Like Rumania, maybe, with a Slavic-influenced but Latin-descended language?"

The resulting novels and stories, Attebery said, "express something really powerful about the state of the world in the 1950s and '60s and (through) the Velvet Revolution," the 1989 rebellion against Communism in Czechoslovakia.

"It's a deeply compassionate set of stories," he said. "It says something about how people endure history."

Le Guin, who was not available for interviews this week, told The New York Times last month that the Library of America, a nonprofit organization that works to preserve and promote the American literary canon, had wanted to start anthologizing her works with her science fiction. But she insisted on the Orsinia writings.

"I don't want to be reduced to being 'the sci-fi writer,' " she said.

"Someone who pigeonholed me firmly will say, 'What the hell?' But that's their problem," she added.

Fans of her sci-fi novels such as "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" will have their opportunity to read that work as a whole, eventually.

Attebery said, "We're now looking at the science fiction, what's called the Hainish universe" - Le Guin's novels and stories about an alternate, future history in which the world of Hain is the source of an interstellar human race. "Two volumes of that are in the works."

More Le Guin is on the way from other publishers as well.

Her classic dystopian short story "The New Atlantis" - set in Portland - appears in an anthology to be published Oct. 25, "This Way to the End Times: Classic Tales of the Apocalypse," edited by Robert Silverberg (Three Rooms Press, 468 pages, $19.95).

And a new edition of her "Earthsea" fantasy series is in the works, with illustrations to come from Charles Vess, known for his collaboration with Neil Gaiman on "The Sandman" comic book series, Attebery said.

Though Le Guin's Orsinia work may be lesser-known, it shares an overarching theme with her science fiction and fantasy, Attebery said.

"Like all of her work, there's a little utopian streak in it," he said. "It's not as if she's constructing this sort of mechanistic, perfect world - it's more the idea of utopias as glimpses of the possible moments of hope. That's what keeps me reading the Orsinia stories: those moments of insight into another way of living, another way of being in the world."

-- Amy Wang

awang@oregonian.com

503-294-5914

@ORAmyW

An earlier version of this post misspelled Library of America publisher Max Rudin's name.
money.JPG

How do you avoid looking ungrateful or greedy when asking for more money after a job offer?

(The Associated Press)

Q: I got an offer for my first full-time job, and the salary is lower than I expected. Should I ask for more money?

A: I didn't negotiate salary at my first two jobs after college. The first was a government position with a set salary limit. When I got the offer for my second job, at a nonprofit, I'd been out of work for months and was desperate to move out of my parents' house. I took the first offer the organization gave me, which came out to about $25,000 a year after taxes -- not much to live on in New York City.

My hasty acceptance became more of a problem the longer I worked there. My raises were based on the original salary I hadn't negotiated. Eventually I was earning less than my peers at the nonprofit, many of whom had negotiated for higher starting salaries and gotten raises on top of those. I got a conciliatory "salary bump," but I didn't feel much better. I was embarrassed that I hadn't spoken up for myself, and I could barely save a dollar after paying for rent, food and student loan bills.

Let my experience be a lesson to you: Whether you're a man or a woman, a new grad or a career changer, you should negotiate when your employer offers you less money than you know you should be paid.

So why is it so hard to ask for more money? Maybe you're worried, like I was, that it will make you seem greedy and ungrateful, or that the company will withdraw its offer. Maybe you have no idea how to start the conversation.

Nearly 60% of all workers surveyed by the career website Glassdoor in May 2016 took the first salary offer they received at their current or most recent job. Women were even less likely to negotiate than men: 68% of women didn't negotiate, compared with 52% of men.

"The particular challenge is that we're not necessarily taught how to do this," says Lisa Ernst, executive director of Savvy Ladies, a New York-based nonprofit that offers financial education for women. It can be especially hard for women to negotiate, she says, because "they don't want to be seen as aggressive and unlikeable."

Some employers, like my first, have salary bands they can't or won't budge on. But in most cases, hiring managers expect you to negotiate. I negotiated salary at my third job, and I survived -- and got more money.

Only 6% of employers said they were never willing to negotiate with entry-level employees, according to a survey conducted last year by my company, NerdWallet, and the recruiting platform LookSharp. Three out of four employers said they were not only willing to negotiate, but had room to increase their initial salary offers by 5 to 10%.

To figure out how much you're worth, look up the average starting salary in your role where you live. Ask the career services director at your school, alumni in your field and connections you've met at industry conferences what the going rate is for recent graduates in the job you've applied for. Check online resources like PayScale. Come up with a baseline number and decide you'll negotiate if you're offered less.

Then practice what you'll say if the offer is less than what you want -- do it with a friend, a pet or while looking in the mirror. Your script should include gratitude, excitement at the job opportunity and a specific counteroffer. Most importantly, say why you deserve more and focus on the value you'd bring to the company.

For example, your response could follow this model: "Thank you for the offer, and I couldn't be more excited to join this company and to contribute to the team. Taking into account the market rate for this area, I believe that [insert amount] is more in line with my skills and experience."

Done respectfully and with research to back it up, negotiating will make you look good. A full 76% of employers told NerdWallet and LookSharp that new grads who negotiated seemed confident, while only about 25% said they seemed entitled. Besides, if your potential company rescinds its offer over a request for an extra $5,000 a year, maybe it wouldn't be all that delightful to work for anyway.

Brianna McGurran is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: bmcgurran@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @briannamcscribe.

This article originally appeared onNerdWallet.

-- Nerdwallet
Police siren

A shooting near Estacada left one person with life-threatening injuries, deputies said.

(The Oregonian/OregonLive/file)

UPDATE: The victim died after being taken to OHSU Hospital in Portland by Life Flight. The man has been identified as Dominick James Perry, 38, of Portland.

Clackamas County sheriff's deputies are looking for a suspect in a Saturday morning shooting near Estacada.

Deputies were called to a disturbance off Southeast Wilcox Road just before 9 a.m. Saturday, according to the sheriff's office.

They found one person suffering from a gunshot wound, deputies said, and the suspect had left the scene.

Detectives are still combing the crime scene for evidence.

They are also looking for a white 1996 Ford pickup with Oregon license plate 902AJZ. Anyone who sees this vehicle is asked to call 911 immediately.

The sheriff's office said the shooting appears to be an isolated incident.

-- Emily E. Smith

esmith@oregonian.com

503-294-4032; @emilyesmith
Portland Public Schools' interim superintendent ordered Benson High School under a lockout, a scene with police officers stationed outside, to keep a protest led by hundreds of Lincoln High students Wednesday from spreading.

A picture of school resource officers at Benson made the rounds on Facebook, soon after Lincoln kids took the streets to protest the school board's decision to postpone a $750 million construction bond until May. Some Lincoln students had walked to Benson after protesting in Pioneer Courthouse Square and Portland City Hall.

Parents, students and board members quickly began asking why students at an affluent school appeared free to protest while a school serving less-privileged students seemed to be holding students hostage.

School board member Paul Anthony, who has three children at Benson, said his kids didn't know whether police were outside because of the protest or nearby criminal activity.

"To me it looked bad," said Anthony, who voted to put the bond on the November ballot. "It gives every appearance that the district was allowing the students at our wealthiest and whitest school to stage a walkout and a cross-city protest -- which was a great thing and I'm happy they did that -- but when it comes to one of our poorest and most diverse schools, the response is a lockout and a police line."



The district Friday insisted the lockout, called by superintendent Bob McKean, wasn't meant to keep Benson students from leaving. Spokeswoman Courtney Westling said students were free to join peers from Benson.



"I just think it's easy to misperceive a situation. Basically what we were trying to do was protect the kids in Benson High School," McKean said. "We just couldn't allow 800 kids to go through the school. We had no intent to not allow the students not to join."



McKean said the lockout wasn't meant to keep Benson students from leaving and he wasn't sure how the police presence came about, but that it wasn't meant to be threatening.



Instead, the lockout was meant to keep Lincoln students and others out. Some of the police officers came from Lincoln, Westling said, following students to Benson.

But students and parents say it was far from clear Benson students could walk out without risking arrest from one of the officers lining the entrance to their school. Activists say the controversy lays bare one of their biggest complaints with district officials: poor communication with the public.

"Benson students are passionate about this issue and did want to join the protest," Michael Ioffe, the protest's lead organizer, wrote in an email exchange with district officials and school board members.

"The fact that Benson students weren't accurately and comprehensively informed about this issue," he wrote, "speaks more to the board's lack of communication and transparency with students."

Ioffe, in an interview Friday, also criticized McKean's call for the lockout, saying it "directly blocks students' free speech."

"Lincoln students go to Benson for sporting events," Ioffe said. "They enter the building and it's fine. This was a non-violent protest. If there are eight police officers standing in front of the door -- you're not going to open the door and exit."



McKean said, because the situation unfolded quickly, there wasn't enough time to relay a clear message to the teens that they were free to join the protest.



He shared a letter signed by the Benson principal and the student body treasurer saying Benson administrators would have supported the students with more notice. They also urged "better communication between participating schools."



Anthony said he understood the urge to protect students and not have hundreds of extra kids streaming into Benson, but remained critical of the communication and still questioned the presence of police.



"It really eroded trust between the students and the administration," Anthony said. "I really don't buy it that there wasn't time to consider, to think it through."

The protest came after Lincoln students forced school board members to take up the bond measure at their regular meeting Tuesday night. The students wanted members to publicly explain why they suddenly decided in late July to push a $750 million construction bond off the fall ballot.

Money from the bond would remake Lincoln, Benson and Madison high schools and refresh and make safe Kellogg Middle School so it can reopen as needed. But in May, a districtwide lead crisis revealed a slew of other safety hazards that the district has yet to finish tallying.

Parents, student, principals and even board members pleaded with the board majority to reconsider almost until Thursday's deadline to place measures on the November ballot. In a letter last week, many said the measure would fare better with the anticipated high turnout of a presidential election.

But the board refused until Lincoln students on Tuesday threatened a sit-in.

The forced debate at Tuesday's meeting led to the board voting 4-3 to keep the bond aimed for May. The board also rejected requests to hold another meeting to allow for more community discussion before Thursday's deadline.

"We are very disappointed, as the voices of thousands of students and community members have been completely disregarded," wrote Ioffe in a press release Thursday night. "Although we encourage everyone to support a May bond, we also encourage everyone to have a serious discussion about the efficacy of their board members and the efficacy of their school district. This issue -- and the way it has been handled at the board-level -- represents a new low."

Although Lincoln students felt ignored by the board, they said plenty of anonymous Internet commenters took the time to engage -- seizing on Lincoln's relative affluence among Portland's high schools.

"One of the hard parts about being all over the news and everything is watching people comment about how entitled we are, and how we only care about ourselves and how we should just go back to class," said Lincoln student Julia Espinosa, 16. "It's not just about the 1,700 kids at Lincoln. It's the whole district."

Espinosa said some students marched to Benson because they know that protesting often requires privilege and said they wanted to bring resources to their peers.

Lincoln is 72.5 percent white, with just 6.6 percent of students listed as economically disadvantaged, according to 2015-16 enrollment data. Benson is 32.3 percent white, with 34.5 percent of students listed as economically disadvantaged.

Maia Abbruzzese, 17, said she doesn't put stock in the argument that Lincoln students are entitled for wanting asbestos tiles to stop falling from the ceiling.

Abbruzzese and Espinosa said they were both at Benson and didn't understand why the district appeared to be treating Lincoln differently than the poorer school that has more students of color.

"Nobody was really hearing us. We were there and we were speaking, but we had no impact basically," Espinosa said. "It felt like a pebble in an ocean."

UPDATE 5:50 PM: This story has been edited to clarify that interim Superintendent Bob McKean ordered the lockout outside Benson, where several police officers had stationed themselves Wednesday.

-- Bethany Barnes
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A panel from "This One Summer," by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

(Courtesy First Second)

Should you make your way to the Rose City Comic Con this weekend, track down a copy of "This One Summer" by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.

It's a memorable graphic novel, a Caldecott Honor award winner. And it's one more expressive reason why the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, set for the end of September, is still an annual event.

Awago Beach is the summer retreat for Rose Wallace and her parents, a cottage town where "everyone can sleep in until eleven," exhausted by the familiar. It's also a beach reunion with Windy, who is 18 months younger than Rose and not nearly as intrigued by the clerk at the town store.

This summer, however, nerves are on edge. Rose's parents are quarreling when they brush against one another. Someone is pregnant in the group of older teens who hang out behind the store.

If Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Canadian cousins, handle those subplots with thoughtfulness and grace, several school districts haven't.

After the parents of a third-grader in Longwood, Fla., complained about profanity in the book in February, the school district not only removed it from the elementary school but restricted access at three area high schools.

And in Henning, Minn., "This One Summer" was pulled from the library of a K-12 school in May after Superintendent Jeremy Olson declared the book "pervasively vulgar."

That's an infamous phrase - borrowed from a 1982 Supreme Court decision involving the works of Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver and Langston Hughes - and it is both vicious and absurd.

There's no nudity in "This One Summer," notes Charles Brownstein, executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:

"The profanity is the profanity of that age group. And the moral dilemmas addressed in the book are the moral dilemmas of that time of life."

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which moved its headquarters from New York to Portland in June, has defended First Amendment rights in the comics' world for the last 30 years.

In our digital age, libraries, bookstores and comic shops are still heated interchanges in disputes over the power of words and images.

Witness the case of Shakespeare Books & Antiques in Ashland. When store owner Judi Honore included a 1937 copy of "Little Black Sambo" in her banned-book display, Cynthia Rider, executive director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, wrote to tell her the display was "hurtful and offensive."

Honore kept the display intact, so Rider instructed her staff to stay clear of the store in all festival-related purchases. At the end of August, the Ashland Daily Tidings reported, Honore announced the store would close as a result of that boycott.

Comics are mainstays on the American Library Association's annual list of the ten books most often challenged by parents hoping to ban or restrict them in libraries.

The 2016 list has two graphic novels: "Habibi" by Portland's Craig Thompson, and Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home."

And Raina Telgemeier's "Drama" topped the charts in 2015, thanks to a chaste kiss between same-sex middle-school characters.

Charles Brownstein

As Brownstein notes, "This One Summer" ran into trouble when it became the first graphic novel to receive the Caldecott Honor.

"Because it was acknowledged on the Caldecott short list, it was automatically bought for lower grade collections that it wasn't appropriate for," Brownstein notes. "No one is arguing the book is appropriate for first-and-second graders, the way most Caldecott books are."

First Second, the publisher, recommends the book for readers 12 and up.

If I had a third-grader quoting liberally from "This One Summer," I, too, might have some questions. But how does that escalate into a panicked demand that the book be banned for everyone in the neighborhood?

"Are you really upset about the content of 'This One Summer, and that fact that it talks about teen pregnancy and miscarriage?" Brownstein asks. "Or are you worried about your kid at an age when these are legitimate issues?"

"If you as a parent don't want a book in your home, that's your right. That's a matter of how you raise your children," Brownstein adds.

"But one individual doesn't have a right to determine how a community raises its kids."

In Florida and Minnesota, cooler heads eventually stumbled on to the same conclusion. "This One Summer" was returned to the unrestricted high-school shelves in Florida. In Henning, high-schoolers can access the graphic novel only with parental permission.

While she appreciate that "all publicity is good publicity," Mariko Tamaki writes in an email, "It is a bummer to think there are kids who are having books pulled from the shelves of their libraries, especially when that's where kids get access to so many different kinds of reading experiences."

Especially when the words and pictures are so marvelously joined.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com
Over-pumping Harney County, Draining Oregon Day 2, draining oregon day 1

A high-powered wellhead stands sentinel near stacked hay bales in Harney County.

(Mark Graves/Staff)

State regulators approve permits for wells in Oregon even as they suspect there isn't enough water in some areas to keep pace.

A permit application might state it "cannot be determined" whether enough ground water existed for the well. Yet time and again, Oregon Water Resources Department managers approved the application.

The lax regulatory culture is so engrained, some farmers and ranchers began pumping their wells before submitting an application.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reporters Kelly House and Mark Graves detailed the galling practice in a recent four-part series "Draining Oregon."

They showed how the department failed to measure and protect the resource it was tasked to manage and in turn, potentially put fish, animals and the communities that rely on the water at risk. As it stands - and whether or not it's sustainable - the state has approved farmers and ranchers to drain nearly 1 trillion gallons of Oregon's underground reserves annually.

The practice of approving wells in untested basins must stop. And state lawmakers must act quickly to focus on the crisis they've failed to address for years.

House, who has since left The Oregonian/OregonLive, reported how department managers for years ignored warnings by their own hydrogeologists. She found that Water Resource leaders had caved to pressure from lawmakers and interest groups.

The pressure is understandable and so great that in 2013, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber backed away from a solid plan to create a stable funding source for the department with fees on those holding water rights.

Department leaders defend their actions by saying they didn't have the money or staff to do the research necessary to determine whether they should deny permits and defend their decisions. And yet they once offered up the small amount of research money they had for a potential budget cut.

More than a dozen Oregon basins remain a mystery, and research must be done as soon as possible to determine their water levels. Oregonians need to know how much water is available to make responsible decisions about how to tap the aquifers deep underground.

Many environmental emergencies are amorphous and need global attention. The need for water is among them. Yet this small piece of the problem is not so complicated.

The Water Resources Department estimates that between $45 million and $75 million is needed to complete the necessary research. House reported that a $100 annual fee on all water-rights holders along with federal matching money and some new employees could pay for the job that could be completed within five years.

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At the department's current pace, the research wouldn't be done until 2096.

Lawmakers, who have scheduled a September hearing on the issue, must require the scientific reviews and lock in a funding mechanism to make it happen. They'll likely face pushback on ideas involving fees for water-rights holders. But as long as fees remain minimal, it's a small price to pay to protect their own interest in those potentially stressed basins.

Lawmakers also should look north and consider setting higher standards for well approvals. Washington doesn't allow a new well if it would cause any harm to a stream that's already hurting for water, House wrote. Oregon's standard is when harm to streams would be "substantial."

What's most frustrating about this situation is how many of those likely to be affected are farming and ranching communities that have faced declining economies for years - often, they feel, because of government regulation.

Some of that regulation was necessary to protect some lands and various species.

But the Water Resources Department's reluctance to regulate may have set up a situation in which some of the unmapped basins may already be dangerously low and water rights might have to be rescinded.

Lawmakers must launch serious work on the issue in September with the goal to accelerate the pace of basin research that can provide more clarity to all. If not, the anger and distrust that already divides our state is likely to deepen among those Oregonians who have built their lives on the land.
school scene.JPG

Agreeing on educational priorities is every community's social and political challenge.

(Staff/File)

By Bill Lamb

God bless Sue Hildick ("Bolstering the teaching profession will lift public education in Oregon - Opinion," Sept. 7). She has cared for so long about making things better educationally for Oregon school kids. But it seems to me that she is missing her own points.

First, the easy one. Absolutely, research into teacher effectiveness has advanced over the last three decades. We know enough about how teachers should interact with kids to promote particular outcomes. If we decide to help teachers learn those identified strategies, we can do so. Only money and determination are standing in our way. Raising "the teaching profession to elevate school performance," as The Oregonian's print headline on Hildick's commentary stated, is clearly within our grasp if we want to invest in pre-service, in-service, and teacher apprenticeship education -- all of which we know how to do.



But Hildick misses her most important point. She talks about establishing an administrative solution to our school achievement woes. But administration is not the primary barrier, even though we teachers constantly complain about administration. We can create an effective educational system, but only if we agree on the fundamental goals: Education for what?

Hildick mentions reading, science and math achievement compared with other countries but ignores that we do not, as a nation or a state, agree on what educational goals we should strive for. As a society, we have fundamental disagreements about educational goals.

My expertise is in teaching science and math, and I can assure you that our citizens do not agree on science and math learning objectives. For example, a large segment of our society opposes application of, and belief in, the findings of science and math as they relate to the notion of global warming. That might be an attack on conservatives, but consider that there are "liberals" who choose to believe, despite evidence earned through the application of science and math, that vaccinations are ineffective and, even, evil.

Several decades ago, when I was teaching in a Mississippi public school instead of the more liberal and intellectual Oregon Episcopal School, I attempted to update my school's science curriculum. When I presented the plan to the school board, the chair said, "If I understand correctly, you are trying to teach the students to think for themselves." I replied in the affirmative -- at which point he said, "I'm not sure we want to do that." I have seen this spirit in liberal Oregon.

We are at a point in our national history when good people disagree with each other about what the overall goals of education should be. Should we teach students to be obedient automatons for incorporation into the multinational Borg? Should we teach students to think for themselves even if that means encouraging them to disagree with their teachers or, God help us, their parents and our politicians? Should education be job training? Should education exalt the human condition? Exactly what do we want? Hildick's opinion essay implies that all we need to do is put in place an appropriate system, including training our teachers in appropriate skills.

I know many teachers, both public and private. The rookies are full of opinions, but the veterans have a full suite of skills, and many of those veterans are also aware of and knowledgeable about the research on teacher effectiveness. The problem we teachers have might not be lack of professional expertise as much as a lack of public agreement on our goals. We are public servants, whether we teach in private, parochial or public schools. We are not magicians. We cannot be all things to all people.

If you want us to teach students to read, we can do that. But we can't do it effectively if you insist that what students read matches your political and religious preconceptions.

If you want us to teach science, we can do that, but we can't do that if you insist that we can't address evolution or global warming or astrophysics. And if we are really doing our job with science teaching, we can't do that without teaching our students to question assumptions, including your political and religious assumptions.

We can teach math, but the research shows that the most effective way to do that engages students in thinking about what math means. Unfortunately, the math does not support everyone's political and/or religious beliefs.

Teachers and their administrators are politically whipsawed. They have to consider the "sensibilities" of numerous constituencies.

I have a lot of faith in the good will and professional expertise of teachers, and almost as much faith in the good will and professional expertise of administrators. But I think one of Hildick's fundamental assumptions goes undeveloped. We have no political or social agreement about what education should accomplish. Until we can achieve that agreement, Hildick's Chalkboard Project will be without consequence.

*

Bill Lamb is a retired science teacher. He was for decades the Winningstad Chair in the Sciences at Oregon Episcopal School and is a former president of the Oregon Science Teachers Association. He lives in Portland.
Colin Kaepernick

When asked why he would not be stand for the national anthem, Kaepernick did not back down to critics or apologize for his actions. In fact, he doubled down.

(Ben Margot/Associated Press)

HOT BUTTON: We'll ask a new and specific question each week and promptly publish a representative sample of readers' answers.

Today's question: Do you approve or disapprove of Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest?

Deadline for responses: 3 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Email to letters@oregonian.com. (Feel free to comment below -- we encourage it! -- but posted comments will not be considered for publication in our Hot Button letters section.)

Limit responses to 250 words. Letters must contain the author's name, address and contact information. Selected letters will be published this Wednesday, Sept. 14.
Fabu, Madisons former poet laureate, is a consultant in African-American culture and arts. She writes a monthly column for The Capital Times. fabu@artistfabu.com
MADISON - Walter S. Chmielewski, age 88, passed away on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, at Meriter Hospital. He was surrounded by his loved ones. He was born on Oct. 12, 1927, in Saginaw, Mich., to Stefan and Anna (Cegielski) Chmielewski. He had one younger brother, Jerome, who was his best friend throughout life. Despite being miles apart throughout most of their lives, they wrote each other weekly and talked on the phone nightly.

Walter was a very hard working, dedicated and intelligent man. He loved to learn and was extremely well read in many areas. He worked his way through under graduate (Michigan State), graduate (University of Michigan) and doctoral school (West Virginia University) earning his PhD in mechanical engineering. He also served in the United States Marine Corps.

Over Walter's career he worked for Dow Chemical, General Electric for many years, the University of Wyoming, The Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, as a private consultant for the Mayor of Milwaukee and most recently as a Professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Platteville from 1981-1996. Teaching students was his passion.

Walter married Marcia Aldrich in April 1964 and together they had one daughter. Married for almost 25 years, and divorced for 20 years, they once again became friends and Walter was extremely supportive of Marcia in the last two years of her life. Walter was a proud member of the Polish Heritage Alliance of Wisconsin and the Polish Heritage Club in Madison.

Walter is survived by his daughter, Stefanie (Gordon "Fritz") Statz; his two grandsons, who were the love of his life, Nicholas and Matthew Statz; and many cousins in Michigan and Poland. He was preceded in death by his parents; former wife; and brother.

There will be no funeral service per Walter's wishes. For those who truly know Walter, you are smiling knowing this is "typical Walter".

Memorials may be made to the Polish Heritage Club of Madison, PO Box 45438, Madison, WI 53744-5438.

The family sends a special thank you to Michelle and Deb at All Saints Neighborhood as well as all his neighbors who "kept an eye on him" this past year. Please share your memories at www.CressFuneralService.com.
VERONA - Mary Alice Niebuhr of Verona, formerly Madison, age 95, passed away on Sept. 8, 2016, surrounded by her family. She was a 58 year breast cancer survivor, and survived other cancers throughout her years. Mary Alice was born on Oct. 14, 1920, and was the daughter of Daniel E. and Augusta (Herman) Grady.

She was united in marriage to Norman W. Niebuhr on July 7, 1943. Mary Alice was raised a block from St. Raphael's Church in Madison, where she attended school. She graduated 8th grade in 1934 and was a 1938 graduate of Central High School. She worked at Wisconsin State Employment Services as an accounting clerk until she started a family, at which point she stayed home to raise her children. After the children were all in school, she returned to work at Motor Transport Company, where she remained as an accounting clerk until they closed 21 years later. Mary was a member of St. Patrick Church for many years. Her children attended school there and then went on to graduate from Madison East High School.

Mary Alice was a member of the Elks Lodge Lady Auxiliary, American Legion Auxiliary, St. Mary's Hospital Auxiliary, and volunteered four years at the St. Mary's Hospital gift shop. She was also a member of Daughters of Isabella Circle of Beaver Dam, Dane County Shamrock Club and St. Bernard's Over 50 Club. Mary Alice enjoyed playing cards and bingo. She loved to cook and bake for her family and grandchildren - especially pies and cookies. Her hobby was sending greeting cards to relatives and friends for all occasions. In 1997 she travelled to Ireland with the Shamrock Club for a two week tour, where she hoped to find the county where her father was born.

Mary Alice is survived by two sons, John Niebuhr of Oceanside, Calif., and Steven (Cean) Niebuhr of Eagle River; and a daughter, Linda (Dick) Lyons of Verona; as well as her niece, Marie Fenske of Arizona. Mary Alice is also survived by her five grandchildren, Norman J. (Martha) Niebuhr of Idaho, Quincy (Lisa) Niebuhr of Cambria, Eric (Lyndsey) Niebuhr of McFarland, Shawn Lyons, a staff sergeant in the Army stationed in Fort Gordon, Ga.; and Dawn (Nick) Burke of Madison; as well as five great-grandchildren. Mary Alice is further survived by her precious cat, Shadow, and many other nieces, nephews and friends.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Norman in 1994 after 51 years of marriage; her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Niebuhr in 2001; her parents; her only brother, Daniel C. Grady; and nephew, Daniel H. Grady; as well as many other relatives and friends.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be at 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 12, 2016, at ST. ANDREW CATHOLIC CHURCH, 301 N. Main St., Verona, with Father William Vernon presiding. Visitation will be held from 12 noon until the time of Mass. Burial will follow at Roselawn Memorial Park, Monona.

Mary Alice was a loving, caring wife, mother, and grandmother who will be greatly missed. She will remain in our hearts forever.

Her family wishes to thank all the doctors, nurses and caretakers who cared for her throughout her remaining years.

An Old Gaelic Prayer

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, till the rains fall soft upon your fields. And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hands. To view and sign this guestbook, please visit www.ryanfuneralservice.com
If a proposed merger of Prairie du Sacs Badgerland Financial and two other financial associations focused on agriculture and rural interests is approved, it would create one of the largest Farm Credit organizations in the country.

Whats more important to Badgerland president and chief executive officer Diane Cole is how the extra service and other opportunities formed by the combined strengths of Badgerland, 1st Farm Credit Services, of Normal, Illinois, and AgStar Financial Services, of Mankato, Minnesota, will benefit all of their members.

Our goal is not to be bigger, it is to be better, she said.

Thats almost guaranteed for a new organization, based in Sun Prairie, that would cover a 144-county area of prime agriculture land and farms in southern and northwestern Wisconsin, southern and eastern Minnesota and northern Illinois, according to UW-Madison agricultural economics professor Bruce Jones.

Now youve got this nice diversified portfolio of ag loans. Youve got grain, youve got dairy, youve got hogs, youve got poultry. If one commodity is having trouble, the others should be doing well, Jones said. From the perspective of the new, merged financial institution, it should be able to have really good performance over time because of their diversification.

Farm Credit was established 100 years ago to help farmers and rural interests. It includes nearly 75 independently owned and operated organizations  all co-ops that are owned by their customers. Last year, Farm Credit organizations provided more than $235 billion in loans, leases and related services, which is more than a third of the credit needed by U.S. agriculture, according to farmcreditnetwork.com.

The combined total assets of the three companies involved in the proposed merger at the end of 2015 was $17.9 billion, which would make it the third largest Farm Credit organization in the country, according to data provided by Badgerland Financial. The only organizations with more year-end total assets were Farm Credit Services of America (Omaha) at $24.8 billion and Farm Credit Services of Mid-America (Louisville) at $22.1 billion, the data showed.

Total assets for Badgerland Financial, which covers 33 southern Wisconsin counties, was $3.9 billion. AgStar, which covers 69 counties in southern and eastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, was at $8.4 billion and 1st Farm Credit, which covers 42 counties in the northern half of Illinois, was at $5.6 billion, the data showed. AgStar president and CEO Rod Hebrink has been picked to head the new company if the merger is approved.

If theres a merger, I think theyll be very conscious in making sure they dont get so big that they forget about who they are serving, Jones said. They will regionalize and they will take advantage of expertise in dairy coming from Wisconsin, expertise from cash grain coming from Illinois, expertise in dairy and cash grain along with hogs and bio-energy in Minnesota. Theyll be able to understand the loans, theyll be able to go in and put together some very good loan packages and balance that risk across a bigger capital base and it should be good for all the members.

A merger would not decrease competition because, unlike supply co-ops, Farm Credit associations have chartered territories and do not overlap, according to Badgerland Financial spokeswoman Rochelle Ripp Schnadt.

Because we are all part of the Farm Credit system, we naturally collaborate and refer customers to each other based on these defined territories, she said.

For instance, all three organizations share core accounting systems through AgriBank, participate in the same input financing group and partner with Farm Credit Services of America in an equipment financing platform, Schnadt said.

The three organizations also combine to employ about 1,200 people and layoffs are expected to be low if the merger is approved, Cole said. The vast majority of these positions work directly with customers, and the impact on these customer-facing positions is anticipated to be minimal, she said.

Badgerland Financial got its start in the mid-1990s as Badgerland Farm Credit Services after Madison Farm Credit Association merged with Fond du Lac-based East Central Wisconsin Farm Credit. Jones was on the board of directors of the Madison Farm Credit Association and he said he left shortly after the merger.

In 1998, Heartland Farm Credit, based in Baraboo, joined Badgerland Farm Credit Services to create the cooperatives current 33-county territory. In 2008, the company rebranded to Badgerland Financial.

It has always been strong, it has always been well capitalized, Jones said. The membership has been loyal in terms of doing business with them.

The merger will be put to a vote of the stockholders of the three associations, most likely in the first quarter of next year, Schnadt said. The vote will follow a review and approval by AgriBank, and Farm Credit Administration.

Theres no question each of our associations have been successful over the years, and all three bring strengths to the new organization, Cole said. The process of identifying best practices and integrating the organizations will begin after the shareholder vote and will take time to accomplish.

The proposed merger isnt like those among farm credit associations during the farm crisis in the 1980s, Jones said. There was no need to do this, he said. This one is a case where the associations are looking at how (the merger) is going to benefit their membership. They are going to merge their capital, they are going to diversify their loan portfolio and, on the back end, there should be a very strong association.
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When Pastor Ken Hitch of St. Johns Episcopal Church first heard of the work being done by the Midland Chapter of the Nonviolent Peaceforce, he was intrigued.

With a background in crisis resolution, he knew they were doing important work in the community, and he wanted to be a part of it. So much so, that he has opened up the doors of the church so that the group can put on a workshop dealing with conflict resolution in the lives of everyday people.

That free workshop, called Let There Be Peace on Earth and Let It Begin with Me, will take place from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Sept. 17 and is open to the public. Registration is not required and light food will be available throughout the morning.

The session will be designed to show how participants can apply nonviolent resolution to conflict in their own lives, said Kathy McCreedy, a member of the peaceforce, the St. Johns congregation and the planning committee for this event.

The workshop leader is Anne Bachle Fifer, a mediator, facilitator, arbitrator and mediation trainer based in Grand Rapids. Fifer has vast experience in mediating business, family and workplace disputes, as well as church-based conflicts integrating Christian principles with the mediation process, McCreedy said.

In addition, she long has been a mediator, trainer and certified Christian conciliator with Peacemaker Ministries.

Hitch, who said he will be a participant at the session, said his interest in joining NP began last fall, after he heard the group talking during a tea at the Midland Country Club. He said that the session was about the international peaceforce training local citizens to be peacekeepers in their own community.

I thought that tactic was well thought out, very appropriate, calling on the locals to be ambassadors for peace, he said.

Hitchs foray into conflict resolution didnt start here. During his time in Essex, Vt., eight years as a pastor, he participated in conflict resolution training through the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center. While in Cincinnati, he helped with conflict resolution following race riots in that city, which resulted in tensions between the police and several local communities.

Citizens in the community of Cincinnati were concerned and gathered together, as well as clergy, to talk about community development, really providing opportunities, he said.

Hitch said he wants to become more active in NP and wants the church and its foundation as well to be more influential in the group.

I hope to get more involved and St. Johns to get more involved, he said. One of the visions I have for St. Johns is to really get out beyond our walls and to be involved in Gods work in the neighborhood and community.

McCreedy said the day should be enjoyable.

It seems like all we hear about these days is conflict and violence in our own country and around the world, she said. Our team wanted to have a workshop that would help us learn techniques for conflict resolution that are practical in our own lives. The workshop will be interactive and an enjoyable morning for those who are able to attend.

The Midland chapter was initiated in 2011 after Mel Duncan, the international president and co-founder, came to speak at First United Methodist Church.

We raise awareness of and support for this international NGO that since 2002 has been working to Transform the Worlds Response to Conflict, said Jeanne Schaller, organization president.

In 2015 Duncan returned when Memorial Presbyterian, along with chapter members, created a workshop entitled Responding to Bullying at which he connected the value of peaceforces dealing with international forms of bullying with Midlands local forms in schools, at work and on social media. Other leaders have also come, including Tiffany Easthom who headed peaceforces program in South Sudan and is now the international CEO. This past February, Marna Anderson, from the Minnesota office spoke at the Tea for NP hosted by Paula Liveris with over 200 attendees.

The group also works with youth, and three Midland High students are in the chapter.

In 2014 Meridian High teachers, Joe Ribarchik and Susan Sampson invited the peaceforce to teach conflict resolution to their World Studies students, so Randi Kawakita and Schaller created a program Lessons in Leadership  Students Crafting Solutions. This school year the peaceforce will work in six area schools with help from grants received from The Dow Chemical Co. Foundation.
A 17-year-old Midlander is serving a prison term of up to 7  years in a case filed against him after he made threats from the jail toward students at Midland High in December.

Corwen Jerome Adams was charged with one count of false report or threat of terrorism in connection with an incident that occurred Dec. 12, according to court documents. The charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The Midland County Prosecutors Office also levied fourth habitual offender notice against Adams, citing his prior adult felony convictions of first-degree home invasion, second-degree arson and unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle. Those convictions were in the case of a home that was broken into in March 2015 and ransacked, with various items stolen, and a police pursuit involving a truck stolen from the home.

Adams also faced a probation violation charge in connection with the previous adult felony case.

Adams, represented by attorney Richard Lee of Midland, entered a plea agreement calling for a guilty plea to an added charged of assault of a prison employee and a second habitual offender notice, in return for dismissal of false report or threat of terrorism and the habitual fourth offender notice.

Midland County Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Beale sentenced Adams to serve between 14 months and 7  years in prison, to be served consecutively to a parole violation sentence levied in the home invasion case.

The parole violation sentence, also set by Beale, is for between 34 months and 20 years in prison for each the first-degree home invasion and second-degree arson counts, and between 14 months and five years for vehicle theft.

Court papers state the parole violation resulting in the sentencing occurred when Adams failed to successfully complete programs at the Midland County Juvenile Care Center. He was moved from the juvenile care center to the jail for failure to complete programs and comply with rules.

The threats case was filed in connection with threats made from the Midland County Jail toward students at Midland High. Sheriff Scott Stephenson previously said deputies were sent to the jail after a computer in the kiosk at the jail was used to threaten to kill law enforcement officials as well as students.

The threats made toward the school using the jail kiosk were the first in a string of three involving the school in a short time in December. The remaining two involved threatening notes found on campus. The school was searched by police, and security was increased due to the threats.
Wisconsin's attorney general on Friday appealed the overturned conviction of a man accused of helping his uncle kill a woman in a case profiled in the popular Netflix series "Making a Murderer."

A federal magistrate judge ruled in August that investigators tricked Brendan Dassey into confessing that he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. The judge ordered that Dassey, who was 16 at the time of the killing, be freed within 90 days unless prosecutors appealed or decided to retry him.

Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel's office filed a notice of appeal with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, keeping the 26-year-old Dassey behind bars. Schimel didn't include any formal arguments for upholding Dassey's conviction; those will come later. Schimel issued a news release noting that two state courts have upheld Dassey's confession and Halbach's family supports the appeal.

"We believe the magistrate judge's decision that Brendan Dassey's confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law," Schimel said in the release. He did not elaborate.

Dassey's attorney, Steve Drizin, said he was disappointed in Schimel's decision to prolong Dassey's case by appealing.

"We look forward to continuing to defend his rights in court," Drizin said. "Like Brendan, we remain grateful to his many supporters for their continued loyalty and strength."

Halbach was killed on Halloween 2005, after she visited the Avery family's salvage yard in Manitowoc County to take pictures of a minivan. Investigators allege Avery lured her to the junkyard by asking her to take the photos.

Dassey confessed to helping his uncle, but his attorneys argued that his constitutional rights were violated throughout the investigation. Court documents describe Dassey as a slow learner who had poor grades and has difficulty understanding language and speaking.

Dassey was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault and mutilating a corpse. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2007.

Avery was convicted in a separate trial and also sentenced to life in prison. Avery made headlines in 2003, when he was released from prison after spending 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit. He had a $36 million lawsuit pending against public officials when Halbach disappeared. He is pursuing his own appeal.

Their cases gained national attention after Netflix aired "Making a Murderer" last year. The series raised questions about the legal process in the case, spawning widespread conjecture about the pair's innocence. Authorities who worked on the cases said the series was biased, but it generated a myriad of calls from the public to free both men.
NORMAL  Normal's medical marijuana dispensary is still a month away from opening, but customers got a look inside for the first time Friday.

After receiving notice that the facility's license will become active Monday, Denver, Colo.-based marijuana company The Green Solution hosted an open house at the 501 Northtown Road building, drawing local officials and potential patients alike. Once the license is in effect, most of the building will be closed to the public.

Employees led tours through the public waiting area into the dispensary's main room, where patients will wait in line before an agent helps them choose the right marijuana product for their medical needs. For instance, a multiple sclerosis patient might want a body-relaxing variety, but an Alzheimer's patient might want a "head high," said Tanya Griffin, TGS vice president of local expansion.

TGS sells marijuana products including flowers, a traditional plant version; edibles, which put marijuana into food, including candy and fruit; concentrates intended to be mixed with food or drink; and topicals, including oils and creams. The dispensary also will sell marijuana accessories, including pipes and T-shirts.

During a tour with a potential customer who asked not to be named, Griffin also spoke about recent changes to state law that will let patients get medical marijuana with a doctor's note verifying an eligible condition rather than a specific prescription.

Griffin said the company is still trying to open the facility as soon as possible, but employees need to receive training and state licensing beforehand. The dispensary was first slated to open in April but has been repeatedly delayed.

Griffin expects the facility to have 10 employees at opening with potential to adjust that number based on patient demand. An identical facility in Colorado can have up to 58 employees, she said.

TGS Illinois Inc., a subsidiary of the Colorado company, received the only retail dispensary license in Illinois' sixth state police district when licenses were awarded in 2014. The district serves DeWitt, Livingston and McLean counties.

TGS also will open a location in Sauget, a St. Louis suburb, this month, KMOX radio reported. That facility also has been repeatedly delayed.
BLOOMINGTON  Hundreds of yellow roses substituted for sunshine Saturday at the Komen Bloomington-Normal Race for the Cure.

Breast cancer survivors were handed a fresh flower as they crossed the finish line of the run-walk. Diane Swanson of Normal clutched a rose in honor of her mother, Margie Marquardt of Bloomington.

My mom is 88 and is undergoing radiation for spindle cell carcinoma, which is very rare in the breast. We are all running and walking for her, said Swanson. We have lost several family members to cancer and have one who is a survivor of ovarian cancer.

As she walked with more than 20 family members, Swanson's thoughts drifted to her mom.

I just cant help think of what a fighter she is. She has been through enough battles, but God is not done with her, she said.

More than 1,000 people turned out to raise money for breast cancer research and participate in the 5K race at the State Farm Corporate South campus in Bloomington, which was slightly delayed by early morning rain. Clouds gave way to sunshine near the end of the race.

Donations poured in Saturday; teams have 30 days to turn in final funds. Organizers estimated the total amount could reach $80,000 to $100,000 by the end of October.

With the proceeds, we do a competitive granting process, said Gayle Young, mission director for Susan G. Komen for the Cure memorial affiliate. Last year, we granted $550,000 to over 20 organizations throughout Central Illinois that provide breast health services, screenings and survivor support.

Young said the race always focuses on the survivors.

We want more survivors, said Young. Komen is the largest funder of breast cancer research outside the U.S. government. Research is critical to winning the race.

Ilya Beyer of Arrowsmith was the first to fly across the finish line at just over 18 minutes to cheers from spectators.

Ive got a handful of female friends who are breast cancer survivors. I thought running this race was the least I could do, said Beyer, 19. It makes me feel good to do something like this, especially when its something I enjoy, like running.

Morgan Marquardt, granddaughter of Margie Marquardt, brought her three children to support their great-grandma. She pushed Ryder, 4, and Harbour, 2, in a two-passenger stroller. Four-month-old Marin was strapped in a colorful baby carrier.

Its important they see this and they understand, said Marquardt of Bloomington. Its a way to love on Grandma and support her. Its a powerful experience to see people come together for this cause. There will be no cure if we dont stop fighting.

Gina Lavazza of Bloomington also received a rose at the finish line. She has been cancer-free for more than two years. Her journey started when she felt something abnormal on her breast and immediately called her doctor. The test results showed cancer.

It was before I was 40, before I needed to have regular mammograms. I was lucky to catch it, she said. I went through chemo, surgery and radiation. Im hoping to stay cancer-free and in the clear.

In previous years, Lavazza participated in the race and finished in the top five multiple times. This year, she decided to walk with her two kids, husband and father.

Seven-year-old Chloe Lavazza said, Shes the best mommy in the world and caring.

"She's amazing," added Ethan Lavazza, 8.

Before I was diagnosed, I thought it was just something that could happen to older women, said Lavazza. But you look around here today and see survivors of all ages, some even younger than me."

"I was a healthy, fit person. Regardless of your age or health, check yourself.

Officials recommend women, especially with a family history of cancer, to conduct monthly self-exams and yearly mammograms for those over 40.

"Breast cancer knows no bounds," she said. "Its young women, its older women, its women of color, no one is immune. We all know someone who has walked that walk and had to fight that battle. The race is an opportunity for people to come together as family, as coworkers, as friends and support survivors."

Event sponsors included Kroger, Radio Bloomington, The Pantagraph, OSF St. Joseph Medical Center, Bremer Jewelry and State Farm.
BLOOMINGTON  Scientists with the Illinois State Police crime lab testified Friday that their testing of an unusual DNA sample submitted in the Donald Whalen murder case could lead the FBI to sanction the agency.

Whalen is serving 60 years in the 1991 death of his father, William Whalen, whose badly beaten body was found in the former Twenty Grand Tap, a bar owned by the elder Whalen in downtown Bloomington.

Lawyers for Whalen with The Exoneration Project argued Friday that the state police must show why scientist Ann Yeagle should not be held in contempt of court for refusing to perform DNA tests as ordered by a judge in 2015.

Yeagle testified that the DNA sample submitted for testing did not meet quality assurance standards and could put the lab's accreditation at risk and subject it to sanctions by the FBI, which owns the software used by the state lab for DNA testing.

Yeagle said she did submit a request for testing that she believed was conducted as outlined in a report by defense expert Dr. Karl A. Reich. The DNA profile was created by Reich from three DNA samples from knives collected at the crime scene.

Yeagle said she first learned that the testing that was done did not conform to Reich's intentions when she spoke with defense and prosecutors in April.

The state has objected to further testing of the DNA sample.

Donald Parker, administrator of the state's DNA database for the state police, said he has consulted with the FBI about the sample, which he submitted for comparison to the database.

When asked by defense lawyer Elliot Slosar if the FBI intends to sanction the state, Parker said "it's at the discretion of the FBI. I can't tell you what they will do."

Judge Scott Drazewski continued the hearing to Nov. 23. More testimony is expected then on the possible contempt citation.

Drazewski told lawyers he wants to know what sanctions could be imposed by the FBI and if further testing could be performed on the DNA sample.

Yeagle testified that additional tests as specified by Reich's opinion could be done, if ordered by the court.

The DNA-related matters have been argued for about six years in the Whalen case. A 2011 opinion by the 4th District Appellate Court and referenced Friday by Drazewski ordered testing on the knives.

"Science may not always yield an answer, but it is a tool that ought to be used. Only defendant's unyielding persistence brings us to a place and time where there may be an answer. He deserves the opportunity to seek and find the answer," opined the appellate court.
SPRINGFIELD  Illinois fiscal health and its bond ratings arent the only things about the state that have been on the decline in recent years.

Another is the population of the state insect: the monarch butterfly.

The distinctive orange and black butterflies, which make a 2,500-mile, multigenerational journey between Canada and Mexico each year, are facing a host of threats. They face habitat loss along their migration routes because of development and the proliferation of herbicide-resistant crops, and illegal logging threatens their overwintering sites in Mexico.

A group of conservation organizations has petitioned the federal government to add the monarch butterfly to the endangered species list, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to make a decision by summer 2019.

In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is working to develop a plan to help boost the population of this important pollinator species.

The department gathered participants from agriculture, transportation, education, conservation, utility companies and other fields Friday at its headquarters on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield. The purpose of the first-ever Illinois Monarch Butterfly Summit was to take stock of the efforts that are already occurring across the state and to begin laying the groundwork for a cohesive statewide strategy.

Monarchs have become not only a national and a state issue, but its an international issue, IDNR Director Wayne Rosenthal told the summit attendees.

Illinois has had many conservation success stories, Rosenthal said, and the monarch butterfly very easily could be the next success story.

A survey that the Prairie Rivers Network conducted ahead of the summit showed many efforts already underway, such as a variety of groups working to restore native plants, including milkweed, which is vital to the monarchs lifecycle.

Nine Illinois mayors, including Normals Chris Koos, have taken the Mayors Monarch Pledge from the National Wildlife Federation, committing to taking steps to help with the conservation effort.

Dave Lamb, Bloomingtons assistant parks superintendent, was among the summit participants.

The city has converted roughly 200 acres of parkland to native prairie over the past decade or so, Lamb said.

Were also looking to convert some of the city right-of-way areas to monarch habitat, he said, adding that this would also provide the long-term financial benefit of reducing mowing expenses.

Ann Holtrop, acting chief of IDNR's division of natural heritage, said there now needs to be a coordinated plan to maximize habitat for monarchs and minimize threats.

We really have a pivotal role here, said Holtrop, who helped coordinate the summit.

Illinois strategy also will have to fit into regional, national and international monarch conservation efforts, she said, including major increases in milkweed plantings along the butterflys migration path.
A toddler at a day care in Florida was bitten 12 times by another toddler and it is believed that the kids were left unsupervised. Consequently, the day care worker who was responsible for looking after the kids could face neglect charges.

According to reports, the incident happened on Aug. 29 when deputies with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office were called at the Manatee Memorial Hospital. They received a report about a child being brought to the hospital due to several bite marks on his face, limbs and back. The injuries were said to be swollen and raw. The Florida day care was identified as J's Bright Learners located in Bradenton, Miami Herald reported.

Although the injuries of the toddler bitten by another child were not severe, the investigation started. Sheriff's office spokesman Dave Bristow added that the boy was treated and released from the hospital shortly thereafter.

The mother of the child, Amanda Beebe, reportedly rushed to the day care center after she received a call about the bites. She said in a statement that her son looked like he was mauled by an animal due to the severity of the bite marks. Beebe said that this is not the first time that a biting incident took place. She and her husband received a call weeks ago saying that their 18-month-old son was bitten but they let that pass. However, the second call from the day care worker described the bites as "really bad."

Aside from Beebe's 18-month-old son, her four-year-old child is also being left at the day care as she has to continue her studies and it is the only day care she could afford to put her children in. She said that she is disappointed about the fact that no one has been arrested yet.

Florida's Department of Children and Families issued violations to the aforementioned day care six times in the last 12 inspections they had. These violations are said to be related to leaving children unsupervised and not having enough staff to care for the children.

Beebe also took advantage of Facebook to talk about the matter. The post has garnered 47,000 comments in just a week and she said that she wants justice for her son. She also cleared that she does not blame the other kid involved in the situation but solely blames the adults, FOX 5 reported.

The Department of Children and Families issued a statement saying that what happened to the child is unacceptable and that they are conducting a child care licensing investigation.
Police have identified a second person of interest in a shooting early Tuesday at a Sun Prairie fast food restaurant.

Sun Prairie Police are searching for Marsean D. Taylor, 23, in connection with the shooting at a Taco Bell that sent one person to a hospital.

Anyone with information on Taylor is asked to contact Sun Prairie Police at 837-7336 or call 911.

Police have also named Ebher E. Ruiz, 24, as a person of interest in the shooting. He was taken into custody Thursday and is being held in the Dane County Jail on an alleged probation violation, Sgt. Brian Luckus said.

Luckus said the shooter and the victim knew each other. He said the victim's injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
It has been 15 years since the 9/11 tragedy and schools across America are holding another 9/11 memorial this year. But with many of the students unfamiliar with what actually happened, largely because they were too young or have not yet been born during the terror attacks, how will schools impart this very important moment in America's history?

In New York, where the Twin Towers once stood and its site is now called Ground Zero, teachers admit that the students of today don't have the same emotional reaction to the tragedy as those who have actually seen the horror unfold. But they make sure to impart significant details of this history to the kids, In fact, 9/11 memorial is added in the curriculum of New York's eighth to eleventh grade students.

According to Gothamist, New York students are taught about the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and its impact in the eighth grade, while students in the higher grades are taught about cyber war, weapons and the Patriot Act. The NYC Department of Education provides schools a list of resources for discussions every year, including topics on the heroes of 9/11.

Students in the third grade are oriented about K9 rescue teams in nearby New Jersey, while older kids are taught about interrogations methods and rights of prisoners. Some schools in the state of Tennessee conduct mock rescue operations or discuss the headlines. "I believe it to be my duty as an educator to never stop teaching the shock, horror, sadness and utter disbelief of that day," said Kenneth Roeten via USA Today. Roeten is a social studies teacher who still gets emotional about 9/11.

Educators say that even if most of the students today have been born after 9/11, there are plenty who are curious about this pivotal moment in America's history. "It surprises a lot of them," said Texas tenth grade teacher Jennalee Kwezi, via WCPO. There are also students who express concern that 9/11 might happen again, hence the teachers believe that the lessons and the 9/11 memorial are not only important, but necessary.

Is your child's school holding a 9/11 memorial? What about within the family? How do you discuss 9/11 with your kids? Let us know in the comments below!
Is "Constantine" really dead on television? Despite NBC canceling the series in mid-2015, talks continue to spark about its potential revival on another network. The CW took interest in reruns of "Constantine" Season 1 on its free online streaming service, The CW Seed. But with the first-ever release of the "Constantine" DVD/BluRay sets, it looks like The CW is interested in something more.

Inverse suggests that The CW might be keen on resurrecting "Constantine" based on several ads that were published in DC comics in the recent weeks. These ads were for Warner Archive store's DVD and BluRay library. It highlighted The CW shows like "iZombie" and "The 100," whose video releases have already been previously announced. Interestingly enough, the ad also includes the long-awaited release of "Constantine" Season 1 on DVD/BluRay, but the details have yet to be revealed.

The media site further suggests that because the character of Constantine has been part of The CW's "Arrow" in the past -- with Matt Ryan's guest stints -- then "Constantine" has already established itself in The CW's programming. As it is, the network is reportedly planning on boosting its Friday schedule with horror, thriller and suspense series. Could this line up potentially include the Hellblazer?

Meanwhile, "Constantine's" former showrunner, Daniel Cerone, had some idea that DVD/BluRay could be coming to the Warner Archive store, but he believes it's the show's avid followers who made it all happen. "I give [fans] all the credit because they've made their voices known and never gave up," Cernone said per Comic Book. "I'm continually overwhelmed by the passion out there for this character," he added, in reference to the countless of petitions that had fans hoping "Constantine" gets another season.

Warner Archive has not made any comments as to when these video sets will be available at their store and it looks like the site will be carrying "Constantine" Season 1 video sets exclusively. More announcements about this are expected soon, so stay tuned!
As we near the premiere date of "The Vampire" Diaries Season 8, the hype about the series continues to grow. According to reports, Nina Dobrev already confirmed that she is not returning for the series' final season. However, her ex-flame and "TVD" on-screen partner Ian Somerhalder reportedly begs her to join "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 to revive his career.

Nina Dobrev's return in "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 is filled with controversies. Earlier reports suggest that Ian Somerhalder no longer wants to work with his ex-girlfriend. In fact, he prefers to give the series a brotherly ending and send Elena on her own without any memories about the Salvatore brothers.

Some other sources claim that Nina Dobrev's return in "The Vampire Diaries" threatens Nikki Reed. There are rumors that the "Twilight" star is insecure with her husband's ex that she doesn't want the pair to do romantic scenes.

This crushed the "TVD" fans hope to see a closure of the Delena romance because Ian Somerhalder seems to be supporting his wife's requests. In fact, there are reports, that Somerhalder and Reed have sabotaged Nina Dobrev's return in "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8.

However, things seem to have changed after Nina Dobrev announced that she is not joining "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8. According to GameNGuide, Ian Somerhalder has changed his mind.

The actor is now willing to reunite with Nina Dobrev just to revive his career. In fact, he no longer cares about the divorce reports and is willing to dump Nikki Reed just to regain the fame and popularity that he experienced in "The Vampire Diaries" with Dobrev.

Ian Somerhalder is reportedly bugging Julie Plec to have Nina Dobrev return in the last season of "The Vampire Diaries." This is different from Somerhalder's earlier actions.

Per Morning News USA, when Plec announced during the Comic Con that they are working on having Nina Dobrev back, Somerhalder showed his disapproval. "I thought we had a conversation about that, apparently not," the actor told Plec showing his disinterest in working with Dobrev again.

Do you believe that Ian Somerhalder is desperate to work with Nina Dobrev in "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 again? Is it true that he is willing to divorce Nikki Reed just to revive his career with Dobrev? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

"The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 premieres on Oct. 21. Stay tuned for more Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerhalder and "TVD" updates!
Aerial insecticide spraying against mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus has pushed through in Miami Beach, Florida despite protests from the public. Worried and angry residents believe that the spraying is bad for people's health and the environment.

The predawn spraying of insecticide against Zika-carrying Aedes mosquitoes was carried out on Friday morning by small planes, NBC News reported. The spraying, which involved the pesticide Naled, was supposed to take place a day earlier but was interrupted by protesters, who gathered outside City Hall and aired their complaints to city officials.

The spraying of insecticide must occur during predawn and at sunset because Aedes mosquitoes are most active during those times, according to CNN. Aside from aerial spraying, officials are also spraying pesticide and larvicide on the ground in areas where mosquito populations flock.

Naled is an insecticide that has been registered for use in the United States since 1959, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wrote. Naled's health risks are usually minimal because of the tiny amount (two tablespoons) of active ingredient released per acre of ground. The insecticide kills mosquitoes on contact and intercepts the pests in flight.

In the past, Naled has successfully killed mosquitoes that carry Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses in the mainland U.S. and in Puerto Rico. The European Union, however, is less tolerant of Naled. The organization described the insecticide as "a potential and unacceptable risk" to people's health and the environment.

Miami-Dade County Carlos A. Gimenez announced that a new cluster of mosquitoes tested positive for the Zika virus hours after the aerial spraying was completed. Insecticide spraying will commence again this coming Sunday and in the next two weekends.

Zika is most harmful to infected women's unborn babies. Studies and physical evidence show that infants infected with the virus often exhibit eye damages, hearing loss, impaired growth, and microcephaly. These proofs, however, aren't enough for some people in Florida.

An online petition titled "Floridians AGAINST spraying of Naled" raised the "mounting evidence disproving a direct link between Zika and microcephaly," arguing that this should stop the aerial spraying of Naled immediately. As of this writing, the petition has gained 8,470 supporters.

There are currently 56 local transmissions of the Zika virus in Florida. The state, which has a 20.6 million population, has 596 travel-related Zika cases, CNN reported from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 84 pregnant women in Florida have tested positive for Zika, NBC noted.
A bigger appetite stems from a busy brain. Experts found that too much mental activity such as researching and reviewing for an exam or any similar activity drains too much energy from a person's brain that it commands the body to refuel by eating food with calories.

A busy brain requiring more food occurs even though no physical activity was done. This process is prevalent in college students like in post-study food binges, the New York Times reported.

College is filled with social activities that usually involve food, promoting a binge eating culture. Binge eating is typically unnoticed by people as they struggle to fulfill academic and work obligations and keep up with their social lives, according to Eating Disorder Hope.

The stress brought upon by college also increases people's tendency to binge eat. When unchecked, binge eating can lead to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, and other serious health conditions.

A study published by Eating and Weight Disorders found that binge eating is more common in women than in men. Out of 2,073 students surveyed, 29 percent engage in binge eating and 73.8 percent of those are females.

An overworked brain -- one that feels foggy and jammed -- makes it hard for a person to concentrate and process information, according to the Belfast Telegraph. When a person feels like his/her brain is worn out, there's a high likelihood of low-level depression and the disappearance of joy, purpose, and motivation.

Dr. Mike Dow, a psychotherapist and author of the book "The Brain Fog Fix: Reclaim Your Focus, Memory, and Joy in Just 3 Weeks," said beating brain fatigue can be done by identifying its root cause and the factors that contribute to it. The brain's chemicals (serotonin, dopamine, and cortisol) are hugely affected by how people eat, sleep, work, and live.

Dow said the brain needs several healthy practices for it to function properly. This includes exercise, sufficient and restful sleep, regular circadian rhythms, relaxation and restoration, proper consumption of healthy food laden with nutrients and vitamins, purpose and meaning, spirituality, and feeling connected to something larger than yourself, the Belfast Telegraph listed.

For binge eaters, it's important to seek help from therapists or psychologists in counseling centers. They should also stay away from sugar and junk foods. Sugar raises Alzheimer's risk while junk foods trick the brain into wanting to consume more food, leading to obesity and overeating, according to a report from Mercola.

Exercise can lessen sugar cravings, as well as organic, black coffee. Sour taste like lemon or lime juice can also reduce sugar cravings.
The "Chicago Fire" season 5 premiere is not until next month, and fans are already dying in anticipation. Previous reports have already hinted that the upcoming run will delve deeper into the character's lives and will try to resolve issues that arose in the previous season.

As TV Line noted, the upcoming season will focus more on Casey and Dawson's relationship, including their struggles raising their foster child. According to new reports, there could be new cast members joining "Chicago Fire" season 5.

As fans get to know more about the pair, they will also get a glimpse of Dawson's "wacky" and "old-fashioned" parents. Although reports have not confirmed whether Dawson's parents will be hanging around for few episodes, their presence will most likely add to the complexity of Dawson and Casey's relationship.

Meanwhile, Master Herald noted that there might be some sort of separation that is bound to happen between Casey and Dawson. As the report said, the characters will find themselves in new assignments in the upcoming run as their characters will contemplate if both of them having risky jobs will actually take its toll on their relationship.

Apart from Casey and Dawson, fans will also get to know more about Kidd and Severide in "Chicago Fire" season 5. As the site noted, the couple will have to deal with some issues most especially since Severide's ex-husband has returned.

"Chicago Fire" season 5 airs on October 11, 2016 on NBC. Stay tuned for more "Chicago Fire" season 5 release date spoilers here!
As mosquito season in warmer states peaked, several cautionary actions were done by authorities to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika. But what can you use to avoid getting the disease?

Like dengue and chikungunya, Zika is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. And there is no better way to prevent the disease than preventing the breeding mosquitoes by keeping your houses clean. Mosquitoes live and breed in damp and wet places. So make sure to clean the house.

You can use repellents, as the NBC News suggested. This is probably one of the most practical things you could ever buy, as it would come useful when you are just in the house or when travelling or camping in the woods.

EPA said that larvicides also help by controlling the mosquitoes at the larval stage. Spraying of larvicide targets the habitat of the mosquitoes, therefore prohibiting the maturing of the larva.

Aside from these, pesticides are an effective way to kill these insects. Zika-carrying mosquitoes together with other unwanted insects lurking your house will be killed. But be careful as to where you spray chemicals as it could be inhaled by a person which is bad for the health, the NBCNews report said.

In Miami Beach Florida, the spraying of insecticides was pushed through Friday morning. This after a protest by residents expressing health concerns caused the delay. NBCNews.com reported that 84 pregnant women were diagnosed with Zika,causing what they call "minor outbreak."

The World Health Organization describes Zika as "mosquito-borne flavivirus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947." But the more recent buzz created by the disease was the cases in Brazil where babies whose mothers have the disease are born with microcephaly.

Signs and symptoms of Zika include "fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache," according to WHO.

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Heres how members of Wisconsins congressional delegation voted on major issues this week.

Note: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, did not vote. By custom, the speaker does not vote except in rare circumstances.

DEREGULATION OF STOCK OFFERINGS: Voting 236 for and 178 against, the House on Thursday passed a Republican-sponsored bill (HR 2357) that would roll back Securities and Exchange Commission regulations to enable unproven smaller companies, both public and private, to market their securities with fewer investor protections.

In part, the bill would authorize start-ups traded on public exchanges to use a simplified securities-registration form that is now available only to established companies that have met SEC transparency and financial-stability standards.

The bill also loosens SEC registration requirements for private offerings aimed at raising up to $500,000 from a limited number of investors.

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate, where it was expected to fail.

Voting yes: James Sensenbrenner, R-5, Glenn Grothman, R-6, Sean Duffy, R-7, Reid Ribble, R-8

Voting no: Mark Pocan, D-2, Ron Kind, D-3, Gwen Moore, D-4

HACKING OF INVESTOR ACCOUNTS: Voting 180 for and 233 against, the House on Thursday refused to require companies raising capital under HR 2357 (above) to inform the Securities and Exchange Commission of cybersecurity measures they have put in place to prevent hacking into customer accounts.

A yes vote was to adopt the Democratic motion.

Voting yes: Pocan, Kind, Moore

Voting no: Sensenbrenner, Grothman, Duffy, Ribble

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SETTLEMENTS: Voting 241 for and 174 against, the House on Wednesday passed a GOP-sponsored bill (HR 5063) governing Department of Justice settlements in civil litigation against corporate defendants. Backers said this would prevent the administration from establishing slush funds to benefit of its political allies.

Opponents said the bill would spur corporate abuses such as fraudulent mortgage-lending and workplace discrimination.

A yes vote was to pass a bill backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and opposed by consumer and community-housing groups.

Voting yes: Sensenbrenner, Grothman, Duffy, Ribble

Voting no: Pocan, Kind, Moore

SETTLEMENTS FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT WORK: Voting 178 for and 235 against, the House on Wednesday refused to exempt from HR 5063 (above) settlements paid by corporate defendants in cases based on job discrimination and sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.

The amendment sought to allow settlements in such cases to be used to finance generalized remedial actions by third parties in addition to providing restitution to the specific parties to the case.

A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.

Voting yes: Pocan, Kind, Moore

Voting no: Sensenbrenner, Grothman, Duffy, Ribble

ZIKA VIRUS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD, CONFEDERATE FLAG: By a vote of 52 for and 46 against, the Senate on Tuesday failed to reach 60 votes needed to end Democratic delay and advance a bill (HR 2577) that would fund fiscal 2016 budgets for veterans, military construction and housing programs.

The bill includes $1.1 billion for combating the mosquito-borne Zika virus now spreading in the United States.

Democrats based their filibuster on GOP-sponsored language in the bill that would ban Planned Parenthood funding of Zika-related reproductive care, allow unfettered display of the Confederate flag in national cemeteries and ease federal regulation of pesticides.

When contracted by pregnant women, Zika can cause microcephaly, a birth defect in which the babys head is smaller than expected.

A yes vote was to advance the bill toward final passage.

Voting yes: Ron Johnson, R

Voting no: Tammy Baldwin, D

In the week of Sept. 12, the House will take up bills on the Affordable Care Act, veterans disability claims and the Guantanamo Bay military prison. The Senate will continue to debate Corps of Engineers water projects.

 Thomas Voting Reports
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In the end, I dont much care where the Book of Mormon story took place. Thats not to say that the question isnt interesting to me, but, in my judgment, a definitive answer to it is essential neither to my faith nor to anybodys salvation.

Much more significant, it seems to me, is the proposition that the Book of Mormon took place.

Some people disagree.

I receive a fair amount of anonymous or pseudonymous hate mail. On most days.

For a year or two, a lot of it  sometimes as many 5-8 emails daily  came from someone who was plainly convinced that knowing that the Book of Mormon occurred within the boundaries of todays United States (and, more specifically, around New York State, the Mississippi River Valley, and the Great Lakes) ranks as one of the most important requirements for salvation. In leaning strongly toward a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon, he told me over and over and over again  in various usually quite insulting ways  Ive thrown the prophets under the bus.

Well, heres some evidence that at least one of those prophets apparently climbed under the bus himself:

http://zanderthelamanite.com/1/post/2016/09/brigham-young-and-book-of-mormon-geography.html
Patna: Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari in Patna on Friday inaugurated the 90th anniversary of the Bihar Chamber of Commerce by lighting a lamp at the Sahu Jain Hall in the presence of Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and a number of industrialists and office bearers.

With notorious criminal and former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammed Shahabuddin just hours away from walking out of Siwan Jail after serving 16 years in a number of cases including murder and a homeopathic doctor gunned down in broad daylight in Patna on Friday, the Vice President said that good law and order was one of the chief prerequisites for inviting investments and the government must do everything in its might to maintain the rule of law in the state.

Mr. Ansari, while praising the Nitish administration for attaining an annual growth rate of 10.5%, said that despite signs of improvements, states like Haryana and Goa were doing a lot better than Bihar that continues to have low per capital income in the country.

"It will take at least 20 more years of economic expansion before Bihar could be included in the list of developed states," the Vice President said.

On the occasion, the Chamber of Commerce honored five entrepreneurs from Bihar though none of them has business interest of any sort in the state.

Earlier, the VP attended a function at the St. Michael's High School where he answered a number of questions asked by young students.

Later, the Chief Minister met with a number of industrialists and urged him to invest in Bihar where, he said, law and order was in full control under a very stable government led by him. He also reminded them of various industrial policies placed by his administration that he said were conducive to starting new business and industries in the state.
Patna: A day after a homeopathic doctor was gunned down in Digha area in Patna, criminals in the state capital struck again on Saturday  this time targeting the son of senior journalist who remains in critical condition at a local hospital.

As reported, criminals on Bhootnath Road under Agam Kuan Police station on Saturday morning shot Akaash Dey, the son of National Sahara newspaper photojournalist Indrajeet Dey, on his head and fled from the scene.

He was rushed to the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) where he remains in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in critical condition.

Authorities are conducting an investigation in the case.
Patna: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi, at a press conference in Patna on Saturday, blasted the Nitish government saying the release of notorious criminal and former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammed Shahabuddin was the result of the combined effort of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

"Shahabuddin's release is the payback to Lalu Prasad Yadav for supporting Nitish Kumar. It was due to the support of the RJD President that Nitish Kumar was once again elected as the Chief Minister of Bihar. The court had asked the government to open the trial within nine months of the Rajiv Raushan case but the Nitish government, at the behest of Lalu Prasad Yadav, on purpose delayed the trial allowing him to become eligible for the bail," the former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar said.

Saying Shahabuddin posed a real threat to Bihar, Modi said that Shahabuddin could not outsmart the legal system during the ten years of the NDA rule but as soon as Nitish Kumar came into power with the help of Lalu, the man accused in dozens of murder cases managed to get bail and walk free to once again terrorize the people of Bihar.

"Everyone knew Jungle Raj had returned to Bihar but an arrogant Nitish Kumar continued to deny it. With the release of Shahabuddin, now it is confirmed beyond any doubts. Things are going to get only worse from here on," the BJP leader said adding it was mind-boggling that the Nitish government sent another criminal-turned-politician Anant Singh to jail after imposing Crime Control Act (CCA) against him but failed to do so against Shahabuddin who is a much dreaded criminal facing much serious charges.

"This is a favor Nitish Kumar returned to Lalu Prasad Yadav for coming to his rescue in the last Assembly polls," he said.

Modi, in a rare case of agreement with Shahabuddin, said that the Siwan terror was right when he said that the real leader of Bihar was Lalu Prasad Yadav while Nitish Kumar was merely a 'circumstantial' Chief Minister.

BJP state President Mangal Pandey also accused the Nitish government of protecting criminals in his lust for power.

"We are going to hold a day-long dharna across the state on September 14 to protest the release of Shahabuddin. We also plan to meet with the Governor to seek his intervention in keeping criminals behind bars where they belong," Pandey said.
Patna: Just few months after he held an inside-the-prison meeting with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Abdul Ghafoor, the Minority Welfare Minister in the Nitish administration, notorious criminal and Siwan terror Mohammed Shahabuddin walked out of the Bhagalpur prison as a free man on Saturday after being granted bail in the 2015 killing of Rajesh Raushan who was a witness in the killing of two brothers in Siwan back in 2004.

The former RJD MP and a close associate of RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shahabuddin had been in Siwan prison since 2005 after the then newly-elected Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar, in his attempt to establish the rule of law in Bihar after 15 years of what is now known as the 'Jungle Raj', ordered arrests of all criminals and thrown in jail under various Acts  both old and new.

The 'Terror of Siwan' still faces over five dozen criminal cases in various courts including more than two dozen cases of murders.

Greeted by hundreds of his supporters who had started to gather outside the Bhagalpur Jail since yesterday, a smiling Shahabuddin emerged from the prison only to be mobbed by his well-wishers who covered him with garlands to display their pleasure on his release.

Saying he was the victim of a conspiracy, the RJD leader pledged his loyalty to Lalu Prasad Yadav saying the RJD chief was the real leader of Bihar and Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister by default and as a result of the circumstances.

He also wasted no time in taking a shot at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi saying the former Deputy Chief Minister was a 'light leader' and was not someone to be taken seriously.

Shahabuddin, after spending over a decade in Siwan Jail where he led a fairly luxurious life with television set in his room and freedom to meet with visitors, mostly RJD leaders, even outside the visitation hours, was shifted to Bhagalpur Jail last May following the chilling murder of a Hindustan reporter Rajdeo Ranjan.

As reported before, Ghafoor, the Minority Welfare Minister in the Nitish cabinet, had visited Shahabuddin in Siwan Jail last March reportedly to inform him that his days in prison were numbered and he would be a free man soon.

His visit had caused a controversy at the time with both RJD and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal  U denying the meeting had anything to do with his possible parole.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iranian Judiciary Must Stop Punishing Media for Reporting Officials' Corruption

09/10/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Irans Judiciary must halt the prosecution of media outlets which carried out their journalist duty in publishing reports on alleged corruption in the Tehran Municipality and City Council, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said in a statement today. Unless they are found guilty of a crime in court, the websites of these news organizations should be unblocked, the statement added.



Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

(artwork by Hossein Sasfi)



Memari News, an independent website dedicated to news about architecture and urban development, has been suspended for publishing a letter from Irans National Inspection Organization to the Tehran Municipality that declared the sale and grant of certain lands to municipality workers and other officials to be against the law.

The Tehran Prosecutors suspension of a website for publishing an official letter is a blatant abuse of power aimed at suppressing media organizations that are trying to keep officials accountable for their actions, said the Campaigns executive director Hadi Ghaemi.

The Judiciary is making a mockery of its claim to be fighting corruption and protecting the rights of citizens by closing down news sites that expose unlawful activities, Ghaemi added.

          11     



: https://t.co/ir1OWlOiRO#_ pic.twitter.com/dQdMRpI6c5    (@memarinews) July 18, 2016

Memari News noted in its report that the letter from the National Inspection Organization was not marked classified. The organization investigated Tehran Municipality under Article 598 of the New Islamic Penal Code which deals with abuse of government funds and properties and found violations in excess of 2.2 trillion tomans ($702 million USD). It pointed fingers at several senior municipality officials as well as city council members, Members of Parliament and police officers.

Following publication of the report, Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and City Council Chairman Mehdi Chamran filed a complaint against Memari News and the Tehran Prosecutor ordered its suspension. The report was deleted and access to the entire site was blocked, even though Memari News has not been found guilty of any crime and no official has contradicted the validity of the letter it published.

Instead of punishing those who are carrying out their responsibilities and contributing to the public good by reporting corruption, the authorities should be pursuing those accused of violating the law, Ghaemi said.

In addition, eight other news sites, including Borna and Moj have been suspended on orders from the Tehran Prosecutor because of similar complaints in connection with the National Inspection Organizations letter. Shargh newspaper also published a report about the letters allegations.

Yashar Soltani, the editor in chief of Memari News, who was summoned to Branch 2 of the Tehran Press Court, said they had not been served any court rulings and without their appearance in court prior to the website blocking. Instead, he added, the Working Group to Determine Instances of Criminal Content on the Internet (Irans principal online filtering body) had sent an email to Shatel Internet services company, which hosts Memari News, demanding the site be blocked immediately.

Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Ali Jannati, however, denied that the Working Group to Determine Instances of Criminal Content on the Internet was involved in blocking Memari News. He said the order instead came from Judiciary officials.

Meanwhile, Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi also distanced President Hassan Rouhanis government from the recent website suspensions. The government has not blocked any website. The news sites blocked in recent days were ordered by the Judiciary, he said.

Yet Amir Mortazavi, the editor in chief of Moj, also said his site had been blocked by the Working Group to Determine Instances of Criminal Content on the Internet. We have contacted them numerous times but they still havent given an answer [as to why we have been blocked]. All they told us on the phone was that well know the reason when we appear in court, Mortazavi said.

All the websites blocked have the .ir domain, indicating their host company is inside Iran and thus accessible to the authorities. If these sites had been hosted as a .com instead, their content could not have been altered or deleted by Iranian agencies.

The Islamic Republic is determined to control Internet traffic in the country, and has been developing its own state-controlled National Internet (essentially an Intranet) whose primary purpose is to close Iranian citizens off from the global Internet and monitor their online activities. Last week the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology unveiled the first phase of the homegrown Network.

Company executives have told me in private that they prefer to have their servers managed abroad because if they are filtered they wont lose their foreign customers, Vaezi said last March.

Based on a 2006 government directive, all Iranian websites should be registered with the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministrys Office of Internet Sites. If the office determines that a site has published something against the law, it can order it to be deleted. If the site editors refuse, the office can order the host company to delete the content instead.

Blocking news sites based on complaints filed by individuals, such as the Mayor of Tehran, without holding a trial, shows the influence of military and security figures over the Judiciary in suppressing the media and freedom of expression in Iran, said the Campaigns executive director.
Chris Gleason said he almost missed the assembly toward the end of the school day Friday.

The music teacher was filing paperwork, and thought he would be late when he heard the loudspeaker announcement. He didnt know the students, teachers and staff of Patrick Marsh Middle School in Sun Prairie were gathering in the gym to name him Wisconsins middle school Teacher of the Year.

The ceremony was a surprise for the schools students and teachers. Only a few were in on the secret to help coordinate with the state Department of Public Instruction. Around 2:15 p.m., Principal Corey Shefchik assembled hundreds of students in the gym along with Gleasons family.

For two weeks, Erin Gleason kept the surprise from her husband. She called family members to tell them the news and ask them to join the assembly. She said she couldnt even tell their two children, 14-year-old Emma and 10-year-old Miles, or it might ruin the surprise.

I knew this was going to be so exciting for him, and I just wanted to let it out, Erin Gleason said.

In a gym filled with students, teachers and staff, state Superintendent Tony Evers announced that Gleasons name was engraved on the plaque shaped like Wisconsin. Many students stood as Gleason made his way to the podium.

I can tell you that this is definitely my passion, Gleason said as he accepted the award. Seeing and working with you every single day is what I want to do.

As the schools band director for 13 years, Gleason was recognized for going above and beyond for his students.

He started a project where students can commission and collaborate with nationally renowned composers, and his students have twice been invited to perform in the state Capitol rotunda for Music in our Schools month.

Though it is a difficult job, Gleason said, he enjoys working with students as their band director and instrumental music teacher, teaching kids about life through music.

After all of the hours he has put into teaching, Gleason said it was validating for him to win the award. And while his wife said it isnt possible, Gleason said the award will only make him work harder.

The 43-year-old started teaching 20 years ago after graduating with a bachelors in music education from UW-Eau Claire. He was inspired to pursue his profession by his father, Gerald, a former music teacher who died last year.

Its tough having this happen without him being here, Gleason said. He would have loved this.

The distinction comes with a $3,000 award from the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation.

Gleason also will join the panel that chooses the next Teachers of the Year. Kim Marggraf, director of the Kohl foundation, said winners also become representatives for all educators in the state.

I think this is a great platform for him to talk about his philosophy and hopefully inspire new teachers, Erin Gleason said.

Gleason said he wants other people to understand that teaching is a difficult and honorable job, but right now, he is just proud to be recognized.

To be honored like this is just amazing, he said.

Each year, the state names four Teachers of the Year. The other recipients this year are Spanish teacher Sarah Breckley from Reedsburg Area High School, fifth-grade teacher Pamela Gresser from Rothschild Elementary School, and 4K-12 school counselor Barbara VanDoorn from Lake Holcolmbe School.

All four of this years recipients were previous winners of the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Teacher Fellowship award.
Arrested Afghans Put On Display By Police In Iran, Sparking Anger

09/10/16

Source: RFE/RL



Iran has said it has hosted millions of Afghan refugees.

(file photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



Some Iranians and Afghans have taken to social media to condemn authorities in the Iranian city of Shiraz for putting arrested, blindfolded Afghan refugees on display.

The criticism came after Iranian media, including the semi-official ISNA news agency, published a series of photographs of Afghans -- who had been detained on suspicion of illegally entering the country -- sitting behind barricade fences wearing white blindfolds.







photo by ISNA





A sign on one of the fences said: Arrest of foreign nationals.



Iranian police put 'Alien Nationals' (Afghans) handcuffed & blindfolded on display in a cage: Official news agencies pic.twitter.com/HyJppapWps  Sattar Saeedi (@SattarSaeedi) September 8, 2016



The photos were published as part of a series of images depicting items confiscated by the police in Shiraz, including drugs, stolen cars, weapons, and alcohol.

Many expressed outrage that the Afghans were put in cages like animals and humiliated.

Im ashamed of being an Iranian, wrote a woman on Facebook in reaction to the photos.

On Twitter, an Afghan posted a picture of the arrested refugees alongside a sign for a street in Afghanistan that is named in honor of Iranian diplomats killed by the Taliban in 1998.

I dont have anything to say. Look at the photos; one in Afghanistan, the other in Iran, the social media user wrote.



   .   .       . pic.twitter.com/gMGliz4yNn  Omid (@omidhq) September 8, 2016



Afghan lawmaker Mohammad Reza Khoushak also criticized the move on his Facebook page.

Its been [reported] that in the city where [Irans great poet] Saadi wrote: If you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain, its people have displayed humans...in cages, he wrote.

Khoushak wrote that to display people in such a manner was to behave like Daesh -- a term for the extremist group Islamic State, which has committed severe atrocities.





photo by ISNA



The move also prompted criticism from a former Iranian presidential spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, who served as a spokesman for former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

On his Instagram account, Ramezanzadeh described the decision to put Afghans on display as shameful.

Im ashamed for humanity. Im ashamed for Afghans, Ramezanzadeh wrote.

Iranian authorities have been long accused of mistreatment and harassment of Afghan refugees who travel to Iran illegally in search of jobs.

Iran says it has hosted more than 3 million registered and unregistered Afghans for three decades with little help from the international community.

Speaking in June, Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on the UN refugee agency and donating countries to ramp up investment in Afghan economic projects to pave the way for the voluntary return of Afghans to their country.

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
ONTARIO  As the future CEO of LA/Ontario International Airport, Kelly J. Fredericks doesnt like the statistics he sees for passenger traffic.

Come Nov. 1  when Los Angeles World Airports hands operation of the airport to the local authority and whether he likes those numbers or not  they will be his responsibility.

This is us, this is how our performance will be judged, Fredericks told the Ontario International Airport Authority board of commissioners earlier this week during a special meeting at the Ontario Convention Center.

From January through July, Ontario is the only airport in the region seeing red, meaning the activity at the airport dropped compared to the same time last year. Its a slight percentage, .1 percent or 2,305 fewer travelers.

The next lowest-performing regional airport in the first half of 2016 is Burbank Bob Hope Airport  which saw a 1.7 percent uptick in traffic. John Wayne Airport in Orange County saw the largest gain with a 10.2 percent spike.

So why does Ontario continue to underperform?

I dont have a explanation, Fredericks said. It just doesnt make sense.

But he added, at least we have quantifiable performance metrics that we can (measure) the before and the after that he will review with the authoritys chief development officer, Mark Thorpe.

In reviewing the projected total of travelers for 2016, Fredericks does see how Ontario might be able to make up for lost ground.

About 103 millions passengers are projected to use airports in the region. Los Angeles International Airport is expected to capture 77 to 78 percent of the traffic, while Ontario is projected to get 4.2 percent of that traffic. At the height of Ontarios passenger activity, between 2005 and 2007, the inland airport was capturing between 8 percent to 9 percent of the regions airport traffic.

When it gets back to that threshold, only then will Ontario begin to see gains in routes and destinations, Fredericks said.

In related news, on Thursday, the authority announced it had hired Daniel E. Adamus as its chief marketing officer, filling out its senior leadership team.

Adamus has more than 30 years of experience in domestic and international marketing including helping GE set up its website in 1993, the first one by a major corporation at the time.

Contact the writer: lmarquez@scng.com or @JournaLiset on Twitter
Election Day is almost two months away, but theres already a front-runner for the ugliest Inland political contest of 2016.

The race between Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands, and Republican congressional candidate Paul Chabot has gotten nasty, with Chabot referring to his opponent as Agu-Liar and Aguilars supporters accusing Chabot of raiding his kids piggy bank.

The acrimony reached a new level last week, when the San Bernardino County Democratic Party announced a complaint against Chabot would be lodged with the House ethics committee.

An ethics committee spokesman declined to say whether the committee has received the complaint, and Chabot said he has yet to see a copy. Nor have we have been contacted by House ethics, and nor will we play into Aguilars dishonest campaign tactic, he wrote in an email.

On Wednesday, Sept. 7, county Democrats announced another complaint would be filed with the Federal Election Commission. Specifically, it appears as if Chabot raided his childrens savings in order to make an excessive loan to his campaign, and then misrepresented the source of those funds, the complaint read.

In an emailed response, Chabot spokesman Ryan Hall said: Career politician Pete Aguilar is clearly attempting to hold onto his political life. His campaign is threatening to file a malicious and dishonest complaint with no merit or truth and we demand an immediate retraction.

An FEC spokeswoman was unable to confirm receipt of the complaint Wednesday. County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Robles provided two postal service tracking numbers as proof that the complaints to the ethics committee and FEC had been mailed.

Aguilar, a former Redlands mayor, and Chabot, a naval reserve intelligence officer and Iraq war veteran from Rancho Cucamonga, are running to represent Californias 31st Congressional District, which includes San Bernardino, Redlands, Rancho Cucamonga, Loma Linda, Colton and Grand Terrace.

Its a rematch of the 2014 contest in which Aguilar beat Chabot for an open seat vacated by Republican Gary Miller.

Bolstered by spending from out-of-district groups and the Democratic establishment  Vice President Joe Biden held a rally for Aguilar in Colton just before the November election  Aguilar won 52 percent of the vote and defeated Chabot by almost 3,500 votes.

Soon after his loss, Chabot, who previously made a name for himself as a drug legalization opponent, announced plans to challenge Aguilar in 2016. He finished second to Aguilar out of a five-candidate field in the June 7 primary.

Politically, Aguilar and Chabot are pretty distinct.

Aguilar supports abortion rights, immigration reform and gun control. Chabot is pro-life, opposes amnesty for undocumented immigrants and is running on a law-and-order and national security platform. Hes issued terrorist hunting permits to donors  a tactic he hopes will resonate in a district where the Dec. 2 terror attack took place.

Chabot also has called for a bringing a joint forces military base to San Bernardino, which was home to Norton Air Force Base before it closed in 1994. And he cites San Bernardinos poor economy and crime problems in making the case the the district needs new leadership.

Since taking office, Aguilar has held a jobs fair for district residents and sponsored a number of bills, including measures to make student loans easier to repay and legislation to create a temporary tax credit for new employee training and provide more federal dollars to workforce development boards. Hes joined other Democrats in calling for legislation to address gun violence and fight the Zika virus.

AGU-LIAR

A section of Chabots campaign website, Defeat AguLIAR, contains English and Spanish versions of Dishonest: How Pete Aguilar was Elected to United States Congress.

In the 52-page document, Chabot argues he could have beaten Aguilar in 2014 if he hadnt faced a multi-million dollar dishonest campaign by Democrats and Chabots lack of resources to adequately fight back.

Chabot also has called for Aguilar to step down from the House Armed Services Committee after Chabot said Aguilar declined to participate in an American Legion-organized town hall meeting. And Chabots campaign has accused Aguilar using the Democrats gun-control sit-in on the House of Representatives floor in June as a fundraising opportunity.

In an email, Aguilar spokesman Lou Wasson wrote: Its a shame that instead of focusing on the issues, Paul Chabot has resorted to childish tactics of name-calling and personal insults. Its ironic that Chabot has the audacity to call someone a liar when he is knee-deep in potential House Ethics and federal election law violations for attempting to conceal his financial interests from the public.

Aguilars defense of his seat is well-funded. From Jan. 1, 2015 to June 30 of this year, Aguilar raised more than $2.3 million for his campaign compared to roughly $500,000 for Chabot, campaign finance records show.

While many incumbents ignore their congressional challengers, Aguilars campaign has aggressively attacked Chabot.

A press release issued last month took issue with Chabots financial disclosure forms, with Aguilars campaign questioning the source of a $50,000 loan to Chabot and accusing the Republican of failing to properly disclose his income.

Both sides have linked their foes to the presidential race. A Democratic press release called Chabot a Donald Trump ally while National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Kate Constantini said: Its time for Pete Aguilar to come clean with voters and say whether he thinks Hillary Clinton is honest, trustworthy, or fit to serve as president.

IS THE RACE CLOSE?

Nonpartisan political forecasters who study House races expect Aguilar will win re-election fairly easily. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the 31st Congressional District by roughly 35,000 voters.

But a Chabot-funded poll from June showed him tied with Aguilar. And an email fundraising appeal from the Aguilar campaign described a close race.

Chabot points out that Aguilar got less than 50 percent of the vote in the June primary and that he beat Aguilar in Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga in 2014. He maintains that the districts conservative Latino and military voters give him a strong chance of unseating Aguilar.

Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, said Chabot did unexpectedly well two years ago. So nobody should count him out.

Still, (Chabot) has a much tougher road this time, Pitney said. The electorate in 2016 will be bigger and more Democratic. Moreover, Trump is likely to mobilize high turnout among Hispanics, who will overwhelmingly support Aguilar.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9547 or jhorseman@scng.com
A Rancho Cucamonga CPR business is hoping to set a world record in chest compressions.

CPR & MORE is seeking 3,000 individuals for a relay that will start at 9 a.m. on Nov. 3 and continue for 50 hours in the Guasti Room at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton in Ontario. Each participant will do a one-minute compression on a dummy. Within 5 seconds, another participant will take his or her place.

The current record is 2,614 people who completed a one-minute compression relay in India.

Information: cprnmore.com/world-record-attempt




ITT Technical Institute is the latest, but probably not the last.

The company, which had 130 campuses nationwide  including those in San Bernardino, San Dimas and Corona, as well as a handful of others in Southern California, shut its doors Tuesday.

The institute, which had 45,000 students, was the most recent for-profit college operation to suffer from the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Education.

Other Inland Empire colleges also are under the eye of the federal agency.

The Education Department has been on a tear in recent years, using its regulatory muscle to crack down on schools that prey upon vulnerable students, sucking them in with hyped-up promises of high-paying careers that often fail to materialize, leaving the students jobless and facing tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

When students default on those loans, taxpayers end up footing the bill.

In 2010, President Obama issued guidelines requiring that colleges measure success in training and show that their students land jobs that allow them to pay off the cost of their education.

The move came near the end of a 12-year period that saw huge growth in the private, for-profit college industry. Between 2000 and 2012, enrollment at two-year for-profit schools more than doubled and student numbers went up 700 percent for four-year for-profit schools. One of which was San Bernardinos ITT Tech campus.

Since Obamas announcement, the Education Department has moved aggressively against several major players, including Corinthian Colleges, which went out of business in April 2015 after being put on a restricted status that limited its access to federal aid funds. The company also was fined $30 million for deceptive practices.

In November 2015, Education Management Corp., which operates more than 100 campuses, including Art Institute of California in San Bernardino, agreed to pay a $95.5 million fine for deceptive recruiting practices and inflating job placement rates.

Those same issues led the Federal Trade Commission to file suit against for-profit powerhouse DeVry University in January. The lawsuit, which is ongoing, says as many as 300,000 students may have been defrauded. The Department of Education also sent the company a letter telling it to cease such practices.

The University of Phoenix also is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for possible fraudulent recruiting practices.

And in February, Marinello Beauty Colleges, which had campuses in Moreno Valley, Hemet, Temecula, San Bernardino and Ontario, shut down shortly after being placed on heightened cash management by the Education Department. That sanction means schools must first pay aid money to students and are then reimbursed from the federal government, instead of receiving the money up front.

That particular sanction can be an overwhelming burden for colleges that dont have substantial cash reserves on hand. Private for-profit schools typically rely on federal aid money  in the form of Pell grants and student loans  for 90 percent or more of their operating funds.

Some schools with campuses in the Inland Empire are facing that very problem.

Concorde Career Colleges, with campuses in San Bernardino and Pomona, is on heightened cash management for failure to show financial responsibility  all colleges must file an annual financial report with the department detailing their financial practices and health. Officials for the company, based in Mission, Kan., did not respond to a request for comment on their status.

Attempts to get comments from Summit College in Colton, Community Christian College in Redlands and Coronas Advance Beauty Techs Academy  all of which are on heightened cash monitoring  were also unsuccessful.

In a best-case scenario, all of these schools will improve their practices and have their sanctions lifted. Unfortunately, if history is a guide, that may not happen.

Contact the writer: mmuckefuss@scng.com or 951-368-9595
When a gunman opened fire on Dallas police officers in July, killing five of them and injuring several others, Murrieta Fire Chief Scott Fergusons stomach hurt. He picked up the phone and dialed Murrieta Police Chief Sean Haddens number, determined to come up with a way for the Fire Department to support the police officers it works side by side with every day.

This is one of those circumstances where words dont cut it, Ferguson said. Before long, he came up with an idea for a weeklong show of solidarity with the Murrieta Police Department: donning T-shirts with a supportive message printed on the back.

The shirts, donated by local doctor Robert Steele, were worn by the Fire Department in lieu of its regular uniforms from Aug. 22 to Aug. 28 and were emblazoned with the phrase, We have your VI, police and military lingo for We have your back.

A shirt, while simple, still makes a very strong statement that regardless of where you work, that theres a brother and sisterhood that we all stand tall and represent, and Murrietas no different, Ferguson said.

Matt Corelli, a Murrieta fire captain and public information officer, explained that the Fire Department finds the publics recent agitation with law enforcement troubling, partly because of the deep sense of camaraderie fire and police officials share.

We work with them on a daily basis. We shake their hands. We talk about their families, he said. So when we see those people possibly become targets  it really is concerning to us.

Law enforcement has recently come under national scrutiny in the wake of officer-involved shootings.

Corelli wants officers to know his department stands with them in the face of bad people targeting public safety officials.

Steele works with the Fire Department regularly. Wishing to show his support, he donated 100 shirts, which since have gone to every firefighter in the Murrieta Fire Department as well as to the Murrieta city council.

Theyre both our first responders, Steele said about the Murrieta police and fire departments. Theyre the backbone of our community when people are in need.

Steele works in emergency, which he says gives him a unique connection with fire and police.

He declined to divulge the cost of the shirts but joked that it was more than (he) expected. The We have your VI shirts are one of only two other instances  shirts for veterans in November and for breast cancer in October  in which Murrieta firefighters are permitted to wear something other than their uniforms to work.

The Police Department is grateful for the encouragement.

Especially in light of how public safety has been viewed in the recent past, its always refreshing to know that we have those supporters out there in the community, and especially with our brothers in the Fire Department, said Murrieta police Capt. Dennis Vrooman. We so much appreciate that.

Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
Local representatives of the NAACP say Murrieta police are being transparent in their investigation into the violent, videotaped arrest of a 22-year-old man earlier this week.

Members of the civil rights group met with Murrieta Police Chief Sean Hadden for about 75 minutes Friday, Sept. 9, to discuss the case of Alejandro Rojo, of Murrieta.

I feel as though justice is going to be served, said Darryl Smith, president of NAACP Branch 1034, which serves Murrieta, Temecula, Lake Elsinore, Perris and Menifee. We want to let the police department know that as youre doing your investigation, somebody is watching you all to keep you accountable.

Police say Rojo was causing a disturbance Tuesday night, Sept. 6 inside a CVS Pharmacy on Hancock Avenue in Murrieta, and when an officer tried to detain him, he fought back and tried to grab the officers gun, once inside the pharmacy and again after running outside.

A bystanders cell phone video shows police kicking the man and hitting him with a baton as he struggles against officers, then continuing to hit him after he goes limp.

During the meeting with Hadden, Smith said he and three members of his group, including Murrieta Councilman Harry Ramos, watched a security camera video of the incident that shows Rojo wrestling with an officer and then breaking free and running out the front door. The police department also posted the CVS surveillance footage on its Facebook page.

Just for them to release that and not withhold that from the public is important, Smith said. It made me feel they werent hiding anything.

Ramos agreed, saying Murrieta has a very professional police force and the department has incredible standards.

He said hes confident the case will be investigated thoroughly and the officers actions will be evaluated in a fair manner.

Hadden said that police have built a strong relationship with the local NAACP branch in recent years, helped to create a sense of trust between the group and law enforcement.

I thought it was a really good meeting, Hadden said. I wanted them to feel comfortable and understand that this is going to be investigated. We dont take these things lightly.

Police investigators will collect evidence, including video and witness statements, and submit the case to the District Attorneys Office, which will decide if charges will be filed against Rojo and the officers. Hadden said he expects that to happen within two weeks.

All but one of the officers involved in the incident remain on full duty. An officer who broke his hand will return to duty when he heals, Lt. Tony Conrad said in an email Thursday, Sept. 8.

After being treated at a medical facility, Rojo was booked into Southwest Detention Center early Wednesday, Sept. 7 on suspicion of attempting to disarm a police officer, obstructing or resisting an officer, resisting an officer causing injury, battery on emergency personnel and misdemeanor trespassing, according to jail records.

He was released later Wednesday on $20,000 bail.

Minu Rojo, his mom, declined to comment when reached by phone Friday. She said the family is not doing well and referred questions to their Fallbrook-based lawyer, Brett Parkinson.

Their focus is on making sure that Alex heals from his injuries, said Parkinson. Theyre putting all their attention on making sure he receives medical treatment and has a full recovery.

Parkinson said hes reviewing video and witness statements and will file a lawsuit if he believes Rojos civil rights were violated.

We want to make sure we have a good and complete understanding of what happened before we file any complaint, he said.

He said the family is shocked by what happened and whats depicted in the video.

In the cellphone video, shot in the CVS parking lot, Rojo is seen thrashing his arms and legs while on his back as an officer kicks him a couple of times and another sits on Rojos chest. One officer yells at him to stop resisting.

Later, when Rojo appears to be still and a third officer has arrived, one of them swings a thin baton with both hands, repeatedly striking Rojo in the upper body.

Police say Rojo had been tearing open packages of unspecified medical supplies and eating the contents before police arrived.

In a news release, officials said police attempted multiple force techniques to stop Rojo from disarming the officer.

Parkinson declined to comment on Rojos behavior, saying theres a different version of what happened than whats being reported by the police, but he did not elaborate.

Smith, the NAACP branch manager, said group members received assurances at Fridays meeting with Hadden that they will receive frequent updates on the investigation.

You never want to see that type of violence happen to anyone, Smith said. Im confident that it will be reviewed and proper decisions will be made and proper discipline will take place.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9292; stwall@scng.com; @pe_swall
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story was not clear about the type of court hearing scheduled for Sept. 13 on All Breed Rescues lawsuit against Moreno Valley. The hearing was to be for a judge to address an order to show cause on possible sanctions on the plaintiff. It could have resulted in dismissal of the case.

Margret Linne had some good news to share with her fellow employees at the Moreno Valley Animal Shelter. She quickly typed up an email informing them that a brown, mangy chow mix they took in a week ago had been picked up by its owner.

Linne had been working with animal rescue groups all week to see if they could find a home for the dog, but its age  15 years old  and condition made it a more difficult prospect. Fortunately, the story had a happy ending.

On her desk was a sheaf of papers with pictures of other animals that had been successfully placed elsewhere: a large bulldog that had been quarantined for a period after biting someone, a dog with potentially deadly parvovirus and a poodle that was hit by a car and shattered its pelvis.

Shes had her surgery, and shes walking around a bit, Linne said of the poodle. Another good story.

Linne has worked at the shelter for 15 years, but since April she has been in the newly created job of animal rescue coordinator. City officials added the position to improve adoption rates by having one person assigned to working with rescue groups to relocate homeless cats and dogs in Moreno Valley to other regions where theres more demand for adoptable pets.

The shelter already has seen an increase in animals placed with the more than 200 rescue groups it works with, said Steve Fries, animal services division manager. In the past five months, its placement rate with rescue groups has risen from 18 to 25 percent.

They have an opportunity to reach out to a larger audience of adopters, Fries said of the groups.

Some of the rescue groups specialize in certain breeds or are able to handle animals with particular problems, whether theyre sick or elderly. In some states likes Oregon, Washington and Utah, there is a greater demand for small, fluffy dogs, Linne said.

Theyre not overflowing like we are, she said.

Linne typically starts her day walking through the kennels, noting to see if there are any animals with special needs or need to be taken to a groomer. She then will start emailing rescue groups and networkers who work with them, passing on information about the animals.

The shelters policy is to hold animals for at least five business days, but some are kept longer, Linne said.

We will hold on to them as long as we have space or theyre healthy, she said.

The shelters overall numbers also are improving, Fries said. Over five years, the percentage of successful placements has gone up from 36 to 66 percent and the euthanasia rate has dropped from 66 to 34 percent, according to the animal services division.

Fries attributed the change to a number of factors, including working with rescue groups. The shelter has increased promotional programs in which it offers discounted rates to adopt animals, such as its Five Dollar Fridays for cats. It also began a spay and neuter program for feral cats.

An improved economy also may be a factor in reducing the number of abandoned pets, Fries said.

Still, the shelter has vocal critics who believe it can do more to reduce its euthanasia rate and are suspicious of some of the rescue groups.

Aja Smith, a Moreno Valley resident, said she is concerned that some of the groups raise money to take in animals, only to dump them at another shelter, based on anecdotal information on Facebook and other social media.

They have to make better efforts to make sure these animals are going to reputable places, she said.

One group, All Breed Dog Rescue in Yucaipa, filed a lawsuit against the city in March, claiming that a dog it had wanted to take in was euthanized before it could be retrieved. A court hearing scheduled for this week is set for a judge to address an order to show cause on possible sanctions on the plaintiff. It could result in dismissal of the case.

Fries said he could not comment on the lawsuit.

Both he and Linne said the rescue groups they work with have good reputations.

Actress Linda Blair, who runs a rescue group called WorldHeart Foundation. works closely with the shelter and has taken in several pit bulls, Linne said.

Fries said they found one case of a rescue group whose nonprofit status was revoked by the Internal Revenue Service for not filing proper documents. The division reviewed the status of 250 groups and found only two groups whose nonprofit status was not current, he said.

In some cases, animals are transported to humane societies in other communities, where they are put up for adoption, but Fries called that part of what rescue groups do. He called much of the information spread on social media inaccurate.

Folks that come to our facility and work with our staff, they know were in it to help the animals and work with them, Fries said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9558 or ighori@scng.com; @ImranGhori1
Good Samaritans rescued a young boy they say was trying to cross the eastbound lanes of the 210 freeway near State Street in San Bernardino on Saturday morning.

I saw him and I thought, Oh no, baby, please dont. Stop, baby, said Juan Jose Panameno Castro, of Pomona, who was driving on the freeway with his son, Andy Gabriel Panameno, 15, when they noticed the curly haired boy in a Mickey Mouse tank top.

The father and son immediately pulled over and said they were astonished no one else on the freeway stopped to help.

Panameno Castro got to the young boy and scooped him up.

When I had him in my arms, I felt relief, the father said.

Soon after, a second man, a retired Los Angeles police officer also traveling east on the 210 freeway, pulled over to assist the Panamenos.

He saw the little boy, too, and stopped, Andy said.

The trio immediately called 911.

What they didnt know is that as they were waiting for California Highway Patrol officers to arrive, a frantic search was taking place nearby for the child.

Around 8:30 a.m., San Bernardino police received a call from a mother saying her 3-year-old son, known as Johnny, was missing from the family home in the 2100 block of West Roosevelt Avenue  two blocks south of the freeway, according to authorities.

She told dispatchers shed looked through her home and little Johnny was gone. The unidentified mother and father also enlisted the help of neighbors to find their son.

About 45 minutes after her call to police, Johnny was safely found by the Panamenos and the retired officer.

The couple enthusiastically thanked the good Samaritans for finding their son when they met up just off the freeway near State Street.

The mother brought her hand to her mouth when she learned from Panameno Castro her young son was walking into lanes of traffic.

The child was taken to an area hospital as a precaution and appeared to be in good spirits.

San Bernardino officers at the scene said they would investigate the incident.

Im just glad we were there, said Panameno Castro. It could have been a terrible outcome. Thank God. Praise God it turned out well.
Our nation has survived for more than two centuries because, in the aftermath of each election, the losers went home with their only intention being to plan strategy for the next election. The election in November will, I fear, be different.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is already complaining that the electoral process is "rigged." He is revving up his base to believe if he loses it will be because the election was stolen, not because he actually received fewer votes.

Many in Trump's base have exhibited racism, bigotry and misogyny, to name a few examples of their contempt for democracy and our history as a great melting pot where everyone is welcome. I really fear the group coming out of the shadows with Trump's blessing will not go away quietly. I worry they will feel they have a right to overturn the results of the election.

Our democracy could be at stake in the next election, and any unrest may continue for years. I hope we can continue to keep America "great" and not strive to return to some mythical past that is erroneously seen as better than today.

Karen Wagner, Wautoma
LAKE ARROWHEAD  After a period of tension over large Confederate flags being displayed on student trucks, the atmosphere at Rim of the World High School was relatively quiet and uneventful Thursday as the school board met in the school library.

Not one parent or student appeared to speak during the public comment period on the issue of the flags  a far cry from the boards Sept. 1 meeting, in which more than a dozen parents and students showed up to weigh in on a small group of students that had staked Confederate flags in the backs of pickups since the school year began in mid-August.

Former Assemblyman and Twin Peaks resident Tim Donnelly had even showed up at the Sept. 1 meeting to voice his support for the students flying the flags.

But on Thursday, junior Josh Mainez said he hadnt seen any of the pickups flying Confederate flags parked outside the school since Tuesday.

I just noticed one day they were gone, said Mainez, 15, outside the school. He said he wasnt bothered much by the display of flags, which also included American and Dont Tread on Me flags staked in the backs of the trucks.

But I could see how it was a problem with some people, he said.

The Confederate flag long has symbolized racism and hatred to some, but to others it symbolizes freedom and defending constitutional liberty against big government.

Some parents and students had been complaining of racist activity at the school since the beginning of the school year in mid-August.

At least one parent, Jennifer Celise-Reyes, complained that students were writing White Power on their arms and chests and shouting it at minority students.

A kid got in trouble for painting a swastika on his chest, but I dont think he was one of the ones flying the flags, said Ryan Olsen, a 16-year-old junior, as he sat outside the school Thursday with his black mountain bike, waiting for his father to pick him up. He said the student who painted the swastika on his chest, and was suspended, was also friends with the flag-flying students.

Olsen said the student was a wrestler and also had the initials WP written on his forearm, but it stood for wrestling pride.

Lawrence King, assistant superintendent of personnel for the Rim of the World Unified School District, said in a statement Tuesday that one student had been suspended since school began for using language that was racially or ethnically offensive or charged.

Olsen and other students interviewed Thursday said things came to a head last week, when a group of drama students disseminated fliers throughout the school in protest of the flag displays. The fliers included a picture of chained slaves and text explaining the history of the Confederate flag and why it was considered racist, Olsen said.

He said he saw another student at the school wearing a T-shirt with the word racism written on it in bright red with an X crossing it out.

The flier incident occurred Sept. 1, the day a throng of students and parents showed up at the school board meeting, most in support of the flags.

In the mountain resort community of Lake Arrowhead, 86.4 percent of its 12,424 residents are white and 8 percent are black, according to the U.S. census. At Rim of the World High School, only 0.008 percent of its student population in the 2015-2016 school year was black. That equates to 10 students. The number of white students, however, totaled 722  62 percent of the student population, the data show.

Olsen said one of his friends who displayed the flags had the oil drained from this truck, which destroyed the engine after he drove it to school without knowing the truck had no oil.

He poured 41/2 quarts of oil in it, but when he tried starting it, it just made this clicking sound, Olsen said.

Christel Gomez said her son, who was also one of the students flying the flags, had a doughnut-sized hole kicked into the passenger side door of his pickup last week. But things appear to have simmered down.

Following Thursdays school board meeting, King said students appeared to have gotten things out of their system and have spoken their peace.

He said the incident involving the students handing out fliers was quelled in a matter of hours, and there have been no further incidents of note on campus grounds, either with the students displaying the flags or those opposed to the displays.

Contact the writer: jnelson@scng.com Twitter: @SBCountyNow
The name Millard Sheets may not be a household name, but in the world of mid-century architecture and design, he was at the forefront of many now-famous buildings and examples of public art.

Although he was very prolific, he is best known for designing many of the Home Savings and Loan buildings that dotted the Southern California landscape in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sheets was born in Pomona on June 24, 1907. An artist from a young age, he went on to graduate from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. During the Depression, he worked with the Public Works of Art Project and gained a lifelong interest in public art there.

Beginning in 1952, Sheets designed mosaics for more than 80 Home Savings branches that would open over the next 30 years. Typically, the mosaics featured scenes of regional importance or history, and would reflect the community in which they were located.

In Riverside County, two of these examples still survive. One is the present Provident Bank building at the northeast corner of Central and Magnolia avenues in Riverside.

Because of the importance of citrus to early Riverside, the Sheets murals central panel depicts Eliza Tibbets watering the parent navel orange tree from her dishpan and standing next to a man who holds a shovel and an orange. The Mission Inn is featured in the background. That panel is flanked by two narrower ones that depict blooming yuccas and a Joshua Tree.

Similarly, the old Home Savings branch in Hemet (now a Chase Bank branch at 105 N. Cawston Ave.) features a mosaic depicting scenes from the Ramona Outdoor Play.

Like the Riverside mosaic, it is a tryptic, with the center mosaic showing the lovers Ramona and Alessandro as they meet, as they take their baby to the priest and as Alessandro is shot by the villainous Jim Farrar for stealing Farrars horse. In the background are an ill Felipe, Father Salvedierra and a grieving Ramona. The side panels feature Juan Canito and Don Felipe, and between the three panels are designs that depict Indian basketry.

As with many prolific artists, Sheets himself only designed the works, while the actual construction was left to a trusted mosaic artist.

One such artist who lived in Riverside County was British-born Denis OConnor, who was described in his obituary as a foot soldier in a unique American campaign to bring art to the people.

OConnor lived in Anza, and over about a 20-year period, he produced more than 80 mosaics for Home Savings, translating Sheets drawings into colorful tile renderings. It is probable that the Riverside and Hemet mosaics are examples of OConnors work.

Luckily, there are still many examples of both Sheets and OConnors work still available for viewing. A quick search online will give the reader many more addresses of extant works.

If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
REDLANDS  When Caleb McClure looked at his class schedule at the start of his junior year at Redlands High School, one course stood out from the rest.

Advance Manufacturing I was not something the 16-year-old would have selected for himself, he said, but he decided to give it a try anyway.

So, I went to it on the first day and just really liked it, Caleb said last week. Just all the equipment and the fact we could use  it all really made the class fun.

Advance Manufacturing I is a new course offered at RHS thanks to a partnership between the school, Redlands Unified School District and Colton Redlands Yucaipa Regional Occupational Program. The class is available to students looking to explore careers.

The program, according to a flier available on the schools website, targets students who love tinkering with things, are creative and who excel in math, science and technology. But before they get started, each student must pass a safety test. All of this is done under the direction of Terrance Davis, a career technical educator with CRY-ROP.

Its a project-based class, so the first project we do is (build) an automatic can crusher, Davis said. Right now Im having them get a feel for which technology sector they are interested in.

While manufacturing is a new course at RHS, career pathway instruction is not.

All such classes fall in compliance with federal and state curriculum standards and are considered electives, which students may take at random, allowing them to essentially sample careers, according to the RHS website. Students are encouraged, however, to choose a coordinated set of electives to establish whats called a program of study.

According to Principal Kate Pearne, the manufacturing classes are expected to be designated by the California Department of Education as a Program of Study in the future, which could provide students with certification or college credit.

We have a decades-long history of really excelling in academics and AP (testing) and that will continue to be important, Pearne added, but because we have always focused on that, we wanted to focus on career pathways so were not leaving out a group of students that want to leave here fully prepared.

Not only does Redlands Unified fully back RHSs manufacturing program, but it also supported the schools campaign to bring 21st century equipment to its culinary arts classroom, another of its career pathway courses.

Equipment dating back to the 1950s was recently replaced with state-of-the-art stoves, refrigerators and microwaves.

This change will bring more opportunities to Joan Del Rosarios students, she said.

Last year I wanted to experiment with some things but didnt have the equipment for it, said the second-year culinary arts educator. Hopefully with the new technology were getting, we will be able to do more of that this year.

For students like Caleb, career pathway courses are an introduction to the world outside of school walls.

And that is the whole point, said Pearne.

Though he hadnt considered it before, Caleb said, manufacturing is now a career option. In the first couple of days weve learned a lot about electronic controls and how to wire stuff, he added. It has been a lot of fun.

Contact the writer: khernandez@scng.com; @TheFactsKris on Twitter
The driver of a cement truck was temporarily trapped when the vehicle rolled over on Highway 79 near Temecula.

The crash occurred at 8:25 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, near the Dripping Springs Campground several miles east of Temecula.

Cal Fire/Riverside County firefighters removed the driver, who was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of serious injuries, a department news release states.

Traffic along the road has been restricted to one lane until about 12:30 p.m., allowing crews to clean up the spilled cement and upright the roughly 30-ton vehicle, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.
Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Prof. Dominic Fobih has said Ghanas educational system will be destroyed if President John Mahama should go ahead and make tertiary education free.



According to him, not even developed countries such as UK, USA and Canada run a free tertiary education system as it is not practicable, adding that President Mahama should learn from the difficulties hes had with even providing facilities for his promised free Senior High School education policy.



President John Dramani Mahama while addressing students of the University of Cape Coast as part of his five-day tour of the Central Region on Wednesday hinted of plans by his government to make tertiary education free, should the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP improve.



I wish to assure you that, as Ghanas GDP continues to grow and as you continue to make wealth, we will continue to make tertiary education progressively free so that you pay less fees. In the meantime; we are investing heavily in tertiary education in order to make the teaching and learning experience good for you.



He said his administration has committed to investing heavily in tertiary education to ensure an improvement of the quality of graduates that are churned out of the schools.



The promise by the president follows the controversy that has attended his administrations implementation of the free secondary school education policy.



While government has parted itself on the back for the move, the opposition however claim there remains an element of cost in secondary school education.



Speaking to Kasapa News, Hon. Prof. Fobih who is also the MP for Assin South, stated that President Mahama by his pronouncement has shown that he doesnt understand what the cost sharing policy introduced in the universities during the 90s is all about, adding that there were good reasons for asking parents to support government in paying for the education of their children.



He said President should resource the Students Loan Trust with adequate funds instead of wasting it on a policy which will not feasible.



If he has money he should support the Student Loan, because the money given the students is woefully inadequate, what will GHC 500 do for a tertiary student, when we all know how expensive tertiary education is. It can even pay for user fee and parents are having things tough. Theres no money for GETFund, support to education from the fund is not the best, you havent been able to do anything about that and yet you want to introduce free tertiary education.

Source: kasapafmonline









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The first ever locally manufactured solar kiosk has opened at James town a low income community in Accra.



The kiosk which is fully powered by solar energy is best placed at places without electricity especially in the rural and peri-urban areas of the country.



Currently, Solar kiosk Ghana, operates about 10 kiosk in different location, all of which components were imported from abroad, Germany and assembled in Ghana.



JCS Investments Limited, a Ghanaian social investment company, facilitated the start-up in Ghana and is responsible for running Solar kiosk.



JCS investment Limited, in collaboration with Sola Kiosk, has introduced a range of solar products in Ghana to help the deprived have access to affordable energy.



The products, which are solar cookers, bulbs, fridges, deep freezers and fans, would enable rural and deprived communities have an alternative source of power, and save the national electricity grid from excessive pressure.



Brekusu is the first of five communities in Ghana that are benefiting from the pilot project of Solar Kiosk,



Patricia Safo, MD of JCS Investments and Solar kiosk said her company views renewable energy as being very important to providing alternative power to Ghanaians and empowering rural communities.



We are very proud that within a period of six months we have been able to provide Solar kiosk in five different communities in Ghana and that is not an easy task. We hope we can continue to provide more to a lot more communities in the coming years, she said.



She said though solar products are quiet expensive, it saves money in the long term, and that was the reason why the company was targeting deprived areas. To her, since Africa has abundant sunshine, solar energy is the future of the country.



Andreas Spiess, Chief Executive Officer of Sola Kiosk, based in Berlin, Germany, said the company is present in six Africa countries apart from Ghana. Though Sola Kiosk is a German company, Mr, Spiess said, Africa, currently, is the most promising continent, and he wants to be part of its development process.



According to him, even though Germany has less sunshine as compared to Ghana, 10% of their power supply was from solar: Africa has lot of sunshine. It is the sunniest place on earth, and yet most needed of energy.



He added that Sola Kiosk was in the country to contribute its quota towards improving energy in Ghana and the Africa Continent as a whole.

















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A 37-year-old man, Sikiru Olanrewaju, reportedly died in his sleep after having rounds of sex with his girlfriend on Surulere street in the Abule Egba area of Lagos State, PUNCH reports.



The report stated that the girlfriend alerted neighbours after discovering in the morning that he was dead.



The girlfriends landlady reported the case at the Oke-Odo Police Division.



The lover was said to have raised the alarm which drew the attention of residents, including the landlady, who reported at the Oke-Odo Police Division.



Lagos Police, Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, who confirmed the incident said:



The man was allegedly found dead in a room in the Abule Egba area after spending the night with his girlfriend. A team of police detectives from the Oke-Odo Police Division visited, examined, and photographed the scene. We discovered that there was no trace of violence on the body. The corpse has been deposited in a morgue.

A resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the deceased worked with an aviation company as a clearing agent, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja.



The man was married, but he had a girlfriend who lived in Abule Egba. On August 23, he had finished from work when he called her on the telephone that he would be sleeping at her place.



The girlfriend said she told him not to come because he was married, but he insisted on passing the night at her house.



The lady said when he got to her place, they ate the same food and drank the same water. They had sex, after which they slept.



She said around 5AM, she woke up to go to work and discovered he was stiff. She said she tried hard to wake him up, but he didnt respond. She said she was too confused to know what to do and waited for about three hours before raising the alarm, which drew the attention of people, including the landlady, the neighbour said. According to PUNCH, a source said Olanrewajus family were immediately contacted and the police broke the news to them.



The family said they dont want the police to investigate anything. They said they had received the news in good faith and that the corpse should be released for burial in accordance with Islamic rites. I am not sure his wife has been informed because she did not follow them to the station. But obviously, she will not receive the news well, the source said.







Source: PUNCH/Nigeria









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Ghanaian boxer Ayittey Powers claims he was offered $10,000 by fellow boxer Bukom Banku to have anal sex with him.

Banku is currently being investigated for assaulting a hairdresser, who refused to kiss him last week. He was put before court last week. According to Ayittey Powers, Bukom Banku, contacted him to plead on his behalf after assaulting the hairdresser but he refused because he thought it was unethical of Banku to have assaulted a woman who had done nothing wrong.



Powers further disclosed that Bukom Banku has been making advances at him for some time which he found a bit abnormal. Speaking exclusively to 3news.com, Ayittey Powers recalled the text conversation which led to Bukom Banku offering him $10,000 to have anal sex with him. I was at home one Saturday afternoon when I received a message on my phone so I decided to check and realised I had a message saying Powers I love you and it surprised me.

According to Ayittey Powers he texted back asking who the sender was even though he knew it was Bukom Banku. He said he did so because he wanted to be sure and not to his surprise, Banku replied saying it was him and he loves me. He texted back telling me that he wanted to sleep with me and admitted that he was gay insisting he wanted to sleep with me. I intentionally asked him how much he would pay if I agree to sleep with him and he said he will give me$10,000. He still kept insisting but I thought he was joking until later in the conversation that I realised he was getting serious. I asked him if he meant it and he replied in the affirmative saying, he was very serious and it would only be between us, then I started recording the conversation with my phone. He kept begging me telling me Im handsome so he would love to have sex with me which really shocked me.

Powers promised to make evidence of the text conversation public if Bukom Banku comes out to deny. I have all the evidence on my phone and I will release it if he dares me, Ayittey Powers shouted. How can a man wear eyelashes and bleach himself thinking it is normal, the boxer said angrily. He is gay and God will punish him and I say this because I believe in God and Prophet TB Joshua who is my father knows I will never do such a thing in my life.

Source: 3news.com









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A court in Kenya has ruled that Christian schools may not ban Muslim girls from wearing hijabs as part of their uniforms.



A church-run school had banned female pupils from wearing the headscarf, saying that allowing students to dress differently created discord.



But judges ruled education promoters must embrace the principles of diversity and non-discrimination.



Some 11 per cent of Kenyans are Muslims while 83 per cent follow the Christian faith.



State schools already allow girls to wear the hijab.



The country has had a long-running row over the place of the hijab at schools that are funded by Christian Churches, with some such schools banning the garment outright.



But following this ruling, Muslim girls will be able to wear headscarves to school.



They will also be able to wear trousers instead of skirts to school, as long as they are white. This brings Christian schools into line with the uniform policy at state schools.



Large swathes of northern Kenya have received very little government support over the decades and have grown to depend on schools and hospitals run by Christian missionaries.



In counties like Garissa, Mandera and Lodwar, the best-performing schools were run by Christian missionaries. Rules included studying Christianity and, at Catholic schools, attending Mass together at daybreak. The challenge came as Muslim students joined these schools.



One Muslim parent told me that at first, she had accepted the rules because of the school's great results. She wanted her daughter to go to university. But with time, she found the school to be in conflict with her family's religion. Teachers suspended her daughter rather than allow her to pray in the Islamic way.



Eventually this mother became one of the parents who challenged the school's uniform policy, leading to Friday's ruling. She said: "This decision is very good not for my daughter alone but for many students like her in north-eastern Kenya where practically the best schools are run by Catholic nuns."



Female students at St Paul's Kiwanjani Day Secondary School in Isiolo County had been banned from wearing a hijab and white trousers in addition to their uniform.



Local authorities ordered that Muslim girls must be allowed to wear hijabs and the Methodist Church challenged their directive in court. But three judges agreed with the local authorities.



The judges said students are "bearers and exercisers of the full guarantees in our bill of rights and they are no less entitled to those rights by reason only of being within school gates".



Local media report that the court said the hijab ban discriminated against Muslim girls "in so far as it prohibits and prevents them from manifesting their religion".



The case may have knock-on effects for other minorities, such as the Christian sect the Akorino, who wear turbans.



One father, John Kamau, told the BBC the ruling had come too late for his son, who was suspended from four different schools for breaking the rules.



"The law is good," he said, "but it cannot bring back wasted opportunities and life lost because school principals were overruling the Kenyan constitution and intimidating our children."

Source: bbc









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President John Mahama paid Steve Malory, Editor of Africawatch magazine, $2.5million to publish the recent cancer story about Nana Akufo-Addo, flag bearer of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, the partys Director of Elections, has alleged.



In its August edition, the magazine published detailed revelations about Mr Akufo-Addos alleged medical records in which it said the three-time flag bearer of Ghanas biggest political party has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, acute kidney injury, and an enlarged heart.



Mr Korsah told Chief Jerry Forson on Accra FM on Tuesday, 30 August that Mr Mahama hired Mr Malory and paid him the amount to carry out the hatchet job against his arch political opponent ahead of the 7 December polls. He said as a result of the payment made by Mr Mahama to Mr Malory, Africawatch magazine has always published positive stories about the President.

To buttress his allegation, Mr Korsah said the fact that some presidential staffers always had foreknowledge of intended publications by Africawatch before they see the light of day was proof enough that Mr Malory had received money from the president to whitewash him while hurling mud at his opponents.



Responding to the allegation on the same programme, Deputy Minister of Communications Felix Kwakye Ofosu told Chief Jerry Forson that there was no iota of truth in the claim that Mr Mahama had used $2.5million of Ghanaian taxpayers money to pay Mr Malory to execute a hatchet job for him.



According to him, instead of the NPP confronting Africawatch magazine and the hospital that was named in the publication about the revelation, the elephant party is rather accusing President Mahama and the NDC of being behind the publication.



Mr Ofosu said: It is a bogus allegation, it doesnt require our time. It is a pure lie, especially because he [Mr Korsah] has not adduced any evidence to prove his claim. In his view, the behaviour of the NPP was rather giving credence to the publication.









Source: classfmonline.com









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NDC Parliamentary Candidate for Bongo Constituency in the Upper East Region, Edward Abambire Bawa says that Nana Addo's campaign promise of "1 Village, 1 Dam" is very possible to achieve.



According to him, there is nothing that a government cannot achieve if there is political will.



Contributing to Peace FM's Kokrokoo, Edward Bawa, who is also the Public Relations Officer of the Energy Ministry noted that once there are available resources, the government can commit itself to establishing any project in the country.



This is why the NDC guru believes that the NPP flagbearer can indeed fulfill his promise.



If the government says it wants to change you from a male into a female, it can do. So, if government really wants to something, he will be able to do it. Of course, all that he needs to do is push in the resources there. Thats it. If at the expense of any other thing, he will be able to do. So, thats not the issue," he stated.



However, Edward Bawa is of a strong view that Nana Addo's approach to construct dams in every village is wrong.



He asked how the NPP is going to make it a reality without having engaged in any feasibility studies.



"If you take my constituency, there are three villages, Kadare, Koderego and Goh which are very close to each other, it just doesnt make sense to place a build a dam in each town. What has government done, it has decided to create one particular dam to feed the three areas. Dam constructions in themselves are good, the question is what is the approach? Is it the Van Dame approach which is one-dam one-village, or going the cluster way the government is currently going by...The issue is that promise he made, what is it based on? What studies is it based on? What research did you conduct to know that every village needs one dam?



Mr. Bawa said that the promise will be effective using the cluster method but not in every village.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi /Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President John Dramani Mahama has promised residents of Abura in the Cape Coast North constituency "one meter per house".



The President observed that several households at the area share meters which to him, may cause confusion in the payment of tariffs.



According to Peace FM's Central Regional Correspondent Nana Sanka, President Mahama indicated that he has already procured thousands of meters to fulfill his campaign promise to the residents.



He made this promise on the second day of his Central Region tour.



The "One meter, One House" policy by the President comes on the heels of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Addo's campaign promise of "1 Village, 1 Dam".



Touring Abura and Kotokraba markets to interact with market women, President Mahama noted that the electricity challenges have since become the bane of the area.



In Abura, I know your major concern is about electricity, a lot of you do not have meters. In most of the houses, the meters are shared. So Ive asked that 1500 meters should be made available to you so that each house will have one meter, Mahama added.



He believed this will help reduce the challenges in sharing electricity bills and also help consumers to be able to regulate and monitor their own consumption.



President John Mahama also took the opportunity to introduce the Cape Coast North Parliamentary aspirant Kobby Acheampong to the electorates.



He further urged the residents to vote massively for him during the December polls for a second term in office.







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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With the December 7 elections inching closer, one of the most controversial but popular preacher in Ghana, Prophet Ebenezer Adarkwa Yiadom alias Prophet One has pronounced his verdict by declaring that the New Patriotic Party would win the race.



The Founder of the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre located at Ahenema Kokoben in the Ashanti Region, has also called on the flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Akufo Addo, to include him in his spiritual cabinet by making him one of his presidential advisors.



According to him, Nana Addo will need strong spiritual backing to surmount the daunting challenges that lie ahead of him once he assumes office in January 2017.



To overcome these challenges, Prophet One is electing himself as one of the advisors who will constantly support the new administration with prayers and spiritual guidance



Prophet One made the statement when the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party, Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako, together with some leading members of the party visited his church to worship with him on Wednesday night.



Rev. Adarkwah Yiadom, who commands over 40,000 congregants at his inland city worship centre, performed a special prayer for the NPP leader in absentia, declaring that the flagbearer of the biggest opposition party will be third time lucky.



According to him, though the battle ahead of the party was not a small one, he was very hopeful that with fervent prayers and hard work, the NPP will be victorious.



He indicated however that once the victory comes, the NPP will need to marshal strong spiritual intercession to ward off evil forces that would want to create chaos and confusion in the country.



Apart from the prayers organized for the NPP presidential candidate, Prophet One was also reported to have some financial contributions towards Nana Addo's campaign.



The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, expressed his gratitude to the Leader and Founder of the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre.



He said the NPP would continue to believe and rely on God so that through his intervention the party can win the upcoming elections and save Ghanaians from the current economic hardships being experienced under the NDC administration.





Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email:[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Former serial phone-in contributor and staunch defender of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Yaw Baah popularly known as Dr. Asemfofro has endorsed the flagbearer of the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP).



According to him, both NDC and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have failed to accelerate Ghanas development thus another term given to either of them will be a disaster.



Dr. Asemfofro revealed this in an interview on Kofi TV.



He said Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom given his truck record as an astute businessman and an entrepreneur, if given the nod will save Ghana from total collapse.







Source: adomonline









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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Hello! Welcome to your regularly-scheduled dose of nostalgic wish fulfillment. Its nice to see you again.

We had such a fun time foisting the first footage of Emma Watsons Beauty And The Beast table read upon you all, and todays info is pretty damn similar: more details have emerged about the long-awaited, live-action Mulan reboot, which is still just fantastic to think about.

Not only is it a totally real thing, its now a totally real thing with significant financial backing. Former Sony Pictures exec Doug Belgrad made the announcement this week that his new firm will be throwin cash at the production, along with the also-hyped Bad Boys 3 and Zombieland 2.

Moreover, Belgrad said the plan is to shoot predominantly or exclusively in China with a Chinese partner and a mostly Chinese cast.

Its a Hollywood movie made for the world, but which we think will have immense appeal in China.

While that should lessen the chances of any numb-skulled whitewashed cast choices, it also makes sense from a financial POV. Lets get down to business: China is a massively growing market for cinema, and taking advantage of that just makes too much sense.

Moreover, MULAN IS COMING BACK, YIIIIEEEEWWWW. Well keep you posted, fam.

Source: Deadline.
I want to put out a general inquiry and to put it into the form of a question for yourself, if anybody out there has ever had a similar sighting to what myself and the family had on a vacation in North Lake Tahoe about 22 years ago. We were all out on the porch of a cabin that my parents had rented. And since there aren't a lot of lights in North Tahoe, there wasn't a lot of glare you could see. Blank night. Blanket of stars. Very clear view and there was, doing what would be a dot to dot course between the various stars just in a very methodical way that indicated intelligence, an object. (Art Bell asks if it was moving from star to star) From one star to the next but we're talking about what had to be enormous distances. The whole family saw it. It was not one person that saw it. (Bell chimes in, suggesting the caller was unable to tell the distance). When you are talking about millions of light years then depth perception could be a problem but I don't see how anyone, since we were a relatively anonymous group on the back porch of this cabin, how anyone would have been able to pull off some sort of a stunt, whether it's just having an object that is in some sort of a lower elevation.

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I encountered an unknown intelligent creature. I pulled into my driveway in Fernandina Beach, FL around 9pm in the evening of Sept 2006. It was very dark out with no cars or street lights near by. When I stopped my car and turned it off...I then opened my door and stood up to exit the vehicle. As I stood up I saw something that is difficult to describe. With the car door still open I saw what looked like some kind of cloaked creature walking around the corner of the house from the backyard. It was hard to see. It looked like the shadow of a human sized creature. It was totally black and moved like a person walking upright. It blocked out what was behind it and I could really only see the distortion it caused. The distortion had wavy edges as if it was surrounded by energy. I could make out it's head and shoulders but only in vague form. The creature took several steps and at the instant that I thought to myself "What is that?" It stopped dead in it's tracks and appeared to look right at me. At this time I was scared to death that this creature had noticed me and was looking right at me. After a few seconds of looking at each other the creature turned and walked back around behind the house and I never saw it again. The entire encounter lasted about 20 seconds. When I saw this I thought for many years it was a ghost or demon as my grandmother often told stories of seeing ghosts. Only recently have I begun to think it was an intelligent creature with a technology that was inexplicable. After the encounter I got back into my car and drove to my roommate's work and waited for him to get off work and come home with me. This was the most terrifying experience I've ever had. This is the 2nd unknown encounter I've had. I reported on MUFON a UFO sighting I had around 1996. For years I believed that encounters like these were just crazy people. I have been forced over the years to believe that we are clearly alone and not the smartest or most technologically advance creatures on this planet and beyond. -***********is a freelance screenwriter, amateur travel photographer, paranormal researcher and former field investigator for the Mutual UFO Network during the 2008 UFO flap in Bucks County, PA and later as a STAR team dispatcher. Born and raised in a small suburb outside of Manila, Philippines, she encountered a very intense haunting both by spirits and demons. These events lasted for several years, contributing to her interest in the paranormal. Family members also witnessed cryptids and a UFO (a close encounter of the second kind) which increased her interest.She starred under the name Elisa Simon in episode two of the pilot Discovery Channels UFOs Over Earth in 2008 and has been a guest inradio show. She has been a school counselor for over 20 years.Elisas first screenplay, The Tulpa Effect ranked #6 in the TOP TEN horror/thriller category of Script Vamps Dream Quest Screenplay Competition of 2012. The same screenplay was also a Quarter Finalist at the 2011 Page International Screenwriting Awards of 2011 and earned Third Round Finalist at AAA Screenwriting contest in the same year. This screenplay has been retitled FROM WITHIN ME.Elisa recently became a October/December Finalist at The Writers Place Screenplay Competition for her science fiction horror script, Anomaly.In 2013, Fade-In Awards placed her science fiction action adventure script, Uncharted Darkness as a Quarter Finalist. Under Tango Road, a supernatural suspense thriller received a Creative World Awards judges critique in the Strongly Consider category for its powerful use of subtext and effective handling of difficult subject matter.A trained school counselor by day, Annas stories are based on her extensive life experiences in the realm of the paranormal both locally and abroad, as well as from interviews garnered as a former MUFON field investigator.A culinary and holistic healing enthusiast, Elisa lives with her husband and two dogs, Fox Mulder and Rosanna Isabella in a small cozy hideaway in the hills of Pennsylvania.This event is listed at Arcane Radio Presents: Anna Manalo - UFO / Paranormal Investigator & Experiencer **********Anonymous caller:**********
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READ: Ted Forrest Goes to Court

September 09, 2016 PokerNews Staff

Ted Forrest, six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, appeared in court Sept. 8 after he was charged with two felonies for theft and drawing and passing a bad check with the intent to defraud, reported the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Forrest had a warrant issued for his arrest Sept. 2.

After being booked at the Clark County Detention Center Thursday for a short amount of time, he appeared in court before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman, who allowed him to be released, according to the Journal.

The charges are in relation to two checks he allegedly tried to pass (totaling $215,000) at the Wynn Las Vegas in 2012 and 2013 with insufficient funds, which Forrest signed a confession of judgement for in 2013 (stating that he owned the casino $270,000) and agreed to making monthly payments.

Forrest will return to court next month. More court records and information on the case can be found here.

Be sure to complete your PokerNews experience by checking out an overview of our mobile and tablet apps here. Stay on top of the poker world from your phone with our mobile iOS and Android app, or fire up our iPad app on your tablet. You can also update your own chip counts from poker tournaments around the world with MyStack on both Android and iOS.
A man in the Western Alaska village of Chevak shot and wounded a police officer Wednesday evening before killing himself, according to Alaska State Troopers.

A trooper statement issued Thursday morning identified the deceased suspect as 24-year-old Harold Paniyak. Troopers subsequently identified the wounded officer as 40-year-old Derrick McDonald, ADN.com reports.

"Initial reports indicate (Paniyak) shot a village police officer," troopers wrote. "Paniyak then took his own life. (McDonald) was medevaced to an Anchorage hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries."
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In Pensacola, Florida Friday evening, Donald Trump said Clinton could walk into this arena with 20,000 people watching, shoot somebody and not be prosecuted.

Here's the full remark of Trump saying Clinton could walk into the arena, shoot someone, and not be prosecuted: pic.twitter.com/J2G7rA6z3Z  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 10, 2016

This is the same guy who bragged that he could shoot someone and his followers would still vote for him. So this could be a sign of the green monster getting the best of Trump.

I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose voters, Trump crowed in January as if this were a good thing.

No matter how much Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump might wish it werent so, we have this system of law and order, wherein we have these things called procedures we follow when we think someone or something should be investigated.

These procedures were followed in regards to every single Republican-created scandal surrounding Clinton, which means that Hillary Clinton has been vetted more than any other candidate  her emails gone over and over and over, and still she was cleared of intentional wrong doing.

It turns out, Clinton didnt do anything that many other (most Republicans who ran for President in the 2016 primaries, in fact) politicians have done with their emails.

But Donald Trump doesnt have any respect for multiple Republican-led investigations that have cleared Clinton. Trump needs to believe that Hillary Clinton is guilty and got away with it.

This man who is running to implement and enforce our laws from the executive branch doesnt care what our procedures discover. No evidence of wrong doing? You should be shot, according to Trumps aide.

If Trumps in charge, facts wont matter. If we think our criminal justice system has problems right now, just wait until Trump gets his hands on it.

Things didnt veer far from that level of discourse, as Trump imagined himself a scattershot maniac blowing up the world:

Trump says if Iranian sailors make gestures toward our ships they're not allowed to make, they will be "shot out of the water."  Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 10, 2016

The thing is, Hillary Clinton would never use the words I could shoot someone. The person who did that was Donald Trump. These words alone are disqualifying for the office, and any sane, rational person knows this.

Donald Trump once again used an analogy or suggestion of shooting while speaking in public. This is not presidential. Trump sounded like a petulant child whining that someone else has the privilege that only he should have.

Trump cant talk without suggesting that Hillary Clinton is guilty of things she is not guilty of. He has nothing to say if he cant bash Clinton, a fact he proved during the Commander-in-Chief forum when he was asked to not bash his opponent but he spent his time attacking Clinton and Obama instead of selling his own ideas.

This is the real Donald Trump. The man with no ideas other than selling division and hatred and feeding his followers absolute fiction until their beliefs are so far from reality that regular people cant stand talking to them.
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Appearing today on CNNs Smerconish, Media Matters for America founder David Brock said that Fox News Chris Wallace hosting a presidential debate is a conflict of interest on its face.

Wallace, of course, worked for Roger Ailes at Fox News and Ailes is now a paid advisor to Donald Trump. Therefore, he argues, the debate commission has a particular Chris Wallace problem that they need to address.

Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:

MICHAEL SMERCONISH (HOST): David Brock is joining me now. Hey David, let me get this out of the way. I think that Matt Lauer made a mistake. By the way, Ive got immense respect for him, but I think he made a mistake when not confronting Donald Trump relative to Iraq. He absolutely should have made reference to the Howard Stern interview on Iraq and said to Donald Trump, thats just not true. But in a debate scenario, is that really Lauers job or Chris Wallaces job rather than the opponent? Isnt that why the opponent is there? A debate is a joust, itll be up to Hillary Clinton to correct that record.



DAVID BROCK: Well, I dont think you need a constant fact-checking operation going on inside the debate. But I do think where there are clear falsehoods that have been said before by these candidates, adequate preparation would be to challenge them on that. Youre a host, youre going to challenge me in this interview. I cant see just sitting there and reading off a list of questions, not listening, not having a real conversation and not challenging. As I said, it is certainly the role of the opponent as well to get in it. But I think you cant just lay down there in the face of these falsehoods. And as we know, every independent fact-checking operation shows that Donald Trump, his lies are off the charts. Hillary was rated as the most truthful of the entire field, Republican, Democrats. So the point here is if he lays down, its going to advantage Trump, disadvantage Hillary.



SMERCONISH: But Im concerned about the debate therefore becoming all about the moderator. And sometimes facts are fungible. People are still debating whether Candy Crowley was correct in the Obama/Romney debate by talking about what it was the president said pertaining to Benghazi and did he use the word terror the day after. I know you know of what Im speaking.



BROCK: Sure.



SMERCONISH: So its not always so clear-cut. Given what the Howard Stern interview revealed about Donald Trump, that was a clear instance. So Matt Lauer should have said something. I just dont want to open Pandoras box.



BROCK: Right, no I dont disagree with you. And as I said, I dont think every time somebody says something its up to the moderator to fact-check it. But I think that was a very glaring instance, were in agreement on that. And the other part of my objection to Chris Wallace has to do with a conflict of interest on its face. Which youve already referenced my letter. Roger Ailes is advising Donald Trump. Hes also a paid advisor to Rupert Murdoch, who is Chris Wallaces employer. And look: If Jeff Zucker was advising Hillary Clinton and also being paid by CNN, CNNs critics would be squealing like stuck pigs and theyd be right to do it. This is wrong on its face. Optically it stinks. And so I think the debate commission has a particular Chris Wallace problem that they need to address.

Brock is right. What Fox News and its audience want is not a debate but rather a prolonged, and  free for Trump  campaign ad.

Wallace has said he has no intention of fact-checking Donald Trump during the debate and Trump has said that he is happy about that. As I wrote here earlier, Trumps plan is to lie early and often, and Wallaces plan is to let him.
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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

One doesnt have to be an atheist to know there is no such thing as a human being with supernaturally-endowed prophetic gifts; even the legendary Nostradamus prophecies have been regularly debunked. However, there is such a thing as informed and observant humans making very highly-educated guesses based on mounds of prior knowledge and experience about a particular topic or trend. After hearing one big-time wrestling and television reality show celebrity run his pathological big mouth over the past year, there were several expert predictions in the form of warnings that allowing Donald J. Trump to have access to any intelligence or national security briefings may be an incredibly dangerous and horrible idea.

Those fears were realized, and the results were heavily criticized, this week when intelligence and national security officials expressed shock and awe that, like the big time wrestling caricature he really is, Donald Trump couldnt resist running his big loud mouth about national security briefings he received. It all occurred during the Matt Lauer misogyny hour (CiC forum) with big mouth Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The idea of a presidential candidate even mentioning anything about the intelligent briefings was incomprehensible to the intelligence community and several officials blasted Trumps comments made during the Commander in Chief forum earlier this week.

When misogyny Matt asked Trump whether he learned anything during his security briefings, things he didnt know or that might make him reconsider his bizarre campaign pledges such as his solemn promise to swiftly annihilate the Islamic State (Daesh, IS, ISIS, ISIL), Trump said, No, I didnt learn anything from that standpoint. Of course he would never admit he learned anything; he regularly claims to know everything about everything, including knowing more about the military and war than Americas generals. What he did say that elicited the ire and disbelief of intelligence and national security officials was:

I was very, very surprised. In almost every instance, and I could tell, I have pretty good with the body language [sic], I could tell, they were not happy. Our leaders did not follow what they were recommending.

Of course Trump would say he is pretty good with the body language; he regularly claims that only he, Donald J. Trump, is the be all, end all expert of everything else under the Sun. However, his bovine excrement body language statement was eviscerated by real national security and intelligence experts.

For example, Michael Morell, the former CIA director reiterated a point of proof that Donald Trump lacks even a rudimentary understanding of how classified intelligence works. He said:

This is the first time that I can remember a candidate for president doing a readout from an intelligence briefing, and its the first time a candidate has politicized their intelligence briefing. Both of those are highly inappropriate and crossed a long-standing red line respected by both parties. To me this is just the most recent example that underscores that this guy is unfit to be commander-in-chief.

One of the former CIA officers who had the pleasure of delivering daily intelligence briefings to high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration, David Priess, said This is unprecedented. Weve had other presidential candidates mention that they got a briefing and talk in platitudes about it. Weve never had somebody talk about what happened in a session.

Mr. Priess statement was backed up by another former high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, Paul Pillar, who said that it was impossible for Trump to have read anything in the spies body language because doing so would have represented an inconceivable violation of training and tradition; a fact that was backed up by several former U.S. intelligence officials. As Mr. Pillar said,

Those selected for this task would have been the most professional of an elite corps of intelligence officers. The last thing they would do is express either verbally or through body-language preferences about candidates or policy.

The intelligence officials did say that although during the briefings there were no secret body language signals sent to Trump by what are effectively highly-trained spies, those accused briefers are likely muttering quietly to themselves and shaking their heads at one of the presidential candidates now, and it is certainly not Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post reported that members of the intelligence community are outraged at Trump and said he had absolutely no right to disclose anything he learned in a briefing.

The assertion was delivered as a throwaway line during a lengthy discussion of foreign policy. But among U.S. intelligence officials, Trumps claim amounts to an accusation of a serious breach of professional ethics. (author bold)

The spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency which is responsible for overseeing presidential candidates briefings, declined to comment and it is certainly in keeping with part of the professionalism typical of the intelligence community who comprehend that keeping these things thoroughly private is of paramount importance. Many U.S. Officials had expressed major concern that besides running his mouth, the acerbic Trump would be abusive towards the experts responsible for delivering up the intelligence briefings. Thus far, those officials concerns about Trump being given access to security briefings have not come to pass, at least not yet.

Mr. Pillar, the real CIA intelligence analyst said, There will be other opportunities to be abusive  the higher priority now is to cast a negative light on his opponent. He also related that the intelligence and national security briefers reaction to Trumps phony depiction of their session involved shaking of heads and rolling of eyes, but part of the professionalism is to keep that thoroughly private.

The Washington Post felt it was important to report and reiterate an obvious bit of history: Officials said it was the first time they could recall a presidential candidate providing a readout of a briefing he had been given, let alone exploiting it to make a political point. It is also the first time a pathological megalomaniac and television celebrity was a presidential candidate and likely why there was no shortage of concern over an egotistical loudmouth like Trump being privy to any kind of sensitive national security information.

What is telling about the main stream medias advocacy for Donald Trump is there was hardly any reporting about the intelligence officials damning indictment of Trump revealing anything whatsoever about his experience, albeit a lie, during security briefings. It is also telling that misogyny Matt (Lauer) specifically asked Trump a question that allowed him to espouse his body language expertise during those briefings, portray the intelligence community as critical of their Commander in Chief, and accuse high-ranking intelligence experts of sending secret body signals to a loud-mouthed big-time wrestling celebrity. Donald Trump has no more right to national security intelligence briefings than Russian President Vladimir Putin who probably received a recounting of the briefing from his BFF and big-time wrestling loudmouth Donald J. Trump.
Today, Im going to share with you some of the fun family-friendly things you can do when visiting Delft and The Hague in the Netherlands.

At the beginning of August, our family was able to take a trip to the Netherlands and Norway with my parents and Aunt, and Uncle. I still cant believe that we were able to get everyones schedules coordinated to go. My oldest daughter is now a senior in college and my twins are starting their sophomore year of high school, at two different schools. Juggling all of those school schedules with my parents schedule AND the cruise ship itineraries was not easy but somehow it worked out.

Our Adventure to the Netherlands and Norway

Ive mentioned before that my husband lived in the Netherlands for 2 years as a church missionary. I may not have mentioned that my father also served a church mission, but his was to Norway in the 60s.

My great grandfather was also born in Norway and it has always held a special place in my heart. I remember my Dad telling us stories about his experiences in Norway when I was younger. I also remember looking at his photos and dreaming about visiting there someday.

Our Personal Connections to Norway & the Netherlands

Last summer I was at my parents house, it was a normal afternoon without much going on and somehow the conversation turned to Norway. My dad said something like, if you want to go to Norway with me, youd better do it soon, Im not getting any younger.

Truthfully, my parents are in great health (thankfully) and he may have been exaggerating a tiny bit, but it worked. Soon hey wouldnt it be fun turned into maybe this will work and we booked a trip.

I had many things to organize before it was officially a go, including taking on extra work to fund the trip. If you know me personally, its part of the reason Ive been a hermit most of the year. In the end, Im very grateful that all of the strings got tied up and we were able to take the trip.

My husband at first was not as enthusiastic about the trip as I was (responsible Dad that he is), but was swayed when I told him that we found a cruise that left from Amsterdam and went to Norway. (Plus the whole Ill take on extra work so we can go thing helped too). This is also pretty cool to me, since we managed in one trip to let both my dad and my husband use their obscure European language skills.

Suggested Trip Itinerary

We flew into Amsterdam and planned to spend 3 nights there before heading out on the cruise. We were scheduled to go to Bergen, Geiranger, Alesund, and Eidfjord, however, a storm in the North Sea delayed our departure and we did not make it to Alesund. Instead, we ended up with another day in the Netherlands, which just means Im going to have to finagle another way to get back to Norway since we were only there 3 days.

I shared some of my trip on Instagram. I got lots of questions like what did you do?, where did you go?, would you go again? and was it worth taking your kids? So I thought Id take this post to share some of the fun things to do in each of the places that we visited.

Ill throw in a few tips that we picked up along the way too. (Also if youve been to any of these places, leave your tips in the comments section so that others can benefit from your knowledge).

Things to do in the Netherlands

I am by no means an expert when it comes to the Netherlands and Norway and Im not going to pretend that I am, but I am going to share with you what I learned.

While I was planning our trip I found several blog posts from people just like us who shared their experiences with some of the places that we visited. It helped me TREMENDOUSLY when we were planning our trip.

Hopefully, this might help someone else out too. At the very least, I hope youll enjoy looking at some pretty pictures. Because let me tell you, these two places are NOT short on Kodak Moments (which is funny because my Uncle who went with us used to work for Kodak).

First up the Netherlands; Im going to break up this trip into several Saturday posts, otherwise they are way too long.

While we were in the Netherlands we had the opportunity to eat with a local Dutch family. I met Phyllis a few years ago on a previous trip, and she invited my family (all of us, what a saint!) to have dinner at her home.

Shes a quilter and we were able to connect the first time on Instagram. So yes, I went to the house of someone I met on the internet(dont tell my kids *wink*) This was one of the highlights of the trip for me, I loved being able to take the kids to a real Dutch home, and get them out of the tourist areas a bit. The conversation was lively and the food was delicious. There is nothing quite like a home-cooked meal when youve been traveling all day long.

We managed to do a few other things in the Netherlands, here is PART one of our favorites:

1- Visit Delft

My husband used to live near Delft and took me to visit on our first trip to the Netherlands (you can read about it by clicking here). After the first trip, I knew I wanted to go back. We decided to visit Delft on market day. On Thursdays and Saturdays, they turn the center square into an outdoor marketplace.

You can buy food, and home goods (and there is a HEMA across the square from the market, which is the CUTEST shop). Many of the locals shop at the markets and its fun to mingle and experience a bit about the culture. While in Delft you can also tour the Delft Porcelain factory (its a bit of a walk from the old town). We did it once and found it really interesting. We didnt do it this trip since we were short on time. There was a small shop near the church where you could watch the porcelain being painted. Looks pretty dreamy right?

Vermeer lived in Delft and its easy to see where he got much of his inspiration as youre walking around the town. Its full of quaint old buildings (many of which look like they are about to fall over) and charming canals. This is the first time Ive visited in the summer and loved seeing all of the flowers around town.

How to Get to Old Town Delft

If you go, the Old Town is a short walk from the Delft train station. There are direct trains from Schipol and Centraal Station in Amsterdam. Exit the station and follow the signs to the Oude Kerk (old church). Most of what you will want to see are right around there. Its an easy city to walk, and easy to find your way around.

If youre there on the market day make sure you grab a fresh Stroopwafel at the Market, as you can tell, my oldest was pretty excited when we found some.

2- Visit the Hauge, including the Mauritshuis and Binnenhof

The Hauge is the political headquarters of the Netherlands. There you can find their houses of parliament, the Kings residence, and the Peace Palace (where many war crime tribunals have been held). You can also find a gem of a museum, the Mauritshuis. Its the home of many Vermeers (including the Girl with the Pearl Earring) and many other works by the great Dutch masters.

We did not visit Mauritshuis on this trip. It was KILLING me not to, but we were short on time. Its a gorgeous museum set in an old home. In my opinion, if youre an art lover, its not to be missed.

Tips for Navigating in the Hague:

To get to the Hague, just take a train to Den Haag Centraal station. From there its a short walk to the Binnenhof. Just follow the signs. It will take you through a charming shopping and food district, right past the Mauritshuis Its a gorgeous walk. The first time I saw the Binnenhof I was taken aback.

I dont know what I was expecting, but it wasnt that. It is old and grand and gorgeous. If you walk through the center of Binnenhoof and keep going straight you will end up in the shopping district in the Hauge. From there (with a map) you can easily find the Kings Residence and the Peace Palace.

A few other things to do in the Hague:

-Rent a Bike and bike to Scheveningen, a charming beach town (Make sure you ask a local to pronounce it. During WWII they would ask people to pronounce Scheveningen as a way to weed out German spies). We have done this on a past trip and absolutely loved it. You can easily rent a bike in the Hauge. Just make sure that you reserve it in advance.

-Visit one of the 30+ art museums (including the Escher and Louwman Museums)

-Hit up one of the many antique shops.

-Visit the Peace Palace

-Eat dinner in the open-air square

Ill save our experience in Amsterdam for another post.

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You grab the gallon of milk you forgot yesterday, pick up the cheapest toothpaste, and head over to the checkout line. Just when your quick trip to the grocery store is almost over, the employee at the register says, "Do you have a rewards card? It's free to join."

From department stores to drugstores, retailers are asking consumers to enroll in rewards programs, also called loyalty programs, for access to better deals. But signing up may not be worth the hassle.

"First of all, you're just going to be annihilated with emails," says Kurt Jetta, CEO and founder of retail and consumer analytics firm TABS Analytics. "It's not a weekly thing. It's a daily thing for most of these retailers."

The benefits of rewards clubs, however, include exclusive coupons, early access to sale events, and rewards points that can be redeemed for discounts or products. That lures many shoppers to sign up. The 2015 Colloquy Loyalty Census found that the average U.S. household is enrolled in 29 loyalty programs, but actively participates in only 12.

Rather than signing up for several programs, it may be more beneficial to stick with one or two you'll use frequently. Some retailers, such as Nordstrom and Best Buy, structure their programs so that the heaviest spenders reap the greatest rewards. To reach the highest tier of the My Best Buy program, for instance, members have to spend $3,500 in purchases per calendar year. This unlocks a longer returns and exchanges window (45 days compared with the standard 15) and more points for purchases (1.25 points for each dollar spent compared with 0.5 points).

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"The perks really go with people who spend the most with a certain brand," says Bob Phibbs, CEO of consultancy firm The Retail Doctor. Phibbs recommends looking over your credit card statement to get a sense of where your money is going. If your spending habits show you're already loyal to a particular store or brand, you could get the most from a membership there.

If you've already signed up for several programs, read the fine print on promotions to help you cut back. Cancel memberships at stores that frequently send out offers with short expiration periods for points or strict purchase requirements.

Some rewards programs get better over time if you're willing to wait. Jetta describes rewards programs as an agreement between the store and the shopper: Customers provide demographic or contact information to sign up for a program, and stores use the information to change programs in ways that could potentially retain more customers and increase spending.

In 2015, for example, Starbucks announced partnerships with Spotify and The New York Times to give members access to free music and content. "They could've built a program that was strictly based on buy 10 coffees, get one free, but they've now extended it across the store," says Jeff Berry, senior director of research and development at data analytics company LoyaltyOne. "They've really tried to create relevant benefits to their customers."

So when should you add another store rewards program card to your already crowded key ring? Enroll only if you shop at a store frequently and you'll actually use the benefits.

Otherwise, politely decline when the cashier asks you to sign up.
Small businesses cut back their borrowing in July, a reflection of their continuing caution amid a weak economy and uncertainty about the election.

The Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index fell 13 percent in July to 121.5 from June's 139.2. The index, compiled from PayNet's database of small business loans and leases, has fluctuated over the past year as the economy has weakened.

"The collective wisdom of millions of small business owners is to hold off on borrowing and investing in their businesses," said William Phelan, PayNet's president. The company compiles credit reports on small businesses.
At a time when many banks and credit union are seeing less people using branches, Rochester is in the midst of a mini-branch building boom.

In 2009, banks had U.S. 99,550 branches, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. By the end of 2015, that national number fell to 92,997. Rochester has 46 bank branches and five credit union branches. That's a bank or credit union branch for every 2,093 of Rochester's 106,769 residents.

Rochester is the bucking the national trend when it comes to branches. The easy answer to the question of why is the Med City's robust economic growth powered by Mayo Clinic makes it attractive for banks and credit unions.

However, each institution have their own ideas about branches.

 Altra Credit Union has purchased two parcels to build future branches.

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 West Bank has a large branch under construction along West Circle Drive.

 Think Mutual Bank is building a new branch in northeast Rochester.

 La Crosse, Wis.-based Coulee Bank is transforming the former Family Service Rochester building on Civic Center Drive into a branch.

'Contrary to logic'

"It's contrary to what's happening elsewhere, and I think it's contrary to logic," said West Bank CEO Dave Nelson. "In the next 20 years, I think we'll see, across America, a lot repurposing of real estate. I think retail consumer banks will just go away."

If building branches don't make sense, why is the Iowa-based West Bank constructing a $7 million, 15,000-square-foot complex in Rochester?

Nelson explains that West Bank is very different than retail consumer financial institutions.

"We serve the needs to businesses. That's the thing we're best at thing," he said. "We're never going to have a second building in Rochester."

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West Bank's complex is going to be a very different than most branches and that's on purpose, Nelson says. It will be focused on business banking and won't have a traditional teller line.

Is it driven by DMC?

Cheryl Dutton, Altra's vice president of marketing, has a very different of view of the Rochester landscape than Nelson does. Mayo Clinic's Destination Medical Center initiative is predicted to cause Rochester's population to almost double and reach 200,000 in 20 years. That population trend is what is attracting the La Crosse, Wis.-based Altra.

"It certainly makes financial sense to be there to help manage that growth," she said.

Altra doesn't feel like online banking and other technological advances has killed branches.

"Everyone claims that the millennials don't want to go into offices, but they do. They do need financial guidance to help them with loans and with mortgages," Dutton said. "There's still that personal contact that people need and we see that traffic coming into our offices."

'Source of new business'

Think Mutual Bank also believes there is still a place for branches. The Rochester bank is building a new branch at the corner of 37th Street Northwest and East River Road.

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"We continue to see high traffic at our branches. It is still a source of new business for us," said Jenny Hosfeld, Think's senior vice president of community banking.

While it is building a branch, Hosfeld points out that the new building it replace Think's current West River Parkway branch. That branch is being sold to the city of Rochester for the police department to use as a new precinct. That means Think will continue to have five public Rochester branches plus one on the IBM campus.

'Branch is the best billboard'

First Alliance, the Med City's oldest credit union, isn't following rush to add branches. It has three Rochester branches plus one in Byron.

Mark Hettinger, First Alliance's chief operation officer, says traffic to the branches is down and they are working to "marry service and technology" to better serve their customers. However, he understands why newcomers would want to build branches.

"These financial institutions are new to area. They are trying to gaining the kind of foothold that First Alliance, which has been here for 83 years, has," he said. "A branch is the best billboard you can have, if you put it in the right place."

First Alliance recently refreshed its "billboards" or branches with a new color scheme and a new logo.

Whether they are building branches or not, the gold rush of new banks and credit unions entering the Rochester market is understandable.

"It shows the sign of the times that Rochester is growing. There's a lot of opportunity in Rochester. Financial institutions see it as an opportunity to partake in a very growing and stable community," Hettinger said.
When the first tower collapsed, I knew that the building was filled with people, but I also understood it was full of firefighters. As I watched the replays of the towers collapsing, on the TV in the command center/conference room at the Federal Medical Center, I would close my eyes for a moment.

A couple of times I had to stand up and get a drink of water, look outside and gather my thoughts. As an individual who worked in the fire prevention field and had been a person in charge of two different facility inmate fire brigades, I considered myself a firefighter. I comprehended what had happened. I knew that as others were running out of the buildings, all the emergency personnel were going in.

These men and women who died 15 years ago have not been forgotten. This day, this event, in my opinion has changed the U.S. and the world like no other. America is still at war and has been since the attack.

Acts of violence against innocent people continue throughout the world. Our way of thinking of others who are not from our country has changed. One's thinking of religions that are different than our own has changed.

I don't see these hostilities ending in my lifetime. There will always be factions that will hate the West, in particular the U.S. We've gone from Al Qaeda to Taliban to ISIS. There are other players of hate as well.

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The fallout from 9/11 still affects our politics today. It affects the way we live and the way we exist in our day-to-day life. Three-hundred, forty-three firefighters lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, along with 71 law enforcement officers. Families were changed forever.

Massive response

This week there will be tributes and ceremonies of remembrance for the anniversary. People who were there will talk about their experiences. I thought I would discuss that event with a friend who is a retired FBI agent.

John Adie had a 22-year career with the FBI. He worked three years for the state's Homeland Security and Emergency Management division. The last nine years John has been teaching in the Century College law enforcement program in White Bear Lake.

John worked in New York City from 1987 to 1996 and worked on the response and investigation of the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, in which six people died and more than 1,000 were injured.

At the time of 9/11, John was assigned as a special agent in the Minneapolis office. Immediately after the attack, the FBI instantly established command centers in all offices across the U.S.

The centers were staffed 24 hours a day for several weeks. Immediately on the heels of 9/11 were the anthrax attacks, and John said literally every single FBI agent was working on terrorism-related investigations. The work, the leads and citizen reported concerns were overwhelming.

It took some time for the initial chaos to settle down. The work then became more in-depth and more complex and the agency became more focused on the threat that was now on our soil. John said the entire agency shifted gears and the Bureau's priorities became: 1. Terrorism (stop other attacks); 2. counterintelligence (gather information on persons or international terrorist activities); and 3. Cybercrime (intercepting information). This has not changed in the last 15 years.

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Rerouting training

The 9/11 attack changed the training curriculum of every law enforcement agency in our country. John said he traveled to several states teaching counter-terrorism to police departments. A goal was to educate as many state and local police as possible, as well as working with private security firms on what to look for and who and what the different terrorist groups were.

There was so much work to do, from improving information sharing, to developing methods of intelligence gathering, improving training, and working to protect our infrastructure. Many worked and stood guard for our country seven days a week.

John, along with thousands of law enforcement and emergency services men and women across our nation, have made a difference since 9/11. The improvements in all aspects of federal, state and county law enforcement agencies are too numerous to mention. They have continued the work of all who first rushed into those towers, which was to protect the innocent.

I can't help but mention that one of John's daughters and her husband are FBI agents. John's son was recently hired by the Drug Enforcement Agency. They must have seen something remarkable in what their dad did. Maybe it was his work after 9/11. Maybe it was what he stood for  integrity and defending others.

I know he must be proud to have them follow in his footsteps. It's a path that is not always easy and certainly not always appreciated. Many of us realize that it's a path that many must go down to protect the very principles and values we hold close. Those ideals will continue to be under attack.

As we remember 9/11, I'd like to say thank you to all who stand guard. Those who work 24/7. Those who rushed into the towers to help on a September morning. Thank you. You are not forgotten and you never will be.
PRESTON  A Spring Valley woman has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of assault after authorities say she punched and hit a man while holding a small child.

Taylor Renee Martin, 20, entered the pleas in Fillmore County District Court, where she's been charged with gross misdemeanor counts of domestic assault; fifth-degree assault  same victim within 10 years of previous conviction; and assault. Martin was also charged with misdemeanor counts of domestic assault, fifth-degree assault and disorderly conduct.

She was released on her own recognizance and is due back in court Dec. 5.

The investigation began late May 21, when law enforcement responded to a report of an assault. The male victim said Martin had come to his home against his wishes to see a child at the residence, the complaint says; when the man said his girlfriend was inside, "that was a problem for Martin."

She allegedly punched him in the mouth, cutting his lip. Martin also hit the man in the head, giving him a "goose egg," court documents say. When the victim told her to leave or he'd call 911, she grabbed the necklace he was wearing, pulled it behind his neck and put her knee into his back, the report says.

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Martin called her mother during the alleged assault, claiming the man was "getting in her face and yelling at her." Martin also allegedly kicked him as the child watched; the victim then told her if she left, he wouldn't call authorities.

The man had injuries consistent with his story, the complaint says.

Martin told a deputy the man hadn't shown up for an arranged meeting, so she went to his home, calling her mother to make sure she was on the phone the entire time. As she was telling the child goodbye, Martin said the victim pushed her into her car while she held the toddler, the reports say.

Her phone fell out of her pocket when the man pushed her, and she was screaming "stop" and "don't touch me," Martin said, then told him "this was not OK" as he tried to take the child from her.

She denied hitting the victim or grabbing his necklace, telling the officer the injuries were from a fight with one of his buddies.

According to court documents, Martin's mother was in a car with a friend when her daughter called; she put the phone on speaker, but couldn't understand what the victim was yelling. The phone went quiet, the complaint says, then Martin's mother heard her screaming and telling the man to get away.

The friend who was driving told an investigator all she heard was Martin yelling at the man to get away from her.

A review of Martin's criminal history indicates two 2015 misdemeanor convictions for disorderly conduct and a February conviction for interference with 911, a gross misdemeanor. In two of the cases, single misdemeanor counts of domestic assault were dismissed in a plea agreement.
RED WING  A Goodhue man accused of creating an explosive device, then threatening to burn down a house and garage, is due in court Wednesday.

Frederick John Presley, 46, will make his first appearance in Goodhue County District Court, where he's been charged with first-degree arson, terroristic threats and two counts of explosive/incendiary device, all felonies, and one count of fourth-degree damage to property, a misdemeanor.

He remains in custody in lieu of $100,000 unconditional bond; an order for a mental health evaluation has been filed.

The case began Aug. 21, when Presley returned from a fishing trip, upset. A woman at the house said he packed his clothes and loaded his belongings into his pickup, then spent some time in the basement and garage.

When she asked what he was doing in the basement, Presley allegedly replied, "you'll know in about 25 seconds." She heard a small explosion in the lower level, followed by smoke coming from a bedroom. The woman threw water on a fire on the floor, she said, and kicked a pile of objects that seemed to have been the source of the flames.

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According to court documents, the pile contained a propane torch with the switch "on," an exploded butane canister, a jar of gunpowder and assorted shotgun shells. Presley then went outside and padlocked the garage door, the report says, and told the woman, "you made me homeless, so I'll make you homeless," adding that he would "burn the garage down."

The Goodhue Fire Department responded, cut the padlock off the door and searched the building for additional explosive devices. None were found.

Presley was arrested later that day.
(Editor's note: Niles Randolph was an editorial intern at the Post-Bulletin during the summer of 1999. He was working for Wall Street Journal Online in New York in 2001 when the towers fell).

The sights, sounds and stories of Sept. 11 will burn on my brain forever.

I was home, about 20 blocks away, when tragedy struck the World Trade Center. Only three weeks before, I would have been working in World Financial Center One, which is across the street from the World Trade Center.

After the towers fell, the TV newscasts often showed my building, connected to the remaining skyway, its windows blown out. I was a copy editor for the Wall Street Journal Online.

Three weeks before, I would have been at work, but my start time had just changed from 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Monday, as every workday, I got off the subway around 1:30 p.m. and walked through the throngs of people on basement level of the World Trade Center.

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When I first arrived in New York, I went to the bar at the top of the north tower. I would regularly eat lunch in the plaza between towers.

But on Sept. 11, I was not that close. My co-workers were.

My roommate Seth banged on my bedroom door at 9:15 a.m., yelling that planes had hit the World Trade Center. I leaped up the one flight of stairs to our roof to see smoke billowing from burning pits on the towers.

I froze at the sight and cursed in disbelief. I kept asking Seth, "Is this real?"

We went downstairs to learn the hard facts on CNN. As we were watching, Seth said he was impressed the building stayed up. But at 10 a.m., we saw chunks fall from the south tower. We had our TV on, but we could also watch the top one-fifth of the towers from our window. We started yelling when we saw clouds coming from the collapsing tower. We ran to the roof where we caught the tail end of the building falling. A woman on the roof who was crying, buckled over and yelling "all the people!" As a man walked in front of me, he looked at me and said "all the firefighters."

I couldn't respond, standing paralyzed, with my mouth open, unable to speak.

Eventually we went back down to learn more on TV. Around 10:30 a.m., newscasters said the north tower was leaning. We watched on television and through the window as it crumbled.

Meanwhile, my co-worker, a reporter from Minnesota, ran out of the office to interview witnesses after the first plane struck. She got past security and walked across the skyway over West Side Highway that leads to the street level.

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There she saw luggage on the sidewalk, papers on fire, fruit carts overturned. She saw body parts, including a woman's head. She saw remains of people strapped into airplane seats. She ducked behind a building when the second plane hit and frantically made her way south, then east. She met up with three other of my co-workers, who had all evacuated after the second plane hit.

When the first tower fell, they ran for their lives. They found shelter in a building under construction, then moved to the shore of the Hudson River. Eight of my co-workers were there.

Amid tears, one would say she ran for her life, never looking back. One woman yelled she couldn't run any more. Others encouraged her on. Some co-workers were covered in white soot. Some covered their mouths with a wet towel. Many of them saw people jumping from the World Trade Center. My co-workers got on a tugboat, which took them to New Jersey. Women and children were told to board first. All, in the end, were safe, though shaken and permanently scarred.

Repeated attempts to call my mom on my cellphone produced nothing. So I went down to find a payphone on the street. There were lines at each phone. I called my mom and told her I was OK, that I was at home and safe.

I became emotional then. I cried when crossing Second Avenue. I thought of all the innocent people who had nothing to do with our foreign policy toward the terrorists.

When cellphones were working again, I called work. No one responded, so I assumed they had evacuated. I took a shower and wept.
What type of jobs does southeastern Minnesota need?

Educators and business leaders set out to answer that question about a decade ago. After much discussion with area business leaders to find out what skills their workers were lacking their answer came in the form of seven pathways  agriculture, construction, engineering, health sciences, hospitality, informations technology and manufacturing.

"It was using our education expertise, combined with our business expertise, and saying 'OK, let's design something that's going to work for everybody,'" RPS Superintendent Michael Munoz said.

Michelle Pyfferoen, dean of career and technical education and business partnerships, said planners decided to "go broad and include lots of industries" because "every industry right now is in dire need of employees."

They soon realized that there wouldn't be enough space inside the CTECH building to house all seven program, so RCTC agreed to house much of the programming on campus, outside of the CTECH building.

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"Luckily, we were able to reallocate and shuffle some things around at the college and provide some space so that we were able to make sure we did address all seven industry needs," Pyfferoen said

Hospitality, manufacturing and healthcare will be housed in the CTECH building.

How'd it all come together?

Between 2009 and 2011, career and technical programming at the K-12 level was especially hard hit by budget cuts, Munoz said.

Education leaders began talking about what they could do because "obviously every individual school couldn't put together such a program," former RCTC President Don Supalla said. "This is an idea that was kind of incubating for a decade or more."

A lot of people, educators, and businesses invested in the concept, and local education leaders "picked the brains" of educators in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, which had set up a similar program.

"But I think what separates us from others is how we came up with the pathways  we didn't just say, 'Hey, it'd be cool, let's have engineering, or let's have agriculture.' We sat down and worked with the community and said, 'OK, what's best for southeast Minnesota?" Munoz said. "What makes it unique is that we continue to have those partnerships and are still working with those individuals."

And then the question came: How are we going to pay for this?

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In 2012, voters approved a citywide, half-cent sales tax to be put toward a number of projects, including a career and technical education center. Though leaders involved from the start say the idea had been in the works for about a decade before that, the $6.5 million approved by voters set up the plan to build the building on RCTC's land, and have it be operated by RPS.

Of all the items financed by the sales tax, Supalla said, "the one that seemed to resonate with everybody was the CTECH program."

Supalla said he thinks the financing worked out so well because it came from the city and wasn't competing with another school district program.

"It wasn't like we were taking money away from another school district program because this was external funding coming to build the building," Supalla said.

The building is opening a year later than planned  originally plans called for s fall 2015 completion. Issues with the building plan caused a delay, and resulted in a phased opening. (Some of the seven pathways were offered last school year.)

"It's not going to solve the problem, but I think it's going to help address some of the issues that our businesses are struggling with in finding that skilled workforce. Munoz said.

Student benefit

The courses give students a chance to try out a number of different career pathways before they get into the real world.

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"The value is it's giving students experiences in different career pathways early so they can decide if they like something or don't like something early on," said Aaron Benike, president of Benike Construction. "Often, people get too far down the road before they realize it's not for them."

The construction pathway has a mentorship program with Rochester Area Builders, to pair students with an industry professional. In the future, Munoz said. CTECH hopes to expand mentorships to other pathways, with the goal of eventually offering that opportunity to all students.

Pyfferoen said the CTECH program will bring more awareness to the resurgence of technical programs and the opportunities that exist in those fields. For students, she said, it will give them a chance to get the skills they need to make a livable wage out of high school, or continue with their education after high school.

"As teachers, we can use books and teach them about it, but for a student to interact with a person who's doing that right now as a career, can really be very powerful for kids," Munoz said. "Books don't tell you everything."
MINNEAPOLIS  Minnesota Democrats are asking the state's Supreme Court to remove Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump from the ballot.

The state party filed a petition Thursday asking Minnesota's secretary of state to drop Trump and running mate Mike Pence from the general election ballot, arguing the Republican Party of Minnesota erred in how it submitted Trump's name.

State law requires political parties to select electors  the people who cast Electoral College ballots following the popular vote  and their alternates at conventions as part of putting a nominee on the ballot.

Democrats argue the GOP didn't choose its alternates at its convention but that party leaders chose them last month to meet a looming deadline. They say that invalidates the GOP's ballot submission and that Secretary of State Steve Simon should have rejected it.

Minnesota Republican Party chairman Keith Downey said Friday that the Democrats' petition is "baseless and politically corrupt."

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Downey said the party completed its requirements five days before the Aug. 29 filing deadline and in compliance with state law and party rules, submitting nominees for president and vice president along with nominees for elector and alternate elector. The ballot filing was certified by the secretary of state, he added.

"Donald Trump got on our ballot fair and square, and it is outrageous that the Democrat Party would actually try to rig the election this way," Downey said.

Downey previously has acknowledged that the party forgot to vote for alternates at its convention in May.

The Democrats' effort to remove Trump from the ballot will force the GOP to expend precious time and resources on a legal battle rather than the fight for control of the Legislature. Minnesota's Republican Party still is carrying roughly $1 million in debt from the 2010 elections.

Democrats brought on a pair of veteran election attorneys to make their case to the Supreme Court: Marc Elias and David Zoll, who both helped in the recounts that eventually elected Democrats Al Franken to the U.S. Senate in 2008 and Mark Dayton in the 2010 gubernatorial election.

The clock is ticking for a resolution. Early voting in Minnesota begins Sept. 23, and the secretary of state's office said in a court filing Friday that it would need direction by Monday to correct ballots.
With school starting again this week, administrators around the state are facing a new legal landscape. A Minnesota Supreme Court ruling will likely change the way administrators discipline students caught with weapons.

Under the court decision, schools will have to investigate the student's intent when weapons that aren't firearms show up in school.

The court's ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by now 19-year-old Alyssa Drescher. The southern Minnesota resident clearly remembers the day almost two and a half years ago when her world was turned upside down.

Her school superintendent said he would push to expel her from United South Central High School in Wells for a weapons violation.

"The superintendent called my dad and said he wanted to make an example out of me," said Drescher. "When he said that I broke down. I didn't know what to do because I've never gotten in trouble .... never had a detention or anything."

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A drug-search dog alerted on Drescher's locker. No drugs were found, but law enforcement turned up a pocket knife in her purse.

"I'd totally forgotten about it, honestly," said Drescher.

Drescher explained she'd used the knife to help her boyfriend with farm chores, then placed it in her purse. She was expelled for the rest of the school year for violating the school's weapons policy. But she and her family fought back.

There was an outpouring of public support, including from some state legislators, who said the school's punishment was too harsh for an innocent violation.

The Minnesota Department of Education sustained the expulsion order, but the family had better luck in the judicial system. The state appeals court reversed the school board, and the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld that ruling. Drescher's supporters were elated that the school district's expulsion decision had been rebuffed.

"They did go too far," said Drescher's attorney Andrea Jepsen with the School Law Center in St. Paul.

"And this really, I think, is a swing of the pendulum back to a common-sense approach to disciplining students," Jepsen said.

A key part of the Supreme Court ruling holds that in order to expel, a school district must first determine that a student deliberately violated school policy  a "willful violation" in the language of the law. But since Drescher maintained she accidentally carried the knife into school, the court ruled there was no intent to violate school policy.

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That represents a sea change. In the past, Minnesota school districts have routinely expelled students in similar forgotten weapons cases, mostly for bringing in knives. But attorney Jepsen said the Supreme Court decision means schools now have much less leeway to expel under state law.

"The appropriate expectation is that school districts will follow the law explicitly," she said. Jepsen.

To be clear, the court ruling does not include firearms. Bring a gun to school, even unknowingly, and expulsion is almost certain.

The new United South Central superintendent says the state Supreme Court ruling will force administrators to conduct time-consuming inquiries about a student's state of mind.

Keith Fleming took over this summer after the superintendent who expelled Alyssa Drescher retired.

Fleming says he too might have expelled Drescher had it been his call. He says "I forgot" is a student's go-to excuse, and often not credible. Now, he says the Supreme Court ruling means administrators will have to prove "I forgot" is not credible in order to expel someone.

"So as we're going through the investigative process, we're going to be thinking about a line of questioning that would establish intent," said Fleming.

Fleming says if a case turns out to be true forgetfulness, a district can still punish, but it will have to be something less than expulsion.

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Despite her victory in court, Alyssa Drescher says being kicked out still hurts.

"I hope my situation helps other kids," she said, "and changes the policy [so the system] looks at individuals and not everyone as a whole."

The college sophomore's days in court may not be over though. She and her lawyers are considering a lawsuit over the unlawful expulsion.
While the anniversary of 9/11 resonates deeply with many Americans, the day is particularly poignant for veterans on Guam.

It means a lot for us, especially the younger generation, said Iraq veteran Rodney A. Cruz, Jr.

Cruz joined the Army in July of 1998, at a time when the likelihood of a major terrorist attack and a years-long military engagement seemed low.

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I never thought Id go to war, Cruz said.

That all changed on September 11, 2001, when hijackers flew planes into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania. Ultimately killing approximately 3,000 Americans, the attacks set off a decade of war  beginning with strikes against Afghanistan and continuing with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Cruz and his squad were training in the early hours of September 11, when the news came in about the attack.

A lot of us were mad, furious, crying, he said. We didnt know what to do.

Watching the footage of the terror attacks that morning, the reality hit him.

Its really happening, he said. We are actually going to war.

'Well be leading the 9/11 events'

Cruz deployed to Iraq multiple times from 2003 to 2007 and withstood a bevy of enemy attacks, including an IED explosion, being shot by a sniper and falling approximately 30 feet.

Now disabled, Cruz works to advocate for his fellow student vets, many of whom are also disabled. In Spring 2015, Cruz and other veterans founded the Guam Community College Veterans Club (GCCVC) to help veterans transition to college life.

These veteran students needed the opportunity to get some additional services, Cruz said.

Sunday morning, Cruz and members of the GCCVC will host the first Annual Patriots Day & National Day of Service and Remembrance at the Guam Community College Multi-purpose Auditorium.

Since we are a day ahead of everybody in the mainland, well be leading the 9/11 events, said Cruz. The student-led event will include a presentation of colors by the JROTC and laying of wreaths at the foot of an American flag. Representatives from different branches of the armed services, as well as Guams 9/11 survivors and local politicians, will attend the event. Col. Philip Zimmerman, a Pentagon 9/11 survivor and the Marine Forces Pacific Guam & CNMI officer in charge, will speak at the event. Gov. Eddie Calvo will present one of the wreaths.

Three days of 9/11 activities

This is an important event for veterans. They realize what people who survived the attack have gone through. Because a lot of them have gone through a similar thing in their combat experience, said Jayne Flores, assistant director of communications and promotion. Its a very important day for them.

This is the second year the club has held a commemoration event. Last year the students dedicated the veterans student lounge  a place where vets can gather and support one another. Theyve experienced things the rest of us dont understand, Flores said. They have a camaraderie.

Sundays event caps three days of activities commemorating the attacks. On Friday, Lt. Gov. Ray Tenorio attended a proclamation signing identifying September 11 as National Service and Patriots Day. The Heroes 2K/5K Run or Walk race kicked off at 6 a.m. on Saturday. Launched at the Acanta Mall, the race took a winding route through Tumon and looped back to its starting point. The event benefitted the "Iraq-Afghanistan Persian Gulf Veterans of the Pacific" and other charities.

The nonprofit organization, which Cruz founded in 2013, aims to provide direct services and support for disabled veterans on Guam and in Micronesia. Because were the most western U.S. soil, we dont have any service or representation out here on Guam, Cruz said.

Fire department will honor first responders who died

The Guam Fire Department will support the GCCVC memorial by stationing a firetruck or medical rescue vehicle on the GCC campus.

GFD will also honor the fallen of 9/11 with an early morning jolt. At 8 a.m., at fire stations across the island, lights will flash and sirens will blare  as a reminder of the many first responders who died trying to save others.

A permanent memorial

Not far from the cliff line at Two Lovers Point stand two pillars on a base of black granite. As part of the 9/11 Peace Memorial Monument of Guam, they mark a space for quiet contemplation of life and loss, for remembering the past, and for drawing hope for the future.

Getting it started

Joey Lopez Sr., of the Rotary Club of Northern Guam was instrumental in creating the memorial. As club president at the time, Lopez says the Guam chapter was brainstorming with fellow Rotary members in Australia about creating a monument to peace. The Australians suggested using a latte stone design for the Northern Guam Rotary's peace edifice.

Then I thought, 'What if we incorporated the design of the towers, to make it both a 9/11 and a peace memorial?'

His fellow Rotarians agreed on the concept, but had concerns about the cost. Lopez was insistent upon using black galaxy granite, which would cause a major funding hurdle.

The black galaxy granite with the gold flecks was the top-of-the-line granite at the time, he says.

But those worries were overcome when Guam companies started chipping in.

We made a booklet outlining the concept and the design and passed it around  We told them we need a $1,000 or a $750 donation, and they said 'No problem.

Soon, individuals across Guam were pitching in a hundred or more dollars at a time, as well.

Designs and modifications

As the funding came together, Guam architect John Setiadi expanded upon the project's design. The black granite base is the design of the latte stone, says Lopez, because the latte is the foundation of the traditional Chamorro house.

And from that foundation rise the two towers.

It symbolizes that you will never break the will of the Chamorro people and you will never break the will of the Americans.

Originally, two bright shafts of light were supposed to shine from the tops of the towers into the night sky. But it was not to be. Because the airspace above the towers is near the flight paths of jet planes, the Federal Aviation Administration wasn't keen on the potentially disorienting light show.

Engaging the community, expanding the project

Touched by the outpouring of donations, the projects leaders wanted to honor the businesses and individuals who helped make their dream a reality. They did this by engraving the names of the companies who donated in the first round of the project onto the base of the monument.

I wanted to engrave the names of everybody who perished, but the towers were just too small, Lopez says.

In Phase 2 of the project, which is currently underway, paving stones are being added to the memorial. Eventually, they'll lead from the memorial all the way to the road. A member of the community sponsors each brick, be it a company, a group, a family or a single person. Their name and a message are then carved into the paving stone for all to see.
Dallas Peavey, the Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Power Plc, has said the company is highly constrained by more than N86 billion debt owed it by the Federal Government.

Mr. Peavey made this known in Lagos on Saturday during the companys scholarship award programme to schools within Ijede community in Lagos State.

He appealed to the government to pay up the debt to enable it to carry out its operations.

He also said gas supply had been a major challenge to power generation.

We have a total generation output of 1,320MW but currently we are generating just 425MW which is 30 per cent of what we should be generating, Mr. Peavey said.

He said the company was considering other sources of power generation that would complement gas, such as Low Pour Fuel Oil, one of the products in the fractional distillation of crude oil.

According to him, right now the major challenge confronting the plant is gas and the company does not know what the future has for the power station.

Another big problem is that of over N86 billion being owed by Federal Government on energy produced to the national grid in the last six months.

We only got 16 per cent of the total bills out of the total money on energy generated to the national grid.

The amount is the money owed by government through the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) to produce power to the grid by generating companies, he said.

According to Mr. Peavey, generating companies are highly constrained by the debt burden because it is frustrating power development plans.

We are highly constrained by the lack of payment for services rendered.

No matter how much broad-minded you are and no matter the desire to serve your nation, if services are not paid for, the momentum to continue to serve will not be sustained.

Industry operators are in dire need of funds as most of the monies used in acquiring the power assets and other post-privatisation investments came from the banks.

But banks do not want to hear about any delays or the reasons for such delays. When the amount of the debt payment is due, they simply call for their money, he said.

Mr. Peavey said the company had spent N 760 million in the last three years on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to communities within its area of operation.

He said the company also spent over N 120 million to offer scholarships to indigent pupils within the community of Ijede where it was operating.

Mr. Peavey said, we put together the education scholarship programme to students in the communities to contribute part of our quota to their development.

It is part of our CSR, which takes care of over 25 pupils schools fees, textbooks and other required amenities for four years.

NAN learnt that NBET owes the power companies various sums. About N28.29 billion is owed Transcorp Ughelli Power Limited, and N9.66 billion is owed Shiroro Power Station.

Other debts are Geregu Power Plc N7.98 billion, Kainji/Jebba Power Station, N20.94 billion, and Sapele Power Plc, N9.9 billion. (NAN)
The Nigeria Police have denied banning peaceful rallies in the capital, Abuja.

The police have in the past few days come under heavy criticism for trying to stop the Bring Back Our girls protest who are demanding government do more to free the Chibok girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram. Apart from members of the protesters, others like Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and human rights lawyer Femi Falana also condemned the police ban.

In a statement signed by the Force Public Relations officer, Don Awunah, the Police said it recognised the impacts of peaceful protests in a democracy and would not jeopardise the rights of Nigerians.

Inspector-General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris wishes to state categorically that at no time did Nigeria Police Force place a ban on peaceful public protest/procession anywhere in Nigeria most particularly Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Awunah said.

Peaceful Public protest/procession is an integral part of democratic norms in as much as it conforms with the rule of law and public order.

The Nigeria Police Force recognises the constitutional rights of every law abiding citizen to express his or her view through public protest/procession and other legitimate means, he added.

Members of the Force had attempted to prevent the #BringBackOurGirls group on Tuesday from continuing their rally to the Presidential Villa to canvass an urgent return of the over 200 girls abducted in April 2014.

The #BBOG began its clamour in 2014, shortly after the over 200 girls were abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

The agitation for the students return became stronger in August this year, when the Boko Haram released a video showing some of the girls.

The group vowed to match every 72 hours till government ensures the return of the girls.

In its reaction to the widely reported police ban, the #BBOG group vowed to continue with its rally, stressing that the police had no constitutional powers to make such an order.

Of course the rally continues. The work of the police is to protect lives and properties. They are not the National Assembly, or the courts of law to make such an order, a spokesperson for the group, Aisha Yesufu, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Another member of the group, Buky Sonibare, said the #BBOG group would rely on a previous judgement by an Abuja High Court, which overruled a similar order in 2014.

The court had in October that year decided on an application brought before it by the #BBOG group that the rights of citizens to freedom of movement and association allows them to conduct such peaceful rallies, without undue interference.

In its statement on Saturday night, the police said it would not attempt to disrupt peaceful rallies, so long as they are conducted within the provisions of the law.

It however said the protests would not be allowed on highways. The road leading from the Unity fountain where the BBOG commence their protest to the Three Arms Zone, where it intends marching to, is a mini-highway, an indication the police may still try to stop such march without stopping the gatherings.

The Police will not condone any protest/procession on the public highways and roads inhibiting or disallowing public freedom and right of way, the spokesperson said; asking that the police be notified of planned protests.

The Inspector General of Police is committed to the principles of democratic policing and adherence to international best practices in public order management.

To this end, State Commissioners of Police and Police Commanders are directed to emplace strategies to protect and facilitate lawful public protest/processions as well as protect other members of the public who are not engaged in any form of public protest/procession, he added.
As Sallah celebrations commence in Abuja, traders selling foodstuff have recounted the effects of the current economic conditions on their businesses.

The government officially confirmed that the economy was in recession after Nigeria experienced negative growth for two consecutive quarters.

While most Nigerians have lamented the impact of the recession as well as worsening value of the Naira on the foreign exchange market, a few public officials like the head of the government owned News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, have sought to downplay it, saying the economy was not as bad as being portrayed in the media.

Are the media and bloggers really painting a correct image of our country? Its time for the media to objectively conduct a reality check about our reports, whether we are not over sensationalising so-called hardship that we talked about, Bayo Onanuga, the NAN chief said in a Facebook post that attracted widespread criticism.

PREMIUM TIMES visited local markets in Abuja metropolis where, contrary to Mr. Onanugas claims, the cost of foodstuff, especially packaged foods, recorded increase of about 100 per cent in prices since September last year.

A trader at the Wuse international Market, Christy Ani, told PREMIUM TIMES about the increase in price.

Last year I bought a bag of sugar between N8,000 to N8,500. But this year I have just recently bought a bag at N16,500, she said.

If not that I had some customers, loyal to me, I dont know how I could have convinced myself to go ahead and buy at such rate.

Another trader who deals in the sale of soft drinks and noodles, James John, said the hike in fuel prices also had drastic effects on his business.

Last year, at this time I used to have at least N200,000 or N150,000 from daily sale, he said.

But lately if I succeed in making even up to 50,000 a day from my sales then I am lucky.

The rise in dollar rates and especially the increase in cost of fuel is very bad for our business. Even for locally made drinks, you need to fuel your vehicles to get it distributed. So whether we like it or not the prices must increase, said Mr. John.

The federal government increased the pump price of fuel by about 70 per cent to N145 earlier this year. This was mainly brought about by the reduction in the naira value as petrol importers had to pay more to access dollars to buy the product.

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Another trader, Gloria Madu, who sells soup ingredients at Gosa market, a local stop-shop which usually booms on Fridays around the airport road, said the prices of goods increased by over 100 per cent since last year.

We used to buy a 25 litre can of local groundnut oil at N7,500. But now the price has gone as high as N15 000.

A bag of rice which formerly went for N8, 500 now sells at the cost of N19,000.

All brands of tin tomatoes had over a 100 per cent increment. A carton of Gino tin-tomato was N1,100, last year. During December they added N100 to its price, but later it was brought back to the normal price.

Since the recent increase however, the price kept going up and the last time I bought the carton, it was N2,950 and there are just 50 in a carton, said Mrs. Madu.

She said the rate of increase in prices scares some traders from approaching the distributors when they run out of stock.

Some of the goods will increase today, and before you finish selling tomorrow the price will increase. Salt was N1,000 last year for the full carton. But the last time I bought, which was last month, the price became N1,700.

We used to buy a carton of Knorr cube for N4,100. But now the price has gone as high as N6,100 last week.

Bama mayonnaise that soled for N7, 800 last year per carton is now N12,000. Three litres of power oil went from N7,200 per carton last year, to N11,000 this year.

We sold a single unit of the oil last year for N1,300. But now we sell it at N2,000 due to the increase in price. Also a row of Gino curry powder sachet that sold for N100 last year is now N200, for one row she added.

Mrs. Madu said the new sale prices have adversely affected business for traders.

Prices have all gone high and buyers just keep passing by. Imaging that its almost Sallah and some of us even dose off in our shops, since low patronage makes the place dull, she said.

While there have been general increase in prices for food items which are wholly or partially imported, it has been a mixed tale for fruits and vegetables, as well as other local farm produce.

Mixed tale for local farm produce

Mohammed Rabiu, who sells at the Garki ultra-modern market, said some farm produce also witnessed hike in prices.

A bag of cucumber used to be N3,000; but this year, it went as high as N8,000, Mr. Rabiu said. A bag of sweet potatoes that cost N6,000 in the last year, went as high as N9,000 this year.

Similarly, Irish potatoes had never gone as high as N25,000 per bag. But this year, it went even higher than that.

Guinea-corn went from N4,000 last year to N12,000 this year. Although we now have the new Guinea-corn which cost N3 000, he added.

Mr. Rabiu said the price of these products fluctuate, depending on the quantity of farm produce available in the market.

You know that for this farm produce, what really matters is how available it is in the market. he said. Although some other features could cause a hike in price, but if in the previous year, the farming was relatively better for those products, the price will go down.

Mr. Rabiu said the price of cabbage did not change, as well as the price of green pepper, within the period examined.

Another trader at the Garki market, Salisu Mohammed, also said the price of tomatoes have dropped after an unprecedented hike in price witnessed late last year.

That time we used to buy a basket of tomatoes for as high as N10, 000. But today the price has gone down to as low as N3, 500. The story is the same with pepper, he said.

Nafiu Danmadan a major distributor of yams and other similar farm produce, said the prices of some products remained as they were, while a few others went down.

The cost of yam remained relatively the same between 2015 September and 2016 this year. The price of yam was sold at N35,000 to N40, 000 for a hundred pieces of big yams from Jalingo where I buy from. There are cheaper ones from Nasarawa and Niger states, he said.

Despite the general increase in non-farm produce, however, reduction in government revenue and reduced income for businesses has meant salaries of public and private employees have not increased thus reducing the purchasing power of most Nigerians.
A Special Army Court Martial has demoted a senior officer, Patrick Falola, from the rank of Major General to Brigadier-General, for admitting students for clinical training without permission from higher authorities.

Mr. Falola, Director, 68 Military Reference Hospital, Yaba, Lagos State, was arraigned on a two-count charge before a court martial presided over by James Gbum, an Air Vice Marshal.

Mr. Falola admitted international students from Espan Formation University, Cotonou, in Benin Republic, between July and September, 2016.

Mr. Gbum, the president of the court martial, said Mr. Falolas conduct amounted to fraudulent use of the armed forces property.

He acquitted Mr. Falola on the charge of conduct prejudice the service, but convicted him on fraudulent misapplication of the hospitals property.

This court is compelled to award a higher punishment under sections 103 and 66 of the Armed Forces Act Cap A 20 laws of the Federation 2004.

The court has taken into consideration the service record of the convicted senior officer, the touching plea in mitigation by the defence council as well as the demeanor of the convicted officer.

But we have also taken into consideration the senior officers seniority, rank, experience and the regimental tradition of the armed forces.

This court has discharged and acquitted the convicted officer on the first charge, on the second offence, the sentence is reduction in rank to Brigadier General, he said.

Mr. Gbum said the filing and sentence were subject to confirmation by the Nigerian Army Council which was the confirming authority.

He said the convicted officer would maintain his rank until the council concludes the confirmation process.

The prosecuting counsel, Ukpe Ukpe, a Lt. Col., told journalists that the convicted officer was arraigned for using the Nigerian armys property to train students from neighbouring Benin Republic without following the necessary procedure.

Mr. Ukpe said the judgment was a balanced one as the court was very liberal in meting out punishment.

If you check Section 115 of the Alarmed Forces Act, the offence falls under Section 68. Punishment that could be meted out include dismissal, imprisonment or even death; but the court went down to reduction in rank which is balanced enough.

The defence council, Enokela Onyilo-Uloko, a retired Wing Cdr., said the conviction had no legal backing and was an attempt to tarnish the clean record of his client.

Mr. Onyilo-Uloko said this was because there was no law stating that senior officers must take permission from higher authorities before allowing such training.

He said his client only did what his predecessors also did, which was no crime, adding that his client would appeal.

No such law was tendered in evidence but they are saying he should have used his initiative when there is no law finalising an act. It does not amount to criminal offence that my client is being tried for.

So, the conviction is based on nothing and cannot stand the light of day in the eye of the law.

And when we go higher to the Court of Appeal, I assure you, this conviction will be thrown out, he said. (NAN)
Jaf Momoh, the Chief Medical Director of National Hospital, Abuja says the hospital has recorded 500 births conceived through In-Vitro Fertilisation between 2006 and 2016.

Mr. Momoh said this on Saturday at the end of the 78th regular meeting of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Tertiary Hospitals held in Calabar.

In-Vitro Fertilisation is a process by which an egg is fertilised by sperm outside the body.

According to Mr. Momoh, the hospital is the first to achieve this feat consistently for a decade in West Africa.

National Hospital Abuja attended to over 20,000 patients last year and more than 15,000 of them were admitted.

We have made more than 300 families happy; yet people are still flying to India for IVF which is just 10 per cent of the cost if it was done here in Nigeria, he said.

Also speaking, Chairman of Committee of CMDs of Tertiary Hospitals, Thomas Agan, called on journalists to collaborate with the Federal Government to promote the countrys health sector.

Mr. Agan, who is also the CMD of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, said that it had become necessary for all hands to be on deck in ensuring the effectiveness of the change mantra of the present administration. (NAN)
The Emergency National Council on Health meeting held in Abuja, Thursday, approved the National Health Policy document.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, announced the approval of the document after deliberations by the council members.

The National Health Policy is a comprehensive health document that spells out the functions and responsibilities of all levels of government.

In his presentation, Mr. Adewole, a professor, said the overall goal of the policy was to strengthen Nigerias health system particularly the primary healthcare sub-system to deliver qualitative, efficient and comprehensive healthcare services to all Nigerians.

The minister urged state governors to allocate at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to the health sector in line with Abuja declaration, for the implementation of National Health Policy.

He said the Federal Government is going to allocate at least one per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the establishment of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund as provided by National Health Act 2014.

He called on state governors to ensure timely release and disbursement of allocated funds for health to achieve the objective of the National Health Policy.

He called on the state governors and health commissioners to explore additional ways of funding the National Health Policy in their various states. He added that both federal and state governments are ready to partner with private individuals to support the health sector.

While imploring wealthy individuals to commit part of their resources to the development of the health sector, he called for widespread dissemination of the policy.

Mr. Adewole, however, advised the state governments to also develop their own Strategic Health Development Plan in line with the new National Health Policy.
The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON, has said that it has completed arrangements to begin the airlift of Nigerian pilgrims from Saudi Arabia on September 17.

Speaking at a pre-Arafat meeting in Makkah on Friday, the Commissioner in charge of Operations at the commission, Abdullahi Saleh, said the return journey will commence with the airlift of pilgrims from Kwara and Kogi states.

He said the pilgrims from the two states would be flown by FlyNas airline.

Airport will be open on 17th September for airlift. We have got readiness on the part of at least one airline which is FlyNas airline.

We have got schedule of FlyNas as at today while others of Med-view and MaxAir are to follow suit soon.

We call on state leadership for collaboration, dialogue and consultation with operators. They should exercise patience and cooperate with the operators, he said.

Nigeria for the first time concluded the airlift of all pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, five days before the Kingdoms airspace are closed for hajj operations.
One week after she excreted 76 pellets of drugs that tested positive to cocaine, Basisru Binuyo, a pilgrim, has excreted six more wraps of the pellets, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has said.

In a statement Saturday, the agency said the woman would be severely sanctioned in line with the anti-narcotics laws of the land.

Hamisu Lawan, NDLEA commander at the Abuja airport, confirmed the total number of wraps of cocaine ingested by the suspect while under observation.

Mrs Binuyo Basari Iyabo while under observation expelled eighty-two wraps of cocaine weighing nine hundred and thirty-one (931) grammes, Mr. Lawan said.

All arrangements have been concluded for her prosecution.

Ms. Binuyo, 55, was arrested during the outward screening of passengers on an Emirates flight to Medina, through Dubai.

The suspect, who hails from Kwara State, said she needed money to expand her business, according to the NDLEA.

My sponsor offered to foot my expenses to Saudi on pilgrimage, said Ms. Binuyo, a trader married with three children.

This was how I got involved in the act. I was excited until the issue of drugs was introduced. I wanted to decline but it was late.

Besides, I was offered a million naira which I accepted. I swallowed the drugs in Lagos and took a flight to Abuja on my way to Medina but I was caught in the process.

Muhammad Abdallah, the NDLEA Chairman, said the agency would invoke the powers of the law against the suspect and others caught indulging in production and trafficking in narcotic drugs.

It is a shameful and discreditable act for a 55 year old mother who is going on a holy pilgrimage to ingest narcotics, said Mr. Abdallah, a retired colonel.

This is very shocking and a clear indication of her inability to effectively discharge parental responsibility. The Agency shall invoke the powers of the law against her and others caught indulging in production/trafficking in narcotic drugs.
The #BringBackOurGirls group has demanded an apology from the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, over polices attempt to stop the groups protest march to the presidential villa on Tuesday.

A leader of the group, Oby Ezekwesili, said, Saturday, on Twitter, The Inspector General of Police owes a big apology to us #BBOG and the public whose movement he fragrantly disrupted.

Mrs. Ezekwesili, a former minister of Education, has been at the fore-front of the groups continuous protest against the federal governments inability to rescue the over 200 Chibok girls abducted since 2014 by the extremist group, Boko Haram.

Mrs. Ezekwesilis tweet followed the police announcement on Friday that there was no ban against public protest in the nations capital, Abuja, and other parts of the country.

The police announcement, which was issued by its spokesperson, Don Awunah,contradicted its earlier position on the issue.

The IG has finally read a copy of (the) 1999 Constitution and his #BBOG File, Ezekwesili said in another tweet, apparently referring to the u-turn made by the police.

The police statement said that public protest was part of democracy, but that it must conform to the rule of law and public order.

The Nigeria Police Force recognises the constitutional rights of every law abiding citizen to express his or her view through public protest/procession and other legitimate means, the statement said.

Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana, citing a 2014 court judgment, had said that the ban on the #BBOG protest was as illegal.
Traders in Yobe State are creating artificial scarcity of foods and commodity to make huge profits, the government has said.

Abdullahi Bego, the spokesperson to Governor Ibrahim Gaidam, said in a statement on Saturday that traders were in the habit of blockading incoming trucks loaded with goods, mostly food and consumables, which could beat down prices of those in the market.

The statement said the traders, through their union, only permit a certain number of trucks with specific nature of goods to enter the state, especial Damaturu the state capital.

Some of these activities include trying to stop anyone outside Damaturu or outside the state from bringing in wares to sell in the State capital, forcing traders to wait in regulated queues before they could offload and sell their wares in order to jerk up prices unreasonably and suffocating the market by forcing traders to not sell certain products at certain times, the statement said.

One example of how pernicious this has become, according to reports reaching the government, was when a certain trader from Taraba State with a lorry-load of yam tubas on his way to Maiduguri had a flat tyre in Damaturu and therefore decided to start selling him yams there before he could fix his lorry. He was reportedly forced to stop selling the yams by those elements in the traders association who threatened him on the illegal excuse that there are already yams in the market and so he would not be allowed to interfere with the regimes of availability and pricing that they had set up.

The net effects of these practices are that small and medium businesses in the state capital are stopped from growing and free competition is sacrificed at the altar of interests that are demonstrably selfish and against the law.

Consequently, the Yobe State Government will work with law enforcement to ensure that any trader found engaged in these practices is arrested and prosecuted, the statement said.

The Yobe government said it will also work with the State House of Assembly to outlaw such practices.

The states traders union could not be immediately reached for comments.
TRENTON  A bill that would allow one of Atlantic Countys largest manufacturers to expand its plant in a protected Pinelands forest zone, adding 150 jobs, was released by an Assembly committee Thursday.

Assembly bill A3914 would give businesses in rural development areas zones the same access to state business incentive programs as other industries.

That would allow Comar, a plastic manufacturing company in Buena Vista Township, to expand its operations, according to As-semblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic.

The bill has the support of all three 2nd District lawmakers. State Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, is the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, while Assemblyman Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, testified in its favor at Thursdays Commerce and Economic Development Committee meeting.

Families in Atlantic County are in desperate need of good-paying jobs, and we have to do what we can to keep and grow our manufacturing jobs, Brown said.

Buena factory's merger opens its medicine containers to world market BUENA  Comar LLC greets the new year as one of South Jerseys strongest and solidly growing

I commend Mayor (Chuck) Chiarello and Township Committee for their efforts to keep Comar in Buena Vista Township and for reaching out to me and working in a bipartisan manner, Brown said.

Both Mazzeo and Brown stressed the possibility that Comar would leave the state, taking 350 jobs with it, if it wasnt able to expand here.

The potential loss of a company like Comar would be detrimental to Atlantic County and Buena Vista, said Mazzeo. Atlantic County cannot afford any more big hits. This would help retain a significant contributor to the local economy without disruption to our precious natural resources.

Under the bill, a rural development area zoned for industrial use, designated by the Pinelands Commissions Comprehensive Management Plan, will now qualify for grants under the GROW NJ and Economic Redevelopment Growth Grant.
Several home health care businesses in South Jersey were fined thousands of dollars for state violations, the Division of Consumer Affairs said Thursday.

The state issued notices of violation to 36 companies in New Jersey and levied $242,850 in fines for alleged violations of state rules governing firms that place caregivers in the homes of senior citizens and disabled residents.

The violations included improper record-keeping, failure to file plans of care and sending uncertified or unqualified caregivers into clients homes.

Among the 36 companies cited locally:

 4Crippens LLC, doing business as Synergy Home Care of South Jersey, based in Upper Township, was fined $3,000.

 BLYF Inc., doing business as Accessible Home Health of North Jersey Jersey Shore, based in Lakewood, was fined $2,000.

 Lakewood of BP Senior Care LLC, based in Lakewood, was fined $5,000.

 Rachael Kamen, doing business as Home Sweet Home Care, based in Barnegat Township, was fined $2,000.

The 36 companies were fined $1,000 to as much as $23,850 for alleged violations.

Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino said companies that fail to meet state standards are violating the law and the trust of their clients.

People paying for in-home health care services have a right to expect those services will be tailored to meet their loved ones needs, he said in a statement.

Companies that provide in-home health care must be registered with the Division of Consumer Affairs. New Jersey has more than 1,000 such companies.

Many of the violations stemmed from poor record-keeping, such as not maintaining a plan of care for clients, failing to ensure an aides qualifications were matched to a patients needs or failing to include a one-year employment history.

Cumberland County investigating 911 call that preceded Gerald Sykes shooting Cumberland County is conducting an internal investigation into the apparently misdirected 91

Other companies were cited for failing to register with the state, employ a licensed health care practitioner or verify the certifications of employees.

Companies that were cited have the right to contest the notices of violation or correct the violations and pay the fines.

New Jersey helps consumers make informed decisions on home-health care options. Consumers can contact the state to find out if a company is registered, whether it has been subject to consumer complaints and whether nurses at the companies are licensed in New Jersey by calling 800-242-5846.

Contact: 609-463-6712

Twitter @ACPressMiller
SEA ISLE CITY  A company that for decades used a city-owned site to test how paint weathers various conditions opted not to renew its lease on Landis Avenue, Mayor Leonard Desiderio said.

Specifications are still being developed so the city can obtain a new lessee, and Desiderio said there is interest from a different testing company. The city is also considering whether to use the site for parking.

The property contained several racks with specimens arranged in rows to be tested in the salt air. Locals noticed the site cleared last month. Desiderio said for out-of-towners, the site draws many questions.

South Jerseys second season awaits If you think Labor Day marks the end of the summer, youre missing out on a local secret: Se

Thats one of the most asked questions by people traveling through Sea Isle, he said. A lot of people thought it was an experiment. Other people thought it was a project by the school kids. Its been there so long, the locals just go right by it.

Desiderio recalled the site being there in the 1960s when it was operated by another company.

Storms, canceled beach concerts impacted Jersey shore's Labor Day weekend The weekend that was supposed to be filled with beach concerts and warm, sunny weather turne

It was a similar thing. I can remember when I was a kid it was asbestos shingles where there with different colors to see how they adapted to the sun and to the weather, he said.

The site has been leased by Ocean City Research Corporation since Oct. 1, 1981, according to Deputy Clerk Shannon Romano. Romano said that City Council did approve a resolution to go out to bid at the site at its July 12 meeting, but that the bid has not yet gone out.

The lease was last renewed in 1991, Romano said.

According to its website, Ocean City Research Corporation is based at Tennessee Avenue in Ocean City and has been around since 1963. The corporation works in corrosion analysis and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corrpro Companies, Inc., which is based in Texas. Calls to the Ocean City number listed for the company were not answered.

Aura Joyce, a spokeswoman from the Corrpro corporate office, said that Ocean City Research Corporation still exists.

However, that location has been closed and a new site has not been established at this time, she said.

In a 2011 report, the Federal Highway Administration noted the Sea Isle City site with its harsh environment was testing coatings to protect steel bridges.

Desiderio said there has been some consideration for a parking lot in the area, which will be discussed further as the city tackles its master plan this year.

He said that if a new test facility goes there, he would like to see something more aesthetically pleasing, that includes a description of what is taking place.

Contact: 609-272-7251
ATLANTIC CITY  The usually dead southern end of the Boardwalk with the closed Atlantic Club Casino Hotel came alive Saturday afternoon as the dance music from the Electric Adventure music festival, titled Bloom, permeated the air.

Lines of people entered the five-stage beach venue at South Sovereign Avenue as the first main-stage act, MGM from Howell Township, Monmouth County, performed their set.

The two-day electronic music festival is scheduled to conclude with music from noon to 11 tonight, but Saturday festivities didnt start until officially 1:30 p.m. The main stage at the southern part of the venue is where the headliners will be accompanied by imaginative graphics and flashing lights.

Three of the other four stages are under tents to give people a break from the heat while the sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds.

The event was held for its first two years at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, Ocean County. The third year  last year  it was held on the beach in Seaside Heights, Ocean County. The main-stage lineup for this years event featured EDM acts Pretty Lights, Bingo Players, Morgan Page, Dillon Francis, Big Gigantic and 3Lau.

If one of the reasons to bring the festival to the resort was to attract new visitors, it worked on Jacob Nguyen, 27, of Herndon, Virginia, who drove 3 hours to attend the event. Nguyen arrived with six other friends from the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area.

This is my first time ever in Atlantic City. This is only my second EDM festival. I went to Tomorrowland in Atlanta in 2012, said Nguyen, who arrived Friday night and won $250 playing three-card poker at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. This is pretty cool. Its on the beach. Its hot. Im waiting for the headliners to go on.

With stages stationed north, south, east and west on the beach, the sounds of synthesizers and electronic drums punctuated the air everywhere and could even be heard on the Boardwalk.

Taylor Clarke, 22, of Long Island, New York, came to the event early because he wanted to support his best friend Dielon, who had a set during the early afternoon in the covered tent known as the Mediterranean stage. This was only Clarkes second time in the resort, but it was his second visit within the past year. The first time was at Halloween for a party at The Pool at Harrahs Resort.

I love it. Its amazing. On Long Island, we have things like this, but not this big, said Clarke, who attended the previous two Electric Adventure festivals. I will be here both days. I have a blow-up mattress; I will sleep on the beach (if I have to).

Watching DJs manipulate sound through turntables, synthesizers and sequencers is not the most interesting thing to look at, so the crowd arrives at these events as entertaining-looking as anything on stage. The sun and heat caused many people to come in T-shirts, bikini tops, shorts and a diverse array of sunglasses, but people also accessorized with hula hoops, glitter, paint and various headgear including cat ears and an Indian chief headdress.

Dylan Kohlhaas, of Dennis Township, promotes EDM events and frequently attends them. The Electric Adventure festival was his second one this week. He attended the Electric Adventure festival last year in Seaside Heights, but he said the one held here looked better.

This is (age) 18-plus. Seaside was all-ages, which was weird. Seaside had two stages. This one has five. This is twice the size, if not even bigger, than Seaside, said Kohlhaas, 22, who received a free ticket by selling eight tickets to the event and handing out flyers for it on the Wildwood Boardwalk. When you come here, its a whole diferrent world. I will be

dancing.

Contact: 609-272-7202
Long before Jerry Lewis even enters a room, his presence and fame fill it. The expectation of his arrival conjures many images and personas: the comedic misfit, the serious maker of smartly silly movies, the earnestly maudlin telethon host, the tireless stage entertainer, the teller of tales from Hollywood's classical golden age.

Arguably the only constant across those identities is his reputation as an exacting perfectionist. So just why is Jerry Lewis known for being difficult?

"Because I am," he said with firm declaration. "I expect people that come to the studio to work to come with the same energy I come with. If I see less than that, I get very strong about, if you want to do this, come with a sense of pride, come with eagerness and anxiety.

"And those people that think you're difficult respect you tremendously. Because the creative aspect of film will never change," he added. "They may not like it, but they respect it."

At 90, Lewis recently made his entrance to the lounge of a hotel in Beverly Hills being pushed in a wheelchair, struggling a bit to move into an armchair on his own. There is a fragility about him that is at odds with the strength of his persona. At the same time, he still exudes the charisma, the confidence and the fortitude of a life spent in show business - he first appeared onstage at age 5. Three times during a recent hourlong conversation he locked eyes with this reporter with the intense death stare of a man not to be crossed.

In the new film "Max Rose," Lewis plays a retired jazz musician who, while mourning the death of his wife, becomes suspicious that she carried on a long-term affair with another man. His first leading role in a movie since 1995's "Funny Bones," Lewis' performance is ruminative and interior, sincere and raw. The role is potentially a fitting grace note to a storied career.

The film was written and directed by Daniel Noah, also one of the co-founders of the Los Angeles-based genre-focused production outfit SpectreVision, who began the screenplay after having spent a great deal of time with his grandfather in his last years, grieving the death of his grandmother.

When it came to casting the title role, Noah eventually landed on the idea of Lewis - "It really came down to Jerry. There was no one else," he said - but struggled to contact the star. He finally found a phone number for Lewis' office in Las Vegas but was told Lewis wouldn't read anything that was sent. Noah sent the script anyway. And a few weeks after Lewis accepted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Oscars, he called. He was in.

From there, it still took a few years to get the financing for the project together.

The film was shot in late 2012 and early 2013, premiering at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival only a few months after the production wrapped. The rushed and unfinished film was met with a disastrous response.

"And this was the great misstep of Cannes," said Noah, who recut and shortened the film after the festival. "Taking a star the caliber of Jerry, it's a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because he's such a heavyweight that doors blow open, but it also means the whole world is watching, and they're watching closely."

In the film, Lewis' character is looked after by his granddaughter (Kerry Bishe) as he attempts to repair his relationship with his son (Kevin Pollak). That aspect of the film may have hit close to home with Lewis, who has six sons from his first marriage and one daughter with his wife Sam, to whom he has been married since 1983. His youngest son, Joseph, died of a drug overdose in 2009 at age 45.

A question about any connection he may have felt between his own family life and that of the character of Max Rose, whether sacrifices were made at home for his career, is what drew Jerry Lewis death stare No. 1.

"Did I miss something? No. My family was as absolute as the work," Lewis said. "Family was first always."

For Noah, his personal relationship with Lewis grew in the time that they spent together after Lewis had agreed to participate. Yet they didn't talk about story or character; rather, they just spoke about themselves, about their lives. And for Noah it became clearer why Lewis was drawn to the role.

"I gradually became aware that some of Max's issues are Jerry's issues," said Noah. "Jerry suggested Kevin Pollak, who I later realized looks a lot like his sons. I think something like that is so delicate, you just don't touch it."

At various times in his career, Lewis has played characters who revealed more about himself than, perhaps, he wanted to let out of the box. The sleazoid lounge-lizard Buddy Love - the alter-ego to Lewis' timid Professor Julius Kelp - might not be the swipe at Lewis' former partner Dean Martin but, rather, an examination of Lewis' own internal conflict, between the egotist and the earnest.

Lewis' isolation by fame was dramatized in Martin Scorsese's 1982 film "The King of Comedy," in which he plays a late-night TV host held hostage. And in "Max Rose," he plays a man grappling with whether his work, and by extension his life, has added up to anything.

This line of inquiry, whether he has exposed his own darkest emotions and thoughts onscreen, prompts death stare No. 2.

"You're going very deep. Very deep," he said firmly. "And the answers to what you're talking about don't come easy."

Yet Lewis has mentioned that when he first saw the finished cut of "Max Rose," he felt he had never seen himself onscreen in that way before.

"It didn't surprise me so much as get my attention," he said. "When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude, you have to bring a different kind of concentration. I just wanted to do it right and make it true."

A question about the notorious, unreleased, unseen film "The Day the Clown Cried," which writer-director Lewis made in Europe in the early 1970s and in which he starred as a Jewish clown who leads children to the Nazi gas chambers in World War II, invoked a third and final Jerry Lewis death stare.

"Can't talk about it. I won't," Lewis said. "You can ask me anything you want. That doesn't mean I'm going to answer you."

It was reported in 2015 that Lewis' archives were going to the Library of Congress and that "The Day the Clown Cried" may at last be available for public view in 10 years' time. Lewis has other thoughts on the matter.

"Never," he said as to whether the film would finally be shown publicly. "After I'm dead 30 years, you won't see it. I've got it worked out so there's nothing to show."

And with that, a wink. Playful, inviting and mischievous, it is the exact opposite of the door-slam death stare. And an encapsulation of the enigmatic split between Lewis' difficult reputation and the headstrong but apparently gentle man he seems to be today.

Noah has come to know that divide well.

"I was very steeled for a painful relationship," he said. "I think people think I'm spinning when I say this, but I can't account for the difference between the reputation and the man I know. He seemed to be nothing but warmth and love."

The final moments of "Max Rose" would make for an emotional, elegiac farewell to one of Hollywood's most enduring stars. Just don't tell that to Jerry Lewis.

"I don't know that that's the case," Lewis said of how he would feel if "Max Rose" were his last leading role onscreen. "I could start one tomorrow. And I've got two in my typewriter now. I've been writing for probably a year and a half on a screenplay that I love and that I will do.

"I'm only 90, for Christ's sake. What do you want?"
A design of translucent marble and glass was unveiled Thursday for a long-stalled performing arts center at the World Trade Center complex.

Officials also announced that Barbra Streisand will serve as board chair of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center that will be dedicated to producing new works and serving as a public space.

Located between One World Trade Center and the memorial plaza, the cube-shaped center will aim to both commemorate the Sept. 11 tragedy and reflect the vitality of New York City, board members said from a room overlooking the project site.

Made out of translucent, veined marble and glass, the building will look like a "mystery box," architect Joshua Prince-Ramus said. During the day, it will have a dull sheen. But at night, the three-level building will illuminate like a paper lantern.

The 99,000-square foot building will include three auditoriums and a rehearsal room.

Because artistic directors need flexibility with new productions, the rooms and halls will feature moveable walls to create up to 11 configurations, Prince-Ramus said. The largest configuration will hold up to 1,200 people for events like rock concerts.

Maggie Boepple, president and director of the center, said the space will be both a "birthplace" for new shows and a community center with amenities like a cafe and yoga classes.

The center also will be home to the Tribeca Film Festival.

Estimated to cost $250 million, the center still requires $75 million in donations before it opens in early 2020, Boepple said. Namesake Ronald Perelman, a billionaire businessman and Streisand friend, already donated $75 million in June. The federal Housing and Urban Development Authority has already contributed $99 million.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a city and state government entity, gave the project the green light.

Board members have not yet determined which productions will be staged.

"Anyone who works here will have a huge responsibility to do their very best to commemorate those whose lives were lost," Boepple said.
ATLANTIC CITY  A city councilman is being asked to resign by a police union official and business owner for a Facebook post they say is irresponsible in the wake of a police officer being shot in the line of duty Saturday.

Councilman Moisse Delgado posted the statement on his Facebook page after the shooting of Officer Joshlee Vadell on Saturday.

Dont think that just because suspects were apprehended that the POLICE are relaxing and hands are off their weapons, Delgado posted.

Atlantic City cop shot still hospitalized but talking ATLANTIC CITY  More than $80,000 has been raised as of Thursday for police Officer Joshlee 

Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemens Benevolent Association, called for Delgados resignation Wednesday afternoon.

Colligan said that since hes been president of the state PBA, Delgados post has to be the most irresponsible statement he has heard from a politician.

As a hero officer still lays in the hospital recovering from a cowardly attack, this councilman spews that stupidity from the safety of his keyboard. He should step down and let a qualified candidate take his position, Colligan said.

Delgado told a Press reporter Wednesday aafternoon he made the post on his Facebook page and he called it a reflection.

I know those in my circle, everyone is in a heightened level of sensitivity, Delgado said. What happened this weekend with the shooting of the officer is serious, its very serious.

Police pack hearing in A.C. officer-shot case MAYS LANDING  Officers representing nearly every police department in Atlantic County watch

Vadell, 29, was shot near the Caesars parking garage about 2:40 a.m. Saturday when he and his partner, who has not been identified, were investigating a robbery, police said.

Delgado said the post was a reflection for anyone who is not a police officer that what they do can be interpreted the wrong way.

He said the post was not made to incite panic but to recognize that police and the public dont share the same viewpoints at all times.

We want to make sure in this present situation, because of the heightened sensitivity, because the police dont see everything the way the public does and the public doesnt see everything the way the police does, Delgado said.

Delgado said he tries to be a conduit or liaison between the public and anyone who is supposed to be in service of the public.

Im not inciting any kind of panic. Im not inciting a damn thing. You can make a comment about things going on in the community regardless of your position, he said.

Coby Frier, an Atlantic City business owner and resident who started a Go Fund Me account for Vadell and his family, said Delgados post seeks to further divide the community.

I think he should resign. Hes doing a disservice to the community with these comments. The last thing a councilman should be doing right now is dividing the community. Bring us together, Frier said.

Matt S. Rogers, president of the Atlantic City Police Officers Benevolent Association, released this statement:

To in any way find fault in the action or to use this as a spring board for a discussion on a larger issue is ignorant to fact. If anything, the proper response would be to wait for more information from a thorough investigation. This is yet another example proving the larger issue needs to be less of a conversation and more those with agendas to step back and let real healing begin. That healing is easier knowing that every night heroes patrol the streets of AC allowing our critics to sleep in peace.

Contact: 609-513-6686

Twitter @ACPressWeaver
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LONGPORT  Alice Martin sat under a white gazebo on a recent morning in Longport as she watched electricians install long teal light bulbs into the ceiling of the structure.

People driving, walking or bike riding past the gazebo at night will see it and other structures illuminated in teal light for September. It might just seem like a change in decor for the towns landmarks, but for Martin, the lights symbolize ovarian cancer awareness and a tribute to her daughter, Maryalyce Martin Dolan.

It is an insidious, sneaky disease, she said. Her aunt had (ovarian cancer), too. My daughter was young when she passed away. I think she remembered what happened and I think she was so afraid, so scared of what her diagnosis could be.

Ovarian cancer rates among women have remained at the same level for several decades, but after years of research, there is still no diagnostic tool or screening to detect the cancer in its earliest stages.

Dr. Stephen Rubin, professor and chief of the division of gynecologic oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, said women are often in advanced stages of the cancer by the time they see him because the disease is hard to find early on and presents little to no symptoms in the beginning.

Its not like breast cancer, where women might feel a lump, or uterine cancer, which causes abnormal bleeding. Ovarian cancer often starts as a tumor and spreads without symptoms, he said. Despite 30 years of study all over world for types of diagnostic screening, nothing has worked.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it is advising women against ovarian screening tests, as they have not been proven effective. Rubin said past diagnostic screenings have yielded more false negatives than positive results.

Rubin said better surgical practices and improvements in chemotherapy have helped ovarian cancer patients have better outcomes, but still, only about 30 percent to 40 percent of people with the cancer survive it.

There were about 640 cases of ovarian cancer in New Jersey in 2013, according to the states cancer registry.

The survival rates for women with breast cancer are about double that, he said, and that is due to breast cancers more obvious symptoms, a bigger pool of cases to base treatment on and better diagnostic tools for early detection.

Surgery is done better than ever, there are fewer complications, and the chemo regimens are much better now, Rubin said. Its not an immediate death sentence. If women are concerned that they may be at risk or have ovarian cancer, they should see out an obstetrician or gynecologist.

Martin said she and her daughter went to several doctors to try to find an explanation for Dolans stomach pain, changes in appetite and nausea. After undergoing tests and exploratory laparoscopic surgery, physicians still could not identify the cancer, Martin said.

It wasnt until her daughter had emergency surgery one day that an oncologist discovered she had late-stage ovarian cancer. Dolan started chemotherapy and treatment immediately, but her cancer was too advanced.

No matter what, she was too far gone when they got her, Martin said. I wish we had got more opinions, that she had a different surgery to see if we could find it that way. I still blame myself for not being able to do more.

It has been 10 years since Dolans death. She left behind two children, now 17 and 20, who hear stories about their mother from their grandmother when they visit the Jersey shore, a place their mother loved, Martin said.

Martin said since her daughters death, she has organized fundraisers, support groups and community awareness efforts for ovarian cancer.

The reason ovarian cancer might not get as much attention as breast cancer or heart disease is because only 1 percent of all women develop ovarian cancer, Rubin said. Fewer than half those women then beat it, leaving a small population of women who are ovarian cancer survivors.

Martin said the teal lights are a way to remind the community that loved ones have been lost to ovarian cancer, that research and funding are still needed to find better ways to fight the disease in the future.

Its frustrating that they still dont have a diagnostic tool, she said. Its coming up on 10 years and theres still no cure, but I continue to raise money and Id like to see a treatment for it.

Contact: 609-272-7022

Twitter @ACPressNLeonard
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.




The Simulsat product line eliminates the need for multiple parabolic antennas, otherwise known as antenna farms. The savings are apparent from reduced installation, real estate, fiber/coax, and maintenance costs. Also, additional channels can be added by simply peaking another feedhorn in the antenna feedbox. The Simulsat product lines are capable of receiving signals of up to 37 C and Ku-Band satellites.

Anthony Graves has commented, "Our customers love the ability to see up to 75 of satellite arc with one antenna plus the cost savings and coverage for future growth is tremendous. There isn't another multibeam antenna in the marketplace that can compete with the new Simulsat 7A price and performance."

For more information visit us at IBC in the Evertz booth at Hall 1, Booth D31 and visit us at www.atci.com

Contact: sales@atci.com

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SOURCE ATCi
DUBLIN, September 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Market Report On 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate 2016" report to their offering.

The Global Market Report on 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate provides comprehensive data on 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate global and regional markets including Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, etc. The report captures 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate market trends and pays close attention to 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

The report is broken into three main parts including manufacturing methods & technology development, market landscape & trend analysis, and distribution policy.

In the manufacturing methods & technology development section, the main manufacturing methods of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate are introduced.

Key Topics Covered:

Part 1: Introduction of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Brief Introduction of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 2: Product Identification

Chapter 3: Physical Properties

Chapter 4: Quality Specifications

Part 2: Manufacture Methods and Technology Development of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Introduction of Main Manufacture Methods

Chapter 2: Introduction of Patent Manufacture Methods

Chapter 3: New Progress on the Manufacture Technology

Part 3: Application of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Application Review

Chapter 2: End Products(Downstream Products) of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 3: New Applications of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Part 4: Production Situation of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Current Production Situation

Chapter 2: Manufacturers in China

Chapter 3: Manufacturers Outside of China

Chapter 4: Production Trend Analysis

Part 5: Market Situation of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Market Supply Status and Trend Forecast

Chapter 2: Downstream Consumer Market Analysis

Chapter 3: Supply and Demand Analysis and Forecast

Chapter 4: Price Analysis

Chapter 5: Import & Export Situation

Part 6: Distribution Policy of 3-Fluorophenyl Isocyanate

Chapter 1: Market Size in Major Use Segments

Chapter 2: Major End Users

Chapter 3: Potential Users

Part 7: References

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s6jlw3/global_market

Related Topics: Chemicals

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

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SOURCE Research and Markets
- US-based medical technology company chooses GEP's cloud-native procurement software platform for savings project management and tracking capabilities

CLARK, New Jersey, Sept. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- GEP, a leading provider of procurement software and procurement services to Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises worldwide, announced today that a leading global medical technology company has selected SMART by GEP  procurement software, the industry's leading cloud-native sourcing, procurement and spend management software platform.

The company, with operations in more than 50 nations worldwide, said that SMART by GEP was selected because of its particularly strong capabilities in savings project management, savings tracking and spend management.

SMART by GEP's unified source-to-pay software platform, is a complete procurement platform which is native to cloud, touch and mobile technologies. Offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), SMART by GEP leverages cloud economics to deliver a solution that easily handles the heaviest processing requirements of GEP's Fortune 500 and Global 2000 clients, while eliminating burdensome infrastructure and support costs.

SMART by GEP is easy to set up, deploy and use, with no extensive training required. All GEP products are platform-agnostic (they work with SAP, Oracle or any other major ERP or F&A system). And with superb support and service, GEP is an industry leader in customer satisfaction.

SMART by GEP provides complete source-to-pay functionality in one user-friendly, cloud-native platform, inclusive of spend analysis, sourcing, contract management, supplier management, procure-to-pay, savings project management and savings tracking, invoicing and other related functionalities. The award-winning, SaaS-based S2P platform is native to touch and mobile technologies, enabling users to work anywhere, any time on any device.

About GEP

GEP is a diverse, creative team of people passionate about procurement. We invest ourselves entirely in our client's success, creating strong collaborative relationships that deliver extraordinary value year after year. We deliver practical, effective procurement services and procurement technology that enable procurement leaders to maximize their impact on business operations, strategy and financial performance.

Honored as Best Supplier at the EPIC Procurement Excellence Awards, GEP regularly wins accolades as both a provider of innovative procurement technology and a broad range of procurement services. Among its recent distinctions, GEP has been named Leader and Star Performer in Everest Group's Peak Matrix of Procurement Services Providers, Leader in NelsonHall's NEAT Matrix of Global Procurement BPO Service Providers, Winner in the HfS Blueprint Report on Procurement Outsourcing Providers, as well as one of Spend Matters 50 Companies to Know and to the Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100.

Clark, NJ-based GEP has 12 offices and operations centers in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

For more about SMART by GEP, our cloud-native sourcing and procurement software platform, please visit www.smartbygep.com.To learn more about our comprehensive range of consulting and outsourcing services, please visit www.gep.com.

CONTACT

Al Girardi

Global VP, Marketing & Analyst Relations

GEP Worldwide

Phone: 732-382-6565

Email: al.girardi@gep.com

Related Links

http://www.gep.com



SOURCE GEP
HOUSTON, Sept. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hunter Oil Corp. (TSX-V: HOC; OTCQX: HOILD; CUSIP 44570P201 and ISIN CA44570P2017; 8,070,881 common shares outstanding) (the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of an independent updated evaluation of the Company's oil and gas reserves located in the Permian Basin San Andres formation of the Chaveroo and Milnesand Fields in New Mexico. Since the end of year 2015, the Company has added additional acreage and updated its business model based on other Permian Basin activity. This results in a development of all of the Company's larger acreage position rather than a partial development as foreseen in its annual reserve report for the year ended December 31, 2015.

The evaluation, prepared as of August 26, 2016 with an effective date of January 1, 2017, was conducted by the Company's independent reserve evaluator in accordance with the definitions, standards and procedures set out in the Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook ("COGE") and National Instrument 51-101  Standards of Disclosure for Oil and Gas Activities ("NI 51-101").

Mid-Year 2016 Gross Reserves Summary

Total Proved Reserves 14.2 million Barrels of oil (15.3 MMBOE)



- an increase of 102% over the December 31, 2015 reserves estimate

- an increase of 124% over the December 31, 2014 reserves estimate





- an increase of 102% over the reserves estimate - an increase of 124% over the reserves estimate Proved plus Probable Reserves 19.95 million Barrels of oil (21.4 MMBOE)



- an increase of 158% over the December 31, 2015 estimate

- no Probable reserves were reported in December 31, 2014





- an increase of 158% over the estimate - no Probable reserves were reported in Proved plus Probable plus Possible 36.2 million Barrels of oil (38.9 MMBOE)



-no Possible reserves were reported in December 31, 2015

Net Present Value of Reserves discounted at 10%

Total Proved Reserves before tax of U.S. $258.1 million

Proved plus Probable Reserves before tax of U.S. $424.5 million

Proved plus Probable plus Possible Reserves before tax of U.S. $918.3 million

The above total Proved reserves are attributed to the drilling of 87 horizontal wells over the next 6 years. The Probable reserves are attributed to incremental volumes of the 87 horizontal wells and the drilling of 8 additional wells. Possible reserves are attributed to incremental volumes of the 95 horizontal wells and the drilling of an additional 11 wells. The wells in the Company's report (the "Report") are planned at 160-acre spacing (4 wells per section) on approximately 22,000 acres.

The Report summarizing the results of the evaluation is available for viewing under the Company's profile at http://www.sedar.com, or by request to the Company.

The tables set forth below summarize the Company's oil and natural gas reserves, and the net present values before and after income tax of future net revenue for the Company's reserves using forecast prices and costs assumptions.



Summary of Oil and Gas Reserves As of January 1, 2017 Forecast Prices and Costs  U.S. Dollars Reserves



Light and Medium Oil Natural Gas (non-associated & associated)





Reserve Category Gross Net Gross Net (Mbbl) (Mbbl) (MMcf) (MMcf) PROVED











Developed Producing 61 49 0 0













Proved Undeveloped 14,169 11,351 6,284 5,050 TOTAL PROVED 14,230 11,400 6,284 5,050 PROBABLE 5,718 4,573 2,449 1,964 Total Proved Plus Probable 19,948 15,973 8,733 7,015 POSSIBLE 16,260 13,063 7,358 5,928 Total Proved plus Probable plus Possible 36,208 29,036 16,090 12,942

















SUMMARY OF NET PRESENT VALUE OF FUTURE NET REVENUE As of January 1, 2017 FORECAST PRICES AND COSTS  U.S. Dollars RESERVES

CATEGORY NET PRESENT VALUE OF FUTURE NET REVENUE BEFORE INCOME TAXES (BFIT) DISCOUNTED AT (%/year) AFTER INCOME TAXES (AFIT) DISCOUNTED AT (%/year) UNIT VALUE

BEFORE

INCOME

TAXES

DISCOUNTED

AT

10%/year (MM$) at 0% (MM$) at 5% (MM$) at 10% (MM$) at 15% (MM$) at 20% (MM$) at 0% (MM$) at 5% (MM$) at 10% (MM$) at 15% (MM$) at 20% ($/BOE) PROVED





















Developed Producing -0.4 - 0.1 0.2 0.2 -0.5 -0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 2.32 Undeveloped 444.6 336.7 258 199.6 155.7 291.2 224.6 174.9 137.5 108.8 21.16 TOTAL PROVED 444.3 336.7 258.1 199.8 155.9 290.7 224.5 175 137.6 109 21.08 PROBABLE 264.1 207.8 166.4 135.3 111.4 199.2 161.0 132.2 109.9 92.4 33.96 TOTAL PROVED

PLUS PROBABLE 708.4 544.5 424.5 335.1 267.4 489.8 385.5 307.2 247.5 201.4 24.76 POSSIBLE 798 621.4 493.8 398.9 326.6 599.4 479.8 390.9 322.9 269.8 35.15 TOTAL PROVED

PLUS PROBABLE

PLUS POSSIBLE 1,506.4 1,165.9 918.3 734.0 594 1,089.2 865.4 698.1 570.4 471.2 29.44

Note: All dollar values are expressed in U.S. dollars (MM$ = millions of U.S. Dollars).

The Company's reserves are derived from non-conventional tight-oil activities from which gas and natural gas liquids may be produced as by-products. "Tight-oil" means crude oil (a) contained in dense organic-rich rocks, including low-permeability shales, siltstones and carbonates, in which the crude oil is primarily contained in microscopic pore spaces that are poorly connected to one another, and (b) that typically requires the use of hydraulic fracturing to achieve economic production rates.

The Company is not required to pay income taxes for its most recently completed financial year. Subject to current assumptions of production levels, operating and capital expense, commodity prices and currently available operating loss carryforwards, the Company may have an income tax liability in the year 2020. The After Income Tax net present values reflect the tax burden on the Company's field interests. The financial statements and the management's discussion and analysis of the Company should be consulted for information at the level of the business entity.

Readers are referred to the Company's Statement of Reserves Data and Other Oil & Gas Information dated August 26, 2016 with an effective date of January 1, 2017, prepared in accordance with the definitions, standards and procedures set out in the COGE Handbook and NI 51-101, which can be accessed electronically from the SEDAR website at http://www.sedar.com.

BOEs/boes may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A boe conversion ratio of 6 Mcf:1 Bbl is based on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the wellhead. Possible reserves are those additional reserves that are less certain to be recovered than probable reserves. There is a 10% probability that the quantities actually recovered will equal or exceed the sum of provided plus probable plus possible reserves. The present value of estimated future net revenues referred to herein does not represent fair market value and should not be construed as the current market value of estimated crude oil and natural gas reserves attributable to the Company's properties.

About Hunter Oil Corp.

Hunter Oil Corp. owns and operates two large historic Permian Basin oil fields in New Mexico, the Milnesand and Chaveroo oil fields. Recorded production of these two fields is approximately 37 million barrels, representing less than 10% recovery of the oil in place. The Company plans to unlock the value in these resource-rich fields by increasing the efficiency of its operations, and by applying new and proven unconventional production technologies.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Andrew Hromyk

President and CEO

+1 (832) 485-8500

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding estimates of reserves and future net revenue, expectations regarding additional reserves and statements regarding Chaveroo and Milnesand wells development, including plans, anticipated results and timing. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information.

Estimated reserves and future net revenue have been independently evaluated by the Company's independent reserves evaluator, with an effective date as of January 1, 2017. This evaluation is based on a limited number of wells with limited production history and includes a number of assumptions relating to factors such as availability of capital to fund required infrastructure, commodity prices, production performance of the wells drilled, successful drilling of infill wells, the assumed effects of regulation by government agencies and future capital and operating costs. All of these estimates will vary from actual results. Estimates of the recoverable oil and natural gas reserves attributable to any particular group of properties, classifications of such reserves based on risk of recovery and estimates of future net revenues expected therefrom, will vary. The Company's actual production, revenues, taxes, development and operating expenditures with respect to its reserves will vary from such estimates, and such variances could be material. Estimates of after-tax net present value are dependent on a number of factors including utilization of tax-loss carry forwards. In addition to the foregoing, other significant factors or uncertainties that may affect either the Company's reserves or the future net revenue associated with such reserves include material changes to existing taxation or royalty rates and/or regulations and changes to environmental laws and regulations.

Forward-looking information regarding Chaveroo and Milnesand well development and expectations regarding additional reserves are based on plans and estimates of management and interpretations of exploration information by the Company's exploration team at the date the information is provided and is subject to several factors and assumptions of management, including that required regulatory approvals will be available when required, that no unforeseen delays, unexpected geological or other effects, equipment failures, permitting delays or labor or contract disputes or shortages are encountered, that the development plans of the Company will not change, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information, including that anticipated results and estimated costs will not be consistent with managements' expectations, the Company or its subsidiaries not being able for any reason to obtain and provide the information necessary to secure required approvals or that required regulatory approvals are otherwise not available when required, that unexpected geological results are encountered and that equipment failures, permitting delays or labor or contract disputes or shortages are encountered.

Information on other important economic factors or significant uncertainties that may affect components of the reserves data and the other forward looking statements in this release are contained in the Company's Statement of Reserves Data and Other Oil & Gas Information dated August 26, 2016 with an effective date of January 1, 2017, prepared in accordance with the definitions, standards and procedures set out in the COGE Handbook and NI 51-101, and the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis under "Risk Factors", which are available under the Company's profile at www.SEDAR.com. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, other than as required by applicable law.

Visit our website at www.hunteroil.com; Andrew Hromyk, President and CEO, +1 (832) 485-8500

Related Links

http://www.hunteroil.com



SOURCE Hunter Oil Corp.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, September 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for TV devices to service operators and Consumer Electronics manufacturers, today announced that its Teatro-3.5 software solution for Android TV STB is available for the latest family of STB chipsets from HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd., a worldwide leading company providing silicon solutions for digital home, communications and wireless terminals.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140226/671778 )



The announcement was made at IBC 2016, which is being held in Amsterdam from Friday, September 9th through to Tuesday, September 13th. Both HiSilicon (hall 2, booth C30) and iWedia (hall 5, booth B40) exhibit at the show where the integrated solution will be demonstrated.

The Hi3798/Hi3796 series of chipsets includes Hi3798M V100, Hi3796M V100, and Hi3798C V200. It provides solutions for entry-level through high-end FHD/UHD HEVC STB. It features an advanced security engine integrating a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), a Secure Video-Path (SVP), and forensic watermarking technologies. All security requirements are fulfilled to protect the system both in static and running modes. The security engine protects the power on and boot processes, the OS kernel loading, the middleware launching, and the app/UI execution.

Teatro-3.5 is a complete software solution for STB operated by Android TV. It is based on iWedia's ANDROID4TV framework which extends Android TV with broadcast and multicast Pay TV functionalities implemented as input modules of the Android TV Input Framework (TIF).

Teatro-3.5 is available ported on various STB based on HiSilicon chipset, integrated with various Conditional Access Systems (CAS), and connected to various service delivery platforms and content delivery networks.

The UI/UX of Teatro-3.5 consists in a 2D-animated live TV app called C-More Live. This system app listed by the launcher is fully compliant with Google design principles and gathers all the features of a regular STB app: zapping banner, service list, grid EPG, PVR and Time Shift.

"With Teatro-3.5 Pay TV service providers can get the best of Android TV while delivering alongside their own legacy Pay TV services," says Nikola Teslic, CTO at iWedia. "The latest STB chipsets from HiSilicon constitute a perfect platform for hosting this solution and we are very pleased to have achieved this porting".

"With the availability of Teatro-3.5 on our Hi3798/Hi3796 series of chipsets and in leveraging iWedia's integration services capabilities we help our STB OEM customers to bring a better Time-To-Market to Pay TV operators wanting to take the Android TV track," says Liu Zhiyang, General Manager of STB Chipsets at HiSilicon.

About HiSilicon

HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd. is a leading chipset solution provider for telecom networks, wireless terminals, and digital media. It was formerly known as the ASIC design center of Huawei since 1991 and was spun off in 2004. HiSilicon has the advantage of providing end-to-end chipsets and solutions, from telecom networks to consumer electronics. Set-Top Box chipsets have been deployed at more than 100 global operators in over 50 countries, the accumulated volume exceeding 50 million units for IPTV and 60 million units for DVB. For more than 20 years, meeting customers' demands is a driving force for HiSilicon. HiSilicon always aims to provide high quality chip solutions with excellent services and support, and notably a very quick response to customers' requests. HiSilicon Technologies will continuously help customers in their value creation.

Please visit http://www.hisilicon.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Emmanuel Vigot

Head of Terminal Chipset Europe, HiSilicon Technologies

+33-6-2161-4917

emmanuel.vigot@hisilicon.com

About iWedia

iWedia provides software components and solutions for TV devices to service operators and Consumer Electronics manufacturers. Its mission is to deliver the software products and services needed by its customers to adapt constantly to the ever-changing requirements of the digital TV markets. In addition to stand-alone components (HLS, DASH, VidiPath, DVB>IP, MHEG-5, HbbTV, CI Plus, DTCP-IP, TR-069, etc.), iWedia offers a range of complete solutions for zappers, connected receivers, Smart TVs, as well as for OTT and IPTV boxes. Dubbed Teatro, these solutions are available for RTOS, Linux/HTML, and Android/Java and are pre-integrated with leading service and delivery platforms, CA/DRM systems, and chipsets. Alongside its products, iWedia delivers efficient and scalable software integration services performed by an experienced team used to enable rapid deployments of high volume Consumer Electronics devices. iWedia is headquartered in Switzerland with development labs in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia, and sales and support offices in France, Germany, India, and Thailand.

Please visit http://www.iwedia.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Herve Creff

VP Marketing, iWedia

+33-2-57-87-29-19

herve.creff@iwedia.com

SOURCE iWedia
CLEVELAND, Sept. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Christopher Brogdon municipal bond investors have retained the Peiffer Rosca Wolf securities attorneys and are pursing claims to recover money they invested with Brogdon. Recently, the Peiffer Rosca Wolf law firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of investors seeking to recoup their investments from third parties that assisted the Brogdon bond programs according to allegations in the complaint. Brogdon bond investors may contact Alan Rosca or James Booker at 888-998-0520 for more information about the case.

Christopher Brogdon organized a series of municipal bond offerings that sought money for investments in retirement housing, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities that would be managed by Brogdon-controlled companies. Bonds were sold to raise money for projects related to the purchase, renovation, construction, leasing and managing of nursing homes and assisted living.

In November 2015, Brogdon and a number of related entities were sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The SEC alleged that Brogdon committed fraud by making misrepresentations in offering documents provided to investors, commingling investor funds, and not disclosing from where investor payments were derived. Specifically, instead of directing investor funds for their intended purposes, Brogdon was accused of diverting some of those funds to other uses, including his family's personal expenses and facilities unrelated to the offering for which the funds were raised.

While testifying under oath, Brogdon refused answering questions about his bond programs and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

What Investors May Do

The Peiffer Rosca Wolf attorneys have been investigating this matter and have filed a lawsuit on behalf of investors against third parties that allegedly assisted the Brogdon bond program, with the goal of recovering money for those investors. They continue to explore additional recovery options from third parties that may have assisted the Brogdon program.

If you purchased any bonds that were a part of any of the various Brogdon offerings, you may have options to recover your investments. If you would like to learn how you might be able to recover your money, you should contact Peiffer Rosca Wolf securities attorneys Alan Rosca or James Booker at [email protected] or by phone at 888-998-0520.

The Peiffer Rosca Wolf law firm prosecutes cases on behalf of investors throughout the United States. For more information and updates about Christopher Brogdon's offerings and this matter, please visit www.brogdoninvestors.com.

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Please visit our website, www.securitieslitigators.com, for important disclosures, office locations, and attorney admissions. The SEC's allegations are not proof of liability and anyone should be presumed innocent until and unless otherwise found liable or guilty in a court of law. Peiffer Rosca Wolf Abdullah Carr & Cane, A Professional Law Corporations ("Peiffer Rosca Wolf").

Contacts:

Peiffer Rosca Wolf

888-998-0520  [email protected]

SOURCE Peiffer Rosca Wolf

Related Links

http://www.securitieslitigators.com


The Louis Vuitton House unveils its creative workshop in the heart of Grasse, in the Provence region of France; the unique history of the House's perfumer, Jacques Cavallier Belletrud; and the palette of exclusive raw materials assembled by him since his arrival. It is an invitation to travel, prologue to an imminent departure.

As visionaries, the trunk maker Louis Vuitton and his descendants have always placed innovation at the heart of creation. Luxury must not limit itself to offering what is rare and valuable: it must look toward the future. Jacques Cavallier Belletrud was not satisfied with simply creating an extraordinary variety of raw materials, but made improvements in them for more than four years. With the help of leading-edge technology, he has created his own vision of a dream palette. Just the beginning.

Visiting the various Louis Vuitton workshops inspired Jacques Cavallier Belletrud to invent an infusion made to order. Fascinated by the subtleness of the House's natural leather smell, Jacques Cavallier Belletrud requested an extract of this leather from the perfume workshop. Soft and sensual, it is like discovering leather for the first time.

Cavallier Belletrud has had an interest in extraction with supercritical CO2 for some time. The process, which is already used to extract ingredients such as vanilla, does not require heat. When bathed in cold gas, the plants unleash all their subtleness. Jacques Cavallier Belletrud decided to test this technique on fresh flowers. The result exceeded the perfumer's expectations.

The scent is so pure, so elusive, that it makes you feel like you are standing in the middle of a field of flowers in Grasse. The may rose and jasmine extract made with supercritical CO2 is not only a world-wide novelty but also an exclusive of the Louis Vuitton House.

Photos: https://we.tl/a2SmpKMJg0

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160909/406193

Related Links

http://es.louisvuitton.com/esp-es/tienda/mexico/lo



SOURCE LOUIS VUITTON MEXICO
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Washington, Sep 6 : US President Barack Obama on Monday said an agreement with Russia on ending the violence in Syria is being hampered by "gaps of trust" between the two governments.

Asked by CNN's Michelle Kosinski about his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the President described it as "candid" and "blunt" focusing mainly on Syria and Ukraine.

Obama called the discussion on Syria "productive" about what a real cessation of hostilities would actually look like.

"We have had some productive conversations about what a real cessation of hostilities would look like that would allow us both... to focus our attention on common enemies."

Obama added that currently the gaps have not been closed in negotiations between Russia and the US in a way that they think would "actually work". Obama urged Kerry and Lavrov to work together in the coming days to get aid to those in need.

Obama and his Russian counterpart Putin met on Monday as talks between their governments on ending violence in Syria ended without an agreement.

Meanwhile, Putin told reporters that a deal with the US to "ease tensions in Syria" may come "within a few days", according to Russia's state news agency TASS.

"Against all odds we have a certain rapprochement and understanding of what we might do to ease tensions in Syria and achieve mutually acceptable solutions," TASS quoted Putin as saying.

As for further details on the agreement, Putin said, "It is early now to speak of any parameters of our agreements, but I hope very much that the agreements will be reached, and I have the grounds to believe that this may happen within a few days," according to TASS.

The two leaders conversed on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou for ninety minutes, a senior US official said, and worked to clarify gaps in negotiations over on the Syrian crisis. The pair also discussed Ukraine and Russia's cyber intrusions, CNN quoted an official as saying.

The exchange came after talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov failed to result in a Syria ceasefire agreement. They had been working to negotiate a plan that would have boosted military cooperation between the two nations in an effort to better target terrorists and prevent civilian deaths.
Baghdad, Sep 6 : At least five persons were killed and 19 others injured in a car bomb explosion at a crowded commercial area in Iraq's capital Baghdad, a police source said on Tuesday.

The attack took place on Monday night when an explosives-laden car was detonated near Abdul-Majid Hospital on a busy thoroughfare in Karrada neighborhood of southern central Baghdad, Xinhua news agency quoted the source as saying on condition of anonymity.

The security forces sealed off the area and blocked the roads leading to the blast scene, while ambulances and police vehicles evacuated the injured people to the city hospitals, the source said.

Early in July, Karrada was the scene of massive bombing that killed and wounded hundreds of people.

Iraq has witnessed worsening violence since the Islamic State (IS) group took control of parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014.
Dhaka, Sep 6 : The Bangladesh Police on Tuesday cordoned off a multi-storey building at Dhaka's upmarket Gulshan area, after reports that some youths forcibly entered a showroom here.

Additional Commissioner Md Shahabuddin Qureshi told reporters here that the police cordoned off the multi-storey building on information that three suspicious persons carrying bags entered the building forcibly, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We're not sure yet whether they are thieves or militants," he said.

It was not clear from the initial reports whether the young persons had entered the NCC Bank branch or some other business establishment by force.

An official told bdnews24.com from the spot that the situation was not yet clear.

An employee at mobile phone operator here said the suspects entered the NCC Bank branch by force around 9.00 a.m.

Gulshan police station Inspector Salahuddin said the youths entered the LG showroom and not the bank.

Hundreds of policemen stood guarding the building from where two bags have been recovered.

"Our bomb disposal experts will examine the bags," Salahuddin said, adding that "after which we can analyse the situation".

Armoured vehicles and fire service trucks were also rushed to the spot.

Security has been tightened in the diplomatic area after militants attacked a Spanish cafe in Dhaka on July 1 that left 22 people, mostly foreigners, dead.
New Delhi, Sep 6 : The four Union Home Ministry officials suspended over issuing Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence to Islamic tele-preacher Zakir Naik's NGO Islamic Research Foundation have got a former Home Secretary's support.

"I don't know the details of the case but the suspension is not called for. Such actions generally demoralise people," former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on border security here on Tuesday.

He said if such actions are taken, the bureaucracy will stop taking any decisions.

Pillai admitted that Zakir Naik's is a high-profile case but went into add: "From my experience, I can state that the Home Secretary should be in a position to defend his officials in such cases."

Four officials of the Union Home Ministry were suspended on September 1 for their "lapses" in renewing the FCRA licence of the NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) run by Zakir Naik.

Naik's Peace TV and his speeches have come under the scanner of the central security agencies at home and abroad for allegedly propagating radical views, especially in the aftermath of the July 1 Dhaka terror siege that left 22 people dead.
Agartala, Sep 6 : India's northeast region neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar is in the high prevalence zone of different types of cancer and the disease can be prevented by adjusting lifestyle and food habits, say experts.

Cancer experts from India and other countries, assembled here for the 10th International Cancer Screening Network (ICSN) meeting, opine that while lifestyle diseases like diabetes and blood pressure are not curable, most cancers can be healed if detected early.

"The northeast region, Bangladesh and Myanmar are in the high prevalence area of different types of cancer. The cancers' predominance in the region can be preventable to a large extent by changing lifestyle and food habits," said G.K. Rath, head of the Bhim Rao Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital (BRAIRCH) affiliated to AIIMS.

He said: "The northeast region has the highest incidence of cancer with 40 per cent of the disease being related to tobacco followed by consumption of fast food, smoked and red meat and alcohol. Physical inactivity and consuming excess calories can also be blamed for incidence of cancer."

Rath said the country is facing a surge in non-communicable diseases as compared to communicable diseases unlike the past. "Communicable diseases, which are fatal, have been controlled by medical attention."

"Cancer is among the top three causes of death in the country with an average of 14 lakh cancer cases diagnosed every year. However, 80 per cent of this disease is curable, if detected and attended early, with 60 per cent of cancer preventable and 70 per cent detectable," Rath said.

Cancer experts, scientist and doctors from the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Switzerland and Bangladesh, besides from various parts of India, are taking part in the three-day ICSN meeting, which commenced on Monday.

Ravi Mehrotra, director of the National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research, said: "If 39 cases of cancer per thousand people are found in rural Maharashtra, the ratio in the northeastern region is about 170 per thousand people. The northeastern region is the highest cancer-prone zone in the country. Besides, adjacent Bangladesh and Myanmar are also in the high prevalence zone of various types of cancers."

He said the mortality rate depends on the type of cancer.

"Cancer screening using modern methodologies could reduce 80 per cent cancer burden in cervical cancer, 50 per cent in gastrointestinal cancer and 25 per cent in breast cancer."

"Oral, tongue, lung, breast, cervical, esophageal and gall bladder cancers are highest in the northeastern states where people are traditionally habituated to consumption of various types of tobacco, smoked meat, betel-nut, alcohol and unprocessed items. Lack of adequate knowledge about the bad effects of these intoxicants has further swelled the incidence of cancer," Mehrotra said.

Ted Trimble, director of the US-based Center for Global Health under National Cancer Institute, said: "We are working in research and information dissemination activities for the past many years. We are keen to share our experience with the experts and doctors dealing with cancer-related activities."

Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Special Advisor on Cancer Control and Head of the Early Detection and Prevention Section at the France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, said that earlier incidence of cervical cancer was very high among Indian women but now breast cancer has become the No.1 cancer.

"As people in northeast India consume less fruits, vegetables and foods with high protein, they suffer from increasing number of cancer. If we are serious about avoiding cancer, we should go for lifestyle change and altering the food habits," Sankaranarayanan added.

According to a latest report of the ICMR under its National Cancer Registry Programme, Aizawl district of Mizoram and Papum Pare district in Arunachal Pradesh are the two districts in the northeastern region with the highest age-adjusted cancer incidence rate in the country.
Brasilia, Sep 7 : Brazilian scientists have denied that the common mosquito known as Culex can transmit the Zika virus, saying that the Aedes aegypti mosquito is known to be a main vector of the disease.

At a press conference in Rio de Janeiro, scientists from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute said on Tuesday that a study carried out with the Pasteur Institute in Paris had ruled out the Culex as a vector, Xinhua news agency reported.

The teams analysed 1,600 mosquitoes collected from five different regions across Brazil. Half were Culex and half were Aedes aegypti. They were tested to determine their suitability as Zika vectors.

The scientists mixed the two groups together and fed them jointly with blood carrying the Zika virus.

They found that between 80 and 100 per cent of the Aedes aegypti carried the virus, with a great quantity in their saliva. However, none of the Culex mosquitoes showed the same result.

The results were published Tuesday in the PLoS (Public Library of Science) Neglected Tropical Diseases.

"We examined the saliva of the common mosquito to see if we could detect the virus but we found no Zika. This convinced us that this mosquito is not capable of transmitting it," said Ricardo Lourenco, a veterinarian from the the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, who led the project.

This study contradicted findings in July from the state-owned Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, in which researchers said the Zika virus had been found in the saliva of the Culex though its ability to transmit the virus remained unknown.

Brazil has been one of the countries worst hit by Zika though cases have dropped significantly in recent months after a massive fumigation campaign and with the arrival of winter.
Washington, Sep 8 : US Presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton addressed topics ranging from national security to veteran affairs in their first television forum here.

The two struck a pointed contrast on deploying ground troops to Iraq during the town hall held in New York on Wednesday by NBC News and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Democratic presidentaial nominee Clinton pledged that the US was "not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again, and we are not putting ground troops into Syria", while the Republican nominee disagreed, reported the Guardian.

Trump, who has long talked about the importance of "taking the oil" in the Middle East, said: "We would leave a certain group behind and they would take the various sections where they have the oil."

The forum came hours after Trump laid into Clinton as "trigger happy". During an address on defence spending in Philadelphia earlier in the day, the former reality TV star suggested there wasn't a country in the Middle East that Clinton did not want to invade -- an assertion he repeated on Wednesday evening.

The US currently has roughly 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq, mostly as official non-combat advisers for the Iraqi military, along with special operations forces. Navy and Air Force pilots also participate daily in air attacks on the Islamic State terrorist group.

The discussion took place a little under three weeks before the first Presidential debate on September 26.

In response to a question from the audience on military sexual assault, Trump cited his tweet from 2013 in which he suggested that the epidemic was a consequence of allowing women to serve in the military.

Trump also called for "a court system within the military", seemingly unaware that the military has always been governed by a court system separate from civilians.

When asked what he would do, if elected as President, to curb military sexual assault, Trump remained vague. "We have to come down very hard on that and do something about that," he said.

Trump also touched his bumpy relationship with various foreign leaders.

He further talked about his so-called "bromance" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he repeatedly praised and cast as a better leader than Barack Obama.

Trump went on to characterise his relationship with Putin as mutually beneficial.

"If he says great things about me, I'm gonna say great things about him," he said. "I think when he calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment. OK?

"I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin and a very good relationship with Russia."

Clinton, by contrast, sought to re-emphasise her foreign policy expertise while defending her legacy as Obama's Secretary of State.

The Democratic nominee repeated once more that it was "a mistake" for her to use a private email server while at the helm of the State Department.

"I have made no excuses for it. It was something that should not have been done," Clinton said.

Clinton struck a similar tone when discussing her support for the Iraq war, although not without pointing out that Trump also backed the invasion but has refused to acknowledge his support.

"I took responsibility for my decision," she said of her vote for the Iraq war. "My opponent has refused to take responsibility for his support."

However, Trump asserted that he had been against the war all along.

Clinton also pointed out there was "no difference" between her position on Libya and that of Trump.

"He's on record extensively supporting intervention in Libya," she said.

Trump, in turn, criticised the Obama administration as pursuing "the dumbest foreign policy" he had ever seen.

"The Generals have been reduced to rubble," Trump said, when pressed on the assertion he made during his campaign that he knows more about Islamic State than military Generals.

Asked what his own strategy would look like against the militant group, Trump declined to comment.

"I have a substantial chance of winning -- make America great again," he said. "If I win, I don't want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is."
New Delhi, Sep 8 : Actress Esha Gupta will turn showstopper for designer Yoshita Yadav at the Indian runway week Autum/Winter 2016.

Yadav is set to make her debut at the fashion week with her label Yoshita Couture. The designer will showcase her collection inspired by the city of Lucknow which remains the fashion capital of Northern India.

"In this season's collection, we at Yoshita Couture have used 100 per cent. Indian woven Raw Silks, woven in Varanasi and Bengaluru, depending on colour specifications.

"In this collection, one can see a vivid representation of motifs taken from most famous Mughal monuments of Bara Imambara, Chhota Imambara, and the Rumi Darwaza," said the designer in a statement.

She alo feels that Esha perfectly epitomizes her brand aesthetics.

"I think her aura is undeniably something to watch out for. Being a diva herself, I think she can pull off anything and everything fabulously. Our aesthetics definitely match and I am sure she would definitely set the ramp ablaze," she said

Yoshita Yadav started with her label in 2012 in Lucknow. She is a graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology and completed her further education from Italy.
New York, Sep 9 : The editor-in-chief of Norways biggest daily newspaper has criticised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over his role in deleting an article from Aftenposten's Facebook page containing a historic image from the Vietnam war.

Espen Egil Hansen, who is also CEO of Aftenposten, called Zuckerberg the "world's most powerful editor", and said the decision to remove the photograph because it contained nudity (the image shows the aftermath of a napalm attack) was a serious error in judgement, The Verge reported on Friday.

"If you will not distinguish between child pornography and documentary photographs from a war, this will simply promote stupidity and fail to bring human beings closer to each other," wrote Hansen in an open letter published online and on the front page of Aftenposten's Friday print edition.

The Pulitzer prize-winning image was originally taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut, and shows a naked nine-year-old Kim PhAc fleeing from a napalm bombing along with other children.

"The demand that we remove the picture came in an e-mail from Facebook's office in Hamburg this Wednesday morning. Less than 24 hours after the e-mail was sent, and before I had time to give my response, you intervened yourselves and deleted the article as well as the image from Aftenposten's Facebook page," Hansen wrote in the letter addressed to the Facebook CEO.

The image, along with six more, was posted on Facebook by Norwegian writer Tom Egeland in a discussion of photographs that changed the history of warfare.

Egeland's account was suspended for the post, and when Aftenposten wrote a story on the suspension and shared it on the paper's Facebook page that too was deleted, the report said.

"Any photographs of people displaying fully nude genitalia or buttocks, or fully nude female breast, will be removed," said Facebook in a warning sent to Aftenposten prior to the deletion.

In his open letter to Zuckerberg, Hansen said that Facebook needs to "offer more liberty in order to meet the entire width of cultural expressions" instead of sticking to one uniform set of rules that often ignore the context of images.

Facebook's approach to editorial decision-making has been under scrutiny recently, especially with regards to the company's trending news list.

"I am upset, disappointed -- well, in fact even afraid -- of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society," Hansen wrote.
Patna, Sep 9 : Celebrations erupted at former RJD parliamentarian Mohammad Shahabuddin's native village in Bihar's Siwan district and elsewhere ahead of his imminent release from jail after nearly 13 years behind bars.

The residents of his native village Pratappur in Siwan as well as the residents of Siwan town distributed sweets, burst firecrackers and announced a grand welcome for the criminal-turned-politician with a music band.

After the Patna High Court granted bail to him in a case related to the killing of a murder witness, Shahabuddin is set to be released on Saturday morning as the process for the same is in the final stage, a police official in Siwan said.

Shahabuddin's wife Hina Sahab told the media in Siwan that she had been waiting for his release since 2003.

"I have faith in God and ultimately justice has been done to him; he will be released on bail now," she said.

Interestingly, while Shahabuddin was behind the bars, she contested two Lok Sabha polls from Siwan but without success.

Shahabuddin's supporters, including over a dozen ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal legislators and former ministers, have plans to accord him a grand welcome on his release from Bhagalpur jail.

"We will arrange a rare welcome on his release from jail," RJD legislator Gridhari Yadav claimed on his Facebook wall on Friday.

In May, Shahabuddin was shifted from Siwan district jail to Bhagalpur Central Jail after the murder of Hindustan newspaper's journalist Rajdeo Ranjan.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders alleged that Shahabuddin had been pulling the strings from the jail in Siwan and had played a role in the killing of Ranjan.

Ranjan, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindustan, was shot dead in May in a busy market near the Station Road in the district.

Shahabuddin was lodged in Siwan jail for over a decade. He has twice been shifted to the Bhagalpur and Gaya jails for brief periods only.
New Delhi, Sep 9 : A court here has directed Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to remove and block video clips of sacked AAP minister Sandeep Kumar, arrested on charges of rape, where he was figured in an objectionable position with a woman.

"In view of submission made, direction is issued to the Director Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block/remove the above said links with immediate effect," Special Judge Poonam Chaudhary said in an order delivered on Thursday.

The court order came after the Delhi Police submission that the video clips are highly objectionable, illicit and harm the modesty of a woman. The police pleaded before the court that they are required to be blocked from the internet/website immediately to maintain peace, law and order and modesty of a woman.

The former Social Welfare and Women and Child Development Minister in Delhi government who was remanded to judicial custody till September 23 by a court on Friday, was arrested on September 3 after a woman approached Sultanpuri police station in north Delhi with a complaint of sexual harassment against him.

He was booked under sections 376 (punishment for rape) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, with intent to commit an offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

He was also charged under the Information Technology Act's section 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form).

The woman had alleged in her complaint that she was sexually harassed by Kumar at his office-cum-residence in the Sultanpuri area of the capital where she had gone to get her ration card made.

She had also alleged that Kumar had offered her a spiked cold drink following which she could not recall what exactly happened with her and how she had acted.

Kumar was sacked after an alleged "sex video" involving him became viral.

He later defended himself, saying he had resigned on his own and alleged that he had been targeted because he was a Dalit.
Ankara, Sep 10 : The Turkish General Staff said Islamic State (IS) terrorists assaulted a Turkish tank in Tal El-Hawa region of northern Syria on Friday, killing three soldiers and injuring one.

It also said Turkish artillery units fired 41 shots at 15 IS targets, destroying four buildings belonging to the terrorist group, Xinhua news Agency reported.

The attack marks the seventh Turkish casualty in the Euphrates Shield operation, which has lasted 17 days.

On September 6, three Turkish soldiers were killed and four others wounded in another IS attack on two tanks.

Four Turkish soldiers were injured on August 30 when a rocket fired from the west of Syria's Jarablus region hit a tank in northern Syria.
Baghdad, Sep 10 : At least 11 people were killed and 29 others wounded in two car bombs at a busy mall in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a police source said on Saturday.

The attack occurred shortly before Friday midnight when a booby-trapped car detonated at the car park of al-Nakhil Mall in Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, while a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at the busy street outside the mall building, the source told Xinhua.

The blasts set fire to several nearby cars at the parking lot and outside the mall and damaged many others, the source said.

Iraqi security forces sealed off the area and blocked the roads leading to the scene, while ambulances and police vehicles evacuated the killed and wounded people to the city hospitals, the source added.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, in most cases, is responsible for the suicide attacks, targeting areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.
Geneva, Sep 10 : US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached on Saturday a landmark agreement which would see both countries greatly enhance cooperation in a bid to end the five-year-old Syrian conflict.

According to Kerry, who spoke first after day-long discussions with his Russian counterpart, the plan aims to rekindle a nation-wide cessation of hostilities beginning at sundown on September 12, allowing life-saving humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need, Xinhua reported.

If the truce is respected for seven days, Washington and Moscow are then expected to increase military cooperation, including working on strategies targeting terrorist groups operating on Syrian soil.

This would mean that opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alongside terrorist groups such as Nusra will have to distance themselves to avoid being targeted.

Al-Assad, who Lavrov said had agreed to the new plan, will also have to halt air force strikes against opposition strongholds.

"I want to emphasise, this step is absolutely essential, it is a bedrock of this agreement," Kerry highlighted.

If all steps are implemented correctly, the new plan is seen by both powers as having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, a country at war since 2011.

"Today we have developed a significant, practical and concrete package of documents," Lavrov said.

"We cannot make these documents public because they contain rather sensitive and serious information," he added.
New York, Sep 10 : A co-founder of social media giant Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz said he was donating $20 million to help ensure the defeat of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential elections.

"If Donald Trump wins, the country will fall backward, and become more isolated from the global community," the American internet entrepreneur said in a blog post titled 'Compelled to Act' on Friday.

The 32-year-old multi-billionaire said the real-estate magnate's policy proposals were "so implausible" that they spark concern his White House run may be nothing more than a con game aimed at winning the election and boosting his brand, EFE news reported.

Moskovitz said Trump's signature plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border, which purports to "improve the lives of Americans, would in practice hurt citizens and noncitizens alike."

"So, for the first time, we are endorsing a candidate and donating. We hope these efforts make it a little more likely that (former Secretary of State Hillary) Clinton is able to pursue the agenda she's outlined," the Facebook co-founder said in the post, which was also signed by his wife, Cari Tuna.

The November 8 presidential election has become a "referendum on who we want to be as individuals, as a nation and as a society," Moskovitz said.

"Will we be driven by fear, towards tribalism, emphasizing the things that divide us (...) while building barriers to separate us from the rest of the world? Or, alternatively, will we continue in the direction of increased tolerance, diversity and interdependence in the name of mutual prosperity?" he asked rhetorically.

He added that he hoped his support for the Democratic Party sends a message to the Republicans that "by running this kind of campaign - one built on fear and hostility - and supporting this kind of candidate, they compel people to act in response."

"Like many Democratic voters, we don't support every plank of the platform, but it is clear that if Secretary Clinton wins the election, America will advance much further toward the world we hope to see," Moskovitz wrote.

The Facebook co-founder said that, despite "reservations about anyone using large amounts of money to influence elections," he and his wife were committing $20 million to numerous organisations, including the Hillary Victory Fund, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Dhaka, Sep 10 : At least 20 persons were killed on Saturday when a water boiler blew up in a factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police said. Many others were in critical condition.

The explosion led to a huge fire in the Tampaco Foils factory in Gazipur area around 6 a.m., bdnews24 reported, citing Senior Fire Station officer Mohd Rafiquzzaman.

He said 20 firefighting units battled the flames, which caused two floors of the five-storey building to partially collapse.

Seventeen bodies were sent to Tongi Hospital and three to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, the Daily Star reported. A total of 74 others were injured, many critically, police said.
Vijayawada, Sep 10 : The day-long Andhra Pradesh shutdown called by the opposition parties on Saturday to protest denial of special category status to the state evoked near total response, affecting normal life.

The shutdown was total in some parts of the state while it was near total in other regions. The day witnessed street protests and large-scale arrests.

Public transport was affected in all the 13 districts as activists of Yuvajana, Shramika, Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) stopped buses from plying.

The opposition workers staged sit-in at Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) depots since early Saturday to prevent buses from coming out.

However, police arrested scores of protesters. APSRTC was initially running buses in some districts with police protection but services resumed in many places in the afternoon.

Shops and business establishments and educational institutions also remained closed in Vijayawada, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Kurnool, Anantapur and other towns.

Shutdown was total in Vijayawada, the functioning capital of the state. Buses were off the roads and schools, colleges and shops remained shut.

Tension prevailed in parts of Tirupati as police arrested dozens of leaders of the opposition parties including YSRCP's Bhumana Karunakar Reddy. An attempt by CPI-M workers to conduct a mock funeral of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also triggered tension. The attempt was foiled by police, which led to heated arguments between the two sides.

Protestors alleged that Modi betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh by going back on his words to grant special status to the state. Police imposed prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons in the temple town.

In Srikakulam district, YSRCP leaders including former minister Dharmana Prasad Rao were placed under house arrest and the party alleged that police were resorting to indiscriminate arrests and use of force to foil the shutdown.

YSRCP president Y. S. Jaganmohan alleged that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu tried to foil the shutdown with the arrest of thousands of party activists.

The opposition parties took out rallies and staged sit-in at various places, condemning the attitude of the central and the state governments. The protesters raised slogans against Modi and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The Congress party staged a road blockade on Bengaluru highway in Kurnool. The protest led by state Congress chief Raghuveera Reddy led to a huge traffic jam.
Washington, Sep 10 : Donald Trump claimed he did not "pay to play". Hillary Clinton insisted she played by the rules. And the FBI chief asserted they "don't play games".

FBI's release of a report on the Democratic presidential nominee's use of a private email server before the long Labour Day weekend was not akin to a "Turkey dump", as the pundits insinuated to escape the media chatter, averred Director James Comey.

"We don't play games," he said in a memo to FBI agents some of whom were reportedly sharply critical of the decision not to charge Clinton despite finding her "extremely careless" in handling the nation's secrets as America's top diplomat.

"The case itself was not a cliff-hanger despite all the chest-beating by people no longer in government," he maintained and the documents were released when they were ready.

And Clinton finding her national lead shrinking from 8 to 3 points in the face of her ever-unfolding email saga on the home stretch of the presidential race acknowledged it was a "mistake" to use a private email server and so was her vote for Iraq war as a US senator.

But that did not disqualify her from serving as the nation's Commander-in-Chief, she insisted at a TV forum of military veterans.

For while all government systems from the State Department to even the White House may have been hacked, "There is no evidence my system was hacked."

Quickly negating her brazen claim, fact checkers pointed out that FBI did "assess that hostile actors gained access" to her system but found no evidence simply because it was unlikely hackers would leave a trail.

And in choosing to discuss issues like the CIA drone programme in Pakistan on unclassified mail she relied on the judgement of "hundreds of experienced foreign policy experts, diplomats, defence officials", claimed Clinton, neatly shifting the blame.

As for her support for Iraq war, her opponent too had done so, she offered lamely.

Not true, averred rival Trump. "I was totally against the war in Iraq" he said, pointing to a 2004 interview with Esquire magazine glossing over his comment two years earlier to an interviewer when asked if he supported the invasion, "Yeah, I guess so."

The brash billionaire who had not long ago claimed that he knows more than the generals and had a secret "fool proof" plan to tackle ISIS, asserted that the "generals had been reduced to a rubble" under President Barack Obama.

Claiming to be "pretty good with body language", Trump suggested he had also learnt some shocking things from intelligence briefings given to presidential candidates, saying, "I could tell they were not happy" about "our leaders" not following their recommendations.

He even praised Russian President Vladimir Putin saying while he did not like their system, Putin has "been a leader, far more than" Obama.

Nor did he mind being called "brilliant" by an authoritarian Putin though that would not get the Russian leader anywhere with him, Trump preened.

But a horrified Clinton suggested Trump's praise for Putin was "not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our Commander-in-Chief -- it is scary".

Meanwhile, the billionaire who had doubled down on his rival over what he called a "pay-to-play" game of giving fat cat Clinton foundation donors fast-track "access" to her, faced scrutiny over his own gifts to some politicians.

Trump had last year boasted that "when you give" politicians "to do whatever the hell you want them to do". Now he changed tack suggesting that a $25,000 donation to Florida attorney general Pam Bondi in 2013 was a contribution without strings.

While Bondi said Trump's gift did not influence her decision not to pursue fraud claims against his university, California's Indian-American attorney general Kamla Harris, who too got $5,000, was still said to be looking into the allegations.

Back on the campaign trail, Clinton told reporters on her plane in the midst of a coughing bout: "Every time I think about Trump, I get allergic."

And as #Hacking Hillary began trending on twitter, raising questions about her health, Trump shot back: "Mainstream media never covered Hillary's massive 'hacking' or coughing attack, yet it is #1trending. What's up?"

While people do get to play the last card come November 8, those allergic to both Trump and Clinton face a Hobson's choice!

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
Chennai, Sep 10 : Actress-filmmaker Suhasini Mani Ratnam has clarified that she hasn't made any comment on the Cauvery row between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

"Someone is using my photograph on Whatsapp and Twitter to make his personal statements on a social issue," Suhasini said in a statement.

"I condemn him for abusing my rights and privacy, and I request everybody to ignore and clarify that I have neither spoken to the press nor posted on any social media platform on any issue in the last five days.

"Artistes being soft targets cannot be used by public and media to propagate some individual's plan to gather attention," she said.

Karnataka shut down on Friday protesting the release of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu.

In this context, a screen shot of a text in Kannada language has been doing the rounds with Suhasini's photographs on Whatsapp and it says that "Suhasini has always supported Karnataka in Cauvery issue".
Chennai, Sep 10 : Actor Dhanush, who is busy gearing up for his Tamil directorial debut "Power Paandi", will start shooting for his maiden Hollywood film "The Extraordinary Journey Of A Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Cupboard" from January 2017.

"The project was supposed to start much earlier, but got postponed due to some reasons. Dhanush will join the sets of the film from January. In the interim, he will complete shooting for 'Power Paandi' and also finish major portion of Vetrimaaran's 'Vada Chennai'," a source aware of the developments, told IANS.

Based on the best-selling eponymous novel, the film will be helmed by Iranian filmmaker Marjane Satrapi.

Dhanush will play Aja, a conjurer from an Indian colony of artists, who is sent to Paris on a hush-hush mission by his mother. The shooting locations will include India, Paris, Morocco and Italy.

The film will also stars Uma Thurman and Alexandra Daddario.
Dhaka, Sep 10 : At least 26 persons were killed on Saturday when a water boiler blew up in a factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police said. Many others were in critical condition.

The explosion led to a huge fire in the Tampaco Foils factory in Gazipur area around 6 a.m., bdnews24 reported, citing Senior Fire Station officer Mohd Rafiquzzaman.

Fire Service Headquarters Director Lt Col Mosharraf Hussain said 25 units battled the flames, which caused two floors of the five-storey building to partially collapse.

An official told Dhaka Tribune that 10-15 persons may still be trapped inside the building.

Seventeen bodies were sent to Tongi Hospital and three to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, the Daily Star reported. A total of 74 others were injured, many critically, police said.

In a condolence message, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, expressed deep shock at the deaths and injuries.

Director of Labour (Joint Secretary) SM Ashrafuzzaman told reporters that families of the deceased workers would get Taka 2 lakh each and the injured a maximum Taka 1 lakh each as grants from the labour welfare fund.

A five-member probe body has been formed to look into the incident.
New Delhi, Sep 10 : The BJPs national general secretary and its Kashmir point person Ram Madhav on Saturday said Pakistan-based militant commander Syed Salahuddin was masterminding the ongoing unrest in the valley through Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

In an interview with India Today TV, Madhav said the two-month long unrest - the deadliest the valley has suffered in six years - had posed no threat to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government in the state.

He said the government was committed to "bring back normalcy" in the valley before Eid - a Muslim festival that is being celebrated on Tuesday.

"Stone-pelting needs to be stopped," he said and blamed United Jehad Council commander Syed Salahuddin, who is based in Muzaffarabad - the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir - for sponsoring the agitation in Kashmir.

"It is led by Syed Salahuddin and certain sections get influenced by him. Geelani is leading the campaign in the valley. There is no doubt about that. But the real masterminds are from across the border," Madhav said.

The former RSS leader, credited to have cobbled together the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, denied there were any differences between the ruling partners.

"We have confidence in the PDP-BJP government led by (Chief Minister) Mehbooba Mufti. It will last its full term of six years," Madhav told India Today TV.

He was asked if the Kashmir unrest, which has left 78 people dead, had caused fissures in the coalition government.

Referring to MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig's series of media interviews asking Mehbooba to step down because the agenda of alliance had not been implemented, Madhav said the PDP leader should have taken up the matter with his party rather than speaking publicly about it.

He said the situation in Kashmir was "definitely disturbing and had caused "concern for all of us".
Kolkata, Sep 10 : In the process of returning land taken from peasants of Singur for the Tata Motors Nano project, the West Bengal government has so far made about 100 acres cultivable and demarcation of plots in 325 acres has been completed till now, an official said on Saturday.

Following the Supreme Court verdict, the Mamata Banerjee government has been carrying out the land survey within the project area expeditiously. It has been taking the help of drone and GPS satellite mapping for aerial survey which is to be completed within ten weeks.

"So far, we have completed demarcation of plots for around 325 acres in the project area. About 100 acres have been made cultivable so far," Hooghly's Additional District Magistrate (Land Revenue) Purnendu Maji told IANS.

Chief Minister Banerjee will visit Singur and hold a public meeting on September 14.

"We are preparing maximum numbers of compensatory cheques and documents of land record so that CM could hand over land and cheques to farmers," he said.

After the Supreme Court quashed the land acquisition done by the erstwhile left Front government, Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool supremo, had chaired a high level emergency meeting at the state secretariat Nabanna to decide on follow-up actions for implementing the judicial order.

Banerjee said physical possession of cultivable land would be given to the land owners within the stipulated time frame of 12 weeks.
Imphal, Sep 10 : Congress lawmaker in Manipur, Yumkham Erabot, on Saturday said he is all set to resign from the ruling party and while he didn't specifically announce his next move, his supporters said he was likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Talking to reporters here, Erabot said that he will submit his resignation to the party in a day or two.

Justifying his stand, he said that in the last 15 years, he has been representing the Wangkhei constituency he could not serve the people properly.

"This is because of the fact that there appears to have two MLAs in this constituency," he said. Though he did not name anyone, his reference was to Chief Minister Okram Ibobi's nephew Okram Henry, who has been laying the ground works to contest from this constituency in next year's elections.

There had been obstructions and on some instances there were threats also," said Erabot.

His supporters had converged in his house and later they took out a procession.

Though Erabot said that he will disclose his next political move in due course, some of his hardcore supporters told IANS that they urged him to join BJP.

Sources in Congress told IANS that some more party MLAs are likely to resign shortly.
Shimla, Sep 10 : Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Saturday said that a teacher should be posted at one place for at least three years and there should be a check on those who are seeking plum postings.

"We have to evolve a stringent policy wherein the teachers don't get themselves transferred at least for three years," he said at a school function here.

He said he himself had seen a few teachers always busy in getting themselves transferred rather than concentrating on their profession.

"For the very reason we have imposed a complete ban on transfers of teachers, except in compelling circumstances," the Chief Minister said.

He suggested that there should be a psychological test before appointment of the teachers to analyse whether they will take teaching as a profession or are opting for it just for the sake of it.

"The teachers should not take their profession as a business but as a mission. They should give ample time to weak students even after classes are over in schools. Their motive should be to bring out the best from the students besides inculcating human values in them," he said.

"It is not tolerable to get them transferred within one station from one school to other, which is quite common in Shimla," he noted.

Teachers should opt to go out willingly to rural areas to provide their services, he added.

A total of 1,300 posts of postgraduate teachers, 950 trained graduate teachers, 600 JBTs, besides 620 posts of associate professors are in the process of being filled, he said.

Earlier, Virbhadra Singh had said that only those teachers should be honoured who are serving in remote and far-flung areas.

Speaking at a state-level function here to mark Teachers' Day on September 5, the octogenarian Chief Minister said: "Only those teachers who are willingly serving in remote and far-flung areas of the state and have worked in difficult circumstances should be honoured on such occasions."
New Delhi, Sep 10 : Putting an end to a nine-year-old marriage, the Delhi High Court has reiterated that denying sex to the spouse for a long time, without sufficient reason, amounted to mental cruelty and is a ground for divorce.

A division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandarajog and Justice Pratibha Rani granted divorce to a man, while taking into consideration his contention that the marriage could not be consummated and she had visited his office and made false complaints against him to his boss, due to which he had to leave the job.

"All these acts, individually as well cumulatively, amount to treating the husband with cruelty," the bench said while upholding the decision of a Family Court dissolving the marriage finding it to be a "sexless marriage".

The family court on April 1 had dissolved the marriage on a plea by the husband. The woman had moved the high court against the decision but on Friday, it dismissed her appeal filed against the dissolution of marriage.

Passing the order in favour of husband, the high court cited an apex court judgement saying not allowing a spouse to have sexual intercourse by his or her partner for long, without sufficient reason, amounted to mental cruelty to such spouse.

The 46-year-old man stated before the court that they got married in November 2007 but his wife refused to indulge in sexual activities due to a medical problem. They went to Shimla for honeymoon in January next year and there also she did not allow the marriage to be consummated and threatened to raise alarm or jump from the balcony in case any attempt was made by the husband to touch her.

After the failed honeymoon, they returned to Delhi and again she left for her parents' home and returned after about three months, he said, adding that her behaviour towards his mother was also insulting and humiliating.

In her defence, the woman had said that her husband and in-laws used to harass her with dowry demand. She said that her husband used to drink heavily and inflict cruelty on her body, mind and soul. Her husband used to take heavy doses of drugs for depression from which he has been suffering for over 10 years.

She also alleged him of hiding about his earlier marriage and a daughter from the first wife.
New Delhi, Sep 10 : On a day Andhra Pradesh saw a shutdown after the central government announced a special package for it rather than the special status it was demanding, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met a delegation of BJP leaders from the state and urged them to work for its development.

"A BJP delegation from Andhra Pradesh met the Prime Minister," said a brief tweet from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

The Andhra Pradesh leaders thanked Prime Minister for the special package, party sources said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday announced a special economic package for Andhra Pradesh, clarifying that the state will get monetary advantage equivalent to what it would have got if it was accorded the special category status.

Jaitley had, however, said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement made in Rajya Sabha on February 20, 2014 for according special status to Andhra Pradesh cannot be implemented as the 14th Finance Commission has recommended that the special category status can be given to only hill and northeastern states.

"A total of Rs 22,113 crore is to be paid to Andhra Pradesh as revenue deficit grant for the five year period from 2015-2020," a BJP source said.

The central government's financial package also includes a special assistance, a series of tax concessions and full funding of Pollavaram irrigation project.

But the decling of special category status, which has been demanded by all parties in the state including the NDA constituent, the ruling TDP of N. Chandrababu Naidu, has been resented strongly.

A day-long shutdown across the state called by the opposition parties hit the normal life on Saturday and led to large-scale arrests of protesters as well.

During his meeting with BJP leaders from the state, Modi said there was need for concerted efforts to work for development in Andhra Pradesh and urged his party leaders to work in that endeavour.

The Andhra Pradesh leaders led by Hari Babu also met party chief Amit Shah and thanked him for the special package, party sources said.
New Delhi, Sep 10 : AAP legislator Amanatullah Khan, who on Saturday was booked for allegedly pressurising his sister-in-law for establishing a physical relationship, announced that he has resigned from all government and the party posts.

Khan claimed that he was being "framed" and was "tired" of giving "clarifications" on various allegations levelled against him.

"I exposed corruption in the previous government after I became the Chairman of Delhi Waqf Board. But some people are not liking my honesty and spirit of service as they are framing me and my family in fake cases," Khan said in the letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"I am tired of giving clarifications on various allegations... I would like to be free from all the responsibilities... I resign from all the posts," Khan wrote.

Later at a press conference here at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) office, Khan said that he was being framed just because he was an AAP MLA.

"I now resign from all the party posts and will fight against corruption as a common AAP worker," he announced.

Following a complaint by the spouse of his wife's brother, a FIR was lodged against Khan at the Jamia Nagar police station in south Delhi.

A senior police officer told IANS: "Khan is booked under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) Section 506 (criminal intimidation) Section 498 A (relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and criminal conspiracy.

Khan, however, told the media that he was having "no connection with the woman at all".

"This woman had snapped all ties with our family four years back. She had also clarified this in a letter four years back that she had no connection with me and my family. Now today (Saturday) all of a sudden a case is registered against me on the basis of a baseless complaint from this woman," he said.

He added that police was "targeting" him because he was an AAP MLA but "police never took such swift action against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders," he added.

In another case, he was arrested on charges of threatening a woman on July 24 but released on bail on July 28.

Khan, who was made the Chairman of Delhi Waqf Board in March, was recently accused of involvement in an alleged recruitment scam there and the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has launched a "preliminary inquiry" against him.

Khan, however, claimed that the charges against him were baseless.

MLA from Okhla, he raised in the assembly the issue of the previous government illegally giving Waqf Board land to the Delhi Development Authority.

It was learnt from AAP sources that his resignation has not yet been accepted.
Islamabad, Sep 10 : Jail authorities in Pakistan's southern Peshawar city on Saturday shifted an Indian prisoner into a separate room following a brawl between the inmates.

An official from the Central Prison Peshawar confirmed to sources that the convicted Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari was shifted to a separate room to protect him from his fellow prisoners, who had a fight with him two times.

The prison authorities took the step after receiving direction from the Peshawar High Court to adopt security measures for protecting the imprisoned Indian national as he was twice attacked by other prisoners.

Earlier on August 5, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad also sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs raising security issues of Indian prisoners.

In 2013, Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, sentenced by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for being behind a series of bomb blasts in Lahore and Faisalabad in 1990, died after he was allegedly attacked by fellow inmates in the Central Jail, Lahore.
Bengaluru, Sep 10 : Karnataka on Saturday filed a special petition in the Supreme Court seeking it modify its order on releasing Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu in view of the distress situation, a state minister said.

"Our lawyers have filed the petition in the Supreme Court for modifying its September 5 order, which directed Karnataka to release daily 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for 10 days from September 7. As our reservoirs in the river basin have insufficient water due to deficit rains, we are not in a position to release more water," state Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra told the media after an emergency cabinet meeting here.

Hoping that the apex curt would hear the special petition on Monday and respond favourably, the minister said though the state had been releasing 15,000 cusecs of water daily since September 7, the state would like the top court to reduce the quantum of release to 10,000 cusecs daily for six days as offered by the state earlier.

"As a goodwill gesture, we offered to release 10,000 cusecs daily for six days on September 5 after the apex court on September 2 asked us to specify how much we could release adopting a policy of live and let live," he said.

A division bench of the apex court headed by Justice Dipak Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit had asked the state to respond to Tamil Nadu's plea for releasing 50 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of the river water to it as specified in the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal Award of 2013.

Though Karnataka challenged the tribunal award, which specified the state to release 192 tmcft of water every year to Tamil Nadu from June to December in a normal year, if the southwest monsoon is normal, it (tribunal) did not give a method or formula for sharing the water during distress due to deficit rains.

In a related development, the state government has also filed an application with the Cauvery Supervisory Committee in New Delhi, expressing its inability to release more water than it had offered as the reservoirs in the river basin had just enough water for drinking purpose in the Mysuru region till June next.

The combined storage of water in Kabini, Krishna Raja Sagar, Harangi and Hemavathi reservoirs across the river basin was 115 tmcft, while the live storage is 104 tmcft on August 31 as against the normal flow of 216 tmcft.

A cusec, which is a measure of flow rate of water per second, is equivalent to a flow of 28.317 litres per second and 11,000 cusecs is equivalent to 1 tmcft.

The apex court constituted the Supervisory Committee in May 2013 as a pro-tem measure for implementing the Tribunal award, which the central government notified in February of 2013 and six years after the tribunal declared the award in February 2007.

This committee has Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekar as chairman while Chief Secretaries of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry are its members, besides officials from the Central Water Commission.

"We hope the Supervisory Committee would rush a fact-finding team to assess the water levels in the reservoirs and restrain Tamil Nadu from asking more water than we are able to release now," added Jayachandra.
New Delhi, Sep 10 : Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar has said it was incorrect to say that farmers who came to the "khat panchayats" addressed by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi had filched the cots that were provided to them for sitting.

"The price of cots was not much and Congress workers were in any case not going to take them away after the meeting. The cots were meant for local villagers," Babbar told India TV in an interview.

Answering questions, he said: "One should understand how things have gone wrong in UP in the last 27 years, when farmers, who had come to share their problems, took away cots on their heads, on motorbikes and bicycles. One should understand the pain behind this act," according to a release from the channel.

Asked whether Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Vadra will be given a bigger role in UP, Babbar said: "Priyankaji's role has always been there. Soniaji, Rahulji, Priyankaji may be individuals, but I see the family as a unit. This family has made many sacrifices for the nation and the party."

About a reported suggestion by party strategist Prashant Kishore on projecting Rahul Gandhi as the CM candidate in UP, he said: "Nobody has heard about this in the party. I don't know to whom he has said this. About Prashantji, I can say he may give his advice, but there is no such thinking inside the party, nor any worker has made any such suggestion."

The actor-turned-politician lauded Congress' CM candidate Sheila Dikshit and said the former Delhi Chief Minister built the new face of Delhi post-independence.

"Nobody can dispute that. Moreover, she and her family originally hail from UP's Kannauj. UP needs development, the state needs an experienced person. When young people fail to run a family, the keys are handed over to the elders. I am confident Sheilaji at her age will handle the state effectively."

Babbar lashed out at the Samajwadi Party saying that it was now confined to a family of 12 persons headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav. "There is socialism only for these 12 members, but no socialism for those outside.'

On UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's comment that Babbar, a former Samajwadi Party leader, has been a "rolling stone", he said: "A nephew can say anything about his uncle."
Damascus, Sep 10 : The Syrian government on Saturday agreed to the US-Russian agreement concluded a day earlier on a ceasefire in Syria, official media reported.

A day earlier, the US and Russia announced a plan to bring about a ceasefire in Syria, SANA news agency reported.

The ceasefire was planned to start on Monday, the first day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice or Bakre Eid holiday.

"Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it's dependent on people's choices," Kerry said in Geneva.

The planned ceasefire is not the first to be agreed upon by both powers, as last February both agreed on a similar cessation of hostilities that held in some parts of the country, including the capital Damascus, and failed in other parts, mainly the northern city of Aleppo.
New Delhi, Sep 10 : BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday set up a panel of party leaders to visit Kerala and submit a report on the alleged crude bomb attack against BJP workers in Kerala.

The panel will comprise of MPs Meenakshi Lekhi, Anantkumar Hegde and Nalin Kateel besides national secretary and Kerala in-charge H. Raja.

The central government had sought a report on the situation in Kerala after the alleged crude bomb attack at a BJP office in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday night.

The BJP has alleged that the workers of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist were behind the attack.
Nautel Limited, a leading manufacturer of broadcast transmitters, has announced receipt of an order that will place Nautels largest transmitter, the 2 Megawatt NX2000 Medium Wave system, into operation at Antenna Hungarias transmission facility near Solt, Hungary. Porion Digital KFT will manage commissioning of the system, which will involve large infrastructure changes at the site as well as the new transmitter.

Antenna Hungaria is wholly owned by the government of Hungary and provides broadcast, telecommunication and multimedia services throughout the country. Their Solt operation is the most powerful medium wave radio transmitter in Europe and one of the most powerful transmitters in the world. Its signal on 540 kHz can be heard all over Europe as well as in parts of Africa, Russia and Asia. The solid state Nautel system will replace an aging custom-built tube transmitter that has been in operation since 1977. The system will incorporate five Nautel NX400 transmitters with a combiner. Nautel will work closely with Porion throughout the commissioning phase of the project, including interfacing with the existing medium voltage supply, coordination of building modifications to accommodate the new transmitter, and required air handling equipment.

We are proud and excited to be part of this project, said Balazs Kovacs of Porion Digital KFT. A great deal of research went into Antenna Hungarias decision to purchase the Nautel system. With a facility this large, power savings are always an important consideration as well as the reliability of the system and the vendors reputation for customer support. Nautel was able to meet all of these criteria.

Replacing our 40 year old transmitter was a huge decision, and was not undertaken lightly, said Attila Nagy, Adviser to the CEO of Antenna Hungaria. We felt that the Nautel system was our best choice for overall reliability and cost of operation. We look forward to working with Nautel and Porion to bring the latest technologies to this important transmission facility.

We are honored to have been chosen for a project of this significance, said Wendell Lonergan, Head of Broadcast Sales at Nautel. This transmitter site covers a large part of the world and reaches millions of people. Although we have participated in high-power installations all over the world, projects encompassing this power level are extremely rare. We thank Antenna Hungaria and Porion Digital KFT for this opportunity.

Nautels high-power NX Medium Wave transmitters provide unmatched reliability with the industrys top efficiency (90%) and surprisingly compact cabinets. Individual transmitters are available in 100, 200, 300 or 400 kW designs; these discrete transmitters can be combined to achieve any desired power output up to 2 MW. (Lower power units are also available in the NX Series, ranging down to 3 kW.) In addition to their high efficiency, NX Series transmitters provide digital pre-correction, RF and audio spectrum analyzers, 1.8 MHz direct digital modulation and Nautels award-winning Advanced User Interface for management and control from almost anywhere.

The transmitter upgrade is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017.

About Nautel

Nautel is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of AM and FM radio broadcast transmitters. With more than 14,000 transmitters deployed in over 177 countries since 1970 and more than 6,000 deployments of AUI-enabled transmitters, Nautel continues to lead the way in providing valuable new solutions for digital radio broadcasting and other applications.
Family Law & Criminal Defense Attorneys in Chicago, IL Accessibility and transparency are important qualities for a law firm to demonstrate to their clients.

Illinois law firm Wolfe & Stec, Ltd. have launched their new website to assist families and individuals who need legal assistance. The firm said they view their website as an extension of their principles and the services they offer their clients.

We urge people to learn as much about attorneys as possible before they retain their services, said Natalie Stec. Through our website, we provide examples of our previous work and the results weve achieved for our clients. We also give what we believe are great resources for those who want to learn more about their legal needs so they can be as informed as possible.

The website highlights the firms legal services, testimonials from clients, attorney biographies and a blog centered on family law and criminal defense, two focus areas of Wolfe & Stecs practice. Potential clients can also reach out to the firm through their website to receive a free consultation on their case.

Accessibility and transparency are important qualities for a law firm to demonstrate to their clients, said Marc D. Wolfe. Our criminal justice system poses serious problems for many Illinois residents. We believe that the attorney-client relationship shouldnt be plagued with the same hurdles. Our website reflects the personalized attention, responsiveness and creativity that we strive to offer our clients.

Partner Marc D. Wolfe has been practicing law for over 30 years, trying over 300 cases to verdict in his three decades of criminal defense. He is a graduate of the University of Denver and the John Marshall Law School.

Partner Natalie M. Stec has focused on significant pre- and post-decree marital and family law cases since beginning her legal career in 2000. Stec studied law abroad at the University of Manchester in Manchester, England, and is a graduate of the University of Illinois and the New York School of Law.

Partner Amy Lynn Riley concentrates her work on criminal and family law, having previously worked at McDonough County States Attorneys office. She is a graduate of Aurora University and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan.

The firm has offices in Chicago and Woodridge, Ill.

About Wolfe & Stec:

The law office of Wolfe & Stec, Ltd., handles criminal defense and family law cases in Illinois. They offer free initial consultations and schedule appointments at either of their locations, in Woodridge and Chicago. To contact Wolfe & Stec, call 630-305-0222 or 312-388-7882 or visit them online at http://www.wolfeandstec.com/.
The significance of performing at the Monterey Jazz Festival can not be understated. The longest-running jazz festival in the world features the best of jazz through performance and education. It hosts unparalleled world talent and legends and stands as a legacy to this musical genre, and impacts future generations of jazz musicians and afficionados alike.

It would have been a momentous milestone for the career of saxophonist-flutist and composer Thomas Chapin and an unforgettable, exhilarating ride for the audience if he had been able to play with his Trio back in 1997. At the peak of his form, he was booked to play for the festivals 40th anniversary.

After standout appearances on other big world jazz stages in New York, Newport, Europe, Japan, and Canada, the Thomas Chapin Trio was ready to play Monterey in the fall of 1997. Regrettably Chapin was forced to cancel after he was diagnosed with leukemia. Thomas Chapin died months later on February 13, 1998 after he cancelled the booking. He was about to turn 41. His star was gaining altitude, rising to the pinnacle of the Monterey Jazz Festival, which would have skyrocketed him into a household name in jazz. Now, 20 years later and through the award-winning film, THOMAS CHAPIN, NIGHT BIRD SONG, this unknown jazz virtuoso will finally come full circle and "play" Monterey.

A POTENT FORCE IN JAZZ

For his two decades of performing, Chapin was a force, a player with massive chops," whose sound was sui generis. He had an uncanny gift of melding all forms of jazz into a single body of music. His pathway of moving sound was so multi-directional, yet singular, so original, yet steeped in tradition, that the jazz community struggled to categorize him.

Peter Watrous of the New York Times captured his extraordinary power and versatility when he described Chapin's performance in 1995: "Chapin  is a virtuoso  also one of the more schooled musicians in jazz, both technically and historically, and for his set he dug into the styles of everyone from Benny Carter to the 60s avant-gardists, screeching and howling and huffing as if this were 1964 and he was breaking the rules of jazz into pieces."

Aidan Levy, who knew of Chapin and reviewed the film this year for JazzTimes Magazine, wrote that Chapin was considered by some to have fundamentally expanded the boundaries of the jazz discourse.

Dan Melnick, a concert producer in the 90's with George Wein's Festival Productions and its Newport Jazz Festival spinoffs that the Thomas Chapin Trio performed for, said, "For me and many others, Thomas stood at the center of numerous disparate worlds of jazz at that time. He was a master of all forms of jazz and maybe proved that these 'schools' or 'styles' weren't so different at all."

MONTEREY FILM SCREENING

THOMAS CHAPIN, NIGHT BIRD SONG, a 150-minute epic tale of this brilliant and extraordinary jazz master, will be screened at the Monterey Jazz Festival on September 18, 2016, at 4:30 pm in the Jazz Theater.

Emmy-winning filmmaker Stephanie J. Castillos documentary tells Chapin's story using the intimate details and captivating storytelling of 45 featured musicians, promoters, music critics, friends and family. The film, which has received high acclaim from reviewers and viewers, reveals Chapin's music formation, including his six-year stint as Lionel Hampton's music director and lead alto sax. It goes on to detail Chapin's emergence as a musical force in the late 1980s in the New York downtown jazz scene. Using archival performance film and video footage, the film shows how Chapin's distinct and inimitable style helped move the music forward in the 1990s.

The film also clearly establishes Chapin as one of the few artists of his generation to exist in both the New York City's downtown experimentalist scene and in the uptown world of traditional jazz. Fearless in his pursuit of creating an edgy, engaging, cutting-edge sound that pushed jazz forward, he was also tireless and passionate in showing his classical and mainstream influences.

Thomas Chapin was an artist who was his own man, a free musician, but whose music resonated loudly with the work of reed giants from an earlier age. He met his lifes end way too soon, while his dreams still burned bright and his audiences yearned for more. Today, new listeners and young players seeking inspiration are discovering and playing his music. Thanks to the film, Chapin will no longer be a footnote in jazz. His indelible mark will be known for all time.

In May 2016 in Nice, France, NIGHT BIRD SONG received the Nice International Filmmakers Festival award for Best Story. It was also nominated for Best Director of a Feature Documentary and Best Documentary at the New York City International Film Festival.

To view the films trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvWHsVSoPME

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

Stephanie J. Castillo is a former newspaper journalist who wrote for the Honolulu Star Bulletin in the 1980s. She heads Hawaii-based 'Olena Productions and has partners in Washington D.C., New York City, and Europe. This is her tenth documentary film.

Among Stephanie's documentaries and co-production film credits include:

Grace and Beauty: 150 Years of the Episcopal Church in Hawaii 2012

Strange Land: My Mothers War Bride Story 2009

Remember the Boys 2007

An Uncommon Kindness: The Father Damien Story 2006

Cockfighters: The Interviews 2003

An Untold Triumph: The Story of the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiment, US. Army 2002

Simple Courage: An Historical Portrait in the Age of AIDS 1992. Emmy 1993.

FILM ACCOLADES

"inspiring"..."a masterpiece"..."a coup and tour de force"... "a must see  masterful and beautiful work/tribute.

 an intoxicating story of love and music and music and love. Ron Scott, amsterdamnews.com

Stephanie, has brought this documentary film to fruition to remind jazz fans of what a potent force Chapin was on the 90s jazz scene. DOWNBEAT

 the first full assessment of Chapins life and work, seeks to broaden that audience and preserve his legacy. Jazz Times

Watch for a film review in JAZZIZ Magazine, which will be published on September 1 (online) and September 15 (print). https://www.jazziz.com/

REVIEWS

Reviews of THOMAS CHAPIN, NIGHT BIRD SONG (The Incandescent Life of a Jazz Great) include:

Film Fest International: As the film soars to the heights of Chapins musical life, viewers will be taken on an amazing, joyful biographical journey to what Chapin called his abyss of despair, which Chapin also described as as the realm of the miraculous. Just as he had transcended the boundaries of jazz and music, Chapin tragic end proves to be transcendent even as his life had to end too soon.

http://filmfestinternational.com/thomas-chapin-night-bird-song-incandescent-life-jazz-great/

JazzTimes: The 150-minute film, directed by Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Stephanie J. Castillo... captures Chapins frenetic spontaneity. Castillo culled the soundtrack from more than 200 live and studio recordings, a piercing counterpoint to the 47 interview subjects, including childhood friends, relatives, mentors and collaborators.

http://jazztimes.com/articles/172073-the-brilliant-life-tragic-death-of-thomas-chapin

Arteidolia, March 2016, Leave Nothing Out, by Patrick Brennan: Wow. Journalist and filmmaker Stephanie Castillo has accomplished a combination coup and tour de force with her documentary on the music and life of composersaxophonist-flautist Thomas Chapin (1957-1998). http://www.arteidolia.com/leave-nothing-out-thomas-chapin-stephanie-castillo-patrick-brennan

NPR, March 2, 2016, Thomas Chapins life and music celebrated, film and concert Hartford's Real Art Ways http://wnpr.org/post/thomas-chapin-s-life-and-music-celebrated-film-and-concert-hartfords-real-art-ways.

The Free Jazz Collective, April 19, 2016: Night Bird Song is a moving film that will hopefully present Chapin's small but brilliant body of work to a new set of appreciative listeners.

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2016/04/thomas-chapin-night-bird-song-olena.html

INTERVIEWS INVITED

Stephanie J. Castillo is available for interviews at castillosj(at)aol(dot)com and welcomes reviews of the film from the press community. To learn more about her 30-year filmmaking career and for information about her other films, please visit:

http://www.olenamedia.com

Her film's website is http://www.thomaschapinfilm.com/

For more on the Monterey Jazz Festival: http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/artists/thomas-chapin-night-bird-song

http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/
Jane Doe is a hunting invention that masks a womans scent from wildlife while letting them look good. The hunting industry is worth $34 billion, says Scott Cooper, CEO and Creative Director of World Patent Marketing. "An increase in the number of trips taken due to disposable income project growth for this industry in the coming years. Past News Releases RSS World Patent Marketing Invention...

World Patent Marketing Success Team...

World Patent Marketing Invention...

World Patent Marketing, a vertically integrated manufacturer and engineer of patented products, announces Jane Doe, a hunting invention that makes it easier for women to hunt animals.

"The hunting industry is worth $34 billion, says Scott Cooper, CEO and Creative Director of World Patent Marketing. "An increase in the number of trips taken due to disposable income project growth for this industry in the coming years."

Its important for many women that they look their best as often as possible, says Jerry Shapiro, Director of Manufacturing and World Patent Marketing Inventions. However, hunting can be an exhausting and demanding activity that causes people to get sweaty, which can warn wildlife of their presence. This hunting invention prevents that odor from spreading and helps women look good at the same time.

Jane Doe is a hunting invention that ensures that women look their best even while out in the wild. Being on the hunt is usually associated with being sweaty and dirty. This both makes people look worse and makes animals run away from them. Jane Doe is a skin and hair moisturizer that will mask the wearers scent. It not only conditions the hair, but it also protects the skin from the harsh weather. Its best feature, however, is how Jane Doe completely removes the scent from the wearer so they can no longer be detected by animals. This is extremely helpful while hunting since it will allow the user to sneak up on animals. Jane Doe lets women effectively go on the hunt and look good while doing it.

Finally ladies, a hunting product that keeps you in the field looking and feeling your best, says inventor Marlene K. Jane Doe is a cosmetic product for those who want to be in the outdoors without having their scent detected by wildlife and have the confidence of feeling and looking your best. Jane Doe cosmetics can be used at any time, whether you're going to work or enjoying your favorite outdoor activity. Jane Doe cosmetics will give you the assurance your skin and hair is scent free and protected with moisturizers and conditioners. With Jane Doe, you will be confident, scent free, feel good, look good, and always be ready for those trophy photos.

Jane Doe is a hunting invention that masks a womans scent from wildlife while letting them look good.

About World Patent Marketing

World Patent Marketing is always looking for new cool invention ideas. The company provides invention services and is one of the only patent companies that engineers and manufactures its own products. The company is broken into six operating divisions:

Patent Assistance and Research * Prototypes and Manufacturing * Distribution and Retail * Digital Marketing and Social Media * Direct Response TV and Internet Video Production * Patent Licensing & Investments

As a global leader in the patent invention services industry, World Patent Marketing is by your side every step of the way, utilizing its capital and experience to guide the invention process towards a successful product launch so you can be one of the next World Patent Marketing Success Stories.

World Patent Marketing Reviews enjoy an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (World Patent Marketing BBB) and has earned five-star ratings from Google and consumer review sites such as Consumer Affairs, Trustpilot, Shopper Approved, Customer Lobby, ResellerRatings, My3Cents and World Patent Marketing Glassdoor.

The CEO of World Patent Marketing, Scott Cooper, is also a Director of The Cooper Idea Foundation is the founder of the New York Inventors Exchange and has also been a proud member of the National Association of Manufacturers, Duns and Bradstreet, the US Chamber of Commerce, the South Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence and the Society of Plastics Engineers.

Those who are wondering how hard is it to get a patent or how much does it cost to patent an idea, should contact the invention marketing experts.

World Patent Marketing credits its invention success to it's powerful and influential advisory board and its controversial shock content approach to invention marketing. According to Scott J. Cooper, the CEO and Creative Director of World Patent Marketing, complaints from competitors are just part of the World Patent Marketing cost of doing business.

To submit invention ideas, contact World Patent Marketing at (888) 926-8174. Corporate headquarters located at 1680 Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida 33139.
Readers Respond

The death last week of Anna Dewdney, creator of the Llama Llama childrens book series, prompted an immense outpouring of grief among our readers. The response, in fact, overwhelmed our website, which crashed from all the traffic. Dewdneys death was eulogized in comments on our site, on social media, and across the Web. Here is a small sampling of reader remembrances of the author and her work:

Very sad to hear this news. In my 10 years as a reading specialist in a primary school, the Llama Llama series books were always the requests whenever I did a read-aloud. And the students would squeal with delight whenever I told them that a new book had been published and Id be buying it immediately. RIP, Anna. Dorothy Mattesen Drobney via publishersweekly.com

She was an amazing talent. My daughter is now eight, but the first three or four Llama Llama books were such a special and important part of her younger years. I still give them as gifts to new parents all the time. Its rare to find books that speak so wonderfully to children and their parentsbooks that parents can enjoy reading again and again. Sincere condolences to her family. Adrienne Clay via publishersweekly.com

Tonight I sat with my almost-two-year-old daughter and read Nelly Gnu and Daddy Too. If I had to guess, it was the 200th time we shared the story together. We laughed as always. When it was over she said, Again. Same after the second round. This story has given my sweet girl and me many special moments. What a wonderful author. What a lovely legacy she leaves behind. Reddit user Sdnightowl

She was a wonderful woman. I got to work with her at a bike event two years ago, and my then-10-year-old daughter tagged along. Anna was so kind and warm and insisted on signing books for my daughter as payment for her help.... Kid lit really transcends so much. Thank you for your special stories, Mrs. Dewdney. You made the nights easier for many children. Reddit user GoodLuckLady

The Llama Llama books are my eight-month-olds favorite books. He lights up anytime someone says the word llama. Anna will be dearly missed in our home, and her books will always be treasured. Cayleigh Strickler via publishersweekly.com

Read the obituary.

From the Newsletters

Tip Sheet

Alice Kaplan, author of [em]Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic[/em] (Univ. of Chicago), on why The Stranger almost didnt get published.

Childrens Bookshelf

Jennifer Weiners next book, The Littlest Bigfoot (Aladdin), is her first work for younger readers. We talked with her about what it was like to write for a different audience.

The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton (Flatiron).

Blogs

ShelfTalker

A bookseller on how important the good old-fashioned paper catalogue is for making orders.

Podcasts

Week Ahead

PW senior writer Andrew Albanese discusses the disappointing first-half numbers for the Big Five publishers and Barnes & Noble, and how they square with the Pew Foundations recent survey on book readership.

More to Come

An interview with Berkeley Breathed about the release of Bloom County Episode XI: A New Hope (IDW), plus comics writer Tini Howard discusses life as a member of the Valkyries, an international network of women who work in comics shops.

KidsCast

Kate Beasley discusses her middle grade novel, Gerties Leap to Greatness (FSG), about a girl determined to become the best fifth grader at her school, in order to win back her estranged mother.

PW Radio

Author Belle Boggs discusses her new book, The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood (Graywolf). PW editorial director Jim Milliot introduces the rising stars of publishing, courtesy of PWs Star Watch.
SMP Hits the Dancehall with Cannon

In a world rights deal, Monique Patterson at St. Martins Press acquired a tie-in novel by Nick Cannon, based on his forthcoming film King of the Dancehall. The movie, which premiered at this months Toronto Film Festival, is written and directed by Cannon; he also stars in it as a young man who, after being released from prison, leaves Brooklyn for Kingston, Jamaica, to reinvent himself. Once in Jamaica, he becomes a successful drug runner and falls for a local woman. The tie-in book, also called King of the Dancehall, is set for a January release. Doug Johnson at ICM Partners brokered the agreement with Patterson.

Levy Closes Double at Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury USAs Lea Beresford took U.S. rights to two new books by Deborah Levy, whose previous novels include the Man Bookershortlisted Swimming Home (2011). The first book, called The Man Who Saw Everything, is, the publisher said, about a psychological crash, the demands of masculinity, and the nature of deception. The second book will be a new edition of the authors memoir Things I Dont Want to Know, which Bloomsbury originally published in 2014. The updated edition will feature two new sections and will be published under the original title. Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency represented Levy.

Hodge Touches the Void at ChiZine

Fantasy house ChiZine Publications bought world rights to Brian Hodges short story collection The Immaculate Void. The book, which marks Hodges fifth full-length story collection, was acquired by ChiZine copublisher Brett Savoy. Describing the title, which Hodge sold without an agent, Savoy said it is largely a work of cosmic horror and features various pieces published by the author since 2010.

Berkleys Donovan Signs Two Six-Figure Deals

Berkley executive editor Kerry Donovan closed two six-figure deals last week. In the first, she preempted world rights to two novels by debut author Lexie Elliott. The books are both works of suspense, and the first, The Mademoiselle Next Door, follows a group of school friends living in London after college. It focuses on one friend whose life begins to unravel when evidence emerges that she may have been involved in a crime years ago. Folio Literary Managements Marcy Posner represented Elliott, and Mademoiselle is currently set for 2018.

In the second deal, Donovan preempted world rights to The Intermission and another, currently untitled novel, by Elyssa Friedland (Love and Miss Communication). The Intermission, which is set for 2018 as well, is, Berkley said, told from the dual perspectives of a husband and wife and is an incisive and thought-provoking examination of a marriage in jeopardy. Stefanie Lieberman at Janklow & Nesbit brokered the agreement with Donovan.

Gagas Dad Hits the Kitchen for Post Hill

Lady Gagas father, Joe Germanotta, sold a cookbook to Post Hill Press based on recipes from Joanne Trattoria, the Italian restaurant that he and his wife opened in Manhattan in 2012. Anthony Ziccardi took world rights to The Joanne Trattoria Cookbook in a deal arranged by Creative Artists Agency. Featuring a foreword by Lady Gaga, the title, which will also include photos from the eatery, is slated for a November 16 release.

Nuhfer Uses Her Superpowers on Imprint

For Macmillans Imprint, Erin Stein nabbed world rights to My So-Called Super Powers, Heather Nuhfers middle grade novel. The deal also includes two more books in what is a planned series; it follows a 13-year-old girl named Veronica McGowan, who, the publisher said, is a typical, unremarkable, average 13-year-old who is desperate to be an estcutest, smartest, funniestbut instead she just might be the weirdest. Bernadette Baker-Baughman at Victoria Sanders & Associates represented Nuhfer.
Pennys Great Fortune

Canadian author Louise Penny published her first novel, Still Life, in the U.S. in 2006, launching the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries. In the decade since, books in the series, which is set in Quebecs Eastern Townships, have garnered numerous accolades, including five Agatha Awards for best novel. This week, the 12th title, A Great Reckoning, debuts at #1 in Hardcover Fiction, and #3 in the country overall, thanks to the highest first-week print-unit sales of any book in the series.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Marching On

Georgia Congressman John Lewis has been detailing his work with the civil rights movement in the three-part graphic memoir series March, coauthored by Andrew Aydin, his digital director and policy advisor, and illustrated by Nate Powell, whose Swallow Me Whole won a 2009 Eisner Award for best original graphic novel. March: Book Three pubbed August 2 and debuts this week at #22 on our Trade Paperback list. Book one was released in 2013 to positive reviews, and Book two, which pubbed in 2015, won the Eisner Award for best reality-based work in July this year. All three volumes had strong sales this week.

Print-Unit Sales for Week Ending September 4

Book One 8,573 Book Two 5,191 Book Three 4,233

Hill Screen News

Nathan Hills buzzy first novel, The Nix, lands at #9 on our Hardcover Fiction list. How loud is the buzz? New York called the 640-pager falls splashiest debut novel. John Irving, in a New York Times interview, praised the authors Dickensian range. And so on. This all happened prepublication, and in the days since, the buzz has only gotten louder: on September 8, Deadline reported that Warner Bros. is working on a TV adaptation; J.J. Abrams and Hill are executive producing, and Meryl Streep is in talks to star.

New & Notable

A Torch Against the Night

Sabaa Tahir

#2 Childrens Frontlist Fiction

This is the sequel to Tahirs 2015 YA fantasy debut, An Ember in the Ashes, which has sold 101K copies in hardcover and trade paper.

Dog Man

Dav Pilkey

#4 Childrens Frontlist Fiction

Author-illustrator Pilkey, of Captain Underpants fame, launches a spin-off series about a half-human, half-canine crime fighter.

The Jealous Kind

James Lee Burke

#11 Hardcover Fiction

Burkes new entry into the Holland family sagaeach a standalone novel featuring a descendent of Hackberry Hollandis a coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas.

Clean House

Tom Fitton

#4 Hardcover

Nonfiction

Fitton, head of Judicial Watch (described on its website as a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation), delves into, in the words of the subtitle, Our Governments Secrets and Lies.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units 1 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child J.K. Rowling Scholastic/Levine 117,264 2 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Riverhead 34,064 3 A Great Reckoning Louise Penny Minotaur 29,823 4 Rushing Waters Danielle Steel Delacorte 26,602 5 The Girl on the Train (mass market movie tie-in) Paula Hawkins Riverhead 25,389 6 The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo Amy Schumer Gallery 24,308 7 The Girl on the Train (trade paper movie tie-in) Paula Hawkins Riverhead 19,002 8 Uninvited Lysa TerKeurst Thomas Nelson 18,703 9 Always a Cowboy Linda Lael Miller Harlequin 18,322 10 See Me Nicholas Sparks Grand Central 17,989

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
Congratulations to the 2016 PW Star Watch finalists. Read on to learn more about them, one of whom will be chosen as the "superstar" at our gala event on September 15, and be awarded a trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Noah Eaker

Executive Editor

Random House Publishing Group, New York

I love how often my days are totally surprising. Any time the phone rings it could bring a new piece of business that will change me as a reader forever.

In 2008, less than six years after he joined Dial Press, a young Eaker discovered an even younger Tea Obreht and published her debut novel, The Tigers Wife. The bestselling book was a National Book Award finalist and won the U.K.s Orange Prize for Fiction, which recognizes womens writing.

Susan Kamil, executive vice president and publisher of Random House and the Dial Press, spotted Eakers talent before he was officially hired. Even his readers report as a candidate was superior to those with far more experience, she says. His insight into character, his innate understanding of structure, his editorial strategy to improve the material, his love of literature, was clear, and brilliant, she adds.

You cant judge a book by its cover, but perhaps you can judge an editor by his list. In Eakers case, his acquisitions and projects continue to affirm Kamils initial impression of him. In 2015, he again had a hit with a debut novel, the widely praised and bestselling Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont. Eaker doesnt only focus on fiction debuts. He was the guiding force behind Son of a Gun, by Justin St. Germain, winner of the 2013 Barnes & Noble Discover Award in the nonfiction category; cultural critic Katie Roiphes The Violet Hour; Thunderstruck & Other Stories, a collection by the National Book Award finalist Elizabeth McKracken; and Get in Trouble, a collection by Kelly Link that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

This year, Eaker says he is thrilled by the critical response to Hisham Matars brilliant memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, about Matars journey home to his native Libya in search of answers regarding his fathers disappearance.

On the horizon are a number of projects that Eaker is particularly excited about, including a historical thriller, The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game. March will bring The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, the long-awaited new novel from The Good Thief author Hannah Tinti about a father in a New England fishing village who is trying to protect his daughter from the legacy of his criminal past.

And, of course, there is a debut novel, which should come as no surprise as Eaker describes himself as an editor who finds the words first novel tantalizing and says the privilege of being able to pass that excitement on to other readers never gets old. That privilege will be his again with The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, by Lindsey Lee Johnson, set in the hallways of a California high school.

Vida Engstrand

Director of Communications

Kensington Books, New York

We are here to be of service to readers, our colleagues, and, above all, our authors.

At her first job in publishing, at a small literary agency, Engstrand was struck by the industrys us vs. them mentality, with agents and others outside the houses doing everything they can for authors while in-house staff was not consistently supportive of them. The antagonistic dynamic isnt as strong now, she says, but it left a strong impression on me back then. When she began to work for publishing houses, she recalls, I brought with me a very strong sense that there needed to be more people inside the houses who were advocating for authors. At Kensington, she is credited with developing a culture of service. Whether Im pitching an authors book to media, collaborating with a bookstore on an event, or coming up with strategies for our sales reps to use, my job is to do everything I can to support our authors careers, Engstrand says.

One of her first goals as communications director was to de-silo, as she puts it, the publicity and marketing departments to form one unified group. Engstrand felt that the separate areas created redundancies and were essentially running separate campaigns with inconsistent messaging for the same book. As a single unit, she says, weve been able to create areas of genre or audience-based specialization within the department, which means our campaigns are more effective and targeted.

The genre-based specialization will come in handy in 2017, with the launch of a science fiction imprint within Kensingtons Lyrical Press line. The nonfiction list is expanding as well, with new releases, including Running with Raven, by Laura Lee Huttenbach, and a book by M. William Phelps that Engstrand describes as a groundbreaking crime memoir.

Engstrand is also looking forward to working with firmly established authors who are new to Kensington whom she believes jumped to the press because they knew our reputation for partnering with authors on all levels and investing in long-term career growth. Lindsay McKenna is one such author, launching a new western/military veteran romance series with Kensington in November. Others include Davis Bunn, whose first novel with the press, Miramar Bay, will publish in April. And shes excited to have the cozy mystery writer Ellery Adams and the historical romance author Madeline Hunter on upcoming lists.

But what thrills Engstrand most is every time Im able to get an authors work into the hands of a new reader. Whenever Im able to contribute in some way to the growth and continuation of an authors career, that makes me proud.

Wintaye Gebru

Manager

Left Bank Books, St. Louis

Meeting Wintaye [at Winter Institute 2016] and talking to her just gave me so much hope and optimism for the future of the bookselling industry when someone like her is part of it. Claire Kirch, contributing editor, PW

In the aftermath of the police shooting and killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, Left Bank Books stood front and center in the communitys response. Last year, in an article by Kirch, the stores owners, Kris Kleindienst and Jarek Steel, were given special recognition for exemplifying during a time of crisis what an independent bookstore can and should do to best serve its community. During the demonstrations that roiled St. Louis, not only did Left Bank stay open when other businesses were shutting down, but store personnel created and posted online a reading list titled Black Lives Matter. The suggested books were selected for those who wanted to better understand the issues and set the incident within a larger historical context.

Gebru, only four years out of college and already a store manager, was instrumental in orchestrating the stores response, creating the reading list, and working closely with Kleindienst and Steel about educating the community. As the press liaison, along with Steel, she was one of the two public faces of the store. But Gebru prefers not to think of these accomplishments as hers alone. Instead, she says, Ill talk about how proud I am of being part of a bookstore that has never shied away from its community. She adds, Its missionand mineis to change conversations and change people in ways that only a bookstore can.

Gebru cites the stores work with the Black Lives Matter movement as a great example of this. In addition to the expanding reading list that she helps curate and which now has 77 titles on it, the store ships yard signs to individuals, churches, and neighborhood groups across the country. She calls her involvement in this life-changing.

As the leader of the Ferguson Reads reading group for two years, Gebru has received some pushback from people upset that the store has taken such as strong stand, but she remains undeterred. Using our voice in matters of social justice is a core tenant of community bookselling, Gebru says.

In a less-charged arena, Gebru created and administers Left Banks first-editions subscription program, This Just In, which introduces debut authors, many from small presses. Gebru enjoys championing these underrepresented authors and giving them a boost so early in their careers.

Andrew Harwell

Senior Editor

HarperCollins Childrens Books, New York

Nothing motivates me more than the fan letters from kids and teens who say that a book I work on improved their lives.

Growing up in Georgia, Harwell says, he not only loved and devoured books but later realized he needed them: From Goosebumps and Redwall to Lois Duncan and Harry Potter, I especially love genre stories, which allowed me to escape my surroundings and find order in their clearly definedif incredibly highstakes. Harwell always keeps in mind the kids who are desperately looking for themselves in fiction, often at the same time that theyre looking for that order or escapism.

In addition to his caring and empathy for his readers and authors, Harwell is savvy. When he saw the success of Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children, he had the notion that there was room for more photographically illustrated horror novels in the YA marketand he was right. He signed the author Madeleine Roux to create what became the bestselling Asylum series.

Another success is Noelle Stevensons Nimona, a graphic novel that was a National Book Award finalist, an Eisner Award winner, and a bestseller. Harwell discovered Stevenson while she was still at the Maryland Institute College of Art, posting early pages of her webcomic. I had previously seen her pop-culture-skewering art online and knew that she was a genius, says Harwell, who was immensely gratified by the success of Nimona. Hell be working with Stevenson again for a new graphic novel series, 4 Wizards, conceived with Todd Casey and featuring the colorist Marta Laiho.

Harwell is just as eager to publish new fiction from Roux and Adam Silvera. In addition to her Asylum series, Roux is taking a turn for the gothic in her upcoming House of Furies. Silvera, Harwell says, is probing the meaning of life and death in the information age in his unconventional love story They Both Die at the End.

The four colleagues who nominated Harwell wrote that they see a very bright future in the childrens publishing industry for Andrew, with his blend of creativity, smarts, and ability to inspire others. They also praised Harwells deep involvement with the childrens books community.

Harwell sits on We Need Diverse Books Walter Grant committee and has authored his own childrens book, Spider Ring, which was named an International Literacy Association Childrens Choice.

Eric Obenauf

Editorial Director

Two Dollar Radio, Columbus, Ohio

Our books and films arent for everyone. Our work is for the disillusioned and disaffected, the adventurous and independent spirits who thirst for more, who push boundaries and like to witness others test their limits. We know were not alone. Lets make some noise. Eric Obenauf & Eliza Wood-Obenauf, founders, Two Dollar Radio

A husband-and-wife team, a list of only five to six books a year, and a base in Columbus, Ohio. These are not what most would consider the elements of a strong foundation for a successful publishing venture, yet Two Dollar Radio, founded in 2005 by Eric Obenauf and his wife, Eliza Wood-Obenauf, is just that. It is a very small, very independent fish in a very big pondand it is making disproportionate waves.

The Los Angeles Times called Two Dollar Radio one of the very few publishers who provide the industry with an air of possibility, the belief that the future was very much in play. Publishing Perspectives dubbed Two Dollar Radio a budding literary movement, and the Atlantic wrote that the press is the publisher of some of the best gritty Americana novels of the past decade.

Rather than use the overused descriptor carefully curated, the Obenaufs say on their website that Two Dollar Radio functions on a no-bullets-wasted policyno fluff, no coloring books or bathroom joke books. With over a decade behind them, Obenauf says he is especially proud that weve never sacrificed our vision or idealism in hopes of achieving higher sales. Instead, they focus on what they characterize as bold work: subversive, original, and highly creative.

Last year, Obenauf published Sarah Gerards Binary Star and Carola Dibbells The Only Ones, both of which won accolades and appeared on multiple best-books-of-the-year lists. The press has also published such writers as Rudolph Wurlitzer, Jay Neugeboren, Amy Koppelman, and Shane Jones.

The forthcoming list features several titles about which Obenauf is particularly excited, including Sirens, the first work of nonfiction by acclaimed novelist Joshua Mohr, whose first three novels were with Two Dollar Radio. A comic Southern horror debut by J.D. Wilkes, the charismatic front man of the Legendary Shack Shakers, a rockabilly/blues band from Paducah, Ky., points to why the press is known for category-averse books. Also on the horizon is the English-language debut of the Slovak writer Jana Benova, whose book Seeing People Off won the European Union Prize for Literature. And, lastly, Obenauf gives a shout out to an upcoming debut, Found Audio, that is the most unsettling and mysterious project that has ever come across my desk.

As if thats not enough for a tiny press, Two Dollar Radio also produces films. Whats really impressive, though, is that Obenauf can do all this and maintain his sense of humor. When asked to share additional thoughts on why he was nominated for Star Watch, he replied, My hair?

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The National Park Service, which has been celebrating its centennial throughout 2016, is the federal bureau that manages the entire U.S. parks system, covering some 84 million acres. So its not surprising that publishers who want to crack that bureaucracy and claim shelf space at park bookstores must climb a Denali-size peak to get there.

National Park stores have a committee adoption process that takes many months of review before a guidebook is adopted for sale, says Donna Galassi, associate publisher at Avalon.

As Katie Manion, retail operations manager at Yosemite Conservancyan organization that provides grants and support

to Yosemite National Parkexplains, in order for a book to be approved for a park store, the NPS must deem it educational and inspirational, [and possessing] some kind of value to enhance a visitors experience.

Even if a title makes the cut, there are other hurdles. An organization directly affiliated with the park, such as the Yosemite Conservancy or the Yellowstone Association, may already be issuing guidebooks about the region, limiting the need for similar titles from outside sources.

For example, Yellowstone Association published Yellowstone in a Day in 2014, to answer one of the biggest questions we get at the front desk: what can I do in one day? says Debbie Collins, product manager.

The organization also publishes a new edition of Yellowstone: The Official Guide to Touring Americas First National Park every two years, Collins says. That book takes a broad perspective on the visitor experience, while other guidebooks we sell specialize in different areas that are more niche, like fly-fishing, hiking, or wildlife, she says.

Its in these focused areas that regional publishers may succeed, doing what associations connected to the parks may not have the time or resources to do.

We cant begin to publish all the books we carry, Collins says, highlighting Farcountry Press in Helena, Mont., as one regional publisher that fills the gap with books such as A Rangers Guide to Yellowstone Day Hikes (2013) by Roger Anderson and Carol Shively Anderson, a married couple with 35 years of combined service at Yellowstone.

Like Yellowstone, Yosemite Association is enthusiastic about regional publishers that can home in on a particular aspect of the park, Manion says. Also appreciated, she says, are titles that tie regional points of interest together.

More often than not visitors are stopping by more than one location, she says. While our in-house publishing operation is very good at providing information about Yosemite and its resources, one publication that highlights points of interest throughout the region is more economical and reflective of many visitors itineraries. Bored Feet Press in Fort Bragg, Calif., and Heyday in Berkeley, Calif., are two of the regional publishers that Manion says have successfully landed shelf space in Yosemites shop.

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PHILADELPHIA -- The number of teenagers who would know where Papua New Guinea is without first Googling it is likely slim.

Eli Gutierrez and Isabella Bacciarini not only know, they are financially linked to and entrepreneurially motivated by the island in the southwest Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia.

The two Philadelphians, both 17, are in the coffee business, along with some other students at the String Theory Charter School, where "we really believe in bringing authentic learning experiences to kids," said Jason Corosanite, the school's cofounder and chief innovation officer.

For starters, the school opened an incubator on the top floor of its Vine Street campus for grades 5 through 12, formerly the site of offices for pharmaceutical titan GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C.

The Particle Accelerator, structured as a fellowship, with companies granted space at no charge in exchange for the educational benefit they can provide students, "is a culture of do, connecting theory to action and experimentation," the school says in a vision document. Its mission: "To activate the wonder, innovation, and art within our community, school, world and selves."

Of six companies, one, the coffee enterprise still awaiting a name, is student-run. It began when String Theory high school principal Jack Carr suggested that being able to serve drinks from a spacious, comfortable area just off the lobby would "be great," Gutierrez, about to start his senior year, recalled a few days ago during a FaceTime interview from Mexico, where he was on vacation with family.

Carr introduced him to Corosanite, and the process of assembling the equipment and furniture needed for a cafe began, including the infusion of $10,000 in seed money from String Theory's student activities account.

Gutierrez also enrolled in a 1 1/2-month online barista course, augmented by pointers from a local professional. Given his classroom responsibilities at String, Gutierrez realized he needed help at the cafe. So he started teaching barista fundamentals to other students, including Bacciarini, who could satisfy their community-service hours (required at the school) by serving up lattes, cappuccinos and smoothies.

Gutierrez transitioned to manager and roaster at the cafe, also applying those skills after school at jobs at Logan Square and Capriccio at Cafe Cret, two of three coffee shops owned and operated by Capriccio Management Group, and at Top Hat Espresso Catering. A surprise visit in the spring to the school's Cafe Vine by David Wagaman, president and owner at Capriccio Management, led to another commercial opportunity.

"I said, 'It would be a good idea for you to buy our beans,' " Gutierrez said, recalling his pitch. Wagaman bit, now ordering 60 pounds a week of the medium-to-dark roast "with a delicate sweetness complemented by an exotic, complex and fruity aroma." It is named Obura, for a region of Papua New Guinea.

For now, it is served only at Capriccio's Logan Square Cafe, on 18th Street in Sister Cities Park, across from the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.

Twelve-ounce bags of beans are expected to be available for purchase at all three Capriccio cafes by mid-September. Designed by String Theory students, the bags have an eye-catching tribesman's face painted in vibrant colors on the front, and a map depicting Papua New Guinea's location on the back. Wagaman said they will retail for $12.95 to $14.95 each. The school's cut will go to the student activities account, as do the proceeds from Cafe Vine, Corosanite said.

While he's helping a business venture in its early stages, Wagaman said, he, too, is benefiting from the school's coffee start-up.

"It's helped us find quality employees," he said of the three String Theory employees now on his payroll. "They feel more engaged. It's not just a job. They feel invested."

Revenue for the school's coffee company is about $2,000 a week, "with the hope of increasing that considerably" this school year, Corosanite said.

For Bacciarini, who will be a junior at String Theory in the fall and is a manager at Cafe Vine (and a barista at Logan Square), the value is in more than the revenues.

"It is empowering to say I actually run a business," said Bacciarini, whose mother oversees cleaning services at Ikea in South Philadelphia. "Especially being a girl. I've always been told it's usually a guy who opens a business."

As roaster of the Obura beans, a proud Gutierrez said: "Seeing someone smile when they drink the coffee is fantastic."
Tracy Livesay and her alpacas will join the antique engines at the Antique Engine & Tractor Association's 2016 Working Farm Show Sept. 16-18 in Geneseo.

The alpacas are residents of the Alpaca Ranch, located southwest of Prophetstown, and owned and operated by Dwight and Wanda Deitrick, grandparents of Mrs. Livesay.

Mrs. Livesay also will have items at the farm show from the ranch's store, ranging from scarves and yarn to hats and sweaters made from alpaca fleece.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Deitrick were raised on farms in Iowa, and 10 years ago, they returned to farm life when they bought a herd of seven Huacaya Alpacas. They moved from Geneseo to a 50-acre farm in the Prophetstown area.

Their herd of alpacas has grown from the original seven to 70, and with the growth of the herd came more work.

Help came when Mrs. Livesay, daughter of John and Theresa Deitrick, Geneseo, who was living in Chicago, decided to join in the adventure with her grandparents five years ago. Employee Jose Ruiz also helps care for the alpacas.

I was ready to do something totally different, and boy did I ever!" said Mrs. Livesay, who had spent more than 20 years working in the corporate world. I went from not knowing anything about the animals except to see them on trips home and think of them as cute little things, to learning about fiber, launching a website, social media, opening a store, feeding, teeth trimming, shearing, breeding, studying their lineage, showing, and, yes, cleaning up poop, and even marketing it.

Alpaca manure is referred to as beans, and it is a great fertilizer because it is high in nitrogen, Mrs. Livesay said.

Her future plans include teaching Alpaca 101 to new alpaca owners and prospective owners. She also offers private tours of the Alpaca Ranch for groups. For more information about tours, call her at 309-373-5281.

She said the alpacas at Deitricks Alpaca Ranch, the Huacaya, have short, dense, crimpy fleece, giving them a very woolly appearance. Alpacas have soft padded feet, making them gentle on their pastures, and they have no top teeth in the front. The average height of an alpaca is 36 inches at the withers (the base of the neck), and they weigh from 100 to 175 pounds.

Mrs. Livesay described alpacas as small and gentle members of the camelid, or camel, family, originating from South America. She said they are mild-tempered, gregarious animals with an inquisitive nature and a penchant for bringing great delight to their owners.

They are raised for their beautiful fleece and produce the finest fiber in the world, soft as cashmere and warmer and lighter weight than wool, she said.
ROCK ISLAND -- Rock Island city manager Thomas Thomas said Friday his goal in the failed bid to bring a Wal-Mart Supercenter to 11th Street was to bring more sales tax dollars and jobs to the city.

Mr. Thomas said he remains positive despite the the giant retailer's abrupt exit from a proposed agreement the city thought was days from being finalized. Instead, Mayor Dennis Pauley received a phone call from Wal-Mart officials on Tuesday that the company was pulling out of the proposed deal the city had been working on since 2012 and on which the city spent $15 million on site preparation.

"You have to be positive," Mr. Thomas said. "Because we are about moving the city forward. I think this is a great community, and it has great potential.

"We're going to continue to strive to improve things."

Mr. Thomas said the city is using Oklahoma-based consultants Retail Attractions LLC to find potential retailers to come to the area. Rickey Hayes, founder of Retail Attractions, said he is working with Mr. Thomas and city economic development manager Bret Gardella on potential prospects for the planned Wal-Mart site.

"That's what we're doing," Mr. Hayes said. "I have a couple of developers that are interested in that site. The city got a call last week from a developer in Texas on that project.

"They're very interested in the Wal-Mart site. There are a couple of other things looming that I can't comment on. I can confirm there are multiple developer groups looking at Rock Island right now for both the Wal-Mart site on 11th Street and other locations."

Mr. Hayes said it is really a fight to bring developers to the table. He said the other cities in the Quad-Cities are also after the same retail deals.

"Rock Island is being aggressive, which is what it needs to be," he said. "We think this is a very fruitful market. We're targeting the right people and getting them connected and getting tenants in town looking at the site."

"I just think it's a good site for development," he said. "The goal was to develop that site where we could have jobs and retail. I wish it had been Wal-Mart, but now we have a site that's ready to be developed for other retailers."

Mr. Thomas said the $15 million the city spent on buyouts, relocations and other related costs at the Watch Tower Plaza site should not impact city services.

"All of our streets are funded from gaming funds," Mr. Thomas said. "I'm not seeing that as being an issue." Mr. Thomas said he wants to move forward and try to bring sales tax dollars to the city.

He said the city has invested in small businesses and is investing in the downtown while trying to bring in retailers that help the sales tax base. As an example, neighbor Moline, with SouthPark Mall, Menard's, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Target, Kohl's and other stores. brought in $18-plus million in retail sales tax dollars in fiscal year 2015. That compared to just over $5 million in Rock Island and $2.4 million in East Moline.

"We have invested in our downtown businesses," Mr. Thomas said. "Look at what we've done to bring Bridges Catering downtown. Look at our work with DARI.

"But, you also want that sales tax money. You can use that to keep from raising property taxes and provide additional amenities to the city."
GENESEO -- The Geneseo Food Pantry is expanding to fulfill its mission of providing assistance to people in need.

Under the umbrella of the Geneseo Ministerial Association, the Food Pantry currently serves about 200 clients in Atkinson and Geneseo, a figure that has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Organizers expect that number will continue to grow.

To accommodate that need, the Geneseo Mininsterial Association earlier this year bought property at 550 Dilenbeck Drive that includes a 1,872-square-foot structure that previously housed a convenience store.

The Food Pantry Building Committee now is preparing to launch a fundraising campaign for a 7,000-square-foot addition to the building. Todd and Kay Sieben are chairing the fundraising effort, with a a community breakfast planned for 7:30 a.m. Sept. 24 at St. Malachys Church Parish Hall, 595 E. Ogden Ave.. The breakfast is free, with donation baskets on tables.

Mr. Sieben said the architects drawing of the proposed addition is expected to be displayed at the breakfast. The fundraising effort also plans to announce a goal. Contributions can be mailed to the Geneseo Food Pantry, P.O. Box 324, Geneseo, IL 61254, with building fund written in the memo line.

The group plans to break ground for the addition next spring. The building committee includes Chuck Kibler and Gene Stees.

The Rev. Michael Pakula, of St. Malachy's Church, president of the Food Pantry board, said the addition "will be a good, but simple building. The proposed structure would be entirely on one level, said Food Pantry director Jolynn Kitterman.

"It also will have a lot of storage and we will be able to expand our clothing and food areas, she said, adding the building will be handicap accessible. "We now carry items from the basement and from the second floor to the main floor for our clients.

The current Food Pantry, at 217 N. Russell St., was built in the mid-1920s. St. Malachys Church bought it as a convent for nuns before it became a Christian Education Center for the church when it also was on North Russell Street. The church now is on East Ogden Avenue.

The Food Pantry moved into the former Christian Education Center building in 1989.

"Storage space is inadequate for the amount of donations received, and clothing rooms are not accessible to clients with disabilities, Mrs. Kitterman said. At present, we have to turn down some offers of larger quantities of food because of inadequate refrigeration and freezer space."

Meat bundles must be carried to and from basement freezers, she said, a hazardous routine on the narrow staircase.

The Christian mission of the Food Pantry is to provide food, clothing and short-term emergency assistance for families and individuals living in Geneseo and Atkinson zip codes areas, she said. We are not able to efficiently serve our clients in our present location.
Today

--ROCK ISLAND -- Two Rivers United Methodist Church, 1820 5th Ave., Rock Island: noon, free meal every Saturday.

Sunday, Sept. 11

--Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 1400 16th Ave., Moline: 11 a.m.; Mass for First Responders, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11; followed by its noon to 3 p.m. parish festival.

Monday, Sept. 12

--Lifetree Cafe; 6 p.m.; Coffee Hound, 3537 Archer Drive, East Moline: discussion titled "Media -- Balanced or Biased?"

Thursday, Sept. 15, and Friday, Sept. 16

-- "Questions for Jesus;" An eight-session course: 5:45-8 p.m. Friday; 8:45 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday; Quad Cities Prayer Center, 320 W. Kimberly Road No. 510, in NorthPark Mall, Davenport; limited to the first 70 people; register online at motivationallistening.net/events; copy of "Questions for Jesus" book, written by Tony Stoltzfus, included with registration; $80 in advance or $100 at the door; led by Kate McGovern and Adam G. Fleming; for information, email kate@realliferestores.com.

Saturday, Sept. 17

--Christian Care, 2209 3rd Ave., Rock Island: 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; 100th anniversary party and health and wellness fair; complimentary lunch; raffle; meet representatives of local organizations helping residents.

--First Baptist Church, and American Legion post, both of Cordova: 4:30-6:30 p.m., spaghetti dinner; donations sought

Sunday, Sept. 18

-- Second Baptist Church, 919 6th Ave., Rock Island: honoring its pastor, the Rev. Joseph D. Williamson III, and his wife, church first lady Robbie Maxwell Williamson, for 23 years serving the church; "Honoring Our Pastor" theme, from Jeremiah 3:15; colors for the day will be pink, purple and gray; guest speakers from St. Paul Baptist Church, East St. Louis, Rev. Williamsons home church; 8 and 10:45 a.m., the Rev. Ervin Yarbrough; 3 p.m., the Rev. Gary Gaston; 309-235-1771 or the church at 309-788-0677.

Wednesday, Sept. 21

--Christ United Methodist Church's CARE Ministry Team: 6:30 p.m.; International Day of Peace event; worship center, 3801 7th St., East Moline; music, testimony of a teen cancer survivor; presentation by Dan Pearson of Fellowship for Christian Athletes, will be keynote speakers; geared for anyone seeking "Inner Peace with Christ."

Friday, Sept. 23

--Edgewood Baptist Church, 2704 38th St., Rock Island: 6-9 p.m.; large-scale simulcast prayer event called "CryOut!" to gather thousands of women to pray for Gods mercy and supernatural intervention in our world, our nation, our churches, our cities and our homes; 3-hour prayer meeting focusing on personal, families, churches, our nation and the world prayers; each segment led by a different keynote speaker, includes Scripture readings, short devotional messages, corporate interactive prayer and worship; speakers include Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Janet Parshall and Tony Evans; music led by Keith and Kristyn Getty; free; edgewoodbaptist.net or call 309-786-7913.

Miscellaneous

--Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, 800 17th St., Silvis: seeks donations of gift certificates, raffle prizes or items to include in raffle baskets for its annual fall festival, dinner and raffle to be held Nov. 5; arrange pickups by calling 309-854-2401, 309-441-5527 or 309-912-9654.
During the steamboat days when Mark Twain was a pilot on the Mississippi River, bars of sand and silt formed on the river causing serious problems for the pilots.

The pilot could not lounge at the wheel, said Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, in his book, Life on the Mississippi. He had to scan the surface of the water, checking and rechecking landmarks, taking frequent soundings with lead line or sounding pole where channel or depth were uncertain and guiding the boat past critical places.

Bars formed at the head and foot of islands. They formed at the mouth of any river of importance. They showed up where the current slowed allowing the river to deposit some of its burden of sand and silt. There was a bar under every point.

The water that came down around it formed an eddy and allowed the sediment to sink. A point bar is one that forms by the erosion on the convex side of a channel bend with the sediment carried being deposited at the foot or point of the bend.

There the channel flow crosses the river to the other bank. Point bars vary in size and shape. Low water levels revealed bars, shoals and rapids to reappear as obstructions to steamboats, according to Louis C. Hunter in his book, Steamboats in Western Rivers.

If a boat got stuck on a bar, a passing steamboat with a towline was an easy way to get the them off the bar. Boats could sometimes batter their way through loose sand and gravel, said Twain. Sometimes they waited for higher water.

A bluff bar is a sandbar being cut by the channel current. There is plenty of water close to it but very little on the top of it. The channel there may be realigning itself.

One time when Twain was still a cub pilot he got very worried when he saw a frightful bluff reef stretching its deadly length right across the bow of the boat he was piloting. Twain thought if he hit it it would knock the boats brains out.

My head was gone in a moment; I gasped and could not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that it wove itself together like a spiders web; the boat answered and turned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her. I fled but it still followed keeping right across the boats bow. The awful crash was imminent -- why didnt the villain come! If I committed the crime of ringing a bell I might get thrown overboard. (The bell cord alerted the crew in the engine room for change in speed to handle the situation.) Thats what he did, however.

Amidst the frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furious way. He believed they were headed for the woods on the other side of the river.

Then Capt. Bixby showed up. Stop the starboard, stop the larboard, set her back on both, he commanded. The boat hesitated, halted and pressed her nose among the trees and backed away from the shore.

Stop the larboard. Come ahead on it. Stop the starboard, Come ahead on it. Point her for the bar.

As it turned out Twain was avoiding a bluff reef that didnt exist. And he was questioned as to why he was following a bend upstream at this stage of the river. He was then told to run over the reef. We slid over it like oil, he said. It was a wind reef.

When a steamer got stuck on a bar all hands were said to go fishing. They were hoping to catch catfish that Twain said was the royalty of the river. If that is so, is the Asian carp an immigrant?
G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
As North Korea conducts what is suspected to be its fifth and biggest test of a nuclear bomb, what should we be looking out for?

The Yield of the Explosion

The first big question will be whether North Korea's nuclear test had a higher yield, or explosive power, this time.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un claimed that the last test, in January, was of a hydrogen bomb, which employs nuclear fusion. That weapon yield came in at about 6-8 kilotonnes of TNT equivalent.

The key point to note is that this test was probably smaller than the one before that, the third test, which had a yield of 8-10 kilotonnes and was not an H-bomb.

That the fourth test was buried twice as deep as the third, suggests that Mr. Kim had hoped for a yield of about 50 kilotonnes, which you would expect from an H-bomb.

So did this fifth test produce a much larger yield? Early indications suggest that it was 20 kilotonnes or so, although Seoul officials put the figure at 10 kilotonnes. Either way, it is larger than the fourth test.

The Aggressive Intentions of Kim

This year, North Korea has already performed its fourth nuclear weapon test and a satellite launch, widely believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test.

It has also launched more than 30 ballistic missiles of 200km (125 miles) range or greater  more than the number of ballistic missile tests in its previous history.

The international sanctions imposed in the wake of these violations are a threat to the North Korean economy.

Kim Jong-Un also claims that the United States and South Korea are preparing to invade North Korea, even though it is Mr. Kim who has been escalating the situation on the peninsula.

This fifth test is yet another escalation, especially since North Korea's previous nuclear tests were three years or so apart.

But the North Korean leader has a very weak state and appears to be a weak leader, using brutality to try to control both the masses and his elites.

Kim is using missile launches and nuclear tests and threats to divert attention from his other failures.

So he is using missile launches and nuclear tests and threats to divert attention from his other failures, and also in an attempt to secure North Korean military support and to deter outside action against him. Each provocation suggests that he is feeling more and more internal pressure  which he must divert.

Might he be preparing to carry out more limited attacks, as his father and he did in 2010? That was when the North unleashed an artillery bombardment on South Korea's Yeonpyeong island, an attack widely believed to have been orchestrated by the younger Kim.

Whether the North's Nuclear Ambition Is Being Realised

Kim Jong-Un has been clear since last December that his scientists have developed an H-bomb  a more powerful nuclear weapon that should be able to fit on a ballistic missile.

But the 6 January nuclear test was not very convincing and probably largely a failure.

He has probably waited until his scientists thought that they had solved their technical problems.

So the weapon yield will be really important to assess their nuclear ambitions  especially if those scientists want to survive.

What China Says Now

Several months ago, the United States and South Korea announced that they would deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea to protect against North Korean nuclear threats.

There has been a fair amount of opposition to THAAD in South Korea and especially from China.

China has failed to act like a so-called great power and it has not stopped its ally North Korea's provocations.

China now has to decide whether it really wants to take up a position of responsibility.

China now has to decide whether it really wants to take up a position of responsibility and restrain North Korea or whether it is really only concerned about its own security and diverting attention from its violations of international law in the South China Sea.

If the United States Changes Its Approach

The United States has been following a policy of strategic patience toward North Korea, allowing the North to continue its provocations and nuclear developments with little response or deterrence.

The United States needs a different approach as North Korea is proving it is determined to make some serious advances. The North Korean threat is changing in ways that both the United States and its regional allies need to respond to.

Meanwhile, the people of South Korea need to decide whether they want the United States to be prepared to protect the South against North Korean missile threats.

Many do want that, but there are those who assume that North Korea is just a friendly neighbour. This nuclear test may change a few minds, but others it will not.

Bruce Bennett is a senior defense analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on BBC on September 9, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Venezuela-based channel teleSUR is leaving Argentinas television network, as its relationship with the countrys government seems to have broken down.

Earlier this week, teleSUR president Patricia Villegas was said to have tried one more time to convince the Argentinian authorities to keep their 16% share of the channel and make it possible for teleSUR to be broadcast across the country.Argentinas government answered teleSURs petition initiating the process to break the contract as a shareholder, even though this agreement is due to end by the end of October.The authorities have already awarded ArgenTV with a free-to-air signal to replace teleSUR.teleSUR was originally designed in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez's government in 2005, then becoming a multi-state-owned network in which Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Argentina participated.Argentinas government has based its decision on its austerity and plurality plan for public media . Our country had no decision about content or the signal's management, said Hernan Lombardi, Argentinas minister for media and public content.
At this years Insurtech Connect conference, Insider Engage spoke to Pranav Pasricha, Swiss Re's global head property and casualty solutions, Reinsurance, to discuss why the protection gap is the biggest challenge the reinsurance industry faces today and how Swiss Re is using technology to support clients to respond to new and emerging threats.
realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo

The speech was chock-full of red meat for her fans and for her detractors. Speaking before an audience of U.S. military veterans at last weeks American Legion National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at length about the possibilities -- and responsibilities -- of American power in the 21st century.

If theres one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of the way, it is this. The United States is an exceptional nation, said Clinton. I believe we are still Lincolns last, best hope of Earth. Were still Reagans shining city on a hill. Were still Robert Kennedys great, unselfish, compassionate country.

Clintons remarks fueled an ongoing debate among foreign policy wonks and writers about what has been described as the former secretary of states bias toward action, and her tendency to echo a U.S. foreign policy establishment that, according to many critics, lends itself to ill-defined and often disastrous military campaigns abroad.

Her Republican opponent, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump, has been quick at times to pounce on this perception of Mrs. Clinton as too hawkish.

"Sometimes it seemed that there wasn't a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn't want to invade, intervene in, or topple," Trump said during a Wednesday evening election forum hosted by NBC News. "She's trigger-happy and very unstable."

The seeming assembly line of endorsements from neoconservative scholars like Robert Kagan hasnt helped Clinton avoid the perception, and at a time when more and more Americans are increasingly looking inward, the Clinton campaign increasingly looks like the last outpost for an outmoded way of looking at the world -- and Americas role in it.

That Clinton is the obvious candidate of the foreign policy establishment isnt necessarily a bad thing, of course, and there is little doubt that she possesses the knowledge and the staff to deal with the complex challenges facing the United States around the world, and in the Middle East in particular.

I was very impressed with how attuned she was to every detail of the situation [in Syria], said one Syrian human rights activist in an interview with NOW News, adding that she has a tremendous foreign policy operation, almost like an actual government.

Indeed, Mrs. Clintons reputation for preparedness -- her ability to digest complex counterterrorism manuals and indulge lengthy military briefings -- has by now been well documented, and has also been the subject of numerous news stories and in-depth reports on her foreign policy merits and missteps. Those missteps however provoke considerable worry among critics who suspect that Mrs. Clinton -- far from being the unstable figure that her election opponent claims -- is at times slavishly devoted to the pursuit of intangible commodities such as credibility and leverage.

It is forgotten today that a primary justification she offered for the U.S. military role in Libya was to pay back allies for Afghanistan, wrote Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations in a scathing critique of Clintons foreign policy resume. And while Clinton, according to reports, was at first reluctant to commit the United States to Frances shitty war in Libya, the then-secretary of state eventually became one of the leading advocates for American involvement in the campaign.

Moreover, if her Republican opponent is offering unorthodox and at times wildly inconsistent solutions to Mideast policy challenges, Mrs. Clinton appears to be offering more of the same. And while Clinton has quietly critiqued President Obamas handling of the civil war in Syria, recent comments suggest that Mrs. Clinton would likely hew closely to the Obama administrations current policies in the region.

"We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again, and we're not putting ground troops into Syria. Were going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops, declared Clinton during Wednesday nights NBC News forum.

A caged hawk?

Clintons equivocation on Syria and the broader regional challenge posed by Islamic State paints a somewhat murkier picture of her intentions for a region now caught in the fading wake of the Arab Spring. Although she has advocated for more aggressive support for anti-government forces in war-torn Syria, she also, as secretary of state, advised caution against hastily abandoning Hosni Mubaraks regime during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Her State Departments handling of the uprising in Bahrain that same year, during which the countrys Sunni monarchy brutalized and jailed peaceful protesters, also suggests that Clinton is less than eager to embrace the forces of democracy and liberty across the region.

The Democratic nominee faces another dilemma in the Middle East, but one that is rooted closer to home. President Obama largely enjoyed the support of the American public for his policies upon taking office in 2008. The same cannot be said for a would-be President Clinton. With a likely unfriendly Congress determined to push back against Obamas signature policy achievement in the region, last years nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, Clinton would probably be a president locked in by the decisions of her predecessors and by an American public with little appetite for more costly foreign adventures in the Middle East.

Its an open question how well Clintons hawkish instincts match the countrys mood. Americans are weary of war and remain suspicious of foreign entanglements, writes the New York Times Mark Landler, whose recent book, Alter Egos, examines the relationship between Obama and Clinton. And yet, after the retrenchment of the Obama years, there is polling evidence that they are equally dissatisfied with a portrait of their country as a spent force, managing its decline amid a world of rising powers like China, resurgent empires like Vladimir Putins Russia and lethal new forces like the Islamic State.

Judging from her past policy decisions and statements, this is a trend that Hillary Clinton hopes to reverse if given the opportunity as president. But while she would undoubtedly be one of the most informed and prepared candidates to take office in recent history, what exactly she is prepared to do in an ever-fluid Middle East remains uncertain.

More on this:

Is There a Hillary Doctrine? -- The Atlantic

Hillary the Hawk: A History -- Foreign Policy

Why Neoconservatives Are Flocking to Clinton -- Vox

Donald Trumps Mideast Myopia -- RealClearWorld



***

Questions, comments, or complaints? Feel free to send us an email, or reach out on Twitter @kevinbsullivan.

Eager for more Mideast news and analysis? Check out our new site, Real Clear Middle East.
Property details:

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Price: $ 9,800 Seller State of Residence: California Property Address: Gendreau Rd. State/Province: Maine City: Grand Isle Type: Recreational, Acreage Zoning: Mixed Zip/Postal Code: 04746 Location: 935**, Lancaster, California

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Property details:

Approximately 1 acre landlocked parcel abutting Route 24, 150 yards or so from the future Tiverton, RI casino (if approved locally and statewide on November 2016 ballot). Presently used for hiking and maple sugaring. Old hardwood forest. Might be a good location for agriculture or signage, or to harvest firewood. Payment due within 10 days of close of auction. Winning bidder will receive a quitclaim deed suitable for filing with the Tiverton Clerk. Seller is not a real estate professional. Selle...

Price: $ 7,000 Seller State of Residence: Rhode Island Property Address: o Wood Street State/Province: Rhode Island Type: Vacant, wooded Zoning: EBM & Industrial Location: 028**, Tiverton, Rhode Island

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Q. From your faith tradition, what is the purpose of life?

Unity's co-founder, Myrtle Fillmore, tells us that the purpose of life is to express the creation of God. We are each unique beings. Among the 7.5 billion people in the world, none is like us with our own individual way of expressing life. Our spiritual work is to turn within to hear God's voice. Through listening to our inner voice, our Christ within, we discover how to express the unique talents, gifts and skills that we are blessed with.

When we choose to develop and give of ourself and our gifts with authenticity, we are living out our purpose. God's desire is for us to live in joy and thanksgiving. When we know and understand our self and do our work in the world from that place of knowing, life is beautiful and joyful. That message of joy tells us that we are living the purpose of our life.

Carolyn Warnemuende, spiritual director

Unity Church in Redding

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, the most widely used catechism of the Christian religion, is most well-known for its first question, "What is the chief end of man?" That is, what is the meaning of life, the purpose of man's existence. The catechism's answer is the answer of the scripture, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Our happiness, our contentment, our fulfillment, are bound up in the creator and our relationship to him.

Why was man created in the first place? Not because of any deficiency in God, not because he was lonely, but for his pleasure, and we can only be truly happy and fulfilled when we reflect that truth.

The necessary and ultimate way that we glorify God, and also the only way we can enjoy him forever, is by being rightly related to him, which only comes through believing in his son, Jesus.

The Rev. Gene Crow, pastor

Redding Reformed Fellowship

I think God's purpose in creating life was to increase beauty. As far as our purpose, in Genesis we read that we are blessed to be a blessing. In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us the greatest commandment is love. He instructs us to love God, neighbor, and self. So, to love and be a blessing is our purpose in life.

Tara Macy, lay servant

First United Methodist Church, Redding

According to the Quran 51:56-58, "(God) did not create the Jinn and humankind except to worship (him)."

It's very simple. The purpose for man's creation is to worship the creator. The Islamic understanding of worship allows the whole of one's life to be an act of worship as long as the objective of that life is the pleasure of God, which is achieved by doing good and refraining from evil. A person can turn everyday activities into acts of worship by purifying his or her intention and sincerely seeking God's pleasure through these activities.

Worship provides the believer with many benefits that contribute to both their spiritual and worldly wellbeing. The human body needs material resources for its existence, like food and drink, and a means of reproduction.

As for the soul, its needs cannot be fulfilled except through nearness to God by means of faith and obedience, which can only be achieved through worship.

Imam Abu Bakr H. Salahuddin

Islamic Center of Redding

Humanists believe that we give our own life purpose and meaning by doing something meaningful. For humanists, this translates to doing work that improves the human condition and makes the world a better place. We are concerned with such efforts as ensuring universal education, fostering social justice and protecting the environment. As "the great agnostic" Robert Ingersoll wrote, we rouse ourselves "to do all useful things ... to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right." That is purpose enough for me.

Elisabeth Steadman, humanist celebrant

American Humanist Association, Shasta County

God is the greatest spirit of all and our soul is a part of God. Our soul has been separated from God and its dignity remains in merging back with God. The purpose of this life is to become one with God, to merge in the one from whom we originated.

Guru says, "This human body has been given to you. This is your chance to meet God. Join the holy congregation and meditate on the Name of God"

The goal is to break away from the cycle of birth and death, and attain salvation. Our soul has been separated from God and filled of many impurities such as lust, anger, greed, attachment to materialistic things and ego. We are to purify our soul so that we can become one with God. We can do so by living an honest and humble lifestyle and meditating on God.

Amarjit Singh

The Sikh Centre, Anderson

From this spiritual tradition's perspective, our purpose in life is to awaken to our spiritual magnificence. Our spiritual magnificence is to recognize our relationship to the sacred. Spirit is present in all of creation and dwells within each of us. As sacred human, we have the opportunity to awaken to our capacity as co-creators with spirit/God, transforming our experience of the world and serving as an agent of change to our world.

Our purpose through our awakening is to be free from all discord. Our purpose is to awaken to a direct revelation and experience of truth through the power of our connection to God/spirit. Our purpose is to awaken to our capacity to heal. Our purpose is to attune to spirit/God. Our purpose is to be love.

The Rev. Lynn E. Fritz

Centers for Spiritual Living, Redding

Our Catholic Baltimore Catechism stated the purpose of life: "To know, love, and serve God on Earth, and to be happy with him forever in heaven." Only a few humans have had direct conversations with God: Adam and Eve, Cain, Abraham, Moses, Ellijah and Paul. What we know comes from their testimony and from all those angels, prophets and apostles who speak for God. Today that task continues with the vision of God's grace and goodness shared by every preacher in the land and celebrated in so many varied forms around the world. We are called just like Moses and Paul, by a God who asks us to have faith in his love and care for all. God speaks softly as he did to Elijah in the cave, filling our whole being with his presence. There are so many ways to serve; we will never run out of people to love and to help.

Deacon Mike Evans

Sacred Heart Church, Anderson

The great philosophical question: I suppose if I could say that I made a positive impact on someone or I was a good husband, father and provider, that would fill the definition nicely.

But as a Christian, it's living the great commission. Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to anyone who will listen is my goal. We are all in need of a savior and my main reason for being here is to populate heaven.

Jim White, lay leader

Weaverville Church of the Nazarene

Torah teaches that we are to fulfill God's purpose in continuing his creation of the physical world, to be grateful for his creation and continue to make it more perfect. We will do this by obeying God's laws, all 613 if possible, and, by extension, perfect humanity. We will do this by acts of charity, kindness and compassion for others. Torah touches on this, but the actual interpretation is left to the sages. The greater message is that we are here to serve God, and since all creatures are part of God's perfect creation, reflected In the Shema prayer: God is one, and we obligated to serve all life. We are here to live a life of service to that ultimate goodness. That doesn't preclude personal joy in our own lives. The angels constantly praise God, and we are only "just a little below the angels."

Art Tilles, social action chairman

Temple Beth Israel, Redding
A pest control worker fumigates drains and the gardens at a local housing estate where the latest case of Zika infections were reported from on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, in Singapore. Indonesia is screening travelers from neighboring Singapore for the mosquito-borne Zika virus as the city-state reports a growing number of infections and its first case of a pregnant woman testing positive. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

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By NINIEK KARMINI and STEPHEN WRIGHT, Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  Indonesia is screening travelers from neighboring Singapore for the mosquito-borne Zika virus as the city-state reports a growing number of infections and its first case of a pregnant woman testing positive.

Indonesian Health Ministry spokesman Oscar Primadi said Thursday that health officials are recommending that the Foreign Ministry issue an advisory against nonessential travel to Singapore, particularly for pregnant women.

Singapore on Wednesday said it had identified 22 new Zika cases in one particular area of the city and its first case involving a pregnant woman.

Zika has mild effects for most people but doctors believe infection during pregnancy can result in babies with small heads, which is known as microcephaly, and other serious developmental disorders. Singapore had 155 cases as of Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising travelers to Singapore to take precautions such as protecting themselves against mosquito bites, and because the virus can also be sexually transmitted, to use condoms or not have sex.

Primadi said thermal imaging equipment to detect abnormal body temperatures was installed at eight Indonesian ports with routes serving Singapore, including the capital Jakarta's airport.

He said travelers will also be given a health questionnaire so they will recognize symptoms and know to immediately report to health authorities.

On Thursday, Malaysia's Health Ministry said a 58-year-old woman who traveled to Singapore had become that country's first Zika case.

Health Minister S. Subramaniam said the woman and her husband visited Singapore for three days from Aug. 19. The woman developed a rash a week after her return and later tested positive for Zika in her urine, he said. Her daughter in Singapore tested positive for Zika on Tuesday.

"We can conclude that it is rather easy to get infected by the virus when visiting places that has outbreak, including Singapore," he said. "Proactive action from the community can help stop the spread of Zika virus in Malaysia."

Subramaniam said the virus was believed to be imported from Singapore because the woman started experiencing symptoms on the same day as her daughter.

The ministry has started control activities such as eliminating mosquito breeding sites and fog spraying in her residential area and other places that the patient had visited.

Indonesia has not yet reported any local Zika infections but an Indonesian woman in Singapore is among those infected there.

___

Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia contributed to this story.
Jim Schultz/Record Searchlight Zane Wallace Peterson, shown Friday in Shasta County Superior Court, is accused of setting the deadly 2013 Clover Fire.

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By Jim Schultz of the Redding Record Searchlight

A plea deal may be close for a former firefighter from Happy Valley charged with murder and arson in connection with the 2013 Clover Fire that destroyed 60 homes and left an Igo man dead.

Zane Wallace Peterson, 31, was in Shasta County Superior Court Friday for a trial readiness conference to determine whether his case will go to trial next week.

But Peterson, facing a potential life sentence if convicted, might decide Tuesday to take a plea bargain instead of going to trial. Senior Deputy District Attorney Ben Hanna told Superior Court Judge Cara Beatty negotiations have been underway to reach a possible resolution. Terms of the plea deal were not disclosed.

Peterson was arrested Dec. 17, 2013, and is charged with more than 70 felony counts, including murder and arson. He's accused of starting the 8,073-acre Clover Fire, which broke out Sept. 9, 2013, and destroyed 60 homes and claimed the life of Brian Henry, 55.

He remains in Shasta County Jail in lieu of $3.025 million bail.

If the plea deal falls through, Peterson has opted to have his case decided by a judge instead of a 12-person jury.

Although it's fairly rare for a defendant to choose what's called a bench trial over a jury trial in such a high-profile case, Peterson's attorney, Shon Northam, has said he and his client believe a judge would be more impartial than a jury in deciding the case.

Northam was not in attendance at Friday's brief trial readiness conference and another defense attorney filled in for him.

In addition to the Clover Fire, Peterson is accused of setting a number of smaller fires between September 2013 and November 2013 in Shasta County.

Peterson is a former firefighter in the North State. He worked for the National Forest Service from May 15, 2005, to Oct. 22, 2012, as a fire engine operator in the Mendocino National Forest, fire officials have said.

In early 2012, Peterson pleaded guilty to petty theft charges in Tehama County that stemmed from a complaint filed by the Forest Service, according to online court records.

He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay fines and restitution.
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Students of Bonnyview School sing the national anthem Friday, joining 1 million other schoolchildren across America.

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Bonny View Elementary School students joined some 1 million others across the country Friday morning singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Principal Jennifer Mosier said the school's 270 or so students all participated.

"The anthem is a song that unites our country," she said.

It's the third year the nationwide sing-along took place, but only the first year for Bonny View. Teacher Molly Ranken said she brought the idea to Mosier "to remind us that we all need to love our country more."

"Just practicing made me cry," Ranken said. "They were so serious with the flag, so reverent."
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An extension cord is to blame for a fire that scorched 710 acres, razed 10 buildings, including five homes, and briefly threatened Siskiyou County's largest city, say firefighters with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Grade Fire blew up Aug. 24 off Highway 263, spurring evacuations in Hawkinsville and evacuation advisories for homes in north Yreka, firefighters said.

It burned five homes and five outbuildings before being contained Aug. 31 at 710 acres, they said.

Investigators determined that an extension cord ignited dry grass when it let loose an electric arc, firefighters said.

They forwarded the case to the Siskiyou County District Attorney's Office, which determined criminal charges weren't warranted, they said.
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By Joe Szydlowski of the Redding Record Searchlight

After hearing from people on both sides of a closed U.S. Forest Service road, the Shasta Lake City Council will take up the issue at its next meeting.

"Please do not open up Coal Creek," said Gerard Garrett, one of 17 people who live in the Lakeview area off Skyline Drive. "It's a county issue, not a city of Shasta Lake issue."

He and several other residents went to Tuesday's council meeting to ask why their attorney told them Shasta Lake was getting involved in their unincorporated area they chose for its seclusion. They spoke during the public comment period.

But members of a coordination committee, a volunteer liaison between local and federal governments, spoke as to why they were eying a connection between Skyline Drive and Gilman Road  Skyline Drive is currently the only way in or out, which presents an access danger to residents and firefighters, they say.

"Our concern with Skyline is strictly a safety issue," Richard Wright, chair of that coordination committee, said at the meeting.

However, because the council can't discuss or act on anything except what is on the agenda, Councilman Larry Farr asked for staff to research the issue and bring it back at the next meeting.

Councilman and committee member Greg Watkins said he would put together an informational presentation for the next meeting.

Ralph Ryan told the council members they should ask what resources were being used on an issue outside their city.

"What jurisdiction does Shasta Lake have in a county area," he said.

But committee member Sylvia Milligan said her son recently nearly lost his home to a fire in Placerville in which firefighters needed a second route to get to his property because the main road had been blocked.

The issue dates back to before the recession, when developer Ken Tellstrom tried to convince the U.S. Forest Service to open Coal Creek Road to Skyline Drive, thus creating a second access for his property along Skyline Drive. He had wanted to develop the area, but the residents sued and stopped him.

Now he is working with Gerry Gamble, a Nevada developer. They and the committee want the road available for emergency access. Residents, back then and now, worry about new residential developments, additional traffic in a place chosen for its quiet, and the uncertainty about the costs of a new road, which would service retired people on a fixed income.

The next meeting should take place Sept. 20.
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Woman on the lam surrenders at jail

A 29-year-old woman featured in Shasta's Most Wanted in March 2015 surrendered to deputies Thursday at the Shasta County Jail.

Falon R. Gigax was wanted on three warrants for failing to appear in court on a burglary charge, according to authorities.

Gigax was featured in the March 27, 2015, installment of Shasta's Most Wanted, which targets people who have failed to show up in court for sentencing after being convicted of a crime.

Deputies at the jail said Gigax was being held without bail pending her arraignment in court.

Shasta County Secret Witness offers a reward of up to $250 for information leading to the arrest of anyone on Shasta's Most Wanted.

People with tips are asked to call 245-6540 or 243-2319.

The feature appears Sundays in the Record Searchlight's Northern California section and online at Redding.com.

Cause of fire traced to extension cord

An extension cord is to blame for a fire that scorched 710 acres, razed 10 buildings, including five homes, and briefly threatened Siskiyou County's largest city, say firefighters with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Grade Fire blew up Aug. 24 off Highway 263, spurring evacuations in Hawkinsville and evacuation advisories for north Yreka, firefighters said.

It burned five homes and five outbuildings before being contained Aug. 31 at 710 acres, they said.

Investigators determined that an extension cord ignited dry grass when it let loose an electric arc, firefighters said.

They forwarded the case to the Siskiyou County District Attorney's Office, which determined criminal charges weren't warranted, they said.

Officials: Gap Fire at 85% containment

Containment on the 31,664-acre Gap Fire in the Klamath National Forest that's burning some 20 miles west of Yreka jumped to 85 percent Friday, the U.S. Forest Service said.

Crews are mopping up the fire's edge and pulling excess equipment from containment lines as they continue to work toward full containment, the Forest Service said.

Evacuations and road closures are no longer in effect, though a forest closure order has been issued for the area surrounding the fire, including part of the Pacific Crest Trail.

The cause of the fire, which began Aug. 27, remains under investigation.

Crews keep fire from spreading

A vegetation fire burned up to a half-acre near Douglas City on Friday afternoon before firefighters said they quickly extinguished it.

The River Fire was reported near the Trinity River and Steiner Flat Road about 4:50 p.m., firefighters at the scene said.

Fire crews said at about 5 p.m. they'd stopped the fire's spread and an air tanker was canceled.
Malaysian no-frills carrier AirAsia Berhad -- which runs a joint venture airline with Tata Sons in India -- and civil aviation authorities in the Emirates on Saturday prohibited the use of Samsung Galaxy Note7 mobile devices on their flights.

AirAsia has also banned the use of Galaxy Note 7 on some of the subsidiary airlines, including AirAsia India, while Emirates banned its use on all its national carriers because of the risk of batteries exploding in the phablet smartphone.

The decision to prohibit the use of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 mobile devices was taken in the wake of its recall due to safety concerns over the battery issue, AirAsia said in a travel advisory, issued on Saturday.

Following the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 mobile device by Samsung due to safety concerns over its battery, AirAsia and AirAsia X would like to inform all guests that the usage and charging of the device onboard all our flights are prohibited with immediate effect until further notice, it said.

A statement issued by Emirates, and carried by the official WAM news agency, read, The General Civil Aviation Authority has banned operating, charging and carrying in bags the Samsung Note 7 on board national carriers flights.

Samsung last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.

Since then, airlines or air safety agencies around the world have warned passengers against using them on flights.

All guests travelling on AirAsia and AirAsia X with a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 must turn it off until disembarkation from the aircraft, it said adding the device must not be kept in any checked baggage as well.

The travel advisory from AirAsia and Emirates comes a day after the Indian government prohibited the use of Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices on board an aircraft.

AirAsia currently flies to six destinations -- Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Trichy -- while AirAsia X flies to New Delhi.

With inputs from agencies.
ICICI Pru's IPO is being managed by 10 investment banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Companys Rs 6,057-crore initial public offer (IPO) of equity, the first by an Indian insurance company, will hit the markets on September 19.

The issue is priced at Rs 300-334 a share. ICICI Bank, which owns 68 per cent stake, will sell 12.65 per cent (181 million shares) in the IPO.

At the top end of the price band, the IPO will raise Rs 6,057 crore (Rs 60.57 billion), making it the fifth largest in the domestic market and the biggest since Coal Indias in 2010. At the lower end, it will be able to mop Rs 5,440 crore (Rs 54.4 billion). The life insurer will be valued anywhere between Rs 43,000 crore (Rs 430 billion) and Rs 47,890 crore (Rs 478.9 billion), depending on where the issue gets priced.

The shares of ICICI Bank on Friday ended 0.8 per cent lower at Rs 274. At the current price, the bank is valued at Rs 1.59 lakh crore. The lenders stake in its insurance subsidiary is valued at as much as Rs 32,500 crore (Rs 325 billion).

Interestingly, ICICI Pru Lifes valuation has soared 45 per cent in less than a year. The insurer was valued at Rs 32,500 crore in November 2015, when ICICI Bank sold six per cent stake to Wipros Azim Premji and the Singapore governments Temasek.

Britain's Prudential Holdings, which owns nearly 26 per cent in the insurer, will not be selling any stake in the IPO. The issue, however, will allow participation from foreign investors, as their investment ceiling in insurance companies was raised earlier this year by the government from the earlier 26 per cent to 49 per cent.

ICICI Pru's IPO is being managed by 10 investment banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities. It comes at a time when both the primary and secondary market are witnessing a lot of buoyancy.

The benchmark indices are close to their all-time highs, while the capital raising through IPOs is set to climb to a six-year high.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
Big three telecom companies term Jios free voice calls predatory pricing

Incumbent telecom operators and Reliance Jio on Friday called a truce on the contentious issue of interconnect bandwidth. Reliance Jio had been asking for a large number of points of interconnect (PoIs) from the incumbents, which had refused to do so, saying the latest telecom operator was yet to launch commercial services.

A large number of voice calls were terminating on networks of incumbents because Jio was offering its services free, leading to asymmetric traffic. The incumbents were not releasing interconnect bandwidth because they considered the free voice calls offered by Jio equivalent to predatory pricing.

After a meeting called by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday, the warring parties said they had arrived at a solution. Representatives of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea said as Jio had announced a commercial launch from September 5, it should submit fresh demand for PoIs.

Jio representatives also agreed that the company would not terminate internet telephony calls on existing PoIs. According to sources, Trai officials told the telcos that if customers were made to suffer because of the tussle, it would take action against erring operators.

It is better telecom operators sit with each other and sort out the issues, said the Trai official. While the incumbents tried to link the issue of PoI with IUC, Trai said the two were separate.

A war of words had broken out between the incumbents and Jio since June as the former refused to grant more interconnect bandwidth during the trial phase. In the meeting on Friday, Trai made it clear that the matter was a bilateral one and Jio would have to enter into agreements with the incumbents for PoIs.

Incumbents told the regulator that free voice calls offered by Jio were in violation of Trais 30th amendment to the Telecom Tariff Order. The 2004 amendment states that tariffs should be non-predatory, non-discriminatory and IUC-compliant.

Reliance Jio Infocomm board member Mahendra Nahata said: This is fight for justice, fight for customers. Not just Reliance Jio customers or Airtel or Vodafone but for all Indian customers. We have asked for right number of connect, right quantum of interconnection. We have put forth our point of view to Trai. It is for Trai to look into the matter. There is no timeframe indicated by the Trai.

India's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel in a statement wrote: "We are grateful to Trai for enabling a constructive dialogue today on the matter of providing PoIs to Reliance Jio and appreciating all the issues on the table. We would request Trai to also engage on the subject of a fair IUC regime and ensure that the practice of pricing is in compliance with the 30th amendment of the Telecom Tariff Order dated January 16, 2004, which envisages tariffs to be IUC-compliant, non-predatory and non-discriminatory."

The big three operators - Airtel, Vodafone and Idea - argued that if mobile termination rate was 14 paise, then the tariff should be more than that.

Incumbents have asked Trai to examine this as it would lead to abnormal traffic and meeting the humongous demand for PoIs would be difficult. Given that Jio's tariffs are priced below IUC, the company was suffering a loss of 16-18 paise every minute on calls. As most of the incoming calls are terminating on incumbents network, they are suffering losses as their users were not making calls to Jio's network. Normally, IUC works on the principle of barter where share of traffic is presumed to be equal.

Photograph: Andrew Caballero/Reuters
Water flows out of the kund at Verinag.

Since 1950 successive governments have tried various options but failed to reduce alienation amongst the people, for different reasons, of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. It is best to accept this reality and let each region charter its own path, within the framework of the Indian Constitution, says Sanjeev Nayyar.

The Kashmir Valley has hogged newspaper headlines for nearly two months now for all the wrong reasons.

Everyone wants a solution to the Kashmir problem but are phrases like Kashmiryaat, Insaniyat and composite Sufi culture the solution?

The author first visited Kashmir Valley in 1988, followed by a 2,000 km drive through Jammu region and the Valley in 2014 and extensively covered Ladakh in 2016. During these travels I met a cross section of people.

This article uses insights gained to suggest a different way forward for Jammu & Kashmir.

Besides visiting Srinagar and Gulmarg in 1988, I did a seven-day trek from Pahalgaum to Sonmarg. On the last night, we stayed in the hut of a shepherd. A local lady gave us (me and a French couple) dinner and a place to sleep. Naturally we offered to pay. She said, 'I will take money from you because you are Indian'. No issues. Post breakfast the lady had no qualms in asking the same Indian for his slippers, as a gift, since she liked them very much.

This incident of nearly 30 years ago best symbolises Kashmiri attitude towards India. They want what India has to offer and simultaneously consider Indians as alien. In 2016 the author visited three Kashmiri shops next to west entrance of Meenakshi Temple in Madurai -- Can Indians open shops in the Valley?

Has anything changed?

In 2014, I travelled to Basohli, Rajouri, Poonch, Anantnag, Verinag, Kishtwar, Bhadarwah and Jammu. Of these all except Anantnag and Verinag are in Jammu region.

Basohli, approximately 160 km from Jammu, is well known for a style of painting characterised by vigorous use of primary colours and a peculiar facial formula. It is from here that this style spread to Chamba and Kangra in Himachal. We met with members of Vishwasthali, a social and cultural organisation that is striving to keep the tradition alive by teaching young children. They complained about negligible state government support.

In Rajouri locals were concerned about the local effect of violence in Kashmir because the state PWD constructed Mughal Road reduced travel time to about four hours.

In Poonch people spoke about uncertainty caused by frequent cease-fire violations by Pakistan and lack of employment opportunities hence wanted reservations in government jobs for the Pahari-speaking peoples.

In the Valley, at Anantnag most children kept a distance from us at the Surya Martand Mandir. We lost our way in the dark whilst driving to Verinag -- everyone whom we asked for directions looked at us suspiciously.

IMAGE: Water flows out of the kund at Verinag.

During an early morning walk in Verinag, the author was asked if he had visited Srinagar. When I said no, they looked aghast as if had committed a crime indicating their Valley centric approach. Ditto in Kishtwar.

In Verinag, the river Jhelum (Sanskrit name Vitasta) rises from a kund (pond). The author asked a local how a small stream caused so much damage in Srinagar during the 2014 floods. He said the stream was joined by smaller rivers but avoided referring to the construction over water outlet channels in Srinagar.

The response symbolises Valley approach -- blame others but refuse to accept responsibility for your actions.

In Kishtwar (Jammu region) I asked two men if they were locals -- the instant response we are from Kashmir.

It was in Jammu that the author found near total alienation:

A feeling of being discriminated since 1951 when the number of legislators was wrongly decided in favour of Kashmir.

Lack of employment opportunities meant locals had to seek jobs outside. 'Jammu is becoming a city of old people and pensioners,' said a senior citizen.

They wondered why IT companies did not open development centres in Jammu to take advantage of educated local talent. Who would do so given the restrictions on purchase of property by non-citizens of J&K. Though not said explicitly, they felt trapped by such restrictive provisions.

Maximum number of government jobs and expenditure were cornered by Valley. Their voices indicated helplessness.

I met with west Pakistan refugees who are citizens of India but not permanent residents of J&K.

In spite of huge potential, tourism to Jammu region is not promoted by the state government.

When I asked for information on Rajouri and Poonch, official at tourist office said these were border areas, none went there.

The response in Ladakh region was slightly different.

In Leh, Pangong Lake or dhabas along the Leh Srinagar highway the only reference to Kashmir was in the context of how violence had reduced tourist inflows. Some criticised the Valley vehemently whilst others chose to ignore citing the continuous surge in domestic and foreign tourists.

Is this attitude the result of Buddhist approach to life or because Ladakh was not a victim of terrorism, unlike Jammu region, is difficult to say?

When I praised the four-lane road from Leh to Karu, the driver snapped to say it became four-lane after the formation of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council. A sense of anger exists but is not easily manifest. After constant nudging a Ladakhi said, "When Leh and surrounding areas were buried in a mudslide few years back, bodies at the government hospital had to be dumped in garages because there was no mortuary. Funds were being asked from the state government for past few years but were not released."

At a Tibetan shop in Leh's main market had a stimulating discussion with a 28-year-old Kashmiri shop owner who blamed the Indian Army and former governor Jagmohan for wrong doings in the Valley. The author said, ask your friend how has India treated the Tibetans?

The discussion reiterated the stubborn refusal of Kashmiris to accept their wrongdoings.

In Kargil, teachers at the Army Goodwill School and residents of Panikhar village in Suru valley (65 kms away) were happy with their state. In village Bhimbat, 5 kms from Dras town, saw locals (Muslims) visit a huge rock that is supposed to be the solidified body of Pandava Bhim.

The observations can be summed up as follows.

The cultures of Jammu, Valley and Ladakh are very different. "Ethnically they are different; their language and cultures are different, their needs and requirements are totally different. Even ecologically, they fall in a different zone. The culture of Poonch is closer to that of Rawalkot in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Cutting across religious lines the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions are unhappy with the state governments excessive focus on the Valley.

People of these two regions are happy but are hostage to the violence in Kashmir.

They believe that if restrictions imposed by the state constitution are removed, their regions would develop and progress.

In spite of being discriminated against by every state government and being victims of terrorism (especially the Jammu region) they did not express their unhappiness through the gun.

Since 1950 successive governments have tried various options but failed to reduce alienation amongst the people, for different reasons, of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. It is best to accept this reality and let each region charter its own path, within the framework of the Indian Constitution.

Therefore, it is proposed that J&K be divided into three smaller states. Ladakh becomes a Union Territory, the area from Poonch to Kishtwar becomes Jammu state and the Valley is Kashmir state. The two states would be independent financial units like other states of India.

Ladakh and Jammu regions have a mixed population of Buddhists, Hindus and Shia Muslims while Kashmir is pre-dominantly Sunni Muslim.

The division is not based on religious lines and does not take away the right of displaced Kashmiri Pandits to return to the Valley.

Since Ladakh has immense geo-political significance, UT status means decentralisation of powers, adequate funding from the Centre and better infrastructure. The region is scenic, terrain attractively different and has lovely people meaning huge tourism potential. Autonomous Hill Councils will give people's representatives a say. Restrictions on purchase of land by non-locals be imposed to ensure people from other states do not buy property as has happened in Uttaranchal.

According to a 2002 interview http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/05inter.htm with Thupstan Chhewang, chairman, Ladakh Hill Development Council, Ladakh was an independent kingdom till 1836, when it was invaded and annexed to the Dogra state of Jammu. In 1947, when India was granted Independence, we were part of the principality of Jammu and Kashmir. It is how we became part of the Jammu and Kashmir state.

At the time of Partition, the people of Ladakh approached the maharaja and later (in 1949), they approached the Indian prime minister with the same demand: we do not want to be part of the Jammu and Kashmir state. We wanted Ladakh to be directly administered by Delhi. We already had an apprehension that Ladakh would be discriminated against by the Kashmiris and it has happened now for the past 40 years.

The proposed division restores pre-1836 status.

The existing Jammu and Kashmir Constitution would apply to Kashmir only since they are its biggest proponents. The central and state governments might like to consider special autonomy to the state, within the framework of the Indian Constitution, based on the principal of reciprocity.

The state of Jammu to ensure adequate representation is given to all sections of society. The displaced persons of POK and other refugees would then be entitled to vote in state elections, be eligible for government jobs and social benefits.

Smaller states ensure better administration. Note that J&K is a huge state of 101,387 sq kms of which Ladakh has 58.3 per cent, Jammu 26 per cent and Kashmir 15.7 per cent. Mountainous terrain makes the task of administration more challenging.

Pakistan will object to any plan till J&K becomes its part in entirety.

Sanjeev Nayyar is an independent columnist. On Twitter: @sanjeev1927
Aam Aadmi Party member of legislative assembly Amanatullah Khan on Saturday wrote to party national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and resigned from all posts -- including chairmanship of Delhi Waqf Board -- claiming that he was being framed in false cases.

The Okhla legislator, who was also a member of the State Haj Committee, sent his resignation two days after the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Delhi government raided the Delhi Waqf Board office in New Delhi in connection with an alleged recruitment scam involving him.

In his letter, Khan stated that he has run out of patience of issuing clarifications to the public pleading innocence over a number of allegations levelled against him and his family members.

Some people dislike my honesty and service and false allegations are being leveled against me and my family to frame us. I have been tired of giving justifications. I want to be free from all the responsibilities given to me by the government and therefore I tender my resignation from all the posts, Khan said.

As a chairman of the Waqf Board, many scams and irregularities of the previous government were brought to light during my tenure. I have been working wholeheartedly to serve people of Delhi, he wrote.

Earlier, Khans sister-in-law filed a complainant at Jamia Nagar police station, alleging that he had put pressure on her to get into a physical relationship with him, a senior police officer said.

She also accused her husband of demanding dowry and putting pressure on her to get physically intimate with Khan, he added.

A case under Indian Penal Code sections 354A (sexual harassment), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) was registered against Khan and the womans husband, said the officer.

Khan is also involved in an alleged recruitment scam in the Waqf Board where the Anti-Corruption Branch has launched a preliminary inquiry against him.

Khan has termed the move as 'interference' in working of the body by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung.

The AAP MLA was earlier in July booked for allegedly threatening a woman with dire consequences.

Speaking in the Delhi Assembly on Friday, Khan defended himself saying he had made the contractual recruitments following due procedures. Waqf Board was reeling under shortage of staff which necessitated the appointments, he said.

With inputs from ANI.
Stand-up comedian Kapil Sharmas bribe tweets against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation seems to have backfired, with the civic body claiming that the artist had flouted norms not only in his Versova office building but also in his apartment in suburban Goregaon.

We received two complaints from separate people about illegal construction being done in Sharmas both premises, one in Versova and another in Goregaon. In both the cases, we followed the due procedure and first served notice before initiating action, said a senior BMC official, seeking anonymity.

In the Versova case, the Corporation had served a notice on him on July 16. Since he did not pay heed to it, we demolished the illegal portion of his office structure on August 4. As far as another complaint is concerned, he was served notice under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act in April for unauthorised work on his ninth floor apartment at Goregaon (West), he said.

Sharma on Saturday said he only expressed his anger against corruption and that he is neither part of any political organisation nor does he intend to be.

I have only expressed my concerns. However, it has taken a shape of an unnecessary controversy. My space is on the entertainment platform and not on the news platform. I am not a part of any political organisation and nor do I intend to be, Kapil said in a statement in Mumbai.

I have utmost respect for the honourable Prime Minister and governments, both Union and State, its agencies and Statutory Bodies. I am a law abiding citizen and shall act as legally advised. This was my anger against corruption which I expressed on twitter, the popular comedian added.

He, however, did not put forth his side on the civic bodys allegations of violation of norms at his Versova office building and in his apartment in suburban Goregaon.

Sharma had on Friday kicked up a row when he tweeted that BMC officers sought a bribe of Rs 5 lakh for the construction of his premises in Versova. However, he has not so far, put forth his side on the allegations of violation of norms levelled by the civic body.

Asked why the BMC took 19 days to demolish illegal structure at Versova, Parag Masurkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner K-west ward, where Sharmas office is located, said, Generally we do give some extra time to the occupants or owners of the premises to put forward the copies or permissions to justify their work and wait for the reply. Meanwhile, we uploaded the contents and nature of the complaint at complaint tracking portal too.

We have devised an online complaint tracking system. When we receive any complaints, we go to the site, take photographs and on that basis we generate the notices and upload it while monitoring it till it is redressed, said Masurkar, adding that the procedure wipes out all the chances of corruption.

In Versova premises case, Sharma carried out unauthorised horizontal extension in his ground-plus-one storey row house and also carried out the construction at upper floor without mandatory permission.

Since he did not come forward to show the copies of permissions, we followed the rule and demolished it as and when we got police security, he said.

Also, the BMC officers are yet to receive any response from Sharma on the name of the bribe seeker so as to initiate action against the erring officer.

Sharmaji has not made any contact with us or with our department so far, said Manohar Pawar, chief engineer of vigilance department who had yesterday requested the actor to name the officer who demanded the bribe.

Sharma has 63 lakh followers on his Twitter handle and since he tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tweet generated sharp reactions from all major political parties, with an eye on the forthcoming civic elections.

Opposition Congress used the issue to target the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena, who together control the BMC.

Shiv Sena, meanwhile, dared Kapil to name the bribe seeker.

Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also reacted sharply to Sharma, seizing on a statement he reportedly made alluding to role of its workers.
The former RJD leader was released on bail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case after 11 years, reports M I Khan.

Former Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Mohammad Saheb Shahabuddin on Saturday walked out of jail after 11 years, as the Patna high court granted him bail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

Rajiv Roshan, an eyewitness in the acid attack case of Siwan, was gunned down allegedly by Shahabuddins sharp shooters in 2011. Roshan was the eyewitness in the murder of his two brothers Satish Raj and Girish Raj who were sons of a noted businessman Chandrakeshwar Prasad.

Satish and Girish were kidnapped and murdered on August 16, 2004 in Siwan, the turf of the former RJD MP Shahabuddin. However, it was the brutal manner in which both brothers were killed that shocked everyone. Both, brothers were drenched in acid before being killed allegedly on Shahabuddins direction.

The four time RJD MP and bahubali was given a heros welcome with his supporters and followers from across Bihar collecting outside the Bhagalpur jail where he was lodged.

Describing the chaos, a district police official said, It was like a stampede in front the main jail gate with Shahabuddins followers chanting slogans.

Now after being let out of jail, the strongman, accompanied with a cavalcade of hundreds of cars, made their to Pratappur in Siwan, his native village.

His village has already begun the celebrations with sweets being distributed and firecrackers bursting.

Soon after his release, Shahabuddin addressing the media in chaste Hindi said that it was wrong to describe him as Siwan terror and that no one was afraid of him. Mujhe aantak ka paryay kahna galat hai.

Main tera saal ke baad apne ghar ja raha hoon. Main khush hoon, logon se milunga (I am going home after 13 years. I am very happy; will meet people) said the RJD strongman.



And soon after his release, the Lalu loyalist took a dig at the states chief minister saying, My leader is Lalu Yadav.



Shahabuddin, who faces more than 40 criminal cases, including those of abduction and murder, and has been in jail for the past 11 years, was shifted from Siwan district jail to Bhagalpur in May this year after it was alleged that he had pulled strings from jail and played a role in the murder of Hindi newspaper journalist Rajdeo Ranjan.



The former MP gained popularity with his pro-poor diktats like ordering Siwans doctors and lawyers in the mid 1990s to stop charging their patients and clients exorbitant fees.

He is said to have helped the poor by providing dowry and cash for their daughters wedding expenses and also paid for their childrens higher education.



Shahabuddins electoral career commenced in 1989 when he was elected a member of the Bihar assembly from Jiradei. He also represented Siwan four times in the Lok Sabha from 1996 to 2009 as an RJD MP.

Talking of his close ties with RJD chief, a leader said, Only he was able to sit across Laluji with one leg crossed over the other. That he could talk to Laluji while looking him in the eye was evidence of his power."

Image: Supporters and followers of Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Mohammad Saheb Shahabuddin thronged the Bhagalpur jail to celebrate their hero's release. Photograph: M I Khan.
One of the Mewat gang rape victims has alleged that their attackers were cow vigilantes but the Haryana police on Saturday said no evidence has so far come to fore suggesting that the four accused arrested in the case were part of any cow protection group.

The family of the victims alleged that they had informed the police personnel about the cow vigilantes but they chose to ignore it.

"They (attackers) asked us 'you eat cow meat'. We said 'no'. They then said 'you eat cow meat'. They said 'we are killing you because you eat cow'. We told this to the police but they are not doing anything," one of the two victims said.

A couple was murdered and two girls from the family allegedly gang-raped after the accused had barged into their house in the wee hours on August 25 in a village in Mewat district.

"I need justice. They have killed by son and daughter-in-law. They have gang-raped my grand-daughters. The way police has behaved, we have no hope," said the father of the slain man.

Police, however, said that the investigation in the case is still on and so far they have not found any link with cow vigilantes.

"So far there is no such evidence of them (accused) being cow vigilantes or being part of cow vigilante group," Inspector General of Police, South Range, Rewari, Mamta Singh said.

Singh said that the case has been recommended to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

On August 28, Haryana Police had arrested four youths in connection with incident.

The accused had also ransacked the house, an isolated structure located in the middle of farmland, and fled with some valuables including cash.

After committing the crime, the accused had tied the injured with ropes and escaped from the spot. Some residents living nearby found the injured after which the police was informed.

Beef found in all Mewat samples, says Haryana minister

Facing flak over biryani checks in Mewat ahead of Eid, Haryana minister Anil Vij on Saturday said all seven samples were found containing beef and questioned how the Opposition, which had backed the law banning cow slaughter, could object to its implementation.

Insisting that the issue should not be linked to a particular community, he said, We are not against Muslims, and added that samples can be lifted from anywhere in the state and not just Mewat to implement the law.

The minister said a proper process was followed to collect samples of biryani and test them for beef in a state laboratory.

"All seven biryani samples tested positive for beef. The tests were conducted at the laboratory in Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and the Animal Sciences, Hisar.

"The samples were lifted under the supervision of a veterinary surgeon. A proper procedure was followed to test them. The tests were conducted by an expert. She has submitted her report," Vij said.
On the eve of 15th anniversary of 9/11 attacks on World Trade Centre, United States President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks.

'In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters,' Obama said in his weekly radio and online address.

'We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society,' he added.

'Because it's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly -- no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith-thats part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient. And if we stay true to those values, well uphold the legacy of those we've lost, and keep our nation strong and free,' Obama said.

Obama's remarks are a veiled attack on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who, following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, had called for a temporary ban on the entry to the US of all Muslims.

More than 2,750 people were killed in the Al Qaeda attack when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin WTC Towers. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Evoking 'one of the darkest in our nations history,' Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.

We delivered justice to (Al Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden. Weve strengthened our homeland security. Weve prevented attacks. Weve saved lives, Obama said.

But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, the terrorist threat has evolved.

So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, well stay relentless against terrorists like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group. We will destroy them. And well keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland, Obama said.
Antonio Guterres, who had served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees for 10 years, has emerged as the front-runner in the first two rounds of informal voting.

IMAGE: Antonio Guterres, the former Portugal premier, hold the lead in the fourth round of informal polls with an 11 'encourage' and three 'discourage' vote. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Hopes for a woman to lead the United Nations appear to be fading as Portugals former premier Antonio Guterres maintained his lead in the fourth round of informal polls to elect the next UN Secretary General, with men occupying the top four positions out of the 10 contenders.

The 15-nation UN Security Council held the fourth round of the so-called straw polls on Friday and Guterres continued his lead, getting 12 encourage, two discourage and one no opinion votes.

In the last straw poll conducted on August 29, he had garnered 11 encourage and three discourage votes.

Guterres, who had served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees for 10 years, had emerged as the front-runner in the first two rounds of informal voting.

Slovakias Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak remained on the second spot getting 10 encourage votes, four discourage and one no opinion. He had gained the most in the last round of voting, moving from the 10th position to second.

In third place is former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, followed by former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim.

IMAGE: Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova is also in the running, however, in the latest round of polling she has slipped to fifth place. Photograph: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images for Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz

Director-general of UNESCO Irina Bokova slipped from the last rounds third place to fifth place in the latest round.

She is followed by former Slovenian President Danilo Turk and Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra.

Other women candidates were at the bottom of the pack, with New Zealand ex-premier Helen Clark on the eighth spot, followed by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica and Moldovas ex-Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman.

IMAGE: Helen Clark of New Zealand is in eighth place. Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

This round was the first time that the five permanent members could use their veto and one did so for Gherman discouraging her.

The next poll will be on the September 26, towards the end of the high-level General Debate, when heads of state and government will descend on the world bodys headquarters for the 71st session of the General Assembly.

IMAGE: current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is the eighth occupant of the world body. He took office in January 2007 and will be ending his 10-year tenure on December 31, 2016. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Apart from increased call from UN member states to make the election process of the worlds top diplomat more transparent, there is a growing chorus for a woman to be elected for the top job.

The UN has been headed by a male Secretary General in all of its 70-year history. The current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is the eighth occupant of the world body. He took office in January 2007 and will be ending his 10-year tenure on December 31, 2016.

However, hopes for a woman to be elected are fading since no female candidate has emerged as the front-runner in the straw polls conducted so far.

Civil society organisation Woman SG Campaign, among those leading the call for a woman to lead the world body, said even though the top four slots were occupied by men, the women candidates saw their numbers rise.

WomanSG considers it even more important to stay in the fight. Irina Bokova is still in the top five, and even though she and Malcorra dropped relative to the others, everything is still in a state of flux, it said.
Ministers will travel to different countries across the world, mostly where no ministerial visits have taken place in the last 20 to 25 years, to establish sampark (contact) and samvad (communication), reports Kiran Rathee & Archis Mohan.

Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram was in Botswana in August. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad would head to Estonia and Latvia on Monday, while Ayush Minister Shripad Yesso Naik is scheduled to celebrate Diwali in the two-island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and also visit Bermuda.

Similarly, Home Minister Rajnath Singh would soon be off to Hungary, while Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu is scheduled to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina. Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is slated to visit Nicaragua and Panama.

The ministers choice of destinations might seem offbeat, particularly as they will not be on holiday, but official work. The effort is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modis plan that all the 192 member states of the United Nations should be visited by the end of this year by at least one member of his government.

According to sources, the PM is keen that somebody from his government establish contact with each country in the world. The deadline to meet this target has been set as the end of 2016. Not that the sky would fall or heads roll if this isnt achieved but there is a rush to meet the target, particularly after a letter from External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to all ministers.

Writing on behalf of the PM, Swaraj asked her ministerial colleagues to pitch in to attain the target. She requested them to visit countries that have not been visited in the tenure of this government by the President of India, the vice-president, the PM, herself, or her two junior colleagues.

Swaraj has also prepared a list of countries that ministers, depending on their portfolios, should visit. Focus was given to those countries where no ministerial visit has taken place in the last 20 to 25 years. The list, according to sources, comprised 60-odd countries. The list includes countries in the Americas, several small island nations across the world, African countries as well as parts of former Soviet Union and erstwhile Yugoslavia, like Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the normal course, the president, the vice president, the PM, the external affairs minister and her two juniors visit the same 50-odd countries for reasons varying from strategic to historical. These countries are either important for Indias trade or energy security or are in its neighbourhood, or emotional ties bind India to these countries because of the presence of Indian diaspora.

Neither the PM or MEA is left with much time to organise visits to some of the smaller countries. This is where the PM thought that other ministers could shoulder the burden. The PM as well as Swaraj dont want these visits to be transactional, but to establish sampark (contact) and samvad (communication).

Government sources said these visits might not serve any immediate purpose but reviving relations with smaller countries would become building blocks for any future issue of significance that might come up in world bodies such as the UN, for example a vote for an expanded UN Security Council. India has been calling for a reform of the UN and has aspiration to be a member of the UN Security Council.

As far as reaching out to countries lesser travelled by Indian ministers, the PM has led the way. In his tenure, the PM, apart from his other visits, has also visited Seychelles, Fiji, Mozambique, all the five Central Asian Republics and Mongolia.

President Pranab Mukherjee has pitched in by paying visits to smaller nation states, like Ivory Coast and Papua New Guinea. Swaraj has paid a visit to Guatemala, while Vice President M Hamid Ansari has helped the effort by visiting Brunei.

In 2015, India hosted the heads of 14 island nations at the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation.

There is also criticism from within the diplomatic community, who point out that Indias diplomatic corps is one of the smallest among the large nations. It is a well-intentioned effort but puts added pressure on a team that is already stretched. We, in the diplomatic corps, should focus on strengthening our relations with key countries instead of frittering away our energies on countries with little relevance to Indias interests, an official, who didnt want to be named, said. As an example, the source pointed out the case of Saint Kitts and Nevis which has a population of 55,000.

It is unclear if India would send a minister to countries like North Korea and Uruguay. On Friday, India deplored the nuclear test conducted by North Korea, while Uruguay is a rare country that supports Pakistans claims on Kashmir.
The United States house of representatives voted on Friday to pass a bill that would allow the families of victims of the 11 September terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabias government for damages.

The Senate passed the bill in May, so it now heads to US President Barack Obamas desk for his signature.

The bill, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, would prevent Saudi Arabia and other countries with alleged ties to terrorist groups from invoking their legal immunity in US courts. It would override the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which grants immunity to countries that arent designated state sponsors of terrorism.

New York courts routinely dismiss claims filed by families of 9/11 victims against Saudi Arabia for allegedly helping to finance the terrorist attacks. Saudi Arabia denies any role in the attacks, though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte said international acts of terrorism deserve to be exceptions in terms of legal liability.

We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism, Goodlatte said.

There are always diplomatic considerations that get in the way of justice, but if a court proves the Saudis were complicit in 9/11, they should be held accountable, said Senator Chuck Schumer, D-New York, a sponsor of the Senate bill. If theyve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said in a statement that todays vote sends an unmistakable message that we should combat terrorism with every tool we have, and that the families of those lost in attacks like that on September 11th should have every means at their disposal to seek justice.

The Obama administration has been against the bill as they believe it could backfire. The White House is concerned that it would allow foreign countries to, in turn, bring legal action against the United States government to address grievances.

Image: A three-year-old holds his mother hand near some of the 3,000 flags placed in memory of the lives lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks at a park in Winnetka, Illinois. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
Two skyscrapers were decimated the day 2,996 died, 15 years ago.

George Joseph profiles the monument that has replaced them.

IMAGE: The setting sun reflects off the One World Trade Centre and surrounding buildings. Photograph: Rickey Rogers/Reuters

November 2014, 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, the true spirit of America earned a new emblem when the felled Twin Towers were reincarnated as the impressive Freedom Tower.

Today, two years later, the 1,776-foot glass and steel monolith, with its unique shining eight-isosceles triangle finish, adds magic to New York's distinctive skyline.

"It is good to see the gaping hole, rended in the city's fabric by 9/11, getting filled. Some of the new WTC buildings, built and proposed, represent both good architecture and a response to genuine market forces," said Dr R Shankar Nair, who was chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, just before the collapse of the Twin Towers.

"By all accounts it is a good looking building; an important monument," he added.

Can the Freedom Tower withstand an airplane attack?

"Building professionals and societies have learnt that the correct response to 9/11 is to prevent criminals from flying airplanes into buildings. Not to make buildings resistant to airplanes," Dr Nair said.

"Changes in security measures have made a repeat of 9/11 so unlikely, that aircraft impact is still not considered in building design -- correctly, in my opinion," he said.

"We cannot say that the new WTC tower could withstand an attack similar to 9/11. The more plausible line of terrorist attack on a tall building today is a truck bomb at street level. The building was designed with that threat very much in mind. The lower part of the tower is heavily armored," said Dr Nair, who is now senior vice-president, Exp US Services Inc, a building engineering consultancy firm.

IMAGE: The One World Trade Centre is a constant reminder of the spirit of the American people of never giving up and never bowing down to terrorism. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Freedom Tower is touted as the tallest building in the US and the western hemisphere. But there are differing opinions on that.

"The highest floor in the Freedom Tower at One WTC is at less than 1,400 feet," Dr Nair pointed out, "placing it below the highest floor in the Willis (formerly the Sears) Tower in Chicago. A non-functional spire takes the total height to 1,776 feet."

1,776 ft The height of the building is a direct reference to the year the US Declaration of Independence was signed

Most of the bottom quadrant of the Freedom Tower, the engineer explained, is essentially unusable. The balance that remains is 69 office floors and a few special use floors "all of which could have been accommodated in a relatively modest size, modest cost building. Functionally it is a rather modest-sized building, with the cost and impact of a huge one."

Dr Nair, who is Chicago based -- and incidentally the grandson of the late K P S Menon, India's first foreign secretary -- has not visited the new avatar of the WTC Centre since it was completed. Even though he is an authority and advocate for taller buildings and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 for his 'contributions to the art and science of engineering through the design of innovative bridges and building structures,' many of them quite tall, he sees no justification for super-tall buildings, which are not always economically viable.

"Tall buildings are not built for money. (They come up) more for prestige. Or to show off. (They) are built for every other reason than money," he said. "Some lease top floors of such buildings for huge amounts."

There is no rational justification for tall buildings, he added, especially in places where plenty of land is available.

The Freedom Tower, designed by David M Childs, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, spreads across 2.6 million square feet, offers office space, an observation deck, restaurants as well as broadcast and antennae facilities.

The skyscraper incorporated many of the safety precautions recommended by the committee who investigated the collapse of the towers, that was headed by Dr S Shyam Sunder, then director, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Ground Zero, on the day of the attack, transformed into a crematorium and burned the victims' bodies into ashes.

1,113 victims -- 40 per cent of the 2,753 who perished that horrific morning -- are still not identified, though their families got death certificates and their names were etched on the 9/11 memorial.

A repository underneath the Twin Towers site, adjacent to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, is where unidentified remains are now stored. Some families say the unidentified dead deserve an above ground memorial like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Arlington National Cemetery.

'The room has no sanctity, no religiosity, no atmosphere or respect like an interfaith chapel would,' Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian Regenhar, a probationary firefighter who died responding to the attacks, told NBC News.

IMAGE: People photograph the sunset from One World Observatory, the observation deck at the One World Trade Centre. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The fall of the Twin Towers, 15 years ago, had no significant effect on the perceptions about tall buildings or on the construction of taller buildings, believes Dr Nair.

In the last decade, he said, even taller buildings have come up in many countries and the trend was to constantly keep adding to a building's height as much as is humanly feasible.

"Even though there are not many structural changes to new buildings, the security preparedness was improved. New rules were enforced for exit preparedness. Now taller buildings need more, and wider, staircases for mass evacuation. Fireproofing system too got improved," he said.

"In a natural calamity I would prefer to be in a taller building rather than in a two-storey brick building. Taller buildings are built to withstand calamities," he said.

"The World Trade Centre collapsed not because of any problem with the buildings. It fell because of a security failure," he said.

When it comes to constructing skyscrapers for strength, though each country follows its own rules, the pattern everywhere is the same, Dr Nair explained, because most tall buildings are erected by the same US companies.

Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which built the Sears Tower, also constructed the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Saudi Arabia's upcoming Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, overlooking the Red Sea, which is to become the world's tallest building if completed in 2020, is also being constructed by another Chicago firm -- Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

Tall structures like the Empire State Building will last many centuries, or as long as the owner wants it to survive, said Dr Nair. There is no fixed life span for these buildings as long as they are repaired and taken care of.

How the Freedom Tower came into being
Martinsville handles Bedford North Lawrence to reach sectional final

Martinsville defeated Bedford North Lawrence on the back of strong defensive play and a huge game from the Artesians' offense.
SUNDAY

First responders' breakfast

A breakfast for area first responders will be served from 7-11 a.m. at VFW Post 6873, 1049 Veterans Drive.

West Texas Fair & Rodeo

The West Texas Fair & Rodeo will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. at the Taylor County Expo Center. The midway will open at 1 p.m. Admission is $11 for adults and $4 for students. School day tickets will be accepted.

'Charlotte's Web'

In celebration of 'The Year of Garth Williams,' the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council will present a free showing of the 2006 version of 'Charlotte's Web' at 2 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St.

MONDAY

West Texas Fair & Rodeo

The West Texas Fair & Rodeo will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. at the Taylor County Expo Center. Admission will be free until 1 p.m. The midway will open at 5 p.m. Admission is $1; school day tickets will be accepted.

Diabetes workshop

A six-week Diabetes Self-Management Workshop, sponsored by the Abilene Regional Medical Center Senior Circle, will begin with a session from 10 a.m. to noon at the ARMC Resource Building. Admission is free. To RSVP, call 325-428-4935.

Movie at the Mockingbird Library

A free showing of a 2015 action film will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Mockingbird Branch of the Abilene Public Library, 1326 N. Mockingbird Lane.

Other ...

Overeaters Anonymous, noon, Hinds Square Building, 100 Chestnut St., Room 112.

Blood drive, 12:30-3:30 p.m., Rentech Boilers, 5025 E. Highway 80.

Schizophrenia Support Group, 1-2 p.m., Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 5:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.

Anorexics Bulimics Anonymous, 6 p.m., Shades of Hope, 402A Mulberry St., Buffalo Gap. 800-588-4673.

Hendrick Ostomy support group, 6:30 p.m., Diabetes Center, 1742 Hickory St.

Central Texas Gem & Mineral Society of Abilene, 7 p.m., 7607 Highway 277 South. 325-692-0063.

Abilene Toastmaster's Club 1071, 7 p.m., Conference Center, Texas State Technical College, 650 E. Highway 80. 325-692-7325 or abilene.toastmastersclubs.org.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1501 N. Broadway, Ballinger. 817-689-2810 or 325-977-1007.

Mid-City Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First Christian Church. 325-670-4304.

Memory Men (4-part a cappella singing), 7 p.m., Calvary Baptist Church, 1165 Minter Lane. Park on east side, enter through kitchen. 325-676-SING.

Abilene Quilters Guild, 7 p.m., Highland Church of Christ, Room No. 112. Meet-and-greet at 6:45 p.m. 325-676-1478.

Abilene Community Band rehearsal, 7:30 p.m., Bynum Band Hall, McMurry University. 325-232-7383.

South Pioneer Al-Anon Group, 8 p.m., 3157 Russell Ave.

Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Avoca United Methodist Church. 325-773-2611.

Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Group. 325-676-1400.

TUESDAY

West Texas Fair & Rodeo

The West Texas Fair & Rodeo will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. at the Taylor County Expo Center. Admission will be free until 1 p.m. The midway will open at 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $4 for students. All rides will be $2.

Business workshop

Texas Tech Small Business Development Center Abilene will conduct a Trademarks, Copyrights & Patents Workshop from 3-5 p.m. in the Texas Tech Training Center, 749 Gateway St., Suite 301. To make a reservation, call 325-670-0300. Free consultation, by appointment only, will be available from 2-3 p.m.

Building opening

A ribbon cutting ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. at the new Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Public Health Building, 1650 Pine St. A reception and public tours will follow at 4:30 p.m.

Public meeting

TxDOT will conduct a public meeting regarding possible safety enhancements to the Interstate 20 corridor from 4-8 p.m. in the TSTC Seminar Room, 300 Homer K Drive in Sweetwater.

Job Corps meeting

Job Corps, a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor which provides assistance with training and employment, will conduct an informational meeting at 5 p.m. at the Mockingbird Branch of the Abilene Public Library, 1326 N. Mockingbird Lane.

Tree workshop

Bruce Kreitler will present a workshop on varieties of trees suited for area landscapes at 6:30 p.m. at the Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. Admission is free.

Square dance workshop

TYE  The Key City Squares will conduct a square dancing workshop at 6:30 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel.

Other ...

Mission on the Move Soup Kitchen, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church, 3025 Southwest Dr.

Abilene Southwest Rotary Club, noon, Beehive Restaurant, 442 Cedar St.

High Noon Al-Anon, noon, Southern Hills Church of Christ, 3666 Buffalo Gap Road (south end; follow the yellow signs).

Blood drive, 1-6 p.m., Coleman County Electric Co-op.

Stroke/Aphasia Recovery Program support group, 1:30-2:30 p.m. West Texas Rehabilitation Center boardroom, 4601 Hartford St. 325-793-3535.

Dystonia Support Group, 5:15-6:15 p.m., Not Without Us, 3301 N. First St. Suite 117.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), 5:30 p.m., Brook Hollow Christian Church, 2310 S. Willis St. 325-232-7444.

Legacies Al-Anon Family Group, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-280-7584.

Family (of Mental Health Consumers) Support Group, 6-7 p.m., Mental Health Association in Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.

MHAA Bipolar/Depression Peer Support Group, 6-8 p.m., Ministry of Counseling & Enrichment, 1502 N. First St. 325-673-2300.

Free certified nurturing parent class (pregnancy to toddler), 6-8 p.m., Mission Church, North Third and Mockingbird streets. 325-672-9398.

Methodist Children's Home Foster Parent Orientation, 6-8 p.m., 500 Chestnut, Suite 1621. 325-672-9398.

Abilene Star Chorus, 6:15 p.m., Wisteria Place Chapel, 3202 S. Willis St. 325-829-1470.

Abilene Chapter of American Association of Professional Coders, 6:30 p.m., in the board room next to the Tom Roberts Conference Center, second floor, Hendrick Medical Center, 1900 N. Pine St. Free AAPC CEU offered at every meeting. 325-435-9059.

Women of Combat Veterans Group, 6:30 p.m., Anson Housing Authority building.

Overeaters Anonymous, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Exodus Metropolitan Community Church, 1933 S. 27th St.

Al-Anon Parents Group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. Use Church Street entrance.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., Doug Meinzer Activity Center, Knox City. 940-658-3926.

Abilene Society of Model Railroaders, 7-8:30 p.m., 2043 N. Second St.

Unity Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St.

WEDNESDAY

West Texas Fair & Rodeo

The West Texas Fair & Rodeo will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. at the Taylor County Expo Center. Admission will be free until 1 p.m. The midway will open at 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $4 for students and free for seniors age 60 or older.

Food truck lunch

A food truck lunch fundraiser will be 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Taylor County Sheriff's Office, 450 Pecan St. Proceeds will go to the American Heart Association.

Art film

As part of the 'This Is Modern Art' series, a screening of 'Julian Schnable: Art in Progress' will be presented at noon at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 220 Cypress St.

Little League fundraiser

A fundraiser for Southern Little League will be conducted from 5-8 p.m. at DoubleDave's Pizzaworks, 4001 John Knox Drive. Participants must pick up a flyer when ordering or complete the flyer presented at www.facebook.com/abilenesouthern.

Square dance workshop

TYE  The Wagon Wheel Squares will conduct a square dancing workshop at 6:30 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel.

Other ...

Overeaters Anonymous, 8 a.m., Hinds Square Building, Room 112, 100 Chestnut St.

Blood drive, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Blue Cross Blue Shield, 4002 Loop 322.

Abilene Cactus Lions Club, 11:45 a.m., Cotton Patch Cafe, 3302 S. Clack St.

Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway. $12 for lunch. Jo Ann Wilson, 325-677-6815.

Kiwanis Club of Abilene, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway Blvd.

Clearly Speaking Toastmaster Club, noon, Westgate Church of Christ, 402 S. Pioneer Drive. 325-795-5570.

Diabetes Support Group, 2-3 p.m., Stonewall County Library.

Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 5:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.

Veterans Peer Support Group, 6 p.m., 765 Orange St. 325-670-4818.

Mid-week Al-Anon Family Group, 6-7 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-698-4995.

Advanced Square Dancing, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Wagon Wheel.

Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1501 N. Broadway, Ballinger. 817-689-2810 or 325-977-1007.

DivorceCare support group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. 325-691-4200.
UPSIDE DOWN CLUB'S BUDDY WALK

The Upside Down Club of Abilene, Inc., local Down syndrome support group, has scheduled its fifth annual Buddy Walk to promote acceptance and awareness within our community for individuals with Down syndrome. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at 4009 Beltway South, Beltway Park Church. The entire event is free and will include pony rides, jump houses, a petting zoo, face painting, carnival type games, laser tag, knockerball and over 35 informational booths. Please contact Becca Bortnick, 970-430-0482, Susan Pate, 325-691-9338, if you need additional information.

INFANT MASSAGE

The infant massage program at West Texas Rehabilitation Center focuses on enhancing the bond between parent and baby through the use of massage. The course consists of five classes within five weeks, focusing on the child's legs, tummy, arms, face and back. The benefits of infant massage include infant/parent bonding, promotes better sleep, boosts immune system, helps digestion, facilitates body awareness and much more.

The next class is set for 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Sept. 13 through Oct. 11 at the WTRC, 4601 Hartford St. Certified instructors will be Amy Gibbs and JoBeth Willis. Cost to participate is $85. Call 325-793-3452.

ABILENE AREA PLEIN AIR ARTISTS MEETUP

The Abilene Area Plein Air Artists meet once a week to paint en plein-air (outside) in various locations in Abilene and surrounding areas. Meetups have taken place at the Farmers market, The Mill, Jacob's Dream (ACU), Lytle Place, Lytle Shores West, Woods Farm in Tuscola, and Buffalo Gap Historic Village. Meetups are usually from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays. No membership dues or fees are required. Come and go when you can. Call 325-676-1179 to get updates on your email or phone or check out their Facebook page, Abilene Area Plein Air Artists Meetup Group.

The next meetup date is Tuesday. All artists at all levels are welcome.

PET APPRECIATION WEEK CELEBRATION

Abilene Tractor Supply, 2249 State Highway 351, has made plans to celebrate pets during the annual Pet Appreciation Week.

Several activities will take place during the main event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 17, including pet adoptions and farmers market, samples, giveaways, drawings for gift cards, and other family friendly activities. In addition, deals on pet products, from food and treats to toys and crates, will be featured from Sept. 14-18.

Pet Appreciation Week helps raise awareness of the importance of spaying and neutering pets and provide information on proper pet care and nutrition as well as finding homes for homeless pets. Doors at the Abilene Animal Shelter, 925 S. 25th St., will also be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

JOB CORPS PROGRAM

Job Corps, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, is a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job. For eligible young people at least 16 years old that qualify as low income, Job Corps provides the all-around skills needed to succeed in a career and in life. Stop by the Mockingbird Branch of the Abilene Public Library, 1214 N. Mockingbird Lane, at 5 p.m. Tuesday and chat with Modesto Villegas and let her tell you about this opportunity and answer any questions you may have.

Mail information to Jan Woodward in care of 'Around Town,' Abilene Reporter-News, P.O. Box 30, Abilene, TX 79604. Email address is jan.woodward@reporternews.com or fax information to 325-670-5242. Deadline for submission is noon seven working days before publication.
A 2012 trip to Haiti, watching people struggle to get clean water, got Danna Wolfe thinking about a new career.

She was a lawyer, but that career no longer seemed like a calling. She felt that God was nudging her toward something new, she just didn't know what.

Two years later she found out when she heard Mark and Gretchen Bullock speak at the Abilene Woman's Club. The Bullocks and their three young boys had just returned from the voyage of a lifetime on the Africa Mercy, a floating hospital operated by Mercy Ships.

The trip to Haiti had stirred something in Wolfe and after a long wait, she knew she had to respond.

'That kind of planted the seed,' she said of the Haiti trip. 'Then, the Bullocks watered that seed.'

She got on the Internet and learned all about the Mercy Ships operation and how to volunteer. Two years after hearing the Bullocks speak, Wolfe, 54, signed up for a three-month stint aboard the Africa Mercy.

Her voyage started May 29 and ended about two weeks ago. Her job aboard the ship was in the galley, where she helped prepare meals for the approximately 200 other volunteers on board.

Gretchen Bullock, who is now a teacher in Abilene, said several people inquired about serving on the Africa Mercy following the presentation at the Abilene Woman's Club in 2014.

'When they hear about it,' she said, 'their hearts are changed.'

She was thrilled to learn that Wolfe had followed through and volunteered. She isn't surprised that Wolfe is changing her career and direction in life following her service.

'It's an experience that will change you forever,' Bullock said.

Wolfe boarded the Africa Mercy in May while it was docked in Madagascar. The ship had just completed a field service and was heading to dry dock for annual repairs. Wolfe's voyage took her from Madagascar to Durban, South Africa. She and others cooked for the crew volunteers who were repairing the ship during that voyage.

When the dry dock repairs were completed in Durban, the ship sailed to Cape Town, where it stopped for a few days. Then, the voyage continued for 10 days to Benin, West Africa, where the ship will be docked for 10 months to provide free surgeries to people who don't have access to medical care. Wolfe left the ship in Benin for the flight home, after three months at sea.

Now that she's back in Abilene, her life hasn't slowed down, but it is fulfilling. While trying to figure out what God was calling her to, Wolfe realized that all the jobs that interested her required a master's degree in public health.

So, in January 2016, she enrolled at the Abilene campus of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, which offers that degree. To keep up with her studies, Wolfe took an online course while on board the Africa Mercy.

She is on track to graduate in December 2017, six months before one of her daughters, Sydney, earns a degree in nutrition from Abilene Christian University, which also is Wolfe's alma mater.

Her goal is to use the public health degree to help people in developing countries gain access to clean water, perhaps employing her lawyer skills to evaluate policies in that area.

'That would be my dream job,' she said.

In the meantime, she continues to practice law, mainly taking court-appointed cases that involve Child Protective Services. In addition to attending class, studying, and practicing law, Wolfe is evaluating the infant feeding programs set up by Mercy Ships in the onshore clinics it serves.

And, if that's not enough, Wolfe also keeps up with her disbursed family. Her husband, David Wolfe, works for The Global Fund in Geneva. The couple gets together in some spot on the globe when they can. Her older daughter Jordan lives in Greenville, South Carolina.

The arrangement isn't odd to Danna and David Wolfe. They met the first week of their freshman year at ACU. He's an Abilenian and she was from the Dallas area. After they married, the couple moved to Chicago so that David could get an advanced degree from the University of Chicago. He got a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers, an international accounting and professional services firm. He was assigned to the London office where he and others established a forensics accounting division  aimed at detecting fraud.

The couple lived in London two years and their first daughter, Jordan, was born there. From London, they moved to Atlanta, where they would stay for 20 years. Danna had earned a law degree from Pepperdine University in 1992 and practiced law in Atlanta. David started his own accounting firm there. Their second daughter, Sydney, was born in Atlanta.

In 2014, David changed jobs, signing on with The Global Fund in Geneva. Danna moved to Abilene to be close to Sydney, who had enrolled at ACU.

While waiting to get her Texas law license, Danna worked a year as manager of the Abilene Woman's Club. And that's when she heard the Bullocks speak.

'I just felt like there was some sort of calling,' she said. 'God sent me there to listen to them for a reason.'

Now, that reason is clear. Wolfe doesn't know exactly what she will be doing in the future, other than working for a nongovernmental organization (NGO) helping in some way to bring clean water to people who don't currently have a sustainable water supply.

She also doubts that her three-month voyage on the Africa Mercy is her last.

'Anybody with a heart to serve should go,' she said. 'I intend to go back.'
Since leaving Hardin-Simmons University as its president in 2008, W. Craig Turner has filled two more college presidencies  but with a major difference.

At Hardin-Simmons, Turner had assumed the presidency in grand style. Enough dignitaries, friends, and peers were invited to fill what seats weren't taken by faculty and students in the cavernous Behrens Chapel.

A luncheon was planned on the green expanse in front of Behrens at the end of the 10 a.m. ceremony. It would have been perfect. Except that the date was Sept. 11, 2001. The inauguration went on as planned, but few in the audience were listening intently. Their minds were on more serious matters.

The experience was enough to make Turner beg off a ceremonial inauguration when he became president of two more colleges later in his career.

'I told them I had one,' he said, 'and it wasn't that good.'

At Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, where Turner took over as president in 2008, a small ceremony was held. In 2011, Turner became president of Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro. No event of any size was held. Turner arrived on campus June 1, 2011, and any ceremony would have been planned for the fall.

The timing was bad, Turner said, since everyone already would have met him by September.

'Don't do anything,' was his advice, and it was taken.

On Sept. 1 of this year, Turner returned to Abilene for the investiture of Eric Bruntmyer as president of Hardin-Simmons. The elaborate ceremony was held in the same building, now renamed Behrens Auditorium.

Turner didn't consider not coming. Now retired, he and his wife, Annette, live in Fairview near Dallas  and near three grandchildren. Each year when the anniversary date of 9/11 comes around, it evokes unpleasant memories, but also some good ones.

A literary scholar, Turner quotes Charles Dickens' opening words of his novel, 'A Tale of Two Cities,' when describing that day. The words are familiar to every student who has taken an English literature class  'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times '

'That's what that was,' Turner said of Sept. 11, 2001.

Three other people in the audience that day had direct ties the events that were unfolding outside. Chris McNair was and is dean of the Holland School of Sciences and Mathematics. He had to wonder all through the ceremony about the fate of his brother, Col. Phillip McNair, whose office in the Pentagon was hit by one of the hijacked planes.

Bill and Vicki Ehrie's son, Greg, was and is an FBI agent in New York City. His office on Sept. 11, 2001, and today, is three blocks from the site of the attacks in New York. Sitting through the inauguration on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, knowing some of what was happening outside but not all, was excruciating.

At the time, Bill Ehrie was president of the Abilene Industrial Foundation. He was in his office that morning, planning to leave soon to go to Hardin-Simmons. His wife, Vicki, was the presidential assistant to Turner. She was in her office at HSU, waiting on her husband to join her for the festivities.

Before Bill Ehrie left his downtown office, the phone rang. It was Greg, wondering if his dad knew what was going on in New York. He didn't, but quickly turned on the television. Greg said he was OK but was headed to ground zero to help with the investigations. As Bill Ehrie talked to his son and watched the television coverage, the first tower collapsed.

'I lost contact with Greg,' Bill Ehrie said in a telephone interview from his home in Arlington.

Ehrie than called his wife at HSU and told her about Greg's call. She was distraught, and a friend drove her to her husband's office.

Just as she was arriving, Greg re-established contact with his dad. As they talked, Ehrie watched the second tower fall. After being assured their son was OK, the Ehries drove back to Hardin-Simmons.

Fifteen years later, the Ehries still don't talk much about that day. It brings back memories of what the victims and their loved ones went through, Bill Ehrie said. And, it's a tough subject to talk to their son about, knowing what he saw that day.

'We didn't talk to him about that for a long time,' Ehrie said.

Phillip McNair was in the process of retiring in September 2001. But on Sept. 11 he was hard at work in the Pentagon. Thankfully, he wasn't in his office but in a meeting in another part of the building.

When Chris McNair heard where the plane hit  a new part of the Pentagon  he felt certain his brother was dead. And he most likely would have been if not for the meeting.

'If he had been in his office,' Chris McNair said, 'he would have been obliterated.'

McNair tried off and on all day to make contact with his brother or someone who knew what had happened to him.

'I spent the whole day just wondering,' he said.

It was almost midnight before Phillip's wife, Nancy, called. She had found Phillip in a hospital, being treated for an ankle injury. He had jumped through a window, only to go back into the building and carry out a half-dozen people.

Phillip McNair was awarded a presidential citation for his heroism. It was only later, at the hospital, that he learned that several ankle bones were crushed when he jumped.

It was a traumatic day for the whole family. Chris was in Abilene wondering and worrying. Nancy, Phillip's wife, was searching desperately for her husband. Their two children, ages 16 and 17 at the time, were in school in Virginia.

Before knowing any of that, Chris McNair was at home getting ready to participate in the new president's inauguration. He turned on the TV to check the weather. Instead, he saw what was happening in New York.

He rushed to HSU and into the faculty lounge, where another television was turned to the scene in New York. By then, the newscasters were talking about the Pentagon being hit. That's when McNair heard where the plane had struck  the new part of the building where his brother's office was.

'I knew at that moment,' he said, 'that was his area.'

He learned later, after much delay, that his brother wasn't in his office and had been spared. Although the events of the terrorist attacks are still vivid, McNair doesn't remember much of his boss's inauguration.

'It's just a blur,' he said.

Sept. 1, 2016, was a much better day as McNair sat through another inauguration, or investiture, at Hardin-Simmons. He once again dressed in full academic regalia and processed with fellow academics into the auditorium. He had an uneasy feeling.

But when the ceremony ended, McNair joined others for a luncheon and sat near Craig and Annette Turner. There were so many people present that they didn't have an opportunity to talk about the events of 15 years ago.

As they left the luncheon, they exchanged a few brief words.

'It's a much better day and a lot less pressure than 9/11,' McNair said to Turner as they were leaving. Turner didn't have much to say.

'He just kind of smiled,' McNair said.
Working as a team, Abilene weathered challenges better than most cities

Texas fared well but Abilene actually worked toward its future rather than just trying to stay afloat
Today in history: On Sept. 10, 1989, Hungary allows East German refugees to leave the country for West Germany. It's the first time that a communist bloc nation allowed citizens to leave for the West. These people had gone to Hungary as 'tourists' and were in the right place at the right time. This was at a time the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, yet some governments refused to yield to change. About 8,000 East Germans crossed to Austria, then into West Germany, becoming citizens immediately.
SAMARA, Russia -- The CIA has Russias Samara Oblast in its crosshairs. At least that is what the governor, Nikolai Merkushkin, wants voters to think.

In the run-up to September 18 elections to the State Duma, Merkushkin has been working hard to portray the vote as a stark choice between the ruling United Russia party and a U.S. intelligence agency that is bent on tearing Russia apart.

In April, the U.S. ambassador to Russia -- hes the main specialist in organizing Orange Revolutions  came here and he studied the situation, Merkushkin told voters on August 10. And they have one goal -- to undermine confidence in the authorities. In this regard, we must all take the elections with the utmost seriousness.

Two days later, Merkushkin targeted U.S. Ambassador John Tefft again, claiming that the envoy examined Tolyatti, an industrial city in the region, but saw that no sparks could come from here in order to spread the conflagration to the whole country.

That is why the CIA decided to go after all of Samara Oblast, he concluded.

But Merkushkins electioneering assertions come at a time of particularly strained relations between Moscow and Washington, with tensions mounting since Russias seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and the start of its active military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

On August 30, the governor said opposition politician and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny was trained in the United States and is devoted to Uncle Sam -- something Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits have been telling the people for years.

Merkushkin took it a step further by saying that Navalny is attempting to carry out the Dulles Plan, apparently a reference to a 1993 book ascribing to Cold War-era CIA chief Allen Dulles an alleged scheme to use agents within the Soviet Union to break it up into many small nations. That fictional plot has been presented as reality by numerous Russian politicians and public figures in recent years, including Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leftist presidential economic adviser Sergei Glazyev, and filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov.

On August 17, Merkushkin made the most detailed presentation of his claims so far, asserting that the CIA had hacked Samara Oblasts e-mail system in order to distribute false information to voters and undermine their confidence in the authorities. He also claimed that the CIA is keeping global energy prices low so that the Russian government will not have enough money to pay pensions.

Why did they come to us? Merkushkin asked, referring to the region on the Volga River. Why not Moscow or St. Petersburg or Kazan or Yekaterinburg? We believe the main reason is that for many years we have been the main testing ground for Western experiments. The main testing ground.

Merkushkin, 61, previously served five terms as the authoritarian leader of the nearby Mordovia region. In the early 2000s, he made the mistake of developing ties with oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. After Khodorkovsky was arrested, imprisoned, and dispossessed, Merkushkin had to work hard to demonstrate his loyalty to President Vladimir Putins Kremlin.

In a way, Merkushkins claims make him Putin writ small. In power as president or prime minister since 2000, Putin has persistently sought to boost his popularity and consolidate power by portraying Russia as a defiant country resisting U.S. efforts to bring it to its knees.

Merkushkin is renowned within Russia for his endurance-testing appearances before the press, often lecturing journalists for as long as five hours.

His gruff style came out during a meeting with voters earlier this month in which a woman complained that she hadnt received wages in more than a year and asked when the money would come.

Well, I want to tell you, Merkushkin said abruptly. If you are going to speak in such a tone, [the answer is] never. Never! Go ask the people who are inciting you.

In 2012, Putin moved Merkushkin to Samara following United Russias poor performance in the region in the 2011 elections to the Duma, Russias lower parliament house. In that race, turnout in Samara was just 52.9 percent and only 39.1 percent voted for United Russia. (Nationally, turnout was officially 60 percent and United Russia was credited with 49.3 percent of the vote.)

Meanwhile, the Communist Party made one of its strongest showings in Samara Oblast, winning over 23 percent of the vote in 2011.

By comparison, in Merkushkins Mordovia, official turnout was 94.2 percent, with 91.6 percent endorsing the ruling party. Only Chechnya produced more Kremlin-friendly results.

Merkushkin seems to have brought his election magic -- or methods -- to Samara. In 2014, he ran for election as governor and managed to poll 91.4 percent.

Samara regional legislator Mikhail Matveyev ran against Merkushkin in 2014 and has bitter memories of the experience.

The last election campaign showed that you cant consider Merkushkin a sincere person, Matveyev told RFE/RL. When the voting came and they began stealing votes from the other candidates, it was clear that the governor had set himself the goal of getting 90 percent, even though his polling was about 70 percent. I would guess that he converted that 70 percent into 90 percent just out of pure egotism.

But there is evidence that Merkushkin is under pressure from the Kremlin to produce the right result without outright violations. Vyacheslav Volodin, a powerful first deputy chief of staff to Putin, and Central Election Commission (CEC) head Ella Pamfilova have both repeatedly promised a fair and transparent vote.

Pamfilova told a Moscow press conference that about one-seventh of all the election complaints received by the CEC to date have come from Samara Oblast, including many from United Russia candidates who allege Merkushkin promoted his people during the partys primary.

I see this as the clash of two different points of view at the top, Anton Rubin, who is running for the Duma from the liberal Yabloko party, told RFE/RL. Pamfilova is fighting for fair elections and [Merkushkin] is absolutely ignoring her. The human rights commission and the CEC have sent delegation after delegation down here, but they have had no effect. Merkushkin still appears five times a day at state enterprises. He still uses Samara state television like his personal channel, despite all the election laws. It is an interesting case to see who will beat whom, but for now it is clear that [Merkushkin] is winning.

And if the stick of alleged CIA plots is not enough to bring out the vote, Merkushkin has been trying a carrot, as well. He frequently tells voters that in the near future we will have to fight for every ruble from the federal budget and that will be very difficult without convincing arguments.

If the region gives 97 percent to United Russia, he said on August 24, the Kremlin will listen to him.

And if not?

I will be justified for not doing anything for the people," he said. "You yourselves will have made it so that we arent doing anything for the people.
Mohammad Nayeb-Zehi was among the hundreds of worshippers who gathered on September 30 at the Great Mosalla, a religious site in Iran's southeastern city of Zahedan, for Friday Prayers.

Just hours later, the 16-year-old's family learned he was dead.

Nayeb-Zehi was among the scores of people gunned down by security forces in a brutal crackdown following anti-government protests in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchistan Province, which is home to the country's Baluch minority.

"He was a simple laborer and not political," Nayeb-Zehi's brother, Ahmad, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda in a telephone interview from Zahedan, adding that his sibling had been shot in the heart. "We're in pain, and we cannot accept it."

The crackdown in Zahedan came amid weeks-long nationwide protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who died on September 16, days after she was detained by Iran's morality police.

In Sistan-Baluchistan, public anger at the authorities escalated amid reports that a 15-year-old Baluch girl had been raped by a police official in the province's southern port city of Chabahar.

The violence erupted soon after protesters gathered outside a police station near the central mosque in Zahedan. Members of the crowd chanted anti-government slogans, and some threw rocks. Security forces responded with deadly force by firing on the crowd from the station, according to witnesses.

Security forces also raided the central mosque and the nearby Great Mosalla and opened fire on worshippers using live ammunition, rights groups said, adding that many were shot in the head, heart, neck, or torso, revealing a clear intent to kill or seriously wound.

At least 94 people were killed and 350 wounded on that day, referred to as "Bloody Friday," according to the U.S.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. At least 13 minors were among those killed, including Nayeb-Zehi.

The victims were overwhelmingly Baluch -- a mostly Sunni ethnic group that has long faced disproportionate discrimination at the hands of the Iranian authorities.

"He was martyred inside the Mosalla while holding his prayer mat," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi.

Nayeb-Zehi's family first visited Zahedan's Khatam al-Anbia hospital, hoping he was among the wounded. They later found his body in a seminary at the Great Mosalla.

"We entered a room there and saw about 10 bodies," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi. "[Mohammad] was among them."

He said the authorities prevented the family from filming the scene. "I told them this has to be documented, it has to be published by international media," he said, adding that footage later emerged on social media showing the gruesome scene at the seminary.

The family refused to send Nayeb-Zehi's body to the morgue. Instead, his body lay in the living room for around 24 hours before he was buried.

"We said he was martyred and there was no need for an autopsy," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi.

The authorities accused Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group, of attacking the police station. The group is recognized as a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States and has previously claimed deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan targeting Iranian security forces.

But local and independent sources have rejected the authorities' claims.

The authorities have also reported a much lower number of fatalities, announcing that only 19 people, including several members of the security forces, were killed.

Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi said the authorities were "rubbing salt into the wounds of the people" by claiming "terrorists" were involved.

He said he witnessed a military helicopter shooting at civilians near the Great Mosalla. "I haven't even seen such scenes in Hollywood movies," he said. "A helicopter was shooting at people. A lady was shot in front of my eyes."

RFE/RL could not verify his account. But activists have accused security forces of shooting at protestors from helicopters.

"I don't know what the intention of this crime was," he said. "Our only demand from the establishment is for the murderers of our [family members] to be punished."

The killings have led to widespread anger in Sistan-Baluchistan, one of Iran's poorest provinces.

Anti-establishment protests have been reported in Zahedan since the crackdown, including on October 14 and October 21, when protesters took to the streets after Friday Prayers and chanted "Death to the dictator."

During his Friday Prayers sermon on October 21, influential Sunni cleric Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi said senior officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were "responsible" for the September 30 killings.

"We are surprised by the silence of the high-ranking officials," he said in his sermon, which was posted on his website.

"Scores were killed here without any reason. I don't have the exact number. Some have reported 90, some say less, some say more," Ismaeelzahi added.

He also said people will not be satisfied until "those who killed the people" are brought to justice.

The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said the events of September 30 amounted to "a massacre of protesters by security forces."

"The government's total denial of responsibility for the massacring of citizens by its security apparatus is consistent with similar past denials and is evidence that internal calls for investigation of such crimes are insufficient," said the rights group, which documents human rights violations in Iran.
Belarusians are gearing up for parliamentary elections that opposition activists are already deriding as a sham orchestrated by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime.

The national vote scheduled for September 11 will choose lawmakers for the 110-seat legislature. A total of 488 candidates are running but critics have already pointed to problems they say foretell a rigged vote.

For example, election regulators have barred posters showing candidates' faces, or their names, or even stating which parties are competing.

A report by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said "the process of campaigning is strictly regulated. The campaign remains largely invisible."

Lukashenka, who has ruled the country for more than two decades, is widely seen as wanting a democratic veneer that might help attract Western investment to the country's faltering, Soviet-style economy.

His government earlier this year released all political prisoners and has helped in mediation efforts to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

With reporting by AP, Reuters
Belarusians have voted in parliamentary elections that are expected to keep in power allies of strongman President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled the former Soviet Union for more than two decades.

Turnout in the September 11 ballot was reported at 74.32 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. A total of 521 candidates are competing for 110 seats in the lower house of parliament.

Commission Chairwoman Lidia Yermoshina told journalists in Minsk on September 11 that the elections had been certified valid in all 110 constituencies.

Some 176 candidates represented the country's fractious opposition: the United Civil Party, Belarusian Popular Front, Green Party, Belarusian Left Party, and the Social Democrats.

The Central Election Commission announced on September 12 that two opposition candidates had won seats, the first time the opposition will be represented in parliament in 20 years.

Hanna Kanapatskaya of the United Civil Party won a mandate, as did independent candidate Alena Anisim, who has links to the opposition.

Belarus hasn't held a vote assessed as free or democratic since the early 1990s, and authorities routinely punish dissent and keep a tight lid on media in the post-Soviet country of around 10 million people.

The current election was monitored by some 400 observers sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE is expected to hold a press conference in Minsk on September 12 to discuss its preliminary findings.

Opposition candidates have already said that the electoral process was unfair and would be marred by violations.

"I am convinced that not a single opposition candidate will make it through to parliament," Alyaksei Yanukevich, chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front opposition party, told AFP.

"There will only be lawmakers approved by the authorities, Yanukevich said.

Suspect Electoral Counting

The regime's sustained suppression of dissent -- punctuated by arrests of Lukashenka rivals or activists -- has left the opposition weakened and marginalized.

The Vyasna human rights organization pointed to many cases of people being forced to take part in early voting.Some 31 percent of the electorate cast their ballots early, according to authorities.

Another monitoring group, the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections, has accused officials of rigging turnout figures in constituencies where early voting is taking place.

The group said that its observers at polling station No. 103 in the capital, Minsk, registered 19 voters casting ballots on September 6, while election officials put the tally at 56.

The same day, observers counted nine people voting at another Minsk polling station, while the officials insisted 105 people voted there, the monitoring group said

The group said it deployed more than 300 observers to 153 polling stations.

The last time Belarus held national legislative elections, in 2012, the OSCE expressed "serious concerns" at the process and called the vote "not competitive from the start."

Dzyanis Sadowski, a coordinator for Prava Vybaru -- an umbrella group for eight opposition groups with the aim of monitoring elections -- was quoted by Belapan news agency as saying that campaigning was hardly noticeable to ordinary citizens.

Aside from pro-government candidates' domination of state-run publications and TV channels, Sadowski claimed some opposition and independent candidates were the victims of dirty tricks by pro-Lukashenka media outlets.

Opposition leader Mikalay Statkevich -- a candidate for president in the disputed 2010 vote that sparked protests who has served jail terms for his activism -- has called on his supporters to stage protest demonstrations on September 12, when the election results are expected to be announced.

Some 600 people were arrested when police forcibly dispersed mass protests after the presidential election in December 2010.

In July 2011, hundreds of protesters were beaten and many detained after a month of antigovernment demonstrations across the country.



Those crackdowns sparked international criticism and deepened the regimes diplomatic isolation.

Balancing Act

Lukashenka has sought in recent years to reopen even limited relations with the West, pardoning some jailed opposition leaders and hosting Ukraine peace talks.

The European Union this year has lifted nearly all its sanctions imposed on Belarus over human rights violations.



While wooing the West, Lukashenka has kept close ties with Russia, which has enormous leverage over Belaruss economy and via media.

Asked about the restoration of ambassador-level relations between the United States and Belarus, Lukashenka, who cast his ballot together with his son Kolya, told RFE/RL that Minsk and Washington had agreed on the return of a U.S. ambassador to Belarus in principle, after the U.S. presidential election in November.

Belarus has not had a U.S. ambassador since 2008, when Minsk recalled its ambassador in Washington and insisted the U.S. ambassador leave Minsk.

A larger-than-normal number of women are also running for seats in the September 11 elections, something that Lukashenka tepidly endorsed. But in comments to reporters, he also appeared to reject the notion of a woman becoming president or head of state-- in Belarus, the United States, or elsewhere.

"Our society is not ready to elect a woman to assume the duties of president. If we needed a president for decoration only, as a person who would just receive and accompany [the visiting heads of state], then yes -- we would find a beauty, a woman whom we would support and elect as president," Lukashenka said.

With contributions by RFE/RL's Belarus Service
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has begun an official visit to Georgia for talks focusing on boosting Tbilisis military defenses.



Speaking in Tbilisi on September 10 at the start of his three-day visit, Le Drian said France would soon make a proposal for action so that Georgia is able to develop effective means of [ensuring] its air defense, which is central to its sovereignty.



Tbilisi last year signed a $10 million deal with Paris on the acquisition of air defenses.



Most of Georgias air-defense systems were destroyed in August 2008 during a brief war with Russia.



Le Drian met with Georgias Defense Minister Levan Izoria on September 10.



Frances embassy in Tbilisi said Le Drian was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirkashvili on September 11 and with President Giorgi Margvelashvili on September 12.



NATO leaders agreed in 2008 that Georgia will one day become a member of the alliance but has refused so far to put the former Soviet republic on a formal membership path amid concerns about Russia's reaction to the move.

Based on reporting by AFP and civil.ge
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the world faces the most dangerous decade since World War II and predicted that the historical period of the West's "undivided dominance over world affairs" is coming to an end.

Speaking on October 27 at a conference of international policy experts in Moscow, Putin said the decade ahead is "probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important...since the end of World War II."

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.

Putin laid the blame for the situation at the feet of Western countries, which he said have cast aside the norms of international affairs in order to maintain dominance and hold down countries they see as "second-class civilizations."

The Russian leader also said he had no regrets about sending troops into Ukraine and sought to explain the conflict as part of the efforts by Western countries to secure their global domination.

Putin claimed in his speech to the Valdai Discussion Club, a think tank, that the West had helped incite the conflict and also seeks to stoke a crisis over Taiwan in an attempt to enforce global dominance.

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, triggering the biggest military conflict in Europe since World War II and driving relations with Western countries that back Ukraine and its drive to be part of the European Union and NATO to their lowest depths since the Cold War.

Putin cast the conflict in Ukraine as a battle between the West and Russia for the fate of the second-largest Eastern Slav country. It is partly a "civil war," he said, as Russians and Ukrainians are one people. Kyiv has flatly rejected both of those ideas.

The goal of what Russia refers to as a "special military operation" is to take the eastern Donbas region, Putin said, adding that in his view the region would "not have survived" on its own had Russia not intervened militarily in Ukraine.

WATCH: A local official told Russian conscripts "You are not cannon fodder" in a video published online recently. The men responded by angrily shouting that, actually, that's exactly what they are.

But the war has gone far beyond the Donbas region, with Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, and other nonmilitary structures, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians across the country.

Putin used the speech largely to rail against the West, saying it has nothing to offer to the world "except its own domination," and the goal of globalization "is neocolonialism to dominate the world." He said Russia is only trying to defend its right to exist in the face these Western efforts.

Putin also asserted that more and more nations refuse to follow Washington's demands and Russia will never accept the West's attempts to dominate the world.

Citing gay pride parades and the acceptance of transgender people in Western countries, Putin also defended "traditional values" and said "nobody can dictate to our people how to develop and what society we should build."

He also said Russia has never considered the West an enemy and has many things in common with it but will continue to oppose the diktat of Western neoliberal elites.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Putin's speech presented no new ideas.

"We don't believe that Mr. Putin's strategic goals have changed here. He doesn't want Ukraine to exist as a sovereign, independent nation state," Kirby said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Putin's speech can be described as "for Freud," referring to psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud.



"The person who invaded a foreign country, annexed its land, and committed genocide accuses others of violating international law and the sovereignty of other countries? One truth: The person who started a wind will get a storm. The storm is coming," he said on Twitter.

Answering questions from journalists after his speech, Putin reiterated the Kremlin's assertion that Ukraine plans to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory. The claim has been dismissed as false by Ukraine and its allies, who say Russia may have raised the matter because it plans to use such a bomb in Ukraine as a pretext for escalation.

"It was me who ordered [Defense Minister Sergei] Shoigu to inform by phone all his colleagues about it," Putin said, adding that Russia does not need to use dirty bombs in Ukraine.

Putin also said he supported plans by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Ukraine's nuclear power plants for inspections.

"It must be done as soon and as openly as possible because we know that Kyiv authorities are now working to cover up such [dirty-bomb attack] preparations," Putin said, without giving any exact information proving the claim.

Ukraine invited IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities after the Kremlin made its unsubstantiated claim about the preparation of a dirty bomb -- which would use the explosion of a conventional warhead to spread radioactive material or chemicals over a wide area.

Ukraine said it would welcome inspections because it had "nothing to hide."

According to Putin, Russia has never talked about the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine despite his own promise to defend Russian territory with any means at our disposal" and saying his words were "not a bluff."

"We see no need for [using nuclear weapons in Ukraine]," Putin told reporters. "There is no sense for that, neither political, nor military."
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton blasted her rival Donald Trump for appearing on a Russian state-run television network and praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Clinton, campaigning in New York on September 9, said the Republican candidate's appearance on RT America on September 8, one day after he praised Putin for being a better leader than U.S. President Barack Obama, demonstrates that he is not fit to fill the highest office in the nation.

"Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a reality television show," Clinton said. "It's not a serious presidential campaign, and it is beyond one's imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin."

Critics say the RT network, which carries programs in both Russian and English, is a propaganda arm of Putin's government.

Trump told the network he did not think Russia's government was behind the hack of Democratic party e-mails this year, and he doubted Moscow is trying to interfere in the U.S. election, though cyber experts have traced the e-mail hack to Russia.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters


At least 10 people were killed late on September 9 in two suicide bombings claimed by Islamic State at a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.

More than 28 people were wounded in the attack at Nakheel Mall across from the oil ministry, the sources said. One bomb went off at the entrance to the mall, the other in the parking lot.

Unconfirmed video published on Facebook showed what appeared to be four separate fires, including two cars engulfed in flames, under a highway overpass near the mall amid the wailing sirens of first responders.

IS's Amaq news agency said that two suicide bombers, one wearing a vest and the other in a car, had targeted "a gathering of Shi'ites" on Palestine Street.

The militants have lost ground in the past year to U.S.-backed government forces and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias. Yet such bombings show the group can still strike outside the territory its controls in northern and western Iraq.

A car bombing in July killed 324 in one of the deadliest such attacks since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters


What a difference a month makes.

At the start of August, the extremist group that calls itself Islamic State (IS) controlled a large part of the border between Syria and Turkey, while the U.S.-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), a multiethnic group made up primarily of Kurdish YPG fighters, raced to recapture as much of that territory as they could, as quickly as they could. On August 24, Turkish tanks and soldiers crossed the border near Jarablus and have since driven IS out of the entire border area. The Turkish military and the Syrian rebel groups it directly supports have advanced approximately 20 kilometers south and 50 kilometers west from Jarablus in just two weeks.

On September 7, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli told journalists that could push deeper into Syria. Turkeys Anadolu news agency reports:

Canikli spoke to reporters after a cabinet meeting in Ankara and said: By the 15th day of the operation, unfortunately, we have four martyrs and 19 injured so far.

"Sixteen from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have been martyred and 27 others have been injured. Nearly 110 Daesh [a derogatory term for IS], PYD and YPG terrorists were killed and there are five injured as well", he added.

The deputy PM said over 770 square kilometers of territory had been cleared of Daesh and was now under the control of the FSA.

Several fascinating data points can be gleaned from Caniklis statements. The most glaring: In the eyes of the Turkish government, there is no difference between IS and the Kurdish groups which the United States has armed and supplied to fight IS. This could have serious consequences for the fight against IS moving forward since, again, the Kurdish SDF has been Washingtons main tool against IS in Syria. This also could lead to a wider conflict between Turkey and various Kurdish groups, which raises the second point: Canikli is signaling that Turkey is willing to push deeper into Syria, particularly into territory already either owned or adjacent to areas currently under the control of the SDF.

In fact, on the same day Canikli spoke to the press, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama at the G20 meeting and told journalists that the two leaders agreed to push together toward the IS hub of Raqqa:

"Raqa is the most important center of Daesh," Erdogan told Turkish journalists aboard his plane as he returned from China, according to the daily Hurriyet.

"Obama wants to do something together especially on the issue of Raqa," he said. "I said there would be no problem from our perspective."

"I said 'our soldiers should come together and discuss, then what is necessary will be done'," Erdogan was quoted as saying without giving further details.

This opens the possibility that Turkish ground troops will be spearheading the campaign against IS. The Turkish military is professional, well-equipped, and as a member of NATO is proficient at coordinating with the United States, which will likely provide Turkey air support. It also means that Erdogan means to hold the United States to its word that it will not support Kurdish groups that operate west of the Euphrates River. Assuming the SDF understands this, withdraws before the advancing Turkish military, and there is no significant widening of the war between Turkey and the Kurds, all of this could be very bad news for IS.

Turkeys statements also belie another key fact -- the Turkish military has advanced extremely quickly, while suffering very few casualties. IS fighters have traditionally held their ground and fought to the death -- against the SDF in Syria and against the coalition in Iraq that is dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias. Yet IS withdrew from Jarablus without firing a shot and has completely folded in the face of the advancing Turkish troops. Its hard to say why this is so. There have certainly always been whispers of deep ties between the Turkish military intelligence apparatus and IS. This could just as easily be chocked up to sectarianism -- IS, a highly sectarian organization, can perhaps more easily justify to their adherents fighting Kurds and Shiite militias to the death than they can defying their fellow Sunnis. Of course, Occam's razor would suggest that the simplest answer is the most likely -- that IS has never fought a force as strong as Turkey, and that it is doing so while it is in an extremely weakened state.

In fact, the state of Islamic State is weak, indeed. It has suffered a series of crushing defeats in Syria, but it has also lost battles in Iraq, and one of its most important leaders has been killed in an apparent U.S. air strike in Syria.

ISs Amaq News Agency announced on August 30 that Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman for IS, was killed while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo. An unnamed U.S. defense official told Reuters that the U.S. coalition targeted Adnani in an air strike in the Syrian city of Al-Bab on August 30 but was unable to confirm his death.

That day, journalist and Syria watcher Julian Ropcke noticed unusual air traffic above Aleppo Province, in the area between the IS stronghold of Al-Bab and Aleppo city. One of the aircraft continued to make tight turns, crisscrossing the airspace repeatedly. Its a solid bet that this was a U.S. spy plane, perhaps a remotely piloted aerial vehicle.

On August 31, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces had killed Adnani and 40 other IS fighters in an air strike conducted by an Su-34 bomber in Maarrat Umm Hawsh. U.S. defense officials quickly responded by telling Reuters that the Russian claim was a joke, a statement which could be read as almost a confirmation that the U.S. was responsible for killing Adnani.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook confirmed that Russias claims are improbable since Russia has not targeted ISs leadership, has spent little time bombing IS in general, and generally does not use precision weapons in Syria -- all points that match what multiple analyses of Russias military campaign there have confirmed.

Adnanis prominence inside the extremist group is hard to overstate. Officially, he was ISs spokesperson, the mouthpiece for some of its most important statements. It was Adnani, not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the terror group, who first declared the creation of the caliphate in 2014. It was Adnani who also formulated one of the central tenants of ISs message, one that sets it apart from its counterparts like Al-Qaeda, that the self-declared Islamic State is not just a physical territory but also a state of spiritual being and a calling, and those who want to see the coming of an Islamic State should stay in their home countries and conduct terrorism there.

He was second in charge of the entire outfit, and his titles indicate that he would have taken over IS if current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were to be killed. He is also one of ISs old guard, one of the few remaining members of IS who had ties to the founder of the organization, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But Adnani was important for another reason: Not only was he effectively the governor of Syria, he was also born there, one of the few high-ranking officers in IS who call Syria home. Adnani hailed from Binnish, one of the hotbeds of protest against the Assad government. His death means that not only is IS without a governor in Syria, and without a spokesperson, and without one of its important theological architects, but it has also lost some of its legitimacy in Syria.

IS has always claimed that those Sunnis who live within its physical borders are now part of the founding of the Islamic caliphate. Yet as Turkish tanks roll in and liberate Syria from IS control from the north and west, and as the SDF continues to pressure IS from the north and east, it has become impossible to escape the images of Sunni Muslims, and indeed many others, celebrating in the streets after their oppressors have been pushed out.

IS is losing many battles, but the moral defeat it is suffering might be the most important development of them all.
A Pakistani court has denied bail for the detained father of a British woman thought to have been the victim of a so-called honor killing.



Samia Shahid, a 28-year-old who held both Pakistani and British citizenship, was murdered in July during a visit with her family at a village in Pakistan's Punjab Province.



Regional police in the province announced the arrest of her father, Chaudhry Muhammad, as an accessory to murder.



Shahids first husband, Muhammad Shakeel, has been charged with raping and killing her.



Defense lawyer Mian Arif said on September 10 that his bail application was rejected by the court.



The next hearing has been schedule within the next week in the city of Jhelum.

Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, and Dawn
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Two misdemeanor charges were dismissed Friday against a three-term member of the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors in a case in which the alleged victim accused Carson Tucker of inappropriately touching her at public functions at the same location two months apart.

On the recommendation of special prosecutor Frank LaRuffa, Judge Mayo K. Gravatt of Powhatan General District Court threw out charges of assault and sexual battery stemming from alleged encounters between Tucker and Michelle Whitehurst during different events attended by multiple people at Belmead Mansion in Powhatan.

His accuser, a retired Powhatan public school teacher, said the first incident occurred during a Dec. 16, 2014, Christmas party for the James River Master Naturalists, of which Tucker and Whitehurst are members. The second incident allegedly occurred during a Feb. 8, 2015, celebration of life service for a deceased family member of the naturalist group.

The prosecution today indicated (in court) that they had reviewed everything and determined that the charges should be dismissed, said defense attorney Anthony Tony Troy, who represented Tucker. They made a motion to dismiss the charges and the court granted the commonwealths motion, so the matters are over.

Assistant Chesterfield County Commonwealths Attorney Frank LaRuffa, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case, declined to comment. Whitehurst did not attend Fridays hearing.

Tucker, who was re-elected in November for a third-term representing Powhatans District 5, denied any wrongdoing from the start and said he was relieved the case was now concluded.

Im very grateful that this is behind all of us  me, the accuser and the community, said Tucker, 68. I certainly have been humbled by the experience, particularly by the overflowing kindness of a great many people who have been supportive during these very trying months.

My intention going forward is to continue to focus on the business of Powhatan County, especially on our plans for economic development and broadband, he added.

Whitehurst sought the sexual battery charge against Tucker on her own Dec. 15  one year after she said the alleged assault occurred  after she and her husband went to the Powhatan Sheriffs Office to speak to a Powhatan magistrate, who agreed to issue a warrant. A second warrant for simple assault was obtained on Jan. 20 of this year for the second alleged incident on Feb. 8, 2015  also at Belmead.

There was an allegation that this happened twice  both at the exact same location, Troy said.

In Whitehursts initial complaint, she alleged that Tucker touched her on the back, buttocks and legs on her right side in two incidents that occurred within a few minutes. Whitehurst also alleged in a statement that Tucker chased me out of the building at the end of the event.

Frank Whitehurst told a reporter with Powhatan Today, in an article published in December, that his wife originally made a complaint to Virginia State Police in April 2015, and that state police opened an investigation Dec. 8.

Tucker said between 35 and 40 people, including the accusers husband, were in attendance during the alleged incident at Belmead Mansion, a historic dwelling that is home to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. He said up to 25 people attended the celebration of life event.

Last December, Tucker told Powhatan Today that he was absolutely innocent and he could not understand why  if indeed something this horrific happened  his accuser waited until the day the statute of limitations ran out under Virginia law to file the first complaint against him.

Powhatan Today, like the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is owned by BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

On Friday, Tucker declined to say what may have prompted the allegations against him.

I dont want to speculate on that, he said.
The Virginia Commonwealth University Police Department will set up an administrative checkpoint this Saturday where officers will check drivers licenses and registrations, according to a press release.

The checkpoint will be on the 800 block of West Franklin Street, near Monroe Park, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. The checkpoint, which is one of several that occurs throughout the year, is funded by a grant from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Virginia State Police may assist on Saturday.
Two Richmond police officers were injured after a man they were attempting to arrest allegedly assaulted them with a frying pan.

Shortly before 1 a.m. Friday morning, police responded to the 1600 block of Spotsylvania Street in the Mosby Court public housing neighborhood for a reported domestic assault, according to Richmond police.

Two officers encountered Andre Mangram, who was welding a frying pan, and were injured trying to arrest him. One officer was hospitalized, while another was treated and released.

Mangram was charged with domestic assault, abduction and felony assault on officers.
Undertaking a development project can be a long, complicated process. But it didnt take L. Clarke Jones III and his business partners long to decide to develop an infill project in Richmonds Museum District.

All we had to do was drive by and say, Yep, well do that, said Jones, president of the family-owned Jones Realty and Construction Corp. It was a nice area of town, and my dad really loved it.

Joness father, L. Clarke Jones Jr., developed several residential communities in Greater Richmond, including Countryside and portions of Sleepy Hollow in western Henrico County. Clarke Jones III handled the companys real estate division, and his brothers, Kevin and Paty Jones, focused on the companys construction side.

After Clarke Jones Jr.s death in 2010, Kevin Jones left the company, but Clarke Jones III and Paty Jones continue to operate the real estate and construction firm.

Infill opportunities west of the Boulevard were rare back in 1997. The one at 3211 Grove Avenue came about after a fire destroyed a two-story, clapboard house that sat on a particularly large lot.

By the time the Jones family inspected the site, the house (built circa 1915) had been cleared away. But the houses on either side of it, at 3201 and 3219 Grove Avenue, were impressive. The one at 3201, designed by renowned architect D. Wiley Anderson, features a Colonial Revival-style design with a two-story porch supported by Doric columns, and the one at 3219 mixes the Queen Anne style with elements of the Italianate and Colonial Revival styles.

The Joneses werent alone in admiring the infill site. Dave Johannas, the architect Jones hired for the project, had been eying it, too.

I thought the site was an underrated property in an incredible location, and I had tracked it for several years prior to this project, said Johannas, founder of Johannas Design Group.

Jones subdivided the site into six lots, and Johannas and the Jones team  Clarke Jr., Clarke III, Kevin and Paty  set out to design a community that would respond to the vernacular of the adjacent neighborhood, Johannas said.

Jones and Kristy Cosley, an associate broker with Jones Realty and Construction Corp., handled permitting and public relations for the project, which Jones named Village Grove.

Before finalizing the designs, Johannas and the Jones team met with area homeowners to ensure the houses and landscaping satisfied their concerns about adding more density to the neighborhood.

We came up with six separate elevations in the Georgian style, Jones said. We wanted each of them to be different.

The focus on unique designs continued inside, with an emphasis on buyer-driven customization.

We came up with the facades, and each buyer did what they wanted inside the house, Jones said. We designed and built to their specifications. None of the six are alike on the inside.

The houses  located at 3205, 3207, 3209, 3211, 3213 and 3215 Grove Avenue  range in size from 2,522 square feet to 2,993 square feet.

While construction on the six houses was underway, Jones Realty and Construction Corp. also bought the Queen Anne-style house at 3219 Grove Avenue, which had been converted into a dentists office.

The house had been renovated in the 1970s, so that gave them a blank slate to restore it, said Jean Longest, a real estate agent with Long & Foster and the listing agent for Village Grove.

Jones Realty and Construction Corp. renovated the house and converted it back to a single-family residence. It also tore down an addition on the house and built a seventh, 4,438-square-foot house next to it.

Work on the original six infill houses wrapped up in 2001. Work on the seventh newly constructed house, at 3217 Grove Avenue, wrapped up in 2006.

We got an immediate positive response, and sales went very well, Longest said.

In fact, the project proved to be so successful Jones sought other places where he could repeat it.

We looked everywhere to find that situation because we had an awful lot of interest in duplicating what wed done, Jones said. We never found it.

Village Groves location  one of the reasons Johannas and the Joneses found it so appealing 20 years ago  still attracts homebuyers today. (The six new-construction houses that were originally planned for Village Grove have never gone back on the market, but the renovated Queen Anne at 3219 Grove Avenue sold for $1,050,00 in February, and the new-construction house next to it sold for $979,000 in 2010.)

But a lot of the developments abiding appeal lies in its architectural styles and landscaping, Longest said.

Its timeless architecture, and the homeowners have taken wonderful care of it, she said. I think it looks fantastic.

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NORFOLK  Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine came to Hampton Roads, home of the worlds largest naval base on Friday, to deliver perhaps his most strident attack to date on Republican Donald Trumps fitness to lead the nation.

Addressing several hundred on the campus of Old Dominion University, Kaine zeroed in on Trumps assertion this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a strong leader with high approval in his country, and Trumps running mate Mike Pences comment that Putin is arguably a better leader for his country than President Barack Obama is for the United States.

That irrational hostility towards President Obama, which started the very first day of his term from some of these people is unpatriotic and we got to call it out, the U.S. senator from Virginia said.

He added that Putin has run the Russian economy into the ground, persecutes and punishes his people and violates international law by sending troops into nations like Ukraine and Georgia.

If you cant tell the difference between leadership and dictatorship you wouldnt have passed a fifth grade civics exam, you shouldnt be a president of the United States, he said, his voice rising.

Dictatorship is not leadership. Tyranny is not leadership. Persecution is not leadership, tanking your economy is not leadership and if you look at that and you see something you like, then you are no leader either.

Recognizing he was speaking on a college campus, Kaine leveled attacks on Trumps now-defunct Trump University, calling it a bogus school while highlighting Democrat Hillary Clintons plan to help students graduate college debt-free.

Mindful that Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Kaine also told the crowd that Clinton, as a U.S. senator from New York, worked to get aid for first responders following the World Trade Center attacks.

Kaine arrived in Hampton Roads after being in Alabama earlier in the day. It was his first visit to the region since his announcement as Clintons running mate.

n n n

Tim Kaine hopes his clean-up tour can help convince Virginias active-duty military and veterans that Hillary Clinton isnt nearly as incompetent and/or corrupt as she appears, said Garren Shipley, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

But every Virginian who has ever worn the uniform knows that if theyd done what Hillary Clinton has done, theyd be in the stockade.

Del. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach, the Republican candidate for the 2nd District congressional seat, said Kaine was putting his decent reputation in Virginia on the line by aligning with Clinton.

Taylor said Kaine was in Hampton Roads to make people forget just how badly she endangered our national security for her own personal benefit. I think thats going to be a tough sell at ODU, where you have a lot of veterans and sons and daughters of veterans who understand what exactly she did.

n n n

The Clinton-Kaine ticket leads in Virginia according to recent polls. Virginia likely is key to Republican hopes to muster 270 electoral votes. Both Trump and Pence have made multiple stops in the state, and Pence is scheduled to appear in Fauquier County on Saturday at an event with state Republican leaders.

Kaine will spend part of the weekend in Richmond before heading to Ohio on Monday. He told the crowd that despite his 8-0 record in elections, they should not take Virginia for granted.

Were the underdog until they call us a winner, he said, describing his philosophy as wife Anne Holton nodded in agreement behind him.

All weve got to do is take care of business right here in Hampton Roads and across the commonwealth and Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

n n n

On Friday, in an afternoon speech to a group of conservative activists, Trump used the latest development in North Korea to attack Clinton, describing the situation as one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state.

He did not say whether he had a plan to address North Koreas claim that its latest atomic test  its fifth  will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.

Trump also suggested Clinton and others are wrong to outline their national security policies, because doing so could help the nations enemies. Maybe we shouldnt be so honest when it comes to military strategy, he said.

Clinton said the United States would not let North Korea pursue a nuclear weapon and said that as president, she would seek new sanctions in addition to those endorsed by the Obama administration and adopted earlier in the year with the United Nations. She added she would back allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan.

But she also said she would support the kind of negotiations that a group of countries engaged in with Iran over its nuclear program, because sanctions arent enough.

Trump was set to appear at a Friday night rally in Pensacola, Florida. Continuing her aggressive fundraising push, Clinton was to appear at two fundraisers in New York.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Canadian stocks tumbled Friday along with oil prices, as traders on both sides of the border grew anxious ahead of the upcoming U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.

An upbeat Canadian jobs report failed to shake Bay Street from its stupor.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index plunged 263.38 points, or 1.78 percent, to 14,539.88, the worst daily performance since the Brexit crisis.

Energy stocks fell 3 percent. Oct. WTI oil dropped $1.74, or 3.7 percent, to settle at $45.88/bbl on Nymex.

In economic news, Canada added 26,200 jobs in August thanks to a big jump in public sector hiring. However, the jobless rate rose to 7 percent as more people sought work.

CP Rail's (CP.TO) CFO is stepping down after just more than a year on the job.

Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO) aims to raise $650-million in a bought deal.

Telus (T.TO) said the iphone 7 will be available across Canada on Sept. 16.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Authorities in Bihar were in a fix after a woman was shown to have delivered 12 children in Bihar. Also, police have issued arrest warrant against a former surgeon.

By India Today Web Desk:

In Bihar, authorities lost it all when a woman was shown to have delivered 12 children within a year. If you are wondering how, then here it is.

The case came to light following a thorough investigation into the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in Kaimur, a south-western district more than 200 kilometres from the capital of the state Patna.

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The investigation revealed that one woman, listed in hospital registers as Mina Devi, 29, not only delivered 12 babies in a year but also underwent 14 tubectomy operations which are now widely known as "womb scam".



SCAM

Authorities say 47 NGOs and nursing homes, in alleged scam with government health officials, faked tubectomy registrations and entered fictitious names of beneficiaries in the registers to draw off government funds available under the NRHM.

Mina Devi happens to be one such fictitious name among many appearing on the list of government beneficiaries who allegedly underwent procedures.



INVESTIGATION

"Our investigation has revealed one Mina Devi underwent 12 deliveries between July 7, 2009, to February 9, 2010, and was operated on for tubectomy 14 times between November 8, 2009, and March 28, 2010," deputy superintendent of police Dilip Kumar Jha, who investigated the case, told journalists on Thursday, according to a Gulf News report.

The investigation further showed that at least 11 women allegedly delivered children five to 12 times in a year.

According to the inquiry, one of the doctors claimed to have conducted as many as 725 operations in just a week.

The police have issued arrest warrants against a former civil surgeon and heads of several NGOs involved in the tubectomy scam, and all of them are absconding.



VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

"Denying the women their pleasure of motherhood is a flagrant violation of human rights. Such crimes can't be allowed in any civil society," the SHRC chairperson Justice Bilal Nazki said while passing the order, adding, "This act is barbaric and prima facie it appears these surgeries were only performed to get incentives by way of package amounts by insurance companies".

As per the report, a total of 554 women had their uteruses removed by doctors during the course of surgeries although none of them had any serious complications.



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Aam Aadmi Party stares at another controversy with police reports confirming the charges of sodomy and torture by Amarjeet Singh, AAP party candidate, on a 17-year-old.

24 out of the 32 candidates given tickets recently have a dubious past, confirm sources from the party. (Photo: Reuters)

By Manjeet Sehgal: AAP has again kicked off a major controversy recently by giving a party ticket to a person accused of sodomising and physically torturing a 17-year-old youth.

According to police records, Amarjeet Singh who has been declared as a party candidate from Roopnagar assembly constituency had sodomised and brutally tortured a 17-year-old youth who worked as a trainee driver with him.

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The medical report also confirmed the crime.

KEJRIWAL IGNORED THESE CHARGES?



Arvind Kejriwal had ignored these evidences when AAP's anti-corruption cell members tried to apprise him at his residence in Delhi before the first list of candidates was released.

Colonel Baljit Singh Chahal, who was one of the three members present at Kejriwal's residence, has disclosed to India Today how Kejriwal treated the serious allegations.

NOT A CLEAN PARTY



24 out of the 32 candidates given tickets recently have a dubious past, confirm sources from the party.

The three leaders who tried to meet Arvind Kejriwal today to discuss the same issue were thrown out. They staged a protest outside Kejriwal's camp office in Ludhiana and criticised him.

READ: AAP sends legal notice accusing man of defamation, he slams both party and Kejriwal in one tweet

Also read: AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan booked for sexual harassment moments after he offers resignation



Sources close to the party said there are allegations against AAP leaders for selling tickets between Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crores and have ignored the genuine party workers.

Meanwhile the party currently brainstorming the issue has said that it may cancel the tickets, once allegations are sustained with evidences.

AAP in Punjab: Has the party already lost the plot in the state?

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NEW YORK (AP)  Hillary Clinton's campaign said Friday she now plans to visit ground zero to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.

Clinton will arrive at the memorial Sunday morning before the annual moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., marking the moment that the first plane struck the skyscraper's north tower, her spokeswoman Julie Wood told The Associated Press on Friday.

Clinton, who was a senator from New York when the attacks took place in 2001, had not previously indicated that she would visit the memorial for its annual commemoration. But her campaign notified officials at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum late Thursday that she would like to attend the morning's events, according to a person briefed on the decision but not authorized to speak publicly before her visit was officially announced.

The former Secretary of State is not expected to make any public remarks.

Her Republican rival, New York native Donald Trump, is not slated to attend. A spokeswoman for Trump declined to discuss the celebrity businessman's schedule for the day.

Both campaigns have confirmed they intend to halt television ads for the anniversary, keeping with a tradition of avoiding partisan presidential politics on 9/11.

A spokesman for the September 11 memorial told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the museum had not heard from either candidate that they planned to attend but indicated that a last-minute change would be welcome. Clinton's decision to mark the anniversary at the World Trade Center site has a precedent: in 2008, the last time an incumbent wasn't running for the White House, Barack Obama and John McCain set aside their political differences to make a joint appearance at the site in New York.

Trump and Clinton are the first New Yorkers to become their parties' nominees for president since nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks. Both candidates have made their experiences that day part of their campaign narratives.

Clinton has frequently highlighted her efforts  including in a campaign ad released Friday  to aid those affected by the World Trade Center collapse. She made frequent trips to the attack site and her staff has highlighted her efforts to help secure medical benefits for first responders sickened at ground zero.

Trump, meanwhile, has said he donated construction equipment to the recovery effort and gave $100,000 to the memorial after touring it for the first time earlier this year. But he also received widespread criticism for claiming that "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated when the towers toppled, a claim for which there is no proof.

The lower Manhattan memorial  now a peaceful open space flanked by soaring new skyscrapers  has hosted President Barack Obama and other elected officials at previous commemorations but in recent years, including Sunday, the speakers at the event will largely be family members of the deceased.
GENEVA (AP)  The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unlikely new military partnership targeting the Islamic State and al-Qaida as well as new limits on President Bashar Assad's forces.

After a daylong final negotiating session in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight Saturday that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential "turning point" in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria's Russian-backed government and U.S.-supported rebel groups.

The cease-fire begins at sundown Sept. 12, Kerry said, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

"Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria," Kerry said. "We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on people's choices."

"It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we  and we expect other supporting countries  will strongly encourage them to do," he added.

Kerry's negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counterterrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians under U.N. auspices that have been stalled for weeks. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was informed of the accord, and prepared to comply.

"The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague, have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace," Kerry said, citing a number of recent meetings with Lavrov.

"This is just the beginning of our new relations," Lavrov said.

The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against Syria's armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed. Washington must persuade "moderate" rebels to break ranks with the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, and other extremist groups.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.

The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against Islamic State and Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.

Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.

But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.

Russia, in response, has chafed at America's financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be "wise" for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.

"Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody," Kerry said. "It is profoundly in the interests of the United States."

The proposed level of U.S.-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal U.S. discussions.

After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."

At one point, Lavrov said he was considering "calling it a day" on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a U.S. response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, "This is from the U.S. delegation," and two bottles of vodka, adding, "This is from the Russian delegation."

The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the U.S. and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.

Getting Assad's government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people.

Assad's government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.

Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries  notably into Aleppo.

"If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten," he said. "If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim."

But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturday's plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the U.S. is unlikely to take any action against him given Obama's longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.
AAP MLA Amantullah Khan has been booked for molestation. This comes after he sent a letter to Delhi Chief Minister offering his resignation.

By Ilma Hasan: The Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan sent his resignation letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today, as the leader found himself in the middle of yet another controversy.

Khan could possibly be facing arrest after his sister-in-law lodged a case of molestation against him at the Jamia Nagar police station. This is the second time the MLA has been accused of harassing a woman.

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KHAN BEING TARGETED?

Khan in his defense said, "We are related, but I haven't met her in three years. Police are after me without any proof, would a BJP leader be treated the same way. My only fault is the fact that I'm from the Aam Aadmi Party"

Khan, in his letter to the Chief Minister, wrote, "Some people are not liking my honesty and dedication. Therefore I would like to get relieved of all responsibilities party has given me, I resign from all posts.".

Khan requested to be relieved of his duties as Jamia Nagar's MLA and Chairman of Delhi Waqf Board.

However, protocol requires an MLA to give their resignation letter to the Speaker of the Delhi Assembly. But Khan has addressed his letter to Kejriwal, which the party hasn't accepted yet.

Amanatullah has repeatedly come under authorities' scanner after his alleged involvement in a recruitment scam in Waqf Board surfaced in the first week of September.

The Anti-Corruption Branch had raided Waqf Board's Office on Thursday, a move Amanatullah had dubbed as an interference by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Najeeb Jung.

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Tech enthusiasts were expecting Microsoft to announce something about the highly anticipated Microsoft Surface Pro 5 at the IFA 2016 Berlin event, but, the same did not happen. Now, rumors are that Microsoft has set an October release date for the Surface Pro 5 to compete with Apple's Macbook Pro 2016. The next gen Macbook Pro is also expected to get unveiled in October.

The reason why Surface Pro fans are eagerly awaiting for the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 reason is the host of impressive specs and features which are expected to come preloaded in the next gen laptop/tablet hybrid. Previous reports suggested that Microsoft was delaying Surface Pro 5 release due to Intel's latest Kaby Lake processing chip, reported VineReport. It is to be noted that Intel has already announced the 7th generation Core processor and started shipping the new gen chips to device makers. So, there are chances that the Redmond might unveil Surface Pro 5 this year. It is believed that use of Intel's latest Kaby Lake chip will double the efficiency of Microsoft next generation Surface Pro tablet.

The upcoming Microsoft hybrid laptop is expected to come preloaded with Windows 10 Professional Redstone 2 operating system. Notably, the first preview of Windows 10 Redstone 2 update has already been rolled out to insiders since early August. Among other specs, the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is expected to feature a 4K Ultra HD display, AMD or Nvidia Pascal GPU, 16 GB of RAM, a 16MP rear camera, an 8MP front camera, a Surface Pen and Thunderbolt 3. It is rumored that the laptop-tablet hybrid will get rolled out in 2K and 4K display models.

As far as price of the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is concerned, the laptop is expected to cost $899 for the base model and $1,599 for the high end model. Readers are advised to take the information with a grain of salt as nothing has been officially announced by the makers yet.

Stay tuned to SWR for more updates and latest news on Microsoft Surface Pro 5 release date, specs and price details.
In a report on BBC, Cancer Research UK found out that 3 out of 4 people were unaware that obese people are prone in developing 10 different types of cancer. The data was pooled from an online survey of more than 3,000 UK respondents. UK health officials are questioned on their efficiency of their campaign particularly in disseminating necessary information like this to the public.

This campaign on obesity started when a research surfaced which concludes that obesity contributes in the development of more than 18,000 cases of cancer in the UK annually. There were 10 types of cancer linked to obesity which includes esophageal, liver, breast, gall bladder, colon, prostate, kidney, pancreatic, ovarian and uterine cancer. Among the 10 types, colon, kidney, uterine and post-menopausal breast cancer were the most common.

A person can determine if they are obese based on the ratio of their height and weight or the Body Mass Index. If your BMI value is more than 30, you are considered as obese. Statistics in the UK reveals that quarter of the adult population in the UK is classified as obese.

Cancer Research UK urges the government to take action in the said information deficiency. They also emphasized that a national campaign should be implemented especially to address obesity in children.

"The government acknowledges that marketing junk food to kids is a problem and has removed these adverts during children's programming." Alison Cox, director of prevention at Cancer Research UK said in the BBC report.

Public Health England already launched several programs to address the issue. They are expecting that by 2020, all companies in the food industry will comply with rule to decrease 20% sugar content in their product.

Currently, Cancer Research UK is strengthening its information campaign on the link of obesity to cancer development. CRUK claims that obesity is the most preventable single cause of cancer next to smoking. They are also urging the government to implement policies, like banning junk food TV ads and a tax increase for drinks with high sugar content, to implement their campaign in a national scale.
The SpaceX founder Elon Musk is evidently despondent with his Falcon 9 rocket's explosion last week in Florida. He depicted it as "the most complex and difficult failure" they ever had in 14 years.

"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. He further said that the company is currently investigating the accident. The investigation is directed by the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Office, according to Reuters.

Elon Musk: launch pad accident most difficult failure' in SpaceXs history https://t.co/nxEvB5QNt2  Guardian Tech (@guardiantech) September 10, 2016

The rocket burst into flames on September 1, 2016. It was scheduled for launching two days later. The nine engines of the rocket had not been lit yet for a test firing when suddenly there was an explosion on the upper stage. Musk said that there was no apparent heat source. He further explained that the trouble appeared to originate around the upper stage's oxygen tank, as noted by the Guardian.

Elon Musk calls SpaceX rocket explosion its "most difficult and complex failure" in 14 years https://t.co/jwxfaugwAX pic.twitter.com/XCb38MruWp  CNN (@CNN) September 9, 2016

Meanwhile, Dex Torricke-Barton, the SpaceX spokesman stated that they are continuing to thoroughly examine last week's loss of Falcon, with support from the FAA, NASA, the US Air Force and industry experts. He further said that their priority is to safely and reliably return to flight.

The explosion caused about $200 million loss of communications satellite, which was owned by Israel-based Space Communication. The satellite was supposed to be used by Facebook and Eutelsat to provide internet connectivity in some parts of Africa. On the other hand, SpaceX has not spoken yet on how much damage was done to its launch pad, which was located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 9 (PTI) RSS student outfit ABVP maintained its dominance in DUSU polls bagging three seats including that of President, while Congress NSUI made a comeback by winning the Joint Secretarys post in the results announced today.

Amit Tanwar is the new President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) while ABVPs Priyanaka and Ankit Singh have been elected as Vice President and Secretary respectively, according to the Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, D S Rawat.

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NSUI candidate Mohit Garid won the Joint Secretarys seat, preventing a hat-trick by ABVP which had bagged all the four seats in the DUSU polls last year as well as in 2014. AAPs Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, which was defeated last year in its debut, did not contest the polls this year.

A significant number of 17,712 NOTA votes which were introduced for the first time in DUSU polls, were also exercised by the students.

In the keenly contested Presidents post, Amit Tanwar got 16,357 votes defeating NSUI candidate Nikhil Yadav by a margin of 4,680 votes, Rawat said.

Priyanka, who is the lone girl in the elected panel, obtained 15,592 votes. She defeated her closest rival by a margin of 2,455 votes votes.

Ankit Singh Sangwan, who won the Secretarys post got 15,518 votes. He won by a margin of 1,383 votes.

NSUIs winning candidate Mohit Garid garnered the maximum votes in the elected panel at 16,526 votes, winning the seat by a margin of 2466 votes.

The DUSU polls were held yesterday in two phases for electing representatives from 17 candidates of ABVP, AISA and NSUI.

While seven candidates were in the race for the post of President, 4 nominations were validated for the post of Vice-President

Over 36 per cent out of a total of 1,23,246 voters had cast their votes at 117 booths in 51 colleges.

Celebrations broke out with supporters of the winning candidates dancing to the drumbeats and distributing sweets outside the counting centre.

The winners were garlanded and procession were taken out by ABVP supporters who paid tributes at Swami Vivekanands statue in the Arts Faculty of the university. PTI GJS VIT RT

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Nissan is recalling 134,000 cars and SUVs worldwide, mainly in the United States and Canada due to a potential defect in their break system, the company said on Friday. The recall covers 2016-2017 Maxima large cars equipped with intelligent cruise control, 2015-2017 Murano SUVs, and some 2015-2016 Murano hybrids. About 120,000 of the affected units are registered in the U.S. while 11,000 are from Canada.

"A brake fluid leak onto the circuit board will result in an electrical short, increasing the risk of a fire," the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a report posted Friday. A spokesperson for Nissan said the leak can cause an electrical short, which could lead to a fire. The company also said the possible defective stems came from a third-party supplier.

"Drivers are advised to stop driving the car if they notice the anti-lock brake system (ABS) warning light on the dashboard is illuminated," said the spokesperson who also told drivers to park the car outside and call the company to tow, and bring the affected vehicle to a dealership for inspection.

Nissan said it found out about the issue when it received a report of a fire in a 2016 Maxima model on June 7. An investigation into the issue revealed several more incidents. Nissan released a statement, saying the issue has been corrected since its discovery. It also said it would notify the owners of affected units this month on what to do should the ABS light came on.

The company says owners of units with defective seals on the break actuator pump can have them replaced for free after inspection by dealers on the pumps' serial numbers. It also says a letter will be sent to owners to notify them once parts are available.
New research suggests that insecticide exposure has indeed gone far that it affects the egg-laying abilities of queen bees. It examined imidacloprid which belongs to neonicotinoids, a class of nicotine-based insecticides. Honeybees are usually exposed to the latter during pollination while foraging for the pollen and nectar for their colonies.

The study was led by Judy Wu-Smart, a professor and entomologist from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. According to Phys.org, they found that the world's best-selling insecticide may hurt the egg-laying ability of queen bees and hinder the maintenance of a healthy colony. In colonies exposed to imidacloprid-laced syrup, queen bees laid fewer eggs than those in unexposed colonies. The former laid from one-third to up to two-thirds as many as the latter.

Queens are the only ones who can reproduce individual laying eggs; hence they are of great importance. According to Wu-Smart, "One queen can lay up to 1,000 eggs a day. If her ability to lay eggs is reduced, that is a subtle effect that isn't (immediately) noticeable but translates to really dramatic consequences for the colony."

Moreover, exposed colonies also have bigger proportions of empty cells compared to unexposed ones. They likewise store less pollen. The results indicate poor brood health in colonies that were exposed to imidacloprid. Meanwhile, Gizmodo India reported that apart from the queens' impaired egg-laying ability, other effects of insecticide involve queens having poor locomotor activity and workers having foraging and hygienic activity impairments. Such results indicate that neonicotinoid insecticides play a big role in the global bee population decline.

Amidst the adverse effects of neonicotinoids, Wu-Smart does not consider banning the insecticides. However, she calls for the regulation of insecticide-treated seeds just like how the industry does with various other application techniques. The aforementioned details is quite alarming. For this, insecticide users should closely follow what the experts recommend. Bees are a part of our environment that needs to be saved alongside other creatures and resources.
We always believed that the origin and evolution of life happened on Earth, even from the most basic formation of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen to form the very first organic molecule. However, a phenomenal discovery of organic molecules found in a comet dust shook the entire science community.

On a data gathered by European Space Agency's Rosetta aircraft, a complex organic molecule with a very high molecular weight was found in a dust surrounding Comet 67P/ Churyumov- Gerasimenko. They found two carbon-containing molecules they nicknamed Kenneth and Julliette, as reported by Gizmodo. This may not sound a superb discovery to you, but as we all know, the building blocks of all cells in our body are organic biomolecules which are just made up of different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. This simply suggests that life has an alien origin.

According to Blastr, one of the researchers and co-author of the study, Herve Cottin, said that "Our analysis reveals carbon in a far more complex form than expected. It is so complex; we can't give it a proper formula or a name!"

This discovery further strengthens the hypothesis that life (or rather the building blocks of life) came from the outer space entered Earth when a celestial body, like a comet, crash-landed on earth. This also explains the carbon traces found in several meteorites. This also opens the idea that there might be other living being living on other planets since organic molecules are not only present but also abundant in space.

A similar discovery of a complex organic molecule spotted at a young solar system supports that there must be an Earth-like planet which also supports life somewhere in the vast universe.

Rosetta aircraft is programmed to crash land on an asteroid just after its discovery of the complex organic molecule. NASA is now more determined to conduct more space missions to collect and analyze the sample to further establish the implications of this discovery. The full research was published by Nature.
Ride hailing options on Google Maps in the United States now include Lyft and Gett too, apps that are seen as Uber alternatives, as per a new announcement. The new development also implies that Google Maps is now one of the leading rides booking mobile apps, primarily due to its estimation of fares and waiting times for all the services at the touch of a button.

"Say you're looking to get from the High Line to Times Square in Manhattan. When typing these locations into the Google Maps app, you will see a ride services tab appear alongside driving, transit and walking directions", said Sara Torti, senior product manager of Google Maps. "Just tap the icon and you will find fare estimates and pick up times from multiple ride service partners, depending on driver availability". Torti also added that the app will show certain services of each partner, and that the Lyft line can be accessed through it.

Google Maps had launched these features for Uber in 2014 however, as per a report, Uber could be developing its own map system with a $500 million investment, which implies that it could soon stop depending on Google Maps, if all goes according to its plan. For now, the updates for Lyft and Gett are live on both iOS and Android versions of Google Maps. Incidentally, Lyft is becoming more available across various locations spread out in the US, whereas Gett is still centric to New York City at the moment.

With the new additions, Google Maps is going to make the life of commuters, who bank on ride hailing apps on a daily basis, easier. The addition of Lyft and Gett will also be beneficial because users can choose the most cost effective ride sharing option. Google Maps will be displaying the pricing of the different companies side by side, which also implies that in the future, competing companies may be forced to rethink their prices, leading to overall lower prices.
FLORENCE, S.C.  A former appellate court judge and current Boeing executive has been tapped as the keynote speaker for the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerces annual membership luncheon.

J. Michael Luttig, executive vice president and general counsel of Boeing, will speak on Sept. 23 at the Florence Civic Center.

We all know how great it is to see companies like Boeing locating in South Carolina. It shows anything is possible with the right plan and state support structure, said Mike Miller, president of the chamber. Having Michael Luttig speak at our luncheon will help us understand Boeings plan and will give insight into whats next in this industry and what it means to our region.

Luttig, 62, leads the companys law department, a position hes held for 10 years, according to Boeings website. Hes also a member of Boeings executive council and came aboard after serving 15 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 15 years.

Luttig, a resident of Chicago, earned his bachelor of arts degree from Washington and Lee University before gaining a juris doctorate from the University of Virginia. He spent two years working in the Supreme Courts office of the administrative assistant to the chief justice during college. After law school, he worked at the White House, first as a special assistant to the counsel and then as assistant counsel, during which time he helped Justice Sandra Day OConnor prepare for her Senate hearings during her nomination to the nations highest court.

Luttig served as law clerk to former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger and also clerked for Antonin Scalia when he served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. In the mid to late 1980s, Luttig worked for New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwells Washington, D.C., office before serving as assistant attorney general and counselor to the attorney general at the Department of Justice. During that stint, he helped Justices Souter and Thomas prepare for the Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court.

For more information about the luncheon, contact the chamber at 843-665-0515 or email Mike Miller at mmiller@flochamber.com.
The smash hit number of actor Simbu's Thalli Pogathey from Achcham Enbathu Madamaiyada, will be shot in Bangkok over the weekend, say reports.

By India Today Web Desk: Ever since the release of the song Thalli Pogathey, Gautham Menon and AR Rahman have been keeping fans with bated breaths.

However, actor Simbu's much-awaited Achcham Enbathu Madamaiyada, which was supposed to hit the screens yesterday (September 9), is once again delayed.

According to latest reports, Gautham is yet to shoot the smash hit number Thalli Pogathey, which will now be shot in Bangkok.

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A source close to the unit said, "The song will be shot over Saturday and Sunday in Bangkok. Simbu already left this morning while the rest of the team leaves tonight. Contrary to reports, it won't be a dancer number. It will be shot like a love montage track."

Tipped to be a romantic drama, the film stars Simbu and Manjima Mohan in the lead and is slated to release by this month-end.

The same song for the Telugu version, starring Naga Chaitanya, was shot earlier this year in Turkey.

"Unfortunately, Simbu couldn't join the team in Turkey in the last minute. Hence, the makers had to only shoot the Telugu version of the song with Naga Chaitanya," he said.

With the most of the project wrapped up including post-production, the makers are planning to release both the versions of the film on September 30.

In Telugu, the film is titled Saahasam Swasaga Sagipo.



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It was 2010 and Mukesh Ambani, the Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman, had only just acquired Infotel Broadband from telecom pioneer Mahendra Nahata. The company owned broadband spectrum in 22 zones across India. The acquisition was to be the springboard from which Ambani would launch his next telecom offensive, even more disruptive than the launch in 2002 of mobile telephony at throwaway prices. Brainstorming with close confidant Manoj Modi to blueprint the offensive, Ambani spelt out his brief. Modi was to focus on two key areas: he was to procure cutting-edge technology, and band together the old warhorses from Reliance Infocomm, the men who, back then, had helped him roll out mobile telephony that was "cheaper than sending postcards" (the challenging prescription Dhirubhai Ambani is said to have given his older son to make a successful go of the telecom business).

What followed over the next six years were the birth pangs of what Ambani calls "the world's biggest start-up", leading up to the birth of Reliance Jio, Ambani's second coming in the telecom industry. This time, the disruption is all but certain: data packages are being sold at a fifth of the prevailing market prices, not to mention voice, video, music and content being given free to subscribers for the first four months, beginning September 5. As for voice services, i.e., phone calls, they will be forever free. Or so is Ambani's seemingly unbelievable offer to consumers, and the crux of his threat to other telcos, whose businesses are currently heavily skewed towards paid voice services. Illustratively, 70 percent of market leader Bharti Airtel's revenues currently come from voice (see box: What You Pay for Voice).

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India is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the Asia-Pacific region, with nearly 103.6 million smartphones sold in 2015, an increase of 28.8 percent compared with 2014, says research firm IDC. India is also the second largest in terms of internet users, whose numbers stand at 277 million, behind China and ahead of the US. However, the quality of its telecom services leaves much to be desired. Most subscribers have struggled with-and complained bitterly about-'call drops'. This is because Indian telcos, while making merry on the stupendous growth in the number of subscribers, have not made commensurate investments in beefing up critical infrastructure such as spectrum and towers. As a result, calls drop all the time inside high-rises, on highways, in trains and on metros, either because the limited spectrum available with carriers does not allow them to beam signals over long distances or tall buildings, or because the increase in data use by consumers shrinks the capacity of telecom towers, affecting voice services.

Ambani knew that for a generation used to 24x7 access to social media and information, a cheaper, more robust service would be impossible to resist. But, once chastened, he did not want to repeat the mistakes that led to the Infocomm debacle. So, he invested heavily in futuristic technology: LTE (or Long-Term Evolution) is flexible and compatible with most mobile devices of the day (see box: A Guide to the LTE Revolution). He also made sure that back-up infrastructure was well established, and collaborated with contract manufacturers such as Taiwan's Foxconn to develop devices that are cheap, light and easy to handle. And last, but certainly not the least, he dangled the irresistible bait of a tariff plan that makes voice free forever-and data affordable, though the jury is still out on this one. In a freebie-obsessed, price-sensitive market, the plan looked a winner (see boxes: Supply Shock: Jio Tariff Plans, Reliance Jio: What's on Offer).

To be sure, incumbent mobile telecom operators-Airtel, Vodafone and Idea-have also launched 4G LTE services, but Reliance Jio is the only one whose entire network is LTE-enabled. Jio has also made huge investments in laying fibre optic cables to ensure high quality data transmission. Besides, only Jio and Airtel, so far, have a pan-India 4G presence. Jio is also the only firm to offer Voice over LTE (VoLTE), an internet-based technology for transmitting voice data over the LTE network, offering better call quality.

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The ambition is to acquire 100 million customers in the first year of operations, and, thereafter, retain those customers and keep adding more, striving to replicate what China's state-owned mobile telephony provider, China Mobile, did in recent years. (China Mobile migrated 400 million users to LTE in a matter of 18 months, beginning 2014, at times adding 22-23 million subscribers in a single month.) Or, like South Korea or Australia, which are fast moving toward 4G-only networks, replace 2G and 3G entirely.

The first to launch 4G services in India was Bharti Airtel, which began by offering it in 296 cities in August 2015. By December 2015, Bharti had invested Rs 40,000 crore in the segment. The Aditya Birla Group-controlled Idea followed with their launch in December 2015 and Vodafone in February this year. But users have been slow to switch to 4G, largely because of the same problems they experienced with 3G-poor data transmission. For Ambani, this looks like the opportunity he had been waiting for.

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"Today, India is ranked 155th in the world for mobile broadband internet access, out of 230 countries," said Ambani, 59, at the RIL Annual General Meeting (AGM) of shareholders in Mumbai on September 1. "Jio is conceived to change this. I have no doubt that with the launch of Jio, India's rank will rise to among the top ten." The audience cheered, but not the markets, as concerned investors gave a thumbs down to the move, driving RIL shares down 2.7 percent to close at Rs 1,029 on the day, wiping out Rs 9,400 crore in market value. The fear was that with such an aggressive investment, without clarity on when the money could be recouped, RIL would bleed not only rival telecom operators but even hamper its own prospects in the near term.

With the launch of cheap, high quality access to data, the digitalisation of a whole gamut of services is expected to be quick, and the consequences, far-reaching. E-governance, e-learning and e-healthcare-all buzzword services that were lost in implementation, largely because of the slow adoption of digital technology-are now expected to blossom. Ambani did not miss the opportunity to align his plans with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a 'Digital India'; however, this was not without its costs. The day after the AGM, a Jio advertisement on the front pages of national newspapers, featuring a photograph of the PM, came in for severe criticism on social media as it appeared to show the PM publicly endorsing the product. While RIL sources said they did not think it was wrong to use the PM's photograph in the advertisement, stating that there was ample precedent for such campaigns, many believe that the controversy was something RIL could have done without.

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India has 900 million active mobile telephony subscribers (more accurately, 900 million active SIM cards), of which about 254 million are served by Airtel (see chart: Pie in the Sky). Other big players are Vodafone with 198 million, Idea with 175 million and RCom with 101 million. As in his other businesses, Ambani seems to be playing a low-price, high-volume game with Jio, and in the process, is disrupting the market, stunning rivals and exciting prospective customers-at least for now. Jio is also expected to help the mobile broadband market achieve its target of around 650 million users by 2020. "From 132 million to 650 million mobile broadband users by 2020 needs a revolution. It's begun with Reliance Jio," tweeted Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra immediately after Ambani's much-publicised speech.

"Make no mistake, this is war," says Romal Shetty, a partner with consulting firm KPMG India. "In the immediate short term, that is, three to four months, everything is for free. Even if it is [only] for 10-20 million subscribers, it can disrupt the market." This could lead to a significant dip in the revenues of rival firms, which have been getting three-quarters of their revenues out of voice services. "For the next 12-18 months, there will be pain for incumbents," he adds. India has only 7 million 4G subscribers, say reports, and the segment is growing at 10-15 percent. 3G, which has seen slower adoption than 2G, has around 300 million subscribers. "Reliance Jio will transform India, give every Indian huge data capacity, create one virtual nation, and disrupt incumbents who give lousy service," says T.V. Mohandas Pai, former Infosys CFO and chairman, Manipal Education.

Making voice calls free and pricing data well below existing tariffs will force existing players to lower their rates. "We foresee operators gradually moving towards simpler, all-you-can-eat plans, in which subscribers will be offered unlimited voice and fixed data access for a lump sum amount, rather than the forest of foggy options available today," says Crisil Research in a report. This will mean a sharp drop in tariffs, leading to revenues from data for established players shrinking by half by financial 2017-18, it continued.

Reliance Jio will hasten India's shift from 2G to 4G, enabling its transition to a data economy, where voice services will also be priced in the form of data. "The discount [that Jio offers] is very significant. If incumbents match it, it will severely impact their financials," says Shobhit Khare of Inertia Wealth Creators LLP. "Of course usage will grow. From here on, there will be tariff wars."

IT'S DIFFERENT. BUT HOW?

How does Reliance Jio differentiate itself from incumbent telcos? There are various facets to this. One is the technology itself. LTE is a standalone, new technology, which runs on a completely different network from current systems. The earlier technologies were all circuit-based, while this is based on IP or internet protocol; data is now sent in 'packets'. This makes LTE more efficient at transferring data due to its higher throughput. As the throughput, or capacity, increases, it becomes possible to offer many more services, of higher quality than before.

But to offer this technology to consumers, infrastructure has to be put in place. The primary ingredient for any mobile network is spectrum, or airwaves. RIL acquired pan-India spectrum in the 2,300 MHz band (a frequency that can relay LTE telephony services) back in 2010. Later, in 2014, it bought spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band (which is considered more suitable for LTE services), and in 2015, bought even more spectrum, in both the 800 MHz and 1,800 MHz bands, thus acquiring a presence in 20 out of the 22 circles in the country in these two bands. Lower frequency bands are more effective in telecommunications, as voice signals travel over larger distances at these frequencies as compared to higher frequency bands.

Compared to Jio's capabilities, Airtel can provide 4G in 15 circles, Idea in 10 and Vodafone in eight. Jio can use its entire spectrum to provide LTE services, while its rivals, who use their existing spectrum for legacy 2G and 3G networks, will have very little capacity to spare for 4G. One option for incumbents is to buy more spectrum in the upcoming auctions in October this year, which will be an expensive proposition. Another is to shut down the 2G and 3G networks to accord more space to LTE, which is ruled out. Also, though 3G has been launched with much hype, it lacks coverage in many places, and the call is sometimes completed through 2G, resulting in frequent call drops.

THE TECH EDGE

The other advantage that Jio has is a huge fibre optic cable network with immense capacity for data, which can even be used for a future 5G rollout (the proposed next major phase for mobile telecom standards). The company has already laid 300,000 circuit kilometres of fibre (in many locations, it would have laid multiple layers of fibre per kilometre, depending on the density of traffic that is anticipated). "We can carry 800 crore GB [of data] on our network per month," says an official with the firm. "Even if every Indian were to consume 10 GB per month, our network can support it."

The constraint for legacy operators, on the other hand, is that they have already made huge investments in 3G networks. In 2010, operators spent a staggering Rs 67,719 crore in government 3G auctions across the 22 telecom circles in India. Most of them are yet to recoup money from 3G, and putting up fibre optic cables in India is a complicated affair, requiring a lot of patience and hard work. Approvals from local bodies, and formal and informal rights of way, can be cumbersome, and many operators give up half way.

The other aspect of Jio's competitive edge is the lower costs it has incurred on telecom towers. Jio's 4G network will cover 18,000 cities and towns, and over 200,000 villages. To do so, it has a network of 92,000 telecom towers, of which it directly owns 42,000. The company has managed to peg costs for these new eco-friendly towers at Rs 8-9 lakh each, compared with the industry standard of Rs 30-32 lakh. This is because it uses smaller towers, which require less land, and are supposedly more energy-efficient. Jio is adding more towers, and plans to cover 90 per cent of India's population by March next year. Then the devices themselves, on which a Jio team has been working since 2012. The market, which currently has about 70 million LTE devices, adds about 7-8 million new LTE devices per month.

In the second quarter of calendar 2016, global LTE shipments grew 38 percent annually to 300 million units, with China leading the market with over 100 million units, followed by the US and India. Increasingly, all smart phones will become LTE enabled, and prices are already on their way down, from Rs 8,000 last year to Rs 4,000, even Rs 3,000. Reliance's LYF handsets are now priced at Rs 2,999 upward.

TARIFF SHOCKER

A report by research and advisory firm Analysys Mason just before the Jio launch said that India's data tariffs were quite high, which explained why mobile operators weren't able to achieve better penetration in 3G and 4G. It said that India's data tariffs per gigabyte were at about 2.6 percent of the average individual income (gross national income per capita), while for developed economies the figure was between 0.4 and 0.5 percent.

At the Reliance AGM, Ambani said the telecom tariff structures should be simplified. Today, there are more than 22,000 telecom tariffs across the country. Jio plans to introduce 10 main plans. Prices begin as low as Rs 19 for users who only occasionally use data. There are also monthly plans priced anywhere between Rs 149 and Rs 4,999, depending on data usage (see chart: Rate Bait). At the moment, data packs in the market cost about Rs 250 per GB. With Jio, customers will be paying between Rs 25 and 50 per GB. "By opting for Reliance Jio plans, the average monthly mobile bill for a mid- to high-end subscriber could come down by 50-60 percent," says Crisil Research. For reference, 1 GB of data costs about 0.7 in the UK-just under Rs 62 at current rates (see graph: Slide towards Parity).

Reliance seems to be betting on increased data usage offsetting the negative impact of lower tariffs. Currently, the average Indian user consumes about 400 MB per month; Reliance Jio's Rs 499 plan offers 10 times this amount. "Clearly, the Reliance Jio plan aims to drive up consumption of data, so it would have to make available innovative, relevant and fresh content to subscribers on an ongoing basis," adds the report.

Experts say this will put pressure on both the revenue growth and profitability of existing operators. They will not only be forced to relook at their tariff structures and customer-retention strategies but may also bid more aggressively in the forthcoming spectrum auctions, especially in high revenue-generating circles, where they have limited capacity and spectrum to offer 4G services. The correction is already happening-Airtel and Idea reduced voice tariffs by 8-10 percent over 2015.

India Ratings, a research firm, expects data tariffs to see a major correction even as operators' revenues from data declined 4.5 to 5.5 percent per MB in the third quarter of financial 2015-16, compared to the second quarter. This decline was in anticipation of the Jio launch, and therefore, a further drop in data tariffs is expected in financial 2016-17.

THE ECONOMICS DECODED

Many say the tariff plans are more an example of smart packaging than actually low rates, and that consumers will spend as much as they do now, or more, on the Jio network. "The blended ARPU (average revenue per user) for Airtel for 200 million subscribers has been Rs 185/ 186. For Jio, if we take a Rs 149 pack and then another 1 GB pack for Rs 50, it still comes to Rs 199. So, the consumer's cost [doesn't go down]," says a Mumbai-based analyst.

But this is part of the economics of Jio's big-bang entry. Getting customers to use enough data to gain a high ARPU is one part of its strategy to break even at the earliest. The other is the savings on the variable costs of the business, including that of setting up mobile towers, the rentals for sharing mobile towers (the company has worked out a sweet deal with RCom to be anchor tenant on 35,000 of the latter's towers, paying just Rs 12,000 per tower per month compared to the industry standard of Rs 27,000), the power savings on fuel for towers after drawing directly from power boards, and the lower channel costs (what it pays channel partners), among others. "Our present tariff strategy is to make it attractive for subscribers, but we will make money in the process, since our cost per unit is less than a tenth of the legacy players," said a company official. "Even if we sell at Rs 50 per GB, we are making a lot of money."

But here's a sobering history lesson for Jio. In India, it has always been hard, if not impossible, for a challenger to displace a market leader. For instance, market leader Airtel has not been able to beat Vodafone in Mumbai, where the latter had the first-mover advantage. Secondly, nowhere in the world has there been a 4G LTE rollout of the extent that Jio is attempting, and managing customer service at this scale will not be easy. "The rollout requires a lot of fine-tuning. It remains to be seen how the network behaves when there is excess load," says KPMG's Shetty.

Family plan: (left to right) Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, and son Akash Ambani. (Photo: PTI)

Although RIL has spent heavily on the project, it will not turn profitable in the near future, as the company will incur huge initial costs at a lower subscriber base due to the lack of penetration of 4G-compatible devices, says ratings firm Fitch. "Currently, fewer than 5 percent of Indian consumers have such handsets. However, this is likely to change quickly, as over 70 percent of new handsets are now 4G, but it is unlikely that Jio will be able to win more than 20-30 million subscribers and 3-4 per cent revenue market share over the next year," Fitch said in a recent report. That will be drastically short of the company's 100 million target in the first year of operations.

"We expect limited impact from Jio on the three incumbents, which have a collective market share of 73 percent," said a note from Deutsche Bank's equity research desk. "We expect Jio to have a 10 per cent revenue share of the mobile market in five years and Bharti to maintain its revenue share and profitability."

Dharmesh Kant, Head of Retail Research, Motilal Oswal, told a newspaper that though revenues from the new telecom business will start trickling in, there were concerns on the timelines to achieve break-even, due to Jio's aggressive pricing.

MEETING THE JIO CHALLENGE

Meanwhile, incumbents will now pull out all the stops to retain customers, who should hope to get better services. It will also be interesting to see how companies deal with Jio's new benchmark price for voice services (free). Airtel has already deployed carrier-aggregation technology, which combines two or more carriers into one data channel to enhance data capacity. It has announced an investment of Rs 60,000 crore to modernise its network. S&P Global Ratings has said its rating on Bharti Airtel was unaffected by competition from Jio, as it reckons the former has the "financial headroom to withstand a weaker operating performance from intensifying competition".

By March 2016, Idea Cellular had launched 4G across 28 towns in Maharashtra and Goa. It also announced plans to extend coverage to 750 towns in 10 circles in the country by June 2016. In May this year, Vodafone said its 4G services will reach 1,000 towns across nine telecom circles by the end of 2016.

According to India Ratings, the capital expansion plans of telecom operators in 2016-17 will be directed at building high-speed 4G infrastructure, enhancing existing infrastructure to tackle call drops, and spectrum consolidation or further spectrum acquisition. However, some experts feel the upcoming spectrum auction could end up as a disappointment, considering the high price of the 700 MHz spectrum (the government has fixed a reserve price of Rs 11,485 crore per MHz for this band), which has a better reach and is closest to the 800 MHz. In June this year, Department of Telecom secretary J.S. Deepak said telecom operators had committed investments of Rs 12,000 crore by September 2016 to instal 60,000 towers to tackle call drops.

Even before the commercial launch, the portents of an impending telecom war are clear. Jio has accused Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular of preventing the launch of its full-fledged commercial services by not giving it sufficient points of interconnect (PoIs) to effectively test services. Telcos are miffed about Jio's strategy to enter the market, and they claim the company, while claiming this was a test phase, has made a near-commercial launch. "Reliance and other operators seem to have their own interpretations of rights and obligations during the testing phase. Telcos feel that Reliance has taken testing too far and launched full commercial service in the test phase," says telecom consultant Mahesh Uppal. Now that the launch has taken place, it will be interesting to note how other carriers will approach the issue. Jio officials say they have got assurances from DoT and TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) that the issue will be resolved. Officials at TRAI were not available for comment at the time of going to press.

From being a commodities-focused business group, Reliance is placing fresh bets on another consumer-fronted business. It is a daring move, fraught with risk, and its success will pivot critically on the country's move forward towards a digital economy. This time around, there is little margin for error.

with Shweta Punj

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By PTI: New Delhi, Sept 8 (PTI) India today said armed groups and non-state actors were playing spoilers to peace efforts globally and sought qualitative improvement in the performance of UN peacekeeping contingents, staff and mission leadership.

Addressing the Defence Ministers meeting in London, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre referred to the pledge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York last year that India will provide troops for UN peacekeeping purposes.

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He drew attention to the challenges being faced by UN peacekeeping operations with armed groups and non-state actors playing spoilers to peace efforts, an official statement here said.

United Nations peacekeeping missions are no longer benign and humanitarian tasks are a major facet of current missions, he said.

Bhamre exhorted the UN to work in sync with host governments as otherwise it could lead to greater turbulence.

He also stressed the need of bringing about qualitative improvement in the performance of United Nations contingents, staff and mission leadership.

The minister made a mention of the issues raised by the Prime Minister Modi last year during the Leaders Summit on Peacekeeping, including the necessity of involving Troop Contributing Nations in mandate formulation, representation in key leadership positions in mission areas and above all the requirement of a more representative Security Council.

He recalled Indias consistent and substantive response over the past seven decades of United Nations peacekeeping operations.

More than 2,30,000 Indian troops have participated in 50 of the 71 United Nations peacekeeping operations mandated by the UNSC so far.

India has also aided in capacity building of many countries, training 114 prospective peacekeepers from 35 countries this year itself with a special course each for African countries and for female peacekeepers. PTI SAP SC

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By PTI: Arunachal

Guwahati, Sep 9 (PTI) BJP MLA Bolin Chetias abducted nephew Kuldeep Moran was released today by his abductors, the ULFA-Independent led by Paresh Barua, in a remote area of Arunachal Pradesh where he was handed over to his father and uncle in the presence of civil and police officials.

Kuldeep was release at Limbubasti area of Arunachal Pradesh from where he was kidnapped a month ago.

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To reporters queries on how he was brought to Limbubasti, Moran said he had walked from the location where he was kept in hiding and on the condition of his health, he said, "You can see I am very tired, I walked a long distance to here."

Asked if he was tortured, Kuldeep replied in the negative.

While receiving his son, Kuldeeps father expressed his gratitude to the ULFA-I for releasing his son without payment of the demanded ransom of Rs one crore.

Assam and Arunachal Pradesh Police were jointly working on the safe release of Kuldeep from Changlang district of the neighbouring state where from he was kidnapped.

The kidnap caught media attention when the ULFA-I sent a video to TV news channels here showing Kuldeep Moran surrounded by a group of its armed masked militants and he was heard appealing Assam Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal to secure his early release and his family to pay the ransom.

Kuldeep was also seen narrating his plight about his deteriorating health and fears that his life was in danger as he could be caught in a crossfire between his kidnappers and the security forces. PTI ESB DKB SMN

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The order was granted by US Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood and would allow the Hanjin vessels to dock without fear of arrest by creditors. One of Hanjins vessels has already been arrested in US waters  the Hanjin Montevideo  but the order will effectively put a stay on those proceedings.

Reuters quoted Ilana Volkov, an attorney for Hanjin, as telling the US bankruptcy court that the company had at least $10m authorized by the Korean courts to allow four vessels off the US to come into port and unload their cargoes.

One of the four vessels, the Hanjin Greece, was scheduled to berth in the Port of Long Beach on Saturday morning having been idling off Mexico.

Longer-term questions such as what happens to the vessels once they have been unloaded and to the empty containers remain unanswered. Some KRW100bn ($90.6m) in emergency funding pledged by parent Hanjin Group and its chairman falls far short of the KRW600bn of unpaid obligations owed by the shipping line, and will merely allow its vessels to be unloaded at various ports around the world.

Read all the background to the Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy on our timeline

Meanwhile Reederei NSB, which manages seven Hanjin vessels said one of the ships had been arrested in Vancouver.

It said that the seven vessels were waiting in position at anchorages in various ports and the crew were well cared for and being paid regularly.
The Hanjin Pioneer tied up to the new Berth 27 at the International Container Terminal Services Inc- (ICTSI) operated North Port in Umm Qasr with theTerex cranes late Thursday following a 7000nm voyage from Xiamen, China.



Commissioning of the ship to shore cranes and RTGs will take approximately four weeks after which BGT will have two containerised berths together with new general and project cargo operations at nearby Berth 19.



BGT is well positioned to take Umm Qasr Port to new levels in the business development in Iraqthis is a proud day for BGT and Iraq, said ceo Phillip Marsham.



Our investment in the cutting edge of shipping technology and infrastructure will allow us to offer our customers the most efficient route and easy access to Iraqi market. We are hoping to give customers a completely new experience of doing business.



Philippines niche port operator ICTSI signed a 26-year concession with the General Company for Ports of Iraq in 2014 to develop and operate three new berths under the BGT moniker, in addition to a 10-year agreement to redevelop the existing Berth 20.



Each stage of the greenfield expansion, the first public-private port sector partnership in Iraq, will add 300,000 teu capacity, 200,000sq mtr of container storage and two gantry cranes.



Average quarterly volume at BGT has grown from 15,000 teu in Q3 2014, prior to the ICTSI takeover, to 78,000 teu in Q1 this year. Productivity has soared from 16 to just shy of 50 bmph in the same period while the average truck cycle time has decreased from five hours in 2014 to 47 minutes today. Thursday arrival will undoubtedly add to those vastly improved throughput statistics.



Umm Qasr port handles 80% of the Iraqs imports including grain for a huge public food ration program. With a hinterland that extends to the capital city of Baghdad, Umm Qasr is critical in combating the countrys well-documented geopolitical challenges.

Despite the global challenges in shipping in general, combined with the specific conditions in Iraq, we feel the commercial opportunities are very attractive as the country rebuilds its infrastructure and continues to develop, Marsham said.



Market indicators are showing a general growth of over 15% in Umm Qasr in the container sector in 2016 and as such there is a high confidence for further development over the coming years.



Watch the official video of the arrival of the STS cranes and RTGs here.
According to reports, the fire broke out due to a boiler explosion at Tampaco Foils Ltd around 6 am today.

The fire broke out at Tampaco Foils Ltd.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: At least 27 people were killed when a boiler exploded in a factory at the BSCIC industrial zone in Gazipur's Tongi in Bangladesh.

More than 50 people were injured, many critically, in the explosion.

"The explosion led to a fire in a factory of Tampaco Foils Ltd around 6 am on Saturday", said Joydevpur's Senior Fire Station officer Mohd Rafiquzzaman.

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Tongi hospital's resident doctor Mohd. Parvez Mia said two burnt and mutilated bodies were first brought to the hospital from the factory.

Later, seven more dead people were brought in from the factory.

About 100 people were working in the morning shift when the explosion took place at the Tampaco Foils Ltd.

He said ten of those injured were being treated in his hospital but those in critical condition have been shifted to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH).

DMCH outpost's police inspector Bacchu Miah said at least 19 injured persons were admitted to the hospital. Three of those admitted, including a woman, have already succumbed to their injuries.

Director of Bangladesh fire Services Lt. Conl. Mosharaf Hossain Told India Today that, factory's fire is our under control. "We have recovered 27 death body. Rescue operation is going on," he said.

The government of Bangladesh has announced cash assistance for families of those who died in a fire at a packaging factory at Gazipur's Tongi. State Minster for Labour and Employment Mujibul Haque Chunnu told that the families will get Tk 200,000 each.



The identities of those killed could not be confirmed yet. About 100 people were working in the morning shift when the explosion took place at the Tampaco Foils Ltd.

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Fire damages Duncans Industries Kolkata office





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More than 50 years after weird radio echoes were detected coming from Earth's upper atmosphere, two scientists say they've pinpointed the culprit. And it's complicated.

In 1962, after the Jicamarca Radio Observatory was built near Lima, Peru, some unexplainable phenomenon was reflecting the radio waves broadcast by the observatory back to the ground to be picked up by its detectors. The mysterious cause of these echoes was sitting at an altitude of between 80 and 100 miles (130 and 160 kilometers) above sea level.

"As soon as they turned this radar on, they saw this thing," study researcher Meers Oppenheim, of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, said, referring to the anomalous echo. "They saw all sorts of interesting phenomena that had never been seen before. Almost all of it was explained within a few years." [In Photos: Mysterious Radar Blob Puzzles Meteorologists]

Top 10 Astronomical Discoveries Of All Time

Peculiar radar echoes

Though the other phenomena detected by the observatory got explanations, these radar echoes continued to baffle scientists.

To see what was happening at that altitude, researchers at the time sent rockets, equipped with antennas and particle detectors, through the region. The instruments, which were designed to detect radar waves, "saw almost nothing," Oppenheim said.

Adding more peculiarity to the puzzle, the phenomenon showed up only during daylight hours, vanishing at night. The echo would appear at dawn every day at about 100 miles (160 km) above the ground, before descending to about 80 miles (130 km) and getting stronger. Then at Noon, the echo would start to rise back again toward its starting point at 100 miles above the ground. When plotted on a graph, the echoes appeared as a necklace shape.

Monster Desert Telescope Construction Complete

And in 2011, during a partial solar eclipse seen over the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory in India, the echo went silent.

"And then there was a solar flare, and it sort of went a little nuts," Oppenheim said. "There was a solar flare, and the echo got really strong."

The sun takes charge

Now, with a lot of supercomputing effort, Oppenheim and Yakov Dimant, also at the Center for Space Physics, have simulated the bizarre radar echoes to find the culprit - the sun. [Infographic: Explore Earth's Atmosphere, Top to Bottom]

Ultraviolet radiation from the sun, it seems, slams into the ionosphere (the part of Earth's upper atmosphere located between 50 and 370 miles, or 80 and 600 km, above sea level), where the radio echoes were detected, they said. Then, the radiation, in the form of photons (particles of light), strips molecules in that part of the atmosphere of their electrons, resulting in charged particles called ions - primarily, positively charged of their electrons, resulting in charged particles called ions, primarily positively charged oxygen - and a free electron (a negatively charged particle that is not attached to an atom or molecule).

That ultra-energized electron, or photoelectron, zips through the atmosphere, which, at this altitude, is much cooler than the photoelectron, Oppenheim said.

Mystery Cosmic Radio Pulse Leaves Magnetic Clue

Making waves

Using a computer simulation, the scientists allowed these high-energy electrons to interact with other, less energized particles.

Because these high-energy electrons are racing through a cool, slow environment in the ionosphere, so-called kinetic plasma instabilities (turbulence, in a sense) occur. The result: The electrons start vibrating with different wavelengths.

"One population of very energetic particles moving through a population of much less energetic particles - it's like running a violin bow across the strings. The cold population will start developing resonant waves," Oppenheim explained.

Cosmic Hotshots from Keck Observatory

"The next step is that those electron waves have to cause the ions to start forming waves too, and they do," Oppenheim said.

Though this last step isn't clearly understood, he explained that periodic waves of ions bunch up with no dominant wavelength winning out. "It's a whole set of wavelengths; it's a whole froth of wavelengths," he said.

That "froth" of wavelengths was strong enough to reflect radio waves back to the ground and to form the mysterious radar echoes.

"The reason it wasn't figured out for a long time is that it's a complicated mechanism," Oppenheim said.

Not So Fast: Radio Burst Mystery Far From Solved

As for why the rockets missed the bizarre echoes, Oppenheim pointed to the messy nature of the waves.

"Turns out, it looks like what the rockets saw is what we see with our simulation," he said. "You don't see strong coherent waves. What you see is sort of a froth of low-level waves, above the noise of thermal material," and those waves are sort of like "foam on the top of sea waves," he added.

Original article on Live Science.

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Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench 14 Strangest Sights on Google Earth Earth's 8 Biggest Mysteries Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In August, a high-ranking North Korean military officer fled to South Korea in a rare senior-level defection. The incident came weeks after a group of 13 North Korean restaurant workers defected to the South through China.

In today's Seeker Daily report, Trace Dominguez looks at the history and particulars of defection in North Korea -- one of the world's most darkly fascinating societies.

Defection is the act of deliberately leaving one country to take up residence in, and give allegiance to, an enemy country. In the U.S., fleeing to Canada would not count as a defection, but fleeing to Russia just might. Of course, with North Korea, pretty much every other country is an enemy country.

It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have successfully defected since the mid-20th century. Most flee through the country's border with China, then move on to other counties, since China has an official policy of extraditing refugees back to North Korea. Some, however, choose to stay and hide -- an estimated 200,000 North Koreans are living secretly in China.

RELATED: North Korea's Latest Nuclear Test: the Facts

South Korea takes in a lot of North Korean refugees, as well. For many years, South Korea was very accommodating to defectors, providing stipends and housing. In recent years, these privileges have been reduced.

An interesting statistical number: More than 80 percent of North Korean defectors are women, according to international agencies. Women defectors are most often fleeing extreme poverty in North Korea, while male defectors typically desert for ideological reasons.

According to the South Korean government, the number of North Korean defectors has dropped by half in recent years. North Korea has beefed up security along the border since Kim Jong-un assumed leadership in 2011. China has made similar efforts, rolling out barbed wire fence along the entire length of its border.

Check out Trace's report for more details, including the strange saga of "double defectors" who return to North Korea as celebrities on state-run television. Or click over to this story on the real reasons behind North Korean food shortages.

-- Glenn McDonald

Learn More:

Al Jazeera: Top North Korean Diplomat in UK Defects to South Korea

ABC: North Korean Defections Drop Under Kim Jong-Un

NPR: South Korea's Newest TV Stars are North Korean Defectors
A bank robbery has been reported at Rahu village in Daund Taluka of Pune district around 60 kms from Pune city. Late night on Friday, Pune Zilla Madhyavarti Bank's locker was broken and cash worth Rs 65 lakh taken away. This robbery came to light when the security guard of the bank alerted the police in the wee hours on Saturday.

By Pankaj P. Khelkar: A bank robbery has been reported at Rahu village in Daund Taluka of Pune district around 60 kms from Pune city. Late night on Friday, Pune Zilla Madhyavarti Bank's locker was broken and cash worth Rs 65 lakh taken away. This robbery came to light when the two security guards deployed at the bank alerted the police in the wee hours on Saturday.

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According to the two guards who were on duty at the main entrance, some men walked up to them on the pretext of asking for address and then assaulted them at gunpoint until they fainted. They then tied up the guards with a rope. On regaining consciousness, they shouted and were helped by the people around who set them free. The guards then sounded the alarm. When the police reached the spot, the main locker of the bank was found to be broken open and cash worth Rs 65 lakh stolen.

PROBE UNDERWAY

When the police tried to see the CCTV footage, they found that the direction of the camera had been changed and its hard disk stolen. Investigating officer Karpe assured that the probe into the matter was under way. Dog squads and forensic lab experts had been called in to gather scientific evidence to track down the culprits. Police are trying to identify the 4 culprits from the Video footage of other CCTV hard disks.



Also read: Great train robbery: How robbers cut out roof section of coach before train reached electric lines



INSIDER'S ROLE SUSPECTED



Such modus operandi of the robbers makes one wonder whether any well-acquainted person or insider might have helped the culprits. Superintendent of police of Pune district Dr Jay Pawar and other senior officials have reached the spot and are investigating the case. It has been learnt that there have been two unsuccessful robbery attempts at this bank earlier.

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Supporters of Proposition 52, a California ballot measure that would lock in an existing hospital fee that helps fund the states Medicaid program for the poor, know their biggest opposition is the measure itself.

While the proposition lacks organized opponents, its just the sort of wonky, complicated and arcane type of measure that frustrates voters and makes them likely to skip that box on their elections form or to simply vote no.

A lot of initiatives are not that simple, and this is included in that. Thats especially challenging given how large the ballot is, said Kevin Riggs, spokesman for the Yes on 52 campaign, of the 17 statewide voter initiatives on the November ballot.

Prop. 52, backed by the California Hospital Association, would make permanent the hospital quality assurance fee, a fee thats been collected since 2009 on hospital stays, ranging from $145 to $618 a day. While hospitals send the fees to the state quarterly, ultimately they get more than they pay in, as the fee money serves to draw in additional funding the federal government made available to help states offset the costs of more people turning to Medicaid for care during the economic downturn.

Under Medicaid, which is known as Medi-Cal in California, the federal government matches the amount that the states put up to fund the program. Even with those matching funds, California hospitals say they lose money caring for the states more than 13 million Medi-Cal patients  thats 1 in 3 Californians  because the program doesnt reimburse providers enough.

To take advantage of those additional dollars in 2009, Californias private hospitals approached the state Legislature and offered to chip in $3 billion a year through the fee program to increase the federal governments matching share and reduce the hospitals losses for providing care to Medi-Cal patients. (As health care spending has grown, the fee is expected to raise more than $4 billion in 2017.)

This hospitals say they still lose money on Medi-Cal patients. Subsidies from the fee cuts those losses to about $5 billion. The Legislature renewed the fee several times, most recently in 2013, but thats set to expire at the end of next year.

Prop. 52 would indefinitely extend the hospital fee and would make sure the money isnt diverted for other purposes. In 2011, Riggs said, some of the money was put into the states general fund.

If the measure passes, the Legislature would need a two-thirds majority to repeal or amend it.

Its widely embraced by everyone, said Jan Emerson-Shea, spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association, adding that the measure has more than 1,000 supporters. They include the state Democratic and Republican parties, the California Labor Federation and the California Chamber of Commerce.

Prop. 52s primary opponent, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, recently withdrew its opposition and is now neutral. Union leaders had argued the measure would divert funds from patients and favor corporations and hospital executives.

After evaluating the many critical local, state and national races that are happening where we have a strong interest this November, weve decided to focus our political resources in other areas, said Steve Trossman, spokesman for SEIU-UHW.

While the California Nurses Association, which represents registered nurses, has yet to decide whether the union will take a position on Prop. 52, a nurse practitioner from Torrance (Los Angeles County) argued in the official voter guide that the measure lacks oversight.

Prop. 52 takes resources from patients and communities and siphons it into the pockets of rich special interests, with no oversight, no accountability, and no guarantee it is even spent on health care, wrote Virginia Anders-Ellmore, in the ballot argument. Thats wrong and makes nurses and doctors jobs harder.

Despite the lack of formal opposition, the proposition has generated a sizable share of campaign funds. Supporters have raised nearly $59 million, and more than $14 million has come from the opposition, including $9.8 million from SEIU-UHW.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The unions spokesman said the money was a loan from SEIU-UHW and will be returned.

Riggs, of the Yes on 52 campaign, said the campaign money will be used to help the public understand that the program should be continued.

Were going to educate the public about how successful the program has been over the years, he said. It also benefits people with private insurance because if you dont have these funds, it increases pressure on insurers to raise premiums.

In a year with a record number of statewide propositions, it helps that the measure is high up on the crowded ballot, Riggs said.

The diversity of supporters, including those on both sides of the aisle, also lends an advantage: In an election year like this, this may be as close to a consensus as youre going to find, Riggs said.

Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver

For more of the Chronicles election coverage, visit www.sfchronicle.com/election/2016/
Authorities collected samples of biryani from shopkeepers and hawkers last week from Mundaka village, 85km from Gurugram, and sent them to a laboratory following a flurry of allegations.

By Siddhartha Rai, Ajay Kumar: Street vendors are allegedly selling beef biryani on wheels by paying off the police in Haryana's Mewat district, residents and the local legislator told Mail Today on Friday against the backdrop of a swirling controversy over the use of the forbidden meat in the Muslim-dominated area.



SAMPLES COLLECTED

Authorities collected samples of biryani from shopkeepers and hawkers last week from Mundaka village, 85km from Gurugram, and sent them to a laboratory following a flurry of allegations. However, the office of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal said it was yet to be determined whether the collected samples contained beef. It denied that any report on the issue from the Hisar lab has been released to the government.

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"Once the report is out we will know whether there was beef in the biryani samples or not. Then, as it is a matter of law, we will act accordingly," said Amit Arya, the CM's media adviser. "It is not a communal issue at all."

Haryana has stringent cow protection laws with slaughter of the animal, considered sacred by many Hindus, drawing punishment of 10 years in jail and a person can be imprisoned for five years for trading in beef. A reality check on the ground by Mail today threw up contradictory claims from several stakeholders in the district that has long been seen as the centre of a spectrum of illicit activities.

A drive across Mewat revealed that the number of biryani sellers had actually gone down. While earlier they thrived at every intersection and dotted the entire maze of highways crisscrossing the district, only a few could be spotted on Friday.



COMMUNAL HARMONY

Local Muslims, including their representatives in local bodies such as panchayats, told Mail today team that cow meat was a usual ingredient in the biryani preparation of street vendors. The ordinary Muslim folk of the district do not believe in the logic of cow slaughter being a pivot of Islam, they said. "A certain section of people in Mewat believe in eating beef, but the majority does not," said a panchayat member of the biggest village of Mewat, Ghasera.

"Street vendors use beef in their biryani and that is the attraction for such people as truck drivers. We want cow slaughter to end in favour of communal harmony, but some people do practice it to suit their religion though their motive is purely divisive and political."

This local Meo Muslim-a community whose members have long been considered as Hindu converts and so the region boasted of exceptional communal harmony even during the tumultuous days of the Partitio- also said that cow smugglers are active in the region and several incidents had occurred in his own village over the past four months.

"Many of us helped the police nab these culprits. Nowadays, they have evolved imaginative ways to smuggle cows such as inside oil tankers; they are so adept that they are even able to stuff a full-blooded cow inside a car as small as a hatchback," he said.

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POLICE IN CAHOOTS WITH OFFENDERS

The police, though, he claimed were also to blame as they had failed to nab many of these smugglers and butchers, while he alleged that cops were even complicit in this underground black economy. Even the Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Nuh segment-the other two assembly segments being Punhana and Ferozepur Jhirka (from where the biryani samples have been found positive for beef)-Zakir Hussain from the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), accused the local police of being in cahoots with the offenders.

"All the villages of Mewat are connected via good roads; one can see one village from the other and yet the police say that they are not able to stop the nefarious activity," said Hussain. "This move of targeting biryani by the BJP government is only a ploy to communalise the atmosphere and harass the already backward and poor Meo Muslim community."

The police denied any links with cow smuggling other than strict adherence to the law. "We take care of the complaints that come to us as strictly as possible. We even have a CS or cow slaughter cell that is the nodal agency for these complaints. We recently had a meeting with the cow protection task force and were educated in the cow protection law," said Ashok Kumar, Nuh police station's SHO.

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ALSO READ:

Haryana: Beef found in biryani samples seized from Mewat

India's holy cows end up in Bangladesh abattoirs





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Even Gavin Newsoms biggest detractors must acknowledge two things about the lieutenant governor: He dives into the substance of issues as deep as anyone in California politics; and, from the time he was mayor of San Francisco, he has shown a willingness to venture into areas where his contemporaries fear to tread.

How daring is his position on marijuana? As of last week, Newsom remained the only statewide elected official to support its legalization under Prop. 64. By contrast, in a visit with our editorial board on another subject Friday, Gov. Jerry Brown would merely allow that he was mulling his position on legal pot.

Newsom has been all-in on the issue ever since October 2013 when he convened a 24-member panel that included specialists in law enforcement, tax law, medicine and federal drug policy. At least half began their duties opposed to legalization. Their 93-page report offered a framework designed to deter the black market, raise tax revenue, and keep cannabis out of the hands of youth.

In his meeting with our editorial board on Prop. 64, Newsom, a father of four, made plain that he was not motivated by advocacy of greater marijuana use. His commission declared that it was not intended to generate the next California gold rush.

Im not pro-marijuana, Im anti-Prohibition, he said. I think there are an overwhelming number of Californians that are in that bracket. Were not trying to normalize it, were not trying to condone it.

I hate it when I smell this stuff walking the streets. I cant stand it. I see kids out there in parks and playgrounds, its like, grow up, get a life come on ... youve got something better to do with your life.

Newsom predicted that legalization of marijuana in California  thus joining four smaller states  would be a game changer in the failed war on drugs that is destroying millions and millions of lives today.

His studied approach to a subject that would be so easy for a future opponent to mock as Cheech & Chong lunacy is classic Newsom. He was the mayoral wonk who kept overstuffed policy binders on his desk at City Hall and once delivered a retina-fogging 7-plus hour State of the City address on YouTube.

Ill leave it to others to speculate on whether the 48-year Newsom is relentlessly reckless, cunningly calculating or driven by pure principle. But he has a trait that is rare in politics for someone with his skill and ambition for higher office: no fear of being alone.

One need reflect no further back than Feb. 12, 2004, a month into his first term, when Newsom authorized the county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of state law. The act was condemned widely  even by many of his fellow Democrats  overturned in court and followed with a flurry on state bans on that Novembers ballot that contributed to the re-election of President George W. Bush. One of his political mentors, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., bemoaned that it was too much, too fast, too soon.

But it was, to coin a favored Newsom phrase, a game-changer.

Newsom draws parallels between that experience and the head shaking he is encountered with his proposal in Prop. 63 to require background checks for the purchase of ammunition. He fully anticipates a lifetime of enmity from the National Rifle Association and its gun-manufacturer benefactors, who are certain to do their part to try to stymie his 2018 gubernatorial run.

If Gavin Newsom wants to declare war on law-abiding gun owners and Second Amendment rights, were certainly going to bring the fight to him, said Brandon Combs of Roseville (Placer County), president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, declared last year.

The lieutenant governor compared the intense tug-of-war about background checks on gun purchases to the debate about civil unions a decade ago. Each, in its own way, danced around the central issue that needed to be addressed. A civil union could never deliver the rights and responsibility, and societal validation, of a marriage license. And guns need ammunition to turn deadly.

A gun isnt inherently dangerous, Newsom said. Maybe someones used a gun as a blunt instrument, Im sure thats happened. Its a raging debate about background checks on guns. Why stop there? Why not background checks on the actual component?

My favorite quote of last week came from Gov. Jerry Brown, when asked if he feared his parole-reform plan, Prop. 57, might result in more crime. Im a politician; Im fear-based in every respect, Brown deadpanned.

One politician who hopes to succeed Brown offers evidence that such fear is neither innate nor universal.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron

About those ballot measures: Loaded with detail ... and controversy

Proposition 63: Gun control

How it qualified:

Secretary of state certified, after random sampling of 600,000 signatures submitted, that it exceeded the 365,880 required for the November ballot.

What it does:

Imposes background checks through the state Department of Justice for the purchase of ammunition.

Requires a state license to sell ammunition.

Prohibits possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines.

Requires the reporting of lost or stolen guns or ammunition to law enforcement.

Ensures that anyone convicted of a gun theft is ineligible to purchase or possess a firearm.

Sets up a system to document that felons sell or transfer their firearms soon after conviction.

Proposition 64: Marijuana legalization

How it qualified:

Secretary of state certified, after random sampling of 600,000 signatures submitted, that it exceeded the 365,880 required for the November ballot.

What it does:

Legalizes marijuana for adults 21 and older.

Establishes 15 percent state excise tax on sales of marijuana, along with taxes on cultivation.

Creates a system of state licensing and oversight on growers and retailers.

Prohibits marketing and advertising aimed at minors.

Allows local governments to overlay their own taxes and restrictions on marijuana sales.

Permits the growing of up to six plants per household for individual use.

Leaves medical marijuana law intact. It is not subject to the excise tax or the 21-year-old restriction (it can still be purchased at 18 with a doctors recommendation, or younger with parental permission).
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For his 10th birthday, Sam Stoltenberg got to skip classes and ride in a school bus on the surface of Mars.

It didnt matter that it was a simulated ride, a vision of life on Mars decades from now when Earthlings colonize the red planet.

I liked looking at the space base, with all that gear and solar panels, Sam said after the five-minute trip on the Mars Experience Bus, which is parked at Oaklands Chabot Space and Science Center through Sunday.

The bus is part of aerospace company Lockheed Martins educational program Generation Beyond, which is aimed at inspiring students like Sam to think more about taking science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses.

Lockheed hopes the exhibit gets more young people excited about space, and therefore, about STEM education, said Stephen Frick, a former NASA astronaut who is now director of Lockheeds Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto.

Lockheed took an old school bus and replaced all its windows with video screens. Riders then see computer-generated animation of the Martian terrain, complete with dust storms. Visitors to the free exhibit can also create their own mission patches and get a picture of themselves standing on Mars.

On Friday, Chantelise Pells and her daughter Soliane enjoyed the ride, but had one reservation about space exploration.

It was exciting, and people love the idea of the next frontier, Pells said. But my daughter was just saying today that we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the bottom of the ocean here on Earth. We should spend a little more of our funds looking at the Earth and whats going on here.

Frick, however, said there was room for both frontiers as long as more students begin considering STEM classes.

There are a lot of young kids, girls and boys, that havent even thought about it, he said.

The exhibit is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. There are Bay Area stops planned for later this month, but not yet announced. For more information, Lockheed has set up a website, www.generation-beyond.com.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny
A Volkswagen engineers decision to tell everything he knows about the companys scheme to cheat on U.S. emissions tests is a major break for investigators and a message to others involved to cooperate or face prosecution, according to legal experts.

James Robert Liang, 62, of Ventura County pleaded guilty in Detroit Friday to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government and agreed to cooperate with investigations in the U.S. and Germany. Liang is the first person to enter a plea in the wide-ranging case, but legal experts say his knowledge of the scheme means he wont be the last.

It becomes a chain up the ladder, said William Carter, former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who specialized in environmental crimes. They are sending a very strong signal to all those involved that the train is leaving the station, and if you want to be on it, its time to cooperate.

The Justice Department also unsealed a grand jury indictment against Laing that detailed a 10-year conspiracy by Volkswagen employees in the U.S. and Germany to repeatedly dupe U.S. regulators by using sophisticated software to turn on emissions controls when the cars were being tested and turn them off during real-world driving. The indictment detailed emails between Liang and co-workers that initially admitted to cheating in an almost cavalier manner but then turned desperate after the deception was uncovered.

Tests commissioned by a nonprofit organization in 2014 found that certain Volkswagen models with diesel engines emitted more than the allowable limit of pollutants. More than a year later, Volkswagen admitted to installing the software on about 500,000 2-liter diesel engines in VW and Audi models in the U.S.

The Environmental Protection Agency found that the cars emitted up to 40 times the legal limit for nitrogen oxide, which can cause human respiratory problems.

Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, briefly was the worlds top-selling automaker before the scandal. Sales fell sharply in the U.S., where the company heavily marketed its clean diesel vehicles. In June, VW agreed to pay $15 billion to settle customer and government lawsuits in the U.S., including spending up to $10 billion to buy back or repair the cheating diesels.

Jacob Frenkel, a white-collar defense lawyer in Washington and former federal prosecutor, said the indictment reveals a sphere of communication with Liang, and everyone involved knows theyve been implicated.

Mr. Liang certainly knew enough that the U.S. government has embraced him as its first and certainly a prominent cooperator, said Frenkel, who added the Liang likely will get little or no prison time due to his cooperation. Sentencing guidelines call for a five-year prison term and up to a $250,000 fine when Liang is sentenced July 11.

Frenkel said VW is probably giving investigators the names of offending employees as it seeks lighter penalties and a quicker end to the scandal.

The plea means that prosecutors will charge employees as well as Volkswagen as a company, said David Uhlmann, a former chief of the Justice Departments Environmental Crimes Section who is now a University of Michigan law professor.

The open question ... is whether they have the evidence to pursue anybody higher up the corporate chain of command, he said.

Volkswagen wouldnt comment Friday, but has said previously that the cheating was the work of lower-level employees and didnt reach into the companys upper management. However, the scandal forced the ouster of the German CEO and VWs top U.S. executive.

Uhlmann cautioned that it may prove difficult to extradite top Volkswagen executives to stand trial, because Germany doesnt have the same emissions requirements as the United States.

As a general rule, extradition treaties are limited to crimes that can be charged in both countries, he said.

The grand jury indictment against Liang, which had been sealed since June 1, painted a picture of a group of VW workers who helped install the software when they realized that they couldnt simultaneously satisfy driver expectations and design a new 2-liter diesel engine that met strict U.S. pollution limits going into effect in 2007.

Liang began at VW in 1983 in Germany, moving in 2008 to California where he worked at the automakers U.S. emissions testing center outside of Los Angeles, according to federal prosecutors. He admitted that he and others planned the software, known as a defeat device, and used it to get a certificate from the Environmental Protection Agency needed to sell the cars in the U.S. To avoid being exposed, Liang and his co-workers had to repeatedly make design changes and lie to regulators.

Liang helped oversee the new clean diesel models. Investigators uncovered internal company emails that show Liang and other VW engineers exchanged ideas about how to effectively calibrate the defeat device so that the cars would recognize when they were undergoing U.S. emissions testing.
It takes more than just positive fundamentals to make it onto Morgan Stanleys new list of companies termed scaling disruptors. The roster includes big names that the firm says are forcing major changes in at least one if not more industries, and have already reached scale.

The analysts who prepared the report say these companies represent the winning stocks of the digital era and account for $2.34 trillion of market capitalization.

More than three-quarters are listed on U.S. exchanges, with the remaining portion coming from Asia. There were no European companies that made the cut. Some of the winners:

Alibaba Group: Despite shares gaining more than 50 percent over the past year, the report says the Chinese e-commerce giant it has more room to run. Alibaba has realized returns on just a fraction of the value it has provided to the merchants and brands, it said, citing its one-stop, closed-loop digital marketing and commerce system and its great potential for long-term gains.

Apple: It would be impossible to say that Apple isnt a disruptor, although shares have struggled over the past year as analysts worry that its days of disruption are fading. Morgan Stanley, however, has faith in CEO Tim Cook, and says the firm can still expand outside of tech as well. We believe Apple has the potential to be disruptive in new industries, it said, citing media, telecommunications, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors as potential areas that the Cupertino company could focus on.

Priceline Group: Despite possible threats from Airbnb and others, Morgan Stanley says Priceline has enough of a lead in the industry to remain a dominating force. Because of its size, and the more than $3 billion that it spends on digital advertising, Priceline has a distinct advantage over traditional hotels, the report said.

Amazon: The largest online retailer isnt even close to the end of its run, the report says. Amazon has further potential of disrupting industries like consumer retail, transport, media, grocery and food delivery, it says.

Facebook: There is no reason to question the social media companys continued ability to make money from its many offerings, the Morgan Stanley team says. Menlo Parks Facebook continues to capitalize on .... potential through continued innovation, expanding its membership and offering more value to advertisers, it said.

Other names on the list included Mountain Views Alphabet, Netflix of Los Gatos, Chinese search engine Baidu, and Chinese Internet and media firm Tencent Holdings. The majority of the companies on the Morgan Stanley list have been outperforming the S&P 500, with Facebook and Alibaba up 23 percent and Tencent up 38 percent since the start of 2016. Netflix is the worst performer, with the stock declining 15 percent.

Julie Verhage is a Bloomberg writer. Email: jverhage2@bloomberg.net
A longtime Volkswagen engineer pleaded guilty in federal court to charges he helped design and implement a software system that helped the German automakers diesel engines defeat emissions tests.

The plea is the first from a staffer involved in the cheating scandal, and it signals that the Justice Department is serious about holding Volkswagen employees personally and criminally responsible for producing about 500,000 cars that spew up to 40 times the legally allowed amount of pollutants into the atmosphere.
The former Prime Minster HD Deve Gowda met Prime Minister to urge a favourable outcome for Cauvery dispute for the state of Karnataka.

By Rohini Swamy: As Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday seeking his intervention on the Cauvery water dispute, the former Prime Minster HD Deve Gowda met the prime minister to urge a favourable outcome for the state of Karnataka.

Deve Gowda said that he apprised the prime minister on the plight of the state and requested help as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had sought.

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Also read: Cauvery water dispute: Timeline of Karnataka bandh

REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION



After the meeting, Deve Gowda said the prime minsiter is aware of the problems between the two states and has collected information through the intelligence wing also. Deve Gowda also requested him to convene a meeting of the chief ministers of all southern states to resolve the Cauvery issue.

The Karnataka CM too had in his letter sought a similar intervention yesterday to find a solution as the state is in distress from more than six days now.

Also read: Cauvery dispute: Siddaramaiah writes to Modi, urges him to convene meeting of all southern chief ministers

DEFENDING KARNATAKA'S INTEREST



Deve Gowda met the legal counsel for Karnataka Fali Nariman and later briefed reporters saying that he has full faith in Nariman's capability to defend Karnataka's interest and that they are hoping to see the results soon.

"Don't listen to what others say. He has been fighting the case and knows it well, he is doing his best. I myself have been fighting for the state's right to Cauvery water for the last 50 years," the former prime minister said.

ALSO READ:

Cauvery water dispute: Timeline of Karnataka bandh

Cauvery dispute: Farmers bury themselves under Cauvery bank sand to protest against Karnataka, Centre



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Unless youre in Baja, a great fish taco is hard to find. Often theyre over-fried, or the fish is dry, or the tortilla is cold or they suffer from a dozen other small errors that remind you that youre not on a beach in Mexico, youre in the foggy throes of a Bay Area summer.

The antidote to both the fog and a bad fish taco can be found at Cosecha Cafe, a stand inside Old Oaklands buzzing food hall, Swans Market. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Cosecha serves up what many agree are the best fried fish tacos in the area: fresh cod encased in a crisp beer batter and accentuated with butter lettuce, pickled onion and a creamy chile sauce, all held together by a warm, house-made corn tortilla.

The tacos are worth a visit in themselves, as are the light, fresh udon soup at B-Dama, the perfectly charred pizzas at Hen House, the slow-cooked grilled cheese at the Cook and Her Farmer, and the gulf prawns with jerk sauce at Miss Ollies. But the most remarkable thing at Swans isnt the food at all: Its the community that has been built around it.

Our focus is the people who work and live in Old Oakland. Whos here every day? Whos downtown every day? How long have they been working down here and living down here? Who needs our support? says Dominica Rice-Cisneros, who has been operating Cosecha at the market for five years. Its a very tight-knit community.

With its busy lunch and happy hour crowds, Swans is kind of the ideal market hall, a model for the kind of marketplaces that have sprung up like mushrooms throughout the Bay Area (and the U.S.) over the past few years. Its also an anomaly, in that it has managed to put together a cohesive, successful business when many others have struggled.

Recently weve seen some of these newer markets close, like Haight Streets Second Act Marketplace, or rejigger their business model, like the Market on Market in the Twitter building. In theory, having several food businesses under one roof, sharing rent and other overhead costs, makes sense. In practice, the halls often dont have the right customer base, or retail mix, to attract enough people to make it work financially for everyone. And if the halls are set in new condos or office buildings, they also may be competing with free company cafeterias.

Swans Market works in part because its run by the East Bay Asian Local Development Corp., a community-building organization that mostly deals with low-income housing. Twenty years ago, the city of Oakland granted the organization permission to revitalize the Swans Market building at Ninth and Washington. The space had been a vital food market for most of the 20th century, also operating under the names Oakland Free Market and Housewives Market, but had fallen into dereliction after the construction of BART and Interstate 580, and later the Loma Prieta earthquake.

The corporation worked to build housing and office space on the property, and then looked toward filling the commercial area.

We have really strict criteria. When we look at small businesses, we try to support certain populations that dont get the support they really need. Were here to fill that gap, says Sabrina Chin of the development corporation. They try to make sure theyre picking Oakland entrepreneurs, many of them operating a business for the first time. They also require vendors to support their mission by offering at least one entree for $5 or less.

When the corporation took over, two businesses were holdouts from the Housewives Market: Sincere Seafood, a fishmonger, and Taylor Sausages, a butcher. Cosecha joined them in 2011; Periscope Cellars, a wine company, soon followed, and expanded to a tasting room called Deep Roots.

That wine shop complements the markets strong mix of food businesses. In the main room, along with Cosecha, you can get a thick, juicy burger, a dozen oysters, or other locally sourced fare at the Cook and Her Farmer, or you can go to B-Dama for izakaya food like noodle bowls and daily lunch specials like chicken karaage.

Hen House shares a counter with Deep Roots, offering thin-crust pizzas in flavors like BLT and seasonal Dungeness crab, as well as salads and a meatball sub with a fried cheese ball on top.

Outside of the main room, along Washington Street, you can find an outpost of Rosamunde Sausage as well as Miss Ollies, beloved for its fried chicken and West Indian specialties like salt cod and ackee. In the courtyard is a new juice business as well as an omakase sushi restaurant, Delage, from the B-Dama folks.

For Brandon Eliason of Deep Roots, the most impressive part of Swans is the diversity  not just of the cuisines, but of the people behind the stands.

This is the first place in my career where I am literally the only white male, he says. Its mostly women- and family-owned businesses. They (the development corporation) care as much about the social part as the business part. Thats how a lot of people in the market got a chance to come in.

The market is busy most of the time, but the best time to go is Friday at lunch, when the farmers market is going on and seemingly all of downtown Oakland is there to shop and stop in for a bite. Cosecha doesnt have the fish tacos on Fridays, but thats OK: In their place are crispy shrimp tacos, which are also life-affirming  as is Swans Market itself.

Anna Roth is a freelance writer in San Francisco. E-mail: food@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annaroth

What: Fish tacos at Cosecha ($11.50), combination udon at B-Dama ($11), BLT pizza at Hen House ($14/$19), chicken and waffles at Miss Ollies ($16.75).

Where: Swans Market, 510 Ninth St., Oakland. www.swansmarket.com

When: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sundays. Check merchant listings for business hours, which may vary.
WASHINGTON  John Hincklye, the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, has been released from a Washington mental hospital, more than 35 years after the shooting.

A spokeswoman for the District of Columbias Department of Mental Health said early Saturday that all patients scheduled to leave St. Elizabeths Hospital had been discharged. Hinckley was among those scheduled for discharge.

An Associated Press reporter saw a hired car pull into the driveway of the Hinckley home in Williamsburg, Va., at around 2:30 p.m. Officers from the Kingsmill Police Department chased reporters away.

A federal judge ruled in late July that the 61-year-old Hinckley is not a danger to himself or the public and can live full time at his mothers home in Williamsburg.

Hinckley had already been visiting Williamsburg for long stretches at a time and preparing for the full-time transition. Hell have to follow many rules while in Williamsburg, but his lawyer Barry Levine said he thinks Hinckley will be a citizen about whom we can all be proud.

Hinckley will have to work or volunteer at least three days a week. He hasnt yet done paid work in Williamsburg, but he has volunteered at a church and a mental health hospital, where he has worked in the library and in food service.

Hinckley will continue to go to therapy while in Williamsburg. For at least the first six months hell see his psychiatrist twice a month and hell have to attend weekly group therapy sessions. Hell also see a therapist individually. Hell return to Washington once a month to St. Elizabeths outpatient department to discuss his mental health and compliance with the conditions of his leave.

Hinckley got a drivers license in 2011. The court order in his case allows him to drive within 30 miles of Williamsburg by himself. He can go up to 50 miles from the city if accompanied by his mother, sibling or a therapist or social worker. He can also drive to and from Washington once a month for his outpatient meetings.

Hinckley has long considered himself a musician and an artist. He paints and plays the guitar and has been involved in both as part of his therapy. At court hearings in late 2011 and early 2012, lawyers discussed the fact that Hinckley had recently developed an interest in photography.

There are limits to how Hinckley can spend his leisure time. He also cant drink or use illegal drugs. He can surf the Web but, at least initially, hes not allowed to search for information about his crimes or victims, among other things. He cant have accounts on social media without permission.

Hinckley is also barred from talking to the press.
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Jessica Williams, the apparently unarmed woman whose fatal shooting by San Francisco police in May led to the resignation of then-Chief Greg Suhr, died of a single shot to the chest, according to the medical examiners autopsy report.

Williams, 29, was in a parked Honda on Elmira Street near the Bayview District on May 19 when a passing patrol car equipped with a roof-mounted license plate scanner identified the car as possibly being stolen.

As Sgt. Justin Erb approached the Honda, it suddenly accelerated forward, crossed the street and hit a parked truck, police said. The car backed up, then hit the truck a second time and became wedged between it and a fence.

Erb discharged an unknown number of rounds into the vehicle, striking the subject, the medical examiners report said.

Williams was hit in the chest. She also suffered a graze wound on her left forearm, but the medical examiners office would not comment on whether that was from a second bullet or from the one that hit her chest.

Police said an initial search of the car did not turn up a gun, and authorities have never elaborated on why Erb opened fire.

Williams, who was African American, was the third victim of a controversial police shooting in less than six months. By the end of the day she was shot, Suhr had submitted his resignation.

William moved to San Francisco as a teenager and, according to the medical examiners report, had no fixed residence. The report said her mother in Sacramento told investigators that Williams had a history of car theft and evading police.

The report found traces of methamphetamine in her blood, but did not specify whether Williams was intoxicated when she was shot.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross
The Supreme Court on Monday had ordered the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu which led to massive protests in Karnataka.

By Pramod Madhav: As Karnataka state has come to a stand still for releasing 15,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu, the farmers in Trichy also held a unique form of protest against Karnataka and Centre.

Although, farmers of Trichy delta region have got a slight relief after the Supreme Court's order to release water from Cauvery but the water amounts to only 13.5 TMC of water while as Tamil Nadu's minimum need is 50 TMC which the state should have got in August.



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PROTEST IN TRICHY



Disappointed after seeing protests in Karnataka against the SC order, Trichy farmers have also come out to protest against Karnataka state and the Centre for not constituting the Cauvery water management board and Cauvery water regulatory board.

Also read: Cauvery water dispute: Timeline of Karnataka bandh

Ayyakannu, leader of National South Indian River Inter-linking Farmers Association says, "Karnataka cultivated 45 lakh acres of land and Tamil Nadu earlier cultivated 28 lakh acres of land. But this year not even a single acre of land has been cultivated yet. So, committing suicide is the only option we have. If the Centre doesn't give a compensation of 25,000 rupees per acre to farmers, we have no option but to commit suicide."



As per the directions of the Central government, the amount of water that was to be given to Tamil Nadu hasn't been given.



PROTESTS IN KARNATAKA CONTINUE



The Supreme Court on Monday had ordered the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from September 6 for ten days. the SC direction however triggered a wave of protests in the state, specifically in Cauvery river belt.

Also read: Cauvery row: Bandh cripples life in Karnataka



Elaborate security arrangements have been made to maintain law and order in the state.

Karnataka Chief Minsister Siddaramiah on Friday also wrote a letter to Prime Minster Narendra Modi urging him to convene a meeting of southern chief ministers to find a solution to the Cauvery water dispute.

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KURT ROGERS/SFC

An alleged drunk driver, who was on probation for driving while intoxicated, has been charged with second-degree murder for her role in a deadly wreck on Highway 101 in Marin County, according to the Marin County District Attorney.

On August 19 at 1:11 a.m., Santa Rosa resident Kristine Marie Collier, 47, was driving in a Mercedes the wrong way in the northbound lanes of U.S. 101, north of San Antonio Road, when she crashed into a Honda Odyssey, according to the district attorney. The driver of the Honda, 63-year-old Sachiko Umehara of Santa Rosa, later died from injuries sustained in the crash.
The chief minister has been accused of cheating the framers of the state who had posed full faith in him.

By Aravind Gowda: Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today lodged a police complaint against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in Mandya after farmers were caned by the police near the KRS reservoir yesterday during the 'Karnataka bandh'.

The complainant Siddappa has accused the chief minister of cheating the farmers by permitting the release of Cauvery River water from the KRS reservoir to Tamil Nadu. "The farmers of Mandya district are set to lose their crops because of the chief minister's action. The farmers had posed faith in him and the state government. They expected the government to fulfill their irrigation needs," the complaint said.

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Also read: Cauvery water dispute: Timeline of Karnataka bandh



He also took objection to the police caning the farmers near the KRS dam.

An FIR is yet to be registered in connection with the complaint. The Mandya district remained peaceful today even as the government continued to release water from the KRS dam in accordance with the Supreme Court's directive.

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By Ashish Pandey: The YSR Congress party yet again demanded the resignation of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu for his indifference towards the special category status of the state.

The Leader of Opposition and Party chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy said, "The chief minister welcoming the Union finance minister's statement should step down immediately as it is against the state interests and he should apologise to the people besides pulling out TDP from the union cabinet."

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SPECIAL STATUS OUR RIGHT

"Special status to our state is our right and if we allow any slackness, it will be harmful to our future generations. Unless we fight for our right, we cannot achieve our goal, Telanagana state being a live example," added the party chief.

Also read: Andhra Pradesh: Centre denies special category status demand, Assembly ratifies GST Bill

Reacting on the disrupted proceeding of the monsoon session of the assembaly, Reddy said, "They level allegations against our party MLAs for stalling the house. While Chandrababu Naidu was in the opposition his behavior was unruly and he had troubled even the speakers. He disrupted the Governor's speech also and now he talks in a different tone."



CM HAS SURRENDERED



"Chandrababu Naidu lost no time to welcome the Centre's package which shows how he has surrendered to the them to save his skin. Taking a step further, he has now tried to rub falsehood in the assembly in form of a statement. How many times would he give a statement without any purpose," he asked.

Also read: Center stabbed Andhra people by denying special status: Pawan Kalyan

Hitting out on the BJP, the leader pointed out that the special status was even asked by the BJP while the party was in opposition and was mentioned in the party's 2014 manifesto. But now the party is at the Centre and has forgotten it commitment.

"We strongly oppose the statement and demand the resignation of chief minister for welcoming the substance-less statement of Arun Jaitley," added the YSR Congress chief.



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By PTI: Ahmedabad, Sep 9 (PTI) The Gujarat Government today ordered the release of all 135 Patel agitators detained for creating ruckus at a function where Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and BJP President Amit Shah were booed.

Rupani and Shah were booed by quota agitation leader Hardik Patels supporters at the grand event in Surat organised to felicitate Patel leaders yesterday.

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"Our CM and party President Amitbhai Shah have a big heart and hence decided to release all those persons who were detained yesterday in Surat," said Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja.

As many as 135 protesters were detained by police for creating ruckus in and around the venue and ransacking furniture.

Upon receiving the order, all those detained were released this evening, said P N Patel, Inspector at Kamrej in Surat under whose jurisdiction the incident took place.

Shah, Rupani and other party leaders as well Ministers were booed off stage as the members of Hardiks Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) created commotion at the event.

Chaos prevailed outside the venue as well as in Mota Varraccha area, where Patidar community members from the locality hurled stones at police.

The function, billed as BJPs show of strength in the Patidar stronghold of Surat, wound up within minutes with Patel leaders cutting short their speeches. Shah could speak for hardly four minutes amid sloganeering.

The ruckus started even before the commencement of the function with the Patel quota agitators raising slogans like "Jai Sardar, Jai Patidar" and hailing Hardik.

The programme was organised by Patidar Abhivadan Samiti, an outfit floated by a local businessman, to felicitate Patidar leaders including the newly-appointed state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, Union Ministers Parshottam Rupala and Manshukh Mandaviya.

The slogan shouting continued, forcing even Shah and Rupani to cut short their speeches. PTI PJT PD RSY RCJ

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Two Indian students were among the elite group of 110 scholars presented on Saturday as the first class of China's much-anticipated new 'Rhodes' programme, the Schwarzman Scholars.

By Ananth Krishnan: Two Indian students were among the elite group of 110 scholars presented on Saturday as the first class of China's much-anticipated new 'Rhodes' programme, the Schwarzman Scholars, hosted at the prestigious Tsinghua University. The programme is named after billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, who donated USD 100 million and raised more than USD 400 million in total for what is seen as China's answer to Oxford University's famed Rhodes Scholarship. The final 110 students were selected from more than 3,000 applicants for the scholarship, which involves a one-year master's degree in Tsinghua University in Beijing.

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The programme will be headed by eminent Chinese economist Li Daokui from Tsinghua University, and conducted in the Tsinghua campus at the Schwarzman College, a newly-built 25,000 square metre building

designed by U.S. architect Robert Stern.

Also read: Five most prestigious postgraduate scholarships and the key to winning them



Underlining the importance that Beijing is placing on its own 'Rhodes', the opening on Saturday was presided over by Communist Party of China Politburo member Liu Yandong, who is also a Vice Premier in charge of education and culture. For China, the programme is also being seen as an experiment in its push to create world-class educational institutions as well as attract top foreign talent, both in terms of faculty and students.



WHAT IS THE SCHWARZMAN PROGRAMME



Li, the economist and dean of the programme, told India Today the programme was a unique experiment that could help China's educational institutions become more international. Describing the programme as a "special education zone" - akin to China's economic experiments with SEZs in the south that were later replicated across the country - Li told India Today, "the most immediate impact this programme will have is that this will bring

Tsinghua a lot of exposure outside of China, besides also pushing the institution to become more international."

The two Indian students are Akshay Shah, 24, from Bengaluru and Anurag Chandran, 21, a graduate of the University of Missouri and an Indian national raised in the UAE. Out of 110 students, around 50 are from the United States - the most from any country - while 20 are from China. There are scholars from Latin America, Europe and Africa, and from Nepal in South Asia.



Also read: Scholarship list for Indian students to study abroad



Speaking to India Today, Schwarzman said the idea was to bring together an elite group of students from around the world and for them to get to understand China better. "It is very important to have a major new opportunity for students around the world to come to China. That's because China is growing so rapidly and becoming so important. But most people outside of China do not understand it. So some of them have misunderstandings, some of them are scared of China. So it's important that we have very smart people from around the world coming to China and learning about it so they can help interpret China for the rest of the world," he said.



TWO INDIAN STUDENTS PICKED

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Akshay Shah said he was selected after a rigorous process. Shah was a student of Vidyashilp and the National Public School, and also holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University. The other Indian student is Anurag Chandran from the University of Missouri. Chandran plans to study China's role in South Asia and in West Asia. "I applied as I thought it would a amazing opportunity to be here for a programme designed to world-class standards and as I have a continued interest in China," Shah said, having studied Mandarin in university.

Shah, who earlier worked briefly on the Unique Identification (UID) project and as a research assistant to Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairman of Niti Aayog, said he plans to research China's currency as well as the impact of its internationalisation.

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An Ohio police department shared photos of a 4-year-old boy sitting in the back seat of a car as two passed out, slumped-over adults, sit in the front in an effort to illustrate the dangers of drugs Thursday.

On Wednesday in East Liverpool, Ohio, located just west of Pennsylvania, police followed a car where the driver appeared to be weaving back and forth in an erratic manner.

Eventually, the Ford Explorer drifted to the side of the road and stopped, according to an affidavit posted on the city's Facebook page. The officer said the driver, later identified as James Acord, 47, had pin point pupils and his head was bobbing back and forth. Additionally, Acords speech was unintelligible, the affidavit states.

RELATED: Police: Central Texas couple put children in danger by drunkenly pushing stroller on street

Acord told the officer he was taking Rhonda Pasek, 50, to the hospital. He tried moving the gear shift and the officer reached in, turned the vehicle off, and took Acords keys from him. Paseks 4-year-old son was sitting in the back in a car seat.

The officer said Pasek was completely unconscious and turning blue. Acord went unconscious and the officer called an ambulance to the scene. After emergency officials gave Acord and Pasek Narcan, a drug that is used to reverse opiate overdose, they were taken to the East Liverpool City Hospital. Officials found a yellow, folded piece of paper filled with a pink, powdery substance in between Paseks legs.

RELATED: Records: 57 people charged with drinking and driving with a child in first 7 months of 2016 in Bexar

The substance was sent to a lab for analysis and, although not confirmed to be heroin, city officials said: "The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities, not just outs, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until it's gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that."

Columbiana County Childrens Services assisted with the 4-year-old boy.

The pair face child-endangerment charges, among others.

RELATED: South Texas teen mom smiles in booking photo after 3 child endangerment charges

City officials shared the police report and accompanying photos to show the other side" of using drugs.

We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess, the post states. This child can't speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Kashmir remains shut for the 64th consecutive day today. The govt has deployed security personnel in Srinagar and at other places in the Valley to maintain law and order.

Kashmir has been on the boil for over two months now in the wake of terrorist Burhan Wani's killing. PTI Photo.

By Shuja-ul-Haq : Kashmir remains shut for the 64th consecutive day today. The govt has deployed security personnel in Srinagar and at other places in the Valley to maintain law and order.



Clashes broke out in old city areas of Srinagar when a state govt driver was allegedly beaten to death by the security forces earlier today. A police spokesman, however, denied the allegation saying that the driver had died in a road accident.



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ARMY CHIEF ON VALLEY VISIT



Also read: Kashmir unrest: Curfew is re-imposed, army troops to be deployed in Valley



Meanwhile, reports suggest that the Army has started area domination patrolling by soldiers in parts of south Kashmir. Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag is presently on a two-day visit to the Valley. Sources say the Army Chief's visit has been timed in accordance with the decision taken by the Centre that without getting directly involved in crowd control, the Army should help the civil administration re-establish authority in places like south Kashmir.

CROWDS IN SOUTH KASHMIR DEFY CURFEWS



Crowds in south Kashmir have defied curfews and restrictions during the last 64 days. As many as 75 people have died and thousands of others injured in clashes.

Also read: Kashmir unrest: PDP whispers turn into clamours for CM Mehbooba Mufti to resign



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Theres no such thing as a free bag, Sacramento political guru Steve Maviglio told The Chronicles editorial board at a meeting to urge a yes vote on Proposition 67. The initiative would uphold a state bill to prohibit retailers from giving customers free single-use plastic bags. Free bags  boo, hiss. Something must be done to protect those virtuous souls who carry reusable bags from having to subsidize less virtuous consumers profligate use of free bags. So Sacramento passed a bag ban. The more dubious a problem, the more determined the Legislature is to do something about it.

What next? Will Sacramento devise a way to charge shoppers who ride on elevators or escalators so that the virtuous folk who take the stairs dont have to subsidize free-ride slouches?

Maviglios other complaint: Prop. 67 is something we shouldnt be talking about  because the measure shouldnt even be before California voters. Where the Legislature sticks its unwanted nose, the public should not step in. Everything was going swimmingly after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bag ban in 2014. Then the vile  Maviglios word  bag industry gathered the requisite signatures to put an initiative before voters. As representatives of the American Progressive Bag Alliance  a.k.a. the industry  told The Chronicle, their side thought it was time to get input about the ban from the one group nobody asked: Californians.

Of course, this madness began in San Francisco with its 2007 first in the nation ban on plastic bags enacted to combat bag litter. Its odd to work in a town where City Hall makes me pay a dime for a bag if I buy soup for lunch, while its public health clinics hand out free needles so that drug addicts can leave them on the sidewalk.

In the beginning, bag ban supporters said their law would save taxpayers money by eliminating a waste-management scourge  they didnt seem to notice that plastic bags made up less than 1 percent of Californias waste stream. They warned that plastic bags migrate toward the ocean, where they hurt fish and other wildlife  and they used dodgy statistics to support their cause. The Surfrider Foundation warned that plastics kill 1.5 million marine animals annually  with no sourcing. University of Washington environmental science Professor Joel Baker told me, I have no idea where they got that number. He assigned students to track down that number, and the trail goes cold. The bag-ban folks warn about plastic in the ocean  without informing voters that the overwhelming amount of that plastic doesnt come from bags. The bag bans were brewed with junk science.

At The Chronicles editorial board, David Lewis from Save the Bay said plastic bags are one of the most commonly found items at coastal cleanups. Notice he did not discuss volume, but number of the teensy bags.

Because local bag bans allow retailers to sell thicker plastic bags (with five times as much plastic) for a fee, Phil Rozenski of the bag industry told The Chronicle he believes plastics share of the waste stream is going up. Think about it: Bag manufacturers began to make those super-thin plastic bags in part because of their smaller environmental footprint. So in their wisdom, California Democrats have moved consumers away from lightweight bags and onto weightier plastic bags.

The ban includes the usual left-wing politics, with its exemption for participants in the states Women, Infants and Children supplemental food program. Cant WIC participants be expected to bring reusable bags? I asked Lewis of Save the Bay. Dont WIC recipients bags end up as litter the same way other bags do? He responded that state pols figured WIC recipients didnt have as many financial resources to acquire reusable bags.

Meanwhile, Sacramento has no problem sticking it to shoppers. Besides, when there is an opportunity to make those who recycle feel virtuous, it doesnt matter if the bag ban delivers.

How does the bag ban work in real life? As one who works in San Francisco while living in Alameda County, which also passed a bag ban, Ill tell you how it works for me. I end up with five or so reusable bags stashed around my desk and more in my car and more in my home, where they gather dust because I often shop on the run and rarely remember to bring them to stores. So I have to pay for paper bags or heavier reusable plastic bags. In sum, I am buying more plastic and more paper. Thats a good thing, because I havent washed a recyclable bag in a couple of years, and health officials warn that consumers should wash their bags diligently to avoid E. coli infection.

Some day, my many reusable bags will spend their end of life  Rozenskis term  in a government landfill, where they will take up more space than the single-use bags they have replaced. As Rozenski noted, the science behind the bag ban left the building a long time ago.

Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DebraJSaunders

The bag men strike back

The bag industry has offered an alternative ballot measure, Proposition 65, to stop grocery stores from keeping all the money collected from carryout bag taxes as profit instead of helping the environment. The bag industry sees pure profit for retailers in state law. Retailers say they barely break even.

Opponents charge that Proposition 65 exists to confuse voters. I think another motive is to divide the bag-ban lobby. California grocers support the bag ban because they get to pocket the money from mandated sales of reusable bags. Take that profit motive away, and the grocery lobby just might switch sides.
San Franciscos skyline unfolds from floor-to-ceiling windows at this east-facing contemporary. Nestled amid Twin Peaks, the home has a coveted location for gazing at Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and downtown. Minimalist hardware blends with stainless steel appliances in a refreshed kitchen. A double-height ceiling in the family/media room welcomes morning sun into a room warmed by a fireplace and accessing a deck. The master suite boasts a spa tub, a steam shower and an attached southern-facing solarium. The four-story offers elevator access to all levels and garage parking for one car.

Listing agent: Maria Marchetti, Sothebys International Realty, (415) 699-8008,
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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia  The Dutch finance minister urged Apple on Saturday to get ready to pay its taxes.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem and his counterparts from other EU nations lined up behind a finding that the technology company owes billions of euros due to more than a decade of improperly low taxation.

Apples bill could reach 19 billion euros ($21 billion) with interest, and both the company and Ireland, Apples European headquarters, are appealing the European Commission ruling.

But as the last day of an EU finance ministers meeting focused on ways to harmonize tax rules for multinational companies, Dijsselbloem told reporters that the firms have an obligation to pay taxes in a fair way.

International tax loopholes are a thing of the past, said Dijsselbloem, who also heads the 19-strong group of nations within the EU using the euro currency. Apple will have to pay back taxes both in the United States and Europe, he added, so get ready to do that.

The Apple decision is only one of several faulting international companies  and the countries hosting them  for exploiting European exemptions to pay minimal taxes. Both Starbucks and Fiat Chrysler are contesting rulings handed down last year that they are each about 30 million euros ($33 million) in arrears.

The European Commission hopes to have ready by fall proposals for multinational companies operating in the EU that tightens rules on tax bases. Pushing back against U.S. criticism of the Apple decision, EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici on Saturday hailed U.S. investment as an important driver of growth and employment in Europe.

While Ireland would reap a huge windfall from the extra money, it opposes the ruling because it has also benefited from the arrangement. Multinationals have such huge revenue that small countries can reap big gains even from low taxes, and they also gain from the jobs created.
THESSALONIKI, Greece  The European Union will add 115 million euros ($129 million) in funding to humanitarian organizations in Greece to assist programs for refugees and migrants before the winter, officials said Saturday.

The money would be used to support refugee schooling, food stamps, heating and living facilities for unaccompanied minors, said Christos Stylianides, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

We have to respond to the needs of migrants in the EU. Most of these people risked their lives and traveled in a plastic boat to get here. We are providing help to improve the conditions they are facing, he said.

Stylianides spoke in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki after meeting Greek government officials.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece due to European border closures.

The EU money was pledged a day after Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the government for continuing to use police cells to house unaccompanied migrant children.

Ioannis Mouzalas, a Greek minister for migration, said the government was working on building more permanent structures at camps to replace tents.

We have said repeatedly that many of the facilities we have are not good quality and we are working to improve that, he said, adding that it would take several months to create new facilities for children who traveled to Greece without adult relatives.

New shelter space on the mainland will also help reduce overcrowding at camps on Greek islands where several violent protests have occurred in recent weeks.

Under a deal between the EU and Turkey, migrants who arrived on the islands after March 20 are being held for deportation back to Turkey if their asylum claims are rejected.

The rights group Amnesty International on Saturday renewed its criticism of the EU-Turkey agreement after a Syrian asylum seeker had his claim rejected by a government appeals board in Greece.

This ruling takes for granted that a Syrian will be fully protected in Turkey, and hence is fundamentally flawed, Amnestys John Dalhuisen said in a statement. The idea that Turkey fully respects the rights of asylum seekers is a fiction.
BEIRUT  A day of intense air strikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 died in strikes that took place just hours after a new U.S.-Russian agreement was reached to try to end the violence in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Aleppo province and another 39 were killed by air strikes in neighboring Idlib province. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

The United States and Russia announced a deal Saturday that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al Qaeda militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Previous Syrian cease-fires or limited truces have also been preceded by spikes in violence as both government and rebel forces seek to consolidate positions or gain new ground in the final hours of fighting.

State news agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the countrys largest, for humanitarian reasons. It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the U.S.-Russia agreement was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government.

A cease-fire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Russia is a main backer of Assads government while the U.S. has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power. Syrias conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try end the violence. At least a quarter million people have been killed and half the countrys prewar population displaced.

Saturdays air raids were mostly in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Aleppo has been the center of violence in Syria in recent months where some 2,200 people, including 700 civilians, have been killed since last July according to the Observatory, which tracks violence in Syria through a network of activists on the ground.

The Observatory said the deadliest air strike occurred in the northwestern city of Idlib and struck near the main market. The LCC said the air strikes were carried out by Russian warplanes.
Though it has suffered a loss in comparison to its last year's performance, ABVP bagged top three positions in the DUSU polls winning the posts of president, vice-president and secretary. The NSUI candidate was elected as the joint-secretary.

By India Today Web Desk: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad has registered an emphatic victory in the Delhi University Student Union polls, though they won one position less than the last year. The student wing of the BJP bagged top three posts of DUSU while the Congress's student wing, National Students' Union of India had to content with a join secretary in the union.

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ABVP's Amit Tanwar was elected as the president, Priyanka Chabri as the vice president and Ankit Sangwan as secretary. NSUI's Mohit Sangwan was elected as the joint secretary of DUSU.

In 2015, the ABVP had won all the four positions in the DUSU polls.

LOW VOTERS' TURNOUT

This year's DUSU polls witnessed the lowest voters' turnout in six years. Only 36.2 per cent students cast their votes this year. In 2011 36.5 per cent students used ballot.

The voters' turnout has remained around 43 per cent in the past three years. In 2010, however, only 36 per cent students cast their ballot.

Students blamed DU administration for poor voters' turnout saying that the varsity failed to implement the code of conduct strictly.

However, another reason for the lower voters' turnout could be the decision of four colleges- Ramjas, Law Faculty, Ramanujan and Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Science- to conduct their internal students' union polls separately.



ALSO READ:

DUSU polls: ABVP candidate pleads innocence over Priyanka Chopra's photo on hoardings

ABVP sweeps DUSU polls, wins all 4 seats





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1 Mass ouster: Turkeys government will take over the running of 28 municipalities, ousting elected mayors and other administrators accused of links to Kurdish rebels, the interior minister said Friday. The announcement came a day after the countrys education ministry suspended as many as 11,285 of its personnel, including teachers, because of suspicions they may be linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. Violence between Kurdish rebels and Turkeys security forces resumed last year, after the collapse of a two-year peace process. Hundreds of security force members, militants and civilians have been killed since.

2 Zimbabwe crisis: The African nation plans to cut 25,000 government jobs as it struggles to pay its workers amid a plummeting economy that has caused widespread protests. The government has failed to pay salaries on time for nearly 300 000 workers since June. The finance minister also proposed to close some of the countrys embassies abroad. Zimbabwe has seen sometimes violent protests in the capital, Harare, and elsewhere over the economy and allegations of government mismanagement under 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe.
Roughly 50 protesters crowded toward the stage, tightly encircled by police, during the Fiestas annual reenactment of Don Diego de Vargas's reconquest of Santa Fe. They chanted "Abolish the Entrada," "The Entrada is racist," and "1680" throughout the laying down of arms and recitation by friars. They'd already marched around the Plaza once, and stood to greet De Vargas as he arrived on horseback, calling out the fact that Santa Fe was built on Native land; that anytime you dig under the buildings downtown, the remnants of previous people and traces of it serving as former battleground are unearthed.

Their demands include ending the Entrada, ending the Fiesta court's visits to schools, teaching an alternative view of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and the Spanish return in 1692, and cutting off city funding for a religious event they see as a violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state.

"This needs to change because this is indigenous land, and the fact that it's indigenous land that has been occupied violently is a historical fact and it's an ongoing condition that's a violation of fundamental human rights," says Melanie Yazzie, Navajo/Dine member of the protest. "Indigenous people have been silenced and that needs to change because we're everywhere, and we're never going to go away. This is who we are, and we belong here, and everybody needs to recognize that and respect it."

"We don't have an issue with Zozobra, we don't have an issue with the Pet Parade," says Elena Ortiz, who had printed t-shirts and signs that read, "In the spirit of Po'Pay," the leader of the Pueblo Revolt.

"The issue is the Entrada, the revisionist history and what was really the subjugation of Pueblo people. We want it to end," she says. "What we're trying to do is not deny a pride in Spanish history and Spanish culture. What we're trying to do is make Fiestas more inclusive, welcoming and palatable for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, culture and country of origin, and to do it, we really have to decolonize it."

University of New Mexico student Jennifer Marley led the protest chants and marchers. With an eye to the organizing underway in North Dakota to stop the construction of a crude oil pipeline the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says has already disturbed burial groundsfor which she also recently helped to coordinate an event that more than 300 people attendedshe called the occasion profound and historic.

"This is a pivotal moment for the Native movement all around the world," Marley tells SFR. "It's only going to grow from now on."

(Elizabeth Miller)

Of course, the effort to adjust the historic celebration wasn't entirely welcomed by the crowd gathered to watch it, some of whom chanted back, "Que Viva!" and "Viva la Fiestas!" When protesters chanted "Abolish the Entrada!" Gloria Mendoza shouted back, "Never."

She challenged the divisiveness the protest might generate between Spanish and Native Americans.

"We were the first ones to assimilate with Native Americans," she says. "That's what Santa Fe is all aboutassimilation, and we accept any culture that comes here."

And why continue the Entrada as has been done?

"This has been happening for years and years. This is our history and we want to celebrate that," she said. "Before they make any changes, I'll have all of New Mexico here."

Two others took their messages to signs, one declaring, "You have Spanish surnames!" and the second, "De Vargas protected Puebloan kiva faith. Viva la Fiesta!"

"I think when people really take some time to learn the history of New Mexico, they would have a little different attitude than these anti-de Vargas protesters," says Richard Polese, bearer of the latter sign. "When de Vargas came back, yes, it was a military takeover. He wanted it peaceful. Didn't turn out entirely that way when he returned a year and a half later, but many of the Pueblo people did welcome his return because of the beginning of the incursion of the people from the plains, the Navajo and Apache people."

Peaceful or not is beside the point, protesters say.

"De Vargas is memorialized and glorified because he epitomizes the agent of conquest, that's really who he is," Yazzie says. "It doesn't matter whether or not people consider it to be peaceful or violent, it was colonialism and it was conquest and it was a much larger process of eliminating native people, dispossessing them of their land, killing them and making it so that they could not live their sacred way of life anymore, and we're rising up and saying 'No more.' It's really simple."

"Today is about multiple truths being able to happen at the same time," Corrine Sanchez, of San Ildefonso Pueblo, told the Monte del Sol Charter School students squeezed into a school room. They gathered for a presentation about the Native half of the Fiestas story held the day before the Entrada.

There's evidence of Native people in this land for 25,000 years.

"We still have some of the same songs that were sung at that time. We still have the same language," Beata Tsosie-Pena of Santa Clara Pueblo said. "The reason that culture and history has survived is that we also have a culture of resistance."

That Tewa people have been here since "time immemorial" is a tough concept to wrap your head around, she explained, so she illustrated seven generations of her family insteadfive of whom were alive when she was bornpassing a basket filled with corn to represent the traditions and values that endure, and a bag filled with rocks, for the weight of oppression and violence each generation passes along. That oppression, she argued, appears in the form of alcoholism, abuse and suicide. Suicide is the second most common cause of death for Native Americans aged 10 to 34; for the group beginning at age 35, chronic liver disease claims that spot.

The legacy celebrated each year, she explained, is one that young Native people inherit as a sense of shame and displacement. In short, the history celebrated in Fiestas is not one she wants to pass on to her future children.

"This time that we're talking about, Fiesta, is about celebrating just one moment in history that may be one people's truth. It is not all people's truth. And what we're asking for is that we be able to tell history, or herstory, in a more accurate, more open way," Sanchez said. "Because part of this piece of the historical trauma is that as we enact this one piece of the history, we're opening and continuing to open those wounds that existed for people."

Passing on just one perspective is a way of continuing colonization, Tsosie-Pena said.

Elena Ortiz, who was present at the march and had helped recruit Sanchez and Tsosie-Pena to speak at Monte del Sol, says they're trying to open a dialogue: "If we don't get anything, like happened last year, we'll be here the same time next year."

Santa Fe Reporter
"We are as surprised as anyone else. If there was an investigation, they should have informed us. This is mentioned in the contract," said a senior Defence Ministry source.

By Jugal R Purohit: Rocked by allegations of corruption in its deal with Brazilian aviation firm Embraer, which is under investigation in Brazil and USA, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) responded by saying it had asked for an explanation from the firm over the matter.

"We are as surprised as anyone else. If there was an investigation, they should have informed us. This is mentioned in the contract," said a senior source.

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Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar who was in Goa following his tour to the US had been briefed over the matter and with his concurrence, a communication was being sent at the time of writing this piece. "Within 15 days, they are to respond," said the source.



Also Read: India's USD 208mn Embraer deal under scanner for alleged graft

On its side, the DRDO and MoD will begin re-examining their files for anomalies it was informed.



WHAT HAPPENED

The Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) System is under-development by the Bengaluru based Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS) for the Indian Air Force. As a part of the deal, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer modified its jet aircraft, EMB-145 to carry the Active Array Antenna Unit (AAAU), developed by the DRDO, on the aircraft's fuselage. A total of three modified EMB-145 aircraft had been developed under this agreement.

The various sub-systems of the AEW&C Mission system were integrated into the 'modified green' aircraft by DRDO and the full-fledged EMB-145 based AEW&C tested from 2012. The AEW&C system comprises many sub-systems like Radar and communication links that are being designed and developed by DRDO.

WHAT IS AIRBORNE EARLY WARNING AND CONTROL SYSTEM

As the name suggests, this is a mobile, aerial platform to keep an eye on the enemy for any missile launches or fighter plane launches taking place and responding accordingly. It can also be used as a communications platform to direct own planes and missiles, in response.



As per reports which appeared in the Brazilian press, government agencies in Brazil and USA were looking into Embraer's business deals. It was reported that the firm had hired the services of a UK-based agent for the Indian sale of EMB 145 plane, an arrangement which is disallowed as per the MoD rules.



The deal was concluded in July 2008. A DRDO release from then stated, "A few EMB-145 based AEW&C/AWACS versions are already in operation with Air Forces of Brazil, Mexico and Greece".



Writer is a Senior Special Correspondent with INDIA TODAY TV and tweets @JRPUR

IMPACT OF ALLEGATION Surprised, Defence Ministry asks Brazilian firm to explain. Critical project, IAF is awaiting delivery of three planes from DRDO. DRDO was keen to export this plane with own radar systems to friendly countries. No action till Embraer explains. If blacklisted, could curtail India's options. India unable to build planes, relies on imports. IAF uses Embraer for VVIP travel also.

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By AP: With a new promise of USD 20 million to help defeat Donald Trump, billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz becomes one of the top Democratic donors of the election.

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur calls the Republican presidential candidate dangerous and divisive and says his appeal to Americans who feel left behind is "quite possibly a deliberate con."

By contrast, Moskovitz says, Democrats and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, are "running on a vision of optimism, pragmatism, inclusiveness and mutual benefit."

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Trump has struggled to gain traction among the tech elite, even though Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan have worked for years to strengthen the party's relationship with the industry.

MORE JOIN THE LEAGUE



Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison gave $5 million to a super political action committee backing Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the primary. He has not made a presidential contribution since Rubio dropped out. Republican Meg Whitman, the chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard, so despises Trump that she has vowed to invest significant money in Clinton, whom she endorsed last month.

One of the few tech leaders to warm up to Trump is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and was a Trump delegate.

Yet the billionaire who pumped more than $2.4 million into efforts to elect Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul four years ago hadn't written the Trump campaign so much as a $201 check as of July. 31, records show.

Also read: Trump's ideas are wacky, he is not qualified to be president: Obama



Trump has made few fundraising trips to Northern California, while Clinton was there a little over two weeks ago - and returns next week.

Moskovitz wrote about his planned Democratic contributions in a Thursday night posting on the website Medium titled "Compelled to Act." Until now, Moskowitz had made only one federal campaign contribution, $5,200 in 2013 to Democrat Sean Eldridge. The husband of another Facebook co-founder, Eldridge unsuccessfully ran for a New York congressional seat.

TO FUND POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE



Half of the USD 20 million Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, are giving will go to the League of Conservation Voters and to a political action committee called For Our Future. The latter group is a get-out-the-vote effort in battleground states that is paid for primarily by labor unions and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer.

Moskovitz and Tuna also are giving directly to Clinton's campaign and to party committees helping Senate and congressional Democrats.

"As a nation, we need to figure out how to bring everyone with us, and we believe the Democratic platform currently is more aligned with ensuring that happens," he wrote.

Also read: Donald Trump eliminates his "black list" of media banned from his campaign rallies



"In comparison, Donald Trump's promises to this group are quite possibly a deliberate con, an attempt to rally energy and support without the ability or intention to deliver. His proposals are so implausible that the nation is forced to worry that his interest in the presidency might not even extend beyond winning a contest and promoting his personal brand."

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Only Steyer has given more this year to Democrats, campaign finance records show. The Californian has put up almost $40 million so far, to promote environmental issues and help elect Clinton and other Democrats.

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35-year-old fighter Jodi Vincent was in for a pleasant surprise when she found her boyfriend waiting to be rescued... with a ring in his hand.

By India Today Web Desk: 35-year-old Jodi Vincent is elated after her boyfriend caught her by surprise and went down on one knee.

She, along with her colleagues, was responding to a call for a security assist for a "male with ring stuck on finger," when she saw her boyfriend waiting with a ring in his hands.



@HighgateFire Firefigter Jodi Vincent said yes! Congrats to her and Mark! ??? pic.twitter.com/tteI25tW4d WMFS Highgate (@HighgateFire) September 7, 2016

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"I was completely unaware that I was going to be proposed to today. I thought it would be just be a regular day!" he told her employer West Midlands Fire Service, which posted a link of the incident.



Her colleagues were all in on the surprise too. "They managed to keep it a complete secret - they all owe me a drink at the wedding!" said Vincent.



Take a look at the adorable video:



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India is a country of varied flavours, and travelling for the love of food in this country is an experience to cherish.

By Samonway Duttagupta: India has arguably one of the biggest population of foodies. Right from each region to each state, we have a plethora of choices when it comes to food. And there's a major chunk of the population in this country that lives for the love of food. So much so that they can happily travel to other places to try out new flavours. Indeed, the variety of flavours available in this country is just too good to ignore. Given a chance, I would visit every corner of this country for the love of food.

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Keeping that in mind, let's take a quick look at some of the places where every foodie would love to visit just for trying out the local cuisines.



Kolkata

Of course, who can ignore the City of Joy when the discussion is about food. When you start exploring the depth of it, each corner of this city would have something really special to offer. Being from the city myself, I can take the example of Tangra, often referred to as Chinatown due to its historic Chinese population, which has restaurants that offer Chinese cuisine that's more authentic than most other places in this country. Besides, the city itself is held synonymous to a long list of delicacies that are offered--right from the rolls to the fish fries to the Kolkata biryani, which comes with a distinct taste, thanks to the presence of potatoes and egg to add to the flavour of it.

Rolls you get in Kolkata are better than anywhere else in the country. Picture courtesy: Instagram/bellthebelly

Known for: Fuchka, egg and chicken rolls, biryani, sweets, jhal muri

Lucknow

Apart from Bada Imambara and Bhool Bhulaiya, one thing that makes Lucknow an amazing place to visit is its food. Home to the famous Awadhi cuisine, this town in Uttar Pradesh owes its culinary brilliance to the age-old traditions of the Nawabi kitchen. While the different types of kebabs you get here are famous all over the world, there are many other things that attract foodies to this part of the country.

The famous tunday kebab of Lucknow. Picture courtesy: Instagram/chef_anjali

Known for: Biryani, tunday, galouti, burra, and kakori kebabs, golgappas, parathas, sheermal

Hyderabad

The city of Charminar is not only about its authentic biryani. The local cuisine is essentially a fine blend of of Mughlai, Turkish and Arabic cooking styles, summed up beautifully with delightful touches of Telugu cuisine. What makes the flavours from this place so are the layers of ingredients and spices used for preparing the dishes.

Every foodie's favourite, the famous Hyderabadi biryani. Picture courtesy: Instagram/hyderabadbuzz Every foodie's favourite, the famous Hyderabadi biryani. Picture courtesy: Instagram/hyderabadbuzz

Known for: Kachhe gosht ki biryani, haleem, paaya, Hyderabadi marag, Hyderabad biryani, Karachi biscuits

Mumbai

The street food of Aamchi Mumbai is totally worth travelling for. But that doesn't mean the city of Bollywood, sea beaches, and the Gateway of India doesn't have anything more to offer. On one hand is the Maratha cuisine, and on the other, there's Parsi cuisine. Added to that is the amazing fusion food on offer by the restaurants, which has come up mainly due to a metropolitan population.

Vada pao in Mumbai is the best. Period. Picture courtesy: Instagram/mumbai_munch Vada pao in Mumbai is the best. Period. Picture courtesy: Instagram/mumbai_munch

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Known for: Vada pao, nalli nihari, boti kebab, paani puri, falooda

Delhi

With a history dating back to the Mughal rule, the national capital of India has the ability to offer mini India on a platter, when it comes to food. Apart from its signature street food, which is best available within the lanes and bylanes of Chandni Chowk and the neighbouring areas of Delhi, the city gives a tough competition to any other Indian city in terms of the innovative cuisines, fusion food, and international cuisines offered by a plethora of restaurants and cafes that are at an ever-increasing rate. Also, this city is so full of foodies that it's almost impossible to not be in the waiting list of a restaurant on a weekend.

Chhole bhature of Delhi. Picture courtesy: Instagram/joyfuleating

Known for: Chhole bhature, chhole kulche, stuffed parathas, Muradabadi biryani, nihari, kebabs, rajma chawal, chhole chawal, kadhi chawal



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Congress national spokesperson Meem Afzal said, "The BJP is trying to create an atmosphere where it culminates into a communal riot on the occasion of Eid so that they can reap the electoral harvest in UP elections. Due to its crass failure, the state government is trying to hide its face behind cow."

By Mail Today Bureau: Political opponents of the Manohar Lal government have accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of conducting beef raids in Mewat to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments across India, from Kashmir to Haryana, to influence the UP assembly elections in 2017.

COMMUNAL ATMOSPHERE

Congress national spokesperson Meem Afzal alleged that the Haryana government was indulging in a campaign that was even against the spirit of the Prime Minister's contention when he declared that most of the gaurakshaks were antisocial elements. "The Haryana government thinks it is even bigger than the PM who did the nation much service to declare that gaurakahs was a front for criminal activities in most cases.

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On the other hand, the BJP is trying to create an atmosphere where it culminates into a communal riot on the occasion of Eid so that they can reap the electoral harvest in UP elections. Due to its crass failure, the state government is trying to hide its face behind cow."

Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly, INLD's Abhay Singh Chautala also blamed the ruling party of trying to create conflict. "BJP has a long history of doing communal riots by creating conflict. It has picked beef issue in Haryana for the same purpose. They want to make such a situation to create riots between Hindus and Muslims", he said.

WORKING FOR COMMON MAN

The INLD leader also targeted state for not working in the interest of common people of Haryana and raising non relevant prevocational issue. "Khattar government in Haryana is working while keeping in mind of industrialists and private builders. It has given Rs 100 crore to private builders which was actually allocated for farmers, and (another) Rs 200 crore from state exchequer", Chautala added. "Ye BJP mahaul bana rahi hai UP elections ke liye," (BJP is preparing the ground for Uttar Pradesh polls) said INLD's Zakir Hussain.

ALSO READ:

Haryana: Beef found in biryani samples seized from Mewat

Former Haryana CM Hooda under CBI, ED scanner over land scam allegations

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All she wants is to study and become a police officer but 16-year-old Madhu's dreams were shattered when a government school in Delhi denied her admission. Her fault? she is from Pakistan.

By Anil Kumar: All she wants is to study and become a police officer but 16-year-old Madhu's dreams were shattered when a government school in Delhi denied her admission. Her fault? she is from Pakistan.

DOCUMENTATION

The school has refused to enrol Madhu , a Hindu refugee from Pakistan, as she does not have the necessary documents required to complete the formalities.

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According to Madhu, it is impossible for her to arrange those papers which she left in Pakistan from where she and her family, fled religious persecution two years ago.

She has now appealed to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and HRD Minister for accommodating her in the government co-ed senior secondary school in Sanjay Colony in Bhati Mines area of South Delhi.

When Madhu left Pakistan two years ago, she was a 9th standard student and in Delhi, she wanted to continue her education from where she left off but the school refused to enrol her.

The school authorities claim that Madhu doesn't have necessary documents required to complete the formalities. "We have no problem to take madhu admission but as per norms, she has to full fill all requirements as such transfer certificate/aadhar card/affidavit" Om Prakash Sharma, Vice principal of higher secondary school told india today"



LETTER TO ARVIND KEJRIWAL

Narrating her ordeal, Madhu had written a letter to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but no reply has came her way so far.

But Madhu is determined to secure education for herself..

She has even approached the All India Parents Association with her grievance.

"The Pakistani Girl Madhu contacted me after the school refused her admission. I have written a letter to Delhi CM. When we provide Pakistani refugees with water, electricity connection and a house to live in, why can't we also provide them education?. If we can't then I doubt the validity of the Slogan 'Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao'", said Ashok Agrwal , a Social Worker and the Delhi Parents Association President.

Madhu's Aadhar card.

HER STORY

Madhu had arrived in Delhi with her mother, brother, maternal uncle and her cousins two years ago from the Sindh province in Pakistan. Her father passed away a long time ago. Afer a few months, her mother left for paksitan due to some personal issues.

As a student, Madhu faced discrimination in Pakistan. "In school, she felt unsafe and humiliated. Being a Hindu, she was not allowed to use glass to drink water and would rather use her hands for the purpose. Her class mates maintained distance from her," said Madhu to india today.

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Madhu's family just want one thing and that is for their young daughter to be able to fulfill her dreams. Her brother Lakhbir said, " I request the government to please provide Madhu with admission into a school"

The school may have turned her down but Madhu and her family are still hopeful that the government will help them at their time of need.

ALSO READ:

Government to provide hassle-free Indian citizenship to Pakistani Hindus

Modi govt allows those staying in India on Long Term Visa to open bank accounts, purchase property



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By PTI: From Yoshita Singh

United Nations, Sep 10 (PTI) Hopes for a woman to lead the UN appear to be fading as Portugals former premier Antonio Guterres maintained his lead in the fourth round of informal polls to elect the next UN Secretary General, with men occupying the top four positions out of the 10 contenders.

The 15-nation UN Security Council held the fourth round of the so-called straw polls here yesterday and Guterres continued his lead, getting 12 encourage, two discourage and one no opinion votes.

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In the last straw poll conducted on August29, he had garnered 11 encourage and three discourage votes.

Guterres, who had served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees for 10 years, had emerged as the front-runner in the first two rounds of informal voting.

Slovakias Foreign Minister Miroslav LajcAk remained on the second spot getting 10 encourage votes, four discourage and one no opinion. He had gained the most in the last round of voting, moving from the 10th position to second.

In third place is former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, followed by former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim.

Director-general of UNESCO Irina Bokova slipped from the last round?s third place to fifth place in the latest round.

She is followed by former Slovenian President Danilo Turk and Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra.

Other women candidates were at the bottom of the pack, with New Zealand ex-premier Helen Clark on the eighth spot, followed by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica and Moldovas ex-Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman.

This round was the first time that the five permanent members could use their veto and one did so for Gherman discouraging her.

The next poll will be on the September 26, towards the end of the high-level General Debate, when heads of state and government will descend on the world body?s headquarters for the 71st session of the General Assembly.

Apart from increased call from UN member states to make the election process of the world?s top diplomat more transparent, there is a growing chorus for a woman to be elected for the top job.

The UN has been headed by a male Secretary General in all of its 70-year history. The current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is the eighth occupant of the world body. He took office in January 2007 and will be ending his 10-year tenure on December 31, 2016.

However, hopes for a woman to be elected are fading since no female candidate has emerged as the front-runner in the straw polls conducted so far.

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Civil society organisation Woman SG Campaign, among those leading the call for a woman to lead the world body, said even though the top four slots were occupied by men, the women candidates saw their numbers rise.

"WomanSG considers it even more important to stay in the fight. Irina Bokova is still in the top five, and even though she and Malcorra dropped relative to the others, everything is still in a state of flux," it said. PTI YAS ZH

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No loss of life or property has been reported on the ground. The Indian Air Force ordered an investigation into the crash.

The MiG-21 trainer jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Rajasthan's Barmer district.

By India Today Web Desk: A MiG-21 trainer jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Rajasthan's Barmer district today.

According to sources, two pilots were flying the jet and both of them ejected safely.

"The aircraft crashed near Uttarlai airforce station in Barmer," a defence spokesperson said, adding further details are awaited.

"The plane crashed at an open field near Malio ki Dhani, about 20 km from the city. There is no information of any loss of life or property so far," Superintendent of Police, Barmer, Gagandeep Singla said.



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There was no loss of life or property at the crash site. The Indian Air Force ordered an investigation into the crash.

#Rajasthan: MiG-21 trainer fighter aircraft crashes in #Barmer; Both pilots ejected safely#AIRPics: ANI pic.twitter.com/aJKgSCBhtt&; All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) September 10, 2016

On June 13, 2016, a MiG-27 fighter aircraft of the IAF had crashed in a residential area in Rajasthan's Jodhpur district. Though the pilot had ejected safely from the aircraft, reports said some people suffered injuries on the ground.

ALSO READ:



IAF MiG-27 crashes near house in Jodhpur, pilot ejects safely

The untold story of the brave IAF helicopter pilots at Siachen

Vizag: Fuel tank falls from Navy's MiG-29K during take-off, runway catches fire





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MUMBAI: Technical textiles industry is expected to grow at a rate of 20 per cent to reach 1.58-lakh crore mark in the ongoing fiscal, a top Central Government official said today.

However, the segment's potential remains largely untapped in India, the official added.

"The government is taking growth of technical textiles on priority basis. The industry is expected to grow at 20 per cent to 1,58,000 crore in FY17. Growing industrialisation, increasing access to medical care and huge infrastructure spending is expected to drive growth," Textile Commissioner Kavita Gupta said here.

Over the last couple of years, India has been growing at a steady pace in the sector with perceptible signs of expansion being observed in a few specialised segments, she said this on the sidelines of Techtextil India Symposium 2016 which began here today.

The Centre is giving financial support for growth of the industry. It has already announced 15 per cent capital subsidy for investments in technical textiles under the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, Gupta said.

The global technical textiles market is expected to reach USD 193.16 billion by 2022. Growth of key end-use industries such as agriculture, construction, packaging and automotive in BRICS nations is expected to remain a key driving factor for global technical textiles market, the IAS officer said.

The Commissioner called for increasing spend on R&D in the sector. The sector spends around 10-11 per cent on R&D at present and hopes to double the same in coming years.

The 6th edition of the two-day symposium has brought the entire cross-section and stake-holders of the industry at a common platform as they look to share their knowledge about the global trends and developments, market potential, opportunities and future prospects.

Technical textiles refers to products used for their diverse and multifunctional properties. Technical textiles offers several advantages in their functional aspects for improving health and safety, cost effectiveness, and durability and strength of textile material.

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BENGALURU: Dubai, a city packed up with awe-inspiring beauty and adrenaline boosting activities is always a perfect destination for travel enthusiasts. Best known for its diversity in almost everything, the Arabian land of dreams never fails to stimulate the senses and fulfill the most luxurious desires of the tourists. Time stands still for every traveller as they try to explore and relish the mesmerizing views portrayed by the city. Although few days are not enough to view the staggering gold souks and high rises planning a short term all-inclusive travel agenda can turn out to be a fruitful initiative.

To guide travelers from around the world, we present a travel plan that can satisfy them in every aspect:

Enjoying the Essence of Old Dubai

Before hitting the city, it is always recommended to get immersed into the cultural, traditional and rich part, the Old Dubai. The glittering Gold Souk, herbs and textile markets in Grand Souk, Dubai Creek, Heritage Village and Dubai Museum are some of the main attractions that can be covered on the first day.

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After the first batch which saw three fighter pilots emerging, no women pilots have opted for fighter stream.

By Jugal R Purohit: Nearly a year after IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha softly revealed to the world that his force would accept women pilots in the cockpits of their fighter planes comes an unexpected development. Following the commissioning of India's first women fighter pilots in June this year, not a single lady cadet has volunteered to join the fighter aircraft stream. They've chosen to fly transport aircraft and helicopters, it was revealed.



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The Air Force Academy (AFA) at Dundigal, outside Hyderabad, where cadets train before being commissioned has four women pilots in the current, 198th batch who've made the cut. "However, they've chosen options other than flying fighter planes. One has opted for the transport fleet and three have sought to join the helicopter fleet. This is strange, no doubt but I will not lose my sleep over it. It is an individual's decision. Flying a fighter is a call for cadets to take provided they qualify. This shows the IAF has kept its doors open should we get good candidates," explained a source.

NO WOMEN PILOTS ONLY IN THIS BATCH



A request for response made to the IAF spokesperson went unanswered. However, an insider explained, "It is this batch which has opted this way. The next may opt differently. If and when, not volunteering on the part of women officers in the fighter stream becomes a feature seen over many batches, do we really need to think why".

The 198th batch will soon graduate and each of the individuals will be assigned their respective destinations, depending on the streams they chose whether flying, technical or ground duties.

All services, for now, allow women to only join as officers. With the lifting of the last hurdle in the form of fighter plane flying, the IAF has now opened all streams to women. Though they've moved ahead from where they were earlier, the navy and the army still retain several streams where the entry of women is disallowed. Women officers in the IAF's 'Flying branch' are allowed in through the short service commission which implies a maximum term of 14 years. Allowing women pilots to opt for fighter streams is currently on an 'experimental basis for five years'.

Flying Officers Avani Chaturvedi, Mohana Singh and Bhawana Kanth, who were commissioned in the 197th batch as the first female pilots who had qualified to fly the fighter planes are undergoing their 'Stage III' training at Bidar in Karnataka. They are currently training on the British-made Hawk Advanced Jet Aircraft (AJT).

IAF's training for the 'Flying branch' is divided into three stages. The first stage comprises of 24 weeks of training at AFA followed by the second stage involving 24 weeks at specialised establishments. Once they complete their third and final stage is when they begin operational flying with units assigned to them.

YEAR ARMY NAVY AIR FORCE

2013 127 50 144 2014 104 57 155 2015 72 35 223 advertisement 2016* 37 20 85

*2016 figures as on August 5.



Also read:

IAF makes history, India's first women fighter pilots get wings



--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 9 (PTI) India and Nepal decided to further strengthen bilateral security cooperation during the Home Secretary level talks which concluded here today.

Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi led the Indian side during the talks that began yesterday with his Nepalese counterpart Lok Darshan Regmi.

"During the talks, both sides reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral security cooperation between the two countries and agreed to strengthen it further. The talks were held in a cordial atmosphere," a Home Ministry statement said.

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It was also decided that the next round of talks will be held in Nepal at a mutually convenient date, it said. PTI NES SMJ

--- ENDS ---
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[Editor's note: What follows was born of a thread on our reader forum. Information sharing is a good thing, and often helps those with questions locate those with answers. Five real life, first-person stories are told below, interspersed with the best current information on SIPE. Thanks to our two authors, both practicing triathletes, both SIPE-stricken while racing. "Kat" gathered the chronicles. "Trey" explains the condition.]

KAT writes: The first time this happened to me was at the Mooseman half-Ironman race in June 2007. I began experiencing shortness of breath at 750m into the swim. I felt tightness in my chest - almost like an asthma attack, or that my wetsuit was too tight. Then, fluid began to build in my lungs and I developed a slight cough. I ended up doing the 'backstroke' for the last 750m of the swim in order to get to shore. I tried to keep racing and pushed through the complete bike leg, then had to stop at the beginning of the run as I was completely unable to get oxygen and was wheezing. That was 4 hours and 17 minutes into the event. I ended up in an ambulance on oxygen, and was released on site once my breathing improved.



The second time I had it happen was on July 22, 2007 at Ironman USA in Lake Placid. This time, it was much worse. Halfway into the swim, I experienced the same tightness in my chest and shortness of breath. I stopped at the 1km mark into the swim and loosened my wetsuit in hopes it might provide some relief. It didn't. I continued to swim and the gradual build up of fluid in my lungs began. I was struggling to stay above water in the last kilometer of the swim, and luckily there was a kayaker who spotted me in trouble and came to my aid. He could see I was in distress and told me he would stay with me all the way into shore. I swam the last leg of the swim by holding the kayak for air, and taking 10-20 strokes when I had enough oxygen to continue. I could hear the crowd and see the shore in the distance, but couldn't propel my body to get there. I felt as though I might drown. At the swim exit, I began coughing up pink frothy foam. Fortunately, the medical staff identified that there was a problem and pulled me from the race. They administered Lasix and oxygen on site and then transferred me to Saranac Lake Hospital by ambulance. Tests at the hospital confirmed that I had suffered pulmonary edema (fluid in my lungs), that it was not cardiac related. My heart was fine. The pink frothy foam was actually 'blood' that had seeped into my lungs.



Pulmonary edema occurs when proteins and red cells in the blood leak from the capillaries of the lungs into airspaces and other non-vascular lung structures.



Flooding of the lung in this way arises when the blood pressure inside the pulmonary capillaries exceeds the ability of the capillary membranes to contain that pressure. A pressure gradient across the capillaries can induce membrane failure when intracapillary pressure is particularly high, alveolar pressure is particularly low, or when the membranes themselves are damaged or have increased permeability.



Pulmonary edema resulting from abnormally high intracapillary pressures is usually caused by heart failure, and is termed cardiac or cardiogenic, while that caused by high negative airspace pressures, capillary hyperpermeability, or a variety of capillary / membrane stress abnormalities is considered to be noncardiac in origin.



Swimming Induced Pulmonary Edema (SIPE) is generally considered to be noncardiac in origin, although my personal bias is that in some people, especially those with underlying hypertension or diabetes, an element of cardiogenic etiology is also present.



Symptoms include marked respiratory distress, wet-sounding popping or crackling in the lungs with breathing, a junky rattling cough, and the hallmark; coughing up pink, frothy blood-tinged sputum. When it occurs during exercise, one of the first sensations is shortness of breath that is substantially out of proportion to the effort being expended.

The swimming induced variant of pulmonary edema known as SIPE is believed to occur from a combination of factors that creates what can be thought of as a perfect storm that leads to capillary leak. The incidence in triathlon is unknown, but estimates in controlled field military training settings have ranged from two to sixty percent.



The factor most characteristic of SIPE is water immersion; hence the name. Water immersion is believed to be important because water exerts a much larger force on bodily tissues than air does, and this increased pressure from outside the body squeezes blood from the skin, muscle, subcutaneous fat, etc., into the blood vessels of the circulatory system. Within the vascular space, water force compression of peripheral capillaries in the limbs drives a larger volume of the blood into the central circulation, including the large arteries and veins of the chest, such as the aorta and vena cava, the pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein, and the heart and lungs themselves. The weakest link in the central circulation are the pulmonary capillaries. When something has to give in an overloaded central circulation, the pulmonary capillaries are usually it.

STEVE writes: I was a competitive swimmer most of my life, including some very intense times in the pool. The first time I ever noticed the rasping, inability to catch my breath, and dramatic loss of energy in my limbs, was in Charleston, South Carolina, my first such incident.



The race started with a .6 mile swim in Atlantic ocean, no waves, water was warm - mid 70's. Three-tenths of a mile into swim, my arms felt like lead, my breathing became raspy. Another tenth of a mile later, I was holding the kayaks every 20 feet or so, trying to catch my breath. Another tenth, and I stopped moving and started sinking under the water. I was grabbed by a lifeguard who saw me go under and taken to shore - I was conscious, blood coming from my mouth. I spent 90 minutes on the shore while they tried to get my oxygen levels up. They did not leave for the hospital because they thought I would go into cardiac arrest at any moment. In the emergency room, they gave me Lasix and Heprin drips, took x-rays and blood tests. Twelve hours after being pulled from the water, the diagnosis was congestive heart failure - they readied me for an Angiogram. Twenty-four hours after, the angiogram showed I had no heart problems. They moved me to get a full body CT scan to find the clots. Forty-eight hours afterward, they pulled all the drips out of me, told me they had no idea what had happened, and let me walk out of the hospital.



Following the Charleston race, I had extensive cardio-pulmonary testing done, including a stress echo. Nothing was found. The cardiac specialist told me the incident in was likely a one-time occurrence. In preparation for my next tri, I did extensive pool training, and the night before the race I put on my wetsuit and went for a 25-minute swim in the Pacific Ocean, about 2 miles from where the start of the race would be the next morning. Everything was fine.



Two-hundred yards in I felt great, was at the head of the group, no problems. Just after I felt very tired, very fast, no rasping, but could not catch my breath, I reached for the kayak. After another 50 yards I pulled down my wetsuit top to try to get more air, and realized I was in trouble again. I called for the boat, and was taken from the water with blood coming from my mouth and nose. They wanted to call the ambulance, I told them a lie: it is just asthma. I did not want all the same tests. I got home, took a diuretic, went to bed.

STEVE writes: I was a competitive swimmer most of my life, including some very intense times in the pool. The first time I ever noticed the rasping, inability to catch my breath, and dramatic loss of energy in my limbs, was in Charleston, South Carolina, my first such incident.



The race started with a .6 mile swim in Atlantic ocean, no waves, water was warm - mid 70's. Three-tenths of a mile into swim, my arms felt like lead, my breathing became raspy. Another tenth of a mile later, I was holding the kayaks every 20 feet or so, trying to catch my breath. Another tenth, and I stopped moving and started sinking under the water. I was grabbed by a lifeguard who saw me go under and taken to shore - I was conscious, blood coming from my mouth. I spent 90 minutes on the shore while they tried to get my oxygen levels up. They did not leave for the hospital because they thought I would go into cardiac arrest at any moment. In the emergency room, they gave me Lasix and Heprin drips, took x-rays and blood tests. Twelve hours after being pulled from the water, the diagnosis was congestive heart failure - they readied me for an Angiogram. Twenty-four hours after, the angiogram showed I had no heart problems. They moved me to get a full body CT scan to find the clots. Forty-eight hours afterward, they pulled all the drips out of me, told me they had no idea what had happened, and let me walk out of the hospital.



Following the Charleston race, I had extensive cardio-pulmonary testing done, including a stress echo. Nothing was found. The cardiac specialist told me the incident in was likely a one-time occurrence. In preparation for my next tri, I did extensive pool training, and the night before the race I put on my wetsuit and went for a 25-minute swim in the Pacific Ocean, about 2 miles from where the start of the race would be the next morning. Everything was fine.



Two-hundred yards in I felt great, was at the head of the group, no problems. Just after I felt very tired, very fast, no rasping, but could not catch my breath, I reached for the kayak. After another 50 yards I pulled down my wetsuit top to try to get more air, and realized I was in trouble again. I called for the boat, and was taken from the water with blood coming from my mouth and nose. They wanted to call the ambulance, I told them a lie: it is just asthma. I did not want all the same tests. I got home, took a diuretic, went to bed.



Water immersion can't be the whole story, though, because if it were, people couldn't swim and certainly couldn't dive deep, where pressures are much higher than at surface swimming. Therefore, other contributing causes have to be present for SIPE to occur. Several of these other causes have been proposed in the medical literature, but no specific pattern has been identified. It appears, given our current limited knowledge, that assembly of a critical mass of any of the known risk factors can bring on an episode, and this varies by person and maybe even by episode.



Exercise appears to be an important determinant. All SIPE cases I am aware of have occurred during exercise (except SCUBA diver's pulmonary edema, but that's a bit different because of the much larger water pressures involved), and most of it is during strenuous exercise, as in the case of racing or time trial swimming. It has also been described with water running.



Cold causes peripheral capillary constriction in excess of what water pressure already causes. An influential early report of the syndrome suggested that people who develop SIPE have blood vessels that are abnormally reactive to cold. This finding has not been reproducible in other attempts to replicate it.



Overhydration can lead to short term expansion in plasma volume, especially if it's done so close to exercise start that the kidneys don't have time to take off the excess. Expanded plasma volume forced into the central circulation by water pressure could cause capillary breach. Similarly, habituation to hot weather training causes marked sustained plasma volume increases, and this could be troublesome by the same mechanism.



Trauma to the pulmonary capillaries can occur with unusually brutal training, large positive-to-negative pressure swings mid-race, significant water aspiration (breathing water, not swallowing it), maldistribution of pulmonary blood flow due to postural abnormalities, blood clots, etc., and capillary stretch or torsion. Racehorses are known to develop pulmonary edema from capillary trauma, although they are somewhat different from humans in that they are bred specifically to have hearts too big for their bodies. An argument could be made that human triathletes are self-selected to be at increased risk of high-flow capillary trauma on the grounds that outrageous cardiac output is needed for competition at the highest levels, but SIPE seems to affect people at all levels of the sport, so this relationship is unclear. SIPE does usually seem to develop within the first few minutes of a given effort, and there may be some brief period of highly augmented pulmonary capillary pressures that exists until the various systems all get entrained into a coordinated rhythm.



Hyponatremia, shock and other neurohumoral abnormalities can make the capillaries hyperpermiable and therefore leaky without the need for increased intracapillary pressure. What if any role this plays in SIPE is unclear at the present time.



Though not so much of an issue for triathletes, a more upright position in the water, swimming supine (backstroke) and swimming one lung down (sidestroke) without switching sides have all been implicated in the development of SIPE in Navy SEALS and similarly trained special forces commandos.



Westuit wearing is associated with SIPE, and it may be physiologically related, but wetsuits are so common in triathlon that their effect is difficult to separate from immersion. Several anecdotal reports exist of people feeling short of breath and clawing at their wetsuit tops so they can breathe, but this seems likely to be due to the feeling produced by the constricting neck of the garment as distress sets in. It makes more sense to me physiologically that if wetsuits are contributing to the problem, they are doing it by the same mechanism as the water: by compressing the lower extremities and forcing the blood volume towards the central circulatory apparatus.



Diastolic Dysfunction hasn't received much attention in the small (but growing) SIPE literature, but it is a well documented cause of dry-land pulmonary edema and classic flash pulmonary edema due to heart failure or extreme high blood pressure. Chronic (even mild) high blood pressure, diabetes and a number of other medical conditions can interfere with the ability of the heart's left ventricle to relax normally between beats. This inefficient relaxation can increase the pressure required to fill the ventricle for the next systolic ejection. Since blood returning to the heart from the lungs is what fills the left heart chambers, increased left heart filling pressures can cause increased pressures upstream in the pulmonary capillaries. Several recent reports in the literature have indicated that some degree of diastolic dysfunction can be present in endurance athletes, and the apparent connection between high blood pressure and / or diabetes and SIPE in anecdotal reports suggest that these conditions may be contributory. An important feature of this mechanism - unlike many of the others - is that it is amenable at least in theory to treatment.

RAYLENE writes: The first time I experienced pulmonary edema with swimming was while wearing a wetsuit for the first time, training on the Wildflower triathlon race course. I had had pneumonia once, so I immediately knew what that feeling was. My boyfriend got me out of the water, and then I got on the bike and managed to do most of the Wildflower course. But I finally couldn't breathe biking up the hills anymore, so the boyfriend biked ahead and got the car. Everyone said it was just a reaction to wearing the wetsuit and being in cold water. I think everyone thought it was an asthma attack. I felt better in a couple of days - I found the web pages about the Navy Seals, and I decided I just needed to get used to swimming in cold water.



I bought my own wetsuit and gradually started swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Everything went well until my first triathlon.



I warmed up well, without any problems. Then, getting to the first buoy, I started to hear the rattling. I persevered, went off course because I couldn't think straight - no blood in the brain - and finally made it to shore. The doctor checked my pulse and decided I was ok, so I tried the bike ride. How I made it to the top of the hill I'll never know, because I can't remember much of it. I do remember lying on the sidewalk by my bike, gasping for breath.



My chip and bike were taken away from me, and I was sent to the medical tent. I was treated with an inhaler, even though the doctor watched me cough up pink foam for about 20 minutes. I went home.



SIPE, clearly, is not caused by any single factor. This is good and bad. It's bad because there's not a one-shot target for cure. It's good because there are multiple targets for prevention. While we will never be able to eliminate all the precipitating causes as long as triathlon involves a water event, we can take the three-legged stool approach. Take one leg away and the stool can't stand.



Of the suite of nine putative risk factors already mentioned, two are reasonable targets for prevention.



The first, hydration, is low hanging fruit. If you've had prior problems with SIPE and don't have the other modifiable factor below, don't be overly aggressive with hydration prior to the swim. If you pee a 20-30 second stream of clear urine at least once after your first -morning void prior to the swim you are well enough hydrated to do well in the water. Any deficit coming out will be small and you can catch it up on the bike. If you're going to take salt or other electrolyte supplements, don't start them until you're out of the water. As with everything, know your body, your mileage may vary, consult your doctor, and so on and so forth.



A class of drugs known as angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE-II) inhibitors have been shown to improve ventricular relaxation in people with diastolic dysfunction and they have a high likelihood of being helpful in hypertensive triathletes with SIPE. Some suggestion has arisen recently that these compounds may be helpful in preventing exercise-induced pulmonary edema in Frankenstein-hearted racehorses, even though horses in their prime don't generally have diastolic dysfunction. ACE-II inhibitors also cause dilation of the small vessels of the lungs and may therefore play a role in reducing transcapillary pressures in high-demand situations even in the absence of diastolic dysfunction, so there may be some element of right drug, wrong reason, with their use. I am stopping short of recommending them in humans without documented high blood pressure. Use of these medications should be considered only under medical supervision.

RED writes: I participated in this past Ironman Wislconsin and I experienced PE, possibly SIPE. Here is a brief recap of how things developed on that day. The 1:14 swim was okay but a bit slower than I had hoped, but with no breathing problems experienced that I can remember. My doctors asked me if I swallowed any water, but I didn't recall any choking or gagging during the swim.



The bike started out great and I felt pretty strong on the first loop. The second loop was another story. I probably went out a bit hard, but breathing problems complicated things even more. Somewhere between miles 70-80 I started experiencing shortness of breath, I was coughing a lot too and spitting the fluids that the coughing generated. I saw that there was some color in my phlegm, but going fast on the bike I couldn't tell if it was just tinged from the orange Gatorade I was drinking or foods I was eating.



I finished the bike and got changed for the run. I was feeling a bit out of it and had difficulty focusing mentally. Immediately after starting the run I knew something was wrong as my coughing had gotten worse and I was now sure that I was coughing up blood. I made it to mile 2 and found some medics to ask their advice. It was a tough decision after talking with them for a couple minutes because they can't help you unless if you concede to drop out of the race. I decided to try and go another mile, taking it easy. By this point I was unable to run because any deep breathing brought on fits of coughing. After a couple miles of walking I realized that I would be able to finish, but I wouldn't be able to run. I was able to go for short :30 second spurts at a jogging pace before I had to catch my breath and stop the coughing. I finally finished in 12:51 after a 5:37 mara-walk.



I went to the med tent afterwards to get checked out. After getting checked by a few different people they suggested I go to the ER after hearing "wetness" in my lungs. I was reluctant at first but conceded, rounded up my gear and headed to a local hospital in Madison. After telling my story ump-teen times to different doctors and nurses and getting blood work done they wanted me to stay for observation and to get an ECG (echo cardiogram - ultrasound of my heart) in the morning.



After the ultra-sound on Monday morning and several hours of waiting they told me that all my symptoms point to pulmonary edema, possibly induced during the swim.



SIPE was first described in highly trained young men with no measurable health problems. The occurrence of an attack does not imply in any way that the sufferer has heart or lung disease, or any other underlying illness for that matter.



Still, not everyone appears to be susceptible to it, which means it likely does not occur at random, but to date no test has been identified that can predict who is likely to have an episode and who isn't.



The good news about SIPE, to the extent that there is any, is that it appears to be largely self-limiting. When people get out of the water and stop exercising, it seems to get better mostly on its own. Supplemental oxygen is sometimes needed, and in severe cases diuretics such as furosemide (Lasix) may be necessary to draw down excess plasma volume.



A couple of cohort studies have been done now in closely observed military recruits, and no one has died or become disabled long term by SIPE in an observed episode. This does not mean, of course, that underlying health problems will not make a SIPE attack more serious, nor does it mean that hypoxemia and disorientation couldn't lead to drowning.

BURT writes: Very early on in the Ironman Kentucky swim I inhaled quite a bit of water into my lungs. I actually think this happened multiple times as my lung capacity felt diminished and resulted in quicker breaths. Once I hit the bike and my torso was in a prone position I began to have that gurgling sensation in my breathing. Throughout the bike I would get coughing fits and actually would cough up 2-3 ounces of frothy fluid at a time. I could literally just let it run out of my mouth like I was spitting water.



I didn't feel the effects on my breathing while on the bike. I tried to keep my heart rate and breathing down but I'm sure there was an impact. By the time I hit the run my lung capacity felt like it was about a fourth of normal. I'd run 100 meters and be gasping for air, unable to catch a breath. As I continued the run I started paying more attention to what I was coughing up. There was definitely blood in it. I'm not sure if this was from my throat being so raw that it was bleeding or from the trauma to my lungs or both.



When I hit the finish line one of the volunteer nurses sat me in a chair for a few seconds and walked away. As I was sitting there I got another coughing fit and spit up about 4 ounces of blood and mucus. The nurse thought it was vomit and wanted to take me to the medics, assuming I was dehydrated. I told her it wasn't vomit. I was coughing up water and blood from my lungs.



If you've had a SIPE episode, you're at increased risk compared to your peers of having another one. Not everyone does, but recurrence is fairly common. If you do have a SIPE episode, whether racing or training, you should consider yourself done for the day. No good can come from trying to push through it, and it will not get better as long as you're in the water. If you get pulmonary edema in the water, get the hell out. You may survive if you push on, but you won't finish well that day, and it may take you longer to recover.



The decision about whether to pursue an aggressive work-up after the acute phase has run its course is a personal one. Very few physicians are familiar with the condition, and this may lead to incorrect attribution of the symptoms to other processes. It likely also will lead to extensive work-up that doesn't show anything abnormal, although the prospect that some other serious predisposing factor could be uncovered in a detailed work-up may make it worthwhile. If hypertension is present, proper treatment may have a significant impact on the risk of future episodes.



More research is needed.
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The National Capital Authority's chief executive has called on the chief minister to review the high fees charged to commercial boat operators on Lake Burley Griffin.

Malcolm Snow wrote to Andrew Barr in August after concerns that new mooring and slipway fees would have an "adverse financial impact" on boat operators.

Skipper Garnett Znidaric, boat owner John Arganese and engineer Brian Cropp are campaigning for more viable options. Credit:Kimberley Le Lievre

For years, the boat operators have paid nominal fees for these services which has helped make their businesses viable. However, with recent developments, including the Kingston Harbour and a new slipway, the boat operators are facing higher charges than ever.

Mr Snow said the ACT government fees, in particular for the slipway, would make the lake unviable for boat operators, of which there were now only three commercial enterprises on the lake.
The global economy is full of risks right now. Growth is sluggish, and central banks seem powerless to fix it. Europe faces persistent challenges and division. In the United States, the election looms.

But some say the biggest danger of all may be on the other side of the world, in China.

China is in the midst of one of the biggest borrowing binges in recent history. Its debt load reached $US26.6 trillion in 2015  about five times what it was a decade ago, and more than 2 times the size of the country's entire economy. That huge increase has prompted some economists and even prominent investor George Soros to compare China to the United States before the 2008 financial crisis.

How big a danger does China's fast-growing debt load present to the country, or the world?
Australian women who have signed up to one or more programs hosted by Gold Coast fitness mentor Ashy Bines have complained about being charged up to $US30 a month after cancelling their memberships.

The social media fitness star is well known for her "12-week Bikini Challenge" and her "World Booty Tour", a ticketed event that involves mass fitness sessions for thousands of Ashy Bines members.

But members on social media pages for Ashy Bines have said they have struggled to cancel their memberships, with some being blocked from online forums for which they have paid to access.
Two cats were pulled out of rubble two weeks after the deadly earthquake in Italy.

By India Today Web Desk: Two cats have been pulled from the ruins of Italy's disastrous earthquake more than two weeks after it claimed nearly 300 lives.

Firefighters rescued Pietro the cat after his owners -- who came back to retrieve some belongings -- heard him meowing weakly. He was found in the town of Amatrice, which was affected the worst by the August 24 quake.

Eccezionale #TerremotoItalia: gatto estratto vivo dalle macerie dai #vigilidelfuoco dopo 15 giorni pic.twitter.com/jqayOhXCAK Vigili del Fuoco (@emergenzavvf) September 8, 2016

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He was dehydrated and weak after the rescue, and was immediately taken into the care of vets.

Gravi le condizioni di Pietro. Lo portiamo subito con ambulanza in clinica a Rieti. #forzaPietro E grazie a Vvf! pic.twitter.com/oDh1rF0AmX Enpa Onlus (@enpaonlus) September 8, 2016

In the nearby hamlet of Illica, meanwhile, another cat called Giorgiana was plucked from a ruined house. Her owners were killed in the quake but their daughters survived, and asked an animal welfare group to look for their three cats.

After a series of unsuccessful attempts to find her by leaving food and calling her name, animal volunteers were surprised to suddenly hear quiet meowing. Giorgiana was weak and dehydrated at the time of rescue, but alive.

Last week firefighters pulled a golden retriever called Romeo alive from the rubble of his owners' house in the village of San Lorenzo a Flaviano, more than nine days after he was given up for dead.





Another kitten was rescued six days after the earthquake.

--- ENDS ---
There was tremendous transparency, though, when on the final sitting night of that fabulous first week of the classless class of the 45th legislature, Prime Minister Malcolm "I've got a working majority" Turnbull's crack team managed to lose three votes, an ignominy not suffered by a government for about the last half century. The embarrassment came after whiffy shenanigans and subterfuge by Labor, including having members pretend to be quitting Capital Hill and heading for home and the cunning plan of planting a spy at the airport to report on fair dinkum departures by witless Coalition members. Bravo everyone. Class act all round. Stalking horse? Meanwhile, buttressing the notion that the PM lost a thumping chunk of his authority along with almost his entire majority in the election, almost his entire Senate team rebelled by rejecting his desire not to amend the Racial Discrimination Act. It's not a stalking horse; it's an entire bloody stable. It's enough to wake Senator Derryn Hinch and inspire him to take a selfie in the chamber. Pesky transparency Then came  not during the sitting week, but under same rubric of dopiness  Attorney-General George "people have a right to be bigots" Brandis' loss of a fight in court to keep his ministerial diary private. Hey, why the hell should the people who pay the senator have any right to know who he's meeting on our behalf?

His initial blocking tactic against this eminently reasonable request  it's that pesky transparency thing again, George  was a cracker: it would involve a couple of hundred or so people to actually deliver this chunk of his electronic diary, and so was unduly wasteful of taxpayers' funds. A lot of which were spent on his attempt to stymie the Freedom of Information Act, and a lot more of which might be recklessly frittered should he actually take the silly step of appealing. Which brings us back to taxpayers' money. Here's an idea to save a whole lot more of it from being wasted on utter bastardry, while solving the political donations problem. It is clear Australia's policy of offshore mandatory detention of refugees and people seeking asylum is unsustainable. Not only is it inhumane and in contravention of a UN charter to which we are founding signatories, it wastes billions of our dollars every year. The one on Manus Island has been ruled unconstitutional by Papua New Guinea's highest court, and has to close. It and the one on Nauru will come to be judged as one of the most reprehensible chapters in Australian history. Instead of spending all this money damaging innocent and vulnerable people, people just like us, a fortune could be saved by setting up orderly processing in the region and by processing in our community the relatively small number of people seeking asylum in our rich land. Processing someone here costs about $15,000. Keeping them in those hell holes is close to half a million dollars a year. Then there's the mooted plebiscite on marriage equality, an unnecessary, divisive opinion poll that will harm the LGBTI community and their families. It is a shameful, craven suggestion that was always just a devious move by Tony Abbott as he was fighting to keep his job after he became about as popular as a turd in a lunchbox for egregiously trashing promises.
Thank you, thank you all! As Chair of the Australian Republican Movement, your humble correspondent has been overwhelmed with good wishes from people across our brown and pleasant land since the news broke of James Packer's kind donation of $250,000 to the Australian Republican Movement. In fact, he is one of hundreds of people donating, right down to $2 from a 7-year-old girl. With the money, we have been able to do two key things. Firstly, lower our membership fee structure so that, if needs be, people can join for as little as a dollar a month. (Just Google us, and the door to a prouder future will open!) And we have just employed a fulltime campaign manager, Sandy Biar, who has consulted to the Liberal Party and National Party on multiple state and federal election campaigns. His job, together with our National Director Tim Mayfield, is to set up the infrastructure so that we are ready to go once the campaign proper starts. We need members, money, awareness, and hunger. Our key enemy is not actually the monarchists, but inertia. I am speaking to any large crowd that will have me, including 200 Monarchists later this month, courtesy of my friend, Professor David Flint, the Chair of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. The guts of it? We have a 2020 vision for a plebiscite on the republic, and in the words of Australian of the Year David Morrison at the ARM National Lecture last Saturday night, "We are on the move, but not yet on the march."

But, by Gawd, we are close!

On track: Crown Resorts boss James Packer and then Victoria Opposition Labor leader Daniel Andrews in the Crown Marquee at Victoria Derby Day, 2012. Credit:Jesse Marlow

Teresa: "I am not a saint"

So after all that, Mother Teresa has been announced by the Pope as a saint? It is rare indeed, that I make even slightly informed commentary on a pronouncement of the Vatican, but circa January 1981, I met the Nobel Prize winner, briefly at her orphanage in Calcutta, in the company of two South American businessmen, both of whom fell to their knees and started kissing her hand. With my own ears I heard her say, "Get up, get up, I am not a saint, I am not a saint." Does that count for anything? I know, I know, maybe "humility," as the Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne said to me. But to me, she sounded genuine. If she was a saint, she didn't seem to know it at the time? Just saying ...
I have a block of land in the bush and some time on my hands. First thought: "Go up there, sit under a gum tree, read a good book."

Second thought: "Why not plant a vineyard?"

"Why not plant a vineyard?": Dream on ...

The vineyard idea was so much worse than the read-a-book idea that naturally I soon found myself in Bunnings, surveying the mechanical cultivators. I chose the cheapest on offer  a device that offered a "powerful 25cc engine" and promised years of "rugged, trouble-free performance".

At this point, perhaps, I should have twigged that the terms "powerful" and "25cc engine" are not normally spotted in the same sentence.
At last some agreement among the three major parties. All agree that it is not acceptable for a frontbencher to take money from a corporation with strong ties to the Chinese government. And that it is a resigning offence.

But something does not quite add up in the case of Senator Sam Dastyari having some expenses paid by the corporation. Why isn't it equally unacceptable for any Australian MP to take any foreign money?

The Dastyari case should lead to a legislated ban on political donations from foreigners, and while we are at it general reform of donations law. The Coalition cannot have it both ways. It cannot call for, and eventually get, Dastyari's resignation without acknowledging that foreign donations are wrong and do something about them.

Our democracy would be much healthier if we restricted donations to candidates and parties to only those on the electoral roll with a cap on both to, say, $500 or $1000 a year and real-time internet reporting of donations over, say, $200.
When I recently mentioned to a new neighbour that I was 65, she nearly fell over. And it had nothing to do with my timeless, goddess glow. "It's such a relief to meet someone who admits how old they are!" she exclaimed, probably wondering if I was a bit mad.

In solidarity, she promptly disclosed her own age, and her husband jumped in with his. The room was rapidly becoming a confessional. This being Byron Bay, where let-it-all-hang-out (whether one wants to see it or not), is the holy mantra, I was bewildered to learn that age and aging are still such sensitive topics.

It's OK. Really. Credit:Meng Yiren

In Los Angeles, where I lived for many years, people preferred to hurl themselves onto the 405 freeway than admit the truth about this most shameful of all personal data. The same person who would divulge hideous family secrets, regale me with itemised accounts of their finances and sex life refused point blank to fess up to their age.

A successful business woman friend refused to let her daughter call her mother, and for years maintained the fiction that they were in fact sisters.
That's part of the reason the Turnbull government wants to scrap it: Health Minister Sussan Ley calls it "under-utilised".

But his family is in the minority: only a third of eligible children have accessed the scheme since it started in early 2014.

As a father of five children aged 8 to 16  Max, Henry, Eve, Leo and Archie  he saves thousands of dollars a year through the federal government voucher scheme that focuses on prevention and early intervention.

Gerard Grenville heard about the Child Dental Benefits Schedule through  no pun intended  word of mouth.

But Grenville reckons it is under-utilised because it is under-promoted.

"It isn't pushed at all, there's nothing at schools," he says. "Other parents are bewildered when I tell them about it. They just didn't know it existed."

The Grenville family dentist, Victorian President of the Australian Dental Association Andrew Gikas, agrees. And for those who do know about and use the scheme, many may not realise the government is trying axe it.

The ADA is lobbying Labor and the crossbench to stand up for the means-tested CDBS, which is facing the axe as part of the government's omnibus savings bill  due for debate in Parliament this week.

The association believes the government's proposed replacement  the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme  will strip millions a year from the system and leave rural and remote communities in the lurch. It will be delivered by the states through the already-stretched public system.
"So far, so good."

That's how Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull describes his first year in power. It's been a year of "great achievement" and Australians can feel the "palpable" benefits of his government's economic leadership, he said.

Despite his tenuous hold on the Parliament after the Coalition's poor election result, internal divisions over everything from superannuation to free speech and his waning personal popularity, Mr Turnbull says he will be "celebrating" Wednesday's one-year anniversary of his knifing of Tony Abbott.

"It has been a year of considerable progress and considerable achievement," he said on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in Micronesia.
The remains of a bull which died after its head became stuck under a railing on a ship in Turkey in 2011. Credit:Courtesy of Lynn Simpson When, on her return to Canberra, the Department of Agriculture (DA), the live-export industry regulator, offered her a role  on a six-month contract  within its Animal Welfare Branch in 2012, she took it. She was to serve as technical advisor while it carried out a review of the Australian Standards for Exporting Livestock (ASEL). The fallout from A Bloody Business, the ABC's Four Corners report that had aired in May 2011 exposing the treatment meted out to Australian cattle in nightmarish Indonesian abattoirs, was still raging. When Simpson was asked to submit a report to the ASEL committee, she saw it as an opportunity to finally bring about some real, long-awaited change. Now, in her new job, she gave PowerPoint presentations, with slides, to her co-workers, including the DA's deputy secretary, Phillip Glyde. His horrified response suggested to her that her report to the ASEL committee, which she presented in November 2012, would be explosive. And it was  though not because of what she wrote, even though she didn't hold back in describing hellish scenes of animals trying to rest in grossly overcrowded pens, their agony when they were stepped on by heavier animals and the scrotal hernias that invariably followed displacement of their intestines from this trampling. What truly stunned ASEL committee members was her no-holds-barred photos of cattle covered in their own excrement, unable to stand, suffocating or dying of heat exhaustion, drinking from faeces-filled water troughs and with sickening injuries caused by inadequate bedding. After being unloaded into a truck in Libya, this bull escaped into the water, but died after being hit by a container ship. Credit:Courtesy of Lynn Simpson One of those members was Dr Bidda Jones, RSPCA Australia's chief scientist and joint author with Julian Davies of this year's Backlash, a book about the reaction to the campaign to put an end to Australia's live-export trade that followed the Four Corners expose. "My response when I saw Lynn's photographs was, 'That's what it's like? Like, that's really what it's like?' Just shocked," Jones told 7.30. "This was the first time that an on-board vet had actually produced a report on conditions on board with photographs."

Never intended for public consumption, on February 5, 2013, the report was mysteriously uploaded by someone inside the DA  it seems unlikely we'll ever know by whom  to its website, along with the damning photographic evidence. Simpson doesn't believe it was an administrative error. During our meeting, she speculates, for the first time, that her submission was deliberately leaked: "This was to shift the spotlight away from the problem of actually having to improve live-export standards. Suddenly, I had become the problem instead. I also suspect the submission was uploaded to muddy the waters so that the review process would be stalled. And, to date, it hasn't moved on." Shipping is a super-secretive industry with brass plaques in places like Panama obfuscating transparency of ownership. Grant Rowles of online shipping magazine Splash 24/7 In the days and weeks after the upload, Simpson found herself increasingly isolated at work. On June 13, 2013, she was sent home on "miscellaneous leave" after being told in a meeting that took place in Phillip Glyde's office that she couldn't stay in her job because, she says Glyde told her, the industry "has a witch hunt against you". Mystifyingly, her report remained on the website for several more months. When Simpson requested the reason for her removal be given in writing in early July, she received a letter from the first assistant secretary of the DA's Animal Division, Karen Schneider, advising her that she couldn't continue her work in the Animal Welfare Branch because "the industry with which we engage has expressed the view that they cannot work with you". Significantly, Schneider added, "I would like to stress that I do not share the expressed views of industry... you have done [your job] competently, and, as deputy secretary Phillip Glyde and I have assured you ... your technical expertise is valued by the department." "But I knew my career was over when my submission went public," says Simpson. "The industry pressured the department to remove me. It's known as 'regulatory capture', which is defined as corruption. I had fully intended to go back to sea once my contract with the department was up. But I knew that as far as the industry was concerned, I was finished."

We've been driving for 40 minutes by now and I ask Simpson where we are. "Near Yass," she replies. Eventually, we turn off the road onto a track and, within minutes, the little brick and weatherboard farmhouse that she rents on top of a hill comes into view. As we pull up outside, three dogs race rapturously to meet us. "Neil is a blue cardigan corgie, Smorgasbord is a kelpie cross koolie, and PooNeck is a koolie," says Simpson. "I used to have three steers, too." Omar, Wallace and Razorback were three orphaned male bovines, just a few days old, when Simpson adopted them a few months after she lost her job. She has photographs of them  though not of the day, last spring, when she walked into their paddock carrying a large bale of hay and a bag of liquorice. When they had almost finished eating their treats, she got out a syringe and administered a powerful sedative. Within minutes, they were unconscious. Then Simpson shot each of them twice through the head. "I couldn't afford to feed them any more and it would have cost about $300 to euthanise all three," she tells me, referring to the barbiturate she'd have needed to buy. Simpson, who hadn't worked since her dismissal, was seriously broke. As her distress over losing her position increased, she was placed officially on sick leave. A battery of mandatory consultations with various mental-health specialists followed. Severely depressed, she slept for about 23 hours a day, began suffering from severe headaches and dizziness, and lost a large amount of weight, only to put on 20 kilograms later. Three psychologists and four psychiatrists concluded she was suffering from an adjustment disorder (also known as AD or situational depression)  that is, when a patient is unable to cope with, or adjust to, a major life event. "Yeah, I just couldn't adjust to being screwed over by the government," she says with a bitter laugh. Simpson's own doctor believes she has been suffering from post-traumatic syndrome disorder. Unfortunately, the antidepressants she was prescribed only left her feeling worse; she uses the word "suicidal" to describe her mental state during this time. Acknowledging the AD diagnosis, ComCare (the government compensation system) agreed in October 2013 to pay her 75 per cent of her former salary, a standard arrangement that will last until 2036, when Simpson will turn 65. She resigned officially from the DA only in May this year. Money is still very tight. Simpson is now suing the Commonwealth for breach of contract and is also fighting a personal-injury claim. She won't say how much she has paid in legal bills, but she currently has six lawyers working for her. She has partly funded the cost by selling a property she owned at Eden Creek, near Kyogle, on the NSW-Queensland border. The ongoing legal proceedings are cited as the reason why Karen Schneider, who still works in the DA, and Phillip Glyde, now CEO of the Murray Darling Water Authority in Canberra, are unable to speak to Good Weekend for this story.

The day we meet, Simpson is due to attend a directions hearing to set a date for mediation with the DA. In some ways, though, she'd rather go to court and see further airing of the national disgrace that Australia's live-export industry has become. "My ultimate goal is some financial restitution because I'll never get my career back again," she adds. "But really, it's about the animals. If I were to walk away from this case, I'd be walking away from a fantastic opportunity to fight for them." Inside the farmhouse, a huge painting of a dead bull lying in its own blood dominates a wall in the living room. The blood is seeping from a gaping cut in its throat. "It's an image from one of the ships," says Simpson, who is the artist. The painting is a work in progress for an exhibition being held later this year by Soldier On, the Canberra-based group that supports former service men and women who've been affected by their experiences of war. It made her a member when she became a volunteer worker in July 2015. She tells me that she still has to launch a flotilla of tiny ships on the sea of blood and then it will be finished. The painting exudes a powerful melancholy. The fate of Australian livestock, whether on ships or in abattoirs, is now common knowledge and, increasingly, people are speaking out against both. Some DA employees were so affected by watching A Bloody Business they needed counselling. Simpson says the program left her aghast, too. It seems incredible, in her job, that she hadn't heard stories about the appalling treatment of animals in overseas abattoirs, I point out. She never did, she replies. "I worked extremely hard on those ships and, after watching A Bloody Business, I wish I hadn't. I wish now I'd shot more," she adds grimly. When I suggest that her painting of the bull shows that her years on live-export ships have perhaps affected her more than she admits, Simpson disagrees. "I still eat meat," she points out with her trademark forthrightness, "though not slow-cooked lamb  ." Simpson's living room is bathed in sunlight on this freezing-cold day. Through the windows, there's a spectacular view of the surrounding hills. If Simpson weren't the story, her house would be. It's filled with objects from her live-trade travels: a bullock cart from Rajasthan forms the base of her dining-room table; ancient slave shackles from Libya hang beneath a huge wooden horse's head that Simpson carved herself. A second, huge painting of Nelson Mandela turns out to be her handiwork as well.

Simpson, who lives alone, talks briefly of a man she loved, an Israeli cattle importer called Roni, whom she met in the port city of Eilat in 2005. "Up the ramp walked this gorgeous guy," she recalls. The two hit it off immediately and were soon in a serious relationship, and Simpson visited Israel often. But only six months after they met, fighting broke out with Hezbollah in Lebanon on the same day in July 2006 that Simpson, who'd been staying with Roni in Haifa in Israel's north, was due to fly back to Australia from Jordan. Roni dropped her off at the border crossing but, by the time she reached the airport, she saw on the TV monitors that Haifa was being bombed. She rang Roni, but only got a recorded message. The same message was still playing months later. Simpson never heard from Roni again and still has no idea whether he's dead or alive. Simpson had no family to turn to for comfort. The vet has a mother and brother, but doesn't know where either of them lives. She and her mother are incompatible, is all she'll say on the subject. She was six when she decided to become a vet, after a relative told her a vet was an animal doctor. "I got very excited that such a thing existed," she says. She has never wanted children. Making light of her background is her way, perhaps, of masking a great sadness. When Simpson was 12, her father, David, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He died when she was 15. Six months earlier, one of her brothers, who was with the Australian Federal Police, had been killed in a motorbike accident on his way home. Her parents, along with her two much older brothers, had immigrated from Glasgow. David Simpson transferred to Australia with NASA in 1969 and worked as a technician at the Orroral Valley Tracking Station, south of the capital. He and his wife, Lorna, spent their free time in clubs, playing the pokies. The Canberra-born Simpson, who was left alone a lot of the time, doesn't know whether her parents were serious gamblers, "but growing up alone, and being emotionally self-sufficient, probably made me more prone to being able to cope well at sea," she says. Mandy Peters, one of her closest friends, believes Simpson probably learnt something of family life after the two got to know each other in Perth in 1996. Simpson, who'd moved there after winning a place at Murdoch University's School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, rented a granny flat from Peters and her husband. She, the couple and their three children were soon close. Simpson embarked on her first live-export voyages from Perth, and Peters remembers her friend always pushing her hair up into a cap and putting on a wedding ring before boarding the all-male ships.

The wedding ring wasn't much protection. Twice, on two separate voyages, a crew member tried to rape Simpson. On both occasions she fought off her assailant. Her late brother, Jim, she explains, taught her self-defence  and no, she says in her breezy manner, it didn't put her off working at sea. Simpson was 26 by the time she began studying vet science at Murdoch University. At school, she'd always been one of the brightest kids until the deaths of her brother and father in 1985 and 1986. She started skipping classes and her grades slipped. She left school in Canberra with no plans and spent three years kicking around in the Northern Territory before picking up her books again. Eventually, she would complete a master's degree in veterinary epidemiology, often studying late into the night on board the ships. Working as a casual wharfie on the Fremantle docks in the late 1990s as one of only four women employed by Western Stevedores gave Simpson plenty of contacts in the live-export trade. She remembers being horrified when she saw dead and injured animals being dragged off trucks after the road-transport leg of their journey. When she was offered her first voyage to Jeddah on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia in November 2001, just one month after graduating, she took it. She did three voyages back to back before starting work in a veterinary practice in Canberra in 2002  but was bored within weeks. The pull of the sea and the accompanying sense of adventure, as well as the sheer scale of what her job involved, were irresistible. "I soon realised I'd rather spend my days helping large numbers of animals in life and death situations than investing eight to 12 hours a day doing surgery on the leg of one spoilt dog," she says. She talks nostalgically of her former life and about one old, rusty ship  with its crew of Palestinians and Pakistanis from the country's troubled Swat Valley  that became a second home to her. "I spent five years of my life on and off that ship," she says. "It was like living in our own tiny village. I had a pot plant in my cabin, which the stewards looked after when I wasn't there." Simpson adds that she sometimes imagines living in an apartment overlooking a city port so she can watch the coming and going of the ships. "I pine for the ships, though not the cruelty," she goes on. "I miss the meaningfulness of my work and the camaraderie. We had to have each other's backs. It's probably the closest you get to being in a military platoon. You're in extreme environments where death is everywhere around you."

Simpson could write a book, and intends to, though it will be a harrowing read. She'll describe sheep so stressed they can't eat  so they die. She'll describe the phone call she once received from a rattled vet on a badly designed ship without proper ventilation, who told her the cattle in his care were literally disintegrating. ("To clean up, they were trudging through what he described as a soup of melting cattle," she tells me.) There's also the time she used the blunt end of a fire-axe to knock 22 cattle unconscious on a ship in Russia, before cutting their throats, after the Russians had confiscated her gun. She empathises with the Vietnamese abattoir workers vilified recently after they were filmed killing Australian cattle with sledgehammers. "They've got poor equipment, poor training and don't know any better," she says. Bidda Jones, who got to know Simpson when she was appointed technical adviser to the ASEL committee, believes she's more vulnerable than her outer resilience suggests. "I like Lynn's 'I don't give a fuck' attitude," she says, but on the night 7.30 aired, Jones drove to Simpson's house so the woman who'd become her friend wouldn't have to watch the program alone. She has struggled, in recent years, to understand how Simpson could ever have gone to work for the live-export industry in the first place. "The [cattle] walk off that ship and face a truly awful slaughter. Didn't that occur to her?" she says. "Lynn had pretty much shielded herself from that realisation. We eventually had that conversation where I understood [that] she felt by working on a live-export vessel, she could help more animals than in a small-animal practice. It took her some time to realise that it's such a corrupt industry, and improvement so unlikely, that the best thing for it is to just stop. "The draft version of ASEL that could have led to substantial improvements for exported animals is now just another file in the department's vast electronic archives." Simpson agrees that she felt she could do more good by working inside the trade and with various industry groups consulting her at frequent intervals, she thought she was actually getting somewhere. But then she points out a 1985 Senate Select Committee report had already made clear everything the industry needed to fix, from better stocking densities to improved bedding for the animals. She has come to the conclusion that live export would prove to be commercially unviable were every recommendation acted upon. "But I strongly believe that if they'd acted on those recommendations, the live export trade would be proven to be non-commercially viable," she says. The Department of Agriculture doesn't respond directly to any of my questions about why live-export animals continue to suffer, emailing instead a routine statement detailing how issues are identified and addressed and listing various improvements, such as a new heat-stress model that has been updated four times, significantly reducing mortalities. Bedding and space requirements have also been increased for "higher-risk consignments", the statement reads.

After Simpson's appearance on 7.30 in June, the chairman of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council (ALEC), Simon Crean, told the ABC that ALEC had not put any pressure on the DA to have Simpson dismissed. The possibility of a workshop run by the council, in which Simpson would participate, was mooted by him on the program, but Simpson says she hasn't been approached by anyone. "Dr Simpson was indeed held in high regard by many in the industry," Crean confirms in an email, adding that ongoing changes "embraced by the industry" since 2013 meant a fresh perspective on "past attitudes towards people and organisations that challenged the status quo and, in Dr Simpson's case, who sought, with the reflection of hindsight, to provide constructive advice to exporters on improvements". Lyn White, the high-profile Animals Australia campaign director, remains scathing about the industry. "The level of influence the exporters wield over the Department of Agriculture is obscene," she says. "That they were able to successfully seek the removal of Dr Simpson from her position is nothing short of outrageous, especially when she was the only departmental employee with any shipboard experience." The live-export trade was worth $1.16 billion in 2014-15, according to figures supplied to Good Weekend by the Department of Agriculture. Simpson, who doesn't name individual exporters, says she regards them as business opportunists pushing the limits of what the legislation allows. And the government just signs off on those limits. This is the real problem. "Shipping, as a whole, is a super-secretive industry with lots of brass plaques in places like Panama obfuscating transparency of ownership," comments Grant Rowles, the Melbourne-based co-founder of Asia Shipping Media, which publishes Splash 24/7, a widely read online shipping magazine. "Live export tends to be even more secretive due to the sensitive nature of the cargo and the questionable practices at sea  such as the washing of decks," he adds.
The Australian Financial Review's Phil Baker, after seemingly having the Shares Race wrapped up, has been overtaken by Money reader Mendy Amzalak in a dramatic finale to the four-week Shares Race.

Amzalak was languishing in last place last week but has now seen off all-comers, including Baker, to be crowned king of the stock tipsters.

And it is all down to Redchip, which provides the media relations for smaller companies trying to attract investors.

Redchip floated on the sharemarket in March this year. It has been a rocky ride for its shareholders ever since. But following the announcement of a new chief executive at the start of September, Redchip's share price shot up.
The woman didn't catch all of the threatening message on her elderly mother's answering machine but the end part certainly caught her attention and left her frightened.

"Call this number or there will be consequences."

The ATO is warning of telephone scammers. Credit:Erin Jonasson

The 82-year-old woman from Box Hill in Melbourne, who received the threatening call on Friday demanding she pay a "tax debt" over the phone, is just one of thousands of Australians being targeted by tax scammers.

"Part of the message had been cut off so I didn't catch all of it, but I did catch the part about the consequences," her daughter told Fairfax Media. "It took me by surprise, because I'm used to email scams but this call was quite brazen. It's a disgusting message to leave on an elderly person's phone."
After elections, JNU students will raise voice against RJD MP Shahbuddin who was arrested in connection with the murder of a former student leader.

By Parbina Purkayastha: Former RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin and Siwan strongman walked out of Bhagalpur jail after 11 years, after Patna High Court granted him bail in the much publicised Rajiv Roshan murder case.

The minister is currently facing serious criminal charges in around 40 cases lodged with different police stations. Most of the cases are lodged in Siwan district, his home turf. But he has now obtained bail in all the cases.

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One of the cases for which he was not convicted but made enough noise is the murder of former JNU president Chandrashekhar Prasad. On March 31, 1997, a young leader was on his way to the JP Chowk roundabout in Siwan, a small town of Bihar.

After conducting four street corner meetings and he was about to hold another meeting. He was tracked by three associates of local Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Shahabuddin. Few seconds later, the associates gunned him down, in broad daylight.



THE FIGHT CONTINUES

And now on the eve of JNUSU results the campus has a lot more to worry as Shahabuddin walks out free from jail. When India Today asked if they have forgotten their leader and the fight is over, they strongly opposed and shouted slogans against Shahabuddin. "The fight continues for our leader and we will raise our voice immediately after the results" said Suresh, a member of AISA.

"We have been fighting for our leader Chandu from the 90's and the fight is on, I am sure after the results our students union will raise voice against his bail" said Umaar Khalid.

Also read: Left, ABVP battle it out in JNU elections



Chandrashekar Prasad, was popularly known as Chandu, inspired unprecedented protests across the nation that left a huge student population seething in the wake of his murder. Among one of the most popular president of JNU, Prasad came to Delhi in 1990 to enrol himself for M.Phil. An active member of AISA in JNU who single-handedly helped build the AISA (All India Students Association) the student wing of the CPI (ML), when he came to JNU.

UPROAR AFTER CHANDRASHEKHAR'S MURDER



On the evening of March 31, when the news of his death reached the JNU campus, students went berserk. Hundreds of angry students rushed to Bihar Niwas in the heart of national capital and demanded the then Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav to come outside and talk to them. Many demanded his resignation and an immediate action against the three local goons and the master of their plan, Shahabuddin, who had carried out the murder.

Also read: Polling begins in Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University



"Shahabuddin's release does not surprise us at all because we have seen Nitish and Laloo posing themselves as BJP's alternative and for them muscle power works the best" said Umaar Khalid, JNU student. As bunch of students from different parties sit in groups to discuss the ongoing counting of JNUSU results, Shahabuddin and Bihar politics has also figured itself in the discussion. Slogans against opposition parties merged with slogans against the alleged murderer.

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RJD MP NOT CONVICTED

In March 2012, 15 years after the killing of their late president Chandu, CPI leader Shyam Yadav and other accused Bhatti Mian, Dhruv Jaiswal, Sheikh Munna and Ilayas were sentenced to life imprisonment. RJD MP Shahabuddin was not convicted for the murder.

On Shahabuddin's bail, as the campus gears up and keeps a close eye on results and they assure that they have not forgotten Chandu and continue to shout slogans, "Shahabuddin Murdabaad, Muradabaad". They will strategize and devise a plan to fight the bail of their prominent leader soon.



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A former Victorian policeman who runs an anti-child exploitation NGO in south-east Asia has criticised Australia's management of travelling paedophiles, warning that predators are slipping into vulnerable countries undetected by local authorities.

Glen Hulley, who runs Project Karma, said immigration authorities in south-east Asia had insufficient resources to act on warnings received from Australia about child-sex offenders  and that loopholes with the national child offender register were being easily exploited.

Child protection is failing.

He said he had witnessed emailed notifications from the Australian Federal Police go unseen for weeks at immigration offices in Jakarta and Bali, and in Manila.

His comments were echoed by others in the field. Ahmad Sofian, national co-ordinator of anti-child exploitation NGO ECPAT Indonesia, said there were "many cases" of Indonesian immigration admitting offenders despite a notification from Australia.
International Yoga Day at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Credit:AP "It's very clear that the Modi government has been working to harness Indian soft power and Indian cultural appeal more effectively that previous Indian governments have," he says. Australia will get to sample a little of this cultural charm offensive over the next two months as a program of Indian dance, theatre, music  and of course, yoga  rolls out across seven cities. The Confluence Festival of India in Australia, billed as "the biggest showcase of Indian arts and culture ever to be staged in Australia" is sponsored by the Indian government. Organisers say it will have a "strong and positive impact on the bilateral relationship, fostering mutual cultural connections, promoting tourism and migration and highlighting business opportunities between Australia and India." Modi himself announced the festival during his historic 2014 visit. Modi often talks about yoga in speeches and during meetings with world leaders. Credit:AP Suri, who took up his post as India's High Commissioner in April last year, was previously the head of public diplomacy at the Indian foreign ministry and has been involved with festivals sponsored by the Indian government in South Africa and Egypt.

"I'm a great believer in the power of cultural diplomacy, whether you call it soft power or anything else," he says. Suri says staging cultural festivals enabled diplomats to "get out of the box" of routine government-to-government interactions. "What we've found is they have allowed us to very significantly broaden the range of contacts that we have from the narrow bureaucratic circles into the arts, the writers, intellectuals and people who are public figures - culture became a great way to connect with them," he says. "In democracies like India and Australia centres of power are dispersed. It's a 21st century diplomat's task to connect with a much broader range of actors as compared to the traditional diplomacy of engaging on a government to government basis." Buddhism, Bollywood and India's most potent cultural exports The rich performance traditions that will feature in the Confluence festival are often overshadowed by Indian cinema. Bollywood has won global recognition and now rates among India's most potent cultural exports. The film industry has a major following in many parts of Asia and the Middle East. India also boasts a cadre of globally renowned writers and public intellectuals including Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Amartya Sen.

But maybe India's greatest cultural export is Buddhism, which originated in north India and has gradually gained adherents through much of Asia. The region would be very different if not for that ancient manifestation of Indian soft power. Modi has appealed to the vast Buddhist populations in east and south-east Asia by emphasising India's historic connections to this spiritual tradition. In a speech in September last year he said: "India is taking the lead in boosting the Buddhist heritage across Asia." Indian scholars have dubbed this "Buddhist diplomacy". "The prime minister is diligently pursuing India's 'Buddhist agenda' and taking it beyond its borders, emphasising the Indian and Hindu links with Buddhism," wrote Indian academic Rishika Chauhan in a recent paper titled Modi and Buddhism: Between Cultural and Faith-Based Diplomacy. India's more assertive use of soft power has sparked inevitable comparisons with its giant regional counterpart, China. Professor Michael Wesley, director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Studies at ANU, says the key difference is that China starts out with a "significant set" of disadvantages.

"China has an authoritarian regime and people are very aware of that," he says. "India is far from perfect but it doesn't have a Tiananmen Square in its recent past. India is a much more benign presence internationally  it is simply less of a threat." Wesley says the recent controversies over Chinese influence in Australian politics had underscored a "nasty side" to China's attempts to wield soft power. "India starts from a much easier position to create positive attitudes," he says. Medcalf says it would be a mistake for India's "global cultural offensive to look anywhere near as orchestrated" as China's. "The good news is India is a long, long way from that," he says.
Most Americans would rather die than surrender their passports, but when Brisbane academic Karen Alpert renounced her US citizenship in Sydney with her husband and daughter she was angry.

The Californian who migrated to Australia 20 years ago wasn't quitting because of the prospect of Republican candidate Donald Trump, although she does predict others may quit too if he is elected President.

Karen and Frank Alpert gave up their American citizenship in June this year. They became Australian citizens 17 years ago after falling in love with Australia. Credit:Robert Shakespeare

Like thousands of Americans who are now giving up their citizenship, the Alperts were protesting at United States tax policy. Other than Eritrea, it is the only country in the world that taxes non-resident citizens  and even holders of a Green Card (alien resident permit) who are also living outside the USA  on their worldwide income, regardless of where it is earned or where they live.

This requires the estimated 200,000 Americans who live in Australia, many of whom are dual citizens, to file an annual tax return in both countries. Compliance is cumbersome: the American tax code is 74,608 pages compared with Australia's 3657 pages. Many dual citizens who live in Australia claim the American treatment of Australian superannuation means they are effectively being taxed twice.
Clover Moore has cruised to victory and a record fourth term as Sydney's lord mayor in a landslide, picking up a swing of nearly 10 per cent in her primary vote, as the Liberal party lost a key source of support in Sydney's west in an election night Labor said had "blown up" in Premier Mike Baird's face.

Cr Moore declared victory shortly after 9pm before jubilant supporters on Castlereagh Street. "This is a real win for grass roots democracy," she said.

With more than a quarter of votes in the Mayoral contest counted, Cr Moore was streaking ahead with nearly four times the vote of her nearest rival, Tony Abbott's sister Christine Forster.

Despite fears the addition of more than 20,000 businesses to council rolls could weaken her chances, Cr Moore was on track for a primary swing toward her of nearly 10 per cent in her fourth term.
Over the past year NSW Labor Senator Sam Dastyari has built a substantial profile campaigning against multinational tax avoidance and freely accusing businesses and political opponents of profiting from "rorts" and immoral behaviour.

But a Fairfax Media investigation has revealed several owners of the Top Education Institute which made the $1600 gift that forced Senator Dastyari to resign from the frontbench have incorporated companies in some of the world's most notorious tax havens condemned by Senator Dastyari.

Senator Sam Dastyari has been dropped from the frontbench. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Last October, using parliamentary privilege Mr Dastyari said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was potentially party to a "tax scam" for registering businesses in the Cayman Islands.

But earlier that week he had updated his own interests register to reflect the $1600 payment from Top Education Institute.
A colony of endangered Little Penguins, the last on the NSW mainland, have had parts of their critical nesting grounds allegedly cleared during building works at a restaurant, the state opposition claims.

The breach is alleged to have taken place despite repeated recent efforts to save the penguins from wild fox attacks at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, including a network of cameras and snipers.

Little penguins at Manly Sea Life Sanctuary in Manly. Credit:Janie Barrett

Labor alleged that vegetation covering 60 metres of "critical habitat zone" in a NSW national park at North Head was denuded after the Boilerhouse restaurant strayed over the boundaries of its licence during land clearing late last year.

The environment department confirmed last week that a special investigations team by the state's national parks service had not found enough evidence to bring any action against the restaurant.
The 29-year-old was just about to reach his fiancee, waiting in their car, when a silver Holden Commodore pulled up.

The men inside with semi-automatic handguns had found their target, police said.

They gunned the man down on Brisbane Street, St Marys in Sydney's west just after 7pm on Friday.

One man then left the car to shoot him again as he lay in the gutter. He died of his injuries at the scene.
A teenager is fighting for his life in hospital after he was stabbed in the torso during a confrontation with a group of males in western Sydney.

Police and paramedics were called and later found the 17-year-old on the footpath of North Parade at Mount Druitt about 12.30am on Sunday.

He was treated before being taken to Westmead Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Police have been told the teenager was with a group of people at the time.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The family of Greater Western Sydney Giants co-captain Callan Ward were "crying all morning" ahead of Saturday afternoon's qualifying final in Sydney after Jetstar delayed their flight for two hours, and then cancelled it at the last minute.

Ward's sister, Mickayla Ward, had booked a 10.15am Jetstar flight from Melbourne to Sydney on Saturday with her mum, aunt and uncle to see the Giants play in their first final.

The morning flight was intended to give them plenty of time to check-in to their accommodation before making their way to Sydney's ANZ Stadium.

But less than two hours before their flight was due to depart, the Wards received a text message to say their flight had been delayed by two hours.
New Delhi: India's cow-and-beef politics have just taken a new twist.

After receiving a complaint that beef was being used in biryani - a rice and meat dish -, police officers in a historic north-western town have been trawling through food served by street vendors, and seizing samples of meat they suspect are beef.

A cow stands at a shelter that harvests cow urine for theraphy in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced programs to protect the animals and support industries derived from their waste. Credit:Bloomberg

Mewat is a Muslim-majority area in the state of Haryana, where beef is banned. Anyone found slaughtering a cow, considered sacred in India, or eating beef in Haryana faces imprisonment of up to 10 years.

"We have never used beef, it is always mutton or chicken. But if they want to create discord between Hindus and Muslims by making this accusation against us, what can we do?," said Arif Husain, a roadside eatery owner.
By PTI: Bengaluru, Sep 10 (PTI) With GST already having become a law, Karnataka Cabinet today decided to call off the special session of the legislature to be convened on September 14 to ratify the Goods and Services Tax Constitution Amendment Bill.

"Since the amendment has been approved by the President of India and has become law of the land, there is no necessity for the state legislative assembly to ratify the GST bill," Karnataka Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

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"The cabinet has decided to convey the message to Karnataka Governor (Vajubhai Vala) the needlessness of the convening the special session," he said.

The biggest tax "reform" was needed to be ratified by at least 15 state legislatures before the President could notify the GST Council which will decide the new tax rate and other issues.

"Since the ratification of GST by 17 state legislatures in the country has met the condition of the President to notify the GST Council to decide the new tax rate and sundry other issues, I reiterate that there is no necessity for us to ratify the bill in our assembly," Jayachandra said.

The Congress government had decided to convene a special session of the legislature on September 14 to ratify the GST Constitution Amendment Bill.

Parliament earlier this month had passed the long pending bill to amend the Constitution that would facilitate roll-out of GST.

A Constitution amendment bill needs to be ratified by the legislative Assemblies of at least 50 per cent of the states. The President gave his assent to the Bill on September 8 after as many as 19 States ratified it. PTI BDN RA APR SMJ

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Washington: The United Nations Security Council made a strong condemnation of North Korea's latest nuclear test and pledged to impose further sanctions as a deterrence to what it called "a clear threat to international peace and security".

Following an emergency meeting, the Security Council issued a statement calling the Friday nuclear test "a clear violation and in flagrant disregard" of five previous Security Council resolutions. The statement noted they had previously said they would take "further significant measures" if North Korea conducted another test.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un salutes at a parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, last year. Credit:AP

"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures," they said, under Article 21 in the UN Charter that allows for sanctions and other non-military forms of discipline.

The decision came just three days after the Security Council condemned North Korea's previous ballistics missile launch as Pyongyang fired three missiles into the sea Monday while the leaders of the G-20 group of world economies held a summit in China, which is North Korea's only ally and considered the only country that can reign in its neighbour. The UN imposed some of the harshest economic sanctions ever against North Korea in March.
No Law Enforcement Present; Private Guards Attack Protestors

Tear gas and dogs were used by private guards to attack Native Americans trying to protect burial grounds from Labor Day weekend destruction by Dakota Access Pipeline bulldozers. Six people were bitten, and about 30 sprayed. One guard and two dogs were taken in for medical treatment.

The crowd dispersed quietly once law enforcement arrived.

Energy Transfer Partners is under fire from all sides as it tries to force its way across the prairie to construct the quasi-legal pipeline. Demonstrators have been camped out since April in protest of the damaging and possibly illegal construction.

The line is planned to go under the Missouri River, threatening the only water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal land. An original pipeline route proposal was rejected for posing exactly the same kind of water source threat to the city of Bismarck, ND.

On Saturday, Dakota Access came in and bulldozed both a sacred site and a grave site before the ND Preservation Office could get there to evaluate, after learning that the paper work and survey had been properly submitted to the court on Friday.

"This demolition is devastating" said Tribal Chairman David Archambault in a press release. "These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground."

Farmers in Iowa are also protesting the pipeline, which maneuvered to gain eminent domain rights and force the sale of private farmland, some of which has been in families for generations. 20 Iowa protesters were arrested and jailed at a march in Boone County last week.

The Army Corps of Engineers approved the pipeline without holding public hearings, as required by the Federal Historic Preservation Act. The route also comes close to protected eagle nesting grounds.

Without proper environmental clearance and ignoring treaties that require consultation with affected Native American tribes, Energy Transfer Partners has managed to sidestep many of the legal safeguards that are meant to protect U.S. citizens from the harm of corporate land projects.

Representatives from Native American groups across the nation have now gathered in support. It is the first time since the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn that all seven council fires of the Great Sioux Nation have camped together.

The encampment, Sacred Stone Camp, now has several thousand people in residence, and they have taken careful steps to provide food, sanitation, and even a school for the growing group.

This protest is completely legal, and organizations as diverse as the National Lawyers Guild, Amnesty International, and Black Lives Matter have spoken out in support.

Regional Law Enforcement has mostly been respectful of the protesters, greeting them politely and providing peaceful road access for marches. Officers have even removed their hats during religious services.

The Standing Rock Sioux have followed all appropriate legal steps to object to the violations that led to inappropriate construction approval, but Energy Transfer Partners is determined to undermine lawful efforts by pushing through with whole scale destruction before the courts can make any rulings.

"We're days away from getting a resolution on the legal issues, and they came in on a holiday weekend and destroyed the site," said Jan Hasselman, attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. "What they have done is absolutely outrageous."

Latest Up[date: http://www.smobserved.com/story/2016/09/09/news/dakota-access-us-government-moves-to-temporarily-block-construction/1918.html

For more information go to http://sacredstonecamp.org/
Evan McMullin says Trump's Business Depends on Russian Oligarchs

Evan McMullin believes that America should be much more worried about presidential candidate Donald Trump's close ties to Vladimir Putin.

The former CIA agent and former Republican is so concerned about Trump's ties to Putin that he entered the 2016 presidential election as an Independent candidate in July in an eleventh-hour bid to bring some attention to the issue.

In an interview this week with CNN, McMullin asserts that his friends in intelligence have told him that Trump's previous business activities in Russia could have implications that jeopardize his candidacy.

"Donald Trump is dependent on Russian investments from Russian oligarchs associated with Vladimir Putin for his real estate development projects."

The potential for exposure by Putin puts the strong-arm Russian president in a position to coerce Trump into appointing Russia-favoring advisors and, should he win, implementing Russia-favoring policies as president.

"Vladimir Putin is one of the primary sources of instability in this world, and the thought that we would have a Republican nominee so 'in bed' with Putin, I think is so discouraging and really a bad thing for our country," McMullin said.

Since the Commander-In-Chief forum, McMullin has been even more critical about the constant praise Trump offers Putin, pointing out how unfortunate it is that we, as a country, have to debate on whether or not it's a good thing that a major party candidate is so fond of Putin.

"He is opposed to democracy, opposed to freedom, and opposed to our interests," McMullin said of the Russian leader.

McMullin believes that some of the appointments Trump has made to his staff support his claims. Paul Manafort, who was once Trump's campaign manager, was forced to resign from his position after his ties with a former Pro-Russian president of Ukraine became public knowledge.

He says other key members of Trump's staff have financial ties to Russia, including retired General Michael Flynn, who is also employed as an analyst by RT America. RT is a Russian cable network owned by the Russian government.

Trump actually invited Flynn, an employee of a Russian government-owned business, to join him at his intelligence briefing last week.

"An American president should never have these kinds of warm views of a Russian authoritarian like Vladimir Putin," McMullin said.

Evan McMullin: former CIA agent, former Republican, and the fifth U.S. presidential candidate.

McMullin is not the only former intelligence officer to suggest that Trump is being used by Putin.

"In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation," wrote Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell in a New York Times op-ed on August 5.

"He [Trump] may well pose a threat to our national security."

CIA officers are not known for liberal leanings. When men like McMullin and Morell question the reliability and loyalty of a major presidential candidate, it might be time for America to listen.

Evan McMullin is now either on the ballot or approved as a write-in in 20 U.S. States.
Calls half of Trump supporters misogynists, Xenophobes, Sexists and racists.

The queen of the pantsuit labels a quarter of all Americans racist, Xena phobia, and misogynists. Words they no doubt can't spell.

Well it looks like Hillary finally had her Mitt Romney 47% moment. Mitt Romney famously said that a quarter of all Americans don't really matter (see below). Tonight, Hillary Clinton said that half of Trump supporters are Xenophobes, racists, misogynists, sexists and other "deplorable basket" types.

Hillary may be concerned because she appears to be losing momentum and national polls. She came out of the conventions of full 12 points ahead of Republican challenger Donald Trump. But now, the heir to Barack Obama is only 2 to 4 points ahead of trump in certain key battleground states, such as Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, and even Pennsylvania.

From CNN; Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors Friday night that half of Donald Trump's supporters fall into "the basket of deplorables," meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.

In an effort to explain the support behind Trump, Clinton went on to describe the rest of Trump supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathize with them.

In an article entitled five reasons Hillary Clinton is blowing it, the website politico.com says With two months to go before the presidential election, a major poll released Tuesday morning (CNN/ORC) revealed that the "prohibitive favorite" (Clinton) is down by 2 points nationally to one of the worst presidential candidates since the advent of the indoor flush toilet: Donald J. Trump.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/is-hillary-clinton-losing-227774#ixzz4Jp7a5wDi

This is a breathtaking moment. Mrs. Clinton has been running for president for 25 years nonstop. And she is about to be beaten by a novice, an amateur, a man who speaks at a fourth grade level. Yes, she is losing a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

When we wake up on November 9, wondering whether Mr. Trump will wear the fake tan to his inauguration, remember that Clinton, like Marie and one at before her, said that from the perspective of the elite, The people can eat cake if they have no bread.

Appearing at an LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed, she said many of the GOP candidate's voters were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

Yes she has just insulted the very Donald Trump supporters she needs to win over. Stay tuned, this could get interesting.

Notes: In September 2012, video surfaced of Romney speaking before a group of supporters in which he stated that 47 percent of the nation pays no income tax, are dependent on the federal government, see themselves as victims, and will support President Obama unconditionally. Romney went on to say: "And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

After facing criticism about the tone and accuracy of these comments, he at first characterized them as "inelegantly stated", then a couple of weeks later commented: "I said something that's just completely wrong." Exit polls published following the election showed that voters never saw Romney as someone who cared about people like them.
Clinton and Trump Both spoke at the NBC Commander-In-Chief Forum held at the Intrepid; some saw a mysterious device in her ear

Two Hillary Clinton aides denied it to Fox News, but as the Drudge Report first pointed out, Hillary clinton appears to have had the benefit of an earpiece last night during the presidential forum on the Aircraft Carrier Intrepid in New York Harbor. It was not immediately clear if the device was so she could be assisted with her responses, or if hearing can be added the the list of the former Secretary of State's health problems.

Hearing loss is a known side effect of a stroke or seizure. Clinton, 68, has mocked any concern about her health, admits to having suffered a blood clot to her rain in 2012.

Stroke is when poor blood flow to the brain results in cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. They result in part of the brain not functioning properly. Signs and symptoms of a stroke may include an inability to move or feel on one side of the body, problems understanding or speaking, feeling like the world is spinning, or loss of vision to one side among others.

Signs and symptoms often appear soon after the stroke has occurred. If symptoms last less than one or two hours it is known as a transient ischemic attack (TIA).

Hemorrhagic strokes may also be associated with a severe headache. The symptoms of a stroke can be permanent.[1] Long term complications may include pneumonia or loss of bladder control.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke

The story was also a trending topic on Twitter, as social media users buzzed about they mysterious device in her ear.

"Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill says Hillary Clinton was not wearing an earpiece last night," ABC reporter Liz Kreutz informed her followers on Twitter after Clinton held a press conference on the airport tarmac in New York.

Clinton spox @NickMerrill says HRC was not wearing an earpiece last night.

- Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) September 8, 2016

The report was confirmed by CNN's Dan Merica who cited a "Clinton campaign spokesman."

Earlier on Thursday, Donald Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a link to a story that cited NYPD sources confirming that Clinton was in fact wearing an earpiece.

Was Hillary Wearing an Earpiece During Last Night's Presidential Forum? https://t.co/wAvCFY5ANP via @realalexjones

- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 8, 2016

Conservative Actor James Woods, posted a Wikileaks e mail in which, months ago, Clinton Aide Huma Abedin asked the candidate if she remembered to remove her earpiece last night.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by "Today" show co-anchor Matt Lauer, left, speaks at the NBC Commander-In-Chief Forum held at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space museum aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, New York, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.
No fan of Donald Trump, Assange really hates Hillary Clinton. Release may come on eve of 3d debate

Julian Assange Claims to have the goods on Hillary, and is planning an election surprise.

He lives in exile in an embassy in London and considers himself a journalist, while the Obama administration and many Americans consider him to be a traitor.

Appearing on Megyn Kelly's Fox News program, WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said on Wednesday that he planned to release "significant" information linked to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Asked if the data could be a game-changer in the election, he said "I think it's significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media."

WikiLeaks released files in July of audio recordings taken from the emails of the Democratic National Committee. These were obtained by hacking its servers. That release, during the Democratic National Convention where Clinton was officially named the party's presidential nominee, was the second batch in a series that deeply rattled the Democratic party, and ultimately forced DNC chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to step down--which Assange seemed to brag about tonight.

Kelly speculated that the timing of the dump would be just before Clinton's third debate with Donald Trump. Everyone would be tuned in then and it would do the most damage to Clinton, she said, referring to the Obama administration's hunt for Assange. It was led by then Secretary of State Clinton.

On 4 July 2016, WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a trove of emails sent or received by then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton published on their website. The leak contained 1258 emails sent from Clinton's personal mail server which were selected in terms of their relevance to the Iraq War and were apparently timed to precede the release of the UK government's Iraq Inquiry report.

On 22 July 2016, WikiLeaks released approximately 20,000 emails and 8,000 files sent from or received by Democratic National Committee (DNC) personnel. Some of the emails contained personal information of donors, including home addresses and Social Security numbers. Other emails appeared to present ways to undercut Bernie Sanders and showed apparent favoritism towards Clinton.

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit group of journalists that publishes secret information, news leaks, and steals or appropriates classified media from anonymous sources.

Julian Assange Claims to have the goods on Hillary, and is planning an election surprise.

Its website, initiated in 2006 in Iceland by the organization Sunshine Press, claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch.

Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder, editor-in-chief, and director. Kristinn Hrafnsson, Joseph Farrell, and Sarah Harrison are the only other publicly known and acknowledged associates of Julian Assange. Hrafnsson is also a member of Sunshine Press Productions along with Assange, Ingi Ragnar Ingason, and Gavin MacFadyen.

The group has released a number of significant documents that have become front-page news items. Early releases included documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war and a report informing a corruption investigation
TECSYS Announces Election of Directors and Appointment of Auditors

MONTREAL, QUEBEC  (Marketwired)  09/09/16  TECSYS Inc. (TSX: TCS), (the Corporation), announces the results of the matters voted upon at the annual meeting (the Meeting) of shareholders of the Corporation (the Shareholders) held on September 8, 2016.

According to the scrutineers report, shareholders holding 9,018,787 common shares (the Common Shares) were represented at the Meeting in person or by proxy, representing 73.23% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares as of the record date on July 25, 2016.

The following matters were put to a vote by a show of hands:

Election of Directors

The Shareholders elected the eight nominees listed in the management information circular dated July 26, 2016 (the Circular) to be the directors of the Corporation (the Directors). Each nominee (including every incumbent Director) was elected by a majority of the votes cast. Each Director will hold office until the next annual meeting of Shareholders or until the election of his successor, unless the Director resigns or the Directors office becomes vacant. The report on proxies provided by the scrutineers at the Meeting was as follows:

Additional information concerning the Directors is available in the Circular, which was mailed to Shareholders in connection with the Meeting and is available on SEDAR ().

Appointment of Auditors

KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants, were appointed auditors of the Corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are appointed. The Directors were authorized to fix their remuneration. The report on proxies provided by the scrutineers at the Meeting was as follows:

About TECSYS

TECSYS provides transformative supply chain solutions that equip our customers to succeed in a rapidly-changing omni-channel world. TECSYS solutions are built on a true enterprise supply chain platform, and include warehouse management, distribution and transportation management, as well as complete financial management and analytics. Customers running on TECSYS Supply Chain Platform are confident knowing they can execute, day in and day out, regardless of business fluctuations or changes in technology, they can adapt and scale to any business needs or size, and they can expand and collaborate with customers, suppliers and partners as one borderless enterprise. From demand planning to demand fulfillment, TECSYS puts power into the hands of both front line workers and back office planners, and unshackles business leaders so they can see and manage their supply chains like never before.

TECSYS is the market leader in supply chain solutions for health systems and hospitals. Over 600 mid-size and Fortune 1000 customers trust their supply chains to TECSYS in the healthcare, service parts, third-party logistics, and general wholesale high-volume distribution industries. TECSYS shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS.

The statements in this news release relating to matters that are not historical fact are forward looking statements that are based on managements beliefs and assumptions. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties, including but not limited to future economic conditions, the markets that TECSYS Inc. serves, the actions of competitors, major new technological trends, and other factors beyond the control of TECSYS Inc., which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. More information about the risks and uncertainties associated with TECSYS Inc.s business can be found in the MD&A section of the Companys annual report and annual information form for the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2016. These documents have been filed with the Canadian securities commissions and are available on our website () and on SEDAR ().

Copyright  TECSYS Inc. 2016. All names, trademarks, products, and services mentioned are registered or unregistered trademarks of their respective owners.

Contacts:

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Karnataka Education Minister Tanveer Sait said that since the schools lost several days of academic work and they are faced with no other option but to reduce the Dasara holidays this year.

By Rohini Swamy: School children are going to face the brunt of several strikes and bandhs that Karnataka saw in the last few months. Now the state government is contemplating to cut short the Dasara vacation to make up for the lost hours of work in schools. The final decision will be taken later this month by the Karnataka state advisory council, the body that decides on educational policies and programmes.

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Karnataka Education Minister Tanveer Sait said that since the schools lost several days of academic work and they are faced with no other option but to reduce the Dasara holidays this year.

The government had declared holidays for schools on:

July 30: Mahadayi river issue bandh

September 2: Trade union strike



September 9: Cauvery water issue bandh

Across the state of Karnataka schools lost 7 working days due to bandhs and strikes in Mandya, Mysuru, Dharwad, Gadag and Belagavi.

ALSO READ:

Elephants participate in Dasara celebrations at Mysuru palace

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Noie: Of course Notre Dame was going to go away from home and do this

Notre Dame has played its best football far from South Bend this season. The Irish did it again Saturday in Central New York.
According to OIC, it is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensures that the interests of Muslims worldwide are protected.

By Naseer Ganai: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) invited Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday for a meeting on Jammu and Kashmir from September 19-22 at the UN headquarters in New York. The meeting would be held during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly.

COLLECTIVE VOICE OF THE MUSLIM WORLD

A Hurriyat spokesman said that OIC had issued a letter of invitation to Mirwaiz for the meeting. The OIC is the second largest inter-governmental organisation after United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. According to OIC, it is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensures that the interests of Muslims worldwide are protected.

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In April too, OIC secretary general Iyad bin Amin Madani had invited Mirwaiz for its 13th Summit in Turkey. However, Mirwaiz couldn't go as he did not possess travel documents. At present, Mirwaiz is in custody and has been shifted to Chasmashahi sub-jail.

SEEKING INTERVENTION

On Sunday, he refused to meet the all-party delegation when they tried to reach out to him and other separatist leaders in the Valley. He has been regularly seeking the OIC's intervention on the Kashmir issue. The OIC's invite has come at a time when the government is contemplating restrictions on foreign travel for separatists and scrutinising their bank accounts.

ALSO READ:

Kashmir unrest: Geelani thanks Pakistan, China for its support as JK govt disallows his press conference

After Hurriyat snub, Centre to crack down on separatists, withdraw security cover





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By PTI: Jammu, Sep 9 (PTI) Justifying the security extended to separatist leaders of Kashmir Valley, Union minister Jitendra Singh today said they faced threat from Pakistan which might attack them to blame it on India.

Singh said the Kashmir unrest was first such turmoil in the world in which number of the civilians injured are more or less equal to those in security forces and policemen. It clearly shows how much restraint the security personnel exercised.

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He said as soon as the situation improves, there is a need to engage with the youth of the state.

"We keep blaming Mehbooba (Mufti, Chief Minister), but miss the sight of those forces engaged in it. Pakistan and separatists are threat," he said at a function organised by Sanjeevni Sharda Kendra here.

"Pakistan is not only threat to us but also to separatists as well. Separatists have no threat from us (India) but from Pakistan," he said.

Justifying their security given by the government, Union Minister said "why security has been given to them, because Pakistan backed people will kill them blame us (India)".

"What has happened to Moulvi Farooq... what has happened to Abdul Gani Lone... They have fear and threat from their own people," Singh said.

The Union Minister further said that Pakistan has a threat from Pakistan itself. "See what is happening in Peshswar...What is happening in Balochistan."

"Pakistani is trying to engineer terrorism selectively. These forces who have upped its ante fear from their own people. We have to prepare ourselves," he said.

On the situation in Kashmir, he said, "We will have to move forward on three basic ideologies (sidhant). First, there will be no compromise with violence whatever may be the aim of violence, violence is a violence and we have to put an end to circle of violence and it has no place in the society and all political parties agree to it."

"Second, as the situation will improve there is a need to engage with the youth of the state and the beginning of chain of several schemes by the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for last two years. The youth of the country are taking benefit of these and we do not want that the youth of Jammu and Kashmir are deprived of it. The youth of Kashmir valley also wants to become stakeholder of the journey of development but due to some reasons they are not fully coming forward," he said.

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"And third, there should be no premium on anti-India activism. It should not look that if someone raises anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans, I will get glorification", he said. PTI AB SMN

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Luanda (Angola), Sept 09, 2016 (SPS) - the president of Republic, Secretary-General of Polisario Front, Mr.Brahim Gali, on Thursday received a message from his Angolan counterpart, Mr. Jose Eduardo dos Santos, congratulating him on his election as President of the Saharawi Republic and Secretary General of the Polisario Front.

Jose Eduardo dos Santos reiterated, in his congratulatory message, his own name and on behalf of the people and the Government of the Republic of Angola commitment and support to the President and through him to the people of the Sahrawi Republic in its struggle to achieve freedom and independence.

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos concluded his congratulatory message to President wishing him good luck and success in his noble mission, recalling the distinguished brotherly relations between the two brotherly peoples. SPS

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Lome (Togo) Sept 09, 2016 (SPS) - Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) participated in meeting of the Ministers of Justice of the African Union convened in the capital Lome between 08 to September.

The ministerial meeting will deal with maritime safety, security and development, the draft basic law for African mechanism police cooperation, the draft amendment of the Constitution of the African Civil Aviation Commission, in addition to the amended Protocol draft of the African Charter for Human Rights, and peoples on the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights.

SADR will be represented in Ministerial Meeting by Minister Delegate in charge of Africa, Mr. Hamdi Mayara Jalil, where he held bilateral meetings with a number of African justice ministers on the sidelines of the conference. SPS

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New York, September 10, 2016 (SPS) - Polisario Front called Friday on the UN Security Council to intervene to prevent the construction of a road passing through Sahrawi territories, condemning the evasion by the United Nations of its previous commitments on the project, in a letter from the representative of the Polisario Front to the United Nations, Mr. Ahmed Bukhari, to President of the UN Security Council, His Excellency Mr. Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen, before a meeting on the Western Sahara crisis.

This is the full text of the letter :

His Excellency Mr Gerard Jacobus van Bohemen



President of the UN Security Council



United Nations



New York

New York, September 9, 2016







Mr President,

Following official instructions, I have the honour to address to you this letter to bring to your attention the following on the eve of the meeting of the Security Council on Western Sahara:

1. The tense situation in the area of El Gargarat has been caused by the very serious decision, taken on 11 August 2016, by the Government of the occupying power of the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Western Sahara to cross the line of the Moroccan military wall, which was established by the entry into force of the ceasefire on 6 September 1991, with the purpose of building a paved road through the Sahrawi Territory under the control of the Frente POLISARIO to merge on the border of Mauritania. This decision constitutes a violation of the ceasefire and the terms of the military agreement 1 which the two parties, the Frente POLISARIO and the Kingdom of Morocco, signed with MINURSO.

2. This decision was attempted by Morocco in previous years, particularly in 2001 and 2002, as reflected in the reports of the Secretary-General S/2001/398 of 24 April 2001; S/2001/613 and S/2002/41 but it was suspended at the request of MINURSO on the basis of informing the Moroccan authorities that the project of the construction of the road posed delicate problems and that some of the activities undertaken could constitute a breach of the ceasefire agreement.

3. The peace process led by the UN has not yet been completed, and until it is concluded successfully in accordance with international law, the agreements on the ceasefire remain the same as those that existed in 2001 as well as the imperative that they continue to be scrupulously respected by both parties.

4. It is clear that Morocco is trying again to impose a fait accompli, ignoring not only its obligations under the ceasefire but also the position taken in the past by the UN on its road project. Ninety per cent of the vehicle traffic is Moroccan and it is a lucrative business that crosses the Sahrawi and Mauritanian territories on its way to Senegal. Through it, drugs are smuggled as well as second-hand cars or vehicles stolen in Morocco or Europe.

5. It is highly surprising that the UN seems to have been advised to ignore its own decision on this issue, and to see attempts today to push it, before the blackmail of Morocco, to build and finance itself the road project. This means that the UN would become a company in charge of funding for Morocco projects and works that it itself has considered in three reports of the Secretary-General as a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

6. The Frente POLISARIO, which reaffirms its full commitment to the terms of the ceasefire, cannot in any case accept the construction of this road by Morocco or by third parties in so far as it was and remains the result and direct consequence of the violation of these terms.

7. Any modification of the realities existing on the ground and arising from the agreements on the ceasefire would imperatively needs the agreement of both parties.

8. Members of the Security Council have been the subject of a deliberate operation of deception by Morocco in its attempt to give as justification for the construction of the road a supposed fight against drug trafficking and stolen vehicles. It is known that Morocco is the largest producer of cannabis in the world, and it is also known that for years it has been engaged in inundating the region with this drug that ends up in the Sahel and beyond under the protection of terrorist groups.

9. Both drug trafficking and smuggling of vehicles, which could have crossed to the region of El Gargarat, have been done in any case across the wall or the berm under the eyes and with the approval of the Moroccan authorities at the Moroccan checkpoint established in El Gargarat area. Outside this check point the entire line of the berm is full of landmines and nobody can cross it without the support of Moroccan military officials as the experience has shown.

10. It would be enough that necessary measures are taken at the said checkpoint to prevent such trafficking. That would be more consistent with the argument that has been advanced to justify what in actual fact is a violation of the terms governing the ceasefire. It is also clear that it does a disservice to the argument advanced about an alleged fight against drug trafficking by building a paved road for it.

11. After having obstructed the referendum process, repressed the Sahrawi population in the occupied territories, denigrated the Secretary-General, expelled MINURSO and refused to receive the Personal Envoy, Morocco decided on 11 August to undermine the most sensitive pillar that has so far allowed maintaining the situation on the ground under control, namely the terms of the ceasefire.

12. The Frente POLISARIO has alerted in due course through a letter addressed by Mr Brahim Ghali, Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO, to the UN Secretary-General dated 15 August, on the implication and serious consequences of the Moroccan decision to move its armed forces and police as well as tractors and other vehicles beyond the demarcation line of the ceasefire. The UN Secretary-General expressed objectively and publically his concern about these developments and called for the respect for the ceasefire and the military agreement 1, which Morocco had violated. Morocco has ignored the call as it has ignored the Security Councils call contained in resolution 2285 (2016). MINURSO has not regained the whole ensemble of the expelled personnel and the Personal Envoy, Ambassador Ross, has been prevented from resuming his mission due to the lack of cooperation by Morocco.

13. The Security Council met on 26 August to discuss the situation in El Gargarat. Unfortunately, the Council did not discharge its responsibility to reaffirm the validity of the decision taken by MINURSO in 2001 and 2002.

14. The Councils silence was interpreted by Morocco as a green light to impose the road as a fait accompli. On 27 August, it began the works under the protection of armed forces, called Gendarmerie.

15. In view of these developments and in order to prevent that the ceasefire be violated with impunity, the Frente POLISARIO decided to deploy, at a two kilometres distance, special forces with precise orders not to allow the completion of the road. The decision has been communicated to the Acting Force Commander of MINURSO

16. The Frente POLISARIO hopes that the current state of affairs does not lead to an irreparable situation. It believes that the Security Council, based on the precedents contained in the above-mentioned reports of the Secretary-General, and in order to maintain faith in the process of the peaceful solution, must assume its responsibility so that the normal situation prior to 11 August is restored. In that case, the Frente POLISARIO will withdraw the forces deployed on 28 August to reaffirm frankly and transparently its willingness for peace and cooperation with the UN efforts with a view to achieving a peaceful, just and lasting solution.

I should be grateful, Mr President, if you would bring the content of this letter to the attention of the Members of the Security Council. I also reiterate my readiness to accept any invitation to contribute directly to a better understanding of the position of the Frente POLISARIO as one of the two parties to the conflict.

I avail myself of this opportunity to express to you my highest consideration.

Ahmed Boukhari



Representative of the Frente POLISARIO to the UN. (SPS)

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By PTI: Chandigarh, Sep 9 (PTI) With the ED registering a money laundering case against former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress today came out in his defence asserting that no wrong had been done and charged the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state with misusing such agencies and unleashing "witch-hunt" and "political vendetta".

Denying any wrongdoing in acquisition of land in Manesar in Gurgaon, Hooda said, "No case is based on facts. It is purely politics of vendetta, vengeance and an attempt to defame us."

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Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said his party would not be cowed down by such cases.

"Our leaders, including Hooda, have not committed any crime. They are clean. We are ready to face any inquiry provided the government does not act out of vindictiveness," he said.

Surjewala alleged the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state were using various agencies as their "political extension" and "misusing" them.

"We are not deterred by CBI search or CBI case, we are ready to face that also and we will face that in court of law and prove facts, but the issue they should rise above political vindictiveness," he said.

Addressing a press conference jointly with Surjewala and former Haryana Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma, Hooda said that "modus operandi of the Haryana government is to register the case and then refer it to CBI."

He alleged that the BJP government was misleading people by "hiding facts".

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a money laundering case against Hooda and others in a case of alleged financial irregularities in acquisition of land in Gurgaons Manesar in which farmers were allegedly cheated to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore.

The ED has filed a criminal complaint against the Congress leader based on a CBI FIR, under which the probe agency conducted searches in Haryana and the national capital last week.

Hooda said that private persons are registering complaints "and at whose behest they are doing so, everyone knows this."

"It is not prosecution, but naked persecution, which will boomerang on them. They are doing this to divert public attention from their own failures. But I am not going to yield or bend. They cannot keep Congress or my voice down by such actions. CBI recently conducted searches, but it had to leave empty handed," the two-time former CM said.

Surjewala said Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar was getting direction from BJP President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "It is a nationwide conspiracy against Congress and its leaders and under it tall leaders of our party are being targeted," he said. PTI SUN AKA SMN

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Rabat (Morocco) September 10, 2016 (SPS) - Sahrawi political prisoners, Gdeim Izik group, started Friday a warning hunger strike at the local prison of Alargat for 48 hours, according to Sahrawi human rights source.

This strike comes to denounce the harassment they have suffered since their deportation, on 31 August, from the local prison of Sale 1 to the local prison of Alargat in the outskirts of Sale, near the Moroccan capital Rabat.

It also comes in protest against the deterioration of their situation and conditions inside the prison of Alargat, tightening procedures on family visits, poor meals and all indifference ways pursued by the prison administration.

Moreover, Saharawi political prisoners, Gdeim Izik group, denounce by their hunger strike the continuous arbitrary detention for more than six years, demanding their release without conditions and the need to have all their legitimate rights, added the source. (SPS)

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India gets tough

August 29, 2016

Modi's remark on Balochistan shows Pakistan the perils of tit-for-tat diplomacy.



What's Good for the Gander

Though Pakistan demands that the principle of self- determination be complied with in Kashmir, it conveniently ignores such a demand for Balochistan (India's New Rules of Engagement). Moreover, the Chinese presence in Balochistan, with control over Gwadar port-and the proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) line cutting through the disputed territories of Gilgit-Baltistan-can only encourage Pakistan to follow policies similar to the Han presence in Xinjiang and Tibet in changing the area's demographics. It is no surprise, therefore, that Balochistan is progressively turning into a festering wound for Pakistan, since the locals have no stakes in its administration and gain no benefits from its vast resources. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as part of his Independence Day address has drawn the world's attention to this contested area, which Pakistan is obviously not eager to discuss in public.

H.N. Ramakrishna, Bengaluru

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By making a reference to Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan in his I-Day speech, Prime Minister Modi has, within two years, moved from one extreme to the other as far as relations with neighbours are concerned-from 'neighbours first' to 'divide thy neighbour'. However, as the United States rightly pointed out, we must not read too much into this "rhetoric diplomacy". While a weak prime minister like Nawaz Sharif may be forced to indulge in such tactics because he is politically hostage to the Pakistan army, even a relatively strong prime minister like Modi has domestic compulsions, such as elections to win and adversaries to overcome in Kashmir.

Krishna Balraj Sahay, Patna

After Prime Minister Modi's reference to Balochistan in his I-Day speech, the trials of the Balochis could well acquire an international dimension. Like Nelson Mandela, who thanked India for its support in the freedom struggle in South Africa, Baloch leaders too thanked Modi for highlighting the Balochistan issue. Many people in Balochistan live below the poverty line and lack basic amenities like water, electricity, roads and healthcare. Modi can't be faulted if he lends moral and diplomatic support to Balochistan's freedom struggle even as Pakistan had once supported the Khalistan separatist movement in India. Sitting in Delhi, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit shows no compunction in dedicating Pakistan's independence day to 'azad Kashmir' and inviting hardline Hurriyat leaders to Iftar. India should not only ease visa restrictions for Baloch separatist leaders who wish to visit India, but also raise the Baloch issue in the United Nations General Assembly.

Kangayam R. Narasimhan, Chennai

The plight of the Baloch people is turning from bad to worse day by day. It is ultimately the common people who are bearing the brunt of the tussle for supremacy in the region. The pictures we see on news channels and on social media every single day-of murdered infant and adult Balochis-make our hearts cry out in despair. Why are international organisations so helpless that they have become mute spectators to this ghastly violation of human rights and dignity?

Hena Prasun , Mumbai

Fighting to Compete

P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik's achievements convey to other sportspeople that hard work and passion help you attain your goals. It can also inspire women to participate and contribute more in the field of sports. All those who competed and lost should take heart from these victories. Even if they didn't win a medal themselves, the hard work and effort they have already put in do deserve every appreciation.

Mahesh Kumar, via e-mail

P.V. Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Dipa Karmakar have displayed a great deal of grit, determination, fortitude and focused energy to achieve what mattered to them and to get where they are today. Recognising these wonderwomen and overcoming the 'analysis paralysis' will open the door to the other budding sporting talents in our country.

Praveena Thimmaiah, Bengaluru

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It was heartening to see top politicians welcoming the Olympic medal winners home. They have been showered with money and awards; but what about those who participated but lost? Those who did not win medals should be felicitated too, so they continue their quest for medals. Honouring winners alone will not give sportspersons the encouragement they need.

Anshu Mathur, Ahmedabad

P.V. Sindhu's silver at the Rio Games represents an epic human struggle. Against gender bias. Against politics that mars competition and kills competence. Against a state that can do no better than pay lip service to the pursuit of excellence. Sindhu's feat is a triumph of the audacity of hope in a country that offers no support to sportspersons who are not proven stars.

Chandan Das, via e-mail



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O ne of the countrys biggest police forces is considering letting Muslim officers wear burkas in order to boost diversity.

West Midlands Police said it would consider requests from officers who may want to wear the traditional Islamic garment, which covers the entire face except the eyes.

Chief Constable David Thompson said at a meeting that although they had not received any requests yet, he would discuss allowing officers to wear burkas.

It is part of a plan to increase black and minority ethnic (BME) officers in the region to 30%.

The force has already recruited some women wanting to wear a hijab, a headscarf which only covers the head and neck.

The Metropolitan police approved the hijab a decade ago and it is now allowed in several forces across the UK.

According to Mail Online, Chief Constable Thompson said: We would need to consider our own rules and cultural sensitivity.

Clearly we don't have any barriers relating to the burka.

As it stands we have not had any approaches from potential recruits asking to wear the burka, but if such an approach was made it is something we would have to consider.
C ustomers have rallied in support of a beloved London cafe after it was targeted by burglars four times in just eight months.

Olive Delicatessen has been in Munster Road, Fulham, for the past eight years, but since January the business has suffered repeated break-ins which have seen callous thieves steal staff tips, bottles of wine and cash from tills.

Barbara Antelmi, 44, who runs the deli with her partner 49-year-old Roberto Franci, said she has no idea why Olive has been singled out by thieves.

She told the Standard the first break-in happened in January, when burglars stole the day's takings.

Ms Antelmi said that after each burglary they have tried to secure the building - but the criminals have found a different way to gain access.

Targeted by burglars: Olive Delicatessen in Fulham / Google StreetView

She said the shop has installed CCTV and barred windows, but somehow the thieves have still managed to strike again and again.

"To come in the morning and find the same thing has happened, that's been desperately sad," she told the Standard.

"We're being targeted for no reason at all. Maybe because they could get in once they've tried again.

"We're nice people, we work 15 hours a day, we live and work in Fulham, it's hard running a business, it's what we don't need."

However, she said that despite the upset caused by the burglaries, she and her partner have been heartened by the positive response from the local community.

A loyal customer who visited the shop the day after the most recent burglary and found it closed set up a crowdfunding page to pay for better security, which has since attracted a flood of donations from members of the public.

Ms Antelmi said she and her partner, the deli's chef who is "the one responsible for all the lovely food", plan to spend the money on an alarm system and more bars for the windows.

"One morning we couldn't open because of the break-in," Ms Antelmi said.

"Our customers said they were concerned we might move from here and didn't want us to go.

"I was really happy that they were so concerned, that they moved to help us, we never asked for it.

"I'm very grateful, we've got a good relationship with our customers, but I didn't expect this."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said four reports of theft at Olive Delicatesen had been made to police since December 15 last year.

Of the latest burglary, he added: "Police are investigating a non-residential burglary at a delicatessen in Munster Road, SW6, that was reported to officers on the morning of 9 August.

"Enquiries are ongoing and there have been no arrests at this time.

"Officers from Hammersmith and Fulham investigate."
D etectives are hunting a man after a car was driven at a pedestrian and a woman was assaulted in west London.

Kevin Holt, 31, from Feltham, is on the run from police after breaching the terms of his release from prison, where he served time for a robbery conviction.

Scotland Yard said he was also wanted in connection with two assaults, including an attack on a woman in Isleworth on August 27.

In a second incident, he is alleged to have deliberately driven a car at a man in Feltham on September 1, a force spokesman said.

Members of the public are warned not to approach Holt but instead to call 999 immediately.

He is described as a white man, 6ft 1ins in height with brown hair and blue eyes. Officers say he has an English accent.

Contact police on 101 with any information.
R ockstar Brian May has demanded a meeting with the Mayor of London over mega-basements which he says are literally destroying lives in wealthy London neighbourhoods.

The Queen guitarist said he had seen people suffer nervous breakdowns and even death because of the stress caused by the developments.

His comments come after the announcement of plans for Britains first basement tax in a fresh crackdown on so-called iceberg homes.

Residents in Westminster will have to pay an average levy of 8,000 to secure planning permission for the often hugely unpopular subterranean excavations under the new rules.

But Mr May criticised the move as hardly an effective deterrent because unspeakably selfish people would still carry out projects that often add up to 1million to a propertys value.

The rocker, who has lived Kensington for 15 years, told Mail Online: I have seen some of our neighbours suffer nervous breakdowns, and even death, due to continuous stress caused by these appalling intrusions on their private life.

Their home life is literally destroyed.

He added London-wide action was needed to stop this destruction of our quality of life.

He said: I'm hoping to meet The Mayor of London to discuss this matter in the near future.

London should be a haven for its residents, not for unscrupulous foreign investors and rich bullies.

Westminster Councils new fee, the first of its kind, will raise money to pay for a dedicated basement enforcement team of 15 officials who will monitor whether construction work complies with restrictions on noise, working hours and number of truck deliveries.

The so-called sub squad will also act as a point of contact for complaints about neighbours who are carrying out excavations.

The move follows a huge surge in the number of planning applications for vast basements, some with facilities such as swimming pools, saunas, gyms and cinema rooms over the past decade.
H eathrow airport could apply for a cap on the number of flights allowed to use the airport each year to be lifted.

The airports chairman Lord Deighton told The Times that an application might be submitted to have the cap lifted for the four years before a third runway was opened - if it was given the go-ahead.

He told the newspaper an additional 50 flights a day could use the airport and that the move was needed to show Britain was "open for business" after Brexit.

At present up to 480,000 flights are allowed to use Heathrow each year.

The limit was set in 2001 as part of the agreement which allowed Terminal 5 to be built.

However, the actual number of flights using the airport has hovered around 475,000 for the last few years.

Lord Deighton said: "The whole point of it is to respond to how this economy needs to shape itself.

It would be possible to introduce new regional flights which would connect up some places like Newquay and Liverpool.

"It would be possible to also go to some of those emerging market destinations which everybody uses a bit earlier."

But John Stewart, chair of the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (HACAN), said, "Residents will be dismayed at losing the protection the cap has brought.

"If it is introduced in advance of a third runway, the third runway mitigation measures must also be brought forward."

He explained that if the cap was lifted, HACAN would be pressing for key measures to be introduced, including a tougher night flight regime, the release of the 700 million promised to improve insulation of properties under the flight paths, and a guarantee that the runway alternation currently available to residents in west London will remain.


T he link between poverty and its effect on children's education has been revealed in a report on London exam results.

The results, published in a Public Health England report on deprivation, appear to show a correlation between poor performance in GCSE exams and low household income.

Almost 20 per cent of London boroughs ranked lower in secondary education than the national average and, in the lowest performing boroughs, almost half of students dont even pass five GCSEs.

Dr Yvonne Doyle, regional director for PHE in London, said there is "evidence to suggest that there is a relationship between poverty and educational outcomes", while adding there were a multitude of other factors to consider.

The five boroughs with Londons lowest GCSE results - Camden, Enfield, Lewisham, Lambeth and Barking & Dagenham  also have some of the highest numbers of children from poor homes, the report shows.

PHE's Dr Doyle said: The causes of health inequalities are complex and result from a combination of factors related to daily life, including peoples incomes, employment, education and access to services.

"PHE has a responsibility to measure and highlight inequality wherever it exists and to support local authorities to address it."

She added that despite the results children in London generally perform better than children nationally.

Theresa May on new plan for grammar schools

London's highest performing boroughs were affluent Kingston-upon-Thames and Richmond-upon-Thames, both with over 70 per cent of their students achieving the five grades.

Interestingly, Tower Hamlets, the borough with the highest number of impoverished children in London, bucked the trend by having consistently good results in its schools.

The east London borough has over 18,000 children under the age of 16 living in low income families  nearly 35 per cent  yet almost 65 per cent of students manage to achieve five GCSEs.

Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, said the results are "not an accident" and believes it could be down to hardworking families who have travelled to London from abroad.

Hard work: The Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, said the boroughs results were 'not an accident' / Hannah McKay/PA

He said: "A lot of people in the area are from a black and minority ethnic background or have come from overseas with their parents and people do not come to London to take it easy, so people come with a high level of motivation.

"It is not an accident and we are very proud of it."

The mayor argued that the results demonstrate that it does not always require money - from wealthy parents or local authorities - for children to achieve good results.

"Money often helps, if you need that little extra support, but our schools are having to manage on less without, so far, slipping," he said.

"It shows cash cannot buy you success without good teachers and leadership and a culture supporting excellence.

"And when we hear about the extra tutoring many children receive in middle class households, that is clearly not a factor for most families in the East End."
A club night that has been a mainstay for London's electronic music fans for half a decade is branching out from the capital for the first time.

The Hyrda, was founded by Electric Minds label boss Dolan Bergin and programmer Ajay Jayaram, who were joined by operations manager Alex Beattie to form a collective that has become a key player in the global electronic music scene.

In their formative years, the trio made their name by locating and transform obscure settings across the capital into fully functioning event spaces, transforming Catholic churches, dilapidated warehouses, loft spaces, theatres, pool halls, a former department store, a decommissioned WWII naval frigate - and even a capsule on the London Eye.

The club brand is now moving out of London for the first time, and heading north to Manchester on December 16, where the Hydra will be taking over a night at the city's legendary Warehouse Project.

Ajay Jayaram from The Hydra said: "It feels like a particularly timely tribute to be working with the WHP for the first time, in what is our going to be our fifth year.

Founders: Dolan Bergin, Alex Beattie, and Ajay Jayaram, of the Hydra / The Hydra

"We've always been very open about the part it has played in inspiring the Hydra's genesis, so when the guys approached us about doing a collaboration for this Christmas, it felt like things had come full circle in a sense.

"It's really remarkable, how they manage to deliver these gargantuan line ups year after year, and December 16 is certainly consistent with that track record.

New venue: Manchester's Warehouse Project / The Warehouse Project

"But in a much broader way it also mainlines our musical ethos, with everyone on the line-up having played for us before, which is something we were keen not to lose the essence of, and which the guys really respected; a different city and a different crowd then, but hopefully the same off the scale outcome."

Oliver Hackett from WHP added: "The Warehouse Project join forces with The Hydra, welcoming the London brand up North to Manchester for the very first time.

"We felt it was important to have a bill of artists in line with the musical ethos of both WHP & The Hydra, and this mammoth lineup of house & techno does just that. An exciting collaboration, and im sure this party will go off."
M o Farahs wife today claimed her husband was left humiliated after he was forced to back of a queue while waiting for a flight at a US airport.

Tania Farah, 33, said Britains most successful Olympic track and field athlete was singled out by a Delta flight attendant who refused to acknowledge his business class ticket.

She said her husband was yelled at by the airline worker who was unaware of the star as he prepared to board a connecting flight at Atlanta airport.

The extraordinary row was said to have played out in front of stunned passengers as the family returned to their home in Portland, Oregon from Rio de Janeiro.

"Humiliation" - Mo Farah with wife Tania Farah and daughter Rihanna Farah / Rex Features

The four-time gold medallist was seen carrying a Team GB holdall while Mrs Farahs 11-year-old daughter Rihanna held a GB mascot lion at the time of the incident, witnesses said.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Mrs Farah said: This woman basically humiliated him until people came forward and said: Thats Mo Farah, the Olympic champion

She was mortified afterwards, but had basically yelled at him like he was a piece of s*** to get back into line.

Gold rush: Farah became Britain's most successful track and field athlete at the Rio Olympics / ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

He was the only black person [in the queue] and hadnt done anything to warrant it. I just knew she had a problem with him.

Witnesses reportedly claimed the mother-of-four swore at the flight attendant and demanded an apology after she accused her of being pathetic and disrespectful.

The row was defused by a second airline who apparently intervened before the family were allowed onto the plane where it is claimed they were applauded by passengers.

The Telegraph reported Delta Airlines had refused to comment on the incident. The Standard has contacted the airline for a comment.
Mariyappan Thangavelu made a leap of 1.89 metres while Varun Bhati jumped his personal best of 1.86 metres to finish third.

By Indo-Asian News Service: India's Mariyappan Thangavelu created history on Friday night by winning a gold medal in the men's high jump T-42 event at the Rio Paralympics.

His compatriot Varun Singh Bhati clinched the bronze medal the same event. While Thangavelu made a leap of 1.89 metres, Bhati jumped his personal best of 1.86 metres to finish third.

India's other medal prospect Sharad Kumar finished at number six. US's Sam Grewe bagged the silver medal.

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The event witnessed a fierce contest with six of the 12 athletes clearing the 1.74m mark in their first eight attempts. But Mariyappan became a part of the leading group after his 10th attempt when he cleared the 1.77m mark along with Lukasz Mamczarz of Poland, China's Zhiqiang Zhing and Kumar.

He then went into the lead along with Bhati as both managed to clear the 1.83m mark. Kumar however, could not improve his performance and eventually crashed out of medal contention.

Grewe pushed Mariyappan and Bhati to the joint second position by clearing 1.86m to grab the top spot. But both Indians made a strong comeback by equalling the height to share the pole position.

Mariyappan eventually made sure of the gold with an effort of 1.89m in his final attempt while Grewe and Bhati's finished with best efforts of 1.86m.

--- ENDS ---
A campaigner hoping to save Brixtons railway arches from Network Rail development plans has created a spoken word poem in protest.

Rapper and activist Potent Whisper created the video in protest at Network Rails decision to evict traders and tenants from the railway arches while renovation works are carried out.

The video was released as part of the Save Brixton Arches campaign, which plans to march on October 8 to stand up to Lambeth Council over the decision to approve the proposals last month.

Campaigner Steve Knight, from Save Brixton Arches, told the Standard: "Network Rail's planned redevelopment of the Brixton railway arches does not require the termination of tenants' leases.

Network Rail does not need to take possession of the Arches in order to carry out refurbishments. It is a choice. Tenants and Traders are willing for leases to be "frozen" whilst necessary works are being carried out.

We demand that Network Rail does not terminate current leases held by tenants and we call on the Mayor of London to ensure the preservation of Brixton's cultural and historical heritage, namely the Brixton Arches."

The group has also created a petition asking for Network Rail to not terminate leases at the Brixton Arches, which has gathered over 700 signatures.

Network Rails director of commercial estate, Alan Muir, said: This is an 8 million investment that will benefit the whole of Brixton and provide traders in the area with excellent facilities. In addition, we will also be able to properly examine the structure of the arches, which carry trains with many thousands of passengers every day.

"We have been consulting with our tenants for the past 18 months and Im really pleased that three quarters of our tenants have decided to return. They will benefit from discounted stepped rents over seven years  so they will not be paying 2015 rent levels until 2024.

"We want to continue Brixtons independent tradition story with a mix of independent and small traders, in the same way that we do across the capital. Of the 4,000 businesses in our London arch estate, fewer than 20 are let to national chains and nationwide, 98 per cent of our arches are rented out to small local businesses.

"I look forward to be able to welcome our traders back when the work is complete next year.
F oreign Secretary Boris Johnson has welcomed a US-Russia deal aimed at addressing the crisis in Syria.

The breakthrough agreement, following talks in Geneva, will see a nationwide ceasefire starting on Monday.

The ceasefire will be followed a week later by an unexpected new military partnership between the US and Russia to target Isis and al Qaida militants.

The plan would also establish new limits on president Bashar Assad's forces and enable humanitarian supplies to reach the besieged city Aleppo.

The deal was thrashed out by US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and it is hoped the plan could reduce violence in Syria and ultimately end more than five years of bloody civil war.

The Foreign Secretary said: "I welcome the agreement that the US and Russia have reached to restore the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access in Syria.

I pay tribute to the tireless work of secretary Kerry in bringing us to this point.

"For years we have seen the indiscriminate targeting by the Assad regime of civilians and moderate groups, and heard only broken promises leading to sieges and starvation.

Syria's civil war: New ceasefire begins start of Eid

London's former mayor urged all parties involved in the conflict to do what is needed to end violence.

He added: "It is only through a political transition that Syria will rid itself of the twin scourges of Assad and terrorism, and give the country and its people the chance of a peaceful future.

"The Syrian opposition high negotiations committee set out in London this week a clear and detailed plan for securing that transition; the Assad regime must now respond with convincing ideas of its own, not bombing, shelling and sieges."

The US and Russia will share intelligence and co-ordinate targeting for strikes against Isis and the al Qaida-linked Nusra Front, now known as Fath al-Sham.
M inisters could be given a free vote on whether to expand Heathrow Airport, a leaked government document has revealed.

The internal paper, which was filmed by a passenger on a Tube train, discusses the "potential waiving of collective responsibility" ahead of the forthcoming decision on airport capacity.

The long-awaited decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick is politically highly sensitive for Prime Minister Theresa May due to divisions within the Tory ranks.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson campaigned against Heathrow expansion in his role as mayor of London, and Putney MP and Education Secretary Justine Greening is also opposed.

Details of the proposal were contained in an email sent to Sue Gray, the director general of the Cabinet Office's propriety and ethics team, Channel 4 News reported.

A commuter spotted the email printout while standing close to the official on a Central Line train.

The passenger captured some of the contents with a smartphone, including a section clearly marked "waiving collective responsibility" and appearing to indicate that one option would be a free vote.

The disclosure is the second embarrassing document leak to hit the Government within days after the Prime Minister's plans for new grammar schools were inadvertently revealed to press photographers in Downing Street.

The email from Sharon Carter to Ms Gray states that lawyers and colleagues in the Cabinet Office's economic and domestic affairs secretariat "are seeking specific input from us on how to handle potential waiving of collective responsibility".

The document suggests that "one route for waiving collective responsibility would be a free..." with the next few words then obscured by the thumb of the woman holding the printout.

The sentence continues"... allowing ministers to speak against the Government's position in the House".

The document goes on to refer to the situation during the coalition government, when the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives held differing positions, and in the run-up to the European Union referendum vote when Cabinet colleagues were in opposing camps.

In July last year the Davies Commission recommended the building of a third runway at Heathrow, but the Department for Transport announced that further investigation into noise, pollution and compensation would be carried out before a decision is made.

David Cameron was expected to indicate which project would get the go-ahead after the EU referendum, but his resignation following the victory for the Brexit campaign meant the decision was left for his successor, Mrs May.

A Government spokesman said: "The Government remains committed to taking a decision on airport expansion and delivering additional runway capacity as planned by 2030. We will set out next steps in due course."

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whose Hayes and Harlington constituency would be hit if the Government decided to expand Heathrow, said any proposal for the site would be defeated in the courts because of the environmental concerns.


A British stag party sparked outrage following claims they took selfies with a blow-up sex doll at Ground Zero on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The men  believed to be Londoners - were eventually asked to leave the memorial site by a police officer, MailOnline reported.

When asked what they were doing, a man, believed to be the groom, reportedly replied that it was just a bachelor party and added no comment.

The incident came just two days before the 15th anniversary of the deadly terror attacks which brought down the Twin Towers, killing thousands of people.

Rosanne Hughes, 61, from the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation lost her husband Thomas F. Hughes Jnr. in the attacks.

The paint contractor was killed while at a meeting on the 107th floor of the World Trade Centre when the building was hit by a plane.

His wife told of her outrage after hearing about the stag party and branded the alleged act disgusting.

She told MailOnline: I'm speechless. I don't even have any words for that - that's a disgrace.

That is sacred ground, I lost my husband and I don't even know what to say - it's disgusting.

We hear things like this and I honestly think it's disgraceful to take selfies of anybody there laughing and smiling when they haven't lived the life we've lived for 15 years and the people we've lost.

If I came face to face with these people I would say 'shame on you.

Thomas left behind a daughter, now 30, and a son, now 28.

There have been complaints from many New Yorkers about a lack of respect being shown at the memorial.

Mike Opelka, 57, visits the memorial every year to pay his respects and said he didnt understand why people took smiling selfies at the mass grave.
P ilots have declared an emergency on a flight from London to Canada because of an apparent engine warning.

The WestJet flight WS27 left Gatwick Airport on Saturday just before 11am and was in the air for more than two hours before it made a sudden diversion.

The emergency signal was reportedly made because of a warning light on the aircraft's engine.

Flight tracking websites show the plane was heading towards Keflavik airport in Iceland.

It was also reported the plane dumped fuel as it was held at 11,000ft near Reykjavik.

The flight safely landed in Iceland shortly before 4pm.

The plane was due to land in Edmonton, Canada at 12.59pm local time.

A spokeswoman for Canadian airline WestJet said an emergency was declared "out of an abundance of caution" and the aircraft will undergo maintenance in Iceland.

She added: "Guests will be reaccommodated as soon as possible. We are currently making arrangements for hotels and meal vouchers.

"WestJet sincerely apologises to our guests for the inconvenience and thanks them for their patience."
A idan Turner has said he does not feel "objectified" by the attention heaped on his topless scenes in BBC period drama Poldark.

Fans of the hit show were delighted when the 33-year-old bared his torso for the now-famous scything scene in series one, and series two has already seen him remove his shirt while working in the tin mines.

The Irish actor, who plays Ross Poldark in the Cornish period drama, told The Times: "I don't feel objectified, it's funny! It's just a couple of people admiring your body. It's like doing any other scene. It's the same as me galloping on a horse on a beach."

A scene in the opening episode of series two saw the return of a topless Ross Poldark / BBC

He added: "I have always felt these semi-naked scenes, or 'Ross with his top off', work.

"If he is down the mine, he is hammering away - on Sunday night we saw it - so it wouldn't make sense with a shirt on. It would look odd. In those days as well!"

Poldark - Series 2 - Trailer - BBC One

Turner said the focus on his topless scenes was "hilarious".

The actor has also starred in the Hobbit movies, as well as vampire drama Being Human and Agatha Christie adaptation And Then There Were None.

But with Poldark back on screens, he admitted he is getting recognised on the street more than ever these days, explaining: "Right now it's dialled right up because my hair is a particular length and the disguises don't work so well."
CPI-M general secretary has written to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking action against suspected cow vigilantes in a case of murder and gangrape that took place in Mewat district of Haryana in August.

By India Today Web Desk: As the fear grips Mewat district of Haryana over complaints about sale of beef-biryani, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury has written to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking his intervention in a "case of gruesome crime perpetrated against a landless poor family".

In his letter, Yechury said that suspected members of local gau-raksha dal allegedly gangraped two women, one being minor. He also said that the Haryana government was indifferent in this case.

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Yechury said that his complaints were based on the findings of a CPI-M team, which visited Mewat on August 30. The CPI-M leader expressed his "pain and anguish" over "facts concerning the barbarism involving rape and murder perpetrated" a Muslim family on the intervening night of August 24 and 25.



FINDINGS OF CPI-M TEAM

As per the CPI-M fact finding team, a gang of drunken local anti-social elements stormed the farm dwellings on the midnight of 25 August, 2016. They killed two and injured four others of the same family.

"The two girls were the next to be caught and raped? Both these girls were gang raped perhaps for more than an hour. The younger victim girl is a minor of 13 years," Yechury wrote in his letter.

In the view of recent development in Mewat, where police collected 25 samples of Biryani ahead of Bakrid festival on the suspicion of use of beef, Yechury sought immediate intervention by the Centre.

Police have since arrested four suspects in the case that Yechury referred to in his letter.



--- ENDS ---
Read about the 10 mistakes you are making with your teeth.

TAKE A PEA-SIZED DOLLOP

Brush twice a day for 60 seconds. The toothpaste needs to be a small, pea-size amount on your brush. Make sure it contains fluoride; abrasive toothpastes damage teeth.

DON'T BE HARSH ON YOUR TEETH

Choose a soft-bristle brush. Hard brushes, forceful or faulty brushing, dominant hand dexterity-all can lead to 'toothbrush cavities' at the neck of the teeth.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR GUMS

Pyorrhoea, bad breath, bleeding gums-it's something 91 per cent Indians suffer from. Typically sets in when the body goes through hormonal changes: puberty, pregnancy, menopause, etc.

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IF YOU ARE A DIABETIC

You are most prone to bacterial infections and pyorrhoea. Take special care, as good gum health contributes to better glucose control. Consult your dentist regularly.

SEAL TO HEAL, NOT DRILL TO FILL

Sealing all pits, grooves and fissures on the molars is the best way to stop decay and cavities. It's an advancement from the 'drill to fill' strategy practised earlier.

FILL IT UP EARLY

Fill up persistent cavities early, to prevent tooth loss and gum decay. Cap the tooth in root canal and replace missing teeth at the soonest, to maintain structural integrity.



CHECK OUT UNSEEN CAVITIES

Loss of mineral from teeth enamel appears as white spots on the surface-indicating decay due to faulty brushing and poor eating habits. You'll need to re-mineralise area.

DO NOT IGNORE SNORING

Snoring and breathing through the mouth may indicate anatomical issues-nasal obstructions, deviated septum or askew jaw alignment. Corrective surgery will be needed.

BEWARE OF ULCERS AND WHITE PATCHES

If mouth ulcers or leukoplakia (white patches on the tongue, gums, cheek linings) persist for over a week, consult a doctor. Serious cases may be linked to oral cancer.

GO FOR REGULAR CHECK-UPS

There is evidence that visual examinations reduce the mortality rate in oral cancer-the most common cancer in India-in high-risk individuals.

--- ENDS ---
Golden hours have been introduced on the Mumbai-Pune expressway for passenger vehicles during which multi-axle containers and overload trucks, which are prone to mechanical or technical break down, will not be allowed to ply on the expressway.

By Pankaj P. Khelkar: Here is good news for commuters on the infamous Mumbai-Pune expressway.

GOLDEN HOURS FOR PASSENGER VEHICLES

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the Express Authorities have launched "golden hours" for passenger vehicles, which began on this Friday i.e. September 9. During these hours, passenger cars as well as buses will have no multi-axle trucks plying on the expressway.

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The Mumbai-Pune expressway has been quite in news for the past few months due to an increase in the number of fatal accidents and unending traffic jams.

The jams are so infamous that even the elected representatives who usually fly over the expressway to reach the financial capital Mumbai could not stop themselves from posting pictures of these traffic jams on social media.

The "golden hours" scheme has thus been introduced to ease out the traffic.

Also Read: Mumbai-Pune Expressway accident kills 17, injures 30

SCHEME BEGAN THIS FRIDAY, ONLY THOSE VEHICLES PRONE TO BREAKDOWN WILL BE STOPPED

Talking to India Today, the Highway SP Amol Tambe Patil confirmed that during the peak hours, multi-axle trucks were not allowed to ply on the expressway and were stopped at the Khalapur toll plaza.

This practice has been initiated by Thane SP as Khalapur Toll falls under Thane zone.

Amol Tambe Patil said that it had been observed that during long weekends, and during the evening hours, there were huge traffic jams near the Amrutanjan point area at Khandaala and Lonavala. And the reason was the break down of multi -axle containers near Amrutanjan bridge.

Patil said that those vehicles that fall under multi-axle and overload trucks will now be halted during the peak hours of traffic movement on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. He, however, said that the vehicles prohibited are only those which are prone to mechanical or technical break down.

Following the scheme, multi-axle containers travelling from Mumbai to Pune were be halted at the Khalapur Toll Naka on Friday evening for 3 hours. Further, these vehicles were halted at Khalapur on Saturday morning for 3 hours from 7 am to 10 am.

GOLDEN HOURS EXPERIMENTAL

The golden hours are being initiated on experimental basis and will be continued if found feasible by the expressway authorities.

The same practice of ban on multi-axle containers on expressway during golden hours will be initiated on Monday morning when there is heavy traffic movement from Pune towards Mumbai after weekend holidays.

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Also Read:

Drones used to monitor traffic on Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Nitesh seeks e-way toll exemption for Ganesh fest travellers



--- ENDS ---
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Supreme Court today refused to stay Delhi High Court's ruling that L-G was the administrative head of the capital and was not bound by the aid and advice of the chief minister or council of ministers.

By Harish V Nair: In a setback to the Kejriwal government, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the August 4 verdict of the Delhi High Court, which concluded that the Capital was a union territory and gave primacy to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung for its administration.



LEGAL CHALLENGE

Five top legal eagles roped in by the AAP government - senior lawyers and constitutional experts KK Venugopal, Gopal Subramanium, PP Rao, Rajeev Dhavan and Indira Jaising vehemently argued for a stay saying the HC verdict had tied up the hands of an democratically elected government and the Lt Governor was proceeding with several illegal acts. But a bench of justices A K Sikri and N V Ramana was not impressed.

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Subramanium referred to Jung constituting a three-member panel to examine over 400 files containing "infirmities and irregularities" in the decisions taken by the government. "The functioning of the committee also needs to be stayed. Legitimacy cannot be given to it till the issue is decided by this court", he argued.

The judges said they would rather list the matter for final hearing on November 15 and sought the response of the Centre on the appeals filed by the AAP government by then. The Bench said it would give a preliminary hearing of the appeals on the next date and decide whether they should be referred to a Constitution Bench. If so, the matter would have to be heard by a 11-judge Bench of the Supreme Court. This is because a nine-judge Bench of the court, in 1996, in the NDMC versus State of Punjab case, recognised Delhi as a Union Territory for taxation purposes.

DELHI REMAINS A UNION TERRITORY

"The NDMC judgment holds that Delhi remains a Union Territory... We have it in mind to refer the appeals to a Constitution Bench," Justice Sikri responded to a submission made by senior advocate KK Venugopal, representing the Delhi government to send the appeals to a larger Bench. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi and Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar urged that the appeals be dismissed outright as Delhi government "flouted the Rules of Business by having Deputy Chief Minister (Manish Sisodia) sign the affidavits attached to the appeal copy instead of a Secretary".

But Venugopal countered that Sisodia was "forced to sign the affidavit as the L-G, through an order, had issued instructions that no case would be filed through a government official without his prior permission. The L-G in a way is restricting our access to justice. We cannot go to court now because we need his permission and he is a respondent in the case. This is what the situation has come to".

The HC had ruled that L-G was the administrative head of the capital and was not bound by the aid and advice of the chief minister or council of ministers. The appeals said HC verdict subverted the democratic governance structure put by a constitutional arrangement which recognises Delhi as a state with an elected assembly.

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"If the L-G is the boss in terms of governance and decision-making process, then Parliament in its wisdom would not have provided for a council of ministers headed by a chief minister, who were answerable to the legislative assembly", it said.



ALSO READ:

AAP guilty of systematic, consistent and wilful violation of constitutional scheme for governance of Delhi: Najeeb Jung

Subramanian Swamy returns: Najeeb Jung 420 like Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi needs Sanghi LG



--- ENDS ---
Updated at 7:06 p.m.

A U.S. judge on Friday signed an order granting Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. provisional protection from creditors in the United States, enabling some vessels to dock and unload at U.S. ports.

South Korea's Hanjin had asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood to issue an order to prevent creditors from seizing Hanjin ships or property, and to allow cargo owners to make arrangements to retrieve goods stranded in warehouses.

Earlier, the company received authority to spend money needed to dock at U.S. ports and begin unloading four vessels that have been stranded at sea by the company's failure last week, a company lawyer told a U.S. court on Friday.

"We have the money," said Ilana Volkov, an attorney for Hanjin, told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Newark, N.J., on Friday. "We want to call these ports and say, please accept our ships and we want to pay for the services to work the ships."

Volkov said at least $10 million was authorized by a Korean court to begin servicing the four ships. Hanjin identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in court papers, but Volkov said she did not have information about the other vessels.

The company said that some ships may not dock at their original destinations, which could become an issue for companies like HP Inc, Samsung Electronics and Home Shopping Network, who said in court records or in court they had cargo on those ships.

The four U.S.-bound ships are the Hanjin Boston, Hanjin Greece, Hanjin Jungil and Hanjin Gdynia.

Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tugboat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin, the world's seventh-largest container carrier, which filed for receivership in a Seoul court last week.

Havoc for global trade

Hanjin has been struggling to arrange financing to resume normal operations. Korean Air Lines, the biggest shareholder in Hanjin, delayed on Friday a decision on a funding plan.

Hanjin's collapse has caused havoc in global trade networks and a surge in freight rates, as more than half of the company's 141 ships have been blocked from docking at ports. Four vessels have also been seized as of Thursday, according to Hanjin Shipping.

As ships await at sea, anchored off various ports from Long Beach, California, Mexico to Panama City, problems for the financially-strapped company mount as fuel suppliers also demand payment and provisions run low on the ships.

An arrest warrant was entered against the Hanjin Montevideo, currently anchored off Long Beach, and the ship was seized. The parties pressing for arrest were World Fuel Services Inc and OceanConnet Marine PTE Ltd., and Hanjin's attorney said the company expected to work out an arrangement to release the ship next week.

The judge asked companies along the supply chain to hammer out a protocol agreement over the weekend that would get goods moving again. Hanjin has suggested cargo owners were free to pay cargo handling fees owed by Hanjin, which Samsung Electronics called ransom payments.

Hanjin's woes were having wider knock-on effects. Sherwood was told that port terminals were not accepting the routine return of empty Hanjin shipping containers from retailers, forcing stores to spend to store them.

Uncertainty about freight fees was leading to vast numbers of containers clogging warehouses at port terminals. As containers piled up with retailers and on docks, the available pool of chassis used to transport containers was dwindling.

Sherwood repeatedly urged the parties to "self-help" and work out the problems as best they could.

Hanjin's collapse could also hit the bottom line at several companies as it came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season.

But import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports should be at near-peak levels for September, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

"Hanjin should not significantly affect volume for the month since alternative arrangements to unload those containers or shift cargo elsewhere should be dealt with by the time the numbers are tallied," NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

"Merchandise is in limbo at the moment and retailers are working hard to make sure it ends up on store shelves in time for the holidays."

The shipping line has filed for so-called U.S. Chapter 15 bankruptcy, which allows a company to seek recognition by U.S. courts of orders issued overseas.
ATLANTA  Does this gun make me look fat?

For decades, women have had few choices when it comes to the clothing they can wear to hide that theyre carrying a firearm. They could wear baggy T-shirts or coats, or put it in a purse and hope it didnt get swiped or that they didnt fire it or have trouble getting it out in an emergency.

Enter holsters, corsets, camisoles and other clothing designed to be flattering, feminine  and functional  for the pistol-packin mama crowd.

I dont want to dress in tactical gear and camo all the time. I love tactical clothing for the range. Its comfortable. I dont want to ruin my everyday clothing, said Marilyn Smolenski, who in 2012 created Nickel and Lace, a company that caters to women who want to carry a firearm concealed but dont want to trade in their femininity. But I dont want to wear it to the grocery store.

Smolenski started her company around the time Chicago city laws changed and she could again legally carry a firearm. When that happened, she struggled to find something that didnt make her look frumpy and didnt broadcast that she was packing heat.

Most clothing was geared to men  coats with hidden pockets, or holsters that tuck inside a waistband. But until the last few years, those werent great options for women who dont wear belts as frequently and are more likely than men to wear form-fitting clothing, making it difficult to hide a firearm.

When you put a mans holster on a womans body it sticks out. It doesnt hug the body, said Carrie Lightfoot, founder and owner of the Well Armed Woman in Scottsdale, Ariz., which does everything from providing firearms instruction to women to selling a variety of concealed carry clothing. One of her companys first missions was to design and produce a holster that recognized the differences in body types and clothing styles between men and women.

Womens waists tend to be shorter, providing less room to withdraw a gun from a holster. Hips and chests can get in the way too, she said.

Lightfoot and Smolenski said that some manufacturers tended to shrink it and pink it  thinking that taking gear for men and making it smaller and brightly colored would satisfy female customers. They and their counterparts emphasize they are driven by function and safety before aesthetics.

Women need to know they can carry effectively, Lightfoot said. I think the key is finding a way to carry it so you can be comfortable and move through your day without being poked and having a big hunk of metal in your pants and not be able to sit at work.

Both also are advocates for providing women with information and guidance on ways to feel secure and be safe. For Smolenski, that goal has led to the creation of the Firearms and Fashion Show, which includes seminars on personal safety. Her company actually got its start with a line of jewelry  from necklaces that can be pulled away easily and then used as a weapon to chopsticks that can both be used to hold up hair and then be wielded against an attacker.

For Anna Taylor, the founder and CEO of Dene Adams LLC  named after her grandfather, who first taught her to respect firearms and handle them safely  the road to creating a line of concealed carry clothing began around the time she became a single mom and the safety of the family rested on her shoulders. When she got her first concealed carry permit in 2013, she went through seven holsters.

Some were hard and uncomfortable. Some of them Id have to take off and set down when I went to the bathroom and I was afraid I would go off and leave it just like Ive left my phone behind before. Others, belly band types with a print so bad you could see the grip or outline of the gun through my clothes, Adams said.

Her first design involved a mouse pad and a postpartum corset to create a soft holster. She was able to carry the kids around, nurse, give the kids baths  even jump on the trampoline  and I could forget that it was there. With her last $200, she found a manufacturer willing to do a small run. Flash forward three years and she now has products on shelves at nearly 100 dealers around the country. She has expanded into safety and training and is now an NRA pistol and rifle instructor.

We have options that dont have lace. We have solid black, she said.
Its time to reflect, once again, on the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001. Its time to ask what Americans have learned and whether our nation is more secure or less because of that knowledge. This 15th anniversary coincides with a highly contentious U.S. presidential campaign in which the two major candidates are fighting over the measure of U.S. security and who offers the better plan to address the threat of global terrorism.

The campaign, unfortunately, has skewed the reality. It has led some Americans to believe simplistic military responses can solve our biggest global challenges. The tenor of the debate risks sending our nation into a dangerous reactionary spiral. A hyped-up sense of insecurity, fueled by irresponsible campaign rhetoric, reduces the chances that cooler heads will prevail when Americans vote on Nov. 8.

Todays security equation is far more complex than the one that existed on 9/11. The next president cannot always respond to terrorist aggression immediately. He or she wont be able to rely on shock-and-awe outcomes that satisfy the masses.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon warranted a quick military response because the actors were part of an organized terrorist network, al-Qaida, based in known locations in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The enemy was clearly identifiable, and its leadership claimed responsibility for the attacks. As a result, al-Qaida today has been reduced almost to the point of irrelevancy.

The Bush administration, consumed with tightening Americas defenses against another attack, opted in 2003 to go after an Iraqi regime that, in reality, had no role in the rise of Islamist terror groups. If anything, dictator Saddam Husseins iron-fisted oppression helped keep a lid on them. The invasion cracked open Pandoras box in the form of al-Qaida in Iraq  which later became the Islamic State.

Politicians today might try to distort the record about which U.S. administration allowed Islamic States spread across Iraq and Syria, and there is plenty of blame to be shared by both Democratic and Republican leaders. But the historical record is indisputable that it was the Iraq invasion that unleashed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi  a man so radical that even al-Qaida disavowed him  to recruit and plant the seeds for the Islamic States creation.

Islamic States roots

The diversion of U.S. forces from Afghanistan to Iraq allowed the Taliban to disperse and regroup militarily. Taliban fighters have worked relentlessly to destabilize Pakistan and challenge the authority of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Security vacuums have helped elements of the Islamic State to surface in both those countries.

Harsh U.S. military tactics during the Iraq occupation led to such anti-American fervor that, in 2008, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded the full withdrawal of U.S. troops. President George W. Bush committed the U.S. to a withdrawal, and President Barack Obama executed it. That fateful decision hastened Iraqs security collapse and opened the door to Islamic States sweep in 2013-2014.

On Obamas watch, an entirely new challenge arose with the destabilization of Middle Eastern dictatorships following the Arab Spring uprisings. The Arab Spring began in 2010 after a Tunisian street vendor took offense at police harassment and lashed out, inspiring millions to rise up against dictators.

Civil war erupted in Syria and Libya. Horrific power vacuums ensued, which the Islamic State exploited. The Obama administrations tepid reaction, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton serving on the decision-making team, made a difficult situation even worse. The Obama administration must own its mistakes, foremost of which was the dishonored red line pledge of retaliation when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad deployed chemical weapons against his own people.

The administration balked at assisting non-Islamist rebels fighting to oust the dictatorship. It also was too slow to challenge the Turkish government as it allowed thousands of Islamist radicals to cross into Syria and gain a foothold.

Libya, like Syria, is a basket case of chaotic militia fiefdoms that include the Islamic State. Republicans in Congress became consumed with blaming Secretary Clinton for the response to the attack on the U.S. consular compound in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. The far more important concern should have been preventing yet another security vacuum left to be filled by Islamist radicals. The Obama administration and Clinton cannot shirk the role they played in letting that happen.

not ready for democracy

Bush and Obama administration officials also determined that the 9/11 attacks had roots in political oppression. They embarked on dangerous and ill-planned efforts to introduce democratic governance in places where dictators had long ruled, and where the mosque had served as the only safe place for political opposition groups to organize.

Its hardly surprising that Muslim clerics exercised heavy influence over election outcomes in the post-9/11 era. In Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan and Egypt, the results were disastrous as democratic elections gave political power to hard-line Islamist leaders who recruited support via the mosque. The United States now is faced with having to walk back, embarrassed, from its commitment to democratic advocacy.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State continues to use the internet with devastating effectiveness to recruit disaffected youths around the world. Today those recruits form the single biggest security threat to the West because of their ability to strike anywhere at any time without necessarily coordinating with any larger group.

What once was a well-defined, singular organization is now an amorphous monster that cannot be defeated by conventional military action. Americans who have learned the lessons of 9/11 must prove it by demanding specifics from any politician who claims to have a silver-bullet solution to this highly complex threat.
Free-standing chain-link fencing can be put up in a very short amount of time at very little cost, and we all should commit to this solution until the killings in our schools stop.
By Mayuresh Ganapatye: After attacks on police were reported from different parts of state recently, Nasik residents have started campaign in the support of the same. Big banners have been put at prominent points across Nasik. Posters spelling out 'Police are your friends" and "Police are for your security" have been put in various parts of Nasik.



Four attacks took place alone in Nasik on police in which two were on traffic police in last one week. Two days back, retired police officers took out a protest rally against these attacks at the office of district magistrate. " We being in uniform serve people but if we are getting attacked or targeted then who will look after our security," said Raosaheb Pote ex-police official from Nasik. During this rally they demanded that even traffic police should get pistol. Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis who was in Nasik to attend one function demanded strict action against people attacking police said, "There should be strict action against culprits who will attack policemen. Guilty will not be spared."

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But due to the poster, moral of police is up. They have welcomed such initiatives. "We feel better when people support us. We are here for them only. Attack on police is attack on common people. These poster will certainly help to change people's mindset toward us," said ACP Sachin Gore from Nasik crime branch.

Uddhav Thackeray had met Maharashtra CM along with family members of police officials this week. In the meeting, it was decided to set a committee to look after problems and issues of police.

These growing number of attacks on police have raised a question on home department which is with Maharashtra chief minister. Uddhav Thackeray reiterated his demand to have separate minister.



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LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/09/16 -- As an incredibly devout man of God, real estate expert Frederick Wehba and his longtime wife Susan Wehba are proud to launch their faith based organization The Wehba Foundation. After founding several Southern California churches and observing how blessed they have been with the ability to create a lasting impact on the Christian faith community, the Wehba's will devote their time and energy toward implementing godly values toward various regional groups. Their foundation focuses on students, real estate ventures, and both corporate and small business opportunities. By integrating the fundamentals of Biblical doctrine into their foundation, the Wehba's believe they will be able to procure a strong influence on those they assist.

During his long career as a real estate investor, Frederick Wehba has been fortunate to enjoy the rewards of his hard work and strong faith by building a multi-billion dollar enterprise. After consistently upholding God's values and having raised four children, Fred and Susan are ready to bring their spiritual gifts to their local neighborhood. The Wehba Foundation will focus on leading business professionals to greater gains by modeling Christian values. Their core message communicates that running a business with a strong moral compass and Christ's guiding hand will garner great rewards. The Wehba's can point to their own lives as examples of this; by following God's will and by possessing outstanding moral character, success can more easily come your way. Mentoring programs and events will be created to serve both large and small businesses as well as non-profit entities.

Drawing upon his extensive business knowledge, Frederick Wehba will also assist those offering key resources to the Los Angeles area. Churches, schools, and senior centers will all benefit from Wehba's development strategies; he aims to ensure that these groups flourish and continue to serve and spread the Christian faith. Emphasizing the potential that younger generations hold, The Wehba Foundation will also work with students who commit to living a life that exemplifies Christ's teachings. As a first generation American, Fred knows firsthand how one's early childhood experiences can shape adulthood, and promises to encourage local youth to build a strong moral foundation in their own lives.

C. Frederick (Fred) Wehba's groundbreaking Foundation is just one of many in a long list of accolades during his philanthropic life. He actively sits on the board of several prestigious organizations, including the Beverly Hills Education Foundation and the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools. In 2014, the mayor of Los Angeles granted the "Man of the Year" title to Mr. Wehba after his sizable involvement in creating financial stability in the rapidly growing metropolis. Currently serving as deacons at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, the Wehbas are also devoted supporters of many ministries and charities including St. Jude, Childhelp, and the Southern Baptist Mission Board. Through The Wehba Foundation, Fred and Susan will continue their lives of service and aim to communicate the fundamental truths that they hold so dearly.

Frederick Wehba - Real Estate Investor and Avid Philanthropist: http://frederickwehbanews.com

C. Frederick Wehba: http://aboutcfrederickwehba.com

C. Frederick Wehba - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickwehba

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/9/10/11G113625/Images/Frederick_Wehba_-_and_wife_Susan_Wehba_Launch_The_-40ebcb78f48da9f7bb3e7cf68ddacade.jpg

Embedded Video Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxIeDA7M9Jg

Source: AboutCFrederickWehba.com
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's new government is trying to stifle a corruption investigation targeting politicians and major parties, the former attorney general said in a magazine interview a day after being replaced by President Michel Temer.

The former official, Fabio Medina Osorio, told weekly magazine Veja that he was fired because he tried to deepen the so-called "Car Wash" corruption probe. Three ministers of Temer's cabinet have already resigned since he took office in May after being linked to the probe.

"The government wants to smother the Car Wash probe. It is very worried," Osorio was quoted as saying by Veja.

Efforts by Reuters to contact Osorio were unsuccessful. A spokesman for the presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Temer has previously said that his government would not obstruct any corruption investigations.

Osorio was replaced by Grace Maria Mendonca. In a statement, the office of the attorney general said it remains committed to its constitutional mission against corruption.

"Operation Carwash", which was named for its beginnings as a money-laundering probe, has ensnared dozens of top politicians and jailed chief executives from Brazil's biggest construction firms for paying billions in bribes for bloated contracts.

(Reporting by Silvio Cascione; editing by Grant McCool)
Superstar Rajinikanth, who is currently shooting for his upcoming film 2.0, is likely to play a cameo in the Tamil film Neruppu Da.

By India Today Web Desk: Superstar Rajinikanth, who is still basking in the success of his Kabali, is likely to do a cameo role in the upcoming Tamil film titled Neruppu Da, which stars Vikram Prabhu and Nikki Galrani in the lead roles.



ALSO READ: Oppam movie review- Mohanlal's film is intriguing at its core, but lacks depth



ALSO READ: Dhanush turns director with Power Paandi- Is Kamal Haasan his inspiration?

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According to Behindwoods, the makers of the film are planning to rope in Rajinikanth to do a small cameo as himself in the film. Notably, Rajinikanth has played cameo roles in films like Agni Sakshi, Anbulla Rajinikanth and Yaar.

Rajinikanth played himself on screen in Periya Idathu Pillai, which released in 1990.

If all goes planned, Rajinikanth is said to do this role before his next film with director Pa Ranjith under actor Dhanush's home production Wunderbar Films.

Meanwhile, Rajinikanth has already resumed the shoot of his upcoming mega-budgeted film 2.0, the sequel to the blockbuster Enthiran.

The film stars Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson and Sudhanshu Pandey in lead roles.

Directed by Shankar, the first look poster of the film is likely to be released in November while the film is slated to hit the screens next year.

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By Gerauds Wilfied Obangome

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - If there is no recount of votes in Gabon's presidential election, the country will face "profound and sustained instability", the man who lost by less than 6,000 votes said on Friday.

Jean Ping has applied to the Constitutional Court to authorize a recount in a province where President Ali Bongo won 95 percent of the votes on a 99.9 percent turnout.

But he has already said he has no faith in the judicial body he thinks is too close to the government, and suggested on Friday that people would take to the streets if it does not order a recount.

"I strongly fear that a new false step by the Constitutional Court would be the cause of profound and sustained instability in Gabon," Ping told a news conference where he also called for an international inquiry into the killing of several of his supporters during post-election riots.

"If ... the Gabonese people don't accept the constitutional court's decision (if it rules against a recount), the people will assume their responsibility, and I will stand by their side," Ping said, hinting at a return to street protests.

Ping says between 50 and 100 people were killed in the riots after the election results were announced, much more than the government's death toll of six.

Ali Bongo, first elected in 2009 after the death of his father Omar who ruled the former French colony for 42 years, has accused Ping - a close ally of then-president Omar Bongo - of cheating in the August election.

EU observers said they found anomalies in the vote in Haut-Ogooue province where Ping is demanding a recount. France has called for a recount and the United States and European Union have urged the government to release polling station results.

France said on Friday it was closely following the case in the oil-rich Central African country which is home to 14,000 of its citizens and a permanent military base.

"(The court) must examine (the results) with transparency and impartiality and all means must be put in place to ensure the respect of its principles and establishment of the integrity of the vote," Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement.

Gabon recalled its ambassador to Paris in January after France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls appeared to question the legitimacy of Bongo's 2009 election, marking a new low in relations with the former colonial power with whom Omar Bongo enjoyed close ties.

(Reporting by Gerauds Wilfried Obangome; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Joe Bavier; Editing by Aaron Ross)
By Suzanne Barlyn

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Chuck DeBonis was wrapping up his stint as a civilian paramedic at a military base in Kuwait earlier this year, he found a home he wanted to buy in the Virginia town of Bristow for his return.

The problem? His mortgage lender wanted him to sign paperwork, in person, in front of a notary public. So the 30-year-old flew 6,500 miles to sign on the dotted line.

"It was ridiculous and unnecessary," DeBonis said in recounting his 14-hour trip.

His problem may be unusual in its scope, but it is one that millions of U.S. homeowners and buyers face every day  and one some U.S. lenders and state lawmakers are now trying to solve.

As it stands, nothing is official in mortgage documents until there's a face-to-face meeting with a notary public, a person who verifies borrowers' identities.

Lenders have long recognized notarization as a critical anti-fraud measure. But the practice  which dates back at least to Ancient Rome  is becoming passe in an era of FaceTime, Skype and live-streamed social media.

The financial industry is pressing for change in the form of "remote notarization." The service, available through companies like Notarize Inc and NotaryCam Inc, uses secure webcams to link borrowers and notary publics. Before their virtual meeting, borrowers must answer random questions from their credit histories to prove who they are.

But adoption has been limited because a patchwork of laws in most states does not allow for the practice, and city and county governments are slow to change. Investors who buy the loans also impose restrictions, such as requiring original signatures to avoid fraud.

Some big players in the mortgage industry want to bring notarization into the 21st Century.

Quicken Loans Inc, the nation's third-largest mortgage lender, is one of the biggest advocates for digital notarization because face-to-face meetings clash with its online business model. For USAA, which lends to U.S. military, remote notarization could help customers who move frequently, the company said.

Government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also supporting remote notarization because they say it has better safeguards against fraud, among other things.

Broadly speaking, webcam notarizations could cut expenses for lenders, notaries and borrowers. Even without webcam notaries, signing the documents electronically can save the industry on average up to $1,100 per mortgage, according to Fannie Mae.

But as it stands, more than half of the 3,600 local clerk offices across the U.S. only accept paper copies, according to the Property Records Industry Association. Many counties go a step further in requiring original ink signatures.

Although the vast majority of state laws allow for some form of electronic real-estate documentation, only two states  Virginia and Montana  expressly approve remote notarization.

Some counties, especially smaller ones, do not have the budget to install software capable of processing electronic real estate documents. For others, it's more of a "cultural shift that's required," said Timothy Reiniger, who heads the digital services group for Richmond, Virginia-based FutureLaw, LLC, a law firm and consultancy.

The National Association of Secretaries of State held a conference in July that featured panels about remote notarization, and many state notary administrators were in attendance. While some were receptive to the idea, others challenged speakers on everything from fraud to whether video recording of a notary signing could be hacked.

Some administrators, sitting around tables arranged in a horseshoe, debated with a Quicken Loans speaker about if notaries would know whether a webcam signer was being held at gunpoint.

Reininger, who researched the issue while helping to draft Virginia's legislation, could not find a case in U.S. history in which a notarized document was voided because the signer was held at gunpoint.

"It's a red herring argument," he said in an interview.

Another challenge for webcam notarization is storing documents and videos made of each signing, exposing them to possible cyber theft. Advocates contend that cloud-based storage is plentiful and point to the security of everyday electronic banking transactions to bolster their case.

CHARGING AHEAD

Virginia's webcam notaries are valid in the U.S., even if the person signing is anywhere in the world, but Montana's law is more restrictive. In real estate, it applies only to transactions that involve Montana property, and the notary or a "credible witness" must know the signer who typically must be a Montana resident. States including Maryland and Texas are also considering the technology.

Even without a nationwide legal infrastructure, some pockets of the financial industry are charging ahead.

Quicken Loans is hoping to launch a webcam notarization pilot with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Several webcam notary companies told Reuters they are testing their services with lenders, but declined to name them.

In September, the Mortgage Bankers Association will host a meeting in Washington for some of its members to discuss the technology, a spokesman for the industry group said.

Fannie and Freddie gave the concept a big boost by voicing support in a June letter to the National Association of Secretaries of State. The two companies stand behind roughly 90 percent of new mortgages issued in the United States. They buy webcam notarized loans, but in very limited instances.

Some mortgage closings are already partly electronic because documents are signed on an iPad, but with a notary present.

Webcam notary companies say their technology could slice $60 to $100 in expenses from each transaction, mainly related to printing expenses and travel.

Even so, most banks have not warmed up to the idea because of a jumble of requirements for recording and selling loans to investors, said Bob Davis, executive vice president for the American Bankers Association. Until more states adopt laws that explicitly allow for digital notarization, the process is stuck in something of a time warp.

DeBonis, the paramedic, ultimately made two trips between Kuwait and Virginia to close on the home he now owns because of his lender's intransigence  even in a state where web notarization is formally authorized. His only other choice was trekking to a notary at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait, whose wait list stretched out for at least a week, he said.

"It bothers me," said DeBonis, "how a lot of businesses can't keep up with technology."

(Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Carmel Crimmins and Edward Tobin)
The four time RJD MP, slammed Nitish asserting that the latter was the CM of Bihar simply because of present political circumstances.

Shahabuddin attacked Bihar CM Nitish Kumar saying he was not a leader but just the chief minister for him.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Don turned politician Md. Shahabuddin has attacked Bihar CM Nitish Kumar soon after his release from Bhagalpur jail on Saturday. Shahbuddin was released from jail after 11 long years after he was granted bail by the Patna High Court.

The four time RJD MP, slammed Nitish asserting that the latter was the CM of Bihar simply because of present political circumstances. It may be noted here that Nitish had severed ties with BJP and joined hands with RJD. Shahabuddin through his remarks essentially meant that since Lalu due to his conviction in fodder scam could not be the CM despite RJD being the largest party in Mahagathbandhan, this paved way for Nitish to be CM.

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"Nitish Kumar paristhitiyon ke CM hain (a CM by circumstance)", said Shahabuddin.

Shahabuddin who was sent to jail soon after Nitish donned the mantle of Bihar in November 2005 had got the Shahabuddin arrested and pushed inside jail. Interestingly, Nitish is at present also the CM when Shahabuddin has been released. The don turned politician slammed Bihar CM after being released.



LALU PRASAD IS MY LEADER: SHAHABUDDIN

"I never shared cordial relation with Nitish Kumar. I still do not and will never in future have good relations with him", said Shahabuddin.

Shahabuddin further attacked the Bihar CM saying Nitish was not a leader but just the Chief Minister for him.

"Nitish is not my leader. He is just the CM of the state", said Shahabuddin.

However, the former RJD MP showered lavish praises for his party President Lalu Prasad. Shahabuddin said that for last 27 years, he had shared excellent rapport with Lalu and would continue to do so till he lives.

"Lalu Prasad is my leader. I have complete faith in him. I will worship him all my life. If will go to hell if Lalu also goes to hell", said Shahabuddin.

Shahabuddin though admitted that spending 11 years in jail has damaged him politically.

ALSO READ:

Shahabuddin walks out of jail to a hero's welcome, takes a swipe at Nitish

Nitish's minister feasts with Mohammad Shahabuddin inside Siwan jail



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CDS signs MoU with Pakistani Depository Company View(s):

Central Depository Systems (Pvt) Ltd (CDS), a fully owned subsidiary of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and the Central Depository Company of Pakistan (CDC), recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding strengthening corporation on mutual development and knowledge sharing. It was signed in the backdrop of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the CDS, which was attended by the Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Central Securities Depository Group (ACG) Muhammad Hanif. Chairman of the CSE and CDS Vajira Kulatilaka and Muhammad Hanif, in his capacity as the CEO of

CDC Pakistan signed the agreement. The MoU broadens an already productive relationship between the two depositories, which share a long history, including co-founding the ACG. The CDS in recent years has actively worked towards building up its international alliances, of which notable outcomes include a MoU with the National Securities Depository (Pvt) Ltd of India in 2015 and expanding its role as an active participant of the ACG. Commenting on the MoU, Mr. Kulatilaka stated that the MoU indicates the continued commitment of the CDS to enhance cooperation within depositories and clearing institutions in the Asian region.
Ceylon tea to brew well in US, China By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Sri Lanka is trying to secure emerging tea markets like China and the US that are already over US$50 million worth sectors. US and China are the two main emerging markets, Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) Chairman Rohan Pethiyagoda told the Business Times on Thursday. He noted that they were currently studying these markets and identified that China is a very diversified sector and were looking at carrying out targeted marketing in the main cities. The main market is from online sales, Mr. Pethiyagoda explained adding that they were looking at the types of teas to market like the gift teas, specialty and normal range. In the US the focus would be on California where they have found a targeted audience of young people who have taken to tea drinking due to health benefits and other trends.

Sri Lanka would be looking at entering these markets in a targeted approach with a possible next day delivery method firstly getting things in order by attracting a few vendors to make a reach. In 2015 according to the Sri Lanka Customs records, Ceylon tea sold 3.7 million kg in the US for a total value of $21.9 million which was a drop from the previous years figure of 4.5 million kg at $26.1 million. Ceylon Tea direct exports to China have recorded an increase of up to $32.9 million in 2015 for a total quantity of 7.1 million kg. In 2014 however, the teas sold amounted to 4.7 million kg at a total value of $24 million. In the meantime, Sri Lanka is also trying to secure trade concessions to access a larger share of the Turkish market. In this regard discussions are underway with the Trade Ministry and Turkish authorities, Mr. Pethiyagoda said.
MTI links Cambodia to help Sri Lankan companies enter View(s):

The nascent stage and high growth of the Cambodian economy is attracting significant regional business interests and this provides Sri Lankan businesses an opportunity to be an early mover in the development phase of this fast emerging Mekong valley region, a top consultancy firm has said. MTI Consulting, with experience in the ASEAN region, has further strengthened its in-country associate relationship with Market Strategy and Development (MDS) via a recent road-show in the capital Phnom Penh, MTI said in a media statement.

MSD is Cambodias premiere marketing and social research consulting firm with over 300 trained and experienced field researchers stationed in key urban and rural centres throughout the country. Over the 14 years, MSD has undertaken numerous market, social science, and socio economic development research projects independently and through joint proposals with research/consulting firms. MTI partnered with MSD in a strategic move to build its international network especially in the Mekong Valley which has been the focus of many existing clients of MTI.

As MTIs Associate, MSD acts as the on ground market research provider for projects in Cambodia and vice versa for the regions MTI operates in.

To further build on the partnership between MTI and MSD, the MTI members Consultant Naushervan Beg and Business Analyst Gayan Dias met with the MSD team in Cambodia. The meeting took place at the MSD Office with MSD Research Manager Todd Hunkin and Associate Research Manager Michael Hopewell, the statement added. During the meeting, the MTI team was able to get a full appreciation of MSDs operations plus was able to draw valuable insights for a study that the MTI team was on assignment for.
RPC Chairman summoned by SEC By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s):

The drama at Richard Pieris & Co (RPC) is continuing with the latest development being its Chairman Dr. Sena Yaddehige summoned by the capital market regulator over alleged securities fraud, a source close to the group said. But the latter is abroad and the company has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he is in the UK and indisposed. In response the SEC has asked for his medical records to verify this claim, the source said. Three of its independent directors resigned from the group recently while Paul Ratnayake, a working director, was called by the SEC in relation to these matters which pertain to its subsidiary, Kegalle Plantations. The source told the Business Times that Mr. Ratnayake has already given a statement to the SEC.

Earlier in 2009, the company got a tough warning pertaining to insider trading by the SEC also with regard to Kegalle Plantations. Three independent Non-Executive Directors  Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala, Prof. Kapila Goonasekera and Dr. Anura Ekanayake have resigned during the past month. All three served on the Audit Committee, Related Party Transactions Review Committee and Nominations Committee while two of them served on the Remuneration Committee. The company, in which Dr. Yaddehiges son Shaminda is Executive Director/ Chief Operating Officer, recently announced the appointment of career banker Prasanna Fernando as a Non-Executive Director. Company employees say that Dr. Yaddehige hasnt been in the country for some time and his last board meeting was carried out on skype.
Sampath CEO Aravinda to accept NDB CEO slot? View(s):

A new Director/CEO  possibly one who is currently heading a private bank  has been approached by National Development Bank (NDB) board to steer the bank, following Rajendra Theagarajahs impending exit, and that may be Aravinda Perera, Managing Director at Sampath Bank. This came after Sampath Bank (Sampath) on Friday announced the appointment of Nanda Fernando as its new Managing Director. The NDB board is discussing with bankers and the frontrunner is a successful banker at a top private bank, a source told the Business Times at the time indicating that its Mr. Perera. He said that as it wasnt planned, Mr. Theagarajahs resignation effective from November 30 to pursue wider interest, an announcement by the bank to the Colombo Stock Exchange had created ripples at NDB.

Having played a pivotal role at Sampath Bank since the year of its inception, Mr. Fernando served in the capacity of Chief Operating Officer, prior to this appointment, the announcement said. It said Mr. Perera was retiring from the bank. Mr. Fernando has been responsible for driving multiple aspects of the bank and has supported Transactional Banking covering Retail and Corporate Banking, among many other key growth areas. Former CEO of HNB, Mr. Theagarajah who was head hunted for NDB resigned after serving three years in the post while its chairman N.G. (Tanky) Wickremaratne stepped down on August 31, with Ananda Athukorala taking over as the new chairman.
SriLankan Airlines losses in excess of US$56 mln during airport closure By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

SriLankan Airlines is set to lose at least US$56 million in revenue in addition to other costs owing to the 3-month day-closure of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) next year for emergency repairs on an ageing runway. Approximately $56 million will be lost in revenue due to cancelled flights. Other costs due to disruption will add to this total, said Capt. Suren Ratwatte, CEO of the troubled national carrier, on Friday in response to written questions from the Business Times. Earlier this week, the airline said the January 6 to April 6 closure will result in a reduction of at least 15 per cent in seat capacity for all airlines.

It was also stated by national carrier chairman Ajith Dias, to reporters at a SriLankan event on Tuesday, that the airline will take over all operations of budget carrier Mihin Lanka from October, as per an earlier cost-cutting schedule. According to official airport figures, there were nearly 10 million passenger movements at the BIA in 2015 while in January to March it was around 2.4 million. A 15 per cent drop in seat capacity would be a loss of around 361,000 seats during these three months. Civil Aviation Authority Director General H.M.C. Nimalsiri said that while there would be a reduction in flights most have rescheduled and the greater share of the burden of cancellations would (only) affect SriLankan Airlines. Mr. Dias, noting the urgency of SriLankans crisis, said that the carrier needed an international management partner.

Hopefully they will come with money as we have a carry forward debt and the government cannot continue to subsidise all the time. SriLankan Airlines has reduced its losses by 29 per cent while operating losses have improved by 70 per cent, he said. In the meantime, Capt. Ratwatte said the three routes that the airline has already or plans to discontinue  Frankfurt, Paris and Rome  accounted for a total number of 269,970 seats in the 2015 -2016 financial year. Industry analysts said this number of passengers including tourists, needs to find accommodation in other carriers which for the first three months (around 67,000 seats) would be a tall order given the restricted flights in January-March.

The national carrier chairman told reporters that the plan would be to take over Mihin Lankas aircraft which would be re-branded as SriLankan Airlines and marketed at a different price scale. The airlines four aircraft would be reduced to three by the time of the take over as one aircraft is being taken over by the leased party. A second aircraft would be returned to the lessor in January leaving only two aircraft to be carried over by SriLankan Airlines. Plans are being worked out to ensure that the pilgrim traffic sectors like Varanasi would be priced differently with a slight increase in its existing Mihin Lanka rates, Mr. Dias said. Other sectors would continue but rates would be slightly less than SriLankan Airlines flights, the chairman said.
The Modi government is likely to increase the creamy layer limit in OBC reservation from the present 6 lakh to 8 lakh. The Social Justice Ministry has sent a proposal in this regard to the PMO.

By Himanshu Mishra: The Modi government is likely to increase the creamy layer limit in Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation from the present Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh annual income. The Social Justice Ministry has sent a proposal in this regard to the PMO.

Once cleared by the PMO, the proposal could be brought before the cabinet as early as the first week of October.

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At present, 27 per cent quota in government jobs and educational institutions is given to OBCs, provided the annual income of the family is up to Rs six lakh. Those with higher earnings are referred to as the 'creamy layer' and are not eligible for reservation.

According to Thawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, the government will review the 'creamy layer' criteria for OBCs by the end of this year.



CREAMY LAYER PROPOSAL IN WINTER SESSION



The Govt will table this proposal in the Winter Session of Parliament. The timing of this decision is crucial as it comes months ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh next year.



Also read: Govt to review creamy layer criteria for OBC by year-end: Min



MOVE TO BENEFIT BJP IN POLL-BOUND STATES



If government sources are to be believed, this will boost the BJP's chances in the five poll-bound states, particularly UP, Punjab and Uttarakhand.



In 2015, the OBC Commission had recommended that the OBC creamy layer limit be raised for families with Rs 6 lakh annual income to Rs 15 lakh. Prior to that in 2013, the creamy layer cap for OBCs had been raised from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh.

Also read: Govt may relax creamy layer norms for OBC reservation



--- ENDS ---
War-time Sri Lanka had efficient public officials in battered areas unlike many other countries in conflict ILO project stirs north, empowers many people including war widows View(s): View(s):

When the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in late 2010 began preparing for a post-conflict rural economy development project in Sri Lankas war-torn northern region, it encountered many issues. Among them were disenchantment by locals, fear of the military presence, fear of taking initiatives, fear to speak and a general sense of despair and where do we go from here feeling. These thoughts were reflected in a presentation by Joe Connolly, ILO Consultant (Former, Chief Technical Advisor LEED Project) during a workshop discussion last week in Colombo to assess the Local Empowerment for Economic Development (LEED) 2011-2016 project in the Vavuniya,

Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts. The question we were faced with was; how were we (the project) going to fit into this set up in this scenario (where there was despair and doom  no positive feelings), he recalled, delving into the A-to-Z of a project that has been immensely successful (going by all accounts) and placed not only new-found confidence amongst its recipients but given them a new lease of life, particularly war widows, female-headed households and many other despairing adults.

The ILO team did what he described as a territorial diagnosis and institutional mapping which provided a kind of social mapping of the areas to ascertain the resources, land use, what industries were there prior to the war and whether there is a market for these pre-war industries. There were many distinguished speakers at this day-long event particularly for the morning session like W.D.J. Seneviratne, Minister of Labour and Trade Union Relations; Gotabhaya Jayaratne, Secretary Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations, Donglin Li, Country Director, ILO Country Office in Sri Lanka and Bryce Hutchesson, Australian High Commissioner.

Absorbing presentation

However it was when Mr. Connolly took the stage with a riveting description of the state of play in the North, the issues, the conflicts, laced with wit, humour and seriousness that the participants including many from the north, nearly 340 km away, followed with much interest (even though to some the language  English and spoken in an Irish accent  may have been unfamiliar). The ILO expert said they looked at whether the previous industries still had space in the new environment; could women work from home and if not what were the constraints; available infrastructure and the governments plans for the region. In terms of manufacturing, there was little of no local material that could be used for example in the development of roads and rail.

Local contractors were not getting contracts because they didnt have proper equipment. There were 41 NGOs involved in food security and livelihood development along with six UN agencies. I have worked in many conflict areas (in other parts of the world) which are failed states and where there is state institution. However here (in the North)  this was not a failed state; it had strong state institutions with a strong public service. Walk into an area and the divisional secretary would be seen working out a box as the building was under construction and he was able to give loads of data.

Residents feared exploitation

Residents feared that with the advent of roads and rail, outsiders would exploit them. There was reason for this sense of despair. Even though money was pouring in, it was also pouring out (with the same vigour) with local communities not reaping the benefits. Space to create avenues for local incomes wasnt there. Fast-moving goods were flooding the market like TVs, washing machines and other movables but the benefits were going to Colombo-based companies. He said in one year Browns Group had 80 per cent of its (country -wide) business in the North but there wasnt a single local dealer to show that local people had benefited.

So what did the ILO and its project staff do? We began sensitising people to the situation. We looked at it in the context that if these issues were not addressed perceptions of inequalities will persist and trigger another war in 20 years similar to what happened in the South (1987-1990), he said adding that they highlighted the North-South divide at many a forum. We spoke of economic partnerships. We got people together. We looked at mutually beneficial partnerships. We looked at housing and whether the 60 to 70 million tiles that was required in the rebuilding process could be produced in the North instead of bringing them from the South.

Mr. Connolly said cooperatives was an important part of this project. In most countries cooperatives have got a bad name as they are used for political purposes. But there was a lot of potential and we tapped into this. Some of the biggest groups in the world started off as cooperatives just like New Zealand dairys Fonterra group. There are limitations but also great potential in cooperatives, he said adding that their interest in cooperatives led to current laws in Sri Lanka governing cooperatives being reviewed to prepare a National Policy of Cooperatives.

Empowering women

Among other developments in the cooperatives environment in the North, women were invited to serve on the boards of cooperatives as active members. Earlier it was either men only or even if women were board directors, they were silent. We wanted to ensure that women were economically empowered and that happens only when they have money in their pockets. You cannot talk to women about empowerment if they are broke, he argued . Flagging another fundamental issue, he said among lessons learnt was that what would work in Colombo doesnt necessarily work in Jaffna for instance.

He was echoing sentiments raised by V. Sivagnanasothy, Secretary  Ministry Prison Reforms, Rehabilitaion, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs in the morning session where the latter cautioned that often international models (of development) may not work in areas where there is a strong local culture and situations differ. K. Marimuttu, Senior Vice President, Ceylon Workers Congress, speaking on behalf of trade unions while praising the project also noted that reconciliation should work in tandem with economic development projects. Impressed by the project, he urged the authorities to implement a similar project in plantation areas in the central hills where plantation workers may be forced to switch to a rural economy.

He was alluding to an unfolding crisis in plantations where production costs are much higher than revenue and/or profit owing to a combination of falling tea prices, fixed labour costs, mounting debt and protracted negotiations between plantation companies and the labour force over a new productivity-based model. Among the many benefits of the ILO project was being able to support more than 100,000 families with various income generation and employments related opportunities; supporting more than 35,000 individuals gaining direct employment and self-

mployments activities; more than 10,000 female headed households given access to direct and improved income generating opportunities; in the paddy sector alone, the income for the cooperatives and individual members exceeded US$1.5 million; income from exporting crops by individuals who were linked to various fruit and vegetable value chains exceeded $2 million; income from fisheries for individuals exceeded $1.5 million.

As a result of these interventions, individuals who had no access to such income generating opportunities prior to the project, are now in a better position to invest in improving housing, give their children a better education, access to better health facilities and improved life styles, a note on the project, said. -(Feizal)
Congratulations on your 70th birthday View(s):

My dear Green Man,

I thought of congratulating you because you are celebrating the 70th birthday of the Green Party. There are reasons for you to celebrate because you are now in power after being in the opposition for almost twenty years. That was when you became the worlds longest serving Opposition Leader!

I know that many people were surprised when you invited Maithri to be the Chief Guest for the celebrations because he is, after all, the leader of your arch rivals, the Blue Party. Some did not take too kindly to the idea, even though he was the chief guest at your celebrations last year too.

I cant see anything wrong with an invitation being extended to Maithri. I think it would be correct to say that if not for Maithri, Mahinda maama would still be in power, the Greens would still be in the opposition and you would be extending your record as the longest serving Opposition Leader!

I suppose you are not one to be surprised about the highs and lows of politics, having been in it for over forty years now but even you would marvel at the change of fortunes the Greens have had. Why, around this time just two years ago, your job as the leader of the Green Party was on the line, wasnt it?

Had you lost one more presidential or general election, I am sure you would have had to hand over the leadership of the Greens to someone else because public pressure was mounting following repeated failures. After all, only Dilshan can manage a retirement on his own terms, despite not doing his job!

Then there was that agonising search for a so-called common candidate. At that time, there was no one who seemed able enough to take on Mahinda maama and win and we all thought you would be the eventual candidate. Even the Greens wanted you to contest but you were much smarter than that.

You asked Maithri to run against Mahinda maama, knowing that you had nothing to lose, just as you sat back and watched the General take on Mahinda maama five years earlier. If he won, you would still be the second in command and if he had lost, it would be Maithri who would have gone to jail.

As it turned out, Maithri won unexpectedly and here you are, taking on the job of being second in command for the fourth time. Whats more, your former rivals in the Green Party are not even thinking of challenging you now: Karu is happy as Speaker and Sajith has learnt to bide his time.

Although that sounds like a fairy tale ending, I am sure there are times when you are frustrated with the present arrangement, Green Man. That is because it is a bit of an achcharu with the government consisting of not just the Greens but also numerous Blues and quite a few from the other parties too.

Do you remember, Green Man, that the slogan you were elected on was Yahapaalanaya or good governance? I am not saying that nothing has changed since Maithri and you took over but I must also say that many are disappointed because they feel that things havent changed that much since then.

We still see the same people in the Cabinet  people who were voted out, only for Maithri to take them back just because they now support him and not Mahinda maama. Some of your Green chaps  such as Wattala John or Justice Wije, for instance, are being as arrogant as the ministers who got the sack.

The Cabinet has almost the same number of ministers as there were during Mahinda maamas time. You are now telling us that the Chinese Port City was not a bad idea after all, even though you told us Mahinda maama was making us a Chinese colony. And yes, MPs still get their vehicles duty free!

We dont grudge the Greens celebrating their birthday, Green Man, but you must realise that in a few years time, when you have to go before the people again, you cant be still blaming Mahinda maama saying that the rising cost of living is because of all the loans he took and all the money he wasted.

So, Green Man, as you celebrate the Green partys biblical life span, I hope you will think not only of the next election but of the next generation as well. We do not care if the next government is Green or Blue or a mix of both Blue and Green, so long as the citizens of Paradise do not get marooned!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Much has been said about how independent the judiciary has become after the verdict was delivered on Bharathas murder. It is indeed true that such a verdict may not have been reached during Mahinda maamas time. I hope the same sense of justice and fairplay will prevail when young Hirunika  who contested from the Greens despite being from the Blue party  goes on trial for allegedly abducting someone. If it does, then Yahapaalanaya would have truly come of age!
Let us work hard and honestly, ten hours a day and fewer holidays View(s):

Before advising others and showing them the correct path, we need to be on the correct path. If we are not kind to ourselves, we cannot be kind to our fathers, mothers, children, workers or our countrymen. Those who try to comfort others who are in sorrow, fear or grief should first learn how to cope with these when they themselves are afflicted. Those who governed, are governing or are hoping to govern as well as those governed, in our country, are like kings or queens in their own homes. We say all are kings or queens, which means we are leaders. As we seek our own needs we should be mindful of the needs of others.

We were keen about the Pilgrims Rest at Kataragama to get the people to go first to the Viharaya, then to the Bodhi and the Davale. The Ramakrishna Mission was built with the greater participation of the Sinhala people. The government took over this land and as compensation gave money worth eight times the value and a valuable land. Till now a pilgrims rest had not been constructed with this money. The Gangaramaya, however, built a Pilgrims Rest sometime back. Government leaders did not visit this place when in office but they visited and resided there once out of office. Even the lady Ambassador of the United States stayed in the Gangaramaya Pilgrim Rest for a few days.

Around three thousand can stay there free. Only donations are accepted. These donations are inadequate even for repairs and maintenance. But even now, 52 new rooms are under construction. More than 10,000 bicycles have been donated to the villagers. We have helped people to set up small industries or go into self-employment and built 50 houses in Sella Kataragama. In the land of 100 acres with individual plots of 2 acres we have distributed teak and mahogany plants and seeds, and more than 10,000 coconut saplings.

During the war period, the Kataragama area was deserted. When the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa informed us about this, we took about 1,500 dancers and 1,000 students from our technical college and for three days we had a day-night perahera to give a new life to the area.

But there are still problems created by drug peddlers, poachers and other miscreants. These problems should be addressed by the villagers and the clergy. There is more tourism in the south because of the availability of meat of the hunted animals and drugs. Tourist villages are supplied with illicit meat from the Yala sanctuary and nearby forests. The Government should stop this.

When Ranil Wickremesinghe was prime minister 2001 to 2004, we promised him to repair 16 lakes at Hambantota, but ended up repairing 18. That was one of the public projects undertaken by the Gangaramaya. During the Rajapaksa era, pipelines were laid to connect the lakes. Today there is little or no water problem in Hambantota. If we have a proper plan to provide water to Jaffna and the rest of the North, there will be international aid. We have plans for this too. Let those who can take charge and do something or allow others to handle them.

Let everyone be alert and work for the country

Seasons and climate change from country to country. There is no alternative to hard and honest work. Only lazy people have time for idle talk. Though time is money there are many who try to dissuade others from putting in an honest job of work for the day. There is a saying in Sanskrit Lapuni Shelapplavanti which means lighter things are on the surface and what is heavy is under. But today the situation is the other way around. Today people are lazy and do not even wash their own plates after meals. Earlier, we had sufficient labour. Today it is not so. The time has come for everyone to work in such a way so as not to be a burden to others. Today families have fewer children. They cannot afford to have more. Earlier, the rich people had fewer children and the poor had more children and with more hands around they were able to get through their lives.

Gone are the days when we had rocks, clay, wattle and daub walls, coconut rafters, coconut leaves or arecanut leaves. Today we have cement blocks, cement, concrete, steel, glass and other items of modern construction. It is good to go back to simple living to be successful in life. Even today Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines use natural items as roofing material.

Once, coconut and palmyra were our primary building material. Today trees are cut and no new plants are grown in their places. Malaysia and Indonesia are full of trees and they plant teak and mahogany trees lining highways. But here we plant weeds.

The Portuguese came here for cinnamon and pepper. If on every cinnamon plant we have a pepper creeper too we will go a long way towards being self-sufficient. If there are fallow paddy fields, we should plant peanuts, some other crops, even gotukola. All uncultivated land should be taken over by the state and cultivated if we are to be self sufficient. The broken bunds and ponds should be repaired with the help of the security forces so that the farmers who are without water would be happy. Wells could be dug in every paddy field that has no water. Like in India if electricity is given free to farmers, they can grow different types of paddy. The trend now is to bring seed material from abroad. We have local types that could be grown. Farmers need the help. In every village school agriculture must be taught as a compulsory subject and the help of children obtained for agricultural work in the village.

The Government should provide financial help and local raw material to those who are looking for cheap local roofing material. Hotels should be encouraged to use clay products as kitchen utensils. The clay industry is in decay. Making clay products gave useful physical exercise to the people, but it is so now. So people are getting sick more often and need to depend on imported medicinal drugs. We have to turn the country upside down and create avenues to develop it. We need to stop the Samurdhi and instead give some incentives for planting crops such as cinnamon, pepper, cocoa, coconut, and arecanut.

Janasaviya was a concept of the Gangaramaya. It was activated through President Premadasa. Samurdhi that replaced it has become a burden. We must give incentives to the recipients and lead them in the correct path. Hours of work should be increased from 8 to 10 a day. Staff should be given an extra 7 days off according to their religion. All other holidays should be abolished.

If we implement these we would be in a position to settle our foreign debts. If we need we can take loans when necessary. We should not get loans to buy luxury items, buildings and vehicles. No country will give loans to a bankrupt country. If we resolve and work hard for at least two years to eradicate difficulties forgetting our creed and caste differences we will be successful.

If by using several clay pots we can filter the boiled drinking water we can curb the kidney disease. Often, medicine is in short supply in hospitals. Most of the machines in hospitals are in need of repairs. Private hospitals have taken over the medical sector. Native treatment has gone into decay. Many schools do not teach first aid. If a little water gets into ones ear, they do not know how to deal with it.

Instead of the Government talking about the coupons that existed before, people should be encouraged to rise up and work.

We used to earn foreign exchange by exporting tea, rubber and coconut. Now we get most of our foreign earnings from Sri Lankans working overseas. People sell all their belongings and go abroad as debtors. Some return in coffins having donated even their organs, or many return empty handed with no salary, no house or family. We must be content with what we have and try to make progress with what we have here and now.
Looking for the truth beyond Colombos comfort zone View(s):

If proposed legislation on a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is to be soon thrust upon us as appears to be the case, Sri Lankas unity Government would do well to employ the few shrewd minds in its midst to look strategically back at lessons learnt in regard to the turbulent passage of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) law.

Avoidance of a confrontational dynamic

Similar mishaps must be avoided this time around. Once was bad enough. Twice would unbearably aggravate perturbed public opinion, emanating from the North to the South for a whole range of different reasons, some predictable and some, not so much. This is even more urgent, I might add, given that high octane question which immediately follows next on the transitional justice agenda regarding the institution of a special court on war-time accountability.

Absent such measured reflection, the stage will already be set for a confrontational dynamic by the time that this most contested issue of a special court is reached. Miserably this will not only deepen tensions between communities but also set the final seal on the undoing of the great and glorious expectations with which this Presidency and this Government came into power last year.

Fortuitously for those concerned with the democratization of Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa-led Joint Opposition still remains mired in a communal and corruption quagmire. But this may only be a passing comfort given the peculiarities of Sri Lankan politics. The Government needs to get itself back on track regardless of other variables.

Directly involving the North and the South

As of now, two imperatives predominate. First, there must be a strong push by the Office of the Presidency to take the message to the South that the transitional justice exercise constitutes healing desperately needed for the Sri Lankan people of all ethnicities rather than a superficial effort propelled by external pressures.

This is a task that is best handled by President Sirisena himself who is listened to by his constituencies despite missteps taken in office such as bringing in rejects as ministerial worthies. Leaving this to his motley of Ministers whose collective inefficiency is only equaled by their manifest lack of popular credibility would be most unwise. Further, this must not be limited to instances when international visitors come bouncing and beaming into town. This is an approach that only lends itself to the perception of an externally managed exercise.

Second, a directly consultative process must take place in the former war theatre among Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala communities. Consultations must not be filtered through the lens of one political party or the other or for that matter, limited to select non-governmental bodies. Intrusive state surveillance of citizens must be reduced and long pending cases of extraordinary state brutality must be brought to justice, apart from the return of land to their rightful owners which, the President has promised, will be hastened. And the formulation of national policies from torture to witness protection by those horribly compromised through complicity in state abuses must stop forthwith. Needless to say, this unabashed practice in Colombo does not foster public confidence in the integrity of the process.

Direct link to penal accountability

The setting up of a TRC as part of the package of transitional justice reforms seems a fait accompli at this stage, despite legitimate apprehensions that it will become another farcical Commission of Inquiry. So those resigned to the inevitable may perhaps press for certain specific demands, one of which is common to the OMP and relates to establishing an explicit link with a substantively reformed criminal justice system.

Back in 2008, following years of advocacy, the Commissions of Inquiry Act of 1948 was amended to impose an obligation upon the Attorney General (AG) to institute criminal proceedings on the findings of a commission of inquiry. The AG never actually acted under this section owing to the politicization of the Office. This lack of political will must be turned most spectacularly on its ignoble head.

Thus, the incorporation of command responsibility and the crime of enforced disappearances must be accompanied by effective investigations, prosecutions by a permanent independent office of special counsel and a competent judicial process. Judicial review of decisions to prosecute or not to, as the case may be, must be the norm. Simply ensuring the conviction of Rajapaksa loyalists, (one of which we saw this week to universal hurrahs) does not suffice. Practical activation of laws enacted to deter gross human rights violations such as the excellently crafted Convention against Torture Act, 1994 is crucial.

Effectively countering Rajapaksa hysteria

Importantly these debates are distinct from an ad hoc accountability mechanism aiming at a few out of political favor as well as other eccentricities including an extremely ill-argued contention surfacing recently that international crimes must be applied retroactively. The expedient use of constitutional provisions and the (unsurprisingly) incorrect citation of national case law in that regard need to be dealt with elsewhere than in the limited confines of a newspaper column.

But above all, the unity Government must depart from a seemingly pervasive perception that it need only win accolades from the international community and push through ad hoc legislation aided by a dubious consultative process. It must determinedly rise above its chaotic self and venture beyond the safe comfort zone of yahapalanaya cheerleaders to question this flawed premise. Taking the message directly to the Sri Lankan people will minimize the hysteria of the Rajapaksa-led opposition, which is surely an outcome favourable to all. Not to do so would be patronizingly dismissive of affected communities, leading to an angry North and a sullen South as it were.

And the exuberant happiness of Government Ministers in seeing broad smiles on the face of outgoing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon during his visit to Colombo must be tempered by the realization that it would be better to seek for more smiles among the Sri Lankan people in regard to what is unfolding on the ground.

Going forward, the national effort must be towards redressing this potentially explosive imbalance.
PM proposes a novel move to build a well-mannered society View(s):

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has come out with a novel proposal to build what he calls a well-mannered society in Sri Lanka. For this purpose, he wants to set up special offices in different parts of the country. Officials will be tasked to carry out measures to achieve this objective.

Recently Premier Wickremesinghes proposal, as Minister of National Policy and Economic Affairs, was discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers. Even President Maithripala Sirisena, who has welcomed the idea, made his own suggestions.

Among those who had made observations on this proposal earlier were Minister of Finance (Ravi Karunanayake) and the Minister of Tourism (John Ameratunga).

The ministers decided to appoint an official Committee to examine the highlights of the proposals and make further recommendation. It is headed by the Secretary to the President. Other members are the Secretary to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs, the Secretary to the Ministry of Buddha Sasana and a senior official nominated by the Secretary to the President.

The Committee has been asked to give due consideration to representations made by the Minister of Tourism and Christian Religious Affairs.

Sent to desert because of dinner

A Chief Inspector who claims to have an unblemished record with 24 years in service, has complained to the National Police Commission (NPC). The officer who is in charge of a Police Station in the outskirts of Colombo, has sought an inquiry against a top cop for allegedly taking steps to move him from an OICs post to a mundane desk job.

The Police officer in question has not given reasons in his letter seeking an inquiry. However, others who are aware of the circumstances say the officer concerned had refused to visit the residence of a businessman with questionable integrity when the top cop visited him for dinner. The businessmans business came within the Police area of the officer concerned and he had dealt with the businessman earlier, they claim. It was now too embarrassing for him to remain in the area and police it after the top cops visit for dinner.

Ties between SriLankan management and pilots nosedive

The cat and mouse fight continues in SriLankan Airlines, the virtually bankrupt national carrier.

The latest round between the management and the Airline Pilots Guild of Sri Lanka (ALPGSL) comes after the suspension without pay of senior pilot Sujith Jayasekera. He is accused of having refused to subject himself to a breathalyser test ahead of operating a flight to Thailands Swarnabhoomi International Airport. Pilots had been told of such checks after one of their colleagues was found being over the permitted blood alcohol level and unfit to operate a flight from Frankfurt to Colombo.

Though refusing to undergo the test, Captain Jayasekera was allowed to fly the Airbus A330 aircraft. It was only thereafter, he was directed to return to Colombo as a passenger and placed under interdiction. An investigation is now under way and Captain Jayasekera has said that the team that conducted the test was not properly constituted. The test was being conducted by security guards.

On Thursday, the APGSL sent out an urgent SMS to its member pilots. It made clear that they would work to rule until Captain Jayasekera was re-instated. This is what the SMS said:  As a result of the decision taken by the Membership at the EOGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) held on 5th September 2016 with regard to the unfair suspension of Captain Sujith Jayasekera and a lack of progress or commitment from the Management to resolve the matter; the Membership of the ALPGSL will hereby:

Adhere to their public rosters.

Not accept flights on their off-days.Refrain from extending FDP (Flight Duty Period)

The above Membership mandate will commence with immediate effect from 0001 hrs on 09 of September 2016.

As an ALPGSL Member you are reminded and requested to honour the overall Membership mandate till such time the Exco communicates otherwise. Should there be any operational clarification required during this time, please do not hesitate to contact any member of the Exco. The note has been signed by the Guilds President Renuke Senanayake.

In a bid to get the ALPGSL to re-consider its decision, the Airlines Flight Operations Chief Rajind Ranatunga has told pilots that the image of the national carrier should be protected when it is about to embark on a public-private partnership.

On Friday, Captain Ranatunga said in a message: Further to the point brought forward by the Pilots Guild where there was dissatisfaction in the personnel conducting the test. It was mutually agreed and finalised that the companys trained nurses will carry out all testing with the on duty safety officer as an observer, and there will be no involvement of the security personnel in the testing procedure. The security personnel will only be involved in the event a staff member needs to proceed to a hospital for the purpose of undergoing the Blood alcohol test. The FSI will be amended in due course. In relation to Captain Jayasekeras incident and subsequent inquiry, I would like to confirm that as per the companys laid down procedure of dealing with such incidents, the relevant reports have been submitted and the inquiry will be completed by the 27th of this month.

Travel operators are concerned that a prolonged disruption of operational activity may prompt the Government to seize the opportunity to close down the airline. Relations between the SriLankan Chairman Ajith Dias, its CEO Suren Ratwatte and the Pilots Guild have nosedived over the past months.

Rail houses for backpackers

The Transport and Aviation Minister has won ministerial approval to release railway lands for backpacking tourist accommodation.

The details of how such land would be distributed are to be worked out. However, at present, large extents of land that abound railway tracks remain unutilised.

New military liaison officer in New York

Major General Sumedha Perera has been appointed Military Liaison Officer at the office of Sri Lankas Permanent Representative at the United Nations in New York.

He succeeds Maj. Gen. Ubhaya Madawala who served a stint there.

Fire over smoke

Remarks by Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne that there should be a tax of 90% on tobacco have touched the raw nerves of some revenue conscious Treasury officials.

One of them said yesterday that such a decision would have to be made as a matter of policy by the Cabinet of Ministers.

The reason  the Ceylon Tobacco Company, they point out, is the number one taxpayer with Rs. 100 billion every year. That is said to constitute one per cent of the GDP.

Officials contend that if the proposal is accepted, there would a threat to some 3,000 jobs, not to mention the agents and distributors. On the other hand, they warn, that it will give rise to a thriving cigarette smuggling industry.

Fish link with China

Sri Lankas National Aquaculture Authority will sign an agreement for fisheries co-operation with a Chinese entity  the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
President Sirisena changes approach and holds out hand to dissidents View(s):

Mahinda Rajapaksa sceptical, continues move to form new party, meeting today at Homagama

VAT Bill soon with major revisions, implementation from October1 as Finance Minister works out November 10 Budget

By Our Political Editor

Lights are burning late at the Treasury these days. Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake is meeting both his ministerial colleagues and senior officials to determine financial allocations and obtain their views on priority areas for funding. Thus, the contours of the National Unity Governments second budget are taking shape.

Contrary to the wide belief, given credence through erroneous remarks from some Government politicians, the enhanced Value Added Tax (VAT) bill will not wait till budget time. It is to be introduced with effect from October 1. The only impediment, if there is one, is the time taken due to procedural requirements. A new draft Bill, now ready, will be gazetted after the Cabinet of Ministers approve it next Tuesday. Thereafter, it will be presented to Parliament for approval. The tax measures will now take effect only after the Cabinet and Parliament approve them. This is in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling on July 11 not to implement the VAT revisions until such time it is approved by Parliament.

The move to allow the VAT increase to take effect from October 1 raises an all important question. The Government appears to have heeded a second Supreme Court order that the increases could not be effected retrospectively. That also raises another question, that of payments already made by consumers for goods and services. Refunds for most of those payments cannot be claimed on the basis that there are no records. An example would be the purchase of tobacco products from retail outlets. However, there were also payments like those for telecommunication services or hospital charges which have been collected by those providing these services. Such money has been collected illegally if one is to go by the two Supreme Court rulings.

Ahead of the budget, the Government this week tabled amendments to the Appropriation law to increase borrowing limits and expenditure. At the end of the budget debate in December, party leaders have been advised that more parliamentary sittings are on the cards. This is for the passage of what is being described as urgent legislation. That is expected to include matters related to state owned enterprises running at a loss.

This time round, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been taking extra care of the new draft VAT Bill. He has had consultations with the Attorney Generals Department to ensure the provisions conform to the SC ruling after the Legal Draftsman has completed the draft. The AG has expressed the view that the new draft is consistent with the Constitution.

At Tuesdays cabinet meeting, the Premier will submit a memorandum along with a comprehensive note on the Cabinet Memorandum placed before ministers on August 29 by Finance Minister Karunanayake. This is for the elucidation of the ministers who sought clarification or raised questions over some of the contents at the discussion that followed the four-page memorandum. Barring last minute changes, which highly placed Government sources said, were unlikely, the draft VAT Bill is to be approved. Facilitating this situation is the consensus which the two major Government partners, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), have already arrived at on the proposals.

To achieve what the Finance Ministry calls Fiscal targets set in the cabinet decision (dated March 4  the date when the original decision was made to increase VAT rate from 11 to 15 %) the following revisions have been made in the new draft VAT Bill:

To reduce the threshold of registration for VAT from Rs. 3.75 million per quarter or Rs. 15 million per annum to Rs. 3 million per quarter or Rs. 12 million per annum.

To remove the exemption on specified projects other than housing projects.

To impose VAT on Wholesale and Retail Trade

(a) Threshold for VAT liability on wholesale or retail supply of goods should be revised to Rs. 50 million per annum (i.e. Rs. 12.5 million for three months).

(b) VAT should be charged only on VAT liable goods.

(c) A deemed input credit system should be introduced on purchases made from persons not registered for VAT.

(d) Private health services other than diagnostic services, OPD services and dialysis.

(e) Telecommunication services.

(f) Tobacco products

(g) Powdered milk containing added sugar and other sweetening matter.

The Finance Ministry also wants to extend the enhanced VAT to the following areas:

To impose VAT at 15 % on Air Ticketing fee of air passengers moving from an airport in Sri Lanka to an airport outside Sri Lanka.

To restrict the VAT exemption applicable on the supply, lease or rent of residential accommodation to projects of which the investment cost is not exceeding US$ 05 million. However, such supplies made by Strategic Development Projects approved prior to November 1, 2015 and by SDPs, and other projects where the sales agreement are entered into before October 1, 2016 will continue to be exempted from VAT.

To increase the price rate of garments supply to the local market by BOI (Board of Investment) Companies to Rs. 75 per piece.

To make the operating leasing liable for normal VAT and only the finance leasing should be liable for VAT on Financial Services.

The Value Added Tax is being imposed under the VAT Act No 14 of 2002. It was amended in the Budget 2016 and the rate was reduced from 11 to 8 % on supply or import of goods (import and manufacturing) and to increase from 11% to 12.5 % on the supply of services. This proposal was made in line with another proposal to increase the rate of Nation Building Tax (NBT) from 2 to 4% However, it was decided at the special cabinet meeting held on March 4 to increase VAT rate instead of increasing the NBT rate. It was also then decided to reduce the threshold of registration from Rs. 3.75 million per quarter or Rs. 15 million per annum to Rs. 3 million per quarter or Rs. 12 million per annum. The exemption granted to the Minister of Finance, for specified projects other than housing projects was removed. Also removed were the exemption applicable on telecommunication equipment and machineries. A formal announcement on the VAT changes is to be made after Tuesdays ministerial meeting.

The Opposition parties have been lulled into the belief, bolstered by some Government politicians, that the increased VAT will not be effective till after the National Unity Governments second budget on November 10. Hence, their attention has shifted to other areas, particularly matters political. One in particular are some assertions by President Maithripala Sirisena at the 65th anniversary rally of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) on September 4.

Among the highlights was a call for the SLFPers to unite and an assertion that the Kurunegala meeting was the first event in a process that would lead to the party forming a Government. He said, The SLFP needed to begin a new journey with a new strength, new mission and a new strategy. I declare at this massive gathering of loving parents and children who come for this 65th anniversary celebrations as well as to all the leaders of the Party, I declare that this is the first salvo fired to establish an SLFP Government in the future.

The Local Government elections will be held in the first half of the next year. We will contest all the Local Government institutions in the country under the Hand symbol. I invite all the sister parties of left-wing and progressive political parties which are aligned and keen to be united with the SLFP for the upcoming Local Government elections to rally around the flag of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, to win that election.

I kindly and respectfully request those who  to whom I have given the right to sit as Opposition MPs in Parliament, even though they were elected to Parliament under the SLFP banner  to unite with us to strengthen the SLFP to form an SLFP Government in the future without speaking of splitting the party to form a new political force.

The party must be clean. The party must be pure. Working people need to follow their conscience. They need to understand the sorrows of the powerless. They should be down to earth. Always, we have to understand that this party is represented by the common people.

How many times have we been defeated? The SLFP was defeated in March, 1960. In 1965 the SLFP lost the election. In 1977 also the party was defeated. The SLFP lost the Presidential Election held in 1982 and 1989 too. In 2001 it was defeated at the Parliamentary elections.

We need to talk about the moments of defeats and the moments of victories. I will clearly state that we need to understand what a party should do and should not do, similarly, what the party leaders should do or should not do..

Sirisenas remarks were in marked contrast to what he said on August 21, just two weeks before. This was in Matara where he addressed a meeting to mark the first anniversary of the UNF Government, an event organised by UNP Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera. There he declared in the presence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe: .It is clear that for the next five years the government will work with consensus for the benefit of the nation. We will decide on how to govern the country even after 2020.

I wish to emphasise that those who operated the white van culture, terrorised the people and swindled billions of rupees will not be able to form a government again.

They are trying to form a party to topple (overthrow) us. We will wait and see. As we disclosed their corrupt acts during the January 8 presidential election, we will disclose all their secrets, if they form a new party. They will not be able to form a new government, but only be walking along roads.

As is clear, within just two weeks, there has been a marked shift in President Sirisenas approach towards dissidents within his own party. At first he threatened to expose their secrets. If there were any, they did not surface. Then he offered the olive branch with two significant declarations  one that the party would contest the local elections under the hand symbol. The other is that the next Government would be from the SLFP. Significantly, ahead of those remarks some prominent pro-Sirisena SLFP ministers have declared there would be no disciplinary action against those not attending the Kurunegala sessions. This was in marked contrast to their May Day celebrations in Galle where members who did not attend were threatened with disciplinary action. Both approaches seem to have not worked.

The first, contesting under the hand symbol, no doubt, is intended to woo a large number of local councillors including chairmen who are disillusioned. They lost their positions as a result of their councils or sabhas being dissolved at end of term. In most cases, no extensions were granted. Will the SLFP dissidents accept Sirisenas peace offer? Will they agree to contest under the hand symbol?

The answer came from their leader and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa when he spoke to the Sunday Times. Local councillors may go their own way since they have been neglected. They have no choice but to form a new party and contest. This is the first formal confirmation from the former President himself that a new political party is being formed as exclusively revealed in the Sunday Times of August 28. Rajapaksa said incompetent persons who were new comers were being groomed (by the current SLFP leadership) to become candidates at the local polls. What do you expect those who have worked hard for the party to do? he asked, and added that they will be exposed. People will reject them.

What about President Sirisenas declaration to form an SLFP Government next and his appeal to the dissidents to unite, I asked Rajapaksa. He replied, What has he done about it? He is in power. If those words were true, it is he who has to take the initiative. Who is going to join? The whole approach is wrong. They are making us unhappy. Just making statements will not help. He said one thing in Matara and now another in Kurunegala. Rajapaksa is now embarking on a campaign to address rallies in areas where serving electoral or district organisers have been removed. The first such meeting took place in Homagama yesterday.

Yet, Sirisenas conciliatory note has received some welcome response from SLFP intellectuals like lawyers, professionals and members of the clergy. They say his emphasis on the party for the next Government and contesting on the hand symbol was salutary. One of them said, he has made clear he is not in the clutches of the UNP though he said their alliance would last the entire duration of the Government. We will have to see whether he sticks by this or will change.

Another aspect of Sirisenas remarks in Kurunegala is that it serves as a message to the UNP. However, the party appears conscious that it should consolidate its power base at the grassroots level. The UNP has launched a membership drive. At its largely attended annual convention at Campbell Park yesterday, Prime Minister and party leader Wickremesinghe emphasised the need to become stronger.

Last weeks reference in these columns to a meeting between former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and President Maithripala Sirisena, a meeting facilitated by a one-time minister Milinda Moragoda, has drawn a response. Gotabaya Rajapaksa telephoned the Sunday Times to say he had not had such a meeting. Though Moragoda did not respond to this newspaper, he also told editors of other newspapers that he had not facilitated such a meeting.

The backdrop to these developments was a Progress Review Committee meeting held on July 12. This Committee is briefed periodically by different state investigation agencies like the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) and the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) at Police Headquarters on the state of investigations in respect of alleged bribery, corruption and other malpractices. Chairing the Committee is President Sirisena. Its members include Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake, Regional Development Minister Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka. Also included is the Attorney General and his officials.

At the July 12 meeting, the Attorney General briefed the participants on the broad outcome of investigations into Avant Garde Maritime Services (Pvt) Ltd. This probe has been conducted by the Commission to Probe Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC). The Attorney General was to point out that they were, in respect of one case, proposing to file indictments against those concerned for alleged bribery. This was to see Minister Ranawaka raising issue. He argued that he had reason to believe they should face criminal charges since the case involved the unlawful issue of firearms. The Attorney General was to then make a startling revelation. Though not known by many, a senior official in the Ministry of Defence serving the current administration, had renewed an agreement for Avant Garde Maritime Services (Pvt.) Ltd to continue to function thus conferring a legal status on it.

That was the reason why, the Attorney General said, that he had recommended bribery charges against Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Defence Secretary, and three former Commanders of the Navy  Admiral Somatilleke Dissanayake, Jayanath Kolombage and Jayantha Perera. Others included Nissanka Senadipathi, Chairman of AGMSL, Sujatha Damayanthi, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Palitha Fernando, a one-time Military Liaison Officer in the MoD and Karunaratne Banda Adhikari. The AG has said that the accused had given permission to Avant Garde Maritime Services Ltd. to operate a floating armoury between August 7, 2012 and January 8, 2015 in violation of laws by providing unlawful income amounting to Rs. 11.4 billion to this private company.

It was in this context that a high ranking source, whose credibility has never been in doubt in the past, revealed that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had met President Sirisena. I dont need Moragodas help to meet the President. I know him (the President) well enough to meet him without anyones help. And the president can call me direct. But I have not seen him for over a year, said Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Sunday Times also checked with sources close to President Sirisena. They said he did not meet Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa went on to tell the Sunday Times that he believed President Sirisena was interested in bringing the Rajapaksas into the SLFP he leads because in the villages SLFP supporters are split  one section unhappy that the Sirisena-led SLFP is in alliance with the UNP in Government. However, which Rajapaksas was the issue. Mahinda Rajapaksa was a problem for Sirisena. Gotabaya himself was not a viable option because Sirisena feels the entry of Gotabaya would antagonise the minority vote base that Sirisena has acquired, and also not be welcome with the Western countries that are supporting the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration. Eldest brother Chamal was an option, but how far Chamal would want to go with the Sirisena group was a question unless Mahinda was included in the rapprochement.

The new draft Bill to give effect to the increase in VAT rates will no doubt draw public attention in the coming weeks. Even the opposition political parties will begin to raise issue. However, this time, it has won the approval of SLFP ministers who said they wanted to protect small time wholesalers and retailers. For the Government, the enforcement of the new VAT rates will be sine qua non to obtain the next tranche of the Extended Fund Facility from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and move forward with the budget proposals. There are challenges both on the political and economic front.
Ranil says Obamas pivot will not do View(s):

Some 15 months or so ago the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry hastened to clarify a remark that foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera was reported to have made in an interview with Japans largest broadcasting establishment NHK. It had to do with Sri Lankas foreign policy under the new government.

NHK said: Sri Lankas foreign minister says the country will review its China-dependent foreign policy and boost ties with other nations. The NHK interview was reproduced in some local media. The ministry denied that the minister had mentioned any particular country when he talked of the new government reviewing the countrys foreign policy.

Even if he did not make a specific reference to a country as claimed, anybody who had been following the presidential election campaign and subsequent comments and developments regarding China-financed projects, especially massive infrastructure projects, and the critical remarks about corruption and abuse, know only too well that the finger was pointed at China.

Though the criticism and allegations were directed at persons in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, China was implicated by extension. It might also be recalled that the port call by a Chinese submarine and the security concerns raised by India led Sri Lanka to claim that it will never be allowed to happen again or words to that effect.

Moreover the haste with which Samaraweera has tried to establish links with the US and the string of officials from Washington who quickly visited Colombo to touch base with the new government seemed even longer than Chinas so-called string of pearls.

So much so that just a few months after President Sirisena took office and the mangala mohotha was observed in Washington DC, Secretary of State John Kerry deigned to pay a visit to Colombo, the first US Secretary of State to do so in some 40 years. This, it seemed, was a marriage of true minds.

It might also be recalled that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe paid his first official visit to New Delhi following in the footsteps of President Sirisena. That was to be expected. But if the public thought that he would then visit China, the country that provided, among other things, the weaponry to fight the Tamil Tiger insurgency at a time when the west not only turned its back on Sri Lanka but was a virulent critic of the Colombo government, he headed to Japan. It was some time later that Wickremesinghe decided to go to Beijing.

Those better acquainted with the workings of the Chinese mind and its often patient diplomacy would  or should  have known that Beijing would stay the course despite the pin-pricks because, as Chinese leaders later emphasized, they deal with countries not with passing politicians.

While the new governments caravan headed by Samaraweera was travelling to Washington and other western capitals, Beijing was going about its business knowing only too well that the economic/financial assistance Sri Lanka needs to overcome its immediate fiscal problems is not going to come from Washington or other western allies that Colombo was assiduously cultivating as part of its recalibration of its foreign policy.

So now it is not Chinese subs but ships of the US Seventh Fleet and other commands that are frequent callers at Sri Lankan ports.

That comes as little surprise. Just as Colombo started wooing Washington as part of its new foreign policy assessment, the US was also seeking to enmesh Sri Lanka in President Obamas pivot to Asia policy.

Sri Lankas re-orientation seemed to dovetail perfectly with the Obama game plan of including the Indian Ocean region from east of India into the Pacific which has traditionally been the region of US security concerns from the days of the Cold War.

Obamas first term strategy has been to turn diplomatic attention and its military weaponry away from conflicts in the Middle East (or West Asia as it should be called) to the Asia-Pacific region. It is already becoming clear that this strategy is failing for several reasons, particularly because this poorly concealed effort to challenge China via the Indian Ocean region is a policy fraught with some danger for the smaller countries geographically located in the region.

The above provides a sort of prologue to look at Prime Minister Wickremesinghes more considered and thoughtful inaugural speech delivered at the Indian Ocean Conference in Singapore earlier this month. Some of the observations Wickremesinghe made are of course truisms. But what is interesting and certainly provides food for thought especially for those US officials who believed that Sri Lanka was ripe for plucking as a pliant client, is the Prime Minister questioning the viability of the US bid to shape a joint Indo-Pacific security strategy ignoring the fundamental diversity and uniqueness of countries of the Asian region.

While China was stamping its claim to sovereignty in the East China and the South China seas nearby, it was also turning its attention to countries in the Indian Ocean in pursuit of its policy of extending its maritime sea route all the way to east Africa and into parts of West Asia.

To counter this Chinese strategy the Obama policy was to leave behind the mess it helped create in West Asia and move into the Indian Ocean via the more amenable Modi administration in New Delhi with which it reached a mutually helpful agreement.

Sri Lanka located strategically near vital sea lanes that carried much of east-west trade could serve as an important link in US policy and be in a position to safeguard the freedom of navigation. So Sri Lanka did not have to chase after the US as it is doing. Washington was coming to Colombo.

Ranil Wickremesinghe made several interesting observations. Wickremesinghe quoted political scientist Francis Fukuyamas words to make his point that Asia is polycentric, multipolar and constantly evolving. There is no uniformity in Asia in terms of geopolitics and culture and each of those countries is a separate world to itself even as it overlaps in trade and commerce with its neighbours and with the US.

Quite rightly he said that for the US, the Pacific region and not the Indian Ocean has been intrinsic to its security. Indo Asia-Pacific is destined to remain a mere conceptual rather than a realistic premise. The collapse of the Trans Pacific Partnership has further weakened the argument for it.

He argued that the Indian Ocean region was acquiring an intrinsic significance of its own and Indian Ocean countries should shape their destiny themselves. He called on the Asian countries in the Indian Ocean especially, to take the lead in determining their own future.

Advocating an Indian Ocean Order he said that This Order should be built on a consensual agreement and no singular state should dominate the system. This reference to a single state reminds me of then Indian Prime Ministers retort to me at Temple Trees when I asked her about the Indian Ocean Peace Zone proposal and if it was to be realized whether a single regional power would dominate the Ocean.

I know who you are referring to. You are referring to India. India does not want to dominate anyone she said sharply raising her voice. If Wickremesinghe is referring to the Asian states in the region, then one can think of only one state that could dominate the region  India. One reason why SAARC has not prospered the way that ASEAN has developed is because of a genuine fear among the smaller members of SAARC about Indian dominance.

Those who recall the first meeting of South Asian officials held in Colombo to discuss the creation of SAARC will remember that the smaller countries were fearful of India especially when it insisted that political bilateral issues should not be the subject of discussion. I remember this quite well as I covered the meeting for the Daily News and talked to several of the officials from neighbouring countries that attended the meeting who were apprehensive.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, like Samaraweera before him in the NHK interview, might not have mentioned a country by name. But if he is referring to countries that have or will have the economic and military power to be dominant in Asia then it could mean only India and China, the two most powerful states in this region.

He shot down the Obama pivot to Asia policy because among other reasons the growing militarization, historical disputes and strategic mistrust pose serious challenges to the emergence of a viable and sustainable strategic security order.

He emphasized that there will be resistance to any single country attempting to unilaterally shape the strategic order of the region. Since an extra-regional state is one that is pursuing such a policy, Asian nations will be all the more suspicious and careful. If so Sri Lanka herself needs to be careful in positioning herself in this new foreign policy order to ensure that it is not sucked into an emerging big power conflict

After all Asia has experienced colonial wars and the intrusion of super-powers-as in the case of Indo-China- and the disastrous effects it has had on the region. If the Obama policy has been only partially successful in that it has only been able to woo a few Asian nations, would there be a change in approach with a new incumbent in the Oval office? Hillary Clinton who many expect will succeed Obama, has followed a more aggressive foreign policy as Secretary of State.

It was Clinton who wrote in Foreign Policy magazine on Americas Pacific Century and probably made pivot a familiar word in foreign policy making. She wrote that pivot strategy will proceed along six courses including strengthening bilateral military alliances and forging a broad-based military presence.

There is no doubt, as Wickremesinghe observes, that dominant issues of this century will be decided in the Asia-Pacific region. Every country in the region wishes for a better relationship with China and the US. This is not just because of geostrategic reasoning. Rather it is because of simple geography. The smaller countries in the region wish to maintain links with both China and the US.

It is this realisation, especially with regard to the economic support we can get from China and the important historical ties Sri Lanka has had with that country under governments headed by different political parties that probably made Wickremesinghe make a second official visit to Beijing.

Thus a resetting of Sri Lankas foreign policy cannot and should not be an unnecessarily extended courtship with Washington and the West but a balancing that does not sacrifice or betray the countrys national interests.
Are People losing faith in elections? View(s):

The two main political parties, the UNP and the SLFP at 70 and 65 respectively, celebrated their anniversaries over the past two weeks. In the meantime, however, the National Elections Commission (NEC) has re-launched a campaign to get eligible voters to register for next year because the level of interest has seemingly, waned.

That disinterest among the public is alarming given the fact that voting at elections was one of the high points of Sri Lankas democracy. The NEC Chairman didnt give reasons for the drop in enthusiasm, but the inference can only be attributed to the general apathy creeping in with the political environment in the country. Are people getting tired of elections, and the outcome of such elections? Do they feel their mandate means little or nothing when post-elections see even defeated candidates get ministerial posts?

The Minister of Local Government is like a Presidents Counsel seeking dates (postponements) when he has a bad brief. He has now said the long overdue local government elections will be held in February next year, about the third time he has given a date. The time period of 335 local councils around the country lapsed this year, and many last year.

The delay in holding fresh elections has been put on the doorstep of the National Delimitation Commission tasked in 2012 with carving up new wards and relate d matters, and a committee that was to go into complaints on what the Commission has recommended. Yet, the report of the committee has been ready from June this year and it is the Government that is asking it to delay its handing over.

The reasons are clear; the SLFPs internal strife has to be settled first. There is a real danger that the mainstream SLFP could come a poor third to the UNP and those within the party challenging its agenda  much like what happened to the German Chancellors party recently, though for different reasons. In the process, Special Commissioners have been appointed under the Local Authority Act by the Minister. They have been vested with all the powers enjoyed by the elected councillors except to pass resolutions. Sometimes they do a better job than all the elected representatives put together sans political interference; but sometimes they can be disasters.

The Colombo Municipality is currently in bad shape. The capital citys roads are in shambles. Our INSIGHT story last week pointed out how the mere paving of sidewalks around the proposed Theatre District in Colombo 7 has so far taken nine months and workmen are present for just two hours a day. The report brought a flood of letters this week to the newspaper from irate rate payers from around the country complaining about the roads dug up and little or no work being done in and around where they live, particularly in the densely populated Colombo and the Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia areas. Garbage clearance is at a standstill in some towns and the people are voiceless.

As the people have to grin and bear until the SLFP gets its house in order for the local council polls, the Minister who invoked these Special Commissioners on the orders of the high command will have to take a more pro-active role in seeing they work. No wonder, there is apathy among voters to register.

Lessons from Malaysia

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made waves during his official visit to Sri Lanka last week with some remarks that saw his detractors slamming him  and the UN, for double standards. His local protectors were more loyal than the King himself, or holier than the Pope in defending him. (Ref. page 1 story by our Diplomatic Editor).

After all, with the UN Human Rights Council sessions set to begin next week in Geneva it is understandable that the Government is keen on being in the UNs good books. While the country was still digesting the UNSGs flippant remarks in Colombo, not too far away at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, we saw a serious breach of personal and diplomatic security and a gross violation of the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations, Consular Relations and the protection of Diplomatic Conventions. As the media widely reported, Sri Lankas High Commissioner to Malaysia was set upon by a group of thugs and mercilessly assaulted. That it happened in a secured area of the airport only compounded the matter.

While the Malaysian Government continues to investigate the incident, the issue of Sri Lankas diaspora, especially the pro-Eelam lobby, comes up for investigation as well. The new Government is straining every sinew to win them over. The Foreign Minister has led the crusade, literally going the extra mile to countries like Britain, the United States and Norway, where they are present in their numbers to tell them that, today in Sri Lanka, there is a new and sympathetic Government in power and place. Unfortunately, most Tigers, dont lose their stripes.

The fault lies very much with Colombo. Vigilance is the best guarantee of liberty and though the war is over with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the bitter after-taste of defeat on the battlefield lingers in some quarters. That is why the Security Forces keep saying to the politicians that mass scale troop withdrawals from the North ought not to be a natural process to defeating the LTTE, and that the UN chief is talking through his cap when he echoes the sentiments of the diaspora asking the Forces to pull out of the North of Sri Lanka. The recent incident at the Jaffna University is not to be taken lightly as an isolated incident.

Why is there a degree of blame with Colombo? It is because, unlike in the past, no instructions are sent nowadays to Sri Lankas missions overseas on how to handle the hostile LTTE-leaning diaspora. In years gone by, Sri Lankan missions received at least two circulars annually on account of Black July and in November for Mahaveerer Day when there are events to commemorate the July 1983 anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka, and the late LTTE leaders birthday, respectively. Missions were asked to monitor what was happening in their countries and be in close touch with the local law enforcement agencies. Post-2009, after the defeat of the LTTE, the month of May was added to this watch list as it was marked as a Genocide Month.

Since January 2015, all this monitoring has fallen by the wayside and there has been the single-minded pursuit of cultivating the diaspora, but that too, limited to the Global Tamil Forum in the false assumption that it is the sole representative of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. This is far from reality, and a large number of mushroom groups, spread over many countries, wanting to make their mark by dramatic events  like what happened in Malaysia last week, are active. Some are dismayed that the Sri Lanka Government is reaching out only to the GTF, which is anyway somewhat like singing to the choir.

The Foreign Ministrys Counter Terrorism Unit is now defunct and fringe elements peddling the LTTE ideology are having a field day overseas uploading on the web all their anti-Sri Lanka Government events. This is how the ISIS indoctrinates the next generation of radical elements and spurs them on to violent agitation. The Kuala Lumpur incident is therefore an eye-opener for the Government and someone had better take note.
70th annual convention of the UNP View(s):

President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe share a light moment during the 70th annual convention of the UNP held at Campbell Park in Colombo yesterday. The President was amused by the tea buns embossed with an elephant that were served at the occasion, one of which the Prime Minister was holding in his hands.

Pic by Indika Handuwala.
Govt. says attackers linked to group sympathetic to LTTE View(s):

Lankan HC attack at Kuala Lumpur Airport

By Sandun Jayawardana

The Government had received credible information which linked those behind the attack on Sri Lankas High Commissioner to Malaysia Ibrahim Ansar to the Naam Tamilar Katchi, (We are Tamils Party) an extremist nationalist political party based in South India, Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Harsha De Silva told the Sunday Times.

The party is known for its steadfast support of the LTTE.He said that the Government was following developments through the Foreign Ministry and was awaiting a report from Malaysian authorities.

He said, the Government, was confident that Malaysian authorities had identified the perpetrators behind last Sundays attack on Mr. Ansar at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Sri Lanka had no intention of creating a diplomatic rift.

We trust the Malaysian authorities to do what needs to be done, Mr. De Silva said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday told Parliament that the assault was carried out by Malaysian citizens of Indian origin affiliated to the Naam Tamilar Katchi. On Friday, two of the five suspects arrested by Malaysian police pleaded not guilty to the assault after being produced in the Sepang Sessions Court. They were identified as A. Kalaimugilan (26), a businessman and V. Balamurugan (32), a taxi driver. Malaysian police are looking for four more suspects.

While Naam Tamilar Katchis founder Seeman has denied instigating the attack, the Sunday Times learns that Mr. Kalaimugilan is the National Head Coordinator of the Malaysian Naam Tamilar Organisation. The other suspects are also thought to be members of the group. Authorities in Sri Lanka say the group is affiliated to the Naam Tamilar Katchi in India.

The Malaysian Naam Tamilar Organisation had been at the forefront of protests against the visit of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Malaysia to attend the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP).

Malaysian authorities however, have not publicly disclosed any political affiliations of the suspects.

The two suspects were charged with rioting and causing injuries to the victim. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of two years jail or a fine or both. The case will be taken up again on October 7.

Meanwhile, High Commissioner Ansar, after obtaining medical treatment for the minor injuries he sustained, is engaged in his official duties as normal. The High Commissioner was never taken off duties at any time after the assault and will not be recalled, Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesman Mahishini Colonne emphasised.

The incidents in Malaysia show that although Mahinda Rajapaksa eradicated LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka, that terrorism has now been exported to various countries, Joint Opposition member A.H.M. Azwar opined. This is very much evident in some of these countries, Mr. Azwar noted.

He also claimed that they had been informed that a Sri Lankan national based in Malaysia played a key role in instigating protests against Mr. Rajapaksas visit. That person, who he claimed went by the name Kalaimugilan, had once been detained in Sri Lanka under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), but was released by the new Government.

Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha De Silva scoffed at the claims.

I dont know from which part of the universe Mr. Azwar is plucking these stories from. But, as a former MP, he should be more responsible when making such statements.

Security at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has been tightened and Malaysian authorities continue their search for four more suspects allegedly linked to the assault on the Sri Lankas High Commissioner.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian High Commission in Colombo has chosen to dodge questions submitted by the Sunday Times regarding the incident and the presence of pro-LTTE groups in the country.

We were first told on Friday that no officer was available to answer questions on the phone and to email the questions. An assurance was given that a response would be sent promptly. However, no such response had been received as of last evening.

However, in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Malaysia, which was released by the High Commission on September 5, the Malaysian Government expressed regret over the assault.

The Government of Malaysia expresses its sympathies to His Excellency Ibrahim Ansar and gives the assurance that the Malaysian authorities will investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice, the statement stressed.
By PTI: Srinagar, Sep 10 (PTI) Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has invited chairman of hardline Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the annual coordination meeting of the Foreign Ministers as well as the meeting of contact group on Jammu and Kashmir in New York later this month.

Geelani is the second separatist leader invited by the OIC for the meetings scheduled to be held during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Headquarters on September 19-22.

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OIC Director General of Cabinet Dr Yusuf Al-Othaimeen extended separate invitations to Geelani and chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to attend the meetings in New York as invitee.

While Mirwaiz led Hurriyat released the letter from OIC Director General of Cabinet to the media here yesterday, Geelanis Hurriyat released the letter today.

Geelani and Mirwaiz along with JKLF chairman Mohammad Yaseen Malik are spearheading the ongoing agitation in the valley which has claimed the lives of 75 people and rendered thousands of others injured over the past two months.

While Mirwaiz and Malik are arrested, Geelani continues to remain under house arrest at his Hyderpora residence here. PTI MIJ TA AYP RG AYP

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Labour Department restructuring runs into dispute View(s):

Unionists to continue work to rule campaign

A Government proposal to restructure the Labour Department is running into crisis with trade unions threatening to continue a work to rule campaign launched in protest. Labour Commissioner General Chandani Amaratunga said restructuring of the department was long overdue and the Labour Minister had appointed a committee of three comprising two retired senior ministry officials and a former ministry secretary to look into it.

The committees decisions are not even out, but these union members started a work-to- rule campaign from Wednesday, she told the Sunday Times. Ms Amaratunga said that she received letters from the unionists on September 1, and she had held a meeting with them on Monday. Minister John Seneviratne also attended the meeting she said. At the meeting the Minister, Ministry Secretary and others welcomed ideas from the unionist. It was explained to them that the restructuring was needed and it was agreed to appoint a separate committee within three months to look into the issues raised by them.

Creating a salary scheme and promotion scheme is not a simple task. It is true that they are not satisfied, but they too should learn to wait till we appoint a new committee if they need a change, she said.

However the trade unionists claim that the Labour Department and the Ministry were trying to privatise the department in the guise of restructuring it by weakening the Department structure. Government Services Labour Officers Association president Iresh Chinthaka Gamage said they opposed the restructuring as it would affect their salaries as well.

He said they had earlier formulated their own proposals regarding the restructuring and they had handed them over to the former Labour Minister Gamini Lokuge, but nothing had come of it. Mr. Gamage said they opposed the composition of the committee as it had no cabinet approval, although the minister had assured them that approval would be sought.

He claimed that the meeting with the minister materialised only after they launched a token strike and since there was disagreement at the meeting they had decided to continue with the work to rule campaign. He said the work to rule campaign would affect some 23,000 labour cases as documentation would be delayed.
Move to draw more foreign investment View(s):

Govt. to withdraw 300% tax on leasing of land to foreigners; PR for foreign spouses of Lankans under consideration

In a major move to draw foreign investment, the Government is to withdraw the 300 percent tax on foreigners leasing land in Sri Lanka and consider offering permanent residency to foreigners married to Sri Lankans.

For this purpose the Government will move amendments to the Land (Restrictions on Alienation) Act, Lands Ministry Secretary I.H.K. Mahanama told the Sunday Times.

He said the move was to encourage foreigners to invest more in Sri Lanka. The amendment to withdraw the Land Lease Tax for foreigners will come into retrospective effect from January 1 this year, according to the Bill which has been gazetted this week.

Under the amendment, the provisions relating to the Land Lease Tax will not apply to a lease of any land to a foreigner.

It will also not apply to any company incorporated in Sri Lanka under the Companies Act, where any foreign shareholding in such company, either direct or indirect, is fifty per cent or more Wor to a foreign company, under and indenture of lease executed on or after January 1 this year.

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake in the last Budget announced that the tax on land lease on foreigners would be removed. He said the Government would also withdraw the restrictions on ownership on identified investments  restrictions imposed through the Land (Restrictions on Alienation) Act, and seen as an impediment for attracting investments.

In a related move the Ministry of Internal Affairs is working on a proposal to grant Permanent Residency to foreign spouses married to Sri Lankan nationals. Internal Affairs Minister S.B.Nawinna told the Sunday Times the move was to encourage Sri Lankans married to foreigners to settle down in the country and thereby increase possible investments.

We are discussing the proposal with the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry before submitting it to the Cabinet, he said.

The Sunday Times learns that the proposal is set to come into effect within the next three months.

Finance Minister Karunanayaka during the last budget said that to encourage foreign investment, he was proposing to issue residence visas for a fee of US$ 250,000 for a three-year period and US$ 5 million for a permanent residence visa for foreigners, with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Rude shock in the mornings as vendors turn up volume View(s):

Doctors warn of risk of strokes, mood changes, hearing loss

By Anushiya Sathisraja

Kalaieswary Shanmuganathan, 55, is jolted out of sleep every morning by the din of the musical horns sounded by vendors passing by her house selling bakery products.There has been no action by local authorities or the police against the vendors making a noise from as early as 5am around her home in Weliamuna, Wattala.

The noises awaken the whole neighbourhood including the elderly, the sick, infants and those who do not even want to buy bread or buns, Ms Shanmuganathan said. It seems there is no use in depending on the government to intervene and reduce sound pollution, she said.

The increased competition among bakery owners to sell their products and the equal competition among vendors of the goods is resulting in one vendor following another just 15 minutes later along the same route.Noise pollution by others including sweep ticket vendors, three-wheelers, and heavy vehicles and buses are also on the rise in the absence of proper control by environmental authorities or the police.

Even those buying old newspapers, collecting scrap metal, selling flowerpots, plants and plastic items in highly residential areas have got into the practice of using loudspeakers from vehicles; the traditional voices heard calling bothal-pattara, parana yakada malpochchi or mal pela are disappearing.

The Chief Incumbent of the Gangaramaya Temple, the Ven Galboda Gnanissara thera only last week complained to the Inspector-General of Police, Pujith Jayasundara, about the increased noise pollution in the sacred area of Kataragama where three-wheelers fitted with sound systems play loud music in the area.

Where are the police officers? Why arent they taking action against these people? the thera asked the IGP when he visited the temple. The increased noise pollution is also having its health impact not only on the elderly and children but also on the young.

The vendors are well aware of the nuisance they cause. As K. Kumar,30, a mobile food seller in Wattala said, there were no limits imposed in the area and also there were three more vehicles belonging to other bakeries in operation there.

Most of the sellers increase the volume of the music played to gain the attention of prospective customers, Mr. Kumar said.

A recent study carried out by the Sri Jayawardenepura University Medical Faculty reveals that adults (those aged 25 and over) and the elderly (aged 75 and over) were 4 per cent more likely to die if they lived in areas with a daytime road traffic noise of above 60 decibels rather than under 55 decibels.

The deaths tended to come from cardiovascular disease, perhaps because of stress from the noise, increased blood pressure, or impaired sleep. Morning noise caused a 3 per cent rise in stroke deaths among the elderly in the noisiest areas.

Sound pollution also triggers illnesses such as hypertension, heart diseases, diabetes, mental problems, concentration problems and sleeping issues as well as causing sudden shock and high blood pressure.

Exposure to high levels of noise can affect behaviour. If your sleep is disturbed by noise, you could suffer mental stress and turn aggressive. Loud noise can indirectly cause stress, consultant ENT surgeon at the National Hospital, Colombo, Dr. Chandra Jayasuriya said.

Even a very quick exposure of three seconds to loud sound could cause severe damage to the cochlea of the human ear, she added.

Local health experts argue that noise pollution in Sri Lanka is a major cause of heart attacks and other stress-related illnesses.

Central Environment Authority (CEA) Director-General K.H. Muthukudaarachchi said a human could take up to 80 decibels and CEA regulations were based on this standard. But he acknowledged a person who is exposed to this sound level for over an hour could suffer hearing impairment.

He also added that the CEA recognised that current noise regulations, dating from 1996, needed to be amended to be appropriate to modern development, and, in fact, industrial noise regulations would be clarified and amended this year.

Mr. Muthukudaarachchi said the authority had received many complaints from the public but there are still no proper laws regulating noise caused by mobile bakeries, mobile commercial vehicles, ice cream vendors and lottery stalls.

He said under the Public Nuisance Ordinance police could file legal action against users of loud noise-generating equipment.

The Director of the Environment Police Division, Superintendent Quintus Raymond, said police lacked equipment to monitor noise levels from vendors selling bakery products or ice cream with tunes broadcast from their vehicles.

Superintendent Raymond asked residents to inform their local police stations or the Environment Police if noise levels were causing severe disturbance. If there were a large number of complaints from an area a noise level test would be done and the offending vendor would receive a warning and, if the annoyance persisted, police would take legal action, he said.

We are aware that if a couple of vendors operate on the same route and they have different tunes as they are competing. This compels them to raise the volume of the noise, he said.

He said the competition among sellers has become a problem and said police had advised mobile sellers not to make excessive noise.Though the police have powers to control vehicle noise and authority to advise religious places about noise limits in the morning we can take only limited action due to lack of proper laws and regulations relating to vehicles used by mobile food sellers, Mr. Raymond explained.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 120 million people globally have hearing difficulties.

Under national environmental regulations, loudspeakers may not be used between 10pm and 6am except for announcements made in times of emergency or disasters.
SriLankan, pilots reach deal on alcohol test View(s):

By Namini Wijedasa

SriLankan Airlines and the Airline Pilots Guild of Sri Lanka have agreed that breathalyzer tests on pilots will no longer be carried out by security officers but by trained medical staff of the company.

The test will be conducted in the airlines Flight Control Centre at the airport with the Ground Safety Manager as witness. If a pilots blood alcohol level is then found to be above the legal alcohol limit, he or she would then be escorted to a designated private hospital by security personnel. There is also provision for the pilot to visit another approved hospital for a third breathalyzer test to verify the results of the previous examinations.

Consensus was reached on these internationally-accepted procedures between the management and the Pilots Guild, and confirmed at a meeting in the office of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday. The company was represented by its operational management division. A formal document outlining these steps is likely to be ready by next week. The airline did previously have a procedure in place but it has been further streamlined, Director General (Civil Aviation) H.M.C. Nimalsiri confirmed.

A dispute arose recently after senior pilot Sujith Jayasekera was suspended by SriLankan Airlines for allegedly refusing to take a random breathalyzer test. These checks had been revived after a SriLankan pilot was found to be above the legal alcohol limit at the Frankfurt Airport on August 19.

The Guild maintains that Captain Jayasekera did not refuse the test, and that he had only questioned the ad-hoc manner in which it was being administered. Among other factors, he had argued that the reporting form had shortcomings on it.

Although demands regarding the breathalyzer procedure have been met, pilots are continuing their work-to-rule action launched this week in support of Captain Jayasekera. The Guild said that the SriLankan Airlines management had not held any discussions with the pilots in this regard.

We are not working on our off-days and we are not extending our duty hours, the Guilds President Renuke Senananayake said. We are doing only our rostered flights and will continue till there is a solution.

Due to a manpower shortage, flights were often operated by off-duty pilots. Issuing a media statement on Friday, SriLankan Airlines Corporate Communication said there was a likelihood that flights might be disrupted but refused to budge on the suspension of Captain Jayasekera.

Numerous pilots have expressed their willingness to support the company and the work-to-rule appears to be an irresponsible action by a small group of individuals with vested interests, the statement said. The company did not allude to the agreement reached with the Guild on breathalyzer testing.

It said that SriLankan Airlines had resumed random breathalyzer tests on flight and cabin crew according to standard procedure in the global air transport industry. This is fully approved by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL). The company uses certified equipment from Germany and trained personnel. The practice had earlier been suspended due to objections by the Guild.

The statement reiterated that Captain Jayasekera is reported to have refused to take the breathalyzer test. As mandated by the CAASL, refusal to take a test is tantamount to a positive reading, it said. As per procedure, Capt Jayasekera was therefore taken off duties and suspended pending an investigation.

The investigation, including detailed statements from the officers who were detailed to conduct the test, was completed on Friday and forwarded to the Human Resources Division. But the Guild started a work-to-rule campaign demanding that Capt Jayasekera be reinstated.

Since this is contrary to both the regulations of the CAASL and company procedure, the company has declined to do so, the statement said. Capt Jayasekera will remain under suspension until such time as the disciplinary process, which is being carried out by an independent Inquiring Officer, is complete. This is expected to be by September 27, 2016.
UNP pledges to resist foreign interference View(s):

By Chandani Kirinde

At its 70th annual convention yesterday, the ruling United National Party passed several resolutions including a pledge not to allow any foreign force to threaten the countrys independence or undermine, ridicule or exert pressure on the peoples sovereignty.

Prime Minister and Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted the resolution titled Our Ideology to the large number of UNP members who gathered at Campbell Park and it was endorsed unanimously.

Later in his speech, Mr. Wickremesinghe asked party members to move away from old ideologies and embrace a new ideology suited to modern times. Let us move away from Jurassic ideologies and embrace a new ideology, he said. He also asked the UNP members to learn to work with others for the betterment of the countrys future generations and work towards reconciliation among all Lankans to build a Sri Lankan identity.

The resolutions passed include giving the foremost place to Buddhism which has for the past 2,500 years made the country the inheritors of a proud history and a centre of Theravada Buddhism while upholding the rights of the Hindus, the Muslims, the Christians and others to practice their faiths.

The resolutions also pledge to uphold the independence of the judiciary, the rights of citizens to hold their views and the right to express their opinions. They also pledge to give the rightful place to the deserving persons and involved people from the lowest level in the decision-making process.

The other matters highlighted include bringing economic independence to the people, improving the economic conditions of the Northern people who had suffered as a result of the 30-year-old war, gender parity with particular emphasis on addressing problems faced by girls and women in society and ensuring thirteen years of mandatory school education for all children.

President Maithripala Sirisena, who made the unprecedented move of taking part in the UNP convention, pledged that the two major parties would continue the consensus outlined in the last Presidential Election manifesto. He said those who were allegedly involved in large-scale corruption would not be allowed to undermine the new development strategy.
Disappearing Bawa View(s):

A new book by David Robson and Sebastian Posingis reveals that Sri Lanka is in danger of losing a rich architectural heritage

By Smriti Daniel

It might seem to the world that Geoffrey Bawas legacy is assured, but a new book by his most well-known biographer asks whether enough is being done to protect it. In Search of Bawa with text by David Robson and with photographs by Sebastian Posingis, sees Robson return to a subject he knows intimately, but even as he spends several pages on Bawas remarkable life, he also highlights how over a decade after the architects death, Sri Lanka is in danger of neglecting the rich, architectural inheritance Bawa left the land of his birth.

The idea for the book came from Posingis, who says it was while driving with Robson around Colombo and looking at Bawas architecture, that it struck him that many buildings existed that were by the architect but never associated with him, as well as others that claimed to be by Bawa but were not. My first thought was that a Bawa app for the phone would be great, with GPS, tons of information, audio and suggestions of nearby properties, says the photographer, admitting wryly that,I still think it is a worthwhile project but as I am not much of a tech guy and more interested in books, I thought a small publication would be the next best thing.

Priced at Rs.3,400, In Search of Bawa is meant to be affordable and portable, making it suitable for the libraries of students and the suitcases of travellers, but its real interest may be in its systematic survey of what remains of Bawas work. Posingis and Robson travelled across Sri Lanka, and found that many of Bawas buildings were in a state of disrepair, had been reconstructed beyond recognition or were even in danger of being demolished.

When he began taking the pictures, Posingis knew he was most interested in images that were honest, rather than beautiful  though from his results it is clear that the former didnt rule out the latter. But to his disappointment, the photographer sometimes found there was not much left for his camera to record. Some of the pictures I have admired for years just did not exist anymore, either due to alterations or simple obstructions such as trees or other buildings. Some of the black and white pictures of the nuns at the Chapel in Bandarawela, The Strathspeys Estate Bungalow or the classic image of the State Mortgage Bank cannot be taken anymore.

The books appendices dedicate several pages to Bawa buildings at risk, those that have been transformed and those that are lost to us forever. To a degree Geoffrey Bawa has become a cliche, Robson tells the Sunday Times over a Skype call, referring to the near ubiquitous popularity of the architects work. Robson notes however that there is a contradiction here, despite Bawas growing legend, his buildings are being treated very badly, and they are disappearing very quickly.Unfortunately quite a number of his buildings have now been altered or been destroyed.

But it isnt all bad news. A photograph of the library at the Ruhuna University Campus is one of the highlights of working on this book for Robson. He says Posingis has taken what may be one of the first pictures of the interior of the library ever to be published. In Posingis picture, the librarys double-height reading rooms are framed by bookshelves and rows of windows that bring the light flooding in. The pleasing geometry of the reading halls is reflected in the paneled ceiling. It is very much an inhabited, well-loved space, as its architect intended it to be.

Robson notes that subsequent renovations and extensions to the university have been done with great care so as to add to rather than detract from Bawas original design. Another great discovery for the author was the Ratna Sivaratnam House off Bullers Road, where the son of the late owner had painstakingly renovated the house. When I saw it in 2000 it was in very bad condition, but they have done a marvellous job of bringing it back up, says Robson. A similar effort returned The Raffel House to its original glory.

There are lessons to be learnt here about how a conservation effort is successful. Robson believes that buildings do not stand still. If you are going to conserve a building you have to have a use for it, he says, pointing to the work of the National Trust in Britain as a working model for this approach. Inevitably in preserving a building, there will be changes.

One of the biggest success stories for Robson has been the conversion of Bawas office into the Gallery Cafe. It is an example of a completely new use for a building but somehow it preserves the spirit of the place. It is still essentially the building Geoffrey designed in 1962, says Robson, pointing out that as a result, so many thousands have enjoyed it. He minces no words when describing another effort by the same owners though  If you take the hotel called The Villa at Bentota, I think they have added buildings to the extent that it has completely ruined the character of the original.

For the author, all this points to the need for a more considered and comprehensive approach to preserving Bawas buildings. For Sri Lanka, this would also mean investing in a source of tourism revenue as interest in Bawas work brings his fans flocking to these shores. Says Posingis: I hope this book opens up a wider conversation about the preservation of buildings in Sri Lanka. Its frightening to see the speed at which buildings disappear here, especially in Colombo.
Four-legged juniors set for deadly mission View(s):

By Kumudini Hettiarachchi

The veterans have already been deployed at first light at 6 a.m. on their deadly mission, while their playful juniors are still under training back in the camp of the Armys Sri Lanka Engineers at Boo Oya, Vavuniya.

Having seen the veterans at work earlier in the day in areas marked with the skull and cross bones screaming danger on a large tract of land in Mahamailankulam, the Sunday Times is later privy to the training in progress at the camp.

Sit, legs up, about turn, at easeas the commands flow, the one-year-old puppies in training are well-versed in what is expected of them, anticipating the next order. Of course, being young, some are tardy, wanting to play rather than train, giving worry lines to their trainers.

This six-month mine-detection dog handlers course 2016 had been launched in May, with the components being basic obedience and explosive/mine detection. The nine handler-and-dog teams are Lance Corporal W.D.G. Fonseka & Bruno; Lance Corporal A.G. Wijethilaka & Milo; Sapper D.K. N. Rohan & Gismo; Sapper B.M. Saman Kumara & Lucy; Sapper S.M.A.R. Satharasingha & Emma; Sapper R.P. Nishantha & Penny; Sapper W.A. Ruwan & Sandy; Sapper A.R.I.N. Abeysekara & Lexy; and Sapper K.A.S.P. Perera & Diksi.

The Course Supervisor is Captain Nipun Karunarathna, while the instructors are Sergeants H.T.B. Jayalal and E.G. Chaminda Tushara and Corporal A.M. Chaminda.The juniors have been sired by the mine-detection dogs which have been pensioned off. The veteran mine-detection dogs are imported Belgian Malinois.

It is in a small hut close to the mine-clearing site at Mahamailankulam that Captain Kumara Ganegoda takes us through the protocols and the efficient system in place. The de-mining engineers of the Sri Lanka Army have been responsible for 77% of the total of 2,190sqkm cleared of mines so far. The mined area is 2,244sqkm and what remains to be cleared is 54sqkm. Detailed maps show green for cleared areas and red for areas still replete with death-dealing mines which come in various forms such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), grenades, anti-personnel (AP) mines, unexploded ordnance (UXOs), detonators and ammunition.

We not only have a medic cart but also para-medics who have undergone advanced trauma life support training and stretcher-bearers on-site, says Capt. Ganegoda, explaining that the Vavuniya Base Hospital which is 5.7km away can be reached by them in seven minutes in case of an emergency.

Currently we have 11 working dogs, while one is in retirement, says the Officer-in-Charge of the Mine Detection Dog Section, Capt. Nipun Karunarathne, pointing out that nine more are in training. The routine of the mine detection dogs differs on working and non-working days. On working days, they are out in the field early, returning to camp by 10.30 for a breakfast of milk and eggs. Then it is rest-time in their kennels until a full meal of dog food at 4 p.m. On non-working days, PT (physical training) at 6 a.m. is followed by grooming.

While we are chatting that Wednesday, nine of the mine-detection dogs are in the field, five in Mahamailankulam; two in Mullaitivu and two more in Batticaloa. Two dogs are in the kennels as their handlers are on a training course.

We witness the dogs and their handlers at work  after walking the narrow and straight 2m safe path, with strict instructions not to stray as we are in a minefield  in Mahamailankulam, clearing the land for about 500 families to engage in cultivations, their main livelihood.

The second-in-command of the 8 Field Engineers Boo Oya camp, Major A. Janaka Gunawardene says that if the land is being cleared for cultivation the dogs have to sniff out explosives but if it is for people to set up their homes both explosives and even any harmless metal pieces that may have been left behind after the conflict have to be recovered.

We started playing a different military role, humanitarian de-mining, way back in 2002, explains Major General Dhananjith Karunarathne earlier when we meet him at the Mattegoda camp, pointing out that the Sri Lanka Army Humanitarian De-mining Unit (SLAHDU) was started then, with support, both technical and instructional from RONCO Consulting Corporation based in the United States of America (USA).

RONCO came through the US State Department to provide basic training and technical know-how, donating equipment as well as 12 dogs, he says, adding that later the US Marshall Legacy Institute did so directly.

In June 2011, MLI had donated six mine-detection dogs through the US State Department, while also offering the services of a Senior Dog Training Instructor from the Global Training Academy (GTA) for dogs. Earlier the dogs and their handlers underwent training at the Sri Lanka School of Military Engineering (SLSME) at Embilipitiya before they faced the United Nations Accreditation Test and passed to commence minefield clearance operations. Now the training has been moved to Boo Oya.

Maj. Gen. Karunarathne says that the SLAHDU which began operations in 2003 is under the purview of the National Mine Action Centre which currently is under the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Ministry. The directions on what areas to de-mine come through the National Mine Action Centre which works in coordination with regional officials and the District Secretaries.

Explaining the modus operandi when a request for mine-clearance is received, Maj.Gen. Karunarathne says that they conduct a non-technical survey, gathering information from people whether animals have died in explosions in the area. This is followed by identifying, condensing and demarcating a typical hazardous area within the larger area. Machines are then deployed to cut down bushes and slowly clear the surface and just below the surface. If explosive devices are unearthed or there is a blast, the area is identified as mined.

There are three vital components in de-mining, the Sunday Times learns  the use of remote-controlled flail machines; the deployment of mine detecting dogs and finally sending in the manual de-miners.

Commending his teams for an excellent job done, he says that while Alvin and handler Lance Corporal G.N.W.M. Nawarathne, having been chosen as the De-mining Team of the Year 2016 by the MLI will head for Washington DC in October to be treated like royalty, there is a tinge of sadness when he talks of Cairo Spartacus which is no more (it had died on March 21, this year, at six years old) which won the same award with its handler, Sapper D.K.N. Rohan in 2012.

Maj. Gen. Karunarathne had accompanied this team in 2012 for the Clearing the Path gala celebration. While the MLI provides accommodation to the handler in a posh hotel, the dog is booked into an animal resort and spa.

In Sri Lanka, meanwhile at the Boo Oya camp there is erected a special monument behind which lies well-tended mounds marking five graves. They have served our country with devotion and selflessness  those who knew you, will never forget you, is the lasting and poignant memorial for the special mine-detection dogs which are no more.

Truly, these mine-detection dogs have made life livable for thousands of men, women and children who otherwise would encounter death and serious injury from explosives every day.
Letters to the Editor View(s):

This pavement is not meant for walking

We thank the Sunday Times for featuring the uncompleted pavements within the Colombo City and their inconveniences and dangers to pedestrians. The uncompleted pavement along Braybrooke Place, Colombo 2 is a case in point. There are several flat dwellers like me in this vicinity who walk to the supermarket at Hyde Park Corner almost daily.

We are compelled to use the narrow incomplete pavement along this street as one side has parking bays. The narrow road is dangerous for any pedestrian to use. Several of us have twisted our ankles on this stretch. Children have to be carried due to the state of the pavements to ensure their safety.

Only one part close to Arpico has been done and it is almost a year since this work commenced.

We all pay the Colombo Municipality very high annual rates and the service we get is very poor.

Fernando

Colombo 2

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, whats the point of being the tallest?

On August 18, Minister Arjuna Ranatunge conducted what was described as an opening ceremony to have the worlds tallest Christmas tree on Galle Face Green. It was also reported that this tree which symbolizes peace and harmony will be unveiled on December 24.

Let us leave aside the structural details and logistics of this unveiling. Let us also leave aside the benefit to the poor and needy of this country by having the words tallest Christmas tree.

The so called Christmas tree whether in Sri Lanka or in any part of the world has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. Christmas, is the Feast of the Nativity  a day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. He was born in a cattle shed and laid in a manger. It is the manger which is the centre-piece of Christmas and it is replicas of a manger which is found or should be found, in churches during the Christmas season. Nowhere, in the Bible is there any mention of a Christmas tree.

The Christmas tree which has over the decades been commercialised originated in Germany perhaps in the 15th or l6th century when the people who happened to be Christian, brought into their homes green trees which they brightened up and decorated during the the wintry Christmas season. Hence it came to be called a Christmas tree.

Last year Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith requested the priests of the Roman Catholic Church not to decorate the church with so called Christmas trees. He said that these trees have no religious significance and are a symbol of social gatherings and commercialisation. We can see this reality in almost every capital of the world even in Sri Lanka.

May the tree proposed to be erected on Galle Face Green be called the Peace and Harmony Tree.

V.P. Perera

Colombo 5
True blue View(s):

Remembering Herbert Sri Nissanka  a founder member of the SLFP as the party turns 65

By Udumbara Udugama

As the Sri Lanka Freedom Party celebrated its 65th anniversary last week, Manil Yamuna Devi Sri Nissanka Karunaratna, the eldest daughter of Herbert Sri Nissanka on the invitation of the Sri Nissanka Foundation unveiled her fathers statue at the Sri Nissanka Maha Vidyalaya in Kurunegala on September 4. Her daughter Avanti Karunaratna and son Prof. Amal Randhir Karunaratna were also present at the ceremony.

Herbert Sri Nissanka was one of the founder members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Manil Yamuna Devi remembers the many discussions held at their home. From 1947 to 1951 Sri Nissanka with a group of politicians worked hard to build a new party, realising that there should be a strong democratic opposition to the UNP. Over a number of years, with the support of many leaders and friends he had discussed this idea. His good friend S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike had his Sinhala Maha Sabha and was with the UNP. Once when SWRD came to Yamuna he said Solla being in that party, you will never be Prime Minister, come and join me. At first he did not wish to join, but with his resignation from the Parliament, he did join, Manil Yamuna Devi recalls.

Everyone called him Banda, but my father always called him Solla, I dont know why. Maybe because he was Solomon and they were good friends.

When SWRD resigned from the Cabinet of Ministers in July 1951, my father was very happy. He went to Tintagel in Rosmead Place, congratulated him and invited him to join the group and lead the Party. He did join with some members of the Sinhala Maha Sabha.

My father was responsible for the symbol, the colour and name of the Party. Blue was selected as it is the colour of Vishnu, protector of Lanka. The name Sri Lanka Freedom Party  the desire for Freedom made him endorse the word Freedom. SWRD added Lanka Freedom Party and Sri in honour of Sri Nissanka! At that time we were Ceylon, not Sri Lanka. The symbol hand was the blessing of the Buddha  in blessing all, said Manil Yamuna Devi. The group decided unanimously that SWRD should be the leader of the Party.

D.B. Moonekulame, Private Secretary to Sri Nissanka in Part III of his memoirs published in the Daily News writes, The Sri Lanka Freedom Party was inaugurated on September 2, 1951, one month and two days after the resignation of Bandaranaike. Sri Nissanka was one of the original architects of the party whose inspiration was responsible for the designation, symbol and colour of the party.

In her collection of newspaper cuttings is a picture where the caption reads, H. Sri Nissanka, a founder member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party addresses the partys inaugural meeting held at the Colombo Town Hall on September 2, 1951. In the chair is Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who was unanimously elected its first President.

Manil Yamuna Devi spoke of how her father, a southerner from Balapitiya embarked on his political career from Kurunegala, a Kandyan electorate. He had a coconut property Thiragama Estate, in Pothuhera near Kurunegala which he would visit and take the family. He spent much time here during the war years and may be this was the reason for making a surprise choice for the boy from the south, in a predominantly Kandyan area.

It was 1947  the first parliamentary elections of Ceylon that he contested as an independent.

This created a major sensation as he had to face Sir John Kotalawala who was well established in Kurunegala and had a large following. But Sir John decided to contest Dodangaslanda where he had the Kahatagaha mines, about 20 miles from Kurunegala. He abandoned Kurunegala. It was an astonishing choice, as Kurunegala had been his stronghold for 16 years, since the election of the first State Council in 1931.

Sri Nissanka won the elections against Ivor Palipana. It was an upcountry-low country battle, she says. He contested for the position of Speaker of the House and was defeated by a small margin.

Moonekulame writing to the Daily News under the title Sri Nissanka Sensation at the hustings states: Sri Nissanka convened a meeting at his residence Yamuna at Wellawatte, where 42 newly elected members of Parliament who unanimously adopted an historic resolution, unique in the annals of the country, pledged their 42 votes to Bandaranaike to enable him to seek appointment as the first Prime Minister of the first Parliament of Ceylon.

Sri Nissanka personally presented the Yamuna Conference pledge to Bandaranaike who graciously declined the honour as he considered it his solemn duty to ensure the stability of the first Parliament of Ceylon and as a Senior Statesman D.S. Senanayake deserved to be the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon.

A politician, legal luminary, scholar and poet, Herbert Sri Nissanka KC was born on December 7, 1898 and passed away at a comparatively early age of 56 years on February 26, 1954. He was married to Muriel Christofelz and had three children, Manil Yamuna Devi being the eldest.

Manil Yamuna Devi was at Visakha Vidyalaya during Mrs. Motwanis time. The habit of reading grew in her at a very young age and she was very knowledgeable in literature  both English and Sinhala, Buddhism and classics. I read many books in my fathers library, she remembers.

At the age of 16, she remembers vividly listening to her father and his friends discussing politics. As a teenager I sat on the staircase next to the dining room at Yamuna, at Maya Avenue, Wellawatte and eavesdropped on the political conversations my father and his friends had, seated round the black and red long lacquered table with its high back chairs. They were famous names and faces.

Many would visit Yamuna and have discussions over long periods of time. These were called Yamuna Conferences. I remember Colvin, NM, C.P. de Silva, William Silva, A.P. Jayasuriya, the older D.A. Rajapakse who was a mentor to my father and SWRD.

Herbert Mendis Sri Nissanka had his early education at Ananda College when Sir D.B. Jayathilaka was the Principal. Later, he joined Royal College, his fathers alma mater. He studied at the Law College and in 1919 left for England for St. Edmonds Hall at Oxford University. He obtained an Arts Degree and was a member of the debating team. Sri Nissanka met S.W.RD. Bandaranaike who was also at Oxford and they became very good friends.

He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple as a Barrister and returning to Ceylon at the age of 24, he began his professional career as an Advocate at Hulftsdorp, having earned his place in the Inns of Court. A celebrated criminal lawyer, Sri Nissanka won many a sensational case with his address to the jury. If he knew that a client could not afford a fee, he would appear free for him.

He was made a Kings Counsel in 1944, one of the first to gain Silk in British Ceylon.

Sri Nissankas father Nissanka Diveris Mendis was a Senior Administrative Officer in the Railway. His mother Anoma Wickremaratna de Zoysa hailed from the Garumuni family in the South. His uncles, Robert De Zoysa, Arthur De Zoysa and Ian De Zoysa were all members of the State Council.

Manil Yamuna Devi remembers an interesting incident which made the news. My father had gone outstation for a case and he had to attend Parliament later that day. He had gone to Parliament in his tunic coat, trouser and suede sandals for which he was chastised. He rushed home, changed into a sarong  I remember it was a checked sarong, with brown lines, and went back. The Speaker, Sir Francis Molamure after a brief discussion ruled that he was appropriately dressed. It was in the newspapers too, with a picture. Thats how the sarong went to Parliament smiled his daughter. Although it is now very common to see Parliamentarians in sarong, it was not so in 1949!

Sri Nissankas mother had very close relatives who were famous Buddhist monks and this Buddhist background helped to mould him. He studied under Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, Ven. Sri Gnaneswara Thera, Ven. Lunupokune Dhammananda Thera, Ven. Chakkindha Thera from Burma, Ven. Welithara Suddhassana Thera and Ven. Abhidammika Medhankara Thera and as he knew Pali and Sanskrit he had a good understanding of the Dhamma.

At 19, while in his Intermediate at Law College, Sri Nissanka shaved his head and sought admission to the Sangha Samanera as Kavindhaja Kesara. He lived in Burma (Myanmar) for two years and received Upsampada at the feet of Ven. Gandhayoung Shayado. But receiving a message that his father was very ill, he disrobed with the promise that one day he would return to robes, his daughter says. His resolution to build an Aranya Senasanaya was promised to his Master in Burma. The result was the establishment of the Salagala Aranya where he was President for 26 years and resigned due to ill health. He requested Dudley Senanayake to be President thereafter and D.S. Senanayake planted a Bo sapling brought from India.

Manil Yamuna Devi remembers their visit to Burma in 1947. We went by the steamer named Devonshire. As we came up the river Irawadi, the Golden Stupa Shmedgon Paya rose glowing golden above the trees. It was an amazing sight. During this July visit in Rangoon, Bogyoke(Major General) Aung San, (father of Aung San Suu Kyi) considered the Father of the Nation was assassinated at Parliament. At the funeral I remember Mr. Bandaranaike (SWRD) standing next to me, pensively looking at the leader lying in state in a coffin. Little did he guess his fate, Manil Yamuna Devi says.

Anuradhapura was her fathers most loved city. When he drove his Skoda with the hood down or went in his Riley, he would always alight from the car and stand on the bund of the Nuwarawewa and gaze at the great stupas of Abhayagiri and Ruwanveliseya. He would sing Danno Budhunge, Manil Yamuna Davi recalls. He was one of the main speakers when the Kotha gifted from Burma was placed after the restoration in 1940. A huge ruby is on top of the Kotha. My father spoke on BBC, a world broadcast, a maiden speech to the world and recited the gatha Sayasnu yaswin sugathassa dathu. the prayer to the Ruwanweli Seya, the she remembers.

Whenever we passed King Elaras grave site, he would insist that all members alight from the car and walk as a mark of respect for the great and just king. It was a decree by King Dutugemunu, she said.

At the end of his life when he was ill, she would cook his favourite food and feed him. He knew his time was coming to an end and he was in deep meditation remembering the practice of his entire life by which he lived  ashtanga sila. Sitting in his favourite armchair, gazing at the 20-foot painting by Carl Kasmann, of the Gautama Buddha descending to the Himalaya mountain from the Thusitha Deva Loka, having preached to his mother, he passed away. At the funeral oration SWRD Bandaranaike lamented the loss of a life long friend and trusted companion.

The country lost a scholar, humanitarian, author, poet, playwright, great orator with a sharp wit and good command of many languages and mostly a great Buddhist.
Words, silence, instruments: Into the inner life View(s):

By Smriti Daniel

As evening falls over Colombo, Kusal is looking at himself in the mirror. His expression suggests his thoughts are tortured, but I have no idea what they are. Perhaps if I didnt know the man standing next to me was privy to them, I wouldnt feel like I was missing out. But I can actually hear Kusals tinny thoughts spill out of my neighbours earphones, even if I cannot quite make out the words.

Standing in the living room later, the actor Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke who plays Kusal, could also hear that thin voice emanating from the smartphone of the audience member closest to him. And his wife, Tania, played by Thanuja Jayawardene that night, could literally hear herself fantasising about breaking her wineglass and slashing Kusals throat with it. Its all very surreal and meta, particularly because the actors had taken care not to listen to each others internal monologues in advance, and so were hearing some amusing if disconcerting things mid-production.

Keeping his cast in the dark was intentional, says Welandawe-Prematilleke, who also directed and wrote Close to the Bone. Staged as part of Colomboscope 2016, the play was a collaboration between him and sound artist Isuru Kumarasinghe. A piece of immersive theatre, it brought some 40 people crowding into the rooms of the Presidential Suite at Cinnamon Lakeside. The audience, who stayed on the move, was advised to choose one of four characters to trail for the duration of one run-through  but the play only looped twice.

Part of this show is understanding that there are things that are unknown, that we never have every perspective and that our perspective is always limited, Welandawe-Prematilleke tells the Sunday Times, explaining that the concept has been germinating in his mind for years now, but that it took pairing up with Kumarasinghe to see it realised.

This is not the first play Kumarasinghe has worked on, but it is certainly unique in his experience. When Arun first approached me, I immediately fell in love with the idea of hearing the inner thoughts of a character, says the sound artist, explaining that he wasnt interested, however, in using the voice-over as a running commentary.

Instead, Kumarasinghe chose four musicians who he then paired with the actors. Intent on conveying mood and emotion, they chose a palette of sounds for each internal monologue. (For Tehani Chitty, who had one of the barest and most interesting tracks, the music proved to be a distracted hum.) What evolved out of these conversations were genuinely inventive audiopieces that relied on a blend of dialogue, instruments and silences to convey the rich texture of a persons inner life. In total, the team working on the two scripts, voiced and unvoiced, ended up numbering some 13 people.

But in the end, the mechanics themselves were relatively simple: upon entering the Presidential Suite of the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel, audience members were asked to log onto a designated website via Wi-Fi that then allowed them to choose an actor to follow. Actors moved about rooms in a choreographed dance that allowed them to stage the odd tableau as well as have moments of (usually tortured) solitude. Unknown to us, every room had been miked. Just behind a partition the musicians were at work, compiling the whole thing in real time, responding to what they heard as actors moved about adjoining rooms. Kumarasinghe, who was a kind of conductor-at-large, now boasts a bandaged toe from the night a partition wall fell on him.

But more care, and perhaps more time, was needed to turn a very promising concept into a working play. The production was dogged by technical issues. Despite a very responsive team working to help individual audience members, many of us never heard more than snatches of dialogue through our earphones. The plot, which may not have been such an issue if the play wasnt anchored in a mystery, proved indecipherable. The rooms were overflowing, and for both cast and audience, getting where you needed to be involved wading through the crowd.

Kumarasinghe and Welandawe-Prematilleke are frankly disappointed that they couldnt iron out some of these issues. Welandawe-Prematilleke has been fielding questions about his plot as well, and insists that Of all the theories people will give you, there is an actual truth of what happens, and that is laid out in the show but it is laid out quite subtly.There are plans to re-stage Close to the Bone and to offer tickets that allow one to watch the play on multiple nights, encouraging audiences to engage more fully. The script could use more development, but as it stands, has its moments.

Though Welandawe-Prematillekes theatrical milieu has frequently been the politically well-connected, upper-classes of Colombo, a recurring motif of his work so far has been his critique of entitlement and callousness. He is interested in the angst and insecurity that can leave these seemingly privileged lives riddled with despair. With Close to the Bone he attempts, with varying degrees of success, to reflect on the larger world outside. I never want to make work about fabulously wealthy people feeling depressed about their fantasy life, he says dismissively.

He is not a traditional playwright. Much of the time, his scripts are the result of many conversations with his cast, and in Close to the Bone he was lucky to be working with Thanuja Jayawardene, Subha Wijesiriwardene and Tehani Chitty, a trio of gifted actresses, two of whom he has known for over a decade.With his being the only male character, they called him out every time he risked playing to stereotypes of hysterical women, he says grinning. At one point, he describes with evident pleasure the potency in a scene where his character turns around to find their accusing eyes on him, and just beyond an entire hallway of people crowding around, hanging on his every word.

That sense of immediacy and agency, the possibility of creating unique experiences for audience and actors alike, is what feeds Welandawe-Prematillekes forays into immersive theatre. Kumarasinghe agrees, explaining that this approach has allowed him to explore a new kind of energy, more in keeping with his interest in experimental music. This is for me all new ground. I had to rethink my work, rethink my practice, says Kumarasinghe. I had to really figure out  how do we do this? I have loved exploring and experimenting with sound. It drove me.

The two agree that it can be a very playful, fun process  akin to exploring the dioramas Welandawe-Prematilleke loved as a child. For me the engagement of immersive theatre is just so much more exciting, says the director. With a traditional performance, you can go, shut off for an hour and a half, and then get up and talk about where you are going to go for dinner. But for a production like Close to the Bone, conversation, critical or otherwise, is embedded in the process.

That people do have to talk about a play after, is what I love  they cant rely on what a friend or a reviewer said about it, because they are not even seeing the same show. They make their own experience, which I find really thrilling, says Welandawe-Prematilleke.

The cast of Close to the Bone: Tania  Thanuja Jayawardene paired with musician Uvindu Perera, Yasodha  Subha Wijesiriwardene paired with Sarani Perera, Sanchia  Tehani Chitty paired with Sachi Gamage and Kusal  ArunWelandawe-Prematilleke paired with Yohan Jayasooriya. Website Design: Lee Bazalgette at Colombo Design Studio.
A senior Pakistani Senator has raised serious questions about Islamabad's involvement in Pathankot terror attack. The PPP Senator accused Sharif government of patronising terrorists.

By India Today Web Desk: Vindicating India's stand on involvement of Pakistani establishment behind Pathankot attack in January this year, a senior Pakistani Senator accused the Nawaz Sharif government of patronising terrorists. PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar on Friday put the government in the dock over Pathankot attack.

Babar accused the Sharif government of misleading the upper house by deliberately concealing information about the terror attack in which three security personnel lost their lives while six Pakistani terrorists were killed.

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READ: Pathankot attack: NIA releases photos of terrorists ahead of Pakistan SIT's visit

WHAT DID PPP SENATOR SAY?

"Why else did the government not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House," Babar asked.

The PPP leader further said, "Has the Indian government provided any facts or information to the Pakistani government? And, what is the latter doing in this regard?"

READ: Pathankot attack: 6 terrorists attacked IAF base, reveals forensic test



SHARIF BUCKLES UNDER PRESSURE

The questions asked by PPP Senator Babar were not answered by the government. Babar had raised these questions four months ago as well. He lashed out at the government for deferring the questions each time he raised.

READ: Pathankot: India trashes Pakistani report as 'total concoction'

Under pressure from the opposition and cornered by India, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif later announced that the Pathankot probe report would be made public. Inside Senate, Minister of State for Interior and Narcotics Balighur Rehman denied hiding any information from the House.



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--- ENDS ---
Address by Hon. Mangala Samaraweera at the at the IFIMES View(s):

Address by Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, MP.,

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka

at the

International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)

Slovenia, 7 September 2016

Democracy, Reconciliation and Development: Vision for a New Sri Lanka

Prof. Dr. Ernest Petric

Vice President of the Advisory Board of the International Institute for

Middle-East and Balkan Studies, and Members of the Institute

Honorary Consul of Sri Lanka in Slovenia,

Excellencies,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to be here today, at the invitation of the International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies, to speak to you about the changes that are taking place in my country.

Although Sri Lanka is situated far away from where we stand here this afternoon in geographical terms, this region of the Balkans and the region where we are situated in South Asia, are both inheritors of ancient civilisations and rich histories.

In classical times, the Balkans lay at the heart of the Greco-Roman civilisation, and was also influenced by Christianity and Islam. Today, this region is home to a diverse ethno-linguistic people, not very different from the region of South Asia that constitutes one-fifth of the worlds population comprising diverse ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. Today, South Asia is a mix of the ancient and the modern  with the influence of western colonisation having left its mark as well, on language, religion, attire, food, architecture, culture, literature and every conceivable aspect of social life.

Each of the nations in South Asia, including Sri Lanka, continues to grapple with issues of nation building in the post-independent modern era while adjusting to the rapidly evolving modern technological advancements, globalisation, and dealing with challenges posed by climate change, migration, urbanisation, terrorism and violent extremism, and taking steps to achieve equitable and sustainable development, and economic growth.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My country, Sri Lanka, has an ancient history steeped in myth and legend, influenced by beliefs and folklore, which is no different to this region. We also have a recorded history dating back over two thousand years. Vast ruins of ancient kingdoms, temples, irrigation tanks and engineering feats are still visible today, indicating that Sri Lanka was the seat of one of the small but important historical civilisations of Asia at the time.

The geographic location of Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean, midway between East and West, and just 48 km away from India, made Sri Lanka a significant part of the maritime history of the pre-colonial and ancient world; providing ports for the exchange of goods between East and West; and a contact point between two great regions.

At the time of Independence in 1948, after 150 years of British rule, Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, was placed in a unique position among the countries in the developing world. We started practicing universal adult franchise as early as 1931. We were considered a model Commonwealth country, carefully prepared for Independence, with a relatively good standard of education, two universities of high quality, a civil service largely consisting of trained locals, and with experience in representative government.

The different communities in the country showed promise of being able to live and work towards common national goals in peace, harmony and unity. They had worked together to gain independence from the British despite the fact that they followed different faiths, spokes different languages and followed different customs.

However, our nation faltered. Successive leaders of our peoples, since Independence, made mistakes which saw our country plunge into torment and conflict for well over three decades.

Our country experienced the trauma of two youth insurrections in the South (in 1971 and in the late 1980s to early 90s); a separatist movement which manifested in terrorism in the North and the East of the country for over two decades; and death and devastation caused by the December 2004 tsunami.

After all this, when our country saw the end of violence unleashed by terrorism on the 19th of May 2009, everyone belonging to every community heaved a sigh of relief.

It was our fervent hope that Sri Lanka could at last resume her long suspended dream for a better, peaceful, united future. The future that a newspaper in London had predicted for us at the time of Independence way back in 1948  that Sri Lanka, in time to come, would no doubt become the Switzerland of the East. However, this was not to be. We failed to seize the opportunity to achieve meaningful reconciliation and consolidate peace.

The 6 years or so since May 2009 saw Sri Lanka take an unfortunate journey on an autocratic path. Civil liberties were curtailed, independence of institutions including the judiciary was compromised, democracy was weakened, the rule of law was undermined, and good governance practices and human rights were violated with impunity.

We failed to address the causes of conflict in a manner that would guarantee durable peace, meaningful reconciliation and non-recurrence. Divisions in society were becoming deeper along religious and ethnic lines, freedom of speech and expression were curtailed, and fear and intimidation pervaded society.

Our nation which had been a prominent and respected member of the international community since Independence, including in the United Nations, abandoned her natural foreign policy of engagement, and chose instead, to follow a policy of antagonising traditional friends and partners, and isolated itself from the world community.

It was against this backdrop of a sense of total despair, that several parties in Opposition, which I like to call the Rainbow Coalition joined forces. We came together to field a common opposition candidate, Mr. Maithripala Sirisena, at the Presidential election in January 2015, in response to the call by a large section of people in Sri Lanka who were yearning for change.

Despite an election campaign which was deeply flawed and one-sided, the rainbow coalition of the opposition scored a decisive victory on the 8th of January, on a platform promising far reaching democratic and constitutional reforms. The people of Sri Lanka reasserted their commitment to democracy by dislodging an emerging dictatorship through non-violence.

Not stopping at that, the people voted once again at the Parliamentary Election in August last year to uphold the same values and norms. Most importantly, for the first time in Sri Lankas history, with the support of the people we have formed a National Unity Government, bringing together the two main rival political parties in the country, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by President Maithripala Sirisena, and the United National Party led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

This unprecedented move has heralded a new culture of consensual politics, providing the much needed political and policy stability in our country to undertake far reaching reform and important decisions in the long-term interest of our nation. Addressing the inaugural session of Parliament on 1 September last year, following the Parliamentary Election in August, the President explained that the formation of a National Unity Government is essential to obtain the bipartisan consensus that is necessary to face the important challenges before our nation, which include reconciliation and peacebuilding.

Today therefore, for the first time since Independence, the myopia that plagued our nation has been set aside. The temptation of political parties to follow a path of confrontation in order to achieve short-term political gains over the long-term interests of the people is now over, and we have in our Leader of Opposition, Hon. R. Sampanthan, a wise, committed and respected politician with the resolve to work together to ensure that we do not let our country lose yet another opportunity.

Fortunately, today, with the demise of the LTTE, no one in our country believes that violence is a solution to our problems. The desire for peace, the desire to ensure non-recurrence is clear. The people of our country, in every walk of life, the rich and the poor, those living in the North, South, East, West and Centre, desperately want peace to last. They have all suffered too much bloodshed and unimaginable agony.

The National Unity Government therefore, is focused on fostering a national consensus around the never again principle which everyone in our country relates to.

We have set our nation on a historic journey. Our vision, very briefly, is to build a Sri Lanka that,

-safeguards, promotes and protects the rights and dignity of all, and equality of all;

-respects and celebrates the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious nature of our society;

-empowers our youth and our women;

-upholds the rule of law; respects democracy and fundamental freedoms including the freedom of the media;

-preserves our environment while taking steps to ensure integrated and sustainable development;

-gives priority to securing the best education possible for our children and youth, including the skills they require to meet the demands of the global value chain; and securing the best health facilities possible;

-focuses on infrastructure development, and equitable economic growth required for the prosperity of all our people;

-enhances and encourages understanding and preservation of culture, respect for each others traditions and beliefs, and is always conscious of the need to be a responsible and respected member of the international community;

-gives priority always to the needs of the people of our country and what is in their best interest;

-is reconciled, democratic, and prosperous, with a united and entrepreneurial people, at peace with themselves, and at peace with the world; and

-works in engagement and in cooperation with the international community and international organisations to address issues of concern, not only for Sri Lanka, but for the region and the global community as a whole.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

During the first 100 Days in Office itself, we took a series of important steps to consolidate democracy and democratic institutions, despite not having a confirmed majority in Parliament. These included the passage of the 19th amendment to the Constitution through which the two-term limit of the Presidency was re-introduced; the Constitutional Council was appointed; Independent Commissions were restored; Right to Information was recognised as a fundamental right; and the Promotion of National Reconciliation and Integration were recognised as duties of the President.

Our focus is to pursue an agenda based on three main areas: strengthening democracy; fostering reconciliation; and pursuing equitable economic development for all our people.

While consolidating the democratic gains achieved within the first 100 days in Office, we have managed to take action on all fronts thereafter, strengthening good governance and the rule of law; promoting and protecting human rights; fostering reconciliation; and achieving economic development; while engaging and working closely with the international community in a constructive manner that benefits the people of our country.

-The enactment of the Right to Information Act in June this year, was yet another step in strengthening our democracy;

-As I said before, from May 2009, post-conflict reconciliation eluded us as a result of short-sighted policies and the triumphalist approach that was adopted immediately following the end of conflict. The National Unity Government has approached reconciliation as a matter of urgent priority. A series of symbolic and tangible steps have been taken towards healing the wounds of conflict and addressing the grievances of our people. We have put in place the structures required to coordinate the setting up of key mechanisms required for this purpose. First among them is an Office on Missing Persons. The legislation for the establishment of this Office was passed in Parliament just last month. This Office which has a humanitarian mandate, will have as its main objective, ascertaining the fate of the missing, irrespective of when and where they went missing and in what location, and seek to provide answers to their family members and loved ones.

-A Task Force consisting entirely of civil society representatives has been appointed to seek the views of the public that will inform the designing of the truth-seeking, justice, accountability and reparations mechanisms that we propose to establish.

-The Government is also working towards the adoption of a new Constitution for Sri Lanka. This Constitution, while entrenching the democratic gains we have achieved during the last year, will also be a celebration of Sri Lankas diversity as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual country that will guarantee equal rights, justice and dignity for all, and address some of the issues that have plagued us since Independence and has stood in the way of our unity as a nation. The Public Representations Committee tasked with seeking the views of the public for the new Constitution has just completed its work, and their Report has been handed over to the Government. The sub-committees tasked with submitting proposals on fundamental rights, judiciary, law and order, centre-periphery relations and public finance are to hand over their reports to the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly chaired by the Prime Minister, shortly.

In the last one-and-a-half years, we have completely changed the way we engage with human rights mechanisms. Our objective is to uphold, promote and protect the individual rights of all. As you are all aware, the Government co-sponsored the Resolution titled Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in September last year, out of our own firm conviction that Sri Lanka must come to terms with the past in order to forge ahead and secure the future that the people of our country truly deserve. We have since extended a standing invitation to the UN Special Procedures Mandate Holders. We received the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances last November; the High Commissioner for Human Rights in February; the Special Rapporteurs on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, and Torture in April-May this year; we will be receiving the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Minorities in October; and we have just seen the conclusion of a very successful visit by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon.

We still have a long way to go to achieve reconciliation. As you all know, Ladies and Gentlemen, reconciliation does not happen at once. It requires effort, hard work, commitment, and careful, continuous and concrete action. It is not an end that can be reached where no further work is required; and it is certainly not a box that can be ticked as a task completed and achieved. It is a journey that requires constant striving. A commitment towards which our nation should be bound across generations, and a central tenet of governance. The price to pay, if we falter, is not one that our nation can endure once again after over thirty years of bloodshed that has spared no one.

For some, the pace at which we are making progress appears too slow; and for others, too fast. I would say that while victims and the general public as well as some in the international community may be impatient, after so many years of conflict, we cannot take risks that will make us lose everything that we have gained in the last one-and-a-half years. So we move with caution. Perhaps our approach could be described as what the Romans called festina lente  making haste slowly.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Political will and good intentions will not succeed unless all stakeholders in our country feel that their development needs are being addressed and cared for, and their living conditions are improving. Therefore, winning the peace is just as much about jobs, education, healthcare and infrastructure for all Sri Lankans as it is about political reforms. The peace dividend must be felt in economic terms by all sections of Sri Lankan society; the peace dividend for the unemployed youth must be greater and better job opportunities; for the housewives  better living standards; for the farmers  higher prices and access to markets; for the students  more schools, technical colleges and universities with better-trained teachers and lecturers; and for the elderly  greater access to hospitals and medicine.

The Government of Sri Lanka has no doubt that as the necessary political and economic reforms take place, investments and trade and ultimately jobs, growth and economic development will follow. But as the relationship between peace and development is holistic and dynamic, the faster the peace dividend is felt, the greater and faster the likelihood and durability of peace. In a nutshell, the peoples purses must feel the benefits of greater democracy, reconciliation, and peace. And they must feel them fast.

We are in the process of putting in place the economic plans and policies required to sustain and accelerate Sri Lankas 6% plus growth rate; attracting investment, creating a million jobs, developing Sri Lanka as a hub  taking advantage of its geographic location; and expanding market access; and improving living standards through an ambitious economic development drive.

The Governments economic strategy is based on attracting foreign direct investment, making Sri Lankas exports more competitive, promoting tourism, and improving productivity through education and knowledge transfer.

Sri Lanka is at the centre of the rapidly growing Indian Ocean region, astride the main East-West shipping route and next to one of the worlds largest markets, India. We are leveraging this unique geo-economic location to accelerate growth: negotiations are already underway to deepen our existing free trade agreement with India. We plan to do the same with Pakistan with whom we also have a free trade agreement. We also plan to negotiate and conclude a Free Trade Agreement with China. These Agreements  combined with our excellent air and sea connectivity to the sub-continent  will help cement our position as a Gateway to the sub-continent.

We seek to also improve market access abroad. Due to the previous Governments short-sighted policies, we lost European Union GSP+ concessions. Having filed our application for GSP+ recently, we hope to regain the facility by the end of the year.

A concerted effort is also underway to improve the business climate domestically. Far-reaching governance reforms that are rules based have structurally made investment and business more secure and certain. Sri Lanka is taking measures to increase investors ease of doing business and confidence more directly. For example, we are bringing a number of government agencies together to create a one-stop investment and trade-facilitation shop under the Agency for Development. We are reviewing our laws and regulations to create a simple rules-based business environment: including those related to land ownership, as well as tariffs and para-tariffs. We have adopted policies that enable private enterprise to thrive: for example, Sri Lanka has one of the lowest income tax rates in the world  at 15 percent. Together these reforms  alongside our educated workforce and solid infrastructure  are making Sri Lanka the most attractive, secure and competitive investment destination in the region.

We need further and faster support in poverty alleviation, urban development, infrastructure development, education  particularly vocational, technical and English language training  and agricultural productivity improvements.

As we in Sri Lanka strive to create a better tomorrow for all our people, we value the partnerships we build with nations across the world to assist us in our efforts in reconciliation and development; to promote peace, security, and economic and social progress.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are firm in our conviction to succeed in this journey for the sake of all our people, vindicating the faith reposed on us by our friends in the international community, but more than anything else, to do right by the people of our nation and future generations, and secure for them the destiny that we were unable to achieve 68 years ago at Independence.

Thank you.
Agganna Sutta: Migration of humans since evolution and present day violence View(s):

By Satharathilaka Banda Atugoda

Humans since their evolution, from the earliest times, had been on the move, in search of food, pasture lands for herds, farmlands for agriculture, better shelter to protect themselves, water to drink and other human needs, and more comforts. This trend continued with new expectations, and desires and wants, as humans became sedentary. This is a simplistic explanation for lay-persons, like us.

Relevant sections of Agganna Sutta

The great philosopher and teacher of non-violence, the Buddha speaks of this phenomena in the Agganna Sutta; He lucidly analyses, to Vasettha and Bharadwaja the two Brahmins, how humans evolved, lived contentedly in their environment until private ownership developed in the community based on production of grains, and agricultural plots, when conflicts arose about how equitably their distribution should be effected. In order to settle such disputes a leader was chosen from among them who later acquired for himself powers, to execute decisions; the earliest seeds of the concept of kingship commenced thus and Maha Sammata was selected with the free will of these humans. They themselves, underwent a whole cycle of evolution after descending from Abhassara, another Brahma Loka. The Maha Sammata or the leader chosen with the consent of the wider grouping of beings, ruled over these independent societies. Eons later these came to be known as empires, kingdoms. The beings in these entities moved from one to the other for occupations, and the leaders eventually, expanded their economic territory. Some among these humans became land owners, (Khattiya), some agriculturists and merchants, entrepreneurs (Vaishyas), some manual-workers,(Shudras), and those who were in search of spiritual attainments, Brahmanas. These groups were called castes in India later; but they were really econo-spiritual-socio segments in society.

These humans were in search of better worldly lives, and in the process there arose, inter and intra-quarrels, when the interests of one impinged on the other,- between and among these societies. As humans grew in numbers these conflicts graduated to wars and later world wars. The greed and ignorance in persons in these societal-entities, led some to move from one community to the other, which seemingly were better equipped to satisfy them. (Agganna Sutta in Digha Nikaya )

What is termed as migration is thus, moving out from their habitat seeking more comforts. They could be social, economic, educational, and other facilities. Due to the controls and safeguards, governing varied communities, those who migrate had to force their way surreptitiously, and in secrecy, and in the case of some others their environs encouraged them to do so. The present terms refugee and asylum-seekers are persons who are forced to move out, due to war, famine, or persecution. Those who yearn for a better life in the process are called economic refugees. All of them are termed migrants.

Explanation in modern science.

Modern science has studied this phenomenon of migration in relation to the evolution of humans. There are varied theories propounded, by eminent scientists, biologists, archeologists and naturalists. One of the theories generally, talked about is that the earliest migration took place from Africa, around 77,000, years ago. They were the hominids who migrated North who are called Neanderthals, and also called Homo Sapiens, and Homo Erectus in East Asia, and Hobbits in South East Asia. These findings have been corroborated by DNA tests of persons, in the present different continents. Different approximations of dates of how long ago these migrations have taken place are given by scientists, ranging from 30,000 to 90,000 years. Migration from present day Europe to America has occurred approximately, 30,000 years ago from Alaska to Bering Strait. The knowledge has advanced in this field since our student days, that young researchers could undertake further studies. The humans in different environments changed physical structures and there came into being, indices like Cephalic Index, of the equation between the head and the rest of the body. There is certainly a core-relation of these findings to the philosophical teachings of the Buddha.

An aspect that the pure-scientists, leave for social scientists is the trends of migration in the world, known to us. They were infact due to the worldly reasons propounded in the teachings of the Buddha, ignorance and lust. The emperors and kings or the Maha Sammatas, overwhelmed with greed and ignorance, ignored the Dasa Raja Dharma, taught in the Dhamma. The rulers in the present day world are bereft of any of the ethical codes of governance. It has been so from the time of the nation states emergence. They try to expand their territory for self aggrandisement. It is almost the same with all those who rule the present States. There would not have been two world wars, regional wars, religious and ethnic conflicts, mass displacements of people, hunger, deprivation, inadequate shelter, migrations at the risk of-lives, refugees and all the evils, if the world leaders were humane. The emergence of world bodies for preservation of peace, and economic advancement and social and cultural resurgence have been necessary because of mans inhumanity to man.

Dasa Raja Dharma

The Buddha taught the leaders to follow the ten royal ethics in the Kutadanda Sutta in Digha Nikaya which are as follows:

Liberality, generosity, charity (dana), morality (sila), loyal service (parichchaga), honesty (ajjava), kindness, gentleness (majjava), non attachment  mainly to power (thapas), non-hatred (akkhoda), non-violence, non political victimisation (avihimsacha), and non-opposition to peoples will (avirodha). When these virtues are translated to world politics today, and domestic politics, it is easy to comprehend that the varied administrations are responsible for the human problems and sufferings engulfing the nations.

Migration and violence

Leaving aside the individual national problems, the major crises spots of the world are sufficient testimony to the unethical governance in most countries. The migration and the refugee crises in the Middle East and the violence in the region is due to the non-conformity to any human ethics by the ruling classes. As space is inadequate, only the violence perpetrated in Europe during the last month are referred to in this essay. The political causes are well-known to the readership.

There was an exodus of humans from the Middle East due to non-ending violence, caused firstly, by the ruling classes, and secondly, due to the violence by armed groups on the respective governments and their forces. The fleeing of millions of people to safe places on earth, commenced over a year ago. This was mainly to Europe, and Europe welcomed them. The violence armed groups perpetrated on the people of Europe due to hatred-based wrong concepts, are spreading violence in various parts of the world. One continuing saga of this phenomenon of inhumanity of man to man, are the attacks, by armed groups on civilians. Therefore, this immigration to Europe from the Middle East is viewed by the Europeans, with a certain amount of suspicion mainly due to the terrorist attacks in the varied cities in Europe. In the month of July alone, there were attacks in Germany in a train at Wurzburg, Munich, in France, in Nice on Bastille Day, in a Christian Church in St. Etienne, and other sporadic violence. The debate in Europe is whether, the sympathy shown by them to the immigrants especially, from the Middle East had been adequately reciprocated. Since the time European leaders allowed the refugees to enter European countries in 2015, the terrorist violence they had to undergo seems to tell the immigrants that they are no more welcome.

Similar massacres continue in the name of ethnicity, religion, race and false concepts of freedom and sovereignty in other parts of the world, forcing populations to flee such regions. The onus of reducing this inhumanity by man on man stems from rulers and descends to the commoners. The rulers therefore, should follow a code of ethics, based on whatever, doctrine they follow. When such a world will be born is however, beyond comprehension.

(The writer was an Ambassador for Sri Lanka.)
Behind global crackdown on NGOs View(s):

By Somar Wijayadasa

NEW YORK (In-Depth News)  At a time when United States-Russia relations continue to deteriorate, Russia has blacklisted seven U.S.-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as being undesirable on its territory.This cannot be ruled as another manifestation of President Vladimir Putins Cold War-style paranoia as this happens in hundreds of countries around the world.

In the past year, Armenia, India, Egypt, Cambodia, Russia, China and Uganda are among the countries that enforced draconian laws to regulate NGO activities  mostly on suspicion of foreign governments interfering in their internal affairs.

Recently, Israel passed laws targeting NGOs that receive funding from abroad. Israels Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said the public needed to know when foreign states were meddling in its internal affairs. He said that the laws approval will increase transparency, contribute to creating a discourse that reflects Israeli public opinion, and will strengthen democracy.

The most notable ouster from Russia was the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in 2012, on charges of trying to influence the political process through the distribution of grants to anti-Putin political groups.

This probably came as retribution after a wave of massive anti-Putin political protests before and after his presidential election, and also the infamous Pussy Riot that caused a world-wide anti-Putin propaganda campaign.

Raising concern about outside political interference, Putin said: I object categorically to foreign funding of political activity in the Russian Federation  not a single self-respecting country allows that and neither will we.

Russia adopted NGO legislation, in April 2008, as it feared that foreign-funded NGOs are fomenting revolution in Russia, just as many believe they did successfully in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Another so-called foreign agents law passed in 2012, requires NGOs to register as foreign agents if they receive funding from abroad and engage in political activities.

Before signing that law, Putin told the Russian legislators: Dont be afraid of democracy. We must understand that democracy is different from a state of anarchy. Of course democracy implies a rule of law. [If we] fail to comply with existing national laws, democracy cannot exist.

Last year, Putin tightened the noose further by signing the Undesirable NGOs Law which empowers the Russian government to sanction any group as undesirable if it is deemed to undermine Russias constitution, defence and national security.

Twisting Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, I asked my erstwhile UN colleague who later became a member of the Russian Parliament: Do you agree that passing all these stringent NGO laws as punishment fit the crime committed by foreign governments funding and involvement in NGOs?

His agitated response was a resounding Absolutely yes. He added: Did you forget the Arab Spring revolutions, Maidan in Ukraine, the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, ethnic tensions in China? And who is causing all these in the name of democracy and freedom of speech?

He further reiterated, Russians and Chinese dont need foreign funding to develop their countries. These foreign fundings, he said,are covert operations to brainwash our people to revolt against democratically elected governments to cause regime changes.

It is precisely for this reason that more than one hundred countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe have already ratified legislation to register and monitor NGOs  thereby, to prevent foreign funding to domestic NGOs that exert undue influence on domestic policy.

These countries accuse the United States and European countries of using NGOs to support political unrest in the guise of supporting democracy, rule of law and human rights protection.

At a time of advanced communication capabilities when a political agitator can momentarily summon tens of thousands of people to stage a mass demonstration, Governments have every right to regulate NGOs, and be vigilant at all times to ensure that they only engage in legitimate activities, and not violate the countrys national security.

The purpose of rigid NGO legislation is quite explicit: it is to prevent foreign subversion of domestic politics.

In 1945, Article 71 of the United Nations Charter provided for the formation of NGOs in consultation with the Members of the United Nations concerned. And, since then, the UN has been a staunch supporter of NGOs.

NGOs proliferated after the second World War as most countries needed humanitarian assistance to uplift the masses from unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, health issues and repair war-damaged infrastructures.The World Bank defines NGOs as private organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development.

In keeping with the noble mission of the United Nations, millions of NGOs around the world continue to deliver humanitarian services in emergency situations, promote grassroots economic development, and provide much needed assistance in health, education and poverty alleviation.

UN accreditation rules theoretically require a democratically adopted constitution, representative structure and an appropriate mechanism of accountability but are largely devoid of timely enforcement powers.Many countries find that some NGOs are highly problematic in their conduct, funding, and connection to governments, programme mission and methods of work.

Some dubious NGOs have been front groups, weapons promoters and corporate lobby associations. It is now evident that western donors have historically used NGOs to exploit economic opportunities in poor countries, to counter hostile political ideologies and to aid terrorism against legitimately elected democratic regimes  just as Norway was accused of doing in Sri Lanka.

The global crackdown on NGOs unfortunately is coming at a time when many parts of the world are beleaguered with wars, refugees, hunger, unemployment, economic and health crises. Since it is usually the NGOs that provide first-line assistance to the needy, any legal implications and decreased resources could be an impediment to providing these vitally needed humanitarian services.

NGOs raise billions of dollars each year but they function without budgetary and governance oversight, and there is no accepted benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of NGOs in their stated missions.For example, the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) and the deadly earthquake in Haiti (2010) generated over $8 billion and $10 billion dollars, respectively  for disaster relief activities including medical care, shelter, food, and clothing for survivors.

But many unscrupulous NGOs, individuals and politicians reportedly pocketed billions of dollars because these countries lacked regulatory, legal and enforcement procedures.To avoid misappropriation of funds and also to avoid suspicion of subversive activities, foreign governments can provide funding through a Government established department or through a watchdog group to collect and channel foreign funding to NGOs as it is effectively done now in several countries.

All NGOs should adapt ways to avoid suspicion and prosecution by strictly adhering to the mandates they have provided to the donors and clients, and above all maintain transparency and accountability.It is time for both the NGOs and foreign governments to take a hard look at their mandates, their core values, and change how they operate. If not, these restrictive NGO laws taking hold around the world would have a profoundly detrimental impact on their legitimate services on behalf of the needy.

(Somar Wijayadasa, an international lawyer, was a UNESCO delegate to the UN General Assembly for ten consecutive years from 1985-1995, and was Representative of UNAIDS at the United Nations from 1995-2000.)
Private national education: the SAITM model View(s):

By Chula Goonasekera and Mahes Salgado

In Sri Lanka, anything private seems not too good nationally. Nationalisation is the buzz word, as it means somebody elses effort and work is acquired for presumed wider benefit of the public. Historically, however, this process is a proven pathway of politicisation leading to a gradual downfall of the institution ending up with increased public liability. A majority of the public see privatisation as a provision for public exploitation. But, is it? This impression is also prevalent amongst our reporters and publishers. This article is about one example where private education can be used for national benefit. Not many would want to publish this kind of article in their newspaper or website as it does not favour the buzz word, nationalisation and unfortunately, this kind of publication bias factures the foundation of independent reporting, which an essential feature of true democracy and healthy debate.

The South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) was a contemporary campus established in 2011 in Colombo to provide tertiary education for self-funding students.

It acquired degree awarding status for the MBBS medical undergraduate degree in 2013 and was to be on par with the MBBS degree awarded by the state universities in Sri Lanka. Since the course was fee levying, it was affordable only to a fraction of our community. This created a sense of a class divide. As a consequence, a protest campaign broke out against the SAITM which was mainly led by students attending the state universities who are enjoying free education. The protests were similar to those that were staged against the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) two decades ago, the first privately funded medical school in Sri Lanka started in 1980. The NCMC was abolished and nationalised in 1989 and was absorbed into the state sector, and renamed Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya.

I have no connection whatsoever with the SAITM. I am also not sympathetic to the protesters as their demands are extremely selfish. However, I see a novel educational model within this framework that can kick start our stagnant tertiary education system in Sri Lanka. Having studied and worked in a state university for over 20 years, my interest is to uplift tertiary education. We can re-model this educational pathway with broader understanding to benefit the entire nation as a whole.

When I entered the Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya in 1975 to study medicine, only two per cent of the Advanced Level student population got an opportunity to enter university. The remaining 98% that failed entry (not because they failed the Advanced Level Exam) had to find their own ways and self-fund their tertiary education. Today in 2016, after 40 years has gone by nothing much has changed. Only three per cent of the Advanced Level student population gain an opportunity to enter a Sri Lankan university. Sadly, as a country we have not really made any progress with regard to tertiary education for our children. This is a failed model that needs rational and radical modification.

We can never be a developed country this way as we are not producing a sufficiently skilled workforce that can match the demands of a developed country. Unless, we resolve this educational gap, we are to see more and more people protesting along road sides demanding jobs that are non-existent. That is why we need to find another model for tertiary education in Sri Lanka  without resorting to the export of housemaids. For us to be hopeful of becoming a developed nation, at least 40% of our Advanced Level student population should follow a relevant undergraduate degree program and acquire modern skills to cater to the current needs. There shall never be sufficient national funding for this purpose in the current environment of heavy national debt. Furthermore, free education is not sufficiently competitive to promote educational advances. Competitive education is not a bad thing. In fact conversely, it is the biggest impetus for modernisation.

The tragedy is that 97% of students who did not get a chance to enter a Sri Lankan university not only have to self-fund their tertiary education under the current setting but also pay taxes to fund the three per cent who entered the university as they receive free education via public money. It is these three per cent of students, who are now securely placed in state universities wanting to block medical and some other education programs for the others. This is an inverted model of capitalism. Basically students in free education want to privatise medical education for themselves. In the socialistic jargon, this is another form of the caste system, based on the Z-score mania. They have no right to interfere with anybody elses education, especially when they are funding it by themselves.

The problem with the SAITM is its lack of transparency in the student selection process and inaccessibility to the common man who cannot afford the fees. Both these issues can be resolved relatively easily.

The solution is within grasp in four realistic steps.

n The SAITM gets included in the University Grants Commission (UGC) admission hand book and student selection takes place via the UGC as for any other university study program in the country. Therefore, the current nationally accepted selection process will take over student selection to SAITM. In the UGC book this program should be identified as a fee levying program with details of the cost.

n The UGC Quality Assurance Council and the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) approve the acceptability of its curriculum with the relevant improvements.

n Advanced Level students can now select their choices upon their merit and include the SAITM also if they so wish. This will ensure equity at the application and entry level.

n If a student selected to the SAITM cannot afford the course fees there should be provision for him/her to apply for a low-cost repayable government loan. The loans are subject to mandatory repayment in instalments after their qualification and employment. Thus, ensuring that the increasing numbers of students entering tertiary education do not become a national burden.

n The SAITM be declared as a non-profit making organisation and subject to the Government auditors scrutiny.

The SAITM will this way come under the national framework as any other state university. However, the SAITM should preserve its automaticity and modify its curricula in keeping with rapidly evolving medical knowledge. It should also retain its right to the processes of modification and recruitment of staff. It should also preserve the right to select a small proportion of exceptional students, including foreign students in keeping with UGC policy. This is to ensure that these institutions are not locked in with an outdated national model and can improve the quality of their programs to maintain student demand and become financially self-sufficient. Fifty per cent of medical knowledge changes every five years. The current curricula revision pathway in the national university system is too snail paced to keep it modern and up-to-date.

This is a good model of tertiary education that will apply to most other programs also. It will also invite other investors to establish quality educational institutions in Sri Lanka. It is also a model that can attract foreign students via our own A Level exams (A major investment for the country). This will resolve this issue in the long run and allow more self-funded education programs to join the UGC. This will give a much needed boost to education in our country and also stop the brain drain of educators.

(Chula Goonasekera is a former professor and dean of the University of Peradeniya and Mahes Salgado is the Head of the English Language Teaching Unit.)
Italy's Supreme Court ruled this week that public masturbation was not a crime, overturning the sentence of a 69-year-old who had masturbated in front of students on a university campus.

By India Today Web Desk: Italy's Supreme Court, La Corte di Cassazione, overturned a 69-year-old's three-month jail sentence, saying public masturbation was not a crime, unless done in the presence of minors.

The man -- identified only as 'PL' -- was originally sentenced to three months in prison and fined Euro 3,200 (approximately Rs 2,40,000) in May 2015. He had masturbated in front of students on the University of Catania campus, according to documents filed with Supreme Court.

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His lawyer, however, appealed the case to the country's highest court, which overturned the decision by local courts.

According to a Daily Mail report, PL argued that 'he only does it occasionally,' and that it would have been hard to see him because he did it around dusk when there was 'reduced visibility'.

He will now receive damages between Euro 5,000 and Euro 30,000 (Rs 3,75,000 and Rs 22,54,000), according to a report by The Independent. Various politicians in the country have slammed the ruling, and accused Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government of being 'pervert sympathisers'.



A change in the law last year decriminalized public masturbation, as long as it isn't performed in front of minors.

via GIPHYIf caught masturbating in front of a minor, a person can be imprisoned for up to four-and-a-half years.



Public masturbation is a criminal offense in many various countries, however, and can result in a jail sentence.

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Reliance is doing an unprecedented launch," says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP and founder of BPL Mobile. "For the network to become a real network, they need the 'oxygen' for telecom-interconnection." Interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities belonging to a different carrier. Without interconnection, calls cannot be placed between competing operators. "In 1998, BSNL was denying us interconnection," he recalls, joking about using the Reliance Jio handset on his table as a paperweight.

Regulations announced in 1998 made it a right for a new operator to be given interconnection with existing industry players. As Rajan Mathews of COAI (Cellular Operators' Association of India) says: "There is basic interconnection for a certain volume of traffic. If I send you 50 calls, you have to send me 50 calls. There cannot be unfair trade." Mahesh Uppal, a director with telecom consultancy Com First India, elaborates: "An operator (say A) who originates a call to another operator (say B) has to pay for it: Operator B will bill operator A. At the end of the month, minutes of calls sent and received will be tallied and cancelled and the extra minutes billed."

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However, technicalities are muddying the issue.

Reliance Jio Infocomm's network began commercial services on September 4. Until then, despite having over 1.5 million users, Reliance classified Jio's services as a 'test launch'. Incumbents, miffed with Reliance's aggressive entry strategy, claimed that Reliance's test launch was, in fact, a commercial launch from the very beginning. This led to squabbles over a number of issues, including fulfilling obligations for interconnectivity. "Reliance and other operators seem to have their own interpretations of rights and obligations during the testing phase. Telcos feel Reliance has taken testing too far and has launched full commercial service in the test phase," adds Uppal. Industry players, policymakers and analysts are all wondering why the regulator has been so lax in defining 'testing'. "There is a grey area between pilot and commercial launch," says Chandrasekhar, pointing to the need for a proper set of rules.

A protracted dispute over interconnection spells trouble for Jio. It is not even the first time Reliance is dealing with hostile incumbents. Back in 2007, when TRAI was questioned by a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Telecom about the apparent 'cartelisation' of GSM operators against CDMA entrant, Reliance Communications (RCom), they described it as 'cooperative pricing'. India's telecom market was-and still is-dominated by GSM players. RCom's launch of CDMA technology at the time was accompanied by as much hype as the 4G LTE rollout now. The promise of CDMA was also data, which GSM players did not offer at the time. In order to stymie competition from the newest entrant, almost all operators offered similar pricing, and interconnection with other operators was a massive challenge for RCom, leading to the ultimate failure of its CDMA venture.

The challenges for Reliance are many. While other incumbents battle to retain customers-Vodafone and Bharti Airtel were quick to announce equally competitive tariff plans-for Reliance, the big challenge will be to swiftly build a customer base. For that, the company needs to ensure that other operators provide the interconnectivity it needs.

by Shweta Punj

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2015-06-01-EMB-YMCA1.JPG

The Northwest Family YMCA in Lysander had several break-ins to cars recently.

(Ellen M. Blalock | eblalock@syracuse.com)

LYSANDER, N.Y. -- There have been 27 car break-ins recently at the Northwest Family YMCA.

Over the past few weeks, an unknown thief smashed the windows of vehicles parked in the Lysander gym's 8040 River Road parking lot and stole items, said Sgt. Jon Seeber, of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office. The break-ins happened both during the day and at night, the most recent theft occurring at night this week.

There are no suspects yet, Seeber said. Deputies are investigating the thefts and reviewing each case, he said.

Deputies asked anyone who has information about the thefts or spotted anyone acting suspiciously near the YMCA recently to call (315) 435-3051 or text TIP411.

YMCA members learned about the thefts through a letter from Lisa Pachmayer, the gym's executive director. A YMCA spokeswoman said a security guard has been hired to monitor the parking lot.

Gym parking lots are common targets for car break-ins, Seeber said. And the Northwest Family YMCA was not the first YMCA in Central New York to be targeted by thieves.

In January, 10 purses were stolen from 10 cars parked in the Skaneateles YMCA & Community Center's parking lot. Deputies later charged two women with using IDs stolen during the break-ins in a check cashing scheme.

The Skaneateles thefts came less than two weeks after cars were broken into outside the Auburn YMCA.

As deputies continue to investigate the string of thefts at Lysander's YMCA, Seeber shared advice to help residents keep their valuables safe.

Seeber encouraged residents to pack lightly when going to the gym. For those who need to carry more than car keys and identification, Seeber said residents should lock purses and other valuables in their trunk before they leave for the gym.

"Out of sight, out of mind," he said. "If they don't see it, they're going to move on."
'The allegation that Madan Mitra is corrupt has hurt me the most and tarnished my family's image. Time will prove my innocence,' Mamata's former minister said.

By Indrajit Kundu: Trinamool Congress heavyweight and former Bengal minister Madan Mitra was released from Kolkata's Alipore jail on Saturday. Mitra's release comes after spending 21 months in jail following his arrest in the Saradha chit fund scam in December 2014. "I am happy. I am very happy that being a Bengali I will be able to celebrate Durga Puja after 2 years," Mitra said after coming out of jail, adding that he had full faith in the judicial system.

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READ: Saradha accused Bengal minister Madan Mitra granted bail



However, despite being released Mitra could not visit his residence at Kalighat as the Court had mistakenly mentioned Bhawanipore as his official residence in the order. Thus he was taken to a hotel under the Bhawanipore police station area which will be his temporary address for the time being. His lawyers stated that they will seek an amendment to the order once the court reopens on Monday so that Mitra can get back home.

Meanwhile, Mitra on his part refused to comment on the CBI's argument that he was an 'influential' person. "Since the matter is subjudice, I do not want to comment on it. Since I have been unwell for a long time my doctors have advised me not to get into any political debate."

On Friday, Kolkata's Alipore Court had granted bail to Mitra on a personal bond of Rs 30 lakh and on condition that he would not be able to leave the city. The court has also asked the former Trinamool minister to submit his passport and appear before the local police station once every week.

"I will abide by the conditions set by the court. I will fully cooperate with the CBI and appear whenever asked for," Mitra said, adding that he has full support from his party. When asked about what he felt of the entire episode in hindsight, Mamata's former minister said, "The allegation that Madan Mitra is corrupt has hurt me the most and tarnished my family's image. Time will prove my innocence."



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A New York City police officer (unidentified, left) leads Treasure Coast resident Richard Stark from the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Firefighter Angel Rivera, Stark said, saved his life by sliding him down a steel beam from the Marriott Hotel into the rubble of the South Tower. Rivera's partner died while assisting in the rescue. Photo provided by Richard Stark

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By Christin Erazo

VERO BEACH ? At 80 years old, John's Island resident Dick Stark thought he had lived a good life.

He had been married to Barbara for 57 years. Their five children were successful. He had served in the Navy, traveled extensively and was enjoying retirement after being a Wall Street lawyer for 42 years.

So, when he found himself trapped in the fourth-floor stairwell of the World Trade Center Marriott Hotel on Sept. 11, 2001, he had come to terms with the fact he was going to die.

The 22-story hotel, nestled between the north and south towers, was reduced to a pile of rubble once the south tower fell.

"When I looked out from the crushed stairwell, after tower two fell, I said to myself, 'This is where I'm going to die. I'd always wondered how, and this is it.' " Stark said. "I never thought I'd get out of there."

Stark, now 90, said once the dust plume from the south tower cleared, an angel, in the form of a New York City firefighter appeared and assured him he would get out safely.

Twelve hours prior, Stark had checked into the Marriott for the night, like he had done so many times before, after concluding a series of meetings at the office where he had worked in lower Manhattan.

That evening, Stark played tour guide to a South Carolina lawyer and together they rode the elevator to the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center to see the New York City skyline from the Windows on the World restaurant.

"We must have been the last sightseers to walk around and see that gorgeous view of Manhattan lit up at night," Stark said.

The next morning, Stark said he awoke to papers and debris fluttering outside the window of his fifth-floor hotel room. He had no idea both towers had been hit. The hotel was under an evacuation order, and Stark, who is hard of hearing, didn't hear the alarms.

A bellboy carried his bags and led him to the stairwell. One flight down, Stark said "all hell broke loose."

Stark described the tumbling of the south tower as a "terrible whoosh" that ripped the outside facade of the building, exposing the stairwell. He said concrete, steel and beams were strewed all over, when suddenly two firefighters appeared.

Angel Rivera and Angel Juarbe Jr., "big angel" and "little angel" as Stark called them, came to the rescue.

Rivera sent Juarbe up one floor to find some rope so Stark and others in the stairwell could rappel down the building to the ground. Stark said soon after, the building shifted and Juarbe died. His body was recovered months later.

Stark said Rivera quickly took his hand and they slid, shimmied and scaled down the rubble on their bellies until they reached the ground.

He said he doesn't know how his ailing 80-year-old heart was able to climb the rubble, but he credits Rivera for not letting him give up.

Stark said for the next few hours he was numb as he made his way to emergency vehicles, rode a ferry to New Jersey and waited to be picked up near the New Jersey Turnpike. When his family friend arrived, he said he sobbed uncontrollably as the emotions of the day came over him.

Stark said he's thankful to be alive, but the emotional and physical scars of 9/11 remain. He has since suffered respiratory problems and post traumatic stress as a result of the attacks,

"(Life) never did get back to normal," he said. "9/11 was much more personal and traumatic for me than anything I'd experienced."

Stark still keeps in regular contact with Rivera, speaking with him on every holiday and 9/11 anniversary. He also still travels to Manhattan and last visited ground zero three years ago. But he won't be attending memorial services this year so he can care for his ailing 88-year-old wife, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 2002.

"I have rejoiced in the fact that I've been able to have a second chance at life," Stark said. "I thank the Lord that I'm here to help her."
As reported in The Cambridge Student, a University-made video aimed at the latest intake of freshers has been leaked on the internet before it was finished. The catchily-titled video, Cambridge Stay Safe On A Night Out has caused some controversy because one of the gems of advice it doled out was ditch the gown and the tux before heading into Cambridge for a night out so youre not an easy target for aggression from the townsfolk. Doesnt that project a lovely image? Here we are, descending from the towers of our castle (possibly built from some kind of elephant tusk, who can say) down to the village outside the keeps walls, to indulge a skin of wine and fondle some wenches, when the bally commoners try to pick a fight with us!

Welcome to Cambridge! they could have crowed, Embrace our ancient traditions! But not too fully, in case you get decked by a prole!

Amazingly, some of us students have lived in places where street violence occurs (such as, ooh, any city in the country) and are vaguely aware of how to avoid it. However, you cant knock the videos intentions. Violence does exist, and the video-makers want to protect freshers from it. Fair enough  even if it is a bit patronising.

However, you might think that they would have learned from recent, well-publicised examples of authority figures advising people to change what they wear in order to avoid violent attacks. Advice that places the onus on avoiding attacks on the potential victim is problematic. The SlutWalk movement, and other campaigns aiming to end the culture of victim-blaming, have been widely discussed, especially in student media.

However, the videos suggestion doesnt just disrespect the potential victims of violence, but the supposed perpetrators too. By intimating that Cambridge residents are likely to hunt out students to mock/beat up/mug, the video patronises students and vilifies local people. As much as it warns us not to behave like Brideshead-inspired caricatures, it stereotypes Cambridges many non-student residents as student-hating, violence-prone thugs.

Granted, this very paper ran a news-story last year when a group of students were attacked in a nightclub by four non-students who did seem to be specifically targeting people in dress-shirts, but this story was so shocking specifically because this type of behaviour is rare. Personally Ive seen more antagonism between Anglia Ruskin and Cambridge students than Ive seen from townies towards students.

One of the brilliant things about going to a non-campus university is that you dont live in a student bubble devoid of real people. Every day we mingle with people who have jobs and pay taxes. This is a good thing. It keeps us grounded. It stops us disappearing too far up our own backsides and reminds us that after our three years here are up, well be out in the real world like those people.

The idea that non-students are alcohol-fuelled bulls who will charge at the wave of a gown is not only stupid, it is damaging. We can all get along. Were doing it fine. We manage to frequent the same shops, pubs and cafes that normal people do, day after day!

If the town/gown divide was so real, and crossing it so dangerous, then student unions across the country would be advising students not to wear University Of hoodies and to hide their textbooks inside copies of Nuts. But they dont, because it isnt.

It isnt difficult to get along with non-students. Theyre not a different species, a warlike race of Orcs preying on us innocent, book-loving hobbits. Theyre just people! Our Cambridge acceptance letters didnt transmute us into a separate race, and no-one thinks they did, apart from, seemingly, whoever inserted that nugget of advice into the video. Interestingly, it was developed by Campuslife, a film company based in West Yorkshire. Perhaps town/gown relations are less cordial in Leeds. I couldnt say.

Certainly, the film-makers hearts were in the right place. Its just sad that their attempts at good advice instead come across as divisive scare-mongering. Better advice might be dont act like a twat when out in public, a nicely universal maxim that can be applied across the board to anyone, no matter what university they do or dont attend.

Zoah Hedges-Stocks

Releated Article:

Cambridge University students told to ditch the gown before going out
Cambridge University has refused to answer important questions regarding last weeks conviction of a former Cambridge Philosophy professor for child pornography offences.

Dr Peter Smith, aged 67, who officially retired from the Faculty of Philosophy in September 2011, was sentenced on Friday to a three-year community order and has been placed on the sex offenders register for a period of 60 months for downloading 4143 illegal images of children between 2009 and 2011.

He has also been banned from using any computer with internet access and is required to attend a programme for internet sexual offenders, as well as completing 180 hours of unpaid work.

Smith was arrested in May 2011 after a police investigation into a website based in Luxembourg found he had been a customer.

The court heard the images found on Smiths computer ranged from level 1 to level 5 in the COPINE scale, which is used to categorise indecent images of children. Level 5 is defined as deliberately posed pictures of fully, partially clothed or naked children in sexualised or provocative poses.

This is not Dr Smiths first brush with controversy. In July 2003, he was forced to resign as a Fellow of Jesus College, after the Mail on Sunday exposed him as having slept with prostitutes in his college study free of charge, in return for writing explicit reviews of the escorts lovemaking abilities and sexual preferences for a website linked to the escort agency. The study was the same one in which Smith conducted one-to-one supervisions.

The reviews described in pornographic detail, three-in-a-bed sex sessions, oral sex and other practices that cannot be described in a family newspaper, according to the original Mail on Sunday article.

Dr Smith was suspended from teaching in the Philosophy Faculty from 1 September to 16 December 2003, and returned to teaching at the start of Easter Term in 2004.

Smiths return to teaching after only 8 months caused considerable outrage among students. At the time, a University spokesman defended Smiths return: The complaint was investigated and was dealt with under the provisions of the appropriate university disciplinary statute.

This week, The Cambridge Student asked the University a detailed series of questions, enquiring whether the University was launching an investigation into Smiths conduct and activity on University computers while he was working in the Faculty; whether any of the pornographic images had been downloaded using University computers; and whether any had been seized/searched during the course of the police investigation. These questions were all directly ignored by the University.

The University also refused to comment on whether it had been remiss in allowing Smith to return to work following his suspension in 2003, and whether, in light of Smiths non-custodial sentence, he would have any future involvement with the Faculty or University.

The only statement the University was prepared to make on the matter read as follows: Dr Smiths resignation from his Fellowship was accepted by the then Master in July 2003. Dr Smith retired from his position at the Faculty of Philosophy in September 2011.

In particular, the University has refused to provide detail on whether Smith will have any future involvement with the Faculty, in the light of his non-custodial sentence. Neither his arrest in May 2011, nor his retirement in September 2011, seem to have prevented Smith from maintaining a profile within the University. On 26 October 2011, he gave a talk to the Serious Metaphysics Group within the Philosophy Faculty.

Students however are not as keen as the University to sweep this story under the carpet. Cambridge University Students Union Womens Officer Ruth Graham told TCS: It seems reasonable to ask that the University make a formal enquiry into Peter Smiths activities during his time as an employee of the Philosophy Faculty, given the appalling nature of his offence. Furthermore the decision to allow him to return to teaching after sleeping with prostitutes in his college study seems incredible, and certainly requires some explanation. Womens Forum will discuss this fully and decide if we formally raise the matter with the University. Students fundamentally deserve transparency in such serious issues.

Michael Yoganayagam  Associate News Editor

Article first published 08 March 2012
By India Today Web Desk: Shah Rukh Khan gets philosophical once in a while, and he did with a recent post whose caption was "The distance between you and the world around you can only be closed by the innocent...#srkinstagyaan". However, what really caught our eye was the video SRK filmed that of his son AbRam running in slow-motion to Bryan Adams's Run to you.

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ALSO SEE: SRK teaching a young Aryan the perfect choke, make him the most badass father

The video is really well done, and makes us believe that the veteran actor has the makings of a great director. The actor always plays down to work in the other departments of filmmaking, saying he is far too happy with his job of playing the leading man. But we hope that one day, he takes up the mantle of a film he wishes to make.



The distance between you and the world around you can only be closed by the innocent...#srkinstagyaan A video posted by Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) on Sep 9, 2016 at 3:03am PDT

Shah Rukh is a post-graduate in Mass Comm. from the famous Jamia Millia Islamia University, where he actually studied film appreciation and is quite knowledgable about films and filmmaking. A majority of his audience aren't aware of his background of films, and take his films like Chennai Express at face value.

However, looking at this Instagram post at least a segment of his fan-base is hopeful that he will soon take up direction and show Bollywood how it is done. Let's wait and watch till then.

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California has taken a significant step in fighting global warming after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new bill designed to reduce the state's carbon footprint dramatically over the next 15 years.

The new legislation, known as SB 32, aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in California by as much as 40 percent below levels recorded in 1990 by 2030. This goal is considered to be more ambitious compared with the previous target of lowering carbon emissions to match those of 1990 levels by 2020.

During a ceremony in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 8, Gov. Brown described the goals of SB 32 as both farsighted and far-reaching. He said that California is trying to accomplish something that no other state in the country has done.

With the adoption of the new law, it is expected to change various aspects of life for Californians. These include where people will live, how they are able to get to work, how food is produced and where the state will get its supply of electricity.

Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), explained that the key to achieving the target depends on being able to maintain regulatory efforts across all economic sectors in the state.

So far, California is well on its way to meet the 2020 climate target of reducing carbon levels in the state to match those recorded in 1990. The government has made efforts to cut emissions significantly such as limiting the amount of carbon included in diesel and gasoline products, encouraging people to buy zero-emission vehicles and placing a tax on pollution.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) said the state now intends to build on these achievements and beef up its climate change efforts.

Plans include increasing the use of electricity from renewable sources, improving energy efficiency in buildings and putting as many as 1.5 million zero-emission cars and other vehicles on roads around California.

Opposition From The Oil Industry

Before the signing of SB 32, supporters of the climate change legislation had to overcome strong opposition from the oil industry. Some Democrat Assembly members have even blocked another bill that would have limited the use of oil products in California.

The California Chamber of Commerce said SB 32 places severe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions in the state without considering how it will potentially affect the economy and residents of the state.

California Manufacturers and Technology Association (CMTA) president Dorothy Rothrock said manufacturers in the state already face energy costs that are higher compared with those of their counterparts in other states.

She said that adopting a new climate change target without providing cost-effective options could contribute to the struggles of manufacturers.

Carlson, however, pointed out that the clean-energy industry in California has flourished over the past few years since the state adopted greener policies a decade ago.

She said that this demonstrates how governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions but still experience significant economic growth.

In 2015, Gov. Brown released an executive order to adopt the new climate goal for 2030.

Thursday's ceremony also saw the governor sign a companion bill that gives California more legislative oversight regarding the CARB. It also provides more aid to areas in the state affected by climate change the most.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Officials in the Eastern Mediterranean country of Cyprus are puzzled by reports from residents regarding a fiery meteor streaking across the sky and causing a thunderous noise on Sept. 9.

According to the police, several eyewitnesses claimed of seeing a strange glowing object flying over the Troodos Mountain range the evening of Sept. 8.

People living in the area said they saw what appeared to be green-white lights in the sky at around 1 a.m. This was then followed by a loud explosion from afar and a shaking of the ground.

Iordanis Demetriades, a spokesman for the Cyprus Geological Department, said they haven't found any evidence that an object from space impacted Earth on Friday.

If the reports of a meteor flying over the Troodos Mountain range were true, Demetriades said it is likely that the space rock may have already exploded in the sky.

Officials from the Cyprus police are now looking for the remains of the supposed meteor. However, experts say that the meteorite would probably be only a small object.

Close Encounters With Meteors

While it is still unclear whether a meteor did hit the planet on Friday, such incidents aren't as uncommon as many people would think.

NASA data shows that as many as 13,500 space rocks, including comets and asteroids of all shapes and sizes, have been detected transiting within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit. About 30 of these near-Earth objects manage to reach the planet every year only to burn up in the atmosphere.

Many of the meteorites that hit Earth are often left undetected mainly because they tend to land on bodies of water instead of impacting on the ground directly. The planet is also known to be sparsely populated, which makes it less likely for a meteorite to hit areas where people live.

An example of a largely unnoticed meteorite impact was the one that occurred over the Atlantic earlier this year.

NASA reported that a space rock about 5 to 7 meters (16 to 23 feet) wide landed off the coast of Brazil in February. Despite being considered a significant event, experts believe such sea-borne landings won't produce the same damage as land-based impacts.

"Events this size aren't too big a concern," astronomy blogger Phil Plait said. "Had it happened over a populated area, it would've rattled some windows and probably terrified a lot of people, but I don't think it would've done any real damage."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Facebook reversed its decision on banning an iconic Vietnam War photo following a day of criticism from all directions.

Critics accused Facebook of abusing power after it removed two posts that featured the infamous napalm girl photo. The first censored post was by Norwegian publication Aftenposten. The other was by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Facebook initially defended the move citing the fine line between iconic and child pornography upon evaluation of The Terror Of War photo by Nick Ut taken in 1972.

"We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community. Our solutions won't always be perfect, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them," a Facebook spokesperson said.

However, Facebook was forced to reinstate the images following backlash from its community.

"After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case. An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography. In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time. Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed. We will also adjust our review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward. It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days. We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe, and we will be engaging with publishers and other members of our global community on these important questions going forward," a Facebook representative told Recode.

Is Zuckerberg The World's Most Powerful Editor?

Espen Egil Hansen, the CEO of Aftenposten, dubbed The Zuck the "world's most powerful editor" and underlined how unfortunate the decision to remove the photograph was. According to Facebook, the famous "Napalm Girl" photo that contains child nudity in the aftermath of a napalm strike violates its community standards.

Hansen signed an open letter to the Facebook CEO to express his disgruntlement with the situation.

He underlines that not being able to tell the difference between "child pornography and documentary photographs from a war ... will simply promote stupidity."

The original image was captured by Nick Ut, an Associated Press photographer. It immortalized a group of children fleeing from a napalm bombing, one of which was the 9-year-old Kim Phuc, who is naked in the photo.

Norwegian writer Tom Egeland recently posted the image as part of a discussion about images that define the history of warfare. Quickly afterward, Egeland's Facebook suspended his account on accusations that the post does not comply with the user agreement.

Aftenposten covered the subject of the suspension and shared it, only to have the story removed from the paper's Facebook page.

Before deleting the story, Facebook sent a warning letter to Aftenposten where it pointed out that full frontal nudity or buttocks photos will not be tolerated on the social media platform.

In his open letter to Zuckerberg, Hansen urges the CEO to "offer more liberty in order to meet the entire width of cultural expressions." He further mentions that Facebook's censorship seems to be "limiting freedom [instead] of extending it," and the authoritarian means in which it happens is at least troublesome.

Norwegian PM Erna Solberg joined the fight by posting the iconic "Napalm Girl" photo on her own account.

"Facebook is making a mistake when it censors these types of photos. It contributes to limiting the freedom of expression," Solberg wrote.

She underlines that she supports "healthy, open and free debates" both inside and out of the digital world and she has no taste for the type of censorship that Facebook is dwelling in.

Blame Facebook's Algorithm

This is not the first time the social media company's practices have been questioned.

Recently, 18 of the company's contractors involved in curating topics were fired as accusations of bias poured in. After the incident, Facebook replaced the curatorial team with an algorithm.

However, this did not prove more efficient in trimming out fake or inappropriate posts.

The algorithm caused a number of hoax stories to reach the news feed of users, some of which had trouble telling fact from trolling.

Some chastised Facebook's algorithms, accusing them of preferring publications that create shareable content but which prove to contain little to no relevant information.

Is it time for Facebook to have an editor, a human editor that is?

Image: Cliff | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Google has reached a milestone in its DeepMind artificial intelligence (A.I.) project with the successful development of technology that can mimic the sound of human voice.

Dubbed as WaveNet, the breakthrough was described as a deep neural network that can generate raw audio wave forms to generate speech. It can reportedly beat existing Text-to-Speech systems.

According to researchers in the Britain-based WaveNet unit, the gap in human performance, which could be demonstrated in an actual A.I.  human conversation  is reduced by as much as 50 percent.

What is also interesting about the WaveNet technology is that it is capable of learning different voices and speech patterns to the point that it can even simulate mouth movements and artificial breaths in addition to emotions, language inflections and accents.

"A single WaveNet can capture the characteristics of many different speakers with equal fidelity, and can switch between them by conditioning on the speaker identity," the researchers wrote in a paper.

WaveNet is currently capable of using the English and Chinese languages. It can also produce music such as classical piano pieces and compose songs on its own.

The significance of the recent A.I. breakthrough for Google rests on the sheer amount of data required to achieve its current technological quality. To put this into context, one should just consider how most computer-generated Text-to-Speech technologies are based on the collection of huge amounts of human sound recordings.

Google is using A.I. to address the challenge, selecting an approach called modelling raw audio based on previous technologies called PixelRNN and PixelCNN or two-dimensional Pixelnets. The new system, described as one-dimensional WaveNet, requires at least 16,000 different bits of samples per second, which entail the use of immense computing power, WaveNet's creators said in a blog post. The system had to be trained to produce utterances and learn context, among others. In total, the WaveNet algorithm required 44 hours of sample sounds recorded by more than a hundred speakers.

At the moment, observers do not see any immediate commercial utility for WaveNet in contrast to a DeepMind algorithm that can reduce energy consumption, as previously reported by Tech Times.

However, as people are increasingly becoming dependent on technologies, there is a need for sophisticated and natural mechanisms that will ensure an effective and seamless interaction with humans. It is for this reason why WaveNet is being closely watched by tech companies, according to Bloomberg.

Photo: A Health Blog | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A number of Zika virus cases are being reported in Southeast Asia over the past couple of weeks, of which many cases are believed to be of locally transmitted infection. Prevalence of local Zika virus strain in the region puts forth a question on the possibility of immunity against the disease.

Zika virus was first identified in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and in the next 50 years multiple sporadic cases were reported in many countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. After about half a century, a potentially serious outbreak involving 300 Zika virus cases is reported in Singapore just the past two weeks.

Eventually, the Ministry of Health's National Public Health Laboratory of Singapore sequenced the first reported three Zika virus strains, two cases from Sims Drive/Aljunied Crescent cluster and one infection acquired out of the country. Analysis showed that the sequence of Zika virus strain acquired from out of the Singapore was similar to the strain found in South America.

The report said that the result is in accordance with the fact  the patient's travel to Brazil two weeks before he developed the symptoms. The other two strains from patients who did not travel to any of the countries with an ongoing infection had sequences similar to that of Zika virus that has been circulating in the region for decades.

The researchers also noted that there is currently no evidence to explain the similarities and differences between the locally transmitted strain and South American strain in terms of type or severity of the disease.

Given that Zika virus has prevailed in Southeast Asia for a long time, it makes sense to believe that people from the region could be immune to the mosquito-borne Zika virus infection.

Jamal Sam, a virologist at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, said that there is ample evidence that the Zika virus has been in Southeast Asia for quite some time. And since there is a possibility that the virus could be infecting people silently for decades, people could be immune to the virus.

Sam added that a person infected by the virus once, won't probably get it for the second time. While it seems possible, it is not yet certain how immune people are to the virus.

However, the immunity theory may or may not work, said Jasper Chan, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

"Microcephaly, Guillan-Barre and all the other concerns about Zika are still a threat to people in this region" said Chan, until it is clearly established that people are immune to the infection. "The virus could spread explosively or not. We'll have to wait and see how the story unfolds."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Medical Board of California has accused Dr. Robert Sears of gross negligence, filing a complaint after the "alternative vaccine schedule" proponent allegedly failed to properly care for one of his patients.

According to the complaint, the patient, a toddler, was exempted from continuing prescribed childhood vaccines by Sears, a recommendation not based on evidence, which left the child and his mother, as well as all other people they will be in contact with in the future, at risk of communicable and preventable diseases.

The child was brought in for a consultation with Sears after the toddler's mother complained about adverse side effects from previous vaccinations. According to her, after the boy received his three-month vaccines, he went limp like a ragdoll and lost urinary function.

After the consultation, Sears wrote a letter excusing the child from receiving childhood vaccines further without obtaining the boy's complete vaccine history. This letter, however, was not stored as part of the boy's medical file, for which the California Medical Board is also accusing the doctor of failing to maintain accurate and adequate records.

When the boy had a headache after being hit on the head, the doctor also failed to conduct a neurological test.

Sears and the medical board will be meeting on Sept. 20 for a settlement conference. If a settlement is not reached, a hearing with an administrative law judge will be in order. The judge will provide a proposed decision that will be reviewed by the medical board. The California Medical Board will still have the final say on the matter.

Complaints against physicians in California may be filed by patients or the public, which will be reviewed by the medical board. If the initial review yields evidence of a violation, the case is forwarded to the state deputy attorney general, who will be initiating an investigation with the aid of an expert in the physician's particular field.

Sears released a book called "The Vaccine Book," which promotes an alternative vaccine schedule that delays childhood vaccines by months and even years from the schedule prescribed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For example, a child who has already received their prescribed shots at two and four months but is now making the switch to Sears' alternative vaccine schedule will be getting their DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) and Rotavirus shots at six months. According to the CDC's prescribed schedule, the child should be on dose 3 (of 5) of DTaP and dose 3 (of 3) of the Rotavirus vaccine at this point.

In August, a California judge denied an injunction against the state's new vaccination law, which requires school children to receive vaccination against contagious diseases. Some 33,000 students in the state may be denied enrollment in kindergarten or the seventh grade as a result, but San Diego District Judge Dana Sabraw said that right to education must give way to protecting the health of the children.

California made the move to enforce a new vaccination law after a massive measles outbreak in 2014 was traced back to an unvaccinated child in Disneyland.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Well, it was definitely not an ordinary week! Apple iPhone 7 stormed over the minds of tech enthusiasts and gadget lovers. In-fact, we covered whole lot of things about Apple this week, starting from their phones to their 'no-warranty for water damage' and the new Apple Watch. Interestingly, amidst all Apple stories, Reliance Jio did manage to get a spot for itself. Yup... their apps are now dominating Google Play Ratings.

Also, a few stories from IFA Berlin added a bit more spice to the week, including announcements regarding Lenovo's two new budget phones and modular desktop PCs. Along with these, we also came across recently that new Galaxy Note 7 stocks come with a safety mark, which is, pretty obvious, after all the heat.

Here's a list of best 10 stories we have covered this week in consumer technology:

Apple's Warranty Doesn't Cover Water Damage For "Waterproof" iPhone 7

Waterproof phones have been around for over a decade. Especially, the Japanese have affinity towards such handsets. In the land of rising Sun, brands such as Sharp, Fujitsu, Kyocera have been churning out handsets that can withstand water. For the rest of the world though, the first water-resistant mainstream Android was the Motorola Defy.

Read The Full Story Here

Reliance Jio Apps Are Dominating Google Play Ratings

Ever since Reliance Jio 4G came into the market with its cheap data and call rates, the world of internet has been changing at a rapid pace, in India. After Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance industries spoke about the services of his latest USD 21 billion venture, the telecom industry has been running amok with telecom service providers doing everything they can, to retain customers, with better value for money offers.

Read The Full Story Here

Apple iPhone 7 Event: Complete Coverage

At the Apple Special Event (September 7, 2016), it was the duo of iPhones that took the centre stage. Apple did not bother to refresh the design. However, the fans did have something to cheer about as both the newly announced iPhones are water and dust resistant. Apple took its sweet time, but finally you can challenge your Galaxy edge wielding friends at a pool party.

Read The Full Story Here

The Apple iPhone 7 Plus Flaunts A Dual-Camera Setup

At the event held in San Francisco, Apple unveiled two new handsets  The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. One of the highlights of today's keynote has been the dual-camera setup, which comprises of a 12-megapixel snapper and a depth sensor. This arrangement is quite reminiscent of Huawei's Honor 6 Plus. Such setup enables you to alter the depth-of-focus of a photograph.

Read The Full Story Here

Apple Watch Series 2 Goes Waterproof

Along with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 2. Much like its predecessor, the newly launched line-up is square and has the signature crown for scrolling and zooming. The biggest upgrade comes in the form of a waterproof shell that can work 50 metres under water. For swimmers, Apple has developed new algorithms workout options: pool and open water.

Read The Full Story Here

IFA 2016: Lenovo Brings Two Budget Handsets To The Berlin Party

After unveiling a fancy Moto handset at IFA 2016, Lenovo has showcased two Android handsets in Angela Merkel's country. The P2 is a mid-range device whereas the A Plus caters to the mass market. For the P2, Lenovo has gone with a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED screen. Goes without saying that you get excellent contrast, rich colours, and perfect blacks. It is powered by the Snapdragon 625 chipset.

Read The Full Story Here

IFA 2016: Modular Desktop PCs Still In Vogue

At the IFA 2016 in Germany, the technology flowing about, has been noteworthy, as it seems there is something for everybody, even those who like PCs. Though most PCs aren't on the shopping list of most users, but the use of modular PCs (sometimes called mini-PCs), seem to be still in vogue as some brands have presented some sleek looking models at the event.

Read The Full Story Here

Google's Project Ara Gets A Final Nail In The Coffin

Under Google's leadership, Motorola Mobility acquired Modu, a small company that popularised the downright dumb idea of manufacturing modular phones. Thanks to a fancy promo video though, most people started seeing it as the future of mobile phones. The search engine giant soon announced project Ara with a promise of delivering open-source hardware, where upgrading phones would be as simple as playing with Lego blocks. Google was so positive about the project that while selling off Motorola's handset division to the Chinese brand Lenovo, it retained the Ara team.

Read The Full Story Here

Meizu's M3 Max Takes On The Xiaomi Mi Max

Meizu recently announced its new smartphone, dubbed the M3 Max. As the name suggests, the smartphone is announced to tackle the likes of Mi Max smartphone, by Xiaomi. The smartphone features a 6 inch Full HD IPS display, while, it is powered by a MediaTek Helio P10 processor, 3 GB RAM, and 64 GB internal storage, which can be expanded upto 128 GB via microSD card.

Read The Full Story Here

New Galaxy Note 7 Stock To Sport A Safety Mark

The Galaxy Note 7 had an "explosive" launch. It received glowing reviews from websites around the world. Later, it made headlines with the reports of exploding batteries. Samsung swiftly acknowledged a critical safety issue and initiated the handset replacement programme. According to the various reports, the entire episode might cost the company around $1 billion.

Read The Full Story Here

Top 10 Stories
Norway Accuses Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook of Draconian Censorship Over Deleted Photo of Napalm Girl

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook came under intensive firestorm in Norway for deleting a photo of the famous Napalm Girl. At the center of the controversy is the deleted image, known as The Terror of War, was shot by Nick Ut in 1972. It depicts nine-year old Kim Phuc fleeing from napalm bombing during the Vietnam War.

Zuckerberg and Facebook faced intense accusations of censorship from Norways largest newspaper and the nations prime minister on Friday following its decision to delete posts containing the Pulitzer-winning image.

One of Norways popular dailies, Aftenposten flailed Zuckerberg in an open letter to the Facebook chief executive on its front page, lashing out at Mark Zuckerberg for limiting freedom. The editorial said that it couldnt accept that the social network had removed the Vietnam picture from the dailys Facebook profile earlier this week.

Norways Prime Minister joined the bandwagon by a scathing post on Facebook. In a Facebook post, Prime Minister, Erna Solberg blasted the networking giant for its abuse of power while deleting the iconic photograph. Facebook gets it wrong when they censor such images, she said. I say no to this type of censorship.



Facebook acknowledged facing a challenge. While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it is difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others, a Facebook official said in an emailed statement.

The Facebook official declined to comment on Ms. Solbergs statement, saying only that its rules applied to everyone.

Facebook has been at the heart of many such deleted posts. Its content policies have come under growing scrutiny because the social network has become one of the worlds largest platforms for news distribution.

Update # Facebook has bowed to the popular wishes in Norway and restored the image.
By India Today Web Desk: Shah Rukh Khan is known to be a loving father, for actually craving for more time with his kids. He's even known to drop his kids off to school inspite of his busy schedule. Therefore it doesn't come as a surprise, that a throwback video shows the superstar teaching his own son how to choke people, guiding his son's arm around his own neck.



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Shah Rukh Khan has admitted to being a hardcore Dilli ka launda, when he first came to Mumbai back in the late 80s. He's spoken about his short-fuse at length in many interviews. And this post is rather adorable as daddy SRK teaches his son the technique for the perfect choke, just before he's about to start a session of gym with his trainer.

ALSO READ: Shah Rukh Khan escorts son Aryan Khan to film school at USC

Aryan Khan has grown up to become a handsome, young man, all set to go to University of Southern California for film studies. He's become quite the heart-throb of Instagram, with young girls drooling over his looks, which resemble his good-looking father. In the post, Shah Rukh laughs uncontrollably as Aryan tries to choke him and forces him to say 'tere maata di'.

SRK known for having a fabulous sense of himself, never shies away from making fun of himself, putting himself in the harm's way to entertain people around him. He doesn't fail at home definitely.



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On the debate, two pollsters who conducted studies, agreed on Saturday that former president Lula defeated Bolsonaro. | Read More
The dreaded gangster-turned-politician, who was languishing in Bhagalpur jail for last 11 years, was granted bail in an eyewitness murder case on Wednesday by the Patna High Court.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Dreaded gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin walked out of Bhagalpur divisional jail today to a hero's welcome after 11 years behind bars.

The four time Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP came out of jail exactly at 7 am amidst much fanfare and celebrations by his supporters at the jail. His supporters were waiting outside the jail since 5 am to welcome their leader. As soon as they got a glimpse of Sahab, as he is called by his supporters, they chanted "zindabad" slogans in his support. Shahabuddin left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.

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Later, he was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers. He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district.Couple of legislators from Mahagathbandhan government, one each from JDU Giridhari Yadav and RJD Hari Shankar Yadav were also present at the jail to welcome the dreaded gangster.

ALSO READ | Nitish is not my leader, I don't share cordial relation with him, says Shahabuddin

The RJD parliamentarian had got final reprieve on Wednesday when Patna High Court granted him bail in a case of murder of a witness in the 2004 killing of two brothers in Siwan. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.



Rajiv Roshan, an eyewitness in the acid attack case of Siwan, was gunned down allegedly by Shahabuddin's sharp shooters in 2011. Roshan was eyewitness in the murder of his two brothers Satish Raj and Girish Raj who were sons of a noted businessman Chandrakeshwar Prasad. Satish and Girish were kidnapped and murdered on August 16, 2004 in Siwan, the turf of the former RJD MP Shahabuddin. However, it was the brutal manner in which both brothers were killed that shocked everyone. Both, brother were drenched in acid before being killed allegedly on Shahabuddin's direction.

NITISH NOT MY LEADER: SHAHABUDDIN



Speaking to India Today Shahabuddin said, "Everyone knows I was framed... Politics has nothing to do with my bail".

The gangster-turned-politician praised party chief Lalu Prasad while making it clear that there was no love lost between him and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Asserting that he is loyal only to Lalu, Shahabuddin said, "Nitish Kumar changes stance according to situation. He is not my leader, Lalu Prasad will always be my leader."

"Lalu and I share a relationship which is very strong and it does not require public display", he said.

Shahabuddin after his release dismissed charges levelled by the BJP that his coming out of jail would mark return of terror in Siwan."Sushil Modi is speading baseless charges against me. Nobody takes Modi seriously in Bihar. Do you see any face with me who has fear written on his face ?", said Shahabuddin.

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Rajiv who was the sole witness in the killing of his two brothers was to appear before the court three days later from when he was killed. Shahabudin was sentenced to life imprisonment in the killing of the two brothers by a special court in December, 2015. He, however, got bail in March 2016 in this case.

"We are very scared now that Shahabuddin is returning. There is threat that he may also eliminate me and my wife," said Chandrakeshwar Prasad, father of the three brothers.

WHO IS SHAHABUDDIN?

Shahabuddin, who was recently inducted into the national executive of the RJ(D), is considered very close to Lalu Prasad. Sources say, Lalu played a key role in Shahabuddin's ouster from jail as the Bihar government did not pursue the case of eyewitness Rajiv Roshan's murder seriously.

Known as terror of Siwan, Shahabuddin has almost 63 cases against his name relating to murders and kidnapping. In 38 cases, either he has been acquitted in many of them or has been granted bail. The murder case of Rajiv Roshan was the 39th case which held him inside the jail. After the High Court granted bail, it paved way for his release from the jail.

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Shahabuddin's role also came under scanner in the killing of a Rajdev Ranjan, bureau chief of a Hindi daily in May this year. Ranjan was killed after he was gunned down allegedly by Shahabuddin's sharp shooters. Shahabuddin was lodged in Siwan jail till then was immediately shifted to Bhagalpur jail in order to prevent him from influencing the probe.

ALSO READ | Nitish's minister feasts with Mohammad Shahabuddin inside Siwan jail



Shahabuddin has been listed as "A" type history sheeter by Bihar government which means that a criminal who is beyond reforms.

It was Bihar CM Nitish Kumar who soon after coming to power in November 2005 cracked down on Shahabuddin and pushed him inside the jail.

SUSHIL MODI CRITICISES BIHAR GOVT

BJP leader Sushil Modi has launched a scathing attack on Bihar government alleging that the state government has paved the way for the release of dreaded gangster turned politician Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail. The former RJD MP was granted bail on Wednesday in connection with an eyewitness murder case and is likely to be released in couple of days from Bhagalpur jail where he is lodged at present.

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Modi alleged the state government systematically did not allow the trial to be completed in the eyewitness Rajiv Roshan murder case despite the Court in February this year directed that the trial be concluded within six months. Roshan was the sole eyewitness of the murders of his two brothers that took place in Siwan in 2004. Roshan was allegedly gunned down by Shahabuddin's sharp shooters in 2011.

Modi questioned whether the state will impose Crime Control Act against Shahabuddin. He said when the government considers Independent MLA Anant Singh, also known as terror of Mokama as a threat to law and order and has imposed CCA on him, then why was the state government so keen on releasing Shahabuddin from jail?

However, Shahabuddin's release will change the poltical dynamics of Bihar politics as relations between JDU and RJD likely to turn sour.



ALSO READ:



Sushil Modi slams Bihar government for releasing Shahabuddin from jail



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Nick Ut and his famous photo "The Terror of War" at the auction in Ho Chi Minh City on June 8, 2015. Photo: Ha Dinh Nguyen

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut, best known for his napalm girl photo, auctioned five of his photos to raise money for a children charity program in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.

During his trip to Vietnam this time, the Associated Press photographer held the auction with the help of his Vietnamese friends.

Proceeds will go to a fund dedicated to poor, homeless children and supporting heart surgeries for children. The fund was initiated by Vietnamese actor and TV host Chi Bao.

Among the five photos is the famous "The Terror of War," which helped Ut won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.

The photo features a naked 9-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running toward the camera after a napalm attack in Saigon on June 8, 1972.

The picture became one of the most famous photographs to come out of the Vietnam War.

Monday also marked 43 years after Ut shot the now-iconic image of the girl. He returned to the village and captured some of his memories there, this time with an iPhone.

From June 12-26, an exhibition featuring Associated Presss Vietnam War photos will open in Hanoi. The napalm girl photo will be on display.

This photo, named Buffalo Boy, was also auctioned by Nick Ut.
The second tower of the World Trade Center collapses after being hit by a hijacked airplane in New York, September 11, 2001.

We all remember where we were when the planes hit the World Trade Center  and then the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania  15 years ago this Sunday.

I was barely 20 years old, offshore in the Bay of Biscay as a volunteer able-bodied crewmember on a square red sailing ship for disabled people. Immediately, one had the feeling that the destiny of millions of people  perhaps many I knew  had been immediately changed.

For the officials in authority, it was likely even more jarring. For them, it meant nothing less than changing the way the West approached the world.

The kaleidoscope has been shaken British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Labour Party conference less than a month later in a speech that promised to reorder the world.

We will never know, of course, what might have happened if the West had responded differently.

Over the years, though, as every anniversary has passed, Ive been struck by an ever-growing nagging thought: Did the reflexive response  perhaps even overreaction  make matters worse?

Thats not to minimize the human tragedy  or, perhaps as important, the psychological impact of the assault. Nor is it to say the West should have ignored the threat from Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and Islamist militancy in general.

But with the distance of time, there seems a rather jarring mismatch between what actually happened and how we responded.

I was as guilty of that as anyone else. Its not that most of us necessarily saw a dramatic increase in Western military involvement in the region  Iraq as well as Afghanistan  as being a necessary response to what had just happened. Its just that it felt inevitable.

A rescue helicopter surveys damage to the Pentagon as firefighters battle flames on September 11, 2001.

For years, many had known that the risk of high-casualty attacks was growing. Islamist militants had struck the Twin Towers before, with a 1993 car bomb that killed six people and wounded more than 1,000. Later, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania demonstrated the attackers ever-growing reach. So did the attack on USS Cole in October 2000.

The technology used in these attacks was never particularly sophisticated  bombs crammed into trucks and boats. What al Qaeda was getting ever better at, however, was identifying points of vulnerability and exploiting them to increasingly devastating effect.

The death of almost 3,000 people on 9/11, however, left U.S. intelligence and military chiefs feeling blindsided. Having failed to prevent the attack  or even predict one of such scale  they abruptly revised many of their expectations. 9/11 was seen as something which might take place every week, one former senior security official told me a decade later.

When Blair, in particular, comes back to justifying and explaining the Iraq invasion, thats the core of his argument. Al Qaeda killed 3,000 on 9/11, but if they had been able to kill 3 million he said, they would have done so. The threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, therefore, could not be allowed to continue.

With hindsight, this was nonsense. Leaving aside the desperately imperfect knowledge of what Iraq might or might not have had, it assumed the consequences of invasion were easy to predict.

Philosophically, there was a substantial gap between right-wing neoconservatives such as Vice President Dick Cheney and more neoliberal interventionists such as Blair. Yet they came to the same conclusion: A more assertive military approach was central to both protecting the West and pushing back militancy by improving conditions in the poorer and more volatile regions of the world.

That thinking continued past President George W. Bush and Blair into the Barack Obama and David Cameron administrations. Both endorsed their own regime change operations in Libya after the Arab Spring. And both made the same discovery  intervening is complicated, and sending large numbers of Western troops on theoretically time-limited missions inevitably achieves less than the planners hoped.

Nor, crucially, has it done much to significantly reduce the threat of militant attacks. Though the West had, until the attacks of the last two years, largely escaped more than occasional  if bloody  bombings, thousands died as militant groups instead struck in states such as Pakistan, Nigeria and, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan.

What weve now seen is something of a sea change in Western thinking. The military interventions now underway  against Islamic State in Iraq, the air strikes in Somalia, the much smaller campaign in Afghanistan  have a different flavor. For better or worse, the driving force is usually the local government. When U.S. and allied troops and officials join the effort, it is in a supportive role rather than with the ambition of temporarily dominating the country before withdrawing. That makes more sense  even if political and military leaders have little appetite for talking about previous failures and just why they changed their tactics.

Working through local forces and power structures was, ironically, at the heart of the initially impressively successful 2001 operation to topple the Afghan Taliban. Those lessons, though, were swiftly lost against the backdrop of more grandiose, militarily conventional ambitions in Iraq.

A visitor pauses to look at 'The Last Column' in front of the World Trade Center's original slurry wall at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 1, 2016.

The one place this strategy does not work is Syria. There, the United States remains desperately conflicted about whether it still wishes to bring down the government. It also finds itself squaring off against other governments, including Iran, Russia and now Turkey, that have very different perspectives and opinions.

The irony is that while so much of the intellectual and financial energy has gone into the larger wars since 9/11, the West has actually had considerable success on the counterterrorism front. Al Qaeda was gradually dismantled, Bin Laden eventually found and killed. Through surveillance, intelligence, Special Forces troops and drones, militant operations have been disrupted.

None of that prevented the rise of Islamic State, which is now finding new techniques to hurt the West, particularly by radicalizing individuals or tiny groups who can conduct hard-to-stop low-tech mass casualty attacks. But that shouldnt be surprising. Like using antibiotics to treat an infection, there will always be virulent new strains requiring a different treatment.

Its easy to say that attacks  and attackers  should be found and neutralized long before they strike. But thats never going to be entirely possible. Whats important is to keep an eye on the real dangers and the real tools to mitigate them: limiting availability of weapons, not alienating large segments of the population so that they report potentially radicalized individuals. We need to avoid an overreaction that ends up polarizing society, deepening divisions and just making everything worse. In Europe, unfortunately, things seem to be going exactly the opposite way.

The ultimate strategic bungle that opened the door to the attacks on New York and Washington was alarmingly banal. It should never have been possible for passengers on aircraft to be carrying lethal edged weaponry like the box-cutters used to kill the pilots. Nor should the attackers have been able to get access to the cockpit.

Still, 15 years after that terrible day, I can't help but wonder if we might have achieved more by simply doing less.

* Peter Apps is Reuters global affairs columnist, writing on international affairs, globalization, conflict and other issues. He is founder and executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century; PS21, a non-national, non-partisan, non-ideological think tank in London, New York and Washington. The opinion expressed is his.
A file photo of Vietnam Construction Bank's branch. Photo credit: Saigon Times Online The Ministry of Public Security are seeking criminal charges against 49 people for allegedly cheating a local bank out of over VND18.68 trillion (US$817.45 million).

About one-third of the suspects are dismissed executives of Vietnam Construction Bank, which the central bank took over early this year following continued losses.

Pham Cong Danh, who was the bank's board chairman before the case was busted last July, allegedly devised different scams to steal from the bank, including setting up fraudulent companies to take out huge loans.

In 2012, the central bank was restructuring Trust Bank and rebranding it into Vietnam Construction Bank. Around 20 investors were allowed to join.

One of them was construction conglomerate Thien Thanh, for which Danh also served as a chairman, w ith a 80 percent stake. In September that year, Thien Thanh acquired a 9.67 percent stake in the bank.

Most of the other new investors were either companies founded by Danh or his relatives, according to investigators.

Danh ended up controlling more than 84 percent shares in Vietnam Construction Bank, said investigators in a report recently submitted to the country's top office of prosecutors.

Pham Cong Danh, dismissed board chairman of Vietnam Construction Bank, is accused of constructing scams to pocket more than US$817.4 million.

As the bank's de facto boss, Danh colluded with other executives, including CEO Phan Thanh Mai and director of the bank's Ho Chi Minh City branch Mai Huu Khuong, in faking documents to take money from its budget supposedly for funding system upgrade and new office projects.

He also founded a dozen of subsidiaries in the name of Thien Thanh Group to take out loans from the bank, using the group's assets including real estate Da Nang, which had already been put down as collateral for loans at other banks. The value of the assets was also inflated.

By the time the scams were discovered, they had withdrawn more than VND18.68 trillion in total from the bank, about half of which could not be retrieved, according to investigators.

Danh and his accomplices can be charged with "deliberately violating state regulations on economic management resulting in serious consequences," "violating rules on lenders' activities," "violating lending rules," and "dereliction of duty," if investigators' proposal is approved.

Among the suspects were four officials with the central bank who were tasked with supervising the construction bank's activities during the restructuring.

Under Vietnam's existing laws, they could be jailed for up to 20 years.

Established in 1989, Trust Bank started getting into problems in 2011 with increased bad debts, mainly in the real estate sector. The central bank then listed it among nine weak lenders in need of restructuring.

After the 2013 restructuring effort, Vietnam Construction Bank still suffered losses, and needed more fund, estimated VND3 trillion ($135.12 million).
A Vietnamese court jailed a former bank executive for 30 years on Friday for illegally withdrawing more than 9 trillion dong ($404 million), the biggest such loss brought to light in the country's banking sector, state-run newspapers reported.

Pham Cong Danh, former chairman of the Construction Bank, was found guilty by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court of intentional wrongdoings and violations of lending rules, the Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said.

Danh stood trial with 35 other defendants, including many of the bank's executives. The former chief executive officer was jailed for 22 years.

Starting as a tile seller, Danh expanded his family shop into a company dealing with building materials, real estate and tourism before buying the small, debt-ridden Trust Bank in 2012, which was later renamed the Construction Bank, based in the Mekong Delta province of Long An.

Danh and his bank staff had drawn up false lending papers to withdraw funds from the bank, even after it was placed under special supervision by the central bank because of its losses.

Vietnam's fragmented banking sector has undergone major reform in recent years, with stricter lending and debt classification, forced takeovers, numerous fraud investigations and the formation of a state-run asset management company to lend support.

The State Bank of Vietnam, the country's central bank, bought the Construction Bank in early 2015 and assigned Vietcombank, the country's biggest listed bank, to oversee the restructuring process.
Phan Thi Kim Phuc after speaking at the Grant Memorial Baptist Church in Canada on September 6, 2015. Photo credit: CBC

"The Girl in the Picture" Phan Thi Kim Phuc has joined voices calling on world leaders to work together to end the atrocities that are forcing thousands of Syrians to flee their homes.

Kim Phuc, subject of the iconic photo napalm girl taken during the Vietnam War, on Sunday shared her thoughts about another tragic war photo that has garnered attention from around the world.

The photograph of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi washed up dead on a Turkish beach has become a symbol of the worst refugee crisis in the world in seven decades.

Phuc was just nine years old when she was photographed naked and screaming after being burned in a napalm attack during the Vietnam War in 1972.

Nick Ut's photo "The Terror of War" shows Kim Phuc naked and screaming after a napalm attack during the Vietnam War in 1972



The photo, officially named The Terror of War, won its author Nick Ut the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. It has become one of the most recognizable photos in the world and according to historians, a major inspiration for the anti-war movement.

Phuc, who came to Canada and later studied to be a doctor, told CBC newspaper during the visit that the Syrian boy photo underscores the impact war has on children and the future that is robbed from them.

I cried a lot. Why do more innocent children have to die like that.

I know that picture will wake up the whole world. We have to help people.

Theyre so innocent and they should have a great life ... and enjoy their childhood, not dying and suffering like that.

Phuc said she hopes the government in Canada, where the Syrian boy's family had been trying to emigrate, and others around the world continue to open their borders to Syrian refugees.
By PTI: Patiala, Sep 9 (PTI) Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today challenged Arvind Kejriwal to substantiate his claims that Punjabs Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had prepared 63 CDs of alleged misdeeds of AAP leaders to defame the party. "Or is it a preemptive admission on your part that you know more scandals are about to tumble out of your cupboard and you have decided to put the blame on someone else," Capt Amarinder asked.

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"No doubt the Akalis and Sukhbir are capable of doing any dirty thing, but even he cannot make fake CDs unless you and your own people are not involved," he said. Earlier while interacting with people, Amarinder promised to hold the Badal family including Bikram Majithia accountable for "all their sins of omission and commission". "I will avenge all the excesses and injustice you suffered," he said. Amarinder promised to continue with the aata-dal scheme if the Congress was voted to power in the next Assembly polls. "We will also provide sugar and tea under this scheme. We will also ensure good quality wheat to the people and not the substandard as supplied by the Akalis," he said.

"Congress will not only continue with the free power to farmers, it will also ensure regular power supply," he added. Besides, he said, the government will not charge anything from the farmers for their tubewell connections also "as currently they are made to pay a large amount by the Akali government". PTI SUN CHT SMN CHT

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"The UKs actions in Libya were part of an ill-conceived intervention, the results of which are still playing out today."
The front cover of Norway's largest newspaper by circulation, Aftenposten, is seen at a news stand in Oslo, Norway September 9, 2016.

Facebook Inc on Friday reinstated a Vietnam War-era photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack, after a public outcry over its removal of the image including harsh criticism from Norway's prime minister.

In a clash between a democratically elected leader and the social media giant over how to patrol the Internet, Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg said Facebook was editing history by erasing images of the iconic 1972 "Napalm Girl" photograph, which showed children running from a bombed village.

The company initially said the photo violated its Community Standards barring child nudity on the site.

"After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case," Facebook said in a later statement, adding it recognized "the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time."

Solberg posted the iconic "Napalm Girl" news photograph on her Facebook page after the company had deleted it from sites of Norwegian authors and the daily Aftenposten. Facebook had also removed the photo from the page of the woman who had been photographed as a girl.

Captured by Pulitzer Prize-winner Nick Ut of the Associated Press, the image of screaming children running from a napalm attack shows a naked nine-year-old girl at its center.

Solberg said Facebook's ban put unacceptable limits on freedom of speech. "They must see the difference between editing out child pornography and editing out history," she told Reuters.

"It's perfectly possible for a company like Facebook to sort this out. Otherwise we risk more censorship," she said.

Protesting Facebook's move, Solberg re-posted the photo with a black square covering the naked girl, and published a range of other historic images blacking over faces of people such as Ronald Reagan or Winston Churchill.

She also posted a version of the "Tank Man" image from the 1989 protests in China's Tiananmen Square, with a black square covering a man standing in front of a row of army tanks.

Solberg wrote on her Facebook account: "I want my children and other children to grow up in a society where history is taught as it was."

Aftenposten splashed the Vietnam photograph across its front page on Friday, next to a large Facebook logo, and wrote a front-page editorial headlined "Dear Mark Zuckerberg", saying the social network was undermining democracy.

Earlier, Facebook said in a statement its rules were more blunt than the company itself would prefer, adding that restrictions on nudity were necessary on a global platform.

Norway is a big investor in Facebook. Its $891 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world's biggest, had a stake of 0.52 percent in Facebook worth $1.54 billion at the start of 2016.

Solberg told Reuters she intended to maintain her Facebook account.
East Baton Rouge building official Justin Dupuy is bracing to tell a lot of people they're going to have to demolish or elevate their homes.

Only two homeowners have been given notice already, but more are likely on their way, he said.

Federal building inspectors will be arriving in Baton Rouge next week to begin damage assessments, which will start the process of determining how rebuilding will proceed. On Friday, an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency explained how those inspections will be conducted and buildings assessed.

According to the latest estimates, nearly 6,000 structures  which includes non-residential buildings  took on more than five feet of water. Each case is unique, but once a house receives five feet, the damage is "pretty substantial," Dupuy said.

Even at lower water levels the damage could be great enough that a homeowner would be federally mandated to elevate or rebuild.

All told, Dupuy estimates that between 5 percent and 10 percent of the people who have applied for building permits so far have damage that indicate they may need to raise or raze their homes. And he only oversees the city proper and the unincorporated areas of the parish. Other municipalities, like Central, have their own permitting divisions.

There are some caveats: in East Baton Rouge, homes won't have to elevate if they're already one foot above the base flood elevation level, and on Wednesday the Metro Council will vote to exempt people in low-risk flood zones from elevation standards, a measure Dupuy is 99-percent sure will pass.

The big factor will be "substantial damage," a term indicating a structure has been 50 percent damaged. However, different agencies measure the 50 percent damage threshold in different ways.

Essentially, FEMA will come in and make broad assessments, using photos and quick visual inspections of properties. They use a formula to translate the damage into a cost estimate, which is then compared to the neighborhood's average price per square foot to determine the percent damage.

Their goal is to identify properties that are definitely substantially damaged and will have to be elevated or bulldozed as well as properties that are clearly safe to begin rebuilding.

The city-parish will follow up on buildings that are closer to the line. Dupuy wants to spot check everything that comes back in the 40 percent to 60 percent damage range. Those inspections can be more specific.

Dupuy said FEMA's general estimates are typically accurate, but there are some cases in which a homeowner may be able to argue down an assessed percentage. He recalled a woman who was once told her house was 61 percent damaged, but she came back with a property appraisal and contractor bids which showed she was actually 37 percent damaged.

"It's not a simple cut and dry thing," Dupuy said.

FEMA floodplain management specialist Angel Cabiya explained how federal inspectors perform their assessments.

FEMA by jeff nowak on Scribd

First, every house is broken down into its components: foundation, exterior finish, cabinets and countertops, etc. Each is given a weighted value. For a more-or-less typical wood frame house the appliances may be rated at 4.2 percent of the house's total value, while the frame is 15.9 percent.

Then, each of the 12 components are separately graded. For example, the inspector's guide describes possible damage to a home in which the interior finish is 50 to 75 percent damaged thus:

"...Water damage at the lowest levels of the wall assembly  wall and trim, window sills and window aprons, wall paneling, wainscoting and chair rails require removal and replacement. Wall surfaces should be removed to a height of 4 feet..."

After all the categories are assigned a damage value, the assessors add up the percent damage and weigh each category to come up with the percent number for the whole house. That gets translated into a dollar amount which is compared to the neighborhood's average price per square foot, usually the number set by the tax assessor. Inspections typically last 15 to 20 minutes, Cabiya said.

He said the FEMA estimate is useful to help overwhelmed local governments expedite permitting for large groups of people who are clearly not substantially damaged or start sending notices to people who will clearly need to rebuild.

These assessments don't affect anyone's personal assistance amount. However, they can be used later on when the state starts awarding out flood mitigation money  basically a federally-funded program in which the government provides assistance to people who want to elevate or move out of areas that consistently flood.

The federal inspectors have been in Louisiana for awhile, but have been working in other communities, such as Denham Springs, where Cabiya hopes they can finish in a week or two.

The city-parish will direct the inspectors. Dupuy expects them to start with the hardest hit areas around O'Neal Lane, Old Jefferson Highway and Old Hammond Highway so they can begin to tell people if they definitely need to raise or demolish.

Dupuy said they will be dispatched to the pockets that got it worst so they can work their way back to the people in less damaged areas. With ten teams of two or three inspectors each, he expects the process to last two months but hopes all the substantially damaged properties will be addressed in the first few weeks.

People may begin reconstruction at their own risk, he said. In the last Metro Council meeting, city officials repeatedly warned elected leaders that if they don't follow federal guidelines about elevation, the entire parish could lose its ability to participate in flood insurance.

Many of FEMA's forms, instructions to inspectors and sample documents are available online at http://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1735-25045-0007/sde_forms_combined___pdf.pdf or by searching "substantial damage estimator."

The documents currently online have been updated in the past year, but Cabiya said the two versions are "essentially the same."
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Priyadharshini was tied to a lamp post for nearly 3 hours for stealing Rs 2,300 from Priya's purse. But none of the villagers intervened.

By Pramod Madhav: Inhumane act of a 13-year-old girl tied to an electric pole and flogged for hours has occurred at Vellore district of Tamil Nadu.

Priyadharshini was living with her grandmother as her parents had gone for work. Her neighbor Priya asked if she could accompany her to a relatives marriage at Madhanur. Attending the marriage ceremony they returned home and Priya asked Priyadharshini to hold on to her purse for a while.

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Around 5.30 pm on Thursday, Priya and her relative Hemalatha came along with some people to Priyadharshini's grand parents' house and started yelling. She accused Priyadharshini of stealing Rs 2,300 which was in Priya's wallet and before anyone could react, pulled Priyadharshini out of her home and they tied her to an electric post and started beating her. None of the villagers intervened unfortunately.

Priyadharshini was tied to a lamp post for nearly 3 hours and suffered from humiliation and agony until Hemalatha's husband returned from work. He untied Priya and sent her back home.

Police have arrested Priya and Hemalatha and have filed charges for hurting a child. Priyadharshini's parents were shocked and said that their child would never steal from anyone.

ALSO READ:

Delhi: Cops arrest 1, apprehend a juvenile in Rs 2 crore theft



--- ENDS ---
Photo by Millie Ball -- On a rainy day a week after the terrorist attacksi in Paris, locals and tourists go to Place de la Republic to pay respects to victims of the ISIS massacre. White tents cover TV cameras and trucks with satellite dishes ring the plaza.
"Why not a united Baton Rouge, why not a united Louisiana, why not a United States of America?" -- Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden
While people displaced by the flood languish in shelters and scramble for limited housing, they're being joined by a new group of renters who thought they survived the flood intact but who now find themselves newly homeless.

At the massive St. Jean apartment complex near the corner of O'Neal Lane and South Harrell's Ferry Road, renters who live in upstairs units are being evicted because repairs downstairs have made the buildings unsafe.

The 624-unit complex still looks like a disaster scene, with demolition crews walking amidst piles of appliances and columns of flies. Now moving vans are pulling in alongside the SERVPRO trailers that are there for disaster restoration work.

Work crews have had to tear out firewalls, which pose a risk for the apartment buildings to go up like a matchbox and trap people in a fire.

"We wanted to keep everybody we possibly could," said Scott Miller, with the property's maintenance staff.

"It's life and safety issues."

Tenants have until Monday to find a new place to stay. Looking out from his balcony, Randy Dachenhaus said he doesn't know where he's going to live, since the people who actually flooded have already taken the local rental properties that were available. Maybe he'll go back to Ohio, he mused, before being called away.

During a break from loading a moving van, Terron Harrison said her grandmother in New Orleans had agreed to take her in. Her employer, a hair salon, was able to move her into a job there.

While she was able to find a place to stay and work, Harrison worried about all the families in her neighborhood who are now displaced.

Several real estate and safety professionals said they were aware of the conditions at St. Jean but weren't sure when they were contacted if upstairs renters were being moved elsewhere.

Chandra Giambrone wouldn't be surprised if upstairs tenants of multi-story apartment buildings that flooded were being forced to move out.

Giambrone, president of the Baton Rouge Apartment Association, recalled that following Hurricane Gustav people were evicted because a tree fell on one part of a building, and inspectors determined it compromised the structural integrity of the entire apartment.

State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said his office hasn't ordered any shutdowns but that he was aware that the East Side Fire chief was concerned about conditions at St. Jean. The department has placed a trailer on-site to provide fire watch.

"We're trying to do our best," said property manager Jenni Hubert.

"We know it's a hard situation, and it's hard to watch."
South Louisiana homeowners are beginning to rebuild after last months devastating flood, but its important for those who had flood insurance to work with claims adjusters and contractors before moving forward with repair work.

Homeowners need to communicate with whoever is handling the remediation and rebuilding and with the flood insurance claims adjuster to make sure they get the proper amount of money needed to cover the cost of fixing damage, said Jeff Albright, chief executive officer of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of Louisiana, which represents 400 independent insurance agents around the state.

Have the communication done before you make all the commitments, Albright said. In some cases, negotiations may be needed if theres a gap between the estimates of the adjuster and the contractor.

+7 As Louisiana rebuilds from flooding, contractors scramble to meet demand The devastating floods that hit south Louisiana earlier this month may have damaged tens of 

While flood adjusters use the same computer software to determine what a homeowner should get paid, Albright said they do work to make sure a fair value is paid out. Adjusters will conduct a thorough inspection, then issue a detailed room-by-room cost estimate of damage and a proof of loss form. If more damage is uncovered by the contractor or the work ends up costing significantly more than initially thought, homeowners can still get a fair payout, even after they signed the proof of loss form, he said.

In some cases, they will issue a check for a supplemental claim payment after work is done, he said.

If you can't reach an agreement with the claims adjuster, FEMA said you need to talk to the adjuster's supervisor by calling the adjusting firm, according to the agency's National Flood Insurance Program National Flood Insurance Claims Handbook. If that doesn't work, contact your insurance carrier's claims department to discuss the monetary difference or coverage issue.

Homeowners need to be sure that theyre working with reputable, licensed contractors and not storm chasers who are looking to charge an unreasonable amount. To verify that a contractor is licensed, visit the Louisiana Licensing Board for Contractors' website.

"You have to be a little more careful if you're working with people from out of state," Albright said.
As they've cycled through six shelters over the past month, Gerald and Cris Burkins have celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary, reunited with their nine Chihuahuas and earned the nicknames "House Mama and House Papa."

Those have been the highlights for them over weeks marked by one tragic event after another. Their house in Walker filled with more than five feet of water, forcing them from shelter to shelter as they remained separated from family. Later they learned their daughter's boyfriend was in a car wreck that killed him and they still haven't been able to see her. Throughout it all, the couple has made little progress as they try to work out how to buy a car and rent an apartment, both key to them being able to move on.

The Burkins say they have lost track of time because it does not matter any more for them. They are just two of the more than 850 people still left in shelters across East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, East Feliciana and Tangipahoa parishes, down substantially from a high just after the mid-August floods of more than 11,000 people statewide. If there was ever novelty in living alongside strangers and not having control over what to eat, what to wear and where to go, it has long since worn off.

More and more people leave the shelters every day. The Burkins say they are happy for their friends who have left, but they and the 90 others still staying at the L.M. Lockhart Center in Denham Springs wonder if anyone remembers them.

"The aftermath is worse than the actual flood," said Gerald Burkins. The first time he felt like people in shelters hadn't been forgotten about was when snowballs were delivered, and Burkins said he was in tears as he and his wife slurped down their cherry-flavored treats.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has teams at every shelter across the region who are making sure that people at shelters are registered with the agency. FEMA spokesman Alberto Pillot said people in shelters who owned or rented property before the floods qualify for the agency's transitional shelter assistance, which includes rental assistance, the shelter-at-home program and temporary mobile homes as a last resort.

Pillot stressed that FEMA is only able to meet the immediate needs of people, and that their housing programs are not long-term solutions. He said once FEMA gives someone the assistance they need, that person is responsible for finding the rental unit or hotel room or next place to go.

The American Red Cross and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge are among the agencies trying to help people in shelters figure out the options for their next form of housing. Catholic Charities Executive Director David Aguillard said few rental units and hotel rooms available have made it hard for people to transition.

And people who say they are searching every day for a way to leave shelters are becoming discouraged. Without transportation, good leads on a place to live and a way to pay for it, shelter residents said they do not know how they will be able to move on.

"The attitude changed," said Tyrone Trent, who has been staying at the Baton Rouge River Center with his wife, Donna Miles, since it opened last month. Their rental home off of Winbourne Avenue in Baton Rouge flooded. "When people did things for you in the beginning, it was 'We want to help.' Now, it's changed. We didn't ask to be homeless."

Trent and Miles said they increasingly worry about being seen as a nuisance and they hope shelters will not close before they find their next homes. The River Center shelter, which still had more than 500 residents as of Friday, is expected to close September 15.

As shelters have closed and consolidated, those staying at them have been bounced around, each time trying to adjust to a new large space full of cots and a new group of people that they share their lives with. The Burkins say they consider the friends they met at their shelters to be family, and say they hope to have a reunion once all of them have moved onto better circumstances.

Jean Gros, also staying at the L.M. Lockhart shelter, has moved around as much as anyone. When her double-wide trailer in Denham Springs started to flood, she stayed at Healing Place Church, before being moved to a few different shelters and then ending up at the North Park shelter in Denham Springs.

Gros at one point felt unwell and had to spend a few days in the hospital. When she was ready to be released, she found out the North Park shelter was closed and she had to go to Lockhart instead.

While she was away, friends at the shelters took care of her pets, a golden dog with the short legs of a corgi named Misery, and a white cat with one blue eye and one green eye named Sugar Kitty.

She wakes up early every morning to play with them. Gros had two years left of paying off her home, and had been dreaming about the day that she could use her income from being on disability to pay for something other than her house.

"Maybe I could use my disability to buy something, whether it's a new dress or whatever," she said, tearing up as she played with Misery and Sugar Kitty on a sweltering day outside. "And then the floods came, and they took everything except for my animals."

Those staying at shelters say it has been hard to manage the spectrum of emotions that they've experienced. Dan Halyburton, a Red Cross spokesman, said Red Cross mental health teams and spiritual care teams are working with residents in shelters and trying to help them stay in good spirits.

Aguillard said Catholic Charities also has workers at shelters talking to people staying there and trying to help them start to heal. Catholic Charities is also working with people to remove their obstacles from leaving shelters, by giving bus passes to people or helping people patch tires on cars that will make them drivable again, he said.

"The longer you're there, the more traumatic the experience can become," Aguillard said.

No matter who they talk to, Trent and Miles said they wonder if people realize how bad things are for them. The two of them know that they will return to their cots every night while social workers, volunteers, journalists and others who they talk to and who try to help them will be able to go back home.

"Everybody has gone on with their life," Miles said. "Their life never stopped, but ours did."

Gerald and Cris Burkins said having each other has been what's helped them get through. They left Gerald's father and their dogs when their home started flooding and went weeks without knowing if they were alive before running into each other at a shelter. They now sleep alongside each other -- reunited with both of Gerald's parents -- while the dogs are outside.

The best thing they can do right now to take their minds off of what they're going through is to help the people around them, they said. Gerald started volunteering for the Red Cross and Cris especially likes to tend to the elderly people living alongside her.

She gives hugs to everyone she meets, and gives them the same greeting: "Welcome to my home."
The Australia War Memorial's Big Things in Store open day gave the public a rare chance to get close to tanks, trucks and aircraft used across our nation's military history.

The cold hangar in Mitchell is a storage hub and conservation facility and contains artillery pieces dating back to the mid 1870s, as well as a raft of 20th and 21st century war machines.

The Treloar Technology Centre conservator Reverend Woody chats with Jim and Isaac, 12, Phillis of Gordon and David and Elya, 6, Okunyah of Casey about Big Things in Store Credit:Elesa Kurtz

One of the memorial's conservation team, Reverend Woody, stood in the workshop explaining how every rivet and panel on the Lockheed Hudson was restored using 1940s technique.

But the star attraction this year was the Boeing CH-47D Chinook A15-202 "Centaur", an aircraft that served with the Australian Army's 5th Aviation regiment in Afghanistan from 2000 until it was retired on April 19.
So there you have it.

On what turned out to be an emotional night for North Melbourne with four of their champions farewelled, Adelaide dined out and careered to a 62-point victory.

The Kangaroos have now been knocked out of the finals series and it's the end of the line for Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Nick Dal Santo and Michael Firrito at Arden Street.

The Crows will now face Sydney at the SCG next week in a mouth-watering semi-final.

The winner of that match will face Geelong in the Second Preliminary Final at the MCG in a fortnight's time for a spot in the grand final.

For North, they look set for a huge rebuild now and they may not make it back to September for a couple of years yet.
The fallout over the potential for Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire is intensifying.

On Friday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged owners of the smartphone to power down their Galaxy Note 7 devices and stop using them altogether.

"CPSC and Samsung are working cooperatively to formally announce an official recall of the devices as soon as possible," the agency said in a statement.

"CPSC is working quickly to determine whether a replacement Galaxy Note 7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or their phone carriers to provide to consumers."
A veteran Volkswagen engineer pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud US regulators and customers, the first criminal charge in the Justice Department's year-long investigation into the company's rigging of federal air-pollution tests.

The engineer, James Liang, who entered his plea in Detroit federal court on Friday, is cooperating with the investigation, increasing pressure on higher-ranking officials of the company.

Liang worked at Volkswagen for decades, beginning in Germany and then moving to the US in 2008 - two years after the government says the conspiracy began. He appeared in court with a translator.

He admitted to a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud against US regulators and customers. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The Sunday Canberra Times article ("Prime Minister's dole cuts hitting older Australians hardest", September4, p12) further demonstrates the Coalition's general lack of understanding of the Australian electorate and parliamentary system exposed by the mismanagement of the Parliament late on Thursday, September 1.

Given there has always been many more workers than people of means making up the Australian electorate, it is obvious many workers vote for the Coalition otherwise Labor would have governed Australia continuously since Federation. Like problem and compulsive gamblers, many of the workers who vote for the Coalition like to lose and feel sorry for themselves.

More than 240,00 people in their 50s and 60s are now collecting the Newstart allowance and some of them would be doing this because they were fooled by past and present local "snake oil salesmen" and invested in shonky local companies and are now dependent on government support. Others were dudded by western interests that don't respect patents, copyright and contractual obligations with external companies.

The Prime Minister's dole cuts, if spread over a few electorates, could be terminal for his Coalition at the next federal election.
Actor Dhanush will start the shoot of his maiden Hollywood film The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir from January 2017.

By India Today Web Desk: Dhanush, who is busy gearing up for his Tamil directorial debut Power Paandi, will start shooting for his Hollywood debut film The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir from January 2017.

ALSO READ: Oppam movie review- Mohanlal's film is intriguing at its core, but lacks depth

ALSO READ: Dhanush turns director with Power Paandi- Is Kamal Haasan his inspiration?

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A source close to the actor said, "The project was supposed to start much earlier, but got postponed due to some reasons. Dhanush will join the sets of the film in January. In the interim, he will complete shooting for Power Paandi and also finish major portion of Vetrimaran's Vada Chennai."

Based on the best-selling eponymous novel, the film will be helmed by Iranian filmmaker Marjane Satrapi.

Dhanush will play Aja, a conjurer from an Indian colony of artists, who is sent to Paris on a hush-hush mission by his mother. The shooting locations will include India, Paris, Morocco and Italy.

The film will also stars Uma Thurman and Alexandra Daddario.

Meanwhile, Dhanush awaits the release of Thodari. He will also be seen in director Gautham Menon's Ennai Nokki Paayum Thotta.



--- ENDS ---
One of the most insidious things about our recent governments' inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum is that the inhumanity is hidden. The media is, in effect, banned from visiting the mandatory detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru, in which some of the world's most desperate and vulnerable people are being harmed, mentally and physically, in our name and in an unconscionable waste of billions of taxpayers' dollars.

This "out of sight, out of mind" tactic minimises the chances of the widespread empathy, compassion and rationality that would lead to the community demanding the government cease one of the most ignoble episodes in Australian political history.

That is why today's coverage by The Age of some of the thousands of human stories behind the statistics and political dissembling is important. It is hard to read these accounts and not feel sad and angry, but we would urge as many people as possible to take the time, and try to put themselves in the shoes of these victims of cruel circumstances and policies. The coverage not only contains written accounts, but video footage. Images can be even more compelling than words, and although it is painful to watch, we believe every Australian should see it. We also urge everyone to watch a recent documentary, Chasing Asylum. It was bravely and secretly shot in the detention camps, in defiance of another of the government's tactics to conceal the truth  the Australian Border Force Act 2015, which forbids, under threat of jail, anyone working in the centres from revealing to anyone anything they come across in their work.

Today's coverage includes the wrenching story of the Ahmed family, who fled Myanmar amid the exodus of Rohingya, people the United Nations declares are one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet. The father, Nayser, has been suffering on Manus Island for three years, while his family managed to make it to Australia, where they are on bridging visas. They remain separated because of the expedient decision of then prime minister Kevin Rudd to banish people seeking asylum who arrive by boat, a perfectly legal act, to offshore detention with  under a policy maintained by the Coalition  no prospect of ever coming to Australia. This is despite the fact that as many as nine in 10 of the relatively small number of those who arrive by boat are found to be genuine refugees.
It's the question Spring Street observers have been asking for weeks: how is it that a state government performing relatively well has squandered so much political capital in such a short time?

On the face of it, Daniel Andrews should be cruising right now. An economy surging ahead faster than any other state? Tick. New infrastructure being built at a steady pace? Tick. A progressive agenda unmatched by any other jurisdiction? Tick again.

By calling for an audit of ministers' phones, Premier Daniel Andrews has again put a negative focus on the Labor Party. Credit:Jason South

Yet, less than two years into office, Team Andrews is in danger of imploding. Bitter hostilities have come to the fore over the disastrous CFA dispute. Valid questions are being raised about the apparent gap between the Premier's public rhetoric and his private behaviour. And now the latest ReachTEL poll commissioned by Fairfax Media has opposition leader Matthew Guy ahead as preferred premier, while Labor's lead over the Coalition has narrowed: to 51-49 per cent on two-party terms. It's not exactly a glowing endorsement, is it?

Reflecting on how it came to this, outraged Labor MPs point the finger at Jane Garrett, accusing the former emergency services minister of treachery for leaks to the Herald Sun over the CFA stoush. At an extraordinary caucus meeting this month, supporters of the Premier lined up one after the other in an orchestrated ambush: some calling for unity, others for her scalp. As one insider told Fairfax Media: "She was given no forewarning. It was awful."
"Australia as a nation has always relied on women to do a greater part of its unpaid work  caring for children, looking after sick or elderly parents, doing the million and one jobs around a family home that keep it running. Unfortunately, this has meant that women are under-represented in our great national Parliament. Like many of you blokes here in this audience today, I have had the great luxury  unimaginable to many women considering political office  of a devoted spouse whose preparedness to forgo a career and devote the bulk of her attention to our family has permitted me to have both a demanding, inspiring, rewarding job and three children.

"When I look back at the Cabinet ministers I appointed over my years in office, I see that I appointed 27 men, every single one of whom had children, many of whom were of school age when their fathers served as ministers. I also appointed five women, two of whom had grown-up children and three of whom had no children at all, a fact for which I know they endured personal criticism from time to time.

"When I look back at those men and women, I see that the men enjoyed a substantial advantage and greater opportunity in politics. This produced a rather unfortunate result, being that Australia's premier decision-making group on Commonwealth policies and programs for health, education, welfare and so on was for years devoid of any representative from the one social group  mothers of children  statistically most likely to come in direct contact with those services.

"Now, as you know, I dislike quotas. I am a great supporter of merit-based appointments. And my dream in the future is that success in politics will be entirely merit-based, and not skewed unnecessarily by accidents of birth and social circumstance. I don't want any man in Cabinet to feel that he got there because of an unfair structural advantage over a female competitor.

"When I look at today's Cabinet, I see six women. Two with grown-up children, three without children, but one  Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer  with a baby and a talented husband, Jon, who took time out of his career to look after that child while his wife is in Canberra because that's the decision to which they came as a family.
Huang Xiangmo and Sam Dastyari at a press conference for the Chinese community in Sydney on July 17, 2016. Still Dastyari was determined to stick it out, hence the disastrous press conference he held on Tuesday this week, the performance that finally undid him. Asked time and again why he had asked a company to pay his bill, he was unable to give an answer. To anyone watching, the reasonable conclusion was that Dastyari did not pay his bill because he did not want to, because he was greedy, and because Australian politicians simply don't have to pay bills if there is someone else around willing to - even if that person happens to be a friend of a foreign government. Dr Zhu with Gillard government foreign minister Bob Carr after being appointed to the Chinese Ministerial Consultative Committee. Credit:TEI The following day Dastyari resigned from his frontbench positions.

Australia's political parties are addicted to cash, particularly donations. Over the past five financial years, the major parties - Labor, Liberal, the Nationals and the Greens - have taken in about $887 million, according to Australian Electoral Commission returns, in public funding, donations, membership fees and fundraising efforts. Donations form a significant portion of this pie, but the exact size is obscured by loose disclosure laws and associated fundraising vehicles. Prime Minister Turnbull now finds himself under increasing pressure to reform donor laws. Speaking from a series of summits in Asia this week, he reiterated his long-standing personal view that donations would "ideally" be limited to individuals on the Australian electoral roll, striking off corporations, unions and foreign nationals. "I've always felt that would be a good measure," he said. Whatever his feelings on the matter, so far the PM has taken little action. He has suggested reforms should be considered by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, a committee as yet unformed in this Parliament and one that has historically been seen as a paper tiger. Meanwhile, his ever-enthusiastic predecessor, Tony Abbott, has seized the initiative, calling for sweeping reforms to curb "influence-buying" and "subversion of the system".

Labor is pushing hard for a ban on foreign donations, and Liberal figures as diverse as Christopher Pyne, Cory Bernardi and Steve Ciobo have thrown their weight behind change in various forms. Several roadblocks stand in the way of reform, chief among them self-interest (the horse that's always trying, as Paul Keating once observed). Both Labor and the Coalition rely heavily on corporate cash, and Labor on funds from unions. A Fairfax Media analysis this week showed the major political parties would lose 90 per cent of their high-value donations if donations were limited to individuals on the electoral roll. Then there is the High Court. The former NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell, (a man brought down by a gift) legislated a comprehensive ban on donations from corporations, unions and other organisations. But the ban was struck down by the High Court following a challenge led by the unions, with the bench ruling that banning certain types of donors was an unjustified burden on political communication. The case saw Unions NSW and the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs forge an unlikely alliance, and on Friday the IPA railed against Abbott's prescriptions as an undemocratic, unconstitutional "attack on freedom of speech". Critics say any attempt to replicate O'Farrell's failed reforms nationally would die a similar High Court death, but Adjunct Professor Colleen Lewis of Monash University, who has written a report on the issue, dismisses the concern. "You can just step over the High Court problem," she says.

Lewis argues that if the size limit on donations was lowered to, say, $1000 or less, you would not have to ban certain types of donors, like developers, because their influence would be no larger than an individual's. She does, however, support bans on foreign citizens and entities donating to Australian candidates or parties, which brings us back to Dastyari and China. This week Dastyari might have felt himself to be at the centre of this story, but in truth he is just a minor cog in a far larger machine of political gift-giving and influence-peddling that China has built to advance its global influence. Australia's politicians and political parties took $5.5 million in donations from Chinese-linked firms in the two years to June 2015, according to an ABC analysis of disclosures to the Australian Electoral Commission, and both sides of politics have benefited. Chief among the donors is property developer Yuhu Group and its chairman Huang Xiangmo.

More than $1 million in donations to both major parties have come from companies and individuals associated with Huang, who uses his position as chair of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China (ACPPRC) to promote Beijing's core interests, including lobbying against Tibet and Taiwan independence. The Bayside Forum, which supports the federal Liberal seat of Goldstein which was held by former trade minister Andrew Robb up until his retirement, received $100,000 from interests linked to Huang, including $50,000 on the day the China-Australia free trade agreement was finalised and announced by Robb and then prime minister Tony Abbott. Robb also endorsed Yuhu's $2 billion agriculture investment joint venture fund at its launch in September 2014. And interests linked to Huang donated $280,000 to the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party. Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, the leading federal member of the party in that state, has been effusive in praise of Huang's contribution to Australia and helped open the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology , which was funded by Huang's $1.8 million donation. In the end, it was a $5000 payment from Huang to Dastyari to help settle the senator's legal bills that has claimed a political scalp. Huang was alongside Dastyari as the Labor senator pledged to respect China's position on the South China Sea during a June federal election campaign press conference. Even if reforms preventing foreigners from making political donations in Australia were passed, they would have little effect on China's deployment of soft power on our shores. Many major donors with Chinese government ties, including property and media tycoon Chau Chak Wing, and Top Education's Minshen Zhu, have long been Australian citizens.

And no tweaking of donations laws would have had an effect on the money Dastyari took, which was a personal gift. Besides, China has many more weapons in its soft-power arsenal than cash. Chinese government influence can be heard in the voices of Australian business figures who warn that the Australian government's stance on the South China Sea could damage their business interests in China. It can be seen in media deals too. Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, prints and distributes a monthly news liftout from the China Daily. And separately, the ABC cut its local Chinese language radio service as it sought a semi-commercial deal to operate in China. The Chinese government has made its presence felt on university campuses across the country with the establishment of Confucius Institutes, which teach language and culture at discounted rates.

It disseminates research via institutions such as ACRI, which Huang himself chairs and personally appointed former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr to be its director. From that position, Carr has been enthusiastic in championing policy positions that have coincided with Chinese state views. After the Foreign Investment Review Board blocked the sale of Ausgrid to China, for example, Carr condemned the decision across Australian media. In response, the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, said Carr had not been privy to the national security briefings he had received and was uttering "complete nonsense". "Frankly the former foreign minister should know better," he said. In a statement this week Carr told Fairfax Media, "We take an unabashedly positive and optimistic view of the Australia-China relationship. Our position is no different from think tanks in Australia that receive American funding and take an optimistic and positive view of America and the US alliance."

Carr finds himself bound to this story by Dastyari too. In February 2012, following the sudden resignation of Mark Arbib from the Senate, Dastyari was able to lure Carr out of political retirement with the offer of not just a Senate seat, but the plum foreign affairs portfolio. Dastyari had joined Carr's staff the day before he stepped down as NSW premier in 2005. Now he was playing kingmaker. Both Carr and Dastyari, along with Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen, Liberal elder Philip Ruddock and Barry O'Farrell were listed as patrons of the pro-Beijing ACPPRC which Huang chairs. Both Dastyari and Bowen have since been removed from the council's website. Writing in a comment piece for the Global Times last month after an ABC investigation detailed millions Chinese-linked interests poured into Liberal and Labor Party coffers, Huang Xiangmo said the scrutiny smacked of "racism" and blurred the lines between Chinese nationals and Australians of Chinese ethnicity. He rejected suggestions his and other donations had the potential to "skew Australia's democracy". One of Australia's leading China observers is John Fitzgerald, director of Swinburne University's Program for Asia-Pacific Social Investment and Philanthropy.
I've been a big fan of the New Zealand natural skincare company Trilogy ever since they launched back in 2002, and have watched them blossom. I have always loved their cult Certified Organic Rose Hip Oil and their philanthropic stance.

So I'm eager for the release of their latest natural skin care baby, Rosapene Radiance Serum, due out in early October.

Trilogy's Rosapene Radiance Serum.

The Radiance Serum $42.95, is a soothing antioxidant oil blend that contains Rosapene (certified organic rosehip cranberry and tomato seed oils which help repair skin and protect against free radical damage), sea algae (for hydration and radiance) and aloe vera (cooling and calming) that is lightweight in consistency and, oh joy, doesn't leave any greasy residue. It's also perfect as a primer under foundation. Add to cart!

Also on my wish list: the Exfoliating Body Balm, $35.95, a buttery-textured balm with rosehip seed oil that is perfect for sloughing off those winter-y scales.
"It's really a makeover show that is not telling people what to change or what to wear," Ferguson said. "It's about fashion and how we can share our knowledge of how to look good on a budget. Because when you look good, you feel good."

Style Squad, which premieres on Foxtel's Style network on Monday, is a series that is What Not to Wear-lite.

The bloggers, who launched their blog They All Hate Us about nine years ago, have landed their own fashion focused reality television show.

Tash Sefton and Elle Ferguson are on track to become Australia's own Trinny and Susannah.

In news that will make most aspiring actors blanch, Sefton and Ferguson didn't have to film a pilot as the network and creator of the new series, Philippa Whitfield Pomeranz, had been keen to capture the best friends on film for more than 12 months.

"The premise of the show, which is about making slight tweaks to someone's wardrobe and showing you can look amazing without having to spend a lot of money, sat well with our ethos at They All Hate Us," Ferguson said.

"No matter how old you are, no matter where you live, whether it be in Sydney's eastern suburbs or out west, everyone has the same hang-ups and issues to deal with. Fashion has become so elite and it doesn't need to be, that's what the show is about."

Style Squad will join another Australian fashion series on the Style network, Fashion Bloggers, a series also created by Whitfield Pomeranz that follows the blessed lives of five "influencers" as they navigate the hedonistic world of flat lays and international fashion weeks.

The first subject of the new series is Jacintha, a 53-year-old foster mum of three young children who is one of the most refreshing characters seen on the small screen.
When "organic" is in the name, it's reasonable to think the folksy-looking orange juice you're paying a premium price for is just that.

But in the case of Milla's organic orange juice, the farmer who grows the oranges and squeezes the juice says it can't be organic.

Grant Eastwood, the owner of Wild Things Food in Fitzroy North, has put up signs warning customers he does not believe Milla's juice to be organic. Credit:Jason South

Philip Williamson, from Murray River Farm Kurrnung Citrus, even sells the exact same juice he supplies to Milla's Farm Direct under his own brand, the Great Australian Squeeze, and he doesn't label it organic.

That's because even though he tries to avoid harsh chemicals where possible he does use herbicides on his NSW property. And just last year he had to spray "poison on the trees" when there was a fruit fly outbreak in the region.
Jacob Munro hated the thought of being buried.

The 24-year-old explained this to his mother Deborah Hall just three months before he went missing from his Sydney home.

Murderer Stanley Robert Forward, 23, leaves the NSW Supreme Court on Friday. Credit:Fairfax Media

So when Ms Hall eventually found out what had happened to her son, her "world stopped".

"It was devastating to find out he had been buried for months, but more so because of the conversations we had earlier about him hating the thought of being buried," Ms Hall said in a victim impact statement read to the NSW Supreme Court.
Police are appealing for public help to find a missing Morayfield boy who was last seen on Friday morning.

The search continues for the 13-year-old boy who was last seen with his skateboard on Caboolture River Road around 8.30am.

The 13-year-old missing Morayfield boy. Credit:Queensland Police Service

He is described as being around 165cm tall with slim build, short brown hair and police hold concerns for his welfare due to his age.

The 12-year-old boy he was last seen with, was found safe and well on Saturday afternoon.
Police have charged a woman with murder over the deaths of Ian and April Bailey in 2004.

Officers arrested the 34-year-old Kallangur woman on Saturday morning and charged her with two counts of murder, one count of arson and one count of possessing a dangerous drug.

She is due to face Redcliffe Magistrates Court on Monday.

EARLIER
By PTI: Lucknow Sep 9 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh government today named Bollywood actress Vidya Balan as brand ambassador of the ambitious Samajwadi Pension Yojana.

"We are grateful of Vidya Balan for getting associated with the biggest scheme of UP, the Samajwadi Pension Scheme," Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said at an event here..

The actor who had earlier been associated with the "ghar-ghar shauchalya" campaign of the union government will be seen campaigning about the scheme in the coming months.

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"I am very happy as the money meant to be given in this scheme will go directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries and money is power. About 50 per cent population comprise of women who have been left far behind and are now taking small steps forward", Balan, who was also present at the event, said.

"This scheme will have a direct impact on the lives of people.. though I have not contributed anything into it I am happy to be the face of it," she said.

Akhilesh has launched the scheme with an aim to provide Rs 500 per month to poor women and cover at least 50 lakh beneficiaries in the state. PTI SAB FAR ZMN AQS

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A man's late night McDonalds run took a turn for the worse last night after he was arrested in the drive-through queue for drink driving.

Police were called to a McDonalds restaurant in Springvale, in Melbourne's south east, after it was reported a man was holding up traffic in the fast-food outlet's drive-through lane.

Photograph Meredith O'Shea. The Springvale man blew more than six times over the limit.

Leading Senior Constable Paul Turner said the Springvale man, who is a disqualified driver, blew six times over the legal alcohol limit.

The 29-year-old returned a breath test reading of 0.303 per cent.
A learner driver has been nabbed drink-driving after being caught travelling the wrong way down a one-way city street.

Police saw the Avondale Heights man drive a Mazda 3 the wrong way down Little Bourke Street from Russell Street about 5.15am Saturday morning.

Police saw the driver heading the wrong way down Little Bourke Street. Credit:Jason South

Leading Senior Constable Kendra Jackson said that when police pulled over the 28-year-old after a three-point turn on the narrow street, he returned a positive breath test.

He was later breath tested at Melbourne West Police Station, and returned a reading of .101 per cent.
It was a rare find in a second-hand bookshop that led Lorraine Smith on an epic adventure like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Ms Smith was working in her Warrnambool store when a customer browsing the children's section found a calf-skin parchment in a 1924 edition of Alice in Wonderland.

Lorraine Smith holding the book with the rare parchment. Credit:Vicky Hughson

"I didn't do anything much about it because I didn't know what it was," she said.

"Finally, I mentioned it to my daughter who lives in Brisbane and she'd studied English history at uni, and I described it to her and told her it had a date on it - 1583. And she said, 'Well, that's the Tudor period, I've got a special interest in the Tudor period, you'd better send it up to me'.
Firefighters have rescued four workers trapped during a nitrous acid leak in an industrial area in Melbourne's north.

Staff at Electromold in Holt Parade, Thomastown, sheltered inside while more than 20 firefighters including Hazmat crews worked to contain the toxic leak, which began around 10.15am Saturday.

Workers from a Thomastown factory were evacuated by firefighters. Credit:Facebook/(MFB) Metropolitan Fire Brigade

An orange cloud is escaping the tank and an exclusion zone of 250 metres has been created downwind of the site.

MFB Steve Moore spokesman said firefighters are working to contain and neutralise the spill of about 100 litres of acid, none of which has entered drains.
Researchers may have just unlocked the simple key to detecting cancer early - a blood test.

With current methods including MRIs and biopsies, the University of Western Australia is developing a simple and less invasive blood test that can identify cancer traces, leaving enough time to act fast.

Project leader Dr Katie Meehan said the cancer segments, known as "exosomes", can be identified in routine blood tests, but her research will monitor the cancer's aggression through the exosomes.

"We hope to show that when exosomes become undetectable in the blood, this indicates the cancer is gone, or if exosomes remain in the blood, this may identify a cancer at risk of returning," Dr Meehan said.
Washington: The notes are handwritten on a legal pad and provide a verbatim account of the shock aboard Air Force One on September 11, 2001.

They were scribbled by Ari Fleischer, press secretary for US President George W. Bush, and he is releasing them to mark the 15th anniversary on Sunday of the worst attack on American soil since Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbour.

There are six pages in all, the only original verbatim text of what Mr Bush said on the presidential plane as he and his senior aides absorbed the news.

"We're at war," Bush told Vice President Dick Cheney. Hanging up and turning to his aides, he added: "When we find out who did this, they're not going to like me as president. Somebody's going to pay."
Property worth crores of rupees was gutted as a fire broke out at the Best Price store premises in Vijayawada in the wee hours on Saturday. The fire has now been brought under control.

By Ashish Pandey: Property worth crores of rupees was gutted as a fire broke out at Walmart's Best Price store premises in Vijayawada in the wee hours on Saturday. The fire has been brought under control.

In a statement the global retail giant said, "We are assessing the damage to the property and investigating the matter. Fortunately, no lives have been lost in this unfortunate incident and all our staff are safe."



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BCP TEAM TO REPAIR DAMAGED STORE



"We have a robust 'Business Continuity Plan' (BCP) to handle all such issues and our BCP team has taken over to quickly repair our store. We are committed to ensuring that our esteemed customers face no disruption in services, the company said in a statement. Our customers will continue to be served through our nearby Guntur Best Price store and our online Best Price website www.bestprice.in, the statement added.

Also read: 5 injured in fire at Rajahmundry during Godavari Puhskaram



The fire accident caused a massive traffic jam on NH-16 connecting Eluru to Vijayawada. Meanwhile, the cause of fire was not known immediately and is yet to be ascertained.



HELPLINE NUMBERS



Customers can contact us on our helpline numbers 1800-3010-1911 and 0120-4878888 or email us at membersupport@walmart.com, a Walmart spokesperson has said.



Walmart India owns and operates 21 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores offering nearly 5,000 items in a Cash and Carry wholesale format.

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By PTI: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Sep 10 (PTI) The US has said it will continue to work "constructively" with New Delhi and other countries for Indias entry into NSG, a senior US official has said.

"We continue, and will be, continued to work constructively with India and with members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on Indias accession in the months ahead," State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters at her daily news conference yesterday.

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However, she did not respond to questions on the talks the US is having with China on this issue. China is the only major country that has opposed Indias membership.

"On the particular conversations on China, because I know youre going to come back and ask, I have nothing to read out on that," she said.

"Weve been very clear since 2010, the US has made clear our support for Indias full membership in the four multilateral export control regimes. We continue to believe India is ready for the NSG," she said.

"In the last meeting, the NSG participating governments did not reach a consensus decision to admit any new applicant into the group. We were disappointed in the outcome," she said, adding that decisions within NSG are taken with consensus.

"Discussions within that group are confidential within that group. But the US remains committed. We believe India is ready for full membership. We will work towards that goal," Trudeau said.

The US has been playing a lead role in supporting Indias bid in the 48-member elite group. China had scuttled New Delhis bid at the Plenary Session of NSG in June. PTI LKJ AJR

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The Danish Floral Aigrette (Photo: KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty Image)

Its a little hard to classify this piece of jewelry, because its so many things at once: a tiara, a set of hair ornaments, a corsage ornament. Today, were discussing the diamond floral aigrette that belongs to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Queen Margrethe wears the tiara (Photo: KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty Image)

The complicated, all-diamond tiara apparently dates to the middle of the nineteenth century. Its said that it perhaps once belonged to Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia, whose elder daughter, Alexandrine, was the queen consort of King Christian X of Denmark. To my knowledge, this provenance has never been confirmed.

Tiara detail (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

The tiara breaks down into three sections. Its a large piece, able to be worn as a nearly closed circlet. The various sections can be taken apart and worn separately. The central flower element of the middle section is mounted en tremblant, so it shimmers and moves slightly as the wearer moves.

Tiara detail (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

By the middle of the twentieth century, we know for sure that the tiara was not in royal hands. It was owned by a famous Danish-American tenor, Lauritz Melchior, who was famous for singing Wagnerian opera. His wife was photographed in the aigrette in the early 1960s. But in 1963, the Melchiors decided to part with the tiara, putting it up for auction.

Queen Margrethe wears the tiara (Photo: KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty Images)

The buyer was King Frederik IX of Denmark, the grandson of Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna. The tiaras connection with the grand duchess is ultimately speculation, but it would make sense for Frederik to purchase a tiara at auction if it had once belonged to one of his ancestors. After all, Frederik and Ingrid had several diamond tiaras at their disposal already, so I think that the links to Anastasia are highly possible and that the purchase may have been a sentimental one.

Frederiks wife, Queen Ingrid, wore the tiara for the first time at Margrethes wedding to Count Henri Laborde de Monpezat in 1967. She continued to wear it regularly at occasions afterward, and she also lent it to her daughter.

Queen Margrethe wears one of the sections in the back of her hair (Photo: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Queen Margrethe has been incredibly inventive in the ways that she wears the piece, donning parts of it as a brooch and arranging the sections in various ways in her hair. She remarked in De Kongelige Juveler, which we recently discussed here, that she enjoys the versatility of the tiara. She noted, I like wearing it slightly differently from time to time, and I think my hairdresser enjoys doing it like that, too.

Queen Margrethe wears the tiara (Photo: NILS MEILVANG/AFP/Getty Images)

Margrethe inherited the piece from her mother in 2000, and since then, shes continued to wear it frequently, often pairing it with an important diamond necklace from the Danish crown jewel collection. She even chose the aigrette for one of the most important Danish royal occasions of the twenty-first century: the wedding of her elder son, Crown Prince Frederik, to Mary Donaldson in 2004.

Note: This is an updated version of an older post, with new text/images.
Bad news, Jews: You dont get to be part of Richard Spencers white ethno-state.

In a windowless room in a swanky hotel half a block from the White House on Friday afternoon, three of the most visible leaders of the alt-right movement held a two-hour press conference to discuss their affection for Donald Trump and their hopes for a white homeland. The white supremacist alt-right movement has grown over the last eight years or so, incubated in racist forums like StormFront and meme-loving corners of the internet like 4chan and 8chan. Its members generally share a disdain for political correctness, feminism, zionism, Jews in general, immigration (especially Hispanic and Muslim immigration), and anyone who criticizes them for holding these views.

And the alt-right won substantial mainstream media attention when Hillary Clinton gave a speech last month excoriating Donald Trump for some of his staffers ties to it. Clintons team zeroed in on the campaigns new CEO, Steve Bannon, who formerly helmed a website that he himself once described as the platform for the Alt-Right. And prominent alt-right figures, including two of the men who helmed Fridays press conference, told The Daily Beast last month that they were delighted Trump hired him.

Many reporters have been hesitant to give the alt-right much media attention. But since Clinton made their existence part of her anti-Trump campaign pitch, theres significant public interest in who they are and what they believe. And theyre loving it.

The three alt-right leaders who gathered in D.C. this afternoon made two things very clear: They think white people are genetically predisposed to be more moral and intelligent than black people, and they do not want to share their envisioned utopian ethno-state with folks of the Jewish persuasion. Theres some disagreement in the alt-right on what they refer to as the Jewish question. But the big take-away was that Jews are suspicious.

Jared Taylor, who founded the white supremacist American Renaissance site, explained the alt-right as predicated entirely on the belief that some races are inherently superior to othersthe movement, he said, is in unanimity in rejecting the idea that the races are basically equivalent and interchangeable. There are genetic differences in race that make some races more ethical and intelligent than others, he said. Thats what the alt right is all about.

They also differ, as a matter of fact, in the patterns of the microbes that inhabit their mouths, he said.

Thus, he continued, we shouldnt expect black kids to do as well in school as white kids.

One more alt-right platform plank: that white people, as a group, have discrete interests that are different from other races, and that they should push for those interests. In practice, this means the alt-right thinks school integration was bad and apartheid was good. Later in the press conference, Taylor said he thinks white people are more moral and more intelligent than black people.

Despite all this, alt-right leaders bristle if you call them white supremacists.

You could very effectively argue that East Asians are objectively superior to whites, Taylor said. Does that make us yellow supremacists? I dont think so.

White supremacists, alt-right leaders argue, think white people are the best race. The alt-right doesnt necessarily think that, they say; instead, they say they just want white people to have their own homeland.

With no Jews.

Spencer in particular fixates on the homeland idea.

The alt-right needs to aspire to something, even if that dream wont come true in his lifetimeand that means they should aim to build an ethno-state for just whites. And Spencer made it clear that white-only means Jews arent invited. They have their own identity, and it isnt white-slash-European, and thats that.

Jews are Jews, he said.

He added that his whites-only utopia would still have a good relationship with Israel.

These people (I hope) sound sad and racist and antisemitic and deeply confused to you. But they dont sound that way to Breitbart, the right-wing news site to which Trump has given countless exclusives and from which he pulled his new campaign boss. The site has seen its traffic skyrocket over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, rapidly gaining clout in the conservative movement and among Trump-loving voters. The site says it had 31 million visitors in July. And in March, it ran a piece describing Taylor, Spencer, and their ilk as fearsomely intelligent, and praising them for speaking truth to power or whatever.

So the alt-righthelmed by the trio who gathered at The Willard on Fridayis the most extreme example of a shift on the American right: away from a nostalgic conservative focus on restoring the values of the Founders, and towards a forward-focused nationalism that prioritizes drastic limits on immigration and open hostility to globalism. Trump isnt a white nationalist. But he speaks their language. And they dig it.
A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with three felony counts of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and endangering the welfare of children, stemming from the asphyxiation death of her 2-month-old child last month. Investigators responded to a 911 call in July, where 28-year-old Jessica Harper told them she had been sleeping with her three-year-old and the 2-month-old, but when they woke, the baby wasnt breathing.

The infant was the second child of 28-year-old Jessica Harpers to die as he slept. Another child also 2-months-old, died from asphyxiation in Maryland in 2011 under similar circumstances, the Lancaster County District Attorneys Office said in a press release.

A state police investigation found that Harper had been warned numerous times by medical professionals about the dangers of bedsharing, including a pediatrician who on July 6th admonished her for sleeping with her infant. Harper ignored those directives, saying she was going to do it anyway, the DA claims.

In Lancaster County, this equates to extreme indifference to the value of human life, according to the complaint. Harper has been denied bail.

The Lancaster County DA tells The Daily Beast they will seek 20-40 years for the murder charge, and the maximum penalty for the involuntary manslaughtershe cannot be convicted of both it and murderis 10 years.

Harpers motherwho asked not to be identified by nametold The Daily Beast that the headlines claiming her grandson had been the second baby to die after co-sleeping with Jessica were all wrong.

The first baby, she was sleeping on a couch not the bed, and the second one was in the bed, Jessicas mother said. I just think its important that they dont link the two cases together. Right now in the media theyre making it look like its the same. They were both asphyxiation, but one was on the couch, one was on the bed. Ive even seen stories about her lying on top of him. Who would do that?

When the first baby passed away, Jessica wasnt even in the room. The first died on the couch and the same would have happened if he was in his crib, she said.

It was, in fact, trauma over her first babys death that caused her to co-sleep with her new child, Jessicas mother said.

[Jessica] was fearful that she wouldnt be there if he needed her, especially after what happened to the last one. She had been having bad dreams about it. The reason she did it, I truly believe, is that she thought he was safer with her than on his own.

After Jessicas first infant died, her mother said Jessica was inconsolable. She was terrible. It was just awful, she said.

But when asked why the mother of six would sleep with her infant despite the warnings, Jessicas mother insisted her daughter was looking after the babys welfare.

Thats what she was scared of. He was a scooter. He would scooting to the bumper pads and it made her leery, she said.

Besides, Jessicas mother said, people dismiss doctors guidelines and co-sleep everyday; it shouldnt come with a murder charge.

Shes an excellent mother, she said.

Criminal charges are rare for parents of children killed while co-sleeping, though recently, prosecutors in some states have indicated their desire to charge women in the deaths of children who died while bed-sharing. Most prosecutions involve the mothers use of alcohol or drugs at the time, however, and Harper was not found to be under the influence of either when she was questioned by police.

In 2012, a Texas judge sentenced a woman to 119 months in prison for the death of her 2-month-old son, Tristan, who died in 2010 after co-sleeping with his mother and father. Vanessa Lynn Clark, then 33, had been found guilty of child endangerment, while her husband had been acquitted.

Tristan was the second infant to die while co-sleeping with Clark. Their asphyxiation of another childat 39 weeks oldwas ruled an accident a little over a year before Tristans death. No charges were filed in that case.

When handing down Clarks sentence, Judge Paul White said she had shown disregard for both children and said, I cannot do apparently what you did and ignore the prior episode.

Despite state and federal campaigns to dissuade bed-sharing, the practice of co-sleepingwhich advocates say is convenient, fosters bonding, promotes breastfeeding, and has been done since people began having childrenhas become more popular recently as tenet of the attachment parenting movement. A recent study of new mothers found one in eight women exclusively co-slept with their baby. Forty-one percent of mothers reported co-sleeping at least sometimes.

[Co-sleeping] is so, so normative, Kathleen Dyer, an associate professor in Child and Family Science at California State University, Fresno, told The Daily Beast. Dyer said the stigma behind negative campaigns and media reports can dissuade new mothers from speaking honestly to their doctors. I just wish we could find a better way to talk about it then saying co-sleeping killed her baby, she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics names bed-sharing as the greatest risk of death to infants and in recently-updated guidelines, advises parents to sleep with their infants in the same room, but never in the same bed.

But some in the medical and research community feel that with those recommendations for all families, the AAP paints with too broad a brush.

Dr. James McKenna, head of The University of Notre Dames Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab, writes that such a simple, singular message is misleading and scientifically false and inappropriate.

McKenna argues that parents should be educated about how to create a safe sleep environment, wherever the baby is laid down.
WASHINGTON, DC  On Friday, some of the biggest names in Donald Trumps conservative celebrity posse traveled to the Omni Shoreham Hotel in northwest DC to join the Republican presidential nominee to talk god, Trump, and culture wars.

For the 2016 Values Voter Summit (the annual social-conservative conference organized by Tony Perkins Family Research Council), Trump took the stage in the main hall mid-afternoon to deliver a speech that leaned heavily on playing upon the Christian rights longstanding persecution complex.

How can it be that our media treats people of faith so poorly? Trump asked rhetorically, before reminding the audience that many politicians have straight-up abandoned them for more progressive, secular, politically correct values.

In a Trump administration, our Christian heritage will be cherished and protected like youve never seen before, he said, reciting an easy applause line. There is no more charitable group in this country than Christians.

The occasion was special and the target audience uniquely piousbut all they got from The Donald on a humid Friday afternoon was a rehash of a typical Trump stump speech, with an extra biblical trimming or two tossed in.

During his Values Voter remarks, Trump repeated his calls to repeal the Johnson amendment, which bars tax-exempt religious groups from endorsing political candidates (I figure thats the only way Im getting to heavena joke he has crowd-tested on the trail before) and Obamacare. He again touted his school-choice policy prescriptions, and continued denouncing Democratic politicians for not taking care of black constituents in the inner cities. He hated on all those trade deals he loves to hate on (Were gonna terminate NAFTA!). He of course once again said a couple of mean things about Mexico plundering our jobs. He took his usual digs at Common Core, bashed the Iran nuke deal, talked about the Supreme Court, revved up the crowd by insulting Hillary Clintons stupid foreign-policy positions and her email scandal, and riffed on ISISs genocide of Christians in the Middle East.

[Our enemies] think were stupidthey wont be thinking it for long, Trump assured everyone. Hillary Clinton is UNFIT to be our president!  Its time to restore honesty and integrity to our government, we have to do it.

This was only Team Trumps latest exercise in (rather successfully) wooing Christian and evangelical leaders and voters into his camp. Given Trumps boorish behavior, naughty language, womanizing, and past deep associations with liberal Hollywood and Democratic Party figures, it seemed only natural that evangelicals would grow to loathe Trump. Instead, over the course of the primary, the opposite happened.

And on Friday, Trump wasnt even the only TV star or Hollywood film actor to entertain and whip-up the Christian-conservative gathering.

Along with Republican politicians like Reince Priebus, Michele Bachmann, and Louie Gohmert, organizers stacked the opening-day program with some of the more recognizable figures working out of conservative Hollywood. And they were all there to gush about Trump and faith in equal measure.

Kirk Cameron, the Growing Pains star and Trump endorser who is nowadays better known for his work as a hardcore evangelical activist, railed against out-of-control and godless government for half an hour. (Cameron was not available for comment.) Not one, but two, members of the Duck Dynasty clan (including Phil Robertson, of gay-bashing and hippie-punching fame) roamed the halls. And David and Jason Benham, founders of The Benham Companies and stars of a home-improvement reality show that was cancelled shortly after their socially conservative views (gay marriage, abortion, the works) were reported on, brought the chiseled, very American, very white charm.

They should keep Gitmo open for guys like us, one of the identical twins joked, citing the fact that their wives shop at Hobby Lobby and that they each enjoy dining at Chick fil A.

But the biggest get for Values Voters and the Trump campaign this week was the Oscar-winning, 77-year-old actor Jon Voight, who introduced Trump on the summit stage. (Voight has frequent discussions with senior members of the Trump campaign and has pledged to do whatever he can to support the GOP nominee and his campaign before election day, The Daily Beast reported in June.)

We are all witness to Hillary Clintons lies and corruption, Voight said in his brief remarks. My heart aches watching Donald Trumppouring his heart outHow can anyone doubt his sincerity?

If youre not for Trump, then youre not for me, Voight previously told The Daily Beast.

He will lift the dark cloud hanging over us right now, Voight said of Trump on-stage, telling the crowd that, God willing, The Donald will be the next leader of the free world.

For the Midnight Cowboy star and real-estate mogul, the affection appears to be mutual.

Such a great actor [and] person, Trump said. I love his movies.
In the late summer of 2011, President Barack Obama declared the reign of Bashar al-Assad illegitimate and told him the time had come to step aside. In the early fall of 2015, U.S. officials laughingly dismissed Vladimir Putins unexpected direct military intervention into Syria as an accident waiting to happen at Russias expense.

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry formally legitimized Assads military by way of delimiting its zone of combat; and he welcomed the Russian Air Force as a prospective U.S. partner prosecuting an increasingly complex and muddled war against the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, two separate and competitive terrorist organizations in Syria. Significantly, the latter group often intermingles with U.S.-backed insurgents.

In a tardy press conference in Geneva that most reporters were so sure would never happen they began ordering champagne and pizza, Kerry mapped out this fingers-crossed bilateral plan of action. His remarks were leavened with repeated qualifications and conditional tenses as he described an agreement that must perforce be founded on trust between the United States and Russia would not in fact be based on anything of the sort.

If, and again I want to emphasize the if  Kerry began his presser tonight, If the plan is implemented in good faith, if the stakeholders do the things that are available to them to do and are being called on them to do, this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table could take hold and you could really provide the people of Syria with a transition.

Except that nobody really believes that.

According to Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Damascus who resigned from Kerrys State Department in disgust at the Obama administrations Syria policy, Reduced hostilities, if they last, will ease the human suffering, and thats a good thing. There is not, however, any visible road forward to a political deal that would resolve in an enduring manner the root causes of the Syrian crisis.

And whatever may be good from this deal is by no means sure to come about.

The Assad regime, Kerry said, will be prohibited from flying combat missions anywhere where the [Syrian] opposition is present in an area where we have agreed on with any real specificity. But he did not specify what constitutes the large and ideologically variegated Syrian opposition except to say that it did not include ISIS or the al-Qaeda faction Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

Noting that indiscriminate and devastating Syrian Air Force raids pursued for years under the pretext of hitting Nusra have only swelled the ranks of the jihadists, Kerry seemed to suggest that precision strikes would somehow do the opposite. He also insisted that any legitimate opposition forces must distance themselves in every way possible from Nusra and [ISIS] to retain their legitimacy, a contingency that even the smartest of smart bombs is unlikely to facilitate.

I cant see enough of the armed opposition de-coupling themselves from front-lines on which Nusra is present, Charles Lister, author of The Syrian Jihad and a close monitor of the civil war, told The Daily Beast. There are just too many risks for such a move and they have no previous proof of regime willingness to comply on such restrictions. Nusra will do all they can now to convince opposition factions that this is merely a conspiracy to undermine the revolution. I fear thats something that many on the ground will buy hook, line and sinker.

Also problematic is Kerrys verbose qualification that Assad is only banned from bombing where the U.S. and Russia have jointly determined. This is a rather sneaky way of saying what a draft text of this agreement, which was leaked weeks ago, already stated in no uncertain terms, namely that Assad can deploy his warplanes (PDF) outside of designated areas if Nusra acquires territory there and Russia can use airpower in defense of Syrian government forces in the event of attack by Nusra from within a designated area, if agreed in advance with the United States.

Assad and Russia can even bomb Nusra in places without prior U.S. consent if imminent threats by the group make such consent infeasible. But then what is to stop Damascus and Moscow from suddenly finding imminent threats everywhere against parties they insist are Nusra or Nusra-affiliated before Washington can concur?

For almost six years, Assad and his surrogates have claimed that the regime is exclusively at war with some shade of al-Qaeda, while Putin has insisted since September 2015 that he has been mainly striking ISIS, against all empirical evidence and Pentagon assessments to the contrary.

If the Russians do as they did last time, a cessation of hostilities was attempted and continue to bomb the anti-regime rebelsunder the guise that are in fact terroriststhis thing will fall apart in short order, said retired U.S. Air Force Col. Rick Francona, formerly the air attache stationed in the U.S. Embassy in Syria.

Not that the White House is leaping straight into bed with the Kremlin just yet. A sustained period of reduced violence in Syria is the litmus test for joint U.S.-Russian airstrikes, Kerry stipulated. Except that this period isnt going to be very sustained; it will last for just seven days, beginning on September 12, the second day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, and it must include all armed groups in Syria, excluding Nusra and ISIS. Those groups presumably will be doing all they can to keep hostilities from abating, and theyll most likely continue to be bombed.

During this Eid interregnum, two quarters in besieged Aleppo are supposed to feel immediate effects. One is the Castello Road, a main artery for human, commercial, military and humanitarian traffic in Syrias northern province. Kerry mistakenly said it currently is blocked by two sides.

In fact, three sidesbroadly speakingare contesting that road: forces loyal to the Assad regime, the Syrian rebels of various loyalties, and the U.S.-backed Kurdish militias known as the Peoples Defense Units, or YPG. All have fought one another at one point and will now be asked to stop doing so as the thoroughfare is turned into what Kerry termed a demilitarized zone.

Furthermore, the Ramouseh Gap, a strategically important sliver of territory in Aleppo City, which has changed hands three times in the last several weeks and is now under renewed regime control, will see unprecedented levels of cooperation as both the regime and opposition (which, awkwardly, is here led by Nusra and allied jihadist factions), must now provide safe, unhindered and sustainable humanitarian and commercial access to eastern and western Aleppo.

There can be no attacks or retaking of territory in the Ramouseh Gap, even as the skies above (ideally) remain clear of barrel and incendiary bombs for a week and even as Nusra was planning a major counteroffensive to re-break the siege there.

Will they just cancel these plans and abide by all of this? Lister asked.

Finally, Kerry announced, if everything goes swimmingly, on September 12 preparations for setting up a Joint Implementation Center, or JIC, will commence with the hosting of initial discussions on what Syrian territories are currently held by Nusra and opposition groups, and the outcome of this discussions will then be vetted and certified by as-yet-unnamed U.S. and Russian experts.

Two experts I would not recommend for the job are Mikhail Khodarenok, a retired Russian Air Force colonel, and Washington, D.C.-based Syria watcher Tobias Schneider, both of whom this week offered withering indictments of the Syrian regimes military capability and the dependability. The questioned whether the atomized armies doing the heavy lifting for Assad will answer to the presidents commands.

The regimes force structure today is not entirely different from that of opposition militias, Schneider wrote in an article for the website War on the Rocks. While much better supplied by the Syria Arab Armys still-standing logistics skeleton, the governments fighting force today consists of a dizzying array of hyper-local militias aligned with various factions, domestic and foreign sponsors, and local warlords.

They traffic in weapons, people, and oil to ISIS and rebel groupsthe very element with which theyre meant to be in existential conflictand they also regularly clash with Syrian security forces with impunity because, as Schneider writes, there is no force loyal to Damascus today that is strong enough bring these brigands in line.

Khodarenok is even less optimistic about Assads chances for fighting real or imaginary terrorists and controlling his infinite proxies.

In an article published in the pro-Kremlin Russian outlet Gazeta, he concluded that while militias, Iranian volunteers, Hezbollah and [Popular Mobilization Committees] fight in lieu of the Syrian army, Bashar Assads soldiers busy themselves with collecting bribes at checkpoints.

Assads conventional army, which Khodarenok believes might be better off disbanded in favor of recruiting a wholly new one, hasnt waged a single successful offensive in a year. The countrys air force is worn down and uses home-made bombs, the soldiers dig moats to protect from terrorists tunnels, while the militants enjoy tactical and moral superiority. Nor can Russia do much to control the ragtag paramilitaries because Hezbollah and the Iranians have their own interests.

All of which is to say that getting the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army and dozens of non-designated Islamist rebels to rid themselves of any association with al-Qaeda and not fire a shot on September 12 or afterward without prior American approval might actually be the easy part of Kerrys latest Hail Mary diplomacy. Theres no guarantee that Putin and Assad can, even if they want to, deliver on their end of the bargain.
Ann Coulter found out what it was like to bomb as a stand-up comedian on this past weeks Roast of Rob Lowe. But the mild reception she faced was nothing compared to the deafening silence that greeted comedian Jeff Ross when he decided to roast members of the Boston police department.

As Ross tells viewers in his new Comedy Central special, Jeff Ross Roasts Cops, which premieres this Saturday night at 11 p.m., Boston was only police force that responded when he inquired about bringing his brand of insult comedy to a big city police department. When Ross asks Commissioner William Evans what made him agree to the unusual premise, he tells the comedian he wants to break the stereotype out there that were the bad guys.

But if the commissioner wanted regular Americans to see that police officers can have senses of humor about themselves, the scene upon Rosss first arrival failed to make that case.

Ross says all he wanted to do was give them a few laughs before they hit the streets, but when he walks into their afternoon roll call, the officers stand stoically around the perimeter of the room, refusing to even sit down in the chairs provided.

The comedian, wearing a Boston PD T-shirt, begins by thanking his audience and saying hes never performed in front of a room of YouTube celebrities before. When that joke is met with blank stares, he pivots, referencing the citys rich criminal history, from Whitey Bulger to Tom Brady. At least that joke gets a response, even if it is an angry groan.

Holy shit, that sucked. Hasnt there been enough bombing in Boston? Ross asks viewers after apparently cutting the session short. If the cops didnt like the jokes he told to their faces, its a good thing he saved that one for his voiceover narration.

Ross only finds out later that before he spoke to the officers, the citys police union sent out a bulletin that labeled him a cop hater because he once attended the same Black Lives Matter rally that made Quentin Tarantino an enemy of police unions late last year. It was that experience, talking to mostly black people who believe cops are the enemy, that made him want to find a way to humanize them in the first place.

Ross finds a much more receptive audience later on when he performs for Boston police officers in a comedy club setting, drinks and all, at a benefit for the department. Theres a reason he decided to open the special with a scene from that set, in which he gets genuine laughs for saying he named his penis Rodney King because I beat it so much. Clips from that performance recur throughout the hour-long show, but even there he at one point has to tell the audience that its OK for them to laugh. You dont have the right to remain silent, he jokes.

Unsurprisingly, Ross gets the most laughs when he moves away from systemic problems with policing and makes things personal. This is especially true when he brings the commissioner onstage and commends him for letting underprivileged kids cut his hair and when he puts on a bodycam and speed-roasts a series of officers. Sample joke to a male bike cop: Does that, after a few hours, start to hurt your vagina?

He also gets them to agree to let him strap on a bulletproof vest and join two officers for a ride-along, during which the three of them end up getting roasted by a drunk man on the street. Youve got to laugh at this shit, or else youll cry, Ross says, as he finally starts to find some common ground with the cops. In a separate ride-along, another pair of cops defend the Baltimore officers who were charged with and ultimately acquitted of killing Freddie Gray. They find it inconceivable that the cops there would intentionally try to seriously hurt or kill a detainee.

Ross latest special serves in some ways as a companion piece to 2015s Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals, in which he traveled to Texas Brazos County Jail and made fun of convicts to their faces. He entered that situation with similar levels of both curiosity and trepidation, but the men he met in jail were generally more willing to laugh at themselves than the Boston cops are. Perhaps they just felt they had less to lose.

Being a comedian is like having backstage pass to the world. People will open up to us, because were not journalists, Ross told Chelsea Handler, who has produced similar documentary-style specials, on her Netflix talk show this past week. As comedians, we have a responsibility to shine a light on the darkest things in the world.

Those who know Ross only from shows like the Roast of Rob Lowe, which represented Comedy Central at its most frivolous, might find that statement a bit overblown. But while Ross is perfectly capable of dressing as Prince and making fun of Ann Coulter, it is in specials like this that he has found a way to use comedy as a tool to force people to actually listen to each other.

The jokes themselves are no less outrageous, but by moving the spotlight from celebrities to cops, who are at the center of one of the biggest problems facing America right now, Ross has the potential to make people see this issue of police violence in a new light. And he somehow manages to do it all without sacrificing the dick jokes.
Either Im a psychopath in sheeps clothing, Amanda Knox declares with steely resolve in Netflixs documentary about the controversial investigation and media firestorm that saw her convicted twiceand acquitted twicefor the grisly 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, or I am you.

Knox, now 29, is acutely aware of what the world thought of her nine years ago when headlines about Foxy Knoxy dominated the news cycle. Older, more wearied, and at times extremely emotional, Knox bares her soul for the cameras in Amanda Knox, which took directors Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst five years to pull together and achieves what all that overexposure never tried to do all those years ago: It makes her seem human.

Premiering Friday at the Toronto Film Festival, the film sheds new light on Amanda Knox the woman, if not much new evidence of what really happened the night Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was sexually assaulted and killed inside the flat they shared in Perugia, Italy. Promising never-before-seen archival materials unearthed from the original investigation, Amanda Knox is more concerned with presenting a fuller portrait of the Knox the world never got to know, in order to better understand the human complexitieswithin Knox, her accusers, the media, and the publicthat made vilifying her so easy.

One of the most striking new pieces of material in the documentary comes early on: Vivid, haunting footage of the late Kercher, smiling and beautiful and alive. It was filmed by Knox herself in the months before Kerchers death, captured on a camera as the two newly acquainted roommates spent time together. That image of Kercher resonates throughout Amanda Knox as a counterbalance to the graphic crime scene photos that circulated widely after her death, reminding viewers of the human life lost at the center of the whole affairand the selective images that came to illustrate the narrative that emerged.

The film questions why the young, pretty, and blonde Knox remained the focal point of the Kercher case, even when a third suspect, Rudy Guede, was separately tried and convicted for the murder. Guede, who fled Italy for Germany after Kerchers slaying, maintained his innocence and changed his initial story to implicate Knox as present that night, contrary to her and boyfriend Raffaele Sollecitos accounts. He saw his own sentence reduced when Knox and Sollecito were convicted and is represented in the film by his lawyer, Walter Biscotti.

Amanda Knox also zeroes in on a lesser-known portion of the Skype conversation Guede had with a friend while he was on the lam in Germany. According to transcripts obtained by the filmmakers, Guede claimed to have walked in on an intruder after Kercher was attacked and bleeding from her throat, then admitted, Im scared Ill kill myself.

The filmmakers obtained taped phone calls recorded by Italian law enforcement who wiretapped Knox and Sollecitos phones following the killing. In one conversation days after Kerchers body was discovered, Knox shares her rattled nerves with childhood friend Brett Lither. Neither young woman seems to fully grasp the enormity of whats happened, and Lither reassures Knox with the optimism of a teenage girl that she should stay positive, and that the year ahead will still be one to remember. In another taped phone call from jail, Knox is shocked to learn from her mother that the case has blown up into a full-fledged media frenzy.

Amanda Knox stirs sympathy for Knox herself as it revisits how the murder investigation was shaped by the two men arguably most instrumental in perpetrating the image of Knox as a perverted sex obsessive: Nick Pisa, the slick Daily Mail journalist who covered the Kercher case on the ground, and Giuliano Mignini, the Italian prosecutor who was convinced that the most farfetched possible explanation of Kerchers murder, that it was the result of twisted sex games gone awry, must be the right one.

Pisa unapologetically revels in recounting how he gained close access to the investigation as one of the first British reporters on the scene, and helps make the case against headline-hungry tabloid journalism by openly admitting to not confirming every juicy scoop he printed. But its Mignini, who admits to leading his investigation based on a number of gut hunches and circumstantial judgments, who contributes the most intriguing rearview observations on the shaping of the Knox narrative.

He recalls, for instance, arriving to the scene of the crime, taking one look at a broken window, and knowing it must have been staged to give the appearance of a break-in. He remembers looking up and seeing the now-famous image of Knox and her boyfriend embracing outside the house, kissing inappropriately in the immediate aftermath of her friends murder. Later, that image and the widespread scrutiny of Knoxs seemingly aloof reactions helped convince onlookers of her guilt.

The film, however, fills in gaps nobody bothered to report: That Knox and Sollecito, who had only known each other for one youthful whirlwind week, had been instructed to clear the house for investigators when they were photographed in one others arms, and were consoling each other because theyd just learned of Kerchers death. It also features the first extensive interviews with the forensic experts whose analysis of the investigations shoddy DNA testing helped free Knox and Sollecito after four years in prison.

Amanda Knox is not a true crime expose nor Netflixs next Making a Murderer, so much as it is a dense look at the sensationalism that drove the Knox narrative to its most salacious ends, painting the then-20-year-old American exchange student as a sex-crazed youth gone homicidal. In allowing Knox to stare into the eyes of her still-judgmental public, McGinn and Blackhurst peel back the curtain on Amanda Knox, the woman forever marked by the worlds invasive gaze who now lives in relative solitude in Seattle, Washington.

Knox carries a weight beyond her years in those eyes, but also has empathy for the public, driven by their own fears, that so easily saw her as a monster. When Mignini sits for the cameras and opens up about his own worldviews, his perspective also seems changed by time and hindsight. The father of four daughters, he describes himself as a devout Roman Catholic who loves detective stories and idolizing Sherlock Holmes. Now, after the Italian courts issued their second and definitive absolutions of Knox and Sollecitos convictions, he admits, perhaps for the first time, that he might have doubts as to the couples guilt after all. If they are innocent, he offers, I hope they are able to forget their suffering.
Ive seen buildings collapse before, was the first thing I heard as I took my seat. I know what a controlled demolition looks like.

That was Mikewho looked to be in his late sixties and wore a black panama hat over his mustache and hepcat sideburns and a guayabera shirt over his paunchcasually asserting his knowledge about buildings in freefall in a familiar but outdated New York accent to a Swede who nodded intently. We were in Brooklyn, the most Jewish borough in Americas most Jewish city, along with about two dozen other people, some of them Jewish and many habitues of the citys left wing political scenes along with myself and what looked to be at least four other people scribbling in reporters notebooks, to hear an anti-Semite run down the Zionist conspiracy behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Controversy had been building in New Yorks Jewish and left wing circles and most vocally in the space where those circles overlap over the decision to invite Christopher Bollyn to expound on his belief that 9/11 is a massive Zionist Jewish crime, as hes written. Once a member of far-right organizations like the Liberty Lobby tied to Holocaust denial and white nationalism, Bollyns role inside the self-proclaimed 9/11 truth movement has given him some inroads to the left. Those roads led him this week to The Brooklyn Commons, an organizing space and event venue once associated with some of the leading lights of left-wing politics.

Posters at the Commons promised a riveting analysis of who masterminded the false flag terrorist act known as 9/11, from a rare voice exposing the Neocons and their Zionist partners-in-crime. Which seemed an unlikely pitch for a non-profit operation that had described itself as providing resources to the progressive community.

But under pressure from groups that have used the Commons including Jacobin, The Baffler and WBAI to cancel the event its owner, Melissa Ennen, instead posted a statement at once denying any knowledge of Bollyns background, insisting racism has no place in left-wing politics and invoking an anti-safe space free speech ethos as grounds for allowing him to speak. After issuing her statement, the Commons about page, which had called it a resource for progressiveswas removed from its website.

Notably, Ennen didnt mention her own longstanding ties to the 9/11 truth movement, which might have explained her intransigence and also cast doubt on her claim that she did not research the speaker before accepting the rental. Those details came out only when they were reported by Daniel Sieradski, the publisher of Jewschool, a site with the banner progressive Jews and views.

Eugene, 32, a Ukrainian-born Brooklynite wearing an Industrial Workers of the World shirt, showed up Wednesday night to protest Bollyns talk. He had this to say about the Ennens decision to host it: For an event with a Holocaust denier talking to five people she decided to sabotage her progressive space and she decided to sabotage her reputation.

Several left-wing organizations tied to the venue repudiated the booking, with some eventually cutting ties with the Commons because of it.

When the event started at 7, there were close to two dozen protesters outside. This group was younger, more traditional in their radical politics, and, judging from my conversations and observations, more likely to identify as Jewish than the attendees walking past them. The protesters, too, were mostly fixtures of New Yorks left-wing politics and in some cases of the same small circles as their antagonists at the talk.

Here was some sampling of the left fighting with itself over the meaning and borders of its politics. Thus the multiple protesters carrying signs with variations on the slogan, yet another Jewish anti-Zionist against anti-Semitism.

One such sign was held by Rosa, an almost 40 cultural worker living in New York and active in anti-Zionist politics aimed at Jewish audiences.

Free speech is the principle that the government should not ban people from talking, Rosa said in response to Ennens defense of booking Bollyn. There is no obligation for anyone to provide a platform for bigotry, Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism etc. Even as a bad excuse it doesnt register on the scale.

Also protesting was Mal, a New Yorker who did not give her age but appeared to be in her late twenties and said she was involved in left-wing anti-authoritarian and LGBT politics.

Anti-Zionism is not a form of anti-Semitism, Mal argued, but it is used as a cover for anti-Semitism and we do need to be vigilant but the thing is were seeing it in more parts of the left. Where else had she seen it? Occupy circles.

She elaborated: Im talking about casual use of anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic propaganda like the concept of Rothschild Zionism being whats undergirding the economic oppression of the working class.

Giving these people a platform in a leftist space is unconscionable Mal told me. Because what is leftism anymore if you are condoning anti-Semitism? What is that anymore? Youve completely lost the plot, then.

Inside, past the coffee and wine bar, the crowd seated in the back was a bit older and more visibly diverse. Rudy Dent, a black retired New York City firefighter who says he worked on the pile at Ground Zero and is a minor celebrity in anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy circles in his own right, was there to introduce Bollyn. There was more visible political diversity, too, among those seated inside, with Palestinian solidarity activists beside dedicated 9/11 truthers, and hippie washouts stuck in a conspiracy loop beside a man who said he drove in from Massachusetts for the talk where he sported a pin with the image of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad beneath the slogan long live the Syrian Arab Republic and held a poster with Stalin on one side, Putin on the other and between them the words, Restore Socialism Reunite Soviet Union.

Not long after the talk started, people stared to nod off. Yes, it was an older crowd. But even if you wanted to stay awake just to stoke your,outrage it was difficult. Ever sat through a two-hour PowerPoint presentation?

Strip away everything else and here was a middle-aged man dully clicking through slides. This slide has Jewish names and Zionist written across the forehead of some demonic figure; this one Menachem Begin; this one details on a German journalists allegedly suspicious marriage to an Israeli official; this one the iconic picture of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, a Syrian child whose face covered in blood and ash after he survived a bombing, shown here supposedly as some proof of something or another to do with the Zionist criminals and 9/11 and the long con that is all of history as underwritten by the unseenexcept to Bollyn and his ilkJewish hand. The presentation was supposed to be an hour followed by questions, but it droned on for nearly the full two allotted for the event.

The only bit of comedy came from Bollyns exaggerated pronunciation of foreign words and names, like Jab-oh-teen-skee instead of Jabotinsky as if that gave him a scholarly air.

There was no formal intermission but at one point a protester interrupted the talk by calling Bollyn a fascist with ties to neo-Nazis and was pulled out of the venue by the security guy in the room, prompting the woman who had been collecting tickets for the event to remark with evident disgust: Look at what the Palestinians have to put up with. A second incident that I did not witness involved a protester being cursed at and then spitting on a Commons employee, which led to four police cars showing up and the arrest of one protester outside after that person called a police officer a pig.

The night ended with mutual recriminations and recording devices as the attendees crossed paths with the protesters on the sidewalk.

Among the protestors, no one expressed surprise that Bollyn existed or that ideas like his found an audience but they didnt seem to understand exactly how the hell he had wound up here, invited into Brooklyn by someone many of them knew, at a left-wing cafe in a long-since gentrified part of town.

Mike, who knew all about controlled demolitions, dropped a bit of Yiddish when he was confronted by protesters leaving the talk. What had he been doing there, I asked him after that exchange. Just keeping an open mind, he said, the same answer I heard from two other people who had been inside and maintained after two hours of slides that it was all very intriguing but they hadnt formed any opinions on it yet, and also it wasnt like hed said all Jews are bad, or all Zionists as the case may be. Mike, expressing a common sentiment among the open-minded, said he didnt necessarily believe everything Bollyn said but he didnt believe the governments account of 9/11 either.

Of course just asking can become its own statement, as Donald Trump has demonstrated. In the cavity of 9/11 conspiracies, and conspiratorial thinking more generally, there is often an obsession with Jews and Jewish power.

And where Bollyn is widely considered a fringe figure, his line of thinking has found more mainstream messengers in figures like Kevin Barrett, the University of Wisconsin professor who also suspects 9/11 was an inside job pulled off by Zionist agents and dabbles in Holocaust denial, or more recently Oberlin Colleges Joy Kargea, who credits the Jews with not just 9/11 but also the rise of ISIS and the Charlie Hebdo murders. As she explained on Facebook: I stopped letting people bully me with that Youre being anti-semitic nonsense a long time ago.

If you listen, Mal said, to the kind of 9/11 truth-adjacent and Alex Jones-adjacent sections of the left, you will see a lot of this and you will see it as a pervasive thing.
The day after their suspensions are handed down, Lee steals one of his fathers Glocks and brings it to school in his backpack. Loaded. Not to hurt anyonehe would never do thatfor self-defense. Its only smartnot everyone will like what he has done, not everyone appreciates those who do whats right. Walking around with the Glock, having the ability to kill any bad guys who threaten him, or more so having the ability, the option, of killing anyone at all whenever he feels like it but choosing not to, allowing them to live, makes him feel much better about himself. I am good, he thinks. He finds he feels warmer toward people, is more forgiving, even feels affection toward them. He is more polite on crowded stairwells, gallantly allowing others to go ahead of him. A cop, he thinks. A cop in New York.

From The Shooting by James Boice

In the weeks after Newtown, I was riding the subway back and forth through Manhattan every day and walking through Times Square, thinking about those kids and what their last moments were like and how anybody who wanted to could just board the subway or step out onto the street beside me and start shooting and there was nothing anyone could do. This did not reconcile with our supposed rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The easy access and sheer number of military-grade weaponry had created such a horrible place of our country. When guns were not killing our kids, they were turning the rest of us into anxiety-ridden paranoiacs. It felt like a kind of terrorism.

So I started reading about guns and gun politics and why such a horrible thing was able to happen and why nothing legislative happened in its aftermath to ensure it would never happen again. I read a lot of nonfiction, including Gunfight by Adam Winkler, Gun Guys by Dan Baum. Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist by Richard Feldman. These books, among others, helped give me an idea of the environment and history and politics behind gun violence.

I learned our entire culture is a gun culture. You have no choice but to have a relationship to guns in our country. There are 300 million guns out there and counting. More of us have been killed by guns than by all the terrorists and all our wars combined. Women are killed with guns by their domestic partners at horrifying rates. Mass shootings, accidental shootings, gang shootings, police shootings of black mengun violence is a major, major piece of what it is like to live in America in the 21st century.

Im a fiction writer, I write novels and short storiesI needed to write a novel that reflected the horror I was seeing around me.

What was interesting to me about gun culture from a fiction standpoint was its key mindset: fear, distrust, and faithlessness. Fear of other people, especially those who are different from you; distrust of authority; faithlessness toward the universe, which, gun culture believes, is indifferent to your existence, so it falls on you to protect yourself.

Gun culture provides such ripe material for literature. Its darkly poetic: the difference between how we see ourselvesheroicand how we actually aretragic. People acting with one intentionself-defense, safetybut causing death, suffering. The Newtown killers mother, for example. Here was a tragic character right out of literature. Her child was mad, unreachable, but she saw him as simply unique, sensitive. She refused to get him help; instead, she indulged him. She liked guns, she bought the rhetoric the NRA had sold her about American values and self-defense, about an armed society being a polite society, about good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns. When her son showed interest in guns as well, she was very happy. This was a wholesome thing they could finally bond over. She taught him how to shoot, seeing herself and him as good guys. She even bought him his own guns. She found meaning and connection in shooting guns with her son. It must have felt very good, to finally reach him, to be a part of something bigger with him, a culture of Americans exercising their sacrosanct constitutional rightsdespite what she must have known deep down in her heart.

And hers was the body they found last, after all the kids. She was the first one he shot, before heading to the elementary school with those same guns they bonded over.

Theres something on your face.

Lees worried. What is it?

Nothing, just a smile. Been so long since I saw it, I didnt recognize it.

Puts his arm around his sons shoulders and says, Listen, something I wanted to talk to you about. That gun? Its yours now Its always been yours, Ive just been holding it for you. Take care of it. Protect it. And remember: youre just keeping it for your son. Its already his, just like it was already yours.

From The Shooting by James Boice

Guns are our impossible children, they are our ++ Adam Lanza ++ [/content/dailybeast/articles/2013/11/26/we-already-know-what-adam-lanza-s-real-motive-was-at-sandy-hook.html]. They grew out of our flawed, well intentioned, frightened human hearts. We have them because we live afraid of death and of each other, we feel alone, we misunderstand each other. So we try to protect ourselves. We get a gun. Maybe a few. Maybe a lot. And things go wrong.

First I needed to read how our gun culture had already been portrayed in contemporary fiction. Its important to know whats already been done, so you can try to contribute something unique.

I was surprised that there was nothing out there. At least, nothing I could find. There have been countless American novels with guns in them, of course, but usually portrayed in a romantic or poetic way, symbols of fate or independence, and rarely in a way that questions them. And there have been quite a few American novels that involve mass shootings or school shootings (Wally Lambs The Hour I First Believed; Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll), but they never get into guns, meaning our gun culture, this thing killing 33,000 of us each year, more than any terror attacks or wars. They tend to be more about the characters dealing with the trauma of the violence, as if it was a natural disaster. Project X by Jim Shepard was about two kids planning a Columbine attack and is more about adolescent angst than guns. We Need to Talk about Kevin is an excellent novel but one that goes so far to avoid talking about guns that its author Lionel Shriver has its mass killer use a bow and arrow.

What was missing from most fiction involving guns was gun culture, the convergence of those living in fear, distrust, and faithlessness with those living in faith, trust and fearlessness.

I did not use Adam Lanzas mother as a jumping off point for my story because Shriver had already done a story about the parent of a mass killer far better than I ever could. I tried out many other storylinesshootings of one kind or another, but none gained traction, and the problem was I was writing fiction about the idea and facts of guns, the idea of shootings. It is not a good idea to write fiction about ideas or factit will turn out like thinly veiled fable or even propaganda, its characters mere archetypes or cliche there to deliver a moral. Fiction is about voices and characters, so that is where it is best to starttry and let them come to life, stand up, and speak. Which was a key thing to figure out about guns and shootingsthough they might seem like the same story over and over, each shooting is its own, with its unique reasons why it happened and what comes as a result and what it feels like for everyone. There is no one story.

So I began again, trying to start with people, characters. I wrote about the world in front of my face, which was America in the 21st century, which means the rich crush the poor, the white crush the black, the powerful crush the powerless, the politics crush the people. It could be any time and any place, actuallywhat makes it ours are the guns.

Meanwhile, I heard about what happened to my brothers friend down in Virginia. My brothers friend had a 15-year-old son. He was black. One night he sneaked out of the house, went to a party, came home drunk, tried to sneak back insidebut he was confused and got the wrong house. He ended up in the house next door. The neighbor who lived there, who was white, did not even give the kid a chance. He was ready for this. Always had been. He was one of the NRAs good guys with a gun, the kind who mowed his lawn with his gun on his hip. The kind who live in fear, distrust, and faithlessness. Here was his moment. He ran downstairs with his Glock and opened fire until the kid was dead. Didnt care that it was the kid next door. Cops let the guy off, said it was the kids fault. And that was that.

I was consumed with this storyhow tragic it was, how racist, how dehumanizing, how stupid, how unjust. It felt like gun culture was embodied in that shooting, as was the difference between how we see ourselvesa great nationand how we actually areone that kills its childrenas was the human condition itselfa man trying to keep peace by arming himself in fact creates horror; a man seeing himself as a hero but others seeing him as a villain. A father sees his son as a good kida boy sees himself as a good kidbut the neighbor sees him as a dangerous thug.

All the shootings made me think what a myth America ishow free are we when we can be shot at any time for any reason, even for no reason? It made me think about the fragility of our lives, about fate and chance and the spiderweb-like structure of the universehow we are all connected, and everything we do has an effect, how we all rely on each other whether we like it or not. How we have to trust each other just by living. And how sad it is that those who are afraid, who are distrustful, who have no faith in mankind can destroy everyone else and guns let them do it easily and cleanly, with minimal effort. The myth says that guns level the playing field, but the reality is that guns give the cowardly a disproportionate amount of power. Real bravery is being unarmed, prepared not to kill but to embrace the unexpected, the unknown, to let go of control. Real bravery knows we have no control, we are part of a vast tapestry of actions and reactions, yours and others. A gun is about seeking the delusion of control to appease our fears, with deadly, terrible consequences.

I started writing about a man who believes he is all alone, fending for himself, and who does not imagine that we affect one another in ways we do not see, that good can come from bad or bad from good. And he lives devoted to a misremembered past. I wanted to follow this guy through his life, I wanted to show this man hurting somebody who did not deserve it, and I wanted to write about that person too, a boy, with no power and no gun but no fear either.

The two of them came to life and began to converge toward each other, and that, I knew, was the central story of The Shooting.

I wanted to show these two people affecting and being effected by other characters without even realizing it, as they converged. And I wanted to show so-called bad guys having unintended positive effects, and vice versa, and then those effects coming back around. I wanted to explore the bigger scheme of things, the connections the mindset of gun culture ignores. I called these sections Sheeplekind of a thumbing of the nose at political rhetoric referring to unarmed citizens as mindless, helpless livestock who good guys with guns must protect.

No matter how much you love it, grief work will wear you down. The constant death and relentless tragedy, so much of it the same. We just do not think certain people matter. They are disposable to us. It is a virus that infects our entire society. I have been feeling like a fraud, reciting from a rote clinical script to these families, knowing there is this illness out there we are not doing enough to cure. I feel like I am selling timeshares.

From The Shooting by James Boice

What I was writing became a novel called The Shooting. I felt like I had to write it, for my personal psychology, to understand the terrible realities of life in a gun culture and life as a human. One of my intentions, aside from writing well and telling an interesting story and creating compelling characters, was to write something to change things. I wanted to help, to do something to get us thinking seriously and differently about gun culture as a pathology in our society. Insane, maybe, but we live in insane times. Writing this novel was the best way I knew how to try.

James Boice is the author of three previous novels, MVP, NoVA, and The Good and the Ghastly, all published by Scribner. His work has appeared in Esquire, McSweeneys, Salt Hill, Fiction magazine and Salon, among other places. In 2006 he was selected as the New Voice in the Esquire 100. He lives in Jersey City, NJ.
It didnt take much longer than a few minutes for the Trump campaign and its allies to seize on Hillary Clinton s basket of deplorables quip and spin it as her latest presidential undoing.

Hillary Clintons 47% Moment: Calls Trump Supporters Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Xenophobic, Islamophobic, Breitbart (the most pro-Trump media outlet on the internet that has become a haven to the white-nationalist alt-right ) proclaimed on Friday. Senior Trump advisor Sarah Huckabee went as far as to say that Clintons inexcusable moment was actually worse than Mitt Romneys .

On Friday night, Clinton had torn into supporters of her Republican rival, saying: "To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trumps supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" condemning the basket as a woefully bigoted one. Throughout the weekend, the Trump campaign repeatedly returned fire, labeling her as the  truly deplorable  one.

At the annual Christian-right Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, on Saturday morning, Trumps running mate Mike Pence contended that her characterization of 50 percent of Trump fans was an immediately disqualifying moment for the presidential candidate.

Hillary Clinton said last night at a big fundraiser in New York City that the American people, the millions of Americans who are supporting my running mate[they] were described in the most deplorable of terms, the Indiana Republican governor told the crowd at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in northwest DC. It's extraordinary to think about. She referred to those people as irredeemable [Someone who has] such a low opinion of people who support this campaign should be denounced in the strongest possible terms."

Hillary, they are not a basket of anything, Pence continued , calling Trump supporters "hard-working Americans," farmers, coal miners, teachers, and so forth. They are Americans and they deserve your respect.

Following Pences remarks, the organizers of the annual Summit proceeded to play video of Clintons deplorables comments on the conferences big screens, as the social-conservative audience booed and hissed at the Democratic candidates condemnation.

She spoke at a Democratic fundraiser with Barbra Streisand , Gil Mertz, a Family Research Council staffer and summit emcee, told supporters. "I hated to [play you that clip] right before lunch," adding that Clintons riff against half of all Trump voters is going to be a powerful moment that is now going massively viral.

Gone viral, it has.

It's never been a well-kept secret that Hillary Clinton has a great deal of contempt for a great number of Americans, Rory Cooper, a Republican strategist and managing director of the firm Purple Strategies, told The Daily Beast. Just ask nearly any service employee that worked at the White House in the 90s. Her arrogance has always been her Achilles Heel. This latest incident will make it harder to persuade Republicans and center-right independents disgruntled with the GOP nominee to take the leap and cast a vote for her instead.

On Saturday, the Clinton campaign attempted to walk back her statementwell, at least the quantification part of it.

Last night, I was grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea, Clinton said in a statement posted to her Facebook page. I regret saying halfthat was wrong. But let's be clear, what's really deplorable is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called alt-right movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values.

This was all explained the day after Clintons campaign press secretary Nick Merrill insisted that Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt-right, but alt-right leaders are with Trumpand that the alt-rights supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events.

At this point, Team Hillarys response to the backlash appears to hinge upon rescinding her assertion that half of Trumps supporters are beyond-the-pale bigoted and chauvinistic. Regardless, whatever the precise percentage, Clinton has made it a recurring theme in her campaign to bash The Donalds hate-spewing fanboys, particularly those of the alt-right variety.

Last month, Clinton gave a much publicized speech calling attention to the far-right political movement defined largely by racial resentments, raging anti-Semitism , nationalistic giddiness, Nazi memes , and enthusiastic support for Trumps stand against political correctness and immigrants.

This is not conservatism as we have known it these are racist ideas, race-baiting ideas, she said in August , name-checking the alt-right as the paranoid fringe.

The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign represents a landmark achievement for [the alt-right] which has effectively taken over the Republican Party, she said.

(For its part, the leading figures of the alt-right were thrilled that both the Trump and Clinton campaigns were helping to make their brand a household term.)

So, yes, there are plenty of (and far too many) rabidly racist, misogynistic, and gleefully prejudiced white-nationalist members of Trumps electoral fanbasea genuinely deplorable cadre of bigots who have gained real, outsized influence within the Republican Party through the rise of Trumpism.

Team Hillary is now in a position of hashing out specifics regarding the percentage.

And as the alt-right enjoys yet another round of free publicity, at least one of its most prominent adherents is playing the victim card. Hard .

For several months, our alt Right political party...has manned a Trump crisis hotline so that bullied Trump supporters have a place to go, William Johnson, leader of the white-nationalist American Freedom Party and actual former Trump delegate , wrote in response to the basket of deplorables comments. She is now the most high-profile bully in the nation.
A German man set world record with his bicycle he made from scrap metal and industrial farming tires. And you know why? Because somebody dared him.

By India Today Web Desk:

According to several online articles and videos doing rounds on the internet, a man in Germany recently set a new Guinness World Record for assembling the world's heaviest bicycle. It weighs a tonne, costs more than Rs 3 lakh, and was completed in six months.

Frank Dose, 49, who lives in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany used two humongous tires taken off of an industrial fertilizer spreader and welded the frame from several giant piles of scrap metal.

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To qualify for the Guinness record, Dose's bike needed to be functional and not just a prototype.

And like they say, you simply do not mess with a German headbanger, so last week, at the Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival, Dose took the bike for a ride in front of a crowd of thousands and the official representatives from Guinness.

Watch the video of the world's heaviest bicycle here.





Although the record has been set but it will take a couple of months for Guinness to officially verify the record.

Dose put half a year into building the giant metal bicycle to not set a world record in the first place. Actually he did so, because someone dared him.

--- ENDS ---
On Christmas Eve 2003, Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency, made a secure phone call to his British counterpart, David Pepper, the director of the Government Communications Headquarters.

Happy Christmas, David, Hayden said, speaking to Pepper from NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland, about 20 miles from the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Such social calls werent unusual. The NSA and GCHQ were the closest of allies in a global hunt for the phone calls, emails, and other electronic communications of spies and terrorists.

But Hayden had more on his mind than seasons greetings. In recent days, the NSA had been collecting what Hayden would later describe as a massive amount of chatterphone calls and emails from terroriststhat suggested al Qaeda was planning multiple attacks inside the United States, timed to the holidays.

One more thing, David, Hayden said after the two men exchanged pleasantries. We actually feel a bit under threat here. And so Ive told my liaison to your office that should there be catastrophic loss at Ft. Meade, we are turning the functioning of the American [signals intelligence] system over to GCHQ.

There was a long pause as Pepper absorbed what his American colleague had just told him.

The word catastrophic suggested some event that would destroy the NSAs headquarters, which housed the computer equipment that made sense of all that chatter streaming in through U.S. sensors, listening posts, and computer implants. The only reason to turn over that signals intelligence systemsomething that had never been donewould be if the NSA was no longer capable of performing its mission.

Mike, Pepper inquired, Do you guys know something we dont?

Hayden thought they did.

Amid that massive amount of chatter, NSA officials and others were seeing the same threat made repeatedly: that al Qaeda terrorists were planning to detonate a nuclear device in or around Washington, D.C.

The intelligence wasnt specific enough to guide officials to a bomb. But the threat was also too significant to ignore.

Intelligence said there was very likely a nuclear device that could affect command and control systems in Washington, a former U.S. official who was directly involved in efforts to verify the intelligence and prepare for a possible detonation told The Daily Beast. The concern was that it would be catastrophic.

The 2003 nuclear threat, which has received almost no public attention in the years since, was described to The Daily Beast by three former U.S. officials, two of whom were privy to contemporaneous intelligence on the matter and were working frantically on efforts to determine whether there really was a nuclear device hidden in the United States or on its way here. Four other former officials also described intelligence reporting in the same period that alerted officials to a different threat against commercial airliners. Collectively, all said this was the period of highest anxiety since the 9/11 attacks, a moment when some in the U.S. government were all but convinced that al Qaeda was poised to strike at any moment.

The intelligence about a possible nuclear attack was taken seriously enough that teams of inspectors from the Energy Department fanned out in several major U.S. cities, including Washington, Los Angeles, and New York carrying radiation detection equipment concealed in luggage.

I didnt even go home that Christmas, said a second former official who was monitoring reports from the detection teams. There was all kinds of intelligence, targeting different cities.

The inspectors were trying to figure out, is there some credibility to this information, the first former official said. It was taken as very significant, because if it was true wed have a lot of bases to cover.

At Ft. Meade, that meant preparing for the worst. Losing the ability to analyze global communications was unthinkable for Hayden, the former official said. Then, and now, signals intelligence are the primary source of information about terrorists and their plots. If Ft. Meade were destroyed, the entire U.S. security apparatus would be crippled.

David, just a precaution, Hayden told his counterpart. But if we go down, you run the show.

***

Hayden described his fears of a catastrophic attack and his plan to hand over direction of signals intelligence to the British in his recent memoir, Playing to the Edge, and he also recalled the story in greater detail at a book talk in March. But his remarkable account appears to have gone unnoticed by the press and most of the public.

In his book and public remarks, Hayden never mentioned intelligence that suggested a nuclear device might be in play. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he said I just dont remember what the specific nature of the threat was, though he vividly recalled every other detail of his unprecedented planning and conversations with Pepper.

Hayden did allow, however, that he was worried that a large explosion could be set off on Maryland Route 32, the state highway that runs right by some key buildings at Ft. Meade, and effectively take the agency offline.

But it wasnt just NSA computers that Hayden was worried about. He emphasized that in asking Pepper to take over, he intended GCHQ to assume direction of U.S. signals intelligencethat is, the job of the director, Hayden, who in the event of a massive explosion might be dead.

The first former official confirmed that as part of Haydens worst-case-scenario planning, he presumed he would no longer be around to give orders.

For officials trying to make sense of the threat, the lack of specificity contained in the chatter was frustrating. And the volume of information set people on edge.

Multiple streams of intelligence all seemed to point to some plot, though no one could say for sure how it would happen. Was the device already in the country? Was it going to be shipped in through a port or over a land border? And was the device a traditional nuclear weapon or a dirty-bomb, a conventional explosive that would disperse radioactive material and potentially render whole city blocks uninhabitable?

As we looked at the reports, we thought, Wow, if we read this right, this could come at us a lot of ways, the first former official said.

Experts were divided over whether al Qaeda really had the mix of talent and resources to obtain a nuclear device. A third former official said that in the months preceding the holiday scare, lawmakers and intelligence officials had debated the matter in closed-door sessions, and that many considered it an urgent question.

It was very clear there was a lot of anxiety around nukes or dirty nukes, and there were interagency debates about al Qaedas capabilities, the former official said. Some pooh-poohed the idea that anyone but a government could obtain a weapon. Others said, No, no, its possible.

Among those who thought this way, even the slightest shred of credible intelligence was taken seriously, the former official said. And within that camp, another debate emerged. Would terrorists smuggle the device into the United States? Or was it possible that al Qaeda had already deployed or recruited agents in the country to build the bomb here?

Against that backdrop of uncertain possibilities, threat intelligence started streaming in around mid-December, mainly from intercepted phone calls and emails, that seemed to fit with al Qaedas nuclear ambitions.

We knew that al Qaeda was trying hard to obtain a weapon, the first former official said. There was a plausible theory, and there was evidence to support that theory. Given the stakes, and the risk of losing a major portion of U.S. spying, Hayden had little choice but to prepare for the worst.

***

Haydens plan made sense. The GCHQ is the closest technological analog to the NSA. Its not like this was something they couldnt handle, Hayden told The Daily Beast. The British and the Americans not only share information, but they each possess a formidable, global-intelligence gathering system.

There was also no one else to take the baton in the United States. At the time of the holiday threat, the NSA was building an alternate facility, a kind of mini-backup of the site at Ft. Meade that was far away enough from Washington to avoid an attack, but also not so far that it couldnt be reached by key personnel within a few hours. (Former officials declined to say where the facility was located.)

The facility was designed to handle about 80 percent of NSAs mission but in a much smaller physical space, Hayden said. But as of December 2003, it still wasnt fully up and running.

We were also pushing a lot of missions out to the RSOCs, Hayden said, referring to the NSAs regional operations centers, in Texas, Hawaii, and Georgia. But that wasnt complete, either.

That left Ft. Meade as the only U.S. location that could fully perform the critical signals intelligence mission. It was closer to a single point of failure than we wanted it to be, Hayden said. Since we hadnt done all our dispersal [to the alternate sites] and were still vulnerable, the next best thing was to contact the British.

The public knew nothing about nuclear inspection teams or doomsday prepping at Ft. Meade, but even from the outside, the world appeared more dangerous than usual.

At the White House, the CIA, and the barely-year-old Homeland Security Department, top officials and their analysts were busy tracking another stream of intelligence that suggested imminent attacks against airliners. Security concerns led to at least 15 flight cancellations on aircraft bound from France, the United Kingdom, and Mexico, stranding anxious holiday travelers.

On Dec. 22, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had announced the national terror alert was being raised to its second-highest level, owing to a substantial increase in reports pointing to near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11. Ridge told the public that security was being enhanced at airports as well as around other transportation systems and infrastructure, and that border patrol agents and the Coast Guard were being dispatched to monitor seaports and land border crossings.

Was Homeland Security also worried that al Qaeda might smuggle a device into the United States? The focus on land borders was notable, at least in hindsight, in light of a claim eight months later from a captured al Qaeda operative named Sharif al-Masri, who told his CIA interrogators that al Qaeda had intended to transport a nuclear device or material to the United States, possibly via Mexico, according to a declassified Justice Department memo. The claim also seemed to fit with the intelligence communitys broader assessment that al Qaeda was trying to obtain a nuke.

At the White House, reporters pressed for more details about suspected terror plots. Americans were told to go about their plans, but as always, remain vigilant.

Despite these public warnings, and the obvious fears about airplane attacks, the suspected nuclear threat was never revealed. It also appears to have been known only by a few people even within senior ranks of the U.S. government. Three former high-level officials who worked on the airliner threat, including one at the White House, said they had no recollection of a nuclear weapons scare or of Haydens plans with GCHQ.

They all remembered the airliner threat, and specifically that al Qaeda would try to crash planes in the U.S., as it had on 9/11, or blow them up mid-air. The CIA developed a particularly novel theory that al Qaeda was telling its operatives which international flights to attack by sending coded messages in the crawl at the bottom of Al Jazeeras television news broadcasts.

Hayden actually seemed somewhat skeptical of this threat, a former White House official told The Daily Beast. These [NSA] guys knows something about steganography, the practice of concealing messages within text that isnt secret. The technical guys were all sitting around the table kind of rolling their eyes when the CIA guys were talking about it.

That would be a true story, Hayden told The Daily Beast. We just didnt see it. There was no evidence that would cause us to think it was accurate.

***

But then, what was the evidence that led some to believe that the nuclear threat might be real? The experts at the NSA may have been able to discount coded messages on television, but no one could say with certainty that there wasnt a nuclear device hiding somewhere in Washington. Ultimately, the intelligence was startling and maddeningly vague; as it often was, and is. In the end, the worst fears turned out to have been based on intelligence that wasnt credible, the former official said.

Those Energy Department teams who fanned out across the country in search of an al Qaeda nuke found nothing but a shiny, cylindrical radium pellet, used to treat uterine cancer, that had been picked up years earlier by a homeless man and stashed in a rented storage locker in Las Vegas. (The Washington Post, which reported the discovery, was also the first and only publication to note that the inspectors had been dispatched during the holiday scare. But the newspapers account, which seems to have gone almost entirely unnoticed, said that the inspectors were sent because of the belief among officials that al Qaeda was eager to obtain a nuclear device. In fact, the intelligence suggested the terror group might already have one, the former officials told The Daily Beast.)

No one knew at the time that the leads would go nowhere or that the frightening reporting would turn out to be baseless, or maybe just bluster by al Qaeda operatives trying to sow the seeds of confusion. Still, the 2003 holiday scare stands out as one of the most dangerous periods since the 9/11 attacks, even if the threat was merely perceived and not real.

Many of the people who spent their holidays wondering when the attack might come hadnt talked about the story in years. The plane threat and the nuclear scare had faded into the annals of myriad plots that never materialized. The chatter, once deafening, dropped to a murmur and was soon drowned out by a new chorus when the Homeland Security Department warned just a few months later that signs once again pointed to an attack.

Had officials come forward and shared their worst fears with the American public, its not clear what good would have come of it. No one in government could say for sure where the device might be located. Imagined fears of a devastating nuclear attack would be quickly superseded by the real threat of mass panic.

But security fatigue was also on the rise. By late 2003, a palpable skepticism greeted the Bush administrations warnings about orange terror alerts and near-term attacks that could rival 9/11. The next summer, the terror alert was again raised to orange before the Democratic National Convention, and the presidents opponents accused him of conjuring up vague threats to scare voters into re-electing him, rather than taking a chance on his Democratic rival. Even Ridge, the homeland security secretary, would later write in his memoir that he was pressured to ratchet up the alert level on the eve of the 2004 election.

No doubt Hayden and others have factored all this and more into their own thinking. When warning about a vague, mysterious threat can make you seem paranoid or mendacious, the best bet is often to keep quiet. Thats probably why many stories of near-misses and false alarms in the past 15 years of a war on terrorism have gone unreported.

Hayden chose not to talk about the 2003 threat until he published a book, and his critics will surely detect some opportunism there. They have excoriated him for his leadership of the NSAs StellarWind program, which secretly monitored communications of millions of Americans, and have said he tried to whitewash the CIAs torture of terrorism suspects after he became the director of that agency.

But occasionally, behind the chatter that weve come to anticipateand often ignoresomeone decides to take it seriously. On Christmas Eve 2003, that was Hayden, who said he opted to follow the simple maxim, better safe than sorry.

In retrospect, we were probably being too cautious and too alarmist, Hayden said of his plan to hand off signals intelligence to GCHQ. But the 9/11 attacks two years earlier had permanently altered his perspective. On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, after sending all non-essential agency employees home, Hayden ordered that black-out curtains be tacked up in NSAs glass windows. Thats standard procedure for protecting buildings during an air raid. As the sun went down that day, Hayden thought his building might still be a target. Two years later, he still did.

9/11 was a surprise, Hayden said. And he was done with surprises.
Julia Roberts Says MLK Jr. Paid Hospital Bill For Her Birth

YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT

The actress said her parents were friends with King and his wife, and the couple helped out when they couldn't afford the bill.
By India Today Web Desk: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, whose Islamic Research Foundation has come under the scanner, has claimed innocence in an open letter to Indians. Naik said that he was being framed and targeted by the government agencies.

In his letter titled 'Five Questions and an Appeal', Naik claimed that the government agencies did not find anything illegal against his organization, IRF or his preaching. He also claimed that an attack on him would be considered as an attack on the entire Muslim community.



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'WHY TARGET ME?'

Rejecting charges of encouraging terrorism in any form, Naik writes, "I've been preaching for 25 years. Not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr. Terror' and 'hate monger'?"

"Of 150 countries where I'm respected and my talks are welcomed, I'm being called a terrorist influencer in my own country. What an irony. Why now, when I've been doing the same thing for over 25 years," Naik asked.

READ: How Centre dropped the ball in televangelist Zakir Naik case

NAIK UNDER TERROR SCANNER

After Dhaka terror attack in July, Naik has been under the scanner of the security agencies as one of the terrorists said that he was inspired by his religious preaching.

In his open letter, Naik lamented being the target of the security agencies after Dhaka terror attack. "It has been over two months since the ghastly terror attack in Dhaka, and over one month since I've been asking myself what exactly have I done to become the enemy number one of the media as well as the State and Central Government," he wrote.

Known as Dr Zakir Naik among his followers, the Islamic preacher founded Islamic Research Foundation in 1991 to spread his religious sermons, which he called Dawah. In his preaching, Naik proclaims superiority of Islam over other religions.

READ: Zakir Naik gave Rajiv Gandhi trust Rs 50 lakh. Congress says returned, Naik says no





Read his open letter:



It has been over two months since the ghastly terror attack in Dhaka, and over one month since I've been asking myself what exactly have I done to become the enemy number one of the media as well as the State and Central Government. For someone who has spent 25 years in promoting peace, spreading greater awareness of Islam and talking about similarities between religions and condemning injustices, the last two months have been a rude shock to me. A shock of immense proportions. I'm not only disappointed in the way things are being conducted but alarmed at where they are heading.

I'm alarmed at the murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights and the precedence it is setting for times to come. I'm also alarmed at how the system, media and the agencies are being used to suit a pre-meditated end result set by none other than our own governments, governments that have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of India, and a Constitution that allows me the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate any religion I follow. Let's not be gullible enough to assume that there isn't a deeper agenda behind this vicious campaign. This is not just an attack on me, it's an attack against Indian Muslims. And it's an attack against peace, democracy and justice.

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From what I understand, IRF and I have been set up for a ban. Never mind the fact that the legal agencies have found no wrongdoing - financial or otherwise. Never mind the lack of evidence (although I am not guilty of any wrong-doing, much less any offence whatsoever). At least this is what is evident from the media stories being 'planted' since the past several weeks. The message is clear: it's not a question of whether I've committed a crime or not. It's a question of using desperate measures to kill peace and harmony. And a ban is now imminent. It may happen in days or weeks but the writing is clear on the wall. IRF and I have been set up for a ban. Unless of course, better sense prevails and the ban machinery set in motion is stopped.

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And if that happens, if IRF and I are banned, it will be the biggest jolt to the country's democracy of recent times. I do not say this just for me but because this ban will set a precedence of unspeakable injustices against the 20 crore Muslims of India. This action will embolden and encourage every fringe element in the country to do as they please. If you thought intolerance increased in the country recently, this action of the government will take it to an all-time high. The Muslim population is already feeling threatened and insecure and I can't even imagine how they will feel after this action. Muslims are bound to think that today it is Zakir Naik, tomorrow it could be any one of them.

But I still can't stop asking myself - why am I being targeted? Then I realized some time back that if you've decided to target a community, you've to first target the biggest name and the most popular figure of the community. If you can bring down and demonize this figure of the community, the rest becomes a cakewalk. That, I think, is what is happening. It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I honestly cannot find any other plausible reason.

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Right from the beginning of July, I tried staying away from the current controversy. This was not the first time I was being targeted. For years, there have been groups who have opposed me. Instead of retaliating or reacting to them, I've felt it best to continue with my work and not pay attention to these detractors. That is what I tried doing even this time. But I soon realized that this time it was different. There was much greater media involvement, and a much deeper government's involvement. I'm not privy to internal details so I do not know which came first - my opposition groups, the media or the government. But from what it looks like, this is the best concerted effort used against me so far.

I tried answering all the questions and allegations thrown at me. But soon a lot of my own questions started piling up in my mind. Two months into it, they've built up and I'm left with no choice but to pose these questions to you, to my fellow citizens. As my legal advisors evaluate things at their end, I write to all of you to tell you what I've been feeling for last two months. Let us keep the legalities aside. Though the witch hunt continues, and I know I've not done anything wrong, either in my talks or in my finances, and till date the agencies have not found any wrong doing. But that is for the legal teams to sort out at both the ends. But here is what bothers me. Try asking these questions yourself and see if you can come up with coherent and logical answers to them -

[A] Why now?

I've been preaching for 25 years. Not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr. Terror' and 'hate monger'? Of 150 countries where I'm respected and my talks are welcomed, I'm being called a terrorist influencer in my own country. What an irony. Why now, when I've been doing the same thing for over 25 years?

[B] Why repeat investigations?

Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigations are being asked to be repeated and continued. Why? Wasn't the first investigation exhaustive enough? Did not they cover every aspect of my talks, every topic, every reply? Or is it because they could not find any wrongdoing? Is this a hunt to get something to indict me?

[C] Why renew, then cancel?

Why would the government renew IRF's FCRA registration and then cancel it? It seems illogical. Is it because the renewal was against the laid down agenda of the government? Why would you suspend FCRA officials? Is it because they did things by the books and acted honestly without any bias or prejudice when they renewed IRF's registration? Is it because they were not influenced by the political agenda of the MHA?

[D] Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA?

Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media? The manner in which stories are being 'planted' in the media clearly suggests so. The one and only investigation report submitted till now remains inconclusive, but the solicitor general's 'judgment' of banning IRF and I was duly leaked to the media. Why? Is there a ring fencing happening? Is this how IRF will be banned? By creating an atmosphere of ban? Rather than rely on proofs and evidences?

[E] Forced conversions? Really?

Isn't it a well-known fact that in these modern days and times, average men and women cannot be forced to convert? But while chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof of forced conversions? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement about how he or she was forcibly converted? Isn't this person the most basic proof of forced conversion? If yes, why is the entire law enforcement machinery working on hearsay? Why is there no effort to gather the most basic proof that comes from the converted? It would be nave to presume that the agencies mustn't have tried. The fact is they tried and they couldn't get proof of any forced conversion. The fact is, there never was forced conversions.

There are many more questions I have been seeking answers to but can't find them. I know someone has the answers, but rather than dwelling upon it, I have an appeal to make, an appeal to my fellow countrymen, to all sane and sensible people of this great country. If you find any wrongdoing on my part, punish me by all means. Give me the harshest of punishments if I've wronged anyone. I've made this offer earlier too and I will repeat it again. I'm open to any investigation. Have always been and will always be.

Not only do I take my freedom seriously, I take my responsibilities even more seriously. The country's democratic fabric is under attack. People are being arrested and put in jail for 7-10 years before being proven innocent by courts. But guilty or not guilty, their lives are ruined, their families are ruined, they remain unemployed, their daughters unmarried. This is what's happening, and this is what needs to change. People's lives cannot be played with. If the government can misuse its authority on a popular figure like me, average Muslims don't stand a chance. And we're talking about 20 crores of them.

I still have faith in the judiciary and I know that truth will ultimately prevail. But it may come at a huge price if the current actions are not checked now. To all, my appeal is, do not allow subversion of the constitution. My appeal to the government - be fair in your investigation. Be fair in what you allege. Be truthful with facts. To my fellow citizens - Let no one and nothing dissuade you from speaking the truth. Whatever position you occupy, in authority or in media, or as a citizen of this great country, be truthful and fair. Nothing less, nothing more.

Perhaps if I am driven out of India, Allah will open up doors for me better than I could have ever imagined. Many countries would welcome this humble servant of God with red carpet treatment. But this isn't only about me. It's about us. It's about the morals and values of a great country. What will become of India if we let bigotry and injustice seep into the very fabric of our nation? What will be the fate of our country if it falls into the stranglehold of such vices? The answer is frightening, and one we all wish to avoid. It's time we do something about it.

In these times, my heart bursts with gratitude to those of you who have stood up for justice and harmony, irrespective of religion or creed. Because I know that like me, you care for this country. You care for core values like justice and tolerance. And that shall make a big difference.

To my Muslim brothers and sisters, I have this to say: Do not let trials such as these weaken your resolve, and know that the promise of Allah is true.



Remember the faith that resonated among the earlier people, of whom Allah said, "'Those to whom the people said: Surely men have gathered against you, therefore fear them, but this increased their faith, and they said: Allah is sufficient for us and most excellent is the Protector.' (Al-Qur'an 3:173)



Didn't He give victory to His Messenger (SAAWS) when the polytheists deployed every tactic and exhausted every strategy, trying in vain to suppress the Truth? Aren't the pages of history overflowing with examples such as these? Allah says, "They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah refuses except to perfect His light, although the disbelievers may dislike it.' (Al-Qur'an 9:32)

My humble efforts to spread the truth are but a drop in the ocean, and these trials are but a speck of dust compared to what was endured by the people of old. I pray that Allah accepts our efforts and makes us of those about whom He said, '?they strive in the way of Allah and do not fear the blame of the blamers. That is the favor of Allah, He bestows it upon whom He wills.' (Al-Qur'an 5:54) Whatever the outcome, I am assured that the best efforts to squash our work will only help it rise higher and stronger. For Allah says, 'They plot and plan, and Allah too plans. And the best of planners is Allah.' (Al-Qur'an 3:54) Beshaq. Without doubt.

Sincerely yours

Dr Zakir Naik





Watch the video here:





--- ENDS ---
Faiths united in remembrance of 9/11 tragedy

Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Arlington County, Virginia, and Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, and injured 6,000 others.

Every anniversary, various locales feature memorial moments of silence and possibly structured services of remembering and honoring those whose lives were taken and those whose lives were affected.

While none of us can or should live in the past, I was helped this past week to remember the 10-year anniversary service at First Presbyterian in Bryan on Sept. 11, 2011. Since my memory of the more specific details had faded, I opened my church computer file to reread the program leaflet that was given to those in attendance.

Before I closely examined the content of the program leaflet, I recalled how the event originated. In November 2010, a church member asked me if the church leadership had considered sponsoring or hosting a 9/11 remembrance on the 10th anniversary. We agreed to talk formally sometime in March 2011. Instead of First Presbyterian sponsoring a homegrown event that might appear self-serving, we agreed that she would ask a group of local religious leaders if interest existed to support such an event.

Those religious leaders met in early June and agreed to assist in sponsoring the event. They asked if First Presbyterian staff and members could host it. Then the question arose about whether the First Presbyterian sanctuary, with its 25-foot wooden cross on the front wall, might be offensive to those of other faith traditions. A member of Congregation Beth Shalom said, "The room includes certain Christian symbols, yes; but the hospitality of an open event which has no element of proselytizing or exclusion should override concerns about the particularity of the symbols."

Someone from the Roman Catholic community said, "If it can be OK with certain members of Beth Shalom, others possibly may be able to gather and not be offended."

It was agreed that carefully selected music would be part of the "remembrance and peace service;" that the theme of the service would include past, present and future; and that the focus would include sadness at loss, gratitude for what is holy among us and the anticipation of, prayers for and commitment to peace throughout the world.

The leadership committees of First Presbyterian agreed to host the service. Planning proceeded on a collaborative basis. Readers of sacred texts and prayers from Jewish, Christian (Catholic, Protestant, Christian Science, and Unitarian), Muslim and Hindu traditions were scheduled. The day came. The room began to fill. When the service began, more than 400 were in attendance. They were Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians of various congregations and communions and others who were unaffiliated.

The wording on the service leaflet cover read: "We gather on this ten year anniversary, with the sounds of our voices silenced, aware of memories and sounds of past and present, memories and sounds of agony and of appreciation, of horror and of hope, of sacrifice, death, and survival, and aware, as well, of the potential of respect for others and peace with equity which may yet become reality in ways small and large, in relationships near and far."

May the same perspective be true for persons on the 15th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and in every day that follows.

 Ted V. Foote Jr. has been pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Bryan since 2007.
BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Foundation - which has Congress President Sonia Gandhi as chairperson - had taken the donation from Naik's IRF. Prasad called it a 'bribe'.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The Congress today accused the government of lying after the BJP alleged that controversial Islamic scholar Zakir Naik had paid Rs 50 lakh donation to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

Cabinet Minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Foundation - which has Congress President Sonia Gandhi as chairperson - had taken the donation from Naik's Islamic Research Foundation (IRF). Prasad called it a "bribe".

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READ: Zakir Naik claims innocence; asks, why am I being labeled as 'Dr Terror', 'hate monger'?



When the Congress said the money was later returned, Prasad demanded to know why this wasn't done in 2012 itself when security agencies gave a negative report about Naik's Peace TV.

The Congress said the BJP and the central government were spreading lies with "mischievous and selective news plants".

Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the money was not given to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) but to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT).

"RGCT received a donation in conformity with law and norms and the same was returned in view of the controversy surrounding the IRF and Naik," he said.

"RGF is a distinct, separate, unallied and independent legal entity from RGCT and has never had any donation/funds from IRF and has no connection whatsoever with IRF," he added.

READ: Zakir Naik gave Rajiv Gandhi trust Rs 50 lakh. Congress says returned, Naik says no



Surjewala accused the Narendra Modi government of running a "diabolical agenda to slender, malign and defame through 'Goebbelsian lies".

"What is utterly shocking is that a Cabinet Minister, who has sworn by the Constitution, is asking questions about documents and facts which are (with) the government and are being leaked by them mischievously."

He said in 2011 the RGCT received "one single unsolicited stray donation of Rs 50 lakh" from IRF, which was directly deposited in the RGCT account by Naik's IRF by cheque.

"In early July this year, when the IRF/Naik controversy became public, RGCT refunded this money to IRF. RGCT also took a decision that after the refund, RGCT will have no engagement of any type with IRF," he said.

Meanwhile, Naik said the campaign against him was an attack on Indian Muslims and a "murder of democracy".

READ: How Centre dropped the ball in televangelist Zakir Naik case



Amid growing calls that his IRF should be banned, Naik, in a 2,000-word open letter, urged the government to be "fair" in its investigation and be "truthful with facts".

He said he was ready to be punished for any wrongdoing but this should be on the basis of concrete evidence and not hearsay.

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He said he had spent 25 years promoting peace and spreading greater awareness of Islam besides talking about similarities between religions, and the last two months had been a rude shock.



--- ENDS ---
Fifteen years ago, people in New York, in Washington, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and in the Brazos Valley awakened to a beautiful morning. The sun was shining and it looked to be another great day.

But then the day turned dark, one of the darkest days in America's history. Many of us watched in horror as first one passenger jet and then another slammed into the towers of the World Trade Center on New York's lower west side. If we weren't watching, we quickly turned on the TV when we heard the news, refusing to believe it until we watched for ourselves.

Even though we saw the images, it was hard to believe. Who could imagine such a horrible event?

Then came news that a third plane had smashed into the Pentagon, that symbol of America's military might. Shortly after, we learned of a fourth plane, possibly headed toward the nation's Capitol or perhaps the White House, diving into the ground near the tiny community of Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Only later did we learn that the plane was brought down by heroic and determined passengers who had learned of the events in New York and Washington and weren't about to let their plane become another weapon of death and destruction.

But the horror wasn't over. We watched people jump or fall from the upper floors of the Trade Center, images many of us still can't forget.

First, one tower of the World Trade Center collapsed straight down, followed soon by the collapse of the second tower. As the towers fell, they damaged or destroyed every other building in the World Trade Center complex, as well as 10 large surrounding buildings.

Where once were two proud symbols of America's strength and prosperity there now was nothing but huge clouds of dust. Numbly, we watched glued to our televisions as ghost-like humans covered in dust and dirt staggered out of the toxic clouds, seeking to escape the horrors they had survived.

At the same time, others -- fire fighters, police officers, emergency medical personnel -- rushed into the dust, ignoring the dangers to do what they could to put out the fires and rescue as many people as they could. Many of those who arrived on scene before the towers fell died as the buildings came down.

Throughout that terrible day and in the days to follow we watched images of the planes flying into the towers, saw the towers collapse again and again and witnessed the people fleeing for their lives. We learned of the heroism of the first responders and we got a clearer picture of the 2,996 people killed and some 6,000 injured on the four planes, at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center, most of them American citizens, but some from other countries. They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers going about their daily business unaware of the tragedy to come.

We also learned that the attacks were the work of al-Qaida, a fanatic evil group born of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, and its furtive leader Osama bin Laden. For most of us, that was the first time we heard of al-Qaida and bin Laden.

Stunned and horrified by the terror attacks, Americans were united in vowing not to let bin Laden and the group he led to go unpunished. We cheered the tough promises of President George W. Bush and our other leaders. We supported a new war, a War on Terror that is unlike any war we ever had fought before. Many of us backed President Bush when he sent American forces into Iraq, even though it had nothing to do with 9/11.

Now, 15 years after that horrible day, we no longer are united. We have devolved into a nation bickering with itself, accusing each other of not loving our country enough. Two unlikable candidates are vying to become our next president, telling their followers that the other candidate is not fit or qualified to lead America. We are enmeshed in a struggle between our police and the Black Lives Matter movement. We bicker over gun control and abortion rights and immigration.

And we have grown tired, tired of a seemingly never-ending War on Terror that has not led to the end of terror in the world. We demanded that our troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan and when they largely were brought home, we complained that both countries have become virtually lawless, incubators for renewed terror groups and new organizations who threaten America and its allies.

Violence in America has become almost routine. We mourn each time a group of people are killed and promise never to forget, but then resume our daily lives as if nothing ever had happened.

We are better than that, though. We live in and love a unique and incredible country, one that still is, as President Ronald Reagan told is, truly is a shining city on a hill, a beacon to the world.

As we commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11 today, let us remember the unity and the pride we had in America in the days and months after that terrible day.

And let us work, despite our differences and disagreements, to return to that unity and that pride. The victims of 9/11 call out for us to do so.
Spencer Petras had one of his best games at Iowa

Iowa Football
NORWALK  After the last fish has been tossed, the halls clear and most people have gone home, Vicki Sawyer is still answering questions.

As an aquarist and lead seal trainer at the Maritime Aquarium, co-workers say Sawyer is one of the most dedicated employees there. From sleeping at the aquarium during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 to make sure the seals were OK, to tucking the river otters in every evening before heading off to night classes in New York City, Sawyer never runs out of time for guests, employees or animals.

Working here has been a golden opportunity, said Sawyer, adding that the best part of her job is working with animals and answering questions from young guests.

If a kid is brave enough to ask a question, I want to make sure I give them my full attention and enthusiasm as if Ive never heard heard it before, she said. We work with a lot of underprivileged families and we dont know if some of those kids will ever be back in an aquarium so I try to make it as memorable as possible.

Its that level of dedication and compassion fellow aquarium employees said theyll miss most about Sawyer as she celebrates her last day this week after nearly 30 years of service.

Sawyer started at the aquarium in the first class of volunteers when it opened in 1988 and worked her way into a full-time position within the year. At 28 years old, it was a career change that shaped her life and shes worked there ever since.

I had finished with my other career which was as a mayoral press aid in Bridgeport, Sawyer said. This was a golden opportunity ... when we got to marine mammals in training, a lightning bolt struck me. Thats what I wanted to do.

From riding in the back of a U-Haul truck to make sure the sharks were OK during transportation and lugging buckets of gravel into their tanks when the aquarium first opened, to inspecting and preparing every fish she feeds to the seals, to the countless hours shes spent offering lectures in the education department and helping interns move forward in the highly competitive marine biology field, Sawyer has become one of the most well-known  and well-loved  people at the aquarium by employees, guests and animals alike.

Sawyer said some of her fondest memories are of special exhibits at the aquarium like the penguins and fruit bats.

I remember being her on Christmas one year  we rotate holidays because the animals still need to be taken care of  and I remember cutting up this huge fruit salad for the fruit bats, Sawyer said. They were just so cool.

Jack Schneider, former curator of animals at the aquarium, started at the same time as Sawyer when the aquarium opened, and worked with her until 2014.

Schneider recalled one year during a particularly bad storm when the seals had to be moved from their tank, which is partially outdoors, to the third floor of the aquarium. Sawyer was there  as she was during most storms  while eight seals ran loose in the kitchen where their fishy meals are prepped.

I think Vicki brings a really unique sense of empathy and compassion, which extends not just to all the people  visitors, volunteers, staff  but the animals, Schneider said. She has a real generosity of extending herself as well as a generosity of spirit. She gives a lot of time and attention to individuals ... the aquarium will be missing all of that generosity of self and spirit and its the type of thing thats a difficult void to fill.

After almost three decades, Sawyer is ready for yet another change, though this time she said it wont be as easy. Sawyer is leaving the aquarium to pursue her dream of owning a farm in Maine with her husband, Jerry, who is also a former volunteer at the aquarium. Together they will raise sheep for wool and take care of their many dogs.

In Maine, shell put her marine experience to use as she will continue to work with animals at a veterinary clinic where she also hopes to do rescue work with seals, but those who know her in Norwalk will miss her as she heads on a new adventure.

Sawyers last day at the aquarium is Thursday. Aquarium spokesman Dave Sigworth said there will be a send-off during the 11:45 seal feeding for anyone whod like to say goodbye, though its likely shell be there until well after the final feeding if history is any indication.

Ive met such amazing people over the years, I dont think Ill be able to say goodbye, Sawyer said. Ive been here so long that people who visited when I first started, they grow and have children and now theyre bringing their children here. It really is bittersweet.

KKrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
NORWALK  At a recent rally to save a local business, East Norwalk residents and business owners pleaded for the Connecticut Department of Transportation to find alternative staging areas for the upcoming replacement of the Walk Bridge.

The DOT has its sights set on Goldstein Place, where Vincent and Robin Penna operate A.J. Penna & Son Excavating and Contractors, as the primary staging spot for the bridge replacement project slated to begin in mid-2018.

We feel that ConnDOT should consider Vets Park  not the whole park, just the boat launch area, said Vincent Penna during the rally outside his business last Wednesday. Norwalk has plans to repair that area in the next couple years and it has appropriated, or will appropriate, $2-plus million to do that.

At a recent Norwalk Common Council meeting, Penna asked Mayor Harry W. Rilling to consider allowing the DOT to use the boat launch area to stage the bridge project and have the state pick up the bill for the citys capital improvements afterward.

It would save the taxpayers $2-plus million, Penna said. It would save my property and the businesses around us that will be disturbed.

Veterans Memorial Park wasnt the only alternative staging location put forward at the rally that drew nearly 200 people to Pennas business at 10 Goldstein Place on Wednesday morning.

Veterans Memorial Park

Spanning 35 acres and located near the Walk Bridge, Veterans Memorial Park is the ideal staging area for the bridge replacement project, according to those advocating its use.

Veterans Park is huge, former Councilman Jerry E. Petrini said at the rally. You have contracts in place for a rink we know were going to do, but whats the difference if you push it a little bit farther down?

On Tuesday, the DOT made public its Environmental Assessment/Environmental Impact Evaluation as required under federal and state law to proceed with the bridge replacement.

The report contains a map of proposed parcel uses related to the bridge project. Veterans Memorial Park is not among those parcels. The park, however, is referenced in the report as being located 900 feet downstream of the Walk Bridge and home to a public marina, boat launch site, playground ball fields and multi-use path overlooking Norwalk Harbor.

According to the DOT, parkland use is guided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Act. A section of the act protects parks, recreation areas, wildlife and waterfowl refuges and historic sites. Under the act, feasible and prudent alternatives that avoid the use of such resources must be selected.

The entire property of Veterans Park, including the parking and other paved areas, are considered part of the Section 4(f) resource, said Judd Everhart, DOT spokesman. As such, construction staging conducted in the parking area of Veterans Park affects the function and quality of the 4(f) area and must be considered as well under Section 4(f).

Everhart acknowledged that Veterans Park was used for the repainting of the nearby Route 136/Stroffolino Bridge but labeled that in stark contrast to the Walk Bridge project. Construction staging activities and material storage associated with the Walk Bridge replacement will be of much higher intensity, he said.

Additionally, shuttling materials from the park to the Walk Bridge would boost the project costs, lengthen the construction period and further disrupt local traffic, as the Stroffolino Bridge would have to be opened more frequently to permit construction barges to pass, according to the DOT.

Rilling noted that Veterans Memorial Park is home to the citys visitors docks, the Norwalk Seaport Associations annual Oyster Festival and, starting this fall, a seasonal ice-skating rink. He cannot see those activities continuing if the DOT were to use the park as a staging area for the Walk Bridge project.

If theyre going to be using that as a staging area, theyre going to be using that for a couple of years, Rilling said. That process is going to be going two and three years. I dont see how its an option.

Manresa Island to rescue?

Although a mile south of the Walk Bridge, Manresa Island also would provide plenty of setup space for the bridge project. The 125-acre property is owned by NRG Energy, Inc. and home to a 56-year-old power plant that was shut down in 2013.

Everhart said the DOT considered Manresa Island as a staging area, but preliminary conversations with the property owner werent productive. The area could serve as a location to assemble the lift-span for the new bridge but not to store materials, construction equipment and personnel, he said.

South Smith Street

The DOT map does reference several parcels off South Smith Street north of the railroad tracks. The DOT already owns a 0.8-acre parcel on the north side of the tracks and has proposed using the nearly 15-acre city-owned parcel at 60 South Smith St., where the citys wastewater treatment plant is located, as a temporary easement for the bridge replacement.

Why start on this side and put these poor people out of business when you could kill two birds with one stone by getting rid of that Martins Mountain, which you cant touch, which the state could then remediate and get rid it, and use that as a staging area? asked Petrini, speaking at the rally.

Martins Mountains is the name given to material dredged from Norwalk Harbor years ago and piled on the city-owned land.

Bruce J. Chimento, Norwalks director of public works, said Friday that the south end of the city-owned land isnt solid enough to support heavy construction equipment.

It could never sustain any type of weight or movement, Chimento said.

For now, the DOT remains focused on the Liberty Square area. Nine parcels along Goldstein Place, including the Penna property, are slated for acquisition to accommodate the bridge replacement.

The Penna property is required for access to the railroad tracks, and construction of the new retaining wall and widened track alignment, Everhart said. These activities will affect a significant portion of the property and will last for the duration of the project. A small portion of the Penna property will be used for staging and material storage.

Local input sought

The rally-goers maintain the DOT hasnt adequately addressed alternative staging areas or bridge designs, and that the departments recently released environmental report lacks detail on the projects local impacts.

DOTs release of the environmental report opened a 45-day period for residents, stakeholders and officials to weigh in on the report. A public hearing is set for Oct. 6 at City Hall. The department has created a website for the project at walkbridgect.com.

Tony DAndrea, former Norwalk Harbor Management Commission chairman and co-owner of a Liberty Square business that had been slated for taking to accommodate the bridge replacement, said 45 days is not enough time to properly review a project that's this complex and that will have such significant impacts on us.

DAndrea said the city should request at least 90 days to review the report and retain an independent and expert third party to review ConnDOT's proposals with the state picking up the cost. While acknowledging its the states job to build the new bridge, he said local voices must be heard as part of the process.

Our task, as citizens of this city is to make sure that our voices are heard and that our rights, quality of life, and our environment in and around our city and harbor are protected, DAndrea said.
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NORWALK  The second of two men arrested for allegedly committing an armed robbery two months ago outside the convenience store of a Westport Avenue gas station was taken into custody at his Bridgeport residence Thursday morning by members of a U.S. Marshalls Violent Fugitive Task Force.

Montrel Woods appeared in Superior Court Friday after failing to post a $100,000 cash bond, charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree assault with a firearm, and conspiracy to commit those crimes.

Police said that on the night of July 12, Woods and the other man charged in the case, Isabelo Delgado, demanded a 17-year-old male give up his backpack under threat of being shot.

The victim said one of the men had a shiny object in his waistband.

The victim and his mother came to Police Headquarters the following afternoon to report the robbery.

According to police reports, the victim said a friend was driving him home July 12 when another friend called to invite him to return to a block party he had just left.

The caller agreed to drive over to the Westport Avenue gas station to pick up the victim.

The victim said the friend in whose car he was riding stopped at the gas station to drop him off, at which point two men approached them and asked if they wanted to buy marijuana.

The victim said he and his friend declined to make a purchase, but said his friend wrote down the phone number of one of the men.

The victim said his friend then drove away and the two men crossed the street.

The victim said he went into the store at the gas station and then walked back outside, at which point the two men came back across the street, approached him and grabbed him.

One of them, he told police, demanded his backpack, telling him that otherwise "I'm going to shoot you."

Based on information the victim and his friend provided police and evidence, detectives identified Woods and Delgado as suspects.

On July 29, members of the Special Services Division took Delgado into custody without incident at a residence on Robin Square East.

At that time, Delgado, 26, of Weston was held on the same charges as Woods.

According to police, evidence in the case includes an Apple phone Delgado was carrying at the time of his arrest whose number matches the one the victim's friend wrote down at the gas station.

Delgado remains held in lieu of posting a $100,000 bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court Monday.

In addition to the charges on which Norwalk Police arrested Woods Thursday, he was found to have three outstanding warrants for violation of probation and failure to appear in court.

Woods, 25, is next scheduled to appear in court on the robbery case Oct. 4.
WILTON  For the first time, parents can sign up their infants and preschoolers for a library card at Wilton Library.

The Wilton Library decided to eliminate the age requirement in time for Library Card Sign-up Month, so that cardholders no longer have to be at least 5 years old or able to sign their name, Executive Director Elaine Tai-Lauria said.

Ive always been a firm believer that exposure to a book or music starts much earlier than kindergarten, Tai-Lauria said. Were always welcoming readers because thats what libraries want to promote more than anything: the love of the written word.

The library is also introducing a new reading incentive program, 1000 Books Before Kindergarten, which is a national program that promotes reading to newborns, infants and toddlers.

The library will give each participant a starters kit that includes a bag, a 100-book log and a growth chart. Children will receive stickers and a brand new book for every 100 books they read and will receive a certificate once the goal of 1,000 books is reached.

Tai-Lauria hopes the combined roll-out of the elimination of the age requirement and the new reading incentive program will encourage parents and caregivers to read with or aloud to their children as a bonding, enriching experience.

Studies have shown that reading aloud to children during their early, formative years builds language and emotional development, said Kerry McMahon, the Fairfield County programs director of Reach Out and Read. The Boston-based nonprofit organization distributes 6.5 million books to pediatric clinics every year to encourage families to read aloud together.

Not only are you growing their vocabulary or their ability to learn to read and preparing them as they go off to school, but youre hopefully fostering a love for books and reading, McMahon said.

As a Wilton resident and a frequenter of the Wilton Library herself, MacMahon said she is happy to see the new changes at the library.

I love the idea of starting at birth, just because the sooner you can create your own library  whether itd be at home or at your local library  the earlier the exposure, the greater the benefits, she said.

Although Library Card Sign-up Month focuses on new cardholders, Tai-Lauria said this month is an opportune time for all patrons to renew their card and rediscover what the library has to offer.

Since its founding 120 years ago, the Wilton Library has grown from a 125-book collection to a 500,000-plus selection of books, audiobooks, CDs, videos and other resources for children, teens and adults. In addition to print and digital media, the library also hosts author talks, scholarly lectures, art exhibits and concert series that are open to the public.

Theres a wide variety of activities and endeavors available at our library, and we just encourage people to take advantage of it, Tai-Lauria said.

SKim@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1044; @stephaniehnkim
Nebraskans deserve significant property tax relief next legislative session. By significant, I mean a property tax relief bill of more than $150 million. The past few years our politicians have promised property tax relief, but so far we have only seen token success that saves the average Nebraska taxpayer the equivalent of less than a tank of gas. Policymakers keep pointing out other states with lower property taxes, but fail to recognize why Nebraska is so reliant on property taxes to fund education.

Nebraska relies too much on property taxes mainly because we have given away too many sales tax exemptions to special interests and failed to keep pace with other states on our excise taxes on cigarettes. Just two simple corrections would provide more than $150 million in funding to lower our schools dependence on local property taxes. Doing this would protect funding for education and provide significant property tax relief, especially for farmers who desperately need it due to falling income from lower commodity prices and retirees on a fixed income.

The first change is adjusting our excise tax on tobacco to keep pace with other states. Last year Sen. Mike Gloor introduced LB1013, which would have increased our excise tax on cigarettes to $2.14 per pack. This is closer to other states across the country and would have provided more than $135 million a year in revenue, most of which would have been earmarked for property tax relief. It was supported by education associations, the Farm Bureau and all of the states health associations. Despite Sen. Gloor prioritizing the bill, the session ended before it came to a vote.

The second change is removing the sales tax exemption on soda, energy drinks and junk food. Several years ago, former Sen. Bill Avery proposed removing the sales tax exemption for soda and energy drinks which would have raised more than $12 million a year in revenue. The funding in that bill would have gone to school health projects across the state. The bill never made it out of committee due to intense beverage industry lobbying.

The reason for this exemption is an oversight in Nebraska law which includes soda and energy drinks under the definition of food, which is exempt from sales taxes in Nebraska. No health professional would consider soda to be food and neither do most other states. The state of Colorado fixed this misclassification several years ago, and also took junk food and candy out of their definition of food. Following Colorados lead would push the amount to over $15 million a year.

Readjusting our excise taxes on tobacco and removing soda, energy drinks, candy and junk food from the definition of food would raise more than $150 million a year to give Nebraskans significant property tax relief. If we want to go really big, we could even consider a 1.5 cent an ounce tax on soda and energy drinks like the city of Philadelphia just passed. That would add another $150 million a year raising more than $300 million annually for property tax relief. Just imagine how much that would do to correct our states imbalance between sales and property taxes. Instead of tax relief amounting to half a tank of gas, that would be tax relief of hundreds of dollars per household.

Enacting these policies in next years legislative session would protect education funding for a generation, provide direly needed property tax relief for our farmers struggling with declining commodity prices and help our seniors on a fixed income.

If this proposal makes sense to you, contact your state senator or the candidates running in your district. They set their priorities based on what they hear from you, the states voters. Send them an email, give them a call or ask them about it when they come knocking on your door in the next few months.

Dr. Bob Rauner is a family physician in Lincoln. He has previously run for the Legislature and the State Board of Education.
The Edwardsville Public Safety Committee recommended the approval of three action items pertaining to the construction of the new Public Safety Facility at Tuesdays city council meeting.

The first agreement was with FGM Architects for on-site project representation in an amount not to exceed $35,000 during the construction of the project. Alderman Janet Stack said both the committee and those involved in the construction felt this was essential to the site.

This is having someone from FGM on-site supervising the construction, basically for five hours per week is what its kind of based on, which is considerably less than if we went out for someone else. $35,000 versus $120,000 to $360,000, and since its already someone who is associated with it, we thought it would be a good move, Stack said.

All committee members were in favor and the motion passed accordingly.

Next was the approval of a resolution granting change order authority for the facility, not to exceed $10,000 per occurrence or a project change order total not to exceed 10 percent of the combined station awarded amount of $11,965,000. The resolution will allow for both the Director of Public Works and the City Administrator to approve minor change orders within the contract, which will lessen the delays to the construction schedule. Stack said this has been done before and is necessary for the project as it moves forward.

There was a discussion because the project was much more expensive, but we still felt the council needed to have approval over anything more, Stack said.

All committee members were in favor and the motion passed.

The last action item was recommending the approval of an agreement with Quality Testing for professional material testing services. The project requires construction observation and material testing such as density tests, sub-grade preparation, concrete inspection, etc.

Stack said this will ensure the new station is up-to-par with the citys codes and standards.

This is to make sure that all of the materials used, including density tests during general grading, separate preparation foundation, all of that is done. Its due diligence, since we are spending a lot and we want it to be quality, Stack said.

The motion passed and all committee members were in favor.

For more information about the new public safety facility, visit the city of Edwardsvilles website at www.cityofedwardsville.com.
United Way of Greater St. Louis today announced its 2016 community campaign goal of $75 million. Campaign co-chairs Steve Lipstein, president and CEO of BJC Healthcare, and Gene Diederich, partner of Moneta Group, made the announcement.

Every fall, United Way inspires thousands of companies and individuals to give with one goal in mind - to help people throughout our region, said Lipstein. Earlier this year, Gene and I had the opportunity to visit some of the 170 United Way-supported agencies and saw firsthand the tremendous impact of United Way in the community. St. Louis is home to so many generous people, which is why we are motivated to continue this work and ask the community to join us again in supporting United Way.
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Linkedin Esther Samboh (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

This is the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

This famous childrens nursery rhyme could describe the empire that Chinese billionaire Jack Ma built: A lot of things are connected to his Alibaba Group, with Indonesia also in the loop.

From local coffee to womens dresses and imported smartphones to baby feeding kits, many are probably sourced from one of the websites owned by Mas Alibaba.

Now that he has a more strategic role in Indonesia, what will it mean for the country, its e-commerce industry and consumers?

Ma, owner of some of the worlds biggest e-commerce companies under Alibaba, will be an adviser to Indonesias e-commerce steering committee that will shape policies, rule of thumb and the direction of the burgeoning industry after accepting a job offer directly from President Joko Jokowi Widodo during a visit to Alibabas headquarters in Hangzhou, China, on Sept. 2.

The extent of influence Ma will have on e-commerce policy remains unclear as the government has yet to disclose his job description. But there are arguably three things that we can expect.

First, change. E-commerce is already changing the way people shop around the world: borderless, spaceless and timeless. But Ma in particular has integrated the transformation of online shopping, trade, payment, investment and credit altogether in China.

As with a lot of advisers to the government, there will be to some extent influence on policies. But Ma, an English teacher-turned-billionaire, is a highly ambitious individual. He once said: China changed because of us in the past 15 years. We hope in the next 15 years, the world changes because of us.

Without a technology background or even possessing technological knowledge, which he is proud of, he has transformed the way the Chinese spend their disposable incomes through online innovations, with his empire Alibaba that merges Amazons home delivery mechanism and eBays middleman principal of being a marketplace for buyers.

Furthermore, its AliPay has now expanded from a PayPal-like virtual wallet for Alibabas transactions into a one-stop financial services platform through which people can pay utility bills, purchase train tickets and top up cell phone credit. It also now runs the worlds largest money-market fund.

Born Ma Yun, Jack Ma is an experienced public speaker, who also rippled the worlds financial market with the largest initial public offering a Chinese company has ever conducted on Wall Street.

With that background, its just natural to expect great things to come from Indonesias e-commerce industry, with Ma as a consultant and mentor to a 10-member government committee. It is not without reason that expectations are high for him to create breakthroughs like he did in his home country.

Ma will have access to monitoring the implementation of Indonesias e-commerce road map and its future derivative regulations, as will committee leader Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution and member Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara.

The road map, launched earlier this year, gives guidelines to seven key issues: logistics, financing for startups, consumer protection, communications infrastructure, e-commerce business tax, the education sector and cyber security.

Second, focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Ma and Jokowi both came from an SME background. The former started Alibaba as a startup and the latter was a furniture producer and exporter in Surakarta, Central Java.

They are both passionate about boosting the contribution of that segment to the overall economy. Both want to foster SMEs and give them a place on the internet to increase their consumer base and efficiency, as well as innovate in growing their businesses to better serve consumers.

SMEs in Indonesia account for around 60 percent of gross domestic product and nearly 100 percent of business units and the workforce. However, less than 5 percent of the millions of businesses have access to online trade, something that many local e-commerce marketplaces and technology operators are keen to improve.

Third, investment. Apart from great ideas and a boon to SMEs, a great deal of investment by his empire may come into Southeast Asias largest economy, as he now has the ability to influence policy making and development design of the multi-billion dollar e-commerce industry. This is where the risks of conflict of interests can arise from his appointment.

A vast market of a 250 million population, Indonesias e-commerce transactions are to triple to US$24.6 billion this year from 2013 and Ma is expanding his presence in and partnerships with Southeast Asia.

The recent $1 billion deal to buy e-commerce platform Lazada, a major player in the region, is Alibabas biggest overseas deal. Its subsidiary Inamall also recently announced a partnership with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) in which many Indonesian products can be bought from the online market platform that is based in China.

Indonesias e-commerce sector hosts three different types of businesses: established ones, startups and SMEs. The last two segments are most prone to expansion by big players, but they can also collaborate to grow their businesses.

So by putting forward the needs of consumers and involving local businesses participation in the shaping of e-commerce policy and development programs, Indonesia can cash in on Jack Mas expertise and tackle any risks of conflict of interests.

Inviting Mas school of thought to Indonesias e-commerce scene is arguably a smart decision to send the right signal that the country cares for and is committed to developing the young industry, but it all boils down to the government as the gatekeeper of the countrys

policies.

The government should clearly set its vision and goals in the e-commerce sector, taking into account local businesses and regulatory perspectives, while the technical ways to achieve them can flexibly be sourced from anyone, including Ma.

Its akin to hiring an interior designer for a new home. We want their expertise, but in the end, we are the ones who are supposed to be making decisions because its our home where we will spend our lifetime in a house that we built.
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Linkedin Asmara Wreksono (The Jakarta Post) Paris  Sat, September 10, 2016

Bali-based lighting designer Budiman Ong was spotted visiting the Maison & Objet Paris 2016 exhibition earlier this week. The designer is gearing up for an exhibition of his own in 2018.

Known for his original, handcrafted lighting that fuses traditional elements with modern ones, Budiman is no stranger to international exposure and is making efforts to introduce his work to the world. In 2014, he became the first Indonesian designer to participate in Maison & Objet Asia in Singapore.

Since then, Budiman has exhibited his lighting designs at Maison & Objet Paris in September 2015 and January 2016 as well as at another Asian edition of the trade show in 2015.

(Read also: Creative Smarts: Play of Lights)

The Alur collection by Ong Cen Kuang Designs.(www.facebook.com/ongcenkuang//File)

Trained at Grays School of Art, Robert Gordon University in Scotland, Budiman has long followed Maison & Objet events.

Ever since I was a student, Maison & Objet was one of the leading exhibitions that I wanted to attend, he told The Jakarta Post. So, upon hearing that they were coming to Singapore, I grabbed the opportunity and tried to be recruited by the organization to participate in the exhibition. We got there in the end, which was difficult, and were very proud of it.

Budiman went through the same process as any designer applying to a trade show. We sent in our application and company details and met with the organizers.

The designer believed in face-to-face meetings to tell the organizers about the story behind his business.

A month after submitting his application, Budiman received the happy news that he was among the Asian designers exhibiting at Maison & Objet.

(Read also: Les Ateliers de Paris incubator calls for international designers)

His participation paid off quickly. Immediately after the show, Budiman was recruited by the Center for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands to exhibit at Maison & Objet Paris, along with designers from other developing countries.

Asked what it takes for young Indonesian designers to participate in global exhibitions, Budiman said, I think young designers need to be sure of who they are as designers and be confident that they can do it. Having the idea is half the way. The most important thing is to have perseverance and trust that what they do is good. (kes)
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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 9 2016

The involvement of police and military personnel in protecting plantations has come under scrutiny as their role may have become a stumbling block in efforts to curb forest fires.

Not only have security force personnel often been reported to side with companies in land disputes against residents, but the police have also recently terminated investigations into last years fires in Riau.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has called on President Joko Jokowi Widodo to evaluate the National Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) conduct in relation to their support for private businesses, especially those that have violated environmental regulations.

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Linkedin (Associated Press) Geneva  Sat, September 10, 2016

A look at some of the key points in an "arrangement" announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, aimed at halting fighting in Syria and moving toward a political transition after 5-1/2 years of combat between President Bashar Assad's forces and opposition rebels:

A nationwide cease-fire by Assad's forces and the U.S.-backed opposition is set to begin across Syria at sundown Monday. That sets off a seven-day period that will allow for humanitarian aid and civilian traffic into Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial capital, which has faced a recent onslaught.

Fighting forces are to also pull back from the Costello Road, a key thoroughfare and access route into Aleppo, and create a "demilitarized zone" around it.

Also Monday, the United States and Russia will begin preparations for the creation of a Joint Implementation Center that will involve information sharing needed to define areas controlled by the radical Nusra Front and opposition groups in areas "of active hostilities."

The center is expected to be established a week later, and is to launch a broader effort toward delineating other territories in control of various groups.

As part of the arrangement, Russia is expected to keep Syrian air force planes from bombing areas controlled by the opposition. The United States has committed to help weaken the Nusra Front, an extremist group that has intermingled with the U.S.-backed opposition in places.

A resumption of political dialogue between the government and opposition under U.N. mediation, which was halted amid an upsurge in fighting in April, will be sought over the longer term.

Syria's civil war has killed as many as 500,000 people and sent millions fleeing their homes within Syria and into exile.

Kerry said this "new equation" offers an opportunity to find a peaceful solution and reverse the current trend of "creating more terrorists" and more destruction. He said the U.S.-supported opposition and other fighters will be called upon to set themselves apart from the radical Islamic State group and the Nusra Front.

Lavrov said through a translator, "The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfill them."

The Geneva negotiating session lasted more than 13 hours and capped a flurry of meetings between the two diplomats in recent days. Kerry and Lavrov met four times since a previous Geneva meeting on Aug. 26, and Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed the matter at a summit in China.

The United States and Russia, ultimately, are to find themselves fighting together against the Islamic State and Nusra, and embarking on unprecedented information-sharing  aimed at dispelling longstanding mistrust between the two powers over the Syria conflict.

Kerry acknowledged "confusion" between Nusra and "legitimate opposition groups" that had led to a "fraying" of a cease-fire that was shepherded earlier this year by the U.S. and Russia and brought a badly-needed, if temporary, respite to Syrian civilians for several weeks. (ags)
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Linkedin Trinh Thanh Thuy (The Jakarta Post) Ho Chi Minh  Sat, September 10 2016

The United States and China won much world acclaim when they formally ratified the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions on Saturday. Contributions by these powers, which account for nearly 40 percent of global emissions, is a promising sign that the pact can take effect before the end of the year.

Fifty-five nations covering at least 55 percent of global emissions need to formally ratify the treaty for it to become legal. While world attention in the last few decades has been more focused on implementing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a non-binding agreement, other international laws governing the efficient and harmonious use of existing resources have been neglected.

One such law, the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the UN National Assembly in 1997, has been ratified by just 36 countries. Neither the US nor China are among them. Vietnam is the only Southeast Asian country that has ratified the convention.

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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

Because of tight capital the first sharia lender in Indonesia, Bank Muamalat, is seeking a new investor to assist with its lending expansion.

A number of potential suitors have lined up domestically and from abroad, including state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), according to The Jakarta Posts sources who wished to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.

One source, who works at the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Ministry, which oversees state firms such as BRI, said the largest micro loan provider was attracted to Muamalat after it delved into the latest reviews of the sharia lender prepared by a global consultancy firm.

I have not read the report in detail, but the OJK [the Financial Services Authority, which oversees the banking industry] has contacted me, he said recently.

Kontan reported that BRI finance director Haru Koesmahargyo declined to comment on the matter and he did not answer phone calls or reply to text messages sent by The Jakarta Post.

Contacted separately, Muamalat retail banking director Purnomo B. Soetadi confirmed that several local and overseas investors had conveyed their interest in becoming shareholders, but he declined to confirm whether BRI was one of them.

He said it was natural for Muamalat, being a non-listed public company, to have investors attracted to join as shareholders and their interest shows that it has positive business prospects.

However, the matter is in the domain of our board of commissioners and controlling shareholders, while the board of directors is tasked with managing the bank, so that it will provide optimum results for all stakeholders, he said.

According to Muamalats June financial report, the Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) controlled the largest number of shares with 32.74 percent, followed by the Kuwaiti Islamic lender Boubyan Bank with 22 percent.

Meanwhile, Saudi investment company Atwill Holdings Ltd. had 17.91 percent and the National Bank of Kuwait owned 8.45 percent. The remaining 18.9 percent of shares were owned by several other institutions and individuals.

Purnomo argued that all banks, including Muamalat, would need more capital to support their growing operations, as required by the banking regulator, insisting that the Islamic lender was not having difficulties in its financial performance.

However, data from the bank clearly show that Muamalat has been suffering from growing non-performing financing (NPF) that has been chipping into its profitability and capital.

Muamalats gross NPF stood at 7.2 percent in the first half, rising from 4.93 percent a year ago. Its net NPF grew as well to 4.6 percent from 3.8 percent in the period of January to June 2015. The OJK sets the net NPF limit at 5 percent.

As result, the lenders profitability dropped more than 70 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 32.92 billion (US$2.51 million) and its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) declined to 12.78 percent in the first half from 13.6 percent in the same period last year.

Despite its deteriorating financing quality, OJK commissioner for banking supervision Nelson Tampubolon said Muamalat remained a healthy bank, but he also acknowledged the need to strengthen capital to support lending growth.

Muamalats CAR still hovers above the regulatory minimum CAR based on risk profile, but it doesnt have wiggle room. The bank is currently asking its shareholders to provide a capital injection, he said.

Nelson declined to confirm whether Muamalats discussions with BRI were part of the banks efforts to seek fresh funds to strengthen its capital.
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Linkedin Michael Weissenstein (Associated Press) Havana  Sat, September 10, 2016

President Barack Obama's easing of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba has had virtually no positive effect on the island's economy, Cuba's top diplomat asserted Friday.

Presenting Cuba's annual report ahead of a U.N. vote on condemning the embargo, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the sanctions cost his country $4.6 billion last year. The total cost of the 55-year-old embargo now stands at $125.9 billion, he added.

The presentation of Cuba's update on the embargo is an annual ritual driving home to a mostly domestic audience Havana's message that U.S. sanctions are to blame for most of the country's problems. The report contains a detailed accounting of both specific damage from the embargo, such as U.S. government fines on Cuba's business partners, and scenarios in which Cuba faults the U.S. for the loss of hypothetical business.

For example the report estimates that Cuba could sell 2.5 million cases of Havana Club rum in the United States each year and factors in that theoretical lost revenue, $105 million, to the total damages in the report.

Rodriguez praised Obama for allowing easier U.S. travel to Cuba, permitting commercial flights and attempting to ease financial transactions with Cuba, among other measures.

However, he said, "there's been no fundamental change in the application of the blockade, and because of that, I can say, there hasn't been a greater economic impact of the executive actions until now and there won't be until we see bigger steps."

Rodriguez acknowledged the problems of Cuba's centrally controlled economy, which is struggling to increase productivity in the face of an outdated and inefficient bureaucracy and low state salaries that lead many employees to steal from their workplaces or accept small bribes in order to get by.

"No one's ignoring or aims to hide our problems, our limitations, our mistakes," he said. "But neither can we diminish the impact of the blockade."

The United Nations votes next month on an annual resolution on condemning the embargo that usually passes with overwhelming support. Last year the United States considered abstaining for the first time, before voting against it.

As reporters were leaving Rodriguez's press conference at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Jeffrey DeLaurentis' car was seen dropping him off. U.S. and Cuban diplomats have begun meeting frequently on a wide array of topics since the declaration of detente on Dec. 17, 2014. (ags)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

Cheers, lighting, a studio set with chairs and backdrop, cameras and dozens of people gathered in one place seems like an unusual sight at a murder trial. But for court proceedings in the case surrounding a cyanide-spiked coffee that killed Wayan Mirna Salihin in January, this sight has become the norm.

Since the first hearing on June 15, the high-profile murder trial is drama for the public, and the sole defendant Jessica Kumala Wongso, her team of attorneys, prosecutors, witnesses and the panel of judges all play their parts.

The room at the Central Jakarta District Court is always packed, so much so that Mirna's family members have to compete for seats with journalists and spectators.

At least two television stations broadcast live from the courtroom proceedings that can take up to six hours. Citing high ratings of the live telecast, the television stations add some spice to the reportage by setting up mini studios outside, where reporters would ask legal experts, psychologists, IT experts and even experts on facial expressions for their comments on the hearings.

The intense media coverage in turn has further tickled public curiosity, with more people watching the trial at each court session.

Tuti, 60, a housewife from Bungur Besar in Central Jakarta, decided to come to the court on Wednesday after religiously watching the previous trials on TV.

"I want to see Jessica's 'always cool face'," she said.

Coming to the court by herself, Tuti claimed she had grown emotionally attached to the case as a mother.

"I feel sad about what happened to Mirna. I cant imagine if that kind of thing happened to my daughter or daughter in law. Mirna had just got married before she died," Tuti said.

Another housewife, Ida, 44, who lives in Cempaka Baru, Central Jakarta, also cited curiosity as the reason behind her attendance. Ida came to the court with a relative of hers named Risty. The two housewives were following the court proceedings, snapping several selfies in between and exchanging comments on any words uttered by the judges, prosecutors, lawyers or witnesses.

"The trial is so gripping, like a soap opera. I'm curious who is guilty in this case," Ida said, admitting that it was her second time to attend Jessica's trial. She said she was aiming to take a selfie with Jessica's lawyer Otto Hasibuan.

Journalists and members of the public crowd a courtroom at the Central Jakarta District Court for the trial on the murder of Wayan Mirna Salihin.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

Other visitors included five high school students from SMA Yapermas in Menteng, Central Jakarta, who attended the trial after school as part of their class's civic subject assignment by their teacher. Wearing the signature brown scout uniforms, the students were listening attentively at Wednesdays hearing.

Otto complained once about the crowded and often noisy courtroom, where visitors would spontaneously react to whatever they heard with claps, boos or cheers.

The Aug. 15 hearing that presented psychologist Antonio Ratih Andjayani as an expert witness saw some visitors cheer when Antonia gave testimony incriminating Jessica.

Your honor, my friends in other countries called me. They asked me about Indonesian criminal procedure law. I was so ashamed when they asked me why there are cheerleaders in the courtroom, Otto said, pleading with the judges to silence the courtroom.

With the trial about to enter its third month, there are no signs of the crowd losing interest. More cheers, mumbles and shouts will decorate the murder trial against with a young woman in the defendant seat. To add some drama, at Wednesday's hearing, prosecutors even got into a quarrel with Jessica's lawyers over testimony from forensic pathologist Djaja Surya Atmadja, invited as an expert witness by Jessica's camp. The two parties yelled at each other, prompting judge Kisworo to adjourn the trial.

Kisworo has said that the panel of judges aims to conclude the hearings in five months. If so, the judges would deliver their verdict by November as long as court sessions are on schedule.

Will the spectacle calm down before then or will the current media attention only amplify the case into an even bigger show? Let us wait and see. (rin)
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Linkedin Sagara Kusuma (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

The reported plan of President Joko Jokowi Widodo to reappoint Arcandra Tahar to the Cabinet after the government confirmed he was an Indonesian citizen has been taken by advocates of dual citizenship as a positive sign.

The advocates hope the ongoing review of the 2006 Citizenship Law will eventually allow dual citizenship.

The governments move with regard to Arcandra has received an enthusiastic response among the diaspora community, chairman of the Indonesia Diaspora Network board of advisors Dino Patti Djalal told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

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Linkedin Qassam Abdul-Zahra (Associated Press) Baghdad  Sat, September 10, 2016

A camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group in Iraq was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania on Friday, the group said.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq has been based in Iraq since the 1980s, when they received arms and support from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. U.S.-led forces disarmed the group after the 2003 invasion and settled them at a base north of Baghdad.

Late Friday night a car bomb targeting a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad killed 11 people and wounded 28, according to police and hospital officials. Three Iraqi policemen were among the dead, the officials added.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the press.

The attack comes as Iraqi ground forces are moving into position around Mosul ahead of a planned operation to retake the militant-held city from the Islamic State group.

The Iranian opposition group, whose members who were flown out of Iraq Friday, was listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department for years over its killing of Americans. The MEK was also accused of taking part in the brutal suppression of a 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam, allegations denied by the group.

The MEK says it renounced violence in 2001. The U.S. military in Iraq signed an agreement with the group in 2004, promising that members would be treated as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The State Department removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations in 2012.

On Friday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau thanked the governments of Albania and Iraq.

"We are grateful to the Government of Iraq for facilitating the departure of the MEK. And we are specially appreciative of the extraordinary efforts of the Albanian Government, the Albanian Prime Mister Rama, to welcome these people who are in need of international protection," Trudeau said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked member states and international organizations for "the successful resolution of this humanitarian issue," in statement issued by his spokesman.

Iraqi forces raided Camp Ashraf, the group's longtime base north of Baghdad, in 2009, shortly after U.S.-led forces handed over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqi government. The group was later relocated to a former military base in the capital.

Armed groups have repeatedly attacked the group since Saddam's ouster, killing scores of its members.

While the casualty figures could often not be independently verified, the United Nations repeatedly expressed concern about the safety and security of residents of the group's camps.

The group said last year that more than 20 members were killed in a missile attack on their camp, but the figure could not be independently verified and the MEK has made exaggerated claims to the media in the past. (ags)
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Linkedin Arif Gunawan Sulistiyono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is set to serve a US route starting next year, eyeing a potential yearly market of 400,000 passengers especially from possible Los Angeles and New York routes.

Garuda spokesperson Benny S. Butarbutar says flying the US route is part of the companys strategic plan. The firm has started a feasibility study on US market potential, profitable routes, likely utilized aircraft, including transit and transporting its permit with Japanese authorities.

The plan to fly a US route is a business expansion [decision] to strengthen Garuda Indonesias position as a global aviation player. We immediately are taking all actions needed to realize the plan, he said in a press statement on Saturday in Jakarta.

Based on several commercial considerations, he continued, Garuda would serve the US route through Narita International Airport, Tokyo, with the wide-body Boeing 777-300ER.

All the preparations are taken by referring to all existing regulations and procedures [] Up until now, Japan provides fifth freedom traffic rights for Indonesian airlines, which allows Garuda to add a load factor before flying to the US, Benny said.

Since 2014, Garuda has indirectly served two US routes, namely to Los Angeles and Seattle, through Haneda International Airport, Tokyo, under a code-share agreement with Delta Airlines, a member of the SkyTeam alliance.

Now, it can serve direct routes as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upgraded the safety status of Indonesian airlines to category one in August. (ags)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia hopes to reopen flights to the US starting next summer, following a recent upgrade by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

It is looking to re-establish flights to the US with a stopover in Narita International Airport in Tokyo, which is considered an ideal transit point for the US market.

The state firm revealed the plan following the FAAs recent decision to upgrade the safety status of Indonesian airlines to category 1, allowing them to fly to the US after an eight-year ban.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

In a move that may curtail the rights of the countrys lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, the government says it is considering banning applications widely used by the LGBT community following the polices claim they have been used by pedophiles to prey on Indonesian children.

The National Police made the claim after discovering that AR, a suspected pimp and pedophile who allegedly sold children for sex, was aggressively using applications to post pornographic pictures of the victims in an attempt to lure male customers.

One of the apps AR used was a mainstream social and dating app called Grindr, which is designed for gays and bisexuals to chat, share photos and meet up. The app makes use of mobile devices geolocation to allow users to locate men nearby.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama officially opened on Friday the Kampung Duri Market in Central Jakarta amid tight security, including the presence of the bomb squad (Gegana), as protesters demonstrated outside.

Dozens of armed security guards were deployed near the market before the governor arrived, with the demonstration held some 300 meters away from the location. Ahok is opposed everywhere. We oppose Ahok coming to our kampung, said Leo, one of the protesters.

Ahok, who is looking to be returned to office in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, is currently the front runner ahead of the vote. However, several groups have objected to his candidacy.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

The East Jakarta Police destroyed on Friday alcoholic beverages and liquor seized in raids on several districts across the municipality.

Deputy police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Arief Rachman, said they destroyed 5,520 bottles of alcohol, 260 containers, including six jerry-cans, of oplosan (bootleg alcohol). The destruction took place in a yard at the Pulo Gadung Police headquarters,

All of the drink was collected from a number of raids we conducted across the municipality, he was quoted as saying by beritajakarta.com.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

The Jakarta Police have charged the owner of a drugstore in Pramuka Market, Central Jakarta, for selling expired medicines.

Aros Apotek was one of the drugstores that were recently raided by the Jakarta Police and Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) at the market, dubbed the capitals biggest pharmaceutical hub.

Aros Apoteks owner, identified only as HK, will be charged under Article 198 of the Medicines Law with a maximum punishment of Rp 100 million (US$7,628) in fines.

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Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

Jakarta and Manila have agreed to help each other to resolve a number issues, ranging from the repatriation of Indonesian pilgrims posing as Filipinos in Saudi Arabia to the fate of the Indonesian hostages currently in the hands of Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines.



On his first visit to Indonesia, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took the opportunity to apologize for the recent kidnappings of Indonesian sailors by armed militants operating in Philippine waters.



Indonesia and the Philippines have long had strong bilateral ties, but the recent kidnapping incidents in the Sulu Sea have strained relations between the two neighbors.



Duterte said he valued the friendship between the two neighboring countries and acknowledged that the recurring kidnapping incidents had become a major problem. Im very sorry, Mr. President, that sometimes the shipments of [...] the coal that is needed by the power plants of my country are hampered [when] crossing that area there because there is a lot of piracy, he said.



Both Jokowi and Duterte reiterated a commitment to ensuring security in their contiguous territorial waters, as the two leaders signed a joint declaration on cooperation to ensure maritime security in the area.



We hope there will be no more such security issues in the Sulu Sea, said Jokowi as he thanked Duterte for his commitment to push for better cooperation in maritime security.



The issue of Indonesian pilgrims using fake Philippine passports, which has been in the spotlight recently, was also discussed by the two leaders on Friday, with Jokowi thanking the Philippine government for its commitment to helping resolve the problem.



Jakarta has recently secured the return of 168 of the 177 pilgrims arrested in Manila, leaving nine others who are helping local law enforcers investigate the haj syndicate in the Philippines. However, it has since been revealed that between 500 and 700 Indonesian haj pilgrims may have already entered Saudi Arabia using fake Philippine passports. They are now performing the haj in Mecca.



We thank the Philippine government for its cooperation in dealing with the problem of 700 Indonesians who are now in Saudi Arabia to perform the haj, Jokowi said.



Before the bilateral meeting at the Palace, Jokowi took Duterte, who like Jokowi is also a former city mayor, to Tanah Abang Market in Central Jakarta to experience his famous blusukan (impromptu visits).



Duterte is the second world leader to join one of Jokowis blusukan in Tanah Abang after Jokowi took Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the biggest textile market in Indonesia, reputedly the biggest textile market in Southeast Asia, late last year. Tanah Abang diplomacy appears to be a tool to help break the ice between visiting leaders and Jokowi.



Jokowi told Duterte that he believed the two shared certain similar traits, of being easygoing people who always wanted to be among their people, saying that I am glad to take you to see the center of the peoples economic activities in Tanah Abang.



The two leaders also agreed to seek ways to intensify cooperation on the campaign against drugs, as both have claimed to share a deep concern about the harm to society caused by the illicit drug trade.



Jokowi has been criticized for launching a tough campaign of executing death row drug convicts since he took office in 2014. But Duterte has surpassed this by his even tougher stance against drug abusers and dealers  including extrajudicial killings that have sparked international controversy.



Various media have reported that more than 2,000 suspected drug abusers and dealers have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.



Duterte said all were playing their part in contributing toward the aim of a drug-free ASEAN community.



However, the meeting did not touch on the issue of death row drug convict Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso of the Philippines, despite Dutertes plan to plead with Jokowi for mercy, said Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, who was among the ministers joining the bilateral talks.



Veloso was spared execution in April last year after a woman, who allegedly recruited her to act as a drug courier, gave herself up to police in the Philippines, and since then the Philippine government has sought Veloso to testify as a witness against her alleged trafficker.



Before leaving for his recent ASEAN trips, Duterte said he would respect Jokowis decision and Indonesias judicial system if his counterpart rejected his plea on behalf of Veloso.



The South China Sea issue was also on the table yesterday, with the two leaders expressing serious concern and calling on all parties to respect the rule of law and to seek peaceful resolution, said Duterte.



We understand that peace is a necessary condition for growth and progress, Duterte added.

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Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

With his knowledge and vast experience in the global oil and gas sector, Arcandra Tahar may be the right person to lead the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

But reappointing him as the energy minister could undermine President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration.

Speculation is rife that Arcandra will get his ministerial job back after the government announced that Arcandra had regained his Indonesian citizenship as he had automatically renounced his US citizenship when he joined Jokowis Cabinet.

The President said he would summon Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, or maybe Arcandra himself, to get the details of the process of restoring Arcandras citizenship on Friday morning, sparking speculation Arcandra would be reappointed as energy and mineral resources minister, along with the inauguration of Budi Gunawan as the nations spy chief.

However, as of Friday afternoon, the plan had yet to materialize as Yasonna said there had been no discussion with Jokowi that day regarding issues surrounding Arcandra, who was removed from his position in early August after only 20 days in office following the revelation that he held US citizenship.

Yasonna later declined to comment on whether Arcandras reinstated Indonesian citizenship might lead to the possibility of him being reappointed as a minister. We know nothing about it, said Yasonna, who claimed that the only report his office made to the President was by letter. We deal [only] with the citizenship issue.

The possible reappointment of Arcandra has received mixed responses from politicians. The two largest pro-government political factions in the House, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party, have pledged to support Jokowi if he decides to reinstate Arcandra.

Golkar chairman Setya Novanto has even assigned senior Golkar politician Bambang Soesatyo to work on securing House approval for the purported plan.

Analysts, however, warn that reappointing Arcandra could be politically costly for Jokowi.

Political communications expert Gun Gun Heryanto said it was better for Jokowi not to reappoint Arcandra as energy minister as it could cause a public backlash that would hinder the Cabinets performance and might undermine synergy between the ministers.

Remember when Jokowi said in his speech [in July] announcing the second Cabinet reshuffle [...] that the reshuffle was done to introduce a more productive and solid Cabinet that could work faster, Gun Gun said. They cannot work effectively if they are busy dealing with new controversies.

Many believe the concern revolving around Arcandra is more than simply about his US citizenship status when he took the job as a minister in Jokowis Cabinet, but rather the legality of his use of an Indonesian passport.

The governments move to restore his Indonesian citizenship has also sparked controversy. All citizens should bow to existing law regardless of their skills, said constitutional law expert Feri, who argued that giving Arcandra his Indonesian citizenship back was ridiculous and unconstitutional.

Under the law, he said, a person who lost his Indonesian citizenship could get it back if he or she lived in Indonesia for five consecutive years before applying for new Indonesian citizenship.

Is there any reason that can justify him [Arcandra] violating the law? asked Feri, adding that There is a possibility that his policies will be questioned and challenged [as a result of his questionable citizenship status].

Feri urged Jokowi to immediately appoint someone with no potential conflict of interest as the new energy minister.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

The government is looking to increase investment attractiveness in the upstream oil and gas industry by revising a number of regulations deemed as hampering the growth of business deals in the sector.

Oil and Gas Director General at the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry IGN Wiratmaja Puja said it is currently in the midst of revising the 2010 government regulation on taxation and cost recovery in the oil and gas industry, as well as planning to create a regulation on special incentives for activities in deep sea and remote areas.

Wiratmaja said he expected the moves to boost investments in the industry often bedeviled by numerous convoluted tax obligations and help increase supplies amid plummeting sources and surging domestic demand.

We cant do business as usual now. The sooner [the government can conclude the deliberations on the regulations], the better [our oil and gas industry will be], he said at a press briefing on Friday.

The ministry forecasts that oil production will plummet to 550,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) by 2020 from this years target of 820,000 bopd if no new discoveries are made.

The countrys oil reserves, meanwhile, dropped to 3.6 billion stock tank barrels at the end of 2015 from 3.62 billion the previous year.

The ministrys data also show that starting next year, there will be a gap between the countrys oil supplies and demand. By 2020, the supplies are forecasted to go down to 1.8 million bopd from 2.19 million bopd in 2015, while demand could possibly increase to 2.6 million bopd from 2.19 million bopd.

There are now 113 active exploration sites, with only US$367 million invested in exploration activities in the first half of the year, out of a total investment of $5.7 billion in the oil and gas sector. The low level of exploration activities was mainly caused by the heavy tax obligation for investors from the outset of their venture, Wiratmaja said.

The government is now also considering removing all tax obligations for investors still in the exploration process, such as value-added tax and import tax. We hope to attract investors to spend their money in exploration activities as exploration can increase our oil and gas supplies.

Acknowledging the potentials, the government will also issue either a presidential regulation or a government regulation containing various incentives for activities in the deep sea and remote areas.

According to the ministry, there are around 3.7 billion stock tank barrels in potential reserves, mostly located in deepwater ocean basins in the eastern part of the country.

Separately, Bank Mandiris head of industry and regional research department Dendi Ramdani agreed that tax reform in the upstream oil and gas industry would further foster the sector.

However, he said the move to revamp legal basis was only one of many factors that contributed to the industrys growth, pointing to the unstable crude oil prices. (mos)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Jehlum  Sat, September 10, 2016

A Pakistani court has denied bail to a man accused of slaying a British-Pakistani woman in the country's latest so-called "honor killing."

Samia Shahid's father, Muhammad Shahid, and ex-husband, Muhammad Shakeel, are accused of killing her in July because she had divorced Shakeel and married a Shiite Muslim.

A police investigation concluded that her father stood guard while Shakeel raped her, before the two men strangled her to death.

Najful Hussain Shah, the lawyer for the deceased woman's husband, says the court rejected bail for Shahid on Saturday. It has not yet ruled on Shakeel's request for bail.

Hundreds of women are murdered every year in Pakistan, often by their own relatives, for going against their families' wishes in matters of love and marriage.(ags)
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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti and Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Surabaya  Sat, September 10, 2016

The government and the countrys financial regulator are being urged to offer a greater variety of financial instruments and other outlets in a bid to attract overseas-stashed funds repatriated through the tax amnesty program.

Data from the Directorate General of Taxation show that the amount of repatriated funds only reached

Rp 18.1 trillion (US$1.3 billion) as of Friday evening, far below the targeted Rp 1 quadrillion.

A major reason why so few funds are coming back to the country is a lack of attractive investment products at banks and in the overall financial industry, particularly US dollar-based instruments, bankers have said.

HSBC Indonesia managing director and global markets head Ali Setiawan said the government and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) should have been more ready to create new kinds of financial products to accommodate the repatriation.

The government should take this opportunity to prepare instruments that can be provided and an assurance of returns that can be given if it really wants to facilitate the repatriation of funds, he said recently.

Ali said the program should have been complemented by attractive US dollar-based instruments since all of the incoming assets would be in US dollars. There is a small chance that the big taxpayers would convert their funds into rupiah as there is no conversion requirement under the Tax Amnesty Law.

There is only a few of foreign currency-based instruments available to absorb the funds, such as the regular US dollar time deposits at banks, the exceedingly rare US dollar mutual funds and US dollar corporate bonds, which are basically plain vanilla compared to the investment instruments that taxpayers use overseas that offer more sophisticated structured products with higher yields.

He added that the big taxpayers would be less likely inclined to directly invest in infrastructure projects, like those offered by the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Ministry, because the government did not offer clear yield calculations to compensate this type of high-risk and long-term investment.

Investors are not very complicated people because they think in simple terms of investing their money and calculating the returns. If they dont think the return is profitable enough, why would they consider investing in infrastructure?

(-/-)

Moekti P. Soejachmoen, the head of strategic research at the Mandiri Institute, which is a think tank owned by Bank Mandiri, said a casual survey conducted by

banks prior to the implementation of the amnesty law actually showed many taxpayers were reluctant to invest in the financial sector because of the limited options in instruments and the non-competitive yields compared to what were offered abroad.

Meanwhile, OJK deputy chairman Rahmat Waluyanto said during a recent event in Surabaya, East Java, that gateway banks should prepare their liquidity management as members of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) had promised to repatriate Rp 1 quadrillion-worth of assets.

There are now 19 banks that have been appointed as gateways to handle the repatriated funds, including HSBC Indonesia, Bank Mandiri and CIMB Niaga.

It is predicted that the funds will seek foreign currency-based instruments, so banks should provide better management in foreign exchange. There will be more big banks, asset management firms and securities houses involved in the future, he said.

In an attempt to stand out from the crowd, private lender CIMB Niaga, part of the Malaysian CIMB Group, now offers a structured product called market linked deposits (MLD), which has become its flagship product to attract repatriated funds, in addition to other treasury and capital market instruments, such as SWAP Depo, strike currency and bonds.
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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

The government has given the countrys leading pulp and paper company PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) a slap on the wrist even though it has violated President Joko Jokowi Widodos peatland moratorium policy.

Jokowi issued the policy in 2015 after massive land and forest fires that claimed the lives of 10 people and caused approximately 500,000 cases of respiratory tract infections.

The President ordered that even with licenses, all peatland was prohibited from being cleared until the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) finished mapping the location to see which areas were in protected or production zones. Peatland clearing is a major cause of forest fires.

On Friday, PT RAPP admitted that an operation to convert the peatland into a currently ongoing acacia plantation had occurred on their concession on Padang Island, Meranti Islands regency, Riau.

Despite violating Jokowis moratorium policy, RAPP president director Tony Wenas claimed that the companys operations in the area was legal because it adhered to the companys working plan (RKU), which had been approved by the Environment and Forestry Ministry in 2013. We always follow the rules and all the actions we take are in accordance to the decree that we received from the [ministry], he said after a closed meeting with the ministry and the BRG in Jakarta.

Tony added that the operation to convert the peatland had been ongoing since the end of 2014.

The company disclosed the peatland conversion operation after an impromptu visit on Monday by BRG head Nazir Foead, who discovered the area had freshly been planted with acacia seedlings.

Nazir decided to pay the visit after receiving a report about the company planting in the area, which has been disputed over by locals for years.

Since RAPP started its operation in Pulau Padang in 2011, residents have been protesting the companys presence, resulting in the ministry issuing a decree that returns 7,000 hectares of land that were initially in the companys concession area to three villages: Bagan Melibur, Mengkirau and part of Lukit. However, the decree has failed to ease tensions, which are still ongoing.

During the visit, Nazir also discovered that the company had built a canal over 3 kilometers long in the middle of the acacia plantation, suspected to be used to dry out the peatland to make way for the acacia seedlings to grow.

Tony said the canals were constructed to save water following forest fires last year, not to dry out the peatland.

BRGs education, participation and partnership division deputy Myrna A. Safitri said the agency could not accept the companys excuses as building a canal was also forbidden in peatland areas.

Despite the violation, the ministry decided to only give a verbal warning to the company. Theres no sanction so far, ministrys secretary-general Bambang Hendroyono said.

Nazir said the ministry had only given the verbal warning to the company during their meeting.

For now, the government has ordered RAPP to halt all operations in the area while it continues to investigate the companys claims, as well as to resolve the dispute between the company and locals.
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Linkedin Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10 2016

Clint Eastwoods Sully is a subtle tribute to common people who, at times, can pull off miracles when we least expect it.

Sully is based on the memoir of real life pilot Chesley Sully Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks), who managed to miraculously land US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York saving 155 souls, including the planes crew, back in 2009.



The incident, however, is not the focus of the film. Instead, it focuses on the aftermath of the incident.



A few days after the landing, Sully starts having nightmares about the incident.



In his dreams, he sees himself failing to land the plane on the river and crashing it into a populated area of New York, killing all on board along with several civilians on the ground.



In addition to the nightmares, Sully also finds himself constantly in the spotlight as the media follows him to pursue stories about what happened and how he feels about becoming a hero.



Sully might be a hero in the eyes of the public but he and his copilot, Jeff Skyles (Aaron Eckhart), are also grilled by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators, who believe that the decision to land the plane in the river was a dangerous move and that the pilots should have opted to land at the nearby La Guardia or Teterboro airports.



If the investigators find that Sully could have landed the airplane at a nearby airport, he would be deemed reckless. Consequently, he would have his pilot license revoked and would end up with no pension after his 42-year career as a pilot.



Sully, the man who New Yorkers and passengers hailed as a hero, faced an investigation like that of a sociopathic criminal.



Eastwood and scriptwriter Todd Komarnicki present the story of Sully through one of the best screenplays in recent years. The narrative and plot flow smoothly and are very well-structured.



The presentation of the film feels very simple yet very informative at the same time. Even though the majority of the film takes place in NTSB hearings with a lot of talking and discussions filled with aviation jargon, Sully still grabs our full attention and does not fall into boardroom boredom.



Eastwood introduces Sully as both a pilot and a human being. He lets the audience glimpse flashbacks of Sullys early piloting days, when he comes to terms with his responsibility. Eastwood also reveals a subplot of Sullys domestic struggle with wife Lorraine (Laura Linney).

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, September 10, 2016

The government has appointed Muhammad Awaluddin, the former director of state-owned telecommunications company Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), to serve as the new president director of state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II).

AP II spokesperson Agus Haryadi said the changes to the companys top executive board were made due to the appointment of its former president director Budi Karya Sumadi as transportation minister. Prior to the new mandate, Awaluddin served with Telkom as enterprise and business service director from 2012.

With the appointment of Awaluddin as president director of AP II, the airport operator in the western part of Indonesia has new leader starting from today [Friday], Agus said in a media statement in Jakarta, adding that the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry had inaugurated the new AP II board of directors on Friday afternoon.

The new AP II board consists of Djoko Murjatmodjo as operations and engine director, Daan Achmad as trade and business development director, Ituk Herarindri as airport services director and Andra Y. Agyssalam as finance director.

The position for human capital and information technology director has yet to be filled, Agus said. (wnd/ags)
(lead article)

Washington backs Ankara against the Kurds in Syria

Obama tells Turkish president finish the job

ARA News

Finish the job, President Barack Obama told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Sept. 4, during a joint press conference held during the G20 summit in China, backing Ankaras expanding military offensive in northern Syria.

Erdogan made clear his government intends to step up its attacks against Kurds fighting for their national rights. Our fight against Daesh, he said, using a derogatory term for Islamic State, and other terrorist organizations  PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party], YPG [Kurdish Peoples Protection Units]  will continue as committed as they have ever been.

From the beginning of what Ankara calls Operation Euphrates Shield, Erdogan has made it clear the goal is to push back Kurdish forces in Syria and prevent them from making any advances in uniting the two Kurdish regions in Syria that border Turkey.

Turkish troops and tanks, backed by U.S. airstrikes and accompanied by Turkish-organized Free Syrian Army militias, entered Syria Aug. 24, rapidly taking towns and villages with little or no resistance from Islamic State. They immediately moved toward Manbij, recently liberated by YPG forces. Vice President Joe Biden backed Ankaras offensive against the Kurds, telling the YPG to pull back to the east side of the Euphrates River.

By the end of the day Sept. 4, Turkish officials were reporting that they now control the entire 65-mile border between the towns of Jarablus and Azaz. This separates Kurdish areas around Afrin in the northwest from the rest of the Kurdish-controlled region in northeastern Syria.

Turkish troops also bombed the YPG near Afrin, the Kurdish ARA News service reported.

For decades the Kurds have fought national oppression and being divided within the borders of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced Sept. 4 that Ankara will intensify its offensive against the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and anyone accused of links to it. The PKK first began an armed struggle in 1984 against the Turkish government, which responded with brutal repression against the Kurdish population. The Erdogan government ended a two-year cease-fire with the PKK in July 2015, right after reaching an agreement with Washington to formally join the coalition against Islamic State and allow U.S. airstrikes in Syria from Turkeys Incirlik base.

Erdogan views the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region along its border with Syria as the biggest threat to the interests of Turkeys capitalist rulers, because of the impetus it gives to Kurdish national aspirations within Turkey.

A battle looms for control of al-Bab, Syria, 20 miles south of the Turkish border, Rudaw reported Sept. 6. The city is currently controlled by Islamic State. The YPG-backed al-Bab Military Council has captured three villages nearby and is poised to attack. Turkish-backed forces are just to the north. We try day and night to reach al-Bab quickly, Yasir Ibrahim Yusuf, a commander of the Ankara-backed Turkmen Nuradin Zangi Brigades told the online paper.

These clashes pose challenges for Washingtons planned offensive against Islamic States remaining strongholds in Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq. The U.S. rulers have counted on the YPG, whose forces have been the most effective combating IS, to carry out a lot of the fighting in Raqqa.

In Mosul, Washington expects the peshmerga forces of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq to play a big role in the coming offensive. The Turkish government has relations with the Iraqi Kurdish government, including on oil exports, and KRG President Masoud Barzani was in Ankara on a state visit when Turkish troops entered Syria.

Speaking in Brussels Sept. 1, Salih Muslim, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish PYD, accused the Iraqi Kurdish government of joining Ankara in imposing an embargo against the Kurdish region in Syria, known as Rojava.

The Turkish government has started building a wall on the border dividing Kurdish regions in Turkey from Rojava. Protests against the wall by thousands of Kurds near Kobani, Syria, were met by tear gas and live ammunition by Turkish police. At least two demonstrators were killed and 97 injured, ARA News reported Sept. 5.

In Germany, home to many Kurdish immigrants, some 25,000 people rallied in Cologne Sept. 3 protesting Ankaras attacks on Kurds in both Turkey and Syria.

Meanwhile, fighting has intensified across Syria. Troops from the government of Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian airstrikes and Iranian forces, reimposed a siege Sept. 4 on the eastern section of the city of Aleppo, held by opponents of Assad. Aleppo, which had been Syrias industrial center, with over 2 million residents, was a center of the mass protests in 2011 against the dictatorial Assad regime that were brutally crushed, leading to the civil war.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have been meeting for months in an effort to reach a deal for a meaningful, serious, verifiable cessation of hostilities in Syria, with little success so far.

Obama sees a bloc with Moscow as essential to any hopes of reimposing stability and defending U.S. imperialist interests in the region.





Related articles:

Kurds long struggle for independence, sovereignty







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(front page)

The Socialist Workers Party is the working

classs party

EVERETT, Wash.  The Socialist Workers Party is the working-class alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, the two capitalist parties that have no solution to the worldwide crisis of capitalism hammering the working class, Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for U.S. president, told Norma Jean Foster, a retired school custodian and member of the Operating Engineers union, who she met campaigning door to door here Aug. 29. Everett is home to thousands of Boeing aircraft and other workers.

Our conditions of life and work are worsening as the bosses try to make workers all over the world pay for their crisis, Kennedy said. The Socialist Workers Party is the only party standing up for the working class and explaining that we have to organize a movement capable of making a revolutionary change in this country to put the working class in power.

Foster told Kennedy she was leaning to Hillary Clinton, because Im afraid Trump will get us stuck in foreign wars.

Both Trump and Clinton will continue U.S. wars abroad, representing the interests of the ruling class, Kennedy replied. Clinton has a long record as secretary of state acting to keep Washingtons power and domination abroad in place.

A friend of Fosters, a Boeing worker who was visiting, asked Kennedy, Did you know that Donald Trump is speaking here tomorrow night?

Yes, thats one of the reasons I wanted to come here. I think a lot of working people go to hear what he has to say because they see him as being an outsider, not a professional politician, Kennedy said. But he has no solutions for the working class either, and his demagogic attacks against immigrants and scapegoating Muslim people divides us. Foster decided to buy a subscription to the Militant and a copy of Are They Rich Because Theyre Smart? Class, Privilege and Learning Under Capitalism by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.

Grace, a woman originally from East Africa, greeted Kennedy on the sidewalk near her home as she was returning from her job as a caregiver. I never met a presidential candidate before. In my country politics are very corrupt and they buy and steal the elections, she said.

They steal the elections here too, Kennedy said. If the ruling class thinks one of the candidates will harm their interests, they make sure their favored alternative is declared the winner.

Workers all over the world face the effects of the growing contraction in capitalist trade and production and bear the brunt of their crisis. This is why my party starts with what is happening to the international working class.

I know that people in my country are oppressed and people in this country are oppressed too, Grace told Kennedy as she signed up for a Militant subscription. But I thought I was the only one who thought like this. Lets keep in touch.

Kennedy brought solidarity to a protest rally by Familias Unidas por la Justicia, an independent farmworkers union in Burlington, where some 300 union members struck Aug. 27 demanding a union contract with Sakuma Brothers Farms. The farmworkers, most of whom are indigenous workers from Mexico, have been fighting for $15 an hour and union recognition for three years. A few days later the union announced Sakuma Farms bosses had agreed to hold a secret ballot election and begin negotiating a contract.

Very few political candidates are willing to be on the ground with the people that the capitalist system affects most, especially in rural areas, Josefina Mora, a student at Western Washington University who supports Familias Unidas, told Kennedy at the protest. Im excited to meet you.

U.S. troops out of the Mideast

We are talking to workers about the devastating impact the world capitalist crisis is having on workers around the world and how only the working class itself can chart the way forward for humanity, Kennedy told a campaign meeting at the Bethany United Church of Christ in Seattle Sept. 3. We are spreading the word about the Socialist Workers Party, getting it known among workers and winning people to join us campaigning. Anger and unease is widespread among workers about deteriorating conditions we face. Workers want to discuss and debate the way forward.

My party believes working-class struggles will grow as the depression continues to deepen, in much bigger ways than today, she said. As we gain confidence we will organize a mass working-class movement capable of taking political power out of the hands of the capitalist class and joining with workers worldwide to fight for a socialist world.

Working people are concerned about the seemingly unending wars waged by the U.S. government, especially in the Mideast, Kennedy said. We demand Washington get the troops out now.

We support the fight of Kurdish people for self-determination and against the attacks by the Turkish government backed by the U.S. military, she said. And we join in fights against attacks on Muslims and mosques here in the U.S.

We condemn attacks on the right to vote today aimed at disenfranchising workers who are African-American. From North Carolina to Michigan, Kansas to Tennessee, where I campaigned recently, thousands of people are being purged from voter rolls, she said. We join in the fight to restore gains won in blood like the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was dealt a blow by the Supreme Courts 2013 decision that opened the door for state and local governments to carry out the attacks we see today.

People I know say they are voting for Clinton because she is a woman, Peggy Lytle, a Walmart worker, told Kennedy over coffee after the meeting. They dont take into consideration her character and what she and her husband have done to ordinary people. I cant stand Clinton or Trump, but now I know who I can vote for.

I cant handle these foreign wars, she told Kennedy.

Theyve been going on continuously for decades because the U.S. rulers attempts to use military power to maintain control over the worlds resources and to exploit the worlds workers have run into difficulties, creating crises and catastrophe throughout the Mideast and beyond, Kennedy said.







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(front page, commentary)

What is stake for workers in rulers debate on

trade pact?

The debate in ruling-class circles and between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, candidates of the two big capitalist parties for U.S. president, over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact is over how best to advance the interests of Wall Street and the boss class against their competitors abroad.

Today there is a slow-burning worldwide capitalist economic depression for which the rulers have no solution, other than more attacks on workers here and abroad. Theyre driven to ratchet up competition against their capitalist rivals for markets and financial penetration. And the strongest national capitals  in todays world that has been U.S. imperialism  benefit the most.

Their public claim is they are for what is best for America and saving American jobs. But there are two Americas: one of the wealthy capitalist class and the other of workers and working farmers. And a division between the imperialist world and the semicolonial world. Our interests lie with our fellow workers around the world, not with the bosses who get rich by exploiting our labor power.

Thats why class-conscious workers dont support any of these pacts, or the nationalist campaigns against them. Under free trade or protectionism, as Karl Marx put it more than a century ago, workers go to the wall.

Clinton, Trump, and Bernie Sanders too, all say they oppose the TPP advanced by the administration of President Barack Obama  a 5,500-page agreement that includes 11 other governments: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Obama, acting for a big section of the U.S. ruling class, has made approval of the TPP a central part of his pivot to Asia. He wants to put together a coalition to slow Chinas rising economic and military power and pave the way for deals with Beijing. At the behest of U.S. steel bosses, backed by United Steelworkers union officials, the Commerce Department announced it was imposing a 266 percent tariff on steel imports from China.

The anti-China Trans-Pacific pact would eliminate or reduce tariffs and quotas on some 18,000 products for its 12 member states, especially benefiting the more powerful U.S. capitalists. For example, the Vietnamese government has agreed to eliminate or slash a host of tariffs on U.S. products, including a 34 percent tariff on beef and 30 percent on fresh fruit.

Start with working class, not we Americans

The American worker is being crushed, Trump wrote in a March 14column, and it will be worse if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not stopped. If elected, he added, We will finally stand up for American workers and make America great again, including threatening China with higher tariffs.

Clinton initially supported the proposed pact, saying in 2012 it sets the gold standard in trade agreements and would institute the rule of law and a level playing field. Under pressure of some capitalist backers and nationalist-minded union officials, she now claims it doesnt meet her standards for good jobs for Americans, for raising wages for Americans.

Sanders said he opposed the pact because it would force American workers to compete against desperately poor people all over the world. American workers should not have to compete against people making pennies an hour.

Under capitalism workers always compete with each other for jobs. The only course that can counteract competition among workers, trade pacts or not, is: Organize the unorganized, fight for working-class solidarity across borders and for higher wages and better working conditions at home, and build a growing proletarian movement to take political power out of the hands of the profit-driven rulers.

Communists start with the interests of the working class, which is an international class, Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, said in Our Politics Start with the World, a speech reprinted in New International no. 13. Under the banner of free trade, the U.S. government uses so-called antidumping clauses, environmental and labor standards restrictions, human rights demagogy, and other measures to carry out brutal and aggressive trade wars not only against its imperialist rivals but with special ferocity against the semicolonial countries.

Workers should oppose all tariffs and other barriers on goods coming into the United States and other imperialist nations. The workings of the world capitalist market guarantee the plunder of the semicolonial world, Barnes notes, not primarily due to unfair terms of trade, but as a result of the differential value of labor power and the gap in productivity of labor between the imperialist countries and those oppressed and exploited by imperialism.

Working people need to chart a course independent of the bosses and their parties, reach out in solidarity to workers around the world and refuse to be sucked into the nationalist anti-free trade campaigns that would pit us against each other.





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(front page)

IRS attack on Pastors for Peace is aimed at solidarity with Cuba

This is a smokescreen to come after us for our political work, Gail Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, told theSept 2. The attack on IFCO is an attack on social justice projects overall.

At the end of August the IRS rejected an appeal by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization of the federal tax agencys decision to revoke the groups tax-exempt status. The revocation could take effect within the next few weeks, Walker wrote to supporters and friends Sept. 1, appealing for support in this latest stage in the groups yearslong fight against harassment by the IRS.

IFCO, which was founded in 1967, is best known for its yearly Friendshipment Caravans that have brought humanitarian aid to the people of Cuba since 1992. This has included over 4,000 tons of goods such as school supplies and medicines, as well as 300 school buses, noted Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba. The group also administers the scholarship program that allows U.S. students to study at Cubas Latin American School of Medicine, and other solidarity projects.

The IRS probe, which began five years ago, initially targeted IFCOs support to a project called Viva Palestina, which delivered food and medical supplies to people in the Gaza Strip. In response to accusations by Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman and Republican Rep. Sue Myrick that the group had ties to terrorism, the IRS audited IFCOs books from 2009 and 2010. This charge was subsequently dropped, since the official Charity Commission in the United Kingdom recognizes Viva Palestina as a legitimate charity.

The IRS then accused IFCO of violating the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act for its caravans to Cuba. We said that the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control had never come after us on this issue over more than two decades, Walker told the Militant, so this was also dropped.

In denying IFCOs appeal, the IRS said it was not Cuba work or support to Viva Palestina but because of bad recordkeeping that the tax exemption is being revoked, said Walker. Theyre trying to make it an administrative issue, she said, but its a clear attempt to stop our progressive work.

This pressure being exerted on IFCO/Pastors for Peace is an intentional attempt to undermine solidarity and fraternity between our two peoples, said a Sept. 1 statement from the Cuban Council of Churches and its associate members, including the Hebrew Community of Cuba.

In an Aug. 29 interview appearing on the Cubadebate website, Walker was asked, Why is the Obama administration doing this now? Despite the opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba and negotiations on normalizing relations, in the U.S. there is still a campaign to undermine Cuba and its revolutionary principles, she replied. Thats why we continue to stand in solidarity with Cuba and why we continue to call on the U.S. government to end its efforts to achieve regime change in Cuba.
(front page)

Agreement to end Colombia-FARC war opens door for class struggle

The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group announced Aug. 24 that after nearly four years of talks they have reached a definitive agreement, ending more than 50 years of hostilities, the longest armed conflict in the history of Latin America.

Cubas revolutionary government was instrumental in facilitating the negotiations, hosted in Havana, with Cuba and Norway as guarantor countries and Chile and Venezuela accompanying countries. Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been a proponent of a negotiated end to the conflict for decades.

The agreement puts working people in Colombia in a better position to defend their interests without the obstacle of the war, which was often used as an excuse for government clampdowns on political and labor rights.

Some 80 percent of the 220,000 people who were killed during the war were civilians, the big majority at the hands of rightist paramilitaries, soldiers or police. More than 10 percent of Colombias 47 million inhabitants were displaced.

While in the last half decade the number of killings by paramilitary groups and the military has dropped dramatically, more than 110 trade unionists have been killed since 2009, according to Human Rights Watch.

As part of the accord the FARC will be allowed to form a political party after turning over its weapons to a United Nations mission. The new party will be guaranteed five seats in the Colombian House and five in the Senate in the elections of 2018 and 2022, regardless of the outcome of voting.

Amnesty will be granted to those who committed political crimes. Those found guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity will be held for a time in special centers, not prisons. The government agreed it would not extradite demobilized guerrillas, blocking Washington from attempting to bring them to the U.S. for trial on alleged drug trafficking charges. The agreement will be voted on in an Oct. 2 plebiscite.

The Colombian Senate voted overwhelmingly Aug. 29 to approve holding the referendum. Former President Alvaro Uribe is campaigning against it.

In the 1960s, several guerrilla groups grew out of peasant struggles for land and resistance to repression and massacres by Colombias U.S-backed capitalist rulers. Today just 0.4 percent of the population owns 62 percent of the best land and 83 percent of farmers lack agricultural machinery.

The FARC became the largest group. It was formed in 1964 by peasant leader Manuel Marulanda, then a member of the Communist Party of Colombia, which looked to the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union for political guidance. The FARC split from the Communist Party in 1993.

At its height the FARC organized more than 10,000 combatants and occupied large swaths of the Colombian countryside, but in recent years had lost ground to government offensives.

Under Plan Colombia, initiated by the administration of President Bill Clinton, Washington has sent military aid totaling nearly $10 billion to Colombia since 2000, ostensibly aimed both at eliminating coca and at the guerrillas.

FARC didnt intend to take power

Unlike Cuba, where the Rebel Army led by Fidel Castro began organizing land reform, literacy campaigns and other revolutionary measures in areas under rebel control even before it succeeded in overthrowing the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, the FARC and other guerrilla groups left capitalist economic and social relations intact in the areas they controlled.

While guerrilla groups denied U.S. and Colombian government charges that they were involved in drug trafficking, they defended the collection of a tax on those involved in the drug trade, like they did on other capitalist enterprises.

The guerrilla leaders never saw the armed struggle as a road to increasing the self-confidence, class-consciousness and discipline of workers and farmers to rapidly take political power. Instead, Marulanda conceived a lengthy and prolonged struggle, Castro explained in the book La paz en Colombia (Peace in Colombia), published in 2008. Castro also criticized the methods of the Colombian guerrillas of taking both civilians and soldiers hostage. (See page 7.)
(feature article)

Lessons of Cuban Revolution valuable in Colombia

Fidel Castros 2008 book discusses how Cuban fighters took power, course of leaders of FARC

Below are excerpts from(Peace in Colombia), by Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro that attracted worldwide interest when it was released by Editora Politica in 2008.

Castro expressed his opposition to U.S. imperialist intervention and his support for a negotiated end to the decades-long guerrilla war in Colombia in two articles published earlier that year in Granma, the daily newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba. He also explained his disagreement with the political course followed by Manuel Marulanda, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who had died earlier that year, and the Communist Party of Colombia, of which Marulanda was a member for many years.

The Colombian Communist Party never contemplated the idea of conquering power through the armed struggle, Castro said. The guerrilla was a resistance front and not the basic instrument to conquer revolutionary power, as it had been in Cuba. In 1993, he added, Marulanda took over the leadership of that Partys guerrillas, which was always distinguished by their hermetic sectarianism when admitting combatants as well as in their iron-handed and compartmentalized leadership methods.

Castro also expressed his opposition to the FARCs treatment of prisoners and their practice of taking hostages.

Castro reaffirmed that Cuba would never support the pax romana that the [U.S.] empire tries to impose on Latin America. He said that establishing a real peace, was the one way out in Colombia, and the option Cuba has advocated for decades.

Translation is by the Militant.





My disagreement with Marulandas conception is based on living experience, not as a theoretician but as a political person who confronted and had to resolve very similar problems, both as a citizen and a guerrilla, although Marulandas problems were more complex and difficult. 

We who organized the movement that sought to take power on July 26, 1953, had a clear idea of our objectives, and this remained constant. 

The United States organized armed groups [against Cuba after the 1959 revolution] and terrorist groups supplied by air and sea. They planted bombs, burned social and economic installations, including theaters, child care centers, factories, sugar plantations, warehouses, department stores and other targets, snuffing out lives or maiming Cubans through their traitorous actions. 

The U.S. government pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war, because they refused to give up the idea of a direct attack on Cuba, using its powerful military. That would have cost an incalculable loss in lives and destruction, since, the Cuban people, as is well known, would have resisted to the last drop of blood. 

Our idea of the guerrilla force as the developing embryo of a force capable of taking power is not based only on the Cuban experience but also on that of other Latin American countries. In all of them the struggles would be waged by the poor, independently of their level of education, which everywhere, as the exploited classes  worker or peasant, simple day laborers or even soldiers  was very low. 

The United States is not a friend of the peoples of Latin America. For more than a century and a half it intervened in Latin Americas internal affairs, stole its territory, robbed its natural resources, attacked its culture, imposed unequal trade, sabotaged unity efforts going back to the era of independence, promoted conflicts between our countries, exploited the great differences in the heart of our societies. 

During the last 50 years, military coups and bloody tyrannies, supported and encouraged by the United States, have meant hundreds of thousands of disappeared, tortured, and murdered in Central and South America. The coup plotters and torturers were trained in U.S. military schools. 

The problem of drugs, which today causes so much pain to the peoples of Latin America, in reality originates with the enormous demand in the United States, where the authorities have never decided to combat it energetically while assigning this task solely to the countries where poverty and underdevelopment push masses of peasants into cultivating the coca leaf or poppies instead of coffee, cacao, or other products undervalued in the U.S. market. 

I disagreed with the head of the FARC over the pace he assigned to the revolutionary process in Colombia, over his idea of excessively prolonged war. 

The FARC, because of its operational conceptions, never surrounded or forced the surrender of a full battalion backed by artillery, armored units and air power. This is an experience we did have, thus defeating even larger units of elite troops. This is not what happened with the FARC, despite the tremendous quality of its fighters.

My opposition to holding prisoners of war, to applying policies that humiliate them or subject them to extremely harsh jungle conditions, is well known. With these policies troops will never lay down their arms, even if the battle is lost. Nor was I in agreement with capturing and holding civilians who have nothing to do with the war.





Related articles:

Agreement to end Colombia-FARC war opens door for class struggle

Rebel Armys moral values key to overthrow of Batista

UN caused cholera epidemic in Haiti; Cuban doctors fought it

IRS attack on Pastors for Peace is aimed at solidarity with Cuba







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This week Andrew Lloyd-Webbers new musical, School of Rock, launched in London. It begins its run on 22nd October and after being such a hit in Broadway, its likely its going to be just as popular in London. Here are five reasons why this is one new musical that is not to be missed:

Julian Fellows writing:

After six years on Downton Abbey, Julian jokingly described School of Rock as the natural fit. He and Lloyd-Webber had one of their first meetings about the project in The House of Lords. "I was very enthusiastic, it was a big change," he said. "Its been a very happy job."

The musical is largely based on the movie, however Fellows has added more to the childrens history, created more rounded characters and a more moving narrative. "I think the trick for writing for children is to forget that they are children and just give them the dramatic situations and the exchanges and the character definition and narrative that you would give any character," he said. The plot is one that will inevitably make you laugh but the new information on the children should give the show an emotional twist.

The Score

You cant have a good musical without a good score. Webber said: "I originally thought wed use songs from the movie, but in the end theyre only like little fragments and they didnt make a theatre score, so I kind of filled in." And of all the people to fill in, who better than the musical genius that is Andrew Lloyd-Webber?

Not only that, but the songs have been inspired by real rock legends. Lloyd Webber said: "I thought, Im going to try and write what I would write in my old rock days when we working on Jesus Christ Superstar and Led Zeppelin were next door." What would School of Rock be without the classics? The score is complete with fan favourites like Teacher's Pet.

Jack Blacks Seal of Approval

Director Laurence Connor said "he had wanted (Black) to see the show for a while but he was extremely nervous about watching it as it was a huge part of his life" but "By the end of act one he knew that he liked it... By the end of act two he came up to the orchestra dress and threw his arms around me with tears in his eyes."

Jack Black has since given the musical high praise, and Connor thinks its because they "never lost the heart of what they created in that film but actually added more and created stories for those children that actually broke his heart." If Jack Black loves it then they must be doing something right.

David Finn

David Finn plays the lead, Dewy Finn, in the production. He probably has one of the hardest jobs and was probably the hardest person to cast. He has to look the part, be musically talented, be able to act and, the toughest job of all, fill Jack Blacks massive shoes! Laurence Connor said, "Davids wonderful; we saw David in America about a year and a half ago." He went on to describe him as, "a terrific British actor... He came in and he was so funny. Hes terrific and hes going to bring so much energy." And judging by the performance he gave on launch day, he will live up to expectations.

The Kids

Its extremely hard to describe the talent that these children possess. Webber opened the launch with something he says at the start of each performance; "these kids play absolutely live" - they do, and its spellbinding.

The creators were stunned at the level of talent that they auditioned. Fellows said, "When I was first asked to do it I kind of assumed we would have to make the children older in order to get the musical skills... I was so amazed when I got to the first day of rehearsals and there were all these kids playing these instruments that were as big as they were."

The children are aged 9-12 and perform just as well (if not better) than older members of the cast. They are captivating, energised and thoroughly committed. Webber described the band as a family and said after the Tony Awards "our kids got up and did an hour and a half set off their own back of heavy metal stuff."

Webber made a point of explaining what music can mean for these children and how arts funding is massively important: "At this time, when there are cuts to music in our schools and this that and the other, which should never ever ever ever happen, because every penny you spend on music in schools comes back twenty-fold; these are the kids that prove that music is vital to us in schools and education." He said this musical is about "the empowering force of music."

The creators also want this musical to be accessible to everyone. Webber said its something they managed to achieve in America and "its something well be doing here, to keep the ticket prices low enough that if it really did break through to an audience that doesnt really come to the theatre, i.e. teenagers and young people who perhaps dont think the theatre is necessarily for them, they could."

School of Rock opens at the New London Theatre on 22nd October. Ticket prices will range from 25 to 75 with 10 off all preview performances.

Best seats for 10.00 will be available every Wednesday evening an hour before curtain to purchase as part of the School of Rock  The Musical Student Rush scheme. These tickets will only be available in person from the New London Theatre Box Office.
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Digium, 888VoIP, Fiber Mountain, Grandstream, Sangoma, Sansay, Yeahlink and seven others join Florida Event to present the latest technologies and use cases

Norwalk, CTSeptember 8, 2016 TMC announced today the latest group of sponsors to join ITEXPO, to be held February 8-10, 2017 at the Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. ITEXPO is the communications and business transformation event where influential buyers gather to make their purchase decisions. The enterprise mid-market, resellers and service providers attend for three full days of content, six collocated events, powerful keynotes, an interactive exhibit floor and hours of dedicated networking time.

With purchasing power and an annual budget ready to spend, ITEXPO attendees are eager to meet with sponsors and exhibitors to see the hottest technologies, case studies and trends, said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and conference chairman. We are pleased to welcome the latest group of companies to our sponsorship roster and look forward to the valuable insight they will share with attendees.

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium, Inc. provides Asterisk software, telephony hardware, and on-premises and hosted Switchvox business phone systems that deliver enterprise-class Unified Communications (UC) and UC as a Service (UCaaS) solutions at an affordable price. Digium is the creator, primary developer and sponsor of the Asterisk project; the worlds most widely used open source communications software. Asterisk turns an ordinary computer into a feature-rich communications server. A community of more than 80,000 developers and users worldwide uses Asterisk to create VoIP communication solutions in more than 170 countries.

Platinum Sponsors:

888VoIP is a one-stop, value-added distributor for everything you need to keep up with the ever-changing world of VoIP products and technologies. Their Channel Advantage Services showcase provisioning, fulfillment, RESTful API, online purchasing, Tech Support and RMA services to give you the tools needed to succeed. Their VIP Program and Service Provider Program encourages customers to rely on their teams to deliver on all needs and questions to give the best solution possible.

Fiber Mountain, Inc. is transforming network infrastructure through its innovative Glass Core solution, which provides centralized SDN control and real-time visibility of the network and creates a virtual connectivity fabric of software-controlled Programmable Light Path (PLP) connections. This enables Layer 1 SDN with automated port switching, and eliminates cabling errors through automated patching and Intelligent Connection Identification (ICID).

Grandstream Networks, Inc. has been connecting the world since 2002 with SIP Unified Communications products and solutions that allow businesses to be more productive than ever before. Their award-winning solutions serve the small and medium business and enterprises markets and have been recognized throughout the world for their quality, reliability and innovation. Grandstream solutions lower communication costs, increase security protection and enhance productivity.

Sangoma is a leading provider of hardware and software components that enable or enhance IP Communications Systems for both telecommunications and data communications applications. Enterprises, small and medium-size businesses and carriers in over 150 countries rely on Sangoma's technology as part of their mission critical infrastructures.

Sansay is a leading vendor of carrier infrastructure products for session controllers, SBCs, WebRTC and NFV networks. Providing highly scalable and reliable systems that are easily managed with a full feature set for SIP retail or wholesale networks running on appliances or cloud services the business management for LCR and billing are provided as an integrated and flexible solution.

Yealink, the global leading unified communication (UC) terminal solution provider, helps businesses of all sizes make the most of their UC experiences and embrace the power of Easy Collaboration. Yealink One-stop UC Terminal Solutions unify voice, video and data, and satisfy diverse customer needs and usage scenarios. The companys comprehensive product portfolio includes video conferencing systems, conference phones, desk IP phones, wireless DECT phones and accessories.

Gold Sponsors:

ABP Technology is a Dallas, TX based value-added distributor of IP Technology products and solutions throughout North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. The ABPTech solutions portfolio includes IP Communications, Voice and Video, IP Surveillance and Physical Security and IP Infrastructure and Network Security. ABP will be showcasing its new products along with DrayTek, Epygi, Grandstream, MOBOTIX, Patton, and Planet at ITEXPO.

NetSapiens provides advanced Unified Communications software to the industry's leading service providers, allowing them to grow their businesses and become more profitable with next-generation technologies. The NetSapiens SNAPsolution platform is a reliable solution for service providers looking to deliver a wide range of carrier grade VoIP features and functionality to their end-users.

Snom is a German multinational corporation and the worlds first and leading brand of professional and enterprise VoIP telephones. Snom operates wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States, France, Italy and Taiwan. Snom's German engineering is globally renowned for robust, high quality and feature-rich business telephones that are designed exclusively for the trained and certified professional IT and PBX installer.

Teli is a privately-held wholesale messaging and voice provider out of Denver Tech Center, Colorado. Teli partners can order services, control voice, SMS and MMS messaging, Local Number Porting, Voicemail, 911, and more via their award winning restful API. Teli also supports web-hooks and single sign-on support for custom integrations, and provides a white-label portal with built-in customer billing.

Taqua is a leading supplier of core network solutions and system integrated services designed to migrate legacy communications networks into the most advanced unified communications system available, while protecting the organization's existing investment. With a 16-year proven track record and over 400 communications networks deployed, Taqua integrates its core IP technology with market leading, best-in-class unified communications applications.

Vitelity, an Onvoy company, is an established leader in Wholesale VoIP, vFax, vMobile SMS, and Hosting/Colocation services. As the third largest CLEC in N. America (by rate center coverage) they provide local numbers in over 12,000+ rate centers which enables their wholesale customers to provide VoIP services to 90 percent of the U.S. population. Vitelity offers instant provisioning through their award-winning customers portal & API, rapid number porting, and unmatched customer service by their expert support staff.

Voxbone is the market leader in providing virtual local phone numbers (often referred to as inbound SIP trunks, or DID numbers). Its services enable cloud communications providers, international carriers and enterprise contact centers to extend the reach of their voice networks internationally, rapidly and at minimal cost. The company delivers high-quality inbound SIP trunks from 55+ countries and more than 8,000 cities globally.

For more information or to register for ITEXPO, contact Frank Coppola at 203-852-6800 x131. For media inquiries, contact Jessica Seabrook. Companies interested in exhibiting, sponsorship or advertising packages for ITEXPO should contact TMC's Joe Fabiano at 203-852-6800 x132 or Maureen Gambino at 203-852-6800 x109.

For the latest ITEXPO news, updates and information follow the event on Twitter at @ITEXPO.

About TMC

Global buyers rely on TMCs content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. This presents branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities for vendors/sellers.

TMCs Marketplaces:

Unique, turnkey Online Communities boost search results, establish market validation, elevate brands and thought leadership, while minimizing ad-blocking.

boost search results, establish market validation, elevate brands and thought leadership, while minimizing ad-blocking. Custom Lead Programs uncover sales opportunities and build databases.

uncover sales opportunities and build databases. In-Person and Online Events boost brands, enhance thought leadership and generate leads.

and boost brands, enhance thought leadership and generate leads. Publications , Display Advertising and Newsletters bolster brand reputations.

, and bolster brand reputations. Custom Content provides expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts.

provides expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts. Comprehensive Event and Road Show Management Services help companies meet potential clients and generate leads face-to-face.

For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit www.tmcnet.com.

Media and Analyst Contact:

Jessica Seabrook

Marketing Director

TMC

203-852-6800 x 170

[email protected]

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Edited by Alicia Young
Immigration officer faces murder charge for fatal Rohingya shooting

PHUKET: The immigration officer who fatally shot a Rohingya man on the run after escaping the Immigration Centre in Phang Nga in May is facing a murder charge in court, Phang Nga Police Deputy Superintendent Col Chote Chitchai has confirmed.

immigrationdeathcrimeaccidentsviolence

By The Phuket News

Saturday 10 September 2016, 11:02AM

The 18-year-old Rohingya escapee Mohammad Khawnee was shot dead while fleeing immigration officers in pursuit after the mass breakout of Rohingya refugees from the Phang Nga Immigration Detention Centre on May 23. Photo: The Phuket News / file

Sgt Thanakorn Noosawas of the Phang Nga Immigration Office shot dead 18-year-old Rohingya escapee Mohammad Khawnee while in pursuit of the fugitive on May 23.

Mr Mohammad was one of 21 Rohingya migrants who escaped the Phang Nga Immigration Detention Centre at about 3am that day.

Police claimed that Sgt Thanakorn had opened fire in self-defence, as the group of escapees that Sgt Thanakorn was pursuing with other officers had started throwing large rocks down at them from higher up on the steep ridge. (See story here.)

Sgt Thanakorn is facing the murder charge at Phang Nga Provincial Court, Col Chote told The Phuket News.

The trial is still ongoing. It is taking time as the court still has yet to receive the official autopsy report [on the body of Mr Mohammad], he said.

Police handed this case to the court a month ago after we questioned all witnesses and people involved in the shooting, Col Chote explained.

Even though all witnesses said that the officer shot the victim in self-defence because the victim threw a large rock at him, the officer faces the charge of murder and the court will decide whether or not he is guilty, he said.

Right now they are examining all relevant evidence and the investigation process, Col Chote added.

Meanwhile, the posthumous charge of attempted murder against Mr Mohammad is also ongoing at the court, Col Chote added.

Of note, the verdict on whether or not Mr Mohammad is guilty of attempted murder by participating in throwing large rocks at the immigration posse chasing him will likely have a significant effect on whether or not Sgt Thanakorn was acting in self-defence.

This case is also taking time, was all Col Chote would offer on this case.
Inside Nepals forgotten medieval kingdom

NEPAL: In Nepals isolated, high-altitude desert of Upper Mustang, a new road to China is bringing economic transformation to the former Buddhist kingdom, once a centre for trans-Himalayan commerce.

culturereligionconstructionland

By AFP

Saturday 10 September 2016, 03:00PM

Nepalese artists restore sacred murals in a monastry in Lo Manthang in Upper Mustang. Photo: AFP

The remote region is ringed with vast canyons and red mountains that, legends say, are stained with the blood of a demon killed by the founder of Tibetan Buddhism.

Yet the recently completed unpaved highway that connects Upper Mustang with China is also bringing unprecedented cultural change to a region that was closed off to foreign visitors until 1992.

In the medieval walled capital of Lo Manthang, young men have swapped Tibetan robes for blue jeans and local cafes broadcast live coverage of English Premier League matches to rapt viewers.

Nevertheless, while modern life holds considerable allure for many, the push to preserve traditional culture is no less important to the local Loba community. Buddhists who speak a variant of the Tibetan language, they have lived in Upper Mustang for centuries.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the ongoing effort to restore sacred murals and monuments, supported by foreign and Nepali non-profit organisations, including the Lo Gyalpo Jigme Foundation, which is headed by the former king of Upper Mustang.

Although the regions rich heritage escaped the ravages of the Cultural Revolution that hit neighbouring China, its monuments fell prey to environmental damage.

Wind and rain eroded mud walls and caused wooden rooftop beams to decay, while smoke from ceremonial butter lamps darkened indoor frescos.

Over the last decade, restorers have been working hard to shore up structures, clean murals and retouch damaged paintings in line with Buddhist beliefs.

Buddhists believe it is better to pray to undamaged images of the Buddha, and see it as their duty to repair and retouch them when necessary.

The painstaking process involves grinding gemstones like lapis lazuli and malachite into a fine powder, which is then mixed with water and animal glue to create luminous pigments fit for gods.

After last years massive earthquake killed nearly 9,000 in Nepal and severely damaged monasteries in Lo Manthang, restorers now face an even bigger challenge.

Like many here, they too are locked in a race to preserve Upper Mustangs unique cultural legacy for future generations.
Police drunk-driving crash lands six in hospital, sparks outrage

PHUKET: An off-duty police officer reeking of alcohol leaving six people injured after his pickup truck crossed Phetkasem Rd and crashed into them  before the officer fled the scene  last night (Sept 9) has outraged local residents in Phang Nga Town.

policealcoholaccidents

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Saturday 10 September 2016, 02:19PM

Phang Nga Police last night had to stave off local residents angry after a police officer reeking of alcohol slammed into two motorbikes and a car - leaving six people injured - then fleeing the scene. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

More than 30 residents gathered at Phang Nga Muang District Police Station last night, calling for police to test the officer for alcohol and ensure justice is served in conducting their investigation.

Phanom Munthathung, 21, who was one the people knocked down by the policemans pickup truck, filed a formal complaint, which was received by Phang Nga Town Police Deputy Chief Lt Col Janepob Buthkinaree.

I was driving my motorbike, bringing my mother from Phang Nga Town market back to our home in Tak Daet District, at about 9pm, Mr Phanom said.

A friend of Mr Phanoms family, Anit Saiburi, was travelling with them, with his two daughters on another motorbike, he added.

While driving past the Provincial Water Authority on Phetkasem Rd, a pickup truck came across the road and hit both motorbikes, he said.

The pickup also hit a car, driven by Nisara Chamason, 34, who was driving home to Nop Pring District.

The pickup truck, with Phang Nga licence plates, then fled the scene.

As he and his mother were not seriously injured, Mr Phanom picked up his motorbike and gave pursuit.

I followed the pickup back to Phang Nga Town market, and I called out for people there to help stop the driver from getting away, Mr Phanom said.

However, the pickup continued until it reached the temple grounds of Wat Mongkol Sutthawas, where the driver finally stopped.

People at temple, gathered there for a funeral, reportedly were initially scared of the pickup truck driver, who then revealed he was an officer with the Phang Nga Police.

The attendees at the funeral reported that the driver stank of alcohol.

Other police soon arrived and took the officer into custody, but refused to reveal any details about the officer, who they transported to Phang Nga Muang District Police Station.

Three people suffered minor injuries in the incident, said Pol Lt Dusit Phongphan, an inspector with the Phang Nga Muang District Police.

However, doctors are taking care of another three at Phang Nga Hospital, he added.

The driver of the pickup truck has taken to Phang Nga Hospital to be tested for alcohol, Lt Dusit, but did not reveal the name of the officer, his rank or at which police station the officer serves.

This case is still under investigation, was all Lt Dusit would offer.

Police have yet to reveal the names and ages of the three still receiving treatment in hospital for their injuries from the drunk-driving accident, or the extent of the injuries.

Of chief concern, Phang Nga Police have yet to reveal whether either of Mr Anits two daughters remain in hospital, and which injuries they have suffered.
Police hunt for cardboard box-head failed Patong gold shop robber

PHUKET: Police believe that a man who broke through a wall to rob a gold shop in Patong before dawn yesterday (Sept 9), may be a foreigner.

patongcrimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Saturday 10 September 2016, 10:43AM

The man spent 30 minutes breaking through a brick wall at the back of the shop. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Police believe the attempted gold-shop robbery may have been carried out by a foreigner. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Police believe the attempted gold-shop robbery may have been carried out by a foreigner. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Police believe the attempted gold-shop robbery may have been carried out by a foreigner. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Officers led by Patong Police Deputy Chief Lt Col Somsak Thongkleng inspected the scene,

at the Yaowarat Namchok gold shop on Phra Meita Rd, yesterday morning.

The security CCTV footage at the shop showed a tall man, who stood about 1.8 metres tall, spending about 30 minutes breaking through a brick wall at the back of the shop at about 5:30am, Col Somsak said.

When the man entered the premises he was wearing a cardboard box on his head to prevent his face being caught on camera, Col Somsak added.

However, the would-be thief failed to open the safe, which stands two metres tall and two metres wide.

The handle was broken in his attempts to open the safe, Col Somsak said. He also searched the room for other valuables, but found none, and so he left, he added.

Although the man was wearing gloves, police have dusted the scene for any fingerprints or other evidence that may help to identify the robber, Col Somsak noted.

The suspect was dressed in long shorts to his knees and a short-sleeved T-shirt revealing a tattoo on his left arm, he said, adding that police have so far been unable to determine what the tattoo is an image of.

However, because of his height, we believe the man may be a foreigner, Col Somsak said.

Our officers are attempting to track him down now, he added.
Pop-opera superstars FIVERA return for finale at Trisara Phuket

ENTERTAINMENT: Thailand's only pop-opera band FIVERA are returning to Trisara for their final A Night at the Opera performance.

Saturday 10 September 2016, 12:00PM

Acclaimed pop-opera band, FIVERA, return to Trisara for A Night at the Opera

The gala event on Saturday, September 17 is set to be an evening of fine cuisine and live music at Trisara and is proudly presented by The Phuket News, Phuket News TV and Live 89.5 in support of Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation.

This will be the third and final performance at Trisara for the acclaimed FIVERA performers, so dont miss your chance to see this fantastic live event.

FIVERA perform a unique musical blend of contemporary pop and traditional opera. Their performance will include stunning renditions of the worlds most loved opera classics, as well as beautiful harmonizing to contemporary classical and pop crossovers. The group will perform some of your favorite pieces in a unique and beautiful style. Prepare to be awed by their powerful voices and entrancing melodies.



Fantastic auction prizes are up for grabs, including a private luxury charter on My Olympia 76 for 20 people, a beautiful sterling silver and gemstone necklace and earring set from Fragola Creations, two nights at Hotel Brunelleschi in Florence, Italy, and two nights at St Regis in Singapore.

Proudly sponsored by Class Act Media, proceeds from this event will go towards supporting the local charity Phuket Has Been Good To Us. The charity organisation works to improve the economic opportunities and life chances of children by funding high quality English-language education in government schools in Phuket. This fund-raising event will enable the charity to employ a full-time, qualified English teacher for the next school year.

Tickets for A Night at the Opera are B5,000 net per person which includes a delicious four-course meal and beverages. VIP tickets offering lounge seating and LR bubbles at the pre-dinner performance have already sold out!

The event starts at 6:30pm. The dress code is elegant. For guests wishing to enjoy a total Trisara experience, the resort is offering special prices for a night or two in a fantastic Pool Room or Villa.

Last years event sold out quickly and all the VIP tickets have already been snapped up, so book your tickets now!

For more information or bookings, please call Trisara Phuket on 076-310-100 (Ext 5) or email events@trisara.com
Tourism Minister in Phuket to bolster tourist confidence in security

PHUKET: Tourism Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul arrived in Phuket today to launch a campaign to boost tourist confidence in security, ahead of a Tourist Police mass event on Bangla Rd, Patong, this evening (Sept 10).

tourismpatongviolencepolice

By The Phuket News

Saturday 10 September 2016, 05:14PM

Minister Kobkarn joined Tourist Police Commander Maj Gen Surachet Hakpan and guests to launch the 'We're Safe, Thailand's Safe' campaign at the Duangjit Resort & Spa in Patong this morning (Sept 10), Photo: PR Dept

Minister Kobkarn joined Tourist Police Commander Maj Gen Surachet Hakpan to launch the "We're Safe, Thailand's Safe" campaign at the Duangjit Resort & Spa in Patong this morning, attended by about 1,000 officials, police and police volunteers. Gen Surachet will join scores of Tourist Police officers and volunteers at the police box on Bangla Rd at about 7pm before walking along Phukets premier party street to talk with tourists. The police box was where one of two small bombs detonated on Aug 12, in concert with the mass attacks throughout Southern Thailand that killed four people and injured dozens more. (See story here.)
Welcome, Neighbor!

Thank you for sharing my journey with me. It's a bumpy ride, but hopefully you'll find it worthwhile! To reach out to me, send me an e-mail at jamesbradfordpate@yahoo.com.


11AAA semis will be awesome and more from HS football quarterfinals

high-school-sports
But the tribe has a long way to go
After the Indian Railways adopted a flexible pricing of tickets for its premium category trainsRajdhani, Duronto and Shatabifrom September 7, the new model has been receiving stiff criticism from various quarters.

"The step may result in a further setback for the Indian Railways, as a number of airlines are already targeting passengers of these trains with their lower air fares," said Gopal Mishra, general secretary of All India Railway Men's Federation, the largest union of railway employees.

"It defies logic at a time when railway traffic has already shown some decline over the first half of the year. Instead of this, rates of commercial freight could have been rationalised upwards, if the idea was higher revenue generation for Indian Railways," Mishra added.

The union had held protests against 'unfair treatment' to railway employees in the announcement of emolument in the seventh pay commission earlier this year.

According to an official media communication from the ministry, the newly introduced flexi fare system will help the financially ailing Railways garner additional income of an estimated Rs 500 crore.

The new fares, which came into effect from September 9, have also drawn many angry reactions from commuters. "This is another attempt of the government to hike fares of those who have to travel on an emergency basis," said Railways Passenger Association president, Dinesh Trivedi.

"It would be more difficult for the non-middleclass travellers. We are readying a formal memorandum to be submitted to Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu by Monday," said Sukhdev Bansal, Division Railway User Consultative Committee member.

However, Anil Saxena, Indian Railways spokesperson sought to defend the new fare system saying it would benefit travellers in the long term for availing better service. "With the increase in investment in providing better and a safe railway network, this step was necessary, he said.

Apparently, the high-end trains, which comprise of only 0.6 per cent of the total train services provided by the Indian Railways, contribute more than 13-14 per cent share of its revenue.

According to A.K. Mittal, Railway Board chairman, the resultant fare hike will be very minimal. However, preliminary assessments show that this will result in at least 30-50 per cent fare hike for passengers travelling in these trains.

We are looking at every single penny that can make Indian Railways more viable and are targeting both freight and passenger revenues. We are also looking at bolstering our non-fare revenues, Mittal said.

"The dynamic fare has been introduced on an experimental basis. We will review this system after some time and see what necessary measures could be taken further to finetune the system towards further passenger convenience," he said, clarifying the move on Friday.

Businesses operating in the railways sector have also criticised the recent fare revision.

"It is typically seen that the first 10 per cent of the tickets are booked by the tout communityespecially in the peak rush season. Aren't we encouraging them to book early and increase their demand?," asked Kapil Raizada, co-founder of RailYatri.in, a railway service aggregator .

On the positive side, we expect this to dampen the speculative booking phenomenon," adds Raizada.
The political bellicosity between the CPI(M) and the BJP had assumed a violent form in the last two decades

The BJP-RSS leadership in Kerala is infuriated after the LDF government decided to ban arms-training drills in government-controlled temples in the state. BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan said the purpose behind the move was to make temples the venue for the activities of the CPI(M). Better backtrack from taking on the RSS. Even Indira Gandhi was unsuccessful in it, Kummanam warned.

The friction between the BJP and the CPI(M) is nothing new, but it has gained momentum after the Left Democratic Front came to power in the state some 100 days ago. The Congress-led United Democratic Front is weak, and the verbal duels between the leaders of the BJP and the CPI(M) are taking reams of newsprint.

The political bellicosity between the CPI(M) and the BJP had assumed a violent form in the last two decades, with mostly low-level party workers being targeted to settle scores.

In May this year, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had warned the LDF government, immediately after it took charge, to stop attacks on the BJP workers in the state. We expect the CPI(M) to behave properly and democratically after receiving the peoples mandate, he said.

But the CPI(M), it seems, has laughed it off. A few days ago, some CPI(M) workers threw crude bombs at the BJP headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, which prompted Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to call Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and seek a report on the matter.

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the target of the bomb attack was perhaps the state BJP president.

Said Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to THE WEEK, The CPI(M) is ideologically bankrupt. It is propagating violence as it has nothing else to show. With the recent incidents in Kerala, the CPI(M) has lost it big time. It has no future.

The Kerala governments decision to ban RSS shakhas in temples will make matters worse for both the Left and the Right. Said state Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran on Facebook, The RSS is trying to push believers away from temples, making them a storage of weapons.

The minister is talking rubbish, said Gopalankutty Master, state secretary of the RSS, to THE WEEK. We are not conducting any training in temples. We will fight the move of the LDF government legally and, if need arises, in other ways. Temples in Kerala are the way they are because of the good work done by the RSS. Communist leaders cannot challenge the might of the RSS. They should keep a safe distance from us. But, having said that, we will not unnecessarily provoke them, he said.

The BJP has also accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala of appeasing the minorities while isolating Hindus in the state. Most of its decisions, the BJP alleges, have been anti-Hindu.

Said O. Rajagopal, senior BJP leader, to THE WEEK: The policies of the LDF government are anti-Hindu. In Kannur, recently, the CPI(M) organised mass celebrations on Lord Krishnas birthday. Even a child knows that a communist doesn't believe in God. This shows that the communists are clueless about their political stand. There have been so many instances of the LDF government hurting the sentiments of Hindus in the state.

Rajagopal said that the LDF government had committed a big blunder by trying to curb the RSS in the state. People in the state have never lodged a protest against the RSS, he said.

A tussle with the Centre is the last thing that the Kerala government would want now. Said S. Ramachandran Pillai, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, to THE WEEK: The government of Kerala is doing all it can to contain violence on the part of the CPI(M) workers. I hope the RSS and the BJP will also do the same. We dont want to aggravate the tension in Kerala. We dont want a conflict with the Centre.
Condemning the alleged violence and atrocities by communist activists against the right wing workers and other nationalist social workers in Kerala, a civil society group staged a candle light demonstration in Bengaluru on Saturday evening.

Citizens for Democracy, a forum for civic agitation, urged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to consider the issues of atrocities against the RSS, ABVP, BMS and other nationalist workers in Kerala seriously and urged the communist party to be tolerant towards its political opponents.

The protesters demanded that Kerala chief minister take strict action against his party workers resorting to violence against right-wing workers.

Also read: CPI(M)-BJP bloody war in Kerala
The Civil Aviation Ministry has prohibited the use and carriage of Samsungs Galaxy Note 7 smart phone on board aircraft.

The decision came in the wake of several incidents of battery of the phone getting exploded. The ministry has issued a public notice advising airlines and travelers not to turn on or charge the smart phones during flights.

Passengers have also been advised not to stow them in their checked in baggage. The Samsung has already recalled the smartphone following complaints.

The phone has been under scrutiny since it was recalled for having batteries that are at risk of catching fire and exploding.
North Korea conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew a fresh wave of global condemnation. The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence as North Korea's main ally to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme.

Under 32-year-old third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.

The United Nations Security Council was set to discuss the latest test and whether the 15-member body should punish North Korea with more sanctions at a meeting on Friday, diplomats said. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the 15-member group to remain united and take action that would "urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation."

U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures against North Korea and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions."

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called for a redoubling of international pressure on North Korea and singled out the role he said China should play.

"It's China's responsibility," he told a news conference during a visit to Norway. "China has and shares an important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it."

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North Korean embassy in Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn, however, on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

South Korea's Park said Kim was showing "maniacal recklessness" in completely ignoring the world's call to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons. Russia, the European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain also condemned the test. North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead," according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

"Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything possible, so the policy is at an impasse," said Tadashi Kimiya, a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

"In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits," he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.

"The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power," KCNA said, referring to the country's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The Pentagon did not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added, "given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst."

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Although Beijing has criticised North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South.

China says that THAAD is a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear programme.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude - around 5 - of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield or its largest to date. Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which exploded with an energy of about 15 kilotonnes.

South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful nuclear blast to date.

"The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backwards state any more," Lewis told Reuters.

The Pentagon said it would deploy the U.S. Air Force WC-135, a modified Boeing aircraft, to collect air particles and any debris in the atmosphere and confirm the nature of the test.

The aircraft would be flying in the region soon "as part of our efforts to assess what happened last night," Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said.
100 years ago, Sept. 10, 1916

Sunday. No paper.

50 years ago, 1966

MATTOON -- Capt. Ralph G. Egenmaier, commandant of the Mattoon High School ROTC unit, was sworn in as a regular Army officer this week. After 19 years of service as an enlisted man and reserve officer on active duty, Capt. Egenmaier received a presidential appointment as a regular Army captain. Administering the oath was Lt. Col. warren H. Scheffner, adviser to the 2nd Brigade, 33rd Infantry Division, Illinois National Guard... SULLIVAN -- Andy Devine, star of numerous movies and featured as Jingles in the Wild Bill Hickok television series, has been signed to replace Richard Deacon in the production of "Never Too Late" at the Little Theatre in Sullivan, Producer Guy S. Little has announced. Deacon asked to be released from the play to return to the west coast for an emergency surgery. Devine arrived in Sullivan this morning. The production will go on as scheduled in three days for a two-week run.

25 years ago, 1991

CASEY -- The threat of a teacher strike in the Casey-Westfield school district may be over as teachers approved a new two-year contract. It was the third proposal submitted by the school board. Peggy Stephen, president of the Casey-Westfield Education Association, said if the proposal had not been accepted, she probably would be on the picket line today MATTOON  Investigators are fairly sure a faulty fluorescent light in the back part of the basement of the Salvation Army Thrift Store started the devastating fire on July 23. Fire Chief Ken Zike said investigators revisited the site last week, pumped the water out of the basement and looked over the charred remains at 1500 Broadway Ave. The area that was most deeply charred seemed to be at a beam that would be in the basement ceiling where the light would have been located, Zike said. Piles of clothes that were not good enough to sell were on the floor and likely added fuel to the fire, he added ST. LOUIS  It was a memorable evening for Stan Royer as the Charleston High School and Eastern Illinois University product enjoyed sitting in the dugout during the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. It was the first night with the big league club for Royer, who was called up after his Triple-A season with the Louisville Redbirds.

100 years ago, Sept. 11, 1916

MATTOON -- Lyle Hughart, a bicycle rider, was arrested on Sunday by Special Policeman Moore, in plain clothes, on a charge of riding his bicycle on the sidewalk of North 12th Street. He was arraigned before Judge Branan, who fined him $3 and costs under the new city traffic ordinance. Police Chief Lawson this morning said there is no excuse whatever for riding a bicycle on a sidewalk of a paved street... CHARLESTON -- A case of infantile paralysis discovered among the pupils has closed the Bunker Hill school, 10 miles north of Charleston. The child afflicted is Frances Beabout, 8-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Beabout. The portions of the body afflicted are the right leg and left shoulder. Miss Josephine Webster is the teacher at the school, which has been closed by order of the health officer for the present week, and perhaps longer... MATTOON -- Sunday, Sept. 10, was the 52nd anniversary of the release of J.M. Mitchell of Mattoon, the well-known harness dealer, from the noted rebel prison at Andersonville, Va. He was a prisoner at Andersonville from April 19, 1864, to Sept. 10, 1864, when he was removed to Florence and later to Charleston, West Va., and held until Dec. 13, 1864. Mitchell said when he first landed in Andersonville there were about 7,000 prisoners. When he was released from the prison, there were said to have been 35,000 prisoners. He was captured on Sept. 19, 1862, at the battle of Chickamauga.

50 years ago, 1966

Sunday. No paper.

25 years ago, 1991

CHARLESTON -- A Faculty Senate resolution asking Stan Rives to step down as Eastern Illinois University president didnt get the support that was apparently expected from the authors during its regular meeting Tuesday. The Faculty Senate believes Easterns integrity, health and reputation would be best served if President Rives resigns read the final statement of the four-paragraph resolution. The resolution was tabled for later action because a number of Faculty Senate members said this was the first they had heard about the measure CASEY  By a narrow margin Tuesday, the Casey-Westfield school board approved a contract settlement, ending the possibility of a teachers strike. The board voted 4-3 to accept a two-year agreement with the teachers that calls for a 5.6 percent salary increase this year and 5.3 percent increase next year. Those board members voting against the contract said they thought the pay increase was too much money, considering the states budget situation PESOTUM  Illinois State Police District 10 Capt. David H. Morgan reported that troopers cited 949 drivers for speeding during the month of August. State Police also cited 106 drivers for seat belt violations during the month.

100 years ago, Sept. 12, 1916

MATTOON -- City Clerk F.A. Heermans issued Monday to Mrs. W.B. Lamb of 1117 Champaign Ave. hunting license No. 48,786. This is the first hunting license issued to a woman by Mr. Heermans this year. Mrs. Lamb's license states that she is 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 115 pounds and has blue eyes and dark hair... MATTOON -- "Dode" Brown of Greenup paid another visit to Mattoon Monday and was arrested by Officers Curry and Chaney. The woman resisted by lying down on the ground and kicking her feet. She was loaded into a vehicle by force and hauled to jail. "Dode" has no money or friends here, and rather than keep her in jail the officers placed her on train 201 of the Illinois Central and shipped her back home... MATTOON -- The women of Mattoon and all of Illinois, at the primary election of Sept. 13, will have the right to vote for the candidates for two offices only. They can help the men select a nominee for a member of the state board of equalization and for a nominee for county surveyor, these offices not being named in the state constitution. In November, at the general election, women can vote for the Electoral College, trustees for the University of Illinois and some county offices.

50 years ago, 1966

TOLEDO -- Mayor Scott Everhart said Toledo has been notified by the Illinois Health Department that the city's water now is safe to drink without boiling. Residents of Toledo have been boiling their drinking water since Thursday night's fire which destroyed the west half of the south side of the Toledo square. Rubble left by the fire still has not been removed. Everhart said it was still too hot and predicted it would take three or four more days to cool enough for it to be cleared... MATTOON -- Dr. Jack T. Harper of Mattoon has accepted a position at Eastern Illinois University as the assistant to Dr. Jerry D. Heath, head of EIU's health department. Harper will begin his new duties about Nov. 1. The physician, who has been in Mattoon since 1948, said he will close his practice Oct. 15. He said Dr. Heath has been at the university about 10 years and enrollment has more than doubled in that time, making a second full-time physician necessary.

25 years ago, 1991

SPRINGFIELD -- A report from the Illinois auditor general is only a preliminary move to phasing out the system of systems method of public university governance in Illinois. The layers somewhat shortsheet the process, said state Rep. Mike Weaver, R-Ashmore, who requested the report last spring to determine the efficiency of the Board of Governors and Board of Regents systems. Weaver believes that a separate layer of bureaucracy between the states universities and the Illinois Board of Higher Education gives more chance to result in budgets being cut and eliminate voices being heard from the campus communities OAKLAND  Mary Lou Marks got her birthday wish. She told her husband she wanted to take a covered wagon ride on her birthday last Sunday. So, Bill and Mary Lou Marks rode a covered wagon from White County, near Carmi, to Oakland  about 125 miles. They left on Thursday and arrived at Oaklands Lake Park on Wednesday morning. Another reason for the ride was to visit her parents, Arthur and Mary White of Oakland, and to have the wagon in Oaklands annual Corn and Bean Festival parade CHARLESTON  Stan Royer is batting 1.000 in the major leagues. The Charleston product, who is in his first week with the St. Louis Cardinals, got a pinch-hit single for the Cardinals in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates that was televised on ESPN. It was the first big-league appearance for the 24-year-old Royer.
Eastern Illinois University President David Glassman delivered the news this week that any EIU supporter, alumni or watcher expected: Enrollment this fall is down significantly.

Student numbers fell, overall, more than 1,000: Total enrollment is 7,415 for the current semester, compared to 8,520 a year ago.

Although university press releases noted that graduate student and international student enrollments are up by good margins, there is no hiding from that disheartening drop in overall enrollment.

But Glassman has a plan. And he has the moral support and collective brainpower he needs to chart a stronger course for EIU.

As practically everyone knows, it's the Illinois budget impasse and failure to fund the university that has precipitated this decline. Uncertainty over the amount of funds coming from the state -- and when -- has thrown all of the state's public universities into uncharted waters. Others have reported significant drops in fall in enrollment, too -- so, as little comfort as it may be, Eastern is not alone.

This is Illinois now. This is reality now.

In his State of the University address on Wednesday, Glassman didn't take an extended amount of time to bemoan the inaction of politicians in Springfield that has so badly wounded EIU. He focused on a way forward.

The centerpiece of this plan is an effort called the "Vitalization Project." This comes after the university's Board of Trustees directed the university this summer to stringently assess current programs, both academic and non-academic, and report back in January.

The new project will serve to advance EIU on its 'Pathway to Success' and guide our budget and planning decisions for future allocation of resources and strategic investments," according to university officials.

Work groups will guide this effort, scrutinizing existing university services and identifying changes likely to improve what EIU has to offer students.

Various people in the university community, volunteering on their own or suggested by peers, will make up these groups, and Glassman stressed that serving will be a time-consuming, demanding endeavor.

That's just what Eastern needs.

No one at the university or supporting the university can force state leaders to do the right thing and properly fund public colleges. But supporters, employees and other leaders can streamline Eastern's services and get the word out about the excellence that this institution continues to offer.

Illinois funding issues will continue. Vacant residence halls will stand, at least in the near future, as testaments to the challenges that Eastern faces -- most beyond its control. Unkempt portions of the grounds will remain stark reminders of the layoffs made in response to budget woes.

But the will of Eastern's leadership, faculty and staff, current students and community supporters is strong. Banding together to streamline Eastern's programs and continuing to build on its history of excellence is the proper course for the university now.

Glassman got it right.

"At last year's State of the University Address, I spoke to a critical need for EIU to be willing to change and adapt to the modern conditions and environment that exists for recruiting students today," he said Wednesday. "This year, together, we will demonstrate that willingness."

-- JG-TC Editorial Board
Amid the great and the good on Shriti Vadera's post-Brexit City task force, one name at least looks seriously conflicted.

Under normal circumstances the presence of the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Xavier Rolet would be considered a no-brainer.

But Rolet is one of the principle architects of the 24billion 'merger of equals' between the LSE and Deutsche Boerse.

Vested interests: Xavier Rolet is one of the principle architects of the 24billion 'merger of equals' between the LSE and Deutsche Boerse

If consummated it will see Rolet displaced by the German exchange's chief executive Carsten Kengeter, Frankfurt with the larger shareholding in an exchange which intends to report its results in euros rather than sterling.

This at the moment when all noises from post-referendum Germany suggest that with Britain out of the EU, there is no reason why the Square Mile should continue to do most of the euro trading and clearing.

Rolet's stewardship of the LSE has been a success story. Shares have climbed as he has made a number of acquisitions which have taken the LSE into growth trading areas, such as index trading and financial data.

When first unveiled, before the referendum, the DB deal was heralded as creating a European powerhouse that could compete effectively with American exchanges owners such as ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange and the London-based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE).

The Brexit vote has changed the chemistry. Even though LSE shareholders have been enthusiastic about the deal from the outset, Frankfurt-based investors have been much more cautious. One of the really big issues is going to be clearing.

In response to some prudential concerns that a merger of clearing operations could bring the whole edifice tumbling down, the rival operations  LCH Clearnet in the UK and Eurex in Germany  would be run separately.

It is a little difficult to see how this amiable split is going to work if Britain finds itself trying to fight off EU attempts to seize euro trading and clearing back.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has his doubts, noting that 'clearing in London is a massive business which benefits from huge economies of scale'. He says that most people he has been talking to do not believe you can break off bits of the clearing business.

Aside from any other considerations, much of the risk once borne by the investment banks, through over-the-counter trading, has been shifted to recognised exchanges which now need immense liquidity and capital to operate safely.

It may well be the fearless EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager will block the DB-LSE deal amid objections being filed from bourses all over Europe, including Paris-based Euronext.

How extraordinary that with so much personally at stake in terms of legacy and a potential payout on his hard-earned shares that Rolet should be anywhere near the City negotiations with government on the EU deal for Britain.

Leaving the LSE out might have appeared odd given its pivotal role on the Square Mile. But Rolet shouldn't have put its, and London's role, in play in the first place.

Tesco charges

When the Financial Reporting Council dropped its investigation into Tesco's former finance director Laurie McIlwee last month it briefly looked as if the various probes into the 264million overstatement of the grocer's profits in 2014 might be over. Now it may prove the start of something much bigger.

The Serious Fraud Office is charging three former Tesco executives  Carl Rogberg, Christopher Bush and John Scouler  with fraud and the prosecutor says its investigations of the company are ongoing.

It is highly unusual for a company of Tesco's size and global importance to find itself in this position. Citizens might rightly marvel at how it is that Tesco is in the firing lines over hundreds of millions when Britain's banks have managed so far to avoid the dock over accounting black holes in the billions.

Under chief executive Dave Lewis, Tesco moved swiftly to put the past behind it and adopt prudential accounting practices. A cloud still hovers over its former auditors PwC who are being probed by the FRC over the accounts prepared, audited and signed off. This saga has a way to run.

Green envy

It's feast or famine with Philip Green. After a summer of near silence as his yacht the Lionheart was pursued across the Med, the King of the High Street is back to his feisty best dismissing claims that he sought to blackmail the pensions regulator, vowing that he is ready to do the most generous deal for the 20,000 pensioners in corporate history and apologising to the workforce.

He won't know whether to laugh or cry over a profile in Vanity Fair which says he is Britain's answer to Donald Trump.

But quotes from Green drip with the usual whinnying, 'I am being persecuted' tone, suggesting anti-Semitism and that England is a country filled with 'jealous, envious' people.' And they could be his customers.
Shareholders in Next and Morrisons are hoping sales will have grown again when the stores update the City on their trading next week.

The two retail heavyweights have been hit by a slowdown on the High Street, and their latest results may make grim reading.

On Thursday Next posts its half-year profits, and the chain has been gloomy on retail prospects in recent months, warning of a consumer spending shift away from clothing.

Key figures: On Thursday Next posts its half-year profits, and the chain has been gloomy on retail prospects in recent months

Last month it warned of possible price hikes to combat the falling pound.

But chief executive Lord Wolfson has so far said there has been no clear evidence of a worsening in trading directly as a result of the EU referendum decision.

Last month Next surprised the market with a better-than-expected second-quarter performance, as an end-of-season sale helped limit the fall in total High Street store sales.

Full-price sales at its stores fell 3.3 per cent, but its Next Directory arm saw sales rise 5.7 per cent.

This helped it to nudge up its full-year profit forecast to a mid-point of 810million from the 800million previously guided.

But it cautioned over a future hit from the pound's weakness since the Brexit vote.
Britain's trade deficit fell 1.1billion in July as manufacturers cashed in on the weaker pound.

Separate figures, meanwhile, showed the construction industry unexpectedly held steady.

And Germany suffered an unexpected blow as exports dropped at their fastest rate since the financial crisis.

Better: Britain's construction industry nudged out a slight recovery in the month following the EU referendum

The UK trade figures revealed that 4.5billion more was imported than exported in July, down from a 5.6billion gap in June.

Reducing this trade deficit is a priority as it would cut the amount of money lost to our economy when it goes overseas.

Goods exports grew 3.4 per cent to 800million, and the amount imported was 300million lower than the previous month.

The improved figures are partly down to a fall in sterling, which means that British goods are cheaper abroad.

Britain imported 7.6billionn more from the rest of the European Union than the nation sold into it.

Look at the blue line: Construction output shows no growth between June and July, which is better than most forecasters had expected

This is likely to be seized on by Brexit supporters as evidence that the bloc will be reluctant to sever trading ties with such a key partner.

In stark contrast, German figures showed its exports were 10 per cent lower than a year earlier  the biggest fall since 2009.
The French boss of the London Stock Exchange is taking part in crunch Brexit talks to protect the City  despite campaigning fiercely in favour of Remain.

Before the referendum, Xavier Rolet warned that leaving the European Union would be 'devastating' for Britain.

But this week the 56-year-old was one of a handful of top business people who attended a private meeting with Chancellor Philip Hammond to discuss the negotiations ahead.

Plonker: Xavier Rolet owns a French vineyard where he runs wine courses with wife Nicole

Led by Santander chairman Baroness Shriti Vadera, the group has offered itself as a sounding board for ministers.

It comes as Rolet, who was paid 6.6million last year, forges ahead with the controversial German takeover of the 215-year-old LSE.

In City circles, Rolet has earned a reputation as a highly competent boss.

But he also holds political ambitions and is desperate to be seen as part of the establishment.

Critics have said the deal is against the national interest and could cost London dearly. And Rolet will quit as chief executive if the deal proves successful.

Tory MP Sir Bill Cash said: 'Brexit will happen, so let's everybody join in and make it work.

'There are a lot of people who still, I suppose, in their bones wish it wasn't happening. But it is happening and they know it.

'All we want is for Britain and Europe to be prosperous, stable and democratic.

Rolet is one of the main architects of a 21billion takeover of the LSE by Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse.

The new company will be headed by Deutsche boss Carsten Kengeter, the German firm's shareholders will have a 54.4 per cent controlling stake and profits will be reported in euros.

Both sides have promised to base its corporate headquarters in London in an effort to appease critics who fear the takeover is against the national interest.

But even this concession could be lost in the wake of the Brexit vote, with Deutsche sources claiming they will immediately seek to shift the headquarters to Germany after final approval is granted.

Before the referendum result, Rolet  who owns a French vineyard where he runs wine courses with wife Nicole, warned that Brexit would wreck the British economy and was likely to cause the 'implosion' of the EU.

For finance, he said it would badly damage London's role as a centre for clearing transactions.

But he is among a host of big CIty names who have had to eat their words.

Last month he said there was 'no immediate threat' of lucrative Euro clearing trade made in the UK being lost.

The so-called European Financial Services Chairman's Advisory Committee that Rolet sits on is led by Baroness Vadera, a former Labour minister who signed a letter backing the campaign to stay in the European Union.

The 15-strong group also includes top figures from insurance giant Aviva, plus lenders Nationwide and HSBC.

And it features executives from American banks BNY Mellon and Morgan Stanley, as well as German insurer Allianz.

Lord Blackwell, a Conservative peer who is chairman of Lloyds, is on the committee and was a rare voice from big business in favour of Brexit during the campaign.

Although many Brexit campaigners were pleased to see City figures offering advice to the Government, others voiced concerns.

UKIP MP Douglas Carswell said: 'It's good that some of the plutocrats seem to be coming to terms with the will of the people.

'But we didn't vote to leave in order to have the same vested interests who told us to remain decide the terms.
More than 2million fake customer accounts were created by thousands of employees at the world's most valuable bank.

Staff at Wells Fargo used fake email addresses to open accounts and even created PIN numbers for customers without telling them.

The US lender has been fined 139million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Staff at Wells Fargo used fake email addresses to open accounts and even created PIN numbers for customers without telling them.

The watchdog said staff funded unauthorised accounts by moving customers' money without their consent, meaning many faced unwanted annual fees and overdraft protection charges.

Around 5,300 workers have lost their jobs as a result.

Director Richard Cordray said the action 'should serve notice to the entire industry'.
Airbnb is set to become the next target for angry tax campaigners for channelling its takings from across Europe through the low tax state of Ireland.

Airbnb opened its 40,000 sq ft new headquarters in Dublin earlier this year to manage all its non-US sales. The Irish division has yet to file any accounts, but a spokesman told The Mail on Sunday it has been taking all its non-US revenue through Ireland since 2014.

The US part of the business is a privately owned company and so does not need to publicise its earnings. But it may soon attract more attention after a fundraising last month valued the group at a whopping $30 billion (22.5 billion).

Sitting pretty: From left, Airbnb founders Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia

The valuation means its founders, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, both 35, and Nathan Blecharczyk, 32, own stakes of $3 billion each.

Airbnb has grown fast by allowing people to rent out spare rooms or entire properties easily. The firm takes a 3 per cent cut of all bookings made via its website, as well as a 6 to 12 per cent fee from guests.

The group, whose US headquarters are in Silicon Valley, California, said it had based its international business in Ireland because it was a centre for technology firms.

But tax campaigners point to Irelands corporation tax rate of just 12.5 per cent, compared with 20 per cent in the UK. Richard Murphy of Tax Research said: This is yet another case of a company that appears to be saying one thing and doing another. Its technology is all US-based and yet it is charging through Ireland. How can that be explained by anything but tax?

Tax experts said the move would allow Airbnb to keep its earnings out of the US, where federal corporate tax rates are 35 per cent and state taxes are due on top.

The revelation that it is channelling payments for its service through Ireland suggests it is deploying techniques pioneered by fellow Silicon Valley giants Apple, Facebook and Google.

When Airbnb raised cash from investors last year, it said it was taking $900 million in commission and fees, and hoped to be taking $10 billion a year by 2020. If the proportion of its US and non-US earnings match those of other technology giants, that would mean billions of dollars flowing through Ireland. Despite the $30 billion valuation, the site was reported to have made a $150 million loss in 2015, as it spent heavily to grow worldwide.

But its rapid growth has been criticised by some, who say it allows people renting out rooms and homes to get round local legislation, such as health and safety and fire regulations, and evade tax bills.

Ufi Ibrahim, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, said: The BHA welcomes the opportunities the sharing economy brings to owners letting their homes from time to time. But it is concerned about the lack of transparency of data from home-sharing websites and the ability for landlords to use such platforms to circumvent regulations and tax.

Apple and others have managed to engineer tax rates of less than 1 per cent by using Ireland as a base, then shifting earnings from there to tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda. They do this by making payments to companies in these tax havens for the use of company brands.

Airbnb declined to discuss its tax structure in detail last week, but a spokesman said: We comply with tax rules and pay all the tax we owe in the places where we do business.

Telephone number sales: Airbnbs funky headquarters in Dublin

Airbnb hosts keep 97 per cent of the price they charge for their listing and the income is subject to local taxes.

It added that it had collected and remitted more than $110 million in tourist, hotel and occupancy taxes for governments in more than 200 jurisdictions around the world.

Apple and others have faced huge criticism globally for their tax arrangements. Apple has been based in Ireland since the 1980s, serving all non-US customers from a base in Cork.

The European Commission last month challenged the iPhone-makers tax arrangements, saying deals it struck with Irish tax authorities were so generous they constituted state aid, and that Apple should repay 13 billion.

Google takes payments from UK advertisers via an Irish base, despite having thousands of UK staff.

It agreed a 130 million tax settlement with Revenue & Customs earlier this year, saying it would now pay higher UK taxes reflecting the revenue it received here.

Amazon takes payments through a Luxembourg company for goods bought on its website. But it recently set up a British branch, meaning that profits from the sale of goods to UK customers are now taxed here.
United Parcel Service, Inc. provides letter and package delivery, transportation, logistics, and related services. It operates through two segments, U.S. Domestic Package and International Package. The U.S. Domestic Package segment offers time-definite delivery of letters, documents, small packages, and palletized freight through air and ground services in the United States. The International Package segment provides guaranteed day and time-definite international shipping services in Europe, the Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa. This segment offers guaranteed time-definite express options. The company also provides international air and ocean freight forwarding, customs brokerage, distribution and post-sales, and mail and consulting services in approximately 200 countries and territories. In addition, it offers truckload brokerage services; supply chain solutions to the healthcare and life sciences industry; shipping, visibility, and billing technologies; and financial and insurance services. The company operates a fleet of approximately 121,000 package cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles; and owns 59,000 containers that are used to transport cargo in its aircraft. United Parcel Service, Inc. was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Telefonica Brasil S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides mobile and fixed telecommunications services to residential and corporate customers in Brazil. Its fixed line services portfolio includes local, domestic long-distance, and international long-distance calls; and mobile portfolio comprises voice and broadband internet access through 3G, 4G, 4.5G, and 5G as well as mobile value-added services and wireless roaming services. The company also offers data services, including broadband and mobile data services. In addition, it provides pay TV services through direct to home satellite technology, IPTV, and cable, as well as pay-per-view and video on demand services; network services, such as rental of facilities; other services comprising internet access, private network connectivity, computer equipment leasing, extended service, caller identification, voice mail, cellular blocker, and others; wholesale services, including interconnection services to users of other network providers; and digital services, such as entertainment, cloud, and security and financial services. Further, the company offers multimedia communication services, which include audio, data, voice and other sounds, images, texts, and other information, as well as sells devices, such as smartphones, broadband USB modems, and other devices. Additionally, it provides telecommunications solutions and IT support to various industries, such as retail, manufacturing, services, financial institutions, government, etc. It markets and sells its solutions through own stores, dealers, retail and distribution channels, door-to-door sales, and outbound tele sales. The company was formerly known as Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo S.A. - TELESP and changed its name to Telefonica Brasil S.A. in October 2011. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Model N, Inc. provides cloud revenue management solutions for life sciences and high-tech companies. The company offers Global Pricing Management, which minimizes price erosion of products; Global Tender Management that enhances revenue by enabling segmentation and targeting, optimal bid pricing, and post-award tracking; Provider Management, which minimizes rebate overpayments; Payer Management that minimizes revenue leakage and noncompliance of complex contracts; Government Pricing, which optimizes revenue, and reduces the risk of fines and other penalties; and Medicaid that enhances compliance with regulatory requirements and payments of rebate claims timely, as well as at correct rates for government medicaid programs. It also provides Deal Management, which increases deal conversion and pricing consistency; Deal Intelligence that controls price concessions and determines ideal prices; Channel Management, which provides manufacturers a view of inventory, as well as evaluate price protection and stock rotation, and matching available inventory to quotes; Market Development Fund Management that allows companies to streamline their MDF process and reduce revenue leakage; Rebates Management, which centralizes control of rebate programs; and Channel Data Management that automates the process of collection, cleansing, validation, and standardization of channel partner data, such as POS, inventory, and claims. In addition, the company offers implementation, managed, strategic, and customer support services. It primarily serves large and mid-sized organizations worldwide through its direct sales force. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the 5th largest bank in the world and the largest in the U.S. The current company is the result of a series of mergers that began in the earliest days of American banking history and include more than 1,200 original banks. The oldest predecessor is The Bank Of The Manhattan Company which was founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr. At the time, The Bank Of The Manhattan Company was the 3rd oldest bank in the U.S. and the 31st oldest in the world. The Chase Manhattan Bank, a precursor to JPMorgan Chase, was later formed when The Bank Of Manhattan Company purchased Chase Bank which was established in 1877.

JPMorgan & Co came to life in 1895 in order to finance the United States Steel Corporation. Itself a result of merger, the company also financed other early American businesses as well as aided the federal government by backing a bond offering. It wasnt until the year 2000 and after several more mergers that JPMorgan Chase & Co was born. It will be four more years before the merger with Bank One which is notable because it brings CEO Jamie Dimon into the picture.

JPMorgan Chase & Co was instrumental in aiding the US government during the 2008 financial crisis. It backed the accounts of several major banks including Bear Stearns and eventually took over their operations. Today, JPMorgan Chase & Co operates as a financial services company worldwide with operations on every continent and in more than 60 countries.

JPMorgan Chase & Co operates through four segments that are Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). Services are available in branches in 48 of the 50 US states and around the world. Services are available via ATM, online, mobile, and telephone.

The CCB segment offers traditional banking services to consumers that include but are not limited to deposits, loans, mortgages, and lines of credit. The CIB segment provides investment banking products and services to businesses, institutions, and governments that range from prime brokerage, insurance, corporate strategy, and access to capital markets, to lending, cross-border financing, and derivative instruments. The CB segment provides financial services for small, medium, and large businesses including commercial real estate banking of all types.

The AWM segment provides investment management solutions to institutional and retail investors. This segment also provides retirement products, brokerage, trusts and estates, and investment management products.
The following companies are subsidiares of ABB: ABB (China) Investment Limited, ABB (China) Ltd., ABB (Hong Kong) Ltd., ABB (Namibia) (Pty) Ltd., ABB (P.J.S.C.), ABB (Private) Ltd., ABB (Pty) Ltd., ABB (Pvt) Ltd., ABB A/S, ABB AB, ABB AG, ABB AS, ABB AUTOMACAO LTDA, ABB AUTOMATION AND ELECTRIFICATION (VIETNAM)COMPANY LIMITED, ABB AUTOMATION HOLDINGS (THAILAND) CO. LTD., ABB Algeria SpA Asea Brown Boveri, ABB Algerie Produits SpA, ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd, ABB Asea Brown Boveri SRL, ABB Ausbildungszentrum Berlin gGmbH, ABB Australia Pty Limited, ABB Automation (Thailand) Co. Ltd., ABB B.V., ABB Bailey Beijing Engineering Co. Ltd., ABB Bailey Japan Limited, ABB Beijing Drive Systems Co. Ltd., ABB Beijing Switchgear Limited, ABB Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsges. mbH, ABB Bulgaria EOOD, ABB Business Services Sp. z o.o., ABB Cable Management Products Ltd, ABB Canada EL Holding GmbH, ABB Capital AG, ABB Capital B.V., ABB Centroamerica y El Caribe S.A., ABB Chargedot Shanghai New Energy Technology Co. Ltd, ABB Colombia Ltda, ABB Construction (ABACON) S.A.E., ABB E-MOBILITY INC., ABB E-MOBILITY PTE. LTD., ABB E-mobility AB, ABB E-mobility AG, ABB E-mobility AS, ABB E-mobility GmbH, ABB E-mobility Holding Ltd, ABB E-mobility QFZ LLC, ABB E-mobility S.p.A., ABB E-mobility SAS, ABB E-mobility SL, ABB E-mobility Technology Shenzhen Co. Ltd, ABB E-mobility UK Limited, ABB ELECTRICAL & AUTOMATION W.L.L, ABB ELECTRIFICATION HOLDINGS (THAILAND) CO. LTD., ABB ELETRIFICACAO LTDA, ABB Ecuador S.A., ABB Electrical Control Systems S. de R.L. de C.V., ABB Electrical Equipment (Xiamen) Co. Ltd., ABB Electrical Equipment Ltd., ABB Electrical Industries Co. Ltd., ABB Electrical Machines Ltd., ABB Electrical Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ABB Electrification (Thailand) Co. Ltd., ABB Electrification Canada ULC, ABB Electrification Norway AS, ABB Electrification Sweden AB, ABB Elektrik Sanayi A.S., ABB Engg. Technologies Co. (KSCC), ABB Engineering (Shanghai), ABB Engineering Trading and Service Ltd., ABB Equipo de Control Y Distribucion S. de R.L. de C.V., ABB Equity Limited, ABB FZ-LLC, ABB Finance (USA) Inc., ABB Finance B.V., ABB For Feeding Industries SAE, ABB France, ABB GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES AND CONTRACTINGINDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, ABB Global Industries and Services Private Limited, ABB Global Marketing FZ LLC, ABB Group Holdings Pty. Ltd., ABB Group Investment Management Pty. Ltd., ABB Guangdong Sihui Instrument Transformer Co. Ltd., ABB Hangzhou Winmation Automation Company Limited, ABB Holding AS, ABB Holdings (Pty) Ltd., ABB Holdings B.V., ABB Holdings Inc., ABB Holdings Limited, ABB Holdings Sdn. Bhd., ABB INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS (LODZ) S.A. W LIKWIDACJI, ABB Inc., ABB Inc., ABB India Limited, ABB Industrial Solutions (Australia) Pty Ltd, ABB Industrial Solutions (Belgium) BV, ABB Industrial Solutions (Bielsko-Biala) Sp. z o.o., ABB Industrial Solutions (Canada) Inc., ABB Industrial Solutions (Klodzko) Sp.z.o.o., ABB Industries (L.L.C.), ABB Industries FZ, ABB Information Systems Ltd., ABB Installation Products Caribe LLC, ABB Installation Products European Centre S.A., ABB Installation Products Inc, ABB Installation Products International LLC., ABB Installation Products Limited, ABB Installation Products Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., ABB Installacios Keszulekek Kft., ABB Investment Holding 2 GmbH, ABB Investments (Pty) Ltd, ABB Inzeniring d.o.o., ABB Jiangjin Turbo Systems Company Limited, ABB K.K., ABB Kaufel GmbH, ABB LAFRENZE PROPERTY (PROPERTY) LIMITED, ABB LLC, ABB LLP., ABB LV Installation Materials Co. Ltd. Beijing, ABB Limitada, ABB Limited, ABB Limited/Jordan LLC., ABB Lineage Power Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ABB Logistics Center Europe GmbH, ABB Ltd., ABB Maghreb Services S.A., ABB Malaysia Sdn Bhd., ABB Management Services Ltd., ABB Mexico S.A. de C.V., ABB Motors and Mechanical Inc, ABB N.V., ABB Norden Holding AB, ABB Operations Center Ltd., ABB Orange B.V., ABB Oryx Motors and Generators Service LLC, ABB Oy, ABB Panama Sales S.A., ABB Power & Automation (Private) Limited, ABB Power & Automation Limited, ABB Power Electronics (Germany) GmbH, ABB Power Electronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ABB Power Electronics (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ABB Power Electronics Inc., ABB Pte. Ltd., ABB Reinsurance AG, ABB Robotics (Zhuhai) Ltd, ABB Robotics Machine Tending Limited, ABB Robotics Solutions NV, ABB S.A., ABB S.A. de CV, ABB S.p.A., ABB SARL, ABB SAS, ABB SIA, ABB Schweiz AG, ABB Shanghai Free Trade Zone Industrial Co. Ltd., ABB Shanghai Motors Co. Ltd., ABB South Africa (Pty) Ltd., ABB Sp. z o.o., ABB Stotz-Kontakt Gmb, ABB Striebel & John GmbH, ABB Susa Inc., ABB Technologies Ltd., ABB Technologies S.A., ABB Technology SA, ABB Tianjin Switchgear Co. Ltd., ABB Transmission & Distribution Limited LLC, ABB Treasury Center (USA) Inc., ABB Turbo Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, ABB Turbochargers S.A.E., ABB UAB, ABB Verwaltungs AG, ABB Wirtschaftsbetriebe GmbH, ABB Xiamen Corporation Management Service Co. Ltd., ABB Xiamen Low Voltage Equipment Co. Ltd., ABB Xiamen Smart Technology Co. Ltd., ABB Xiamen Switchgear Co. Ltd., ABB Xinhui Low Voltage Switchgear Co. Ltd., ABB d.o.o., ABB eMobility Digital Venture GmbH, ABB for Electrical Industries (ABB ARAB) S.A.E., ABB for Electrical Solutions and Technologies K.S.C.C., ABB s.r.o., ABB s.r.o., ABBNG Limited, APS Technology Group, ASEA BROWN BOVERI Portugal Unipessoal Lda, ASTI France SAS, ASTI Mobile Robotics, Asea Brown Boveri Electrica SGPS (Angola) Limitada, Asea Brown Boveri Industrial Technical & CommercialCompany of Imports  Exports S.A., Asea Brown Boveri Lanka (Private) Limited, Asea Brown Boveri Ltd., Asea Brown Boveri S.A., Asea Brown Boveri S.A. de C.V., Asea Brown Boveri S.A.E., Asti Mobile Robotics GmbH, Asti Mobile Robotics Group SL, Asti Mobile Robotics SAU, B & R Automazione Industriale S.r.l., B & R Industrial Automation Ltd., B + R Industrie-Elektronik GmbH, B&R Automatyka Przemyslowa Sp.z.o.o., B&R Automacao Industrial Ltda., B&R Holding GmbH, B&R Industrial Automation, B&R Industrial Automation (China) Co. Ltd., B&R Industrial Automation A/S, B&R Industrial Automation AB, B&R Industrial Automation Co. Ltd., B&R Industrial Automation Corp., B&R Industrial Automation GmbH, B&R Industrial Automation Iberica S.L.U., B&R Industrial Automation Inc., B&R Industrial Automation Pte. Ltd., B&R Industrial Automation Pvt. Ltd., B&R Industrie-Automation AG, B&R Industriele Automatisering B.V., B&R K.K., B+R Automation Industrielle SARL, B+R Industrial Automation OOO, B+R automatizace spol. s.r.o., BR Endustriyel Otomasyon Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Baldor Electric Company, Busch-Jaeger Elektro GmbH, Chargedot, Cherokee India Pvt. Ltd., Codian Robotics, Codian Robotics B.V., Codian Robotics of the Americas, Combustion Engineering Inc., Cylon Controls, Cylon Controls Limited, Cylon Energy Inc., DynaMotive Ltd., ELBI Elektrik, Edison Holding Corporation, Enervalis NV, Envitech Energy, Epyon, GE Industrial Solutions, Gomtec, Gresin Grupo Estudios Industriales, IMV Invertomatic Victron UK Limited, In-Charge Energy, Industrial C&S Hungary Kft., Industrial C&S of P.R. LLC, Industrial Connections & Solutions LLC, Industrial Connections of SA Pty. Ltd., Intrimmo BVBA, Jinan ABB SRI Rail Transit Equipment Technology Co. Ltd., Jordan Acquisition Group, KEYMILE - Business, Kaufel S.A., Kuhlman Electric Corp., Lineage Overseas LLC, Lineage Power (Argentina) S.R.L., Lineage Power (Luxembourg) S.A.R.L., Lineage Power China Co. Ltd., Lineage Power Holdings Inc., Lineage Power Matamoros S.A. de C.V., Lorentzen & Wettre, Los Gatos Research, Mincom, NUB3D S.L., Newave Energy Holding, Newron System, PT ABB Sakti Industri, Pinghu Zhuangbest Technology Development Co. Ltd., Power-One, Powercorp, Powertel India Pvt. Ltd., RGM - Rail vehicle power business, RMI Automation Co. Ltd., SVIA, SWISS TURBOCHARGERS SA DE CV, Saudi Industrial Solutions Ltd., Shanghai Zhuangbest Technology Development Co. Ltd., Shantou Winride Switchgear Co. Ltd., Sirius Holdings B.V., Smart Power Technology Co. Ltd., Spirit IT, Swissturbo (Shanghai) Investment Limited, SynerLeap powered by ABB AB, TURBO SYSTEMS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, TURBO SYSTEMS ITALY S.P.A., TURBO SYSTEMS RUS LLC, TURBO-SUPERIOR SYSTEMS INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, TURBOCHARGING GREECE SINGLE MEMBER SA, Thomas & Betts, Thomas & Betts Saudi Arabia Limited Liability Co., Trasfor, Tropos Networks, Turbo Systems Argentina S.A., Turbo Systems Canada Inc, Turbo Systems Colombia SAS, Turbo Systems Dominican Republic SRL, Turbo Systems Finland Oy, Turbo Systems Germany GmbH, Turbo Systems Holding Ltd, Turbo Systems Iberia S.L., Turbo Systems Korea Ltd., Turbo Systems Myanmar Limited, Turbo Systems Pakistan (Private) Limited, Turbo Systems South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Turbo Systems Switzerland Ltd, Turbo Systems The Netherlands B.V., Turbo Systems Turkey Muhendislik Makine Sanayi Ve TicaretAnonim Sirketi, Turbo Systems US Inc., Turbo Systems United Co. Ltd., Turbo Systems Verwaltungs Ltd, Turbocharging Bangladesh Limited, Turbocharging Brasil Ltda., Turbocharging Systems Co. Ltd., Turbocharging Systems France SAS, Turbocharging UK Limited, Turbosystems Nigeria Limited LTD, Validus DC Systems, Vectek Electronics, Ventyx, Verdi Holding Corporation, W.J. Furse & Co. Ltd., Yangzhou SAC Switchgear Co. Ltd, and Zhejiang Chargedot New Energy Technology Co. Ltd..

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Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
Valley National Bancorp operates as the holding company for Valley National Bank that provides various commercial, retail, insurance, and wealth management financial services products. It operates through Commercial Lending, Consumer Lending, and Investment Management segments. The company offers non-interest bearing, savings, NOW, money market, and time deposit accounts; commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, residential mortgage, and automobile loans; loans secured by the cash surrender value of life insurance; home equity loans and lines of credit; and secured and unsecured other consumer loans. It also invests in various securities and interest-bearing deposits with other banks; and provides international banking services, such as standby and documentary letters of credit, and related products, as well as foreign exchange transactions, documentary collections, foreign wire transfers services, and transaction accounts for non-resident aliens. In addition, the company offers investment services for individuals and small to medium sized businesses; and trusts and custom -tailored investment strategies for various retirement plans. Further, it provides trust services, such as living and testamentary trusts, investment management, custodial and escrow services, and estate administration to individuals; tax credit advisory services; property and casualty, life, health, and title insurance agency services; and health care equipment lending and other commercial equipment leasing services, as well as owns real estate related investments. Additionally, the company offers online, mobile, and telephone banking services; and overdraft, drive-in and night deposit, automated teller machine, remote deposit capture, and safe deposit facility services. As of December 31,2021, it operated 232 branch offices in New Jersey, New York, Florida, and Alabama. The company was incorporated in 1927 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Anixter International Inc., through its subsidiary, Anixter Inc., distributes enterprise cabling and security solutions, electrical and electronic wire and cable solutions, and utility power solutions worldwide. The company operates through Network & Security Solutions (NSS), Electrical & Electronic Solutions (EES), and Utility Power Solutions (UPS) segments. The NSS segment offers copper and fiber optic cable and connectivity, access control, video surveillance, intrusion and fire/life safety, cabinet, power, cable management, wireless, professional audio/video, voice and networking switches, and other ancillary products for the technology, finance, transportation, education, government, healthcare, and retail industries, as well as telecommunications service providers. The EES Solutions segment provides electrical and electronic wires and cables, shipboard cables, support and supply products, low-voltage and instrumentation cables, industrial communication and control products, security cables, connectors, industrial Ethernet switches, and voice and data cables to the commercial and industrial, and original equipment manufacturer markets. The UPS segment supplies electrical transmission and distribution products, power plant maintenance, repair and operations supplies, and smart-grid products, as well as arranges materials management and procurement outsourcing for the power generation and transmission, and electricity distribution industries. The company serves contractors, installers, system integrators, value-added resellers, architects, engineers, and wholesale distributors in various industries, including manufacturing, resource extraction, telecommunications, Internet service providers, finance, education, healthcare, retail, transportation, utilities, and defense, as well as government customers. The company was formerly known as Itel Corporation. Anixter International Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Glenview, Illinois.
Aetna Inc. operates as a health care benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Health Care, Group Insurance, and Large Case Pensions. The Health Care segment offers medical, pharmacy benefit management service, dental, behavioral health, and vision plans on an insured and employer-funded basis. It also provides point-of-service, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization, and indemnity benefit plans, as well as health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans. In addition, this segment offers Medicare and Medicaid products and services, as well as other medical products, such as medical management and data analytics services, medical stop loss insurance, workers' compensation administrative services, and products that provide access to its provider networks in select geographies. The Group Insurance segment offers life insurance products, including group term life insurance, voluntary spouse and dependent term life insurance, group universal life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance products; and long-term care insurance products, which provide the benefits to cover the cost of care in private home settings, adult day care, assisted living, or nursing facilities. The Large Case Pensions segment manages various retirement products comprising pension and annuity products primarily for tax-qualified pension plans. The company provides its products and services to employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. Aetna Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.
Delek US Holdings, Inc. engages in the integrated downstream energy business in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Refining, Logistics, and Retail. The Refining segment processes crude oil and other feedstock for the manufacture of various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, asphalt, and other petroleum-based products that are distributed through owned and third-party product terminal. It owns and operates four independent refineries located in Tyler, Texas; El Dorado, Arkansas; Big Spring, Texas; and Krotz Springs, Louisiana, as well as three biodiesel facilities in Crossett, Arkansas, Cleburne, Texas, and New Albany. The Logistics segment gathers, transports, and stores crude oil, intermediate, and refined products; and markets, distributes, transports, and stores refined products for third parties. It owns or leases capacity on approximately 400 miles of crude oil transportation pipelines, approximately 450 miles of refined product pipelines, an approximately 900-mile crude oil gathering system, and associated crude oil storage tanks with an aggregate of approximately 10.2 million barrels of active shell capacity; and owns and operates ten light product distribution terminals, as well as markets light products using third-party terminals. The Retail segment owns and leases 248 convenience store sites located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Its convenience stores offer various grades of gasoline and diesel under the DK or Alon brand; and food products and service, tobacco products, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, and general merchandise, as well as money orders to the public primarily under the 7-Eleven and DK or Alon brand names. It serves oil companies, independent refiners and marketers, jobbers, distributors, utility and transportation companies, the U.S. government, and independent retail fuel operators. Delek US Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
DTE Energy Company engages in the utility operations. The company's Electric segment generates, purchases, distributes, and sells electricity to approximately 2.3 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in southeastern Michigan. It generates electricity through fossil-fuel, hydroelectric pumped storage, and nuclear plants, as well as wind and other renewable assets. This segment owns and operates approximately 698 distribution substations and 449,800 line transformers. The company's Gas segment purchases, stores, transports, distributes, and sells natural gas to approximately 1.3 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers throughout Michigan; and sells storage and transportation capacity. This segment has approximately 20,000 miles of distribution mains; 1,304,000 service pipelines; and 1,305,000 active meters, as well as owns approximately 2,000 miles of transmission pipelines. The company's Power and Industrial Projects segment offers metallurgical coke; pulverized coal and petroleum coke to the steel, pulp and paper, and other industries; and power, steam and chilled water production, and wastewater treatment services, as well as supplies compressed air to industrial customers. Its Energy Trading segment engages in power, natural gas, and environmental marketing and trading; structured transactions; and the optimization of contracted natural gas pipeline transportation and storage positions. The company was founded in 1903 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan.
On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ...
Hopewell Community Park remains a 'labor of love' for local community

The lush green park is a product of the combined efforts of the Hopewell Township community and a symbol of decades of conservation efforts in Beaver County.
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There are some small signs of recovery emerging in the oil and gas industry.

For the first time in 19 months, upstream oil and gas employment ticked up slightly in July. The layoff trend, which began in early 2015, has begun to reverse  albeit slowly.

Though industry employment is only one marker used to measure the health of the industry, it's a significant one. The Texas Petro Index showed current upstream oil and gas employment at an estimated 203,425 Texans in July of 2016.

That number is up by 100 from the previous month.

"The reversal of the employment-loss trend is an encouraging sign that the deep contraction in the Texas upstream oil and gas economy is in the process of coming to an end," said Karr Ingham, the economist who created and maintains the TPI.

"However, a reversal of the TPI, itself  which has not yet occurred  will truly pinpoint the end of the cycle of decline."

Among other TPI indicators in July, the number of original drilling permits issued was 631  35.5 percent fewer than the 979 permits issued in July 2015; the number of permits issued this year through July is 4,170  down 36.3 percent compared to the first seven months of 2015; the posted price for crude oil averaged $41.55 per barrel, staying above $40/bbl after a four-month-long rally that lifted prices to $45.19/bbl in June from $28.07/bbl in February.

But the positive trends were more than offset by the completion of fewer wells, and continuing declines of both crude oil and natural gas production.

"As long as the TPI continues to decline, the upstream oil and gas industry in Texas will not begin to transition to an expansionary mode," Ingham said. "However, it appears the rebound of posted oil prices in Texas has turned the rig count around and stopped the decline of industry job losses."

For reference, the Texas Petro Index, which is a composite index based upon a comprehensive group of upstream economic indicators, is 152.2 this July  37.5 percent less than in July 2015.

Before the current economic downturn, the TPI peaked at a record 313.5 in November 2014, which marked the zenith of an economic expansion that began in December 2009, when the TPI stood at 187.4.

Production continues to decline. Texas crude oil production totaled an estimated 98.7 million barrels, 7.8 percent less than in July 2015. Texas natural gas production was more than 708.9 billion cubic feet, a year-over-year monthly decline of about 5.2 percent.

The total value of Texas-produced crude oil totaled about $4.1 billion, 20 percent less than in July 2015. The total value of Texas-produced natural gas declined 9.3 percent to nearly $1.9 billion.

According to Baker Hughes, Texas added four rigs this week, raising the statewide total to 241. The Permian Basin has topped the 200-rig mark for the first time since the week ending Jan. 15, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas was up three to 38, and the Barnett Shale in North Texas dropped by one rig, bringing its total to three.

Midland County continued to lead the nation in rig count after adding one rig, bringing its total to 37 rigs this week.
Contributed photo Members of First Christian Church look on as MSU international students pose with their donated care baskets at Colony Park apartments. For the second year, individual church members and Sunday school classes gathered sheets, towels, pans, plates, bowls, cups, glasses, flatware and kitchen utensils into laundry baskets for the students who hail from as far away as Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Dominica, Granada, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.

SHARE Sarah Johnson/Times Record News Sally Hastings (right) talks with Ibtissem, an international student at Midwestern State University, in her apartment. Ibtissem is from Algeria and arrived in Wichita Falls last December to start a master's program in biomedical engineering. She received donated furniture  including the table and chairs the two women are sitting on  and other household items from Hastings and members of First Christian Church. Last month, church members delivered 73 care baskets filled with household necessities to Colony Park apartments on the day of international student orientation.

By Sarah Johnson

In Arabic, Ibtissem's name means "smile." The irony is not lost on anyone.

The 30-year-old young woman from Algeria who came to Wichita Falls last December to get her master's degree in biomedical engineering at Midwestern State University is happy to be in Texas. It shows in her warm, friendly smile.

The main reason behind that smile is the grace and support she received from First Christian Church and, in particular, from one of its members, Sally Hastings.

"When Ibtissem arrived in Wichita Falls, it was Christmas break and no one was on campus," Hastings said. "She didn't know anyone and on top of that, it was snowing."

The Office of International Services had given Hasting's cell to Ibtissem and she called the number. Not only was she in need of a friendly voice, but Ibtissem needed basic items for her apartment. She had a bed, but no table, sofa or kitchen supplies.

"I was on my way out of town when Ibtissem called, but I told her I would try to find her some things for her apartment," Hastings said. "My husband and I prayed about it and I got a phone call from a woman whose mother was a church member and had recently been put under Hospice care. She wondered if Hastings knew anyone who could use her mother's furniture. I took the bedding, the kitchen stuff and everything that was in her efficiency. God works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?"

Hastings has been providing furniture for international students for about seven years. People from First Christian got on board last year when members cleaned out their homes and filled an entire warehouse with furniture and household items. They also packed 85 boxes of household necessities for the transplanted students.

"The idea started when First Christian was preparing for its 125th anniversary last year," Hastings said. "Our outreach committee was trying to come up with a project to honor that date and help our community, so I suggested helping the international students. I stood in front of the church and proposed: What if 125 church members helped 125 incoming students new to our country? And we did. We were so impressed with the outpouring of our members' generosity."

That sense of community is what struck Ibtissem the hardest.

"Even though they didn't know anything about me, they cared about their community," she said. "I'm just a girl from halfway across the world. It's a good feeling that someone cares about you."

This year, church members put together laundry baskets filled with basic household goods, including sheets, towels, plates, flatware, cups, bowls, a pan and other items. Some baskets were filled by individuals, others by Sunday school classes.

The group delivered 73 baskets to the club room at Colony Apartments on the day of international student orientation. Each student introduced themselves and picked up a basket. One young lady went around to each volunteer and thanked them personally.

"They were so excited to receive the care baskets and wanted to share their stories with us on how they made it to America," Hastings said. "We shared with them and invited them to our church. Our new Wednesday night get-together is called 'The Neighborhood.'"

Ibtissem is Algerian, but other students come from places like Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Dominica, Granada, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Often, they arrive with only two suitcases full of their belongings.

"When I got here, I was lonely and a little lost," Ibtissem said. "Sally was like my angel."

Helping people like Ibtissem has enriched Hastings' life and filled the "empty spaces" of being an empty-nester.

"Helping strangers is one of the things we are supposed to do as Christians," she said. "These children come here with no family. It means a lot to help them."

Her vision for this program extends to church members forging one-on-one relationships with these international students.

"I can see a widow inviting a student over to have dinner or maybe taking students to the grocery store and cooking their native food together," Hastings said. "The most important thing is to show them God's love."

For more information about helping international students at MSU, call First Christian Church at 692-2282.
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The most revealing moment in the presidential candidates' first joint forum Wednesday night came when Donald Trump told the world how much he admires Vladimir Putin.

Never mind that the Russian strongman invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. Never mind that he supports the butcher Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Never mind that so many of his political opponents end up murdered or imprisoned. Never mind that U.S. officials suspect his government of trying to disrupt our election with cyberattacks. In Trump's star-struck eyes, all of this makes him "a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

Putin, you see, once paid Trump a compliment. "If he says great things about me," Trump told moderator Matt Lauer, "I'm going to say great things about him."

There you have it, folks, the distilled essence of Trump's disgraceful campaign. It's not about immigration or foreign policy or making America "great again," whatever that means. It's entirely about Trump and his raging egomania.

Trump is sincere when he expresses preening self-regard. All the rest is just verbiage tossed with a light vinaigrette.

The candidates appeared sequentially, not face to face, at the USS Intrepid museum in New York before an audience of military service members and veterans. The old aircraft carrier, commissioned during World War II and retired after Vietnam, was an apt setting for hearing the candidates' positions on foreign and defense policy. But only one of them had anything meaningful to say.

Hillary Clinton went first and was immediately hit with a barrage of questions about her emails. Some commentators said afterward that she sounded defensive, but that line of criticism is absurd. How is one supposed to sound when pressed to defend oneself? Have we finally reached the point when a woman is allowed to speak forcefully on her own behalf? Or do we still expect, at all times, a demure smile?

As would be anticipated from a former senator and secretary of state, Clinton displayed her knowledge and experience. The headline, I suppose, would be this pledge: "We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we're not putting ground troops into Syria." Those who worry she might prove too hawkish as president may feel relieved.

But the evening was really about Trump, and the stakes are far too high for him to be graded on a curve. No, he did not rant and rave like a crazy man or threaten to nuke anybody. But neither did he give the slightest indication he knew anything about the issues he was supposed to be talking about. Read the transcript and try to find one sensible and substantive thing he had to say.

On top of insisting that Putin is a great guy, Trump denigrated the U.S. military's high command. "I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble," he said. "They have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country."

Lauer recalled that Trump has long claimed to have a secret plan for defeating the Islamic State, but now says he would ask "the generals" to submit a plan within 30 days for victory over the terrorist group. Reminded that he has boasted that he knows more about the Islamic State than our military leaders do, yet now says he wants them to come up with a plan, Trump replied: "Well, they'll probably be different generals, to be honest with you."

In other words, he promises a purge at the Pentagon. Maybe his friend Vladimir can give him pointers.

And there's more: Trump repeated his complaint that the United States should have "taken the oil" in Iraq, noting that "it used to be, to the victor belong the spoils."

Yes, that was true in the time of Genghis Khan. Today, under international law, plunder is a war crime  and not the only one Trump wants our military to commit. He has said in the past that our forces also should practice torture "worse than waterboarding" against suspected terrorists. He would ask our service members to dishonor the uniform and all it represents.

Trump defended a 2013 tweet about the problem of sexual assault in the military in which he asked, "What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?" He said the solution was to "set up a court system within the military." Unbelievable.

Face the truth: Trump has to be the most dangerously ignorant major-party presidential candidate in history.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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Albany

Aspen Albany, a 115-unit apartment building on Washington Avenue that opened its doors in August, is the city's first privately owned luxury student housing complex.

Aspen held a ribbon cutting midday Friday with city officials, developers and staff members. The complex represents a national shift toward upscale student dorms built by private companies near burgeoning college campuses.

"I really see it as a positive shift in the city," Mayor Kathy Sheehan said after slicing the ribbon. "Ultimately, the goal is to see the caliber of this housing raise the bar in student housing in other neighborhoods of the city."

The apartment building features amenities such as covered parking, on-site staff, a gym, key card access, common areas and a rooftop patio.

"For sure, student housing is moving toward resort-style amenities," manager Stefany McBrady said. "Traditional dorm rooms, where you're bunked in with another person and share a bathroom with the floor, is just not enough for this generation."

Aspen is located across the street from the University at Albany, which plans to increase its student body to 20,000 by the end of the decade.

SUNY Polytechnic Institute is down the street.

"Growth at the university is one of the first things we look for," McBrady said. "Our company saw a need for this in the area and knew we would be the first ones."

Aspen Albany is run by Austin, Texas-based student housing developer Aspen Heights Partners. Numerous other private student housing projects have been proposed by other companies in the past but were dropped.

"This project demonstrates private developers can build something faster and very effectively," Sheehan said. "The benefit to the city of Albany is that this project is taxable. If you go across the street to UAlbany, it's not taxable."

The city approved a tax abatement on sales, real estate and mortgage recording taxes for the property, modeled after a state program, said Anthony Owens, secretary of the Albany Industrial Development Agency.

"The city forgoes taxes today to help build up this project, in the hopes to collect more taxes on the back end," Owens said.

Sheehan said the new housing "is really designed to be an affordable alternative." Rent at the Aspen ranges from $895 to $1,335 per month per person, McBrady said.

"Our pricing model is modeled after on-campus housing," McBrady said. "All of our pricing is per bedroom, as opposed to per apartment."

Tenants can pick from one-, two-, three- or four-bedroom floor plans. Each bedroom has its own bathroom.

Prospective residents who don't have roommates can be matched using software similar to those used by colleges, which have students fill out surveys about their lifestyle.

Applicants are not required to be students but the company markets to that age group.

UAlbany senior Sean Daunt, 22, moved in Aug. 20. He said he chose to live at the Aspen property because the rent was lower than on-campus housing but still adjacent to campus.

"These kids needed this building and they need more," developer and architect Jon Grant said.

Grant's company, GSX Solutions, is in the process of building another upscale dorm-style complex up the road, where the Red Roof Inn is now located. That hotel would be demolished.

Real estate broker Steven Lerner said the deal has been in the works since 2011, with Grant the final of three potential buyers.

"Mostly all the permitting is done," Lerner said. "Now the question is, do they start working immediately or hold off? There is a big timing issue with student housing  you have to be ready at a certain time of year."

emasters@timesunion.com  518-454-5467
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Waterford

Union workers at Momentive Performance Materials in Waterford were mulling a strike Friday after rejecting their company's latest  and purportedly final  contract offer.

IUE CWA Local 81359, which represents 700 workers at the Waterford-based Momentive, voted down a three-year contract that would give employees about $9,000 in wage increases over the next three years.

The problem, the union contends, is with benefits  they say the contract would hurt retirees while also diminishing health care and retirement benefits for current members. The previous contract, which expired June 26, froze pensions for members 50 and younger. That, coupled with what the union has said is a diminished 401(k) matching program for some workers, was enough to lead an overwhelming 86 percent of members to reject the deal.

Local 81359 is the largest of the three unions that voted on the pro posal.

Other union voters included 41 members represented at the company's Willoughby, Ohio, plant and 81 technicians in Waterford.

All told, 73 percent of members from the three unions voted to oppose the deal.

Momentive, which has previously said it has plans in place to continue operations amid a possible strike, decried the vote. "We're disappointed in this result as all of the changes reflected in the proposal were intended to provide a fair, market-based package for our employees and their families, while also allowing Momentive to remain competitive," Momentive spokeswoman Tina Reiber said Friday.

"If there is a strike, we plan to keep our sites open. We have comprehensive contingency plans in place, which include utilizing staffing resources and leveraging our global assets in order to meet our customers' needs," she said. "The company stands ready to continue discussions with the IUE-CWA to reach a fair and balanced contract that meets the needs of the Company and our employees."

The question of whether to strike now goes to the union's top leadership. In August, union members voted to give leadership authority to determine if a strike is necessary. The final decision, then, will be made by Chris Shelton, president of the Communications Workers of America in Washington, D.C.

Momentive, a sealant and silicone materials producer, is one of the larger employers in the Capital Region. It has about 1,000 workers in a variety of industries, including electronics and automotive.

Local and federal union representatives were not immediately available for comment Friday.

lrulison@timesunion.com  518-454-5504  @larryrulison

RDownen@timesunion.com  518-4545018  @Robert_Downen
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Albany

State lawmakers reacted with shock to the news of the apparent suicide of Rochester-area Assemblyman Bill Nojay, who according to local law enforcement shot himself Friday morning at the city's Riverside Cemetery.

An officer responding to a 9:22 a.m. call to check the welfare of a man spotted in the cemetery saw Nojay shoot himself, Rochester Police investigator Frank Camp said in a news conference.

Multiple reports said the 59-year-old Republican lawmaker killed himself at the family cemetery plot.

The news was followed by reports that Nojay's death might have been connected to a far more common phenomenon at the Capitol: an criminal investigation.

The Daily News reported that his suicide came as Nojay failed to show up in court to turn himself in for fraud charges. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported those charges were related to a trust fund he handled as an attorney.

The newspaper reported earlier in the day that the FBI also had been probing a business deal related to the city's $1.3 billion school modernization program, which Nojay played a central role in. The newspaper had reported earlier this year that Nojay was involved behind the scenes in forming a company that sought a major contract part of the modernization program.

In a bizarre twist, the lawmaker also was involved in unrelated business dealings that had fallen under legal scrutiny in Southeast Asia. Cambodian prosecutors sought to question him as part of a fraud investigation in 2014 after a dentist in that nation had accused him of defrauding her of $1 million, according to reports. The trial in that case was delayed earlier this year, according to reports.

Nojay was a member of Akra Group, a company promoting agriculture products in Southeast Asia, according to his 2015 financial disclosure form on file with the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Nojay was recalled by his colleagues as a staunch and outspoken conservative who was unafraid of attacking opponents regardless of party affiliation.

He worked as one of two election attorneys for Assembly GOP Leader Brian Kolb in a hotly contested February 2000 special election that first sent Kolb to Albany.

"Quite frankly, I don't think I would have gotten in the Assembly without his assistance," Kolb said in an interview. " ... He's always been a friend, he's been loyal to me as leader of our conference."

First elected in 2012, Nojay represented the 133rd Assembly District, which includes Livingston County and parts of Monroe and Steuben counties. He faced a primary challenge on Tuesday from Rick Milne, mayor of Honeoye Falls. Milne and Democratic candidate Barbara Baer both suspended their campaigns Friday.

When it came to legislative business, Nojay often went against the grain He voted aye 59 percent of the time in 2016, one of the lowest percentages for any Assembly member, according to an analysis by New York StateWatch. He voted nay 32 percent of the time, the second highest percentage in the chamber. Nojay voted with a majority of his fellow Assembly Republicans 68 percent of the time, again one of the lowest percentages in the Assembly, even with Democrats factored in.

As further evidence of his outspoken nature, he also was a vocal critic of the election of Long Island Republican John Flanagan as Senate majority leader in 2015, so much so that earlier this year he said he was seeking GOPers to run against Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Seneca County, who backed Flanagan during the 2015 leadership battle. Nozzolio decided not to seek re-election.

Flanagan in a statement Friday called Nojay "an outspoken advocate for conservative values, for his district, and for Upstate New York."

An early supporter of Donald Trump's political ambitions, Nojay was among the Legislature's most relentless critics of the SAFE Act gun control law. As such, he was an organizer of the pro-Second Amendment concert called Freedompalooza, held in Altamont in August 2013.

A conservative talk radio host, Nojay also listed work as vice president and counsel for Commodity Resource Corp., a California commodity futures advisory and brokerage firm, and as director and president of the Empire Page, a news aggregation website.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
Another pandemic fallout: Used car prices are way up, and the repo man is back
Pennsylvanian drivers are increasingly finding themselves facing a new kind of intersection out on the roads; and, despite some possible initi
[September 09, 2016] Ohio Supreme Court Slaps Down Jon Husted; Drug Price Ballot Initiative Heading to 2017 Ballot

In a major victory for drug pricing advocates, the Ohio Supreme Court (OSC) issued a ruling earlier today that brings the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, a ballot measure that would lower drug prices for state programs in Ohio, one step closer to being placed before voters on the November 2017 statewide ballot. Over the past year, backers of the measure collected and submitted signatures of nearly 200,000 Ohio registered voters in support of the measure-far more than the 91,677 needed to qualify. Secretary of State Jon Husted repeatedly moved to invalidate many of the signatures, and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association) and the Ohio Manufacturers' Association also filed a legal action challenging the signatures. In response, backers of the measure sued in the OSC to reinstate many of the signatures it believed were illegally thrown out by Secretary Husted. In a four (4) to three (3) ruling in that case earlier today, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered Secretary of State Jon Husted to " rescind his September 6, 2016 transmission of the initiative to the General Assembly. Husted is instead ordered to accept for verification the supplementary part-petitions proffered to his office on August 31, 2016, and if they are found to contain sufficient valid signatures, to place the matter on the November 2017 general-election ballot." "This is a huge victory for the Democratic process in Ohio and we thank the Court for its ruling reinstating voter signatures on many of our petitions in support of the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act," said Tracy Jones, Midwest Regional Director & National Director of Advocacy Campaigns and a proponent of the Drug Price Relief Act. "The Court ordered Secretary Hustedto carry out his official duties regarding the ballot measure process in Ohio on our initiative-verifying signatures and then placing this measure on the general-election ballot. We have seen that politicians across the nation are unwilling or unable to stand up to the drug industry and do anything meaningful on reducing drug prices and improving transparency. Ohioans deserve the chance to weigh in on this crucial issue of drug pricing and we are now one step closer to having that chance in November 2017."



Following is the final paragraph of the Supreme Court's 16-page decision: "Although we found in Ohio Mfrs. Assn.,___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2016-Ohio-5377, ___ N.E.3d ___, that the December 2015 petition contained an insufficient number of signatures, that finding was based on the limited evidence that was before the court in that case. As stated above, we order Husted to validate 20,092 additional signatures from Cuyahoga County, 256 additional signatures from Adams County, 14 additional signatures from Darke County, 23 additional signatures from Hocking County, 67 additional signatures from Madison County, 18 additional signatures from Putnam County, 56 additional signatures from Union County, and 314 additional signatures from Delaware County. The evidence submitted in this case therefore establishes that the petition filing exceeded the minimum-signature threshold. Thus, it was unnecessary for the committee to collect additional signatures or for the initiative to be resubmitted to the General Assembly. We therefore order Husted to rescind his September 6, 2016 transmission of the initiative to the General Assembly. Husted is instead ordered to accept for verification the supplementary part-petitions proffered to his office on August 31, 2016, and if they are found to contain sufficient valid signatures, to place the matter on the November 2017 general-election ballot."

The Ohio Drug Price Relief Act will amend Ohio law to require state programs to pay the same or less for prescription medications as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs1. Backers intended to have the initiative appear on Ohio's November 2016 presidential election ballot, but obstructionist-and backers believe, illegal-moves by Secretary of State Husted have forced the ballot measure proponents to aim for the November 2017 Ohio ballot instead. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 600,000 individuals in 36 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert): @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare. 1 V.A. pricing is generally believed to be 20% to 24% lower than for almost any other government program. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160909005993/en/

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One of the biggest concerns about a proposed Costco in southwest Lincoln is the site on which the retailer wants to build.

Costco wants to put a warehouse store on vacant land between 14th and 20th streets on the north side of Pine Lake Road. The site, which is now a cornfield, is next to Scott Middle School and across from Lincoln Southwest High School.

At a neighborhood meeting held last month, neighbors expressed concern about the amount of traffic the store will bring to an area that is already congested, especially when classes are ending.

A traffic study done by Olsson Associates of Lincoln estimated the store would add 300 cars to the area from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m., a 20 percent increase over the current traffic volume during that peak time.

At the meeting, Costco officials were asked if they had ever built a store so close to two schools. The answer: Yes, in La Habra, California.

Costco has had a store at 101 N. Beach Blvd. for more than a decade in the Los Angeles suburb of about 70,000 people.

To the north, next door to Costco, is Whittier Christian High School, which has about 600 students. To the east, across North Beach Boulevard, is El Portal Elementary School.

Carl Martinez, the head of school at Whittier Christian, said Costco is a great neighbor.

"We have a great relationship with them," he said.

There have been no traffic issues as far as the school is concerned, Martinez said.

There aren't any as far as the city's concerned, either, said Andrew Ho, La Habra's director of community and economic development.

"After operating for over a decade, there have been no traffic complaints or issues that have been brought to the citys attention," Ho said. There has been no effect on the schools, either, he said.

While the La Habra Costco location and the proposed Lincoln site are similar, there are some big differences.

For one, the La Habra Costco replaced an existing shopping mall, Martinez said, which means it likely didn't add that much traffic.

For another, North Beach Boulevard is a six-lane state highway.

And the number of students near the La Habra Costco is about 1,200, whereas in Lincoln it would be more than double that -- triple if one includes Adams Elementary School, which is about three blocks south of the proposed Costco site.

"While I agree there are two schools in close proximity, I just do not think the La Habra site is comparable to what they are attempting to do here, where they are sandwiching a Costco directly in the middle of two very large schools, three with Adams," said Julie Pell, who lives in The Ridge neighborhood northeast of the site.

In addition to the aforementioned differences, Pell pointed out others, including two entrances to Costco that would cross the sidewalk/bike trail on Pine Lake Road and a proposed entrance off of Hazel Scott Road, which is essentially a residential street.

Comparing the two sites is like comparing apples and oranges, Pell said.

The plans that Costco showed to neighbors in Lincoln last month are not finalized and have not yet been formally submitted to the city, but they were formulated with the help of the city-county Planning Department.

"They've been working with the city for many months on this plan," said Steve Henrichsen, the Planning Department's development manager.

He said the Planning Department's job is to work with the applicant to design a site plan that minimizes effects on motorists, bikers and pedestrians as much as possible.

Costco also consulted with Scott Wieskamp, Lincoln Public Schools' facilities director.

Wieskamp said the district is officially neutral on the proposal, as it is on just about any development project proposed near one of its schools.

He said LPS works closely with the city to make known any concerns it has on development projects, and Planning Department officials have always done a good job of taking those concerns into account.

"I have yet, in my 18 years, had to go to some (public) meeting because they didn't listen," Wieskamp said.

He said there have been discussions about potentially rerouting the bike trail to go around the proposed Costco.

"If Costco wants to be there, they'll build that trail wherever we want them to," Wieskamp said.

Costco officials have declined to comment about the proposed Lincoln store.
In the Flesh

It's not a crime procedural, but In the Flesh presents a thoroughly fresh take on the undead. Instead of mindlessly seeking human brains and flesh, zombies are treated for partially deceased syndrome (PDS) and sent back to their old lives. Such is the case of PDS-survivor Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry), who returns to his community in the face of anti-zombie sentiment and flashbacks to the time before his treatment.

Seasons: 2Where to Watch: Hulu

In The Flesh Launch Trailer - BBC Three
Todays Victim: APC BN650M1-CA

When I found out that APC refreshed its line-up as I wrote my BGE90M tear-down, I made a mental note to snag one of the updated models if I spotted it on sale. Back-to-school season rolled in, allowing me to score one for $60 much sooner than expected. How much changed and how much didnt?

Unless you keenly remember the BGE, your first impression may be that it looks exactly the same, except black. The BGE didnt have holes for ground pins though, and the BN650s single USB port is relocated compared to the BGEs two. Lastly, the new model's footprint is more elongated.

Although their outward appearance is very similar, some substantial shuffling may have occurred within...



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Redundancy Redux

Unlike most consumer packaging, which tries to summarize every feature up front, the BN650Ms box leaves some details for the other sides: the top includes a run-time chart and suggests three other models, while the back contains the full feature list and specs. The left side tells you that this is a UPS with surge protection, while the right end iterates APCs new motto: Press on. Youre still connected. Life is on.

Unpacking

Instead of the full-length cradling seen around the BGE90M, APC's BN650M only wears protection on its corners with slightly thinner top and bottom padding. The BN650M also sees its power plug tucked into a foam cut-out to secure it through shipping. Inside the bag, you can see the ATE/QA result slip taped to the UPS side.

Old vs. New Size Comparison

Both units have almost exactly the same general shape, except that the 274105139-millimeter BN650M is seven millimeters taller and five centimeters longer. The need for extra length is evident from the two extra battery-backup and two extra surge-only outlets. As far as the additional height is concerned, I have no idea. Weight-wise, the 3.4 kg BN650M adds 400 grams, which I suspect is split between a slightly bigger battery and bigger heat sinks.

The Fifth Dimension

Length, width, height, and weight are fine, but what about outlet spacing? The BGE90M barely accommodated the most over-sized adapters I could find. To cram four extra outlets across a five-centimeter-longer area, outlet spacing had to get tighter. On the BN650M1, this measurement shrinks from 58 to 46 mm. That could be a tight fit even for a modern electronic adapter complement.

Here, my N66U and SPA112 adapters on its left are wedged against each other, while my cordless phone adapter to the right fits with one millimeter to spare. In the first outlet to the left, my modems adapter blocks off the second outlet. I wanted to plug both of my cordless phones in there. That isnt going to happen without a multi-outlet adapter.

Paperwork

There is a full complement of paper documentation in the box: an equipment protection guarantee in six languages, safety information and a user manual in three languages, a product registration reminder sheet, and the test slip.

What looks like a decent-quality USB A-to-B cable is also included, but I wont bore you with a typical-looking cable today.

Test Slip

According to the test slip, my unit breezed through QA on April 14th. Over a dozen more and less critical electrical checks were performed, the model and serial numbers were programmed, and the functionality of a few key parameters (like transfer voltage settings) were tested.

The printout is marginally readable in person, so I had to convert the picture to black and white before enhancing the heck out of it to get something usable.

Plug

Now this is something different: a square-top angled plug. I havent seen one of these before. At first, I thought the grip might be awkward, but it turned out more secure and comfortable than I expected. The fingers width height between the plug face and the ridge provides plenty of space to grip the plug while maintaining a safe distance from all prongs.

Can you see that tiny blue squiggle on the ground prong? The only possible explanation I can come up with is that it indicates the cord and plug assembly passed ground continuity testing.

Cord

There's more common fare here: the cost-cutting 3x#16 cord makes another appearance. Will we see it paired with a 10, 13, or 15 A breaker this time? So far, APCs track record is 15 A on everything we've seen above 125 VA, so 15 A is a safe bet.

Tail End

Unlike the BGE90M, which only had a breaker and ventilation slots that went one-third of the way up, the BN650M also has a USB-B port for PC monitoring, a site wiring fault indicator, and ventilation slots that go all the way to the top.

Sides

Aside from a tiny EnergyStar logo in the bottom-right corner of the front and wall-mounting slots in the back, the sides are solid black.



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The fear is that any critical information on jihadists will first be forwarded to the Dutch government

Greek Police officials have expressed their objection to the appointment of a Dutch officer in a leading position in the Europol team that is based in Greece.

Aside from the concerns over the officers limited experience, the Greek Police official fear that the officer will forward any critical information on the possible presence of jihadist terrorists to the Dutch government.

The fear is that in such a case the Greek government and local authorities will be last to learn of any developments. According to the Greek officials, Italian authorities convinced Europol to appoint an Italian in charge of the services monitoring arriving migrants.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The EU Finance Ministers attended the informal EuroGroup meeting in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, Friday, with the progress of the Greek fiscal adjustment program being at the centre of talk. German Finance Minister Wollfgang Schauble set the tone of the meeting by making it clear before entering the building that Greece would have to implement all prior actions before any tranche could be released. EuroGroup head and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called on Greece to speed up reforms and complete all remaining prior actions in order for the 2.8bln Euro to be disbursed. Even though the Dutch Minister dubbed part of the fiscal program Greece has to implement as unrealistic, he kept the pressure up saying time was running out for the indebted country.

On the matter of the legal prosecution of former head of the Greek statistical services (ELSTAT), Andreas Georgiou, Dijsselbloem called the whole issue unfortunate. On his part, Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said Greece had done a lot, but more was needed. Kazimir confirmed that the Ecofin was considering setting up a European Fund modeled on the IMF. European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Taxation and Customs, Pierre Moscovici commented on the dispute between the EC and US tech giant Apple regarding tax evasion fines, he said the Commission was a political body and efforts were being made to quash tax evasion on a global scale.

It is clear that the multinational company must pay taxes, he pointed out. Irish Finance Minister, Michael Noonan said he expected to be informed on the progress of the Greek program at the meeting. Austrian Finance Minister Hans Schelling remarked that delays by the Greek government in implementing the program of reforms was not a positive sign. We cannot release the next tranches without the fulfillment of the agreed measures, he said.

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
I dont know about you, but Ive had my fill of police, medical and zombie dramas, so when something fresh comes along, Im all in.

Last Tuesday, the free streaming service Crackle -- best known as the home to Jerry Seinfelds Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" -- dropped 10 episodes of StartUp (crackle.com/startup), a thriller starring Martin Freeman (Sherlock), Adam Brody (The League), Edi Gathegi (The Blacklist) and Otmara Marrero (Graceland).

The concept from creator, writer and executive producer Ben Ketai is novel. His story revolves around Marreros character Izzy Morales, a Cuban tech whiz who has created GenCoin, a digital currency that has the potential to revolutionize the financial world.

Young banker Nick Talman (Brody) is one of the few who understand GenCoins potential and agrees to finance Morales. But the money he plans to use, which hes obtained from his corrupt banker dad, is dirty and stolen. Thats where Haitian gang leader Ronald Dacey (Gathegi) and FBI agent Phil Rask (Freeman) come into the story.

StartUp is a thinking-persons thriller, along the lines of USAs Mr. Robot. Ketai delves into greed, corruption, violence and more, and none of his characters are immune to any of it.

Outside of an unnecessary barrage of sex scenes -- the pilot alone had four of them, with only one (Morales sleeps with her boyfriend for a place to keep her equipment) progressing the story -- theres nothing to complain about here.

Freeman is scary good as the bad cop, as is Gathegi as the see-the-big-picture gang leader. And Brody and Morales bring the right amount of naivete to their characters.

Finally, we have a thriller with some teeth to it. Grade: B+

Across the remote

* If you enjoyed Comedy Centrals Labor Day roast of Rob Lowe, then you may want to check out Jesse Joyces stand-up show 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Rococo Theatre.

The event is a fundraiser for The Bridge Behavioral Health, a comprehensive substance abuse treatment center.

Since last performing in Lincoln in 2011, Joyce has appeared regularly on @Midnight, a Comedy Central game show. He also is a frequent writer for Comedy Centrals roasts, including those of Donald Trump, Larry the Cable Guy, Justin Bieber, Joan River, and, most recently, Lowe.

Tickets are $22 at the alcohol-free event. For reservations, go to TheBridgeNebraska.org.

* Yes, Sara Ramirez (Callie) is gone from Greys Anatomy, but Jessica Capshaw (Arizona) is not, even though you wont see her in the first two episodes when Greys returns for its new season on Sept. 22. Capshaw is on maternity leave after giving birth to her fourth child.

* Freeforms Pretty Little Liars, arguably the networks most popular show, will come to an end after seven seasons. Liars, which recently aired its summer finale, will return with its final 10 episodes in April. The drama has a Lincoln connection: actress Lindsey Shaw plays Paige on the series.

* Heres a rundown of recent renewals:

-- Killjoys and Dark Matter (third seasons, Syfy)

-- Survivors Remorse (fourth season, Starz)

-- The Last Ship (fourth and fifth seasons, TNT)

-- Queen of the South (second season, USA)

-- Narcos (third and fourth seasons, Netflix)

-- Bachelor in Paradise (fourth season, ABC)

* Meanwhile, three shows have been canceled. They are: The Jim Gaffigan Show (TV Land), Feed the Beast (AMC) and Devious Maids (Lifetime).
President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci will be holding their second to last intensified meeting on Saturday

President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci will be holding their second to last intensified meeting on Saturday.

It is the seventh meeting that will be held in regards to the intensified phase of the Cyprus talks, which have been taking place over the month of September, in the run up to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Anastasiades and Akinci will be meeting anew on September 14, where they are expected to issue a joint press release on the ongoing talks.

Cyprus government will be holding a meeting of the National Council following the end of the meetings, the government had previously reported.

There is a possibility that Anastasiades, Akinci, and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon could meet in New York, as per the Presidents announcement, and Turkish Cypriot media reports on the matter. The meeting would be held on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly.

One of the latest controversies the leaders will have to discuss will be the issue of a time difference between the occupied areas and the state controlled areas, UNFICYP spokesperson Aleem Siddique had said on Friday.

The occupied areas had decided to follow the suit of Turkey earlier in the week, drawing comments from President Anastasiades on the matter, while he was in Greece.

Anastasiades had said that the time issue shows the influence that Turkey still has on the so-called TRNC.

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
Italian blogger Celinne Da Costa included Santorini among slightly overrated European destinations in a recent article published at prominent U.S. travel website matadornetwork.com.

She describes the popular Greek destination as follows:

"There is no denying that Santorini is breathtakingly beautiful. Even so, I was so disappointed. From Instagram photos, Oia, Santorini seems like a magical, idyllic place. What they dont tell you is that to get those stunning photos of the caldera, youll be battling your way through dozens of tourists, waiting your turn to take a street photo, and dodging selfie sticks around every corner. Oh, and the famous Oia sunset? If you want the slightest chance of seeing that from the best spot, show up two hours early and be prepared to push through hundreds (that is not an exaggeration) of people.

In the islands defense, I went during peak season and Ive heard its slightly better during the winter  but then the weather is not as great. Overall, I found the island too commercial, extremely expensive compared to the rest of Greece, and not conducive to meeting locals. Plus, there are plenty of Greek islands that share the same beauty and magic as Santorini, minus the crowds."

Da Costa notes that she recently quit her job in New York City to circumnavigate the globe by couch-surfing through her social network, and her first stop was Europe. Even though she has traveled extensively  40 countries so far, 17 of which are European  this time in Europe allowed her to compare a lot of places as well as see them from the locals eyes. Here are some locations that she found underrated.

1. Romania

2. Montenegro

3. Umbria, Italy

4. Ferrara, Italy

5. Bratislava, Slovakia

She also included a few places that she thinks get more attention than they deserve

1. Dubrovnik, Croatia

2. Oia, Santorini, Greece

3. Venice, Italy

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
Thessaloniki will be in total lockdown as 5,000 police officers will be on duty for the opening of the citys 81st annual International Fair by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, Saturday. Six organised demonstrations are scheduled to take place by unions, social solidarity groups, Saturday afternoon.

Greek police are setting up metal railings and barriers on the perimeter of the Velidios Centre to prevent protesters from approaching, while the 5,000 police officers and a line of riot police buses have been deployed on the perimeter of the building to prevent protesters from approaching the building. 2,000 more police officers have been deployed this year to the Thessaloniki International Fair compared to 2015, while tens of riot police units have received orders by the Central Police headquarters to deploy to the second largest city in Greece.

Police helicopters will be flying overhead during the event, while the Thessaloniki Police Department has announced all traffic in the citys centre will be blocked off from Saturday till Monday morning. The Greek PM has arrived in Thessaloniki, where he visited the work site of the citys Metro, while he is later scheduled to meet with the central Macedonian prefect, Apostolos Tzitzikostas and the citys Mayor John Boutaris.

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
Guardian pays tribute to the Greek island of Andros in a recent article in which the British newspaper notes the following:

"Leaving a sodden British summer for a Greek island known as Micra Anglia  Little England  seemed like tempting fate, but worrying about the weather wasnt necessary. Rugged Andros, the northernmost island in the Cyclades, owes its sobriquet to the Greek shipping clans who run their maritime empires from London, dispatch their offspring to British boarding schools, but have established members clubs, museums, and even a class system of sorts back home. These magnates have also kept tourism at bay: not wanting their homeland overrun by holidaymakers. So this large, lush island, only two hours from Athens, has stayed under the radar.

Those who do venture to Andros generally stick to the coast, scalloped with over 70 beaches, or the stately town of Chora, a cluster of neoclassical mansions jutting out to sea. Inland, the landscape is more evocative of the Scottish Highlands than the Cyclades: arched stone bridges and burbling brooks, valleys punctuated by medieval watchtowers, waterfalls spilling through chestnut forests.

Theres amazing diversity hidden in the folds of the four mountain ranges, says Olga Karayiannis, the driving force behind Andros Routes, a community initiative set up to clear and waymark the islands 300km network of footpaths  for self-guided walking adventures. For centuries, these often stone-paved trails were the main routes of commerce, communication, and transportation between the islands 84 villages. So far, Olga and her team of volunteers have opened up 20 (well-signposted) paths, including the Andros Route  a 100km-long trail from north to south, that usually takes walkers 10 days. The European Ramblers Association recently certified the Andros Route as one of Europes Leading Quality Trails.

These paths were a forgotten resource, says Olga. Weve revived the infrastructure, now we want to bring the benefits of sustainable tourism to Andros, especially to the remote villages that are being deserted. These days, shipping is a globalised industry, and this has had knock-on effects on the local economy: the trade in silk and citrus fruits that once made Andros rich has died out. So Olga is encouraging locals to open pitstops along the routes where they can welcome ramblers, cooking them lunch, or selling them their produce.

On our family-friendly break, my partner and I didnt have to stray far from Ktima Lemonies, an enchanting guesthouse among citrus groves, to find a trail easy enough for our four-year-old, Lucas. A footpath at our doorstep connected the orchards of Kato (Lower) Lamyra with the manor houses of Ano (Upper) Lamyra. The scent of orange blossom and honeysuckle hung thick in the still air. Every so often, Chora appeared like a mirage on the horizon, framed by cypress trees. We drank from a 200-year-old fountain, rolled fallen lemons down the lanes and feasted on foraged mulberries that turned our fingers purple.

Each day, we woke to a heavenly breakfast laid out under the lemon trees. Everything (apart from teas from Mariage Freres in Paris) was sourced from the surrounding estate or local farmers. There was lemon-and-poppyseed cake, yoghurt with plum compote, oregano-flecked cheese, and a dozen homemade jams from kumquat to quince. Nelly Grypari, our chic host, encouraged us to fill a picnic basket as we planned a day at a secret beach shed directed us to.

First, we had to earn our swim. Driving into the mountains, bright sunshine abruptly gave way to such dense fog that we could barely see where the road ended and the cliffs began. We swerved past Vourkoti, the highest village in the Cyclades, until we reached Arni, the little Switzerland of Andros. As the bells of the village church rang out, the clouds parted, revealing blue-grey hills receding into the mist. We strolled through a canopy of trees until we came to a crooked gate with a crude sign: FOUNT. OPEN THE DOOR. CLOSE. We marched straight through to a gushing spring decorated with plastic flowers. Water never tasted sweeter.

Marvelling at the views, we descended to the Vori wetlands, passing goats perched on slabs of rock. Were in the jungle! Lucas squealed, as we tramped through waist-high reeds looking out for rare Eleonoras falcons. Over a third of Andros is a nature reserve, an important habitat for migrating birds. All we saw, though, were electric-blue dragonflies flitting around to a discordant orchestra of frogs.

At Froussei, we hunted for treasure of a different kind: clambering down a ravine, we discovered 16 stone watermills crumbling into the riverbed. One had become a goat cemetery, strewn with skulls. Our Andros Routes guide, Yiannis Tridimas, a retired professor and fell runner, leaped over the rocks like a mountain goat. As a boy, he would bring wheat here on the family donkey, to be ground into flour. There were 25 kids in my village, said Yiannis. We had to walk an hour over the hills to school, then an hour back again. Thats when I learned to love this landscape.

The hike to Achla beach was too challenging for Lucas and the bone-rattling dirt road was too much for me, so we took a boat from Chora. After swimming in the gin-clear sea, we wandered up the valley to a cascading rock pool shaded by ancient planes. I wish we could stay here forever, Lucas sighed. I couldnt grant him that wish, but the next best thing was missing the boat back to Chora and having to spend the night at Onar, a handful of smartly renovated stone cottages in the wilderness. We lazed in a hammock on the stone terrace. Ive never seen so many stars, Lucas marvelled. Neither have I."

Source: Guardian

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
One of Lincolns oldest churches will soon be led by one of the youngest pastors to preside over a Lincoln congregation.

The Rev. Katherine Kate Woolf, 30, will be ordained at Friedens (Peace) Evangelical Lutheran Church, 540 D St., at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 17. She will be installed at the 10:30 a.m. Sept. 18 service. The public is invited to both.

Built in 1907 by ethnic Germans from Russia, who emigrated to Lincoln between 1895 and 1914, the historic church is a replica of the immigrants church in the village of Frank, Russia, near the Volga River. In 1925, the church was almost destroyed by fire but was quickly rebuilt in the original style by the inhabitants of Lincolns South Russian Bottoms.

Today the church, like so many in the United States, is graying and aging, said Larrie Schmidt, church member. The church is changing to meet the needs of an ethnically diverse neighborhood, which is why the congregation asked Woolf to stay on as pastor, Schmidt said.

Woolf speaks German and Spanish and said she hopes to reach out to young people in the community.

Friedens is in a time of change, Woolf said. Grounded in our identity as a community of faith, Germans from Russia, we are looking forward to the future and connecting to the neighborhood, which has become different and very diverse. It is an exciting time with many possible directions for the future.

We are excited to reach out and to build relationships with neighbors, other congregations and other not-for-profits serving the Lincoln community.  It is our particular hope that the South Salt Creek neighborhood and surrounding areas come to see us as their church -- a congregation of people who care about them, welcome them and pray for and with them; a place where they can feel safe and belong, she said.

Woolf came to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004 on an AFROTC Scholarship to participate in the J.D. Edwards program (now the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management). She graduated in 2008 with a bachelor of science degree in computer science.

Although she was raised Presbyterian, Woolf found a home in the Lutheran Campus Ministry, now known as the Lutheran Center. She left the Presbyterian Church for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and felt a call to ministry. She spent two summers working at Nebraska Lutheran Outdoor Ministry camps in Ashland and Lodgepole.

Ultimately, she completed her seminary training at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, earning a Master of Divinity in theology in 2014. That same year she studied at the Augustana Hoschschule in Neuendrettelsau, Bayem, Germany.

In July 2015, she was invited back to Lincoln to serve as interim pastor of Friedens Evangelical Lutheran Church, replacing Howard Rasmussen, who served as pastor from 2006 to 2015.

The Rev. Brian Maas, bishop of the Nebraska Synod, ELCA, will preside over the Sept. 17 ordination.
North Korea conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.



The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew a fresh wave of global condemnation. The US said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea's main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear program.



Under 32-year-old third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programs, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.



The United Nations Security Council denounced North Korea's decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The US, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.



UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the group to remain united and take action that would "urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation."



US President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures against North Korea and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions."



But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis. That diverged from calls by the United States, Japan and South Korea to escalate pressure on the North, signaling it may prove a challenge for the Security Council to come to an agreement on new sanctions.



"The current situation shows that diplomats should be more creative than just responding by sanctions, sanctions and sanctions again on any aggravation of the situation," Lavrov told a news conference in Geneva. "It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them."



The so-called six-party talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear program involving the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea have been defunct since 2008.



Secretary of State John Kerry said the US had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearization, which it had refused to do.



"We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea," he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for a similar outcome as in the nuclear talks in Iran.



China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbor.



On Saturday, the influential Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking building nuclear weapons would provide it more security or prestige in the world.



"Owning nuclear weapons won't ensure North Korea's political security," it said in an editorial. "On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country."



Beijing has also repeatedly expressed anger since the US and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South.



China says that THAAD is a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear program.



Washington and Seoul, in particular, should sincerely rethink their decision to install THAAD on the peninsula and review their other strategic mistakes that have prompted Pyongyang to make the wrong steps, Wang Junsheng, a researcher in Asia Pacific strategy at the government think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the official China Daily in a piece published on Saturday.



Still, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter singled out the role he said China should play. "It's China's responsibility," he told a news conference during a visit to Norway. "China has and shares an important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it."



South Korea's Park said late on Friday Kim was "mentally out of control," blind to all warnings from the world and neighbors as he sought to maintain power. "The patience of the international community has come to the limit," she said.



North Korea, which labels the South and the US as its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead," according to its official KCNA news agency.



It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.



Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.



Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicated the magnitude - around 5 - of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.



Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far.



He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield or its largest to date.



Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which exploded with an energy of about 15 kilotonnes.



South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful nuclear blast to date.



"The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backwards state any more," Lewis said.-Reuters
The United States and Russia reached a breakthrough deal early on Saturday to try to restore peace in Syria, but air strikes hours later added to rebels' doubts that any ceasefire could hold.



The agreement, by the powers that back opposing sides in the five-year-old war, promises a nationwide truce from sundown on Monday, improved access for humanitarian aid and joint military targeting of hardline Islamist groups.



But hours later, jets bombed a marketplace in rebel-held Idlib in northwestern Syria, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens, according to locals and rescue workers who said they believed the planes to be Russian.



Idlib province has endured escalating strikes by Russian jets in recent months, according international aid workers and residents, destroying scores of hospitals, bakeries and other infrastructure across rebel-held territory.



Aleppo was also hit from the air and fighting continued on the ground. The army attacked rebel-held areas, both sides said, pushing to maximise gains before the ceasefire deadline.



Ten people were killed by barrel bombs dropped by army helicopters on the besieged rebel-held east of the city, and jets, either Syrian or Russian, bombed rebel-held towns in the northern countryside along important insurgent supply routes, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.



Insurgents said they were planning a counter-offensive.



"The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo," rebel spokesman Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak said.



Razak, of the Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which is backed by the West, said they were studying the peace deal but feared it merely gave the Syrian army a chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into Aleppo.



President Bashar al Assad's government made no comment on the peace deal, but Syrian media were broadly positive.



Syria's mainstream political opposition, the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said it had not received a copy of the deal and would only react after consulting members.



A spokeswoman had earlier welcomed any deal that spared civilian lives but cast doubt on whether Moscow would be able to pressure Damascus to stop indiscriminate bombing.



US Secretary of State John Kerry called on all sides to respect the deal, which was finally reached after several failed attempts over recent weeks.



"This requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments, and any attempts to gain additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation. It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and hard-to-reach areas including Aleppo," he said.



Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would enable coordination of the fight against terrorism and a revival of Syria's failed truce.



Both sides agreed not to release the documents publicly.



"This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time," Lavrov said.



Previous peace efforts have crumbled within weeks, with the United States accusing Assad's forces of attacking opposition groups and civilians.



For many FSA rebels, the idea of a clear separation from Nusra is problematic because on several fronts they fight together against the army and allied Iranian-backed militias.



Fateh Al Sham has also played a major role in trying to end the siege of eastern Aleppo which many rebels say has boosted its popularity, and discussions are ongoing to possibly unify ranks under a broader opposition army.



"Fateh al-Sham is a faction present on the ground and it takes part in most of the military operations, and the matter of separating it is not possible, particularly given that there are attempts to merge, within some factions, with Fateh al-Sham," stated Fares Al Bayoush, head of an FSA group called the Northern Division.-Reuters
Saudi Arabia is likely to appoint a new Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) governor and national representative, a source familiar with the matter said.



Adeeb Al Aama will replace Mohammed Al Madi as Opec governor, while Ayad Al Qahtani will become the new national representative replacing Nasser Al Dossari, said the report.



However, the Saudi government is yet to make an official statement in this regard.



Aama works as deputy managing director at Saudi Aramco's office in London, according to his Linkedin profile, while Qahtani heads Aramco's global economic and energy outlooks and scenarios.



Madi, a Mandarin speaker, used to run Aramco offices in China and South Korea before being appointed governor in 2013. The US-educated Dossari has been an economic adviser to the oil minister since 2011.



According to experts, the change will not impact the Saudi oil policy at Opec.-Reuters
The Rev. Stephanie Perdew VanSlyke will be honored Sept. 18 for her 20 years of ministry at First Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. VanSlyke is the daughter of Charles and Barbara Perdew of Lincoln.

She was a seminary graduate in 1996 when she was called to serve as associate minister at the Illinois church.

My first day at First Congregational Church of Wilmette [Illinois] was August 1, 1996," she said. "On that day, I got into a van and drove with other adult leaders and senior high youth to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota for a mission trip."

After eight years as associate pastor, she became the churchs senior pastor in 2004.

Throughout her tenure, VanSlyke has built a foundation of programs for children and youth, enhanced womens ministry and broadened its community involvement and commitment to interfaith appreciation and collaboration.

VanSlykes credited her vocational pathway to her experience in a Lincoln church youth group and her mentors in ministry. She attended St. Olaf College in Minnesota and earned her masters and doctoral divinity degree through Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Illinois.

In addition to her parish ministry, VanSlyke is an affiliate professor of Christian history at Garrett, focusing her scholarly research on the history of early Christian liturgy and womens ministerial roles in the early church. She has served as the Lilly Teaching Fellow in the Arts of Ministry in Worship at the University of Chicago Divinity School and as an adjunct faculty member at Chicago's McCormick Theological Seminary.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 9

The ministerial staff workers in offices of the Health Department have announced to continue with their pen-down strike till the government issues a notification regarding their pending demands.

Earlier, the Punjab Health Department Subordinate Offices Clerical Association had given a call for a two day pen-down strike, which was to end today. However, after striking work today, the association leadership stated that they would continue the protest till the health minister and principal secretary (health) holds meeting to accept their demands.

The protest by clerical employees had affected services, including issuance of medical, birth and death certificates, besides drug and food licences. It is also affecting admission process and examinations at the Government Medical College and Government Dental College.

Association general secretary Jagdish Thakur said, We regret inconvenience to the general public, especially students. The government is responsible for this trouble as it has failed to address issues concerning employees.

He said the executive body of the association had decided to continue the pen-down strike. Association leaders Balbir Singh, Tejinder Singh, Rajesh Kumar, Rakesh Kumar, Raman Sharma, Satish Prashar and Rajeev Sharma also addressed the protesters today.
Aarti Kapur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

What is the age limit to get a job in the Army? How can I apply for the officers post directly in the Army and what is the qualification required? these were the queries which students of various colleges raised before a team of the Indian Army from Ambala Cantonment today during a special counselling and guidance session at Post Graduate Government College, Sector 11.

This is for the first time that such a session has been conducted at the city government college during a joint placement drive for the youth to get an idea about the opportunities in the Army.

In a jam-packed seminar room, a presentation was given by the team of three officials who were in the college to guide students about the opportunities in the field of defence with graduate and post-graduate courses.

I am a student from commerce background, will I be eligible for a job in the Army? I am a student of biology and want to join the Army, is there any scope for me in this field? These are the questions which were raised in the counselling session, not by boys but by the girls, who were attending the session.

As many as 200 students from different colleges who had come to attend the job fest showed interest in joining the Army and attended the session.

Suresh Pandey, Naib Tehsildaar, said the Army conducted such sessions across the country whenever there were opportunities in any of the wings of the armed forces. He said this was for the first time that he was conducting the session in a city college. Through the session, they were guiding the students and resolving their queries related to defence, he said.

He added that the team also created a database of students who had shown interest and participated in the session during the joint placement fest. The students asked questions on the procedure to be followed if there was an opening.

The students were apprised of the educational qualification required and the age limit for different posts in the Army. The students were also apprised of the facilities that the Army provided.
Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 9

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said the Centre would make all efforts for improving Indias medical infrastructure and making medical facilities more integrated and affordable. Our government is working towards providing health care and health cover to the people, he said while speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32.

Stressing the need for an integrated health care system, he said there was an urgent need for replacing the existing fragmented health care system. He noted that by doing so, the pressure on super-specialty institutes such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences would reduce.

He pointed out that public spending in Indias health care industry had remained low and had resulted in a dilapidated network of government hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas.

Rajnath said 95 per cent patients going to tertiary care hospitals could be treated at the primary health care level. If the national average is taken into consideration, medical facilities in India are not adequate, especially primary health care. If primary health centres are strengthened, the burden of major institutes will reduce significantly, he said.

The minister also emphasised on the promotion of traditional medicine systems. He said his government was committed to promoting traditional medicinal systems like Ayurveda which remained untapped in India due to inadequate scientific research.

Rajnath also pointed out that the Centre was committed to promoting alternative medicine and had set up a separate AYUSH Ministry. Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modis initiative towards the promotion of yoga, he said the UN General Assembly observed June 21 as International Day of Yoga and a large chunk of the population in the West now practised yoga.

Referring to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan started by Modi, the Union Home Minister said this cause would pay rich dividends in the times to come and help in improving the health care system in the county by eliminating the main cause of illnesses.

Rajnath called on the medical fraternity to be sensitive and compassionate towards the patients. He pointed out that honesty, straightforwardness and empathy were the core values a doctor must possess. A person is known by his mission and motivation. A doctors motivation starts not in a medical school, but at the primary school and in his family, he remarked.

Quoting a mathematical equation, Rajnath exhorted the health care providers, If heart is a circle, keep increasing its circumference. The bigger the circumference, more happiness you will get.

Lauding the role of the GMCH in providing excellent medical education, the Union Home Minister said the institute was one of the best medical colleges in the country. It is a ray of hope towards taking India on the global map in the field of medicine, Rajnath said.

Earlier, Rajnath inaugurated the new academic block, known as the E Block of the GMCH.
Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

The Haryana government on Saturday stayed the online transfer orders of 475 doctors issued on Thursday night.

Health Minister Anil Vij on Saturday morning sent a WhatsApp message to all civil surgeons, SMOs and senior functionaries of the Health Department asking them not to relieve the doctors till furthers orders.

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Stop relieving of all recently online transferred doctors till further orders. Anil Vij HM, said the message.

When contacted, Vij confirmed the development and said he had constituted a committee of three senior functionaries of the Health Department to look into the "discrepancies" in the list.

He said the transfer orders would remain stayed till then.

The Tribune had highlighted how a large number of doctors were transferred against the government own policies.

The news item, 475 doctors shifted before notifying transfer policy, highlighted how doctors with a stay of less than two years had been transferred, although the governments draft transfer policy said no doctor with less than five years stay will be transferred against his or her will.

Women doctors had also been transferred to far off places against the couple case policy of the government.
As Lincoln students settle into a school routine, 14,000 of them go home each day not knowing when or what their next meal will be.

Forty-three percent of Lincoln Public Schools students participate in the governments free and reduced-price meal program.

More than 5,000 families a week receive weekend and emergency food supplies through the Food Bank of Lincolns BackPack, school food markets, emergency pantry and student-parent voucher programs.

Keeping those school food markets and emergency pantries stocked with non-perishable foods are donations from churches and other religious groups taking part in the FaithFULL Harvest Food Drive.

The second annual drive runs throughout the month of September and coincides with Hunger Action Month, said Michaella Kumke, communications director for the Food Bank.

The first FaithFULL Harvest began with 12 Lincoln congregations donating food during worship services and programs. They collected 7,667 pounds of food, enough to provide 6,389 meals -- the equivalent of what is needed to feed one family of four for one year.

The second FaithFULL Harvest kicked off Sept. 1. The goal was for 15 faith organizations to participate -- but to date only 10 have signed up: South Gate United Methodist, South Street Temple, Our Saviours Lutheran, First-Plymouth Congregational, Christ Lutheran, Saint Paul United Methodist, Sheridan Lutheran, Southwood Lutheran, First United Methodist and SouthPointe Christian churches.

Still, the food bank is optimistic that those congregations will meet the goal of 15,000 pounds of food -- or 18,000 meals.

While the drive technically ends on Sept. 30 -- South Street Temple will extend its collection through the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana (Oct. 2-4). Rabbi Craig Lewis, said pairing the food collection with Rosh Hashana fits the tenets of the Jewish faith of atonement and making amends. Donating food is a tangible way to see yourself doing something for others, Lewis said.

The FaithFULL Harvest food drive collects specific kid-friendly, shelf-stable foods such as:

* Fruits (100 percent fruit juice, Fruit Roll-ups, fruit snacks, fruit cups and dried fruit.

* Non-cereal breakfast items such as breakfast bars, oatmeal and Pop-Tarts.

* Dry mixes (cornbread, muffins and stuffing such as Stove Top).

* Kid-friendly snacks including pretzels, crackers, snacks and low-fat microwave popcorn.

It is not too late for religious organizations to join in the FaithFULL Harvest said Corrine Gernhart, community outreach assistant for the Food Bank. To sign up, call Gernhart at 402-466-8170, ext. 121.
Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, September 10

A 17-year-old boy, who was kidnapped for ransom on Thursday evening, was found murdered on Saturday morning.

The body of Kamal Midha, a Class-12 student and a resident of Nilokheri, was found in the bushes near the SYL canal on the Kachwa road. His body bore injuries by a sharp-edged weapon.

The kidnappers had demanded Rs 20 lakh for his release. The family met SP Pankaj Nain on Saturday morning to trace Amit. Minutes after the meeting with the SP, the body was recovered.

The brutal murder has enraged the locals who are angry over the lethargic attitude of the police.

The parents suspect that his friends committed the crime.

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Amit Midha, uncle of Kamal, said Kamal went to Karnal in a car on Thursday, but did not return till evening.

His mobile phone was switched off when they tried to contact him, but around 8.45 pm, an unidentified man picked up the phone and threatened to kill him in case the family failed to pay Rs 20 lakh, he said.

Amit said the kidnappers even threatened to cut the body in two and deliver it at their house.

The family, along with the police, had launched a search operation and recovered the car near the Nilokheri police post on Thursday night, he said.

Amit said had the police taken timely action Kamals life would have been saved.
Tribune News Service

Karnal, September 9

A day after Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini hinted a scam in the Haryana Civil Service (HCS) results, state BJP spokesperson Sanjay Sharma said today that the BJP did not support Sainis statement.

Saini raised question over the result on Thursday. He said of the 29 selected candidates, 13 were from the same community, which raised doubts over the transparency.

Sharma was here to invite party workers to the rally of party president Amit Shah in Jind on September 11. He said the result of the HCS was transparent and the deserving candidates had been selected.

He told the media that lethargic approach of some officials leads to the delay in development works. He said there were some irregularities in online transfer system, which would be resolved soon.

Sharma was accompanied by Nilokheri MLA Bhagwan Dass Kabirpanthi. He maintained that the BJP was working on the CMs slogan Haryana Ek-Haryanvi Ek and believed in balanced development for all.

He said the CM had announced development works of Rs 100-200 crore in each constituency during the past 23 months.
Ehsan Fazili

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 10

Two more youths were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces in South Kashmir on Saturday, taking the toll in the current unrest in the Valley to 77.

A 25-year-old youth was killed during clashes in Shopian district.

Sources said Sayar Ahmed Mir of Ganapora was critically injured in the clashes that began in Tukroo Shopian on Saturday morning.

He was struck with a shell in the head and was shifted to a local hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead, sources said. Soon after, clashes began in the area and were continuing at the time of filing this report.

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In another incident, Yawar Mushtaq Dar of Batengoo, Anantnag, was killed in clashes between protesters and security forces in the area falling on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, about 50 km from here.

There have been reports that the Army is deploying additional troops in the four districts of south KashmirAnantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopianthe epicenter of the present unrest. The maximum deaths following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani have been reported from south Kashmir districts.

Meanwhile, around 50 protesters were injured in clashes with police and CRPF men in different areas of the Valley on Saturday. Shops and business establishments are closed and the traffic is off the roads, even as preparations are underway for the Eid-ul-Azha on Tuesday.

Clashes erupted in downtown Srinagar following the death of a government driver, Abdul Qayoom of Alikadal area in the hospital, on Saturday night. While the family claims he had been beaten to death by CRPF men on Friday, police claimed that he was injured in a road accident.
New Delhi, September 10

BJPs national general secretary and its Kashmir pointman Ram Madhav today said Pakistan-based militant commander Syed Salahuddin was masterminding the ongoing unrest in the Valley through Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

In an interview to a TV channel, Madhav said the two-month long unrest  the deadliest the Valley had seen in six years  posed no threat to the PDP-BJP coalition government in the state.

He said the government was committed to bring back normalcy in the Valley before Eid  a Muslim festival that is being celebrated on Tuesday.

Stone-throwing needs to be stopped, he said and blamed United Jehad Council commander Syed Salahuddin, who is based in Muzaffarabad  the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir  for sponsoring the agitation in Kashmir.

It is led by Syed Salahuddin and certain sections get influenced by him. Geelani is leading the campaign in the Valley. There is no doubt about that. But the real masterminds are across the border, Madhav said.

The former RSS leader, credited to have cobbled together the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, denied there were any differences between the ruling partners.

We have confidence in the PDP-BJP government led by (Chief Minister) Mehbooba Mufti. It will last its full term of six years, Madhav told the TV channel when asked if the Kashmir unrest, which has left 77 people dead, had caused fissures in the coalition government.

Referring to MP Muzaffar Hussain Baigs series of media interviews asking Mehbooba to step down because the Agenda of Alliance had not been implemented, Madhav said the PDP leader should have taken up the matter with his party rather than speaking publicly about it.

He said the situation in Kashmir was definitely disturbing and had caused concern to all of us.  IANS
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 10

Two teenagers were killed in South Kashmir and more than 100 injured in clashes between protesters and the police at various places across the Kashmir valley today, taking the death toll in the ongoing violence to 77.

Barring the three police stations at Khanyar, Nowhatta and MR Gunj in downtown Srinagar and some towns, no restrictions were imposed in the Valley today, an official said. Six incidents of stone-throwing were reported from Anantnag, Kulgam, Sopore, Baramulla and Shopian. The miscreants assembled on roads and pelted the police and security personnel with stones in a bid to disrupt vehicular movement, the Divisional Commissioner said.

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Sayar Ahmad Sheikh, 15, was killed in Tukroo village of Shopian district after he was hit by a tear smoke shell on the head as the police tried to prevent a protest rally. They claimed at least 200 miscreants attacked the security personnel at Batingoo in Anantnag. The police used canes and tear gas to disperse them. Teenager Yawar Mushtaq Da was injured and taken to hospital, where he died.

At least 15 persons were injured in clashes in Nissu-Badragund village of Qazigund and eight at Hillad village of Dooru in Anantnag district.

Clashes erupted in downtown Srinagar after a government employee, Abdul Qayoom, a resident of Ali Kadal area, died in hospital last night. His family alleged he was beaten to death by CRPF personnel. But the police claimed he was injured in a road accident.

Officials claimed the civilian protests would be curtailed with the deployment of more troops in four districts of South Kashmir since the protests are driven by militants.

At least three Army battalions are being deployed in South Kashmir districts for round-the-clock patrolling.
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 10

In an embarrassment to the Modi government, the armed forces have rejected the salary and emoluments recommended by the Seventh Central Pay Commission, pleading that its implementation be put on hold in view of the unresolved anomalies that lowered the status of the forces vis-a-vis their counterparts in the police and the civil administration.

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The Ministry of Defence had issued the notification on September 6 after taking into account a letter by the three services chiefs on the issue of pay parity, among other things. This notification was exclusively for the forces.

In the past 24 hours, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force have issued separate letters to inform senior commanders and the troops about the decision of the top brass.

The Chiefs of Staff Committee had met on September 7 to discuss the issue. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is expected to take a decision on the matter on Monday.

Earlier, the notification for enhanced pay for the forces had been held up as the issues raised by the three services were being studied.

The main anomaly is that the formula adopted for determining the basic pay for the armed forces is different from the one for other Central government employees. As a result, in each rank the service officers have been awarded lower pay scales.

In March, the MoD had told an empowered panel that the status, pay and allowances of the armed forces be kept above the other fighting arms of the government.
Shahjahanpur (UP), September 10

A 34-year-old NRI was allegedly murdered by his wife and her paramour during a vacation in India, police said.

Sukhjit Singh, an NRI, was murdered on September 1 allegedly by his wife Ramandeep Kaur Mann (31) who colluded with her husband's best friend Gurpreet Singh alias Mitthu during their visit to Uttar Pradesh's Banda district last month, they said.

Ramandeep admitted to put sleeping pills in her family's dinner and let Gurpreet in the house, police claimed.

"Gurpreet reached her house at 10 pm following which they went upstairs. Gurpreet hit Sukhjit Singh on the head with a hammer, while Ramandeep smothered him using a pillow. They suspected he was still alive so Gurpreet slit his throat using a butcher's knife, which he had brought with him," police claimed.

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Sukhjit was sleeping next to his sons, aged six and nine.

While Gurpreet was arrested moments before he was due to board a flight to Dubai, Ramandeep "confessed" to the crime on hearing about his arrest, police claimed.

Sukhjit and Gurpreet had been school friends in UP and remained close after the former moved to Britain, where he married Ramandeep in 2005.

Ramandeep's affair with Gurpreet apparently began during a family holiday in November last year. She grew up in Berkshire, south-east England, and works as a store manager in Derby, in the East Midlands region of England.

Vrijendra Singh Yadav, Superintendent of District jail where Ramandeep is lodged, said the British High Commission is taking report on her on daily basis and a team from there is likely to come over in a couple of days. PTI
Our Correspondent

Jaipur, September 10

A senior RAS officer on Saturday accused her husband OP Meena who is Chief Secretary in the Vasundhara Raje government of sexually harassing and torturing their daughter when she was in her teens.

After running from pillar to post for a couple of years, Meenas estranged wife has now demanded a CBI probe into the allegations and his demotion with immediate effect.

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The current Chief Secretary in the Raje government has also physically assaulted me, damaging my eyes and causing fractures in my limbs besides insulting me. He has been inflicting torture on me since 1984, Geeta Singh, who is presently posted in the Administrative Reforms Department, told the media at her residence.

I have lodged an FIR with the Mahila Thana (West) in Jaipur on September 5, 2015, under Sections 498A and 406 of IPC for cruelty and breach of trust. The investigating officer has also prepared a report and found my husband guilty but the case would not move further as members of the politically-powerful Meena community wont let this happen, she alleged.

She had also moved the High Court in February 2016 and claimed that her daughter, now 34 and studying in London, had, on April 24, 2016, emailed to the HC her written complaint accusing Meena of sexual harassment, but no action was initiated so far.

Since he is holding a top post in the bureaucracy, there should be a CBI probe into the allegations, said Geeta. She also sought demotion of OP Meena from the post of CS so that a free and fair probe could be ensured.

The Chief Secretary was not available for comment. Jaipur Police Commissionerate is not denying that a case has been lodged with Mahila Thana by Geeta.
New York, September 10

India-born student Dharun Ravi, who had served a 20-day prison term for spying on his gay roommate who later committed suicide, won a major legal reprieve after a New Jersey appeals court threw out his conviction and ordered a new trial.

In a 61-page ruling issued on Friday, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey in Newark said the jury had found Ravi guilty of bias intimidation under a law that was later deemed constitutionally defunct.

Ravi, a former Rutgers University student, was convicted in March 2012 on 15 counts of bias intimidation, invasion of privacy, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence for spying on the sexual encounter of his roommate Tyler Clementi, 18 with another man through a webcam in September 2010. Days later, Clementi had committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington bridge near here.

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Ravi was not charged with causing or contributing to Clementis death.

Ravi, now 24, was sentenced to a month in Middlesex County jail and was released in June 2016 after completing 20 days in prison and getting five days credit for good behaviour.

Ravi, who had faced up to 10 years in prison, had also been sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to do 300 hours of community service and pay a fine of about 11,000 dollars.

Ravis attorney Steve Altman told the Wall Street Journal he was pleased with courts decision.

We genuinely felt that the basis of the conviction and the basis of the presentation of the states case were wrong, Altman said.

Dharun Ravi, whatever he did or didnt do, had no homophobic motive involved.

The case had garnered international attention and Clementis suicide had sparked an outrage in the country, giving rise to a debate on cyberbullying and treatment of young gays and lesbians.

In April 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court had ruled that the states bias-intimidation law was unconstitutional, giving hope to Ravi and his lawyers that his conviction would be reversed and he will be accorded a new trial.

According to the earlier state statute on bias intimidation, defendants can be convicted of bias intimidation if their victims reasonably believed they were harassed or intimidated because of their race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

However, the state Supreme Court had unanimously ruled that the 2001 statute was unconstitutionally vague, striking down the third section of the statute that focused on the victims state of mind.

The ruling had said it is the defendants intent and state of mind that is important, not the victims.

In the new ruling, the Appellate judges said it is clear that the evidence the (prosecution) presented to prove the bias intimidation charges permeated the entire case against defendant, rendering any attempt to salvage the convictions under the remaining charges futile.

Finally, we conclude that the evidence the State presented to prove the charges (on bias intimidation) tainted the jurys verdict on the remaining charges, depriving defendant of his constitutional right to a fair trial, they said.

The prosecution used evidence revealing the victims reserved demeanor and expressions of shame and humiliation as a counterweight to defendants cavalier indifference and unabashed insensitivity to his roommates right to privacy and dignity, the panel of judges said, adding that it was unreasonable to expect a rational juror to remain unaffected by this evidence.

While ordering a new trial for Ravi on 10 other counts that included invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence, the judges said their verdict does not in any way condone his acts.

They said the social environment that transformed a private act of sexual intimacy into a grotesque voyeuristic spectacle must be unequivocally condemned in the strongest possible way.

The fact that this occurred in a university dormitory, housing first-year college students, only exacerbates our collective sense of disbelief and disorientation. They said the sense of loss associated with a young man taking his own life defies our meager powers of reason and tests our resolve to seek consolation.

In a written statement, Clementis parents, Joe and Jane Clementi, said the decision shows us how much more work there is to be done, and will push us forward with stronger determination to create a kinder, more empathetic society where every person is valued and respected.

We know that Tylers private moments were stolen from him and used to humiliate him. His life was forever affected and the lives of those who knew and loved him have been forever changed.  PTI
A Lincoln judge has ruled that a woman mistakenly released from a Nebraska prison five years early owes the time, minus 299 days she was at liberty and didn't commit any crimes.

Robin Banks was among three test cases chosen by the Nebraska Attorney General's Office to determine what to do with others like them: inmates who were released early due to an error by the Department of Correctional Services, then got into more legal trouble before their sentences would have ended.

Jordan Lybarger and Peirce Hubbard-Williams were the other two.

In November 2014, Assistant Attorney General James Smith filed a motion in each of the cases asking the court to enter orders to enforce the sentences by making findings about how much of the sentences have yet to be served.

The move came in reaction to a massive prison failure over sentencing calculations for habitual criminals and others convicted of certain gun, drug and child sex assault charges that come with mandatory minimum terms.

In all, the prison system admitted miscalculating sentences for 750 inmates and releasing more than 200 of them early because of a flawed method of applying good-time credit to discharge dates.

This July, the state dropped its motion to enforce Lybarger's sentence because he committed new crimes and went back in prison on other charges.

Smith cited a Nebraska Supreme Court decision in April that determined the state Corrections Department didn't have authority to release an inmate before completing the sentence imposed by the court.

"The appropriate remedy for the department's erroneous premature release of an inmate is to credit the inmate with the time spent at liberty to the remaining time on his sentence provided the inmate committed no crimes while at liberty," Smith wrote.

In an order issued Thursday in Banks' case, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson found that the prison should have released Banks on her forgery charge Sept. 7, 2014, not Sept. 7, 2009, as it did.

But she could have been paroled.

Banks was sentenced to prison again in 2013 for another forgery. On Nov. 1, 2015, her parole expired.

Nelson gave Banks, 59, credit for the little more than 10 months she's been out of prison since then but said she still owes four years and two months.

She stayed her order to allow the Board of Parole the opportunity to consider granting her parole for the remainder of her sentence.
Peshawar, September 10

A 31-year-old Indian prisoner, sentenced by a military court here for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card, has been shifted to a separate cell after he was attacked thrice by fellow inmates.

Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online, was shifted last month by prison authorities after receiving direction from Peshawar High Court to adopt security measures for protecting him.

A division bench comprising Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan on August 4 had directed Prison Superintendent Masoodur Rehman to hold a meeting with human rights activist Rakhshanda Naz and find a solution for safety and security of Ansari, The Nation reported.

Ansari was attacked and injured three times over the last couple of months and shifted to the hospital for treatment, the counsel added.

He said even the head warden would subject him to brutality and slap him on a daily basis without any reason.

Anwar said that Ansari lodged a complaint about this with the superintendent.

Superintendent of the prison Masoodur Rehman confirmed the incidents but insisted they're of minor nature and that such incidents did happen in prisons.

Rehman also told the bench that Ansari, who was serving three years jail term, had been kept in the death cell.

Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed on January 13 that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court.

He was convicted by the military court for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card and sentenced to three years imprisonment.  PTI
Our Correspondent

Jaipur, September 10

In the second such incident in less than three months, a MiG-21 trainer jet of the Air Force crashed near Barmer in Rajasthan today. Both the pilots were able to eject safely.

The plane had taken off on a routine sortie from Uttarlai airbase and crashed in an open field near Malio Ki Dhani, about 20 km from Barmer. The plane caught fire as it fell in an agriculture field around 12.15 pm.

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No loss of property was reported from the ground, said a defence spokesperson, adding that a court of inquiry had been ordered.

On June 13, a MiG-27 had crashed in a residential area of Jodhpur. Three persons had received minor injuries as it dashed against the wall of a house where a number of people were present.
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 10



Countries not visited by President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the tenure of the BJP-led NDA will now be visited by top ministers in the government.

According to government officials, Swaraj has prepared a list of the ministers keeping in mind their portfolios and interests. So while Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is headed to Estonia and Latvia, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Hungary, they say.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where Indian ministers have not gone, Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, said her ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all interactions in the visiting countries would be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary would be made accordingly.

Apparently, the PM is keen that senior members of his team establish contact with all 192 countries. The External Affairs Minister, on behalf of the Prime Minister, has prepared the list and asked her ministerial colleagues to complete the target by December this year, they say.

Mauritius has been assigned to Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and his counterpart in the Agriculture MinistryRadha Mohan Singhhas been given Surinam. Surface and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is headed to Panama and Nicaragua while Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will visit Bosnia.

The aim, they say, is to make Indias presence felt in the countries which have not been visited by the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister in the tenure of the BJP-led NDA. It is part of the governments massive outreach programme to enhance bilateral ties and explore areas of cooperation, official sources said.
Chennai, September 10

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said the 21st century is witnessing strife of a very virulent nature and called for capable and responsive armed forces to ensure stability and peace.

Stating that security challenges go much beyond conventional borders and threats in the international arena, including a sizeable diaspora, he said, India requires young men and women to take up the challenge of navigation through troubled waters and work tirelessly and selflessly even at the peril of their lives in the service of country.

Our security challenges in fact go much beyond conventional borders and conventional threats in the international arena including a sizeable diaspora to protect in unstable regions in the world, energy security issues and protection of maritime sea lanes, he said.

Addressing the officers on the occasion of review of the passing-out parade of the summer term at the Officers Training Academy, Mukherjee said the country has reposed faith in armed forces in internal crisis situations, both man-made and natural.

All these challenges demand a capable and responsive armed forces to ensure stability and peace, so vital for our country on its path of peace and prosperity for all its citizens, he said.

The 21st century has ushered in its own set of challenges, he said.

Though turbulence and uncertainty have manifested all along in the history of mankind, this century is witnessing chaos and strife of a very virulent nature comprising asymmetric warfare involving both state and non-state actors, Mukherjee added.

The Indian Army represents the Instrument of Last Resort, he said, adding that the acme of a great and powerful army does not lie in the power it can unleash but the manner and dexterity with which it does so.

Earlier, the President reviewed the impressive parade commanded by Academy Under Officer Varun Singh Chauhan.

Notably, this was the third time in the 53-year-old history of Officers Training Academy in Chennai that the Supreme Commander of Indian Armed Forces was reviewing the parade.

A total of 269 Officer Cadets, including 217 Gentleman Cadets and 32 Lady Cadets, 19 Gentleman Cadets and one Lady Cadet from the friendly nations, including Afghanistan, Bhutan, Lesotho and Fiji, were commissioned as officers following completion of a vigorous training course at the OTA.

Mukherjee gave away the coveted Sword of Honour for the best all-round gentlemen/Lady Cadet of the passing-out course to AUO Varun Singh Chauhan.

The gold medal for standing first in Order of Merit was awarded to Battalion Under Officer Alla Shridhar. The silver medal was awarded to Academy Cadet Adjutant Divya Tyagi and the bronze medal was awarded to BUO Rakesh TR.

The banner for Champion Company was awarded to Mektila Company.

The Officer Cadets were piped as officers by their parents and the event was followed by an oath taking ceremony and the National Anthem.

The President briefly interacted with the cadets and their parents after the ceremony.  PTI
Jaipur, September 10

Geeta Singh, posted in the Administrative Reforms Department, today accused her husband, Chief Secretary OP Meena, of having sexually harassed and tortured their daughter while she was a teenager. She demanded that Meena be immediately demoted. The Chief Secretary was not available for comment,

Addressing the media at her residence, Geeta Singh said: I lodged an FIR with the mahila police station (west) in Jaipur on September 5, 2015, under Sections 498-A and 406 for cruelty and breach of trust. An investigating officer prepared a report and found my husband guilty. But nothing happened after that.

She then moved the High Court in February 2016. She said her daughter, now studying in London, emailed the High Court against her father on April 24, 2016, but no action was taken against him.  OC
Jitendra K Shrivastava

Tribune News Service

Patna, September 10

Mohammad Shahabuddin, RJD strongman and former MP from Siwan, was on Saturday released on bail from the Bhagalpur Central Jail after 11 years of imprisonment in different jails of Bihar.

The Patna High Court granted him bail in 2004 acid bath case in which two brothers were killed in Siwan. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.

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Victims father Chanda Babu expressed his unwillingness to fight against Shahabuddin in the Apex Court saying: "The one who should be hanged to death was released on bail and the state government has failed to deliver justice to me even after my two sons were killed.

Shahabuddin, who is a member of RJD National Committee - the top decision making body of the party- and is known to be close to the RJD chief, said categorically that he never enjoyed good relations with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Shahabbudin said: "Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is the Chief Minister of circumstances.

"For me Lalu Prasad is the leader," said the controversial leader, who has been a four-time MP from Siwan, as he emerged out of the jail and left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.

Various pending cases against Shahabuddin were reopened and he was sent to jail after Kumar had assumed power in 2005.

He was, however, quick to add that it was the court, which sent him to jail and the court again, which ordered his release from the jail. Shahabuddin was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers.

He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district. Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and "We all are standing solidly behind him."

He said after reaching Siwan he would meet the family of journalist Rajdeo Nandan, who was shot dead recently.

Shahabuddin's close associate Laddan Mian is in jail in connection with the scribe's murder and though the inquiry into it has so far not named the RJD strongman, he was shifted to Bhagalpur divisional jail from Siwan a little after the incident.

The Nitish Kumar government had recommended CBI probe into the murder on demand of the scribe's family.

Asked by newsmen whether his prolonged jail term had harmed him politically, Shahabuddin said, "A little damage has happened."

His wife Heena Sahab lost to Om Prakash Yadav of the BJP in the last parliamentary election from Siwan in 2014.

Asked how he spent his time in jail, the RJD leader said he is an avid reader. "Out of four cartons I am taking back from jail, two are full of books which I read during my stay." To a question on senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi's allegation that the Grand Secular Alliance government had paved way for his release as RJD is the major partner in it, Shahabuddin said, "There is no need to take Sushil Modi seriously."

"During his early days in the Bihar Assembly in the 1990s, I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts," he said.

Meanwhile, police have beefed up security in Siwan.

With PTI inputs
Jitendra K Shrivastava

Siwan (Bihar), September 10

After having spent 11 years in jail, RJD strongman and former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin walked out on bail amid cheers of supporters today. Shahabuddin is facing at least 39 cases of murder, kidnap and extortion.

Soon after he walked out of the Bhagalpur Central Jail, Shahabuddin stirred up a row by saying his leader was RJDs Lalu Prasad, not Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

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Shahabuddin was jailed during Nitishs first tenure (2005-2010) for the killing of two brothers, whose bodies were found bathed in acid in November 2005. As he came out of the jail, he said: For me, Lalu is the leader and Nitish is a leader of circumstances.

Nitish, who was in Jamshedpur to attend a function, is yet to comment on his remark. Bihar BJP reacted sharply to Shahabuddins release, claiming his bail had been managed by the state government. The state government has paved the way for Shahabuddin to secure bail, said former Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Modi.

Sahabuddin aka Saheb, clad in white kurta and pyjamas, was received by supporters as he emerged from the jail with books, including the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. On any possible change he felt during his time, he said: No change at all.

His wife Hena said: I never conversed with or met Saheb over the past 11 years.... Both good and bad times come, but they pass. The time has now come to see him. I have prepared mutton istu (mutton with simple spice) for him.

During Lalu Prasads regime in 1990s, Siwan witnessed a reign of terror with very few daring to raise their head against Saheb. Recently, Laddan Mian, an aide of Shahabuddin, was arrested for the killing of Rajdev Ranjan, a journalist working with a local daily.

Rajdev is believed to have been killed for reporting the holding of darbar by Saheb in Siwan jail, even though Shahabuddins direct link is yet to be established.
Islamabad: Opposition members in Pakistan have accused the Nawaz Sharif government of misleading the Senate by concealing information about the Pathankot terror attack in India, it was reported on Saturday. The accusations came on Friday when PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar alleged that the government was patronising militants, a claim Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq strongly denied, the Express News reported.

Why else did the government not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House? asked Babar.  PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 10

Countries not visited by President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj so far will now be logged by top ministers in the NDA government.

According to government functionaries, Swaraj has prepared an itinerary for ministers keeping in mind their portfolios and interests. So while law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is headed to Estonia and Latvia, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be visiting Hungary, they say.

Noting that by 2016-end, the government will not leave any country where the ministers have not gone, Swaraj, in letters to the ministers, has said her ministry has identified 68 nations yet to be visited by them.

She has also conveyed that all the interactions in the visiting countries will be arranged by the respective ambassadors and, in case a minister was interested in visiting certain places in those countries, their itinerary will be made accordingly.

Apparently, the PM is keen that senior members of his team establish contact with all 192 countries in the world. The External Affairs Minister on behalf of the Prime Minister, has prepared the list and asked her ministerial colleagues to complete the target by December, this year, they say.

Mauritius has been assigned to Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Surinam to Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh. Surface and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is headed to Panama and Nicargua, while Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will be visiting Bosnia.
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 10

In a scathing attack against the Congress, the BJP on Saturday asked its political rival to explain if the Rs 50-lakh donation received by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust from an NGO run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik was a bribe given by those in power during its government to provide shelter to illegal and anti-national activities of Naik and his Peace TV.

Notably, the RGCT is a part of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation whose members includes Whos Who of the Congress, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Vadra.

As per the Congress, the RGCT has returned the donation to the NGO  Islamic Research Foundation  run by Naik.

However, according to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the fact that the money was taken from those engaged in illegal and anti-national activities itself demonstrated the casual approach of the Congress-led dispensation towards matters related national security.

Notably, Naik and his Peace TV came into the limelight following the July 2016 Bangladesh terror attack.

As per Prasad in December 2012, then I&B minister Manish Tewari, in a reply to Lok Sabha, gave a list of 24 illegal foreign channels the content of which was not conducive with the security environment of the country and posed a potential security hazard.

Number two on the list was Peace TV, the founder of which is Naik who is now accused of radicalising youths, Prasad said.

As per Prasad, if the then government knew of the activities of the Peace TV run by Naik, why was the money RGF received in 2011 not returned then?

Our apprehensions are that the heavy donation (Rs 50 lakh) was a bribe given at that point in time to the powers that be to shelter his (Naiks) illegal and anti-national activities. It needs to be seen how many terrorists have been inspired by Zakir Naik. The Congress casual approach towards national security is both appalling and shocking, Prasad said.

As per officials, Naiks NGO had given donations to the allied entity of RGF  the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT), which engages in promoting girl education and providing money to needy for meeting hospital expenses.

Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) spokesperson Aarif Malik has been quoted as saying the money had been given to the NGO RGCT, which was also registered under the FCRA in 2011, and it was returned in July this year after a terror attack in a Dhaka restaurant.

However, Prasad, while doubting whether the money had been returned as yet, also questioned whether the RGF is duly registered under the FCRA. Does it mean you (RGF) will also get money from outside and from those getting money from outside, he wondered.

As per Prasad, if Naik had to donate the money he received from outside, he should have taken permission from the Home Ministry.

Did he take the permission from the Home Ministry, Prasad questioned. The IRF, NGO run by Salafist preacher Naik, is embroiled in a controversy because of allegations that he was inciting youth for terror.
A week after Tecumseh State Correctional Institution was locked down because of threats against employees there, an inmate sent three staff members to Johnson County Hospital with minor injuries, according to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

An inmate assaulted a staff member Friday, and during the effort to restrain him, he was able to strike two others, spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said in a news release Friday evening. All three were released from the hospital after treatment, she said.

On Sept. 2, the prison in Tecumseh was placed in a lockdown status while the Correction Department's intelligence team, prison staff and Corrections security managers investigated the credibility of threats. Since then, out-of-cell time has been restored gradually except in one housing unit, where information and behavior did not support that, Smith said.

Friday's assault happened in that unit while the inmate was out of his cell to shower and use the phone, she said.

I just spoke with inmates from this housing unit this morning and we were prepared to increase movement and move toward more normal operations, Warden Brad Hansen said in the news release. Increased movement will be based on inmate behavior and take staff safety into account.
Samrala (Pb), September 10

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today hit out at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying anyone aspiring to be the Chief Minister of Punjab should have his roots in the state's culture and ethos as Punjabi pride and self-respect will not allow the rule by an "outsider".

"It is the question of Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat which only a Punjabi can feel and understand," he said.

Referring to Kejriwal's announcement yesterday that Anandpur Sahib would be made a holy city if AAP is voted to power in the state, Amarinder said Kejriwal did not even have the "basic knowledge" that Amritsar and Anandpur Sahab were already officially declared holy cities.

"This is encyclopedic ignorance that is natural for someone who is alien to the history and culture of the place.

At least you won't expect such stupid and silly mistakes from a native Punjabi," he said on the sidelines of the 'Halke Vich Captain' programme.

On Independent MLA brothers Simarjit Singh Bains and Balwinder Singh Bains, who are part of Awaaz-e-Punjab front of Navjot Singh Sidhu, being "physically moved out" of the Assembly for disrupting proceedings, Amarinder said it should have been avoided.

Although the Speaker was within his right to order such action, he should have avoided it and the legislators should have been allowed to put forth their point of view since they are democratically elected representatives of the people, the Congress leader said.

To a question on party MP Shamsher Singh Dullo not being invited to party functions, Amarinder claimed invitations are extended to all leaders irrespective of their seniority.

"Moreover Dullo is our Rajya Sabha member and it is out of question that he may not have been invited," he said, adding however no invitations are extended to anyone for the 'Halke vich Captain' programme.

Earlier, interacting with people, Amarinder claimed, the Akalis have lost all moral authority to "wail and whine" over the discrimination with Punjab.

"It is the Akalis, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in particular, who have repeatedly betrayed Punjab and compromised with its interests by successive betrayals," he alleged.

Amarinder promised that all the party workers who were victimised and discriminated against by the Akalis will get preferential treatment if his party comes to power.

He also said that all the cases against the party workers victimised will be cancelled and those responsible for registering those will be punished.

Congress to go alone in Punjab polls

Capt Amarinder Singh today ruled out the possibility of an alliance with any political party or group in the upcoming state assembly polls and claimed that the party was firmly placed for a "landslide victory" in the elections.

Singh said that he had suggested a broad based alliance of secular forces earlier, but the situation and circumstances have now changed and the party was way ahead of others.

He said while the People's Party of Punjab and Shiromani Akali Dal-Longowal had already merged into the Congress, the BSP has decided to contest of it alone.  PTI
Ruchika M Khanna and Sanjeev S Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 9

Independent MLAs from Ludhiana Balwinder Singh Bains and Simarjit Singh Bains, who on Thursday launched Awaz-e-Punjab along with Navjot Singh Sidhu and Jalandhar Cantt MLA Pargat Singh, were thrown out of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha complex today.

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They were lifted by the watch and ward staff for disrupting House proceedings and thrown out of the Vidhan Sabha. It is perhaps for the first time in the history of Punjab Vidhan Sabha that sitting MLAs have been physically thrown out.

The trouble began after zero hour when Simarjit pushed for a private member's resolution on Punjab not claiming royalty from Rajasthan for its river waters. Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal disallowed the resolution. He wanted the House to discuss Dr BR Ambedkar's contribution to the Constitution as part of his 125th birth anniversary celebrations instead. Simarjit continued to speak on the issue and was warned he would have to leave the House.The MLA paid no heed.

The Speaker then asked the ward and watch staff to take him away. Balwinder too rose from his seat in solidarity with his brother. Papers in hand, the Bains brothers rushed into the well of the House even as Congress MLAs seemed unsure whether or not to join their protest.

Thrown out, the Bains brothers approached mediapersons at the press gallery. Just then 60-odd policemen in mufti and the watch and ward staff gathered there, listening carefully to what the MLAs had to say. The brothers talked about the repressive Badal government and its "high-handedness."

Later, Simarjit tried to re-enter the House but was prevented from doing so. In protest, he sat outside the main entrance and raised slogans against the government.

The Bains brothers clearly stole the limelight while the 40-odd Congress MLAs failed to make their presence felt with one of them deflecting an attack on the treasury benches with a pro-government speech.

The brothers said since 1965, Rajasthan was being supplied 11.2 MAF of Punjabs river waters. However, no rate had been fixed for the same. Accusing the Badals of deliberately not raising the issue with the Rajasthan Government "as the family owns land in Rajasthan," they claimed the accumulated dues came to a staggering Rs 15,34,400 crore.

Congress MLA Sunil Jakhar maintained the issue raised by the brothers was legally untenable. He too was attacked by them.
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 10

Election Commissioner AK Joti has said that as Punjab shares its border with Pakistan, cross-border terrorism is always a potential threat to the state and more so, during elections.

There may be some cross-border action just to spoil the atmosphere ahead of the Assembly elections in the state. So, central armed forces will be deployed to prevent any such move by hostile forces, said Joti.

Joti said this after holding a day-long review meeting with Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner HS Nanda, deputy commissioners of seven districts and top police officials of the state.

He said that for the first time in Punjab, voting would be held with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT)-enabled EVMs to enhance transparency. VVPAT is a printer-like machine attached to the EVMs that allows the voters to verify if their vote has been cast correctly.

He said that the draft voter roll was published on September 7. The EC would accept claims and objections by October 7 and the final roll would be published on January 2 next year.

Punjab has a projected current population of 2.95 crore with 1.92 crore registered voters. Over 85 per cent voters have got their Aadhaar number seeded with their voter card and the state has achieved 100 per cent target in issuing election photo identification card (EPIC).
Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

Stirring the caste and religious pot for electoral gains in the upcoming Assembly elections, the Akali-BJP government has tried to woo their majority vote bank of Sikhs by approving the draft of Punjab Anand Marriage Rules, and is once again flirting with the Saini and Swarankar communities by including them in the Backward Classes.

These decisions were taken in the Punjab Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today. The government also announced a slew of concessions to the poor among the above mentioned communities. These include 15 per cent reservation in jobs as well as in educational institutions; scholarships and stipend meant for BCs; and free domestic power supply of up to 200 units a month.

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The benefits will only be given to those Saini and Swarankar families whose annual income is less than Rs8 lakh per annum. There are 69 castes in the Backward Classes which constitute 22 per cent of the state's population. Sainis constitute 9 per cent of the population mostly settled in Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Anandpur Sahib and Patiala.

A few years ago, the Jats, the dominant community in Punjab, too had raised the demand for getting the Backward Class status, which was also approved by the Cabinet, but its notification has not yet been done.

Brahmin Sabhas general secretary Bihari Lal Saddi has already started raising demand for the grant of similar benefits to the 40-lakh Brahmin population in the state, claiming that they be declared a minority.

Meanwhile, the government has also decided to allot 5-marla plots to landless people in villages on the village common land (Jumla Mustarka Maalkaan) by amending the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948.

The Punjab Anand Marriage Rules ensure that Sikh marriages registered under the Anand Marriage Act need not be registered again under the Punjab Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act. This has been a long standing demand of the Sikhs  a major vote bank of the Panthic party.

The government also amended the Punjab Minor Mineral Rules that makes the stone crusher policy to regulate the working of crushers and control the prices of sand and aggregate legally tenable.

Another meeting tomorrow

With several bills to be introduced in the ongoing Vidhan Sabha session not yet ready, the government has convened another Cabinet meeting on Monday. These bills will be approved by the Cabinet before being presented in the House.
Kanwarjit Singh Kang

A rather unusual place to look for art would be samadhs or tombs, but in Punjab, they are a treasure trove. Samadhs of common ancestors or traditionally venerated elders were everywhere and these were not the sole preserves of any single community. In order to attract and impress the masses on anniversaries or on festive occasions, mahants of these samadhs pressed into service the art of mural painting and similar embellishments to create an aura of sanctity and glory. During the 18th and 19th century, the process of deification helped promote the art a lot.

One such place of interest is the dera or monastery of the Maihma Sahi branch of the Nirmalas, located in the vicinity of Lopon, a village near Doraha Mandi in district Ludhiana.

The Maihma Sahi branch of the Nirmalas, a monastic order of the Sikhs, was founded by Baba Mohar Singh. According to Avtar Singh Lakhbir, who wrote about this sect in his 1942 book Jivan Moti, Baba Mohar Singh was a poet-saint who belonged to the house of Bhai Daya Singh, one of the Panj Pyare or Five Beloved of Shri Guru Gobind Singh. Baba Mohar Singh died in 1835.

His monastery and samadh at Lopon offers an interesting study of the art and architecture of religious establishments of the 19th century Punjab. The impressive edifice, shaped as a mini-citadel, has been built in traditional style with small-sized bricks, having broad walls and a tapering gateway with recessed corners. The architectural space of the monastery is compartmentalised to meet the needs of the daily religious routine of the sect.

The most impressive structure within the complex, however, is the samadh itself, which stands before the monastery. According to Avtar Singh Lakhbir, this samadh was built by Bir Singh Rangrez, a disciple of Baba Mohar Singh. An octagonal-based structure, it stands on an elevated terrace and is approached by a flight of steps. The samadh has an octagonal circumambulatory path with its corners having miniature cupolas.

The interiors of the walls are embellished with murals that suggest a religious culture. Most of the murals show people playing various traditional musical instruments of India as the Maihma Sahi sect had been propagating its religious beliefs through singing. An alluring panel shows full length portraits of Baba Mohar Singh and his associate, both playing sitars.

In a mural panel, Guru Gobind Singh is depicted riding on a horse, holding a falcon and accompanied by a hound. In another panel, the Guru is depicted engaged in a religious discourse. A mural illustrates Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers, demonstrating his supreme physical prowess by lifting two elephants. Namdev, the poet-saint from Maharashtra, is also depicted in one of the murals.

The varying style of paintings hints that the art work was executed by diverse hands. Some paintings are fine works, while others betray mediocrity and rigidness. It is to be noted in this context that those engaged in wall-painting were not exclusively muralists. They also worked as masons, naqqashs (designers), chiteras or musawars (painters) and did mohra-kashi (frescoes), jaratkari (stone-inlay) and allied works. The varied nature of their work was best indicated in the vernacular word by which they were known: Raj mistri.

This monastery was, in the past, a storehouse of religious manuscripts, a few of which were said to have been illustrated. The collection, however, was committed to a burial in water as this was considered a pious act. Regrettably, this means a major loss to scholars and students of history, religion and allied subjects.
Jasmine Singh

For a casual tourist visiting Ferozepur, Punjab, a trip to Hussainiwala border is usually a major attraction. Thereafter comes a visit to the local market or maybe the dargah. Only and only if you are a history buff, theres a decent probability of a visit to the Saragarhi Memorial.

Located in the Ferozepur Cantonment area, the Saragarhi Memorial was built to commemorate the memory and valour of 21 Sikhs who laid down their lives in the Battle of Saragarhi on September 12, 1897.

The memorial has been constructed on the lines of the Saragarhi Fort; it has a gurdwara inside, where each year, on September 12, a kirtan darbar is organised. Descendents of the 21 Sikh martyrs of Saragarhi are among the special invitees which also include local leaders, politicians and soldiers of the Indian Army.

This day is marked in history as one of valour and bravery. It was on this day that the British Indian contingent, comprising 21 Sikhs of the 36th Sikh (now the 4th Battalion of the Sikh regiment), stationed at an army post, was attacked by around 10,000 Afghans. All 21 Sikh soldiers fought bravely and defended the post till their last breath. The battle is considered as one of the great last-stands in history.

The 21 Sikh non-commissioned officers, led by Havildar Ishar Singh, and soldiers of the other ranks who laid down their lives in the Battle of Saragarhi were from Ferozepur district in Punjab. They were posthumously awarded the Indian Order of Merit (equivalent to Victoria Cross) by the British authorities.

Annual celebrations

Every year on 12th September, the sevadars at the Ferozepur Memorial Gurdwara, along with the Army personnel of the area, organise a grand function, where fifth-generation family members of the 21 Sikh soldiers, who come from different areas of Punjab and abroad, are honoured with a siropa.

Bhai Bilambar Singh has been looking after the Saragarhi gurdwara in Ferozepur since 2004. He has seen a welcome increase in the number of visitors to the memorial, especially around and on the D-day! The preparations for this day start a month in advance. The premises of the memorial are cleaned, and everything is set in order, he shares while talking about the most important part of the preparation, which is sending out letters, and making phone calls to the descendents of the 21 brave Sikh soldiers, who laid down their lives in the battle. Each year, the Sainik Welfare Office prepares a list of the family members of the Sikh soldiers, who are intimated about the function through a letter or a phone call. The good part is that many members from their families do make it to the ceremony, adds Bhai Bilambar. They also arrange for buses to fetch ex-servicemen from nearby villages to attend the function.

The flip side

While on one hand, the Saragarhi Memorial in Ferozepur sees a record number of people on September 12, another memorial, a Saragarhi gurdwara in Amritsar, stands in complete contrast, with a handful of visitors wandering into the premises out of curiosity. The Saragarhi gurdwara in Amritsar is viewed by locals as just a domed structure who do not have any clue about its existence in their own city!

Even the locals do not know about this place, forget about the outsiders, shares a person sitting inside the gurdwara, requesting anonymity. Though wanting to remain unnamed, he wants to voice his concern too. I dont see many visitors to gurdwara, its only once in while that someone walks in and is usually startled by the importance of this place. As far as celebrations for September 12 are concerned, they are nothing great. The descendents of the martyr Sikhs chose to go to Ferozepur instead, he shrugs helplessly.

Battle for survival

Both Saragarhi memorials were once looked after by the Army, where faujis from the Sikh regiment would make langar and do kirtan. Ever since the two historical places have come under the jurisdiction of the Punjab Government, things have changed, not for better at least, Santokh Singh, a fifth-generation family member of Havildar Ishar Singh, minces no words while talking about the present state of the memorials.

Santokh Singhs family has built a samarak in the memory of late Ishar Singh at their own village, Cholda, Raipur tehsil, Ludhiana district. Each year, mostly on September 15, a function is organised at the samarak. Ishar Singhs family informs the local battalion about the ceremony, who then informs the Sikh regiment of that area. Till the time the Army was taking care of the memorials, everything was good, now things are not that great. Since we also have to organise our function at Ludhiana, we do not get time to attend the Saragarhi ceremony at Ferozepur.

From the pages of history

As family members of the martyr Sikh soldiers have taken it upon themselves to keep the memories of the heroes from their families alive, many Sikh historians have their own take on the Battle of Saragarhi. Ludhiana-based Punjabi scholar and critic Tejwant Gill has read quite a bit on Saragarhi, but he is not too convinced with the information that has been provided in various books and articles. We do not have any accurate information about the location of the Saragarhi village. Whatever information we have about Saragarhi comes from British, and we do not have any account of it directly.

Author Khan Barmazid in his book Analysis of Battle of Saragarhi: The Lies We Are Told has come out with some startling observations and questions. Khan writes: Sikhs and other Indians have made a claim, that Ten thousand or 14,000 Afghans attacked the Saragarhi post where 21 soldiers from the 36th Regiment were stationed. Perhaps its based on some estimates given by British authors, but British military reports of 1897-98 have never made such a claim. The fact is the number of Pashtun attackers on Saragarhi fort can never be determined by any estimation given by the British.

He raises yet another question, Why did Sikh soldiers not surrender in the battle? As per a chapter in his book, British reports mention Sikh soldiers torturing and mutilating their Pashtun captives so Pashtuns, too, would not take Sikhs as prisoners but torture and kill them. Sikh soldiers at the Saragarhi post knew very well that they had no option of surrendering or negotiating with the enemy, so they fought desperately to the last man, while waiting for the arrival of reinforcements.

All these questions, however, do not undermine the status of the event, which is still one of the eight stories of collective bravery published by Unesco. It was a significant event, one-of-its kind, the one that is still fresh in the minds of at least those who take a moment on September 12 to read a little more on this historical event!
Sujoy Dhar

Remember the spectacular David Leans 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia? The towering Anthony Quinn as an Arab chieftain hollering: It is my pleasure that you dine with me in Wadi Rum!

The scenes then break into a sweeping canvas of soldiers on horse and camel backs galloping for a face-off in a desert dotted with Bedouin camps.

Well relive Lawrence of Arabia and more in Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon), which British writer-archaeologist-diplomat T. E. Lawrence (the famous Lawrence of Arabia) had called a stupendous, timeless place, virtually untouched by humanity and its destructive forces.

This British intelligence officer, who inspired Lawrence of Arabia, had lived here during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in 1914-1918. Now a part of the Wadi Rum folklore, he later wrote The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, inspired by the imposing rock mountains.

Yes, here the weather and winds have indeed carved the rock skyscrapers. This maze of monolithic rockscapes rise up from the desert floor to heights of 1,750m. Located in the south of Jordan, Wadi Rum, a Unesco Heritage site, is a protected area covering 720 km of dramatic desert wilderness. The Bedouins living in Wadi Rum maintain their semi-nomadic lifestyle. They are hospitable and you can enjoy a coffee or even a meal with them.

Hiring a camel is also an option. One can also stay in a Bedouin camp, or even choose to sleep under the stars with Bivouac Camping. A night stay under the stars in a Bedouin tent means enjoying a campfire meal with Arabic music.

But for visitors who have other Jordan sites like Petra or Red Sea in their itinerary, perhaps hiring a vehicle for the desert safari is a good idea.

One fun thing in this beautiful desert is to climb the red sand dunes (Umm Ishrin). You can have a little uphill trek on a dune sloping and then run down reliving your childhood days when you would ascend the sand dump in your neighbourhood for under-construction buildings.

There are various rock formations to see here while one near the visitors centre is the highest Seven Pillars of Wisdom named after T E Lawrences book.

How to reach

From New Delhi, take a flight to Amman. Then either go to Aqaba and stay there to visit Wadi Rum (1.5 hours) or go and come back from Amman itself (3.5 hours one way). Car-hire and bus tours can be arranged through hotels and travel agents.

Once there, go to the Visitors Centre to hire a vehicle. Go for a pick-up truck or jeep, which comes with a driver and guide. Then explore the Wadi for hours.

What to do

Sleep under the stars in a Bedouin tent with Bivouac camping. Enjoy a campfire meal with Arabic music.

Visit the Nabataean Temple, the surrounding of which is full of Thamudic and Kufic rock art. There are also places like Jebel Umm Fruth (Middle Rock Bridge/Arch) which is a rock bridge that can be scrambled onto. Some tourists also try sand-boarding, which can be great fun.

For the more adventurous, there is also the option to float over Wadi Rum in a hot air balloon or fly in a microlight (lightweight aircraft).
Vijay C Roy in Chandigarh

The veto lies with the farmer no matter what the governments appear to do for him. In that sense, here is something to the Centres re-invented, rehashed love for him: he can be jack of all his trades and master of his produce. The argument is old: if he is the harvester, he can as well be the sole seller of his crop, substantially bypassing the arhtiya (the middleman). So, the farmer has the e-NAM (Electronic National Agriculture Market) launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14 on a trial basis in 21 mandis spread across nine states.

The PM in his Independence Day speech called it a turning point for the countrys agriculture sector that would allow the farmers to decide when, where and at what price he sell his produce. If field reports from Haryana and Himachal (Punjab stays out as it has to make a certain amendment in its rules) are an indication, itd appear that the real inam (prize) is yet to come, although some bold initiatives are on the way. Heres an instance: Nar Singh, a Sirsa farmer, says, I went to the Ellenabad mandi which is covered under e-NAM, and received around Rs 80-100 per quintal more for guar through online auction than the market price. I sold around 25 quintals to a Gurgaon trader.

Singh is among 80,721 farmers registered with 94 mandis, integrated with e-NAM. Currently e-NAM is an intra-state entity, but will be expanded inter-state. Its a common electronic platform allowing farmers to sell their crops to buyers anywhere in the country, an activity which the government is likely to kick off by Sept 30 when 200 mandis are connected through the platform. By March 2017, the government intends to bring 400 mandis on e-NAM platform, sources said.

Buyers  large retailers, processors or exporters  too stand to gain as they can log into the platform and source from any mandi in India connected to it. The current state-level Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) leave the farmers at the mercy of traders. The APMC Act, not amended by a few states, restricts the farmers to the traders licensed to operate in the mandi under the APMC jurisdiction. Traders have to get separate licences to operate in different mandis within the same state. On e-NAM platform, only single licence is needed.

As on September 3, 94 mandis have been enrolled across the country: in Haryana: 31, Telangana: 44, Chhattisgarh: 05, UP: 6, Madhya Pradesh: 1, Rajasthan: 1, Himachal Pradesh: 2, Gujarat: 3 and Jharkhand: 1. The APMCs were offered the NAM software for free, along with a one-time Central grant for buying computers, printers and other hardware. As a result, 12 states agreed to join the NAM network. The Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the implementing agency for e-NAM.

Vasudha Mishra, SFAC managing director, said, We hope inter-state trading will pick up when the platform become bigger. Till September 3, the total transaction was 45,168.3 metric tons and the trading turnover was Rs 191 crore. The crops being traded are wheat, maize, chana, castor seed, jwar, bajra, barley, paddy, urad, masoor, groundnut, soyabean, mustard seeds, sunflower seeds, potato, onion, apple and green peas.

All about e-NAM

What is National Agriculture Market (NAM)?

It is seen as a all-India electronic trading portal which seeks to network the existing APMC and other market yards to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. NAM is a virtual market but it has a physical market (mandi) at the back end.

What is the difference between NAM and the existing mandi system?

NAM is not a parallel marketing structure but rather a device to create a national network of physical mandis which can be accessed online.

Why is NAM necessary?

Current APMC regulated market yards limit the scope of trading in agricultural commodities at the first point of sale (when farmers offer produce after the harvest) in the local mandi. Multiple licences are necessary to trade in different market areas in the same state. All this has led to a highly fragmented and high-cost agricultural economy. In NAM, single licence is required to operate.

Are there any conditions for joining NAM?

States are required to make a specific provision for electronic trading.

Will the APMC mandis lose business?

No. NAM basically increases the choice of the farmer when he brings his produce to the mandi for sale. Local traders can bid for the produce, as also traders on the electronic platform sitting in other states.
Jupinderjit Singh in Kasol (Kullu)

So, whats in Kasol that you dont know about? The questioner looks you in the eye the moment you strike up a conversation with a stranger in Kullu. Care for a reply, if you could, but dont make it look frivolous. Up in the hills beyond semi-urban Kullu, a casual talk of Kasol would end up with you standing in front of a shop being apparently run by foreigners. There is an unfamiliar smoke, little-known, loud music and plenty of exotic food. A mini-dreamland, psychedelic phosphorescence, and much more are ready to take you. Never ask: whats it? The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), too, has similar questions. The answers arent many. Hooked? Read on.

The moment you step inside a shop, you would find many things related to inhaling, storing or ferrying drugs. Sample this: there are varieties of cigarette smoking paper, water pipes (see picture) and small hookahs used as a filtration device for smoking cannabis, tobacco and other drugs. You may also find hollowed-out cosmetics cases or fake pagers doubling up as cavities to carry drugs. Some sorts of rave parties are also announced at a few shops. You may also find guides to filter drugs and how to cleanse your system to escape urine analysis. Even digital scales for weighing an exact dose of drug are sold along with zipper storage bags. There is a small but well designed contraption for mashing the cannabis into small pieces.

Many would give you a fortune for Malana Cream -- hashish derived from the flower of the female cannabis plant. It is named after Malana village, a patchy track off Kasol. Malanas cannabis has the world's highest intoxication quotient.

Restaurants apparently run by Germans, Israelis, Tibetans and Nepalese compete with the ones run by Punjabi and Goans and sell a variety of sandwiches, baguettes, smoothies, cakes and creams. Life is easy, many want to get high, and drugs are easy to get.

The NCB terms Kasol as a major drug haven in North India. It is a huge problem. We have arrested about 15 foreign nationals including Japanese, Germans, Israelis, south Africans and residents of Netherland, who were smuggling Malana Hashish out of the country, says Kaustubh Sharma, zonal director Narcotics Bureau, Chandigarh, which supervises anti drug operations in North India.

So protective are Malana villagers about their cannabis that you may be fined Rs 1,500 if you touch it. The 4,200 people of the village dont like police, so cops generally manage traffic. The village doesnt have a concrete road.

The government opened a school in the village. But the lone teacher was caught smuggling drugs. He was among the three we arrested last month for trying to smuggle hashish to Delhi, said Kaustubh Sharma. The NCB has met Malana villagers twice recently but has failed to convince them to stop cultivation, The village panchayat told us that cannabis cultivation is their own source of income and that they would not stop it, says an NCB source.

The NCRB is awaiting satellite imagery besides more field reports from the state police and the forest department. Last year, we carried out systematic destruction of the crop using the satellite imagery, says Kaustubh Sharma.

The crop illegally sown in over 400 acres, mostly in along Mandi-Manikaran Sahib road, was destroyed last year. But reports reaching the NCB headquarters are disturbing: the farmers have sown the crop again.
Vandana Shukla in Chandigarh

Preeti Rathi, 23, arrived in Mumbai with her father and aunt on May 2, 2013, to join INHS Aswini as lieutenant (nursing). The girl from Rewari (Haryana) was ecstatic  to be among the selected 500 of the 15,000 applicants was no small feat. This was a dream come true for the daughter of a foreman in Bhakra Beas Management Board. Soon after they alighted at Bandra terminus, her neighbour, Ankur Panwar, who had followed her from Delhi, tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around, he threw acid on her, also injuring her father Amar Singh and four others.

Ankur had covered his face at the time of attack. Before the shocked family could react, he fled. It took law enforcement agencies three years to nab the culprit.

Preeti died a month later due to multiple organ failure; her dreams burnt with her flesh. Ankur Panwar was sentenced to death by a special court in Mumbai, on Tuesday. Panwar, 25, was convicted of murder and other offences, the court said, adding the case fell within the rarest of the rare category, to justify death penalty. It is the first such sentence for acid attack in India. Many such attacks go unpunished, or with mild punishment. The crime is just another flash point of a phenomenon where educated, empowered girls are cutting through rigid patriarchal privileges in the hinterland. Rathis parents had moved from Rewari, in Haryana, where girls are forced to drop out of school. It was only to help their children fulfill their dreams that the family moved to Delhi.

The family moved into official quarters at Narela, where Preeti pursued her education, after completing class 12th from Narela Government School, she joined a four-year nursing course at Laxmi Bai Batra College in Delhi. With great difficulty, her family spent Rs 5 lakh on her course, and she compensated their sacrifice by clearing her exam with a first division.

It was her success that angered Pawar, her neighbour, who had also proposed marriage to her, but was rejected. He showed no signs of remorse in the court. On the contrary, he smiled all through which offended the victims family, which led to a brawl inside the court.

His obstinate sense of entitlement is a reflection of gender stereotypes where male brutes are seen as macho and women, howsoever empowered, are treated as soft targets. Two bikers had thrown acid on volleyball player Ritu Saini in the middle of a busy road in Rohtak before they fled. Kiran, another 17-year-old died in Sonepat, after two motorcycle-borne youths threw acid on her. She had rejected the marriage proposal of the main accused. Three schoolgirls, who were returning from their tuition classes in Rohtak, also became victim of acid attack.
Carolyn Butler wants to give her son, and the sons and daughters of other Lincoln parents, a good reason to get outdoors.

The Lincoln woman said her son enjoys video games, and its often a struggle to get him outside to play. She said shed like to give him the same experience she had growing up as one of nine children who would play outside from sunup to sundown each day.

I want that for the next generation, she said.

So Butler, a part-time employee of the Nebraska Wildlife Federation, came up with a plan to build a treehouse -- a big treehouse -- that will draw children from across Lincoln to Belmont Park at 12th and Judson streets.

She took her idea to the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department, which on Thursday shared it with members of the citys Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.

Several advisory board members expressed interest in the idea, though others expressed concern about potential liability issues raised by providing public access to a treehouse.

Liability issues are a huge concern, said Roy Christensen, a member of the City Council.

Still, it would be really nice, said Anne Pagel.

The advisory board voted Thursday to allow the Parks and Recreation Department to continue exploring the idea, though the advisory board still would have to offer a recommendation on any plans for the treehouse once they have been developed.

Butler said she already has worked to address liability concerns by lowering the main platform for the treehouse to just a few feet off the ground. The platform would have a roof and a ramp for handicapped accessibility. It would be about 400 square feet.

No playground-type features would be included on the platform.

Butler said she was recently turned down for a $50,000 grant to build the treehouse, but she plans to discuss possible fundraising opportunities with a group of Belmont neighborhood residents at a meeting Tuesday.

She said she would like to one day see community treehouses in parks across Lincoln.

You cannot be grumpy in a treehouse, she said. Its just such a wonderful place to be.
Sumedha Sharma in Mewat

Theirs are screaming stories of beast in man, of a system that buys anything, sells anything  and of crying hoarse for a name of their own. Scores of them  mothers, sisters, wives  hate being called the Paros of Mewat. Some days back, they decided enough was enough: They came together with the District Legal Service Authority (DLSA) tying up with an NGO to say a simple fact, boldly: we are humans.

You cant call them victims of bride trafficking because these women are not wives. There is no marriage ceremony in most cases. They are treated as commodities sourced from poor homes in the North-East or Andhra Pradesh or Orissa. They have no rights or a status of wife and are sold multiple times. We came across their real life stories while collaborating with an NGO, says Narender Singh, CJM Mewat and secretary, DLSA.

There are at least 20 paros in each village in the region. Most of them live in pathetic conditions. They are sold and resold like animals, but it is not called crime as they are married. They have no social economic or even political rights. They are used for sexual gratification, bear children and as farm labourers. A veritable bride bazar is held in villages bordering Rajasthan and UP where there are agents who not only get girls as young as 13 but even organize bride hunting tours for men, says Sahfiq R Khan of Empower India, the NGO that organized a conclave to let these women know their legal rights.

These girls mostly come from non-Hindi speaking areas, so they cannot seek any help. Their physical and mental torture is compounded by the fact that there are no police complaints as touts operate openly. The government needs to act decisively, says Sahfiq. There are several instances of brutality and inhuman treatment to these women. Subina is one such case. The NGO says she was sold to a man in Godhula of Punhana and had four children. A victim of domestic violence, she was thrashed so brutally in 2014 that she had to be admitted in a local government hospital. A doctor informed the police and persuaded her to speak up. The police counseled her and sent her to her husband/buyer. The next year the NGO could not locate her but found that the man had got himself a new girl.

Some of these women have been sold more than five times and thus continue to lose their names, identity, lives, and even sanity. This kind of trafficking does not come under the usual list of crimes, but is accepted as a social custom in Mewat and parts of Rajsthan and Uttar Pradesh.

I came here in 2012 when I was just 15. All I wanted was marry a Bollywood-like Hero, says Mukhlisa. My maternal uncle in Mumbai sent me with a man saying I was to get married to a handsome and rich Muslim. My groom turned out to be a 60-year-old man who limped and wanted me to bear him a son. I felt numb when he walked in my room and felt the same till my daughter was born, says Mukhlisa. Sold for Rs 22,000 to Rehmat Khan of Punhana, she had much more to endure.

My first husband or buyer died in December last year and within a week I was sent to my next buyer. I refused, but was told that he had already paid a price. He kept me for six months and then kicked me out, saying the physical pleasure he got was not worth Rs 26,000 that he had paid. I had no option but to go back to my first husbands home where his elder brother kept me. I was pregnant when the NGO people came there and things took a turn, she says.

Mukhlisa, after her rescue, went ahead with abortion as the court observed that she was unfit mentally and physically to support a child.

You can rehabilitate teenage girls but what about women sold many times with many children or those too scared to leave their buyers. They cannot be taken from here or put anywhere. We are trying to get administration to provide them employment and make them aware of their legal rights. For a start we are telling them to insist on being called by their names and go to the police anytime for any help. This will ensure that they dont face the fate of Mariyam who has vanished, says Sahfiq R Khan of Empower India.

Mariyam was abducted from Assam in 1995 when she was of 12. She came to Mewat and as a Paro and was sold 10 times; her last buyer being a 68-year-old man with eight children. After a local panchayat took up her case with the NGO, she was found in a critical condition. She had lost her voice. Just when she was to be taken to the police early this year, she vanished.

Majiran was a little lucky. I came here from Assam when I was thirteen along with another girl in 1993 to get a job. I was sold to a family that used me for some months and then got me married off to a truck driver. He was an adopted child and nobody wanted to marry him so he bought me. I was not allowed to say anything in the family, and was given leftover food and was barred from possessing money. My husband would at times take pity and give me one or two rupees. I was lucky that my husband never sold me again. He died and after decades I was called by my name Majiran. Today I am a paralegal volunteer with DLSA, says Majiran while addressing others.

As Majiran narrates her tale, Abida (60) gets up and says: I have come here to know if I would get a grave when I die. Right now, we dont even have a right to proper burial. Nothing can change my life after these many years but I want to have a grave inscribed with my name, and not a paro, says Abida, her eyes moist.
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, September 10

Floral tributes were paid and meetings were organised to mark the 129th birth anniversary of former Union Home Minister and veteran freedom fighter Gobind Ballabh Pant here today.

People remembered the legendary freedom fighter, who is the lone recipient of Bharat Ratna from Uttarakhand.

Pahadi Mahasabha office-bearers anointed a statue of Pt Pant with milk and demanded handing over the management of the park from the Municipal Corporation to them. District Magistrate Harbans Chug said we should learn hard work and sincere continuous efforts from Pant.

Pandit Pant showed his political and management skills in his early years. He was an eminent lawyer who worked for poor and common people. Though he had a rural background he showed what hard work, self confidence and knowledge could do. Pant was close to Mahatma Gandhi and as Union Home Minister brought recognition to Hindi, said Chugh

At the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal camp office, partys central media secretary Uday Ram Semwal said Pt Pant was born at Khooth village in Almora district on August 30,1887. He became the Chief Minister of the joint province of northern states on September 10,1946. He used to celebrate the day as his birthday to mark the victory of Indians in the freedom struggle.

Pt Pant was close to Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Ballabh Bhai Patel. He was jailed several times for his active participation in the Indian freedom struggle. Be it Salt movement, Quit India movement or Satyagraha movement, Pt Pant led from the front, said Mahavir Negi, general secretary of the Pahadi Mahasabha.

JP Badoni, president of the Pahadi Mahasabha, termed Pt Pant as a true statesman and son of the Himalayas.
Washington, September 10

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that radical Islam has emerged as the greatest national security threat to the US and defeating this menace should be a bipartisan goal for the country.

We must establish a bipartisan goal in the US  and an international goal with our allies  of defeating Radical Islamic Terrorism, Trump said at an event here.

Just like we won the Cold War by identifying our enemy, and building a consensus to guide a long-term strategy, so too must we do the same with Islamic terrorism, he said.

Trump said the North Korean nuclear test is yet another example of the foreign policy failure of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Just today, it was announced that North Korea performed its fifth nuclear test  its fourth since Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. Its just one more massive failure from a failed Secretary of State, he said.

Her policies have also put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons  not to mention the ransom payments. At the same time, Islamic State (ISIS) is hunting down and exterminating what it calls the nation of the cross. ISIS is carrying out a genocide against Christians in the Middle East, he said.

We cannot let this evil continue. ISIS must be destroyed. To defeat ISIS, we must use military warfare, but also cyberwarfare, financial warfare, and ideological warfare, he said claiming that the US can no longer afford to continue the failed policies of Hillary Clinton that unleashed ISIS and destabilised the Middle East.

Just look at what her policies have left us with in Iraq, Syria and Libya, he said.

The problem is, Hillary Clinton is trigger-happy. Her tenure has brought us only war and destruction. Shes just too quick to intervene, invade, or to push for regime change. This creates the power vacuums that are filled by terrorist groups like ISIS, Trump said.

My administration, on the other hand, will work with any country that is willing to partner with us to defeat ISIS and halt radical islamic terrorism. Its an imperfect world. You cant always choose your friends, but you can never fail to recognise your enemies, he said.

Trump said if elected he will pursue a complete reform of the economy to bring millions of new jobs into the country.

That includes massive tax cuts for working families and small businesses. It includes the elimination of all needless job-killing regulations. It includes lifting the restrictions on American energy, he said.

I will also renegotiate NAFTA, stand up to China, and fight for every last American job. Crucially, I will also fight for the American family and American family values. The family must be at the centre of any anti-poverty agenda, he said.

In a Trump administration, he said our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected and defended.

And that includes your religious liberty, he said.  PTI
Seoul, September 10

North Korea today sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear "blackmail" as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from yesterday's test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons-almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago. The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that-even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North's drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting yesterday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.  AFP
Washington, September 10

President Barack Obama today urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.

In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society, he added.

"Because it's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly-no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith-that's part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient," Obama said.

On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump's bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.

The Al-Qaida hijackings of September 11, 2001, the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries, ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.  AFP
Washington/Beirut, Sept 10

The US and Russia have finally reached an agreement on ceasefire in Syria which could possibly bring them together in the fight against Islamic State. Even though the Syrian government approved the deal, the main opposition group was more cautious.

The landmark deal, reached after marathon talks in Geneva yesterday, could also lead to the first joint military operations by Moscow and Washington against jihadists.

The truce deal negotiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to enter into force on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking but it's dependent on people's choices, Kerry said. But even as diplomats touted the agreement as a path to peace, air strikes on the city of Idlib killed 24 people and wounded dozens.

The deal would include steps that would stop the regime from flying combat missions where opposition forces are operating, Kerry said.

He added that the two countries are calling on the opposition and regime to recommit to the ceasefire on September 12. Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the "government has approved the deal, and a cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons".  AFP
Washington, September 10

After weeks of negotiations, the US and Russia finally reached an agreement on cease-fire in Syria which could possibly bring the two countries together in the fight against Islamic State.

The agreement was announced by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday.

Today we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking but its dependent on peoples choices, Kerry said.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The deal would include steps that would stop the Syrian regime from flying combat missions where opposition forces are operating, Kerry said, adding that the two countries are calling on the Opposition and regime to recommit to the cease-fire on September 12.

Kerry told reporters in Geneva that the deal, if implemented could be the turning point for the conflict.

The Pentagon here welcomed the agreement.

If implemented, the arrangement negotiated by Secretary Kerry could achieve a sustained cessation of hostilities, help ease the suffering of the Syrian people and address the immediate humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo, the Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

This preliminary understanding now requires the Russians and the regime to carry out a number of very specific steps, including, importantly, a sustained cessation of hostilities for at least seven days, he said in a statement.

Those commitments must be fully met before any potential military cooperation can occur. We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead, Cook said.

Kerry told reporters that bedrock of the agreement, is Russias ensuring that Assads air force will no longer fly combat missions over opposition and civilian areas.

This step is absolutely essential. By all accounts, Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows out of Syria, he said. That should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods, he added.

It is the primary responsibility of the leading powers, first of all Russia and the United States to do everything to create the necessary conditions to settle this very difficult conflict despite all the problems that have arisen, Lavrov said.  PTI
WASHINGTON -- The president, as he prepared to leave office, was dead broke. So broke, in fact, that he had to take out a loan to get him through the transition. Bill Clinton in 2001? No, Harry Truman in 1953 -- and the resemblance ends there.

Back then, although Truman had only a monthly Army pension of $112.56, he was adamant about not employing his presidential service to cash in. As biographer David McCullough relates, Truman turned down a new Toyota; a Miami real-estate development company's offer of "not less than $100,000" to come on board; an array of consulting gigs.

"I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency," Truman later wrote.

Those were the days -- and even then they weren't, entirely. Months after leaving office, Truman sold the rights to his memoirs to Life magazine for $600,000 -- the equivalent of more than $5 million today.

Still, the Truman ethos of not capitalizing on the office has all but dissipated. Gerald Ford avidly snapped up corporate board memberships and consulting fees. Ronald Reagan shattered presidential speaking-fee records with $2 million from a Japanese company, prompting his successor, George H.W. Bush, to shrug, "Everybody's got to make a living."

Indeed, out of office, both Bushes turned their attention to the need to "replenish the ol' coffers," as George W. Bush put it.

But no one has filled the coffers so copiously, so quickly as Bill Clinton. "I was one poor rascal when I took office," Clinton told a student group in 2009. "But after I got out, I made a lot of money."

Actually, a mind-boggling amount. Between the two of them, Bill and Hillary Clinton have reported earning more than $235 million since leaving the White House. An unsettling reminder of the gusher of cash that can flow a former president's way came with a recent report in The Washington Post on the $17.6 million that Bill Clinton earned as a consultant and "honorary chancellor" from Laureate International Universities, a for-profit college company.

Compared with other former presidents, we know an enormous amount about the Clintons' post-presidential activities thanks to financial disclosure rules imposed on Hillary Clinton while in the Senate and the State Department, and to her voluntary decision to release tax returns, with their more detailed and precise contents, in her campaigns.

The simultaneity of Bill Clinton's post-presidency with Hillary Clinton's public service and, if she has her way, pre-presidency poses particular problems about the intersection of his paychecks with her government work.

But the Clintons' rapaciousness raises broader questions about what we should expect from our former presidents and about what has become former presidential business-as-usual. That profiting to this extent from public service has become routine does not mean that we as a society should accept it as a given -- and the grossness of the Clintons' example ought to give rise to a reassessment. Lest this sound hopelessly naive, this long after the buck-raking horse has left the barn, a few specific suggestions:

Let's pay our ex-presidents more from the public fisc (their annual pension is now about $200,000) and expect more from them. In exchange for receiving the higher pension money, they could be required to file annual financial disclosure forms, just as they did while president. We can't stop ex-presidents from vacuuming up huge speaking fees, including from questionable sources, but we can force them to do it in sunlight, whose glare could be chastening.

Alternatively, or in addition, make the pension dependent on forgoing outside income above a certain amount -- as is already done in some cases for federal employees who go through the revolving door into lucrative jobs. Perhaps presidents could collect their pension only if they eschew income from any sources beyond writing books; well-paid presidential memoirs have a long history (see Ulysses Grant) and serve the public interest more than closed-door speeches.

Finally, perhaps we could alter the expectations in advance by raising such questions before candidates are elected. Trump has proposed asking senior officials to agree to refrain for five years from taking speaking fees from corporations with a registered lobbyist or from entities tied to a foreign government.

Why not at least ask would-be presidents if they would abide by that restriction, perhaps expanded to include consulting fees, and perhaps for life? If they're not willing to give up the big bucks, do we really want to give them the big job?
Source: FTR

FTRs Trucking Conditions Index improved in July reflecting improved market prospects as a result of moderate economic growth and a regulatory environment that is tightening capacity.

The July TCI jumped to a reading of 5.99 for the month, a significant gain over Junes 2.92 and Mays abysmal 1.69 reading. TCI readings for the rest of the year and into 2017 should remain near the current level, according to FTR.

FTR expects increased regulatory drag over the next 18 months which should increase pricing and margins for fleets that have capacity.

The freight market is doing slightly better than just treading water, but there is still a disconnect between activity in the spot and contract markets, said Jonathan Starks, chief operating officer at FTR. This is a result of the slow growth environment that we are in right now.

Contract carriers are being used the most by shippers and there hasnt been enough extra freight to spill over into the spot market, according to Starks. This caused spot rates to fall and helped shippers to put pressure on contract carriers.

I believe that those conditions will soon be turning, especially for van freight, said Starks. One note of caution is in the flatbed segment. The big reductions in oilfield activity has continued to put too much carrier capacity back into the spot market, and pricing is still weak for this segment. Until oil prices move higher or housing and business investment rally, the long-haul flatbed market is going to continue to struggle for volumes and rates.
Some critics have shouted for state regulators to place a blanket moratorium on wastewater disposal from oil and gas production, which industry officials argue would be crippling, and science points to seismicity remaining for untold years even in that scenario.

Oklahomas earthquake energy released in 2016 slowed to 2014 rates, and its quake frequency dipped about 20 percent at the halfway mark compared to 2015s banner year, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. Regulations contributing to unprecedented cutbacks in wastewater disposal volumes linked to man-made quakes apparently have played a significant role in the decline.

But then a week ago the powerful 5.8-magnitude quake near Pawnee struck in a relatively weak seismic area, shaking Oklahoma and several surrounding states. The episode served as a reminder of the states precarious situation despite the recent downward rumbling trends.

Dan McNamara, a USGS research geophysicist, published a peer-reviewed paper in October 2015 that is a clear indicator induced seismicity can be managed based on a study of Cushing. But McNamara cautioned last week that quakes can continue rattling off for years after disposal is reduced or stopped.

So even if you shut down all wells, there will be seismicity for many years, he said.

The manageable aspect may sift itself out based on what levels of shaking could be considered tolerable in the future, with industry operating but burdened by restrictions that evolve.

There was a significant increase in the rate of earthquake energy released throughout 2015  Oklahomas shakiest ever  that peaked with the strong 5.1 quake near Fairview in mid-February of this year.

Three days later, state regulators implemented their most drastic volume reductions on the oil and gas industrys deepest disposal wells across 5,200 square miles of northwestern Oklahoma. The response evolved into a similar action in early March for another 5,200 square miles in central Oklahoma.

Officials say both actions have resulted in an overall reduction of 40 percent below 2014 volumes  the most ever pumped underneath Oklahoma in a year  which is about a million barrels less each day.

In 2014, 1.538 billion barrels were put into the Arbuckle formation. That deepest geologic formation is in contact with the states granite basement, which is rife with critically stressed faults that are optimally aligned to produce quakes.

The energy release in 2016 then tapered off to 2014s rate until the powerful 5.8 quake set the stage for this year to yield Oklahomas most quake energy expended yet.

That burst of energy spurred the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to take another unprecedented move that afternoon. State regulators ordered 37 disposal wells to shut down indefinitely within seven or 10 days depending their locations with respect to the epicenter. The Environmental Protection Agency followed suit with 17 disposal wells in Osage County, where state regulators dont have jurisdiction.

The disposal well shut-ins are within a 725-square-mile oblong area in which wells are no further than 20 miles from the epicenter.

Avoiding active faults, like the Pawnee case, is good and exactly what the OCC is doing, McNamara said.

Pawnee a weird quake

The Pawnee quake was somewhat of a surprise given its location and strength within a region that hadnt shown much seismicity. It also has exhibited atypical behavior before and afterward.

It jolted Oklahoma awake on Sept. 3, with a smattering of 2.0s and 3.0s as warning in the weeks beforehand. The magnitude 5.7 in Prague in 2011 featured more warning  a 4.8 foreshock the day of  and came amid an increasing rise in wastewater disposed underground.

Its weird; youre right, McNamara told a Tulsa World reporter. Pawnee happened in a region with 40 percent reduction in wastewater disposal. And yet you still have the largest earthquake in history here.

The Prague quake featured dozens of aftershocks, including a 4.8 two days later. But the Pawnee quakes aftershocks have been pretty low energy, similar to its foreshock sequence.

The Pawnee quake was followed by more than a dozen aftershocks in the 2.6- to 3.5-magnitude range. And six earthquakes  ranging in magnitude from 2.5 to 3.6  shook parts of western and central Oklahoma in a 24-hour span from Sunday into Monday.

As of Friday morning there had been about 25 aftershocks, he said.

I dont want to predict a quake, but if its similar to others in Oklahoma we should see some 4s in the next few weeks, McNamara said.

Earthquake energy

McNamara said hes unsure why larger quakes are firing off this year  two of the states top-four strongest quakes ever  when so far there are fewer quakes overall. He said his concern lies not with the number of smaller quakes but with the few larger ones because they produce so much more energy.

For example, the magnitude-5.8 Pawnee quake was about five times bigger than the 5.1 Fairview quake and expended about 11 times more energy.

A 5.8 is nearly 64 times larger than a 4.0 and releases more than 500 times its energy. A 5.8 is about 630 times larger than a 3.0 and lets off nearly 16,000 times more energy.

The energy, or strength, of earthquakes is what causes damage to structures.

The energy release hasnt really slowed down to pre-2011 rates, not even close, McNamara said.

There were 902 quakes of at least magnitude 3.0 and 28 of at least 4.0 in 2015, according to Oklahoma Geological Survey data. Comparatively, 2011 saw 66 of at least 3.0 and four of at least 4.0.

Oklahomas disposal wells

Disposal wells injecting wastewater from oil and gas production into the Arbuckle are targeted by researchers and regulators as the culprits behind induced seismicity. The Arbuckle formation is popular with the industry because of how permeable and deep that layer is, allowing it to soak up wastewater and remain as far from ground water as possible.

Matt Skinner, Corporation Commission spokesman, during an earthquake public forum on Wednesday said there are 1,045 wells authorized for disposal into the Arbuckle. A bit more than 700 are in the regulating agencys area of interest, he said.

That area of interest is drawn around most of the seismicity in about 15,000 square miles in central and northwestern Oklahoma.

There are 4,391 disposal wells in the state regardless of the formation they inject into, Skinner said. Many operate very intermittently, he explained to the Tulsa World, so at any one time there may be about 3,200 in operation.

That doesnt mean all are physically injecting at once, but theyre in business, he said.

Two wide-scale directives in March and July 2015 targeting well depths resulted in 260 wells plugging back out of the fault-laced basement, according to the latest OCC data available at mid-year 2016. Another 20 wells werent disposing because they had yet to complete their plans to reduce depths.
The extra McDonalds cheeseburgers made the grandmother of 5-year-old Joseph Vargas a pretty popular person at the Disney Elementary lunch table.

Anita VanArsdel knew the Happy Meal would bring a smile to her grandson, but maternal instincts told her others might not have the same treat. She gave out six other burgers.

Oh, we certainly share, she said.

It was Grandparents Day at the elementary school on Friday. Many such celebrations have been happening this week because Sunday is National Grandparents Day.

To get ready for the school lunch, Joseph formally invited his Oma  a Dutch word meaning grandmother  to dine with him. She was thrilled.

This little guy stole my heart from the moment he entered the world, VanArsdel said. I cried for a week before this event. I was so touched and so happy. Im so honored, and it is so gracious for everyone to allow him to share this time with me.

Oma went to his classroom, saw the places where he makes his daily routine and visited with everyone from the principal to cafeteria workers.

The school looks fabulous, and everything has been very orderly, VanArsdel said. These kinds of things are wonderful and are important. It takes a village.

Important role: President Jimmy Carter issued a proclamation in 1978 that National Grandparents Day would be celebrated every year on the first Sunday after Labor Day. But it was decades in the works.

It originated with Marian McQuade, a homemaker in Fayette County, West Virginia, who spent a lot of time volunteering in nursing homes. She wanted to persuade grandchildren to visit more with their elders.

Nothing is better than visiting with grandparents. If it takes a holiday to make that happen, then mark the calendar.

Grandparents offer what no one else can  insight into a family heritage and tradition and wisdom that comes only from age and experience.

Simply, they are the super cool, older family members who can both spoil and give perspective.

One of the significant blessings of my life was in knowing my grandparents. So much of who I am  from values I hold to the meals I cook  comes from them.

My children have one grandparent alive. But my mother is a force of nature, and they cant get enough of her.

However, I warn them all her memories of my adolescence are greatly exaggerated.

Helping hands: For a growing number of children, grandparents are the parents. Nationally, 2.7 million grandparents are raising their grandchildren.

About one-fifth of those have incomes below the poverty level, according to the census. This number has been growing, increasing 7 percent since 2009.

Reasons include military deployments, rise in incarcerations of parents and a drug addiction epidemic moving many children into foster care. Kinship placements  most family members  are the first considerations for care.

Even without full-time custody, grandparents often fill in as almost co-parents.

As parents work, grandparents handle the child care. Sometimes thats picking up kids from school or it might be watching children on weekends or half a day.

Schools know how much grandparents are contributing to the care of children today and want to involve them in education.

Family bond: At Disney Elementary, some grandmothers are in their aprons as they walk their grandchildren to school from homes in the neighborhood.

Grandparents are waiting for children at the final bell and handle the daily errands when kids need something during school hours.

Principal Donna Gilford said the grandparents lunch is meant to strengthen that family bond.

I wanted them to have a special time with just their grandparents, she said. They are often with their parents, too. But this is just for them.

The school of 758 students managed to host the grandparents through a two-hour period. But, children often didnt want to leave them at the lunch room.

The kids want to show them their classrooms, their desks and their lockers. But they really want to show their friends. They want to share their grandparents with their friends, Gilford said.

Schools across the district host grandparents lunches at different times during the year. Another popular time is near Thanksgiving.

Gilford likes her school to keep it as close to the national holiday as possible. It also starts the year off with a nice introduction to the other generation

We are bridging the gap between home and school with everyone, Gilford said. The grandparents can see there is a sense of community here at Disney. They can look at the activities going on here, and see we want them and could use them as volunteers. If they want to help, we welcome them.

Not every student has a grandparent able to attend. Thats OK, says Gilford. Then, bring any adult who is important in your life.

We might have moms, dads, uncles, neighbors or other people a child feels close to, Gilford said. Invite whoever is special for you.

For 5-year-old Ziah Gonzales, that person is her nana, Terri Shepherd. This was Shepherds first grandparents lunch at a school.

I want to be there for her, she said. I want her to know Im someone she can count on no matter what. Im so glad they have this. Its really cool.
The problems at Nebraskas prisons are myriad. Overcrowded with 5,150 inmates -- 160 percent of designed capacity -- the prisons are experiencing an increase in assaults on guards and staff, which are short by up to 200 workers at any given time.

There is little that can be done immediately to address the overcrowding. It takes years to authorize, construct and open a new prison. But the staffing problems can be, to some measure, solved in the Legislatures 2017 session.

That would come through adding the 138 new positions, in addition to the 59 new already authorized, that are necessary to bring the prisons to minimal staffing. Thats the number recommended by a recently released staffing audit completed by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

And It is the bare minimum required. The first draft of the report from the team led by Omaha Correctional Center Warden Barbara Lewien recommended 254 new positions that would have cost $12 million. After consulting Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes, the number of positions was cut by more than 100 and the cost reduced to $6.5 million.

That drop in the cost almost certainly makes the recommendation establishing the new positions more palatable to the Legislature, which would have to approve the increase in spending. So it is very likely that something very close to the 138 positions and $6.5 million increase will be what the department asks for in its budget request that is to be submitted Sept. 15.

But in its deliberation, the Legislature should strongly consider the report's initial recommendation and do its best to determine whether more than 138 positions are necessary to get the prisons to a fully-staffed and operable level.

This, put simply, is not the time to continue to try to operate Nebraskas prisons on the cheap. That philosophy has, in large part, created the issues that the department must now confront.

If the increased costs of operating the prisons requires the Legislature and Gov. Pete Ricketts to abandon or reduce their efforts at tax relief, so be it. Failure to address the corrections issues for small cuts in taxes would only push the problems ahead another year or two or three, and they wont get better.

The department has other staffing issues that it must address, most notably the 24 percent staff turnover throughout the agency that rises to more than 30 percent at some prisons, including the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.

Reasons for the high turnover rate -- anything above 15 percent creates instability -- Frakes says include: mandatory overtime, a result of inadequate staffing, and inadequate pay. The latter must be addressed by the Legislature as well.

Frakes has submitted a pay proposal to the employees union, which cannot be revealed until negotiations are complete. That negotiation should result in substantial increases in beginning pay and pay increases, not a 1 percent increase or a $500 bonus. And the Legislature shouldnt balk at approving those increases as well.

That is the least that can be done to address the issues at Nebraskas prisons that will, hopefully, prevent problems increasing to a crisis.
Within 5 minutes, we were strolling along the very pleasant harbour of Yalkavak and already feeling pleased with life.

Ohh, yes, we like it here!

The Bodrum Peninsula is barely touched by the exploring feet of Barry and Julia.

But 2016 was the year where we had the opportunity to do a bit of mooching around.

Springtime is perfect travelling weather in western Turkey.

And staying at Agan Pension in Bodrum centre for the Bodrum Global Run during that time, well we just had to make a long weekend of it so we could try and see a bit more of the Bodrum Peninsula.

One of those days, we allocated to the town of Yalkavak

Yalkavak, Bodrum Peninsula

Thats the beauty of a peninsula, isnt it?

Once youre there, its easy to wander around the area and pack quite a lot into a small space of time.

Despite growth at super speed, Bodrum itself is still relatively compact. And, for now at least, all the dolmuses congregate in the city centre otogar.

Get there and take your pick of destination.

Our first glimpse of Yalkavak from the dolmus

We hadnt done any research on Yalkavak.

This was just a day for a little aimless wander. Getting a feel for the personality of, and the scenery around, the Bodrum Peninsula.

We made a flying visit to Turgutreis a few years ago. Now it was the turn of Yalkavak; on our radar thanks to Jack Scotts chuckle-filled memoir, Perking The Pansies.

We wanted to see if we could recognise his former home from what wed read in the book.

And thank goodness for small towns. No research meant we got off the dolmus in Yalkavak with no clue of where to head.

A slight downhill slope through the town, though, told us that must be the way to the sea. And it was.

Traditional Charm Of Yalkavak

There is still a lot of charm in Yalkavak

Theres a lot going on in Yalkavak  theres a lot going on around the whole Bodrum peninsula for that matter.

And its certainly no sleepy town on an Aegean peninsula.

No, Yalkavak is now home to a huge swanky marina, but well come to that a bit later.

You see, were suckers for Aegean harbour towns with a bit of history and a good dose of quaint surroundings..

Yalkavak still manages to do that, too. And it does it very well.

Seafood

If you read up on the whole area of Yalkavak, there are great beaches and bays, traditional villages in the hills, luxury all-inclusive hotels, boutique hotels, hidden covesbut we were there for just a few hours, having a nosy around.

In years gone by, Yalkavak was a centre for sponge diving and fishing.

No immediate evidence of the sponge diving history. But any Aegean area with a fishing history usually treats you with a pretty seafood scene.

Pretty waterside restaurants line the old harbour in Yalkavak

Ahh, how can you not smile to yourself and feel happy inside when you see low, stone buildings lining a harbour packed with small fishing boats; simple gingham tablecloths adorning the tables.

Most of these stone buildings are now Yalkavak restaurants; rows of tables waiting for hungry customers.

Many are serving Turkish breakfast. Most are serving a range of seafood. And, for a town that is supposed to one of the Bodrum peninsulas elites, prices are very reasonable.

Yalkavak harbour is very pretty

Remember, it was springtime when we were there.

So, whether or not the prices increase when the summer season kicks in, were unsure.

But in April, we have a smattering of restaurants that, by lunchtime, have a good number of local customers all tucking into their various seafood dishes.

Many of them are washing that lunchtime seafood down with a rak or a beer, too. Did we mention we like it here

Drinking & Wandering

Wed had our own quick seafood lunch in the centre of Bodrum before we headed off for Yalkavak.

So we were, unfortunately, too full to partake in all this leisurely harbourside dining.

That didnt stop us having a little drink though; a pause to take all in and watch the world go by for a short time.

Then it was time for a little wander

Close to the harbour, the sea is calm, making this public sandy beach perfect

There might be a lot of building going on in Yalkavak. But all is low rise  those oh-so-recognisable Bodrum peninsula white-washed cuboid dwellings that grace so many postcards from the area.

Yeah, give us a bit of natural countryside anytime. But at least weve not got huge tower blocks here.

The public beach in Yalkavak, close to the harbour, is a lovely sight.

Were lucky to be able to explore places like Yalkavak in springtime

Again, summer might be a different story but we love an empty beach.

And, well we live in Fethiye.

Weve got a lot of pebble and shingle going on on the beaches of our little area, which we do enjoy, it has to be said (sand is irritating when it sticks all over you).

But, in springtime, a mixture of sand and fine shingle underfoot in Yalkavak was much appreciated for a change.

Its little things like that that remind you youre away from home. Somewhere new

This restored windmill sits along the harbour in Yalkavak

Windmills

As do the famous Bodrum windmills.

Yalkavak has its own share of windmills, too. The town is on the northwest side of the peninsula, exposed to the Aegean breezes.

So was an ideal location for the windmills to do their bit, supplying the local population with flour.

The windmill in the photo is a restored version, placed on the harbour as a symbol of the area, for all to see.

Apparently, the remaining windmills in their original locations are all being restored.

Because someone, in their wisdom, has realised that people like us might actually want to visit them. And enjoy them rather than watch them decay and crumble away.

Lovely!

It was only April but there were a few people around shopping for souvenirs

Behind the harbour buildings, we ambled along a pedestrianised street shaded by trees; each side lined with souvenir shops.

There were already a few people around buying up goodies to take back home with them. But we didnt stay long around here.

We were only here for a little mooch and we couldnt put it off any longer.

It was time to leave historic and quaint behind and go and check out the modern and the dynamic

Ultra-Modern Yalkavak Marina

Wandering around the ultra modern Yalkavak Marina

Because Yalkavak is now home to Yalkavak Marina.

A huge swanky marina that, since its multi-million pound buy out and extension throughout 2012 and 2013, is apparently the only marina in Turkey that can accommodate such a large capacity of mega yachts and giga yachts for docking and mooring.

69 boats of 40 metres and above, according to Yalkavak Marina website, as well as your more usual sized yachts

Well, we can look, even if we never get to touch

Anyway, our knowledge of yachts starts and ends at yacht, super yacht, mega yacht.

We can only assume that a giga yacht is the daddy.

Yachts, for us, are those things you look at in marinas or out at sea and either admire the aesthetics. Or wonder what on earth possessed someone with lots of money to want to buy it.

But back to the marina.

When we eventually found the entrance, we were in a glossy arcade of designer stores and huge floor-to-ceiling windows.

We walked out onto the waterside and followed the palm-lined walkway; yachts (of their various classifications) on one side of us and more designer stores and a cafe to the other.

Neat and sleek and super smart but

Designer Stores

The large waterside cafe was packed. With locals or with people visiting from the yachts? Who knows?

But it certainly wasnt deserted.

As well as its array of national and international designer stores, Yalkavak Marina has hotel accommodation, nightlife, health centre, events

Yachts and yachts and shops and yachts

If theres a marina around, we do love to have a bit of a wander to take some photos.

But when youre not a part of the boating fraternity, to novice eyes (sorry yacht people), all of these vessels kind of start looking the same.

Now, a boat yard packed with gulets under construction and repair  like the one I lost myself in, in Bodrums Icmeler  ahh, now were talking.

Fascinating places!

We explored a tiny stretch of coast in Yalkavak when we were there  history and modernity sat, literally, side by side.

Two little worlds coexisting. We loved Yalkavak and are definitely looking forward to more explorations around there in the future.

Think the Bodrum peninsula started to weave its magical web around us when we were there in spring.

We know well be back again soon.

Well, theres Yalkavak windmills and villages to explore, isnt there?

Book a few nights in Yalkavak through Booking.com
A Turkish ship carrying some 11,000 tons of humanitarian aid for East Africa left Friday from the southern port city of Mersin.

Ismail Hakki Turunc, deputy chair of the Turkish Red Crescent, said the ship was loaded with flour and sugar, among other staples.

There are also around 178,000 diapers which are much needed by the locals. God willing, all these supplies will be delivered shortly, he said.

Ahmet Atik, head of the Civil Defense Department at Turkeys Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), said this was the 12th humanitarian aid ship sent to Somalia as coordinated by AFAD, the Turkish Red Crescent, and the Foreign Ministry.

Once this ship reaches its destination, the amount of Turkish humanitarian aid to Somalia will reach 62,000 tons. The aid will not only be delivered to Somalia, but also to Ethiopia via Dijibouti, he said.

The ship, the Marshall Islands-flagged Lila Majuro, is headed for Ethiopia, as well as Somaliland and Puntland, two autonomous regions of Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

Anadolu Agency
Turkey Friday strongly condemned North Koreas latest two nuclear tests.

"We are concerned to learn that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) has conducted its fifth nuclear test today (Sept. 9, 2016)," said the Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The statement warned that the tests could damage regional peace and stability and also constitute a new and clear violation of UN Security Council Resolutions.

"Being an active supporter of endeavors against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, Turkey strongly condemns this test, as well as the ballistic missile launches of Sept. 5, and considers them a threat to regional as well as international peace and security.

"We expect Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea to immediately fulfill its international commitments," the statement added.

The test Friday was North Korea's fifth atomic test and the second in eight months. It reportedly caused a magnitude-5.3 earthquake on the Korean peninsula.

In Monday's test, North Korea launched three ballistic missiles hundreds of kilometers into Japans air defense identification zone.

Anadolu Agency
South Korea insisted Saturday that the world needs to keep getting tougher on North Korea through sanctions, as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) agreed to work on new punitive measures against Pyongyang following its most powerful nuclear test to date.

Seouls foreign ministry was cited by local news agency Yonhap as maintaining that it would seek support in the coming weeks for strengthened sanctions.

The move comes just months after the UNSC imposed its last set of economic restrictions against the North in March, following which the reclusive state carried on with a series of banned ballistic missile tests.

The ministry made its position clear after dissenting voices suggested that a different approach is needed in the wake of five North Korean nuclear tests in a decade.

Influential ruling party lawmaker Won Yoo-chul said Friday that the Norths latest test earlier in the day proves that we cannot curb Pyongyang's nuke tests and missile provocations only by international sanctions.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is set to speak at the U.N. General Assembly later this month in an effort to influence the UNSCs next move in favor of sanctions, echoing calls from President Park Geun-hye following Fridays test.

Their stance is very much in line with a statement out of New York Friday, when the UNSC strongly condemned North Koreas behavior and promised to work on a new resolution -- implying that veto-wielding council member China will hold true to its word by pressuring its old ally.

Analysts have long been skeptical about Beijing offering full support for any move that would risk toppling Pyongyangs authoritarian regime, given the dangers that might bring to Chinas doorstep.

Wons alternative suggestion along with around 20 other conservative lawmakers is for South Korea to take up its own nuclear arms, which would fly in the face of Seouls agreement with the United States that affords American protection.

But the Park administration is prepared to take military action, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff speaking Friday of a preemptive strike in case of any sign of the use of nuclear weapons from the North.

The Souths president also conceded that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is uncontrollable and highlighted the need for strengthening Seouls relationship with the U.S., which has nearly 30,000 troops based on the peninsula already along with plans to further develop regional missile defense.

Pyongyang hailed Fridays test as taking the North to a higher level through enhanced warhead capabilities, while vowing to carry on with its nuclear development.

Anadolu Agency
On Four Corners Ben Knight reports on Rehab Inc, the high price parents pay to get their kids off ice.

But there is also a severe lack of regulation in this growing industry.

What parent is not going to say yes, Ill sell my house? Ill give you my kidney to save my childs life. Theyll do anything.  Addiction counsellor

Across Australia, there are parents risking everything to rescue their children from ice addiction.

Ive knocked on every door, Ive been everywhere. Ive chased my daughter for 6 months from house to house to house I turned their water off, I turned their gas off, I pinched their power fuse. I smashed their windows, Ive had enough.  Father

To end this living nightmare, theyll seize on any chance to get help for their child.

Why now? Five bullets through the front window and Ive sh*t myself and that was when I straight away rang mum to say Im coming home.  Addict

But that chance of rehabilitation can come at an enormous cost.

Most families dont have $30,000 sitting in the bank account just to put their child into a rehab centre. Its just not feasible.  Mother

Publicly funded rehabilitation beds are in short supply and have waiting lists running into months. So instead, these families turn to private clinics. And they charge a fortune.

Most of the people I see who have come through private rehabs have had their superannuation emptied. Its sort of a soft target.  Financial counsellor

Parents are risking bankruptcy to get their child a place. Theyre encouraged to access their superannuation or to re-mortgage their homes in order to pay out tens of thousands of dollars to ensure their child gets in quickly. And the price is driven by demand, rather than the service provided.

I think that often people would get the success that they require by simply attending these 12-step fellowships, free of charge, and get the same success rate.  Addiction specialist

And the lack of regulation is shocking.

I could start a rehab up tomorrow and hire staff who arent suitably qualified and call it a rehab, and charge top dollar. With no questions asked.  Addiction specialist

Even some private operators concede families risk being ripped off.

There are way too many rogue operators in this field that can and will take advantage of people paying the money.  Clinic operator

Monday 12th September at 8.30pm on ABC.
OMAHA  Douglas County's top prosecutor says the fatal shooting of a suspect by two deputies was justified.

County Attorney Don Kleine made the determination Friday in the shooting death of 25-year-old David Anderson.

Police investigators say Anderson twice rammed a sheriff's vehicle as he was approached Tuesday by several deputies trying to arrest him on a warrant, and two deputies fired at least nine shots. A 19-year-old woman with Anderson also was treated for minor injuries, but was not shot.

Police say the deputies, 37-year-old Michael Jones and 33-year-old Scott Kuzminski, feared for their lives and the lives of their colleagues when they shot Anderson.

Under state law, Anderson's death will also be reviewed by a grand jury.
Ex-head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management Vladyslav Kaskiv has asked for political asylum in Panama.

Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin posted this on Facebook

"Kaskiv's readiness to cooperate with Ukrainian law enforcers turned out to be a fake. There would not be short extradition procedure. Kaskiv has filed a political asylum petition. Chances to have it approved are small, but this takes extra time," Yenin said.

He informed that tonight (Kyiv time) Panama court had ordered a $600,000 bail for Kaskiv and restricted his movement within Panama City. He will be released as soon as he pays the money.

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Russian-backed militants launched 24 attacks on ATO troops in eastern Ukraine over the past day.

This is reported by the ATO Headquarters press center.

"In Mariupol direction, the militants fired at Shyrokyne [20km east of Mariupol] and Vodiane [16km north-west of Donetsk], using 120mm and 82mm mortars," the report reads.

In Donetsk direction, the terrorists used machine guns, small arms, and grenade launchers to shell Avdiyivka (18km north of Donetsk), Verkhniotoretske (22km north-east of Donetsk), and Novhorodske (34km north of Donetsk).

In addition, the militants launched attacks on ATO troops in Luhansk, using small arms, machine guns, and grenade launchers.

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Sherry Wounded Foot loved her brother and always kept her door open for him.

She'd drive across the South Dakota border to Whiteclay, where he often drank on the streets with other Oglala Sioux men and women, to pick him up and take him to her home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to eat and bathe.

Sanford Wounded Foot died in December 2012 after his beaten and nearly lifeless body was found on Whiteclays main street, according to his family.

My mother was heartbroken when my uncle died, said Logan Lafferty, Sherry Wounded Foots oldest son. My mother had a tough life, but that may be why she was such a tough little lady.

On Aug. 5, Sherry Wounded Foot was found in much the same way and place as her brother. The 50-year-old woman and mother of three died 12 days later at Pine Ridge Hospital.

Authorities have since deemed her death a potential homicide, but questions remain about how she died.

In 2012, the Sheridan County Attorneys office said it didnt suspect foul play in Sanford Wounded Foots death.

Lafferty said his family never learned how he died and no one was charged.

Now he fears his mothers death also will go unanswered.

Each death in Whiteclay seems like nobody could care less, like us Natives aren't human, he said in an electronic message.

Sheridan County Attorney Jamian Simmons said rescue workers responding to a call for an ambulance found Sherry Wounded Foot behind the Lakota HOPE Ministry building.

Sheriff Terry Robbins arrived at the scene and was told by ambulance personnel that Wounded Foot didnt appear to have been assaulted. Ambulance personnel took her to Pine Ridge Hospital for treatment.

The next day, Aug. 6, her family contacted Robbins office and said they thought she was the victim of an assault. The Sheriff's Office then contacted the Pine Ridge Hospital and learned Wounded Foot had been transferred to Rapid City Regional Hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota. A hospital official there confirmed she had injuries consistent with a possible assault.

On Aug. 17, Sherry Wounded Foot was taken back to the Pine Ridge Hospital after her family decided to take her off life support. She died just hours after arriving.

Since then, authorities have interviewed several people as possible witnesses, Simmons said.

Law enforcement is actively pursuing all avenues of investigation, she said.

Information about Wounded Foots injuries and where she may have been assaulted is conflicted, Simmons said. An autopsy shows she died of blunt trauma to the head, leading authorities to deem her death a potential homicide.

Simmons said agencies involved in the investigation include the Sheridan County Sheriffs Department, Nebraska State Patrol, Pennington County Sheriffs office in South Dakota and criminal investigators with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pine Ridge.

At a Nebraska Liquor Control Commission hearing Wednesday, a Winnebago activist and documentary filmmaker argued that Sherry Wounded Foots death shows Whiteclays four beer stores should be shut down because the town lacks any permanent law enforcement presence.

Whiteclay has claimed another life, said John Maisch, a former Oklahoma alcohol regulator who made a documentary about the town of 12. "Whiteclay is a lawless place.

The stores there sold the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of beer last year. The village sits on the border of South Dakotas Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is banned but alcohol-related problems run rampant. An estimated one in four children on the reservation is born with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Maisch criticized Sheridan County authorities for failing to notify the public or media about Sherry Wounded Foots injuries and death or about the possibility of a violent perpetrator on the loose in the area.

She joins a growing list of unsolved deaths in Whiteclay, where as many as five people have died under mysterious circumstances since 1997. Authorities said John Means died that year of exposure, but his family believes it was foul play. Wilson Black Elk and Ronald Hard Heart were found brutally murdered in June 1999 just north of Whiteclay across the reservation border. And now, Sanford Wounded Foot and Sherry Wounded Foot.

Lafferty said he was in Montana fighting fires when he learned of his mothers death. The 30-year-old Mission, South Dakota, man is a firefighter, rancher, newspaper employee and father of five children.

He said he was raised by his paternal grandmother and knew little about his mother.

He learned more during her wake and funeral service last month, he said.
The situation in ATO area in eastern Ukraine remains controlled and is generally characterized by observance of the ceasefire.

This is reported by the ATO Headquarters press center.

Russian-backed militants violated ceasefire 30 times in eastern Ukraine in last day.

In particular, 15 attacks were launched in Luhansk area. The enemy used machine guns, small arms and grenade launchers to fire at Novooleksandrivka (65km west of Luhansk), Novozvanivka (70km west of Luhansk), and Popasna (90 km north-west of Luhansk).

The terrorists violated ceasefire 10 times in Mariupol area. In particular, the militants shelled Shyrokyne (20km east of Mariupol), using 120mm and 82mm mortars. Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk), Pavlopol (30 km northeast of Mariupol), and Shyrokyne also came under grenade launcher and small arm fire.

Five ceasefire violations were recorded in Donetsk area. The provocative attacks were launched on Ukrainian positions in Avdiyivka (18km north of Donetsk), using grenade launchers and small arms.

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Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed, one soldier was wounded in ATO area in eastern Ukraine over the past day.

Spokesman for the Presidential Administration on the ATO, Colonel Andriy Lysenko said this at a briefing in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed, one soldier was wounded as a result of military operations over the past day, Lysenko said.

He added that the incident had happened as a result of explosive device activation.

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The Canadian province of Ontario will continue to support Ukraine in the face of external aggression.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said this in her address to the Ukrainian community.

"The Ontario government remains firm in its support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We along with the international community are committed to the promise to stop external aggression and invasion of Ukraine and to provide the country with freedom, democracy and independence," Wynne said.

Ontario Premier also thanked Ukrainians for their significant contribution to the development of the province. "Ukrainian-Canadian community has helped make Ontario one of the best places to live, work and bring up children," Wynne added.

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Provocations and massive campaign against the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) are prepared in fall.

Chairman of NABU Artem Sytnik said this at the briefing said on September 10.

"I know that the resources, bots, journalists working at the order are prepared to launch a massive campaign [against NABU]. I am sure that we will offer an adequate response," - Said Sytnik.

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It would be great if there was a one-size-fits-all imaging device, with still and video camera that combined every possible focal length, low-light capability, action-stopping shutter speeds and incredible image quality  all in one small, lightweight and easy-to-use body.

I still havent found it!

Photographing birds or other animals in the wild works best with a long, reasonably fast lens and a shutter speed high enough to stop the rapid movements. In addition, a focus system that tracks, or at least can be set to continuous focusing, is a must. All-in-one zooms tend to have variable apertures, and a maximum aperture of f/5.6 at best, often smaller, requiring higher ISOs to reach the necessary shutter speed.

The dilemma becomes choosing the necessities: camera, lens(es), some sort of carrying case/backpack, water and whatever else one feels necessary to capture the subjects in their natural habitat. And what do you do when a must-have landscape scene pops into view? A long, specialized lens won't fit the bill.

Consider using a convenient and highly portable mobile device. The angle of view, for example, with an iPhone 6 is approximately the same as a 35mm lens on a full-frame digital SLR, or, near 20mm on the 18-55mm kit lens that is packaged with many basic dSLR cameras.

Cellphone cameras are increasingly adding RAW capture to the devices, and current apps offer uncompressed image capture, allowing incredible latitude in post-processing in Adobe Camera RAW and other editing apps/programs. For the iPhone, the camera app 645 Pro MkIII has many features found in a dSLR or advanced amateur camera, including outputting images in either JPEG format or as an uncompressed TIFF file. Clip-on wide-angle and fisheye lenses for cellphone cameras only add to the versatility when using a cellphone as a back-up camera or when a wider angle of view is needed when only a telephoto is available with the main camera.

On a recent visit to Corkscrew Swamp and the Bird Rookery in Naples, Florida in sweltering heat, I reluctantly left the usual wide-angle zooms, tripod and other paraphernalia behind, taking only a camera, long telephoto zoom  and a cellphone, with two Olloclip lenses on lanyards around my neck. Using the long zoom for birds, and the cellphone for wide-angle shots not only made sense in the hot conditions, but also were highly convenient.

The subject should always be the deciding factor when selecting a lens, or lenses. Being able to cover a wide range of focal lengths without hiring a Sherpa to carry the gear is possible using a cellphone camera with a versatile camera app while keeping the big gun around the neck!
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

The 17 SDGs are integratedthey recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Countries have committed to prioritize progress for those who're furthest behind. The SDGs are designed to end poverty, hunger, AIDS, and discrimination against women and girls.

The creativity, knowhow, technology and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve the SDGs in every context.
RACINE COUNTY  This summer, Racine-based Case IH planted a Kentucky soybean field with a tractor that had no cab or driver.

That was just one of the successful tests of an autonomous, driverless Case IH Magnum tractor that reportedly starred at the recent, three-day Farm Progress Show in Boone, Ill.

The tractor is a concept vehicle: proven but not yet being manufactured, explained Rob Zemenchik, Case IH AFS global marketing manager. However, he said manufacturing of the tractor is a matter of when  not if.

Before the vehicles unveiling at the show, which ran from Aug. 30-Sept. 1, Case IH executives played a video of the tractor tilling and planting on land in the southeastern United States earlier this summer.

We were the featured act, if you will, of the Farm Progress Show, Zemenchik said. People from all over the world came to see the tractor. And visitors were taking videos and selfies with it.

No wonder; the tractor is a technological wonder that can operate with a wide range of field implements. It was devised by Case IH, a brand owned by CNH Industrial, and CNHs Innovation Group in collaboration with CNH Industrials long-standing technology provider Utah-based Autonomous Solutions Inc.

Case IH Brand President Andreas Klauser said the concept tractor was created to validate the technology and collect customer feedback regarding their interest and need for future autonomous products.

In many parts of the world, finding skilled labor during peak use seasons is a constant challenge for our customers, Klauser stated.  (T)his autonomous tractor concept demonstrates how our customers and their employees could remotely monitor and control machines directly. This technology will offer our customers greater operational efficiencies for tasks such as tillage, planting, spraying and harvesting.

Capabilities

A bundle of technology enables this independent worker, and the vehicle was built to allow for remote monitoring of preprogrammed operations. Case IH says the onboard system automatically accounts for implement widths and plots the most efficient paths depending on the terrain, obstructions and other machines in use in the same field. The remote operator can supervise and adjust pathways via a desktop computer or portable tablet interface.

Through the use of radar, laser and onboard video cameras, the vehicle can sense stationary or moving obstacles in its path and will stop on its own until the operator, notified by audio and visual alerts, assigns a new path.

Theyre redundant systems that work together, Zemenchik said.

Radar, which allows the tractor to operate at night or in dusty conditions, will detect metal or water in its path, he said. That would include animals, which have a high percentage of water in their bodies.

The vehicle will also stop immediately if GPS signal or position data is lost. Its like a string being cut, Zemenchik remarked.

Other possibilities

A farm manager can supervise the activities of multiple machines via a mobile tablet interface while he tends to other tasks or even operates another vehicle, Zemenchik said.

Multiple autonomous tractors can work as one fleet or simultaneously in multiple sub-fleets assigned to separate fields, each assigned with preprogrammed maps and prescriptions, he said. So you could have one tractor pulling a chisel plow followed closely by another one operating a planter.

Case IH installed the technologies on a Magnum tractor, and Magnums are manufactured at CNH Industrials local plant at 2701 Oakes Road. So (Mount Pleasant) and other plants would have a big role to play, Zemenchik said, in manufacturing the driverless tractor.

However, manufacturing will not begin inside of the next three years, he said, because the tractor would drive from farm to farm on public roads.

We need definition for how they will operate on public roads and drive through towns, Zemenchik pointed out. That will involve the government and also the auto industry, which is on a similar path toward driverless cars.

At some point, these two worlds will intersect, he said.

Surprisingly, Zemenchik said the driverless tractors could be comparable in price to those that require a person inside. As the cost of sensors comes down and resources are reallocated from the cab  which can add more than $50,000 in cost  to those technologies, he said the driverless tractor could compete on price with a human-driven tractor.
Racine Public Library

RACINE  The Racine Public Library, 75 Seventh St., is offering these free events:

LEGO Club, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10. Children will be allowed to build and create with LEGOs within the LEGO room. Children ages 7 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.

The Old Fashioned Fun of Canning Fruits and Vegetables, 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12. Colleen Patterson and Jessica True of Permaculture Designs will lead a program on canning fruits and vegetables.

Birth of a Nation Coming Together Racine lecture, 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14., presented by Reggie Jackson from Americas Black Holocaust Museum. Jacksons presentation is part of a national lecture series and community-building initiative, The Birth of a Nation: Slavery, Resistance & Abolition.

Tuesdays at Two Adult Movie Series, 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14. For information about the movie being shown, call the library or visit the librarys website.

Homework Helpers, 3:30-5 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, Sept. 19-Dec. 9. Offers assistance and encouragement to students in grades K-12. Parents/guardians must enroll their student. Applications are available in the Youth Services department or call 262-636-9245.

Fall Storytimes, 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Sept. 20-Nov. 9. Story time for babies, toddlers and preschoolers with an adult.

Maker Mondays, Monday, Sept. 12. Patrons are welcome to view the librarys 3D printer, ask about their digital devises and check out the latest version of windows.

Teen Advisory Council, 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22. Middle and high school students with an interest in having a voice in library programs, special events, activities and more, are invited to participate. Registration is required by calling 262-636-9245 or visit the librarys website.

Oral Histories of Racine, noon-5 p.m. Wednesdays, Oct. 6-26. In celebration of Family History Month in October, the library will be recording oral histories of Racine community members. Registration is required by calling 262-636-9255.

For more information, call 262-636-9217 or go to www.racinelibrary.info.

Waterford Public Library

WATERFORD  The Waterford Public Library, 101 N. River St., is offering these free events:

Glimpses into Waterfords Past: Schools, 9:30-10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13. Each 20-minute session has different themes and things for toddlers to do such as sign language, songs, finger plays, movement activities and stories.

Preschool classes, 10:30-11 a.m. Wednesdays or Thursdays, Sept. 14-22. Children ages 3-5 are welcome to join this 30-minute session featuring sign language, stories, songs, fingerplays, a craft and movement activities.

Refreshing a Lamp Shade Craft Class, 6-7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14. Local crafter Barbara Melzer will share her techniques for repurposing a lamp shade using fabric scraps, notions and other interesting finds. Advance registration is required.

Lap-sit Storytimes, for children 2 and younger, 9:30-10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 15. Each 20-minute session has a different theme and things for toddlers to do.

To register or for more information, call 262-534-3988 or go to www.waterford.lib.wi.us.

Burlington Public Library

BURLINGTON  Burlington Public Library, 166 E. Jefferson St., is offering these free events:

Time Out for Play, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Mondays. Puzzles, books, puppets, and toys will be provided for play or children may bring their own toy. No registration required

Yarn Club, 3:30-5 p.m. Mondays. For ages 13 through adult, beginners should bring one pair of size 15 needles, long or short; two skeins of super bulky yarn; and a crochet hook, size I or J. Hosted by instructor Lori Hintz.

Story Time, 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Books, fingerplays, rhymes and music for children ages 5 and younger and their caretakers. No registration necessary.

For more information, call 262-342-1130 or go to www.burlingtonlibrary.org.

Graham Public Library

UNION GROVE  Graham Public Library, 1215 Main St., is offering these free programs:

Preschool Storytime, for ages 2-4 with an adult, 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13. Includes simple stories and crafts.

Homeschool STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math), 1-2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14. Home-schooled children are welcome for stories and science projects based on a weekly theme.

Make-N-Take Craft Project, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16. Preschoolers and adults will work together to make a self-directed craft project.

For more information, call 262-878-2910 or go to www.uniongrove.lib.wi.us.
A black only housing made a noise on the internet this week as California State University opened their student housing. The said student residence goes with a controversial name "The Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community."

The California State University built the said specialized housing as a response to a call made nine months ago by the Black Student Union, an African-American student organization in the university. Several black students continue to seek asylum from the microaggressions they receive from their white colleagues.

A part of the call said that they want to have a safe space for the black students to freely assemble, interact and learn from one another. The union also wrote on their demand that they desire to have an alternative housing solution made affordable for black students.

In spite of it being categorized as a black only housing, Robert Lopez, California State University LA spokesperson clarified that the aim of the specialized housing is to focus on academic excellence. He said that their goal is to provide an inclusive learning experience that is non-discriminatory, The L.A. Times reported.

The specialized housing is cited among the 192 furnished apartments inside the campus. These apartments have specific themes uniting residing students. None of the themes, however, were categorized by color or race.

As a part of the Halisi community, there are rules that students must agree upon. First, they are to respect the differences of others and look for ways to learn from them. A resident must also be an advocate for change despite the inadequacy. Finally, they are to accept that they are in the learning process and that they need to be open to new ideas.

As of this writing, 24 students are occupying the "The Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community." The fall 2016 semester list for the specialized housing is full and the university is no longer accepting applications for this season, though the administration confirmed that they already have a long wait list for the next semester, The Fox News reported.



Watch this video for more of the story.


As Google will host an event on October 4, the tech company is slated to reveal the new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. The tech monster is also likely going to showcase its Google Home and Daydream VR viewer products during the event.

This means that the tech company will let go of the Nexus brand of smartphones that are manufactured by HTC in favor of the Pixel title. It has been claimed that Google is referring to the Pixel and Pixel XL as the codenames for Sailfish and Marlin, respectively, according to Forbes.

Both Pixel and Pixel XL are pre-loaded with Android 7.1 out of the box, and the smartphones are going to have the same cameras on the front and the back. The Pixel smartphone will be packed with the Sony IMX179 8 megapixel sensor on the front and the Sony IMX378 12MP sensor on the back.

It has been said that the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P also used the Sony IMX179.

The 32 gigabyte Pixel is expected to cost $449, while the Pixel XL will have a price of $599.

The Pixel will feature a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution AMOLED display, 4 gigabyte of RAM and 32 gigabyte or 128 gigabyte of memory. Pixel will be shipped with a 3450 mAh battery with USB Type-C charging.

While the Pixel XL will be packed with Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4 gigabyte RAM, and 32 gigabyte of storage. Pixel XL will also have a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, based on the report of Pocket-Lint.

However, there's a possibility that Google's smartphones could be available even sooner when a person will purchase them directly from Google. As it looks like pre-orders of the Pixel and Pixel XL will open up shortly after they are revealed. That's the strategy Google used when they released their Nexus hardware in the past, Techno Buffalo reported.

Watch The Video Here:
12-year-olds Jeremy Shuler and Cendikiawan (Diki) Suryaatmadja will be college freshmen this year at Cornell University and at the University of Waterloo, respectively. They are two of the growing number of pre-teens who will be going to college this year.

TeachThought.com collated a list of the 10 youngest college students of all time. Some of these kids went on to earn their PhDs before they are even old enough to vote. Check out their stories below.

1. Michael Kearney

At four years old, he aced the John Hopkins diagnostic for a math test without studying for it beforehand. He graduated from high school at six and, that same year, enrolled at the Santa Rosa Junior College. He was diagnosed with ADHD.

2. Moshe Kai Cavalin

He enrolled at East Los Angeles College when he was eight years old and graduated in 2009 with a whopping 4.0 GPA and full honors. "I consider myself a regular kid who works hard and does his best," he told NBC News.

3. Alia Sabur

Alia surprised her parents when she showed them that she could read when she was only eight months old. She graduated summa cum laude at Stony Brook University when she was just 10 years old. She holds the Guinness world record for being the youngest full university professor - she was appointed to the faculty of Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea when she was 18 years old.

4. Adragon De Mello

He was vigorously mentored by his father at an early age, with the dream that he would become a Nobel Prize laureate by 16. He completed his bachelor's degree in computational mathematics at the University of California Santa Cruz when he was just 11 years old. His parents' separation gave him the chance to have a normal life, the one thing that he craved.

5. Gregory Smith

Smith finished his elementary school education in just one year, high school in two. By 10, he was enrolled at Randolph-Macon College. He graduated with honors at 13. He has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize four times.
Planning up to purchase iPhone 7 but can't afford the price? Here's good news for the consumers! Apple Trade-Up and Renew Program allow a customer to own a brand new iPhone 7 in exchange of older iPhone units or even less than two years in use. Also, AT&T and Verizon offers two-year contracts for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus plans.

NBC News revealed about the Apple's Trade-Up Program and Apple Renew, both could help a consumer own up the newest iPhone models. Trade-Up Program enables consumers to trade in their functional and at good condition iPhone 4 models and beyond. An appraisal amount ranging from $25 to $250 will be given to the customer depending on the phone's condition. The market price of iPhone 7 with 32GB storage is $649 and if the customer get an appraisal amount of $250 for an iPhone 6 Plus, the amount will be reduces to $399.

Aside from the Trade-Up Program, Apple also offers the Renew Program where a consumer can send through his or her old iPhone or other devices to Apple through mailing and if the device is in good condition, the customer will receive a gift card to be used to exchange the older ones for new ones. This works well when a person visits an Apple Store personally.

Another way of owning an iPhone 7 even on a tight budget is through the carriers. The Verge reported about the eye-catching opportunities to own an iPhone 7 for free through plans enclosed in a two-year contract. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint also offer trade ins for older smartphones but not exclusive for Apple products alone. Unlike Apple, these carriers accept older models of Samsung Galaxy S7. The same process with Apple Trade-Up Program, a consumer will receive an appraisal amount for his older device, once accepted, he or she will sign-up for a two-year contract with the carrier to paid off the remaining amount of iPhone 7.
Kano, North-West Nigera currently holds a UNESCO Federal Government supported literacy class. This is in line with the "Revitilising Adult and Youth Literacy in Nigeria" program.

Further studies show that the adult learning and education program showed improvement. Over all, it can improve the health and well-being of adults. At the same time, it develops local communities.

The United Nations Culture and Education Agency reports that policy makers should see the benefits. "Policy-makers will find high quality evidence to support policies, strategies and budget," says Irina Bokova, the Director General of the UNESCO.

She adds that stakeholders will find that these adult learning programs help promote healthier communities, sustainable development in their societies and generate better employment. In addition, those who benefit from the program become active members of society.

UNESCO's Institute for Life Long Learning created GRALE III (the third Global Report on Adult Learning and Education). The report looks at 139 countries that responded to the GRALE III survey. In summary, the report stemming from the adult learning programs has made progress when it comes to adult education development, governance, quality and finance. Out of these countries, 124 considers ALE to be good for the health.

The report further details that there is a major improvement to their own ALEs. But UNESCO and these countries still have a long way to go and further data is needed. One of the biggest challenges being faced in these programs is gender gaps. In some countries, women do not have the same level of participation because of equality access.

Generating these kind of programs is essential to improve literacy rate. In the study, it is also found that improvement stemming from literacy programs develops values that are considered democratic, peaceful and solid.

Ultimately, adult learning and education helps improve and empower counties with disadvantaged communities. It improves social links, communication skills and more.

Want to know more about UNESCO's works on education? Check out the video below:


The Mob Museum, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, will host its next Author Talk featuring award-winning author and crime-history enthusiast Christian Cipollini.

Murder, Inc.: Mysteries of the Mobs Most Deadly Hit Squad will include discussion about the notorious backstories of the mobsters, thugs, racketeers and assassins involved in Murder, Inc. Cipollini will explain who its members were, how Murder, Inc. got its name, why it was created and how it met its downfall.

Cipollini will sign copies of his book after his presentation and also from 1-3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 14, in the Museums retail store.

Livestreaming of the Author Talk will be available at themobmuseum.org.


Last night (Sept. 9, 2016), original Four Seasons member Tommy DeVito was spotted attending the smash-hit musical Jersey Boys at Paris Las Vegas (Photo courtesy of Jersey Boys Las Vegas).

Following the performance, DeVito and his family went backstage to meet with the cast, discussed the productions success over the past eight years and to take photos.
State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh yesterday called for drastic steps to make online payments more secure.- Photo thoibaotaichinh.vn

He told an online conference held by the central bank that commercial banks and customers needed better protection against hi-tech attacks. Such attacks on the banking and finance sectors were increasing in number, he said.

He asked the Payments Department to intensify supervision of transactions and revise regulations covering credit institutions and intermediaries towards minimising risks in payment processes.

Anh directed the Information Technology Department to build a roadmap for applying international security standards in payment systems, including ISO 27001 and PCI/DSS for bank card payments.

Banking authorities will co-ordinate with the ministries of Public Security and Information and Communications in fighting IT scammers and guaranteeing cyber-network security, he said.

He also said that SBV branches would check on any interruptions in non-cash payment services of credit institutions and intermediaries between now and the end of October, and report results by mid-November. Anh also asked the National Payment Corporation of Viet Nam, formerly known as Viet Nam Financial Switching JSC, to assist banks in detecting and handling doubtful card transactions.

He urged credit institutions to thoroughly test their technological infrastructure, human resources and processes related to electronic payments, and submit reports to the SBV by October 30.

The institutions should regularly check ATM and point-of-sale (POS) systems to make sure that cameras, alarms and other antitheft devices are in good condition, and ensure no spy ware is illegally installed, he said.

Officials from the Ministry of Public Securities said yesterday that banking and finance networks were now prime targets for hi-tech attackers world-wide and new payment scams had recently emerged in Viet Nam.

The central bank had already directed relevant agencies to enhance security against risks and frauds in payment transactions last month, following the unearthing of several scams.

About VND500 million (US$22,500) was stolen from the account of a Vietcombank customer in Ha Noi last month, shocking account holders across the country. This is a huge sum of money in Viet Nam, where the annual per capita income is around $2,100.

However, Ministry of Public Security officials also said yesterday that Viet Nam's electronic payment systems were basically secure.

"The recent scams are rare. Customers should be more cautious about tricks criminals play cyber-space. They should not provide personal information to unreliable sources," Anh said.
The Aiguille du Midi cable car in the French Alps is the highest in Europe. (AFP/Philippe Desmazes)

They were the last of 110 sightseers trapped when the cable cars ground to a halt Thursday afternoon in the shadow of Mont Blanc, western Europe's loftiest peak.

After a night in the frozen dark, dangling at an altitude of 3,800 metres (12,500 feet), the string of cars lurched into movement at around 8 am (0600 GMT).

The incident was caused by cables that got crossed for "unknown reasons", but a gust of wind is thought to have played a part, said Mathieu Dechavanne, boss of the Mont-Blanc Company which manages the system.

The cars were restarted after the last cable was untangled, he told AFP.

The 33 remaining passengers were able to reach the ground by exiting the cars at three points on the way down, an official said.

Teams on Thursday had been able to rescue 77 passengers, most of them by helicopters and others who were able to climb down with help.

But as darkness fell and the weather deteriorated, the operation was suspended, leaving the remaining tourists, one of them a 12-year-old boy, to spend the night suspended in mid-air.

The boy's sister, Italian tourist Maria Elena Perrone, 18, was rescued on Thursday but then had an agonising wait for news of her brother and parents who were in a different cable car.

"It was terrible. My brother had to stay up there with my parents and they were only wearing sweatshirts. When the Sun set, it was cold," she told AFP, sobbing.

"For two and a half hours we didn't know what had happened and the cable car was moving a lot when they were trying to untangle the cables."

'LAST HOUR WAS VERY LONG'

An elderly man was treated for hypothermia but all the passengers trapped overnight in the small, four-person pods were in good condition despite their ordeal, police said.

"We were in contact with them throughout the night, the people were cold" but there did not appear to be any health emergencies, the local police chief, Stephane Bozon, told AFP.

"The last hour seemed very, very long. We called the operators who explained that three cables got snarled up and they had to be untangled but they didn't manage to do it," a man who was one of the first tourists to be rescued told French radio, without giving his name.

The top official in the Haute-Savoie region, Georges-Francois Leclerc, said rescuers had been forced to halt their operation at 8:45 pm Thursday as they could not "guarantee the safety of the pilots, rescuers and the people stuck in the cars".

During the night, a team of rescuers, three French and two Italian police officers also attempted to reach the trapped tourists.

One of the officers managed to get into the car where the 12-year-old boy was.

The trapped passengers had access to emergency blankets, energy bars and bottles of water, which are stocked aboard the cars.

The five-kilometre (three-mile) -long system, which went into operation in 1950, connects Aiguille du Midi on the French side of the mountains with Pointe Helbronner on the Italian border, offering panoramic views of Mont Blanc.

On the most eye-catching part of the trip, the cars are a dizzying 400 metres above ground.

In 2011, around 40 people were stuck for nearly seven hours on the Grande-Motte cable car in the southeastern French Alps after it broke down.

They were evacuated through trap doors in the cars, using ropes to reach the ground 40 metres below.
RACINE  On the heels of the biggest acquisition in Modine Manufacturing Co. history, the $422 million purchase of Luvata Heat Transfer Solutions, President/CEO Tom Burke is looking forward to greater stability for the Racine-based company.

Weve been really working on strengthening the company, he said. Its been a very complementary strategy which I feel very positively that our team has accomplished.

Modine announced the acquisition of Luvata HTS, the worlds largest independent producer of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration coils and coatings, in a release issued Tuesday. Burke said that strengthening Modine will only serve to benefit the city where its headquartered.

As a company with a corporate headquarters in Racine, its going to improve our company through both the sales growth and diversification of our company, he said. Youll see a stronger Modine, which is better for Racine.

The company also announced two staffing changes in a release Friday, with Matt McBurney assuming the new position of vice president, Luvata HTS integration lead, and Scott Miller filling McBurneys old role as vice president of building HVAC. Burke said McBurney will play a big role in the coming months for Modine and Luvata.

He basically is our industrial business expert from coils to HVAC systems, he said. Hell be a key contact for Luvata for making this transition from deal signing to deal close.With the acquisition of Luvata, headquartered in Memphis, still in its early stages, Burke isnt sure whether the transaction will lead to new jobs in Racine.I think theres some opportunity for that, but its too early to say with certainty, he said.That said, Burke feels Luvata was the perfect acquisition for Modine, especially since it gives them more year-round products to complement many of the cyclical products Modine puts out.Our current markets have heavy cycles, he said. Were really adding a large portion of what we think is fast growing but also more stable.Plus, Luvatas foothold internationally will improve Modines overall business.Theyre in a leading position not only in North America but in Europe and have a growing position in Asia, Burke said.

Ultimately, given Modines long desire to expand, Luvata provided the best fit possible, according to Burke.

Its a very good natural acquisition that I think is going to strengthen us into the future, he said.
Building with Bamboo: A Sustainable Product With Boundless Utility

Bamboo has been used in its native China for around 7,000 years. While China is still the leading producer, bamboo can be found in every corner of the globe, with international uses ranging from building materials to writing materials, food to footwear, and traditional medicine to modern decoration. Known for
Top Afghan officials and representatives of an anti-government armed group, led by former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have reported major progress in their protracted peace negotiations and both sides are expected to sign a deal, possibly sometime on Saturday.

President Ashraf Ghanis national unity government for months has been engaged in talks with Hekmatyars Hezb-i-Islami (HIA) faction, with disagreements repeatedly stalling the much-touted peace process.

Renewed hopes for the long-delayed agreement stem from late Fridays announcement made by the fugitive warlords son, Habibur Rehman Hekmatyar, on his official Facebook page. He said that HIA and the Afghan government have agreed on all the articles of the draft peace document and God willing, it will be announced on Saturday.

I congratulate the (Afghan) nation, and all Muslims as well as Hezb-i-Islami members on the peace deal. I hope it will go a long way in ending the war, bringing peace and blocking foreign interference (in Afghanistan), said Hekmtayars son who is not part of HIAs negotiating team.



Good progress

A presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazavi told VOA there has been considerable progress in talks with the HIA negotiating team and promised more in course of the day.

We have made good progress and hope to achieve more later today, he said without discussing further details.

The groundbreaking development comes at a time when the largest insurgent group, the Taliban, has intensified attacks across Afghanistan, and has made territorial gains in parts of the country.

A peace deal with Hekmatyars group, which has fought alongside the Taliban against the U.S.-backed Afghan government, could put pressure on the Islamist insurgency to come to the table for peace talks. Unlike the Taliban, the Hekmatyar groups influence is limited to very few Afghan provinces.

Hekmatyar is a longtime guerilla commander whose forces fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, using equipment supplied by the CIA. Later, his militias battled the Taliban for control of Afghanistan during the brutal civil war of the 1990s. Hekmatyar was designated a "global terrorist" by the United States in 2003 for allegedly participating in and supporting attacks by al-Qaida and Taliban forces.



Possible boost for Ghani

Analysts believe a peace deal with HIA might serve as a political boost to beleaguered Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who is under intense criticism for the worsening nationwide security. It would also come ahead of next months key summit on Afghanistan in Brussels where donors will review progress the Afghan national unity government has mad in terms of promoting political and economic reforms in the country.

Hekmatyar and his commanders are allegedly sheltering in neighboring Pakistan, where Taliban leaders also have their sanctuaries, charges Islamabad rejects.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on the eve of the annual Eid festival, Taliban chief Mawlavi Hibatullah Akhundzada has urged Afghans security forces and government employees to abandon their jobs and join the groups legitimate jihad against foreign invading forces.

"They should ponder deeply over their jeopardizing position of their being in the ranks of the invaders. Their support to the invading non-believers is undoubtedly in contradiction with the command of the Almighty Allah and His prophet," asserted the Taliban leader.

But in a nationally televised speech Saturday, President Ghani dismissed those assertions, saying armed opposition groups fighting in Afghanistan "are not jihadis but they are terrorists." He said their actions such as killing innocent Afghans in bomb and other terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam.
Militants are increasingly targeting young professionals, schools, and educated members of society in Afghanistan and neighboring Pashtun areas in Pakistan. Experts say the tactic is aimed at increasing the number of uneducated youth  a prime demographic targeted by militant group recruiters.

Hundreds of educated Afghans have died in terrorist attacks, and dozens of schools have been bombed, burned, or closed by the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Militants last month stormed the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, killing several students and faculty members.

The university attack took place not long after two university professors, an American and an Australian, were kidnapped while on their way to work. Attacks on the educational elite have been stepped up too in neighboring Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan in Pakistan.

At least 65 lawyers were killed last month and more than 80 injured in a suicide bombing in Quetta, the capital city of the restive Baluchistan province. The attack, claimed by both theTaliban and Islamic State, targeted highly educated professionals dedicated to helping rid their societies of extremism, illiteracy and poverty.

After a deadly attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda earlier this year that killed at least 21 people  mostly students  a Taliban faction vowed to target schools throughout the country.



Attacking fabric of Afghan society

Analysts say by targeting students and education centers, militants are aiming at the heart of the society by depriving its younger generation of acquiring education and global reach.

This was not just an attack on an institution; it was an attack on the fabric of Afghan society, on a generation, on the countrys future, Lael Mohib, former chief of staff at the American University and spouse of Afghanistans ambassador to the United States, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

By targeting schools, terrorists take aim at a nation's best and brightest, and more broadly at its future, Michael Kugelman, a senior researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center told VOA. There's nothing more demoralizing and tragic than trying to take out younger generations, and particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are extremely young demographically.

A systematic decapitation of the educated Pashtun society has been carried out through several phases, according to Khadim Hussain, a Peshawar-based security analyst and author of the book "The Militant Discourse" - Religious Militancy in Pakistan.



Creating vacuums

Militants are especially keen on destroying the educational system and leaving young students with no learning possibilities, making them susceptible to recruitment by militant groups, Hussain said.

In the beginning, secondary educational institutions were targeted in a very large number which created a large pool of recruits for the terrorist syndicates from out of school children, Hussain told VOA. The social and political leadership and cultural practitioners were targeted in the second stage. The attacks were meant to create social, cultural and political vacuums.

And educated professionals say militants are achieving that goal. People here are saying we will need another 50 years to fill this vacuum, but I think it is a much bigger loss and will be difficult to repair, Nasibullah Achakzai, a Pakistani lawyer, told Radio Free Europe after the Quetta attack.

Students too fear their future is being threatened by militants.

Terrorists target our educational institutions to keep Afghans away from obtaining education, American University student Sadeequllah Ahmadzai told VOA.



Progress but not enough

Afghans have made steady strides in education since Taliban was driven from power in 2001 and girls were allowed to attend school. A decade later, the World Bank said 7.8 million students were enrolled in schools  about 2.9 million of them girls. But the countrys literacy rate remains low  about 39 percent. As of 2013, roughly half of the teachers do not meet the international education standards, according to Afghanistans then deputy minister of education, Asif Nang.

Pakistan is some 50 years behind in its primary and 60 years behind in secondary education targets, according to a recent United Nations report. The literacy rate in poor rural areas stands at 14 percent for females and 64 percent for males. Nearly seven million Pakistani youth do not attend school.

While militants continue to target the educated, students say the only way they know to fight back is by staying in school. We won't give up our studies, even if there's another attack, American University student Roman Dehsabzi told Radio Free Europe. We will continue our studies. I'm not afraid.
A fire in a factory in Bangladesh has killed at least 22 people and injured dozens of others just outside the capital, Dhaka, authorities said.

According to officials, the fire broke out Saturday after an explosion in the boiler room at the four-story building.

"Most of them had burn injuries. We sent the critically injured victims to the hospitals in Dhaka," Parvez Mia, a doctor at the Tongi state-run hospital said.

Police are still concerned other workers may still be trapped inside the Tampaco Foils Limited factory. Around 100 people were in the building when the fire started.

The manufacturing plant produces and prints plastic packaging for potato chips and household goods such as mosquito coils.

Police Inspector Sirajul Islam told AFP chemicals were allegedly stored on the ground floor. "As a result, the fire took no time to spread," Islam said adding officials were still battling the blaze that started at the beginning of a workday.

Factory electrician Mohammad Rokon said he heard the explosion and felt a tremor. "Then suddenly the ceiling started to fall on me. I almost became unconscious. But I forced myself to go out with the help of my mobile phone's flashlight," he told AFP from his hospital bed.

A committee has been formed to investigate the fire, according to an official from the Bangladesh factory inspection department.

Fires and other accidents in factories are common in Bangladesh where reports say the fire protection system is weak.

In 2013, more than 1,100 workers died in a building collapse. The incident remains as the country's worst industrial disaster.

Clothing production is an important part of the country's economy with close to $27 billion in exports during the fiscal year that ended in June.
A U.S. federal court refused a request by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to halt construction of an oil pipeline, but the federal government stepped into the dispute Friday, appealing for calm and ordering the pipeline construction company to suspend its work on federal land.

The Dakota Access oil pipeline, already under construction, is a $3.7 billion project crossing four U.S. states, intended to transport crude oil from North Dakota to the states of Iowa and Illinois in the central U.S.

Supporters of the project say it will help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, while critics  including many American Indian tribes  say the construction runs roughshod over territory held sacred by the Standing Rock Sioux. Protests have swelled, with nearly 200 Native American groups now supporting the Standing Rock Sioux and other opponents of the project.

The Standing Rock Sioux said the Obama administration's "stunning" intervention in the pipeline dispute raised hopes for nationwide reform on projects affecting tribal lands.

"Our hearts are full. This is an historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and for tribes across the nation," tribal chairman Dave Archambault said. "Our voices have been heard."

In Bismarck, North Dakota's capital, hundreds of protesters celebrated. "We won! We won!" shouted Bobbi Jean Three Legs, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe of South Dakota.

In addition to tribal groups, environmentalists, politicians and celebrities have joined the protest movement.

Apart from concerns about construction disrupting sacred tribal sites, conservation groups have said they fear oil leaks could contaminate farmland and water resources near the pipeline.

Need for serious discussion

Washington's intervention in the case came late Friday, in a joint statement that three federal departments issued shortly after a district court rejected the local Sioux tribe's request for an injunction.

"This case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects," said the statement from the U.S. Departments of the Interior, of Justice, and of the Army.

The private company building the pipeline must stop work on Army-owned land until federal officials can re-examine previous decisions about the project, the joint statement said.

"Construction ... of the pipeline will not go forward at this time" on U.S.-owned land, the federal statement said. The pipeline company, Dakota Access LLC, also was asked to halt construction in other areas adjacent to federal land.

The pipeline case is just the latest incident in which American Indian tribes say the U.S. government does not adequately consider their culture or territorial claims when making decisions. Tensions between settlers and native tribes have existed since settlers first came to the eastern shores of North America and established communities in areas occupied by indigenous people.

Many American Indian tribes were driven west and now live on reservations. Critics say education, access to medical care and access to economic opportunity on such reservations are substandard, and that the rights of indigenous people are still overlooked by the U.S. government today.
The Cuban government has called on the United States to do more to ease economic pressure on the nation in light of improved relations between Washington and Havana, saying U.S. economic sanctions cost Cuba $4.6 billion in the last financial year.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez made the remark at a news conference marking the launch of an annual campaign for a United Nations resolution that condemns the U.S. sanctions on the financially strapped island.

Rodriguez called the U.S. sanctions "the main cause of the economy's problems and obstacle to development."

He said over the 55 years the embargo had been in place, it had cost Cuba a total of $125.9 billion. The figure includes actual costs, such as fines on Cuba's business partners, and hypothetical figures, such as sales Cuban businesses could have been making in U.S. markets.

Since Cuba and the United States re-established diplomatic ties in a surprise move in December 2014, the two nations have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, eased travel restrictions, and negotiated trade, environmental, and communications agreements.

But the U.S. has yet to fully lift its trade embargo on Cuba, an issue that has been the subject of a nonbinding U.N. resolution in the General Assembly that has passed every year since 1992. Cuba has been the driving force behind the resolution, but it has overwhelming support from other nations.

Cuba and the United States have been at odds since Fidel Castro took control of the country  ousting a U.S.-backed government  and established a communist government in 1959. The trade embargo was established in 1960.

The United States traditionally votes against the U.N. resolution and claims Cuba owes it $10 billion for American property and companies seized by the Castro regime.

This year's vote in the U.N. is set for October 26.

U.S. President Barack Obama says he opposes the trade embargo, but says only Congress has the authority to completely lift the sanctions.

Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean Sea, just 145 kilometers from the southeastern coast of the United States.
A 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Tanzania's Great Lakes region Saturday, killing at least 10 people and collapsing buildings in the city of Bukoba on the shore of Lake Victoria.

Local police reported about 100 injuries and said rescue operations in Kagera province were ongoing.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt in nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya.

Pictures posted on social media showed residents of Bukoba gathered in the streets, with rows of wrecked buildings nearby.

A statement from the Tanzanian president's office voiced shock and grief over the loss of life and property but did not provide details.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region, but they are generally of low intensity.
SpaceX founder and chief Elon Musk said on Friday he was unsure why one of the company's Falcon rockets burst into flames on its Florida launch pad last week, destroying both the rocket and an Israeli communications satellite it was due to lift into orbit.

"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is also the chief executive of Telsa Motors, wrote on Twitter.

A SpaceX-led accident investigation is underway, overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation office.

A massive fireball enveloped the rocket on Sept. 1 as it was being fueled for a routine test of its first stage. The rocket was scheduled to blast off two days later.

The rocket's nine engines had not yet ignited for a test firing when a fireball engulfed the upper stage. "There was no apparent heat source," Musk said on Friday.

The accident destroyed the $200 million communications satellite owned by Israel-based Space Communication, which was going to be used by Facebook and Eutelsat to expand internet access in Africa.

Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has not yet said how much damage was done to its launch pad, located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX has backlog of more than 70 launches for commercial and government customers, worth more than $10 billion.

The rocket that was destroyed was the second of 29 Falcon 9 rockets to fail. It took SpaceX about three weeks to identify the likely cause of its previous accident, which occurred on June 28, 2015.

The problem was traced to a faulty bracket, which was holding a bottle of helium inside the rocket's upper stage. When the strut broke about two minutes after liftoff, the upper-stage liquid oxygen tank over-pressurized and ruptured, triggering an explosion.

SpaceX replaced thousands of struts throughout its fleet and had successfully flown nine times before last week's failure.

"We remain fully confident in the results of [that] investigation ... The current investigation has no bearing on this," SpaceX spokesman Dex Torricke-Barton wrote in an email to Reuters.

SpaceX's next flight had been slated for later this month from a second launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

"We have confidence that SpaceX will resolve the matter and when they do we will be ready to launch," SpaceX's customer, Iridium Communications Inc, told Reuters on Friday.

SpaceX said last week it was looking to shift its Florida launches to a nearly completed pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, adjacent to its Cape Canaveral site.
Iran's former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to "quickly fix'' a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could cost Iran some $2 billion.



That April ruling allows families of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other attacks linked to Iran to collect monetary damages from frozen Iranian funds.



In the letter, which was posted on Monday on a website affiliated with Ahmadinejad's office, he writes: "I passionately advise you not to let the historical defamation and bitter incident be recorded under your name.''



Ahmadinejad says he gave the letter to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents U.S. interests in Iran. Embassy officials declined to comment.



The letter comes amid speculation about Ahmadinejad's political future.
The Electoral Commission of Ghana has sharply denied accusations that its newly released nomination fees for candidates are exorbitant and intended to frustrate smaller political parties.

Ghanaian electoral laws allow the commission to determine nomination fees for presidential and parliamentary candidates ahead of polls. Presidential candidates will be required to pay $12,505 and parliamentary candidates will pay $2,501 for the December 7 elections, the commission said.

Spokesman Eric Dzakpasu said the commission made the announcement following a stakeholders meeting Thursday with the Interparty Advisory Committee in Accra.

This is a decision taken by the commission at the very highest level, and I would say that it is not 'elimination by rough tactics,' as they put it. These are fees which have been informed by a lot of considerations. The law also makes room that these are not fees that can be kept by the commission at all, because they are refundable fees for candidates who reach a specified level of support, Dzakpasu said.

If you are a presidential candidate, by regulation, if at the end of the election you are able to get 29 percent of the votes cast in the election, your money is refunded to you," he said. "If you are a parliamentary candidate, if you are able to get 12.5 percent of the votes in your constituency, your money is refunded to you.

Nomination papers

The commission also set September 29 and 30 as the dates for the candidates to officially present their nomination papers, which will allow them to qualify for ballot placement. Presidential candidates will need two signatures from each of the countrys more than 250 administrative districts, while the parliamentary candidates are required to have 20 signatories from their respective constituencies.

Meanwhile, exhibition of the list of those who used the National Health Insurance Scheme card as identification during voter registration ends Saturday.

Supreme Court judges recently ruled that the electoral commission should delete from the register names of those who used the NHIS cards. The commission then deleted the names and re-registered about 29,000 people.

Those who have been re-registered are required to check their information as captured during the process. This, the electoral commission said, forms part of its efforts to compile a credible voter list to be used for the December elections.
Iran has begun building its second nuclear power plant.

Russia is helping Iran with the construction of the facility near the southern port city of Bushehr, the site of Iran's other operational nuclear plant.

Construction of the site is expected to take about 10 years and cost up to $10 billion.

The facility is Iran's first nuclear power plant to be built since signing a deal with world powers last year restricting Iran's nuclear capacity.

U.S. President Barack Obama has called the pact a success, saying, "All of Iran's pathways to a nuclear weapon remain closed." He said the deal, implemented in January, has pushed the time-frame for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon if it violated the agreement from two or three months to "about a year."

U.S. opponents of the deal have not changed their view that the agreement would not force Iran to end its military activities in the Middle East or ultimately block it from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has removed thousands of centrifuges that had been used to enrich uranium and shipped out the majority of its existing stockpile. World powers lifted their sanctions, unlocking billions of dollars for Iran and clearing the way for new business opportunities there.

Iran has complained that despite the lifting of sanctions that once barred financial institutions from doing business with the country, foreign banks remain reluctant to be involved in transactions.

The agreement spells out a 10-year limit on Iran's centrifuges, a 15-year limit on how much it can enrich uranium and a 25-year period for U.N. inspectors to have access to Tehran's nuclear facilities, all pushing the deal's major effects beyond certain changes in leadership among the nations involved in the negotiations.

The United States and nuclear experts point to the main result, extending the timeline under which Iran could rush to build a nuclear bomb.
The Afghan government is protesting Iran's decision to blindfold several Afghans and put them in cages in the center of Shiraz this week.

Nearly two dozen handcuffed Afghan refugees were displayed in a large metal cage. Police also exhibited confiscated items, including weapons, explosives, drugs, alcohol and smuggled soft drinks.

The deputy police chief of Shiraz, Nasser Keshawarz, said the refugees were among some 200 foreign nationals who entered Iran illegally and were arrested. Pictures of the public detention went viral on the internet, drawing outrage from Afghans and human rights activists, and an official diplomatic protest from Kabul.

"Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees and Returnees strongly condemns this inhumane and humiliating treatment and violation of human dignity of Afghan refugees by the Shiraz city police," the Afghan government said in a statement. "This behavior undoubtedly contradicts Human Rights, the 1951 [Refugee] Convention, and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and stands against the bilateral refugee agreements between the two countries."

There was no response from Tehran or on official state-run media.

Criticism of Iran

Mohammad Reza Khoshak, an Afghan parliament member from western Herat province, which borders Iran, denounced the Iranian regime.

"In Shiraz, a city well-known for its poet Saadi, who asks for equality for all humans, my fellow citizens are put in cages and mistreated in a way similar to what militants of the Islamic State do to their prisoners," he told an Afghan newspaper.

Well-known Afghan poet Mustafa Hazara criticized Iran on his Facebook page. "How low a human could go?" he asked. "Look, my Iranian friends, if you travel outside your geographic location [country], you would realize that the value of humans is different than what you think of."

Systematic prejudice

Roughly 3 million Afghans live in Iran. Most of them settled there after fleeing war and conflict in their homeland, and many lack basic rights and live without a formal status. About 950,000 Afghans in Iran are classified as refugees.

Iran has sent thousands of Afghan refugees, mainly ethnic Shi'ite Hazaras, to Syria to fight alongside forces of Hezbollah and Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard forces in support of the Syrian government. Dozens of Afghans have died in the Syrian war.

In his online post, Hazara asked educated Iranians to fight what he termed a systematic prejudice by Iran against Afghan refugees.

In general, Afghans living in Iran try to keep a low profile so as to not anger the regime.

"They [Iranian authorities] are very tough on us, and even one of my colleagues got a threatening message to not talk with foreign media about the incident," Afghan journalist Kazem Sharafuddin told VOA from Mashhad.

The caging of Afghans has angered some Iranians, as well. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's spokesperson, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, condemned the move.

"We are ashamed before Afghan people, ashamed before humanity," Ramezanzadeh said on his Instagram account.
Kenyas president on Saturday launched a new political party that he intends to use for a second and last term in office in the 2017 election.

The launch of the Jubilee Party followed days of political haggling in Nairobi as 12 parties dissolved and united under the new organization.

Tens of thousands of people dressed in party colors thronged to a stadium in Kasarani, a residential area of Nairobi, to witness the launch of the Jubilee Party. The ruling party and the current government took the opportunity to show how people had benefited under their rule.

President Uhuru Kenyatta told the crowd that the new party affirmed togetherness and peace.

We are here as a Jubilee family to proclaim the meaning of our party," he said. "The party we launch here today is an expression of our unity. ... In launching it, we renew and strengthen our ties that bind Kenyans together. We rise from the ashes of conflict to express the beauty of reconciliation and collective purpose.

Party merger

In 1966, three years after Kenya gained independence, the biggest two political parties, the Kenya African National Union and the Kenya African Democratic Union, merged. The unity, political commentators said, followed years of ethnic nationalization.

Twenty-five years after that agreement, some politicians and activists took to the streets, demanding multiparty democracy. Then in late 2007, political violence erupted after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki won elections and was sworn into office. A power-sharing agreement in early 2008 ended the crisis.

On Friday, Deputy President William Ruto told party delegates that multiparty democracy had contributed to intercommunal fighting in Kenya during elections. He said he was confident the new party would bring some normalcy to the country.

We are laying a firm new foundation for the politics and leadership and the management of public affairs of our country going forward, because for much of the multiparty era, our practice of politics has given democracy a very bad name," he said. "To many people, much of the time, multiparty democracy is a tower of burden. Democracy is seen to be chaotic, noisy, unreliable, dangerous and sometimes very divisive.

Ethnic violence

Kenyatta and Ruto were accused of being behind the 2007-08 violence and were charged at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. In the ethnic fighting, more than 1,000 people were killed, and at least 250,000 were uprooted from their homes.

Ruto said he and the president had a desire to bring different parties together and form one party with a national agenda.

Kenyatta said the new party would respect the different views of its members.

"We know the unity of the past, the unity of our fathers and mothers, was lost because we succumbed to personality cults and because we did not protect internal democracy in our parties," the president said. "Jubilee will not make the mistakes of the party that came before us. Every shred of opinion will have its say in this party, every member will get a fair hearing, and we will embrace internal party democracy.

Hundreds of kilometers away from Nairobi in the coastal city of Mombasa, the biggest opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement, was celebrating 10 years since its formation.
In celebration of the National Park Services 100th anniversary, adventurer Mikah Meyer is traveling across America with the goal of visiting every one of the more than 400 sites within its jurisdiction.

The young traveler set out from Washington, D.C., in June and has already experienced dozens of sites. And VOA has been following him every step of the way.

Sand and surf

Today, we're at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which stretches along 24 kilometers (15 miles) of the southern shore of Lake Michigan.

It is renowned for its beautiful sandy beaches that offer visitors many opportunities for land and water activities, with views of the Chicago skyline in nearby Illinois.

Mikah embraced the challenge of flying a kite on the windy beach but enjoyed even more watching a kiteboard enthusiast surfing along  and at one point flying over  the turbulent water.

But the coolest thing, Mikah said, was being able to see Chicago in the distance.

You could see the Willis Tower [still commonly referred to as Sears Tower], and the John Hancock Center and a bunch of other buildings from the beach, so it was this nice juxtaposition of urbanity and communing with nature, he said.

Being in the middle of nature while surrounded by urban development reminded him of the importance of the national parks.

On either side of the dunes, there was some sort of industry that was spewing smoke into the air, and so it was a very poignant reminder that basically this whole beach would have looked like that had they not saved it and set it aside.

Utopian dreams

Next stop: Chicago, where the South Side's historic district of Pullman was recently designated a national monument by President Barack Obama, who referred to it as the heart of what would become Americas labor movement.

Mikah explained that the 80-hectare (200-plus-acre) neighborhood was once the utopian dream of 19th-century American industrialist George Mortimer Pullman.

Pullman was known for his innovative design and manufacturing of the Pullman railroad sleeping car, which made travel on the U.S. railways a lot more luxurious and comfortable. The businessman created a company town where his railway employees could live and work in a safe neighborhood and enjoy a better standard of living. Many of those employees were immigrants from Scandinavia, Germany, England and Ireland.

That utopian model actually worked for about 10 years, Mikah said, "but then the U.S. hit a depression.

Despite the sudden hardships facing his workers, in 1893, Pullman wanted to recoup the investment he'd made into building these houses, Mikah explained, so he still charged people the same amount of rent. As a result, "workers wages were cut [and] some lost their jobs because of the economic depression, so they couldn't afford the rent anymore. Then they went on strike.

The 1894 railroad strike and boycott of Pullman cars was the first national strike in the U.S. and involved 150,000 people. At one point the National Guard was called in and dozens were killed in the ensuing violence.

Birth of the labor, civil rights movements

That violent conflict roiled the country, resulting in the creation of Labor Day, a federal holiday that honors working Americans. It was one of the ways President Grover Cleveland tried to appease the Pullman strikers, Mikah said.

Another result of the Pullman unrest was the formation of the first all-black labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, under the leadership of African-American civil rights leader Asa Philip Randolph. Its members were Pullman porters, men hired to work on the railway cars. After the U.S. Civil War, in the late 1860s, when newly freed slaves were looking for jobs, Pullman began hiring only African-Americans to serve as porters, a practice that continued until the 1960s.

Many believe the formation of that union paved the path for the Civil Rights and American labor movements that followed.

Mikah said it would be fascinating to see the Pullman district again in five to 10 years, once planners finish redeveloping the buildings.

The restoration of some of the important and historic buildings in the area "will hopefully help the neighborhood, because its on the South Side of Chicago, which is the rougher side of town.

One of Michelle Obama's great-grandfathers was a Pullman porter. And Barack Obama spent time in the historic neighborhood in his days as a community organizer.

How fitting that the birthplace of the labor/civil rights movements played such a large role in shaping the future of our first family.

Coming attractions

In the coming days Mikah will be visiting the River Raisin National Battlefield Park (which preserves, commemorates and interprets the January 1813 battles of the War of 1812) in Monroe, Michigan.

To follow Mikah and learn more about the places hes traveling to, he invites you to visit him on his website.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's government on Friday announced the release of another wave of prisoners in response to demands from opposition parties as a precondition to their involvement in a political dialogue in Kinshasa.

Last week, the government responded by releasing eight pro-democracy activists and another 170 prisoners held for various offenses.

On Friday, the justice minister signed a ministerial order for the release of 110 prisoners found guilty, according to the order, of 'insurrection, acts of war and political offences'.

The news was welcomed Friday by Edem Kodjo, the African Union appointed facilitator of the DRC's political dialogue that started this week.



He told media: " A short while ago I received from the justice minister an order amnestying 110 political prisoners who were already concerned by the amnesty law of 2014. 110 are being released this evening or tomorrow. So we are making progress."



Kodjo said he and others had been lobbying for the release of a number of prisoners whose names has been given to him by a group of opposition parties known as the G7.))

Human Rights Watch said last week that it had documented at least 20 long-term political prisoners who remained in detention in DRC, including leaders of political parties. It was not clear whether any were among the 110 listed for release.

Samy Badibanga, an opposition politician taking part in the dialogue, welcomed the latest releases as proof that the dialogue was achieving results. Each of these measures was positive, he said, adding that he hoped there would be more such measures in the future.

During a dialogue debate Friday, the ruling coalition and opposition maintained opposing positions on the order of upcoming elections. The opposition wants presidential elections to be held first, while the ruling coalition wants local elections held first.
Sixteen years ago, the building housing the U.S. Department of Defense came under attack. American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 59 passengers on board the plane and 125 people working in the building.

Today, the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial stands next to where the plane entered the building, honoring those lost on a day that forever changed America.

Jamie McIntyre, The Washington Examiners senior defense writer, was inside the Pentagon working as a correspondent for CNN at the time of the attacks. Speaking with VOA at the memorial, he called it sacred ground.

I stood here on September 11, McIntyre said, and to someone who lived through it, its kind of a defining moment in your life.

Among those killed in the attack was David Laychak, a civilian employee with the U.S. Army who had been in and out of his office at the Pentagon because of renovations to the building.

I didnt even know if Dave was in the building. I didnt expect him to be in the building, his brother James Laychak, the president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, told VOA.

Laychak recalled being at home about three kilometers from the Pentagon when he and his wife felt the windows shake. They were watching their TV screens air footage from the Twin Towers attack in New York, and they remember wondering whether the Pentagon could have also been a target.

As the hours turned into days without contact from David Laychak, the nightmare was confirmed: He had gone to the Pentagon that day, and he had not survived the attack. He left behind a wife, Laurie, and two children, Zach, 9, and Jenny, 7.

Symbolism of memorial

Plans for the memorial started a few weeks later.

Laychak said the victims family members first worked with the Pentagon to secure a plot of land near the impact point.

After years of fundraising, designing and building the memorial, it was dedicated and opened to the public on September 11, 2008. The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial was the first of the 9/11 memorials to be opened, Laychak said. Even though its just steps away from the U.S. military headquarters, its open to the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

I think thats a testament to our country, Laychak said. The only time its been closed is when weve had major snowstorms.

The memorial is designed like a timeline, with September 11, 2001, serving as what Lachak calls the zero line.

From there, there are benches, one for each victim, organized by their birthdays. Five benches bunched near the zero line serve as memorials to the five children killed onboard Flight 77. After a gap, more benches emerge on the timeline to represent all of the adults killed in the attack, whose ages range from their early 20s to 71, the age of retired U.S. Navy Captain John Yamnicky Sr., who was killed on the plane.

If a visitor has to face the Pentagon to read a victims name on a bench, the visitor knows that person was killed in the building. If a visitor reads a name on a bench and sees the skyline, then the visitor knows that person was killed in the plane. The trees on the memorials grounds, once tiny saplings, have grown over the years to provide shade as people sit and reflect in the memorial. The sound of the cool water that runs below the benches is calming.

Laychak thinks his brother would approve of the site.

I do this to honor my brothers memory and to honor all the people who died here so we never forget them, he said.

Hes now working to fund a Visitor Education Center to complement the site and help tell the stories of those lost. When completed, the new center will rest on the other side of Washington Boulevard, overlooking the highway on the flight path of Flight 77 right before it entered the building.
Fifteen years ago, a passenger jet was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, killing all of its passengers and 125 people inside the building. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb spoke with two men forever affected by the attack, during a visit to the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial.
The man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan 35 years ago is being permanently released Saturday from a Washington mental hospital. John Hinckley's release comes after a federal judge ruled in July that he is not a danger to himself or the public.

Hinckley will live with his 90-year-old mother in a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, about 250 kilometers southeast of the nation's capital, under dozens of conditions.



The release of the 61-year-old Hinckley follows years of rehabilitation at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where he lived for three decades after being found not guilty by reason of insanity of shooting president Reagan and three other people.

Hinckley began stalking Reagan, and subsequently shot him, White House press secretary James Brady, a U.S. Secret Service agent and a local police officer in 1981 outside a Washington hotel. Brady sustained brain damage in the incident and died in 2014. President Reagan and the other shooting victims recovered from their wounds.

Hinckley is no stranger to his mother's home in Williamsburg. He has been on extended visits there in recent years as part of a transition to conditional independent living.



Among the rules Hinckley must follow include a requirement to work or volunteer at least three days a week. He must also continue to receive therapy and cannot drink alcohol or use illegal drugs. Hinckley is not allowed to conduct Web searches for information about his crimes or victims, nor can he establish social media accounts without permission.

If all goes well after a year, Hinckley may be granted the opportunity to live with roommates or even alone.
A senior Russian general, Sergei Kuralenko, this week quoted Mitt Romney, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate in 2012, as saying at the time, "We destroyed the Soviet Union, and we will destroy Russia."

The problem is that Romney said no such thing.

The remarks by Kuralenko, head of the academy of the general staff of Russia's armed forces and deputy commander of Russia's Western Military District, came weeks after Russian media outlets quoted U.S. Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump as harshly criticizing the International Paralympic Committees decision to ban Russian athletes from the 2016 Paralympics. The comments attributed to Trump turned out to be made up.

Kuralenkos comments came during a forum in Moscow sponsored by the Russian Defense Ministry. According to a tape of the generals remarks made by a conference participant, Kuralenko said, I remind you that in 2012, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, Our target is Russia. Russia is a threat to the whole human race. Our goal is to force Russia to devour itself from the inside, bringing turmoil and division to its society. ... If the series of measures listed above dont work, we will have no other choice but to declare a quick and victorious war against this country. We destroyed the Soviet Union, and we will destroy Russia.' I want to note that nearly 50 percent of Americans voted for Romney.

Anti-Russian 'measures'

As Kuralenko was speaking, the full text of the alleged Romney quote was projected on a screen behind him. That text quoted Romney as detailing the series of measures to be taken against Russia.

We will set the Chechens, Tatars, Bashkirs [and] Dagestanis against the Russians," it said. "We must make them fight against one other. We must multiply actions aimed at discrediting the Russian Orthodox Church.

In fact, the comments attributed to Romney were originally published in September 2012 by the satirical website Fognews, which at that time specialized in fake news. Fognews itself stated at the time that this and other news reports had been created in order to ridicule stupidity and absurdity.

In a March 2012 television interview, Romney called Russia the "No. 1 geopolitical foe" of the United States.

Little concern for truth

Independent military experts contacted by VOAs Russian service said Russian military and civilian officials alike care little about the veracity of quotes they use, and are much more concerned about the effect they are trying to achieve by using such quotes. One such analyst, Alexander Golts, told VOA that many top Russian officials, from the president on down, have used false quotes.

This is a disease not only of Russian generals, he said. The commander in chief of the Russian armed forces, Vladimir Putin, has made statements indirectly referring to a quote falsely attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that is floating around the Russian media, as has Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council. This is typical for the Russian leadership in general, which accepts totally uncritically any information seeming to demonstrate the evil plans of the West.

The irresponsible game of fake quotes demonstrates their state of mind: The generals and the top leadership of Russia consider themselves as participants in a propaganda war, Golts said. They play a propaganda game aimed, first of all, at the Russian population, and secondly, at the international community. ... They think one quote or another fits with their worldview, which they want to spread, and they dont care whether it is true or false. This is an Orwellian world, where truth does not exist.

War seen as inevitable

Another Moscow-based independent military analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, said Russian generals believe a war with the United States is inevitable.

You simply have to understand that in Russia presently, any decision  domestic, foreign, fiscal, economic  is dictated by the military brass, by militarism, which, in short, has seized power, he told VOAs Russian service.

"In fact, what is happening now is what happened during the Cold War: Nonexistent threats are created; they are presented to the Kremlin leadership by military officials who rely on false data that is seemingly intelligence data, said Felgenhauer. Both Putin and [Russian Defense Minister Sergei] Shoigu, by and large, are puppets in the hands of the general staff, which has completely seized control of the threat assessment system. It conjures up every imaginable threat, as was the case in the '70's and '80's, when the Soviet general staff simply lied to the Politburo.

Felgenhauer noted that in a speech to military officials in late August, Shoigu detailed how work to create a Pacific line of defense  extending from Chukotka, a region in Russias Far East due west of Alaska, southward to Vladivostok, due west of northern Japan  is moving ahead at full speed.

An entire division of coastal defense [troops] will be deployed in Chukotka, Felgenhauer said. And the purpose of this division is to block the Bering Strait to any American shipping, to close off the Arctic to America. And this is only part of the major, very expensive work currently going on in preparation for the inevitable, in their opinion, future world war.
Scientists are one step closer to success in the battle against HIV with an experimental vaccine designed to retrain the body's immune system to attack the virus that causes AIDS.

A vaccine has been elusive in part because the AIDS virus mutates rapidly, making it a moving target for researchers.

However, in a small fraction of people who have been infected for a couple of years, their immune systems learn to recognize the viral mutations, cranking out broadly neutralizing antibodies that naturally block HIV in its many disguises.

Scientists have tried to harness the potential of these antibodies and translate that knowledge into a vaccine that could induce antibodies in humans to fight the ever-changing virus.

Now, researchers in a large-scale collaboration at a number of institutions say they have taken a major  though early  step toward such a vaccine development.

Experiments with the vaccine were successful in a mouse model that mimicked the human immune system.

The achievement was described in five papers published simultaneously in the journals Cell, Immunity and Science.

Frederick Alt, director of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, led researchers in creating the humanized mouse model.

Alt says the approach, referred to as "sequential vaccination," retrains the immune system's B-cells to recognize the HIV virus in all its forms and kill it by producing highly specific antibodies.

Seek and destroy

Scientists worked with non-infectious, genetically modified HIV proteins. These stimulated young immune system cells, called precursor B-cells, to produce oddly shaped antibodies. The antibodies  which can recognize mutated versions of the AIDS virus  attach themselves to other components of the immune system that then seek out and destroy the virus.

So far, scientists have engineered two proteins to prime the immune system, which were shown in the mouse model to produce antibodies with many of the same genetic features as naturally produced broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Because there are millions of varieties of HIV, vaccination would require more than one shot, according to researcher Bill Schief, a vaccine designer for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

"Basically, what we are trying to do  is devise vaccines that will teach the human immune system to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies so that after you get the vaccine  if you are ever exposed to the virus, you'll be protected no matter which of the tens of the millions of strains that are circulating now that you're exposed to  hopefully, it won't matter, if we do our job perfectly well," Schief said.

Researchers plan to test one of the stimulating proteins in a clinical trial next year, to see if it activates B-cells as intended.

It is work that scientists hope will rewrite the rules of vaccine development, and vanquish a formidable foe  the AIDS virus  for good.
Nearly 2 million Muslims from across the globe have converged on Saudi Arabia for the annual five-day Hajj.

Iran is boycotting this year's Hajj, citing Saudi incompetence and a poor response by health and safety officials. Masses of Iranian Shi'ites have instead converged on the holy Iraqi city of Karbala for an alternative pilgrimage.

During last years pilgrimage, several hundred Iranians were among at least 2,000 people crushed to death in a stampede in Mecca.

This is not the first time Iran has boycotted the Hajj, but it comes at a time when tensions with rival Saudi Arabia are at a record high over conflicts in Syria and Yemen, where Tehran and Riyadh support opposite sides.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran last January after demonstrators set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran following Riyadhs execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

In recent weeks, rhetoric between the two capitals has escalated. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has challenged Saudi Arabias right to manage Islams holy sites, accusing the Saudi royal family of murder in last years stampede. A prominent Saudi cleric responded by saying Irans leaders are not Muslim.

The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam. All able-bodied Muslims who can afford to do so are expected to take part in the Hajj at least once in their lifetimes.

Safety concerns

Saudi Arabia has doubled down on safety and security in a bid to avoid a repeat of last year's disaster. The publication Arab News reported that authorities had conducted 1,000 health and safety training courses in recent weeks and deployed 26,000 medical, technical and other official personnel to pilgrimage areas in Mecca, Medina, Arafat and Mina, along with a fleet of more than 175 ambulances. Security officials have placed 1,000 cameras at strategic locations to allow constant monitoring of events.

All pilgrims are being outfitted with water-resistant e-bracelets equipped with bar codes that link to personal information, including medical records, in an effort to facilitate treatment in case of illness or injury.

Health, however, is only one concern. In early July, three suicide bombers struck separate targets across Saudi Arabia, including the site in Medina where the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be buried. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Saudi Arabia believes was inspired by the Islamic State group. The bombings have raised questions about the kingdoms ability to protect Saudi citizens and visitors during the Hajj.

Authorities have limited the number of visas for each country in an effort to control crowds. All guests of Allah are required to carry permits, and police have set up security checkpoints to prevent unauthorized pilgrims from entering the holy sites. It has also vowed strict punishment for all offenders.

'Journey for God'

During the Hajj, devoted Muslims perform a series of religious rituals, including walking counterclockwise around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure at the center of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, which Muslims believe is the spot where the Prophet Abraham built his first temple to God. They will also drink the alkaline water from the Well of Zamzam, believed to have healing qualities, and perform a symbolic stoning of the devil.

"Part of the rituals also includes feeding the poor," said Tawfik Hamid, a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "Many Muslims believe that once they do the Hajj, all their previous sins will be forgiven by Allah, and they will become sinless as the day they were born."

The Hajj is followed by Eid al-Adha, which is on Monday. It is Islams most important holy day and marks Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Muslims across the world celebrate Eid al-Adha by killing and sacrificing cows, sheep or goats in a display of religious devotion.
Syria says the Damascus government of embattled President Bashar al-Assad had accepted the cease-fire deal brokered by its Russian ally and the United States.

A cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons, the Syrian news agency SANA said. Hours later, the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Assad loyalists, said it also would honor the cease-fire, while vowing to defend itself if attacked.

Turkey, which sent its military into the multisided conflict late last month, also announced support for the truce, which is to begin at sunset Monday.

The agreement was announced early Saturday in Geneva jointly by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the agreement jointly in Geneva early Saturday.

Syrian opposition forces also said they welcomed the deal. However, since they feel neither Russian nor Syrian government forces adhered to earlier cease-fire plans, they said they doubted that a cease-fire could hold.

Moscows influence on Damascus is the only way to get the regime to comply, said a statement issued by Bassma Kodmani of the High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian Opposition.

Fighting rages despite deal

The complex and partly secret truce had little if any impact in or near war-ravaged Aleppo, as fighting raged and fatalities mounted Saturday.

An activist collective known as the Aleppo Media Center reported at least 45 people had been killed in rebel-held parts of the city, while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights placed the regional death toll at 69.

Beyond the cease-fire, the primary aim of the United States, the United Nations and nongovernmental groups active in Syria was arranging broader access for humanitarian aid to residents of the besieged city, once Syria's biggest population center, which has been cut off from outside help for months.

If there is reduced violence in Syria for seven consecutive days after the truce begins Monday, and if sufficient humanitarian aid is allowed into Aleppo, a senior U.S. State Department official said, the two main events of this agreement start to take effect.

With analysis and criticism of the conditions going a little bit sideways on social media, the senior U.S. official emphasized that youre not going to see calm in Syria anytime soon.

If the Muslim Eid holiday, which begins at sunset Monday, is followed by a week of diminished violence, the United States and Russia are to begin coordinated airstrikes against the jihadist al-Nusra Front, as well as the so-called Islamic State group. And after those strikes get underway, the agreement then calls for the Syrian air force to cease all strikes against areas held by opposition forces. The regime's tactics throughout the conflict have produced heavy civilian casualty tolls.

Speaking Saturday, Kerry said Syrian government air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows and the most frequent violations of the hostilities."

Halting all of the regimes military air activities in key areas  key areas that are defined  should put an end to barrel bombs and indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods," Kerry said, adding that this would "change the nature of the conflict, now more than 5 years old.

Syria set to cooperate

Lavrov told reporters that Moscow had informed the Syrian government about the arrangements, and it is ready to fulfill them. Russia's top diplomat added that "no one can give a 100 percent guarantee" that the truce and other measures to follow will succeed, since there are forces in the region that will try to undermine the international agreement.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, briefly joined Kerry and Lavrov at the podium in Geneva to welcome the U.S.-Russian agreement. He said it created a real window of opportunity which all relevant actors in the region and beyond should seize, to put the crisis in Syria on a different path and reduce the violence and suffering of the Syrian people.

Russia wants to see Syria's Assad stay in power, while moderate opposition forces and Turkey insist no transition deal can allow him to retain power for any period of time. The United States has long held that the Syrian leader cannot lead any future government, because of his brutal repression of all opposition throughout his time in power, long before the civil war broke out in early 2011.

If the U.S.-Russian agreement holds, Kerry said, it could lead to political transition and reverse the current trend of "simply creating more terrorists, more extremists and destroying the country in the process.

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated there is no military solution to the prolonged Syrian crisis, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced 12 million people from their homes, according to U.N. estimates.

Out of all this complexity is emerging now a simple choice between war and peace, between human agony and humanitarian relief, between the continued disintegration of an ancient society and the rebirth of a united and modern nation, Kerry told reporters before flying back home.
Tanzania's government is set to deploy drones to speed up land mapping in rural areas in a bid to halt frequent, sometimes deadly clashes between farmers and cattle herders over land and scarce water resources.

In 2014, local media reported repeated outbreaks of fighting over land in Tanzania's northern Manyara region, resulting in several deaths.

More recently, farmers in the southwestern Morogoro region killed hundreds of cows, sheep and goats in February, accusing their owners of letting the animals trample on their crops. They blamed a lack of officially demarcated boundaries for the unrest.

Aided by drones, more than 300,000 title deeds are expected to be issued in Ulanga, Kilombero and Malinyi districts in eastern Morogoro, under a project by the World Bank and a local parastatal, the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). The titles are expected to be issued within a year of successfully using the new technology, officials said.

"The use of drones will help us to define the boundaries of plots of land on the ground with great accuracy," said Samuel Msaki, a senior land mapping official at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development.

GPS-enabled drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can be used to conduct precise aerial surveys by capturing high-resolution images that national planners can use to identify and digitize actual boundaries of disputed land.

Land experts say drones can get the work done more quickly and cheaply than traditional mapping methods, which involve deploying surveyors to remote areas for weeks at a time.

Those working on the drone project say it would strengthen security of tenure, boosting agricultural production and helping farmers to better plan their investments.

Farmers and nomadic livestock herders have hailed the initiative, which is part of a $15.2 million Land Tenure Support Program the government launched in February to increase transparency and efficiency in the land sector for the benefit of the poor.

"There are just too many border disputes in this area. When my land is legally recognized, I will have my peace of mind," said Hamisi Mwinyimvua, a rice farmer in Kilombero district.

"When I get my land title, I will use it to access credit from the banks for expanding my farming," he said.

Land insecurity

While poor farmers have been using swaths of land for years to grow crops, analysts say most have no formal documentation to prove they own the land. This leaves them at risk of losing their land to large-scale infrastructure, tourism and development projects, they say.

Frederick Mbuya, a World Bank consultant working with COSTECH, said drones are now a proven option for conducting accurate aerial surveys for land mapping.

"The use of drones is much cheaper than many other traditional methods used for conducting aerial surveys," he said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He said drones are safe because they are lighter than commercial aircraft and fly at a lower altitude.

"Unless you fly them near the airport, the risk of colliding with other aircraft is minimal," said Mbuya, founder of Uhurulabs, a technology firm that specializes in innovations.

Land-mapping drones were first introduced to examine flood-prone areas in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam, he said.

Erasto Nyaula, a nomadic pastoralist in Ulanga district, said cattle herders would not allow their animals to trample on crops if actual boundaries were clearly identified.

"We need peace sooner rather than later, and I think the government has what it takes to bring peace," he said.
The United States is considering more unilateral sanctions against North Korea following Pyongyang's fifth and largest nuclear test.

Speaking in Tokyo Sunday, U.S. Special Representative to North Korea policy Sung Kim said "In addition to action in the (U.N.) Security Council, both the U.S. and Japan" along with South Korea "will be looking at unilateral measures, as well as bilateral" and trilateral measures of cooperation. He gave no details of what those measures might be.

Kim made the comments after meeting with with Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, calling Pyongyang's behavior "destabilizing."

Hours later, North Korea called efforts to add sanctions "laughable," and vowed to strengthen its nuclear program even further. A Foreign Ministry statement said Pyongyang will work to step up its nuclear force "in quality and in quantity." North Korea claims it needs a strong nuclear weapons program to protect itself from U.S. aggression.

South Korea and the United States are reported to have begun their search for radioactive materials following the nuclear test. The investigation team will collect air and water samples to test for radioactive material such as xenon, Yonhap reported.

South Korea said Saturday that the North's capabilities were rapidly expanding, echoing concerns from world leaders about the latest nuclear test.

"It is believed that the North's nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace," South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told senior ministry officials in a meeting Saturday, calling for "more and stronger sanctions."

China also spoke out against North Korea's nuclear tests, saying they were "not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula."

"China urges North Korea not to take any more actions that could exacerbate tensions, and return as soon as possible to the correct direction of denuclearization," Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui told North Korea's ambassador to China.

The latest and possibly strongest North Korean nuclear test ever occurred as U.S. President Barack Obama was returning to Washington from his trip to Asia. Obama condemned the attacks Friday.

The U.N. Security Council met in a closed session Friday afternoon in New York. The council president, New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, told reporters that the 15 members strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and agreed to work immediately on appropriate measures.

The explosive yield of Friday's test, a magnitude 5.3 seismic event, was estimated at 10 kilotons.

The last serious talks with North Korea on denuclearization, the six-party talks, ended in 2009.
The United States has encouraged Serbia and EU-member Slovenia to diversify their energy sources away from Russian gas to make sure any potential disruptions will not hurt their economies, a senior U.S. official said Friday.

Wrapping up a tour of Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, Mary Burce Warlick, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, said she urged them to look at ways to strengthen their energy security by diversifying its sources.

Warlick said the United States believes energy security issues in Europe are very important and "really fundamental to national security issues more broadly."

Serbia, a candidate to join the European Union, relies almost exclusively on Russian gas supplies while Slovenia imports less than half of its gas from Russia while Albania and Kosovo, both staunch U.S. allies, import no gas from Russia.

"I sensed a real openness on the part of really all countries with whom we engaged to try to identify those solutions, partnering with Europe and us and many others to try to find a way to achieve some of those solutions," Warlick said.

Warlick, a former ambassador to Serbia, said the United States had been discussing energy diversification with a number of European countries that rely on Russian gas.

The cutoff of Russian gas from Ukraine in 2009 drove home the importance of diversification in European capitals.

"Our approach has been not to say that Russian gas shouldn't remain as it does an important part of the energy equation in Europe, but simply for all countries to think a little bit again on how they position themselves to better diversify their energy mix," she told Reuters in an interview in Tirana.

The United States has suggested either new investment or connections with neighboring countries that will enable them to consider "developing a more diversified mix of gas on the one hand but also look to develop other resources," Warlick said.

They could tap into additional volumes of gas that might come online in 2020 when the TAP pipeline brings Azeri gas to Europe, as well as from increasing volumes of LNG thanks to LNG terminal projects in and around Europe, she said.

"I think the reform measures that have taken in many countries are going to pave the way for increased investment, including in the energy sector," Warlick added.
Armed extremist and fundamentalist groups worldwide are increasingly eroding women's rights and undermining gains made in gender equality in recent years, the head of U.N. Women said Friday.

Militant groups from Boko Haram in Nigeria to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria target women in their attacks on human rights, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the head of the United Nations women's advocacy agency, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

"Fundamentalists have an issue with women. They are most cruel against women," she said. "Fundamentalism is a major burden for women, and it takes away the security of women more than anything else."

Speaking at a meeting of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), she said extremists have intensified their attacks on groups around the world that campaign for gender equality and defend human rights.

"The space for democratic movements and democratic values in general is shrinking and, within that, space for gender equality is also shrinking," Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

She cited the example of the Yazidi people of northern Iraq, where women and girls have been brutalized at the hands of the Islamic State. The jihadist group has targeted women with particular cruelty including rape and sex slavery, she said.

She also cited the case of women and girls at the hands of Boko Haram, which has waged an insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria that has killed some 15,000 people and displaced more than two million others.

In the group's most high-profile attack of April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok in northeast Borno state.

About 50 girls escaped in the initial melee, but more than 200 were taken captive.

Rights groups say armed religious extremist groups worldwide pose a huge threat to women by promoting child marriage, keeping girls out of school and practicing female genital mutilation, practices that humanitarians and others have been battling in recent years.

"The violence against women is one of the biggest challenges that women face everywhere in the world. The type of violence may differ, but the impact on women is the same," Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
Zambia's High Court has rejected an application by the main opposition party to block President Edgar Lungu's inauguration set for next week after last month's contested election, his lawyers said on Friday.

Opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema had petitioned the court to overturn a Constitutional Court decision not to give him more time to legally challenge Lungu's re-election.

He says the Aug. 11 vote was rigged, a charge Lungu denies.

"The court has refused to block the inauguration. The High Court has no power to block a decision of a higher court," Lungu's lawyer Tutwa Ngulube told reporters.

Hichilema's lawyer Keith Mweemba said the UPND would pursue the case in the Supreme Court.

Lungu has led the ruling Patriotic Front since his predecessor Michael Sata died in 2014. He won the presidency in January 2015, defeating Hichilema in their first election confrontation.

Zambia is Africa's second-largest copper producer, but its economy has been hit by a slump in commodity prices, leading to mine closures and exacerbating its already high unemployment.
By satellite, drone or balloon, tech companies are seeking to connect more of the world's under-served regions to the internet.

But these unconventional strategies come with risks, as demonstrated by a spectacular launch pad explosion earlier this month.

The rocket that blew up Sept. 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was meant to carry a satellite that would help improve internet connectivity in sub-Saharan Africa. The social-media company Facebook planned to use the satellite to expand its free and low-cost services.

Some of those services themselves have been under fire this year.

Free Basics

Facebook's Free Basics service was banned in India in February, following criticism from net-neutrality advocates.

Free Basics offers access to a limited suite of websites  including approved health, education, weather and communications sites and, of course, Facebook  free of data charges to anyone with a smartphone.

When Indian regulators shut it down, they barred service providers from charging different prices for different levels of service. Critics said Facebook should not be a gatekeeper for what part of the internet users can access.

But the service is available in 48 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

It rolled out in Nigeria in May, where "if you want very good internet, it's very expensive. Usually only big companies and rich people can afford that," said Faiz Bashir, CEO of Abuja-based education technology company FlexiSAF.

FlexiSAF is launching a test-prep service for students on Free Basics. Bashir says his relatives in isolated parts of Nigeria use the service constantly to keep in touch.

"You can actually communicate via WhatsApp, have access to Facebook," he said. "So, there's definitely a large number of people now who have access to free internet from remote locations across the country."

New netizens?

Along with its Express Wi-Fi service, which connects users to a local hotspot for a small fee, Facebook says it has "brought more than 25 million people online [worldwide] who otherwise would not be."

But other research questions how many new users Facebook's Free Basics and other "zero-rated" services are creating.

The advocacy group the Alliance for an Affordable Internet surveyed users of zero-rated services in eight countries. It found that 88 percent of users had been online before.

"People that were using the zero-rated services were not using the internet for the first time," said research manager Dhanaraj Thakur. "What was happening, in fact, was they were using it as a way to manage their costs."

People were using Free Basics to check Facebook, for example, and using their data plans to watch videos.

Any means necessary

While Facebook's satellite explosion was a setback, the company has other plans to bring the internet to underserved areas.

Last month it announced a successful test of a solar-powered drone designed to stay aloft for weeks and bounce internet access to remote areas.

Tech giants are competing to connect the unconnected. Google's Project Loon aims to connect isolated users through a network of huge balloons floating in the stratosphere.

Both projects are years from reality. There is no word yet on whether Facebook plans to try another satellite launch in the meantime.

Facebook had partnered with Paris-based telecommunications company Eutelsat on the satellite that blew up. Eutelsat had planned to deliver broadband internet access to business customers via satellite dish.

The company says it plans to launch its own satellite in 2019.
Zimbabwe and Malawi are allowing flights by anti-poaching drones as part of an initiative supported by Google and the WWF conservation group.



The drones, which resemble large model airplanes, have flown in South African wildlife areas and are part of the Air Shepherd program of the U.S.-based Lindbergh Foundation. They can act as a highly visible deterrent to poachers fearing capture, though vast and rugged terrain as well as legal and bureaucratic obstacles have hampered some anti-poaching drone projects in Africa.



Officials in Zimbabwe acknowledge their anti-poaching efforts are in desperate trouble and view drones as a potentially effective tool to protect elephants and other species that are a pillar of the country's faltering tourism industry, Otto Werdmuller Von Elgg, operator of the Air Shepherd drones, said Friday.



One drone team plans to start operations next week in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe's biggest reserve, said Von Elgg, director of the South African drone company UDS.



Some poachers in Hwange have used cyanide to poison elephants in large numbers before cutting off their tusks. Wildlife officials in Zimbabwe lack sufficient funding and say they need more rangers to patrol the nation's parks.



Von Elgg's drones started flying this month in Malawi's Liwonde National Park, which is surrounded by densely populated settlements. African Parks, the Johannesburg-based group that runs Liwonde, has been relocating some Liwonde elephants to a more secure reserve in Malawi.



The drones in Malawi can be used to chase straying elephants back into the park, as well as monitor illegal loggers who infiltrate Liwonde by riverboat at night, according to Von Elgg.



The drone project is backed by WWF, which is using a $5 million grant from Google to support the use of technology in countering wildlife crime.
The United States has welcomed the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commissions investigations into the distribution of food assistance along political party lines.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said, As the largest contributor to humanitarian assistance in Zimbabwe, the United States Agency for International Development has robust mechanisms in place to ensure that U.S. food assistance goes only to those most in need. While the report did not cite any complaints regarding USAID-funded humanitarian assistance, we are redoubling our efforts to reconfirm and ensure that our assistance is not subject to any form of political manipulation.

Since June 2015, the U.S. government has contributed $117 million in response to the El Nino-induced drought in Zimbabwe to meet immediate food security needs while also building resilience against future droughts.

The majority of USAIDs food assistance is provided through the World Food Program (WFP), which does not operate in any of the districts cited in the report. USAID does provide food assistance in Bikita through a long-term food security activity Enhancing Nutrition Stepping Up Resilience and Enterprise (ENSURE), implemented by World Vision. ENSURE has numerous oversight mechanisms in place to receive and investigate reports of fraud and abuse but has not received any reports of diversion of food aid or undue pressure on their staff.

The Embassy said the United States has rigorous processes for safeguarding food assistance. Our food commodities can be distinguished from other sources by their packaging, which is marked with the American flag and USAID logo. USAID also channels all food aid through WFP and other non-governmental organizations, and the food goes directly to the beneficiaries with no intermediary. USAID and our partners have robust measures in place to carefully and thoroughly monitor food distribution. This includes verifying transparent targeting of beneficiaries, ensuring smooth distribution of the food, and following up after distribution to ensure that the food reached its intended beneficiaries.

Most importantly, the U.S government said, these measures allow community members to report grievances or complaints in a direct or anonymous manner. There is a suggestion box and a help desk at all food distribution points, as well as a toll-free hotline. USAID takes our responsibility to assist those most in need, regardless of political affiliation or geographic location, very seriously, and will continue to actively investigate any and all reports of possible political manipulation of U.S. government food assistance.

According to the Human Rights Commission, food is being distributed along political lines in regions like Masvingo.
Photo: J. H. Thompson /Bronte Parsonage Museum

[Yelling] Where all my Bronte-heads at? Ive got the news youve been waiting your whole life for: New York Citys esteemed Morgan Library & Museum  a museum exclusively for nerds like you and me  will display the original manuscript from Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre on its first-ever trip to the States. Are you ready for this??? The manuscript is open to a page in the wildly popular Victorian novel where Jane has rebuffed Mr. Rochester: I am no bird; and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

It is on loan from the British Library, a place from which it rarely leaves, and the exhibit, Charlotte Bronte, is timed with the 200th anniversary of Brontes birth, which was in April of this year. Additionally on view for any major Bronteniacs are a portrait that Branwell Bronte painted of his sisters on loan from the National Portrait Gallery in London and a blue dress that the writer wore, fit for the frame of a woman who was only four-foot-nine. The exhibit runs through January 2.
Army bars NHRC from conducting investigation

In a clear breach of the constitution, the Nepal Army has barred the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) from investigating into the alleged torture of Army personnel who were detained in connection with missing weapons from its Dipayal-based far-western divisional headquarters.
I cant stay home. I move the worlds cargo, declared Rudy Moreno of Los Angeles/Long Beach ILWU longshore Local 13. His words were later memorialized in The Dispatcher, the unions newspaper, in the January 2021 issue dedicated to Moreno and other members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who had already lost their lives []
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson welcomed the compromise. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It's partly an angry reaction against "the other" in the form of refugees and immigrants. Turnbull and Shorten have both understood that part. That's why the boats will continue to be turned back under either leader. But it's also a wider rage against a system too remote to reach and too corrupt to care. Remember Trump's refrain: "The system is rigged." Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit:John Shakespeare Rigged by whom? How? "Powerful interests," he said in accepting his party's nomination, "have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit.

"Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. "They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings." His nickname for Hillary Clinton, the representative of the status quo, is "Crooked Hillary". The term "political donations" is code for the corrupt exchange of favours that goes on above the heads of the ordinary voters, who can see it but feel powerless to do anything to stop it as their interests are sold out. Like satanic sulphur, the acrid stink of political funding burns the nostrils of voters across the democratic world, fuelling an angry revulsion.

Across the leadership of Australia's political parties, Malcolm Turnbull seems the least animated, the least concerned. Even though he has a history of arguing for reform of funding, now that he's prime minister he seems to be remarkably philosophical about actually acting on it. Leave it to the parliamentary committee, is his position, a committee that has yet to be convened and has no terms of inquiry before it. Turnbull has been happy to watch Dastyari burn and Labor squirm, but this issue is much bigger than the old partisan game of Labor and Liberal gleefully notching points against each other. Turnbull, his government and the Australian political system is at risk of being engulfed by the rising anger of a movement that will make no distinction between the establishment parties but will embrace any alternative bent on destruction. Australia's Trump, Pauline Hanson, did jail time for electoral fraud on a conviction that was later quashed, but it's hard to claim that she's been compromised by big donors.

One Nation's last electoral return showed that the party had raised a mere $11,487 in donations in 2014-15 while the major parties count theirs in the millions. Hanson hasn't said much on this recently but, in her persona as angry outsider, she's well positioned to. When the Liberal Party's Bronwyn Bishop resigned as speaker after abusing her parliamentary travel allowances to take a $5000 helicopter ride on party business, Hanson called for an independent inquiry into the allowances spending by all MPs and senators over the previous five years. "Surely no member would object to this if they have nothing to hide?" Hanson wrote. "As a taxpayer and mother of four, I watch each of my children struggle to own their own home, raise a family, while living a meagre life. This is common practice throughout Australia, I am not alone. "Yet we see pollies travel flights at the highest available class, daily meal allowance equivalent to that of a single pensioner's weekly entitlement."

If Hanson were to make a similar call for an investigation into party donations, moved on the floor of the Senate now, it would be incendiary. The flames would most threaten the major parties. Is Turnbull going to need a helicopter of his own? But instead of a Bronnie joyride, will he, like the last Americans escaping the onrush of destruction in the fall of Saigon, need an emergency helicopter from the roof of Parliament or is he going to snap out of his torpor? Even Tony Abbott, a reluctant donations reformer and famously criticised for his political "tin ear" as prime minister, has discovered the urgency of fixing the funding system. "I think it is time to look at donations reform again," Abbott told Fairfax Media's James Massola on Thursday. Labor is calling for an end to foreign donations and a reduction in the disclosure threshold from $13,000 to $1000. The Greens are calling for a federal anti-corruption watchdog.

Nick Xenophon wants immediate  "real time"  disclosure of all donations. He's also acting on the alarm at the ease with which the Chinese Communist Party has been using Australia's freedoms to extend its influence over Australian opinion and policy. Australia, says Xenophon, needs to look at restricting "foreign agents" as the US does: "To get rid of or at least tackle covert political interference from foreign powers," he says. "We need to include or consider at the very least what the US has been doing since before World War II." And now Abbott is putting internal Liberal pressure on his leader to act decisively: "There should be no union donations, company donations or foreign donations," says the former prime minister. "Obviously, we don't want influence buying, we don't want subversion of our system." Turnbull used to talk about agility a great deal. When he returns from his successful week of diplomacy, an agile prime minister would hold a press conference on Sunday: "I want Australia to have the cleanest political system in the world," he'd declare.

He'd announce an urgent, high-level inquiry into the best way to protect the integrity of the federal Parliament. He'd include a review of the donations system. He'd say that every state has an independent anti-corruption body and say it's time for a federal one, too. He'd name a panel of eminent Australians to recommend on the best design. An agile prime minister would have had his staff working on this for the past few days. He'd seize the initiative, take the high ground as a reformer and put some idealism back into his public persona. If he doesn't get on top of this movement, he will be overpowered by it. Australia doesn't have the objective conditions of the countries that are now gripped by the destructive populism of Trump, the Brexit movement and far-right parties in Europe like Marine Le Pen's National Front or the fast-rising Alternative for Germany.

Indeed, this week Australia achieved an extraordinary feat. While all these countries have struggled with recession in recent years, Australia has just achieved 25 years of continuous economic growth. It's a first for Australia since the GDP statistics began in the 1950s and a feat not matched by any major developed nation. As my colleague Ross Gittins put it this week: "To have avoided another severe recession for all the years since then is something for which we should be profoundly thankful." Yet rather than being thankful, the latest election results show that we are disenchanted, even angry. Objective conditions may be one thing; the subjective narrative we tell ourselves is another. It's more powerful because it's more emotional. Turnbull and Shorten are both right that Australia needs to preserve an open trading system. We have traded our way to success and to close it off would be suicidal. New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key explains simply to his people the need for an open trading system: "You won't get rich by selling to a market of four million people"  the domestic market  "but you might get rich selling to four billion." And if you want to export your way to wealth, you have to be open to imports, too.
Nearly three decades after the marriage came to an end, Elle Macpherson is jumping back into bed with her first husband, French fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon. Well figuratively speaking at least.

And they are doing it in Sydney.

Elle Macpherson at a special screening of Trumbo at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2015. Credit:Greg Allen/Invision/AP

Macpherson and Bensimon are in Sydney this weekend for a big budget photo shoot on behalf of Elle Australia for an upcoming cover of the high-end fashion magazine.

Bensimon has been a key part of the Elle brand  both the magazine and the model  internationally for many years, having shot some of the world's most beautiful women for the masthead, including his now ex-wife with whom he remains close friends.
So entrenched is the problem that in 2014 the World Health Organisation found that suicide rates among Indigenous people in the Kimberley were among the highest in the world. Numbers are so frightening, say experts , that the region deserves a royal commission into suicide and self-harm in Indigenous communities. Across Australia, suicide among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has labelled a "catastrophic humanitarian crisis".

A 2016 audit of data from 2005 to 2014 found the Indigenous suicide rate in the Kimberley to be more than seven times Australia's average in 2011, with 74 suicides per 100,000 compared to 9.9 per 100,000 across Australia. Of those, 27 per cent were under the age of 20.

This Friday night, the Kimberley town of Kununurra will remember its own. It will remember a 10-year-old girl, a 13-year-old boy, a 19-year-old man and the scores of other young and old community members whose lives have been lost to suicide in recent years.

The numbers have not been ignored. Last month, the Turnbull government announced a suicide prevention trial in the Kimberley, which doesn't have a suicide prevention co-ordinator nor specialised 24-hour mental health resources.

But on Friday, the day that sits between RUOK? Day on September 8 and World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) on September 10, its local community will gather for Anglicare StandBy's WSPD event and look not at figures or politicking, but ahead and out for each other.

"We all do our bit for suicide prevention," says Victoria Baird, regional co-ordinator of East Kimberley's Save the Children operations. The organisation's Kununurra drop-in centre has looked after more than a thousand young people in the past year. "Everyone here is touched by suicide. Grief is ever-present and we see suicides occur in waves."

She is one of a group of determined individuals who deal with the problem on a daily basis, alongside elders including Maxine Gore and Edna O'Malley. Another is StandBy's Karri Ambler, who traverses East Kimberley  an area larger than the UK  to give support and education to those affected by suicide. She is invited into communities dealing with the effects of suicide, and her 24-hour helpline means she is likely to be called by her husband and four sons under the age of five at any time of day or night. She is also organising Friday evening's WSPD fete.

"Suicide impacts everyone, I've never met one person who doesn't know of someone who has taken their life. That's just the reality of it," she says. Close-knit communities and the immensity of her focus area make the job harder, though she believes positive dialogue around suicide is spreading.
At least 10 killed in Bangladesh factory fire

At least ten people have been killed in Bangladesh in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a packaging factory.
Doug Constable claims to be an "insolvency expert", who helps ailing businesses stave off creditors and avoid bankruptcy.

The 66-year-old businessman, who wrote a book called How to Not Pay Your Debts, says he is "passionate about helping people draw a line in the sand in times of financial distress".

When insolvency expert Doug Constable needs to chase his own creditors he knows who to turn to. Credit:YouTube: Dollars With Sense

So how did Mr Constable respond when owed money by a former staff member?

In the case of a recent $9000 debt, Mr Constable employed Stephen Gillingham, a former cruiserweight boxer and Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang enforcer.
Bangkok: The leaders of Thailand and Malaysia agreed on Friday to increase intelligence sharing on security and to move forward the possibly of building a border wall to combat transnational terrorism and smuggling.

People-trafficking and the smuggling of contraband, including drugs and petrol, have flourished along the Thai-Malay border for years until a crackdown by Thai officials on human traffickers caused some of the routes to shut down last year.

Analysts say that separatist insurgents operating in Thailand's deep south use Malaysia as a base to launch and plan their attacks.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters that security remained "a very important matter" for both countries and that there was an agreement to increase intelligence gathering and sharing to apprehend cross-border terrorism.
Banks okayed to import smaller unit gold bars

The Commerce Ministry has allowed banks to import smaller unit gold bars, enabling bullion traders to buy only as much as they need and freeing them from having to team up to buy a large unit and split it among themselves.
Nearly 15 years after the September 11th attacks, a local man is sharing his story of the fateful day.

Dennis Hunt of Chippewa Falls was closer than he wanted to be during the attack on the Pentagon, but he says it was a life changing event that will always remind him how important it is to serve others.

This is the side where I was and this is where it was hit, Dennis Hunt, who served in the Air Force for 14 years and currently resides in Chippewa Falls, pointed to a picture of the Pentagon his wife, Annette Hunt, has framed. Dennis Hunt was on the opposite end of the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense building.

The crazy thing about that is I actually said, Its amazing that happened in New York City and ironic it didnt happen in D.C, Hunt said of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She (a coworker) looked at me and Ill never forget what she said: she said, How do you know its over? And chills went down my spine.

When the plane hit the building, he didnt think much of it.

We heard a loud noise outside and we werent sure what that was, Hunt said. There was a lot of construction going on, so it just sounded like a really loud noise. All of a sudden, all the alarms went off; thats when we realized something traumatic had happened.

And traumatic it was; 184 people lost their lives in Washington D.C. alone. Hunt says a lot of employees at the Pentagon were kept home from work the following day, but he was one who had to go back to the Pentagon with flames still roaring.

My boss called me up and said, A lot of people are staying home today, but we need you to come to work. We need to get ready to go to war, Hunt explained. It was a completely different day than 9/11 in the morning. We walked out of the office and looked across and the building was still on fire.

Being so close to this traumatic event has kept Hunt humble and always helping.

It was just one of those events that told me  we have to keep serving, we have to keep helping each other, Hunt said.

Along with Hunt at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks was Patricia Statz, who graduated from McDonell High School. Statz was one of the 184 people who were killed in the attack in Washington D.C.
China Mobile Limited provides mobile telecommunications and related services in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The company offers local calls; domestic and international long distance calls and roaming services; and value-added services, such as caller identity display, call waiting, conference calls, and others. It also provides wireless Internet service, as well as digital applications comprising music, video, reading, gaming, and animation; wireline broadband services; and wireline voice services. In addition, it offers dedicated line and IDC services to corporate customers in a range of industry sectors; and basic corporate communication products comprising corporate VPMN and SMS, and tailor made solutions. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, which includes IDD, roaming, Internet, MNC, and value added business services. Additionally, it offers telecommunications network planning, design, and consulting services; roaming clearance, IT system operation, and technology support services; value-added platform development and maintenance services; mobile data, and system integration and development services; network construction and maintenance, network planning and optimizing, and training services; electronic communication products design and sale of related products; and non-banking financial services. It also provides mobile cloud research and development services; call center services; e-payment, e-commerce, and Internet finance services; and mobile Internet digital content services, as well as operates a network and business coordination center. The company serves 950 million mobile customers and 187 million wireline broadband customers. The company was formerly known as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited and changed its name to China Mobile Limited in May 2006. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited.
The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen France SAS, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Suzhou Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel Ireland Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Brooks Instrument Shanghai Co. Ltd, Buell Industries Inc., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS Australia Pty Limited, CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures Australasia S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Coeur Shanghai Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Denison Mayes Group Limited, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., E2M Production B.V.., E2M Technologies B.V.., E2M Technologies Inc.., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO Holding AG, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, Exhibit 21, FEG Investments L.L.C., Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Filtertek SAS, GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech Taicang Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Belgium B.V., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart International Singapore Pte. Ltd., Hobart Japan K.K., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components Chongqing Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components Langfang Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium B.V., ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS UK Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW China Investment Company Limited, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Construction Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Services Manila Inc., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Contamination Control Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Deutschland GmbH, ITW Diagraph GmbH, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW EU Holdings Ltd., ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.L., ITW European Finance Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Thailand Ltd., ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France Luxembourg S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW Materials Technology Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Ningbo Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology China Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion Shenzhen Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Illinois Tool Works Chile Limitada, Illinois Tool Works ITW Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Inc., Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, Instron Shanghai Ltd., Instron Thailand Limited, International Leasing Company LLC, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., Itw Spraytec, KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems Canada Inc., Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MTS 2 LLC., MTS 3 LLC., MTS China Holdings LLC, MTS Europe Holdings LLC, MTS Holdings France S.a.r.l., MTS Japan Ltd.., MTS Korea Inc.., MTS Systems China Co. Ltd., MTS Systems Corporation, MTS Systems Danmark ApS., MTS Systems Europe B.V., MTS Systems Finance C.V.., MTS Systems Germany GmbH, MTS Systems Holding B.V.., MTS Systems Hong Kong Incorporated, MTS Systems Limited, MTS Systems Norden Aktiebolag, MTS Systems S.r.l, MTS Systems., MTS Systems.., MTS Sytems Do Brazil, MTS Testing Solutions India Private Limited., MTS Testing Systems Canada Ltd., Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology Suzhou Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited Enping, Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners Shanghai Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., R&D Engineering A/S., R&D Prague s.r.o., R&D Steel ApS., R&D Test Systems A/S., R&D Tools and Structures A/S., RDGDK Engineering Private Limited, Ramset Fasteners Hong Kong Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco Japan Inc., Simco Nederland B.V., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques  SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes B.V., Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Hong Kong Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Shanghai Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stokvis Tapes Taiwan Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Tianjin Co. Ltd., Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Subsidiaries, Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek China Limited, Teknek Japan Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Kunshan Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta Global Limited, Vesta Guangzhou Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil South Africa Pty Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, and Zip-Pak International B.V..

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Bora full of promises!

And as usual our Prime Monster has come up with the same never-ending joke in his speech to the nation. Like always, this government will work to end load shedding by building three hydropower projects
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 09, 2016 | 08:19 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Long time Paducah physician Dr. Vratislav Kejzlar has joined IMAC Regeneration Center of Paducah.Dr. Kejzlar now practices as a Pain Specialist for Regenerative Medicine, bringing decades of experience in chronic and acute pain management to IMACs mission of restored health without prescription medication or surgery.Dr. Kejzlar grew up in Vladislav, Czechoslovakia where he completed his medical degree at Charles University in Prague. After immigrating to the United States in 1975, he completed both his surgical and anesthesiology residencies at New York State University at Buffalo. Dr. Kejzlar served as Head of Anesthesia at Baptist Health in Paducah and practiced at Anesthesiology of Paducah for almost 30 years. During his tenure, Dr. Kejzlar also served on the Medical Staff Executive Committee at Baptist Health.Throughout his education, training and career, Dr. Kejzlar has developed an extensive knowledge of human physiology and disease and is an expert in the field of chronic and acute pain management. He will focus primarily on treatments for back, neck and joint pain as well as innovative stem cell and platelet rich plasma procedures for degenerative diseases.We are excited to add Dr. Kejzlar to our medical staff. He is a familiar face to our community and a highly skilled anesthesiologist which makes him a perfect fit to our practice, said Matt Wallis, DC, Founder of IMAC Regeneration. His expertise gives us the opportunity to add to our innovative nonprescription services.Dr. Kejzlar is looking forward to helping patients live a better quality of life through his work at IMAC. I have known Dr. Wallis for over 15 years as my wife and I have been patients of his. IMACs cutting edge regenerative medicine treatments with platelet rich plasma and stem cells stimulated my interest and led me to join the IMAC team. I am passionate about helping our young older generation continue their active lifestyle as well as to heal and regenerate injuries of all active individuals.Dr. Kejzlar and his wife, Kathi, have three children-Vratislav, Philip and Tereza as well as two grandchildren, Lola and Matej. He enjoys fishing and traveling in his spare time. Dr. Kejzlar is located at IMAC Regeneration Center in Paducah, 2725 James Sanders Blvd. He can be reached at 270-554-5114 for appointments.To find out more about IMACs regenerative medicine treatments, visit www.imacpaducah.com or email contactus@imacpaducah.com.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 09, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 09, 2016 | 01:50 PM | PADUCAH, KY

In an effort to reduce the number of traffic crashes in McCracken County, the McCracken County Sheriffs Office has obtained a new tool that will hopefully slow drivers down.



Utilizing drug seized forfeiture monies, the department has purchased a radar trailer that can be used anywhere in the county.



Sheriff Jon Hayden said in a press release that each year since 2012, his department has investigated between 700-800 traffic crashes each year (768 in 2012, 718 in 2013, 730 in 2014, 791 in 2015, and 641 so far in 2016).



Hayden said although not all crashes are caused by speed, the radar trailers do more than slow drivers down, they also cause them to be more attentive.



He said most accidents in the county have been caused by driver inattention, closely followed by drivers' failure to yield to another vehicle.



The radar trailer is in place on US Hwy. 45 near St. Johns, just in time for the annual St. Johns Picnic. Hayden said a fatal accident happened in this area on July 31, 2016, claiming the life of 25-year-old Brandon Fout, a correctional officer from South Fulton, Tennessee.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 09, 2016 | 06:15 PM | PADUCAH, KY





Paducah Parks Services will host its award-winning Touch a Truck event on Thursday, September 15 from 10 am until noon. It will be held in the parking lot at 2nd and Jefferson Streets in downtown Paducah adjacent to the Farmers Market.Touch a Truck is the free annual event where kids, teachers, and families can see and touch approximately two dozen types of vehicles. Children will have a chance to climb inside most of the vehicles, sit behind the steering wheel, and honk the horn, and everyone will get to meet the people who operate the vehicles on a daily basis.Vehicles typically participating at Touch a Truck include a helicopter, fire truck, ambulance, tow truck, concrete mixer, dump truck, garbage truck, trolley, and police car.School and church groups are asked to call Parks Services at 270-444-8508 to pre-register.Bus and public parking will be available in the downtown parking lot across from the Whalers Catch building. Bus drivers are being asked to drop students off at 2nd and Jefferson Streets.The Kentucky Recreation & Park Society recognized Touch a Truck with the Outstanding Program Award in 2013.For more information about Parks Department events and activities, visit the Parks Services Department at 1400 H.C. Mathis Drive, visit the website www.paducahky.gov, or call 270-444-8508.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 10, 2016 | MAYFIELD, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 10, 2016 | 11:54 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

Eleven people in Graves County were arrested on drug charges after concerned citizens called with information about drug activity.



The Graves County Sheriff's Department reports that a search warrant was executed at a home on Dorothy Lane just north of Mayfield on Thursday morning. Deputies and Kentucky State Troopers went to the home of 24-year-old Andrew Anderson and his wife, 25-year-old Brittany Anderson. At the time of the search, four other people were also living at the home: 22-year-old John Anderson, 26-year-old Bryan Anderson, 22-year-old Amber Tomas, and 25-year-old Tyler Heathcott. All six people were arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance - methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.



Another search was executed Friday at a home on Waggoner Bottom Road south of Mayfield. Deputies say they found numerous containers of prescription medications that were being illegally sold, along with methamphetamine and marijuana. They arrested the home owner, 64-year-old Frank Morefield on 2 counts of trafficking a controlled substance 1st Degree, 2nd offense. Deputies say 37-year-old Wesley Morefield and 32-year-old Brandie Ray were arrested for complicity to trafficking a controlled substance 1st Degree, 2nd offense. Also arrested were 24-year-old Kenneth Morefield and 44-year-old Joey Sanderson, charged with possession of a controlled substance - methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.



All eleven people were taken to Graves County Jail (Mug shots for two suspects were not available from law enforcement).
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
Constitution amendment: Govt preparing to table bill in House

The government is preparing to register a constitution amendment proposal in Parliament before September 15, the day when Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is scheduled to embark on his India visit.
World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500 Articles Updated Daily

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What You Arent Being Told About The World You Live In

How The Conspiracy Theory Label Was Conceived To Derail The Truth Movement

How Covert American Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

September 10, 2016

Concentration Camp Model Created By Hillary Clinton In Africa Warned Is Coming To America

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

An absolutely chilling Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) report circulating in the Kremlin today is warning that the massive concentration camps overseen by Hillary Clinton in the West African nation of Ghana is a model/experiment she is planning to install in American should she win the presidencyand whose first victims will be the tens-of-millions of those people who support her opponent Donald Trump, and who yesterday she branded as a basket of deplorables and warned her supporters were irredeemable and not America. [Note: Obama-Clinton hatred of both Russia and Israel is due to neither of these nations acceptance of what is called open border globalization.] [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

According to this report, Federation intelligence analysts have known for decades that Hillary Clinton is part of a leftist-communistic elite cabal (that includes President Obama) operating as a fifth column [a group of people who undermine a larger group] in the United States led by the teachings of her mentor Saul Alinskyand who in the 1970s were discovered by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be plotting the murder of over 20 million Americans.

The master plan used by Hillary Clintons leftist cabal to gain absolute power in America, this report continues, is Alinskys Rules For Radicals that calls for the demonization of political adversaries so that others see them as devilsand is currently being employed against Donald Trump to label him as a racist, in spite of the overwhelming evidence he has supported African-Americans for decades, including civil rights icon Jessie Jackson praising him for his decades of service to that community.

To how to forever silence those Americans protesting her rule, should she gain power, this report notes, was begun in 1998 when Hillary Clinton, along with her husband President Bill Clinton, visited the West African nation of Ghana and initiated a long-term social experiment designed to totally make over that small nations populace by stripping children from their mothers and grandmothers so that they could be indoctrinated in new world order ways and methods.

Over the past 18 years since that first visit to Ghana, this report continues, Hillary Clinton, through her Clinton Foundation, and aided by the Varkey Foundation, have facilitated the placement of thousands of mothers and grandmothers of that nation in concentration camps after they were accused of being witchesbut who, in 2012, was a nation hailed by President Obama as being a model for democracy in Africa.

To the true type of democracy Hillary Clintons Ghana was being praised for by President Obama, this report explains, was in the radical Islamic indoctrination of that nations children, once their mothers and grandmothers were put in concentration camps, by the Varkey Foundationthat was formed in 2010 by Sunny Varkey, the founder and chairman of GEMS Education, that is the worlds largest private operator of kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools that teaches Sharia law and has paid Bill Clinton nearly $6 million.

Former US President Bill Clinton (left) and Islamic radical educationist Sunny Varkey (right)

With the greater portion of Ghana now being pacified by Hillary Clintons Islamic master plan of social engineering of stripping an entire generation of that nations children away from their mothers and grandmothers, this report says, that country is now ripe/ready for the exploitation of its massive natural resources by Western elitesincluding Hillary Clintons main financial backer George Soros who has already begun taking over that African nation and others surrounding it.

Not being understood by the masses of American and European peoples about Hillary Clintons master plan, as she employed in Ghana, this report explains, is that is a part of what these globalist leftist elites call a borderless world where corporations will not be bound by the laws of individual nations, but only those they make for themselves in what are called trade dealsand has as its main 21st century goal/plan to flood the West with tens-of-millions of Islamic workers who by their religion are bound to obey their employers as masters.

With both White, Latino and African American peoples in the United States being labeled by Hillary Clinton and her leftist elite allies as unreliable workers, this report continues, her communistic fifth column has not only perfected their concentration camp model in Ghana to use against them, but the actual destruction of their entire nation too, and as exampled by:

1.) Hillary and Bill Clintons 1994 crime bill that over the past 22 years has made the United States the largest jailer of human beings in all of history.

2.) Hillary and Bill Clintons 1996 reform bill that gutted US federal welfare programs plunging tens-of-millions into abject poverty.

3.) Hillary and Bill Clintons 1998 educational law that forbid American students from ever being allowed to declare bankruptcy on their student loan debts plunging tens-of-millions of them into a lifetime of debt servitude.

4.) Hillary and Bill Clintons 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, that allowed big banks to consolidate operations and created the conditions that led to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.

As every single major disaster facing the American people has been engineered by Hillary Clinton and her leftist allies for over two decades, this report concludes, the absolute power of the corrupt American media establishment supporting her is now on full display for the whole world to seeand where in other nations Hillary Clinton, and everyone surrounding and supporting her, would be tried for treason, her main supporter, President Obama, was able to trash his own nations citizens nearly 20 times this week, with no one calling him to account.

Other reports in this series include:

Florida Earthquake Reported Caused By Obama-Clinton Attempt To Destroy Israeli Sub

Hillary Clinton Heart Failure Event Warned Just Months Away

Putin Asks Obama Why US Media Shutdown Donald Trump Speech At Black Church, Gets No Reply

US Congress To Begin Immediate Impeachment Of Hillary Clinton If She Wins Presidency

Hillary Clinton Secret Sexmail Destroys Top US Army Commander

Hillary Clinton Colostomy Bag Cover-up Consumes US Media Giants, Puts Debates In Doubt

White House Emails Reveal Largest Plot Ever Discovered To Destroy America

New York Times Hosts Top Secret Meet To Cover-up Hillary Clinton Health, Destroy Fox News

Putin Erupts Over Million Dollar Spy Payments To Hillary Clinton

US Secret Service Swarms Top Hospitals As Hillary Clinton Brain Surgery Fears Rise

Panic Grips America, Shuts Down NSA, After Russia Reveals It Has All Hillary Clinton Phone Calls

Hillary Clinton Total Terror Descends Upon Disabled Mother Who Discovered Her Link To ISIS

Russia Debates Response To Shocking Hillary Clinton Link To Crimea Terror Attack

Father Of Doctor Treating Hillary Clinton For Dementia Mysteriously Dies

Hillary Clinton Night Of The Long Knives Killing Spree Claims Life Of Attorney Shawn Lucas

Hillary Clinton Gains Millions From Plot Linked To Top US General Fueling War With Russia

Moscow Raid Proves Hillary Clinton Plot To Destroy Boeing, Ship 80,000 US Jobs Overseas

Hillary Clinton Orders ISIS Attack Cover-Up In Germany, American Press Stunningly Obeys

Clinton Threat To Destroy Everyone Throws Washington Into Chaos

Bush Family Rushes To Hillary Clinton Side After Top UN Official Set To Testify Against Her Found Dead

Husband Of Prosecutor Investigating Bill Clinton For Child Sex Charges Gunned Down

September 10, 2016  EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.

[Note: Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their agents has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.]

[Note: The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.]

[Note: The word Kremlin (fortress inside a city) as used in this report refers to Russian citadels, including in Moscow , having cathedrals wherein female Schema monks (Orthodox nuns) reside, many of whom are devoted to the mission of the Sisters of Sorcha Faal.]

The Trial Of Hillary Clinton: The Case For Murder Grows

They Are Going To Come For YouWhy Are You Helping Them?

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WILL ASHEVILLE EMBARRASS WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA? THE DONALD TRUMP RALLY: A WHKP STATION EDITORIAL

THE DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN RALLY

A WHKP Station Editorial

Will Asheville embarrass western North Carolina when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rally at the US Cellular Center late on Monday?

Thats a fair question to ask, considering it was within hours of the Trump campaigns announcement Thursday that he planned to hold a rally in cool, green Asheville that social media began clicking away with Asheville left-wingers plans to disrupt the Trump rally.

Former Asheville city council member and conservative activist Dr. Carl Mumpower shared with us over the weekend some of the comments and plans being bounced around on Facebook and other social media to cause mayhem at Monday evenings Trump rally, which will be free and open to the public.

One particular social media post caught our attention. According to the writer, (I) reserved my two free tickets to the Asheville Trump rally! They can only let a certain amount of people in, so how about we reserve our spots and have him spill his garbage on an empty venue? If that plan catches on and spreads among other Asheville left-wingers, I guess well see just how rude Asheville can be to the man who could very well be the next leader of the free world.

You may be wondering why a candidate who claims to be conservative and Republican and who is as controversial as Trump is would be spending valuable campaign time coming to the home of witch covens, the topless rally, and downtown parks that wreak with pot smoke? Political experts are saying its not Asheville that Trump is aiming for so much as it is the conservative, fundamentalist, Judeo/Christian voters in the mountainous counties, including our own, who still make up a majority of those who go to the polls and vote on election day.

When Hillary Clinton came to Hendersonville back in the spring of 2008, she was locked in a tough, and eventually losing, campaign for the Democrat nomination for president with Barack Obama. When she came into this acknowledged Republican stronghold that is Henderson County, the Republican-controlled county government opened up the Historic Courthouse Plaza and welcomed her to Main Street with all the dignity and respect a leading presidential candidate is due. There were no threats of impolite and disrespectful disruption.

With some of the plans circulating on social media to disrupt the Trump visit to Asheville on Monday, we have to wonder: has true Southern, mountain hospitality and a neighborly tolerance for those with whom we may disagree, been LOST? Has it finally succumbed to rude, inappropriate, maybe even unlawful disruption that some on the left may think is cute or clever or "politically correct"? We expect well find outwhen Donald Trump visits downtown Asheville in the US Cellular Center Monday night.

As Trump comes to the home of Thomas Wolfe Monday night, we expect well see if old-fashioned, welcoming, well-mannered Southern hospitality, certainly for potential leaders of the whole free world, is a thing of the past in Ashevilleand if in this case, Wolfe was rightfor center-focused, good, decent, well behaved, and patriotic mountain folks, you cant go home again.

As always, we invite your commentson our comments.

By WHKP News Director Larry Freeman 09/10/16
Eighteen metric ton solid waste extracted from rivers in the valley

A total of 18 metric tons of solid waste was extracted in course of the weekly cleaning of the major rivers in Kathmandu valley on Saturday.
Farmed fish dying due to mystery disease

Nearly 50,000 fish have perished in the past one month in different parts of Bardia due to a mystery disease.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Elizabeth Letts is an equestrian who rode competitively when she was young, and she shows her love for the animals in her writing. Like The Eighty Dollar Champion  her earlier account of Snowman, a horse that became a prize-winning jumper after he was rescued on his way to the slaughterhouse  The Perfect Horse is a moving true story of horses rescued from mortal danger by humans who cared for them.

The perfect horse of the title refers not to just one horse but to dozens of beautiful Arabian and Lipizzaner stallions and mares that in the closing days of the Second World War were rescued from almost certain death by American and German soldiers.

The book begins in fall 1944 in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, where we meet the schools director, Alois Podhajsky. Faced with the problem of how to safeguard the 33 beautiful Lipizzaner stallions in his care as bombs rained down on the city, he would play a major role in preserving the school and its horses in the chaotic time ahead.

Until 1918, the school and its white stallions had been maintained to entertain the Imperial Court with displays of intricate classic dressage. With the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy, performances were opened to the public and the school maintained itself with ticket and souvenir sales.

Podhajsky was a former Austrian cavalry officer who had won a bronze medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. With the German takeover of Austria, the school and its staff, including the director, had become part of the Wehrmacht. Thereafter, the man with real authority was Gustav Rau, a former journalist who had caught the attention of the Nazi leadership and been appointed master of the horse and chief equerry of Germany. For the Nazis, fine horses and skilful riding were one more way to demonstrate Germanys superiority.

Rau had horse-breeding theories that paralleled the Nazi theories about human breeding, and drew that connection in his writing. He employed unscientific techniques such as breeding close relatives and impregnating mares that were really too young. After 1939 he followed in the wake of the German army, seizing the best horses in Poland and other countries to further his goal of creating the perfect German horse.

As part of his program, Rau had gathered all the Lipizzaner mares and foals from their farm in the Tyrol and moved them to a large central stud farm in Hostau near the German border in Czechoslovakia. Podhajsky tried but failed to stop this move.

As the war progressed, Hostau also became the refuge for horses from other parts of Raus empire, and the description of how these animals were moved through the war zone in Eastern Europe reads like a thriller. At one point, the Polish horses were caught on the edge of Dresden during the great air raid that destroyed the city. Similarly, during Podhajskys evacuation of the Lipizzaners from Vienna to northern Austria, their train only just survived a bombing raid.

Ronald Zak / The Associated Press files In this 2015 photo, riders and horses of Spanish Riding School rehearse for a show at the 450th anniversary of the school in front of Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria.

As the war came to an end, the main concern of the men responsible for all these horses became preventing them from falling into the hands of the advancing Russians, who were likely to use them as draft animals or slaughter them for food. Hostau was within the Russian zone; just across the border in Germany was an area under the control of the American 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

While the Americans had retired their horses and taken to riding tanks at the beginning of the war, many of the cavalrymen continued to be devoted to horses. When the units commander, Col. Hank Reed, discovered a farm full of valuable horseflesh was just kilometres away, he organized a rescue mission, with the backing of his superior, famous horseman Gen. George Patton. German and American soldiers collaborated in getting the animals to safety.

The Lipizzaners returned to Vienna, where they still perform today; the army sent most of the other rescued horses to the U.S. Unfortunately, they arrived at the precise moment the U.S. army was divesting itself of what remained of its cavalry. The animals were auctioned off and some were euthanized. A few, like the beautiful Polish Arabian stallion Witez, were bought by horse breeders who treated them well.

Reading this book, one is struck by the care taken of these animals at a time when millions of innocent people were dying. Nevertheless, most readers will enjoy this dramatic and moving story.

Jim Blanchard is a local historian.

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This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A combination of too much rain and a disease-spreading bug is making the breakfast favourite orange juice a lot more expensive.

Futures for the beverage surged to the highest in more than four years as the worlds top suppliers face shrinking output. In Brazil, the No. 1 producer, excessive rain is raising the threat of fungal disease that can cut crop output, according to Cepea, the University of Sao Paulo research arm. In second-ranked Florida, a tiny insect is wreaking havoc on production by spreading the citrus-greening disease.

Orange juice traded in New York has surged 59 per cent in the past 12 months because of declining supplies. The Brazilian rain is coming just as the countrys stockpiles have fallen to the lowest on record. Floridas production in the year starting Oct. 1 may drop as much as 26 per cent from a year earlier, Christine Lensing, a senior economist for specialty crops at CoBank in Denver, said Thursday in a telephone interview.

LUKE SHARRETT / BLOOMBERG Juice carton lids move down a track on the orange juice production line at Florida's Natural Growers production facility.

Prices have no where to go but up, John Ortelle, a vice-president at McKeany-Flavell Co., a brokerage in Oakland, said in a telephone interview. Supply concerns are overshadowing ebbing demand as it costs more to produce fruit because of the problems we are having, he said.

Orange juice for November delivery jumped as much as 2.1 per cent to US$1.9985 a pound on ICE Futures U.S., the highest for a most-active contract since February 2012. The contract settled up 0.9 per cent at US$1.9745 at 2 p.m.

 Bloomberg News
India Kashmir: Government tweet sparks new row

The agency managing an Indian government Twitter account has been asked to explain after it tweeted an inflammatory poem about Kashmir.
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This article was published 09/09/2016 (2242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For more than 130 years, Winnipeggers have gone about their lives by going under, over and around the railways.

And Canadian Pacific said thats a reality Winnipeggers will have to continue to live with. After all, it was here first and is not going anywhere.

Relocation of rail lines and yards is a complex, costly and serious issue, CP spokeswoman Salem Woodrow said Friday. When CP first began its operations, Canada was relatively unpopulated. While much has changed in 130 years, we remain committed to safe operations and working closely with communities.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

On Thursday, the Pallister government spiked the then-NDP government initiative to form a task force to examine the feasibility of moving rail lines out of Winnipeg. The $400,000 study was to be led by former Quebec premier Jean Charest.

The Railway Association of Canada, the business lobby group for both CP and Canadian National, says the industry supports the status quo and that the debate is an internal one.

This is a concern between the current and former governments, said spokesman Alex Patterson.

Proponents of relocation said Pallisters decision is short-sighted.

Other cities have moved rail lines. . . theres no reason Winnipeg cant do it, too, said Robert-Falcon Ouellette, the Liberal MP for Winnipeg Centre whose riding runs along the boundary for the CP inner-city railyards.

The cost of future infrastructure projects, including replacing Arlington Bridge and the Waverley underpass, to go around the tracks is now pegged at $1.5 billion, said Brent Bellamy, senior design architect with Number Ten Architectural Group and a member of CentreVenture, the citys downtown development agency.

At some point all parties  including the rail companies  have to examine what is the best way economically to continue to operate, he said.

If you look at a map of the city, youll see theres not just one rail yard, Bellamy said. Theres several and theres rail lines criss-crossing the city and its only prudent, if were going to make decisions with all the information, that we study the thing that has such a massive impact in our city.

If spending money wisely is the governments mandate and everyone wants that to be the mandate wouldnt the government want to plan for the most prudent way forward? I dont understand how its not, Bellamy said.

Barry Prentice, a professor with the Transportation Institute at the University of Manitoba, said railways are probably as safe as theyre ever going to be, but he supports relocation.

He wasnt surprised by Pallisters decision but is concerned the cans probably been kicked down the road and left for another government to take up again.

The former government had a reputation for making unfunded promises and this was another one, said Prentice. I dont believe they ever intended to do it.

The current government is focused on getting our financial house in order and getting our credit rating back and I can see why theyre being prudent.

Coun. Russ Wyatt (Transcona), whose ward includes CNs massive Symington Yard, also wants the rail lines moved.

It will take political will to craft an exit with all three levels of government and the railways. Hes seen no sign of that happening with the current mayor, he said in a statement.

We have only heard words from Mayor Bowman, but no policy on this to back up his words, Wyatt said.

The mayor declined comment, pressed by a busy schedule, his spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce said it position remains unchanged.

Chamber president Loren Remillard said in an earlier interview with the Free Press that the city owes its existence to the railways and that there is an awareness disconnect between residents and the benefits rail bring to Winnipeg.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the clock ticks down to the Dec. 2 deadline for the closure of Tolko Industries pulp and paper plant in The Pas, union and political leaders are scrambling to come up with scenarios to keep the facility open.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway by other resource industry employers in the region to poach some of the 330 workers who will lose their jobs when the plant closes.

In the race to find a solution, theres plenty of people bearing down to investigate all options.

ELISABETH POSCHER The Pas stands to lose some 330 jobs and a sizable chunk of its commercial assessment tax base should the Tolko paper plant close as scheduled on Dec. 2.

Bill Henderson, a former longtime employee of Tolko and the predecessor owners of the mill, has been hired by The Pas Community Development Corp. to lead its response team.

Henderson held several key positions at The Pas mill from 1985 to 2001. He recently retired from Manitoba Hydro after 15 years of service.

He was en route to The Pas to have meetings with community officials this weekend.

Were focused on trying to see how we can work with the stakeholders to come up with a regional solution for a sustainable forestry industry in the north, he said Friday. Im one of the people who feels very strongly about, hey lets not sit back and let something happen, lets try to make something happen.

Jennifer Williams believes one thing that could happen is an employee-share ownership plan (ESOP). Williams works for Toronto-based consultancy ESOP Builders, which has been advocating increased use of such plans in Canada.

Williams said she has cold-called the company and not yet made contact with the union or any of the workers, but thinks if the operations are self-sustaining, an ESOP could work.

Employee-share purchase tax credit legislation was passed in Manitoba in 2014, including tax credits of as much as 45 per cent of the amount employees might invest in a company.

Its the most generous tax credit of its kind in the country.

There is an analysis to do there, but we need to do something on this, Williams said. Employee ownership is an absolute solution in this case.

One union member said there has already been discussions about the possibility of The Pas employees buying the plant.

We have not pushed it out to too many people yet, said the longtime Tolko worker who asked his name not be used. Were trying to figure out liability and a bunch of things.

Earlier this week, The Pas Mayor Jim Scott offered the company a three-year holiday from paying municipal and school taxes as a cost-cutting incentive to try to keep the mill open for three more years while local leaders look for a buyer for the facility.

Scott said the company has neither accepted nor rejected his offer  which he has yet to break down with the Kelsey School Division  but has asked him if the offer would be on the table for any potential buyer.

Tolko officials have not responded to requests for interviews, but several sources have said the Vernon, B.C.,-based company is committed to leaving the market. Since The Pas plant is Tolkos only paper mill operation, sources say it would likely not be averse to selling the plant, even to a competitor.

For those looking to keep the place open there is a concern about the looming deadline and the importance of maintaining the integrity of the equipment before winter freeze up and, equally important, continuing to service customers.

This week, the message board outside the Kikiwak Inn in The Pas encouraged Tolko workers to go in and learn about employment opportunities at AV Terrace Bay, a pulp mill on Lake Superior, east of Thunder Bay, Ont.

I was in the hotel at the time. There was not a lot of traffic, but they definitely rented a room, said Paul McKie, national representative at Unifor, the union that represents about 230 workers at Tolko.

From what I heard, the workers were not that impressed with what was being offered.

McKie said other resource companies have started to court Tolko workers.

On Friday, Amanda Lathlin, NDP MLA for The Pas, said Tolko workers might ask the Pallister government for funds to help them buy the mill. Theres been talk of that. We need seed money, said Lathlin.

Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen will meet Monday with Scott and other The Pas community leaders to discuss Tolkos decision to close down its plant.

Lathlin said she does not know what kind of a price tag Tolko is putting on its operation nor how much seed money from the province the workers and Unifor would need to buy it.

Lathlin said she and Niki Ashton, the NDP MP for ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, have been meeting with the union and community leaders from The Pas and Opaskwayak Cree Nation, to try to find a solution to save the local jobs.

We heard the strong and clear message of their belief in their community: they want to keep it (the mill) open past Dec. 2, Lathlin said. We have families who are quite paranoid, families who will be split up.

She agreed with Scotts fear if Tolko shuts down the plant, its assessed value will plummet as a derelict property, and taxes in The Pas will rise.

Eight of Tolkos 10 local properties are almost without value, while the remaining two make up one-third of the communitys commercial assessment base.

Lathlin said she also wants to know if Tolko asked the Pallister government for help in upgrading its equipment, and if so, whether the Tories took the company seriously.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.canick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New police board member Derek Johannson is learning first-hand how his colleagues are keeping a close eye on board spending and how difficult it is to balance a budget that hinges on the publics bad habits.

When Johannson, who was appointed by Mayor Brian Bowman to the board in February and now holds the post of budget and finance committee chairman, asked to attend a conference on police governance in Ottawa during the summer, he was told the board would cover the cost of registration, but he had to pay his own airfare and hotel.

I love that. I actually respect that, Johannson told members of the police board at a Friday meeting.

As you look at the budget for the police board, you will see this police board staying within that budget because I think its so important for a board to model the type of behaviours that it wants others to follow.

Johannson is chairman of Carlyle Printers and CEO of New World Technologies.

I went to that conference, and it was a tremendous learning experience, Johannson said.

He urged other board members to attend next years event. The conference, he said, was a tremendous opportunity to meet members of other police commissions and learn from their experiences.

Johannson noted in April he appreciated the difference in the goals and objectives of a public-sector agency such as the police board compared with the private sector.

He remarked that speeding offences were down  which is good for society but bad for the police budget. He reiterated that appreciation Friday, when he noted police revenue continues to decline, largely because police have issued fewer photo-radar and traffic tickets as motorists have adjusted to reduced speed limits.

I really have come to realize how complicated and how challenging it is for board members and members of the (police) service to make this a partnership that really drives positive results for the citizens of Winnipeg, he said.

I dont want to see our citizens speed. We want safer streets. So, if theres less of that, thats a good sign.

Johannson said Manitoba legislation makes police boards responsible for police spending, but the decline in revenues is hurting the police budget.

I would suggest it is important for us to focus on the expense side, where we can really have an impact.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its Friday morning and Im sitting in my office cubicle, staring into the computer and filling my head with mush.

I dont mean Im reading idiotic stories and filling my head with useless information, although, technically speaking, I am.

No, I mean Im literally filling my head with mush in the sense Im gobbling down a large Styrofoam bowl of oatmeal I bought at Larrys cafeteria on the ground floor of the Free Press building.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES At least Doug does not foolishly engage in lethal activities such as playing the bagpipes.

This is really healthy stuff, Larry chirped as he slopped several ladles of the mush into a bowl then topped it with raisins and cinnamon. It will fill you up with slow-burning carbs that will give you energy throughout the day.

Normally, slow-burning carbs are not what Im looking for in a breakfast. Typically what I am looking for in a breakfast is bacon, delicious, sizzling strips of salty, pork-y, maple-cured goodness.

But this morning I decided to back away from the bacon and take a run at a bowl of mush because, in recent days, kind-hearted Free Press readers, along with my family and friends and colleagues, have gently chided me about the fact that I am slowly becoming a dead ringer for Jabba the Hutt, assuming the slug-like alien had really let himself go.

The thing is, my readers are not reluctant to let me know they are concerned about my health. For instance, I will be standing in the cookie aisle at Safeway, ogling a bag of Oreos, and a reader (almost always a woman, for the record) will tap me on the shoulder and gently say: Are you allowed to have those, Doug?

At which point I will grunt No and waddle away into the fresh produce section, where I will stare forlornly at a bunch of overripe bananas and quietly ponder whether my potassium levels are too high.

Here is an actual email I received the other day from a reader concerned that my waistline, like the universe, is constantly expanding: Hey, Doug, did you know there are old people, and there are fat people, but there are NO old fat people!

Which explains why, as I write these words, I am hoovering down a bowl of oatmeal. I admit my eating habits do not contribute to a healthy lifestyle, but at least I am not foolishly engaging in a bunch of potentially lethal activities, such as playing the bagpipes.

You probably think I am joking about the bagpipes being potentially lethal, but I assure you I am being deadly serious. I became aware of this Scottish health hazard last month when I received an alarming email from my dear friend Debbie Lindsay, who is a medical doctor and once gave me a pedometer for my birthday so I could count the number of steps from my couch to the fridge in the kitchen.

Debbies email contained a terrifying news report describing what doctors believe is likely the first confirmed case of death by bagpipes.

According to this news item, a 61-year-old man in the U.K. developed an inflammatory lung disease and eventually dropped dead, most likely because of mould and fungi lurking inside the moist interior of his beloved bagpipes.

Doctors determined his favourite instrument was the likely cause based on his history of playing it almost daily, coupled with how his symptoms improved when he took a holiday in Australia and didnt bring his pipes along.

This is the first case report identifying fungal exposure, from a bagpipe player, as a potential trigger for the development of HP (hypersensitivity pneumonitis), Dr. Jenny King and her co-authors in Manchester, England, wrote in last months issue of the medical journal Thorax.

Its not as though bagpipers are at risk of instantaneous death, but the doctors did suggest anyone who plays a wind instrument should clean it regularly, just to be safe.

I can personally attest to the fact bagpipes will not cause you to drop dead on a moments notice. I know this for a fact because my son, Liam, has played the pipes for almost 20 years and he is currently alive. My son told me he does not expect the pipes to kill him because he does not season them with his own spit, as old-timers used to do.

Anyway, in my view, the real health threat comes from prolonged sleep deprivation caused by having lived in the same house as someone who thought it was a good idea to practise Scotland the Brave at 2 a.m. in the basement.

The medical point is, I dont want anyone of Scottish heritage to panic, but for the time being, we should all take some basic precautions. For instance, never play the pipes unless you also have access to a strong disinfectant, such as single-malt scotch.

And it never hurts to start the day with a bowl of oatmeal!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been said that democracy is the worse form of government, Winston Churchill famously told the House of Commons in 1949, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. This is also perhaps the best thing that can be said about the single-member plurality (SMP) electoral system Canada employs to translate votes into seats, and which is currently being prosecuted by the federal governments Electoral Reform Committee.

For SMP is a truly awful electoral system. This is particularly true with respect to its democratic outcomes. The number of seats that parties score under SMP can vary widely from the votes they win. Large parties tend to rack up more seats than they deserve. In contrast, small parties are systematically cheated of seats by SMP  unless, that is, they are regionally concentrated parties willing to stoke and exploit regional grievances, in which case SMP turns out to be quite generous.

One result of this disproportionality between vote and seat shares (a problem fixed by proportional-representation electoral systems) is greater dissatisfaction with democracy. The sort of disproportionality produced by Canadas electoral system is related to a feeling among citizens that elections are less fair and that elected officials are less responsive to their needs and concerns. Further, voter turnout is, on average, lower under SMP than under other types of systems.

But before we bury SMP and dance on its grave, lets consider one strength of our current electoral system: local representation. As its name suggests, SMP is defined by its use of geographic constituencies, each represented by a single MP. Every citizen has a representative, and there is no doubt about who that representative is. This is not the case under other electoral systems, in which multiple MPs may represent constituencies or where there may be no constituencies at all.

This simple arrangement enhances the accountability of governments. If you disapprove of a party, you can vote for another partys candidate. If you disapprove of your MP, you can vote for one of that MPs opponents. If enough local voters feel the same, the incumbent will go down to defeat.

MPs in Canada know this and so often take advantage of their time in office to assist their constituents and build up personal local support they feel will assist them in future re-election campaigns. What this means is that Canadian MPs play a service role: when constituents have problems or need assistance in some way, an MP is available to assist them.

MPs are allocated funds to open offices in their constituencies and hire staff to work on local matters. Constituency offices make the MP more accessible to his or her constituents and riding-focused staff assist constituents with a wide range of problems. If you have visited a constituency office, you know they can often be buzzing, busy places.

News stories and debates on Canadian politics rarely notice the service role performed by MPs. But political scientist David Docherty noted some time ago the very prominent role service plays in their lives. Drawing on surveys, Docherty found that the prospect of providing constituency service was the most important reason why MPs run for office in the first place. Docherty also found they enjoy constituency service and spend a significant amount of their time on it. Further, MPs tend to believe that doing service work for their constituents will help them get re-elected.

They might be right. Canadians are generally dissatisfied with politics and politicians. But dig deeper, and a paradox is revealed: Canadians are dissatisfied with the performance of politicians as a group, but are quite delighted by the performance of their own individual representatives. This may result from the service performed by and local visibility of MPs in their own ridings.

Other electoral systems do not deliver local representation to the same degree as SMP. Proportional-representation systems are likely to have large ridings with many MPs, if indeed there are any ridings at all.

Mixed-member proportional (MMP) systems are said to produce the best of both worlds, with both single-member seats and other list MPs that lead to proportionality. MMP has much to commend it, but, unless additional MPs are added, the constituencies under MMP will be larger, and the quality of local representation will suffer, as MPs must attend to the needs of very populous or geographically vast ridings.

Local representation is, to me, the most important selling point of Canadas current electoral system. In a very large, diverse country, it is important every Canadian from every corner of the nation has a local representative who is connected to their community.

SMP is a terrible electoral system that should perhaps be dumped. But on the matter of local representation, it is better than all the alternatives.

Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
Opinion

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This article was published 10/09/2016 (2241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Is the Pallister government just saying no to projects because they may be affiliated with the former NDP government? It certainly feels that way.

On Thursday, the provincial government announced, via a statement, it will not be participating in a planned feasibility study into the relocation of some or all of Winnipegs rail lines.

The reason? Indigenous and Municipal Relations Minister Eileen Clarke said the government was elected on a mandate to fix the provinces finances. The cost of the study was pegged at $400,000  which, as Liberal MP Dan Vandal points out, really wont make much difference to the deficit situation.

Premier Brian Pallister

Earlier this week, a report outlining provincial flood-control initiatives commissioned by the NDP in 2014 was released quietly by the province. One small section of the review looked at the issue of non-emergency use of the floodway as a way to extend usage of the river walk in Winnipeg.

This is an idea former NDP premier Gary Doer backed in 2010. Civic boosters are supportive of the idea, saying it will mean improved property values and the return of water recreational opportunities. It also will enhance The Forks as a tourist destination. It fits in well with the City of Winnipegs ambitious waterfront plan from 2014, which envisions a network of river and bike paths and housing and commercial development along the Red River from St. Vital Park to Kildonan Park.

The newly elected Conservatives poured cold water on the idea, with Infrastructure Minister Blaine Pederson saying: Lets just use the floodway for what it was built for.

In June, Premier Brian Pallister suggested moving the Bipole III transmission line to the east side of the province even though $1.8 billion has already been spent on it. The west-side route is considered a more expensive option, however, moving it will preserve boreal forest. The Conservatives, while in opposition, hammered the NDP government on the file, with support for the east-side route coming from typical Conservative supporters such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and rural voters.

After the April election, the province dismantled the East Side Road Authority and placed it under the management of the Infrastructure Department. An auditor generals report, expected sometime this month, is causing anxiety in the NDP.

While its not known exactly what is in the report, as Dan Lett of the Free Press reported earlier this month, the auditor general rarely investigates government agencies unless there are problems. It would be easy for the Pallister government to walk away from the project, citing financial concerns.

But is that good policy-making?

We get it. The NDP government left Manitoba in the red, and a primary plank of the new government was to get the fiscal house in order  but that shouldnt mean shifting gears or shutting down projects altogether without some form of consultation.

The decision to kibosh the rail lines study caught Mr. Vandal by surprise. The river-walk response appeared to be without any discussion with stakeholders in Winnipeg such as CentreVenture Development Corp. or The Forks Renewal Corp. Bipole III is already halfway completed, and a potential shift came as a surprise. The East Side Road Authority did have positive results that shouldnt be dismissed, yet it remains in limbo, again with no discussion.

Is the premier just cutting off his nose to spite his face?
TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Thousands of Iranians marched through the streets Friday to protest Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj, a sign of soured relations between the two countries following last years crush and stampede during the annual pilgrimage.

Iranians wont be taking part in this years hajj, required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their life, over tensions between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, regional rivals divided over a host of issues.

Demonstrators waved signs after Friday prayers depicting Saudi King Salman holding a bloody sword, his head wrapped in an American flag and his shirt bearing a blue Star of David similar to that on the Israeli flag.

Death to Al Saud and the traitors! protesters in Tehran shouted. State media reported similar protests across the country.

We dont have any problems with the people of Saudi Arabia. They are Sunnis and are our brothers, protester Habibullah Abulfazli said. But the Al Saud family are puppets of Britain and America. They are fighting proxy wars against Shiites and against all Muslims.

Tensions soared in January after the kingdom executed a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric. Angry demonstrators later attacked two Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran and Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties to the Islamic Republic. The two countries also support opposing sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

In their recent criticisms, Iranian officials have focused on the Sept. 24, 2015, stampede and crush of pilgrims at last years hajj that killed at least 2,426 people, according to an Associated Press count. Tehran has said the disaster killed 464 Iranians.

The official Saudi toll of 769 people killed and 934 injured has not changed since Sept. 26. The kingdom has never addressed the discrepancy, nor has it released any results of an investigation authorities promised to conduct over the disaster.

On Monday, Khamenei raised the stakes in the dispute by saying Saudi officials had murdered hajj pilgrims who were injured in the stampede. Saudis grand mufti countered by claiming that Iranians are not Muslims.

A member of Lebanons Hezbollah meanwhile said the Iran-backed Shiite militant group has asked its members to refrain from going on the hajj this year because of tensions with Saudi Arabia.

The member, who spoke to The Associated Press this week, said the decision came after Saudi Arabia named Hezbollah a terrorist organization. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said the organizational measures would only affect Hezbollah members and not their families or the groups supporters.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran periodically have simmered and cooled since Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution installed its Shiite cleric-ruled democracy. The hajj, which begins Saturday this year, hasnt been spared.

In 1987, demonstrating Iranian pilgrims on hajj battled Saudi riot police in clashes that killed at least 402 people. Iran claimed 600 of its pilgrims were killed and said police fired machine guns at the crowd. Iran did not send pilgrims to the hajj in 1988 and 1989, while Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties over the violence and Iranian attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran has called for an independent body to take over administering the five-day hajj, something the Al Saud family has refused. Its overseeing of Islamic holy sites, along with Saudi Arabias oil wealth, gives the kingdom major influence in the Muslim world.

During Fridays protests, demonstrators also shouted slogans against the U.S. and Britain, long targets of suspicion among Iranian hard-liners. But protesters offered their harshest criticism for Saudi Arabia.

They have stabbed Muslims in the heart, protester Zabihullah Pirhayati said.
Introducing the Angry Young Woman

There are a few impressive performances slotted in, and certainly some moments of genuine intrigue, but overall, an anaemic script means that the new Akira fails at its core mission of dismantling the norms of a genre dominated by men in Bollywood
Cotter Schools and Winona Area Catholic Schools began the 2016-17 school year on Aug. 22. On Aug. 24, more than 550 people attended the annual Cotter Rambler Rally, held in the John Nett Rec Center parking lot. Inflatables, tasty food, Rowdy the Ram, Cotters pep band, and the club/activities fair made for a wonderful event!
A group of healthcare professionals, law enforcement officers and interested community members is working to make Winona County a better place for people who have dementia.

The dementia action team formed this year with the purpose of finding ways the county can better serve dementia patients and their caregivers. In the coming months, the team will be contacting local businesses, churches and organizations to find out which supports are needed and which are in place.

We want to be a safe community, a compassionate and knowledgeable community, said Malia Fox, a team member and the director of the Winona Friendship Center. It can be something like our traffic lights. Does a flashing hand mean anything to a person with dementia? Maybe the signs need to be different. Im not sure what were going to find.

Winona is one of 30 cities across Minnesota that have formed an action team through ACT on Alzheimers, a statewide collaborative that began in 2011.

Alzheimers alone affects an estimated 91,000 people in Minnesota and an estimated 900 people in Winona County. A few years ago, Alzheimers was the sixth-leading cause of death in the state.

Dementia is the generic term for a group of disorders that cause permanent memory loss.

The Winona team includes police, firefighters, lawyers and ministers  the hope, Fox said, is for each person to help create change in their respective circles.

The team has a public kick-off event scheduled for Oct. 18 at the Friendship Center. The entire project will take about a year and a half.

Fox said nearly every institution in Winona County could become more accepting of people with dementia:

Businesses could sign up for employee training sessions.

Faith communities could be sure to welcome dementia patients and their families.

Residential care facilities could offer activities that work around memory loss.

A person with dementia might be living in the 1950s, Fox said. They go to get coffee, and instead of a Keurig, theyre looking for a steaming teapot on a gas stove.

You need to find a way to connect those worlds.

The best solution, Fox said, is often to play along. People should not get frustrated or try forcing a dementia patient to understand reality, she said.

Other times, a patient might just need a little help.

If you work at McDonalds, Fox said, you might need to take someones purse or wallet and get the money for them.
I am now back home in Wisconsin after a summer in Russia.

As I stepped off the airplane at Dulles Airport in Washington, not even the bad-tempered custom workers could minimize my excitement to be back in the U.S.

I had an amazing time in Russia and am thankful I had the chance to go. I miss my host family immensely, as well as my classmates, professors, the food and even my one-hour commute.

My last three weeks in Russia were the most memorable. The weekend before my last week of class, seven other students and I went to Moscow.

Moscow is a magnificent city that has a long and eventful history (almost 1,000 years). The infamous hammer and sickle emblem is etched into countless buildings throughout the city and reminds every citizen and tourist about a part of Moscow and Russias history that will never be forgotten. I was surprised by how many statues and murals I saw of young and merry workers in parks, squares, and in metro stations.

The most interesting part of the city is the Kremlin and Red Square. The Kremlin houses not only the official residence of the president of the Russian Federation, but also cathedrals, an armory and countless museums.

Red Square is home to St. Basils Cathedral, Russias most beautiful church, as well as Lenins mausoleum.

Many Russians believe that Lenin should be buried in the ground and that the mausoleum is disturbing. The Russian government is debating if they should finally bury him on the anniversary of his death in 2024. His nose already liquefied and melted off, so hopefully his other body parts will stay intact until that point in time.

After finals, we went on a Natural and Religious Beauty river cruise through the Republic of Karelia in the northern part of Russia. During the cruise, we toured numerous Russian Orthodox monasteries and cathedrals. Russian Orthodox is the most popular religion in Russia.

Orthodox is a form of Christianity and has very strict rules and traditions. For example, women are required to put on skirts and cover their heads before entering a cathedral. Before entering any of the monasteries during our cruise, all of the women in our group had to cover their heads with a scarf and put a skirt on over their pants. There are usually extra headscarves and skirts in the entryway of every Orthodox cathedral.

I am Presbyterian, so these requirements were foreign to me. One down side of wearing a headscarf is that you cant really hear what other people are saying to you. Therefore, I missed everything that the tour guides said about the cathedrals we entered.

There were a couple of cultural or procedural differences between the U.S. and Russia that really stood out to me.

The first involves police. There are so many police officers everywhere in Russia: in metro stations, in the street, in museums, etc. St. Petersburg has a very low violent crime rate, which, in my opinion, is due to the large number of police officers in the city.

At times, the number of officers made me uncomfortable. When Americans see an abundance of police officers in one location, they conclude that that specific location has a high crime rate. This is not the case in Russia. After years of corrupt officers, the government is trying to gain the publics trust in the police again. One way they are doing this is by keeping the polices presence known. If Russians see a lot of officers walking through the streets doing an acceptable job, they will feel safer and will begin to trust the police more.

Another cultural difference that stood out to me was Russians views on politics. Russians are not very political people, especially young people. The majority of Russians do not rush to polling places on polling days, stick candidate signs in their lawns, or have any ambition whatsoever to become a political leader.

This is because of Putin. Since Putin became president, the economy has improved, the police are less corrupt, people can travel where they want, study where they want to study, and do the majority of the things they like to do. It is widely known that Putins government is semi-authoritarian. Surprisingly, Russians really dont care. I learned while in class in St Petersburg that Russians like their country run this way. This is why Putin continues to be popular in Russia and will most likely continue to have an important role in the Russian government for years to come.

I am going to end my last article with the message that my host mother gave to me a few moments before I left her apartment my last day in Russia. While I was blubbering like an idiot as the taxi pulled up to our apartment complex, she told me that I needed to tell as many people as I could about what life is really like in Russia. She said that in order for Russia and America to improve their relationship, the two countries need to truly understand each others cultures and ways of life.

I hope that these articles have done their small part in helping our countries reach this ultimate goal.

I plan to continue to follow my host mothers wishes and tell as many Americans as I can about the amazing people I met and the experiences I had while in Russia.
Today

The annual Pardeeville Watermelon Festival will be held at 10 a.m. today at Chandler Park in Pardeeville. The event will feature watermelon carving, largest watermelon and seed spitting contests, artists and vendor fair, childrens games, bounce house, music, concession stand, and free fresh-sliced watermelon all day.

Sunday

The Alzheimers and Dementia Alliance of Wisconsins annual Columbia/Marquette County Alzheimers Walk will be held at 2:25 p.m. Sunday at Riverside Park, East Wisconsin Street, Portage. Registration begins at 1 p.m. Visit http://support.alzwisc.org/columbia to register or call 608-232-3400 or 888-308-6251 toll free for more information.

Monday

Portage Public Library will host a Denmark/Norway travel talk at 6:30 p.m. at the Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Paul and Judy Huebner will present a slide show and a travel talk from their trip to Denmark and Norway earlier this year. All are welcome.
Donald Trump and his top aides justifiably can be satisfied with his stunningly successful trip to Mexico. At the same time, Trump has continued to sow confusion about his stand on immigration  not his overall position but specifically about his intentions regarding the 12 million immigrants who are in this country illegally. Will he soften his stance on deportations?

The text of Trumps speech in Arizona Aug. 31 suggested there has indeed been a softening of Trumps original deport-them-all approach. But it sure didnt sound like softening. And the change  Trump will allow millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and reconsider their status only after new security measure are put in place  was announced in a confusing way that left even fair-minded listeners unsure of what Trump was proposing.

Then, after nearly two weeks of suggesting first that there would be softening in his proposal, and then that there would not be softening, on the morning after the speech, Trump told radio host Laura Ingraham that there would, in fact, be quite a bit of softening in his approach.

Oh, theres softening, Trump said. Look, we do it in a very humane way, and were going to see with the people that are in the country. Obviously I want to get the gang members out, the drug peddlers out, I want to get the drug dealers out. Weve got a lot of people in this country that you cant have, and those people well get out. And then were going to make a decision at a later date once everything is stabilized. I think youre going to see theres really quite a bit of softening.

If that is indeed Trumps new approach, it is in line with voter sentiment revealed in a Fox News Poll released at nearly the same moment he took the stage in Arizona. The Fox findings suggest that if Trump actually softened his position on deportations, he would strengthen his standing not only with the independent voters whose support seekings, but with the voters whose support he already has.

First, Fox asked, What do you think should happen to the illegal immigrants who are currently working in the United States  do you favor deporting as many as possible or do you favor setting up a system for them to become legal residents? Just 19 percent said deport as many as possible, while 77 percent said set up a system to become legal residents.

That 19 percent is the lowest point  so far  in a decline that has been going on for several years. When Fox asked the same question in 2010, 45 percent said deport as many as possible. Last year, in July 2015, 30 percent gave that answer. That fell to 27 percent in January of this year, and 19 percent now.

Trump is not singlehandedly turning people against deportation  the downward trend began before he ran for president  but he doesnt seem to be doing his cause much good, either.

The 77 percent who favor setting up a system for illegal immigrants to become legal residents represent a broad consensus. Sixty-six percent of Republicans favor setting up such a system; 76 percent of independents and 87 percent of Democrats agree.

Then Fox asked specifically about Trump: If Donald Trump were to soften his position on handling illegal immigrants living in the United States, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?

Heres the interesting thing. Among people who dont support Trump, 27 percent said a softening would make them more likely to support him. Thirty-four percent said it would make them less likely  that is probably the group that would not like anything Trump did. Thirty-six percent said it wouldnt matter.

Among people who already support Trump, 48 percent said a softer position on immigration would make them more likely to vote for him, while just 15 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for him. Again, 36 percent said it didnt matter. In other words, the vast majority of Trumps voters would like to see him soften his position or at least wouldnt mind it if he did.

The poll suggests that Trump could loosen up a little and help himself with his own voters, as well as the more moderate voters he hopes to attract.

Forty-one percent of men said a softening would make them more likely to vote for Trump, as did 31 percent of women. Thirty-eight percent of whites said the same thing, as well as 29 percent of non-whites. (Again the lower numbers for women and non-whites are probably due to the fact that relatively fewer of them would support Trump under any circumstances.)

Forty-five percent of voters under the age of 35 said a softening would make them more likely to support Trump, as well as 39 percent of voters age 35 to 54. Forty-three percent of evangelicals would also welcome a softening.

So thats why Trump is pledging a softening, even if he hasnt made it perfectly clear. Its what a lot of voters want to see.
Journos minimum wage: Media operators express concern

The media fraternity has taken exception to a joint statement issued by the Directive Committee and the Monitoring Subcommittee formed by the Ministry
Leopard gives birth in city house

A leopard has given birth to three cubs at a private house belonging to Lalit Jung Thapa in Sirutar-8, Aanantalingeshwor Municipality. Thapa had abandoned the house after it was damaged by the earthquakes last year.
Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, including auto financing, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its advice centers, RBC insurance stores, and mobile advisors; digital, mobile, and social platforms; independent brokers; and travel partners. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset servicing, custody, payments, and treasury services to financial and other investors; and fund and investment administration, shareholder, private capital, performance measurement and compliance monitoring, distribution, transaction banking, cash and liquidity management, foreign exchange, and global securities finance services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, advisory services, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, private equity firms, and governments. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
Bank of America has a rich history dating back to 1800 and even earlier. It was begun by immigrants as a group of separate and unrelated banks that, over the years, merged and grew together. One such is the Bank of Italy which was founded in 1904 by Amadeo Giannini to serve Italian immigrants that were facing discrimination. He later buys out the Banca de America e de Italia (Bank of America and Italy) which was also located in San Francisco. Over the years additional mergers and changes in Federal banking legislation, as well as the boom brought on by WWI and then WWII, helped boost the bank to national prominence.

Things turned sour, however, in 1998 with a major bond default that led to yet another merger, this time with Charlotte, NC-based Nations Bank to officially become the Bank of America that exists today. At the time, the merger was the largest bank merger in history and the company has only grown in the time since.

Other additions to the new Bank of America include MBNA (a major credit card operator), Fleet Boston (then the US 7th largest and one of its oldest banks), and Merril Lynch, now Merril, which was added to the group in 2008 to provide an investment banking branch. Together the company dominates as one of the Big Four Banks in America. Bank of America lays claim to nearly 11% of all US deposits which ranks in line with its peer group and Bank of America Securities is listed as the worlds 3rd largest investment bank.

Today, Bank of America Corporation provides banking and financial services for individuals, small businesses, institutions, corporations, and governments worldwide. The bank operates in three segments Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management, and Global Banking bringing in a combined revenue greater than $90 billion in 2022.

As of 2022, Bank of America serves approximately 67 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,200 retail financial centers. The bank also operates more than 16,000 ATMs and digital banking platforms with approximately 41 million active users.

Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional banking and investment products for retail clients. These range from deposit accounts to savings, credit cards, consumer loans, and IRAs. The Global Wealth & Investment Management segment offers investment and wealth management solutions including, brokerage, banking, and trust and retirement products. The Global Banking segment provides lending products and services, including commercial loans and leases for businesses of all varieties. The Global Markets segment offers market-making, clearing, settlement, and custody services, as well as risk management, derivatives, and FX exchange services.
NEAs Kafle puts in papers

Managing Director of Nepal Electricity Authority Mukesh Raj Kafle has resigned from the post. He submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Friday.
The following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. 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Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (International Services) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Stock Exchange Branch) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Asset Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Scotland Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (HP) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.4) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (LM) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds LLP, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 7) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 9) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, Lloyds Bank Foundation for the Channel Islands, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Holdings Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 11) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 20) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 5) Ltd, Lloyds Bank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Hill Samuel Holding Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank International Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 6) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 8) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank MTCH Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 10) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 13) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No.16) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Offshore Pension Trust Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 1) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 2) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pensions Property (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Properties Ltd, Lloyds Bank Property Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank S.F. Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Ltd, Lloyds Bank Trustee Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Ltd, Lloyds Capital GP Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Properties Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Property Investments Ltd, Lloyds Corporate Services (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Engine Capital (No.1) U.S LLC, Lloyds Far East S.A.R.L., Lloyds General Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Group Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Hypotheken B.V., Lloyds Industrial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds International Pty Ltd, Lloyds Investment Bonds Ltd, Lloyds Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Lloyds Investment Securities No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Leasing (North Sea Transport) Ltd1, Lloyds Leasing Developments Ltd, Lloyds Nominees (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Offshore Global Services Private Ltd, Lloyds Plant Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Portfolio Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Premises Investments Ltd, Lloyds Project Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 3 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 4 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Secretaries Ltd, Lloyds Securities Inc., Lloyds TSB Pacific Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Rentals Ltd, Lloyds UDT Hiring Ltd, Lloyds UDT Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Ltd, Lloyds Your Tomorrow Trustee Ltd, Loans.co.uk Ltd, London Taxi Finance Ltd, London Uberior (L.A.S. Group) Nominees Ltd, Lotus Finance Ltd, MBNA, MBNA Direct Ltd, MBNA Europe Finance Ltd, MBNA Europe Holdings Ltd, MBNA General Foundation, MBNA Global Services Ltd, MBNA Indian Services Private Ltd, MBNA Ltd, MBNA R & L S.A.R.L., MBNA Receivables Ltd, Mainsearch Company Ltd, Maritime Leasing (No. 19) Ltd, Membership Services Finance Ltd, Mitre Street Funding S.A.R.L., Molineux RMBS 2016-1 plc, Molineux RMBS Holdings Ltd, Moor Lane Holdings Ltd, NFU Mutual Finance Ltd, NWS Trust Ltd, Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, Nordic Leasing Ltd, Ocean Leasing (July) Ltd, Oystercatcher Nominees Ltd, Oystercatcher Residential Ltd, PIPS Asset Investments Ltd, Pacific Leasing Ltd, Penarth Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Penarth Funding 1 Ltd, Penarth Funding 2 Ltd, Penarth Master Issuer plc, Penarth Receivables Trustee Ltd, Pensions Management (S.W.F.) Ltd, Peony Eastern Leasing Ltd, Peony Leasing Ltd, Peony Western Leasing Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 1) Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 2) Ltd, Permanent Holdings Ltd, Permanent Master Issuer plc, Permanent Mortgages Trustee Ltd, Permanent PECOH Holdings Ltd, Permanent PECOH Ltd, Perry Nominees Ltd, Prestonfield Investments Ltd, Proton Finance Ltd, R.F. Spencer And Company Ltd, Ranelagh Nominees Ltd, Retail Revival (Burgess Hill) Investments Ltd, SARL Coliseum, SARL Hiram, SAS Compagnie Fonciere De France, SCI Astoria Invest, SCI De LHorloge, SCI Equinoxe, SCI Rambuteau CFF, SW Funding plc, SW No.1 Ltd, SWAMF (GP) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (1) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (2) Ltd, Saint Michel Holding Company No1, Saint Michel Investment Property, Saint Witz 2 Holding Company No1, Saint Witz 2 Investment Property, Salisbury II Securities 2016 Ltd, Salisbury II-A Securities 2017 Ltd, Salisbury III Securities 2019 DAC, Salisbury Securities 2015 Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 Holdings Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 plc, Sandown Gold 2012-1 Holdings Ltd, Sandown Gold 2012-1 plc, Savban Leasing Ltd, Scotland International Finance B.V., Scottish Widows Administration Services (Nominees) Ltd, Scottish Widows Administration Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Annuities Ltd, Scottish Widows Auto Enrolment Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Europe, Scottish Widows Financial Services Holdings, Scottish Widows Group Ltd, Scottish Widows Industrial Properties Europe B.V., Scottish Widows Ltd, Scottish Widows Pension Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Property Management Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth (ACD) Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Wealth Holdings Ltd, Scottish Widows Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Funds Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Ltd, Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society, Seabreeze Leasing Ltd, Seaspirit Leasing Ltd, Share Dealing Nominees Ltd, Shogun Finance Ltd, Silentdale Ltd, St Andrews Group Ltd, St Andrews Insurance plc, St Andrews Life Assurance plc, St. Marys Court Investments, Standard Property Investment (1987) Ltd, Standard Property Investment Ltd, Sussex County Homes Ltd, Suzuki Financial Services Ltd, Swan Funding 2 Ltd, Syon Securities 2019 DAC, The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Plc, The British Linen Company Ltd, The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, The Mortgage Business plc, Thistle Financing Holdings Ltd, Thistle Investments (AMC) Ltd, Thistle Investments (ERM) Ltd, Thistle Leasing, Three Copthall Avenue Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (10) Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (7) Ltd, Tranquility Leasing Ltd, Trinity Financing plc, UDT Budget Leasing Ltd, UDT Sales Finance Ltd, Uberior (Moorfield) Ltd, Uberior Co-Investments Ltd, Uberior ENA Ltd, Uberior Equity Ltd, Uberior Europe Ltd, Uberior Fund Investments Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments (No.2) Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Uberior Investments Ltd, Uberior Nominees Ltd, Uberior Trading Ltd, Uberior Trustees Ltd, Uberior Ventures Australia Pty Ltd, Uberior Ventures Ltd, United Dominions Leasing Ltd, United Dominions Trust Ltd, Universe The CMI Global Network Fund, Upsaala Ltd, Vine Street IX LP, WCS Ltd, Ward Nominees (Abingdon) Ltd, Ward Nominees (Birmingham) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees (Bristol) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees Ltd 1, Waverley  Fund II Investor LLC, Waverley  Fund III Investor LLC, Waymark Asset Investments Ltd, West Craigs Ltd, Wetherby II Securities 2018 DAC, Wetherby III Securities 2019 DAC, Wetherby Securities 2017 Ltd, Wood Street Leasing Ltd, and Zurich Insurance Group - UK Workplace Pensions and Savings Business.

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Advance Auto Parts, Inc. provides automotive replacement parts, accessories, batteries, and maintenance items for domestic and imported cars, vans, sport utility vehicles, and light and heavy duty trucks. The company offers battery accessories; belts and hoses; brakes and brake pads; chassis and climate control parts; clutches and drive shafts; engines and engine parts; exhaust systems and parts; hub assemblies; ignition components and wires; radiators and cooling parts; starters and alternators; and steering and alignment parts. It also offers air conditioning chemicals and accessories; air fresheners; antifreeze and washer fluids; electrical wires and fuses; electronics; floor mats, seat covers, and interior accessories; hand and specialty tools; lighting products; performance parts; sealants, adhesives and compounds; tire repair accessories; vent shades, mirrors and exterior accessories; washes, waxes and cleaning supplies; and wiper blades. In addition, the company offers air filters; fuel and oil additives; fuel filters; grease and lubricants; motor oils; oil filters, part cleaners and treatments; and transmission fluids for engine maintenance. Further, it offers battery and wiper installation; engine light scanning and checking; electrical system testing; video clinic; oil and battery recycling; and loaner tool program services. Additionally, the company sells its products through its website. It serves professional installers and do-it-yourself customers. The company operates stores under the Advance Auto Parts, Autopart International, and Carquest brands, as well as branches under the Worldpac name. As of April 23, 2022, it operated 4,687 stores and 311 branches in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Canada; and served 1,318 independently owned Carquest branded stores in Mexico, Grand Cayman, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and the British Virgin Islands. The company was founded in 1929 and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This is a current list of the top 250 companies by market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Learn more .

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is one of the largest, and most recognizable, stock exchanges in the world. The NYSE is in New York City, New York at 11 Wall Street. The NYSE has been in existence since the earliest days of the United States becoming a nation, in 1792 and is primarily made up of blue-chip companies with large market capitalizations. In fact, many of the stocks that make up the Dow Jones Composite Index (i.e. The Dow) are listed on the NYSE.

This article gives a brief history of the New York Stock Exchange. In addition, it covers topics such as what kind of stocks trade on the exchange, what are the listing requirements, how trading is performed, and what the daily price movement of the NYSE tells investors about investor sentiment.

What Were the Origins of the NYSE?

Today, the New York Stock Exchange is known as the center of the financial universe. However, the exchanges origin is far more humble. On May 17, 1792, 24 stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement creating a centralized exchange to help provide order to the securities market in what was still a young nation. The "Buttonwood Agreement comes from the tree of the same name under which the founders signed the agreement.

An initial benefit of the exchange was how it removed the need for auctioneers when trading commodities like wheat and tobacco and to set a commission rate. The exchange initially focused on government bonds.

However, the exchange had no formal home. Business was usually conducted informally in the local coffeehouses. In 1817, the exchange changed its name to the New York Stock & Exchange Board which later became the New York Stock Exchange. At this time, the exchange adopted a constitution that set the rules for trading. A group of stockbrokers met twice a day at 40 Wall Street to trade 30 stocks and bonds.

Over time, the exchange moved became the financial hub of the country and moved to its current location in 1865.

What Kind of Stocks Trade on the NYSE?

As of June 2022, the NYSE includes approximately 2,400 companies with a market capitalization of over $28.2 trillion. Although the NYSE trades stocks of all market capitalizations, its best known for trading the stocks of large cap companies. These have the benefit of being mature companies in mature industries. And many of these companies reward shareholders with dividends.

However, that also means that many of these companies are better suited for value investors as opposed to growth investors. In bear markets this stability can be a benefit for investors as these stocks tend to perform less bad than more volatile stocks. But in a bull market, these stocks are not likely to provide investors with the growth that they look for.

An interesting fact about how the NYSE and NASDAQ operate is that the companies with the five largest market caps on the NYSE are also listed on the NASDAQ exchange.

What Are the Listing Requirements For the NYSE?

The NYSE has strict guidelines that govern the types of companies that can list on the exchange. Here are the major requirements that all companies must meet:

The company must have at least 2,200 shareholders

The company must trade over 100,000 shares per month

The company must have a market valuation of over $100 million

The company must generate more than $75 million in annual revenue

However, there is at least one advantage of having such stringent requirements. That is the companies that meet the requirements generally find it easier to get more investors funds when they hold their initial public offering (IPO).

Once a company begins trading on the NYSE, it must continue to meet these requirements. If it doesnt it can be delisted. In addition to these requirements, the stock must continue to trade above $1. If the price of a stock drops below $1 for more than 29 consecutive trading days, the stock receives an Initial Price Violation Notice.

At that point, the company has 10 days to provide the exchange with a plan for bringing their shares above $1.

How are Trades Executed on the NYSE?

For over a century, the floor of the NYSE was the place for investors to be. This meant trades were conducted by traders who ran buy and sell orders across the trading floor looking to broker a deal for their clients. But with the birth of the NASDAQ exchange in 1971, the New York Stock Exchange began conducting electronic trading.

However, the NYSE continues to conduct trades in an auction style. Brokers purchase stocks on behalf of their clients or firms. Every order features a broker who will enter the order electronically and a specialist who serves as the market maker for that stock. The specialist posts bid and ask prices and manages the actual execution of the trades. And there are still a handful of stockbrokers who still traffic buy and sell orders physically on the floor of the exchange.

How Does the NYSE Signal Investor Sentiment?

Like its counterpart, the NASDAQ, the NYSE measures the risk appetite of investors. When the NYSE is moving higher over a length of time, it signals that a risk on environment. Conversely when the NYSE moves lower over a significant period, it signals that investors are moving to a risk off position.

Some Final Thoughts on the NYSE

Financial news networks plan their programming schedule around the opening and closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. Its still considered a distinguished honor when individuals or groups are invited to ring the opening bell. In fact, Warren Buffett is attributed with saying that in the short term, the stock market acts like a voting machine. A fact that many U.S. presidents will attest to.

The NYSE is the oldest and most recognizable of all the stock exchanges. It also has the most stringent requirements for inclusion. And those requirements must be maintained even after a stock begins publicly trading on the exchange.

Although the NYSE still has a small in-person Trading Floor, much of the trading is done electronically to provide traders with the speed to execute trades.
Nabors Industries Ltd. provides drilling and drilling-related services for land-based and offshore oil and natural gas wells. The company operates through five segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. It provides tubular running, wellbore placement, directional drilling, measurement-while-drilling (MWD), equipment manufacturing, and rig instrumentation services; and logging-while-drilling systems and services, as well as drilling optimization software. The company also offers REVit, an automated real time stick-slip mitigation system; ROCKit, a directional steering control system; SmartNAV, a collaborative guidance and advisory platform; SmartSLIDE, an advanced directional steering control system; and RigCLOUD, which provides the tools and infrastructure to integrate applications to deliver real-time insight into operations across the rig fleet. In addition, it manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and other drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools; and provides aftermarket sales and services for the installed base of its equipment. As of December 31, 2021, the company marketed approximately 301 rigs for land-based drilling operations in the United States, Canada, and in 20 other countries worldwide; and 29 rigs for offshore platform drilling operations in the United States and internationally. Nabors Industries Ltd. was founded in 1952 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.
One die, nine injured as two passenger buses collide

One person died and nine got injured when two passenger buses collided at Benighat mode along the Prithvi Highway in Dhading.
The following companies are subsidiares of Barclays: Adler Toy Holding Sarl, Aequor Investments Limited, Alymere Investments Limited, Alynore Investments Limited Partnership, Analog Analytics, Analog Analytics Inc, Analytical Trade Holdings LLC, Analytical Trade Investments LLC, Analytical Trade UK Limited, Archstone Equity Holdings Inc, Ardencroft Investments Limited, B D & B Investments Limited, B.P.B. (Holdings) Limited, BB Client Nominees Limited, BBAIL SAS, BCAP LLC, BIFML PTC Limited, BMBF (No.24) Limited, BMI (No.9) Limited, BNC Brazil Consultoria Empresarial Ltda, BNRI ENG 2013 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG 2014 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG GP LLP, BNRI England 2010 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2011 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2012 Limited Partnership, BNRI Limehouse No.1 Sarl, BNRI PIA Scot GP Limited, BNRI Scots GP LLP, BPB Holdings SA, BVP Galvani Global S.A.U., Barafor Limited, Barclay Leasing Limited, Barclaycard Funding PLC, Barclaycard International Payments Limited, Barclays (Barley) Limited, Barclays Aldersgate Investments Limited, Barclays Alzin Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Asia Limited, Barclays Asset Management Limited, Barclays BR Investments S.a r.l., Barclays BWA Inc., Barclays Bank (Suisse) S.A., Barclays Bank Delaware, Barclays Bank Ireland PLC, Barclays Bank Ireland Public Limited Company, Barclays Bank Mexico S.A., Barclays Bank PLC, Barclays Bank UK PLC, Barclays Bayard Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bedivere Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bordang Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Brasil Assessoria Financeira Ltda., Barclays CCP Funding LLC, Barclays Cantal Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Capital (Cayman) Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Limited, Barclays Capital Canada Inc., Barclays Capital Casa de Bolsa S.A. de C.V., Barclays Capital Derivatives Funding LLC, Barclays Capital Effekten GmbH, Barclays Capital Energy Inc., Barclays Capital Equities Trading GP, Barclays Capital Finance Limited, Barclays Capital Futures (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., Barclays Capital Japan Securities Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Capital Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.2) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.3) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees Limited, Barclays Capital Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Capital Real Estate Finance Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Inc., Barclays Capital Securities Client Nominee Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Trading Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Claudas Investments Partnership, Barclays Claudas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Commercial Mortgage Securities LLC, Barclays Converted Investments (No.2) Limited, Barclays Corporation Limited, Barclays Direct Investing Nominees Limited, Barclays Directors Limited, Barclays Dryrock Funding LLC, Barclays Electronic Commerce Holdings Inc., Barclays Equity Holdings Limited, Barclays Equity Index Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Europe Client Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Firm Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Executive Schemes Trustees Limited, Barclays Financial LLC, Barclays Financial Planning Nominee Company Limited, Barclays Funds Investments Limited, Barclays Funds and Advisory Japan Limited, Barclays Global Service Centre Private Limited, Barclays Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Group Holdings Limited, Barclays Group Operations Limited, Barclays Group US Inc., Barclays Index Finance Trust, Barclays Industrial Development Limited, Barclays Industrial Investments Limited, Barclays Insurance Guernsey PCC Limited, Barclays Insurance Services Company Limited, Barclays Insurance U.S. Inc., Barclays International Luxembourg Dollar Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Investment Management Limited, Barclays Investment Solutions Limited, Barclays Investments & Loans (India) Limited, Barclays Korea GP Limited, Barclays Lamorak Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Leasing (No.9) Limited, Barclays Leto Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Long Island Limited, Barclays Luxembourg EUR Holdings S.a r.l, Barclays Luxembourg Finance S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg GBP Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Global Funding S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings SSC B, Barclays Marlist Limited, Barclays Mauritius Overseas Holdings Limited, Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Limited, Barclays Merchant Bank (Singapore) Ltd., Barclays Nominees (George Yard) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Manx) Limited, Barclays Oversight Management Inc., Barclays Payment Solutions Inc., Barclays Pelleas Investments Limited Partnership, Barclays Pelleas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Pension Funds Trustees Limited, Barclays Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Private Asset Management (Monaco) S.A.M, Barclays Private Bank, Barclays Private Clients International Limited, Barclays Receivables LLC, Barclays SAMS Limited, Barclays Securities (India) Private Limited, Barclays Securities Japan Limited, Barclays Security Trustee Limited, Barclays Services (Japan) Limited, Barclays Services Corporation, Barclays Services Jersey Limited, Barclays Services LLC, Barclays Services Limited, Barclays Shea Limited, Barclays Singapore Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Switzerland Services SA, Barclays Tenedora De Immuebles SL., Barclays Term Funding Limited Liability Partnership, Barclays UK Investments Limited, Barclays US CCP Funding LLC, Barclays US Funding LLC, Barclays US GPF Inc., Barclays US Investments Inc., Barclays US LLC, Barclays Unquoted Investments Limited, Barclays Unquoted Property Investments Limited, Barclays Wealth Management Jersey Limited, Barclays Wealth Nominees Limited, Barclays Wealth Services Limited, Barclays Wealth Trustees (India) Private Limited, Barclayshare Nominees Limited, Barclaytrust Channel Islands Limited, Barcosec Limited, Barsec Nominees Limited, Blossom Finance General Partnership, Branchcall Computers (Pvt) Limited, Braven Investments No.1 Limited, CP Flower Guaranteeco (UK) Limited, CP Newco 1 Limited, CP Newco2 Limited, CP Newco3 Limited, CP Propco 1 Limited, CP Propco 2 Limited, CP Topco Limited, CPIA Canada Holdings, CPIA England 2008 Limited Partnership, CPIA England 2009 Limited Partnership, CPIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, CPIA Investments No.1 Limited, CPIA Investments No.2 Limited, CRE Diversified Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe LLC, Calthorpe Investments Limited, Capton Investments Limited, Carnegie Holdings Limited, Central Platte Valley Management LLC, Chapelcrest Investments Limited, Charles Schwab Europe, Claudas Investments Limited, Claudas Investments Two Limited, Clydesdale Financial Services Limited, Cobalt Investments Limited, Compania Regional del Sur S.A., Compania Sudamerica S.A., Condor No.1 Limited Partnership, Cornwall Homes Loans Limited, Crescent Crown Land Holding SPV LLC, Crescent Legacy LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential L.P., Crescent Plaza Residential LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential LP LLC, Crescent Real Estate Member LLC, Crescent Resort Development LLC, Crescent TRS Holdings LLC, Crescent Tower Residences GP LLC, Crescent Tower Residences L.P., Curve Investments GP, DBL Texas Holdings LLC, DMW Realty Limited, Desert Mountain Development LLC, Desert Mountain Properties Limited Partnership, Develop Training Group Limited, Dorset Home Loans Limited, Durlacher Nominees Limited, EWRD Summit LLC, Eagle Financial and Leasing Services (UK) Limited, East West Resort Development V L.P. L.L.L.P., East West Resort Development VII LLC, Equity Limited Partnership, Equity Value Investments No.1 Limited, Equity Value Investments No.2 Limited, Erimon Home Loans Ireland Limited, Expobank, FIRSTPLUS Financial Group Limited, Finpart Nominees Limited, First Assurance, Foltus Investments Limited, Full House Holdings Limited, Gallen Investments Limited, Global Dynasty Natural Resource Private, Globe Nominees Limited, Gracechurch Services Corporation, Grays Station LLC, Grupo Financiero Barclays Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hawkins Funding Limited, Heraldglen Limited, Holding Stuttgarter Strae GmbH, Hurley Investments No.1 Limited, Imalivest Mineral Resources LP, Investors In Infrastructure Limited, J.V. Estates Limited, JV Assets Limited, Kirsche Investments Limited, LTDL Holdings LLC, La Torretta Beverages LLC, La Torretta Hospitality LLC, La Torretta Operations LLC, Lagalla Investments LLC, Leonis Investments LLP, Liability Partnership, Long Island Assets Limited, Long Island Holding A LLC, Long Island Holding B Limited, MK Opportunities GP Ltd, MK Opportunities LP, MVWP Investors LLC, Maloney Investments Limited, Marbury Holdings LLC, Menlo Investments Limited, Mercantile Credit Company Limited, Mercantile Leasing Company (No.132) Limited, Meridian (SPV-AMC) Corporation, Mintaka Investments No. 4 Limited, Mira Vista Development LLC, Mira Vista Golf Club L.C., Mountainside Partners LLC, Murray House Investment Management Limited, Naxos Investments Limited, Nile Bank, North Colonnade Investments Limited, Northstar Mountain Properties LLC, Northstar Trailside Townhomes LLC, Northstar Village Townhomes LLC, Northwharf Investments Limited, Northwharf Nominees Limited, OGP Leasing Limited, Oakes Millers Ltd, Ownership Trustee Limited, PIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, Palomino Limited, Pecan Aggregator LP, Pelleas Investments Limited, Pelleas Investments Two Limited, Pippin Island Investments Limited, Preferred Liquidity LLC, Preferred Liquidity Limited Partnership, Procella Investments LLC, Procella Investments No.1 LLC, Procella Investments No.2 LLC, Procella Investments No.3 LLC, Protium Finance I LLC, Protium Master Grantor Trust, Protium Master Mortgage LP, Protium REO I LP, R.C. Grieg Nominees Limited, RVH Limited, RVT CLO Investments LLP, Razzoli Investments Limited, Real Estate Participation Management Limited, Real Estate Participation Services Limited, Relative Value Holdings LLC, Relative Value Investments UK Limited, Relative Value Trading Limited, Roder Investments No. 1 Limited, Roder Investments No. 2 Limited, Ruthenium Investments Limited, SPM GP Limited, Securitized Asset Backed Receivables LLC, Servicios Barclays S.A. de C.V., Societe Civile Immobiliere 31 Avenue de la Costa, Solution Personal Finance Limited, Southern Peaks Mining LP, Standard Life Aberdeen, Surety Trust Limited, Surrey Funding Corporation, Sussex Purchasing Corporation, Sutton Funding LLC, Swan Lane Investments Limited, TPLL LLC, TPProperty LLC, Tahoe Club Company LLC, Tahoe Club Employee Company, The Logic Group Enterprises Limited, The Logic Group Holdings Limited, Third Energy Holdings Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No. 2 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.1 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.3 Limited, US Secured Investments LLC, Union Center LLC, United Counties Bank, Verain Investments LLC, Walbrook Group Ltd, Wedd Jefferson (Nominees) Limited, Wessex Investments Limited, Westferry Investments Limited, Wilmington Riverfront Receivables LLC, Woolwich Homes Limited, Woolwich Plan Managers Limited, Woolwich Qualifying Employee Share, Woolwich Surveying Services Limited, Woori BC Pegasus Securitization Specialty Co. Limited, and Zeban Nominees Limited.

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The following companies are subsidiares of SAP: Abakus, Abakus Europe Limited, Abakus Ukraine Limited Liability Company, Adatfeldolgozasban Informatikai Kft., Altiscale, Ambin Properties Proprietary Limited, AppGyver, Ariba, Ariba Czech s.r.o., Ariba Inc. Palo Alto, Ariba India Private Limited, Ariba International, Ariba International Holdings, Ariba International Singapore Pte Ltd, Ariba Slovak Republic s.r.o., Ariba Software Technology Services (Shanghai) Co., Ariba Technologies India Private Limited, Ariba Technologies Netherlands B.V., Beijing Zhang Zhong Hu Dong Information Technology, Business Objects, Business Objects Holding B.V., Business Objects Option LLC, Business Objects Software Limited, CNQR Operations Mexico S. de. R.L. de. C.V., Callidus Software, CallidusCloud, Christie Partners Holding C.V., Clear Standards, ClearTrip Inc., ClearTrip Inc. (Mauritius), Cleartrip MEA FZ LLC, Cleartrip Private Limited, Coghead, ConTgo Consulting Limited, ConTgo Pty. Ltd., Concur (Austria) GmbH, Concur (Canada), Concur (France) SAS, Concur (Germany) GmbH, Concur (Japan) Ltd., Concur (New Zealand) Limited, Concur (Philippines) Inc., Concur (Switzerland) GmbH, Concur Czech (s.r.o.), Concur Holdings (France) SAS, Concur Holdings (Netherlands) B.V., Concur Technologies (Australia) Pty. Limited, Concur Technologies (Hong Kong) Limited, Concur Technologies (India) Private Limited, Concur Technologies (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Concur Technologies (UK) Limited, Concur Technologies Inc. Bellevue, Contextor, Coresystems, Crystal Decisions (Ireland) Limited, Crystal Decisions Holdings Limited, Crystal Decisions UK Limited, Emarsys, EssCubed Procurement Pty. Ltd., Extended Systems, Factory Logic, Fedem Technology AS, Fieldglass Europe Limited, Financial Fusion, FreeMarkets Ltda., Frictionless Commerce, Gigya, Gigya Australia Pty Ltd, Gigya Ltd., Gigya UK Ltd, GlobalExpense Limited, Highdeal, Hipmunk, Hybris (US) Corp., Hybris GmbH, Inxight Federal Systems Group, KXEN, Khimetrics, LLC "SAP Labs", LLC "SAP Ukraine", LLC SAP CIS, MaXware, Merlin Systems Oy, Multiposting Sp.z o.o., Nihon Ariba K.K., OpTier, OutlookSoft, OutlookSoft Deutschland GmbH, PLAT.ONE, PT SAP Indonesia, PT Sybase 365 Indonesia, Pilot Software Inc., Plat.One Inc., Plat.One Lab Srl, Plateau Systems LLC, Quadrem Africa Pty. Ltd., Quadrem Brazil Ltda., Quadrem Chile Ltda., Quadrem Colombia SAS, Quadrem International Ltd., Quadrem Netherlands B.V., Quadrem Overseas Cooperatief U.A., Quadrem Peru S.A.C., Qualtrics, Recast.AI, Right Hemisphere, Roambi, Ruan Lian Technologies (Beijing) Co., SAF, SAP (Beijing) Software System Co., SAP (Schweiz) AG, SAP (Schweiz) AG Biel, SAP (UK) Limited, SAP (UK) Limited Feltham, SAP AZ LLC, SAP America, SAP America Inc. Newtown Square, SAP Andina y del Caribe, SAP Argentina S.A., SAP Asia (Vietnam) Co., SAP Asia Pte Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd. Sydney, SAP Belgium NV/SA, SAP Beteiligungs GmbH, SAP Brasil Ltda, SAP Brasil Ltda Sao Paulo, SAP Bulgaria EOOD, SAP Business Compliance Services GmbH, SAP Business Services Center Nederland B.V., SAP CR, SAP Canada, SAP Chile Limitada, SAP China Co., SAP China Co. Ltd. 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Rs500k demanded for rehab of each freed Kamaiya family

Mukta Kamaiya Samaj, an organisation representing freed Tharu bonded labourers, has demanded an increase in the grant provided to a homeless former Kamaiya family to purchase land to Rs500,000 from the existing Rs200,000.




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Teen Tin Matti Tel

Language is collective memory. It roots a people to a place. Its vowels take the contours of rolling hills, the consonants harsh but malleable like floodplains. It remembers glorious victories and agonising defeats. It rings of thunders and the crackle of droughts.It tugs at an umbilical blurred by the sands of time, all but invisible to the forgetful mind.
The wolves of Manang

The successful tracking of wolves in Upper Manang has researchers jubilant and local herders concerned
Binod Ghimire covers parliamentary affairs and human rights for The Kathmandu Post. Since joining the Post in 2010, he has reported primarily on social issues, focusing on education and transitional justice.
The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) has been secretly conducting mass video aerial surveillance of the city since January. The program, funded entirely out of the pockets of a former hedge fund trader, was kept secret from the public and city officials until its existence was revealed by Bloomberg News late last month.

For up to 10 hours a day, a Cessna airplane equipped with a system of a dozen cameras captured video of an area spanning 32 square miles, which was transmitted in real time to a command center near BPD headquarters. To date, the program has amassed 300 hours of footage.

[This] is a privacy nightmare come to life and precisely what we have warned against for years, said David Rocah, senior staff attorney at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Maryland. Its the equivalent of requiring each of us to wear a GPS tracker whenever we leave our homes

The technology, owned by the company Persistent Surveillance Systems (PSS), was originally developed by the Department of Defense for use in the Iraq War and was deployed in 2007. Then known as Angel Fire, the system was pitched as Google Earth with [rewind] capability and was used to identify and track not only individuals, but their whole social networks.

This is a technology that promises to do for our physical movements what the NSA [National Security Agency] has aimed to do with our communications: collect it all, said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst and privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The revelations come just two weeks after the Department of Justice (DoJ) found that the BPD engaged in systemic violations of the Constitution and federal law. Rocah noted that it was astounding that the BPD could conduct a mass surveillance program while under investigation by the DoJan investigation which did not devote a single word to the programs existence. On the contrary, the BPD and PSS operated with the unequivocal assent of the DoJ: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is under the DoJs jurisdiction, flew their own surveillance planes concurrently with PSS planes.

The $120,000 behind the BPDs contract was advanced by John Arnold, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Centaurus Advisors, and his wife, Laura Arnold. The noble causes that the self-styled philanthropists have pumped vast sums of money behind include the destruction of public worker pensions and the privatization of public education.

Ross McNutt, Angel Fires developer and CEO of PSS, explained that he and his sponsors chose the city of Baltimore because it was ready, it was willing, and it was just post-Freddie Gray, referring to the widespread protests and isolated rioting that erupted in the wake of the youths murder by police. The expression of mass anger in Baltimore was met by the paramilitary lockdown of the city with the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops.

McNutt retired from the Air Force and began marketing a commercial version of the Angel Fire system in 2007. In 2012, the system was demonstrated to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, secretly surveilling the impoverished working-class city of Compton for nine days. PSS charges $1,500 to $2,000 per hour for services; one long-term contract with an American police department costs $2 million a year.

Shortly following the programs exposure, the BPD held a press conference absurdly claiming that the work with PSS was not a secret spy program and that, after almost nine months of operating in shadowed silence, there was no conspiracy not to disclose it. Attempting to assuage public anger, the BPD and McNutt claimed that the surveillance was only a trial which had only a few weeks left before ending. The program would be resumed in October to cover large eventsthe same time that the 2016 presidential election comes to a head.

The BPD is no stranger to mass surveillance. The BPD has been in possession of cell-site simulators since 2007, which impersonate cell phone towers and are used to collect, disrupt, and falsify communication on cellular networks. According to publicly available information, the BPD uses cell-site simulator technology far more frequently than any other police department in the country.

City officials, despite having been ostensibly left in the dark about the program, did not hesitate to rally to its defence. This technology is about public safety. This isnt surveilling or tracking anyone, said Democrat Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, perhaps also still unaware that the company conducting the operations calls itself Persistent Surveillance Systems. According to Rawlings-Blake, the citys own working population poses a greater danger to public safetyin the aftermath of Grays murder she denounced Baltimore youth as thugs and criminals responsible for destroying your city.

Baltimore, as with other American centers of industry, has been scarred and left crumbling by a decades-long assault against the citys jobs and living standards. The city has lost 300,000 of its residents to depopulation since 1950. Some 84 percent of the citys public school students cannot afford a school lunch, and life expectancies in the poorest areas of the city are lower than those in North Korea and Syria.

The spying operations in Baltimore are only preliminary models for future repressive measures against the working class. Leashed to an outmoded economic system based on the accumulation of private wealth, the vast creative and connective potential of modern technology is channeled to defend the interests of private capital at the expense of social need. The defense of democratic rights is inextricably linked to the liberation of mankinds productive forcesto the struggle for socialism.

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[26 October 2015]

Police brutality and social inequality in Baltimore: An indictment of the Democratic Party

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Compton, California subjected to massive secret aerial surveillance

[30 April 2014]
On Thursday, European Council President Donald Tusk met British Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street for private talks.

The meeting was billed as one to discuss preparations for the UKs withdrawal from the European Union and plans for a European Council summit in October. A summit of the leaders of all EU countries, with the exception of the UK, will be held in Bratislava next week. The September 16 summit, to discuss the post-Brexit future of the EU, is listed as informal, as the UK has not yet left the EU. The UKs prime minister is not invited.

Tusk is to chair the Bratislava summit. He declared, prior to meeting May, that he was supportive of a hard line being taken in negotiations between the UK government and Brussels over the terms of Britains exit. Tusk said, We need to protect the interests of the members of the EU that want to stay together, not the one which decides to leave. It sounds brutal but it must be obvious for all of us that we are in this process to protect our own European interests, the interests of 27 countries.

Tusk is demanding that the UK swiftly triggers Article 50, beginning the two-year process for its formal exit. Before he met May, there was a hostile tone to a Tweet of his reading, Ball in UK court to start negotiations. In everybodys best interest to start asap.

May, who supported the referendum campaign to remain in the EU, and whose Conservative Party is split down the middle on the issue of leaving, reiterated to Tusk her position that Article 50 would not be triggered this year. A Downing Street spokesperson said, The Prime Minister said it would be important to work together to make sure the process is as smooth as possible.

The UK would take time to prepare for the negotiations, with May, reiterating that Article 50 will not be triggered before the end of the year.

Mays position is at odds with many Tory MPs and the wider party, with intractable divisions over Europe surfacing this week. With May in China at the G20, where her mantra of Brexit means Brexit, was opposed by both the US and Japanese administrations, leading Brexit figure David Davis gave a statement to open Parliament. He told MPs that Britain would leave the EU and that it was improbable that the UK would remain a member of Europes Single Market if a requirement of membership is giving up control of our borders.

Davis was appointed Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union in Mays first Cabinet, after she succeeded David Cameron, who resigned following the referendum vote. But he came under immediate attack not only from the pro-Remain opposition Labour Party, but also from sections of his own party opposed to losing full access to the Single Market.

Davis was sharply rebuked within 24 hours by a spokesman for May who stated that Davis was giving his opinion and not government policy. However, speaking in parliament Wednesday, she refused to provide a direct answer to MPs who asked her to confirm if the UK would remain a member of the Single Market. We will not reveal our hand prematurely and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of the negotiation, she said.

There is no indication that any compromise with Britain will be forthcoming from the EU. The vote for Brexit is only one manifestation of the fracturing of the entire EU project.

Europes leading power, Germany, is taking a hard line against the UKwith Chancellor Angela Merkel declaring at the outset that Germanys interests will be placed at the forefront of Brexit negotiations with the UK. Sigmar Gabriel, leader of her Social Democrat coalition partners, and the economy minister, warned recently that if other states followed the UK in exiting, the EU would go down the drain. He called for a punitive stance to be taken against Britain, asserting, If we organise Brexit in the wrong way, then well be in deep trouble, so now we need to make sure that we dont allow Britain to keep the nice things, so to speak, related to Europe while taking no responsibility.

This week, Guy Verhofstadt revealed that he will represent the European Parliament, along with negotiators from the EU, in Brexit talks with the UK. In July, Verhofstadt rehearsed the EUs fundamental opposition to allowing the UK access to the Single Market while the UK restricted the free movement of people in order to cut immigration levels (a central demand of the anti-EU wing of the Tories). Verhofstadt warned, The European Parliament will never agree to a deal that de facto ends the free movement of people for a decade while giving away an extra rebate in exchange for all the advantages of the internal market. What would stop other countries from asking the same exceptional status?

He added, The only new relationship between Britain and the European Union can be one in which the UK has an associated status with less obligations but equally less rights. And if this is not feasible, the fall-back position will be an ordinary trade agreement between Britain and the EU.

The vote to leave the EU took place in opposition to the strategic interests of the majority of Britains ruling elite. Its representatives are now loudly voicing their concerns that the government is bereft of any strategy following the Brexit vote.

On Thursday, Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens wrote, The Brexiters now trumpeting a bright independent future see departure from the EU as an event. In truth it will be a long, tortuous processa slow burn, if you like, with costs, economic and political, that will reach well into coming decades.

Stephens was scathing of May, writing, When she tells the House of Commons that she has no intention of prematurely showing her negotiating hand, what she really means is that she does not yet have such a hand. He added, The media fanfare surrounding a lengthy cabinet discussion about Brexit  belied the absence of any substantive convergence towards strategic objectives.

On Friday, the Economist wrote that 77 days after the Brexit vote, Mays mantra, Brexit means Brexit, has become a tired cliche.

It stated, The case for staying in the single market is simple: economists say this will minimise the economic damage from Brexit. A hard Brexit that involves leaving the single market without comprehensive free-trade deals with the EU and third countries would mean a bigger drop in investment and output.

Central to the efforts of Labours right-wing coup plotters to remove Jeremy Corbyn as leader is the aim of refashioning the party as the political tool to reverse the referendum result.

Given that the Tory party is bitterly and irrevocably riven over Europe, the plotters, with the backing of the UK and American intelligence apparatus, see Labour as the most effective means to establish a pro-EU, pro-NATO vehicle representing the strategic interests of British imperialism.

Britains access to the Single Market was at the centre of the most vocal attacks yet made on Corbyn by Owen Smith, his challenger for the leadership, in a debate hosted by the BBC Thursday. Smith stated that if elected Labour leader, he would campaign for a second referendum. Asked by the moderator if he would ignore the Brexit vote, Smith replied, Well, exactly.
A recent report reveals that Pennsylvania charter schoolssemi-private operations promoted by politicians of both big business partiesare undercutting students education by spending less per student than they receive in tuition payments deducted from public schools budgets.

In August, the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) issued a special report entitled Charter School Revenues, Expenditures and Transparency that aimed to collect, compile, and analyze information on charter school revenues and expenditures in order to compare them to traditional public schools.

State law requires public school districts to make tuition payments for each student who attends a charter schoolin the process taking away money from cash-strapped public schools. These payments are not based on the amount of money the charter schools themselves spend per student, but on the amount the public schools do.

Charter schools are therefore able to pile up extra money by spending less than they receive in tuition payments delivered from public districts. Enrollment in charter schools has, since 2007-08, increased by 97.4 percent, but school district tuition payments to charters have increased 139.3 percent or over $865 million.

The Chester-Upland School District, in southeastern Pennsylvania, for instance, is compelled to spend 46 percent of its budget in the form of payments to charter schools for student tuition. Last year, Chester-Uplands teachers, janitors, bus drivers, and other workers voted unanimously to work without pay due to the draconian budget cuts at the federal and state level.

Public schools are forced to pay even higher tuition rates for special education students sent to charter schools. On top of the regular tuition payment, public schools are obligated to add a supplement based on a state-mandated formula. In the 2015-16 school year, charter schools had a surplus of roughly $102 million from special-education tuition, which wasnt used for educational purposes.

The extra regular and special-education tuition money doesnt presume more educational spending. Public school districts spend, as a percentage of all expenditures, more on instruction than charter schools do. Charters spend a much greater percentage of their budget on support services and facilitiesincluding administrators salariesaccording to the report. They spent approximately $828 more per pupil on chief school administrators and principals for the 2014-2015 school year than did public schools.

The reports findings advocating a more prudent use of public education funds and more accountability and financial transparency dovetail with recent news reports revealing corruption and profiteering at charter schools. Nicholas Trombetta, 61, the founder of The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in 2000, pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud last month in front of US District Judge Joy Flowers Conti for stealing more than $8 million dollars to buy, among other things, an almost $100,000 condominium in Florida. He is facing up to 5 years in prison.

The state Department of Education, according to an audit by Democratic Auditor General Eugene DePasquale done in August of this year, paid more than $2.5 million in public money for questionable lease reimbursements to buildings owned by charter school operators or related organizations, violating charter school law.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of the new Catasauqua Charter School, Loraine Petrillo, resigned in August over an enrollment flier that stated it is safer to attend the charter school than the public Liberty High School in the Bethlehem Area School District, broadcasting unfounded claims of rampant drug pushing in school. It was mailed to homes just before the start of the 2016-2017 school year.

According to a study issued last year by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) analyzing Pennsylvania cyber charter schools, student achievement in reading was equivalent to 101 fewer days of reading instruction and 167 fewer days in math compared to students in traditional schools. Across the country, the average was 180 days less.

The lead author of that report, James L. Woodworth, quoted in Trib Live last month, said that Basically, it means the impact of attending that [charter] school for a year is pretty much zero. Were not seeing growth. The average student attending an online charter school is doing very poorly academically compared to an average student in a traditional public school. Online schools, the way theyre being done right now, is not effective for the students currently attending the schools.

Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has nonetheless signaled his continued support for charter schools in Pennsylvania by offering a fig leaf of state oversight. He has launched a four-person unit to oversee these schools, saying in a public statement August 24: Charter schools play an important role in our education system, but that role must be accompanied by sufficient oversight. Establishing this new division within the Department of Education will allow us to maximize our resources to not only ensure charters are being properly supported, but that they are being held accountable to taxpayers.

The 2016-17 Pennsylvania budget passed this year does not restore cuts that former Republican Governor Corbett enacted on the state schools. According to the study, Continued Cuts, put out by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials and the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, even with the restoration of all the money slashed by Corbett, a majority of public schools would be unable to reverse previous cuts.

Elsewhere, the NAACP has brought a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Education for persistent funding imbalances that it says are so inadequate and unequal that they violate the Pennsylvania constitution and the principle of equal treatment under the law. The state Supreme Court will hear the case September 13 in Philadelphia.
With two months to go until the US presidential elections, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) began its speaking tour for Jerry White and Niles Niemuth, the SEPs candidate for US president and vice president. White traveled to Chicago, Illinois to speak on Socialism and the 2016 Elections Thursday night. The candidate held a successful meeting at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), which was attended by more than 30 people.

Students from UIC and other area universities, as well as young workers, attended from across the Chicago region, some traveling from over an hour away. A serious layer of students and young workers came to find out more about a socialist alternative to the breakdown of capitalism.

White began his report by highlighting the unprecedented character of the 2016 elections. The 2016 elections, he said, are marked by a political crisis within the United States, an economic crisis that is gripping the world economy and increasing tensions between countries that threaten the real danger of a conflict between the United States, Russia and China. He added that this conflict held within it the prospect of nuclear war, and that none of these matters are discussed in the 2016 US elections.

Moreover, the 2016 elections were being used, particularly by the Clinton campaign, to create a mandate for war against Russia.

White said that despite the mudslinging by Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, there were no fundamental differences between either capitalist politician when it comes to war, state repression and the exploitation of the working class by the financial aristocracy. Both Clinton and Trumpthe most widely hated candidates in American history are representatives of the corporate and political establishment.

At the same time, White showed that there is a growth of opposition and the development of the class struggle, both in the United States and around the world. The Bernie Sanders campaign, he added, was merely a temporary beneficiary of this objective radicalization of workers and youth. Despite the efforts of the Sanders campaign to channel opposition behind Clinton, he underscored that this social anger is not going away.

The issues young people face, including endless war, student loan debts and terrible job prospects, cannot be resolved within the framework of capitalism. White insisted that the working class could find a way forward only through the building of a mass socialist movement.

After the meeting, serious questions were raised among the audience. There was a great deal of interest in what a socialist alternative could do to resolve the pressing problems facing millions of people. White fielded questions about crime, attacks on education, the SEPs campaign among autoworkers, the danger of Trump, the issue of war and the role of various so-called left parties, such as the Green Party.

One student asked how the SEP would deal with Russian or Chinese aggression. White responded that the greatest danger on the planet was American imperialism. He pointed to the growing encroachment of NATO and the US against Russia as well as the encirclement of China by US forces as part of the Obama administrations Pivot to Asia. At the same time, he stressed that the working class of China and Russia must deal with its ruling class, alongside its class brothers and sisters across the world. But every effort of American imperialism for regime change in these countries must be opposed.

Addressing the role of the Green Party and its candidate Jill Stein in the elections, and its recent use of seemingly antiwar rhetoric, White noted, Jill Stein insists that you can stop war somehow by appealing to the conscience of the powers that be. That if you can prove to the ruling elites, the rich and powerful, that what theyre doing is unsustainable and disastrous even for themselves, that theyll pull themselves back from this course. Now that perspective has proven thoroughly bankrupt. We say that the only way to stop war is to attack what causes war, and that is the capitalist system.

The Socialist Equality Party fights to arm the growing opposition of the working class with a revolutionary leadership and program, White said. He noted that social media and the Internet can play a key role in reaching broad layers of workers and youth. Social revolution, he added, is an objective process that arises out of capitalism with the entrance of masses into political life. But the most critical issue for the working class is theoretical and scientific knowledge of the laws of social development that propel them into struggle against capitalism.

After the meeting, many in the audience stayed to have informal political discussions, purchase literature and donate to the campaign.

Supporters of the Socialist Equality Party spoke to students following the meeting. Sasha, an electrical engineering student at UIC who was born in the former Yugoslavia, said, It was an interesting speech. There was a lot of stuff I agreed with, and coincided with a lot of ideas I had developed looking into politics over the last semester.

Sasha said he agreed with Whites analysis of Black Lives Matter, saying, Instead of getting people united, theyre splitting people up into more and more sectors. Theyre not addressing actual issues like the experience of the working class.

Speaking on his experiences in the Balkans in the 90s, he said, It seemed like [the US and its allies] destroyed or destabilized the area and picked up whatever pieces were left. And they bought out many companies afterwards, because prices are usually in economic ruin after such situations. So it seemed like none of it was for any real positive help, it was more so for their own benefit.

Mohammed, an engineering student, said, There is no good choice in the presidential elections. You are just picking which poison you want to die from. Trump and Clinton are not people you want to represent the country. It is supposed to be that people vote for who they want for presidentbut nobody in their right mind wants Clinton or Trump.

I am sick of these wars. I am Palestinian, and we have seen nothing but war. The wars only make matters worsewe dont want any more. It would be great to unite the working classwe are the main contributors to the population. My father is part of the working class, and 90 percent of my friends fathers are from the working class. To have the rich try to represent who we are is a false representation. Clinton and Trump are not who we are.

To unify everybody with common interests will not only help the people increase our standard of living and get along better, it will improve things on a larger scale as welland Im pretty sure thats what most of the people want. I believe the same thing as you.

Andy, a history major at UIC, said, I think he [White] did a great job outlining the conflicts involving the US in the world situation. He captured the trap presented by the two-party system. You simply cant change the situation were in while working within the two-party system. I really liked that he did go after Sanders, even though I supported Sanders.

The thing lacking for me in the talk was a definitive plan of action to advance the struggle. Andy asked what the SEP is doing to prepare the working class for conquest of state power: Because the billionairesthe Buffetts and the Sorosesarent going to give it up, is the party preparing for a fight?

An SEP member explained that, yes, such a fight is being prepared, and it is a political fight. Based on the experiences leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the central focus of the partys efforts in the working class and on the campuses is the building of a political leadership to guide the coming struggles of workers against the capitalist system.

Such a historical understanding of the lessons of political experiences in the working class led the discussion to Andys field of study, about which he said, Without a knowledge of past struggles, you dont know where you are.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is focusing her campaign on appeals to Republican politicians and the national-security establishment, arguing that Republican Donald Trump is too friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has repeatedly insulted the military.

Commenting on Wednesday nights Commander-in-Chief Forum in New York City, broadcast by NBC, where the two candidates made back-to-back half-hour appearances, Clinton told reporters outside her campaign plane: Bizarrely, once again, he praised Russias strong man, Vladimir Putin, even taking the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the Russian president to our American president. Now, that is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander-in-chief. It is scary because it suggests that he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do and then make excuses for him.

Clinton also modified her statement during the forum ruling out any return of US ground troops to Iraq or any dispatch of such forces to Syria. She told the press that she was opposed to putting a big contingent of American troops in the two countries, rendering her pledge meaningless and suggesting that an open-ended intervention by significant numbers of US ground troops was entirely possible.

The Democratic candidate went on to denounce Trumps declaration at the forum that under the Obama administration, American generals had been reduced to rubble. Clinton invoked the Republican president most identified with Cold War anticommunism and militarism, posing the question, What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks Americas generals and heaps praise on Russias president? I think we know the answer.

She then concluded, Every Republican holding or seeking office in this country should be asked if they agree with Donald Trump. Republicans are in a terrible dilemma of trying to support a totally unqualified nominee.

These rhetorical appeals to Republicans were followed by a meeting Friday between Clinton and top former officials in the state and military-intelligence apparatus. Participants included two former secretaries of Homeland Security who have endorsed Clinton, Republican Michael Chertoff, from the Bush administration, and Democrat Janet Napolitano, from the Obama administration. Also participating was General David Petraeus, the former head of the CIA; Richard Fontaine, former foreign policy advisor for Senator John McCain; and Michael Morell, former acting director for the CIA.

Clinton said that one of her priorities on national security was to hunt down Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. His assassination, like the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 at Obamas orders, would send a resounding message that nobody directs or inspires attacks against the US and gets away with it.

The Democratic candidate for vice-president, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, made an even blunter denunciation of Trumps praise for Putin Friday, telling CBSs This Morning that Trumps comment betrays an irrationality and a hostility to the president thats unpatriotic.

Kaine even suggested thats Trumps joking remark last month, suggesting that the Russian government had probably hacked into Hillary Clintons private server and should release the 30,000 emails she claims to have deleted, could result in criminal charges. We impeached a president for that, what he has encouraged Russia to do, Kaine said, adding that Richard Nixon was impeached for encouraging crooks to commit espionage against the DNC in a presidential year to get an edge.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said that if a prominent Democrat had praised Putin as Trump did, we would be through. Congressman Charles Rangel added, referring to Putin, A communist leader thats a potential enemy!

Underscoring its effort to win support with outright redbaiting, the Clinton campaign released a video of news footage of several of Reagans children deploring the possibility of a Trump presidency. Michael Reagan, a longtime ultra-right talk radio host, said in one clip, My father would be appalled.

The Clinton campaign also released a list of 15 retired generals and admirals who have recently endorsed Clinton, adding to the 95 on the initial list released Wednesday. Air Force Major General Peter Cooke referred specifically to Trumps statements at the Commander-in-Chief Forum, as well as his aspersions against Republican Senator John McCain, a Vietnam-era POW, saying, Anytime anyone states that generals are rubbish or an individual is not a hero because he or she was captured I find it appalling... Im proud to support Secretary Clinton.

The campaign also publicized a tally of all cabinet-level officials in the administration of George W. Bush, conducted by Huffington Post, which found nine supporting Trump and seven declaring they will not support him, with another 18 who have not publicly declared a position, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Congressional Republican leaders sought to distance themselves from Trumps statements praising Vladimir Putin. House Speaker Paul Ryan called Putin an aggressor, adding that it certainly appears that Russia was waging cyberattacks on the US political system, as Democrats have claimed. That is not acting in our interests and that is an adversarial stance and he is acting like an adversary, Ryan said.

The Trump campaign was clearly taken aback by the barrage of criticism, sending out an email Thursday denying that Trumps comment about the US officer corps being reduced to rubble and the need to rely on different generals meant a sweeping purge of the Pentagon. Mr. Trump never said hed fire generals, the campaign told Politico.com. He said hed have different generals advising him.

But the media campaign intensified after Trump gave an interview to former CNN talk show host Larry King, which he said was for Kings podcast, but which was broadcast on the American subsidiary of the state-supported Russian television network RT.

The leading organs of the capitalist press were vituperative against Trump. The New York Times published a news analysisnot an editorial, despite the tonewith the following lead paragraph: Donald J. Trumps campaign on Thursday reaffirmed its extraordinary embrace of Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, signaling a preference for the leadership of an authoritarian adversary over that of Americas own president, despite a cascade of criticism from Democrats and expressions of discomfort among Republicans.

The Washington Post, in an editorial on the Commander-in-Chief Forum, declared, Most troubling of all was Mr. Trumps renewed endorsement for Vladimir Putin, in spite of the mounting evidence that the Russian government is attempting to directly interfere in the US election campaign. Confronted with a litany of Mr. Putins offenses, including the military actions in Ukraine and Syria and the computer hack of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Trump responded, Do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?as if there were equivalent U.S. actions.

Actually, as the Post editors well know, the United States has left all other countries in the dust when it comes to military aggression and political subversion. Putins offenses against international law are small potatoes compared to the worldwide depredations of American imperialism. Trump, of course, is not really opposed to such methods and, if elected, would pursue them just as aggressively as Obama and Clinton.
Dublin bus workers began the first in a series of two-day stoppages on September 8, seeking pay parity with drivers on the Dublin light rail system (Luas).

The Luas drivers secured a pay rise of 18 percent over four years after a long running series of strikes last June. The workers at Dublin Bus are seeking a 15 percent increase, a demand that was rejected by the Labour Courtthe second and final state arbitration body dealing with industrial disputes. Up to 98 percent of bus workers voted for industrial action.

The Labour Court six weeks ago offered a general 8.25 percent pay increase (2.75 percent per year) for all 3,364 Dublin Bus workers.

As a result of the strike over 400,000 people were forced to find alternative travel arrangements while Dublin was log jammed during the rush hour, causing traffic chaos. The main unions involvedSIPTU (Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union) and NBRU (National Bus and Rail Union)plan two further 48-hour stoppages over the coming weeks. Shane Ross, the current minister for transport, has stated he will not interfere in the dispute. Government funding to Dublin Bus has been reduced by 32 percent since 2008.

The source of the dispute is the continuing attack by Dublin Bus management and the State Transport Authority on the pay and general conditions of bus workers. The slashing of pay and conditions has continued unabated since 2008. Chronic underfunding of public services like transportation, coupled with pay freezes in the public sector has meant that bus workers have not received a pay increase in eight years. This has led to bitter resentment from many who have experienced the collaboration of the unions and the Fine Gael government through the Labour Court in holding down wages and eroding conditions of employment.

The unions have been working through bodies such as the Labour Court and the recently formed Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which are state-funded arbitration bodies with a record of enforcing the demands of the employers. These institutions under different names played a leading role in the drafting of the first Croke Park Agreement in 2010 between the government and the unions, which imposed a four-year strike ban, pay cuts and voluntary redundancies that slashed the number of workers in the public sector by more than 10 percent. In the private sector, the Labour Relations Committee (LRC), forerunner of the WRC, legitimised the firing of all Aer Lingus ground crew in 2011, many of whom were subsequently rehired at far lower pay.

In 2013, although the workers at Dublin Bus voted by 72 percent to reject an 11.7 million cost saving plan, the unions through the Labour Court, after some small adjustments, sold the package to the membership. Dublin Bus boasted that cost-cutting programmes negotiated with the unions had led to a 16 percent reduction in the workforce and a pay freeze since 2008. There was also a cut in overtime payments and all day shifts were extended from twelve to thirteen hours.

In 2015, SIPTU formally declared that it was opposed to the National Transport Authority (NTA) plan to privatise 10 percent of Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann routes. Again the workers by a large majority opposed the plan. Using the same method of fixing a deal in the Labour Relations Commission (now Workplace Relations Commission) unions called off a series of two-day strikes, and agreed to the decimation of bus services under the pretext that, No employee of the company will be compulsorily required to transfer to a private contractor. NBRU General Secretary Dermot OLeary said the LRC had successfully brought the parties to a point where the unions felt able to call off their planned industrial actions.

The unions negotiated a six percent pay rise in 2008 as part of a deal called Towards 2016. This was deferred by the unions in 2009 under a cost-cutting programme and the workers never received the pay rise. Dublin Bus instead made 290 drivers redundant and cut 120 buses from the fleet (about 10 percent).

If workers at Dublin Bus are to successfully challenge the erosion of their living standards and planned privatisation of the service, they must form new organisations independent from the unions and their collaboration with state-sponsored arbitration bodies. These act as a tool for the implementation of the programme of the ruling elite and Fine Gael government. Just how neutral these bodies actually are can be judged by the remarks of Kieran Mulvey, who recently retired with a 300,000 lump sum as head of the LRC (now WRC).

Mulvey, who has always served as a right wing apologist in the Irish media for austerity and cuts to public spending, went on record in 2012 in support of the Croke Park Agreement. In reference to the Luas tram workers strike just three months ago, he declared on radio, It doesnt behove trade unions to be involved in a national dispute on our public holiday... Im not enamoured at the idea of a gun being put to our head... particularly around St Patricks Day.

Since 2008 estimates suggest Irish workers have seen their earnings plummet by 14 percent. The unions, as in the rest of Europe, have played the key role in facilitating the driving down of living standards, thus emboldening the ruling elites to constantly come back for more.
The severe earthquake in Italy two weeks ago caused widespread devastation in the Gran Sasso region and cost 295 people their lives. It has, moreover, intensified the social crisis in Italy.

In Amatrice, Accumoli, Pescara and Arquata del Tronto, many thousands lost their homes. About 4,000 people, including many small children, the disabled and elderly, are still living in makeshift camps or shelters, and about 400 injured are still in hospital. On Monday, September 5, the body of the last missing person, a young Afghan, was recovered. His brother had continued to search for him to the end.

Two weeks after the earthquake, it is becoming increasingly clear that this was a man-made disaster, brought about by corruption, negligence and irresponsibility on the part of the government.

In Amatrice, numerous buildings collapsed which were supposedly built to be earthquake-proof. One of these was the Romolo Capranica primary school, opened just four years ago. Its construction was supported with large amounts of money from a special fund for earthquake-resistant constructionand yet it collapsed. A church tower supposedly renovated so as to be earthquake-proof, collapsed, burying a family of four.

Also in Amatrice, the hospital, the Hotel Roma and many other buildings collapsed. The town accounts for 224 of a total of 295 deaths. In contrast, the small town of Norcia, in the middle of the earthquake zone, remained almost without any severe damage. Norcia, an exception, decided a few years ago to undertake the serious earthquake-proofing of its buildings. There was not a single death there.

The media has reported cases of building corruption and fraud, and almost unbelievable indifference. The state prosecutors office has launched several investigations for manslaughter, already visiting 15 debris fields. Senior State Attorney Giuseppe Saieva explained that what had happened was not simply a tragic fate. The buildings were apparently constructed with more sand than cement, he said, and in breach of all regulations.

It has long been known that in Italy, 70 percent of buildings are not earthquake-proof, even though more than 24 million people live in earthquake-prone areas, where there has been a severe earthquake on average every five years in the last 150 years. For 45 years, there have been legal requirements for earthquake-proof building, but they obviously apply only in theory.

As the anti-Mafia journalist Roberto Saviano noted in an article for Die Zeit, after the wave of generosity and readiness to help, now a second wave of indignation and consternation about the fact that fraud, corruption and incompetence dominate the tragedy.

The misery of the earthquake-stricken areas has exacerbated the social crisis and dissatisfaction with the government. Nearly 300 earthquake deaths point to the enormous irresponsibility of all Italys governments over the last 50 years, and also condemn the present government of Matteo Renzi of the Democratic Party (PD).

As always, Renzi seeks to cover this over with lofty promises and phrasemongering. But after two and a half years of the Renzi government, it is well known that the words and deeds of this self-proclaimed demolition man stand diametrically opposed.

Renzi can currently be seen practically on a daily basis seeking to mollify earthquake victims. He even sent a message from the G20 summit in China promising help for the survivors. Renzi has appointed Vasco Errani (PD), former regional president of Reggio Emilia, as reconstruction commissioner. A project called Casa Italia was launched, a complex strategy for our country, in order to create the best conditions for life and work.

According to Renzi, following the search for those trapped, now a whole new phase should begin. The Italian government supposedly wants to rebuild following new, safe guidelines. But this is the same promise made by every government following every earthquake, and none has kept it.

For months, the Renzi government has been losing influence. Especially in May, when the working class took to the streets in France, Renzis poll numbers fell. It has become increasingly clear that in Italy, Renzi plays the same role as the Socialist Party politicians Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls in France; responding to the economic crisis with harsh attacks on the working class, deregulating the labour market and imposing drastic pension and education cuts.

Italy is a social powder keg, but the working class has not had a chance to articulate its opposition so far. The trade unions and pseudo-left groups have placed themselves on the side of the Renzi government and provide it flanking cover. For this reason, the protests have so far taken the form of support for the nationalist and pro-capitalist Five Star Movement of Beppo Grillo. In the local elections in June, Grillos protest movement overtook Renzis PD, and the Five Star Movement has formed the city administrations in Rome and Turin.

The Renzi government has grandly announced reforms such as the Jobs Act, as well as pension and education reforms at the expense of the workers, the poor and the elderly. But this has still not enabled it to get a grip on the budget deficit, the banking crisis, or the high level of unemployment. The banking crisis has deprived thousands of small depositors of their savings, and the recent financial crisis threatens to trigger a run on the banks.

All this is contributing to the fact that confidence in the government is ebbing away constantly. His current pose as the countrys caring father for the earthquake victims cannot remedy this. At the end of August (after the earthquake), a poll found that Renzi could lose the forthcoming referendum with the no votes currently running eight points in front of the yes votes.

The referendum is to decide on a constitutional amendment changing the electoral law and severely limiting the Senate as a second parliamentary chamber. Renzi has linked its passage with his own political fate. It will be the first popular vote on his governments policies, since previously he has never had to face the electorate. He secured his office as head of government three years ago in a sort of intra-party palace coup against Enrico Letta.

The British Guardian commented on the referendum: If he wins, Renzi will have been chastened but ultimately vindicated by the vote. But if he loses, the reality of Italian politics is that no one is quite sure what will happen. The newspaper sketches the scenario of a second Brexit, should the Eurosceptic Five Star Movement win the subsequent parliamentary election. Renzi himself has since denied he would resign if he loses the referendum. The elections, he stressed, only take place in 2018.
North Korea announced on Friday it had conducted its fifth nuclear test, timed to coincide with the 68th anniversary of the founding of the regime. The US and its allies immediately condemned Pyongyang and will undoubtedly use the detonation to ratchet up their pressure, not just on North Korea, but also China, in line with Washingtons confrontational pivot to Asia.

The test, eight months after the fourth one, was conducted underground at Pyongyangs nuclear testing facility at Punggye-ri in the northeast of the country. North Korea previously conducted tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. The magnitude of the blast has been variously estimated at between 10 and 20 kilotons, more than twice the size of the previous largest explosion, of 6 to 7 kilotons, in 2013.

We successfully conducted a nuclear explosion test to determine the power of the nuclear warhead, North Koreas state television reported. We will continue to strengthen our nuclear capabilities to protect our sovereignty. We have now standardized and minimized nuclear warheads ... We can now produce small nuclear warheads any time we desire.

Pyongyangs attempts to build a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on a ballistic missile are reactionary and in no way defend the North Korean people. In fact, the blast plays directly into the hands of the Obama administration, which has exploited North Koreas nuclear program and the regimes bellicose, but largely empty threats, to justify its military build-up in North East Asia and the strengthening of military ties with Japan and South Korea.

The North Korean test comes amid escalating geo-political tensions in Asia as the US seeks to reassert its dominance and undermine China through a diplomatic offensive and military expansion throughout the region. It comes in the wake of the East Asian Summit in Laos, where President Barack Obama further exacerbated maritime disputes in the South China Sea by insisting that China abide by the July 12 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in The Hague that rejected Chinas territorial claims in the sea.

After the detonation, Obama, who spoke with South Koreas President Park Geun-hye and Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, denounced Pyongyang in the strongest possible terms as a grave threat to regional security and to international peace and stability. He called for serious consequences, including new sanctions. Discussion is underway in the UN Security Council on further punitive measures against Pyongyang.

Abe held a teleconference with Obama yesterday in which he reportedly told the US president that the international community had to make a resolute response and North Korea should pay a price for its provocative actions. Obama said he completely agreed, according to a Japanese official.

Park declared: Such provocation will further accelerate its [North Koreas] path to self-destruction. All three South Korean parliamentary parties condemned the test. A belligerent statement by the military command warned: We will bolster our deterrence strategy and missile combat ability in alliance with the US, including an operation plan for a pre-emptive strike [against North Korea].

The stage is being set for a dramatic escalation of tensions. An article in the New York Times suggested that the US policy of strategic patiencethe gradual escalation of sanctions on North Koreahad failed. The uncomfortable choice facing Obama was between a hard embargo [that] risks confrontations that allies in Asia fear could quickly escalate into war or negotiations that would only reward North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

NBC news went further, listing other options that included a cyber attack or a direct military attack on North Koreas nuclear facilities and arsenal. Joint US-South Korean exercises this year rehearsed new operational plans agreed last yearOPLAN 5015for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea and decapitation raids on its top leaders, including Kim Jong-un.

The Obama administration is already ratcheting up its pressure on China, demanding that it take tougher measures against North Korea, its ally. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter declared: Id single out China. Its Chinas responsibility. China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it.

Speaking at a press conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Hua Chunying called on North Korea to live up to its commitment of denuclearization and called for a return to six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan. He urged all parties to speak and act cautiously with a larger picture in minda remark directed as much at Washington as Pyongyang.

Beijing is caught in a bind. On the one hand, it opposes North Koreas nuclear programs as they provide a pretext for the US to continue to expand its military presence and could be used by militarist sections of the ruling elite in Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons. In South Korea, Won Yu-cheol, the former floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, again called for the country to build its own nuclear arsenal.

On the other hand, the Chinese government is acutely concerned that intense pressure on the crisis-ridden North Korean regime could precipitate its collapsea situation that the US and South Korea could exploit to try to install a government aligned with Washington on Chinas northern border. As a result, Beijing is wary about cutting off essential supplies, including of oil and food, to Pyongyang.

The chief responsibility for the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula lies with Washington. The Obama administration has effectively scuttled any return to the six-party talks by insisting that North Korea give up its nuclear programs in advance of any negotiations.

The US is likely to further increase its military presence as part of its build-up throughout the region against China. Immediately after the fourth test in January, Washington began discussions on deploying strategic weapons to the Korean Peninsulain other words, nuclear warheads and delivery systems. Washington and Seoul also used the opportunity to agree in July on the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to South Korea.

The US election campaign is playing into the tensions. Republican candidate Donald Trump blamed his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for allowing the North Korean nuclear program to grow in strength and sophistication. Hillary Clintons North Korean policy is just one more calamitous diplomatic failure from a failed secretary of state, he said.

Both candidates have clamored to present themselves as more militaristic than the other during the campaign, an indication that no matter who becomes president, the risk of war will increase.
As the strike by 4,800 nurses in the Twin Cites Minnesota region enters its sixth day, the media and the company, Allina Health, are engaged in concerted action aimed at demoralizing nurses. The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) and the AFL-CIO trade unions, meanwhile, are continuing to isolate the strike while issuing furtive appeals to the companys board of directors to accept the concessions contract the MNA has already proposed.

The company is seeking to highlight the actions of a small minority of nurses who have reportedly crossed the picket lines, joining 1,500 replacement workers that Allina has hired to continue operations. The more nurses who commit to working during the strike, the more pressure will be placed on the union to reach an agreement, Allina declared in a statement issued on Friday. Hundreds of Allina Health nurses systemwide have made the choice to work rather than strike.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has thrown open its pages to Allina, quoting company claims that the number of nurses crossing the picket line continues to climb by the hour. WCCO radios web site interviewed a nurse who crossed the picket line and titled their story, Some Allina Nurses Standing Up Against Strike.

Minnesota Public Radio also gave a sympathetic interview to another nurse who crossed the picket line. It attempted to create the image of a company that cannot be defeated: While Allina spent $20 million on temporary staffing for the nurses seven-day strike in June, it has cash on hand to stay open about 200 days without additional revenue. And its leaders have said they are willing to take a short-term financial hit in exchange for the long-term savings of moving nurses onto more financially advantageous health plans.

The media is accurate in acknowledging that Allina, backed by the banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, is out to strip nurses of their four health care plans and move them to inferior corporate plans, resulting in a transfer of $10 million a year in savings into the pockets of the company.

However, in ignoring the sentiments of nurses who are on strike, the media is seeking to undermine the struggle. All other hospital chains in the Twin Cities and throughout the state and region await with anticipation any wounds inflicted on the Allina nurses and will follow in Allinas footsteps.

Nancy, a striking nurse, told the World Socialist Web Site, With the media coverage about nurses crossing the picket, I think that they [Allina Health] are going to wait it out until October to wear the nurses down. Nurses on strike will lose all health care coverage in October.

They say 15 percent of nurses are crossing at Unity. Thats one hospital. Most of us are still fighting.

The actions of the company are complemented by the MNA and AFL-CIO. In isolating the strike, the unions are seeking to wear down the opposition of nurses and prepare them to accept the attack on their health care that the union already agreed to before the strike began.

Prior to launching the strike on Monday, MNA negotiators expressed surprise that Allina did not agree to a proposal that accepted the companys main demand: the transfer of nurses health care to an inferior company-run plan.

On Friday, MNA leaders continued to plead with the companys board of directorswhich is dominated by corporate CEOsto meet with the union and discuss an end to the strike. I hope they actually want a contract with us, said Angela Becchetti, an MNA negotiator. I hope they give us time at their next meeting to actually hear from us.

MNA President Rose Roach also sent a letter to US Bank asking for a meeting. US Bank, according to research on the MNA web site, received $121 million in business from the investment firm Piper Jaffray to refinance bonds that Allina was caught holding in the 2008 banking collapse. US Banks Chief Investment Officer, Mark Jordahl, sits on Allinas board of directors.

The purpose of the meeting is spelled out in the title of an article on the MNA website: MNA Requests Meeting with US Bank in order to Save Allina Money.

The MNAs strike fund, if divided among the striking nurses, would amount to less than $1,000 per nurse. In a drawn-out strike, this would do little to meet car payments, mortgages and other family expenses. The AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations and their member unions, meanwhile, have no intention of making available their sizable assets, which could weather the nurses through.

This is in line with the response of the unions to any struggle by workers. They do everything they can to prevent a fight against the corporations. When they are forced to call a strike, their aim is to wear workers out, the better to force through concessions.

The linchpin of the labor bureaucracys subordination of the working class to capitalism is its support for the Democrat Party. The MNA hailed the empty proclamations of sympathy for workers from more than 100 Democrats, but nothing has come of this. In reality, the Democratic Party, led by the Obama administration, has been at the forefront of the attack on health care and the rights of the working class as a whole.

Nurses and workers who realize that their continued isolation represents a danger to the strike must sound the alarm. An emergency meeting of striking nurses must be called to elect a rank-and-file committee to appeal to the working class of the Twin Cities and Minnesota for a common struggle against the corporate-backed attack on health care and all the rights of the working class.
Eight students who were prominent in protests at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) earlier this year have been permanently excluded from further study. In protest over their victimisation, many students who were due to return to classes on September 5 boycotted a reconciliation ceremony organised by the UPNG administration.

The university reopened after two months of class boycotts and protests over demands that Prime Minister Peter ONeill answer corruption allegations. The protests climaxed on June 8 when heavily-armed police fired on peacefully demonstrating students, wounding at least 23 people. In early July, the academic year was cancelled at UPNG, the University of Technology (UniTech) in Lae and the University of Goroka, in order to quell the protests.

The government and education authorities are now attempting to revive the academic year in a truncated form. However, when the UPNG student leaders, including Student Representative Council (SRC) vice president Arthur Amos, arrived last week for registration, they were handed permanent termination letters and escorted off the campus by security guards.

The UPNG SRC, which operates with a budget funded from tuition fees, has been disbanded by the university administration. The SRCs lawyer, Laken Lepatu Aigilol, is being sued by UPNG for allegedly aiding the students. Police have been seeking to arrest SRC president Kenneth Rapa on unspecified charges since the armed confrontation on June 8. Rapa remains at large.

The exclusion letter, signed by acting pro-vice-chancellor professor Mange Matui, declared that the eight accused were being barred on the basis of credible evidence they had breached all laws of Papua New Guinea, including the Criminal Code Act and the Summary Offences Act.

Lawyer Peter Dumu denounced the administrations action as illegal, saying it was procedurally wrong, in breach of the universitys own regulations and unconstitutional. He declared that the rights of students to be heard according to principles of natural justice had been trampled on and the administration should reconsider its decision, and at least go by the book. Parliamentary opposition leader Don Polye called on the UPNG council to rescind its decision, saying it had abused its powers.

Reports said the banned students were given seven days to appeal against their termination, but the notices were received after the appeal period was over. One student told the New Zealand-based Asia Pacific Report that none of the students involved in the unrest took part in the reconciliation program because the university excluded their elected leaders. The majority of the students will not attend this program because it is being forced, the student said.

Few students turned up for the official ceremony, most standing on the balconies overlooking the UPNG Forum. Only a handful sat in the chairs provided for them. Security at the campus has been described as very tight. All campus entrances are closed, except for one gate manned by security guards.

The university administration is undoubtedly acting at the behest of the government, which insisted on harsh punishments. In July, ONeill established a witch-hunting inquiry into the student unrest. Headed by a retired judge, it was set up to examine whether there was outside influence and if students were incited to encourage unrest at the universities. Its purpose is to absolve the government of responsibility and place full blame on the students.

In fact, by the end of June, the SRCs at UPNG and Unitec were both collaborating with the administrations to shut down the protest movement and engineer a return to class. At the UPNG, the SRC wrote to the administration asking for a meeting to negotiate an end to the standoff. It indicated the SRC was prepared to apologise if the UPNG authorities did likewise and condemned the actions of police who had opened fire on students.

ONeills response was to ramp up the repression of widening social unrest. After a National Security Advisory Council meeting over the student protests in July, Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari threatened to invoke the Internal Security Act and Essential Services Act. Politicians, landowners, public, students, and any members of the community who issue threats will be investigated, arrested and prosecuted, he declared. A new National Security Joint Task Force, including police and military personnel, was established to quell increasing internal security threats.

The victimisation of students is taking place alongside ongoing struggles by sections of the working class. Doctors at the Western Highlands Mt Hagen hospital walked out on August 24 in an extended dispute over alleged mismanagement and corrupt practices at the hospital and the provincial health authority. Doctors, nurses and senior staff stopped work in March and again in June.

The government has suspended the Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority and appointed an interim hospital board and administration. The health minister ordered doctors to return to work under the threat of dismissal and legal action.

A petition in March revealed a range of major problems. These included no microbiology unit in the hospital for 13 years; closure of the operating theatre for eight months; no blood test department for six months; and the blood bank crippled for a year. Most public hospitals and clinics face shortages of blood bags, test kits and other medical kits.

The government is confronted by a severe financial and social crisis. Driven by a precipitous economic collapse, because of the global commodity price crash, ONeill is implementing harsh austerity measures, including funding reductions of 40 percent across the health system.

Last month, more spending cuts and revenue raising measures were announced in response to what the Sydney-based Lowy Institute described as concerning figures in PNGs Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The government handed down a supplementary budget to raise 958 million kina ($A397 million), while cutting another K928 million. The cuts would see K649 million taken from capital works, with another K279 million from government agencies.

The government continues to face widespread discontent. Last month, it was forced to settle a dispute with landowners, owed K1 billion in royalties, who blocked access to the $US20 billion ExxonMobil liquefied natural gas project in Hela Province. The landowners agreed to end their two-week protest after the government promised to meet its outstanding financial commitments.

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The way forward after the PNG police shootings

[20 June 2016]
Three killed in jeep accident in Dharapani

Three people were killed and seven others injured when a jeep met with an accident at Dharapani in Dhairing VDC-3 of Parbat district on Saturday afternoon.
JACKSON COUNTY, FL (WTXL) - Deputies have reported that a person was shot and taken to the hospital in Jackson County.

The Jackson County Sheriff's Office said that on Friday around 12:30 p.m. they received a call about a person who had been shot and taken to Jackson Hospital. Deputies arrived to a location on Highway 73 north where the shooting took place to investigate.

They said the victim sustained non-life threatening injuries but was transferred to another hospital for treatment. A suspect has been detained but no one has been charged.

The investigation is ongoing. This story will continue to be updated as we confirm more information.
UML asks for implementation of pacts with India by Oli govt

CPN-UML Standing Committee meeting has urged for the implementation of the pacts signed with India by KP Sharma Oli-led government.
World suicide prevention Day

The World Suicide Prevention Day was observed by organising a variety of programmes in Nepal too on Saturday.
TOPPENISH, Wash.  They call him the morning man, this familiar radio personality who greets them early every weekday. They know him as Nockaw
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Yes, its hard to to tell when one enters the city limits

Yes, they will make the city more inviting

Maybe ... does it really matter?

No, the signs in place are fine

No, it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars

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Members of the "Star Trek" crew, from front right, DeForest Kelley, William Shanter and Leonard Nimoy, and back row from right, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols, toast the last "Star Trek" film the original cast would make together, "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," in 1988 at Paramount Studios.
Gonzaga University student and former Unleashed team member Olivia Moorer was the campaign manager for her uncles unsuccessful campaign for a U.S. Senate seat this summer. Moorer says she developed a love-hate relationship with the campaign work. (Photo courtesy of Olivia Moorer)
As the years between 1897 to 1948 have long faded into distant memory, a popular myth that Israel was created by global and colonial powers against the will of the region has gained traction in certain quarters.

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Yet history shows that Israel was created overwhelmingly against the will of these major powers. When not opposing the creation of Israel, these powers were often indifferent to the Jewish cause or at best vaguely tolerant when it seemed inevitable.

It was precisely the great powers and colonial powers who made the Jewish path to the creation of Israel so very difficult (Photo: Shutterstock)

Consider the convocation of the First Zionist Congress by Theodore Herzl in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. At the congress there was no real involvement of international powers. Before his death in 1904, Herzl met key leaders in Germany, England, Ottoman Turkey and the Vatican. While achieving some legitimacy for the movement, he failed to make any deals with them. With only 50,000 mostly religious and poor Jews in Palestine in 1900, creating a future state seemed hopeless.

Things got worse during World War I when Ottoman Turkey, after the 1915 Armenian genocide, turned its attention to the 80,000 Jews in Palestine. Ten thousand Jews (including David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi) were exiled to Egypt, and plans were made for destroying the rest of the community. This was stopped only due to the intervention of Germany and the United States, one of the few clear cases of helpful foreign intervention. The 1917 British Balfour Declaration of support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was matched by other British promises of Arab sovereignty in the same area.

In World War II, the German Holocaust that killed six million European Jews who were expected to form the majority of the future Israeli state was a devastating blow to Jewish hopes for a country. As Chaim Weizmann wrote to David Ben-Gurion during the war, "Heretofore we were a people in search of a nation; after this is over we will be a nation in search of a people."

The refusal of the British colonial masters of Palestine to allow more than a handful of Jews (75,000 Jews from 19391944 and none thereafter) into Palestine while millions were eager to emigrate there was matched by the 1939 British declaration that it supported an Arab state in Palestine. The future superpower, the United States, was unwilling to accept more than a modicum of European Jews before 1941.

Then, during the 1945-1948 period, England sent 80,000 troops to Palestine to put down any Jewish moves to create a state. In the November 1947, United Nations vote (33-13) for a Jewish state and Arab state in Palestine, the British refused to support the resolution. The winning votes were provided by a bloc that could never be considered a Western colonial powerthe Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies.

During the Israeli War of Independence, England sold weapons to Israels enemies (Iraq and Jordan) and the commander of the Jordanian Legion was the British commander, Sir John Glubb Pasha. In 1948, the United States, while asserting its support for a Jewish state, declared that it would ban any arms shipments to Israel. When British soldiers began to leave Palestine in 1948, they mostly handed over valuable fortifications and defensible positions to the Arabs. The Israelis, who had never fielded an army, now faced the intervention of five Arab states in 1948. Even Yigael Yadin, the acting chief of staff, gave the Israelis at best a 50/50 chance of surviving the Arab invasions.

In the early days of the war, the Israelis were on the defensive and things looked grim. Once again the Soviet Union, influenced by a desire to destroy British domination in the Middle East and hope that a socialist Israel would be a strong ally of Moscow, intervened by selling heavier weapons to Israeland Syria. David Ben-Gurion has asserted that without Soviet military aid the Israelis would not have won the 1948 war

Thus, the notion that colonial and great powers were the main force behind the creation of Israel is not supported by history. It was precisely the great powers and colonial powers who made the Jewish path to the creation of Israel so very difficult and even at times a seemingly hopeless task.

Yet this is the "history" that Arab-Palestinians continue to teach younger generations. Case in point, at a recent meeting in Mauritania, the Palestinian Authoritys Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told Arab League leaders that London is to blame for all "Israeli crimes" committed since the end of the British mandate in 1948.

When British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour signed the Balfour Declaration in 1917, it was seen by the Arabs as giving the Zionist movement official recognition on the eve of the British conquest of Ottoman Turkish Palestine. The decision, al-Malki said, "gave people who dont belong there something that wasnt theirs." Consequently, the PA now wants to sue to British for committing this cardinal sin.

Once again, we are exposed to the rewriting of history to justify why the Palestinians have yet to be able to build a state as the Jews did against great odds.
The name Sharon has been an inseparable part of the political system for years. Ariel Sharon joined politics immediately after retiring from the military and led to the foundation of Likud. While he was prime minister, in the early 2000s, his son Omri served as a Knesset member for Likud and later Kadima. Now, a just before his 50th birthday, the younger son, Gilad Sharon , is preparing to follow in his brother's footsteps.

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After joining the Likud  the party his father split in order to create Kadima  in May, Sharon Jr. is now carefully floating a trial balloon. The man who always made sure to remain behind the scenes, who was said to be Ariel Sharon's confidant, says it would not be far-fetched to believe he may run for a spot on the Likud's next Knesset list.

Gilad Sharon. 'I care about what happens in the country and I want to make a difference' (Photo: Ofer Amram)

Why now?

"When Dad was politically active, I stayed away because there was a good representation of the things I believe in. When he was hospitalized, I was there every day as part of our daily routine. After Dad passed away, the concern remained, and this stage is another stage in fulfilling the concern."

And is Likud the place for you?

"I was a member of the movement for many years. I care about what happens in the country, and I want to make a difference."

So why not revive Kadima, which your father founded because he stopped believing in Likud, or join Tzipi Livni's Hatnua party?

"When Dad created Kadima I followed him, but Likud is the place for me. It's not a niche party, but a ruling party. Pragmatic, realistic. A party which understands that we cannot reach Scandinavian peace with the Palestinians right now and doesn't suffer from the naivety of ignoring what they do or say, and on the other hand isn't radical and doesn't ignore their existence next to us. The logical and sane outlook is what makes it a ruling party, and that is where I want to be."

Are you sure you are talking about today's Likud with

Oren Hazan

and

The Shadow

?

"Likud is a very big party. There are 130,000 members, and I have no intention of going from one person to the other and checking each one's opinions."

So when the time comes you will seek their support?

"Anyone who enters the political system wants to receive support to be able to influence. The truth is that the media played a part in bringing Hazan and the Shadow up. When something is repeated many times, it is turned into a central thing. It's possible that had those affairs not been repeated, they would not be."

Let's try to position you in Likud. On the scale between Yarin Levin and Gilad Erdan, where are you located?

"I'm on my own scale."

So will we see you run for a place on Likud's next Knesset list?

"That's not far-fetched. It can definitely happen, but I haven't decided yet."

Ariel Sharon. 'When Dad created Kadima I followed him, but Likud is the place for me' (Photo: Dan Balilty)

From your answers it seems you had reservations over the creation of Kadima.

"We must remember the background, that Dad's microphone was disconnected and that they basically opposed the plan to leave Gaza. And we must not forget that he led Likud to two of its greatest victories. In fact, beyond the issue of the departure from Gaza, there were no ideological differences."

Before returning to Likud, did you consult other former Kadima members, Tzachi Hanegbi and Ze'ev Elkin, who successfully returned to Likud?

"I did not consult Hanegbi, but he definitely congratulated me."

And did your brother Omri, who has political experience, give you his blessing too?

"Omri is helping me of course, in any way he can, because he is not just my brother, he is also my best friend."

You are joining Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the person your father said does not know whether to help his right hand or his left hand. Are you critical of the prime minister too?

"Likud, unlike other parties, is a large and democratic party, and everyone can express an opinion. When I have criticism, I'll voice it."

Has Netanyahu changed in your opinion?

"There is a series of achievements he can take credit for, including Likud's latest sweeping victory, the low unemployment rate and Israel's economic situation. The improved relations with the Egyptians is also something which must not be taken lightly."

Did you vote Likud in the latest elections?

"That's personal."

From the moment you become a political person, it's certainly a legitimate answer. Did you vote Likud?

"I'm a Likud member, and that's my place. And as for your repeated question, I did."

A younger Gilad Sharon (R) with his brother Omri. 'He is not just my brother but also my best friend' (Photo: Shaul Golan)

Gilad Sharon usually avoids media exposure and expresses his thoughts mainly in his opinion columns in Yedioth Ahronoth. His was the focus of number of police investigations, led by the Greek Island affair, for which he was questioned on suspicions that he had received a bribe from businessman Dudi Appel, who hired him as a consultant for the establishment of a tourist site in Greece.

According to a summary of the evidence conducted by then-Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Appel had paid him a huge sum of $645,000. In addition, although he had no experience in the field, he was promised a $3million bonus if the initiative succeeded. Police investigators believed that Appel's goal was to reach Ariel Sharon through his son and receive reliefs and benefits from the prime minister. In the interrogation, Sharon Jr. exercised his right to remain silent, and the case against him was eventually closed.

"The case was closed, and it doesnt matter why," he says now, as I note that the reason was lack of evidence rather than lack of criminal guilt.

Gilad Sharon rejoined Likud more than a decade after his name stopped appearing on the members' list. But he did not submit the forms to Likud's headquarters in Tel Aviv in person. "I signed them and sent them with someone."

You have already met with some of the party's veterans, those who have perhaps not forgiven your father for splitting Likud. What were the reactions like?

"I usually receive very warm reactions. There is sometimes an argument or a discussion about essence, and that's legitimate. Today I split my time between the sheep I raise and the activists I meet."

What resume do you bring to the position?

"I am a shepherd, a veteran and experienced sheep farmer. I grew up in a political home. I was exposed to the great concern for every Jew in Israel and worldwide. It's something which bothers me too. Issues of security, settlement and water were discussed around the table in our home. And as a person with a BA and MA in economics from Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, I have a lot to contribute."

And apart from the academic degrees and the name Sharon, what do you bring with you?

"Anyone who has read my columns in the past decade has seen my opinions on different issues there and the solutions I present there."

Do you have a solution to the housing problem?

"I think that what the finance minister is doing with the Mehir Lamishtaken program (a buyer fixed price method) is a good and right solution. I would use this tool to scatter the population. It's impossible for everyone to live in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. In addition, we must handle bureaucracy, which is a difficult barrier. For example, there is a group of 500 people from the center who want to build a neighborhood in (the southern town of) Ofakim, and have been failing to do so for three years now, and the end is nowhere in sight."

What is your solution to the Palestinian problem?

"I want as much territory as possible, as much security as possible, and as few Palestinians as possible under Israeli responsibility. We will never be able to leave Judea and Samaria, because it's unthinkable that there will be nothing between us and the crazies of the Iranian state. We will never be able to leave the eastern Samaria mountains, Route 354 and the Jerusalem surrounding area and Jordan Valley. On the other hand, we don't want to live in an binational state, and it's impossible to have people with different civil rights in one state. Now all that is left is to balance between the components."

So how do you balance?

"There are those who think that if we just give a little more, remove another community, we will have peace like the peace between Switzerland and France. So I would like to inform that that it won't happen. On the right there are those who think we can annex and add millions, and they apparently don't understand the place they live in. On the other hand, we must ensure a security calm here.

"I suggest that we hand the burden of proof over to the Palestinians. I, for example, dont think they want a state. They just want to be mixed into Israel and receive an Israeli identity card. Had they declared a state, the entire world would have recognized them. So why aren't they declaring? Because they dont want to.

"I suggest that they declare their state in Areas A and B, so that they are able to reach Nablus from Jenin, etc, without any trouble, and we will even tell them that they don't have to give up their demands for a right of return to the 1967 borders and Jerusalem. We will also stick to our demands and years will pass, and that way we may be able to obtain more trust. If there is a dispute between the two states, it will be a territorial dispute rather than claims of oppression and discrimination. In other words, I am hardly giving them anything and I am not demanding anything, but now they must explain to the world why they dont want a state and we will convince the world that our intentions are sincere."

In this framework, will Israel evacuate isolated settlements in order to create continuity for this state?

"No way."

Are you in favor of the Labor Party joining a national unity government?

"Consistently, and in light of the challenges facing the state, I am in favor of unity governments."

What would your father have thought about your move?

"I hope it would have made him happy."
GENEVA- The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unlikely new military partnership targeting ISIS and al-Qaida as well as the establishment of new limits on President Bashar Assad's forces.

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After a daylong final negotiating session in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight Saturday that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential "turning point" in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria's Russian-backed government and US-supported rebel groups.

The cease-fire begins at sundown Sept. 12, Kerry said, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Photo: AP)

"Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria," Kerry said. "We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on people's choices."

"It has the ability to stick, provided the regime and the opposition both meet their obligations, which we - and we expect other supporting countries -- will strongly encourage them to do," he added.

Kerry's negotiating partner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, confirmed the agreement and said it could help expand the counterterrorism fight and aid deliveries to Syrian civilians under UN auspices that have been stalled for weeks. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was informed of the accord, and prepared to comply.

"The United States is going the extra mile here because we believe that Russia, and my colleague, have the capability to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace," Kerry said, citing a number of recent meetings with Lavrov.

"This is just the beginning of our new relations," Lavrov said.

The deal culminates months of frenetic diplomacy that included four meetings between Kerry and Lavrov since Aug. 26, and a lengthy face-to-face in China between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The arrangement hinges on Moscow pressuring Assad's government to halt all offensive operations against Syria's armed opposition in specific areas, which were not detailed. Washington must persuade "moderate" rebels to break ranks with the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, and other extremist groups.

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the US and Russia would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad's air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Jabhat al-Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against ISIS.

The arrangement would ultimately aim to step up and concentrate the firepower of two of the world's most powerful militaries against ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, listed by the United Nations as terrorist groups.

Both sides have failed to deliver their ends of the bargain over several previous truces.

But the new arrangement goes further by promising a new US-Russian counterterrorism alliance, only a year after Obama chastised Putin for a military intervention that US officials said was mainly designed to keep Assad in power and target more moderate anti-Assad forces.

Russia, in response, has chafed at America's financial and military assistance to groups that have intermingled with the Nusra Front on the battlefield. Kerry said it would be "wise" for opposition forces to separate completely from Nusra, a statement Lavrov hailed.

"Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody," Kerry said. "It is profoundly in the interests of the United States."

The proposed level of US-Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal US discussions.

After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, "We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead."

At one point, Lavrov said he was considering "calling it a day" on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a US response. He then presented journalists with several boxes of pizza, saying, "This is from the US delegation," and two bottles of vodka, adding, "This is from the Russian delegation."

The Geneva negotiating session, which lasted more than 13 hours, underscored the complexity of a conflict that includes myriad militant groups, shifting alliances and the rival interests of the US and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Turkey and the Kurds.

Getting Assad's government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more difficult as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people.

Assad's government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub in the last several days, seizing several key transit points. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.

Kerry outlined several steps the government and rebels would have to take. They must now pull back from demilitarized zones, and allow civilian traffic and humanitarian deliveries - notably into Aleppo.

"If Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will brighten," he said. "If Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and its people are grim."

But as with previous blueprints for peace, Saturday's plan appears to lack enforcement mechanisms. Russia could, in theory, threaten to act against rebel groups that break the deal. But if Assad bombs his opponents, the US is unlikely to take any action against him given Obama's longstanding opposition to entering the civil war.
UNITED NATIONS- Portugal's former prime minister Antonio Guterres has maintained his spot as first choice to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the next UN secretary-general, topping the fourth successive informal poll in the Security Council, diplomats said Friday.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because voting is supposed to be kept secret, said Slovakia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak remained in second place followed by Serbia's former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic.

Former Macedonian foreign minister Srgjan Kerim moved up from sixth to fourth place followed by Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, who heads UNESCO, the diplomats said.
MELBOURNE - Authorities in the tiny Pacific island nation of Fiji arrested the leader of an opposition party and a senior trade union official on Saturday, and issued arrest warrants for several other opposition politicians, New Zealand media reported.

Radio New Zealand said the leader of the National Federation Party, Biman Prasad, and a trade unionist, Attar Singh, were arrested on Saturday afternoon.

The arrests were related to public meetings held last week to discuss Fiji's constitution, it added.
Despite all the public battles over the beaches, the State of Israel is going forward with a project to build a fisherman's village on a wide stretch of the beach.

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The area is a protected nature area, and an important breeding ground for sea turtles.

The state wants to allocate the area to the former residents of the fishing town of Dugit which used to be a part of Gush Katif which was evacuated in 2005. The residents of the town were promised that a new fishing village would be created for them.

The project has been managed over the past year by the state, by the "Tnufa" organization  an organization set up to help the residents who were evacuated from Gush Katif  and as of late, the Ministry of Agriculture led by Uri Ariel (Jewish Home).

Zikim Beach (Photo: Roee Idan)

Environmental protection assessments have determined that there are better places to establish the fishing village, and have suggested moving the village to Ashkelon. This solution has been advocated by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

However, a representative speaking on behalf of the former fishermen from Dugit argue that this isn't feasible due to an ongoing conflict they have with the Ashkelon fishermen, something which has previously resulted in police action.

Yedioth Ahronoth reporters asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Israel Police if such a conflict existed, and did not receive any confirmation to this regard. However, inspectors from the National Parks Authority did note that one fisherman was indeed kicked out of the Ashkelon Marina.

Yet, the Ministry of Agriculture is continuing on with the plans to build on the seashore, which, according to the National Parks Authority, is likely to turn into a fisherman's village. Each fisherman is allocated a 300 sq. meter space on the shore from which to launch their fishing boats.

The Nature and Parks Authority is completely against this, but Minister Ariel has approached Minister Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) to help continue the project. Officials in the Nature and Parks Authority are worried that the ministers will approve the construction. The regional planning commission will meet this week to discuss the issue.

"Zikim Beach serves thousands of people from Be'er Sheva, Ofakim, Sderot, Netivot, Ashkelon, and all of the Kibbutzim and Moshavim in the area," said Zikim resident Adam Matan, one of the people leading the fight against the fishing village. "It needs to stay open to the public, not turn into anyone's private estate. We are fighting this."

"I believe that it is of utmost importance for the state to assist the people who were expelled from Gush Katif," Minister Elkin said.

"We'll find the most appropriate solution, taking into account the need to protect the beach and the environment."

Minister Ariel stated that "The State of Israel has yet to deal with the issue of the fishermen from the Gush Katif town of Dugit 11 years after the expulsion... the solution has been formed in coordination with other government ministries, and we have taken all of the relevant considerations into account, including employment, the environment, and human."

On the other hand, Yael Dori from the organization "Adam, Teva, v'Din" said "a country which wants to protect its citizens and natural assets doesn't turn over vast swathes of its few beaches to private individuals. This is a ridiculous idea, and we will fight to have this idea be dropped."
BEIJING (AP)  They have been praised by the leader of al-Qaida and wooed by the head of ISIS. They have distinguished themselves on battlefields in Syria and are accused of carrying out a devastating bombing in Thailand.

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In the past two years, militants belonging to the Uighur ethnic group native to the vast Xinjiang region in western China have shown signs of becoming a force in Islamic extremism globally, a development that is reshaping both the ground war in Syria and Chinese foreign policy.

The predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people  ethnically distinct from China's Han majority  have chafed for decades under Beijing's heavy-handed rule. Uighur separatists belonging to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant group based in the rugged tribal areas of nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan and allied with al-Qaeda, have been blamed for attacks in Chinese cities, often using crude but effective weapons such as knives, Molotov cocktails and speeding vehicles.





Chinese soldiers in the Uighur populated city of Urumqi (Photo: Reuters)

The reach of ETIM, which seeks to establish an independent Islamic state called East Turkestan, was highlighted most recently when a man crashed a van packed with 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of TNT into the Chinese diplomatic compound in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing himself and wounding five people. Kyrgyz officials on Tuesday identified the bomber as Zoir Khalimov, an ethnic Uighur member of ETIM who carried out the attack with support from the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria.

In Thailand, a trial began last month for two Uighur men charged with an August 2015 bombing that killed 20 people at a busy Bangkok shrine. The attack came weeks after Thailand forcibly repatriated scores of Uighurs to China, where they faced persecution. Chinese officials said the Uighurs were on their way to fight in Syria when they were arrested.

Analysts see the broad outlines of metastasizing Uighur militancy that has prompted a response from China, which has traditionally abided by a foreign policy of non-interference.

"China's calculus is shifting because the threat picture is shifting from one in which only the Americans and Europeans were targets," said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. "That's why you're seeing Beijing push out. It's a combination of the new Chinese foreign policy assertiveness but also a real concern about what's happening on the ground."

In mid-August, China dispatched a senior People's Liberation Army admiral, Guan Youfei, to meet with Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij and a senior Russian military official in Damascus to discuss expanding Chinese support for their war effort.

China has made similar moves closer to home. This year, it pledged equipment and counterterrorism training for Afghan police with the aim of containing ETIM. It has also expanded its role as a mediator, welcoming both President Ashraf Ghani and Taliban representatives to China on visits and brokering low-level talks between the sides.

Nine people stabbed by Uighur nationalists outside of the Guangzhou Railway Station in 2014 (Photo: Reuters)

In 2015, Uighur fighters from ETIM, also referred to as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), began flowing from Central Asia into Syria, according to propaganda videos from the group's Islam Awazi media arm. They have won battles against loyalist forces in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, at times deploying suicide attackers to decisive effect. Although exact numbers are impossible to confirm, analysts believe there are hundreds, possibly more than a thousand, Uighurs fighting alongside the Nusra Front, said Beirut-based analyst Haytham Mouzahem.

Separately, ISIS has at least a hundred Uighur fighters, most of whom came directly from Xinjiang to escape religious persecution in China, according to leaked ISIS documents analyzed by the New America Foundation think tank.

Uighur groups in exile and international human rights monitors say China plays up the threat of Uighur militancy to justify abusive law-enforcement policies and religious restrictions in Xinjiang, which have fueled resentment among ordinary citizens. ETIM's organization may also be overestimated, experts warn, because it is unclear to what extent they offered training or support to perpetrators of attacks.

"China should evaluate its own policies to find the source of Uighur discontent," overseas Uighur spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in a statement this week following the Kyrgyzstan investigation. "The Kyrgyzstan incident could supply China with more excuses to oppress and expand its influence in Central Asia for its political purposes."

Uighers in Urumqi, the capital of Xianjiang province, western China (Photo: Reuters)

China has been sensitive to international criticism of its policies in Xinjiang while casting itself as a target of terrorism similar to Western countries. It has successfully lobbied the United States, the European Union, Russia, Britain and other governments to recognize the Turkistan Islamic Party as a terrorist organization.

"I would to stress that East Turkestan terrorist forces headed by the ETIM have plotted and undertaken terrorist attacks many times inside and outside China," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday, while vowing to "strike back" at the group.

Chinese anti-terrorism expert Li Wei said the extremist threats that China faces domestically and from abroad are now "inextricably linked, just like with other countries," leading China to expand its dealings in Syria and Afghanistan.

"I think the international community would agree that Syria is a nexus of global jihad that does threaten the entire world," said Li, director of the anti-terrorism research center at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank under the Ministry of State Security, China's main intelligence agency.

Despite its shifting posture, Chinese observers say the likelihood of the People's Liberation Army fighting directly in Syria and Afghanistan remains extremely low. Over the last decade, China has leaned on Pakistan to carry out drone strikes against TIP commanders in tribal Waziristan, pressured Central Asian allies for intelligence-gathering and sought help from Thailand  but never deployed troops.

"China can participate in Syria in direct or indirect ways," said Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel and commentator on military affairs in Beijing. "Currently, the indirect path is better. In the future it can provide a variety of equipment or arms support for Russia and Syria but dressed up as something more pleasant-sounding, like humanitarian aid."

China's increasing willingness to confront Uighur militants abroad mirrors global jihadi networks' growing interest in their cause.

In the 1990s, the Taliban  no strangers to fighting communists  sheltered Uighur separatists but forbade them from launching attacks on China from Afghanistan and Pakistan, fearing that would anger Beijing, according to writings by the jihadi Abu Musab al-Suri.

Chinese soldiers patrol the streets of the Uigher majority city of Urumqi in Western China (Photo: AFP)

And in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, published interview transcripts show Osama bin Laden downplaying the Uighurs' plight or claiming ignorance of them altogether. Instead, he argued that Chinese leaders and Muslims should unite against what he considered to be common enemies like the United States and Israel.

His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, takes a starkly different approach, decrying China as an enemy. He opened a recorded message to his followers in July by praising Uighurs' dedication to global jihad and lambasting "Chinese invaders" as "atheist occupiers" of Xinjiang.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has also prominently decried Chinese oppression of Muslims while laying out a vision of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Xinjiang.

Michael Clarke, a researcher at Australian National University, said competition for Uighur recruits between al-Qaida and ISIS explained the heightened rhetoric, but also underscored the more complicated landscape facing China.

"Since the 1990s the discourse has changed," Clarke said. "The long-established conflict between China and Uighur opposition is getting more and more connected to regional and global currents of radical Islamism."
GAZA- An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during a riot near the Israel- Gaza border on Friday. A Palestinian health official said Israeli soldiers shot him, but the Israeli army said troops were not responsible.

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Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh was killed by an Israeli bullet to the head during the border clash in the central Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said troops had sought to contain the violence on the other side of the border fence and had used only tear gas.

Archive photo Palestinian throwing rocks at IDF troops (Photo: EPA)

"Dozens of rioters breached the buffer zone and attempted to damage the security (border) fence. ... Forces stationed at the border used tear gas that led to the dispersal of the riot. Following a preliminary review, the Israel Defense Forces did not conduct the reported shooting," a military statement said.

In violence since October in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, at least 210 Palestinians have been killed, 141 of whom Israel said were assailants. Others died during clashes and protests.

Palestinians, many of them acting alone, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans.
Escalating violence in South Sudan is casting a light on Israel's murky involvement in that conflict and raising questions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new strategy of strengthening ties with African countries.

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Netanyahu has been forging alliances across Africa in an effort he says will help blunt Palestinian diplomatic initiatives against Israel at the United Nations.

But critics say these new ties  illustrated by Netanyahu's high-profile visit to several African countries in July  have come without regard for the human rights records of those allies.

Netanyahu meets with the leaders of seven African states (Photo: Kobi Gideon GPO)

Such concerns have been magnified by Israel's close ties to South Sudan, whose government has used Israeli arms and surveillance equipment to crack down on its opponents. Critics say Israel's global arms export policies lack transparency and proper oversight, and ignore the receiving country's intended use.

"It is the role of the prime minister, the defense minister and the foreign minister to look out for Israel's interests. But this has a limit: not at any cost and not with everyone," said Tamar Zandberg, an Israeli opposition lawmaker who has filed a court appeal to halt Israeli sales of sensitive technology to South Sudan.

Israel has long viewed South Sudan as an important ally and a counterweight to neighboring Sudan's support for Islamic Palestinian militants. Israel was one of the first countries to recognize South Sudan's independence in 2011, and South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir visited Israel months later.

Since South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013, some 50,000 people have been killed and 2 million have been displaced.

In July, hundreds died when fighting erupted in the capital, Juba. South Sudanese troops went on a nearly four-hour rampage at a hotel, killing a local journalist while forcing others to watch, raping several foreign women, and looting the compound, several witnesses told The Associated Press.

Just days earlier, Netanyahu had traveled to four African countries  Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia  in a visit meant to cultivate new allies. It was the first visit to sub-Saharan Africa by a sitting Israeli prime minister in nearly three decades.

During the visit, he convened a summit with seven regional leaders, including Kiir  nearly all of whom have been criticized by rights watchdogs for alleged abuses.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has been charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity for his role in stoking ethnic violence, charges that were later withdrawn, with the prosecutor accusing Kenya of blocking her investigation. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, 71, has served for 30 years and is trying to change the constitution so he can effectively extend his rule for life. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and criticized by rights groups for being an authoritarian ruler.

Prime Minister Netanyahu with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (Photo: Kobi Gideon GPO)

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel is "extremely satisfied with our renewed relations with many African countries and Israel does not interfere in those countries' internal affairs." He rejected criticism of the Israeli outreach, suggesting Israel was being unfairly singled out. The United States and other Western countries also consider many African countries important allies.

A UN report in January said Israeli surveillance equipment was being used by South Sudanese intelligence, allowing it to intercept communications in a "significantly enhanced" crackdown on government opponents.

The report also found that an Israeli automatic rifle known as the Micro Galil is "present in larger numbers than before the outbreak of the conflict."

According to the report, Israel sold the rifles to Uganda in 2007, which transferred the weapons to South Sudan's National Security Service in 2014. According to the report, Israel said it didn't receive a request from Uganda for the transfer.

Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer working with Zandberg said weapons export licenses require knowledge of end users and mid users  meaning the transfer would either have been done with Israel's knowledge or would have prompted an investigation into the offending company. He said no investigation was known to have been opened.

The UN report said Israeli ACE rifles were used in a massacre that targeted Nuer citizens in Juba in 2013.

Zandberg said Israel stopped sending firearms to South Sudan in 2013 but that export licenses for the surveillance equipment continue. The Israeli Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The European Union has placed an arms embargo on South Sudan, and following the outbreak of violence, the US imposed sanctions on top military officials from both sides of the conflict.

In August, the UN Security Council approved an additional regional protection force to enter South Sudan, but decided against an arms embargo on the country.

"Even without an international arms embargo, states should unilaterally suspend arms transfers given the likelihood that arms would be used to commit human rights violations," said Elizabeth Deng, Amnesty International's South Sudan researcher.

Zandberg and Mack asked Israel's Supreme Court in May to force Israel to explain why it has continued export licenses for the surveillance system to South Sudan. Reflecting Israel's typically opaque approach to such transfers, the Defense Ministry asked for a gag order to be imposed on the proceedings. A hearing is scheduled later this month.

Netanyahu meets with Uhuru Kenyatta (Photo: AFP)

Zandberg is also seeking to change Israel's weapons export oversight law, which she says does not adequately ensure that

Israeli arms don't end up in troubled countries.

The law states that Israel shall not supply weapons to any country under a Security Council arms embargo. But the council can often be slow to act, and Zandberg wants Israel's Foreign Ministry to have clout in determining whether it should allow arms transfers.

A 2013 report by Israel's state comptroller pointed to "shortcomings, some of them significant," in export oversight, including a lack of personnel to investigate possible breaches and lax enforcement of requirements for exporters.

"A country that hands out these export licenses has to be accountable and to take responsibility for the (weapons') final use," Zandberg said.
An explosion was heard Saturday afternoon in the northern Golan Heights. No damage or injuries were reported. The explosion is believed to be the result of spillover from the civil war in Syria.

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The 366th Armored Division, responsible for the Golan Heights, is still unsure as to whether or not the explosion was caused by a rocket or a mortar. This is the third time in a week that fighting has spilled over into Israel from the fighting in Syria.

The Israeli Air Force attacked a Syrian artillery position in response to the spillover. The IDF said that the army views the Syrian military as responsible for anything emanating from its territory, and will not tolerate any attempts to violate Israeli sovereignty or threaten Israel's citizens.

Mortar fire landed deep inside Israel earlier in the week, and the IDF retaliated by hitting Syrian positions several hours later. The artillery round in that instance landed 10 kilometers inside of Israeli territory.

Rebel mortar fire published Saturday from the Syrian Golan Heights

Rebel tank operating close to the Syrian border with Israel

Several rebel units which are operating on the border with Israel announced that they had begun a massive operation against the Assad regime, its supporters, and its allies on Saturday. Amongst the groups included in this declaration are Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which was formerly al-Qaida in Syria.

Rebel artillery piece firing at Assad forces close to the Israeli border Wednesday

Meanwhile, Hezbollah claimed on Saturday that the Syrian Army stopped a rebel attack on Syrian position north of the Syrian border town of Qunietra, and that the rebels sustained large numbers of killed and wounded.

Hezbollah also noted that the rebels fired a rocket towards the Syrian Druze town of Hader on the Syrian side of the border, yet the rocket missed.
ISTANBUL- Turkey's state-run news agency says the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish rebels will be allowed to meet with family during an upcoming Islamic holiday.

The Anadolu Agency reported Saturday that Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, has been granted permission to see his brother during Eid al-Adha.

The festival started Saturday, but the visit's timing was classified.
Rescue workers from the Home Front Command found on Saturday the body of another one of the people who were trapped under Mondays parking structure collapse. The body uncovered Saturday will be examined to determine whether is it that of Mohammad Dawabsha, who has been missing since the collapse. This brought the number of those killed in the disaster to six.

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A screened photo of Mohammad Dawabsha (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The site of the parking structure is located at Tel Avivs northern neighborhood Ramat HaHayal. At first, the bodies of only two victims were found at there, and then a third. 23 people were injured in the event. After receiving word of what happened, the Police and Home Front Command began searching for survivors.

Site of the parking lot collpase (:   )

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The rescuers worked for several days straight in an effort to find any and all survivors. Four hours following the collapse, they still managed to hear and communicate with some of those trapped under the debris through yelling and cellular connection. After that, the communication with them was lost.

Removing the bodies of those killed in the collapse (Photo: Yair Sagi)

Workers on the site reported noticing certain oversights. Micha Levin, a foreman at the site, described a machine that cleaned the floor. Every time we passed it, we felt the earth shaking. It didnt feel right. I told the project manager that it doesnt feel healthy, the way it makes things shake. Not an hour went by before the whole building collapsed from its center.

Working to uncover the bodies of those killed in the crash (Photo: Yogev Atias)

The building of the parking structure was headed by investment company Africa Israel Residencies and its construction company Danya Cebus. It was commissioned by Ahuzat Hof, a daughter company of the Tel Aviv Municipality.

Digging up the debris (Photo: Yuval Chen)

Africa Israel issued a statement, saying that The company is examining the reasons for the crash, its results and implications. Danya Cebus Spokespersons Office issued a similar statement.
Damascus  The Damascus government has approved the Russian-American ceasefire agreement that should come into effect on Monday between the regime and the rebels, the official agency Sana reported, citing "informed sources."

"The Syrian government has approved the Russian-American agreementone of whose objectives is to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria," the agency reported, adding that there "would be a cessation of hostilities in the city of Aleppo for humanitarian reasons."
The company Cnaan Media, the franchisee responsible for advertising on buses belonging to Egged, Dan, Kavim and others, refuses to put up the advertisements of Israel Hofsheet  Be Free Israel calling for public transportation on Shabbat.

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Cnaan Media's reason is that it does not want to offend the buses' religious passengers and that it fears that the signs and the buses that bear them may be vandalized.

According to Israel Hofsheet's executive director, Mickey Gitzin, his organization asked to put banners on the sides of buses reading, "We don't shut down on Shabbat! We demand public transportation 24/7" and a logo of Israel Hofsheet.

The proposed ad

Referring to the recent public hullabaloo around required infrastructure work on railways on Shabbat, Gitzin commented that recent events in the country are an opportunity to re-examine the status quo, which has been irrelevant for years: "The matter of Shabbat requires that a dialogue be established, and we're for that, but the refusal to publish a campaign like this constitutes crossing a red line. This is disgraceful, and all of us need to ask ourselves what country we're living in and why we're ready to give in so easily to intimidation and bullying."

He added, "Cnaan is damaging the right to hold a public and democratic struggle in a field that affects us all. The insistence that public transportation services operate on every day of the week is basic and obvious in an advanced, modern state. This is a real need, and the campaign that we wanted to launch isn't provocative of inciting, but one that expresses the wish and voice of many citizens in the country. The time has come that the state begins to hear us."

Israel Hofsheet describes itself as "a grassroots movement that strives for an Israeli society that practices cultural and religious pluralism, protects civil rights, and upholds the principles of democracy and Zionism as put forth in the Declaration of Independence."

Ohad Givli, the CEO of Cnaan Media, confirmed that his company decided not to authorize Israel Hofsheet's campaign. He said, "We, as a policy, don't put up messages that are likely to offend bus passengers. This is not just ultra-Orthodox passengers, but religious passengers in general. I can't stick a sign on buses that calls for them to operate on Shabbat. We definitely fear that people would be offended by the signs, that they'll damage it or vandalize the buses. The person who would be responsible for any damage caused to the buses in such a case would be us, and I'm not ready to put myself in that corner."
Damascus  The Damascus government has approved the Russian-American ceasefire agreement that should come into effect on Monday between the regime and the rebels, the official news agency Sana reported, citing "informed sources."

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"The Syrian government has approved the Russian-American agreementone of whose objectives is to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria," the agency reported, adding that there "would be a cessation of hostilities in the city of Aleppo for humanitarian reasons."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visits Syrian troops

The agreement includes a cessation of hostilities on all fronts between the regime and the rebels, particularly in the war-ravaged Aleppo.

The accord envisages, inter alia, the "demilitarization" of Aleppo's Castello Road, which was a former rebel supply route before the regime regained control of it on July 17, starting a de facto siege on the rebels. It stipulates that this road will be used to channel humanitarian aid to the city.

US Secretary of State John Kerry with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Photo: AP)

Sources not identified by Sana stated, "The Syrian government has reviewed the entirety of the agreement and approved it."

John Kerry at meeting with Russian FM (: )

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Earlier in the day, the Syrian opposition in exile indicated on its website that it had "not received an official copy of the Russian-American agreement."

A member of the opposition, Bassma Kodmani, reacted cautiously to the announcement of the agreement that could also lead to unprecedented military cooperation against jihadists.

Washington will have to convince the rebels to dissociate themselves from jihadist groups allied in the provinces of Aleppo and Idleb, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham ("the Front for the Conquest of the Levant"), the successor to the al-Nusra Front, that is still considered to be a terrorist organization by Moscow and Washington.
Several people were killed when an earthquake measuring 5.7 hit northwest Tanzania on Saturday, President John Magufuli's office said, with a local newspaper putting the death toll at 10. The President's Office said in a statement several people had died, but gave no toll.

The quake struck at 12:27 GMT, 43 km (27 miles) from Bukoba, a city on the western shore of Lake Victoria, at a depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The privately owned Mwananchi newspaper tweeted that the quake had killed at least 10 people and injured at least 100 in Bukoba, quoting a local police commander.
Syrian government warplanes bombarded rebel-held areas around the country Saturday while insurgents shelled government-held neighborhoods in violence that left dozens killed or wounded hours after a new US-Russia agreement was reached to try and reduce violence in the war-torn country.

The United States and Russia announced a deal that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an unexpected new military partnership targeting ISIS and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on President Bashar Assad's forces.

State news agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, for "humanitarian reasons." It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the US-Russia agreement "was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government."
Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has warned that the country is home to more than 500 Islamic militants who could be capable of carrying out assaults on their own or as members of "hit teams."

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Speaking in an interview with Bild newspaper, Maiziere said there were currently at least 520 "potential attackers" in the country, which has been on edge since two ISIS-inspired attacks in July.

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (Photo: Reuters)

He said another 360 "relevant" people were known to police because of their close proximity to the potential attackers.

Many Germans fear that fighters belonging to ISIScould have slipped into Germany with the roughly one million of refugees from Syria, North Africa and Asia who arrived last year.

"The terror threat now stems from foreign hit teams as well as fanatical lone wolves in Germany," de Maiziere said in the interview ahead of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, which were partly coordinated from Germany.

"The hit teams are secretly smuggled into Europe and prepare their actions without being noticed, as we saw with the attacks in Paris and Brussels," he added. "But it's even more difficult to uncover the fanatical lone wolves. Unfortunately, there is a real and present danger from both threats."

He said security authorities were doing everything possible to monitor "the potential terrorists" and noted that there have been more investigations and arrests this year. Despite their efforts, though, he said that "The authorities are assuming there are undiscovered lone wolf terrorists out there."

Germany had until July been spared the kind of militant attacks suffered by neighboring France and Belgium . But in late July, ISIS claimed two attackson a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbachin which asylum-seekers wounded a total of 20 people. In light of these attacks, Germany's anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has publicly criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for her government's migrant policies.
Mecca  At least three million faithful coming from the entire world began the five-day hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, on Saturday. This is the peak of the Muslim calendar and was marked last year by a deadly crush that killed at least 2,297.

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The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform it once in their lifetime. The hajj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and start fresh. Many seek to deepen their faith on the hajj, with women taking on the Islamic hair covering known as "hijab" upon returning from the pilgrimage.

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Despite the physical challenges of the hajj, many people rely on canes or crutches and insist on walking the routes. Those who cannot afford the hajj are sometimes financed by charities or community leaders. Others save their entire lives to make the journey. A few even walk thousands of miles by foot to Saudi Arabia, taking months to arrive.

The hajj traditionally begins in Mecca, with a smaller pilgrimage called the "umrah", which can be performed year-round. To perform the umrah, Muslims circle the Kaaba counter-clockwise seven times while reciting supplications to God, then walk between the two hills traveled by Hagar. Mecca's Grand Mosque, the world's largest, encompasses the Kaaba and the two hills.

Before heading to Mecca, many pilgrims visit the city of Medina where the Prophet Muhammad is buried and where he built his first mosque.

Logistics

Handling the huge influx of pilgrims, providing them with lodging and transport and maintaining security is an enormous logistical challenge. Saudi Arabia's handling of this is being closely scrutinized this year.

Riyadh has been the object of harsh criticisms ever since the deadliest stampede in the hajj's history on September 24, 2015, during the Stoning of the Devil part of the pilgrimage, which will take place this year on Monday.

At least 2,297 faithful perished, according to data compiled from foreign governments' calculations. Saudi Arabia announced 769 deaths, and the results of an investigation headed by the authorities have still not been communicated, nearly a year later.

The identification of victims was difficult, and governments complained about the difficulty in identifying their citizens.

To avoid a similar tragedy from taking place, Riyadh has assured all that it has taken new measures, notably the creation of an electronic bracelet bearing the personal data of each pilgrim. No figure has been given, however, on the proportion of pilgrims equipped with this bracelet. The GPS bracelet aims to give authorities an alert if over-crowding starts to form.

An electronic bracelet (Photo: AFP)

The measure is part of the efforts to prevent a repetition of last year's tragic stampede that left hundreds dead.

Those who were in the city on Friday got a sense of how crowded the Hajj could become. The holy mosque was at its maximum capacity of two million worshippers during the Friday prayer. As it ended, visitors to the holy mosque started to move chaotically, each in their own direction.

However, as soon as a bottleneck started to form, dozens of security forces intervened to manage the flow of pedestrians.

It is one of the world's largest human gatherings. Many things could go wrong, but most pilgrims were not worried.

Iranians absent

Notably absent this year are Iranian pilgrims . Last year, some 64,000 Iranians took part in the Hajj, but disputes with the Saudi government prompted Tehran to bar its citizens from taking part this year.

Tehran protests against Saudi Arabia (Photo: AP)

Saudi Arabia has blamed Iranian officials for the decision and suggests it was politically motivated to publicly pressure the kingdom. Iran says Saudi "incompetence" caused last year's crush and stampede that killed more than 460 of its citizens.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - In observance of Patriot Day, and on the 15th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in United States history, Governor Doug Ducey has ordered that flags at all Arizona state office buildings be lowered to half-staff on Sunday, September 11, 2016, from sunrise to sunset, in honor of the nearly 3,000 innocent lives taken from us.

On this solemn anniversary, we join Americans across the country in thought and in prayer to remember the thousands of innocent lives that were stolen from us in the worst terrorist attack in United States history, said Governor Ducey.

Each year, this anniversary is a sobering reminder of how precious and fragile life can be. Like most Americans, I still remember where I was when those buildings came down, but I also remember where I was when first responders quickly and heroically jumped into action to save lives.

Thousands of men and women put on uniforms and risked their lives overseas to ensure it would never happen again. Thousands more did what they could. And our most solemn anniversary suddenly became our greatest testament to the resilience Americans can demonstrate under the most dire and dangerous of circumstances.

Today we remember the innocent lives lost on September 11, 2001, and we pay tribute to the thousands of people who fought and are still fighting to protect the freedoms we cherish in the face of those who wish to harm us.

Please join me in keeping these men and women and their families in our thoughts and prayers in pursuit of a brighter and safer future.
Latest News

Washington, DC - The United States is pleased to announce a contribution of nearly $37 million of humanitarian assistance toward the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to support critical education gaps for refugees in 16 countries.

On September 20, 2016, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Mexican President Pena Nieto, German Chancellor Merkel, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam, Swedish Prime Minister Lofven, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, and Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon will join President Obama in hosting the Presidents Leaders Summit on Refugees. This Summit will bring together government leaders who are prepared to make new and significant pledges that address the most urgent needs of refugees. As part of the Summit, the United States and co-hosts aim to increase refugee self-reliance by encouraging major refugee-hosting member states to focus on new policies that will facilitate refugee access to education and increase the number of refugee children enrolled in school by one million. In order to reach that goal, additional resources are needed to close significant funding gaps of leading humanitarian organizations.

This funding will both further the United States financial contributions to refugee education and support the implementation of the commitments made for the Summit by refugee-hosting countries through the provision of additional resources to UNHCR to increase the number of children accessing quality education. UNHCR is the largest provider of education for refugees globally, but remains underfunded. The UNHCR fundraising document Education for Refugees: Priority activities and requirements supporting enrollment and retention in 2016 highlights unfunded or underfunded education activities for schools and students at all levels of education. The document appeals for nearly $60 million to support refugee education in sixteen countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East  which collectively host 2.1 million refugee children of school-age (5-17 years), an estimated 57 percent of whom are out of school. With full funding, UNHCR could support tens of thousands of refugee children to enroll in school during the upcoming academic year. The United States government strongly encourages other donors to close the remaining $23 million funding shortfall.
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BAN 150/7 VS 5/1 ZIM

Zimbabwe need 146 runs in 113 balls at 7.75 rpo
Chonmipem Horam `Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent`- Victor Hugo Can you imagine a life void of music? Absolutely NOT! Whether you admit it or not, music permeates our daily life, weaving its beauty and emotion through our thoughts, activities and memories. Music is harmony and music is beauty. Music has the quality of expressing the inexpressible. One cannot approach music with ones own peculiar likes, dislikes or tastes, which are all a part of ones own conditioning. Music is something both extraordinarily complex and incredibly simple at the same time.Roots of World Music day World Music Day also known as Fete de la Musique, was a music festival that began in France in 1982.The idea was conceived by French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang in 1981. Since then June 21st has been celebrated every year as World Music Day. Today, it has spread to Argentina, Australia, Britain, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland, Costa Rica, China, India, Lebanon, Pakistan and many other countries. On this day, the musicians perform for free in open areas. Free concerts are organized in parks, museums, train stations, castles etc. This is done to promote music, making all genres of music accessible to the public. It gives an opportunity to communicate and share special bond through music. The term World Music includes traditional as well as non-western music. It is folk music of any culture, created and played by indigenous people. It is a classical form of music accompanied by traditional ethnic instruments, some prominent forms are  Japanese Koto music, India raga music, Tibetan chants and South African `township music`. Genres India, being a land of unity in diversity with various cultures, traditions, art forms, every region has its own unique musical form. While there are various genres, Indian classical music has been divided into North Indian tradition known as Hindustani music and Carnatic music belonging to South India. But apart from these, there are varied forms such as  Bhangra, Bhajans or devotional, Ghazals and Qawwalis, Indi-pop, Folk, Tribal, Film songs, Remixes, Fusion. While, Bhangra is a dance oriented folk music, Bhavageete (literally `devotional song`) is a form of expressionist poetry and light music. Qawwali is a Sufi form of devotional music based on Hindustani classical. And in the West, we have Metal, Punk, Rock, Hip-Hop, Hard Rock, alternative, Experimental, Country, Disco, Funk, Classical, Progressive, Trance, Techno, Ska, Reggae music. Trance Music was developed in early quarters of 20th century and is generally played in club houses and dance floors. Indigenous Country Music born of the US is in form of folk, Celtic, church, gospels and tribal music, while, Pop Music is both classical and folk. Reggae is a music genre developed in late 1960`s. Its lyrics deal with faith, love, sexuality, relationships, injustice etc. Hip-hop is both a cultural movement and genre of music developed in New York City in 1970`s by African Americans and Latin Americans.The good, the bad and the ugly Music is an important form of communication. Its a reflection of society in a particular time and place. Music needs no boundaries, it bonds us irrespective of who we are, and where are we from. Not only its a source of entertainment but it also acts as a medium to convey messages, of how things are, and what lies ahead in the future. Michael Jackson`s song `Heal the world sounds beautiful as well as inspiring as it echoes noble thoughts. There`s A Place In Your Heart, And I Know That It Is Love, And This Place Could Be Much Brighter Than Tomorrow, And If You Really Try You`ll Find There`s No Need To Cry,In This Place You`ll Feel There`s No Hurt Or Sorrow There Are Ways To Get There If You Care Enough For The Living Make A Little Space, Make A Better Place... Heal The World, Make It A Better Place, For You And For Me And The Entire Human Race There Are People Dying, If You Care Enough For The Living, Make A Better Place For You And For Me If You Want To Know Why There`s A Love That Cannot Lie Love Is Strong, It Only Cares For Joyful Giving If We Try, We Shall See In This Bliss We Cannot Feel, Fear Or Dread We Stop Existing And Start Living Then It Feels That Always Love`s Enough For Us Growing So Make A Better World Make A Better World... And The Dream We Were Conceived In, Will Reveal A Joyful Face And The World We Once Believed In Will Shine Again In Grace Then Why Do We Keep Strangling Life Wound This Earth, Crucify Its Soul Though It`s Plain To See, This World Is Heavenly Be God`s Glow We Could Fly So High Let Our Spirits Never Die In My Heart, I Feel You Are All My Brothers Create A World With No Fear Together We`ll Cry Happy Tears See The Nations Turn their Swords Into Plowshares We Could Really Get There If You Cared Enough for The Living Make A Little Space, To Make A Better Place... You And For Me Music also grants us the freedom of expression. Like in late 1980`s and 90`s, young black Americans coming out of the Civil Rights Movement used this to show the limitation of the movement. It used Hip-hop to voice their issues. It lets them the world to be noticed. But inspite of all these social impacts, there have been negative aspects as well. Some of the most popular songs in Hip-hop genre have negatively influenced violence, drugs, alcohol, sex and disrespect for authorities, which is detrimental to the lives and education of the youngsters.Festivals There are many World Music festivals and jazz/folk/roots/new age crossover events. The Ariano Folkfestival is the biggest World Music festival in southern Italy, is held in mid August. The California World Music Festival is held each July at Nevada County Fairgrounds. The World Sacred Music Festival is held annually in Olympia, Washington State. FloydFest in Floyd, Virginia, USA. The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, New York, USA. Rainforest World Music Festival is another world music festival held in Malaysia. Stern Grove festival is a San Francisco celebration of musical and cultural diversity. The Starwood Festival in New York has been held in July every year since 1981.
Washington: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors that half of Republican rival Donald Trump's supporters fall into "the basket of deplorables", meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.

In an effort to explain the support behind Trump, Clinton on Friday night went on to describe the rest of Trump supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathise with them, CNN reported.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said, adding "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

"And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric," CNN reported citing the former secretary of state as saying.

Clinton went on to say that some of these people were "irredeemable" and "not America".

"One day after promising to be aspirational and uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans. desperate," Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted in response.

Clinton made the comments before introducing Barbra Streisand at an LGBT fundraiser in New York.

According to average ticket prices and attendance figures provided by the campaign, Clinton raised around $6 million at the fundraiser, only the sixth she has opened to press, CNN noted.

While she has headlined over 330 fundraisers as a candidate, her campaign has kept most of these events closed from the media.
Pensacola: US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed on Friday that any Iranian vessels that harass the US Navy in the Gulf would be "shot out of the water" if he is elected on Nov. 8.

Trump, at a rally before thousands of supporters in Pensacola, Florida, laid out an aggressive national security policy with a beefed-up US military "so strong that nobody`s going to mess with us."

He talked tough about how he would respond to any Iranian harassment of American ships in the Gulf. A US Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after an Iranian fast-attack craft came within 100 yards (91 meters) of it on Sunday. It was the fourth such incident in the past month.

"When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn`t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water," he said.

Trump has based his foreign policy beliefs on keeping the United States out of what he called "endless wars" in the Middle East.

Visiting a city with a US Navy base and where many military veterans live, Trump said he wants a stronger military to project American power and bolster the United States as the leader of the world.

Trump this week laid out a plan to spend many billions of dollars on bolstering the US military, including more ships, planes and troops.

"We`re going to put us in a position of leadership of the world again so we can negotiate from a position of great, great strength. But more important than negotiating, we will be secure again," he said.

Trump, who has drawn criticism for his frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also mentioned a recent incident in which a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet (3 meters) of a US Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea.

"Putin laughs, believe me, he laughs at our leaders. Yesterday he had a plane 10 feet away, taunting us, toying with us, just like Iran," he said.
New Delhi: A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delegation from Andhra Pradesh called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday and thanked him for the announcement of a special package for the state.

During the interaction, Prime Minister Modi said there are ample opportunities for development in Andhra Pradesh and they must work for development of the state.

The centre on Wednesday announced more financial assistance for Andhra Pradesh to make up for the loss in revenue that the state has suffered from the bifurcation to create Telangana.

Andhra Pradesh Assembly was adjourned sine die earlier today as the opposition YSR Congress Party members protested demanding special status and central package to the state.

The trouble began soon after the house met for the day with the opposition members objecting the presence of marshals in the house.The YSR Congress members trooped into the well of the House raising slogans and displaying placards.

They demanded a discussion immediately over the issue where as the ruling TDP demanded action to be taken against those who misbehaved in the house on Friday by breaking microphones of the Speaker and broken the railing of the podium.When the pandemonium continued in the house, the Speaker adjourned the house for a brief period.

"The government has clearly stated that financial devolution to any state is not possible. The Central Government has decided to give more money than the money from financial devolution. The Central Government has helped Andhra Pradesh a lot. The government is ready to discuss anything based on facts and figures," Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told the media in Hyderabad.

The state is observing bandh today in protest against denial of special category status to the state.Security has been beefed up to prevent any untoward incident.
Hyderabad: The three-day Monsoon session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly ended abruptly today after the opposition YSR Congress members created ruckus as they tried to uproot mikes and damage cameras over the special category status issue.

The House passed a resolution referring the unruly acts of the YSRC legislators in the last three days to the Privilege Committee for "necessary action".

Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao then adjourned the House sine die as it could not take up any listed business because of the pandemonium caused by the Opposition over the special status issue.

More than half-a-dozen YSRC legislators climbed the Legislature Secretary's table in front of the Speaker's podium and threw papers at the Speaker.

For the second day in a row, the YSRC members entered into a scuffle with the House marshals and tried to uproot mikes and damage the cameras recording the proceedings.

When the House was first adjourned briefly for 10 minutes around 9.20 AM, the media point on the Assembly premises became a virtual battleground with the TDP and the YSRC MLAs coming close to blows.

The Opposition legislators continued with their protests inside the House when it resumed.

As a result, five Bills that were supposed to be discussed and cleared, could not be taken up.

The Chief Minister was to make a statement in the House on the special financial package announced by the Centre while the Deputy Chief Minister (Home) was to make statement on the prevailing seasonal conditions in the state. That too did not happen as the Speaker adjourned the House sine die.

Yesterday also, the state Assembly abruptly ended without transacting any business after two adjournments failed to restore order in the House.
Dhaka: At least 20 persons were killed on Saturday when a water boiler blew up in a factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police said. Many others were in critical condition.

The explosion led to a huge fire in the Tampaco Foils factory in Gazipur area around 6 a.m., bdnews24 reported, citing Senior Fire Station officer Mohd Rafiquzzaman.

He said 20 firefighting units battled the flames, which caused two floors of the five-storey building to partially collapse.

Seventeen bodies were sent to Tongi Hospital and three to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, the Daily Star reported. A total of 74 others were injured, many critically, police said.
Islamabad: Opposition members in Pakistan have accused the Nawaz Sharif government of misleading the Senate by concealing information about the Pathankot terror attack in India, it was reported on Saturday.

The accusations came on Friday when PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar alleged that the government was patronising militants, a claim Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq strongly denied, the Express News reported.

"Why else did the government not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House?" asked Babar.

"Has the Indian government provided any facts/information to the Pakistani government? And what is the latter doing in this regard?" he asked.

The queries went unanswered. But it prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to announce that the findings of the probe would be made public.

On January 2, terrorists, believed to be from Pakistan, stormed the Indian Air Force (IAF) base. All attackers, their number believed to be four to six, were killed. Seven Indian security personnel were also killed.

India allowed a Pakistani team of investigators to visit the IAF base.
New Delhi: In more embarrassment for Pakistan, Baloch Republican Party Representative at United Nations Human Rights Council, Abdul Nawaz Bugti revealed that Pakistani forces have launched a fresh wave of military operations across the restive region.

Exposing Pakistan's brutality, Bugti said 19 Baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to the same family were recently abducted.

He further said that the civilians in Dera Bugti, Baloch have also been attacked.

The Baloch Republican Party leader further claimed that Pakistani forces have attacked Baloch civilians in many parts of Nasirabad District.

Giving a chilling account of the brutality of Islamabad, Bugti said, an innocent Baloch man was killed during an operation in Dera Bugti, adding that, in Turbat area, a political worker's house is under siege for the past four days.

Bugti appealed to the international media to raises their voice and help save Balochistan from inhuman atrocities of Pakistan.

Recently, Balochistan's representative at UNHRC Mehran Mari accused Pakistan of committing war crimes against Baloch people and urged the international community to penalise Islamabad for its alleged human rights violations in the Baloch and Sindh regions.

PM Nawaz Sharif, Army Chief Raheel Sharif, ISI DG and others are war criminals and they must be arrested whenever they leave Pakistan, Mari had said.

It may be noted, ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for action against Pakistan for its atrocities against the locals in Balochistan, many voices have come forward and spoken against Islamabad.

In his address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of 70th Independence Day, PM Modi hit out at Pakistan for "glorifying" terrorists.

PM Modi in his I-Day speech came out openly in support of "freedom" for Balochistan and "PoK."
Islamabad: Many Pakistani parliamentarians pay very low income tax that "do not match their princely lifestyle", according to the tax directory of MPs.

Going by their income tax returns, Senator Taj Muhammad Afridi is the richest MP in Pakistan and Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf the poorest, the Dawn on Saturday quoted the directory as saying.

The directory released by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday gives some insight into their wealth, based on the tax paid by the rich and the not-so-rich members of the National Assembly and the Senate, the daily said.

"But the lifestyle and daily expenditures of many of them are in stark contrast to what the income tax declarations indicate," it added.

Few MPs are among the highest tax-paying citizens, according to the directory of 1,074,000 taxpayers for 2015.

"Save a few worthy exceptions, the sums paid as income tax by most of the elected representatives are laughably low and do not match their princely lifestyle," the Dawn said.

Pakistan's industrialist Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif paid Rs 2.195 million (Rs 1 million equals $9,580) as income tax while his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif paid Rs 7.609 million.

Shahbaz Sharif's son Hamza paid Rs 6.33 million. The Prime Minister's son-in-law, retired Captain Muhammad Safdar, paid only Rs 49,902 as income tax.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan, who lives in a palatial farmhouse, paid Rs 76,244 as tax during the year and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Fazlur Rehman paid a paltry Rs 49,902, the daily reported.

The directory has been compiled on the basis of returns filed by the parliamentarians. The Dawn said some legislators had not filed their tax returns for the year.
Patna: Former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Shahabuddin on Saturday walked out of jail after 11 years.

The criminal-turned-politician walked out of Bhagalpur Central Jail after Patna High Court granted him bail in the much-publicised Rajiv Raushan murder case.

Speaking to mediapersons, Shahabuddin reiterated that it the case was a conspiracy against him and framed.

We all know I was framed. But it was Court who jailed me, court has released me, the ex-RJD MP said.

Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and "We all are standing solidly behind him."

The RJD strongman mocked at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying, he is a CM as a result of circumstances.

To a question on senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi's allegation that the Grand Secular Alliance government had paved way for his release as RJD is the major partner in it, Shahabuddin said, "There is no need to take Sushil Modi seriously."

"During his early days in Bihar Assembly in the 1990s I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts," he said.

The controversial RJD leader was granted bail in a case of murder of a witness in the killing of two brothers in Siwan by bathing them in acid.

The petitioner's counsel YV Giri told the court that the allegation against the RJD strongman and four-term former MP from Siwan in the killing of witness Rajiv Roshan was baseless as he was lodged in Bhagalpur jail since 2014 while the incident took place in Siwan the next year.

In a chilling incident, two brothers were killed in Siwan in 2004 by bathing them in acid. Their elder brother Rajiv Roshan who was an eyewitness in the case was shot dead in 2015.

In May, Shahabuddin was shifted from Siwan district jail to Bhagalpur Central Jail after the murder of Hindustan newspaper`s journalist Rajdeo Ranjan.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders alleged that Shahabuddin had been pulling the strings from the jail in Siwan and had played a role in the killing of Ranjan.

Ranjan, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindustan, was shot dead in May in a busy market near the Station Road in the district.

Shahabuddin was lodged in Siwan jail for over a decade. He has twice been shifted to the Bhagalpur and Gaya jails for brief periods only.
New Delhi: Alleging harassment, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Amanatullah Khan on Saturday wrote to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to relieve him from Delhi Waqf Board and all other government positions, an ANI report said.

In a letter written to CM Kejriwal, Khan said, "I have been working wholeheartedly to serve people of Delhi. But some people are not liking my honesty and dedication. False allegations have been levelled against me and my family members. I, therefore would like to get relieved of all responsibilities party has given me and hence, I resign from all posts."

Today, Amanatullah Khan's sister-in-law has filed a complaint against him alleging eve teasing, at Jamia police station in Delhi. Police have registered an FIR against him.

Khan was arrested in July for allegedly threatening a 35-year-old woman with dire consequences, but was later granted bail.

The AAP legislator from Okhla constituency found himself in the eye of a major controversy in March this year for his alleged hate speech against the Modi government.

However, according to another media party, the Kejriwal-led AAP refused to accept Khan's resignation.

No official statement has been given on the matter yet.

AAP, which was formally launched in 2012, is currently embroiled in several controversies.
New Delhi: Hours after Amanatullah Khan offered to quit from all party posts, claiming political witch-hunt against him, the Delhi Police on Saturday book the AAP legislator on charges of sexual harassment of his brother-in-law's wife.

The Delhi Police on Saturday lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against Khan claiming that he pressurised the wife of his brother-in-law for establishing a physical relationship.

"Khan is booked under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) Section 506 (criminal intimidation) Section 498 A (relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and criminal conspiracy," IANS quoted a senior police officer as saying.

Earlier in the day, at a press conference held in the AAP office here, Khan denied the charges and said that he was having "no connection with the woman at all".

Following a complaint by his brother-in-law's wife, a FIR was lodged against Khan at the Jamia Nagar police station in south Delhi.

Khan has also wrote to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to relieve him from Delhi Waqf Board and all other government positions.

In a letter written to Kejriwal, Khan said, "I have been working wholeheartedly to serve people of Delhi. But some people are not liking my honesty and dedication. False allegations have been levelled against me and my family members. I, therefore would like to get relieved of all responsibilities party has given me and hence, I resign from all posts."

Although there is no official communique in this regard, Kejriwal has reportedly refused to accept his resignation.

In July this year, Khan was arrested for allegedly threatening a 35-year-old woman with dire consequences, but was later granted bail.

The AAP legislator from Okhla constituency also had found himself in the eye of a major controversy in March this year for his alleged hate speech against the Modi government.

AAP, which was formally launched in 2012, is currently embroiled in several controversies.

The latest scandal comes to light, after AAP's social justice minister Sandeep Kumar was sacked a few days ago following a woman's rape complaint against him. The incident came to light after the media got hold of a CD showing the AAP leader in a compromising position with the woman.
Ahmedabad: A Muslim vegetable vendor has been brutally hacked to death by a group of boys in Gujarat, triggering panic among the local residents. The incident apparently took place in a congested neighbourhood. The accused have been demanding ransom from the vendor after he reportedly purchased a house in their locality.

Watch video here:
Chandigarh: Facing flak over the biryani checks in Mewat ahead of Eid, Haryana minister Anil Vij on Saturday said all seven samples were found containing beef and questioned how the Opposition which had backed the law banning cow slaughter could object to its implementation.

Insisting that the issue should not be linked to a particular community, he said, "We are not against Muslims", and added that samples can be lifted from anywhere in the state and not just Mewat to implement the law.

The minister said a proper process was followed to collect samples of biryani and test them for beef in a state laboratory.

"All seven biryani samples tested positive for beef. The tests were conducted at the laboratory in Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and the Animal Sciences, Hisar.

"The samples were lifted under the supervision of a veterinary surgeon. A proper procedure was followed to test them. The tests were conducted by an expert. She has submitted her report," Vij said.

Lashing out at the opposition, he said they were politicising the issue.

"The government is implementing the law of the land and the move should not be linked to any particular community or religion. We are not against Muslims," he said.

"We enacted a law. Congress and all other parties also passed it. Now, if we take any action to protect that law, they try to rake up a controversy," he alleged.

"The opposition parties want to politicise the issue, which is very wrong...They are trying to disturb peace and brotherhood for their vested interests," the Health Minister alleged.

Vij was reacting to the remarks of Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala who had yesterday alleged that the whole controversy "being generated" over beef in Mewat reflected "a sinister conspiracy" to target and persecute people belonging to a particular religion.

"Now, another controversy being raked is that the presence of beef cannot be confirmed in samples of cooked food. This is wrong. It takes time. There is different method for testing cooked food samples," the Minister said.

"The samples were collected based on specific inputs. It is not Mewat in particular, we can lift samples from anywhere if there is suspicion," he said.

The state government had last year enacted the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gau Samvardhan Act, making cow slaughter punishable with rigorous imprisonment up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
Chandigarh: One of the Mewat gang-rape victims has alleged that their attackers were cow vigilantes but the Haryana police on Saturday said no evidence has so far come to fore suggesting that the four accused arrested in the case were part of any cow protection group.

The family of the victims alleged that they had informed the police personnel about the cow vigilantes but they chose to ignore it.

"They (attackers) asked us 'you eat cow meat'. We said 'no'. They then said 'you eat cow meat'. They said 'we are killing you because you eat cow'.

"We told this to the police but they are not doing anything," one of the two victims said.

A couple was murdered and two girls from the family allegedly gang-raped after the accused had barged into their house in the wee hours on August 25 in a village in Mewat district.

"I need justice. They have killed by son and daughter-in-law. They have gang-raped my grand-daughters. The way police has behaved, we have no hope," said a relative of the victims.

Police said that the investigation in the case is still on and so far they have not found any link with cow vigilantes.

"So far there is no such evidence of them (accused) being cow vigilantes or being part of cow vigilante group," Inspector General of Police, South Range, Rewari, Mamta Singh said.

She, however, said that investigations in the case was continuing.

Singh said that the case has been recommended to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

On August 28, Haryana Police had arrested four youths in connection with incident.

The accused had also ransacked the house, an isolated structure located in the middle of farmland, and fled with some valuables including cash.

After committing the crime, the accused had tied the injured with ropes and escaped from the spot. Some residents living nearby found the injured after which the police was informed.
New Delhi: The annual five-day Haj pilgrimage begins on Saturday.

In the pilgrimage, millions of Muslims from across the world trek from holy city of Mecca to assemble in Mina in Saudi Arabia.

They will spend the night there and move towards the plains of Arafat at dawn tomorrow for the day`s main ritual of Haj-reciting prayers.

The pilgrims will spend the day there praying. Nearly 1, 36,000 Indians are performing Haj this year.
New Delhi: Hours after BJP senior leader Subramanian Swamy stirred a controversy by claiming that Islamic preacher Zakir Naiks NGO donated Rs 50 lakh to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, a face-off was witnessed between BJP and Congress party on Saturday.

Mounting a sharp attack on Congress, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused "vested interests" within the UPA government of protecting Naik as he showed a purported reply by then I&B Minister Manish Tewari in the Lok Sabha in 2012 where he had named Naik's Peace TV as among 24 illegal foreign channels whose contents were not conducive to India's security environment.

He asked Congress why it did not return the donation given to it in 2011 when its own government had expressed security concern with regard to Naik's TV channel.

Prasad also raised doubts over Congress' claim that the money was returned a few months back, saying the NGO has denied having received the money.

At a press conference, Prasad also quoted from the then Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan's letter to Tewari in February 2013 in which he termed Naik as a "renowned Islamic scholar" and sought the government's protection for him from campaigns run by a regional channel and a Hindu group.

"Those lobbying for him were at high positions in Congress. Why should not this apprehension be raised that this Rs 50 lakh was a bribe to powers that be to shelter its illegal, anti-national activities," he said.

He noted that besides Sonia Gandhi being the RGF's chairperson, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were among its members.

Attacking the Congress, Prasad claimed the party's utter hypocrisy and disregard for national security is a matter of shame and dismay.

Asked what the NDA government will do regarding the matter, he said a proper enquiry will be conducted.

"There cannot be a more shameful thing for the Congress to say that it had received money and returned...Whether the money has been returned or not is a matter between them. But what is source of money? Is there a violation of law? It amounts to playing with the national security."

"Congress party in the past has hesitated in acting against terrorists for votes but it is shameful that an organisation abetting terrorism had access to the top echelons of the organisation," he alleged.



Mounting a sharp attack on Congress, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused "vested interests" within the UPA government of protecting Naik as he showed a purported reply by then I&B Minister Manish Tewari in the Lok Sabha in 2012 where he had named Naik's Peace TV as among 24 illegal foreign channels whose contents were not conducive to India's security environment.

He asked Congress why it did not return the donation given to it in 2011 when its own government had expressed security concern with regard to Naik's TV channel.

Prasad also raised doubts over Congress' claim that the money was returned a few months back, saying the NGO has denied having received the money.

At a press conference, Prasad also quoted from the then Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan's letter to Tewari in February 2013 in which he termed Naik as a "renowned Islamic scholar" and sought the government's protection for him from campaigns run by a regional channel and a Hindu group.

"Those lobbying for him were at high positions in Congress. Why should not this apprehension be raised that this Rs 50 lakh was a bribe to powers that be to shelter its illegal, anti-national activities," he said.

He noted that besides Sonia Gandhi being the RGF's chairperson, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were among its members.

Attacking the Congress, Prasad claimed the party's utter hypocrisy and disregard for national security is a matter of shame and dismay.

Asked what the NDA government will do regarding the matter, he said a proper enquiry will be conducted.

"There cannot be a more shameful thing for the Congress to say that it had received money and returned...Whether the money has been returned or not is a matter between them. But what is source of money? Is there a violation of law? It amounts to playing with the national security."

"Congress party in the past has hesitated in acting against terrorists for votes but it is shameful that an organisation abetting terrorism had access to the top echelons of the organisation," he alleged.

Targeting Naik's NGO Islamic Research Foundation, he said it cannot distribute money like alms to other NGOs and asked if it had obtained prior permission from the Home Ministry for donative a big sum like Rs 50 lakh to RGF.

The Union Minister referred to the terrorists allegedly influenced by Naik to target the televangelist.

Yesterday, the senior BJP leader had claimed that Zakir Naiks NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) had donated Rs 50 lakh to RGCT in 2011 but the home ministry found nothing wrong with the transaction.

Taking to Twitter, Swamy had said:

Guess how that notorious terrorist compliant Zakir Naik gave to TDK's RG Foundation? Rs 50 lakes in 2011  Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 9, 2016

The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was established in 1991 to realise the vision of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi are trustees of RGCT.

Earlier today, the IRF rejected the bribe allegations and said that the money donated by the RGCT was returned after it came to light that Naik was involved in conversions.

The donation to RGCT is just one of the several donations the IRF makes to NGOs of similar nature for education of the girl child and higher education in medicine.
New Delhi: The Pakistani security agencies have reportedly launched a full-scale crackdown on the civilian populace of Balochistan, particularly the political activists, as part of a military operation to crush the voice of dissent.

A prominent Baloch political outfit has claimed that the troops have attacked civilians and even abducted people in the ongoing operations.

and has called on the international community to take steps to stop Islamabad's human rights abuses in Balochistan.

"In many parts of Nasirabad District, Pak forces have carried out attacks. Baloch civilians have been harassed and many have been abducted," Abdul Nawaz Bugti, the representative of Baloch Republican Party at the United Nations Human Rights Council, said.

"In different parts of Dera Bugti, Baloch civil populace have been attacked and more than 19 Baloch civilians, including women and children, all belonging to same family have been abducted," Bugti told ANI in a video message.

He also said Pakistani security personnel were laying siege to the house of a political worker in the Turbat area for four days.

"His family, mostly women and children, is starving and Pakistani forces have denied access to them," Bugti said.

He said that Pakistani forces use such tactics to compel Baloch political activists who have gone underground to resurface. And when they do so, they are abducted, tortured or killed, he alleged.

"It is time that international media raise their voices and help save baloch from the inhuman atrocities committed by the Pakistani forces on a daily basis in Balochistan," he added.

Bugti's Twitter timeline is reportedly filled with tweets that are updates of the actions of Pakistani security personnel in Balochistan.

According to Times of India, there are also discussions on his timeline about whether the fresh wave of military operations is a result of PM Modi's mention of Pakistan's human rights abuses in Balochistan.

The report said that when some people questioned on whether PM Modi's mention of Balochistan has had a negative effect on Baloch people, Bugti tweeted, "It hasn't. Pakistani atrocities have always been there. The positive thing now is that the world knows about them."

In his Independence Day speech, PM Modi had said that if Islamabad continued to arm and encourage violence in Kashmir, New Delhi would be forced to highlight its human rights abuses in Balochistan.

PM Modi's statement were widely welcomed by various Baloch outfits and activists, and also shaken Islamabad, which has for long accused India's Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) of supporting the Baloch struggle. India however has denied these allegations.
Mumbai: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, facing the allegation of 'radicalising' youths, on Saturday asked the government what exactly has he done to get the tag of "Dr Terror" and sought "logical answers" to charges levelled against him.

In a four-page "open letter" released here, Naik posed five questions to the government as to what he has done to earn the tags of "terror preacher", "Dr Terror".

"Why now? I have been preaching for 25 years not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of 'terror preacher', 'Dr Terror'? Of 150 countries where I am respected, I am called a 'terrorist influencer' in my own country. What an irony!," the 50-year-old televangelist asked.

"Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigators are being asked to repeat and continue the probe. Why?" he sought to know.

On the government's action against his NGO, he asked why would the government renew IRF's FCRA registration and then cancel it? And that it seemed "illogical".

"Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA? Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media?" the letter said.

Naik, a medical doctor-turned Salafist preacher, said the entire row in the last few months have come as a "shock" to him and termed it as "murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights".

"This is not just an attack on me, it is an attack against Indian Muslims. And it is an attack against peace, democracy and justice," Naik wrote in the letter.

On allegations of forced conversion, Naik, who has been away from the country for over two months, said, "While chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement? Isn't this person the most basic proof of forced conversion?"

The founder of Peace TV, run by his Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Naik has come under the scanner of security agencies after a Bangladeshi newspaper had reported that one of the attackers of the July 1 terror strike in Dhaka was "inspired" by his speeches.Naik said if his NGO was banned, it will be the biggest jolt to demoncracy in India.

"IRF and I have been 'set up' for a ban. And if that happens, if IRF and I are banned, it will be the biggest jolt to the country's democracy in recent times. I do not say this just for me but because this ban will set a precedence of unspeakable injustices against the 20 crore Muslims of India."

Naik said he was open to any investigation and "harshest of punishments" if found guilty.

"I still have faith in the judiciary and I know that truth will ultimately prevail. But it may come at a huge price if the current actions are not checked. My appeal to the government ? be fair in your investigation. Be fair in what you allege. Be truthful with facts," he said.
Srinagar: Kashmir remained shut gor the 64th consecutive day on saturday with authorities deploying security personnel in Srinagar and other places in the Valley to maintain law and order.

Clashes, however, broke in old city areas of Srinagar when an alleged state government driver was beaten to death by the security forces.

Police spokesman has refuted the allegation saying that the driver had died in a road accident.

Meanwhile, sources here said the army has started mobilisation of soldiers to south Kashmir areas where anti-militancy operations had remained suspended for over two months because of public demonstrations and clashes.

Chief of Army General Dalbir Singh is presently on a two-day visit to the Valley.

Sources said the Army Chief's visit has been timed with the decision taken by the central government that without getting directly involved in crowd control, the army should help the civil administration re-establish authority in places like south Kashmir.

Crowds in south Kashmir have defied curfews and restrictions during the last 64 days.

All educational institutions, main markets and public transport continues to remain shut.
Srinagar: Two men were killed in fresh clashes with security forces on Saturday in the Kashmir Valley that remained shut for the 64th day.

Police said the deaths occurred in two south Kashmir villages where hundreds took out demonstrations defying restrictions on the assembly of four or more people.

Security forces fired tear gas canisters, pellets and cane charged the protesters, several of whom were injured in Tukroo village of Shopian and Botengoo village of Anantnag, police said.

The deceased were identified as Sayar Ahmed Sheikh, 25, and Yawar Ahmed, 23.

Sheikh, according to police, was hit on the head by a flying tear gas shell. The Shopian man was removed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, a police spokesperson said.

Ahmed, according to health officials, received pellet injuries in his chest and abdomen during a clash. He was also declared dead on the arrival at an Anantnag hospital.

With this, the death toll rose to 78 in the ongoing turmoil that has rocked the Kashmir Valley since the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.

Over 12,000 civilians and security personnel have been injured in the unrest that began a day after Wani's killing.

The valley has been observing a separatist-called shutdown for over two months.

The fresh violence came as hundreds of soldiers had started moving towards south Kashmir -- the worst hit region in the unending cycle of violence -- to help the civil administration re-establish authority in the valley.

The sources said the army had suspended its anti-militancy operations in the south for over two months because of the street unrest.

The fresh deployment of soldiers is to resume the counter-terrorism operations, the sources said. They said the army had been told not to get into mob control unless it came under attack by stone-throwing protesters.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh is presently on a two-day visit to the Kashmir Valley. The sources said the chief's visit has been timed with the decision to move the army to the southern region.

On Saturday, curfew continued at many places in the valley to foil separatist-called protest rallies.

But people at various places, including in Srinagar, took out rallies, shouting anti-government and pro-freedom slogans.
Srinagar: Two persons were killed in fresh clashes with security forces on Saturday in south Kashmir as the government moved in soldiers to help restore normalcy in the worst hit region of the valley that remained shut for the 64th day.

Police said the deaths occurred in two south Kashmir villages where hundreds of people took out demonstrations defying restrictions on the assembly of four or more persons.

Security forces fired tear gas canisters, pellets and cane charged the protesters, several of whom were injured in Tukroo village of Shopian and Botengoo village of Anantnag, police said.

The deceased were identified as Sayar Ahmed Sheikh, 25, and Yawar Ahmed, 23.

Sheikh, according to police, was hit on the head by a flying tear gas shell. The Shopian man was removed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, a police spokesperson said.

Ahmed, according to health officials, received pellet injuries in his chest and abdomen during a clash. He was also declared dead on the arrival at an Anantnag hospital.

With this, the death toll rose to 78 in the ongoing turmoil that has rocked the Kashmir Valley since the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.

Over 12,000 civilians and security personnel have been injured in the unrest that began a day after Wani`s killing.

The valley has been observing a separatist-called shutdown for over two months. On Saturday, curfew continued at many places in the valley to foil separatist-called protest rallies. But people at various places, including in Srinagar, took out rallies, shouting anti-government and pro-freedom slogans.

The fresh violence came as hundreds of soldiers had started moving towards Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag -- the worst hit south Kashmir districts in the unending cycle of violence -- to help the civil administration re-establish authority in the valley.

Nearly 60 deaths have occurred in the south which has been the epicentre of the street violence after Wani was killed in a hideout also in this region.

The sources said the army had suspended its anti-militancy operations in the south for over two months because of the street unrest.

The fresh deployment of soldiers is to resume the counter-terrorism operations, the sources said. They said the army had been told not to get into mob control unless it came under attack by stone-throwing protesters.

Government sources said that the army would be launching a massive anti-terror operation in south Kashmir as the authorities believe that militant leaders in Pakistan were directly sponsoring the agitation through their foot soldiers and overground workers in the valley.

In Delhi, BJP leader and its Kashmir point man Ram Madhav agreed. He said United Jehad Council commander Syed Salahuddin who also heads the Hizbul Mujahideen group was masterminding the street unrest through hardline Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

"It is led by Syed Salahuddin and certain sections get influenced by him. Geelani is leading the campaign in the valley. There is no doubt about that. But the real masterminds are from across the border," Madhav told India Today TV in an interview.
Bengaluru: Karnataka on Saturday filed a special petition in the Supreme Court seeking it modify its order on releasing Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu in view of the distress situation, a state minister said.

"Our lawyers have filed the petition in the Supreme Court for modifying its September 5 order, which directed Karnataka to release daily 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for 10 days from September 7. As our reservoirs in the river basin have insufficient water due to deficit rains, we are not in a position to release more water," state Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra told the media after an emergency cabinet meeting here.

Hoping that the apex curt would hear the special petition on Monday and respond favourably, the minister said though the state had been releasing 15,000 cusecs of water daily since September 7, the state would like the top court to reduce the quantum of release to 10,000 cusecs daily for six days as offered by the state earlier.

"As a goodwill gesture, we offered to release 10,000 cusecs daily for six days on September 5 after the apex court on September 2 asked us to specify how much we could release adopting a policy of live and let live," he said.

A division bench of the apex court headed by Justice Dipak Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit had asked the state to respond to Tamil Nadu`s plea for releasing 50 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of the river water to it as specified in the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal Award of 2013.

Though Karnataka challenged the tribunal award, which specified the state to release 192 tmcft of water every year to Tamil Nadu from June to December in a normal year, if the southwest monsoon is normal, it (tribunal) did not give a method or formula for sharing the water during distress due to deficit rains.

In a related development, the state government has also filed an application with the Cauvery Supervisory Committee in New Delhi, expressing its inability to release more water than it had offered as the reservoirs in the river basin had just enough water for drinking purpose in the Mysuru region till June next.

The combined storage of water in Kabini, Krishna Raja Sagar, Harangi and Hemavathi reservoirs across the river basin was 115 tmcft, while the live storage is 104 tmcft on August 31 as against the normal flow of 216 tmcft.

A cusec, which is a measure of flow rate of water per second, is equivalent to a flow of 28.317 litres per second and 11,000 cusecs is equivalent to 1 tmcft.

The apex court constituted the Supervisory Committee in May 2013 as a pro-tem measure for implementing the Tribunal award, which the central government notified in February of 2013 and six years after the tribunal declared the award in February 2007.

This committee has Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekar as chairman while Chief Secretaries of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry are its members, besides officials from the Central Water Commission.

"We hope the Supervisory Committee would rush a fact-finding team to assess the water levels in the reservoirs and restrain Tamil Nadu from asking more water than we are able to release now," added Jayachandra.
Pune: A 45-year-old man allegedly hacked his mother, wife and two daughters to death in Sangli district of western Maharashtra in the wee hours today and later surrendered himself before police.

The deceased were identified as Sushila Irkar (60), her daughter-in-law Sindhubai Irkar (40) and Sindhubai's daughters Rupali (19) and Rani (16), all residents of a village in Jat tehsil of Sangli, police said.

"The accused, Bharat Irkar, took all four victims to their farms in the wee hours on the pretext of some work and allegedly hacked them to death with sharp weapons. He later surrendered himself at the police station," inspector attached to Jat police station, said.

"We are still investigating the motive behind the murder. However, prima facie, it seems that there was some dispute within the family," he added.

The accused has two sons-- aged 14 and 11-- the officer said, adding, "But they survived as they had gone to their relatives' place to study since there were no electricity in their house on Friday night."

Further investigation into the case is on.
New Delhi: From the past 58 years, NASA has always amazed us with its incredible space-digging discoveries. With a legion of groundbreaking discoveries and observations, the US space agency has provided us with many modern conveniences that we usually take for granted.

Due to lack of information, many people consider that NASA discoveries are only good for budding astronomers, students and space enthusiasts and they are of no use in everyday life. That is why, the space giant is often criticized for increasing the burden of the US taxpayers.

Well, the truth is that NASA's innovations, that are the result of cosmos explorations, has dramatically changed the lives of human beings. And to prove this point, every year since 1970s, NASA publishes a list of space technologies that have been amalgamated into everyday usage.

Here's a list of some NASA's unique functions that have drastically improved life on the Earth:

Memory foam:

All of us should thank NASA for this super safety and super comforting invention. Temper foam, popularly known as Memory form was invented by Charles Yost, a NASA aeronautical engineer in 1970s to improve seat cushioning and crash prevention for airline pilots and passengers. During space journeys, seats made by Yost's plastic provide extra support to the astronauts by absorbing some of the pressure caused by the G-force. They are made up of open cell polyurethane-silicon plastic that reduces the impact during landing. The best part of this foam is that they take their original shape even after being compressed to 10% of its original shape.

It was only in 1990's that the healthy sleeping benefits of memory foam was identified after that it suddenly became an increasingly popular material for sleeping mattresses. Foam based mattresses came as a big relief from traditional coil and spring mattresses as it keep our spine in correct alignment, no matter what position we sleep in.

Scratch resistant glasses:

Almost all big sunglasses brands today make use scratch-resistent glasses that are not only lighter in weight but also provide better shatter resistance. NASA invented these glasses as an abrasion-resistant coating for space helmets and aerospace equipment. NASA scientist Ted Wydeven of the agency's Ames Research Center while working on a water purification system for spacecraft created protective coatings of plastics that was surprisingly tough. In 1983, Foster Grant, a sunglass manufacturer licensed this technology from NASA and commercialized the use of scratch-resistant coating in eyeglasses.

A drone that fights forest fires:

NASA's Ikhana drone aircraft took its maiden flight in 2007 to provide firefighters real-time information about the devastating wildfires that was spreading throughout the state of California. During its two-year mission, the drone aircraft helped firefighters to identify hundreds of small fires in that were in early stages development and respond quickly before they get out of hand.

Because of this unmanned aerial system, wildlife agencies evacuated many at-risk populations and saved lives. Recently, NASA updated Ikhana to carry out various Earth science mission.

A capsule that rescued Chilean Miners:

This tragic incident took place in 2010 when 33 Chilean miners got trapped under the stone walls of a Chilean copper mine for more than two months. People across the world extended their help as Chilean government sought assistance from several organizations for how to help the trapped miners. Among them was an emergency team from NASAs Engineering and Safety Center who developed a unique capsule-like vehicle that helped the trapping miners in bringing back to the surface one-by-one.

Medical technologies and researches:

There are fair chances that many of us have used NASA technologies for health-related issues without even realizing it. Since its inception, NASA has contributed in many medical breakthroughs like infrared ear thermometers, improved artificial limbs etc. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pioneered the development of imaging techniques such as the CAT scan and the MRI. It's latest research in the field of human physiology aboard the International Space Station is providing key insight into diseases of gravity in a zero-g environment. Medical experts believe that in future Zero-g research may pave the way for the production of ultra-pure drugs on the Earth.

Flourishing Farming in America

Many of us would never thought of associating NASA with farming. But the US space agency proved us wrong by helping U.S. farmers plan the best use of land and crops. In four decades Landsat satellites revolutionized remote sensing by providing land-change images. In Rovert Mondavi Winery in California, Landsat played a major role in monitoring 400-acres of land. According to NASA, the company rely on Landsat data to check whether their vines and trees are getting enough (or too much) water and fertilizer. The resolution and regularity of the satellite data is crucial for them. The satellite makes use of "push-broom" technology, in which a sensor uses long arrays of light-sensitive detectors to collect information across the field of view,
Muzaffarnagar: Four persons were injured in a clash between two groups over collecting water from hand pump at Banat town in Shamli district, police said today.

Lokendra and Islam had an argument over collecting water from hand pump following which their supporters clashed with sticks and firearms last evening, Circle Officer Nishank Sharma said.

Rahul, Palegram, Lokendra and Nitu were injured in the incident and later hospitalised, he said.

Security has been tightened and additional police force deployed in the area, the circle officer said.
Paris: Three "radicalised and fanatical" women, who were arrested here for allegedly planning an "imminent and violent" attack in France, were guided by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Syria, Francois Molins, Paris prosecutor said on Friday.

"In the last few days and hours a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly IS ideology," Xinhua quoted Molins as saying.

"They were guided by individuals in Syria in the ranks of Islamic State ... that intends to use women as combatants," he added, noting that the IS has used even young women who develop their plot from distance.

"This commando's objective was clearly to carry out an attack," Molins said.

On Sunday, a Peugeot 607 containing seven gas cylinders, including an empty one on the front passenger seat and three cans of diesel fuel was found near the famous tourist place Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Earlier in the day, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that an anti-terrorism operation led to the arrest of three women linked to an abandoned car containing gas cylinders on Thursday.

The suspects aged 19, 23 and 39 were "likely preparing a violent and imminent action", he said.

A police officer was injured on the shoulder when one of the women attacked him with a knife in the southeast of Paris, the minister said.

The 19-year-old woman is known to the police for attempting to leave for Syria.

Molins said the youngest of the three women and also the daughter of the car owner, had written a letter pledging allegiance to the IS group.

The 23-year-old suspect was also on the intelligence services watch list for radicalisation.

Previously she has been engaged to Larossi Abballa, who killed two policemen in June and after to Adel Kermiche, one of the men who slaughtered the murder of a priest in July, according to Paris prosecutor.

Her fiance and a 15-year-old teenage, a daughter of one of the suspects were also arrested in connection of the foiled attack near the cathedral.
Beirut: A day of intense airstrikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists.

The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 people were killed Saturday, just hours after the new US-Russian agreement was reached to try and end the violence in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Aleppo province and another 39 were killed by airstrikes in neighboring Idlib province.

Contrasting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of large attacks in Syria.

The United States and Russia announced a deal today that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.

Previous Syrian cease-fires or limited truces have also been preceded by spikes in violence as both government and rebel forces seek to consolidate positions or gain new ground in the final remaining hours of warfare.

State news agency SANA said the Syrian government accepts the agreement, adding that hostilities will stop in the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, for "humanitarian reasons." It did not say when the violence will stop, adding that the U.S.-Russia agreement "was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government."

Today's violence shows that it might be difficult to implement the U.S.-Russia agreement as both countries enjoy limited influence on the government and insurgent groups to cease the bombardment.

A cease-fire reached by the two world powers earlier this year and put into effect in late February failed shortly afterward and was followed by months of violence the killed thousands.

Russia is a main backer of Assad's government while the US has been supporting rebel groups trying to remove him from power. Syria's conflict, now in its sixth year, has continued despite several rounds of peace talks and international attempts to try end the violence. At least a quarter million people have been killed and half the country's prewar population displaced.

Today's air raids were mostly in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Aleppo has been the center of violence in Syria in recent months where some 2,200 people, including some 700 civilians, have been killed since last July according to the Observatory, which tracks violence in Syria through a network of activists on the ground.
District of Columbia: President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.

"In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

"We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society," he added.

"Because it`s our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly-no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith-that`s part of what makes our country great. It`s what makes us resilient," Obama said.

"And if we stay true to those values, we`ll uphold the legacy of those we`ve lost, and keep our nation strong and free."

On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump`s bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.

Following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California for example, Trump called for a temporary ban on the entry to the United States of all Muslims.

Obama was speaking two months before the presidential election in which real estate magnate Trump will face Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001 -- the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries -- ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York`s financial wealth and confidence.

Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Evoking "one of the darkest in our nation`s history," Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.

"We delivered justice to (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden. We`ve strengthened our homeland security. We`ve prevented attacks. We`ve saved lives," Obama said.

But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, "the terrorist threat has evolved."

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we`ll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and [the Islamic State group] ISIL.

"We will destroy them. And we`ll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," Obama said.
Washington: Republican Donald Trump delivered a call to arms for US conservatives on Friday, urging them to vote en masse on Election Day to defeat White House rival Hillary Clinton.

The Democratic former secretary of state meanwhile met in New York with a bipartisan panel of experts to discuss issues of terrorism and national security that the next president will likely face.

Both candidates are seeking to appear presidential and fire up their supporters as the November 8 election day approaches.

Trump was the star at a Washington gathering of grassroots activists, conservative stalwart lawmakers, and leaders in the anti-abortion and religious freedom movements.

He sought to lock up a commitment from the key evangelical and social conservative voting bloc, four years after millions of them stayed home instead of supporting Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

"In a Trump administration, our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended like you`ve never seen before," Trump said to a rousing ovation.

"You have to get out and vote on November 8. You didn`t vote four years ago," he admonished the crowd. "You didn`t vote."

Trump`s attendance at the Values Voter Summit highlights how conservatives want social issues like abortion discussed in the presidential campaign.

Trump is under pressure to convince these activists of his own conservative values.

Trump however largely steered clear of the sensitive issue of abortion, perhaps realizing that he also needs to court moderate and independent voters as he trails Clinton in most polls.In that vein, his campaign has taken steps to distance the Republican nominee from his years-long propagation of the "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States.

"He believes President Obama was born here... He was born in Hawaii," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN.

Her comments came a day after Trump surrogate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani made similar statements.

Trump himself has so far refused to clearly acknowledge the legitimacy of Obama`s presidency.

The real estate magnate was the most prominent early proponent of a theory that Obama, the nation`s first black president, was not born in the United States and therefore, under the US Constitution, ineligible to be commander in chief.

Trump embraced the long-debunked "birther movement" in early 2011, eager to push the theory as a way to connect with white conservatives and catapult himself to prominence while he mulled his own run for the White House.

Trump also blasted Clinton for a second straight day as a "trigger-happy" top diplomat who emboldened North Korea into conducting yet another nuclear test and put Iran on the path to atomic weapons.

Speaking later in Florida he derided Clinton as "the candidate of the past," and promised that a Trump administration would dramatically strengthen the US military and pursue trade policies that would keep jobs at home.

"The history book is closing on the failed politicians of yesterday," Trump proclaimed. "A new chapter is beginning, and this chapter will be authored by you, the American people."Clinton meanwhile held a working session on terrorism and national security with a group of experts that included ousted former CIA director David Petraeus, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan John Allen and former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen.

"I asked them to join me for a candid conversation about some of the most challenging issues facing our country because I believe that America`s national security must be the top priority for our next president," she said after the meeting.

"I support more special forces, enablers and trainers, as needed, intelligence gathering and reconnaissance" in the battle against jihadists, she said.

The meeting came two days before the country marks the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

Clinton, who at the time was a US senator representing New York, will attend the ceremony Sunday at Ground Zero "to pay her respects," a campaign aide said.

Separately, Trump`s running mate Mike Pence released 10 years of tax returns, even though his billionaire boss refuses to do so.

The Trump campaign said that the candidate "plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit."

The Clinton campaign quickly fired back. "Why won`t Trump release his tax returns and what is he hiding?" it asked in a statement, suggesting that Trump fears showing that he is worth less than he claims, that he has paid no income tax in years, and that he is deeply in debt.
Washington: Early voting for the 2016 US presidential election kicked off on Friday in North Carolina, ushering in a two-month period of advance voting before the final results will be tallied on Election Day on November 8.

From Friday on, North Carolina residents could submit absentee ballots by mail and in-person early voting would begin late October, Xinhua news agency reported.

Thirty-seven US states plus the District of Columbia allow voters to cast a ballot ahead of Election Day without having to offer an excuse to do so.

In recent election cycles, early voting, including mail-in ballots and in-person early voting, had become increasingly popular among various kinds of voters, with the share of voters who cast advance ballots increasing from 16 percent in 2000 to 35 per cent in 2012.

It is estimated that about 40 per cent of voters could choose early voting this year.
Indre: French investigators were on Saturday probing a group of women arrested on suspicion of plotting new jihadist attacks, including an attempted car bomb near Paris`s Notre Dame cathedral.

An examining magistrate was being asked to place a suspect, named as 29-year-old Ornella G., under formal investigation over the would-be attack in the heart of historic Paris.

A woman linked to Ornella G. was also part of a suspected trio of women jihadists foiled by the authorities before they could carry out a fresh attack, investigators said.

Ornella G.`s fingerprints were found in a Peugeot car abandoned last Sunday a few hundred metres (yards) from Notre Dame with five gas cylinders and three bottles of diesel fuel inside, according to the probe.

Ornella G., who was on security service files for plans to get to Syria, was arrested in southern France on Tuesday with her partner, who was later released, investigators said.

Police on Thursday also arrested her alleged accomplice southeast of Paris -- Ines Madani, 19, the daughter of the owner of the car. Madani also allegedly pledged an oath to IS.

The reason why the car was not detonated are unclear.

Investigators told AFP Ornella G. and Madani had apparently tried to set fire to the vehicle but "fled when they saw a man they believed to be a plain-clothes policeman."

Two other women, aged 23 and 39, were arrested with Madani.

The trio had been plotting another attack, and were looking at train stations in Paris and south of the Paris, as well as the police, as potential targets, an unofficial source said.They were guided by the IS in Syria, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday.

"A terrorist cell made up of young women totally receptive to the deadly ideology of Daesh has been dismantled," Molins said at a news conference, using a name for IS, which is also known by the acronyms of ISIS and ISIL.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Saturday that police had arrested 293 people this year for "links to terrorist networks."

"This amounts to networks that have been dismantled and attacks that have been prevented," Cazeneuve said on a trip to Chateauroux, central France.

The minister did not give further details about the arrests.

"We are involved in an extremely intense, round-the-clock mission to protect the French public, and we are getting results," Cazeneuve said.

Security is one of the hot issues in early campaigning for next year`s presidential elections.

A total of 238 people in France have been killed and hundreds wounded since January 2015 in a string of attacks attributed to, or fomented by, the Islamic State jihadist group.

Cazeneuve added that 17 foreigners had been expelled since the start of the year for posing a "serious threat to public order."

The latest was a Russian national, Mansur Kudusov, who was expelled to Russia on Friday after being jailed for for breaching house arrest, he said.

Kudusov`s lawyer said he was a Chechen born in 1991 who had arrived in France as a child and had been placed under house arrest in 2012.
Geneva: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the end of Syrian crisis talks had been delayed as US officials consulted Washington, and handed out pizza and vodka to waiting reporters.

Separately, a senior US official confirmed that Secretary of State John Kerry was in talks with his government on the results of efforts to strike a deal with Russia on a ceasefire in Syria.

Yesterday Moscow's envoy appeared briefly in a Geneva hotel ballroom room set aside for a news conference to mark the end of talks with Kerry but did not mount the podium that had been prepared.

Instead, in a brief chat with reporters, he said in English: "I believe it is important for them to check with Washington. That's why I apologise for the delay. We cannot help it.

"It's going to be announced very soon I think. I hope before Washington goes to sleep, we can get some news. My appeal to you is to be patient. Same as me," he added.

Later, Lavrov and his aides returned and distributed pizzas and a bag of bottles of vodka to the waiting reporters, apparently to relieve them after their long wait.

"The pizza is from the US delegation, we brought the vodka," Lavrov declared, as his aides distributed the bounty.

The United Nations envoy to the Syrian conflict also briefly entered the room to appeal for patience, but there was no sign of Kerry, who had earlier met with both Lavrov and UN envoy Staffan De Mistura.

Both Kerry and Lavrov had been expected to fly home later Friday, but all three officials said they still hoped to hold a news conference to announce the results of the negotiation.
San Diego: A wealthy Mexican businessman was convicted of illegally funneling more than half a million dollars to support two former San Diego mayoral candidates marking one of the federal government's largest cases against a foreigner secretly donating to US political campaigns.

The jury in federal court in San Diego returned guilty verdicts against Jose Susumo Azano yesterday, his son, Edward Susumo Azano Hester, and Washington political consultant, Ravneet Singh.

The scheme gave more than USD 500,000 to the 2012 campaigns of San Diego mayoral candidates Bonnie Dumanis and Bob Filner, according to court documents. Azano wanted to develop San Diego's waterfront with a marina for yachts, a five-star high-rise hotel and mixed-use residential development and wanted to ensure he had a mayor who would support those plans, according to prosecutors.

Assistant US Attorney Andrew Schopler quoted Azano as saying the city's "trailer park losers" and "a small town mentality" were impeding its waterfront development.

Lawyers for the defendants could not be reached for comment. Azano's attorney, Michael J. Wynne, said during the six-week-long trial that his client never had plans for such a development. He told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he plans to appeal. Singh's lawyer had told jurors his client had worked in Mexico with Azano and was unaware of Azano's plans in San Diego.

Dumanis, a Republican San Diego County District Attorney, lost the race. Former congressman Filner won but resigned after serving less than nine months as mayor amid sexual harassment allegations.

Dumanis testified that she thought Azano  who has a home in the nearby city of Coronado  was a legal resident but she said she had little memory of their interaction.

Azano arranged with his son and others to hide the contributions by having straw donors send the money to the campaigns, according to court documents. Azano and Singh also arranged for Azano to secretly pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars of services from Singh's campaign consulting company, and to use those services to benefit the campaigns.

In addition, Azano secretly funneled $30,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee through a conduit straw donor, prosecutors said.

No charges were filed against Dumanis or Filner in the case.

The three are scheduled to be sentenced in December.
United Nations: The UN Security Council has threatened to impose a new raft of sanctions against North Korea as it strongly condemned Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, terming it a "threat" to international peace and security.

The 15-member powerful UN body held urgent consultations here yesterday to address the "serious situation" arising from Korea's atomic test - believed to be its most powerful ever.

Strongly condemning the test, the Council said it is a clear violation and in flagrant disregard of Security Council resolutions and of the non-proliferation regime and "therefore a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist."

The Council members said they have previously expressed their determination to take "further significant measures" in the event of another nuclear test by North Korea.

"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures," they said.

The US and France urged the Council members to push ahead with new sanctions against North Korea, saying its repeated tests show "complete disregard" for international law.

Terming the latest nuclear test as "more than brazen defiance", US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the Council must send a "clear, united and strong message that the international community will never accept a nuclear North Korea. The Council must take further, decisive action that forces North Korea to change its calculus."

Power said the Council will take additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are "consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions."

China's UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi told reporters that "all sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation."

French envoy to the Franois Delattre said the latest nuclear test by North Korea is more than a grave provocation.

"North Korea will have to bear the consequences of its acts and provocations," he said, adding that more importantly, new sanctions are "indispensable."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and said, "This is yet another brazen breach of the resolutions of the Security Council."

"This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime," he stressed.

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo called the tests a frightening, unfortunate and serious breach of the norms adopted by the international community.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano called it a "deeply troubling and regrettable act".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra?ad Al Hussein also designated two independent human rights experts to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea Tomas Ojea Quintana.
A US court, on September 9, 2016, gave Hanjin Shipping provisional protection from US creditors, allowing ships to dock and unload at the country's ports

A US court has issued an order allowing South Korea's troubled Hanjin Shipping to unload some cargo without fear of creditors seizing its ships, a company spokesman said on Saturday.

As of late Friday, 92 of 141 ships being operated by the world's seventh largest shipping firm were stranded at sea.

They have been banned from docking in the US, China and many other countries until there are guarantees of payment for service firms and port workers.

The freight on the 92 ships is reportedly worth $14 billion, the Chosun Ilbo daily said. Much of it is destined for US stores before the Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping spree.

Some ships have been seized by its creditors, further complicating the problem.

Hanjin Shipping is seeking bankruptcy protection at home and in the US after creditors rejected its latest plan to deal with a $5.37 billion debt.

Its bankruptcy would be by far the largest in the history of container shipping, which is suffering its worst downturn in six decades because of slumping global trade and a slowdown in China

"The New Jersey bankruptcy court issued a stay order" aimed at protecting some ships from being seized by creditors, Hanjin spokesman Jang Jin-Hong told AFP.

Jang said the court granted the order after it was shown a plan by Hanjin Group to inject millions of dollars in emergency cash.

Consequently, four Hanjin container carriers out of the 92 had begun unloading, he said.

- 'No expertise' -

Hanjin Group, which includes flag carrier Korean Air, said this week it would inject 100 billion won ($90.4 million), including a personal donation of 40 billion won from its chairman and biggest shareholder Cho Yang-Ho, to help the shipping unit.

Korean Air would have contributed the remaining 60 billion won. But the bailout hit a snag when the airline board board failed to approve it for fear of a possible breach of trust to its own shareholders.

The Korean Air board was scheduled to meet again Saturday.

Hanjin, the largest South Korean shipping company, has seen its financial woes deepen since the 2008 global financial crisis.

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It posted a net loss of more than 473 billion won in the first half of this year alone, after racking up total net losses of about 1.2 trillion won over the past three years.

The shipping firm's previous owner Cho Su-Ho died in 2006 and his widow Choi Eun-Young, a housewife with little business experience, took the helm.

The firm's troubles are partly blamed on long-term charters for high fees which she agreed when global shipping was still booming.

At a parliamentary hearing Friday into the country's troubled shipbuilding and shipping industries, Choi shed tears and said she "keenly" felt her responsibility.

"I had no expertise as I had been stuck home as a housewife" she said.

Choi has been under investigation on charges that she was involved in an illegal insider dealing -- selling off her and her two daughters' shares before the company asked for a court receivership in August.
By Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - A fire at a food and cigarette packaging factory in Bangladesh killed at least 23 people and injured dozens on Saturday, in the country's worst industrial accident since the Rana Plaza building collapse of 2013 in which over 1,100 people died. Emergency officials feared the death toll could climb after a fire broke out in the Tongi industrial zone about 20 km (12 miles) north of the capital, Dhaka. The cause was not immediately known, but officials said a boiler explosion probably triggered the blaze at around 8 a.m. (0200 GMT) as workers prepared to swap shifts. "There were about 100 people inside the building when fire broke out," Mohammad Nayan, a worker who was helping with rescue efforts, told reporters. Officials at the site said over 20 fire fighting teams were working to quell the blaze at the Tampaco Foils plant, which caused the partial collapse of the factory building. "We cannot confirm whether any people are inside or not, but our priority is to rescue them if there is anyone inside," Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman, a fire department official at the site, told Reuters over the phone. Another fire official said that although the blaze was under control, there were still flames inside the building so fire fighters had been unable to search the debris. A manager at Tampaco Foils said he did not know how many people were inside the factory when the blaze broke out. "Now my only focus is on my workers who were injured and on those who died. We will take care of them," said Syed Mokbul Hossain, chair of Tampaco and a former member of parliament. "My company is fully compliant and I've never sacrificed on quality, as my clients are mainly multinational companies." Tampaco's website says its clients include several local companies and global brands including British American Tobacco and Nestle . Fire department officials initially identified the factory as a garment packaging plant, but later clarified that it packs food and cigarettes. The fire will further tarnish the industrial safety record of one of the world's top garment exporters. In the Rana Plaza disaster, 1,135 mainly garment industry workers were killed when a building collapsed outside Dhaka. That sparked demands for greater safety in the country and put the onus on multinational companies sourcing clothing from Bangladesh to act. The disaster led to the creation of two international coalitions designed to help fund improvements to building and fire safety at thousands of garment factories across Bangladesh. "So far our focus was only on readymade garment factories, but now this disaster has opened our eyes to the fact that we should also focus on other factories," Syed Ahmed, the head of the Department of Inspection for factories in Bangladesh, told Reuters. The latest incident comes weeks after over 100 people fell ill when they inhaled gas that leaked from a fertilizer plant in the town of Chittagong in southern Bangladesh. (Writing by Euan Rocha; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Clarence Fernandez)
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's energy regulator said on Friday that a panel assessing TransCanada Corp's proposed Energy East pipeline was quitting, a decision that will drag out an already-lengthy appraisal process. Critics had demanded two of three panel members quit after it emerged they had privately discussed the project last year with former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who was working for TransCanada as a consultant at the time. The regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB), said in a statement that the panel was stepping down "to preserve the integrity" of the board and the Energy East review. Although the panel members had talked to Charest and others in good faith, "they understand that their participation in these meetings may have created an apprehension of bias," which could undermine the board's credibility, the statement said. The announcement represents another challenge for the project, which is designed to carry 1.1 million barrels of crude per day from Alberta's oil sands to Canada's East Coast, where it can be sold onto more lucrative international markets. The push for Energy East came after U.S. President Barack Obama last November rejected TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline to the United States. Environmentalists fear the projects would spur development of Canada's carbon-intensive oil sands. The panel that quit had been probing the section of the pipeline that would cross the predominantly French-speaking eastern province of Quebec. That hearing will now be suspended until the NEB names another panel. This could take time since there are very few qualified French-speaking experts, officials say. As it stands, the NEB has until March 16, 2018, to issue its final report. Keith Brooks, a program director for Environmental Defence, a leading green group, welcomed the announcement, but complained it did not go far enough. "The apprehension of bias ... has damaged the entire review process beyond repair," he said in a statement. A spokesman for Canadian Energy Minister Jim Carr described the delay of the review as unfortunate, but added it was crucial that the NEB showed itself to be independent and neutral. TransCanada said it accepts the panel's decision and looks forward to the hearings resuming, according to a company spokesman. In January, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it would modernize the NEB, but not before the regulator had examined Energy East. More than 50 environmental groups sent a letter to Carr and Trudeau on Thursday demanding an overhaul of the regulator before an Energy East decision. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Andrew Hay and G Crosse)
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
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But there is a very specific reason. If the returns are still under audit, the tax years are "open" for changes even if it has been more than 3 years (which is normally the last chance for the IRS to assess additional tax against you). If you make them public, there might be a deduction claimed (lets say a payment to a contractor) that is published. If the contractor looked at those returns and saw that a payment to him was listed as a deduction but he knows that the Trump organization never paid him, he could report that to the IRS. That would give the auditor reason to look even more deeply into that payment (possibly disallowing it as a deduction or as part of the basis of the project) and the ones on that same project. In fact, even releasing tax returns of old years and whose audits are finished could result in a problem. If someone in the public looks at them and can give evidence to the IRS that there was significant fraud in making the claims on the return, then - depending on the circumstances, timing, etc. - they could be reopened because of the fraud. THIS is why you don't release returns under audit or the old ones. The only reason that I can think of that goes beyond their contents being embarrassing.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Releases Statement on the Death of Commander, Accuses US of Alliance with Russia
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MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of September 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The George W. Bush administration blamed al-Qaeda for the assault and launched a campaign to invade its heartland in Afghanistan.

"Acts of terrorism have increased greatly in the world but the greatest increases have occurred in the nations where the United States has intervened to wage the War on Terror. Last year acts of terrorism hit record levels in the three states where the US was militarily involved the most: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria," US writer Christopher Bollyn investigating the events of 9/11 told Sputnik.

This offers two possibilities, he continued. "Either the US policy of fighting terror is extremely counter-productive due to incompetence, or the real policy which is UN-stated one that uses terrorism to wage war in these states. The evidence suggests it is the latter."
Reconstruction of Tverskaya Street

Although the reconstruction of the central streets of Moscow caused mixed reactions among its citizens, this project no doubt was one of the main events of the year.

The authorities extended the pedestrian part of the street, removed electric cables and communications, placing them all underground. They also changed the tiles, replaced all the streets lighting. They also arranged flowerbeds and planted various trees.
A Ground Staff Office spokesman attempted to calm tensions by saying that the sword was placed on the emblem as a tribute to Japanese traditional culture, not to refer to any particular period of wartime history.

"The emblems of the armies of foreign nations often use guns and bayonets," the official said. "We thought it would be appropriate for the GSDF from the standpoint of displaying a sense of Japanese-ness."

Yoko Shinohara, a community leader based in Tokigawa, Saitama, launched an online petition in July to alter the logo. The demand has drawn 22,000 supporters so far.

"A military sword is a symbol that will conjure up images of the plunder and threats carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army," Shinohara said to Asahi Shimbun. "I do not believe it is appropriate as an emblem of the SDF."
NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  The casualties figures were confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper on Saturday by a surgeon at the government hospital in the town of Tongi.

The fire at the Tempako Packaging Factory in Tongi erupted on Saturday morning, local fire authorities said.

Twenty units of firefighters arrived at the scene to tackle the blaze, according to Dhaka Tribune.
Earlier this week, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte made an insulting remark about American leader Barack Obama. Shortly after, Beijing announced it would foster and develop ties with Philippines as an important ally.

China demonstrated that it will boost its positions in the region and strengthen ties with allies, said Alexei Maslov, head of the School for Eastern Studies at the Higher School of Economics.

"Beijing used the fact that Obama will soon leave office. China showed to the United States that it will prevent an American presence in their zone of interest," he told the Russian analytical website Svobodnaya Pressa.
According to the expert, the current developments will result in the emergence of new risks and uncertainties in Northeast Asia, especially in the geopolitical and economic spheres.

"In recent years, the situation in Northeast Asia has become more and more complicated. There are disputes about the South China Sea between China and the United States. China and South Korea, in turn, have very strained relations regarding the deployment of the US missile defense system [in South Korea]. So far we haven't found solutions to the problems that have accumulated in the relations between China and Japan. And now, in this, already tense, international situation, the DPRK has carried out its fifth nuclear test," the expert told Sputnik.

The expert noted that the current developments may lead to significant tensions between North Korea and China.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Apple employees were told that the layoffs were part of a "reboot" of the car project code-named Titan, three people familiar with the matter told The New York Times on Friday.

According to the newspaper, the company invested in the Titan project over the past two years, and the project expanded quickly, having more than 1,000 employees working on it. However, after certain difficulties, a number of employees had to be fired.

Apple has also changed the projects leadership, having Bob Mansfield take over Titan in July. Under Mansfields leadership, the focus of the project shifted to underlying technology, abandoning the previous course of design emphasis, according to The New York Times.
BUSHEHR (Sputnik)  At the groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday, the director general of Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kirienko, said:

"The construction of the first reactor proved that Russia always fulfills its obligations to foreign partners, regardless of the changes in the political climate."

The Bushehr 2 project was rolled out by Russian nuclear experts in Tehran two years ago. Russia and Iran signed a deal to build the second and third reactors at the site in southern Iran in November 2014, with an option of building six more in the future.
TOKYO (Sputnik)  The joint venture would be responsible for laying a power cable across the Sea of Japan/East Sea all the way to Japans main island of Honshu.

"We agreed to work together," Alexander Galushko, a Russian minister in charge of developing Russias Far East, told RIA Novosti.

"The Japanese partners suggested working through the details of a plan to create a joint Russian-Japanese project company by SoftBank and Rosset. We support this undertaking," he said, adding the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, or JBIC, was ready to join in the initiative.
THESSALONIKI (Sputnik)  Russia is in talks with the European Union on possible beef exports, the aide to the chief of the Russian agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said.

"We are negotiating with the European Union about possible purchases of our beef," Vasily Lavrovsky, of the Rosselkhoznadzor, a federal agency in charge of veterinary and phytosanitary monitoring, told RIA Novosti.

Brussels banned Russian beef imports several years ago after an outbreak of the contagious foot-and-mouth viral disease (FMD) in the Far East. The World Organization for Animal Health has recently declared most of the country free of FMD without vaccination.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Tom Hanks, left, and Aaron Eckhart in a scene from "Sully." The movie opens in U.S. theaters Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
THESSALONIKI (Sputnik)  On August 10, Gazprom's project management department official Anatoly Fayantsev said that the energy giant was willing to sign an intergovernmental agreement on the Turkish Stream with Turkey and was planning to update a roadmap for the project.

"At the moment, the coordination of the intergovernmental agreement and the roadmap, the process of development of a final text are ongoing. We are planning to be able to sign [the accord] in October," Novak told RIA Novosti, answering a question about the agreement of the roadmap and the date of sealing the intergovernmental deal on the Turkish Stream project.

The Turkish Stream project, which was planned to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, was suspended after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter in Syria on November 24, 2015. In June, following Turkey's apology to Russia for the November incident, the sides began a reconciliation process.
THESSALONIKI (Sputnik)  Dvorkovich said Russian gas producer Gazprom had been negotiating with Greek firms, including the Poseidon company, with which it shares a long history of cooperation.

"There have been projects offered by our Greek colleagues, such as a joint venture on extracting natural resources in the Greek territory," Dvorkovich told reporters during his visit to Greece.

"They have been proposed at the highest level, including by the Greek prime minister. The talks are being conducted on the matter An approval of the Greek authorities is needed though," he added.
THESSALONIKI (Sputnik)  The Southern Gas Corridor is expected to extend to over 2,000 miles, carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan and Georgia into Turkey and on through Greece and Albania into southern Italy. The project is backed by the United States and the European Commission, and is considered by them as a competitor to the Turkish Stream project.

"We have just discussed [the Southern Gas Corridor] with [the Greek] energy minister. The Greek side fully supports the feasibility and necessity of this project. As it is known, we signed the road map in the past year between the two ministries on the implementation of this project," Novak told RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia is waiting for signing the remaining permits on the Turkish Stream pipeline in the coming days, a source in the Russian Energy Ministry said on Saturday.

We are waiting for the response of Turkish colleagues [to the proposed roadmap on the Turkish Stream], we must meet with them again. We are waiting for their permits in the near future but there were some impediments earlier There is still no date [of signing the agreement on construction]. We are waiting for the response and then there will be a date We are waiting for the construction permit, Gazprom is working on that, the source told RIA Novosti.

The Turkish Stream project, which was planned to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, was suspended after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter in Syria on November 24, 2015. In June, following Turkey's apology to Russia for the November incident, the sides began a reconciliation process.
Sweden, traditionally the most welcoming country in the EU for asylum seekers, took in some 35,000 unaccompanied refugees last year. Many arrive without identity documents, and the migration authority, among other investigatory processes, conducts an age assessment of every applicant. But the age tests have been criticized for inaccuracy. Among other consistent problems, if an applicant is not clearly over 18 years old, they are simply registered as a child.

The new assessment system will tackle cases in which adults claiming to be teens appeared to be as old as 40. According to the migration board, 70 percent of those who asserted to be between 15-17 years old aroused suspicion.

"There are only a few cases of course, but they have definitely been between 30 and 40 years old," pediatrician Josef Milerad stated, according to Swedish tabloid Expressen. Milerad reexamined migration agency child classifications and presumed that some 40 percent were between 20-25 years old, and a few almost 40.
As people increasingly use speech to interface with technology, from cars to mobile phones, other tech companies are taking note of DeepMinds advancements. Apple, Microsoft, Google-parent Alphabet, and Amazon already communicate using speech-based digital personal assistants.

At a London developer conference last week, Google Plays international director, Mike Bennett, revealed that speech commands make up 20 percent of Google searches, as opposed to text searches.

Google acknowledged that it has used DeepMind to drop the power demands of its data centers by 40 percent, but has not said much about how the program has impacted the company commercially, if at all. The company has also stated that the AI has made "substantial improvements to a set of services from YouTube and Google Play to Googles advertising products."

Before developing Wavenet, Google also made strides in AI with the AlphaGo program, which was able to beat Lee Sedol, the worlds best player of strategy game Go.
In Germany, a person must be at least 18 to register a marriage. There may be an exception for those who obtain parental consent, but in this case the minimum age is 16.

There is escalating concern in the international community over the large number of underage marriages among those seeking asylum in Europe, with some of the female spouses as young as 11, and married to men much older.

According to statistics published by Germany's Central Register of Foreign Nationals, 1,475 foreigners under 18 were registered in the German migration office as married, and almost all were girls.
A cat named Pietro was unearthed from under the rubble in Amatrice, the town that suffered the most from the disaster, after his owners began searching their demolished house for belongings. They heard their pet under the ruins and turned to firefighters, who carefully rescued the feline.

The cat appeared to be extremely dehydrated and was taken to a veterinary clinic in the neighboring town of Rieti. Rescuers opined that the cat drank rainwater to survive.

Its really true that cats have nine lives, one of the firefighters remarked to the Telegraph newspaper.
Britain is going to build a wall along the approach road to Calais in a bid to stop migrants from jumping aboard trucks bound for the UK.

The wall is part of an Anglo-French security plan to prevent migrants from trying to get on cars and trucks moving along the main motorway to Calais.

Last week, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced the "fastest possible" closure of the Jungle camp, which is home to some 6,900 people according to the French authorities.

Humanitarian groups working at the camp put the number at 9,000. Cazeneuve did not specify the schedule of the closure.

While some of the migrants are refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, many are simply African migrants from countries such as Eritrea who've taken advantage of Europe's lax borders and seek economic opportunities.

In the past several months, media reports have emerged of local truck drivers being threatened by alleged criminal gangs formed of migrants from the Jungle camp. The gangs have reportedly caused deliberate crashes on road in a bid to divert attention from undocumented migrants boarding vehicles on the way to the United Kingdom.
Mustafa Ulku Caner spoke about his recent trip to Vienna where he tried to ease tensions between the two countries.

The current tensions are bad for both of us. They have seriously undermined the economic and scientific cooperation between our two countries. We should not allow political differences to hamper our cooperation in science and culture, he said.

He added that during his meetings with foreign and economic ministry officials in Vienna he advised them to take a closer look at what happened in Turkey on July 15 when pro-American forces tried to stage a military coup, which is something all democratically-minded people everywhere should condemn. He also advised them to tone down their rhetoric about Turkey if they want to restore good relations with my country.

The Turkish parliament came under fire during the coup attempt and I said that Austrian MPs from across the political spectrum should come and see with their own eyes the consequences of that night. Im a member of the opposition Republican Peoples Party, but this doesnt mean that one could turn a blind eye to such an attempt to overthrow a legitimate government, Mustafa Ulku Caner said in conclusion.

Initially condemning the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, the European Union has since been increasingly critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans crackdown on the opposition and his massive suppression of those associated with the coup  the judiciary, the military and the police.

The botched coup attempt by sections of the Turkish military to remove President Erdogans government has resulted in the detention of thousands of senior and junior military officers who had been critical of the government.

In addition, thousands of educators, judges and prosecutors have been removed from their positions.


Gestures of appreciation toward law enforcement have been seen in the community, like this display at the home of the Tom and Valerie Cochran residence in Angola. Angola Mayor Dick Hickman liked the idea so much that he directed staff to decorate the downtown with blue ribbons to show support for police.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He said that Russia was "interested" in the preservation of the European unity.

"Europe has always been a comfortable environment, a place to live. And we largely took an example of how to develop the territories. So far, there is, of course, so much to learn, but the problem is that, unfortunately, the European Union had an absolutely thoughtless attitude toward migration policy As a result, millions of people arrived in Europe, the adherents of a completely different culture. Let alone the extremists and terrorists, who also get there. They have, in fact, changed the European landscape. Europe has become troubled," Medvedev said in an interview with the Vesti v Subbotu television program.

The Russian prime minister added that the notorious and "horrific" events should become a lesson for both Europe and Russia, as Brussels should take "extraordinary" measures to guarantee safety and unity. As for Moscow, the European example should warn it against "hasty decisions" and help value domestic safety and stability.
It is unknown whether the ambassadors understood that Serbian heritage in Kosovo does not belong to any particular time or any particular generation, but to all of mankind. The attempt to push Kosovo into UNESCO failed, however, the savagery of Albanian extremists continues today.

Art historian and former director of the National Museum in Belgrade, Nikola Kusovac, said that those who decide the fate of the most significant monuments obviously do not understand that it is thanks to these shrines that the Serbs maintain their identity and their roots. These monuments have a lasting value, Kusovac told Sputnik.

It is ridiculous even to think that the hand of the one who destroyed and burned this heritage for years could now protect it. Their own heritage is limited to just the walls that they built around their homes. All those who do not have evidence of the creative spirit, now want to usurp those created by Serbian hands, Kusovac told Sputnik.

The most recent episode was a fight with Kosovo police who were agitated by the fact that Serbs originally from the Kosovo town of Musutiste wanted to visit a ruined church of the Virgin Protectoress (Church of the Virgin Hodegetria), which is under UNESCO protection, as well as to visit graves of their relatives.

Despite that Serb pilgrims gather on ruins of Virgin Mary 14c church to pray- Musutiste Aug 2015,church before & now pic.twitter.com/O90FwIf7e0  Sava Janjic (@SavaJanjic) October 20, 2015

As the photo demonstrates, not much is left of the church, a symbol for not just Serbia but for Christians in the entire region.

In 1905, archaeologist and art historian Gabriel Millet visited the Serbian lands and wrote that a new world had opened up before him.

He immediately understood the specifics of Serbian Byzantine art and wrote that the monuments of Serbian medieval culture were quite special and unique.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  About 40,000 Afghan nationals can be deported after signing the agreement, according to the Bild newspaper.

Germany is going to send back primarily those migrants, who will be ready to do that voluntarily but the agreement will also apply to those, whose asylum request will be turned down three times, the tabloid reported. Germany is going to use charter flights for deporting the undocumented migrants from the country, it added.

Europe is struggling to find a solution to the massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in order to reach stable and wealthy European countries, such as Germany and Sweden.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  In August, storms and torrential rains triggered floods in Macedonia, in particular, in the capital of Skopje and western parts of the country. The natural disaster has claimed at least 22 lives and injured over 70 people. As a result of the flood, thousands of households and farms were destroyed, or suffered considerable damage.

"A humanitarian convoy set for Macedonia's population has left the Noginsk emergency response center. It consists of five vehicles, which will deliver mobile power units, electric pumps and food  canned fish and meat," the ministry's spokesperson told reporters.

The convoy heads for Skopje, on the request of the Macedonian authorities. Its route runs both through land and sea. According to the ministry, the convoy will head for Novorossiysk, from where it will go by ferry to the Bulgarian city of Burgas via the Black Sea, and from Bulgaria it would leave for its final destination.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to the minister, about 360 individuals are ready to assist in preparing terror attacks.

"Potentially dangerous are persons, about whom there is a presumption based on facts that they can commit serious politically motivated crimes. They make up more than 520 people, which is the highest ever index," de Maiziere told the Bild newspaper in an interview.

There are two major terror threats, namely from radicalized groups and lone wolf attackers, he stressed.
TALLINN (Sputnik)  The event, dubbed the March of Peace, is aimed at drawing attention of Estonian and EU residents at "an abnormal total militarization imposed by local authorities following the orders by the United States," the organizers of the event said on their website.

The event drew several dozens of people. A lot of people waved slogans such as "We should be friends with our neighbors, not fight with them," "Finlands foreign policy is a good example for us," "Estonia is not a colony of the United States" and "Stop NATO."

The activists marched from Baltic Station, the main railway station in Tallinn, toward the parliament building and staged a protest there. According to the police, the event went smoothly.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The ministers are going to discuss repairing power transmission lines damaged during the conflict in Donbass, a source told RIA Novosti.

Kiev launched a military operation in the country's east in April 2014 after the local residents of Donetsk and Lugansk regions refused to recognize new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power after the coup earlier the same year.

In February 2015, Kiev and the two regions reached a ceasefire in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Despite the Minsk peace accords, both sides to the conflict have continued to blame each other for multiple ceasefire violations.
THESSALONIKI (Sputnik)  Greece is interested in building the Southern Gas Corridor gas pipeline to bring Russian gas into southern Europe, but the decision on the matter is in the hands of the European Commission, Greek Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Panos Skourletis said Sunday.

"Greece is interested in building a gas pipeline, we are ready to take part in it, but everything depends on Europe," the minister told RIA Novosti.

The comment comes after a meeting between Skourletis and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak earlier in the day. Following the meeting, Novak said that Greece supports the implementation and development of the Southern Gas Corridor gas pipeline project.
He said that General Elmar Castiglioni led the countrys military intelligence agency from the time of the dictatorship till the triumph of democracy. It is suspected that he used the documents to blackmail and put pressure on the politicians, according to the journalist.

Given the fact that all this illegal activity has taken place under the governments led by the left, one would assume that the right-wing parties would wish to investigate. But I do not think they are interested in it. I do not think the government is willing to stick their noses into it. The government wants to know the truth but does not want to create difficulties for the military, Blixen said.

Comparing the situation in Uruguay with other countries in the region, the journalist said that in Paraguay, Archivo del Terror was found which goes back to the time of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in 1992.

These documents contain information about the links between the police and the military. In Argentina, the search continues for documents, and the actions of the government and public organizations raise citizens' awareness about the crimes of the dictatorship in the country.

Hence, there is an ongoing litigation. In Uruguay, however, the whole process slows down, the journalist concluded.
"Once it is established after seven continuous days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities and increased humanitarian access, then US and Russian experts will work together to defeat Daesh and Nusra," Kerry added.

Lavrov stressed that a lack of trust has persisted between the parties involved, and that because of these difficulties, there is not a 100% guarantee that the ceasefire will be implemented. Opposition groups also derail the process by threatening humanitarian aid shipments.

"We are getting threats for humanitarian convoys from oppositionists who are based in Aleppo," Lavrov said.

Kerry also stressed the importance of aid to Aleppo.

"Both pro-government and opposition groups will be required to provide safe, unhindered and sustainable humanitarian, commercial and civilian access to eastern and western Aleppo," he said. "Neither the opposition nor the government will be permitted to attack or to take territory held by the other orto obstruct the delivery of humanitarian goods."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Most of the seven victims of the Friday terrorist attacks in Aleppo are women and children, the SANA news agency said on Friday citing a source at Aleppo Police Command.

In addition to the deaths and 24 injuries, the Aleppo police reported material damage to city properties.
Asia Ramazan Antar earned her nickname after her photos appeared on social media and went viral, with people around the globe noting her haunting beauty and resemblance to the internationally popular activist and film actor.

Antar, a machine gunner and avowed feminist, fought Daesh extremists beginning at the age of 18, reportedly playing keys roles in several key battles.

Two years ago she joined YPJ, the all-women brigade of YPG, hoping to free women from patriarchal domination in her hometown. The group of around 10,000 volunteer female fighters is allied to the Democratic Union Party in the Kurdish region of Syria, and fights intensely to oust terrorists from Kurdish territory.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Geneva overnight. They agreed on a new nationwide ceasefire for Syria, starting from sunset on Monday.

"Now it all depends on a prompt implementation," Steinmeier was quoted as saying. "I call on parties to the conflict in Syria and in the region to stick to the agreement reached by Washington and Moscow and stop fighting on Monday at the latest."
BUSHEHR (Sputnik)  The Bushehr 2 project was rolled out by Russian nuclear experts in Tehran in 2014. Russia and Iran signed a deal to build the second and third reactors at the site in southern Iran in November that year, with an option of building six more in the future. Earlier in the day, a ceremony devoted to the start of the construction was held in Bushehr.

"The volume of desalted water will amount to 200 million cubic meters of water, and the current demand [in the province] is 50,000  60,000 cubic meters," Ali Akbar Salehi stated at a press briefing, specifying that the new power blocks would be paired with a desalination plant, which would help resolve the issue of fresh water supply in Bushehr province.
This work ground to a halt after the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The US imposed sanctions on Iran and West Germany cancelled the delivery of equipment for the Bushehr station.

It was only 12 years later that the project was finally revived when Moscow and Tehran agreed to jointly build a nuclear power plant in Iran. In January 1995 they signed a contract to complete the construction of the first stage of the Bushehr station.

American pressure

The United States did much to slow down the construction arguing, among other things, that Tehran could use the station to building its own nuclear weapon.

Even though it was clear to everyone that this argument held no water, the Americans worked hard to force Bushehrs foreign contractors to roll up their cooperation with Russia on the project.

Russia refused to bend under Washingtons pressure and in 2005 President George W. Bush had to admit that the Bushehr station posed no threat to the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Much-awaited launch

On March 8, 2011, after a series of financial and technical hiccups, the stations nuclear heart started beating and on September 3 of that same year the first unit was finally linked up with Irans national energy system.

Unit N1 saved the Islamic Republic over $4 billion it would otherwise have spent on extracting 27 million barrels of oil. It also helped bring down atmospheric emissions.

Well-deserved reputation

It is now clear to everyone that by putting Bushehr-1 on-stream Russias Rosatom worked a technological miracle and gaining a well-deserved reputation of a company that can do it all.
Turkey is ready to join the United States to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the self-proclaimed Daesh caliphate.

"Raqqa is an important center for Daesh [US President Barack] Obama particularly wants to do something together about Raqqa. We have told him that this is not a problem for us What can be done there will become more concrete after talks," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told journalists Wednesday.

He added that Turkey must show that it was present in the region and had no option of taking a step back on Syria and countering terrorism.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The tragic incident occurred at a market place. Children and women are among the victims, the daily added.

The Idlib province is controlled by terrorists from Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front terrorist group.
The US State Department issued a harsh rebuke of their allys statements calling the video "unhelpful" and "inappropriate."

We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity of view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank, spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said on Friday. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.

Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List group of Arab parties in the Knesset blasted the Israeli Prime Minister saying that "Netanyahu doesnt care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major city."

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to try to establish a meeting between Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in order to negotiate out issues regarding settlements, security and territorial conditions in order to bring about a lasting peace.
US-backed rebel forces control the eastern portion of the city of Aleppo with the Americans providing weapons, support and airstrikes in collaboration with their mission. However, in breaking the siege of the area set by the Assad regime, the so-called moderate rebels pooled together with al-Nusra Front (al-Qaedas former Syria affiliate) under the umbrella group The Army of Conquest.

Western Aleppo and surrounding areas are controlled by the Assad government which is supported by Russian airstrikes in a bid to stabilize the security situation in the country in order to focus energy on Daesh and al-Nusra terrorists while the Obama administration has been adamant that the ouster of Assad is a predicate for peace  something Russia worries will leave the country to descend into further chaos worse than the violence and destruction ravaged in Libya after the ouster of Gadhafi.

The loss of Dr. Shahed, a fearless humanitarian, paints the ominous reality that there are positive forces on each side of the battle which has too often left civilians stuck between several opposing forces with mixed alliances.
Early on Saturday, the Saudis conducted another aerial attack in the country, hitting a water well drilling machine in Bani Atban village of Arhab district in the province of Sana'a. According to the Saba news agency, at least 18 people were killed in the result of the airstrike and several others suffered serious injuries.

Saudi jets also severely damaged Sana'a's International Airport, often referred to as El Rehaba Airport, but it is not clear whether there were any casualties.
STODDARD  A would-be once-and-future senator visited a family farm in Vernon County on Friday morning. But family farms arent what they were when Russ Feingold was elected to the Wisconsin Senate in 1982.

Or, for that matter, when he was elected in 1992 to the first of three terms in the U.S. Senate.

In 1982, the average Wisconsin dairy farm was home 42 milking cows. That number was 53 in 1992. Today that figure is 129, according to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service. And the future of the states dairy industry probably looks a good bit more like Tim and Lisa Servais operation.

Everythings about cow comfort at Hamburg Hills Farm on a ridge of the same name between Stoddard and Chaseburg: The spacious free-stall barn has spectacular ventilation; a new milking parlor under construction is designed for quiet calm, with all the noisy machinery relegated to a basement below; and the Holstein cows line up to rub against a swinging cow brush.

Tim and Lisa Servais operation has 17 employees, five of them full time, who milk 320 cows, care for 300 young stock, and raise most of their feed on the 730 acres of Hamburg Hills and 750 more rented acres, whose owners accept less than market-rate rent because of the way the Servaises farm.

The operation is organic.

Feingold was impressed, calling Wisconsins farmers, the Servaises among them, the most innovative dairy operators in the world.

But he complained they arent receiving the attention they deserve.

Studies suggest Wisconsin has the fourth-worst roads in the country, Feingold said, urging a six-year federal transportation funding plan. (The current) three years isnt enough for states to plan.

And Feingold repeated his call for high-speed internet to be treated as a utility, comparing the importance of ensuring broadband service availability everywhere to the rural electrification efforts of the 1930s.

He excoriated U.S. Sen. Ron Johnsons position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal Feingold opposes. TTP is a raw deal, he said, comparing it to the North American Free Trade Agreement. We know darned well hes for it.

Johnson, who ousted Feingold in the Republican wave election of 2010, and his spokesman have said the senator continues to gather information before making his call on the complex agreement.

Jim Servais, Tims father, a Vernon County Board member, started Hamburg Hills Farm. (The Democrat was unsuccessful in his challenge of then-longtime 96th Assembly District Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud in 2000.) Jim and Lisa Servais have three children: Zach, a freshman dairy science student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; Sabrina, a 16-year-old junior at Central High School; and Jackson, 13, who attends Longfellow Middle School.

After Feingold finished his tour, Tim Servais worried aloud about Wisconsins dairy industry, suggesting organic producers like him and conventional-method farmers can come together over a common interest: the threat of huge corporate dairies that milk thousands of cows, threatening the environment and leaving the land without a next generation of farmers to care for it.

Feingold repeated his call for high-speed internet to be treated as a utility.
"The individuals in question are temporarily suspended  placed on leave  pending a formal investigation," an official told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity. The move comes days after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that some 14,000 teachers were to soon be suspended for links with the PKK.

Turkish officials also claim to have taken over two southeastern councils run by the Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP)  the governments for Sur and Silvan districts in Diyarbakir province. The local governor, however, denied that such a takeover had occurred.

"Reports of the taking over of two mayors offices in Diyarbakir do not reflect the truth. There has not been such an appointment at this stage. If there is an appointment, a statement will be made," said the local governor.
Current estimates suggest that the PLA Army has 1,000 helicopters in its fleet. Gao Zhuo, a military observer in Shanghai, said the government would like to see that number to increase to 3,000.

China has also been testing its J-20 stealth fighter, which will soon participate in patrols in the Pacific.

"There are a lot of specifics to operating technical equipment at high altitude," military expert Vasiliy Kashin told Sputnik.

"A lot of systems may not work properly in conditions of thin air and low temperature. Above all, this concerns equipment used for the technical maintenance of military equipment  the military equipment itself is usually better adapted to extreme conditions."

As part of its growing military prowess, China has already built two J-20s, with six more known to be in development. Beijing may have as many as 36 stealth fighters by early 2018.
The Phlox was invented for engaging stationary and moving targets by high-explosive mortar shells as well as guided (Kitolov-2M) or high-explosive projectiles.

The first distinctive feature of the vehicle is that engineers managed to mount a heavy 120mm artillery piece on a cross-country truck chassis; usually, howitzers are track-based. This technical decision extended the weapon's range of action.

"The main edge of the Phlox is its mobility, terrain crossing capacity and cost-effectiveness. It can use all-purpose roads. We managed to install a powerful gun on wheels," designer-engineer Denis Kirishev told Sputnik.
There is, however, a tangible difference: the Russian Vikhr already exists, unlike its fictional analogue, and was exhibited during the Army-2016 forum near Moscow. It was terrifying to see the robots turret moving and aiming automatically  no tech-noir movie can hold a candle to it.

The 14.7-ton Vikhr is a scout-attack unit tasked with engaging ground and aerial targets, reinforcing operations, protecting strategic facilities and decreasing human losses.

This is a robotic system. It means, it can be either controlled by an operator or accomplish certain tasks autonomously. For example, it can reach a set destination without any human control and avoid obstacles on its own, Dmitry Bogdanov, deputy CEO at the Sevastopol-based Impulse-2 Scientific and Technical Center, told Sputnik.
KUBINKA (Sputnik)  The South African delegation participated in the Army-2016 forum , which kicked off on Tuesday and is due to last through Sunday in the military-themed Patriot Park in Kubinka near Moscow and in a number of locations in Russia's military districts.

"The South African delegation displayed interest to the second generation Ratnik uniform kit as it successfully passed the tests and field exploitation. The interest was shown both to the whole system as well as to some of its elements," Semizorov said.

He added that in September TsNIITochMash would take part in the Africa Aerospace and Defense 2016 exhibition, in which representatives from Latin American countries will take part.
The once eminently popular 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton found himself once again the source of controversy on Friday stumping on behalf of his wife Hillary speaking before a crowd just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he took to mocking poor, unemployed people while speaking in an economically depressed neighborhood.

The target of Bill Clintons assault were "The Coal People" who he certainly suggests would be a portion of what Hillary calls "the basket of deplorables" that are supporting the candidacy of her opponent outwardly mocking their opposition to democratic candidates and minimizing their economic plight as that of a bunch of complainers.

"Now I want to say one other thing. We all know how her opponent (Trump) is doing real well down in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky because the coal people dont like any of us anymore," said Bill Clinton. "They all voted for me. I won twice and they did well. And they blame the President when the sun doesnt come up in the morning now."
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The United States should return $2 billion in Iranian assets frozen by the US high court, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a letter to US President Barack Obama released on Monday.

"It is the clear expectation of the Iranian nation that the particular case of property seizurebe quickly fixed by your excellency," the letter said. "I passionately advise you not to let the historical defamation and bitter incident be recorded under your name."
GENEVA (Sputnik)  Moscow condemns North Koreas nuclear tests but there should be more "creative" ways of responding to Pyongyangs activities than simply sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"We are for, you know, like in the same situation with the Iranian nuclear program, with the chemical demilitarization in Syria, for very creative approaches being used by all the players, including the United States and Russia," Lavrov told reporters at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Russian foreign minister stressed that steps that could escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula should be avoided.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  North Korea's newest nuclear test is an attempt to blackmail the international community, to which the world will never give in, Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said.

"Minister Reynders calls upon North Korea to immediately halt its illegal nuclear weapons program, in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, to comply with international obligations and to adopt concrete measures to restore regional trust and stability. North Koreas leaders must understand that the international community will not give in to nuclear blackmail," a statement of his press-office read on Friday.
ALMATY (Sputnik)  North Korea came under barrage of criticism from world and local powers for testing a nuclear technology on Friday in violation of UN regulations.

"Kazakhstan decisively condemns North Koreas actions and considers them absolutely inadmissible and contrary to UN Security Council resolutions," the statement read.

"The Norths irresponsible actions have negative impact on denuclearization and endanger both regional and global security as well as undermine efforts by the majority of nations to create a future free of nuclear weapons," it continued.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Congress sent President Barack Obama a bipartisan bill that would allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, putting lawmakers on a collision course with the White House on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the attacks.

The House passed the legislation Friday by voice vote, about four months after the measure cleared the Senate despite vehement objections from Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

The legislation gives victims families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania.

The White House has signaled Obama would veto the legislation over the potential for it to backfire and apprehension about undermining a longstanding yet strained relationship with a critical U.S. ally in the Middle East. The Obama administration has warned that if U.S. citizens can take the Saudis to court, then a foreign country could in turn sue the U.S.

Votes from two-thirds of the members in the House and Senate would be needed to override a veto.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said the U.S. government should be more concerned about the families of the victims than diplomatic niceties. Poe said he doesnt know if the Saudi government had a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Thats for a jury of Americans to decide, Poe said.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia. The timing of the vote could be seen as an additional slap at the kingdom, which was preparing for the annual hajj pilgrimage beginning Saturday. But a sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said lawmakers were focused only on the symbolism of bringing the bill to the floor as close to the 15th anniversary as possible.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats, called on Obama to sign the bill. If Saudi Arabia had no involvement with the attacks, it has nothing to fear from litigation, they wrote in a letter Friday.

The bills proponents disputed the argument that there will be a boomerang effect if the measure is signed into law. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., another sponsor, said foreign governments cannot look the other way if terrorist activities are being plotted or launched from their countries.

Terry Strada, national head of 9/11 Families United For Justice Against Terrorism, dismissed fears the U.S. could be the target of lawsuits.

If were not funding terrorist organizations and killing people, then we dont have anything to worry about, she said.

The vote came after House members from both parties briefly adjourned to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks. House Speaker Paul Ryan led a moment of silence on the Capitol steps, and lawmakers sang God Bless America in remembrance of 9/11, when lawmakers gathered in the same location to sing the song immediately after the attacks on New York and Washington.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act had triggered a threat from Riyadh to pull billions of dollars from the U.S. economy if the legislation is enacted. But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir denied in May that the kingdom made any threats over the bill. He said Riyadh had warned that investor confidence in the U.S. would shrink if the bill became law.

In fact what they (Congress) are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities, which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle, Al-Jubeir said.

The House vote came two months after Congress released 28 declassified pages from a congressional report into 9/11 that reignited speculation over links at least a few of the attackers had to Saudis, including government officials. The allegations were never substantiated by later U.S. investigations into the terrorist attacks.

Brian McGlinchey, director of advocacy website 28pages.org, said making the documents public strengthened the resolve of 9/11 families and other advocates of justice to bring about the enactment of the bill.

A decision by Obama to veto legislation that would give 9/11 families their well-deserved day in court would truly stain his legacy, McGlinchey said.

In a separate development, a bipartisan group of senators are seeking to block the Obama administrations proposed sale of more than $1 billion worth of U.S. weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cited Saudi Arabias poor human rights record and the kingdoms role in Yemens civil war.

The war is pitting Yemens internationally recognized government and a Saudi-led coalition against the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are allied with army units loyal to a former president. The Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen since March 2015.
High-ranking Turkish officials, including Defense Minister Fikri Isik and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, said earlier this week that local fighters should be instrumental in pushing Daesh out of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terror caliphate. In other words, Turkish leadership does not want Kurdish fighters to spearhead these efforts, although the US has relied heavily on the People's Protection Units and Syrian Democratic Forces in its anti-Daesh campaign.

In addition, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently said that Turkey was ready to support a US-led operation to free Raqqa.
BUSHEHR (Sputnik)  Iran wants to improve cooperation with Russia in the military industry and in the fight against terrorism, Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri said Saturday.

"We want to develop cooperation [with Moscow] in the fight against terrorism," Jahangiri said at a ceremony near Bushehr.

He added that Tehran intends to work closer with Moscow in the military sector and pointed to the ongoing deliveries of Russias S-300 air defense systems to Iran.
Both countries are said to be planning to adjust the base for the possible deployment.

"It will take a week and Antonov An-124 Ruslan and Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifters will have to make dozens of flights to prepare Hamadan to host Russian bombers, Sukhoi Su-34s and Tupolev Tu-22M3s," the source said.

The scope of work is impressive. Russia will ostensibly have to deploy land-based power-driven aircraft beacons, radio communications sets, fuel servicing trucks, electrical ground power units, avionics control and preflight systems and other land-based equipment.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan aimed at reducing violence in Syria, which includes a new ceasefire that will come into force on September 12. Lavrov said after the talks that the issue of differentiation between the terrorists and the opposition was one of the key priorities in the adopted documents.

"The moderate groups will re-organize and distance themselves from the radical groups. We will do our part," Bassma Kodmani said in a statement.

She stressed that in order this pledge to be fulfilled the government forces should end the "strategy of surrounding whole areas and besieging them."
ANKARA (Sputnik)  On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan aimed at reducing violence in Syria, which includes a new ceasefire that will come into force on September 12.

We welcome with satisfaction the Russia-US deal on Syria. The ceasefire coming into force in the first days of Eid al-Adha holiday will be very important for the flow of humanitarian aid, first of all to Aleppo. Turkey is ready to take part in humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria within the United Nations framework, the ministerial statement said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the Syrian conflict with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu amid the recent Russia-US talks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier on Saturday.
Russia and Japan have been locked in a dispute over the islands that Moscow refers to as the Kurils and Tokyo calls the Northern Territories since the end of World War II. The latter has claimed the islands as its own for decades, leaving no room for a compromise. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to change Tokyo's approach to the issue.

Experts say that Abe is interested in fostering economic relations with Russia even if the territorial issue remains unresolved. But there are other, external factors that have to be taken into account.

"This is not simply an issue of relations between Russia (once the Soviet Union) and Japan. There is a third player involved, the United States. This issue surfaced in 1951 when the US occupation of Japan was over," the analyst said. "At that time Japanese leadership taking its national interest into account tried to reach a mutually-acceptable solution with the Soviet Union, but Washington interfered."
LONDON (Sputnik)  During a meeting in Geneva late Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry agreed a nationwide ceasefire in Syria, starting from sunset on Monday. Both moderate rebels and the Syrian government upheld the pact.

"I welcome the agreement that the US and Russia have reached to restore the Cessation of Hostilities and humanitarian access in Syria," Johnson said in a statement.

He called on the warring parties and countries with influence on them to end fighting and lift sieges, adding they "will be judged by their actions alone."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Mogherini also urged the United Nations to prepare a proposal for political transition in the Middle Eastern country, which should serve as the starting point for resumption of the intra-Syrian talks.

"All parties to the conflict, other than groups designated as terrorist organisations by the United Nations Security Council, must now ensure its effective implementation in order to restore the cessation of hostilities, enable the lifting of all sieges and allow sustained, countrywide humanitarian access to those in need as well as progress on the issue of detainees and missing persons," she said in an official statement.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan aimed at reducing violence in Syria, which includes a new ceasefire that will come into force on September 12.
"Now, 15 years later, we are bogged down in fights in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere," he said.

However, these conflicts have left the United States more hated across the region and undermined its long-term standing there, Kiriakou asserted.

"We are not trusted by most inhabitants of the Middle East," he stated.

Instead of addressing the underlying conditions that gave terrorist groups an opportunity to recruit supporters and grow stronger, US strategy has degenerated into the reckless killing of people deemed as threats, Kiriakou maintained.

"Our counterterrorism policy has boiled down to killing people who may someday pose a threat," he explained.
PARIS (Sputnik)  A nationwide ceasefire, agreed on Friday by the Russian and US foreign ministers, is due to begin in Syria at sunset on Monday.

"I welcome the US-Russian accord on a truce in Syria. It is crucial now that this agreement is implemented in full and respected," Ayrault said in a statement.

He emphasized that airstrikes on civilians must end, humanitarian access to besieged areas secured and the suffering in the divided Syrian city of Aleppo stopped for the arrangement to open a way for political settlement in Syria.
Americans typically love options. The more, the better. Why have a single ESPN channel when we can have five? Why shouldnt Crush offer 50 varieties of fruit-flavored soda? And I dont want to live in an America where I dont have 12 kinds of fabric softener to choose from. You can have my favorite T-shirt, washed in Ultra Downy April Fresh with Silk Touch, when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Yet somehow, when it comes to political parties and their presidential nominees, John Q. Public doesnt mind having only two choices. We cant live without Crush Strawberries n Cream, but when it comes to commanders in chief were content with choosing between Democrats and Republicans. Its an accepted either-or proposition, like Beatles or Stones, Apple or PC, and paper or plastic.

This fall, U.S. voters face an either-or option many view as neither-nor. The Democrats have nominated Hillary Clinton, a career politician with a history of flouting the rules. The Republicans have countered with Donald Trump, a billionaire with no previous government service and a penchant for shooting his mouth off. Voters on both sides of the aisle have reacted with a collective wince, making faces as if theyd just tried Crush Birch Beer.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll found 58 percent of voters are dissatisfied with their choice between Trump and Clinton. Most view both candidates unfavorably. Thats damning news, considering this is the same forgiving populace that eagerly voted for Sanjaya Malakar.

They seem to forget there are alternatives, which is odd, because Americans relish being contrarians. Offer us Coke or Pepsi, and well order a Crush Pineapple. One would think choices such as Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party would pick up steam. After all, theres nothing we like more than underdogs. (See also: Malakar, Sanjaya.)

But when it comes to politics, Americans are risk-averse. The descendants of people who rebelled against England, went to the moon and green-lighted Cop Rock have a tendency to go vanilla.

Theres a reason theres no such thing as Crush Vanilla: Because being bland is un-American. And so is voting for someone you cant stand, only because they represent your party. Or because you fear otherwise youd be wasting your vote. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence does it say the country should be put in the hands of the lesser of two evils.

Maybe you havent heard of Johnson, the Libertarian who once served as governor of New Mexico. (Somewhere, Trump is realizing he has a rival there and is plotting to build a wall around New Mexico.) Johnson is a fiscal conservative who favors legalizing marijuana and not being at war with everyone all the time. Wars, like walls, are expensive.

Jill Stein isnt getting a lot of attention, either. Shes an internist (easy now, Bill Clinton, shes a doctor, not an intern) who has dedicated her life to activism. Steins causes include the environment, health care and campaign finance reform. Five years after she helped Occupy Wall Street, she wants to occupy Pennsylvania Avenue.

The trouble is, voters are responding to Johnson and Stein the way they did to Crush Sour Apple. Hes getting about 8 percent of the vote in presidential polls. Shes getting about 5 percent. Johnsons radio ads note that nearly 60 percent of Americans say they want a choice other than Clinton and Trump. Thats a majority capable of shaking things up. The question is whether Americans will back up their views with third-party votes.

Most believe the best  or worst  third-party candidates can do is play spoiler, as Ralph Nader did in 2000. Although the consumer advocate got fewer than 100,000 votes, Democrats blame him for stealing just enough votes from Al Gore (who lost his home state) to hand George W. Bush a narrow win, thus ushering terms such as misunderestimated into our language.

I hate to misunderestimate the American voter, but come November I doubt many will vote their conscience if it means supporting a dark horse. We may root for Rocky Balboa, but we buy stock in Coca-Cola. And not because it makes Fanta Mango & Passionfruit.

But when it comes to politics, Americans are risk-averse. The descendants of people who rebelled against England, went to the moon and green-lighted Cop Rock have a tendency to go vanilla.
Russia's top diplomat said that the Syrian government was on board with the plan and ready to fulfil its obligations. For his part, Kerry said that the opposition "has indicated they're prepared" to meet the "standards that we have established" providing that Damascus proves that it is serious about the deal and the ceasefire holds.

The agreement, Gazeta.ru observed, "could dramatically alter the Syrian conflict" since it is possible that Russia and the US will "present a united front against terrorists."

Dr. Theodore Karasik, the senior advisor at Gulf State Analytics, warned that the agreement could suffer the same fate that was in store for the first ceasefire deal that came into force in February.

"The situation on the ground is constantly changing. It resembles the Tower of Babel where no one is able to reach any agreement with anyone. This means that any long-term deal could be doomed," he told the newspaper.

This is why both Lavrov and Kerry have repeatedly urged everyone involved to adhere to the plan. If they do, the deal could "reduce violence, ease suffering, and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria," as Kerry put it. "We believe that the plan as it is set forth  if implemented, if followed  has the ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change," he added.
Ankara has reconsidered its foreign policy goals and purportedly reached a compromise on the fate of the Syrian leadership with Tehran and Moscow, the Russian academic stressed, adding that by all accounts the Erdogan government has softened its rhetoric regarding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Ankara's moves have obviously added to the Obama administration's discontent with the developments on the ground in Syria.

On the other hand, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has succeeded in preventing Islamist terrorists from fleeing Aleppo, Yevgeny Krutikov of Russian online newspaper Vzglyad reported Friday.

"Following continuous battles the Syrian [Arab] Army backed by Russian Aerospace Forces breached the defensive line of [jihadi] insurgents in southern Aleppo, simultaneously giving an ultimatum to jihadists in the east of the city. Such a success on the part of Damascus could not remain unnoticed by the Western coalition that has resorted to its old good tactics unleashing mass information strikes [on Damascus]," Krutikov wrote.

The journalist narrated that Washington has made yet another attempt to accuse the government forces of using chemical weapons in Syria. However, it does not work, since the Western-backed rebels have not provided any credible evidence of the SAA's involvement in the attacks.

For almost three years Moscow has been trying to stabilize the situation in Syria calling upon the West and the parties involved to settle the political crisis in Syria through diplomatic measures and create a broader coalition against Daesh.

In 2013 the Kremlin had prevented US airstrikes against Syria by brokering the removal of chemical weapons from the country. In 2015 Moscow launched an air campaign, following an official request of the Syrian legitimate government, in order to defeat terrorists in the region.

"Russia's presence in the Middle East contributes significantly to regional stability," French author and consultant at the World Bank Oliver d'Auzon noted in his article for Le Huffington Post, adding that at the same time the US' allies in the region are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Washington.

"All in all, Mr. Putin's record in the Middle East looks improbably good, with achievements that keep the US off balance," Gardner stressed.
However, the US has been increasingly active in the region since Daesh carved its terror caliphate out of Iraq and Syria. In August 2014, the White House launched a major campaign that has seen the Pentagon send warplanes and special forces to both countries. In addition, US troops remain deployed in Afghanistan which has struggled to contain the Taliban.

For its part, Moscow's foreign policy in the Middle East appears to have been successful.

"There is a real military presence in Syria, but it is not so massive that fatalities would start to affect public opinion at home. Relations with Tehran are challenging, but working, even close despite the fact that Iranians have traditionally disliked Russia," the journalist suggested. "They are ready to use close ties with Moscow as a counterbalance to rocky relations with the US."
CAIRO (Sputnik)  On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan aimed at reducing violence in Syria, which includes a new nationwide ceasefire starting on September 12.

"Of course, the agreement will lead to negotiations, otherwise what's the meaning of it. But it is important that the talks were serious, that all parties show seriousness, including the opposition and the government," Firas Khalidi said.

He noted that the aim of the truce should be "building bridges" for future dialogue.
The results of Obamas last trip to Asia demonstrate the rising global competition and instability the next US president will have to deal with.

"Obama is not only confronting regimes in Russia, China and North Korea that are at times openly hostile to Washington  or at least willing to make clear they don't want to play by its rules  but over the long weekend, he got headaches from allies as well, notably Turkey and the Philippines," according to CNN.

During his speech at an ASEAN summit in Laos, Obama said that the US will further strengthen its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. However, many experts say that it will be difficult for the US to counter the rising China.

China demonstrated that it will boost its positions in the region and strengthen ties with allies, said Alexei Maslov, head of the School for Eastern Studies at the Higher School of Economics.

"Beijing used the fact that Obama will soon leave office and he is a lame duck. China showed the US that it will prevent any American presence in the zone of interest," he told the Russian analytical website Svobodnaya Pressa.
However, Barack Obama's tough and irresponsible policies toward Russia have largely failed: in contrast to the 2014 G20 Summit in Brisbane, the event in Hangzhou has marked Russia's triumphant return on the world arena , as French daily Le Monde admitted Tuesday.

Viktoria Panova of the Far Easter Federal University echoed the media outlet in her analysis for RIAC think tank, highlighting "special hospitality" demonstrated by Chinese President Xi Jinping toward Russian President Putin.

"At the G20 meeting, the Russian president was the most sought-after leader by other world leaders. Obama, on the other hand, seemed marginalized apart from the formal ceremonies," Professor Cohen underscored, suggesting that was caused by the fact that foreign leaders view Obama as a 'lame duck' president or do not take him seriously as a foreign-policy leader, or both.

According to the American academic, foreign leaders, including European ones, are not inclined to regard Moscow as a "threat" despite the US-led anti-Russian propaganda campaign. Cohen assumed that European powers may lift economic sanctions on Russia in January.

In light of this Washington hardly seems to be the "leader of the free world," he noted.

However, there is a chance that Obama won't leave the Oval Office as a "terribly failed foreign policy leader," due to the agreement on Syria struck by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and US Secretary of State Kerry in Geneva on Friday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to the statement, Romania will continue support to humanitarian efforts aimed at helping Syrian refugees.

"Romania considers the Syria ceasefire agreement reached by Russian and the US to be an essential step toward peace and stability in Syria as well as a success factor to preserve the Syrian Arab Republics sovereignty, independence and integrity," the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The Syria ceasefire arrangements create a positive climate for resuming negotiations toward finding a political solution to the conflict in the country and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the residents in the conflict-affected areas," the ministry said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  In Syria, coalition airstrikes destroyed three Daesh tactical units, 16 oil tanker trucks, four fighting positions, tanker trailers, seven pump jacks, an oil workover rig, a wellhead and a mortar system, the US military specified.

"Bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 10 strikes in Syria Fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted six strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraqs government," the statement published by the US Department of Defense on Saturday said.

In Iraq, the airstrikes destroyed 4 Daesh tactical units, eight vehicles, four three mortar systems, a cargo container, a tractor-trailer, a weapons cache, a tunnel entrance and six rocket rails.
"I think that Trump sincerely wants to normalize relations with Moscow if hes elected," Sergei Samuylov, senior analyst and the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, told Svobodnaya Pressa

Normalization with Russia is part of Trumps campaign and would be a key element for his presidency. For example, recently he said the US and Russia should act together against Daesh in Syria.

"Trumps campaign is about US domestic issues rather than globalism. Focus is placed on domestic problems. Foreign policy is put in the background, especially for regions that are not a big concern for Washington," the expert pointed out.

Trump has a real chance of winning; and if elected he would confront the will of the US political establishment. The majority of American decision-makers adhere to the conception of global policies.

"I think that Congress and the State Department would put serious pressure on Trump is hes president. But if he succeeds with his program it would be good for both the US and the rest of the world. But I think Trump would regularly clash with the American elite," Samuylov suggested.
British Head of Foreign Office, Boris Johnson

Former Mayor of London and now the head of the Foreign Office has repeatedly been the center of verbal scandals but his comments about Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are the cherry on top.

If somebody wants to make a joke about the love that blossoms between the Turkish president and a goat, they should be able to do so, in any European country, including Turkey, Johnson told interviewer Nicholas Farrell as a rebuff to the presidents efforts to prosecute a German comedian for an offensive poem against Erdogan.

Johnson then offered this verse: There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific wankerer. Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didnt even stop to thankera.

Boris Johnson won a 1,000 prize for the rude poem about the Turkish president sending media into frenzy over it.
Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) September 10, 2016

Talk show host David Webb, speaking on the Republican dominated Fox News network explained that "this is how the Clintons see Americans  you are chattel to be used and played to you are less if you dont support the Clinton elitists."

The problem that Hillarys candidacy now faces is that at least 40% of the electorate supports her Republican rival meaning that she has cast at least 64 million Americans into the "basket of deplorables" who she also called "irredeemable" which calls into question her ability to represent this wide swath of the US electorate and is likely to be a rallying cry for non-establishment voters.

The Trump campaign is hammering this message home with Trumps youngest son Eric Trump posting a picture of a filled auditorium in Pensacola, Florida with the caption Look at the #BasketofDeplorables

Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 10, 2016

Campaign manager for the Trump campaign, Kellyanne Conway seized on the quote immediately saying "One day after promising to be aspirational and uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans."

Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 10, 2016

Trumps oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., went on a full-fledged Twitter rant under "You know whats #deplorable?" before listing Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation "peddling Government access" and "lying under oath."

The campaigns Communications Director Jason Miller likened Hillary Clintons "basket of deplorables" and calling a swath of Americans "irredeemable" statement to calling young black men who had brushes with the law "Super Predators" who could not be rehabilitated in defense of the 1990s Crime Bill.

Hillarys campaign refused to apologize for the controversial statement doubling down that at least half of Trumps supporters are irredeemable individuals who Clinton calls the "basket of deplorables"  "Their supporters (alt-right/racists) appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events."

Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016

Trump social media director Dan Scavino struck back on the statement by Merrill in defense of Secretary Clintons description posting an event featuring Donald Trump and law enforcement officers with the caption: "SADLY, Crooked thinks 1/2 of these law enforcement officers are a #BasketofDeplorables. HRC is not fit to be POTUS!!"

Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) September 10, 2016

Donald Trump sought to take the high ground saying that although he knows they will never vote for him he has nothing but respect for Hillary Clinton's supporters and would never disparage them by calling them a "basket of deplorables."

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016

Moments ago Hillary Clinton (sort of) apologized saying that it was wrong to say "half" are in her basket of deplorables.
Donald Trumps campaign was quick to seize on the statements with Vice Presidential running mate Mike Pence saying before the Value Voters Summit that half of Trump supporters arent a basket of anything while the often times bombastic billionaire turned reality television star took to Twitter to say that even though Hillarys supporters dislike him, he does not think they are a "basket of deplorables."

The statement by Hillary came on the same day as a statement by her husband and former US President Bill Clinton deriding the poor and unemployed Coal People who he suggested are looking for a handout and somebody to blame  while many blame Clintons policies, particularly NAFTA, for stripping away their jobs.
China had encouraged its ASEAN partners to agree to a shared code of conduct for the South China Sea, something which the US has opposed. While Vietnam remains at serious loggerheads with China, the Philippines have been warming up so much that its new president Rodrigo Duterte felt confident enough to lambast Obama before the gathering even began, calling him an S.O.B. and threatening to cuss him out at the forum. While the event was supposed to be about the blocs members, it quickly took on shades of the US-China rivalry as both Great Powers overshadowed the summit.

Joining us today as our in-studio guest to discuss this is Mr. Gleb Ivaschentsov, Russias former ambassador to Myanmar and South Korea and a member of the Russian International Affairs Council. We also have on the line with us Mr. Bryce Swerhun, researcher at the City University of Hong Kong and Mr. Wan Ahmad Fayhsal, Malaysian political commentator.
The state-of-the-art video surveillance and night vision equipment, communications and rescue gear being showcased by Russia immediately grabbed our attention. These are super-modern things all and ideal for our needs, Hoang Dinh Nam said, adding that he and his people would examine the Russian catalogues and hand them over to the countrys military and security officials.

Hoang Dinh Nam described security cooperation between Vietnam and Russia as traditionally excellent."

Russian-made special equipment is very popular among our military and security forces. We highly appreciate the technological advances made by our Russian friends. During the Army-2016 expo we had a chance to see the very latest developments and we hope that our cooperation in this area will continue and Vietnam will be receiving more such equipment from Russia, he said.
Orders have also been placed for 42 upgraded MSTA-S self-propelled guns with the total worth of $131.2 million.

The Scientific Production Association SPLAV has been contracted to supply ammunition for multiple rocket launchers and orders have been placed with several enterprises to repair and upgrade existing howitzers.

Admiralteiiskiye Verfi shipyard, a division of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, has been contracted to build six Project 636 Varshavyanka submarines for the Pacific Fleet. The shipyards director Alexander Buzakov told reporters that the submarines would be supplied before 2021.

The cost of the contract was not mentioned, but in 2009 Vietnam paid $2 billion for six Varshavyanka subs, which are now in use in India, are highly reliable and cheap to build.

The three Buyan-M missile corvettes ordered for the Black and Baltic Fleets will cost Russian taxpayers $417 million. The Buyan corvettes can also carry Kalibr cruise missiles.

Yuri Borisov said that the Defense Ministry planned to bring the share of new weapons in the countrys arsenal up to 70 percent.
The participants of the roundtable discussed the creation of a ramified high-speed communications system for the Armed Forces that would not be hacked, ensure multiple backups of data traffic, commutation and information delivery.

The four-day scientific and business program of the Army-2016 military-technology expo includes over 100 plenary meetings, conferences, roundtables and media briefings.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Putin ordered to extend the term of giving subsidies to Russian companies to compensate part of their expenses on paying interests on loans for buying ships as well as lease payments, the press service specified.

The government was also tasked with compensating companies expenses on buying new ships instead of those utilized.

The Cabinet should prepare a report on the issue until January 15, 2017.
The military exercise served the purpose of "planning, preparation and conducting combat operations," but many defense analysts interpreted the show of military force to be a direct message to Ukraine and its Western allies regarding Russias control over the Crimean peninsula.

The exercise was conducted at the Opuk training range on the Black Sea Coast with drills involving warships, aircraft and tanks, with Moscow firing its S-300 and S-400 missile systems.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The average altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) orbit has been increased by 2.2 kilometers (1.4 miles) as a result of a successful planned correction, a representative of the Russian Mission Control Center told RIA Novosti on Saturday.

"The maneuver to increase the height of the flight orbit [of the ISS] started at 03:45 Moscow time [00:45 GMT], lasted about 10 minutes and completed successfully. As a result, the average altitude of the stations flight increased by about 2.2 kilometers and reached about 405.6 kilometers [252 miles]," the representative said.

The correction of the orbit was necessary in order to create optimal conditions for the launch and docking of the new manned Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, the mission control representative explained.
The statement comes one week after self-proclaimed UFO hunters pointed to video footage from the SpaceX explosion noting that there was a black object barreling near the rocket only seconds before explosion with YouTube viewers quickly dispatching theories that the flying object was a bird or a bug based on the relative speed of the object  over 1,000 MPH  and its appearance behind riggings that ruled out the possibility that it was a bug in the camera lens.

The explosion quickly consumed the rocket destroying Facebooks AMOS-6 internet-beaming satellite and causing unprecedented damage to the launchpad  a fairly unusual incident for a rocket explosion. Musk said the explosion was "really a fast fire" and was unable to point to specific mechanical causes for the failure of the rocket.
Officer Eric Parker, 26, had been on paid administrative leave since the incident, but will return to active duty after completing additional training.

Officer Eric Parker will return from administrative leave today and will be assigned to the MPD Training Unit until he completes his required re-certifications. After his training is complete, he will receive his duty assignment, Major Jim Cooke, the acting chief of the Madison Police Department posted to Facebook.

A federal grand jury indicted Parker for civil rights violations after a dashcam video showed him assaulting Sureshbhai Patel, an innocent grandfather out for a morning stroll on February 6, 2015. The attack left Patel temporarily paralyzed from spinal cord injuries, and was a result of not understanding the officers English-language commands.
The news of the Feds intercession came minutes after US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington DC ruled that the construction of the $3.7 billion pipeline running through four states would continue as planned, despite mass protests involving members of more than 200 Native American tribes, accompanied by politicians and celebrities.

Quickly following Boasbergs ruling, three government agencies including the US Departments of Justice, Army and Interior, issued a joint statement that there is a necessity to "reconsider any of its [governments] previous decisions" on construction in the vicinity of important waterways, calling on construction companies to "voluntarily pause" works within 20 mile-range around Lake Oahe.

"This case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects," the government agency statement reads, adding also to invite tribal leaders to a multilateral discussion on the issue.
There has been several conversations and a lot of complaints to the office regarding a clown or a person dressed in clown clothing taking children or trying to lure children in the wood.

First and foremost at Fleetwood Manor Apartments childrens safety is a top priority. At no time should a child be alone at night, or walking in the roads or wooded areas at night. Also if a person or persons are seen you are to immediately call the police.

Greenville County Police Department is aware of the situation and have been riding the property daily. Remember there is a 10pm curfew for the property so to ensure your childrens safety please keep them in the house during night hours and make sure at ALL times children are supervised. Anymore information that becomes regarding this issue will be sent out to all residents."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He noted that the United States made a number of achievements since the 9/11 attacks having devastating blows to the al-Qaeda leaders, brought justice to Osama bin Laden, strengthened homeland security and prevented new attacks.

This weekend, we honor their [9/11 victims] memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day. We thank the first responders who risked everything to save others. And we salute a generation of Americans  our men and women in uniform, diplomats and our intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement professionals  who serve, and have given their lives, to help keep us safe, Obama said.

At the same time, the terrorist threat has evolved, as weve seen so tragically from Boston to Chattanooga, from San Bernardino to Orlando. So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, well stay relentless against terrorists like al-Qaida and ISIL [Daesh]. We will destroy them. And well keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland, Obama added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan on Syria, which stipulates a ceasefire that will come into force on September 12.

We have inquired with the administration about the details of the ceasefire agreement in Syria and have been referred to the public comments made by Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov. We think it is appropriate for the details to be made fully available to all parties involved, including the United States Senate, Corker said, as quoted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee website.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Decades ago, Hinckley was found not guilty because of his insanity and was sent to the psychiatric hospital in Washington DC. He has been allowed to spend 17 days a month at his mothers home in Virginia under a strict control, NBC News reported.

According to the broadcaster, the attempted assassin was released under following conditions: a ban from speaking to press, responsibility to work three days a week, prohibition to drive no more than 30 miles from the home of his mother alone and 50 miles if accompanied by his mother, sibling or a therapist or social worker as well as obligatory visits to a psychiatrist twice a month.

Hinckley attempted to kill Reagan on March 30, 1981. He shot former White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head, District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty in the back of his neck, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy in the abdomen and Reagan in the lung.
The piece, part of an ongoing series by the Western media that suggests that Vladimir Putin is always the winner of world events  the winner of Brexit, the winner of the DNC Leaks, the winner of the Republican Primary and the winner of the failed Turkey coup  would leave one to believe that it is always Christmas in the Kremlin. This time, Putin won because Assange, Snowden, Trump.

The NY Times hits Assange for failing to provide more material against Vladimir Putin and Russia rather than focusing his sights on the ruling regimes of the West and pointed to his involvement with RT (formerly Russia Today) as evidence that he is a 'Kremlin agent'  the same accusation that has been lobbed against three-star US General Michael Flynn for the same reason.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The United States is making the same post-9/11 mistakes in its current policy in Syria, which does not help to avert a terrorist threat and stabilize the Middle East, member of the internal Syrian opposition Hmeimim group Tarek Ahmad told Sputnik.

"After 9/11, the United States went immediately to occupy Afghanistan, and after  Iraq. We then saw them starting a huge battle on the Arabic countries. But all evidences show that what stands behind [those attacks] is the ideology stemming from Saudi Arabia," Ahmad said.

On July 15, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified 28 pages of the congressional 9/11 report, which implicated several Saudi officials in providing financial assistance to those involved in the attacks. Nevertheless, the United States maintains relations with Saudi Arabia as an ally.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has conditionally approved an application from the cash-strapped national airline for a guarantee as a going concern, the ministry said on Friday. South African Airways (SAA) has been surviving on state-guaranteed loans and has failed to submit financial statements for the past two years, with results for 2015/16 held back after the Treasury refused to grant it 5 billion rand ($346 million) in additional loan guarantees. "SAAs application for a going concern guarantee has been approved with conditions which include (that) the primary focus of the board must be to return the airline to financial sustainability," a finance ministry statement released after Gordhan met SAA's new board said. It said funding must be secured to meet the airlines liquidity requirements and that SAA should work with the National Treasury and the public enterprises department on the potential introduction of a strategic equity partner. The government last week reappointed Dudu Myeni, an ally of President Jacob Zuma, as SAA's chairwoman, despite objections from the main opposition party which holds her responsible for the crisis at the airline. On Wednesday Gordhan told parliament that he wanted SAA to become financially viable in five years' time and to discontinue unprofitable routes. ($1 = 14.4400 rand) (Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
North Korea says it has conducted a "nuclear warhead explosion" designed to counter alleged hostility from the United States.

The country's fifth and seemingly largest nuclear test caused a 5.3-magnitude seismic event and was described by South Korea as "maniacal recklessness".

It has sparked calls from Britain, France and the US for new sanctions, with the UN Security Council saying these will be considered as part of "significant measures" against Pyongyang.

North Korea said the success at the Pyunggye-ri nuclear test site meant it could produce "at will a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power".

:: Why Time Is Running Out To Stop Kim Jong-Un

It claimed there was no radioactive leakage or adverse environmental impact - and neighbouring Russia has reported no increase in radiation on its eastern border.

China, North Korea's economic lifeline and only major ally, said it "firmly opposed" the test and would monitor radiation along its northeastern border.

US President Barack Obama directly condemned the nuclear test, saying the US will never accept North Korea as a nuclear state and warned of "serious consequences" for the secretive country.

:: What 'Serious Consequences' Does North Korea Face?

He called the leaders of South Korea and Japan to reiterate his country's "unbreakable" commitment to protecting allies in the region.

Germany and Russia also criticised North Korea's actions, while British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said "we all want to condemn strongly this kind of needless provocation".

Nearby countries have reacted furiously to the detonation, which comes on North Korea's national day.

South Korea's military estimated the explosive power of the detonation at 10 kilotonnes - the equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of TNT.

Japan's Prime Minister has called the test "absolutely unacceptable"..

Story continues

Jeffrey Lewis, a US analyst, said it appeared to be North Korea's largest test to date and claimed it boasted an explosive power of up to 30,000 tonnes of TNT - five times more than Pyongyang's last nuclear test in January.

If this was the case, it would be larger than the bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima in World War Two.

North Korea has also performed a series of unsuccessful missile tests in recent months which are part of its push for a nuclear-armed missile that could one day reach the American mainland.

The impoverished country has been subject to fresh sanctions after violating UN Security Council resolutions.

In July, satellite images appeared to show high levels of activity at the country's nuclear test site - and speculation has been growing that Kim Jong-Un was planning a fifth test after the US blacklisted him for human rights abuses.

Japan's Nikkei share average fell into negative territory upon news of the "seismic event".
Another Blow for Baazov: Insider Trading Evidence Allegedly Uncovered

September 10 2016 Mo Nuwwarah

The troubles of David Baazov continue.

Less than a month after he resigned from all positions at Amaya, the company he founded and for which he served as CEO, Baazov is staring at a rising tide of evidence that he engaged in insider trading, according to the reporting of Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail.

In what The Globe and Mail called "the biggest insider trading investigation in Canadian history," Baazov allegedly was at the head of a pyramid of kickbacks. According to Quebec securities regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), Baazov used his position as CEO of the company to inform close associates, including brother Josh Baazov, of private, privileged information. They could then use this information to profit by buying and selling shares of Amaya stock in advance of company developments that would fundamentally alter the value of Amaya.

When Baazov was initially charged with five counts of insider trading, he maintained his innocence, saying he was "highly confident he would be found innocent of all charges." He's sticking with that line even in the wake of The Globe and Mail's reporting.

"Mr. Baazov is innocent of any wrongdoing and he is eager to present his defense," a spokesman for Baazov said.

The AMF contends otherwise and says Baazov's transgressions date to at least 2010. Just before Amaya acquired PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, its stock roughly doubled in value. Profits from the illegal trading are estimated at 1.5 million.

The information trail was hot as recently as this year, accordng to the AMF. Major company news that may have affected stock prices included the launch of PokerStars New Jersey and the announcement that Baazov was making an all-cash offer to acquire the company after previously taking it public.

It's too early to tell what Baazov and Co.'s alleged law breaking will cost them, but the man who founded a company that became an online gambling giant is now out the door of said company and likely looking at substantial penalties from Canadian authorities.

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Sharelines David Baazov, recently deposed at Amaya, was allegedly at the head of an insider trading ring.
SANTA FE  While actors sang a hymn and knelt to pray to the Virgin Mary on a stage Friday afternoon on the Santa Fe Plaza, protesters about 30 feet away chanted, The Entrada is racist.

https://youtu.be/tKynBHPLLdw

The Entrada  an annual re-enactment of the Spanish re-occupation of Santa Fe 12 years after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and part of the citys Fiestas  attracted about 50 protesters who also chanted a 16-80 in a call-and-response cadence and cheered Popay, the leader of the Native revolt, throughout the heavily religious pageant.

They sometimes drowned out the words of the costumed players portraying Don Diego de Vargas and his entourage and the pueblo people who met the Spanish governor when he arrived from El Paso in 1692.

Although the protest was an annoyance to some people who came to watch the performance  and who countered with applause for the Entrada and shouts of Que viva! and Viva la fiesta!  the half-hour Entrada went on without interruption. There was tension but no violence.

Everything was beautiful, said Dean Milligan, president of the Fiesta Council. We went on with our script. There was no pause in it. It didnt bother us at all.

The protesters, who had announced their plans to march beforehand, were also happy with the result.

It went perfectly, said Melanie Yazzie, one of the organizers with Red Nation. We were loud. We got our message across. It was nonviolent. It was just what we wanted.

While some people were heard shouting at the protesters to go away, a Santa Fe police spokesman said the demonstration never got out of hand and no arrests were made.

They just wanted to be vocal and be heard, and thats their right to do, SFPD spokesman Greg Gurule said.

Last year, fewer than 20 people took part in a silent protest during the Entrada. They wore T-shirts with 1680 printed across the front, had black tape over their mouths to represent the Native voice being silenced, and held signs with messages such as Don Diego Executed 70 Warriors and Enslaved Hundreds of Women and Children.

Members of this years group were far from silent, and they called for Santa Fe city government, which contributes $50,000 each year to the Fiestas, to abolish the Entrada. They also want the Fiesta Court, which visits local businesses and schools in costume with music and dancing, to be kept out of the public schools.

Its a racist history and leaves no room for Nation people, Yazzie said.

City Councilor Ron Trujillo, who once played the part of de Vargas during the Entrada, said he agrees there needs to be more community discussion about the issue. Most of the demonstrators were with American Indian rights groups Red Nation and the Spirit of PoPay, the latter based in Ohkay Owingeh, home of Popay, the medicine man who organized the uprising that drove the Spanish out of northern New Mexico.

The Entrada has become a controversial event in Santa Fe, Native people saying that what is presented is a revisionist history that doesnt tell the whole story. De Vargas arrival is portrayed as a peaceful, bloodless re-occupation in which the Spanish are welcomed back into the city. In actuality, de Vargas used intimidation to reclaim the city, and, in the years that followed, plenty of blood was spilled on both sides.

Some of the controversy could be heard among those gathered on the Plaza on Friday. One man near the stage said, Everybody was killing everybody back then. As the chanting protesters entered the Plaza, another said he might stop going to Indian casinos. When the crowd began dispersing after the Entrada, a man wearing a University of California cap told his companion, Still some bad blood there, eh?

Dominick Sherwood, 21, of Nambe Pueblo, on Friday played the part of the Indian cacique that meets de Vargas and his troops. Sherwood said he didnt understand what the controversy was about before. He does now, he said, but declined to talk about it.

He did say that he loves the blend of cultures New Mexico has to offer.There are so many unique, beautiful cultures here, and they are all amazing in their own unique ways, he said.
It is an opioid thats 10,000 times more potent than morphine. A minuscule dose, no bigger than a snowflake, can kill a person on contact. Carfentanil is a synthetic anesthetic designed to tranquilize elephants.

So why in the world is such a deadly ingredient being mixed with heroin?

Perhaps its smarter to ask: Who is doing it and why?

While investigators work to figure out the source of this fresh poison, its clear carfentanil has hit American streets with a vengeance.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, for example, during a two-week period in late August more than 200 people overdosed on the deadly mixture. Three people died.

Recent increases in overdose cases have also been reported in central Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia and the Gulf Coast region of Florida.

If your town has a drug problem, the carfentanil scourge might be headed your way, too.

As if heroin wasnt a big enough kick in itself, right?

Drug dealers have long been stretching out their supply of heroin by adding in all sorts of things  from baking soda to baby powder. Apparently, hardcore drug addicts got wise and demanded a more potent kick.

Dealers then started adding in potentially deadly fentanyl, which can be 50 times stronger than heroin. In recent years, police departments and hospitals across the country have reported a marked increase of fentanyl-laced heroin overdoses and deaths.

The music legend Prince died from a fentanyl overdose.

Enter now carfentanil, which experts say is 100 times stronger than fentanyl.

It is so deadly that touching it, getting a speck in your eye or breathing in a miniscule amount can be fatal.

First responders in several states have been instructed to stop conducting field tests on drugs found near overdose victims. They are to carefully pack up the evidence and send it to the crime lab for testing.

In addition, EMTs and police in the most affected states are being issued their own doses of the antidote naloxone (also known as Narcan), which immediately blocks a persons opiate receptors and shocks them out of the overdose state.

But naloxone may not help those who have ingested carfentanil.

(Naloxone) was meant for heroin, Ohio Sheriff Jim Neil of Hamilton County told reporters, It wasnt meant (to counter) fentanyl or carfentanil.

Emergency first responders have had to use up to five doses of the antidote per victim as they struggle with the growing number of overdose cases and even that is sometimes not effective.

The situation has become so pervasive in Ohio, the Cincinnati Enquirer has now assigned a reporter to exclusively cover the heroin beat.

It seems counterintuitive that a drug dealer would want to sell a product that kills off their customers. But in the hazy-thinking world of addicts, it can actually be a draw, according to Joseph Pinjuh, Chief of the Organized Crime and Narcotics Unit for the U.S. attorney in Cleveland.

They know thats the high thatll take you right up to the edge, maybe kill you, maybe not, Pinjuh was reported as saying.

And: Thats the high that they want.

Its hard to understand such self-destructive thinking, but it surely exists or we wouldnt have this nationwide problem.

Back to the questions of who is spiking heroin with deadly carfentanil and why. The why is simple: money. The who is harder to determine.

There have been arrests of suspected dealers, but no admissions that they handled carfentanil. So, is the heroin arriving in this country already laced with this poison?

Experts say China sells the powerful sedative online, but they have found little evidence of Chinese carfentanil here.

The other primary source is Mexico, and that country is already known for transporting record amounts of both heroin and fentanyl across our southern border.

Lets face it, Mexico has long been a major supplier of heroin into the United States. But its also a fact that, if we could only reduce the number of addicts here in America, Mexican sellers would likely take their misery-inducing product elsewhere.

The cold hard fact is we are failing as a nation on both fronts  keeping narco-terrorists out of our country and helping our fellow citizens afflicted with the disease of drug abuse. Would it be too much to hope that our next president, whoever he or she may be, will put the heroin epidemic on the front public policy burner?

Why is it that we hear so very little from the candidates about this ever-growing menace that has crippled so many American cities?

As Dan Horrigan, the mayor of Akron, Ohio, put it, This is a public health crisis. We cannot arrest our way to sobriety.

Aint that the truth.

www.DianeDimond.com; email to Diane@DianeDimond.com.
Recently the editorial board of the Albuquerque Journal criticized the efforts and program of CHI St. Josephs Children. Home visiting is not an ill-thought-out program as claimed by the editorial board; at least the Legislative Finance Committee thinks otherwise.

The 2016 LFC Report on early childhood stated that home visiting is an intensive parent education program shown to effectively reduce child abuse and improve health. The very qualities that the editorial board calls for from parents are taught and modeled through home visiting. This is where the change in parenting skills takes place for the life of the child.

The babies in early childhood programs, in a short 20-plus years, will themselves be the parents who have graduated from high school and will be a prepared workforce that will attract companies with good paying jobs. This effectively breaks the cycle of poverty, creating systemic change in our society.

Our home visiting program is a hybrid model that has been studied by the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research. The UNM study reveals that the CHI St. Josephs Children home visiting program sets the bar This program could be a model for other states in providing high quality service to children.

The states Pull Together campaign states home visiting program standards are linked to five long-term benefits: 1) Babies are born healthy; 2) Children are nurtured by their parents and caregivers; 3) Children are physically and mentally healthy and ready for school; 4) Children and families are safe; and 5) Families are connected to formal and informal supports in their community.

All these benefits help children take advantage of the big investment in K-12: if they arrive ahead they stay ahead.

These are the very outcomes the editorial board claims to be looking for. These benefits are logical outcomes from logical programs.

Even more logical is the math. It is very hard to get away with incorrect math without an experienced Sister of Charity, with years of teaching under her habit, catching it.

The editorial board claims that a 1 percent use of the Land Grant Permanent Fund would deplete the fund. This is not true. As reported by the New Mexico State Investment Councils Annual Audit, the fund grew, after distribution, by 21.2 percent in fiscal year 2011, 27 percent in FY 2012, 13 percent in FY 2013, 17.6 percent in FY 2014, 3.7 percent in FY 2015, and -1.98 percent in FY 2016, which has a six-year rolling average of growth, after distribution, of 8.965 percent.

One percent will not dissipate the fund. Given the state budget deficit, the Land Grant Permanent Fund is the only option to serve the great need our children have. The fund is dedicated for education.

The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati came to New Mexico in 1865. During that time many ministries of health and education were begun by the sisters. The servant of God, Sister Blandina Segale, started the first public school in Albuquerque and built St. Joseph Hospital. That ministry continues today as CHI St. Josephs Children under Catholic Health Initiatives.

We are so happy that we can continue to serve the children of New Mexico by operating one of the largest home visiting programs in the nation. These services are free to client families and this charitable work is privately funded. The editorial board continues to ignore this and deliberately edited that fact out of previous letters. We do not accept federal or state government funding.

So next time that the editorial board wants to form an argument against a charity serving children through private funds they should be advised to send their editorial to be edited.

We have weathered over 100 years of obstacles and challenges and each time the ministry emerges stronger. Criticism must always be weighed on the scale of truth and justice.

We continue to pray for our children of New Mexico, those subject to poverty and hunger, and especially those exposed to abuse. We continue to pray a litany of children who have died rather than a litany of dollars. Lets put the children first.
Theres something deceptively appealing about ultimatums, the black-and-white totality of a Just Say No or Keep it in the Ground campaign.

But despite their simplistic appeal, every parent of a teenager will tell you ultimatums rarely work unless the proper supports are in place. Studies show former first lady Nancy Reagans zero-tolerance anti-drug campaign failed in part because teens lacked the social skills to stand up to peer pressure; instead, the incarcerations of young people, especially poor, minority young people, skyrocketed.

And the math shows the United States gets 40 percent of all its electricity generation and 21 percent of all of its energy from coal. Just saying no to coal and natural gas ignores the realities that new technologies have made processing coal today much cleaner, that natural gas is a much cleaner fuel than coal, and when compared to renewables, both are much cheaper, can reliably produce electricity 24/7, and can be transmitted almost universally in the United States on existing infrastructure.

Then, theres that little issue of folks expecting the lights, air conditioning, heat and ignition to work when they flip a switch or turn a key.

So the deception behind the Keep it in the Ground movement is that it ignores how a country that freaks out when theres no cellphone service will react when hospitals dont have power and people dont have jobs.

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study says ending all fossil fuel production on federal lands  nearly 25 percent of Americas oil and gas production  would turn off about $11.3 billion in annual royalties for federal and state governments and up to 380,000 jobs.

Closer to home, New Mexico derives 12.5 percent of its general fund revenue from what comes out of the ground  i.e. oil and natural gas. And that isnt counting the big chunks of those revenues that go into the states permanent funds to finance everything from public schools to hospitals to prisons.

Keeping it in the ground on federal lands would cost New Mexico about $500 million, or 8.4 percent of total general fund revenues, and up to 24,000 jobs, according to the chamber report. Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming and chair of the state Legislative Finance Committee, says, The impact would be monumental. Direct and indirect taxes from oil and gas development in New Mexico account for about one-third of total government revenue.

And Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, is pragmatic when she says, I support solar and wind, but we need all sources of energy, and we cant keep oil and gas off limits. We need those dollars.

Around 400 groups are behind a nationwide Keep it in the Ground campaign to ban all new leases for oil and gas on federal lands, while some Democratic U.S. senators  mostly from Eastern states  are pushing a Keep it in the Ground Act to ban new leasing and cancel existing leases that arent yet producing.

Again, there is an appeal to the ultimatum. Its easy.

Too easy.

Because, despite the good intention of trying something significant to forestall climate change, for the reasons stated above, it just doesnt, wont, cant work.

Conservationists and congressmen would do better to focus on a true all of the above energy strategy  what former N.M. Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman advocated over the years. One that would provide reliability now and a bridge to expanded renewables  and that includes zero-carbon-emissions nuclear energy.

Its not the easy message of Keep it in the Ground, but it keeps the nation in a good place as technological developments expand solar and wind capabilities.

And its one that will keep the nation running until keeping it in the ground makes sense.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Fifteen years gone now, and I still think of the girl with the smile when this day comes around.

On Sept. 10, 2001, she was 25 and living in Staten Island, N.Y. She was funny and bright and could make people laugh because she loved to laugh. She loved her family and her many friends. She loved a young man she was engaged to marry. She loved her job as an accounts specialist at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 101st floor of 1 World Trade Center.

I think of her smile today and wonder how life might have turned out for her had Sept. 10 not become Sept. 11.

Her name was Monica Goldstein, and I never met her.

But I know her. Something of her. For me  and, I have learned, for many others  she is the face of a terrible day when everything changed, a tenuous local tie to the nearly 3,000 souls who perished in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a rural Pennsylvania field.

I found her in those first shell-shocked days when my editors sent me in search of local folks who had lost a loved one in the terrorist attack. I headed to Rio Rancho, where many New Yorkers had settled in the citys earliest years.

I found a store there called New York Aquariums, and I found its owner, Garrett Capo, a New York transplant.

Monica was his niece.

In those early days, there was still hope she was alive. His mother and sister in New York were scouring the hospitals and shelters with Monicas family, he told me. They were putting up fliers with her smiling face next to the thousands of other fliers of missing loved ones papering the city.

In Rio Rancho, Capo was calling hotlines and keeping vigil by his television, hoping for a glimpse of Monica on CNN.

But eventually they knew she was gone, though not a single bone, swath of clothing or piece of jewelry was left of her.

All that remained was her smile, dazzling in their memories.

Capo told me about that smile, how it brightened the room. He told me how he had seen her less than two months before, how they had shared cannoli and espresso and he had paid for her to have her hair done and get a manicure, and how they had strolled around a park in the shadows of the World Trade Center.

Over the years, I have tried to reconnect with Capo or any friend or family member but have been unsuccessful. New York Aquariums is long gone.

But in my search for him this year I found that many others had found Monica.

In 2001, the internet was still amorphous territory, bereft of social media and accessible media archives. Myspace, the forgotten progenitor of Facebook and Twitter, had not yet been launched. YouTube was still four years away.

But now, all these years later, Monica is everywhere in the internet ether.

She is #118 on a list of the 275 residents of Staten Island who lost their lives that day, as posted this year on the Old Staten Island Facebook page.

On YouTube, youll find her in A Tribute to Monica Goldstein, a video posted in 2011 that features dozens of photos of her that flash by to the mournful strains of I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan.

I had the occasion to sit beside her on an express bus traveling from Staten Island to NYC, reads one video comment posted just four days ago. She was in a talkative mood and we chit-chatted for the next 20 minutes on that Monday morning of September 10th. I had seen her on the express bus on earlier occasions but we never sat beside one another until that morning, which was to be our first and last encounter. Monica had the type of beauty that was natural. She had a gleam to her that shined like a radiance.

I found many comments like that about Monica from strangers who, like me, had stumbled upon her or her name and were touched by that smile, that gleam made all the more poignant by knowing how cruelly it had been snuffed out. A Legacy.com memorial guest book entry for her has amassed 420 entries over the years from Poland to Poughkeepsie.

Dear Monica, begins one entry from Chicago. I was viewing a list of the victims of that terrible day on 9/11, but your picture stands out. It looks like a lot of people love and care about you. May you rest in peace.

One from Las Vegas reads: I wear a silver bracelet with Monicas name to this day. I never knew her but her memory will live on forever even if to me she was a stranger. God bless her and her family.

A poster from Rockingham, N.C., says he felt compelled to learn more about her after seeing a rose next to her name inscribed on the bronze parapet at the National September 11 Memorial, located at the site where the twin towers stood.

I  found a beautiful young lady who could very well have been my daughter, he says. My heart breaks for your family today.

And so it goes. An article in the Staten Island Advance reported that her family had received scores of emails and notes of sympathy from around the world since they posted a photo of Monica on the internet. Her father told the newspaper that it was her daughters smile that drew them to her.

Many smiles, many people, many hopes and dreams were lost that day 15 years ago. We reach back to them, to those smiles and memories as anchors to that lost world of Sept. 10. They are the gleaming reminders of what was, what could have been, what should have been had evil not breached our shores.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Nearly 40 years after Jose Farfan disappeared, his family has filed a civil lawsuit against the city, claiming that two rogue Albuquerque police detectives involved in a burglary ring in the late 1970s also killed Farfan and the city appeared to cover it up.

The suit also says then-officers Robert Earl Davis and Robert Todd Hobson were suspects in two other slayings.

Dino Farfan, Jose Farfans son, is alleging wrongful death in the suit filed last month in state District Court, and is seeking compensation for lost wages and other damages.

City spokeswoman Rhiannon Samuel said the city legal department does not yet have a copy of the suit and cannot comment on it. The Farfan familys attorney, Matthew Garcia, could not be reached for comment.

Jose Farfan was shot to death near an arroyo in the east mountains in April 1976, the suit alleges. A recent cold case investigation strongly suggested that evidence linking Davis and Hobson to his killing was buried.

Journal reports from 1982 describe the two as being part of a foursome charged in connection with a seven-state, 2,000-felony crime spree. Davis went on to escape from a medium security prison in Los Lunas. Two years later, he escaped a maximum security prison in Santa Fe before being transferred to an out-of-state facility.

The Journal could not locate Davis or Hobson for comment.

The lawsuit said that, on April 26, 1976, Farfan was booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of receiving stolen property. But he was released because the matter required further investigation.

After Farfan left jail, Davis and Hobson hatched a plan to apprehend him as he traveled home, according to the suit. Hobson would interrogate Farfan and if he did not provide any information, he and (Davis) intended to murder (Mr. Farfan), the complaint said.

The duo drove Farfan to a remote spot in the mountains east of Albuquerque, where they forced him to stand beside an arroyo before assaulting him with a pistol, according to the complaint. Davis, in a confession, said he fired a shot at Farfan before Hobson shot the man in the head with a shotgun, the suit said.

Farfan was decapitated by the blast, the complaint says. His body was left in the arroyo.

Hobson, on the other hand, allegedly confessed to a similar set of facts and said they both fired shots, but that Davis was the one armed with a shotgun.

The suit says Farfans family was never told about this evidence, and only learned that he was murdered and about the circumstances surrounding his death in January  nearly 40 years after Farfan was reported missing.

The Journal wrote in March 1982 that investigators said Farfan, 38, had gone missing shortly after being released from police custody in April 1976, then had been shot to death in the Sandia Mountains.

APD cold case investigator Rich Lewis started looking into Farfans case in 2008, but he found that evidence of the crime had gone missing, according to the complaint.

Missing files

Three years later, Lewis was contacted by Gene Mays granddaughter, who said that May was murdered in 1979 and she hoped for an update on the investigation into his death.

Lewis tracked down the May case file and learned that Hobson and Davis were once suspects in Mays murder, too.

A decades-old report indicated that, as investigators tried to solve Mays murder in 1981, Hobson confessed to participating in Farfans kidnapping and killing, according to the lawsuit.

The police report also suggested that the duo killed Raymond Robert Campos, who is called Robert Ramon Campos in some references, the suit alleges.

(Camposs) head was also blown off similar to the Farfan murder, the suit says. His body was abandoned in a remote locale in the east mountains.

Another similarity between the Farfan and Campos cases  APD records were absent of any information about the killings, the suit held.

In 2008, Lewis spoke with a retired APD deputy chief who, according to the suit, confirmed that the department investigated Farfans murder and determined that Davis and Hobson were responsible. Lewis never found the case file. He never found reports documenting Farfans arrest or the fact that hed gone missing, either, the suit alleges.

In 1983, the suit says an assistant district attorney wrote to the Office of the Attorney General documenting the wealth of evidence showing Davis and Hobson had murdered (Campos). But Lewis was also unable to find a file at the Attorney Generals Office.

Neither APD nor anyone from the Office of the Attorney General was able to provide an explanation for the disappearance of the case file pertaining to Mr. Farfans murder, according to the suit.

Five unsolved homicides?

Newspapers reported in the early 1980s that investigators were trying to determine whether the former police officers could have been involved in up to five unsolved homicides, including the Farfan, Campos and May killings.

The Tribune reported in a January 1982 story accompanied by mugshots of Davis, Hobson and two others that APD had reopened homicide cases and that a former officer confessed to shooting a person while on the police force. By March 1982, the Journal reported that charges were unlikely after the investigation apparently failed to produce enough evidence to get grand jury indictments.

That story named Davis and John Harper, rather than Hobson, as the principal suspects.
Environmentalists, oil industry insiders and ranchers on Tuesday continued to weigh in on Sandoval Countys draft oil and gas ordinance, with speakers for and against drilling agreeing on one issue: County officials should take more time before adopting the measure.

More than 30 people attended Tuesdays meeting at the county administrative building  the second of two meetings scheduled by the countys planning and zoning division.

The 30-page draft ordinance was published on the countys website in August, some six months after SandRidge Energy withdrew its exploratory drilling application from the county.

The proposed ordinance established the countys requirements to apply for a zone change to drill, and includes measures intended to protect the public during production and post-production phases.

Makita Hill, a long-range senior planner for the planning and zoning division who oversaw the meeting, told attendees he will schedule a meeting with an adviser from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to discuss comments made at each meeting.

The county signed a professional relationship agreement with New Mexico Tech in July, allowing the county to consult with the experts at the institute on oil- and gas-related questions.

Hill said his notes from the two meetings will be presented with the draft ordinance to the planning and zoning commission before its meetings in October. Although the first of two commission meetings has yet to be scheduled, the second meeting will be held on Oct. 26.

Twenty-four speakers commented on the draft Tuesday.

Carla Sonntag, president of the New Mexico Business Coalition, said county officials should not pass the ordinance without first consulting with business and industry leaders.

The decisions that you are looking at  they can be done in a way that can satisfy just about everyone, but theres just not been enough time to really analyze this, Sonntag said. I would encourage you to allow more time for the industry and all those concerned to really look at this and have valid feedback to you, because this is important.

Wally Drangmeister, vice president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, echoed Sonntags sentiments.

We do things extremely well in the oil and gas industry when it comes to analysis and technical provisions and implementation of those, and figuring out what needs to be done, exactly how, he said. The thing we dont do really well is we dont do that quickly.

As the draft currently stands, Drangmeister said, definitions of terms in the ordinance clash with similar definitions in state and federal oil and gas laws. This ordinance, I believe, doesnt even start off on a solid foundation, he said.

Others who spoke Tuesday were concerned those attending the meetings were not representative of the countys many communities.

Jose Lopez, president of the New Mexico Cattlegrowers Association, asked Hill to consider the countys ranchers and land owners when finalizing the ordinance.

Virgil Chavez, who has worked with an oil and gas company in Farmington, said residents in Cuba already rely on oil and gas directly and indirectly as a source of income.

Mary Feldblum of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project said residents should be able to review and provide comments about the countys updated versions of the draft. She said that would help keep the concerns of residents a priority.

Were not opposing it, but were making sure that, whatever happens, we must protect our culture and the safety of the area, Feldblum said.

County resident Elaine Cimino questioned why county commissioners have yet to take a vote on enacting a moratorium, halting any drilling applications until an ordinance has been established. Cimino said shes worried her concerns werent being heard by elected officials.

I want to understand why the issue of the moratorium has not been answered by the county commission. Theyre just ignoring their constituency  this is ridiculous, Cimino said.
NEW YORK  Hillary Clinton said Friday it was time for a rethinking of Americas strategy for North Korea following the regimes latest test of a nuclear weapon. Donald Trumps campaign chief, meanwhile, refused to outline the Republican presidential candidates plans for defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Speaking after meeting with a bipartisan group of national security experts in New York, the former secretary of state said she would seek to impose tougher sanctions on the communist nation. She also argued the latest test provides an opening to pressure China, which has been tepid in its response to North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

I think we have an opening here that we havent had for the last several years that I intend to do everything I can to take advantage of, Clinton said.

Clinton spoke hours after Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, pressed repeatedly on Trumps plans for the region, said only, He wouldnt do whats being done now.

Hes not going to reveal all of his plans and hes made that very clear. And maybe someone can ask him in a debate, Conway told CBS This Morning. But the fact is that this entire world would be put on notice that theres a strong leader in the White House.

North Koreas latest atomic test was its fifth, and the second in eight months. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the Norths biggest ever in explosive yield, was an act of fanatic recklessness and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un is spiraling out of control.

President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the U.S. would never accept the country as a nuclear power.

In an afternoon speech to a group of conservative activists, Trump used the North Korean development to attack Clinton, describing the situation as one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state. He did not say whether he had a plan to address North Koreas claim the test will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.

Trump also suggested Clinton and others are wrong to outline their national security policies, because doing so could help the nations enemies. Maybe we shouldnt be so honest when it comes to military strategy, he said.

Clinton said the United States would not let North Korea pursue a nuclear weapon and said that as president, she would seek new sanctions in addition to those endorsed by the Obama administration and adopted earlier in the year with the United Nations. She added she would back allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan.

But she also said she would support the kind of negotiations that a group of countries engaged in with Iran over its nuclear program, because sanctions arent enough. The U.S. must ensure China applies increasing pressure on North Korea, too.

North Korea poses a threat to the region and poses a threat to the kind of stable border relationship that China has always valued with North Korea, she said.

The development in North Korea comes at the end of a week in which Trump and Clinton clashed repeatedly over national security.

The New York billionaire attacked Clintons record as the nations chief diplomat, yet he faced criticism from within his own party for refusing to outline his plans for combating foreign policy challenges, including threats posed by the Islamic State group. Trump said this week that he does indeed have a plan, but would convene military leaders in his first 30 days in office to craft another plan.

Trump has also faced criticism for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin during a high-profile national security forum earlier in the week, and appearing on a Russian-backed television network Thursday evening.
A group of Bernalillo High students huddled around a table, discussing how to weld two pieces of metal to build a storage rack. The shop is large and state of the art, with tall bay doors and a new fume extractor system.

Its a big upgrade compared to the metal container that housed the schools welding program last year.

This is really cool, said Raekwon Yepa, a junior who plans to become a welder after graduation. There is a lot more space and equipment.

Yepa is one of 820 Bernalillo High students benefitting from a new 43,000-square-foot career technical education building and cafeteria that opened in August. The facility houses vocational programs like welding, construction, auto mechanics and agriculture, along with a black box theater and gourmet restaurant managed by culinary arts students.

Its the last piece in a $34.6 million total rebuild of the school, which had been made up of a mishmash of aging structures, some dating back to the 1950s, at 560 S. Camino del Pueblo.

A year ago, crews completed the main classroom building, a 76,000-square-foot, two-story space that also includes the library, administrative offices and a commons area.

Superintendent Allan Tapia compared the airy, modern facilities to a small college.

The school was due for a total makeover, he said.

Students are taking pride in the campus, according to Principal Keith Cowan, who said he has noticed them wiping down cafeteria tables and picking up trash.

School spirit is at an all-time high, Cowan added. I think it has a direct impact on learning when they like where they are.

Beyond the attractive setting, Bernalillo High is also safer thanks to a new electronic entry system that allows staff to buzz in visitors at the main building.

Other high-tech upgrades include 70-inch touchscreen pads in each classroom and electronic notebooks for all incoming freshmen.

In the new career technical education building, the black box theater features high-end lighting and sound systems  plus a direct route to the construction shop where students can build sets.

With all the new technology, we can make magic happen for all of our audiences and get these kids careers based off this building and what we can teach them, said theater teacher Brandon Gilliard.

The upgrades were funded by bond money and Bernalillo Public Schools has more plans in the works.

In February, the district will seek voter approval to sell another $18 million to $20 million in bonds to cover a variety of projects, including completion of Santo Domingo Elementary/Middle School, a library remodel at Bernalillo Middle School and a performing arts center for the high school. Bond sales do not raise property taxes, although they will fall if the election fails.

I want to thank the taxpayers for their support, Tapia said. Kids are the beneficiaries of all this construction.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark  Facebook on Friday reversed its decision to remove postings of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant.

Protests in Norway started last month after Facebook deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut from a Norwegian authors page, saying it violated its rules on nudity.

The revolt escalated on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the image on her profile and Facebook deleted that too. The brouhaha is the latest instance in which Facebooks often opaque process for deciding what stays and what goes on its network has spurred controversy.

Its an interesting dilemma because youve got a newsworthy historical image that has been published by traditional news media that was effectively censored by a social network, said Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago communications professor.

Initially, Facebook stood by the decision, saying it was difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. But late Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.

In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time, Facebook said in a statement. Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed.

Politicians of all stripes, journalists and regular Norwegians had backed Solbergs decision to share the image.

The prime minister told Norwegian broadcaster NRK she was pleased with Facebooks change of heart and that it shows social media users opinions matter.

To speak up and say we want change, it matters and it works. And that makes me happy, she said.

The image shows screaming children running from a burning Vietnamese village. The little girl in in the center of the frame, Kim Phuc, is naked and crying as the napalm melts away layers of her skin.

Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality, Solberg told the AP earlier Friday, adding it was the first time one of her Facebook posts was deleted.

It would be physically impossible for the company to comb through the hundreds of millions of photos posted each day, so it relies on user reports and algorithms to weed out pictures that violate its terms of service. Photos are often automatically removed if enough people report them. Facebook usually does not proactively remove photos.
ALAMOGORDO  Dozens of American flags billowed and snapped in a stiff wind as two columns of law enforcement awaited the funeral procession for officer Clint Corvinus.

Helicopters whirred over the distant scream of sirens, but the final arrival of a white hearse was silent.

Corvinus, 33, was a four-year veteran of the Alamogordo Police Department. He was described by Chief Daron Syling as a cops cop and by Gov. Susana Martinez as a man with a very caring heart who always gave his all.

The Tays Event Center at the Alamogordo campus of New Mexico State University was filled to its 2,000-person capacity on Saturday morning, with standing room only. Hundreds of military, law enforcement and first responders wearing badges from Las Cruces to Lubbock, Clovis, Deming, Portales and Albuquerque attended.

Behind the flag-draped coffin: a portrait of Corvinus; an image of him in uniform printed on a blanket; numerous bouquets, including one in the shape of Sponge Bob Squarepants, a favorite cartoon character, Syling said.

Pallbearers carry the casket of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus into the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo on Saturday. Corvinus, a four-year veteran of the department, was fatally shot in the line of duty while pursuing a wanted man on Sept. 2 (Jim Thompson/Journal) The Alamogordo Fire Department hangs a large flat as members of police departments from as far away as New York and Chicago lined the entrance to the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo for the funeral of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus on Saturday. (Jim Thompson/Journal) Pallbearers carry the casket into the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo for the funeral of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus on Saturday. (Jim Thompson/Journal) Members of the Patriot Guard Riders lined the entrance to the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo for the funeral of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus on Saturday. (Jim Thompson/Journal) Members of law enforcement departments from as far away as New York and Chicago lined the entrance to the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo for the funeral of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus on Saturday. (Jim Thompson/Journal) Detective Kyle Graham with the Alamogordo Police Department clutches a flag to his chest as he leads the pallbearers into the Tays Event Center on the NMSU Campus in Alamogordo for the funeral of Alamogordo police officer Clint Corvinus on Saturday. (Jim Thompson/Journal) Prev 1 of 6 Next

Born in San Diego, Corvinus came to Alamogordo as a child when his father, a retired Border Patrol agent, was transferred to New Mexico.

Corvinus was an Alamogordo local through and through, Martinez said. He showed the very caring heart he had at all times, to the very end.

Speaking to Corvinus 14-year-old daughter, Jessica, Martinez said, Your father loved you, and he will always be with you. During tough times, just close your eyes and think of him: a man who was willing to give up his life to protect those he loved and even those he didnt know. He was a very brave man and someone you can say you were proud to have as a father.

Corvinus, a field training officer, was mentoring rookie officer Christopher Welch on the morning of Friday, Sept. 2, when he spotted a wanted man with an unmistakable tattoo of a skeletons grimace on his face.

Corvinus and Welch pursued Joseph Moreno, a convicted felon, on foot. Moreno opened fire, fatally shooting Corvinus. Welch pursued Moreno and shot him dead.

Syling described the day he met Corvinus, his first as head of the force. He knew what Corvinus was made of right away, he said.

After Syling outlined his expectations for his troops and described his vision for the department, Corvinus called out, Hey, chief, did you mean it or was it a bunch of b.s.?

I said to him, I tell you what, why dont you sit back and watch and see for yourself? I admired what he had to say and, honestly, I admired the way he said it.

Syling met with Corvinus in his office soon after that. He asked, What is the one single thing you love about working here?

Without hesitation, he said helping people,  Syling said. In the old school, Clint would have been described as a cops cop, the same description used to describe his father.

Syling concluded, Clint, you fulfilled your duty, and you did it with pride. Thank you for your sacrifice.

Alamogordo officers, seated together at the funeral, wiped tears with white gloves during an emotional slideshow of photos of Corvinus with family, friends and fellow officers.

Officer Kyle Graham, who worked closely with Corvinus, said, Clint was an amazing man, brother, friend and partner.

His laugh was contagious, he said. I knew when I worked with Clint that I was safe and he had my back. He proved that to me more than once.

Graham, who had to pause to choke back tears, gave the crowd a moment of levity describing the jokes he and Corvinus would play on each other, how they would dance in the station and annoy each other when filing reports.

Graham said Corvinus would go cross-eyed and say, Would you take a look at that, Kyle, take a good look at it!

Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican who represents southern New Mexico in Congress, also spoke. He quoted from the Bible, John 15:13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Our men and women rush toward that danger that you and I might be safe, he said. We say thank you to this family and all families of those who protect us.

Then came the traditions: a rifle salute, the solemn call of taps, a flag-folding ceremony to bagpipes playing Amazing Grace. Lastly, the final dispatch call for badge No. 119.

His call unanswered, the dispatcher said over the loudspeaker, Rest in peace.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled that Massachusetts law should apply in deciding whether Narragansett Electric Co. (NEC), a Rhode Island-based utilities provider, is entitled to insurance coverage for environmental contamination at several of its sites. The August 31 decision reverses previous rulings in a case where the two states have different statutes of limitations for contract claims.

The case, OneBeacon America Ins. Co. v. Narragansett Elec. Co., involves a conflict of law that arose after eight sites in Rhode Island  one shared with neighboring Massachusetts  were contaminated by NECs predecessor from the mid-1800s until the 1980s. The sites were used by NECs predecessor for manufactured gas plants, electric operations and waste disposal, and soil and groundwater contamination was eventually found.

After the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management stated that pollution at the sites needed to be resolved, NEC was denied coverage for clean up costs from its insurers, including OneBeacon America Insurance Co., citing pollution exclusions or claiming that the event did not occur during their policy periods.

OneBeacon filed a Superior Court action in 2005, arguing that it is not responsible for defending NECs environmental contamination claims under the 13 general liability insurance policies its predecessors issued to NEC between 1972 and 1985. NEC then filed for breach of contract and declaratory relief against OneBeacon.

This resulted in a conflict of law because Massachusetts applies a six-year statute of limitations for breach of contract claims, while Rhode Island provides a 10-year limitations period. An initial Superior Court judge ruled that Rhode Island substantive law would apply in interpreting the insurance policies because the sites in question were operated by a Rhode Island public utility and primarily located in the state.

However, OneBeacon appealed that Massachusetts law should apply since that is where the contracts were negotiated. In the latest ruling, the court upheld that appeal, stating it was an error to apply Rhode Island law.

At first blush, Rhode Island might seem the obvious place of the insured risk, given the location of NEC and the affected sites there, the court stated in its decision. But while an underlying tort claim might properly be resolved under the laws of the State where the injury occurred, the obligation of an insurer to defend and indemnify against that claim is more appropriately determined by reference to the insurance contract itself and the circumstances of its issuance.
Buying a home is complex  and many people just dont understand the process or what it takes to get a mortgage.

Consumer surveys conducted by Fannie Maes Economic Research and Strategy Group (ESR) have shown 85 percent think they need to put more down (12-15 percent) than is actually required (3 percent for Fannie Maes HomeReadyO program, for those who qualify).

Research from ESRs National Housing Survey shows that this common misunderstanding is even greater among households of modest means and minority households. More than half (54 percent) of those with income below $50,000 did not know what the minimum down payment could be. Similarly, 47 percent of African Americans and 48 percent of Hispanics were unaware.

Credit Education is Important

A home is the largest investment most consumers will ever make. Yet, few seek out the advice of independent professionals who could help them through the process like HUD-approved housing counseling agencies. The availability of high-quality and independent professional housing advice could be the best kept secret in the industry, says Joe Weisbord, a director in Fannie Maes Single-Family business who works on access to credit.

Although not well known, its an approach that works.

A study of the two-year loan performance of more than 18,000 pre-purchase counseling clients from the NeighborWorks Americas network found clients who received counseling were one-third less likely to become 90 or more days delinquent in the two years since obtaining their loan when compared to similar borrowers who did not receive pre-purchase counseling.

Empowering Borrowers

All HomeReady borrowers complete an online education course offered by Framework Homeownership.

Framework continues to get high marks from first time and repeat homebuyers. It provides the essential knowledge to prepare borrowers for homeownership.

But weve recently added flexibility for more in-depth help for buyers still facing real barriers like weak credit and limited savings. Weve expanded our guidelines to accommodate one-on-one counseling, so consumers who meet with advisors for customized consultation (involving a comprehensive review of goals, household budget, and credit) can fulfill HomeReadys educational requirement and be qualified with higher LTVs. Because these borrowers have gone through counseling that includes a thorough review of their budget and credit, so they can sustain that level of debt to income ratio (DTI).

We think this change opens the doors to homeownership for borrowers who were unable to qualify in the past based on their DTI. They can complete one-on-one counseling, and move into homeownership when they are ready.

The counseling industry is very excited about this change, and happy to be recognized for the great work that they do.

Hitting Home

Homeownership advisors are the untapped resource that can prepare todays homebuyers for sustainable ownership.

Fannie Mae will continue to work with credit unions, real estate professionals, and housing counseling agencies to promote homebuyer education and responsible homeownership.

Like you, we want members to make housing decisions that reflect positively on all parties involved.
Funding from the EU Exceptional Adjustment Aid scheme must benefit all of Northern Irelands livestock sectors, the Ulster Farmers Union has urged the agriculture minister.

The remaining 350million of the July 2016 financial package is for EU Exceptional Adjustment Aid, which has been allocated to Member States to spend on measures that foster the economic sustainability of farms and that contribute to market stabilisation.

The UK aid envelope is around 30million.

Speaking after a meeting with Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) officials, UFU president Barclay Bell said it was important that the estimated 4.5 million of funding was used strategically and to maximum benefit for farmers and the industry as a whole.

"Animal health is a significant and often costly problem on farms"

"We outlined a wide and varied range of options but our members believe the focus should be on supporting animal health measures across all livestock sectors," Mr Bell said.

"We are looking at the bigger picture and believe the aid package should be implemented to provide genuine, lasting benefits to the industry.

"Animal health is a significant and often costly problem on farms, and while the funds are very limited, this is an opportunity to help farmers tackle some of the issues," said Mr Bell.

While there is the option for national governments to top-up the aid package from the EU, Mr Bell said the Union has already been told that this is unlikely to happen.

"Ideally, the EU money would be match funded and we have raised this previously in the meetings with both the Minister and her officials.

"However we are realistic about the current economic climate and the financial pressures at Stormont.

"Our main focus is to maximise Northern Irelands share of the UK national envelope. This is critical if we are to have a well-funded scheme that can deliver a lasting legacy for farmers."
All she wants is to study and become a police officer but 16-year-old Madhus dreams were shattered when a government school in Delhi denied her admission. Her fault? she is from Pakistan.

Documentation

The school has refused to enrol Madhu , a Hindu refugee from Pakistan, as she does not have the necessary documents required to complete the formalities.

According to Madhu, it is impossible for her to arrange those papers which she left in Pakistan from where she and her family, fled religious persecution two years ago.

She has now appealed to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and HRD Minister for accommodating her in the government co-ed senior secondary school in Sanjay Colony in Bhati Mines area of South Delhi.

When Madhu left Pakistan two years ago, she was a 9th standard student and in Delhi, she wanted to continue her education from where she left off but the school refused to enrol her.

The school authorities claim that Madhu doesnt have necessary documents required to complete the formalities. We have no problem to take madhu admission but as per norms, she has to full fill all requirements as such transfer certificate/aadhar card/affidavit Om Prakash Sharma, Vice principal of higher secondary school told india today

Letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Narrating her ordeal, Madhu had written a letter to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but no reply has came her way so far.

But Madhu is determined to secure education for herself..

She has even approached the All India Parents Association with her grievance.

The Pakistani Girl Madhu contacted me after the school refused her admission. I have written a letter to Delhi CM. When we provide Pakistani refugees with water, electricity connection and a house to live in, why cant we also provide them education?. If we cant then I doubt the validity of the Slogan Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao', said Ashok Agrwal , a Social Worker and the Delhi Parents Association President.

Her Story

Madhu had arrived in Delhi with her mother, brother, maternal uncle and her cousins two years ago from the Sindh province in Pakistan. Her father passed away a long time ago. After a few months, her mother left for Paksitan due to some personal issues.

As a student, Madhu faced discrimination in Pakistan. In school, she felt unsafe and humiliated. Being a Hindu, she was not allowed to use glass to drink water and would rather use her hands for the purpose. Her class mates maintained distance from her, said Madhu to india today.

Madhus family just want one thing and that is for their young daughter to be able to fulfill her dreams. Her brother Lakhbir said,  I request the government to please provide Madhu with admission into a school

The school may have turned her down but Madhu and her family are still hopeful that the government will help them at their time of need.

Source : India Today
9/11 SF Rally-Speak Out On 9/11! Let's Stop Another 3/11 From Happening Again In Japan That Could Destroy The CountryDefend the Children and Families From FukushimaSunday September 11, 2016 3:00 PM275 Battery St./California St.San FranciscoUpdate From Japan By No Nukes Action Leader Chizu YamadaOn Sunday September 11 at 3:00 PM , people will speak out at the San Francisco Japanese consulate to demand the closure of all nuclear plants in Japan and the evacuation of the children and families in Fukushima. While Americans remember 9/11 another deadly man made disaster like Fukushima could take place at any moment as more nuclear plants open up five years after the Fukushima man made disaster. It was a "dirty" nuclear bomb that blew up and contaminated people in Japan and around the world.With US support the Japanese Abe government is re-opening more and more nuclear plants despite the dangers of another Fukushima happening that could even destroy the entire country. Even former Japanese prime minister Koizumi has called Abe a liar for telling the Olympic committee that the Fukushima meltdowns had been solved in order to get the Olympics. In fact the government is telling the people that they can "overcome radiation" and also that Fukushima has been "decontaminated". These lies and propaganda points are simply to get people to even think about the growing dangers to themselves and their families.At the same time, no US Congress person has even challenged these actions despite the dangers to people in California and the west coast of another meltdown in Japan. Secretary Hillary Clinton and Obama are also supporting the militarization of Japan and also spending billions on modernizing US nuclear power and US nuclear weapons. The militarization of Japan and Asia is also leading to another world war. The Abe government has passed a secrecy law that prevents information coming out about the growing cancer epidemic and it is pushing to remove the peace clause in their constitution prohibiting imperial war. The US again is supporting the further militarization of Asia which will lead to another world war. The government has also removed tents near the prime minister's office to stop any further regular public activity against the restarting of the nuclear power plants.Another Fukushima could not only destroy Japan but also further contaminate the Asian rim with radioactive waste. The Fukushima radioactive contamination continues to flow into the Pacific ocean and this contamination is threatening the health and safety of our hemispheres and world.US sailors have also were in the area at the time of Fukushima have also been contaminated and are now getting serious cases of cancer and other diseases. They are also suing TEPCO for damages.We must continue to speak out against the danger of Fukushima and other nuclear plants to the people of Japan and the world of these dangerous nuclear plants and call for the closure of all nuclear plants around the world.LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARDSpeak Out and Rally initiated byNo Nukes Action CommitteeFor more information(510) 495-5952Japan Governors moves muddle reactor restart bidsBY ERIC JOHNSTONSTAFF WRITER AUG 31, 2016OSAKA  Political moves by the governors of Kagoshima and Niigata over the last week, one sudden and one that was mostly expected, are likely to affect plans in both prefectures to restart or continue running nuclear reactors.On Wednesday, Kyodo News reported that Kagoshima Gov. Satoshi Mitazonos call for two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.s Sendai plant to be shut down over safety concerns would be rejected. Kyushu Electric said it expected to formally reply to the governor soon.Mitazono, elected last month on an anti-nuclear platform, on Friday formally requested that the reactors at the Sendai plant be halted  a move unprecedented for a governor.Still, even if Kyushu Electric does turn down his request to shut the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors, as expected, both are due to go offline in about two months for regular inspections. That could lead to further legal maneuvers by the governor or anti-nuclear activists, who have cited concerns over earthquakes, volcanic activity and evacuation plans for his desire to permanently shutter the reactors.Meanwhile, in Niigata Prefecture, the future of Tokyo Electric Power Co.s efforts to restart two reactors at the giant Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant were thrown wide open by incumbent Gov. Hirohiko Izumidas sudden announcement Tuesday that he would not stand for re-election. Izumida had long opposed restarting the plants No. 6 and No. 7 units until the full causes of the March 2011 triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant were made clear.With Izumidas pending departure, only Nagaoka mayor Tamio Mori so far has officially declared himself ready to replace him. Tadao Yabe, an unaffiliated Kashiwazaki assemblyman who opposes the restarts, said Mori is considered locally to be very much in the pro-nuclear camp and already has the support of some prefectural assembly members who want to see the reactors fired up again.The election is not until Oct. 16th, but Izumidas sudden announcement has created a lot of confusion, said Yabe. The search is under way for a candidate to run against Mori.Restarts of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors are still a long way off, as they have yet to undergo the Nuclear Regulatory Authoritys new safety tests. But Yabe said if they were cleared for restart, various legal measures, including a petition seeking a temporary injunction against such a move, would be carried out.Yabe added he did not think Izumidas sudden decision not to run for re-election was specifically about the struggles to restart the reactors. The official reason for deciding not to seek re-election, as explained by the governor to reporters on Wednesday, was over his unhappiness with a report in the local Niigata Nippo newspaper that raised questions related to the sale by a prefecture-related entity of a used ferry boat that ran between Niigata and the Russian Far East.Japanese Ex-PM Koizumi: Abe Lied Claiming Fukushima Under ControlREUTERS/ Toru HanaiASIA & PACIFICRead more: https://sputniknews.com/asia/20160908/1045074778/koizumi-says-abe-lied-fukushima.html 02:29 08.09.2016(updated 10:30 08.09.2016) Get short URL61062123 On Wednesday, former Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi said that current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a lie by downplaying the damage wrought by the Fukushima nuclear accident, and claiming that the radioactivity contaminating the site was under control. After a March 2011 tsunami and earthquake caused a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Koizumi, who served as premier from 2001 to 2006, began sharply criticizing nuclear power, saying he was ashamed for believing that nuclear energy was a clean, safe and cheap energy alternative for Japan.  AP PHOTO/ KOJI SASAHARA, POOL Tokyo Hopes To Lift No Go Zone Order In Fukushima In Next Five Years "I studied the process, reality and history of the introduction of nuclear power and became ashamed of myself for believing such lies," Koizumi said after the accident. The plant, owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) is the site of the worlds worst nuclear accident since 1986s Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine. Abe made his claims in Buenos Aires in 2013 while trying to convince the International Olympic Committee to bring the popular and lucrative games to Tokyo. The 74-year-old Koizumi said "Mr. Abe's 'under control' remark, that was a lieIt is not under control," pointing out TEPCOs attempts at building an expensive underground ice wall to prevent groundwater from becoming contaminated after flowing through damaged reactors.  AFP 2016/ TORU HANAI Public Cost Of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Continues to Rise Koizumi, once thought to be Abes successor in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said the prime minister "believes what hes being told by nuclear experts. I believed them, too, when I was prime minister. I think Abe understands the arguments on both sides of the debate, but he has chosen to believe the pro-nuclear lobby." In 2012 12,539 people sued TEPCO for negligence, their suits totaling nearly $1 billion. Over 99 percent of those who sued were former residents of the prefecture of Fukushima, and were forced to evacuate after the meltdown. An additional 223 US Navy sailors filed a class action suit for suffering a host of serious health problems after assisting with the Operation Tomodachi (Friends) cleanup effort. Koizumi supports the claims of the sailors. According to experts, one the most daunting challenges in the cleanup effort is handling almost a million tons of radioactive water currently stored in tanks at Fukushima. By 2030, the government hopes to have nuclear power supply a fifth of the countrys energy. Over 160,000 people had to be evacuated from the areas around Fukushima after the accident, which caused contamination in the land, food, air and water.Japans Hail Mary at Fukushima Daiichi: An Underground Ice WallBy MARTIN FACKLERAUG. 29, 2016At the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, 95-foot tanks used to store contaminated water abound. CreditKo Sasaki for The New York TimesFUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER STATION  The part above ground doesnt look like much, a few silver pipes running in a straight line, dwarfed by the far more massive, scarred reactor buildings nearby.More impressive is what is taking shape unseen beneath: an underground wall of frozen dirt 100 feet deep and nearly a mile in length, intended to solve a runaway water crisis threatening the devastated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan.Officially named the Land-Side Impermeable Wall, but better known simply as the ice wall, the project sounds like a fanciful idea from science fiction or a James Bond film. But it is about to become a reality in an ambitious, and controversial, bid to halt an unrelenting flood of groundwater into the damaged reactor buildings since the disaster five years ago when an earthquake and a tsunami caused a triple meltdown.Built by the central government at a cost of 35 billion yen, or some $320 million, the ice wall is intended to seal off the reactor buildings within a vast, rectangular-shaped barrier of man-made permafrost. If it becomes successfully operational as soon as this autumn, the frozen soil will act as a dam to block new groundwater from entering the buildings. It will also help stop leaks of radioactive water into the nearby Pacific Ocean, which have decreased significantly since the calamity but may be continuing.However, the ice wall has also been widely criticized as an expensive and overly complex solution that may not even work. Such concerns re-emerged this month after the plants operator announced that a section that was switched on more than four months ago had yet to fully freeze. Some also warn that the wall, which is electrically powered, may prove as vulnerable to natural disasters as the plant itself, which lost the ability to cool its reactors after the 45-foot tsunami caused a blackout there.The reactor buildings are vulnerable to an influx of groundwater because of how the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, built the plant in the 1960s, by cutting away a hillside to place it closer to the sea, so the plant could pump in water more easily. That also put the buildings in contact with a deep layer of permeable rock filled with water, mostly rain and melted snow from the nearby Abukuma Mountains, that flows to the Pacific.The buildings managed to keep the water out until the accident on March 11, 2011. Either the natural disasters themselves, or the explosive meltdowns of three of the plants six reactors that followed, are believed to have cracked the buildings basements, allowing groundwater to pour in. Nearly 40,000 gallons of water a day keep flooding into the buildings.Once inside, the water becomes highly radioactive, impeding efforts to eventually dismantle the plant. During the accident, the uranium fuel grew so hot that some of it is believed to have melted through the reactors steel floors and possibly into the basement underneath, though no one knows exactly where it lies. The continual flood of radioactive water has prevented engineers from searching for the fuel.Since the accident, five robots sent into the reactor buildings have failed to return because of high radiation levels and obstruction from debris.PhotoPipes containing coolant are being used to help create an underground ice wall to try to stop contaminated water from leaking. CreditKo Sasaki for The New York TimesThe water has also created a waste-management nightmare because Tepco must pump it out into holding tanks as quickly as it enters the buildings, to prevent it from overflowing into the Pacific. The company says that it has built more than 1,000 tanks that now hold more than 800,000 tons of radioactive water, enough to fill more than 320 Olympic-size swimming pools.On a recent visit to the plant, workers were busily erecting more durable, welded tanks to replace the temporary ones thrown up in a hurry during the early years after the accident, some of which have leaked. Every available patch of space on the sprawling plant grounds now appears to be filled with 95-foot tanks.We have to escape from this cycle of ever more water building up inside the plant, said Yuichi Okamura, a general manager of Tepcos nuclear power division who guided a reporter through Fukushima Daiichi. About 7,000 workers are employed in the cleanup.The ice wall is a high-technology bid to break that cycle by installing what might be the worlds largest freezer. Pipes almost 100 feet long have been sunk into the ground at roughly three-foot intervals, and filled with a brine solution supercooled to minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 Fahrenheit. Each pipe is supposed to freeze a column of soil about a foot and a half in radius, large enough to reach the ice column created by its neighboring pipes and form a seamless barrier.Engineers with the walls builder, the construction giant Kajima Corp., estimate that it will take about two months for the soil around a pipe to fully freeze. Solidifying the entire wall, which consists of 1,568 such underground pipes, will require 30 large refrigeration units and consume enough electricity to light more than 13,000 Japanese homes for a year.Fukushima Five Years After Nuclear DisasterFive years after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the northeast Japanese coast, Japan has not fully recovered.The technique of using frozen barriers to block groundwater has been used to build tunnels and mines around the world, but not on this scale. And certainly not on the site of a major nuclear disaster.Since the start, the project has attracted its share of skeptics. Some say buried obstacles at the plant, including tunnels that linked the reactor buildings to other structures, will leave holes in the ice wall, making it more like a sieve. Others question why such an exotic solution is necessary when a traditional steel or concrete wall might perform better.Some call the ice wall a flashy but desperate gambit to tame the water problem, after the government and Tepco were initially slow to address it. Adding to the urgency is the 2020 Olympics, which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan helped win for Tokyo three years ago by assuring the International Olympic Committee that the water troubles at Fukushima Daiichi were under control.Its a Hail Mary play, said Azby Brown, a Japan-based researcher for Safecast, an independent radiation-monitoring group. Tepco underestimated the groundwater problem in the beginning, and now Japan is trying to catch up with a massive technical fix that is very expensive.Supporters and skeptics alike will soon learn if that gambit will succeed. After two years of work, Kajima finished installing the pipes and refrigerator units to create the ice wall in February. At the end of March, it switched on part of the ice wall for the first time  roughly half a mile that runs between the reactor buildings and the Pacific. Most of the other, uphill side of the wall was activated in mid-June.Continue reading the main storyPhotoOne of the approximately 7,000 workers being employed in the cleanup of Fukushima Daiichi, which was devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011. CreditKo Sasaki for The New York TimesKajima is freezing the wall in stages under orders from the Nuclear Regulation Authority, Japans nuclear watchdog. The authority is concerned that cutting off the groundwater too suddenly might lead to a reversal of flows, causing the radioactive water accumulated inside the reactor buildings to starting pouring out into the surrounding soil, possibly reaching the Pacific. It has told Kajima to leave a half-dozen gateways in the uphill side that will not be closed until much of the contaminated water is drained from the buildings.This month, Tepco told the nuclear agency that the seaside segment of the ice wall had frozen about 99 percent solid. It says a few spots have failed to solidify because they contain buried rubble or sand left from the plants construction a half-century ago, which now allow groundwater to flow through so quickly that it will not freeze.Tatsuhiro Yamagishi, a spokesman for Tepco, said the company was trying to plug these holes in the ice wall with quick-drying cement. We have started to see some progress in temperature decrease, he said.Even if the cement helps make the ice wall watertight, skeptics question how long it can last. They point out that such frozen barriers are usually temporary against groundwater at construction sites. They say the brine solution used to chill the pipes is highly corrosive, which could make them break or leak. It is also unclear whether the system could break down under the stresses of operating in a high-radiation environment where another earthquake could lead to another power loss.Why build such an elaborate and fragile wall when there is a more permanent solution available? said Sumio Mabuchi, a former construction minister who has called for building a slurry wall, a trench filled with liquid concrete that is commonly used to block water.PhotoWorkers must wear protective gear while inside the plant. CreditKo Sasaki for The New York TimesIsao Abe, a Kajima engineer overseeing the ice wall, said his company had made the wall more durable by installing underground pipes that are easy to replace if they corrode. He also said the ice wall was self-sealing, meaning that if another earthquake caused cracks, any incoming water would freeze right away, restoring the wall. He also said it would take months for the wall to thaw, giving engineers ample time to restore power even if the plant has another outage.Mr. Abe said the wall was intended to operate until 2021, giving Tepco five more years to find and plug the holes in the reactor buildings, though skeptics say this difficult task will require more time. Mr. Abe also pointed out that the ice wall was part of a broader strategy for containing the radioactive water. Before installing the ice wall, Kajima also built a conventional steel wall underground along the plants border with the Pacific last year.Tepco says that wall has already stopped all measurable leaks of radioactive materials into the sea. However, some scientists say that radioactive water may still be seeping through layers of permeable rock that lie deep below the plant, emptying into the Pacific far offshore. They say the only way to eliminate all leaks would be to repair the buildings once and for all.Even if the ice wall works, Tepco will face the herculean task of dealing with the huge amounts of contaminated water that have accumulated. The company has installed filtering systems that can remove all nuclear particles but one, a radioactive form of hydrogen known as tritium. The central government and Tepco have yet to figure out what to do with the tritium-laced water; proposals to dilute and dump it into the Pacific have met with resistance from local fishermen, and risk an international backlash.For now, the only visible sign that the freezing has begun are silver-dollar-size patches of ice that have formed on top of the aboveground, silver pipes. At one spot, the No. 4 reactor building loomed, an enormous cube six stories tall with concrete sides that showed large gashes left by the tsunami.The water is here, just three meters beneath our feet, said Mr. Okamura, the Tepco general manager, who stood near the pipes wearing a white protective suit, goggles and a surgical mask. It still flows into the building, unseen, without stopping.Japan Governor to call on Kyushu Elec. to halt nuclear plant operationAugust 26, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)The No. 1 and No. 2 reactors are seen at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, in this photo taken from a Mainichi helicopter. (Mainichi)FUKUOKA (Kyodo) -- The governor of Kagoshima Prefecture on Friday afternoon is set to request Kyushu Electric Power Co. suspend two reactors at its Sendai nuclear plant in the southwestern Japan prefecture, sources close to the matter said.Gov. Satoshi Mitazono, who was elected on an antinuclear platform last month, is expected to make the request regarding the plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors -- two of only three reactors currently operating in the country -- at his meeting with the utility's President Michiaki Uriu, slated at the prefectural government office at 3 p.m.The former TV commentator is likely to call on the utility to re-examine safety measures for the complex, citing increasing concerns among citizens about nuclear power security after huge earthquakes hit nearby prefectures in April, according to the sources.Kyushu Electric is expected to prepare its answer to the request by early September.Governors have no legal power to suspend operation of nuclear power plants.Regardless of the governor's request, the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors are scheduled to be taken offline for regular checks on Oct. 6 and Dec. 16, respectively.
The Stanford American Indian Organization stands in solidarity with the Standing Rock Lakota and Dakota peoples in protest against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This pipeline is in direct violation of Articles I & II of the Treaty of Fort Laramie and serves to threaten the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual ways of life of the original peoples of this land.

In addition to the violation of the traditional ways of life, treaty rights, and human rights of the Dakota and Lakota people, the Dakota Access Pipeline is also in violation of the National Environmental Policy Acts requirements to meaningfully consult with Native American tribes when performing Environmental Assessment reports on projects that affect their lands. The United States Army Corps of Engineers did not fulfill these obligations and blatantly ignored the protests of the Standing Rock people.As well as federal law, the Dakota Access Pipeline violates the following articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document that the United States government has supported: Article 25: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas, and other resources, and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard; Article 26.1: Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories, and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used or acquired; Article 26.3: States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories, and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions, and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned; Article 29.2: States shall also take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior, and informed consent; Article 32.2: States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization, or exploitation of mineral, water, or other resources.We believe that the Dakota Access Pipeline is the epitome of modern-day colonization, terrorism, and genocide. The humans, land, animals, and other beings along the Missouri River will be disturbed, poisoned, terrorized, and ultimately killed with this encroachment. The aforementioned assault against their ways of life, coupled with the blatant disregard of this Earth that gives us life, reminds us that economic interests are prioritized over the lives of the generations that come after us. More explicitly, the actions of the United States government, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and the fact that the Dakota Access Pipeline was rerouted to avoid the North Dakota capital of Bismarck proves that indigenous lives are seen as lesser than other lives.Moreover, this act will desecrate ceremonial sites and other places of sacred importance to the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. This tactic aims to eradicate Indigenous presence in this country and perpetuates the assimilation and acculturation motives reminiscent of the boarding school era and the atrocities that were committed against indigenous children.Our organization intends on supporting efforts at the Sacred Stone Camp indefinitely, and vows to continue seeking justice in this matter. Several members of our Stanford community are members of the Lakota and Dakota tribes and rely heavily on ceremony and their connection to land as a way to pray and promote cultural, emotional, and spiritual revitalization. Our organization demands that the United States Federal Government holds itself accountable for its antagonistic actions against indigenous peoples at Standing Rock and beyond. SAIO will use various media platforms to call attention to crimes committed against the citizens of Standing Rock and other indigenous and non-indigenous folks along the Missouri River. As our school year begins in late September, members of this committee seek to educate others about this issue and will inform campus partners and allies about the gross misconduct of our elected officials, and the continued abuse against indigenous nations that the United States Federal Government perpetuates.It is time for the federal government to respect and honor the treaties they entered with Indigenous nations. Article I of the Treaty of Fort Laramie states that the United States will convict those responsible for committing crimes against these peoples. The federal government should abide by its promises and cease and desist all further construction of this pipeline and act in compliance with its own laws.Our community advocates for the long life and the physical, cultural, and spiritual survival of Lakota and Dakota peoples and other communities affected by this decision. We are grateful for the hard work of the peaceful protestors at the Sacred Stone Camp and we would like to express our gratitude for other tribal nations and organizations who have dedicated their efforts to protecting our ways of being and knowing. We offer our prayers to those at Standing Rock and surrounding areas, and we offer these words in response to the blatant disrespect, disregard, and dishonoring of our sacred lands, waters, and sovereignty, that the US Government continues to violently perpetuate to this day.In Solidarity,Joseph Manuel, Hopi and Pima, Co-chairLeo John Bird, Amskapii Piikanii and Haida-Tlingit, Co-chairJanuary Tobacco, Oglala Lakota, Stanford Powwow Co-chairIsabella Robbins, Dine, Stanford Powwow Co-chairMelissa Eidman, Yurok, Stanford Powwow Co-chairAidan Hellen, Tlingit, Financial OfficerAliyah Chavez, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Programming ChairAlanna Simao, Native Hawaiian, Programming ChairLoralee Sepsey, Paiute, Programming ChairCarson Smith, Choctaw, Sib Program CoordinatorChon Hampson-Medina, Ho-Chunk and White Earth Chippewa, Sib Program CoordinatorKenaba Hatathlie, Dine, Sib Program CoordinatorAnpo Jensen, Oglala Lakota, Natives in Medicine Co-chairCorey Ashley, Dine, Dine Club PresidentConstance Owl, Eastern Band Cherokee, Cherokee Club PresidentLauve Gladstone, Tlingit, Alaska Native Student Association Co-chairKathryn Treder, Inupiaq, Alaska Native Student Association Co-chair, Programming ChairTaryn Harvey, Dine, American Indian Science and Engineering Society PresidentStanford American Indian Organization (SAIO)Created in 1970 by four Native American Stanford students, SAIO's original mission included improving the recruitment and retention of American Indian and Alaska Native students, staff, and faculty; the institutionalizing of culturally relevant curriculum; the establishment of a community center and theme house; and the permanent removal of the Stanford "Indian" mascot. SAIO is the umbrella organization of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians at Stanford that addresses the social, political, educational, and cultural issues of the community.
Minutes after a District Court judge ruled against Standing Rock Sioux's fight to stop an earth shattering oil pipeline, the Departments of Justice, the Interior and the Army announced that the Army Corps will temporarily halt authorization for construction of the pipeline around Lake Oahe in North Dakota while it reviews decisions.



Photo: San Francisco rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline in late August.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reports that although a District Court federal judge declined to stop the 1,100-mile fossil fuel projects construction, in a stunning move three federal agencies have blocked the Dakota Access Pipeline pending a thorough review and reconsideration of the process. The Department of Justice, Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior said that they will not allow the pipeline to be built on U.S. Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. The agencies requested that Dakota Access voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of the lake. Standing Rock Sioux stated on their Facebook page that this "sets the stage for a nationwide reform, establishing consultation with tribes regarding the need for meaningful tribal input for all pipeline projects in the future".The three government agencies said in their joint statement that, "important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding the Dakota Access pipeline specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain". The statement went on to say that no construction on the Dakota Access pipeline will be authorized until it can be determined whether there need be reconsideration of any of previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws. In a nod to future decisions the statement said, "this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes views on these types of infrastructure projects".It appears that protests at the site of construction in North Dakota and across the nation, including several in San Francisco, have been worth the effort as the government statement acknowledged the role of demonstrations saying, "...we have seen thousands of demonstrators come together peacefully, with support from scores of sovereign tribal governments, to exercise their First Amendment rights and to voice heartfelt concerns about the environment and historic, sacred sites. It is now incumbent on all of us to develop a path forward that serves the broadest public interest.The governments block is temporary and the struggle continues, but the Obama administration may be signaling it is more willing to cancel the pipelines federal permits, as it did with the Keystone XL pipeline. Activists are planning continuing demonstrations to keep up the pressure.
In 1991, with the end of the Soviet Union, the US war machine had no pretext for its existence. Thus, 10 years later, the US capitalist class manufactured the 9/11 Inside Job, the American Reichstag Fire perpetrated for the same reason as the Nazis burned their own government building, the Reichstag, and blamed the communists, namely to maximize profits of the munitions makers and oil companies, where the greatest profits are, maximization of profits being the primary goal of the bankrupt social order in which we live, capitalism.

This year is 15 years since the 9/11 Inside Job of Sept 11, 2001 and a presidential election year when the twin parties of war and fascism, the Democrat-Republicans, stage their phony campaigns, this time with a female millionaire presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, anointed by the same Wall Street that perpetrated and benefited from the 9/11 Inside and Donald Trump, a long time Democrat who has contributed thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party, only recently a Republican, a billionaire who says outrageous things to make sure people vote Democrat. The 9/11 Inside Job was the American Reichstag Fire perpetrated for the same reason as the Nazis burned their own government building, the Reichstag, and blamed the communists, namely to maximize profits of the munitions makers and oil companies, where the greatest profits are, maximization of profits being the primary goal of the bankrupt social order in which we live, capitalism.The official account is a conspiracy theory by definition and is anti-science. For those of you under age 25 who may not have heard it all in many forms, please make an effort to watch the DVDs and read as many of the websites and books as you can listed at the end of this article describing the many obvious lies of the governments conspiracy theory. For everyone else, you certainly have heard it all, and thus cannot claim ignorance of this issue or the related issues of US imperialism as you now have the Internet that provides information about everything.Suffice it to say, NO AIR DEFENSE was the immediate sign that the 9/11 Inside Job was perpetrated by Nazi USA since we have an excellent air defense over this country, including all major cities, for which we pay billions of tax dollars, and the Pentagon has its own air defense, for which we also pay at least millions of tax dollars. The next obvious further evidence was CONTROLLED DEMOLITION of the 110-story Twin Towers and the 47-story Building 7, which Building 7 was not hit by any plane. All 3 buildings came down in less than 10 seconds or less, no resistance, in their own footprint, in small enough pieces to illegally cart away the evidence, which is what happened. In the dust of the World Trade Center Towers was found thermite, a military incendiary substance, which as we now know from Chris Bollyns book listed below, was created by SCP Partners, a Mossad-run private equity company concerned with security, which had in its portfolio a company called Megallurg Holdings, Inc. capable of producing and applying an advanced form of super-thermite. This company was run by former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Israel is part of the American military machine and so it is no surprise that Barak was involved in the 9/11 Inside Job. The US military carried out the wishes of the US capitalist class in perpetrating the 9/11 Inside Job, guiding the planes on remote control, which planes had no hijackers on board. Nine of the so-called hijackers were alive on 9/12/01. Only the US government had the MOTIVE, MEANS and OPPORTUNITY to perpetrate the 9/11 Inside Job. In 1991, with the end of the Soviet Union, the US war machine had no pretext for its existence. Thus, 10 years later, the US capitalist class manufactured the 9/11 Inside Job.The official account of the events of September 11, 2001, has been used: to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths of over a million people; to authorize torture, military tribunals, and extraordinary rendition; and to suspend freedoms guaranteed by the American Constitution such as habeas corpus in the USA, and similar freedoms in Canada, the UK, and other countries.From: http://www.consensus911.org/the-911-consensus-points/ The war against the Soviet Union and all liberation struggles around the world continued after World War 2 with the creation of the CIA by 350 German Nazis, paid by the Rockefeller and Mellon interests. As John Judge, best known for his work on the JFK assassination and all other assassinations of the 1960s, and a 9/11 Truther aka skeptic, stated, under the evil genius of Allen Dulles [the first CIA director], whose espionage attacks on the Soviet Union date back to the 1920s, $200 million in Rockefeller and Mellon funds was directed into the hands of Hitlers spymaster Reinhard Gehlen and his 350 Nazi spies, who formed and founded our Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 under Democrat Pres. Truman. Reinhard Gehlen was a Nazi Army Major General. See http://politicalassassinations.com/2014/04/john-judge-obituary-and-request-for-reflections/ and http://jfkfacts.org/tag/john-judge/ US imperialism has been trying to destroy Russia since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution when the US and the rest of the capitalist world sent their military to try to destroy the revolution, and failed. Russia is a treasure trove of minerals, including gold, oil, diamonds and much more. The United States is now busy preparing to destroy Russia, this time under the leadership of the first female president of the United States, having failed to learn the lessons of history from Napoleon to Hitlers failed attacks on Russia. In 2014, the United States, under a Democratic president, paid for a coup in neighboring Ukraine, whose capital, Kiev, is the birthplace of Russia, and is proudly allied with Nazi forces in Ukraine. For more, see:Ukraine, Americas Lebensraum. Is Washington Preparing to Wage War on Russia? By Prof. John McMurtry, Global Research, August 23, 2015, first published in February 2015 atNATO, a US anti-Russian, anti-communist fascist thug gang created in 1948, is engaged in military exercises in cooperation with the US puppet, Nazi Ukraine, in the Black Sea, bordering Russia. SeeWar Games at Russias Doorstep: NATO Kicks Off Naval Drills in Black Sea with UkraineBy Russia Today, Global Research, September 01, 2015, RT 31 August 2015 atYou need only read Russia Today at https://www.rt.com/news/ and/or watch Russia Today at Comcast 103 and often Comcast 32, all in English, to realize that the American War Against Russia is in a roaring crescendo with the US proxy war against Syria, US barring of Russian athletes at the Olympics and the ParaOlympics on false pretenses, and the horrifying Nazi Democratic Party rallies awash in American flags with signs telling the Clinton supporters to chant USA, USA as Clinton promotes her war agenda. The United States now has its staunch, bellicose ally, Germany, on the bandwagon with a call in Germany for conscription. US missiles are now in Romania and Poland. See http://www.globalresearch.ca/threatening-russia-u-s-missiles-in-romania-and-poland-europe-on-the-nuclear-frontline/5526068 You can read all about the US War Against Russia at http://www.globalresearch.ca/search?q=Russia&x=0&y=0 andNazi USA is busy surrounding Russia with Nazi states, such as Nazi Ukraine, where it illegally overthrew a democratically elected government and then staged a phony election to confirm its proud promoters of Nazi Ukraine, which has now named a street after a Ukrainian Nazi, Stepan Bandera.If you are for peace, you certainly most vote socialist or Green in every election, at every level of office. In California, those parties are Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. You can register online at: https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US For more information, see:Since it is a presidential election year, and the road to peace begins at home since all politics are local, your vote on the propositions matters. California has 17 propositions on the ballot and San Francisco has 25. Important websites to view:California:For the list, see http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures/ and more details, including pro and con arguments, and funding for each side atProp 55: http://www.protectingcalifornia.com/act/gs?sc=ad_gg_lb-ca_broad_AV2&gclid=CJbtoczg9M4CFRaSfgod3WcPRQ Prop 56: http://www.yeson56.org/?gclid=CJKGh-zh9M4CFdgBgQodaCkKzw Prop 57: http://vote4prop57.com/ Prop 58: https://www.cta.org/~/media/Documents/Campaign%2016/Prop58_one_page_flyer_eng_final2.ashx Prop 59: http://www.moneyoutvotersin.org/prop_59 Prop 60: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_60 ,_Condoms_in_Pornographic_Films_(2016)Prop 61: http://yeson61.com/ Prop 62: http://yeson62.com/ Prop 63: http://action.safetyforall.com/page/signup/yes-on-prop-63 Prop 64: http://www.yeson64.org/?sc=ad_gg-lb-ca_auma_av7&gclid=CK34y7zn9M4CFYGUfgodfvEAWQ Prop 65: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_65 ,_Dedication_of_Revenue_from_Disposable_Bag_Sales_to_Wildlife_Conservation_Fund_(2016)Prop 66: http://nooncaprop66.org/spread-the-word/ Prop 67: http://www.cayeson67.com/ San Francisco: For the list, see: http://sfgov.org/elections/local-ballot-measure-status https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco_City_and_County ,_California_ballot_measures#2016Prop V: http://www.donttaxourgroceries.com/ Your homework on the 9/11 Inside Job follows:DVD that is a Must See at http://loosechange911.com/ http://noliesradio.org/filmfestival 2016 Film Festival lived streamed on 9/8/16 from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Lake Avenue, Oakland, CA. It will be archived for 14 days thereafter. This years film festival will explore 9/11 and more recent suspected false flags. http://www.noliesradio.org/archives/25538 (The 9/11 Pentagon Attack Papers) http://sf911truth.org/ (with more information on the 9/8/16 9/11 Film Festival) https://rethinkseptember11.wordpress.com/ (Global Interactive Broadcast) http://www.consensus911.org/the-911-consensus-points/ (Constantly updated) http://www.ae911truth.org/ (architects & engineers) http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCPJ/TOCPJ-2-7.pdf scientific article: Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastropheby Niels H. Harris, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen.See also: http://fightingforgod.com/ (Gold, Oil, Drugs) http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-911-files (The 9/11 Files)*Steve Lendman: Fake Washington Terror Plot, 8/4/13: BBC, Fox & Pakistan Observer reported Bin Ladens death in December 2001; August 2013 closing of embassies is staged. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=49f_1172526096 , article entitled Video: BBC Was Half An Hour Too Early Reporting On WTC7 Collapse http://www.sd911truth.org/ (San Diego) http://www.dc911truth.org/ (Washington DC)Military incinerated remains of 9/11 victims of this military operation, 2/28/12 AP report, Partial remains of 9/11 victims went to landfill http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-unspoken-truth-on-911-september-11-the-new-pearl-harbor/5354760 and same 5 hours total DVDs at http://grtv.ca/themes/9/11-war-terrorism (9/11 videos) http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601 (Griffin: Bin Laden died Dec 2001) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24622 (Dr. Pieczenik: Bin Laden died Dec 2001 of marfan syndrome, genetic disease that shortens life span.) http://911blogger.com/news/2011-05-06/michael-ruppert-proof-obama-lying-about-killing-bin-laden (DNA sample not possible in time frame given.)(Roberts, 8/4/11: The Mysterious Death of OBL: Creating Evidence Where There Is None)(Roberts: 9/17/13: The Killing of Osama bin Laden was an American Hoax) http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24625 (In 48 hours, bin Laden death story changed for pending presidential election) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30654 (Who Was Osama? Who Is Obama? By Michel Chossudovsky) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30671 (One Year On, Still No Evidence For Osama Bin Laden's Killing by Brit Dee) https://store.globalresearch.ca/store/the-toronto-hearings-on-911-uncovering-ten-years-of-deception/ (2011 Toronto Hearings on 9/11 Truth)Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World TradeCenter CatastropheNiels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge,Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen(Fiction Film on Bin Laden death appearing 1 month before 2012 presidential election-further proof that it was a campaign publicity stunt to boost a failed presidency.) http://911speakout.org/?page_id=222 (physics tutorial) http://stj911.org/blog/ (Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice) http://mp911truth.org/ Medical ProfessionalsREAD ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:1. Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert2. 9/11 Facing Our Fascist State by Don Paul (Excellent research all done in 2001-2002; obviously an Inside Job from the beginning. The evidence is in this book.)3. Waking Up From Our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman (Good color photos & research)4. Solving 911 by Christopher Bollyn (2012) (Laughing Israelis at World Trade Center on 9/11/01 identified themselves on TV, and much more on Israels complicity in the 911 Inside Job which should surprise no one since Israel, a US military base since its inception in 1948, is and always has been part of the US military-agent provocateur-spy system of US imperialism. EHUD OLMERT, mayor of Jerusalem in 2001, from a terrorist Irgun family, visited New York City on 9/10/11. While all civilian flights were grounded immediately after the 9/11/01 Inside Job and for at least a week thereafter, a full El Al Boeing 747 left New York Citys JFK airport for Israel with authorization from the US Department of Defense, and US military officials were at the JFK airport to make sure this flight was cleared for take-off. Florida, the alleged base of the non-existent Arab hijackers was and is a base for Israeli Mossad operations as is the rest of the USA. EHUD BARAK, who has degrees in physics and mathematics, attended Stanford University, was Israels Defense Minister during the Massacre of Gaza of 2008-2009, making him a war criminal according to the Goldstone Report, and was Prime Minister of Israel from July 1999 to March 2001, when he came to the US to work as a partner in SCP Partners, a Mossad-run private equity company concerned with security, which had in its portfolio a company called Megallurg Holdings, Inc. capable of producing and applying an advanced form of super-thermite, a powerful explosive, which was found in the dust of the Twin Towers. On 9/11/01, he stated on BBC TV that the world faces a War on Terror and called for an invasion of Afghanistan, clearly the cover for the 911 Inside Job.)5. Cognitive Infiltration by David Griffin (2010) (The title is an insidious phrase promoted by an alleged lawyer appointee of Democrat Barack Obama, Cass Sunstein, promoting an illegal activity, joining and disrupting 9/11 Truth Movement organizations instead of open debate, providing evidence for the governments conspiracy theory, which does not exist. Sunstein-Obama are openly promoting fascism. On Democrat Sunstein: He was appointed to oversee the National Security Agency in 2013, is a defender of military commissions and endorsed warrantless wiretapping. This book does reiterate all the evidence for the 9/11 Truth Movement in 156 pages plus 477 footnotes.)6 .The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7 by David Griffin (2009)7. Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? by David Griffin (2009) (Bin laden died in Dec 2001). See also http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601 8. New Pearl Harbor Revisited by David Griffin (2008)9. The Hidden History of 9/11, ed by Paul Zarembka (2008), articles by David Griffin, Jay Kolar, Zarembka, Don Trent Jacobs, Nafez Ahmed, David MacGregor, Bryan Sacks, Diana Ralph, with Appendix by Bertrand Russell: 16 Questions on the JFK Assassination (teaches how to investigate a crime)10 .The 9/11 Conspiracy, edited James Fetzer (2007), articles by John Austin, David Griffin, James Fetzer, Jack White, Judy Wood, Joseph Firmage, Morgan Reynolds, Rick Rajter, Elias Davidsson, Peter Dale Scott, John McMurty plus excellent photos11. 9/11 Contradictions by David Griffin (2008)12. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions by David Griffin13. The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin14. Debunking 9/11 Debunking by David Griffin15. Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid16. The Iron Triangle (on the Carlyle Group) by Dan Briody17. 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions by Rowland Morgan & Ian Henshall18. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Tarpley19. Body of Secrets by James Bamford (Good on Operation Northwoods)20. The War on Truth by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed21. Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker (with DVD enclosed)22. 9/11 and American Empire edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott23. Flight 93 Revealed by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan24. The Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson25 .Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta & the 9/11 Coverup in Florida by Daniel Hopsicker26. The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers and The Coverup by Sander Hicks27. The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs28. Inside Job by Jim Marrs29 .Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie30 .Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan31. 9/11: The Big Lie by Thierry Meyssan
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- The Fulani herdsman claims that one of his children is missing, while another is injured

- He has pleaded with security operatives to help him ensure the perpetrators of the attack are brought to book

After a recent attack on a Fulani settlement in Enugu state, 100 cows have reportedly gone missing, Vanguard reports.

This claim was made by one Alhaji Sodu, a herdsman based in the state, who stated that his son has also gone missing since the attack on their settlement.

Alhaji Sodu believes that the youths of Aku community in Igbo-Etiti local government area of the state were responsible for the attack which left a herdsman with three gunshot wounds just as three others were claimed to be missing, including his son.

The man's injured son was simply identified as Wareri (17) while Musa, Buba and Mohammed were given as the names of the missing people following a reprisal attack by youths of Attaukwu community in Nkanu-West local government area after the initial slaughtering of a Catholic seminarian, Lazarus Nwafor.

Wareri seemed to be in high spirits during a visit to the hospital where he was receiving treatments but the father appealed to security operatives to ensure the mastermind of the attacks are not left unpunished.

"I am too old now to go into the forest in search of my three sons. I am appealing to security agencies to rescue my sons unharmed. The youths have slaughtered seven of my cows. Over 100 cows are missing now," he said.

While confirming the incident, Brigadier General Fred Eze (rtd), chairman, Enugu constituted security committee, stated that everything was under control already, saying: "We want to allay fears generated by this incident. The Army have moved to forestall any breakdown of law and order. The Garrison Commander, O.T Akinjobi has dispatched a search party for the missing kids.

"Another combined team of Police and Army have equally moved into the area to avert any breakdown of public peace. This incident is already under investigation and authorities will unravel the remote causes of the incident and ensure that appropriate actions are taken."

Meanwhile, in Ebonyi state, about 3,000 women farmers have staged a massive protest against the rampaging Fulani herdsmen in the southeast state.

Vanguard reports that the women, largely elderly ones, who are from Ishiagu community on Friday, September 9, staged a peaceful protest to the palace of their traditional ruler, HRH Ezego Moses Ngele.

Source: Legit.ng
The Nigerian Army has killed 7 kidnappers in Bauchi state just as it announced the destruction of several illegal refineries across states in the Niger Delta region.

The troops of the 33 brigade were said to have killed the kidnappers during a patrol of some villages in the state on Friday, September 9.

Nigerian troops have killed kidnappers in Bauch state.

Vanguard quotes a statement from army public relations officer, Col. Sani Usman as saying that the troops were tipped off about the location and activities of the kidnappers at Lame Burra forest near Dutsen Ganye, Gunduru and Kati Layin villages in the state.

READ ALSO: Army demotes general for misuse of military property

The statement read: During a heavy exchange of fire, the troops killed 7 of the kidnappers and destroyed their camps.

They also recovered 2 AK-47 rifles and 3 Dane guns at the camp.

The troops are still combing the general area to further track down other fleeing members of the criminal gang.

The troops of the Nigeria army chief, Tukur Buratai caught the Boko Haram terrorist.

It is important to state that the Brigade after the initial successes of its Operation FOREST KUNAMA, which was aimed at clearing all livestock rustlers and armed bandits camps in Bauchi and Gombe States general area, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) directed them to maintain continued presence at the Lame-Burra forest.

READ ALSO: Outrage as Senior NDA cadets brutalise recruit to death 24hours after joining

This is to prevent the criminal elements that fled from returning.

Subsequently, 2 Forward Operation Bases (FOBs) were established at Lame and Jimi to cover the Lame and Burra axis of the forest respectively.

Troops usually carry out periodic fighting patrols into the forest from the FOBs.

In a related development, troops on Operation LAFIYA DOLE deployed at Forward Operation Base (FOB), Buratai in conjunction with local vigilante arrested a suspected Boko Haram terrorist named Adamu Damuna.

He is currently being interrogated.

You can also read how the Nigeria Army caused slight Panic in Imo state as troops raid two kidnappers camp (Photos).

Source: Legit.ng
A Nigerian orphan named Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir has emerged the best graduating medical student at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan in yet another accolade to the country.

Orphaned since the age of six, Abdulkadir said her outstanding achievement looks like a miracle to even to her.

Sudan's best medical student, Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir

The Cable quotes her as telling the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in a telephone interview from Sudan that not just her academic achievements but also her life in general is a massive miracle since her father died when she was around three years old and her mother when she was six years old.

READ ALSO: Checkout this university where students are not allowed to use their smartphones

My academic achievements so far, till today, seem like a miracle to me. Not only that, my life as a whole is a pack of miracles, she said.

With no hope of going further in her education after her mothers death, Abdulkadir was saved by helper called Alhaja Sekinat Adekola.

Thinking that was the end of schooling for me, my grandmother withdrew me from the school but the founder, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, gave me scholarship for my primary and secondary education.

I emerged best student in my primary and secondary schools and even in my WASC, and I had a high score of 274 in my UTME examination.

I have always had passion to be a medical doctor, but because I was not sure of my chances I filled Bio-Chemistry in my JAMB form and came out with a high score of 274.

Islamiyat Oluwatoyin Abdulkadir posing with her award plaque.

This score was high enough to get me into the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and with the hope of changing to medicine later. I had to jettison this dream because of the financial commitment involved in studying medicine.

It was at this time that an admission team from International University of Africa, Sudan, came to recruit Nigerian students into their school of Nursing.

READ ALSO: See this bride who graduated from school on her wedding day

I presented myself for the written and oral interview and luck once again smiled on me as I emerged the best student and a scholarship was awarded me for my admission in their school of nursing.

After the end of the first semester examination I emerged the best student, and the opportunity I had been waiting for presented itself. I approached the Schools Faculty of Medicine for a cross over from Nursing Faculty to Medicine, and the request was granted.

So through thick and thin of financial difficulties, culture shock, hunger and loneliness, I braved it through and emerged the best graduating student of the medical school on September 2, 2016.

For me to clinch the overall best student, I had a CGPA of 3.37/4.00, making a groundbreaking record in the history of the faculty by scoring above 3.24, the last highest grade.

One certain thing I know about myself, which cannot be disputed, is that I am a living miracle of Allah, she continued.

READ ALSO: UNIOSUN lecturer in sex scandal video writes open letter to Nigerians (photos)

If you have searched for a proof of miracle but to no avail, look no further as I am here to testify to the miracles of God.

I want to seize this opportunity to thank my God-sent angels, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, founder, Proprietress of AD-din International Group of Schools, for the good background I got in the school.

You can view Here is proof that Nigerian students are the best (photos) to know more about talented students on this side of West Africa.

Source: Legit.ng
A supposed witch was spotted walking naked and holding a broom, leading people to believe she crashed while in flight.

According to reports from iHarare News, a 'flying' witch crash-landed in a local community in Harare, Zimbabwe, recently.

The supposed witch (an old woman), was seen walking stark naked in the night, holding onto a long broomstick (just like they make us believe witches use in movies).

See pictures below:

PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App

Hmmm...What do you think?

Source: Legit.ng
The state of Wisconsin will pay three organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, $1.6 million in legal fees for a lawsuit over the state's admitting privileges law.

Last month, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Affiliated Medical Services wrote in court filings that their legal bills totaled $1.8 million. The state Department of Justice said at the time it would likely challenge the request to ensure it didn't overpay.

Gov. (Scott) Walkers unconstitutional abortion restrictions have proven to be an expensive bill for the taxpayers of Wisconsin," said Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin president and CEO Teri Huyck. "Funds that would be better spent ensuring that women in Wisconsin had access to basic birth control and preventive health care are instead being wasted on unconstitutional restrictions aimed at blocking access to abortion in our state."

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals in June from Wisconsin and Mississippi over laws that would require that abortion providers have admitting privileges to a hospital near their clinic. The court ruled earlier that week that a similar 2013 Texas law places an "undue burden" on a woman's right to end a pregnancy.

Walker signed Wisconsin's admitting privileges bill into law on July 5, 2013, just one month after it was introduced. The law was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court in November 2015.

"The attorney general has spent two years appealing one court decision after another striking down Wisconsins unnecessary admitting privileges requirement. Federal courts not only found that this law violated the U.S. Constitution but also compromised womens health in Wisconsin," Huyck said. "We call on Gov.Walker and legislative leaders to stop passing unconstitutional abortion restrictions and instead invest government resources in preventive health care that ensures women and families are able to have intended pregnancies."

DOJ spokesman Johnny Koremenos said last month Attorney General Brad Schimel "stands by the litigation decisions he made."

"As the states chief legal counsel, the Attorney General has a duty to defend and enforce the laws that are duly enacted by our elected Legislature," he said.
Brisbane centre Jordan Kahu has called on his side's backline to lift ahead of next week's do-or-die semi-final clash after the Broncos defeated the Gold Coast Titans 44-28 in a 'disappointing' performance by Wayne Bennett's men on Friday night.

Draw Widget - Finals Week 1 - Broncos vs Titans

Kahu scored two tries in a personal 20-point haul, but it was Brisbane's forwards who deserved the plaudits for running over the top of the Titans in the middle of the park.

In particular, Australia and Queensland representative Josh McGuire was a standout, running for 154m in a barnstorming performance.

His efforts gave the Broncos superior field position, but they at times failed to capitalise.

Brisbane's backs bombed a number of certain tries, and Kahu said the Broncos' star-studded backline needed to do more to reward the hard work of their forward pack.

"Our forwards really ramped it up in the second half of Friday night's match. They worked together as a group," Kahu said.

"Us members of the backline need to back them up a bit more and finish each set with a bit more polish. We need to be better after all the hard work they put in."

Broncos must improve: Thaiday

Bennett backs penalty try ruling

Broncos v Titans: Five key points





Kahu started in the centres on Friday night after playing on the wing for much of the regular season.

The late omission of young gun Tom Opacic meant Kahu was forced to make the move, and although he likes it in the centres, he's hoping Opacic will be back for next week's clash with either the Melbourne Storm or North Queensland Cowboys.

"I'm happy to play wherever," he said.

"I got a run in the centres this week, but if Tom is back next week then I'll go back to the wing. I'm just happy to be wearing a Broncos jersey each week.

"If Tom is back then he'll be great for the team. He's been playing very well and he's a good fella."

The safe hands of Opacic will be a welcome inclusion to Brisbane's line-up after the side made four errors in the first 20 minutes of Friday night's clash.

Kahu described the start of Brisbane's match as 'un-Bronco like' and he wants improvement.

"The first 20 minutes was not the Broncos. We really had to ramp it up the last 60 minutes to get the win," he said.

"We can't be doing that any longer because it's going to hurt us if we keep playing like that.

"We won a finals game so Wayne was happy with that, but I think everyone around the club knows that we can't play like that."
By: Civil Air Patrol

Civil Air Patrol 75th Logo

Contact

Lt Maryan Tooker

Nevada Wing Public Affairs Officer

***@nvwg.cap.gov Lt Maryan TookerNevada Wing Public Affairs Officer

End

-- The Nevada Air Guard will host its annual Family Day at the Nevada Air Guard Base on Saturday September 10. The Silver State's Airmen will relax their military duties for an afternoon of fun activities and picnicking with relatives and friends.The Reno Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol will participate by hosting an informational table and will have a Cessna 182 static display at the event. Of special note, 2016 marks the 75th birthday of Civil Air Patrol. Founded on December 1, 1941, one week before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, by more than 150,000 citizens concerned about the defense of America's coastline. CAP pilots flew more than one-half million hours, were credited with sinking two enemy submarines and rescued hundreds of crash survivors during World War II.CAP became the auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force in 1948; charged with three primary missions  aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services.The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ushered CAP into a new era of homeland defense. CAP volunteers transported blood and medical supplies, provided communication and transportation support, and assisted state and federal officials.On Aug. 28, 2015, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force Chief of Staff, announced the CAP officially a member of the U.S. Air Force's Total Force, joining the regular, guard and reserve forces as American Airmen. CAP's work in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and other emergencies has continued to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness and potential of dedicated volunteers who embody the CAP motto...Semper Vigilans . . . Always Vigilant!Today CAP currently has more than 56,000 senior and cadet members.
Award-Winning Film by Director Aaron Biebert Set for African Premiere on Sept.16 in Johannesburg

By: A Billion Lives

Media Contact

Jane Sparango

jane@coteriemedia.comc Jane Sparango

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-- The award-winning documentary filmwill premiere in Africa on Sept. 16, 2016 as an official selection of the 5th Annual Jozi Film Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa.Igniting controversy about how anti-smoking forces are attacking the vapor technology industry,shows that Big Business entities from around the world are colluding to destroy the e-cigarette trade in its infancy, even as vapor technology is helping millions to stop their addiction to cigarettes.Over 40 million people worldwide are using vapor technology, with many employing it as a means to successfully quit smoking. But, as the film argues, with billions in profits and taxes at stake, corporate conglomerates and the governments they benefit have created a multi-pronged campaign to poison the global population's perception of e-cigarettes and vapor technology in an attempt to crush the emergence of a smoke-free and prescription-free alternative. As a result, these acts are sentencingto die needlessly from cigarette related diseases in this century, according to World Health Organization (WHO) projections, by withholding a low cost, successful substituteThe film's director/producer Aaron Biebert travels across four continents to reveal why a device that can save so many lives is maligned and discredited in so many countries. During his journey, Biebert uncovers the hidden facts surrounding the vapor technology business, and exposes how pharmaceutical companies, anti-smoking advocacy groups, tobacco companies, and even the U.S. state and federal governments are to blame for the disinformation, over-regulation, and banning of e-cigarettes worldwide.To prove his case, Biebert captures compelling interviews with leading scientists, doctors, technologists, and policy makers from major international health organizations. Each in turn gives reasoned answers to the very serious question: "Arebeing sacrificed for billions of dollars?"While many countries have banned or moved to ban the technology internationally,has already made an impact. In New Zealand this year, just a week after the film premiered at a major film festival, the government announced it is re-examining its ban on vapor technology -- and later defunded some of the organizations speaking out against it.To view the trailer and obtain additional information, visit ABillionLives.com is a production of Milwaukee, Wisconsin-basedAttention Era Media ( http://attentionera.com ).Independently funded by the production company, the feature film won the Supreme Jury Prize and Best Director awards at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival when it premiered in Australia (July 2016).
Roger B. Kennedy Construction Collected and Donated School Supplies for Seminole County, Florida Students In Need

Media Contact

Roger B. Kennedy Construction

cpope@rbkennedy.com

407-478-4500 Roger B. Kennedy Construction407-478-4500

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-- Altamonte Springs-based Roger B. Kennedy Construction during August collected and donated two SUV carloads of school supplies for Seminole County students in need. The annual Tools 4 Seminole Schools supply drive benefits A Gift For Teaching - Seminole, a program of The Foundation for Seminole County Public Schools. The Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that raises funds to further enhance the superior performance of students and teachers in Seminole County Public Schools."In keeping with the Foundation's mission, we are helping to put school supplies in the hands of students who need them," stated Roger B. Kennedy, Jr., President. "Accordingly, I wish to thank our many valued clients, subcontractors, vendors and employees who responded so generously in this year's drive."In appreciation of the company's efforts, Becky Miller, Store Supervisor for A Gift For Teaching - Seminole, stated, "Our special thanks go out to Roger B. Kennedy Construction for all they do in our annual Tools 4 Seminole Schools supply drive!"According to the Foundation's website, more than 49 percent of students in Seminole County -- nearly 30,000 -- qualify for the free and reduced meals program. Of this number, approximately 1,500 are homeless. Many parents and guardians struggle to make ends meet, and that often means sending children to school without the supplies they need. A Gift For Teaching - Seminole provides free school and classroom supplies to every Seminole County public school through the Free Store for teachers.For more information about the Tools 4 Seminole Schools supply drive continuing through September 23, or A Gift For Teaching - Seminole, please contact Becky Miller at Becky_Miller@scps.k12.fl.us or (407) 320-7768.The Kennedy organization has been in continuous operation as a family-owned construction business for 146 years, and opened its Florida office in Orlando in 1972. Headed by Roger B. Kennedy, Jr., President, Roger B. Kennedy Construction ranks among Florida's largest construction companies and is one of Florida's largest family-owned businesses. The company specializes in multi-family, hospitality, commercial and healthcare projects including apartments, condominiums, hotels, timeshare resorts, student housing, and more.Roger B. Kennedy Construction offers pre-construction services, construction management and sustainability services. As a top general contractor in Orlando, Florida, the team at Roger B. Kennedy Construction manages projects from inception to completion including design, resources and timelines. There are hundreds of details involved in the commercial construction of hospitality, multi-family housing and healthcare facilities. Roger B. Kennedy Construction delivers the best value for the specified need.Kennedy stated "There are hundreds of general contractors in the Central Florida area, however, a select few are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accredited Professionals. There are tax benefits that clients can gain when working with a general contracting organization that is LEED certified. Benefits include using recycled materials in the construction process, reducing the amount of construction waste, and reducing energy and water usage. All are key benefits clients can receive when working with an LEED certified general contractor in Orlando."Current or recent projects by Roger B. Kennedy Construction include Zen Luxury Apartments in Orlando, Florida, Kenwood Place Apartments in Tallahassee, Florida, and Haley Park Apartments in Tampa, Florida. In addition to these cities, Roger B. Kennedy Construction offers construction services throughout the entire state of Florida including Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and more.The headquarters of Roger B. Kennedy Construction is located at 1105 Kensington Park Drive, Altamonte Springs, Fla. 32714, telephone (407) 478-4500. For more information, visit www.rbkennedy.com.About The Foundation for Seminole County Public SchoolsThe Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) direct support organization that raises funds to enhance the performance of students and teachers in Seminole County Public Schools. Since inception in 1986, the Foundation has raised over $33 million from engaged citizens and businesses to ensure that today's students become tomorrow's productive citizens. For more information, call 407.320.0180 or visit www.foundationscps.org.
Hyundai India has started delivery of the new 2020 Creta SUV across the country

Launched in the range of Rs 9.99 lakhs to Rs 17.2 lakhs, the new 2020 Hyundai Creta delivery to customers have now started. The first owner of the new Creta in India is Shah Rukh Khan. He was handed over the keys to his black coloured Creta top of the line turbo petrol DSG variant by Tarun Garg, Director of Sales, Hyundai India. Hat tip to automotive enthusiast Joti Mohar Das for sharing the exclusive photos.

If initial bookings are anything to go by, it seems as if the Creta is once again ready to reclaim its crown in the compact SUV segment. Bookings, which opened on 2nd March for a token amount of Rs.25,000, have already crossed the 15,000 unit mark.

The 5 seater Hyundai Creta comes in with a Superstructure monocoque chassis that is strong enough to support 2 fully grown African elephants on its hood. This new compact SUV will be offered in 5 variants of E, EX, S, SX and SX(O). It will get BlueLink technology with 50 advanced connectivity features and will be powered by 3 BS6 compliant engine options. Where its exterior makeup is concerned, the new Creta will gain a new front radiator grille, LED headlamps, a panoramic sunroof and will sit on 17 diamond cut alloy wheels.

The rear receives a sporty appeal with LED tail lamps and LED high mount stop lamp besides an aerodynamic rear spoiler, roof rails and automatic ORVMs. The new Hyundai Creta will be presented in 10 colour options among which will also be two dual tone paint schemes. Single tone colour options include Polar White, Typhoon Silver, Phantom Black, Lava Orange, Titan Grey, Deep Forest (Turbo Only), Galaxy Blue and Red Mulberry. The two dual tone options are Polar White with Phantom Black and Lava Orange with Phantom Black.

Shah Rukh Khan and 2020 Creta

The interiors will sport a fully digital instrument console, 10.25 HD infotainment system, 7 supervisor cluster with digital display, Bose sound system with 8 speakers and dual zone climate control. It will also receive an air purifier, electric parking brake and driver rear view monitor along with 2 step reclining rear seat and rear window shades. The 2020 Hyundai Creta gets BlueLink technology which comes in with over 50 advanced connectivity features. It allows for controls over locking and unlocking, AC on and off and geofencing besides speed checks and voice based controls directly via the smartphone.

The engine lineup on the new Hyundai Creta will consist of 3 BS6 compliant engines borrowed from the Kia Seltos. The 1.5 liter MPi petrol engine will offer 115 PS power and 144 Nm torque mated to a 6 speed MT and IVT. The 1.4 liter Kappa T-GRi petrol engine will be capable of 140 PS power and 242 Nm torque mated to a 7 speed DCT while the 1.5 liter U2 diesel engine will give off 115 PS power and 250 Nm torque mated to a 6 speed MT and 6 speed AT. The new Creta will take on the Kia Seltos, MG Hector and the Tata Harrier.
Jeep Compass Diesel variants, produced during the period 18th December 2017 to 30th November 2018, have been recalled. The company noted an emission issue in these SUVs causing them to exceed the regulatory threshold for Particulate Matter Emissions.

The recall notice has been released and company dealerships have been instructed to rectify the issue free of cost to the customer. Jeep will be reprogramming the ECU with latest software update which will also be done on current unsold stocks in company showrooms prior to sale while all vehicles coming in for service will also be inspected.

The error was detected during a periodic check and company dealers will be contacting owners to bring in their vehicles for rectification. However, the affected Jeep Compass do not pose any threat either to the users or to the environment.

This is not the first recall issued for the Jeep Compass. It was 1,200 units of the Compass which were also recalled over loose fasteners in passenger airbag modules which could cause a threat if the airbag inflated.

Jeep Compass, launched in India in 2017, is produced at the companys plant in Ranjangaon. Sales of the SUV have been averaging at around 1,150 units per month. Jeep Compass is powered by a 1.4 liter petrol engine offering 160 bhp power and 250 Nm torque mated to a 6 speed manual or 7 speed dual clutch gearbox. It also gets its power via a 2.0 liter diesel engine offering 170 bhp power and 350 Nm torque mated to a 6 speed transmission.

The new Jeep Compass Trailhawk is also poised for launch and has been spied on test. This range topping variant of the Compass lineup, will boast of high ground clearance, additional off roading equipment and a two tone color scheme along with new alloy wheel design to set it apart from standard models. It will be offered exclusively with a 9 speed automatic gearbox as standard. It will get two additional drive modes of Sand and Rock. In terms of pricing, the Jeep Compass Trailhawk will be priced Rs.2-3 lakhs over the price of the top of the line Jeep Compass.
As far as images reveal, this convertible version of Maruti Jimny seems good enough to be considered for factory production
The raw materials of some volcanic islands are shaped by some of the same processes that form diamonds deep under the continents, according to a new study. The study asserts that material from diamond-forming regions journeys nearly to earth's core and back up to form such islands, a process that could take two and a half billion years or longer -- more than half of earth's entire history. The research challenges some prevailing notions about the workings of the deep earth, and their connections to the surface. The study, led by researchers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, appears this week in the scientific journal Nature.

In line with the theory of plate tectonics, scientists believe that many islands far out in the oceans are the product of mantle plumes -- hot spots of material welling up from the vast region below earth's thin crust to erupt on the ocean floor. Examples include the Hawaiian and Galapagos chains. Prevailing thought says the raw material is recycled ocean crust made of the volcanic rock basalt that has been shoved down, or subducted, under the lighter rocks of the continents. This material is then thought to sink as far as 1,800 miles to the mantle's boundary with earth's core, then rise back up.

The new study leaves this basic story intact, but adds an intriguing chapter for some lavas with peculiar compositions known as "HIMU," meaning high , the Greek letter geochemists use as shorthand for the ratio of uranium to lead. The solid rocks of the continents stick down into the mantle like teeth set in gums. Thin ocean crust subducting under them often drags along carbon-rich limestone, a common ocean-floor sedimentary rock. Once near the continental roots, some of that carbon gets expelled as a fluid, interacting with and altering rocks there. A hundred miles or more down, this process forms diamond, a pure crystalline form of carbon that sometimes reaches the surface in rapid, explosive eruptions. The new study says chunks of the altered roots may also drop off and sink, to later re-emerge as part of an island-forming eruption.

The key to the finding: a connection between the chemistry of tiny bits of carbon-rich fluids, or inclusions, trapped within diamonds, and that of the lavas that form the HIMU islands. Diamond inclusions comprise the original carbon-rich fluid from which the diamond crystallized, and this fluid contains dozens of other elements that form characteristic abundance patterns. A defining characteristic of the fluids: a high ratio of calcium to aluminum. On the islands studied, the researchers found similarly high calcium-to-aluminum ratios in olivine, a mineral that crystallized from the magmas. They compared the abundance patterns of 28 other elements in the lavas, from cesium to lutetium, and found that the patterns also matched those within diamond inclusions. The conclusion: the diamonds and the lavas came from the same stuff. "It's not every day that new observations force us to completely rethink a concept that has been accepted for decades," said coauthor Cornelia Class, a Lamont-Doherty geochemist.

"Trace elements are the fingerprints of geologic processes," said lead author Yaakov Weiss, a Lamont-Doherty geochemist who studies diamond inclusions. "The key link is that carbon-rich fluids in diamonds that formed 100 miles below the surface and magmas that welled up from 1,800 miles down have the same unique chemical signatures. We can look at diamonds as time capsules, as messengers from a place we have no other way of seeing." Weiss last year published a study concluding that inclusions showed ancient seawater was involved in the formation of some diamonds.

The scientists analyzed HIMU lavas from the Cook-Austral islands in the south Pacific, and Grand Comore island, in the Indian Ocean. Most samples were taken by coauthor Takeshi Hanyu of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, who has previously studied the Cook-Austral rocks. (Another HIMU island, which the team did not study, is the Atlantic Ocean's St. Helena, where Napoleon was imprisoned following his downfall.) All of these islands formed 20 million years ago or less, meaning that while they themselves are geologically young, their source material is extremely ancient.

The findings are bolstered by previous research from others showing that diamond inclusions and HIMU lavas both contain unique combinations of isotopes of the element sulfur that were common in earth's atmosphere before 2 billion years ago, after which respiration from photosynthetic algae caused oxygen to accumulate in the air. This shows that the material for both diamonds and HIMU lavas came from the surface long ago.

"The idea that the subcontinental mantle contributes significantly to mantle plumes has been around for over 30 years, but never found general acceptance," said coauthor Steven Goldstein, also a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty. "While this is likely not the last piece to the HIMU puzzle, it signals a major shift in our view of deep earth dynamics."

One thing the study does not suggest: that diamonds might be found on oceanic islands. They might have been present in the continental root at the start of its journey, but would have been destroyed along the way.

The study was partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
A 50-year-old Tomah man was referred to the Monroe County District Attorney after an alleged assault Aug. 25 at a Murdock Street residence shortly after midnight.

A 19-year-old woman said she was choked by Devin Hullum after he made advances toward her. The woman said she was staying in the apartment and had never met Hullum until shortly before the incident. She said Hullum threw her on a chair, and a witness said he choked the woman for 20-30 seconds. The report says the woman suffered an abrasion on her Adams apple.

Hullum told police an argument started when the woman threw a makeup bag at his head and and threw a chair. As the interview progressed, Hullum told police he was having an anxiety attack. The report said he yelled profanities and said he was being railroaded.

He was referred to the district attorney for strangulation/suffocation, battery and disorderly conduct. He also had an outstanding warrant with a $500 bond from Illinois that he told police he was unable to pay.

In other police news:

Robert L. Ludke, 42, Tomah, faces multiple charges after an Aug. 24 incident at Superior Avenue apartment.

Police were called after a woman reported that Ludke was violating a no-drink bond condition by consuming alcohol at her apartment. As police arrived, they witnessed Todd Albert Gerke, 52, Tomah, push Ludke to the ground. Police pointed a Taser at Gerke and told him to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back.

As police walked toward Gerke, the report says Ludke grabbed an officers foot. Ludke let go when ordered, but became visibly agitated after being handcuffed. He denied doing anything wrong and allegedly threatened officers with physical harm if they didnt removed Ludkes cuffs. When an officer asked Ludke how much alcohol he consumed, Ludke reportedly replied, not enough. Once in the squad car, Ludke allegedly threatened to slit an officers throat.

Gerke told police he and the woman invited Ludke for a visit. After 45 minutes, Gerke said Ludke became violent and began to throw items. When asked to leave, Gerke said Ludke threatened to kill both him and the woman. He said Ludke punched him in the face and that pushing Ludke to the ground was an act of self-defense.

Ludke was referred to the district attorney for battery, threatening battery to an officer, disorderly conduct and felony bail jumping. Gerke was referred for disorderly conduct.

Tammy Lynn Miller, 43, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for disorderly conduct and battery pursuant to a Sept. 1 incident at a Stoughton Avenue residence. She is accused of striking a man with a closed fist during an argument around 10:30 p.m.

Daniel M. Amundson, 36, Sparta, was referred to the district attorney for felony battery and disorderly conduct after allegedly assaulting a fellow employee at Advance Auto Parts Sept. 1.

Police received a call from a man who said he was in a Mauston hospital emergency room after Amundson threw a trailer wiring kit at him and struck his left ear. A physician who treated the man told police that the blow caused a concussion. The man said Amundson had previously triggered disputes between the two of them and threatened to get him fired.

The report says Amundson acknowledged throwing the wiring kit at the man but didnt know it was going to hit him.

Matthew Mark Hlass, 33, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for disorderly conduct after an Aug. 26 incident. Hlass allegedly smashed the window of a vehicle he and another woman jointly owned. The report says Hlass and the woman had a dispute over a storage locker and that Hlass had threatened to forcibly remove the lock.

Matthew R. Walker, 40, Tomah, and Valarie Walker, 41, Tomah, were referred to the district attorney after an Aug. 26 incident at a Cranberry Circle residence.

According to the report, the two had a disagreement about whether Matthew Walker should take the couples children on a trip to Milwaukee. The two engaged in a brief physical confrontation in which a screen was torn. The report says neither party feared for his or her safety and told police they they didnt anticipate a future disturbance would occur.

Ashley N. Coville, 29, Sparta, was referred to the district attorney for obstructing an officer and bail jumping after being detained by police in Winnebago Park Aug. 28 shortly before 7 p.m.

Police were advised that a man and woman were together inside the womens restroom at the park. When police arrived, the two were walking on Brandon Street. The report says the woman identified herself as Ashley Griffin and denied she and the man were in the bathroom together.

After an extended conversation, police were able to able to establish Covilles identity. She has a bond condition with a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, which triggered the bail jumping referral.

Two days later Coville was referred for bail jumping, false complaint of police misconduct, false swearing and obstructing an officer. The report says Coville falsely accused an officer of inappropriately touching her during the Aug. 28 arrest and bruising her wrists while being handcuffed.

Heather Marie Hanson, 28, Westby, was referred to the district attorney for interference with child custody. The report says Hanson violated a custody agreement and sent harassing text messages to the father. Police had been unable to contact Hanson as of Aug. 29.

Amber Michelle Schaller, 23, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for threatening battery to a police officer and bail jumping after an Aug. 29 incident.

According to the report, police responded to a disturbance at a Veterans Street residence. As police approached Schaller in a marked squad car, Schaller allegedly ran northbound. The report says she yelled obscenities in the direction of the officer, threatened to punch the officer in the face and later threatened to kill another officer. She has a bond condition that prohibits her from making threats, which triggered the bail jumping referral.
Veterinarians in Washington say there has been an uptick in the number of canine patients arriving dangerously stoned over the last year. After the recreational use of marijuana was legalized in the state, clinics like the Pacific Avenue Animal Hospital in Tacoma have begun seeing as many as 30 dogs a month in need of treatment for THC exposure.

"A busy week, I've seen 10-12 cases," Vet Nathanial Stewart tells news station KHOU. "I saw a Beagle once that ate an entire zip-lock baggie full of marijuana buds."

The increasing availability of edibles, marijuana-infused confections that mask the taste of pot, may be to blame for many of these new cases. Dogs who might otherwise have no interest in weed in its basic form have a harder time resisting what looks and smells like a normal treat.

And a lack of self-control can be dangerous. Veterinarians say around 3 grams of THC per kilogram of a dog's weight is the minimum lethal dose. Even smaller amounts can trigger seizures and put pets into a coma.

Vets recommend that dogs suspected of having eaten pot be taken to an animal clinic immediately for treatment. And pet owners should be reminded to keep edibles and other marijuana products out of reach of their pets.
WASHINGTONFor Nick and Diane Marson, the story never gets old. Twenty times theyve seen the musical and 20 times theyve discovered something new to savour: another performance, another song.

Another memory.

We never tire of it, Diane says on the phone from the Marsons home in Texas. Every time, adds Nick, we see something different.

And how could it be any other way? The Marsons not only revel in the story of Come From Away. They also happen to have lived it. Stranded in Gander, Newfoundland, on Sept. 11, 2001  strangers to each other and the 6,600 other passengers on 38 jets that were compelled by aviation officials to land and sequester on the rugged Canadian island as American airspace shut down  they met and fell in love.

Their romance became one of the many tender threads of Come From Away, a fact-based musical by a Canadian-American couple, Irene Sankoff and David Hein, about an isolated community that opened its arms for a shell-shocked week to unexpected guests from around the world. It made its debut last year at Californias La Jolla Playhouse and went on to an equally well-received engagement in Seattle. As a result, the show is being readied for a wider audience, on Broadway, in an open-ended run starting in February.

But first, it settles in for a spell at Fords Theatre in Washington, where this chronicle of the acts of uncommon kindness committed against a backdrop of unfathomable evil will certainly find an exceptional emotional resonance. Washington, of course, was one of the two cities attacked on Sept. 11, when terrorists crashed a hijacked jet into the Pentagon, killing 189 people. Hundreds more died in the pair of attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan and the crashing of a fourth jet in the Pennsylvania countryside.

The musical, which began at Fords on Friday, will play here on Sunday, Sept. 11: the 15th anniversary of the worst terrorist act in U.S. history. During the run, the show will honour the memory of those who died, with special performances for military veterans and families of the victims. The Marsons will be in town, too, along with several others portrayed in the show, for more viewings of a musical they simply cant seem to get enough of.

From Fun Home to Hamilton to Dear Evan Hansen, serious-minded musicals  those built around sensitive personal issues or complex chapters of history  are all the rage right now. And even so, a story set to melody thats linked to events imprinted so wrenchingly on the American psyche might present a different level of psychological obstacle to some ticket buyers, especially those who still think of musicals as escapism.

The shows creators submit, however, that Come From Away is not so much about the inhuman horrors of Sept. 11 as about the thoroughly human impulses, to provide help and comfort, that immediately followed. Because the people of Gander  a town of 11,000 souls living next to a major international airport that was pivotal to the Allied effort in the Second World War  went to remarkable lengths to take care of the passengers, and even a few of the four-legged variety, who were grounded and unmoored from their lives.

Its more sort of a 9/12 musical, a response to the moment of crisis, declares director Christopher Ashley, who has been with the project since its development at La Jolla. The show is about extraordinary generosity.

The musical was born, in a sense, five years ago, on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, when Sankoff and Hein attended a reunion event in Gander, with a grant in hand to interview local citizens and some of the returning passengers. They included, among many others, people like the Marsons and Beverley Bass, an American Airlines pilot, for whom the experience in Gander had been life-changing. The effect on the townspeople was just as meaningful: Fifteen years later, its still as strong or even stronger, says Claude Elliott, the mayor of Gander then and now.

Sankoff and Hein were so taken with the anecdotes they recorded and the songs they heard at a memorial concert, redolent of the folkways of Newfoundland and the musics Celtic roots, that their inclination was to turn the story of the stranding into a musical. Forty-five minutes of material were presented at the Canadian Musical Theatre Project at Ontarios Sheridan College in 2012, the first of a series of workshops in Canada and the United States that allowed the couple to expand Come From Away to its current 95-minute length.

A 12-member ensemble, which includes both Broadway stalwarts such as Jenn Colella (If/Then) and Rodney Hicks (Rent) as well as other veteran actors from the West Coast and Canadas Stratford Festival, portrays both the Gander townsfolk and the passengers. They take an audience chronologically through the weeks events, all the while recounting in first person the characters personal travails. A woman whose son is a missing New York firefighter waits in anguish for news; a Muslim man who is an accomplished chef finds himself isolated and under suspicion by other passengers; a gay couple worried about their reception in a remote outpost learn a thing or two about an unlikely global hotbed of tolerance.

Indeed, the reflexive open-mindedness of the local residents forms a motif for the show. It seems a prescription for a well-lived life. As Hein puts it about the citizenry: Theyre simultaneously generous and unsentimental.

The people of Gander and the surrounding towns not only fed and housed these strangers but also went out of their way to sustain them emotionally, a reassuring sense that goodness remained in the world. The no-nonsense brand of hospitality is summed up by Mayor Elliott, whos also a character in the musical, and who recounts, in a telephone interview from Gander, how people even turned the keys of their cars over to people they had never laid eyes on before. (Of course, as he also explains, the cars would have turned up eventually, given that Newfoundland is indeed an island).

Many of the actors from the La Jolla and Seattle engagements are remaining with the show through Broadway: A Toronto run and a special two-performance concert stop in Gander follow Washington. And they report a deepening bond with both the musical and the people they embody. Its an experience like none Ive ever had, Colella says. Ive never trusted anything so implicitly.

She met Bass, the pilot she plays, in California, and found the encounter a lifeline to a more profound grasp of her role, and the stressful situation in which these people found themselves. Of going through the musicals rituals night after night, and knowing that on many of those nights the people who lived through the events were in the audience, the actress adds: The biggest challenge is not breaking down.

The actors, though, realized that the musical was even more of an out-of-body experience for the people they were portraying.

The first time, sitting in the audience and seeing your life played before you! Nick Marson says, still marvelling at the memory.

The Marsons become, like others dramatized in the musical, luminaries on these nights. They clearly enjoy the supporting parts they have been assigned by Come From Away, as enduringly uplifting counterpoints to a time of almost bottomless grief.

Or as Elliott observes: On the day of the worst act of mankind, the people who landed here saw the best of mankind.

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The most famous person at TIFF is not in Toronto.

Hint: he shares his name with a rather illustrious duck.

With only two months to go until the American election, and with so many Yanks in town  many looking jet-lagged from this interminable political season  Donald Trump is ever-present at Torontos film festival parties. Hes on every guest list. He lurks on the coaster below every drink.

Three back-to-back soirees bullet-pointed the point, the other night: First, at a Soho House affair, where the room swung to an all-cleaned-up and thankfully man-bun-free Leo DiCaprio (ready to gesticulate beneath a giant mounted moose on a wall, where he spent most of the early eve). Then, shortly afterwards, poolside at the glamorous Lavelle on King St. W., where Oliver Stone and his eyebrows led the brigade (not only does he raise them, but they furrow quite intensely!). And, then  a few other parties later  back at Soho on Adelaide St. W., where there was a fete for Anne Hathaway, whose mood was merry enough that she stood on top of a sofa barefoot and even boogied a bit!

Leo  whos a Hillary man, and even attended a fundraiser for the Democratic presidential candidate in the spring  wasnt exactly being apolitical during his jaunt to Canada. Here for his enviro-doc Before the Flood, which he plainly says was inspired by a visit to the first Clinton White House  Al Gore sat me down, drew a picture of the planet. . .  the Titanic star was joined ably the director of his new project, Fisher Stevens, who told me at the party that the film is set to be released about a week before the Nov. 8 election on the National Geographic channel.

It was important for us to get out before then, Stevens said, right before another partier  an American journo I ran into at the bar  told me she thought the election was going to get even dirtier still, if its possible. The most shocking thing, she philosophized, is that Trump has nearly ruined our ability to be shocked.

Fortunately, there was more than enough Grey Goose (the Leo-fests host) in which to drown her sorrows.

The soiree at Lavelle, meanwhile, had an equally charged political force-field. With Nespresso-spiked cocktails going around (when in Rome), and outsized Rubiks Cubes floating in the pool (a canny reference to Stones TIFF film Snowden, in which the worlds most famous whistleblower is shown spiriting secrets on a micro-card hidden in a Rubiks Cube), I crossed paths with many of the movies stars, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zachary Quinto and Shailene Woodley. The latter, I recalled, was a Bernie Sanders supporter, who, in her own efforts to square the way the U.S. election has been framed  more anti-Trump than pro-Clinton  lamented, not long ago, the idea of voting for someone to prevent A, B, C and D.

(Well, thats exactly what it is, dear Shailene.)

Stone, for one, told me when we spoke briefly that he doesnt think Trump can win, but that he continues to have concerns about Hillary. As ever, the legendary provocateur is against the system.

Stone also confirms that Trump shot a cameo that didnt make it to the final cut of Wall Street 2.

Hes a good actor, Stone confirmed. Ahem.

Meanwhile, at the Hathaway bash, the political pendulum was more solidly tilted towards Hillary again. The Oscar-winning actress  in town to debut her new, weird one, Colossal  has not been exactly un-shy about identifying as a Democrat, as well her excitement for the potential first female prez. In clearly a good mood  she was almost giddy, enjoying a beer at one point  The Devil Wears Prada starlet told me that, more than anything else, its important that people vote.

(Bizarrely enough, theres some history between Donald and Anne: back in 2008, he insinuated that she wasnt very loyal when she split with her then-boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, after he was arrested and charged with fraud. Follieri lived in Trump Tower, and at the time he mused, in his oh-so Trumpian way, So when he had plenty of money, she liked him. . .)

Of course, its not just the parties where the spirit of Donald lurks. Hes a hum in the movies themselves, be it obvious titles like Barry (the early-Obama biopic), or Jackie and LBJ premiering here this week, too. Even films that ostensibly have nothing to do with Trump or American politics are being read with a Trump lens, such as the one review I caught about the opening night film. It read: The Magnificent Seven is a fun and surprisingly fresh Western about Trumps America.

Shinan Govani's transportation for the Toronto International Film Festival has been provided by BMW Canada.

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We were road tripping through Montana on a family vacation and had to stop to photograph this near Hobson. Theres a Montana Bale Trail and What the Hay contest every September with sculpted hay creations and this was a peoples favourite in 2012 called Medus-Hay.

 Jennifer Bain, Toronto Star travel editor

Have a favourite travel memory? Please send us a horizontal photo and 75 words about why it is special. Dont be shy: selfies are accepted. Send high-resolution jpegs of between 500K and 6MB to Your Vacation at travel@thestar.ca . Please include your address and phone number. They will not be published.

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SURREY, B.C.Charges are pending against a police officer in British Columbia caught up in a sting by a vigilante group dedicated to exposing and publicly shaming alleged child sexual predators, the acting head of the B.C. RCMP says.

Assistant Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr told reporters Friday an unnamed officer from Surrey, B.C., is in custody while police investigate allegations of child luring and sexual exploitation.

The officer was arrested Thursday night, she said, a day after a vigilante group calling itself Surrey Creep Catchers livestreamed a sting where its members gathered to confront a man who thought he was going to meet an underage girl.

Butterworth-Carr said the officer has been removed from duty, is suspended and also faces a code-of-conduct review by the department.

If these allegations are substantiated, we will be taking immediate steps to separate ourselves from this individual, she said.

These allegations are egregious and not in keeping with that we expect of our employees. There is no room in the RCMP for this kind of behaviour or individual.

Creep Catchers is a loose collection of organizations across Canada that has sprouted up over the past year with an aim of exposing child predators by posing online as minors before meeting in person to film and berate them.

The arrest comes a little over a week after the RCMPs child exploitation unit warned citizen groups against confronting alleged child predators, and said doing so could put people in danger and obstruct official police investigations.

Insp. Tyler Svendson of the RCMPs behavioural sciences group said that although police and Creep Catchers have the same goal of catching sexual predators online, their other aims differ in a way that would prevent any form of collaboration.

Their objective is to public shame. Our objective is to arrest, charge, prosecute and obtain convictions, he said.

The RCMP can never be involved in an organization whose main objective is to publicly shame people, Svendson said, adding that Wednesdays incident doesnt legitimize creep-catching groups.

The involvement of vigilantes can actually complicate investigations and demand additional resources to vet evidence, making police work less efficient, he added.

Svendson said he was unable to provide any information on the officer in question, including whether he had been under investigation before Wednesday and whether he served in a police role that involved contact with children.

Multiple attempts to contact members of various creep-catching outfits, including Surrey Creep Catchers, received no response.

Many experts condemn the mob mentality behind such groups, raising concerns over the lack of oversight, the risks involved and the possibility of allowing a possible offender to escape justice.

Peter Collins, a professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Toronto, said that often people who participate in creep catching have no knowledge of police work, much of which isnt publicized.

By taking justice into their own hands, creep-catching participants can go so far as to sabotage investigations, he said.

Collins described trained police officers as specialists who are uniquely equipped to conduct online investigations of child predators and to move those cases into the legal system as warranted, a power and skill set vigilante groups dont have.

If you want neurosurgery you want someone who is trained as a neurosurgeon. Youre not going to want someone who dabbles in it, he said.

Criminologist Neil Boyd from Simon Fraser University also denounced the practice.

I just dont think its healthy to build a society based on vigilantism, Boyd said, describing it as too simplistic.

On one hand, yes we all share their concern about child sex offenders. On the other hand, is this the approach that we want to endorse?

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OTTAWATwo-thirds of Canadians want prospective immigrants to be screened for anti-Canadian values, a new poll reveals, lending support to an idea that is stirring controversy in political circles.

Conservative MP Kellie Leitch, a candidate in her partys leadership contest, has floated the idea of screening newcomers for their attitudes on intolerance toward other religions, cultures and sexual orientations and reluctance to embrace Canadian freedoms.

A new Forum Research Inc. poll for the Star shows that Leitch may be tapping into an idea that Canadians favour with 67 per cent saying immigrants should indeed be screened for anti-Canadian values.

More importantly for Leitch, the poll shows that the idea is especially popular among Conservative supporters with 87 per cent backing the idea and just 8 per cent opposed compared to 57 per cent support among Liberals and 59 per cent for New Democrat voters.

Thats certain to be the reason that Leitch (Simcoe-Grey) proposed the idea  and has stuck by it in the face of criticism, said Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research.

If youre going after the base, this is like red meat for them. Theyre going to love this, he said Friday. This is hitting the nail right on the head.

When asked to choose the values respondents believe are important, equality came out on top (27 per cent), followed by patriotism (15 per cent), fairness (12 per cent) and tolerance (11 per cent).

Conservative backers put patriotism at the top their list of important values. Liberals and New Democrats ranked equality as their first choice.

Just one-quarter of respondents disagreed with the idea of screening for values and nine per cent had no opinion.

The idea finds most support among those ages 45 to 64 (73 per cent); more men (70 per cent) than women (64 per cent); living in Quebec (71 per cent) and Ontario (70 per cent) than those in the Atlantic provinces (56 per cent).

Leitch raised the idea of screening would-be immigrants in a survey sent out by her campaign seeking input on issues.

But it has drawn flak, even from among Conservatives, who have sought to distance themselves from Leitchs stance. Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose said she doesnt support the idea. Fellow Ontario MP Michael Chong, also contesting the leadership, said the suggestion that some immigrants are anti-Canadian does not represent our Conservative party or our Canada.

In Conservative circles, there are fears it could be damaging to the party brand, stirring memories of the controversial barbaric cultural practices snitch line that Leitch unveiled during the last federal election campaign.

And although Leitchs proposal may play well among Conservative supporters, Bozinoff said, it could undermine the partys efforts to broaden its support.

They build these huge walls around themselves like a stockade and barricade themselves in and make it hard for anyone to join them, he said.

Ryerson University Prof. Myer Siemiatycki condemned Leitchs idea as wrong-headed, cynical, and unfortunately dangerous for raising suspicions about immigrants for crass political purposes.

He said its unworkable with questions about who exactly would define what Canadian values are and how immigrants would be tested. And he asked whether Canadians would be held to the same standard.

Is Kellie Leitch going to decide for all of Canada what our core values are? said Siemiatycki, founding director of Ryersons graduate program in immigration and settlement studies.

Despite the criticism, Leitch is not backing away from the idea. Screening potential immigrants on their values is a policy proposal that I feel very strongly about, she said.

Oftentimes, debating and discussing these complex policies requires tough conversations, Leitch said this month after questions were raised.

In explaining why the idea has broad support even outside Conservative circles, Bozinoff said phrasing it as a test for anti-Canadian values was cleverly done.

How can you disagree with that? I think thats a brilliant way of framing this issue. . . . I think thats whats also boosting these numbers, he said.

The poll also showed that more than a third of Canadians think the country admits too many immigrants (38 per cent) while 13 per cent say too few are admitted. But 41 per cent think the number of admission is about right.

Six in 10 Canadians think immigrants should abandon their native cultural values when they conflict with Canadian cultural values, the poll found.

And it showed that although almost 60 per cent of Canadians would prohibit one or more articles of Islamic clothing, an equal percentage of respondents agree that the state has no business telling women how to dress.

Still, Bozinoff said theres no strong anti-immigration attitude in Canada similar to the kind that fuelled Britains vote to exit the European Union, or what has been at play in the U.S. presidential race.

Still, he noted there is a fear of the foreign here, spurred by violent outbreaks around the world and what are perceived as unsettling changes here at home.

Its changing a little bit different than how they remember it and they are uncertain about that, Bozinoff said.

Siemiatycki agreed that debates and events around the world, such as the crisis of Syrian refugees, have put the issue of immigration in the spotlight.

We are in an extraordinarily challenging time of migration movement and its serving up both tremendous examples of generosity, altruism, openness at the same time it also generates . . . concerns, fears, he said.

But he cautioned about reading too much into the poll findings, saying Canadians continue to hold a positive view toward immigration.

Ironically, I think you could say thats a core Canadian value, that the country was built by immigrants, that immigrants should be welcomed, he said.

As for the Conservative race, Bozinoff said the question now is how Leitchs competitors will react.

He said they are no doubt mindful of the Republican race for the presidential nomination in the U.S., where contender Donald Trump repeatedly made controversial statements  and still emerged on top.

There seems to be more tolerance now for saying things that you normally wouldnt say, he said.

The others got to think about that. They have to have just seen what happened in the States when someone takes (what) Ill say is an extreme position and no one wants to tangle with it, Bozinoff said.

Forum polled 1,370 Canadians 18 and older on Sept. 6 and 7 using an interactive voice response survey. Results on the total sample are considered accurate within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Where appropriate, results of the survey have been statistically weighted by age, region and other variables to ensure the sample reflects the actual population according to the latest census data.

Forum houses its results in the data library of the University of Torontos political science department.

More on thestar.com:

Candidates like Kellie Leitch usually find there is a low ceiling to their support: Paul Wells

Kellie Leitch's Trumpian immigration plan could work for her: Walkom

Limited market for Kellie Leitchs screening proposal: Hebert

Jason Kenney dismisses Leitchs anti-Canadian values screening proposal for immigrants

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It costs more to dispense drugs to people living in Ontario nursing homes than the cost of the actual medication, a Star investigation reveals.

More than $1 billion in fees were paid to pharmacies in the past five years to dispense $800 million in drugs to residents in Ontarios long-term-care homes, according to records obtained by the Star.

The dispensing costs, which are paid to pharmacies that have a monopoly on the nursing home business, are shared by taxpayers and residents.

Its appalling. Id like to know why somebody in the ministry isnt doing something about these excessive costs, said Margaret Calver, who is keeping a close watch on the pharmacy bills for her 80-year-old husband, Wayne, a retired school board superintendent who is now a resident of Markhaven Home for Seniors in Markham. In just one example, his pharmacy bills show weekly charges of $5.57 to provide him with seven antidepressant pills that, in total, cost 75 cents.

There are two reasons why the dispensing costs to Ontarios 77,000 nursing home residents are so high  much higher than they would be if the seniors were living at home.

First, the pharmacies with a lock on nursing home business generally provide drugs weekly to residents of the homes, rather than filling prescriptions monthly. That means they charge the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan four times the usual dispensing fees per drug each month. The pharmacies and Health and Long-Term Care Minister Eric Hoskins say this is because of frequent changes to medications in nursing homes, but Calver and critics of the charges say many residents have identical prescriptions week to week.

Second, unlike retail drugstores servicing seniors living at home, the pharmacies servicing nursing homes generally charge a co-payment, a $2 charge tacked onto each prescription. Several years ago, most retail pharmacies in Ontario stopped charging this co-payment to seniors living in the community.

To probe this issue, the Star asked the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for a breakdown of drug costs and fees related to long-term-care homes.

The data shows that over the past five years, pharmacies charged nursing home residents about $250 million in $2 co-payment fees  roughly $50 million per year.

If seniors went to a Shoppers Drug Mart, for example, at their local plaza, those co-pay fees would be waived. Shoppers advertisements highlight a $0 co-pay fee, saying, Well reduce your prescription fees.

Nursing homes are serviced by a special group of pharmacy fill sites, often housed in lowrise buildings in commercial areas. These pharmacies have exclusive contracts with nursing homes. The health ministry said it does not know how many companies provide this service. Two of the larger players in this business are MediSystem and Medical Pharmacies Group.

MediSystem is the long-term-care pharmacy for Markhaven Home for Seniors, where Margaret Calvers husband, Wayne, who has Alzheimers disease, has lived for seven years. The company was owned by Shoppers Drug Mart until 2014 when Loblaw purchased Shoppers and took ownership of MediSystem.

A retired teacher, Margaret Calver has made a study of her husbands drug invoices, looking out for the affairs of a man who, before dementia set in, was a creative, innovative and global thinker. She didnt like what she found.

Calver discovered $2 co-pay fees were charged on each prescription during the first week of every month. After complaints to MediSystem, Calver said the company agreed to drop the fees. They still appear on other residents bills. That dropped her husbands weekly dispensing fee from $7.57 to $5.57 for a weeks worth of antidepressants  still too much, Calver says.

I no longer pay the co-pay  and I dont want anyone else to pay it either, Calver said. Its just a cash grab and nothing else.

The health ministry gives pharmacies the right to charge co-pay fees or waive them.

It is an individual business decision to waive the co-pay, said Tammy Smitham, a spokeswoman for Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart. In a followup email, Smitham said MediSystem has a committee that evaluates co-payment fees and may make accommodations, like waiving a co-pay, for compassionate reasons.

A member of Markhavens family council, Calver has collected drug invoices from the spouses and children of residents in numerous nursing homes. All show the same charges.

Those fees have grabbed the attention of seniors advocates.

Co-payment fees are discrimination, said Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.

Pharmacies waive the $2 fee if you live in the community, but if you have a disability and live in a long-term-care home, there are negative consequences. Thats not right, Meadus said.

In addition to the $250 million in co-payment fees paid over the past five years, taxpayers were charged $750 million in dispensing fees over the same period, according to ministry data.

Ministry guidelines describe dispensing fees as amounts paid to pharmacies to provide the drugs, discuss treatments with the patient, and to pay for the general operating costs of running a pharmacy. While pharmacists in community stores regularly counsel patients, pharmacists from the fill sites do not, the Star found.

Smitham said nursing home residents require weekly dispensing because long-term-care residents have complex medical regimes that are frequently subject to monitoring and adjustment.

According to the president of the association that represents nursing home doctors, some drugs, like insulin or antibiotics, require weekly prescriptions. On the long-term scheduled medications, the physician wouldnt be prescribing or renewing them weekly, they would review them every three months, said Dr. Evelyn Williams, president of Ontario Long Term Care Physicans.

The health ministrys Mark Nesbitt said the government does not regulate the frequency of dispensing fees, but said the charges may be covered in contracts between the nursing home and pharmacy.

Markhaven, where Wayne Calver lives, says its contract with its pharmacy makes no mention of billing or the frequency of dispensing fees. That is the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, said interim executive director Mike Bakewell.

Margaret Calver has power of attorney over her husbands medical care and said he has been taking the same drugs for years, with few weekly adjustments. I know because the only changes that have been made are when I initiate them, she said.

Meadus acknowledged that short-term packages of pills save money, leaving behind less waste if a resident dies, but said the province must still find ways to limit the charges to taxpayers and residents.

Kathy Pearsall, a spokeswoman for Concerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Care Facilities, said the Stars investigation shows that not only are the residents being gouged, but so are the taxpayers of Ontario.

Critics say seniors in nursing homes pay higher fees but get less service. If a senior fills a prescription at a community drugstore, the pharmacist provides consultation, such as advice on whether to take the medication on a full stomach, and what side-effects to watch for. That is part of the service paid for in the dispensing fee.

MediSystem told the Star it provides regular often weekly in-person visits to the home, which usually involves consultations with staff, not families. We are available to families 24/7, a MediSystem spokesperson said.

But Calver said she has never heard of that option. I have never had a consultation with a MediSystem pharmacist at Markhaven in the almost seven years I have been dealing with them.

Carla Beaton, of Medical Pharmacies Group, said pharmacists often make weekly visits to consult with staff at long-term-care homes, although families may not know this. We dont do a good enough job tooting our horn and saying we are available, Beaton said.

All long-term-care pharmacies charge weekly dispensing fees, said Beaton, a geriatric pharmacist and company vice-president. Weekly dispensing is the safest and most cost-effective approach because it limits drug waste and allows for dosage changes for residents, many of whom are acutely ill, she said.

MediSystem, the pharmacy owned by Loblaw, has eight fill sites in Ontario, where it packages drugs for residents of nursing and retirement homes. The Toronto site is located in a lowrise factory building. MediSystem invited the Star to tour the site, where staff, including pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, fill electronic orders using automated packaging and a visual inspection software quality control system.

The tour was offered after the Star began asking Loblaw about the weekly dispensing fees. MediSystem vice-president of operations Jennifer Casu defended weekly dispensing, saying it is necessary for the safety of acutely ill residents. But the company data she used to support the practice showed that 83 per cent of MediSystems 8,000 Toronto-area clients only need a prescription change once (or more) every three months.

MediSystem suggested the Star contact Dr. Ramesh Zacharias, the medical director of the Village of Erin Meadows long-term-care home in Mississauga. Zacharias said he has no business connection with MediSystem, but is in regular contact with its pharmacists for the frequent changes he makes to resident medications. Comparing long-term-care pharmacies to retail drug stores is like comparing apples to trees, Zacharias said.

The Star also contacted SmartMeds Pharmacy Inc. of Burlington, which bills itself as a leading provider of pharmacy services to long-term-care homes in southern Ontario. Owner Jason Handa did not respond to interview requests.

Meadus and her advocacy office are calling for the health minister, Hoskins, to place limits on weekly dispensing and ban co-payment charges.

The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care needs to address this issue immediately by eliminating the (co-pay) cost to residents, and reviewing the present prescription practices and the governments costs, which money could be better spent on individual care, she said.

Calver is hoping the government will take action.

Its ridiculous that the ministry allows the pharmacies to get away with this, she said. Whenever I hear on the radio that the health-care system is stressed for money, I think yes, well, I know where its going.

In addition to the dispensing and co-payment fees, the Star discovered that the Ontario Ministry of Health paid pharmacies another $90 million during the same five-year period to cover professional service fees (consulting with homes) and $60 million to cover the cost of acquiring drugs from the wholesaler.

An emailed statement from Hoskins on Friday reveals the health minister stands by the pharmacy practice to charge weekly dispensing fees. The ability to allow weekly dispensing of drugs over a monthly model not only reduces drug waste from changing prescriptions, but it also allows the long-term-care home and its residents to establish a stronger, more consistent relationship with their pharmacist.

Moira Welsh can be reached at 416-869-4073 or mwelsh@thestar.ca

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For some they mean the beach. For others they mean work. They can be a draw for tourists, but are often just a backdrop for locals.

If you are an environmentalist, you might see them as a living, breathing thing in need of protection, but ask the average high school student and theyll roll their eyes like they would for any five-point answer on a geography test.

On their own, they are Ontario, Superior, Huron, Erie and Michigan. Together they are the Great Lakes.

You can see them from space, but now a group of prominent Ontarians, helped along by the provinces lieutenant-governor, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, is looking to put them on the map  so to speak  with a campaign to brand the importance of the worlds largest freshwater ecosystem onto peoples hearts and minds.

Why not? The Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the planet. Why can't the Great Lakes be the heart and arteries of North America, or something like that? said Douglas Wright, who is leading the initiative that will be unveiled next month at the Great Lakes Public Forum in Toronto.

It has been dubbed Greatness  The Great Lakes Project and the idea is deceptively simple: create a marketing campaign to embed the lake system deeper into the public consciousness. To get people thinking not only about the environmental threats and challenges, but also about the potential lapping at the shores of communities as diverse as Toronto, Thunder Bay, Toledo and Tobermory.

In practice, it is a potentially staggering task to harness attention, support and donations from among more than 35 million people who live in Ontario and the eight American states that make up the Great Lakes Watershed.

The campaign seeks to create a sort of umbrella brand for the lakes that can be harnessed to influence decision makers, raise awareness to emerging risks, attract tourists, immigrants and industry as well as encourage scientific study and innovation.

As far as I can tell there is no common brand to attach to. This is not about taking over or subsuming the work of others. It's about helping the work of others and giving a common theme, said Wright. We're basically giving this brand away.

Scott Thornley, a Toronto advertising executive and fiction writer who is working on the campaign, said he had his own Great Lakes revelation back in 1974.

The whole idea of Great never really meant anything, said Thornley, a Hamilton native.

It was a Japanese photographer whom I met in the early 1970s who said he came from Osaka because hed studied maps of Ontario and seen these incredible lakes and saw that they were called the Great Lakesand he really believed it . . . For me, that was an incredible eye-opener.

The dilemma remains the same all these years later, Thornley said.

The largest lake system in the world goes mainly invisible to those of us whove been born and grown up around it. We use them for what we use them for, whether its pleasure or resources, but were not really as awestruck as a visitor would be.

As evidence, he points to the popularity of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfields photographs from space, some of which put into stunning perspective how tiny we are compared to the bodies of water at our shorelines.

(Hadfield) has a place on a lake, Thornley said. He knows the power of what that image-taking would mean because he got to see it.

The committee that has been formed to work on this project over the last year includes photographer Edward Burtynsky, who is famed for his large-format images of industrialization, Olympic paddler and four-time medal winner Adam van Koeverden, Henry Lickers, the environmental science officer for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and underwater explorer Dr. Joe MacInnis.

There are also representatives of academia, industry and non-governmental organizations, such as Karen Kun of Waterlution, a group that promotes sustainable water use.

Ultimately, the committee would like to raise funds for a Great Lakes Centre to promote sound water management and act as a repository for information as well as an international hub for what they see as a global treasure.

The Great Lakes region three or four years ago was evaluated as the worlds third-largest economy . . . Thats dependent on the health of the lakes and the health and vitality of the people who live around the lakes, said former Toronto mayor David Miller, who is the Canadian President of the World Wildlife Fund.

If we don't pay attention to them and nurture them we could have pretty serious consequences for people and for nature.

Thats the business case, but the campaign aims to appeal to people on an emotional level. That is how the environmental bug was planted with Miller, who was born in England and moved as a child to Canada.

I first got interested in the Great Lakes because of the film Paddle to the SeaPaddle to the Sea which I saw in school, he said, referring to the 1966 Bill Mason film about a native boy who makes a carving of a man in a canoe and sends it on an epic journey from Lake Superior out to the sea.

The fact that I saw the film that was drawing attention to the ecological health of the Great Lakes and that had an impact on me and my life and indirectly on others  I think that is the kind of impact this group is hoping to have.

Eight years ago, former television broadcaster Valerie Pringle pitched an ambitious three-or-four-hour documentary on the subject, seeing in the lakes grand tales of history, entrepreneurship, ecology and culture. But she found no takers either with the national broadcaster, CBC, the provincial broadcaster, TVO, or two American networks.

It was always heartbreaking to me that I never got to do this, said Pringle, who has a home in Niagara-on-the-Lake and admits to occasionally pinching herself on waterfront walks or bicycle rides.

Her involvement on the committee may be a way to focus peoples attention in the way that her stillborn documentary on the Great Lakes never got the chance to do.

Were all blinded by how spectacular this is  sometimes in Toronto by the condo buildings  and you can forget you live on a lake, she said.

We are lake people . . . It is our history. Its why were here and it is the crucible of the environment. If we cant look after this, then God help us.

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MONTREALThree years ago this fall the Parti Quebecois set out to affirm Quebecs secular character through a so-called charter of values and the imposition of a secular dress code on the provinces public service.

It was the sovereigntist partys most ambitious identity-related project since the introduction in the late 1970s of the French-language charter; a legislative framework that to this day enjoys support right across the party lines in Quebec.

The hope was to repeat that success and in the process bring the increasingly scattered sovereigntist forces back to the PQ.

So convinced was Pauline Marois government that it had an electoral ace up its sleeve that it declined to reach out to the opposition parties for a consensus. When the other parties sought a middle ground with the government, the PQ doubled down on its civil service ban of religious garb instead.

The rest is history. Marois made the charter and its coercive measures a centrepiece of her re-election platform and led the party back to opposition after only 18 months in power. Three years later, the PQ is still dealing with the fallout from the adventure.

At a time when some are making the argument that the federal Conservatives should similarly become the self-appointed keepers of Canadian values through proactive measures, the PQ saga features striking similarities to the nascent Conservative Party of Canada debate and offers some sobering lessons for those who would look to that avenue for electoral growth. Here are a few of them.

The PQ could never produce data to back up its assertion that coercive measures were required to preserve Quebecs secular character. The plan remained a solution in search of a problem. The only data it did have in hand were polls that backed its conviction that it was popular.

But what the polls did not measure was the depth of the convictions of the respondents. Many charter supporters had never actually encountered a public servant/teacher/nurse/doctor who wore a religious ornament other than a crucifix. For more than a few of them it was not really a ballot box issue.

As it turned out, those who opposed the charter and the imposition of a secular dress code were often more motivated to fight it by voting out the PQ than the reverse. If that sounds familiar it is because the federal Conservatives encountered some of the same dynamics with the niqab in the 2015 election.

The charter bid exposed irreconcilable differences within the sovereigntist movement with elder statesmen such as former leader Jacques Parizeau publicly disavowing the project. In one of his last interviews  given shortly before his death but after the PQs return to opposition  the late premier described the party he once led as a field of ruins.

Over the past week, the contention by Conservative leadership contender Kellie Leitch that would-be immigrants to Canada should be subject to ideological vetting has similarly brought to the surface divisions among high-ranking Conservatives on a scale not seen in public since Stephen Harper reunited the right under one party.

Far from expanding the PQs electoral base, the charter bid alienated two of the fastest-growing contingents of Quebec voters.

Among allophone Quebecers, the sovereigntist project has always been a hard sell. The natural allegiance of most immigrants to Quebec is to Canada, the country to which they swear their citizenship oath. Still, in the past, the PQ had made some inroads in the French-speaking cultural communities. But many of more recent French-speaking newcomers to Quebec are Muslims. They felt they were in the crosshairs of the charter.

And then support for the project declined precipitously as one went down the age cohorts. A decisive majority of younger voters opposed it. Instead of dissipating the notion that the PQ was a party past its prime, the project fortified it.

Some of the charter fallout was on exhibit earlier this week when the candidates for the succession of Pierre Karl Peladeau gathered at Universite de Montreal for their first leadership debate.

Among the 300 students in attendance, one would have been hard-pressed to find much evidence of the diversity that is otherwise so manifest on the campus of Canadas largest French-speaking university.

At the time of the last 1995 referendum, it was the federalist camp whose audience was mostly made up of grey heads. Today, the demographics are reversed. If anything the failed PQ venture unto the shifting sands of post 9/11 values has driven it further into the wilderness.

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Where were you 15 years ago at the moment when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground? If you havent relived the horror of 9/11 recently, many of us will do so again this Sunday, when anniversary ceremonies in New York City and Washington once again dominate our media.

We will be encouraged both to remember and to forget. We will remember the wasted lives of the nearly 3,000 civilians who died that day and the heart-stopping heroism of so many individuals who risked their lives to help.

But many important things will be forgotten, particularly by our political leaders. This will happen even though to better understand the enduring impact of 9/11  and to learn from it  we need to remember what many have chosen to forget.

Fifteen years after, here are my five lessons from the ashes of Sept. 11, 2001:

1. 9/11 could have been prevented

The former president, George W. Bush, will be mentioned often in anniversary ceremonies. People will speak of the surprise of the 9/11 attacks and the resolute way that Bush responded. But not mentioned will be that Osama bin Laden was already a known threat when the Bush administration took over. On Aug. 6, 2001  a month before 9/11  an intelligence memo to the president was headlined, Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S. Bush was on holiday at the time and he remained on holiday after the briefing.

2. Revenge as policy never works

In response, the Bush administration decided to go after bin Laden by invading Afghanistan and then, in 2003, Iraq. It was a colossal blunder that must have fulfilled bin Ladens dreams. Immediately after 9/11, the U.S. had the support of most of the world, including the major Middle Eastern powers. Had the U.S. acted in moderation, bin Laden himself would likely have become marginalized in the region, shunned by the very people whose support he sought. Instead, a series of military adventures not only cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives, but also bolstered bin Ladens reputation in the region.

3. Terrorism doesnt come from nowhere

By pursuing an unwinnable military response, Americas cause was lost. And the implications of this debacle are still being felt. The focus was on the battlefield  wherever that might be in an era of terrorism. Left neglected were the root causes of terrorisms appeal in the Middle East: the failing education systems, rampant government corruption, endemic poverty and the oppression of women at a time when their skills and talents were so desperately needed.

4. The true human costs were huge

Sundays ceremony will celebrate the 2,977 innocent people who lost their lives on 9/11. That is an awful toll resulting from a heinous crime, and that should be stated. It actually has been, often, but it is easy to lose perspective. In the U.S. last year alone, 13,286 people were killed by gun violence. As a result of the military response to 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed, as well as more than 5,000 American soldiers. The human legacy of 9/11 extends well beyond the poignance of Sept. 11.

5. Beware the surveillance state

Beyond the human toll, our loss of liberty as a result of 9/11 is an enduring legacy. The ferocious military action, not only by the U.S. but by governments everywhere, had a catastrophic impact on human rights. Governments used 9/11 as a pretext to curtail freedoms, squash political dissent and create a mushrooming surveillance state that is with us to this day.

Fifteen years after the stunning events of 9/11, the sad truth is that terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and Daesh are stronger than ever. Bin Laden himself was identified early on as a target for reprisal, and the U.S. eventually got him. But the bin Ladenism he spawned is flourishing in many parts of the Middle East. Until the West  and, more importantly, the Middle East powers themselves  focus on the root causes, the tears and patriotism on display each Sept. 11 will become more and more meaningless as the years go by.

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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I am saddened at the damage being done by a Republican-controlled government in Wisconsin. Environmental protections are being eroded, public education de-funded, our roads and infrastructure neglected, healthcare coverage diminished and the list goes on.

Taxpayer give-aways to moneyed interests are robbing our state of its wealth while legislators, our own assembly representative included, reap big dollars from out-of-district corporate donors to their campaign funds. One has to ask, who is being represented? Is it the citizens of the 96th or the Koch brothers and their millionaire friends inside and outside Wisconsin? Incomes decline and the middle class shrinks while big business receives huge tax breaks with the promise of jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are the good paying jobs? Why are so many of our residents going without healthcare? Why are our school systems, especially in rural areas, unable to find qualified teachers? The answer is that our tax dollars are being siphoned off to line the pockets of the wealthiest few.

All the while our assembly representative is content to blindly follow Gov. Scott Walker and the ALEC agenda with its model legislation designed by and for the top 1 percent. When has Lee Nerison stood up to this travesty? It is not enough to be a nice guy. We need real leadership in Madison.

Alicia Leinberger has a background that has prepared her well to be the representative we need in the state assembly. She served in the Peace Corps after graduation from college and used the skills she gained to advance the fair trade movement in the U.S., linking producers and customers closer together. She used those same tools working with Family Farm Defenders to increase the pay price for dairy farmers. She is the owner of a small Main Street business providing renewable energy options to individuals and municipalities. She is a mother who cares deeply about the issues affecting women and children.

Alicia Leinberger understands how public policy affects peoples lives and she has the expertise to help shape it. She is passionate about getting our state government to work for all of us and will be a strong advocate for legislation that insures the integrity of the political process and the health and well-being of our citizens, our environment and our economy. This is the kind of leadership we desperately need. Please give her your vote on Nov. 8.
I was walking like a dead man. Rashid Siddiqui on completing the rituals of the hajj after escaping the death scene

Im dying. Im dying. I need water.

Rashid Siddiqui kept hearing those words from his fellow Muslim pilgrims lying mangled on the ground in 48C heat, under a searing Saudi sun. Barefoot, topless and dazed, Siddiqui had somehow escaped being crushed by the surging crowd.

It was Sept. 24, 2015, the third morning of the hajj, the annual five-day pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, by millions of Muslims from around the world. By some estimates, it was the deadliest day in hajj history and one of the worst accidents in the world in decades.

An American from Atlanta, Siddiqui, 42, had been walking through a sprawling valley of tens of thousands of pilgrim tents. His destination: Jamarat Bridge, where pilgrims throw pebbles at three large pillars in a ritual symbolizing the stoning of the devil.

He was roughly a kilometre from the bridge when the crush began.

Hundreds, and probably thousands, died. But nearly a year later, the Saudi authorities have yet to explain exactly how the disaster happened. Nor have they provided what is widely considered an accurate death toll. Many of the victims came from Iran, Saudi Arabias bitter rival, creating a new source of acrimony between the countries that led Irans government to bar its citizens from the hajj this year.

Deadly crowd crushes once frequently marred the hajj, especially around the Jamarat Bridge. The Saudis sought to prevent such calamities by expanding the bridge after more than 360 people died near it in 2006.

After the expansion, there were no major episodes  until last year.

A count by The Associated Press, derived from official and state news reports of the dead from 36 countries with pilgrims in Mecca, found that at least 2,400 people had died. The Saudi authorities, however, still give an official death toll of 769.

Despite years of accusations of mismanagement, the Saudi royal family has repeatedly insisted on its right to supervise the hajj.

All Muslims who are physically and financially able to complete the hajj are obliged to do so at least once in their lives. Under Saudi Arabias ruling royal family, which regards the king as the custodian of Islams holiest sites, the number of pilgrims coming from outside the country has grown more than tenfold since the Second World War.

In recent years, two million to three million people have attended the annual hajj.

The Saudis have poured tens of billions of dollars into expanding pilgrimage accommodations that often cater to the wealthy, who can pay upward of $2,700 US a night for choice hotel rooms overlooking the Kaaba, the black cube that is considered to be the House of God, at the centre of Islams holiest mosque in Mecca.

But even the wealthiest pilgrims spend part of the pilgrimage in an enormous tent city, known as Mina, where Muslims are grouped according to the part of the world they come from.

Siddiqui awoke before dawn inside a brightly lit tent. He had stayed up late, chatting and drinking tea with friends, then slept on a floor mattress beside dozens of other pilgrims separated by canvas partitions.

Despite the hour, Siddiqui said, he felt fresh and strong. Two weeks earlier, he had been working as a building information manager in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, but he quit and decided at the last minute to make his first hajj.

He was surprised to find the pilgrimage relaxing  almost like a vacation, he said  not the gruelling trek that some hajj veterans had warned him to expect.

Dressed in sandals and his ihram, the mens hajj clothing of two white, cloth wraps, Siddiqui washed, prayed and ate breakfast from the tents buffet with his companions, relishing the communal experience.

He hung his official identification card around his neck and placed valuables in his belt pack  a wallet, a local cellphone and a smartphone to call his wife, Farah, who was at home with their two children in Atlanta.

About 6:30, Siddiqui exited his tent, ready to follow the footsteps taken by the Prophet Muhammad more than a millennium ago.

Walking with a group that included his brother-in-law, his brother-in-laws wife and a few friends, Siddiqui stopped often to take photographs he would post on Facebook.

He was awed by the diversity of the crowd, with people of varying skin colours from all over the world, carrying the flags of their countries.

In what seemed like a hiccup, they were stopped by guards who had closed their intended route, for reasons yet to be made clear. Looking around, Siddiqui said, they saw a lot of people taking an alternate route via an overpass, and they decided to follow.

Siddiqui video-called his wife to share the excitement. It was past midnight in Atlanta, and she had just finished preparing for Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, celebrated to signify the end of the hajj.

Watching the hajj over the phone, Farah Siddiqui said, she was blinded by what she saw  a sunlit sea of people in white. Rashid Siddiqui then caught up to his brother-in-law and turned the camera on him. Her brother seemed intent on his destination, Farah Siddiqui said, and stopped just long enough to greet her with a salute. Her sister-in-law also smiled and waved.

It would be the last time she would see or speak with her brother and his wife.

Their path began to narrow. Rashid Siddiqui fell in behind his companions as they shifted to single file, hands on one anothers shoulders. He felt pressure from the crowd building as more people poured in.

Up ahead, Siddiqui noticed pilgrims scrambling up tall fences on both sides of the road, apparently attempting to escape something. He had a moment to wonder whether he should do the same.

He never had the chance.

Siddiqui was pushed, fell two or three times and lost the rest of his group. People around him were chanting final prayers to God.

The crush felt like being caught in a wave. Bodies pressed in on him from every direction.

He could move only as the crowd moved. There was not an inch of space left.

The push and pull of the crush stripped the clothing off many pilgrims, leaving them naked as they struggled to climb the fences.

I was really scared at that time, Siddiqui said. All he could think about was his family.

Muslims from outside Saudi Arabia seeking to perform the hajj are required by the Saudi hajj ministry to travel in organized groups, through private travel agencies or national delegations.

Because Siddiqui, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin, was already in Saudi Arabia, he was able to register through a local agency in Riyadh that caters to people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin.

He began his pilgrimage at the Kaaba, then went to Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah before heading to Jamarat on foot. When his planned route was blocked, he took an alternate route that led him directly into the disaster.

The crush has been described as a stampede, but most victims in such crowd disasters are actually crushed, not trampled, by pressures that are strong enough to bend steel fences.

In a crush, the flow of the crowd slips beyond the control of the individuals in it. Waves of pressure ripple through, lifting people off the ground, sometimes carrying them more than three metres.

The main cause of death in a crowd crush is asphyxiation. People can be squeezed so tightly that they suffocate standing in place.

Miraculously, perhaps 15 minutes after it began, Siddiqui found himself pushed backward and out of the crush.

He had lost his sandals, the top of his ihram and his identification card, but he was not injured.

Pilgrims in nearby tents were throwing water bottles into the crowd. Survivors scrambled for them, drinking the water and pouring it over themselves. Someone turned on a hose. Streams of water flowed down the street.

Siddiqui was dehydrated and dazed, with others dying in front of him. I dont know how I survived, he said.

For two hours, Siddiqui watched the police move slowly toward him. They were helping the seriously hurt, leaving other survivors and the dead behind. When an officer finally reached Siddiqui, he was told to continue the pilgrimage.

Siddiqui cried as he struggled, climbing over the bodies of the dead, to move closer to the Jamarat Bridge. He had lost his sense of direction, and the soles of his feet burned on the pavement.

I was walking like a dead man, he said.

When he finally reached the bridge, a woman handed him stones to throw and an umbrella for shade. Maybe she had taken pity on him because he was half dressed and dirty, but they did not exchange any words. She just seemed to know that he was in need. He could not even muster a thank you.

Siddiqui completed the Jamarat ritual, but does not remember how many stones he threw.

By the time he got back to his tent, he knew that his in-laws were missing. He had called them repeatedly but got no answer. They did not show up at the tent that night.

For the next four days, in between completing the final rituals of the hajj, Siddiqui walked for hours in the heat to hospitals and clinics. There was no information.

The Saudi authorities did not provide a centralized place to assist people searching for loved ones, Siddiqui contended, so he checked each facility every day. He walked 90 minutes to a morgue, but guards refused to let anyone in.

Siddiqui cancelled his flight home to Atlanta and, with his sister-in-laws family, continued searching after the hajj ended. Every day, they repeated the same routine and found nothing.

In all, Siddiqui said, about 20 members of his family became involved in the search. They followed every lead, often finding only rumours and misinformation.

Other relatives of victims were also frustrated. Syed Shahzad Azhar of Pakistan lost his mother and brother. It took nine months and DNA tests to confirm his mothers death.

But Mustafizur Rahman, who lost his sister Sabina in the crush, said Saudi hospital employees had been very helpful. He flew from his home in Bangladesh to Mecca and identified her two weeks later in a photograph while reviewing a slide show of photographs of the dead.

Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said after the crush that it appeared to have been caused by two large groups of pilgrims converging onto Street 204.

Iran, which had the most deaths, blamed what it has described as Saudi mismanagement and criminal negligence. The victims were murdered by the Saudis, Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said this week.

The authorities in Indonesia, which sends more pilgrims to the hajj than any other country and lost nearly 130 citizens in the disaster, also expressed frustration with the Saudi response, saying they were not given full access to victims and hospitals for days.

Pakistan, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and large recipient of Saudi aid, has played down the Pakistani death toll and warned the local news media to avoid criticizing hajj management.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a U.S. policy advocacy group, released a statement calling for an independent investigation, and transparency from Saudi Arabia. The group also suggested that the Saudi authorities relinquish management of the hajj to international control, an idea the Saudis have rejected.

In June, the Saudis announced that electronic bracelets would be given to pilgrims this year to facilitate identification. The Saudi Hajj Ministry has also imposed new restrictions on when pilgrims can perform the stoning at Jamarat Bridge. But despite promising to conduct an investigation, the ministry has not disclosed any findings related to the crush.

Exhausted and eager to reunite with his wife and children, Siddiqui returned to Riyadh about 10 days after the crush. A few days later, he flew back to Atlanta while other relatives searched on.

Fifteen days after the crush, Siddiquis brother-in-law was confirmed dead at a morgue in Mina by his younger brother. He was buried in Mina a half an hour later.

After another two weeks, his brother-in-laws wife was confirmed dead based on photographic evidence of her remains. By that time, she had been buried by the Saudi authorities.

The couple left behind two young children, who now live with their extended family in India.

Since the crush, Siddiqui has questioned every action he took that changed his life. When he returned to Atlanta, he researched what had happened, mapping out the routes he took and writing about his experience. Eventually, he said, he stopped looking for answers.

I was there, he said of the crush, but I cannot tell you exactly the cause.

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If you believe what you read in the business press, there is a plot afoot by the provincial government to diminish democracy.

And if you listen to Ontarios opposition, it is nothing less than an attack on the fundamentals of free speech  which is to say, the freedom to fundraise: Good old-fashioned fundraisers  you know, spaghetti dinners and corn roasts.

The underlying logic behind this unusual argument is that things are different outside Toronto. In rural Ontario, there are no big-city bankers buying off politicians, nor any lobbyists lurking  just locals looking for face-to-face time with their local representative in the legislature.

The opposition, echoed by conservative commentators, claim the mean-spirited Liberals are lashing out in a rage. Having been hounded by the media into surrendering its cosy relationship with big business and big unions, the governing party is now trying to deny the opposition any opportunity to commune with the citizenry.

Its a seductive narrative. And a twisted tale along the long and winding road of campaign finance reform in Ontario.

But beyond this powerful nostalgia is the remarkable amnesia that afflicts opposition MPPs suddenly crying in their beer. You remember beer?

Ah yes, all those political fundraisers hosted by Progressive Conservative and NDP politicians right here in Toronto  no, not back home in the riding  at Labatt House, the posh private salon situated in the corporate headquarters of Labatt, owned by foreign multinational AB InBev, cheerfully lobbying those MPPs to preserve its cosy quasi-monopolistic arrangement through The Beer Store, in which it had a major interest.

And those fundraisers hosted by Molson Coors at its own sumptuous salon, where (as at Labatt) friendly lobbyists bought tickets from them, and sold tickets for them  priced at several hundred dollars a head. You can look up a small sampling of MPPs from various parties  Liberal, PC and NDP  in the series of columns published by the Star in 2014 detailing what is commonly called cash for access.

Beyond beer money and corn roasts, however, theres also the Albany Club, the private Progressive Conservative hangout in downtown Toronto where high rollers pay to play. Why do energy industry executives pay hundreds of dollars a head to hear, say, Tory MPP John Yakabuski (who hails from the eastern Ontario riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke) expound on energy policy at the Albany Club?

Could it be that, as the official party critic for energy, he might well be the mighty minister of energy should the PCs win power in the next election? An election that is roughly 20 months away? Curiously, no mention of that in the business press.

But business likes to hedge its bets. Or as they say in the NHL, future considerations.

After revelations of odious overreach by the Liberals, Premier Kathleen Wynne offered unilateral disarmament last spring with her ad hoc announcement that cabinet ministers would cease meeting direct stakeholders for face-to-face fundraisers. The opposition demanded, understandably, that this be codified in law.

But its not just cabinet ministers who are prey for lobbyists. So, too, are their parliamentary assistants  Liberal MPPs who serve as their understudies. In fact, all members of the Liberal caucus are invited to sit on cabinet committees, where they become privy to high level discussions about government policy. It only makes sense that they, too, should be governed by fundraising bans that apply to ministers.

The idea that opposition MPPs need not be similarly constrained, because they dont hold power at the moment (even though they might in an upcoming election) is a polite fiction that remains a hard sell. And the hypocritical demand from the PCs that they should somehow get a special exemption from fundraising bans that apply to the governing party, because they are impervious to influence, is unprecedented.

Remember the leaked correspondence from Tory MPP Randy Hillier, who rued his partys plan to milk construction conglomerate EllisDon for more money in 2013 after backing legislation it sought: In caucus, it was stated quite explicitly that following a successful EllisDon fundraiser . . . our party would continue to benefit financially with the advancement of this legislation, Hillier wrote.

Fast forward to January of this year, and a job posting for Manager, Major Gifts at the PC Ontario Fund makes it crystal clear whats envisioned by the party: Articulate the Case for Support to Donors to secure their investment into the vision/mission/goals of the Ontario PC Party for Victory in 2018.

Otherwise known as influence.

The partys Manager, Fundraising Events is expected to Investigate, develop and implement Industry-specific FR (fundraising) events; Issues-based FR events; and Stakeholder Group FR events. Otherwise known as targeting stakeholders.

Thats politics, as practiced for decades in Ontario. Good on all parties for promising to fix it.

Odd, though, that any party would seek an exemption for itself. Yes, corn roasts and spaghetti dinners sound like small beer  until you remember why the big brewers were also interested in the opposition.

Martin Regg Cohn's political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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All 110 passengers who were trapped in high-altitude cable cars in the French Alps have been rescued, including nearly three dozen who were forced to spend a harrowing night suspended over Mont Blanc after emergency operations were suspended, French officials said on Friday.

The daring rescue unfolded at an altitude of nearly 3,800 metres in the Mont Blanc massif near Chamonix after the cars came to a halt around 2 p.m. local time on Thursday, between the Aiguille du Midi in France and Pointe Helbronner in Italy.

All the occupants of the cable cars are safe and sound, the French Interior Ministry said in a statement, adding that the passengers who were trapped overnight had French and Italian rescue workers by their side throughout the ordeal.

The rescue effort resumed Friday morning, and the cable cars were back in service about 8:30 a.m., officials said, after technicians untangled the supporting and towing cables that had become crossed in several places.

One of the passengers who was rescued on Friday, who identified himself only as Clement, told the French television channel BFMTV that the passengers had spent a cold, sleepless night that had combined fear and boredom.

In the beginning, we were very confident because we knew we had the survival blankets, he said. Around 2 or 3 a.m., we realized that it was quite cold and then around 4, 5 a.m., it got quite hard because even the survival blankets were not enough.

As the night went on, they started to play a word-guessing game. It got boring after a while, then we chatted with the other people, he told BFM. We also called a lot on the phone to get information or updates and we were a little scared. We got bored a lot.

Mario Mochet, 63, an Italian mountain guide who assisted with the rescue effort, said that the passengers were never in a huge amount of danger.

People panic at first but after a few hours theyre just very happy to be rescued, he said. We explained that this was an exceptional situation, that everything would be fine, that we would do everything necessary to bring them down safely, without problems.

Helicopters were used on Thursday to rescue 65 people. A dozen other passengers were evacuated by an Italian rescue team, but that part of the operation was not done by helicopter because the cable car was close enough to the ground, according to Mathieu Dechavanne, the chief executive of the company that manages the cable cars.

We had to stop the rescuing operations when the night came because the helicopters cant do the rescuing operation when it is dark, Floriane Macian, a spokeswoman for the prefecture, said in a telephone interview.

Antoine Burnet, the marketing director for the Mont Blanc Co., which runs the cable-car service, described the rescued passengers  including people from France, Italy, the United States and South Korea  as tired but calm on Friday. An older man was taken to the hospital with hypothermia, he said, but was not in danger.

Burnet said that the reason the cables had crossed was unclear. It can be caused by strong winds, which can stop the process, but there will be an investigation, he said.

Dechavanne said he had called the rescue services at 5 p.m. Thursday to start evacuating the passengers.

We had to do it by helicopter and not vertically like we can do it in other places, because the ground underneath is of a glacial type so there is a risk of crevasses and it could lead to accidents, he said.

The cable cars can usually carry up to 140 people, who often ride on them to enjoy the view of the mountains at this time of year. The trip takes 30 minutes.

The cable car company says its Aiguille du Midi cable car holds the world record for the highest vertical ascent: 2,807 metres.

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Walls and fences, barriers and sealed ghettos, fortifications and bubbles  it all adds up to the ugly containment of restless humanity.

An ancient idea, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrians Wall demarking the northernmost frontier of Roman Empire. Except invading Mongols manoeuvred around the former and marauding Germanic tribes outflanked the latter, encroaching from the east while Rome had focused its anxiety on Celtic incursions southwards.

In the long view of history, its never worked  keeping out the hordes forever and ever.

The Berlin Wall came down. The Israeli separation barrier against West Bank Palestinians went up  a short bead on history, justified as security shell for a tiny nation surrounded by enemy states.

Even the walls of Jericho eventually tumbled.

While most of the world rightly mocks Donald Trump for cleaving to his absurdist wall vow along the Mexican frontier, the United Kingdom announced this week that it will proceed, beginning next month, to build a controversial wall blockading a French port 23 miles across the English Channel from Dover  The Great Wall of Calais, as it was instantly christened by critics.

Not enough that the UK is an island, with the sea its centuries-old natural protection. Or that the majority of refugees and asylum-seekers over the years have arrived by air. This week, the British government confirmed it will erect a concrete wall intended to keep migrants and refugees from crossing the English Channel. But it will be constructed, with English financing, on the other side of the strait, in Calais.

A 2003 agreement technically extends British border control into the shores of northern France. In tandem, the French have pledged, yet again, to close down The Jungle, Europes largest migrant encampment just outside Calais, the border city which has become a violence-plagued bottleneck for determined migrants trying to make their way to England  the end point of a trek which, for many, began with flight from war-torn Syria, Afghanistan and chaotic Horn of Africa countries. About half of The Jungle was dismantled early this year but somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 people still live there in squalid conditions.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, aiming to run for the office again in 2017, has already called upon the British to establish their own holding pen on their side of the Channel to ease the containment onus on France. Paris alone, according to its mayor, is home to 10,000 illegal immigrants, though authorities claim to have taken another 15,000 immigrants off the streets since June, 2015.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo a few days ago detailed plans for two temporary shelters for arriving migrants  one for men, one for women and children. The male facility, run by a charitable group and due to open in mid-October, is located in an old northern-suburbs railway house, the reception centre situated inside an inflatable structure that Hidalgo has referred to as a bubble. Migrants will receive a medical checkup and legal aid but are expected to move on within two weeks to more suitable housing. The centres, added Hidalgo, would be shuttered in two to four years.

This endeavour, said Hidalgo, should alleviate the stress on Calais, where many of the migrants would otherwise be headed. But citizens are skeptical, expressing the same complaints of farmers and other residents in the Calais region, who claim occupants removed from The Jungle have simply returned to the area. Because the target is, ultimately, the Chunnel by truck or the Channel by ferry.

Britain doesnt want them, at least no more than the 20,000 Syrian refugees the former David Cameron government had committed to resettle.

Hence the wall, central to a $22.65-million Franco-British security package signed in March, which will complement a barbed wire security fence already erected around the Calais port and entrance to the Channel Tunnel. A fence that plainly hasnt worked. People-smugglers and stowaways who cant afford that cost have been flooding across the Channel in recent years, often ambushing long-distance truckers bound for England or concealing themselves inside rigs stopped at lay-bys.

Official figures from July alone showed that one migrant is caught trying to sneak into the UK every six minutes  84,088 detentions at the border in 2015. In June, a French police commissioner said there had been 22,000 breaches of the existing port road defences, compared with 3,000 in January, a huge escalation blamed on the pending, subsequently successful, Brexit referendum to exit the European Union, thereby halting movement from the Continent.

We are going to start building this big new wall very soon, Robert Goodwill, the British immigration minister, said in Westminster on Tuesday. Weve done the fence, now we are doing the wall.

That wall, conceived as an obstacle to illegal liberty for the wretched masses aspiring to better lives, will be 13 feet high, stretching for a kilometre along the main road to Calais and constructed of concrete, purportedly too slippery to gain a foothold for anyone attempting to clamber over it.

But ingenuity and despair always find a way, just as some of these unwelcome migrants have already pitched into the sea trying to escape in decrepit boats from Syria to Turkey or Libya to Italy, swimming towards freedom. Theyve frozen to death on refrigerated trucks crossing France and clung to the underside of train carriages in Germany, such is the yearning versus the risk.

Even the association representing haulers  whove been attacked running the gauntlet by migrants employing increasingly aggressive tactics  has criticized the wall as a waste of taxpayers money, arguing instead to boost security along the approach roads to the Chunnel. French law enforcement counters that it cant secure the approach roads to the tunnel. It is impossible for me to post a policeman every 10 metres in order to secure the road, Police Commission Patrick Visser-Bourdon told reporters. I would have to mobilize 2,000 officers every night.

A continent bursting from the influx of migrants  more than a million refugees crossing into Europe in 2015  has been run ragged trying to process and house the newcomers, with Germany and Sweden the most welcoming, certainly the most willing to accept more than their fair share of the burden. Other countries are opting for walls, walls, walls: Hungary has built a reinforced fence on its frontier with Serbia; Austria has announced plans for a massive new barrier along its border with Hungary to shut down the Balkans route; Macedonia has begun building a second razor-wire fence alongside the existing one on its border with Greece to discourage migrants in transit.

Among the millions in desperate diaspora, some are doubtless economic refugees. But most are clearly fleeing war, violence, persecution and dreadful poverty. Walls wont stop them; might only funnel the rampage to other ports, other means of crossing a narrow waterway.

Walls will, however, reinforce of the heartless view of migrants as barbarians at the gate.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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MECCA, SAUDI ARABIAClose to two million people from around the world began performing the first rites of the Islamic hajj pilgrimage on Saturday, which calls for entering into a state of physical and spiritual purity and circling the cube-shaped Kaaba with their palms facing upward in supplication and prayer.

Notably absent this year are Iranian pilgrims. Last year, some 64,000 Iranians took part in the hajj, but disputes with the Saudi government prompted Tehran to bar its citizens from taking part this year.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Iranian officials for the decision and suggests it was politically motivated to publicly pressure the kingdom. Iran says Saudi incompetence caused a crush and stampede during last years hajj that killed more than 460 of its citizens. On Friday, thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities to protest Saudi Arabia, chanting prayers against the kingdoms Sunni rulers after midday prayers.

The hajj is one of the worlds largest pilgrimages. It draws the faithful to the holy city of Mecca and areas around it for five intense days of rituals and prayers aimed at erasing past sins and drawing Muslims closer to God. The pilgrimage is required of all Muslims to perform once in their lifetime.

To begin the hajj, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims circle the Kaaba in Meccas Grand Mosque. In a sign of humility and equality before God, the pilgrims shed symbols of materialism, entering a state of ihram. Women forgo makeup and perfume and wear loose-fitting clothing and a head covering, while men dress in seamless, white terry cloth garments.

Since arriving in Mecca over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands have chanted, Labayk Allahuma Labayk, or Here I am, God, answering your call. Here I am.

While following a route the Prophet Muhammad once walked, the rites of hajj are believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

The Interior Ministry says more than 1.3 million people from 160 different countries have arrived to the kingdom to perform the hajj this year.

Most pilgrims will spend the evening outside Mecca in a valley called Mina that houses more than 160,000 tents. They will head to an area called Arafat on Sunday for the pinnacle of the pilgrimage, an emotional day of repentance and supplication.

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This past Labour Day weekend, our city was filled with the familiar sounds of the annual Canadian International Air Show, a landmark event that has decorated our skies for more than 60 years. Once again the famous Snowbirds performed their dazzling and amazing acrobatics in a festive celebration of our men and women in uniform. This is classic Toronto.

Unlike previous years, however, the city was mired in a fierce debate over whether or not the airshow ought to be cancelled because of the mental health risks it poses to newly arrived refugees from Syria. On the one hand, a recent article in the Star argued that the spectacle of military planes flying in our skies triggers painful memories for those who have just fled the scourge of war. Others retorted that the airshow is a beloved cultural event and an important way to celebrate our armed forces. The airshow has become a standoff between humanitarianism and patriotism, pitting us against each other in this false dichotomy.

What everyone in this debate has failed to consider is that cancelling the airshow will not actually help refugees to recover from the traumas of war. As a person who has worked extensively in conflict areas for over 10 years, and whose loved ones continue to live in war zones, I understand the mental health impacts of battle. I recently returned from the Syrian border where I met with scores of shell-shocked and hollow-eyed refugees, and I can confirm that the sounds of fireworks, airshows and even car engines backfiring are triggering. Removing these triggers is not, however, the cure for post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is a treatable mental health disorder. Recovery from trauma is not about avoiding triggers; getting healthy means that the sufferer no longer has extreme reactions to ordinary events. The happy fact is that the medical science already exists to effectively treat this condition.

We know how to make the panic attacks, dissociation, nightmares and depression stop. Some treatments can alleviate serious symptoms within a relatively short time. Once recovered, a person who lived through heavy shelling can then enjoy a Canada Day fireworks display with their neighbours, just like everyone else.

When you look at the airshow controversy from this mental health perspective, the needs of refugees and the armed forces are actually surprisingly similar. We send our soldiers to the same dangerous parts of the world from which these refugees have fled. They have witnessed many of the same atrocities and have a common bond in having survived these harrowing experiences. We can all agree that both our new Syrian neighbours and our men and women in uniform deserve the best medical care, including mental health support to help them deal with the traumas they have experienced.

The airshow controversy is therefore a false debate that has actually unearthed an important common interest. Improving the availability of and access to mental health support for everyone, especially the armed forces and refugee communities, is a goal that should bring together humanitarians and patriots alike. Soldiers and refugees are forced by circumstance to be stoic and stalwart in the face of trauma; our job is to make sure they dont suffer in silence.

The way to do this is not only by removing the stigma around mental illness, but also increasing access to care. As Dr. Paul Kurdyak, a professor at the University of Toronto and practitioner at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, explains, The problem is that knowing where to go for help is often unclear, and even if it is clear, the wait can be far too long, particularly for someone in crisis. It doesnt have to be like this.

Kurdyak goes on to say that there are creative and equitable ways to increase access to mental health care, without overburdening the system, such as using online technology to connect to patients in rural areas and improving videoconferencing between teams of physicians. These are positive, integrative, and low-cost solutions aimed at improving access to mental health care, which both humanitarians and patriots can agree on.

We are Toronto the Good. And as Torontonians, we hold our values of inclusivity and respect very dearly. We pride ourselves in our civil discourse and welcoming nature. Our city is blessed with countless cultural festivals and community events, which celebrate the oldest and newest members of our Canadian family. The weekend spat over the airshow should not create a false division between humanitarianism and patriotism. If anything, it should serve as a rallying point for all of us in the 6ix to be kinder to each other.

Aisha Ahmad is an international security specialist, professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and a research associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs. @ProfAishaAhmad

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Lets face it, theres a lot thats wrong about medicare.

Canada spends more per person on health care than many comparable countries, yet our actual health is often poorer. We wait too long for many procedures, and the systems many parts dont communicate well with each other. Whats more, medicare as we know it doesnt even cover almost a third of our health care costs  pricey things like prescription drugs and dental care.

So health care experts and politicians have their work cut out for them to fix whats wrong and make sure the system meets the high expectations of patients and health care professionals alike.

What they dont need is whats at the heart of the landmark legal case that began this past week in Vancouver  a bid to remove barriers to two-tier health care and let doctors work in both the public and private systems at the same time. That wouldnt improve medicare; it would destroy its foundations.

The case pits Cambie Surgeries Corp., co-owned by a leading advocate of private medicine in Canada, Dr. Brian Day, against British Columbias Medical Services Commission, which oversees the provinces medicare system. But as all involved acknowledge, the case involves principles that go to the heart of the way medicine is structured in this country and therefore has national implications. It will surely end up in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Essentially, Day is going to court to accomplish two things. He wants to overturn B.C.s ban on the sale of private insurance for medically necessary services (five other provinces have similar bans). And he wants to overturn a law that forbids doctors from offering privately paid care if they already work within the public medicare system. At present, they must opt completely out of medicare if they want to charge private fees.

Day argues that the current system violates patients Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person because it prevents them from seeking medical care privately even if the public system cant provide it in a timely fashion.

Its far from clear what the B.C. court will decide, or what higher courts may say on appeal. The Supreme Court did rule in a 2005 case that Quebecs ban on private insurance broke that provinces laws, but it didnt rule on the Charter issue. So theres no clear legal precedent.

Regardless of the legal debate, though, theres little doubt about the real-life effects of what Day is seeking. If patients who can afford private insurance are allowed to buy themselves out of the public system, it will create the two-tier structure that Canadian medicare advocates have been fighting to head off for decades.

Instead of having patients wait for operations and other procedures according to medically determined priorities, there would be in effect two lines. One for those with private insurance and the means to pay extra for quicker service. And one for the rest of us. No prizes for guessing which one would be moving faster.

Its fundamental to medicare that all should be treated equitably. If youre moved ahead in the queue it should be because your condition requires it. Not because you can fatten the pocketbooks of health care providers.

Just as importantly, once those with means have taken care of themselves and their families, they will inevitably become less committed to the well-being of the public system. It will become harder and harder to mobilize support for making the improvements in medicare that all agree are needed.

Day has struck a nerve by highlighting the shortcomings of the system, like lengthy wait times for some procedures and outdated technology that makes doctors offices one of the last bastions of the fax machine. He has also focused attention on glaring inconsistencies  such as the fact that public bodies like workers compensation boards and the armed forces are the biggest clients of private clinics. Thats straight hypocrisy.

All those issues must be addressed, but tearing down a system that has served the country well for many decades is no proper solution.

If anything, medicare should be broadened. Even now, Canadians rely on private insurance and payments for some 30 per cent of their health costs, including vital things like prescription drugs, dental care, vision care, physiotherapy and home care.

It would be a tragedy if the nations most cherished social program was kneecapped before it could be made to live up to its full potential.

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Re: First step to improving palliative care: change its name, Opinion Aug. 30

First step to improving palliative care: change its name, Opinion Aug. 30

Priya Sayal suggests that palliative care is broken and that this is in large part due to patient and health care provider reluctance to access palliative care because of a fear of the name.

As palliative care physicians, we agree that there are many challenges in the provision of palliative care in Canada. First among these, however, is not the name palliative care but a lack of financial, structural and personnel resources.

In Canada, access to palliative care varies from good to abysmal, depending upon ones postal code. We see the devastating effects of these discrepancies every day when caring for patients facing life threatening diagnoses.

As Ms Sayal wrote, changing the name palliative care to supportive care has been shown to improve referrals in a 2011 study carried out in Texas. This study compared two 8-month periods before and after the name change.

We suspect that if the study continued over a longer period of time, referrals would drop off. Why? Eventually the term supportive care would be stigmatized in the same way that palliative care has been.

What is needed to combat this fear is a greater understanding of what palliative care entails and a greater societal acceptance of death as a natural part of life. We in palliative care treat not just the imminently dying, but more commonly those living with difficult symptoms, such as pain. In fact, studies have shown that early palliative care can actually extend life for some patients with cancer.

Ms Sayal is correct; palliative care ought to be a right and not a privilege for Canadians. Unfortunately, we are far from realizing that right; not because of stigma, but because of a poverty of resources aimed at making good palliative care available to all, regardless of postal code.

Dr. Miriam Mottiar, Division of Palliative Care, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa and Dr. Irene Ying, Division of Palliative Care, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto

I agree with Priya Sayal that the term palliative care is often misunderstood and foreboding. However, the term general supportive care has been a time-honoured term to describe all the nursing care over and above the definitive medical treatment for a patient who does not have a terminal or incurable illness.

Dr. Timothy Quill in Rochester and others have been using the term comfort care for some years, as a preferred alternative to palliative care. Comfort care is positive and unambiguous and easily understood.

Dr. E. Robert Langford, Toronto

As someone up in years, I was scared witless when I read, The public has been galvanized around a conversation about the legalization of medically assisted dying, an incredibly important issue. Its our system formal acceptance of a persons right to die. Its a step forward  one that I would argue is necessary, but not sufficient, to make dying with dignity [code words for assisted suicide] the rule, as opposed to the exception.

When I regained my composure, I realized that the author, a two years into medical school student, had later somehow clarified that she meant only the terminally ill patients who accept the service.

Then she argued for the change of the name palliative care  which also means end-of-life or comfort care  to supportive care, with the ultimate purpose of having patients, even the chronically ill, receive it earlier so they can have a good death, or, as I would put it more frankly, to make them believe that some curative efforts are still made to save their lives.

An incredibly important issue about life is the duty not to rush it towards a so-called good death.

Jaime Oksemberg, Toronto

Had I not been obliged to deal with the recent passing of my adult daughter Avryl, the topic of palliative care might never have struck me as pertinent. Sadly, the loss of someone so precious to a disease as insidious as cancer more or less required all family members to face up to the fact that some people arent as fortunate as others, in that not all illnesses respond to treatment, and not all patients enjoy improved or improvable health.

Avryls clock began to tick faster than it should have, at a time when she had everything to live for, including a lovely daughter of her own and a fiance who was set to spend the rest of his life with her.

The appearance of cancer in her liver several years after an initial diagnosis of breast cancer  which she and our family hoped had been successfully dealt with  left us in shock and denial. I witnessed my daughter tell her oncology nurses  who sought to make her aware of the seriousness of her ailment, and who suggested she let her daughter know that her mother is dying  that Im not done yet!

Avryl told me on more than one occasion that she disliked the word palliative. It was a word she would have liked to eliminate from her vocabulary. After reading Priya Sayals touching column, in which she wrote: Palliative care is broken. The goal is to support people as they approach one of the most challenging times they will ever face  emotionally, intellectually, and financially. The goal is to support  so why not call it supportive care? I wholeheartedly agree.

Patients who are dealing with a terminal illness can use all the emotional and physical support were able to muster in an effort to make their situation somewhat less foreboding.

While theres no doubt that denying the gravity of ones illness wont make it go away, theres something to be said for offering hope. Something as simple as using a different word, i.e. supportive in place of palliative, is a good place to start.

Tom Groot, Grafton

Those of us dealing with either palliative or long term care, as they are known today, must update our thoughts and support the new culture of caring for our loved ones.

A name change is only a first step in raising the awareness of shortcomings in our Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Giving us an opportunity to improve the quality of life, as well as the quality of end of life situations may well be supportive care/supportive living and my favourite, care for the long term.

New names, new thoughts and a new path for care.

Ernie Ilson, Mississauga

Balfour Mount, the father of modern palliative care in Canada, coined the term palliative care in 1975 so that one term would be acceptable in both English and French as he brought the movement to Canada (from Latin palliare: to cloak or cover). The term palliative care or soins palliatifs in French, is therefore uniquely appropriate in the Canadian context.

Palliative care programs developed within larger health-care institutions, while hospice care developed within the community as free-standing, volunteer programs. Over time, these gradually evolved from individual, grassroots efforts to a cohesive movement with the same goal: to relieve suffering and improve quality of life for those who are living with, or dying from, an illness. And so the term hospice palliative care (or HPC) was coined.

We are at a crossroads: Awareness of hospice palliative care in Canada has never been higher with the recent media spotlight on assisted dying. We can either focus on making HPC a guaranteed right in the next Health Accord being negotiated right now, or we can engage in a re-branding exercise.

We are largely a death-denying society and no matter its name, hospice palliative care will continue to be the pariah in the room until it is made a healthcare priority.

Sharon Baxter, executive director, Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, Ottawa

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The other day the New York Times reported a 2-second blast of energy discovered by the Russians, which was thought to be a radio signal, described as being the equivalent of hi there, from the Hercules constellation of the galaxy. Maybe instead it was a gasp of O my heavens at the overheated Toronto housing market with perhaps a herculean bubble about to burst if things are not brought into line.

The mind boggles at such things. Or perhaps it was anguish over the political shenanigans going on south of the border in the presidential campaign that has sunk to new lows in the arena of political niceties.

Maybe even, puzzlement over the continuing polarization between the superpowers, and of the isolationism, death, destruction and chaos Middle East  not to mention extremes in poverty in sprawling Africa and of the inequities of Europes immigration policies.

In a word, the disunity and disharmony holding back this planet back from better things. After all seeing ourselves is not always how others see us.

Still that wishful possible hello from space is a reminder that much needs to be done in our own backyard. Indeed, in being better neighbours before any thought of migrating to another planet or having interstellar communication  which will certainly happen one day  become as common as going to Tim Hortons for a coffee.

So its good to pause and smell that coffee and do a better job at things than we are. After all its in our nature to do better. Indeed to have our best foot forward when that reassuring and much anticipated call from outer space one day will come. After all we have sent our messages have we not?

Claude McDonald, Kitchener

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Re: No need for partisan games, Editorial Aug. 31

No need for partisan games, Editorial Aug. 31

Can it be true? Yes. The Liberals have decided that the time for eliminating cash for access from corporate and union influences is neigh upon them. Unilaterally of course.

All parties are to be affected by this new legislation that calls for a complete ban on direct solicitation. In other words, talking to corporations and unions in order to pay for favourably obtuse policies of corporate and union endeavors will no longer take place in the fallow depths of this slime-ridden practice.

The little guys voice has far too long been silenced by this practice. One can only hope that going forward real-people issues of housing, poverty, health and education will become front and centre in the process, rather than corporate issues of profit, greed and ignorance.

The Corporate Party (the combined financial interests of the PC, NDP and Liberal parties) have imposed their will long enough on the political process in Ontario. Will these measures truly eliminate this unwanted influence? That remains to be seen.

Troy J. Young, Toronto

It is embarrassing to have such a low voter turnout, but more embarrassing to have so few voters donate to political parties. About 1 per cent of the population donates over a four-year cycle. Not doing our bit enables political influence.

As a volunteer in a riding association, I would estimate a riding needs about $180,000 over an election cycle, through about 400-800 donations and through vote subsidies. After tax receipts and credits, donors actually pay only $40,000 (about 20 per cent) of $180,000.

In addition government spends millions on elections and Elections Ontario.

The legislature should review the recommendations of Yales Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres and Harvards Larry Lessig. They support a voucher system in which every eligible voter has a $50 voucher or tax credit to donate to a campaign of his or her choice.

Clearly such a measure would add to the integrity of politics and elections  and reduce pressures on politicians to repay supporters.

The voucher would also improve the engagement of voters who would need to think about which party to support.

Joseph Polito, Toronto

Stopping cash-for-access fundraising events will do little to stop big money donors from getting special access to politicians and parties.

As the experience in Quebec, Toronto and at the federal level shows clearly, the Ontario Liberals proposed individual political donation limit of $2,400 per party annually (including donations to riding associations  and to $3,600 during years where an election or by-election is held) will allow big money (mostly from businesses) to continue to have an undemocratic and unethical influence on Ontario politics.

With essentially that same donation limit, businesses funnelled $12.8 million of donations through their executives and their families to political parties from 2006 to 2011, according to an audit conducted by Elections Quebec. And with that same donation limit in 2014 at the federal level, 8.9 per cent of donors gave the Liberal Party of Canada 41.7 per cent of total donations (and that doesnt even include the amounts those donors gave to the partys riding associations).

As well, as the Star itself reported, businesses continue to get around the ban on business and union donations in Toronto and by having their executives and their family members donate thousands of dollars to city councillors.

Ontario Liberals will continue to give special access to their top donors through the Red Trillium Club (as the federal Liberals do through their Laurier Club).

To stop the corrupting influence of big money, the Quebec government lowered the annual individual donation limit in 2013 to $100 (and used per-vote and donation-matching public funding to ensure parties and candidates still had adequate financing).

Ontarios political parties must make the same changes in order to have a democratic and ethical provincial political finance system, and they should make the same changes to democratize the provinces municipal political finance system.

Duff Conacher, co-founder, Democracy Watch, Ottawa

If MPPs are banned from political fundraising events then I believe parties would have politicians from other levels of government be the star attraction of such events. Before endorsing such a proposal, we should bear in mind which party currently has the most federal and municipal elected officials.

Phillip Roh, Toronto

In a recent statement the Liberals claimed to be open to all ideas on election reform. That is incorrect; if that was so they would also be considering our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system. Instead they have set up a panel of MPs who are mostly against FPTP to guarantee that an election promise will happen. They want a handful of politicians to do away with a system that has served Canadians for 150 years and not let Canadians have their say in a referendum.

If the Liberals think they have a better plan, dont hide it, bring it out so that Canadians can decide which system they like the best. You dont do away with a voting system that has served Canadians since Canada began just so you can fulfil an election promise.

Larry Prout, Peterborough

The ban on taking money directly from donors over dinner is a bit like the emergence of a diving penalty in sports; the necessity for such rules is evidence were living in a degraded state of affairs.

Stewart Britton, Belleville

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Re: The not-so-saintly side of Mother Teresa, Opinion Sept. 1

The not-so-saintly side of Mother Teresa, Opinion Sept. 1

I am astounded at the way Michael Coren has tried to debunk the canonization of Mother Teresa. As a transplanted Calcuttan, I consider myself to be blessed having worked with Mother Teresa some 45 years ago. Even at that time, her qualities of humility and selfless devotion to the poor and less fortunate transcended caste and creed.

In the slums and squalid conditions, I was a first-hand witness to the work that she carried out with her Missionaries of Charity without any pomp and fanfare picking up Hindus and Muslims alike from the streets of Calcutta and personally cleaning their sores and transporting them to Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) a hospice for the sick, destitute and the dying where she helped them die with dignity.

The then well loved Marxist chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, gifted large tracts of land to Mother Teresa to further her work with the destitute. He enjoyed a remarkable if somewhat paradoxical relationship with the Catholic nun. She makes me a bad Marxist since she makes me believe in godliness, Mr. Basu reportedly remarked after one of their frequent meetings.

Between 1950s and 1960s Mother Teresa began an orphanage, leper colony and various clinics. After founding her congregation with only 12 sisters, it grew to more than 5,000 sisters by 2007. Similarly, by the year 2007, there were over 600 different types of charitable organizations or foundations established in about 120 countries worldwide. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work.

Bernard Alvares, Toronto

Like the exquisite Hitch (Christopher Hitchens) whom he quotes, Coren delights in being different by unfairly criticizing Mother Teresa, who was loved by the millions she helped and inspired.

I met Mother (as we like to call her) and worked with her sisters in Calcutta in 1983 and every Christmas for several years after in Haiti and Jamaica. The real beauty of Mother is seen in the eyes of her sisters as they simply glow while going about their daily service to the poor and to Christ. Far from being dour and strict, they are a light in and a contrast to a world of poverty and violence.

The sisters go out daily and retrieve those whom hospitals must reject because they are too sick to survive. The few beds available in these places must be reserved for those who have a chance. That is why her order does not provide hospital care, but rather hospice care. These dying poor are loved, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and cared for until they pass on.

While Coren may not agree with several points of Catholic doctrine, he is wrong to state that Mother campaigned to promote these items. Her main thrust and that of the order is to serve Christ in the poor and to train new sisters to carry on.

Coren needs to follow the steps of Malcolm Muggeridge, who shared Hitchens attitude until he traveled to Calcutta and met Mother and subsequently was converted to Christianity.

Although already converted, Coren would see a lot that he needs to see before he promotes his stance. Observing the sisters is watching Christianity practiced as it ought to be.

Donald A. Fraser, Waterloo

The Mother Teresa industry generated a lot of money from donors who wanted to relieve the misery of the worlds sick and poor while being unaware that their money was reinvested in spreading ideology instead of purchasing pain medication for suffering. Cheap aspirins and reused hypodermic needles were the norm in this ladys clinics.

According to Christopher Hitchens book, The Missionary Position, Mother Teresa got her start on a roller coaster ride to sainthood because of a misinterpretation of a new film technology that gave an illusion of a halo over her head in a minor documentary.

In the age where we have sent men to the moon, it is puzzling to hear that the Catholic Church believes that the placement of a miraculous medal once worn by Mother Teresa on a womans abdomen was able to make a cancerous tumor disappear. I wonder how many people would choose this method of treatment over modern medicine.

At least we all got an up close view of how a myth is constructed and that shines some light on those religious mythologies that go back thousands of years.

Russell Pangborn, Keswick

Michael Corens article will undoubtedly spark outrage from supporters of the pious. While the Mother Teresas of this world are not all so glamorized, they usually share a close minded purpose  to relieve the pain of life imposed on the poor by their beliefs through enforcement of these same punishing beliefs. It is the equivalent to comforting rape victims but doing absolutely nothing to prevent the attacks  in fact actively encourage victims to accept their lot and find the joy in acceptance.

Saintly behaviour is certainly subject to interpretation. Kudos to Michael Coren.

Rochelle Hatton, Sudbury

I had the good fortune to sit near Mother Teresa during our final mass to wrap up a 10-day LArche conference in Rome in 1988. She was invited to give the homily (which I still remember) at this mass.

She was indeed an extraordinary person but how sad that a women in the Catholic Church has to be in a position of being elevated to sainthood before recognition is given to be able to interpret (which only the priest can do) the gospels and share with a congregation.

The church may feel good about this celebration of Mother Teresas life but they still have along way to go if they are to truly recognize (women) 50 per cent of its members.

Matthew Marosszeky, Aurora

It is very insensitive of Michael Coren to write this article so close to the day that many of Mother Teresas followers and admirers were looking forward for. He has based his argument solely on the basis of what Christopher Hitchens, a self-declared atheist, has written about Mother Teresas work.

According to Hitchens, virtually all charities run by a religious organization are to be condemned since they naturally tend to talk about their faith and their teaching. This to an outsider sounds like pushing for the faith but one should not forget, a needy and distressed person would welcome it rather than an intellectual sermon by an atheist.

In a city such as Calcutta (now Kolkata) to provide any medical help to a person on the street is a challenge at best of times; and to be able to continue that for a number of years (including a number of them through political/social turmoil), is nothing less than admirable.

True, the medical facilities may not measure to Western standards, but to a needy person, perhaps it is the last straw for his/her survival, and many times the recipient is not interested in knowing the source behind it.

With regard to Corens point that miracles attributed to Mother Teresa may not be genuine. Does he really think any of the miracles attributed to other saints are undisputable? As Hitchens says, dead men or women dont cure the living medical patients.

However, Coren should raise this issue together with the whole canonization process with the Pope rather than with Mother Teresa, who is long gone.

Meanwhile, ask any person, who has benefitted from Mother Teresas charity, he will always cherish her as saint in his /her heart and thats where Mother Teresas true sainthood rests.

Ravi Jategaonkar, Brampton

Michael Coren is so bitter about his decision to abandon the Catholic Church  at one time he was so sure about it that he wrote a book Why Catholics are Right  that he cannot contain his criticism about a woman who the whole world acknowledges as a saint. His pathetic attempt to remain relevant is merely a ploy to sell his new book.

(Rev.) Bernard Vellozo, Mississauga

Michael Corens diatribe against other Teresa was for a person of his intelligence a bit childish although he obviously used the opportunity to justify his renouncing his Catholic faith.

What Mr. Coren and Mr. Hitchens both fail to understand is that neither a canonization nor an acknowledgement of sainthood is synonymous with perfection because if either were the pantheon of Catholic saints would be devoid of any names.

What both signify however is a degree of sanctity that puts others needs before ones own  something that Mother Teresa has most certainly demonstrated throughout her life and something that we all need to imitate.

J.E. Sequeira, Oakville

Corens critique of Mother Teresa was based mainly on writings of Hitchens. The two main contentions are that: Mother Teresa took money from corrupt millionaires and dictators and that she provided substandard food, care and medicine to the poor. Both intentionally ignore the fact that it is not the source of money but the cause it was used for that matters. As most people, I admire the Mother for that rather than condemn her.

On the issue of substandard food and care, a person dying of hunger would have substandard rather than no food. She gave loving care to the sick, dying and hungry and also live among them and like them. This is the reason that she was given a State Funeral by India, a Hindu majority country. Its foreign minister of India and the Chief Minister of Bengal among others are attending the function at Rome.

All her life Mother Teresa lived and served in Bengal, a province which till recently was ruled by a communist government. But she was accorded immediate access even to the chief minister Jyoti Basu a staunch communist.

Coren, a Catholic turned evangelical, turned a mainliner, should have been wiser than mimicking Hitchens so blindly.

Clarence McMullen, Richmond Hill

Mother Teresas spiritual darkness is far from a sign of her imperfection as a saint  in fact, just the opposite. Those of us tuned into matters spiritual are aware that there is a devil and that it roams the world seeking the ruin of souls. It focuses particular attention on those granted special gifts from God.

God permits the devil to do its work as part of the test of our free will to choose between good and evil.

For Mother Teresa to experience this darkness and yet remain faithful to her mission to help the least of us absolutely affirms her saintliness. Case closed on this issue.

John Killackey, Mississauga

At first I was upset when I read Michael Corens article, but on further reflection felt really sorry for him. It is common knowledge that Mother Teresa was awarded a prestigious Nobel Prize; this alone should have made him pause and reflect before he put pen to paper. In 1996 Mother Teresa was granted Honorary American citizenship; only seven other people have so far received this honour in Americas history.

Mother Teresa had a heart filled with joy, she spoke of the joy of loving and serving the poor. She said to her Sisters Joy is one of the most essential things in our Society. A Missionary of Charity must be a Missionary of Charity of Joy.

Mother Teresa was given a State Funeral. She was only the second (or third) person honoured in this way after Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. At her funeral the Vatican Secretary of State, Angelo Cardinal Sodano, said in his eulogy The entire Church thanks you for your luminous example and promise to make it our heritage ... I thank you for all you have done for the poor of the world.

Mother Teresa will be venerated as a saint forever; may she intercede for us and Michael Coren.

Eric De Souza, Etobicoke

This article is farcical and nauseating at the same time. It appears the author expects everyone, including Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu of Albania, to be the ultimate PR strategist, politician or medical doctor.

Mr. Coren generously criticizes her from all sides  including her approach to the treatment of the poor, medical care, poverty alleviation and fundraising.

By quoting a jab that alleges the medical attention she and her sisters provided to the poor was sub-standard, it seems hed expect her to hold a doctorate in medical studies from McGill university or perhaps the ability to manage a site as clean and comfortable as a fertility clinic in downtown Toronto.

He attacks a woman who has inspired millions of people to express greater charity to others in part because he disagrees with her on the questions of abortion, marriage and contraception. Does the author expect all of us to intervene in state, societal, political and world affairs in the same way?

Can he not see what millions around the world see: a woman who felt great love for others and who allowed that spirit to animate her to concrete action, day in and day out, in a way that felt right for her, and that certainly helped millions of ordinary persons to feel loved and valued?

Rather than throw darts at Mother Teresa from some comfortable office or cafe, perhaps Mr. Coren could find a little more time to share a little extra compassion with others. At the end of the day, its love that matters.

Daniel Torchia, Uxbridge

Mother Teresa  now Saint Teresa, is the product of both literal and figurative worlds colliding. But then again, once a saint  always a saint. However, as humble as she was  she may even cringe at her new title and prefer to be remembered as simply Mother Teresa.

JoAnn Lee Frank, Clearwater, FL

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Samsung (SSNLF) is exploring a sale of its printer business to HP (HPQ) in a deal that could be valued at as much as $1.8 billion.

The Korean electronics company could announce the potential transaction by next week, Reuters reports, citing the Seoul Economic Daily.

Samsung Electronics and its subsidiaries have been divesting from non-core businesses as part of the company's restructuring process.

The company still ranks as one of the top smartphone manufacturers, but trails behind peers like HP in the global printer market, Reuters noted.

Samsung doesn't disclose its printer sales separately, but IDC recently said the company ranked fifth with a 4% share of the global hardcopy peripherals market in the fiscal 2016 second quarter.

The Palo Alto, CA-based company HP is the largest maker of printers and the second largest PC manufacturer, behind Lenovo (LNVGY).

Shares of HP were lower in early-morning trading on Friday.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. TheStreet Ratings has this to say about the recommendation:

The team rates HP as a Hold with a ratings score of C. The primary factors that have impacted the rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. Among the primary strengths of the company is its solid stock price performance. At the same time, however, it also finds weaknesses including poor profit margins, weak operating cash flow and feeble growth in the company's earnings per share.

You can view the full analysis from the report here:

HPQ

HPQ data by YCharts
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) has rescinded its takeover offer for Tulsa, OK-based pipeline company Williams Cos. (WMB) due to a "lack of engagement from Williams."

But Williams Cos. issued a statement late last night claiming that the company was "surprised" by Enterprise's announcement, as Williams Cos.'s board was reviewing the bid and "remains open to considering any potential strategic alternative that would maximize value for stockholders."

Even at a low premium, the deal could deliver significant value to Williams shareholders, TheStreet's Jim Cramer said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" this morning.

Enterprise is the highest-quality of the master limited partnerships, with one of the best balance sheets, Cramer explained.

He pointed out that Enterprise was one of the first companies to recognize that it could sell natural gas liquids overseas.

Williams Cos. claims that Enterprise couldn't have been serious about a deal given its low offer, "Squawk on the Street" Co-host David Faber noted.

"Well you know what, it doesn't matter," Cramer contended. "The combination would be ideal and great for shareholders."

He added in the above video that he would like to hear what new Williams Cos. board member Scott Sheffield thought of the proposed merger.

Shares of Williams Cos. were down Friday afternoon after Enterprise rescinded its bid and as oil prices fell today.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates the stock as a "hold" with a ratings score of C-.

Williams Cos.' strengths such as its expanding profit margins over time are countered by weaknesses including deteriorating net income, generally higher debt management risk and disappointing return on equity.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: WMB

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this article's author.
United Airlines (UAL) President Scott Kirby's departure from American Airlines (AAL) occurred after he was asked to leave American.

An airline industry source, who asked not to be named, said Kirby was asked to depart American due to executive suite tensions involving conflict with other top executives. He was provided with a separation package worth about $13 million.

American said on Aug. 29 that Kirby would leave immediately and that Robert Isom would succeed him as president.

"We have nothing new to add to our earlier announcement about Robert's new role as president and Scott's departure," American spokesman Josh Freed said late Friday. "These decisions were focused on succession planning and assembling the right team of executives for American Airlines."

Kirby's departure from American and arrival at United were both announced, "effective immediately," on Aug. 29. Sources said it had been made known to Kirby months earlier that United would be interested in him.

A United spokesman referred to the Aug. 29 letter in which CEO Oscar Munoz announced Kirby to airline employees. "While his credentials speak for themselves, what set Scott apart from the other impressive candidates I considered was his excitement at the passion and enthusiasm he is seeing from all of you over the past few months," Munoz wrote.

On Sept. 1, at an employee meeting in Charlotte, American CEO Doug Parker said that in Kirby's case, "We decided (that) as painful as it is, you should go transition out of the company."

Still, in its public statement, American was not entirely clear about the exact mechanics of Kirby's departure, referring to the move as the result of its board's consideration of succession planning.

"Today's management changes are the result of the company's board of directors' ongoing succession planning process," American said.

"As part of that process, and subsequent conversations regarding career expectations and the marketability of its executives, the company concluded it would not be able to retain its existing executive team in their current roles for an extended period," it said.

Additionally, John Cahill, the airline's lead independent director, emphasized in a prepared statement that Parker isn't going anywhere.

American "continues to be led by an exemplary individual who embodies the leadership qualities necessary to lead a large, complex service organization," Cahill said in the prepared statement. "We look forward to Doug's continued leadership for many years to come, welcome Robert to his expanded role, and are extremely excited about the future of American Airlines."

In an SEC filing, American said Kirby had entered into a "transition and separation agreement" under which he will receive a $3.9 million lump sum payment, continued health coverage for himself and dependents for up to two years and accelerated vesting of 258,958 shares of stock, worth about $9.4 million on Aug. 29.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million  and fire 5,300 employees  to settle a case in which 2 million fake accounts were created to secure bonuses. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Wells Fargo, the nations largest bank, scrambled on Friday to contain the fallout from an investigation that found its employees set up 2 million fake accounts that customers didnt ask for to get bonuses. The bank took out full-page ads in some newspapers to apologize and promised to change the culture that allowed the scheme to fester.

But a Federal Reserve Board member, while not addressing the companys case specifically, said the banking industry at large isnt doing enough to prevent unethical behavior among its employees.

What I have seen is that too many banks, instead of putting in place a comprehensive system for assuring that all their employees understand what is legal and ethical across the board, only respond when there is a particular problem, Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo said in an interview with CNBC on Friday.

U.S. banks, including Wells Fargo, have paid billions of dollars in fines for various misdeeds since the 2008 financial crisis. Last month, regulators fined the San Francisco-based bank $4 million for charging illegal fees to student-loan borrowers.

But this case, which regulators said involved pervasive misconduct involving thousands of bank employees, raised new questions about whether federal authorities have done enough to detect and punish bad behavior.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton pounced on the case to criticize her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has said he would dismantle some of the financial-industry regulations put in place in recent years.

The Wells Fargo settlement  is a stark reminder of why we need a strong consumer watchdog to safeguard against unfair and deceptive practices, Clinton said in a statement.

On Thursday, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million to settle the case and said it had dismissed 5,300 employees for their conduct over the last five years.

If you fire 5,300 people because theyve opened up 2 million accounts inappropriately, then theres something wrong with the institution, said Richard Bove, a bank analyst for Rafferty Capital Markets, who downgraded Wells Fargos stock to a sell rating after the news broke.

The investigation was led by federal regulators at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as well as by authorities in Los Angeles, where the allegations first surfaced. As part of the settlement, Wells Fargo admitted no wrongdoing and no high-level Wells Fargo executives were singled-out for prosecution. The size of the fine also pales in comparison to Wells Fargos profits of more than $20 billion last year.

There is a need, I think, for focus on individuals as well as the fines put on the institutions, Tarullo said. There are things that do need to be pursued in order to make the point that there is individual culpability, as well as collective.

Rather than pursuing what would have been relatively minor criminal charges against individual bank employees, the Los Angeles City Attorneys Office said it pursued a civil case because it was focused on compensating bank customers. (Wells Fargo says it has already repaid customers more than $2 million in overdraft and other fees linked to the fraudulent accounts.)

Criminal cases get more difficult to prove as you go up [the executive ladder], said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman at the Los Angeles City Attorneys Office. Our focus was definitely getting the culture to change and for there to be some monetary fines for allowing this to happen.

Legal experts say the potential for criminal charges probably was limited. Authorities may have been able to nab low-level employees for fraud or theft, but showing a direct link to senior Wells Fargo executives would have been difficult, they said.

Wells Fargo was accused of fostering an environment that incentivized employees to cross-sell existing customers with additional services, prompting some to go too far to claim their bonuses.

The conduct dated back to at least 2011 and involved more than 1.5 million checking and savings accounts and about 500,000 credit-card accounts, with many customers getting hit with unexpected fees, according to federal officials.

Employee incentive programs were popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s at large banks, but not so much anymore, said Sudhir Suchak, a clinical assistant professor of finance at the University at Buffalo School of Management who spent 30 years at British bank HSBC.

Im not aware of many incentive programs going on much anymore and I think this is why. . . . Its quite surprising a bank of this size would have that, Suchak said.

The allegations immediately drew recriminations from consumer advocates and even some banking industry officials.

Not only is this conduct appalling and harmful to American consumers and communities, it also contributes to the growth of excessive regulation that needlessly burdens the local community banks that do right by their customers, said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America. While Wells Fargo has the luxury of throwing money at the problem to make it go away without its board or senior management being held accountable, the individuals and local institutions affected by its actions will continue to suffer for years to come.

Wells Fargo has lowered its sales goals since the fraudulent accounts were discovered, said Richele Messick, a company spokeswoman. She declined to say when the changes were made. Wells Fargo has also declined to comment on whether any senior executives were punished internally for the conduct, or were included among the 5,300 fired.

We are making fundamental changes, she said. We have looked at and worked hard to improve our sales practices. We have been on a path for the last several years of making these changes.

Kevin Barker, a senior equity analyst for the investment bank Piper Jaffray, said the settlement could lead to an outsized amount of scrutiny of Wells Fargo from other regulators, including state attorney generals, Barker said. It could also open the door for regulators to review the practices at other banks, he said.

The optics arent great, Barker said.
Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes in 1996 as the Australian-born media mogul was trying to go after Ted Turners then-dominant CNN. (Richard Drew/AP)

Roger Ailes, as the story goes, landed a media consulting gig with the Richard Nixon presidential campaign and is credited in  The Selling of the President  with helping land him in the White House. Ailes was not offered a job in the administration, and he went on to build a lucrative trade in shaping political opinion.

This summer Ailess career at Fox News Channel collapsed amid accusations of sexual harassment by female employees.

Last week, Foxs parent, 21st Century Fox, agreed to pay $20 million to former anchor Gretchen Carlson to settle a suit claiming sexual harassment by Ailes.

Gabriel Sherman, an editor at New York magazine, has done the most to propel the Ailes story. (He is also the author of a tell-all on Ailes,  The Loudest Voice in the Room .)

In his story in the magazine last week, The Revenge of Rogers Angels, Sherman quotes a prominent Republican who described Ailess well-known reputation for awful behavior toward women.

Fox News settled for $20 million after former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

Rupert Murdoch hired Ailes in 1996 as the Australian-born media mogul was trying to go after Ted Turners then-dominant CNN. They launched Fox News, which emerged as a wildly successful and even more wildly profitable franchise. By 2002, Fox passed CNN in the ratings, and never looked back. (To build on his American media empire, Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal in 2007.) According to Sherman, Fox News generates more than $1 billion annually, which accounts for 20 percent of 21st Century Foxs profits.

With so much else coming clear, a material question remains: How does the fall of Ailes, so instrumental in turning Fox News into a media behemoth and a profit powerhouse, affect 21st Century Fox going forward?

Several areas could affect shareholders. Lets consider each:

Shareholder litigation: One of the more shocking allegations that appeared in Shermans reporting in August was the lack of oversight on how Ailes spent money and that Ailes allocated a portion of Foxs budget to hire consultants, political operatives and private detectives who reported only to him, according to a senior Fox source. This, if true, would be in addition to the millions of dollars to settle Ailes-related sexual harassment charges, and raises significant questions.

Among them: Where were the accountants? How could shareholder dollars be spent in such a way that it escaped notice in the annual audit? If Shermans allegations prove to be true, this would suggest people at Fox knew but did nothing. No wonder shareholder law firm Scott & Scott announced in a news release an investigation into Fox to determine whether Foxs Officers and Directors have breached their fiduciary duties.

21st Century Fox declined to comment on the fund. It cited the following statement: Within hours of the first public complaint raising an issue at Fox News, we commenced an investigation, and less than two weeks after that investigation began, the Chairman and CEO of Fox News departed.

At the time, Ailes attorney Susan Estrich said, These allegations are totally false.

21st Century Fox shareholders should be much more concerned about Trump TV than CNN. These shareholders should be rooting for a Donald Trump presidency, as it would mean Fox News could get back to business as usual. (Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

Broadcast lineup: Lots of rumors here that might be of concern to shareholders. Bill OReilly, the foundation of the Fox prime-time lineup, is talking openly about retirement. Greta Van Susteren suddenly up and left last week. And Megyn Kelly, arguably Foxs biggest up-and-coming star, has reportedly been exploring her options. Its quite possible that the most powerful brand in news might look very different in a year, and likely, less powerful  and profitable.

And then there is Donald Trump. The network pivoted away from and then toward the Republican presidential nominee. Following the first GOP primary debate, Trump supporters  who count themselves as traditional Fox viewers  were furious at the network for their rough treatment of the candidate. But the most recent pivot, back toward Trump, has alienated a second group of Fox viewers. As The Washington Post reported last week, in the Age of Trump, Fox is drawing disapproving, even scathing, critiques from an unlikely source: conservatives.

Succession planning: As loathsome as Ailes may have been, his skill set and profitability will be difficult to replace. With him gone, Murdochs sons, James and Lachlan, are the next likely heads of the business. But they seem to lack his instincts, experience and perhaps most importantly, his politics. That might have an impact on how loyal viewers remain to the network, affecting ratings and the bottom line.

Demographics: As Frank Rich famously observed in a New York magazine article in 2014, Fox News is graying fast. To adapt his phrasing, Id call it a politically conservative retirement community. Its viewers are older on average than its competitors: It has a median viewer age of 68, according to Bloomberg, which reported from Nielsen data through the second quarter (compared with 64 for MSNBC, 60 for CNN, and 62 to 64 for the broadcast networks).

Foxs viewers also skew more ideological, less educated and have (slightly) lower income than its competitors. Beyond the shake-up, the demographic trend is not Foxs friend. This does not bode well for future ratings battles.

Competition: The departure of Ailes gives Fox nemesis CNN a chance to close the ratings gap. As of April, CNN actually beat Fox News in prime time over five of the prior eight months. While some have blamed the networks embrace of Trumpism (his candidacy and political doctrines), shareholders should be concerned about a shift of its long-loyal and traditional supporters away from the network and (gasp) back to CNN. Fox, it appears, may be in danger of losing its mojo.

Ironically, this should not be shareholders biggest concern. That would be the post-election launch of Trump News. An entirely plausible speculation among media watchers is that the endgame of Trumps unlikely presidential bid all along has been to leverage the billions of dollars in free exposure as a branding exercise. The latest pivot in the fight with Fox could well be to become a competitor  a media mogul in his own right.

Vanity Fair noted every election has its own breakout media star. . . . The breakout media star of 2016 is, inarguably, Donald Trump, who has masterfully  and horrifyingly  demonstrated an aptitude for manipulating the news cycle, gaining billions of dollars worth of free airtime, and dominating coverage on every screen.

This seems plausible. The 2012 election certainly helped extend the Trump brand, and much of his fortune seems to have accrued since then. Post 2012 saw a spate of Trump-related licensing deals, some of which (Trump U!) have led to current electoral woes. Assuming polls prove true and he loses, the 2016 election could easily lead to the launch of  what else?  Trump TV.

Trump understands media as well if not better than just about anyone. Indeed, the way Trump is spending campaign money  Virginia?  suggests he is much more interested in campaigning to the media players than to voters in swing states.

Dont underestimate how angry the Republican nominee is at Murdoch and company. Trump nurses grudges and sleights that most people would forget. Suing Murdoch (unlike the 3,500 or so other litigations USA Today reported that Trump is party to) would not accomplish anything. But becoming a media mogul gives him a genuine entree into a potentially billion-dollar business, and a ton of street cred. What better way to repay the insults of the Murdoch clan than taking down Fox News?

21st Century Fox shareholders should be much more concerned about Trump TV than CNN. These shareholders should be rooting for a Trump presidency, as it would mean Fox News could get back to business as usual. A Trump loss, blamed in part on Murdochs network, could have negative ramifications for the media conglomerate.

Ritholtz is chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management. He is the author of Bailout Nation and runs a finance blog, The Big Picture. On Twitter: @Ritholtz.
Exceptional Excellent Very Good



(Goran Kosanovic/For The Washington Post)

As summer winds down, here are four whites and a rose to guide us through to cooler weather. We have a serious California sauvignon blanc done in a French style; an excellent, moderately priced white Burgundy for chardonnay lovers; and a vibrant semillon to herald the welcome return of a major Australian producer to our market. Cap that with a juicy Spanish rosado, and you have a recipe for late-summer fun.

 Dave McIntyre

GREAT VALUE

Elizabeth Spencer Special Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc 2015

  1/2

Mendocino, Calif., $18

Many California sauvignon blancs taste like a tropical fruit salad, but Elizabeth Spencer goes for a more classic, European style, with flavors of quince, apricot, stones and maybe some sea air  definitely lots of sunshine. This wine is delicious. Alcohol by volume: 14.1 percent.

Distributed by Country Vintner: Available in the District at Dean & DeLuca; on the list at Convivial, Fig & Olive, Logan Tavern, Provision 14. Available in Maryland at the Bottle Shop, the Market at River Falls and World Gourmet Wine & Beer in Potomac; Chevy Chase Supermarket in Chevy Chase; Pinky & Pepes Grape Escape in Gaithersburg. On the list at Kapnos Kouzina in Bethesda. Available in Virginia at Grape+Bean (Rosemont) and the Organic Butcher in McLean; on the list at Clarity in Vienna; Girasole in The Plains; Ten Spot Kitchen & Tap in Leesburg.

Tyrrells Wines Semillon 2015

  1/2

Hunter Valley, Australia, $26

Retailers and fans of Australian wines, take note: Tyrrells Wines are back in the United States through importer Broadbent Selections. Tyrrells is a stalwart of the Hunter Valley region, with a fine lineup of whites and reds. So far, they havent made much market penetration, but one I certainly hope to see more of is the semillon, which is perhaps the Hunter Valleys flagship white. Racy with acidity and citrus flavors plus some fig, this wine will actually benefit from a few years in your cellar, if you can wait that long. ABV: 11 percent.

Distributed by Country Vintner: Available in Maryland at Wine Source in Baltimore.

Celine et Laurent Tripoz Macon-Loche 2014

  1/2

Burgundy, France, $22

Macon is an area of Burgundy known for good-quality, inexpensive everyday chardonnay. The Tripoz wine, which is certified organic and biodynamic, is a step above that: It shows impressive minerality, with aromas and flavors of chalk and wet stones over a core of ripe tree fruit. Like the best biodynamic wines, it also conveys a lively sense of energy that may cause you to steal a glance at your glass, wondering whats going on in there. ABV: 12.5 percent.

Distributed by Elite: Available in the District at Pauls of Chevy Chase, Whole Foods Market (Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, Tenleytown). Available in Maryland at Beer Wine & Co. in Bethesda, Canton Crossing Wine+Spirits and the Happy Grape in Baltimore. Available in Virginia at Arrowine and Cheese in Arlington; Balduccis (Alexandria, McLean); Cheesetique (Alexandria); Crystal City Wine Shop Two; Locke Modern Country Store in Millwood; Once Upon a Vine South and Union Market in Richmond; Unwined (Belleview); Whole Foods Market (Arlington). On the list at Brine in Merrifield, Le Refuge in Alexandria.

Rosa de Arrocal Tempranillo 2015

 

Ribera del Duero, $14

This is a rock-em, sock-em, tutti-frutti rose thats big on the fun, strawberry side of summers favorite wine. ABV: 13 percent.

Distributed by Elite: Available in the District at the Bottle Shop, Circle Wine & Liquor, Eye Street Cellars, Grand Cata, Rodmans, Schneiders of Capitol Hill, Virginia Market; on the list at All Souls, Estadio, Graffiato, Jaleo, Vidalia. Available in Maryland at JPs Fine Wine & Spirits in Jessup; on the list at 13.5 Percent Wine Bar in Baltimore, Jalapenos in Annapolis. Available in Virginia at Cheesetique (Alexandria, Ballston, Shirlington) and Grand Cru in Arlington; on the list at Burtons Grill and Junction Bakery & Bistro in Alexandria; Requin in Merrifield; Pepita Cantina in Arlington.

GREAT VALUE

Cape Original Chenin Blanc 2015

 

Western Cape, South Africa, $8

Chenin blanc performs extremely well in South Africa, and this charming cheapie shows us why. It offers ripe fruit flavors with no sense of fake oak, just fun. Watch out, though. It seems to evaporate quickly  at least in my glass. ABV: 12.5 percent.

Distributed by M. Touton Selection: Available in the District at Burkas Wine & Liquor, Cairo Wine & Liquor, Capital City Wine & Spirits, Connecticut Avenue Wine & Liquor, Oasis Gourmet Deli, Pauls of Chevy Chase, Rodmans, Sheffield Wine & Liquor Shoppe. Available in Maryland at Beer, Wine & Co., Bradley Food & Beverage and Cork 57 in Bethesda; Country Boy Market in Wheaton; Grosvenor Market in Rockville; Hillandale Beer & Wine and Quench! Beer-Wine-Deli in Silver Spring; Lakefront Fine Wine & Spirits, Old Farm Liquors, Plus Mart, Riverside Liquors and Westridge Liquors in Frederick; Kellys Fine Wine & Spirits in Ellicott City; Old Line Fine Wine, Spirits and Bistro in Beltsville; Quarry Wine & Spirits and Wine Source in Baltimore; Silesia Liquors in Fort Washington. Available in Virginia at the Vineyard (McLean), the Wine Outlet in Vienna.

Availability information is based on distributor records. Wines might not be in stock at every listed store and might be sold at additional stores. Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor.


Unlike her previous scholarly compendiums, Jancis Robinsons latest book is for anyone who wants to learn more about wine but isnt interested in delving into esoteric details and geekery. (JancisRobinson.com)

A friend recently asked me to recommend a wine book. An avid beer drinker, he can talk porters and stouts and IBUs of IPAs until somebodys blue in the face, but he admits he has no real working knowledge of wine.

I dont need an encyclopedia or an atlas, he says. I just need a quick read that will help me make good choices in a restaurant and not sound stupid at dinner parties. I like wine, and Id like to know a little more about what Im drinking.

Jancis Robinson to the rescue. Wine lovers know Robinson as perhaps the worlds most prolific wine writer, but her name might not be at the top of the list for authors of basic wine primers. After all, Robinson is associated with massive and indispensable (for wine geeks and writers, at least) tomes such as The Oxford Companion to Wine (Fourth Edition), The World Atlas of Wine (Seventh Edition), with Hugh Johnson, and Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,386 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours, with Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz. She has also posted thousands of wine reviews and hundreds of articles on her subscription website, Jancisrobinson.com.

Now Robinson has written The 24-Hour Wine Expert (Abrams, 2016), for my friend and others who, she writes, want to learn about wine without devoting the time and money needed to understand every minute detail and becoming wine professionals. In a mere 112 pages that are not all dense with text, she covers the expected ground of how to taste, store and match wines with various foods. She defines vino-lingo to help novices know what the wine-obsessed are babbling on about, and she pokes holes in (and fun at) various pretensions and myths about wine.

This wouldnt be a Jancis Robinson book without her dry British wit, of course. In a sidebar titled What your choices say about you, she includes Wine in heavy bottles: marketing victim, and Hefty Australian Shiraz: bet he does the barbecuing. And in a rundown of 10 common wine myths, she takes aim at Pink wines and sweet wines are for women with a simple puh-lease.

My friend will be happy to learn he neednt buy a lot of fancy-shaped wine glasses, nor be embarrassed to appear in public with a bottle that has a screw cap instead of a cork. Hell also find good advice for shopping in wine stores. Forge a relationship with a local independent wine retailer, Robinson advises. (Though a few pages later. she also suggests taking your smartphone with you so you can check ratings online, something that might annoy your retailer friend.) Avoid buying bottles of wine in window displays, where they have been exposed to harmful light. When choosing wine at a restaurant, Dont be ashamed of ordering some of the cheaper wines on the list; only oligarchs and oil magnates who positively relish spending over the odds head for the most expensive end of the list.

Throughout the book, Robinson suggests tasting exercises to illustrate the differences in wines or their attributes. One is to taste lemon juice and cold tea to understand what acidity and tannin feel like, respectively, in your mouth. Another compares two vintages of the same wine to assess the effects of aging. Or taste an Alsace pinot gris along with an Italian pinot grigio, two very different expressions of the same grape.

In its pages we hear the authoritative voice of a master of wine who has been educating us about it for four decades. Dont expect gospel  just an invitation to learn the basics and fall in love with wine on your own terms.

There are no rights or wrongs in wine appreciation, Robinson writes. I can explain how to get the most out of a glass of wine, but its up to you, not your supposed wine expert friend, to decide whether you like it or not.

My friend will appreciate that. He might also like to know something not in this book: After a long day of wine tasting, many wine professionals prefer to refresh with a beer.

On a sadder note

Margrit Mondavi died Sept. 2, at age 91. She was the second wife of Napa Valley wine pioneer Robert Mondavi, whose winery celebrated its 50th anniversary in July. As director of events at the winery, and later as Mondavis wife, Margrit initiated concert series, cooking classes and other events emphasizing wines connection to the finer things in life. She was a talented painter, an author and an engaging storyteller. Wines image as part of a luxury lifestyle resulted in large part from her hospitality efforts.
About three percent of drinking water fixtures in buildings owned or leased by the city, contained lead above the federal action level, prompting officials to shut down over two dozen water fountains and sinks, a city spokesman said Friday.

The spokesman, Craig T. Fifer, said an environmental company took samples from all 841 water fountains, water dispensers, ice machines and sink faucets in the relevant properties. The testing revealed that 25 samples had levels above 15 parts per billion.

We immediately took them out of service, Fifer said of the 25 fountains and sinks, where were in 10 city facilities. We put a bag over them or removed them  we didnt allow anybody to use them until we got to the bottom of the situation for that individual fixture. In most of the cases, it meant replacing the fixture  there were some cases in which there could be a part repaired.

[Prompted by Flint water crisis, Northern Va. schools begin testing for lead]

Fifer said the city began its testing in July and said the effort was prompted by news reports concerning high lead levels found in drinking water in Flint, Mich. He said the city sinks and fountains officials shutdown were primarily used by employees or people being held by the sheriffs office.

[New data shows blood lead levels spiked in children in Flint, Mich.]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys action level for lead in drinking water is anything greater than 15 parts per billion.

In Alexandria, water from the faucet of a small metal sink at The Lyceum, citys history museum, had 563 parts per billion. Also a sink stall at the American Legion Hall on Cameron Street, which uses space in a city facility, had 267 parts per billion and a water fountain in a cell at the Sheriffs Department that was tested had 238 parts per billion.

Fifer said the replacements and fixes are underway. He said officials will retest all 25 fixtures and plan to kick off an on-going monitoring system for drinking water at Alexandrias 250 buildings and 29 parks. He also said the citys drinking water supply is safe.

[Flints water crisis reveals government failures at every level]

Alexandrias drinking water is supplied by Virginia American Water. Samantha Villegas, a spokeswoman for the utility company, said the lead found in the drinking water comes from pipes and fixtures that contain lead.

Its a plumbing issue  its a greater risk for buildings and homes that were built prior to 1986, she said. We applaud the steps the city is taking  the city is doing the right thing.

Fifer said Alexandria is offering free blood tests for all employees.

[The heroic professor who helped uncover the Flint lead water crisis has been asked to fix it]

Marc Edwards, an environmental engineering professor from Virginia Tech, said he wanted to reserve judgment on Alexandrias effort until he could more closely examine the methodology used by testers.

The results look pretty good, said Edwards of citys drinking water testing report. Theres some problems and it looks like theyre getting fixed, and thats how we have to proceed as a society.
Montgomery County kids climb onto a 1950s-era F7U Cutlass jet that was installed in 1964 in Wheaton Regional Park, one of several outfitted at the time with disused military equipment. (Wheaton & Kensington Chamber of Commerce)

Supposedly theres a Nazi train full of gold buried in a mountain somewhere in Poland. Why not a U.S. jet fighter buried in a Montgomery County park?

That, at least, is the tantalizing, if improbable, notion that has some vintage airplane buffs excited.

Last week, Answer Man wrote about Kennedy Playground, the remarkable park that was dedicated on June 3, 1964, at Seventh and O streets NW. In addition to swings and merry-go-rounds, kids could crawl over a real locomotive, real streetcar, real tank, real tugboat and real jet airplanes.

[Remember that time Uncle Sam gave D.C. kids a tank and jet airplanes to play on?]

That park wasnt alone in featuring repurposed U.S. military hardware. After World War II and well into the 1960s, surplus military aircraft were common features at playgrounds, in memorial parks and in front of VFW and American Legion halls.

There were hundreds of airplanes that went out to these many towns, said Joe Scheil, an airline pilot from California who owns  and flies  a restored Lockheed T-33, the sort of training jet that was at Kennedy Playground.

Answer Mans readers remembered that three regional parks in Maryland also had airplanes. Cabin John and Watkins regional parks had North American FJ Furies, the Navys version of the Air Forces famed F-86 Sabre.

Wheaton Regional Park had a Vought F7U Cutlass, and its that plane thats particularly interesting to warbird enthusiasts. Introduced in 1951, the Navy jet was a notorious failure. It was known as the Gutless Cutlass for its underpowered engines, and the Ensign Eliminator for its many fatal crashes.

Its no wonder the Navy was eager to take the plane out of service and let the aircraft be turned into playground attractions. Installed in Wheaton in 1964, the Cutlass was played upon so relentlessly that it had to be re-skinned, according to documents unearthed by Jamie Kuhns, senior historian at Montgomery Parks.

These planes were eventually removed, cut up and, presumably, sold for scrap. Another plane that had never been displayed  a Grumman F9F that was little more than a fuselage  was sold to a collector in Ohio. David Cohen, a vintage-plane tracker from Damascus, Md., said he spoke with that collector.

He says he was told [the Cutlass] was cut up on site and buried, David said. I have been trying to substantiate that. I cant. Anyone involved in this has long since retired or passed on.

Before you head out there with ground-penetrating radar and a shovel, know that the folks at Montgomery Parks told Answer Man they dont think the pieces are there.

There are also questions about a more earthbound attraction that was mentioned last week. We know that the first steam engine that once graced Kennedy Playground is now at the National Museum of American History. But what become of the second one?

After O. Roy Chalk, D.C. Transit chief and the playgrounds benefactor, was persuaded to donate the original 1876 locomotive to the Smithsonian, he replaced it with a more pedestrian engine that had seen service at the Solvay Process Co. chemical plant in upstate New York. Thats the locomotive that rail buffs are curious about as they try to compile a directory of every single steam engine that puffed and chugged in the United States.

We are obsessive-compulsives. What can I say? said Baltimore rail fan Alexander D. Mitchell IV.

Around 1986, Alexander visited Kennedy Playground and photographed the Solvay engine. Later, the locomotive disappeared. The story was that it had been sold for salvage.

As far as were concerned, it got scrapped, melted down into razor blades or whatever, Alexander said. But nobody has ever actually come up with a photo of it being cut up.

Its unlikely the massive locomotive is in someones garage, but until the train-spotters get definitive proof of its disposition, they will always be curious.

An outsider might wonder at the lengths these single-minded folks go to track down the stories of individual planes and trains. Joe Scheil, the pilot, knows that one of Kennedy Playgrounds T-33s was used to train pilots at Craig Air Force Base in Alabama, while the other spent its flying career at Joint Base Andrews.

These airplanes have the stories of the people who built them, maintained them and, lastly, the people who flew them, Joe said. They remind us of a time when this technology was seemingly much more accessible than it is today. We have more technology at our fingertips, but it comes from China, and we dont put it together. In the 50s, we built it.

And then we played on it.

Twitter: @johnkelly

What mysteries are buried out there? Send your secrets to answerman@washpost.com.

For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
A Maryland woman was arrested on Aug. 7 after stealing three french fries from a D.C. police officer at a restaurant on U St. NW, authorities said. She was charged with second-degree theft for taking French Fried Potato," the police report listed. (WUSA9)

A Maryland woman was arrested on Aug. 7 after stealing three french fries from a D.C. police officer at a restaurant on U St. NW, authorities said. She was charged with second-degree theft for taking French Fried Potato," the police report listed. (WUSA9)

THE DISTRICT

Woman faces charge of theft  of french fries

A Maryland woman was arrested Wednesday after stealing three french fries from a D.C. police officer, authorities said.

About 9:40 p.m., the officer was eating in a restaurant at 1110 U St. NW when a 26-year-old woman approached and ate one of his fries, a police spokesman said. Although warned, she continued to eat them, police said.

She was arrested and charged with second-degree theft. A police report said she appropriated the listed property without consent, describing the property as French Fried Potato . . . quantity 3.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

MARYLAND

Inmate died of natural causes, officials say

A 43-year-old inmate who weighed more than 450 pounds died of natural causes Wednesday at the Prince Georges County jail, officials said.

The man collapsed about 6 p.m., and a medical team started CPR, said a corrections spokeswoman. Jail authorities also called 911, but the man, who was found unresponsive with no pulse, could not be resuscitated, corrections officials said. Police identified him as Patrick Wyatt. Corrections officials said he was being held in connection with drug and weapons charges.

 Lynh Bui

Pr. Georges identifies shooting victim

A man killed Thursday in Prince Georges County has been identified as George Barnes, 52, of Southern Avenue.

Police said he was shot about 11 a.m. in the 2500 block of Southern Avenue in Temple Hills.

 Dana Hedgpeth

Man dies in fall from scaffolding

A man believed to be working on flood repairs died in Ellicott City on Friday in a fall from scaffolding, police said.

Howard County police said they found the man dead about 3:35 p.m. in the 8200 block of Main Street, and preliminary investigation indicated that the death was accidental.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

U-Md. regents vote to scrap bonus

The University System of Marylands Board of Regents voted unanimously Friday to remove performance bonuses from Chancellor Robert L. Carets compensation package after a $75,000 bonus to him drew scrutiny from state lawmakers.

Caret started his $600,000-a-year job in July 2015 with a contract that guaranteed 5 percent annual raises and bonuses up to 15 percent of salary.

 Fenit Nirappil

VIRGINIA

Fugitive charged in 1999 killing of woman

An Arlington man who fled to Guatemala in 1999 after being accused of killing a woman and stashing her body in his car has been captured and charged with murder, police said Friday.

The woman, Eva Veliz, 27, an immigrant from El Salvador who lived in Arlington, was found May 11, 1999, in a car on N. Pierce Street, police said.

Police said that she and Estrada had gone dancing and that she was strangled after an argument. Estrada, now 46, arrived in the United States on Friday, authorities said.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

Alexandria water fixtures tested for lead

About 3 percent of drinking-water fixtures in buildings owned or leased out by Alexandria contained lead above the federal action level, prompting officials to close more than two dozen fountains and sinks, a city spokesman said Friday.

The spokesman said an environmental company tested all 841 of the fixtures, finding 25 samples with levels above 15 parts per billion.

 Victoria St. Martin
Marylands largest water utility has provided its logo and customer mailing list to a pipe service company that has paid more than $400,000 to settle allegations that it misled consumers in six states, including Maryland.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), which serves nearly 2 million people, has shared its residential customers names, addresses and account numbers with Connecticut-based HomeServe USA. The company is allowed to use the WSSC logo to advertise repair service plans for water and sewer pipes on private property, which are a homeowners responsibility. In exchange, HomeServe agreed to pay up to $300,000 annually into a hardship fund to help low-income WSSC customers who cant afford a service plan or emergency pipe repairs.

The kind of partnership is one that the Districts water utility rejected as not in the best interest of its customers, a D.C. Water spokesman said. The arrangement also has left some WSSC customers confused about whether their utility is suggesting their underground pipes are vulnerable. One customer who researched HomeServes record questioned why WSSC appears to be endorsing a company that has come under legal scrutiny, including by Marylands attorney general.

In 2015, HomeServe paid $115,000 to Marylands Consumer Protection Division after Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said residents were tricked into signing up for a HomeServe plan they might not have needed. HomeServes marketing materials appeared to be from a consumers utility or local government  before the company began establishing any partnerships in Maryland, the attorney generals office said in announcing the settlement.

Frosh said consumers also complained that HomeServe had illegally required them to release it from liability for damage caused during repairs, had provided only 11 months of coverage under its annual service plan, and had said any or all pipe problems would be covered, even though plans contained numerous exclusions.

Between 2010 and 2015, HomeServe also signed agreements with attorneys general or state officials in New York, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts and Georgia. All came amid investigations into the firms marketing materials, among other complaints. HomeServe did not agree with any allegations and there were no findings of wrongdoing, a company spokesman said. He said the firm has changed the marketing materials that drew scrutiny in 2010.

HomeServe also agreed last year to a $3 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed by customers in New Jersey who alleged that they were sold service plans that they later learned didnt cover their apartment or condo buildings.

Eliot Applestein, a North Bethesda resident, said he discovered the complaints against HomeServe while researching the company online. He said the firms letter, which had the WSSC logo on the envelope and letterhead, suggested he needed a service plan, even though experts he found online said such pipe breaks are relatively infrequent.

The question is why is WSSC promoting this? Applestein said. It comes off as a little bit unsavory.

Larry Kravitz, one of Applesteins neighbors, said he thought the companys mailing was deceptive because the WSSC logo initially made it look like it was from the utility. He said hes heard of one home water line breaking in his neighborhood.

HomeServes letter, he said, led me to believe there were imminent problems and Id need their services. . . . I was surprised WSSC would let themselves be used in this way.

WSSC spokesman Jim Neustadt said WSSC cant tell consumers how frequently pipes leak or break on private property because many are fixed by a plumber without the utility knowing.

Neustadt said WSSC wanted to give residents in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties the option of buying a HomeServe plan because many are surprised to learn that the utility doesnt cover leaks or breaks between their home and the public property line. Moreover, he said, most homeowner insurance policies dont cover exterior water and sewer lines.

[Maryland suburbs home to some of most problematic large water mains]

Neustadt stressed that buying a service plan is optional and that the utility is trying to help customers, particularly those in older homes, who want to protect themselves against potentially expensive plumbing bills. He said WSSC negotiated less-expensive plan rates than HomeServe normally charges and that the hardship fund HomeServe will pay into is part of the utilitys efforts to help low-income customers.

The pipe service plans are available only for residential customers in single-family homes or townhomes, not apartment or condo buildings. Businesses also arent eligible.

Its all very above-board, and weve gotten relatively few complaints, Neustadt said. We felt our customers ought to have the benefit of knowing about this. They can turn it down if they dont want it.

The company offers a $3.99 monthly plan under which it will send a licensed plumber to fix leaks or breaks in a water line at no additional cost. A HomeServe spokesman said water pipes average about $450 to fix and $2,500 to replace.

[How your flushable wipes are wreaking havoc on sewer pipes]

Though other companies also sell pipe service plans, Neustadt said WSSC didnt put HomeServes two-year contract out for bid because the Baltimore Department of Public Works had recently vetted the firm during its bid process before awarding it a similar contract. Baltimore officials also told WSSC that theyd been happy with HomeServe for the past two years, Neustadt said.

He said the WSSC contract includes the 12-page assurance of discontinuance that HomeServe signed with the Maryland Attorney Generals Office.

I think you have to look at what theyve been doing recently and what theyve been doing in Baltimore, Neustadt said. We feel confident theres enough protection built into our contract that its a good deal for our customers.

HomeServe spokesman Myles Meehan said HomeServe USA, a subsidiary of the British company HomeServe, has partnership agreements with 400 U.S. utilities and municipalities. He said 16,000 WSSC households have signed up for service plans since the first mailings began arriving in early August.

The company agreed to the six state legal settlements, he said, to close out the matter and put things behind us. HomeServe delivers excellent service while maintaining ethical business practices, he said.

There is no scare tactic in here, Meehan said of the letter. It clearly describes the service were offering, who we are and what our relationship is to WSSC.

Jeff Raymond, spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works, said the city has had a handful of complaints out of the 7,300 requests for HomeServe repair services since the city partnership started in 2014. Most were about repairs taking too long, he said. About 28,000 of the 180,000 Baltimore households eligible for HomeServe plans have them.

Raymond said the city wanted to offer residents a service plan option because so many have older homes, including some with pipes dating back more than a century. He said he paid a plumber $4,000 for a new water line for his townhouse before the city partnered with HomeServe.

By and large, were quite pleased with the way our HomeServe agreement has worked out, Raymond said. Id encourage people to take a look at it. I think its a fair price and, as someone whos had work done, its a little bit for a lot of peace of mind.

But John Lisle, spokesman for D.C. Water, said the utility has rejected similar partnerships proposed by companies.

After careful deliberation, we decided adopting a third-party service line warranty program was not in the best interests of our customers, Lisle said.

He declined to elaborate, but said factors in that decision included the amount of anticipated revenue for D.C. Water, the cost to our customers, and the potential risk to our brand and relationship with our ratepayers.

Questions about the HomeServe mailing prompted the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection and Chevy Chase Village to post announcements on their websites saying the companys arrangement with WSSC was valid.

Eric Friedman, director of Montgomerys Office of Consumer Protection, said his office reminds people that they can consider other repair plan companies and that they should read the agreements carefully for exclusions.

We dont want consumers to be misled into thinking this letter is coming from WSSC or that it will affect their water service, Friedman said. Its a little tricky because WSSCs logo is on the letter. . . . Theres inherently the potential for some consumers to misunderstand or to at least have questions.

When weighing whether to buy a service plan, officials for WSSC and other utilities advise homeowners to consider the age of their home, its distance to the public property line and whether neighbors have had pipe problems. Residents also should first check whether their homeowner insurance company offers a special rider for exterior pipes, they said.

Bob Hunter, director of insurance issues for the Consumer Federation of America, cautioned that service plan companies arent regulated as insurance firms are, leaving consumers fewer options if they and the company have a disagreement.

Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner, called repair plans for exterior water and sewer pipes a classic example of junk insurance. He said insurance is intended to protect policyholders from true catastrophes, not plumber bills.

I think its a very, very low risk, Hunter said of a homes exterior pipes breaking. Im an actuary, and I cant imagine the data that would support $3 per month for protection from a broken pipe. I doubt it happens much at all.

Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), waves to the crowd at a rally Aug. 16, 2016, in West Bend, Wis., where he introduced GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Walker spoke on Sept. 9, 2016, at the fundraising dinner for the Maryland GOP. (John Ehlke/West Bend Daily News via AP)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) headlined the Maryland Republican Partys annual fundraising dinner Friday night, energizing the crowd with a message that conservative reformers can win elections in heavily Democratic states.

But his appearance drew dozens of union protesters and about one-third fewer guests than Donald Trump attracted to the event last year, when the real estate executive and reality television celebrity showed up days after announcing his bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) did not attend Fridays event, missing for a second year in a row because of what his office described as a scheduling conflict. The dinner took place at a reception hall in Glen Burnie.

Hogan spokesman Douglass Mayer said the governor, who posted pictures of himself on Friday visiting the New York Stock Exchange, had traveled to New York the previous day for an economic-development meeting. He said the governor was expected back Friday.

Maryland GOP officials said Hogan, whose approval rating has soared above 70 percent in the state, was the guest speaker Thursday night for a New York Republican Party fundraiser that featured high-level donors.

Theyve been trying to get our governor for a while, said Joe Cluster, the Maryland Republican Partys executive director. Cluster said he was not concerned about Hogans absence from the past two dinners, saying the governor will probably headline one of these in the next two years.

Walker, who won his first term as governor when Democrats controlled Wisconsins governorship and both chambers of the states legislature, said Hogans popularity in Maryland is proof that there is hope for [Republicans] across America.

Walkers appearance drew about 400 guests, each paying between $100 and $300 per plate. Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, brought in about 700 guests last year.

Walker predicted that Hogan would win reelection, saying that even in traditionally blue states like yours and mine . . . conservative reforms work.

Maryland House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County), who is running against U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for the Senate seat being vacated by Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), introduced Walker, saying he is teaching us how to purple Maryland.

Walker recounted the high-profile battles he fought with labor groups after aggressively pushing for changes to his states public-sector unions in 2011.

Walkers efforts sparked regular pro-union rallies that sometimes attracted tens of thousands of protesters to his states capital. But he won a recall election in 2012 and was reelected in 2014, making him a darling of the tea party movement and a favorite of conservatives.

Critics have accused Walker of scapegoating unions for his states problems.

On Friday, protesters representing an assortment of labor groups gathered outside the fundraising event, chanting anti-Walker slogans and carrying handwritten signs that said, Walker not welcome.

Walker, after describing the union pressure he faced while in office, brushed off the demonstrators.

You can see why they were part of my welcoming party here today, he said. Obviously, that means I havent lost my touch  our reforms are still working.

Maryland Del. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore), who protested as a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Walker is largely interested in busting up unions that support working families.

R. Bruce Holtman Sr., a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said he would like Walker to go back to Wisconsin and take Gov. Hogan with him.

Howard County resident Ernest Robinson, a guest at the fundraiser, said Hogan could have offset some of the protests outside by being present at the event.

It would have shown some support for the Republican cause, he said. But sometimes you cant be in two places at the same time.
An employee photographs a model of Amtraks next-generation high-speed train after an Aug. 26 unveiling in Wilmington, Del. The trains are set to start service in 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Faster trains, more seats and WiFi that works?

The $2.45 billion federal loan that officials awarded this summer to Amtrak will help pay for those upgrades and more as the railroad continues its push to modernize service and rebuild aging infrastructure along the busy Northeast Corridor, including in the Washington region.

The package is the largest single loan ever given by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

This loan is a key step to providing investments needed to help keep high-speed trains moving throughout the region and to help all commuters in the Northeast Corridor, said Vice President Biden, who made the announcement at the Amtrak station in Wilmington, Del. We need these kinds of investments to keep this region  and our whole country  moving, and to create new jobs.

The additional dollars are a significant boost for Amtrak, which has spent years lobbying an often-skeptical Congress for money to pay for a backlog of capital needs.

Simply put, this investment is a game-changer, said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) It means more riders and faster trip times along the Northeast Corridor, which will boost Amtrak revenue and pave the way for further infrastructure and safety upgrades throughout the Northeast. While this loan is just a small fraction of what we should be investing in Amtrak, itll go a long way toward proving that Amtrak can make smart business decisions that improve the service, ridership and revenue.

The loan also comes at a time when Amtrak is transitioning to new leadership.

Last month, Charles W. Wick Moorman, a former top executive with Norfolk Southern Railway, was named president and chief executive, replacing the retiring Joe Boardman. Moorman began his job Sept. 1.

[Amtrak officials name a new top leader]

Amtrak officials emphasized that the money is a loan that will be repaid with revenue they expect to generate along the corridor. Under conditions of the agreement with the Transportation Department, the passenger railroad will have 29 years to pay back the money, with repayment beginning no later than 2022. The loan comes through the Federal Railroad Administrations Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program.

The bulk of the money will be spent to buy 28 new trains for the popular Acela Express service. The current fleet of 20, which debuted in the early 2000s, will be retired as the new trains come online, expected to begin in 2021.

The billions in federal loans also will pay for other improvements to tracks and stations along the 457-mile corridor. One such project is the proposed multibillion-dollar makeover of Washingtons Union Station. Money also will go toward the construction of Moynihan Station in an old post office across from Penn Station in New York.

In addition, the loan will help pay for new platforms at Baltimores Penn Station and at New Carrollton in Prince Georges County, as well as for 30 miles of track between New Carrollton and Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. Those track upgrades were part of a project that began in the 1980s but was stopped when funding ran out, according to Mark Yachmetz, Amtraks senior vice president for strategic rail initiatives.

[Biden has good news for passengers on Amtraks Northeast Corridor]

A lot of people get sticker shock when they look at these kinds of investments, said Jim Mathews, president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers. But the fact is not doing it also imposes a cost. We would argue that this is how you do this with the most bang for the buck.

The Northeast Corridor is among the passenger railroads biggest sources of revenue.

The addition of eight trains to Amtraks inventory means it will be able to increase Acela service between Washington and New York, officials said. Currently, Acela trains leave on the hour; once the new trains are in service, frequency will increase to every 30 minutes during peak hours. Between New York and Boston, where the time between trains can reach two hours, Amtrak hopes to increase service to trains every hour during peak periods.

Amtrak executives said they are making this purchase with an eye toward the future.

Were not buying this equipment for the demand that will exist in 2020 when we start introducing them, Yachmetz said. Were really looking at the size of the market in 2035.

Demographers project that between 2010 and 2040, the population in the corridor will grow to 64 million, an increase of roughly 23 percent. Six of Amtraks busiest stations are in the Northeast Corridor, considered the crown jewel of the railroads operations, with New York and Washington ranked first and second for passenger traffic.

[Even after tragedy, the battle over Amtrak funding continues]

Amtraks new trains will be lighter and faster and will be able to accommodate one-third more passengers, depending on how they are configured, Yachmetz said. Unlike the current trains, which each have roughly 300 seats, the new cars will have flexible configurations so additional seats can be added depending on demand.

The new trains will be capable of traveling at speeds up to 186 mph, but will travel at speeds up to 160 mph when they make their Northeast Corridor debut, officials said. Yachmetz said the trains will be able to travel faster once associated non-train infrastructure upgrades are made. Currently, it takes roughly 2 hours to travel from Washingtons Union Station to New Yorks Penn Station on Acela trains, which can travel roughly 135 mph.

Were trying to avoid overpromising, Yachmetz said on future travel times. Personally, I think well see something that takes several minutes off the schedule.

The new trains will be a technical leap for Amtrak, he said. While the current fleet might not be considered old by some standards, technology has evolved.

Yachmetz offered this example: When the current Acela fleet was being designed in the 1990s, space on the trains was set aside for onboard pay phones  a technology that at the time was considered cutting edge, Yachmetz said.

At the time, no one envisioned that wed all have our own cellphones, he said. By contrast, the new trains are designed to accommodate current and future technology. The hope is that once delivered, the trains will be in service for 30 years.

The trains will include small details that passengers have come to expect: USB ports and individual reading lights at every seat  and that ever-so-frustrating WiFi service will be vastly improved, he said.

The first prototypes are expected to be ready in 2019, with all of the new trains expected to be in service by the end of 2022.
RUSSIA

Masked attackers beat Greenpeace crews

Masked men carrying pistols, knives and truncheons stormed a Greenpeace camp in southern Russia on Friday and severely beat volunteer firefighters, the environmentalist group said, leaving one activist with a broken nose and another with fractured ribs.

Greenpeace Russia has been at odds with Russian officials over a variety of issues, including claims that regional governments were under-reporting the size of forest fires by as much as 80 percent to portray the situation as under control.

Greenpeace deploys volunteer firefighters and runs firefighting training in many regions.

The head of Greenpeace Russias firefighting project, Grigory Kuksin, said in a statement that the attackers had truncheons, knives, pistols and also damaged cars and slashed tents. They said that if we dont leave here before morning, then no one would find us, that we should go to our America,  Kuksin added.

 Andrew Roth

IRAN

British dual national sentenced to 5 years

An Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to five years in prison on charges that remain secret, her family said Friday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, was detained in early April as she tried to leave Iran after a visit.

Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps accused her of trying to overthrow the nations clerical establishment. Official charges against her have not been made public, and Iranian authorities were not available for comment.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said in a family statement: A sentence with secret charges still seems crazy. Literally it is a punishment without a crime.

She is expected to serve her sentence in Evin prison, the statement added.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. The foundation and her husband have dismissed the accusation.

 Reuters

FRANCE

Tourists rescued after Mont Blanc ordeal

Dozens of tourists, including three children, were rescued Friday after being trapped overnight in cable cars dangling above the slopes of Mont Blanc in the Alps.

Their return ended a complex and vertiginous rescue effort over two days amid the spectacular but dangerous landscape of Western Europes tallest mountains.

The last passengers were brought down Friday morning after emergency workers managed to untangle cables that had jammed Thursday, according to the mayor of the French town of Chamonix.

With the cables straightened, the cable cars were able to return the passengers to the nearest ground stations, Mayor Eric Fournier said.

 Associated Press

Uzbekistan wont allow foreign bases, new leader says: The new leader of Uzbekistan dented Russias prospects of reviving influence in the Central Asian nation by ruling out the presence of foreign military bases on its territory. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was named acting president two days after he met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, said Uzbekistan will also stay out of any military alliances. While Uzbekistan wants friendly ties with its former Soviet neighbors, it also seeks mutually beneficial relations with the U.S. and Europe, he said.

 From news services
In his Sept. 5 op-ed, Barack v. Bibi: The final chapter, Jackson Diehl reduced the complexities of the U.S.-Israeli relationship to the personal dynamics between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If the president is weighing taking renewed action toward Israeli-Palestinian peace  and given the deteriorating nature of the conflict, he should be  its because real U.S. and Israeli interests are on the line, not because he wants to score points on the prime minister.

Belief in the urgency of reaching a two-state solution isnt a strange quirk of the president; for decades, it has been a core tenet of bipartisan U.S. policy, shared by the large majority of Israels security establishment. As supporters of a secure Israel and a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, we cant afford to lose sight of that.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, Washington

The writer is president of J Street.
The Sept. 4 front-page article Clintons taste for secrecy built conspiracy  stated there was a moment early on when the toxic course of that history [the epic battles between the Clintons and their tormentors on the right] might have been changed, had it not been for Hillary Clintons impulses toward secrecy. George Stephanopoulos identified Dec. 11, 1993, as the day that historic moment occurred.

Then, in her Sept. 4 op-ed, Ruth Marcus identified conservative activist David Bossie as the Captain Ahab of Clinton haters. According to Ms. Marcus, Back in 1992, Bossie was working . . . on an anti-Clinton effort . . . in which callers could pay $4.99 to hear supposed sex tapes between Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers. President George H.W. Bush denounced the tactic as the kind of sleaze that diminishes the political process. 

Captain Ahab  Mr. Bossie  was intent on destroying the Clintons. Further despicable tactics by Mr. Bossie included pursuing and harassing the mother of Susan Coleman, who had committed suicide and was a former law student of Bill Clinton.

Mr. Bossie is just one member of a vast right-wing conspiracy dedicated to destroying the Clintons. Ms. Clinton is not genetically predisposed to secrecy. She has acted as any reasonable person would under the circumstances.

Sam Peperone, Columbia
Michael Morell was acting director and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013. Mike Vickers was the undersecretary of defense for intelligence from 2011 to 2015. Both writers have served in Democratic and Republican administrations and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Mr. Trump, with all due respect to you as the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, you cannot credibly serve as commander in chief if you embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has repeatedly shown himself to be an adversary of the United States. Putin, during his long tenure, has repeatedly pursued policies that undermine U.S. interests and those of our allies and partners. He has steadily but systematically moved Russia from a fledgling democratic state to an authoritarian one. He is the last foreign leader you should be praising.

Abroad, Putin has interfered in the internal affairs of a host of nations on his periphery  through information operations, manipulation of elections and direct support, including providing weapons, to insurgent groups. Most significant, in the past decade, Putin has invaded two neighbors, Georgia and Ukraine  including annexing Crimea, the first major land grab in Europe since World War II. Putins goal in doing this is to keep the nations of the former Soviet Union from linking their futures to that of Europe and the West. Do you back these actions?

Putins support of insurgents in eastern Ukraine resulted in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed 298 innocent civilians. Under Putins direction, Russian special forces provided the insurgents with and trained them how to use the air-defense system that brought down the plane. As intelligence officers who oversaw covert action, we can tell you that when a country provides overt or covert support to proxies, that nation is responsible for what those proxies do with that support. That makes Putin responsible for downing the airliner. Do you hold him responsible?

Also abroad, Putin has aggressively supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assads brutality against his own people. Putins significant intervention in Syria 12 months ago  via the Russian air force and Russian special forces  propped up Assad at the exact moment that the Syrian leader appeared to be losing his grip on power and might therefore be amenable to negotiating a transition of power. As such, Putin is in part responsible for the continuing civil war that has resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Syrians and displaced 10 million others, the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II. Do you support what Putin has done in Syria?

On Sept. 7, during a town hall event hosted by MSNBC, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated he would have a good relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. It wasnt the first time he's been friendly towards him. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

At home, Putin has jailed and killed political opponents. He has jailed and killed journalists. He has neutered the Russian media to the point that he is in complete control of the message reaching the Russian people. He has the popularity that you so admire only because he determines what the Russian people hear about him and his government. Do you support Putins violation of Russian law and his tramping of the civil rights of his populace, explicitly protected in the Russian constitution?

One of the more interesting questions is: Who is the biggest loser from Putins policies? Take Putins actions in Ukraine. One set of losers, of course, was the Ukrainian people, who had their aspirations crushed. Another was the West, particularly the United States, which looked impotent to stop the Russian aggression. But the biggest loser was the Russian people  because Putin has ended any hope of integrating the Russian economy with that of the West, Russias only hope for the future. Given this, do you still think Putin is a great leader?

At the Commander-in-Chief Forum on Sept. 7, you said that as long as Putin says nice things about you, you will say nice things about him. That is not a standard by which a president should make policy decisions. That should not even enter your calculus. Your only question should be What is in the best interests of the United States?

So, here is our challenge: Demand that Putin stop his aggressive behavior overseas. Demand that he stop his dictatorial moves at home. Tell him that you will live up to our NATO commitments and defend the Baltics if need be. Tell him that you want to work with him on solving the problems in the world  but that he must behave in order to do so. That is what a true commander in chief would do.
Eugene Robinsons Sept. 2 op-ed, Trump cant soften bigotry, beautifully laid out the holes, the size of which you could drive a truck through, in Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumps plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The concept is as gentle as a Brillo pad.

I do, however, disagree with this analogy in the op-ed: Trump wants us to cower in fear behind a Berlin-style wall. Trumps wall proposal is idiotic on many levels, but its nothing like the Berlin Wall. The Soviets built it to keep East Germans in, not to prevent people living on the other side from entering East Germany. Why would they have wanted to?

The German people tore down that malevolent structure, literally block by block. A happy ending for that wall. Hopefully, the one Trump wants to build will remain a disturbing fantasy.

Danielle Karson, Pasadena, Calif.
"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up." (Video: The Washington Post / Photo: AP)

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up." (Video: The Washington Post / Photo: AP)

If Campaign 2016 needed some shorthand to capture the way many Americans see the competition between the two major-party candidates, Hillary Clinton may have unintentionally supplied it this weekend. For much of the electorate, this could be remembered as a deplorable election.

Candidates are often stamped by seemingly offhand statements. Mitt Romney never escaped his 47 percent comment in 2012, and President Obama found the same when he said many culturally conservative voters cling to their guns and religion. Donald Trump has a laundry list of them. After Friday, Clinton now has hers to regret.

Clinton stumbled as Romney and Obama did, seemingly with her guard down and before the friendliest of audiences, an LGBT fundraiser in New York. If there isnt a page in campaign manuals labeled Beware of Fundraisers, there should be. Its where mistakes are easily made and not so easily undone.

[Clinton says she regrets labeling half of Trump supporters deplorable]

Unlike Romney and Obama, Clinton spoke at a fundraiser that was open to the media, which should have made her more careful. Although she has said similar things in the past, she clearly went further than before, raising the question of whether this was intentional.

1 of 57 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail View Photos The Democratic presidential nominee hits the road after her partys national convention. Caption Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Nov. 9, 2016 Hillary Clinton speaks in New York while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, applauds. Melina Mara/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Heres what she said that caused the uproar: You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trumps supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic  you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.

She went on to talk about others who support Trump, saying they are worthy of empathy and understanding. She described them as people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and theyre desperate for change.

That latter characterization aptly captures an important part of the dynamic of the 2016 campaign, and it is one important reason Trump became the Republican nominee and remains competitive in the general election. But Clinton so muddied the focus on the grievances of many Americans who feel left behind with the first part of what she said that she has landed on the defensive, and understandably so.

[GOP sees Clintons remark as her 47 percent gaffe]

The word deplorable no doubt captures how many Americans see the overall competition between Clinton and Trump. Last weeks 50-state survey by The Washington Post and SurveyMonkey underscored the concerns that voters have about both major-party candidates. Nationally, 55 percent of registered voters say Clinton would threaten the countrys well-being, while 61 percent say Trump would threaten the countrys well-being. Overall, 95 percent say either Trump or Clinton  or both  would do so.

These attitudes come after a campaign of insults and petty, personal attacks as well as a clash over some of the most fundamental questions facing the country. This is a campaign that could be about big issues but instead often has been fought at the most base level.

On that score, Trump has led the way. He started his campaign by branding illegal immigrants from Mexico as rapists and criminals. He has never let up, denigrating people of all kinds. In addition to Mexican immigrants, his targets have included women, Muslims, a Vietnam POW named Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the disabled, a federal judge of Mexican heritage and a Gold Star family. At NBCs commander in chief forum last week, he inexplicably beat up on the generals advising the president.

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence spoke out against Hillary Clinton's description of half of Trump supporters as in 'the basket of deplorables.' "They are not a basket of anything," Pence said on Sept. 10. "They are Americans and they deserve your respect." (FRC Action)

There has been a truism about this campaign. Trump has taken his opponents down to his level, and they have paid a price for it. Throughout the Republican primaries, he insulted any political rival he deemed a threat, such as low-energy Jeb Bush, Little Marco Rubio and Lyin Ted Cruz. When they tried to play his game, they ended up scarred.

Bush never could find the formula to fight back effectively and was diminished and eventually destroyed politically by it. Rubios campaign unraveled when he descended into a round of petty insults that mimicked Trump. He, too, never recovered and has found himself in an awkward embrace with Trump since he got out of the race.

Cruz could not find the right calibration between initial chumminess with Trump (when he believed he could inherit the Trump coalition) and his eventual indignation at what Trump said about his wife and father as he was losing the nomination. Cruzs ultimate refusal to endorse Trump during his speech in July at the Republican convention brought a chorus of boos from the audience and possible long-term problems.

[Democrats worry: Why isnt Clinton farther ahead?]

Trump has never recanted his birther campaign against Obama in 2011. In the past week, surrogates have claimed that he now accepts that Obama was born in the United States. He has yet to say so himself. When asked recently, he simply said he doesnt like to talk about the issue anymore.

Trump has the support of white supremacists and the alt-right of the conservative movement. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said Trumps attacks on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel amounted to the textbook example of a racist comment.

What is also known about some of Trumps supporters is their discomfort with changes, whether cultural or demographic, that are reshaping the country. This is part of what has so divided the country and made this campaign a dialogue about what it means to be an American.

Clinton has sought to make Trump an unacceptable candidate, arguing that his temperament and views should disqualify him in the eyes of a majority of voters. Those attacks have been tough and relentless and unsurprising.

Why Clinton concluded there was something to be gained by shifting her focus from Trump to some of his supporters with her shorthand characterization is inexplicable. Attacking symptoms is one thing, but branding an entire class of voters is another, as Romney and Obama learned.

This was a self-inflicted wound. Her supporters might cheer her, and those at the fundraiser laughed as she made her comment. Ultimately it might have little effect on the polls. But it is a damaging moment that Republicans will use to sow even more distrust about her candidacy.

Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, seized on Clintons comment. Trump called it SO INSULTING in a tweet. Speaking Saturday at the Values Voter Summit, Pence said, No one with that low opinion of the American people should ever be elected president.

By Saturday afternoon, Clinton was trying to clean up from Friday. She issued a statement saying she regretted saying that half of Trumps supporters were deplorables. But she did not back down on her criticism of Trump and added, I wont stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign. She clearly thinks that, ultimately, is a winning position.

At various stages, Campaign 2016 has been waged in ways that have left voters with a sense of despair at their choice. Based on the first week of campaigning in September, it threatens to stay there. Perhaps the debates will take the campaign back up to a different level, but that seems doubtful.

Eventually, one of these two candidates will be elected president. Unifying the country will be exceedingly difficult, to say the least. Clinton has talked about wanting to find common ground with Republicans where possible. She also has been urged repeatedly to find a more positive message, to give people an affirmative reason to vote for her.

In her Saturday statement, Clinton focused again on Americans left out or left behind and said, Im determined to bring our country together. But her comments Friday have provided her opponents with fresh ammunition to distrust her desire to work across party lines and could cause them to resist those overtures in the future. If she becomes president, she has made the job of governing all the more difficult.
With Election Day less than two months away, Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Clinton has not built a formidable lead against Donald Trump despite his historic weaknesses as a national party candidate.

Even the Democratic nominees advisers acknowledge that she must make changes, and quickly. Clinton leads Trump by three percentage points, having fallen from her high of nine points in August, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average. That tightening has frustrated many Clinton allies and operatives, who are astonished that she isnt running away with this race, given Trumps deep unpopularity and his continuing stream of controversial comments.

Generally, Im concerned, frankly, said former Democratic Senate leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). It still looks positive, and I think if you look at the swing states and where she is right now, shes got a lead. But its certainly not in the bag. We have two months to go, and I think its going to be a competitive race all the way through. I would say shes got at least a 60 percent chance of winning.

At the same time, Daschle said, all the things that Trump has done, the numbers should be far more explicitly in her favor, but theyre not.

Among Democrats concerns is the fact that Clinton spent a great deal of time over the summer raising millions of dollars in private fundraisers while Trump was devoting much of his schedule to rallies, speeches and TV appearances  although many of those didnt go as well as his campaign may have hoped.

The Washington Post and Survey Monkey polled all 50 states. Here are the most surprising pieces of data we found. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Clinton has focused more heavily on fundraising than Democratic strategists had hoped would be necessary at this stage, partly to help Democrats running for Congress and state offices who would be useful to Clinton if she is president and partly to hold off further erosion in the polls.

One new goal for Clinton now, aides said, is to spend more time trying to connect directly with voters by sharing a more personal side of herself  and by telling them where she wants to take the country.

[Democrats rally around Clinton and paint Trump as unfit for office]

The campaign has long predicted a tightened race and has taken to using recent polls both to imbue supporters with a sense of urgency and to continue raising money.

Trumps pulled neck-and-neck in a few recent public polls and is ahead in the battleground Ohio in one survey, campaign manager Robby Mook wrote to supporters. His fundraising numbers are spiking  he and the Republicans raised $90 million in August (his best month yet). His ground game is growing, Mook wrote.

That means we cant underestimate our opponent  because if we dont see a serious uptick in our fundraising right now, Donald Trumps presidency could be a real possibility.

Trumps campaign, meanwhile, battling historic unpopularity and a flood of public Republican defections, has been delighted and somewhat relieved to see the polls tighten. Aides attributed the change to Trumps packed August schedule, including a visit to Mexico, as well as increased discipline  at least by Trump standards.

The day after an interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared on Russian-state television, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton accused him of making "reckless and dangerous statements." (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Just as Trump was repeatedly underestimated during the Republican primaries, his aides say he is again being underestimated heading into the general election. Theres a sense in the campaign that things are finally coming together and that Trump can propel himself ahead of Clinton over the next two months.

That optimism is less prevalent outside the campaign, though many operatives are loath to predict an outcome in such a volatile election.

Its really quite amazing that after the Trump adventure this is still a competitive race, said Scott Reed, chief strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a longtime Republican operative who managed Bob Doles 1996 presidential campaign.

Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romneys former chief strategist, threw cold water on Trumps enthusiasm in an interview Friday, saying he has yet to see Trump outperform Romney in any state or with any demographic in a way that would signal that he has a chance to win. Stevens said that any talk of Trump having a ground game is fantasy because Trump has yet to build a campaign structure anything like Clintons. Stevens called Trumps optimism childish.

I dont see the path. I just dont see the path, Stevens said. Ive been in these races where youre nine points down, then youre five down  youre still losing.

Even among Democrats who wonder why Clinton isnt doing better, the overall view is that she remains in position to win in November.

Its going to be the craziest 60 days weve ever seen in politics, said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic consultant who is not working for the campaign but said she remains confident in Clintons chances. Give me any other Republican, and I can tell you exactly how this is going to go down. I cant do that with Donald Trump.

She added: I dont think weve seen the most negative part of this campaign yet, and thats saying a lot.

Marsh and other operatives said Clinton will benefit by more directly engaging media and the voters in the final stretch of the race  as Trump has been doing already.

I look at this race, and Im thinking thats not a dumb thing for them have to have done, said Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic consultant.

Some changes in Clintons operation are already in evidence on the campaign trail. Among them: more interaction with the media; a series of policy speeches that Clintons communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said are more about her than about him; and a shift back toward positive messages in television advertising and efforts to present positive elements of Clintons biography elsewhere.

By the end of this week, the first in which she has traveled on the same plane as her press corps, Clinton had appeared four times before their cameras to answer questions.

Clinton also played to the cameras and showed a flash of irreverent humor Friday when, after she had left the podium following a short press conference on national security issues, she paused and then returned to answer a shouted question about Trump. With dramatic timing and a sardonic smile, Clinton slowly shook her head and took a breath before addressing Trumps perhaps ill-advised appearance on a television network backed by the Kremlin.

Every day that goes by, this just becomes more of a reality-television show, she said. Its not a serious presidential campaign. And it is beyond ones imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin and throwing his lot in with him, Clinton said.

Clinton also addressed head-on the perception that she is chilly or aloof, telling the online interview site Humans of New York on Thursday that her natural reserve is born of the hard path she walked as a professional woman.

I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions, she wrote. And thats a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you dont want to seem walled off. And sometimes I think I come across more in the walled off arena.

She continued: And if I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I dont view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I cant blame people for thinking that.

In addition, a television ad released Friday features a relaxed-looking Clinton speaking directly to the camera and making a bipartisan pitch that weaves in some biographical high points from her long career. It was the first positive ad released recently, after a string of harsh ones that mostly use Trumps own past statements against him while barely mentioning her.

Weve got to bring people together. Thats how you solve problems, and thats what Ill do as president, she said in the ad.

Clinton holds several important advantages: She has experience and credentials, a vast campaign operation that drew the best political talent of her party, the hearty support of a popular sitting president and what seems to be plenty of money. She is marginally more popular than Trump.

She also has significant disadvantages. Its difficult for either party to win a third consecutive term, as evidenced by the fact that Republican George H.W. Bush is the only example in decades. A sizable number of voters think the country is on the wrong track.

And Clinton is a highly unpopular candidate in her own right. Democrats maintain in particular that Clinton faces unprecedented obstacles as both the first woman to be a major-party nominee and the object of sustained Republican attack for 25 years.

I dont care what any poll tells me, said Clintons running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, during an appearance Friday night in Norfolk. Were the underdog until they call us the winner.

[Republicans warn that Trumps critique of Clintons look fuels accusations of sexism]

In the meantime, Trumps campaign has done its best to take advantage of those weaknesses. After he restructured his campaign in August and seemed haltingly to heed the advice of his newly empowered advisers, Trump stepped up his attacks on Clintons transparency, her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and the ties between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

Trump has also been moving quickly to build a ground game in battleground states, an effort that stalled under Trumps previous campaign leaders.

Already, the campaign has opened 30 new campaign offices in 21 states, with a heavy concentration in Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, as first reported by CNN. Trump has also added more variety to his schedule, giving more policy speeches filled with specific ideas instead of just broad promises, visiting a black church in Detroit and talking with small groups of supporters and potential supporters.

In a Friday afternoon conference call with reporters, Republican National Committee officials and Trumps deputy campaign manager touted their field efforts and promoted their National Day of Action, in which they will aim to knock on more than 350,000 doors across the country on Saturday.

Sean Spicer, the RNCs chief strategist, said the number of RNC staffers and volunteers in the key states is up dramatically from four years ago.

The footprint is exponentially larger, Spicer said.

The Clinton campaign has warned donors and supporters since the convention that the race would be tight and they cannot afford to get too comfortable.

As Ive said many, many times: Ive always thought this was going to be a close election, Clinton said Thursday.

But there is little question that Clintons organization is broader and deeper than Trumps. In a sign of overall confidence, the campaign has actually expanded its outreach in three traditionally Republican states: Arizona, Utah and Georgia.

Clintons top ground organizer, Marlon Marshall, touted what he called an unprecedented network of staff and volunteers in a memo to campaign supporters Friday. He claimed the campaigns strategy has enabled us to take full advantage of Donald Trumps deep unpopularity but warned that this election will be harder to win than many people think.

John Morgan, a Florida donor and supporter, said Clintons slim lead is not surprising, given the strong partisan divide nationally.

Politics is like sports. You have your team, and you are sticking with them all the way. If you are an FSU fan, there is nothing that your team could do to cause you to root against them, much less pull for Florida, Morgan said, using the football rivalry of Florida State University and the University of Florida to make his point.

A slim margin of victory is still victory, Morgan said, and still would give Clinton a strong governing mandate.

George Bush lost the total vote and really the electoral college yet entered with what he called a mandate. If she wins by five and over 300 electoral votes, by those standards her mandate should be monarchy-like powers.

Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart took the opposite position, saying that Clinton cannot afford to just squeak past an opponent as bad as Trump.

Hillary Clinton needs to win, but she needs a victory which will allow her to say the American public has voted for an agenda that they want her to implement, he said.

Johnson reported from Washington. Abby Phillip and Philip Rucker in Washington contributed to this report.
"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up." (Video: The Washington Post / Photo: AP)

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up." (Video: The Washington Post / Photo: AP)

Hillary Clintons claim at a fundraiser that half of Donald Trumps supporters fit into a basket of deplorables prompted a swift and negative reaction Saturday from Republicans, including denunciations and calls for her to apologize.

The comments echoed an accusation that Clinton had levied previously  that Trump appeals to and amplifies racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic viewpoints. But Clinton triggered a fresh controversy by claiming that half of Trumps supporters fit that description.

At a key moment in the campaign, when both candidates are trying to sharpen their focus for the final, post-Labor Day sprint, Clintons remarks took attention from Trumps spate of gaffes last week and also from her own effort to turn the publics attention to her qualifications for office and vision for the nation.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trumps supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? Clinton said to applause and laughter from supporters at the LGBT for Hillary fundraiser Friday night in New York that also featured a performance by Barbra Streisand. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic  you name it.

She continued: He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people  now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence spoke out against Hillary Clinton saying half of Trump supporters could be put in the basket of deplorables. They are not a basket of anything, Pence said on Sept. 10. They are Americans and they deserve your respect. (FRC Action)

Now, some of those folks  they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

Condemnation came swiftly from Trumps allies and from the candidate himself, who on Twitter called the remarks so insulting and predicted that Clinton would pay a price in the polls.

In a statement issued later Saturday, Trump said that Clintons true feelings had come out. How can she be President of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans? Trump said. Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of herself.

Trumps campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, called for Clinton to apologize, something that Trump himself has never done in the face of controversy.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trumps running mate, also weighed in, comparing Clintons remarks to President Obamas controversial 2008 comments about people who cling to guns or religion. Pence said that such statements should preclude her from being elected president.

Others compared the remark to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romneys infamous 47 percent comment. Even if the comparison was imprecise  at most, Clintons comments referred to about one-quarter of the electorate  the Trump campaign has already sought to use the comparison to further define Clinton in the remaining months of the campaign.

Pointing out the similarities, Trump retweeted a September 2012 post from the Obama campaigns Twitter account in response to Romneys comment: RT if you agree: We need a President who is fighting for all Americans, not one who writes off nearly half the country.

1 of 57 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail View Photos The Democratic presidential nominee hits the road after her partys national convention. Caption Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Nov. 9, 2016 Hillary Clinton speaks in New York while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, applauds. Melina Mara/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

In 2012, Trump defended Romneys 47 percent comments, counseling the then-Republican nominee not to apologize for them.

[Did Hillary Clinton just make her own 47 percent gaffe?]

In his remarks, recorded at a private fundraiser, Romney asserted that 47 percent of voters will vote for the president no matter what because they are dependent upon government, believe that they are victims and pay no income tax. The Republican was widely criticized for giving the impression that he was writing off half the country because of their economic status.

Clinton issued a statement Saturday afternoon saying that she regretted using the word half to describe the Trump supporters she was referring to.

That was wrong, Clinton said. But lets be clear, whats really deplorable is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called alt-right movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values.

In the statement, Clinton blasted Trump specifically for his feud with the family of a Muslim American Army officer who died in Iraq, his attacks against a Hispanic federal judge hearing two cases against him and his prominent role in the birther movement promoting the idea that Obama was not born in the United States.

In her remarks at the fundraiser, Clinton also called for empathy for the other half of Trumps supporters.

That other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and theyre just desperate for change, Clinton said on Friday night. It doesnt really even matter where it comes from.

Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well, she added.

[Democrats wonder and worry: Why isnt Clinton far ahead of Trump?]

Clintons running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), said Saturday in an interview with The Washington Post that Clinton had nothing to apologize for.

She was generalizing and saying there are some of his supporters well never get because theyre motivated by some dark motives, but there are other supporters that have legitimate concerns and questions about the economy, and weve got to speak to them in the campaign, he said. And even to the extent that they vote against us, we still have to respond to their concerns if we have the opportunity to govern.

In an election cycle that has been more characterized by Trumps controversies, Clintons comments represent a reversal of fortune and a rare moment when she stepped on a news cycle that had not been favorable to Trump. The flap also comes as polls show Trump narrowing Clintons lead nationally and in battleground states.

Ever since he installed new campaign leadership about three weeks ago, Trump has softened his tone on the campaign trail and mostly stuck to prepared rally speeches loaded onto teleprompters. That level of discipline seemed to fade Friday night during a rally in a packed arena in the Florida Panhandle.

Trump said that as president, he would shoot Iranian boats out of the water if they make improper gestures toward American vessels, that Clinton is so protected from having to face consequences that she could murder someone in front of 20,000 witnesses and not face prosecution, and that voters need to be very, very vigilant on Election Day.

Hours before Clintons remarks at the fundraiser, Trump was facing new criticism for appearing on a state-owned Russian television network to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin and disparage U.S. foreign policy. Clinton had seized on those comments at a news conference earlier in the day.

Im not sure anything surprises us anymore, Clinton said. But I was certainly disappointed that someone running for president of the United States would continue this unseemly identification with and praise of the Russian president, including on Russian television.

[Trump: Iranian boats that make improper gestures will be shot out of the water]

After news broke of Clintons deplorables comment, Trumps allies seized on the moment to paint Clinton as dismissive of a large portion of voters.

It wasnt the first time Clinton had used that language.

In an interview this past week with Israeli TV, she said something similar  but without quantifying the amount of Trumps support that qualified for the label deplorable.

Clinton also delivered a major speech weeks ago devoted to Trumps association with the alt-right, the name used by a movement of white nationalist ideology.

She accused Trump of irresponsibly highlighting that movement by amplifying its messages on Twitter. The speech was aimed at moderate Republicans and independent voters, whom the campaign is encouraging to break from Trump in part because of the alt-right figures who support him.

Clinton reprised that part of her case against Trump at the fundraising event Friday night. But the furor over deplorables put her aides and supporters on the defensive, and they attempted to refocus attention on the parts of Clintons remarks that called for mutual understanding.

Others pointed out recent polling showing that 7 percent of Trumps own supporters think he is racist. According to a PRRI poll conducted over the summer, 77 percent of Trump supporters say they are bothered when they come in contact with immigrants who speak little or no English, compared with half of Americans overall. And 83 percent of Trump supporters say that Islam is contradictory to American values, compared with 57 percent of Americans overall.

Some Clinton allies acknowledged the perils of painting voters with too broad a brush, but they insisted that Clinton was right to denounce hatred.

I think its a bad idea for any candidate to make generalizations about voters like an amateur pollster or sociologist would, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau wrote on Twitter. But Trump does it every single day, and its always worse.

Why werent there comparisons to 47% when Trump said that all black lives were a disaster? Or when he said that all Muslims are helping terrorists hide among us? he tweeted.

Trumps aides  who see their candidate as an outsider fighting against Washington elites  see an opportunity to suggest not only that Clinton doesnt understand struggling Americans, but that she also has disdain for them. The Republican National Committee held a conference call Saturday afternoon with campaign aides and surrogates, tearing into Clintons remarks and saying that Trump, in contrast, would be a president for all people.

Mr. Trump is running to be president for all Americans; black, white, Latino, men, women, everybody, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said on the call, which also included Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Pastor Darrell Scott

Jenna Johnson and John Wagner in Richmond contributed to this report.
Lawyers and others gather on Sept. 3, 2016, for special prayers for the victims of last months suicide bombing in the city of Mardan, in Peshawar, Pakistan. (Mohammad Sajjad/AP)

Midmorning Thursday, a dozen lawyers were chatting over tea and pastries in the bar-association lounge inside the Supreme Court complex in Pakistans capital. Shortly before noon, a white-haired barrister called for silence. The talk stopped, teacups were lowered and palms were raised while he recited a prayer in Arabic for the dead.

It was a quiet commemoration of the bloody terrorist attack one month before that took the lives of at least 55 lawyers in the southern city of Quetta. The suicide bombing virtually wiped out the areas small legal community and robbed remote, violence-ridden Baluchistan province of an important force for human rights and religious moderation.

This is an irreparable loss. I fear it will set back the cause of justice in our country a hundred years, said Munir Kakar, a lawyer in Quetta who survived the Aug. 8 bombing outside a hospital emergency room. Many lawyers and others had gathered there after a local bar-association leader was fatally shot on his way to court. The blast, claimed by two rival Islamist militant groups, killed 73 people and wounded 110.

Now, a second terrorist attack in another corner of Pakistan has sent another chill through the nations legal fraternity. On Sept. 2, a man wearing a suicide vest blew himself up outside a court complex in northwestern city of Mardan, leaving 13 dead. The two attacks have raised fears that Islamist extremists are zeroing in on one of the most highly educated groups in this increasingly conservative Muslim society, one that has long fought for modern democratic and constitutional values.

Pakistan has about 100,000 lawyers, who dress distinctively in black suits and ties and are organized in numerous bar associations. They came to international attention a decade ago when they challenged the military rule of then-President Pervez Musharraf, an army general. They held numerous street protests, braving tear gas and arrest, and their example intensified domestic and international pressure that led to Musharrafs stepping down in 2008 after nearly a decade in power.

The country has had elected civilian rule since then, but the threats from violent Islamist groups have persisted, even as the armed forces have conducted repeated mass operations in militant strongholds. The Pakistani Taliban and other groups have attacked schools, mosques, markets and parks as well as military and government sites. In many ways, legal leaders said, the militants represent a graver threat to democracy than any military regime.

Our legal community is more than 70 years old, and it has always spoken up much louder than other groups for the rule of law and an independent judiciary, said Mohammed Ikram Chaudhry, a senior member of the Supreme Court bar who offered the prayer Thursday. There are enemies who dont want to see us grow to an unmanageable size. They want to create a vacuum. But we fought against a dictator, and we will fight terrorists as well.

Baluchistan is a cauldron of tribal, religious and political conflict, including a militant separatist movement, which also could have played a role in the attack. It has a large population of Afghan refugees and is the longtime base for senior Afghan Taliban leaders known as the Quetta Shura. There are frequent claims of government-perpetrated human rights abuses, and lawyers have played a key role in raising that issue.

Pakistans long enmity with neighboring India has further muddied the picture. The Hindu-dominated nuclear rival has fought three wars with Muslim-majority Pakistan, and senior Pakistani officials charged that Indias intelligence agency was behind the fatal shooting and bombing in Quetta, suggesting it was part of a campaign to sabotage a major planned project that would link Pakistans economy with Chinas.

India has always denied provoking trouble in Baluchistan, but just days after the blast, those suspicions were intensified when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a speech on Indias independence day, condemned what he called atrocities committed against people there. Pakistans top foreign policy official, Sartaj Aziz, said Modis comment proves Pakistans contention that India . . . has been fomenting terrorism in Baluchistan.

After the bombing, a political leader from Baluchistan, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, protested in Parliament that the government had been negligent or worse in not providing protection for lawyers and the hospital that was bombed. He suggested that state security agencies were to blame for allowing non-state actors, meaning militant groups, to operate out of control. He was reportedly attacked on TV talk shows as an enemy agent and traitor, and civilian officials leaped to defend the military establishment.

Some survivors of the carnage in Quetta said they doubted their personal or professional lives would ever return to normal. The isolated citys legal community is small and tightknit, and includes families with a tradition of practicing law. Kakar, who reached the hospital moments after the bomb went off, said he and other survivors are still in shock. The explosion ripped through the crowd on the hospital patio, leaving mangled corpses in shreds of black cloth and wounded men struggling to help moaning colleagues.

I was lucky that nothing happened to me, but I saw some of my closest friends lying on the ground, dead, he recounted in a telephone interview from Quetta. A young cousin and recently minted lawyer, he said, was covered with blood. Then he spotted the body of a relative who had been his legal mentor. I recognized him from his shoes, Kakar said.

Regardless of whoever was behind the bombings in Quetta and Mardan, several leading lawyers this week insisted that they are determined not to let such attacks deter their community from its high-profile role in defending civil rights and promoting democratic freedoms, as well as performing more routine legal advocacy functions in places where courts are badly backlogged and defendants can wait in jail for months before being charged.

We are the only community that dares to speak out on issues most people are scared to raise, including blasphemy and religious freedom, said Syed Ali Zafar, president of the national Supreme Court Bar Association. An attack on us is an attack on the people who are fighting the intellectual war for this country. We know we can always be the target of terrorists, but if we stop now, people would have no one to protect them. We are united, and we are not afraid.

Read more:

Pakistani Taliban attacks Christian neighborhood and courthouse, killing 13

This chained, century-old tree in Pakistan is a perfect metaphor for colonialism

Kabul increasingly a target as Taliban launches shocking attacks

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to The Hague on Sept. 7. (Bart Maat/European Pressphoto Agency)

U.S. officials condemned a provocative video posted Friday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that accused the Palestinians of wanting to commit ethnic cleansing by ridding the West Bank of Jews.

Netanyahu asserted that the Palestinians would not allow Jews to live in a future Palestinian state  a charge Palestinians say is false.

In his video, Netanyahu said any demand that Jews leave their West Bank settlements was outrageous.

Its even more outrageous that the world doesnt find this outrageous, Netanyahu said. Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage.

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau harshly criticized Netanyahus assertions in a news conference Friday in Washington.

We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank, Trudeau said.

We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful, she said.

Netanyahus Twitter and Facebook feed introduced his latest video with the short sentence: No Jews.

It is a pretty sensational charge  especially given the context. To many, the phrase no Jews raises the specter of Nazis and Nuremberg laws, of Judenfrei and the Holocaust.

In the video, Netanyahu speaks in English (with Arabic and Hebrew subtitles available).

The video was released about 3 p.m. Friday in Israel, just a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath and on the day that marks Muslim holidays.

Netanyahu begins: I am sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace. Ive always been perplexed by this notion.

Judea and Samaria are the biblical and historical terms many Israelis use for the West Bank. The Jewish communities he refers to are the 200-plus Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, home to about 400,000 residents, including many American Israelis.

Because the West Bank has been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967, the international community calls these settlements illegal; the United States calls them illegitimate and an obstacle to peace. Israel disputes this.

Netanyahu continues: No one would seriously claim that the nearly 2 million Arabs living inside Israel  that theyre an obstacle to peace. Thats because they arent. On the contrary.

Arabs, mostly Muslim, make up more than 20 percent of the Jewish state.

Israels diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace, Netanyahu says in the video. Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one precondition: no Jews.

Theres a phrase for that: Its called ethnic cleansing, he says.

Netanyahu appears to be referring to a 2013 statement by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a final resolution, Abbas told Egyptian journalists three years ago, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli  civilian or soldier  on our lands.

Abbas was speaking about how a new Palestinian state would look. Also note: He says Israeli, not Jew.

Obviously, the Palestinians today cannot ethnically cleanse any Jews. The Israeli settlements are all in the 60 percent of the West Bank called Area C, which is under the complete control of the Israeli army, stationed there to protect Jewish settlements.

In a blog post on the Foundation for Middle East Peace website, Matt Duss said that Netanyahus claims of ethnic cleansing were incitement  and wrong.

Palestinian leaders have made clear that Jews can be citizens of a future Palestinian state, Duss said. But that they will not accept the presence of enclaves of Israeli settlers peppered throughout that state (as, of course, no state would).

Duss quoted Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian leader, who told Israeli journalists in 2014: Any person, be he Jewish, Christian or Buddhist, will have the right to apply for Palestinian citizenship. Our basic law prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

In his video, Netanyahu asked: Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks? Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?

The prime minister concluded: Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd. Its about time somebody said it. I just did.

The Israeli news media mostly ignored the Netanyahu video  until the Obama administration objected.

Why did Netanyahu issue this video now?

One of his spokesmen, David Keyes, said Netanyahu was not responding to any recent statements by the Palestinian leadership.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of chatter about a possible meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas in Moscow, brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russias Interfax news agency reported that the two parties agreed in principle to meet but with no set date. This is a little like saying the sun will rise tomorrow. The Israelis and Palestinians are almost always ready, in principle, to meet. The devil is in the details.

But maybe something bigger is brewing?

Robert Danin, former senior U.S. State Department official and peace negotiator, told The Washington Post: My sense is that by saying there will be no ethnic cleansing of Jews in the West Bank, Netanyahu is positioning himself for possible future negotiation with the Palestinians. While showing he is tough, he is also trying to establish a principle: Just as there have been and will continue to be Arab citizens of Israel, so, too, should there be the right for Jews to remain in a future West Bank state.

Danin said, All this allows him to both solidify his right-wing base, but also reach out to the center in Israeli politics that wants a two-state solution.

Read more:

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush stood before Congress to outline a two-pronged response to historys deadliest terrorist act: dramatic improvements in security at home and an all-out assault against what he called a fringe form of Islamic extremism at war with the West.

Fifteen years later, the first goal arguably has been met, as Americans by almost every measure are safer today from another 9/11-scale attack than in 2001.

Yet the struggle to defeat the global network of violent, rabidly anti-Western jihadist groups has recorded fewer successes. Indeed, the problem appears to have grown bigger.

The al-Qaeda organization once led by Osama bin Laden has been decimated and is no longer capable of orchestrating a sophisticated, trans-national plot on its own, terrorism experts say they believe. Al-Qaedas branches in North Africa and Yemen also have been weakened by Western military strikes and ongoing fighting with rival factions.

[A reminder of the permanent wars: Dozens of U.S. airstrikes in six countries]

President Obama attended a remembrance ceremony at the Pentagon to honor the victims that died there on September 11, 2001. (The Washington Post)

But al-Qaedas powerful and locally popular Syrian branch, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, commands an army of thousands of trained fighters and now serves as a base for senior al-Qaeda operatives experienced in making explosives and carrying out terrorist attacks, U.S. officials and terrorism experts say. The Syrian group recently announced it had split with al-Qaeda, but U.S. officials say the claim is not credible.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State, despite military setbacks in Iraq and Syria, has demonstrated a growing capability to direct  or inspire  simple-but-lethal terrorist attacks around the world.

The threat is actually worse:It has metastasized and spread geographically, said Richard Clarke, a top terrorism adviser to three presidents and the man who famously warned the Bush administration about the growing risk from al-Qaeda in the weeks before 9/11. Today there are probably 100,000 people in the various terrorist groups around the world, and thats much larger than anything we had 15 years ago.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations thwarted multiple terrorist plots and achieved significant military successes against specific terrorist factions and key leaders, including al-Qaeda in Iraq founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006, bin Laden in 2011 and the Islamic States No. 2 commander, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who reportedly was killed in a U.S. airstrike last month. Yet both administrations struggled to find a formula for blunting the appeal of violent jihadist groups or preventing thousands of young Muslims from enlisting in a global movement fueled by hatred and bent on destruction.

[How U.S. Special Operations troops secretly help foreign forces target terrorists]

There is little to show for more than a decades worth of U.S.-sponsored programs aimed at countering extremist messages, terrorism experts say, and U.S. officials have struggled to block the jihadists use of social media or disrupt international funding and support for extreme interpretations of Islam. Meanwhile, U.S. policies, from the Iraq invasion in 2003 to the ongoing use of armed drones against suspected terrorists, have helped drive new recruits to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, former U.S. officials and analysts say.

We generate more enemies than we are able to take out, said former congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee in the years after 9/11, who now is president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Our military power remains extraordinary. But winning this fight requires projecting a narrative about American values and interests. And we have failed to do that.

The cavalry did arrive

Beginning in the fall of 2001, intelligence and law enforcement officials began bracing for follow-up attacks of equal or even greater magnitude, from the downing of passenger planes to biological or even nuclear terrorism.

Instead, despite its stated ambition to kill large numbers of Americans and disrupt the U.S. economy, al-Qaeda has been unable since 2001 to carry out another major strike on the U.S. homeland. The only significant acts of terrorism in the past 15 years involved lone actors or  apparently, in the case of the 2001 anthrax attack  a domestic terrorist.

Al-Qaedas failure, analysts say, was in large measure the result of an extensive effort to harden U.S. defenses, from improved intelligence collection and tighter restrictions on air travel to a network of sensors to detect possible nuclear and biological threats. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer and Energy Department official who advised the White House on counterterrorism, remembered a call-in-the-cavalry moment after 9/11 when U.S. intelligence agencies picked up hints of an al-Qaeda plot to obtain a nuclear device.

The cavalry did arrive, and we have good people still working on it, said Mowatt-Larssen, now a senior fellow at Harvard Universitys Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. One of the unheralded successes of the post-Sept. 11 era is the fact that we havent had a WMD attack in these 15 years, he said.

At the same time, jihadist groups, from al-Qaedas remnants to the Islamic State, continue to harbor ambitions to carry out catastrophic terrorist attacks against the West, and their numbers and resources have grown dramatically since 2001, Mowatt-Larssen said. The Islamic State has attempted to manufacture crude chemical weapons, and it has sought to recruit scientists and technicians from around the world.

Theyre still trying, he said. And it only has to happen once to change everything that you thought.

Failing at counter-radicalization

Yet, despite gains in safeguarding the U.S. homeland, efforts to counter the root causes of violent jihad largely have fallen flat. The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which was created by the post-9/11 wave of intelligence reforms, mounted a series of efforts to map the radicalization paths of Islamist militants. But there are divided opinions on what came of that work.

Michael Leiter, who led the NCTC from 2007 to 2011, said the research produced important insights that have helped guide U.S. counterterrorism policy, but never led to the discovery of sequences or patterns that would reliably signal an individuals intent to carry out an attack.

We understand the general dynamics that cause radicalization to occur, Leiter said in an interview. Knowing how to identify the people who are radicalizing is hard enough, but then to actually filter through the ones who are radicalizing and identify those who are mobilizing toward violence? Its terribly difficult to do, and we arent particularly good at doing it.

Soon after President Obama took office in 2009, the new administrations security team began looking for novel approaches to countering radicalization, but administration officials said the efforts languished amid internal turf battles.

A week after his inauguration, former officials said, Obama directed his national security advisers to draft a report summarizing the governments efforts on countering violent extremism, identifying promising approaches. The president wanted a new strategy, said a former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in discussing the administrations internal deliberations. The effort went nowhere, the former official said, in part because key advisers including John Brennan, Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes could never agree on who should be in charge.

There were endless discussions between Brennan, Denis and Rhodes about who owns this, the former official said. The administrations focus became the escalating CIA drone campaign in Pakistan, and the halfhearted push on countering violent extremism got dropped, the former official said.

The White House disputes this characterization. A senior administration official, speaking on background, said in a statement, This Administration has prioritized countering violent extremist ideology since the outset. Even before taking office, we had identified this as a core challenge we would need to confront. Following inauguration, we moved quickly and aggressively on this agenda.

In 2010, the NCTC proposed issuing monthly grades  green, yellow and red  to the CIA, FBI and other agencies on their countering violent extremism programs as a way of prodding them to devote more attention and resources to the problem. The proposal predictably rankled the targeted agencies and was blocked.

Five years later, in 2015, the White House convened an international summit on the issue, a belated push that coincided with the rise of the Islamic State.

We simply did not put enough resources and focus on that as we should have, acknowledged Michael Morell, the CIAs former deputy director who twice served as acting director during Obamas presidency.

A hard-learned lesson of the last 15 years, current and former officials say, is that the most effective counter-radicalization messages can only come from Muslims themselves  religious leaders and institutions as well as governments, which must address the political and social disparities that fuel extremism. But U.S. officials have been largely frustrated in their efforts to persuade Muslim allies to take more aggressive measures in their home countries.

The Islamic State, widely regarded as the preeminent global jihad threat, has mastered the process of recruiting and radicalizing adherents to a far greater degree than al-Qaeda did, U.S. officials and terrorism experts say. And the Islamic State has shown itself to be far more willing than al-Qaeda to attack soft targets of limited strategic value, using recruits with little or no training and weapons that are simple but enormously effective in sowing fear and panic.

Such attacks have come to define jihadist terrorism in the second decade of the 21st century. Longtime veterans of the terrorist fight say they are surprised, in retrospect, that such tactics werent adopted sooner and that al-Qaeda remained fixated on replicating the scale of 9/11.

We were always surprised that they [al-Qaeda] didnt get that  surprised that they did not seem to understand the fear and chaos that such attacks can create, Morell said. It turns out that they had this fundamental belief that what they really wanted to have happen was a history-changing attack  a single attack that would have led us to withdraw from the Middle East, to pull back the way the Soviets pulled back from Afghanistan. They thought they needed a Sept. 11-style catastrophic attack in order to do that.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Read more:

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President Obama meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 5 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China. (Alexei Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images)

There is a debate within the Obama administration over whether to publicly blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee or to wait for the FBI to complete its investigation  a delay that has frustrated some lawmakers and national security officials.

The intelligence community has high confidence that Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National Committee but does not have the same level of confidence that Russia then leaked stolen committee emails to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, several administration officials said. The release of the embarrassing material on the eve of the Democratic convention has been seen by some officials as an attempt to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.

I really think weve reached the point where there ought to be a public accounting for whats going on, said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, who has been briefed on the matter. The American people have the right to know if a foreign power is trying to influence their elections.

[U.S. investigating potential Russian effort to disrupt November elections]

White House officials and FBI Director James B. Comey have repeatedly said that they do not want to get ahead of the investigation, which covers suspected Russian hacks and attempted hacks of a variety of political organizations and state election systems. Policy decisions regarding public attribution for these intrusions are contingent on the results of that investigation, one senior administration official said in a statement.

The White Houses and some Cabinet officials insistence on awaiting the probes results has frustrated some officials at the FBI, the Justice Department and within the intelligence community, who favor holding Moscow accountable. The White Houses continued requests for more evidence, said one official, is to delay  purposely delay a public attribution.

The FBI, White House, Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a member of the Homeland Security committee, said President Obama should publicly name Russia and do so before the November election. A failure to do so will only encourage further cyber intrusions and meddling in the U.S. election, he said.

If the Obama administration has a reason for not clearly attributing these hacks to Russia, it contradicts their own cyber strategy, Sasse said. If theyre silent because it would invite response, that suggests that were operating from a position of weakness  in other words, we know that we need to aggressively deter cyberattacks, but we are too vulnerable to do it. Neither scenario is reassuring.

Even as the administration awaits the FBI results, consideration has begun at the staff levels of potential ways the United States might respond. Options in the mix include the first use of a program to impose economic sanctions to deter significant network attacks or intrusions. Created last year by executive order, it permits the sanctioning of individuals overseas linked to malicious cyber acts that threatened the national security or foreign policy of the United States.

Clearly trying to surreptitiously influence U.S. elections would be a pretty bold move, said a second administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the topics sensitivity. So sanctions might be an appropriate response, the official said.

[FBI investigating foreign hacks of state electoral systems]

The Post's Ellen Nakashima goes over the events, and discusses the two hacker groups responsible. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

The internal debate is rife with political and diplomatic concerns, including a fear that acting before November might appear unduly partisan  an effort to tip the balance toward Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday that its probably unlikely that Russia is trying to interfere in the U.S. election. I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out  who knows, he told Larry King on RT America, a Kremlin-funded network.

U.S. intelligence agencies are also wary that a public attribution might disclose sources and methods, some officials said. However, one national security official noted, that doesnt necessarily mean they dont want to hold [the Russians] accountable. They may just want that accountability to be less than public.

The National Security Agency, for instance, could disrupt a Russian computer system in a way that leaves no doubt who did it and that warns the Russians to knock it off, one former intelligence official said. Or the CIA could leak documents that are embarrassing in some way to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But there is also unease about how Putin might respond.

This whole thing is very fraught with all sorts of issues in all sorts of directions, the second security official said.

Administration officials say the Democratic National Committee hack was an act of political espionage, which, while not welcome, is an activity that all governments engage in, including the United States. By contrast, they say, it is the release of 20,000 hacked emails to WikiLeaks, an act that forced the resignation of the committees chairwoman, that raises concerns of interference in the 2016 election.

[Russian government hackers penetrated DNC systems]

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he has no reason to doubt that Moscows apparent actions were an attempt to interfere in the U.S. election. The Russians are good enough at this that they could [have the material passed to WikiLeaks] without WikiLeaks ever knowing that they were the source. And WikiLeaks, of course, has no interest in knowing and even has a policy of taking data anonymously. Theres no other explanation out there that is credible.

The Obama administration has previously not publicly blamed a foreign government for hacking strictly for political intelligence. But some officials say the White House should have publicly rebuked China for its massive hack of the Office of Personnel Management. Though considered an act of intelligence-gathering, its scale was so large that it merited a naming and shaming, one official said.

What the White House does  or doesnt  do is significant because its response will send a signal to governments around the world, analysts said. Russia has been testing limits in all areas: militarily in Ukraine and in cyberspace in Europe and the United States.

What action will trigger what response  that is the strategic question in cyber deterrence, said Zachary Goldman, a former senior Treasury Department official who worked on sanctions, terrorism and financial intelligence.

Evelyn Farkas, a former senior Pentagon official focused on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, said assuming a Moscow link to the WikiLeaks release, a response at least as strong as sanctions is warranted  and before November. Theres a risk of waiting till after the election, said Farkas, who stepped down last October and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. If you want to have a chance of deterring, you have to move as quickly as possible. It sends a better signal to the world if we respond quickly. It shows that the president is still in control.

But Sean Kanuck, who until May was the national intelligence officer for cyber issues with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said he is not sure the alleged Russian actions rise to a level that demands action. If they actually manipulated the integrity of one of my electoral systems, it would warrant a national security response, he said. But just releasing DNC emails? Welcome to the new world. I would say thats a law enforcement matter. The doxing of a private entity is not a national security event.
Only 1,868 refugees from war-ravished Syria and Iraq have been brought to Australia since the Liberal-National government promised, nearly a year ago, to settle 12,000 people. With 4.8 million Syrian refugees now living in camps across Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, this is a contemptible response.

For all the governments claims to be fighting in Iraq and Syria for humanitarian motivesto protect the people of the Middle East from the atrocities of ISISits reaction to the fate of those displaced by the war underscores its true attitude toward the millions of victims of the predatory US-led war in Iraq and Syria.

Announcing Australias 12,000 additional places last September, then prime minister Tony Abbott said: Our focus will be on those most in needthe women, children and families of persecuted minorities who have sought refuge from the conflict in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Since Malcolm Turnbull replaced Abbott later that month, the governments claim has continued to be a fraud.

In reality, this war, and all its atrocities, is the outcome of the drive by the US and its allies since 2011 to overturn the regime of Syrian President Assad. Its purpose is to ensure American control over the Middle East as part of Washingtons aims to dominate the entire Eurasian landmass, where the US confronts Russia and China.

The US and its partners, including the Saudi, the Persian Gulf and Turkish regimes, turned to extreme right-wing Islamic fundamentalist forces, like ISIS, to carry out their objectives. Having helped create ISIS, the imperialist powers then exploited its existence to justify further military intervention in Iraq and Syria and attacks on democratic rights at home.

There was an outpouring of public support for the refugees last year, particularly after the horrendous image of the body of Alan Kurdi, a toddler washed up on a Turkish beach.

Despite this, the Australian government only agreed to take 12,000 victims of the war. Since then, it has used the Syrian refugees as guinea pigs for a draconian new regime of politically vetting and maintaining life-long surveillance over all immigrants, resulting in the delay in hand-picking the 12,000 intake.

A document leaked in February revealed that the governments measures include stricter security checks by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on the Syrian and Iraqi refugees, with these additional screening criteria to be applied to the entire Humanitarian Program. A visa risk assessment tool includes an intelligence-led threat identification and risk profiling capability.

Once again, the Australian government is setting new precedents for the inhuman treatment of refugees and the violation of their basic asylum rights, just as successive governments have done since the Labor Keating government imposed mandatory detention on all asylum seekers in 1992.

Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton last week bluntly defended the delay in settling the refugees, saying, Our focus has been on security and, given the international terrorist threat, weve cut no corners. We have applied the most rigorous security checks of every person under the program.

The global scare campaign over the threat of terrorism is being utilised not only as the pretext for wars but also to overturn democratic and legal rights in the name of national security. Vulnerable refugees already registered by the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, are being denied asylum, while priority is given to selected religious groups and to skilled refugees whose labour can be most readily exploited by employers.

In June, the Refugee Council of Australia criticised the government for having failed to deliver on its promises. CEO Paul Power said: UNHCRs figures show that Australia, in fact, helped fewer refugees in 2015 than the previous year. He said 9,339 refugees were settled last year, a decrease of 2,171 from 2014.

Earlier, the council accused the government of cherry-picking refugees to favour Iraqi Christians, even though the vast majority of those fleeing the war are Muslim. The head of the UNHCR in Lebanon, Andrew Harper, made similar comments and criticised the government for not taking refugees already processed by the UNHCR.

According to UNHCR statistics, the global refugee crisis, the worst since World War II, has seen more than 65 million people forcibly displaced. Australias intake in 2015 equated to just 0.01 percent of the total. Of the 2.45 million people of those who were resettled or had their refugee status confirmed, just 0.48 percent (11,776 people) were assisted in Australia.

By contrast, the countries with the largest registered refugee populations are impoverished or in economic crisis. The top five are Turkey (2.54 million), Pakistan (1.56 million), Lebanon (1.07 million), Iran (979,437) and Ethiopia (736,086). Millions more people are not counted or do not have their refugee status recognised.

Last years one-off offer to take 12,000 war victims was accompanied by the Australian governments refusal to lift its annual refugee and humanitarian visa quota of just 13,750.

The snails pace of Australias intake process has led to promotion of the humanitarian credentials of another US ally, Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberal government reportedly met its quota of 25,000 Syrian refugees, but that is also a tiny fraction of the need. Moreover, some of the selected refugees were privately sponsored, and now have debts of up to $10,000 to the Canadian government. Dozens of refugees also have been imprisoned in Ontario jails, a practice pioneered by Australian governments.

The increasingly brutal treatment of refugees worldwide flows directly from the national border protection regimes adopted by all the capitalist states. The victims of this catastrophe, and all working people, must be afforded the right to flee war and persecution and seek protection wherever they choose, with full political and social rights.
Last week, acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, leader of the right-wing Popular Party (PP), failed to be invested as prime ministerraising the possibility of a third election being called in less than a year. Beyond PP votes, he was only able to muster the support of Citizens and the sole deputy from the Canaries Coalition, or 170 in total. The 180 deputies of the Socialist Party (PSOE), Podemos and the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties voted against.

The failure to form a government in Spain has nothing to do with any principled political differences. All the parties are committed to austerity, the European Union (EU) and NATO.

The great unmentionable in Rajoys failed investiture is the ruling classs fear of the workers and its moves to block a politically independent revolutionary movement of the working class. Since the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2008, an unprecedented increase in social inequality has taken place; it is now 14 times the European average, reflecting a vast transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich.

Social gains and concessions workers secured in the 1970s, amid the collapse of the Franco's fascist regime and the transition to bourgeois democracy, have been rolled back.

This is the product of policies pursued by the PSOE government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (2008-2011), then Rajoys PP government, as well as by nationalist forces in Spain's regional governments. Three labour reforms paved the way for mass redundancies, wage cuts and a vast increase in temporary and part-time working. Article 135, passed by both the PSOE and the PP, enshrined austerity in the Constitution.

The restructuring of class relations in Spain has thrown millions into poverty. Unemployment remains at 20 percent, half among the youth, and hundreds of thousands have migrated in search of work. Some 13 million people, a third of the population, are at risk of poverty.

Meanwhile, Spains super-rich have profited out of this imposed misery. The latest data released by the Spanish Tax Agency on Tuesday revealed that 508 people declared assets worth over 30 million in 2014, an 8 percent rise from the previous year. A total of 181,874 people submitted tax statements worth a combined 555 billion.

Workers have responded to worsening conditions with thousands of strikes and protests, but the trade unions have blocked their efforts, isolating one strike after another and functioning as social partners with government and business.

Working class support for the PSOE has haemorrhaged. The party suffered its worst electoral defeats in the December and June elections since the first post-Franco elections in 1977. It is riven by a bitter factional dispute between those who support an agreement allowing the PP to rule and those who are attempting to maintain the PSOE as a safety valve for social opposition, however discredited that has become.

This would involve some sort of deal with the pseudo-left Podemos party, which is already in various alliances and coalitions with the PSOE at local and regional levels. Earlier this week, PSOE leader Pedro Sanchez repeated that the PSOE was against Rajoy's reappointment and that he was going to open up a dialogue with other political parties to search for a solution to the current blockade.

At the same time, demands have intensified in the press for Sanchez to resign, blaming him for slamming the door on an alliance with the PP and provoking new elections. Among the most vehement is the pro-PSOE El Pa i s, which editorialised, We have repeatedly asked the PSOE abstain in the investiture of Rajoy and allow him to form a government, however little he deserves it. That possibility has vanished by the stubbornness of Sanchez on his journey to nowhere.

It declared that Sanchez should have resigned after two consecutive historic defeats and for leading the PSOE to irrelevance.

El Pa i s is pushing for an internal coup within the party with numerous articles, editorials and quotations of leading PSOE officials, including regional leaders and former PMs Zapatero and Felipe Gonzalez. They oppose any agreement with Podemos.

After its creation in 2014, Podemos gained electoral support with demagogic denunciations of the ruling caste and corruption. But these were never more than the pleas of upper middle class layers who had failed to profit out of the crisis as well as the super-rich had. Since then, it has held round-table discussions with big business, recruited among the top army brass, dropped its verbal opposition to the EU and NATO, and defended Greece's Syriza government, signalling that it too had abandoned its anti-austerity posturing.

The image of anti-establishment Podemos has deteriorated rapidly. After increasing its vote in elections to the point that it was widely expected to eclipse the PSOE as the main opposition party in the June elections, it came grinding to a halt. After allying with the Stalinist-led United Left to create Unidos Podemos, it lost 1.2 million votes, signalling that layers of workers and youth have grown tired of the party and see it as another right-wing, pro-capitalist outfit.

In a recent article in International Viewpoint, Podemos co-founder Josep Maria Antentas, a leader of the Pabloite Anticapitalistas, complained: voters have seen Podemos say one thing and do the opposite: rejecting left unity and then making an alliance with United Left; saying they would never form a joint government with PSOE, only to then make an offer to do just that; refusing the label left and then embracing the label of social democracy.

According to Antentas, Podemos shift to the right has not finished. There is a general desire on the part of the Podemos leadership to further moderate the partys positions in order to increase its governmental and institutional credibility, especially among those potential voters still suspicious of Podemos.

This article is in fact a damning self-exposure by Antentas of the role of the pseudo-left in creating a Frankenstein monster like Podemos. Were it to come to power, it would threaten workers and youth with the same brutal austerity measures in Spain as Syriza has done in Greece. Local administrations led by Podemos have already shown its class character, reducing public expenditure, persecuting migrants and attacking striking workers.

Despite favourable coverage given to Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, in some sections of the media, others have reacted with immense hostilitynot out of fear of Podemos, but because it is exploiting anti-capitalist sentiments of workers and youth, which can quickly escape its control.

In addition, although Podemos does not support Catalan independence, its call for a referendum is bitterly opposed for threatening the break-up of Spain.

As the European Union begins to break up amid growing inter-imperialist antagonisms, already seen in the Brexit vote, the emergence of separatist tendencies in Spain is seen as a major threat to political stability. Sections of the Spanish army have already declared their intention to intervene in Catalonia if the drive to secession continues.
Ethan Wolff-Mann

The 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition has been discontinued, dead just a year and a half after it began. Since the company never released official sales figures, well never knew how many models actually crawled off the shelves, but in the months after its release, MacRumors estimated that just under 2,000 had been sold.

In terms of revenue, thats at least $20 million, as the base price for the watch was $10,000. But for one of the worlds most powerful companies, it wasnt enough to save it from humanitys practical conscience as Apple quietly pulled its gold watch page from its website. This came as Apple unveiled its upgraded Apple Watch series 2.

The extremely paltry sales make it hard to track down owners of the gold Apple Watch Edition for their reactions, but its not impossible thanks to Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit.

Christel Quek, a VP at Brandwatch, a platform for monitoring social media response about brands and products, is a proud owner of a gold Apple Watch Edition, and isnt much bothered by the Apple Watch Series 2 superseding her model.

I got it because of the collectability, she said via a Twitter direct message. An educated fan of European watches like IWC and A. Lange & Sohne, Quek wears the gold Apple Watch Edition in rotation with the other watches in her collection and reckons its discontinuation will make hers more collectible.



But unlike the mechanical watches that can operate without electronics of any kind, the Apple watchs electronics destine it to a relatively short life and slow death, as future updates will render it slower and slower. Quek, of course, knew this from the outset. For sure, gadgets have a shelf life, she said. I actually got it because it was something that I wanted to make a statement about. Luxury.

Collectibility, which is not tied to fresh battery and performance, is so often married to the idea of alternate investment opportunities, with items hoarded away in the hopes that they will result in future windfall. Perhaps the Museum of Modern Art or a private horological collection will scour the Earth for gold Apple Watch Editions to purchase and display, but for Quek, that wasnt the point. I dont think this would be an investment. It would be a bonus if it did appreciate in value. Sure it might not have the waterproofing or the other cool new bells and whistles, but ironically, that edition will [be the luxury, collectible] Swiss version of the Apple Watches.

All this flies in the face of the consternation and the face-palming that some on Twitter were expecting with salivating schadenfreude. Quek and other Apple Watch owners were nothing if not psyched with the new model, showing no early adopters remorse. Now Im a bit at a loss as I wanna get the new Apple Watch for swimming, said Quek, who is eyeing the new ceramic Edition that will sell for a tenth of the price of a gold Edition. This time Ill get a more affordable version of the waterproof Apple Watch. Even if there was a really expensive version of it.

I found Ryan, another gold Edition owner, on Instagram after he commented, I dont give a damn if the second one is coming out. Same s***. When I asked him why he shelled out the price of a compact car on a gadget with the shelf life of a pair of shoes, he responded tersely, collectibility and investment.

Interestingly, he said the bling factor was not really applicable since Apple had offered rose gold versions of the cheaper aluminum models which could look similar to the untrained eye, torpedoing any attempts of conspicuous consumption.

As for the inevitable successor rendering his Apple Watch old, he, unlike Quek, isnt so rosy.

To me I feel like its bad, because the value of this watch will go down probably dramatically due to the new watch that is coming out, he said. Plus, the gold just wasnt really a hit.

During the journey into the corners of Twitter and Instagram, I did find something interesting that perhaps has skewed public perceptions of the expensive gold editionsthere are probably way more gold-plated Apple Watches than gold Apple Watch Editions.

Why? Well, thats because you can buy an aluminum Apple Watch that has been gold plated by a third party with five microns of gold for less than $2,000. According to an employee of one gold-plating company I messaged who sells gold-plated Apple Watches, they sold as many as eight a day during the December holiday season. He said its possible his numbers are greater than Apples, if the rumor of 2,000 was accurate.

If true, that could mean that the gold Apple Watch wasnt really a bust, after all, and that Queks genuine model could in fact have second-hand traction as a collectable later on.

It also means that while Apple has discontinued the gold Apple Watch, you can still get one gold plated, if you desire the Midas touch.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on personal finance and tech. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.

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KINSHASA (Reuters) - Three people were killed in riots on Friday near a border crossing between Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia that serves as the main export route for Congolese copper, Congo's government said. Authorities in both countries closed the border in response, Christabel Mulala, the mayor of the Zambian border town of Chililabombwe, told Reuters. Clashes between young protesters and police broke out in the Congolese town of Kasumbalesa after a money changer was killed overnight, Congo's government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters. It was not immediately clear who the three people killed on Friday were, or how they were killed. "(The demonstrators) accuse the police of being indolent," Mende said. Eric Monga, the local president of Congo's chamber of commerce, said trucks were being held 10 km (6 miles) away from the Congolese side of the border after rioters burned vehicles and administrative buildings. Congo, Africa's leading copper producer, mined nearly 1 million tonnes of the metal last year. Nearly all of the country's copper exports pass through the Kasumbalesa crossing. (Reporting by Aaron Ross in Kinshasa and Chris Mfula in Lusaka; Editing by Joe Bavier and Alison Williams)
Ohio police have posted shocking photos of unconscious two adults  who police believe had overdosed on heroin  in a car with a 4-year-old boy in the back seat.



On its Facebook page, the city of East Liverpool, Ohio, shared the photos Thursday, along with a police report. Police say that they responded to a call of an incapacitated driver when they came across the disturbing scene.



In the post, the city explained why they took the unorthodox step of publicizing the pictures. (PEOPLE has chosen to blur the child's face and is not linking to the Facebook page, which shows the child.)



aWe feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug," the city says. "We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess. This child canat speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody."







aWe are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry," the statement continues. "But it is time that the non drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis.



"The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities, not just ours. The difference is we are willing to fight this problem until itas gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that."



 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.





Ohio Cops Release Images of Couple Passed Out in Suspected Overdose with Boy, 4, in the Car (GRAPHIC CONTENT)| Crime & Courts, True Crime



According to the police report, an officer saw the vehicle allegedly driving erratically and then slamming on the brakes as it approached a school bus.



The officer then approached the vehicle and found James Acord in the driver's seat, according to the report.



"I noted his head bobbing back and forth," the officer wrote in the report. "HIs speech was nearly unintelligible." The officer also noticed that his pupils were dilated.



A passed out woman, Rhonda Pasek, was in the passenger's seat, according to report. The officer said he reached into the vehicle and removed the keys as Acord allegedly attempted to drive away after telling police he was taking Pasek to the hospital, according to the report.



In their back seat, according the report, was a 4-year-old boy identified as Pasek's son.



Acord "eventually went completely unconscious," according to the report.



An ambulance arrived, and paramedics administered Narcan, a drug used to counteract a heroin overdose, according to the report.



The officer also said that a piece of paper with a "pink powdery substance" was allegedly found on the passenger seat between Pasek's legs.



Acord was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, endangering children, and slowing or stopping in a roadway.



Pasek was charged with endangering children, public intoxication and not wearing a seat belt.



The boy is now in the custody of Columbiana County Children Services, according to the report.



Acord, Pasek and local authorities did not immediately return PEOPLE's calls for comment. It was unclear Friday whether Acord or Pasek had retained attorneys or entered pleas.
For more news videos visit Yahoo View.

Like many other communities around the world, East Liverpool, Ohio, is suffering from a heroin epidemic. Which is why the citys police shared chilling images of a man and woman who had allegedly overdosed in their car while a 4-year-old boy sat alert and helpless in the backseat on Wednesday, September 7.



We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the child caught up in this horrible mess, read an update on the City of East Liverpool, Ohio, Facebook page. This child cant speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince other users to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.

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We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the no drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis, the post continued. The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until its gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that.

The warning has has been shared more than 17,000 times.



According to a police report, officer Kevin Thompson started following a Ford Explorer driven by James Acord after he spotted the vehicle being driven erratically and weaving back and forth. When the SUV came to a stop behind a school bus, Thompson approached. In his report, Thompson noted that the 47-year-olds speech was almost unintelligible, his pupils were pin point and his head was bobbing back and forth. At one point, Acord tried to shift the car back into drive, but Thompson took the keys. In the backseat: front seat passenger Rhonda Paseks son.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Rehab Centers

Before losing consciousness, Acord informed Thompson that he was taking Pasek to the hospital. Per the police report, Lifeteam EMS responders were able to revive both with Narcan, which is used to counter the effects of an opiate overdose.



Story continues

Acord was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, endangering a child and slowing or stopping in a roadway. Pasek, 50, was charged with endangering children, public intoxication and not wearing a seat belt. Both pleaded not guilty and remain in police custody, the Morning Journal reported on Friday. Acord was sentenced to 180 days in jail for each charge, to be served concurrently, and was fined $475, per the paper.

Paseks child is in custody of Columbiana County Childrens Services.

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Sometimes it is just a matter of black and white. In real life, the story of the mixed-race marriage between Seretse Khama, prince of Bechuanaland (later to become first president of Botswana), and London office worker Ruth Williams was full of complication and nuance, though you wouldnt know it from Amma Asantes oversimplified A United Kingdom, which treats their love story like a Disney princess movie, reducing the drama to a series of polite disagreements between the couple and the cardboard officiates who opposed their union. Granted, its an important historical lesson  coincidentally arriving at nearly the same time as America-set Loving  but its hard enough to interest audiences in terrific African stories; a mediocre one hardly stands a chance.

To properly put a romance in jeopardy, one must first convince us that it exists, and while we witness the first meeting between Seretse (David Oyelowo) and Ruth (Rosamund Pike)  whose eyes meet across the room at a London Mission Society mixer, designed to convert the savages to Christianity  theres little to suggest that what they share is special. We can safely assume that Seretse is nothing like the men whove courted Ruth in the past. When she first sees Oyelowos character, the charismatic Selma star straddles a leather club chair like some kind of overconfident cowboy, emphatically debating politics with his peers. Ruth, on the other hand, is pleasant enough to look at, a porcelain beauty whose arched eyebrows seem permanently etched in an expression of waxy surprise, but she doesnt offer much in the personality department.

At the end of A United Kingdom, a series of intertitles explain everything that Ruth accomplished while in Botswana. During the course of the film, however, her only real achievement is being strong enough to pursue a relationship that nearly everyone deemed unpopular. After a few bland dates, Seretse takes the opportunity to propose marriage (picturesquely staged with Big Ben in the background), which invites the sort of predictable scene in which Ruths conservative father (Nicholas Lyndhurst) threatens to disown her. Same goes for Seretses traditional uncle Tshekedi (Vusi Kunene), who has been acting as regent while his nephew was away. Such confrontations are to be expected, though one doesnt expect what happens next, as British diplomat Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport) pops by Ruths office to explain why the system wont allow her to marry. His explanation boils down to a word shes never heard before: apartheid.

Just adjacent to Bechuanaland, South Africa has instituted a system of racial segregation, and Seretse and Ruths progressive marriage threatens to undermine the paradigm being used to keep the white minority in control. Screenwriter Guy Hibbert explains this situation in the same overly simplistic way he sketches everything, as if his audience isnt capable of understanding anything more complicated than a picture book written for 3-year-olds. As such, it helps to have a character like Canning, who is manipulating the mixed-marriage situation for his own political advancement. (By the way, thats Oyelowos real-life wife, Jessica, playing Cannings sourpuss white spouse.)

The issue of marriage equality has progressed so far in 70 years that it will be hard to find many moviegoers who would even recognize the scandal in Seretse and Ruths relationship (though it would be fun to test the theory with a film about an African prince who strikes up a same-sex love affair abroad). When a group of drunken Brits slur, Keep your black hands off whats ours, we may as well be watching cavemen who drag their wives by the hair. Still, theres a danger in oversimplifying the opposition to Seretse, since doing so masks a far uglier history, one that still plays out in various sinister forms around the globe today: the far reach of Western colonialism. In the late 1940s, when Seretse returned to Africa with his bride, Bechuanaland was still a British protectorate, and though tribal leaders were nominally allowed to rule, the real decisions about how to handle the resource-rich region were being made by power-brokers back in England.

The film only kinda-sorta hints at the idea that Seretses marriage may have been the least threatening thing about him. Remember, he had been sent off to England for nearly 20 years to study, and when he returned, he was savvy enough to recognize how his people were being manipulated  to renounce his royalty in favor of advocating a new democratic system that would finally give them control over their own country. A United Kingdom treats all of this as a color issue, when in fact, Seretses scandalous exile from his own country had more to do with the British occupiers being unwilling to relax their clutches on this strategic African region.

Even that begs explaining, and though A United Kingdom mentions diamond mining (a form of exploitation so corrupt it all but destroyed the Congo), as well as the importance of placating South Africa, it mostly gives the impression that scenery and sunsets were Bechuanalands most important resources, and that both were best appreciated by lovers  as accentuated in postcard-worthy panoramas rendered heavenly by Patrick Doyles overripe orchestral score. After serving up a montage or two like that, to separate Seretse and Ruth is not only a crime against romance, but a real drama-killer, leading to a long series of boring scenes in which the couple try to get by as outsiders in their respective countries: Ruth stranded in her backwards new home as her black neighbors build their mud huts, while a business-suit-clad Seretse lingers on Londons margins. These two are meant to be together, as the films clever title suggests, though all the truly interesting things they accomplished happen only after that reunion.

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Some people just have bad travel luck.

Whether their flights are constantly delayed or their luggage somehow always ends up lost, there are people you know you just shouldnt travel with. And one of those people is definitely Tom Hanks.

With Friday's release of Sully, a film based on Captain Chesley Sullenbergers famous plane landing on the Hudson River in New York City, we have irrefutable evidence that Tom Hanks has the worst luck of any travelerever.

The man has practically created a genre playing characters who end up screwed while traveling. Think we're exaggerating? Here are 13 reasons you should never, ever travel with Tom Hanks.

(There are spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution...much like how you should proceed before agreeing to travel with Tom Hanks.)

Cast Away

The friendly skies are no place to be with Tom Hanks. If you end up flying over an ocean with Hanks, your plane will crash and you will be stranded.

You might spend some nice time together on that deserted island, getting to know each other better. But then, one day, Hanks will suggest making a raft and navigating back to civilization. Because he is Tom Hanks, you will go along with it.

Then there will be a Jack and Rose situation where he takes up the entire raft and you will slip off, dragged away by the seas. But when he wakes up and realizes youre gone, hell scream your name into the vast nothingness. If you were there to see it, you would definitely become overwhelmed with emotion and nominate him for an Academy Award.

Captain Phillips

If Tom Hanks ever asks you to take a trip with him on the open seas, just say no.

If you dont end up shipwrecked, Somali pirates will inevitably board, hell get captured, and youll have to call in the Navy SEALs for help.

Everyone will make it out alive, but youre going to have to shell out a lot money for therapy afterwards.

Forrest Gump

Unless you feel like running everywhere you go, dont travel with Tom Hanks. Youll probably spend hours of your trip just sitting on a bus bench, too.

Story continues

Catch Me If You Can

This one wont be fun. Hell spend the entire trip just a few steps behind and when he finally catches up with you, youll probably get arrested.

When you finally make it out of prison, Hanks will fly you back home, but onboard the plane he will probably tell you one of your family members just died.

The Terminal

Remember when Tom Hanks had to live inside of JFK and his only source of income was that cart return machine?

Unless you feel like sleeping on chairs and exclusively consuming food from Burger King, dont go to the airport with Tom Hanks.

The Da Vinci Code

So you think youre just on a nice vacation to Paris with Tom Hanks, thensuddenlyyoure embroiled in an international scandal and you cant trust anybodynot even the guy who played Gandalf.

Cloud Atlas

Tom Hanks will either poison you slowly while youre sailing through the Pacific Islands, or youll end up time traveling so frequently that you lose all track of where you are. Either way, theres going to be a lot of vomit.

With Tom Hanks, it's not about the destination. It's about the ridiculously bad journey.

Saving Private Ryan

Tom Hanks has really bad luck in France, man.

Bridge of Spies

And Berlins not safe, either.

Join Hanks for this trip, and youll get captured and he'll have to wait for hours on a sketchy bridge for your release.

Big

New York City can be intimidating enough to visit without having Tom Hanks reveal to you that he is actually a 12-year-old boy.

Apollo 13

Yeah, you arent even safe in space from Tom Hankss bad travelers luck.

Space tourism may sound fun, but wait for Harrison Ford's invitation instead.

The Polar Express

You could take a train with Tom Hanks...but it will inevitably jump off the rails and land on ice and the ice will crack and the whole thing will be no good.

Youll make it home alive (so an improvement on the rafting trip), but no one will ever believe you when you tell them what happened.

Sully

Whatever you do, do not board a plane with Tom Hanks.

Cailey Rizzo writes about travel, art and culture and is the founding editor of The Local Dive. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @misscaileyanne.

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Myra Lewis Williams, who married her cousin Jerry Lee Lewis when she was 13, wrote two books and said in 2015 that he is 'no longer part of my life.'
By Lamine Chikhi

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's energy minister has said there is a consensus among OPEC and non-OPEC members about the need to stabilise the oil market to support prices, state news agency APS reported on Saturday.

Noureddine Bouterfa was speaking after meeting his Saudi counterpart Khalid al-Falih and OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo in Paris late on Friday.

Bouterfa has travelled to Qatar, Iran and Russia this week to push for the oil price to be stabilised between $50 and $60, and said he was "confident" about the outcome of an OPEC meeting to be held in Algiers on Sept. 26-28.

Bouterfa said Algeria would submit a proposal to steady prices at the meeting. "Our discussions with our partners show that there is a consensus around the necessity of stabilising the market. That is already something positive," Bouterfa said.

"We are in contact with the members and the secretary-general of OPEC and that is part of this work of achieving a consensus and I am optimistic."

"There is support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, and from non-OPEC countries, notably Russia."

Barkindo told APS, in remarks published later, that OPEC was not seeking a definite price range for oil but rather "sustainable stability" for the market.

Asked after the Friday meeting what reasonable price OPEC was targeting, he said: "This is not what we are seeking at the moment."

Algeria is hosting a meeting of the International Energy Forum alongside the OPEC meeting later this month, and Bouterfa said he had discussed both sessions with Falih and Barkindo in Paris.

Algeria is among the oil producers to have taken a heavy hit from the halving of oil prices over the past two years.

Moves towards clinching a global deal on stabilising crude output come five months after talks for such a deal failed when Saudi Arabia insisted Iran join the pact.

Tehran says it supports any measures to stabilise the market, but has stopped short of indicating whether it would join a global deal before its production reaches 4 million barrels per day, the level at which it says it was pumping before the imposition of Western sanctions in 2012.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Angelina Jolie Pitt is urging United Nations leaders to find an end to the Syrian conflict.



The actress and UNHCR Special Envoy held a press conference at the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan on Friday to emphasize the need for international aid for Syrian refugees, and met with families displaced by the crisis.



"It is almost impossible to fathom what the last five years have meant, in the lives of refugees in Jordan and elsewhere in the region," Jolie Pitt, 41, said. "Not a single family in this camp of 60,000 people has not suffered loss and trauma.



"But as difficult as conditions are, refugees here count themselves among the lucky ones. Besides the millions trapped inside Syria whose lives are at risk daily, 75,000 Syrians are stranded in the Berm  a no-manas land on the Jordanian border  including children, pregnant women, and gravely ill patients.









Angelina Jolie Pitt Calls for U.N. Leaders to Address the Syrian Conflict While Meeting with Refugee Families| Good Deeds, Angelina Jolie







Angelina Jolie Pitt Calls for U.N. Leaders to Address the Syrian Conflict While Meeting with Refugee Families| Good Deeds, Angelina Jolie

"They have had no food delivery since early August. There is next to no humanitarian access whatsoever. There is no mechanism for evacuating the war wounded. None of the basic protections under international humanitarian law are being applied."



Jolie Pitt emphasized that the refugee situation is in no way the fault of Jordan  rather, she said, lawmakers around the world are to blame for failing to provide enough aid to refugees as the crisis rages on.



"So my message to world leaders, as they prepare to gather at the UN General Assembly in 10 daysa time, is to ask that the fundamental root causes of the Syria conflict, and what it will take to end it, are put at the center of the discussion," she said. "Any increase in humanitarian funding saves lives and is deeply appreciated as well as absolutely necessary. But letas be clear: aid workers here are still waiting for what was promised at the last conference."





RELATED VIDEO: Angelina Jolie's Inspiring Speech: 'Different Is Good'

"After five years refugees do not want to know by what percentage their lives might be made fractionally more bearable, but when they will be able to go home. They do not want to be the passive recipients of aid, they want a political solution."



Jolie Pitt gave a surprise speech at the U.N. summit in London just one day earlier, calling for an increased inclusion of women during the peacekeeping process.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday blocked an effort by Alabama, Georgia and Kansas for voters to furnish proof of citizenship when registering at the polls, which opponents say disenfranchises voters, especially minorities.

The decision effectively strikes down a rule that requires voters in the three states to provide proof they are United States citizens. Elsewhere, voters only need swear that they are citizens in order to cast a ballot.

"With just weeks to go before a critical presidential election, we are grateful to the court of appeals for stopping this thinly veiled discrimination in its tracks," Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, which had sued to block the new requirements, said in a statement.

Conservatives in Republican-controlled states have moved to tighten voter identification rules ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Supporters say tougher rules help prevent fraud, but in-person voter impersonation on election day is virtually non-existent, a 2012 study at Arizona State University showed. Opponents, mostly Democrats, say the rules discriminate against minorities.

Seven percent of Americans do not have proof of U.S. citizenship such as a birth certificate, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The Appeals Court of the District of Columbia said the League of Women Voters had shown there would be irreparable harm if the rule was permitted, and had also shown it was likely to win the case on its merits.

It ordered any voter applications filed since Jan. 29, 2016, to be treated as if they did not contain the proof of citizenship instructions.

Alabama and Georgia, which passed provisions several years ago, have not implemented their laws while at least 20,000 voters in Kansas, where the law took effect in 2013, have been blocked from registering to vote, the League's lawyers say.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Bernard Orr and Clarence Fernandez)
apple car

Apple has laid off dozens of employees working on its self-driving car efforts, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Brian Chen report for The New York Times.

The company is apparently rethinking the strategy of its so-called Project Titan car initiative, with employees being told the layoff was part of a "reboot," according to The Times' sources.

While Apple has never publicly acknowledged that it's working on a vehicle, The Wall Street Journal first reported in early 2015 that the company had several hundred employees working on an Apple-branded electric car.

Since then, it has made several high-profile hires and filed patents for technology often used in self-driving cars.

Several unmarked vehicles laden with camera and sensor equipment have also been rumored to be owned by Apple.

Bloomberg recently reported that Apple has shifted its focus from designing a full automobile to building out the technology for a self-driving car, and these new layoffs look like a shift in that direction.

Meanwhile, other tech companies like Google, Tesla, and Uber, as well as car companies like Ford and General Motors, working on their own autonomous-vehicle efforts.

NOW WATCH: The most disappointing thing from Apples big iPhone 7 announcement





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Today in 5 Lines

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would allow 9/11 victims families to sue Saudi Arabia, but President Obama is expected to veto. A federal judge denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes request to stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the government is essentially out of money to combat the Zika virus. Obama condemned North Koreas launch of its fifth and most powerful nuclear missile test on Friday morning, calling it a grave threat to regional security and to international peace and stability. And the Clinton Presidential Library released photos of Donald Trump mingling with former President Bill Clinton.

Today on The Atlantic

Theres Nothing Better Than a Scared, Rich Candidate: In an election year where the biggest spenders ran the most ineffective campaigns, and inexperienced advisers ran some of the most successful, Molly Ball explores the world of political consulting and asks whether it actually makes a difference.

This Land Is My Land : The century-old Antiquities Act allows President Obama to declare a swath of Utahs public wilderness a national monument. But Republican lawmakers in the state are challenging this authority. (Michelle Cottle)

Trump and Putin, A Love Story: Donald Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout his presidential campaign. But just four years ago then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney warned that Russia was our No. 1 geopolitical foe. The shift might give voters a sense of a Trump administration. (David A. Graham)

Follow stories throughout the day with our Politics & Policy portal.

Recommended: The Obama Administration Temporarily Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline

Snapshot

Protesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Andrew Cullen / Reuters

What Were Reading

A Social-Security Switch: This years presidential race has highlighted a major change in the conversation surrounding Social Security: Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are changing the way their parties have traditionally stood on the issue. (Sahil Kapur, Bloomberg)

Story continues

Recommended: Theres Nothing Better Than a Scared, Rich Candidate

The Layers of a Movement: Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and activists in North Dakota are protesting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, which they argue could threaten the surrounding water supply. Voxs Victoria M. Massie looks at the racial component of these environmental disputes.

Were the Only Plane in the Sky: A collection of interviews with top aides, the Secret Service, reporters, and White House staff chronicles former President George W. Bushs 8-hour journey on Air Force One immediately after the 9/11 attacks. (Garrett M. Graff, Politico)

Hannity Is Just Doing Hannity: Conservatives and liberals alike have criticized the conservative radio and television host for supporting Donald Trump, but BuzzFeeds Rosie Gray argues that Sean Hannity hasnt changed. Instead, hes broken with the party establishment to avoid risking irrelevance.

The Teen Accused of Terrorism: In November 2015 the FBI arrested and jailed Peyton Pruitt, an Alabama teen with mental functions at the level of an eight-year-old child, whom they believe attempted to aid members of ISIS. Jessica Pishko unpacks the events leading to his arrest and the fight for his release.

Visualized

Behind Falling Man: One of the most widely circulated images from the 9/11 attacks is of a man falling from the burning World Trade Center. In this short video, photographer Richard Drew tells the story behind the photo. (Time)

Recommended: Fear of a Female President

Question of the Week

Congress returned to Capitol Hill this week, and we asked: What book should be required reading for every senator and representative? We got an overwhelming number of responses, but here are a few of our favorites:

Martha Allen was the first of many to suggest Just Mercy, Bryan Stevensons widely acclaimed memoir detailing his career as a young lawyer, fighting against injustice in Americas criminal justice system.

Another popular submission was The Prince, Niccolo Machiavellis 16th century manual on manipulating your way to power. Props to Jerry Purmal for being the first to suggest it.

Finally, Dirk Bloemendaala repeat Question-of-the-Week winnersuggested Robert Fulghums All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Head on over to our Notes section to see more great reader responses, and keep an eye out for next weeks Politics & Policy Daily to enter our Question of the Week contest.

-Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey) and Candice Norwood (@cjnorwoodwrites)

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
If day three of New York Fashion Week hinted at anything, it's that Aussies like to have a good time.

Sydney-based designer Michelle Aznavorian made her NYFW debut with her spring 2017 Misha collection, looking icons of Studio 54 to show her the way. The runway show saw a modern update to the sexy silhouettes made famous by Jerry Hall, Bianca Jagger and Iman in New York's late-night '70s party scene, from from padded shoulders (they're back!) on a coat dress with fringed hemline, to plunging necklines on glittery gowns.

Read more: Everything That Happened at Tommy Hilfiger's Fashion Carnival

The seductive mood continued throughout the presentation with see-through lace dresses, trench coats in fire-engine red or leopard-print and a satin jumpsuit with a deep v-neck and lace sleeves.

Like her resort 2017 show in Australia, which saw Bella Hadid on the runway, Aznavorian tapped another supermodel to strut for her latest offering. British beauty Jourdan Dunn opened in a long-sleeve leather mini dress and closed in a gilded gown with a thigh-high slit, while Whitney Port, Olivia Culpo and Alana Hadid (older sister of Bella and Gigi) looked on from the front row. Founded in 2013, the Australian brand has fans in Jennifer Lopez, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Chanel Iman and Alessandra Ambrosio.

LACE AND RUFFLES: Models on the Zimmermann spring 2017 runway. (Photos: Getty Images)

Later that afternoon, fellow Aussies, sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann tapped into late nights spent at a club called Stranded in Sydney in the '80s.

"It was hidden underground in an old arcade and for me, it represented an escape from a sheltered suburban childhood, a place where young and creative people came together to express themselves," Nicky wrote in the show notes. "We were a bit isolated from fashion and music and the 80's subcultures that were emerging elsewhere. So people interpreted them in their own way."

Story continues

Read more: NYFW Day 2: Tom Ford's Fashion Crowd Film Screening, COTW's David Lynch Mood

Unlike the va-va-voom of Studio 54, the clubbing scene down under had a more New Romantic feeling. At least that's the interpretation we got from Zimmermann as models walked the runway in soft shades of cream, lilac and powder blue, complemented by layered ruffles, embroidered lace and soft stripes.

The collection's dramatic looks, paired with lace-up booties, were balanced with sultry details (wrap skirts that featured a thigh-high slit or lace-up crop tops), as well as masculine silhouettes (oversized trousers and window-pane patterned jackets).
A driver couldnt stop his vehicle and ended up dangling midair at a downtown Austin parking garage on Friday, September 9. The 2004 Toyota 4Runner got caught on the garages high-tension wires, according to KHOU, quoting Austin police. The 24-year-old driver climbed back into the building with the help of a bystander. Credit: Twitter/coffeeandchez
Vienna (AFP) - An embarrassing postponement of Austria's high-stakes October 2 presidential election looked all but inevitable Saturday, because of technical problems involving glue failing to stick on postal votes.

The last election result from May was annulled after Austria's highest court upheld claims of procedural irregularities made by the narrowly-defeated far-right.

This necessitated fresh elections but this time there appear to be problems with glue on postal votes not sticking, making them invalid.

On Saturday independent ecologist Alexander Van der Bellen joined his rival in the vote, Norbert Hofer from the far-right, in saying he now expects a postponement.

"I don't believe that October 2 is possible any more," Van der Bellen, 72, told a news conference. "I hope that (the new election) can still take place this year."

Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka meanwhile made his clearest indication yet of a postponement, saying that "it does not look like" the problems can be resolved in time.

He is due to make an announcement on Monday.

Die Presse daily cited unnamed sources as saying that the government was looking at several possible dates in November, but that mid-December or even January were being considered.

Pushing the election back poses legal problems, however, and the government is considering drawing up special legislation allowing it to happen.

"This is an unbelievable disgrace for... the whole country," Die Presse said in an editorial entitled "Banana Republic".

Hofer, 45, officially launched his election campaign in Wels in northern Austria despite the likely postponement, hitting out at the "stupidity" of allowing mass immigration by "economic migrants".

The May 22 vote, a run-off after a first round in April, saw Van der Bellen narrowly beat Hofer by just 31,000 votes.

The FPOe has stoked concerns about recent record immigration, and should Hofer eventually win it would make Austria the first country in Europe since 1945 to elect a far-right president.

The role of the Austrian president is largely -- but not entirely -- ceremonial, and a victory by Hofer would be a major boost to Europe's other surging populist movements.
By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A man who failed to stop when pulling into a rooftop spot of a nine-story parking garage in Austin, rammed through protection wires and avoided a deadly fall when one wire wrapped around an axle, leaving the car dangling on the building's side on Friday. The 24-year-old man, who was not identified by police, was pulled to safety back into the garage. He said he was unable to stop the vehicle that went off the top of the building and flipped over until it was caught by a wire, police said. "The driver was (miraculously) able to climb out of the sunroof and make his way safely back into the garage," the Austin Fire Department wrote on its Facebook page. The man was not injured. "I have a strong feeling the driver is going to have a great appreciation of what it means to be alive from this point forward," said James Davis, 29, a cellphone software developer who was one of about 100 people watching the car dangling. The car was eventually lowered to street level by firefighters who used a wiring system to slowly move it. "From what we understand, the driver accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake," the department said. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Andrew Hay)
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladeshi police on Saturday shot dead a suspected militant who they believe played a key role in an attack on a cafe in Dhaka in July in which 22 people, mostly foreigners, were killed, the national police chief said. Three women were wounded and arrested in the shootout as police raided a hideout in the capital. Five officers from the police counter-terrorism unit were also wounded when female militants attacked them with explosives and knives, senior police officer Sahabuddin Qureshi told reporters. Police chief Shahidul Hoque said the dead man, identified as Abdul Karim, was suspected to be one of the planners of the attack on the cafe, and to have rented a flat for the militants who carried out the assault. He also said one of the women could be the wife of the man, killed in a shootout with police last week, who was believed to have trained the cafe attackers. The cafe assault, claimed by the Middle Eastern jihadist group Islamic State, was the most shocking of a series of attacks that has included killings of atheist intellectuals, members of religious and sexual minorities and foreigners. The government has pinned the blame on domestic militant groups, but security experts say the scale and sophistication of the cafe assault suggest links to a trans-national Islamist network. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to Dhaka last month that the United States believed elements of Islamic State were "connected" to operatives in Bangladesh. Since the July attack, more than two dozen suspected militants, including the presumed mastermind of the cafe assault, Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, have been killed in shootouts with police. (Reporting by Ruma Paul)
Believe it or not, Apple wasn't the only game in town this past week. It might feel like an eternity ago since most of the big announcements at this year's IFA trade show were made last week, but IFA 2016 actually wrapped up this past Tuesday. Consumer electronics companies from all around the world headed to Berlin, Germany to show off their latest and greatest products, and we saw some fantastic new devices unveiled during the show.

It wasn't easy, but we've dug through all the great announcements from the show and selected a handful of particularly impressive products that shine a bit brighter than the rest. These are our picks for the best of IFA 2016.

Moto Z Play Droid

BGR-Moto-Z-Play-1

When we reviewed Lenovo's Moto Z Droid and Moto Z Force Droid, we made it clear how impressed we were with these smartphones. The gorgeous design, cutting-edge specs and innovative Moto Mod modular accessory system made these phones clear leaders among Android flagship devices. But not everyone want to pay flagship prices when shopping for a new phone, regardless of how sleek and innovative they might be.

Now, thanks to the Moto Z Play Droid, Lenovo's outstanding new design is accessible to everyone. The phone offers a class-leading design, smooth performance and compatibility with all of Lenovo's new Moto Mods, and it starts at just $408.

Find out more about this great phone in our Moto Z Play Droid hands-on preview.

Hasselblad True Zoom

BGR-Moto-True-Zoom-3

Speaking of Moto Mods, the Hasselblad 4116 True Zoom is a stellar example of just how great Lenovo's new modular accessory system can be. It places a full-fledged point and shoot camera with 10x zoom and stunning photo quality on the back of any Moto Z series smartphone, giving the user the ability to capture high-quality photos that even the best smartphone cameras in the world cannot approach.

Find out more in our hands-on preview.

Asus ZenWatch 3

zenwatch-3

The smartwatch market has been dominated by Apple so far, but that might not be the case for very long. The new ZenWatch 3 by Asus is one of the most beautiful and refined connected watches we've seen so far, featuring a timeless design that is as much about fashion as it is functionality. Featuring a beautiful round AMOLED display, the latest version of Android Wear and three available finishes including Silver, Gunmetal and Rose Gold, the ZenWatch 3 is sure to be a fan favorite following its launch in October.

Story continues

Lenovo YogaBook

BGR-yoga-book-1

Among all the devices we saw unveiled in Germany last week, nothing was quite as unique as the Lenovo YogaBook. The device's one-of-a-kind design marries a touchscreen tablet with a second touch-sensitive surface that can be used as a drawing tablet or for handwriting. Then, an invisible "Halo Keyboard" illuminates when the user wants to type.

The YogaBook will be available running either Android 6.0 Marshmallow or Windows 10, and you can learn more in our hands-on preview.

Samsung Gear S3

Last but certainly not least is the brand new Gear S3 by Samsung. This sleek and stylish smartwatch runs Samsung's own Tizen operating system, and it's compatible with both Android devices and with the iPhone. The watch's design is absolutely stunning, reminiscent of classic mechanical watches from iconic Swiss watchmakers. The Gear S3 features a water-resistant design, wireless charging, up to four days of battery life on a single charge, and a wide range of impressive features.

bgr-seal-of-approval

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  A few special guests showed up to see the launch of NASA's asteroid-sampling spacecraft yesterday (Sept. 8).

Former TV "Science Guy" Bill Nye, who currently serves as CEO of The Planetary Society nonprofit organization, cheered on the OSIRIS-REx mission yesterday afternoon here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), just hours before the probe's 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) launch from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

OSIRIS-REx is now chasing down a 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) asteroid named Bennu, on a seven-year mission to snag samples of the space rock and send the material back to Earth. Bennu was known as 1999 RQ36 until 2013, when 9-year-old Mike Puzio won a Planetary Society contest to give the asteroid a more fitting and memorable name. [OSIRIS-REx: NASA's Asteroid Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]

Puzio, who is now 12, joined Nye at KSC yesterday in the lead-up to the launch.

"He's a rock star," Nye said of Puzio. "He won fair and square. We did not know that it was a kid. It's just, he had the best idea; he did the best research."

Bennu was an ancient Egyptian god often depicted as a heron. Puzio has said he chose the name because of OSIRIS-REx's link to Egyptian mythology  Osiris was the ancient Egyptian god of the dead  and because the spacecraft design reminded him of a heron in flight. The "wings" are OSIRIS-REx's solar panels, and the "neck" is the probe's 11-foot-long (3.4 m) sampling arm.

If all goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx will arrive at Bennu in August 2018 and study the asteroid from orbit for two years. Then, in July 2020, the probe will grab at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of dirt and pebbles using a sampling "head" at the end of the robotic arm. OSIRIS-REx won't land on Bennu; rather, the sampling gear will give the space rock a 3-second "high five," mission officials have said.

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This material will come back to Earth in a small return capsule in September 2023. Scientists around the world will then analyze the material, hunting for organic molecules, the carbon-containing building blocks of life. (The mission's main goal involves clarifying the role that Bennu-like asteroids may have played in delivering life's key ingredients to Earth.)

"We're really excited about this mission," Nye said. "This will advance our knowledge of the solar system's beginning."

"If you want to answer, 'Where did you all come from, where did we all come from?' it's really important to get samples of the primordial solar system," Nye added.

At KSC yesterday, Nye and Puzio showed off a high five they devised to celebrate OSIRIS-REx's launch and coming activities at Bennu. Nye touched his fist to Puzio's palm for about 3 seconds, and then the two slowly withdrew their hands. They took care not to "blow it up."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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velvet ant

Pain is notoriously subjective.

Some people can take more of it than others. Yet we still need to measure pain, and so scientists have derived scales that are generally considered valid ways of assessing just how much one thing hurts compared to another.

When entomologist Justin Schmidt created the "Schmidt Pain Scale for Stinging Insects," he gave the world the first measure for comparing the pain of a yellowjacket sting ("Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue") to that of a tarantula hawk wasp ("Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath").

But as Schmidt mentions in his new delightful new book, "The Sting of the Wild," even his four point scale (a yellowjacket scoring a two, the tarantula hawk a full-on four) has limitations, as stings on different parts of the body hurt in different ways.

For example, Schmidt's base for the scale, a honey bee, generally rates a two: "Burning, corrosive, but you can handle it. A flaming match head lands on your arm and is quenched first with lye and then sulfuric acid."

But a honey bee sting on the back of the hand, he writes, is a very manageable 1.5. A sting on the tongue, on the other hand, is worth bumping up to a full three: "It's crawled into your soda can and stings you on the tongue. It's immediate, noisome, visceral, debilitating. For 10 minutes life is not worth living." So where do stings hurt the most?

Enter Michael Smith.

After reportedly suffering a bee sting on that most sensitive of male body regions, the testicles, Smith was struck with a curious question that  if this were not for science  would certainly cross the boundary into pure masochism.

Smith wanted to know where it hurt the most to be stung. He devised a plan to sting 25 different body parts, using guard bees from the same hive. He randomized the order of the stings so he'd let a bee sting each body part three times, for 60 seconds each time, enough to inject a full dose of venom. He received three experimental stings each day along with two daily "calibration" stings on the forearm.

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He rated stings from one to ten (most painful), with a five being the middle ground. And since each body part was stung three times, he calculated the average.

BI GRAPHICS_worst place to be stung by a bee

Perhaps surprisingly  unless you've been stung in one of these spots  the nostril and upper lip beat out even those locations especially painful for men. (Smith is the only one who has conducted such an experiment, so we don't have data for women. Any volunteers?)

One particularly impressive and or cringe-inducing thing about Smith's experiment is that he actually intentionally stung himself each time  even Schmidt, creator of the notorious pain scale, received most of his stings incidentally while conducting other research.

Unfortunately, Smith didn't test the tongue, so we can't see how that compares to Schmidt's own experience. He also decided against stinging himself in the eye, since, as he wrote in the study where he published his results, his advisor feared he'd blind himself.

And yes, it's true that other individuals might perceive sting pain differently. A "four" for one person could be a "nine" for someone else. Even Smith's own pain ratings may have been affected by how much pain he expected to feel from each sting.

But as Schmidt writes in his book, "Michael's study took honey bee sting pain science to a new high."





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BRASILIA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation into an alleged corruption scheme at the national development bank BNDES, weekly magazine Veja reported on Saturday.

The prosecutors have been gathering documents for at least two months and are in talks with a former BNDES executive about a potential collaboration, Veja said.

Spokespeople at BNDES and the prosecutors' federal office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

BNDES is the largest source of long-term corporate credit in Brazil and is one of the world's largest development banks.

The bank ramped up lending under the administrations of the Workers' Party between 2003 and 2015 as part of government efforts to boost economic growth, offering subsidized credit to several of Brazil's largest firms across sectors.

The investigation would be the latest in a series of massive corruption probes in Brazil since prosecutors launched the "Operation Carwash" in 2014, centered around a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras.

Earlier this week, police launched another investigation, now at state-run companies' pension funds.

(Reporting by Silvio Cascione; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
London (AFP) - It was a battle of the flags on British classical music's biggest night Saturday as the Union Jacks usually brandished by the audience were joined by EU standards handed out by Brexit opponents.

The Last Night of the Proms is the climax of the BBC Proms -- two months of mainly classical music at London's Royal Albert Hall which this year featured stars like Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich.

Every year, the Last Night features a series of traditional British songs including "Rule, Britannia" -- a paean to the nation vowing "Britons never will be slaves" -- during which audience members wave flags with gusto.

This time round, an online crowdfunding campaign raised over A1,000 (1,200 euros, $1,300) to pay for European Union flags for audience members "to show UK solidarity with the EU".

In response, Arron Banks, a millionaire businessman who backed the "Leave" campaign in June's referendum vote to leave the EU, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper he was putting up A5,000 for British flags.

In the end, a smattering of EU flags were visible along with the usual flood of British Union Jacks, plus flags from other countries including the US, Canada, Germany and Japan.

The BBC's website explains that, while "the Union Flag is a favourite in the Royal Albert Hall", patriotic displays from other countries are not unusual.

The Proms date back to 1895 and are broadcast around the world to millions of people.

The special guest performer at this year's Last Night of the Proms was Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez, who led the rendition of "Rule, Britannia" dressed as legendary Inca figure Manco Capac.
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Britain's exit from the European Union will create difficulties for the European Investment Bank (EIB), a lender owned by EU governments, the bank's president Werner Hoyer said on Saturday.

The EIB [EIB.UL] is also a central tool for an investment programme the European Commission estimated would generate 315 billion euros ($354 billion) of investment in the EU and which is set to be expanded.

When asked what will happen to the EIB when Britain, which is one of its major shareholders, leaves the EU, Hoyer told reporters in Bratislava:

"The United Kingdom is a big and important shareholder of the European Investment Bank and an important member state of the European Union. This is why it will be a difficult process," Hoyer said on entering a meeting of EU finance ministers.

"We will have a few years of uncertainty ahead of us during which it won't be clear what will happen to Great Britain and its relation with the European Union. And depending on this is of course the question of what the relation between Britain and the European Investment Bank will be."

Of the 243 billion euros of subscribed EIB capital, only 21 billion euros is paid in. The rest is callable, meaning it would only be paid in if necessary. Britain's share of the 21 billion paid-in capital is 16 percent or 3.4 billion euros.

When Britain leaves the EU, a process which is to start early next year, it would have to take out this paid-in contribution as only EU member states can be in the EIB unless the EU decides to change its treaties.

Britain's exit from the EU - or Brexit - would also remove the callable part of Britain's shareholding in the EIB. But Britain's withdrawal from the EIB might be agreed to be gradual, to ease its immediate impact on the bank, one EU official said.

Another option would be that other EU countries might want to make up for Britain's shares to retain the EIB's lending capacity. The issue has not been discussed yet as Brexit negotiations have not officially started, the official said.

($1 = 0.8908 euros)

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Alexander Smith)
You can buy Marilyn Monroes legendary Happy Birthday Mr. President dress  but youll probably need to save up

You can buy Marilyn Monroes legendary Happy Birthday Mr. President dress  but youll probably need to save up

Iconic Hollywood actress, Marilyn Monroe, passed away under mysterious circumstances more than 50 years ago, but her star power still shines as brightly now as it did then.

Marilyn Portrait

The truest blonde bombshell is often imitated, but no one will ever come close to achieving Norma Jeans humor, eloquence, screen presence, and charm.

Ambassador Monroe

From standing over a subway grate in a white halter dress in The Seven Year Itch, to her vivacious performance of Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monroes career is overflowing with legendary moments.

And in 1962, barely three months before her tragic death, Marilyn provided yet one more iconic performance. She sang a breathy rendition of Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy at a televised celebration.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

As reported by Elle, the sequined curve-hugging gown was so tight that she had to be sewn into the dress. #scandalous

Marilyn Monroe's famous "Happy Birthday Mr. Presid

The dress was designed by Jean Louis, who spent 16 years as the head costume designer at Columbia Pictures. And it was incredibly fashion forward  Louis designed the sheer gown to match Monroes skin tone, making it appear as though a nude Marilyn was only wearing sequins. (Decades before Britney Spears Toxic music video was even a sparkle in someones eye).

Man views the "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress

And now, you can own the unbelievably famous dress once worn by the unparalleled Monroe  but youll probably need to dig into your savings

On November 17th, Juliens Auctions in Los Angeles is auctioning the dress for an expected $3 MILLION DOLLARS.

Marilyn Monroe Portrait

I mean, Marilyn Monroes contributions to pop culture and film are priceless, after all

The post You can buy Marilyn Monroes legendary Happy Birthday Mr. President dress  but youll probably need to save up appeared first on HelloGiggles.
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Tyler Chatwood was unsure if he was more pleased with his performance on the mound or at the plate.

Chatwood had two important hits, including a two-run triple, while pitching the Colorado Rockies past the San Diego Padres 4-1 on Friday night.

Charlie Blackmon homered in the second inning after Chatwood's leadoff single against Luis Perdomo. Chatwood also tripled in the seventh past a drawn-in outfield, extending the lead to 4-1.

''I haven't been very good this year, so they were getting on me telling me I needed to bunt for a hit,'' Chatwood said. ''I told them I didn't need to, that I could still swing it. I got lucky tonight and found some holes.''

Making his second start since returning from a back injury, Chatwood (11-9) allowed one run and four hits over 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five and walked one, improving to 3-0 against San Diego this season.

''I think I threw way more fastballs tonight than I normally do, and I throw a lot of fastballs,'' Chatwood said. ''I just felt good with it and I could locate it. It was fun to be a part of that tonight.''

The right-hander tossed eight shutout innings in his previous start at Petco Park in May.

''He has done a lot, especially on the road,'' Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. ''He has been lights out. Felt like he had his good two-seamer. He mixed in some breaking balls, not too many, but enough to keep them guessing.''

Jake McGee and Boone Logan had scoreless outings in relief. Adam Ottavino worked the ninth for his third save.

Perdomo (7-9) permitted four runs and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings. He struck out four and walked four, but lamented the hits by Chatwood most.

''He's the guy who did the most damage against me in the game, so I don't feel good about that,'' Perdomo said.

Alex Dickerson homered in the second, San Diego's only hit off Chatwood until the fifth.

Story continues

''We've had trouble with him before,'' Padres manager Andy Green said. ''He executed his number of really good pitches he threw in crucial situations.''

DJ LeMahieu extended his career-best hitting streak to 26 games with a single in the third for Colorado.

''We played well tonight,'' Weiss said. ''We had some good hits, timely hits. It was a good night.''

TRAINER'S ROOM

Padres C Derek Norris had his right arm examined after getting hit by a foul ball Thursday night, but X-rays were negative. Norris was available off the bench.

UP NEXT

Rockies: RHP Jon Gray (9-7, 4.51 ERA) looks to rebound after allowing five runs over seven innings at Arizona in his last start. He is 2-0 with a 2.77 ERA in two career starts at Petco Park.

Padres: LHP Christian Friedrich (4-10, 4.99) has thrown a career-high 104 2/3 innings going into Saturday's outing.
By Dan Whitcomb (Reuters) - U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, serving a 35-year prison term for passing classified files to WikiLeaks, said on Friday that she would refuse to eat until given help for her gender dysphoria and "treated with dignity, respect and humanity" by the government. The 28-year-old Army private, who was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman, tried to commit suicide in July over what her representatives said was the government's denial of appropriate treatment for those gender issues. The Army announced later that month that it would investigate Manning for misconduct in connection with the attempt to take her own life, a probe that could lead to indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security or additional prison time. "I need help. I needed help earlier this year. I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn't get any. I still haven't gotten any," Manning said in a statement released by a spokeswoman. "I am no longer asking. Now, I am demanding. As of 12:01 am Central Daylight Time on September 9, 2016, and until I am given minimum standards of dignity, respect, and humanity, I shallrefuse to voluntarily cut or shorten my hair in any way; consume any food or drink voluntarily, except for water and currently prescribed medications; and comply with all rules, regulations, laws, and orders that are not related to the two things I have mentioned," Manning said. According to Manning's representatives, doctors have recommended that as part of her treatment for gender dysphoria the solider, who began hormone therapy in 2015, be allowed to follow "female hair grooming standards." The government has refused. Manning said in her statement that she was prepared mentally and emotionally to endure an indefinite hunger strike, even if it proved fatal. "I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this," she said. A spokesman for the Department of Defense could not be reached for comment on Friday afternoon. Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in prison after a military court conviction of providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The case ranked as the biggest breach of classified materials in U.S. history. Among the files Manning leaked in 2010 was a gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing on suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007, an attack that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bernard Orr)
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(4) Aug 09 (9) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (6) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (7) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (8) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (9) Jul 25 (9) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (9) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (7) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (7) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (7) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (5) Jun 22 (7) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (6) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (7) Jun 12 (8) Jun 11 (5) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (7) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (4) May 29 (5) May 28 (1) May 27 (5) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (8) May 23 (8) May 22 (7) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (9) May 18 (5) May 17 (9) May 16 (7) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (13) May 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13 (1) Feb 12 (2) Feb 11 (1) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (1) Feb 08 (1) Feb 07 (1) Feb 06 (1) Feb 05 (5) Feb 03 (1) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (1) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (1) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (6) Dec 14 (4) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (5) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (6) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (4) May 13 (9) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (5) May 09 (4) May 08 (3) May 07 (5) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (1) May 02 (5) May 01 (7) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (4) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (2) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (1) Mar 07 (1) Mar 04 (2) Mar 02 (2) Feb 28 (1) Feb 24 (1) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 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The moment fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers waited nearly 10 weeks for finally arrived on Friday night. Clayton Kershaw, whos been sidelined since June 26 with a back injury, finally returned to a major-league mound against the Miami Marlins.

Kershaw made up one-half of a marquee pitching matchup against Marlins ace Jose Fernandez. He fared OK, allowing two runs on five hits over three innings. That included a first-inning home run from Miamis J.T. Realmuto. Some rust was obviously expected, as was an abbreviated outing that saw Kershaw throw only 66 pitches. The results werent as important though as the condition of his back, which was tested and appeared to hold up just fine.

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Just the fact that Kershaw returned is a big deal for Los Angeles. There were times throughout his recovery when the team acknowledged his season might be over. Kershaws determination never wavered, and now hes back and hes looking to contribute to a critical stretch run.

Clayton Kershaw delivers a pitch during his Dodgers return in Miami. (AP)

Heres an interesting twist to the story. With Kershaw returning, the Dodgers had to free up a spot on the 40-man roster. That was done by recalling reliever Carlos Frias from Triple-A and placing him on the 60-day disabled list. It was strictly a procedural move, as Frias was already on the disabled list at Triple-A. However, in doing so, Frias became the 28th different player to hit the Dodgers disabled list this season, which set a record no team wants to lay claim to.

The Dodgers say they have set a major-league record by putting 28 players on the disabled list. Champagne for all.  Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) September 9, 2016

That the Dodgers hold a five-game lead over the San Francisco Giants in the NL West is a sign of remarkable resilience. Theyve essentially lost every key player for at least one extended stretch this season, including other starting pitchers like Brett Anderson, Rich Hill, Scott Kazmir, Bud Norris, Alex Wood, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Brandon McCarthy, yet theyve never folded.

The moment most expected them to fold was when Kershaw went down. However, theyve managed to go from eight games behind San Francisco to five games up during his absence. That success is truly mind-boggling , but rather than question it or doubt it, its time to accept the Dodgers are sticking around. Now that Kershaw is back, they may be here to stay for good.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton on Saturday walked back comments she made about supporters of Donald Trump at an event in New York City.

Clinton said on Friday evening that you could put half of the Republican presidential nominee's supporters in a "basket of deplorables," which she said would include racists, xenophobes, and homophobes.

But, following a firestorm of backlash, Clinton released a statement saying her comments were "grossly generalistic," and that she regretted denigrating "half" of Trump's supporters.

While she offered remorse for her comments, Clinton also said it was "deplorable" that Trump has built his campaign "largely on prejudice and paranoia" and has "given a national platform to hateful views and voices."

"As I said, many of Trump's supporters are hard-working Americans who just dont feel like the economy or our political system are working for them," she added.

Clinton resolved to try to "bring our country together" and "make our economy work for everyone."

Trump, along with his running mate Mike Pence, responded on Saturday by criticizing the comments Hillary made on Friday.

"Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!" Trump tweeted.

Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016

Pence piled on, saying at the Values Voter Summit that Clinton's "low opinion" of Trump's supporters should be "denounced in the strongest possible terms."

"Hillary, they are not a basket of anything," Pence said. "They are Americans, and they deserve your respect."

The Trump campaign also released a statement on Saturdy afternoon calling Hillary's comments on Friday the "worst mistake of the political season."

Story continues

"For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans," the statement continued. "How can she be President of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans?"

NOW WATCH: Watch Donald Trump claim that Hillary Clinton could get away with murder





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man with his head in crocodile's mouth zoo performer

It's easy to see why EpiPen has become the focus of America's fury over drug prices. It treats potentially deadly allergic reactions  for example, in a child who is stung by a bee  and its price has spiked by over 500% in a few years.

While it's easy to jump all over drugmakers, like EpiPen's maker, Mylan, other actors in the healthcare system ought to draw as much scrutiny.

One group of companies, called pharmaceutical benefit managers, or PBMs, serve as middlemen, and they touch every part of the purchase of a prescription drug.

And now there's a growing realization, from Washington to Wall Street, that PBMs have been a big beneficiary of soaring drug prices burdening Americans  profits of the largest companies have doubled in recent years  even as they pitch their services as critical to controlling costs.

It's what one Wall Street analyst described as a "perverse incentive" in the business. A recent Morgan Stanley analysis showed that PBMs' earnings would take a direct hit if drug companies began to slow down on price hikes.

The biggest of these companies is Express Scripts, but PBM services are also provided by CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group, and several smaller companies. Because of their complexity and opacity, they've managed to dodge the kind of intense scrutiny that drugmakers are facing.

But that's changing, and it's bad news for the industry. PBMs are being sued by some customers for double dealing, and they're now also starting to draw the attention of Congress. Perhaps the biggest threat of all: They're facing a backlash from America's largest employers, some of which are working on a way to rewire the system.

Below, we're going to try to explain how PBMs work for the more than 260 million Americans they serve, and because unlike the other big companies it is mostly a PBM, we're going to use Express Scripts to do this.

The ultimate middleman

Pharmaceutical benefit managers started simply enough. In the 1960s, they served a need. As more Americans started taking prescription drugs, insurance companies were overwhelmed processing claims. PBMs offered to do it for them. PBMs pioneered plastic prescription cards and mail-order drug delivery.

Story continues

They promised Americans they'd negotiate to keep drug prices down. They promised insurers they'd make processing prescriptions a lot cheaper and easier. And they promised drug companies they would favor certain drugs in exchange for rebates and price breaks.

They're paid fees by the insurers and employers who use their services. But they're also taking a cut of every sale. That alone isn't a problem. American business is full of middlemen, and nothing the PBMs do is illegal.

But where the PBMs are starting to get into trouble is that they're making bundles by keeping each player they deal with  pharmacies, insurers, drugmakers  partly in the dark. And those bundles, you could argue, are coming at the expense of the people who pay for healthcare.

Obama doctors Obamacare

Here's how a PBM like Express Scripts controls information and pricing.

Let's say a doctor prescribes you a heartburn drug. Its list price is $300, but the only people who pay that are those without insurance. Because you have insurance, you go to your local pharmacy and pay a $20 co-pay. For you, that's it. Your insurer might be paying $180 for the drug as part of a large-scale agreement it came to years ago via the PBM. The pharmacy that dispenses it may get only $160 for it. That $20 difference is a spread, and that goes to your PBM as profit. That's on top of fees your insurer is paying the PBM to administer its prescription-drug program.

That's the simplest way this goes down.

All the while, the pharmacy has no idea how much your insurer is paying for the drug, and your insurer isn't exactly sure how much the pharmacy is getting for dispensing the medicine. The drug company, meanwhile, isn't even getting close to the $300 list price that makes everyone so angry.

Then things get really murky.

If the price of the drug has increased, the PBM can be paid a rebate for the excess, which it pockets. The insurer, which is paying for the drug, won't know.

"These rebate amounts are less likely to be explicitly shared with a client," analysts at AllianceBernstein, an investment firm, wrote in a recent note on Express Scripts.

The note was written to answer the question of whether PBMs are "containing pharmacy costs or driving them." AllianceBernstein's answer was to put an "underperform" rating on Express Scripts' stock, warning of the risk to investors as people start to figure all this out.

Express Scripts Chief Medical Officer Steve Miller

'What we don't want is transparency'

In the middle of the EpiPen news cycle, CNBC interviewed Steve Miller, the chief medical officer of Express Scripts.

"If she wanted to lower the price tomorrow she could," Miller said of Mylan's CEO, Heather Bresch.

He continued (emphasis added):

"We love transparency for our patients. Our patients should know exactly what they're going to pay when they go to the pharmacy counter. We love transparency for our clients  they can come in, they can audit their contracts, they know exactly what they're going to be required to pay ... What we don't want is transparency for our competitors."

Did you catch that?

Express Scripts will tell clients how much they should pay, but it is trying hard not to tell anyone how much things cost. The problem is that when people find out, they seem to get very angry.

'Don't you find it odd?'

In February, at a congressional hearing about drug prices, Mark Merritt, the PBMs' lobbyist in Washington, was grilled by Republican Rep. Earl "Buddy" Carter of Georgia.

Carter owns a few small pharmacies, and he was getting very angry about the lists, called formularies, that PBMs develop for their clients. A formulary is a list of drugs that patients will be reimbursed for on a given plan.

PBMs also create maximum allowable cost (MAC) lists, which tell the drug companies and pharmacies how much they'll pay for a medication. The prices on each list can be different, but only the PBM knows the difference.

"They have one list here that they're going to reimburse the dispenser at. They have another list that they're going to charge the insurance company that they're representing," Carter said at the hearing. "Don't you find that somewhat awkward? Don't you find that to be a situation where the PBM could distort the market greatly?"

Merritt said he did not.

Carter also said that PBMs have caught the ire of states because they were not updating their MAC lists frequently enough. That means that even if a drug's cost increases for a pharmacy, the PBM still won't pay more to buy the drug for its clients.

Merritt insisted that it was not accurate.

Carter countered:

"If that's the case, don't you find it somewhat odd that [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] found it necessary to mandate ... that these MAC lists be updated every seven days, and that 26 states have passed laws requiring PBMs to update their MAC lists? ... I notice that the profits of the PBMs have increased enormously over the past few years  in fact, almost doubled. I find that very disturbing, particularly when you're talking about spread pricing."

In a statement to Business Insider, Express Scripts said, "We update [MAC lists] on a regular basis ... as need be." It would not elaborate further.

Earl

Side hustles

Further complicating the issue with drug companies, PBMs have entered into businesses beyond just managing lists and buying drugs. Many have their own specialty pharmacies, which are mail-order pharmacies that manage drugs that are hard to distribute. Express Scripts, for example, has a specialty pharmacy called Accredo Health.

Carter says he has adjudicated claims for customers in his pharmacy, had them rejected, and then seen the PBM call the customer right away to tell them to use its specialty pharmacy.

"A mail-order pharmacy that is owned by the PBM  now, don't you find that conflict of interest? Don't you find it a conflict of interest when a PBM not only owns the pharmacy but they're reimbursing here?" he asked.

What he means is that the PBM helps to manage the drugs on the formulary and negotiates the price of the drug that it could be buying from itself.

Express Scripts also has a business that manages patient-assistance programs called United BioSource. Drug companies use these assistance programs to help patients get around co-pays and often point to them when drug costs go up really fast. Express Scripts picks up a management fee for doling out this cash.

While all this complex stuff is going on in the background, the patient's price is being held steady. In his CNBC interview, Miller bragged that patients saw their EpiPen co-pay increase from $73.03 to just $73.50.

"We're really trying to protect our plans," he said.

What it really does, though, is protect all the players from patient outrage, because rising drug prices mean rising rebates and increasing profits for the PBM.

In a research note, Morgan Stanley analysts walked through what would happen with a single product: Allergan's chronic dry-eye treatment, Restasis.

The price of Restasis has increased by double digits annually in recent years, and so has the income generated from rebates related to it. If Allergan were to cut back on price hikes, like it just pledged to, those earnings would drop by 15%.

Of course, clients such as insurers don't know exactly how much drugs cost the PBM once it has negotiated its own rebate with a drug company; clients just know how much they're paying a PBM.

Are you seeing a trend here? Whether it's from drug companies like Mylan or PBMs, real prices are just hard to come by. And because their hands are in all corners of the business  the lists that get you to customers, the assistance programs that get customers to pay, the pharmacies that can sell you the drugs  that suits PBMs just fine.

A pharmacy employee looks for medication as she works to fill a prescription while working at a pharmacy in New York December 23, 2009. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

This is your brain  this is your brain on a PBM

With a market cap of $45.7 billion, Express Scripts is the largest of the PBMs and was created as a PBM, not an insurer or a pharmacy like its two primary competitors, UnitedHealth and CVS Health. The three control most of the PBM industry.

Based in St. Louis, Express Scripts exploded in 2011 when it announced it would purchase Medco Health Solutions for $29.1 billion. In 2010, before that deal, the company's revenue was $44.97 billion. In 2015, it was $101.75 billion.

We asked Express Scripts if it thought there were any conflicts of interest in the way its business is structured, conflicts that may prompt the company to add a drug to a formulary or stock it in its pharmacy (Accredo Health), for example.

Time and time again, the company said that clients make choices and Express Scripts just gives advice.

Here are a few of the answers we got:

Linette Lopez: If the price of a drug increases, doesn't payment to your company increase as well?

Express Scripts: All individual client contracts are geared toward driving down the cost of healthcare while creating the best possible outcomes for patients. Express Scripts' performance is contingent on our ability save our clients money while ensuring that patients have access to the right medications at the best possible price with the greatest level of care.

Lopez: Does Accredo sell drugs that it also provides patient-assistance programs for?

Express Scripts: Pharmaceutical manufacturers choose their PAP providers as well as their distribution channels. There are drugs dispensed by Accredo that have PAPs operated by [United BioSource]. For some products, we determine eligibility and dispense the product, and for others the manufacturer contracts with Accredo to handle only dispensing.

Lopez: For what drug companies does United BioSource administer patient-assistance programs?

Express Scripts: [United BioSource] works with a number of manufacturers to implement PAPs to ensure that uninsured and underinsured patients who meet the qualifications of the program get access to the drugs they need. The number of companies is proprietary.

express scripts revenue

Dealing in the dark

What these answers reveal is that yes, sometimes Express Scripts gets paid for managing patient-assistance programs for drugs it also sells through its own pharmacy. So not only is the situation Carter described possible, patients won't even know what's going on because the patient assistance program will mask all the cost for them.

And no, you cannot find out whom Express Scripts managing patient-assistance programs for.

And, by the way, no, Express Scripts does not "find it odd" (as Carter said) that it manages those two lists  one for what drug companies can charge and one for what clients have to pay.

"The client chooses how they would prefer to contract with us or any PBM for its service," the company told Business Insider. "Spread pricing is aligned with the payer's desire to control costs and our ability to do so. Through spread pricing, we offer lower rates and leverage our ability to secure better discounts from retail pharmacies over the life of the contract."

Many clients do not agree with this.

Earlier this year, some of America's biggest employers  including American Express, Macy's, Coca-Cola  created an organization called the Health Transformation Alliance with the aim of breaking with "existing marketplace practices that are costly, wasteful, and inefficient, all of which have resulted in employees paying higher premiums, copayments, and deductibles every year." And they have PBMs in their sights.

Here's Barron's magazine on one way they'll do this:

"They'd do this by rewriting their pharmacy-benefit contracts to eliminate the undisclosed drug-price markups that supply much of the PBM industry's profits. Instead, the PBMs would mainly receive administrative fees, which would be significantly lower."

There's more. Express Scripts gets a significant chunk of its revenue from two clients: the Department of Defense and Anthem Insurance.

But Anthem is suing Express Scripts for breaching its 10-year contract with the company, alleging that it "failed to negotiate new pricing concessions in good faith." It's seeking $15 billion in legal damages.

A number of Anthem clients are also suing both Express Scripts and Anthem for the money they spent on overpriced healthcare.

In California, clients are suing Express Scripts for failing "to comply with statutory obligations to provide the state's clients with the results of a biannual survey of retail drug prices."

Express Scripts sent us its response to the Anthem case. Basically, it argues that it had a deal, and it accuses Anthem of being the one to violate the agreement.

The response is replete with redactions meant to protect the terms of its contract with the insurer. It's these redactions, these facts concealed by omissions, that AllianceBernstein believes puts the PBM industry in peril.

"We believe retail spread benefits from a lack of transparency and press/political investigation has the potential to reduce spread. We believe greater awareness of rebate levels or price protection rebates would increase necessary sharing with clients," the analysts wrote.

In other words, once America finds out how this business works, it's not going to like how this business works.

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Two men were trapped Friday afternoon in a partial collapse of a house in Owings Mills, authorities said. Baltimore County rescue crews were called around 3:48 p.m. to the 100 block of Oakmere Road, where a portion of a house had collapsed. Crews were able to extricate one of the trapped victims around 4:30 p.m., and a second victim was freed by 4:48 p.m., SkyTeam 11 reported.
This couple got a whole airplane to themselves and were SUPER jealous

This couple got a whole airplane to themselves and were SUPER jealous

While most of us dream of traveling in private jets like celebrities, one couple is making superstars  and everyone else, for that matter  jealous after having an entire plane to themselves.

One couple got the experience of a lifetime, and now theres proof that dreams really do come true.

One really lucky couple was fortunate enough to experience an entire plane ride by themselves. Want a window seat? Take your pick. Need to go to the bathroom? Its all yours. Want to dance like nobodys watching? You better werk.

party

UK couple Kyle McNicol and Carrie Fisher were beyond thrilled when they realized they were the only people flying from Krabi, Thailand to Penang, Malaysia on their Firefly flight. Fisher recalled the unforgettable experience on her blog.

On arrival at Krabi airport we made our way to the check in desk and handed over our passports, we were shocked to hear, Oh very special flight for you today,' she wrote.

A photo posted by Kyle McNicol (@88_kmc_88) on Sep 2, 2016 at 1:42am PDT

She continued, The two guys checking our passports started laughing and saying, Oh, just you two? Turns out that we were about to board the flight and fly solo!

It would be a special flight, indeed  and Fisher captured it all on Instagram.

A video posted by Carrie Fisher (@carriefisher2) on Sep 3, 2016 at 12:03am PDT

As they made it to their plane with the propellors outside, one of the flight attendants gave them a brief security rundown and then the couple was free to choose their own seats.

NBC

The next hour and 10 minutes passed quickly, we spent the time seat hopping and McNicol has now added to his facial injuries by doing the slug, Fisher blogged.

She explained McNicols dance move is similar to the worm, and now were even more jealous of their amazing experience.

Story continues

It was one of the best flights Ive ever been on, and the staff though awkward at first, it was the first time this had happened to them too, were brilliant.

fox

Even though the couple got the celebrity treatment during their solo flight, they still had to wait for their bags like the rest of us normal people.

Feeling like VIPs, I was shocked that someone didnt collect our two lonely bags off the carousel for us. Kyles going to need some luck now that Ive had a taste for the good life, Fisher blogged.

A photo posted by Kyle McNicol (@88_kmc_88) on May 3, 2016 at 12:15am PDT

Like the popular saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Fisher told Mashable via Twitter that shes ready to fly with other passengers again.

To be honest, Im looking forward to a normal plane  things have been crazy since we first shared the video, she said.

The post This couple got a whole airplane to themselves and were SUPER jealous appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Igor Ilic

ZAGREB, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Croats choose a government for the second time in less than a year on Sunday, and polls predict a close outcome and another coalition that lacks a clear mandate to push through painful cuts and restructuring being urged by European authorities.

A Social Democrat-led four-party alliance stands to win about 60 of 151 seats in a fragmented parliament, while its conservative rival, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), should be a few seats behind, polls say.

That would leave them seeking support from the centre-right Most (Bridge) party, also the kingmaker after last November's elections, which wants to end the 20-year dominance of the big parties, which it accuses of clientelism and corruption.

The previous HDZ/Most coalition collapsed after just five months amid rows over political appointments, public administration reforms and a conflict of interest case.

Under former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, the SDP hopes to wrest control from the short-lived technocratic government, but the HDZ hopes a new leader, European Parliamentarian Andrej Plenkovic, can make up lost ground and renew the coalition.

Any government will face an enormous task in revitalising one of the European Union's weakest economies, where state enterprises still dominate and red tape discourages private investment.

Three years after joining, the country's record on drawing down European funds is poor, a waste of free money that points to glaring public admnistration shortcomings, contributing to macroeconomic imbalances seen as excessive by the European Commission.

Yet a government that may need the help of even smaller, populist parties to govern may have every incentive to shy away from pushing through reform measures.

"Most of our politicians are not really interested in the economy," said one economic official. "Now we have some growth and a lower budget deficit, there is a risk that reforms will remain tepid."

Parties offer few details on how to deliver promised higher standards of living for Croatia's 4.3 million people, where unemployment runs at 13 percent. All promise lower taxes to be financed by expected higher growth.

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With public debt at 85 percent of gross domestic product, Croatia is spending about 3.5 percent of GDP on interest payments alone. Growth is finally accelerating after six years of recession ended in 2014, but the 2.5 percent expected this year is not enough to raise living standards, analysts say.

"Our current growth potential is 1.5-2.5 percent, but we need at least 3.5-4.0 percent for new jobs and better living standards," said Raiffeisen analyst Zrinka Zivkovic Matijevic.

(Reporting by Igor Ilic, editing by Thomas Escritt and Angus MacSwan)
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions cost Cuba $4.6 billion last financial year, the government said on Friday, and called on U.S. President Barack Obama to do more to ease the pressure in the spirit of improved relations between the two countries. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez made the comments at the launch of an annual campaign for a United Nations resolution condemning the U.S. trade embargo put in place after Cuba's 1959 revolution, but which has softened a little under Obama. "The blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba persists," Rodriguez told reporters at a news conference. "The blockade is the main cause of the economy's problems and obstacle to development." Rodriguez said damages from April 2015 through March 2016 amounted to $4.6 billion and to $125.9 billion since the embargo's inception. This year's U.N. General Assembly vote, set for Oct. 26, will be the 25th time Cuba has marshaled international support against the embargo. Cuba usually wins overwhelming support for a resolution which is non-binding. Since Presidents Obama and Raul Castro stunned the world in December 2014 by announcing they would work to normalize relations, the Cold War foes have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, opened travel options and negotiated agreements on issues affecting the environment, law enforcement, the postal service and communications. Obama, who visited Cuba earlier this year, has also gradually poked holes in the embargo through executive orders. Rodriguez said the advances so far were positive but "limited and superficial" in the economic sphere. "President Obama reserves broad executive latitude that he can use up to his last minute in the White House," he said. More than 100 U.S. business delegations have visited Cuba since 2014 and around 300,000 Americans are expected to arrive this year under looser travel restrictions. U.S. telecommunications companies have signed roaming agreements, a Carnival cruise ship makes regular stops and a Havana hotel is under U.S. management. But many U.S. companies say the embargo makes business nearly impossible. Obama has insisted he opposes the embargo but can do little more because only the Republican-controlled Congress can lift it. Many experts beg to differ and are urging him to act before leaving office in January. "There are approximately 12 regulatory changes that the Obama administration can implement today which would have enormous impact upon opportunities for United States companies," John Kavulich, president of the N.Y.based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said. (Additional reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
If there's one thing that has the ability to put smiles on our faces instantly, it's an adorable baby animal.

Lucky for us, we live in an age where videos of cuddly creatures doing go viral: You can't log on to Facebook without catching a few seconds of cute.

But since that probably isn't enough, we're going to be sharing some newcomers to the baby animal scene. Who knowsyou may see them in your newsfeed sooner than you think.

Baby otter gets a new home at the Seattle Aquarium

This furry little friend's name is Rialto, which is the most adorable name you could give an otter.

Right now, Rialto is hanging out at the Seattle Aquarium, but you will eventually be able to see him at the Vancouver Aquarium. The pup was found on a beach in Washington when he was just a couple of weeks old, and spent some time in recovery before becoming healthy enough to prepare to move to his new home.

Rescued baby sea otter coming to Vancouver Aquarium https://t.co/ZXzefOwwmp pic.twitter.com/wAJcSn5XWj CBC News (@CBCNews) September 6, 2016

Baby monkey born at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo announced that they will be bringing a baby Goeldi monkey into the family.

CUTE ALERT-- Cheyenne Mountain Zoo takes in baby monkey https://t.co/WFJ4XzQ3HY pic.twitter.com/6Nwyxkrks8 Colorado Springs Now (@now_springs) September 7, 2016

The monkey's mother had issues grooming and feeding the baby, who was born August 12, which means zookeepers are providing extra assistance to make sure the newborn stays healthy and strong. The hope is that the entire family will be reunited in a few months.

Story continues

Giant panda twins born at the Zoo Atlanta

The hype around Giant Panda Lun Lun's pregnancy was hard to miss. On September 3, the mother gave birth to twins, causing the entire world to melt into a collective awwww. These were the sixth and seventh giant pandas to be born at the Atlanta zoo. While they may not have hit their peak cute levels yet, just give it a few weeks.

Zoo Atlanta's second set of panda twins was born today and I'm beyond happypic.twitter.com/nJeExtwK7d Hanna (@hanna_panda13) September 3, 2016

The twins have yet to be named.

This anteater at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Baby anteaters are a lot cuter than you'd think.

At the end of August, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo welcomed a baby anteater to their family, and a video they shared a week after it was born has gone viral.

The footage gives us a peek into how they gender the infant. It involves avocados, a fake mother, and a lot of adoring fans.

Erika Owen is the Senior Audience Engagement Editor at Travel + Leisure. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @erikaraeowen.

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Rotterdam (Netherlands) (AFP) - In the glitzy, glamorous world of high fashion, photographer Peter Lindbergh is a rarity. The clothes are almost an after-thought, and Vogue magazine once tossed a now iconic picture into the bin.

But this modest German, opening his first major international retrospective in Rotterdam, is the man credited with creating supermodels such as Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista.

It was his raw, black-and-white images of models gazing confidently, almost challengingly into the camera, their faces virtually bare of make-up, that overturned existing glossy notions of beauty and fashion.

"The way he photographed people goes beyond just the artificial surface that you see when you read a fashion magazine... I discovered the work of an artist," said curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot who has put together the exhibition "A Different Vision on Fashion Photography."

Opening on Saturday at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, the exhibition contains more than 220 of Lindbergh's pioneering photos, many culled from his previously unseen private archives.

It was a 1988 photo of a group of young women in white shirts shot on a beach of Malibu that was to launch all of their careers, and propel Lindbergh and his work to a new level.

But the then Vogue editor, who commissioned the shoot, was unhappy with the clean, natural look at a time in the 1980s when according to Loriot it was "all big make-up and big hair" and the picture was tossed aside.

It was Anna Wintour, on taking over the magazine's helm a few months later, who found the photo and promptly hired Lindbergh for her first cover shoot.

The group of new faces included Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Tatjana Patitz who all went on to become stars of the international catwalks.

Patitz, who has worked on numerous shoots with Lindbergh, told Friday's press launch that Lindbergh's work "was always about bringing you out... it was much more deconstructed and simple."

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African American Karen Alexander, who was also in the 1988 beach photo, said she had "no idea that that image would have the impact that it has had on our industry."

"At that time, there were very few black models, so for me, being in Vogue was a huge deal."

She was incredibly nervous, but Lindbergh had a way of communicating that "I had a right to be there, that I deserved to be there."

- What is beauty? -

Whereas other photographers would use a lot of makeup and clothes "that you can hide behind, Peter requires you to show up and be yourself. And that's a lot harder."

Alexander was among seven supermodels -- all wearing white shirts with little make-up in tribute to that famous photo -- who travelled to Rotterdam Friday for the launch of the exhibition, including Dutch star Lara Stone and US actress Milla Jovovich.

Being yourself "is the very definition of beauty," said Lindbergh at Friday's press launch.

Lindbergh, 71, gave Loriot full access to his meticulously kept files from more than four decades working as a photographer.

There were "incredible boxes full of treasures" containing about 500,000 images which Loriot spent one year whittling down to an initial 10,000, before paring them back again.

The exhibition unravels thematically rather than chronologically revealing the work of Lindbergh, who was born in western Poland in 1944 but moved with his family to Germany as a baby, ending up in the industrial town of Duisburg.

His grainy photographs, blown up large, often show the beauty and courage he saw reflected in city streets, bridges and stark steelworks around him -- as well as his interest in early German cinema.

Even today he conducts shoots in such gritty places as derelict warehouses.

Also on display are collections of coffee-stained notes and letters from stars such as Evangelista and fashion designer John Galliano, old film rolls, contact sheets and story boards and even discarded sandals, signed by one of his models.

The exhibition lasts until February 12, 2017, and will then travel to Munich where it will open in April.
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 10, 2016 / Dallas Fan Days - one of the best comics, sci-fi, horror, anime and gaming events in Texas - is set to return Oct. 14-16, 2016, at the Irving Convention Center. This fall's 3-day event is packed with exciting family-friendly activities, celebrity and comic guests costumed characters from television and movies, an artist alley and much more!

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of television's Batman and Robin, and the inclusion of Adam West and Burt Ward in our dynamic line-up, especially considering this will be their final Dallas appearance, makes Dallas Fan Days a can't miss event," said Andrew Moyes, show director for Dallas Fan Days. "We hope that the tens of thousands of guests have unforgettable experiences as we celebrate the worlds of comic, sci-fi, horror, anime and fantasy from television, movies and, of course, comic books and graphic novels."

While this may be their last appearance together in Dallas, it will please fans that the dynamic duo announced earlier this summer that they will be returning to Gotham City as the voices of Batman and Robin in the new animated film Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders by Warner Bros. Animation.

Other headliners at Dallas Fan Days include:

 Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter)

 Karl Urban (Xena: Warrior Princess)

 Elizabeth Henstridge (Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D)

 Brett Dalton (Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D)

 Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things)

 Scott Wilson (The Walking Dead)

 Michael Dorn (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

 TJ Thyne (Bones)

 Ian Ziering (Sharknado, Beverly Hills 90210)

 John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

 Mick Foley(WWE)

Comic Guests include:

Jim Calafiore, Ty Templeton, Sam de la Rosa, Ben Dunn, Steve Erwin, Scott Harben, Andrew Magnum, Danica Maguire, Jason Metcalf, Lawrence Reynolds, Marlin Shoop and Jamie Tyndall.

For the full list of appearances and family-friendly activities, tickets and other information, please visit www.dallascomiccon.com. Stay connected with the show for announcements and updates by registering for their newsletter, and following them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For vendor information, please click here. Those interested in volunteering can find more information here. Accredited media can request press passes by applying for accreditation at http://dallascomiccon.com/press/.

Story continues

Media Contact:

Dana Cobb

dana@trizcom.com

972.247.1369

Cell: 972.955.9747

Nikki Darling

nikki@trizcom.com

972.247.1369

Cell: 469.667.9371

SOURCE: Dallas Fan Days via Submit Press Release 123
The morning of my fourth day of third grade, my teacher read Betty MacDonalds Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle out loud to the class. At some point another adult came in and whispered something in the teachers ear. There had been an accident, they told us, at the World Trade Center, some 20 blocks from our school. Some kids parents might come pick them up early.

As it turned out, all kids parents did, sooner or later. My dad walked me home, and every store we passed along the way seemed to have a visible television replaying what Id seen happening down Sixth Avenue before we walked north. Two buildings to which, as an eight-year-old, Id given little thought, were burning down before our eyes. Everywhere, people stood clustered, looking upward. It was the terrorists, one said. The tourists, I heard. Of course. After all, until that day, they were the worst enemies I knew New York to have. I asked my dad if the bad guys would be arrested once the plane landed.

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* * *

Sometime that fall, I began reading Scholastics Dear America series. Each book in the series was a fictional diary of a fictional girl living through real historic events. On the front was a portrait of the girl and, below the title, an indicator of the event or era: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl, Belmont Plantation, Virginia, 1859. The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck, Long Island, New York, 1941. The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl, New York City, 1903. At the end of the diary, there would be a Historical Note providing further context and pictures and documents from the time and place in question, a history lesson in miniature.

The books that stand out most clearly in my memory are the ones where the girl witnesses some defining historical moment firsthandthe dropping of a bomb, or the arrival of the Nazis. I couldnt tell you if I read the Oregon Trail diary, but I know exactly where I was and how my heart raced when I read Amber Billowss Pearl Harbor entry (with a flashlight in my bunk bed on a class trip) or that Julie Weisss mother had killed herself after being harassed by Nazis in 1938 Vienna (in the backseat of my familys station wagon on the FDR Drive.)

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These diaries followed a similar arc: Their protagonists started out with basically good lives. Their frustrations were normal, adolescent ones. Their parents fought; they were waiting for their breasts to grow. And then one day, it happened: that defining moment. You, the reader, felt vividly scared to learn what the diarist had seen and heard and smelled, whom she might have lost. But unlike in real life, youd seen it coming since you picked the book, with its rough-edged pages and smooth place-marking ribbon, off the library shelf. The defining moment had already defined history. It was easier to encounter that sort of news in the middle of a book that was guaranteed to keep going than it was to sense that your own lifewhich didnt seem to have much to do with history at allmight have reached an inflection point, of sorts, in the middle of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.

Dear America was not my first foray into historical fiction, or even history. I loved the American Girl books and had dabbled in the old-school Childhood of Famous Americans biographies. But here was history in the first person. With Dear America, learning about history became almost a secondary concern. I read the books to learn about how girlsregular people, who might not have even known that their (fictional) lives had much to do with historylived through it. (Unlike Anne Frank, whose diary I would read for the first time several years later, the Dear America girls, as far as I can remember, survived.)

It was precisely Dear Americas devotion to the bit players that appealed to me.

That sentiment would surely have horrified those who, unbeknownst to me at the time, had spent the preceding decade battling my educators and their ilk on the history fields of the culture wars. As others have noted, the 36 books in the original Dear America series were published between 1996 and 2004, right after the fierce debate over the National History Standards. The books focus on the subjective lives of insignificant, imaginary figuresgirls!was exactly the sort of thing Lynne Cheney warned of in her polemic The End of History when she wrote, Imagine an outline for the teaching of American history in which George Washington makes only a fleeting appearance and is never described as our first president. To minimize the roles of Americas great men for the sake of political correctness, critics of the new standards charged, would be to forsake the cause of history itself.

But it was precisely Dear Americas devotion to the bit players that appealed to me. The intimacy of the diaries, and the implicit agency of their protagonists, who told their stories for themselves, meant more to me in those months after 9/11 than any traditional history texts would have. I remember feeling, at the time, that other kidskids who lived outside New York, or even uptown, for that mattercouldnt possibly get it. For them, I thought, 9/11 must have been a faraway event, abstractly but not viscerally unsettling, much like the textbook version of history. Dear America was, on some level, a comforting reminder that I was not the first, nor would I be the last, to live through history in the messy, unfolding present.

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I began keeping a journal of my own where, from time to time, I recorded both my mundane annoyances and my anxiety about the prospect of some other, unanticipated cataclysm. (One entry, from a weekend trip with my family outside the city: Should I not be worried since Im in the country?) In fourth grade, when we learned about immigration, I wrote my own (decidedly unimaginative) fictional letters from immigrant girls: I am right in front of the Statue of Liberty! I tore through the Dear America books and their male-centric counterparts, My Name Is America, and even read a few from the Royal Diaries series (in addition, of course, to the more PG-13 Princess Diaries). History, I now knew for certain, was everywhere.

Dear America showed me, with an unshakeable force, what history could be.

Only later, as a high-school student who still loved history (though less so history textbooks), did I put all the pieces of that realization together. I learned the names of the historians who had studied regular people, demanding that their lives be taken seriously; those who insisted that Famous Americans werent the only ones whose childhoods might serve an educational purpose for young readers. I read Cheneys The End of History and seethed at her logic. Without the efforts of those she lambasted, I understood, the books that quietly helped me make sense of the nonsensical world I found myself in might never have been written.

Dear America didnt spark my interest in history or even form the basis of my third-grade historical knowledge; but it showed me, forcefully, what history could be. It happens quickly, unplanned for. You can go to school on a Tuesday morning with the usual back-to-school butterflies and go to bed that night with a litany of new vocabulary words: terrorist, hijacking, rubble. The landscape of your childhood can change in a few minutes, and with it the significance of everyday acts. Very often, it takes a while to make sense, even to adults.

And, always, life goes on, inseparable from what may have happened. Exactly a year after 9/11, I used colored pencils to decorate my journal entry with pink hearts. Before school that day, a new cousin had been born. At first I was worried because it was 9/11, I wrote, but soon my exitedness [sic] took over.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
(Reuters) - The Democratic National Committee on Friday said it settled part of a federal lawsuit over the actions of Arizona poll officials during the presidential primary that caused voters long waits and critics said disenfranchised some, especially minorities. The suit, filed in April in U.S. District Court in Arizona, targeted the decision to sharply cut polling locations in Maricopa County, causing waits of up to five hours for those casting ballots during the March 22 primary. "This is a great victory for Arizonans, and for our democracy," Donna Brazile, interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. "We know that long lines depress turnout." Representatives for the Maricopa County Board of Directors, the Maricopa County Recorder's Office and the Secretary of State did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The election had been mired in controversy from the outset, with polling sites cut to 60, down from 200 in 2012, in a move that officials said was designed to cut costs. County officials were quick to take blame for the cuts, saying they misjudged voter turnout, based on recent history and increasing mail-in votes. Maricopa County miscalculated voter turnout and underestimated the number of vote centers needed for the March presidential primaries, the Democratic National Committee said in the statement. As part of the settlement, Maricopa County election officials agreed to consider the Democrats' recommendations on polling place queuing and the use of electronic management systems, a copy of the agreement showed. The Democratic nominating contest for the Nov. 8 presidential election was won by Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Both their campaigns joined the lawsuit. The settlement has no bearing on other elements of the lawsuit, such as a challenge to a law banning organizers from collecting mail-in ballots from a voter's home for delivery to polling locations. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
A couple days ago, Desiigner was arrested after an alleged road rage incident in which the rapper pointed a gun at another driver. Desiigner and the four passengers were arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance and possession of drugs with the intent to sell, both of which are felony charges.

Desiigner was also charged with criminal possession of a loaded weapon and menacing, but after police searched the vehicle and were unable to find a firearm, the gun charge has been dropped. The charge of possession of drugs with the intent to sell was also dropped due to lack of substantial evidence. He was arraigned this morning in a New York courtroom for felony possession of a controlled substance and menacing, and was then released as evidenced by the photo below.

HE'S FREE. [via @rapradar] A photo posted by COMPLEX (@complex) on Sep 10, 2016 at 9:24am PDT

He also posted the following video shortly after his release, in which he excitedly says, "I ain't need to fucking sell pills, we don't got to do that shit no more, baby!"

Sounds of @Lifeofdesiigner A video posted by Rap Radar (@rapradar) on Sep 10, 2016 at 9:13am PDT

TMZ caught up with the rapper immediately after his release, and Desiigner was in very positive spirits, saying, "They tried to keep me in there, you feel me? But when you do it right, you feel me, and keeping it positive, they can't lock you down."

Continue Reading On Complex
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump

Donald Trump is again under fire for warm comments he directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin, this time calling him a stronger leader than US President Barack Obama at a national-security forum this week.

"If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," the Republican nominee said.

"I've already said he is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country."

"You can say, 'Oh, isnt that a terrible thing,' I mean, the man has very strong control over his country," the Manhattan billionaire added. "Now it's a very different system, and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

While Trump's fascination and appreciation of Putin is nothing new, the latest round of comments made during NBC's Commander-in-Chief Forum on Wednesday has seen an increased defense from some in the GOP.

Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said it's "inarguable" that Putin has been "a stronger leader" in Russia than Obama's been in the US. Rep. Steve King of Iowa said he thought Putin was stronger than Obama because he saw Russian nationalism increase "substantially" and that Russians "are proud of being Russians today."

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt also joined the fray, insisting that although Putin is "an evil man" and Obama is "good" but "incompetent," Putin has served the national interest of Russia better, and "he's eating USA's lunch."

Other prominent conservatives delivered strong statements disavowing any positive thought from the Republican Party toward Putin, a subject that has remained in the headlines as Trump refuses to say a negative word about the autocratic Russian leader.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called Putin an "aggressor that does not share our interests" and who violates the "sovereignty of neighboring countries," while adding that it appears Putin's regime is involved in "cyberattacks on our political system," referencing the hacks on prominent Democratic organizations.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the "calculation from Trump unnerves me to my core," and although Putin has "walked all over Obama," Graham wouldn't agree that the Russian leader is better than the US president. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and once in the running to be Trump's running mate, expressed concern at the idea Trump welcomes compliments from Putin.

"You know, flattery can be used as a tool that sometimes bears very negative fruit," he said. "One has to be careful about letting flattery affect ones relationship with a person or a country."

But Trump's apparent approval of Putin has gone a long way with rank-and-file GOP voters, who, in 2012, had a presidential nominee in Mitt Romney that called Russia "our number-one geopolitical foe" after a hot mic picked up Obama telling Russia's then-President Dmitry Medvedev that he'd have "more flexibility" to discuss missile defense after the election.

According to a YouGov/Economist poll, Putin's net-favorability rating in July 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, was -54 among Democrats and -66 among Republicans.

A poll from the same outlets released in August 2016 showed that Putin's net-favorability rating among Democrats remained identical. But the Russian leader's rating among Republicans improved dramatically, from -66 to -27.

"Of all the damage Trump can do to the American conservative movement, making it pro-Putin rather than pro-freedom could be the most serious," Weekly Standard editor and "Never Trump" conservative Bill Kristol posted to Twitter.

putin obama

The comparison between Putin and Obama

Trump's contention that Putin is stronger than Obama can be interpreted in two ways: One, Putin has projected more strength on the world stage than Obama, which many Republicans and foreign-policy experts would likely agree with. The other is that Putin has tight control over his country, something that most would be hesitant to praise, considering the differing systems of government and the means by which Putin has done so on the backs of his countrymen.

In terms of his consolidation of governmental power, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider that he thinks Putin is the "singularly most powerful individual on the planet."

"I think that's true because he's consolidated so much more power, sort of delegitimized the opposition," he said.

Putin's been able to bring Russia's judiciary system under his control, while governors are now under Kremlin control, he added.

"Now there's no question that that's allowed Putin to project more force for Russia internationally," Bremmer said.

Bremmer argued that Putin has been able to improve Russia's political position in an "almost unimaginable" way since gaining power.

"There's no question that Russia has managed [to improve its international hand] by virtue of using its military might in Ukraine as well as in Syria and more broadly in the Middle East in ways that the Americans would not and that the Europeans would not," he said. "There's no question that Russia has shown itself as a more relevant actor and has gotten itself a larger seat at the table."

"They wouldn't have had a 90-minute meeting with Obama [at the G-20 summit]," he added. "Obama could say I'm not seeing [President Rodrigo] Duterte in the Philippines because of a mistranslation of an interview he gave to a journalist. Obama wouldn't be doing that to Putin right now."

But the country's military excursions in Crimea and Syria have been countered by a diminishing economy.

Bremmer said:

"[L]et's be clear, Russia is in decline. NATO has expanded. The European Union has enlarged. And most importantly, while NATO and the EU have become a little weaker, China is becoming much stronger. And much stronger and much faster than Russia is."

"China is investing overwhelmingly in all these countries around Russia, and they're developing much more influence than Russia has in Russia's own backyard. And this is going to be a very serious consequence, a very serious negative consequence to the Russians over the medium to long-term. No question when you look at the geopolitical map that Russia is one of these countries that over the long-term looks to be in terminal geopolitical decline, and Putin has facilitated that."

Although Putin's favorability ratings remain high, as Trump pointed out, it is not the best time to be a Russian living under Putin's government. In Trump's worldview, Bremmer said, it's "completely accurate" to say Putin is stronger than Obama.

"But in a worldview, would you care more about how your citizens feel about the future for themselves and for their nation, that they have common values, that they act as a community, that they look out for each other, that the leader engenders values that in turn make them better citizens?" Bremmer asked. "Clearly, Obama has not been the best, but he's clearly been vastly better than Putin."

And in terms of being stronger on the domestic stage, it's impossible to argue that Obama is "stronger" than Putin because the Russian president does not have any of the constraints and checks and balances put forth by the American system of government.

"If he wants to lock someone up, it's a lot easier," Bremmer said of Putin. "If he wants to go into a neighboring country, he can do it. It's much harder for the Americans. If you want to make a statement that is most authoritarian leaders are stronger than most American presidents in terms of what they can do, you can say that. That is objectively fact."

"Putin would be unequivocally a stronger leader than Hillary [Clinton] or Trump would be, by that definition," he added.

Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist and president of the Potomac Strategy Group, agreed with Bremmer's sentiment, calling an Obama to Putin comparison on domestic politics "apples to oranges."

"How do you define strong leadership?" he rhetorically asked in an interview with Business Insider. "Was Hitler a strong leader? What're we trying to say here?"

"You want to say that Putin exudes strength and with terrible tactics, rules with an iron fist in his country, and that compares very differently to Obama, who in many ways has been a weak president," he continued.

A result of Putin's displays of strength that Trump appeared to praise is that he's become more negatively viewed by not just the US, but by "all the western powers and by all the developed nations," Mackowiak argued.

The GOP strategist added that if Trump were elected and tried "1/20th" of what Putin's done in Russia, the Manhattan billionaire would "be impeached."

"And I have no doubt about that," he said. "I think it'd be a unifying moment for the country."

Donald Trump

What the stance on Putin from Trump means for the GOP

Trump's position on Putin and on Russia could not be further removed from the GOP's stance toward the nation in recent years.

But, with the Republican nominee now differing in his outlook toward Russia, the party is no longer virtually unified in opposition to Putin.

"What's really sad here is there was damn near unanimity among Republican Party elected officials and foreign-policy community and national-security community on the threat and opinion on Putin and what he's doing," Mackowiak said. "Not everyone maybe wants to give lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, not everyone wants to institute a no-fly zone in Syria. There has been damn near unanimity in the opinion on Putin."

He said that, with "Trump derangement syndrome" growing in the party, he estimates a full 25% of Republicans are now "twisting themselves into a pretzel" to defend Trump saying Putin is stronger in Russia than Obama is in the US. Referencing Pence's recent comments, Mackowiak said there was "no way in hell" the governor would've made his "inarguable" statement six months ago.

"Look, Obama deserves a hell of a lot of criticism, I think he's done a hell of a lot of damage," he said. "But not every criticism needs to be taken to the fullest extent. Some comparisons just aren't reasonable. There is no comparison between Putin and Obama. There just isn't."

Tom Nichols, a professor at the US Naval War College and senior contributor at The Federalist, expressed dismay with how his fellow conservatives are "mortgaging their principles in order to keep up with Trump's increasingly bizarre statements."

"I just have a hard time that these folks are doing anything but tying to compensate, they're trying to keep up with Trump which is almost impossible," he told Business Insider. "I think conservatives have always expected a lot more from other people including [former New York City mayor and top Trump surrogate Rudy] Giuliani and Hewitt. I think no one really expects a deep understanding of geopolitics from Trump."

He referenced the earlier poll, where Putin's negatives with Republicans were cut by a dramatic amount, as proof that the rank and file is taking its queues from the party's nominee.

Nichols called Trump's comparison between Putin and Obama "completely outside the bounds of normal American political discourse."

"I mean that is just bizarre and it's the kind of, it's the kind of thing Trump says and he ends up saddling his supporters with a comment like that and they have to figure out how to make it less toxic," he said. "I'm a conservative. I've been highly critical of Obama's foreign policy for eight years. Comparing the president of the United States to a Russian dictator is just something you don't do. It's un-American."

"And again, people like Hugh Hewitt know better," he continued. "It's bad enough when Trump says it, but when Hugh Hewitt piles in behind him, Hewitt knows the difference between dictatorial control and democratic leadership. But like so many other people, he's boxed in by the nominee."

Donald Trump

The most 'interesting' part

Trump's warmth toward Putin says a lot more than that the GOP nominee simply thinks Obama has been a weakling.

"What's more interesting is that this man is campaigning for the presidency of the United States, and that Putin, who is clearly a leader that wants America to be weaker, he has written in The New York Times that there is nothing exceptional about the United States," Bremmer said. "And Putin himself has praised Trump as a genius, a brilliant guy, but I think there's a reason why."

He added: "The fact that Trump believes that it's a good thing to be sort of closer to Putin than just about any other world leader should raise some significant questions and concerns about what kind of president he would be if elected."

NOW WATCH: Watch Donald Trump claim that Hillary Clinton could get away with murder





More From Business Insider


The latest move in the ongoing battle between Kesha and Dr. Luke has been made by the producer and his legal team. For the second time since 2014, they've filed a defamation lawsuit against the musician's mother, Pepe Sebert, this time citing social media posts and an interview she gave to Billboard this March.

According to court documents, Dr. Luke (born Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald) sued Sebert for libel in Middle Tennessee Federal Court on Sept. 7. This follows a similar suit in Oct. 2014, in which Kesha's former producer accused Sebert of defaming him with accusations he drugged and sexually abused her daughter. This lawsuit was filed in New York and Tennessee; the New York claim was thrown out this February, but the Tennessee claim remains.

Dr. Luke's lawyer Christine Lepera tells Billboard:

After we originally filed suit against Pebe Sebert, she continued to make outrageous, false and defamatory statements against Dr. Luke in her widespread media campaign to damage him and smear his name Pebe Sebert's lawyers flat out refused to allow us to add those statements to the existing case or to toll the statute of limitations on them -- so we've been compelled to file an additional action.

Dr. Luke's new suit cites a a 2011 deposition for an unrelated case, in which she allegedly said he never abused her. In the March 2016 interview he calls out, Sebert told Billboard, "I wanted Kesha to come forward a long time ago and end this relationship with Dr. Luke immediately after the [alleged] rape. But if she wanted to have a shot at the music business, she had no choice but [to work with him]."

Kesha's Relationship With Dr. Luke: A Timeline

Alex Little, a lawyer for Pebe Sebert who also represents Kesha, issued the following statement to Pitchfork:

This marks Dr. Luke's second effort to sue a mother for publicly supporting and believing her daughter about being raped. It's also a transparent attempt to delay the trial of these issues. Mrs. Sebert looks forward to presenting her case to a jury as soon as possible. When the evidence is made public, she expects the jury will conclude that all of her statements have been justified.

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Dr. Luke also sued Kesha herself in Oct. 2014, and in this week's filing, his lawyers argued that suit should proceed before this one against her mother. Conversely, Sebert's lawyers maintained there was no reason to continue to delay.

Kesha Denied Injunction Bid in Dispute With Dr. Luke

Dr. Luke's proceedings against Kesha and her mother came after Kesha first sued him for rape and other abuse in California. She recently dropped that suit, but is still pursuing one she filed in New York even though most of her claims were dismissed and the judge ruled she was not allowed to seek a label outside of Dr. Luke's Sony imprint, Kemosabe Records.

Billboard's request for comment from a representative for Kesha and Pebe Sebert was not immediately returned.
Dubai (AFP) - Civil aviation authorities in the Emirates have banned the use of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 on all its national carriers because of the risk of batteries exploding in the "phablet" smartphone.

"The General Civil Aviation Authority has banned operating, charging and carrying in bags the Samsung Note 7 on board national carriers' flights," it said in a statement carried by the official WAM news agency on Saturday.

Samsung last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.

Since then, airlines or air safety agencies around the world have warned passengers against using them on flights.

On Friday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged Note 7 owners to stop using it.

Dubai's Emirates Airline, the largest Middle East carrier, said it will comply "immediately" with the instruction from civil aviation.

"This measure is to avoid the possibility of these devices' batteries causing fires," it said.

Another carrier in the United Arab Emirates, Etihad Airways, has already temporarily banned the use of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on board its flights, and the UAE also has two low-cost airlines, flydubai and Air Arabia.

Singapore Airlines, Australia's Qantas, and Virgin Australia have announced similar bans.

US and Japanese aviation authorities have urged passengers not to turn on or charge the large-screen phones on aircraft, while the US Federal Aviation Administration has told passengers not to stow the device in checked baggage.
Bratislava (AFP) - Budget-squeezed EU countries will ask Brussels for a share of the billions in Irish back taxes ordered from Apple, officials said on Saturday, bringing further problems to the tech giant after the lacklustre launch of the iPhone 7.

The European Commission, the EU's powerful competition regulator, last month ordered Apple to reimburse a record 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in unpaid taxes in Ireland.

As part of its historic decision, which angered Washington, the Commission said other EU countries could also claim a slice of the money pot, though doubts on the legality of the claims remain.

Heavily-indebted Spain, which is under threat of an EU fine for breaking spending rules, said it was urgent to know how much Apple may have denied Spanish taxpayers.

"We are making a huge effort to reduce our public deficit, it is essential that this revenue not get lost," Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on the sidelines of two days of talks with his EU counterparts.

"If it's legally accurate, you can be sure that as minister of finance I will take it," Austria's Hans Joerg Schelling said at the meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia.

"We Austrians are looking at it intensively," Schelling said, adding that other member states -- including Italy -- were also considering a payout demand.

In its landmark decision on August 31, the Commission argued that Dublin handed Apple favourable tax terms that amounted to state aid -- illegal under its rules.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager called Apple's operations in Ireland a "sham", designed to funnel revenue from across the globe to avoid paying tax.

"Of course we are examining it," said Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble, the EU's most powerful finance minister after two days of talks with his bloc counterparts.

But Schaeuble, like many ministers, said much would depend on what the EU's still-sealed decision actually contained, adding that he would ask the Commission to clarify the issue at talks next month.

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- 'No longer' -

The European Commission said a tax deal with Ireland allowed Apple paid an effective corporate tax rate of just 0.005 per cent on its European profits in 2014 -- equivalent to just 50 euros for every million.

That low rate "brought home the enormity of the problem and the enormity of the challenge that it doesnt happen again," said OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria, who has led a global campaign to reform tax laws.

But Gurria, who attended the talks, said "you could not replicate this in Ireland or anywhere else because these types of constructions are no longer" after a wave of reforms championed by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Gurria said that the Commission had clearly opened the door to sharing the tax pot to all countries, including the United States.

But any big pay day is still a long way off, with both Apple and Ireland committed to appealing the decision which launches an EU court battle that could take years.

The brewing court battle comes just days after Apple's unveiling of a new iPhone failed to ignite the usual investor enthusiasm.

The iPhone7, which comes without a headphone jack, sent the company's shares falling late in the week to a still market-topping value of $572 billion.
Thessaloniki (Greece) (AFP) - The European Commission announced 115 million euros in extra funding Saturday to help Greece deal with migrants, a day after a damning report into conditions migrants face.

The new EU money aims "to improve conditions for refugees in Greece, and make a difference ahead of the upcoming winter," said EU aid and crisis management commissioner Christos Stylianides.

The extra funding will focus on improving existing shelters, building new ones but also on helping refugees get access to schooling and providing for unaccompanied minors.

The EU announcement came after Human Rights Watch published a report Friday slamming the "prolonged arbitrary detention" of child asylum seekers in Greece.

"In some cases, children said they were made to live and sleep in overcrowded, filthy, bug- and vermin-infested cells, sometimes without mattresses, and were deprived of appropriate sanitation, hygiene, and privacy," the HRW report said.

More than 850,000 people -- most fleeing conflict in war-ravaged Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- arrived on the Greek islands last year, many after risking their lives in unseaworthy boats and dinghies.

Southern EU leaders on Friday called for revised asylum rules to fight the ongoing migration crisis.

A joint declaration signed by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta and host Greece said the European Union should double funding for strategic investment and for additional European experts to help front-line states tackle migration.
Ewan McGregor presents American Pastoral, his directorial debut at the International film festival in Toronto, in which he also stars as the main character. The story follows a tormented family after a daughter starts violent militant actions to protest against the war in Vietnam.
By Dan Freed NEW YORK (Reuters) - Multinational financial companies met on Friday with U.S. and Cuban officials to discuss making financial transactions between the two countries easier but reported no concrete signs of progress. Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Central Bank of Cuba First Vice President Irma Martinez Castrillon said global financial institutions are afraid of facing U.S. sanctions for allowing money to move through Cuba. She said the financial sector has lagged other industries in embracing the thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba. "In terms of policy and diplomacy, there has been great progress but in the financial sector there is a great deal of fear," she said. The luncheon, which was open to the press, followed a private "workshop" where the U.S. executives asked questions of U.S. and Cuban officials. Representatives from General Electric Co , Credit Suisse Group AG , Western Union Co and Visa Inc were among the roughly 100 people in attendance at the luncheon. "We frankly still see hesitance on the part of U.S. international banks" in processing financial transactions, said Mark Feierstein, a senior White House official who spoke at the lunch. Martinez Castrillon said there were more companies in attendance at Friday's workshop than a similar one held recently in Cuba. U.S. President Barack Obama loosened financial services restrictions with Cuba earlier this year, shortly before his historic visit to the island. But banks have been slow on the uptake, burned by past sanctions for breaking the embargo. In October 2015, for example, U.S. regulators slapped Credit Agricole with a $787 million fine for violating sanctions against several countries including Cuba. Only one bank, Stonegate, has so far issued U.S. credit cards that can be used in Cuba, so most American travelers bring wads of cash when they visit. Companies complain they cannot get credit to do business with Cuba. Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who has been leading efforts by the Chamber of Commerce to promote U.S.-Cuban business relations, cited "clarification" and "relationship-building," as Friday's major accomplishments. (Reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
By Andrei Makhovsky MINSK (Reuters) - Lawmakers loyal to hardline Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko look set to retain power in an election on Sunday, but the easing of restrictions on opposition candidates could help the ex-Soviet nation further improve ties with the West. The opposition, which has not been represented in the 110-seat parliament since 1996, is not expected to win any seats, but in a concession to Western calls for greater transparency its contenders have been able to register more easily. External monitors will also be given access to the vote count. Relations between Minsk and the West have warmed since recession-hit Belarus held a peaceful presidential election last October. The release of political prisoners and Lukashenko's role in hosting Ukraine-Russia peace talks also eased international criticism of the veteran leader, who the United States once said ran Europe's last dictatorship. The European Union ended five years of sanctions against Belarus in February, while the United States has relaxed some of its restrictions on Minsk and said the authorities' handling of Sunday's vote will factor into an upcoming sanctions review. "For the Belarussian authorities, this election is more an issue of foreign than domestic policy," said Denis Melyantsov, senior analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies. "I think we'll get an absolutely sterile parliament, made up of carefully selected lawmakers," he added. Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has kept the country in a close strategic alliance with Moscow. However, some cracks appeared in the relationship following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, since when Minsk has made overtures to the West. An economic crisis in Russia linked to falling energy prices and sanctions has hit neighboring former Soviet countries including Belarus, where the economy shrank 3.9 percent in 2015. DEMOCRATIC CHANGE Opposition groups are not planning a mass boycott or protests like those held over previous elections. Instead they have decided to take part in the hope of boosting their support. "The voice can be stolen, but the support we receive cannot be taken away," the head of opposition group 'Tell the Truth', Andrei Dmitriev, told Reuters. The West has pushed for democratic change in Belarus but has been shifting its approach to engage rather than isolate, as well as to counter what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring Sunday's vote, will present a report on its findings on Monday. The easing of Western sanctions is necessary for Belarus's plans to improve trade and commercial ties with the EU and lessen its dependence on the crisis-hit Russian market, which currently accounts for 40 percent of Belarussian exports. Seeking loans from international lenders, including $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund, Belarus has implemented cautious economic reforms such as raising the retirement age and relaxing foreign currency rules. (Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Matthias Williams and Helen Popper)
Oslo (AFP) - Facebook had restored by Saturday a post by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg which it had taken down over an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing.

The world's leading social network backtracked Friday on a decision to censor the historic image because it had been flagged for violating standards regarding inappropriate posts.

An active social media user, Solberg defied Facebook early Friday by posting the photograph, helping to bring the weeks-long controversy to a head.

But it was deleted a few hours later by Facebook, in what is believed to be a first such online censorship involving a government leader.

By Saturday morning the post was restored on the Norwegian premier's Facebook page.

The online giant stopped short of apologising, saying: "An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography.

"In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time," it added.

Taken by photographer Nick Ut Cong Huynh for the Associated Press, the 1972 picture of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack is considered one of the war's defining images. It was honoured with the Pulitzer Prize.

After Facebook reversed its position on the image, Solberg told the BBC she was a "happy prime minister," saying: "It shows that using social media can make (a) political change even in social media."
TORONTO (Reuters) - Chinese actress Fan Bingbing dazzled fans on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival when she debuted her new film "I Am Not Madame Bovary," a comedy about a woman seeking revenge against her ex-husband. The film, by famed Chinese director Feng Xiaogang, follows a couple who decide to fake a divorce as a ploy to obtain property. Their plans go awry when Fan's character discovers her husband has moved into their new apartment with another woman, spurring her on a years-long mission to get the fake divorce annulled, so that she can remarry her husband and get a divorce for real. Fan said she hoped the film's title, taken from 19th century author Gustave Flaubert's novel "Madame Bovary" about an adulterous woman who embarks on affairs to escape her mundane country life, would help draw audiences in. "Because [Madame Bovary] is so iconic, I think it's a really interesting character that audiences know immediately," Fan told Reuters. "I want audiences to appreciate the title when they see the film later." Actor Guo Tao said that while the film was very Chinese, he hoped the story would also resonate with a global audience. "I believe it's a movie's duty to spread culture, and I believe there are many deeply rooted layers of culture in this Chinese movie," he said. (Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Andrew Hay)
The New York Fire Department held a memorial service at St. Patricks Cathedral on Saturday, September 10, to mark the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. As part of the ceremony, 343 American flags were brought into the church. Each flag represents one of the firefighters who died on September 11, 2001.

At the end of the ceremony, the flags were brought out of St. Patricks Cathedral for a procession down 5th Avenue in front of the church. A part of the procession can be seen in this video. Credit: Facebook/FDNY
Washington (AFP) - The 9/11 attacks of 2001 forever changed America and upended its foreign and national security policy, leaving the country for the past 15 years in a war against jihadists -- without ending the upheaval in the Middle East.

Barack Obama, who will leave the White House in January, is the president who tried to get the US military out of the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan -- devastating "war on terror" conflicts launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in the wake of the suicide plane strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But Obama's legacy on that front is mixed, with US forces still present in both countries.

And while he worked hard to bring America closer to the Muslim world, he will leave office with the United States bogged down in a seemingly endless conflict against Islamists at home and abroad, experts say.

"The evolving threat of Islamist terrorism compelled President Obama, against his own inclinations, to engage militarily in Iraq once again, and since then in Syria and Libya as well," said Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"The wars in the Middle East, the metastasis of ISIS, online radicalization and a series of attacks in European and American cities have made the paradigm of a 'global war on terror' very hard to set aside, even 15 years after 9/11," she wrote on the World Economic Forum website.

The US is also still engaged militarily, in limited form or on a purely logistical basis, in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen to counter myriad threats.

"The thinking of the Obama administration is that big wars make things worse," Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told AFP.

So instead, Obama launched a new era in American warfare -- one dominated by drones, special forces and training for local fighters.

The human and financial costs of such engagements are more limited -- a significant fact, after the 5,300 US military personnel killed, 50,000 wounded and $1.6 trillion spent from 2001-2014 in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional data.

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Obama's strategy had its best success in May 2011, when US special forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Obama bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, at his home in Pakistan.

But for Ibish, such a use of "limited resources... looks like a continuous war."

"It is even more than a permanent war because the limited resources cannot change the instability. It accepts the current chaos as being unsolvable," he added.

- Evolving threats -

In Syria, a lasting peace is still not at hand, though a fresh truce brokered by the United States and Russia -- both now involved militarily in the deadly conflict -- is due to begin Monday.

And a US military re-engagement in the Middle East is not in the plans of either of the candidates looking to succeed Obama -- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Fifteen years after the Twin Towers fell, forever changing New York's skyline, Obama said the terror threat facing America had "evolved," referring to lone-wolf attacks in the United States like the nightclub massacre in Orlando in June.

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIL. We will destroy them. And we'll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," he said Saturday in his weekly address.

- Mass surveillance -

As Amy Greene -- an American researcher at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences-Po) -- pointed out, "there has not been an attack on US soil of the same scale" as the carefully planned 2001 attacks.

Of course, Washington still fears more small-scale attacks carried out by homegrown attackers, like the Orlando shooting that left 49 people dead or the San Bernardino attacks last December that left 14 dead.

Faced with ongoing threats, the United States has built up a massive surveillance apparatus in the post-9/11 era both at home and abroad.

The budget for the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency has nearly doubled since 2001.

"The threat that I think will dominate the next five years for the FBI will be the impact of the crushing of the caliphate, which will happen," Comey said this past week, referring to the Islamic State group.

Since the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11, legislation maintained by Obama, "Americans have accepted the idea of giving up some of their freedoms," Greene said.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of Americans fear that "the ability of terrorists to launch another major attack on the United States is greater than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks."

That is the highest share expressing that fear since 2002.

On Saturday, the US State Department warned in its regular "worldwide caution" note to travelers on terror risks that the IS group had "called on supporters to attack US citizens and coalition partners wherever they are."
New York (AFP) - New York marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks more resilient, wealthier and more diverse than ever, yet that terrible day is forever seared into its DNA.

The Al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001 -- the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries -- ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York's financial wealth and confidence. The remains of only 1,640 people have been identified.

Nearly 75,000 others live with mental and physical illnesses as a result of the attacks, many of them emergency workers who breathed in cancerous toxins as they valiantly tried to save lives.

In the last 15 years, New York has sought to craft a balance between remembering the victims and the carnage, and doing what it does best: endless regenerating, rebuilding and looking toward the future.

Downtown Manhattan is today one of the most fashionable parts of New York, packed with luxury hotels, boutiques and smart restaurants.

The World Trade Center site has been totally rebuilt, home to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the world's most expensive train station, a performing arts center and offices.

"People come to this site from all over the world. It is something that now is a symbol to people around the world of resilience," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The jewel in its crown is World Trade Center One, or Freedom Tower, which at 1,776 feet (the year of US independence), or 541 meters, is the tallest building in the Western hemisphere, its lights visible for miles.

- Teaching history -

Its observatory affords stunning views to rival the Empire State Building and the Oculus transport hub is an architectural marvel -- a $4 billion glass and steel oval designed by Santiago Calatrava.

In the 15 months since it opened, the neighboring 9/11 museum has welcomed nearly seven million visitors.

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Tourists from across the planet and those mourning loved ones place roses in the grooves of the names inscribed around two reflecting pools in the footprint of the collapsed North and South Tower.

As the years advance, the Museum says it is focused on teaching 9/11 to students born after 2001 who already see the attacks as history.

"To have the tools as literate adults in this very complicated world, I believe that this place provides a kind of foundation for understanding that world," explained director Alice Greenwald.

"Everybody who comes to New York -- it's like you have to stop here," agreed Vincenzo Nardone, an Italian-American who has lived in New York 47 years and lost a friend in the Twin Towers.

He toured the museum "crying like crazy" but said the aftermath of the tragedy made the city friendlier and more accepting.

But New York remains on edge. Stringent security checks are routine. New Yorkers are taught to speak up if they see anything suspicious.

The city police department -- already the richest and best equipped in the country -- last year announced it was boosting numbers by an extra 1,300 officers in part to strengthen counterterrorism efforts.

- On guard -

Elected officials speak constantly of making sure attacks never happen again, claiming to have thwarted 20 apparent terror plots.

"I think everyone's a little more on guard," said Hal Shane, 68, a retired Broadway performer who lives uptown and who visited the memorial for the first time this week.

It is the same all over the world, especially in Europe, he said.

"I feel like the guy in Marseille has as much as a problem as I do right now, so we're like a victim family, we now become attached to all those other places that have suffered the same horror," said Shane.

The polarizing presidential election, between two New Yorkers: billionaire Republican businessman Donald Trump and former state senator Hillary Clinton, is doing little to calm city dwellers' nerves.

But the prospect of the attacks receding into history worries those New Yorkers for whom it is still such a big part of daily life.

"What I'm really scared about is that 9/11 is becoming a footnote," said Scott Matty, 62, who suffers from blood cancer.

Doctors have linked his illness to him returning to work in lower Manhattan just days after the attacks, when the air was still thick with dust from cancer-causing substances.

"9/11 did not end," Matty told AFP. "People are getting sick today, people are dying today because of what happened."
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and David Brunnstrom AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States and Russia reached a breakthrough deal early on Saturday to try to restore peace in Syria, but air strikes hours later on a busy market place that killed and injured dozens added to rebels' doubts that any ceasefire could hold. The agreement, by the powers that back opposing sides in the five-year-old war, promises a nationwide truce from sundown on Monday, improved access for humanitarian aid and joint military targeting of hardline Islamist groups. But hours after it was agreed, warplanes bombed a marketplace in rebel-held Idlib in northwestern Syria, killing at least 58 civilians, many children and women, according to rescue workers and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Locals said they believed the jets to be Russian. Videos of footage on social media showed rescuers carrying the corpses of a charred child and other victims as other civil defense workers pulled mangled bodies from beneath rubble. "The market was full of shoppers going to buy presents for their kids, they were all civilians," said Salem Idlibi, a civil defense worker saying the market was unusually busy ahead of a major Muslim feast on Monday. Idlib province has endured escalating strikes by Russian planes in recent months, according to international aid workers and residents, destroying scores of hospitals, bakeries and other infrastructure across rebel-held territory. Aleppo was also hit from the air and fighting continued on the ground on Saturday. The army attacked rebel-held areas, both sides said, pushing to maximize gains before the ceasefire deadline. Thirty people were killed by barrel bombs dropped by army helicopters on the besieged rebel-held east of the city, and jets, either Syrian or Russian, bombed rebel-held towns along important insurgent supply routes. Insurgents said they were planning a counter-offensive. "The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo," rebel spokesman Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak said. Razak, of the Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which is backed by the West, said they were studying the peace deal but feared it merely gave the Syrian army a chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into Aleppo. APPROVAL President Bashar al Assad's government made no comment on the peace deal, but Syrian state media quoted what it called private sources as saying the government had given its approval. Syria's mainstream political opposition, the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said it had not received a copy of the deal and would only react after consulting members. A spokeswoman had earlier welcomed any deal that spared civilian lives but cast doubt on whether Moscow would be able to pressure Damascus to stop indiscriminate bombing. In a sign of the multi-sided conflict, Israeli aircraft attacked a Syrian artillery post near the occupied Golan Heights on Saturday. The Israeli military said it was retaliation for a shell fired from Syria that had landed inside the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Syrian state television accused Israel of seeking to help an offensive by hardline Islamist rebels. A number of Islamist and FSA brigades earlier announced they had launched a battle in the province of Quneitra, which borders the Golan region, with the aim of opening a rebel corridor to the western suburbs of Damascus. 'HALTING ALL ATTACKS' U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on all sides to respect the deal, which was finally reached after several failed attempts over recent weeks. "This requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments, and any attempts to gain additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation. It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and hard-to-reach areas including Aleppo," he said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would enable coordination of the fight against terrorism and a revival of Syria's failed truce. Both sides agreed not to release the documents publicly. "This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time," Lavrov said. Previous peace efforts have crumbled within weeks, with the United States accusing Assad's forces of attacking opposition groups and civilians. NUSRA QUESTION Kerry said the "bedrock" of the new deal was an agreement that the Syrian government would not fly combat missions in an agreed area on the pretext of hunting fighters from the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria which has recently changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Under the new deal, both sides - Russian-backed government forces and rebel groups supported by the U.S. and Gulf states - are to halt fighting as a confidence-building measure. Cooperation with Fateh al-Sham could bring "dire consequences" for Syria's mainstream rebel groups once the proposed deal comes into effect, Washington's envoy to Syria said on Saturday. In a letter to armed opposition groups seen by Reuters, Michael Ratney urged them to abide by the U.S.-Russian deal, saying it gave them the right of self-defense against attacks by the Syrian army and Russia. He said the deal would end aerial bombardment by Russia and the Syrian air force of their positions and of civilians living in areas they control. If the truce holds from Monday, Russia and the United States will begin seven days of preparatory work to set up a "joint implementation center", where they will share information to distinguish territory controlled by Nusra from that held by other rebel groups. For many FSA rebels, the idea of a clear separation from Nusra is problematic because on several fronts they fight together against the army and allied Iranian-backed militias. Fateh al-Sham has also played a major role in trying to end the siege of eastern Aleppo which many rebels say has boosted its popularity, and discussions are ongoing to possibly unify ranks under a broader opposition army. "Fateh al-Sham is a faction present on the ground and it takes part in most of the military operations, and the matter of separating it is not possible, particularly given that there are attempts to merge, within some factions, with Fateh al-Sham," Fares al-Bayoush, head of an FSA group called the Northern Division, told Reuters. (Additonal reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Mary Milliken)
There might have been some fuzzy math in Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs Saturday morning conversation with Toronto festival artistic director Cameron Bailey. Asked by how much she planned to grow the number of women and diverse ethnic groups under the Academys much-discussed A2020 initiative, Boone Isaacs said she hoped to increase inclusion by 50 percent. Back in January, an academy statement said it would commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members by 2020an increase of 100 percent.

Either way, its a target, not a quota, and Boone Isaacs made crystal clear what her goal is: More. Were asking everybody to look further right now in every single way, she said, as Bailey, a strong advocate for diversity in the Toronto slate, probed for details of the academys inclusion push.

At the Boone Isaacs Moguls series talk, there was no discussion of audience erosion, digital pipelines, technical revolution, Oscar show ratings or the academy museum. Instead, identity politics was Topic A, B and C, with a slight bow toward internationalism.

Bailey archly suggested that China, with a giant movie industry all its own, might be stealing Hollywoods energy. Well see, well see, said Boone Isaacs, a seasoned film marketer who still sees Los Angeles as the center of the movie world. The heart and soul of the movie business is in Hollywood, Calif., she insisted, raising eyebrows and some titters in the Toronto crowd, which gathers from around the world.

In a perhaps telling aside, Boone Isaacs explained away criticism of the diversity push with an anecdote about her son, who, when young, got angry if she moved things around in his room. He didnt like change, explained Boone Isaacsthough it seems possible that he actually didnt mind change so much as having Mom impose it.

Another telling moment came when Bailey asked Boone Isaacs who her best allies had been in the diversity campaign. Well, certainly the board, she said, referring to the Academys board of governors. Unmentioned was the Academys paid chief executive, Dawn Hudson, who is equally committed to inclusion, but has had occasional moments of friction with Boone Isaacs.

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Possibly the sessions most fascinating observation was embedded in an introduction by Kathleen Drum, the Toronto festivals industry director. Drum noted that Bailey and those who share his views believe that films should tell stories that reflect who the audience really are. That can sound like a platitude. But in fact, it marks a powerful trend in contemporary film, which increasingly aims to mirror the audienceas Nate Parkers ostensibly historical The Birth Of A Nation reflects contemporary racial viewsrather than to take it where its never been, as did, perhaps, David Leans Lawrence of Arabia. Great movies, of course, always do some of both. But the pendulum has swung toward reflection and demographic inclusion.

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Online Platform Offers Flexibility and Speed

DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 10, 2016 / Dillon Gage Metals, an international precious metals wholesaler, reports that their online trading platform has been optimized to further enhance the customer experience. FizTrade, which is shorthand for "physical trading" is upping its game for its network of dealers, already praising it as the best full-service platform of its kind.

After interviewing active users and analyzing usage trends on the platform, FizTrade was redesigned to further improve the clients' needs while enhancing the user experience. Immediately visible to users is the ability to buy and sell metals, track orders, obtain account notifications, product specials and view all analytics. In redesigning FizTrade, Dillon Gage recognized that their clients' time is valuable. By transferring the most frequently used elements of FizTrade to the main dashboard, their clients benefit.

"Members of our authorized dealer network are reporting that use of the improved FizTrade platform makes their trading operations much more efficient, accountable and risk-averse," stated Terry Hanlon, president of Dillon Gage Metals. "When we designed FizTrade, we wanted to incorporate leading-edge technology that would streamline all aspects of trading physical metals for our clients. We're quite pleased that it's paying off."

FizTrade was originally designed to service precious metals dealers and institutional clients. Users gain immediate access to a free FizTrade account when they acquire an active Dillon Gage trading account. Over the past decade, Dillon Gage has kept the service at the forefront of online applications by continually refining its accessibility and abilities.

FizTrade is accessible on a desktop and/or mobile app platforms. Specific tools in the platform allow clients to access the precious metals marketplace and manage their trading activities in a user-friendly manner. Online dashboards connect users to 24-hour trading options, with real-time bid/ask pricing for precious metals, price alerts, order history and management of the fulfillment process.

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Jon Swyers, the trading department manager at Asset Strategies International, is a FizTrade client. "By my best estimate, I'm probably saving up to 10 hours a week thanks to the automation and flexibility that FizTrade provides. Automated alerts allow us to note price and premium changes on the spot, which in turn positively affects our pricing model and profit margin."

FizTrade is also the engine that powers resources for use in store-front operations such as "Spots in a Box," real-time pricing and product display and point-of-sale capabilities.

For more information, please visit www.fiztrade.com or call (800) 375-4653.

About Dillon Gage Metals

Dillon Gage Inc. of Dallas (DillonGage.com), founded in 1976, companies include:

 Dillon Gage Metals (www.DillonGage.com/Metals), one of the world's largest precious metals wholesale trading firms. The firm is an authorized purchaser for all major world mints and maintains inventory in over 20 countries around the world. 800-375-4653

 FizTrade Online Trading (www.FizTrade.com) offers a real-time bid/ask trading platform for gold, silver, platinum and palladium. 800-375-4653

 Digital Metals (www.DigitalMetals.com) delivers advanced tools and technologies that enable market participants to be more successful in their businesses, offering cloud-based solutions for the physical precious metals marketplace built upon the Digital Metals Platform. 866-494-3577

 Dillon Gage Refining (www.dillongage.com/refining/why-dg), professional assayers and refiners of precious metal scrap, from low grade to karat scrap. Stone removal services and diamond experts on staff. 888-436-3489

 International Depository Services Group with locations in Delaware, USA (www.ids-delaware.com; 888-322-2431), and Ontario, Canada (www.idsofcanada.com; 855-362-2431), offers secure, efficient and insured precious metals and certified coin depositories that focus of custom business logistics solutions which include storage, fulfillment, inventory managements and many other value added services.

Contact:

Jeffrey Cheatham

Senior Account Manager

TrizCom PR

(972) 247-1369

jeffc@trizcom.com

Jo Trizila

President

TrizCom PR

(972) 247-1369

jo@trizcom.com

SOURCE: Dillon Gage Metals via Submit Press Release 123
Odd News

Florida teen accused of posing as doctor arrested on new charges in Virginia

A Florida teenager accused of pretending to be a doctor and stealing money from an 86-year-old patient faces new charges in Virginia after authorities say he fraudulently tried to buy a luxury car. Malachi Love-Robinson, 19, was charged with identity theft and other fraud offenses after trying to purchase a Jaguar with an elderly woman as his co-signer on a loan, the Stafford County Sheriffs Department said. The teen apparently raised red flags after he told employees at Kargar Motors Car Dealership he was a 19-year-old doctor making $120,000 a year. Love-Robinson was arrested in February for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. Authorities said Love-Robinson was illegally operating a medical practice  complete with an office, a lab coat and stethoscope  but had no license to do so. His trial has been delayed until November while his attorney considers a possible insanity defense, according to media reports.
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A day before the 15-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Christine Todd Whitman, then head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has finally admitted that she may have been wrong about the safety of the air in the city following the incident.

SEE ALSO: A bill passes allowing 9/11 victims' families to sue Saudi Arabia

"I'm very sorry that people are sick," Whitman told the Guardian. "I'm very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, Im sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had."

In the days and weeks following the destruction of the Twin Towers, residents of lower Manhattan expressed concerns regarding local air quality in the wake of the particle debris and toxins spread by the fall of the buildings.

At the time, Whitman took great pains to assure residents in the surrounding neighborhoods were safe. While acknowledging that the destruction of the buildings had released asbestos, lead volatile organic compounds (VOCs), at the time, she repeatedly stated that the concentrations of the materials in the air did not pose a public health hazard," and said that the "public in these areas [is] not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances."

However, in a 2003 report from the EPA's inspector general, Whitman's claims following the attack were deemed, at best, unverifiable and, at worst, false.

"When EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement," read the EPA report. "Because of numerous uncertainties  including the extent of the publics exposure and a lack of health-based benchmarks  a definitive answer to whether the air was safe to breathe may not be settled for years to come."

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In the years following the attack, as more and more people who were in lower Manhattan at the time either died or became gravely ill (in many cases, the causes remain unclear), there is increasing attention devoted to the air safety claims made during the attack as it unfolded.

Now, after years of relative silence on the matter, Whitman is finally addressing those concerns and apologizing for any mistakes that may have been made during her time as the head of the EPA.

"Every time it comes around to the anniversary I cringe, because I know people will bring up my name, they blame me, they say that I lied and that people died because I lied, [they say] people have died because I made a mistake," said Whitman.

According to the report, over 37,000 people registered with the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP), which was set up in 2011 to address those who believe their health was impacted by the toxins spread in Manhattan following the attack. The report states that over 1,100 of those registered in the program have died.

And while some still hold Whitman to blame for assuring residents that the air was safe to breathe, in 2008 a federal court ruled that she could not be held liable.

Whitman's new statements come after years of her stance adamantly denying any wrongdoing on her or the EPA's part.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in 2007 (see video, above), Whitman remained steadfast in her position that she and the EPA had not misled the public.

Nevertheless, the weight of the incident and her role in handling its aftermath is clearly weighing on her, even 15 years later, as her recent statements to the Guardian indicate.

Whatever we got wrong, we should acknowledge," said Whitman, "and people should be helped.
Tbilisi (AFP) - French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Georgia on Saturday for talks on boosting the defences of the ex-Soviet nation aspiring to join NATO despite Moscow's objections.

"Georgia has a mission to join the Alliance," Le Drian told reporters.

"We will soon make a proposal for action so that Georgia is able to develop effective means of (ensuring) its air defence, which is central to its sovereignty."

Tbilisi last year signed a $10-million deal with Paris to acquire a French air defence system.

Georgia's air defence systems were largely destroyed during a brief war with Russia in 2008, which erupted as tensions grew over Georgia's bid to join NATO and the European Union.

At a summit in Bucharest in 2008, NATO leaders agreed that Georgia will one day become a member of the alliance.

NATO has insisted that the Bucharest decision still stands but has so far refused to put the country on a formal membership path amid worries the move could alienate a resurgent Russia.

During his three-day visit, Le Drian will hold talks with Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, the French embassy in Tbilisi said.

He will also decorate Georgian soldiers who served alongside French troops in the Central African Republic as part of an EU military training mission.
PARIS (Reuters) - France's former economy minister Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that train maker Alstom had many options to manage overcapacity without having to close its Belfort factory, and that the Finance Ministry was right to put pressure on the firm.

Alstom said on Wednesday it planned to stop making trains at Belfort and transfer production to Reichshoffen eastern France by the end of 2018.

Macron, 38, who quit his post last month to devote himself to the political party he recently set up, told Reuters in a phone interview that Alstom's announcement had been "sudden, brutal and unexpected".

"I met myself Alstom executives in July, who did not speak to me about it," he said.

"I think government officials met Alstom executives a few days before the announcement, and they were also told nothing."

With unemployment in France still hovering close to 10 percent, jobs and the economic agenda are key issues in the campaign for next year's presidential election. Despite widespread speculation, Macron has not yet said he will stand.

Concerns over a possible wind-down at Belfort increased in 2014 after the company's associated power turbine-making activities in the same town were sold to U.S.-based General Electric.

As part of the GE deal, the government sought to protect the remaining train-making business by acquiring voting control over a 20 percent stake in Alstom's remaining business.

In May last year, Macron, as economy minister, said he did not want to see any redundancies at the Belfort train plant.

The head of Alstom was summoned by the French government for an explanation on Thursday.

"They were right to apply pressure. I think that the state can have quite a tough discussion with Alstom due to its role in public procurement," Macron said, adding that Alstom could find other ways to manage its overcapacity, which is due partly to a decline in the construction of new railway lines.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Writing by Maya Nikolaeva; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Libreville (AFP) - Gabon's Jean Ping took his bid to have a wafer-thin presidential election loss overturned to the country's top court, as President Ali Bongo blamed the opposition leader for creating a climate of violence.

Days of riots followed the August 31 announcement handing Bongo a narrow victory with a margin of some 6,000 votes, and Ping warned of more trouble to come if the court -- which has 15 days to decide -- rejects his recount appeal.

"I greatly fear that another false step by the Constitutional Court will be the cause of deep and long-lasting instability in Gabon," Ping told hundreds of supporters in Libreville.

"If the Constitutional Court ignores the reality of the Gabonese vote, the people, who would have nothing left to lose... will take the future into their own hands," said Ping, who continues to refer to himself as "president-elect".

Gabon's President Ali Bongo said that the opposition leader had created "a climate" through his "violent campaign of lies and denigration" which was to blame for the unrest that erupted after his re-election.

"I have not employed or triggered the violence," Bongo said in an interview with AFP.

"I wanted democratic elections, I wanted transparent elections, I wanted a ballot that was just, I am not reliant on fraud," he added.

- 'Apprehensive' -

Ping is asking for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, a Bongo family stronghold where the incumbent won more than 95 percent of the vote on an official turnout of more than 99 percent.

An EU election observer mission also said that there was a "clear anomaly in the final result in Haut-Ogooue".

Ping admitted that he was "apprehensive" about getting a fair hearing at the court, "which the Gabonese call the Tower of Pisa because it always leans to the side of the ruling power".

But he told supporters "2016 is not 2009", a reference to the last presidential election when the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo's victory.

Story continues

The central African nation has been ruled by the Bongo family since 1967.

The rancour sparked by the poll dispute was in further evidence at Ping's headquarters Friday as supporters escorted a television journalist from the premises amid accusations state broadcasters Gabon Television and Gabon24 had been deliberately under-reporting the death toll from recent unrest.

Reporter Jean-Raoul Mbadinga was frogmarched out amid a barrage of insults hurled by hundreds of people who had gathered to hear Ping's address.

"I came as I do for (covering) Bongo. I am a journalist," Mbadinga protested.

Ping supporters say state broadcasters have understated the scale of post-poll violence and add that interior ministry figures of just three deaths are highly inaccurate.

- Bodies in 'common grave' -

"Credible sources tell us there is a freezer box at Oloumi (a Libreville suburb) where bodies have been hidden," Ping stated.

He also alluded to "a common grave" in the city and claimed that an undertakers firm had been refusing to take delivery of any more bodies.

Members of one Libreville family meanwhile told AFP they had discovered the body of a relative taken by emergency services to a morgue.

They said Prosper Mesmain Nang Alongo, a 42-year-old married father of six, had been taken to the morgue in the early hours of September 1, hours after the electoral commission had declared Bongo the election winner.

Alongo's head showed the impact of a bullet, the family said, while indicating they did not know the exact circumstances in which he died.
GaneshaSpeaks

Katrina Kaif  the goddess of beauty has been in the clouds from quite some time now, and it appeared as if, she was on a deliberate sabbatical to get over her the emotional stress following the unfortunate heartbreak from the charming Ranbir Kapoor. But, we are almost proved wrong, as Lady Kaif is back with a bang and how! Her upcoming venture  Baar Baar Dekho, in which she will be co-starring with the dashing Sidharth Malhotra has been generating a lot of interest and especially the song  Kaala Chashma from the film has been setting the social media platforms on fire. What picture do the planets present about the fortunes of the charismatic actresss in the times to come. Lets find out!



1) Why has the gorgeous Katrina been out of action from quite some time now?

Ganesha notes that Saturns transit over Natal Ketu through the 5th House from Natal Sun and Venus in her Chart has pulled her back to the background, and has subdued her splendour. This adverse transit of Saturn may have also reduced the flow of opportunities coming her way. Saturns transit through the 5th House, can be a very difficult one to deal with, as there may be creative blocks, emotional stress and problems in love life.



But, Ganesha seems confident that she will be able to bounce back with full force, once Saturn moves from Scorpio to Sagittarius on the 26th January, 2017.



2) Will she come back with a bang in the coming days and what sort of a turn will her career take?

Ganesha says that the year 2017 will be far better than 2016 for Katrina Kaif. She is most likely to come across magnificent opportunities and avenues in 2K17 and things will be working more strongly in her favour. However, a drastic jump is not expected. Career progress would happen at a comparatively slow but steady pace. She will have to put in hard efforts to maintain her position as one of the top actresses of Bollywood, feels Ganesha.



3) What do the stars indicate about the relationships sphere in her life?

Katrina may not take major decisions about her relationship currently. However, there are chances that she may make some surprising revelations regarding her love life in the first half of 2017. Though she may put up a bold face on most occasions in general, the planets currently signify that she would like to play safe and the emotional wounds of the past may take some more time to heal completely. The transiting planets in 2017, will provide her the required boost, to take significant decisions regarding her personal life.



With Ganeshas Grace,

Bhavesh N. Pattni

(Special Inputs: Aaditya Sain)

The GaneshaSpeaks.com Team
GAZA (Reuters) - An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during a rock-throwing protest near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday and a Palestinian health official said Israeli soldiers shot him, but the Israeli army said troops were not responsible. Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh was killed by an Israeli bullet to the head during the border clash in the central Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said troops had sought to contain the violence on the other side of the border fence and had used only tear gas. "Dozens of rioters breached the buffer zone and attempted to damage the security (border) fence. ... Forces stationed at the border used tear gas that led to the dispersal of the riot. Following a preliminary review, the Israel Defense Forces did not conduct the reported shooting," a military statement said. In violence since October in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, at least 210 Palestinians have been killed, 141 of whom Israel said were assailants. Others died during clashes and protests. Palestinians, many of them acting alone and with rudimentary weapons, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans. Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014 and Israeli settlement expansion in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians seek for an independent state. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Will Dunham)
By Erik Kirschbaum BERLIN (Reuters) - The leader of Germany's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), a critic of Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming refugee policies, said on Saturday the two sister parties face election defeats if they remain at odds over migration. Horst Seehofer, who is also Bavaria's state premier, said he hoped Merkel and her Christian Democrats (CDU) would agree to a cap of 200,000 refugees a year following the arrival of about one million in 2015. "If we narrow the gap on our positions, we have good chances (in upcoming elections), but if we don't, it will be a major liability for both the CDU and the CSU," Seehofer told reporters at the end of a two-day CSU meeting during which party leaders unanimously backed his plan to limit refugee numbers. "We want common ground but not at any price that forces us to sacrifice our basic political views," he added. "We can't go on debating this forever. We've got to make decisions." Merkel has refused to introduce migrant caps demanded by the CSU even though her approval ratings have fallen by 22 points in the last year to 45 percent while her CDU/CSU bloc lost eight points to 33 percent, according to an ARD TV opinion poll published last week. She acknowledged her liberal migrant policy contributed to a humiliating state election rout last Sunday, where her CDU finished third with just 19 percent and for a first time behind the surging anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Merkel, Seehofer and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a junior partner in Merkel's coalition, will meet behind closed doors in Berlin on Sunday to discuss the issues. "We'll see what the chancellor talks about tomorrow," Seehofer said. He also dismissed suggestions from the CDU that he should stop criticizing Merkel's position. "Since when has it become necessary to tone down clearly defined political formulations?" he said. The CSU conclave in the Bavarian town of Schwarzenfeld also approved a five-page CSU paper, highlighted by the demand to draft legislation - called "Einwanderungsbegrenzungsgesetz" - to cap the number of refugees at 200,000 per year even though there is no limit in the constitution. Contradicting CDU positions, the CSU paper also calls for the abolition of dual citizenship and a ban on the burqa, the enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women, and the niqab, a facial veil which reveals only the eyes. (Additonal reporting by Jens Hack in Schwarzenfeld; Editing by Helen Popper)
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's interior minister has warned that the country is home to more than 500 Islamic militants who could be capable of carrying out assaults on their own or as members of "hit teams." Speaking in an interview with Bild newspaper, Thomas de Maiziere said there were currently at least 520 "potential attackers" in the country, which has been on edge since two Islamic State-inspired attacks in July. He said another 360 "relevant" people were known to police because of their close proximity to the potential attackers. Many Germans fear that fighters belonging to the Islamic State jihadist group could have slipped into Germany with the roughly one million of refugees from Syria, North Africa and Asia who arrived last year. "The terror threat now stems from foreign hit teams as well as fanatical lone wolves in Germany," de Maiziere said in the interview ahead of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, which were partly coordinated from Germany. "The hit teams are secretly smuggled into Europe and prepare their actions without being noticed, as we saw with the attacks in Paris and Brussels," he added. "But it's even more difficult to uncover the fanatical lone wolves. Unfortunately, there is a real and present danger from both threats." He said security authorities were doing everything possible to monitor "the potential terrorists" and noted that there have been more investigations and arrests this year. Despite their efforts, he said, "the authorities are assuming there are undiscovered lone wolf terrorists out there." Germany had until July been spared the kind of militant attacks suffered by neighboring France and Belgium. But in late July, Islamic State claimed two attacks -- on a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbach -- in which asylum-seekers wounded 20 people in total. The anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has seized on the attacks to criticize Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policies. (Reporting by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Helen Popper)
ACCRA (Reuters) - The Bank of Ghana said the yield on its 91-day bill dipped to 22.8636 percent at its weekly auction on Friday from 22.8710 percent at the last sale, on Sept 2. The bank said it had accepted 669.99 million cedis ($168.78 million) worth of bids for the 671.09 million cedis tendered for the 91-day debt, which will be issued on Sept 12. For full details, click he re: https://www.bog.gov.gh/privatecontent/Treasury/Auctresults%201502.pdf ($1 = 3.9695 Ghanaian cedis) (Writing by Kwasi Kpodo, editing by Larry King)
Kmart (39)

Sears and Kmart, once America's leading retailers, are bleeding cash and shutting down stores, as once loyal shoppers abandon them in droves.

Sears' sales have dropped from $41 billion in 2000 to $15 billion in 2015.

Kmart, which merged with Sears in 2005, has seen its sales plunge from $37 billion to $10 billion in the same period.

In interviews with more than a dozen long-time customers of the two stores, people repeatedly cited the same reasons for taking their business elsewhere: lack of customer service, poor-quality products, a lengthy checkout process, and messy, "depressing" stores.

Here's what they told us.

'I have to beg them' to take my money

Several people claimed that they were unable to find any cashiers when trying to check out.

Robert Hoke, 69, of Baltimore, Maryland, said he has been a loyal Sears customer for life.

"Sears was my go-to store for just about everything," he said. "Now I do my best to avoid going into the local store."

He said he's visited the store about six times in the last two years and only once made a purchase.

"It is really bad when you have to go through a frustrating ordeal just to get them to take your money," he said. "It's like I have to beg them to take it!"

Hoke said he went to Sears a couple months ago to buy a new lawn mower, but left and went to Home Depot when he couldn't find anyone to help him.

IMG_7090.JPG

"It's not a mystery as to why Sears is bleeding cash," he said. "Actually the 'cash' is walking out the door unspent, or even worse, it has just stopped entering altogether. No bogus rewards program or selling cheap stuff for cheap pricing will stop that from happening."

Hoke isn't the only customer who has complained about understaffing.

"I have been in the store several times and there is no presence of sales associates, only a cashier," said Gary Herndon, who said he was a Sears employee of 40 years and a long-time shopper. "If someone needed help with a tractor or mower, they would mostly likely walk out and go to Lowe's because the store was so inadequately staffed."

Story continues

Steve Hall of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recently tried to buy a weed eater at Sears and said, "What I thought would take 15 minutes max turned into a 30-plus-minute ordeal."

"I could not find an available cashier," he said. "When someone showed up after 10 minutes, he had problems scanning the UPC code. He also had problems entering my gift cards ... They didn't care whether or not I bought it. I will not go again."

Kmart

Rick Arnold of Salt Lake City Utah also complained about the lack of available cashiers, as well as "outdated technology" and empty shelves.

"Sears was an icon. It was the place to go to buy just about anything," Arnold said. Now if you're "lucky enough to find what you are looking for and then want a speedy checkout process you are faced with long checkout lines."

Arnold thinks Sears won't last much longer.

"The end is near," he said. "The store I grew up with will be just a memory. So sad."

'They are committing suicide'

Some customers claimed that the quality of Sears' products has declined over the years.

"When I walked into a Sears store 10 to 15 years ago I knew automatically that I would pay more for whatever I bought, but I was confident that it would be top quality," said Tilmon Strickland of Ada, Oklahoma. "But today, I don't buy anything from Sears. The appliances are very cheaply made and won't last."

IMG_7079.JPG

Charles Tucker of Exeter, New Hampshire, said he and his father were lifetime Sears customers. He said he still has some of his Sears Craftsman tools from the 1960s, but newer tools don't last.

When Sears sent him a new credit card in the mail recently, he said, "I just cut it up. Sears put a lot of small retailers out of business 100-plus years ago. Now they are committing suicide."

In response to the customer complaints described in this story, Sears spokesman Brian Hanover said the company is constantly getting feedback from customers and that most of it is positive.

"We constantly solicit feedback from our tens of millions of members and customers, as well as provide a variety of ways for them to provide it unsolicited and authentically back to us," he said. "The feedback you described is not reflective of the vast majority of comments and scores we receive and does not depict a typical member experience."

He said customer satisfaction scores have improved for both Sears and Kmart year-over-year.

"Regardless, we appreciate this additional feedback and know there are instances when we can do better," he said. "We will continue to enhance our operations and provide our members with superior service while they shop their way."

'Heaven help you if somebody needs a price check'

Employee incentives to get customers signed up for the company's Shop Your Way rewards program and credit cards have also been a headache for customers.

"They have so many questions that the checkout person needs to ask each and every customer to try and sway them into some sort of loyalty program," shopper Samuel J. Ely said. "They want my phone number, address, email, etc. Even the card swiper wants all kinds of things."

He compared checking out at Sears to a crossing point for the Berlin Wall.

"The annoyance really starts the moment you get in the long line and have to wait for the other customers in front of you to go through Checkpoint Charlie," he said. "Heaven help you if somebody needs a price check."

Kmart

The loyalty program also makes things confusing when trying to get a price on something, Ely claimed.

After purchasing a house, Ely said he went to Sears to buy all new appliances. He ended up leaving without buying anything, however, because he said it was too confusing to get a bottom-line price on the appliances with all the possible combinations of discounts and loyalty rewards that a salesperson was pitching to him. Ely left the Sears store and went to Lowe's instead, and said he spent $8,000 on his appliances there.

"Ever since then, I avoid Kmart like the plague and I don't shop at Sears at all," he said.

Herndon, the 40-year Sears employee, agreed that the Shop Your Way program is "a misery for both employees and customers."

"When a customer came to get checked out they were presented with: Sign up for Shop Your Way rewards, get their email address, sell a maintenance agreement ... or a repair agreement on smaller items, try to get them to open a charge account, ask them to call in a customer-service survey  and by the time all of this was presented, many customers were angry and just wanted to pay for their purchase and get out."

'It was a ghost town'

Customers also complained that the stores are in total disarray.

"The Tinley Park, Illinois, Kmart is sad and depressing," said Gary Hayslett, of Tinley Park, Illinois.

During a recent trip, he said he saw two cashiers in the store and only one other shopper. He said Kmart stores have been using sheets and shower curtains for years to hide empty shelves and closed departments, and that many of the registers are broken and covered with cardboard.

Kmart

He also noted that the Tinley Park store appears to be renting out part of its parking lot to a local car dealer for car storage.

"Kmart made a huge impression on me as a child. At one point I had hoped to work there," Hayslett said. "I watched as Kmart overtook Sears as the nations No. 1 retailer in sales. And Ive watched with dismay as Kmart has fallen from grace to irrelevancy."

Shopper Jeff Magnet of Newton, Massachusetts, said he visited the Kmart store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a couple weeks ago and found a similarly depressing scene.

"It was like a haunted house," he said. "A real mess."

Another customer, Paul Martin, compared his local Sears  where he said he and his wife worked in the 1990s  to a "ghost town."

"Last time I was in the store where we once proudly worked, it was a ghost town," Martin said. "Very sad to see a once great retail giant at its end."

NOW WATCH: Find out if you live near one of the Sears or Kmart stores closing this year





More From Business Insider


Theres going to be a live-action Mulan, because girl power is amazing

Theres going to be a live-action Mulan, because girl power is amazing

If youve been feeling as though live-action productions of your favorite Disney movies are springing up all over the place, youre not wrong. This year alone weve had The Jungle Book, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Petes Dragon, with many others in the works.

Theres also, obviously, the live-action Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson that we are SO excited to see (even though it doesnt come out until March of next year).

emma dance

Now, theres another live-action film in the works starring another favorite Disney heroine: Mulan. According to Variety, the film will be shot in China, with a mostly Chinese cast  which makes total sense.

The A.V. Club reminded us that its been almost 20 years since Disneys animated version  oof, we feel old  which was a success among fans and critics alike. With voice acting from Eddie Murphy, Ming-Na Wen, and B.D. Wong, the film still stands up as pretty fantastic  not that we watch it regularly, or anything. (We totally do.)

mulan bow

This upcoming live-action feature will be made by Sony and co-financed by former Sony exec Doug Belgrad. While Variety refers to the film as a reboot, the film doesnt necessarily have to be a remake of the Disney version  the story of Hua Mulan is a legend, and previous iterations (including The Ballad of Mulan, and the play The Heroine Mulan Joins the Army in Place of her Father) differ from it.

Disney has also said theyre considering making a live-action version, though, so theres a chance well end up with two Mulan films in the next few years. For the record, were totally okay with this.

At the moment, though, Sonys film seems a bit more likely to get made  its one of several Sony/Belgrad releases that were announced together. Other films in that grouping include a third Bad Boys movie starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith and a Charlies Angels reboot with Elizabeth Banks directing (YAAAS, Elizabeth!).

Story continues

For now, though, well just be over here daydreaming about the amazing live-action fight sequences and Furiosa-level awesomeness that were hoping to see in the upcoming Mulan film(s).

mulan kick

The post Theres going to be a live-action Mulan, because girl power is amazing appeared first on HelloGiggles.
From Esquire

A funny thing happened when my wife and I went away for the weekend recently. Just before leaving, as I was doing my normal packing check list-phone charger, laptop charger, iPad charger-I thought about packing my toothbrush. Instead, in the grand tradition of very dumb and lazy husbands everywhere, I said to myself, Eh, I'm sure this will all work out. It usually does, owing, of course, to the always prepared, hygienic, and responsible woman I love, who won't go a night without a toothbrush. And yet, each time we travel, despite having been together for the better part of the millennium-and engaged in all manner of biological transferences-it never fails to gross her out when I ask my wife to borrow her toothbrush.

I don't understand what the big deal is.

Then again, this is coming from someone who regularly eats last night's Cheez-Its from the floor without thinking twice, so perhaps I'm not the best judge of hygiene.

"I just think it's every adult's responsibility to remember to pack their own toothbrush when they go somewhere, which is when we usually run into this issue," my wife told me when I asked her to explain. "Even though I'd let you do it, I still find it gross to think about transferring germs from my mouth to yours that are inside my teeth."

Why is it so much different than kissing? I asked. "When you kiss someone, you don't lick the mashed up crumbs in their teeth," she said.

Curious if I was an outlier here, I asked my Twitter followers what they thought. After 438 responses, the poll broke down pretty evenly, with 54 percent saying sharing a toothbrush was normal and 46 percent saying gross.

Is using your s.o.'s toothbrush here and there normal or gross? - Luke O'Neil (@lukeoneil47) September 4, 2016

"To me, if you're willing to put someone's balls and/or vageen into your mouth, the toothbrush is fair play," I wrote.

Story continues

"Nope, and using someone's toothbrush might be grounds for not doing....that anymore," my wife responded, which probably should have ended the discussion right there. Instead, I kept looking for more opinions. "I will literally do/say anything in front of my S.O., but this is the only thing I will NEVER allow," one female friend said. "Gross but situationally necessary," another, a man, said. "Also, her using mine is less gross than me using hers, for whatever reason."

On Facebook, the responses were no less passionate.

"My husband uses my toothbrush all the time," Jaime Escott, a magazine publisher, told me. "I think it's gross. I'll make it even grosser for you. I know when he uses it, because I wake up with different morning breath than usual. He lies and says he didn't use it, but when I wake up with breath smelling like his, that's when I know he's a damn liar."

Christopher Braiotta, a comedian, shares my intrigue about why it's different than sex. "I'd say my wife approaches the toothbrush issue in the same way I do the eating of zucchini: She'll do it if necessity or politeness demands it, but resents the imposition," he said, a statement that may or may not have been a euphemism. "Even at best, sex is all fluids and things poking around your stomach where your food is. At least I don't piss out of my mouth."

"When I wake up with breath smelling like his, that's when I know he's a damn liar."

"I'll do it in a pinch, and that's only 'cause I know my wife," Zach Antczak of Notch Brewing told me. "She eats salad and brushes like five times a day. I never tell her though. I'm a terrible husband," he added.

It's not an issue split down gender lines, despite what I had thought. Author Dave Wedge freaks out when it happens in his family: "Fuck that. That's so disgusting I can't even think about it. My wife has used mine by accident before, and I tossed it out. My daughter once accidentally used mine down at our Cape place, and I nearly exploded. I threw the brushes away and went and bought three new ones, and pointed out loudly and emphatically to each of them which color was theirs."

Katy Kelleher, a writer, runs to the opposite end of the spectrum; she actually shares one with her husband. "Neither of us ever remembers the colors we chose, so we just use whatever is around," she said. "I know this is very, very untrue, but I like to think toothbrushes are self-cleaning. I think I've probably shared a toothbrush with all my close friends, too. And some acquaintances. I always ask first, though."

Just don't try your chances at Jessie Lacey's house. The creative director keeps two brushes on her bathroom sink: one for her, and one for her dog. "If someone uses mine, they have a 50/50 chance of choosing poorly."

It's clear tension runs deep on the matter. For what it's worth, the CDC does not recommend the sharing of toothbrushes, but they're buzzkills about everything.

I called up Dr. Matt Messina, the spokesperson for the American Dental Association, to see what he thought. While it's high on the "ew" factor, he admitted, there's nothing particularly dangerous about it. "Our body has excellent immune system protection, so for the average person, we're not talking about huge risk of anything," he said.

That's different if one of the people in question has a compromised immune system or is taking drugs for a serious illness, but for the rest of us, it's nothing to worry about. Not that Messina encourages it.

"Generally speaking, any time we're talking about bacteria or infection, it's a numbers game," he said. "We're trying to reduce the number of bacteria and pathogens that can attack the body. The mouth is not a sterile place-it never will be a sterile place-but the fewer bacteria we transfer around, the better off we are."

[contentlinks align="center" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related Story" customtitles="Is Flossing Actually Important? " customimages="" content="article.47260"]

When we're brushing, the goal is to remove plaque and bacteria around the teeth and the gums, so a toothbrush covers that. By simply rinsing the brush out after and keeping it stored in the open air where it can dry, the amount of bacteria on it is greatly reduced.

"If we're living with somebody, over time we gradually end up with the same bacterial populations, whether we're sharing a toothbrush or not," Messina said. Granted, there's been no formal study done on the sharing of toothbrushes, "but the general thought behind it is: We wouldn't go into somebody's mouth, take bacteria and plaque off their teeth, and feed it to somebody else-that's just gross."

In a pinch, you can pinch the toothbrush, as long as you're not suffering from the flu or something similarly contagious-much like you wouldn't want to aggressively make out with someone when they're sick.

One last thing to clear up before I let Messina go: If you drop the brush in or near the toilet, do you have to throw it out?

The toilet, he said, is a whole different ballgame, which is coincidentally what I say every time I'm on my way to the toilet. "There are bacteria in the toilet that are not present in the mouth. A lot of very bad GI problems come from e-coli, so if there's some risk that gut or colon bacteria or feces bacteria might be getting around your toothbrush, that's different."

Gross.

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The guy behind Pokemon is selling his apartment, in case you want to ~catch~ some incredible digs

The guy behind Pokemon is selling his apartment, in case you want to ~catch~ some incredible digs

If youve ever wondered what the apartment of the man responsible for bringing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! to the United States might look like, now you can find out.

Be warned, though: it just might be even more beautiful than you might have dreamed (The kitchen alone is leaving us breathless).

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The good news is, these luxurious digs could be yours! Well, if you have $18.95 million lying around.

According to Refinery29, the apartment currently belongs to Al Khan, the licensing executive who has specialized in bringing Japanese imports to America and watching them skyrocket in popularity. Looking for a change of scenery, Kahn just put this apartment up on the market, and some lucky person will snag it like an unsuspecting Pokemon (except instead of using the right Poke Ball to capture it, you need buckets of money).

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The home in question is a giant (3,000 square feet!) penthouse in Midtown Manhattan that has four floors! It also contains three bedrooms, a private pool, and seven outdoor terraces.

We repeat: Seven. Outdoor. Terraces.

The apartments description, from Douglas Elliman Real Estate, is even more lavish: not only is there a private elevator, but the first floor boasts Brazilian cherry wood floors, while the top two levels host the most dramatic Chrysler and Empire State Building views found in Midtown. (Yeah, yeah, we can see that.)

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The expansive master bedroom, meanwhile, offers an abundance of natural light and is surrounded by de Gournay gold-leafed hand painted wallpaper. Theres also a washer/dryer, walk-in closets, and a bathtub worthy of numerous, self-indulgent soaks.

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LOOK AT THAT TUB, ITS GLORIOUS.

Basically, this place has everything a New Yorker (or, really, anyone) has dreamed of- its as though all the best Pokemon were somehow rolled into one and fashioned into living quarters. While were sort of weeping inside that this fabulous place will never be ours, its pretty good fodder for inspiration. boards and if I won the lottery daydreams, at least.

You can check out all the pictures of the ah-mazing apartment here.

The post The guy behind Pokemon is selling his apartment, in case you want to ~catch~ some incredible digs appeared first on HelloGiggles.
A key member of South Korea's Hanjin Group agreed on Saturday to a conditional bailout of the group's shipping unit, whose collapse has sparked turmoil worldwide on the high seas.

The board of group unit Korean Air, meeting for the third straight day, decided to lend 60 billion won ($55 million) to Hanjin Shipping, two thirds of whose cargo fleet is marooned at sea due to huge debts.

"The board members decided to provide the loan but only in exchange for collateral (from Hanjin Shipping)," a company spokeswoman told AFP.

At the two previous meetings on Thursday and Friday, some board members objected to offering the loan and securing collateral afterwards, she said.

It remained unclear whether the badly indebted Hanjin Shipping could provide matching collateral.

The company is seeking bankruptcy protection at home and in the US after creditors rejected its latest plan to deal with a $5.37 billion debt.

Its bankruptcy would be by far the largest in the history of container shipping, which is suffering its worst downturn in six decades because of slumping global trade and a slowdown in China.

Hanjin Group announced earlier in the week it would inject 100 billion won, including a personal donation of 40 billion won from its chairman and biggest shareholder Cho Yang-Ho, to help the shipping unit.

The remainder would come from Korean Air.

Earlier on Saturday, a Hanjin Shipping spokesman said a US court had issued an order allowing it to unload some cargo without fear of creditors seizing its ships.

As of late Friday, 92 of 141 ships being operated by the world's seventh largest shipping firm were stranded at sea.

They have been banned from docking in the US, China and many other countries until there are guarantees of payment for service firms and port workers.

The freight on the 92 ships is reportedly worth $14 billion, the Chosun Ilbo daily said. Much of it is destined for US stores before the Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping spree.

Story continues

- 'No expertise' -

Some ships have been seized by its creditors, further complicating the problem.

"The New Jersey bankruptcy court issued a stay order" aimed at protecting some ships from being seized by creditors, Hanjin Shipping spokesman Jang Jin-Hong told AFP.

Jang said the court granted the order after it was shown the bailout plan by Hanjin Group.

Consequently, four Hanjin container carriers out of the 92 had begun unloading, he said.

Hanjin has seen its financial woes deepen since the 2008 global financial crisis.

It posted a net loss of more than 473 billion won in the first half of this year alone, after racking up total net losses of about 1.2 trillion won over the past three years.

The shipping firm's previous owner Cho Su-Ho died in 2006 and his widow Choi Eun-Young, a housewife with little business experience, took the helm.

The firm's troubles are partly blamed on long-term charters for high fees which she agreed when global shipping was still booming.

At a parliamentary hearing Friday into the country's troubled shipbuilding and shipping industries, Choi shed tears and said she "keenly" felt her responsibility.

"I had no expertise as I had been stuck home as a housewife" she said.

Choi has been under investigation on charges she was involved in insider dealing -- selling off the shares of her and her two daughters before the company sought court receivership in August. She has denied the claims.
By Tom Hals

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday signed an order granting Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd provisional protection from creditors in the United States, enabling some vessels to dock and unload at U.S. ports.

South Korea's Hanjin had asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood to issue an order to prevent creditors from seizing Hanjin ships or property, and to allow cargo owners to make arrangements to retrieve goods stranded in warehouses.

Earlier, the company received authority to spend money needed to dock at U.S. ports and begin unloading four vessels that have been stranded at sea by the company's failure last week, a company lawyer told a U.S. court on Friday.

"We have the money," said Ilana Volkov, an attorney for Hanjin, told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Newark, New Jersey on Friday. "We want to call these ports and say, please accept our ships and we want to pay for the services to work the ships.

Volkov said at least $10 million was authorized by a Korean court to begin servicing the four ships. Hanjin identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in court papers, but Volkov said she did not have information about the other vessels.

One of the four, the Hanjin Greece, was scheduled to dock and unload at the Port of Long Beach early Saturday morning, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a group that tracks cargo ship traffic.

Hanjin said that some ships may not dock at their original destinations, which could become an issue for companies like HP Inc (HPQ.N), Samsung Electronics and Home Shopping Network, who said in court records or in court they had cargo on those ships.

The other three U.S.-bound ships are the Hanjin Boston, Hanjin Jungil and Hanjin Gdynia.

Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tugboat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin, the world's seventh-largest container carrier, which filed for receivership in a Seoul court last week.

HAVOC FOR GLOBAL TRADE

Story continues

Hanjin has been struggling to arrange financing to resume normal operations. Korean Air Lines , the biggest shareholder in Hanjin, delayed on Friday a decision on a funding plan.

Hanjin's collapse has caused havoc in global trade networks and a surge in freight rates, as more than half of the company's 141 ships have been blocked from docking at ports. Four vessels have also been seized as of Thursday, according to Hanjin Shipping.

As ships await at sea, anchored off various ports from Long Beach, California, Mexico to Panama City, problems for the financially-strapped company mount as fuel suppliers also demand payment and provisions run low on the ships.

An arrest warrant was entered against the Hanjin Montevideo, currently anchored off Long Beach, and the ship was seized. The parties pressing for arrest were World Fuel Services Inc and OceanConnet Marine PTE Ltd, and Hanjin's attorney said the company expected to work out an arrangement to release the ship next week.

The judge asked companies along the supply chain to hammer out a protocol agreement over the weekend that would get goods moving again. Hanjin has suggested cargo owners were free to pay cargo handling fees owed by Hanjin, which Samsung Electronics called ransom payments.

Hanjin's woes were having wider knock-on effects. Sherwood was told that port terminals were not accepting the routine return of empty Hanjin shipping containers from retailers, forcing stores to spend to store them.

Uncertainty about freight fees was leading to vast numbers of containers clogging warehouses at port terminals. As containers piled up with retailers and on docks, the available pool of chassis used to transport containers was dwindling.

Sherwood repeatedly urged the parties to "self-help" and work out the problems as best they could.

Hanjin's collapse could also hit the bottom line at several companies as it came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season.

But import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports should be at near-peak levels for September, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Hanjin should not significantly affect volume for the month since alternative arrangements to unload those containers or shift cargo elsewhere should be dealt with by the time the numbers are tallied, NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

Merchandise is in limbo at the moment and retailers are working hard to make sure it ends up on store shelves in time for the holidays.

The shipping line has filed for so-called U.S. Chapter 15 bankruptcy, which allows a company to seek recognition by U.S. courts of orders issued overseas.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
By Tom Hals REUTERS - A U.S. judge on Friday signed an order granting Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd provisional protection from creditors in the United States, enabling some vessels to dock and unload at U.S. ports. South Korea's Hanjin had asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood to issue an order to prevent creditors from seizing Hanjin ships or property, and to allow cargo owners to make arrangements to retrieve goods stranded in warehouses. Earlier, the company received authority to spend money needed to dock at U.S. ports and begin unloading four vessels that have been stranded at sea by the company's failure last week, a company lawyer told a U.S. court on Friday. "We have the money," said Ilana Volkov, an attorney for Hanjin, told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Newark, New Jersey on Friday. "We want to call these ports and say, please accept our ships and we want to pay for the services to work the ships. Volkov said at least $10 million was authorized by a Korean court to begin servicing the four ships. Hanjin identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in court papers, but Volkov said she did not have information about the other vessels. One of the four, the Hanjin Greece, was scheduled to dock and unload at the Port of Long Beach early Saturday morning, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a group that tracks cargo ship traffic. Hanjin said that some ships may not dock at their original destinations, which could become an issue for companies like HP Inc, Samsung Electronics and Home Shopping Network, who said in court records or in court they had cargo on those ships. The other three U.S.-bound ships are the Hanjin Boston, Hanjin Jungil and Hanjin Gdynia. Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tugboat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin, the world's seventh-largest container carrier, which filed for receivership in a Seoul court last week. HAVOC FOR GLOBAL TRADE Hanjin has been struggling to arrange financing to resume normal operations. Korean Air Lines, the biggest shareholder in Hanjin, delayed on Friday a decision on a funding plan. Hanjin's collapse has caused havoc in global trade networks and a surge in freight rates, as more than half of the company's 141 ships have been blocked from docking at ports. Four vessels have also been seized as of Thursday, according to Hanjin Shipping. As ships await at sea, anchored off various ports from Long Beach, California, Mexico to Panama City, problems for the financially-strapped company mount as fuel suppliers also demand payment and provisions run low on the ships. An arrest warrant was entered against the Hanjin Montevideo, currently anchored off Long Beach, and the ship was seized. The parties pressing for arrest were World Fuel Services Inc and OceanConnet Marine PTE Ltd, and Hanjin's attorney said the company expected to work out an arrangement to release the ship next week. The judge asked companies along the supply chain to hammer out a protocol agreement over the weekend that would get goods moving again. Hanjin has suggested cargo owners were free to pay cargo handling fees owed by Hanjin, which Samsung Electronics called ransom payments. Hanjin's woes were having wider knock-on effects. Sherwood was told that port terminals were not accepting the routine return of empty Hanjin shipping containers from retailers, forcing stores to spend to store them. Uncertainty about freight fees was leading to vast numbers of containers clogging warehouses at port terminals. As containers piled up with retailers and on docks, the available pool of chassis used to transport containers was dwindling. Sherwood repeatedly urged the parties to "self-help" and work out the problems as best they could. Hanjin's collapse could also hit the bottom line at several companies as it came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season. But import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports should be at near-peak levels for September, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. Hanjin should not significantly affect volume for the month since alternative arrangements to unload those containers or shift cargo elsewhere should be dealt with by the time the numbers are tallied, NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. Merchandise is in limbo at the moment and retailers are working hard to make sure it ends up on store shelves in time for the holidays. The shipping line has filed for so-called U.S. Chapter 15 bankruptcy, which allows a company to seek recognition by U.S. courts of orders issued overseas. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
At an airport in London, unable to find a quiet space to chat, Gerard Butler retreats to an abandoned childrens playroom, without a chair to accommodate his frame. Possessing a sharp and generous sense of humor, manifest particularly in his independent features, and rom-coms like The Ugly Truth, Butler is quick to find the laughs in an absurd situation. The actor has just completed filming on Hunter Killer, a submarine action thriller, opposite a couple of his acting idolsGary Oldman and Michael Nyqvistand as he begins his journey to the Toronto International Film Festival, in support of his latest prestige indie drama, Butler actually finds that hes exactly where he wants to be.

Featuring Alison Brie and a couple dramatic heavies, including Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina, The Headhunters Calling stars Butler as Dane Jensen, an acerbically witted, self-absorbed and viciously competitive headhunter who struggles in the pursuit of a work-life balance, working incessantly to support his family, while at the same time losing any real connection to them as a result of his myopic view. When tragedy strikes the family, Jensen must do an about-face and examine the unhappy life hes been living.

In Dane Jensen, Butler saw the opportunity and the challenge, as with several previous roles, of taking on a character with a lesson to learnsomeone who begins his arc as a roundly unsympathetic figure and must earn his way back into good standing with an audience. Its rare to get the chance to play a character who does push the envelope so far, in terms of being ballsy, aggressive, lacking compassionbeing insensitive towards his family, being selfish, egotistical, bullying at work, Butler shares. And especially in this situation, when it turns out that his kid is actually sick, and hasnt been provided the kind of love and attention that he so badly needs from his father. To go from that extreme to the polar opposite, where he develops a more holistic attitude to his life, and discovers really his true soul and heartthat was a really fun challenge to take on, and something that you always had to be cognizant of.

Part of the reason the actor identified so much with the story and the part related to his pre-Hollywood former life as a law student, and a reflection on what his life might have been like if he had landed in a corporate arena similar to Danes. If I carried on as a lawyerwhat I was faced with, as well as having some personal issues, in terms of not fulfilling my purpose, and therefore not being very happy in my lifeI understood that that world was not for me, and that I could see myself 40 years down the line, thinking, This is not what I wanted to achieve in my life, Butler shares. And I think thats the same kind of existential crisis that Dane is going through, where he knows he has this purposeand its to win and its to sellbut hes kind of forgotten why hes doing that.

A passion project of Butlers for many years, from a script by hot Hollywood scribe Bill Dubuque (The Accountant)who based the script on his own previous life as a headhunterthe film was eventually packaged in foreign pre-sales via Butlers star power, with the actor taking on producer duties, a method of business that has worked for a charm for Butler in allowing him to carve out a unique resume, alternating as he so desires between the blockbuster actioner and the indie darling. I feel like its worked very, very nicely for me so far, because Ive always been very successful in foreign markets, Butler says.

In finding the overall shape of his career, I dont know if I have an overall plan. I think I generally move along as Im feeling what I need to sustain my soul, he admits. Theres a lot to be said for making bigger movies: theyre very fun to make, and to bring together. But then there comes a time where I feel like I really need to tell a story that speaks to my soulthat pushes me to create a more rounded, colorful character. Thats what happened with this movie.

Working closely in prep on The Headhunters Calling with Mark Williams, who was making his feature directorial debut, Butler says that the tearjerker got a few out of him, and Williams tooa mark of identification that allowed him to put his trust in an unknown variable. Its perhaps a little bit pathetic, but we both talked with such passion about how touched we were by (the script), Butler says, in earnest. I could just see that he wanted to tell this story for all the right reasons, because it does have such heart and is so profoundly inspirational, and yet it is also very challenging.

As a film producer, Butlers responsibilities vary from film to filmthough in the case of Headhunter, the actor enjoyed going all-in. Beyond helping to secure the initial financingbringing the film together very quickly, with several offers immediately after the package was put out to the worldButler would sit down with line producers at production meetings, and took part in a long and arduous casting process. For Butler, who enjoys the puzzle of it all, part of the joy is also being able to hone his skills and awareness as an actor. Im always surprised when an actor can say, Well maybe we dont need this scene, or we can take this away, he offers. Ill never forget the first timeit was Law Abiding Citizenthey took me into a meeting and I was told, OK, now youre going to learn. Though Butler prefers to work within the more creative side of producing, in developing, the naturally charismatic, gregarious actor is returning to Toronto this year, in part, to mingle with a wide assortment of film financiers, in hopes of securing the funds for the next passion project.

On the subject of the bottom line, while running out of oxygen in the kids room, Butler takes a moment to reflect on Februarys Gods of Egypt, Februarys sword-and-sandal actioner that made the critical error of crossing Deadpool. A major critical and commercial failure for Butler, the film was the actors first swing at a film budgeted at over $100 millionthough he mentions that his part in the film is smaller than the marketing materials might suggest. Listen, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I know a lot of people enjoyed it, too. You win some and you lose some, Butler says. However, the following weekend, Butler broke-even with the hit sequel London Has Fallen which made more than its predecessor, close to $200M to $161M worldwide; his marquee power still strong.

I do feel I had certain issues with how it (Gods) turned out in its fullnessbut it showed me, yeah, for sure, that theres just no safety anymore in this industry, he adds. You cant just spend big budgets, or even show some pretty splendid special effects. And by the way, sometimes even a good story doesnt work. Its a very high-risk industry right now.

A Voltage Pictures production, The Headhunters Calling is produced by Gerard Butler (300), Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker), Jonathan Deckter (Dredd), Craig J. Flores (300), Patrick Newall (Anon), Alan Siegel (Law Abiding Citizen), and Mark Williams. CAA will handle U.S. sales.

The film will have its world premiere at TIFF this Wednesday, September 14 at 9:30 PM.

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Days after Lil Wayne hinted at retirement due to his ongoing battle with Cash Money, the rapper has unleashed a new track titled "Grateful" where he takes aim at the label.





"You don't see Stunna right next to me / And I won't see Stunna write checks to me," Lil Wayne says on "Grateful" about his current relationship with Cash Money CEO Birdman. "They can't put no more Weezy Baby out / That's that Cash Money vasectomy."



Wayne repeats several times "No more CMB"  Cash Money Billionaires  to reiterate the irreparable riff between himself and the label. Recently, artists like Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott, Chance the Rapper and more have shown their support for the "defenseless and mentally defeated" Wayne.



The rapper opens the gospel-sampling, StreetRunner and Rugah Rah-produced track by revealing that the song represents a "new chapter" for him. "Tell the press I'm not depressed, I just had to press reset," he says at one point.

Later on "Grateful," Wayne expresses some remorse over some of his life decisions in recent years  "Hardest lesson is regret / Snorting powder on a [private] jet / Ask the pilot 'Are we there yet?' / He said we on the ground and we ain't even leave yet"  but now he's "a different Weezy and I'm drippin' Fiji,"

Wayne released "Grateful" directly to Tidal, his main outlet since his Tha Carter V remains in Cash Money limbo. The rapper previously dropped his Free Weezy Album through Jay Z's streaming service.

Related Content:
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lashed out at many supporters of Donald Trump Friday, saying half of them hold hateful views that put them in a basket of deplorables.

You could put half of Trumps supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right, Clinton said, drawing laughter and applause as she addressed about 1,000 donors at an LGBT for Hillary fundraising gala in New York City, The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobicyou name it. Adding that Trump had given voice to many of those elements through his campaign rhetoric and retweets, she continued that, some of those folksthey are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

She suggested that the second bucket of Trump supporters feel alienated by economic instability and government dysfunction and are desperate for any change. They dont buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different, she continued. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

The comments quickly drew condemnation from the Trump campaign as indicative of the politics of division that the GOP nominee has accused her of playing. Meanwhile even some Democrats reflected that at best it was a distraction from her campaign message, and an example of divisive political rhetoric in which a would-be president casts out a large swath of the country she hopes to lead. About 43% of likely voters in the U.S.more than 50 million Americanssupport Trump according to the latest polls, with Clintons math returning figures into the tens of millions.

Second only to Trump as the most historically disliked nominee in recent history, Clinton spent much of the summer focused on raising voters negative opinions about Trump, and just weeks ago delivered an entire campaign speech devoted to highlighting the comments of some of Trumps most virulent supporters. In recent days she had been trying to put a more positive face to her campaign following weeks of withering attacks on Trump and controversy over her emails.

Story continues

There is little doubt that Trump has drawn support from extremist elements, including the so-called Alt-Right movement. And to an extent, her comments fall in the zone of the Kinsley gaffewhen a politician tells some truth they werent supposed to say. But Clintons comments Friday suggested that those forces make up a far larger cohort of Trump backers than she had ever suggested before. Her arithmetic, which she called grossly generalistic, is proving to be a political gift to the Trump campaign, which is already using it to rally their supporters.

Trumps campaign released a statement early Saturday accusing Clinton of dishonoring the everyday Americans backing Trump. Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans, said Trump spokesman Jason Miller. And whats truly deplorable isnt just that Hillary Clinton made an inexcusable mistake in front of wealthy donors and reporters happened to be around to catch it, its that Clinton revealed just how little she thinks of the hard-working men and women of America. The candidate also took to Twitter Saturday morning to respond. Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls! Trump tweeted.

Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016

It has become tradition for controversial remarks at fundraisers to be injected into the political bloodstream. In 2008, speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, then-Sen. Barack Obama tried to explain the resentment in small-town Pennsylvania amid a tumultuous economy. Its not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who arent like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations, Obama said, in remarks later provided to the Huffington Post. In 2012, Mitt Romney was secretly recorded at a fundraiser writing off 47% of of the country as Obama supporters because they receive government benefits. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it, Romney said. The tape was later leaked to Mother Jones.

Clinton, breaking with the precedent set by Obama, generally does not allow reporters to cover her prepared remarks at fundraisers. Fridays event was a rare exception. She recently concluded a month-long fundraising swing that raised more than $140 million for her campaign. Trump also does not allow reporters into his fundraisers.

Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill took to Twitter to clean up his boss remarks, saying she was only referring to attendees at his rallies.

(1/3) She gave an entire speech about how the alt right movement is using his campaign to advance its hate movement. https://t.co/ZZZv31cFCq  Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016

(2/3) Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump.  Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016

(3/3) And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events.  Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016

Read Clintons full comments from the fundraiser below:
Hillary Clinton said Saturday that she regrets commenting that half of Donald Trumps supporters are in a basket of deplorables but said she wont stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in the presidential campaign.

Clintons commentsmade Friday at an LGBT for Hillary fundraiserwere swiftly condemned by Republicans, who faulted Clinton for insulting millions of Trump supporters.

Last night I was grossly generalistic, and thats never a good idea. I regret saying half  that was wrong, Clinton said in a statement Saturday afternoon, before doubling down on criticism of Trumps rhetoric.

Its deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people, she added.

Both Trump and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence lambasted Clintons remarks, which Pence said should be denounced in the strongest possible terms while speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people, Trump wrote on Twitter.

Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans, Jason Miller, senior communications adviser for Trumps campaign, said in a statement.

Clinton has sought to draw attention in recent weeks to Trumps support from the so-called alt-right movement. In defending her on Saturday, Clintons running mate, Tim Kaine, said the deplorables comment was about that.

She said, Look, Im generalizing here, but a lot of his support is coming from this odd place, that hes given a platform to the alt-right and white nationalists, Kaine said in an interview with the Washington Post .

Clinton also repeated her comment that many of Trumps supporters deserve empathy.

I also meant what I said last night about empathy, and the very real challenges we face as a country where so many people have been left out and left behind, she said in her statement. As I said, many of Trumps supporters are hard-working Americans who just dont feel like the economy or our political system are working for them.
(Reuters) - Five homeowners filed a lawsuit against Fresno, California on Friday, accusing the city of letting dangerous levels of lead and other toxins into the water supply and failing to alert the public of the potential danger, local media reported. Karen and Michael Micheli, Faith and David Nitschke and Jeanette Grider filed a lawsuit against Fresno, its department of public utilities and two contractors in the Fresno County Superior Court on Friday, the Fresno Bee reported. The homeowners say thousands of residents are potentially facing diminished property values along with costs associated with contaminated water and diagnostic testing for health issues caused by lead exposure, according to the lawsuit posted online by the newspaper. "The citys failure to test, report and investigate its issues with its water supply and notify and warn the public of the same is the basis of the defendants misconduct," the lawsuit said. City officials were not immediately available for comment. Fresno spokesman Mark Standriff told the Fresno Bee that city officials had not read the lawsuit and could not comment on it. In early 2016, the city launched an investigation into discolored water based on reports by more than 300 residents in Northeast Fresno. The investigation found lead and toxins that exceeded the allowable levels in drinking water, according to the lawsuit. The investigation came 12 years after the city went from using groundwater wells to using a surface water treatment operation, a move that caused the corrosion of pipes that ultimately led to discolored and contaminated water, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit could become a class action case as potentially tens of thousands of residents may have the same claims against the city, the suit said. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee)
Nairobi (AFP) - An earthquake measuring 5.7 hit Tanzania on Saturday and was felt in nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said, as reports came in of collapsed homes.

The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of the north western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but residents of the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, near the epicentre, told AFP some houses there had caved in.

"The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards," said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity.
Montevideo (AFP) - A former Guantanamo inmate resettled in Uruguay left hospital Saturday after being admitted amid a long hunger strike.

Jihad Diyab, a 45-year-old Syrian, had been taken to Hospital de Clinicas in Montevideo, a government intermediary with former inmates from the US military prison told AFP.

"Staff spoke with him for three hours trying to have him receive assistance and accept testing, but it was impossible. He also spoke with some friends, but there was no way, it was impossible," hospital director Raquel Balleste told El Observador newspaper.

"We think that he must be admitted but must respect his autonomy and his rights."

It was the second time his week that Diyab was hospitalized after launching a hunger strike about three weeks ago to press his demand to be reunited with his family in Turkey.

On Friday, Diyab told local media that if he died, his death would be the responsibility of "the United States and Uruguay."

Held in Guantanamo for 12 years without charge, Diyab was released in 2014 from the US-run military prison in Cuba to Uruguay along with five other former inmates under an agreement with Washington.

The ex-prisoner has repeatedly shown that he wants out of Uruguay.

He fled the country and turned up in Venezuela, where he appeared at the Uruguayan consulate on July 26 seeking help reuniting with his family in Turkey.

In Venezuela, Diyab was jailed at the headquarters of the secret police, who prevented him from receiving visitors, including activists following his case and his US-based lawyer, Jon Eisenberg.

He was sent back to Uruguay on August 30.

Diyab insists he cannot financially support his family in Turkey while living in Uruguay.
By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) - Pictures taken by a small-town Ohio police department showing a couple allegedly overdosed on heroin in their car, the womans son ignored in the back, circulated widely on social media on Friday as evidence of an epidemic in use of the drug.

The images were posted on the Facebook page of the East Liverpool, Ohio Police Department, along with an officers report of the incident that led to the arrest of James Acord and Rhonda Pasek on child endangerment charges.

We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the non drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis, the police department said in a statement on the Facebook page.

The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until its gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that, the department said.

The photos show Acord, 50, and Pasek, 47, passed out in the front seat of their Ford Explorer, their mouths agape, as the child stares silently into the camera from the back.

The post had generated 20,000 shares and nearly 3,000 comments as of Friday afternoon, about 24 hours later.

According to a police report posted along with the pictures, an officer driving his personal vehicle approached Acords car after seeing it weaving erratically back and forth before drifting to a stop in the roadway.

Officer Kevin Thompson wrote that Acord, whose head was bobbing back and forth, his speech almost unintelligible, told him he was taking Pasek to the hospital and attempted to drive away before falling completely unconscious.

Pasek was also unconscious and turning blue, the officer wrote. Both were revived by emergency medical technicians using several rounds of a drug used to reverse an opiate overdose, according to Thompsons report.

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The officer said that a folded up piece of paper found between Paseks legs contained a small amount of a pink, powdery substance.

Acord was arrested on suspicion of endangering a child and a traffic offense. Pasek was taken into custody on child endangerment and public intoxication charges. The boy was taken into the custody of county child protection services agents.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 10, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit has been filed against Yirendai Ltd. ("Yirendai" or the "Company") (YRD). Investors, who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between May 11, 2016 and August 24, 2016 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the October 25, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased shares of Yirendai during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

According to the complaint, Yirendai made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that the Company was experiencing increasing fraud related to customer applications for its loan products; that the implementation of new anti-fraud regulations by the Chinese government could have a negative impact on Yirendai's performance; and that as a result of the above, the Company's statements about its business, operations, and prospects were false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. On August 24, 2016, Bloomberg reported that China imposed limits on peer-to-peer lending and placed a new regulations cap on individual borrowing at 1 million yuan. When this information was announced, shares of Yirendai fell in value, causing investors harm.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contacts:

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar will miss his next scheduled start with a sore right forearm.

Salazar was on the disabled list for elbow inflammation a month ago, and was lifted after four innings Friday night against the Twins after experiencing tightness in his forearm. Manager Terry Francona says Salazar will return to Cleveland on Sunday to be examined by doctors.

''We need to go get him looked at and figure out if and what is going on in there,'' Francona said.

Salazar had been scheduled to start Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox. Francona said he would start either Mike Clevinger or Josh Tomlin on Wednesday, and use the other for Thursday's series finale.

Clevinger was Saturday's starter in Minnesota. Tomlin was 11-3 with a 3.43 ERA after getting a win against Oakland on July 30, but went 0-5 with an 11.48 ERA in six August starts before he was moved to the bullpen.

''Whichever order is somewhat dependent on tonight,'' Francona said. ''If Tomlin doesn't pitch or pitches minimally, he'll start Wednesday. If he ends up throwing a lot, then we would flip flop.''

Salazar has not won in seven starts since July 19.
Protesters depicting detainees of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, hold a banner, during a demonstration outside the US embassy in central London, Saturday, May 18, 2013.

Prisoners across the country are conducting a nationwide strike to protest what they call modern-day slavery, Mother Jones reported on Friday.

On September 9, the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison riot, inmates from 40 prisons in 24 states are attempting to bring Americas multibillion-dollar prison economy to a grinding halt in a coordinated effort to highlight the injustices of prison labor, strike leaders told Mother Jones.

If the movement succeeds, it could turn out to be the biggest prison strike in the nation's history.

"This is a call to end slavery in America, reads a statement from the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC). "They cannot run these facilities without us."

The group claims slavery is alive and well in the prison system.

"Work is good for anyone," says Melvin Brooks-Ray, an inmate for 17 years and a founder of the Free Alabama Movement. solitary at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama, quoted by Mother Jones. "The problem is that our work is producing services that we're being charged for, that we don't get any compensation from."

Prison inmates lay water pipe on a work project outside Oak Glen Conservation Fire Camp #35 in Yucaipa, California November 6, 2014.

Nearly 900,000 inmates are currently working in prisons. Prisoners work for free in at least three states Texas, Arkansas, and Georgia. In federal prisons, inmates earn about 12 to 40 cents an hour as plumbers, painters, or groundskeepers  working is mandatory unless inmates are medically unable, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Paul Wright with Prison Legal News told Mother Jones, if they refuse to work, they can be punished by having their sentences lengthened and being placed in solitary confinement."

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They may have replaced the whip with pepper spray, but many of the other torments remain: isolation, restraint positions, stripping off our clothes and investigating our bodies as though we are animals, reads the statement from the IWOC, describing the punishment prisoners would get if their performance was not to their overseers liking.

Brooks-Ray explained to Mother Jones that one of the objectives for the strike is to raise awareness among inmates that not only do we have a significant role in our incarceration, we have a significant opportunity to bring about our own freedom.

Inmates serving a jail sentence make a phone call at Maricopa County's Tent City jail in Phoenix July 30, 2010. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

The coordinated effort was made possible through modern technology, generally forbidden to prisoners, WIRED reported.

Inmates are able to use cellphones to amplify their message. Although US prison authorities have been constantly trying to intercept the smuggling of mobile phones from the outside, "contraband cellphones make it into facilities all the time," Dave Maass, an investigative researcher at Electronic Frontier Foundation told WIRED.

But social media is a real game-changer, offering prisoners' access to the rest of the world. Sometimes, inmates' family members and friends on the outside will maintain social media profiles belonging to incarcerated loved ones, with some even managing their account directly.

free alabama movement

Free Alabama Movement, one of the strikes primary organizers, has a Facebook group and a YouTube channel with videos of prisoner testimonials about poor living conditions in prison  including claims of food poisoning and police brutality.

Our social media platform thrusts us out there in ways we didnt even imagine, Brooks-Ray told WIRED. With access to the Internet, we had enough information to build relationships, connect people, start a movement, and reach out to the world. Ive got more journalists phone numbers than regular peoples.

Phillip Ruiz, an organizer with the IWOC, explained the strike to Mother Jones, "We're realistic. We know that all our demands aren't going to be given to us. The hope is that some concrete things develop as far as changing the conditions."

Ruiz hopes to send to a message to prison authorities, "You guys aren't going to get away with what you're doing to prisoners anymore."

NOW WATCH: Naked Donald Trump statues are popping up across America





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Karbala (Iraq) (AFP) - Barred from Mecca amid an escalating spat between Tehran and Saudi Arabia, masses of Iranian Shiite faithful have converged on the holy Iraqi city of Karbala for an alternative pilgrimage.

The row that has prevented Iranians taking part in this year's hajj pilgrimage is diverting hundreds of thousands to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

"I expect the number of pilgrims to reach a million, about 75 percent of them Iranians," Adel al-Mussawi, a shrine official, told AFP.

Not all of those had planned to travel to Mecca but many of the 64,000 Iranians who were allocated places for this year's hajj ended up in the holy Iraqi city this weekend.

Visiting the Imam Hussein shrine does not have the same religious significance as the hajj, which is a pillar of Islam and therefore an obligation for Muslims who are able to visit at least once in their lifetime.

But followers of the Shiite sect of Islam feel more at home in Karbala than in Mecca, where around 2,300 people died in a stampede last year, according to an AFP tally, including 464 Iranians.

"Karbala is normal for us. We always come here. This year they have blocked the path (to Mecca) and no one can go," said Shukrullah, a white-haired Iranian pilgrim sitting on a rug near one of the gates to the mausoleum.

"It's our duty to come here. This is an Islamic country. It's good," he said.

Iran has accused Riyadh of incompetence and of failing to investigate the 2015 disaster or take satisfactory precautions for this year's pilgrimage.

Talks broke down between the two regional powerhouses and Iranians were denied entry.

A war of words has since escalated, with both countries' top clerics exchanging sharp words -- Iran's Ali Khamenei calling Saudi monarchs a "cursed, evil family" and Saudi's Abdulaziz al-Sheikh saying Iranians were not real Muslims.

"The Saudi-Iranian conflict has forced Iranians to come to Karbala to visit the shrine of Imam Hussein," Mussawi said, adding: "For the Shiites, this is worth 70 hajj."

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For the city, which lies about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, the extra influx of pilgrims is nothing out of the ordinary.

- 10-year wait -

"We have prepared transport, accommodation and security. We are used to handling bigger occasion such as Arbaeen so we can handle this," Karbala Governor Aqeel al-Turaihi told AFP.

In the Friday sermon read by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, Iraq's top Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani appealed for respect and tolerance among all Muslims.

Yet resentment ran deep in the ranks of the Iranian faithful who were barred from Mecca, where the hajj got under way on Saturday.

"Last year, how many people were killed from all over the world? They (Saudi Arabia) killed all of them, but no one did anything to them," said Shukrullah, sheltering from the midday sun with his family near lockers where the faithful leave their shoes before entering the mausoleum.

Unlike Shukrullah, Nasirah, a woman from the Iranian city of Ahvaz, has not yet performed the hajj and predicted that the substitution trip to Karbala could become a habit.

"In Iran, the pilgrims... pay to get a visa and go to hajj. We in Iran wait a long time to get a chance to go. It can take 10 or 15 years," she said.

"So I said let's go for Arafah day in Karbala," Nasirah said, referring to a prayer performed by Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Arafat plain on the second day of hajj.

"If we are in Karbala, it's the house of God, it can be considered hajj for us. So for the next few years, we will be coming to Karbala -- what can we do?"
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli aircraft struck Syrian army positions on Saturday after fire from its war-torn neighbour hit the Israeli-held zone of the Golan Heights earlier in the day, the military said.

The Israeli strike targeted artillery positions of the Syrian regime in response to "a projectile" which hit the northern Golan, causing no injuries or damages, an army statement said.

"The Syrian government (is) accountable for this blatant breach of Israeli sovereignty, the IDF (Israel defence forces) will continue to act in order to safeguard Israel and its civilians," it added.

A military spokeswoman said the projectile was most likely unintentional "spillover" from the internal fighting in Syria.

It was the third such incident in six days, and came soon after Russia and the United States announced a deal on a new Syrian ceasefire, set to come into force on Monday.

There were similar events in July and previously.

Israel has sought to avoid being drawn into Syria's complex war which is now in its sixth year, but it has attacked Syrian military targets when fire from the conflict spills over.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - A rescue plan for Italian bank Monte dei Paschi (BMPS.MI) will not be modified following the resignation on Thursday of its boss, the country's economy minister said on Saturday.

Chief Executive Fabrizio Viola resigned as the Italian bank is working to complete a 5 billion-euro (4.23 billion pounds) capital raising needed to stave off the risk of being wound down.

"I am convinced that the appointment of a new chief executive officer (..) will strengthen the plan and will not modify it," Pier Carlo Padoan told reporters after a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Bratislava.

He said he was confident the plan will be successful and called for a quick appointment of a new boss.

The bank could hold a board meeting to name a replacement as early as Sunday, a source close to the matter said on Friday.

Asked whether the resignation of Viola may delay the bank's cash call, Padoan said: "the timing will be decided by the board together with the advisers that have to take into account of market trends".

He also said that the issue was not discussed by EU finance ministers during their two-day meeting ending on Saturday.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alexander Smith)
From Town & Country

Google "Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC," and you'll see image after image of a particularly photogenic section of "America's Main Street." In the foreground looms the Romanesque Revival pile of the Old Post Office Pavilion, and a short distance to the southeast floats the pale dome of the Capitol. The 1.2-mile stretch that begins at the White House and ends at the seat of Congress is the ceremonial heart of the nation, site of parades, processions, and protest marches. George Washington himself called it "most magnificent and convenient.")

This month, when the $200 million transformation of the Old Post Office into the capital's newest five-star luxury hotel is officially completed, the location will feature new signage, branding it with the name of the 2016 Republican presidential candidate: Trump International Hotel.

Ivanka Trump, executive vice president of development and acquisitions of the Trump Organization, would not comment during an interview prior to my hardhat tour of the property on how firmly her father had already set his sights on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when he was awarded the 60-year lease on the Old Post Office Pavilion in 2013. "You'll have to ask him," she said curtly. (She froze and frowned when I wondered if his campaign pronouncements were hurting the brand's global ambitions-which include two major projects in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country.)

But she warmed when we moved on to the hotel's attributes. "We'll have the largest rooms in the city! And the largest suites. We will also have the largest luxury ballroom of any of the hotels in DC. It's really a special property."

All true. Dodging construction workers during my walkabout, I surprised myself by finding even more to like: the un-hotel-like asymmetry of the rooms, adapted from turn-of-the-last-century offices; the varying views (on the 12th Street side you see the Washington Monument and-how's this for DC ironies?-the curved, neoclassical facade of the adjacent Clinton Building). But the piece de resistance for me was the soaring, glass-roofed atrium-surely a contender for epicenter of the town's power breakfast.

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Producers Jacob Wasserman and Kimberly Parker have launched Unknown Subject, a production company with a first feature debuting this weekend at the Toronto film festival: Katie Says Goodbye stars Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and The Dying Girl) and Christopher Abbott (Girls).

Wasserman, a coproducer of Sundance 2015s James White (also starring Abbott), and Parker, a coproducer of the 2015 James Franco-starrer The Adderall Diaries, say their new company will focus on diverse voices in feature films, commercials/branded content, and virtual reality, with a goal of gender parity and fostering unique and diverse voices in storytelling.

Kim and I are thrilled to announce the formation of Unknown Subject, which is a natural evolution of our pre-existing, working relationship, Wasserman said. Our goal is to bring visionary filmmakers together under one roof, to create meaningful stories that are diverse in form and subject, and to raise challenging questions on the human condition. 

The next feature on Unknown Subjects slate is writer/director Devon Kirkpatricks The Seahorse. The project has received a screenwriting grant from the San Francisco Film Society.

Wasserman and Parker attended the NYU Tisch School of the Arts together. In addition to James White, Wassermans credits include the 2016 Magnolia release The Eyes of My Mother, while Parker was a producer of OutFest & NewFest audience award winner Those People.

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The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 is set to be released from a Washington, D.C. government psychiatric hospital on Saturday, according to several reports.



John Hinckley Jr., now 61 years old, will move in with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, according to NBC News and the BBC. The Los Angeles Times reported that Hinckley has already been visiting Williamsburg in preparation for a full-time post-release transition.



In 1981, Hinckley attempted to kill Reagan in the hopes of impressing actress Jodie Foster and fired six shots outside a hotel in Washington D.C.. Reagan and three others were injured in the shooting, and while Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, he was sent for treatment at a mental hospital.



In July, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley no longer poses a danger to himself or others. The judge ruled that Hinckley is prepared to re-enter the community, and will do so under a series of conditions.







But in a statement obtained by PEOPLE, officials with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute criticized the decision.



"John Hinckley is responsible for the shooting of President Reagan and three other brave men. One died two years ago from the wounds he received," officials said in the statement. "Contrary to the judge's decision, we believe John Hinckley is still a threat to others and we strongly oppose his release."



Reagan's daughter Patti Davis also expressed her disapproval of the judge's ruling in an emotional statement posted to her website last month.



 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.



"I'm not surprised by this latest development, but my heart is sickened," Davis, 63, wrote.



She also shared a moment she had with her late father just after the assassination attempt.



"When my father was lying in a hospital bed recovering from the gunshots that nearly killed him, he said, 'I know my ability to heal depends on my willingness to forgive John Hinckley.' "
Burke Ramsey, the older brother of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, is finally publicly explaining his behavior the morning his sisters body was discovered on Dec. 26, 1996.



In an exclusive preview from his upcoming interview on Dr. Phil  Burkes first public sit-down since JonBenets death 20 years ago  the 29-year-old reveals why he didnt leave his room on that fateful December day.



Somebody comes in your room and flashlight looks around, Dr. Phil questions in the clip. Your mothers been in there yelling, Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Wheres my baby? And you never get up and say, 'What is going on here? 



Burke remained in his room before and after JonBenets body was found in the familys Boulder, Colorado, basement, with a cord around her neck and duct tape over her mouth.







In the clip, Burke says, I guess I kind of like to avoid conflict or, I dont know, I guess I just felt safer there.



Im not the worried type, he continues, chuckling. I guess part of me doesnt want to know whats going on.



Dr. Phil responds, referencing the suspicion the Ramsey family long faced, You, of course, know that critics would say you werent curious because you already knew.



"You didnt have to get up and check because you knew exactly what had happened.



Burke was 9 years old at the time of his 6-year-old sisters killing. He and his parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, have never been charged in the case and have always maintained their innocence.



Patsy died in 2006 of ovarian cancer, making Burke and John the familys sole surviving members.







Interest in the case has increased as its 20th anniversary approaches. Despite years of investigation, no one has ever been charged in JonBenets death.



Dr. Phils three-part interview was preceded by a new A&E documentary, which featured never-before-seen police footage of a detectives sit-down with Burke in 1998.



Young Burke, then 11, told the detective in the interview clip that he didnt leave his room while police and neighbors came in and out of the house because he was so scared.





Related Video: 5 Clues That Could Reveal What Really Happened To JonBenet Ramsey





I just lay in bed with my eyes closed and like sort of thinking of what might have happened to them, Burke said of his actions.



I just heard my mom going psycho, he said.



An earlier preview of the Dr. Phil interview showed Burke explaining, I know people think I did it, that my parents did it.



The three-part Dr. Phil interview will be air Monday, Tuesday and Sept. 19.
american-honey-feature

A24

Usually when we see the American underclass depicted on screen, its either as a punchline, or a form of isnt it just so sad poverty porn. Thats partly why American Honey feels so fresh  a clear-eyed depiction of working class dysfunction and jailbait sexuality that neither ridicules, pities, nor exploits its subjects for cheap redemption. Redemption is fleeting and freedom comes with a catch in writer/director Andrea Arnolds (Fish Tank, Wuther Heights) trailer trash road epic, which explores what it means to be white trash in America, and the creep sexuality underpinning it all.

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Sasha Lane plays Star, a sort of pouty-lipped, polyethnic tattooed trailer ingenue with grody dreads who we meet while shes dumpster diving with her tow-headed (half?) siblings. She gets waylaid on the way home to deposit her rapidly-defrosting dumpster chicken by a gang of what look to be uncouth carnival gypsies, who are literally dancing on the cash registers at Target at the time, to the tune of Rihannas We Found Love. Star finds herself captivated by one of them, who introduces himself as Jake (Shia LaBeouf in a dirty braid), a smooth-talking, molesty combination of Frank Abignale from Catch Me If You Can and Shifty Shellshock from Crazytown.

Jake immediately bulldozes Stars barriers and better judgment (those were there for a good reason, Star), stealing a kiss and inviting her to join his gang of scumpunk pranksters at the Motel 6 in Kansas City, for a cross-country magazine-selling trip. Wait, what? Yeah. It doesnt sound like the most attractive of offers, especially coming from a sweaty guy in suspenders who looks like he smokes meth out of a lightbulb. Star turns him down at first, but as soon as she returns to her above-ground nightmare pool of a home life, it starts to dawn on her how much she could use an escape from her drunken, sexually abusive father and feral siblings, the younger of which keeps stabbing the shrink-wrapped chicken on the floor of the kitchen, shouting This chicken has no eggs! like some grotesque backwoods Bosch painting made real.

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So off we go. Turns out, Jake belongs to a gang of teen and post-teen runaways led by Krystal (Riley Keough), a delightful Glengarry Glen Ross-by-way-of-Teen Mom combination of crass capitalism and corrupted sexuality. She dresses her crew, determining which outfits will best elicit sympathy, pumps them full of salesy motivation, then drops them off in wealthy neighborhoods to SELL SELL SELL! What a world, where societys losers sell their own poverty back to the guilt-ridden winners. As Krystal and Jake (Krystals best salesman) explain, they arent selling magazines, but peace of mind.

Oh, and sex. Creepy sexuality is the foundation of both Krystals enterprise and Andrea Arnolds movie. Krystal tells Star, Youre pure American honey just like me.

Which is to say, a nymphet, in possession of a valuable (if rapidly depreciating) asset, if only she can monetize it. Stars sexuality  universally irresistible to creeps, be they Cadillac cowboys in Nebraska or oil dogs in South Dakota  is the only thing she owns of any value, using it to manipulate people her only relevant work experience. This is the lurid portrait Arnold paints of the sexually abused and abandoned  not maudlin nor celebratory, just knowing. Just like Hesher understood that the corollary to grief and feeling like nothing matters is gleeful nihilism, American Honey understands that the corollary to having nothing and no one is owing nothing to no one and a certain kind of freedom (free to starve and maybe get stabbed by a rapey truck driver, sure, but freedom still).



Star and Krystal eventually find themselves locked in a kind of baby mama battle royale over who gets to have stinky unsafe sex with this new snaggle toothed homeless incarnation of Shia LeBeouf. (Spoiler alert, they both do.) In one poignant scene, alpha skank Krystal, clad only in a Confederate flag stripper bikini two sizes too small, dresses down Star in a seedy motel room for not selling enough magazines. All the while, a silent Jake cowers at knee level, applying lotion to her naked thighs like a Roman slave. (An unforgettable image that, if I were their marketing guy, would go on the poster.) Its tough to pull off sad, sexy, smart, and funny at the same time, but American Honey does it.

What does it mean to be white trash in America? As American Honey accurately depicts, it means to be largely rootless, having severed ties to your blood family (because of death, drug abuse, and/or incest) and in search of a new tribe, gravitating towards unhealthy relationships and dangerous situations with the kind of screwed up radar only a chaotic childhood can provide. I met people like the characters in American Honey growing up in the Central Valley (LaBeoufs character being from Bakersfield was a nice touch) and especially shooting interviews at the Gathering of the Juggalos, and a lot of American Honey felt so authentic that I could forget its not a documentary.

Which, if youre not exactly thrilled to be around these kinds of people, might not always be a good thing. (I find them fascinating, but a lot of people understandably find them repellent.) The characters, who look so stinky you can practically smell it through the screen, all converse in this loopy patois of cusswords, rap lyrics, second-hand capitalist self-help and new agey aphorism, and only ever seem to make sense when theyre singing along to the coarsest mumble rap and schmaltziest pop country songs. Which in American Honey is pretty much all the damned time. Imagine the Tiny Dancer sing-along scene from Almost Famous set to a Teen Mom subjects iPhone playlist, and youre on the right track. That probably accounts for at least 20 minutes worth of American Honey. The characters are inarticulate, obnoxious, and blissfully unaware of their own corniness, but they feel scarily accurate.

I realize, this movie may be a tough sell. Trust me, when I got off a six-hour red eye the last thing I wanted to do was go straight into a nearly three-hour movie starring Shia LaBeouf and some mumbly hillbillies. Surely itd be possible to cut 20 minutes or so (there are many times we get almost a full song when 20 seconds or so would do), but if American Honey could win me over at its current length, it can win over anyone.

Im instantly skeptical of anything calling itself American _____, since draping things with the flag and appropriating them as Americana has become both fashionable and a meaningless cliche (theres nothing more American than a guy whos never left looking at a universal truth and saying only in America!). In American Honey it feels earned. Watching it reminded me of being at the Gathering of the Juggalos, where, talking to runaways and recovering addicts and witnessing a peculiar mish-mash of gangster rap, pro wrestling, horror movies, and up-from-your-bootstraps Christian values, I was struck by the idea that what I was witnessing was true Americana. Its easy to imagine an even bigger outsider than me like Andrea Arnold (shes British) becoming even more obsessed. How could so thoroughly odd and idiosyncratic a subculture exist anywhere else, without such specific influences?

Between attending the Gathering, reading J.D. Vances Hillbilly Elegy (a memoir of his Appalachian upbringing) recently, and now watching American Honey, it feels like were overdue for an attempt to understand some of the forces of working class white dysfunction. Yes, these are your Trump voters, your rust belt refugees, abandoned by globalization and left to marinate in opiate addiction, seasoned to taste with sexual abuse. I can understand wanting to avoid them like we normally do, because of their coarse vernacular, poor grooming, and terrible taste in music, but might I suggest its worth trying to understand why theyre so pissed off?

Vince Mancini is a writer, comedian, and podcaster. A graduate of Columbias non-fiction MFA program, his work has appeared on FilmDrunk, the UPROXX network, the Portland Mercury, the East Bay Express, and all over his moms refrigerator. Fan FilmDrunk on Facebook, find the latest movie reviews here.

With the exception of one scene, where a little girl in a grimy heroin house in Nebraska tells Star her favorite song is I Kill Children by the Dead Kennedys. Somehow I doubt Mountain Dew-drinking trailer park 10-year-olds are big into Bay Area punk rock from the 70s. It was about the only sour note, though it did ring egregiously false.

Probably his best, and stinkiest-looking (which is really saying something) performance to date. Jake feels like he captures Shia LaBeoufs essence better than any character before.
By Sue-Lin Wong DANDONG, China (Reuters) - Tourists and the odd train made their way across China's main border point with North Korea on Saturday, with residents largely brushing off Pyongyang's fifth and largest nuclear test and little sign of stepped up security or scrutiny. China, Pyongyang's main diplomatic ally, is key in any effort to rein in North Korea's nuclear program. It has been infuriated by repeated nuclear and missile tests and has signed up to increasingly tough United Nations sanctions. While China says it is fully committed to enforcing the sanctions, it has also made clear it does not think ordinary North Koreans should be made to suffer, and has long worried that totally cutting off Pyongyang would lead to the country's collapse, sending waves of refugees its way. China's border city of Dandong, through which as much as 80 percent of the bilateral trade is conducted, would be the most obvious place for Beijing to make its displeasure with North Korea felt by slowing the flow of goods, even temporarily. Residents said there had been no such reaction, even though the main bridge connecting the two sides had been closed on and off for repairs in the past few days, but not totally shut. One Dandong businessman, who asked to be identified by his family name of Lu, said for him North Korea held no fascination - it was simply a place to trade with, though he did admit to being nervous about possible radiation. "There's still huge demand for ordinary goods, like food and clothes," he said. "There was a train this morning, one yesterday, one the day before. Things haven't stopped." At the main border post, trucks lined up to take goods into North Korea on Monday, the port not being opened for routine trade on weekends. "It's business as usual, it's no different from any other day," said a 24-year-old woman who exports clothes to North Korea, declining to give her name. Tourists had to walk across though, because of the repairs. Shops around the border post and train station are packed with goods obviously aimed at the North Korean market like machinery, with Korean script featured prominently. Some residents said they hadn't even heard of the latest test, which has not received top billing in Chinese state media. "Trade has been increasing each year between North Korea and China. North Koreans rely on us for generators, natural resources, food, all sorts of things," said Lu Shilei, 34, who runs tours to North Korea. "I don't think the sanctions have had a huge impact, they're only limited to a few products connected to the nuclear program. There's still lots of trade either way for common goods that ordinary people use." China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether border checks had been stepped up. BRIGHT LIGHTS, NO LIGHTS At night, Dandong's bright lights stand in marked contrast to the darkness that looms from the North Korean side of the Yalu River which separates them, drawing a clear line between a booming China and impoverished North Korea. Dandong has deep emotional ties to North Korea due to the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Mao Zedong's forces fought alongside North Korea against a U.S.-lead UN coalition. The "Broken Bridge", bombed in half by U.S. aircraft in that war, is a major tourist draw, sitting in the center of town next to the "Friendship Bridge" over which much of today's bilateral trade is conducted. There is also a large war museum. Trade between Beijing and Pyongyang has always been opaque, with experts believing much of the trade and aid China sends North Korea is off books and so difficult to track, making a true assessment of commercial ties close to impossible. Officially, bilateral trade in the first seven months of the year fell 5.6 percent year-on-year, with China's imports falling a larger 8.7 percent. Business between the two is dwarfed by trade between China and capitalist South Korea, which was worth 908 billion yuan ($135.97 billion) in the January to July period, compared to just 17.7 billion yuan between China and North Korea. Wang Quan, general manager of a trading firm that sells trucks, cars and buses to North Korea, said overall trade had suffered slightly because of sanctions, and also China's own slowing economy, but overall he saw no major impact. "It's just business as usual each time North Korea conducts a nuclear test. Nothing really changes for a small business like ours." On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry would not be drawn on whether China would support further sanctions, saying only that it has fulfilled previous U.N. resolutions and would continue to take a responsible and constructive attitude toward talks at the Security Council. China is also angry at Washington and Seoul for a decision to place an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea, saying it threatens China's security and won't help bring North Korea back to the negotiating table. Cai Jian, an expert on North Korea at Shanghai's Fudan University, said China had always been very careful in having targeted sanctions, aimed directly at the nuclear and missile programs. "We don't put sanctions on the ordinary people, as that would affect the stability of the whole country," Cai said. "I don't think there will be any extra measures." (Additional reporting by Joseph Campbell, and Beijing newsroom; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
SEOUL (Reuters) - Korean Air Lines , the biggest shareholder of Hanjin Shipping , has approved a plan to provide a loan of 60 billion won ($54.16 million) to the troubled shipper.

The support will be offered on condition of securing Hanjin Shipping's Long Beach Terminal as collateral, Korean Air said.

Hanjin Group has pledged to raise a total of 100 billion won ($90 million) in funds to help rescue cargo that is stranded at sea following the failure of Hanjin Shipping, the world's seventh-largest container carrier.

Out of the 100 billion won, Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho will raise 40 billion won from private funds next week.

($1 = 1,107.7300 won)

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Larry King told CNN this evening that the fracas over Donald Trump doing an interview with him that aired on Kremlin-controlled TV is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Earlier today, Trumps rep told CNN the interview was recorded as a podcast and was a favor to King, adding, Mr. Trump was never told it would be shared anywhere else and that Trump would not have agreed to do the interview had he known it would air on RT America  an operation of government-funded news outlet Russia Today.

King this evening told CNNs Erin Burnett that the podcast and his Politicking show are two entirely different things, and suggested Trump knows that, having previously participated in Kings podcast.

I dont know what Trump knew, King told Burnett with regard to where his Politicking show is distributed. He said he had not been contacted by Trump or his campaign since the kerfuffle broke out.

Besides which, King said, RT never has edited his show, so whats the deal?

King insisted Vladimir Putin routinely gets criticized on the program. In a Thursday interview with King, Trump said the Russian government probably did not meddle in the American presidential race and that the Hillary Clinton camps suggestion otherwise was politically motivated.

Kings phone interview with Trump had ended extremely abruptly, when King asked Trump his thoughts about Mexican immigrants. There was dead silence on the other end of the call.

Don, are you there?, King asked, then told viewers, I dont know what happened there. We did not lose the connection, so something happened.

Trumps reps subsequently called his producers, and  King told Burnett his producers told him  apologized. They said a girl came into the room from which Trump was doing the phoner and told the candidate he had something else he had to do. Hence the hang-up.

Not only did they apologize, King insisted to Burnett that they were planning to reschedule another appearance next week.

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Asked if it was now unclear whether that would happen, King said he did not know, adding, All I do is do a show.

Hillary Clinton this afternoon weighed in on Trumps Larry King interview on RT America, remarking: Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a realty television show. Its not a serious presidential campaign.

In summer of 2013, various media outlets, including Deadline, reported Kings political talkshow, Politicking with Larry King, would be carried worldwide by RT, a network funded by the Russian government. RT cut an expanded distribution deal with Ora TV, which produces Politicking and which is financed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu.

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Australias tourism sector may be receiving an ironic uptick in visitors despite the deterioration of one of the continents main draws, the Great Barrier Reef.

Thats because people are worried that if they dont go now, they may never see the planets largest living organism and the millions of corals, tropical fish, turtles, dolphins, and sharks it supports.

Its called last-chance tourism, a phenomenon in which visitors explicitly seek out vanishing lands or seascapes. The fear is being driven largely by the reality of climate change. Warming ocean temperatures, coastal development, and invasive species have laid waste to roughly half the corals along the 1,200-mile-long Great Barrier Reef in the past three decades. This year, the reef experienced the worst coral bleaching ever, with one study estimating that up to 93 percent of corals were affected. Another study suggested coral bleaching episodes will only get worse.

The flurry of international media coverage on the reefs demise got environmental researcher Annah Piggott-McKellar at the University of Queensland wondering what kind of influence those reports are having on the $5.6 billion reef-related tourism industry.

In a survey published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Piggott-McKellar and fellow researchers discovered that nearly 70 percent of visitors to the Great Barrier Reef in 2015 said a desire to see the reef before its gone was their main reason for journeying to the World Heritage Site.

The 235 survey takers were selected from three reef-related tourist hot spots in Queensland. They were asked to choose among 15 reasons for coming to the Great Barrier Reef and to rate the importance of all 15, including options such as to see the reef before it is gone, to rest and relax, and to discover new places and things.

RELATED: The 6 Biggest Threats to the World's Biggest Coral Reef

Piggott-McKellar said the only other instances where this type of tourism has been observed is in polar regions; tourists have been rushing to see polar bears in the Arctic and retreating glaciers in Antarctica.

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Tour operators may benefit in the immediate future, but the long-term health of the reef is in doubt, and the increased level of tourism might exacerbate pressure on the vulnerable ecosystem, Piggott-McKellar warned. She added that media reports highlighting destinations to see before theyre gone have a responsibility to inform tourists about the potential ecological damage involved in visiting those areas.

Our research found the media is where most people develop their perceptions of the Great Barrier Reef and, speculatively, other tourism destinations, Piggott-McKellar said. I believe they hold much power to inform the general public of the threats facing tourist destinations and hopefully use that position to increase education and promote positive change.

The Australian government, on the other hand, was found to have lobbied UNESCO to remove references to climate changes impact on the Great Barrier Reef in a recent report.

Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism, the Australian Environment Department wrote in a statement to news.com.au. The department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issuesthe world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism.

In place of listing the reef among UNESCOs destinations at risk, Australia made a deal with the United Nations conservation agency to restore the Great Barrier Reef, outlining a plan that includes increasing reef monitoring and slashing reef-polluting agriculture runoff by 80 percent before 2025.

Piggott-McKellar said that while tourism has flourished this yearaided by a falling Australian dollara tipping point most likely lies ahead.

There is the question of whether or not there is a threshold of when people see the reef as too far gone to visit, she said. It would be very interesting to see how this tourism trend progresses into the future, especially if major bleaching events continue to occur as has been projected.

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Related stories on TakePart:





 Threats to Australia's Great Barrier Reef

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 The Great Barrier Reef Is Losing Its Strength to Fight Climate Change

Original article from TakePart
The rest will probably remain unwritten.



Lauren Conrad told E! News that she thinks a Hills reunion might be a little challenging to orchestrate.



"I don't think the whole cast has been in the same room since the finale," the former reality star explained. "There's a lot of them really, so it would be hard."



The Hills premiered in 2006 as a spin-off from MTV's hit show Laguna Beach. Conrad, now 30, left the show behind in 2009, with former Laguna castmate Kristin Cavallari taking over for the series' final season.









Lauren Conrad Doesn't Think a Hills Reunion Will Happen: 'It Would Be Hard'| The Hills, TV News, Lauren Conrad

The show's other breakout stars included Audrina Partridge and Brody Jenner.



"Some of us [still talk and text]," Conrad told E! "A few of the girls I still talk to."





Related Video: Whitney Port Opens up About Amplifying Drama for The Hills

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In a recent MTV special, The Hills: That Was Then, This Is Now, Conrad opened up about the now-iconic series.



Some of the major revelations? The cast was forced to film scenes together, even if they weren't getting along, and each episode came with a script.



"It was hard on my relationships. It was hard on me," she said, noting, however, that she still doesn't regret doing the show.



Conrad now has her own fashion brand, debuting the line's second Runway Collection in California on Thursday.



Of crafting her collection, Conrad told PEOPLE, "I think inspiration is everywhere it just depends on the time. Different things inspire different people, so it's just anything that moves you."
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Authorities in Fiji on Saturday detained the leaders of two opposition parties and a senior trade union official after they took part in an event critical of the Pacific island nation's constitution, an opposition party official said. The leader of the National Federation Party (NFP), Biman Prasad, and a trade unionist, Attar Singh, were taken into custody over their participation in Wednesday's forum on the 2013 constitution, said an NFP official, Prem Singh. "The arrest is a threat to public assembly and we don't know why they are being arrested, they are only doing their jobs," Singh said, but added that no charges had yet been made. In a statement, the Sodelpa opposition party said its leader Sitiveni Rabuka, a former prime minister, had turned himself in to police. Rabuka was involved in two previous coups in 1987 and went on to become prime minister between 1992 and 1999. Police and government officials did not immediately respond to telephone calls from Reuters seeking comment. But a Fiji police spokeswoman, Ana Naisoro, told The Fiji Times that several people were being questioned over comments made at the forum which "could affect the safety and security of all Fijians". "This step is being taken merely to eliminate all doubts and concerns that could stem from speculation," Naisoro was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times. Police are also holding a former politician and an official of a non-government body that organized Wednesday's event, Radio New Zealand said. The event coincided with the tiny nation's first public holiday for Constitution Day. Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the day before the event, Prasad had described the holiday as a "waste of money" and government "propaganda". "There is nothing much to celebrate about the 2013 constitution, which was opposed to the will of the people," Prasad said. Prasad's wife, Rajni Chand Prasad, told Reuters that police had searched their house looking for documents and that police also searched his office and took away a laptop computer. Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama came to power in a bloodless military coup in 2006. He stood down from the military to run as a civilian in the country's 2014 elections, winning by a landslide. (Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Himani Sarkar)
Dhaka (AFP) - At least 25 people have been killed and 70 injured, many critically, in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a Bangladeshi packaging factory, officials said Saturday as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.

Around 100 people were working when flames tore through the four-storey building in the industrial town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka.

Parvez Mia, a doctor at the Tongi government hospital, told AFP the death toll was at 25, up from 22 previously reported, and said at least 70 people were injured.

The fire started in the boiler room at the Tampaco Foils Limited factory, which supplies foreign and domestic brands.

"We still have not controlled the blaze and we fear some workers are still trapped in the factory," police inspector Aminul Islam told AFP.

Mia, the doctor, said seriously injured victims had been sent to hospitals in the capital Dhaka.

"Several of them are very critical," he added.

Factory electrician Mohammad Rokon, 35, escaped with minor injuries.

"I was working inside the office room when I heard an explosion and felt a tremor. Then suddenly the ceiling started to fall on me," he told AFP from his hospital observation bed.

"I almost became unconscious. But I forced myself to go out with the help of my mobile phone's flashlight."

Machine operator Rubel Hossain was two minutes away from entering the factory when the blast occurred.

"I heard a huge explosion and saw smoke and fire coming out of the factory," he said.

"I am simultaneously feeling lucky and heartbroken," he said, tears streaming down his face as he helped rush the many injured to hospital, blood staining his T-shirt.

The tragedy struck as families were preparing to celebrate the major Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

"My brother Delwar Hossain told us last night he would take us to our home district of Sherpur. Now he is going to be buried there," said Khaleda Begum, the sister of a factory worker killed in the accident.

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"Eid is ruined for our family."

Chemicals may have been stored on the ground floor of the factory, helping to explain how the blaze that began at 6:00 am (0000 GMT) spread so fast, said Tahmidul Islam of Bangladesh's industrial police unit.

"What we have heard is that there were chemicals stored on the ground floor. As a result, the fire took no time to spread," Islam told AFP, adding scores of firefighters were still battling to bring the blaze under control.

According to the company's website, the packaging factory supplies multinational and domestic brands including British-American Tobacco Bangladesh Limited and Nestle Bangladesh Limited.

The head of Bangladesh's factory inspection department said a committee had been set up to investigate the fire.

"They'll probe why the fire occurred and whether the factory lacked proper fire safety measures. They will also suggest how we can improve fire safety of local factories," Ahmed said.

- Fires, accidents common -

Fires and other accidents are common in the factories that make up the $27-billion garment industry in Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest apparel exporter after China.

In November 2012, at least 111 workers were killed when a devastating fire engulfed a nine-storey garment factory in the Ashulia industrial area, outside the capital Dhaka.

The accident was followed by an even bigger tragedy six months later when 1,138 people died after another clothing factory complex collapsed, trapping over 3,000 workers.

The Rana Plaza tragedy triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

Western brands subsequently improved safety standards and inspections for suppliers, dramatically reducing incidents of fire and other accidents at export-orientated factories.

Fires in garment factories have dropped from 250 in 2012 to just 30 in 2015, with no fatalities that year, according to Bangladesh fire department figures.

But thousands of local factories supplying the domestic market have done little to address safety concerns.

Workers are often crammed in elbow to elbow, while fire escape stairwells are routinely blocked or padlocked closed, ostensibly to prevent theft.

Building regulations are rarely enforced and volatile chemicals are often improperly stored, while official safety inspections are few and far between.
Leonardo DiCaprio has spent years raising awareness and funding in the fight against global warming  and now he's opening up about where that passion for environmentalism comes from.



"At a young age I was very saddened by species that had become extinct by the result of man made activity and so that led me on a long sort of journey to get me involved in environmental issues," the Oscar winner told PEOPLE at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he's in town to promote his new documentary The Ivory Game.



But after speaking with former Vice President Al Gore, DiCaprio felt a new level of motivation. "It was really a meeting that I had with Al Gore in the white house in my early 20s," he explained.



"He sat me down, drew a picture of the planet, drew our atmosphere and said, 'This Is the most important crisis facing humanity' and from that point on I really become not only fascinated with the issue but really concerned why we as a collective world community haven't done enough about it."









Leonardo Dicaprio Visits Sumatra to Help Save Rare Animals



Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth helped put the dangers of global warming in perspective for millions of people when it was released in 2006. And The Revenant star founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998, and to date the organization has raised nearly $60 million in grant awards.



The Ivory Game, executive produced by DiCaprio, will make its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday ahead of its release on Netflix. Described on the festival website as a "suspenseful on-the-ground documentary," The Ivory Game follows "wildlife activists and investigators [who] put their lives on the line to battle the illegal African ivory trade."



DiCaprio told PEOPLE he "wanted to make a movie that really highlighted the scientific community," adding, "We spent 2 and a half years in multiple locations speaking to dozens of people trying to get the message out."



Speaking on the fight against global warming, DiCaprio said, "Each year is getting hotter than the next and now is the time to act on this issue. We are at a real turning point, not only in human history but as far as the manipulation of our planet is concerned due to global emissions. We need political leaders to really take a stand."
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Throughout the course of her political career, Hillary Clinton has been routinely accused of one irredeemable sin: failing to smile.

From GOP chairman Reince Priebus to conservative commentator Dick Morris to an infinite parade of egg avatars on Twitter, everyone is deeply emotionally invested in getting the candidate to lighten up a little. She's running for president of the United States  and a true commander in chief knows just how to lol.

SEE ALSO: If Hillary Clinton had her own 'Nancy Drew' book series

It's time for Clinton to finally listen to the men who've told her to "smile" her whole life. Clinton has probably always wanted to smile and simply needed a strong man to teach her how.

So here are helpful lessons from some of her most incisive critics.

1. "This right here is the key to a successful smile."  Reince Priebus

Image: CNN screenshot

On Wednesday, Priebus went after Clinton for failing to smile during the 'Commander in Chief' forum.

"HillaryClinton was angry + defensive the entire time  no smile and uncomfortable  upset that she was caught wrongly sending our secrets," Priebus tweeted.

Now she can learn from a pro who has clearly mastered the genre.

2."Try taking a sexy selfie like you're a teenager discovering Instagram."  Steven Clemons

During the Democratic National Convention, Steve Clemons, an editor at large for The Atlantic, tweeted this advice to Clinton: "Instead of lecturing 2 citizens, needs to have conversation with us. Modulate voice. Tell stories. Have hope. Smile."

Clemons has since apologized for his tweet, but we heard him loud and clear!

3. "The best way to smile is to hide your bottom teeth and close your eyes very tight."  Joe Scarborough

After Clinton won a major primary in March, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough decided the best way to congratulate her was by encouraging her to smile.

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"Smile. You just had a big night," Scarborough wrote on Twitter.

Thanks for the pro tip, sexist Dad!

4. "Good smiles happen when you grin so hard all the blood in your body rushes to your nose."  Mitt Romney

Image: Getty Images

Last summer, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned voters that Clinton couldn't be trusted because she was too loyal to steamed milk.

"When you see her on a stage or when she comes into a room full of people, she's smiling with her mouth but her eyes say, 'Where's my latte?'" Romney said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Only trust candidates whose eyes take their coffee black.

5. "Smile like you don't know the social media basics."  Dick Morris





Here's a picture of me from my vacation in Ireland, such a beautiful country. pic.twitter.com/Kz7x4pn  Dick Morris (@DickMorrisTweet) August 10, 2011

Political commentator Dick Morris accused Clinton of being unfit for the oval office because she showed too much emotion during a New Hampshire campaign event.

"I believe that there could well come a time when there is such a serious threat to the United States that she breaks down like that," Morris said. "I don't think she ought to be president."

Smile less, Hillary! No wait! Smile more! (Smile less?)

6. "Smile like you're a faceless, trolling hardboiled egg avatar."





Image: twitter

During the Democratic National Convention, social media users pounced on Clinton for failing to smile. While the Daily Dot's list includes several well-known pundits, many of the criticisms were lobbed by cold, anonymous hardboiled egg avatars on Twitter: true masters of human emotion.

Smile like the egg avatars, former secretary of state.

7. "You don't have to smile if you wear a salmon-colored sweater on national television."  Brit Hume





After Clinton won a big victory during the March primaries, Fox News' Brit Hume congratulated her not on her historical achievement, but on a much bigger victory: her smile.

Hillary actually smiled at the end of her speech. Mirabile Dictu!  Brit Hume (@brithume) March 16, 2016

It was a small step. But will Clinton ever truly learn how to smile like the masters above? Only time will tell.

BONUS: Corgi Tea Party




What a difference a year makes.

At the 2015 Values Voter Summit, the annual gathering of conservative Christians held in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump finished a distant fifth place in the straw poll vote of GOP candidates  far behind overwhelming favorite Ted Cruz, as well as Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio. Unaccustomed to speaking before religious audiences, Trump made a few stumbles and drew boos when he referred to Rubio as a clown.

On Thursday, he returned to the confab hosted by the Family Research Council, but now as the Republican presidential nominee and the events main attraction. Trump addressed the packed ballroom at D.C.s Omni Shoreham Hotel, where he answered the question of what you get when you cross a combative, coarse reality-show star with a group of conservative values voters. Enthusiastic chants of Lock her up! filled the room in the middle of Trumps speech, only to be replaced by earnest applause minutes later as he read from the New Testament: No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

It was head-spinning, but of a piece with the rest of Trumps appearance. As is his wont, the nominee toggled back and forth between the scripted speech on the teleprompter and his extended ad-libbed riffs, most notably about the IRS regulation that prevents churches from engaging in political activity if they want to maintain tax-exempt status.

The so-called Johnson Amendment has been in place since 1954, and it  along with the question of who will shape the U.S. Supreme Court through future appointments  has formed the root of Trumps appeal to evangelical voters. The idea that pastors are being silenced fits in well with his warnings about the tyranny of political correctness, and Trump often becomes especially animated when he touches on the subject.

Before the Values Voter audience, Trump went even further than usual, declaring that if pastors and ministers  want to talk about Christianity, if they want to preach, if they want to talk about politics, they are unable to do so. He continued, All religious leaders should be able to freely express their thoughts and feelings on religious matters.

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Of course, thats exactly what religious leaders do on a weekly, if not daily, basis. But even just limiting concern to clergys ability to engage in political activity, for Trumps characterization to be accurate, youd have to set aside nearly all of Martin Luther King Jr.s work, the arrests of clergy protesting nuclear weapons, the arrests of clergy protesting abortion, Pat Robertsons presidential campaign and all the religious leaders who have spoken at numerous Trump rallies and events, including the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Donald Trump speaks to the 2016 Value Voters Summit on September 9, 2016. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

In reality, the Johnson Amendment limits only those clergy who want to use their churches as political arms  and even then, its virtually never enforced. No matter. When Trump promised the crowd, I will repeal the Johnson Amendment if I am elected your president, he was rewarded with cheers and applause.

That response apparently puts Values Voter Summit attendees in the minority of evangelicals, three-quarters of whom say that they dont want pastors making endorsements from the pulpit, according to a recent survey from LifeWay Research, a Nashville-based Christian research organization. Americans already argue about politics enough outside the church, LifeWay executive director Scott McConnell told Christianity Today. They dont want pastors bringing those arguments into worship.

During his speech, Trump softened his usual harsh remarks against refugees, perhaps because of the role many evangelical congregations have played in welcoming and settling Syrian refugees. And he touched on a few issues, like Supreme Court appointments and homeschooling, that are of special interest to conservative evangelicals.

It was near the end of Trumps remarks, however, that the true affinity he shares with many in the conservative Christian community became crystal clear. After lecturing the crowd for not voting in large enough numbers in 2012 and implying that his defeat in November could only happen if they failed to turn out at the polls, Trump focused on the shared disrespect he and evangelicals have endured from liberal elites.

These people  they think were stupid. They think were stupid, he said, to loud cheers of agreement. Well, they wont be thinking it for long.
AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria's mainstream opposition said on Saturday the proposed U.S.-Russian deal could eventually end the ordeal of civilians, in its first reaction to the agreement. Bassma Kodmani, spokeswoman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said the body welcomed the deal "if it is going to be enforced." The onus was on Russia as its influence "was the only way to get the regime to comply," her statement added. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
cuban-eric

Getty Image

Donald Trumps campaign has come out in full force Saturday decrying Hillary Clinton for calling some of his supporters a basket of deplorables. The Donalds son Eric Trump fired off a tweet striking back at Clinton, but he didnt do the proper research before hitting the tweet button:

Look at the #BasketOfDeplorables in Pensacola Florida last night! What a horrible statement. #CrookedHillary pic.twitter.com/GfevT0KUjd  Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 10, 2016

Nothing wrong with boasting about the massive crowd your father can garner, but little Trump was a bit off as that was not Pensacola, Florida. The photo was actually from a 2015 rally in Dallas at the American Airlines Arena. And who was able to catch the error and call out Trump? Why none other than Dallas Mavericks owner and Hillary Clinton supporter Mark Cuban:

I'm pretty sure that's our arena in Dallas Eric. #WrongBasket https://t.co/rh8WGWuDO0  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) September 10, 2016

Deadspin was even crafty enough to dig up the original photo and point out you could clearly see banners for retired Dallas Stars players in the background. Cubans tweet was not the mightiest burn, but he has roasted Trump pretty hard in the past.

But Cuban may not be done tackling Trump this campaign season. There are rumors that he has flirted with the idea of running for office, but he hasnt said anything official. But he said if independent Evan McMullin, who is running as the anti-Trump Republican alternative, needs a vice president he would be happy to discuss. Oh, the possibilities that could provide the country.

(Via Deadspin & AOL)
The MC5's Wayne Kramer will take the Ford Theater stage tonight (Sept. 9) in Los Angeles alongside Shooter Jennings, Gilbey Clarke, Marshall Crenshaw, Jill Sobule, Keith Morris, Don Was, Jason Heath & The Greedy Souls and The Wild Reeds for the Rock Out 3 concert, a benefit for Jail Guitar Doors, the prison-reform organization Kramer has worked with for several years. Kramer feels lucky to be there at all.

"I'm a returned citizen," Kramer says, "I served a federal prison term." In 1974 the Detroit native was part of a drug sting, supposedly the result of his and his bandmates' connections to political activism the White Panther party, by the federal government, which resulted in a four-year prison term. Kramer says the prison term he received for procuring a pound-and-a-half of cocaine for an informant with a briefcase full of of $100 bills would have ended with a life sentence today.

MC5's Michael Davis Remembered by Wayne Kramer, Ted Nugent

Like millions of other non-violent-drug offenders, Kramer served under harsh conditions with no personal safety, scant edible food or decent health care.

Lucky, at least, that he served his time alongside Red Rodney (a.k.a. Robert Roland Chudnic), a trumpet player for Charlie Parker who Kramer says "was a great man and an unbelievable musician," and who became his mentor and "musical father."

After his release, Kramer wanted to work on issues of justice and prison reform. So in 2008 he gathered a group of legendary musicians -- including Tom Morello, Don Was, Jerry Cantrell, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Don Was, Gilby Clark, Perry Farrell and Billy Bragg -- to perform at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York. While there, Bragg told Kramer about a project he had started in his native England called Jail Guitar Doors, which provided prisoners with instruments. Serendipitously, the organization's name had come from a Clash song that Joe Strummer -- a patron saint of sorts to Jail Guitar Doors -- had written in homage to Kramer. It begins with the lyric: "Let me tell you 'bout Wayne and his deals of cocaine."

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Then and there, Kramer decided he would head up the prison reform group's U.S. branch.

Since it inception, Jail Guitar Doors has lobbies against overly long prison terms, the privatization of prisons for profit and, more elementally, a restoration of humanity. The organization has since donated guitars to over 65 American prisons and has run songwriting workshops in county jails across the country, including in Los Angeles, San Diego, Cook County (Chicago) and Travis County (Austin).

"We are the most prison-crazed country in the history of the world," the outspoken Kramer says. "We have five percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prisoners." He attributes much of the prison crisis to politicians who parlayed being tough on crime into votes, which he says led to the ineffective war on drugs. "It's the greatest failure of social policy in America's history," Kramer says, "They locked up more people and did great harm to communities across the country. Meanwhile today we're amidst the greatest drug crisis in history where you can buy more drugs cheaper than you could 30 years ago when all of this started."

When asked if he's at all encouraged by recent government efforts to clamp down on private prisons and the Obama's administration's release of 111 non-violent drug offenders, Kramer is cautious. "Well, these are good symbolic steps," he says, "But we are nowhere near justice and I don't think I'll see that in my lifetime. It's like turning the Titanic -- this is an $80 billion a year industry. People like to say the justice department is broke, but it's not, it's a big hit -- it's number one with a bullet."

Tickets for tonight's benefit are still available.at www.jailguitardoors.org .
By Natalie Schachar and Lizbeth Diaz MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people across Mexico marched on Saturday to protest against gay marriage, challenging President Enrique Pena Nieto's proposal to recognize same-sex marriage throughout the traditionally conservative country. The marches were called by the National Front for the Family, a coalition of civil society organizations and various religious groups, and were expected to continue throughout the day from Mexico's far north to the Yucatan peninsula. Same sex marriage is permitted in Mexico City, as well as in several states including Coahuila, Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Sonora. Pena Nieto has proposed changing the constitution to allow it nationally. The embattled leader, who is grappling with discontent over a slowing economy, conflict of interest scandals, drug gang violence and a visit by U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump that led to his finance minister's ouster, says Congress should debate and settle the issue of gay marriage. By mid-day on Saturday, an estimated 40,000 people converged on the city of Queretaro in central Mexico, during a peaceful 3 to 4 kilometer march through the city, one of the largest gatherings in the country, Civil Protection emergency services officers said. "I think it was something unprecedented, the awakening of the society of Queretaro in defense of the family," said Jose Alcantara, an organizer with the National Front for the Family, adding the group had gathered more than 100,000 signatures against the proposal. Ary Campos Martinez, a spokesperson for Civil Protection in the city of Puebla in central Mexico, said officers had originally expected roughly 5,000 marchers, but were working to monitor a crowd of approximately 12,000 by mid-day. He said transportation had been interrupted throughout the city, and roughly 60 officers were patrolling a protest route that led to the governor's house. "It got out of control," Campos said. "Too many people arrived." Mexico's Supreme Court said last year that laws restricting marriage to a man and woman were unconstitutional. However, many state legislatures have not changed their statutes to comply, meaning couples must file legal challenges on a case-by-case basis to get married. Gay marriage is still banned under local laws in many of Mexico's 31 states. (Reporting by Natalie Schachar and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Simon Gardner and Chizu Nomiyama)
Michelle Obama, Nick Cannon and Late Night host Seth Meyers paid a surprise visit to Howard University to offer students words of advice and encouragement ahead of the school year. The back-to-school special, which took place Sept. 1 in Washington, D.C., aired as part of his Friday episode.

Speaking to an auditorium of over 200 freshmen in a Q&A panel moderated by Meyers, the first lady stressed the importance of students stepping outside of their comfort zones to make the most out of their college experience.

"College was probably the most impactful thing that I have done in my life - other than being the first lady and having kids and marrying Barack Obama," she joked, before adding, "But college did everything for me. It built my confidence. It taught me that I could leave home and be successful away from home. It taught me how to open up, how to try new things that are scary, how to buck expectations and beats the odds."

Obama reflected on her own years as a student at Princeton University, telling the audience that she didn't take her education or her parents' financial support for granted. She told the crowd, "I knew my father had taken out a loan, and he was a blue-collar worker, so I knew I had to get it together and make sure I was doing my best."

Read more: 'Awards Chatter' Podcast  Seth Meyers ('Late Night With Seth Meyers')

Cannon, who enrolled as a freshman at Howard in late August, discussed his personal decision to return to school despite already having an established career.

"I'm not here for a degree. I'm here because I have a real thirst for knowledge," said the America's Got Talent host, adding that, as a father, he wanted to set an example for his two children. "I'm always talking about being an advocate for education. I gotta walk the walk."

He noted that, even though film projects and hosting gigs keep him busy, "I just consider all my other jobs extracurricular activities. School is first and foremost."

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On the topic of choosing a college major, Meyers emphasized the value in exploring extracurricular activities and shared how his involvement in one particular club led to a career in comedy.

"I thought I wanted to be a film director, and then I realized I wasn't good at it," said the Saturday Night Live alum, who was a radio-TV-film major at Northwestern University. "My school had an improv comedy troupe, which I ended up auditioning for and getting, and that ultimately set me on my path to where I ended up. ... Sometimes that might be the thing that inspires your next job."

Read more: Nick Offerman, Michelle Obama Star in Funny or Die's "History of Exercise"

Obama also offered words of advice for freshmen just beginning their next four years at Howard, reminding them to always stay grounded and ignore peers who "try to step on your confidence."

"Hold on to your authentic self, even in this experience. As you grow and achieve, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you," she said. "That authentic self is going to follow you all through life. So make sure that it's solid."

She continued, "When I applied to colleges, I had people who told me that I was reaching too high - that the schools I was applying to were too much for me. There are a lot of people who will try to step on your confidence based on their assumptions about who they think you are. What you have to remember is that you are competent and capable and able to do it."

Friday's episode of Late Night also featured a pretaped segment in which Obama and Meyers sat down one-on-one with Howard University students and advised them on ways to destress, reflected on their favorite college-party memories and showed them how to prepare a well-balanced meal away from home. The first lady recommended a healthy mix of protein and grains, while Meyers suggested Skittles for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Watch the bit below.
(Adds comment from Minneapolis Fed, recasts lede)

By Ann Saphir

DALLAS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank is seeking a new research director after Sam Schulholfer-Wohl, who ran the bank's research department for the last three years, left to take a job at the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank.

"After six years at the bank, Sam Schulhofer-Wohl decided to leave the bank in late August," Minneapolis Fed spokesman David Wargin said in response to a query from Reuters.

"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the research department and to the bank and wish him every success in his future endeavors."

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who took the top job at the bank in January, wants a new research director who will also advise on monetary policy and attend policy-setting meetings in Washington, an ad for Schulhofer-Wohl's replacement shows. The ad, posted on the Minneapolis Fed's website, states that the application review will begin on Monday.

Fed policymakers, who next meet on Sept. 20-21, are mulling the timing of their next rate hike.

Many regional Fed presidents bring their research directors to the meetings. Kashkari, who does not have a background in economic research himself, has not brought his research chief to a policy-setting meeting since April.

Kashkari ran the U.S. Treasury's bank bailout program during the financial crisis and later ran as Republican candidate for governor in California. He has sought to put his mark on the Fed's smallest regional bank with a project aimed at solving the problem of too-big-to-fail banks, and does not often speak extensively about monetary policy matters.

Schulhofer-Wohl's published research has been on issues related to monetary policy and the macroeconomy, rather than on regulatory or banking issues.

His new position at the Chicago Fed is senior economist and research adviser.

Schulhofer-Wohl and a spokesman for the Chicago Fed did not immediately respond to an emailed query after regular business hours on Friday.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; editing by Diane Craft and Himani Sarkar)
Miss Mississippi Laura Lee has plenty of first-hand experience with bullying.



Born with mid facial hypoplasia, her upper face was underdeveloped, while her lower face was over developed.



"My face was very disproportional," Lee, 23, tells PEOPLE. "I dealt with daily bullying."



"The physical pain was tremendous with my condition," she continues. "I had trouble eating and speaking, and there was a lot of pain in my face, but the emotional pain was so much stronger."







Lee says she couldn't get through the school day without being teased by a classmate.



"I remember walking through the hallways of my school with people yelling names at me like 'Horse Face,' and [asking] 'Why do you look like that Laura Lee? What's wrong with your face?' " she recalls. "It was something I had to go through everyday  constantly seeing people staring at me and poking at me and laughing at me."



And there was little hope in sight for the bullying to end.



"I had to wait until my growth plates finished closing, so when I was a little girl, we didn't know if I was going to be able to have it fixed," Lee says. "They just put me in braces and said we'll try to fix it this way, and it was clearly not working."



At age 18, her face had finally grown to a point where she could have corrective surgery.



"It was a seven-hour surgery, followed by six days with my jaw wired shut," Lee says. "All after 13 years in braces."



Lee says she made it through the difficult years with the help of her parents, and a teacher at school who mentored her through the bullying.



"Had I not had the help of my mentor, I could've been so mad at what people were doing to me and how much it hurt," Lee says. "But Miss Fern told me that no matter what I look like, I can do anything I put my mind to."



"I learned at a young age to focus on inner beauty," she continues. "I learned to focus more on character and service, because people were looking at the ugliness on the outside, but I wanted people to see the beauty I had on the inside."





RELATED VIDEO: Miss America 2017 is Almost Here!

Now, as she gets ready to compete in the Miss America pageant, Lee is advocating for mentoring.



"My goal is to make a difference on the lives of others," she says. "And that's what's been my focus in this organization, is not focusing on what is on the outside, not focusing on the ugliness, but focusing on spreading a message of positivity and hope that this country really needs to hear and see right now."



The 2017 Miss America competition airs Sunday, September 11 at 9/8c on ABC.
From ELLE

This article originally appeared in the October 2016 issue of ELLE.

On the winter night seven years ago when Jesse and I met at an East Village bar, I was wearing an enormous vintage pimp-daddy fur over a tiny Stella McCartney tank top kitschily emblazoned with a pouncing scorpion (my zodiac sign) and loose jeans with one leg rolled up (a la mid-'90s LL Cool J) to reveal a retro tube sock. I remember how I felt-awesome, and slightly ridiculous-walking in and being introduced to the tall, cute, casual guy with the great hair, who told me on our second date that, among other things, he was enchanted by the way I dressed. Getting dressed has always been a most delightful game for me, the best way to convey the many things that swirl around inside on a given day-my ambitions, fascinations, unrest; the profound feelings I have for my friends and the earth and music. So when Jesse proposed, I was giddy at the prospect of finding a dress that expressed everything I felt about him, and us.

Which quite obviously was never going to be the archetypal big, white princess gown. I don't love its connotation of innocence and purity, for starters. I'm a fully formed, complex, 31-year-old woman! I don't think or aspire to be "pure"-indeed, I don't know any woman who does. What I wanted was to look sexy-sexier than I'd ever looked before. I wanted my wedding dress to convey that this marriage would be, among many other things, carnal. I wanted it to scream, I'm alive! I love life and this man! And It's party time. And for it to make Jesse, watching me peacock down that aisle, think, Man, I get to marry her? Forever looks like fun.

I wanted my wedding dress to convey that this marriage would be, among many other things, carnal.

But where in the name of Bob Mackie was I going to find a wedding dress that somehow melded the off-kilter glamour of Gwen Stefani with the balls-to-the-wall lustiness of Rihanna and that, crucially, looked filched from the variety showera closet of my full-throttle, midriff-showcasing glamour icon, Cher? I dutifully set up appointments at a roster of fancy Manhattan wedding dress boutiques and scoured the vintage scene, but three months before the wedding, I was still dressless and increasingly desperate.

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Photo credit: Courtesy of the subject

Then one Saturday, dejectedly walking down West Eighth Street after hours of hunting, I glanced up at a second-floor shop. There it was, a knockout dress-more like the slutty tutu of a rogue ballerina-in the window of L'Impasse. This, it turns out, is the place to shop if you want to look like a sultry red-carpet Beyonce, an Ice Capader, or, yes, variety showera Cher. Four seamstresses stationed in a back office expertly craft every custom order, from slinky gowns to gold-beaded leotards to "illusion" dresses for the actual Nicki Minaj. This was where my dress would come from! I knew it even before the owner and head designer, Abdul Sall, a black Frenchman with the kind of chic accent fashion people have in movies, agreed to make it for me. I presented Sall and his associate, Khaly, with an accordion binder stuffed with inspiration: Nicole Richie in one of her 2010 wedding dresses, a frothy explosion of white Marchesa tulle; Miley Cyrus on her Bangerz tour in a crotch-cleaving bedazzled green leotard; Rihanna in that mind-bendingly transparent Adam Selman dress at the CFDA Awards in 2014. "It's not that I need my nipples to show," I explained, "but I do like the idea of transparent accents or panels."

"Whatever you want," Sall said. I would soon learn it's his mantra.

"It's not that I need my nipples to show," I explained, "but I do like the idea of transparent accents or panels."

That first day, we sketched my dress: an abundant tutu with layers of ultrastiff tulle in the back that jutted straight out at a 90-degree angle and feathers fastened throughout, because why not? The bodice would be a bustier. No-a leotard! "Can you make it out of a sequined spandex-y material so that it's stretchy enough for me to dance all night?" I asked. "And rhinestones? I want rhinestones!"

"Whatever you want," Sall said.

The first fitting, a month later, was a nightmare. They'd produced exactly what I'd asked for. But what I'd asked for turned out to be cutesy, multitiered, and Strawberry Shortcakeish. Luckily, for a $200 kill fee, the team agreed to start over completely.

To our next meeting, I brought magazine tear sheets of exact cuts and shapes. After 10 fittings-tweaking and adding, adding and tweaking-the dress was nearly finished. Finally, it was time to bring in my mom.

Though my mother and I are inseparable, our tastes are wildly different. A copy editor at the New Yorker for 24 years, she sleeps with (and zealously consults) a trusty 12-pound dictionary by her bed; fashionwise, her vibe is decidedly Downton Abbey. Remarkably, though, she's always appreciated my style, in that it is wholly my own. But when I'd let her peek at my inspiration folder a few weeks earlier, she was horrified, angered, deeply despairing. "You can't look like a tawdry tramp at your own wedding," she said. "It's a sacred day. And I won't come if you don't treat it like one." Per the standard mother-daughter script, I shot back that it wasn't her wedding, it was mine. And why would I look prim and proper on my wedding day-the occasion on which I felt I most needed to look like myself? The next day, she e-mailed me links of Kate Middleton and Grace Kelly in frilly white dresses.

At L'Impasse, she sat outside the fitting room in the kind of ankle-skimming frock one might wear to high tea while I shimmied into my dress. It was sparkly and sequined, with a voluminous, thigh-high tulle tutu and a truly plunging halter. When I stepped out, the store seemed dramatically still. Then, to my surprise: "It's not what I would have chosenbut I do suppose it's you," she said. "And it does have to be you." And then, "But please, can we stitch up that neckline just a bit?" (We compromised: Ultimately, the dip was about three inches north of J.Lo's dizzying green Versace plunge.)

I couldn't help but think something was missing. The dress was sowhite. "Does neon-green tulle even exist?" I asked the team.

It does. I didn't dare look over at my mom. "Can you make me a neon-green veil?" Guess what Sall said?

Nashville, Tennessee. Saturday, September 19, 2015. I'm a vision of sequins and skin, an Ecto Coolergreen veil trailing radically behind me, as I walk-shaking, smiling, light-headed-down the exceptionally long aisle that is my mother-in-law's sprawling, flower-strewn backyard. I feel like I can dance all night, and I never, ever want to take off this dress. I'm laughing as I approach Jesse-who comes obnoxiously close to upstaging me in a hot-turquoise bespoke suit and his dad's leopard-print shoes-and his lips are splayed in a gigantic grin I didn't know he had. Wow! he mouths, his eyes brighter than a thousand glittery gowns. I like to think that, at the sight of me, he heard lilting steel drums, that I reminded him of all the luscious, strange, exuberant things to come. And of course, a little of Cher.

Have thoughts? We want to hear from you. Contact us at elleletters@hearst.com.

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(adds quotes)

BRATISLAVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A rescue plan for Italian bank Monte dei Paschi will not be modified following the resignation on Thursday of its boss, the country's economy minister said on Saturday.

Chief Executive Fabrizio Viola resigned as the Italian bank is working to complete a 5 billion-euro ($5.6 billion) capital raising needed to stave off the risk of being wound down.

"I am convinced that the appointment of a new chief executive officer (..) will strengthen the plan and will not modify it," Pier Carlo Padoan told reporters after a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Bratislava.

He said he was confident the plan will be successful and called for a quick appointment of a new boss.

The bank could hold a board meeting to name a replacement as early as Sunday, a source close to the matter said on Friday.

Asked whether the resignation of Viola may delay the bank's cash call, Padoan said: "the timing will be decided by the board together with the advisers that have to take into account of market trends".

He also said that the issue was not discussed by EU finance ministers during their two-day meeting ending on Saturday.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alexander Smith)
A New York City woman attacked two Muslim women and their infant children in what authorities described as a hate crime.

Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, was arraigned on Friday after she hit the women in the face and body and tried to rip the hijab off their heads in Brooklyn on Thursday, CNN reported. The women had been pushing their children in strollers.

This is the United States of America, youre not supposed to be different from us, Xhelili yelled during the attack, according to court documents. She swore at the women while telling them to leave the United States. You dont belong here, she said, according to the documents.

Xhelili also pushed one stroller to the ground and rattled the other. The 11-month-old and 15-month old children and their mothers were not seriously injured, CNN reported.

Xhelili was arrested and charged with assault, harassment and reckless endangerment of a child. The Brooklyn District Attorneys office characterized the incident as a hate crime.
No, you didnt just leave your passport, watch and I.D. in the TSA security tray at the airport.

Thats actually part of Netflixs clever marketing campaign for Season 2 of Narcos, the highly-acclaimed original series about Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the DEA agents trying to take him down.

Passengers flying through Los Angeles International Airport spotted the subtle ads at the bottom of the trays Friday, which serve as an ironic way to plug a drama that includes major plot lines about smuggling mountains of drugs into the U.S. from South America during the 70s and 80s.

Also Read: 'Narcos' Star Pedro Pascal Teases Season 2: 'We Get Much Closer to Catching Him' (Exclusive Video)

Entitled Travel Essentials, the ad shows a U.S. passport, a pair of retro sunglasses, a pager (going old school!), a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency badge, a watch and the I.D that appears to be Javier Pena, played by Pedro Pascal.

Along with a big plug for the show, of course.

The campaign comes after HBO bought real subway ads in July to promote fake The Night Of lawyer John Stone (John Turturro) that proclaimed No Fee Til Youre Free!

Also Read: 'Narcos' Renewed: Which Drug Lords Belong on the Series? (Photos)

Narcos fans have more drug-fueled drama and smart ad campaigns to look forward to, as the streaming service announced Tuesday that it has ordered Season 3 and Season 4 of the crime drama.

Season 3 will debut in 2017. Jose Padilha (RoboCop) and Eric Newman (Children of Men) continue to serve as executive producers of the series.

Also Read: Netflix Renews 'Narcos' for 2 More Seasons (Video)

The focus of Narcos had previously been on notorious drug lord Escobar (Wagner Moura), but with the fall of Escobar, the rise of the Cali cartel will take center stage, with Helmer Pacho Herrera and Escobars former partner, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, running the cocaine business in Colombia.

Related stories from TheWrap:

'Narcos': What Happened To La Catedral After Escobar's Death?

Netflix Renews 'Narcos' for 2 More Seasons (Video)

'Narcos': Meet the Drug Lord That Could Be Season 3's Villain
NASA is primed to launch a seven-year mission which could unlock secrets from the beginning of life on Earth and could even help save the human race in the future.
Birth of a Nation director Nate Parker says that the story of Nat Turner's slave rebellion is one that had to be shared.



Parker, who wrote, starred and directed the film, talked about his inspiration for the script in a Q&A session following a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.



"I didn't learn about Nat Turner in high school. I grew up 42 miles east of where the rebellion happened and there's not event a remnant of his exploits," Parker, 36, said. "When I learned about him I felt like, 'Man this is someone who should be celebrated along the line of the Patrick Henrys, the Jeffersons and our forefathers.' "



In 1831, Turner and a group of fellow slaves and free blacks in Virginia rebelled, escaping and killing dozens of slaveowners and their families. Turner was hanged after he was caught two months later.







"I was so inspired by his story that when I became an actor and decided I would start writing, I felt like this was a story that I felt historically speaking could really promote the kind of healing we need and the conversation around race."



Costars Armie Hammer and Colman Domingo agreed, adding that they too hadn't learned anything about Turner growing up.



Parker says Turner's courageous actions impacted generations to come.



"I think he solidified his legacy the moment he raised the axe. That's that form of resistance," Parker said. "I think it's so often in the act. When we think about resistance and we talk about subversive systems, we think, 'Well we can't do anything, no matter what I do it won't work.' But what we forget is that there's a lineage and there are generations behind us."



For more from the Toronto International Film Festival, go to PEOPLE.com/tiff.



"While it may not liberate us, or it may not solve the problem, it can plant a seed that can grow and generations down the line someone can take a story or a folk tale, do the research and make a movie about it and change the way that we think about resistance in respect to these types of systems."



Birth of a Nation was considered a 2017 Oscars frontrunner when it first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in February, in the middle of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. It earned the audience and jury's top prize, and Fox Searchlight purchased the film for a record-setting $17.5 million.





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RELATED VIDEO: Inside Birth of a Nation Director Nate Parker's 1999 Rape Trial

Birth of a Nation in Toronto amid Controversy: 'I Was So Inspired by This Story'" data-ad-channel="peoplenow" data-ad-subchannel="" data-auto-play="no">

But the conversation turned when news resurfaced about Parker's involvement in a 1999 rape case as a student at Penn State University. Parker was acquitted in 2001, but the controversy was renewed due to the success of Birth of a Nation and after Variety learned that the woman involved had committed suicide in 2012 at age 30. Parker has said he was "filled with profound sorrow" when he learned about the woman's death. "As a 36-year-old father of daughters and person of faith, I look back on that time as a teenager and can say without hesitation that I should have used more wisdom," he posted on Facebook.



Parker and his cast were met with a standing ovation after the screening in Toronto Friday night.



In addition to Friday's premiere, Parker will attend a press conference at the festival on Sunday, along with Hammer, Gabrielle Union and other costars.



Birth of a Nation opens in theaters Oct. 7.



 Reporting by JODI GUGLIELMI
Nate Parker arrived on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday  his first public appearance since news of his involvement in a 1999 rape case resurfaced.



The 36-year-old filmmaker was at TIFF for the premiere of his film The Birth of a Nation  a passion project Parker wrote, directed, produced and starred in.



Introducing the movie, Parker said: "I want to thank you for your time and for coming to see our film. This film has been a Labor of love for us and we are desperately proud to present it to you."



The movie recounts the 1831 slave uprising of Nat Turner, an African-American preacher who convinced his fellow slaves to turn against their masters.







It was considered to be an early Oscar favorite after earning rave reviews and an unprecedented $17 million deal at the Sundance Film Festival.





Nate Parker Steps Out at Toronto Film Festival in First Appearance Since Rape Case Controversy

But buzz for the film has been overshadowed recently by Parker's controversial past



While a student at Penn State University in 1999, he and his friend Jean McGianni Celstin  who is listed as a collaborator on Birth of a Nation  were both accused of sexually assaulting a then-18-year-old female classmate.



Parker was charged, tried and subsequently acquitted. Celestin, who was also charged, was convicted and sentenced to six to 12 months in prison. A judge ordered a second trial following an appeal and the case was tossed out in 2005 after the accuser decided not to testify.



In August, Variety reported that Parker's rape accuser committed suicide in 2012 at the age of 30.





RELATED VIDEO: Nate Parker Opens Up About 1999 Rape Case



"I am filled with profound sorrow," Parker wrote on Facebook after the news broke, adding: "As a 36-year-old father of daughters and person of faith, I look back on that time as a teenager and can say without hesitation that I should have used more wisdom."



In addition to Friday's premiere, Parker will attend a press conference at the festival on Sunday, along with cast members Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union and others.



Birth of a Nation opens in theaters Oct. 7.



Reporting by JODI GUGLIELMI
I took my college-age daughter, at night, to visit the shrines that had been erected by ordinary people in the traffic turnarounds and witnessed the enormous canvas shroud that was hung over the west wall to hide the devastation as clean-up and recovery proceeded. It disgusted me that our country had been so ill-prepared despite ample warnings. And that there was no accountability for failure to protect our nations commercial and political capital cities.

In our own small industrial marketing business, we did not put a single check through our companys checking account for 90 days. Customers stopped paying, in panic over uncertainty gripping businesses like ours. When business came back, it was down 40 percent. That is my memory of September 11personal and professional disaster. And loss of faith in our government and its leaders.
This week on our national parks journey, we visit a land of giants, high up in Californias Sierra Nevada mountains.

Here you will find the largest living things on Earth, as well as the tallest mountain in the continental United States. It is also home to the deepest canyon in America.

Welcome to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park!

The park gets its name from the areas ancient sequoia trees. They are among the oldest trees on the planet. Millions of years ago, different kinds of sequoias grew in many different places. Only two kinds exist today -- the redwood and the giant sequoia. Both are found in California.

Redwoods are taller, but the trunks of giant sequoias are much bigger.

Sequoia National Parks forests are thick with giant sequoias. Many of the trees are several thousand years old.

The largest is called General Sherman. It is named after a U.S. general in the civil war, William Tecumseh Sherman. The tree is 31 meters around. It stands almost 84 meters tall. And, it continues to grow. It sits within the parks Giant Forest. The forest is home to over 8,000 sequoia trees.

General Sherman is more than 2,200 years old. It is the worlds largest tree in terms of the amount of wood it contains. The National Park Service says if the tree were cut down it would provide a huge amount of wood construction planks. It says if they were laid end-to-end, they would stretch for almost 200 kilometers.

Protecting the sequoias

In the late 1800s, people grew concerned about logging activity in the area. They sought to protect the giant sequoias from being cut down for wood.

One of those people was Walter Fry. In 1888, he came to the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a logger himself. He spent five days with a team of loggers trying to take down a single giant sequoia tree. Fry then decided to count the trees rings to learn its age.

The answer shocked and saddened him. The tree they had cut down was more than 3,200 years old. He and his team of loggers had ended thousands of years of growth.

The experience led Fry to change jobs. He became a naturalist. He studied the trees and measured the size of fallen sequoias. He also joined the fight to protect them from future loggers.

When a petition was created to urge Congress to create a national park in the area, Fry was the third person to sign it.

Sequoia National Park was established on September 25, 1890.

It became the countrys second national park, after Yellowstone. Fry went on to become the first civilian supervisor of Sequoia.

In 1940, Congress established another park neat Sequoia: Kings Canyon. It and Sequoia National Park have been managed together since 1943.

Kings Canyon is home to the deepest canyon in the United States as well as a famous sequoia forest called Grant Grove. Here you will find the worlds second-biggest tree, the General Grant tree. It is over 3,000 years old.

Beyond the trees

Along with the worlds biggest trees, the area is also home to one of Americas highest peaks: Mount Whitney. It measures 4,414 meters. It is the tallest mountain in the United States outside of Alaska. It lies in the eastern part Sequoia National Park.

While many visitors travel here to witness the giant sequoias, some visitors come here to climb Mount Whitney.

The climbing trail itself begins at an elevation of over 2,400 meters, already very high for some people. Many hikers experience altitude sickness while trying to reach the top.

More than 30,000 people try to climb Mount Whitney each year. Only about 10,000 reach the top.

Of course, the park offers less extreme hikes, as well. One of the most popular is the Moro Rock trail.

Moro Rock itself rises more than 2,000 meters. But hikers only need to climb the final 90 meters to reach the top. From there, they are rewarded with stunning views -- the towering Sierra Nevada mountains and kilometers of giant sequoia forests. Climbers are also get a view of the 90-kilometer-long Kaweah River, which runs through a deep canyon.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park is a home to a richly diverse animal world. More than 300 species of wildlife live in the park.

Mammals include the tiny white-footed mouse, the grey fox and the bobcat. Black bears are also common. Bird species include the California quail, the Northern Owl and the acorn woodpecker.

There are also many animals that swim, slither, hop or crawl. Visitors might see a Northern Pacific tree frog, a western pond turtle, or the colorful rainbow trout. If you are lucky, you will not run into one of the parks poisonous wild rattlesnakes.

But do not let bears and snakes scare you away. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park is too extraordinary to miss. The words of the late naturalist John Muir perfectly describe a visit to this great park: Natures peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

Im Caty Weaver.

And Im Ashley Thompson.

Ashley Thompson wrote this report with materials from the National Park Service and the VOA Learning English archives. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

giant - n. a person or thing that is very large

trunk - n. the thick main stem of a tree

plank - n. a long, thick board that is used especially in building something

logging - n. the act of cutting down trees in an area for wood

petition - n. a written document that people sign to show that they want a person or organization to do or change something
By Dave Thompson

CANNON BALL, N.D., Sept 10 (Reuters) - Native Americans protesting construction of a North Dakota oil pipeline near land they consider sacred on Saturday quietly celebrated the U.S. government's decision to pause construction on federally owned land, and vowed to press for a full halt to the project.

On Friday, the Obama administration temporarily halted construction on federal land of the planned pipeline that has angered the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and asked the company behind the project to suspend nearby work.

The move came shortly after a federal judge in Washington rejected a request from Native Americans for a court order to block the project.

The government's action reflected the success of growing protests over the proposed $3.7 billion pipeline crossing four states which have sparked a renewal of Native American activism.

The Standing Rock Sioux, whose tribal lands are a half-mile south of the proposed route, say the pipeline would desecrate sacred burial and prayer sites, and could leak oil into the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers, on which the tribe relies for water.

On Saturday, many activists in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, touted the latest victory, but said its temporary nature meant they would not end their protests, echoing Friday statements by Standing Rock Sioux leaders.

"This could go all winter, and into next summer," said Lance Dorian, spokesman for a group from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota that has set up camp on the south side of the Cannon Ball River, on Standing Rock land. "We're in it for the long haul."

His tribe had set up big Army-style tents as well as a kitchen.

With prayer and song as well as the occasional drum beat in the background, activists vowed not to leave.

"We won the day," said environmental activist John Wauthen from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. "There's a long fight still ahead of us."

Opposition to the pipeline has drawn support from 200 Native American tribes, as well as from activists and celebrities.

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Speaking from the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of "Snowden" on Friday, actress Shailene Woodley, who has backed efforts to halt the pipeline, lauded the U.S. government's decision.

"It's about damn time," she said. "I'm extremely grateful and I hope that that momentum continues to move forward."

Dakota Access, subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LP that is building the pipeline, declined to comment on Saturday.

Brigham McCown, an industry consultant and former head of pipeline regulator U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the federal action came "out of left field" and was unprecedented.

"We don't know what the implications are, other than that it's going to have a huge chilling effect on our national ability to move forward with infrastructure projects," he said.

(Reporting by Dave Thompson in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, Catherine Ngai and Joseph Ax in New York and Rollo Ross in Toronto, Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
By Dave Thompson CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) - Native Americans protesting construction of a North Dakota oil pipeline near land they consider sacred on Saturday quietly celebrated the U.S. government's decision to pause construction on federally owned land, and vowed to press for a full halt to the project. On Friday, the Obama administration temporarily halted construction on federal land of the planned pipeline that has angered the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and asked the company behind the project to suspend nearby work. The move came shortly after a federal judge in Washington rejected a request from Native Americans for a court order to block the project. The government's action reflected the success of growing protests over the proposed $3.7 billion pipeline crossing four states which have sparked a renewal of Native American activism. The Standing Rock Sioux, whose tribal lands are a half-mile south of the proposed route, say the pipeline would desecrate sacred burial and prayer sites, and could leak oil into the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers, on which the tribe relies for water. On Saturday, many activists in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, touted the latest victory, but said its temporary nature meant they would not end their protests, echoing Friday statements by Standing Rock Sioux leaders. "This could go all winter, and into next summer, said Lance Dorian, spokesman for a group from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota that has set up camp on the south side of the Cannon Ball River, on Standing Rock land. Were in it for the long haul. His tribe had set up big Army-style tents as well as a kitchen. With prayer and song as well as the occasional drum beat in the background, activists vowed not to leave. We won the day, said environmental activist John Wauthen from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Theres a long fight still ahead of us. Opposition to the pipeline has drawn support from 200 Native American tribes, as well as from activists and celebrities. Speaking from the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of "Snowden" on Friday, actress Shailene Woodley, who has backed efforts to halt the pipeline, lauded the U.S. government's decision. "It's about damn time," she said. "I'm extremely grateful and I hope that momentum continues to move forward." Dakota Access, subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LP that is building the pipeline, declined to comment on Saturday. Brigham McCown, an industry consultant and former head of pipeline regulator U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the federal action came "out of left field" and was unprecedented. "We dont know what the implications are, other than that it's going to have a huge chilling effect on our national ability to move forward with infrastructure projects," he said. (Reporting by Dave Thompson in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, Catherine Ngai and Joseph Ax in New York and Rollo Ross in Toronto, Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced growing criticism Saturday after he called the Palestinian refusal to let Jews live in their future state "ethnic cleansing".

In a video released Friday, Netanyahu rejected the notion that West Bank settlements were "an obstacle to peace", drawing a rebuke from Washington.

Netanyahu noted "Israel's diversity" which manifests in "the nearly two million Arabs living" in the Jewish state and reflects its "openness and readiness for peace".

"Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews," he said.

"There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."

The US State Department called the video "unhelpful" and "inappropriate".

"We obviously strongly disagree with the characterisation that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Friday.

"We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful," she said.

"Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties."

Israeli opposition member Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party accused Netanyahu of "trying to make political gains while creating diplomatic damage".

She said the video had caused the US position to change from accepting settlement blocs to rejecting the entire West Bank enterprise.

"After Netanyahu's video, the US is saying that all the settlements, including the blocs, are an obstacle, whereas in the past they were recognised," she said in remarks relayed by a spokesman.

Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint List that groups the main Arab parties in parliament, accused Netanyahu of creating "an imaginary reality" and rejected the comparison between Israeli Arabs and Jewish West Bank settlers, who he said implement a policy of "ethnic cleansing".

Story continues

"Netanyahu doesn't care that it is the settlements that were established precisely in order to cruelly expel Palestinian populaces from the West Bank to limited territories around the major cities," he wrote on Facebook.

Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014, with both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying on Tuesday they were ready to meet to relaunch peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to arrange a meeting between the two in Moscow.

International criticism of Israeli settlement building, including from the United States, has intensified in recent months.

Netanyahu's government, considered to be the most right-wing in the country's history, has nonetheless continued with the policy.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law and major obstacles to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.
North Korea Saturday sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear "blackmail" as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.

South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.

The yield from Friday's test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons -- almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.

The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

"It is believed that the North's nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace," Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for "more and stronger sanctions".

The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that -- even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North's drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

During a closed-door meeting Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution," New Zealand's ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council's rotating presidency, told reporters.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.

In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and called for "strong retaliation", including pre-emptive attacks on the North's nuclear complex.

"Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!" and "Destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons!" the elderly activists shouted.

Story continues

Some newspapers were equally scathing. "South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac," read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.

But the North's ruling party newspaper vowed Saturday not to submit to US nuclear "blackmail", and described the South's President Park Geun-Hye as a "dirty prostitute" for working with US forces.

"Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK," said Rodong Sinmun, using the country's official name.

"The US is exasperated by the strong military steps being taken by the DPRK in a phased way."

- 'Holding the world hostage' -

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South. The Joongang Ilbo newspaper recommended they should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, as they were until the early 1990s.

The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the United States to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang's sole ally China to calls for tougher measures.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, US ambassador Samantha Power said.

"North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike," Power said.

Pyongyang's state media said Friday the nuclear test had realised the goal of being able to fit a miniaturised warhead on a rocket.

"Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country's northern nuclear test site," a TV presenter said.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test.

The nuclear programme has accompanied a series of ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China.

- Challenge for China -

China has long been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbour.

Beijing strongly condemned the test. But its priority is to avoid the regime's collapse, which would create a crisis on its border and potentially shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula toward the United States.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for further pressure on North Korea, but said China bore responsibility for tackling the problem.

"China shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it," he said.

"It's important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going."
By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Saturday that North Korea's nuclear capability is expanding fast, echoing alarm around the world over the isolated state's fifth and biggest nuclear test, carried out in defiance of U.N. sanctions. North Korea conducted the test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain. The test showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unwilling to alter course, and that tougher sanctions and pressure were needed to apply "unbearable pain on the North to leave no choice but to change", South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said. "North Korea's nuclear capability is growing and speeding to a considerable level, considering the fifth nuclear test was the strongest in scale and the interval has quickened substantially," Yun told a ministry meeting convened to discuss the test. The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew global condemnation. The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea's main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme. In Beijing on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui told North Korea's ambassador to China, Ji Jae Ryong, that the test was "not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula", China's Foreign Ministry said. "China urges North Korea not to take any more actions that could exacerbate tensions, and return as soon as possible to the correct direction of denuclearisation," Zhang said. But Russia was sceptical that more sanctions were the answer, while China was silent on the prospect of a new U.N. Security Council resolution, although state media did carry commentaries criticising the North. Under 32-year-old leader Kim, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country. DENUNCIATION The Security Council denounced North Korea's decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions. U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis, suggesting that a Security Council agreement may prove difficult. "It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them," Lavrov said. The talks, aimed at ending the North's nuclear programme, involve the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea, but have been defunct since 2008. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearisation, which it had refused to do. "We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea," he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for an outcome similar to that reached in nuclear talks with Iran. China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions. On Saturday, the Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking that building nuclear weapons would provide it with more security or prestige. "Owning nuclear weapons won't ensure North Korea's political security," it said in an editorial. "On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country." "OUT OF CONTROL" South Korea's Park said late on Friday that Kim was "mentally out of control", blind to all warnings from the world and neighbours as he sought to maintain power. "The patience of the international community has come to the limit," she said. North Korea, which calls the South and the United States its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead", according to its official KCNA news agency. It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit. Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified. Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins. North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead would be especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan. The Pentagon does not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added: "Given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst." Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far, at yield of 20 to 30 kilotonnes. That would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which had an output of about 15 kilotonnes. South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful blast to date. "The important thing is that, five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backward state any more," Lewis said. (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Phil Stewart in Oslo, David Brunnstrom in Geneva; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Kevin Liffey)
By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Saturday that North Korea's nuclear capability is expanding fast, echoing alarm around the world over the isolated state's fifth and biggest nuclear test, carried out in defiance of U.N. sanctions. North Korea conducted the test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain. The test showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unwilling to alter course, and that tougher sanctions and pressure were needed to apply "unbearable pain on the North to leave no choice but to change", South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said. "North Korea's nuclear capability is growing and speeding to a considerable level, considering the fifth nuclear test was the strongest in scale and the interval has quickened substantially," Yun told a ministry meeting convened to discuss the test. The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea's founding, drew global condemnation. The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea's main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear program. In Beijing on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui told North Korea's ambassador to China, Ji Jae Ryong, that the test was "not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula", China's Foreign Ministry said. "China urges North Korea not to take any more actions that could exacerbate tensions, and return as soon as possible to the correct direction of denuclearisation," Zhang said. But Russia was skeptical that more sanctions were the answer, while China was silent on the prospect of a new U.N. Security Council resolution, although state media did carry commentaries criticizing the North. Under 32-year-old leader Kim, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programs, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country. DENUNCIATION The Security Council denounced North Korea's decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions. U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures and to take "additional significant steps, including new sanctions". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis, suggesting that a Security Council agreement may prove difficult. "It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them," Lavrov said. The talks, aimed at ending the North's nuclear program, involve the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea, but have been defunct since 2008. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearization, which it had refused to do. "We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea," he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for an outcome similar to that reached in nuclear talks with Iran. China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions. On Saturday, the Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking that building nuclear weapons would provide it with more security or prestige. "Owning nuclear weapons won't ensure North Korea's political security," it said in an editorial. "On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country." "OUT OF CONTROL" South Korea's Park said late on Friday that Kim was "mentally out of control", blind to all warnings from the world and neighbors as he sought to maintain power. "The patience of the international community has come to the limit," she said. North Korea, which calls the South and the United States its main enemies, said its "scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead", according to its official KCNA news agency. It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit. Pyongyang's claims of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified. Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins. North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead would be especially worrisome for its neighbors South Korea and Japan. The Pentagon does not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added: "Given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst." Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea's most powerful nuclear test so far, at yield of 20 to 30 kilotonnes. That would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which had an output of about 15 kilotonnes. South Korea's military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North's most powerful blast to date. "The important thing is that, five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren't a backward state any more," Lewis said. (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Phil Stewart in Oslo, David Brunnstrom in Geneva; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Kevin Liffey)
This Immigrant Doctor Is Reimagining Health in the American City

Norways $900 billion state pension fund, the worlds biggest, is dropping more than $500 million worth of shares and bonds in Duke Energy and three Duke subsidiaries, largely over the utilitys record of mishandling waste from its coal-fired power plants.

Fund manager Norges Bank announced the decision on Wednesday. It followed an April recommendation by the funds Council on Ethics that detailed North Carolinabased Dukes history of illegal dumping of toxic waste into surface water and groundwater, decades of poor infrastructure maintenance, resistance to federal mandates to cut high sulfur dioxide emissions from its coal plants, and tens of millions of dollars in fines for flouting environmental and safety regulations.

Duke Energy is the largest utility company in the United States, based on its market value of just over $52 billion. Duke and its subsidiaries own and operate coal-fired power plants in North Carolina and five other states: South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida. It also operates gas-fired, nuclear, and hydroelectric power plants and generates more than 2,400 megawatts of wind and solar power.

The ethics councils report highlighted Dukes responses to court orders to secure the sites where it stores coal ash. While several court rulings have now ordered the companies to remove or seal these ash basins, the report noted, the companys response plan will not be fully implemented for another 1015 years. The Council also perceives the long-lasting and extensive breaches of the environmental legislation to be a considerable risk factor.

RELATED: Oregon Finds Switching From Coal to Renewable Energy Is a Bargain

The rulings came in the wake of the February 2014 Dan River disaster in which tens of thousands of tons of coal ash, along with upwards of 30 million gallons of heavy-metal-laden ash basin water, spilled into the North Carolina waterway from a storage basin at a closed Duke coal plant. Research from Wake Forest University released later that year estimated that environmental, health, and other damages from the spill topped $300 million.

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In an emailed statement, Duke Energy spokesperson Catherine Butler said the firm was disappointed but not surprised by the funds decision to divest. It is unfortunate that Norges Bank did not consider Duke Energys proactive actions to enhance our environmental stewardship and close ash basins across our jurisdictions, Butler wrote in the email. Since 2011, we have retired more than 40 coal units across our generation fleet and this process will continue. From 2005 to 2015, we have reduced our carbon dioxide emissions by 28 percent and we have invested in emission control devices for our remaining coal units, resulting in reduced sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by 86 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

A clean water advocacy group lauded the funds decision. I am thrilled that the Council on Ethics determined that Dukes abysmal performance and the severe environmental risk still posed by Duke Energys leaking ash ponds warranted a special divestiture, Donna Lisenby, clean and safe energy campaign director for Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a statement. Duke Energy joins the list of many companies whose performance is so unacceptable to the Council of Ethics that they are black-listed as unsuitable for investment.

The Norwegian government sets ethical guidelines for its government pension fund, which invests revenues from the countrys offshore oil and gas drilling in international stocks and bonds. Among the many high-profile divestments that have resulted from that policy:

The fund barred 52 coal-related companies from its portfolio in April, as part of implementing a new mandate prohibiting investments in companies that rely on coal-related ventures for 30 percent or more of their business. In 2015, the fund dropped six palm oil companies over their role in forest destruction. In 2008, the fund sold off $850 million worth of investments in Rio Tinto, a London-based mining giant, because of environmental destruction caused by the companys operations in Indonesia. In 2006, it divested from Walmart over what it termed systematic human rights and labor abuses by the Arkansas-based international retailer.

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Greta Zimmer Friedman  the nurse who was famously kissed by a sailor in one of the most iconic photographs on the 20th century  died Thursday in Virginia at the age of 92, according to several reports.



Her son, Joshua Friedman, confirmed the news of his mother's passing to NBC and CBS, saying she died of pneumonia which she developed at an assisted living facility where she lived for the past two years.



The kiss was captured by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on Aug. 14, 1945  the day Japan surrendered to the Allies. Published in LIFE magazine a few weeks later, the shot went on to become the symbol for the end of World War II.



But Zimmer Friedman's role in the photo was not planned.







Then a 21-year-old dental assistant living in New York, she wandered into Times Square while on break to see whether the rumors of Japan's surrender were true, The New York Daily News reported. President Harry S. Truman had not yet made the official announcement of Japan's surrender, but people appeared to be flooding the New York streets in celebration.



As she entered Times Squaret, 22-year-old sailor George Mendonsa grabbed her and kissed her.



"I did not see him approaching, and before I know it I was in this vice grip,a Friedman told CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller in 2012.





Nurse Kissed by Sailor in Iconic Times Square V-J Day Photo Has Died: Reports| Death, Real People Stories

Their identities remained unknown over the years, as several men and women claimed to be the couple. But authors George Galdorisi and Lawrence Verria used forensic analysis and photographic interpretation to determine Mendonsa and Zimmer Friedman's as the official pair.



Zimmer Friedman and Mendonsa, now 93, had met again in 1980, when LIFE set out an open call to determine the identities of the kissing couple. They reunited in 2012 for CBS News, after Galdorisi and Verria's book, The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II, published.



"I realized the photo means a lot to so many people," Zimmer Friedman told NBC News. "My mother always felt like it wasn't anything she did  it was something that happened to her."



Ironically, Mendonsa was on a date with another girl at the time of the his kiss with Zimmer Friedman. That woman  Rita Petry  would go on to marry Friedman. The two live in Middletown, Rhode Island  roughly 180 miles northeast of Times Square, CNN reports.





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As for Zimmer Friedman, the Daily News reports she would go on to study costuming at the New School's Dramatic Workshop before marrying doctor Mischa Mitty Friedman in 1956.



The two moved to Maryland where they had two children  son Joshua and daughter Mara.



Joshua says she'll be laid to rest next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He had served as a general infantry in the military, and died in 1998.



"She'll be put in there next to him," her son told NBC News. "It seems fitting."



Neither Joshua nor Mara could be reached for comment.
Almost 40 million people in southern Africa are expected to face food insecurity in early 2017.

That number comes from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Chimimba David Phiri serves as FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa. He said "The high levels of unemployment, and sluggish economies, means that the main way people are able to access food is through what they themselves produce.

Assisting them to do this will provide lifesaving support in a region where at least 70 percent of people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, he said.

Millions of people across southern Africa are dealing with food shortages because of dry weather conditions. Scientists have linked the drought to the weather event known as El Nino.

FAO officials say southern Africa is experiencing its most severe drought in 35 years, while prices for maize and other crops have risen.

Officials said 23 million people urgently need support to produce enough food to feed themselves, so they are not dependent on humanitarian assistance until the middle of 2018. Farmers must be able to plant by October.

Failure to do so will result in another reduced harvest in March 2017, severely affecting food and nutrition security and livelihoods in the region, FAO officials warned.

In Zimbabwe, the U.N. agency is helping farmers hurt by the dry weather. Last month, FAO started giving biofortified maize and bean seeds to farmers. Those seeds are designed to produce crops high in valuable nutrients.

Agricultural experts say a good harvest is necessary next March to help families escape the countrys food crisis.

We have had two bad (growing) seasons, and a lot of farmers do not have adequate seeds, said FAOs David Phiri. We need to support the farmers to have the seed that they need for them to grow this season, and also to avoid a problem of having continued humanitarian support.

In Zimbabwe, many children are not getting enough to eat. In March, the U.N. Childrens Fund said the country is facing its worst child malnutrition rates in 15 years. Rural areas have been hit hard.

Now, farmers are getting the seeds designed to produce crops with more nutrients.

Mirriam Chagweja is a farmer from Silobela, about 300 kilometers southwest of Harare, Zimbabwes capital. She planted some of the fortified maize and beans in her field in February. She received her seeds as part of a program supported by the British government. Britain is also providing financial support for the FAO program.

I would encourage others to go on board and join, Chagweja said. She said she got more beans from these seeds compared to the other kinds of beans.

The seed program is targeting about 127,000 small farm households in eight areas. Then it will move out to other parts of the country, FAO officials said.

Im Anne Ball.

Sebastian Mhofu reported this story for VOANews.com. Anne Ball adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and visit us on our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

sluggish  adj. slow

livelihood  n. way to make a living

drought  n. a severe lack of rain and water

biofortified  adj. crop that has been created to have higher levels of nutrients

adequate  adj. enough

malnutrition  n. not getting enough nutrition to be healthy

fortified  adj. strengthened
I actually felt a pang of patriotism Friday night watching Tommy Hilfiger's fashion carnival in all its stars-and-stripes glory on Pier 16 at South Street Seaport.

Hilfiger put the fun back in fashion, and the self-made billionaire democratized it, too, making it Insta shoppable for everyone watching at home. The Ferris wheel and popsicle carts; reality TV royalty Gigi Hadid leading the charge down the runway; and apple pie pop princess Taylor Swift singing along from the front row, it was a blast.

Americans have always entertained the world, and this season at New York Fashion Week, we're doing it again, trying to bring fashion into the Internet age by closing the time gap between runway and retail, and turn around the industry's fortunes.

Read more: Everything That Happened at Tommy Hilfiger's Fashion Carnival

HILFIGER PUTS THE FUN BACK IN FASHION

Hilfiger's collection, designed in collaboration with Hadid, was the latest "see now, buy now," experiment, meaning that the clothing shown on the runway - gold braid-trimmed overalls, flag logo hoodies, Hilfiger-branded underwear briefs sticking out from low-slung pants, and other '90s throwbacks - are actually available to buy at this moment, instead of 5 months from now, which has until now been the industry norm.

"It's the future of fashion, at least for us," said Hilfiger's chief brand officer Avery Baker in the afterglow of the show.

Hilfiger is no stranger to over-the-top runway shows (last season, he built a cruise ship inside the Park Avenue Armory). But this was next level. He must have spent a fortune on the event and carnival set-up, which is up for two days (On Saturday, the pier is open to the public for free from noon to 9 p.m.)

There's even vintage @TommyHilfiger togs for sale. Genius way to key into brand heritage. #TOMMYNOW pic.twitter.com/bxhO7oTx4m

- @Booth (@Booth) September 10, 2016

Besides Tommy-themed rides and games, there is a tattoo parlor, a nail art station and an Insta photo booth. Several merch shops sell pieces from the collection, fresh off the runway, though not the fringed bandanas, which accessorized every look, and topped my list of most covetable items. (Those don't appear to be on the website, either.) There is also a space selling vintage Hilfiger togs, a nice way to tie the brand back to its 80s and 90s heritage, both decades that are fashionable with young people now.

Story continues

For several years now, Chanel and Louis Vuitton have been hosting similarly elaborate runway experiences around the world, but done European luxury-style, flying celebs and top clients to exotic locales such as Havana and Palm Springs (ha!). Those exclusive events weren't 'see now, buy now' and consumer-facing like Hilfiger's, which was staged in front of 1000 invited industry guests, and 1000 members of the public.

Get your Tommy nail art right here #TOMMYNOW pic.twitter.com/P7A6jRiHXw

- @Booth (@Booth) September 10, 2016

It took an American like Hilfiger to figure out a way to make the runway into an event that can also be experienced and consumed on a more mass level.

My only question is what next, Tommy? "The helicopter shot over the pier is a hard thing to top," Baker said, calling out one of the more choice camera angles in the event's livestreaming coverage online at Tommy.com. But it's more than just watching, she said. "It's experiencing and interacting, that's the other thing."

When I suggested the Tommy carnival could actually be a permanent attraction on the pier, she said, "I know, we should talk to the City of New York and think about charging them for it."

Read more: NYFW Day 2: Tom Ford's Fashion Crowd Film Screening, COTW's David Lynch Mood

JASON WU COLORS OUTSIDE THE LINES

If the Hilfiger show was the fun fair of day 3 of New York Fashion Week, Jason Wu's show was the intimate night at home with friends.

The designer showed a breakout collection for spring 2017, staged in a series of intimate rooms and nooks filled with midcentury furnishings meant to evoke a well-decorated home.

No see now, buy now for him, at least not right away. "It was about seeing the clothes we labored over," Wu said backstage. "Luxury for me isn't about razzle dazzle."

Which is not to say there wasn't razzle dazzle in the clothes themselves, which were a lot more carefree than in some of Wu's other collections. Like a modern artist, he used neon piping to "sketch" on scarfy, asymmetrical dresses; 3D floral embroidery to daub color like paint on a dramatic gown, and delicate pleating on neon yellow silk chiffon to sculpt the body.

.@JasonWu colors outside the lines -- and its glorious #NYFW pic.twitter.com/RndlobU7pg

- @Booth (@Booth) September 9, 2016

Stylists should be looking at this collection, stat. I wonder which leading lady will wear it first?

I took a moment to ask Wu about his most clutch leading lady of the last 8 years, First Lady Michelle Obama. You'll remember he designed her stunning white gown for the first inaugural. He was still a young, up-and-coming designer at the time, and that moment made him.

"She's touched me and my life in so many ways," the designer said, adding that he had recently attended President Obama's star-studded White House birthday party. "I look forward to continuing to have a relationship with her going forward."

Read more: Kanye vs. Tom Ford: Clash of the Fashion Titans

ALL EYES ON MONSE

If there's one American fashion label that's really on the move this season, it's Monse, designed by Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, who were recently named the new creative directors of Oscar de la Renta.

All the top editors and retailers were at the show looking for a clue about how this ascendant duo will change one of the most iconic American fashion houses.

With a nose ring, that's how! The first model said it with her face jewelry, pissed off gaze and masculine-meets-feminine look -- a belted, pinstriped jacket, wide legged pants and a deconstructed white men's button down shirt, sliding off the shoulder exposing a bare breast. This was tough chic.

Stars and stripes at #Monse. All eyes on Laura Kim & Fernando Garcia, new creatives headed to @OscardelaRenta #NYFW pic.twitter.com/spFB9KaL9H

- @Booth (@Booth) September 9, 2016

The designers, who've already gotten a lot of celebrity love from Blake Lively, Amal Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker, showed asymmetrical, sliced and diced shirting; sparkly evening pieces (tops, tunics and a couple of show-stopping gowns) that appeared to be dripping with sequin embroidery, sprinkling in a few sporty, red-white-and-blue rep stripe pieces to drive home their willingness to play with the preppy canon.

It was a solid collection, though maybe trying to do too much, like they thought they had something to prove. But the edgy glamour at the core of the designers' vision is promising; it will be interesting to see how it melts into and morphs the old school luxe of Oscar de la Renta.
By Lisa Richwine and Jim Christie

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A Hanjin Shipping Co container vessel idled off the coast of Mexico after the company's bankruptcy has received permission to dock and unload cargo at the Port of Long Beach, industry and union officials said Friday.

Authorization for the Hanjin Greece to enter the port came after bankruptcy courts in the United States and South Korea cleared the way for the company to spend $10 million to unload cargo from four ships headed for ports on the U.S. West Coast.

South Korea said it expects Hanjin Greece to start unloading cargo on Saturday morning U.S. time. Hanjin could not be immediately reached for a comment.

"We're looking forward to getting these ships unloaded, said Ray Familathe, vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union representing 20,000 dockworkers.

But he said that could be complicated by legal wrangling. "It's a day-to-day thing for us," he said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood, who issued an order barring seizure of Hanjin property by creditors, acknowledged that some details remained unresolved and urged the parties to "self-help" and work out problems among themselves.

That could prove thorny. Hanjin has identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in bankruptcy filings, including the Hanjin Greece and two other vessels currently near the Southern California coast.

Port operators, cargo owners, longshoremen, shippers and others all must reach financial agreements with Hanjin before each ship can be docked, officials said.

Terminal operators could be reluctant to allow Hanjin ships to dock without assurances they would leave promptly, said Robert Krieger, president of Krieger Worldwide, a customs broker and freight forwarder headquartered in Carson, California.

"The money is in place to pay for as far as I can tell," Krieger said. "The question is, once that happens, what happens next? Because the terminal operators don't want the ships to stay there."

Story continues

Among other issues raised in court but not fully resolved was what to do with Hanjin containers that are piling up at ports and with retailers.

Some retailers are stuck with empty containers they cannot return to port, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

The containers are tying up equipment needed to handle loaded containers, he said.

"Also, the shipper and retailer get charged for not returning the equipment on time, and they cannot return it because the ports wouldn't accept it," Gold said. "This is just a completely chaotic situation."

Union officials said the docking situation seemed to change hourly over the last week, with conflicting reports about where ships might be headed.

"It's been a really, really fluid situation where it's very hard to get info about it," said Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for Justice for Port Drivers, a union organizing effort by the Teamsters' Port Division.

HANJIN CONTAINERS ON SHIPS OWNED BY OTHERS

In South Carolina, ports were trying to sort out what to do with Hanjin containers coming in on ships owned by other firms.

The Charleston port allowed trucking companies to pick up imported Hanjin containers and also allowed exporters to "restuff" them into containers from other carriers, said Clinton Eisenhauer, senior vice president of external affairs for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Charleston is, however, levying a $350 fee on empty containers brought back to the port to go back to Asia, to cover its labor costs. The fee will be returned to customers if Hanjin eventually covers the costs.

"We decided we didn't want to make a bad situation worse," Eisenhauer said.

Hanjin's bankruptcy has also caused a scramble to book new shipments with other container lines, as shippers who expected to move cargo with Hanjin over the coming weeks and months make other arrangements, said Candace Sider, vice president of regulatory affairs in Canada for trade compliance company Livingston International.

"For some companies it may take them weeks to get those appointments in place," Sider said, adding that shippers risk missing deliveries in time for the holiday season.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Jim Christie in San Francisco; Liz Hampton in Houston; Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; and Nandita Bose and Nick Carey in Chicago; Editing by Sue Horton and Himani Sarkar)
* Hanjin Greece to start unloading Saturday morning U.S. time

* Unloading expected to be complicated by legal wrangling

* Maersk, MSC to add vessels on routes for Asia-North America

* Korean Air Lines approves plan to provide loan for Hanjin (Adds conditional loan from Korean Air Lines and alternative vessel plans in paragraphs 23-26)

By Lisa Richwine and Jim Christie

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A Hanjin Shipping Co container vessel idled off the coast of Mexico after the company's bankruptcy has received permission to dock and unload cargo at the Port of Long Beach, industry and union officials said Friday.

Authorization for the Hanjin Greece to enter the port came after bankruptcy courts in the United States and South Korea cleared the way for the company to spend $10 million to unload cargo from four ships headed for ports on the U.S. West Coast.

South Korea said it expects Hanjin Greece to start unloading cargo on Saturday morning U.S. time. Hanjin could not be immediately reached for a comment.

"We're looking forward to getting these ships unloaded, said Ray Familathe, vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union representing 20,000 dockworkers.

But he said that could be complicated by legal wrangling. "It's a day-to-day thing for us," he said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood, who issued an order barring seizure of Hanjin property by creditors, acknowledged that some details remained unresolved and urged the parties to "self-help" and work out problems among themselves.

That could prove thorny. Hanjin has identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in bankruptcy filings, including the Hanjin Greece and two other vessels currently near the Southern California coast.

Port operators, cargo owners, longshoremen, shippers and others all must reach financial agreements with Hanjin before each ship can be docked, officials said.

Terminal operators could be reluctant to allow Hanjin ships to dock without assurances they would leave promptly, said Robert Krieger, president of Krieger Worldwide, a customs broker and freight forwarder headquartered in Carson, California.

Story continues

"The money is in place to pay for as far as I can tell," Krieger said. "The question is, once that happens, what happens next? Because the terminal operators don't want the ships to stay there."

Among other issues raised in court but not fully resolved was what to do with Hanjin containers that are piling up at ports and with retailers.

Some retailers are stuck with empty containers they cannot return to port, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

The containers are tying up equipment needed to handle loaded containers, he said.

"Also, the shipper and retailer get charged for not returning the equipment on time, and they cannot return it because the ports wouldn't accept it," Gold said. "This is just a completely chaotic situation."

Union officials said the docking situation seemed to change hourly over the last week, with conflicting reports about where ships might be headed.

"It's been a really, really fluid situation where it's very hard to get info about it," said Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for Justice for Port Drivers, a union organizing effort by the Teamsters' Port Division.

HANJIN CONTAINERS ON SHIPS OWNED BY OTHERS

In South Carolina, ports were trying to sort out what to do with Hanjin containers coming in on ships owned by other firms.

The Charleston port allowed trucking companies to pick up imported Hanjin containers and also allowed exporters to "restuff" them into containers from other carriers, said Clinton Eisenhauer, senior vice president of external affairs for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Charleston is, however, levying a $350 fee on empty containers brought back to the port to go back to Asia, to cover its labor costs. The fee will be returned to customers if Hanjin eventually covers the costs.

"We decided we didn't want to make a bad situation worse," Eisenhauer said.

Hanjin's bankruptcy has caused a scramble to book new shipments with other container lines, as shippers who expected to move cargo with Hanjin over the coming weeks and months make other arrangements, said Candace Sider, vice president of regulatory affairs in Canada for trade compliance company Livingston International.

"For some companies it may take them weeks to get those appointments in place," Sider said, adding that shippers risk missing deliveries in time for the holiday season.

FUNDING AND ALTERNATE VESSEL PLANS

To help unload cargo stranded on Hanjin ships, Korean Air Lines, Hanjin Shipping's biggest shareholder, has approved a plan to provide a loan of 60 billion won ($54.16 million) but only if the troubled shipper gives a stake in its Long Beach Terminal as collateral.

However, that would also require approval from the other stakeholder in the terminal - Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), a Korean Air spokesman said in Seoul on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the world's top two container shippers, Maersk and MSC, will add vessels on three routes for Asia-North America to fill the void left after Hanjin's collapse, South Korea said. Hyundai Merchant Marine will also cover another Asia-North America route, the government added.

Elsewhere, courts in the United Kingdom and Japan have granted protection from creditors to ships run by Hanjin, the government added. The shipper is also seeking stay orders to prevent creditors from seizing its vessels in other countries, such as Germany and Netherlands.

($1 = 1,107.7300 won) (Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Jim Christie in San Francisco; Liz Hampton in Houston; Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Nandita Bose and Nick Carey in Chicago; and Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul; Editing by Sue Horton and Himani Sarkar)
By Lisa Richwine and Jim Christie

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Hanjin Shipping Co <117930.KS> container vessel idled off the coast of Mexico after the company's bankruptcy has received permission to dock and unload cargo at the Port of Long Beach, industry and union officials said Friday.

Authorization for the Hanjin Greece to enter the port came after bankruptcy courts in the United States and South Korea cleared the way for the company to spend $10 million to unload cargo from four ships headed for ports on the U.S. West Coast.

South Korea said it expects Hanjin Greece to start unloading cargo on Saturday morning U.S. time. Hanjin could not be immediately reached for a comment.

"We're looking forward to getting these ships unloaded, said Ray Familathe, vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union representing 20,000 dockworkers.

But he said that could be complicated by legal wrangling. "It's a day-to-day thing for us," he said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood, who issued an order barring seizure of Hanjin property by creditors, acknowledged that some details remained unresolved and urged the parties to "self-help" and work out problems among themselves.

That could prove thorny. Hanjin has identified 14 U.S.-bound ships in bankruptcy filings, including the Hanjin Greece and two other vessels currently near the Southern California coast.

Port operators, cargo owners, longshoremen, shippers and others all must reach financial agreements with Hanjin before each ship can be docked, officials said.

Terminal operators could be reluctant to allow Hanjin ships to dock without assurances they would leave promptly, said Robert Krieger, president of Krieger Worldwide, a customs broker and freight forwarder headquartered in Carson, California.

"The money is in place to pay for [unloading] as far as I can tell," Krieger said. "The question is, once that happens, what happens next? Because the terminal operators don't want the ships to stay there."

Story continues

Among other issues raised in court but not fully resolved was what to do with Hanjin containers that are piling up at ports and with retailers.

Some retailers are stuck with empty containers they cannot return to port, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

The containers are tying up equipment needed to handle loaded containers, he said.

"Also, the shipper and retailer get charged for not returning the equipment on time, and they cannot return it because the ports wouldn't accept it," Gold said. "This is just a completely chaotic situation."

Union officials said the docking situation seemed to change hourly over the last week, with conflicting reports about where ships might be headed.

"It's been a really, really fluid situation where it's very hard to get info about it," said Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for Justice for Port Drivers, a union organizing effort by the Teamsters' Port Division.

HANJIN CONTAINERS ON SHIPS OWNED BY OTHERS

In South Carolina, ports were trying to sort out what to do with Hanjin containers coming in on ships owned by other firms.

The Charleston port allowed trucking companies to pick up imported Hanjin containers and also allowed exporters to "restuff" them into containers from other carriers, said Clinton Eisenhauer, senior vice president of external affairs for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Charleston is, however, levying a $350 fee on empty containers brought back to the port to go back to Asia, to cover its labor costs. The fee will be returned to customers if Hanjin eventually covers the costs.

"We decided we didn't want to make a bad situation worse," Eisenhauer said.

Hanjin's bankruptcy has caused a scramble to book new shipments with other container lines, as shippers who expected to move cargo with Hanjin over the coming weeks and months make other arrangements, said Candace Sider, vice president of regulatory affairs in Canada for trade compliance company Livingston International.

"For some companies it may take them weeks to get those appointments in place," Sider said, adding that shippers risk missing deliveries in time for the holiday season.

FUNDING AND ALTERNATE VESSEL PLANS

To help unload cargo stranded on Hanjin ships, Korean Air Lines <003490.KS>, Hanjin Shipping's biggest shareholder, has approved a plan to provide a loan of 60 billion won ($54.16 million) but only if the troubled shipper gives a stake in its Long Beach Terminal as collateral.

However, that would also require approval from the other stakeholder in the terminal - Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), a Korean Air spokesman said in Seoul on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the world's top two container shippers, Maersk <MAERSKb.CO> and MSC, will add vessels on three routes for Asia-North America to fill the void left after Hanjin's collapse, South Korea said. Hyundai Merchant Marine <011200.KS> will also cover another Asia-North America route, the government added.

Elsewhere, courts in the United Kingdom and Japan have granted protection from creditors to ships run by Hanjin, the government added. The shipper is also seeking stay orders to prevent creditors from seizing its vessels in other countries, such as Germany and Netherlands.

($1 = 1,107.7300 won)

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Jim Christie in San Francisco; Liz Hampton in Houston; Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Nandita Bose and Nick Carey in Chicago; and Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul; Editing by Sue Horton and Himani Sarkar)
ALGIERS (Reuters) - OPEC is not seeking a definite price range for crude but wants to stabilise the market at a meeting in Algiers later this month, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said, according to Algerian state-run APS news agency on Saturday.

APS said he made his comments to the agency after meeting late on Friday with the Algerian and Saudi oil ministers in Paris.

"The oil market must stabilise with less volatile prices. This is what we are trying to do though our consultations, restoring a sustainable stability for the market," he was reported as saying.

(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
Victoria (Seychelles) (AFP) - Voters in the tourism-dependent nation of Seychelles cast their ballots Saturday, the third and final day of a poll that may see the opposition win control of parliament for the first time in two decades.

Polls in the Indian Ocean nation kicked off Thursday to allow the roughly 70,000 registered voters of the archipelago nation of 115 islands to choose their representatives.

Voting began on the islands furthest away from the main island of Mahe, and its capital Victoria.

Mahe voted on Saturday, along with the two other main islands Praslin and La Digue. The three account for 98 percent of the archipelago's 90,000 people.

Voting appeared to have taken place peacefully though some booths closed behind schedule, possibly delaying first results, which are expected in the following hours.

"I hope that the process continues to be peaceful, that everyone goes to exercise their rights and goes home to await the final results, President James Michel told the Seychelles News Agency.

The main opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP) shunned the 2011 election claiming it would not be fair but is contesting this time.

SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan came a close second in presidential elections in December 2015, losing to Michel by just 193 votes.

It marked the first time a candidate from the dominant Parti Lepep (meaning People's Party in the local Seychellois Creole language), in power since 1977, was forced into a second round.

Lepep has maintained a majority in parliament since the return of multiparty politics in 1993, but now the ascendant SNP hopes to take control.

In a bid to strengthen its showing, the SNP has partnered with four smaller opposition parties -- together known as The Seychellois Alliance and made up of former Lepep leaders -- to form the Seychellois Democratic Alliance (known by its creole acronym, LDS, standing for Linyon Demokratik Seselwa).

Together, opposition candidates won 52 percent of votes cast in the first round of December's presidential vote, but were then beaten in the run-off after failing to coalesce around a single candidate. They now hope to emulate that first round majority in this week's parliamentary vote.

Story continues

"If the voters vote as they did in the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition would have won. But if it is like the second round, there will be districts that will be in the balance," said Paul Chow, an economist and former MP.

Voters this week will choose just 25 directly-elected members of the National Assembly.

The remaining 10 members are allocated to each party according to its proportional representation in the parliamentary elections.
Jasenovac (Croatia) (AFP) - Visiting ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, considered the spiritual head of Orthodox church leaders, on Saturday commemorated the victims of Croatia's most notorious World War II death camp.

Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople based in Istanbul, in the first visit by the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church to the country, presided over a mass in the church at Jasenovac and visited the site of the camp known as "Croatia's Auschwitz."

The camp, whose site is now home to a memorial, was set up in mid-1941 by the pro-Nazi regime and dismantled in 1945. Croatia's WWII pro-Nazi Ustasha regime persecuted and killed ethnic Serbs, who are mostly Orthodox Christians, Jews, Romas and anti-fascist Croatians.

The total number of people killed at Jasenovac, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) southeast of the capital Zagreb, remains disputed. It varies from tens of thousands to 700,000, according to Serbian figures.

Bartholomew, who arrived for a two-day visit to Croatia on Friday, was accompanied by Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac, as well as Orthodox church dignitaries from Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Croatia.

Pupovac earlier hailed the visit stressing the Patriarch was a "man who has been encouraging a dialogue also at a time where there was not much dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, notably in Croatia."

Nearly 90 percent of Croatia's population of 4.2 million are Roman Catholics. Orthodox ethnic Serbs are the country's largest minority making up four percent of the population.

Ties with ethnic Serbs and Serbia remain strained since Croatia's 1990s war of independence during which Belgrade backed rebel Serbs.

In recent months ties have sunk to their lowest level since the conflict. The two countries have been exchanging bitter accusations over their wartime past, with Belgrade accusing Zagreb of a "rebirth of Nazism" in reference to a far-right surge under conservative rulers.

Due to Croatias shift to the right ethnic Serbs, Jews and anti-fascists this year boycotted an official memorial ceremony at Jasenovac.
Islamabad (AFP) - A Pakistani court on Saturday denied bail to the father of a British woman believed to have been the victim of an "honour killing."

Samia Shahid, a dual national, was murdered in July during a visit to her family village in Punjab province.

"There was a hearing into the bail application by Samia Shahid's father, but the court rejected it," defence lawyer Mian Arif told AFP.

Arif said that the next hearing would take place next week in the city of Jhelum, while the accused would file another bail petition to the Punjab's high court.

The victims's second husband, Mukhtar Kazam, claims she was murdered for bringing "dishonour" to her family. Kazam has said his wife had angered her parents by converting to Shia Islam, his sect, before their wedding.

Police have accused her ex-husband Muhammad Shakeel and father Muhammad Shahid of being involved in her killing.

Shahid's ex-husband has also been charged with raping her.

Police have also accused Samia's mother and sister of abetting the crime; however, the two have fled to the UK, according to police. The chief of the local police station was later arrested for helping them escape.

Kazam and Shahid, both dual British-Pakistani citizens, had been married for two years and were living in Dubai.

At a news conference in August, Kazam presented a copy of the post-mortem report into his wife's death that said the 28-year-old had marks on her neck, suggesting she had been strangled.

Shahid's father has denied the charges, claiming his daughter died of natural causes.

Hundreds of women are murdered by relatives in the conservative Muslim nation each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.

Rights groups and politicians have for years called for tougher laws to tackle perpetrators of violence against women in Pakistan.
Matt Stutzman just wanted to put a bit of food on the table for his wife and his three sons. Born without arms, he found himself out of work in 2009 and hardpressed to land a job.



"People would tell me, 'If you had prosthetic arms, I'd hire you,' " Stutzman tells PEOPLE. "I'd tell them, 'Just let me prove I can do this.' But no one wanted to give me a chance."



So Stutzman, who had begun to grow depressed that he "wasn't doing his part" to provide for his family, came up with an idea that initially left plenty of folks in his hometown of Fairfield, Iowa, scratching their heads. The woods and countryside were teaming with deer and Stutzman figured if he could learn to shoot a bow, he could put a couple hundred pounds of fresh meat in his freezer.



"Problem was I had no idea how I was going to do it," laughs Stutzman, who not only learned how to shoot a bow, but is competing this week as one of the world's top archers at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio. "I Googled 'How to teach an armless man how to shoot a bow,' but I couldn't find anything."







Instead, he started watching online videos, studying the technique of other archers, then trying to translate it into something that could work for him.



"I'd watch people with arms shoot and I would visualize that I was an able-bodied person," he recalls. "If they were holding the bow with their right arm, I would hold it with my right foot. I just tried to recreate what it would look like if I had arms and it just so happened, that it worked."





Paralympic Archery Sensation Matt Stutzman's Road to Rio Began When He Looked for a Way to Put Food on His Family's Table| Summer Olympics 2016, Paralympics 2016

He set up a target in his backyard and spent the next two weeks practicing. Word soon spread what Stutzman was trying to do and before long locals started showing up to watch.



"They would line the whole block," he says. "I had to learn very quickly how to block them out because I knew that if I missed the arrow would go ricocheting across town and who knows what would happen then."



This sort of focus is typical for Stutzman, who was put up for adoption by his birth parents when he was 4 months old. He credits his adoptive parents, who raised him on a farm with their seven other children, with convincing him that he could do anything he set his mind to.









"They believed they could adapt me to the world, instead of having the world adapt to me," says Stutzman, who grew up shooting holes in pennies from 50 yards away. "They taught me how to visualize handling different situations. It wasn't always easy at first, but they were awesome parents and because of them I pretty much did whatever I wanted."



So it was hardly surprising that after two weeks of practice he went out into the woods and soon had over 200 lbs. of deer meat in his family freezer. Stutzman intended on hanging up his bow after that initial hunt, but instead he spent the next two years practicing his technique for upwards of eight hours a day with the intention of becoming "the world's best archer."



In 2012 he earned a spot on the U.S. Paralympic Archery Team and won silver in at the London Games. Three years later in December 2015, Stutzman landed in the Guinness Book of World Records when he hit a target from 930 feet, shattering the previous record  by an able-bodied athlete  by 274 feet.



"The world is pretty much a blur of opportunities for me now," laughs Stutzman. "I can pretty much walk in anywhere and they're like, 'Hey, do you want a job?' It's awesome."
Schools are to open in Nigeria this month, but millions of children may not be able to attend.

Nigeria has one of the worlds largest populations of children who are not in school -- about one-third of the countrys schoolchildren, according to a recent report by the United Nations Childrens Fund.

Many school-age children cannot go to classes because of attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group in the northeast. The terrorists believe Western education is wrong. They not only destroy schools -- they also kill teachers, and have forced more than 2.7 million people to flee.

UNICEF says 1,200 schools in Nigeria were closed because they were damaged, looted or used to shelter displaced people.

However, officials are trying to get more children into schools this year.

Not just Chibok

More than two years ago, Boko Haram terrorists attacked the Government Secondary School in Chibok, kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls and destroyed many of the schools buildings.

The school in Chibok was not the only one attacked by Boko Haram.

Musa Inuwa Kubo is the education minister for Borno, the northeastern state where much of the conflict between government troops and the terrorists has taken place over the last seven years. Kubo says Boko Haram has destroyed more than 134 schools.

The state government has taken steps to open most of the schools in Borno state by moving internally displaced people -- or IDPs -- out of classrooms.

Kubo says the state government has also started rebuilding destroyed schools. But not all schools will open. Kubo says 15 schools are in areas too dangerous for classes to start.

Displaced people

UNICEF spokesman Toby Fricker says some schools will have to deal with a large increase in the number of students.

Many people have fled to the state capital Maiduguri. Fricker says the move could mean that students who may not have been able to attend school in their home areas can go to classes in the areas to which they have fled.

You really have a lot of displaced people who are in towns, or even in internally-displaced camps, and in some cases have easier access to education because of the location, in terms of the travel to school is not as far...

Rebuilding Chibok

The kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls caused people throughout the world to criticize Boko Haram. Some of the girls were able to escape immediately. But only one girl has been rescued since the attack.

The attack also damaged the Chibok school. Eventually, the government had to destroy it. People said students were left without anywhere to study. But now Nigerian Army troops are rebuilding classrooms and dormitories.

Parents of the missing girls support the rebuilding of the school.

Esther Yakubu says if her kidnapped daughter Dorcas Yakubu is rescued, she would let her attend classes in Chibok.

I would send her to that school," she said. "Only that she cannot sleep in the school anymore.

She says if her daughter had not slept at the school overnight, she would not have been kidnapped.

Im Pete Musto.

Chris Stein reported this story for VOANews.com. It was adapted for Learning English by Christopher Jones-Cruise. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

loot  v. to steal things from (a place, such as a store or house) during a war or after destruction has been caused by fire, rioting, etc.

access  n. a way of being able to use or get something (usually + to)

dormitory  n. a building on a school campus that has rooms where students can live

according - prep. as stated or reported by

internally - adj. existing or happening within a country, organization or system
By Piya Sinha-Roy TORONTO (Reuters) - "The Birth of a Nation" director Nate Parker and his cast are playing challenging parts this weekend as they try to keep the spotlight trained on their acclaimed slavery drama while acknowledging concern about a rape case involving Parker. The day after "Birth of a Nation" received a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival, the 36-year-old writer, director and lead actor didn't shy away from questions on Saturday about his 2001 trial and acquittal on rape charges that have dominated conversation around the film. But during a TV interview with Reuters, he swerved the conversation back to the film about slave preacher Nat Turner, who led a rebellion in Virginia in 1831, and his role in American history. "The reality is I've addressed this thing," Parker told Reuters. "Four hundred people worked on this film, maybe more ... this Nat Turner journey I think is so important because of what it can do for America." "I really wanted to say," he added, "'hey, this is about the film, let's keep it about the film, let's see what we can get from the film.'" The movie wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and was seen as a strong 2017 Oscar contender. But the controversy over the rape case has the potential to affect the film's marketing and jeopardize its awards season appeal. Fox Searchlight, the studio that bought the film for a Sundance record of $17.5 million, is a savvy awards season campaigner with a few recent best picture Oscars to its name. The film, out in U.S. theaters on October 7, debuted in Toronto on Friday night at a red carpet premiere, where no video cameras were allowed and security was tight around the venue. The event went off without a hitch and, for Parker, the standing ovation spoke to the film's resonance with audiences. "Birth of a Nation" cast members including Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union and Aja Naomi King, who plays Nat Turner's wife Cherry, defended the film's message and historical importance. "It's definitely been very disturbing for me to say the least, but all I can hold onto right now is the power in this film and the part that I was able to play in it," King said when asked about the headlines around Parker's rape case. Union penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month saying she could not take the Parker rape allegations lightly. She herself was raped 24 years ago, and now plays a woman in the film who was raped and wants to talk openly about sexual violence. "With my op-ed, I wanted everyone to know and to be very clear that as difficult and as hard and as awkward as these conversations are going to be, this has to be a part of the movement moving forward," she told Reuters. When asked about Union's op-ed, Parker said "Gabrielle's been a close friend and we talk all the time, all the time." (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Additional reporting by Fred Thornhill for Reuters Photos and Rollo Ross for Reuters TV; Editing by Mary Milliken)
Washington (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump's running mate released 10 years of tax returns on Friday, but his billionaire boss still refuses to do so, leading critics to cry foul over his lack of transparency.

Mike Pence's tax returns are quite simple compared to the financials of bombastic real estate magnate Trump.

Pence reported that he and his wife Karen earned a total of $113,026 in adjusted gross income last year, most of it from his salary as governor of Indiana and including nearly $9,000 in pensions or annuities.

They paid $8,956 in federal income taxes, at an effective tax rate of 12.40 percent.

The Pences were able to obtain a relatively low tax rate thanks to losses and tax breaks they claimed, including $8,923 in gifts to charity.

Their 2015 income was the lowest of the 10 years of released tax returns, though in all years they brought home a six-figure income. The peak came in 2009 and 2010, when they earned more than $187,000.

"The Pence family has been honored to serve their state and their nation for the past 16 years, while raising three great children and putting them through college," said spokesman Marc Lotter.

"These tax returns clearly show that Mike and Karen Pence have paid their taxes, supported worthy causes, and, unlike the Clintons, the Pences have not profited from their years in public service."

Every major US presidential nominee since Richard Nixon has released their tax returns before the election, but Trump has repeatedly punted on the issue.

In releasing Pence's returns, Trump's campaign again said Friday that the candidate "plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit."

Trump's rival for the presidency, Democratic nominee and former first lady Hillary Clinton, has described Trump as "dead wrong" for saying that his tax returns were not the concern of everyday Americans.

"He clearly has something to hide," she said this week.

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Christina Reynolds, a deputy spokeswoman for Clinton's campaign, added: "As prominent Republicans have speculated, Trump's returns could reveal further ties to Russia and its oligarchs, the truth about his personal wealth, or more lies about his charitable contributions. But we won't know until we see them."

"We're pleased to see that one member of the Trump ticket has decided to meet the long-held threshold for disclosure in a modern day presidential campaign," she said.

"But it's Donald Trump... running to be our next president."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, saying he was "not a fan" of the United States, vowed Saturday to steer an independent course for the key Asian ally and refrain from confronting territorial rival China.

The incendiary leader made the comments after a controversial first foreign trip and spectacular falling out with US President Barack Obama, who he called a "son of a whore".

"I am not a fan of the Americans... Filipinos should be first before everybody else," Duterte told reporters upon arrival in his hometown of Davao city Saturday.

"In our relations to the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy. I repeat: The Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy."

The president's trip to a summit in Laos was overshadowed by his verbal tirade, which saw Obama cancel a planned meeting. The pair met briefly later after Duterte expressed regret.

The US, Manila's main military ally and the Philippines' colonial ruler until 1946, has criticised Duterte's brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed 3,000 lives since he took office in July and drawn condemnation from the United Nations.

Obama has urged the Filipino leader to conduct his crime war "the right way" and protect human rights, but Duterte has dismissed it as being none of America's business.

The two also subtly differed on how to proceed after a UN-backed international tribunal in July outlawed most of China's claims to the strategic South China Sea, including areas that overlap with those of the Philippines and other neighbours.

Obama, whose government wants to ensure freedom of navigation in the waterway, brought up the contentious issue at the Laos forum also attended by China.

He stressed that the tribunal's ruling was "binding" and could not be ignored by Beijing, which has rejected it.

Duterte favours a "soft landing" for the issue and said Saturday it would be counter-productive for his militarily weak nation, which hosts small units of US forces, to confront China or undertake actions that could lead to armed conflict.

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"I assured everybody that there are only two options there: We go to fight, which we cannot afford at all, or talk," he added.

On Friday during an overnight visit to Indonesia, Duterte announced China had pledged to help build drug rehabilitation centres to treat Filipino crystal meth users.

Law enforcement officials believe criminal gangs in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong supply most of the illegal and highly addictive stimulants to the Philippines.

"Only China has offered to help us," Duterte said Friday, according to an official transcript of a speech he gave to the Filipino community in Jakarta.
Chelsea Manning is protesting her treatment in prison by going on hunger strike, she has announced in a statement .



The 28-year-old soldier, born Bradley Edward Manning, is currently in an all-male prison serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas, for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.



In a statement released with Fight for the Future through her Twitter account, Manning said she was experiencing bullying and harassment and being denied medications for her gender transition.



"Chelsea is demanding written assurances from the Army she will receive all of the medically prescribed recommendations for her gender dysphoria and that the 'high tech bullying' will stop," Fight for the Future said in the statement. "'High tech bullying,' is what Chelsea describes as 'the constant, deliberate and overzealous administrative scrutiny by prison and military officials.'







"I need help," Manning said. "I am not getting any. I have asked for help time and time again for six years and through five separate confinement locations. My request has only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration."



Manning went on to say that her hunger strike with be a "peaceful and non-violent" act. And starting Friday at 12:01 a.m. CT, she said she plans to "refuse to voluntarily cut or shorten my hair in any way; consume any food or drink voluntarily, except for water and currently prescribed medications."



In July, Manning tried to commit suicide, according to CNN. She now said she is willing to die if her needs are not met. Fight for the Future has also launched a petition to show support for Manning.



"Until I am shown dignity and respect as a human again, I shall endure this pain before me," she said in the statement. "I am prepared for this mentally and emotionally. I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this. I need help. Please, give me help."



In 2013, Manning was found guilty of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. The day after her sentencing, Manning confirmed through her lawyer that she identifies as a woman. She began her gender transition while in prison, although she had made appearances as a woman since as early as 2010.
By Steve Keating NEW YORK (Reuters) - Germany's Angelique Kerber began her reign as world number one in imperious style battling past a determined Karolina Pliskova 6-3 4-6 6-4 to win the U.S. Open final on Saturday and claim her second grand slam title of the year. Kerber, who will officially take over from Serena Williams as the world's top ranked player on Monday, underlined her number one status displaying the heart of a champion as she fought off a fierce challenge from Czech 10th seed Pliskova on a steamy Arthur Ashe Stadium court. Pliskova, who arrived at Flushing Meadows with the reputation of grand slam under-achiever having never before been beyond the third round of the major, shed that label by making it all the way to the final and going toe-to-toe with second seed Kerber for just over two hours of suspenseful, high-quality tennis. Kerber began the grand slam year winning her first major at the Australia Open and ended with a U.S. Open title to go along with a runner-up finish at Wimbledon. (Editing by Andrew Both)
Warsaw (AFP) - A new Polish feature film about the April 2010 jet crash in Russia which killed then president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others has revived conspiracy theories about Moscow's role in the tragedy.

While director Antoni Krauze insists "Smolensk" -- which was released Friday -- is a work of fiction, he mixes fact and fantasy to suggest that the crash was no accident.

The audience at its pre-release premiere last weekend in Poland's national theatre read like a who's who of Polish politics, fueling the idea of a semi-official stamp of approval.

The late president's twin brother, the powerful leader of the governing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his political proteges, President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, were all on hand.

Party leader Kaczynski has long made no secret that he believes foul play caused the crash. Polish and Russian investigators have never found any evidence to support the claim.

An investigation under Poland's previous liberal government concluded that pilot error, thick fog and poor air traffic control were to blame.

Moscow however has not yet handed over the wreckage to Polish authorities.

Most of those who died when the plane came down in Smolensk, western Russia, on April 10, 2010 were senior Polish state officials, including its military chief of staff and central banker. The president's wife also died.

- Ball of fire -

The delegation was heading for memorial ceremonies in Russia's Katyn forest for thousands of Polish army officers killed by the Soviet secret police in 1940, a massacre the Kremlin denied until 1990.

The head of the new PiS-backed investigative subcommittee, Waclaw Berczynski, has reiterated his theory that the Tupolev 154 exploded mid-air, although he has offered no proof.

The film takes a similar approach: the jet explodes into a ball of fire in the air before it crashes.

It also uses archive footage showing the meeting of then Polish prime minister Donald Tusk -- now the EU president -- and then Russian premier Vladimir Putin at the crash site shortly after the disaster, something that has long been the focus of conspiracy theorists.

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Other scenes show Russian air traffic controllers at the Smolensk air strip receiving a mysterious order to make Kaczynski's jet descend to 50 meters (165 feet) altitude, while it should have flown at 100 meters.

The film also shows president Lech Kaczynski's 2008 visit to Tbilisi to support Georgia as it fended off attacks by Russia, suggesting his death was an act of revenge by the Kremlin.

The film's release date coincides with the first report of the new PiS-convened investigative subcommittee due to issue its findings about the causes of the crash next week.
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 10, 2016 / Dallas employment lawyer Keith Clouse suggests that executives take these preservation steps if anticipating litigation for misappropriation of trade secrets.

1. Image your personal computer and email. Preserving the metadata on your personal devices is extremely important. Most employers will accuse you of stealing or misappropriating confidential information and trade secrets. To protect yourself, preserve this information as close to your termination or resignation as possible.

2. Don't forget to image your phone. We forget that sometimes relevant evidence can be stored in text messages or photographs on your phone. Because losing, destroying, or altering data is far greater on a phone, it is necessary to preserve this information as soon as possible.

3. Prevent inadvertent spoliation. Be sure to turn off all automatic deletions and syncing features on your devices. Although you may not intend to delete emails or documents, automatic deletion settings may erase relevant information and alter metadata.

Proactively preserving data helps the litigation process go smoothly and guarantees that evidence has not been altered or destroyed. To speak to an employment law attorney about non-compete agreements, send an email todebra@clousedunn.com or call (214) 239-2705. This article is presented by the Dallas employment law lawyers at Clouse Dunn LLP.

SOURCE: Clouse Dunn LLP via Submit Press Release 123
From Road & Track

BEEP! My neighbor jumped half a foot in the air and turned to stare angrily at me from the sidewalk, her hands held high in the universal "What the hell?" gesture. I made an apologetic half-wave in a hurry, but I was a little freaked-out as well; my 1995 Porsche 911 had just beeped for no reason as I was slowing down at the stop sign next to my house. I drove away perplexed. The next stop sign was maybe three hundred feet away; our neighborhood is littered with them. As I slowed down, there was another hundred-decibel noise from behind the front bumper. This time it was longer: BEEEEEEEEEEP!

Clearly, I had a problem.

It's important to me that you understand the following: I was air-cooled before air-cooled was cool. When I bought my 993-generation Carrera 2, it was just a used car, five years old and already on its second owner, 63k on the clock and scuffs on the wheels. I didn't pay a lot of money for it. My rationale was nothing more or less than this; when I was at university I'd promised myself that I would have a Porsche 911 by the time I turned thirty. That didn't happen; I was thirty-one years old when I signed the title. Close enough, I guess.

In the decade-plus since then, I've owned a variety of other Porsches, Audis, Benzes, Bimmers, Volkswagens, you name it, all the German suspects. Bought 'em, sold 'em, forgot 'em. Only the 911 has stayed through thick and thin, long since paid off. Part of my scenery. There were years that I drove it every day. It was my constant companion in my most tragic love affair, running back and forth to Nashville a dozen times in half a year, the VDO speedometer pinned at the 110 mark and the Billy Boat exhaust filling the cabin with a basso-profundo roar that you could feel in your stomach. It was also the car that I drove for my second date with the current Mrs. Baruth. I didn't want to drive it to the first date because I didn't want her to think I was the kind of guy who drove a raggedy used Porsche.

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Thanks to the lovable bigotry of the PCA crowd and the lamentable cupidity of Porsche itself, my raggedy used Porsche is no longer quite so pathetic. It's now worth maybe twice what I paid for it. Might be worth more than the original sticker. I should have bought a Turbo instead of a Carrera. I coulda had one for fifty grand in 2002. It would fetch three times that much now. I should have bought a second 993 instead of a 2004 Boxster S. Would have cost me half as much and it would be worth four times as much now.

The skyrocketing value of my 993 has changed the way I treat the car

Like Townes said, it don't pay to think too much on things you leave behind. But the skyrocketing value of my 993 has changed the way I treat the car. My old plan was to drive it into the ground and buy another one. Now my plan is to preserve the vehicle for my son. He can sell it in eleven years and go to Yale, or go BASE-jumping in Bali. Maybe both.

I hope that helps explain why I permitted ten whole months to elapse between last November, when I put Sta-Bil in the tank, and last week, when I made decision to jump-start it and drive it around a bit. It just never seems like a good idea to drive it. But if you don't drive these cars, they rot. So I had to do something.

It didn't start. Not on it's own, and not with a jump box. The starter was cranking slow. So I pushed it out of the garage and jumped it from the Tahoe. It took maybe ten tries to get it to catch and run. But it seemed okay enough. Until it started BEEEEPING.

After a quick spin around the neighborhood where I inadvertently honked my horn at every stoplight, I came back to the house and let it run for a minute while I checked the Internet. The answer to the problem was simple: the rubber gasket beneath the horn pad had finally deteriorated to the point where it wouldn't keep said horn pad from moving under braking. It's a ninety-dollar part that comes in three different versions, only one of which will fit my car. "Don't deal with this by pulling the #3 fuse," one Porsche-forum member chided. "That's just Band-Aiding the problem. Get the gasket and fix it right."

I pulled the #3 fuse in the box and drove out of the neighborhood again.

With the oil warm and the road cooling off ahead of me in the evening light, I let the old Porsche run to redline again and again, noting the various little issues. The clutch pedal is still not coming all the way up; I've had that "fixed" twice by shops in two different but equally expensive ways. The second-gear synchro is weak, a legacy of a hundred-plus SCCA Solo autocross runs. The air conditioning used to leak, but I sealed it in 2011. It's still not very good, though. The windshield is hazed with a million tiny scratches. I accept these flaws the way I hope that my wife accepts mine; consequences of age and wear, icicles and birthday clothes and sorrow.

This old car is special in a way that no new Porsche could hope to be. It's alive with a mechanical symphony of precision noises, the whooooop of the exhaust and the curlicue rush of the wind past the upright A-pillars. It's no bigger or wider than it needs to be. I understand why people want to pay outrageous sums for it.

I was emboldened by an idea; I'd run to Little Caesars and buy a pizza for dinner, since I was alone for the evening. It was getting dark so I turned on the headlights; they were faint. I let the car idle menacingly while I paid for my meal. Backing out of my parking space, some woman in an Acura MDX came ripping around the corner and I stopped short to preserve my irreplaceable fenders.

The 911 died. Every light went dark. A turn of the key produced nothing.

Photo credit: Jack Baruth

I ate my pizza while I waited for the wrecker to flatbed me home. The kid who loaded it up was very careful but the next morning I noticed that he'd scratched the right rear quarter-panel to the primer in two spots. Further attempts to jump-start the car produced nothing. I figured it was the starter. Replacing the starter in a Porsche 993 can be done one of two ways. The first way involves the creation of two unique tools from household objects, the removal of the passenger side drive axle, and approximately six hours of expert labor.

The easier way involves cutting a hole in the unibody. I despaired at the consequences of either. The little problems I could live with. The horn, I could fix eventually. The starter: that's a fifteen-hundred dollar problem that requires fixing now. Lest I never get it fixed. Lest this become the tipping point that turns a valuable, strong-running air-cooled Porsche into somebody's barn find thirty years from now.

There was one other possibility; that my battery, bought new last year, had failed so spectacularly that it was serving as an electron sink of sorts. A new battery was fifty-eight bucks from the local Interstate dealer. I crossed my fingers, paid the man. Installed it with hopeful hands. Turned the key.

It started with a whoop. As did I.

Still. If the rubber in the steering wheel is done for, that means the rest of the rubber is likely done for. Bushings, shocks, belts, hoses. (Maybe not hoses, it is air-cooled, after all.) Five grand. Maybe more. And while I'm at it I could fix the aesthetic stuff. Re-spray the front bumper. New driver's seat leather. There's no limit to the money that I could spend right now. No limit to the money I'll eventually have to spend.

I could sell it now. Put the money into some sort of index fund for my kid. Buy him fifty Krugerrands in a sealed tube, a talisman against the famine times. Surely it will never be worth more than it is now. Yet I don't think I could sell it at any price. I feel like Ahab, striking my chest and claiming that my old Porsche will fetch a great premium here! And my ribcage rings most vast, but hollow. It's just a car. Just a thing.

Still, I think we will continue on together a bit longer. I'll fix the horn, plan to fix the rest. We will sleep until the summer to come and then maybe I'll take a trip in the old car. We have never been west of the Mississippi together. Time to fix that, too. Look for us next year, in Montana, California, Texas. Here we come, old machine and older man. We are disreputable. A bit dangerous to know. You'll hear us a mile out; the siren song of the air-cooled flat six. And maybe, if I get the wrong gasket, the twin tone of the old Bosch horn. BEEP!

Born in Brooklyn but banished to Ohio, Jack Baruth has won races on four different kinds of bicycles and in seven different kinds of cars. Everything he writes should probably come with a trigger warning. His column, Avoidable Contact, runs twice a week.

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Prosecutors are appealing Brendan Dasseys overturned conviction and we are not ok

Prosecutors are appealing Brendan Dasseys overturned conviction and we are not ok

Netflixs Making A Murderer was such a huge hit that it changed the lives of everyone involved with the docu-series. And now, Brendan Dasseys life is about to change once again.

Prosecutors are appealing to keep Brendan Dassey in prison even after a judge found he was coerced during his interrogation.

Dassey was one of the two men convicted of Teresa Halbachs murder, as portrayed on the hit Netflix docuseries. Dassey was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for his alleged involvement in the rape and murder of the 25-year-old photographer.

The show also showed Dasseys uncle Steven Avery, who was also found guilty of Halbachs murder. Its important to note that the latest ruling on Dassey doesnt affect Avery.

In August, Judge William E. Duffin felt that the 26-year-old Wisconsin natives confession was coerced by police. His conviction was overturned last month.

The judge felt that Dassey, who has an I.Q of about 70, had been manipulated during his interrogation. Duffin reportedly said the court had 90 days to figure out a new trial for Dassey or set him free.

But Attorney General Brad Schimel is putting a stop to it.

According to Deadline, the Wisconsin Department of Justice announced on September 9th that the attorney general appealed the decision. It looks like Dassey might not be walking free after all.

Schimel released a statement on Friday, according to The New York Times.

We believe the magistrate judges decision that Brendan Dasseys confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law, Schimel said.

He added, Two state courts carefully examined the evidence and properly concluded that Brendan Dasseys confession to sexually assaulting and murdering Teresa Halbach with his uncle, Steven Avery, was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics.

The post Prosecutors are appealing Brendan Dasseys overturned conviction and we are not ok appeared first on HelloGiggles.
This is Whats Trending Today.

Sunday is September 11. It is the 15th anniversary of the day thousands of people were killed in a terrorist attack in the United States.

Early that morning, two airplanes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. All the people on the planes were killed, along with thousands of people in the buildings.

Another airplane crashed into the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. The Pentagon is the office of the U.S. Department of Defense.

A fourth airplane crashed in a rural part of Pennsylvania, when passengers fought back against terrorists who were planning to crash it into a Washington, D.C. landmark.

On social media, people are posting messages about their memories of that day, using the hashtags #NeverForget and #September11.

Ben Sturner lives in New York City. On Thursday, he posted a photo to Twitter showing the reflection of light off one of the new towers at the old site of the World Trade Center. It was shared and liked thousands of times.

States and cities around the U.S. are remembering people who died.

Staten Island is a small part of New York City. It is an island in New York harbor, close to the Statue of Liberty and the location of the World Trade Center. Many people in that small community died.

The local newspaper is remembering their lives by tweeting their photos one at a time.

On Friday morning, many U.S. lawmakers gathered outside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. to remember those who were killed. They participated in a moment of silence and also sang God Bless America.

Some people will run almost 400 kilometers from the Pentagon to New York City to honor the firefighters, policemen and rescue workers who saved many lives that day. They started on Friday in Virginia and will finish on Sunday in New York City.

But the anniversary of September 11, 2001, would not be complete without some businesses promoting sales. In the U.S., that is a big mistake.

Many people used Twitter and Facebook to complain about a small mattress store in Texas that made a commercial related to September 11.

The video featured a woman standing in front of two stacks of twin-sized mattresses. The World Trade Center buildings were also called the Twin Towers.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

How will you remember September 11, 2001? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

tower  n. a tall, narrow building or structure that may stand apart from or be attached to another building or structure

rural  adj. of or relating to the country and the people who live there instead of the city

reflection  n. an image that is seen in a mirror or on a shiny surface

harbor  n. a part of the ocean, a lake, etc., that is next to land and that is protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships

moment of silence  n. a public way of remembering a sad event by staying quiet for a short period of time

bless  v. to ask God to care for and protect (someone or something)

complain  v. to say or write that you are unhappy, sick, uncomfortable, etc., or that you do not like something

twin  n. either one of two similar things that form a pair; also used to describe a mattress for one person to sleep on

stack  n. a usually neat pile : a group of things that are put one on top of the other
- Laura Mongan became the first woman to train the winner of the English St Leger as Harbour Law triumphed in a dramatic race which saw odds-on favourite Idaho unseat his rider. Harbour Law, the first Epsom-trained winner of a classic since 1969, came with a late run under a brilliant ride by George Baker to overhaul Ventura Storm and HousesofParliament to win at 22/1. HousesofParliament's stable mate Idaho had drawn gasps from the stands as just gearing up to deliver his challenge over three furlongs out he stumbled and unseated Seamie Heffernan. Idaho carried on riderless whilst Heffernan was attended to before the 44-year-old Irishman rose to his feet.

AFP
By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. was released from a psychiatric hospital on Saturday, media reports said, 35 years after he shot U.S. President Ronald Reagan in an attack prompted by a deranged obsession with the actress Jodie Foster.

Hinckley, 61, is moving in with his elderly mother in a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he has been making increasingly long furlough visits in recent years under the watchful eyes of the U.S. Secret Service.

A federal judge in July ordered Hinckley's release from St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, finding that he no longer posed a danger to himself or to others. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 trial and was diagnosed with depression and psychosis, both of which are now in remission, according to his doctors.

Local media, including The Washington Post, reported that Hinckley was officially released from St. Elizabeth's on Saturday, when he had been scheduled to be freed. A hospital employee who answered the phone on Saturday said she could not comment on patients to the media.

Residents of the town have seemed largely unfazed by the prospect of Hinckley's release, though some have expressed wariness.

As a 25-year-old college dropout, Hinckley had grown fixated upon Foster and the Martin Scorsese film "Taxi Driver," in which she played a teenage prostitute.

Inspired by the film's main character, who plots to kill a presidential candidate, Hinckley opened fire on Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel on March 30, 1981, in a misguided effort to win Foster's affections.

Reagan suffered a punctured lung but recovered quickly. His press secretary, James Brady, was left permanently disabled and eventually died of his injuries in 2014.

The shooting left its mark in a number of ways. The Brady shooting helped launch the modern gun control movement, and a 1993 bill named after him imposed background checks and a waiting period.

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Hinckley's verdict, meanwhile, led several states to rewrite their laws to make insanity defenses more difficult, and the Secret Service toughened its security procedures following the assassination attempt.

Hinckley's release has dozens of conditions attached, including a requirement that he work or volunteer at least three days a week, limit his travel, allow law enforcement to track his movements and continue meeting with a psychiatrist.

The Reagan family issued a statement in July strongly opposing Hinckley's release. Foster has declined to comment on Hinckley since 1981.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Washington (AFP) - John Hinckley, the man who tried to assassinate president Ronald Reagan 35 years ago, was freed from a psychiatric hospital in Washington on Saturday, a report said.

Hinckley was released from St. Elizabeths Hospital, the Washington Post reported, citing his lawyer Barry Levine, who had confirmed that his client would leave in the morning, and a witness on the sprawling hospital campus.

Phyllis Jones, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Behavioral Health, told AFP that "all discharges planned for today have taken place" but said she could not comment on specific patients.

Levine was not immediately available for comment when contacted by AFP.

A federal judge ruled in July that Hinckley, 61, no longer posed a threat to himself or others and would be permitted to live with his 90-year-old mother in her gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia -- under a strict set of conditions.

Since the 1990s, Hinckley has been permitted gradually longer supervised home visits with his mother, lasting up to 17 days. Secret Service agents have tracked him during each trip.

Hinckley, who was declared not guilty on grounds of insanity, said after the March 30, 1981 shooting outside a Washington hotel that he wanted to kill Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster, whom he became obsessed with after watching the film "Taxi Driver."

Reagan's family and his presidential foundation have consistently opposed Hinckley's release.

Daughter Patti Reagan Davis wrote on her website in 2015 that "I hope the doctors are right when they say that John Hinckley isn't a danger to anyone, but something in me feels they are wrong."

One thing troubling her, she said, was that while at St. Elizabeths, Hinckley had written to convicted mass murderers Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

But Levine has argued since 2003 that evaluations by the hospital's officials showed that Hinckley no longer posed any threat.

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- Many conditions for 'leave' -

Three other men, including Reagan press secretary James Brady, were badly wounded in Hinckley's attack.

The attempt on Reagan's life sparked intense debate over gun violence and treatment of the mentally ill. Brady, who was left paralyzed, became a leading advocate for tougher gun controls.

When Brady died in 2014, a medical examiner attributed his death to the injuries received 33 years earlier, but no additional charges were filed against Hinckley.

The court order places dozens of detailed conditions on Hinckley's "full-time convalescent leave" from St. Elizabeths, including a ban on contact with Foster, but said they can be phased out after a year to 18 months if he continues to make progress.

Hinckley must remain within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of his mother's home, and cannot travel to any area where a current or former president, vice president or member of Congress is known to be.

He must return to St. Elizabeths for monthly monitoring and notify the Secret Service in advance about his intended route of travel.

He cannot post any writings or memorabilia on the internet or display them in person without authorization. He also cannot speak to the media.

The detailed conditions even include a requirement for monthly music therapy sessions with a board-certified music therapist.

St. Elizabeths, Hinckley's home for most of the past 35 years, opened in 1855, and was the first federally-run psychiatric hospital.

Though it once housed as many as 8,000 patients -- many of them indigent -- the aging facility is being phased out and now holds only a few hundred.
Redmond O'Neal has been spotted out of prison for the first time since he was sentenced to three years in state prison last July.



The 31-year-old son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal was seen spending time with his father in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Wednesday. Redmond wore a black button down and khakis, while Ryan sported a navy blue polo shirt and jeans as they ran errands in L.A.



In May 2015, Redmond had his probation revoked. His probation had just been reinstated in October 2014 after getting it revoked earlier that year because a judge determined he did not obey all the laws, used drugs and did not maintain doctor appointments, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE. He was sentenced to three years in prison.



A similar situation happened in September 2011, when his probation was revoked for drug-related issues after he admitted to using narcotics in court-ordered rehab. The one-year rehabilitation program was imposed after he pleaded no contest to felony gun possession and heroin possession one month before.



Last year, Redmonds half-sister Tatum O'Neal, exclusively talked to PEOPLE about her concern for her brother.



I love him, but I have never seen a more scary side of addiction, the 52-year-old actress said. Hes got addiction problems so bad that it breaks my heart  Nobody knows what to do with Redmond. From what Ive seen, there is no way hes going to survive.



In 2011, Ryan spoke to PEOPLE outside of the Los Angeles Superior Court after Redmond had given his plea.



He never recovered from the loss of his mother, Ryan said, speaking to Fawcetts 2009 death.

Related:

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Reese Witherspoons daughter is 17 and we cannot get over her latest Insta

Reese Witherspoons daughter is 17 and we cannot get over her latest Insta

Fifteen years ago, Reese Witherspoon brought us the bend and snap  and seventeen years ago, she brought us her daughter Ava Phillippe, who looks just like her. No seriously, she looks just like her. If Reese ever needed a mini-me actor to play her younger self, she wouldnt have to look any further than her own home.

Mother daughter time  A photo posted by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on Jul 8, 2016 at 12:25pm PDT

Ava Phillippe just celebrated her 17th birthday, and her mother couldnt be prouder.

Reese shared this sweet message on Instagram: Cant believe my baby is 17 today! I love you, @avaphillippe. Your gorgeous heart and loving spirit never cease to amaze me! Im so lucky the universe let me be your mother.

Can't believe my baby is 17 today! I love you, @avaphillippe  Your gorgeous heart and loving spirit never cease to amaze me! I'm so lucky the universe let me be your mother. #HBD #17DancingQueen A photo posted by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on Sep 9, 2016 at 9:41am PDT

Not only is Ava obviously beautiful, but she is also extremely artistically talented. Her personal Instagram page is filled with paintings and other artistic works that will make you take a second look.

A photo posted by Ava Phillippe (@avaphillippe) on Jun 26, 2016 at 7:20pm PDT

pencil on acrylic on canvas A photo posted by Ava Phillippe (@avaphillippe) on May 28, 2016 at 8:35pm PDT

pinky fingers are difficult to draw, and that's okay  #quickdoodle A photo posted by Ava Phillippe (@avaphillippe) on Jan 25, 2016 at 5:08pm PST

Clearly, talent runs in the family. Ava is one of the two children Reese Witherspoon shares with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe  the other is Deacon, 12. Ava is also the older sister of Tennessee, 3, Reeses daughter with her husband Jim Toth. Reese and Ava often share photos of themselves together on social media and we understand why! Just look at them!

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congrats! #specialnight A photo posted by Ava Phillippe (@avaphillippe) on Oct 30, 2015 at 11:20pm PDT

With photos of art and her personal life, Ava joins the ranks of cool kids everywhere, making us wish she went to our high school.

The post Reese Witherspoons daughter is 17 and we cannot get over her latest Insta appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Troubled studio Relativity Media has fired Adam Fields from his post as co-president of production for alleged breach of contract after four months on the job.

Fields, who could not be reached for comment, was given a letter of termination on Sept. 8.

Relativity announced it had hired Fields on April 27, two weeks after the mini-studio emerged from bankruptcy protection. Prior to then, Fields had served as a consultant at Sony Pictures and had worked with Relativity on its movies Limitless, Safe Haven, and 21 & Over.

Fields was assigned oversight of business affairs, physical production, and post-production, reporting to Relativity chairman Ryan Kavanaugh. Kevin Spaceys producing partner Dana Brunetti was officially named co-president of production in March with oversight over the creative operations as Spacey opted out of previously announced plans to assume the post.

Fields producing and executive producing credits include Donnie Darko, Sixteen Candles, Great Balls of Fire, The Breakfast Club, Brokedown Palace, and The Wedding Ringer.

Fields departure comes with Relativity releasing the horror movie The Disappointments Room, starring Kate Beckinsale and Lucas Till, as its first post-bankruptcy title. Early estimates on Friday showed dismal results with a weekend gross of less than $2 million.

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Rihanna just posted an Insta encouraging her fans to get involved in education reform, and weve never loved her more

Rihanna just posted an Insta encouraging her fans to get involved in education reform, and weve never loved her more

Rihanna is our EVERYTHING, from our go-to when we need to figure out what hair cut to get next, to our icon in all things fashion, and she just became our icon when it comes to advocacy. Yeah, you heard that right! Because Rihanna just got so real about the fact that there are still major gaps in education when it comes to kids around the world, and shes using her platform to make a change.

Rihanna posted about the #EducationCannotWait campaign to raise awareness of the need for educational reform.

Call up @JustinpjTrudeau to make a change, Rihanna wrote. Click link in my bio to call him and I could be seeing you in Central Park! #EducationCannotWait

Call up @JustinpjTrudeau to make a change! Click link in my bio to call him and I could be seeing you in Central Park! #EducationCannotWait A photo posted by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Sep 9, 2016 at 11:32am PDT

Weve always loved Rihanna, and right now our hearts are so warm and fuzzy theyre practically on fire! How awesome is it for her as a celeb with *so* much influence to speak out about something as important as education?

Rihanna is asking people to reach out to the Canadian prime minister, who is re-thinking Canadas foreign aid policies.

The Ottawa Citizen writes that all comes down to the Global Citizen festival, where Rihanna will perform. According to the events website, The Trudeau government has boldly declared that Canada is back. Weve asked the Canadian government to increase its aid budget, particularly for health and education and now we need you to call Canadian leaders and tell them why!

A photo posted by Global Citizen (@glblctzn) on Sep 7, 2016 at 1:24pm PDT

Long story short? Rihanna is pushing fans to encourage Canada to support Education Cannot Wait!

So whats this campaign all about?

Education Cannot Wait is a new global fund to transform the delivery of education in emergencies, the website reads. One that joins up governments, humanitarian actors and development efforts to deliver a more collaborative and rapid response to the educational needs of children and youth affected by crises.

Story continues

A photo posted by Global Citizen (@glblctzn) on Sep 6, 2016 at 12:47pm PDT

The goal? To reach all crisis-affected children and youth with safe, free and quality education by 2030. Like, woah. This is actually so amazing, and so necessary, and were thrilled that Rihanna brought this to our attention!

The post Rihanna just posted an Insta encouraging her fans to get involved in education reform, and weve never loved her more appeared first on HelloGiggles.
SOFIA (Reuters) - Russian nuclear company Rosatom has asked Bulgaria to swiftly pay 620 million euros ($696 million) in compensation over the canceled Belene nuclear project, it said on Saturday. An arbitration court ruled in June that Sofia must pay for the equipment produced by Rosatom for the project, which Bulgaria abandoned in 2012 due to financial constraints and concerns in Brussels and Washington over its energy dependence on Russia. "The Russian party insists that the decision of the arbitration court be implemented soonest," Rosatom said in a statement following a meeting with Bulgarian energy officials over the issue in Sofia on Friday. "The Russian party expects the Bulgarian party to send information about the terms of debt repayment," it said. Bulgaria's prime minister has said that the compensation, estimated by Sofia at about 560 million euros, will be paid in full and quickly, to avoid paying interest of 167,000 euros a day. Bulgaria is considering selling the 2,000 megawatt nuclear project to private investors, keeping a small state stake in it, after its attempt to sell the equipment to Iran did not succeed. (Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Alexander Smith)
By Se Young Lee and Jeffrey Dastin

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Saturday urged users of its Galaxy Note 7 phones to turn in their handsets as soon as possible as part of a recall aimed at limiting the damage caused by the fire-prone devices.

The world's top smartphone maker said last week it would exchange all Note 7 phones in 10 markets including South Korea and the United States, a costly setback for a company that was counting on the 988,900 won ($892.73) model to bolster sales momentum as rivals such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) launch new devices.

Reports that the phones' batteries have combusted while charging or in normal use prompted the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to stop using the Note 7 device.

Aviation authorities and airlines across the world have also issued bans or guidelines prohibiting passengers from turning on or charging the phone inside airplanes in response.

"We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note 7s and exchange them as soon as possible," Koh Dong-jin, head of Samsung's smartphone business, said in a statement.

"We are expediting replacement devices so that they can be provided through the exchange program as conveniently as possible and in compliance with related regulations," the statement added.

For Samsung, which prides itself on manufacturing prowess, the scale of the recall is unprecedented and deals a huge blow to its reputation.

Some 2.5 million of the premium devices have been sold worldwide that need to be recalled, the firm has said, and some analysts say the recall could cost Samsung nearly $5 billion in lost revenue this year.

The Korean company is offering to exchange all affected Galaxy Note 7 phones with a replacement device using a safe battery. Samsung has said replacement Note 7s will be available in some markets including South Korea and the United States from Sept. 19.

Samsung said on Friday it plans to resume sales of new Galaxy Note 7 devices in Australia in early October, but it is not clear when new sales will resume in other markets.

(Reporting by Se Young Lee and Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Helen Popper)
By Tom Hals

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday asked a U.S. judge to allow the South Korean company to pay cargo handlers to remove its goods from Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd's vessels stationed near U.S. ports after the world's seventh-largest container carrier filed for bankruptcy.

Hanjin's collapse last week came during the peak shipping period ahead of the year-end holiday season, stranding cargo for the likes of HP Inc and Samsung.

Around $14 billion of cargo has been tied up globally as ports, tug boat operators and cargo handling firms refuse to work for Hanjin because they fear they will not be paid due to uncertainty over plans to provide new financing.

Samsung said an order this week by a U.S. bankruptcy judge did not encourage the Hanjin ships to enter U.S. ports as intended, which the company blamed on a misunderstanding of maritime law, the bankruptcy code and Korean law.

The maker of electronic goods including Galaxy smartphones said the judge should issue an order barring the seizure of ships and allow it and other cargo owners to retrieve their goods by paying cargo handlers, who have been demanding payment guarantees.

"There's no earthly reason why these parties should not be permitted to cut their own deals," Samsung said in a Thursday court filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, New Jersey.

Cargo handler Maher Terminals LLC, which operates a container terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey, backed the plan to let owners of cargo pay for handling. But it urged the court in a filing not to protect Hanjin vessels from seizure without also considering the rights of suppliers.

"Maher is currently being victimized by having hundreds of Hanjin containers clogging up its facility and impeding the ability of Maher to properly service its other customers," the company said in court papers on Thursday.

Nothing in the court order "should be deemed to compel parties like Maher to continue to provide services without receiving payment or adequate assurance of such payment," it added.

Story continues

Total Terminals International LLC, a West Coast marine terminal operator partly owned by Hanjin, earlier in the week cautioned the court that a plan was needed to pay for several levels of port services, such as tug boats and stevedores, and to ensure Hanjin vessels would be able to refuel and leave port.

"This lack of a short term plan for these vessels will lead to mayhem," it said in the filing.

An attorney for Hanjin, Ilana Volkov, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One Hanjin ship, the Hanjin Scarlet, is in Canada's Port of Prince Rupert, where it is being unloaded, with cargo owners covering charges, port spokesman Kris Schumacher said.

It remains unclear if the vessel would proceed to stops in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, he added.

"... All the supply chain partners - the pilots, the tug boat operators, the marine terminals operators, railroads and trucking companies - are saying they want a guarantee they will be paid," said Tara Mattina, a spokeswoman for The Northwest Seaport Alliance, a partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, that manages their cargo terminal leases.

The U.S. judge, John Sherwood, will hear the request on Friday.

As of Thursday afternoon, two Hanjin ships were near the Port of Long Beach, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which tracks cargo ship traffic. One of the ships, the Hanjin Boston, is scheduled to head into the port on Friday afternoon for re-fueling.

A third ship, the Hanjin Greece, was off the shore of Mexico, where it could avoid U.S. anti-pollution regulations that require use of low-sulfur fuel, the tracking group said. Many ships carry only a limited supply of low-sulfur fuel.

Some cargo owners have already paid fees to terminal operators to allow the release of Hanjin containers held up on the docks, according to a Port of Oakland spokesman.

The Seoul Central District Court is presiding over the receivership filed by Hanjin last week. A foreign representative of the shipping line has filed for so-called Chapter 15 bankruptcy with the Newark court.

Chapter 15 is meant to allow a company to seek recognition by U.S. courts of orders issued overseas and to ask U.S. judges to assist in a foreign corporate debt restructuring.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles, Jim Christie in San Francisco and Angela Moon in New York)
Sorry Grey's Anatomy fans, but it doesn't look like Christina Yang will be returning to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital anytime soon.

ET Canada caught up with Sandra Oh at the Toronto Film Festival, where she dished on whether or not there's any truth to the rumors that she is heading back to the long-running ABC series.

WATCH: Ellen Pompeo Talks 'Grey's Anatomy' Without Patrick Dempsey: 'It's Amazing How Much You Get Done Without a Penis'

"I've gotta tell you those rumors, I don't know who starts them but it really is tough," she shared at the premiere of her latest project, Catfight. "No, I have no plans to return to Grey's anytime soon."

Rumors swirled that Oh was headed back to the series earlier this year. In April, she played coy about her return to the LA Times. "I love that there are rumors," she said.

But just because the actress doesn't have any plans to return to the medical drama, doesn't mean she's not still a fan!

The 45-year-old actress reunited with her former on-screen hubby, Kevin McKidd, in June, and even commented on his character's new on-screen wife.

And wait - my TV husband has a new TV wife?? Xqueez me? I don't think so, Ha! Owen what r u thinking?? pic.twitter.com/qfxwyKCbQV  Sandra Oh (@IamSandraOh) June 10, 2016

"So much love 2 @caterinatweets Yay Canada. But he's Myyy Tv hubby! 2 Owen & Amelia," she tweeted, adding a wink face and heart emoji.

RELATED: Sandra Oh Leaving 'Grey's Anatomy': I'm Ready

Oh left Grey's Anatomy in 2014 after 10 years of playing Christina Yang, but she's not the latest star to say goodbye to the series.

See more on Patrick Dempsey's exit in the video below.

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Alleged would-be burglar turns himself in

A Lexington man sought by police for burglary and criminal mischief turned himself in, according to police.

Court documents indicate that on Aug. 27 police received a report that a suspect broke into the back door of a Lexington restaurant, entered the premises, saw a surveillance camera, attempted to cover his face, and fled.

The suspect was identified as Darin Roeder by the tattoos on his arms and the fact hed been seen by police earlier in the day wearing similar clothing. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and Roeder eventually turned himself in to Lexington police.

Hes charged with felony counts of burglary and being a habitual criminal as well as a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 12.

Trespassing over and over

A Lexington man must have been trying to set some sort of record by getting arrested for trespassing four times between Aug. 25 and Sept. 1, in addition to another incident where he allegedly impersonated a police officer in an attempt to gain entry to an apartment.

On Aug. 25, Lexington police were notified that Ahmed Mohammed was at Tyson Fresh Meats, demanding his paycheck. Court records indicate hed previously been told to remain off the property, and hes alleged to have said, Im so mad I could kill someone.

He was placed under arrest for trespassing by the Dawson County Sheriffs Office.

Later on Aug. 25, Mohammed allegedly pounded on the door of an apartment, swore at the occupant, and demanded to be let in, then left.

The occupant called police, who responded. After police left, Mohammed returned and again demanded entry and pounded on the door.

Lexington police contacted him and he claimed a person he knew used to live in that apartment and owed him money. He was arrested and charged with impersonating an officer and disturbing the peace.

On Aug. 29, Mohammed was again arrested by DCSO for trespassing for returning to Tyson to demand his paycheck. The following morning, Lexington police were contacted at 3:40 a.m. that Mohammed was bothering a cashier at Caseys North. An officer contacted him and trespassed him from both Caseys locations in Lexington at the request of the manager. At 5:15 a.m., the manager called and reported that Mohammed had been seen outside the window at the store. He was arrested for trespassing.

Not quite done, Mohammed was again arrested for trespassing Sept. 1 when an officer found him outside the front door of Caseys North.

Mohammed is scheduled for an entry of plea hearing on Sept. 13.

Crackdown results

The Lexington Police Department participated in the You Drink and Drive, You Lose crackdown from Aug. 19 through Sept. 5.

LPD reported 69 total traffic violation contacts, 35 of which resulted in citations. Of those 35, seven were for drug violations, six for no operators license, and four for driving under the influence.

Statewide, the Nebraska State Patrol arrested 84 drivers for DUI during the campaign.
FX has canceled Denis Learys Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, after two seasons, sources confirm to Variety.

FX declined to comment on the series fate.

The half-hour rock-n-roll comedy wrapped up its second season earlier this month on September 1, bringing in just 450,000 viewers for its final episode  which will now serve as the series finale.

Leary created, starred and exec produced the series for which he also wrote the music. He played Johnny Rock, an egomaniacal fiftysomething has-been musician whos dying for fame, and starred alongside John Corbett, Elizabeth Gillies, Elaine Hendrix, Robert Kelly and John Ales.

Speaking to Variety before the show launched in summer 2015, Leary said the show was risky and he wasnt sure if it would work. You never know, he said. Im a true Irishman  an optimistic pessimist. That way, youre always prepared for the worst.

However, he said if the show did last for many seasons, he would attribute it to his stellar cast.

You can have a great scene, but the thing that makes it unforgettable is unforgettable actors, Leary said in an interview last summer. This group, Ive got to be honest with you, they gave me everything I needed. They were all able to improvise and they flushed the characters out from day one. Liz, shes unbelievable, I feel like I can write anything for her. John Corbett was a dream that I thought I would never get. To me, I would love to be able to work with these people for the next five or seven years.

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Image credit: Kejriwal campaigning in Maharashtra during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. By Stevenre - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32578351

While the Aam Aadmi Party stormed back into power on the back of a strong anti-corruption campaign, during the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections, it has had anything but a smooth ride so far. Mired in controversies, the party has had to face problems from both outside and within its party, with a number of its members caught in various controversies.

From sex scandals, graft charges and cases of hooliganism and rioting, to fake educational qualifications and alcohol problems, we take a look at some of the controversies involving the partys current and former members:

Sandeep Kumar: The youngest minister in Kejriwals cabinet, who served as the minister of SC/ST Welfare and Women and Child Welfare, was removed from his post on August 31, 2016, after being caught in a sex scandal. A nine minute video clip which showed the minister in a compromising position with two women, was leaked to media organisations and went viral. The former minister was sacked from the party and booked for rape, after one of the women in the video alleged that Kumar had raped her after spiking her drinks, when she had gone to meet him to ask for help in obtaining a ration card. While the MLA defended himself saying that the person in the tape was not him, his wife, also came out in his support claiming that Kumar was being falsely implicated. He was subsequently removed from his post and has been sent to 14-day judicial custody by Delhis Tis Hazari court.

Somnath Bharti: Shortly after assuming power during AAPs first stint in Delhi, in January 2014, the former state Law Minister, Somnath Bharti, led supporters, TV camera crews and police in a sting operation he had orchestrated after he was tipped off about a sex and drug ring which was allegedly being operated in Delhis Malviya Nagar neighbourhood. Four African women were mobbed by the minister and his men, and were accused of being part of a prostitution and drugs racket. No drug traces were found in their system and the women accused Bharti and his supporters of molestation. Charges of rioting, molestation, wrongful restraint, criminal intimidation, outraging a womans modesty and promoting enmity between two groups or religions, were filed by the Delhi police on the orders of the court. Bharti was also arrested in December 2015 on a domestic violence case after his wife, Lipika Mitra, accused him and his mother of harassment and violence.

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Rakhi Birla: AAPs Mongolpuri MLA, and one of the youngest members of the party, Rakhi Birla was accused by her sister-in-law of harassment and domestic violence. According to the victims complaint, she was beaten using a belt by her husband, at Birlas insistence. Birla was also earlier in trouble over graft charges after allegations of her having been gifted a brand new Scorpio during her birthday party, surfaced. AAP, on its part, showed papers claiming that the car belonged to another volunteer who had recently purchased.

Jitendra Singh Tomar: The former Minister of Law and Justice in the Delhi cabinet was removed from his post, after allegations that he had submitted fake graduation degree certificates, surfaced in July, last year. A case of cheating and fraud was filed against him. While AAP initially supported him, the former minister had to submit his resignation after it was proven that he had indeed forged his papers, and he was subsequently arrested by the Delhi police.

Bhagwant Mann: The 42-year-old MP, who represents Punjab in the Lok Sabha, landed in trouble in July this year, after he streamed Parliament proceedings live on Facebook. In what could possibly expose the Parliament to attacks, the MP took videos of his entire experience at the Parliament, right from how he enters Parliament, the security checks he passes through and how many security personnel are present at each check post, the number of barricades he has to pass, to the room where the questions for the zero hour are chosen and with other sensitive information, in a 12 minute video. The Lok Sabha saw an uproar with members of the Opposition demanding that Mann be punished for exposing the Parliament to potential risks. On his part, Mann claimed that he had shot the entire sequence to show the people of his constituency what he goes through at the Parliament and why he cant always raise their issues in parliament. A fellow MP had also complained that Mann reeked of alcohol while coming for Parliament proceedings.

Arvind Kejriwal: Delhi Chief Minister and the partys head, Arvind Kejriwal has been in the centre of many controversies ever since assuming office. Kejriwal has had a tumultuous relationship with both the Delhi police and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung. While he has accused Lt Governor Jung of acting on the Central Governments behalf, he had called the Delhi police agents of PM Narendra Modi. Kejriwal also came under fire for calling a police constable posted at Govindpuri police station in New Delhi thulla. The constable filed a complaint stating that he felt insulted. Accused of being autocratic, and of ruling a one man party, in March 2015, after an ugly spat with his previous aides Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan over alleged anti-party activities, he expelled them from the party, shocking many. Yadav and Bhushan claimed that they had been ousted after challenging Kejriwals dictatorial ways.

Asim Ahmed Khan: The former minister of Environment and Food and Supplies, Asim Ahmed Khan was sacked from his post in October last year for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 6 lakhs from a builder. While Khan called it a big conspiracy by the Opposition against him, he also recently accused Kejriwal and party members of giving death threats.

Jarnail Singh: AAP MLA Jarnail Singh was accused of assaulting a Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) engineer and preventing him from demolishing an illegal structure in Delhi in April, last year. Charges under sections section 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC were filed against Singh, who was later granted bail.
Divergent star Shailene Woodley isn't so sure about the final film in her franchise heading to television.

"I didn't sign up to be in a television show," Woodley said in a recent interview with Screen Rant. "Out of respect to the studio and everyone involved, they may have changed their mind and may be doing something different, but I'm not necessarily interested in doing a television show."

Ascendant, the series' fourth and final film, initially was dated for theatrical release on June 9, 2017, but after the franchise's third installment - Allegiant, starring Woodley, Miles Teller, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts and Jeff Daniels - earned just $66 million domestically, Lionsgate began to rethink its strategy for the fourth film based on Veronica Roth's book series. The project is now being reconfigured as a TV movie with a potential spinoff series.

Read more: Some 'Divergent' Stars Expected to Opt Out as Finale Shifts to TV

The final Divergent film being reimagined as a TV movie was a shock to Woodley's co-stars as well.

"It caught us all by surprise," Teller told The Hollywood Reporter last month at the War Dogs premiere in New York. "At this point, it's a different set of circumstances," he said of the possibility of reprising his role as Peter in the franchise's finale. "We'll see. I honestly haven't talked to anybody."

Read more: Shailene Woodley Clarifies Interest in Fourth 'Divergent' Installment

"Things do change anytime they're messing with something that was not the original intention," he continued. "We all signed on for it in hopes that it'd be released in theaters, and we all had every intention of finishing [the franchise]."

Teller added that he still holds the franchise in high regard. "I'm not kidding when I say that you won't find a single actor who worked in that franchise who would have anything bad to say about that experience," he said. "It's all good. I've got nothing but love for everybody I've worked with on that franchise."

Read more: Miles Teller on 'Divergent' TV Movie: "It Caught Us All by Surprise"
From Russia, with love: Oliver Stone's Snowden has made its grand debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.



The film, which chronicles NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's journey from the Army to political exile in Moscow, premiered Friday, with stars Shailene Woodley, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zachary Quinto walking the red carpet in Toronto.



In the film Gordon-Levitt, 35, portrays Snowden, and Woodley, 24, his girlfriend Lindsay Mills.



Quinto, who plays Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who broke the story, called for Snowden to be allowed back in the United States.









Shailene Woodley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Walk the Red Carpet for Snowden's Toronto Premiere

"I do think [Snowden] should be able to come back [to the US]. I think it's a very complicated issue in terms of how that would happen," Quinto told the Press Association on the red carpet.



"The idea of him being charged under the Espionage Act or branded as a treasonist is absurd. I think he is someone of great integrity and great courage. I think what he did is underestimated now, in a lot of ways, but I think will be looked back on with the magnitude it deserves."





Shailene Woodley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Walk the Red Carpet for Snowden's Toronto Premiere

"Hopefully he can enjoy some freedoms again in his life. He deserves that in my opinion."



For more on the Toronto International Film Festival, go to PEOPLE.com/tiff.



Gordon-Levitt prepared for the role by meeting with Snowden himself, during multiple under-the-radar trips to Russia with the filmmaking team.



"A few months before shooting the movie, I did have a chance to sit with him in person," Gordon-Levitt told reporters earlier this month. He said he spent four hours with Snowden and Mills, who now resides with him in the country. Ultimately, the pair met up nine times.



Key takeaways from the sit-downs? Snowden's "old-fashioned" manners and "social grace."



"I really noticed that," Gordon-Levitt said. "I wanted to incorporate it into my performance of him."





Related Video: What Does Mekhi Phifer Rate Shailene Woodley's Headline Making Hugs?

Insurgent's Mekhi Phifer Rate Shailene Woodley's Headline-Making Hugs?" data-ad-channel="peoplenow" data-ad-subchannel="peoplenowupclose" data-auto-play="no">

Further, the actor studied Snowden's body language and dialect, leading to his near-perfect mastery of Snowden's accent.



Snowden hits U.S. theaters on Sept. 16.
From Russia, with love: Oliver Stone's Snowden has made its grand debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.



The film, which chronicles NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's journey from the Army to political exile in Moscow, premiered Friday, with stars Shailene Woodley, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zachary Quinto walking the red carpet in Toronto.



In the film Gordon-Levitt, 35, portrays Snowden, and Woodley, 24, his girlfriend Lindsay Mills.



Quinto, who plays Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who broke the story, called for Snowden to be allowed back to the United States.









Shailene Woodley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Hit Snowden's Toronto Premiere  as Zachary Quinto Says Snowden Should Be Allowed Back to U.S.| Toronto International Film Festival, Movie News, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oliver Stone, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto

"I do think [Snowden] should be able to come back [to the US]. I think it's a very complicated issue in terms of how that would happen," Quinto told the Press Association on the red carpet.



"The idea of him being charged under the Espionage Act or branded as a treasonist is absurd. I think he is someone of great integrity and great courage. I think what he did is underestimated now, in a lot of ways, but I think will be looked back on with the magnitude it deserves."





Shailene Woodley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Hit Snowden's Toronto Premiere  as Zachary Quinto Says Snowden Should Be Allowed Back to U.S.| Toronto International Film Festival, Movie News, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oliver Stone, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto

"Hopefully he can enjoy some freedoms again in his life. He deserves that in my opinion."



For more on the Toronto International Film Festival, go to PEOPLE.com/tiff.



Gordon-Levitt prepared for the role by meeting with Snowden himself, during multiple under-the-radar trips to Russia with the filmmaking team.



"A few months before shooting the movie, I did have a chance to sit with him in person," Gordon-Levitt told reporters earlier this month. He said he spent four hours with Snowden and Mills, who now resides with him in the country. Ultimately, the pair met up nine times.



Key takeaways from the sit-downs? Snowden's "old-fashioned" manners and "social grace."



"I really noticed that," Gordon-Levitt said. "I wanted to incorporate it into my performance of him."





Related Video: Anne Hathaway Talks about Her Post-Baby Body at Toronto Film Festival

Snowden's Toronto Premiere  as Zachary Quinto Says Snowden Should Be Allowed Back to U.S." data-ad-channel="Brightcove" data-ad-subchannel="" data-auto-play="no">





Snowden hits U.S. theaters on Sept. 16.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 9, 2016 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Embraer S.A. ("Embraer" or the "Company") (ERJ) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and docketed under 16-cv-06277, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Embraer securities between April 16, 2012 and July 28, 2016 inclusive (the "Class Period"). This class action seeks to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act").

If you are a shareholder who purchased Embraer securities during the Class Period, you have until October 7, 2016 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Embraer designs, develops, manufactures, and sells aircraft and systems in Brazil, North America, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and internationally.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Company had paid bribes to officials in the Dominican Republic to secure contracts for the sale of aircraft; (ii) Embraer's President and Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"), Defendant Frederico Pinheiro Fleury Curado ("Curado") was aware of the bribery scheme; (iii) the foreseeable consequences of the foregoing conduct would cost Embraer hundreds of millions of dollars; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' statements about Embraer's business, operations, and prospects were false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

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On November 1, 2013, after the market closed, The Wall Street Journal reported that Embraer was under investigation by the U.S. and Brazilian governments concerning bribery of Dominican Republic officials to secure a contract for the sale of military aircraft.

On this news, Embraer's ADRs fell $0.17, or 0.57%, to close at $29.55 on November 4, 2013, the next trading day.

On September 23, 2014, shortly before the market closed, The Wall Street Journal reported that Brazilian authorities had filed bribery charges against eight Embraer employees, claiming that they had bribed officials in the Dominican Republic to secure a $92 million contract.

On this news, Embraer's ADRs fell $0.26, or 0.68%, to close at $38.25 on September 24, 2014.

On March 16, 2016, after the market closed, various media outlets reported that Elio Moti Sonnenfeld ("Sonnenfeld"), a sales consultant who purportedly paid bribes on behalf of Embraer, had told Brazilian prosecutors that he believed the Company's top managers, including Defendant Curado, then CEO of Embraer, knew of the illicit payments made in connection with the Dominican Republic sales.

On June 9, 2016, after the market closed, Embraer announced that Defendant Curado was stepping down from his position as CEO after 32 years with the Company, and that Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva would replace Curado as of July 2016.

On this news, Embraer's ADRs fell $1.18, or 5.44%, to close at $20.51 on June 10, 2016.

On July 29, 2016, Embraer filed a Form 6-K with the SEC, stating, in relevant part, that: [N]egotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the settlement of the allegations of non-compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) have significantly progressed, to the point that Embraer is recognizing a US$ 200 million loss contingency in the quarter ended June 30, 2016.

Embraer also announced its financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30, 2016. Embraer reported, inter alia, the $200 million loss contingency and a net loss for the quarter totaling $99.4 million, or $0.55 per share.

On this news, Embraer's ADRs fell $2.93, or 13.82%, to close at $18.27 on July 29, 2016.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP
Patriot, dissident or traitor? A new film by anti-establishment director Oliver Stone starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden asks audiences to weigh in.

The espionage thriller biopic about the largest data leak in US history, which ignited a firestorm over mass surveillance, premiered late Friday at the Toronto film festival.

"Hopefully (the film) will work towards a number of efforts to try and rehabilitate him," WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison told AFP ahead of the film's red carpet in Toronto.

"What will help Snowden's situation and potential other whistleblowers as well is getting more public awareness of the retaliation that's used against people that do these sorts of things," explained Harrison, who is director of the Courage Foundation, which supports Snowden and other whistleblowers.

She opined that whistleblower protections in the United States are too weak, but that "public awareness is improving and that's always a first step."

"These sorts of actions should be protected in some way or at least be allowed a defense."

Snowden's residency permit in Russia, where he was granted political asylum after fleeing the United States, runs out next year.

"Then the question comes up again of where he can be safe. Obviously he'd love to go back home," Harrison said.

Alternatively, "he'd really like asylum in a number of other countries, some European countries. Maybe the situation will have changed in some of those but sadly so far he's always been denied," she said.

His supporters are trying to sort it out. But, Harrison said, "In this current environment in which it's kind of an empire that the US is running, his chances are minimal."

US authorities charged Snowden with espionage and theft of state secrets after he released thousands of classified National Security Agency documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill in 2013.

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Considered a traitor by some and a hero by others, the 33-year-old fled to Hong Kong, where he hid among Sri Lankan refugees in cramped tenements, and later was given political asylum in Russia after the US revoked his passport.

He now leads a reclusive life there.

In an encrypted text this week to Canada's daily National Post, which revealed how he had evaded US authorities while on the run, Snowden described himself as "the world's most wanted dissident."

He also expressed concern for people affected by his actions, saying "I was worried about accidentally dragging people down with me."

The documents he leaked revealed the extent of the NSA's global surveillance programs and started a debate about privacy and the role of state security agencies which still rages today.

The film is based on "The Snowden Files," a chronicle of the affair by Luke Harding of Britain's Guardian newspaper, and on the political thriller "The Time of the Octopus" penned by Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena.

It follows Snowden from the army to the CIA and to his post as an NSA analyst, delving deeper with each film frame into the big reveal: the world is teeming with electronic devices, each of them capable of monitoring our activities.

It also stars Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson (also appearing at the festival in "Denial") and Nicolas Cage.
edward snowden film

The new film "Snowden" is a wildly entertaining thriller centered around the most-wanted man in the world, though I was left with many more questions than when I started.

The Oliver Stone-directed film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden takes viewers through most of Snowden's adult life in a series of flashbacks amid interactions with journalists in a Hong Kong hotel.

While the story will be fascinating for many, it glosses over a number of unanswered questions in the Snowden saga.

To be clear, the movie is not supposed to be a documentary or definitive account of Snowden's life, but I hoped, nevertheless, it would shed at least some light on a younger version of the ex-NSA contractor who leaked thousands of documents to journalists in 2013, which it did not do.

Instead, it starts with his apparent Special Forces training with the US Army. The extent of his army career has never been all that clear, and the Pentagon only confirmed that he enlisted as a Special Forces recruit in May 2004 who was discharged four months later.

(Business Insider has tried unsuccessfully to get Snowden's military discharge document released, as has The Guardian).

The film shows Snowden going through what seems to be Army basic training where stress fractures wear and tear on his body until finally, he breaks his legs jumping from the top bunk during an early-morning wakeup. The real Snowden, for his part, told The Guardian his legs were broken in a training accident.

"There are plenty of other ways to serve your country," the doctor, who recommends an administrative discharge, tells him in the film.

The film's pace is brisk. Soon after his Army washout, Snowden is undergoing an intensive polygraph and interviewing for a position with the Central Intelligence Agency. Here we meet Corbin O'Brian, Snowden's CIA recruiter, instructor, and main antagonist in the film, who is quite obviously named after the villain in George Orwell's "1984."

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He even says Orwellian things like, "Secrecy is security and security is victory."

'I'm going to give you a shot, Snowden'

corbin o'brian snowden film

Actor Rhys Ifans plays Corbin O'Brian quite well, offering a spooky and secretive man who appears to be the driving force in Snowden's career. In interviewing Snowden, O'Brian says he ordinarily would not have hired him, but in 2006  the height of the Iraq war  "these are not ordinary times." He tells Snowden he's getting his shot, and in turn, Snowden promises he won't let him down.

At this point, the real CIA recruiter O'Brian is based on (if he exists) is probably kicking himself.

Still, Snowden is portrayed as something of a boy genius.

In his initial CIA training, he aces a five-hour-long test in 40 minutes. He rapidly moves up the chain and gets advanced training before heading to Geneva on an assignment  one that ultimately begins his slow disillusionment with the government and the messy business of intelligence gathering.

While Snowden's longtime girlfriend Lindsay Mills was non-existent in Laura Poitras' documentary "Citizenfour"  except for a brief shot of her reuniting with him in a Moscow apartment  "Snowden" makes her a central character that moves along the plot and makes things much more interesting.

edward snowden film

That was a particularly good move since, despite various movies depicting exciting things happening in intelligence circles or in the military, the truth is that much of what is actually done is painfully boring. Sure, battles and spy craft happens, but Hollywood doesn't really care for the less glamorous work of reading through raw intelligence and writing endless reports, or Snowden's real job of taking clueless NSA employees step-by-step through the process of opening a document, for example.

Stone adds more action to the mix by having drone strikes on computer screens in the workplace, which often seem out of place. Gordon-Levitt sometimes delivers lines that make Snowden seem like the most important person in the intelligence field, instead of just one man among more than 800,000 people with top secret security clearances.

"Our government is hemorrhaging billions of dollars to Chinese hackers and Ive been hired to shut them down," he tells his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, at one point in the film.

The crown jewels in the Rubik's Cube

snowden rubik's

Eventually, Snowden ends up working at the NSA facility in Hawaii, taking a contract systems administrator job with Dell and later, Booz Allen Hamilton.

Though I'm pretty sure it was just done for the sake of expedience and Hollywood being Hollywood, the facility there is somewhat open  almost like a Silicon Valley startup  with the offensive hackers hitting China over there, while Snowden and others protecting US networks sit over there. No doors, no key cards.

This seems far outside the reality  especially so for an NSA facility. Sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) literally means compartmentalized, to the point where one NSA analyst wouldn't even know what the guy in the next cubicle is working on. But for "Snowden," the typical office banter happens regularly, and friendships are formed among coworkers in different departments.

One such friendship is integral to Snowden's later whistleblowing, according to the film, when he meets an NSA hacker named Gabriel Sol (played by Ben Schnetzer). Through Sol, he quickly gains access to top secret programs that would later be exposed.

Perhaps the most notable is Prism, which gave the agency direct access to data on the servers of Facebook, Google, and other tech giants. Sol later taps into a random woman's webcam and watches her live as Snowden looks on, uncomfortably  likely an allusion to a program exposed in 2014 called Optic Nerve, which allowed British spies to intercept millions of webcam images from Yahoo users.

snowden film

Another friend in particular actually keeps his mouth shut when he sees Snowden downloading the critical NSA files to an SD card. It's a moment of high drama, but it's doubtful this even happened, especially when the film's climactic scene is put up against the reality: Instead of grabbing all the files in one day, Snowden apparently started downloading the cache more than a year before he met with journalists in Hong Kong, according to a report from Mark Hosenball in Reuters.

That scene features this exchange: "The NSA may come after you," Snowden tells his coworker. He responds: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Then he just lets Snowden grab a bunch of top secret documents hidden inside a Rubik's Cube, finally walking out the front door with a smile on his face (Snowden has never said how he actually grabbed the files). And before he hops in the elevator, Snowden has an unspoken exchange of, I'm leaving right now with tons of files and you're never going to see me again, wink wink, with his old friend Gabriel.

These interactions make it seem like intelligence professionals support what Snowden did, but that's a sentiment not backed up in statements from various officials, on the record or said anonymously. One former hacker with NSA's elite hacker unit, Tailored Access Operations, put it this way: "I can't believe anyone listens to him," the source told Business Insider. "It's so infuriating. He was the help desk administrator for the government."

Unanswered questions

edward snowden film

Overall, the film was fairly good. If you're searching for a solid flick offering a look into the world of the CIA and the NSA, you'll get it. And if you're a fan of Edward Snowden and believe he's a patriot, this movie is going to support that viewpoint.

But Snowden skeptics will be left wanting.

Many important questions go unanswered or are breezed past, and it ultimately does a disservice to its subject matter and the viewer. These include the open question of what Snowden was doing for the 11 days he spent in Hong Kong before he met journalists, his somewhat questionable claim of being "stranded" in Moscow, and whether he took any stolen documents with him to Russia.

For example, in the film Snowden proclaims "I no longer have any access to the data myself" as he deletes files on his laptop in a Hong Kong hotel room. But his claim to have destroyed the documents was contradicted in an interview he gave to the South China Morning Post, in which he said he would like to leak more documents later to "journalists in each country to make their own assessment, independent of my bias, as to whether or not the knowledge of US network operations against their people should be published."

"Snowden" also moves a bit too quickly at times for its own good, leaving out any mention of Snowden's childhood or how he ended up in a CIA interview. He apparently first got a top secret clearance working as a security guard, for example, which is not in the film. There is also little revealed of his new life in Russia, where he has been living under asylum since 2013.

Neil deGrasse Tyson and his guest Edward Snowden on StarTalk

All that viewers see of that is a cameo appearance by the real Snowden at the end of the film where he delivers a powerful speech from the second home of Anatoly Kucharena  a Kremlin-connected lawyer who represents Snowden in Moscow and wrote a novel loosely based on his flight from the US. Stone optioned that book, and Luke Harding's "The Snowden Files," for the basis of the film.

"Snowden" is held up by strong performances, most notably in Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the title character. He absolutely nails Snowden's voice and mannerisms; so much so that it's often hard to distinguish him at times from the real thing. And then there are similarly strong performances turned in by Zachary Quinto as journalist Glenn Greenwald and Nicholas Cage as Hank Forrester, a disillusioned NSA employee who acts as a mentor to Snowden, ultimately praising his haul of top secret documents by the end of the film.

"He did it. The kid did it," Forrester says.

Forrester seems to be based on another NSA whistleblower named William Binney, who initially offered high praise for Snowden when NSA documents revealed a mass spying dragnet. But Binney eventually shifted his view after Snowden leaked specific NSA hacking targets to a Chinese newspaper: He told USA Today that Snowden seemed to be "transitioning from whistleblower to traitor."

"As I have said in the past, revealing specific targets or successes of US intelligence activities is not in the public interest," Binney told Business Insider in 2014.

"Snowden" leaves that part out.

The film is out in theaters on Sep. 15.

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Can't keep up with what's been going on in the social media world? Fret not. Here, a gathering of what the stars have been up to this week on social media.

Gwyneth Paltrow's LinkedIn Essay

Gwyneth Paltrow joined LinkedIn this week and published a manifesto on her business practices, career and personal life. Her essay offers insight into the often misunderstood world of Goop.com. Paltrow presents her brand as a natural extension of the life she's always led: "I had, for many years, been the friend who was called at all hours for instructions on how to cook a date meal, what restaurant was new and noteworthy in NYC, the must-sees for a first trip to Paris that was only 48 hours in duration." It's no coincidence that readers often brand Paltrow as the "new Martha Stewart"; she hired former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia chief Lisa Gersh as Goop's CEO in 2014. This move launched Paltrow into a public, embittered tit-for-tat with the domestic godmother, but there's no mention of this dilemma in the LinkedIn essay. Just visceral, sage advice delivered in third person: "The punk rock kid in me is essential to my decision making, but she needs to be tamed and she definitely needs to think before she speaks."

"We are fundamentally an ideas company." @GwynethPaltrow on bringing @goop's vision to life: https://t.co/dmjtbbjvEY pic.twitter.com/x2JhVK5suy

- LinkedIn (@LinkedIn) September 9, 2016

Kanye Tweets

Kanye West finally responded to critics of his NYFW presentation. In case you missed it, here's everything that happened at Kanye West's Yeezy Season 4 presentation. It's a juicy read; who else but West could bus fashion editors and critics with no food or water and have them wait an hour-plus in the heat? Is it a joke? Performance art? The creative genius gave a clipped response over Twitter.

It's our life's mission to create the most transformative experiences

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- KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 9, 2016

Each and every one's time, insight and feelings are invaluable to us. We want to make people feel great.

- KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 9, 2016Thank you for embarking on this creative journey.- KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 9, 2016

Tom Ford's Best Week Ever?

Designer turned director Tom Ford had a big week. First, he covers this week's issue of THR, then he gets rave reviews at TIFF for Nocturnal Animals AND pulls off a "see-now, buy-now" star-studded show at NYFW. On social, Tom Ford's Instagram account boasts exclusive portraits of A-list guests, shot by Dutch power photogs Inez and Vinoodh. How on earth does he do it?

@ithurman photographed by @inezandvinoodh #TOMFORD #TFAW16

A photo posted by TOM FORD (@tomford) on Sep 7, 2016 at 7:43pm PDT

Ted Baker London's Special Agents

Ted Baker celebrated the launch of #MissionImpeccable at Chateau Marmont this Wednesday, premiering a "shoppable" video, with Guy Ritchie as executive producer. The glamorous dinner was attended by How to Get Away With Murder actor Kendrick Sampson, and Salem actor Shane West. The interactive campaign invites Instagram users to engage with the #MissionImpeccable hashtag in order to win products. Since engagement with followers is en vogue, Ted Baker's social activation is totally chic.

A video posted by Ted Baker (@ted_baker) on Sep 1, 2016 at 4:29am PDT

Hillary Clinton Appears on Humans of New York

Blogosphere favorite Humans of New York posted a photo and accompanying story about Hillary Clinton's path to controlling her emotions. It's an interesting read that sheds some light on how the presidential candidate manages to keep her cool, no matter the situation.
Seoul (AFP) - South Korea's STX Offshore & Shipbuilding submitted a proposal to a court on how to revive its business, a spokesman said on Saturday, as the troubled firm seeks court-led debt restructuring.

STX -- once the country's number four shipbuilder -- filed for the restructuring in May after struggling for years with mounting losses caused by mismanagement and a slump in global demand.

The court, after reviewing the firm's revival plan, is set to decide later this year whether to put it under a debt restructuring and recovery programme, or declare it bankrupt.

"The survival plan was submitted to the Seoul Central District Court on Friday," company spokesman Kong Doo-Pyoung told AFP, adding it includes a plan to sell the firm's French unit by the end of this year.

STX in 2008 bought a 67 percent stake in the huge shipyard in the western French port of Saint-Nazaire, later named STX France. It produces ships ranging from cruise vessels to warships.

The firm plans to accept bids for the French unit in October before selecting a preferred bidder in November.

STX -- part of the STX Group that has businesses ranging from shipping to construction -- has been cutting hundreds of jobs at home and selling assets to shore up its finances and avoid bankruptcy.

Creditor banks since 2013 have stumped up more than four trillion won ($2.4 billion) to help STX repay debts but failed to turn it around.

The firm's total debts amounted to 7.3 trillion won as of June.

South Korean shipbuilders including STX and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine have struggled with mounting losses as global trade slows and competition from Chinese rivals intensifies.
This website is inclusive of tolerant people of all faiths, without exception. Neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia nor homophobia should ever be acceptable to anyone. We must all strive to live in peace and harmony with each other, regardless of religious affiliations, or none. Intolerance is the mother of strife and conflict.   Mark Alexander

We Britons are Europeans!Wir Briten sind Europaer! Nous, les Britanniques, sommes europeens !  Mark AlexanderEmail me at:markalexander.librabunda@gmail.com
O Porrino (Spain) (AFP) - Excessive speed is the most likely cause of a train crash in northwestern Spain which killed four people, the mayor of the local town suggested Saturday.

The train carrying tourists to Portugal veered off the tracks and smashed into a pillar Friday, killing its Portuguese driver as well as a US passenger and two Spaniards.

The train's so-called black box recorder was recovered and handed over to judicial authorities in the small town of O Porrino where the tragedy occurred.

"We are reviewing the possible causes of the accident and the most probable is excessive speed," O Porrino mayor Eva Garcia told reporters.

She cautioned however that definitive conclusions would only be made public when an investigation was finished, at a date to be determined.

The train, which was travelling to Porto in Portugal from Spain's Vigo, appeared to have hit the wall of a bridge as it was going underneath, prompting it to crash just before entering a station.

Authorities in the Galicia region where the accident took place said that the train conductor was one of the two Spaniards who died in the Friday morning accident, which also saw some 47 people injured.

The train itself had undergone a complete overhaul in May, Spanish officials said, while Portugal's rail chief said it was "in perfect condition".

Galicia was also the scene of one of Spain's worst rail disasters in 2013, when around 80 people were killed and another 144 injured after a high-speed train slammed into a concrete wall on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela.

That train was approaching a curve at more than twice the speed limit on that piece of the track.
Heres what Stephen King has to say about those freaky North Carolina clowns

Heres what Stephen King has to say about those freaky North Carolina clowns

Stephen King, iconic author of horror and sci-fi, has given us some insight about the terrifying, real-life scourge of creepy clowns in North Carolina.

The creator of Pennywise, the murderous clown from the 1986 horror novel, It, is really the best person to voice an opinion about guys dressing up as circus attractions and menacing communities. The newspaper in Kings town, Bangor Daily News, took the opportunity to ask King his thoughts on these Pennywise wannabes/pranksters. Basically, the author confirmed that our fear of clowns was TOTALLY justified.

ABC's "Good Morning America" - 2015

See, King claims he chose Pennywise the Clown as the face which the monster originally shows the kiddies because kids love clowns, but they also fear them; clowns with their white faces and red lips are so different and so grotesque compared to normal people.

And theres other good reasons to be scared of clowns  like all the other clowns in pop culture and real life (John Wayne Gacy, anyone?) who have terrorized people. Clowns are the perfect tool for creeping a bunch of people out.

King also pointed out that the clown scare is similar to a lot of other mythologies of supernatural monsters who watch from the shadows. Bangor Daily News points out that there have been other spooky clown appearances in the past  specifically in the 1980s in New Jersey.

Stephen King creation

King continued, I suspect its a kind of low-level hysteria, like Slender Man, or the so-called Bunny Man, who purportedly lurked in Fairfax County, Virginia, wearing a white hood with long ears and attacking people with a hatchet or an ax. The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying.

So maybe there have been one or two pranksters, but the hysteria behind the standard clown fear is whats getting people across America all riled up.

King quoted Lou Chaney who supposedly said, Theres nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight. The bottom line is, clowns who arent doing their job at the circus are creepy. Localized hysteria doesnt make it any better.

The post Heres what Stephen King has to say about those freaky North Carolina clowns appeared first on HelloGiggles.
The next stop on Tommy Hilfiger's comeback cruise docked in downtown Manhattan Friday.

There, on a pier overlooking the East River, the 31-year-old brand hosted its first fashion show for consumers. Not only were everyday fashionistas invited to the carnival-themed spectacle, but they were able to purchase looks straight from the runway.

Tommy's refreshed approach to fashion week comes as the label is in the midst of a turnaround. Once a harbinger of '90s cool, the brand's widespread popularity  driven by the adoption of consumers outside its typical prepster audience  are what later caused it to flounder.

But the label, still under the creative leadership of its namesake designer, is starting to get its groove back. During the second quarter, owner PVH (PVH) said Tommy's sales rose 6 percent to $860 million. That followed a 3 percent lift in the first quarter, and reversed a 6 percent sales decline for fiscal year 2015.

The brand still has a way to go. In particular, the recovery in its North American and women's businesses is lagging that of its international and men's segments.

While net sales in Tommy's international business increased 11 percent in the second quarter, excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, its domestic sales grew a more tepid 3 percent on that basis. Company-owned stores, which include major flagships in tourist cities, have weighed most heavily on U.S. results.

PVH also sees opportunity to grow Tommy's womenswear business. Through recently signed partnerships with supermodel Gigi Hadid and manufacturer G-III (GIII), CEO Manny Chirico has said he sees room for the category's penetration to increase from roughly one-quarter of the brand's sales today, and eventually becoming closer to half.

In particular, Chirico has said Tommy's partnership with G-III could help grow Tommy's U.S. women's wholesale business from less than $200 million and marginally profitable, to $1 billion with a profitable royalty stream, Chirico has said.

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"I think it's doable," Cowen & Co. analyst John Kernan said about reaching $1 billion.

G-III already owns the women's fashion licenses for PVH's Calvin Klein label, which it helped cross that $1 billion threshold. It also designs and manufactures Tommy's dresses, men's and women's outwear and luggage. G-III's new contract with PVH pertains to Tommy's women's collections, and will include sportswear and denim. Chirico told investors that this partnership should lead to a more elevated presentation of Tommy in stores, as well as higher selling prices.

Also helping drive the brand's credibility is a tie-up with 21-year-old Hadid, who turned heads at last year's spring show when she walked the runway in a colorful string bikini. Hadid recently signed on as the brand's global ambassador, and will be featured in its fall advertising push. She also collaborated with Tommy on a collection that was shown on Friday's catwalk.

"A major focus of our fall campaign will be our women's business," Chirico told analysts last month.

Still, growing women's to 50 percent of Tommy's revenue is a long way off, Kernan said. The category has been slower to recover than men's, in part because of the brand's heavy penetration at outlet malls. Mass distribution at these centers made the brand less desirable to fashion-savvy women; but as its design and fit continue to improve, Tommy is likely to regain traction among this critical group of shoppers, Kernan said.



As for its overall U.S. business, Chirico said there's big opportunity to capture gross margin gains in the second half of the year. That's because last winter, a spate of unseasonably warm temperatures left retailers' shelves stocked with too many jackets and sweaters, pressuring them into unplanned discounts. But this year, department stores have bought fewer items for the second half.

PVH's U.S. wholesale business has grown and shown improvement this year, and has likely been helped by struggles at Ralph Lauren (RL). Still, Chirico said the U.S. remains the "most volatile market that we operate in." That's particularly true for its stand-alone retail stores.

"International tourist traffic and spending continues to weigh on our U.S. retail business," Chrico said.
Supermodel Christy Turlington says plastic surgery would look freaky on her

Supermodel Christy Turlington says plastic surgery would look freaky on her

In a culture where women are constantly being marketed to under the premise of looking younger (implying that theres something wrong with looking your age!), and women in the public eye are often shamed for looking over the age of twenty-five, its hard not to be impacted by that mindset. More and more anti-aging serums and creams and peels and treatments are gaining popularity, as if weve somehow decided that its not acceptable for a woman to get older, and we need to spend money and time and effort to stop it. Luckily, more women are speaking out about the issue, and denying the cultural pressure to go to extreme lengths to preserve youthful appearances.

Supermodel Christy Turlington declared that she had no interest in plastic surgery during an interview with E, and we love her reasons why.

I wasnt worried about aging at 16, and Im not worried about it at 47. Its a fact of life, and its good that people close to me see that Im relaxed and okay about aging, not neurotic or worried about it.

She went on to say that its not just a personal distaste for the cultural pressure to avoid aging  she also just doesnt think it looks good. Maybe I would think differently if I thought it looked good and it didnt hurt and it didnt send bad messages to young people. But Ive never seen someone who Ive been like, Oh, thats a good idea. It looks freaky to me.

Photo bombing @clancymccarty's selfie in Canyon De Chelly yesterday. #EveryMomCounts A photo posted by Christy Turlington Burns (@cturlington) on May 28, 2016 at 7:06am PDT

We think its great that the model, whos still working and of course still STUNNING as ever, is sticking to her guns on this. While we totally support the choices women make  if plastic surgery is what makes a lady happy, more power to her  we definitely think its important for women in Hollywood to make it known that its okay to be yourself, and age naturally.

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PTTOW! Summit At Terranea Resort

To my kids Ill be the mom who barely shaves her legs, who doesnt color her hair, she continued. Being who you are, being your best self, has nothing to do with what you look like.

We think Christy Turlington is setting a great example for her kids, and for aspiring models  and women in general  everywhere.

The post Supermodel Christy Turlington says plastic surgery would look freaky on her appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Moscow (AFP) - The ceasefire deal that could see coordinated US-Russia military action in war-torn Syria comes after months of Moscow calling on Washington to join its bombing campaign against jihadists.

The agreement, which is also meant to end hostilities and ensure aid deliveries, saw Washington yield to Russia's calls for military coordination despite the two powers backing opposing sides in the war -- a concession analysts say is a victory for Moscow.

- Coordinated action -

Moscow had for months made the case for the United States to join forces against jihadist groups like the Islamic State, proposals Washington had dismissed until now.

The Pentagon previously argued that the goal of Russians operations -- bolstering the forces of Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad -- was at odds with its focus on defeating IS.

Coordinated Russia-US military action can only happen if Moscow and the Assad regime fully meet commitments to cease violence for seven days, but even securing the prospect is a diplomatic win for Moscow.

"This is a success for Russia because it had insisted on signing (this agreement) and worked on it for a long time," political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov told AFP, adding that the American negotiators had been in a "vulnerable" position.

The West has accused Moscow of propping Assad up by targeting rebels fighting the regime, in strikes that Moscow said were aimed against "terrorist" organisations.

Moscow has in turn repeatedly slammed the US-led coalition that is also carrying out strikes in Syria, saying that these have been ineffective against jihadist groups.

- Assad remains -

Washington, which backs a coalition of rebels it regards as moderate, has repeatedly said that Assad must step down to ensure an enduring peace deal, although its calls for him to go have been less frequent in the past few years.

The deal reached in Geneva on Friday did not touch on Assad's fate, but it calls on Moscow to exert its influence on the regime -- highlighting the fact that Syria's post-war leadership remains key to resolving the conflict.

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"The fact that the Syrian government is indirectly taking part in this deal -- because Russia is being asked to pressure it -- this is indirect acknowledgement that this factor (Assad's presence) exists and there is nothing to do about it," Lukyanov said.

"It shows that it is impossible to do get around Assad."

- Doubts endure -

Russia has welcomed the deal as a step toward resolving the brutal five-year war and has pledged to pressure the regime to respect the ceasefire, but Moscow has been cautious not to build up expectations.

This is not mark the first time Moscow and Washington have brokered a Syria peace deal -- there was the truce agreed in February and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, but this has been repeatedly violated.

Washington had pushed for concrete steps from Moscow to force Assad to stop bombing civilians, respect the truce and lift the siege of the northern city of Aleppo.

But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has cautioned that Moscow cannot "100 percent guarantee" that all parties will obey the new ceasefire.

The Syrian government has agreed to the truce but it remains unclear whether it will last long enough for the beginning of coordinated US-Russia military action.

Analyst Ruslan Pukhov told TASS news agency that although the Assad regime has endorsed the deal, the beleaguered Syrian leader "is unable to completely control all of his supporters" who might be tempted to violate the truce.
Beirut (AFP) - Syria's government on Saturday approved a ceasefire deal brokered by its Russian ally and the US, but the main opposition group was more cautious.

The landmark deal, reached after marathon talks in Geneva on Friday, could also lead to the first joint military operations by Moscow and Washington against jihadists.

But even as diplomats touted the agreement as a path to peace, a barrage of air strikes on two major cities in the north killed dozens.

The truce deal negotiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to enter into force on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the "government has approved the agreement, and a cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons".

Citing "informed sources", it said "the entire agreement was reached with the knowledge of the Syrian government".

The opposition High Negotiations Committee said it had yet to receive the deal's "official" text.

"We saw the agreement via the media -- we must receive an official copy," HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet wrote on Twitter.

Leading HNC member Bassma Kodmani told AFP that her group "cautiously welcomed" the deal but was sceptical that Damascus would comply.

- 'Best chance' -

Both Kerry and Lavrov said the complex plan is the best chance to end the five-year war that has killed more than 290,000 people and seen millions flee to neighbouring countries.

Under the deal, fighting would halt across the country at sundown on Monday and Syria's air force would stop attacking rebel-held areas.

US special envoy to the Syrian crisis Michael Ratney appealed to rebel groups to commit to the deal, saying it was the "best way" to save lives.

In a letter, he said the initial truce would last 48 hours and could then be renewed, and that it would be "more effective than its predecessor" because it would halt Syrian strikes on "on civilians and the opposition".

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To get aid into the battered second city of Aleppo, a "demilitarised zone" would be established around the Castello Road into the city.

In turn, Washington must get opposition groups it backs to separate themselves from the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

If a cessation of hostilities holds for one week, the US and Russia -- which back opposing sides -- could start joint operations against those jihadists.

The HNC's Kodmani said the opposition would "do our part" to see that rebel groups break ranks with the jihadists if the truce held.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said that the deal provided a "window of opportunity" and that he would begin consultations on relaunching peace talks.

- 'Beginning of the end' -

But the deal faces some major obstacles.

The question of Assad's fate remains a key sticking point: the HNC repeated its demand this week that he leave power, but Russia continues to back him.

And Syria expert Charles Lister said mainstream opposition fighters had not indicated a willingness to break their alliance with powerful hardliners, which they see as "a military necessity".

The rebel-jihadist alliance is most pronounced in Idlib province, site of Saturday's deadly air strikes.

The Observatory said 58 people were killed in raids on various neighbourhoods of Idlib city, including a market, but it was not immediately clear who carried out the strikes.

The toll included 13 women and 13 children, it said.

An AFP photographer in Idlib saw men clambering over rubble in just sandals to help evacuate wounded and dust-covered residents from a collapsing building.

Another 12 civilians were killed in unidentified strikes on several neighbourhoods of Aleppo city, and 18 people died in bombardment of other parts of Aleppo province, the Observatory said.

A UN-backed truce in February faltered after each side accused the other of repeated violations.

Damascus resident Taher Ibrahim told AFP he did not expect this new truce to play out any differently.

"Nobody among the Syrian population accepts this agreement... (the opposition) are all the same and none of them will commit to this truce," he said.

But student Abdulhadi Al-Omari said he believed "it is the beginning of the end of the crisis".

"I am very optimistic because this truce is not like the previous one, it categorises the opposition groups between terrorist and moderate," he said.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said it was "vital that the regime in Damascus now delivers on its obligations".

Key rebel backer Turkey said it was essential that the fighting stop and aid start flowing from day one of the ceasefire.
An airstrike hits an outdoor market in Idlib, leaving a childs severed torso lying in the street among scattered plasticware and household items. Another hits a residential neighborhood in Aleppo sending a stream of wounded people to the hospitals. Shelling kills a woman and three children outside of Damascus. Hours after the United States and Russia announced an agreement for what Secretary of State John Kerry called a genuine reduction in violence in Syria, the regime of president Bashar al-Assad responded with what appeared to be a surge in violence on Saturday.

The renewed shelling and airstrikes in rebel-held sections of Syria comes two days before the agreement is set to go into effect, in time for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. For Syrians living the reality of a conflict that has already killed as many as half a million people, the strikes illustrated deep and widespread doubts about whether the new accord would ease their suffering. Dozens of people were killed in strikes in at least three separate opposition-held areas, according to medics and first responders.

I will tell my expectations for the coming two days. Assad will try kill as much as possible before the claimed ceasefire. A lot of shelling and bombs will fall upon civilians, especially the almost empty markets, said Abdulkafi Alhamdo, an English teacher living in the besieged opposition sector of Aleppo, in a text message.

Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced the agreement at a news conference after midnight on Saturday following long hours of negotiations in Geneva. No text of the agreement as been made public, but Kerry described the terms of the deal in broad terms. The agreement calls on Russia to restrain the Assad government, with whom it is allied, from carrying out indiscriminate attacks in opposition-held areas. Following a seven-day period of reduced violence, the agreement then calls for the U.S. and Russia to work together to launch strikes against both ISIS and al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria, formerly known as the Nusra Front.

The agreement comes nearly a year after Russia intervened in Syria, unleashing a devastating campaign of airstrikes that strengthened Assads campaign to reclaim key areas of the country lost to the rebels and jihadist groups over five years of war. If it succeeds, the accord would have the US cooperate in a more targeted air war that singles out extremist groups.

In Syria, the announced agreement raised more questions than it answered. One key question is how the U.S. and Russia would implement the plan to cooperate on airstrikes against Nusra. Unlike ISIS, Nusra is allied with other, more mainstream rebel groups. The group announced a formal split with al-Qaeda in July, and in August it played a central role in a rebel alliance that succeeded in breaking the siege of the opposition-held section of the city of Aleppo, a move that won it some public support in the long-suffering rebel-held section of the city. The group also re-shaped its own public image, and now calls itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

Nusras presence among other opposition groups poses a dilemma that has contributed to the failure of past ceasefires. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, he argued that the agreement would make it harder for the Assad regime to mask attacks against the legitimate opposition by claiming that its going after Nusrah. He also issued a warning to rebel groups who are allied with the jihadists.

So the warning we give to opposition groups who have up until now found it convenient to sort of work with them is it would not be wise to do so in the future. Its wise to separate oneself, he said.

The question then is whether other rebel groups can and will divorce themselves from Nusra, which is the strongest force in some opposition-controlled areas. Alliances among opposition groups are chaotic and shifting, posing dilemmas both for the rebel groups on the ground and for the U.S. and Russian militaries who now plan to work together to pinpoint Nusra targets.

In practical terms, I think there are limits to how much the rest of the opposition can effectively distance itself from Nusrah, particularly in the northwest. Theyre just too mixed, not just in terms of geographic control  in one town, you might have Nusrah and four other rebel factions  but also in terms of personal and familial links, said Sam Heller, a Beirut-based analyst studying Syrian armed groups with the Century Foundation.

On Saturday, Nusra and allied groups also appeared to ignore the agreement announced in Geneva. The jihadi group said it launched a new offensive against regime forces in southern Syria, in cooperation with another rebel front, Ahrar al-Sham, a controversial, conservative Islamist group that casts itself as a part of the rebel mainstream. For its part the Assad regime said it continued military operations all over the country, advancing in many areas and re-establishing control on several regions, according to the state news agency SANA.

According to Kerry, the agreement also calls for unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to besieged areas in Syria, where nearly 600,000 people are trapped, according to the U.N. The largest of those areas is the eastern part of Aleppo, which is now back under siege by pro-government forces and militias. Kerry said both sides would be required to pull back from two key access points to the city: the Castello Road north of the city and the Ramouseh corridor to the south. Rebels, jihadists, and pro-regime groups have fought fiercely over both areas, and Kerry and Lavrov offered few specifics on how access will be enforced, leaving some humanitarian groups skeptical.

Will this aid really change the situation? Will it enhance the humanitarian situation of people in need, or will it just be some decoration to say that, yes, there is progress? said Dr. Mohamad Katoub, a spokesman for the Syrian American Medical Society, an aid group working closely with hospitals inside Aleppo. The lesson learned in Syria is that you cannot expect anything. You dont know when it will be concrete and when it will be just media talks.

Multiple foreign powers are now directly involved in the Syrian civil war, and it remains unclear what role they will play in a posible ceasefire. Along with Russia, Iran also supports the Assad regime, along with Iraqi militias and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. In August, Turkey also sent tanks into Syria to support rebels retaking Syrian border towns from ISIS. Excluded from any potential ceasefire, the jihadists of the Islamic State could also play a spoiler role, carrying out attacks on civilians.

Fred Hof, a former State Department Special Adviser on Syria, said in an email, If, in the end, Russian airstrikes in Syria are subjected to an American veto and the Assad regime is kept from striking civilian neighborhoods, something of great value will have been accomplished. Nothing good can happen politically in Syria unless civilians are removed from the Assad regime and Russian bullseye. Nothing.

If this agreement can spare Syrian civilians from continued mass murder it will be good in and of itself, he said.
youtube

In 2014, Joey Ahern moved from his hometown in south Florida to Los Angeles to become a star.

Unlike many generations of LA hopefuls before him, he wasn't trying to make it in film or television, but in a new kind of Hollywood: YouTube.

"The whole social-media world is there," Ahern tells Business Insider.

Ahern makes comedic skit videos, mostly with his Siberian husky named Steel. He figured that moving to LA  which is considered a hub for social-media stars  would allow him to make more money and gain more followers on YouTube and Vine.

Ahern is one of many trying to turn YouTubing into a lucrative, full-time career  and earn the notoriety and payoff that comes with making it big.

Joey Ahern

Advertisers throw over $5 billion annually at YouTube creators worldwide. Although plenty of that goes to commercial accounts like Rihanna's and Justin Biebers, some YouTubers make eight-figure salaries from their channels ad revenue, book deals, sponsored videos, and TV appearances. YouTube comic PewDiePie, for example, earned an estimated $12 million last year. His net worth is about 1.4 times larger than Hillary Clinton's.

Big YouTubers (generally those with at least 3 million subscribers) enter a world of fame. Fans sometimes mob them on the street, and YouTube (which is now an $86.22 billion platform) invites them to exclusive parties and gives them studio space and other resources.

But as new channels are created and gain fans, it's becoming more challenging and competitive to achieve fame on the platform. If you want to make it big on YouTube today, its hard to be just a kid with a webcam.

youtube

On February 23, 2010  YouTubes fifth birthday  only five channels boasted the coveted milestone of having a million or more subscribers.

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In 2016, more than 2,500 channels have over a million subscribers, and 850 new channels claimed the title this year alone.

That number might sound like reason for optimism, but it actually suggests that less than .01% of YouTubers have hit that benchmark. YouTube wouldnt disclose the current number of active channels, but spokesperson Michelle Slavich says its "in the millions."

Those odds haven't stopped a throng of aspiring YouTubers from trying to make it big, however.

In August, YouTube hosted a weeklong bootcamp in its New York City studios, as part of its NextUp program, which aims to give promising stars a leg up. Sixteen creators were admitted to the NextUp camp, which granted them mentorship from YouTube, access to its 20,000-square-foot production space, and a $2,500 voucher for equipment.

Ahern was one of the NextUp attendees, as was Hannah Hoffman, a 19-year-old computer-science major at Tennessee Technological University. Hoffman creates one-and-a half-minute animated shorts, each of which takes her eight hours to create, she says.

Like many struggling artists, Hoffman makes less than minimum wage from her channel. She used the NextUp voucher to buy a $1,000 Canon and a few lenses, acknowledging that higher production value can lead to more followers.

Hoffman said: "100,000 [subscribers] is my dream, but then later its going to be 500,000 and so on."

"There are so many numbers: likes, comments, views, subs  It can get overwhelming," she added. "If you just focus on the numbers, that will break you down."

youtube hannah hoffman

Hoffman says bonding with the YouTube community is more important to her than how much she earns while shes still in school. But once she graduates, she hopes to go full-time.

"If I could just live off YouTube, I would be the happiest person," she says.

Hoffman started YouTubing when she was 16, but her subscriber base skyrocketed in July 2016 when Dan Howl (a YouTube comic with over 6 million subscribers) tweeted one of her videos.

"In two or three days, I got 10,000 more subscribers just from that," she says.

The NextUp initiative is one way that YouTube invests in those in whom it sees promise. The company has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to original content, and competition for the corporate support is fierce. The New York City camp received hundreds of applications, Liam Collins, the director of YouTube's Spaces in North and South America, tells BI. It's one of seven YouTube hosts around the world.

"Over the years, the program has been instrumental in turbo-charging the growth of many successful creators," Collins says.

hannah hoffman youtube

Beauty and lifestyle vlogger Ingrid Nilsen and the duo AsapSCIENCE are the biggest success stories to come out of the camp. Each now have over 4 million subscribers.

Most of this years class probably won't achieve that level of fame, but having YouTube's help gives them a better chance than the majority of channels.

Things were a lot less complicated in 2008, when mega-star Tyler Oakley started YouTubing in his dorm room. As a college freshman, he began posting videos to keep his high-school friends up to date on his life.

"I remember when I hit 100 subscribers, and I thought that was huge, because I didnt even know 100 people," Oakley tells BI. "And then I remember getting messages from people I didnt know, saying, 'you help me feel more comfortable being gay' or 'this video cracked me up.' Things like that  that were outside my initial intention  were always 'whoa' moments."

A few months after graduation, after five years of YouTubing, Oakley quit his job as a social-media consultant, saved up a months worth of rent, and leaped into YouTubing full-time.

tyler oakley

Oakley, 27, now lives in LA and has produced over 400 vlogs. He has over 8 million subscribers and has hung out with Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres. At this years Vidcon (the largest YouTube convention in the world), hundreds of fans lined up to take selfies with Oakley and ask him to sign his memoir, "Binge."

One of his most popular video to date, which amassed over 10.4 million views, is titled simply, "Tyler Oakley Reacts to Teens React to Tyler Oakley." In it, a teen girl squeals "Tyler Oakley!" when he comes up on the screen, to which Oakley gasps and holds his hand over his heart.

Creators dont need Oakley's level of popularity to turn YouTubing into a day job. Those who attract tens of thousands of subscribers can usually make enough money from ads to take it full time.

But YouTube can also swiftly change the rules of monetization. On August 30, for example, the company announced that creators can no longer monetize content thats "not advertiser-friendly" (e.g. ones that include explicit language or graphic images).

Ahern says most of his paychecks come from brand sponsorships (including from Snickers and JC Penney) and ads that roll before his videos. His channel now has about 100,000 subscribers, and YouTubing is his full-time gig.

youtube joey ahern

"Recently, I was standing outside a bar, and someone recognized me," Ahern, now 26, says. "When it happens, it's an awesome feeling and makes you want to make more videos."

But he says the pressure of generating money and the unrelenting competition with LA's other social-media stars eventually became too overwhelming. A year and a half after his cross-country move, he moved back to his hometown in Florida.

"I got too obsessed with numbers," Ahern says. "Before it was a fun thing to do. I didnt really think about bringing money in. But then it became more of a job, and I didnt want it to feel that way  LA felt so competitive. It was tough to stand out."

YouTubes built-in analytics (fueled by Google) are an inevitable part of the business for creators. To improve their channels, they must pay close attention to thumbnail images, tags, descriptions, titles, what time of day (and year) they post, how often they post, and when viewers click away.

It can be so hard to track everything, in fact, that many creators hire multichannel networks (MCNs), or agents that help market them as a professional brand. Ahern's MCN gets 10% of the profits from his channel.

"I dont want to look at numbers," Ahern says. "I just want to create."

joey ahern youtube

As part of the NextUp camp, YouTube hooked up Ahern and the other winners with managers to help them create and market their brands, answer questions about copyright, and analyze their channels performance.

The prevalence of these types of managers is another way that YouTube, which originally marketed itself as an every-persons platform, may not be as democratic as it once was. In order to grow their presence on the site, most YouTubers now need the company's financial and corporate support, consistent and plentiful uploads, a committed fan base, collaborations with larger YouTubers, an aptitude for Google Analytics, "advertiser-friendly" content (sponsors like beauty, gaming, and home-improvement channels because it's easy to market products through them), and an original voice. All that and a whole lot of luck.

As some YouTubers have noted, the gap between small and large creators is widening.

"I take [YouTubing] very seriously, because now more than ever, its such an oversaturated market of people who do want to try to do this," Tyler Oakley says. "I was really fortunate and lucky and at the right place at the right time: Creating when it wasnt so saturated."

A photo posted by Tyler Oakley (@tyleroakley) on Oct 4, 2015 at 6:44pm PDT

Becoming a YouTube star is becoming more and more like acting in Hollywood, except that YouTubers play themselves on screen.

When YouTube plastered Oakley's face on billboards around Times Square in late 2015, he rode a bus (which also had his face on it) to see them.

"Its the most bizarre  makes-me-blush type of thing," he says. "It was all so crazy."

Ahern, on the other hand, continues to YouTube full-time in Florida and hopes the likes, subscribers, and fame will follow.

"I need to keep doing it," he says. "No matter what happens, Im just going to keep uploading."

NOW WATCH: Heres your first look at 'Battlefield 1  the life-like war game that blew up on YouTube





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A Florida teenager who was arrested earlier this year, first for posing as a doctor and then for theft and fraud, found himself in legal trouble again on Friday when police said he tried to fraudulently apply for a car loan.

Malachi Love-Robinson, 19, was arrested on Friday after attempting to purchase a Jaguar at a car dealership in Virginia, the Associated Press reported, citing Stafford County Sheriffs officials. He was charged with identity theft and other fraud offenses.

Employees at the car dealership became suspicious when Love-Robinson used an elderly woman as a co-signer while applying for a car loan, the AP reported. The employees called authorities after searching for Love-Robinsons name online. The elderly woman, who has not yet been identified, later told law enforcement officials that she had not given Love-Robinson permission to use her as a co-signer.

Love-Robinson first made headlines in February, when he was accused of posing as a licensed doctor and opening his own medical center in West Palm Beach, Fla.

More recently, he was arrested in August, accused of writing a bad check for a down payment on a car in Palm Beach. He was charged with larceny and fraud and was released after posting an $8,000 bail.

Love-Robinson has denied all the charges and is now being held in the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, Va., while officials continue to investigate the latest incident, the AP reported.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - The leaders of Thailand and Malaysia agreed on Friday to boost security cooperation and consider building a border wall to combat transnational crime and smuggling, an idea that appears to be gaining popularity elsewhere in the world. People-trafficking and the smuggling of contraband, including drugs and petrol, have flourished along the Thai-Malay border for years until a crackdown by Thai officials on human traffickers caused some of the routes to shut down last year. Analysts say separatist insurgents operating in Thailand's deep south use Malaysia as a base to launch and plan their attacks. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters that security remained "a very important matter" for both countries and there was an agreement to step up intelligence gathering and sharing to rein in cross-border terrorism. "We both face security issues including the fight against terrorism, human trafficking and illegal smuggling, that is why we need to address these issues seriously," said Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. Najib said both sides had discussed the construction and extension of a border wall but details remained to be worked out. "The matter is under consideration, but we need to determine the physical dimensions of the wall or fence as well as the sharing of the costs," he said. The step reflects a controversial plan by U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico, and get Mexico to pay the cost. It remains unclear who will pay for the Thai-Malaysia wall, which the two countries first formally discussed last year. A fence already runs along parts of their 640-km (398-mile) border. Najib's visit follows three deadly bomb attacks in southern Thailand over the past month, including a wave of bombings in tourist towns in August that Thai police linked to Muslim separatists. Analysts say the attacks were carried out by a separatist insurgent group known as Barisan Revolusi Nasional after it was left out of peace talks between Thailand and another separatist umbrella group in Malaysia. Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until Thailand annexed them in 1909. Since 2004, Muslim separatists operating in the area have waged a bloody insurgency that has killed more than 6,500 people, says conflict monitor Deep South Watch. "It is clear why Thailand is pursuing this wall," Srisompop Jitpiromsri, a director of Deep South Watch, told Reuters. "They view it as a necessary step to combat these groups that cause violence." (Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Cod Satrusyang; Editing by Nick Macfie and Amy Sawitta Lefevre)
After two years of training and delays due to injuries, CM Punk is finally about to step into the Octagon for his first real mixed martial arts fight. Thats a heck of a lot of build-up, and it seems like Punk is done discussing his personal journey through the sport and just ready to go to war with his opponent, Mickey Gall. That aggression ended up seeping out when the two fighters met for a face off after weighing in. Gall offered his hand to the former WWE superstar, and CM Punk refused to even consider shaking it.

That led to Gall getting a bit miffed and UFC president Dana White separating the two before things got prematurely out of control. Backstage, Punk explained what was said and why he rebuffed Mickeys friendly gesture.

He was stuttering, Punk told FS1s Megan Olivi. He kept repeating, Oh you dont want to shake my hand, you dont want to shake my hand or something like that. Im not here to shake anybodys hand. Im here to punch people in the face.

I suppose we shouldnt be surprised that a pro wrestler with a reputation for being surly pulled a heel move like this leading into the fight. Its just more Hatorade for Punks detractors to drink up, and you better believe hell never hear the end of it if the more experienced Gall ends up taking him out with ease on Saturday night. Theres just something about leaving a fellow fighter hanging that upsets MMA fans a lot. To hear some tell it, Ronda Rousey was struck down by the MMA Gods themselves after refusing to touch gloves with Holly Holm. Now Punk is calling the same bad juju down upon himself, and at a time where he could really use all the help he can get.



(via MMA Fighting)
Perpignan (France) (AFP) - Several thousand people demonstrated Saturday in the southwestern French city of Perpignan to demand their Catalan heritage be spelt out after nationwide territorial reforms.

Organisers said as many as 10,000 people gathered -- police put the figure at some 7,800 people -- to demand their newly-merged region contain the words "Pays catalan" (Catalan land).

The new region merging Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrenees is slated to be called Occitania following 2014 reforms shrinking the number of French regions from 22 to 13 in an administrative shake-up.

But, in a much smaller echo of the spat between Barcelona and Madrid across the border with Spain, where many Catalans support full independence, 450,000 or so French Catalans want to see their identity literally put on the map.

Many marchers wore badges urging "yes to Pays Catalan" badges as they converged on Perpignan's main Catalonia Square and waved a banners proclaiming "pride an honour to speak a language with a great history -- even if the Catalan tongue is spoken far more widely across the border.

Red- and yellow-striped Catalan flags fluttered in the capital of the Pyrenees-Orientales department as the protesters embarked on their rally a day ahead of Catalan national day, La Diada, marked on Sunday.

June saw a plenum of regional councillors vote for Occitania with the added subtitle of "Pyrenees-Mediterranean.

"We are waiting for the decree to be signed before appealing to the council of state," said Joan Becat, spokesman for a pressure group urging the addition of Pays Catalan to the new region.

Some locals see the choice of Occitania as wide of the cultural mark. Some people in parts of southern France as well as Spain and Italy speak Occitan, a Romance language derived from Latin albeit not dissimilar to Catalan.

"Occitania is all well and good -- but we don't want to lose our identity," said one protester, Marie-Cecile, 22, amid a chorus of boos for regional chamber of commerce head Bernard Fourcade.

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Marchers then sang Lluis Llach's L'Estaca (the stage, but figuratively meaning without freedom) - composed in 1968 to underscore Catalan opposition to then Spanish dictator General Franco.

Feelings of Catalan identity on the French side of the border traditionally run less strong than in Spain where tens of thousands of Catalans were set to protest on Sunday to demand a speeding up of their drive to break away from Madrid, which has gained momentum in recent years.

After winning a clear majority in Catalonia's regional parliament last year, secessionist parties approved a plan to achieve independence in mid-2017 but internal ideological differences have hampered progress.
Madrid (AFP) - Thousands of Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid on Saturday to demand an end to the centuries-old but controversial tradition of bullfighting.

The protest came after the anti-bullfighting lobby successfully managed to obtain a ban on a famous festival which ended with a bull being speared to death.

The regional government of Castilla y Leon in June banned the killing of bulls at town festivals, in a move that targeted the northern region's controversial Toro de la Vega festival where horsemen chase a bull and spear it in front of onlookers.

The Madrid protesters held up banners saying: "Bullfighting, the school of cruelty" and "Bullfighting, a national shame".

A spokesman for the Party Against the Ill-Treatment of Animals (PACMA) said it was "time to end bullfighting and all other bloody spectacles".

"Bulls feel and they suffer," said Chelo Martin Pozo, a 39-year-old from Seville who had come to Madrid for the rally.

"Bullfights are a national shame and if they represent me, then I am not Spanish," she said.

Madrid resident Azucena Perez marched outside the parliament holding up a banner saying: "Bullfighting and the Bourbons should be im museums," referring to the country's royal family.

"I think our laws should prohibit the torture of animals as a form of entertainment," the 36-year-old said, admitting, however, that her grandfather was a big fan of the corrida.

Spain's first pro-bullfight lobbying group, the Bull Foundation, made up of breeders, matadors and aficionados, was set up last year.

A number of protest rallies in favour of the controversial past-time have been held recently, such as one in the eastern city of Valencia, a major bullfighting city, which drew thousands of people in March.

Valencia, Spain's third largest city, meanwhile, has banned the tradition of setting bulls loose with lighted torches attached to their horns called "bous embolats".

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Leading Spanish daily El Pais this week said that events involving bulls that 1,736 bullfights had been staged in the country last year, or 132 less than in 2014.

Supporters of bullfighting, known as "aficionados", are not giving up without a struggle.

They see bullfighting as an art that is an integral part of Spanish culture, like flamenco.
Not mincing any words. Tim Gunn slammed the fashion industry for ignoring plus-size women in an eloquent editorial for The Washington Post on Thursday, September 8, calling out designers for failing to think outside the box.

I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems, and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women, the 63-year-old Project Runway mentor wrote. Its a puzzling conundrum. The average American woman now wears between a size 16 and a size 18, according to new research from Washington State University.  There is money to be made here ($20.4 billion, up 17 percent from 2013). But many designers  dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk  still refuse to make clothes for them.



PHOTOS: Celebs Fight Back on Twitter!

According to Gunn, many of the industrys top designers wont create silhouettes for women who are curvier than the traditional model because they say the plus-size woman is complicated, different and difficult, that no two size 16s are alike.



The mindset is problematic, the TV personality writes, because this leaves a large percentage of the female population feeling excluded from the fashion industry for lack of options.

PHOTOS: Stars Share Secrets: Read Celebs' Shocking Confessions

Based on my experience shopping with plus-size women, its a horribly insulting and demoralizing experience, Gunn wrote. Half the items make the body look larger, with features like rushing, box pleats and shoulder pads. Pastels and large-scale prints and crazy pattern-mixing abound, all guaranteed to make you look infantile or like a float in a parade.



And even though Project Runway crowned Ashley Nell Tipton, the first contestant to show the competition's first plus-size collection, as the season 14 winner, he wasn't satisfied. "I've never seen such hideous clothes in my life," Gunn noted in his piece. "Her victory reeked of tokenism."

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In summary, the fashion guru wrote, a nod toward inclusiveness is not enough; designers need to get creative and truly understand what looks best on curvier women.

PHOTOS: Best Dressed TV Show Hosts

Project Runway Season 4 winner Christian Siriano expressed similar sentiments earlier this year when Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones complained via Twitter that no designers wanted to dress her for the films premiere.



"I love Leslie and I'm a huge fan of her work," Siriano said in a statement before they met in June. "I can't wait to create something special for her to wear.  I support all women no matter age or size!"

Season 15 of Project Runway kicks off on Thursday, September 15, at 9 p.m. ET on Lifetime.





Related Content:
By Francesco Guarascio and Jason Hovet

BRATISLAVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Multinationals should refrain from tax avoidance practices and pay their fair share of taxes, the head of euro zone finance ministers said on Saturday, in a new endorsement to the European Union fight against tax dodging.

In the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax avoidance practices, Brussels has toughened up its drive for tax fairness by tightening controls and adopting stricter rules. The recent shock multi-billion euro tax demand on Apple was part of that trend.

"My message to those companies is you are fighting the wrong battle. You have to move on. Times are changing," the head of the eurogroup and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters on his arrival to a meeting of EU finance ministers in Bratislava, which will discuss tax policies.

"You need to pay your taxes in a fair way. Part of that would be in the U.S., part of that would be in Europe. So get ready to do that," Dijsselbloem added.

The Commission, which is in charge of protecting market competition in Europe, is investigating multinationals' tax arrangements in several EU countries to assess whether, by lowering corporations' tax bills, illegal state aid may have been given.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc and hamburger group McDonald's Corp face European Commission's probes over taxes in Luxembourg, while coffee chain StarbucksCorp has been ordered to pay up to 30 million euros ($33 million) in back-taxes to the Dutch state.

The Netherlands has appealed against the Commission's decision on Starbucks, and Ireland did the same in the Apple case, fearing that this may undermine the country's long-established policy of attracting multinationals with low taxes.

Dijsselbloem said the Commission was right in investigating possible illegal state aid, but added that he thinks the Netherlands has the right to ask the EU court whether rules are applied correctly by the European Commission.

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Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna also showed scepticism against the Commission's ruling.

"We are talking about the past, things that happened 5 or 10 years ago, and there are different opinions about the interpretation of the rules," he told reporters ahead of the meeting.

Tax issues will be the main topic at the finance ministers' meeting in Bratislava where national delegates will discuss a paper presented by the Slovak presidency of the EU calling for more tax certainty for multinationals.

The proposal aims at stepping up cooperation among EU states to reduce tax avoidance, while making tax bills more predictable for corporations.

The Commission will also brief ministers on plans to set up a common corporate tax base and a single European blacklist for tax havens, in a further effort to counter tax avoidance and make companies pay taxes where they generate profits.

"It is very clear that we can only do this by working together within Europe and beyond Europe to make sure that international corporations pay the right amount of tax in the right place," British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said arriving to the meeting.

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in Bratislava)
(Adds EU, German comments)

By Francesco Guarascio and Jason Hovet

BRATISLAVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Multinational companies should refrain from tax-avoidance practices and pay their fair share, the head of euro zone finance ministers said on Saturday in a new endorsement of the European Union's fight against tax-dodging.

In the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax-avoidance practices, Brussels has toughened up its drive for fairness by tightening controls and adopting stricter rules.

The recent shock multi-billion euro tax demand on Apple was part of that trend as the EU also drafts plans for a common corporate tax base and a single European blacklist for tax havens.

"My message to those companies is you are fighting the wrong battle. You have to move on. Times are changing," the head of the eurogroup and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters on arriving at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Bratislava.

"You need to pay your taxes in a fair way. Part of that would be in the U.S., part of that would be in Europe. So get ready to do that," Dijsselbloem added.

The Commission, which is in charge of protecting market competition in Europe, is investigating multinationals' tax arrangements in several EU countries to assess whether, by lowering corporations' tax bills, illegal state aid may have been given.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc and hamburger group McDonald's Corp face European Commission probes over taxes in Luxembourg, while coffee chain StarbucksCorp has been ordered to pay up to 30 million euros ($33 million) in back-taxes to the Dutch state.

The Netherlands has appealed against the Commission's decision, and Ireland did the same in the Apple case, fearing it could undermine the country's long-established policy of attracting multinationals with low taxes.

European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici plans to unveil proposals in the coming weeks on a common tax base for multinationals operating in the EU, telling reporters the initiative was about the tax base rather than rates, which will remain in the hands of member states.

Story continues

He also said the Commission will move forward with plans to align taxes on ebooks and online press with paper publications, in line with earlier announcements.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble welcomed the efforts while EU Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said new rules were needed to eliminate mismatches and loopholes between member states' tax systems that companies exploit.

"What is clear is that with every new case of unfair tax practise or abuse, public frustration grows," he told a news conference at the conclusion of the summit.

Ministers at the meeting also discussed a paper presented by the Slovak presidency of the EU calling for more tax certainty for multinationals. It aims to step up cooperation among EU states and also make companies' tax bills more predictable.

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in Bratislava; Editing by Helen Popper)
By Francesco Guarascio and Jason Hovet BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Multinational companies should refrain from tax-avoidance practices and pay their fair share, the head of euro zone finance ministers said on Saturday in a new endorsement of the European Union's fight against tax-dodging. In the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax-avoidance practices, Brussels has toughened up its drive for fairness by tightening controls and adopting stricter rules. The recent shock multi-billion euro tax demand on Apple was part of that trend as the EU also drafts plans for a common corporate tax base and a single European blacklist for tax havens. "My message to those companies is you are fighting the wrong battle. You have to move on. Times are changing," the head of the eurogroup and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters on arriving at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Bratislava. "You need to pay your taxes in a fair way. Part of that would be in the U.S., part of that would be in Europe. So get ready to do that," Dijsselbloem added. The Commission, which is in charge of protecting market competition in Europe, is investigating multinationals' tax arrangements in several EU countries to assess whether, by lowering corporations' tax bills, illegal state aid may have been given. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc and hamburger group McDonald's Corp face European Commission probes over taxes in Luxembourg, while coffee chain StarbucksCorp has been ordered to pay up to 30 million euros ($33 million) in back-taxes to the Dutch state. The Netherlands has appealed against the Commission's decision, and Ireland did the same in the Apple case, fearing it could undermine the country's long-established policy of attracting multinationals with low taxes. European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici plans to unveil proposals in the coming weeks on a common tax base for multinationals operating in the EU, telling reporters the initiative was about the tax base rather than rates, which will remain in the hands of member states. He also said the Commission will move forward with plans to align taxes on ebooks and online press with paper publications, in line with earlier announcements. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble welcomed the efforts while EU Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said new rules were needed to eliminate mismatches and loopholes between member states' tax systems that companies exploit. "What is clear is that with every new case of unfair tax practise or abuse, public frustration grows," he told a news conference at the conclusion of the summit. Ministers at the meeting also discussed a paper presented by the Slovak presidency of the EU calling for more tax certainty for multinationals. It aims to step up cooperation among EU states and also make companies' tax bills more predictable. (Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in Bratislava; Editing by Helen Popper)
Toby Willis is accused of child rape. (Photo: TBI)

The father of The Willis Clan, a country music group that once had show on TLC, was arrested on child rape charges Friday, authorities have announced in a statement.



The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations announced that they began investigating Toby Nathaniel Willis, 46, on Aug. 29, and discovered that he allegedly had a sexual encounter with an underage girl in Nashville about 12 years ago.



TBI agents say they arrested Willis in Greenville, Kentucky, where he reportedly fled from his home in Ashland City, Tennessee to avoid police. He was charged with one count of rape of a child.



The show ran for two seasons. (Photo: TLC)

Willis and his family starred on TLCs The Willis Family, which followed their life as a musical family of 14. Toby, his wife Brenda, and their 12 children first rose to fame when they reached the quarterfinals of season nine of Americas Got Talent.

The show has aired two seasons on TLC, the last of which ended on April 19. In a statement to People the network confirmed that they had canceled the series.

We are shocked to hear the news, the network said in a statement.

TLC has removed The Willis Family page from its website.

A source tells People that the show was canceled back in May, shortly after their second season aired.

The family was alerted of the cancellation back in may 2016, the source said. The network performed extensive background checks on all the family [members] and found no issues.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View.

Obviously this is something they were never aware of, the source added.

The Christian familys conservative beliefs played a role in their TLC series. However, during an interview with People last year, the couples oldest daughter Jessica said their household isnt restrictive.

We didnt have a lot of restrictions, Jessica said. It wasnt like, Dont do this! It was more like, Try this or that. Were always encouraged to do more things, but our parents are right there to catch us if it is a bridge too far.

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We try to just kind of stay true to what the Bible says and live that in a very loving, nonjudgmental way without pushing that on anyone else, Tobys wife Brenda told People at the time.

Willis is being held in the Muhlenberg County Jail in Kentucky without bond as a fugitive from justice, and will be moved to Cheatham County Jail in his hometown, where he will also be held without bond, according to the TBI statement.

Reporting by CHARLOTTE TRIGGS and KARA WALKER
Bangladesh police Saturday shot dead a suspected top Islamist extremist who allegedly had a key role in July's Dhaka cafe attack in which 22 people were killed, police told AFP.

"While we were conducting a raid to bust a militant den in Azimpur neighbourhood in Dhaka, the militants opened fire at law enforcers," Deputy Police Commissioner Mohammad Ibrahim said.

"One militant was killed and three women members were injured and later arrested," he told AFP.

Sanwar Hossain, a senior counter-terrorism officer, said they suspect the extremist to be Abdul Karim, a deputy of Tamim Chowdhury, who was the leader of a faction of the banned Islamist militant outfit, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and was accused of being behind the cafe attack.

Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was shot dead during a gunfight with police last month.

"In (our) primary investigation, we have learnt that the dead militant was Abdul Karim, 35, who was the second in-command of Tamim Chowdhury," said Hossain.

"He was also a mastermind and a planner of the Gulshan cafe attack and hired the flat used by the militants before the cafe attack," Hossain told AFP.

The JMB has been blamed for a wave of attacks on foreigners and religious minorities in the last three years that has killed at least 80.

With the latest death, at least 28 Islamist extremists have been shot dead by Bangladesh security forces since the cafe assault in which mostly foreigners died.
Bleecker Street and Participant Media have nabbed North American rights to Breathe, an inspirational true-life medical drama that will be directed by Andy Serkis.

The film will star The Amazing Spider-Mans Andrew Garfield as Robin Cavendish, a man who is paralyzed from the neck down by polio, and Claire Foy, who recently turned heads in Wolf Hall, as his devoted wife. Instead of yielding to the devastating diagnosis, they travel the world together, campaigning for people with disabilities. Hugh Bonneville (Downtown Abbey) and Tom Hollander (The Night Manager) will co-star.

The film has other top talent attached, including William Nicholson, the Shadowlands screenwriter, and cinematographer Robert Richardson, who has shot the likes of JFK and Hugo.

Bleecker Street had a nice pick-up out of last years Toronto, grabbing Eye in the Sky, and seeing the drone thriller emerge as one of the biggest hits of the spring. Participant has a number of films at this years festival, including A Monster Calls and Deepwater Horizon. The two companies partnered on Denial, a drama about a Holocaust denier that will have its world premiere at Toronto.

Garfield may have retired Spider-Mans spandex, but he has been earning raves for his work in the World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge.

The acquisition of Breathe was negotiated by Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy on behalf of Bleecker Street, Jonathan King and Gabriel Brakin for Participant Media, and Embankments Tim Haslam on behalf of Imaginarium.

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When shooting his directorial debut American Pastoral, Ewan McGregor borrowed a technique from Danny Boyle.

The actor, who also stars in the adaptation of Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a "perfect" American family that is torn apart by the social and political upheavals of the 1960s, told reporters on Saturday that he rehearsed with the actors alone on the set before shooting - a ritual Boyle repeated with McGregor while making Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and A Life Less Ordinary.

"It's something that's missed out in the process and can seem to be a waste of time," McGregor explained at a press conference held the day after the film's world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. He said he's never liked it when directors told him exactly what he'd be doing in a scene: "[As actors,] we don't just get wheeled out of our trailers to say our lines and then get wheeled off again. I want to be part of making those decisions, so I made sure not to do that [on my set]."

Read more: 'American Pastoral': Film Review | TIFF 2016

"You can't plan a movie and execute it how you'd build a house," he continued. "It doesn't work like that. It's a sort of magical happening, the creation of a scene, and everyone was involved in making that happen."

Jennifer Connelly appreciated the intimate rehearsal time. "That was a wonderful experience, because you can really breathe into it and try things that maybe you would feel too inhibited to try if you were already committing to those choices," she said.

Valorie Curry added, "Being part of the collaborative environment that Ewan facilitatedmade me feel so free and empowered to go to the extreme places, and I know I was asked to, and when I look at the performances, I think everyone was asked to. Everyone not only met but also exceeded those requirements and expectations. It's a stellar company to be part of."

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As both director and star, McGregor switched between the two roles and only had three days on set when he wasn't acting. "We'd have a discussion about the scene and then go do it," he explained of his helming style. "We all feel it when we get the take. I've always trusted that as an actor."

Though he and producer Tom Rosenburg discussed the relief they felt that the adaptation has earned Roth's approval, McGregor says he isn't prioritizing a follow-up directorial effort.

"I don't know. It's an interesting thought, because on the one hand, it's been the most incredible experience, and I would long to do it again. And on the other hand, it's a very costly experience, because for 16, 17, 18 months of your life, it's like you're carrying something very precious. It's a funny thing, like you're looking at a story but trying to be a husband and a father and a human being. I can only assume that's why it's taken me 15 years of wanting to do it to do it, because I had to have a story that I was so burning to tell to justify that commitment, I suppose. Now, the idea of jumping straight back into it, I couldn't. I couldn't unless I have that story."

"I hope very much to find the next story," he added. "I'm not going to rush into it. I hope the story will find me and that I do get the opportunity to do it again.

American Pastoral hits limited theaters Oct. 21.
Fleet Street is the historical home of the British newspaper industry, but the term came to symbolize something more specifically scandalous. Starting around 1969, when Rupert Murdoch expanded his empire there, Fleet Street began to mean tawdry British tabloid journalism, the kind that was so salacious and over-the-top that no other school of downmarket publishing could touch it. The first time I went to London, in 1995, I remember looking at the tabloids, with their flashes of naughty nudity and lip-smacking mercilessness, and thinking that not even the National Enquirer could hold a candle to them; they seemed their own uniquely ratcheted-up form of cheap voyeurism. But one of the messages of Amanda Knox, a gripping and incisive documentary about the 20-year-old student from Seattle who, in 2007, was tried and convicted in Italy for murdering one of her roommates, is that it crystalizes the moment when Fleet Street began to infect the rest of the world like a virus. To say that we never recovered would be an understatement.

The Amanda Knox story, when it happened nine years ago, came packaged with so much shrill hyperbole that if you read the reports and tried to figure out for yourself what happened, it was almost impossible not to get lost in a maze of outrageousness, all leading to the implication that she was guilty. The girl with the suspicious eyes! Who slept with so many men! And together with her Italian boyfriend (who was also tried and convicted), along with a third accomplice, killed the roommate in the frenzied climax of an orgy! It was all delivered like some latter-day Manson episode, to the point that Amandas guilt became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if she didnt kill the roommate, readers and viewers around the world drank in her fallen-angel image in newspapers, on TV, and on the web and thought, Just look at that face! She has to be guilty of something.

Amanda Knox, directed by Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, revisits the saga by burning off the lurid overkill and, for the first time, getting the facts right. The film has been made in a scrupulous version of what might be called the HBO nonfiction aesthetic  the mixture of intelligence, hooky subject matter, and uncensored honesty that Sheila Nevins, the President of HBO Documentary Films, has patented into a kind of house style. Except that Amanda Knox isnt an HBO film. Its a Netflix Original Documentary, proof that compelling modes of filmmaking will always spread.

Blackhurst and McGinn take us back to the crime scene, using police video footage shot on Nov. 2, 2007  the day the body of Meredith Kercher, a 20-year-old student from South London, was discovered in her room with her throat slit. The room was in a four-bedroom ground-floor apartment in the picturesque hillside town of Perugia. At the time, one of the early reported signs of Amandas guilt was that she appeared remorseless, as indicated by assorted examples of her inappropriate behavior. In Amanda Knox, the police video captures one of those early moments  an extended shot of Amanda, standing outside the house, kissing Raffaele Sollecito. What we see, in fact, doesnt look inappropriate at all; it looks like a visibly distraught college girl taking comfort in the arms of her boyfriend. But this was the seed of the myth that took hold virtually overnight: Amanda the witchy libertine vixen  the crazy American who brought her sexy evil to the Old World.

How did this myth gain a foothold? Through the British tabloid media. The filmmakers interview Nick Pisa, the freelance Fleet Street journalist who became notorious for publishing Knoxs prison diary, and he talks, with a brutal flippancy thats shocking in context, about the methodology of he and his fellow reporters. They were all trying to whip each other with scoops, the more outlandish the better, and because Knox was alluring and promiscuous, the whole notion that she was also a sick temptress guilty of murder became great copy.

A journalist like Pisa reported the story with leering insinuation and, at times, by making up the facts. Meredith Killed in Sex Orgy was an early headline, not because there was evidence for it, but because it sounded good. Knox became known in the tabloids as Foxy Knoxy, with cant-miss stories like Dead Girl Feared Knoxys Sex Toy. For a while, it was reported that she was HIV-positive (not so). Then an image popped up on the Internet of Amanda, when she was a teenager, clowning around and pretending to fire a machine gun  clear evidence, of course, that she was a deranged killer. The tabs beamed that image around the world. Theres a word to describe the stories that were printed about Amanda Knox  and no, the word isnt sensational or exploitative (though those would apply). The word is unreal.

And thats the key to what makes Amanda Knox such a resonant documentary, with a reach far beyond this case. The film captures how the unreality of tabloid journalism has slid through digital portals into the mainstream, becoming part of the toxic air of misinformation that we all now breathe. The movie includes clips of Diane Sawyer hurling questions about the Knox case in a puritanical, hanging-judge tone, but seen now, its more clear than it was then  when the facts were all so murky  that Sawyer is just mimicking the scoldingly salacious tone of the tabloids. In doing so, she (and others) legitimized the cynical deceptions of a sliming hack like Nick Pisa.

Amanda Knox presents interviews with nearly all of the principal parties, including Amanda, who at 29 is a gravely poised and compelling spokeswoman for herself. Shes very sanguine and articulate in her understanding of how the image of who she was could ever have become so distorted. In the interviews with Nick Pisa and the lead prosecutor in the case, Guiliano Mignini, its clear that both men opened up because they thought they were being recorded sympathetically (actually, the sharkish Pisa just comes off as addicted to being on camera), but what the filmmakers do is let these two hang themselves with their own words. Mignini is a real piece of work. He compares himself to Sherlock Holmes, but what that comes down to is that he built his entire case on hunches. Immediately, I could tell it was a staged break-in, he says. Really? How? And hes so openly accusatory of Amanda for what he regards as her lack of sexual morals that the case becomes an unhinged Italian Catholic psychodrama, with Amanda as the girl who must be guilty because shes guilty of sin.

Was there ever physical evidence? There were wisps of DNA, which independent forensic investigators, near the end of the four years that Knox spent in prison, determined to be probably random and entirely inconclusive. But there was hard DNA evidence  and circumstantial evidence, too  that incriminated Rudy Guede, the local convicted burglar who, along with Knox and Sollecito, was found guilty of killing Meredith Kercher. (All indications are that he committed the crime alone.) The direct evidence used to convict Knox and her boyfriend wasnt just flimsy  it was all but nonexistent. Yet Amanda Knox presents a definitive dissection of how they were really convicted by a festering court of global tabloid-media mythology. Amanda Knox may have been railroaded, but its reality that was damned.

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Ronald Reagan

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

Albert Einstein

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

Winston Churchill





It isnt so much that liberals are ignorant. Its just that they know so many things that arent so.

With integrity nothing else counts; Without integrity nothing else counts.

Winston Churchill





Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

Harvey S. Firestone





It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H. L. Menken



Referenda insure all have a voice in land use decisions.

U.S. Supreme Court

Listen carefully to first criticism of your work. Note just what it is about your work the critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

Jean Cocteau
Reading The Journey Is the Destination changed Maria Bellos life. After devouring Dan Eldons journals about his travels through Africa and learning about the photojournalists work to bring attention to the famine in Somalia and apartheid in South Africa, Bello became inspired to find more ways to combine art with activism.

Shes done that by pushing for stronger roles for women in movies and television, by advocating for gay rights, and by trying to raise awareness for genocide victims of the Darfur Conflict and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Eldons story is an inspirational one, but it has a tragic coda. In 1993, he was stoned and beaten to death by a mob while he was covering the conflict in Somalia.

Bello hopes that The Journey Is the Destination, a big-screen version of Eldons book, will introduce his story to a new generation of budding activists. The film stars Ben Schnetzer (Pride) as Eldon and is directed by Bronwen Hughes (Stander). Bello co-stars as Eldons mother, Kathy, and executive produces the film. She spoke with Variety in the lead up to the films premiere at this years Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

How did you get involved in this project?

Kathy wanted me to play her because I knew her so well. She is one of my best friends and favorite people. I met her through a friend and fell immediately in love with her as a human being. She said shed been trying to get this movie made for 22 years, and I told her that anything I could do to help, I would.

She was on set the entire time and she was in the audience when we filmed the Dans celebration of life or funeral scene. For her, I think the film was a way of closing a chapter and raising awareness and drawing other young people into activism.

Why was it so hard to get this movie made?

Smaller dramas tend to make less money, so studios dont want to take a chance on them. I think thats starting to change. People are getting bored with tentpole movies. People like my son. He is 15 1/2 years old and he cant wait to see Journey. Its more authentic. Its a story thats more about who they are.

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There were a couple of films out in the last few years that dealt with teenagers falling in love, like, what was it, Fault in Our Stars. Young people want to see those sorts of things. Its a mistake to think its just the big action movies that capture their attention.

You have written a book and a widely read op-ed about your relationships, both heterosexual and same-sex. Why did you feel a need to share your story?

Im not a person who talks a lot about my personal life, but I thought it was so important to have a conversation around the fluidity of love and I wanted to add my voice. It all started because my sons dad was getting married and we were all so excited. He really is my best friend. That, more than my sexuality, inspired me. Ive been astounded by the response. I cant think of anything negative thats been said. There have been tweets and Facebook messages saying I have a modern family too, and I never knew what to call it. Or Im sexually fluid now, and Im questioning the labels weve been taught to give ourselves.

Theres been a lot of discussion about the lack of diversity in movies and television. Are those discussions translating into change?

Were starting to see more movies starring fabulous women, not just because its nice, but because its good business. Im a part of Women in Film and as part of that we had a two-day seminar where 40 of us in the business and some amazing men sat around and talked and we got into the idea of unconscious gender bias. We asked the question of all the female directors present in the audience, do you want to direct a big action movie? And they were like, Hell yes! Weve wanted to do that for years. Because of unconscious gender bias theyve never been asked. Its assumed that the women only direct certain types of films.

There have been scripts that Ive been offered where Ive said to the producers, Can we change the detective into a woman? That would be more interesting for me as opposed to me playing the wife or or the woman on the side. Thats not my thing. It would be more interesting for the audience too. I dont want to see another billboard of two guys standing there doing God knows what. As a woman, I want to see more people who reflect me on the screen.

You executive produced Journey Is the Destination. Would you ever direct?

I think that soon Ill direct something for TV. Im not very detail oriented. I dont think I could do a movie and live with it for a year, certainly not with a 15 1/2 year old at home.

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Oliver Stone on Saturday urged President Barack Obama to pardon National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden before he leaves office, but held out little hope that it will happen.

"Mr. Obama could pardon him, and we hope so. We hope Mr. Obama has a stroke of lightning, and he sees the way," the Oscar-winning director said at a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for his latest film, Snowden, the morning after its world premiere Friday night at Roy Thomson Hall.

But Stone's plea for Snowden's pardon came despite his belief that President Obama has prosecuted a record number of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act during his administration, and oversees an expanding global surveillance network overseen by the NSA. "He's been one of the most efficient managers of this surveillance world. His is the most extensive, invasive surveillance world that has ever existed. He created it, built it," Stone told reporters in Toronto.

"So rationally it doesn't figure [a pardon is possible], but we hope, we hope," he added. The cast of Snowden, led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, had much to say during the presser about surveillance in a world of computers and digital devices tracking our online activities and searches.

Read more: 'Snowden': Film Review | TIFF 2016

Woodley told reporters everyone has to be vigilant to protect their personal privacy in an increasingly digital and monitored world. "[Privacy] is not something you inherently have as a human being in 2016," she warned.

The actress said social media allows users to be aware of what information they are sharing. But online websites and social media platforms call for giving up personal privacy when you click on any agreement box.

"When you're signing up for Facebook, or any website, you're agreeing to a whole list of information that I don't read - haven't read. So it's just an awareness thing," she said. Co-star Melissa Leo, a product of the 1970s who grew up in New York's Lower East Side, said she grew up mistrusting "gadgets" of any kind in the shadow of Richard Nixon and his Watergate affair.

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"I need to use them for work, but that's about all I do, get some email. I pretend it's a telephone, even though it's so much more than that," said Leo.

Fellow actor Zachary Quinto also said working on Snowden has him taking measures to protect his privacy online. He recounted recently searching online for consumer reports for a washer and dryer he was shopping for, only to virtually instantly receive pop-up advertisements for washers and dryers. "What we are willing to just sacrifice in our privacy, just for convenience's sake, without really thinking about it, to give up of our own freedoms ... is shocking," he said.

But Gordon-Levitt, taking note of the alarms raised by his fellow castmembers, chose to strike a more optimistic note about creeping surveillance in the digital world. "It's worth being critical of some of the actions of the American government, but I choose to remain optimistic about living in a country where we can raise our voices and not allow things to go in a bad way," he said. "I'm not giving up."

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Crews on Friday rescued dozens of tourists who had been stuck overnight in a cable car suspended nearly 12,500 feet above a glacier between the French and Italian Alps.

The incident began Thursday afternoon, when high winds caused the cable car lines between the peaks to become tangled and stopped the gondolas, trapping more than 100 people, according to the Associated Press.

Mountain rescue crews used helicopters to remove those trapped one by one, but the operation was suspended at nightfall on Thursday, leaving about 30 people to spend the night suspended next to Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps.

The cable car is a popular tourist attraction as it allows visitors to see spectacular views of the mountains.

Rescue efforts continue to save 45 people stranded in cable cars over Mont Blanc. https://t.co/fpH8CgAmEw Photo: AP pic.twitter.com/myM2QDWFcm

 USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 9, 2016



Dozens of tourists spent the night trapped high above Mont Blanc before being rescued todayhttps://t.co/zYoFTwIXGO pic.twitter.com/oHxMWY0U1S

 The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 9, 2016

The rescue proved difficult, as helicopter pilots needed to descend without getting the propellers caught in the cables. Crews had to remove people from the cars one at a time by strapping them to individual rescuers.

After conditions became foggy, rescuers continued to remove people from the cars closest to the ground using climbing ropes.

Watch: Dozens rescued after spending night stranded in Mont Blanc cable cars https://t.co/OdvGKuyG4t

 Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 9, 2016

Several emergency workers stayed overnight with the stranded visitors to provide blankets, food, and water. Early on Friday morning, authorities were able to untangle the cable lines and slowly bring the remaining passengers to safety.

The extent of this rescue operation is simply unbelievable, Col. Frederic Labrunye, commander of the local gendarmerie, told the AP. By the volume of people to rescuewe rarely rescue 110 people at the same time.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump's Republican presidential campaign, widely criticized for refusing to release the candidate's tax returns, released 10 years of returns on Friday for vice presidential nominee Mike Pence. The Trump campaign also repeated a pledge that Trump would release his own returns once the government completes an audit. Pence's returns for 2006 to 2015 showed the Indiana governor and former U.S. congressman paid an effective tax rate that ranged from 10 percent to 16.5 percent. "These returns are being released with the full support of Mr. Trump who plans to release his tax returns upon completion of a routine audit," the campaign said. Disclosure of tax returns is a standard procedure for all modern presidential candidates. Trump's critics, including the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, have suggested he may be hiding something. Some have speculated that Trump may pay little or no tax or that his net worth may be much less than the $10 billion he has claimed. Pence and his wife, Karen, reported adjusted gross income over the 10 years ranging from about $113,000 last year to over $187,000 in 2009, while the effective state and federal tax rate ranged from a low of just over 10 percent in 2013 to a high of 16.5 percent in 2014, the figures show. Charitable donations amounted to 10 percent of the family's take-home pay, equivalent to an average 7.2 percent of adjusted gross income, a statement released by the Trump campaign said. Hillary Clinton released her 2015 tax returns last month. They showed she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had $10.75 million in income that year and paid an effective federal tax rate of 34.2 percent. Most of the income came from Bill Clinton's speaking fees and a book deal by Hillary. Clinton's running mate, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, along with his wife, Anne Holton, released 10 years of tax returns at the same time in August. They paid a federal effective tax rate of 20.3 percent on income of about $313,000 in 2015. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by David Gregorio)
Donald Trump Rally Pensacola

At a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, Friday night, Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton could shoot someone without repercussions.

First, the Republican presidential candidate sarcastically praised his Democratic opponent.

"The only thing she's done well  and she'll go down in history for it, I have to admit  is getting out of trouble with the emails. That's the single greatest achievement of Hillary Clinton," he said, and the crowd began to chant, "Lock her up."

And then Trump continued:

"She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn't be prosecuted, OK? That is what's happened to our country."

In January, Trump characterized himself in a similar way:

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody," he said at a campaign rally in Iowa. "And I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's like incredible."

Throughout his speech on Friday, Trump co-opted a line from the Clinton campaign, painting his Democratic opponent as an unfit leader.

"Personally, I think she's an unstable person," he said. "She's trigger-happy, pushing recklessly for regime change, but never creating or promoting civility or advancing the core interests of the United States that we all love."

Earlier in the day, Clinton returned to the podium after ending a press conference to deliver a scathing critique of Trump.

"Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a reality-television story," she said. "It's not a serious presidential campaign."

NOW WATCH: Watch Donald Trump claim that Hillary Clinton could get away with murder





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By Steve Holland PENSACOLA, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed on Friday that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be "shot out of the water" if he is elected on Nov. 8. Trump, at a rally before thousands of supporters in Pensacola, Florida, laid out an aggressive national security policy with a beefed-up U.S. military "so strong that nobody's going to mess with us." He talked tough about how he would respond to any Iranian harassment of American ships in the Gulf. A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after an Iranian fast-attack craft came within 100 yards (91 meters) of it on Sunday. It was the fourth such incident in the past month. "When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water," he said. Trump has based his foreign policy beliefs on keeping the United States out of what he called "endless wars" in the Middle East. Visiting a city with a U.S. Navy base and where many military veterans live, Trump said he wants a stronger military to project American power and bolster the United States as the leader of the world. Trump this week laid out a plan to spend many billions of dollars on bolstering the U.S. military, including more ships, planes and troops. "We're going to put us in a position of leadership of the world again so we can negotiate from a position of great, great strength. But more important than negotiating, we will be secure again," he said. Trump, who has drawn criticism for his frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also mentioned a recent incident in which a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet (3 meters) of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea. "Putin laughs, believe me, he laughs at our leaders. Yesterday he had a plane 10 feet away, taunting us, toying with us, just like Iran," he said. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Tom Brown)
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey, which has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria in an unprecedented incursion, on Saturday welcomed a deal between the United States and Russia for a ceasefire in its conflict-torn neighbour.

"We welcome the agreement," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Fighting must be halted across Syria and humanitarian aid reach those in need "from the first day" of the ceasefire, it said.

The truce is scheduled to start on the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday on Monday.

The statement said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had "closely followed" the process to secure the ceasefire, following talks with Russian and US counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 in China.

It said Turkey was already making preparations for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria's northern Aleppo province and would make efforts to "ensure the effective implementation" of the ceasefire.

In a later telephone call, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also told US counterpart John Kerry, who helped broker the accord, of Ankara's satisfaction over the deal.

"Minister Cavusoglu said Turkey would to everything it can to ensure the ceasefire is applied," the foreign ministry said.

Turkey and Russia have been on opposing sides of the conflict, with Ankara backing the opposition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Moscow his key international supporter.

But there have been signs of greater harmony between Ankara and Moscow on Syria since a June deal to normalise their own ties following the crisis over the shooting down of a Russian war plane.

Cavusoglu had spoken to Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov late Friday ahead of the announcement of the deal, both sides said.

"They expressed mutual understanding of the importance of all parties concerned complying with the cessation of hostilities and the resumption of the inter-Syrian negotiation process," the Russian foreign ministry said.

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The Russia-US agreement came as Turkey presses on with its Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, aimed at pushing both Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militia out of the Syrian border area.

Lavrov said the United States and Russia have agreed to carry out joint air strikes against "terrorists" in Syria if the ceasefire holds for a week.

Washington has applauded Turkey's actions against IS but is wary of its assault on the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which has been a US ally in the fight against the jihadists.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday and told him that Turkey welcomes a U.S.-Russian ceasefire agreement for Syria, the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement. The U.S. and Russia earlier hailed the deal to put Syria's peace process back on track, including a nationwide truce from sundown on Monday, improved humanitarian aid access and joint military targeting of banned Islamist groups. Turkey, which launched its first major military incursion into Syria two and half weeks ago, has said it is preparing to provide humanitarian aid to the northern city of Aleppo in conjunction with the United Nations following the deal. (Reporting by Nick Tattersall)
AMMAN (Reuters) - Cooperation with Fateh al-Sham, formerly al Qaeda's Nusra Front, could bring "dire consequences" for Syria's mainstream rebel groups once a proposed U.S.-Russian deal to attack hardline Islamist militants comes into effect, Washington's envoy to Syria said on Saturday. In a letter to armed opposition groups seen by Reuters, Michael Ratney urged them to abide by the U.S.-Russian deal, saying it gave them the right of self-defense against attacks by the Syrian army and Russia. He said the deal would end aerial bombardment by Russia and the Syrian air force of their positions and of civilians living in areas they control. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
(Corrects size of retained stake in paragraph 10 to 20 pct, not 5 pct)

HONG KONG, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Global ride-hailing company Uber Technologies has aborted plans to pull out of Macau, citing support from residents in the Chinese-ruled gambling hub.

Uber launched in Macau less than a year ago but announced at the end of August that it would withdraw from the former Portuguese colony because its drivers faced total fines of 10 million patacas ($1.25 million).

The Macau government has taken a firm stance against Uber, with Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak stating that the service violated local laws.

"After much deliberation, Uber will continue to serve the riders and drivers of Macau, the company said in a statement on its website.

"The unprecedented amount of support we received over the past few weeks has been overwhelming."

The statement said the company had received 23,000-plus online signatures in support of its service and also thanked riders, drivers, residents, visitors and legislators who had championed the company's cause.

"We hope the Government will follow the example set by progressive, pro-innovation policymakers around the region and the world in recognising the role ride-sharing can play in moving Macau forward," Uber said.

Macau government officials were not immediately available to comment.

Uber has about 2,000 full-time and part-time drivers in the territory and though Macau isn't a large market Uber's exit would have been another blow to the fast-growing U.S. company's ambitions in the region.

Its costly two-year battle to break into the potentially lucrative Chinese market was brought to a close this month with the sale of its operations in the country to Didi Chuxing, though the U.S. company has retained a 20 percent stake.

Uber could also be forced out of Taiwan after authorities demanded that the company pay a sales tax bill and it has also come under legal scrutiny in Hong Kong.

(Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by David Goodman)
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Global ride-hailing company Uber Technologies has aborted plans to pull out of Macau, citing support from residents in the Chinese-ruled gambling hub.

Uber launched in Macau less than a year ago but announced at the end of August that it would withdraw from the former Portuguese colony because its drivers faced total fines of 10 million patacas ($1.25 million).

The Macau government has taken a firm stance against Uber, with Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak stating that the service violated local laws.

After much deliberation, Uber will continue to serve the riders and drivers of Macau, the company said in a statement on its website.

"The unprecedented amount of support we received over the past few weeks has been overwhelming."

The statement said the company had received 23,000-plus online signatures in support of its service and also thanked riders, drivers, residents, visitors and legislators who had championed the company's cause.

We hope the Government will follow the example set by progressive, pro-innovation policymakers around the region and the world in recognizing the role ride-sharing can play in moving Macau forward, Uber said.

Macau government officials were not immediately available to comment.

Uber has about 2,000 full-time and part-time drivers in the territory and though Macau isn't a large market Uber's exit would have been another blow to the fast-growing U.S. company's ambitions in the region.

Its costly two-year battle to break into the potentially lucrative Chinese market was brought to a close this month with the sale of its operations in the country to Didi Chuxing, though the U.S. company has retained a 20 percent stake.

Uber could also be forced out of Taiwan after authorities demanded that the company pay a sales tax bill and it has also come under legal scrutiny in Hong Kong.

(This version of the story corrects size of retained stake in paragraph 10 to 20 percent, not 5 percent)

(Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by David Goodman)
By Jeffrey Hodgson TORONTO (Reuters) - A new film about the true story of an African king and white British woman whose marriage triggered a political crisis is first and foremost a love story, its star and director said. "A United Kingdom", which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, stars British actor David Oyelowo as Seretse Khama, a tribal king who would go on to become the first president of Botswana. The movie depicts the early years of his marriage to Ruth Williams, portrayed by "Gone Girl" actress Rosamund Pike, an English office worker and fellow jazz lover he met while studying in Britain in the 1940s. The two defied convention, prejudice and opposition from both their families to marry. They then became targets of broader political intrigue, as the South African government pressured Britain to ensure Khama never returned to rule. "The thing that becomes very obvious as you start researching them is the fact that love, love was the thing that conquered everything, all of that opposition, all of those challenges," Oyelowo told Reuters on the red carpet. British director Amma Asante, who also made the 2013 period drama "Belle", said she wanted to make the film partly because she's an "unashamed romantic", but also because it involved the two continents that shaped who she is. "As a child of African parents who grew up in a colony that become independent, I realized what mattered, and I wanted to be able to tell that story through my gaze," she said. The Khamas' marriage continues to resonate in African politics. Their son Ian Khama became Botswanas fourth president in 2008. The movie received an extended standing ovation after its screening in Toronto, with both Oyelowo and Asante coming close to tears. "A United Kingdom" was one of several true-life tales exploring race at this year's Toronto film festival, against a backdrop of heightened racial tension in the United States. Asante said she hoped for a time when issues of race were of "no consequence whatsoever." "Right now, areas of race are still taboo," she said. "And until it isn't any more, we have to keep telling these stories." (Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson)
By David Bailey (Reuters) - Univision Communications Inc said on Saturday it has deleted postings subject to active litigation against Gawker Media Group Inc to create a "clean slate" for the online publishing company acquired for $135 million in a bankruptcy auction last month. Gawker Media sought bankruptcy in June after facing a $140 million court judgment following an invasion of privacy lawsuit from former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, over the publication of excerpts from a sex tape. "Following our acquisition of assets from Gawker Media, we have decided to take down select articles that are the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners," Univision said in a statement. "At this time of transition, the decision was based on a desire to have a clean slate as we look to support and grow the editorial missions of the acquired brands," it said. A bankruptcy judge approved Univision's winning bid in August following a bankruptcy auction and Gawker Media said its website Gawker.com known for celebrity and media gossip would shut down and its media assets would be integrated into Fusion Media Group. Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker was bankrolled by billionaire investor Peter Thiel. Gawker.com in 2007 published an article about Thiel's homosexuality. Removal of the postings required a vote of the interim general counsel, interim CEO, and the executive editor in line with Gawker's collective bargaining agreement. Gawker Media Executive Editor John Cook said in a memo to staffers, seen by Reuters, that the executives had voted on Friday to delete the six postings from Gawker Media sites: three from Deadspin, two from tech blog Gizmodo and one from women's website Jezebel. Cook's memo said he had voted to retain the postings and removing them was a mistake. "While I believe that Univision is a company that values and defends aggressive, independent reporting, the decision to remove these posts is, in my view, at odds with its tradition of confronting bullies with honesty," Cook said in the memo. The postings deleted involved a man who sued Gawker over its reporting on his claims to have invented email, former major league pitcher Mitch Williams, a conservative blogger, and a man acquitted of sexual assault. On Saturday, links to the six postings said, "This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site." (Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Venice (AFP) - From a dazzling musical to a biting comedy, films from the US and Argentina are tipped as favourites to win this year's Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival, due to be announced Saturday.

American musical "La La Land", directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, kicked off the world's oldest film festival and immediately brought the house down.

Top international film critics, gathered on the glamorous Lido di Venezia for the 10-day fest, cheered the quirky tale of a struggling jazz pianist and his actress girlfriend in Los Angeles, a joyful tribute to the Golden Age of American musicals.

Fellow front-runner "Jackie", Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's potrayal of the days following US president JFK's assassination, wowed thanks largely to a stellar performance from Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy.

"I felt like it was the most dangerous film I've ever done, because everyone knows what Jackie looked like, sounded like, walked like," Portman admitted to press at the star-studded festival, where A-listers arrived by water taxi.

- Oscar hungry -

Terrence Malick's long-awaited "Voyage of Time: Life's Journey", a documentary on the life and death of the universe, moved critics and the public alike with its use of stunning special effects and real-life images of earth's most breathtaking creations.

But these glossy, US heavyweights are being challenged by Argentinian directors Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn with their comedy "The Distinguished Citizen", about a Nobel Prize-winning author who returns to his village for the first time in 40 years.

Also hot on their heels is Philippine director Lav Diaz's "The Woman Who Left", an acclaimed black and white tale about a wrongly convicted schoolteacher plotting her revenge against the ex-boyfriend who framed her.

The awards ceremony is set to begin at 1700 GMT.

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Venice has strengthened its reputation in recent years as a launch-pad for the Oscars -- with "Gravity", "Birdman" and "Spotlight" all premiering here -- and former fashion designer Tom Ford's offering "Nocturnal Animals" may follow suit.

Spooking and stirring in equal part, with arresting performances from US stars Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal as lovers gone awry, the film tells a story within a story about self-harm, love, betrayal and revenge.

The Best Actor award is tipped to go either to Oscar Martinez, who plays the cynical novelist in "The Distinguished Citizen", or Gosling, for his tap-dancing, crooning character in "La La Land".

- Sexy tentacles -

Amy Adams is in the running for the Best Actress not only for "Nocturnal Animals" but also "Arrival", where her character is all that stands between a group of civilised aliens and the leaders of the world powers, eager to reach for the nuclear button.

Should the jury, lead by British film director Sam Mendes, have a penchant for such tentacled creatures, Mexico's "The Untamed" by Amat Escalante may be in with a shot, with its take on an extraterrestrial who sexually pleasures the brave and foolhardy.

A total of 20 films are competing, including Ana Lily Amirpour's second film "Bad Batch", a cannibal love story with Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves about a young girl who ends up on the menu in a futuristic United States.

The beautiful "A Woman's Life", by French director Stephane Brize, is tipped to snap up the Silver Lion for Best Direction. The rich period drama, set in 19th century France, tells the tale of a childlike baroness tormented by a rakish local viscount.

The festival has featured dozens of world premiers out of competition, including Italian master Paolo Sorrentino's first TV series "The Young Pope", featuring a brilliantly Machiavellian Jude Law as the Catholic Church's first ever American pope.
New York (AFP) - Oday Shakar is still young but he has already lived through more than your average American fashion designer: childhood bullying, two years in Iraq after the Gulf War and cancer.

But he's back stronger than ever to relaunch his label after a two-year hiatus with full-skirted gowns of breathtaking grace and elegance that would look right at home in a James Bond movie.

His stunning collection for spring/summer 2017 inspired by Middle Eastern art, Arabic calligraphy and geometric prints aroused an outpouring of oohs, aahs and raucous applause at New York Fashion Week.

"I realized I needed to find beauty in my own story so that's where I grabbed inspiration for this, so I mix contemporary Middle Eastern art with beautiful simple silhouettes for everyday (wear)," Shakar told AFP.

And what a story. Born in southern California to a Harvard-educated Iraqi father and impeccably stylish mother, Shakar grew up riding horses. But his world was upended when he moved to Iraq as a 12-year-old.

It was after the 1990-1 Gulf War when US-led forces expelled Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait. He did not speak Arabic and suddenly found himself in the very different world of Baghdad.

"It was a bit of a culture shock," he admitted.

But it was in Iraq that Shakar realized he wanted to be a designer.

"My aunt studied fashion design and wasn't able to pursue it, so in a way I'm doing all of this because she didn't get the chance and I have the opportunity, being an American," he said.

- Glamorous -

Shakar first launched his label in 2009 aged just 25 and has dressed the likes of Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock, but his New York show was the first of his career.

"A little nervous," he giggled backstage when asked how he felt.

The Oday Shakar woman is a woman of the world, he explains. Elegant, timeless, conservative and yet cutting-edge, his designs could be worn by devotees from across cultural and geographical divides.

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"She is well travelled, she's educated, she is very bold, she knows what she wants," he told AFP.

"She also likes to feel glamorous but doesn't want to be wearing a fully beaded gown anymore... to me that's a thing of the past."

From the first twangs of Middle Eastern music, Shakar transported the crowd into a world with a simple yet sophisticated silhouette.

There were the full skirts for day and evening, cinched at the waist in delicate geometric patterns, or two-tone skirts in purple and violet, or black and gray that shimmered in the light.

Capes billowed behind, necklines were high and cut-outs on the sleeves. There were also tight pencil skirts in suede, wide-legged pants with pleated front panels and jodhpur-style pants with a strap under the foot.

- Remission -

Moving to New York only six months ago, Shakar hit the ground running, developing and producing everything in the Big Apple.

"It's definitely had its ups and downs," he said. "But it's been actually one of the more inspiring times of my life."

He was diagnosed with stage four thyroid cancer in 2009, but has been in remission since 2011. Shakar just sees it as part of life.

"It's how you overcome those things and not so much what you're going through at the moment, but looking further and growing beyond it and seeing how you can grow stronger," he said.

Now in his mid 30s, he has not been to Iraq for nearly 18 years but members of his family are still there and they keep in touch.

After Iraq, he lived in Jordan and Lebanon before returning to the United States.

"I keep myself grounded by the memories of not having as much and dealing with just stuff that we don't necessarily think about living here," he said.

He does not wish to be dragged into the controversies surrounding race and immigration in the United States -- hot-button issues in the divisive presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

"I just believe in peace and equality all around no matter what religion, culture, sexuality," he said.

"That's something that really needs to be put in the forefront -- not focusing on all of the things that divide us."
US News

U.S. House votes to allow Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabias government for damages  despite the White Houses threat to veto the measure. The U.S. Senate in May unanimously passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA. The bills passage in the House by voice vote, two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 people, was greeted with cheers and applause in the chamber. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers who crashed airliners in New York, outside Washington and in Pennsylvania were Saudi nationals. The Saudi government, which strongly denies responsibility, has lobbied against the bill.

We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism. Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee

The House passed the measure by voice vote, without objections or recorded individual votes. That could make it easier for Obamas fellow Democrats to uphold his veto later without officially changing their positions. Opponents of the measure said it could strain relations with Saudi Arabia and lead to retaliatory laws that would allow foreign nationals to sue Americans for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks. If Obama carries out the veto threat and the required two-thirds of both the Republican-majority House and Senate still support the bill, it would be the first time since Obamas presidency began in 2009 that Congress had overridden a veto.
Israel Soldiers Riding A Tank

In 2006, Israel sent its top tier Merkava tanks to fight against largely unarmored Hezbollah divisions, but they still faced considerable losses owing to the proliferation of advanced antitank rounds, many of which originated in Russia.

Fast forward to the 2014 Gaza conflict with Hamas. Despite Hamas having similar weapons and backing, not a single Merkava or Israeli armored fighting vehicle was lost. The reason being that Israel had perfected the Trophy Active Protection System (APS) to defend its tanks.

The US, on the other hand, has not faced a peer or near-peer adversary in ground combat in decades, and, as a reflection of that, the US's main combat tank, the M1 Abrams, lacks an APS.

Today, limited US forces advise and assist forces in Syria, where no fewer than eight antitank missile systems are in play, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service.

The most worrisome of these systems originate in Russia and use clever means to defeat tank-armor systems. This highlights the need for the US to modernize its armored-fighting-vehicle defenses.

But finding an APS for the US Army and Marine Corps' global ground force is fraught with difficulties. Even if the US were to buy and deploy Israel's tested Trophy system, there are many additional considerations to be made.

The Marines, for instance, need an APS that can be deployed on boats and resist salt-water corrosion. The systems, with their advanced sensors needed to detect and destroy incoming threats in the blinding speed of real-time conflict, may interfere with each other or malfunction.

active protection system tank army

Because the systems need to operate in milliseconds, no human can deploy them. Therefore they need to be automated, and collateral damage is a real risk. APS uses a hail of shrapnel to thwart incoming rockets, filling the area outside the tank with explosions and flying debris that could potentially harm friendly troops.

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Because of the US's high standards of protecting lives and property, public and private, they must come up with a satisfactory solution to these issues.

Meanwhile Russia claims to have developed the T-14 Armata, a truly next-generation tank fitted with a bigger gun, better armor, and APS all around.

Russian servicemen drive T-14

While there is reason to doubt the overall capabilities of the T-14, antitank weapons systems are proven to be effective and in the hands of militias around the world.

For the US to retain its asymmetrical advantage in ground warfare, as it has done for decades, the issue of protecting armored vehicles must be addressed.

NOW WATCH: Here's the high-tech military equipment Russia could use against the world





More From Business Insider


If there appears to have been a recent surge in enthusiasm among younger filmmakers for the clipped, boxy proportions of the Academy ratio, theres a notable divide in the aesthetic it is used to evoke. Where some filmmakers employ it to replicate the classical confines of golden-age cinema, others are looking to the present, shaving their frames to mirror the favored medium of Generation Instagram. Flemish director Fien Trochs Home falls very much into the latter category. Often narrowing its image even further in jagged segues to iPhone video, this suitably rough-edged, raw-nerved kids-are-not-all-right drama fixates on technology as one of many communication barriers between contemporary adolescents and their parents. Thats hardly the hottest of takes, but its one that  like many of the films sensitive observations on the personal fears and social frustrations of its young subjects  rings bleakly true, even through the drastically amped-up drama of its final act.

It seems a cruel irony that, beyond a handful of Euro territories, the downbeat, verite-style authenticity of Trochs fourth feature is likely to limit it to the festival circuit, out of reach from the teenage audience that might connect with it most powerfully. Happily, its deliberately shabby, on-the-fly shooting style  a stark departure from the helmers previous, more refined collaborations with regular cinematographer Frank van den Eden, including 2008s Emmanuelle Devos starrer Unspoken  makes Home a natural fit for VOD platforms, where it could readily be accessed on the smaller devices to which the filmmaking so frequently nods.

Trochs script, co-written with her editor (and husband) Nico Leunen, takes its time in picking out a dominant strand from a introductory swirl of fractious confrontations between inter-connected teenagers and exasperated authority figures. Mouthy, recalcitrant Lina (Lena Suijkerbuijk) is coerced by her school principal into the emptiest of apologies for verbally abusing a teacher, while shy, sullen John (Mistral Guidotti) has an altercation with his domineering mother (a chilling Els Deceukelier) that barely hints at the truth of their profoundly dysfunctional relationship.

But its aloof, imposing 17-year-old Kevin (Sebastian Van Dun) who emerges as the pics thoroughly anti-heroic protagonist. Banned by his parents from the family home after a spell in juvenile hall for an unspecified offense, he is instead taken in by his kindly but no-nonsense aunt Sonja (Karlijn Sileghem), who attempts to put him on the straight-and-narrow road to employability. While he tentatively befriends with his more scholarly cousin Sammy (Loic Batog), its Sammys aforementioned friend John with whom he forms a closer, not entirely constructive bond. Troch perceptively identifies the fine line between benevolent unity and unintended bad influence in peer social networks  both human and online  as the narrative pushes these kids into deeper waters of risk and wrongdoing.

If the storytelling is a bit over-egged, however, Home avoids didactic cautionary-tale territory: Its most appalling developments (and the film does indeed take the worst case scenario where it presents itself) represent an equal collaboration between youthful and parental irresponsibility. Troch also takes a pleasingly amoral stand on her young subjects drug-taking and casually explicit expressions of sexuality, filming their behavior candidly but without any leading direction or implication on the cameras part  just as kids own smartphone recordings and YouTube videos can preserve their present-day lives without editorial interference. Indeed, beyond the obvious cropping of the image, van den Edens juddering lensing very nearly lines up with the films occasional interpolations of vertically-shot phone video into the mise-en-scene; the mutual visual limits of the Academy ratio and the iPhone lens, meanwhile, both contribute to a mounting sense of claustrophobia in the characters lives.

Troch has coaxed fine, wholly unaffected work from her spiky, largely untested young ensemble, many of them first-timers, with Guidotti particularly heart-rending as the tormented, critically unsupported John. Its no young actors fault, however, that the least shakeable performance here comes from Deceukelier, previously seen in Trochs 2005 debut Someone Elses Happiness. Playing perhaps the worst screen mom since MoNique in Precious, she oscillates horrifyingly between hateful violation and vulnerable delusion  the least developed soul in this collection of inchoate bodies.

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VENICE, Italy  The War Show, a video-diary/road movie chronicling the civil war in Syria, co-directed by Syrias Obaidah Zytoon and Denmarks Andreas Dalsgaard has won the Venice Days Award, the top nod in Venices independently run section.

The prize is voted by a jury of twenty-eight young European buffs, presided this year by Canadian director Bruce LaBruce.

Also well-received by critics, War Show is an unconventional docu that provides a human perspective on the conflict through the personal prism of Zytoon, a former radio DJ in Damascus who left her country in 2013.

The Venice Days nod includes a cash prize of Euros 20,000 ($22,000) to be split equally between the director(s) and the films international distributor who must agree to use the sum to promote the winning film internationally.

In separate news, Sami Blood, a first feature by Swedish-Sami director Amanda Kernell, has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European Film in Venice Days.

Set against the backdrop of 1930s racism against the Sami people in the North of Sweden this striking drama is about a young Sami girls decision to sever ties with her Lapland heritage to become seemingly Swedish.

The jury made up of European exhibitors called Sami Blood and emotionally charged look at the search for identity, noting that the film introduces audiences to the relatively unknown history of the Sami people in Northern Scandinavia.

Both The War Show and Sami Blood are segueing from Venice to Toronto.

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By Steven Shapiro

Vice President Joe Biden knows all too well the toll cancer takes on a family.

What Ive been trying to do is instill a sense of urgency because every day, every minute, every month, it matters to somebody suffering from [cancer], particularly if they have terminal cancer.

Last year, Bidens son Beau died of brain cancer at just 46.

Sometimes the second year is the hardest, he told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric following an emotional appeal at the Stand Up to Cancer telecast in Los Angeles.

Biden was tapped by President Obama to lead the national Cancer Moonshot initiative and has been pushing for better collaboration between doctors, researchers and scientists.

The vice president also spoke with Couric about a number of global issues, including the recently announced plan by the U.S. and Russia for a ceasefire in Syria.

This is show me. None of this is based on faith, he said.

He also expressed frustration with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over what some perceive as admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and for various inaccurate statements, including calling President Obama the founder of ISIS.

I spend more time  reassuring heads of state, No, no, no, no, no. Trump doesnt speak for the United States or the Republican Party.

Regarding his own presidential ambitions, Biden made it clear he made the right choice by deciding not to run.

Im still going to be engaged. Im not going away, he said. Hillarys already asked me if she wins, would I continue running the Moonshot out of the White House.

And as the nation prepares to mark the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the vice president, who was serving in the U.S. Senate at the time, reflected on the way his country persevered through its darkest hours.

The nation didnt bend, it didnt break  I really have enormous confidence in the American people.
CHICAGO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Friday said it will stop selling Egyptian cotton sheets made by Welspun India after the Indian manufacturer was unable to assure them the products were authentic.

Last month, U.S. retailer Target Corp severed ties with Welspun after accusing them of passing off cheap sheets as premium Egyptian cotton for two years.

"Welspun has not been able to assure us the products are 100 percent Egyptian cotton, which is unacceptable," Wal-Mart said in a statement. The company will pull the products from its stores and website.

Wal-Mart said it will not cut ties with Welspun but will work with them to implement strong controls and better label the products. The retailer will offer customers, who purchased the products, a full refund.

Egyptian cotton is prized because the length of the cotton fibers are longer, resulting in a finer, lighter more durable fabric and longer-lasting, higher-end clothing.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Watford grabbed their first win of the Premier League season with a stunning comeback win against West Ham at the London Stadium.

West Ham grabbed a two-goal lead in the first half, with Michail Antonio heading in from two Dimitri Payet deliveries - the second a remarkable rabona cross from the Frenchman and it all looked like plain sailing for the hosts.

Not so, however, as late in the first half Odion Ighalo saw his shot from the angle deflect in off the leg of James Collins and minutes later the visitors were level. Troy Deeney pounced on a mix-up between Collins and Adrian, then looped the loose ball into the top corner before either of the Hammers players could retreat in time.

Walter Mazzarri's men got themselves in front not long into the second half, with Roberto Pereyra setting up Etienne Capoue at the end of a counterattack, and the midfielder lashed in a volley off the near post. The London Stadium was in stunned silence and they weren't helped when Jose Holebas blasted home Ighalo's pull-back past Adrian to make it four.

Substitute Stefano Okaka had a late goal disallowed for offside for the visitors, but the damage was already done as Slaven Bilic's men lick their wounds and the Hornets rejoice in an incredible victory.
Most people would go all out to celebrate their 15th anniversary at a high-profile job, but HLNs Robin Meade isnt most people  her start date was Sept. 11, 2001.

Its painful to really sit and think about your emotions from that day, the networks weekday-morning anchor told TheWrap.

Meade spent her first day at CNNs Atlanta headquarters, where she was set to make her HLN (then Headline News) debut at 9 a.m. ET  minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Centers north tower.

Also Read: CNN's '9/11' Remembers the Day, the Dust and the 'Legacy Kids'

I was busy doing what they call digitizing for 9 oclock, so at 8:46 when the first one hit, I remember I was on the set getting stuff ready and I remember concern in the newsroom, but I immediately thought, Oh, they must be having tower problems. Thats terrible. It must have been a small plane,' Meade recalled. When the second plane hit, the whole tenor of the newsroom changed.

Meade was hired only a few days before the tragic attacks and had only been to the CNN headquarters as an official employee for computer training and HR paperwork before she returned on Sept. 11 for her scheduled on-air debut.

Meade said seeing the concerned faces of CNN veterans made her realize the gravity of the events.

Also Read: 9/11-Themed Mattress Ad Sparks Outrage for Some Reason (Video)

Thats when our whole world started to change, Meade said. It wasnt clear what was happening. It wasnt clear how many planes were still up there. They started grounding planes.

Meade had relocated to Atlanta from Chicago only a few weeks prior and her husband was still back home tying up loose ends. If the Sept. 11 attacks and her first day at a new job didnt cause enough anxiety, her husband supplied the rest.

We lived in downtown Chicago, near the John Hancock Tower and what was the Sears Tower. I called him and I was like, Look I cant stay on the phone, but you need to drive to the suburbs for the day because we dont know if all the planes are accounted for,' Meade said. His little act of defiance was to say no. I wanted him away from any tall buildings but he wouldnt do it.

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Also Read: 9/11: America Will Never Forget, But Hollywood Can't Decide How to Remember

Things have since worked out for Meade and HLN, on which she is now the longest-running female host of a national morning news show. The only person to hold the title for a longer period of time is Matt Lauer on NBCs Today show.

Morning Express with Robin Meade is up 19 percent in viewers and 11 percent in the key demo of adults age 25-54 since 2015. Meades book, Morning Sunshine! How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too, is a New York Times best-seller, and she even released a pair of country music albums.

Anytime I think about 9/11 and I think about my first day, I become very grateful inside. Im so grateful for longevity in this business. Im so grateful that those sorts of horrible things arent the things that lead our news everyday. Im so grateful we havent seen an attack of that size, on our soil, since then, Meade said.

Related stories from TheWrap:

9/11: America Will Never Forget, But Hollywood Can't Decide How to Remember

Will the Seattle Seahawks Protest National Anthem on 9/11?

CNN's '9/11' Remembers the Day, the Dust and the 'Legacy Kids'
In news that should surprise no one, Amy Adams delivers not one but two stellar performances in a pair of buzzy movies that will follow debuts in Venice with screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. The five-time Oscar nominee could soon be adding to that total, perhaps getting another chance  or two  to become a first-time winner.



Adams is landing the biggest kudos for Arrival, Denis Villeneuves slow-burn sci-fi alien invasion drama set off by 12 gigantic, Frisbee-shaped UFOs touching down at seemingly random points around the globe. Shes also reliably stunning in the brutal and beautifully shot Nocturnal Animals, the sophomore directorial effort of fashion icon Tom Ford about a woman who receives a shocking book written by her ex-husband, which then plays out as a story-inside-a-story.

Related: Arrival Review: Amy Adams Stars in a Smart, Moving Sci-Fi Drama About an Alien Encounter

Of the two, Arrival is the vehicle more likely to earn Adams some awards attention for her role as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist and professor at a prestigious university recruited by the U.S. military to help understand and communicate with the enigmatic extraterrestrials.

Independence Day: Resurgence this film aint. French Canadian filmmaker Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy) is just as  if not more  concerned with the personal effects the E.T. landing has on the psyches and emotional states of his human subjects as he is the world as whole. This gives Adams, as a woman who weve seen endure her own crisis prior to the arrival, and who could hold the key to Earths survival, ample time to shine as a lost soul in need of healing. And though the actress has a simpatico costar in Jeremy Renner as the mathematician shes teamed up with for the show, Arrival is her vessel.

Critics have taken note. The Playlists Jessica Kiang calls it a quietly huge performance while The Hollywood Reporters David Rooney noted its richness in emotional depth. Someone give an award already, Slashfilms Angie J. Han declared after a Toronto screening. And the movie in general has triggered major feels at TIFF, just from our own unofficial gauging of film press reactions.

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Related: 'Nocturnal Animals Review: A Dark, Stylish Melodrama Starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal

In Nocturnal Animals, Adams delivers what might as well be considered a dual role. In the present day, her Susan Morrow is a jaded, pill-popping, one-percenter who holds extravagant art openings and shares a ridiculously swank Los Angeles home with her unfaithful businessman husband (Armie Hammer).

Her world is rocked when she receives a manuscript of the new book by her estranged ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). Hes dedicated the novel (called Nocturnal Animals) to her, and its a devastating thriller about a man whose wife and daughter are kidnapped one night on a dark West Texas highway.

This triggers flashbacks to memories of her meet-cute with the writer, when the then-Southern-drawled Susan (in scenes reminiscent of Adams breakout role in the North Carolina-set indie Junebug) was young and hopeful and petrified by the thought of one day turning into her bourgeois mother.

Animals is more of an ensemble film than Arrival  Aaron Taylor- Johnson and Isla Fisher also appear, and the standout of the bunch is Michael Shannon as a terminally ill cop clean out of damns to give. But Adams anchors the film, and its through her worried eyes (and some comeuppance) that we experience the films emotional and physical brutality.

Adams innate vulnerability is nicely played off here against Susans sleek appearance, wrote THRs Rooney in his review, adding that she is the compelling center of the film. I know Amy Adams is putting all her Oscar chips on ARRIVAL but dont overlook her incredibly specific work in NOCTURNAL ANIMALS. Shes fab, tweeted Vultures Kyle Buchanan.

An Oscar nomination for either  or both  would add to Adams previous Oscar nods for Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, and American Hustle and amazingly, all those nominations would be over only an 11-year span. Amy Adams should get nominated for Best Actress for both films and win both Oscars in a tie, thinks Colliders Matt Goldberg.

As the Los Angeles Times Glenn Whipp notes, Adams could be this years Leonardo DiCaprio. He was famously 0-for-5 before finally bear-hugging an Oscar earlier this year for The Revenant. The 42-year-old is overdue, says Whipp, who also cautions that neither Arrival nor Animals is the type of film traditionally championed by Oscar voters.

But hey, at the very least, Adams has doubled her odds.
This woman just did something totally inspiring after winning a years worth of free pizza

This woman just did something totally inspiring after winning a years worth of free pizza

How many 19-year-olds would willingly give up a years worth of absolutely free pizza? Because thats what the inspiring Hannah Spooner just did with her year-long supply of Little Caesars.

Rather than keeping it for herself, she donated the prize to a homeless youth home and basically cemented her spot in the good Samaritan Hall of Fame.

giphy (62)

When Hannah unassumingly entered a raffle at her local Little Caesars store, she didnt think twice about it until the call came that she had won. It didnt take her very long to figure out exactly what she was going to do with all that pizza. She was going to give it away.

She told Inside Edition, Detroit is going through a lot of negativity. I wanted somewhere close to home that would be affected by my donation.

After making a few calls, she decided on Covenant House Michigan, a, a faith-based nonprofit organization that provides hope to homeless, runaway and at-risk youth ages 18-24. Covenant House offers shelter, meals, and counseling to young people in trouble, but have little funds leftover to offer a treat like pizza.

A photo posted by Little Caesars (@littlecaesars) on Feb 9, 2016 at 12:23pm PST

Hannah is always committed to helping her community, but admits, I just lost a lot of weight, I wasnt trying to eat a lot of pizza, so her decision to donate her year of pizza was a win-win for everyone.

I could tell it would actually make a difference, Spooner said. I would actually see people who benefitted from it. They were really sweet, warm, and welcoming.

While the year of pizza might have been quite a sacrifice for Hannah, it will mean ten times that to the kids at the Covenant House. The world needs more Hannah Spooners.

The post This woman just did something totally inspiring after winning a years worth of free pizza appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Walking down the streets of New York City for the very first time, I noticed several artists drawing tourists in the middle of the pathways in the city. Gazing at their artwork, I couldnt help but wonder, If I asked them to draw me, would they include my facial, port wine stain birthmark? Would they ask if I want it included in the image? Or would they make that decision without asking me?

While I didnt act on that idea in that moment, a few weeks later I found myself contacting several artists with one goal in mind: to see how many people would naturally include my birthmark in an art piece and see how each artist interprets it.

As I started this journey, I gave each artist only two rules:

1. Each piece must remain politically neutral.

2. My character must remain modest in her attire.

Sometimes when we look in the mirror, we dont like what we see. Were having a bad hair day, a new pimple randomly appeared on our face over night, weve been bullied, or weve just never been friends with our reflections.

While this blog entry rooted from an idea attached to my birthmark, Ive had days where Ive struggled to embrace my appearance for normal reasons. My hair never wants to cooperate, Ive always struggled with my weight, and while my birthmark as a whole doesnt bother me, my face isnt symmetrical because of the extra blood flow and thats all my personal, internal dialogue going on there. Ive also been turned into a meme because of my difference, been told Im contagious, and was once approached about being on the shows Too Ugly for Love/The Undateables.

Trust me, I get it. Its hard. It can be a constant, uphill battle  both internally and externally.

Yet, in the last four months, Ive worked with 50 artists, and no two artists have drawn me the exact same way. So, no matter how we see ourselves in the mirror, odds are thats not how the rest of the world sees us.

Artists of San Francisco

To start my social experiment, I went to San Francisco. The day I went, there were very few artists out working due to some morning rain. However, I was able to meet four different artists. Here are the images that were created:

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The first artist I met asked me if I wanted my birthmark in the image. With a smile, I told him, Sure! We talked the whole time, getting to know one another. At some point it came up that I was once turned into a meme  which went viral to 30 million people. Excitedly he exclaimed, I thought you were the meme lady! Wow. I never thought I would see someones picture online, then see them in-person, and draw them. He is from the U.S., and you can follow him here on Instagram.



Related: To the People Who Stare at My Kid: Your Confused Face Is an Ugly Face

As this artist from Russia started drawing me, he pointed to my face and asked, Is that permanent? Do you want that in the drawing? He told me he often asks men the same question about their facial hair because maybe they forgot to shave that day. About 15 minutes later, he told me, I dont know if this is rude to say or not  but it looks as though you were punched in the face. #YouShouldSeeTheOtherGuy



This artist was from China, and never brought up my birthmark.



This artist sat by the first artist mentioned above and is also from the U.S. As he listened to our conversation, he told me, I wouldnt of asked you if you wanted it in the picture. Its a part of your character. So, I asked him to draw me too.

Going Online

After my interactions with the four artists in San Fransisco, I knew I needed to take this social experiment a step further. It was time to take it online.

Going to both Craigslist and Fiverr, I emailed several artists, asking them to draw me. Two of the artists requested at least five photos, so I made a rule: every artist who draws me will receive the exact same photos. I sent two photos where my birthmark is super obvious, two where its hidden by special makeup, and one where it still shows  but the color is calmed down due to a lower-end makeup brand. After attaching all five images, I ended each email with, Please let me know if you have any questions! I cant wait to see what you come up with.

I emailed eight artists online. In the end

One artist Googled me and found my blog, and quickly learned my birthmark is something I celebrate.

One artist added my birthmark without asking about it.

Two artists asked me if I wanted my birthmark in the image.

The rest initially left it off, until I asked them to include it.

Here are some of the images I received, and some of the stories behind them:





Many of the artists left my birthmark out of the image when they werent told to add it. However, I was OK with that, knowing there is so much more to me than my birthmark. If an artist didnt include the mark without my prompting, I would ask them why. This artist (from New Zealand), for example, explained, Youre birthmark wasnt left out intentionally (I happen to think its beautiful). Its only a part of the process in creating the art. The style only shows the shadows that are created by outlines (hair, face, glasses) and depth of facial feature curves (mouth, eyes, nose, smile lines). If your birthmark happened to have deeper lines like a scar perhaps, then the lines would be there to show it. I certainly hope I didnt offend you  I really do happen to think youre birthmark is beautiful. :-)



This artist from Venezuela specializes in a few different styles, one being Disney. Going off my favorite Disney princess, Belle, this is what was created. And since its based off Belles character, I asked him to include the book, Looking for Lovely, which was written by one of my favorite authors, Annie F. Downs. Looking for Lovely was written to help encourage others to search for the little lovely things in life during the good times and the bad  which is what Ive strived to do for years. Life is too hard to dwell in the hardship, and those little lovely moments are crucial, which is a lesson I learned early due to my journey with a facial difference  and just by living every day life. But yall Read. This. Book. Find your lovely.



The cool thing about this Picasso-style image is that the artist (from Argentina) included my birthmark without asking about it. They also added purple highlights  which I sometimes have, but werent included in any of the images I sent them.



This artist from Venezuela originally left my birthmark off the image she created. Messaging her back, asking why it was left off, she explained to me, I didnt know if you wanted your birthmark. In the beginning I wanted to make a lot of flowers on your face that represent the birthmark, but I was not sure. So I just let the flower around you. In addition, she also explained she has a cousin who has a birthmark just like mine. While shes never drawn her cousin, she is certain her cousin would ask her to leave off her birthmark.

A Social Experiment Turned into a Celebration

After a while I wondered how the images would differ if I intentionally asked people to include my birthmark in their art. What would people come up with if I asked them to celebrate the birthmark and/or a part of my story?

Encouraging me along the way, when the artists found out about my project, several of them offered to draw my images for free and/or at a discounted rate  which was extremely kind of them, and I am forever grateful for their sweet hearts.

Interestingly enough, one artist (from Japan) left my birthmark off, even after I asked them to include it from the get-go. Also, out of all the artists I messaged with  only one told me they did not want to be a part of my project. When I inquired why, the artist from Spain told me, This is not my type of project. My beauty in my eyes should not be the same to you, so I think I cant satisfy you in my own ways, it will be different which may worry you. That being said, Im not sure if they meant they didnt find my birthmark to be beautiful, or they were afraid of being given full creative rights to celebrate it without specific parameters.

Here, however, are some of the amazing pieces I did receive

Related: What This Sex-Positive Partys Success Really Means



My good friend, Rick Guidotti (from the U.S.), is a camera guru. Hes an award-winning, former fashion photographer who used to photograph models such as Cindy Crawford. Through his organization, Positive Exposure, he now travels the world photographing people with different medical conditions, celebrating every single person he meets. (Hes even done a TEDx Talk, which you can find here.)



This was created by artist Ossain Cardenas, from the U.S. Looking me up on Instagram and here on my blog, he saw a picture of my favorite She Will Not Be Moved necklace and included it without any prompting. He told me, I felt the message on that necklace was the perfect piece to complete the portrait I believe it gave my interpretation of your image more power.



This artist is from Serbia, and while sharing what inspired this image, she told me, I was thinking: so what if she has a birthmark on her face, she has energy that can hold the whole universe. Definitely a favorite! (OK. Real talk. I may say that about every piece listed here but this one is definitely on my top 5 list.)



While Ive never given a TEDTalk, it is on my God-sized dream board to do so, and it was important to me to have this image drawn. Working with the artist, she asked me if I preferred a more realistic look or more cartoon style. Wanting to give her wiggle room to be as creative as she wanted, I let her pick  with the request of including one of my favorite necklaces from Natalie Grants collection, She Will Not Be Moved, and a bracelet from 3Strands Global  an organization fighting back against human trafficking. This artist is from South Africa, and as it turns out, we both have TEDTalk dreams! I want to give a talk, and she wants to do animations for them. (What are the odds I would ask an artist to create an image representing my TEDTalk dream and they would also have a TEDTalk dream too?)



In January, at an event called Dare to Be, one of my God-sized dreams turned into a God-sized reality: I shared the stage with the woman who said yes to speaking, so I could say yes. I shared the stage with Natalie Grant and her British pal, Charlotte Gambill. While I have a video of this moment, I dont have a good picture. So, I asked my new friend, Sara Erb (also from California), to draw this moment for me. Once again, I gave her freedom in how she chose to celebrate this moment, and I love what she came up with.



The sweetest 5-year-old in the world drew this picture for me. Rayna, my cousin, drew us together by a house that were going to buy and live in together for forever. It doesnt get much sweeter than that. (Rayna is from California.)



My dear friend, Brittany Echols (from Alabama), drew this piece for me. After drawing this piece, she told me what inspired her creation: While I was creating this piece I thought about the purpose behind the piece. Often beauty is defined in certain terms or ideas. It seems to be black or white. This is beautiful, and this is not. Beauty is often found in the most unexpected places, and its not black and white. Beauty is often found in one-of-a-kind pieces. Crystal Hodges is that through and through! She is beautiful and one-of-a-kind on the inside and out! You can follow Brittanys blog here.



A couple of years ago, my friend Denise Nicholes, wrote a superhero story for me. So, in turn, I thought it would be fun to have a superhero created in honor of the story Denise wrote for me. The characters name is Amethyst, which is represented by the A on the shirt. And I have to say  I love the pink highlights in the hair! (This was drawn by an artist here in the U.S.)



Lets be real. Floating books, flying pens, and a map? This. Is. So. Me. (This artist is from Indonesia, and she totally gets me.)



Ive probably said this about all the images during the last four months, but this is definitely one of my favorites. This artist is from the beautiful country of Uruguay and even included my dog, Ruby. I mean, come on, yall Im a paper doll! How cool is that? When I asked her about how most people react to being drawn, she told me, Sometimes people want me not to draw their glasses or make them look younger, or straight hair instead of curly. Nobody seems really happy with themselves! I thought that you couldnt be prettier: Your purple spot seems to me a watercolor brushstroke!



While I gave this artist the freedom to be as creative as she liked, I did request this image. It took me nearly 24 years before meeting anyone with the same conditions I have (a port-wine stain birthmark and Sturge Weber syndrome), and I wanted this moment to be celebrated. Drawn with me is my friend Sophia. Shes from Australia and has quite the story. To learn more about Sophia and to hear more of her story, you can find her page here on Facebook. The artist who drew this is from Macedonia and was excited to be a part of this project.



This artist is from Venezuela. This was the first time shes drawn a person in this style, and I think she did a great job! Looking at this art piece, my friend Gabby told me, I like that she made your face asymmetrical, since the birthmark does affect the symmetry.



Trying to figure out the right color for my fin and for the background, we talked about different possibilities. I threw out a few colors, one being blue, since thats the color of my eyes. The artist replied, I liked your suggestion of blue because it helped bring out the color that makes your birthmark shine and be truly you. :) This talented artist is from the U.S., and you can follow her here on Instagram.



Related: To the Woman in the ER Waiting Room Who Told Me I Was Lucky



Drawing me in a Tim Burton style, this artist from Macedonia told me, Like the sky, every person is beautiful. The sky can have loads of shapes and colors, but no matter what its still beautiful. Behind the clouds the sky is always clear.



This was drawn by my new friend, Bryce Westervelt, from the U.S. He told me some stories about some clients who requested to be modified so much that they became more of a Utopian version of themselves, after requesting some major artistic plastic surgery. Talking about my project, he told me, It is, in a way, very vulnerable to allow someone else to depict you  to dare to be seen how someone else sees you.



Harry Potter? #YesPlease (This was drawn by an artist from Russia.)



OK. So I promise this was created before I found out about the Pokemon GO app. Gotta love being a 90s kid! (This was created by an artist from Mexico.)



Interestingly enough, while I often have jokes about color coordinating my clothes to my face/birthmark, I literally never wear orange. Yet, so many of the artists incorporated orange into their creations  and it looks amazing. (This artist is from Pakistan.)



Everything is AWESOME. (I know  I now have the song stuck in my head tooOops.) This artist is from Vietnam, and I love that she included my Winter Jam concert swag in this piece.



Several people have told me in the past that my birthmark looks like a heart. Recently, an article was published about my story, which also describes it as a heart shape. So, I thought it was interesting when this artist from Bosnia and

Herzegovina saw it the same way.



My dear friend, Anna Donahue, drew this for me. Shes 11 and drew this before ever meeting me. This summer I had the joy of meeting her and her family last month, and hearing about Annas journey withspina bifida. (You can learn more about a nonprofit her mom, Annie Beth, started called Signposts Ministries here.)

Sowhat now?

I dont know where youre at in your life journey. But please know  from your physical appearance to your talents and passions, you are beautifully (or, swaggfully, if youre a dude) and wonderfully made. Youre talented and one of a kind. Your dreams are worth fighting for, and you are worth more than you know.

My friendyou are a rockstar.

Its time to Embrace You.

By Crystal Hodges



More from The Mighty:

When Youre in the Gray Area of Being Suicidal

What Its Like to Have High-Functioning Anxiety



To the Strangers in Whole Foods Who Surrounded Me After News of My Fathers Suicide
A national women's advocacy group is calling for more female moderators for the upcoming 2016 presidential debates after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced a lineup of moderators that includes only one woman.



More than 42,000 members of the group, UltraViolet, have signed a petition urging the commission to announce more female anchors to moderate the three debates between major-party nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the first of which takes place on Sept. 26.



UltraVioletas petition notes that while there are many women for the commission to choose from  including Gwen Ifill, Rachel Maddow, Christiane Amanpour and Tamron Hall  the only woman in the lineup to question the presidential candidates is Martha Raddatz, who will serve alongside co-host Anderson Cooper.



But Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, tells PEOPLE it's more important than ever that female moderators be included in the presidential debates.







"When you have one of the most openly and unabashedly sexist candidates in recent history running for president," she says of Trump, "and issues involving women and sexism have been such a huge part of the narrative around this election, doesn't it stand to reason that a woman should be there to challenge and ask about those questions?"



Chaudhary points to Matt Lauer's moderation of the NBC News "Commander-in-Chief Forum" on Wednesday night  which was widely panned as sexist and unbalanced  as a prime example of the troubling role sexism plays in the media and in the election.



"Let's just take the contrast between how Hillary Clinton was handled and how Donald Trump was handled," Chaudhary says. "Donald Trump said a number of not just shocking things but outright lies. Everything from his support for the Iraq war  which, he likes to say he didn't support the Iraq war where he clearly did  to this whole really stunning exchange around career intelligence professionals who gave him an intelligence briefing  and he wants us to believe that he was able to divine that they don't agree with President Obama."



"He was not challenged for that," Chaudhary continues. "He was allowed to babble on, it was a whole lot of nonsense or lies or just really offensive rhetoric a and he was never stepped on, he was never challenged. This is the 'Commander-in-Chief Forum' and for him not to be challenged at all on any of that stuff is frankly frightening."





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Hillary Clinton on Sexism in Media





By contrast, Lauer "spent fully a third" of Clinton's time hammering her on "this email issue which has been litigated ad nauseam," Chaudhary says. "And then when she starts to talk about issues that voters are quite concerned about  for example, what is her plan to deal with ISIS?  it's, 'be quick, interrupt her, tell her to hurry up.' That is sexist. The whole dynamic of men interrupting women and stepping on women when they're speaking in meetings, it's a real cultural phenomenon and it was kind of stunning to see it play out on national television, when we're talking about one of the most accomplished women in history."



Chaudhary isn't the only one who's criticized Lauer for interrupting Clinton and treating the two candidates differently.



Political commentator Norman Ornstein wrote in a Twitter message, "Lauer interrupted Clinton's answers repeatedly to move on. Not once for Trump." He added, "Tough to be a woman running for president."



Neera Tanden, president of the the public policy research group Center for American Progress, tweeted:





Many people are saying @MLauer wouldn't have interrupted Hillary so much if she were a man. a Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) September 8, 2016





And Jon Favreau, the former speechwriter for President Obama, tweeted:





I don't blame Lauer for asking the email question. But it's ABSURD that he started off with Trump, "Why should you be Commander-in-Chief?" a Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 8, 2016





Chaudhary believes including more female moderators in the presidential debates would go a long way toward ensuring that the events are handled fairly. Case and point: the 2012 debates.



"There was a real difference in the debates that Martha Raddatz and Candy Crowley were part of and those the other moderators led," she says, adding that Raddatz and Crowley "were much more willing to hold the candidates accountable, they were much more willing to go deep on issues. Candy Crowley asked about a range of issues that impact women which led to the now infamous " binders full of women" gaffe, which was a very telling moment about how Mitt Romney thinks about women and women in the workplace. We've already seen how [having female debate moderators] makes a difference."





Are you planning on voting in this year's election? We want to know! Take our survey: https://t.co/b6KMj1ZeAt a People Magazine (@people) August 15, 2016





Chaudhary adds that Raddatz's inclusion as a co-moderator, rather than a solo moderator, in this year's debates is "insulting to women everywhere."



It sends the message that "women can be a part of the debate moderators so long as they are co-moderating with men. This year, in the year 2016, where we have the first major-party female nominee, a woman cannot be trusted to moderate a debate on her own," she laments.



Chaudhary says she's hopeful UltraViolet will succeed in its mission to have more female moderators included in the debates.



"I think people are outraged by not only Matt Lauer's moderation but the sexism that was contained in that moderation, and I think that that is creating a moment where people are really thinking about what is going to happen in these debates and what do we need as voters?" she says. "We need to have candidates speak to issues that matter to us, we need to have candidates held accountable when they lie, and we need to make sure that were hearing from both of the candidates about what they're going to do to make all of our lives better."
Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Katrina Kaif, Sayani Gupta, Rohan Joshi, Ram Kapoor

Direction: Nitya Mehra

Rating: **

I am usually a sucker for love stories, more so, the mushy ones that tug at your heartstrings. But Baar Baar Dekho is not your typical Bollywood romance. This one tests your patience in more ways than one.

Nitya Mehras Baar Baar Dekho is one messy ride  the to and fro narrative, the confusing messages, the inept acting, the complete lack of chemistry between the lead couple are just a few of the problems. What were you guys thinking? Cmon, if a film is backed by names like Karan Johar, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, then somethings gotta give.

The audience can keep ogling at Katrina Kaifs enviable abs but a close-up shot of her when she is distraught and heartbroken is almost cringe-worthy. Its pretty unbelievable that someone who looks insanely attractive hasnt learnt the first thing about acting after so many years in the film industry.

And not one but you have two really good looking people on the big screen  Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif oozing charm, so so easy on the eyes and doing all that a young loving couple should be doing and yet, there is no magic, you are never really drawn to this romance  it is superficial and tepid. And you wonder how is it that here there are two individually very attractive people but there is no spark at all?

By the way, the supporting cast too is a huge letdown  Sayani Gupta, Rohan Joshi, Sarika and even, the usually dependable Ram Kapoor never really get their act together.

This team has the most reliable albeit over-used canvas for desi films  the colourful Bollywood shaadi and theres also some merit in what they are trying to say about relationships.

There is a need to enjoy the small joys of the present and the people who we take for granted as part of our daily lives, they might slowly but surely be moving away from us, we might be growing apart without ever stopping to notice that it is happening. We are so busy chasing our bigger dreams that we fail to realize the cost we are paying to achieve it. We get so caught up trying to be someone and do the things that we are supposed to do that we lose sight of the beauty of the little magic moments.

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Wouldnt it be great if we could just peek into our future and find out what are the things worth sweating about and which/who are the ones who really dont matter in the big picture? Alas, that doesnt happen. And we all face the consequences of the inconsequential matters that consume our time and energy. However, our protagonist here gets a second chance, to relive that moment, to right the wrong, to reevaluate his decisions. And that idea in this script is great. But Mehra falters on the execution. Again and again.

The story talks about balance and how mere calculations cant decide the trajectory of your life. True. But surely a genius mathematician has the right to dream of making it big professionally. Choosing to move to Cambridge with a prestigious scholarship shouldnt come at the cost of losing your childhood sweetheart. Surely, someone who loves you would also understand your ambition. They would know what needs to be prioritized and they wouldnt dismiss your dreams just because living abroad away from the family is difficult?

Yes, we need balance. There will also come a time where you will need to support your spouse when they want to pursue their career. But to be fair, some people never really see beyond today  a wedding, a ceremony, fun and games. And then? There is a need to factor in some details and look beyond the festivities of the moment. The granular details are never really fleshed out.

And its again a weak script that is the undoing of this one. Its all nice and glossy but no real heart. There are some nice songs too. But the only thing thats stays with you after what feels like a very long film is the Kala Chashma song and Katrinas washboard abs.



Did you like the film? Share your views/comments with us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also connect with me on Twitter.
Acid attack survivor Reshma Qureshi walked the runway at NYFW and it was totally inspiring

Acid attack survivor Reshma Qureshi walked the runway at NYFW and it was totally inspiring

BRB, crying all the tears right now. Reshma Qureshi, a stunning (and unbelievably courageous) teenager from India just totally triumphed after living through an experience that was nothing short of tragic. Qureshi was brutally attacked two years ago, when acid was thrown in her face by a family relative. She defied the odds and survived the attack that left her blind in eye and facially disfigured, but the inspirational young woman wasnt about to let the attack define her.

The 19-year-old made her runway debut at New York Fashion Week, and even just seeing photos of her walk gave us chills in the best possible way.

Acid attack victim, Reshma Qureshi opens the show for @archanakochharofficial at @nyfw #inspirationalwoman #bringbeautyback #nyfw #reshmaqureshi #birdseyeview A video posted by Neerja Patel (@patelneerja) on Sep 8, 2016 at 1:16pm PDT

I feel really good about walking in fashion week because I feel Im not just doing this for myself, she told People.

I feel Im doing this for the acid attack survivors that there are and to give them confidence. Im very excited to have this opportunity. People have the tendency to look at acid attack survivors from one perspective and I dont want them to look at them like that anymore.

Last year, Qureshi filmed a makeup tutorial to help raise awareness about the issue of acid attacks on women in India. See how easy it is to get rid of dark spots? she said in the video. As easy as scarring someones face with acid. Just open the bottle and throw.

After getting a glimpse at Qureshis amazing runway moment, its safe to say well never look at acid attack survivors as victims again.

This may have been Qureshis first fashion show, but it wasnt her first foray into the public eye: She also films YouTube videos (check out her reaction when she learned shed be walking in NYFW if you want to feel all the feels).

Why should we not enjoy our lives? What happened to us is not our fault and weve done nothing wrong and so we should also move forward in life. I do feel brave.

The post Acid attack survivor Reshma Qureshi walked the runway at NYFW and it was totally inspiring appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Online retail giant Amazon plans to open a new office in Vancouver in 2020 and increase its Canadian workforce to 6,000 (AFP Photo/DAVID MCNEW) (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)

Washington (AFP) - US online giant Amazon announced Thursday a new small-format tablet that includes its digital assistant Alexa.

The eight-inch (20-centimeter) display Fire HD tablet will start at $89 for US customers, making it one of the least expensive on the market.

"We believe in a different approach to tablets -- providing premium products at non-premium prices -- and customers love it," said Kevin Keith, manager for Fire Tablets.

"In fact, we've seen Fire tablet sales more than double year-over-year as a result. The all-new Fire HD 8 packs more battery life, more storage, faster performance, plus Alexa -- all for less than $90."

Amazon has not release specific sales figures for its tablets. But a survey by research firm IDC estimated the online titan was the fifth largest vendor in the second quarter with global sales of 1.6 million units.

Amazon also sells a seven-inch Fire tablet starting at $49 and a 10-inch device from $230.

The global tablet market, led by Apple's iPad, has been declining over the past few quarters, with some consumers turning to slim PCs, some with detachable keyboards.

Amazon's Alexa, which competes with Apple's Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana, is a key element of the company's strategy to move into the connected home and internet of things.

Alexa's skills include selecting music, appointment reminders, checking bank balances, ordering food, summoning Uber rides and more.
Mumbai: Filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker's latest Bollywood film Mohenjo Daro, starring Hrithik Roshan in the lead, will be screened at the 45th Annual Conference on South Asia in Wisconsin, US.

The annual conference that invites scholars, students, professionals and anyone interested in research on the region to Madison, Wisconsin, is a four-day event starting on 20 October. The film will be screened on 23 October.

The conference is the leading annual meeting in the US for scholars of South Asian studies, attracting over 700 participants from around the world, to participate in various panels on archaeology.

"When the conference chair Mitra Sharafi connected with me requesting permission to screen Mohenjo Daro at their Annual Conference, I felt honoured and humbled," Gowariker said in a statement.

He added, "I thank Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, a leading archaeologist who has spent over 30 years studying the Mohenjo Daro and Harappa sites for supporting the film and sharing his knowledge."

Released in India on 12 August, the film marks the debut of Pooja Hegde. It brings an epic adventure-romance story on the silver screen, and is set in the city of Mohenjo Daro in the era of the Indus Valley civilisation which dates back to 2,600 BC.

Kenoyer and his team had visited Mumbai to provide Gowariker with all the archaeological findings in the early stages of pre-production of the film. They even visited the set in Bhuj to see its construction and look at all the props that would be used in the film.
Samsung is urging South Korean consumers to stop using its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone due to reports of exploding batteries (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je)

Samsung urged South Korean consumers on Saturday to stop using its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, following a similar warning by the US consumer agency and several airlines who fear battery explosions.

The South Korean electronics giant last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.

Since then, airlines or air safety agencies around the world including the US and Singapore have warned passengers against using them on flights. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission Friday urged Note 7 owners to stop using it.

"We advise South Korean consumers using the Galaxy Note 7 to stop using the device and to visit nearest service centres to take necessary steps," Samsung said on its website.

It advised consumers to use replacement phones which would be temporarily loaned by the firm until a new Galaxy Note 7 equipped with fault-free batteries is provided.

Since the global launch of the oversized "phablet" smartphone in August, several users have posted images on social media showing the charred device, saying it suddenly caught fire.

Samsung last week admitted the problem was caused by a faulty battery cell and announced the recall -- the first large-scale recall of one of Samsung's top of the range phones.

The battery explosion, which dealt a major blow to Samsung's reputation, also forced it to postpone the device's planned launch in Europe in September.

Mobile business accounts for a major share of profits at Samsung, which is the world's largest smartphone maker but also produces home appliances and memory chips.

Samsung, increasingly squeezed by Apple's iPhone in the high-end segment and Chinese rivals in the low-end market, launched the Note 7 earlier than expected -- ahead of the September 7 launch of the iPhone 7.
Samsung last week suspended sales of its 'phablet' Galaxy Note 7 and recalled 2.5 million units (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je) (AFP/File)

Singapore Airlines (SIA) said on Saturday that it has joined other airlines in banning the inflight use of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 phones after reports of exploding batteries in some units.

"The powering up and charging of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 mobile phones is prohibited on all our flights," SIA said in a statement.

Australia's Qantas and Virgin Australia and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad have also announced similar bans.

US and Japanese aviation authorities have urged passengers not to turn on or charge the large-screen phones on aircraft.

The South Korean smartphone maker last week suspended sales of the "phablet" and recalled 2.5 million units.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has also told passengers not to stow the devices in checked baggage.
In a warning issued today, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission warned owners of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices to "power them down and stop charging or using" the devices.

Samsung has already issued a recall of sorts, "advising" customers to take their Galaxy Note 7 devices to a store and exchange them for a temporary phone, and eventually a non-exploding device.

DON'T MISS: Galaxy Note 7 caused Jeep to explode, Florida couple says

Numerous reports have emerged in the past weeks of Galaxy Note 7s exploding, including a dramatic fire that incinerated one Florida couple's Jeep. But Samsung has not gone the conventional route for issuing a product recall, which would involve working with the CPSC to recall all affected devices. It appears that is now in the works.

CPSC is working quickly to determine whether a replacement Galaxy Note7 is an acceptable remedy for Samsung or their phone carriers to provide to consumers, the agency told ABC.

These incidents have occurred while charging and during normal use, which has led us to call for consumers to power down their Note 7s."

Currently, Samsung is asking owners to take advantage of the Product Exchange Program it has put in place. That program lets owners exchange their phones for a non-combustible Note 7, and in some cases have a loaner phone for the weeks until a new Note 7 can be issued.

Some airlines have already banned passengers from using or charging their Note 7s while in flight. Those bans are on Australian airlines, but the FAA is reportedly looking into issuing a ban on the carriage or use of Note 7s.

Update 1900 ET: Samsung has issued a statement confirming its collaboration with the CPSC on a US recall:

We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note7s and exchange them now. says Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America. New Note7 replacement devices will be issued to exchange program participants upon completion of the CPSC process. In the interim, consumers can return their Note7 for another device. Although there have been only a small number of reported incidents, Samsung is taking great care to provide customers with the support they need. Samsung has identified the affected inventory and stopped sales and shipments of those devices. Customers who have Galaxy Note7 devices can replace their current device with a new device under the terms of the US Note7 Exchange Program. The US Note7 Exchange Program offers consumers the following choices: Select carrier and retail outlets will also provide customers, who prefer a replacement Note7, with a Samsung loaner phone to use until new Note7s are available. Additionally, participants in the US exchange program will receive a $25 gift card or bill credit from select carrier or retail outlets.

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(Credit: Axel Koester/Sygma via Getty Images)

The actual 20th anniversary of her death doesnt happen until Dec. 25, but TV land has decided to get a jump on JonBenet Ramsey coverage. Networks from A&E to NBC have specials re-examining the infamous  and most shockingly, still unsolved  1996 murder of the six-year-old Colorado beauty pageant queen in the works, with most of the coverage airing in September, with a Lifetime movie retelling of the tragic killing premiering in November. Heres a detailed guide on the coverage, including the different details each is promising to offer up for viewers still obsessed with the decades-long cold case.

The Killing of JonBenet Ramsey: The Truth Uncovered (Watch at AETV.com)

The Ramsey Family (Credit: A&E)

A&E was first up with this documentary, which premiered on the network on Sept. 5. Among its standout moments: an interview with John Ramsey, who talked about how laughable it was that his then-nine-year-old son Burke was ever considered a suspect in his sisters murder, and previously unaired footage of nine-year-old Burke being interviewed by an investigator about JonBenets death. When the young boy is asked why he remained in his room in the aftermath of his sisters murder, he says, I was just so scared. John Ramsey, by the way, maintains he and his late wife, Patsy, had nothing to do with their childs murder. They were officially taken off the suspect list in 2008, two years after Patsy died of ovarian cancer.

Related: Fall TV Preview: The Scoop on 35 New Shows

Dateline: Who Killed JonBenet? (NBC, Sept. 9, 9 p.m.)

Jane Harmer (Credit: NBC)

Correspondent Josh Mankiewicz investigates in this two-hour special edition of Dateline, which features an interview with former Boulder, Colorado police detective Jane Harmer, who says she initially agreed with a grand jurys decision to indict John and Patsy Ramsey in their daughters murder case in 1999. (You can watch the episode here.) I think that the grand jurors heard the evidence and came up with that conclusion, and I would agree with their conclusion, Harmer tells Mankiewicz. She later also agreed with the district attorneys decision not to pursue a case against the Ramsey rents, however, and shell share her reasons why on Dateline.

Story continues

Dr. Phil (Sept. 12, 13, and 19, Check local listings for time and channel)





Dr. Phil McGraw kicks off his 15th season with the first-ever interview with a now 29-year-old Burke Ramsey, who talks about his sisters murder and how the last two decades of media coverage and speculation about the rest of the familys involvement in her murder has impacted him, including seeing his face on tabloid magazine covers while grocery shopping. He also talks about why he has never talked about anything to do with the murder or the case publicly before. For a long time, the media basically made our lives crazy, he tells McGraw. It just made me a very private person. The three-part interview will also include Burke Ramsey, now a software developer in Indianapolis, sharing what he knows about his sisters death.

JonBenet: An American Murder Mystery (ID, Sept. 12, 13 and 14, 10 p.m.)

The three-night docuseries unfolds events of the case in chronological order, including exclusive video footage from inside the swanky Ramsey home taken within hours of when JonBenets body was discovered, the news that Boulder PDs prime suspects were the Ramseys, and late homicide detective Lou Smits discovery of evidence that suggested an intruder had broken into the Ramsey home. And, covering one of the most bizarre twists in the 20-year history of the case, ID has an exclusive interview with John Mark Karr, the teacher who is the only person ever arrested for JonBenets murder. Karr confessed to the crime in 2006, after being arrested on child pornography charges, but was later cleared in the Ramsey murder by DNA evidence.

The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey (CBS, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m., Sept. 19 at 9 p.m., and Sept. 25 at 8:30 p.m.)





CBS is premiering this two-night, four-hour docuseries (or docu-thriller, as it has been billed) versus the Emmys, so you know the network is confident about its content. (UPDATE: On Sept. 12, CBS announced that The Case Of will run four hours instead of six.) In short, series executive producer Tom Forman said months of reworking the case  which included meticulously reconstructing portions of the Ramsey house, right down to using the same wallpaper and carpeting, and placing wrapped gifts beneath the Christmas tree  led investigators to come to a unanimous theory about JonBenets death. When they got to the end, they had tried on every theory. They had looked at this a million different ways, Forman telss Yahoo TV about the team, which included many of the cases original investigators. There is really only one conclusion that fits the evidence. A team of world-renowned investigators all reached that conclusion independently. What is that conclusion, and does it mean there could finally be some justice for JonBenet? The possibility promises to make The Case Of obsessive viewing.





Who Killed JonBenet? (Lifetime, November)

Julia Campbell and Michel Gill (Credit: Ron Tom/Freeform via Getty Images, Getty Images/Splash News)

The only new scripted drama in the bunch, the Lifetime movie will star Mr. Robot and The Get Down star Michel Gill as John (who remarried in 2011 and wrote a book about his family nightmare, The Other Side of Suffering, in 2012), Awkwards Julia Campbell as Patsy, Payton Lepinski (in her first role) as JonBenet, and Once Upon a Times Eion Bailey as Steve Thomas, the detective who was certain Patsy Ramsey was responsible for the death of her daughter.
Mumbai: Makers of the upcoming Sonu Sood starrer Tutak Tutak Tutiya have hinted that superstar Shah Rukh Khan can make a special appearance in the film.

The Dilwale star has given his voice-over to the trailer of the movie, which is the maiden production venture of Sonu.

When asked if the 50-year-old actor will be seen in the film in a guest appearance, co-producer Deepshikha Deshmukh told PTI, "Well, never say never. Also, like we said at the trailer launch, this entire film has so many mysteries and layers, I will just let each layer unveil itself on its own in due course of time."

Directed by A L Vijay, the film is a horror-comedy which also stars Prabhudheva and actress Tamannaah Bhatia.

The film features ace choreographer-turned filmmaker Farah Khan in a cameo.

Deshmukh said getting the Fan actor to give the voice over was Sonu's idea and the superstar's voice suited the mood of the trailer perfectly.

"Actually it was all Sonu Sood. Shah Rukh did this voiceover for Sonu and they share a great rapport so when Sonu

called and asked, Shah Rukh agreed to do so without any hesitation.

"He is the King Khan. His voice suits the narrative of the trailer completely and adds that charm, so it was a

complete cherry on the cake for us all," she added.

Tutak Tutak Tutiya will be released in three languages, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on 7 October.
Watching Sully makes you wonder what Clint Eastwood eats for breakfast; at 86 hes still a strong filmmaker, delivering consistently watchable films every three years. Even if you were disappointed with some of his previous films you should head over to the theaters because Sully is his best movie since Million Dollar Baby.

On paper it seems like Sully didnt deserve to be a full length film because its based on a real life incident that lasted a little more than three minutes.

Eastwoods measured direction and Tom Hanks immensely likable performance as the title character, however, cause no such concern.

This is a film that gets your attention from start to end, and at its most poignant moment even makes you reach out for your hankies.

Hanks Sully is Captain Chesley Sullenberg, a pilot on US airways who boards an ordinary flight from NYC to taxi 155 passengers to Charlotte. Soon after take off disaster strikes as passing birds cause damage to the flights engine.

Despite being advised to return to the airport, Sully realises that the flight wont be able to make it back and is forced to land on a river. The media hails him as a hero, but some members of the National Transportation Safety Board are convinced it was Sullys error in judgment and attempt to bring him down.

What works is that Eastwood doesnt overdramatise the flights accident, relegating the incident to almost the halfway point in the film.

The investigation of the incident, however, is dramatized to the most tension filled possible degree, with some members of the NTSB (Mike O Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamie Sheridan) coming across as hard boiled movie villains.

The character dynamics, and not the epic disaster movie spectacle, is where Eastwoods patient and methodical direction suits the story of Sully, and even if you know the outcome of the investigation its easy to be entertained by sheer tension built around the case.

Hanks once again slips into his character like hand in glove. His non-movie star persona fits perfectly into the jaded character of Sully, especially in the moments when the characters confidence and integrity seems to come crumbling down with the media attention shifting his image from a hero to something far less.

When most Hollywood movies tend to transform a white male hero into the bastion of America Hanks heroism is understated, with an air of quiet dignity.

Much like his turn in Captain Phillips its a refreshing change for audiences generally pummeled on their heads with chest beating cinematic heroes.

The hidden gem in the film is the character of Aaron Eckhart as Sullys co pilot Jeff Skiles who eventually gets closer to Sully after sharing a traumatic incident.

Two people bonding because they experienced something horrific together is an interesting layer to explore and one wishes Sully contained more of this plot thread.

That would, of course, make the movie much longer than its razor sharp 95 minute run time, which may or may not be a bad thing.
New Delhi: National carrier Air India announced discounts up to 75 percent on base fares to the

war disabled officers and their family members for flights across its domestic network.

"We respect & honor our Heroes. Concessions for War Disabled Officers & their families," Air India said in a tweet.

Air India offers 75 percent discount on basic fare on select classes for the War Disabled officer while their family members would get a discount of 50 per cent on basic fare on select classes across the airline's domestic network, it said.

Meanwhile, in another development, Air India has extended the waiver on ticket cancellation charges, rescheduling fee for travel on its flights to and from Kashmir till 19 September.

"Waiver on applicable penalties of re-issuance, date change, no-show, cancellation & refund charges has been

extended for travel from/to Srinagar for both dom & intnl flts, on all tickets issued on/before 9th Sept for trvl till 19th Sept,2016," Air India tweeted.

The tickets under the discount offer can be purchased any time with their validity one year from the date of booking.

The family includes spouse, dependent children between 12 and 26 years of age and dependent parents, the national

carrier said adding married children are not considered as part of family.

Earlier in June this year, in a novel gesture to honour armed forces personnel, Air India had announced free upgrade to the business class for the recipients of war and peace time gallantry awards.

The soldiers who have been bestowed with military honours such Param Vir Chakra (PVC), Maha Vir Chakra (MVC), Vir Chakra (VC), Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, would get an upgrade to business class from economy at the time of boarding in case seats are available in the aircraft from this month, Air India had said.

The Indian Armed Forces are eligible for various military decorations, which are awarded for extraordinary bravery and courage, as well as distinguished service during times of war and peace.
By G B S N P Varma

A virulent version of the Zika virus that has swept the globe is headed for India, where an older, more benign strain is likely to be quietly residing within some Indians, possibly preparing genetic ground for a quick, new second-coming, experts have warned.

In India, the Zika virus  which has no cure or vaccine  was first found in Pune 64 years ago, as part of a survey that was testing immunity to Japanese and Russian varieties of a virus-borne brain infection called encephalitis, according to a forthcoming paper authored by World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists.

The paper comes soon after this study in the Lancet, a medical journal, which used travel patterns to predict that India  where more than 67,000 air travellers arrive every year  and four other countries (China, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand) were most at risk for year-round transmission of the Zika virus. China has more people, but more people are at risk in India.

A virus that hasnt been particularly dangerous since it was first discovered in a rhesus monkey in Ugandas Zika forest in 1947 (the first human case was reported in Nigeria seven years later), Zika has grabbed global attention because the virulent form  more than a million infections have been reported from Brazil  is linked to microcephaly, abnormally small heads and brains in foetuses.

After first emerging on a remote Pacific island in 2007, the new strain, borne by the female Aedes mosquitoes and air travel, and detected in Brazil in May 2015, has swept through 26 countries in the Americas, Cape Verde in Africa and Singapore, where 200 infections were reported within eight days. Currently, 58 countries and territories are affected by the Zika virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American national health agency.

Philippines has, on Monday, confirmed its first case of Zika virus.

The original African strain went to Asia between 1954 and 2000, that did not cause microcephaly,Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, told IndiaSpend via email, explaining Zikas march.

The shift to the pandemic strain happened in 2007 to Micronesia and in 2013 to French Polynesia. This is sometimes called the Asian strain, which went Eastward into the New World. Now the Asian strain is headed to Africa continuing East back to India.

Despite email requests over a week, the National Centre for Disease Control, the National Institute of Virology (NIV), and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) did not respond to requests for comment on the possible entry of Zika into India.

As we shall see later, India does not know if the strain detected in Pune in 1952 has spread and if it has made Indians more susceptible.

The mutations that have made Zika dangerous

Zika could complete its trip around the planet by spreading to vulnerable areas of the Old WorldEurope, the Middle East, and AfricaHotez said in a commentary Will Zika return to the Old World?, published in May, 2016, in Microbes and Infection, a scientific journal.

Along the way, Zika changed its character, from a relatively benign virus causing fever, malaise, skin rash, conjunctivitis (red eye), muscle and joint pain and headache, according to this review paper published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, to one that causes neurological disorders such as microcephaly and the Guillain Barre syndrome (GBS), a temporary paralysis that can sometimes result in choking and death.

Zika appears to have undergone significant number of mutations, possibly in its NS1 gene, to make it more neurotropic (affecting nervous system) and better adapted to grow in humans and mosquitoes. It has become a pandemic strain, said Hotez.

The NS1 gene helps the Zika virus  from a family called flaviruses, the largest about 120 times smaller than a human red-blood cellreplicate and evade a response from the human immune system.

Flaviviruses are adapted to their carriers, usually the female Aedes aegypti mosquito. As mosquitoes emerged from forest habitats and adapted to human blood meals, flaviviruses followed, which explains the spread of yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, West Nile fever and now Zika.

The scary part about the new Zika strain, Prof Hotez said, is its ability to infect pregnant women and the unborn foetus to cause microcephaly, which leaves infants with not just distorted features but stops the growth of the brain.

How Zika marched across the world

After Zika was detected in humans in 1954 in Nigeria, serologic evidence  evidence from blood serum  of human infection was reported from at least seven African countries and parts of Asia, including India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, between 1951 and 1981.

Between 2007 and 2014, it caused, as Prof Hotez put it, explosive outbreaks in Micronesia, French Polynesia, and Easter Island-South Pacific.

Then, in May 2015, a Brazilian national laboratory reported a nativeor localcase of transmission.

A new mosquito-borne disease had indeed arrived in the Americas, though no one knew what that might mean, said this WHO May 2016 report: One year into the Zika outbreak: How an obscure disease became a global health emergency.

By mid-July, 2015, Brazil notified WHO of a spike in neurological disordersswelling of brain and spinal cord, GBS and microcephaly.

Since its entry into Brazil, according to the review paper, Zika cut a swath through 26 countries in the Americas.

On February 1, 2016, WHO declared Zika a public health emergency of international concern, requiring a coordinated international response.

Source: World Health Organization

Zika continues its globe-girdling march

In February, 2016, China reported its first cases (probably imported from the Americas); in March, Bangladesh confirmed its first case; in late July, mainland US declared its first locally-acquired case, although its first travel-related case was in 2007.

On August 27, Singapore  a global travel hub  announced its first, with the city state reporting its first pregnant woman with Zika, on 31 August, 2016. Local officials suggested a potential cluster of pregnant women with Zika. By 8 September, 2016, within 13 days of the outbreak, 292 cases were reported, and genetic sequencing revealed that the viral strain was not a Brazilian import but came from within Asia.

In most of the 69 years that Zika has swept through the world, from Africa to Asia to the Americas, it was regarded as benign, with no deaths and hospitalisations reported.

But the virus  as viruses often do  was quietly changing.

Since the older strain led to few ill effects, people travelled and spread the virus, which also jumped continents with its primary carrier, the Aedes aegypti mosquito species, but also through another called Aedes albopictus. Wherever the mosquito  which itself emerged from forests and adapted to human habitation  has gone, the virus has followed.

The mosquitoes do not travel very far, but infected people do, Thomas Yuill, emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and viral diseases moderator at ProMed, a global reporting system for infectious-disease outbreaks, told IndiaSpend.

The appearance of Zika virus in Micronesia, French Polynesia and Easter Island was surprising because these were the first outbreaks outside of the virus usual area of Africa and Asia. These outbreaks, followed by the one in Brazil, illustrate how the virus can be moved over long distances and initiate epidemics in new places, said Yuill.

How Zika spreads: Through the female mosquitos blood meal

The primary transmission route of Zika, according to this 2016 review paper, is the bite of the female Aedes mosquito when it has a human blood meal. Other modes of transmission include sexual intercourse, blood transfusions, and perinatal transmission from mother to foetus during gestation or at the time of delivery.

Transmission begins from humans. When the mosquito has its meal of blood, the virus infects the insect, spreading to its salivary glands, from where it passes into the blood of the next human bitten.

Then there is vertical transmission  the virus can be passed on from the Aedes aegypti mosquito to its offspring  according to a study published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, a scientific journal.

The virus incubation period is between three and 12 days after the mosquitos blood meal, after which  in most cases  there are no discernible effects for a week.

In one in five cases, the symptoms overlap with diseases caused by other Zika-like viruses, such as dengue and chikungunya, both of which are currently killing and disabling patients in Indian cities and villages.

The common symptoms, which last for two days to a week, include fever, malaise, skin rash, conjunctivitis (red eye), muscle and joint pain, and headache.

Why India is at risk

India contains Zikas disease ecology  Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, crowding, poverty, lack of sanitation and hygiene, travellers and visitors and warming that prolongs mosquito season. It will only take an infected person to travel to India and then be bitten by the tiger mosquito.

Aedes aegypti is now found mainly in homes and other buildings, protected from monsoon winds and other factors that slowed its spread when it was a forest-dwelling creature. It is active during the day, and it is a master of evolution.

Between 5% and 20% of a mosquito populations collective genome  the collection of their genes  is responding to evolutionary pressure at any given time, according to this June 2015 study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a scientific journal.

Source: Scientific Data

For India to be affected by the virus, Yuill explained, it would need large populations of susceptible people living in close proximity to large populations of Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.

Aedes aegypti and dengue are prevalent wherever there has been a Zika outbreak in the Western hemisphere. Indonesia and India are currently experiencing the worst dengue problems in the world, said Hotez.

Based on that assumption, India is at risk, he said. In Indias case, though, there are some big unknowns.

First, how widespread was the earlier African strain reported in India during the 1950s, and how exposed was Indias population to that first wave?

That earlier strain does not cause microcephaly but could possibly induce immunity to this new more concerning virus strain, said Hotez. India needs more studies to find out.

Second, could the new pandemic Zika strain affect India, as it is currently Singapore?

We have seen that wherever dengue occurs in Western Hemisphere, we can find Zika as well, said Hotez. But we dont know if thats just because both viruses are transmitted by Aedes aegypti, or if previous dengue infections can also promote increased susceptibility to Zika.

Since the symptoms of dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus infections are similar, and only laboratory tests can distinguish one from the other, it is possible that cases clinically diagnosed as dengue or chikungunya fevers could be Zika infections.

This may be the case in India, but until prospective surveillance with good laboratory support is in place, nobody knows, said Yuill.

The question, as Yuill put it, is this: Has Zika not been present in India or has no one looked over the past 40 years?

Chinkungunya wasnt supposed to be in India; then it showed up

Zikas cousin, chikungunya, first had a major outbreak across India  barring Kerala which had no Aedes aegypti mosquitoes then  between 1964 and 1967.

Chikungunya faded from public and scientific memory, and when it returned in 2002, we were caught with our collective pants down, said T Jacob John, a retired virologist who, along with two colleagues, documented Indias first HIV infection in 1986, and designed a national response.

The second coming of chikungunya in India came through a mutated and more virulent virus, John noted. We missed a golden opportunity to document all that.

Referrring to Zika, John described the feeling as deja vu chikungunya.

Asked if previous dengue infection makes people more susceptible to Zika, John, drawing on a lifetime of field work and research, said: My knowledge is that previous dengue makes Zika infection worse.

John said the ministry of health is not designed to anticipate virus outbreaks and conduct precautionary investigations. The second entry of chikungunya was documented by the National Institute of Virology but not by the ministry.

To brace for the eventuality, Hotez said, India needs to start seroprevalence studies, which will determine how widespread past Zika infections were in India over previous decades and whether or not India remains susceptible to the new avataar of Zika.

Biological events are unpredictable, but government responses should not be.

However, said John, civilised countries would err on the precautionary side rather than relying on luck as we Indians often do.
Mumbai: Stand-up comedian Kapil Sharma's bribe tweets against the BMC seems to have backfired, with the civic body claiming that the artist had flouted norms not only in his Versova office building but also in his apartment in suburban Goregaon.

"We received two complaints from separate people about illegal construction being done in Sharma's both premises, one in Versova and another in Goregaon. In both the cases, we followed the due procedure and first served notice before initiating action," said a senior BMC official, seeking anonymity.

"In the Versova case, the Corporation had served a notice on him on 16 July. Since he did not pay heed to it, we

demolished the illegal portion of his office structure on 4 August. As far as another complaint is concerned, he was served notice under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act in April for unauthorised work on his ninth floor apartment at Goregaon (West)," he said.

Kapil had on Friday kicked up a row when he tweeted that BMC officers sought a bribe of Rs 5 lakh for the construction of his premises in Versova. However, he has not so far, put forth his side on the allegations of violation of norms levelled by the civic body.

Asked why BMC took 19 days to demolish illegal structure at Versova, Parag Masurkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner K-west ward, where Sharma's office is located, said "Generally we do give some extra time to the occupants or owners of the premises to put forward the copies or permissions to justify their work and wait for the reply. Meanwhile, we uploaded the contents and nature of the complaint at complaint tracking portal too."

"We have devised an online complaint tracking system. When we receive any complaints, we go to the site, take photographs and on that basis we generate the notices and upload it while monitoring it till it is redressed," said Masurkar, adding that the procedure wipes out all the chances of corruption.

"In Versova premises case, Sharma carried out unauthorised horizontal extension in his ground-plus-one storey row house and also carried out the construction at upper floor without mandatory permission.

"Since he did not come forward to show the copies of permissions, we followed the rule and demolished it as and

when we got police security," he said.

Also, BMC officers are yet to receive any response from Sharma on the name of the bribe seeker so as to initiate

action against the erring officer.

"Sharmaji has not made any contact with us or with our department so far," said Manohar Pawar, chief engineer of

vigilance department who had yesterday requested the actor to name the officer who demanded the bribe.

Sharma has 63 lakh followers on his Twitter handle and since he tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tweet

generated sharp reactions from all major political parties, with an eye on the forthcoming civic elections.

It was 'retweeted' and 'liked' by thousands on the social media.

Opposition Congress used the issue to target BJP and Shiv Sena, who together control BMC.

Shiv Sena, meanwhile, dared Kapil to name the bribe seeker.

"This is not a comedy show where he can tweet what is going on in his life. He needs to immediately name the person

publicly who asked for a bribe or people would watch the whole episode like a comedy drama, laugh over it and forget about it," Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said.

Raj Thackeray-led MNS also reacted sharply to Sharma, seizing on a statement he reportedly made alluding to role of

its workers.

Kapil on Friday tweeted his anguish and said, "I am paying Rs 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office @narendramodi (sic)."

"Yeh hain aapke achhe din? @narendramodi (are these your good days)," he had sought to know in another tweet yesterday, referring to Modi's 2014 poll slogan of "good days are ahead".

It sparked instant response from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who requested Sharma to provide the authorities with the necessary information to punish the culprit.

"Kapilbhai pls provide all info. Have directed MC, BMC to take strictest action. We will not spare the culprit," the Chief Minister said in a tweet on Friday to which Kapil thanked the CM.

Later, in an apparent attempt to cap the controversy from escalating, Sharma said he did not seek to blame any political party.

"I just voiced my concern on the corruption I faced with certain individuals..Its No blame on any political party be it BJP, MNS or ShivSena (sic)," he tweeted in the evening.
Ahmedabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has summoned former Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel to Delhi after a BJP rally in Surat ended in bedlam in the presence of party President Amit Shah, BJP sources said on Saturday.

Anandiben Patel, who quit as Chief Minister just over a month ago, has left in a private plane to Delhi, informed sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party told IANS.

Anandiben Patel was present on the dias on Thursday night when young Patidars disrupted the rally which was called to show that the BJP still enjoyed the support of the Patel community.

The disruption and violence forced Amit Shah, Chief Minister Vipay Rupani and Gujarat BJP President Jitu Vaghani to cut short their speeches. Such a display of protest is unusual for the BJP in Gujarat.

The 'rajasva samaroh' or royal felicitation of Patel legislators of the BJP was organised by real estate developers and diamond merchants of Surat to express the community's confidence in the BJP government.

It was also meant to send out a message to the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), led by 23-year-old Hardik Patel, that the Patidars had returned to the BJP.

The show of strength, according to reliable sources, was the brainchild of Amit Shah, a strong backer of new Chief Minister Rupani.

The Gujarat government had pulled out all stops to make the function a success.

But it all came a cropper following the ruckus at the meeting with Shah, Rupani and Union Minister Parshottam Rupala cutting short their speeches and making a hurried exit.

The police used lathis and tear gas to quell the protestors. Among those watching the proceedings was Anandiben Patel, along with other Patel legislators of the BJP.

Patel had quit just over a month ago ostensibly for the inability of her government to tackle the Patidar agitation and the later Dalit protests across the state.

All through Narendra Modi's over 12-year-long rule of Gujarat, Anandiben Patel and Amit Shah were considered his closest confidants but both remained mutually daggers drawn.

As Modi moved to New Delhi to take over as the Prime Minister in May 2004, he ensured the Chief Ministership for Anandiben Patel and the national party's presidentship for Shah.

But that reportedly did not reduce their political rivalry. Even their supporters have remained at loggerheads in Gujarat.

After the latest change of guard in Gujarat, those considered close to Anandiben Patel, be it politicians or civil servants, are in the process of being edged out.

This has reportedly angered Anandiben Patel, the party sources say.

A former home minister, Shah had ensured massive police presence at the rally venue in Surat.

Those present included two IGPs, one DIG, six DCPs, 13 ACPs, 29 inspectors and 70 sub-inspectors besides around 2,000 policemen. But this could not deter the PAAS supporters.

The function was an issue of prestige and a target of one lakh audience was set but just over 15,000 turned up.
Islamabad: Pakistan government has come under fire from the opposition which accused it of hiding the details of the probe into Pakistani nationals' involvement in the Pathankot terror attack, prompting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to announce that the findings would be made public.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) senator Farhatullah Babar during a session of Senate, upper house of parliament, on Friday lambasted the Sharif government over its failure to respond to his query about details of the January 2 attack on the Indian airbase.

The Express Tribune reported that the senator accused the government of misleading the Senate by deliberately concealing information from them and went to the extent of alleging that the government was patronising militants.

"Why else did the government not share details of the investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Pathankot attack with the House?"

He said government had failed to respond to question asked four months ago.

"Has the Indian government provided any facts/information to the Pakistani government? And what is the latter doing in this regard?" he had asked.

The queries, however, went unanswered.

This prompted Prime Minister Sharif to announce that the findings of the probe would be made public. However, Babar said that he had raised the question four months ago and yet the question had been deferred each time since then.

Before the minister in-charge could speak up, Leader of the House, Senator Raja Zafarul Haq stood up and strongly opposed the conclusion drawn by the senator.

"The minister will reply to your question, but it is not appropriate to attack anyones intention," he said. Minister of State for Interior and Narcotics Balighur Rehman regretted the delay as the issue in question involved the Foreign Office and some other agencies.

"The reply will definitely be submitted soon".

He reiterated that the National Action Plan was being implemented and said terrorist incidents, on average, had come down due to that.

He dispelled the notion that the government was hiding any information from the House.
Jammu: Separatists should have put across an implementable roadmap for resolution of Kashmir issue instead of shying away from meeting the all-party delegation and being "caught in darkness", Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has said.

She also voiced hope that the Centre will initiate an inclusive engagement through an institutionalized mechanism to address the Kashmir issue and the separatists will respond positively to it.

"Instead of being caught in darkness, the separatists should have met the members of the all-party delegation and put across an implementable roadmap for the resolution of the (Kashmir) issue," the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister was quoted as saying at a function here yesterday.

She said "by shying away from talks, a message has gone around that the separatists are not interested in ending the people's miseries by coming forward for peaceful resolution of the issue", according to an official statement.

"We hope a fresh and productive effort would be made by the country's political leadership to reach out to all the stakeholders in the state to address the issue through inclusive and comprehensive engagement," she said.

Separatist leaders had refused to meet some of the MPs of the all-party delegation who had reached out to them during its visit the state from 4 September to 5 September.

Mehbooba expressed the hope that the separatists would also respond positively to the fresh initiative to end the decades-old political uncertainty in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Chief Minister appreciated the efforts of the all-party delegation to reach out to various shades of political opinion in Jammu and Kashmir and added that it depicts the true essence of India's vibrant democracy.

Mehbooba said a serious and sustained effort is required at various levels to resolve the problem and ensure peace and stability in the state and the region.

"It (Kashmir issue) is an complex problem and a chief minister or a prime minister can't overnight come up with a solution to this multi-dimensional challenge," she said.

Mehbooba said, "What is required is a serious, concerted and inclusive effort at diplomatic and political levels through a institutionalized mechanism to resolve the issue."

She said that violence is no solution to any problem, rather reposing faith in the dialogue process is the only way out to address the issues.

She said that governance and political process should go hand in hand to overcome the tough times.

"The people of Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of their age, gender, status or the political affiliation, have been suffering the disastrous consequences of the turmoil and unrest and they have to be retrieved from this blood-spattered quagmire, sooner the better," she said and added that the onus

lies on all the stakeholders.

The Chief Minister reiterated that the present government, based on its Agenda of Alliance, is working on a comprehensive developmental road map to ensure equitable development of all the three regions of the state.

She added that various projects that were left in limbo have now seen the light of the day.

She said that it is the state government's vision of developing Jammu as an independent tourist destination and bringing the state on the world map as the top tourist destination.

She said that the Government is committed to enhance the job avenues for the youth and increase employability.

She also appreciated the people of Kashmir for their cooperation in the smooth conduct of the Amarnath Yartra showing the cultural essence of Kashmiriyat.
New Delhi: The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has got into limelight for wrong reasons having received a Rs 50-lakh donation from an NGO run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has been accused of radicalising youths, but the money has been returned.

According to officials of Union Home Ministry, which have put Naik's Islamic Research Foundation under 'Prior Category list', the NGO had given donations to an allied entity of RGF called Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) in 2011 which engages in promoting girl education and providing money to needy for meeting hospital expenses.

The RGCT, a registered, not-for-profit organisation, was established in 2002 to address the development needs of the underprivileged of the country, especially the rural poor. It works in the poorest regions of Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed states in the country, and Haryana.

Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) spokesperson Aarif Malik said the money had been given to the NGO RGCT, which was also registered under the FCRA in 2011, and it was returned in July this year after a terror attack in a Dhaka restaurant.

"We have received the money back in July this year for reasons best known to the NGO. However, my point is that why has this NGO singled out. We gave money to other NGOs also," Malik said.

He accused the government of having "pre-decided notion" of "banning the organisation after they failed to gather even a shred of evidence" during months of investigation in late 2014 which continued till early 2015.

"I have a simple question. Was there anything wrong in giving donations?" he asked.

The IRF, NGO run by Salafist preacher Naik, is embroiled in a controversy because of allegations that he was inciting youth for terror.

The IRF spokesman said that a thorough probe was conducted earlier after the new government took over but they could not find any evidence against it.

"I wonder why our FCRA licence was renewed in August 2016? It is because the officials, who have since been suspended by the Government, went by the rule book and not under external and extraneous pressures," he said.

The Home Ministry had suspended Joint Secretary GK Dwivedi, who was heading the foreigners division which deals with the FCRA related issues, and three other officials for renewal of the licence of IRF.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi has owned up the donation but claimed it was unsolicited and a one-off affair.

Singhvi emphasised that the donation preceded IRF's embroilment in allegations of terror and forced conversions, adding Naik's NGO was not on the watchlist at the time.

"It (donation) was discovered by chance when the recent events happened... and some months ago, a remittance was made," Singhvi was quoted as saying.

Organisations like IRF registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act are allowed to transfer money they receive from abroad to other FCRA approved bodies. Both RGF and RGCT have FCRA licence.

Naik has come under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star had reported that one of the attackers of the 1 July terror strike in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

Naik, in a lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".

The popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based IRF is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.

He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, which has been banned after the Dhaka attack.
There is a proverb in Hindi, Sau Chuhe Khaake Billi Haj ko Chali (After eating 100 mice, the cat proceeds on a pilgrimage), which literally means a person who has committed several sins pretends to be innocent, which is more of a sham.

This analogy fits aptly with Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal. He said in Amritsar on Friday that if his party was voted to power in Punjab, he would ban liquor and meat around the holy area of the Golden Temple, reported DNA.

This statement made by Kejriwal after visiting the Golden Temple sounds hypocritical.

Its ironic that Kejriwal-led AAP government that promised to make Delhi addiction-free (Nashamukti) in its 70-point manifesto during Delhi Assembly election, granted 399 liquor licenses in 371 working days  which accounts to issuance of more than one license per day.

Even during the formation of AAP, Kejriwal had announced a that prior to opening of any liquor vend in any area, an approval of local residents would be taken.

Now, its the same Kejriwal, who has come up with a give and take offer for the voters of Punjab  you vote us to power, well ban liquor.

This has amazed many in Delhi, including ex-AAP leader and founding member of Swaraj Abhiyan Yogendra Yadav, who challenged Kejriwal to tell the truth on liquor license issue and released the list of 399 liquor licensees.

It is the same AAP that has gone against its promise to make Delhi addiction-free (Nashamukti) in its manifesto, Yadav told Firstpost.

Kejriwal is on a four-day visit to Punjab to douse the fire that has been ignited by the rebels within the party over various issues ranging from ticket distribution to allegations of soliciting sexual favours by AAP leaders in lieu of tickets for the 2017 assembly polls. AAP's position in Punjab became volatile after its state convener Sucha Singh Chottepur was sacked.

This gentleman (Kejriwal) has no idea about the culture of Punjab. There are several burning issues in the state which need to be addressed and still he only talks about banning liquor and meat. Basically, it shows paucity of ideas among the party leaders. There has been a rapid decline in AAP's popularity in Punjab, especially because of the way the party leaders dealt with their counterparts, said Bhai Baldeep Singh, an exponent of the oldest Gurbani Kirtan form of singing.

Moreover, does Amritsar need a certificate from Kejriwal to be a Holy city? Guru Ramdas built it and since its inception, Amritsar has been a holy city, quipped Singh, who had also contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Khadoor Sahib Constituency.

Swaraj Abhiyan that has consistently been on a campaign against the granting of 399 liquor licenses through public hearings, has termed Kejriwals promise to the people of Amritsar  a big joke.

This just sounds like a big joke by Kejriwal. AAP had promised in its Swaraj Bill that prior to opening of liquor vends, approval will be taken from local residents. However, the promise was not adhered to while distributing the 399 licenses. Even Kejriwal mentioned this clause in his book Swaraj. The party that failed to keep its promises made to the Delhi voters is now trying to fool the people of Punjab. Its absolutely ridiculous, remarked Swaraj Abhiyans national executive member Anupam.
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Grand-family dinner

at Ascension

Ascension Episcopal Church will hold a Grandfamily Dinner tonight, celebrating National Grandparents Day with a shared meal among the grandfamilies at Ascension. The family emphasis is on the grandparent/grandchild relationship, but also includes others who fill that role. The dinner will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and free-will donations will benefit Youth Activities at Ascension. Reservations are requested, but not required: (612)-750-3057.

Ascensions Sunday worship services of Holy Communion will be held at 8 and 10 am, celebrated by Pastor Neal Collins. Youth Sunday school is on summer break. Nursery care is not available; children are welcome at worship services with their parents. A fellowship coffee hour will be held after the 10 am worship service.

Ascension Cafe, the adult discussion group, will meet from 9:10 am to 9:55 am. Led by Tim Dodd, the group will focus on the scriptural readings of the day.

Knit-Us-Together, the handwork group, meets on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 pm. All are welcome for worship, study and fellowship at Ascension.

Ascension Episcopal Church is handicapped accessible and is located at 371 Eastland Dr. North, Twin Falls. More information about Ascension can be found at www.episcopaltwinfalls.org or call 733-1248.

First Presbyterian Church anniversary

First Presbyterian Church of Twin Falls will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of our relationship with pastor Phil Price this Sunday Sept 11. Service will start at 11 a.m. followed by a potluck lunch with bbq pork. All are welcome.

The fall session of Sunday school begins this Sunday, September 11, at the Jerome First Presbyterian Church. Children from preschool through fifth will be dismissed from the 9:01 worship service. An adult class beginning at 9 a.m. based on the book, The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey, will be led by Pastor Dale Metzger.

At 10:45 am a combined age group childrens Sunday School will meet, as will the older youth class led by Larry Pennington.

Tuesday, September 13, Chat and chew will resume at 11:30 a.m. Bring a lunch dish to share and enjoy a lively time of sharing.

Wednesday, September 14, Bread of Life resumes. Dinner begins at 6 pm followed by classes for all age groups. All are welcome.

Jerome Methodist News

Sunday at 9:30 a.m. a brunch will be served in celebration of beginning Sunday School classes. Everyone is invited to join in the festivity for fellowship, food and learning more about the Bible. The church will welcome new members and celebrate Baptism on Sept. 11th at the regular church service at 11:30.

Prayer Partners are at the church every Monday morning at 10 a.m. in the parlor. Prayer requests that have been requested will be the focus of the group. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Every Wednesday, the Martha and Mary food bank is held at the Catholic Church from 5 to 7 p.m. More help, plastic bags and egg cartons are always needed.

On Sept. 13, Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. Expresso Readers Group will meet at the home of Lulu Mae Coates. The new study books have arrived and if you have not registered please contact Maxine Palmer at 324-5455. The group meets every Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m.

The church has a local mission project, and the Horizon Elementary School in Jerome will be the recipient of needed school supplies. Please bring your contributions to the church.

The church service is held at 11:30 on Sunday mornings and is located a 211 So Buchanan in Jerome. Everyone is welcome.

Wanderer, Worshipper, Lover of Leaving Rev. Elizabeth Greene

Speaking of community, the poet Rumi writes that we are all wanderers and worshippers and lovers of leaving. That last word, leaving jars us when we think of the groups to which we belong: our churches and temples and places of worship.

But, if he is right that we sometimes seem to love leaving, how do we deal with this, in our communities? How does faith and fellowship keep human beings together joyfully, in the face of all that happens in the world?

Unitarian Universalism honors the differing paths we each travel. Our congregations are places where we celebrate, support, and challenge one another as we continue on our spiritual journeys.

Unitarian Universalists covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equality and compassion in human relations; and acceptance of one another

Newcomers of all religious paths or none at all are always welcome. We are handicapped accessible. Please park in the rear of the building. Child care is available.

Please visit the Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Sunday at the Vendor Blender and Event Center, 588 Addison Ave W. at 10:30 a.m.

The Vendor Blender is at Martin St. and Addison Avenue West.

Bible Studies

Bible Study Fellowship is meeting this fall in several locations Beginning Sept. 15:

Womens Day Class: Twin Falls Nazarene 9:10-11 a.m.

Womens Evening Class: Twin Falls Reformed Church 6:30-8:10 p.m.

Womens Hailey Classes: Calvary Bible Thursdays at 6:45-8:25 a.m. and Fridays at 9:30-11:10 a.m.

Mens Evening Class: First Baptist Church 7:00-8:40 p.m.

This year we are studying the book of John.

To submit information about church events and news. Contact Matt Gooch at mgooch@magicvalley.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. Wednesday for publication on the Saturday religion page. Must insert Church News in the email subject line.
If you are a faithful reader of the bible you know that in days filled with unrest the follower of Christ can live with peace. When the fiery trial (2 Peter 4:13) comes upon you because you are doing good, the biblical Christian can rejoice and be glad when Christs glory is revealed. The faithful, obeying, redeemed follower of Christ can see the sovereignty of God as a peaceful place to rest as the moral landscape of the nation shifts (or free falls into decay.)

The hand of God is actively, not passively, upon all nations, rulers, and governing authorities.

Throughout the land we continue to hear a growing unrest. It is good that we live in a land that gives liberties as we have. They have been held back from some at times. They have been taken advantage of at other times.

A blessed way God lead our founding fathers to establish our beloved America is a rare kind of government that is actually established to both govern and give a pathway to express our grievances.

God has also given the followers of Christ direction on how they are to live out their days in every form of government.

The apostle Paul gave instructions to the believers in the city of Rome on how to live during a time when the government was aggressively opposed to them. As with Jesus, Paul instructed the first century church to be subject to the governing authorities because there is no authority except from God.

In America, every citizen has a pathway to address our issues. This is amazing! We have a pathway to speak to our government, disagree with our government, even run for public office.

But one thing is clear, we are instructed to be a people who do what is good.

That is not a prescription for easy living, it is an instruction of how we behave and speak of those who govern our nation, state, county, and city. While holding each other accountable, by voting, by running for office, the born again believer has a duty as an ambassador of Christs Kingdom to give respect and honor to those who are owed respect and honor.

Today, I submit this open letter I read at a city council meeting a few weeks ago. I, like many of you, am thankful to the Lord for those that serve and protect.

Dear Twin Falls Police Department,

I dont know many of you by name but I see you all throughout my home town. You are appreciated.

Its hard to not get tangled up in the weeds of all the national buzz about our city and the unfortunate way some have spoken to you and about you.

Im always thankful to be at a city council meeting when you are being introduced, awarded a promotion, or being recognized for your duty to the citizens.

Where I dont speak for anyone but myself; I want you to know that we are thankful to God for you.

My gratitude is for the department you represent and the duty you serve. It must require of you something that few are willing to take on. Thank you for your display of bravery that makes my general journey through life a safe and pleasant place to live. You choose to take on dangerous situations, confusing situations, complex relationships and you make way into some of the most sinful conditions any could imagine.

As a pastor I have worked with many in our community that have had encounters with you; thank you for being so compassionate, kind and tender to women and children and victims of abuse. Thank you for choosing to answer the dispatch call to walk into the middle of complex, messy situations and still be there and try to do the right thing.

So many of you operate under extreme pressure with professionalism, restraint, and show respect to those who do not always return the favor is a credit to the department as a whole. And that you do this not knowing that your life may be in danger is yet more than a credit, it is a mercy you give to every citizen.

I want you to know that I pray for you and I pray for your families. I pray for your safety, for wisdom, for courage.

Thank you for your care for all in the community, without prejudice.
TWIN FALLS  A Rexburg man accused of bludgeoning another man with a dumbbell and shovel more than three years ago was back in a Twin Falls courtroom Friday facing a felony charge in the case.

James Ernie Marquez, 41, is charged in a vicious Jan. 23, 2013 beating that left his alleged victim, Michael Flynn, with internal injuries that required doctors to induce a three-day coma. Marquez was arraigned Friday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on a felony count of aggravated battery. He faces an enhanced penalty for the use of a deadly weapon.

Marquez, formerly of Twin Falls, was charged with the same crime in early 2013, but prosecutors dismissed the charge that spring. Last October, prosecutors filed a new charge in the case and issued a warrant for Marquezs arrest that was set to expire next month. He was arrested on that warrant Aug. 27 in Fremont County by an Idaho State Police trooper.

Twin Falls police began investigating Marquez Jan. 23, 2013, after responding to a home on Arrow Wood Court where they found a bloodied Flynn lying on the ground with open wounds on his face and head.

Before he was placed in a medically-induced coma, Flynn told police he had tried to break-up a domestic dispute between Marquez and Marquezs wife, which started a fight between the two friends, court documents said. Flynn said Marquez beat him repeatedly with a weight and a shovel during the fight.

Doctors performed surgeries to treat Flynns internal injuries and large cuts on his head and nose. A tendon in his left forearm was also badly damaged.

Court documents tell of what happened that night:

Four people were at Marquezs home Jan. 23, 2013, when Marquez and his wife got into a dispute. The wifes friend separated her from her husband, and the two women went into a bathroom and locked the door.

Outside the bathroom, Flynn began talking to Marquez about the incident but Marquez told him to mind his own business.

The two men then began fighting, which is where the stories diverge.

After emerging from his coma, Flynn said he was unable to fight back after Marquez punched him first. Flynn said he pleaded with Marquez to stop as Marquez rained down punches on him and told him he was going to kill him. Marquez then picked up a dumbbell, which was being used as a doorstop, and used it to beat Flynn.

(Flynn) said he believes he lost consciousness at some point in this period of the fight, a detective wrote in a sworn affidavit. (Flynn) said that he regained consciousness and he decided to try and get away through the garage. (Flynn) said (Marquez) retrieved a shovel and began hitting him with it over and over while in the garage.

Flynn told police that as Marquez beat him with the shovel, he again pleaded for him to stop, and he wasnt sure how he eventually got out of the garage and away from his attacker.

Marquez told police Flynn threw the first punch and then got him in a headlock. He said he picked up the weight and used it to hit Flynn in the face so Flynn would let go.

Marquez said each man was winning the fight at different times, and he admitted to hitting Flynn with a shovel but said he only did it one time to fight Flynn off. He also said he kicked Flynn repeatedly to get him out of the house.

At the home, police found large areas of blood splatter, a large pool of blood near a door leading to the garage, and a shovel and 2  pound dumbbell both covered in blood.

The physical blood evidence indicates Michael Flynns version of the events are more accurate than James Marquezs version of the events, the detective wrote.

Its unclear why prosecutors dismissed the original charge against Marquez, who is out of custody after posting $5,000 bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
TWIN FALLS  Prosecutors on Friday charged a second married couple suspected of taking part in a burglary spree that targeted businesses from Rogerson to Ketchum.

Spencer Willson Wells, 22, and his wife, Alishia Elaine Bullock, 21, both of Twin Falls, were each arraigned Friday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on four felony counts of burglary.

Police believe the couple was part of a four-person ring, along with Wells sister and her husband, that burglarized at least 18 businesses in Twin Falls, Declo, Hansen, Shoshone, Wendell, Hagerman, Castleford, Rogerson and Ketchum.

On Thursday, prosecutors charged Wells sister, 38-year-old Brezzy Ray Lemons, and her husband, 34-year-old James Howard Arthurs Jr. They were each arraigned on two felony counts.

Twin Falls police caught up to the group Wednesday when officers responding to a service call spotted Arthurs, whose tattoos and bandanna matched those of a suspect from a Sept. 4 burglary at Dairy Queen on Addison Avenue West.

In an interview with police, Arthurs told officers he cut the power to the Dairy Queen and other businesses he burglarized and used a pry bar to open the back doors, court records said. He told police he usually also disabled the surveillance systems inside the businesses but missed the one at Dairy Queen.

Arthurs told police his partner in the Dairy Queen burglary and other break-ins was a man named Danny Eggleston, but Arthurs wife, Lemons, admitted that the other man was her brother, Wells. She told police that Wells wife, Bullock, was also part of the group.

On Thursday, police arrested Wells and Bullock at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street, court documents said. In separate interviews at the police station, the couple confessed to the burglaries and told police similar stories to those that Arthurs and Lemons told on Wednesday.

All four people admitted Bullock drove the group to each of the burglaries in her 2014 Nissan Versa, court documents said. At each location, the two men cut the power to the businesses, then used knives, crow bars, screwdrivers or other tools to pry open the doors. Once inside, they would disable the surveillance system and steal cash, cigarettes, energy drinks, candy and other items.

Wells and Bullock were formally charged with committing the following burglaries, the descriptions of which come from statements made by police and the suspects in court documents:

Aug. 13 at Session Star Shop on Highway 93 in Twin Falls County. An alarm went off about 2:06 a.m. at the store south of Hollister when Wells and Arthurs used a pry bar to open a door. Wells went back to the car when the alarm went off, but Arthurs went inside and stole several cartons of cigarettes.

Aug. 20 at 1,000 Springs Resort in Twin Falls County. Before entering the resort sometime in the early morning, Wells turned off power to the building and forced entry using a crow bar. Once inside, Arthurs cut a cable to the surveillance system and stole an undetermined amount of cash, while Wells made off with energy drinks and candy.

Between Aug. 20 and Aug. 22 at Main Street Mocha in Castleford. Wells and Arthur forced entry into the coffee shop and stole $200 cash from a drawer and tip jar and a non-functioning notebook tablet electronic device.

Aug. 22 at King of Hearts Bar in Castleford. Wells and Arthurs used a pry bar to get inside, where they pulled a cable from a surveillance camera and removed a surveillance recording device from the basement. They made off with more than $1,000 taken from a drawer under the cash register and a jukebox.

Arthurs is charged in the Dairy Queen burglary and another attempted burglary Aug. 28 at The Hideout, a Twin Falls bar. His wife, Lemons, is charged with drug possession and aiding and abetting the attempted burglary at The Hideout. Arthurs also said he believes the group broke into a Mexican restaurant in Ketchum and told police he and Lemons used money from the burglaries to buy methamphetamine.

Both couples are being held in the Twin Falls County Jail, Arthurs and Lemons each in lieu of $250,000 bond. Wells is being held on $25,000 bond and Bullock on $10,000 bond.
Cassia County

Felony sentencings

Harley Cody Turner; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $535.50 costs, $210.80 restitution, 48 months probation, two years determinate time, two years indeterminate time, penitentiary suspended; misdemeanor possession of controlled substance, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor drug paraphernaliause or possess with intent to use, $210.80 restitution.

Virlinda L. Herrera; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $535.50 costs, $100.38 restitution, 48 months probation, two years determinate time, two years indeterminate time, 17 days credited, penitentiary suspended, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor possession of controlled, substance, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor drug paraphernaliause or possess with intent to use, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; $100.38 restitution.

Felony dismissals

Lindsay M. Arredondo; felony possession of controlled substance, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; felony destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor drug paraphernaliause or possess with intent to use; misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, frequenting place where used, manufactured, cultivated, held, delivered, given, dismissed on motion of prosecutor.

Christina Martinez Lara; misdemeanor battery by use of a deadly weapon or instrument, dismissed by motion of prosecutor; felony assaultaggravated with a deadly weapon or instrument without the intent to kill, dismissed on motion of prosecutor.

Ray Mundo Lara; felony battery aggravated by use or a deadly weapon or instrument, dismissed on motion of prosecutor.
BOISE  Jaycene Howards voice trembled when she talked, but her message was clear: No Dakota Access Pipeline.

Howard, 21, was one of more than 200 people who attended a rally Friday on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol, including residents who traveled from the Magic Valley and outside Idaho. Protests have swelled to include thousands of American Indians and others who say the oil pipeline from the Dakotas to Illinois is threatening the environment and tribal lands.

Jason Prettyboy grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation and in Declo. Prettyboy said its important for everyone to be aware of the impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline, especially in the Magic Valley.

Twin Falls is a farming community, Prettyboy said. One of the things that happens when they put these pipelines through is they use eminent domain. That affects everyone  white farmers, Native Americans  its an overreach. If they are going to use eminent domain, whos to say they wont use it here.

Prettyboy graduated from Declo High School in 1994. He grew up farming and raising cattle near Raft River.

I totally connect with the conservative, white farmers, he said. I grew up on farms. Water is sacred in this state. I think a lot of farmers and ranchers understand that.

A judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribes attempt to halt construction on $3.8 billion pipeline that crosses a half-mile north of their reservation in North Dakota. However, a few hours later three federal agencies ordered work to stop on one segment of the project in North Dakota and asked the Texas-based pipeline company to voluntarily pause work on a segment that tribal officials say holds sacred sites and artifacts.

In a joint statement from the Departments of Justice, Army Corp of Engineers and the Interior they said they would reconsider any of its previous decisions on land that borders or is under Lake Oahe and requested that Energy Transfer Partners voluntarily pause work within 20 miles east or west of the lake.

Furthermore, this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be a nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes views on these types of infrastructure projects, the joint statement says.

At the Idaho Statehouse on Friday, speakers included Lee Juan Tyler, sergeant of arms for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Business Council and Lindsay Manning, chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribal Business Council.

Howard, the 21-year-old speaker, traveled from the Duck Valley Indian Reservation with her mother, Jan Howard, and other members of the Shoshone-Paiute tribe. She is Shoshone and Stoney Cree from Canada. As speakers took turns at a microphone, she held a sign above her head: We support Standing Rock. Water is Life. No Dakota Access Pipeline.

Her mother stood on the steps of the capitol holding a sign, as well, that said, Clean water is a human right. Its your problem too. We cant drink oil.

The younger Howard held back tears when she talked about how the pipeline would contaminate drinking water for people in Standing Rock. She said she thinks of her 1-year-old daughter and her future grandchildren. She worries the same thing could happen to them one day.

Howard said it was her duty to join others in front of the states capitol Friday morning, even though she cant travel to Standing Rock until later this week.

Over Labor Day weekend, confrontations between protesters and private security guards hired to protect construction crews became violent. When construction crews removed topsoil across an area 150 feet wide for two miles Sept. 3 that the tribe says contains burial grounds and cultural artifacts, tribal members tried to intercede. Private security workers used guard dogs and pepper spray. Four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured and the dogs bit six people, including a child, and at least 30 people were pepper-sprayed.

Howard watched the confrontation on videos posted to social media.

I cried, she said. I was angry. I told my mom, I need to go.

State authorities announced this week that the the National Guard would be mobilizing at the protest site. The Standing Rock Sioux tribes cause has drawn thousands, including more than 60 tribal nations, to a protest site in North Dakota called Sacred Stone Camp.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe says the pipeline will threaten their environmental well-being and would damage and destroy historic, religious and cultural sites. They also say digging the pipeline under the Missouri River, near the reservations water intake values, would affect the tribes drinking water when the pipeline breaks.

Early in the process, the pipeline was supposed to cross the Missouri River near Bismarck, but authorities worried an oil spill there would put the states drinking water at risk, the Bismarck Tribune reported in August. The U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers evaluated the Bismarck route and concluded it was not a viable option. One of the reasons was its proximity to wellhead source water protection areas that are avoided to protect municipal supply wells, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

This issue is a big issue, Jan Howard said. Its not a problem for just Native Americans. Its for humanity, the plants, and the trees. Everything on earth needs water.

In the joint statement Friday, the Army Corp of Engineers said it will not authorize constructing the Dakota Access pipeline on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe.

Sergio Larios, of Twin Falls, traveled to Boise Friday morning to attend the rally. He said a friend who lives in Boise told him about it, but hes been following the protest for weeks, mostly through social media.

I heard nothing about this in corporate-sponsored media, Larios said. It was from a grassroots source.

Larios spoke at the event and also took part in a march around the capitol building where people held signs and shouted slogans like Water is life.

I believe as an individual, with individual rights, I should lend my support to give voice to this community and to this cause and this effort, Larios said. I loved the turnout. I know there are more, but I was amazed at the turnout. It was nice to see different types of people.
JEROME  A teenage girl was injured Friday night in a four-vehicle chain-reaction crash on U.S. 93 east of Jerome, and the Gooding teen who caused the crash could face charges, police said.

The crash happened about 9 p.m. north of the Idaho 25 junction and blocked both directions of travel for about two hours while troopers investigated, Idaho State Police said in a statement.

Tristian Kaneaster, 18, of Gooding, caused the crash and could face charges, ISP said. Three vehicles ahead of Kaneaster were stopped in the northbound lane waiting for turning traffic when Kaneaster, driving a Dodge Ram pickup, failed to stop, rear-ending a Toyota Camry that crashed into a Chevrolet Traverse and a Mazda MZ3.

The driver of the Camry, a teenage girl whose name was not released, was extricated from her car and taken to St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, ISP said. Neither the girl nor Kaneaster were wearing seat belts.

Stacey Heath, 31, of Shoshone was driving the MZ3 and Wendy Speth, 44, of Hailey was driving the Traverse. They were not injured.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is very popular in Russia. Polling from the Levada Center puts him at an 82 percent approval rating as of last month. He hasnt been beneath 60 percent since he rose to national attention in 1999.

Putins recent low point was in early 2014. What turned it around? Putins annexation of Crimea. In recent months, his numbers have been inflated by another military incursion, Russias efforts against the Islamic State in Syria.

It is easy to dismiss Putins popularity as the sort of artificial metric were used to from, say, North Korea. But thats an overly simple explanation. The Washington Posts Monkey Cage blog explained in November why the numbers arent Kim Jong Un-esque. Researchers ran a study to measure the extent to which people may have been lying to pollsters, finding that Putins broad support appeared to be genuine.

During NBCs Commander-in-Chief Forum on Wednesday night, Donald Trump used Putins popularity to argue that the Russian president must be doing something right.

Moderator Matt Lauer raised the subject. You said, I will tell you, in terms of leadership, hes getting an A, our president is not doing so well,  Lauer prompted. And when referring to a comment that Putin made about you, I think he called you a brilliant leader, you said its always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his country and beyond.

Well, he does have an 82 percent approval rating, according to the different pollsters, who, by the way, some of them are based right here, Trump replied. Its worth noting: That figure is right on the mark.

The core of Trumps argument came a bit later.

If he says great things about me, Im going to say great things about him, Trump said. Ive already said, he is really very much of a leader. I mean, you can say, oh, isnt that a terrible thing  the man has very strong control over a country. Now, its a very different system, and I dont happen to like the system. But certainly, in that system, hes been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.

Note this part: I mean, you can say, oh, isnt that a terrible thing  the man has very strong control over a country.

Part of the reason that Putin is so popular is precisely that: He has strong control over his country. That control takes many forms, one of which is that he has zero tolerance for dissenting media opinions.

Russia scored an 83 out of 100 in the annual press freedom scores compiled by the watchdog organization Freedom Press. (100 is the worst possible score.) By contrast, the United States scored a 21. Whats more, in January, Politifact determined that since 2000, when Putin was first elected to the presidency, 34 journalists have been murdered in Russia.

When Trump was confronted with Putins track record on journalists on MSNBCs Morning Joe earlier this year, he was unfazed.

Hes running his country, and at least hes a leader, unlike what we have in this country, Trump said, when presented with some critiques of Putin.

But, again: He kills journalists that dont agree with him, host Joe Scarborough replied.

Well, Trump said, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.

Trump has consistently berated the media for what he views as unfair coverage of his campaign. For an extended period, he barred media outlets (including The Washington Post) from attending his events, a ban that was recently lifted. He has talked about somehow changing libel laws so that it would be easier to sue media outlets for coverage that he didnt like.

So the throughline here is this: Trump thinks Putin should be emulated because he is viewed positively in his country. He is viewed positively in part because he crushes dissenting media opinions, something that Trump has also either praised or tacitly accepted. Its part of being a leader, it seems.

I mean, you can say, oh, isnt that a terrible thingthe man has very strong control over a country, Trump said. For most of Americas recent political history, there was no ensuing but.
The following editorial appears on Bloomberg View:

It was hardly a surprise that the House unanimously passed a bill supported by the families of Sept. 11 victims just before the 15th anniversary of the attack. Unfortunately, law is more likely to make the U.S. vulnerable to unlimited lawsuits by its enemies. President Barack Obama should stick to his promise to reject it, and ideally Congress will come to its senses and not try to override the veto.

While the bill doesn't mention any nation specifically, its purpose is clearly to allow U.S. citizens to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Saudis have long been sponsors of extremist Islam, but evidence tying them to actual perpetrators of the 2001 attacks is circumstantial at best. The release of the so-called "28 pages" from the congressional investigation of Sept. 11 disappointed those certain it contained proof of Saudi involvement.

It's not even clear that the act would be much help in any lawsuits: It contains a provision giving the executive branch the power to stay any proceeding so long as it "is engaged in good faith discussions with the foreign state defendant concerning the resolution of the claims against the foreign state."

It is abundantly clear, by contrast, that the bill would undermine the longstanding principle of sovereign immunity, under which such disputes are resolved between nations, not in courts. The unraveling of this doctrine makes any nation vulnerable to suits by the citizens of another  and no state will be more vulnerable than the U.S.

If this principle is abandoned, it's a good bet that anti-American lawsuits will flourish not just in hostile states like Iran  where, in fact, the U.S. has been found guilty many times in judgments not enforceable under sovereign immunity  but almost certainly in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and other countries where U.S. counter-terrorism efforts have mistakenly killed civilians. Moreover, in addition to the potential monetary costs, parties in civil suits are often given wide powers of discovery, potentially allowing them access to state secrets.

The Sept. 11 victims and their families deserve everlasting support and compassion, and they are admirable in their dogged pursuit of justice. But members of Congress might also want to consider the sort of "justice" this bill would leave the U.S. vulnerable to on the global stage.
Cheer

Top economic development leaders met Thursday at a conference held by the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization, and there was plenty to celebrate.

In the past 15 years, the group has had a hand in luring or expanding 58 companies, boasting $1.8 billion in capital investments and 5,000 new jobs.

And experts say the growth will keep rolling, if not accelerate. The area can expect to add an astonishing 14,000 new jobs over the next decade, one state labor analyst predicted.

Problem is, unless something changes  and quickly  there wont be enough people here to fill the new jobs. The region could be short as many as 5,000 workers by 2025.

All things considered, thats not the worst problem to have. In a booming economy, its to be expected that jobs will grow faster than the labor pool. The alternate scenario is much worse: reams of workers with no job prospects.

Our current situation puts pressure on employers to retain and attract top talent. More companies are offering worker perks and better pay, and are striving to create a workplace culture that benefits employees.

For bosses, Its not a my way or the highway world anymore, said Brett Simms of Workforce Training Solutions in Idaho Falls.

Simply put: The more employers compete for the best workers, the better it is for the workforce.

Jeer

Jeers to the Filer School District, which this week suddenly placed three employees on leave  without naming the employees or explaining why.

In a brief statement, the district said accusations had been levied at the employees, and a criminal investigation was underway.

The public deserves to know whats up. Especially because it appears one of the accused is Superintendent John Graham.

The school board met behind closed doors to discuss the allegations and voted to place the three employees on leave. Just moments later, it appointed Principal Shane Hild as acting superintendent, raising suspicion that the districts top administrator was among those removed from his duties.

We appreciate that an argument could be made that since nothing has been proven yet, the employees deserve to remain anonymous. But that position doesnt hold much weight when youre talking about public employees  paid with your tax money and charged with caring for your children.

A criminal investigation and separate district investigation will determine whether theres any credence to whatever the employees have been accused of doing. In the meantime, the district should be more forthcoming. Parents deserve more transparency.

Jeer

Unbelievably, the residents of Triumph, a little hamlet near Ketchum, are trying to block a camp for kids with cancer, saying it could bring too much traffic to the area.

Camp Rainbow Gold has held the camp for years on private property and is now seeking a permanent home by buying property in an area thats zoned for rural and residential use. It needs a special permit to open the camp.

Residents are telling planners to take a hike.

After years of generous support in the Wood River Valley, we are disappointed at how this project is being perceived. Camp Rainbow Gold Executive Director Elizabeth Lizberg said. Comments were made that are hurtful to the children and families we serve and the mission we fulfill.

Camp Rainbow Gold was started in 1985 by Twin Falls surgeon Dave McClusky to offer children suffering from cancer a chance to be normal and experience the outdoors. It became a model for similar camps all across the country, some of which provide a last chance for a childhood experience before kids succumb to a terminal disease.

Triumph residents, however, seem more concerned with the inconvenience of a few more cars and how much sewage the camp will create.

How twisted.
Malian opposition leader Soumaila Cisse on Thursday called on President Aboubakar Keita to facilitate an atmosphere of dialogue in the landlocked former French colony, one of the worlds poorest nations.

He made the call shortly after a meeting with the president in capital city Bamako.

The greatest problem I have observed is the lack of dialogue in our country. The opposition has requested frequently the organization of dialogue. I emphasized that it is good for us to have national consultations to discuss security, institutional and governance related problems, Soumaila Cisse said after the meeting.

Since 2012, when rebels took up arms against the central government and declared an independent northern state, Mali has struggled with terrorist attacks and skirmishes in the north between rebel factions and pro-government militias. Rebuilding the populations confidence in the government has been a challenge.

Soumaila Cisse stressed the need to review the electoral code and dates of the municipal elections.

The municipal elections initially programmed for 2014 were later postponed to 2016 due to an unstable political climate.

The main Tuareg separatist coalition earlier this year said it would oppose efforts to hold the elections. It said the peace accord requires a transition team be established in the north first.
South Africas parliament has approved high-level civil servant Busisiwe Mkhwebanes nomination as the countrys next Public Protector.

The parliament approved the nomination of the 46-year-old lawyer with 263 votes in favour, 79 against and 1 abstention.

According to CNBC Africa, the opposition Democratic Alliance declined to support Mkhwebane due to her work with the State Security Agency (SSA), which has oversight responsibility for civilian intelligence operations.

The Public Protector cannot be seen to be even remotely connected to the State Security Agency, Glynnis Breytenbach, the DAs shadow minister of justice said without elaborating.

The opposition party believes her association with the SSA could prevent her from taking on cases implicating senior government officials, CNBC Africa reported.

The party also accused her of being a spy for the Government while on the State Security Agencys payroll during her time as immigration officer at the South African embassy in China in 2010.

Mkhwebane emerged as the favourite during selection process by an ad-hoc committee made up of members of several political parties. The committee was chaired by Makhosi Khoza. She was selected from over 60 candidates nominated by South Africans.

Mkhwebane has vast legal experience and began her career at the Department of Justice as a lawyer, before moving on to work at the South African Human Rights Commission as a senior researcher.
THE STAGGERING COST OF ALL THAT 'CHEAP' LABOR: Encouraging both legal and illegal mass immigration continues to be a primary aim for both politicians and organizations on the left. Breitbart News previously revealed that the wealthy Ford Foundation poured an astonishing $114 million into organizations that push for mass immigration and amnesty. Spencer Lindquist
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KOLKATA, India  Few people are as closely identified with a city as Mother Teresa is with Kolkata, the onetime colonial Indian capital where the Albanian nun garnered worldwide admiration for her work with the poor, infirm and outcast.

As the Catholic Church prepared to canonize her as a saint, the city formerly known as Calcutta got a rare moment in the spotlight.

But not everyone is celebrating.

She had no significant impact on the poor of this city, said Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who served as mayor from 2005 to 2010.

Whatever good work she did has also been done by any other philanthropic organization. I dont find anything extraordinary in it.

Bhattacharya is one of a few vocal critics in Kolkata who argue that Mother Teresas shelters glorified the ill rather than treating them, and that her charity appeals across the world misstated the reality of what was once among Indias most prosperous cities.

No doubt there was poverty in Calcutta, but it was never a city of lepers and beggars, as Mother Teresa presented it, Bhattacharya said.

She was responsible for creating a negative image of this city. As a Calcuttan I feel totally disgusted by it.

Pope Francis canonization of Mother Teresa in a ceremony at the Vatican on Sunday has renewed a debate over her legacy in the city she made synonymous with suffering and sacrifice.

Many in Kolkata revere her for the half-century of service that earned her a Nobel Peace Prize and the moniker saint of the gutters. The Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded in 1950, sheltered tens of thousands of leprosy victims, sidewalk-dwellers, tuberculosis patients, orphans and the disabled at 19 homes across the city, and now has branches in 150 countries.

Until her death in 1997 at age 87, she was the Indian governments favorite adopted citizen, honored with its highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980.

Even as Hindu nationalist groups rose to prominence and opposed the expansion of Christian missionary organizations, Mother Teresa was usually accommodated. She opened her first shelter  Nirmal Hriday, or Pure Heart, a home for the dying  in an abandoned temple next to Kolkatas most revered Hindu shrine.

It is a great blessing that Calcutta is associated with Mother Teresa, said Sunita Kumar, an artist and socialite who befriended her and served as an unofficial spokeswoman.

***

In a city of 5 million that gave India some of its greatest writers and artists, including Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, it is Mother Teresas name and visage  swathed in her familiar white sari with blue stripes  that are most prominent.

Park Street, the citys main commercial thoroughfare, was renamed for her. Mother House, the gray-washed hostel for nuns where she lived and is now entombed, draws tourists from around the world. Volunteers of all ages flock to her charity homes.

In the narrow lanes around the Nirmal Hriday house in Kalighat, where colonial-era buildings gently decay in the sticky heat, residents and saffron-clad Hindu priests recalled Mother Teresa  although weakened by a heart ailment in her later years  as an indomitable presence.

She would walk through the streets or go around in a wheelchair, speaking with everyone, said Renu Sarnakar, a bespectacled woman in her 50s who was fashioning packets of Hindu religious offerings out of banana leaves. Once she caressed my face very lovingly, even though I was ill.

A widow, Sarnakar said she was admitted to Nirmal Hriday a decade ago with tuberculosis. Medical care was basic, and Sarnakar recalled that many in the womens ward did not survive.

The ones who die, they die, Sarnakar said. But for those who can get better, the sisters are very good to us.

Mother Teresa faced criticism over the spartan conditions at Nirmal Hriday beginning in the early 1990s. Robin Fox, the editor of the medical journal Lancet, found after volunteering there that the sisters did not seek medical diagnoses for patients and administered only the most rudimentary painkillers and antibiotics.

***

The nuns resisted change, with Mother Teresa often saying that suffering brought one closer to God. A decade after her death, the nun then in charge of the home, Sister Glenda, told the local Telegraph newspaper, We dont want modern things.

In the fall of 2008, Hemley Gonzalez, a Cuban-born Miami real estate broker seeking a fresh start after the housing crash, came to Nirmal Hriday as a volunteer. He was tasked with giving daily sponge baths to 50 men, including some suffering from respiratory infections.

But there was no heating, making the water unbearably cold for the patients, Gonzalez said.

The men started screaming when I poured water on them, he said. Im not a doctor, Im not a nurse, but I can tell by common sense that if someone has a respiratory disease you dont bathe them with cold water.

When Gonzalez proposed raising money for a water heater, senior nuns rebuffed him.

Gonzalez said the nuns did not distinguish between patients who were terminally ill and those who could be treated and released. He said he observed nuns rinsing dirty needles with tap water and reusing them.

It felt like a museum of poverty, said Gonzalez, 40, who later founded Responsible Charity, a nonprofit organization that promotes childrens education in Kolkata and the western city of Pune.

Today, the bathrooms and water systems have been improved, and needles are sterilized. Still, the house remains spare. Inside the mens ward, two dozen slender cots are lined up side by side under ceiling fans. One morning recently, a European volunteer filled a pail to wash the misshapen arms of a crippled man, who howled when the sponge grazed a sore on his palm.

***

Kumar said Mother Teresa gave dignity in death to thousands who would have perished on the streets and dismissed criticism that the millions she raised were nowhere to be seen in Kolkata.

No one can accuse the Missionaries of Charity of mishandling funds, Kumar said.

Aroup Chatterjee, a Kolkata-born physician, said when he moved to Britain to practice medicine in the mid-1980s, Westerners told him constantly that his city must be horrible, because thats where Mother Teresa works.

While Kolkata has vast pockets of poverty  3 in 10 residents live in slums  it has lower income inequality and fewer underage workers than other major cities, according to official statistics, and the states per capita income is on par with the national average.

It was very disturbing for me to hear that people thought that I came from a city and a culture that was so helpless that we couldnt take care of ourselves, and we had to depend on an Albanian nun to look after our every need, Chatterjee said.

A former volunteer at one of her charitable homes, Chatterjee has spoken out against Mother Teresa for more than two decades. His research helped form the basis for Hells Angel, a 1994 documentary hosted by British author Christopher Hitchens that was the first major critique of Mother Teresa to appear in the mainstream Western media.

In a 400-page book, recently rereleased under the title Mother Teresa: The Untold Story, Chatterjee levels an extensive list of complaints  including her embrace of unsavory donors (including savings and loan swindler Charles Keating) and allegations that she secretly converted Hindu and Muslim patients to Christianity on their deathbeds.

In a videotaped January 1992 meeting with the staff at Scripps Clinic in San Diego, where she had been treated for pneumonia, she boasted of baptizing as many as 29,000 people who had died at Nirmal Hriday since 1952.

Not one has died without receiving the special ticket for St. Peter, we call it, she said. It is so beautiful to see the people die with so much joy.

Chatterjee said Indian officials should have raised concerns that the conversions violated the patients religious freedom, but such views remain unpopular. Last year, a prominent Hindu leader drew nationwide outrage when he alleged that conversion was Mother Teresas main motive.

People are afraid to come out against such a Western icon, Chatterjee said on a visit to Kolkata. India is still a colonized nation in its mind.

***

Mother Teresas path to sainthood was fast-tracked the year after she died by the then-pope, John Paul II. In December, she cleared the last hurdle when Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to her  the recovery of a Brazilian man who suffered from brain tumors.

The first miracle was recognized in 2003 after a tribal Indian woman, Monica Besra, said a medallion with Mother Teresas image cured her cancerous tumor. Besras doctor challenged that claim, saying the tumor was actually a cyst due to tuberculosis, and treated with medication.

Debasis Bhattacharya, Kolkata-based director of the Science and Rationalists Association of India, a group that advocates for scientific thinking, said the miracle claim would encourage others to seek dubious cures from gurus and faith healers.

Bhattacharya, who is no relation to the former mayor, said that despite the money and attention lavished on the Missionaries of Charity, their work has not dented the citys poverty.

I dont think theres been any big change in Calcutta due to Mother Teresa, Bhattacharya said. It would have been the same with or without her.
At the top of Elk Mountain, Kristin Barker hopped into the bed of the Ford pickup sometimes called "The Green Monster," raised the radio telemetry antenna high above her head and put the receiver to her ear.

From her vantage point, she could see far and wide, the tops of other mountains draped in forest green, the tamaracks that hadn't started turning golden yet, the sky in striations of gray and silver.

As the master's candidate in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana listened for a single bull elk, she turned the device one way, then another.

The receiver crackled, but it didn't beep.

"Honestly, I don't have high hopes, but we have to do our due diligence," Barker said.

The researcher with an undergraduate degree in English was in the field far up Miller Creek at the tail end of a study examining how elk migration patterns affect their nutrition.

Barker said she was attracted to the project because it's collaborative and also meaningful outside the classroom. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and a private conservation company called MPG Ranch also are working on the study.

"I would like to do something that is important and applicable in the real world," Barker said.

Truth be told, she'd rather be out in the great outdoors any day of the week, although at this point in the research, she's spending more time at the computer screen looking for stories in the heaps of data the team gathered rather than trekking through the woods.

"I actually would have preferred to do 100 percent in the field, but my adviser (Mike Mitchell) told me I already know how to do field work, and I'm here to learn science," Barker said, who estimated overall field work at some 50 percent. "That's fair."

And in Montana, the connection between research in the lab and work in the field is close, sometimes just a short truck ride away.

***

Before heading out, Barker tossed a couple of backpacks into the backseat of "The Green Monster," also called "The Hulk," and stuck her coffee thermos in the console.

On any given trip, she and any of the researchers heading into the field might carry a topographical map, a GPS unit, radio telemetry equipment, PVC pipe squares for vegetation work, high-tech scissors, calipers to measure shrubs, iPads, and brown paper bags for samples.

"And latex gloves for handling fecal samples. Very important," Barker said.

The project started in 2014, she said, and as is typical with this type of work, the team brought on the master's student in 2015, after its inception, to carry out the data analysis portion toward the end.

To collect information, the scientists had collared 65 elk in the Sapphire Mountains. Most of the collars had dropped off and been retrieved, but Barker was looking for data from one that remained.

"Two bulls still have collars on 'em. One of them hasn't transmitted in a while," Barker said.

It sounded like a lovely problem for Barker; even though her main job at this point was looking at data at a computer in the Natural Sciences building on campus, she had to chase one last elk.

***

The trip to the top of the mountain took Barker through meadows, past a small vegetable farm, and under a deep green canopy of pine, maybe spruce  "I'd have to touch the needles to be sure."

Once, a tiny rabbit hopped along on the side of the road, one of the many critters Barker has encountered on her excursions. She'd seen a black bear, whitetail deer, mule deer, and lots of birds.

"Once, I found a little caterpillar cocoon," Barker said.

The mountain lions were there, too, but they observe the people; rarely is it the other way around.

Last week, the researcher had to tread with special care because it was hunting season, and she didn't want to upset the balance in the field. Barker didn't want to get in the way of the hunters, nor did she want to force elk from any hiding spots.

"During hunting season, you want to be real cautious to be fair to both parties," said Barker, a hunter herself.

On the drive, Barker spoke about the project in a way that made it clear science is a creative pursuit. The researchers have many different hypotheses, not just one, and they were testing different answers, which weren't mutually exclusive.

For instance, one idea is that the more an elk migrates, the better access it has to more nutritious food.

"You have to be creative to even come up with a good question," Barker said.

To find answers, the team collected data about the elk, and nutritional information about plants, such as balsamroot and spotted knapweed, at various stages of life.

At least last week, Barker only had preliminary conclusions to the question about nutrition posed by the agency. She's scheduled to graduate in December 2017, and before she does, she plans to use the data to answer one of her own questions about elk in the Sapphires, too.

"I'm trying to understand why the full continuum of migration behavior is represented in this population," Barker said.

Some elk migrate, but some start to migrate and then return, and their range of behaviors is wide. Some people believe they see patterns in elk movement, but so far the stories are only anecdotal and not backed by data, Barker said.

Some species, such as the wildebeest, have stopped migrating altogether, she said.

"Migratory behavior seems to be changing in a lot of species," Barker said.

The state agency will keep the data from the study, she said, and they'll continue to seek answers in it to questions about life and wild places even after this particular project ends.

***

Before coming to Montana, Barker worked in the software industry in Colorado.

Eventually, she found her volunteer work monitoring bats more interesting, and she decided to seek an advanced degree in wildlife biology. She headed to Missoula because she liked the town itself  which she had visited earlier while doing wolf research  as well as the campus lab, called the Montana Cooperative Research Unit, and the strength of the program, recognized nationally.

"It's one of the better wildlife bio programs in the country," Barker said.

After a few fruitless minutes with the antenna on the top of the mountain, the researcher revved up the truck again and rolled to a different vantage site. She didn't have luck there and she figured the batteries had died in the collar.

Typically, the collars upload data to a satellite every two hours, but it hadn't been sending information and she couldn't pick it up manually.

"He could be anywhere," she said.

With most of the collars already secure, though, Barker hopped back in the truck and headed back to campus, where she traded her socks and boots for a pair of sandals and settled in for computer analysis.

"This is where the magic happens," she said, joking.

Really, the magic seemed to be the way the campus and the field were bound together. Barker had landed on the top of Elk Mountain in the morning to listen for the signal of one bull elk, and she was back in her office the same afternoon, looking at the results of a couple of seasons of elk on the move in Montana.
Montanas prisons and jails are over capacity. What changes in statute and/or funding at the state level  if any  do you think are necessary? If no changes, why not?

Prisons and jails are essential to protecting public safety. Some people just need to be behind bars. But incarceration is expensive. So if jailing someone isnt absolutely necessary to protect our communities, we wind up punishing taxpayers along with the criminals. Providing adequate programs for rehabilitation and providing prisoners with a way to become productive members of society needs to be part of any comprehensive criminal justice system. More housing and employment opportunities, more services like 24-hour detox centers, community mental health programs and drug treatment facilities are important tools for reducing our prison populations. I support funding such programs.

Has the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission adequately guided the states hunting and fishing concerns, or does the Legislature need to give the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks more specific direction regarding topics such as land acquisition, wildlife management, predator control, and bison?

As a hunter and angler, I know Montana enjoys the best hunting and fishing in the country. This isnt because of partisan-political micromanaging. Its because the Legislature has generally set broad guidelines and empowered the commission and the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department to manage resources in a science-based way. The 2011 law regarding bison management is an example of bipartisan lawmaking that sets broad planning parameters. In contrast, in 2015, Republicans in a party-line vote, banned habitat purchases. The commission and FWP are best situated to decide whether easements, rentals through block-management or acquisition are the best tool.

Many Montanans depend on the extraction of fossil fuels for jobs, yet there is a strong demand for clean and renewable energy in the region, especially since prices for the latter are falling. How do you propose to help workers in the coal, oil and natural gas industries find jobs in this new economic landscape?

Changes in the economic landscape are always occurring but impacts fall most heavily on employees working in affected industries. When the Smurfit-Stone Container plant in Missoula closed in 2010, the state of Montana, working through the federal Trade Adjustment Act, secured retraining funds for laid-off employees. The state also used national emergency grants to retrain other timber workers and had a rapid response program for dislocated workers at the Columbia Falls aluminum plant. Similar programs need to be put in place for coal miners and others who are or will be impacted as our energy portfolio changes.

According to Montana University System records, as recently as 1992, the state funded 76 percent of the university system. Now, though, state support has fallen to 40 percent, which means tuition funds 60 percent of the system  putting higher education out of reach for some Montana families. Do you as a legislator have a responsibility to help and if so, how? If not, why not?

Keeping Montanas colleges and universities affordable is critically important, for our students and for Montanas economy. I am less concerned about percentages  which are affected by the tuition of out-of-state students  than I am about making sure that Montana students can afford tuition and graduate with little debt. There are many competing demands for tax dollars but I strongly believe that supporting education is one of the best investments the Legislature can make. I strongly support affordable tuition for Montana college students.

What do you regard as the most urgent problem facing Montana, and how do you propose dealing with it?

Montanas economy is doing well. Unemployment is low, wages are growing and Montana is highly ranked for business startups. This growing economy will make the Legislatures biggest challenge  balancing the budget  much easier. Even so, declining energy tax needs will challenge the Legislature to meet Montanas many needs. I know we need a lean and effective state government and I believe we can have one while still meeting the needs of Montanans for a great educational system, a strong safety net for our neighbors that arent doing well and access to health care for everyone.
Montanas prisons and jails are over capacity. What changes in statute and/or funding at the state level  if any  do you think are necessary? If no changes, why not?

The state prison and also many county jails are generally at full capacity or over capacity. This is certainly the case in Lake County. Under Public Law 280 which is an agreement between Lake County, the federal government and the CSKT tribes, all tribal felony cases are investigated, prosecuted and defendants jailed by the county. While this works well for consistency in investigation and prosecution, Lake County taxpayers are funding this arrangement. Lake County Commissioners are seeking federal help in paying for the overcrowded jail, overextended courtroom and extra deputies need for investigations.

Has the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission adequately guided the states hunting and fishing concerns, or does the Legislature need to give the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks more specific direction regarding topics such as land acquisition, wildlife management, predator control, and bison?

While Montana FWP definitely has its issues it is not the job of the Legislature to micromanage departments. It is the Legislature's job to develop, debate and pass legislation which the departments will use as parameters for their management practices.

Many Montanans depend on the extraction of fossil fuels for jobs, yet there is a strong demand for clean and renewable energy in the region, especially since prices for the latter are falling. How do you propose to help workers in the coal, oil and natural gas industries find jobs in this new economic landscape?

Fossil fuels are still in demand even through the Democrats' war on coal marches on. Renewable energy sources are still undependable and too expensive to compete in the open market without government subsidies. Our nation still needs the consistent and affordable generation capacity from fossil fuels. While opponents of fossil fuels cannot make headway in the open market, they have made great inroads in putting in place very onerous regulations that are crippling Montana's economy.

According to Montana University System records, as recently as 1992, the stated funded 76 percent of the university system. Now, though, state support has fallen to 40 percent, which means tuition funds 60 percent of the system  putting higher education out of reach for some Montana families. Do you as a legislator have a responsibility to help and if so, how? If not, why not?

Montana's higher education system is controlled by and their budget comes from the Board of Regents. The State of Montana contributes to that budget. Montana's contribution has continued to increase with every budget cycle. The Legislature in its increase in funding the last two sessions has negotiated a tuition freeze for students each time.

What do you regard as the most urgent problem facing Montana, and how do you propose dealing with it?

I expect the state budget to be the biggest issue when the next legislative session convenes. Low prices for cattle and grain along with low oil prices have slowed Montana's economy. Revenue projections to the state are down and expected to continue. Until economy can kick in, it will be very difficult to spend state dollars on new ideas or raise budgets to the state agencies. I expect new spending on infrastructure to be a hot topic due to the failure to pass a bill last session. A state commission on education funding met during the interim between legislative sessions.
HELENA  Republican-leaning websites Friday posted stories questioning trips that Gov. Steve Bullock and administration officials have taken to Missoula and the Kentucky Derby.

The governors office says the trips were, respectively, to conduct state business and to fulfill Bullocks role as head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Newstalk KGVO's assertion that Bullock also traveled to Puerto Rico is wrong, said Bullock's spokeswoman.

It did not happen, said Ronja Abel, the governors spokeswoman. She said the governor has never been to Puerto Rico.

The website posted photos of the governor and some of his staff members at the Kentucky Derby in 2015 and claimed the governor also took another trip in March 2015, "most likely to Puerto Rico."

Bullock and state Commerce Director Meg O'Leary attended the Kentucky Derby last year as part of a Democratic Governors' Association event hosted by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Bullock was head of the DGA in 2015.

Each time the governor goes to a DGA event, he is staffed by a senior-level member of the administration, Abel said. In a total of three trips to the Derby, he has traveled with Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Bovingdon, former Deputy Chief of Staff Kevin OBrien, former Chief of Staff Tim Burton, current Chief of Staff Tracy Stone-Manning and OLeary. The senior staff was there to represent the states interests and meet with counterparts from other states, Abel said.

Travel costs were paid for by the association, Abel said, and the state plane was not involved in any way. Abel said an employees time on trips like this is a mix of work and comp time. If time is spent on political activities, the employee is not on the state dime, she said.

Montana law bars state officials from political activity at taxpayers' expense.

DGA tax documents show OLeary received a $1,900 travel check cut by the PAC in March 2015  one of more than a dozen such payments, totaling nearly $26,000, the group reported sending to Bullock and members of his inner circle since 2013.

As evidence for its suggestion of a trip to Puerto Rico, KGVO cited a Helena Independent Record story which pointed out that March 2015, the month O'Leary got the reimbursement, the only DGA activity was in Puerto Rico.

Actually, the March payment from the DGA to O'Leary was a reimbursement for the tickets she bought to go to the upcoming Kentucky Derby, and there was no other trip.

Bullock was invited to attend a Paul McCartney concert in August 2014 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula by University of Montana President Royce Engstrom.

Of course (the governor) is going to attend an event where hes in the room with people like Larry Simkins, the co-chair of his Main Street Montana project. He met with other economic development offices, Abel said.

OLeary flew to Missoula for the concert because of her role as commerce director; Main Street Montana falls under her department, Abel said.

Another website, Republican Uprising, run by Matthew Monforton, a state lawmaker from Bozeman who did not seek re-election, also published a post Friday questioning Bullocks travel.

Questions surrounding the trips come six months after Bullock first announced he would refund the state for the cost of oft-criticized plane trips hed taken to campaign stops. And in recent weeks, Montana Republicans have called on Bullock to further reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the Missoula trip.

GOP critics who slammed Bullocks concert appearance wasted little time in blasting his Derby trip.

We've seen a governor and now a member of his cabinet abusing state resources to fly to rock concerts, birthday parties and campaign fundraisers, said Amy Lunde, campaign manager for Republican governors office hopeful Greg Gianforte. What is a cabinet member doing at a dark-money DGA function?

Meanwhile, revenues are in steep decline, our economy has seen negative economic growth for the last two quarters, and the commerce director is unfairly outsourcing $7 million a year in business to an out of state firm as a gift to a family member of a staffer.
NEAR THE STANDING ROCK SIOUX RESERVATION, N.D.  The federal government stepped into the fight over the Dakota Access oil pipeline Friday, ordering work to stop on one segment of the project in North Dakota and asking the Texas-based company building it to "voluntarily pause" action on a wider span that an American Indian tribe says holds sacred artifacts.

The government's order came minutes after a judge rejected a request by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction of the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline.

The tribe, whose cause has drawn thousands to join their protest, has challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits for the pipeline at more than 200 water crossings. Tribal leaders allege that the project violates several federal laws and will harm water supplies. The tribe also says ancient sites have been disturbed during construction.

The tribe's chairman, Dave Archambault II, spoke at the state Capitol in front of several hundred people, some carrying signs that read "Respect Our Water" and "Water Is Sacred." He called the federal announcement "a beautiful start" and told reporters that the dispute is a long way from over.

"A public policy win is a lot stronger than a judicial win," he said. "Our message is heard."

A joint statement from the Army and the Departments of Justice and the Interior said construction bordering or under Lake Oahe would not go forward and asked the Texas-based pipeline builder, Energy Transfer Partners, to stop work 20 miles to the east and west of the lake while the government reconsiders "any of its previous decisions."

The statement also said the case "highlighted the need for a serious discussion" about nationwide reforms "with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects."

Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for the company, said it had no comment.

The president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council said he was disappointed with the government's decision to intervene and called it "flagrant overreach" that will result in more oil being moved by trucks and trains.

The 1,172-mile project will carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois.

In denying the tribe's request for a temporary injunction, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said that the court "does not lightly countenance any depredation of lands that hold significance" to the tribe and that, given the federal government's history with the tribe, the court scrutinized the permitting process "with particular care."

Nonetheless, the judge wrote, the tribe "has not demonstrated that an injunction is warranted here."

Attorney Jan Hasselman with the environmental group Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit on the tribe's behalf, said earlier this week any such decision would be challenged. "We will have to pursue our options with an appeal and hope that construction isn't completed while that (appeal) process is going forward," he said.

Tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard said Boasberg's ruling gave her "a great amount of grief. My heart is hurting, but we will continue to stand, and we will look for other legal recourses."

Earlier in the day, thousands of protesters, many from tribes around the country, gathered near the reservation that straddles the North and South Dakota border.

"There's never been a coming together of tribes like this," according to Judith LeBlanc, a member of the Caddo Nation in Oklahoma and director of the New York-based Native Organizers Alliance. People came from as far as New York and Alaska, some bringing their families and children, and hundreds of tribal flags dotted the camp, along with American flags flown upside-down in protest.

The judge's order was announced over a loudspeaker there. John Nelson of Portland, Oregon, came to the camp to support his grandson, Archambault. The 82-year-old says he was not surprised by the ruling, "but it still hurts."

State authorities announced this week that law enforcement officers from across the state were being mobilized at the protest site. They said some National Guard members will work security at traffic checkpoints and another 100 would be on standby. The Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association asked the Justice Department to send monitors to the site because it said racial profiling is occurring.

Nearly 40 people have been arrested since the protest began in April, including Archambault.

A week ago, protesters and construction workers were injured when, according to tribal officials, workers bulldozed sites on private land that the tribe says in court documents are "of great historic and cultural significance." Energy Transfer Partners denied the allegations.

The state's Private Investigation and Security Board received complaints about the use of dogs and will look into whether the private security teams at the site are properly registered and licensed, board attorney Monte Rogneby said Friday, adding that he would not name the firms.

On Thursday, North Dakota's archaeologist said a piece of private land that was not previously surveyed by the state would be surveyed for artifacts next week.

The company plans to complete the pipeline this year, and said in court papers that stopping the project would cost $1.4 billion the first year, mostly due to lost revenue in hauling crude.

A status conference in the tribe's lawsuit is scheduled for Sept. 16.

***

Kolpack reported from Fargo, North Dakota. Associated Press writers Blake Nicholson in Bismarck, North Dakota, and Doug Glass in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
"Such conduct is escalating an environment already filled with tension and is reminiscent of the shameful tactics used by the Birmingham police against non-violent protesters in the 1960s," said Policy Director Jennifer Cook in a statement.
Copyright  2022 HT Digital Streams Ltd All Right Reserved
HELENA  Republican-leaning websites Friday posted stories questioning trips that Gov. Steve Bullock and administration officials have taken to Missoula and the Kentucky Derby.

The governors office says the trips were, respectively, to conduct state business, and to fulfill Bullocks role as head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Newstalk KGVO's assertion that Bullock also traveled to Puerto Rico is wrong, said Bullock's spokeswoman.

It did not happen, said Ronja Abel, the governors spokeswoman, said. She said the governor has never been to Puerto Rico.

The website posted photos of the governor and some of his staff members at the Kentucky Derby in 2015 and claimed the governor also took another trip in March 2015, "most likely to Puerto Rico."

Bullock and state Commerce Director Meg O'Leary attended the Kentucky Derby last year as part of a Democratic Governors' Association event hosted by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Bullock was head of the DGA in 2015.

Each time the governor goes to a DGA event, he is staffed by a senior-level member of the administration, Abel said. In a total of three trips to the Derby, he has traveled with Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Bovingdon, former Deputy Chief of Staff Kevin OBrien, former Chief of Staff Tim Burton, current Chief of Staff Tracy Stone-Manning and OLeary. The senior staff was there to represent the states interests and meet with counterparts from other states, Abel said.

Travel costs were paid for by the association, Abel said, and the state plane was not involved in any way. Abel said an employees time on trips like this is a mix of work and comp time. If time is spent on political activities, the employee is not on the state dime, she said.

Montana law bars state officials from political activity at taxpayers' expense.

DGA tax documents show OLeary received a $1,900 travel check cut by the PAC in March 2015 -- one of more than a dozen such payments, totaling nearly $26,000, the group reported sending to Bullock and members of his inner circle since 2013.

As evidence for its suggestion of a trip to Puerto Rico, KGVO cited a Helena Independent Record story which pointed out that March 2015, the month O'Leary got the reimbursement, the only DGA activity was in Puerto Rico.

Actually, the March payment from the DGA to O'Leary was a reimbursement for the tickets she bought to go to the upcoming Kentucky Derby, and there was no other trip.

Bullock was invited to attend a Paul McCartney concert in August 2014 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula by University of Montana President Royce Engstrom.

Of course (the governor) is going to attend an event where hes in the room with people like Larry Simkins, the co-chair of his Main Street Montana project. He met with other economic development offices, Abel said.

OLeary flew to Missoula for the concert because of her role as commerce director; Main Street Montana falls under her department, Abel said.

Another website, Republican Uprising, run by Matthew Monforton, a state lawmaker from Bozeman who did not seek re-election, also published a post Friday questioning Bullocks travel.

Questions surrounding the trips come six months after Bullock first announced he would refund the state for the cost of oft-criticized plane trips hed taken to campaign stops. And in recent weeks, Montana Republicans have called on Bullock to further reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the Missoula trip.

GOP critics who slammed Bullocks concert appearance wasted little time in blasting his Derby trip.

We've seen a governor and now a member of his cabinet abusing state resources to fly to rock concerts, birthday parties and campaign fundraisers, said Amy Lunde, campaign manager for Republican governors office hopeful Greg Gianforte. What is a cabinet member doing at a dark-money DGA function?

Meanwhile, revenues are in steep decline, our economy has seen negative economic growth for the last two quarters, and the commerce director is unfairly outsourcing $7 million a year in business to an out of state firm as a gift to a family member of a staffer.
Options for the mens and womens restrooms on the first, second and third floors of the courthouse would cost an estimated $920,000 to more than $1.1 million.
DEER LODGE -- A science teacher at Powell County High School in Deer Lodge has received one of the nation's highest honors for math and science teachers in grades K-12.

Jessica Anderson is the recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, according to a news release.

On August 22, President Obama named 213 mathematics and science teachers -- including Anderson -- as recipients of the award recognizing their efforts and practices, innovation, and positive relationships in the science classroom.

Anderson, as the 2016 Montana Teacher of the Year, was honored in April at the White House with other state honorees from across the country.

For me, the Presidential Award illustrates my mission to empower and elevate my profession as an educator and science teacher,'' she said. "In addition, it means I can continue to use my teacher voice to be an influential ambassador for science education in my state and country.

Anderson, an Anaconda native, started her teaching career nine years ago in a one-room schoolhouse in Gold Creek, Montana  a classroom similar to the one her grandmother once taught in on the North Dakota plains.

For the past eight years at Powell County High School, she has taught earth science, chemistry, physics and astronomy. She also teaches oceanography online through the Montana Digital Academy.

She uses a teaching technique known as blended learning. The computer-assisted approach blends digital classrooms, connecting her students with scientists and students from around the world, with traditional face-to-face instruction. In the field, Andersons students have analyzed soils and stream quality of the Clark Fork River, planted vegetation along the banks of tributaries and helped discover new bacteriophages.

In 2015, she was selected by BetterLesson as one of 11 Blended Learning Master Teachers in the U.S. for a $15,000 stipend to share her blended learning practices.

Anderson received a B.A.E. in elementary education from Pacific Lutheran University and a M.S. in science education from Montana State University. She is on a sabbatical pursuing a Ph.D. in learning, instruction, and innovation from Walden University.
NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC,

PLAINTIFF

vs

KATHRYN K. WIEGAND, CAPITAL ONE BANK, QUAD CORPORATION AND ERIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC, DEFENDANTS

TO THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANTS:

You are hereby notified that there is a petition on file in the office of the clerk of the above court which petition prays for a judgment in rem against the property involved in this action for the sum of $58,759.86 with interest at 4.000% per annum from and including January 1, 2016, on the promissory note executed by Jerry Wiegand, a married person and mortgage executed by Jerry Wiegand aka Jerry L. Wiegand and Kathryn K. Wiegand, husband and wife to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as nominee for Great Midwest Mortgage Corporation, its successors and assigns and assigned to Plaintiff, who is the sole and absolute owner thereof.

Said note, together with the mortgage given to secure the same are due and payable by reason of the failure of the Defendants Jerry Wiegand aka Jerry L. Wiegand and Kathryn K. Wiegand, husband and wife to pay the installments of principal when due. Plaintiff also prays in said Petition for the foreclosure of said mortgage dated March 17, 2005 recorded in Document 2005-02140 in the Recorder's Office of Muscatine County, Iowa, with said note dated March 17, 2005 on the following described property, to-wit:

Lot Eighteen (18) of Keyes` Subdivision of Out Lot Four (4), in the Subdivision of Sections Two (2) and Three (3) Township Seventy-six (76) Range Two (2) West of the Fifth (5th) Principal Meridian, according to the recorded plat thereof, and within the corporate limits of the City of Muscatine, Iowa. Situated in Muscatine County, Iowa AKA Lot 18 of Keyes` Subdivision in the City of Muscatine, in Muscatine County, Iowa

and also asking that said mortgage be declared a prior and superior lien to that of each of the above named Defendants; for appointment of a receiver; for the amount paid by Plaintiff for attorneys' fees, abstract expense, costs and accruing costs of this action; that special execution issue for the sale of said real estate to satisfy said judgment, interest, attorneys' fees and costs and for such other and further relief as may be just and equitable.

FOR FURTHER PARTICULARS, SEE COPY OF PETITION NOW ON FILE.

THE PLAINTIFF HAS ELECTED FORECLOSURE WITHOUT REDEMPTION. THIS MEANS THAT THE SALE OF THE MORTGAGED PROPERTY WILL OCCUR PROMPTLY AFTER ENTRY OF JUDGMENT UNLESS YOU FILE WITH THE COURT A WRITTEN DEMAND TO DELAY THE SALE. IF YOU FILE A WRITTEN DEMAND, THE SALE WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL SIX MONTHS FROM ENTRY OF JUDGMENT IF THE MORTGAGED PROPERTY IS YOUR RESIDENCE AND IS A ONE-FAMILY OR TWO-FAMILY DWELLING OR UNTIL TWO MONTHS FROM ENTRY OF JUDGMENT IF THE MORTGAGED PROPERTY IS NOT YOUR RESIDENCE OR IS RESIDENCE BUT NOT A ONE-FAMILY OR TWO-FAMILY DWELLING. YOU WILL HAVE NO RIGHT OF REDEMPTION AFTER THE SALE. THE PURCHASER AT THE SALE WILL BE ENTITLED TO IMMEDIATE POSSESSION OF THE MORTGAGED PROPERTY. YOU MAY PURCHASE AT THE SALE.

The Plaintiff's attorneys are Petosa Law LLP by Benjamin W. Hopkins, whose address is 1350 NW 138th Street, Suite 100, Clive, IA 50325, telephone number 515-222-9400, facsimile number 515-222-9121.

You must serve a motion or answer on or before the 7th day of October, 2016 and within a reasonable time thereafter file your motion or answer in the Iowa District Court of Muscatine County, at the Courthouse in Muscatine, Iowa. If you do not, judgment by default may be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Petition.

If you require assistance of auxiliary aids or services to participate in court because of a disability, immediately call your district ADA coordinator at (563) 328-4145. (If you are hearing impaired, call Relay Iowa TTY at 1-800-735-2942).

YOU ARE ADVISED TO SEEK LEGAL ADVICE AT ONCE TO PROTECT YOUR INTERESTS.
You are notified that there is now on file in the office of the Clerk of Court for Muscatine County, a petition to terminate parental rights in case number JVJV006080 which asks that your parental rights be terminated as it relates to your child born on the 14th day of February, 2013, in the State of Iowa. For further details contact the clerk's office. The petitioner's attorney is Joan M. Black, Assistant Muscatine County Attorney, Muscatine County Attorney's Office, 420 East Third Street, Muscatine, IA 52761, 563-263-0382.

You are notified that there will be a hearing on the petition to terminate parental rights before the Iowa Juvenile Court for Muscatine County, at the Courthouse in Muscatine, IA on the 10th day of October, 2016, at 9:30 o'clock a.m.

You are further notified that unless on or before this time and date of hearing, you appear, or, you serve, and within a reasonable time thereafter file, a written special appearance, motion or answer, in the above-named Court at the Courthouse in Muscatine, IA, judgment by default will be rendered finding your parental rights to be terminated as demanded in the Petition.

You are further notified that you are entitled to be represented by an attorney. If you are unable to employ counsel, you may apply to have counsel appointed by filling out an affidavit of your financial situation. You should do this immediately.

Jeff Tollenaer

Clerk of the Juvenile Court

Muscatine County Courthouse

Muscatine, Iowa 52761

Dates of Publication:

September 3, 2016

September 10, 2016

September 17, 2016
MUSCATINE, Iowa  The history of Muscatine often raises the name Musser, and the donation of a building to the city which will house the Musser Public Library reflects the charitable history that surrounds the library.

Sheila Chaudoin, a photograph archivist and local historian at the Musser Public Library, has been researching the history of the land where the HNI Corporate Headquarters and library buildings are currently located.

Chaudoin and Gary Carlson, the vice president of community relations at HNI, hope the new library building and community center will bring a renewed energy to the library, and will prove a valuable addition to the community.

Musser Public Library

In 1901, Peter Miller Musser, also known as P.M. Musser, donated the land at the corner of West Third Street and Iowa Avenue to the City of Muscatine for a public library. A blacksmiths shop was previously located on the property, so Musser also pledged to build a new library building on the site.

His uncles, Peter and Richard Musser, asked him to come to Muscatine from Pennsylvania to help with the Musser Lumber Company, which they started in Muscatine.

The reason he went by P.M. was because his uncle, Peter, was quite a lumber baron here in town, Chaudoin said.

The library was originally known as the P.M. Musser Public Library.

P.M. was quite a philanthropist I think, I think he was probably more well known for philanthropy than either Richard or Peter, his uncles, Chaudoin said.

Before the library had its own building, Chaudoin said it was often housed in the high school basement or a businesss basement, with little room for storage. She said the three-story red sandstone building was a much needed change for the library.

Chaudoin began working for the library when she was 16, nearly 50 years ago, and said she misses the cozy chairs and quiet atmosphere of the original library building. She said she remembers traditions that surrounded the building.

It was a beautiful old building, and you would walk up these big steps to the front door. And on the fourth or fifth step up was the date of the building, 1901. As kids we called that the poison step, so you had to step over it to get into the building, and then you had to remember where it was so you could step over it on the way out, she laughed.

In 1965, P.M. Mussers son, Clifton (C.R.) Musser, donated funds to build an addition onto the back of the 1901 building, which Chaudoin said was built in a more modern style.

Then in 1971 C. R. Musser's children, John Musser and Marian Musser Lloyd donated the money for a new library. The old 1901 portion was torn down and the new building was built and attached to the 1965 building.

During the construction Chaudoin said, library patrons could not access the books themselves, so they had to come in at the side door and go to a window in the wall and ask for the book that they wanted.

We would send a note up and say send down a certain book and they would grab the book off the shelf, put it on the dumbwaiter and send it down, she said.

The 1971 building, Chaudoin said, was only built to last for 25 years.

HNI Corporate Headquarters Building

The HNI building at 408 E. Second St. has a more uncertain history, but through looking at tax records and old photographs, Chaudoin was able to get a glimpse into the propertys past.

In 1923, Doras Livery and Taxi Company rested on the site, a combination of old and new uses, much like the remodeled building currently on the site.

When they were first looking at renovating the building, Carlson said surgical lights were found hanging in the back of the building.

And thats when I got to thinking the back part of this building might have been part of Bakers Hospital, Chaudoin said.

According to a city directory, in 1931 the property and building housed several of Norman Bakers businesses, including the Progressive Publishing Company, Mid-West Free Press, Norman Baker Enterprises, Tangley Company and Baker Sales Company.

HNI renovated the building hoping to maintain some historical aspects, so much of the old wood floors and metal beams can be seen throughout the building. One beam still bears a stamp that reads Tangley Company.

Several floors were taken out to give the building an open feel, and original wooden beams, Carlson explained, also helped maintain some 1930s elements to the building.

I really think that is part of the story here is the adaption of a building for a new purposeWe werent restoring it from a historical perspective, but to really keep an historical flavor but a re-adaption of an old building, he said.

According to city records Chaudoin has researched, the building was listed as a Norman Baker holding until 1938, when it was listed as vacant until 1943.

From 1946-1954, Connell Motor Company was listed as the owner, and in 1956 and from 1958-1986 it was listed as Klein Motor Company with the Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie 815 at 408 1/2 E. 2nd.

After being listed as vacant from 1987-1988, the building was owned by Morgan Machine Shop and Auto Parts in 1986-2004, when Carlson said HNI Corporation purchased the building.

Old brick walls, wooden floors and beams, and metal beams mingle with modern HNI office furniture and design to make the building a combination of historical and new.

Moving ahead

Chaudoin and Carlson hope the transition of the library into the HNI Community Center and Musser Public Library building at 408 E. Second St. will add a much needed community space as well as an update to the library.

The donation of the building to the city for the library is also similar to the charity that has kept the library alive.

We still want to honor the Musser family, they were industrialists that were successful and shared that success through philanthropy with the community, so thats one of the reasons that we requested the building be the HNI Community Center and the Musser Public Library, Carlson said.

He hopes that the community center will encourage non-profits to hold business meetings, or others who may not be able to afford to rent space, as well as provide an area for residents to enjoy the books and other resources the library has to offer.

Thats how libraries are being used all over this country today, as gathering spaces, as meeting spaces as collaboration spaces and that place for lifelong learning to take place and also socialization, Carlson said.

While the library has gone through transition, and has adapted to maintain its relevance in society, Chaudoin said she hopes the new space might echo the old library, and encourage people to read and feel comfortable.

There's something about opening a book and the feel of the book in your hands and the smell of the printed page, she said.

With reading space, ample climate-controlled storage space, and windows that open the building to itself as well as views of the town and Mississippi River, Carlson said he hopes the new space will allow for community growth.

And thats really what we want these spaces to be, a place for people to come in and continue to pursue lifelong learning and continue to better the community, because thats where ideas can be generated.
Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life!
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 []
The latest MyBroadband speed test results show that Seacom had the fastest average download speeds of all fibre-based Internet service providers over the past month.

MyBroadbands speed test servers make use of Ooklas platform and are hosted in Teracos vendor-neutral data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Through NAPAfrica, all network operators at its peering points are provided with a free 1Gbps connection to the MyBroadband speed test platform.

MyBroadband filters speed tests based on network information from Internet service providers to ensure accurate, real-world results.

The table below shows the fibre ISPs with the fastest average download speeds.

Top Fibre ISPs Rank ISP Download Speed Upload Speed 1 SEACOM 770.16 Mbps 544.16 Mbps 2 XDSL 730.46 Mbps 688.47 Mbps 3 BitCo 319.51 Mbps 450.39 Mbps 4 RSAWEB 231.31 Mbps 394.5 Mbps 5 iConnect 210.17 Mbps 224.54 Mbps 6 Infinity Fibre 73.02 Mbps 32.67 Mbps 7 MWEB 52.4 Mbps 9.8 Mbps 8 MTN Business 46.59 Mbps 50.02 Mbps 9 Axxess 42.32 Mbps 23.04 Mbps 10 Cool Ideas 32.63 Mbps 24.58 Mbps

More on fibre

South Africas biggest and fastest fibre network fight

Telkom hit by sabotage
Is government planning to establish a national broadband network (NBN) for South Africa? This could be the reason why the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) has taken the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to court for initiating an auction for broadband spectrum.

While Minister Siyabonga Cwele did not directly speak about an NBN, one of the speakers at the SatNac discussed the advantages of such a network.

During a panel discussion at Telkoms SATNAC 2016 in George, Western Cape, the minister was asked if he can see a way in which the hard line taken by his department in taking ICASA to court to stop the auction of spectrum could be settled out of court.

He said that it is now for the courts to consider the matter and make a ruling. He did not elaborate on the reasons for his departments attempt to prevent ICASA from auctioning spectrum, but if government is planning an NBN that would be the obvious motivation.

The DTPS would want access to all the spectrum in order to create a state-owned network on which companies could offer their services. Talk of an NBN is not new.

When Alan Knott Craig was the CEO of Cell C he proposed such a move which was later discounted by the CEO that followed him on his retirement.

Delivering the opening address at SATNAC, the Minister said that the internet of things (IOT) is the main driver of the fourth Industrial Revolution.

This revolution will bring enormous benefits to those who will harness and actively participate in it, while punishing or disciplining those who choose to ignore or resist it. He said that people must adapt. This revolution will not only change what we do but also who we are.

He said that it will change consumer patterns and change our notions of privacy and ownership, and that government must adapt as the physical, digital and biological world converge and new technology platforms enable citizens to engage rather than being mere recipients.

The ministers statement is ironic as the white paper on boadband has been with cabinet for approval for the past five months.

He also said that government will be required to adopt softer regulations and adopt technology to improve service delivery.

Another indication that government is planning an NBN, and that the internet of things is an open platform offering worldwide access and particpation for all.

Meaningful participation in this world is through high-level technical education, imagination and hard work.

Regarding the national development plan (NDP), he said that South Africa needs to invest in a strong network of economic infrastructure designed to support the countrys medium and long-term economic and social objectives.

This economic infrastructure is a precondition for providing basic services such as electricity, water, sanitation, telecommunications and public transport, and it needs to be robust and extensive enough to meet industrial, commercial and households needs.

Government has identified information and communication technologies and broadband rollout as one of the enablers for faster and more equitable economic growth, as evidenced by its inclusion in the nine-point plan.

The minister said that the department is charged with implementing the NDP by focusing on the goal of creating a seamless information infrastructure by 2030 that will underpin a dynamic, connected and vibrant information society; and a knowledge economy that is more inclusive, equitable and prosperous.

Key to this is ensuring that all citizens have access to modern communications infrastructure, tools and services by means of broadband and a fast, reliable and secure internet.

He stated that this is being doing this in line with the constitutional principle that precludes the state from unfairly discriminating against any citizen, including discrimination on the basis of social origin.

According to the minister, a broadband war room has been established to fast-track the rollout of South Africa Connect, the countrys broadband policy.

A product of the governments coordinated implementation plan through the cluster system, the war room brings together all the departments that are responsible for broadband.

Cwele said that this is being coordinated at the implementation level through provincial broadband steering committees that seek to align all broadband activities to South Africa Connect and remove bottlenecks that impede an accelerated rollout.

In the future, it is hoped to coordinate business because governments efforts to reimagine the future include modernising policies that govern the ICT sector.

Amongst others, this will guide participation in an inclusive growth and digital economy.

After following a process of consultations throughout the country with all stakeholders, the minister said that a draft National Integrated Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Policy White Paper is before the cabinet for consideration and finalisation.

He thanked all the stakeholders who contributed to the process that started in 2012.

The minister said that the white paper seeks to create an environment that, amongst others, enables universal access to modern communications tools and services, thereby opening up opportunities for new and smaller businesses and facilitating competition in the sector in a manner that ultimately reduces the costs.

He added that the internet of things also poses some significant challenges, especially those that are linked to internet governance.

South Africas position on internet governance is that it supports the multi-stakeholder approach, in their respective roles, that is coordinated within the framework of multilateral structures of global governance.

The minister said it is envisaged that government would lead these multi-stakeholders in the policy arena.

As far as the white paper is concerned, ICASA may have had insight into a draft and decided that they did not like the direction government is taking, and decided to take action before it is too late.

There is not necessarily anything wrong with a national broadband network but then government should keep out of it and let it be owned by a consortium of businesses, including the current players.

Source: EE Publishers

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Grassroot is a new, easy-to-use, free mobile phone tool that helps groups of people in South Africa interact and exchange information.

Grassroot allows communities to engage with their members, call meetings, take votes, and create actions lists, whether a small burial society or thousands of people mobilising for a rally.

Grassroot works across all phones  from the cheapest entry-level phone to sophisticated smart phones.

It is available in isiZulu, SeSotho, SePedi and SeTsonga. Grassroot is entirely free  it doesnt require data, it doesnt require airtime and it doesnt require a smart phone.

Grassroot was founded by Luke Jordan, an ex-World Bank specialist, and has been developed in conjunction with communities in and around Johannesburg, eThekwini and Polokwane.

All these groups want to be able to inform their members about meetings and create a greater sense of belonging, said Jordan.

Through a very simple reactive menu Grassroot can do this. Grassroot works with communities, not for communities. As a result, the tool has been driven by the real needs of the communities, not what we, the makers, think is needed.

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